The Tornado

From left to Right Mr Kumhar Mr S Anoop  Mr Sreekumar Mr Aggarwal Mr Vinay Kumar

Aug 06

Interaction with our civillian friends from various walks of life was drawing to a close . Five days of intense interaction from morning to evening - more precisely from 0900h to 1730h almost 40 hours was ending. Today was the penulmitate day of our togetherness -enough to develop lifelong relationships.We had milked this intense interaction for what it was worth. All that was going to remain tomorrow was images of what had happened during this period. For what it was worth we learnt more from the bankers and government officials than they did from us. It was an eye opener for us . Contrary to our expectations the meeting of diverse personalities was very pleasant. It started in the new campus and was going to conclude in the main campus. Banjo got time to be a part of this today. It was a pleasant feeling to be back in the familiar surroundings of the main campus after a four day hiatus. The day started off with a guest lecture by Sowjanya Bonda who spoke to us about the projects and the risks involved therein . But what touched us was her prefacing the class saying that she was proud to be associated with the services personnel.

All this was but a prelude to the storm that was brewing in the wings. If you remember in one of the past blogs we had interviewed a Fijian Police woman who said that her favourite lecturer was Prof Sachendra - and Ms Salinieta was right - we could see why ; Prof Sachendra walked into the class a few minutes late because the previous class had got delayed. He nevertheless apologised for this intransigence . That set the tone for the class. It was one of the most tempestuous classes ever. Prof Sachendra's constant refrain was " Can I continue like this ?" By now the class was caught up in his enthusiasm and in one voice roared its approval "YES" He was not a man who stood for mute assent and insisted in the class vocally agreeing (Or Disagreeing) to his questions. The topic for his discussion was 'learning from project failures'. The best thing was he took it as a personal challenge to ensure our comprehension lacing his lecture with lot of quotes like " Success thrills you because you haven't failed enough" and - also "Failure depresses you because you have not succeeded enough". That one class made our day. I could go on and on about the class but I would not be doing justice to the superlative teaching abilities of Prof Sachindra. Suffice it to say that with collective  agreement the class proceeded well into the lunch break.

The lunch itself was a muted affair as ASCI was having a lean period - for whatever reasons. Post lunch was devoted to preserving the memories of the one week interaction and the day ended again with a class on Project Structuring And Institutional Finance ably tackled by Mr D Shalem who is a PPP expert