RECal97 Silver Jubilee journey Recap....

The story of “RECAL 97 – Rekindle the Yadein” (yes…we started with the same spelling mistake from 1997)

The fascinating story of the 25th year silver Jubilee reunion of the 33rd batch of CREC in the 60^th Diamond Jubilee year

Back in 1997, we said Hasta La Vista (goodbye; see you later) when we said our byes to REC Calicut with a heavy heart. As we departed from the place that gave us so much, some left with high hopes, some with excitement, and some with uncertainty as to what the future holds. We all went our ways and did our own things, some became CEOs, Founders, MDs, Professors, Partners, Directors & Scientists etc. But time again, we kept looking back at our alma mater and how things have changed since we left. Some stayed in touch with the college, and some wanted to but did not make the effort. But in everyone’s heart, they hoped that one day they would make this trip back to college. For many of us, it would be our first visit since leaving college and that added to the excitement.

Fast forward to 2022, some of our batchmates received an email from the Dean Alumni, Jeevamma madam on 17^th January, which read as “Dear Alumnus, Greetings from NIT Calicut, it is understood that the 1993-97 batch is due to celebrate their Silver Jubilee Year of Graduation from NIT Calicut, in the year 2022”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our senior batches could not celebrate their silver jubilee at the college and with the pandemic lingering around, we had our doubts as to how we should plan our reunion. A bunch of friends came together to discuss the planning of this reunion, and I could sense from that meeting that as a batch we were determined to have this reunion come what may (I suppose people were so fed up with the pandemic and staying at home). Our journey to organize the reunion and bring as many friends as we can back into the campus had truly begun. It had its fair share of twists and tales and it eventually ended up being one of the most spectacular events that I have ever attended in my life. Read on…

Part 1 – Formation ……. Bringing the folks together

From the group that came together initially, we were pondering around what should be the broad objectives of this reunion? The organizing committee WhatsApp group was created on 23^rd January 2022 and as you would have expected, we had some tough moments initially to figure out what everyone wanted in the group and how to organize things between us. Things started to move at a slow pace as we all realized that everyone had a day job to do, and they could only spare so much time for this activity. But we were fortunate enough to have a few people in the group who put up their hands and were ready to go the extra mile. I got nominated as Chairman of the Organizing Committee (back in 1997 I was the final year student representative and that could have played a role in this nomination). Leading a bunch of friends for a great and fun cause with so much uncertainty was not going to be easy but nevertheless I was encouraged by the few friends that were willing to take it in the chin and looked like they would go to war with me. That convinced me to take the plunge.

Our initial challenges as a group came from things that you would consider simple – like getting a date, choosing a venue, getting the hygiene factors right etc. Fortunately for our group, we overcame this with some lighter ways to engage friends. We ran internal competitions to get the logo and tagline done. We squared in on RECAL97 (it had REC, Alumni &97 in there). When the suggestion came in for the tagline of “Rekindle the Yadein” we went with it instantly and decided to retain Yadein (this was our memory book we had created back in 1997 and there was a spelling mistake back then). We said why not, we will start with that and decided to keep it. Without getting it complicated we produced these words to form the tagline “Be there, meet your classmates, party, relive old memories, have fun, take back fresh memories!!!.” These were the initial moments where I would admit that we did not have much of a clue as to what would unfold in the days to come. As a group we started to work together and the fun part was that within the group, some of us hardly knew each other and some had never spoken with each other. It was a coming together of people with a common vision of seeing so many smiling faces back on the campus where we had so much fun & made lifelong memories. The group started getting thicker and closer…

One of the hardest tasks was to finalize the venue and dates for the reunion (as we later found that getting the right date had a lot to do with the success of the event). We used to google forms, loads of talking with friends, to get people to vote and send in their preferences. We started to realize that our friends had moved on in life and it was increasingly difficult for them to commit to things like in the past. With a lot of adjustments and compromises, we finally agreed to Dec 27^th & 28^th as the dates of the Silver Jubilee (25^th year) reunion of the 33^rd batch of CREC in the Diamond Jubilee (60^th year) of the great institution. We needed to do justice to this event, and we decided to create a website (we were inspired by the super senior batch of 1990 who had done something similar) and wanted to launch this event in a unique manner. Being tech geeks in the group, we found some simple ways to create a google site( www.recal97.com). We scrambled together a simple agenda for the 2 days, collected a bunch of old photos, and created a simple registration page with as much information on the website as we could muster. With this amateur-looking website, we went to the NITC Director, Dr. Prasad Krishna to request him to inaugurate our website. He enthusiastically agreed to our proposal and came in to inaugurate the website. On March 8^th, 2022, we had some anxious moments before the inauguration as we were not sure how it would play out and more so how excited our friends would be in this launch of the website for our silver jubilee event. The online event ended well, and it also opened a plethora of questions from the batch which we did not quite anticipate. The formation of the group was complete and now we had to create excitement for the next part of getting people to sign and show up.

