IIT Kanpur, Batch of 1973If this page looks like trash, let that be a sign that you really oughta get Netscape. No I don't own stock. Sigh!
IIT Kanpur, Batch of 1973But this Web space is actually about the "Batch of 1973 or so", in that we include some of us who didn't join in 1973, but graduated in 1978 and so became one of us -- the enlightened few. (And far between). We really mean "Batch of either 1973 or 1978 or somebody we know", but that is a bit of a mouthful.
We were in IIT Kanpur in the good old days. When there was no WALL, and tuition was paid in three digits.
When we joined, there was no swimming pool on campus and so, unfazed, we swam in that dirty muddy slimy invigorating exhilarating yucky canal with the backdrop of Panki power station.
We were probably the only batch in the history of all IITs everywhere, ever,
to not have a single female join with us!
Okay, maybe it wasn't entirely the good old days, then. Or maybe girls aren't
so dumb after all... (Yo! Spouses!! Cool it. We're talkin goils here, not wimmin.)
We were there when the swimming pool was put in (strategically near the Health Center). We were also there when all intercollegiate swimming records set there were wiped because the damn thing was an inch-and-a-half short of 50 meters.
We were in Kanpur when students rebelled against the establishment and forced out two of the most senior officals of the institute and invented a word -- haDAich -- and then forgot what it meant.
Ours was a batch when the two students with the best results each had but one B grade!! Out of -- what was it? -- 50 billion courses? Ours was also the batch when a bunch of some twenty guys all voluntarily flunked Math 203 because 204 would be easy to max in summer!
During our stay, IITK averaged one death per term.
But now, at the turn of the century, the time has come for reminiscence and get-togethers. It is time to plan for and conjoin for a 25-year reunion in 2003. At the ole Kalyanpur campus.
So we urge all and every interested co-conspirator in the 73-78 cabal of IITK engineers and scientists to coalesce now and raise the tempo of the Silver Jubilee Reunion (SJR) effort.
And we goad all and everyone to plan to come to Kanpur in early January 2003 for a rolicking and perhaps bittersweet romp down memory lane. Remembrance of days gone by as well as the remaking of old ties are just a small effort away.
On this site, but a click away, is a storehouse of electronic information to make us feel like a community again. We have a host of information about the current whereabouts of many of us. And there is a growing collection of information about the SJR effort.
We are password-protecting the following pages so as to avoid two things:
Now, the world is smaller, everybody travels more and, there is a crying need for information about where your friends are and how to reach them. I provide a collection of this information. However, that directory is only as good as the recency of the information that you provide about yourself! We also don't have addresses of many who have not been reached by the rest of us. So, please, allow me to cajole, coax, wheedle and exhort you to send me information about yourself that will help all of us know your current state of existence --- tell us your whereabouts and telephone number, who make up your immediate family... There is a way to do this in the directory pages via a form or just send me an email.
In closing, I would like us to remember that through these many years, while some of us have been living our lives in our own castles, some of the rest of us have worked ceaselessly to keep going a sense of IITKommunity through personal impetus and tireless effort. I merely continue that noble tradition of networking... and would like to recruit YOU to do your part...
I would like to thank Rakesh Pandey who maintained an Address List in (when?) 1982. Much of the burden of information gathering and publicity had rested on the shoulders of
Tarun Desai and Avinash Agrawal. Since about 1990, the dissemination of the address list has been achieved through these web pages which are being maintained by Atish Sanyal, 73024.
