TAPMI Reloaded!

This week end, I decided to discard my robe of immobility and decided to treat myself with some adventure. By god, truly it was… a real adventure of sorts. I’m referring to the my first TAPMI Alumini Meet in Manipal, held this Saturday and Sunday. The “adventure” part is the grueling 16 hours of travel by bus, which makes one think twice in trepidation.



Click here for the group snap



The best part was the warmth of reception. In all three years I’ve never met a more nostalgic bunch of junies (senies i.e. 2nd year to be precise, but still junies to us). Interestingly, every one had similar questions to ask me. The first question, perhaps being the most apparent, is the disappearance of my mustache. Now, the reactions range from disdain to cheerful approval depending on whether the person is from south or North. Most seemed to agree it makes me younger. Which paradoxically leads to the second question, “When are you getting married?” A question, which I remind them, is far from consideration to a person of my age. Most of them seemed to believe that I’m still in Mangalore proving that they are at least 2 months out of sync about me. We received a recent copy of our college zine ‘Amartya’ from CCG (Corporate Communication Group) who interestingly still uses and credits me for the logo I’d designed.

This time I was able to meet everyone whom I’d intended and more. I met my ex-batchmates (of course), esp the Amisha gang (except for Suraj , Bobo and Kaizad), my junies, my profs and even some super junies, who were much older than me, keen to listen to my career tips! My old faculty advisor Mohankumar or M.K. was pleasantly surprised when he saw me. Unfortunately he had broken his right wrist and would be unable to write anything for the next 6 weeks.

Karthik is still in his downloading spree and was able to copy some of the excellent Half Life 2 videos and some movies as well. He is also busy with inking his cartoon strip Doorways, which looks pretty slick at the moment. We were able to revive, without much effort, the CCG strategy game ‘QuickSand’ that I had developed last year, written in PHP. I also chatted with Prof Simon George, Prof Badri and Prof Rudran.

The formal events of the day gave way to a colorful party at night. The super junies and the super senies seemed to be everybody’s cynosure this time. Almost every old favourite number from the old bunch of Music.com was rendered again by the Alumini. I recall the junie who played the drums was very impressive and a really talented addition to the new Music.com. A rocking disco followed soon after. Not surprisingly the ‘Laws of Indian disco’ (mentioned n my earlier post) were at work again.

I left Manipal on Sunday 2pm. But I did not forget to savor the Andhra and Udupui delicacies, which had missed for a long time. Unable to book a Volvo, the ride back kept me really ill at ease. However, by any measure, it was really worth it :)