Thursday, June 19, 2008

XLRI Alumni Meet - Bay Area - a Report

This account of our alumni picnic on June 1st was a long time in coming, so without further ado:

The third day of May
My alma mater said to me
Call all my faithful
And come they will to me

Emails went & messages flew
Stones were turned & calls were made
And one by one our numbers grew
As our cyber stalking awoke the dead

And so on the first day of June
We gathered at the Park Ed Levin
In full flow by high noon
In nostalgia & networking heaven

Thusly on this warm summers day
Ye Olde XL smiled as its alumni
Gathered from far & away

20 XLers an-excelling
15 spouses an-espousing
11 children a-chilling
6 ‘Uncle Sam’ pizzas an-appeasing
4 packs of beer a-frothing

And with that rhymes & pun-ishment, I will crawl back to prose.

All photos taken (inexpertly) by me on Vivek’s camera. Many thanks to him for uploading them. I have since transferred them to an online photo album on Snapfish so that it is easier to get prints & see them all together on slideshow mode. You need a Snapfish account to view these photos. If you don’t have one, they are also available (but without thumbnails & slideshows) at Vivek’s site -http://www.marketfeat.com/services/xl_pics/. If there are any volunteers for uploading the photos to a free open site, I will be happy to send jpeg’s of the photos.

The picnic on June 1st was the biggest in Bay Area in my 8 years here. Our numbers are growing, & by my estimate at the picnic we got approximately 40% of XLers who are here now. 60% of the attendees were at an XL alumni event for the first time. XLers from 4 decades were present. After a quite few years these are very encouraging statistics.

This email is cc-ed to many of you who I contacted via LinkedIn etc. If you aren’t a member of the XL California Yahoo Group, please sign up so that we can keep you abreast of what’s happening in our XL community. KP Naidu moderates this group. I have also created a short (12 question) survey for some feedback on the kind of interactions everyone would prefer. Please complete this when you have 10-15 minutes. Your help will be much appreciated. Some of you who attended the picnic have already completed a version of this. You don’t need to do it again.

Finally, here is the complete list of attendees on June 1st:

Name

Stream

Year

Pal Luthra

BME

1972

Anil J. Deora

BMD

1979

KP Naidu

PM & IR

1981

Sunil Erraballi

BMD

1982

Dinesh Bahal

BMD

1983

Vivek

BMD

1986

Sandra Mahadwar

PM & IR

1986

Meghna Virick

PM & IR

1989

Sandeep Harpalani

BMD

1992

Ranu Gupta

PM & IR

1996

Tipu Purkayastha

PM & IR

1996

Reema Vijay

PM & IR

1997

Asmita Katdare

PM & IR

1998

Karthik Sarma

PM & IR

1998

Guneet Paintal

BMD

1999

Herambh Athavale

BMD

2000

Charu Madan

PM & IR

2000

Vinod K Gupta

BMD

2003

Elizabeth Aries

PM & IR

2005

Sarath Gonugunta

PGCBM

2006

A big round of thanks is due to all of them for making the time to attend the picnic, & in many cases getting their spouses & children with them. A collage of faces is linked for easy identification. We all left with fond memories & new friends. Watch this space for the announcement of the next event.

Regards,

Tipu Purkayastha

PS: If you know of an XL alumni lurker in the Bay Area, please send the message to them.



3 comments:

  1. Hi Kim
    How to send you the updates about the campus. Is it through email, then What is your email ID

    We have got quite a bit to share on public forums

    Best always
    Ranjeet
    GMP 08

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ranjeet,
    Leave me your mail id & I will drop you a mail with my id.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks For you reply.

    My ID is tarouni@gmail.com

    Best Always
    Ranjeet

    ReplyDelete