It was in the early days of WhatsApp that the a few classmates belonging to the batch of 1975 decided to form a WhatsApp group called the Old Boy's Association (OBA). In the first week, there were only six members, but soon word spread and the number swelled to thirty. And then the students of the other divisions were admitted. It was just a matter of weeks that the number crossed two digits. Encouraged, the admin threw open the forum to all the alumni of the school. They were all strung together by the common thread of the alma mater.
By the time I joined the group, it already had more than three hundred members from as far away as the US in the west and Japan in the east, but predictably, the majority was India-based. Members
belonged to different generations: while I was from the batch of 1961, I learnt from the profiles that some were decades senior to me and some were as recent as 2019.
The camaraderie of the members and the good cheer that they spread had to be seen to be believed. One did not mind the fact that one had to earmark a chunk of one's leisure hours to delete the inevitable good morning and good night messages, birthday greetings (though merely a crisp HBD in many cases) and anniversary wishes.
They shared stories of the pranks they played in and out of the school campus, posted some old group photos and referred to teachers by their nicknames. Many wrote nostalgically about their teenage crushes and rued the fact that they were destined to grow up.
Soon, there was an issue: there was a disconnect when the seniors went through the posts of juniors as they could not even understand the lingo some of them used. Likewise, the juniors could not enjoy the dialogue between two seniors as the topics discussed and the personalities featured had retired long before.
So the admin found it expedient to form a few subgroups: OBA 1940s, OBA 1950s, OBA 1960s and so on till OBA 2010s, the number denoting the decade in which one left the school. Thus I belong to the OBA 1960s group. Obviously, the OBA 1940s and the OBA 1950s groups were small compared to the others and the 2010s was the largest — and most vibrant.
Inevitably, sooner than later, people got fed up regurgitating old tales and started looking for new stuff. They shared jokes and cartoons, news clippings and forwards, memes and trolls, videos and songs. Though not related to the school days, they were interesting nevertheless. Motivational talks, health-related articles, advice on wealth management too made frequent appearance. The traffic in the group became dense, with devotional songs and talks by religious leaders, patriotic slogans and political pieces becoming regular fare.
Some members opined that as everyone may not be interested in all these, it is not fair to burden EVERYONE with ALL posts. The admins (by then, there was a team of admins instead of one) formed a few new groups dedicated to different areas — OBA Music, OBA Health, OBA Jokes, OBA Religion, OBA Politics, OBA Literature, OBA Wealth, etc. One was free to join multiple groups depending on one's interest, but cross-posts (Homoeopathy posts in, say, OBA Literature, for instance) were a strict no-no.
But then there was a problem: those who enjoy Semmangudi and Amjad Ali Khan found it difficult to co-exist with fans of Metallica and Pink Floyd. Votaries of vegan food could not stomach the recipes of Mutton Yakni and devilled venison. The puritans among the book-loving community found discussions on some works by certain authors distasteful.
The admins were up against a wall. The problem that the members were facing was genuine and serious. So the roped in some volunteers from different interest-groups to act as admins of new groups formed for the different segments. At the last count, OBA had 127 groups, some representational names being OBA 1980s, OBA Ghazals, OBA BeeGees, OBA Yunani, OBA Trinamool, OBA Harry Potter, OBA Dark humour, OBA Hrithik Roshan, OBA Bobanum Molleyum, OBA Nihilism, OBA CPM, OBA Bailey's Irish Cream, OBA Tintin, OBA Porn, OBA Theosophy, OBA Harley Davidson, OBA Indore Gharaana, OBA Space Science, OBA UPSC Exams and OBA Kosher food.
This works! I am a member of only eleven of them which hold my interest.
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