Thoughts on the Alumni Meet

Thoughts on Alumni Meet

As I make plans to go for my third Alumni Meet, I wonder what attracts me every year to take this pilgrimage to the green and cream coloured building, nestled somewhere between eternal obscurity and transient fame. Every year the “Insti” as it is fondly known in the community, wakes up from its “kumbhkarnaesque” stupor and shakes itself to welcome alumni, young and old. There are the usual song and dance sequences and other such paraphernalia clumsily but enthusiastically enacted in the centre of the famed quadrangle. The faculty, alumni and the students watch the sincere lighthearted entertainment belted out to the alumni, who are at that time more interested in embracing long lost friends and talking to each other. There is the alumni meet discussion, where alumni gather to discuss agitatedly the issue at hand, amid lighthearted banter and lazy participation. Then of course there is the post meet interaction between alumni and current batches where all the usual suspects like placements, jobs and alumni interaction are discussed amid verbose and long winded queries and still more meandering answers.
Every year one more classmate has been found to be sacrificed at the holy altar of marriage. In excited tones people discuss ageing romances and affairs long wiped from the blackboard of classroom memories. The whole atmosphere reeks of nostalgia and august monsoon breeze. The half-forgotten memories of salad days return with the fresh breeze. Like the first time you woke up in the classroom to find out that the next lecture had already started. The crush you had on that elusive part-timer, which spread like an autumn rash and went away as quickly when you discovered she was married and had a kid too. The first time you were allowed to play table tennis by your seniors and how you screwed it by playing every shot out of the table.
I still remember my first alumni meet. We had heard stories and myths of many of the illustrated alumni. Timidly we approached and gave “introductions” to beaming alumni at the gentle coaxing of our seniors who seemed so anxious it looked as if they were in their first semester exam. They listen with amused expressions at our lengthy introductions with wisecracking footnotes from our seniors on various aspects of our life (Surdie from Amritsar, “agriculture kiya hai”, “writes great orgy stories sir”).
The ties that bind an imdrite to his institution are both nebulous and deep rooted depending on the prevailing sentiments. Every year somebody gets agitated at the way the insti is being run or the lack of “marketing” efforts. Grandiose ideas are proposed and rejected at the same time. Speculation on IMDR future is another favourite of the alumni. Slowly as the evening fades away and music serenades through the quadrangle people forget old rivalries, jilted romance and dance to the tunes of the latest trash belted out by the disc jockey. All that is left are promises of meeting again at the alma mater next year.
Every year the ritual is enacted with the same precision. Only the batches and seasons keep changing while IMDR stands a mute spectator in this eternal drama. If buildings could talk, what stories my institute would tell. Of the enlightenment people got under the bodhi tree, on the latest love affair or tips on how to get placed and still remain popular. Of great battles fought in the TT room, some of them with the TT bats. Of days spent sipping anna’s tea recounting the latest adventure to none to eager listeners who were just being polite as you were paying for the tea. These memories hang on awkwardly in the mind like the gentle exhortation hanging at the Insti wall saying “Ask not what the institute can do for you, ask what you can do for the institute.” I feebly attempt to answer that question by muttering in my mouth “I can try and come to the next alumni meet.”