A day in the life of LIFE

Lights.Grandeur.Conclave.

Three words that best describe a grand conference.

Well, I was at one such conference recently and found it no less than the "Great Indian Wedding" as far as the attendees' profiling was concerned.

There are clear categories that you could segment the folks into:

1. The stiff upper lip - Yo mate!

This category of people will not speak to you unless and until its absolutely essential. They shall maintain aristocracy that goes best with swigs of aristocrat during cocktails. They have myriad ties that have interesting color combos on them. Their sole purpose of attending such events - to make their presence felt. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue - "Rishtey main toh hum tumhare baap lagte hai; naam hai....Shehenshah"

2. Oji Welcome.. Oye... biradari hai ji

This set of people is straight out of a Yash Raj Production. Those that move around like the actors on the sets of Hum Aapke hai Kaun and believe that "gusto is the way to go" as far as socializing is concerned. They are known to surreptitiously slip their visiting cards (Eg. Mr. Balwinder Khosla, Sole Proprietor) into your palm while you are engrossed in their extrovert display of emotion. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue - "Koi Gal nahin ji...apni gaddi toh goodwill naal chaldi hai"


3. The Happydent poster folks

Those that believe that 1000 watt smile is a key ice breaker and a substitute for a firm handshake, fall into this category. The elasticity of the smile is directly proportional to the reciprocation shown by others in the conversation. These are generally the introverts who believe in brevity of words. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue : "....rukawat ke liye khed hai.."

4. The "Lost in Translation" folks

They sat. They snacked. They slept.

This set is comprised mostly of senior citizens (who were forced into attending the conference while they would have preferred a beer with old buddies at the local club)who take a quick snooze not just between speaker sessions and also through them. While the image the props up immediately is that of the quintessential "Shri Deve Gowda" pondering about the future of India in the Parliament.

The veterans can be excused actually. They intend no harm. They come over, listen for a few minutes, wake up during the Q&A, chuckle at the questions being posed, sip tea and snooze again...

Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue: "So gaya, yeh jahan...."

5. Young Gun Murugan

And then there are attention seeking blokes who keep jumping around like "bulls let lose in a china shop" - who sometimes are good but most often draw slack from the members of the fellow categories for being brash and upstart. They are like Yuvraj Singh of A T20 international who add some life into an otherwise boring test match...

Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue: "Idly Appam Sambhar khao Quick Gun Murugan ke Gun Gao....Mind It!"

Well, this was a brief snapshot of the audience - but I must confess, the entire experience for me was an enriching one indeed..and until next time, bring on the dessert folks... -:)!