38 years ago, a Chaat party united a fraternity and created a movement – the IIT Alumni movement. It got people together and it became an annual calendar event. People planned their India visits around the Chaat party. And the caterers from old Delhi served street food which was not just nostalgic – it was beyond compare – and available nowhere else.
This was my 32nd Chaat party and even though I never did go to iit Kanpur – I had managed to get an invite for all these years thanks to Gyanesh Chaudhry and RK Gupta and from Rohit Dhawan in more recent years. The party itself has split – unable to accommodate the crowds – and now we have separate ones for New Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon. The caterers remain the same. The the food is awesome. Just like it was last Saturday.
It all started with an orphanage in East of Kailash called the Arya Orphanage. Many IITians supported the girls orphanage located bang next to the iskcon temple and spread over several acres. The orphanage grounds agreed to play host to the annual chaat party of IIT Alumni.
In 1992, I was the alumni secretary for IIT Bombay Alumni in Delhi and we met at Prof Isaac or Prof Nags residence. Typically ten people or so. Then one of our MTech members who had a BTech from IIT Kanpur suggested that we copy the chaat party of IiT Kanpur. Satish Kaura got me an invite to attend the party to get a feel. When I told him we had ten active members, Gyanesh Chaudhry immediately invited all of us to join in the party. And this is how the alumni associations of different IiT campuses started meeting. Then someone came up with the idea of creating a body with alumni of all IITs.
So that we could have a even larger chaat party. Nothing else.
To organise this, a small group met at the pan Asian restaurant opposite IIT Delhi. We invited Mrinalini Gupta to figure out a name for this entity. She had one question “do we merge all or do they retain their independent campus affiliations ?” When the decision was to retain individual identities, she suggested “PanIIT” based on the PanAsian menu on our table. The menu has individuals sections for each type of cuisine.
Then PanIIT Alumni ran into legal problems and had to be put on hold because of some court orders. A new organisation had to be created to change focus from giving back to the college to giving back to the nation.
Mrinalini Gupta came up with the name “IIT Alumni Council” and Prof Udaya Dharmalingham and Sunil Khullar came up with the logo and the IIT font. It spawned a global movement and had alumni joining it. And then the charter was expanded to include family members under the Alumni Next Program.
In time it grew into a global force. Last year the name PanIIT was dropped using IITac as the new shortform. PanIIT revived to be led by a government officer and is doing a great job of holding events and tying all the alumni bodies into one.
Chaat is where it started.
