This piece is about the Anusmaran 07 happenings in Mumbai reported by your humble reporter Amit Gokhale for Alam News !!!!! ;-)
Anusmaran this year was held at the Taj President Hotel in Cuffe Parade !!!.. Quite literally one end of town, but was a good place nevertheless... decent-sized hall and plus a lobby outside and a different hall for dinner. For once in Mumbai, space was not a constraint !!
I walked in at around 7.45 pm to see, as expected, a pretty empty hall. Still felt great to see some batchmates at that early hour as well. Spotted first were Dabas ,Andy Krishnamurthy, God (Maruti Srinivas Kumar). The met our junior Nikhil Gurjar who went on about his globe trotting ways (fancy any IIM grad landing in Venezuela :-))..Slowly but surely, the crowd started trickling in. By around 8.30 pm, people were pretty much in place. Prof. Ashok Thampy was in attendance, and took us through a standard PPT about whats going on at the Institute. Interestingly, there was no mention of 'quota','OBC' etc in the entire PPT and absolutely no CP, unlike in Chennai. On an interesting note for Supply Chain and Operations proffessionals like me, IIMB has started a centre for Supply Chain Management headed by Prof. Janat Shah. Do login to the site for more details. Then, as at other places, a recorded by speech by Prof. Apte and the alumni chairperson (Mr. Basu, was it ?) followed. As is to be expected, during these speeches, the action was happening more at the bar at the other end of the hall ;-))..
There was quite a decent turnout from our batch. Besides Dabas and Andy, the list of attendees includes (in no specific order): XL Goel *(roll. no. 1 as always:), Amit Garga *, Ameya Shenoy *, Ganny, Nitin Agarwal, Govind Agarwal, Pansari*, Sacheendran*, Kiran Agarwal, Prom, G, Indrani, KC, Pati, Dola Kumar, Shanky, Shirish Shenoy, KK, AKG and many more (apologies to those whom I may not have mentioned). Infact, the turnout was much better than last time inspite of the Anusmaran announcement and the venue information reaching people quite late in the day. (Note: the * against the name indicates people who had come with their better halves, I too belong to the list).
Then, the chit-chat happened. Felt good to hear the latest about friends, many of whom were meeting each other for the first time since campus. Our very own Abhishek 'crib' Pati is soon to find a patni of his own. Hopefully the cribs will come down !!!.. XL was spotted constantly sneaking out of the hall for a puff in order to escape the gaze of his wife ;-)... but, as they say, you are never far from your wife's roving eye and poor soul was almost caught once.. We tried calling Alam then, but did not get through. And speaking of wives, they had formed their own small group and were chatting away like long-lost friends much to the relief of their husbands, who could quietly sneak away to the bar for the next peg or meet up with other ladies ;-).. Most of the guys would now be in their 3rd job since campus !! I was amongst the very small minority who are still loyally serving their campus recruiters (in fact, I was met with disbelieving looks on telling people that I am still with Asian Paints :).
By around 9.30 pm the bar was overflowing with enthusiasts wanting their Smirnoff, Beer, Whisky (dont remember which brand since I stuck to Smirnoff) or just plain Coke. Also, the dance floor was open by then. But naturally, a mini L^2 started. Some of today's chart-busters and the smash hits of our times combined to create, once more, the Saturday night atmosphere. The highlight of the dance floor was, undoubtedly, our beloved 'Maaeri' (Euphoria) wherein everyone instinctively sat around in circles as if in a trance (much to amusement of the wives ;-).. All in all, felt great to jive one more time in the company of near and dear ones.
This went on much until midnight (again, in contrast to Anusmaran 06 which was held outdoors and hence, had to be wound up by 11pm).
After having dinner, we finally departed by around midnight with the memories of a great evening with friends. Infact, we can still have unofficial get-togethers like this twice a year probably. Wot say ?
cheers
Amit
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Anusmaran 2007 - Chennai story
Anusmaran 2007 - Chennai party will be best remembered (if somebody actually does remember it) as the party that had "almost" everything ...
The meet, which was at top floor of Hotel "Ramada Raj Park" at TTK Road, had arrangements for booze (I stuck to beer, for health reasons), food (with interesting names like "Chow Chow Kottu") and games (again interesting names like "dressing up the mummy"). The only thing lacking was ... the guests
Almost no one showed up... there were something like 10 alumni, plus about 12 students from PGSEM- Chennai batch (Few questions pop in the mind - who are these people and what were they doing at our Alumni meet??) and about 10-15 of the organizing PGP1/2s. Navaneeth Krishnan and I were the only souls from our batch.
Despite the low turnout, speakers took full advantage of the occasion.
There was a long update by Prof RTK {My summary- Even while the profs are being paid peanuts... IIMB has successfully poached faculty from other IIMs....HRD is screwing IIMB (again) and is not giving money for plan/non-plan expenditure(IIMB is using its own funds to run itself) ... and that MDP is a major money spinner - raking in 20 Cr a year}... in the process yours truly did some arbit CP (My question "Are NRIs still getting admissions on the basis of GMAT Scores?" got a politically correct answer)
There was a recorded message by Prof Apte {Gist - donate your money to us}
and a recorded "Chaat" (as in 'kyon "chaat" raha hai baap') by a guy who seemed to be the Alumni Secy.
Then the Manjunath Trust had a presentation on their activities (Gist - Good show on the trial - Murderers got convicted.... Trust has started running an RTI Act helpline). They distributed some stickers (urging people to call RTI helpline)
In the end there was food... nothing great to write home about.
