Wine Making

One of our friends (colleague of my wife – Mamta) Dr. Alan Block has been making wine for last 35 years. We have admired Alan as one of the multi talented person – renovated his own house himself, put in a huge swimming pool himself, has one of the best gardens (flowers, fruits, veggies), among many other things.

Alan has been trying to convince me to make wine for last 2 years - gave me wine making book on Christmas, telling me stories whenever we meet on social events, etc. I will admit that I have aspired to move into wine making business when I get done with the Corporate world. Mamta wants to open Nursery - grow flowers and veggies – she will love if she can avoid selling any so she can admire them - all the time.

This year I started the wine making project. This week, Peter (our contractor) is putting up a Winery in the basement of our house. Alan and I decided to make white wine this season – he is making “Chardonnay” a dry wine while I am making “Riesling”. Riesling is a white grape variety which originates in the Rhine region of Germany. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity.

We got crushed grapes from Napa Valley in California last week. Last week was the start of the wine making season in US – lasts for about 2 weeks when you have to get the grapes crushed and the process started. There are specially places where you get all the supplies and equipment for making wine. When we went there over the weekend, it was full of people as many were undertaking some major wine making projects.

I hope this first batch of wine comes out well. I extend an open invitation to IPM ites – Class of 88 – you are all welcome for some wine at my place.

Vipul

Down the memory lane!

Hi! Guy's & Gal's I could find this treasure and thought of sharing with all. The Girl's had ditched us in this trip and we were a all boy's team-Juniours as well....and Sanjay there was another supportive juniour we had - Himanshu Anand urf "Phukni".He is visible in the first photo which looks like a log hut but in fact was a road side dhaba......

Cheers!

Mini Reunion -Pune 19/20th sept 08

Words of Wisdom from a Great Indian

Recently a great Indian and great talent wrote these words that I thought of share with you.

"Change is the nature of life but challenge is the future of life. So challenge the changes. Never change the challenges."

"Motivation is all about how high you can bounce when you hit absolute rock bottom."

"If we wait for the waves to subside, we may never have a swim in the sea."

"No one can make us feel inferior, without our consent."

Vipul

IPM 88 BATCH - AT A GLANCE...

The response to "Find Your Batchmates " contest has been a phenomenal so far! !! The simple objective of the contest is to touch base with as many batchmates as possible after a gap of over two decades . Pl go through my comments to this note regarding regd. the rules, marking scheme , prizes to be won etc.

ABBs: D-DELHI;B-B'LORE;M-MUMBAI;MRT-MEERUT;P-PUNE;H-H'BAD
;US-USA ; ID RECD- INVITE SENT/TO BE SENT SOON- JOINED;JOINED THE BLOG
IPM 88 BATCH - at a glance...

1.Ajay Kumar Harit (D)
2.Akshey Jain (MRT) (JOINED)
3.Alok Dubey (B) (ID RECD)
4.Alok Kumar Agrawal
5.Anil Sharma (D) (JOINED)
6.Atul Srivastava (D) (JOINED)
7.Avnish Singh (D) (JOINED)
8.Chandra Shekhar Gaur
9.Manju (M) (JOINED)
10.Mayank Thapliyal
11.Naresh Kumar Giri
12.Pervez Anwar
13.Prabhakar Sethi (MRT/D)
14.Pradeep Ailawadi (D) (JOINED)
15.Rajeev Goyal (D) (ID RECD)
16.Rajeev Shrma
17.Sameer Sharma
18.Sangeeta (P) (JOINED)
19.Sanjeev Kumar
20.Sanjeev Kumar Gupta
21.Sanjay Saxena (P) (JOINED)
22.Sharad Kansal
23.Subodh Kumar
24.Sudhir Kumar
25.Sudhir Kumar Arya (D)
26.Tapasvi Yadav (D) (ID RECD)
27.Veena (H) (JOINED)
28.Verandera Rajawai
29.Vikas Sharma
30.Vipul Jain (US) (JOINED)
31.Sandhya
32.Nikhil Jain(IRPM)

Some of the batchmates who left us in the middle:
1.Vinay Seghal - Meerut
2.Prabhakar Sethi- Meerut / Noida
3.Sandeep Nagpal - Chandigarh /Gulf
4. Ishrat Zafar- Delhi
5. Devesh Aggarwal(pune)
6.Sandeep Bhatia (??)

Class Apart!

