The Dabba Gang - Friendship Lives on!

Those were the days when we all worked from office much ahead of the pandemic.

The leadership of Infosys BPM at Pune DC would gather at the IBPM1 building almost everyday to have our meal together around 1.30 p.m.

Each of us would get our tiffin box from home lovingly prepared by our family. This 30 minutes became sacred for?this cross-functional leadership team not in some fancy special conference room but out there in the cafeteria - sometimes even searching for seats to eat our meal together.

Rule no 1 - "No Shop Talk during these 30 minutes". As we reached out for home made delicacies into each other's tiffin, we spoke about our weekends, our family, our experiences, our highs and our lows and at times we would also used this as an opportunity to solve some personal or work issues for a few moments just by talking about it. (Till someone made us aware to stop shop talk ?? ). Gradually this group began to be called the 'Dabba Gang'. And while the Dabba gang was informally formed much earlier, the present Dabba Gang (the Young Men's Group ?? ) WhatsApp group was created on 2nd August, 2015.

The Dabba Gang gradually not only began to meet for meals and chai in the office cafeteria but now also met at evening get-togethers outside of the office environment almost every second month and at times when a colleague who had traveled from?Bangalore or Delhi or from abroad. These evenings were made even more colourful with dim lights and a glass in hand.

And then the Pandemic wave hit us, staying in touch on call or virtually but missing our connect till we had some relaxation of the pandemic when we gathered for a morning breakfast with masks et al.

For all practical purposes the pandemic or attrition (from Infosys BPM) among the Dabba Gang members did not impact us in anyway. Some of our members also landed up in different cities within or outside the country but the connect has stayed on and is still alive, vibrant and kicking.

So what has kept us together all these years?

Yes, the common thread has been - Infosys, but is there something more to it?

I believe the glue to keeping us as one large group of colleagues has been the joy of friendship, the care and sensitivity that we share for each other, the fun moments and memories, the flexibility that we provide to each other in our relationship and finally the camaraderie that we experience on an ongoing basis - each one of us contributing to this glue - that has kept this group - this gang alive and kicking.

Cheers to the friendship of the Dabba Gang.

Rajesh Shetty , Chirag Buch , Amit Nagpal - Wholistic Leadership? Enabler , Sandeep Lal , Ghanshyam Singh , Sunil Kolte , Atul Kalburge Devesh Singh , mukesh kumar , Mahesh Sawant ; Prashant Kadam , Advait Lele , Jomon Mathew , Aseem Wadhwa , Ashish Verma Avnish Chauhan ; Suresh Subramanian , MANOJ PHATAK ; Mukesh Munjal .

And yes, we miss our Late Gopal Kulkarni

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