The Oxford and Cambridge Society of India
President’s Message – 17 Sep 2018
Dear Members,
My name is Uday Walia and I’m the new President of the Society for a term of two years. For those of you who don’t know me, I was at Peterhouse, Cambridge (BA Law 1996 and LLM 1997). The new Executive Committee was elected unopposed, which I’d like to believe is not a symptom of your apathy but of the enormous faith you have in all of us.
The Executive Committee consists of the following:
- Uday Walia (Cambridge) President
- Sidharth Luthra (Cambridge) – Vice President
- Vidur Bhatia (Oxford) – Secretary and Treasurer
- Bharat Kumar – (Cambridge)
- Anish Dayal (Cambridge)
- Mahima Puri (Oxford)
- Rukmini Chawla Kumar (Oxford)
- Arnav Narain (Cambridge)
- Neelotpal Mishra (Oxford)
- “Papa CJ” (Oxford) – he really wants to be called that!
- Samridh Agarwal (Oxford)
Other than the fact that there is an overabundance of lawyers on the Committee (I thought I may as well concede that before you realised), I think we have a brilliant and diverse group of individuals and we hope we do not let you down.
We would like to thank Vikram Lall and the Executive Committee of 2016-18 for a fantastic job and for organising such diverse and interesting events. We have a hard act to follow.
We have, as you would expect, lots of ideas that I’m going to refrain from setting out in detail, partly because they need to be “beefed” up (I know I shouldn’t be using that expression) and partly because I don’t want to bore you with ideas until we have something concrete. But briefly, we would like to continue with our traditional events, which include the annual dinner (I think we should go back to referring to it as the “Boat Race Dinner”) and Christmas Cocktail Party. We would like to continue our focus on our scholarships because that is possibly the most important thing we do. We would like to continue with the OCSI Cricket Cup – perhaps extend it beyond one solitary fixture – and institute an OCSI golf tournament. We would also like to hold the OCSI Ball – we have had a few wonderful balls and we hope to be able to revive that event.
This is your Society so please write to any member of the Executive Committee if you have an idea for an event or talk or lecture that you would like us to organise. We would like to organise events that are at least as diverse and distinctive as our membership.
For the moment, Mahima Puri has volunteered (or I at least I think she did) to create an OCSI running group in Delhi NCR for those of you who enjoy running. Please could you send me your names and mobile numbers separately to pass on to Mahima, if you are interested. Mahima can decide the route and duration depending on the response she receives.
Mr. Sumanjit Chaudhry, a past President, is giving a lecture on Wednesday, 19 September 2018 at the India International Centre, Seminar Room I to III on “Letters to Theo: The Art and Life of Vincent Van Gogh” at 6.30pm. This will be preceded by tea at 6pm. Additional details are set out in an e-mail Vikram had sent out on 2 September 2018. Please attend if possible.
We have arranged monthly drinks at The Oberoi Delhi. These will be held on the last Friday of each month from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Cirrus 9, the rooftop bar. The price, I’m afraid, is higher than what we have charged in the past for drinks but The Oberoi has promised to provide us with a good selection of alcohol and snacks, and with cooler weather setting in, I hope they will be very enjoyable. They have priced it at Rs. 3000 per head – this includes drinks and snacks (and even taxes). For those of you who only intend to stop by for a drink, you are welcome to order separately from the menu. The first event will be on Friday, 28 September. We will remind you closer to the time.
Yours sincerely,
Uday Walia
President
Uday Walia
President