The first principal of the school, Mrs. Mehta, was a formidable woman whose kindness to my family changed the course of intellectual and ethical life for both my sibling and me.

Over the years, through financial and other difficulties, Mrs. Mehta, her successor, Mrs. Bhandari, and current principal, Mrs. Wagle, ensured that we would get a world-class education and a deep-seated self-confidence that people remark on wherever we go. Our teachers not only opened the doors to several fields of knowledge, they encouraged my interests and nurtured my leadership qualities.

Whatever good I do in my professional and personal life can be traced back in some way or another to those long-ago classes I took while completing the ICSE curriculum. I also found life-long friendships while working with classmates for annual days, fun fairs, sports days, and on trips to study art, architecture, and other cultural elements in different states across the country. My curiosity, my thirst for learning, and my ability to believe I can always do better are also rooted in the environment created by Jasudben. A poet has said, “If I should die, think only this of me: that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” Replace “England” with “Bloomingdales”, and that would essentially be true for me.

When I think of my school today, I feel it was the best part of my years till now. It prepared me for life and taught me a thing or two about life. Homework was boring, assignments after holidays were tedious. But all this I’d willingly do again instead of writing patients’ insurance claims. My beloved teachers taught me and questioned me every day, which at that time I thought was a pain but now I think its bliss compared to what my life comprises now. If you ask me today, would you go back to your school, I’d scream, “Yes, I would” and run straight to its gate.

My years at JML were absolutely the best foundation anyone could ask for. The quality of the teachers, the friendships cemented, the ethics instilled in me – all of these have stayed with me to date. And in no small measure, have contributed to my value system and my optimism for life today.

Childhood memories are one’s greatest wealth. I entered Bloomingdales as a naive, innocent 3- year-old and graduated from Jasudben as a confident 16-year-old ready to face the world. School was a protective setting, a cocoon where us caterpillars were slowly undergoing a metamorphosis into butterflies. The friendships that hold strong after almost 28 years, the value system imbibed in my essence and the happy recollections from my days at school are some of my most treasured possessions. I do hope our school achieves greater heights in the years to come without losing its ability to keep all its students grounded and humble.

Today as I write as an Indian Police Service Officer, I have my roots strongly entrenched into the soils, values and walls of this institution. Jasudben M.L School has been one of the significant points in my life that has really turned things for me. Clearing the prestigious civil service exam of the country in my first attempt, at the age of 22 all emanates from the values of self-belief, sincerity and hard work that have been instilled into me in my formative years. Schooling has indeed moulded me to believe in making things possible by just laying your mind on it followed by adequate amount of work. JML has been more than just an institution that instils academics. I took back values of inclusivity especially when I saw the warm relations with all our working staff. The school strictly adheres to Vidhya Sheelane Shobhate, ie Knowledge is Adorned by Character. The individual growth based on education and social-ethical values that begins at school is indeed the base stone on which I have grown and will continue to grow. I hence owe a great deal to Jasudben ML. School, its faculty, working staff, its facilities and for everything it has given me and will continue to give scores of students who embrace what the school has to offer.

I have studied in 9 schools and colleges, in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay, known then by their colonial monikers. But ‘school’ to me, even today, is JML – or, as I knew it, Jasudben M L Experimental School. And ‘experimental’ it was! I joined in 1988 in Class VII, after my family relocated from Delhi. I remember sulking for months at the tiny cemented yard, the corrugated roof that leaked during the rains, and the grey pinafore with bib-like flaps in the front AND back, the stuff of nightmares for a tween-in-transition. But by the time I graduated, a proud Class of ’92, I had been redefined, as a student, and a person. By my teachers, my classmates, and my school. I could recite Shakespeare and Byron, scribble out formulae for algebra and inorganic chemistry with alacrity, and was a maestro with history, civics and geography. More importantly, I had become a confident, capable, respectful and responsible young lady, with a range of interests – academic and extracurricular, friendships that have now lasted over a quarter-century, and an eagerness to step out into the world, and on to big things. As I look back now, I realise the importance of all the positive reinforcement, thoughtful advice and genuine affection I received from my strict but always approachable teachers in making me who I am today. A wonderful experience, some of the best years of my life!

The first 13 years of my education prepared me for a journey of lifelong learning. This school has laid the foundation for the person I have become today. With a balance of academic rigour and opportunities to explore interests outside the classroom, it provided the perfect launch to pursue any career. More importantly, it prepared us for the game of life and gave us peers with whom we cherish relationships even today!

JML School – Pure nostalgia. Those were the days! Fun, antics, studies? last!! I owe a debt of gratitude to my school and teachers. Thank you Jasudben for my wife and board of directors – all school mates.