Another Lecture I Slept Through

At WIMWI, my classes are held in CR-7, Section A that is. The misery of having a name that starts with 'A' is one that never seems to end. Over here, my seat is in the 'well', dead center, right in the line of sight of the professor, and right in the front of the class. Although, the biggest advantage has been that I am forced to listen to the lectures, there are still some of them which would make the most energetic man go to sleep.

Today however, I slept through another lecture.

This man's -


H.H. The Dalai Lama.

He had come down to the campus to deliver a talk on Business and Ethics.

There were a few things about him which struck me. His personality - Confident and simple, which was reflected in the way he started his talk - he asked his aide to tell him the topic; on being told that it was Business and ethics, the first thing he said was - 'I don't know anything about business! If I start one, it'll probably fail in a week!'

The talk he gave subsequently was related to ethics with a touch of philosophy and spirituality. To some extent it was on expected lines, which for me made the talk uninteresting. Having said that, on attending the event, I did come to realize the immense amount of strength and courage that soft spoken human had. To have been the symbol of hope and a bright future for a people who have lost their country, in the face of hostilities from the Chinese government is no kid's play.

What was more interesting was the Q&A round at the end of the talk. Some people asked interesting questions such as Sino-Indian relations and the Indian policies with regard to Tibet. Dalai Lama's response to some of the such awkward questions asked just reflected the deep intelligence that this outwardly simple looking person had. Some people asked him downright philosophical and spiritual questions. For some reason I haven't been able to figure if such questions are actually genuine or whether those people were just putting their CP*. Some questions were downright funny, one mathematics professor asked him whether the concept of karma and destiny could be integrated with the concept of probability to come up with a mathematical model to scientifically analyse the whole thing. Personally speaking, the idea was interesting, but the time and setting it was asked in was, as i said, funny. I mean here was a Buddhist Monk and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, on a mission of peace, giving a lecture on ethics, thanks to the unknown mathematics prof., trying to understand the concepts of Probability!

I went to the auditorium to see him for two reasons -
1) To see an actual Nobel laureate
2) To see what was so great about this personality that people right from Heads of States to common people all over the world flock to see and hear him wherever he goes.

I guess one of the perks of being at IIMA is that one gets access to such personalities, which is why I went to the talk, even though the topic of ethics is not the most interesting in the world for me.

All said and done, atleast there's one more person whose lecture I can claim to have slept through. And this time its a Nobel Laureate!

*CP - Adapted from the concept of Class Participation - An event where students speak in a class discussion just for the sake of it, because the measure of your CP has a bearing on your final grade.