50 years on, septuagenarian Aloysians relive summer of '65

In an example to what is known as reliving one’s past memories, old students reunited after 50 years at their Alma Mater in Mangaluru on Wednesday.

Thirty-two boys from 1965 batch B Com degree at St Aloysius College, spoke to their heart’s content, exchanged wishes and recalled incidents during their college days.
On the occasion, some were accompanied by their spouses. Some of them could recognise their friends even after five decades while some others were looking out for their friends who were not present. Some alumni attended the reunion programme even from Bengaluru and Bombay.

A Damodar Hegde and Herald Saldanha, students from the batch and the organisers of the reunion programme, spent a year collecting the addresses of their batch mates.
Damodar is a retired Divisional Manager of Canara Bank while Herald Saldanha is the proprietor of High Land Coffee works in Mangaluru. Speaking to Deccan Herald, A Damodar Hegde said that there were 58 students in the batch, among whom, addresses of 38 were found. Ten of them have passed away. Many of them worked in financial institutions and after their retirement, they settled in Mangaluru. However, some of them have been spending their retired life in Bengaluru and Bombay as well.

Seven to eight people flew down from Bengaluru to attend the reunion programme while one of the batch mates, Chandrakanth Kamath, came all the way from Bombay, he said. Everyone will contribute a significant amount towards the programme. The amount left out after the programme expenses will be handed over to the college.

Apart from this, some have even expressed their wish to contribute individually to the college. The alumni met St Aloysius College Principal Rev Fr Swebert D’Silva and introduced themselves. They thanked the institution which gave them a shining career.
The old students also paid respect to the departed souls of their friends and lecturers. They remembered their Principals Rev Fr A P Menezes and Rev Fr Rasquinha.
They went to their classrooms and had meals together at the college canteen. Also, they visited St Aloysius Institute of Management at Beeri, Kotekar. Prior, the alumni had also offered prayers at St Aloysius Chapel.

A dinner was arranged at a private hotel in Mangaluru during evening. Those who couldn’t make it to the programme in the morning, joined their batch mates at the dinner, Damodar Hegde said.

Among 15 lecturers, only three are living today and two of them couldn’t make it.Lecturer Prof U Devdas Nayak joined us for dinner, he said. The 1965 batch B Com students Arun Lakshman, Chandrakanth Kamath, A Damodar Hegde, M Gokuldas, B Jagadish Kamath, Kogganna Naik, M Lakshman Prabhu, M Mohan Acharya, J Panduranga Bhat, M Panduranga Kamath, N Ramdas Pai, Shankaranarayan Rao, Suresh Chandranna, Noel Arahna, Fredrik D’Souza, Alfred Gonsalves, Densil Louis, Wilfred Mascarenhas , Alwyn Pinto, Blasius Rego, Peter Rodrigus Prabhu, Valarian Rodrigus, Herald Saldanha, Merlin Sequeira, Oswald Sequeira, Alwyn Devdas, Joseph D’Costa, Peter Sequeira, Krishna Rao and Arun Ullal were the part of reunion.