NOBA UK 2018 Meet Summary

NOBA UK Meet at Exe Valley 31st Aug till 2nd of Sep 2018

Many weeks and months of preparations finally brought us together at Duvale Priory on Friday, 31st Aug. The property seemed to be in no-man’s-land, hidden beautifully in the nature’s lap.

After nearly every time we visited, we drove past the entrance as the sign is so subtle. Geeta’s idea of tying balloons at the front did help to some extent, however the property did deceive many, at the first time.

As soon as we take the turn to enter, the long drive with beautiful welcoming trees on both the sides, invite you to the open courtyard of the property surrounded by four beautifully maintained rustic cottages – Duvale Barn, Duvale Priory, Orchard Barn and Duvale Retreat.

We were obviously first to arrive at the property just to ensure our names are well visible on the doors of our rooms as the cottages are just like maze where all the well-known algorithms - The random mouse, wall follower, Pledge, and Trémaux's would fail.

After a little wait, we could finally see Virendra Gupta ji entering the cottage, almost inaugurating the 2-day event. Slowly Krishna Chandra Ji, Kameshwar Ji. Asha di-Navin Ji, Manohar ji-Meeta Bhabhi, Ghanshyam, Vivekanand, Rakesh, Deepak, Sami, Sanjay and all family members started gracing the occasion. Thanks to all spouses of our NOBA members (Asha di, Gayatri Bhabhi, Meeta Bhabhi, Geeta, Aradhana, Aruna, Sudha, Sumita and Tina) who had collectively decided to bring delicious home-cooked food to grace the evening with big sumptuous meals. It was heartening to witness the bonds between NOBA family members who instead of retiring after a long journey, were catching up with each other after a gap of the whole year. The evening couldn’t have been completed without welcoming Kaladhar ji and Poonam Bhabhi. The retrouvailles nature of such reunions, where it is impossible to keep track of the time whilst remembering the golden days, we suddenly realised that Kaladhar Ji must now be nearby. Before we could reach the entrance, a jeep pulled up towards the entrance and we could see the glittering eyes of Poonam Bhabhi and Kaladhar ji, appreciating the surroundings, made us feel very proud of our choice of the cottage. Finally, we drew a close to the first evening with an anticipation of the next two days.

Saturday, 1st Sep started with slight overcast, yet a dry and warm day. The weather didn’t deter our members Ghanshyam, Sanjay and Rakesh to go for a morning run. After the morning run, our young members took their children to explore the lake and the river Exe.

After finishing morning tea, members started gathering for breakfast where caterers served us the delicious Poori-Sabji breakfast whist we completely immersed ourselves in nostalgic moments of our golden days at Netarhat.

Duvale Barn, being the biggest cottage, we then decided to gather around in its big living room, where our better halves introduced, not only themselves, but each of their family members, including us. This helped us in breaking the ice and brought us even closer to each other. Arrival of Anil Singh ji – Renu bhabhi and Anil Jha Ji – Anita bhabhi made this gathering even more complete.

While reminiscing about our past, we never realised that this was almost the time for lunch. All family members quickly got ready and assembled in our lunch hall where we had a sumptuous meal.

It was almost the time for driving to Cullompton Community Centre, where we had planned for our main event. Having seen the bright weather, Navin Ji rightly took the call to summon all of us near the lake for a group photography.

All bhabhis and children were looking amazing, but to my utter surprise, even NOBA members came across pretty well-dressed up for the camera. After few cheese, clicks and laughters in a stunningly beautiful backdrop of lake and surrounding greeneries, we proceeded for Cullompton Community Centre.

Cullompton Community Centre was hired to have a formal Annual General Meeting, followed by children programme and dinner. The following Members attended the evening Annual General Meeting:

1. Dr. Virendra Gupta

2. Dr. Anil Singh and Mrs Renu Singh

3. Dr. Asha Sinha and Dr. Navin Kumar

4. Dr. Kaladhar Narayan Jha and Dr. Poonam Jha

5. Dr. Anil Jha and Mrs. Anita Jha

6. Dr. Krishna Chandra Pandey, son Dr. Krishna and daughter Dr. Laxmi

7. Dr. Kameshwar Singh

8. Dr. Manohar Thakur, Dr. Meeta Thankur and son Maitreya Thakur

9. Mr. Om Prakash Choudhary, Mrs. Geeta Choudhary, son Dr. Prateek Choudhary, daughter-in-law Dr. Megan Choudhary, daughter Shruti Choudhary and grandson Dylan James Choudhary