[The website was inaugurated by the Director of NITC, Dr. Prasad Krishna and I thought we did a pretty good job of this]

Part 2 – Sign and Show up ……. Getting the group excited to sign and come over

By this time, the organizing team had come up with some creative ideas on how to get friends excited about the event, get them to sign up and eventually show up. As hard as the group tried, it became very clear that not everyone in the batch shared the same excitement as them to come to the event in December. We had to change our strategy multiple times in the lead up to getting the folks to sign up

a. Our first approach was to organize this by departments – Architecture, Civil, Production, Mechanical, Computer science, Electrical and Electronics, and Electronics and Communication

b. With some limited traction that we received; we adopted the approach by states as we figured out that the state loyalties ran high in some states

c. Our next approach was to look at the country-wide and state-wide constellations to attract the folks

With several moving parts, it was difficult to get a good hang of things in no order

1. Getting a local bank account up and running in Calicut

2. Getting an approximate idea about the budget (with no idea of how many people will end up coming we had to come up with a guesstimate)

3. Obtaining contact information for retired professors and inviting them

4. Liasing with college and getting all the inputs we need on a regular basis

5. Retaining the services of an event management team that will understand our crazy requirements

6. Deciding on the registration packages to be floated to cater to the number of different requirements of the various friends and their families

7. How do we find out who is interested in contributing to college and how much?

8. What are the Projects that we can get involved as a batch

9. How many packages should we really have for the event?

10. If lesser people turn out, how will we manage the expenses that we commit

There were a number of such questions that cropped up in the group and we kept discussing as a group and collectively came up with a response. This was the challenging part we started to cherish as a team and in hindsight keeping an open forum and 100% transparency in everything we did, helped us remain intact as a team and keep us motivated

Over the course of the next few months, there were several messages in the group that went from various organizing team members including me, it read something like this all the time😊

“Dear friends

This is a FRIENDLY + URGENT call for action for the folks who have not registered yet for the event but are still keen to come”

We received some initial responses and I think we got to around 25+ registrations in a flurry and after the initial hype after the launch in March, we started to get a bit anxious and self-doubted as to if we will be able to conduct this event successfully. By the time we reached May 18^th, we had reached around 75 registrations, and this was the hardest time we encountered as a group, as the registrations wouldn’t move. It was a pain for most of the organizing team as quite frankly we were a bit clueless as to what could be done to push these numbers up north. The team went into a slumber, and it was also the time when most of the friends had their summer vacations, change of schools, new roles etc. Every time we were down someone in the group would send some encouraging messages and keep pushing the team. As a group, we wanted to do something unique as our legacy for the college and we thought of various exciting ideas but unfortunately, we could not move this further. We finally decided that we will contribute Indian Rupees Ten lacs to the college (we did not know the power of our batch as we found later that we ended up being the biggest contributors as a batch). At some point in July, the team felt that having 100 people in the event would be a big achievement given the responses but somehow I managed to convince them that we would go past 150 (I don’t know where that number came from but I kept telling the folks that we can….I don’t think many people believed me)

In order to push the registration close to 100+ we ran competitions (surprise gifts for registration positions, numerous zoom calls with the friends, created a list of friends who we thought would make it and made one on one phone calls, sent threatening messages to the group that we would increase the price by x% if they don’t register 😊..several crazy tactics were deployed by the team and yet the numbers just wouldn’t move. We knew that many were keen, but they just could not convert it. We made a few visits to the gala dinner venue at Kadavu and sent some live videos of the venue hoping that people would get excited. In the background we had to finalize the event management partner and pay the advances to the various suppliers. We had received money in the bank, and we were confident that by committing to the expenses we would be able to meet them. The team had grown in confidence and as a result we empowered individuals as SPOC (Single point of contact) for the core functions. The SPOCs stepped up and took the responsibility to make the decisions for the respective areas such as Event management, Kadavu Resort, Payments, College activities, RECAL97 Website / Yadein, NITC website revamp, Overall schedule of events & Project Plan.

With 90 days to go for the event, we took up a strategic project that was presented to us by the Deputy Director, NITC, respected Sathidevi madam. It was a project to revamp the NITC website and give it a full makeover. We contributed to the technical aspects and several of them volunteered to help. Just as we were contemplating on what we should do as a group that will leave a legacy of our batch, we were offered a few projects and we picked up the Student Plaza project that was between the F and G hostels. Our batchmates jumped into the designing of the plaza (which was a first for the college) and came up with a stunning design and named it 97^th Avenue.

Now the action was getting into top gear, and we had received over 150 registrations with a little over 10 days to go for the event (we finally managed to achieve the number we set out to achieve). The icing on the cake was that 4 batchmates announced that they will fly in from the US and Europe just for the day. Slowly and surely all the planning started to come together, and little did we know that when friends that departed 25 years return magic and celebration will happen. That is exactly what we witnessed next….

