BY: Abdul Jamil Urfi

I consider myself very privileged to belong to the glorious period of Mr. Din Dayal’s Principalship. One of the memories I can recollect immediately is that of the morning assemblies and particularly the prayer by Tagore, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high …..” I belong to the first 10+2 batch having done my 10th class in 1977 and have some very pleasant memories of my school days.

Some of my pleasantest memories are those of the two N.C.C. CAMPS I attended at Alhilal, near Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. I was a cadet in the air-wing and Mr. Baweja was our incharge. I suspect that these camps did much to instill love for the outdoors and it is partly due to these experiences in my school days that I decided to choose a profession which has much to do with outdoors. I am an ecological scientist and an environmental educator now, working with the Centre for Environment Education in Ahmedabad and incharge of the Sundarvan Nature Discovery Centre.

Of my teachers I have the fondest memories of Mr. P.L. Vij, Mr. Jindal, Mr. Avtar Singh, Late Mr. K.L. Sharma , Mr. Lobo, Mrs. Subbarayam, Mrs. Duggal, MRs, Krishnan and of course our Urdu teacher MRs. Sharma. In Urdu class were Kamal Giroti, Mohsin Delehvi, Nandita Puri, Salma Aftab, Nasrin Nikhat, Ashok Kukreja and some others. I wish I could meet them and also many others among my batch mates. Two of my earliest school mates were S. Sumant and Atul Govil and I hope I will be able to meet them someday.