School collects Rs 2.58 lakh to get phones for the jawans

For whose dear sake our fathers died

O motherland we pledge to thee,

Head, heart and hands through the years to be.

— an extract from a hymn by Rudyard Kipling.

Through this hymn, also their school’s anthem, the students of one of Delhi’s oldest girls schools, Queen Mary’s, paid a tribute this morning to the soldiers of Kargil. They wanted to do something for them on the front and tell them: We care. They decided that their present would be a satellite phone so that the soldiers can speak to their families back home.

With this intention, the nursery, primary as well as high school students made contributions from their pocket money and savings and also collected donations from their teachers, family and friends. The non-teaching staff of the school, too, pledged a part of their salary for this purpose.

The result was an impressive Rs 2.58 lakh which their Principal, Mrs Kamlesh Jacob, handed over to TheIndian Express Delhi Editor Mrs Coomi Kapoor for the Front-To-Family Fund, after a brief service at the school. The Deputy Director (Education), Delhi Government, B C Jindal was present on the occasion.

“It may be a small amount, but it will hopefully help buy one satellite phone, and meet a part of the charges for the air-time used as well,” said Mrs Jacob in the morning assembly. “Our soldiers are fighting for our country, far away from their homes. We thought that we could try and do something for them, however little it may be.”

There are 2,600 girls studying in this school which was set up in 1912. The school has always been a pioneer of sorts, said Mrs Jacob. It opened its doors to the mentally-challenged children, besides introducing Urdu in the curriculum so that it could accommodate children of Kashimiri migrants.

Sucheta Kripalani — who was the first to sing the national anthem when Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the tricolour to signal India’s Independence — spent the first 10 years ofher academic life in this school. The school also proudly remembers its distinguished students like writer Anita Desai and acclaimed actress Madhur Jaffery, besides the others.

The students and the teachers of the school had heard of the several relief funds, said Mrs Jacob. “But presenting phones to the soldiers to communicate was a unique idea,” she said. It took us about four to five days to raise this money, she added.