2nd ALUMNI MEET FEB 27 2010

[APRSK ALUMNIFOUNDATION]

MY VANTAGE POINT

I wanted to write from my eyes and heart ( MY VANTAGE POINT) what it was to go to School after 33 years: Passing out thru the gate in 1976, thought i wanted to go an see the school a number of times, it never happened. This journey is memorable. Yes I drove from Hyderabad to APSK and back an act normally I would hesitate to do because of distance and strain it puts on driving. Let me start from First- 12 noon when we left at my home and see how much I can write. I want to write from the time I started to the time I came back on Sunday night at 10:30 pm

Friday Feb 26, 12:00 Noon:

Kaipa came to meet with me at home and we started off in my vehicle. We picked up Madhava Reddy and Eka in Gachibowli. Madhav brought books donated by Vandemataram a NGO, worth Rs 5000.00 for School library. We went to pcik up Ramakrishna Momidi (RK) from 1982 batch at his house in Hill Ridge. RK works as Human Resources Director in Microsoft with me. the way we connected before as Alumni of SVU College of Engineering is one thing and how it transformed when we came to know as KODIs is a completely different experience and feeling (That story is for a different time)

We hit the road NH7 around 1 pm. We started driving with so much energy and enthusiasm. We took a break around 2:30 afternoon for lunch. My wife and my mom made good pulihora, chicken and Curd rice. All the 5 of us ate well and completed all of them. (Wonder why when you travel you get more hungry????) We had some sweets, snacks to complete lunch. Around Dhone by pass Kaipa asked me to stop and wait for a few others that are joining us. Comes a Maroon Tavera and a white Suzuki vehicles out of it 10 folks hopped out of them. I cannot express my feelings in words when I started seeing them and their interaction with others there. The passion for school and the connection how it all ties us together showed when everyone that I don’t know personally were talking to me. Kaipa shifted to another car and Venkata Ramana Assistant Director in Veterinary Dept joined us in CRV. Madhav, Eka and Venkata Ramana started talking about so many success stories from school and so many challenges people have to face after 10th class were a great eye opener for me. We discussed and analyzed why we some people failed in life after school. What was missing in their life - a support system to sustain after school that was not there and we need to work to put this in place was the main theme that came out.

A junior who is a true success story in Anantapur Pawan and his wife hosted us in their lovely home for snacks in Anantapur Prasanthi Nagar. All 5 of us: Eka, Madhava, Venkata Ramana , RK and me had a great conversation in his house and tasty food. What else we can ask for. This student I do not know ever hosted us for the single fact that we belong to same CULT called APRSK.

We started driving again. Venkata Ramana was my navigator not knowing where I am driving. After taking the turn towards Hindupur I read a road sign Hindupur 26 KMs and my heart started jumping with a unknown joy that I am going to this place after 33 years. The road was not so good but did I care. With my juniors in car and talking about the memories made me hit the road and complete the driving reaching Hindupur around 10 pm. Ratnakar whom I forgot to mention in my previous email is the MAN behind everyone’s accommodation and responsible for taking care of 70 teachers (he got hold of all of them in less than a week and spent hours talking to everyone of them on phone for hours), and also first few batches where we lacked ownership was there waiting to receive us at Saptagiri Residency. We checked into our room and made sure everyone is comfortable. Me and RK spent another hour or so talking to Kaipa and his school batch. We met Sri Guna Bhushana Naidu family. Both his son and daughter are our students and came with their mom. I never met sir but was very happy to see them all. Went to bed with a whole lot of excitement and joy.

