BVB: Amrit tu Vidya

BVB Mehta Vidyalaya , Delhi was our world when we were growing up in the Delhi of 1960s through the 1970s. Yes, for GenZ that may sound like ancient history on lines of Harappa and Lothal but for 30+ of us – The class of 1976- meeting 50 years later in 2026 at school, was yesterday once more! 

BVB Mehta Vidyalaya is located in centre of Delhi, off CP /Mandi House,  on  the then Curzon Road , since long dubbed Kasturba Gandhi Marg. The school has spread its wings far and wide , literally reaching back side of LTG/Kamani Auditoriums in Lytton, oops, Copernicus Marg. By the way, BVB is India’s first international chain of schools with 400+ branches world wide. That’s Boston to London; Dubai to Tokyo. The school was founded by  Kulapati Munshi a reformer, educationist, freedom fighter and member of Constituent Assembly. He was a key drafter of the Constitution of India too with Hamsalal Mehta , founder Chancellor of MSU Baroda and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, founder of AIIMS. Ambedkar ofcourse oversaw the final draft submission.

My guru Dr.M.P..Chhaya with my mother guru M.K.Saroja launch my book in Baroda, 2000!.

To contextualise what did we have then? Blackboards no laptop; gurus not mere teachers. Our teachers were teacher’s teacher and real gurus. Dr. Mandlik Prahladray Chhaya ji was not just a principal, no matter how great. He was a marg darshak. An educator. A visionary. Dr. Govind Singh Negi didn’t show us just the earthly compass but moral compass. Original Physicswallah Dr. DP Sharma didn’t react is just Physics but gave velocity to our beings. Our dynamic Principal Chhaya sahib was a game changer in education. He should’ve been the Education Minister of India to revolutionize Indian education then in the 1970s

His ideas were novel and he was nobel. There’s no one like him for many of us. For each school, their staff is precious. For us he was a marg darshak, mentor and more.

BVB school those days was very simple with bare furniture in class, no gadgets. Fans hardly worked because we had giant teachers whose fans we were. Subjects were made interesting by our teachers, true educators. If Google calls me a Historian today, it is because of my history teacher, Indira Gandhi, oops, Chopra ji. If my English is okay and I’ve written 51 books till date ( some on Amazon; most sold out because Amazon came now, I’ve been writing from the last century!) because of the foundation given by Mrs. A. Singh and Mr. Katyal. Sitting next to me, Deepti Haksar Banerjee, shared how she dreaded the subject ( History ) and to avoid a sudden class test, the majority of girls , with Head Girl Sujata Sood, decided to host a sudden inter class Throw Ball match. They dug up trenches and arranged the pit but lo behold! On the actual day, it rained cats and dogs. Deepti is a survivor and was an Indian Airlines hostess when it was hijacked and taken to Lahore. Buddhism has given her peace. Sanskrit teacher Krishna Datta taught way back Buddham Sharanam Gacchami…

Sanjay Diwan, Anurag Pandya, Ajay Sheth, Rakesh Bhatnagar, Sujata Sood , Arundhati Mishra, Sonia Sareen, Deepti Haksar, Tulsiram and Pankaj Mehra.

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Lahori Gate, Darya Ganj is where Pankaj Mehra  and later Renu Kedia, had their sari and textiles shops. Pankaj is a very fine human and great follower of Dewang Mehta, our common friend from BVB who made  big as first Indian head of Nasscom. Traders of Delhi made Delhi and settled Delhi, historically –  the Jains, the Mehras, the Kedias, the Goenkas, Bhatnagars and Guptas made Delhi wholesale trade. Shrirams , Aggarwals and many others provided the first industries.  Kings invaded one after the other and conquered but who ran the city? Who provided fodder for animals and food for folks? All the tradesmen. The  Mansabdari ( DM of IAS layering) system of Akbar in the 15th century, who shifted captial to Fatehpur Sikri was the seed of British Admin system too. ICS. Remember the rabble rouser Nirad Chaudhary? The IAS and allied services arose out of the British ICS .  Akbar’s Sikri last in ruins due to water shortage. Little did the great emperor realise that water flows down, not go up stream. Sikri had to be abandoned later as there was no water. Agra had the Yamuna flowing from Delhi. Cultures are made by civilisation that are river borne: Mesopotamian, Sumerian , Egyptian, Indian or Chinese. Do you know the tenth incarnation of Vishnu- Kalki – as per Bhrugu Shastra –  is to come from Yellow River Basin ? Literally meaning Yangste! China is the key while other monkies might fight over rotis of oil now, the cat will walk away with the main part. Remember the story from Panchtantra,eh?

