I have just stumbled upon that photo in the Royal College Curepipe Friends group on Facebook.
What can I say? The photo brings back a lot of fond memories. Having spent eight years in the college, I had the pleasure to have a lot of them as teachers. Let me try to remember their names:
- Miss Dupont (who really understood immature boys),
- Miss Gopaul (Ruby or Castafiore pour les intimes),
- Mrs Runghen (one day I will remit to her the tens of French essays due…),
- Mrs Nabheebuccus (who I didn’t have as teacher but who, as you can easily imagine, we were all appreciative of…),
- Mrs Jeewoolall (who did Social Studies with us),
- Mrs Chunnoo (who was the mum of one of my classmates),
- Mrs Girdhari/Fulena (who we all revered when we were Form I kids),
- Mr Mungur (a very nice Economics teacher who I still meet from time to time),
- Mr Subadhu (an excellent Chemistry teacher who knew how to deal with rebels),
- Mr Boolaky (whom I liked a lot even though I don’t remember what subject he taught),
- Mr Ng Wong Hing (an excellent Physics teacher who now is at the Ministry of Education),
- Mr Law Pak Chung (who was my Biology teacher in Form V),
- Mr Beeharry (Carlos pour les intimes who I am ’cause we are related),
- Mr Ramsurrun (the very well known Hindi teacher — he saw very very little of me…),
- Mr Harmon (the hood aka wood teacher),
- Mr Amandine (the desperate music teacher who played guitar really well),
- Mr Saverethiar (a very severe Maths teacher),
- Mr Mawjee (an English teacher if my memory is right)
- +
- Mr Wan Hok Chee (a formidable Maths teacher who does not seem to appear in the photo)
And, of course, the rector and his deputy:
- Mr Gopaul (who was instrumental into making us Royalistes. I distinctly remember him coming to our Form I class on admission day and telling us: “You are the future of the country”. From very early, we were groomed to (depending on the point of view) become spoiled brats or people with the capacity to contribute a lot for the development of Mauritius.)
- Mr Rampadaruth (the enforcer of discipline except that, if I remember correctly, we all knew how to disappear when he got near. But I have to confess that he managed to get me twice: (1) when I was in Form II, I left school on the sports day to go and play Pac Man. A friend, Henri, told him and he came to fetch me. I got a Saturday arrest. (2) In Form IV, I showed Hansley how to break the legs of a table to fabricate a drum kit. For some reason, he gave both of us an arrest for “damaging school property”.)
I wonder whether it would be possible to organise something where we could all meet again. Maybe for the next Old Royals meeting?