The Doon School

The Doon School
Address
The Mall Dehradun , Uttarakhand , 248001 India
Information
School type	Independent School
Motto	Knowledge our Light
Founded	September 10, 1935
Founder	Satish Ranjan Das
Chairman of Governors	Analjit Singh
Headmaster	Dr. Peter McLaughlin
Faculty	67
Gender	Boys
Age	13 to 18
Number of pupils	480
Campus	69 acres (280,000 m²)
Houses	5
Colour(s)	Blue and White
Publication	The Doon School Weekly The Circle Echo
Former pupils	Doscos
Telephone	91-135-2526400
Website	www.doonschool.com

The Doon School is an independent boarding school located in Dehradun in the state of Uttarakhand in India. Established in 1935, it was founded by Satish Ranjan Das. Its first Headmaster was Arthur E. Foot, a former science master at Eton College.

The school has 480 students, graduating classes number about 80, and the total number of alumni who have graduated, since the school was founded, is estimated at 5,000.

There are 67 teachers, of which 15 are women, with a teacher:student ratio of 1:8. The school offers 120 scholarships, including partial and full financial support, and approximately 25% of the students benefit from financial aid. Doon is a boys-only school; the only girls who have studied there have been the daughters of schoolmasters. Since 2008 the school has begun to teach the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme following the trend set by other public schools.

The 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.

History

Doon owes its founding to S.R. Das, an eminent lawyer from Calcutta who, in 1927, became Law Member of Lord Irwin's Executive Council on the condition that he might use the prestige of this position to raise funds for a new type of public school in India. He traveled widely in India with a goal of collecting Rupees 40 lakhs, but at the time of his death had raised only Rs. 10 lakhs in cash, and another Rs. 10 lakhs in promises. Mr. Das also formed the Indian Public Schools Society with the object of founding new public schools in India that would admit students without regard to caste, creed or social status. (In a technical sense, the IPSS "owns" The Doon School although the school operates independently.)

Following Mr. Das's death in 1928, the IPSS did not accomplish very much and by 1934 some of the donors of the Rs. 10 lakhs had started to inquire about the return of their money. At this point, Sir Joseph Bhore, then Railway Minister of Lord Willingdon's Council, became Chairman of the IPSS, and with Sir Akbar Hydari as Secretary, worked to obtain from the former estate of the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun on favorable terms. Lord Halifax, then President of the Board of Education, lead a selection committee that picked Arthur E. Foot, a science master at Eton College to be the first Headmaster.

The Houses at the new School were originally named for their respective housemasters, but later renamed to honor the largest donors to the Indian Public School Society:

• Hyderabad House, after Sir Akbar Hydari secured a contribution of Rs. 2 lakhs from the Nizam of Hyderabad's Government.
• Kashmir House, after Maharajah Hari Singh promised a contribution of Rs. 1 lakh which was delivered in 1935.
• Tata House, after the Tata and Wadia Trusts promised Rs. 1.5 lakhs, of which half was delivered in 1935.
• Jaipur House, after Rai Bahadur Amarnath Atal arranged for contributions of Rs. 1 lakh from the Jaipur Durbar and smaller contributions from the tributary Thikanas.

(No building was named after Rai Bahadur Rameshwar Nathany whose donation of Rs. 1 lakh was initially made anonymously.)

On October 27, 1935, the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, came to preside over the formal opening of the school. There were 70 boys enrolled in the first term, and another 110 boys had signed up for the second term.

Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore was chosen as the school song in 1935; the song was later adopted by India as the national anthem in 1947. Consequently, Jana Gana Mana is traditionally referred to as "School Song No. 1" at Doon, reflecting its position in the School's song book, rather than by its formal name or as the national anthem.

Ethos

Arthur Foot had never visited India before accepting the position, and knew little of Dehradun beyond what he found after consulting an atlas: he noted that it appeared to be surrounded by forests and close to mountains, and the possibilities of outdoor recreation and mountaineering appeared to have influenced his decision as much as the chance to create a completely new type of school in India.

Foot's first action upon being offered the position was to recruit John (J.A.K.) Martyn from Harrow as his deputy. Doon's ethos and guiding principles were determined early in its life by Foot, Martyn, RL Holdsworth and Jack Gibson (who went on to become Principal of Mayo College). While these masters all came from very traditional British schools, they were determined to create a uniquely Indian public school rather than a transplanted British institution, and they were soon joined in their efforts by equally influential Indians such as Sudhir Khastigir (the school's first art teacher, who had trained previously at Santiniketan) and Gurudial Singh (a pioneering mountaineer, who taught at Doon for several decades and acquired a reverential following among generations of alumni).