Saturday Feb 27, 2010 6:30 am

Started the day with a hot cup of coffee. RK and me woke up and took an hour or so to get ready. When I was about to get out CS Reddy my classmate called me and came to see me. We all went to have breakfast. We ariived in school around 9:30 am. The drive to school was really great, memorable experience again. While crossing Penna Bridge RK was asking me if that was the same bridge we crossed so many times to go to school The river bed is filled with Circar Tumma (The way Sri Obaiah sir called it later in his speech) instead of sand we used to play. From there I could see the school and my adrenaline started flowing more. The feeling again cannot be explained. we stopped for a few mins to take pictures of the check post that was in the corner and does not exist now. We remembered how people snuck out to buy burfees there or to go to Kodege Palli ( as they call in Telugu). When i was entering the gate and saw the color party boys there that is a moment I can never forgot. The way parking was organized by the current drill master was really an example of how things happen at APRKS are it 33 years before or today with same DISCIPLINE. The lines were marked with white muggu and in order. We parked and took out stuff and first stop was registration before KSR House where I stayed in Room 2. From this moment I felt I am in cloud nine. The distance I thought is a long from our KSR house to new Dormitory in those days was just a hop now. Madhava Reddy was telling me that we were small and the steps were small to make us feel the distance is far while we now feel they are very close now. I ate breakfast in same dining hall with first batch students (Upma with chenakkayala chutney). We sang our prayer. Took pictures. I went to the medical camp, walked thru the new dormitory, same taps in gym we took so many baths under, the assembly we went every day to, Principal house and medical house, other so many places. One thing I realized is my age and my physical condition will not make me last the whole day around noon, however, i lasted till evening 9:30 pm just because of the place where I was in. Started meeting so many juniors and ONLY one batches my seniors was a wonderful feeling. When so many of 1982 batch students walked up to me and reminded me they were my students from SVU College of Engineering and they never knew about me being from APRSK I felt my dad was alive to hear this. It is sentimental as he would have loved to be on campus.

During the day met our Telugu master Sri P Venkateswarlu who wrote the School song jayatu jai, our social master Amjaneyulu Sir, Our Chemistry teacher Sri Raja Rao garu and his son Ravi who is my classmate, my own classmates, Ravindra, Kala, Pakkerappa, Another Ravi, Sankaraiah - WOW so many people I met I cannot write everyone’s name here.

Around 2 pm we ate lunch. I have to commend the work of our kitchen staff for this. I am sure going to go another time leisurely and spend more time with people on a listening tour in school to learn more. While the expectation was 300 people the total old students based on last numbers that came were at 756 - can you believe - these are just registrations and many came with families. So making food for an unexpected numbers and serving was a herculean task. They did it- that is APRSK spirit- whatever we put our mind to we can achieve it. It was a delicious, coconut rice, chenaga kayala chutney, pappu, rasam, majjiga and white rice. What else we can ask for. When I was eating I felt I might fall asleep after that.

Lot of group pictures were taken on campus and thanks to all the people who thought of every single detail, it was great to see other and take pictures. We gathered at assembly and started with color party and reached the place where meeting was supposed to happen. The enthusiasm, patience and the way the students conducted the march past our chief guest of the day Srinivasa Raju IAS from APRSK was a memorable site. You need to watch the video to enjoy this. our 1981 batch student Sastry who is with AIR Anantapur stated anchoring the program around 3 pm or so a little late than we expected to start. I was 2nd to be called on to stage after Srinivasa Raju. My defining moment is when Raju told me he is from SVU College of Engineering from 1981- 85 sitting next to me. Lot of people spoke. High light was L Venugopal to me- when he told the crowd that he was one among 9 children for a elementary school teacher and how the school helped him to be where he is now in life. That is what APRSK is about making great people out of nobody’s when they are young. It gave opportunity, it provided a structure, shelter, food and for many self confidence that took us out into the world and be successful.

Fireworks after the function was a huge hit with everyone. The snake that was lit last HISSING and spewing fore like a real snake spewing venom was a site to see.

Dinner: WAS DELICIOUS. Roti, mixed vegetable curry, dal, veg fried rice and raita - WOW we ate and ate. Final touch - was ice cream with mixed fruit. Have to see how my throat will be in next few hours but was good food. By then I am so tired so tired I am longing for a hot bath and a good sleep. we drove back to Hindupur and had my hot bath and slept with a permanent smile on my face my father would have loved to see and enjoy a lot.

