Hey Wassup

Some time since I wrote the last time and trust me, a lot has happened since then. The most exciting thing being " Chamkile Bakre ki kahani".

I am refering to the 15 day acting workshop conducted by Vineet Kumar at Lodhi Road. The experience was just fantastic. I was always interested in acting and other aspects of making and designing a story and therefore through this workshop wanted to see for myself if my interest is actually sustainable. After having spent the 15 days designing and acting in a theatre play, I am convinced that this certainly is one of my interest areas. And now, I do have plans to pursue it. How?? I am yet to figure out but hopefully will do that in some time from now.

But as far as the workshop is concerned, the learnings were far beyond just the techniques of theatre. Theatre in true sense can teach you a lot about life as well. You make rules only to break them. You set benchmarks only to take the next step. You become a totally different person while on stage, you can solve your life's issues by being a part of the world of theatre. I feel it may be an illusion but it is amazing.

For i-dream, product development is still in progress. Rerceived some flak for a few sessions last week. I have tried to make up for it in today's session by including activities and live examples. Still waiting for the feedback though. At the same time however, we now need to start working aggresively on the marketing side. The target is to sign up atleast 10 schools by this year end. Anushree is doing a good job by developing some positive leads and we are hopeful that we would be able to sign up a few of them.

My i-pod is happy and is singing along, " Band baje hai conutry ka..haa band baje hai ki country ka". After all, its chamkile bakre ki kahani. Enjoy!

Sir, May I go to toilet!

Imagine you are standing in front of 50 students from class VI to class VIII and this is what happens to you in the next one hour:

" Sir, may I go to the toilet"

"Sir, may I go to drink water"

"Sir, may I go an wash my hands"

"Sir, he is beating me and she is throwing pens at me"

"Sir, may I do my Maths homework"

"Sir, he has stolen my pencil box"

"Sir, Kalpana Mam is calling me"

"Sir, I need to go for basketball practise"

I do not know at the end of if, how would you react but I pulled out all my hairs. So much so that I had to then rush to a barber to get it all fixed up to avoid any further embarrassment. But, this is exactly what I have been through in the first few days since we have started our program. The good news however is that now I can claim that i-dream is underway. We have officially signed up our first school and began working in it since August.

However, the challenge as I had expected is huge. There are students who are just not interested in listening. These are those with typical Kya Farak Padta Hai attitude. Teachers and friends tell me, there will always be such students in every class. My argument: they are all equally capable, how can we inspire them to do extraordinary things in life. The challenge is more so when it comes to doing something for the environment because even the top 20% students need to be inspired equally. We will try but only time will tell if we can crack this up or not.

As far as i-dream is concerned, we are working full steam to get all the content in place. These days, I am not doing much of sales and involved only in content development and delivery. Once all our content is ready which should happen by end of September, we will go ahead with our sales plan. We would then need some good quality trainers as well.

Another latest is that, I have joined a theatre society in Delhi and will be attending their 15 day workshop beginning this sunday. Now I know, PP and Rashmi would yell their favourite words at me, " Nautanki". But I am sure, it would be interesting and fun.

It is finally raining in Delhi now and my i-pod says, " maine pehli baar mohabbat ki hai, maine aakhri baar mohabbat ki hai." Enjoy