Are you going to the Patna Fair? (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Not too much parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme to be seen here as I arrived at the Patna Book and Education Fair, where we had planned for me to run some presentations and counselling sessions for prospective students. Subho had gone ahead to set things up for the day (he had already been in Patna for about 5 days and so had his own routine pretty much down pat) and I followed later in the morning. Things did not proceed as we had originally planned, however, (when does that ever happen in India?) but it was to the good, and a tribute to Subho’s networking and relationship building skills.

Just round the corner from our own KiBS booth (see photos of Subho in the booth and pointing the way), at the intersection of Rows H and J was the (very large) Roznama Sahara booth (Roznama Sahara is Sahara’s Urdu language newspaper in Patna, which, theoretically at least, is supposed to complement its Hindi language Sahara counterpart here in Patna but with which it is, I was to discover, engaged in intense competition). Anyway, Subho had met and begun developing a good relationship with the people staffing the Sahara stand, arranging for us to present our "Go KiBS" seminar on the Friday afternoon at the Sahara stand, taking advantage of all their support and technical facilities. On Thursday I spent good exposure time, being introduced and felicitated on several occasions, as well as presenting some awards. We (KiBS) also were promoted to the crowd of 300-400 engineering and science students who turned up for a later counselling session with one of the local chemistry professors (Professor K Singh), where I was seated at his side throughout his presentation.

In between these two Sahara stand sessions, I had the opportunity to visit the Sahara Regional Offices, here in Patna, where a workshop for about 70 journalism students (co-organised by the American Center in Kolkata) was coming to an end. Again, I was felicitated with the Sahara Regional Manager and gave a short presentation on the importance of senior management and CEOs receiving the equivalent kind of training that the students were getting so that they knew how to provide the right answers to the questions they were being trained to ask. Nilanjan Hajra, the AV Section Chief at the US Consulate General in Kolkata was keen to see how we can organise the sorts of executive seminars on working with the media I suggested.

So Thursday was a day where I was sri’d, ji’d and sahib’d within an inch of my life, as I was indicated, felicitated, and congratulated by Sahara’s team of marketing folks (Sri David, Davidji and David Sahib – all undeserved honorifics and, in one case, all used in a single sentence about me. At the end of the day, Subho and I were able to sit down to a dinner of chilli chicken, veg korma and roti well satisfied with the day’s activities.