Woodstock School Alumni Magazine Vol CIV, 2011

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18 - Quadrangle A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends…The appointed day has come—the day appointed by destiny. Without detracting from what that night meant for modern India, you, too, are at the eve of independence. You have been plodding along step by step, from grade 9 to grade 10, from first semester to second, from Day Three to Day Four, from homework to exam, from IGCSE to AP—it all seemed gradual. But now you’re at a watershed event. In one day you’ll move from child to adult. The words “in school” will no longer apply to you. This is a time to remember. Remember where you came from—your parents, your home, your land. Remember where you are now—what you have learned and shared at this school. And remember your Creator, the one who appoints a time for everything that happens and makes everything beautiful. One final word: when you leave this place, you, too, will not be forgotten. As you join the ranks of Woodstock’s distinguished alumni, we will…remember you. Dale Seefeldt attended Woodstock as a student from kindergarten until his graduation in1964. After completing a Bachelor’s degree in classical languages at Houghton College he joined the Army and was stationed in Okinawa as a radio decoder. He then returned to US where he completed a Master’s degree in linguistics at Northern Illinois, and a Master’s degree in Theology at Wheaton College. In 1976 he moved back to India, where, over the next 22 years, he completed a number of projects including a complete translation of the Bible into Hindi. He also served on the Woodstock School Board of Directors during this period. In 1998 he joined the Woodstock staff as head of the ESL department, and over the next 11 years, he assumed the position of Head of High School for four years, and ended his career at Woodstock as the Head of Foreign Languages. During his time at Woodstock, Dale also taught religious education classes. He now works in Atlanta, Georgia, doing pastoral work with St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church. Do you have a nomination for the Distinguished Alumni Roll? We’d like to hear from you – alumni@woodstock.ac.in 2011 Gabriel Campbell ’65, Tom Alter ’68 2010 Ashoke Chatterjee ’51, Margaret Loehlin Shafer ’56 2008 Bob Fleming Jr. ’54, Chris Anderson ’74 2007 Bhavenesh Kumari Patiala '50, TZ Chu '52, Dorothy Irene Riddle '60, Robert E. Scott '62 2006 Mark Kenoyer '70, Frank Mayadas '57 2005 Marty Alter Chen '60, Richard Brown '58, Gerry Williams '42 2004 Brig. Hukam Singh Yadav '38, Smt. Nayantara Sahgal '43, Dr. Frederick S. Downs '49 2003 Dr. Robert C. Alter '43, Dr. Robert B. Griffiths '52, Dr. Carl E. Taylor '32
Commencement address Jalabala Vaidya Quadrangle - 19 Dear Principal Laurenson, Members of the Board, Distinguished Guests, Mr. Ben Lall, all the members of the faculty and staff: thank you for asking me to be here today to share this important step in the lives of the graduating class of 2011. I speak to you all, you lucky students of Woodstock School who have chosen to make Woodstock their Alma Mater, their ‘generous mother’ to guide them in their learning and the formation of their characters and personalities, and specially, the class of 2011 for whom I am here today to wish Godspeed in your lives, and to say with Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, and in the words of T.S. Eliot, ‘fare forward travelers’. As many of you must know I am an actor, an artist, an entertainer, a person who makes you laugh and cry, to make you, the audience, aware of the meaning and the value of your existence. I am an artist who follows the path of Indian classicism, an outlook not conditioned or restrained by religion or any other sectarian consideration, but by a sense of the beauty of totality, that which is both manifest—creation, and that which is formless—unknowable, not perceivable by our five senses (or their extensions, like microscopes and telescopes), but nonetheless there, and also present in each one of us. Which does not mean that God, and we, do not laugh. ‘For God’s sake, God, are you God or aren’t you God?’ a character in one of my husband, Gopal Sharman’s films, asks. We both began our grown up lives as journalists in Delhi, though Gopal had trained to be a classical singer and I had enjoyed and excelled at theatre in school and University. We met as journalists. A couple of years later (we were married by then) a fairy tale took over our lives! Gopal was editing Sunday edition of the Indian Express newspaper, the Sunday Standard,. Every week end he wrote a piece for the paper under the pseudonym Nachiketas, a character from the Upanishads. It was either a story or a poem and I thought they were very beautiful. I was in love of course, which you might say could have influenced my judgment. One day a search was instituted for Gopal by the renownend scholar and intellectual and President of India, Dr. Radhakrishnan. He had recently had a cataract operation which had made him miss several Nachiketas pieces and he wanted the poet to come to Rashtrapati Bhavan and read them aloud to him. Gopal asked me to read his pieces