In an essay entitled The Objects of Education published in the school magazine, Foot outlined the basic template for a Doon education:

A complete education should teach a child:

1. to be able to distinguish between good and evil;

2. to form the habit of choosing good rather than evil;

3. to have his brain trained to think logically;

4. to have a reasonably wide general knowledge of important facts about the world in which we live;

5. to be able to express himself clearly in speech or in writing in the language or languages of the people with whom he will work;

6. to have a body that is healthy, strong and vigorous, and to know how to look after it;

7. to have developed a sensitiveness to beauty and taste and feeling that will strive to eradicate ugliness from his surroundings.

In other essays, Foot marked the milestones in the development of each student:

By 14 he should have learnt all the ordinary principles of social behavior. He should know how to stand up and speak to a variety of different types of people -- to his own mother, to someone else's mother, to his father, to his schoolmasters, to servants, to Mahatma Gandhi or to the Viceroy, and to do this without any self-consciousness... At fourteen a boy should have constructed a framework of competence in language, in mathematical ability, and in social behavior. After that age he is, as it were, filling in a design to the framework. In short he learning to exercise taste... At 16, he acquired taste, a sense of the beautiful and the ugly, of the strong and the weak, of good and evil... At 17 must come another quality, less instinctive and requiring a maturer mind: he must acquire a capacity for judgement.

In a letter to parents, written in 1940 in the context of World War II, Jack Gibson wrote:

There are still too many boys blind to what they could see and deaf to what they could hear. They leave their minds blank, to be filled by the unbeautiful and untruthful, by unscrupulous propaganda, by debased public taste, by flattery and by appeals to fears and prejudices, to which a person without a mind of his own turns for second-hand and usually second-class opinions... When they leave school, they will join the ranks of those whose opinions are made for them by dictators, party leaders, or the writers of advertisements for patent medicines: it will depend upon what rut they get into... In these anxious times, it is more than ever important that 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.

Martyn, who became Doon's second Headmaster and had a continuing involvement with Doon over several decades, acknowledged the influence of Kurt Hahn in the development of Doon's ethos:

I do not think I would ever have come to India if it had not been for that very remarkable German Jew, Kurt Hahn... When I first knew him I was teaching history at Harrow and he was head of Salem, a school he had established on the shores of Lake Constance, based on the ideas of Plato and the principles of British public schools... I longed to put his ideas into practice but at conservative Harrow I had no opportunity to do so. When I read in The Times that A.E. Foot of Eton had been appointed headmaster of a new public school to be opened for Indian boys at Dehra Dun, I offered to come with him and my offer was accepted... I had no previous interest in India; what interested me was the chance of starting a public school in a new environment... It was Arthur Foot who did the main planning, but luckily his ideas ran parallel to my own. I would not have been as bold as he was in trying to eliminate punishments, but we were equally keen on providing as wide a range as possible of activities that were creative and challenging... The problem, as we saw it, was to create an atmosphere in which boys would learn the importance of public spirit at the same time as they acquired self-confidence and initiative.

The campus

The school consists of a single campus, covering approximately 70 acres (280,000 m²) in the city of Dehradun in the state of Uttarakhand in India.

To house the School, the Indian Public Schools Society acquired Chandbagh Estate in Dehradun from the Forest Research Institute. Part of the estate, where the Central Dining Hall is now located, was once a deer park. The IPSS also acquired an adjoining estate from the descendants of James Skinner, which forms the part of the campus known as Skinner's Field. At the time of acquisition, Skinner's was an overgrown and somewhat neglected estate, and its most prominent features were two sheds formerly used for housing elephants.

The new Art and Media School, opened in October 2010 by Kapil Sibal, was nominated for an international design award in a competition run by World Architecture News in London. The school’s South Garden has been mentioned in Inside Outside Magazine’s Annual Awards for its green principles and GRIHA standards of environmental compatibility.

Life at Doon

Pupils

Pupils are known as Doscos; the term is a contraction of "Doon" and "School". (Alumni are often referred to in the press as "Doscos", although within Doon itself alumni are referred to as ex-Doscos, or simply as Old Boys.)

The vast majority of alumni are Indians, but a dwindling number are from Pakistan: they studied at Doon before Partition forced them to leave in 1947. Relations between Indian and Pakistani Doscos have remained warm over the years, despite the long history of conflict between the two countries. Boys from Bangladesh and Nepal continue to study at Doon.

Doon remains a boys-only school despite continued pressure to become coeducational. A small number of girls, all daughters of schoolmasters, have studied at Doon over the years.

Terms

The academic year has always consisted of two terms: the Spring Terms and the Autumn Term. In the early decades, the academic year followed the calendar year; this changed in the late 1970s so that the Spring Term now runs from February through the end of May. New pupils ("D-Formers") join Doon at the beginning of April.

