Memoir Posted by Surya Kolluri
I invoke this to pay tribute to Prof. Babu, Chitra, Kamala, Swarna, Arch, Susee, Joe, Ganesh and the list goes on. Each one of you added special meaning and value by acknowledging the effectiveness of this event. Prof. Babu's being powerful as an objective observer, Chitra's being effectively the vote of thanks, Swarna's most interesting as always, Kamala's the most complete and so on. My take is going to be limited in many ways. I am not an objective observer like Prof. Babu. I did not attend all four days like Kamala. I don't have the sparkling repartee of Swarna. Thus I invoke like the chant above, take strength and borrow from your observations and photographs and offer my glimpses into Silver Streak.
These are glimpses like perhaps an impressionistic painting. What I mean is that when you stand close to an impressionist painting you just see dabs of paint. But when you step back the picture becomes clear and each dab of paint adds vibrancy to the palette. It is my hope that this write-up provides just the same.
Glimpses of Silver Streak
The build up was furious, hot and heavy to our class' 25th year re-union since graduation - billed cleverly as Silver Streak (an apparent reference to the streaks of grey on certain distinguished male classmates' hair). I had not resisted pumping some items like a quiz and a discussion on ethics into the PSG Tech 86 Yahoo group even as I was on my way to the plane from Newark to Delhi. As I alighted the plane late Friday morning at CBE airport, I was imagining the fun that was already had with the movie the night before and the first meet and greet that was happening on the main grounds of the college campus.
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| Hi there! Tell me about your family....... |
I stood flummoxed at the airport wondering what to do. My friend Srinath and I were already texting each other. He asked me to jump into a cab and I waded through a sea of people to a friendly cabbie. I love cabbies (have you read my Taxi Drive entry when I was in Charlotte?). We got chatting right away. I needed to practice my circa 1986 Tamil you see. I could not spot a lot of things along the way to the college, but made out just a few.
My dear additional hostel, where I has spent 15 years, was not visible from Avinashi road. I did spot Sudha's old house (and I promised to myself that if anything I would have a one-on-one chat with her during this meet). I also spotted the entry to Krishnammal, the girls college. That evoked fond memories (ahem, we won't go there).
Some large trees hid the vista to the 'blue building' to the left. But as I peered at it, it no longer appeared blue. But I briefly did glance at the grounds behind, where I had played many a cricket match. Presently the cab pulled into the college at the circle. I thanked the cabbie and I think he was surprised when I shook his hands firmly, and lugged the bags to the assembly hall as directed by Srinath.
Then I saw the man! The event manager. I had no idea what he had in store for us. I just exchanged pleasantries with him. He grew fidgety as I continued my conversation with him. He gave me my stuff and as I was in mid-sentence hustled me up the stairs.
Although a bit lost, I continued my trek up two floors and saw a wonderful sight - MLA on the cell phone. I don't think I ever saw MLA the rest of Silver Streak without a cell phone. God bless you friend!
From that point on I was swallowed into Silver Streak. It was a transcendental experience for me. On the flight back I was asking myself why this was so. I have been to the 15th re-union at my business school in Philadelphia. I have been to many conferences around the world. I have organized and facilitated plenty of sessions at clients as a consultant and at my own organization now - fairly high profile. But this one took the cake. Why?
Then slowly some layers started unfolding in my mind. It is these layers that I would like to share with you. Layers that contribute to making Silver Streak a transcendent event.
10. Posters
When we were bandying around the name for the event and some ideas were flowing back and forth for Silver Streak, I quite enjoyed everyone's input into the naming, the scheme, the coloring etc. In terms of honoring the right person or right persons, my memory is now faint. So please you'll jump in with all the right people to be recognized for their contribution in creating this wonderful logo.
Logo is a symbol representing a truth. The Cross is a symbol. The Indian Flag is a symbol. When one sees a symbol, one should not only be pleased with its aesthetics, but should be transported to the reality it represents. When we as a class created our symbol, it was with an idea of what it represents and who it represents. But with the actual event, the symbol has been assigned its truth for us the classmates and for our families.
I was having a brief one-on-one with Nanda on the grounds of Black Thunder, and I said to him, 'we may not have time to talk in depth, but I want to thank you for organizing this event, and also the posters were amazing - both at the evening before and at the Black Thunder event.' He immediately asked me if I noticed the one at the college entrance, which I also had seen.
