Comfort Zone

Aug 05
A few days back I was speaking to a friend of mine . the conversation took place when I was heading home from work. Our conversation was desultory and followed the familiar lazy pattern of friends who know each other for a long time. I knew this person since we were in fifth class together. We have been meeting when I was on leave and otherwise kept in contact over the telephone, where ever I was posted .First by land line and l later by by mobile... While we were conversing I casually happened to mention that he should stop smoking and lead a healthy life. Imagine my surprise and shock when I came to know the next day that he was admitted to the hospital. When I recalled  that only the previous evening we were talking about health I felt bad .The upshot of this small episode was that people don't realise when they are having it good and refuse to step out of their comfort zone to do something differently. It is a situation when one has the strong urge to say " I told you so"- but one desists from such unnecessary theatrics....

Today was the second day with our banker and governmental agencies friends. The week was half over and we have just three days to know them better, AND who knows? Maybe establish a lasting relationship with them in times to come. One such person was MrNitish who was from IIFCO and the other  was Mr Kumhar who was from MP government. Both are nice enough people who by default me and Gurrapppu Jagdeshwar Rao came to know better by the simple fact that we were in the same group working on the presentation of Hyderabad Metro . While Mr Nitish had this capability of getting to the nub of the problem with minimum delay, Mr Kumhar was clear in his thought process and what to look for to establish a workable solution to the problem at hand - helped us to present our case to the class at the earliest.

Earlier in the morning we started off the proceedings with Mrs Usha Ramachandra, who was of the same pedigree as all other instructors in ASCI. Her thought process translated itself into an enlightening class on assessing projects and how we can analyse them to carry out mid course correction to a project ,if need be...The class was aimed at the bankers but we were also willing and enthusiastic participants. As is usual , when there is a lot to teach and there is a paucity of time the class had a time overrun resulting in delay for our lunch. Not that anyone was complaining considering the excellence of the teaching content...

Post lunch was devoted to a question and answer session or rather an interactive session with Mr Ramachandran - one among the long line of distinguished guest speakers an alumni of IIT Madras. He had a wealth of experience behind him , which was evident from the manner he handled the class for one and a half hours. The question and answer session extended into the tea break . By the time the speaker left we were still asking questions and he was still answering - or should we say counter questioning. I don't remember - we lost the plot somewhere along the way...

The Day ended with the heartening news that we would be back at the main campus from the next morning. Obviously some sort of solution was worked out between all the groups concerned. The beneficiaries were us students. Now that we were going back to the main campus we would surely miss the bracing air the Banjara hills campus. Oh how fickle the human mind is - but that is what life is all about - stepping out of your comfort zone  to achieve your goals...