10. Mr. Ghanshyam Kumar, Dr. Aradhana Rani and daughters Gauwri Sharma and Anika Sharma

11. Mr. Kumar Vivekanand, Mrs. Aruna and daughters Aditi and Pranati

12. Mr. Sami Haider, Mrs. Sudha, daughter Sara and son Arman

13. Dr. Deepak Kumar and Mrs. Bhawna, daughter Tvisha Sinha and son Rian Sinha

14. Dr. Rakesh Ravi and Dr. Sumita Choudhary, daughters Pragya and Prabha and son Samyak

15. Mr. Sanjay Kumar and Mrs. Tina Malhotra, daughter Ira Singh and son Avi Singh

Apologies:

1. Dr Gyaneshwari Prasad

2. Dr. Sushil Chandra Thakur and Mrs Usha Thakur

3. Dr Parmanand Choudhary and Mrs Vijaya Choudhary

4. Mr. Arun Jha and Mrs Sadhna Jha

5. Dr. Pradeep Kumar and Mrs. Nita Moonka

6. Dr. Jai Prakash Narayan and Dr. Smriti Narayan

7. Dr. Vibhash Mishra & Dr Nutan Mishra

8. Mr Anuj Sinha and Mrs Priti Sinha

After few technical glitches of Audio-Visual equipment, we started our evening event (Annual General Meeting 2018) with lighting of the deep by our senior most member, Virendra Gupta Ji. It was the right time for our Vidyalaya Gaan, remembering our Sriman ji – Mahesh Narayan Saxena – who always took the lead with his harmonium. Here I was, holding the microphone, remembering the ‘ग’ in each and every vocal classes of Shriman Chatterjee ji and yet started singing our Vidyalaya Gaan. In hindsight, I should have passed the microphone to someone who can justify the occasion.

Virendra Ji then graced the occasion by cutting the cake.

A 2-minute silence was observed for ‘भावभीनी श्रद्धांजलि’ to all our Shriman ji and other Netarhat members who left us for their heavenly abode:

🙏 Shriman Ji Sheetal Das Mehta, Shriman Ji Chaturbhuj Pandey, Mata Ji Mrs. Mangal Dev Pandey, Shriman Ji Saryu Prasad, Shriman Ji Dr Paramamitra Shastri, Shriman Ji Gopi Chand Bharuka 🙏

All the updates on Netarhat in the last 12 months were discussed:

• Shriman ji Mithilesh Kanti’s 90th birthday celebrated

• Rakesh Sinha nominated to Rajya Sabha

• Prakash Jha to Direct Biopic on Mathematician Vashishtha Narayan Singh

• Baidyanath Labh Jee appointed VC of Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, Bihar

• Prof. Prabhat Ranjan became VC of D Y Patil International University

• Sanjiv Kumar conducted Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer

• Dr. Santosh Kumar Singh selected Principal of Netarhat Vidyalaya

• 8 Hatians among top 10 in State

• Jjharkhand CM Raghubar Das inaugurated Auditorium

NOBA UK family members shared the achievements of their lives (published paper by Ghanshyam, Successful London Marathon run by Sanjay and achievements of our children) in the last 12 months. All members were requested to keep sharing such achievements as and when they occur. We take immense pride of our family members’ achievements.

This was the right opportunity to take a stock on the actions that we took during our last meeting, organised by Gayatri Bhabhi and Krishna Chandra Ji. There have been a long wish for all our members to provide a bit formal structure to our organisation that would provide us opportunities to fulfil our goals in terms of helping others with whatever little means we have and have fun together. There were three main actions:

• NOBA UK Constitution

• NOBA UK website

• NOBA UK bank accounts

Members were informed during this meet that we’ve managed to achieve all the three actions:

• NOBA UK website: https://www.nobauk.org

• NOBA UK Constitution: https://www.nobauk.org/forum/noba-meeting-on-7th-april/noba-uk-constitution

• NOBA UK bank accounts: shared with all

Following actions were taken during this meet:

1. A minimum Annual Membership Fee of ￡60 or a Lifetime membership fee of ￡300 to be paid within 4 weeks. Members can pay more if they wish to do so.

