HOW TO .........Enjoy Alumni Meets

It is the trend in recent years in India, to hold Alumni Meets, mostly by former students of professional colleges – like Medical, Engineering, Architecture, and Management Institutions*. Even after settling in their careers they have deep running bonds and the more successful ones want to see how the others are doing or not doing. These are usually leisurely meets and families get included.

There are large numbers who fly in from foreign countries delighted to meet old friends and to show them their extra-territorial acquisitions like the ultimate eyetooths (eye-teeth?) Gressoney watches (chronographs accurate to tenth of a second for some unknown reason) and Vietnamese wives. And an occasional one turns up with a super dog looking like a feeding bottle with fur. These meetings are jolly affairs with much joking, great bonhomie and laughter. The third most popular liquid in the world flows like the first most popular liquid. (the second is petrol, you can stop guessing).

*(I don’t know whether old Law college Alumni hold such meetings – many old Law graduates are deep into politics and so run into problems in forming even an organizing committee. I guess the intention is there but most are awaiting judgment from multiple courts - small cause, civil, criminal and Supreme. Should form any time after their strike is lifted.)

Most fun obtains in Alumni meetings organized after long lapses like 25 or more years. I know of an old medical college group meeting after a 40-year lapse! They had allotted the first 10 minutes for standing in silence, praying for the souls of the departed (30 seconds each). Many participants were shedding tears - some in sheer sorrow at the loss, some lamenting over their inability to identify the departed and quite a few due to glaucoma. It was held at a resort close to Chennai and the organisers had thoughtfully provided parking for wheel chairs, extra loud speakers for the hearing impaired, and had sensibly insisted on all participants wearing their names written in large letters, on an ID card across their chest. And they had temporary urinals close to stage entrance, for the guests of honour.

MCPs (Middle class persons) are much involved in such meets as most of them are professionals, are very visible socially and are outgoing. An occasion leading to a little more exposure of their social prominence seems a good idea. But once an invitation lands on his/her lap, MCPs get a little nervous, especially the older ones. They get nervous about not being able to name their old classmates (the very ones they had called by several names just a few decades earlier), anxieties about their altered-for-the-worse looks, deep jealousies about their old MCP friends turning up in chauffer driven BMWs, and meeting a few with Padma decoration added to their initials, (displayed on a separate ID card over the left breast, as it is closer to heart). And some get into panic about having to make a short speech (by invitation to some select guests).

This article gives broad hints on how to tackle such an event happening after a long lapse

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1) A day or two earlier to your trip, dig up the last photo of your entire batch and recall or read up all names of the classmates. At least put a face mentally to all organisers who will surely be there. Remember at this meeting, your age is no excuse for your memory lapse. At the meet, all participants are in your age group. The chief guest, usually an old teacher is barely alive.

2) Recall faces of those, that you know for a fact, have passed on. I remember meeting someone at my Alumni meet, that I had been informed had died in an accident. He was not only there large as life but in fact 15 kilos larger. I was so shocked that I almost said “Oh, My God, I am glad to see you. Somebody said you had gone”. Fortunately, I recovered and just told him “I am more happy to see you than anyone else at this meeting”. He appeared pleasantly surprised but could not hide his astonishment. I barely knew him earlier.

3) Have a good look at your Graduation photo and then at yourself in a full length mirror so that you have a greater appreciation of the changes in your mates. Please remember familiarity is kind to ugliness but cruel to beauty. And you haven’t met many of them for ages. In some very delayed meets, the group looks some thing like the original participants of salt sathyagraha.

4) Be ready for expanded versions of almost all your class mates. Actually you will encounter so much middle-aged spread that these meets bring the participants physically closer than mentally. This may be very noticeable near the crowded buffet dinner.

5) You might meet some old girl friend /boy friend whom you loved so deeply you panted with passion at the very thought. You were convinced that Romeo and Juliet were at best a close second, compared to your level of lust. It is very likely that that very person has changed so much and especially antero-posteriorly, that you get to admire the old saying that goes “it is better to have loved and lost than to have loved and married”.

6) When it is time for your talk, just remember that it has to be brief but funny and should sound like you met them yesterday. Be very informal and forget the years that have passed on. Make jokes on surefire subjects like a rich classmate who has done well in America ( “He is so rich, when he fell sick the IT department sent him a get well card”, “He has 2 swimming pools at home. One was for just rinsing”)) , college canteen (“ the idly of the previous night's dinner reincarnated a 'rice uppuma' the next morning with some awful mixed taste”, “On hot summer days, we had a topless canteen, All the male servers had taken off their shirts”.), hostel life ( “all our students learnt to sing in the hostel; they had to, as the hostel bathroom doors had no functional locks), some ‘sporty’ classmates present who love being joked about (A prodigious eater; he was a legend in his own lunch time”,” He engaged a nanny for his mentally retarded child, but she resigned after a week because the child was too backward and father was too forward”.. When he spread out his dishes on the canteen table, it looked as though a firebomb had burst in a zoo; the smell was so overpowering that it stopped the clock in the canteen”).

Never you mind they are old jokes. These are old students who would laugh at anything. They are all half drunk and well fed and would laugh even when nobody is joking. . A little calculated risk is worth taking. The chances are they may not ever see you again. After your jokes, it is as well.

P.S. - Some famous schools also organize such meets and the MCPs should avoid them. These are chaotic affairs with much confusion, too many participants, organisers failing to identify their invitees, guests unable to identify organisers or even their ‘best friends’ of yester years; some old teachers turn up looking ghostly to unleash hidden fears, and subtle attempts are on to collect donations for the school. They will be seeing class mates who had not had their first shave when they saw them last, now sitting there after their last haircut ever. And noting that their classmate who used to communicate in clusters of sentences without the benefit of a verb, calling the meeting to order as the principal of the school. Everyone goes home dejected by thoughts on the havoc caused by time and of impending mortality.