Tanmoy Kundu
After completing college from JU, I joined CMC at Calcutta. I came to US in 1994 thru RS Software. Moved to MTW in 1996 and finally to Deloitte Consulting in 1997. Have been in Deloitte ever since.
I got married in
1996. My spouse's name is Chaitali. We live in Concord, New
Hampshire. Last time I visited India was in 1996. I am planning
for another trip sometime next year.
Ruchir Godura
I went to St. Xavier's Calcutta for plus2,
IIT Delhi for B. Tech, Univ. of Delaware for MS. Worked at
AT&T for 2.5 years and since 1996, have been working at
UTStarcom in New Jersey. Am married to wife Anna since 1996, with
one daughter, Annika (6 months old).
2008 Update: Returned to India (Gurgaon) in 2001 to head UTStarcom operations here.
Joined Airtel in 2006. Am now (2008) moving on to a Silicon Valley telecom
equipment company. Last day at Airtel - 15th Jan 08. I will continue to
be based in Gurgaon.
My daughter, Annika is now 7 years old. I also have a son, Ashwin,
born in Gurgaon, and is now 5 years.
Attached is a family photo from a camping trip last week.
Contact
Mobile: +91 9810201537
email: ruchir@godura.com
skype: ruchirgodura
Kaushik Patra
Like most of you I joined the science stream for my "plus 2". Unlike most of you I fared awfully somehow I scraped through with 54.5% marks.
Thereafter I switched streams to commerce for my graduation. I would have preferred to do my graduation from Calcutta Xaviers but that year they did not issue forms to anyone who got less than 55%...So I joined Bhawanipur Education Society College in Calcutta which was coming up fast...I passed out of B.Com(Hons) with 49%...
I would have loved to do an MBA/PGDBM in Finance but as you know the qualifying marks for CAT is 50%...
I opted for the Chartered Accountancy course - where unlike Engg., Medicine and MBA - it is easy to get in. By the time I realised that it was difficult to get out, it was too late to turn back. Anyway over a period of time I became a CA.Today I'm "Manager - Audit" based at Delhi for AFL Ltd - "DHL Worldwide Express" Division - North India & East India.
Abhijit Dutta
I went to Xavier's Cal for my +2 (1988),
did B.Tech. Chemical Engg from IIT,Kharagpur (1992), did M.S. in
Chemical Engg from Tufts Univ. near Boston (1994) and worked at a
chemical process simulation company Aspen Technology ever since.
I was in Boston till Jan 1998, when I moved to Houston. Moved
back to Boston in May 2000.
Bhaskar Som
I did my engineering (Mech) from IIT Madras, followed by PGDM from IIM Calcutta (Finance/ OR) - Subir was my batchmate there- joined CEAT Financial Services Ltd, Mumbai, in 1994 and got transferred to Calcutta in 1995. Since then, I have been in Calcutta. In CEAT, I was initially an Equity Research Analyst, then became a Forex Dealer and Consultant, joined ICRA (a Moody's company) in 1997 as a Credit Research Analyst, and moved into PwC in late 1998.
As for the fun aspects in my life, I guess Subir is more knowledgeable on this front since he is better briefed. Over to you, Subir... or should I say Kallol ...because Subir claims the source is Kallol.
I am not much into outdoor sports now
...prefer spending my evening reading literature, listening to
music, watching a movie, while enjoying a drink. As for the day,
office takes up most of my time.
Sabyasachi Goswami
I am presently working in Tata Finance Ltd's (an N.B.F.C.) Eastern Regional Office at Calcutta. I am still unmarried and stay with my parents.
Subir Ghosh
After school, joined the great Bidhan. The best memories include Bidhan winning the Inter school cricket championship (with star cricketers in Shubahyu and Anirban; in fact Hirak also scored quite a few runs; I went in as a replacement for Anirban for 10-15 minutes). The other remarkable thing was the football final (inter section) we played in 6 inches standing water. Indrajit Sen gave some of his best performances, bouyed by "best of wishes" luck from someone who went with us to the Bidhan picnic.