Well Guy's & Gal's the photographs should help us in knowing what we looked like and possibily help us put a name to a face i.e the whole batch can be identified now!

The first 3 photographs are the from the time when we went to study(management....i guess?) and the other two are after our victory at Rohtak!

Also, I guess I have won the contest....so be generous. To begin with Sanjay can send the Rs 500/- goft voucher and others can follow.... :-))

Cheers!

Black Monday

Dow fell 500 plus, Lehman Brothers having a fire sale (in Bankruptcy), Merrill Lynch got sold to Bank of America for peanuts over the weekend, Bear Stern (right in front my office) has banners with J P Morgan (went belle up few months back). These are/were the pillars of the financial stability in the global financial markets.

The feeling on Wall Street / New York was similar to what we had seen on 9/11, if not worse.

The world is not going to be the same as we have known it. The financial markets crashed and burned – and the saga continues.

They say – when Wall Street “Sneezes” – Rest of the world gets “Cold” – today what we saw was nothing close to Cold or any of its symptoms - much worse. People in panic, before 8 AM this morning had 41 resumes in my inbox/email. People loosing jobs as nobody’s business.

New York gets you High most of the time – but when it goes down – it really goes down – today I think was a "Low" to remember.

Vipul

I hope all our batchmates and their families in Delhi are safe and sound !

PHOTOGRAPHS!!!

Today Sangy and I were discussing about uploading the photographs of IPM. Unfortunatly our sets are with our parents . She is arranging to get them soon and will upload them for our benefit.
Meanwhile if anyone else can do it , it would be really nice.

By the way next weekend is going to be a mini reunion in Pune . Veena is coming for some official work and I am going to join her from Bombay. Sanjay and Sangy will be hosting dinner for us and may be we might just meet Devesh (i.e. if he is open to meet us ..). I have met Veena only thrice in the last 20yrs (last time was 10yrs back) and Devesh only once. So am looking forward to catching up ...

Great Job - Sanjay and Manju

Kudos to Sanjay and Manju (as well as Technology) to get the IPM’s Class of 88 together after 20 years – bees saal baad

Pride is an important ingredient in one life - It gives me great amount of pride to see all of us doing well and rocking after 2 decades – in different walks of life, different parts of the world, accomplishing new heights and still belonging to an alliance – a strong alliance that got formed – I would say to a great extent by the act of nature and here we are now talking about it.

When we were at Modipuram – a big question in our mind was – so what are we going to do when we leave IPM – what profession are we going to go into – lot of What’s – Great to see how the answer to that What continues to unfold in front of us and still holds us together with the alliance that was developed in IPM - Class of 88.

I look forward to hearing and sharing our experiences during our individual travels in the last 20 years from all of us.

With Best Wishes,

Vipul

FIND YOUR BATCHMATES CONTEST !!!

Just wondering how many out of the batch of 40 who joined IMP in 86 are in our radar now. I am giving a list of batachmates with whom I have been personally in touch or with whom I understand that some of you (from your notes etc.) have been in touch . Pl contribute to this list . After a sufficient no. is reached Sanjay can compile it and post it under a suitable heading in the blog and keep updating it as per the additions made by us in our comments to this note. His list would act as a ready reference for all of us and also for all those batchmates who are currently sitting on the other side of the fence.

THE CONTEST!!!!!Let's see how fast can we trace all our batchmates (with locations ideally) ! Pl also put the names of those batchmates also whom we cannot track down currently under the "Lost " column. For every found name u get a +2 and for every "lost/yet to be found" one you get a +1 .

Pl come forward and participate in this contest. Whoever comes up with the biggest list (first registered basis- entry in parts is also ok) will be nominated as "IPMer 88" of the week by the Administrator. The countdown begins....(not the names given below pl. But if u can move the lost ones to found ones then you get a point for it..)

Widely known list amongst the bloggers;
FOUND;

1. Pradeep, Delhi (Manju)
2. Atul, Delhi (Manju)
3. Anil Delhi (Pradeep)
4. Avnish, Delhi (Avnish)
5. Vipul, US (Manju)
6. Sanjay, Pune (Manju)
7. Devesh, Pune (Manju)
8. Sangeeta, Pune (Manju)
9. Veena, H'bad, (Manju)
10. Manju, Mumbai (Manju)
11. Akshay, Meerut (Prdeep)
12. Sudhir, Delhi, (Avnish)
13. Ajay Harit, Delhi (Pradeep)
14. Rajeev Goel,Delhi (Pradeep)
15. Alok, Bangaore (Vipul)
16. Tapaswi (Pradeep)

LOST/yet to be found;
1. Sandhya

Score Board as off 12th Sept.

