In several successive blogs in
recent weeks, I had shown you half a dozen panoramic essays on
friendship which I had written in my column Articulations in THE
HINDU in 1992. In one of those articles I had mentioned how the Old
Boys' Associations have a way of falling into a rut and rarely
flourishing (see Archive, March/April 2014, especially Frontiers Of Friendship....., March 17).
And now I have great pleasure in sharing with you a
much older essay I had written about 'old boys', in an article in THE
HINDU. I hadn't noted the date of publication, but it must have been
either in 1963 or '64.
Reading this vintage text again now, I find it amazing to see how true it still sounds today, all of 50 years later!
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THE HINDU Sunday Magazine
50 years ago
The Old Boys
Somehow the old boys have a
chronic tendency to fall apart in pieces over and over again. Not all
the earnest efforts of successive Principals and Headmasters can
produce a real esprit de corps among them. They do manage to
meet now and then, it's true, but that wonderful dream of the college
and school authorities, the Annual Old Boys' Meeting -- at which they so
naively hope to collect sizable checks from their more prosperous
ex-students -- somehow never does come true.
Not
that the old boys themselves lack enthusiasm, really; on the contrary,
they're all overflowing with goodwill for their Association, and would
like to do everything in their power to keep it alive and active. But
they just happen to be too heterogeneous a lot to be able to stick
together for any appreciable length of time. The old boys are like the
molecules of different elements which just won't combine, no matter what
catalytic forces are set in motion.
Of
course, the boys were far from being a cohesive set even when they were
still studying. Assuredly there has never been such a thing as a young
Boys' Association (or whatever it should be called); rather, the
alumni as a rule tend to fall into independent groups according to their
departments and extra-curricular interests. So long as they're all
still passing one another in the campus every day, it hardly occurs to
them to muster strong in an omnibus association, unless it is to launch
an agitation. It's only after they have finished their studies and
scattered themselves in the world that they begin to miss a
companionship which hardly ever existed anyway.
Elusive assembly
No one is quite immune to nostalgia, and
what usually makes the old boys feel nostalgic is a mimeographed note
from the present Principal or Headmaster, telling them how he is
thinking of putting the Association on its feet again, and asking for
their co-operation; or maybe they just happen to see a notice to that
effect in the morning paper. The appeal is irresistible, and its impact
decisive.
Though it frankly alludes to such inconvenient things as
subscriptions and donations, the old boys' minds are quickly made up;
they sit down at once and compose warm and sentimental replies; what's
more, they even start sincerely hoping to attend the forthcoming
meeting.
And
that's about all that generally happens. For one obscure reason or
another, the meeting gets postponed again and again. The old boys are
all far-flung, and some important ones might write asking if a slight
revision in the date wouldn't be possible. And while the administration
tries to make all sorts of adjustments, the old boys begin to play a
game of hide and seek. The projected meeting gets more and more elusive
as the weeks and months slip away.
Naturally
it can't go on for ever, and I guess the old boys do get together in
the end -- that is to say, some of them do, for the majority are quite
understandably forced to be absent. But those who do turn up for the
meeting have certainly been nursing great expectations, and greater
illusions. They arrive brimming over with mutual goodwill, and feeling
positively sure that there are no barriers between them. The High Court
judge mixes freely with the humble what's-he, and seems to be liking
it. The bright boy of last year's class expounds his philosophy of life
to the world-war veteran, and is somehow tolerated -- for a while.
Anti-climax
But
pretty soon protocol must, and does, assert itself, and the gathering
breaks itself into smaller groups. Snob seeks out snob, the smart set
gets set, and the rest of the lot are left looking for someone to talk
to. Speeches are made as dutifully as on any other contrived occasion,
and they sound as hollow as they always do. Strong hopes are expressed
that the old boys would be meeting again soon, but even before the
party is over they all know only too well that it's far from likely to
happen. What does secretly surprise most of them, though, is the
revelation that they hardly feel any genuine regrets.
No
old boy, however, need in fact be unprepared for this anti-climax, if
only he would care to understand the simple truth that what he has been
missing all along is not the company of the other old boys at all, but
the company of the old teachers. It is they who most powerfully
personify his alma mater in his inner consciousness; for
while the old boys all ceased being boys long ago and have grown up into
unrecognizable manhood, the image of the teaching staff -- like the
image of the institution itself -- has remained constant, almost
immutable, over the best part of a lifetime.
I
can't help believing that if the old boy would only call at the campus
all by himself -- which is something he rarely thinks of doing -- he's
bound to make the happy discovery that unlike the old boys' rendezvous,
such visits can never fail to re-light some of the old fires in his
heart -- at least, I am sure, till the last familiar face has
disappeared from the staff room.
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