It was supposed to be a party to walk down memory lane much like all the batches before us. The idea of talking about it one year in advance was simply to ensure that all the ‘firangis’ could make their travel plans appropriately and we could have maximum attendance.
But what an animal this Reunion has morphed into! The one year of advance notice for ticketing actually turned into one year of advance preparation. It began with the idea of the ‘Night Spend’. All batches do a party – we need to be different – we shall do an overnighter. Our batch started the trend of the reunions with the party at Alok Modi’s farm in 2002 so we will be raising the bar for all reunions to come. The sports day idea took hold – skool to jaana padega. And assembly – can we have a school reunion without Ram Nam Ras Peeje? The one night @ party, turned into a 3 day mega event.
But it was a slow start. Three months to go and only 45 bookings – 15 of those from the Organising Committee – we wondered if our reunion was going to be the biggest flop show. Much dejection in the ranks. The hotel rooms had been set aside – would they go empty? The arrangements for sports day had begun – kaun ayega? The hare brained idea of a S 32 Sandesh had been floated – with nary an article in sight. Hans and Rohit kept the spirits up – 30 names from the NSCI gang were floated – “yeh sab ayenge, tu dekhna” – true Modernites to yahi hain. Without that constant refrain, the mood would have gone from dejection to abject sorrow.
And then the magic happened – the mails started trickling in and the euphoria took hold. Batchmates started emerging from the past. Photos were dug out and we even got a couple of junior school ones. Hell, even Raksha Bhandari uploaded some pictures of the batch! People volunteered to write and the result is plain to see – a 30 page Sandesh, 25 years down? Quite an achievement.
And in the background, the website went up – is there any other batch that has its own site? Bhala, our techno whiz – efficiently transferred all communication to the site – one place where you could find it all? The photos started pouring in – Varun must have had his scanners running 24 X 7 – all of us took the easy way out by sending him the photos – tu scan kar le yaar. Amarjit’s phone bill will be a testimony to the toil of calling people again and again to ‘pay up nahin to rooms full ho jayenge’, Arjun floating around giving his freaky ideas – and actually making them happen by putting his office and his hotel at our disposal and going to school to pay up the long standing debt to Lata Vaidyanathan so she loves our batch again!
Vasundhara enthusiastically organizing the assembly program – we must have prayer, news and thought for the day! Ashwani, Piyush, Gaurav, Mahip – being there at every meeting or behind the scenes, working the phones, getting people on board – paise nahin diye? Main deta hoon / deti hoon, us se baad mein le leenge. Hans and Rohit – leaders of the largest old school gang that is still an old school gang! 4 trips to school to organize sports day and one whole day to convince the canteen to serve us!
And amid this frenzy of activity our very own Tinker Bell, Manisha – the angel in Arjun’s office without who things would never have come together as they did. From invitation designs, printing, tracking bookings, coordinating with the hotel, sending the invites to teachers, showing us ideas for gifts – what did this girl not do. ‘Manisha ko keh de yaar’ was the magic mantra.
We are on the home stretch now with less than a week to go. The Sandesh is done, the photos are scanned, the teachers invitations have been sent and received, the momentos made, the banners designed, the menus planned, the song list made, the program written, the sports kit organized. All that remains is to meet on the 25th and re-live Modern in 1984.
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