Part 3 – The Grand Finale ……. Celebration of friendship in the truest form

December 27^th, 2022, will be a day that will be hard to forget for those that assembled at Raviz Kadavu (meaning Riverbank). It was a perfect setting to see the friends arriving from over 22 countries. Just to see the smiling faces that came running over to give you a hug and you knew at that instant that nothing had changed over the past 25 years. It was hard to describe exactly the reason why there was so much warmth and happiness to see your friends after such a long time in your life. I guess that is the very essence of these reunions and it was meant to rekindle those memories of friendship that were once lost. To me it was the sheer joy of being amongst friends that made you feel comfortable and be yourself in their company. Everyone that came I guess wanted to be that 22 something kid that wanted to be themselves for those 60 hours that we will spend together. As one of the guys rightly said “one tight hug” was all that was required, and no ice breaking session was needed to know each other. We had fun time dancing our way into the night getting ready for the next day to reach REC…now NITC for a day to remember for the rest of our lives.

For the 250 people that showed upon the REC campus on 28^th December, it turned out to be a fascinating day with everyone turning back the clock into that 22-year-old kid that roamed this campus 25 years ago. For me, it brought up nostalgic memories of my late dad, dropping me to the campus for the first time, the moments in college that molded me as an individual, the beautiful friendships that I had built with many, a few closest friends that I knew will back me come what may, the sheer serenity of the campus memories of the naughty things that we did, the professors with their smile doing their job to get us future ready and the many support staff that helped us during our 4 years at the campus.

We happily roamed around the campus from the moment we arrived there and did everything that we set out to do.

- Go on a procession from the main gate to the MB and take batch and branch wise photographs

- Hear a heartfelt welcome prayer by our batchmates

- Pay our respects and regards to the 35 retired and current professors that were present to meet us accepting our invites

- Give a standing ovation to our dearest senior professor, who has now retired, Professor K.B.M Nambudripad

- Listen to address by first student faculty advisor and now Deputy Director, Sathidevi madam with great enthusiasm

- A fantastic address by the Dean Alumni Dr. Anil Kumar PP on how to take this alumni relationship forward

- Gladly, inaugurated the new website design and prototype by Dr. Sathidevi, Deputy Director, NITC

- Proudly, launched the student plaza that our batchmates designed, 97^th avenue, video by Dr. Sathidevi, Deputy Director, NITC and Dean Alumni Dr. Anil Kumar PP

- Launched the Yaadein eBook Dr. Sathidevi, Deputy Director, NITC

- Happily, presented to the college a token donation of around 62 lacs on behalf of our batch

- Very proudly, laid the foundation stone of 97^th Avenue by Dr. Sathidevi, Deputy Director, NITC

- Ate a sumptuous lunch sponsored by the college in our honor at the Guest house (which I have seen for the first time)

- Attended the Industry Innovation Council and met over 50 students for an interactive session

- Went and knocked the door on my A hostel room that I had stayed back then

- Happily, went to my S7 & S8 classroom and sat in the bench with my buddies and relived some old times

We wrapped up the day at college by felicitating the ex-support staff at our hostel mess. It was an emotional moment for us to be with them and serve them tea/coffee and snacks and return the favor they did us 25 years ago. We were able to provide financial support to the 51 staff that were present. Some give us emotional hugs. It was a packed day. It was such a roller coaster of a day and was filled with so much goodness and I was able to enjoy every moment I spent on the campus. We had a funny ride back to the resort with some hilarious dance moves (Nagin dance) on the way to go with (with an exhaustive day like this I really do not know where the energy came from). We got ready for the last act of the reunion which was our Gala dinner, and it was just sheer magic that happened on that night of the 28^th

It was a cool evening with the moon glazing at us and there was a gentle breeze along the river (there was a light drizzle in the evening). We had some brilliant performances – group dance, spouses singing, daughters and sons performances, Bollywood dances, solo singing, and some impromptu performances. Alongside the pool, with the dinner, more conversations, more memories were being created and it was a sight to behold to see your best friends for life and reaffirm the friendship. For me it was magical to see the friendship unfold in its truest and purest form which words cannot describe. Having live streamed the entire activities to the friends & family worldwide that could not make it, we told them that they were truly missed.

Along the sidelines were friends from the past starting to talk about how they are going to miss each other, some teary eyed and saying their byes, some sitting on the sidelines watching all the fun unfold, kids who never knew their parents this wild partying, spouses making new friends along the way. As the organizing team, what mattered the most to us was the fact that we stuck to our objective and achieved everything that we set out – “Be there, meet your classmates, party, relive old memories, have fun, take back fresh memories!!!.” I took away memories for a lifetime and as some of my friends said, these 60 hours will be right up there till they die. For this crazy batch of 1993-1997, knowing us, we sure will return one day to have another wild party like we had. We said back in 1997, Hasta La Vista (goodbye; see you later) and we sure will return & see each other. As one of my friends said” From the time we doubted if it would happen to having the happiest reunion. Really feel like we all got back our REC family back again 🥰”. The 97^th REC family will be back soon…