IBSAF Alumni meets, Get-togethers and how it got better

Time: 10:00 AM
Day: Monday
Location: My Office Workstation

I had just finished with a weekly client call and was checking my official emails when I noticed that two of my projects had final delivery dates in the week that had just started. This hinted a series of extensive reviews and discussions and meant that this week will be busier than last few weeks when I felt like breaking free…

I sat to plan my work for the week and somehow I got drifted to my past and started thinking about how I began my career and reached here.

I have vivid memories from seven odd years with me. My first job at Icfai soon after graduation from IBS in year 2001... My subsequent jobs at Hyderabad and then accepting this offer and moving to Pune... If not a decade, it is very close to it.

I realized that I had put in lot of focus on my career in the initial years were very exciting and stimulating. New challenges came our way when we entered the corporate scenario IBS had groomed and prepared us for. Work took precedence. Each day at work gave us some new lessons on professional values, ethics and job related skills. Once we got comfortable in our respective work environments, we realized that we had missed something on the way. After a very little deliberation, I realized that it was a hearty laugh that I used to share with a batch mate, it was a open hearted discussions that I would have with my fellow IBS-ites, it was a midnight cake smearing birthday bash that I had been longing for and lots more… All those faces started popping up in my mind and then I started browsing my mobile phone’s contacts list. I opened my personal email inbox to find a dozen emails to respond. I opened each one of them. Some of them came from friends who wanted to know where I was and what was I up to, while others were addressed to IBS Hyderabad yahoo group created while in college with the hope of staying in touch. I was glad to know about those who got plum postings and also about those who got married around the same time. But this wasn’t enough, I wanted to see them, meet them and have a good time.

Another email that kept waiting for me till the end and looked like a bulk email came from IBSAF. I should have opened this mail in the beginning because it had an answer to the most pertinent question: Where and How do I meet most of my friends again?

This email had the subject line: Alumni Meet at Hyderabad and it really opened the doors to nostalgia. I made up my mind to attend that alumni meet and since then I have been attending almost all the alumni get-togethers that I could. The most memorable one happens to be “IBSAF Pan-India Alumni Retreat, Goa” in 2006.

At Goa, everyone who made it loved the experience and felt that it was worth all we had forgone to attend the meet. It was difficult amidst the work pressure and deadlines chasing us. But, with the motivation to re-unite we were there finally; in Goa; a place that appeals to most people in India. Stay at the resort, the adjacent beach, the boat ride and eating together completely left us rejuvenated. We truly re-lived our college days.

Now, it has become a habit for me, to wait and look out for opportunities when I can meet my friends again. When I moved to Pune, I did attend the movie show organized by IBSAF with a few batch mates from Hyderabad. It didn’t matter if I passed out from IBS Hyderabad. I was as welcome as those who studied at IBS Pune.

When these alumni meets started at IBSAF, it wasn’t this big. I remember that the first alumni meet at Hyderabad was held at one of the campus buildings at Nagarjuna Hills. Later, the venue got shifted to some party lawns and then to get-away resorts. And now, it has gone abroad. I recently heard of Alumni Meets at Singapore and London.

This also shows presence of IBS alumni around the globe. Today, our reasons for attending these meets surely go beyond just meeting friends. We need to develop a good platform across the world. We got to have our own IBSAF World. Together, we need to take the IBS brand name higher than where it is today.

On a lighter note, we don’t think beyond IIMs because we never thought they are higher up somewhere. They do share the same workspace as ours. Happy Networking, IBS-ites!!!!