For the XIM batch of 1999, (unfortunately) it took 25 years for all the 20 of us (and one from our junior cohort, and a few were with their families) to meet again in Boulder, Colorado, USA and relive those carefree and mostly stressful days over the two years we had spent at XIMB for the next couple of hours!! As attendance used to be mandatory in our XIMB classes, it was here too (Ask Dray!) It was awesome that some 20 of us (out of the 27 of us that are based all over the U.S) made it to our U.S. reunion in Boulder near Denver, Colorado. I myself could join in only on the last day (I missed out the day-long Rocky mountain National Park hiking trip in the snow as I was tied up on Friday with my college meetings) but still enjoyed meeting my XIMB batchmates, the sumptuous Indian dinner and the JLT that followed. Kudos to Debasis Ray for all his hard work in keeping us connected all these years and for organizing the XIMB-99 25th year US reunion! If close to 75% attendance among some 27 XIMB folks after 25 years does not demonstrate the camaraderie of our batch, what else could possibly demonstrate how closely knit we were as a batch? 

I don’t think all our pictures and videos do justice to the joy each one of us felt meeting each other after 25 long years! As was the common refrain (in Hindi): tu toh bilkul hi nehi badla! And another one was: my memory is failing/has failed completely!

Now, we look forward to meeting more frequently (definitely before the next 25th year) in the U.S., and possibly in the official XIMB event that may be organized later this year. As a lesson learnt, I can only suggest for the younger/junior batches: you may all want to develop one or more leaders like Dray who will keep your batch/cohort connected and get them to meet much more frequently (than we could).

Please follow this link to view the photographs.

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