My TEDxperience
So it all started from a routine day, in the morning we (me along with my room partners) woke up around 11, of cause missed a couple of lectures, nothing new for us obviously, I mean the hostelers. Someone was checking the calendar for a long weekend to go home (with a lot of hopes!) and suddenly a friend said NO! We’ve Renaissance and some conference as well just ahead so we’ll have to stay in A’bad and all our cheer converted into tension. Then while having breakfast (In the hostel we used to take breakfast together only), I asked what are the objectives and outcomes of the RENAISSANCE actually? I mean not only we people but what does it provide to our society? Some of them argued it helps us understanding lessons of management and all. Well Yes but what about the cost benefit I replied, another asked me do you have any better option? I said “Yes! TED!!!” We can have TED in BK. A few of them heard the word for the first time and I show them a video of ‘TED Talks by Yogendra Yadav’. He was speaking of the relevance and need of horizontal reservation policy in Indian society because we were discussing the same topic previous night. He talked about the philosophy of social justice and then I explained them the ideological difference among socialism, feudalism, utilitarianism, and deontology of Kant and they impressed! It was something they were not been taught till date in their mainstream formal education system. Someone told than let’s go ahead. Right on the table itself I opened the TED website and read rules and regulations. We can fit in the criteria of University TED event. A friend was also surfing for the same, suddenly he told Nirma has already organized one (Our academic competitors you know!) and it motivated us like anything. But our breakfast dishes were still full so you can just assume the state of mind! And that was all for the day.
Suddenly a week after I got a notification popup on my phone and it was ‘BK Notice Board 2017–19’, the message was somewhat like that ‘Hello class, Margie ma’am is planning to organize TED event in BK and called for a meeting 7 pm tonight those who’re interested can attend the same.’ MARGIE MA’AM, one such person whom I respect the most and that’s too with TED!!! That’s all I was going to attend it. All those 9–10 hostel friends came along. We reached the college and that’s too on time and for a meeting which was not going to give us attendance! It was like a shock for the regular students…
Brainstorming session
It was like a Triangular room with a long table in the middle, so ma’am and some students from evening batch were on one end of the table such as they were in the one corner of the triangle. Hey! Don’t make mistake to compare these students with us they were senior executives in corporate like CEOs and Directors and all. And on the other end of the table, we full-time students were there in a big number I mean somewhere around 30–40, we tried to adjust 3 in 2 seats and still few were standing. Ma’am started introducing us to the initiative and told that we can go ahead with the theme of leadership, It was something they decided in the evening class, all of us were comfortable with the same. Ma’am said we’ll have to go with TEDxGujaratUniversity instead of TEDxBKSBM due to the naming guidelines from TED itself. So now it was like we were asked to play in Lords instead of Feroz Shah Kotla! I said that’s great ma’am we can definitely go ahead with the name of Gujarat University (after all the oldest one in Gujarat). So the theme was final by the time and we were to decide on the tagline.
What can be the tagline which can connect our theme, subject, Indian culture that’s too with local emphasis and most importantly which can convince everyone’s minds. There were a few basic questions what language should we go for? How long should it be? Should we connect it to history? A suggestion came for Veda to virtues: It shows the evolution while connecting it to Indian culture and values but I objected upon the fundamental concept itself, I said If we want to connect the concept of leadership with Indian culture we should rather go up to Indus Valley Civilization after all it was quite higher developed as compare to pre-Vedic, Vedic and post-Vedic era. A few agreed and a few not. Someone tried to connect it to Chanakya: one who thought about creating “United India” and succeeded in his task. Someone else came up with a new concept of creating a hybrid word like Sanskormation i.e. संस्कार + transformation and a lot like that. One of the fans of Mr.PM came up with Leadership: Veda to Modi!!! I laughed, he has the liberty of thoughts and expressions but we as well. Most of us rejected it obviously. Than Akil one of my classmates came up with Leadership: An eternal journey. I sounded interesting to me personally. While discussing upon historical significance of the leadership we had come across the word ‘नेतृत्व’; and someone said how’s ‘नेतृत्व: An Eternal Journey’. I liked it but everyone there was not convinced but we’re in a democracy ultimately it is our responsibility convince others on our point. We tried so, still, there was some disagreement among us so ma’am said now let’s go for voting because there were 3 options with us first with Veda and something, the second one was combination of three different independent words and last one ‘नेतृत्व: An Eternal Journey’.
Ma’am started taking the vote now as per Indian convention voting used to be confidential but I said can we keep it public only. Someone cracked a joke on that, “Shall we have to vote on that as well?” Then I actually started lobbying in the backside of the room where we were sitting obviously we were more in number I told all my friend to vote for the third option. At that time it was more due to ‘anti-incumbency’ what we call in modern political terms, but later on, when we think of it we found it perfect. All these things we started on 7 I think, can you guess what time will that be when we’ve done with the fixing of theme? It was somewhere around 11 !!!! My phone was showing double-digit missed calls…
This was how we reached our theme. It was really an incredible experience, we learned fundamentals of the democracy, respecting others opinion and developing consensus with people with different ideologies. I’ll be thankful to Margie ma’am for giving us such a great opportunity to develop ourselves.
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