Excerpts from Leela Narendran’s welcome address on the
143rd School day
On behalf of the National Boys’&
Girls’ Education Society and our Lady Sivaswami School, I extend a hearty
welcome to each & everyone present here to celebrate our 144th
School day. A very special welcome to our chief guest Honourable Justice
K.Chandru. Our president Sri.T.R.Mani
will tell more about Justice K.Chandu.
Nevertheless, I want to share with you briefly about our friend, and to be more
specific about my family friend Chandru. He was a welcome visitor to our house
during his college days in Vivekananda College. Our two sons nick named as
‘mischief mountains’ by the neighbours used to wait for him & listen to his
talks as if mesmerised. We were watching his subsequent career as a Student of
Law, as a practicing lawyer and later as Justice Chandru. As an advocate, he
appeared for a number of human rights cases, cases relating to Press Freedom
etc. He consistently championed the cause of the under privileged. He always
had a point of view, a little different from the conventional, that concealed a
rebel within him. My husband and I used to eagerly go through his judgements
and often subject them to critical analysis and are amazed to agree that he
continues to be the rebel with a cause. Immediately on becoming the Judge, he
did away with the colonial mace carrying practice and notified that advocates
are not to address him as ‘my lord’. In other words he proved himself that he
is one among us & no different even when holding a high judicial office. His
judgements, I felt always reflected the common man’s simple logic of natural
justice – always clear, definite & in easily understandable language,
reflecting the socio-economic ground realities as felt & experience by the
common man - and with a human touch. I
am happy that, but for the stature & wisdom gathered Justice Chandru is no
way deferent from that young college student Chandru, I knew.
Our School born in 1869, grew out of
the firm conviction of many of our enlightened citizens of yester years with
foresight, to impart education to girls irrespective of social, economic,
religious and caste barriers. Even after
a long 14 decades, we take pride that we continue in the same tradition and our
motto remains ‘empowerment of the girl child through education’. To be a little
frank we do not negate admission to students even on their academic
deficiencies. We admit every child who seek admission. We strongly believe that
for a comprehensive development of the human personality & to equip the
growing children to face the challenges of present day life, class room
education alone is not adequate. Hence our school activities are oriented to
give the students, training in various fields of interest leading to total
personality development as could be understood from the report that will be
presented by our HM. Smt. Ruby Puthotta.
In spite of various constraints we
face, we achieve good academic results in the Board Exams – this year we
achieved 95% results both in X and XII grades. Credit goes without doubt to the
devoted services of our teaching & non-teaching staff.
