Msgs from friends 41

Msg from Henry Hulley

Hello Radheshyam,

I received this email of Jeff Ewing who spent some time in GMS but did not graduate there. Jeff goes by the name of DrJ and is a musician of some note and apparentlt quite well known in Canada.
I thought this may be of interest to the Canada boys especially for functions, etc. You will note the young Jeff in GMS blazer with school crest.
With all best wishes to you and your family and all our GMS family
Henry Hulley

Dear Henry,

I think you may have missed DrJ's e-mail.
I have not received it.
Could you resend it?
We had a very pleasant Diwali.
We were awake up to 2.00 am last night with the children bursting crackers.
I do hope you too and your family are keeping well.

Cheers.

Radheshyam

Hello again Radheshyam,

Me family and myself are all well and glad to know that you had a very pleasant Diwali.
Sorry I thought Jeff`s article had contact details, thay are as below :-
doctormusic@gmail.com
doctorjmusic.wordpress.com ( web site )
Hope this will help you

Regards

Henry

Msg from N K Sircar

Happy Diwali to you and your family !! I got the msg late as I am on the ship. Thanks for keeping us all connected.
Nihar

Msg from Br. James

Dear Radheshyam,

Thanks for your emails.
Iam sorry that I am not able to read all your letters which you circulate to everyone.
There is just one place in the school where the internet is available and thats in my office. We do not have broad band and hence it is very slow. Two other information-hungry brothers [ Both are DeSouzas; one is the Principal of GMS and the other is the Bursar] also use this computer and hence there is generally a queue for using the internet. I usually let them use the computer since I get very few emails and I have very little time to surf.
Going by your letter 40 A,B, I realise that you are not aware that every teacher & worker in GMS has to pay Rs 60 to GJMM each month and that one of our teachers is a representative of the GJMM. They asked the school to shut down on two occasions in the last one month. One, for martyrs day of their own and another for their 'Stapana Dowas'. They have processions and rallys everyday to remind
the people that they are still agitating. Sometimes they ask the schools to send their teachers for the rally or very often the students. Schools in town are harassed more often than ourseleves. No outside-the-region teachers are willing to come and work here and the local teachers speak Nepali all the time and so the standard of English is going down which in turn brings down the standard of the school.

Regarding the Open school, our teachers are not paying the GJMM anything and I do not think they will agree to pay. The remaining text is for your wife, yourself and all the other generous donors who would certainly like know what is happening in our Edmund Rice Free School.it is still under-funded by the Christian Brothers [ though they increased the amount from 6.5 lakhs to 9.5 lakhs ] Our budget is 23 lakhs. They have asked me to get the remaining funds from elsewhere or scale down the spending. So I have scaled down the spending on transport. I am not providing transport to many students from the valley below. So the numbers have gone down from 250 + last year to 145 this year. I am stuck; because of the economic downturn I cannot ask around either. Last year I got fooled by a site that offered financial help and asked for my email details. When I had given all the detailed they hijacked my account and then sent distress notes to all
the addressees in my address book, asking them for immediate financial help. I think it was one of the members in the alumni who smelt something fishy and informed me about the hijacking. I was not able to open the account from my end from then on.
I am now hoping that some Irish students [girls] who usually come to Kolkata to experience India; would make a trip to our school, experience the hardships they bear and then send back money from Ireland when they go back. I am inviting them for the last three years and somehow they get stuck in Kolkata. Some of our similar ventures depend on funds from such Irish schools.

I really acknowledge the keen interest you take in my school and I am sorry I could not give you heartening news. 35 girls have passed the class X and XII exams this april and abother 40 class X and 15 class XII students are sitting for exam from October 8. These girls are not included in the number mentioned earlier of students attending Edmund Rice Free school.

We also had three major landslides in our school this year during a cyclone that hit us in May. Also our culvert at the siding which is 102 year old and made only of stone and mud collapesed. The biggest landslide took place at the front of the school overlooking the 1st field, where the benches were. The Entire front protion went down and touched the pavillion below. We were lucky it happened during the daytime and so we could prevent further sliding of the soil by putting sand-bags. If it had happened at night , we would have found the entire school on the 1st field or the siding. We were just too lucky. The total cost of repaiing all that will come to a crore. This was bad news for the girl's school too.

Hope you are keeping fine and are successful and happy in what you are doing at present. Happy Diwali & God bless you.

Yours sincerely,

Br. James

Dear Br. James,

Thank you for all the information.

I was saddened to read of the interference of the JMM in the functioning of our school and all the other schools in the area.These politicians never learn. The CPM interfered in the education in Bengal and packed all the schools with party members and removed English from the curriculum. The result is there for all to see. Boys from Bengal could not get jobs anywhere in India. Finally, realizing their folly, they have reintroduced English from the primary level from year before last. However, one whole generation have lost their English language prowess. All well paying jobs are now held by south Indians.

I am sorry to read of the damage done by the landslide. Rather, after the "Aila", I understand some of our Alumni had gone to Goethals to enquire if we could help in any way. Some of our boys from abroad, including Mr. jobo had taken the intitiative to arrange some funding for repairs. But we understand from the boys who went to school that the school had declined the offer.There seems to have been a communication gap some where.
You may rest assured, I am sure most of would willingly come forward to help our school.

I am glad this line of communication has been opened.

Please keep it open so that our boys are informed of how are school is doing and be of help when required.

The school has given us a lot, I am sure we can give something in return.

Yours sincerely,

Radheshyam