Fwd: Thank you Bryan!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au>
Date: Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 8:15 AM
Subject: Fwd: Thank you Bryan!

 

Bryan,

 

Your description of what's happening to the Lucknow Martiniere makes one's blood boil! It sounds like it's time for Old 

Martinians &  friends of Constantia to develop a strategy to take back the estate that Claude Martin left us! If Azim is still

alive, it would be informative to get his & Elton's insights as to how all this happened & what steps can be taken to rectify

the situation.

 

I'm copying Martinian Satish Bhatnagar, Lucnow author of Bright Renown, Gautam Kaul, Dr. Vijay Mohan Kohli, Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Ambassador Raghunath, Warren Cox, Trevor Gillibrand, Andrew Buck, Rosie Llewellyn Jones, Roley Sharpe, 

Clayton Roberts, Len Wylde & Geoff Allen to see if cooler heads can prevail and craft a strategy for truly restoring Constantia & the original

campus. It seems that stewardship just went by the wayside!

 

Sincerely,

 

Bryan

 

Bryan Cooke 

DG 5440 (2010-2011)

1933 21st Avenue,

Greeley, CO 80631

Ph. 970-353-8303

---

From: Bryan Macdonald <bustermac@uwclub.net>
To: bryan cooke <cookesahib@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sat, April 24, 2010 2:28:32 AM
Subject: Re: Alfred Cooke's 1965 Dog Fights



Dear Bryan,

Knowing LKO as well as I do - I am a born and bred Naqlavi - I believe it is the ideal place to spread the restoration of Constantia gospel.  However, I know that the bigger threat to The Mart is in the school estate, where there is severe encroachment from all sides and it is now about half the size it was when I was there. This is caused largely by the population explosion in Lucknow which is now a city of anything between 3 - 5 million, with many coming there from lawless Bihar.

As a result of this both Martin Purwa and Jaimur have expanded beyond all recognition - they are like a small town now - and Fairydale now has a hamlet within the grounds too. The Golf Club have increased their buildings tenfold and even now built a wall around them, and claim prioroty over much of the land which we used to use for cricket and hockey.  The very powerful State governor is building a heli pad there - may even have done so by now - and a security estate with several houses for her bodyguards. The estate is used for all manner of grazing animals, and now used as a driving test site too.  WHAT REALLY IRKS ME IS THAT NO ONE SEEMS TO HAVE THE POWER OR THE WHEREWITHAL TO STOP ALL THIS, and the problem intensifies every time I go back.

 

For this reason I believe that a close watching group needs to be set-up in Lucknow to keep an eye not just on the rstorative work but also the estate. One of the Pachauri brothers is high up in an environmental group helping to preserve parts of Lucknow, he could be asked to chair a group of some powerful and very committed Old Martinians in Lucknow.

 

To this end I follow with a list of some of the possible candidates. They are all passionate about the School and most live in LKO or have family there whom they visit regularly. They are :

 

Maj. Gen. Bijan Cornelius

Col. Ravi Grover (lives in Bangalore but spends a lot of time there)

Prem Bhargava (descendant of Newal Kishore)

Professor Sadiq (was in my class and then known as SS Khan. A great friend of Colin Buck's. He is also the direct descendant of the last Newab of Awadh, Wazir Ali Shah. You probably remember him as a day scholar who used to come to school in a phaeton drawn by two matching steeds!  If he refuses to help tell him I'll cutlouse him!!)

The Rana Sahib of Khajurgoan (he is one of my mum's babies as she brought him into the world.)

Bhushan Thapar.

Wally Beg

All the deRozarieux family who consist of several prominent ex-martinians and know LKO backwards.

Zubair Ahmad (whom you know. he can open several channels. e.g. he knows the builder about the bloody bund that I mentioned to you before.)

 

Of course there are many, many more whom I don't know of who could be drawn in

(N.B. one warning : not all of them like Elton.  By the way Elton is the only Principal of the 5 schools from whom the OMA(UK) gets no response whatsoever)

 

Hope all this helps.

 

Yours in love of our beloved alma mater, Buster