Another Year; Another Conference

I have conferences coming out of my ears now. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, another one the past week. Thankfully I managed to slime out after the first half day. I was happy I was there for the introductory exercise though, since it was at a University (and not some random hotel or an institute of higher learning - read- engineering geeks galore), they had the music department folk sing the invocation song, which rocked. They also had Vande Mataram and the National Anthem. In the first, the expectation was that the computer would play the song and we would hang out. But of course I could not stop myself and sang it loudly and others in the auditorium did as well (though many of the gentlemen did not know the lyrics, of course).

It was too cold for me. I have a scratchy throat as a consequence. I had to forego my initial urge to wear a sari - I would have frozen in it - and wear western, along with my fat Boston coat and shoes and socks. I still froze in the room after the first two very boring lectures by various people. Thankfully I was happy to hear someone say 'Its time to make some changes and stop treating this as an old boys network' I am sure he meant it in the sense of concentrating on impact and quality and so on, but I took it as a thing to do with the overwhelming gender bias in these places. Yeah, I was pretty much the only female (of my age), thankfully the younger, student generation had a reasonable number of girls.

One middle aged lady came up to me at lunch and started talking as if I (and pretty much everyone else in the world) should know her. I did not. But was trying hard to be polite. Then I finally connected the dots and figured out that she is the wife of this big shot type guy who spoke long and incoherently hard. I said, Oh you are Mrs. So and So. What a pleasure to meet you. And under my breath, "I should have seen the resemblance" It is true what they say. You marry someone and keep at it for a bit and you start to look like each other. Scary thought. Discussed it with the husband later that night, and though we laughed at my under the breath comment, both of us were worried about that possibility. In our case though, we will always have our one-foot-height difference so you can tell us apart. Plus he wears a lot more jewelery than I ever do. I have hope. And no, my friends and family reading this please do NOT comment on this matter now, it is too scary an idea.

We returned home very tired last night. Thankfully I recovered my energy by indulging in my lost pastime of cooking. I started with my usual recipe of a ton of veggies and ended in something I would like to call Veggie Blitz, which we polished off in the night. The monster insisted on steamed baby corn (yeah! finally she eats baby corn! my most-unimaginative, un-adventurous girl) and baby potatoes. I stuffed some of my Veggie Blitz with rice in as she read a book. And we had a special Matka Curd which was nice though a bit sour for me.

The Punjab experience in all was pretty nice. I liked the robust looking men, although a bit on the fair side for me (like its all up to me!!). The nip in the air was mostly nice, despite throat issues. We walked around and very FOB-ly commented that the 17th Sector Market looked like the Boston Common thingie. Minus the fire throwers and kids on skate boards, of course. A begging child I strongly felt the urge to take home and bathe (thankfully resisted such temptations). Punished the monster for bad behaviour by denying her some books she insisted she 'needs.' Annoyed a salesboy by buying men's running shorts for myself (why ever not? the women's things are all too pansy and pink for me).

And we are leaving in about an hour to Sunnier climes, hopefully I will run and not live to complain about the foot after that.

Happy New Year 2009 meanwhile to my gentle readers.

Networking..

I was at a two-day conference (all done now, uff). Thankfully it was here in Mumbai so at least I don't have to tear my hair out thinking about how to manage it all. These things are generally in Delhi or some such; I absolutely hate going to Northern parts in December as its so awfully cold there . I invariably look absurd as I end up needing to wear my thick American winter coat, Plus there is the whole deal with what to do with my girl and her school and her lunch and what not. Anyway December is the time for all such situations and I go to at least one every year. This year, I am glad that it happened here in Mumbai.

I am also reading, for some strange reason unknown to me, the book called 'never eat alone' (amazon's page). I strongly recommend you DON'T read it, its most ridiculous, but somehow I am unable to stop reading it (imagine having in your hands a very badly written murder mystery, its like that). I picked the book up (no idea by the way how it comes to be here in our house, I surely did not buy it) thinking that it has sound advice for new-age couples (Wow! in my heart I think I am young I guess!), and talks about work-life balance and so on. But it is not that at all! It is about this really scary concept called networking! Ugh!

He has a section called Conference Commando where he talks about how to make the best of a conference. I don't think he is completely wrong. I used to struggle with how to talk to people at these gatherings, most especially when I was looking for jobs and so on. I also generally like to do what needs to be done when at a conference. So this section was somewhat relevant I thought. The rest was all garbage because I thankfully don't seem to need to do the things he refers to (I would have quit my job in a heart beat if so!).

Anyway I was going to be at this soiree this week, and the topic came up in his book, so I read more and more of the book. He talks intensely and for reams of pages about how to build your network and how to fill your calendar, and the most important art of 'following up' after you first meet a person. Mostly he emphasises that rather than looking at the meeting as an opportunity to further your lot, you should try to make friends with the person and find mutual interests. Which is a good point, makes sense.

But somewhat mid-way in the book he reveals that his marriage broke up and that he was very upset about it. That is when I went, hmm, perhaps it happened because you were too focussed on filling your rolodex and paid less attention than you should have to a more important relationship. But whatever, marriages break up for a number of reasons and it is presumptuousness to think that it is because the person was too busy working. The thought does have a pleasing simplicity to it, though!

I go to this conference and am just sort of looking around. First tea break comes. I hang out by myself, soaking things in. Wondering what my agenda should be (and when I should break out so that I can make it back to my office for a meeting I don't want to miss). And this guy whom I know from another context has the gall to come up to me and say "shouldn't you be networking? talking to all these people?" Okay, deep breath here. I quickly retort "i am here, they are welcome to come and network with ME" which is all just bluster of course, I don't even know, just irritated with unsolicited advice.

In the end I cut away from him, sat separately, and talked to the two people I thought would have interesting things to say (one of them did, but then it also resulted in him almost convincing me to go to Chandigarh later this month blaaag it will be so cold there; and the other was a complete idiot and a waste of skin it turned out). And many people must have heard me say my cocky dialogue because I was collared by several people. So Ha! But I was still a bit irritated all of yesterday as I convinced myself that all the men together were collaborating in exuding a male smell. Just to make me feel alienated.

Today, the second day, started well. I was in a better mood and less worried about the smell (therefore, it was not there). And the annoying advice guy was late so I went off to the front of the room and was hanging out and listening to the talks and chatting up with a couple of people. Break time again, the guy walks up to me and goes 'Good Morning' Innocently I say Good Morning Are you doing okay Enjoying the talks etc. He says 'Did you just come?' Well, I could have just arrived. No big deal. I have bigger fish to fry. Perhaps. But you know, sometimes, there is a look, there is a tone. I was so done with this guy.

Other than that the day went real well, I learned a lot, I met some very nice people, which I did not expect. Many of the presentations were made well and everyone had interesting things to say. Again unexpectedly, I got a lot of questions on my presentation which meant that people were listening (despite the tough 3 pm post lunch slot I had). I have even wound up my notes from the conference - just blurbs on what various people want from us to pass on to my colleagues who could not attend- and made it back in decent time to pick up the girl from the creche.

Most importantly, I wore a sari and bindi and was all very comfortable although I had to spend the whole entire day in it. I wore a grey Mysore silk one which was a good choice all told...