The Autumn Term runs from August through November, with year-end examinations in November after which the boys are promoted to the new class beginning February. Traditionally, year-end examinations were known as Trials, with the examinations that granted various certificates such as the Indian School Certificate known as Finals.

Boys return home for the summer vacation (Summer Hols) and winter vacation (Winter Hols) which run between the Spring and Autumn Terms, respectively.

Forms

Grade levels are referred to as Forms and are designated by letters, and pupils are often referred to by their grade levels, e.g. a "D-former" is a pupil in "D Form".

In previous years, pupils enrolled at the age of 10 or 11 in "E" or "D" Forms, typically after having spent time at a preparatory school (most commonly, Welhams). Boys would take a Common Entrance Examination that was required for placement at Doon and similar boarding schools, such as Mayo.

Today, pupils typically arrive at the school at 13 years old, having sat the Entrance Examination and given an interview to gain a place at the school. Pupils at the school are aged between 13 and 18 years old. The various Forms at Doon as as follows:

• F Form: Fifth Grade (now defunct)
• E Form: Sixth Grade (now defunct)
• D Form: Seventh Grade. Pupils in this year are 13–14 years old. They undertake a wide ranging curriculum and at the end of the first year they pick an extra language to study in C Form. During the D Form pupils get to try out all the extracurricular activities on offer at the school. They can choose from Design & Technology, Swimming, Bicycle Club, Junior Dramatic Society and many others.
• C Form: Eighth Grade
• B Form: Ninth Grade. The first year of the ICSE course. Pupils undertake the ICSE courses in English Literature, English Language, Maths and Science. Pupils are allowed to select additional subjects to study, from a list that includes French, Western Music, German, Drama, Physical Education, Geography and History. Pupils must study at least one language other than English.
• A Form: Tenth Grade. The final year of the ICSE course. It is also the most senior year in the lower school. Pupils take mock ICSE examinations in December before undertaking their public ICSE exams in the summer.
• S Form: Eleventh Grade. During this year pupils begin their International Baccalaureate and ISC studies. This form marks the transition from the Junior school to the Senior school.
• Sc Form: Twelfth Grade. The Sc (Senior Cambridge) Form affords extra privileges for pupils, such as getting individual study rooms and some more freedom in the form of extra Day Outings to go into town. Pupils are normally at least a House Prefect, which means they are in charge of performing certain house duties. This is the final year of ISC studies.
• Sc-Leaver Form: the final two months in the school. Pupils in this year undertake ISC examinations and do not participate in any school activities. They return to school only to sit the examinations. It is in this term that the pupils are registered with the The Doon School Old Boys' Society (DSOBS) before leaving the school in early April.

Houses

Doon follows the House System, with five administrative units, or dorm-like houses, named, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kashmir, Tata, and Oberoi. In addition, there are two "Holding Houses", Foot and Martyn, named after former Headmasters, where "D-Formers" live for one year before they move into the main houses.

(For a couple of decades, beginning in 1970, each of the main Houses was divided into two smaller Houses, named "A" and B", so that Kashmir House, for example, became Kashmir-A and Kashmir-B. This was done to increase the level of pastoral care. The Houses were subsequently merged back together so that the "A" and "B" distinctions are no longer used.)

Each house is run by a Housemaster, who is also an active member of the teaching staff. Housemasters are assisted by a senior boy known as the House Captain. One senior boy serves as School Captain and is assisted by School Prefects from each of the houses. Boys are assigned to Houses at the time of admission, and develop great loyalty to their Houses since all intramural sports involve fierce competition between Houses. Boys with even the most distant family connections to a particular House are invariably assigned to that House in order to further promote loyalty to the House. For some alumni, inter-House rivalry continues well into middle-age.

For many decades, Housemasters were always men but now there are Housemistresses as well. Housemaster and Housemistresses are assisted by a matron known as "The Dame" of the House in providing important pastoral care for pupils, some of whom take several terms to fully adjust to life in a boarding school, particularly given Doon's monastic lifestyle and strict regimen for daily life. Housemasters and Housemistresses live in homes that are adjacent or physically attached to their Houses so that they can remain close at hand for both supervision and support.

Each House also has a set of House Tutors who supervise Toye (an obscure term for evening prep that originated at Winchester College) during the week, take the younger boys on mid-term hiking trips, and also tutor members of the house.

Each main House accommodates 80-90 boys, and the holding Houses are home to 40-45 newly-admitted boys.

Kashmir House

• House Colour: Sunglow Yellow
• Symbol: Maple Leaf (known as Chinar), representing the trees common to the Kashmir Valley.
• Housemaster: Mr. Anjan Chaudhury, since 2010

Kashmir is a quad-based House, centrally located facing the Main Field. It shares a wall with Hyderabad House. The building is one of the oldest structures and Houses at Doon.

