Monday, January 28, 2008

My Batchmates and Other Friends

First let me start with the local guys - the always jovial Debu Deodhar ( I always saw him with a permanent laughter on his face) and the quiet R.S Agarwal. They were from Poona and being day scholars we missed their company after study hours. There were two foreign students, Prem Upadhyay from Nepal and Naapo Gbande from Ghana. Prem was almost like an Indian spoke Hindi very well and mixed with all students. Behind the serious looking face of Naapo there was a friendly heart. Below is a photo with him and David Ankora, also from Ghana (Sound – 1971 Batch.)

David Ankora, myself and Naapo Gbande

Surendra Sahu from Orissa, was another fun person to be with and a great friend. Whenever he used to come to Madras, if I am in town we used to meet and exchange letters often. Then there are those Punjabi Trio Anil Dhanda, S.K.Jolly and Harish Gupta, who were boisterous with their Punjabi humour and down to earth nature. Once Anil Dhanda went to Nanded Gurudwara as part of a Documentary Student crew and had brought for me a Stainless steel Kada. Ever since then, I had been wearing that in my right hand and had not removed it even for a single day! I should not leave out dear Venugopal Thakkar though hailing from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, he was more of a North Indian speaking Hindi very well.

On the whole our batch mates were a very friendly and cohesive group of guys and definitely we had a great time of togetherness at the Institute which remains still green in my memories.

Of course there are others in various departments about whom I'll write later on as and when the time comes.

1 comment:

Banno said...

Hello Ram sir, have been visiting your blog often. Have just posted something on mine about a recent cricket match we had at the institute. Isn't it amazing how the 3 years we spent there, continue to hold us in thrall?