Bollywood to basketball and legacy to legislations, St. James’ School hosted a series of programmes last month to mark its sesquicentenary celebrations

Children of outreach schools and NGOs put up colourful programmes at St. James’. Students of The Rainbow School depicted the life and work of Sister Cyril, the former principal of Loreto Day School, Sealdah. Others danced to Bollywood folk songs such as Bhumro bhumro from Mission Kashmir and Nagada sang dhol from Ram-Leela.

When the city was voting to elect its civic board, students of several schools were discussing Indo-Pak relations, the Ukrainian crisis and more at JacoMUN 2015. The award for Outstanding Delegation went to The Cathedral & John Cannon School, Mumbai, while La Martiniere for Boys was the Best Delegation. Ujaan Ganguly, a Class XII student of St. James’ School, was happy that the student community has a voice too. “A MUN is a contribution we students make in our own way towards world peace and security. You go through events that happened in the past, analyse them. In other words you learn more about why wars in history were fought and you try and avoid such situations in future,” he said.

Sharp oratory skills, witty rebuttals and well-thought-out arguments kept the judges and audience on the edge of their seats at Reverend Cashmore Memorial Inter-School Debate Competition, 2015, presented by St. James’ School. The motion for the final round, that followed the Cambridge style, was Religious Precepts are Out of Tune with Time. The host school won the debate, speaking for the motion. “The motions for the various rounds of the debate were out of the box. The quality of debate was great and we had a tough opponent in St. Xavier’s,” said Ved Mehta, a Class XII student and principal speaker for St. James’ School. Filmmaker Srijit Mukherji, one of the judges, was reminded of his college days. “It was a rush of nostalgia as I remembered the Mukherjee Memorial Debate from my days at Presidency College,” he said. 

The teachers of St. James’ School sang and danced to an audience of cheering students. They sang Yeh dosti from Sholay and ushered in spring with a Santhal dance. “The act was choreo-graphed by Saptaparna Bhattacharya who teaches commerce in senior school. It was great fun performing in front of so many students. Everyone loved the performance,” said Rosemary Alex, English teacher.

Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi released a book by principal T.H. Ireland, An Ode to Our Legacy, tracing the glorious history of the school. The book release was followed by the inauguration of a two-day philately and numismatic exhibition in the school hall. “Stamps are my passion. I have exhibited this collection in many cities in India and abroad. It is heart-warming to see so many students show off their collections. Some of them are showing stamps that have been with their family for decades,” said Mohd Mujibullah, a world-renowned philatelist who helped set up the exhibition. Vidyush Dholakia, a Class VII student, had on display “nearly a hundred postcards and 600 stamps”. “The collection dates back to when my grandfather used to collect stamps. Then my father contributed to the collection. It’s a family heirloom.”

Pointers put an end to the Jacobeans’ rule in Jaco Dunk, the annual inter-school basketball tournament hosted by St. James’, winning the title for the first time. This year’s tournament was named after Bishop Lakdasa De Mel as part of the school’s tribute to all former Bishops of Calcutta in its sesquicentenary year. South Point High School avenged their 2013 final loss to St. James’ by beating the hosts in the semi-final and then went on to clinch a thriller against St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in the final. Saran Jha, Class XII, levelled the score for the Pointers with just three minutes to go and netted the winner too. “It was a very close game and it feels really great that I could help my school win the trophy,” said Saran. 

Text by Showli Chakraborty, Samabrita Sen & Ayan Paul Pictures by Arnab Mondal & Koushik Saha