Bangalore Chapter Meet Up - 8 March 2020 

When I first landed in Bangalore for my interview at my present job, my first instinct was to connect with any Sanawarians around as the only friends and family I could reach out to. I knew there was a group but I also knew it wasn't active. I connected on the group but mostly it was a silent one except for one or two who were responsive. It was strange to see that since usually if you ask to meet most Sanawarians are happy to meet... and then I decided on making Bangalore my home a month later and realised what was happening. 

Every chapter has its challenges. Bangalore had its too. Besides the fact that there is a general laziness seen in most Sanawarians , Bangalore has a problem on 3 levels which I discovered in the first month.One, there was literally zero activity on the chapter. Second, there is a large gap in ages with the very young ones and the ones with kids and busy professional lives, and then others young in spirit but not able to whizz around town. And three, the infamous Bangalore traffic that prevents people from moving from one locality to another! Seeing the challenges, I arranged for meeting people one on one in their areas. I called every one home once they were comfortable in small gatherings of 2 or 3. We set up chill out meetings outside and created a group of half a dozen people who would meet for game nights and just general chill outs.And we planned on making the chapter come alive and talked of our days at Sanawar. None of it was official and all of it, organic. Never give in is after all our motto! And lo and behold in 7 months of coming here we had a chapter running and the elections done and dusted! 

At Bangalore, in my first meeting as Chapter coordinator for the revived chapter with my fantastic team of high spirited Sanawarians, we decided on segregating events in focus groups.There would be events every quarter for all three groups and two formal events where all would converge. All were welcome but we would focus on the three categories of Sanawarians separately for their conveniences and interests in life. This way we catered to obstacles 1, 2 and 3! We started with a drinks and snacks at the famous hundred feet party zone to get the young ones in the fold. All were enthusiastic and we had 15 of the younger Sanawarians from 2017 to 2019 batches! On the day we also had fantastic encouragement from all others on the group including all the older ones and some great participation from them. 

The first to arrive was Col GP Singh (HBD'58) who travelled from Delhi to be there in true Sanawarian spirit! The 15 (Batches 2017 to 2019) on whom the event was focused as they would be leaving for college education etc. were all present. We had Nilanjan Roy(VBD'84) who cleared his busy schedule to make sure he was there to cheer the younger guys on. Then came Vikram Chopra (NBD'80) a gymnast in his time in Sna, who was equally responsible for making the evening a total success by really getting involved with the younger ones getting them to refine their handstands and push ups in true Sanawarian spirit. There was my amazing team without whom it was impossible to do anything. Sujoy Das(VBD'01) and Mitali Sengupta(HGD'92) from the team helped make the evening a success. I was ratified as the Chapter Head by all 24 members amongst much cheer and leg pulling! Gayathrie Maediratta(SGD'95) who came with all her wonderful positive energy engaged with all the young boys and girls and all in all it was a party that lasted well beyond the time we perceived it would the representation on the chapter was from batch of 1958 to 2019! We had an interesting speech from Col Singh on Sna in his days, fun and banter between OS of various batches, two Head Boys from the recent batches vying for favour while doing push ups and an added satisfaction of knowing interesting progressive facts that now we had boxing for women too with one of them in company! A casual early evening of drinks and snacks turned out to be a night of pure fun and togetherness which ended well beyond Midnight! The bond continues and we hope to welcome the older ones/ young in spirit soon at our next event. Well done Sna! 

Amrita Varma 

HGD'97 

OSS Bangalore Chapter Coordinator