The picture of the week

Golden Jubilee, Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, India

Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli

2025-06-11

"I sat on the same lecture theatre bench, that I had first sat on 50 years ago."

On 28-29 April, I joined a hundred classmates to celebrate the golden jubilee of starting our MBBS course at Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad, India.

The celebrations began with a formal session held in the same lecture theatre where we had met for our first introductory session as shy, excited and nervous teenagers in April 1975 - a wonderful gesture by the organising team.

Through speeches, photo compilations and videos, we honoured classmates who had passed away, celebrated our personal journeys, paid tribute to our teachers and parents, recognised the huge investments made in developing our medical college over the past 50 years, and expressed our gratitude to the Indian government for providing us with a high-quality, highly-subsidised education, an opportunity that transformed our lives.

After enjoying cups of sweet, strong Hyderabadi chai – which we had guzzled by the bucketful during our time at college – and a group photo session, we boarded buses for lunch and then headed to a magnificent resort outside Hyderabad.

An enchanting evening followed, with speeches, catching up, singing old songs, dancing, feasting and popping champagne under the starlit Hyderabadi night sky.

Our hairlines, faces and waistlines had been ravaged by time. Some of us saw through artificial lenses and stood on artificial joints. Some of us spoke with strange accents. But it was just like being together in 1975.

A very late night, a brisk morning walk (for some of us), more Hyderabadi chai, breakfast, lots of photos, hugs and promises to visit and stay in touch; and then we were off. The buses took us back to our beloved medical college and onwards.

Two days that we all will always remember!

In our WhatsApp conversations in the lead-up to our reunion, I suggested creating a yearbook. The organising team agreed and asked me to lead the effort. I worked with a small group to create the yearbook, with two pages devoted to each classmate to share whatever they wanted about their lives, alongside photos of themselves from then and now. We were unsure whether people would contribute, but were overwhelmed by the response. The stories came in slowly at first, and then in tens. We learned so much about each other: our backgrounds, our journeys over five decades, and our hopes for the future. In our hectic medical college years, we developed small groups of close friends and stayed in those groups. The yearbook brought us together as one.

I would like to share my yearbook story with you. It is titled 'I am deeply grateful'
https://drvchandramouli.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Individual-OSMECO75-YEARBOOK-story.pdf
It addresses:
- Teenage romance, marriage and elopement, early widowhood and remarriage
- Parenthood, single parenthood, and learning to be the parent of a child living with a disability
- A doctorate at the ripe old age of 65
- An enormous privilege
- Everyday is a gift I grab with both hands

A warm hug!