Feb 28th 2010 8:00 am.
When I got ready and came out O Gopala Krishna reddy from first batch was in lobby and told me about the article in Andhra Jyothi daily. I came with RK and next moment I found him missing. When I found him he came with a bag of news papers where our function coverage was there. Every news paper had an article - Sakshi, Jyothi, Bhoomi, and Eenadu. RK and me ate good breakfast. The trip will never be complete without a visit to LEPAKSHI. So we decided to hit the road to go there. Saw the BIG NANDI, temple and left around 11 am there driving to Anantapur. It is like a pilgrimage that won’t be complete without a trip to Lepakshi I found most of the people from school there.

Driving back to Anantapur was an adventure since we missed to drive thru a tank bed (Cheruvu) and drove on good looking asphalt just to find ourselves lost for about 40 mins. Finally we got back on track and stared driving fast to have a home made launch waiting for us in Pawans house in Anantapur again. Dr Pallavi a doctorate in Microbiology is a great cook and awesome host. She made sure we all ate well with a typical Kurnool sweet that we need to eat with milk and ghee, Sambar, aloo and goby fry, vadiyalu, appadalu, rasam to die for and perugannam out of this earth. Took a small nap and after nice cup of coffee left Anantapur around 4 pm. I do not want to even talk about dinner we had after such a good lunch. I got home by 10:20 pm tired after driving about 523 Kilometers today. My body aching with pain. However i felt it is all worth very much for what I experienced yesterday. Could not sleep till 1 am or so as I was reading all news articles on web and in print and was seeing all pictures Madhava has posted. I need to unload my pictures and upload them to some place too..

The 3 memorable days in my life will be cherished for many more years to come. Thank you APRSK for making me what I am and who I am. If I can give anything back to the school and to the young souls out there, I will be there to lend my hand. To all my juniors and my senor batch - we are one hell of a group that can do anything we put our mind to. Lets get APRSK a status that was there before - that it caters to 5 districts to produce RAYALA SEEMA RATNALU again.

Yours always

another KODI from 2nd batch

SURESH PERUGU

1976

[APRSK ALUMNIFOUNDATION]

