Fifth Reunion of CET 61-66 Batch
President’s Choice
CET 61-66 Batch had its fifth
Reunion on 14th October at Kollam. This was the choice not because
Kollam is the most attractive place, but it is convenient to most of us.
Natives of Trivandrum usually believe that as you travel North in Kerala you
are in the rarefied atmosphere of Outer Space. They cannot conceive of anything
beyond Ernakulam. Earlier they had
stoutly rejected, on this count, MPC’s offer to hold it in Vythiri, Wynad. This
time our able President KNC Kurup took upon himself to hold it in his hometown,
almost single-handed. Alone, he had
spent enormous amount of time and
effort to organize this event, despite a possible threat of divorce from his
wife. She won’t certainly be
unreasonable, as Kuruppachan had the habit of spending 24x7 on the job as
though a generator in Idukki had
a breakdown while he was the Chief Engineer of KSEB.
The Venue: Five Star Hotel
Kuruppachan always goes for Gold.
He had booked our rooms in the best Hotel in Kollam, adjoining the sea. Quilon
Beach Hotel displayed her status at the entrance on a Brass plate with five
stars embossed, like a five star General's lapel in a ceremonial parade.
Nirmala and myself, alighting on its porch in a humble auto-rikshaw from the railway station were perhaps the
first to reach the place and check in, well ahead of the scheduled time, 9.30am. All the rooms were overlooking
the beach. Nice to watch the beach from the 8th floor. Nirmala was floored by the beauty of the
beach, only to realize that it was a deadly dangerous place. After breakfast we
assembled in the lobby to welcome the meagre crowd. All the cars available took
the full passenger load and delivered us at the Jetty where our houseboat was
moored. Thick Thoma (KC Thomas) and Molly were gracious enough to take Nirmala
and me together with Thin Thoma (KN Thomas) who had come alone as usual.
Present Sir...
Two of our American friends were
present, Joyce John(ME) and Dr. Unnikrishnan (EE). They have come all the way
from Houston and Los Angeles respectively.
Their spouses Celine and Rema added to the colour of our group. But
Raechel Mathew (who didn’t have to change her surname after marriage) ditched
the program this year, and no assignable causes were announced. Prasanna Kumari
was a sure expectation this year, from the way she sent us off to Kanyakumari
last time. NT Nair is away in Europe with his son, and could not make it. Other
notable absence was of Jogan and Elizabeth, Subramania Sarma came all the way from Mumbai,
but came alone. Other regulars like Murali Mohanlal and Sudha, Janardanan and
Uma, Murukesh Babu and Usha, Ayyappan and Lakshmi, were comfortably seated in the
boat when we arrived. Other singletons were U.Mani, Sundareswaran , Sivamony and Krishnan
Asari. Rashid came with his wife, and
Esther with Mr. Philip. George Thomas (Pattalam) had brought his wife for the
first time. She was keen on cultivating a level of spirituality among the
savages of this batch, and all the qualities that Ashtavakra Maharshi spelt out
were in her list: Kshama, Aarjava, Daya,
Thosha, Sathyam (patience, straightforwardness, kindness, happiness and Truth).
Obviously she came to know we were short on these qualities from none other
than her hubby, George Thomas. The long and short of Indian Navy, Admiral
Kuruvilla and Omana were seated near the Bow, as an abundant caution for the
safety of the boat.
Houseboat Afloat: Anthakshari
Everyone was counted in, and the
boat was unleashed from its mooring, and started moving slowly. Unnikrishna Kartha (who came single this time) took charge as
Maitre de Revels. He had brought with him printouts of two popular songs:
Kuttanadan Puncha, and Aalayal Thara venam.
Printouts were in Roman script and those who got it were struggling to
read it. MPC had to come to the rescue of singers with his loud voice (Kartha
calls it noise) and clear lyrics. Kartha, with his bundle of movie songs came
to action right royal. He divided the crowd into two, one he called his own and
the other The Enemies. He assigned MPC
like Lucifer, to the Enemy camp. Kuruvilla with his meagre familiarity with
music stuck fast with him through the battle of Anthakshari.
