While recalling my life in M.E.S. College, Bangalore as a student of ‘B.A.’ Second year, I smiled to myself remembering my contesting the College Student Council elections in 1985. I am a shy individual, who is also an introvert and had a handful of friends in the college. It’d been a year since I had shifted from Calcutta to Bangalore but had not found it difficult making friends with my classmates. I had made friends with Anuradha Kanti, who was a year senior to me in the college and was behaviourally contrary to my rather passive demeanour. She had contested the Student Council Elections the previous year for the post of Lady General Secretary but had lost. This, year (1985), it was Election time again in the college.
In the college, the Student Council comprised of President, Vice President, General Secretary Boys and General Secretary for Girls [G.S.Girls] (Since it is a Co-education college) and all them were elected members of the Council. The students had to contest for the posts through student syndicates (aka parties) and not as independent candidates. This year too, as all the other years, syndicates were formed but one of the syndicates did not have a candidate to contest for the post of General Secretary Girls (G.S.Girls), therefore were not allowed to contest in the elections. There were only ten days to go (as the college allowed only 20 days to campaign for the elections) and I had Anuradha Kanti and two of my friends and class mates: Syeda Noor Asma and Anitha R.K. approach me to join the syndicate as contestant for the post of G.S.Girls. I was dumb founded as I had never even dreamt of participating in elections except as a voter. I asked for a day’s time to confer with my Grandmother and Maternal Uncle, who were my guardians, to decide on my joining the syndicate. My Grandmother was against it while my Uncle urged me to go ahead and experience contesting elections irrespective of the results. I told them that I had to pay Rs.160/- towards the promotional material expenses: pamphlets and banners and with their permission joined the syndicate the following day. While campaigning, I found that most of the students asked me whether I knew Kannada or not and what I had done for my classmates, to which I replied that I would learn the language if they would help me do so and also that I was not elected as Class representative to do anything for my classmates ~ following the axiom that “Honesty is the best Policy”.
On day three of my election campaign, which was day thirteen of general college syndicate election campaign, I found a small white cloth banner with the Words “ELECT AS G.SECRETARY-GIRLS” covering the length and breadth of the banner with the name (SUNIPA SEN) in blue just below it appearing as the atomic number of some chemical element or compound! This banner, which was strung to the branches of a tree opposite to the college main gate, too disappeared on the seventeenth day of election campaign. The pamphlet too had the name of the candidates of the syndicate at the bottom while three fourth of it was devoted to the manifesto. I was skeptical of even getting at least 9 votes as the promotional materials did not help in giving visibility to the candidates of the syndicates. There were three syndicates contesting and the other two syndicates were campaigning aggressively giving ample focus and visibility to the candidates.
The Election Day arrived and I was quite confident that all the members of our syndicate would get the least number of votes, but was amazed to find that we were the second in command as we lost to all the victors by an average margin of 25 to 30 votes and it was quite an achievement.
I thank my class mates, who elected me as the class representative to student council and the whole class made history by becoming the first to celebrate Kannada as well as English New Year. Go on two-day long excursion to Mysore and Ooty. Get fans and additional lights installed in the new classroom we occupied as students of BA final year. We were also the first batch to donate books to college library as part of our farewell ceremony.
I was reminded of all this while recalling my stint with TeamLease as Programme Coordinator when I was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing Job Fair at Jaipur in the year 2008, with Rajasthan Government’s department for Training and Employment. We had to organize the event for maximum 10,000 people within 10 days and with no prior experience in organizing such an event, we did manage to prepare ourselves with nearly 25 clients and 22 training companies to meet nearly 10,000 candidates during the daylong event; but to our amazement, we met more than 30,000 candidates on that day though we did not have adequate contingency plan to do so nor the required support from the State Government’s sponsoring department to manage such a surprising number of job aspirants, but we did it. We provided employment to nearly thousand candidates through the event. The Chief Minister Mrs. Vasundhara Raje too graced the occasion, as it was part of her election campaign and she too eventually lost the subsequent election and TeamLease too, in the meanwhile had organized its team of professionals with experience in event management to subsequently organize such events. What I learnt from both my experiences was, being a winner or being successful in a venture does not matter, but what really matters is you doing your bit to the best of your ability with all those who are with you and as long as it is being done for the benefit of everyone and not for any vested interest.
