45th National Conference of IAP, Bhubaneshwar
The ‘friend’ who came to the rescue of Gadadhar Sarangi!

“You are going to every conference. You know these people very well, why don’t you lodge a complaint against such a huge mismanagement. I have not used even a single meal coupon given to me!” The charming lady from Uttarakhand was full of complaints at the banquet organized at Gandhi Maidan on 19th night. I nodded at her as this was the only gesture I could have communicated to her considering all the deafening background noise. Believe me, she was not alone. I heard similar complaints from many other colleagues hailing from northern belt. Next morning while entering the venue, I was stopped abruptly by Gadadgar Sarangi, the organizing secretary. He was quite apologetic, requesting for forgiveness with folded hands for any inconvenience suffered during the entire period of the conference. He quite gracefully acknowledged certain lapses and owned responsibility of every act of mismanagement and negligence. Later, during the valedictory he simply broke down emotionally explaining in detail about the background of every lapse. I was simply touched by his meekness, humility and candor.

Way back to my hotel room I was pondering on how to perfect the art and craft of organizing conferences and similar mega events without fearing a backlash from the delegates. Wondering what more Sarangi and his troupe could have done bearing in mind the venue was in Orissa-a member of the coterie of BIMARU states, not another well-developed metropolis of India! You can not expect there, the immaculate professionalism and perfection of event managers of Mumbai, Bangalore or Delhi! In view of the diversity of preferences and penchants, it is indeed an arduous task to make every participant happy and feel at home. How to strike a balance between academic fiesta, entertainment bonanza and associated paraphernalia is always going to be difficult and call for exceptional skills and acumen. What could be the possible solutions? Organizing successive conferences at a fixed venue, limiting number of attending delegates with absolute no to associate delegates, running satellite conferences, are some of the often discussed options. Or the other option could be to organize the event next time at the desert of Tharp!
 

I was impressed by the way R.K.Agarwal handled the proceedings of the unprecedented GBM. He not only gave full freedom to every member to express their views but was exercised some restrain over them. He negotiated well the ‘bouncers’ hurled by Ajay Gambhir and C.P. Bansal - ducking, hooking, taking on the body sometimes. However, the only time he was not sure of his off-stump was when facing the attack of R.D.Poddar & Co. He should have played every ball on its merit, not being overawed by the reputation of the bowler! All in all, a highly efficient performance thanks partly to the ‘grooming in’ tradition of IAP and partly to his long stint in IMA. Inaugural ceremony was the high point of the entire conference- managed extremely well by the professional event managers. The presence of professional comperes added grace and charm to the proceedings. The organizers had obliged the CM by offering him a platform to address the national glitterati of medical professionals and to present achievements of his government in the field of public health. IAP should have also presented a brief capsule of its contribution to the child health all over the country. The address by the ex-VC was most touching. He did indeed hit the right chord. Yes, you can not achieve much in the health arena unless the economic well being of the entire society is ushered uniformly. All the achievements in the health sector would prove to be temporary unless accompanied by economic empowerment.
 

It is high time IAP start reasserting itself. The academy should not feel obliged to industry and to agencies. There should be some curb on its dependency on these two sectors. Agencies need IAP support to carry out their agenda, not the other way round. They should not blame IAP for their own poor performance. I still maintain that the prime agenda and objective of the Academy is to take care of academic and professional needs of its members. If we could contribute something more beyond this objective, particularly in the field of child survival in public sector, this should come as extra plus. And this reality should be rubbed to the agencies with whom we are collaborating for last many years now. Similarly, we should have a reappraisal of our policy of dealing with government and government health agencies. Their utter disinterest in IAP activities and disregard to many of our invitations, especially by the central establishments, are indeed some cause for concern. At the internal front, we should also exercise some restrain on the number of programs we work out, plan and implement under the aegis of every new President called initially ‘President Action Plan’ and later converted to ‘IAP Vision’ for the year.

The more programs we have every year, the more dependent we become on the industry and the agencies. Many good programs are not given required time to run their full course and to serve their original purpose. Let’s IAP-EB devise 3-year action plans and three consecutive presidents should be encouraged to work in tandem with EB on it. There should be periodic review of these programs to assess their performance. Not every new president should be allowed to run what is called their own ‘hobby-horses’. Many good, well thought off programs got abandoned abruptly in the past without proper evaluation. This is not only a gross wastage of funds but of human resources and energies too. Let the EB play more constructive and pivotal role. Even the duration of EB can be extended to 2-3 years. Coming back to the conference, even a dispassionately done analysis would conclude that organizers were able to put up a reasonably good show. Quite expectedly, the academic feast took a backseat; the fervor was indeed of camaraderie and to some extent of a pilgrimage. It is always going to be difficult to manage a gathering of 4,000 delegates along with another 2000 pilgrims! Despite some hiccups, Sarangi and company came out winners. The great help and support of his ‘Friend’ was visible everywhere. Be it confusion over status of the conference, rumors of dissension amongst organizing team, confusion over availability of accommodation, untimely death of their main caterer, mishap at registration counters, chaos at the banquet, and acoustic interference at conference halls, he was there as a great troubleshooter. Even Sarangi did not let any opportunity go without acknowledging `his’ help in public. The friend, indeed, worked in tandem with Sarangi, and in the end again it was he who made every word spoken in the praise of Gadadhar Sarangi at the valedictory sound true. You must be wondering who this friend was? Yes, you got it right! It was the God of Puri, the Lord Jagannath himself, who transformed a bunch of committed workers to a splendid team of great achievers in the end. People accepted everything offered at the event with great “shradha” as the “prasadam” of Him! Sarangis, Mohantis were there as mere mortals.

-Vipin M. Vashishtha