Where We Met- Part 3

 This is about classmates, starting from school. For many years, we never met. Only a couple, like Ram Kumar Seshu, I met in Hyderabad or Bangalore. Rajiv Krishnan too, just a couple of years ago.

Then, suddenly, we had a major gathering, with about 17 classmates showing up last year at Hyderabad. Before that, a smaller one had happened with 7-8 people (men, it was  Boys' school)-Kamlesh hosted it, on a visit from the U.S.

Above- With TAS Vijayaraghavan, IIMB classmate, at XLRI. His wife is also in the pic. Met him after many years, in 2024.

College (Osmania engineering), I remember a large gathering at Begumpet around 12-14 years ago. After that, off and on, I met Venugopal Reddy in Delhi, along with a few visitors, Nagarjuna in Harihar and elsewhere- Indore, recently. And we went on a Bheemeswari outing courtesy G Sreenivas, near Bangalore. We also met at Makrand Deshpande's invitation at a wedding in Pune. KSM I met when he was at Euroflex too, and wrote a case on the company's international marketing effort as well.

Bangalore IIM classmates I have met in large and small groups, or individually, more regularly. Prabhakar introduced me to Single Malts, and I am grateful. Killer and Smoke Smoke Ramesh in Bangalore, Hassled Ramesh in the U.S., Banny and Ravi in the US, Venky, Cheenu, Anu, Chitra, Sekhar in Mumbai, Sandhya in Nagpur, Shanks, Bishop and Paddy in Chennai, Sajeev in Lucknow and Chennai recently, Rajan of India at Indore, Bangalore, Mumbai, Dash multiple times in Kolkata, Goa, Indore and Delhi, Vijjy at XLRI after years, Uday and Suma at Calicut and Mumbai, Sardie and Sujit in Goa, Harish in Delhi, Bangalore, are some warm and fuzzy memories. Snail in Delhi and Indore too. Dunhill in Lucknow.

Poetry

 Attempt at putting to verse, my experiences at various places-

School

Burning the midnight candle at school,

But also playing cricket and all

Were my wonderful teen years 

That I spent at Ramanthapur

College of Engineering

Osmania was awesome on the whole

Hau, aisa campsich nahi milta bol

Ate a lot of bun omelettes and Sambar

But also explored the theatres with my bus pass

MBA

The band of Bannerghattans was a cool lot

and writing for Mural, I learnt a lot

The yearbook captured the years well

And I regret nothing at all

Ph.D.

Clemson had lakes and blue skies

And a student crowd from near and far

Driving on highways to Hollywood, and watching the colours of Fall

Those were dreamy days, Advisor, Budweiser et al

My Cricketing Days

Some old pics suddenly surfaced, going back to my school cricketing days.The first pic of the Hyderabad Public School (Ramanthapur) Cricket team has me in it.

The second solo pic has a bowler, Pritipal Singh Gandhi, who was also known for Mankading a runner of the team, when he walked out of his crease at the bowler's end too soon. The write-up also has a mention of both of us. I finished school in 1977, so this is really a looong throwback!