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Ref: Sankranthi Sambaraalu: Shouldn’t we learn any lessons from past programs!!!

Seems we couldn’t. Or probably, we don’t want to. Or even if we learn, don’t we intend to implement! Or else, every committee wants to add its own spice without bothering much about time, space and quality management in the cultural programs.

The report says, “The function, under the able leadership….was a grand success with over 1000 people… attending the event in droves”. As usual, we tend to measure success with turn-out numbers. May be, for some, it’s a success. And for some, if not few of them, it wasn’t. Why mixed response then! Concept of two panels/groups doesn’t seem to be the reason, bcoz this is not an election though. Audience turn out just to enjoy the program and spend some quality time with friends and families. Then, why was this ‘grand success or not-so-success’ fuss! Was it because of long schedule, or was it bcoz of less gossip/sitting-space, was it bcoz of the same ‘quality-less-hungama-more’ kind of programs or was it bcoz of the ‘mike-hungry-political-cum-personal-propaganda’ speeches? Perhaps, some would attribute it to a couple of the above, but then we’ve always been missing the root cause, our unlearning attitude from the past programs.

While we always tend to learn lessons from our past mistakes in our day-to-day lives, why doesn’t it seem to happen in case of our TAMA programs - that we so much love to take ownership of. Here are a few things we often tend to ignore, but we need to ponder about.

Time management: It’s good that every damn little thing appeared in the program list and it shows that the ‘all-new-faces-EC’ is trying to pacify and impress upon one and all - including the the so-called biggies of the community - every recognized character from all angles. It’s a gigantic effort by itself. But, with that comes up speeches, felicitations and blah, blahs etc, and that kills a hell lot of time as well. However, was this process ever sounded interesting to the majority of the audience!, never ever. Still ‘committee-after-committee’ continues it. Nobody bothers about ‘lessons-to-learn’. Nobody bothers about audience feelings …nobody bothers about nothing except showing-off -:)…give it a thought folks, can’t we manage programs in a better timely fashion! We can if we’re open to learn lessons from past programs, isn’t it! But , the theme followed would be ‘When you are at peace with the world you can focus on work, family and community(service!)’.

Space management: Of course, there was little time to get the right venue for the program after that bitterly-fought elections, failure-frustrations and victory-parties. That might’ve tempted to go for ‘welcome and thanks’ messages, which might’ve pleased some and disturbed others. Even then, didn’t we expect more audience this time! Seems not, bcoz the venue that we could get - simply couldn’t fit neither the sitting nor the standing audience; neither the gossip-mongers nor the green-room girls. Seems, no sponsors came forward to fund a bigger venue -:)…Still, audience don’t’ tend to complain. But, guess what, they also never stop reserving seats that would lie empty half of the time. Anyway, as always, our program happened at least a week after the actual festival that has become a norm these days. No complaints though, but how about ‘lessons-learnt’ folks!

Quality care: Seems, we never ever bother about this. Is it bcoz ‘not-to-say-no’ attitude to parents or is it bcoz everybody wants to grab either mike or stage in a TAMA program! Whatever children do, their respective parents do like it most of the time, and it makes sense then. What doesn’t make sense is - being in an illusion that other parents also do like our ‘kids walking (or learning to walk on stage), jumping with hand-gestures, and so on! Some say, ‘Kaaki pilla kaaki ki muddu’, can we find fault with that saying! Again why can’t we learn from our past programs and its feed-back, if there has been any out there, with an open-mind! Can’t we have an open invitation on a smaller stage, such as kids-fest, or any competitive-kind of program apriori, filter out better presentable items for a bigger audience, all for the sake of quality! Can’t we just stop blah-blah-ing on success and focus on bringing the quality product!

'Kya kare bhai! Jaise apan log - vaise hi programs bhee, kya bolte!'

Content mismatch: Every committee wants to impress upon one or the other, that too on their first program itself and that too on the bigger TAMA event only - be it mike-savvy speeches, volunteer recognitions, personnel felicitations, sponsors’ kick-offs , homeopathy lectures or whatever. Other than the organizers and the respective recipients, does anybody else in the audience care much about it! Debatable, isn’t it! Again, we tend to ignore it all the way, nobody cares to learn any lesson though. Can’t we have these kind of items on another plat-form where it could be received respectfully - not necessarily in the first event or in the big events though! We’ve ‘Global mall’ any way, for all universally acceptable events, including compromising and consensus meetings :).

Food: Again, report-after-report says, such as the latest one “The food sponsored by… was greatly appreciated by the audience. Snacks provided by….sold like hot cakes”. Served to how many and appreciated by how many, and as usual, how many couldn’t get it! Has it ever been cost-effective! A coke-can costs a dollar in the stall, while a vending machine silently accepts a lesser amount. Honestly, a $4 or a $6 meal has never been a crowd-pulling quality product for the hotel that serves it. Rather it’s a crowd-compelling product - bcoz many a one want to take it easy and eat with friends and families while not many wish to cook at home that late or stop by a hotel on their way back home. This attitude of the attendees has always been taken for granted and it has an ever-lasting impact on the food menu or quality that we get there. ‘Food sold-out’ might not just mean appreciated, but it could be of less-quantity and some could have gone with empty-stomachs. Again, nobody wants to take a note of it!

Kids care: In every event, the hosts continuously plead for silence and it eventually goes unheard as usual. Why are we so ignorant of those requests! In our respective houses, we take care of our kids so nicely. But in a TAMA event, we tend to leave the children free and they tend to behave uncontrollable. That would add up to casual conversations, and ultimately somebody urges for silence and somebody else shouts back for mike repairs. To avoid this formally, we often hear about ‘nanny-kind of care with games or so ‘ in a room within the venue, but it never seems to materialize. Anyway, the concern again comes back to ‘ lessons-unlearnt’, isn’t it!

So, the bottom-line is , can we expect anything different coming up, unless we make an honest attempt on ‘lessons-learnt’ concept!

- Babu, O TAMA babu -:)