aloud because he said I was a better reader. The President and his distinguished guests listened with rapt attention. Every now and then the President would stop me to explain to his guests how beautifully Gopal had used a difficult philosophical idea expressed in this or that Upanishad. They loved it all. Dr. Radhakrishnan said to me, you can’t just do this for us. The writing is so beautiful and modern and young, and yet based in our traditional thought! Many, many people should hear this. I have to tell you that the President was amazed to find that Gopal was young, North Indian, wore slacks and a turtle-necked tee and moved around the city on a bicycle, with a little Hermes typewriter. A few days later, the President arranged for us to perform at the Azad Bhavan auditorium in Delhi on Friday the 13th of January. We called our show ‘Full Circle’, Gopal’s poems and stories recited by me, and songs sung by Gopal. And here is the Fairy Tale bit. To the performance came not only the critics who wrote fulsome praise in their reviews the next day, but also several Ambassadors and we were invited to bring ‘Full Circle’ to Rome, Belgrade, Zagreb and Lubljiana! So we set forth to conquer the world or at least Europe with our stories and poems and songs. And so we did! Rome, Belgrade, Zagreb, Lubljiana led to the Vatican, Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels, London! Rave reviews, front page pictures, full houses, proper theatres and television programmes too! The Fairy Tale happened for two unknown young Indians. We earned enough money to buy ourselves a shiny black VW Beetle and travelled through Europe soaking in the delights: Florence, the Alps, a Wagnerian opera in Munich, La Boheme in Zagreb, a musical in Lubljiana, Brecht play in Frankfurt, performing at the Theater Poeme in Brussels. The Writers Club in Belgrade, Spumanti wine, Rhine wine, dancing and drinking all night while men at nearby tables toasted me by smashing their glasses on the floor and calling out ‘La Bella Indiene’. Most wonderful of all: performing, performing, people listening to Gopal’s words. Communicating a sense of beauty, willy nilly a sense of India and Gopal’s beautiful voice making me cry real tears as he sang the Kabuliwala’s Ae Mere Pyare Watan song and as we ended with Iqbal’s Sare Jahan se Accha, Hindustan Hamara. And this brings me to something I have been told about, that in the Class of 2011, there are quite a few of you who are thinking seriously about taking up one of the arts as a profession. The arts, whether painting, sculpting; film, television, photography; acting, directing; dancing, choreography; music, classical, instrumental or vocal, Indian or Western; or rock and metal, pottery, laser shows, installation art whatever—the arts all have several most important things in common. To practice an art you have to learn the craft of it. The craft often means a great deal of drudgery, like learning lines, for instance, or practicing scales. Hours and hours of work. No cheering audience, just hard, lonely work. If you don’t have the craft you do not have the means to communicate what burns inside you to be told. If you don’t have a passion that burns inside you to communicate something most dear, most true to you, forget it. Most people are happiest with the security of a regular job, the assured income, the well worn path upwards, the well earned retirement, the annual increment, the annual vacation. Yes, there is stress here too, fierce competition, office or business politics, family entanglements. But it is the better path for most of us, and not to be derided. Then too, each life has its opportunity for a moment of bravery, of true sacrifice, of true love, of the elation of having made the right, the dharmic choice.
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Page 4 and 5: 2 - Quadrangle Swan song: from the
Page 6 and 7: 4 - Quadrangle November: Just So st
Page 8 and 9: 6 - Quadrangle April: Easter chapel
Page 10 and 11: 8 - Quadrangle I Remember Woodstock
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Page 14 and 15: 12 - Quadrangle Back on the hillsid
Page 16 and 17: 14 - Quadrangle Ajay Mark ‘71 …
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Page 47 and 48: Class of 1942 RUTH GILSON NYCUM onl
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Hopkins, considering specializing i
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1980s Jottings Class of 1980 After
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Class of 82 in Bangkok- Parit Phand
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pilot’s rating to explore the wor
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Quadrangle - 89 Declan 5 Henry & El
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Wedding party of Pritica Shah '95 D
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2000s Jottings Class of 2000 VIDUR
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Tanushree '01 and Rajat Agarwal the
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• FISHER, GLEN, husband of LORITA
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Woodstock School Alumni Magazine Vol CIV, 2011

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