Celebrating our College Community Day

The history of Pontifical Athenaeum Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) can be traced back to 1893 when Pope Leo XIII founded the Papal Seminary in Kandy, Sri Lanka and entrusted its direction and administration to the Society of Jesus.

In 1926, the Holy See elevated the seminary to the status of a Pontifical College with the rights and privilege of conferring the Baccalaureate, Licentiate, Master’s programme and Doctorate in Philosophy and Theology.

In 1955, the Papal Seminary was shifted from Sri Lanka to Pune, closer to De Nobili College, the Jesuit formation House which already existed in Ramwadi, Pune and the then Jesuit Superior supervised. Then it was not only open to the students of the Society of Jesus but to other Religious Congregations as well.

In 1975, the Pontifical Athenaeum adopted the Indian name of “Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth” – “By the kindled light of insight”. Now it is open to all students, race and culture and nationality. Both colleges, JDV and the Papal Seminary have developed a good relationship till now. JDV enjoys the character of a “University” whereas the Papal Seminary functions as a “Formation House” for the training of Diocesan priests.

JDV College


The compound is almost 100 acres surrounded with tress. It is really cooling and unpolluted environment. Whenever I am inside the compound I feel more relaxed and comfortable. Once I am out from this premise I can see the real India with poverty, congestion and pollutions.

The Library


On Friday, 23 September, 2011, our college celebrated a day of community with the theme “Sounds Synchronised to Symphony”. We began our day with a Eucharistic celebration at the Papal Seminary Chapel at 8.30 am. The Mass was celebrated with the Syro-Malabar Rite. It is the Chaldean or Eastern-Syrian liturgy and it is one of the oldest Eucharistic Liturgies of the Church (A.D.200). It has 3 main parts in the liturgy: The entrance rite, the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the faithful (presentations of the Gifts, Eucharistic prayer and the Holy Communion).

I was able to follow the Mass order this time because the whole Mass was celebrated in English and furthermore I had a Mass book where I could focus on each word and rituals used during the celebration. The last part of the celebration was when the celebrant bid a farewell to the Altar. The prayer goes like this: “I do not know whether I shall be coming back to offer the sacrifice upon YOU.”

For me it was a very touchy phrase and very meaningful as well. I told myself that whenever I leave the Altar after the Eucharistic celebration I will make it a point to say this pray and kiss the Altar. When I go up to the Altar again I shall thank the Lord for bringing up me to the Altar and make the celebration more meaningful for the people.

In the evening we all gathered at the hall for the cultural show which was started at 6pm and ended at 8.30pm. The president of the JDV College, Fr Job Kozhamthadam officiated the cultural show and in his opening speech said that with our various cultures in India we should synchronise them in our Christian spirituality as one symphony.

The seminarians, Sisters and Fathers performed various songs, dances, sketches and comedy. They were really wonderful.

The performance by the nuns ... yes these nuns can certainly dance!


One of the songs was a Malaysian song – “Rasa Sayang eh which was sung by the Post Graduate students.

The Rasa Sayang song being performed by the post graduate students ... I just gave them a basic coaching for the song and they did a good job!


There were both traditional and modern dances. The sketches basically brought the elements of education, moral and gospel values such as light and darkness, creation, ecology, evolution and life.

The lightings and sound systems brought more impact to the scenes. It was a fantastic show filled with creativity. It was a truly wonderful experience for me and I felt as if I was in an actual theatre watching a high-class performance.

Despite the heavy schedule of assignments and studies the students really spent time to practice and decorate the hall in order to celebrate and make the JDV community day a truly memorable occasion. The JDV anthem song was played at the closing ceremony.

Weekend in Hyderabad

On 2nd September, my classmates and I left to Hyderabad for a weekend break. Hyderabad is the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It took almost 12 hours journey by bus. It was the first time that I’ve travelled by for such long hours in a bus. It was also the first time that I went out of Pune ever since I came to India.

