– By team PAKABABU
The PGP 1974 Batch of IIM Ahmedabad completed 50 years of graduation from its hallowed portals. The year 2024 was the year of the Golden Reunion and it naturally had to be a milestone event. The choice of the venue had to be IIMA Campus, where many of our earlier reunions were hosted. The IIMA Campus has a charm of its own and there have been many developments since our graduation that many of us were interested in seeing and experiencing. Also, the IIMA Alumni Office has always been a source of great strength and support and we, the local alumni of the batch, were by now, veterans in conducting reunions!
We got together and formed an organising committee consisting of Babulal Yadav, Alan D’Souza, Beena Handa and Usha Jumani. We later co-opted B.S. Prakash from Bengaluru, who was always a member of practically all reunions, and lent great support to the local team. We named the committee PAKABABU- an abbreviation of our names!
The Planning
The preparations for the Golden Reunion started in early 2024. We were a batch of 117, when we started but sadly, over the years we have lost 29 (which include 2 visiting students out of three from Tanzania and one visiting oncologist – the Director Designate from Vellore Medical College). Of the remaining, we were able to get in touch with around 80 batchmates. Over several meetings of the organising committee – both physical and digital – we worked out a draft programme and tentative dates which went through an interactive process with our batchmates to finally agree on dates 13-15 December 2024.
Initial enthusiasm was high but later on some dropped out because of pressing personal issues. Some had to drop out for health reasons even after confirmation of travel plans and paying the contribution money. Finally, we had an attendance of 54 batchmates and 30 spouses – a rocking figure of 84 in all!
We had decided early in the planning process that this had to be a grand and memorable event. We realised that all of us have had different paths in the journey of life, achieved much and made our alma mater proud. Now was the time and opportunity to get together and relive those wonderful moments of 1972-1974 and bond together once again with a sense of gratitude and love. We decided on the theme for the reunion and selected the tagline “Been There: Done That.” We also realised that all of us were now septuagenarians and needed to talk more and walk less. The programme had to be crafted accordingly.
To make it special we decided to have a logo for the Golden Reunion which would be properly designed and would find a place on all the collaterals that we finally created (letterhead/banner/standee/lapel badge/car sticker/fridge magnet). Silver coin mementoes with the logo were gifted to the Director, Officiating Dean, faculty members and a few others as a token of our gratitude.
Scenes behind crafting a memorable agenda
The PAKABABU group spent countless man/woman hours over the next months in the run-up to the event crafting a very elaborate programme and taking care of all the logistics. However the great spirit of teamwork, camaraderie and bonhomie took us through all this. The Alumni Office team led by the Dean, Alumni and External Relations – Prof. Sunil Maheshwari and supported by Mr. Pradosh Thiya, AGM – Alumni Relations, provided us with continuous and tireless support including allotment of requisite number of rooms. Prof Sanjay Verma – Officiating Dean, Alumni and External Relations, filled in for Prof. Maheshwari a little before our reunion and graced the event because Prof. Maheshwari was on leave for personal reasons.
We formed an Entertainment Committee with Vijay Kumtakar, Akhilesh Bhandari, Vidya – spouse of Vishwas Kirpekar, Beena Handa and B.S. Prakash as members to plan the ‘Let’s Laugh Together’ and ‘We Have Talent’ events. The hard work of this team was there for all to enjoy and remember the fun activities they curated.
Since many batchmates were visiting Ahmedabad from far and near, there was a desire among many to visit the world famous largest statue in the world – Statue of Unity near Ekta Nagar. This trip was organised by our batchmate Samish Makhija and his wife Upma prior to the reunion.
The Alumni Office team was present in full strength to welcome all of us with a special Welcome Kit as each one came in. The Welcome Kit was specially created for our batch with copies of the class photo, convocation photo, convocation speech by the chief guest, and a special gift of a backpack for each of us.
Spread over three days from 13-15 December 2024 at the IIMA, the programme for our Golden Reunion consisted of the following:
- Curtain raiser with a Theme Song, ‘We are the IIMAites’ written specially for the Golden Reunion by our batchmate, Bhupati Kumar (Pinu) Das, who could not attend for health reasons and set into a video by Paka
- River Cruise on the now unrecognizable Sabarmati River along with Dinner
- Campus Tour
- In-Memoriam to cherish memories of our departed batchmates
- Traditional Gujarati lunch at one of the best Heritage hotels in town
- Tête-à-tête accompanied by dinner with the Director IIMA – Dr Bharat Bhaskar and interaction with some of the faculty who taught us
- Let’s Laugh Together moments, curated by the Entertainment Committee
- A trip down memory lane with a visit to the Archives Centre
- A surprise event – Drum Circle – to cleanse our mental stresses and bring out the child in us.