I find it difficult to describe the 4 years at KGP - If I start with the stories, this will be like Homer's epic - demonstratable output: very little (poor CGPA etc etc). Abhijit Datta and Sabyasachi Sengupta were in the same hostel (Azad) and Nilanjan Palit in the same depp (Communication)
At IIM-Calcutta, I studied longer hours than I ever thought possible, and (unlike Bhaskar) attended most of the lectures - I believe, Bhaskar attended 7 lecturers in all of second year - and unlike Bhaskar my friend circle did not include females - while at IIMC, my biggest confusion was whether I should specialize in Finance, Marketing or Systems - in the end I positioned myself as a "Marketing major" based purely on the logic that "in Fin there is competition from CA ICWA, in Systems from engineers while there are no competitors to MBAs in marketing".
After IIMC, I joined Godrej and Boyce (I was supposed to sell Navtal locks) - the biggest plus of working with Godrej in Bombay is that you get to stay at the Godrej township (it is Durgapur in the middle of Bombay) - Bhaskar used to come over the weekends, but whether it is for the Durgapur charm, the beer (and football under floodlight after that) or because his "IIMC friend" also stayed in the same area, I do not know.
Moved to PricewaterhouseCoopers (then Pricewaterhouse) after 6 months and have been with PwC since then - I am based at Calcutta but I spent 4 months at Jamshedpur, 1 year in Orissa - went to Tampa Florida in Oct 1996, spent some time in Mexico City and then returned to India in Aug 1998 - spent most of the last 18 months shuttling between Dhaka and Calcutta - now I am spending a lot of time in Bombay (from where I am writing this mail)
Married on Jan 23, 1998 - My wife completed her PhD in Organic Chemistry two months back (she did her BSc from Presidency, Mtech from IIT Kanpur, MS from Yale and then decided to do her PhD in Calcutta Univ) - she is now a lecturer at one of the women's colleges (Basanti Devi College, near Gariahat, Calcutta) - she is also into quizzes and all that and made it to the BBC Mastermind Quiz semi finals last year - our marriage was "arranged", so no "story" there.
That is that for the last 14 years - add
twice of that time to my age, I am ready to retire – whew
Anthony DSilva
My story in short -- From St.Xavier's Durgapur, moved over to do my HS at St. Xavier's Calcutta, then onto IIT KGP. Then I came to Madison, Wisconsin -where I was for 5 years in graduate school. After finishing, I moved over to my job here at Oracle Portland, where I am currently a software developer. BTW, I got married last year June. I met my wife while at school in Madison. We are expecting our first child next month!! So am going to be busy soon.
Rajarshi Ghosh
Taking a trip down memory lane, 16/17 years have gone by since a lot of us have met; yet it seems like yesterday; Time, for me, has flown by.
Briefly, after Xaviers, Dgp, I spent a couple of years in Ndp doing +2, probably developing "anti establishment" skills (scaling walls) and being a plain simple non-conformist; then another 4 years in Kgp drinking (no pun intended) the joys of freedom. Ahh, those were good old days, when after a honest(!) day's work, I could successfully claim to have blown away family's hard earned moolah and not feel a twinge.Sudarshan Banerjee
Std XI-XII in Narendrapur- spent most of my time playing table tennis/carrom and jumping over the walls to go see movies in New Empire/Lighthouse, etc- for those of you who don't know, Narendrapur students had to take formal permission to venture out.
B.Tech in IIT Kharagpur- don't remember much except spending my last couple of years there constantly drunk :). Fortunatelyor unfortunately, the mention of my name to my Kharagpur class-mates only brings up images of drunken revelry.
Worked a year in Noida (near Delhi)- then decided I needed more fun in life- spent 1+1/2 years of my life in IIT Kanpur doing a M.Tech-that was probably a high-point of my life- government funding was utilized for my sports activities- on an average day, my routine was to sleep for 10-12 hours, spend maybe an hour in the institute, around 4-6 hours of sports regularly (tennis/ /badminton/table tennis/taek-wondo- that is a form of martial arts).
After Kanpur, I was pretty serious about my sports activities- decided Bangalore would be a good place for all that- joined Texas Instruments- unfortunately, there they expected me to work throughout the day- perfect place for poeple like Sabyasachi Sengupta who still works at least 12-14 hours a day there !! So, after 3-4 months, I decided I had enough and moved back to my old job in Noida- this was a company called Cadence.