Of late, I was in touch with only couple of my old KODIs (Chandra Mohan & T Venkateswarlu). Chandra and I did schooling in Kodigenahalli and did engineering in JNTU, Anantapur. Hence we were planning to visit both the places. We had no clues about other KODI's where abouts.
My excitement started few weeks back when I accidentally discovered APRSK yahoo group. I immediately got subscribed to it hoping to find my old chuddy buddies from the school. As soon as I introduced myself to the group, one of my junior KODI 'Chandra' recognized me and got in touch with me. But I did not see any responses from our batch. I was happy that at least one KODI recognized me but I was disappointed that no one from our batch responded. There were flurry of messages mentioning the retirement of 'Ramachandra Reddy sir' and 'KSN sir'. They taught us Maths & Science respectively. I wanted to attend the retirement function of 'Ramachandra Reddy sir' but could not make it. After few weeks of sailing with the group, I mentioned the group details to Chandra. He immediately got in and added his details to the database. Both of us decided to visit the school at the time of retirement of KSN sir. Around the same time, Madhava mentioned that there will be a reunion of Alumni on 27th Feb.
During the 1st week of Feb, Chandra called me one afternoon and told me that he received a call from S.V.Rajasekhar Babu. He told me that he is working in Hyderabad and he is going to his office to discuss the reunion. I was really excited to meet Rajasekhar and joined Chandra. At Rajasekhar's office, we met Madhava Reddy, Ratnakar, Murali, Hari Prasad Reddy, Ramachandra Reddy sir and Kesavulu sir. 'D.Sreenu' also joined us there. Rajasekhar told us that our batch had a reunion in Nandhyal two years back and he gave few more contacts immediately. The excitement started building soon after as we started receiving calls from Nagendra, Sarvan. I got hold of Ramana Reddy's mail id and sent him an email. He immediately responded with his details. Also, I could find my old autograph book. I shared few of the buddies’ details with Sarvan and he tried to find out their details based on their old addresses.
26th February 2010:
07:30 a.m: Chandra came to my house and both of us are expected to pick up D.Sreenu at Miyapur. We had at least 5-6 students with the name 'Srinivas' hence every one is identified with their surnames as well. D.Sreenu joined us around 8:20 and we started driving towards Kurnool.
10:00 a.m: We were expecting Hariprasad Reddy to join us at Jadcherla. But he made minor change in his plan and decided to come in his car as he is coming along with another junior KODI ‘Chandra Mouli’. We met him near Jadcherla and started driving towards Kurnool in two cars.
12:00 p.m: Hariprasad wanted to buy few sweets at Pullareddy sweets in Kurnool. During the journey, D.Sreenu got hold of Naganna & Shankar Reddy. We asked them to come to Kurnool so that we can pick them up at Kurnool. All of us met at Pullareddy sweetshop near Kurnool Medical college. It looked like age did not catch up with Naganna at all and he was absolutely like student Naganna:) We were planning to have lunch at Anantapur. But by the time we reached Gutty, it was 2:00 p.m and we were really hungry. Hence we decided to have lunch in Gutty. Though the place was not comparable with the restaurants in Hyderabad, we were served with decent lunch.
3:30 p.m: Hariprasad had to stop in Anantapur to make arrangements for next day's medical camp. We had another buddy Ramana Babu in Anantapur working as DE in Irrigation dept. We met Ramana babu in his office. I was expecting him to be in the shape of comedian SUNIL but there is absolutely no change in him either in appearance or way of talking. After spending an hour in his office, we resumed our journey towards Hindupur. In the meantime, we received several calls from Sarvan. He reached Hindupur in the afternoon itself and was waiting for us.
6:30 p.m: Finally we reached Hindupur. As soon as got down from the car, we saw two familiar faces but could not recall their names immediately. Then we realized they are Raghuramaiah & G.Venkateswarlu. Soon others joined us. We got hold of numbers of other buddies and started calling them. We even called APPU Maheswar Reddy and Vijayasaradhi. Both of them are in US. Around 20 of us gathered by that time. Then we assembled for a group dinner. We discussed about what we were doing all these days and shared few secrets of the adventures that we made in School. We came to know that 8 of our old buddies are no more in this world. We really felt sorry for them as 6 of them had committed suicide.
