Sat 29. 10.2016.

This is Anantha Padmanabhan alumnus of MCC School 1967 batch sect.ion 11F

Sub : 11F class photograph.

I am posting below the group photograph taken during presumably sometime during our "break up gathering" maybe in April of 1967.

You may remember that last week I had mailed all our section mates or at least those whose email id I have, asking to identify themselves and also anyone else they can recognise.

I got a response from two others and their input is included in the list of persons.

Since then I've been wondering how I can simplify the process of sharing the current position and also allow others to add a comments containing the names of persons.

The obvious answer is a blog with rights to all our batchmates and a few others to comment on the blog.

List of persons.

Sitting Left to right  (teachers) : Mr. E Edward, Mr Jayaraman, Mr. Sundaresa Sarma, Mr. C Jacob, Mr Noedig W, Mr. D S Mathias (HM),  Mr. E D Savarirayan, Mr. P Mytran, Mr. Clement Feix, Mr. Kattar Singh and Mr. P Scaria.

Standing 1 st row (behind the teachers) : Anantha Padmanabhan, ________, ------------, Ram S ????, V S Natraj (EX), ________, Premkumar R, Ravishankar V J, Mathew Thomas, Masillamani M R, Sunder V S and ________.

Standing (2 nd row from bottom) :  Bhaskar Balakrishnan, Kumar V N, ------------, ________, ------------,Ramkumar R, Murugappan C T, Samuel C B, ________.

Standing (2 nd row from top) : :Shankar. S (EX), Harikumar R(ajah), Chandran Doraiswamy, ________, Balasubramanian C, ________, Lazar George.

Standing (top row) : Ramakrishna. K (EX), Achutha Padmanabhan (EX), Rajagopalan Nair (EX), Nitul Dhupelia, Abraham Verghese, Deepak Adwani.

Where I don't have the name, I have put underlines and dashes instead.

Eventually I hope that with all your help we can  complete all the names and present it as a photograph during the get together in January 2017.

So friends, here goes and er, this is my first attempt at blogging. Please give me feedback - whether you can see the contents, write comments etc.

Thanks.

OK

This is Anantha Padmanabhan of Chennai.

I started this blog on 28.10.16 primarily to share information with my old school batch mates about the activities for our full batch reunion planned for Saturday-07/JAN/17 and Sunday-08/JAN/17.

A little bit about myself.
After finishing school in MCC, I completed my B.Sc. in Statistics from MCC,Tambaram in 1971. I  then joined M.Sc. and completed it in 1975 only.

I joined Brakes India as a computer programmer in November 1976 in the then just established computer department as it was transiting from "unit record machines" to IBM 1401H - that ancient electromechanical card reader based workhorse for business.

Now Brakes India has always had progressive views regarding use of computer equipment and they always moved a little ahead of their times with respect sourcing and using computers. For instance they were one of the early adopters of using alternates to IBM like TDC 312 and TDC 316 from ECIL.

I retired from Brakes India in December 2009 and spend time with my family..

More on Brakes India elesewhere, now back to the topic.

But first reporting a few bits of serendipity ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serendipity ) during my journey back to MCC School.

1. I teamed up withT Prabhakar our energetic batch mate from D section and in the process of meeting people for the reunion, I went to see V S Sunder of our F section in his office. He works in MatScience institute in Taramani as a mathematician. Now my late uncle was also a mathematician in the university of Chicago and when ever he used to come down to Chennai he used to co-ordinate with one Mr. Sunder of MatScience to arrange guest lectures at Taramani. Something made me ask our Sunder whether there were many Sunders in MatScience and when he said he was the only person named Sunder, I knew that I had my first serendipitous moment. We shared some reminiscences about my late uncle and got down to school and other matters. By the way, my late uncle was also an alumni of MCC School - probably 1951 or 52.
2. Right opposite Sunder's cabin was a locked cabin with the name plate of Kesavan. Guess what. It turns out to be SK7 of D section in our batch. He lives quite close to my old place in Kilpauk and I've been intending to visit him "soon". His daughter is a creative director of English plays and recently directed a play at MADRAS PLAYERS and here is where I got my next serendipitous connection. The play was based on an English translation of 7 published short stories of my late aunt who was one of the minor greats of Tamil short story writing.
3. One of the reasons I got involved in the reunion activity is to get to know about my old friends with whom I had lost touch - guys like Arun Oomen of G section with whom I went upto B.Sc in MCC College and more particularly I wanted to get in touch with C B Venkataramana (Ramu) Reddi of C section. You see, his father and my father were contemporaries in CEG Guindy (1942 batch), joined Indian Railways as civil engineers, were often posted together as young men - where I first knew Ramu Reddi when we were kids - in far off places where in the words of Rudyard Kipling they were involved in ".. building great works for the good of the land ..". Now GET THIS FOR THE ULTIMATE IN SERENDIPITY. In addition to all this, his mother and my mother were class mates in WCC and very good friends.

Ok for now.

Anantha P.
28.10.16.