A reunion to remember for Bishop’s School batch of 1984

The brainchild of Rohit Pandhare,Manoj Phulphagar,Himanshu Chitnis and Kumar Kundanmal,the idea was first floated in January,after which the quartet created a Facebook community for the get-together. “We then designed a spreadsheet and asked for responses from our batchmates,now settled across the world. After a couple of months,out of 120 students in the batch,we identified 93 and contact 77. As many as 42 have turned up and we expect some more batchmates to join us over the next four days,taking the total to nearly 50,” said Rohit Pandhare,who runs a successful fruit export business.

In the quarter century since they passed out of school,while some,like Huzefa Diwan and Kumar Kundanmal,have taken over family businesses,others have made a name for themselves in the field of communications (Rohit Khanna),medicine (Anirvan Banerjee,Ramesh Ranka),defence (Vikram Menon,Ashwin Shinde) while many others (Paramvir Parihar- commercial pilot; Sushil Daswani – advertising; Manoj Malkani – President,Poona Club) have carved a niche for themselves in diverse fields.

Everyone agreed that coming together again after so long is nostalgic and memorable. “The groundwork which went into making this reunion a reality is unprecedented. We’ve been on our toes for the past two months,attending to every last detail. From attending the morning assembly to procuring made-to-order belts for the school uniform,it has been a mammoth exercise,” said Manoj Phulphagar,who owns a travel agency in the city. “I was not this excited even at the time of my wedding,” he quipped.

Several events have been lined up over the next four days to help them savour the time spent with old friends. “There is a commemorative dinner for Mr and Mrs Roberts,the principal during our time and his wife; a football match with the current students,and more inter-house sports events,” Pandhare said.