Hyderabad House

• House Colour: Persian Blue
• Symbol: Court Headdress, representing the crown of the former Nizams of Hyderabad.
• Housemaster: Mr. Biren Chamola, since 2009.

Hyderabad House is attached at one end to Kashmir House, and overlooks the Main Field. Hyderabad and Kashmir Houses are identical in architecture, having originally been built as a single unit.

Tata House

• House Colour: Red
• Symbol: Warrior Helmet, embodying the True as Steel motto which, in turn, reflected the origins of the Tata family's wealth in the steel industry.
• Housemaster: Mr. Harinder Chakhiyar (2009-)

Tata originated as Barrit House in 1935, when the boys were based in the rooms that now part of Kashmir House. Mr. Barrit lived in Chandbagh Villa, which eventually became the Tata House Housemaster’s residence.

Jaipur House

• House Colour: Green
• Symbol: Eagle
• Housemaster: Mr. Sanjiv Bathla, since 2009

Jaipur House was originally known as Thomas House and moved into its present buildings on 27th of March 1937, which were substantially refurbished a few years ago.

Foot House

• House Colour: None
• Housemistress: Ms. Priyanka Bhattacharya, since 2009

Foot House is a holding House.

Martyn House

• House Colour: None
• Housemistress: Ms. Stuti Kuthiala (2009-)

Martyn House is a holding House.

Oberoi House

• House Colour: Royal Blue
• Symbol: Bird
• Housemistress: Ms. Purnima Dutta (2009-)

Oberoi House is the newest House of all, having been established in 1995 to accommodate changes in school cohorts that resulted in some boys from the same cohort leaving Doon earlier than others, in order to pursue different paths for post-secondary education.

Daily Life

Individual class periods are referred to as Schools. The school day begins with First Bell soon after 6:15AM (and, indeed, a series of hand-rung bells punctuate daily life for the boys). The boys get chhota haazri before doing calisthenics outdoors on the playing fields. There are two schools before breakfast, followed by five schools before lunch. All meals are served in a Central Dining Hall and boys from each table take turns acting as waiters for their table-mates.

The afternoon includes a rest period as well as time devoted to various extra-circular activities. In the later afternoon there are compulsory sports before dinner.

Dinner is followed by Toye time when the students do homework and study on their own. Lights Out is at 9PM and breaking bounds to sneak into town late at night remains a tradition.

While the grounds are beautiful, with gardens and rare trees, life for boys is monastic: they sleep on narrow beds and study in unheated rooms; the floors are rough stone and the lights are fluorescent tubes.

Discipline has always been strict, and the school has expelled chidren from well-known families. In the 1950s Headmaster J.A.K. Martyn's suggestion that Sanjay Gandhi finish his senior year elsewhere was unquestioningly accepted by his mother, Indira Gandhi. In contrast, Doon's decision to expel a ward of Chief Minister Nityanand Swami of Uttarkhand in 2001 resulted in threats to cut off power and water (nothing came of these threats after Mr. Swami discovered that Doon had stronger political connections than he did).

Sports

Doon hosts the annual Afzal Khan Memorial Basketball Tournament which is the biggest inter-school basketball tournament in the country. The tournament has since achieved international repute and is now popular among South-Asian countries. The school has over 30 acres (120,000 m²) of playing fields. The two biggest playing fields are known as Skinner's and the Main Field. Sports are a compulsory part of school life: cricket, hockey, athletics, boxing and football are seasonal sports. Tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, basketball, swimming and gymnastics tournaments are also available.

• During the Spring Term, the sport curriculum is dominated by Cricket and Hockey.
• During the Autumn Term it is dominated by the Soccer, Athletics and Boxing.

During the Terms, various Inter-house matches are played in Cricket, Hockey and Football.

Facilities

Sports facilities include:

1 Olympic-size Swimming Pool

1 Olympic-size Boxing Ring

Indoor Sports Hall

2 All Weather Astro Turf Pitches

1 state-of-the-art Pavilion

5 Basketball courts

5 Tennis courts

4 Squash courts

1 Gymnasium

10 Cricket nets

7 Hockey fields

7 Soccer Fields

4 Cricket pitches

Indoor Table-Tennis Courts

Indoor Badminton Courts

Overseas Tours

The school also goes on overseas tours. Recent tours have included:

2009- Stowe School, UK - Cricket

A number of alumni have become national champions in squash. (See main article.)

Clubs and Societies

Extracurricular activities are also a compulsory element of school life, and there are around 23 clubs and societies including debating and chess, and magazines are published in English and Hindi. In many societies pupils come together to discuss a particular topic, presided over by a master and often including a guest speaker. Some societies are dedicated solely to music, some to politics, some to drama, and so on. The school has often invited prominent figures to give speeches and talks to the students; these have included heads of state and politicians; ornithologists and naturalists; artists and writers; economists and diplomats; and industrialists.

