The IIMA Alumni meet in Sydney...

As the saying goes..'Man is a social Animal'....yeah I just discovered that he truly is.

Having been posted to Sydney with an i-banking job from campus I became the pioneer of sorts...being the first one ever to be placed 'down under' directly from campus. Australia is a territory which the IIM A placement committee (placecomm) had not managed to enter...off course until I got the offer to break the ice....thanks to my H1B which could not for some reason get processed. So I arrived in the land of health freaks ( trust me, aussies are paranoid about jogging...its not so strange to find your lady boss, who also happens to be a director, get into what an Indian would call "skimpy clothing" and go out jogging/running some 8-10 km in peak sydney winter during lunch...and then come back and begin work with no signs of tiredness !!!)

Now having been sent to Sydney with no batchmates i a 100 km in sight, nor a privilege of too many friends here.....the smartest move ( I realise now) I made was to get a list of emails of all alums working/residing here. There were some 15 names I got.....good enough to make a start.


So after I was sufficiently bored by the end of the 4th week...I began my barrage of mails to these alumni for a meet. To my surprise I realised that this was met with an over enthusiastic response....it was almost as though they thought of me to be a 'farishta' ...... a God sent messenger who was here to make them meet !!! it felt great...

So, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, which also happened to be friendship's day, Sydney hosted its 1st ever IIM Ahmedabad ( for the un-initiated IIM A is also referred to as WIMWI or The Well Known Institute of Management in Western India) reunion at Ripples cafe - an exotic location..with the Harbour bridge just above and the Opera House in sight in full bloom. This apparently is also the spot where Aamir Khan dated Priety Zinta for the first time in Sydney in Dil Chahta Hai!!!....by mentioning this I dont mean to bring in any romantic angle here....sorry to disappoint.
The informal gathering had 9 WIMWIANS ( and 13 including spouse). The gang had a batch representation from the early 70’s to the last passing batch of 2007 (that's me...the lone bachelor in the group). There were the Senior citizens and there was me...not yet a citizen of Kangaroo land. Although majorly skewed to the batches of the 70’s and the 80’s... it was one big IIM A party... An excellent lot of ppl.... many who were meeting for the 1st time after being in Sydney for 20 odd yrs.!!! To be in the centre of it, I thought, was my privilege.
Off-course there was the vivid recollection of the WAC runs, Rambhai, the D11 (or was it 13) ice-cream parlour and the "tasteless" mess food ( man...somethings never change!!!)...of their times...
I,for one had a great time acquainting them with the new happenings on campus, the concept of dorm names on campus ( many didn’t have it in their times and trust me they did find it amusing!!!..I would love to get into details of some of them ..but I'll avoid..lest my blog becomes accessible to 18 yrs. ans above only..), the euphoria of T-nite, the sea change in the placement scene , the underpass, the new campus etc etc...It was great to have found an IIM A family in Aussie land coz I was begining to feel home-sick.

And wait.....then came the jackpot....when the ladies in the group realised that I was still a bachelor...."we're gonna find a girl for you here"...that was music to my ears....and then they actually started rattling of names of prospective Indian Australian spinsters that they knew of who could fit the bill!!!...things do work fast when it come to Indian women and match-making...
Well, mush as I wanted ....we could not belt out our patent

"IIMA ka tempo high hai...baki saabki leli....zig zag zig zag..." ( for the uninitiated...that’s our pre-historic...yet very effective tempo shout)

coz most, I thought ,would not have had the energy to scream...and I doubt if the Aussies around would've appreciated..

So there ended our meet....with lots of cards and ph. nos being exchanged....and plans of arranging for a cricket match for the next meet. I came home satisfied...having found a family away from home....yeah that should I hope take care of my dinner/lunch reqmts. for a few weekends :)

Cheer’s to our Alumni ( and their spouse) everywhere around the world !!!