We stayed at the Church of St Francis de Sales. Our first trip was to visit the Catholic Missionary School runs by the Congregation of Missionary of St Francis de Sales (MSFS). Fr Joy, msfs, is the principal of the school and Fr Rayappa is the procurator. They took us around to the Nursery and Kindergarten classrooms.

The Catholic Missionary School

Celebrating Mass in Hyderabad

The Grotto of Our Lady


After that we proceeded to the Ramoji Film City – which has been certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest film studio complex.

The huge complex consists of 1,666 acres with 47 sound stages. Any normal tour in this film city will at least take a day but we left within 2 hours due to the hot sun.

All pictures below are within the studio location itself:

I was really fascinated with this complex and I had a better picture in my mind on how the film industries produce movies.

Then we left to the old city of Hyderabad to visit Charminar (Menara) which was built in the 1591 and the old university.

Osmania University Hyderabad


Hyderabad is well known with its Biryani. During my two days stay there I had the Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani twice. It was really spicy but I enjoyed it. It is entirely different than what I have eaten in the past especially in Malaysia.

The worse part of my trip was the 15-hour return journey to Pune in a non-air conditioned bus. It was a killer!

My Onum Experience

Cultural festivities is one of the significant celebrations for every ethnic group in many parts of the world. It was a joyful day for the people in Kerala, India as they celebrated their cultural harvest festival which is known as “ONUM” on Friday, 9th September. We, the post-graduate students celebrated it on Saturday, 10th September, due to our classes during the weekdays. Sixty percent of our post-graduate students are from Kerala.

We started our Onum festivity with the Eucharistic celebration celebrated by Fr Biju Joseph Karingalikattil. It was a Syro-Malabar rite Mass. I could only follow the readings and preaching which were in English and the rest of the Mass was in Malayalam. It was a pretty long Mass and I could not understand the significance of certain rites and rituals during the Mass which made me a little confused.

Fr Tommy, in his homily was preached about the legendary King Mahabali who kept his promises alive and fulfilled his name as the great martyr for the sake of Truth – Satya.

On Friday after dinner some of the students started to work on the decorations such as “pookalam” (with flowers) at our dining hall and also had a choir practice to bring more meaning to this cultural celebration.

On Saturday, after our breakfast many of the students were involved in the kitchen work such as cutting meat, vegetables, grinding flour, scrapping coconut, and cooking.

The students from Kerala themselves served the food for the distinguished guests and the rest of the students.

Before serving the food they sang Malayalam songs and had dance performances as well. Some of them came with their traditional clothing. Fr Saji greeted and thanked all the 30 students from Kerala and the others as well for working together to make the event a memorable one.

HAPPY ONUM – “MANUSHARELLARU MONNUPOLE”

Celebrating Eid Mubarak

We, the post-graduate students and staff of Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) celebrated the “Spirit of Eid Mubarak” (Hari Raya Aidil Fitri) with our Kitchen staff on 31st August. Our kitchen staff consists of a Muslim family celebrating their “Eid Mubarak” for the second time ever since the Post-graduate block (PG Block) officially launched in 2010.

Anuar and Family

Despite the festivity, Mr and Mrs Anuar Babu Sheikh and his family opened the kitchen just for the sake of our meals. A month ago the JDV administration had extended their contract for the next 3 years. Today, being a festivity, they offered a special lunch us.

Before the meal, on behalf of all students, Fr Saji (caput- head of students) greeted the family of Anuar and the kitchen staff whereas Fr Dileep Kumar explained how this festivity came about in English and Hindi. Fr Francis Ezhakunnel, Moderate of PG block gave a token of appreciation to Anuar’s family. We all sang a song for the kitchen staff – “Rejoice, All Always and I Say Rejoice.”

They joyfully celebrated by serving us special dishes such as ghee rice, tandoori chicken, payassam, handkerchief tosai and ice-creams. Since it was also Malaysia's 54th Merdeka Day (Independence Day), many of them also remembered to wish me “Selamat Hari Merdeka.”