Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Meeting of Kolkata based Paulites on 7th SEPT.2012
MEETING OF KOLKATA BASED PAULITES ON 7th SEPTEMBER 2012.
SUMMARY OF GET TOGETHER OF PAULITES AT KOLKATA ON 8th
September 2012.
VENUE : “HARVEYS WORLD COUSINE”, 229 Rajdanga Main Road,
Kolkata 700107.
MAIN AGENDA:- To seek suggestion on ways to promote the
proposed event “Paulite Forever”.
NAMES OF PAULITES WHO ATTENDED THE GATHERING (IN ORDER OF
EARLIER TO CURRENT BATCH)
NAME BATCH
1.
Harish Himmatsingka 1973
2.
Pradyut Vora 1975
3.
Sanjoy Kundu 1976
4.
Soumitra Ray 1976
5.
Sanjit Ray 1975
6.
Rohan Ghosh 1976
7.
Somnath Chowdhury 1975(Class 10)
8.
Jaswant Ch. Sokey 1976
9.
Dipankar Banerjee 1979
10.
Manosh Moitra 1979
11.
Daniel Ghaznavi 1982
12.
Indraneel Mookherjee 1983
13.
Sanjeev Jaiswal 1984
14.
Avrajit Kar 1984
15.
Rana Dasgupta 1984
16.
Neelabha Dhar 1993
17.
Niraj Khetan 1998
18.
Kunal Khilani 1998
19.
Anindya. S. Maity 2006
A majority of the above Paulites who attended were present
for the entire duration of the meeting which began at approximately 12.20 pm and
concluded by 1. 15 pm. After that, some of the attending guests excused
themselves and left. Only two members arrived after 1.30 pm. Namely Rohan Ghosh
and Daniel Ghaznavi but their late suggestions were also recorded.
The main topics of discussions were as follows;
1. Since
there was already a consensus amongst the majority of the Paulites, that music
would remain as the main entertainment content of the event, the discussions began
with an introduction, by Jaswant Sokey, to the musical talents that had so far
been uncovered amongst the Past pupils of St. Paul’s School, Darjeeling. The aim
behind introducing the names of the individual musically talented Paulites was
to establish the soundness of their backgrounds. The emphasis was on the fact
that these talented Paulites had agreed to set aside precious time and
dedicated it to create exclusive compositions to be played at the event. The
following is the list of Paulite musical talent.
a.
Shoumitra
Ray, now a musician of fame, he was
from the St. Paul’s batch of 1976. He was always into some musical activity
during his school days. He sang as an Alto in the school choir and played on
various musical instruments, chief of them being the bongo and drums. He
graduated as a BA from St.Xavier’s college, Kolkata. He along with Surojit
Chatterjee, co founded the well known “Bengali musical” group “BHOOMI” in 1999.
The style of music played by the group is described by them as “urban Folk”
which is a fusion of rural Bengali folk tunes combined with some Western music
influences, such as blues. The current popularity of the group spans the major
urban areas as well as the village population of the state of West Bengal. The
group has also performed in the USA in some of the major cities such as San
Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, etc. They have also
performed in the UK and some of the cities in the Middle Eastern Arab
Countries. Shoumitra Ray (more popularly known as “Shomu”) is a song writer,
composer, lead vocalist and drummer. He also plays the congo & Bongo. The
highlight of a musical tour of the East coast of USA in 2006 was a performance
at the UN Headquarters for which Shomu penned his first English song “ For a
Better Day” and co-sang the same with his partner Surojit.
b.
Biswajit
Bora belonged to the batch of 1987 of St. Paul’s, which was followed by his
graduation from the Manipal Institute of Technology, Karnataka. He has worked
at a regular job too with IBM during 2005 & 2006. During the early 90’s
Bijit Bora and his band developed a cult status in and around Manipal and
Mangalore as they were the winners of nearly every competition there. Twenty years on, His band PSYX won the IRONIZE contest held at St. Xaviers
college Mahim on 7th of March 2008. Bijit has his own You Tube
channel where he gives Guitar lessons. He has
founded the academy of Modern Guitar (AMG), in Mumbai, in 2012.
Considered to be a “guru” on Guitar by his pupils and fans.
c.
Diganta
Choudhury batch of 2004 St.Paul’s. At heart and in his vocation with music,
he is a vocalist and began his training from the age of 6. He also
took up piano as his second instrument and trained under Rev. Noel Sen LTCL(licentitate
of trinity College London) and Mr Sudeep George Pande ATCL (Associate of
Trinity College London) at St Paul’s
School. Diganta began taking lessons on counter-point, composition and vocal
lesson at the age of 15 under Mrs Roshan Gazdar LRSM(Licenciate of Royal School
of Music) ex- principal of Calcutta School of Music. He would often
accompany the St. Paul’s choir during the Sunday service. As a boy
soprano, Diganta voice was recorded by
the BBC team which had come to document
St.Paul’s School Darjeeling (1997). Diganta grew up to specialize in
operatic and choral studies. He is a countertenor and has performed with the Calcutta Chamber Orchestra as well as the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra every
year during the Monsoon Concerts between
2006 and 2008. He was also a director of
music at Sheerwood College, Nainital between 2009 May to 2011 December. He
composes and rearranges music mainly of classic repertoire. He is presently a
member of the faculty of the Department for Vocal studies at the Delhi School
of Music as an Associate of Royal School of music. He is presently based in Noida.
d.
