Wonderful People

Met some wonderful people yesterday, a Sunday. In the morning, Uttamda was at our residence. Uttamda, one of my inspiration from childhood is more than a Vivekananda scholar. A great organizer, master of time management, he ran a series of article titled "What we can do" in our magazine named "Unmochan". They were truly gem and I wish they are made available to every young person. Great to see Uttamda after a long time who is now teaching Higher Secondary students at Chittaranjan Railway School. Uttamda asked when I am going to upload the ABVYM Annual Camp 2010 pics. It is not yet there in ABVYM website. A team from IITkgp that had three NSS officers, spent one afternoon there. Few pics are available here.

Next, rushed to CEC community hall at about 12:30 p.m. There was a one day program arranged by Vivekananda Study Circle which runs a weekly study circle at F-127, Institute Main Building every Tuesday from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and has taken up developmental work in a nearby tribal village, named Soladahar. Chiranjeev Maharaj from Deoghar centre of Ramakrishna Mission came along with Dipak Maharaj and others. Chiranjeev Maharaj came several times before and inspires this group a lot. There was reading from Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, song, Q & A, presentation of work carried out by study circle. It was great to see young study circle members doing work so sincerely where work is treated as worship.

As soon as this meet ended, arrived at Kalidas Auditorium at quarter to five. There was a TEDx event on "Ideas worth spreading". Announced in NSS bulletin board .. if we get some idea here for NSS, IIT Kharagpur to pursue. The event started at 3 p.m. and I missed nearly the entire first half. The speakers were talking in turn and taking Q&A from audience. Five lucky persons asking questions would get an opportunity to dine with the eminent speakers. This I highlight for some special reason. Our favourite in Signals & Systems class, Gopich.. was one of the lucky five. We congratulated him when his name was announced. He was quite surprised but I as an instructor of the class was not, having faced volley of questions from him, class after class :-) since January beginning. Gopi, are you listening?
 

Coming back to the TED event, it was great to hear Dr. P. Anandan of Microsoft, Srinivas Mohan, Visual Effects Director, our own student Manoj Mandelia who is turning innovation to start-up, Ashutosh & Swapnil duo of Tata Jagriti. While all spoke very well about the work they are doing, somehow I failed to connect with the theme of the conference "Ideas worth spreading". However, Srinivas Mohan briefly touched his life's journey, the struggle towards excellence for a  college drop out. It was truly inspiring. I was looking for his biography in the net. All I get his work but not him. The presentation by Swapnil & Ashutosh brought out what they wanted to tell about Jagriti Yatra in a very, very professional manner. It talked about outlay and not much about outcome. Probably, time was short and it needs some more time to see the outcome. All in all, it was nice to be with these set of wonderful people through out the day. I was honoured to be called by the organizers to hand over mementos to these distinguished speakers at the end of the function together with another professor. Pics of this Sunday and another wonderful Sunday in January, 2011 at my old place of work can be found here.

Here, I got the second referral of 2011, 'Senior Professor' during my introduction to the stage. This follows 'Active Blogger' of IEEE Techsym. While the first connect me to the older generation, the second one with the younger ones. Remember the dilemma in one Amul Advertizement : I am too old for something, too young for something else, but right for Amul Milk Chocolate. Till then let me cherish life, the delicious!