The Doon School

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The Doon School

Motto	Knowledge our Light
Established	September 10, 1935
Head Master	Dr. Kanti Bajpai
Location	Dehra Dun, India
Students	approximately 500
Masters	approximately 58
Homepage	http://www.doonschool.com

The Doon School is a public school and a boarding school located in Dehra Dun in India; today, it is perhaps India's best-known school. The influence of Doon's alumni (who are known as Doscos), and the strength of its old boy network has been compared to Eton, [2] Harrow, [3] and Andover.[4]

Doon's first Headmaster was Arthur E. Foot, a former science master at Eton. Foot had never visited India before accepting the position, and his first action was to recruit J.A.K. Martyn from Harrow as his deputy. Doon's distinctive style and philosophy were set early in its life, as another master, Jack Gibson, summarized in a letter to parents in 1940:

... each boy... must train himself to think clearly so that he will be willing to come to conclusions that may be different from what he has expected and may point to something different from what we were brought up to believe to be the accepted order. He must train his body to undergo hardships and be prepared for unexpected discomforts, and above all he must awaken and sharpen his sympathies for and understanding of people outside his own class and circle.^[1]

1 History
2 Overview
3 The boys and campus
4 Doon School Headmasters
5 Doon School trivia
6 Other perspectives
7 Notable alumni
8 External links
9 Notes

[edit] History

Doon was one of India's first "public schools." It was conceived by Satish Ranjan Das, a barrister and a member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India during the British Raj.

S.R. Das helped raise funds, and support, for a new school - one that was in the tradition of English schools, but which also cultivated a uniquely Indian identity. Mr. Das set up the nonprofit Indian Public Schools (IPS) Society in 1929, in order to organize and establish the school. Unfortunately Mr. Das died in 1928, before he could see the fruits of his vision, but his wife and friends continued to collect funds to help establish the school.

On September 10, 1935, seventy-two boys moved into the ivy covered, red brick buildings vacated by the Imperial Forest College. The school was formally inaugurated on October 27, 1935, by Lord Willingdon, who was then the Governor-General of India, and thus the school celebrates Founder's Day in October of every year.

[edit] Overview

Doon follows the House System, with five administrative units, or dorm-like houses, named, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kashmir, Oberoi and Tata. Each house is run by a housemaster, who is assisted by a senior boy known as the House Captain. There is one senior boy who serves as School Captain, and he is assisted by School Prefects from each of the houses. In addition, there are two holding houses, Foot and Martyn, named after former headmasters, where new students typically live for one year before they move into the main houses.

Doon has idiosyncratic slang typical of a public school, including toye time (study time in the evenings), tuck shop (for purchasing snacks), change-in-break (a particularly annoying form of punishment), quis-ego, bags (dibs), lend (sycophant), scopat (ambitious to a fault), don't die (just kidding), sneak (tattle tail), vella (idle), kallu (ha! got ya! so there! as you can tell, it's tough to define) and many others. Many boys acquire a nickname which often attaches for life, and can see variations of the same assigned to younger brothers and even sons of those boys who later attend Doon.

Doon School's Main Building

The Doon academic year starts at the beginning of February, and the first Term (or semester) lasts four months to the end of May. Halfway through the Term, the boys take a one-week Midterm - a rugged trip and/or adventure often through the Siwalik Hills or Himalayas - which senior boys take unaccompanied and which they plan entirely on their own. This includes camping out in tents, cooking their own food and trekking for hours everyday. The fall Term starts at the beginning of August, and lasts till the end of November, once again with a Midterm break halfway through the semester.

The school awards, among other honors: School Colours, various sports Colours, and the Games Blazer. The school has no valedictorian, instead, the highest academic achievement is the Scholar's Blazer, awarded to only a handful of boys every year who meet the rigorous academic and extracurricular requirements of that particular honor.