After a couple of years in Noida, decided it was time to get a global perspective on life- came over to the Silicon Valley- for the last 3 years I have been working in a company called Synopsys and live in a city called Mountainview which is around 40-45 miles from San Francisco- Kanoj lives pretty near.
Thats it- I still find it very surprising that in the last 8-9 years of my life Mountainview is the only place I have stayed more than 2 years- maybe it is time for me to resume my wandering....
Kanoj Sarcar
After Xaviers, I did my +2 in Cal Xaviers, alongwith a bunch of other guys from Durgapur Xaviers. Then a +4 at IIT Kgp (again, alongwith a few more Durgapur Xavierians). Worked for a year in India (between Bangalore and Delhi), then came into the Bay area in CA on a contract job. A year later, joined Silicon Graphics, and have been there since then, which is more than 6 years now. Oh, and I lived for a year in Vancouver, Canada too in the meantime.
Hey, how about a 15 year reunion in 2001 for Xaviers86?
Amit Chattaraj
I studied in bidhan, then at jadavpur university with electronics.
I was staying in the hostel in a room adjacent to the hostel guest room. The 'guests' were mostly females from JU arts faculty. As soon as one such guest would arrive, the hostel servent would ask her whom she was looking for. Then he would go to that (lucky) guy's room and say "Babu apnaar guest eseche". Oh! How I wished he would come knocking on my door and say "Amit babu apnaar guest eseche!"
So I started my search for a guest. Problem was, I liked everyone. Well, almost. I started day dreaming of the girls who were friends (and good looking). And all we spoke of in hostel was girls. One guy would tell us about some georgeous fresher in English dept, and next day we would flock to see her during lunch.
Then there were the college festivals. Twice every year (One for the engg faculty, one for Arts-Science). That was the time for "Maha Milan", and many of my friends picked up girls ...I never had the guts to go
talk to strangers. While I was dreaming of girls, some of them were dreaming of me. I know of a couple at least. One wanted to meet me in the coffee-house, one sent a proposal thru a common friend. But i was cold to both of them, because one was ugly the other a flirt. So there I was, unsmart yet choosy.
Suddenly i was in the final year. In between learning new vocab for GRE, I applied for my passport. I needed a local guardian for the passport, so I went to a prof's house one day. And wow!! There she was! Another girl to dream about. The professor's daughter. This time, realizing this was my last chance of "Babu aapnaar guest eseche", I got active. Increased my visibility (went more often to the prof's house), then started a book exchange program with her. Story books. I had to read these books, fearing she might ask questions from the book. Before long I was not reading my GRE vocab any longer, but building my vocab from these story books. Then, one fine morning I actaully proposed to her. She didn't say no.
And then started the "Babu aa pnaar guest eseche" episode of my life. Today i am married to her.
Falling in love took it's toll, and I didn't have time to study. Forget about GRE, I somehow managed to scrape thru the final semesters.
I joined Siemens, but it was a constant touring job and I left it to join ABB next year. After 3 years I shifted to Datacore who sent me here. It's been more than 3 years I first came to the US, and I had the opportunity to travel here a bit. Travel for leisure, not on business. That's a vast difference. I work for Rail Europe and my domain is travel agency software.
So that's it. There are thousands of other episodes to tell you, but let's wait till we meet.
You guys may look at my recent pictures at https://achattar.tripod.com/achattar. Do you think you can recognize me in the pictures after all these years?
Kaushik Gupta
After my hard earned ICSE certificate from Durgapur, I decided to
take it easy in life - chilled out for 2 years at Xavier's Cal.
Compared to Durgapur, Cal Xaviers was a breeze - hardly studied, had
a great time with a great bunch of guys in the hostel, and started
smoking in a big way (have almost given up, though).
Come to think of it, I have quite a few nice memories from our
Xaviers hostel. Like when we shifted Sanjeev's cot in the night to
the toilet with Sanjeev peacefully sleeping on it, oblivious to the
happenings); when all 18 or 20 of us went to see a movie at New
Empire during the flood of 1997 braving knee deep water and open pot-
holes covered by the flood waters; organised Saraswati Puja with
great enthu; put banana peel in the letter box of the Superintendent
of the hostel; got caught by the Super while trying to peep into his
room (with only a towel on, as I was going to take a bath); getting
khisti from everyone while trying to learn the mouth-organ at 1
o'clock in the night, every night. The list can go on.
