PAST
EVENTS!
November 6, 2004, BITSAA Chennai Get-together
November
6, 2004, East Coast Oasis 2004 - The Alumni Edition
October
27, 2004, Nagpur kickoff
October
24, 2004, Silicon Valley Chapter Golf Event
October
17, 2004, BITSAA Sydney Picnic
September 19, 2004. Silicon Valley Chapter picnic!
September 2004, BITSAA Delhi Annual Get-Together
Sept.
17, 2004, BITSAA UK Get-together in London
August
27-29, 2004, Batch of ’64 Reunion in Washington DC
August
21, 2004, Hyderabad Monsoon Bash
July 31,
2004, 1st International East Coast Wing Cricket
Tournament
June 19,
2004 CEL Dinner Event in Hyderabad
CHENNAI
November 6, 2004, BITSAA Chennai Get-together
Sponsor: HSBC
Chennai Event Report - "Because
the magic beckons...." (Indian Express copyright)
As emcee, you’re supposed to be
armed with quicksilver wit and ready repartee, not a
sheaf of meticulous notes about what to say and when,
but then the emcee being a BITSian, (Baddy, ’88), he
probably took it to be the equivalent of an open-book
test.
Anyway, as said emcee gulped down a
couple of beers (generously subsidised... thanks
sponsors) to calm the butterflies down, the stage was
all set for the third get-together organised by
BITSAA-Chennai – no, wait a minute. The stage wasn’t
set, actually. It was supposed to have this humongous
backdrop made by the art- and-dee volunteers here, a
reminder of the days in BITS when... well, humongous
backdrops were made by the art-and-dee volunteers there.
But the folks at Hotel Trident Hilton nixed the idea.
So the stage remained
not-quite-set-as-per-plan, but ready to go nonetheless.
The invitations – sent by email, of course; we’re
quite bare-bones, boss – said the event would begin at
6:30 p.m. (You know the date right? Satuday, November
6th?) And why would all the BITSians in Chennai land up?
“Because,” as per the invitations diligently sent
out by Chimpu (’88), “magic still beckons.”
We don’t know about the magic part,
but what we saw beckoning us was the index finger of the
guy at the laptop connected to the projector. Of course,
it wasn’t working, and this caused some heartburn. But
the members of the Music Club [Kamesh (‘85), Aruna (‘88),
Anu (‘88), Malai (‘88)] took the stage and convinced
the audience that not everything this evening was going
to be filled with glitches. They continued to fill the
(intended and unintended) gaps between the programmes
throughout the evening – even children joined in, in
what became an event of its own, a mini Talent Show.
As this was the same evening that the
BITSians in the East Coast of America were getting
together for their reunion, a small video was made to
greet them from here. At least, that’s what the
general idea was. No one knows, to date, if such a
recording actually exists, as nobody’s said anything
about it ever since.
Everybody, however, did have a lot to
say about the two photograph compilations power-pointed
together by Suchu (‘87) – and they’d have probably
said a lot more, had it not been for the lumps in their
throats (from the fantastic bits of nostalgia). That was
one of the hits of the evening, as was a tirade by
spouses of BITSians, who came up to expound on all the
things that made them shudder whenever they heard the
two words – BITSian get-together. Probably egged on by
suffering through countless evenings of being the
non-BITSians in BITSian gatherings, they told us what
bugged them about BITSians, presumably in the hope that
this would make us see the error of our ways and change
forever. The poor delusional souls! It was fun, though!
The evening sobered up a bit when a
couple of announcements – requests for help, really
– were read out, one for a student’s financial aid,
the other for a student’s medical care in the US. Then
things got back to normal with a quiz on BITS, conducted
by ex-BOB – Bank of Baroda, er, Brain of BITS –
Pingle (‘88). The folks present dazzled with their
knowledge of trivia about the alma mater. (The pin code
of Pilani is 333031. Who’da thunk!)
After this, plenty of seniors – from
the sixties and seventies; yes, apparently, BITS existed
even then – came up to share their experiences,
thoughts, musings, and the evening came to a close with
everyone flocking to the food tables. After all those
years at the messes at Pilani, the prospect of finding
more than one piece of paneer per bowl was apparently
too much to resist.
