Mike was the oldest of the Stones who rolled thru SMS - 3 younger brothers David, Ian and Gavin (after my time) and cousin Edward who was there for a couple of years. He joined in 1965/Class V and was a year senior to me until he finished in 1971.
My memories of him are mostly of his last year in 1971. So this is not an obituary as much as a recollection of incidents with him.
My first real interactions with Mike were in 1969 when we were both in St. Patrick's B Div. He was our hockey goalkeeper and I was always yelling at him for letting goals be scored!!
He was elected a special Captain in 1971. My impression is of a guy who took that responsibility seriously and had a sarcastic communication style.
As with most guys with a last name of D'Souza, I was nicknamed "Dasu" early on. By 1970/Class IX that had been shortened to "Das". At the start of 1971, Mike changed it to "Vas" for reasons known only to himself! Strangely it was adopted by many. Perhaps he preferred the rhyme to "with the grassy arse" as he used to tease me! Anyway to paraphrase the other - Mike Stone couldn't break my bones and his names never hurt me!
After the Easter Sunday night movie in 1971, my Class X embarked on a hike from school to Abu Road station. We returned the next day by State Transport bus and got back to school by 11:30am. Since there was half hour to kill before lunch I decided to take a nap. The next thing I knew was someone shaking me awake. It was Mike Stone. I groggily asked "Has lunch bell rung?" He replied "Dinner!". So thanks to him I didn't miss 3 meals!
In September 1971 the school hired a Western Railway athlete Nicky Ferrao as coach for A&B Divs. On his first evening Nicky told us it was important to always warm up and asked us what we did. I immediately stuck up my hand and said we ran to Toll Bar. To the horror of everyone, Nicky who had no idea where Toll Bar was, said everyone should run there and back. Some guys dodged that "warm up", some took the full 2 hours of sports time to do the roundtrip, and some like me (for some foolish reason) ran down and up the Paddy's Bridge slope in both directions! That "warm up" of course wasted the first evening of Sports practice.
That night I returned to the dorm around 10pm after the extra optional hour of study time for the senior classes. Most of the dorm was already asleep since lights were out at 9:00pm. I got into bed and immediately fell into a semi-sleep state being exhausted from the evening's sports practice. Then the cramp bit viciously into my right thigh!! I screamed at the top of my lungs. Panicked classmate Tyronne Mendes whose bed was on my right and few other guys thought I was dying, jumped out of their beds and came over to check.
Someone asked "What's wrong?" Having become fully awake and aware of the pain by then, I truthfully replied "I've got a cramp". Tyronne says in disgust "Go run to Toll Bar, it'll get better!" and got back into his bed. The rest of the guys dispersed. Only Mike Stone stayed and positioned my leg so the cramp eased up. He hung around for a while to make sure it wouldn't cramp again!
Art teacher Jeroo Khambatta's husband was refectory manager in 1971. One night after dinner a bet arose for one rupee where he challenged Mike to eat a big serving bowl of mashed potatoes. Mike took his time and won the bet while Khambatta watched in amusement. But no sooner had Mike swallowed the last spoonful and become so heavy, that the badly designed dining table (with vertical instead of slanted legs and attached horizontal cross-beam sitting bench) tilted and crashed over on his side making a mess of broken crockery, spilled water jugs and cutlery.
In 1972 Mike's younger brother David, a year junior to me, was my St. Francis House Captain.
I last met Mike 10 years after he finished from SMS at the May 1981 wedding of his classmate Chris Desa. He was the best man.