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| Logo on Stage at Black Thunder |
The color scheme, the shadows the way the letters go into and out of the inner circle are all well done. And the ability to create such massive boards in two different schemes was just in itself a magnificent job!
It was very clever of Joe Francis, then to make a game out of the letters for our female classmates to play. And the winner 'E'swar!! :-)
There is more to say here - the logo and attendant descriptions hit the papers in English and Tamil in a big way. The event made a splash!
9. Logistics
Ferrying 200+ folks all over CBE is not an easy task. Whether it was airport pickups, as Susee has mentioned, or bus rides from the Hotels to the resorts, or from Campus to the Hotels, the arrangements were flawless.
One's head explodes just thinking of all the possible miscues that could have happened with this, particularly given that many were there with families.
It is said of war, that logistics win battles. If you cut off the supply lines, the army has nothing to fight with. Well, in this 'battle' logistics was king - and was handled in such a way that it receded to the background.
8. Agenda
A four day agenda! What do you stuff this with?? I am not at all concerned that there were not enough activities to fill 5 days. But 4 days is a lot by any standards and to sustain the energy through that much time is pretty difficult.
Starting with a movie night was a brilliant idea. I am sorry I missed the chance to yell 'once more,' once more - but I am sure it was done. A great way to get everyone comfortable right away.
Everything from giving shawls as gifts to professors, visiting Dr. KV at his house, Prof. Nair's speech and mix and match of events was quite creative.
One of the great challenges of a well organized event is to keep the energy high, mix and match the events, keep people on the move and give more time for interaction and less time for speeches etc. The agenda accomplished all that with elan.
7. Resorts and Accommodations
To be honest, I did not know what to expect in terms of either hotels or resorts. I had a faint impression from the MGM Grande resort in Chennai (and I have fond memories of smoking cigars on the beach there!)
There is a worry here I imagine for our organizer friends. If we went way too upscale for the hotel, we would dry up the budget in a nanosecond. If we did not, the experience might have a nick. So what to do?
Well, fellas - you did great! Both locations and quality were fabulous and Black Thunder in particular was a terrific location.
I had to catch up with my family friends before coming to Black Thunder and I rented a car from the hotel to do so. As we were driving to Mettupalayam, I kept looking at the Nilgiris. Now, I grew up looking at the Nilgiris all my early life. So the contours of the mountains were very familier. In particular, the lone peak with a slaten jutt at top is a familiar sight to me and I felt a stirring deep in me when I connected with that sight.
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| View of hill on the way from CBE |
6. Campus
Like Venkat said in his eloquent write-up for the papers, we all came into campus as doe-eyed youngsters and spent our formative years there. Thus for us, the buildings speak to us and evoke a special connection that another would not understand, just as much as we would not if we visited another campus.
We spend all our lives searching for our identity. Heaven knows, that we need the rest of our lives to even have a chance at cracking that mystery.
But we have learnt in engineering that you temper steel by alternately heating and cooling it. Similarly in the journey of self-discovery, we need to occasionally return to places that will re-infornce our foundations. Re-visiting the campus serves that purpose.
And of course being in the company of 200+ classmates and family members ensures that the foundation is not only re-infornced but cemented!
It is time to switch gears in this write-up. If you notice the 5 layers I have described until now, they are 'hard' layers - such as logistics, agenda etc. That is the skeleton. That is the structure. Now to bring this frame to life, we need the soft stuff. The sinews, the mind and the life-force.
The next five layers are then going to be the soft stuff - not to be mistaken for weak. But the soft stuff that makes the Silver Streak event come to life!
5. Inclusiveness
True, we were too young to have families when we were in college. But in the 25 years that have passed since, our priorities have shifted. We all have families, and that, it might be safe to say, is our top priority.
By the way, let me join Kamala and her note to say it was a delight to meet all the family members. I myself put myself in a ditch a couple of times. Here is one story in that regard.
I wake up early (do you guys know that?!!). Anyway, I was stuffing my mouth with an idli at the hotel at breakfast very early in the morning, when Mohan and his family came it. This was surreal. How in the world does one see Mohan at 630 am (unless of course he had not slept the night before). In any case he had picked up his family that morning from the train station. So we joined up at breakfast and started chatting. Presently I found out that there was a connection between when my wife grew up and Mohan's family as well. And then I was asked where my wife went to school and college in Mumbai. I was horrified that my mind was a blank. I very sheepishly, later that day exchanged texts with Mini to extract this information. I am now very glad to say I remember the information (ahem, since it is on my text log!).
