To celebrate the 150th year anniversary of The Cathedral and John Connon School, a lavishly illustrated book of 360 pages was recently released. DNA catches up with its authors
Titled An Undefiled Heritage: The Cathedral and John Connon School, this book, unlike most school histories, interlaces the evolving saga of the school with the history of the St. Thomas’ Cathedral and the city of Mumbai. It traces the complex history of the iconic Bombay institution where Dr. Homi Bhabha, Fareed Zakaria, Salman Rushdie, JRD Tata,
Alyque Padamsee and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began their education.
“There are a lot of schools which complete 150 years. But there are very few which do it with excellence and consistency,” says Viral Doshi, ex-Cathedralite (’75 batch) and co-author of the book.
If the book had never been written, many interesting anecdotes about the school and its history would have probably remained undiscovered in the present time. The book has fascinating stories about how during a plague in the early 1900s, the salaries of all the teachers were frozen. The salary per teacher used to be not more than Rs30 per month.
There was a time when the girls’ school compound (present Middle School) used to be separate from the boys schools. Because of the location of the science lab, the girls had to come to the boys’ school to attend the science lectures. So for that particular day the girls were supposed to wear a sari. A particular picture shows a group of girls dressed in normal school uniforms, except one girl who is wearing a sari because she had a science lecture that day.
Another story recounts the incident when the school bell went missing. This was not the regular school bell that most schools have these days. But it was a special bell which was part of a war ship and was gifted to the school as a present. It was huge and gargantuan in size and weight. Yet one more story accounts the description of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a great sportsman in his school days, who later went on to become the prime minister of Pakistan.
Ex-Cathedralite and co-author Mridula Sood Maluste believes that parents today would want to send their children to The Cathedral and John Connon School to study not because of the fact that it’s one of the most elite schools, but because it provides a level playing field for everybody. “There is real emphasis on every child’s interest but the school makes sure that it keeps their feet grounded. For instance, even today children will not know who’s on scholarship and who is not,” says Mridula.
Something which may have really changed about the school in all these years is the demographics. “In the 1970s when I was studying, majority of the students were from the service class. Today close to 50% of the students are from the business class families,” says Viral. It is probably a sign that India has also grown economically amounting to the increase
in students from business families.
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