Venue
: Chennai, India
Contact
: Srikanth Krishnamurthy
Email
:
seethusri@yahoo.com
EAST
COAST
November
6, 2004, Oasis 2004 - The Alumni Edition
Sponsors CitiNRI
Wissen Inc Radiant Systems, NuWare and Pavilionshop.com
What an event
that was! Nostalgia, laughter, business, cricket and
dancing. It was a reunion as only BITSian reunions can
be! Some 170 BITSians, spouses and kids from 1961
thru 2000 attended the festive East Coast Annual Reunion
at the Somerset Marriott on November 6th, 2004. Grad
students attended in record numbers for the first time,
in fact two drove from Dartmouth for the occasion! Six
BITSian couples attended with their children. BITSians
drove or flew from Silicon Valley, Raleigh, Pittsburgh
and Chicago although most were from the tri-state area.
Our guests of honor, Ranvir and Adarsh Trehan ('61) came
all the way from Washington DC.
Rajesh Hukku, CEO of
iFlex gave an inspiring speech. He was true to his
reputation- funny and inspiring! The room exploded in
applause when Rajesh Hukku announced that a BITSian had
won the Dewang Mehta Award, the highest award in India
given by the Government of India, in each of the first
two years of its inception! Incidently, the first award
was won by Vijay Chandru (of the Simputer team) and
second by Rajesh himself. Rajesh talked about how India
has come so far after having so little resources back in
those days. He remembered assembling BITS’ first
computer and the lack of TV reception in a place like
CEERI. Marveling at India’s achievements, he
reiterated that Indians can build world-class software
under the "Made in India" label instead of
contracting their services to US companies.
Anupendra Sharma, the
outgoing editor of Sandpaper, requested Rajesh Hukku to
release the Fall 2004 issue of Sandpaper magazine - a
97-page magazine that will be launched shortly. Without
doubt, Sandpaper is the best produced and slickest
alumni magazine in Asia. We challenge someone to find a
better alumni magazine than the Sandpaper!
Following the release
of the Sandpaper, Vik announced the guest of honor -
Ranvir Trehan. Ranvir, BITSAA's biggest donor in
history, is CEO of SETA in Washington DC. SETA is a $100
million supplier of IT services to the US Government. He
has been named One of the 100 persons with most
influence on Federal Technology strategy. Ranvir spoke
of his experiences in Pilani back in the late 50's and
early 60's. He was the first ever student to attend BITS
on a basketball scholarship! Ranvir remembered how he
had to go to Pilani (on a camel) and how he and his
mates would go to Delhi just to watch movies! BITSAA
announced the Ranvir Trehan Tennis Cup as a token of
thanks for his contribution to BITSConnect.
MCVik and DJ Nas kicked
off the dancing for kids who had finished their meal
early. Parents followed kids in no time and before long,
the dance floor was overflowing with BITSians dancing to
bhangra and hip-hop. When the music stopped, it was time
for standup comedy by Ashwin. Ashwin began with a
rendition of a nursery rhyme "Twinkle Twinkle"
as sung by a South Indian priest, a church choir, a
mullah, and a host of others. He brought the house down
with his imitation of Richie Benaud commenting on an
India versus Australia test match!
In the end, the evening
was a powerful event, not just for the nostalgia, but
for the opportunity to meet industry leaders in various
spheres and expand the network. One BITSian said,
"I met at least 10 of my batch mates for the first
time since I left Pilani. And I met another 10 people I
intend to stay in touch with." Another said “I
talked to someone about taking a great start-up idea
forward.”
Thanks again for
coming out and supporting BITSAA. And many many thanks
to the volunteers. Won't name them here but you know who
you are! What is BITSAA without the many hours you give
to the organization. As always,
surplus proceeds from this event will go towards the
BITSAA East Coast endowment which currently funds two
scholarships in Pilani to meritorious and needy
students.
Sponsors
CitiNRI www.CitiNRI.com
Bringing India closer to you...
Wissen Inc www.wisseninc.com
Knowledge and Information Management Experts
Radiant Systems www.radiants.com
For all computing solutions...
NuWare www.NuWare.com
Pavilionshop.com www.Pavilionshop.com
Venue
: Somerset Hilton, New Jersey, USA
Contact
: Nirav Shah
Email
:
nrvsh@yahoo.com
NAGPUR
October
27, 2004, Nagpur Chapter
It
was so much fun to meet up with everyone at 27th October
at Cafe Coffee day. For people who could not come in,
thought I would just send a brief informal mail out.
