Memories of college life are hard to erase. For, it is the time a student's career takes shape. It is also the period when Cupid's arrow
strikes a few. In every aspect, college day memories stay forever. The 1986 batch of Law College students had one such moment when they celebrated the silver jubilee of the day they first came together. Of the 130 members, more than 100 members including 15 women attended the reunion function in the city recently.
For once, the Hotel Royal Court's premises turned into a college verandah with calls of “mappile” and “machan” filling the air and participants hugging each other and sharing fun moments. Time and again the authoritative voice of Saran, who is the Palani Judicial Magistrate, encouraged the participants to be their own.
Thanks to the team of J. Rajagopal, A. Arockiaraj, R. Palanikumar, R Sivakumar and R.V.N. Kannan, who made this reunion happen. “We worked for two months to reach our old friends, who are all now scattered and working in different far off places. It was not tough to reach out to them as most are enrolled with the Bar Council and respective district law chambers,” says Kannan. After going through the usual routine of honouring professors, the ‘grown up' students also had the heart and space to honour ‘meesai' Ganesan and Arumugam, owners of the tea shops that were popular hang outs for the students.
“We are overwhelmed by the occasion. This is the first time such a thing is happening. Some students spent more time in our tea shops than in theclassrooms. Whenever students struck work, their first target would be our shops. We would be the first one to down the shutters.
But they also gave us good business,” says Ganesan. From the function hall, the entire batch moved to their old institution, the Law College where Professor Thangapandian took a class for 10 minutes. This batch was successful in fighting the ‘break system' in studies which was abolished from subsequent batches. “Students had to clear all the papers of the first two years of study if they had to enter the third year and had to clear the third year papers if they had to enter fourth and fifth year. This practice was a pain for students,” says Kannan.
The enterprising group has planned to meet on the last Sunday of every January. They have also formed a trust in commemoration of the silver jubilee celebration and have decided to take up service projects. They plan to meet in Chennai next year.
