San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
1997 West Coast Picnic Report
- Pran Kurup
Sat August 9, 1997, four desis got together for lunch (where else, but in a desi restaurant) in the Santa Clara area. No, what follows is not the story of the next great silicon valley start-up. Instead, it was just a handful of "tempo" kgp-ites meeting to get the ball rolling for the 1997 SF Bay Area picnic. Interestingly, three of the four hadn't met since the 1996 picnic!
Sneha's 22 course buffet, gave the group sufficient time
to catch plus discuss details of estimates, menus, taaka,
publicity etc(not to mention stuffing themselves so no
worthwhile activity was possible the rest of the afternoon).
At the end of the lunch, the group placed an order for the 13, Sept.
True to our internet spirit, one of the four cranked out a proposed plan to the baypicnic email alias. The web page was updated, email was sent out, much to the annoyance of a couple of kgp-ites in Singapore, and Calcutta. (Why send me mail about a picnic in California?). One polite response was "Dada, delete kor!". However, our ingenious KGPNET folks circumvented the problem by managing to flush out only bay area email addresses from the database for all future reminder emails.
The KGP-ites in the SF Bay area got together for the annual alumni picnic at the Vasona Park in Los Gatos on Sept. 13. This time around, the event was better planned, thanks to the "documented" experience from last year and the team effort of the fast expanding baypicnic email alias. The event was attended by close to 190 people (including familes) - an all time record for KGP picnics.
Shyamal Roy Chowdhry and Dennis Mathias from the 60s were nice
enough to bring their guitars to entertain the junta. Ramesh Nageswaran
another KGP-ite from the same decade, radiated funda on
Shymal and Dennis and their escapades. According to confirmed
sources, Shymal and Dennis frequently played on All India Radio.
Then in true KGP style two more KGP-ites from the 80s (Ankan and Shailendra) piled on to the guitars belonging to Dennis and Shaymal. Again, these two were western whizzes in their hey days in the mid to late 80s.
Finally, Nan (from the late 80s) and ?, entertained the group with a couple of desi numbers (of course, with the pile on guitar!).
The event was held in the exact same location as last year.
The organizers are now considering a change of venue. Unlike
last year, this year's beer consumption did not dissappoint the
organizers. Desi food appeared to have worked out well
in comparison to last years pizza lunch. The 60s, 80s and 90s
were very well represented. Strangely enough folks from the
70s were few in number. According to some picnic analysts,
"18 to 26 years after leaving KGP, junta goes thru a phase
when they are too busy and caught up, to re-live the KGP days".
According to another, "A family rate might have attracted
more 70s folks". The organizers are considering tapping
some 70s folks into the baypicnic alias to address the issue.
The photographs are on the web courtesy of Lachmi Khemlani. The event was made possible thanks to the great team work of the baypicnic group including: Anand Mohan Das, Sunil Vemula, Pran Kurup, Joyjit Nath, Dipankar Bhattacharyya, Ishita Goswami, Joydeep Nath, Jagmohan Singh, Kanoj Sarcar, Sushmita Dutta, Mayuk Majumdar.
The current plan is to have the picnic in 98 at the same time, the weekend after labor day weekend. So please plan accordingly. If you wish to help in organizing the event please send mail to baypicnic@kgpnet.org
View the initial announcement, finance & other notes and more photos.