From the minute that I walked in, I am sure this was
going to be a great evening. While the place (CCD, I
believe it’s called) was noisy and evoked memories of
our student days, especially with so many student
milling around-the BITS gang was gung-ho! We did move
out the cafe to have a quieter place (That was a great
idea, Vipin!) and had fun lachchaing.
The
members present were ranging from Mr. Kanoria who
created the first Alumni association in
Nagpur
,
a senior alumnus of 1970 batch - to a
"fresher" alumnus Akbar M Kamal, of 2004
batch! There were 13 of us, and each of us was asked to
share one memory of BITS that we remembered from our
BITS days. From romantic memories to "Bhoot"
memories to Student strikes, we had fun just listening
to the others. Ajay Saraf who came back from BITS after
a recent get together shared the stories from recent
visit. Vipin, who is visiting from US, shared the
activities of the BITS Association in the
Silicon
Valley
,
USA
.
All in all, we all had fun. We all decided that
we must meet again, maybe after Diwali, this time with
our families, and plan out some fun and common interest
activities - where we could have fun and do some serious
networking - do business, collaborate, lobby with local
agencies etc- and keep the BITS flag flying in this
orange city.
Venue : Cafe Coffee day, VCA Complex,
Contact
: Sangeeta Patni (’85)
Email :
sangeeta_patni@yahoo.com
SILICON VALLEY
October
24, 2004, Silicon Valley Chapter Golf Event
Close
on the heels of their East Coast counterparts, the
Silicon Valley Chapter organized their first ever Golf
Tournament on
the
24th of October 2004
.
About 27 BITSians of batches ranging from 1972 to 1997
turned-up for the event at the lovely 9-hole Fremont
Park Golf Course. The idea behind the event was to
connect BITSians in the bay area via Golf and introduce
Golf to people who have never played this great game
before. Vikram Pamarthi ('91) and
Chandra Bhople (’74 EEE) pitched
in with free training classes for beginners before the
event by helping new comers perfect their swing. The
Golf Tournament was played in a "scramble"
style by 6 teams and was finally won by the team of Kinney,
Juggy, Sanjay and Ashish. Closest to
Pin prizes were won by Phalguni Nanda, Kinney,
and Prem Talreja. Vikram Pamarthi won the longest
drive contest.
The
best part of the event was the beer and jokes session at
the end where all BITSians got together to do what they
do best: party! Chandra
Bhople describes
his vision for the event, "We should have 100
BITSians playing golf in the bay area by this time next
year. This would provide tremendous
opportunity
for BITSians to meet each other, network, and reminisce
about their Pilani days far away from the day-to-day
chores and challenges. Hopefully it will also help them
in their career".
The
grapevine has it that a BITS v/s IIT Golf Tournament
might be on the cards next year. Now, how many BITSians
would like to turn up for that!
Venue
Freemont Park Golf Course
Contact
: Ashish Garg (’01)
Email :
gargyboy@yahoo.com
SYDNEY
October
17, 2004, BITSAA Sydney Picnic
Good food, great BITSian
company, an inning or two of BITS style cricket,
children’s games and memories of Pilani days made for a
cold yet fun-filled day at the BITSAA Picnic. Almost 40
people were at this event including alumni and family
members.
Contact :
Ramaswamy Nagarajan
Email :
rnagarajan@hotmail.com
Venue :
Sydney, Australia
SILICON VALLEY
September 19, 2004. Silicon Valley Chapter picnic!
Rain and associated
inconvenience were no match for BITSian enthu and there
were no damp spirits at this year’s silicon valley
chapter picnic held at Central Park, Lake Elizabeth in
Fremont CA.
Venue
: Fremont, USA
NEW
DELHI
September 2004, BITSAA Delhi Annual Get-Together
The
Delhi chapter held its annual get-together Dinner &
General Meeting at the Indian National Science Academy
Auditorium in New Delhi. It was an enthralling evening
with Mr. Prithviraj Chavan as the Chief Guest for the
evening – an ex-BITSian who has been Member of
Parliament 4 times and is now Minister of State in Prime
Minister's Office with the Government of India. Dr. R K
Mittal President BITSAA Pilani was the Guest of Honor.
