for Vincentians (of Asansol), from around the turn of the century

Memories are one's own, maybe sweetened while looking through the sepia tinted glasses of nostalgia. But some of them can be shared, confident that they will find resonance in the hearts of those who were there, while the events that shaped them took place. Wonder how many of you remember that in junior school we were mad about shaking Brother MacPhillamy's hands. And he always obliged with a smile. The swimming pool water smelled of chlorine, is it still the same? Utsav Mitra was the fastest runner we had and he started the 4X100 m relay. Our personal inabilities in the track and field didn't stop us from basking in the glory of the relay team's victories over Pats. Wonder if Utsav will ever read this. For class picnics would invariably end up in Shatabdi Park or Lawmeyer's Park, though I do fondly remember our trip to Maithan dam when I was in high school. The loss of those small green field behind the two big ones still rankle. They were sold off during our time, Brother Christopher's reign. and we still don't know why. Wonder how many times we had to sing "London Bridge is falling down" during our singing classes in junior school? Do you remember the kites which circled the skies above in constant vigilance? One of them once snatched my tiffin box off my hands! Still remember running after it, squinting my eyes against the sunlight trying to follow it's movements ... till it dropped the empty box. The little chapel in the middle school building was beautiful, though I had the chance of going inside it only a couple of times. The books in the library were plentiful. I am sure many of us will be grateful for all the flights of fancy our thoughts were encouraged to undertake, as a result of reading stories from a tender age. Are the green billiards tables still there? What about Debu Bhattacharya's den? It was a dark and surreal place, he was like a wizard cooking up contraptions which us mortals had the chance of seeing only once a week. The classrooms, the wooden desks, the gardens, the asphalted roads, the green fields, the pebble strewn stretches, the concrete handball courts ... the smells and the colours ... the memories ...