Mangalore: 1940s Nostalgic Reunion to be Held at SAC on Dec 2
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (KM/SM)
Mangalore, Nov 29: The 1940s Nostalgic Reunion, organized by Mangalore Catholic community, will be held in the St Aloysius College campus on Light House Hill here on Sunday December 2, informed Joe Gonsalves, chairman of the organizing committee at a press conference here on Thursday November 29.
The formal function will be presided over by Justice Michael Saldanha, retired judge of the Karnataka High Court and president of the Catholic Association of Dakshina Kannada, he further said.
The seniors who converge must have passed out of any high school in the city before 1950. The idea of organizing the occasion has been conceived in order to provide a platform to the senior citizens to meet their acquaintances, seniors, peers and juniors, he stated.
Senior citizens belonging to all faiths are welcome. The formal function will be in English, but the informal part of the occasion that is the reunion will not necessarily be in English, Neil D’Souza, the committee member added.
A mass in Latin will be offered by Fr Santosh Kamath in St Aloysius Chapel at 5 pm and the formal function will commence at 6.30 pm in the college auditorium. Dr Michael Lobo, Dr Marian Kamath and Mohan Prabhu have taken the initiative for this global reunion, he elaborated. While Dr Kamath is the prime sponsor of the event, Prabhu is the co-sponsor.
Mangaloreans not only from the city but places like Bangalore will converge at the event on December 2.
The highlights of the function will be a PowerPoint presentation called ‘St Aloysius College in 21st Century’ by Fr Denzil Lobo SJ and release of three books on a range of subjects, authored by Lindsay Rego, retired IG of Forests.
It was also informed at the press conference that the senior citizens who completed High School before 1950 will be exempt from the token entry fee. But those who completed High School after 1950 will have to pay the token amount of Rs 100. For both categories, an entry card is a must, which can be obtained by calling any of the following members of the organizing committee, latest by evening of Friday, November 30, 2007.
1. Joe Gonsalves 2428601
2. Dr Michael Lobo 4279658
3. Neil D'Souza 98864 88599
4. F M Lobo 93411 22044
5. Richard Lasrado 94802 00000
Brief introduction of prominent participants:
by Dr Michael Lobo
Dr Marian Kamath MD (of New York, USA)
Board Certified in Family Practice and Geriatrics, he has been in private medical practice for 30 years, and is affiliated with Good Samaritan Hospital, Brunswick Hospital and New Island Hospital, as well as nursing homes such as Broadlawn, East Neck, Berkshire and Central Island. He is the past president of St John’s Medical College Alumni Association North America Chapter, co-founder of Foundation for the Advancement of Excellence in Education (FAEE), and is actively involved with the American Association of Physicians of India (AAPI), Aloysian Partners in North America (APNA) and Friends of St John's. He was honoured at the Long Island Indian Association 2006 Community Service Awards Banquet for his successful Golf Outing fund raiser to benefit the reconstruction of the Tsunami-hit areas.
Mohan Prabhu, QC (of Ottawa, Canada)
An alumnus of the 1947 batch of St Aloysius High School, Mohan Prabhu (till 1957 known as Michael Castelino) was employed with Lever Brothers, Bombay, in the 1950s, also obtaining the degrees of BA (1957), MA in Sociology (1959) and LL.B. (1960). In 1960, he sailed for England, and obtained employment with Unilever, simultaneously taking the English Bar Course as a student of Lincoln’s Inn. He was awarded the LL.M. degree from the University of London in 1964 and was the only student that year to obtain a distinction. In 1965, he sailed from Liverpool to Quebec City. After a year’s fellowship at Columbia University, New York, he taught at the Saskatoon Law School till 1972 and then for another year at the University of Alberta. Since 1973, he has been residing at Ottawa. Until 1997 he was a Senior Counsellor in the Department of Justice; he was also Director of Legal Services for the Department of the Environment (1979-1984). He has served as general rapporteur at world congresses of the UN, International Penal Law Association and Commonwealth Secretariat and is the author of legal treatises, specialising in environmental and criminal law. Finally, he is the only Mangalorean to hold the position of Q.C. (Queen's Counsel); he was awarded this honour in 1989.
Frank Mascarenhas (of Paris, France)
Born on 8 June 1923, Frank Mascarenhas is the senior-most of the participants from abroad. He passed out of St. Aloysius High School in 1939. He then studied aeronautical engineering and joined Tata Airlines in 1945 - this became Air India following Independence. He was transferred to England in 1961. In 1965, he left Air India and joined Pan Am - based in Paris, and has lived there ever since. When Pan Am closed in 1975, he joined the French private airline UTA which later merged with Air France. He is now settled in Paris.
Edgar D’Souza (of Montreal, Canada)
The son of Rosario ‘Ross’ D’Souza, a Mangalorean employed in Zanzibar, and Mary nee Alva (first cousin of the late Joachim Alva, freedom fighter and later the first Mangalorean MP), Edgar passed out of St Aloysius High School in 1945 and Interscience in 1947. A Mangalorean pioneer in the New World, he graduated in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University in 1950. He later obtained another degree in Industrial Engineering. Since 1955 he has been in Canada. He founded Fibracan Inc. in 1963, and established joint venture operations in USA, UK, Japan, the Carribean, and the Middle East. He sold his interests in 1981 and got involved in real estate in Canada and Carribean, including a resort hotel in Antigua.