The evening included presentations to the guests and
their spouses. The Minister was welcomed by the Senior
Most Alumnus Mr. S P Sachar (Mechanical ’50). Mr. A C
Talwani (Electronics ’53) read out the Welcome Address.
A Citation to honor the Minister was read out by the
Secretary of the Association, Pradeep Sethi B.E.
(Chemical ’77). The Citation was presented to the
Minister by Dr. Mittal on behalf of BITSAA.
Mr. Chavan released a CD
of the BITSAA Online Directory by visiting the site live
& opening his own page and a copy was presented to all
BITSians present at the event. Vinod Puri (Electronics
’64) and K K Sainani (Electronics ’79) were instrumental
in making this Directory a reality. The Hon'ble
Minister then addressed the gathering of over 150
BITSians, including students between ’50 to ’04, their
spouses & other guests.
After Mr. Prithviraj’s
speech that outlined his experiences and transition from
Pilani to the PM’s office, Dr. Mittal communicated
recent BITS developments and BITSAA initiatives to the
group. Mr. S K Kaila (Mechanical ’54), President BITSAA
Delhi Chapter, thanked the Hon'ble Minister & his wife
for gracing the function. Special thanks were also
extended to Dr. R K Mittal and his family, to Dr.
Harivansh Chaturvedi and other guests from BIMTECH
Alumni Association for joining on this occasion.
The special evening wound
up around midnight with a few BITSians still reluctant
to leave the premises!
Venue
: Indian Science Academy Auditorium, New
Delhi
LONDON
Sept.
17, 2004, BITSAA UK Get-together
Seven people turned up at
the Fuel, in the order of batch - Sampath Jagannathan
(92), Himani Gupta (94), Ramnish Kalsi (95), Priya Iyer
(95), Ramprasad Torati "Ramp" (96), Prasanna Kumar (96)
and myself (96). Unfortunately Anupam Gupta (89 Batch)
was stuck in the traffic and couldn't make it to the
meeting. Anyways, thanks Anupam for choosing the venue.
It was a very good choice.
Venue :
London, UK
Contact :
Sandeep Sharma
Email :
Sandeep.Sharma@samsung.com
WASHINGTON DC
August
27-29, 2004, Batch of ’64 Reunion in Washington DC
BITS, Pilani, graduates
from the Batch of ’64 (Class of ’69) in India have been
keeping in touch for a long time with the help of
Manohar Baheti, Deepak Khosla, Ashok Surekha, Om Gupta,
and some of the others others. But the North American
graduates were fragmented so Anupam Sachdev and Jasbir
Saini started the process of locating the folks and
planning the meet. Everyone started pitching in the
effort. Thanks to internet search engines, emails and
BIT69 directories they located the folks all across the
USA and Canada. It turns out that 2004 was the 35th year
since we graduated in 1969, so we called the meet
“Paintees Saal Baad” based upon the famous movie “Bees
Saal Baad” which was popular during the college days.
The meet started with the
‘69 graduates meeting in the atrium lounge on Aug. 27 at
the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington Virginia
across from the Washington Monument. There were warm
hugs, surprises and excitement among old friends who
were meeting after such a long time. This was followed
by gift bags at the welcome desk. When everyone met for
drinks in the suite in the evening the whole floor was
buzz with excitement and non-stop conversations.
Luckily, we had booked the whole floor except for some
exceptions. Even though everyone was changed in looks
over time it was quite clear that the 35 years had not
changed anything. It was just a pause in the whole
process. The evening was spent at a local Mediterranean
restaurant called “Casablanca” with live entertainment
to the delight of everyone.
Aug. 28 was spent with
golf for some and meeting at breakfast. Then the rest of
the day was spent mostly by touring the various sites,
monuments and attractions in the Washington DC area. The
evening started with folks getting together for drinks
and group photographs. The finale was a dinner at
“Bombay Palace”. The gathering started with more
friends joining us for the dinner with families. This
was followed by a DVD movie called “ Paintees Saal Baad
– The Lost memories of Pilani” created by Vinay Mehta
specially for this event movie using photos and 8mm
footage he took during his days in Pilani. We followed
it up with a “Now and Then” slide show that included
photos of each attendee from college days and then some
taken more recently. Both movies were a great success
since the peanut gallery was very active and everyone
could identify with the photos.
