XLers Unlimited

I realised that I hadn't blogged these pictures that were clicked in January when I was visiting GLIM in January as a judge for their HR competition.

This picture was clicked just before the start of the HR case studies. Seated on the right is Niti Singh, Consulting Engagement Manager, Gallup India.

This was a get-together which just about did not happen. Initially, planned for 30th March evening, my travel agent threw spanner in the works, when he handed me the tickets (as usual, on the last minute!). The Heathrow-Mumbai flight which was supposed to departing "late night" was actually scheduled at 2130hrs GMT (my hypothesis is that the guy must be giving me the Indian time all through)...

In any case, the preponement to 29th March evening had some casualities - being a Thursday evening, some had to drop-out. But nevertheless, we were still about 15-20 people... and so, thanks to Reena Dayal (93PMIR), who hosted the evening, we could finally meet on 29th March in London.

So here are some pix of the get-togther... batches ranging from 91 to 04













By the time, I could make my way back to Oxford, it was 2am and a freezing 1C... but what a wonderful evening! ..worth each moment, meeting, sip and munch :0)

Postscript: Since you have reached upto here, I might as well take the advantage and share this pix also.. of another meeting (by sheer chance) that happened on the sidewalk of Broad Street in Oxford the previous day...

... Meeting the Nobel Peace Prize 2006 winner on the side-walk (he had come to address the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship, and I was an attendee) is one of those examples of "being at the right place at the right time".... last time it happened with me was when I was born :0)

Note:Please confirm attendance asap and circulate within yr batch egroups....

Hi friends XLers delhiites!

Chalo time to take a break and join in for some truly hair-down masti!!

Lets all jump into a picnic lunch to celebrate the new season and get Delhi rocking!

16th December 12 noon, on the lush green lawns of Lodhi gardens get out your cowboy hats and your gypsy skirts and lets get down to lotsa groovy fun!

Couples get your kiddos as tons of games are on the cards.....

Ummmmm and did we forget the food...No way! Time to test our culinary skills too....potluck with 2 extras so we can look forward to loads of variety (and you don't get to taste slurp!! your own kitchen!!!)

So lets all spread the word around and add some XL colour to the winter.

Here's to the XL spirit! ( and those who can't join in with such advance notice MUST get their time management re-tuned).

Pour in your confirmations to Aneesh or me.

Cheers
Gauri

The group is meeting at the side of the first monument as you enter from the palm tree lined main gate.

Thanks to the initiative by Mustafa (85PMIR), Shantaram (90PMIR) and ‘Rocky’ Vijay Kumar (80PMIR), there were these 18-20 of us who met in Gandhi Nagar Club, Chennai on 21st December… the bandwidth was wide, with R Vankataraman (71BMD), Suraksha Giri (72BMD) and Vernon D’Costa (73BMD) at one end of the spectrum, and Tathagat Kumar (06BMD) at the other…

Some photos:






The ‘infection’ flew across Bay of Bengal and reached Singapore, and so a repeat happened on Dec 2nd at Wine Company (the name of the place is just appropriate for the occasion – thanks to Ramesh Ramakishnan (85BMD), Rajesh “Ciggy” Soundarajan (99BMD) for organizing this… besides the passerby like me, it also helped many who had recently shifted to Singapore to get connected….
… Given the fact, the invite went under a subject line “Jobless – and in Singapore” it was heartening to find so many jobless people at one place ;0)

Some more pix: Have a decko:









For me, personally, one of the many highpoints of this trip was the visit to National Univ of Singapore (NUS), where I spent an afternoon with Jayanth (y2K PMIR) who has recently joined the place as a faculty after his PhD from London Business School, and with Kulshaan (01PMIR) who also dropped in. Jayanth asked me if I knew a prof called Dr Ramadhar Singh… of course, I knew him – he had taught me in IIT/Kanpur. I knew that he had shifted to NUS, but thought that he must have retired. Apparently, I was wrong and Jayanth and he are working on a joint research paper. And so we went to meet him, and spent some time with him.

So here is the pix of 3 generation of profs… me, my teacher and my student…

During the recent 10th Annual National HRD Conference, held at Taj Palace, New Delhi, there were so many XLers, that an impromptu alumni meet got organised. There was an XL Corner during lunch, and some 40-50 junta (maybe more..., from batches ranging from '69 to '07 (there were 10-12 students who were sponsored by XL for the conference)...

here are some pix:

The highlight of the Conference was the Annual Award for Professional Contribution (Senior HR Professional category) going to Aquil Busrai (72PMIR), Exec Director (HR), IBM India


and the Young HR Professional Award to Mohit Nayar (95PMIR), Director (HR), P&G India.