IPMer Referrals Points

Pradeep 12 48
Avnish 1 4
Vipul 1 4


ok , i will not insist on getting the prize for the above and try to start afresh..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR AVNISH

Hi Guy's, tomorrow the 10th of Sept. is Avnish's birthday!!!!

Please come forward

"WISH HIM ALL THE BEST FOR HIS 45TH BIRTHDAY"

He is couple of years elder to me!!, Avnish Please confirm my numbers!!!).

Cheers and you have a great day tomorrow with Vinita and the kids.

Guys who want to reach him via mobile, the number is +91 9810138339.

Here is a cake from all of 88 batch IPMites (don't you feel the word IPMites sounds like "termites") so I thought of changing it to 88' batch IPMers...



P.S(This message is posted on 9th of Sept)

Silver Jublee Reunion - IPM 88 batch (pl post ur comments here)

Silver Jublee Reunion - IPM 88 batch (pl post ur comments here)

Hi! I taking the liberty of copying (from the comments section of my earlier post) Sanjay's Post on the above "as a NEW post." I hope with this as a New post, some of us will not miss out reading it and reacting to it. Pl write your comments against this Post and not against the earlier one. This would help in archiving thoughts/reactions /actions etc. from the take off point..

SANJAY's EARLIER NOTE:

All right guys and gals, here is what I have gathered from the IPMBloggers on the Siler Jubilee celebrations. Please add, modify, suggest or delete your thoughts. I will make a mail and send it across to Asit Mohan with a copy to few of you.

a) We need to get together for the Silver Jubilee Celebrations which would fall around 2013 or 2011 (depending on whether we take the pass out year which was 1988 or the admission year which was 1986). Pradeep has suggested earlier, what do you guys say to that?? I will frame accordingly. Only when we have some timeframe we can take this forward. Please give in your thoughts to this.
b) IPM needs to arrange for our stay arrangements if it is going to be in Meerut / Ghaziabad, Delhi.
c) Wherever it is, cost of travel will be borne by the ex-student.
d) The meet could be for 2 days with detailed agenda to be followed.
e) Chappar and others would be on us and we need to find out how to do it, nothing to do with the Institute, I hate to explain Asit Mohan what "Chappar is" and why he should fund it....

Some other thoughts to ponder and give your feedback on.

a) What if the ex-student plans to get his family? Should the cost of stay be borne by him / her or can it be shared or let the Institute take this?
b) I am willing to talk and take the agenda forward with Asit Mohan and others at the Institute, I need folks close to our Institute like Avnish or others to coordinate the effort for arrangements if this goes though, do we have some volunteers willing to jump in. I can lead but need some executers as it would be difficult for me to coordinate this from here.
c) Once we have the core team in place I need to know who is willing to do what (depending on their bandwidth).
d) Can we have some suggestions on what funding can we generate on our own if the institute is willing to do partial funding for this Noble Idea?
e) What can we add to make this as a memorable event, maybe something which we can give back to the Institute, for them to remember the difference in what they have now versus what they had as the only memorable "Class of 88'?
f) What time of the year would be your preference? Garmi, Sardi or Baarsat. ?
g) Finally back to the basic question, when (which year) would we like to have this?

Any other thoughts?? Please let me know and I will work.

September 7, 2008 10:52 AM

Kolkata

Hi Everyone!

I am in Kolkata, anyone from the group based out of KOlKATA please revert.

Invite me or Join me for Dinner.

Rgds/Pradeep

Birthdays!!!!

Let us request Sanjay (coz he is the administrator ) to post the original happy b'day messages for all us as and when applicable. All of us can then add to the comments to his original post.
We all can share the b'days with Sanjay so that he can devise an automatic reminder system for the adiministrator . Meanwhile ,we can also remind him one day in advance abt the birthday boy/girl . If there is going to be no automatic reminder system for Sanjay then whoever remembers can do the posting...

Some of us are aware about the next b'day in the offing . Keep blogging to check out!!!!