School kids never grow up even if we could see  some bloated egos or buttocks ( both genders, so the remark is not sexist) ! One or two very insecure ones tried to impress with titles and achievements. Bachpan ke sahpathiyo ya dosto ko kya titles or achievements se impress karna? Such one or two – trying to show their pelf or position – remained marginalised and sat in a corner.  Humour is the best med and best tool to use to bring down those who fly too high without basis. Some batchmates flew from far most for the day and the princess of our batch – Amita Chhaya – so called because she was Principal”s one of the five daughters ( Twisha, Rupangi , Jalpa and Matangi being the other of the panchakanyas) and more importantly, she still looks like 20, despite being a naani. She conducted the second half of the proceedings at Gymkhana club, with aplomb ,  ease and flair. Yours truly just played along with opening and closing remarks that made many laugh. Glad most folks still understand humour. Everyone in Delhi or North India takes themselves too seriously so one had to appeal to LCD. Knowledge should be used to share, not awe or impress. Outside our school’s old facade by the gone cotton tree is a plaque: Vidya dadati vinayam. Humility is the true sign of knowledge and scholarly disposition.

Dinesh Jain and team ( Rakesh Jain, Anurag Pandya, Prabhat Mishra, Sanjay Diwan and Kirti Uppal) pulled out all stops to make logistics easy, from print outs of school prayer ( Veena Sanghi Aggarwal remembered it verbatim!) to metal fridge stick ons; note book of memorabilia; spiffy  cards with Hindi text on top to making Then and Now frames  of how we looked made for meaningful gifts

Sujata Sood , Head girl then, looked and epitome of good grace. Renu Kedia sat like a benign Buddha. A dynamic Veena Sanghi Aggarwal shared how adventurous she was at school beside she was planning to run away from home – not with a boy – but with the Tomboy of our batch Anjal Lele. How months of planning and collecting things to survive in the real world outside was brought to a naught when her charming sister Vasundhara found the cupboard stashed with Veena’s piled up stuff of escape to freedom.

Veena Sanghi Aggarwal ( Padmashri and dynamic doctor surgeon K.K.Aggarwal’s dharam patni or he being her pati parmeshwar. On the coming 17th May it’d be five years since he left planet earth, helping Covid patients till his end) looked most sorted, despite the impossible task of putting together disparate and desperate voices writing in fir the digital Souvenir she took charge of helped by yours truly to mind other’s Ps and Qs! If anyone, Veena can pull it off with aplomb since she brings out medical journals and pioneered digital med. KK Aggarwal was a key pillar of the National Heart Foundation in East of Kailash and later, the Liver Transplant Institute. Together ,we wanted to create a cultural institution too for the aged with medical care and he helped many an artiste with liver transplant like Pt.Jwala Prasad. Amita Chhaya and Veena Sanghi have been like two peaa in a pod  since bachpan . Even at this gathering – on 17/4 – Veena dropped Amita off to airport after the function and for additional safety on Delhi’s road rage, she took Col. Ashok V, an Army veteran!  I thought he had helped make a mental college in Doon but he was modest to share it was a DENTAL not mental college in Secunderabad. Rubb ne bana di jodi VeenAmita ( dekho naam bhi kese sandwich ke kaaran judd jawat hai, Mrs 

Dua, our Hindi teacher wd’ve said)!

VeenAmita, rubb ne bana di…

This is a culture column . Education is the foundation of culture. Culture does not mean only  dance or music or literature and architecture but what we, as a collective race,  become or reflect.  Culture is people. Simple. When we say Japanese, we think of team work. When we say Germany we think of discipline. When we think of America, err, we don’t think of it anymore! When we think of India, what’s the one thing that comes to our mind? Freedom. Democracy. Nothing defines us more. Today the world’s largest. Amita mentioned twice in car ride to the venue how Negi ji had taught us to make the world map in a jiffy. She said it impressed her students today in her college on Mumbai, where for 45 years she had been teaching Economics.

