It was in the merry month of May this year, that the beta batch girls planned a get-together in Bangalore in October 2022. The main driver for this idea of a get-together was Lavanya. Incidentally, Lavanya was part of our batch only for a couple of years before she discontinued her studies in Karunya. She went on to continue her engineering degree in the US.
It all started with Lavanya planning to make a short trip to India in October which triggered the plan for our own little get-to. All fourteen girls were invited, but only a few could make it during that time slot. So, the countdown for D-day began. Excitedly, almost like teenagers, we started planning. We were going to meet after 6 years. In 2016 many of us made it to the 25 years reunion in Karunya. Finally, Binu and Susheela from Cochin, Suba and Phebin from Bangalore, Subashini from Coimbatore and I from Vizag could make it to meet up with Lavanya from the U.S. As Andrews from our batch commented, the girls from three different southern states in India were meeting up and yes we couldn’t wait to meet.
The fun started with a series of birthdays. On the evening of October 6th, Lavanya arrived in Cochin. Binu was there to receive her with a warm welcome, a delicious birthday cake, surprise gifts and loads of love.
The next day Binu and Lavanya met up with Sushi to celebrate Sushi’s birthday. What better way to celebrate than with friends! The whole day all three of them had a lot of fun visiting places in Cochin.
That night the trio travelled and reached Bangalore. The next day the rest of us gathered in Lavanya’s brother’s house in the Whitefield/Marathahalli area of Bangalore. Lavanya’s mom took us under her wings effortlessly and treated us like her own children.
We enjoyed being mothered by her and were inspired by how active she was even though she was past 70. We couldn’t appreciate dear aunty enough. The whole day we spent recalling fun-filled days in Karunya, amid peals of laughter as memories came gushing back.
Life after Karunya, the ups and downs were shared over sweets and hot snacks from Kerala, Bangalore and Vizag. No one listening to us could have guessed our age. We felt like we were 16, dancing and enjoying ourselves. Those who could not join us were present virtually as we kept on posting pictures and messages in our KIT91 WA group. I played the communicator/correspondent role to the group and we enjoyed the feedback we were getting from our batchmates both boys and girls from around the world.
That evening Subashini arrived from Gujarat. She had been there on an official trip.
We went out for dinner where Praveen and Alan from our batch joined us. There was no empty seat in the dining area, all were occupied by younger generations, but none of them came close to matching our enthusiasm.
The restaurant was fun-filled and the delicious Bangalore veg and non-veg fare of starters, dishes and desserts were awesome. We were very happy to meet Praveen who had travelled to Bangalore from Delhi and Alan who was based in Bangalore. The evening was simply wonderful. At the start, the dining area was mixed with dull background music, slowly the music changed into dancing beats and the lights started flashing, soon the dining area was the dance floor. The background lighting was not so bright for taking photos, so we didn’t waste much time taking photos.
We seemed to be talking endlessly resonating with the pace of the music that was infectious. After dinner, we headed to the Cornor House, Bangalore’s famous ice-cream shop. Suba, our local organiser, did a wonderful job of driving us around amid the Bangalore traffic(she even beat Google’s guidance, and at the estimated time reached the destination).
After reaching home we all felt as if we were in the Karunya hostel – we felt the same kindred spirit. We prayed and thanked God for being so good to us and slept.
Early the next day the 9th early morning all of us along with Lavanya’s mom went for a 2km walk in the lovely campus where we were staying. Everyone took to running and jogging, while Phebin and I strolled along.
We had our morning tea in a stall outside before heading home. We went out for a delicious lunch, and all too soon we were getting ready to head back in the evening. Parting was so sad, but we did so with lovely memories of the two days of our get-to. It was so rejuvenating; I wish we could meet like this at least once a year.
