Training for the Trainers- Day 1

June 19th, 2009- Friday

I was surprised with the first day of training. When Manjul asked me if we still wanted to do the training this weekend, I spontaneously said “yes” but I didn’t know what to expect or what I was going to get out of it. All I knew is that I was ready for some guidance and that I was extremely curious of this workshop I heard so much about from Zohar. Manjul is a very interesting and strong personality..I’m not going to lie- another incentive for me to follow through with the workshop was to understand him and his ways better. So far I’ve done a lot of that. I’ve been critically analyzing everything we’ve been doing so far and every deep thought that we’ve shared. Trying to find purpose and strategy- if any. Maybe I’ve been over analytical, I’m going to try to do less of that today.

We started off on a surprisingly very relaxing note. When we entered Sriya’s house, we all absolutely loved it. Manjul sensed the positive vibration and decided that we were going to start off in Sriya’s room itself. We first reflected on yesterday, which seemed quite surprising for Sriya. If either of us misses something, we usually just call each other up and give them updates. This time however, Zohar and I were at a loss for words that evening. Personally, I didn’t really even know how I could share my experience in words. So we didn’t tell her anything until today. However, looking back helped analyzing the purpose of what we did. Which helped me think of what we needed to do with the children in the next coming days. Next, we individually penned down the agenda for the weekend – in terms of what we expected to do and what we wanted to cover. This weekend I wanted to have an agenda for the rest of the week, to create a bond within the 4 of us- such that we can appear together for the children and then to learn from Manjul. After we shared our agendas, we started working on the one for Parivartan. We started to write our individual agendas until we stopped to drink some amazing coffee-courtesy Sriya’s amazing mom :D

We then decided to go for a play called “Project S.T.R.I.P.” which is supposed to be a comedy with the base story about development and its issues. Although I really liked the acting and direction, the end of the play left me completely flustered. I hated the fact that I was sitting in a developing country with increasing potential and where the growth has been exponential but the externalities of such growth was not given its due seriousness. The ending left me understanding that there is no possible connection between the people who are environmentally conscious and the people who are all for corporate expansion and invariable effects of development. I realized the common practice of writers not giving enough thought and importance to the end of a script in Bollywood or theatre. It's just so impotrant to leave the audience with the right message when you leave the theatre! Anyhow, we had a nice conversation in the car ride back home. Ate some pav bhaji and then retired for the night.