The Doon School - Public Image

Public Image

Doon in films & television

• The film Dazed in Doon, which was commissioned by the School on the occasion of its 75th anniversary and produced by old boy Ashvin Kumar, was banned from the school because it "doesn't give the school a good name". The dispute remains unresolved.
• In September 2010, BBC Sport made a documentary on the Doon School for the World Olympic Dreams Project. The documentary was produced in association with the British Council. Its main purpose was to show the school where Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian individual Olympic gold medallist, spent his formative years.
• In the 2010 Bollywood film Aisha, the character Randhir Gambhir is a Doon School alumnus.

Doon in literature

• Vikram Seth used his own experiences of being bullied at Doon to model the character of Tapan in A Suitable Boy.
• In Salman Rushdie's short-story anthology East, West, the protagonists Zulu and Chekhov are Doscos.
• In Tenzing Norgay's autobiography Man of Everest, he refers to Bandarpunch as "The Doon School mountain" due to the fact that the mountain was frequented by two Doon School teachers Jack Gibson and John Martyn.

Doon in research

• Doon School Chronicles is the first of five ethnographic films called the Doon School Quintet, made by David MacDougall between 1997 and 2000 about the culture of the School. Macdougall has written of a tendency of some alumni to idealize a Golden Age set in the first decade of the school's life, which sometimes makes them resistant to change.
• Constructing Post-Colonial India: National Character and the Doon School by Sanjay Srivastva is a detailed sociological study of the school's culture and how it has influenced India's national character.
• 'Poor' Children in 'Rich' Schools, a 2005 report by the Institute of Social Studies Trust, discusses why the Doon School has no reservations (quotas for specific social groups) in its admissions process. The post quotes an unnamed student who explains, "passing the Doon School entrance exam means that you have proved yourself worthy of the school. Reserving seats for students seems to imply that the school must prove itself worthy of you."
• In 1969, Asian Survey (then Asian Review) - an Asian studies academic journal of University of California, Berkeley - produced a report on The Doon School as a part of their project which documented Indian history after the entry of East India Company.
• In Indian Tales of the Raj, Zareer Masani studies how Doon School's alumni affected the Indian political scene in the '60s.