A chitchat in office

Though we work in the same building, Murali and I bump into each other very rarely, ensconced as he is in his sacred cabin in the hallowed chambers of power. Even when we do, it is just a hurried "hallo" and "see u later". So today I decided that I will make an effort, being a lean week at work, to catch up on all the news/gossip within the organisation and outside, from our MCC lives.
So I sneaked out of my dept. and had an over-one hour conversation with him in his cabin. We discussed the blog - he said he will join slowly -, our colleagues, our common friends etc. Murali is now the acting Reader's Editor, since his boss has gone on vacation.
He had a little information on some of our long-lost classmates. Shankar Balan, who has been job-hopping, is presently with a clothing chain in Bangalore. He had earlier worked with Color Plus, Hidesign, Indian Terrain and the Taj group. No idea if he found a soulmate. I had seen him ages ago, in 2000 I think, near the Gurjari showroom on Khader Nawaz Khan road. We spoke for a wee while since he was with his friends.
Shobha Paul is reportedly in Australia running a business with her husband or running her dad's seafood business with its base at Cochin. Her college twin Vinodini, according to their pal Rekha Nambiar whom Murali met in Ooty sometime back, is coming back from the US to do her PhD. M couldnt get any more info out of her, so we dunno what her marital status is. Vinodini used to call up me and Usha for a long while in the late 90s. It got a bit wierd and the less said about it, the better....
Neither of us knew anything about the whereabouts of Pichandi, Thimmarayan or Indraneel Ghosh. I had managed to e-locate Grace Stanley and exchange emails for a short while in the late 90s when she was staying in a university campus in some US state, I dont remember which. She had married one Mr. Kumaran.
I wonder what Kavita Israel is doing now, maybe Glady would know. As for Bharati, I had once (in 2003) met her at a hospital along with her husband after she returned from the Gulf - they had no children then. She looked the same.
Usha Nair is believed to be with her husband and kid(s?) in the Gulf. I think she did write a couple of mails to me in an earlier email activity among MCCians.
(My memory is getting poorer of late though I have pockets of good memory in my weary brain - which was what had helped me compile that earlier database, including names of spouses and offsprings.)
And didnt we have a classmate called Salim, who distributed laddus when Pakistan beat India at a match? I hope he has mellowed down.
Aji George, the JNU beauty who joined us for MPhil, has worked at the Eng. depts of Stella Maris and MCC. Prof. Manohar Samuel, who is an examiner for the BC-IELTS tests and a colleague of Murali's mom in that, said Aji is not teaching at Stella anymore. I last saw her at the railway station on a Diwali eve some 3 years back, with her hubby and grown-up boys. And I last glimpsed Princy sometine in 2003 standing at a bus stop in Mugappair.
And where are you, Persis Khambatta? Would Prem know? I always remember her when I pass Balfour Road...
Have I left any in this and the last classmates' review? For more updates, watch out this space....
And Rajeev, have you completed your PhD from the Singapore unvty?
For once, Murali forgot to mention applying for our Mphil certificates from the Madras University. The convocation remains one of our pending projects.
Murali promised me as a parting shot that he will take me along when he goes visiting Bhatt sir and family in Selaiyur, where they have constructed a magnificent house, very tastefully done. He said Prof. Rajgopal also had built an excellent house somewhere there.
And guess who is the Eng. HOD? Prof. Victor Fredrick.

p.s. That's during a Deepwoods cultural in college.