Moments from the Xaverians’ visit to Sovereign Hills

Day One

They may have left college years ago but anyone looking at the eager Xaverians milling around to board the two buses waiting outside Pullman and Mercure Hotel in Albert Park, Melbourne, for the city tour would see that their enthusiasm hadn’t waned a bit. The 90-odd participants of Beyond Boundaries, the fifth edition of the annual international meet of the alumni of St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, held in Melbourne from October 10 to 12, squabbled over seats, pulled each others’ legs, joked and got ready for a whale of a time touring the city.

The first stop was, of course, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and while the group couldn’t go inside the stadium they were happy clicking pictures under the statue of Dennis Lillee in action — for many the greatest fast bowler of all time — just outside.

Xaverians pose in front of the statue of Dennis Lillee at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

A beautiful 19th century church, a drive past the Royal Botannical Garden and Flinders Street Station later, the two buses full of Xaverians made their way to Sovereign Hill, the open-air gold mine and museum in Ballarat district. The gold rush period set-piece was complete with actors in costume, salons, horse-drawn carriages and an underground mine.

The day ended with a welcome dinner at Ameer with sumptuous kebabs, naan, lamb roganjosh and more.

Day two

The meet officially began on October 11 with the inauguration ceremony and the lighting of the lamp. Father Felix Raj, principal of St. Xavier’s College and president of the St. Xavier’s College Calcutta Alumni Association, welcomed the 200-odd Xaverians from India, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world and presented to them Vision 2020, the blueprint of the institute’s expansion and development over the next five years.

“This is an opportunity to revive the Xaverian spirit of Nihil Ultra that flows from the Ignatius vision of magis (more or better, in Latin). It is a happy moment for all of us to be together as a Xaverian family far away in Melbourne and to revive the spirit we had while we were in St. Xavier’s and which we have carried for all these years to various parts of the world,” said Felix Raj, sharing the institute’s plans to upgrade from college to university, development of the new Rajarhat campus and accommodating 16,000 students.

A visit to The Twelve Apostles was on the cards on the final day

The inaugural session was followed by a semi-classical performance by Xaverian Esha Sanyal and elocution by Raya Bhattacharya. The highlight of the day, however, was the session with former Australian cricketer and now selector of the Australian team Mark Waugh, who flew in from Sydney. The stylish batsman oozed charm as he compared Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy with Dhoni’s, the Laxman-Dravid Eden Gardens Test, playing against Sachin Tendulkar and much, much more. He then posed for photographs and signed autographs too.

“Mark Waugh was so kicked to see my twin and me, exclaiming how we look identical,” smiled Malay Roy Chowdhury. Both Malay and his twin, Chandan, are Xaverians. Mark, of course, has quite a famous twin himself — Steve.

Xaverians attend the All Chapters’ Meet

The afternoon session ended with a discussion on lessons that India can learn from Australia and vice versa. The Xaverians settled in Australia listed punctuality, focus on health and environment and professionalism as some of the things that India could learn from Australia. The one thing they felt Australia could learn from India? The taxation system!

The curtains came down with a cultural programme that saw Subhen Chatterjee on the tabla, his son Sambit on drums and Debojyoti Mishra on violin and guitar performing a musical extravaganza titled Magic Moments. This was followed by a play and a dance recital by the Women’s Forum of SXCCAA and a musical performance by Wayne Charter of the Australia and New Zealand chapter.

Day three

The third day was the All Chapters’ Meet, where the Xaverians put their heads together to work out the future course for the alumni and how they could help their college.

At every international meet the alumni commits to different ways of helping the college. If at the first meet in Bangkok they raised Rs 15 lakh worth of scholarships for first-generation learners, in Dubai they launched the Buy a Brick project through which they raised Rs 80 lakh for the new hostels. Singapore saw the launch of the Lakshya project to contribute to the development of the new campus in Rajarhat. “It is an ongoing project but we have already raised

Rs 8 crore. In London L.N. Mittal and many other Xaverians donated for the same cause as well,” said Firdausul Hasan, honorary secretary of SXCCAA.

At the Melbourne All Chapters’ Meet it was decided that they would adopt the CCC approach — collecting ‘consolidated contribution from chapters’, instead of from individuals, for the college. “We also decided that next year we would host a national meet instead of an international one so that Xaverians across the world have an opportunity to come back home. Our next Beyond Boundaries will be in Toronto in 2016,” said Hasan.

Official work done, the Xaverians set out for The Twelve Apostles, one of the wonders of the world. The trip ended with authentic Irish food at the Xaverian-run Irish Times pub in Melbourne.