St Xavier’s alumni at the meet in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 19: A double bonanza awaited St Xavier’s School alumni this evening. Drenched by the sudden heavy rain, the summer meet on the poolside added to the fun.

More than 100 alumni members came to the school campus accompanied by their spouses and children to get a nostalgic feel.

Dr Amulya Kumar Singh, the secretary of the association and a leading consultant orthopaedic surgeon of Patna, said: “We have two alumni meets, one in December which is more of a formal meet and this summer meet is all about informal parties where we enjoy food and drink at the pool side, we drench over selves and enjoy to the fullest.”

He said: “We make sure to bring our spouses and kids so that we can show them how our school is and how we enjoyed in our schools.” About the swimming pool, he said: “In our time, we had only one or two swimming pools. So we were very proud of this and whenever I come here, I get nostalgic about it. This is the oldest school meet in Patna as the school was set up in 1940 with Father Moran as its first principal.”

Some of the people present at the alumni meet were the association vice-president, Mohit Ahluwalia of the 1979 batch, Anshul Sinha of the 1990 batch, Om Prakash of the 1993 batch and many more with their family members.

The poolside party began at 5pm and the alumni members splashed around in the pool with their children. They also danced to Bollywood songs like Yeh shaam mastani and a number of other old Hindi songs apart from playing games like musical chairs and housie.

Dr Ashutosh, another alumni and associate professor at BS College, Danapur, said: “This kind of meet gives us a scope to interact with our schoolmates and their families as the children too enjoy and interact with each other.” He added: “We forget all our stress and feel like schoolkids once again. We sit, gossip, chat, eat, drink, dance around the swimming pool. That gives us a break from our monotonous work life and provides us a platform to interact with others.”

Father George, the principal of St Xavier’s School, Patna, said: “It serves as a good occasion where all our students come together and behave like schoolchildren.”