There was a naming ceremony held on 7 April of the kid of Chitra and Rajeesh, the kid who had made a dramatic entry into our world in the month of February, giving us some anxious moments ( covered in my Feb blog post).
Raj, what are you doing these days ?
Collecting moments, I tell them.
Another opportunity to collect my moments came, when my friend and college mate, Rakesh Singh invited me to join him in his celebration of his 50th wedding anniversary at vadodara (Baroda) , Gujarat, on 11th April. For some reason, Prema had to staty back and I travelled single for the event.
It was a memorable and touching event filled with love and respect from his children, grand children, siblings,relatives and friends ( includes many of us, his engineering class mates.
Here is a summary report of the whole trip by Col Ravindra Tripathi ( which I have flicked from his face book post)
In a touching bonhomie, 19 of us from REC Rkla 1973 batch attended dear Rakesh Singh and Manju’s 50th Wedding Anniversary at Baroda. It was a never forgettable gala celebration spread over two evenings. This Baroda sojourn for us ,was a great happy togetherness with Rakesh and his family. Rakesh and respected Manju ji wishing you both good health and many many more years of active life.
We also had a great opportunity of visiting Statue of Unity. What a great tribute and respect has been etched in stone for Sardar Patel
Regards珞 with Gargie Tripathi
Meanwhile I had sent a whatsapp message to my cousins saying I am attending Rakesh singh’s 50 th wedding anniversary celebration. The autocorrect said Rajesh ‘Single’ is celebrating his 50th anniversary. Single ? they responded and Govind asks me is that why you went alone leaving prema behind.
Then there is this Prankster, Mishra ji, puts me in an embarrassing situation. All our friends were sitting in front of a roundtable, When Mishra ji whispers to me, who is the happiest person in our group. I pointed to Patel and when the group asked what, Misraji says I asked him who is the kamina (mean guy) in our group. He is showing Patel. Knowing mishraji is a Kameena, he took it sportingly. It was like college days, grandfathers, no change.
For the information of our batch mates, people present
Mishra ji.
Rakesh Singh+1
Lal Bahadur Rai
Hathiram Patnaik+1
Subhash Mathur Vaishya+1
Rakesh Bhasker+1
PK Alok+1
Pradeep Srivastava
Vineet+1
RP Tripathi +1
BK Mohapatra +#
Kamta Singh+1
Rajendra Menon
Suresh Mehta+1
Dinesh Patel+1
Subhang Pandya+1
CB Mishra+1
KP Bhagat +1
A new friend, Pradeep Sahasrabudhe, IIT mumbai, living in pune was my room mate on the first day on the hotel
He was Rakesh’s collegue and had a good time talking, a new friend at my age
Finally one more moment for the collection of the month. after the Baroda trip I went to cochin.
Cochin flight, I was seated and watching the people passing by to their seats and was wondering will I see any familiar face, when a voice said hello sir. A pleasant handsome guy, before I could say hi Alexander, he said Raghu and saved me from blundering. I recognised him, my old colleague, he is still young, and tried to stand up to shake his hand, with my seat belt on. Its OK he said, please sit, what happened to your hand when he saw the bandage. Cut my hand, I was brief, there were people nudging him to move, which saved him from hearing the details.
Thought of meeting him after deboardng while collecting the luggage, it didn’t happen, since I reached the baggage collection conveyor so leisurely, others must have reached their home, with only our luggage moving around waiting for us. Its been around 20 years since we last met which ended in a flashy meet. Thrilled, Raghu.
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