The Doon School Weekly is the official school newspaper and is distributed every Saturday morning. It chronicles school activities and is a platform for creative and political writing. It was founded in 1936 and is edited by boys at the school. Although liable to censorship, incidents of satire and criticism of school policies have surfaced in the past. More subversive publications have been produced in the past, without official sponsorship, that were far more critical of teachers and the school establishment.

Other school magazines include The Yearbook, The Doon School Information Review and the publications produced by individual departments such as Echo (Science), The Econocrat (Economics), Infinity (Mathematics) and The Circle (Political Science).

Social Work

Social work, known formally as Socially Useful Productive Work, is also part of school life, based upon Foot's precept that "the boys should leave Doon School as members of an aristocracy, but it must be an aristocracy of service inspired by ideas of unselfishness, not one of privilege, wealth or position." All boys of the school must complete a mandatory quota of social service hours every term.

Both pupils and alumni have frequently organized efforts, across India, to assist people affected by the earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and floods. During the 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake, for example, when all communication lines were down, the school’s HAM radio club joined hands with the state administration and aid-providers to set up channels of communication with the base station. Following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the Doon School Old Boys Society organized an extensive relief effort to deliver relief supplies in southern India.

Doon runs a Panchayat Ghar where Doscos teach underprivileged children. Doon has, over the years, adopted villages and worked with the villagers in the construction of houses, community centres and school buildings; sanitation systems; energy efficiency systems; self-employment and small scale irrigation systems. Apart from village development, the school is actively involved with the Raphael Ryder Cheshire International Centre and the Cheshire Home.

Doon is a regional leader of the Round Square group of schools and regularly participates and hosts international service projects. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award programme, which is run by the School, provides additional incentive for pupils to undertake service projects.

Midterms & Mountaineering

Halfway through each term, the boys take a one-week Midterm: a rugged trip often through the Siwalik Hills or Himalayas which senior boys take unaccompanied and which they plan themselves. This includes camping out in tents, cooking their own food and hiking. Alumni have credited these Midterms as being among their most formative and character-building experiences while at school since they require a great deal of self-determination, planning, effort and endurance, particularly for boys who go on five-day treks in the Himalayas unaccompanied by any teachers. ("Jamming" a midterm, which involves sneaking off to an unauthorized destination such as a city offering greater attractions than a remote mountain, continues today although the consequences of being caught are severe.)

Doon has been credited with pioneering mountaineering in India, thanks to the considerable talents and efforts of masters such as RL Holdsworth, Jack Gibson and Gurudial Singh, and alumni such as Nandu Jayal. Notable climbs by Doscos include Bandarpunch in 1950, Kala Nag (6,387 meters) in 1956, Trisul in 1951, Kamet in 1955, Abi Gamin in 1953 and 1955, Mrigthuni (6,855 meters) in 1958, Jaonli (6,632 meters) in 1964,Mt.Everest Base Camp in 2008, Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2009, and both Gran Paradiso and Mont Blanc in 2010.

Expeditions by Doscos have had their own idiosyncrasies: after Gurudial Singh lead a successful climb of Trisul, he performed a headstand asana on the summit as a tribute to the Hindu god Shiva who is said to abide within Trisul; Holdsworth has been described as holding the high-altitude record for smoking a pipe, which he did on the summit of Kamet after the first ascent in 1931; and, as a lark, two Doscos climbed Mont Blanc in 1951 wearing cricket boots.

Music and Drama

Music

Ms. Priya Chaturvedi is the current Head of Music. The Music School includes the Music Hall, the Piano Room, Violin Room, Vocals Room, Tabla Room and a Music library). Many different instruments are taught, including traditional ones such as the Santoor. The school participates in many national competitions; many pupils take the Trinity Guildhall Music Examinations in Piano, Violin and Classical Guitar. A Dosco placed first in the country in the Grade 8 Piano category in 2010.

Drama

An amphitheatre known as The Rose Bowl (and, today, nicknamed "Rosy") was built largely by pupils in the 1930s. The Rose Bowl can seat up to 1,000 people and has been the setting for numerous Shakespearean plays, other classics of Western theatre as well as musical performances and speeches during important school ceremonies such as Founder's Day. The Multi-Purpose Hall is a more modern indoor theatre that can accommodate approximately 2,000 people.

The pupils stage plays in English and Hindi on a regular basis: there are 8-9 productions each year, including 2 major productions that are part of the Founder's Day celebrations. The Junior Dramatic Society stages one or two plays a year.

