IIT Alumni in the New England area shed their nerd image for an evening at a gathering held by IITSINE at the Lexington Lodge of the Elks on March 17, 2007.  It was a great party with dance and music lighting up the evening.
“It is always a pleasure to celebrate with fellow IITians” said Puran Dang who is the founder of of IITSINE. Dang felt that IITians immaterial of the IIT they went to had a lot in common and founded IITSINE as a joint alumni organization. The concept has been replicated at other places with a PAN IIT global now in place.   A PAN IIT conference will be held in California on July 3, 4 and 5th. Please check out http://www.iit.org for more information.

After President Vishwa Shukla’s welcome, a lovely variety entertainment followed. Uday Nadkarni presented a riveting rendition of the classical number “Pag Gungaroo Bandh Meera Nachi” in the D.V.Paluskar style. This was followed by a Bharatanatyam presentation by Abritee Dhal, were she presented a Narayaneeyam Shlokam followed by the famous item “Bruhi Mukundeti”.

IIT Delhi alum Neeta Agarwal rendition of some traditional folk song describing the first day of Ram and Sita in the forest was touching. Later her little kids had the audience laughing with their cute jokes followed by a fabulous solo Mridangam presentation by Arun Saigal.  The beautiful Priya Kumar a graduate student at Harvard dazzled the audience with her wonderful Bollywood presentation.

Rohini Laroia presentation of Zindagi Ke Safer Mein Gujar Jathe Hain Jo Makam was extremely appropriate for the evening. For the alumni experiences at IIT was a moment they treasured but could never go back to. Anu Chitrapu brought a 70s touch to the program with her rocking rendition of “Dam Maro Dam”. This was followed by a Tamil duet for which she was joined by her husband Rama Ramakrishnan.  

The grand finale was a creative musical comedy “Chala Minister IITian Banne” where Ajitabh Ranjan, Sita Raman Prasad and Ranjani Saigal presented a skit that included several parodies set to the tunes of popular classical numbers. Whether it was “Man Tarapat Nari Darshan ko” or “Chalo Dildar Chalo IIT ke Par Chalo” they had the audience laughing away with their song and dance.  

The evening ended with a wonderful dinner and Bingo which was coordinated by Anil Saigal. “While we are all having a good time socializing we must take this opportunity to gather and come up with ideas to give back” said Puran Dang. “There is a big need for a rainy day fund for students who suddenly land in financial crisis. If there is something we can do to help, it would be great” said Dang.

IIT SINE is planning to co-host an event with the Indian Medical Association of New England in April. Please check out their website at http://iitsine.org for more information.

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