College RECap
(Launch of Reunion Book RECAp at Hotel Radisson Blu, Bengaluru on Sunday, 5th Nov 2023)
The Book RECap , or rather the idea of the Silver Jubilee(SJ) Book of the Class of ‘93-’97, was conceived right from when our batch started planning for the SJ celebration. However, like everything else from our college days, making the book a reality was nothing short of an end-semester exam. While the intention to produce a world class book was always there, it really took shape two months before the actual reunion date of 15 December 2022. The first hurdle was to find writers from every department who would each write an article about their class experience. The initial response was so lukewarm that the book team almost became defunct. However, the leaders of this project, Padmaja and Ashwini, did not give up. I was personally excited to get onboard and do my small bit to take RECap to the finish line.
The toughest part was to get the profiles of all 310 students of our batch. Many people said it was easier to make a donation to the Endowment Fund than to go through the arduous procedure of entering their details on the excel sheet! However, as the reunion dates came closer, the excitement grew, and more and more entries started pouring in. The complex excel sheet was simplified to a one-page pdf. CSE showed great promise: led by the girls of CSE and aided by many volunteers, they completed almost 100% of the profiles. While the 100% goal for the entire batch seems elusive, the fact that many people came together and volunteered brought a great sense of achievement overall. It built camaraderie among people who had never met in 25 years; yet felt like they had always known each other. Even though I could not attend the reunion, I lived the experience by contributing to the book. Like my college days (where I graduated a few months after everyone!), the book was finished well after the college reunion! I will miss the weekly review with Padmaja and Edwin (Ironically, I spent more time with Padmaja for the reunion book than my 4 years as classmates in college!)
The SJ Book was symbolically released by the Director on 16 December 2022 at NIT Warangal and the print version is now available for our batchmates. I hope RECap becomes an annual Alumni book for the future batches too! And through RECap we can relive our past, celebrate the present and plan for the future!
A special thanks to Edwin Joney, who put in hundreds of hours compiling the contents of the book and formatting it in the current form. To Tanya Pradhan for designing the cover page and to CK Meena for reviewing all the contents with an eagle eye. And off course to the entire batch of 93–97 for being the force to reckon with!
We promise that this would be one book that everyone from the batch of ‘93-’97 would be proud to have on their bookshelf!
