ESA presents ....

ESA is short for "Energy Students Association" our departmental consortium ... somehow indirectly I am a council member of ESA (lets not get into the complications Y is it indirect).

ESA has not been doing good last year ... there were absolutely no activities ... even the pride of ESA the "Energy Day" was not credited to it this year ... As I said earlier lets keep the complications out as to Y ... but rather concentrate on facts ...

So me a member and indirect council member of ESA could take it no more ... I arranged a talk by our distinguished alumnus Mr Girish Sant of Prayas. Check more about him here. Now unfortunately due to lack of his dates .. the chosen time was 10 am Sunday morning ... trust me a very bad time ... any one who has arranged talks will know ... but there was not much I could have done.

Finally the proud moment arrives for me to announce " ESA presents talk on ....". I have been anticipating this day for some time. The talk was supposed to start at 10 am. Around 11 am a minuscule 20 gathered as audience of which 5 were definitely not students ... they seemed too old ... may be some people concerned abt sustainablity ... I think I had managed some good advertisement with the ESA presents stuff. But 20 in a room capable of 200 was too embarassing.

So after the talk was over and I was pondering whether I did manage to beat Prof X class' attendance, the worst ever reported, Mr Girish offered to buy me n my buddies some tea. We discussed some real good stuff. I think we r really lucky to have had the chance to sit with him and talk about the core issues our society faces. After some 45 mins of intense discussion when we were taking leave I finally said what I had to ... "Sorry for the poor attendance Sir"

Mr Girish looks at me ... smiles ... and then says "it happens ... more so on Sunday mornings ... by the way ... in 1988 when I was of your age I had arranged a talk on AIDS awareness in the campus, I thought the news would spread like wild fire. But on the day only 4 ppl turned up ... the speaker, me, my frnd and the slides man" .... We burst into laughter and so ended a remarkable meeting ...

PS: I am working on implementing the discussions we had then ... I know I wont fully succeed but I can definitely make a start ... and besides earning some fame for ESA it might change some lives for good and that would make all the difference.