Karapettai Old Boys 87 : Pre Alumni Meet 20th February

When we left in different directions in 1987 for after-school education, the mode of communications available then were not sufficient enough to bind us together. Except some random meets and phone conversations, there was not much to write home about. Some were always in touch, but most were not in the network. Come Facebook and Whatsapp, it was a matter of time before we came together eventually.

Two months back, 20-02-2016 was named as a pre-meet date. When the spark started, it was meant to be a meet with three or four people to plan a get together.
One thing led to the other and the planning meet snowballed into something quite huge. Overwhelming response started to pour in from all over Tamilnadu and people consented to attend the meet from Chennai, Madurai, Tiruppur, Coimbatore along with local Tuticorin folks. What followed was an amazing show of enthusiasm and the planning meet saw 33 people attending.

The group started with Sakthivel taking the lead, supported by Soma sankar, Kannaram, Muthukumar and Manimaran. Soma was conspicuous by his absence. Balasundaram helped things in a big way by making the arrangements at Hotel Gowri Sankar which was the venue for the meet.

The ceremony started with registration at 4:00 PM as scheduled. Filling up the personal datasheet and paying the fees took up the next half an hour. People started to gather around the blown out the group photos of 8th standard and 12th standard, reminiscing old memories.
Thamil Thai Vaalthu followed. We observed silence for a minute, as a mark of respect to the deceased souls of school friends of ours viz. Jayakanthan, Ganesan and Thomas Roy.

Sakthivel delivered a welcome speech. He emphasized that reunion with friends is a perfect recipe to revive those youthful years again.

A cake with the our 12th standard photo on top cream was cut to mark the occasion.

Cake Cut during the ceremony.

All the attendees introduced themselves individually. They talked about their after-school education, career, family, their kids etc. Different emotions flowed, right from roaring laughter to teary eyes.
There was stark silence when Rosari explained emotionally how his school friends helped him during his adverse times in life. It was absolutely thrilling to see how life has shown a unique path to everyone.

Photo shoot session followed at 6:00 PM as scheduled.

Group Photo

As a part of reliving the past memories, individuals narrated interesting anecdotes that happened when in school and after-school. The session was made lively by Sakthivel, Sathyaraj, Ramesh Prabu among others.

The brainstorming session began to plan for the alumni meet.
** Different options were explored for the venue and timing.
Finally we settled with dates 25-06-2015 and 26-06-2015, and venue was frozen at Courtallum.

** KannaRam explained the importance of forming a trust and giving back to the society to help those in need.
He announced that he will contribute Rs 50,000 to the corpus fund towards the cause.
Muthukumar followed with his share of contribution as Rs 25,000.
Chellakumar announced the core team comprising of Saravanakumar, Jayachandran, Sudhakar, Rajasekar, Manimaran, Dinesh, Thangaraj and P.Mariappan who will take decision and manage the utility of funds.
Balasundaram said he will help getting the trust registered.

** It was decided that Sudhakar will be the focal point of responsibility for communication and coordination for Tuticorin locals.

** It was decided that P.Mariappan will handle all the web-related matter.
He will create a blog or a discussion forum, so that the details of members will be made available online.
He will also make a minutes of meeting.

** Saravanakumar extended vote of thanks.

The dinner banquet was a sumptuous, luxurious buffet meal.
Laminated photo of the photoshoot was distributed to all those who attended.

A planning meet that anybody can easily mistake as a regular alumni meet was possible only with the enthusiasm of the participating crowd.
We dispersed carrying sweet memories that will last forever.

Looking forward to the great gala meet at Courtallum in June.

Karapettai 8th Std, 1982-83

Karapettai 12th Std, 1986-87