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| Wow! |
The point I want to draw out from both Kamala's observation and my story above is that the Silver Streak event went out of the way to make the agenda inclusive. I shudder at the thought that the event could have turned inward only to be about us classmates. But the level of inclusiveness was tremendous - spouses and kids. There is not better proof of this than Prof. Babu's note to us.
4. Engagement
Either because one is shy or reserved, or because of a wait and watch attitude, folks could have sat back and let the proceedings come to them.
But here the credit goes to everyone, without exception, that we jumped in with both feet at the deep end of the pool. There was not a single empty spot in a 360 scan where people were not involved in animated conversations, introducing families, laughing at old jokes and stories and yes, distributing sweets (Senthil and pal kova - wow!).
The engagement was not just with participants, but also with folks on stage, whether it was the Dubai Camels, encouraging the dance troupe, kids dancing, singing on stage, terrific speeches (Venkat, Raji, Chandru et al) - everybody gave their fullest.
3. Chemistry
Susee's note to us was telling. His family had never seen him this happy. Well that says it all. Were there not chemistry between us - this event would not have reached the heights it did. Competition, petty rivalries, old scars, grudges was all washed away amongst friends who found it more important to savor the moment.
Were it not for this chemistry, I have a sneaking suspicion that the families accompanying would have found the length of the event tiring. But chemistry shows emotional truth. And there is no masking emotional truth.
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| Chemistry |
This is one of the reasons business is done over a game of golf. When you are with someone for over 4 hours in a fairly visible situation and perhaps under competitive pressure, you have to play your game - you have to be yourself. That is when one is judged as being worthy of a business partnership.
Similarly, one could not have traversed the four days without genuine chemistry carrying the day.
I had many many one on one conversations - Srini, Ambur, Raghu, Sudha, Swarna, KVS, Bharani, Balaji, Venkatesh, Pari, Murugan, Senthil, Durai, Mohan, Joe, Ganesh, MLA and many many more. These were satisfying to me. I like one one one conversations.
2. Crack
What is this you say to yourself? Crack? Is he talking about somebody? Or the folks savvy with urban vernacular are going - crack? That was available? Where?
No, silly. I mean Crack, as the Irish use it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic)
If you go to an Irish bar, or any bar for that matter, you will hear a din. This din above all the multiple conversations, the Irish refer to as crack.
Wherever I was, whoever I saw, whatever event I was at - there was crack. Where was this the most? The evening at Black Thunder. Folks - you rocked the house!
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| Rocking the House! |
Let us not forget the life of the party. Every party needs one to light it up. There is one natural - whether it is singing, speaking, dancing, or even stuffing balloons in his shirt, dressed up as an Arab. The one and only - Venkat!
1. Leadership
The buck stops with the leader. It is as simple as that.
- The level of courage it takes to put on a show on behalf of your classmates.
- The access to services to pull everything together. (God, I have trouble finding someone to just mow my lawn!)
- The level of attention to detail it takes to organize a massive event.
- The level of coordination it takes to have everyone who is interested to feel included.
- The calmness to see the event through and enjoy it at the same time.
- The caring to carryout tasks without need for limelight
- The care with which it is ensured that the kids eat on time and eat well.
- The savvy to brand and market the event.
- The networking to connect with senior folks
This is all the stuff of leadership. In my life time I have come to believe in the impact good leadership has on a community, a company and a country. In my lifetime I have also seen bad leadership ruing a community, a company and a country. Leadership is for real. I think of NYC down in the dumps in the 80s and Rudy Giuliani turning it around. That is leadership. I look at TWA and how Frank Lorenzo ruined it. That was bad leadership. Please don't get me started on W.
Ambur, Prabhakar, Joe, Iswar, Gauthaman, Venkat and all of the classmates who helped out, contributed, engaged, led, participated - terrific, terrific!
A special acknowledgement to Sudarsanam Suresh Babu for being the most enthusiastic virtual participant. I greatly delighted in this.
And finally, I salute two class mates of ours. You know who I am talking about - Nanda Kumar and MLA. Guys, you carried this on your shoulders. Let me say this, all other motivations are secondary. There is one real motivation - and that is - you wanted the best Silver Streak experience for your classmates - and you wanted Coimbatore to rock as a consequence - congratulations and thank you to you both!
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| Champions! |
I am sure there are many more layers. But I feel that 5 hard and 5 soft layers are sufficient descriptors of what gave Silver Streak its orbital velocity.
This one is for the ages.