One of the most cosmopolitan and reputed colleges of Mumbai, Sydenham, which was established in the year 1913. History may not be one of the courses offered at Sydenham but its story is one. Since 1901, Mr. K Subramani Aiyer had dreamt of establishing an institution totally devoted to education in commerce. He took the help of people like Sir Vithaldas Thackersay, Sir Dinshaw Vachha and Sir Manmohandas Ramji.
In 1907 Lord Sydenham of Combe - arrived on the shores of India, as Governor. He was instrumental in making the ’’Bachelor of Commerce’’ degree a reality on 22nd October 1913, with Mr. K. S. Aiyer as honorary Principal, merely four part time lecturers and a hundred students, chosen out of three hundred applicants, the Government College of Commerce was inaugurated in the Elphinstone College buildings. The college in located in the heart of Bombay’s very own Churchgate, makings it accessible even to a suburban dweller.
It is housed in a strawberry pink building with large classrooms and an even larger audi. The building’s pretty big already, but considering the number of students who want to get in, it could be bigger. Why pink? Hah, that’s something Sydenhamites themselves don’t know!. Why Sydenham? It gets its name from Lord Sydenham of Combe, the governor of Mumbai, who had a hand it setting it up. Sydenham was the first Commerce college in all of Asia.
In the years to come, it grew to be the best, too.
It enjoys a reputation that would put even the best of colleges to shame. Time magazine rated Sydenham as the ’Best Commerce College this side of the Suez.’Any negatives? It’s a government college, so red-tapism is redundant.
Any big names from here? Actually, there’re too many of them.
kumaramanagalam birla -industrialist hrishikesh mafatlal- mafatlal group, deepak parekh- chairman HDFC, uday kotak-vice chairman kotak mahindra ltd, Nimesh kampani- investment banker, JM morgan stanley madhur bajaj- bajaj group Harsh mariwala- chairman, Marico group Dipak ghasias-CFO, i-flex solutions Ltd. Alok kejriwal- CEO, contests 2 win.com Vikas kasliwal-skumars group Komal chhabria- Shaw wallace group Zubin dubash -Indian Hotels co.Ltd H.S billmoria-Tata Infomedia Ltd. Ashok vaswani -CFO, citi group Keki dadiseth-ex CEO HLL and now in UNILEVER Homi khushrokhan-CEO, Tata Tea Pradip shah- founder CRISIL and now member BSE Anup maheshwari- fund manager, DSP meryll lynch Sandhya bhimani- Navdeep chemicals Vijay malhotra -KPMG Narayan verma-CA, chairman bombay charterd accountants society Dr. jagdish bhagwati-economist ashok desai -editor, THE TELEGRAPH and columnist.
ACTORS &ACTRESSES - Vinod khanna, juhi chawla, hrithik roshan, uday chopra, rahul bose, sameera reddy, ritesh sinha, aditya hitkari, swapnil joshi. Other famous alumni include penaaz masani , lymaraina d souza, ex- miss india, naina balsaver-ex-miss india, Aditya chopra -film director, T.A pai .K.K pai , Omar abdullah, bhupen kakkar shiamak davar etc.
They’re very talented. They’ve been carrying home the Overall Trophies of Malhar, Kaleidoscope and other fests for a long while now. Absolutely blinded by their love for extra-curriculars, they can’t see beyond their societies.