Ahead of the foundation day of Bethune Collegiate School on May 7, students, teachers, former students and faculty, staff members and parents commenced the 175th anniversary celebrations of the heritage institution by walking in a rally on May 2. The rally wound its way from the school gate at Bidhan Sarani and reached Swami Vivekananda’s house, where the children, staff members and alumni members paid floral tributes to the statue of the monk, philosopher, author and religious teacher
All photographs by Suvendu Das
Centred around the main theme of the school’s foundation, students dressed up as founders and patrons. Twenty-one girls were draped in saris holding chalk and slates to recreate the time when the school started for women’s education. ‘The Bethune Collegiate School was the first government school for girls in Calcutta started in 1849 by John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune at Dakshinaranjan Mukhopadhyay’s house. It was started off as Hindu Female School with only 21 girls back then and today we tried to recreate history in the rally where students portrayed our founder and patrons and the 21 students they started off with,’ said Sanhita Chakraborty, a senior teacher of the school