Our keynote speaker was Om
Gupta, a BITS ’69 colleague from New Delhi. This was
followed by a presentation by BITSAA. Late night was
spent with jokes, conversation into the early hours of
the morning. It was hard to break them up.
Aug. 29 was early morning
breakfast gatherings and then sweet goodbyes. It was
quite apparent that those days in Pilani had created a
bond that was hard to break. The group was more like a
family after all these years than just friends. Even
though everyone was quite successful in their line of
work, the emphasis was on friendship and not business,
status or money. It was a great reunion based upon the
comments and thank you notes received from everyone.
Plans are now already in works for the next reunion in
Las Vegas in year 2005. See tons of photographs on
www.bits69.com
Contact :
Jasbir Saini
Email :
jssaini@yahoo.com
Venue :
Washington DC
HYDERABAD
August
21, 2004, Hyderabad Monsoon Bash
One
of our annual dinner events, postponed from its regular
date of Aug 14 to
Aug
21 2004
,
was held at Chiran Fort Club. Over 150 BITSians along
with family members participated. There was good
interaction among the olderPilanians (as some prefer to
be called) and the younger BITSians. Prof TSKV Iyer
& Mrs. Iyer attended the meeting and presented his
latest book to the association. With many PS2 students
in
Hyderabad
,
some CDs of events at Pilani were played / projected.
While the hint of rain remained through out the evening,
the spirits as usual were high. A robust round of
Tambola and dinner culminated the evening.
EAST
COAST
August
14, 2004, Pilani Masters Golf Tournament
The winning
team with Venu Myneni (middle), a regular sponsor of
East Coast events
The third Pilani Masters
golf tournament was held at Princeton’s famed Bunker
Hill golf course. The final standings were as follows:
Winner: Ravi Mehra ('64)
Runner Up: Ashish Sharma
(son of BITSian)
Third: Venk Sharma
Closest to Pin: Rahul
Banerjee
Gamesmanship Award: Satish
Paul
Winning Team: Ravi &
Rahoul Mehra with Venk & Chetan Sharma
Runner-Up Team: KC and
Ashish Sharma, Venu Myneni and Anupendra Sharma
EAST
COAST
July 31,
2004, 1st International East Coast Wing Cricket
Tournament
This first-ever BITSian-style
Wing Cricket Tournament was a smash hit! Unfortunately
as you can see above, we could not import a chair in
time, so the trolley had to be substituted. The event
was held at the John F. Kennedy Cricket Ground, in
Sayreville, NJ. There were two female players, one of
whom received the best batsmen award for her
scintillating knock of sixes and fours ! The winning
team was headed by a BITSian woman as well.
Winners
of the Wing Cricket Tournament
There were as usual, tons
of awards and trophies for which were handed out as
follows:
DreamCricket Best
Fielding: Gurdeep Chhabra (1978)
DreamCricket Best Bowling:
Srinivas Alladi (1982)
NuWare Man of the
Tournament: Vikram Datla (1990)
DreamCricket Wing Cricket
Best Batsman: Chandana (BITSian's spouse)
NuWare Clash of the Titans
Winner: Post-90
Radiant WingCricket
Winners: HCL Blitzkrieg!
Radiant WingCricket Second
Place: L, G and Night Cricket at ShivG!
The matches were umpired
by Sarat Paladugu.
Venue :
Sayreville, NJ
HYDERABAD
June 19,
2004
, CEL
Dinner Event
Saturday June
19 2004
, the
QutubShahi Hall of Country Club-Begumpet was packed to
capacity with BITSians past and present as the BITS
student team from the Center for Entrepreneurship
Leadership (CEL) presented the CEL concept and provided
updates on the activities and plans. CEL was set up to
promote the spirit of entrepreneurial thinking among the
BITSian community in March 2003. The presentation was
followed by active interaction between the CEL team and
the alumni. The CEL student team also met with many
alumni individually during their summer break. BITSAA
Hyderabad will continue to be actively involved with CEL
activities. We had about 180 BITSians attending the
event.
Venue: Chiran Fort Club, Begumpet
Organizers:
Sanjay Khendry, 98480 14070,
Sanjay.Khendry@SierraAtlantic.com (and many others)■
