Confluence 2011: Grand Alumni Reunion

A day to be remembered - 25th December 2011. Gulmohur School saw all its students back to the ground where they spent their childhood. From the first batch of 1979 till the latest 2011, each was represented. CONFLUENCE 2011 was a success!!!

On 25th December 2011 The Alumni Association of Gulmohur (A.A.G.) presented the first grand Reunion of ex-students of Gulmohur. ‘CONFLUENCE’- get together of all GHS Alumni from around the world. A one-day affair, this reunion took back everyone to the blissful growing years in school. The Staff and Faculty of Gulmohur High School and Alumni Association of Gulmohur (AAG) cordially invited all ex-students to the first Grand Alumni Meet in the school premises spanning Alumni from across the globe (USA, Europe, Middle East and different parts of India) and from as far back as 1979 to as recent as 2010 to be a part of an experience of a lifetime.

Those were the best days of my life. This song kept playing in my head throughout the programme on the 25th and if you were there probably you were singing it too or purani jeans aur guitar or those were the days my friend etc.

What a wonderful afternoon. The attendance was healthy. We had teachers - current and ex from as far back as the inception of the school, alumni from 1980 and current students from the senior classes. It's hard to say what was the high point meeting with the teachers or meeting with the batchmates but what I can say for sure is it was a very emotional afternoon.

We started off with the welcome address and the lamp lighting ceremony. This was followed by a cultural programme where the students of the school performed. This was followed with introduction of alumni and in the interest of time alumni handed over the memento to the teachers who were felicitated for their contributions to Gulmohur School . This was the best part of the evening as both alumni and teachers remembered incidents of yesteryears very vividly as if it happened yesterday. This was followed by a hilarious performance by the Gulmohur school band which was followed by an informal meeting of ex-

faculty, ex-students and alumni followed by

dinner.

All this would not have been possible without and I thank them in no particular order, the school staff, the ex-teachers and the alumni.

Below is the speech of Mr. T S Prakash and Mr. Abhijit Gope on the Confluence 2011.

Speech of Mr. T S Prakash (Senior Coordinator, Gulmohur School)

Good evening respected Ex Principal, Ex Faculty members, Principal Mrs Sunita Sinha, Faculty members.

On behalf of AAG I would like to personally name Mrs Santoshi Toppo, Mrs Manjula Chatterjee, Mrs Nishi Suri, Mr Samir Hore, Mrs Sanghamitra Hore, Mr Manash Banerjee, Mrs Sapna Chakraborty, Mrs Krishna Sharma, Mrs Nandita Sinha, Mrs Nina Basu, Mrs Punita Chouhan, Mr Dhananjay Das, Mr Dinesh C Srivastava, Mrs Neeru Dua, Mrs Meera Paul and Mr Raju Nair. We are extremely honoured to have you amongst us.

I would also like to thank Mrs M Datar, Mrs Vijaya Vasudevan, Mrs Shobha Nair Pandit, Mrs Lalita Srinivasan who although not physically present but conveyed their wishes.

The AAG team is thankful to Principal Mrs Sunita Sinha for supporting us.

The people who made this happen are Abhijit Gope, the President of AAG, Kamran Ahmed, the Vice President, Rahul Ojha, the treasurer, Pradip Agarwal, the HR head, Ashok Nayak And Tanmay Bhadra, the Advisors to AAG, dear alumni who have come from far and near and present council members of the school.

Gulmohur School being the oldest in the colony has always been evolving over the years. A gathering of this order is first of its kind in Jamshedpur. A lot of credit goes to Abhijit Gope of ISC 2005 for his untiring effort, Sumanto Ghosh of the 1984 ICSE batch, the 1986 alumni Ashok Nayak, Tanmay Bhadra and others, the other alumni who pitched in with their valuable contribution. In the period 1996-98 Debdulal Mohanty of ICSE 1994 had developed and hosted the first school website. In the period 1999 to 2005 Arup Shome had taken first framed the organization structure to get the Alumni body registered and open a bank account. The alumni body which used to fund the education for poor children was named GULSHAN and was subsequently merged with AAG. Many more students have given their time and energy to keep this organization going like Kingshuk Bhadra, Suraj, etc. Sumanto Ghosh of the ICSE 1984 batch purchased both the domain names www.gulmohurschool.com and www.gulmohurschool.org. Next, the 1986 ICSE batch took the initiative to expand the features of the website in a systematic manner along with the help of Sumanto Ghosh, Navin Dutta, Abhijit Ghosh and transferred the ownership to the school in October 2010. The AAG members are at present funding for the domain.

