It is Basant time – a time for alumni to get together. I am writing to you to give details about a recent reunion we had for the ISM batch of 1994.
 
In 1994 we drove into our respective professional lives and took different roads to our goal (s). Last year, i.e. 2004 was the 10 year anniversary of our batch graduating from ISM. 10 years is a long and eventful time. It was
 an occasion that definitely warranted a celebration.

We started our process early in the year(2004) by gathering information of our batch mates. It was a time consuming effort, requiring lots of email and tons of telephone calls. We are proud of that effort. Now we have current information for more than 80% of our batch mates. In mid-year we decided to have our reunion on December 4th, 2004. All were informed and the work to be done , split amongest us .

As an effort to get the current students involved, we contacted the current G. Sec. – Arunabh Ankur Singh. Instead of just showing up, meeting, eating and leaving, we wanted to interact with the students, the faculty and the administration. We were hoping to interact, dig into what ails ISM and offer our services to help with that.

The response we got was simply great. They were having their semester exams during that week and there were concerns that they might not be able to do much. But the effort put in by the students was simply overwhelming. I will go through my day at ISM so that you will get a better idea of the day and  the effort put in by the students.

6:00 am – Arrived at the ISM main gate. There is a banner there welcoming the batch of 1994 for their 10-year reunion. What a great start! As I go in there are directions pasted for us to go to the SAH.

6:05 am - Arrive at Senior Academic House (i.e. guest house). There was a student there to receive me and help with check in.
There are men working to put up ‘shamiana’ in the courtyard – this I am told will be our eating place.

7:00 am – I walk to Ramdhani, which has been moved a little to the side. But it is still there. I have a tea and chat with people around. There are a  bunch of students doing the last minute cramming – reminds me of our days. On the way I pass the upper ground. There is mat laid out and a ‘shamiana’ waiting for us. It is obviously in response to our request to play cricket.

7:15 am - I walk towards Dhaiya to pick up Gopal. There is another banner welcoming us on Dhaiya gate. There is a sports complex being build in front of the Emerald hostel. Gopal and I come back to Ramdhani and have some more tea.

8:00 am - I am back in the guest house, where I get ready. I then go to pick up some more friends from Bolani. They are staying in a hotel nearby.
 
9:00 am - I return to the guest house to see a whole bunch of my batch-mates, with family already there. They are having the breakfast set up
in the shamiana. I meet everyone and the families. And I dig in the breakfast and coffee. Good food. 

9:30 am - We sit down in the courtyard and formally do a round of introductions – for the family. It is also a time when we give away the
secrets to the wives.

10:30 am - We set out on a family tour of ISM. We meet Dr. Chabra on the way.

11:00 am - Everyone is at Ramdhani, where we have tea and samosa. Some juniors returning from exams join us. We are also informed by XYZ that the students are ready for the cricket match we had asked for. So we let the wives go off on the rest-of-ISM tour and stroll down to the upper ground.

12:00 pm - We start playing cricket, but only after they get us a tennis ball; no playing with the hard balls! To save blushes we mix everyone up and divide everyone into two teams. The next hour and half is pure exhilaration! We had so much fun that our spirit did not want to go but our bodies definitely did.

2:00 pm - All of us go back to the guest house, where lunch has been served by magic. We, along with the juniors, have a great lunch. Right now we all are thinking that this is great arrangement by the students and are a satisfied bunch. Even if we end now, every one of us will be happy.

3:00 pm - In good ISM tradition, we get in to a lengthy discussion about the state of ISM affairs. We carry this in to the guest house drawing room. There we are joined by some more students.

4:00 pm - We are joined by a reported from Hindustan Times (yes, the students have thought of that too), who goes ahead and interviews the alumni present there. I am attaching the following article that appeared in the next day’s HT.

5:00 pm - We move to GJLT where we are hoping to talk to few more students and hopefully meet the administration. What do we find? A whole lot of students, even though lot were busy packing bags to head home and some maybe even had gone home. Prof. S.N. Mukherjee (Director); Dr. L.N. Upadhayay (Dean of Student Welfare – DSW) and Prof. R.Venugopal (HOD – Mineral) also joined us.

5:30 pm - The students start the evening with a slick multimedia presentation of ISM. The presentation is very impressive – great work! It is
 followed by a hour long cultural event: guitar, synthesizer, tabla, dance performances – it was all there. It was very entertaining.The cultural event is followed by a speech by the Director and DSW. That was followed by few of us venturing on the stage to say a few words to the
students and the administration.

As a batch we offer our unrestricted help to the administration to update the ISM alumni database and in any endeavor it wants help, which is
graciously accepted by the Director and the DSW. We also donated a token amount to ISM for the proposed Alumni House; along with gifts to ISM, the students and the music society.

8:00 pm - We go back to the guest house where dinner awaits everyone who was in GJLT. It is quite a sight seeing everyone – Director, DSW, batch of 1994 and the juniors interact in an informal setting.

9:30 pm - It is time for me to leave to catch the train back home. It is a nostalgic good bye that I bid to everyone and leave ISM, with a silent
affirmation between us to do it again soon.

You all must be wondering why did we do it? Why?

We have always felt that ISM alumni need to get involved much closely with ISM. We ARE the industry that our juniors will go to. For that they need feel connected to ISM; they need to see ISM and the changes in there. They need to be bought back to ISM and re-connect. What better way than a 10 year or 15 year or 20 year … reunions? I know that there is Basant. I think lot us feel lost there. Who has the ownership? This was OUR reunion and we made that extra effort to be there. This felt special. I am sure every one of us  was touched by our trip there and is more willing to lend some of our time to ISM. This feeling of fraternity has to be bought back. We think that having reunions like this is a great way of engaging the alumni. We have taken the first step by doing the first 10 year reunion. I and my batchmates urge the next batch (batch of 1995) and the next and the next… to take up the baton and make this a tradition. We could even combine the 10 – 15 –  20 -... years reunion into one year end event. If anyone is concerned about the expenses; we bore all the expenses and even though we were a small group it was very manageable. With a bigger group it will be better. We even  broached this subject with the Director and he was very supportive of the  idea. Our batch is willing to help you with your reunion – just ask us. We can guide you through the steps that we took to make this dream come true

I could go on and on. But given that this has already become one of the longest emails, I will end my mail with last few words about the current
batch of students.

I was very much impressed by the current set of students. Everyone from our batch was! They are so much different that what we are used to – they are confident, they are pro-active, they know what they want and work towards it, etc. The amount of preparation they did, even as the semester exams were on, was simply mind blowing. My hats off to them, esp. the G.Sec. - Arunabh. I would suggest that anyone who has a chance to go to ISM, should go and interact with these set of students. The future of ISM never looked better to us than after meeting these people. It would be very sad if we, the  alumni, do not come forward and help these intelligent students. These are our siblings – do spare a thought for them.
 
Ashutosh Ashish
1994 – PE
Houston