August 16, 2021: Zoning through meetings

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August 16, 2021: Zoning through meetings. Yes, you read it right, not zooming through meetings, but the possibilities that some of us have embraced came alive today. It turned out to be a very long day because the sun always shines where I can be. I seem to have taken on the hybrid, as the World rushes back to the old ways. There is something missing at a meeting that starts at 8 am in the morning. One expects some sugary treats to wash down with the coffee. And there was nothing missing. The treats and the coffee lubricate these meetings. In most cases, the meetings I have to attend turn out to be satisfying for me. Things seem to get done, good people with good intentions usually get things done, after meetings. Today, I was sitting so close to a colleague on one side and my wife on the other side that I had to hide my computer screen from sight to camouflage where I really was. New experience, we always brought portable computers to the meetings. But for nearly 2 years, the laptop is where some of us lived and sitting with the coffee I had to go there. Bondhus on WhatsApp, muffins, power point, smileys, coffee, forwards, group messages. I was somewhere but there. As I sit through endless conversations of the risk in the autumn, I remain trusted in the hybrid. That was the kind of day this Monday was. The only thing that mattered was keeping the zones lined up. It is not where am I? But when am I? Moving from one meeting to the other I find myself in two meetings at the same time. North Carolina, Oklahoma, the hole, hearing the sizzling kitchen upstairs. The day gets a little long as the sun comes up and the seminar was about to start. Button down shirts, although increasingly difficult to get at Shoppers Stop, is the most ambiguous garment one can wear. It worked with the lunch, it worked in Oklahoma, and worked at the Seminar about television and health education in the rural lower caste who tend to watch Bengali TV channels. It was pouring rain outside as a deathly calm descended in the hole. The conversation was engaging and to be working with the people in the panel made it exciting. Just as exciting it was hear the new business idea that got me excited. These creative people are the ones we need to turn to as we desperately hit the brakes and make a U-turn. It is these people, whose company I had all “day” makes things worth it. The conversations, the laughter, the banter, and the final accolades. And a gentle reminder from bondhus that it was now time for me slumber. The sun was a little higher in the sky and it was time to leave. The sun was still up and there were conversations to be had. Plan. Think. But another sunrise was imminent, and I wanted to be able to say with the Beatles, “Here comes the sun.”

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