Happy Birthday Yuva!

Posted by : Priti(Sathe) Gadgil

Tomorrow (11 June 2008) Yuva enters its teens...13 years have passed since Yuva started as a group of teenagers (more like childhood friends) coming together to do something worthwhile in life! I feel so happy and proud to be a Yuva-ite, having being there right from (well almost) the beginning...

I have this big bag of Yuva material at home... old yuva badges, yuva entry forms, yuva-tshirt, "yuva-uwach", the Yuva constitution, logs of the various trips, pamphlets of the fund-raiser we'd organized after the Kargil war, the sports fest organized in Mandal, the blood donation camp conducted in Mandal, the many days we've spent with the orphanage kids, the "social work" trips to Dabgoli, the innumerous treks, yuva meetings, yuva parties, yuva album, AGPs and later e-AGPs (guys, you wouldn't know the fun we've had here! ;-)), stories of "ghyaa", YSP programmes, yuva at ganpati - fun at the hall decoration, overnight natak practices -- memories making me feel very very nostalgic!!

Yuva has been a platform to showcase one's talent (in whatever field it may have been) and mostly a place where friendships have been cemented. It has seen generations of people come and go. Yuva has stood the test of time on many occasions and i only wish to see it grow. I still am in touch with some ex-Yuva friends who still vouch strongly for Yuva as "Yuva has been the best thing that happened to me in my life"!