Inter-School Hockey 1988: Ayub Hussain
At Oak Grove School, Jharipani where I was born and brought up, Hockey had been a passion running in...
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My School Team: M. Mushtaque
Sitting in a circle on the valley grass with my boys, Here is a bunch of guys who doesn’t...
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Harish Jasani – A Eulogy: Manoj Panikkar
Once in a while, and if we are lucky, we get to spend some time with a certain type...
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Jean Gomes’ Narrative: 2
Carolyn, your memories brought back memories for me. The tuck boxes – wow – I remember that they were...
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Alvida Mahboob: Tapesh Chandra Sen
Here are seven pics. All except the seventh have one person in common, because he was fretting over minor...
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Mr. Brayley’s Journal: Chapter 1
The First Eight Years (1923 -1931) Apart from my nine years of boarding school, with three-month Christmas holidays at...
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Reunion Blues: Diptesh Ghosh
Meeting friends after the halfway years: Some forced laughter among the real ones, Smart wardrobes and sucked in bellies,...
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My First Love, My Oak Grove: Vipul Rana
In the mountains, Amid the clouds, Stands my Oak Grove, Tall and proud. With a legacy a century and...
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अंत: अनिन्दा चक्रवर्ती
पता नहीं अंत किसका होगा बसंत का या नीड़ का परन्तु मैं बेघर हो जाऊँगा पता नहीं नया क्या...
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Elite Spirit: Kanishka Mallick
What is the definition of a royal? How do we come to be called a blue blood? It is...
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The Great Raids: Rajiv Kapoor
Jayashree, as most of what you wrote about is about “my” era, I can really empathise. As I’m fond...
Adieu Putu Da: Parthasarathi Paul
Adieu Putu Da alias Shambhu Burman… Memory flashes back to Chakradharpur where my Father was posted in SE Rly in 1959. I was in Class I in a Rly convent. The migratory nature of a rly job had my Dad looking for a good boarding school to ensure continuity...
Pramod Kumar – A Eulogy: Puneet S. Monga
At the behest of HMBS A tall, quiet, unassuming boy from Chittaranjan joined Oak Grove in July 1985. Pramod was the quintessential small town boy. He was simple at heart, shy, reserved, almost introverted. I distinctly remember, after his first meal in the dining hall, he was about to...
FRESH TWEETS
Message from Principal OGS: I thank @irustima on behalf of OGS for his benevolence of gifting 50 copies of the book 'Acorns' to the school. Few copies will immediately be handed over to the students residing here for reading. I will give my reviews soon. pic.twitter.com/NjXQ8W7988
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Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai: Manoj Panikkar
I can’t be certain, but my guess is that my dad was on the Dev Anand and Jubilee Kumar end of the fan spectrum that had Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar on it somewhere. The tales he narrated to us of his adulthood would usually be linked to a...
The Tuck Man: Vipin Sehgal
No matter how hard I try I just can’t eradicate the memory of those few minutes of gratuitous, and casual brutality of that November Saturday in 1991. Like a demented Whack a Mole, the memory pops up in my mind’s eye, when least expected, shattering my self esteem. That...
Guava Man: Kanishka Mallick
He would walk up slowly every day. The whole way up from Doon, Through the unkept path to Jharipani, from Rajpur. Up the entire steep, on time, every afternoon. His basket full of joy on his head, Same soiled clothes and tired eyes, Cracked skin and wrinkles on his...
Choco Bar: Priyanka Pandey
Papa had picked me up from my boarding school in Mussoorie, for summer vacations. We reached Dehradun and were moving towards the station when he called out to the taxi driver, ‘bhai, market ki taraf le lo’. ‘Market ki taraf?’ I wondered. We followed a fixed routine every year...
A Straight Stitch: Kanishka Mallick
I do not recollect the monogram not being on my blazer. It was always there like the stripes on a tiger. That analogy goes doubly well as a Tagorian (House Insignia is Tiger). As I push my memory now, two faces go flashing by, Seeraji & Shamimji. I am...
Weekend Worries: Kanishka Mallick
Late rising. For most, yes. But for junior classes in Boys School, especially classes VI and VI, late rising had little meaning. The gloom set in from Friday evening itself if second Saturday was coming, which meant laundering school uniforms for seniors. Even if there was no trip to...
A Taste Of Rainbows: Kanishka Mallick
The three of us did not start out as great friends. Junior School rivalry and individual identity was based on class sections. We did not hate each other. We wanted to believe the other section did not exist on earth! PS and I had developed affinity sooner since we...
