Music to the ears

Yesterday (22nd Feb'09), I woke up around 6.30am but as usual was still lying on the bed... (I normally wake up early, but do not get up until I feel like ;)... some times I doze off again too). As I was lying on my bed and thinking about the previous evening - the get-together of the ex-L&Tites from Mysore, trying to recollect everyone's face, trying to visualise how they looked while I had seen them at L&T and how they have changed over the years etc... something disturbed my thought process and "visuals" blurred and faded into the day light... Though I was distracted / disturbed, I was pleasantly surprised with what I had just heard... something I had not heard in a long time in Bangalore... I could not believe my ears. I was woken up from the "slide show" by some chirping outside the window. I immediately sprang up from the bed and peeped out. I had indeed heard it right. Now, I could not believe my eyes... I saw a few sparrows happily chirping and eating some grains from the terrace of the opposite house. I have probably not spotted a sparrow in Bangalore in the past 5-6 years. These little cute and chirpy birds that used to frequent my home so often during my school days had slowly faded away from the city life. A few years ago I was reading an article on the "missing" sparrows in cities and thats when I realised that I could not recollect when I had last seen a sparrow. Bangalore has literally chased away these tiny chirpy friends. The increase in vehicular population, the pollution, the reduction in greenary, the expansion of concrete jungles and the cutting down of trees all around had literally chased the sparrows out of Bangalore. As if all these were not sufficient, I understand that the ever increasing mobile network / signals have added to it. Thats why my joy knew no bounds when I woke to the chirping of these good old cute little friends... (I did spot sparrows recently... a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately not in Bangalore). How I wish we were more considerate to the other living beings around us.... :(

Ex-L&Tites Get-together

The L&T Bond

The L&T-ites at Mysore Works, especially the ones who were there during the 90s had a unique bonding and shared a fantastic camaraderie. So much so, even years after quitting the company, the bond still remains... Just that every one got lost in their own world and had probably lost touch on a day to day basis. With the advancement of technology, the most powerful medium of communication - Internet was put to best use by a certain Mr. Ramachandra S. He created the yahoo group for ex-L&Tites and the group is now growing, both through the internet and through word of mouth publicity. With the numbers growing and with most of the group being in Bangalore, it was a nice initiative to have a meeting arranged for all the members a couple of years ago. That meeting triggered a mini revolution and we had a get together last year. As usual, this year too it was Ramachandra and Shankar Ganesh who initiated the get together of the ex-L&Tites from Mysore works.

L&T in my blood

.....L&T has always had a special place in my heart and has had a big role in shaping my personality. For me L&T is the place where I made maximum friends and also enjoyed the most. Normally, any person would say that their college life was the best part of their life. In my case, the initial years of my life at L&T was just an extension of college but I was more independent and had the freedom to do lot of things that I would not otherwise been able to. Without any second thoughts I would admit that for me, life at L&T was much better than my college days. At college I was more of a silent, timid, introvert kind of a character, so much so that I even carried the tag "Gandhi"... a term used for people who are very silent, studious etc. I guess, my life at L&T changed all that and I have always had very fond memories of my association with people in L&T Mysore. At the time I quit L&T, internet and emails were not as popular and I did not even "own" an email ID. I used to be constant touch with a few people and a few others through them. Even many years after I quit L&T, when ever I see the L&T logo, I used to feel a rush of blood and used to get goose bumps. It was like my eyes were trained to "hunt" for the L&T logo anywhere I move around. This is where I learnt a lot of things in life and also about my own potentials. So, I was eagerly looking forward to this get together, as it was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with old friends and senior colleagues.

The Prelude

Ram and Shankar set the ball rolling... Soon LNK joined them and volunteered to take initiative in getting the things organized. When we met last year, we had a whopping strength of over 75 people attending the get together with even people travelling all the way from Mumbai (Narendra Upadhyay and Anil Prasad) and Chennai (LNK) to attend this. It was a HUGE success with everyone sharing their experiences post and during the L&T Mysore days. So this time around we expected a even bigger crowd. But that was not to be... the response was luke warm, LNK, myself and a couple of others even tried to push people... we had this discussion on whether we should meet at Bangalore or at Mysore, with family or without family. Even a polling was done to decide the place, date and whether to make it a family affair. But even this did not bring about any positive result. At one stage it was even suggested that we should call off this for now. Then, finally the date was fixed for 21st Feb'09 while the venue was yet to be decided. LNK took the onus onto himself to keep track of "who is in and who is not". A few days later, the venue was finalised (Canopy on II floor of Public Utility Building, M.G Road, Bangalore). The responses were still slowly trickling in. LNK religiously updated the "score card" and sent it out frequently along with his repeated appeals to join hands and make this event a success. I tried to get in touch with a few in person and was happy that I could pull in a couple of them. The head count was just over 30 with 3 more days to go. But, I guess, it was like the proverbial "last lap" where there was a sudden burst of energy and on the D-day we anticiapted a strength of 50. On the day 54 people turned out.