Every year all Houses participate in the Inter House One-Act Play Competition which is directed, produced and staged by boys of respective Houses. The Founder's School Plays, staged in the Autumn Term, are the most prominent events, and usually benefit from a larger cast and budget.

Awards

The school awards include School Colours, House Colours, and various Sports Colours. The Games Blazer and the Scholar's Blazer are awarded to students who excel at sports and academics, respectively, and are much harder to achieve than the other Colours.

The school originally had no valedictorian or commencement ceremony and boys would leave as soon as they had completed their board exams. In March 2011, an annual ceremony was established to celebrate the graduating class's departure from the School.

Doon Jargon & Slang

Doon has slang typical of a public school, as well as jargon that is idiosyncratic. Many boys acquire a nickname which often attaches for life, and can see variations of the same assigned to siblings, sons, and even grandsons who later attend Doon. The following is a representative sample of slang that is used widely in school:

• Blue Card

A punishment given to junior pupils for contemptuous behaviour towards the senior pupils.

• Bog

Toilets and restrooms in the school.

• Chambers

A weekly meeting of the staff and the Headmaster, usually held on Wednesdays, to discuss educational and staff-related matters.

• Chit

A note from a housemaster or house tutor. Chits are given by a Housemaster for a number of reasons. Pupils can receive a late work chit to give to their teacher, a bad chit for poor or incomplete homework, an Outing chit to allow them to visit the town, a G-Store chit for purchasing something from the school shop known as the General Store, which is added to the cost of the school fees.

• Change-in-break

A particularly annoying form of punishment where a student has to run to and fro his house to the tennis courts to get 3 or 4 signatures from a prefect on his punishment chit, while wearing a different uniform each time. The challenge is to complete the rounds, including the changes in clothing, under 15 minutes.

• Chupps

This term is used to refer to slippers and comes from the Hindi word Chappals.

• CR

Each house has a Common Room with a well-stocked library. Pupils can use the Common Rooms to watch television, play table-tennis and rehearse for upcoming plays and music competitions.

• Detention

A full school uniform detention is given as a punishment to pupils who arrive late to lessons. To the annoyance of many boys, it is scheduled on a Sunday morning.

• Don

A term used in jest for senior teachers of the school who think very highly of themselves.

• Don't die!

Far from its literal meaning, this expression means "just kidding!".

• Dosco Record

The Dosco Record is a list of all pupils and staff. Pupils are listed in year group order, house order and form order.

• Ex-Doscos

Ex-Doscos are Old Boys of the school.

• Extra-PT

A punishment given to boys by prefects of the school. As the name suggests, it means "extra" Physical Training which can include: Sprints, Jogs, Duck-walks, Frog jumps, T-position, Push-ups, Crunches, etc.

• Gating

A term used when a pupil has been caught breaking the school rules and their punishment is to be gated. Gating is issued by the Housemaster. The duration of the gating depends upon what the pupil has done. If a pupil is gated he is not allowed to visit the town on Sundays and traditionally wasn't allowed into the house TV or games rooms. The pupil would be expected to attend all school meals and classes.

• Hospi

The term is contraction of Hospital and refers to the school infirmary.

• Lend

A disparaging term for someone who is considered to be a sycophant and a hypocrite; it has nothing to do with the normal usage of "borrowing".

• Quadi (pronounced quad-ee)

A term used for the quadrangles in the school

• Quis-ego

A way to distribute free or unwanted goods. A person with something he wishes to give away shouts "quis?" (pronounced "kwis", sometimes "kwiz"); the first person to reply "ego" (pronounced "EH-go") gets it. It originates from the Latin terms for "who" (quis?) and "I" (ego).

• Raz

A contraction of razai; it refers to a quilt or blanket.

• Red Card

Known as 'RC', it is given to someone who fails in many subjects in an exam.

• Rosy

The school amphitheatre (The Rose Bowl)

• Scopat (pronounced sco-put)

Someone who is overly ambitious and yearns for gaining status at school. It is often coupled with 'Lend'.

• Skinner's

The playing fields located in front of Oberoi House. They are known as Upper Skinner's and Lower Skinner's. It is rumoured that Colonel Skinner's unmarked grave lies beneath Cricket Nets 8-9.

• Sneaking

Sneaking is an act of complaining to a teacher. A 'sneak' and is considered immature.

• Tog

Used to describe the trousers of the school uniform.

• Toye

Toye is the time set aside in the day for what is more commonly known as homework. Toye runs from 6.00pm-9.00pm (with a half-hour dinner break) during which time all pupils must be in their respective toyes in their houses.

• Tuck Shop

Tuck shop is a cafeteria inside the school which opens every evening to provide snacks to the boys.

• Yellow Card

Known as 'YC', it is a punishment given for reasons like possession of a cellphone, money, alcohol, misbehaving with teachers and bullying juniors.

