Catchup Meetings

 Met Adithya Padala, a classmate from school, who counts Sabeer Bhatia among his friends. He is a lso an active member of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and lives in the Sonoma county which produces wine. He also has a vineyard that produces Chardonnay grapes. I learnt he went to USC (South Carolina) for his MBA in 1983. I was at Clemson, SC a bit later for a Ph.D. Small world..

His wife Tulasi, who clicked the pic below.. right, above. Prarthana and Anu are on the left.

He was visiting Pune, so we caught up at Blue Diamond, the Taj hotel which was once owned by the Kirloskar group.

Great conversations, about school and family, and plans for the future. In short, everything under the Sun.. 2024 is still alive with possibilities, including Golf..

2023 Year end Musings- 3

 I did an invited program on Case study Teaching at Prestige Institute, Gwalior in July sometime for faculty. Also had a school (Hyderabad Public School) batch get-together in Hyderabad, where around 15 students (all boys- back then it was a Boy's School) turned up, and we had a great time reminiscing about our school days.

Gwalior, faculty at work.. at Prestige University campus.

Below, with Director Nishant Joshi, Tarika Singh and Chanda Gulati of PIMR, Gwalior

Below, glimpses of our batchmates from school.. meet happened at the Royal Reve hotel, Secunderabad, in July 2023. One classmate, Suri, is a partner-owner.

We finished school in 1977.

Upcoming Meet

 Had an amazing meet with alums of two Hyderabad Public Schools in Bangalore a couple of years ago. Or was it a year ago? Anyway, point is, we are going to have a meeting of my branch of the school, Ramanthapur, soon. My batch got out (alive) in 1977, and lots of us are still alive and kicking.. not all, though.

We have had the usual careers, and some have had unusual ones too- like a Chef in Canada. Kartik. And a couple of entrepreneurs in the U.S. Of course, a lot of corporate jobs as well. A smaller set of us met about 2 years ago, but this is likely to be a bigger group, with Bangalore, Indore and Mumbai represented. Apart from the US. 

It was tough recognising a few the last time around. Hope it gets easier now, before the BIG FADE happens!

Long Conversations

 I am generally in favour of brevity, with conversations. On the phone, particularly. Of course, there are exceptions. With friends, and over some beverages. I recently had a long phone conversation with a schoolmate who lives in USA near Sonoma, the wine country. North of San Francisco. He has done a lot of wonderful things since leaving school. He got a Computer Science degree in South Carolina, at USC. I had been to Clemson, SC around that time too. 

He then did various things, like inventing a sound amplifier with myriad applications, including in the military. He also sold millions of these, I guess, along the way. He has experience of being funded for his venture, and also running it without the funders. 

He was present when TiE was founded, he said. TiE is The Indus Entrepreneurs, a body meant to encourage entrepreneurship. We also discussed his coming over to talk about entrepreneurship to our students at Prestige University! His wife, a lawyer, has helped him in his own enterprise. He has a daughter who is in college, and doing well. His dad was in the Indian Air Force, and is in his 90s now, living with him.

Meeting a Long-lost Friend

Met a schoolmate after 1977. It is one of the wonders of email that I traced him (or he did me) recently, and discovering that both were in Delhi, proposed that we meet. So we did.

Narendranath works in the Telecom department, in the central services. Was also a faculty member for a while within their training establishment, and might still do a Ph.D. We were together at Hyderabad Public School, Ramanthapur from 7th until 11th- those days school finished in the 11th (CBSE did). Reminiscing about many of our classmates after such a long time (since we only met a few over the years, was tough, but we did recollect some vividly.

A classmate of ours is a chef abroad, some are entrepreneurs, and some in the public or private sector in service. I am of course, in academia. Nice to know most are successful in their own chosen lines of work/entrepreneurship, or retirement!

I recommend this highly to anyone at anytime. Booster dose of enthu and medicine for the blues, if any.