Amitabh Bachchan And My Brothers

All The World's A Stage At Sherwood College

This school photograph, taken in 1958, of the Senior Cambridge class at Sherwood College, Naini Tal, has apparently been doing the rounds on the internet with the subject field ``Guess which one is Amitabh Bachchan’’. It was sent to an old family friend, Leslie Mukerjea (nee Hartnett), a former Miss India who competed in the 1974 Miss International pageant in Tokyo. (As a sporting aside, Leslie is married to former Wimbledon competitor Chiradip Mukerjea, who won a bronze medal at the 1978 Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand).

Leslie immediately spotted a familiar face in the photograph – my brother Keith, 15 years older than me. Struck by the coincidence, she immediately forwarded the email to my brothers and me. My older siblings, Keith, Michael and Brian all went to Sherwood College, whereas I went to North Point, Darjeeling instead.

Just for the record, the famous actor is the image on the left; my brother Keith is the student pictured on the right. And I must point out that among the many photo albums in our family, we have historic pictures of Amitabh and Keith on stage together, in a Sherwood College production of the play `And Then There Were None’. We even have a poster from the play; I think Keith was one of the school artists who helped produce the poster.

The link goes a bit further, because Amitabh’s brother Ajitabh was in the same Sherwood class as my brother Brian. Another classmate of theirs was a certain Kabir Bedi, who made a name for himself not only in Bollywood, but in Hollywood as well. If memory serves me right, he even played a role in the famous TV soap opera `Days Of Our Lives'. I’m sure each of those classmates has an interesting story or two to tell about the others!

And this other picture, displayed on the left, shows Amitabh (seated, left - but you knew that, didn't you) at a recent Sherwood College reunion. The lady beside him, in the sari, is my sister-in-law, Linda. Behind them in the dark blue suit and red tie, is my brother Michael, a highly decorated fighter pilot and vice chief of the Indian Air Force.

I'm not entirely sure if another distinguished former student, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, was present at the reunion. Must have been an amazing school, Sherwood College.