Mumbai: Atul Kasbekar, Rajdeep Sardesai, Dr Amit Anand are among several others from the batch of ‘81 of the Campion School, Fort, Mumbai. Last year, as the batch celebrated 40 years, its ex-students came up with an innovative idea to maintain the legacy of two of their best professors, Joe Sheth and Stanley Gomes.
The class of ‘81 threw up the idea of an essay competition and named it the Sheth-Gomes Essay Invitational. The competition will be open to all grade 10 students of the 30 invited schools situated in Greater Mumbai. The reunited group of students decided to name the event after both of their ‘iconic’ professors.
“In view of the pandemic, we couldn’t celebrate the 40-year anniversary of passing out of the school. However, this year, we collectively thought of giving the Campion School something in return. And what best could we give other than having the chance to immortalise our beloved professors,” said Atul Kasbekar, one of India’s most known photographers.
Mr Kasbekar told the Free Press Journal that the idea of the Nobel Prize made them think of naming the contest after the two of their professors. He added that apart from maintaining the legacy and repaying the institution, “the focus is also encouraging writing talents in schools and among the young."
The batch has accumulated a corpus to mark their 40th year that will adequately fund the winner’s purse of INR 1,00,000 annually. In addition, the winner would get a one-of-a-kind bejewelled trophy designed by internationally renowned jewellery designer Biren Vaidya of Rose.
The Sheth-Gomes Essay Invitational will kick off on November 26th and will see former alumnus Dr Shashi Tharoor as the chief guest. Moreover, alumnus Rajdeep Sardesai will chair the jury, which would include B-town star Twinkle Khanna and author Namita Devidayal.
Advertising great Ashish Bhasin, who is another student of the class of ‘81, said,” As a class, we thought it important to leave something behind that hopefully outlives us. The Sheth-Gomes Essay Invitational should in due course of time be seen as a mini-Pulitzer to unearth brilliant writing at schoolboy/schoolgirl level.”
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