– By MC Jayakumar

While we still remember that during May 2006 (last year), all Ex-JBEIians working at various offices in Jakarta-Indonesia joined together to have a get-together and spend time together to cherish old time memories of life at John Brown.

As time passes, in the course of journey, it is very common that some members have left the country in search of better opportunities and at the same time some of our members have newly joined the team in Jakarta.

In an effort to arrange for all of us to meet, Jakarta chapter of Ex-JBEI group, had arranged a get together on 13th April 2007 at “Haveli” Restaurant. It was a wonderful evening and we all felt excited to meet around 25 of our members and dine together, exchange developments and changes in life, since we met each other last time.

Sincere Thanks to Shankar.P for spending his valuable time in organising the get-to-gether, which was a grand success.

In less than two weeks from now, we will be in a new year, and I thought what better way to start it up than work on our site.

Some goodies on the site include:

1. A clean and visible design.
2. Offshore pictures are back.
3. Offshore Technology news loads-up on the side bar.

Offshore technology news is just a demo for what is possible. I would like to know if you want news from any particular source to load-up on our side bar that would make our site more usable.

Friends, colleagues and interested group members are welcome to join the editing team (there’s none active at the moment and would sure love to have more people expressing their views informally or otherwise and solicit comments on our site. If you love to write, why not write for XJBEI website? Please write to me (or reply to this email, if you like) to let me put you get you on the editing / writing team.

— by Rajesh Anand

Our get-together at Hill view Heights function hall on Saturday 24June06 got off to a flying start at about 6 p.m. with the timely arrival of quite a few enthusiastic XJBEIans with families in tow. The entire program was meant to be impromptu and that is why we scrambled through arranging the hall and packing the prizes etc.

Everyone was given a label and two teams viz. red and blue were formed. At about 7 pm we were ready to start the function with an introduction by all. It was fun listening to the variety of experiences everyone had to share. Time really flies. It has been more than 10 years since JBEI came into existence. I myself had so much to say having spent about more than 5 years there.

The cricket matches, the magazine club, the trips to the suburbs and the simple joi–de–vivre of being a part of a brand new organization were absolutely heady to say the least. On a personal front, I really enjoyed being at John Brown, Bangalore and the best was to have met some amazing personalities capable of leaving some great impressions. I also recall the day when my son was born while I was there. In all, John Brown we salute you.

As expected the introductions took quite a while. We also invited the wives of XJBEIans to say a few words and it was great to hear the encomiums they showered for the fast emerging XJBEI families all over the world. All of them looked forward to attending may such gatherings in the future.

We were very pleased to have in our midst some of the earliest JBEI personnel such as Shri Shanker Banerjee, Thomas Kurian, Nagaraju who fondly remembered their days spent at JBEI.

Later we set up a quiz competition after selecting the captains and the vice captains. We also had a child captain from both the teams. The quiz consisted of questions about Singapore, India and above all John Brown. In between there were fun quizzes and tongue twisters – the one with “Kharak Singh ke kharkane se khirakti hai khirkiyan, khirkiyon ke kaharakne se kharkata hai kharak singh hai” had the whole house in splits.

Some quiz samples: Question: What was the most notable event in the history of JBEI Bangalore Answer: Visit of John Major, the British PM in 1997.

Question: The closest distance between India and Indonesia. Answer: Varied from 70 kms to 200 kms ( though Murali Krishna Rao appeared very sure about his answer)

Question: What is the national flower of Singapore. Answer: Vanda miss joaqim (an orchid)

The quizzing was followed by dinner which most I spoke to appeared to like. I was particularly impressed by the chapati masala and the carrot halwa. That speaks good about Raj restaurant who catered with great care and who we would love to recommend to our friends visiting Singapore. They have two outlets one near Mustafa and one close to Buona Vista MRT (Biopolis park).

After dinner we had about 45 minutes and as planned earlier we invited the teams to show their singing skills. To our pleasant surprise, there were quite a few good singers who whole-heartedly participated in the antakshari. In the fitness of the occasion, we sang “E mere watan ke logon” and “Made in india”.

And then there was the prize distribution. Both winning team and runners up got a box of barfis which they promptly shared with everyone.

When the program ended, it was gratifying to note many exchanging telephone numbers and if this get-together brought families closer, we the organizers would feel elated.

Our one regret, we could not have more time and could not arrange for the dances which the kids had come prepared for. Our special thanks to the volunteers who managed the reception, the money, the cleaning.. in fact all of you because everyone chipped in with something or the other.

Special thanks to the child captains Aishwarya and Gautam who did a slpendid job. Hope you all enjoyed the prizes.

(More photos of the meet here, courtesy Rajesh Anand)

Our former colleagues, friends and members of our group have set a record of sorts as far as the numbers go. A hundred members from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah met at Four Points Sheraton Dubai.

Thanks to everyone for turning up and making this a memorable event. Special thanks to Raghavendra Sharma, Shashikiran Sharma, Selvam and Gautam for organizing the event.

And because we are especially partial to kids, they appear first.

More photos here. Thanks to Shashikiran Sharma for the photos.

When you are a few, it’s much easier to organize. Call-up and meet-up. Padmakar, from Brisbane Australia, sends us the photos of the XJBEI meet-up there.

More photos here.

A couple of pictures from the family get-together held in Bangkok recently. Thanks to BD Ravikumar for the pictures. Official meet to follow soon.

Friends and ex-colleagues from John Brown are brewing-up a meet in Thailand, Singapore and UAE. Thailand meet is being initiated by VG Shanbhag, Singapore meet is being initiated by Rajesh Anand and the UAE meet by RN Sharma.

Good luck to you guys.

A group of us living and working in Kuala Lumpur gathered-up at a restaurant on Bukit Bintang. This meet in Kuala Lumpur came close on heels of the first ever official XJBEI meet that was held in Jakarta early this month.

Thanks to all the attendees for sparing some time and turning-up for this meet and making it a memorable event. Special thanks to Prithviraj Rajaji (from Pipelines) for organizing this meet.

(Image courtesy: P. Rajaji)

Following the head-knock by our colleagues in Indonesia, long working hours or un-ending projects are no excuse for a meet-up every once a while.

Prithviraj Rajaji (Pipelines) has kick-started an initiative for a meet in Kuala Lumpur, tentatively on either 19th or 20th of May. (The venue is being discussed at the moment.) Request all of you living, working or even visiting during this time in Kuala Lumpur, please contact him, or me (or reply in the mailing list) if you’d like, to know more about and would like to join this get-together.

Let’s meet in KL.

Members living and working in Jakarta arranged a get-together on Friday April 28, 2006. As one of our senior members said:

It was really a great event and I thank one and all who participated in it. It reminded me of one of those rare events of JBEI get together we had in Bangalore during Loge’s and Richard Elliot’s tenure.

I think John Brown Bangalore has become a synonym with Oil and Gas Upstream Industry and the personnel coming out of it and working worldwide have not only enriched themselves, but also created a good niche for Indian engineers everywhere. It is a great contribution. Let us not forget all those who trained us to make this happen.

Special thanks to JK and CVS for taking initiative to hold this maiden event.

— G Ravikumar

Thanks to all the volunteers and attendees for making this happen.

Update: Thanks to JK for uploading pictures. They are now here.