On Sunday May 20^th, 2018, Pranav officially graduated from West Aurora High School. The graduation ceremony was held at Northern Illinois University at DeKalb. Pranav decided to attend Kelley School of Business and Indiana University in Bloomingdale for his under graduate program. As part of the celebration of his graduation we had a small get together of family and friends on Saturday, May 19^th at Hyderabad Biriyani place in Aurora. Achutty Chettan and Chedathy Amma came on Thursday, May 17^th and helped us to organize this party. Surendran, Vijayam and Supriya came on Friday, May 18^th. Uduchettan from Fort Wayne and Preetha’s cousin Mahesh from San Francisco came over on Saturday afternoon.  Our friends Praksah, Sree and Satish, Achutty Chettan, Chedathy Amma, Supriya and Sunitha helped throughout the day to get the function organized. Surendran acted as the MC and the program started with prayer song by Sangeetha. Then Kuttan, Preetha, Uduchettan and Achutty Chettan gave short speeches. Pranav made a short thank you speech. The high light of the day is the beautiful music in violin by Praneeth. Sangeetha, Dr. Surya, Surendran and Shobha also sang beautiful songs.

Here are some pictures and videos from the function.

Thank you once again for all for making this a wonderful, memorable and  fun filled weekend.

Kuttan's Welcome Speech

Good evening Friends and Family,

We are here today to celebrate a special occasion in our lives – the graduation of our dear son ‘Pranav’. We welcome all of you to this celebration. Most of you here know Pranav from the time of his birth. All of you have contributed in many ways for his upbringing and helped to shape him into a fine young man that he is today. Pranav is going to attend Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington.

                       

At this time, I want to thank Sujay and Sashi who guided him in the college admission process. Thanks to Sree, Prakash and Sathish for helping us organize this party, Sangeeta for the prayer song , and Praneeth who has taken time to be here in the middle of his classes to entertain us with his fantastic violin performance . My special thanks to my cousin Mohan Menon from Fort Wayne, my brother Achutty chettan, chedathy amma, my twin sister Vijayam and my brother in law Surendran from CA, Preetha’s cousin Supriya from NJ, Cousin Mahesh from SFO, and Preetha’s sister Sunitha all  the way from Chennai, India.

Now I am handing over the mike to Preetha who will say a few words.

Preetha's Speech

Good evening everyone. Wow!!! where did the time fly? We look at you and wonder where have the years gone? What happened to our yesterday’s? Today as you graduate one chapter in life is closed another about to begin. There will be times, when you feel overwhelmed but do not to give up.

When you were a little boy we have held your hand, guided you, protected you as best as we could, the time has come for us to let go now. There is some pain in that, still there is also a wonderful sense of pride and accomplishment.

On the first day of every school year, every year has been milestone for you and us. I remember I cried the day I first dropped you off at preschool. I was sad to leave you in the care of another. I decided to stay in the parking lot until your class was over.  We have always given you the freedom to make your choices whether it was about your choice of classes, the sports you wanted to play, or what extracurricular activities you wanted to do.

Pranav has been a very focused and determined in all his school years and in whatever he chose to do and we are proud. In the early years of school Pranav had many great ambitions in what he wanted to become. Here are a few. When he was in second grade during that year Christmas holidays he told us his dream job was to become a postman delivering mail. We asked him why? His answer was he will be getting so many Christmas gifts. As the grade school year passed he wanted to have his own landscaping company. His focus was to make money and get rich. Then he became more serious and realized that these are really not something he wanted to do and the reason was involved hard labor.  A few more years passed and his interest in space, Astronomy grew and wanted to become an astrophysicist that made us immensely happy. But somewhere down the years the influence of Kuttan and his uncle’s influence in sports grew and he wanted to become a sports manager. His knowledge in sports and statistics grew and still dreams to manage a team or work for ESPN.

Pranav has made us proud in all his accomplishments. His keen interest in Math has allowed him to represent his school for several math competitions. He played varsity tennis. He was awarded the bilteracy seal award. He was treasurer of DECA, a business club. He was awarded the Illinois Scholar award for his GPA and test scores. His high school also awarded the excellence in education and was recognized for achieving the rank of top five percent.

You stand before us on this day ready to step into a new chapter of your life. We wish you the strength to face challenges with confidence. So take hold of our dreams and no matter what don’t let go. Want to thank all our friends and especially Leena for giving Pranav and us all the tips and how to survive high school. For no one could be prouder of the person you have become and that is why we are confident the best is yet to come. We love you and wish you the very best.

Achutty Chettan's Speech

Good evening Family and Friends

On June 09, 2000, we were at the Pasadena Rose Bowl taking Sandhya to a concert by her favorite boy band N Sync when we got the call from Kuttan that Preetha is in labor and going to hospital. We are so glad that the bundle of joy that was born the next early morning is graduating today.

Pranav, if I remember correctly, your cousins from CA – Priya , Sandhya , Arun and Ajay are the ones who nicknamed this millennium boy kuttooose. May be the Mexican influence in CA that made them coin this name of kuttoose to little baby kuttan like Tequito for the little Taco.

Sandhya was hoping you will be an excellent musician like her NSync idols, instead you have turned out to be a sports wizard in addition to your academic excellence. I have never seen anyone who knows so much about sports , especially sports statistics. I tried my best to learn a lot to challenge you, but miserably failed. I heard that your Udu valiachan also tried a lot but had to give up since you are like a sports Wikipedia.

Pranav, it is time now to say Bye bye bye like the N Sync song to the school and enter the next chapter of your life in college. We are sure you will do very well.

 On behalf of the entire family, I wish you the very best always, We are proud of your achievements and Congratulations…..