Then only "flashback moment" occurred at the bar counter .... there were cartons and cartons of unused booze ... they brought back memories of a certain Anusmaran 2003 at bombay... at that time, some brave souls had managed to smuggle a huge stash of leftover "anusmaran" booze into our base at Mackichan Hall, Wilson College and then everyone had feasted on it for the rest of the internship ....
The meet, which was at top floor of Hotel "Ramada Raj Park" at TTK Road, had arrangements for booze (I stuck to beer, for health reasons), food (with interesting names like "Chow Chow Kottu") and games (again interesting names like "dressing up the mummy"). The only thing lacking was ... the guests
Almost no one showed up... there were something like 10 alumni, plus about 12 students from PGSEM- Chennai batch (Few questions pop in the mind - who are these people and what were they doing at our Alumni meet??) and about 10-15 of the organizing PGP1/2s. Navaneeth Krishnan and I were the only souls from our batch.
Despite the low turnout, speakers took full advantage of the occasion.
There was a long update by Prof RTK {My summary- Even while the profs are being paid peanuts... IIMB has successfully poached faculty from other IIMs....HRD is screwing IIMB (again) and is not giving money for plan/non-plan expenditure(IIMB is using its own funds to run itself) ... and that MDP is a major money spinner - raking in 20 Cr a year}... in the process yours truly did some arbit CP (My question "Are NRIs still getting admissions on the basis of GMAT Scores?" got a politically correct answer)
There was a recorded message by Prof Apte {Gist - donate your money to us}
and a recorded "Chaat" (as in 'kyon "chaat" raha hai baap') by a guy who seemed to be the Alumni Secy.
Then the Manjunath Trust had a presentation on their activities (Gist - Good show on the trial - Murderers got convicted.... Trust has started running an RTI Act helpline). They distributed some stickers (urging people to call RTI helpline)
In the end there was food... nothing great to write home about.
Then only "flashback moment" occurred at the bar counter .... there were cartons and cartons of unused booze ... they brought back memories of a certain Anusmaran 2003 at bombay... at that time, some brave souls had managed to smuggle a huge stash of leftover "anusmaran" booze into our base at Mackichan Hall, Wilson College and then everyone had feasted on it for the rest of the internship ....
Anusmaran 2007 in Delhi
This post comes about due to Alam's effort at informing all our batch junta about the happenings in various cities. I was 'volunteered' by him to cover events in Delhi :-)
Last night IIM Bangalore had its annual alumni meet in multiple locations across the globe. The Delhi meet was organized at the Hyatt, and the party rocked quite a bit!
Among the batch of 2004, turnout was fairly good (certainly much better than last year). I remember seeing Uncle Sarovar (after a long hiatus), Nishant Kashyap, Mayank the sailor, Pranjal, Sameer Mahandru (still living his role of President as he handed out his card which said Managing Director, Indospirits) and Budddy. Drinks flowed freely and the food was quite good (actually I dont know for sure, all I know is that the salmon rolls were yummy!!)
Although a lot (most?) of the faces were new (I felt positively an old fogey as I saw people with badges saying batch of 2008), it was good to catch up with familiar faces from 2003 and 2005. Prof. Rajeev Gowda spoke at length about the good things happening at IIMB. Among other things, i was pretty impressed to learn that Harshdeep Jolly had written a novel on life at the IIMs (the book was on display at the venue), Sameer Mahandru is going great guns in his business of alcohol distribution (his firm had supplied the drinks for the party), Vineet Khunger is experimenting with a multi cuisine restaurant and everyone else was well settled in their 3rd or 4th jobs since campus.
The party blazed into life once the dance music started playing, with the old regulars (Rajeev Chaba, the India head of General Motors and a lot of people from his batch) hitting the dance floor with gusto along with the more recent folk (most notably a stunning looking Pooja from the batch of 2003). The party however thinned out pretty early, with most people gone around the time of the witching hour.
When it was time to leave, I omitted to carry back a plaque that declared that I had attended the alumni meet. However, it was good to have caught up with everyone (most after a year), and renewed and refreshed everyone's numbers in my phone book.
Last night IIM Bangalore had its annual alumni meet in multiple locations across the globe. The Delhi meet was organized at the Hyatt, and the party rocked quite a bit!
Among the batch of 2004, turnout was fairly good (certainly much better than last year). I remember seeing Uncle Sarovar (after a long hiatus), Nishant Kashyap, Mayank the sailor, Pranjal, Sameer Mahandru (still living his role of President as he handed out his card which said Managing Director, Indospirits) and Budddy. Drinks flowed freely and the food was quite good (actually I dont know for sure, all I know is that the salmon rolls were yummy!!)
Although a lot (most?) of the faces were new (I felt positively an old fogey as I saw people with badges saying batch of 2008), it was good to catch up with familiar faces from 2003 and 2005. Prof. Rajeev Gowda spoke at length about the good things happening at IIMB. Among other things, i was pretty impressed to learn that Harshdeep Jolly had written a novel on life at the IIMs (the book was on display at the venue), Sameer Mahandru is going great guns in his business of alcohol distribution (his firm had supplied the drinks for the party), Vineet Khunger is experimenting with a multi cuisine restaurant and everyone else was well settled in their 3rd or 4th jobs since campus.
The party blazed into life once the dance music started playing, with the old regulars (Rajeev Chaba, the India head of General Motors and a lot of people from his batch) hitting the dance floor with gusto along with the more recent folk (most notably a stunning looking Pooja from the batch of 2003). The party however thinned out pretty early, with most people gone around the time of the witching hour.
When it was time to leave, I omitted to carry back a plaque that declared that I had attended the alumni meet. However, it was good to have caught up with everyone (most after a year), and renewed and refreshed everyone's numbers in my phone book.
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