Email: itbhu-sydney@googlegroups.com

The 1st Sydney Chapter IT-BHU Alumni meet was held at Bicentennial Park on the August 24th, 2008.

This meet was organized informally and the format was similar to that of a picnic in the iconic and centrally located Bicentennial Park in the Sydney Olympic Park suburb. After the initial spate of emails preceding the planned event, around 15 people confirmed their attendance. People started gathering from around 2-2:30 PM. Many of us did not know each other and so started introducing themselves. There were 3 alumni from the 21st century batch (2000 onwards), 1 from the 1990s batch, many from 1980s, a few from 70s and even 60s’. After about an hour or so, when the numbers increased to about 20 or so (around 35 including family members), Harpreet Marwah (Electronic 2003) and Alak Jhaji (Electrical 1967) (fondly called Bhishm Pitamah in the Sydney circle) requested everyone to form a large circle and do the introduction round.

This introduction round was mainly for everyone to introduce themselves and recall some fond memories of their days in IT-BHU. The introduction round started from the youngest members to the oldest. Harpreet and Pramod introduced as 2003 batch and gave all of us updates of the popular IT Girls Hostel. How the Girls hostel started as being rooms in a proper house and ended as a hostel behind Vishwesharaya Hostel. Jhaji from 1967 batch recalled his days from the BENCO where the hostel was not even located in the campus and how they moved into the campus after their first year outside the campus. Shashi Baranwal (Civil 1983) recalled how they had a major flood in Banaras during their college days.

Many of the guys had brought along their wives too, and some had even brought their children. The wives had been thoughtful enough to bring along some food to go around too!

 

After all the talking, it had gotten fairly late in the afternoon, and everyone realized that they had actually been starving for a while. Some very welcome meat curry and rice brought by Meena – Somir’s wife – as also some upma that Devaki – Partha’s wife – had brought, began to get circulated at that point.

By this time weather had also started to turn fairly chilly and when foam cups with hot tea brought in a flask by someone began to get handed around, they were greeted with almost the same intensity of joy as that with which a few hours back the alumni had greeted their “long lost BHU-IT” friends! This also brought back fond memories to many, of the 10 paisa chais from Bechu’s little stall outside De hostel. Someone then broke the sad news that Bechu’s tea-stall had disappeared a while ago…..Sad but true.

After the tea, with the cold really beginning to set in, it was time to trudge back to the various parts of that huge park, locate our cars, and return back to our day-to-day, mundane routines, amidst promises of the organization of a similar event in a couple of months’ time…..

The event concluded with the some photos and contact swapping sessions.

Here are some photos of the event – You can find more photos uploaded at http://picasaweb.google.com/hellopkt/AlumniMeet#

 

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