A Cold Hug: Kanishka Mallick
As winters arrive, inherently, whenever anyone says it’s getting cold, my first reactionary statement is, “we have grown up in the hills, we don’t feel cold!” And then, we quietly walk away and wear multiple layers of light clothing so that we don’t look wearing too much. We get...
Adieu Putu Da: Parthasarathi Paul
Adieu Putu Da alias Shambhu Burman… Memory flashes back to Chakradharpur where my Father was posted in SE Rly in 1959. I was in Class I in a Rly convent. The migratory nature of a rly job had my Dad looking for a good boarding school to ensure continuity...
October Fur: Kanishka Mallick
October has always been like the start line of a race you know you are going to win. It is a month when one starts feeling at ease with everything around. During the day you feel warm but are not sweaty. As the day passes by, you get calmer...
Leake Brothers’ Album
This treasure trove of photographs is from the collection of Leake Brothers, four siblings who attended Oak Grove School...
Hill School: G. Huddleston
Excerpts from CHAPTER XXIII of a book written by Mr. G. Huddleston in 1906, dedicated to his colleagues in East India Railway Company On the purchase of the undertaking by Government on 1st January, 1880, it was, as already explained, found that a sum of over four lakhs of...
Unhappy Endings: Peter Moss
My only link with Oak Grove was the fact that, back in the 1920s, my mother and her four siblings had all been educated there. I admitted as much when I presented myself at the gates to this ancient but prestigious school in 1979, some 91 years after its...
Nervous Nineties Nautanki – 1: Kanishka Mallick
Nervous about senior school Be it as a day scholar or a boarder, we detest going to school, the first few days. When I was a kid, I remember being happier sprinting out of school than walking in. Of course, with time and as you gain friends, you start...
A Tale of Two School Masters: Pat Corbett
Mr. Sumption taught the classics in the senior classes. Towards the end of the year he taught Ethics and Civics to the lower standards. It comprised an overview of Greek culture, Roman law, Norse mythology, Scandinavian influence on Britain, origin of common law, ethical and civic behaviour. Riveting stuff...
Founders Day 2019
On June 1, 2019, Oak Grove turned 131. For all those who missed out on attending the event, we...
Sculptures From OG Life: Ranajit Shee
This year (2018) on Founders Day, three sculptural masterpieces were unveiled at Oak Grove. Envisaged and created by Mr....
Sculptures From OG Life: Ranajit Shee
This year (2018) on Founders Day, three sculptural masterpieces were unveiled at Oak Grove. Envisaged and created by Mr....
Ma’am Bhaskar: Nikhil Kumar
It was after twenty years, in the year Big Ma’am passed away, that I started eating eggs again. My relationship with eggs had ended soon after I joined Oak Grove (OG) in 1995. On the first day at OG many of us were ushered inside Class 3B, which, as...
Silent Walks: Kanishka Mallick
Pointless Life takes turns. Life also has its steeps & slopes. Many a times, life pops up a pushta to sit & rest a while. And sometimes, life takes us to a place that we can just smell & proclaim, we are home. I was missing home. And the...
Changes in Oak Grove – Then & Now: Sameer Mohindru
The latest outburst and disgust expressed over changes in Oak Grove (2009), reminds one of protests in 1975-77 when Standard I and Standard II were abolished. Incidentally, those were also the years of Internal Emergency in India. The difference is that at the time it was the parents who...
Mr. Brayley’s Journal: Chapter 1
The First Eight Years (1923 -1931) Apart from my nine years of boarding school, with three-month Christmas holidays at home, I lived with my family in railway quarters in Saharanpur, about a quarter mile from the railway station. Our home was rented from the North Western Railway, which employed...
झरीपानी: सुदीप बाजपेई
दस बरस तेरी छाती से मैं चिपका रहा पंख तो तूने दिऐ पर उड़ने को न मेरा दिल कहा। सुबह की धुंध, निरंतर बारिश, इंद्रधनुष की शाम मित्रों का संग, अलसाई चाल, जल्दी का न कुछ काम! तेरी सर्द हवाओं और चमकती धूप ने मेरा चेहरा ही नहीं, चरित्र...
Olympic Hockey Champions from Mussoorie
Mussoorie schools – the breeding ground of Olympic hockey champions Indian hockey owes much of its success during its formative years to schools of Mussoorie, which have nurtured as much as 10 Olympic hockey gold medal winners between 1928 and 1936. In the recently concluded Olympics at Rio we...
Oak Grove In The Rains
My first memories of OG are of a rainy, foggy, green day. July 24, 1984 was the day I drove up the cloud-laden road to Jharipani via Barlowganj. All I could see was verdure, all I could smell were the mountains soaked in rain. And then, there was Oak...