Founder's Day

Doon's best-known celebration takes place on Founder's Day, a 3-4 days celebration of the founding of the school in 1935. It is held in the Autumn Term, usually in the last week of October.

Many ex-Doscos come from all parts of the world to celebrate the event. Security on campus is tight since alumni attending the event frequently include senior politicians and government officials, and the Chief Guest is usually someone of considerable prominence in public life . The major English Drama Productions are held as part of the event which is followed by a grand Orchestral Music Production organized by the boys of the School Music Society.

Headmasters

• Arthur E. Foot
• J.A.K. Martyn
• C.J. Miller
• Eric J. Simeon
• Gulab Ramchandani
• S.R. Das
• John A. Mason
• Kanti Bajpai
• Peter McLaughlin, current Headmaster

Doon and other schools

Historic links

Welham Boys School, from its foundation in 1937 through the early 1980s, acted a preparatory school (i.e. feeder school) to Doon and Mayo College. This link ended when Surendra "Charlie" Kandhari, a Dosco and former Housemaster at Doon, became Principal of Welham and transformed it to a high school. As a result, many Doscos from the 1940s through the 1970s are also Welhamites.

Doon has long had a familial relationship with Welham Girls School: several families who chose to send their boys to Doon also chose to send their daughters to Welhams, and many Doscos over the years have married alumni of Welham Girls. An annual "dance social" with Welham Girls was the highlight of the senior year for many Doscos, and alumni events are sometimes coordinated by the alumni of both schools.

In 1998 the Chand Bagh School was established by Pakistani Doscos approximately 40 km north of Lahore, Pakistan, and modeled on the general structure of Doon.

Exchange Programs

Doon has exchange programs with a number of overseas schools; at present, a small number of Doscos are attending:

• Eton College
• Harrow School
• Millfield
• Schule Schloss Salem
• The Armidale School
• Bridge House School
• Deerfield Academy
• King's Academy
• Stowe School
• St. Mark's School (Texas)

And Doon is current hosting students from the following schools:

• Ballarat Grammar School
• Brunswick School
• Groton School
• St Edward's School, Oxford
• St. Mark's School (Texas)
• Stowe School

Associations

File:HMC logo.jpg

HMC

The school is a member of the G20 Schools, the Round Square, the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, and the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. The BBC's World Olympic Dreams School Search twinned Doon with The Thomas Hardye School in Jan 2011.

Schools with similar names

As India's private schooling industry expanded, several schools were established that appear to have been named in a deliberately confusing manner: there is the Doon Global School, Doon Presidency School, Doon International School, Doon Preparatory School, Doon Cambridge School, Doon Girls School, Doon Public School (which is not even located in the Doon Valley), and even a Doon College of Spoken English, none of which are related to The Doon School. Some schools have even adopted Doon's idiosyncrasies at face value: for example, the Delhi Public School offers "Marker Cups" to those who get the highest "marks" in examinations; Doon's Marker Cups, which also are awarded to those who score the highest in particular subjects, were named for the Marker family of Pakistan who donated the Cups.

Public Image

Doon in films

• In the movie Aisha, the character named Randhir Ghambir is a Dosco.
• More controversially, the film Dazed in Doon, which was commissioned by the School on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, and produced by an ex-Dosco Ashvin Kumar, was banned because it "doesn't give the school a good name". The dispute remains unresolved between the school and Mr. Kumar. See main article: Ashvin Kumar.

Doon in fiction

• In Salman Rushdie's anthology of short stories East, West, the characters Zulu and Chekhov are Doscos.
• In Kiran Doshi's Birds of Passage the central character Abhay is a Dosco.
• Vikram Seth used his own experiences of being bullied at Doon, to model the character of Tapan in A Suitable Boy.
• The title character in Aminuddin Khan's A Right Royal Bastard is a Dosco.

Doon in research

• Doon School Chronicles: one of a series of ethnographic films made by David MacDougall between 1997-2000 on the 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 India's national character.
• The Waffle of the Toffs by M. Prabha makes a case against writers from Doon, arguing that "the more affluent a writer, the less significant his writing."

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Doon School alumni

File:Rajiv Gandhi.jpeg

Rajiv Gandhi Former Prime Minister of India (Class of 1960)

Doscos have achieved prominence in politics, government service, and the armed forces of India and Pakistan, as well as commerce, journalism, the arts and literature. They include former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, nine Cabinet Ministers, two Chief Ministers, several members of the Indian Parliament and state Legislative Assemblies; a Naxalite; nineteen generals, two admirals and the former heads of the Indian Air Force and the Pakistani Air Force; and twenty-four Ambassadors (including those from India, Pakistan, Nepal and the United Kingdom).

