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The Big Bang (Jacob Kurien, Jan 12th, 2008) |
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In case any of you are wondering how this group came together, read on....
1985-1992
After I left Bahrain in 1985, I stayed in touch with a few folks for a while
- George, Moses, Anil (of Anil/Binil/Sunil fame). I treasured the
interaction because it was the only glimpse I could get into what was going on
in Bahrain. However, gradually, with passage of time, I got increasingly lax
with maintaining ties and intervals between mails started to stretch. Our ways drifted apart ever so slowly and the mail exchange with Anil,
Moses and George (in that order) trickled dry. The last link (George) was
severed in 1992 or so when I failed to reply back to his mail ... and life went on.
1999/2000
Come 1999 and I first got introduced to the Internet. The horizon to my life expanded like never before in a lot of ways - education, career, life and also oddly
re-associating with the past. One day in the 1999-2000 timeframe (when Y2K was the biggest story in the world), I wrote a snail mail to
George's last known address in Kerala not expecting it to find the recipient. Included in the mail was my newest acquisition - my very first email id. A few days
later, I get an email from George cursing me for being a slacker back in 1992 and
bringing me up to speed on his latest. He was working in the States and just happened to
be in India for a short window of time (a week or two) when I had sent my mail. A few days prior or later and I would have missed him completely. I for one am a great
believer in the philosophy that there are no coincidences...so I took this as a
tiny sign of greater things to come. We took renewed vows of not dropping
the ball this time around. And being separated by only a few keystrokes and clicks,
made it a lot easier to exchange pleasantries.
2000-2003
Roll forward a little more in time, and one evening as I log into ICQ, an
offline message pops up asking if I was the same Jacob from Bahrain. The
message was signed off as Moses and requested me to respond if it was me.
Holy Cow!! I revisited my sparse profile on ICQ and desperately struggled to
understand how he zeroed in on me. There was practically nothing there
except my first name and maybe year of birth and this dude still hit the piñata with damning precision!!!
During those days I stumbled across Seejo's email address on the web and had
a brief 2-3 email interaction with him. It was funny but
I regurgitated so many details about him and his past that I am not sure he recalled instantly - like his stationary bike, his dealings with Mr Saudagar in
Chemistry, a book he never returned to me, etc. However, the short interlude ended right after.
George, Moses and I became a little group of three that would email each
other occasionally to stay connected (Seejo wasn't part of this mix of three
but would get roped in several years later).This went on for a few more
years until 2003. At this time I had already been in America for a couple of
years, thanks to the technology wave of tsunami proportions that sailed
every cow, sheep, cat ... and software engineers ofcourse .... to the land
of the free and home of the brave.
2004
Late in 2004, Manish Megchiani came across my message on the official
Indian School Bahrain site on its working alumni page (this is now sadly
nothing more than a dead link) We hooked up online and I introduced him to
the little group. And then there were four...
2005
In the third quarter of 2005, Manish Ahuja found me online (credit for this goes to the
ISB alumni site again) and he left a message for me on my phone in addition to sending me an email. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I heard it.
My wife was all confused now with two Manishs and I had to give her more descriptive tags to tell between the two. Up to five now and it was a fun mailing group with a lot more buzz.
The next big turning point came when George added Ovias to the group. I hate
to admit this, but at first I felt a little reluctant to have someone included
that I never knew in school. After all, what would we talk about if we
never crossed paths before? But little did I know that Ovias would be the
next big thing for the group. Because in the ensuing days, the group gained
new members - Anoop Nambiar, Seejo, Hitesh, Saurav to name a few. Our
mailing list was starting to resemble a little directory of names now(10-12 in all). Tons
of emails flew back and forth. I must thank George, albeit belatedly, for
initiating Ovias in.
Hitesh Parmar came up with the Yahoo group idea and on Aug
21st, 2005 precisely, we were officially reborn as ISB90 on the web.
I think the rest of the story is common knowledge and anyone (who is a
member of ISB90) wishing to follow it can read through the email thread that
is preserved so wonderfully on Yahoo.
2007 and Beyond...
2007
saw Seejo purchase the domain name for this site (isbclassof90.com) which
became our emblem online.
I've met so many folks here that I had
no clue, sat in the classroom next door...made steadfast friends that I
regret not having talked with in school but have the relief of being linked
with now. It’s been a fantastic journey made possible by technology.
Manish M.'s email (verbatim from
15th Oct, 2004)
Hi Jacob,
Just wanted to confirm , i remeber a Jacob. Let me know if my name strikes in your mind. We definitely used to play football a lot. Arif, Nadir etc.
Let me know
Cheers
Manish Megchiani
Manish A.'s email (verbatim from
10th Aug, 2005)
Hey ..
Is this the jacob from my class ??
1985 .. VIII ...
Did you move to bombay later at some point ??
George introducing Ovias to the group (verbatim from
17th Aug, 2005)
Hi All,
Just wanted to introduce/re-introduce Ovias Mohammed
to the group. He was my classmate in XIIth std. Some
of you may know him from other classes that you guys
were together in Indian School. I remember XIIth std
as the year we sat in this whole class of girls and
there were probably 4 or 5 boys in it. It was a riot....(only part email included)
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