A walk back to 1968

When I think of the year 1968, many beautiful memories come rushing to and overwhelm me with nostalgia.

That was the year in which I completed my BSc degree from National College. I was a part of the first batch of CBZ students and this photograph is one of the many priceless moments I cherished with my classmates.

A total of 81 students enrolled themselves in the course as it was a great thing to be able to study in a college with a formidable reputation.

The girls outnumbered the boys by 2:1! We the boys were mortally scared to talk to the girls and the only ploy we employed to talk to them was stutteringly ask the well-rehearsed question "May I please have your record?"

As the first batch, we had to make do with rudimentary laboratories and lecturers just out of their post-graduate course, but their inexperience was more than compensated by their application and interest.

The students did not disappoint the college/teachers, as almost all the students went on to make a mark in various fields they set their hearts on.

There are any number of doctors, doctorates, professors and a Major in the army. Alas, quite a few our classmates are not here with us - they left us too soon.

During our tenure, Dr HN introduced internal examinations without invigilators and it was a great success, as practically none cheated.

We remember even to this day our teachers by their initials. Each one was a great teacher and their teaching remains green in the memory.

After nearly three decades we could track almost sixty percent of our classmates and we meet fairly regularly.

We reminisce and exchange notes and experiences. We talk to each other in the singular.

Even those, who were most taciturn, talk to the others from the opposite gender without inhibitions and we laugh at our own 'terrors' of those
years.

How can I forget the day on which I was asked to stand on the bench, that too when I was in the second year for a cat call made by someone else or how Dr KDN could help us understand 'King Lear' in two periods, after we had struggled with him for nearly a year?

Next year we plan to celebrate a half-century of friendship, camaraderie and a piece of history.

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