A Cold Hug: Kanishka Mallick
As winters arrive, inherently, whenever anyone says it’s getting cold, my first reactionary statement is, “we have grown up in the hills, we don’t feel cold!” And then, we quietly walk away and wear multiple layers of light clothing so that we don’t look wearing too much. We get...
A Plan Meant To Fail: Priyanka Pandey
The bell rang, everyone rushed out of the class. It was Sunday, our morning prep time was over and we had the next two hours to ourselves, before the bell would ring again for lunch. Until then, we could do whatever we wished. Well, not exactly WHATEVER! We could...
The Curfew Vacation: Raveesh Gupta
This is a passage from an attempted ebook – In Gray and White. It is put here verbatim. The curfew vacation was a significant event in our Class III year – 1994. Please note that what I have written is based on personal experience and hearsay. It may be...
THE FUN FILLED GAME OF BOOK CRICKET Well, if you didn’t study in Oak Grove Junior School, you may be scratching your head to come to a conclusion about this term! You must be wondering that you have heard of One Day Cricket, Test Cricket, and latest inclusions like T20 Cricket and T10 Cricket, but what is this ‘BOOK CRICKET’? […]
My only link with Oak Grove was the fact that, back in the 1920s, my mother and her four siblings had all been educated there. I admitted as much when I presented myself at the gates to this ancient but prestigious school in 1979, some 91 years after its establishment in 1988. To my pleasant surprise, this somewhat tenuous connection […]
Some songs can bring back so many memories… Today, I happened to listen to some songs that we girls back in Oak Grove Girls School used to drool over – and there I was… my mind back to school, with my people, in my forever happy place OAK GROVE… There were some songs for which we used to run to […]
My sister and I were born in Railway hospitals. That’s what most Railway men’s children were wont to do. They also lived in Railway colonies — a gated community of bungalows and flats surrounded by greenery, often along with a pool, tennis courts and a club house that doubled up as venue for birthday parties and weddings — in the […]
“Hey, silver guy!” Sitting at my desk, pretending doing something, I was startled. The department chair stood before me. They call you silver guy? – he gloated, as if calling Bruce Wayne, Batman. Yes Sir, some graduate students do. I replied in a-matter-of-fact way. This deflated the playfulness in his voice. I work on silver recovery from laundry wash water. […]
When I was young, I lived there That’s where I spent most of my teen-hood Which gets it’s own mention sometimes. Somewhat laid-back, easy-going & sleepier You could walk almost anywhere, At any time of the year, night or day The Dehra of my schooldays. I had known and loved A little immature but it came straight from the heart. […]
ESSENTIAL READING
Hill School: G. Huddleston
Excerpts from CHAPTER XXIII of a book written by Mr. G. Huddleston in 1906, dedicated to his colleagues in East India Railway Company On the purchase of the undertaking by Government on 1st January, 1880, it was, as already explained, found that a sum of over four lakhs of...
My Story Of Oak Grove Days: Gaurav Mathur
A puny six year kid being packed to school without consent Was the beginning of life’s best years that I in school had spent It wasn’t simply first sight love, for this I must confess But ten years later, studies done, I knew this place was best Today it’s...
On The Jap Cake Trail: Nikhil Kumar
On 1, Turner Road in Dehradun, there is a bakery. It is called Bustan. Sadi, a thirteenth century poet of Shiraz, wrote a book of verses on the lines of Aesop’s Fables, with the same name. In literal Persian, Bustan means a place of smell, and orchard in general...
Ma’am Bhaskar: Nikhil Kumar
It was after twenty years, in the year Big Ma’am passed away, that I started eating eggs again. My relationship with eggs had ended soon after I joined Oak Grove (OG) in 1995. On the first day at OG many of us were ushered inside Class 3B, which, as...
Unhappy Endings: Peter Moss
My only link with Oak Grove was the fact that, back in the 1920s, my mother and her four siblings had all been educated there. I admitted as much when I presented myself at the gates to this ancient but prestigious school in 1979, some 91 years after its...
Olympic Hockey Champions from Mussoorie
Mussoorie schools – the breeding ground of Olympic hockey champions Indian hockey owes much of its success during its formative years to schools of Mussoorie, which have nurtured as much as 10 Olympic hockey gold medal winners between 1928 and 1936. In the recently concluded Olympics at Rio we...
The Life Story of Bon Ross: Part 3
Oak Grove School This school was owned and operated by the East Indian Railway. The locality was called Jharipani – meaning cold water. It was situated up in the Himalayas just below Mussoorie at about 4500 feet above sea level. This arrangement made it more comfortable for students to...