The D-Day

21st Feb'09 - It was a hectic day for me as I was supposed to visit my in-laws which is about 25km from home. I started the day "early" at around 9.45am and was on the bike with my better half and the little ones tagging along. I was eagerly waiting for the evening and soon I set for the joy ride re-tracing the route that I travelled in the morning. On the way, I get a call from Reena. She said it was just a courtesy call and told me that she heard about the L&T meet that was to happen some time "around this time". (I had actually seen Shri's mail (Shrinath Inamdar) confirming that Reena would be attending and I was wondering if she actually goofed up the date). I informed her that I was on the way and it was not too late as she still had the time to come over. Finally I managed to reach the place. As I was climbing the stairs to reach the second floor, I could hear familiar voices from upstairs, I could distinctly hear LNK, Shankar Ganesh and a voice that really surprised me (it was Reena's voice). When I reached the venue, a few of them were already there - LNK, Geetha, Ram, Shankar, Shri, Preetha, Reena, Umashankar etc... I gave a surprised look at Reena and she said "Flop show". Later I got to know that Reena and Preetha had come along with Shri and she had actually called me from his car. They wanted to play a prank on me and had "cooked up" some story and wanted to lay the trap for me. Unfortunately, it became a flopshow because I mentioned that I knew that she had confirmed her attendance for the event. Now, what was the prank or the story... I am not aware (Reena is yet to tell me)... probably she would write it in her own blog I suppose :)

And the ball set rolling....
Geetha (Subramanian) as always was the most active, chirpy, the loudest and the ever enthusiatic person. I was probably seeing her after 12-13 years. It was time to re-live the "Mysore days". Slowly people started flowing in... I could recognise most of them. It was fun, with everyone smiling from "ear to ear" and greeting each other. It was nice to note what time had done to most of us... especially people like me who had transformed from one "all rounder" (Cricket days, KVS memorial ...) to another form of an "all rounder" (looking round from all sides)... Ram and Shankar entrusted me the job of the "Accounts Manager" and I was incharge of "collections". Finally, the formal session started... with a self intro and what each one of us were doing etc. then followed by dinner. Dinner time was when everyone moved around meeting each other and updating each other etc. It was really nice to know how some of us had started on our own and doing well too. It was a very nice feeling to catch up with some good
old friends whom I had not met for ages - KNM, Manju Davis, Rajeshwari, Vasuki, Pattan shetty, Srinivas, Krishnamurthy, JD, Baindoor, Veerappan, Vasanth, Girish, Rajmohan, Narasimhan etc and some very senior colleagues like SAR, VTR, Rammohan, BP, Ramdhas (the man who needs two business cards - One to write his name, designation and company details and the other, just to write in his qualifications. I always visualise an "annexure" to his business card) etc etc etc. I had a whale of a time. Rajesh N, with whom I had closely worked during his stint at HDD and later at QA (where he was my boss, before he moved to Novell), was always a very nice person but I always thought that he was a very serious man. Over the years, when the density on his "top floor" had reduced I guess he decided to shave it off and sport a "goatie", with the looks of a DON straight out of a Bollywood flick... Now I found him to be a person with an excellent sense of humor (maybe he was always like this, but I had not seen this side of his personality) or maybe age has made him more wise and witty :)

All good things have to come to an end...
Soon, it was time to say good bye... I would have liked to stay for some more time, but then I had to travel all the way back to Peenya and so I had to hurry. After handing over the "collections" to Ram and Shankar, I started with the good byes...

Shankar, Ram, LNK - Thanks for all you efforts and making sure that this event was not canceled. I am signing off, looking forward to the next one which I am expecting it to be a BIG event... hopefully in Mysore and with families. THREE CHEERS to the Organisers!!!