XLRI Alumni Meet - Bay Area - a Report

This account of our alumni picnic on June 1st was a long time in coming, so without further ado:

The third day of May
My alma mater said to me
Call all my faithful
And come they will to me

Emails went & messages flew
Stones were turned & calls were made
And one by one our numbers grew
As our cyber stalking awoke the dead

And so on the first day of June
We gathered at the Park Ed Levin
In full flow by high noon
In nostalgia & networking heaven

Thusly on this warm summers day
Ye Olde XL smiled as its alumni
Gathered from far & away

20 XLers an-excelling
15 spouses an-espousing
11 children a-chilling
6 ‘Uncle Sam’ pizzas an-appeasing
4 packs of beer a-frothing

And with that rhymes & pun-ishment, I will crawl back to prose.

All photos taken (inexpertly) by me on Vivek’s camera. Many thanks to him for uploading them. I have since transferred them to an online photo album on Snapfish so that it is easier to get prints & see them all together on slideshow mode. You need a Snapfish account to view these photos. If you don’t have one, they are also available (but without thumbnails & slideshows) at Vivek’s site -http://www.marketfeat.com/services/xl_pics/. If there are any volunteers for uploading the photos to a free open site, I will be happy to send jpeg’s of the photos.

The picnic on June 1^st was the biggest in Bay Area in my 8 years here. Our numbers are growing, & by my estimate at the picnic we got approximately 40% of XLers who are here now. 60% of the attendees were at an XL alumni event for the first time. XLers from 4 decades were present. After a quite few years these are very encouraging statistics.

This email is cc-ed to many of you who I contacted via LinkedIn etc. If you aren’t a member of the XL California Yahoo Group, please sign up so that we can keep you abreast of what’s happening in our XL community. KP Naidu moderates this group. I have also created a short (12 question) survey for some feedback on the kind of interactions everyone would prefer. Please complete this when you have 10-15 minutes. Your help will be much appreciated. Some of you who attended the picnic have already completed a version of this. You don’t need to do it again.

Finally, here is the complete list of attendees on June 1st:

Name	Stream	Year
Pal Luthra	BME	1972
Anil J. Deora	BMD	1979
KP Naidu	PM & IR	1981
Sunil Erraballi	BMD	1982
Dinesh Bahal	BMD	1983
Vivek	BMD	1986
Sandra Mahadwar	PM & IR	1986
Meghna Virick	PM & IR	1989
Sandeep Harpalani	BMD	1992
Ranu Gupta	PM & IR	1996
Tipu Purkayastha	PM & IR	1996
Reema Vijay	PM & IR	1997
Asmita Katdare	PM & IR	1998
Karthik Sarma	PM & IR	1998
Guneet Paintal	BMD	1999
Herambh Athavale	BMD	2000
Charu Madan	PM & IR	2000
Vinod K Gupta	BMD	2003
Elizabeth Aries	PM & IR	2005
Sarath Gonugunta	PGCBM	2006

A big round of thanks is due to all of them for making the time to attend the picnic, & in many cases getting their spouses & children with them. A collage of faces is linked for easy identification. We all left with fond memories & new friends. Watch this space for the announcement of the next event.

Regards,

Tipu Purkayastha

PS: If you know of an XL alumni lurker in the Bay Area, please send the message to them.