Chennai: Nearly 30 members of The Madras Seva Sadan Alumni 1969 batch attended the golden jubilee celebration of the school along with their families and shared nostalgic memories with one another.
Speaking to News Today, co-ordinator of the alumni, L Sundararaman, said the desire and interest to meet classmates was lingering in the minds of two 1969 SSLC batchmates and childhood friends – S Venkataraman and P T Mohandas.
“Because of their efforts, V Subramanian, R Kannan, and myself organised the first meeting of 1969 SSLC batchmates of The Madras Seva Sadan School, West Tambaram, in 2013. Each one of us made attempts to rope in more batchmates and in 2016 we had 15 members,” he said.
He further said the members had the urge to do something for the school. “Following this, in 2016, we sponsored the awards for the school toppers. Alumni T S Saravanan and V Subramanian, participated in the annual day function and distributed the prizes. At the time the alumni decided and announced that the golden jubilee will be celebrated in a befitting manner by awarding the students and honouring the teachers,” he added.
At the golden jubilee celebration, school headmistress S M Thara Begam welcomed the gathering and thanked the alumni of 1969 for having created a corpus fund of Rs 1 lakh for giving awards to school toppers of class 10 and 12 public exam and most promising student award to one boy and one girl from class 10.
She also mentioned that this was the first time, an alumni group was doing so in the 90 years history of Madras Seva Sadan School. Assistant headmistress Chithra compered the function.
On behalf of the alumni, S Venkataraman, who was the school topper in SSLC public exam in 1969, addressed the students, highlighting the importance of studies and asked them make use of the opportunities available. The alumni also handed over an amplifier set, as requested by the school authorities.
Teachers Krishna Rao, Padmanabhan, Damodharan, Saroja, Bagyalakshmi and Suguna were honoured on the occasion with a shawl and a memento. On behalf of teachers, Krishna Rao spoke and appreciated the gesture of the 1969 students.
The alumni presented cash awards to the first three toppers of class 10 and 12 public exam and the most promising student award (not only based on marks but also other fields like music / art / craft / sport) to one boy and one girl from class 10.
Madras Seva Sadan School secretary Kritika Kumar, in her address, announced that a football ground will come up on the campus.