The Pakistani Spectator

Indian movie actor Amitabh Bachchan has apologised for having compared the “Kaun Banega Corepati” (KBC) edition hosted by him and the one hosted by Bollywood’s current top leading man Shah Rukh Khan. KBC is the Indian version of the British television game-show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Bachchan is in Cannes these days to attend the film festival, along with his wife Jaya, their son and movie actor Abhishek Bachchan, and their daughter-in-law, actress Aishwarya Rai.

In his latest blog post from Cannes on May 17, 2008, Amitabh Bachchan said, “There are some amongst you who feel that there has been an attempt on my part to compare myself with colleagues on mine. This is not the truth. I think the whole purpose of my account has been incorrectly interpreted. I have never ever meant that at all. I have never considered myself worthy of such position and have hated such indulgence. However, if someone amongst you have felt otherwise, I wish to sincerely apologise for that and say that I am sorry. It shall not happen again.”

Referring to his reported rivalry with Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan said, “The media has always followed me wherever I go and has constantly monitored my actions. All they want is some controversial scoop to create hype. These days, they are after me, shouting questions one after the other on whether I’m still at war with Shah Rukh Khan. I have absolutely no problem with him and we still remain the best of friends.”

I think that is a pretty graceful apology. But then, I wouldn’t expect anything else from an Old Sherwoodian like Amitabh Bachchan. Like me, he attended Sherwood College in Naini Tal – arguably the best boarding school in India in the days of the British Raj and still the best. I was at Sherwood from 1944 to 1948, when I left for Pakistan to become a student at Burn Hall School in the NWFP hill town of Abbottabad.

Amitabh Bachchan, who was born in Allahbad in October 1942, and is five years younger than me, attended Allahbad’s Jnana Prabodhi and Boy’s High School and joined Sherwood in the mid-1950s. In the year 2000 he was voted the “Sherwoodian of the Century” in a poll of Old Sherwoodians. At a reunion of Old Sherwoodians in Naini Tal on November 10th, 2000, he received the “Old Sherwoodians Millennium Award for Outstanding Achievement”.

One of the most prominent figures in the history of Indian cinema, Amitabh Bachchan holds the record for the most number of Best Actor nominations at Bollywood’s Filmfare Awards and has won three Indian National Film Awards and 12 Filmfare Awards to date. He was a member of the Indian Parliament from 1984 to 1987. Like the Nehru family, he belongs to an Allahbad family. The two families have been friends for several generations.

Naini Tal, a beautiful hill town in the Himalayan terai, and the summer capital of the United Provinces in the days of the British Raj, is home to several very fine schools, including Sherwood College.

Sherwood was founded in July 1867. It grew out of the need for a good school in a salubrious climate for the education of boys of modest means. The idea took shape as the Niani Tal Diocesan Boys School, as Sherwood was once called.

Under the guidance of its first principal, the Rev. E. Baston (1869-1880), who gave the school its identity and philosophy, the school rose to new heights. To quote E. Atkinson’s “The Himalyan Gazetteer of 1882”: “In 1872 the number of pupils increased to 100, but still many applications were refused in consequence of the want of accommodation: The Committee then appealed to the general public for aid in erecting proper school buildings and met with generous response…In 1873 the Sherwood estate with house and magnificent grounds was purchased by the committee for the boys school and is perhaps the finest site and establishment of its kind in India.”

Thus did the school acquire the luxurious surroundings of “Sherwood Estate,” the property of a General Huthwaite. While one part of the school was accommodated at “Longview,” the other was housed at “Sherwood,” now part of the Government House complex.

Never before or since in its history has the school enjoyed so magnificent an estate, with its wide open spaces, rolling lawns, huge orchards and a shooting-range (now the Golf Links) offering a range of over 600 yards.

Those were idyllic days when life moved at a leisurely pace. The chief examination was the Calcutta Entrance, which consisted of 4 sums, a piece of dictation and some reading. Boys who got the sums right and passed in dictation and spelling were promoted to the next class.

The idyllic bliss that governed the school was not to last forever. Disaster struck in the winter of 1895. For a long spell ill-luck dogged the school. Firstly, covetous eyes were cast on the Sherwood Estate, described as “that most desirable piece of property.” The school received a notice to quit the estate in order that a new Government House might be built there. Teachers and boys were shunted from pillar to post.

As a temporary measure, accommodation was provided at “Barnsdale,” in the vicinity of the present-day Secretariat. And temporary it proved to be, for in the early hours of Easter morning in 1896, the boys were rudely awakened and told to evacuate the building which was on fire. Luckily, there was no loss of life, but the building itself, largely made of wood, was reduced to ashes.

But fate was not done yet. It was decided to move the school to the “health resort” (!) of Khurpatal. Here, cholera and enteric swept through the school, claiming among their victims the then principal, Rev. E. Munro, who died of enteric in Ramsay Hospital. When this happened, it was generally felt by the school authorities that it was time to beat a hasty retreat.

For want of anything more suitable, three houses on Alma Hill served as temporary accommodation. The school now hit an all-time low. From over 100 boys at the beginning of the year, only 35 had survived the ordeal. By 1898 the number had dwindled to 32.

Eventually, some land on the spur of Ayarpatta was acquired in 1897 and the foundation stone for a new school building was laid by the Bishop of Lucknow on June 5th, 1987. From that date, June 5th has been “Founder’s Day.” The Diocesan Boys School had at last found a permanent foothold.

Electricity came to the school in 1922. The Horsman brothers, both Old Sherwoodians, with their generous contribution of Rs 75,000, made possible the construction of the junior wing, known as Horsman Wing (“Horsie” in school slang), which was dedicated to their father and completed in 1927.

Under C. H. Dixon, who was the principal from 1906 to 1932, the fortunes of the school scaled unprecedented heights. After his retirement, in the fitness of things, the senior wing came to be known as Dixon Wing. In school slang, however, it was called “Topsie” because it was situated higher up the hillside than Horsie.

In 1937, when the Rev. Allwyn Binns became principal, the name of the school was changed from the Diocesan Boys School to Sherwood College. To this day, however, it is known to Naini Tal’s hill porters as “Malla Di-shen,” which, very loosely translated, presumably stands for “Upper Diocesan.”

Amitabh Bachchan is unquestionably the most famous Old Sherwoodian. He joined the school as a Standard VII student in the mid-1950s. Of course, nobody in those days had any idea that he would go on to become the biggest movie star India has ever produced. To his contemporaries at Sherwood he was just another kid, like the 350 other students.

In a speech he gave at the “Millennium Award” ceremony in Naini Tal in 2000, Bachchan recalled his days at Sherwood and said, “The school that influenced me most was Sherwood College. If I had to talk about Sherwood, I could write a book on it. Those three years were by far the happiest time of my life…What I am now is largely because of Sherwood.”

Sherwood has a long tradition of putting on school plays. Back in 1948 I had a tiny part in a Sherwood play called “Aladdin and The Magic Lamp”. In the play Aladdin not only had a magic lamp that he would rub to summon the genie of the lamp; he also had a magic ring which, when rubbed, would summon a sort of junior genie to do Aladdin’s bidding. I played the part of the junior genie. He would pop up through the stage trapdoor whenever Aladdin rubbed his magic ring and say, “I am the slave of the rrr…ring. I obey.”

Since this was the only line I had in the play, it didn’t give me much chance to display my thespian skills – which were next to nil anyway.

Amitabh Bachchan, however, was a very good actor even as a student at Sherwood. In a play staged during his first year there, he won the Kendal Cup (donated by Geoffrey Kendal of “Shakespearewallah” fame) for best actor.

Source : News