Well, had a good time there and needless to mention, studies
suffered. I still remember, I was one of the 2/3 guys in the hostel
(out of the 18 or 20 from Durgapur Xaviers) who couldn't get through
Joint or IIT or medical in 1998.
In the search for easier career options to suit my level of competence
(can't figure out calculus even now; computers were a black box to me
till MS Windows opened up the doors for me), I came across this place
called GB Pant University near Nainital. Went through their entrance
exam and got admission in BSc Agriculture. My forefathers must have
turned in their graves (figure of speech - all of them were cremated
to the best of my knowledge) when the news reached them. Thankfully,
they must have tampered with my stars - which is why I soon found
myself pursuing other interests along with Agriculture in the Univ.
Within the first semester I had found a fellow student of the
opposite gender sharing exactly my views on the subjects that we were
taught and professors who taught them, and generally sharing the same
good opinion about each other. To saab, jab miya biwi razi, to kya
karega etc. etc. Thanks to each other, none of us could learn
Agriculture. Were quite surprised when we got our graduation degrees!
Joined IIM Ahmedabad after that and quickly figured out why most
scholars have that wierd look about them. After six years of getting
used to not studying and managing to scrape through, it was the
second time I became aware of my intellect, or rather, the lack of it
(when was the first time? read the previous paragraphs, moron).
I am sure anyone who has undergone a MBA program would support me
when I say that it's a sheer waste of time to struggle so hard to
cram so much. I mean, just see the movie 'Matrix' - how the guys
over there learn things by sticking some electrodes in their brains
and pressing 'Enter'. I am sure in the future there'll be someone as
smart as Bill Gates who would come up with something similar to get
knowledge (!!) without going through that grind. Believe me, even
after 2 years at Ahmedabad, my calculus still hadn't improved, and my
computer skills were limited to playing 'Prince of Persia - DOS
version'.
Beats me how and why Ahmedabad could let a guy like me pass through.
Possibly they thought a guy majoring in Marketing couldn't do much
harm to the society. Anyway, pass I did, and a company called Lupin
Laboratories offered me a job in Delhi. I left after a year (they
were trying to shift me to Bombay, and I was not too keen on that).
Heaven help them, the company almost packed up after a couple of
years (I am certain that I didn't have any hand in that).
After Lupin, I joined a marketing research company called MARG in
Delhi. Worked there for two years. Quite a good company (since I am
still in the same field, and the field is very small, and since
people constantly shift among these small number of companies, I can
only praise my previous employers - do bear with me all of you who
think previous employers are so and so - I shall have a private chat
with you guys sometime).
I was getting quite fed up with my life (don't ask me why - I just
liked that expression 'fed up with my life' when I thought about it
before writing), when I saw an ad for a job in ACNielsen in the
newspaper and applied, got interviewed and got selected (surprise!).
ACNielsen is the global leader in the field of Marketing Research
(please don't embarrass me by asking what is it - I have not been
able to explain it to anyone till date).... Alright, alright, for
those of you with IQ minus five, it is a field of work where one gets
to sit on a chair for about 8-10 hours a day with the free use of a
computer and tries to extract money from fat clients by giving them
bullshit. That should explain it, and also shut you up!
Well, my first posting with ACNielsen was in Moscow (boy, the babes
were wow wow wow!). Had a great, great time in Moscow - it is indeed
a great city, contrary to what all you 'Americans' out there believe,
courtesy Hollywood.
Unfortunately, I guess I did a Lupin over there too. The economy
came tumbling down after about a year of my joining, just when I was
getting to learn the language and discover places and most
importantly, people. Overnight the rouble fell by 200%, and all hell
broke loose.
I was transferred to Dubai - colleagues in Dubai welcomed me saying
'Moscow ko dubokar aya - ab Dubai ko mat dubona'. Quite a warm
welcome, I must say. Not to mention the regular 45 degrees Celsius.
