MPMAANA- A Brief History

    By Rajesh Kakani, MD

In 1965, new immigration law allowed, Indian physicians to migrate to the USA.

Brief History of GRMC Gwalior Alumni Association:

It was first formed in 1987 and was registered as a non-profit organization. First meeting was held on 6/2/88 at Penta (now Pennsylvania) hotel in New York city. The founding members were:
Drs. Om P. Sharma, L.K.Parashar, Mahesh C. Gupta, Ramesh Gupta and Krishan Khandelwal. Past presidents were Drs. O.P. Sharma (89-91), L.K.Parashar, (91-93), M.C.Gupta (93-95) , K.C. Agarwal (95-97), L.Bohra (97-99), A. Gupta (99-01), S. Anand (01-03), J Rangappa (03-05), C. Agarwal (05-07).

When MP Medical Alumni Association of North America was formed. GRMC alumni members unanimously voted to join the M. P. Alumni association.

Brief history of MGM Indore Alumni:

MGM Medical College Indore Alumni had their reunions. Leaders included Drs. Raman Patel, Radhu Agrawal, Satish C. Vyas, Sachchidanand Kaveeshvar, Shrikant Rishi, Suresh Agrawal, Mahesh Agrawal, Manmohan Patel, Vijay Maurya and others.

MGM reunion was organized by a “Gram Sevak”, who was in-charge of site selection and all the details. If there was a financial crunch, elders at the end of the reunion contributed to make up for the loss. Excess money was passed on to next year ‘s organizer.
MGM reunions used to be a family affair. They were hosted around the weekend of August.15th. The function started on Thursday evening and lasted till Sunday morning. Friday was a Picnic Day. On Friday evening children and adults performed. On Saturday afternoon there used to be a cruise. Saturday evening was a paid professional performance. Indian food was served.

1999 Dr. Manmohan Patel in Lake George, NY.
2000 MGM reunion, organized by Dr. Vijay Maurya in Atlanta.
2001 MGM reunion, organized by Dr. Poseria in Ohio.
2002 MGM reunion, organized by Dr. Subhash Balaney in a suburb of Chicago.

A printed directory used to be published. Invitations used to be by “snail mail” and by phone calls
Around that time yahoo email was freely available. Yahoo had also allowed us to create a “Yahoo group”. In that reunion the attendance was slightly low. It was felt that the organizer. would lose less money if the attendance was better. It was then decided to merge the Alumni of Gwalior and Indore for better management.
I discussed this extensively with Dr. Satish Anand, Anil Gupta, Kishan C. Agarwal and Dr. Jajoo and others.

We took advantage of Yahoo group and started the year-round conversation with both Indore and Gwalior groups.

In 2002, as a representative of MGM alumni I went to the GRMC alumni reunion in Atlantic City. Both alumni agreed to host the next reunion together. It was decided that the two teams would host alternate years.
MGM reunions were moved to early August to accommodate the ability to drop kids to College.

2003 reunion was hosted in Niagara Falls Canada by Dr. Suhas Joshi (Indore) and his wife. Indore and Gwalior Alumni attended. It was then decided to invite Alumni of other medical colleges as well.

2004 reunion was hosted in Norfolk Virginia by Gwalior Alum Dr. J Rangappa. As a host for the following year, I assisted him. That was the first reunion in which alumni from all medical colleges of MP were invited. MPMAANA was in its inception.

Sonali and I hosted the 2005 reunion in a resort in the Catskills region of New York. It was felt that the time was right to create a FORMAL combined MP Medical alumni association of North America. It was also felt that having an organization would be the right thing to do. Since a significant amount of money is collected for reunion and spent, it would be the right thing for tax reporting purposes.

Several senior MGM alumni strongly felt that this would dilute the feeling of family reunion. A big concern was raised, that this organization will then have elections and politics. It would also become and have problems like national AAPI. In other words, there was skepticism.

2006 reunion was held at Marriott in Toronto Canada organized by Dr. Vinod Bharadwaj.

2007 Reunion was hosted in Atlantic city by Anil Sharma. I think that was the largest attendance of any reunions.

Birth of MPMAANA:

We started the process of creating and finalizing bylaws of the organization. Dr. Kishan C. Agarwal took the lead. He is a perfectionist with impeccable recordkeeping.

In 2008 bylaws were adopted and the organization was created. An account was opened at Fidelity. We also received 501(c) charity status.
GRMC alumni Association agreed to pay life membership dues of MPMAANA for all its members. Thus, all GRMC alumni Association members immediately became life members of MPMAANA. Other alumni paid by check and became life members.
2008 Reunion was organized by Dr. Chandrahas Agarwal in Orange County California.

The 2009 reunion was a four-day cruise from New York to St. John Canada. (Organized by Rajesh Kakani). To increase participation, this was done in partnership with Dr. Jayesh Shah of national AAPI. Thus, this was the beginning of CME tours organized by national AAPI.

2012: Dr. Nigam agreed to serve as president after me. He hosted a wonderful reunion in Myrtle Beach, SC.

2015: Dr. Devendra Shrivastava agreed to serve as president after Dr. Nigam. He organized the cruise to the Bahamas.
We then had a big pause.

In 2019, Dr. Vijay Maurya stepped up and agreed to serve as president and organize the next reunion. Dr. Aneeta Jain Gupta agreed to serve as secretary. Dr. Maurya planned the reunion for 2020. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, it was postponed to 2021 in Atlanta.

Dr. Devendra Shrivastava has been managing the account held at Fidelity.
For the last several years, Mr. Rajeev Kaul CPA has been kind enough to file the annual tax returns of the organization, without charging a single penny.

2022: Reunion was organized by Dr. Vanita Kaul with support from Dr. Parmanand Gurnani

2023 reunion will be held in Charlotte, NC, organized by Dr. Aneeta Jain Gupta.

I (Rajesh Kakani) first attended the reunion in Lake George, organized by Dr. Manmohan Patel. When I first came to the USA, one of my best friends was (and is) Dr. Anil Gupta who is a Gwalior Alumni. Through him, I also came in contact with other Gwalior alumni, especially Dr. Kishan C. Agarwal, Dr. Satish Anand, and Dr. KK Jajoo.

-Respectfully Submitted
-Rajesh Kakani