2. There was a proposal of paying￡10 a month to NOBA UK account, however this is a voluntary payment. This payment was solely meant for charity donations that would be decided by NOBA UK officers.

3. There is also a proposal of setting up a plan to look after our elderly NOBA UK members and their spouses. Sami is requested to create a plan and to outline the steps that need to be carried out to make this plan functional.

4. There was also a suggestion to set up a mentoring program to guide the young family members of NOBA UK members. Under this initiative, a panel of 5 members (senior and young family members who have started working) will be set up on a rotational basis. Their contact numbers and fields of expertise will be shared with all members.

5. NOBA UK visit to Netarhat Vidyalaya in Easter-2021 was proposed. Deepak and Sami have taken leads to make it happen and they will be communicating with us the next steps i.e. depositing ￡200 per person so that Sami can reserve the tickets.

6. NOBA UK members were requested to update all members with their achievements and that of their children/grand-children. Such updates will be uploaded onto our website too.

7. Dr. Vibhash Mishra and Dr. Nutan Mishra have requested to host the 2019 meet. The date will be finalised by Vibhash, Sami, Deepak, Vivekanand, Rakesh and Sanjay.

After a formal AGM is concluded, Krishna Chandra Ji kindly shared some amazing photos that he had captured through his camera. We were astonished to see his attention to the detail and how he observes and relates to the objects before capturing them. This short presentation was just like a poetry where the poet has re-lived his own life through his composition.

The evening of Saturday, 1st Sep was concluded with variety of amazing programs (singing and on instruments) by our talented children: Praniti, Samyak, Anika, Aditi, Ira, Arman, Rian, Prabha and Pragya.

Having had a delicious dinner, members started proceeding for our cottage where a bonfire was organised by Geeta. The bonfire belongs to everyone. Each of us takes our turn to stoke it, kick some life into it. Children enjoy the spectral thrill of the bonfire too.

A game of ‘how well do we know our better half’ was played that revealed many surprises, e.g. Macho Salman Khan or evergreen Shashi Kapoor being favourite actors for wives made male members jealous even at this age. The questions like ‘What dress should I wear’ or ‘How am I looking today’, posed by our better halves were mischievous traps that male members never ever like to get into. After lots of fun, members and their families played our favourite game of Antyakshari where wives were the clear winner of their memory power for all beautiful Bollywood songs of different genres, whereas male members were mute when they sing Bollywood songs. Every now and then, a couple of male members – Rakesh or Sanjay, could come up with their trump cards, such as poems by Dinkar.

After a thorough entertaining evening we decided to retire for an excited morning on Sunday. Few NOBA members however decided to extend the festive atmospheres in Kameshwar Ji’s room. To our surprise, we discussed some heavy topics while guzzling beers till we got tired.

The last day, Sun, 2nd of Sep morning started with beautiful crispy sun. After the morning breakfast, we were due to proceed for Wimbleball Lake. Krishna Chandra ji, Kameshwar ji, Krishna and Manohar ji, Meeta Bhabhi and Maitreye, Prateek, Meg and Dylan had to leave early for their planned engagements. The inevitable feeling of separations suddenly dawned on Geeta and me. After bidding good-bye to them, rest of the members drove to Wimbleball lake, nestled in the hills of Exmoor National Park, surrounded by rolling hills and breath-taking lake views. After spending a couple of hours walking around the lake and taking lots of photographs, the members decided to draw a curtain to this fun-filled meet. With heavy hearts, we bid good bye to each other with a promise to meet again next year, somewhere even more exciting.

Shruti, Geeta and I returned to the cottage for the last formality and found ourselves alone in such a big place, still trying to look for our own family members. Wish the stay could have been a bit longer!!!

Geeta and I take this opportunity to thank each and every member of NOBA UK family for gracing the occasion of this beautiful meet with their presence and for providing us the opportunity to arrange this event.

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PS:

For the programme overview, please visit https://www.nobauk.org/forum/noba-meet-2018/noba-meet-2018-programme-overview

For the full set of photos, please visit https://www.nobauk.org/noba-meet-2018-gallery

For NOBA UK Constitution, please visit https://www.nobauk.org/forum/noba-meeting-on-7th-april/noba-uk-constitution