11:30 p.m: After the dinner is over, we went for a walk and could not hold back our excitement about the school. We managed 4 auto's and went to the school around 12:00 a.m. We noticed that arrangements are in full swing for the next day's events. We roamed around the school, the dormitories, the dining hall and the ground for 2 hours.
We noticed that the new dormitory in 1985 has become like a old dormitory now. The old wooden cots were replaced by iron cots but some of them were broken. We also saw several kids sleeping on the floor. We felt bad about that and discussed about contributing towards improving the infrastructure. In fact, this topic was brought up during the discussions in Rajasekhar’s office couple of weeks earlier. Then we came back to the hotel around 2:00 and went to the sleep.
27th February 2010:
08:00 a.m: Few more KODIs joined us at the hotel. We had breakfast at a restaurant opposite to our hotel and started driving towards school.
09:30 a.m: As soon as we got down, we were welcomed by the current KODIs. They were all dressed in school uniforms and few of them are dressed up in their NCC uniforms. They were all eager to find out who we are and where we are working currently. After registering ourselves at the registration counter, we started moving around the school. We were joined by few more 1985 batch mates like R.Sreenu, P.Sreenu, Mallikarjun, Rajasekhar Reddy and Narendra. By this time, 1985 batch were around 30. At one point in time during early Feb, I was wondering whether there will be only two of us. We met AVV Satynarayana sir, Chandra Raju sir, Giri sir, KSN sir, Narayana Reddy sir and Apparao sir in the campus. We were little disappointed to see them in their old age as we conveniently forgot that we saw them last time 25 years back J. We took several pictures in the school premises.
01:00 p.m: We have become very hungry and all of us grabbed one row in the dining hall. Then we sang ‘OM SAHANABHAVATHU’ and had our lunch. The taste of food did not seem to change that much despite change of cooks and passage of time. The kitchen was in poor shape and there was scope for improving its hygiene. That did not impact our spirits at all. We even met one of our old cooks ‘Rangarao’. He made it to the school despite his old age. We gathered at the ground and took a group picture with the teachers.
03:30 p.m: The formal meetings started with couple of songs. High achievers like Mr. Suresh Perugu, Mr. Ramakrishna, Rajasekhar Babu, Mr. Sreenivasa Raju, and Mr. Venugopal were invited onto the stage. The commentary was done by Mr.Sastry. His commentary was really exemplary. There were several key messages from the speakers. Couple of messages that touched me were
- Mr. Sreenivasa Raju mentioned about school becoming our home for several years and having friends from the school but not having many friends in our villages.
- Mr. Venugopal mentioned that Suicides are permanent solutions to temporary problems. How true it is.
I thought these two messages are interlined. When most of us got out of the school and were in distressful conditions, we didn’t have many friends in our villages to share our problems and seek guidance from. I think this could be one of the reasons behind so many suicides in our batch.
7:00 p.m: Couple of us went back to the hotel to fresh up and re-assembled at the ground. We had an excellent dinner and interacted with senior KODIs. After the dinner, we went to the spinning mill’s guest house where Rajasekhar Babu is staying. We spent couple of hours discussing how not to loose contacts in future, to trace the remaining buddies and to help the families of buddies who are no more.
10:00 p.m: We came back to ground and noticed that kids were participating in cultural activities. We watched them for few minutes and drove back to the hotel. By this time, some of our buddies have left for their natives. Rest of us decided to go to Lepakshi next day and then disperse from there.
28th February 2010:
We went to Lepakshi next day morning and spent couple of hours in the temple. Then we dispersed to our respective destinations with heavy hearts.
As far as I am concerned, these three days were the best three days in recent past. I am still suffering from the hangover of the event. I would like to retain it as long as possible.
I really appreciate the efforts of Madhava Reddy, Ekambar, Soloman, Ratnakar and Murali in making this event successful. I also appreciate all others who worked silently to make this event such a big success. I hope there will be several such occasions in future.
Thanks,
Ramakrishna ( 1985 )

