US Chapter 2011 Get-together

With Vijayan and Remani playing host, you can expect great things to happen. It did, we finally got to see Karl I Jacob and his family. The only sighting reported earlier was from the TVM Ceta 78 Civil meet in 2010.
Let me do this report chronologically, otherwise, I tend to meander.

Location: Vijayan and Remani's residence at Dayton, Ohio.
Date: May 29, 2011
Attended by:
1) Latha, Danny and Naveen (Pooja and Nithin were out of town).
2) Baby John, Ancy, Arun and Anil
3) Jacob,Nancy,Lindsey, Stephanie and Laura
4) James Joseph (Mercy, Jose and Tommy had prior commitments)
5) Joe Paul (Annie, Nikhil and Nithin had prior commitments)
6) Vijayan, Remani and Jithin (Vipin was busy with Masters program and Aswin was in Kerala improving his Malayalam)

Annie and I had originally planned to fly down in the morning, after Nithin's graduation ceremony the previous day. But her brother and family came in from Mumbai and they decided to have a family get-together at another brother's house in Boston that weekend. We finally agreed that I would stick to the original plan while she and the boys drove to Boston. Haaaa freedom and unlimited boozing, though I did try to look sad.

James was another bachelor. He tried to tempt more people from New Jersey / New York area to make a road trip together, but the long drive and domestic compulsions pulled away Kochu Radhakrishnan and Arch James and he finally came by flight. But suspiciously he flew into Columbus the previous night and then took a rental car to Dayton on D-day. But then Palai chaps are not used to going directly from Pt A to Pt B. I think it is something to do with the fact that there is no Railway connection from Palai.

Latha and family were already there and tucking into Remani's Grilled Burgers by the time I was picked up by Vijayan from the airport. They had driven down and had booked a hotel for the night. Baby and family as expected were on time and in full control of the situation. I had a quick drink before I faced our Class Monitor. But hats off to him, he lets his kids do the planning and driving, so he has no problem dealing with them. He is the strategic visionary while his boys dictate the tactical moves. Jacob and family were the last to come in. There was no way to check up on his whereabouts. I am not sure if Jacob uses a cell phone, probably he has researched the link with tumour /cancer and he knows something.

By the time we had migrated from Beer to Single Malt, the patio started getting warmer and we decided to move indoors. Vijayan and Remani have a beautiful house which they bought last year after they moved from Old Dominion University to University of Dayton. It is in the town of Oakwood, right in the heart of the campus. A very green area with massive trees (Oak?) which provided a nice shade to the patio. Jithin stays in the dorm, about 10 minutes away, but he is home most days to have home-cooked food.

With Burgers and Hot Dogs still not digested, Remani put the Indian main dishes on hold and brought out the samosas and pakodas. That went in quickly almost in competition with the whiskey and wine. The subject came to humor or a lack of it. Baby was voted the least humorous of the Ceta 78 batch with Ancy giving examples to justify it. Here I was on safe ground and I decided to push my advantage. I came up with a joke which I thought would go down well. Unfortunately, the whiskey was stronger than I thought and I started it with the punch line and ruined the joke completely. James wanted a vote on which was worse - not having a sense of humor or the inability to tell a good joke. Thank God, Annie was not around, or she would have quoted enough miscues to ensure that I never cracked a joke again. Paarra veettil thane ondu.

We had a diversion when Jacob showed up with Nancy and their lovely daughters. Nancy is a social worker and met Jacob while he was doing his doctorate at Ohio State University. They were living in adjoining rooms in the dorm. As per Jacob's article in the CETAA Magazine, he used to go to Nancy's room to use the telephone. Nancy asserted it was the other way. Anyhow, it is confirmed that instead of Maramchutti premam, it was phone chutti kally ( much more proximate than what a few of our batch mates used to do with the permanently switched telephone line between Men's and Ladies Hostels).

