Rendezvous 2005 - Pirandha Kadhai

It was Friday, 29th July. We have started a new trend at work. We allot one hour every Friday for fun and games. Being in Cognizant you need to celebrate work. I was so excited, it was not because of the Friday fun. But it was because the "D" day was nearer.

I never enjoyed my college days, especially when I was doing my MCA. I always wanted to come back home. But I missed those days once I graduated. I took a resolution that I would stay in touch with my classmates. I initiated this get-together plan in April/June 2004. The response from my classmates were very poor. Hardly 10 people were ready to join us. The excitement with which I started shooting e-mails to our group faded as days went by. I couldn't understand why these people were so indifferent. They didn't even bother to reply the mails that I sent. At that time, all my friends had a valid reason. Most of them were unemployed.

After one year, once again I started mailing them on the get-together. This time there were quite a few additional responses. I created a database for people to update their contact details. In addition, I also created polls to get an idea on what each person has in his/her mind. But once again my efforts failed. There were hardly 10 entries in the poll/database.

I coordinated with Mohi, who happens to be the moderator of our group and removed the people whose e-mail address had expired. We tried tracking the whereabouts of all our classmates. By then the plans once again flopped.

All of a sudden, Govind who was our class representative, sent an e-mail saying that the get-together will happen on 31st July. I was really excited. But I still had my own doubts if people would really turn-up. Most of them were abroad and we didn't have contact details of 50% of people. But Govind did a neat job. He somehow found the contact details of our classmates and he communicated with them from Delhi.

We finalized the date. Then came the question of Venue. Initially, we thought of having it in Spencer's Plaza, Chennai. But I felt the place would be too crowded on Sunday and we won't have enough privacy and space. The next option was to hire a resort and go there. But once again, we thought of commuting. Some of our friends were placed in Bangalore. It will be difficult for them to start early on 31st. So I gave a suggestion that we can hire a hall and have the function there.

God was on our side. One of our friends, Muthu, is working at the Hotel Sangeetha. I contacted him and asked him to enquire the hall charges and food charges. We finally fixed the Vadapalani hall for the function. We also fixed the timings as 4 P.M to 7 P.M.

I started calling people from Friday evening to remind them of the meeting. I did some shopping too. I got pens and scribbling pads for them. I even tried to paint a banner. Unfortunately it didn't come out well. Still we displayed it in the hall.

To know how the get-together went, wait for my next blog....