Over 60 alumni belonging to the 1961 batch of the Madras Medical College have decided to come together for a “golden reunion” on December 17 and 18.
After graduation, the doctors moved to different parts of the world, but at the initiative of K. Badrinath, an orthopaedic surgeon based in London, about 85 of the classmates have now formed a close-knit alumni group.
The reunion features a visit to the Anatomy Department at their alma mater, a group photo session, discussion forums and lots of time to reminisce of bygone days.
Dr. Badrinath, who is also the Chairman of the Organising Committee, said the reunion had its genesis in a casual conversation in December 2010, which then morphed into a manhunt for his 120-odd batchmates on the Internet.
Using a combination of group email, the power of Internet search engines, and plain old telephone directories, the class of 1961 slowly came together again in the virtual realm. Curiously, the doctors stayed off Facebook. “We all belong to a generation which still finds such social networking platforms as intrusive,” Dr.Badrinath said. Even while relying on a relatively more secure online platform such as Yahoo Mail, he said that an unknown person tried to intrude into the group.
Critiquing the current neglect of the institution, he said: “We would like to explore at the reunion an association involving old students who are eager to do something for the college”. Attempts would also be made to reach out to the present crop of students to see if any help could be extended to them.
Despite having successfully rediscovered many of his classmates, Dr.Badrinath rues the fact that they were unable to trace about 20 of them. “I am sure they all live in Tamil Nadu though,” he said.
For more details, contact: K.Badrinath - 9003092312, S.V. Kandasamy - 9952444799, L.Vijayaraj – 9443042058; or Dr Udhayarani - 28293833.
