The IITM Meetup

Over the weekend I went to the annual meet up of the Bangalore Chapter of the IITM Alumni Association. Some pertinent observations.

A day after I returned from my last trip to Chennai, there was the annual meetup of the Bangalore chapter of the IIT Madras Alumni Association (IITMAA). I had never attended this meet before (it’s been 20 years since I graduated from IITM), but the fact that I’m doing my own thing now, and (more importantly!) the event was really close to my house (La Marvella, South End) meant I went this time (it also helped immensely that I’m part of one IITM Entrepreneurs WhatsApp group, and knew of a reasonable quorum from there attending this event).

A few pertinent observations from the event.

• When I went to register, there were two classes of entry. You could either pay ₹1200 for “snacks + dinner” or ₹1700 for “snacks + dinner + drink”. Instinctively, since the venue was close to home (and has a liquor license) and I knew I’d be walking, I registered for the latter. Then a friend cautioned that I shouldn’t assume anything with respect to IITM and “drink”!

• The event schedule said “5pm: Registration; 6pm: <series of speeches>; 7pm: Networking dinner”. I decided that 6:30 is a highly respectable time to go (as you might expect, I had no enthu for the speeches). There was a small line for registration outside the hall, and I saw the former president of the IITMAA some 2-3 places ahead of me in the line. I knew I had come at the right time

• At the time of registration, one of the registering volunteers said “Karthik has paid ₹1700”. I was given a fluorescent orange wrist band, which I was made to believe will make me eligible for “drink”. I later saw that the wrist band said “IITMAA Wilkommen”. I had forgotten about IITM’s fondness for German (as a way of “pseud-putting”) and was happy it hasn’t gone away!

• We were all given stickers to write down our names (and other “details”), and stick it on our chests. I see this has become standard practice at all networking events nowadays.
  
  I wrote “Karthik (Wimpy); 2004 BTech CS”. It was strange that I was perhaps the only guy there who wrote my nickname on my sticker - given the prevalence of these names at IITM.

• The speeches were going on, but enough people were happily ignoring them and having their own side conversations, as it should be in a well-organised event! I too indulged in a number of such conversations, and never felt bored. One of them even led to a blogpost.

  Venture Capital and the Secretary Problem

• The speeches weren’t yet done, when I saw that “drink” had started to being served - again a sign of a well-organised event! I flashed my wristband and got myself a glass of red wine.

• The first person I spoke to was a professor of IIM Bangalore who I’d met a couple of times a decade ago. He told me he has bought my book. I forgot to ask him if he has read it!

• Given this is an IIT Madras event, this is worth pointing out - most people there were rather well dressed. Not necessarily very formal (though there were a few suits and blazers), but generally well dressed. I remember, in 2003, my father making snide remarks about IITians’ dressing sense. This being before I started blogging, I’d written an email about that to my class mailing list, and it had turned controversial.

• The placement cell of IIT Madras was there at the event in full force, asking us to support with placements. I was told this year’s numbers weren’t as good as usual. That said, in my last job, we explicitly didn’t go to IITM for campus recruitments, as we found the people there quite expensive (though I hired one from there last year. He had applied directly to me rather than through campus placements. I met him at the event)

• There were maybe 100-150 people at the event, and I was happy that I had at least 4-5 “deep” (lasting over five minutes) conversations with people I was meeting for the first time. The usual power law in terms of time spent with different people applied - whenever I was lost I would go seek comfort talking to someone I knew well (there were a few of them, though none from my batch).

• It was interesting that most attendees belonged to what might be described as the flagship program of IITM (B.Tech.). There were a few M.Techs, PhDs, MBAs, etc. but it was overwhelmingly B.Tech.
  
  This is in sharp contrast to IIMB alumni events I’ve been to, which are usually filled with people from short term programs, and flagship program (PGP) people are hard to come by! I wonder what drives this differential adoption from people of different programs

• I like La Marvella as a venue (apart from it being close to home). Food is generally good (the desserts, especially, are spectacular). Iff required, they have an alcohol license. Barring a few pillars, the hall is good. Parking is not a problem.
  
  My only issue with it is that the pillars in the halls are all covered entirely in mirrors. This makes it a bit disorienting, especially in events such as this weekend’s where drinks are being served

• I ran into one of the office bearers of IITMAA (who had kindly arranged for a room on campus for me, when I visited there last August) sometime around 9, who was marvelling that there was still sufficient quorum, and people hadn’t “packed”. I said that was a testament to the quality of the event.

• Around 9:30, I felt two cues - my left knee had started hurting a bit, possibly from all the standing and walking (though I was wearing good shoes); and I found myself increasingly talking to the same people again and again. This was my cue to “pack”

• I had kept aside the “wilkommen” badge and my name sticker to take photos of and add to this blogpost. However, I took so long to do that that my wife threw them away. So this post goes without a photo.