The meet provided an excellent platform for the junior crusaders present to get to know the Crusaders batch up close and also to interact with the alumni. It always helps to have a network in the business world and this presented itself as a wonderful opportunity. Of course there was a lot of catching up between the batches that were subsequent to each other! It was pleasing to see the turnout of the alumni. They had taken time out from their busy schedules and some had flown a long way to attend the event. The alumni exemplified the fact that Great Lakes has given out some great people to dream companies like Godrej, Infosys, Cognizant, CTS, CSC and many others occupying top-notch positions and enviable profiles. The event also marked the launching of The Great Lakes Alumni portal by the Crusaders: Manik Kinra and Sitashwa Srivastava.The portal provides an opportunity for all the Great Lakers to stay connected through out and share their moments. It has features like Forum, Wall of Fame, Directory and others to help in the desired motive. The portal is intended to be updated on a continuous basis with the programs offered currently and corresponding books referred for reading so that the alumni can remain updated on the current management trends even after passing out. They can even order reading material based on their requirement. The alumni portal sure goes a long way towards strengthening the ties and reducing communication gap between any current batch and the seniors. Kudos to the team for the effort.

The night was young and the much awaited cultural event, the Sangamitra, began. It was time for some music. And where there is music, dance soon follows. The program never had the chance to go dull with the variety chosen to present changing with every song performed. Everyone watched, awed by the classical dance performed by Sudha, the peppy number taken up Neha, followed by rocking performances by Bala and Vinodh which left the crowd screaming for more. The MCs for the night, Shriram and Roshik kept everyone giggling away with their slapstick comic comments. This initiated quite a few reactions from the students sitting that kept the night alive with hoots and quails. The crusaders put up quite a show with their salsa performance by Suseen, Bala, Vinodh, Bhavana and team. Their moves were something to watch out for. Next came in Jagan and Sriram with their blasting mimicry of our favorite Uncle Bala and the other professors that had the crowd in splits. There were also some vocalists like Akshat who with their melodious guitar strings lent a soothing touch to the event. The performance on the hit Tamil song wasn’t something that anyone could’ve missed. Dancing amongst the crowd was getting to be a norm by then. As the night wore on the enthusiasm turned higher.

The threesome Ashwin (on the electric guitar), Mahesh and Adit made the pulses beat higher still by pelting out some all time favorites like ‘Another Brick in the wall’, ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and so on. The Crusaders by then were discussing how they had reached the end of this memorable one year where they had made lifetime friends and that now the time had come to move on. There was a minute of eerie silence reverberating with soft music before the storm of hugs, smiles and tears rolled out. They just couldn’t seem to get enough photographs for remembrance. It was time to leave. Time to move on and change the world someone said. They were starting a new journey and also looking back at the wonderful experiences shared. The video titled ‘Rubaroo’ playing with the song as the background, hit on this sentiment. It showed the students upto their antics in the various lakes (each classroom at glakes has a name pertaining to a lake), seminar hall and other favorite hangouts. The claps did not seem to stop, nor did the tears. The night was filled with nostalgia and emotion. But then, was it not a time to celebrate too? So everyone got back to the dance floor and partied hard throughout the night with the DJ playing requests one after the other.

The institute may have just begun but the students are already everywhere carving a name for themselves in the business and management world. Meanwhile, the crusaders batch is a strong lot and they are here to stay. The journey has just begun.