There was so much happiness, nostalgia, and emotion. To see Krishan Goenka look like Anupam Kher; Dinesh Charadva still with chevda colour hair! Amit Pandey was the Head boy and handsome to boot and always spooked me by coming up from behind holding my colour and saying ” khokari aaj kaunsa perfume lagaya!” In winter of 1970s it was not considered normal to take bath daily! I also believed in water conservation. No wonder I joined INTACH as a director undertaking many cultural and environmental causes all over India . Much before SpicMacay was founded, some of us BVB folks had formed STAS ( Support the Arts Society) e logo designed by Sandeep Daddy Datta Cool Gupta! Dinesh Charadva room us home to his uncle, a graphic designer, who helped us do art work for the poster. Kirti Uppal found us a printer Bhupinder in Patel Nagar! Such enterprising kids. Just 16 in 1976.

Logo by Sandeep Datta and design by Dinesh Charadva

At school, but taking daily baths, I doused myself with perfumes my mother brought from her travels abroad and Amit could smell it miles away in morning assembly and come catch me. Mrs. Dua the Hindi teacher, once scolded me in class saying ” na bache, vidyarthi jiwan mei yeh scent vent nahi istimal karte!” Next day she met me outside class and said : Mummy ko bolna mujhe bhi ek foreign sei la dei next time! Harish Bhasin was far ahead of his times and had a pout then when it is fashionable to do now for selfies! Arun Kohli, Rajeev Gupta ( he won the best actor award at school for my plagiarised work Naa! and his prize now we saw was his white Benz! ).  Ezra James Shaw, who regaled with his life sketch from being thrown out of school to starting a school for orphans in Palampur H.P.. was a jovial interlude. There were so much goodness in that Jamun Hall that Dinesh Jain -the Fevicol that brought us all together- messaged:Truly satisfying to see how meaningful the day has been for all of us.

Dinesh Jain with Tulsiram

He continued to share through the night his feelings

“The program flowed seamlessly – starting from assembling at the V.R. Mehta statue, to the walk (which I thought might be difficult for many, but everyone did it!), and then the beautiful session at the Library. The Prayer, Shradhanjali, tributes to Dr. Chhaya, Mr. G.S. Negi, our teachers and friends, along with the addresses by the current Principal and Mr. D.P. Sharma – everything was deeply touching and took us back more than 50 years.”

“In fact, the Library turned out to be a blessing – intimate, comfortable, and perfect for reliving our school connect in a way the auditorium may not have allowed. The group photo at Mehta Sadan was a great way to wrap up the school segment. And then at the club-despite another round of generous snacks (which, honestly, we couldn’t fully do justice to, as much remained unpicked), Amita’s activity session and Ashish’s compering kept everyone together beautifully till cake cutting, lunch, and gifts.”

“I must say, I personally enjoyed this entire journey of putting the program together with many of you. There were challenges-different expectations, varied suggestions-but the best part is that in the end, we managed to create something where no one felt left out or unhappy. A special thanks to those who came from out of station-your presence made the event truly meaningful.”

“On the curated items-right from I-cards, lapel pins, standees, backdrop, “Then & Now” photoframes, fridge magnets, guest book, to the Kalimba and the self-help book (kept inside it)-each was personalised and thoughtfully created. I wrote the Kalimba Self-Help Book myself, putting in considerable time and effort. Everything else too, took a lot of thought, effort, and detailing (especially the photoframe!), and I’m really glad they connected with all of you.”

“A heartfelt thanks to Ashish for the beautiful Angavastram – it reflects his refined taste. And thanks to Ashish and Tulsiram for bringing sweets from their cities ( Mysore Paak and Adrasam). There is one more thing I realised during the walk this morning. 50 years back, we walked out of the corridors of Mehta Sadan as TEENAGERS . Today, we returned there as VETERANS . This proves that the old proverb, “Pure gold never rusts,” truly fits our Class of 1976.”

Amrit tu Vidya, indeed!