[Giridhar Pottepalem]

Suresh,

Like many of KODIs who are living half-the-globe-away from our School and missed this life-time opportunity to attend the first ever MEGA meet, I too was eagerly awaiting the pictures and narration of this event. Though I was mentally at the School on Friday evening itself soon after I head home from work in Boston, after I read your narration in correlation with pictures posted by Madhava, I felt like I was physically at the School and did not miss this event at all. While reading (rather feeling) your narration, like in the movie 'Back to the Future', I travelled with all of you all the way from Hyderabad to the School and back to Hyderabad with a stop at Lepakshi temple on the return.

It was such a memorable event for each one of us to remember it for the rest of our lives. This event gave me a chance to connect and talk to ELEVEN of my 1983 batch-mates after getting disconnected for almost 27 years. I want to share those joyful moments of talking to all of them over the phone. I will switch to Telugu now:

1. "గిరీ, ఎలా ఉన్నవు? చాలా సంతోషం..ఇదొగో మన ఫ్రెండ్స్ పక్కనే ఉన్నారు, మాట్లాడు ..." అంటూ - మల్లయ్య
2. "గిరీ, ఎంత కాలానికి గిరీ!,..ఎట్లున్నావు,..ఎంతమంది పిల్లలు...నేను ఫ్యామిలీ తో వచ్చాను...మా అబ్బాయి కమల కుమార్ ట్రూప్ లో రిథం ప్యాడ్ వాయిస్తున్నాడు..." అంటూ - సుబ్బరాయుడు
3. "గిరీ, నువ్వు నెంబర్ ఫోర్ కదా...అబ్బ...ఎంత కాలానికి గిరీ...ఇంకా ఊశ్ లో మనవాళ్ళెవరెవరున్నారు? వాళ్ళని నాతో మాట్లాడించు" అంటూ - లక్ష్మన్న
4. "గిరీ, బాగున్నావా? ఇదుగో నీ తికెస్ట్ ఫ్రెండ్ భార్గవ పక్కనే...స్కూల్ కి పోయింతర్వాత అందర్తో మాట్లాదిస్తా..." అంటూ - దివాకర్
5. "గిరీ, బాగున్నావా, పిల్లలెంత మంది? నేను నంద్యాలలో ఉంటున్నా...నా నెంబెర్ నోట్ చేసుకో...రాసుకున్నావా..." అంటూ - భార్గవ నరసింహులు
6. "గిరీ, నేనెవరో గుర్తు పట్టు చూద్దాం...ఈసారి నువ్వొచ్చినప్పుడు తప్పకుండా కలుద్దాం...- అంటూ గురుమూర్తి
7. "ఒరేయ్ గిరీ, ఎం రా? మా యర్రగుంట్ల వాళ్ళని పూర్తిగా మర్చిపోయినా...ఎంత నెల్లూరు అయితే మా కడప డ్రాట్ ఏరియా అని మర్చిపొతా...కావలికి కూడా వచ్చినా...దొడ్లవారి వీధి కదా..చూడు నాకింకా నీ అడ్రస్ కూడ గుర్తే... - అంటూ జె.సురెంద్ర
8. "రే గిరీ ఎట్టున్నావ్?..మనం పెదరెడ్డిపల్లి కి నదిచిపొయ్యేవాళ్ళం గుర్తుందా?...ఈరోజు నదుచుకుంటా ఆ దార్లో పొయినా...ఒకసారి కావలికి వచ్చి నీకోసం అందర్నీ అడిగినా...దొరకలా...- అంటూ ఏ.వేణు
9. "గిరీ, నా పాటలు గుర్తున్నాయా? వినిపిస్తా ఉండు....హరి ఓం ... (అంటూ శ్రావ్యంగా )... నంబర్ రాసుకో... రేపు ఇంటికెళ్ళి తీరిగ్గా మాట్లాడుకుందాం...- అంటూ కమల కుమార్
10. "గిరీ, బాగున్నావా...చాలా సంవత్సరాలకి...నీకెంతమంది పిల్లలు?...- అంటూ మురళీధర్
11. "గిరీ, నువ్వు బాగా గుర్తొస్తుంటావు. నీ నంబర్ నాలుగు, నా నంబర్ ఐదు కదా..." - అంటూ జయేంద్ర

* "గిరిధర్ పి కదా,..ఆ...గిరిధర్ పొట్టేపాళెం...గుర్తుంది...మనం హిందీ పరీక్షలకి పూర్తి పేరు రాస్తుంటిమి కదా...అందుకే గుర్తు...హైదరాబాద్ లో ఉంటున్నా...ఈసారి వస్తే తప్పకుండా కలువు...- అంటూ అక్కడే మా బ్యాచ్ వాళ్ళతో మాట్లాడ్తున్న శ్రీ ఓబయ్య సార్.

ఇలా ఆప్యాయంగా పలకరించిన నా చిన్ననాటి మిత్రులతో మాట్లాడిన ఆ మధుర క్షణం మరపురానిది.

It was such an unforgettable moment talking to all of my batch-mates who attended this event while visualizing their 1983 faces still fresh in my mind.


As Kiran proposed, I think we should bring out a Colorful book of pictures and experiences to TRULY commemorate this mega event of our life. I am sure, we will have more like this in future, but this one will remain very special forever.

Special Thanks to Madhava, Soloman and each and every individual who made this unimaginable event happen.

Together we can make anything happen.

Cheers,
Giri (V-X 1977-83)
http://giri-art.blogspot.com/

[APRSK ALUMNIFOUNDATION]

Thank you Suresh for this treat. Your narrative is a very heart-warming rendering of your experience of this special day which we can vicariously participate in. 750+ is a more-than-remarkable number of people to make it to this meet. It is a joy to see Madhava Reddy’s active engagement of our email forum for the past two years to instill the momentum for an occasion like this. The chain cell phone texting seemed to have been a real connector to bring this event to a grand success. L Venugopal is my classmate (1978). Glad he represented so many of us that could not be there, including Mallikarjunappa who brought to fruition the beautiful New Classrooms Building a few years ago.