Kamaljeet Singh Vilkhoo of the 1982 ICSE batch had donated a sum of Rs 50,000/- in 2010 to set up the Public Address system that we have in our school. Recently Navin Dutta of ISC 2003 batch in Delhi has been giving valuable inputs and has been instrumental along with Nishant Prasad, in setting up the Learning Management System (LMS) for the school.

Unfortunately he and many others were unable to attend this meet due to delay in flights and train. Many have made it overcoming all hurdles. We are extremely touched by your commitment. We at Gulmohur are trying to be the best school and your inputs in terms of adding value to the present and future students shall go a long way in achieving this target. We are extremely proud of every person who is or have been a part of the Gulmohur family. It is your zeal that will take our school forward.

The AAG team wishes to thank the students of class IV for putting up such a wonderful dance, School Band, School Choir, Sudesh Tent & Decorators, Sonu DJ, Mr Sanjay for Light, Mr Biman for catering, Raja Photo gallery, Ashok, Tanmoy, Kamran and team for the mementos, brochures & badges and also the school support staff. The AAG team requests you to kindly overlook any shortcomings in our hospitality.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Speech of Mr. Abhijit Gope (President, AAG)

Good evening and merry Christmas to All,

On behalf of Alumni Association of Gulmohur or AAG, I welcome you all to CONFLUENCE, 2011 the first Grand Alumni Meet. The journey has been long and I will share with you all, a part of it from my own remembering experience. It was June 2008; AAG was conceptualized by a group of alumni. With time the group became large enough to provide a common platform for more than 600 alumni.

1) Over these few years we have held career counseling and talk shows for our dear students...

2) In year 2010 AAG partnered with school in providing it online presence and also implemented learning management system. I am pleased to inform you that the first round of online exams was conducted in November 2011 for present class 8 students through learning management system.

3) We also got AAG registered as a Charitable trust with Govt. of India.

4) In the 3 years of its existence, the AAG's assets have grown from a mere 5000rs in 2008 to 134000rs in 2011.

5) Today YOUR AAG has a formalized structure with different wings like care-takers wing, website team and the HR team.

We are working on a long TO-DO list of tasks which we are keen to undertake in the coming years. And here we require your co-operation for accomplishing it.

Finally a special thanks to the core group who helped AAG reach new heights- to Mr. Ashok Nayak, Tanmoy Bhadra, Pradip Agrawal, Navin Dutta, T.S Prakash, Nishant Prasad, Rahul Ojha, Rahul Kumar and Sumanto Ghosh. Also to AAG vice- president Kamran Ahmad for all his dedicated support...

And a special thanks to volunteers who made this Meet a reality... to Mr Nikhil Kumar, Sushil Kumar and team...

Finally I congratulate all our fellow Alumni and teachers who are present here and whose well-wishes are with us and declare the First GRAND ALUMNI MEET OPEN. I am sure this evening will add back to your school memories of blackboard and chalks, of untied shoe laces of last benchers, of corridors and of the words that still ring at our hearts “Gulmohur Gulmohur Forever….”

For the snapshots of the event << Click here >>

CONFLUENCE 2011

CONFLUENCE 2011 - Grand Alumni Reunion

The 1st Gala event dedicated to Alumni of Gulmohur High School, planned to be celebrated on 25th Dec.

Registration can be done online. Pls visit school website www.gulmohurschool.com

Event starts from 2:00pm
Dinner from 7:00pm

An opportunity to meet Alumni from 1979 to 2010

An opportunity to meet Ex Principals, Ex Faculties.

Keep visiting the site: http://www.gulmohurschool.com/index.php/alumni/grand-aag-reunion for latest information about Confluence 2011

"THE GULMOHUR"

Shooting for my next documentary, “ The Gulmohur”, I have relived my school days.. Getting up early in the morning, dressing up for going to school early in the morning in time, attending assembly, chanting prayers, singing school songs and many more. Believe me it was a marvelous experience. Eagerly waiting for this one..

