The Class of 95 Reunion

After being forced to cancel the actual reunion during the real silver jubilee year of 2020 despite a year of hectic preparation, the class of 1995 reunion happened (that’s the year I became a computer engineer!), albeit in the 27^th year, with renewed enthusiasm on the weekend of 12^th to 14^th August 2022.

It all started in 2019 when a few enthusiastic batchmates formed a WhatsApp group with the express intent of tracing as many batchmates as possible for the planned reunion of 2020. The disappointment of 2020 meant that members still held on to the group in fervent hope. Two years of relative silence and sporadic arguments culminated in a renewal around April 2022.

Yes, the actual reunion was planned and executed in less than four months of hectic organising, thanks to a dedicated core group of volunteers and a supportive (even if not at all times) large group of batchmates, which included those who attended and those who could not.

While many of the batchmates reached campus at different times on their own on 12^th August, the nucleus of the reunion took root from Hyderabad where two buses were organised to transport the now middle-aged alumni in relative comfort to the NIT Warangal campus.

The bus journey was the beginning of a two-night – three-day adventure. During that time, most of us, closing in on fifty, had little qualms about going back in time by almost three decades as we revisited the place where we had grown up together as twenty-year olds.

As the bus passed Kazipet station, everyone’s minds went back in time to that oft-taken route to campus, surprised with how much had changed, while eagerly searching for the NIT gate. As the gate emerged into sight, the bus was drowned in an outburst of joy re-awakened from the past. The memories of the place from the past were in stark contrast to the present road surprisingly littered with eateries and shops on the way to our hotel in Hanamkonda.

As we started meeting each other on reaching the hotel, the lobby was filled with a flurry of hugs and hi-fives mixed with expressions of glee and surprise on seeing balding pates amidst greying hair of our own. The energy was further given a fillip when, in the evening, we boarded the buses again to visit the NIT Warangal campus for a small stroll. We settled in on the old basketball court for an early evening of fun-filled cricket. It saw some of us compete hard, scoring runs and bagging wickets, while most sat on the side chatting, commentating, cheering, and clicking photographs.

In the evening, at the hotel, the energy seemed to have redoubled with many of us catching up on each other making up for the intervening years, with a gala dinner and dance party that kept on getting better as the night progressed into the wee hours of the morning. It seemed as if time had gone back and made a lot of us teenagers all over again, albeit for a few hours of the reunion.

The next day started early at the campus at the Kalam Hall where many of us enjoyed the sumptuous breakfast. The organisers told us to assemble at the main building with a plan to take group and department-wise photos soon thereafter, taking us back to the hurried times of making it to the first class soon after breakfast in the mess many years ago.

The photo sessions with our black commemorative t-shirts and blue jeans provided adequate memories for us to store for the future with the main building and library as the backdrop. In the close vicinity, we also completed the flag hoisting a couple of days before the Independence Day. It was a happy occasion to do it with the staff of NITW who had arranged for flags as well as plants for the alumni. All of us took our turns planting the saplings into the green expanse with great mirth, hoping that many of them would add to the beauty of the campus over the years for future generations of students.

The morning program was followed by all of us branching out by department and visiting the respective buildings, meeting the faculty and students for an excellent overview and many stimulating discussions. It was nice to see the progress across departments, interact with students and professors, and exchange fresh ideas on how alumni could contribute to the departments and institute in a multitude of possible ways.

After the department visits, a bout of nostalgia took over as we walked towards to the old hostels, cafeteria, and mess to have a lunch that was arranged, reminiscing the old times. There is nothing like the hostels and messes to take an alumnus back in time. Many of us had sharp memories of the mess and its food, who ate what and how much, with all the extra sweets and special meals coming back from the deep echelons of our memories. A few remarked that while a lot of things had changed, a lot of things had remained the same.

In the afternoon, we walked across the campus and assembled in the new auditorium, next to the old auditorium and clubs where many of us remembered spending our weekends while on campus. The new auditorium seemed to be the new nerve centre of activities on campus, and was also the location where we, as a batch, had organised the felicitation of faculty members by department.

It was also the perfect occasion to announce the Give Back Fund that the class of 1995 had put together. It was a pleasure to declare that, for an initiative that had started only a couple of months back, the Give Back Fund had received an amazing response from batchmates across the world. It had managed to get a positive response from those who could attend as well as those who could not, all adding up in the form of contributions totalling in excess of 30 Lakhs.

After the formal events in the afternoon, it was time to get back to ‘Swarg Lok’, a wonderful cultural program, pulling together memories and snippets from our time together on campus three decades back. It was wonderful reminiscing the good times, as well as recalling memories of some of the funny pet names (and their origins!) that many of us were known by then (and even now!). A round of thanksgiving to the key members of our organising team followed. It was time once again to get back to our hotel for our last night(out) of high energy games and dance before it was curtains for the reunion.

Late in the night and on the morning of the last day as all of us started leaving one by one, it was time to say our goodbyes with promises of staying in touch. All of us knew that life would take over once again. But we also knew this reunion would serve as the starting point for the next one, perhaps sooner than the 25 years (plus 2) that we had waited for this time.

These forty-eight hours had been a packed bout of a blast from the past – a heady mix of revisiting the alma mater, reawakening great memories, felicitating faculty members, giving back to the institute, and most of all, meeting old, long-lost friends. Happiness, perhaps, is meeting an old friend at a college reunion after a very long time, and realising that, after all, nothing much has changed.

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