Shimla, (IANS) It was a trip down memory lane for former Pakistani high commissioner to India Humanyun Khan, who visited his alma mater Bishop Cotton School (BCS) in the Himachal Pradesh capital Friday.

Khan is here as part of an eight-member Pakistani delegation that is attending the 150th anniversary celebrations of the BCS.

‘It’s really a homecoming for all of us (former students of the BCS). The visit has really refreshed our memories of our school days,’ Khan told reporters.

The Pakistani delegation arrived here along with around 150 former students Friday evening in a special chartered train from Kalka.

‘This is one of those occasions when one gets nostalgic. I still remember the days that I spent in the school. It’s really a great moment in one’s life to revisit one’s alma mater. The homecoming, after more than six decades for most of us, would be a memorable and historic one,’ said Iftikhar Mullick, another former student from Pakistan.

The former students were accorded a rousing reception by the faculty and students.

School headmaster Roy Christopher Robinson said the reunion of the former students, especially from Pakistan, was a historic one. For them, the school’s Irwin Hall has been specially refurbished.

‘The Irwin Hall has grand old memories. Forty-two boys had left the school for Pakistan by passing through this hall October 22, 1947, (after the sub-continent was partitioned in August that year),’ Robinson added.

BCS was founded by Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton on July 28, 1859, for educating children of European and Anglo-Indian communities.

The famed Shimla school boasts of alumni like constitutional expert Fali S. Nariman, writer Ruskin Bond, golfer Jeev Milkha Singh, former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, former Research and Analysis Wing director A.S. Dulat and Tata group chairman Ratan Tata.

-- IANS