It was really astonishing and overwhelming  to find the old primary section teachers recognising us WITH OUR NAMES !! :) I got more respect and appreciation than my school days..

For the first time in my life, I got a chance to hold our school flag. Feels very proud.

A special thanks to our principal mam, Sunita Sinha.

My Team:

Sandip Sahu (ISC-2010)

Md.Shahbaz (ISC-2010)
Anwesha Keshav (ISC-2013)
Rakesh Kumar (ISC-2010)

It was so nostalgic for us to shoot in our school. I wished this shooting would have never come to an end…….

The Gulmohur (ENTIRE VIDEO)

-@jitabh ]3ose

My first year in the college - An article concerning to all….

I Left my home and my hometown with tears in my eyes, waving my hand and watching my mother going apart from me. It was an unexpressive moment for me, there was a curiosity of an independent life ahead along with a deep sorrow within my heart of departing from EVERYONE.

I reached Delhi on 1^st of August last year. A new city and a new life to adjust into. Everything was huge, buildings, people, status. Felt a bit outdated and backward. Two of my lifetime wishes came true by time, a personal room and of course a personal computer.

It was 16^th of August when my uncle dropped me to the college and showed the path. With semi-courage in my nerves went to the classroom. Unknown faces, people, and unwanted attitude.. I was in super formal as instructed made me feel more pathetic. Learning the lifestyle and state of fashion I was deeply affected and literally felt like a gawar.

With a basic intro of our selves classes began..  New faculties and our seniors were the best one can dream of..Time passed by, I got along with all including faculties and started opening up with them.. My inner soul pumped up and rose up to where it was in the school days. Playing pranks, asking stupid questions, joking, laughing had become my life..

Enjoyed in the canteen with friends and gossips in the lectures.  Sitting hours on facebook, chatting with old friends had become a hobby.. Visiting new places was very memorable part. Wrote articles, completed assignments,  made cartoons and invented the Bose Documentaries..

I found shadow of my parents in my faculties  and college hours became my happiest hours of the day.. This was the most special year of my life.. Evolved from nil to where I stand now.. With all ups and downs, appreciations and disheartening.. Learned a lot, lived each moment like never before.

Cried and missed my mom quite often in loneliness. A year passed by, and it all seems like yesterday was 1^st of August.

( The most closest and dearest article of mine )

-@jitabh]3ose

College-A Step Towards Reality

I always use to think that succeeding in college is about going to class, studying, and working hard.  But what you might not realize is that you can do all of these things and still not succeed..

For example, in high school lots of decisions are made for you—what classes you take, when you take them, what books to buy, how many pages to read each night, and so on.

Not so in college.  One have to make a lot of decisions on his own.  How will you schedule your time?  How late will you stay up?  How much partying will you do?  How many classes will you cut?  In college you won’t be reminded about exams and due dates.  Your teachers and parents won’t be around to make sure you do the “right things.”

Now, this new freedom might sound great; and it is, sort of.  But, let’s say for example, that you spend a lot of time staying up late, hanging with friends.  You could run out of time the night before a paper is due.  You could be tired all of the time, fall asleep in class, and maybe get sick because you did not get enough sleep.  Spending hours on facebook will be a nominal thing for you….

You could lose points for not attending class, even for showing up late, or for forgetting to hand in a paper.  The reality is that the decisions you make can cost you and your parents a lot of wasted, time, effort, and money…not to mention your happiness.

You also have to learn how to work with professors and adapt to the many differences you will find in a college classroom.

So college means that you have to make a lot of your own decisions, and, in most colleges, you will be making these decisions with little guidance or support.   You don’t need someone to nag you or lecture you about what you should or shouldn’t do.  What you need is someone you can talk to.. Someone who will not judge you and will always be there for you everytime….

-@jitabh ]3ose

Student's Life

Student life is the best time of life. Students of today are the citizens of tomorrow. A man’s career is made or marred in this period. It is the period when one’s character is molded. A student should Aim at being educated and being educated means becoming a complete man.

In student life diligence is of supreme value. A diligent man can achieve much. In student life one must learn to be obedient, Discipline is imposed on the student from outside at the school stage. But a student should understand from within the necessity of obedience and discipline in life. He should not forget that student life is to be devoted primarily to the pursuit of knowledge. But a student should not be a bookworm. There should be a harmonious development of body and mind. Therefore, a student should always participate in games and sports. It is not a waste of time to spend an hour or so in the playground. At home he must respect his elders and abide by the rules of his family. At school or college he must obey and respect his teachers. He should be careful about choosing his friends and companions. He should make friends with those who are honest, disciplined and diligent.

