From sir, with love: A hospital for Kolkata

‘‘I have received as many as 200 letters in the past 50 years from John,’’ says Billu Barman, one of the boys to have studied under Greck and a permanent host for his teacher. So have Sheriff and Aftab Barry in Kolkata, two other students, who studied English and Latin from him. Talking to The Indian Express, Greck reels off the names of his Standard V-A boys in one breath — Bruce Perera (now in London), Nazir Dussani and Shyamal Bose (in the US), Chandu Mahtani (Manila), Chand Khanna (Mumbai), Somen Dutta (Ujjain) and so on.

Hemmed in by his students tomorrow, Greck is going to talk of a dream undisclosed even to his closest students so far. ‘‘I want a hospital to be built for the poor in Kolkata and would like my old boys to help,’’ he says. Xaviers’ has a formidable old boys network that counts among its members former CMs Jyoti Basu and S.S. Ray and industrialists B.M. Khaitan and Sanjeev Goenka among others.

Recently, Greck called all his four children — two of them married — to ask if they would object to his house being sold after his death and the proceeds going for charity in Kolkata. ‘‘They have given their consent,’’ he says.