[edit] The boys and campus

A goal of the school is to provide young Indians with a liberal education, and to instill in them a respect for the ideals of secularism, discipline and equality. The campus is stunning, the sports and science facilities are first rate, but the student's lives might be considered almost monastic. While seldom appreciated during their education, this asceticism is a source of much pride among the alumni.

Boys Saunter Outside the Main Building

To house the school, the Indian Public Schools Society acquired Chandbagh Estate in Dehra Dun from the Imperial Forest College and Research Institute. The IPS also acquired an adjoining estate from the descendants of Col. Skinner, which forms the part of the Doon School campus known as Skinner's Field. Today Doon spans 69 acres (280,000 m²), and has approximately 500 students between grades seven and twelve.

The school counts among its old boys the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as well as a long list of members of parliament including Sanjay Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Mani Shankar Aiyar, and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Rajiv Gandhi (ex 259K '60)

Naveen Patnaik is the Chief Minister of Orissa and Amarinder Singh is the CM for Punjab. Other alumni include the ex-Governor of Pakistani Punjab Lt. Gen. Jilani Khan, as well as the former secretary general of the government of Pakistan Rafiq Akram.

The writers Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, journalists Prannoy Roy and Karan Thapar, film actors Roshan Seth and Chandrachud Singh, Academy Award nominated director Ashvin Kumar, Bunker Roy, and renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor, are all Doon School graduates (a.k.a. ex-doscos).

The vast majority of Doscos are Indians, but a dwindling number are from Pakistan: they studied at Doon before Partition forced them to leave in 1947. Bangladeshi boys continue to study at the school even today, as do boys from Nepal. In 1998 The Chand Bagh School was established by Pakistani Doscos approximately 40 km north of Lahore, Pakistan.

[edit] Doon School Headmasters

Doon viewed using Google Earth

A.E. Foot
J.A.K. Martyn
C.J. Miller
E.J. Simeon
Gulab Ramchandani
S.R. Das
John A. Mason
Kanti P. Bajpai

[edit] Doon School trivia

Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore was chosen as The Doon School's school song in 1935. The song was adopted by India as the national anthem in 1947.
Arthur E. Foot, the first headmaster of Doon, was an older brother of Michael Foot, a former leader of England's Labor Party.
The first Indian Rhodes Scholar was a Dosco.
In Salman Rushdie's East-West Stories the characters Zulu and Chekhov are Doscos.
In Kiran Doshi's Birds on Wings the central character Abhay is a Dosco.
Doon has no commencement ceremony. As and when they've finished their board exams, the boys just leave. Over half of Doscos attend college outside of India. [5]
In the 1950s two Doscos climbed the Matterhorn wearing cricket boots (they descended using crampons).
Doon's traditional rivals are Mayo College and Sanawar. Alumni of Doon have been Principals of Mayo and Sanawar, but not the other way around.

[edit] Other perspectives

Doon School Chronicles: a series of ethnographic films made by David MacDougall between 1997-2000 that study the unique culture of the school.
Constructing Post-Colonial India: National Character and the Doon School by Sanjay Srivastva is a detailed sociological study of the school's culture and how it has influenced modern notions of India's national character.
The Andover of India? Graduates From Doon Score Top U.S. Jobs The Wall Street Journal June 3, 2006.
Class Up at Doon Outlook Magazine, April 17, 2006.
Liberal Streak Financial Times January 2, 2004.
Climb Every Mountain] The Hindu Feb 24, 2002.
India's Old School Tie: The Harrow by the Himalayas The New York Times November 12, 1985.

[edit] Notable alumni

Doon's first headmaster, A.E.Foot, wrote in 1942: When you leave the school you have probably already decided on the next step in your career. What is going to be your outlook? Are you going to use your equipment and your opportunities in order to secure as much as possible of wealth and power and influence with the great? Is it your ambition to be a successful member of an acquisitive society? Do you hope your education will enable you to get more from your country or give more to it? Will the monument you leave behind you (for you cannot take it with you) be a palace on Malabar Hill or will it be built up in the hearts of the people you have served? ^[1]

Film