The coming together of alumni now in the medical profession seeking to help schoolmates and a batch’s resolve to make the 50th year of their school-leaving memorable. These, in a nutshell, were the highlights of Rendezvous, the reunion of South Point Ex-Students’ Association.
The event, in association with The Telegraph, at the Eastern Metropolitan Club saw the launch of Aspexs Medics on the association’s website. The Aspexs Medics group was formed in 2022 to create health awareness among members of the South Point family.
“The website (apexs.com/medics) now has an interactive section called Ask Medics. You can ask anything about health there. One of us linked to the relevant field of treatment will respond. We will guide people on where to go and who to contact,” said Jyotirup Goswami, an oncologist from the 1984 Madhyamik batch who conceived of the platform along with dentist Siddhartha Chatterjee.
The move would be especially helpful for out-of-town Pointers whose parents stay in the city on their own. The platform involves nurses and healthcare entrepreneurs like Maitreyee Mallick as well. The alumna of the Madhyamik 1996 batch runs Apollo Diagnostics, a chain of 52 diagnostic clinics.
The Higher Secondary 1974 batch registered a significant presence to mark the golden jubilee of their school leaving. Over 50 graduates had gathered, including several from the US, Europe and across the country, and cut a cake presented by Aspexs on stage. They had also donated to Life Beyond Cancer, a non-profit organisation that works with paediatric cancer patients of SSKM hospital.
“It’s a move inspired by our school motto of Courage to Know — courage to conquer,” said Subhankar Chowdhury, a batch member and an endocrinologist who retired recently from the hospital. Gifts were distributed to children under treatment there.
A commemorative volume titled Our School Days was published.
A copy of it was handed to Krishna Damani, trustee and secretary, South Point Education Society. As batch members lent voice to a song penned by Rajat Ganguly and Dipannita Chattopadhyay, followed by a Teesri Kasam number voiced by Subrata Basu, a video album was screened, paying tribute to legendary teachers like Anjan Dasgupta and Ashutosh Mukherjee. The album ended with a vintage shot of a single-storeyed structure that made many in later batches curious. “That hut with a tiled roof is the Mandeville Gardens school building when we were students,” explained Sharmila Roy, who teaches mathematics at the school and is the Aspexs Care wing convenor.
The 1998 batch cut a cake to mark 25 years of their school leaving.
A fun event was Woody Affair, a ramp walk-cum-dance extravaganza to film hits. Several participants caught the eye with scintillating moves, like Adrito Das, Diganta Upadhyay, Soumyapriyo Chatterjee, Ahana Majumdar and Srijita Chakraborty. “Diganta and I used to dance together in school events too,” said Adrito, a medical student who had aced the TV reality contest Dance Bangla Dance Junior in 2008. The participants ended with the school chant “Soda lemon ginger pop, South Point on the top”.
The dates were announced for Aspexs Premier League 3.0, a franchise cricket tournament for alumni, drawing players and owners from the Pointer family pool. “Our tennis ball tournament will take place in April. Eight teams will fight it out in the high school ground over a weekend,” said Riki Malik, the convenor.
Jojo Mukherjee took the stage to rock the crowd. She, too, was a Pointer for some years and shared memories of music class with Rabindrasangeet exponent Gita Ghatak, who taught at the school. As the old boys and girls jived to DJ Nilashree’s music or posed on the group photo podium, Damani said the reunion format might change once the school moved to the new campus in Mukundapur. “We could then hold it on our own premises,” he said. Everyone went home with a personalised stamp issued by the department of post on the school’s 70th anniversary.