Arthur Foot defined "success" for a Dosco in broad terms, with an emphasis on public service:

Eighteen -- the close of the last chapter, the end of the last examination, the whistle to finish the last game, the last Golden Night, the last good-bye at the railway station. Now it is too late to worry about the things you might have done better at school but you can go out in confidence that evil things will be forgotten and only kindnesses remembered. Yellow cards and Red cards will all be burnt but the Honours Book will be preserved. The goals you scored and not the goals you missed are down in the record... 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?

The writers Vikram Seth, Ramachandra Guha, Vijay Prashad, and Amitav Ghosh, journalists Prannoy Roy and Karan Thapar, film actors Roshan Seth and Himani Shivpuri, social worker Bunker Roy and sculptor Anish Kapoor are all Doscos. Lovraj Kumar was India's first Rhodes Scholar, Abhinav Bindra was the first Indian to win an Olympic gold medal, and Nandu Jayal pioneered mountaineering in India.

• Abhinav Bindra (Olympic medallist, Class of 1999)
  Abhinav Bindra (Olympic medallist, Class of 1999)
• 
  Rahul Gandhi (Politician, Class of 1986)
• Sanjay Gandhi (Politician, Class of 1964)
  Sanjay Gandhi (Politician, Class of 1964)
• 
  Amitav Ghosh(Writer, Class of 1972)
• 
  Anish Kapoor (Sculptor, Class of 1970)
• 
  Kamal Nath (Politician, Class of 1964)
• Vijay Prashad (Academic, Class of 1985)
  Vijay Prashad (Academic, Class of 1985)
• 
  Aroon Purie (Publisher, Class of 1962)
• 
  Bunker Roy (Social Activist, Class of 1962)
• Karan Thapar (Journalist, Class of 1971)
  Karan Thapar (Journalist, Class of 1971)
• Vikram Seth (Writer, Class of 1970)
  Vikram Seth (Writer, Class of 1970)
• 
  Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (Politician, Class of 1989)
• 
  Malvinder Mohan Singh (Industrialist)
• 
  Karan Singh (Politician, Class of 1948)

References

Other Sources

• The Dosco Record is a book of short biographies, similar to what may be found in a Who's Who, which was first produced by J.A.K. Martyn who deliberately modeled it on the Harrow Record. (Martyn had been a schoolmaster at Harrow School before helping A.E. Foot start The Doon School.) As a consequence, alumni are listed in the year in which they joined Doon, rather than the year in which they graduated; Martyn believed that this would make it easier for Doscos to look up their friends. The book is updated every 8 years or so, and is published by the The Doon School Old Boys Society ("DSOBS") and distributed only to alumni. It includes biographical information about every Dosco (even people like Sanjay Gandhi who was expelled before completing his studies); it also highlights family connections between Doscos such as whether a particular Dosco was the son of another Dosco, or married the sister or daughter of another Dosco.
• The Rose Bowl is a periodic newsletter that contains alumni news, obituaries, reminiscences, etc. It is produced by the DSOBS and distributed by post to all alumni; a PDF version is also sent by email to alumni.
• The Doon School Register is published, every few years, by the DSOBS. It includes the contact details of every Dosco; deceased alumni are noted as such. Also included are the small number of "Associate Members" (honorary members) of The Doon School Old Boys: for the most part these include former teachers; also included are people such as Salim Ali who had been frequent visitors to Doon and were considered to be part of the Dosco fraternity.
• Doon, The Story of a School, edited by Sumer Singh, published by the Indian Public Schools Society 1985. This (somewhat slim) book was distributed to alumni and contains essays, reminiscences, and stories about the founding of the Doon School.
• The Doon School -- Sixty Years On, edited by Pushpinder Singh Chopra, published by the DSOBS in October 1996. This book is similar in many respects to Doon, The Story of a School, but much larger.
• Constructing Post-Colonial India: National Character and the Doon School by Sanjay Srivastva, published by Routledge 1998.

External links

• Website of The Doon School
• Website of the Doon School Old Boys Society
• The Doon School Official Facebook Page
• The Dosco Network on Ning
• Pictures of Doon on Flickr
• The Doon School on Facebook
• Doon School Alumni on Facebook
• Remembering Jack Gibson

Doon in the press

• Old boys' clubs of Doon School, IITs, IIMs, Harvard and others mean more than just databases The Economic Times; September 4, 2011
• How the playing fields of Doon nurture India Inc's best leaders The Economic Times; November 5, 2010
• Boys will be boys Hindustan Times October 26, 2010
• 75 Years of Doon School NDTV October 22, 2010
• The school that breeds Indian medal winners BBC October 11, 2010
• A storied prep school sees old ways erode... Associated Press June 16, 2007.
• 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.