Star Performers
This time the star performer was Celine Joyce of the
Enemy camp, ably assisted by Molly, Dr. Maheswari
, Rema , Nirmala and of course MPC.
Celine proved to be a combination of Latha Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, KS
Chithra and others. Unlike MPC, she knew
not only the songs, but also how to sing. U. Mani was the obvious choice for
the Judge, as he was innocent of both music and lyrics. Kartha played the game
like an expert, almost like Shakuni at the game of dice for Kauravas. His
performance was a treat, because he would change words and letters to suit his
game and would promptly get shouted down by the womenfolk. It was obvious that Janardanan knew
many songs, but was shy to sing and fed words to Kartha quite frequently.
Kuruvila knew many songs too, but just the first line. U. Mani the Judge gave a
ruling that at least two lines should be sung, and the ruling led to the fall
of Kartha’s team and the thumbing victory of the Enemies.
Food on Board
The greatest attraction of the
houseboat cruise is the food served on board. At 11.00am they served a sumptuous snack of tapioca and fish curry.
Some people thought this was the lunch and consumed more than adequate for a
snack, inviting trouble when the real lunch arrived. At about 2.00 pm the boat slowly touched the
shore in a convenient slot and got moored. It was lunch time. Sumptuous lunch
was served on the little table where the womenfolk started queuing up. When I
shot forward and joined them Kartha asked me, “Can’t you see that the women had just begun to line up?” I said “No, I can’t see any woman”, and as
Arjuna told Dronacharya “ I can see only the eye of the fried Karimeen served
on the table”. There were many more
delicious dishes, both veg. and non veg.
I ate rather fast, and wielded my camera while others were getting lost
in the delicacies. In the afternoon the crowd was generally sleepy, and a few
quiz (some of them stupid, of course) questions were thrown at the audience,
just an excuse to distribute chocolates. Tea and coffee were served at
4O’clock, with banana fry, the fabled “Pazham Pori”. Near about the notorious
Perumon Bridge the boat took a U turn back to where we started. It was during this return journey that I
really saw the beauty of Ashtamudi Kayal, the eight-cornered lake and its
surroundings.
As soon as we got back to the
hotel we assembled in its front for a group photo, as there will be no chance
on the morrow for a regrouping. Among the various mobile cameras and Ipads I
had given my Nikon coolpix to a hotel
staff to shoot a picture. Some lady was asking, who is using this camera even
now? I felt like a pre historic creature from Neanderthal with my beloved wide
angle 26x zoom Nikon that seldom needs a flash gun.
The Beach
There is a gate opening to the
Beach from the backyard of the Hotel. Every member of the hotel staff and
guards on duty warned us that we shouldn’t go anywhere near the Water’s Edge as
this sand beach is a dangerous place. It gets deep rather suddenly and one can
get washed away without notice. A few
weeks ago an entire family of four people had lost their life. The sky was
heavily overcast and there was no chance of viewing a sunset. We walked back to our room while others in
our group were going out through the rear gate, destined to repeat our
experience.
General Body
Jogan Easaw Mathew and Elizabeth
were our regular music performers in previous meetings. They didn’t turn up this time. But Kartha our Master of
ceremonies pulled out a fair sized keyboard from a black case and started an
instrumental session without any warning. After every “Number” he would tell us
what that song was. That saved a lot of trouble.
This year we did not have G
Madhavan Nair and NT Nair with us. Last year NT Nair said we have received so
much from the public by way of an almost free education and we should think of
returning it to the country by way of specific techno-philanthropic activity.
Madhavan Nair brought a solution to launch a centre of excellence to train top
students graduating from CET to face real challenging technical jobs. Nothing
happened afterwards and the subject did not come up for discussion any
more. The possibility of joining with
the Civil Engineering group was raised and dropped on the basis of the bitter
experience of negligence faced by our members in a previous attempt. 2016 is
our Golden Jubilee Year and the College is planning some kind of celebration.
If there is such a celebration we could join them, but we proceed on our own
and continue to hold this reunion on a date close to the official celebration. So
the next year’s venue is automatically fixed: Trivandrum. There was a good
dinner and we bid farewell there itself, because there is no common program
next day.
So we parted with a strong
resolve to meet again next year.
