On 2nd June, 2008, with the words “I hand over my House to you”, Rohit Varghese, Pope House Captain 2007-2008, handed over the Pope House flag and all responsibilities. Last year was a remarkable one for Pope House as we celebrated our 75th anniversary and paid homage to our patron Dr. G. U. Pope, beginning with the release of the 2008 edition of our House Magazine Cottons Prathibhimb with the theme “Celebrating 75 years of grandeur”. Within one week, we started off with the Inter-House Cricket. Both the junior and senior teams were completely in high spirits and completely motivated but luck didn’t favour us and our players couldn’t showcase the amazing batting and bowling skills to the best of their abilities. In the senior school debate, our debaters Milind (10th standard) and Aditya (9th standard) displayed extreme professionalism, setting a high standard for 16 & 15 age debaters with both securing 1st positions in their respective categories. In the ISC category, Michael and Chiranth did their best but some others were better.

The middle school elocution was a really major event for all of us, as we had put in a lot of effort in training the kids. All the hard work paid of well and we were victorious in 6th, 7th & 8th, with Kiran and Sidhant Gupta securing 1st and 2nd positions in 6th, Shounak Roy securing 1st in 7th and Sharan securing 1st in 8th.

After a disappointing cricket, our hopes were high as table tennis started because the quality of our players was excellent, some of them even being state players. A tough selection process was conducted by Sumit of 12th and we had a strong team ready. Both the seniors and juniors met out expectations by finishing 2nd in their respective categories, placing us 1st overall in TT. The winners in senior category were Sumit and Jimmy, both of 12th and Amog and Nishant, of the 10th standards. The junior team was represented by Nishant and Druva of the 8th standards.

In the Inter-House Swimming, Aditya of 5th standard bagged 7 medals but we failed to secure one of the top 3 positions.

As Sports Day approached we selected our House platoon from the 9th to 12th classes, after an exhaustive selection process. They were given further training by NCC cadets Dharamveer, Nanda Kumar, both from the 11th standards and Sharma and Vivian, from the 10th standards. We also assigned some of our students to help the teachers in tent decorations. Selections for the various athletic events were single-handedly managed by our Deputy Sports Captain Manoj Sanker of the 11th standard with a little help from Vice Captain Mudit of 12th. The combined efforts of these committed Popeians and an unstinted support from each of our house teachers helped us secure an overwhelming win. In the Inter-House football, our exceptionally talented senior team, captained by state player Ericson, beat the opponents by a huge margin and was successful in securing 1st in the senior category while in the junior category we were hit again by bad luck.

The Inter-House Music brought into light the deep passion Popeians have towards music. We had a smooth win in the Rock category in which our band members Suhrid, Prakhar, Rahul Joshi, Sidharth and Aditya Belagudu moved the audience to “headbang” to the tunes of “The Day That Never Comes” by Metallica. We managed a 2nd place in the pop category and were placed at the 3rd position at the end of the event.

With the Inter-House dramatics, we concluded the 2nd term. This year the theme of the competition, being Shakespearean plays for the senior school, one act comedy for the middle school and musical for the junior school, was very different and challenging. Enacting Mark Antony’s funeral speech of Julius Caesar to the Romans was well appreciated by the judges and audience alike and we secured the 1st position with the prestigious Sivaji Ganesan Best Actor Award being given to Shyam S. of 12th for portraying Mark Antony. In the middle school category too we secured 1st with the script “Rinse the blood off my toga”, a spoof on Julius Caesar but the junior school musical failed to make the required impression and we tied with Pettigrew for the 1st position overall.

Heartfelt thanks to all the teachers of the House, especially Mr. Kulkarni our Housemaster, for their continual support. I would also like to express my gratitude for my fellow Popeians for their unconditional, genuine support. A special mention of Mudit without whose persistent help my captaincy would not have been successful.

Having had to lead Pope House over the span of a year has changed the way I think, act and react. I can only imagine what it must be like for leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill and Dr. Manmohan Singh. I leave a small advice to my readers: “Do not limit your challenges; challenge your limits. Being born with a personality is an accident, but living as a personality is an achievement.”

-Shyam S.

Pope House Captian 2009