In the college, the Student Council comprised of President, Vice President, General Secretary Boys and General Secretary for Girls [G.S.Girls] (Since it is a Co-education college) and all them were elected members of the Council. The students had to contest for the posts through student syndicates (aka parties) and not as independent candidates. This year too, as all the other years, syndicates were formed but one of the syndicates did not have a candidate to contest for the post of General Secretary Girls (G.S.Girls), therefore were not allowed to contest in the elections. There were only ten days to go (as the college allowed only 20 days to campaign for the elections) and I had Anuradha Kanti and two of my friends and class mates: Syeda Noor Asma and Anitha R.K. approach me to join the syndicate as contestant for the post of G.S.Girls. I was dumb founded as I had never even dreamt of participating in elections except as a voter. I asked for a day’s time to confer with my Grandmother and Maternal Uncle, who were my guardians, to decide on my joining the syndicate. My Grandmother was against it while my Uncle urged me to go ahead and experience contesting elections irrespective of the results. I told them that I had to pay Rs.160/- towards the promotional material expenses: pamphlets and banners and with their permission joined the syndicate the following day. While campaigning, I found that most of the students asked me whether I knew Kannada or not and what I had done for my classmates, to which I replied that I would learn the language if they would help me do so and also that I was not elected as Class representative to do anything for my classmates ~ following the axiom that “Honesty is the best Policy”.
On day three of my election campaign, which was day thirteen of general college syndicate election campaign, I found a small white cloth banner with the Words “ELECT AS G.SECRETARY-GIRLS” covering the length and breadth of the banner with the name (SUNIPA SEN) in blue just below it appearing as the atomic number of some chemical element or compound! This banner, which was strung to the branches of a tree opposite to the college main gate, too disappeared on the seventeenth day of election campaign. The pamphlet too had the name of the candidates of the syndicate at the bottom while three fourth of it was devoted to the manifesto. I was skeptical of even getting at least 9 votes as the promotional materials did not help in giving visibility to the candidates of the syndicates. There were three syndicates contesting and the other two syndicates were campaigning aggressively giving ample focus and visibility to the candidates.
The Election Day arrived and I was quite confident that all the members of our syndicate would get the least number of votes, but was amazed to find that we were the second in command as we lost to all the victors by an average margin of 25 to 30 votes and it was quite an achievement.
I thank my class mates, who elected me as the class representative to student council and the whole class made history by becoming the first to celebrate Kannada as well as English New Year. Go on two-day long excursion to Mysore and Ooty. Get fans and additional lights installed in the new classroom we occupied as students of BA final year. We were also the first batch to donate books to college library as part of our farewell ceremony.
I was reminded of all this while recalling my stint with TeamLease as Programme Coordinator when I was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing Job Fair at Jaipur in the year 2008, with Rajasthan Government’s department for Training and Employment. We had to organize the event for maximum 10,000 people within 10 days and with no prior experience in organizing such an event, we did manage to prepare ourselves with nearly 25 clients and 22 training companies to meet nearly 10,000 candidates during the daylong event; but to our amazement, we met more than 30,000 candidates on that day though we did not have adequate contingency plan to do so nor the required support from the State Government’s sponsoring department to manage such a surprising number of job aspirants, but we did it. We provided employment to nearly thousand candidates through the event. The Chief Minister Mrs. Vasundhara Raje too graced the occasion, as it was part of her election campaign and she too eventually lost the subsequent election and TeamLease too, in the meanwhile had organized its team of professionals with experience in event management to subsequently organize such events. What I learnt from both my experiences was, being a winner or being successful in a venture does not matter, but what really matters is you doing your bit to the best of your ability with all those who are with you and as long as it is being done for the benefit of everyone and not for any vested interest.
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