- We have Talent evening to showcase our various talents, also curated by the Entertainment Committee
Some of the highlights need special mention:
At one of our discussions with Dean Maheshwari, we realised that many of our alumni have written books which would form a lovely repository in the Vikram Sarabhai Library. Responding to his communication, we decided that our Golden Reunion would be an appropriate event to donate books to VSL. We sent out a communication and were astonished with the response. A total of 36 books were donated by 10 authors which included Dhruva Chak, P.D. Shesh, D.A. Prasanna, Hema Vishwanathan, Usha Jumani, Mallika Sarabhai, Alan D’Souza, Bhupati Kumar Das, Ravi Ramamurthi, and Joseph Mani. The books were presented to the Librarian, Mr.B.B.Chand, who has created a separate space in VSL for Alumni authors.
Our oldest batch mate who is now 90 years old and uses a wheelchair – Arvind Raje – felicitated the Director. The Director personally felicitated each batchmate and presented us with a stole embroidered with the IIMA logo as a “Golden Reunion memento” to us from the Institute. We felt honoured to be invited for the special dinner hosted by the Director for this milestone event.
We were able to get in touch with three of our faculty who live in Ahmedabad and invite them over to the Director’s dinner and felicitate them. These faculty members: Dr Amarlal Kalro, Dr Sasi Misra, and Dr Indira Parikh, were very touched at meeting our batchmates and experiencing their warmth and affection.
The theme song, composed by Bhupati Kumar Das, was a lovely curtain raiser for the event which was played during the event and set the right tone for the Reunion (see the Theme Song in box). PAKABABU members did a touching presentation on our departed batchmates which moved us all. Special efforts were made to involve our batchmates and family members of the departed souls to write a short eulogy on each person, which was read out during the In Memoriam session in a solemn ceremony.
Several batchmates brought special gifts for all of us to celebrate the occasion – hand knitted angels, delicacies like Dharwad pedhas and Mysore paak, chocolates, books among others.
A visit to the IIMA Archives took us down memory lane with little known nuggets of information about the history of the early years of the IIMA. They engaged all of us to write ‘A Note to my Past’ on postcards and preserved these notes at the Centre.
The Golden Reunion event turned out very memorable and a huge success which is reflected in the numerous congratulatory messages the team PAKABABU received post the event. Such an event needs a special vote of thanks to all those who helped and contributed to making our Golden Reunion a super success!
Golden Jubilee Theme Song
Conceived by: Dr Bhupati Kumar Das
A gift to his wonderful batchmates
We are the IIMAites
We are the ’74 pass-outs
We ventured out to win the world, minds and hearts
We crossed miles and milestones
We came back seasoned every now and then
to relive memories and sip nostalgia.
In our twenties
we came rushing in
An eager bunch of passionate people
with hope, dreams and aspirations
Trepidation alternating through different threads
for fear of the unknown destinies.
We came from different universes
Different Gods, different castes, different outlooks,
Different dreams, different cultures, different languages
Through the length and breadth of our motherland
From metros to obscure corners
With a few wise Tanzanians
Adding humour, humility and football
It took no time to merge
Different worlds converged into one universe
under the shadow of uniform anxieties and loving stress
of heaps of case studies, study materials and next day CPs.
Days became longer melting into colourless nights
Sleep substituted by random short naps
Disc-jockey, Retreat and Common-Room
were sweet interludes.
Carol King in disc jockey, Carrom in Common-room,
spirited discussions on case studies in the retreat,
interspersed with cups of coffee and tea
Table-tennis and tennis were things of the past
Volleyball lacked any volleying except in the class
during case-study discussions
where the untrained were left holding the holy-grail.
It was tough, yes, it was tough.
Sleep deprived, WAC tortured, grade Cs haunting
We had gone through all
From a broken heart to a bruised ego, to a ‘who am I’ crisis.
Mathais and Rangarajans helped to keep the sanity going
Pulins and Indiras contributed to our sojourn
from human-doings to human beings
Kotlers and Samuelsons kept the grades above water.
In that stress-ridden but uniformly gratifying ambience
we forged friendships, genuine and lifelong
Identities synthesised into a single symphony
All chasing their own dreams
fostered, nourished and fine-tuned by IIMA culture
born on the banks of river Sabarmati
curated at Louis Kahn’s ‘hole-y’ brick-atelier
standing on the edifice of principles, values and ethics,
the signature tune of IIMA value system.
Time seems to have passed us by
Now after fifty years, we retrace our steps
to the temple of learning, only a select few could enter
to relive those golden days and
share the stories of our lives simply and intimately.
The flame of corporate glory and glamour diminishes
Family, friends and faith become the guiding mantra
Intervening years lose relevance
Fellowships forged in the hallowed campus
cast in basic truths and transparent trust
transcend space and time.
God becomes a principle
Careers and successes quietly fade away
Only the melody of camaraderie rings out
The spirit of IIMA lives