The ABC Of OG: Diptesh Ghosh
A: Arrival: For the start of the new season, we would arrive just before the monsoons, from the burning plains like refugees from a humanitarian crisis. The new-comers would have absolutely no idea what they were up against, and the old-timers would be eager to get back to their...
Olga’s Story (1929-1935): Paul McGinlay
My mother, Olga Vallint was born in Mogulsarai in 1920. Her father Alan was a yard supervisor with East India Railway and her mother Ida (Morrison) worked in the ticket office at Howrah station. Alan was regularly moved to different depots around the Calcutta area and decided that the...
A Mighty Oak: Sheila Cameron
A Tribute to Patrick John Lear Corbett (1938-2011) On 8 March 1938 in the growing dusty railway colony of Moradabad, UP, amid red brick homes, a railway institute, churchyard and bustling bazaars, a bonnie baby boy was born to young Denis and Charlotte Corbett. They named him Patrick John Lear and prayed...
EXPRESSIONS
Guava Man: Kanishka Mallick
He would walk up slowly every day. The whole way up from Doon, Through the unkept path to Jharipani, from Rajpur. Up the entire steep, on time, every afternoon. His basket full of joy on his head, Same soiled clothes and tired eyes, Cracked skin and wrinkles on his...
Dear OG, We Will Soon Return: Abhishek Kumar
All the time, we remember our school, Without OG, Life is not cool Our voices will fill every nook & turn Dear OG, we will soon return That splendid March, its sunshine turn The sun that sooths and doesn’t burn We miss the nature, we miss the fun Dear...
My Twin Amigos of OG: M. Mushtaque
Life is meaningless and purposeless If you never had buddies in the school, I can’t recall the day when I met these TWO who were calm and cool. One bumped into my life as JS Dorm partner another met at Boys School, they were cricketers of next caliber- one...
मेरे अपने: सुदीप बाजपेई
पता नहीं आपकी आँखों पे ऐनक है या चश्मा, आठ साल के बच्चे को सब्ज़ी परोसते हुए, ‘मुन्ना सर’ आपने पूछा नहीं कि हिन्दू है या मुसलमाँ। चार सौ मीटर दौड़ने के बाद हाथ कमर पे गए ही थे कि एक डाँट सुनाई दी। “सीधा खड़ा रह, थक गया…”...
My First Love, My Oak Grove: Vipul Rana
In the mountains, Amid the clouds, Stands my Oak Grove, Tall and proud. With a legacy a century and quarter old, Crown of the Queen mountain, A heaven, truth be told. Seeing those majestic walls, As a child, I was utterly blown,With clouds showering rains of joy, It’s an...
A Confidant Buddy: M. Mushtaque
Deepak Bist Smiling face with hope and all kinds of support, You came to me and stood beside me as destroyer escort, That was the first time when I knew You and got to consort, That was the beginning of our amity which would never thwart. Watching cricket matches...
Let’s Wish Madness For Them: Tabish Nawaz
“Who goes to the hills, goes to his mother….” – Rudyard Kipling They once lived in a mountain their feet still saunter with the care they once had for a city that glowed beneath them. Even today when they speak their eyes twinkle like those old times up there...
Mr. Xenodochial: M. Mushtaque
MR. XENODOCHIAL: Puneet Monga Sir How I wish I could go back to OG towards the end of the 20th century, Then I remember it was the year when I was just a new-born baby, Only to meet one of the true spirited Oakgrovians if I would have been...
The Compelling Number Cruncher: M. Mushtaque
THE COMPELLING NUMBER-CRUNCHER: Ma’am Kusum Kamboj Juggling with mathematical formula is always fun-filled bizarre, I never found any better math teacher than Ma’am Kamboj in my memoir, The way she taught us calculations are still fresh and acts as lodestar, Having fun with mental math under her supervision made...
Reminiscing: Ruchi Lata Pandey
July 15, 2019 I had spent a better part of my three years at grad school preparing. Not for interviews for a job but preparing so that I could get the opportunity of sitting in the Cardinal Gracias Media Resource Centre at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. As I finally...
WEEK SUMMARY TITLES
I can’t be certain, but my guess is that my dad was on the Dev Anand and Jubilee Kumar...
No matter how hard I try I just can’t eradicate the memory of those few minutes of gratuitous, and...
He would walk up slowly every day. The whole way up from Doon, Through the unkept path to Jharipani,...
Papa had picked me up from my boarding school in Mussoorie, for summer vacations. We reached Dehradun and were...