Parle Tilak school to honour accomplished alumni

The 90-year-old Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association, which runs three schools in Vile Parle (E) teaching nearly 10,000 students in all, will felicitate accomplished alumni from the city on Saturday as the Marathi-medium section gets ready to move into a new, larger building in the same compound.

The 90-year-old Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association, which runs three schools in Vile Parle (E) teaching nearly 10,000 students in all, will felicitate accomplished alumni from the city on Saturday as the Marathi-medium section gets ready to move into a new, larger building in the same compound.

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The Association, an important cultural institution among Vile Parle’s and the city’s, Marathi-speaking intelligentsia, will honour, among others, Nityanand Haldipur, one of India’s finest flautist, who received an award from the Sangeet Natak Academy last year; chess grandmaster Raghunandan Gokhale; and Ajit Pai, a former cricketer who has represented India a few times.

It will also felicitate a male and a female teacher and a non-teaching staff member. Air chief marshal Pradeep Naik will be the chief guest.

Begun in 1921, after the death of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the 4,500-student strong Marathi-medium school is the oldest of the association’s three schools, and is well-known for producing rank holders in the Class 10 state board exams.

The SSC-affiliated English-medium school was begun in 1982, with an ICSE stream added in 2008. The Association also runs the Paranjpe Vidyalaya, another Marathi-medium school located in between Vile Parle and Andheri.

On Saturday, the school’s alumni association, formed earlier this year, will also launch a website to help former students keep in touch with one another.

A few days before the demolition of the old school building begins, a group of students took pictures of their friends standing before a bust of Lokmanya Tilak at the entrance.

Some former students, such as Hemant Rane, 20, were also milling about. Rane’s entire family studied at the school and his grandfather was a non-teaching staff there.

“I am thinking of bringing my grandfather to the function,” he said. “He can see one last time the building in which he worked for many years.”

Rane’s friend Sumit Shewale has come from Ratnagiri to see the building and attend the function. “After we left school we wanted to keep in touch, but never ended up doing it,” he said. “When we found out about the building, we decided we must meet at school.”