You (I mean, all of you there) have brought on the momentum. May we continue the spirit of giving and get some dormitories in shape, some classrooms in shape, a new dining hall in the making, and regular educational seminars in place. A few alumni with a purpose to engage the minds of students on say, a Second Saturday once in three months at least will be a good thing. An annual alumni meet is ambitious but once in two years should be easily possible. I wonder for all the traveling people did, was one day enough to celebrate together? Did everyone catch up with one another? Was there really time for all that?



You talked about 75 teachers. I was glad to hear the names of Anjaneyulu sir, Raja Rao sir, P Venkateswarlu sir, Guna Bhushana Naidu sir etc. Were there several others? Of course recently retired principal Sri KSR is seen in the pictures Madhava Reddy loaded. Did our Sanskrit master, Nagaraja Sarma sir from Hindupur come?



My visit three years ago is still fresh. I taught some math and I taught some English in classrooms. My wife spoke to all the students (Assembly) and appreciated what Kodigenahalli made me in front of all the people there. My junior V. Raghurami Reddy was gracious to drive us there and Mallikarjunappa met us there to be with us. Principal KSR told the students after my sessions that my pedagogy was analytical (VISLESHANATHMAKA bodhana). Students enjoyed it as much as I did. This is what I mean by smaller groups visiting with a purpose of engaging the students. It will be nice to see such things happen on a regular basis. If we place a sign-up sheet and let volunteers sign up for various educational activities they could bring to the campus, it will be good.



Our sincere thanks to you for taking time to pen these words. You touched the salient and deep longings of our hearts and our gratefulness to this unique gift of belonging to APRSK.



In that jayatu jayatu jai jaya patasala song.. we called ourselves rathanalu, vajraalu and veera paurulamu. May we live up to that calling and embrace the jaya patasala/ ramya gurukula’s needs in that Kodigenahalli puravaramu. My fondest greetings to one and all.



Subha Kumpaty

(1978)

Milwaukee School of Engineering, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

[APRSK ALUMNIFOUNDATION]

Kumar Kanipakam

Dear Kodis

Thank you very much ALL for making this event a very successful one. This is mind boggling (no kidding) considering the time we had at hand. I did get a chance to hear the speeches of Srinivas Raju, Suresh Perugu, Devanand etc. I called my brother who is at meeting and asked him to keep his cell ON when the meeting was going and could able to hear the speech of Srinivasa Raju very clearly. Hope we should be able to get a live video in our next meet. This will certainly help few hundred (perhaps thousands) kodi' s who are abroad and more than 10,000 + kodis living in India.

One thing which amazed me was the way people reacted to the event. Starting from creating a website, logos, banners, collecting contributions, arranging things at school, and providing accomodation etc. Not an easy task to provide food for 1000+ for a day considering our dining hall is equipped for couple of hundred.

Thanks Madhav for sharing the photos very early. As mentioned by kiran WE ENVY YOU. I have been here in US for more than a decade and missed lot of functions in india belonged to near and dear including my own kids. But nothing like missing this event, it is a painful experience. It made me to think for a while whether it is really worth staying here by not able to attend functions like this. I was talking all the time on saturday morning from 7:00 AM to my batch mates present in school for more than six hours. I spoke to twelve members of my batch mates after twenty six years. It was very emotinal, and i could not able to come out of that hangover till next day. I am sure people who attended the function physically felt multiple times what we at abroad felt.

During his speech Srinivasa Raju mentioned that kodigenahally is native place for him becasue he stayed there more than anywhere else during his childhood. I think this is true for most of the Kodis. Even in my case, i have not stayed more than six years in any one place except kodigenahalli till now. Another kodi (IAS) send an SMS during the meeting to Rajasekhar babu (IPS) stating that he is in this position today completely because of school. These wonderful people who achived great success in thier lives are so humble and ground to earth because of the upbringing in kodigenahalli.

I think what ever contributions we made so far or going to make in future is little compared to what we all got from the great school. The only tribute to school we can give is by changing our last name to "Kodigenahalli" .


Once again thank you ALL.

Thanks
Kumar Kanipakam
1984