A student should also look beyond himself. He should not be a self-centered and selfish fellow. In student life one should devote some time to social service. He should try to educate his illiterate neighbors. He must teach the fundamental laws of health and hygiene. An ideal student must master all such virtues and make himself a useful citizen of his motherland and his country as well.
-@jitabh ]3ose

J.J.IRANI Awards

One the proudest moment for me and for every Gulmohurian…. Our Gulmohur High School has won two “J.J.IRANI Awards” this year. Gulmohur High School has crossed the 400+ band and was the proud recipient of three awards. The TATA QUALITY MANAGEMENT SERVICES (TQMS) conducted its awards ceremony on 25^thof Feb. 2011. The Chief guest for the occasion was the Ex-President of  India, honorable “Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam”.  The first award was for EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT  (EQUIP) and the second award was for the BEST PRACTICE AWARD. This award was for the EFFECTIVE USE OF MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE RESULTING IN IMPROVED LEARNING.I was very happy to hear this news and wished to be present on this auspicious occasion..

Proud to be a GULMOHURIAN!!

-@jitabh ]3ose

WHY????

Why  this world is refered as cruel and selfish, come to Gulmohur where God still exsists!!!!

Why didn’t I missed my mom here????

Why didn’t I want those classes to ever end????

Why I just wanted to keep on listening those devine voices????

Why I had to leave Gulmohur one day and go from this heaven????

Why I had to leave my friends and was left with only tears????

Why cant we pause the time for ever to live like an immortal soul????

Why I don’t want to depart from Gulmohur????

Why????
-@jitabh ]3ose

The New School Web Portal

[posted in the school magazine - Signature ]

The new school web portal was launched October 26th of 2010, a culmination of about 10 months worth of joint collaboration between the school management team and the AAG core team. The brain child for this initiative came from a very active 1986 alumni batch. The launching of the web portal was amongst several of the ideas which were discussed in the batch’s forum and the idea presented formally to the school management team by AAG who subsequently blessed the initiative. What followed after that was a series of meetings, hundreds of emails, lot of running around to make things happen culminating in the first cut of gulmohurschool.org. Today the site stands on a solid infrastructure and the goal over time is to grow it as the school grows…. onwards forever onwards. The portal today is built on moodle, a learning management system (LMS) and joomla, a content management system (CMS). Other than that the portal has links to social media sites like face book, Picasa, orkut and BlogSpot.

The first cut was an interesting journey and the journey was not all smooth, hundreds of hours that both AAG and the school management spent included amongst other things the challenges around getting funding for the initiative, reaching out to GHS Alumni, talking to Bank officials, registering AAG as a not for profit, buying a hosting server, buying domain name, design and developmental work on the site, mail accounts, getting content, photographs from the school and alumni, writing up content.

So what is the vision that went behind the school portal? The internet has pretty much changed our lives in the last 10-15 years and is continuing to change our lives. What the technology has done is basically made our life easier by making information available, communication easier, encouraging collaboration etc. Along the same theme the vision for the school portal is to achieve more or less the same goals. Make information available to students, prospective students, parents, teachers and alums – some of this is already achieved – today you can go to the portal and learn about the school, criteria for admission, activities at the school, faculty names, school toppers, best sportsperson, provide feedback, testimonials etc .

The moodle is another piece that can be a powerful tool for teaching as it is basically an LMS so teachers can teach online courses both to supplement face to face courses or purely online so students can take part irrespective of their location. Online discussions, quizzes, tests in addition can supplement student education.
Some of the other ideas which are being discussed pending approval is online career counseling and mentoring of students, content about school clubs, club activities and collaboration opportunities there, taking the school magazine online which could be a more cost effective model than the current model, allow for online collaboration between parents and teachers to monitor student progress, sms facility to collaborate with parents and school newsletter.

By now I am sure you are as excited about the portal as much as we were building it. I encourage you to visit and tell your friends to visit it too. We also would encourage you to provide your feedback.

Thank you.

Tanmoy Bhadra
Alumni 1986 Batch
(On behalf of the AAG team)

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