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The Andover of India? Graduates From Doon Score Top U.S. Jobs --- Scholastic Bootcamp for Boys Raises Stars, Faces Change; Gandhi Suffered Here, Too

DEHRA DUN, India -- At the Doon School, near the foothills of the Himalayas, life is spartan. The 500 boys enrolled here bathe together in communal showers. In winter, they pore over textbooks in rooms with no heat. Cellphones are forbidden and parental visits are kept to a minimum.

For 71 years, Doon has supplied India with business leaders and well-known writers such as Vikram Seth. Even Rajiv Gandhi, the late prime minister, suffered the school's famously bad food. Now Doon is taking its uniformed students in a new direction: up the U.S. corporate ladder.

The head of Citigroup Inc.'s North American credit-card business is a Doon alumnus. So too is a Merrill Lynch & Co. senior currency executive. From Raytheon Co. to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Doon is supplying a new old boys' network in an increasingly international business world.

Many of the Doon alumni say they are still driven by the school's humbling culture. Vikram Malhotra, head of McKinsey & Co.'s New York office, recalls the pain of failing to earn one of the school's coveted blazers, awarded for excellence. "Imagine 500 boys, homogenous in what they wear, and the only way you could stand out is if you wore a blue blazer if you were good in sports and a black blazer if you were good in academics," says Mr. Malhotra, 46 years old. "I fell a point short on each one and to this day it rankles me."

Even as Doon graduates penetrate the upper ranks of corporate America, the school draws criticism that it is out of step with the times. The headmaster is pushing for reforms -- such as heating the study rooms -- but he faces some opposition from alumni.

And proposed national legislation may mandate that private schools set aside a quarter of their places for underprivileged students -- including the country's "Dalit" or "untouchable" caste, which has largely been absent at high-tuition Doon.

"There is a debate now whether Doon's elitism is required and whether it works in a changed world," says alumnus Bhaskar Menon, the former chief executive of EMI Music Worldwide.

Founded in 1935, Doon once drew the sons of prominent Indian industrialists and politicians. Today scholarships, partly covering the annual tuition of about $4,000, assist one in four students. About half of the students' parents own small businesses. To be admitted, boys must pass a tough entrance exam.
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