Vellore: It’s a great feeling to cut the cake on the 80th birthday and even a greater joy sharing its chocolate and cream with the schoolmates. The 27 beaming grandpas came assisted by walking sticks, wheel-chairs and their kind families to celebrate the happy reunion with the most famous of their 1954-55 batch of the Nellorepet government school at Gudiyatham near here, said G. Viswanathan, Founder-Chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology.
GV has come a long way since passing out of that village school, daring to challenge the urban education environ by enrolling for B.A at the Loyola College in Chennai (then Madras) where he went on to do the M.A as well-"that was the first time I had ventured out of my little town", recalled the birthday boy.
It was the Madras Law College after Loyola and then, the obvious happened. DMK leader Annadurai found the right spark in the young man even during their college meetings-Anna was in the Pachiappa College closeby--and pulled him into his movement against the Congress' disastrous handling of imposing Hindi and rice shortage. GV became MLA and one of the youngest MPs from Tamil Nadu. He was minister in TN cabinet twice. And thanks to Jayalalithaa dropped him from her ministry-he was her food minister and obviously his wise counsel on some issue did not suit her-he went into the education sector and launched VIT.
"I started VIT in 1984 with just 180 students. It became a deemed university in 2001 and now we have 39,000 students and they come from all the states in India, besides some 55 countries. VIT is the first among the private engineering institutions in the country", GV told his schoolmates proudly.
"There wasn't any higher educational institution in north Tamil Nadu those days, so he approached then Chief Minister, MGR to have the government to set up one. "MGR said there was no money (with the government) and told me he would help if I start an engineering college. He planted the seed and I helped it grow".
Reminiscing was natural when old friends, and such old ones settled far and wide, meet after so many years. "You were downright lucky when Jayalalithaa dumped you and you flew from Delhi minus your status as the food minister. That was a huge gain for the education sector as VIT came out of that political fall", quipped classmate A. Rajendran of the DMK.
Another illustrious classmate who spoke was L Ganesan, former DMK MP. "You are an arivali, padippali and ozhaippali (intelligent, educated, hardworking) and that's how you are so successful and this VIT has emerged as such a premier global institution", LG beamed.
Vellore on Saturday had many glittering events through the day to celebrate the town's best-known celebrity but this one with his octogenarian buddies must have been the most precious event for GV.