Hi

Its nice to remember good old days.Nucleation & Rohtak fest were real fun.I remember working hard with Ajay Harit,late subodh,and others to get place in IPM team.
Results were surprising !
I still remember seeing Vipul cheering me up on Danso Competetion.(I couldnot Get the right song,Thanks to SheebaGandhi).
Meeting at Delhi/Meerut can be organized.Avnish is ready.
lets Meet on ChristmasDay(25th,2008)

hi everyone

Nice to see everyone blogging . There are lots of memories to be shared and laughed at . " The boss" , "chappar" , "nucleation" are some words that are associated with our group. Hope we can get together like Manju has suggested for a siver jubilee. Three cheers for a great start.

Hi All (2/3 Senior Citizens),

I am on board.
Will be a fun sharing / remembering some good old days.
MANJU first one is for you, anything you recollect from word Tee(a)Totaler. *
* Hint: It relates to IMA Dehradun.
Cheers!
Pradeep

Hello Everyone !! So here we r , some two decades younger !!! this is a real swell idea and we all can feel a bit closer to the "gen next" . thanks sanjay for this initiative!

i do have pradeep's id which i will pass on to sanjay . am sure pradeep, with his vast network of north based batchmates will make this blogging more vibrant.

i would like to invite your comments and initiative in having a "silver jublee reunion". If we can get IPM to take the initiave and start organising it for all the batches completing 25yrs , we can expect a fairly good programme for ourselves by the time our turn comes...

Stay connected!!

Slight change in the layout of our Blog

Thanks buddy for checking in. As you might have noticed I have changed the fonts of the blog as I feel it may get difficult for some older folks to read (you know eye sight problems!!)also a change is part of our life.

I would like to see each one contribute on their experience (if they remember, you know memory also keeps fading with the passage of time :) )what they thought of our good old days and what they feel now..

Just for the not so blogging savy, including myself........In case anyone wants to give a comment to the post, he / she can do by clicking on the "Comments" icon given at the end of the post. Additionally, if anyone wants to write a post he / she would first have to get in as a author, so let me know who wants to be an author and I will add him (I have already sent requests to the folks whose e-mail ID I had). Finally, if you want to view on what comments have been given by others on a particular posting, please click the revelant posting heading from the left side (just below the Month stamp). Thanks.


Cheers...

IPMites of '88

Sanjay it's a damm good idea! If nothing else it will help us catch the latest in technology...err ...blogging.

Your thoughts took me to good old times,Nucleation and how we collected funds by selling ads in the souvinier(i am still stuck to that profession,now selling space for a newspaper!!) and after the hard days work (it included teaching Veena how to drive a two wheeler-my avanti garelli) the well deserved rest was 'Chappar'. It was Rajeev Goyal(RG) who introduced us to a quarter of some concoction(tel ki shishi) and a quarter was sufficient to make all the big time guys quite 'happy' with the results. Sudhir was the only possible exception, he was for whatever reason always high! :-))

Cheers!

PS:Will pass on the news to Atul and Sudhir,lets see how many come in?

Hi Gals and Guys, (More practically Mom's and Dad's)

With Technological advances taking place around us and we all being part of couple of generations back, I thought of getting all of us to the new world of Blogging. This has been specifically created by me for all of us who were part of the 1988 gang. I will include Devil (Devesh) even though he passed out a year earlier than us.

Why am I doing this? Well just to stay connected to friends, some whom we knew closely some whom we wanted to know, some who wanted to know us and some who thought they knew us. Just wanted to re-collect memories the Chappar trips, the drinking spree wherein we used to drink "daru" from "tel ki bottle", the good times we had including the "ragging you folks got" to "Nucleation" etc. etc. I also want folks to post photos if they have any...

Bottom line, this is a way for us to connect. Are you all game? Forward this blog to all the guys who were with us during the 1988 Class including "Chowmein", Sudhir Arya and anyone else with whom you are still connected to. If it works, fine it it does not will call it off.

My plan is to look forward for the great time we had including the "non stoppable Laughter's" of Sangeeta (they still are), the "Bees Saal Baad" from Manju, the "Great Effort, you guys are superb" commets from Veena (so typical of the HR folks!!), the "kya scene hai" from Avnish or "the laughter which made the whole row of the movie hall move" from Vipul (sorry VIP), the "Lal Badshah" Devil with his Red Bike and finally me the only sober good cool, quite guy sitting in one corner of the class, just trying to learn what was being taught by the teacher with you all disturbing me!!.

Cheers!!! Let's get Blogging.................Please give your comments including what would you like to see as changes.
regards,

sanjay


p.s. With every day passing we are losing one day of our lifespan .....(senti talk na!!)