Sameer
Mohanty belonged to the batch of 2006 of St.Paul’s Darj. He originally
hails from Puri Orissa. He Graduated from Dayananda College in Computer
Application, Bangalore in 2009. Around a year later founded his own
entertainment group ‘Two Much’ with
his fellow rapper Zing (Zingalla) from Manipur. Sameer also goes by the show
biz name of Big Deal. He is a Rap artist. The rapper won the VH1 rapper battle
(contest) held at the Fusion Lounge, Bengaluru in 2011. One of the first rap
numbers released by the duo was “I believe I’m Fly”. Big Deal has performed in
almost every Club in Bengaluru. You
can check him out on the following link
;- http://www.youtube.com/user/MyTwoMuch?feature=mhee
e. Saswat Bajracharaya from the batch of 2006.
Saswat is a vocalist and a rhythm guitarist. After school, he Graduated from
Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune, in Business administration. He had
taken vocal lessons in St.Paul’s, under the tutelage of Mr Sudeep
George Pande ATCL (Associate of Trinity College London) and completed the
equivalent of grade 7 of the Trinity School of music, London. He was in the school choir since class 6 and
was the head chorister when completing class 12. He sang Base. He has a group in
Katmandu “Liquid Inspirations.” But claims that they perform only once in a
while. May be his career with an advertisement firm “JWT” in Katmandu keeps him too preoccupied with
work.
f.
Ribor MB: Ribor hails from
Shillong (Meghalaya) and studied at St.Paul’s, school between 1989 to
1994(class 8) when he had to head back to Shillong to take care of family responsibilities.
He later graduated from Shillong College, Shillong in Commerce. He learned to
play the guitar from class 2 and the piano from class 4. During his studies at
St. Paul’s he learned to play the violin. Started playing keyboards and guitar for a local band 'Nakra
Kurja" in '96. Played on the Keyboard with the famous Rudy Wahlang (
of Meghalaya and the present leader of the band “Soul Mate”) and his erstwhile
band “Mojo” in the year 1997 upto the break up of the band in 2011. Ribor was
also a session keyboardist for the now famous singer/guitarist Lou Majaw of
Meghalaya. He played in the band SFR which was formed by a few members of the
erstwhile group Mojo and also started to arrange music in studios for albums, films,
documentaries etc. In 2005 he started his own recording studio 'Merliham Arrangements'.
In 2007 he formed the band ‘4th element’, the only band from north
east that does funk, jazz, rhythm ‘n Blues and soul. Got the opportunity
to tour India and a few countries with Soul mate a well known blues band
from 2010 - 2011. At present working as a music director/ arranger and conducting
performance tours with 4th element.
g.
Vikramjit Bora (more popularly
known as ‘Rishi’) Passed out from St. Paul’s
in the year 1996 from class 10. His accomplishments with the guitar and vocals
have all been self taught. He has graduated from Ramjas College (Delhi
University) in English Literature.
Rishi is a
Music producer, arranger, singer and composer based in Guwahati. He owns a recording studio called
Noisegate. He was the lead vocalist
of two Delhi based bands ‘Terminal Frost’ and ‘Swastika’ specializing in
Classic Rock style of Music.
h.
Henry Zodinalana Pachua from the batch of 1997 St. Paul’s, He did his
graduation in BA (Hons) in Sociology from Presidency College, Kolkata. Now
pursuing Phd. In Family & Child welfare. He is currently the assistant
professor in Mizoram University, Dept. of Social Work. Henry’s passion in music
has been for the Hip Hop style. He has organized concerts and musical
performances in Aizawl and in an effort to promote the hip hop style co founded
“Sora Family” a group of young Hip
Hop artists from Mizoram.
i.
Anindya Maity, from
the batch of 2006 St. Paul’s , later graduated from M.P.Birla F.H.S. School,
Kolkata, and now pursuing further studies in Comparative Literature from
Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He plays the drums with a Kolkata based Group – “ Bee and The Buskers”.
2.
Suggestions were made regarding the other possible
entertainment content for the event: Most
people present appeared to be in favor of having a cricket match between the
past students and the school as a healthy form of interaction with the current
students. The younger 1998 batchers seemed to favor a football match. A
suggestion was also made by Sanjit Ray for having a debate between past
students and the school so as to involve the school in the Event as well. Holding
of the “jamboree/fete” did not find too much favor here. It was unanimously
agreed that musical performance by Paulite talent would remain the central
theme of the entertainment content of the event. A suggestion was made by
Soumitra Ray that in order to save on costs and in order to simplify logistics
the performing artists could consider practicing their numbers with a single
band before the event, but the co-ordination of this would also have to be
looked into first. A suggestion was also made by Harish Himmatsingka that the
sequence of activities of the event could be as follows:- Day one, Cricket match/games/debate: Day two, the musical performance followed by a sumptuous dinner and
speeches/toasts: Day three & Four
would be an option for the different
batches to independently (independent of the main Event) organize any other
form of entertainment for their own batches, for example, A trek around
Darjeeling, a visit to Gangtok, camping at Manjitar etc.
3.
Regarding the ideal time of executing such an event most shared the opinion that the month of April to coincide
with the Easter week end when school traditionally has a two day holiday, would
be the ideal period to have the Event that would also involve the students of
the school. This hopefully would also help us avoid the rainy season and also
the rush of the tourist season at Darjeeling. However a proper consensus could not be arrived at regarding the point
of whether to have the event During April 2013 or during April 2014. More feedback
would have to be collected on this.
4.
It was also felt that formation of the core committee comprising
Paulites who would take charge of motivating Past Pupils to be there at the
event should begin as soon as possible. The
execution of the Event by a professional event Manager was also supported by
all. A suggestion was made by Harish Himmatsingka, that the raising of funds to
meet the expenses of organizing such an event should follow in the lines of the
model executed by Sumant Dalmia (1971) during his Amarnath Tewari Fund
Collection drive.
5.
Involvement of the OPA in the
Event was strongly advocated by Rohan Ghosh and Daniel Ghaznavi.
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