The Times of India
Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, TNN
18 December 2009, 06:59am IST

KOLKATA: This is a rare honour for any teacher. His students, some of whom he taught 54 years ago, are flying down from across the world to the city to celebrate his 81st birthday on Monday. And what a crowd to celebrate one’s birthday with a painter from the UK royal court, a prime minister and a chief justice from Bhutan, a teacher from Oxford University, a social worker from Australia. Naturally, Bernard Brooks is basking in the warmth of this love.

Brooks, who is settled in the city now, was headmaster and later principal of Dr Graham’s Homes in Kalimpong for 30 years from 1958 to 1988 and is still remembered in the Anglo-Indian community for the metamorphosis of the school from one reserved for the community to one that was open to all. The school was originally established to help educate and provide for illegitimate children of European tea planters and poor Anglo-Indians. Funds for these children were raised by committees formed for the purpose in Edinburgh, London, Auckland and Sydney. When Brooks became headmaster, he realised that this was not enough. So, he threw open the gates of the school for all and set up committees in Sweden and Switzerland, from where people started wholeheartedly contributing to the school.

Norman Hutchinson, the UK court painter and one of the most illustrious students of Brooks, is expected to reach the city over the weekend. Raised in the Kalimpong hills, Hutchinson is today a UK citizen. He is famous the world over for portraits and landscapes and none other than Queen Elizabeth II commissioned him to paint herself, her mother and son. Jigme Thinley, the present Prime Minister of Bhutan and chief justice of that country, Sonam Tobgye, were Brooks’s students and are both expected to be at the party. Among the other students from UK who have confirmed their presence to their old teacher are Arshak Sarkissian, who retired as a corporate boss in the UK, Loraine Raphael and Charlotte Jahan. There are three people coming from Australia and one from Dubai, not to talk of the many students who are settled all over the country who will also make it to the party.

A letter from their favourite teacher a couple of months back did the trick. “I am still in touch with many of my students whom I taught for three decades. At this age, one starts feeling nostalgic and I was yearning to see those fresh, young faces that I had taught chemistry and geography to, so many years back. So I wrote to them, inviting them over for my birthday. To my surprise, most wrote back enthusiastically to tell me that they were coming,” Brooks said. A banquet hall has been booked on Marquis Street for the gala affair that is also expected to be attended by other stalwarts of the city’s Anglo-Indian community, such as Paul Mantosh, Neil O’Brien, Gillian Hart, Richard Flynn and Shane Calvet.

The illustrious teacher has many an interesting anecdote to narrate. “Dr Graham’s Homes runs a nursery nursing centre the only one of its kind in the country. Since Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister, Vijaylakshmi Pandit, was closely associated with the school, Indira Gandhi knew about our nursery nannies. She actually visited the school with her son Rajiv and I selected a Lepcha girl to be the nanny for Rahul and Priyanka, who is still with the family,” he remembers.

“However, it is for popularising Dr Graham’s Homes choir that Brooks is remembered best in our community. The choir is famous for its church music. Not only our community, but music lovers of the city do not miss their annual performances at St Paul’s Cathedral, Tollygunge Club and RCTC. In the latter two places, they present secular music,” said Gillian Hart, former representative of the Anglo-Indian community at the state legislative assembly.
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