I must say, though, life in Dubai is pretty cool (can you believe it
- people over here keep their ACs on for 24 hours; and the per person
usage of water is the highest in the world; and the ACs in the cars
actually chill; and the minimum size of refrigerators is 300L! -
Well, all that was quite new to me. I thought Bajaj fans and
Kelvinator fridges were the coolest ones).
Have been in Dubai since 1998 November, and have slowly fallen in
love with the place. We infact call it the 'Best city of India' -
the street language is Hindi, and the local currency (Dirham) is
referred to by most people as 'Rupiya'. Lots of places to go out,
especially during the winter (six months, when the weather is
comfortable). Lots of reasonably priced good restaurants, wide and
endless roads, and a lot of good camping spots. If you prefer to
stay indoors, you can do that, too - quite a few good libraries,
video libraries, etc to get material from.
Guys in the US - whenever you go to India the next time, please do
drop in. Let me know about a month in advance so that I can arrange
the visa.
Guys in India - did you know that the airfare to Dubai is less than
the airfare from Cal to Bombay? So, most welcome to drop in for a
holiday. Would love to meet you.
Am going to Cal during Diwali this year - will stay for about 10
days. Will contact all of you who are in Cal.
You can see my picture album at:
https://achattar.tripod.com/KGupta/
Shyamal Mitra
OK Guys.. Here is the story... not really a "rags-to-riches" story but
interesting nevertheless... (did Linda Goodmans say that leos live in
a world of "I Me and Myself"?... well.. she was right.)
I really do not know at what point should I begin, so I'll take the
easy way out. I'll start at the beginning!!
After breaking free of "Gilu's" clutches, I, like a good Xavarian went
to St Xaviers College in Calcutta for my +2 education. Stayed in the
dilapidated building codenamed "hostel", ate Arjun-da's singara and omlette and
would often wonder at the shrinking size of the pieces of fish they served
during lunch and dinner. By what technology did the mess workers cut the fish
in so small and yet uniform pieces is a puzzle that remains unsolved even
today. Do you guys have an answer?
Anyways, after the +2 level, I found myself languishing at REC,
Durgapur! A failed attempt at IIT and SAT had worked wonders and the next year, I
Found myself queuing up for counseling at IIT Kharagpur. Joined the Civil
Engineering Department and the rest is history. Did manage to get out
Of Hijli within the stipulated 4 years inspite of being hooked on to
Smoking and drinking interlaced with large helpings of grass.
For the next two years, tried to be the civil engineer that IIT had
attempted to make out of me. Failed miserably. With the boom of the
software industry, IIT's reputation increased manifolds and suddenly I found
myself being acceptable in those places where even a year earlier I wouldn't
have dared to set foot on. I joined a software company - a Calcutta based
startup - that went in for developing Billing and Provisioning software for
the telecom service providers. Bless the guy who said that "every dog has
it's day". Well, this was my break. My frequently occurring stints of
"hardly working" were overlooked and the short periods of "working hard" were
recognized and rewarded. I left the company as a Project Manager in April
1998.
Computer Associates had tied up with Bengal's own "son of the soil"
(or Bhumiputra as they say in Malaysia) to form Computer Associates TCG
Software (CATS). CATS was a startup here with very a sound technology and
Capital base. It offered a lot of possibilities for the vikings of the new
era. Network management, SNMP, etc. The temptation was too much and I ended
up looking after development projects in and around Unicenter TNG.
Unicenter TNG is the flagship network management product from CA and alone
Accounts for almost half of CA's annual turnover of 6+ Billion Dollars. Left
The company in July 1999.
I am currently working for Siemens information Systems in the Telecom
business Unit as a Senior manager. Am responsible for a lot of things
simultaneously (read: "responsible for nothing!").
On a personal front, after having tried a number of times to "fall in
love" (I always wonder why do people "fall" and not "rise" in love),
last year on May 11, I married Jayeeta. No ! No!!! This was a properly
arranged marriage and thanks to the Matrimonial column, I did not have
to try my luck again. She is an architect by profession and a wonderful
person. Shreya, my daughter was born on February 18, 2000.
That, guys, has been the path that I have been treading along so
far....
Want to write about yourself 
Please do. We will love to know about you !
Please send it to achattar@yahoo.com