PU global alumni meet: When social media platforms helped reconnect long lost friends
Social media was flooded with images of the illuminated alumni house in the university.
Once you lose track of friends it’s not very easy to get in touch with them again, but today, Facebook and WhatsApp are connecting people from across the world, as demonstrated by Panjab University (PU) alumni attending the institute’s first-ever global alumni meet. Some of them say they got to know about the event only through social media.
“We have a WhatsApp group of our friends called bichre dost (separated friends),” says 34-year-old Zorawar Singh, who graduated from the public administration department. Some 40-odd batchmates, who are connected with that group, have now decided to host a reunion at the alumni meet.
Sukriti Kumar 39, who studied in the English department, is connected through batchmates via Facebook. “When we got to know about the alumni meet I sent a message to my friends and we decided to attend it,” she says.
Abdul Raza, 32, a former student of the chemistry department, feels that “social media has a lot of influence when it comes to spreading information. I got to meet most of my friends as all of us got to know about the dates and time of the reunion through social media,” he says.
In fact, many prominent PU alumni took to social media to tweet and post news on the alumni meet.
Nisha Bhargava, principal of MCM DAV College, messaged all the MCM alumni on their WhatsApp group. “We ought to be there to show how we become great when we belong to a great institution.”
Social media was further flooded with images of the illuminated alumni house in the university.
For Neha Sehgal Kumar, this was the right moment to fly down to India from Johannesburg in South Africa. “It’s because of Facebook and WhatsApp that I got to know about this meet and decided to attend,” she says.