On January 21 and 22, 2023, nearly 200 former employees of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and their spouses met in the Tribhuvan Das Auditorium at NDDB, Anand, to celebrate their association with the organisation and the years and years of work life they spent together at the NDDB in Anand.
I had earlier shared pictures taken during the meeting. Please click on this link to view the pictures.
I was one among them. This was our third such meeting. The first one was held in 20215, and the second in 2020.
It has been a privilege for me to be asked to facilitate all three events.
We had originally designed four sessions for the two-day meeting. Later many changes had to be made in the original design.
The Lady’s session facilitated by Mrs Vinod Huria was probably the best, but unfortunately, I don’t have a video recording. What a shame! My apologies. I have requested Mrs Huria, who has agreed to write a blog on the Lady’s session for Vrikshamandir. I will post it once received.
The first session on day one was an inaugural session.
The level of enthusiasm among participants was such that I had to start the meeting before the scheduled time.
I decided to ask those present to come forward, introduce themselves and answer a question; “What is it that brings them to this meeting?”
I decided to give each person three minutes assuming that they may speak longer may be up to five minutes or so. But it was a rule set by me that was followed more in exceptions than in adherence.
I have great pleasure in sharing the video record of the first or say inaugural session.
They met for the third time on January 21 and 22, 2003 in Anand
Since we gathered in the auditorium much earlier than the scheduled start time I requested those present to introduce themselves and also share the reason as to what is it that made them join the meeting.
At the scheduled start time we had the formal start with multi-religious prayers, paying respect to those colleagues who are no longer with us. On behalf of the organising committee Shri SB Senmazumdar made a short welcome speech and invited the Chairman NDDB, Shri Meenesh Shah to address the meeting.
The gallery below has pictures of former colleagues who spoke during this session including a picture of the current Chairman of NDDB.
This blog is like a “work in progress”, as I would keep on adding, deleting, modifying the text based on my memory and other information that may crop up as we go forward.
I am now a “forgetful old man”. So going forward as I recollect something afresh I reserve the right to edit this blog. Please revisit this blog from time to time. The video recording will remain unchanged.
The video recording of these session was made possible thanks to our long time friend Shri Ramesh Baria, who post National Studio, Anand of Shri Shirish Bhai has captured in his camera most of the important events at NDDB during the era of Dr Kurien. He continues to do the same even today.
I must acknowledge the help that my grandson Shaurya gave me by dividing the seven-hour-long video session-wise, something I have been trying to do on my own since March 2023. This was a big issue for me to handle as videos of more than 2 GB can not be uploaded to this website.
I will in a couple of days post videos of the other three sessions. 2- Dairying in India before NDDB; 3- Formation of NDDB, Struggles and Achievements, 4- Expansion of NDDB projects into areas other than Milk.
Leave a Reply