CWS Hyderabad - A success against all odds!

I landed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Hyderabad in the wee hours of 13^th December 2009. I was in Hyderabad after 8 long months, this time to conduct Coffee with SIBM. Ever since I had quit working and packed from Hyderabad, I had this soft corner for Hyderabad in my heart. I closely used to follow the happenings in Hyderabad every day. So when Hyderabad was selected as a venue for CWS, I literally ensured that I got the whole pie and nobody even dared come close to it.

As I took the all familiar and most convenient mode of transport into the city, the Volvo, I observed that lots of things have changed in the last 8 months. The city looked a lot cleaner and roads looked a lot wider. I observed a lot of changes in the intersections, the traffic and the buildings. Change was staring straight into my eyes in whatever I chose to see.

Ever since I had selected Hyderabad as one of the venues for conducting CWS, I had taken loads of initiatives to ensure that CWS Hyderabad was a huge success. I ensured that we rented the best auditorium in the best place within our budgetary limits. Within our team, I wanted Hyderabad to come out with the best outcome in CWS. Having worked in Hyderabad for 3 years, I had struck a chord with the city which made me all the more focused towards the goal. Overall, I had left no stone unturned for this event. I made sure that the publicity was done properly for the event. I had even asked my friend Shreyas to be in Hyderabad, a day before the event to sense the pulse at the venue.

Hyderabad, had just then, been released from the tight vices of what had threatened to be a dangerous agitation for Telangana. At times, we at Pune who were closely monitoring the situation had thought to cancel the event at the last minute. Different people from different sources in Hyderabad gave me starkly conflicting opinions. The situation was oscillating from good to bad to worse and to good again like a pendulum. And this was not helping at all. There have been times when my mood has also swung like the same pendulum!

And finally when we had decided that the event would happen, I made sure to travel that extra mile to ensure that all the efforts put in so far, will not go waste from now on. We sent mails and SMSs to the participants to ensure that awareness is created about the event in the city.

And when the day arrived, we reached the venue well in advance. I had asked a couple of my friends there to accompany me so that they could be of some help. I was in for a big shock of my life when I saw people turning at the venue a good one hour before the scheduled time. We made some basic checks in the auditorium, fixed all the connections and started letting the people in. The auditorium was full even before the scheduled time. We arranged for some additional chairs to be placed in the auditorium and these were filled in no time. And to rub salt on our wounds, the length of the queue outside was only increasing.

We were suddenly into fire fighting mode. With the turnout only on the rise, we were left with no option but to have two sessions now. I asked my friends to control the crowd. We got some classrooms nearby opened and asked the people to sit in those classrooms. We explained them the situation, and luckily they all understood. I was expecting brickbat showers when I went down to take them into confidence, but it all happened the other way. There were people who were willing to stand and watch the entire proceedings. In the meanwhile, Shreyas had already started the proceedings inside. I was shuttling between the auditorium and the classrooms to make sure that things were under control. Arrangements for coffee had to be made for the incremental number. The merchandise that we had carried from here was definitely going to run out of stock soon. We had to judiciously use them. Some people started to walk out in between. We did not do any attempt to stop them as we would have done in a normal situation. We avoided unnecessary questions and unwanted interactions were simply snipped off. We ran through the session fast, so that the people waiting outside did not get too restless. One session got over and we started with the second. The auditorium was as filled in the second sitting as it was in the first. At the end of the whole event which ran for more than four and a half hours, when I gave the last CD in my hand to the last person in the auditorium, I was one relieved person.

CWS Hyderabad was definitely one big effort. The intricacies involved and the complications that we ran through the process are enough proof for me to be personally satisfied with the outcome of the event. I would not hesitate to call CWS Hyderabad as one of the best phases of CWS 2009. Even in the wildest of my imaginations I had not expected such a huge turnover. That, a similar event supposed to be held the previous week was cancelled, also helped our cause to some extent. It also looks like the tension in Hyderabad had stopped only for the couple of days preceding and succeeding the event. It was like everything in and around us helping us make the event possible.

“When a man pursues his destiny, everything in the world conspires to make it possible” – The Alchemist