By now the outside temperature had come down a bit and we moved out to the patio. Jithin played the perfect host and took care of the next generation. They watched a movie, played video games and the boys finally sweated it out on the Basketball court. The girls got into painting. Lindsey turned out to be quite brilliant in sketching portraits. Within a short time, she made a highly professional portrait of Danny. Vijayan detected more hair on Danny's head than in reality which we attributed to some underhand dealing / bribing by Danny. Vijayan had a gleam in his eye but we told him to forget it, he will need to empty his bank account to get enough hair on his portrait.

The talk turned to college incidents. James took the floor and gave a detailed account of the cricket bat incident and the underground life he led in an action packed week and how the case finally got resolved. It was sobering to realize that our life could have taken a different turn if Providence had not stepped in at the appropriate time. The talk soon turned to banter and world issues. In any discussion, you can either Be Profound or Be Provocative. If you are neither then it is best to Be Brief. I think most of the guys present were in the Provocative category with Latha in the Brief circuit. Based on CETA 78 email content, there are only two US based alumni in the Profound category. Jacob is the undisputed champion no doubt, with Raman a close second. Probably due to Nancy's presence, Jacob remained coy and did not go into deep pontification.

Remani announced dinner and we got busy tucking in choice Indian dishes catered by a local restaurant. As the shadows lengthened, most of us decided to go for the customary postprandial walk in the neighborhood. Dayton is the cradle of aviation and the Wright brothers had their ancestral home a couple of miles from Vijayan's house. It is a huge mansion but it was too late to explore further. Dayton also is home to a large US Air Force establishment. We realized that we should have planned better and made time to visit both the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park and the National Museum of the USAF. The walk-and-talk discussions centered on the career moves of our kids. Baby mentioned that Anil had decided to join University of Delaware for Undergraduate studies since he was impressed with their Medical Scholars program which led to the highly coveted entry in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. It was the same program which Nithin had taken and he was lucky to be one of the five students who will be joining Jefferson in August. I was excited to hear about Anil's decision and I promptly volunteered to be his local guardian. Baby was not too enthusiastic about it. He is still suspicious that I have not changed from my wild CET days. Next time I should remember not to refill my glass when he is watching.

By the time, we reached back home, Jacob's youngest daughter Laura and Danny were locked in a nail biting  Wii Boxing match game. It was a no-quarter asked and no quarter given bout. I have never seen Danny move his hips so fast and furious, as he ducked and weaved and landed punches on Laura's avatar. Danny, with a bit of training, can easily win Dancing with the Stars competition. Vijayan got Radhakrishnan on the phone but Raman seemed to be out of cell phone range. By 11.00 PM, Baby, Latha and Jacob bid goodbye and left for their hotel rooms.

Vijayan, James and I grabbed another drink and spent a couple of hours on the patio talking about hostel days. Poor Remani had the tough job of getting the house and kitchen back in order. We decided that next year we should definitely meet at a place where we do not burden the ladies. James was given the responsibility of checking out suitable villas for rent somewhere within driving distance of New Jersey - to enable more of the alumni to attend. We finally decided to call it a day at 1.00 AM as we had morning flights to catch. We first checked out Aswin's room. It had a large poster with naked girls of all colors sitting on the edge of a swimming pool with their backs to the camera. Vijayan and I decided that James did not have the maturity to handle this sort of stuff, so I took the room.  James got the guest bedroom. A morning cup of coffee and we headed out to our respective airports. The end of yet another memorable get-together.

One of the things we discussed was about having our 35th CETA 78 Anniversary get-together in TVM in 2013. Most of our batch mates in State Government service would be retiring by then and it would be a great time for all of us to meet again with our families. Maybe if we can fix a date now, we can get more number of people to attend it. Hope our TVM Chapter and our active Gulf Chapter could take a decision on this and kick start the process.

I have also uploaded a group snap at our Yahoo group photo section under Reunions/2011USA album.
I have attached a light weight group snap to this email too. (From Left to Right: Danny (Latha's husband), Baby, Jacob, Joe, Vijayan, Remani (Vijayan's wife), Nancy (Jacob's wife), Ancy (Baby's wife), Latha, James).

With love to the CETA 78 family.
Joe.
On behalf of CETA 78 USA Chapter.