The glory and the struggle

Sun, Nov 8 06:06 AM

To say that St Bede's College—covered in pristine rhododendron, pine and spruce trees—has been featured in several scenes in Bollywood movies like Kya Kehna, Black and the forthcoming Aamir Khan film The Three Idiots, is to scrape the mere surface of its star quotient.

Set up in 1904, India's oldest girls-only college boasts illustrious alumni, right from Dev Anand's wife Kalpana Kartik to India's Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar, to actress Preity Zinta. Of late, though, the college has been trying hard to reach out to some of them for help. Following a government decision to withdraw aid, the college is faced with an immediate threat of closure.

After it was decided six months ago that the grant the college had been receiving from the government was to be shared by several private institutions that had come up in the state in the last couple of years, St Bede's launched a campaign, seeking the assistance of its alumni. "We are more sthan 100 years old. Our students are based all over the world. They have been doing their best to help us out," says Sister Molly Abraham, the principal. She adds, however, that the lack of response from Preity Zinta was disappointing. "She spent a lot of time in this college. She attended Chelsea School here and graduated from St Bede's. But we haven't heard from her in our time of distress," she says.

The college has had the rare distinction of being visited by all four members of the Beatles. In the photo gallery is a picture of a very young Benazir Bhutto along with her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi in the college campus. Other prominent visitors have included former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Edwina Mountbatten.

The college had faced a similar crisis in 1967, but the then chief minister YS Parmar had intervened. State Chief Secretary Asha Swaroop says, "We have taken a decision to release the grant-in-aid to the college. A new formula has been worked out and notification would be issued soon."

"We haven't yet received a formal intimation from the government about whether our request for a grant has been approved or not. We are concerned. This is a largely philanthropic institution," says the principal.

Inside News

Editor's picks