Hi friends,

Its sad news to ISABS and our chapter, and many of us who lost a close friend. Rusi had been battling cancer for a while now, and passed away yesterday morning (23rd July 2009). I got the message from Sankar, who heard it from Dilip, then from a mail of Manas that got forwarded to everyone we could think of….

Reproducing the email here:

Dear friend,

Our friend and dear colleague Rusi Engineer is no more on this earth. He has left us this morning ( 23 July 2009 ). His funeral is today at 1 pm in South Mumbai .  Let us take some moments to pause and wish this wonderful person peace and a farewell.

He was a fine and graceful person looking at life with a merry twinkle in his eyes, silently battling cancer which he once overpowered but eventually succumbed to. Deeply spiritual in his outlook, he studied and imbibed many religious teachings. Many of us would remember how tears flowed from his eyes when he heard KK Mehta chant the Nirvanashatakam or when Kumar Gandharv sang Kabir’s “Ud jaayega hans akela, Jag darshan ka mela..” Many also remember the wonderful hours spent listening to the funny bees and piamba duet he would sing with Dilip in the happy hours.

Rusi never hesitated to take a stand or raise his voice when systemic processes appeared askew. I am recalling many situations where he must have felt surrounded and pressured due to this. But he always maintained a respectful cordiality in his assertions and taught many of us the true meaning of collegial togetherness, mutual investment and personal integrity.

In addition to his long association with ISABS (he became a professional member in the year 2000) he touched the lives of many many human beings through his work as a psychotherapist and counselor. I experienced his embodiment of the values which he facilitated for his clients, participants in the way he was open to relationships, flowed with changes and courageous to make decisions which were authentic and rich.

Besides the loss to our community, I also want to share my sense of feel a personal loss with you all. While I knew that the inevitable was lurking round the corner, I coped by believing that no news is good news. I am grieving and mourning this loss and seeking solace in the fact that there is no unfinished agenda between Rusi and I. I pray for his eternal peace.

On behalf of those of us who cannot be there with him in his last journey, we place a wreath for our dear friend and a wonderful human being.

Manas

Indian Society for
Applied Behavioural Science (ISABS)

There is a prayer meeting planned in his memory at his place on Saturday.

Hi everyone,

Long time, no posts here. I’ve been busy, and I guess everyone else has been busy too.

Just got an email from Vikram. The selection of the new coordinator for the Mumbai region has gone as planned, and Shridhar was selected unanimously.

Pasting the email from Vikram below:

=============

==============

Congratulations Shridhar. We look forward to taking our chapter to new heights under your leadership.

BTW, I wonder who is the treasurer now, or is it Shridhar in a double role?

Vidyut

I visited the site after a long time today and felt very forlon. Its been a long while since any activity happened on the site.

Anybody out there?

This site was a great initiative. I think it still is. Great potential… unused!

Looking forward to some response and activity

The ISABS Mumbai Chapter has announced its Spring Event for this year - Tarang 2009.

This time, the event is split into two weeks - from the 10th to the 14th of March and from the 7th to 11th of April 2009 at Dr. Mody’s Resort, Karjat.

Brochure for download

Dear ISABIANs from Mumbai chapter,
 
Wishing you all a happy new year! May this year bring in progress, peace and joy to each one of you!
 
I am glad to announce a workshop by Aroon Joshi on 25th and 26th Jan 2009. 

The event is being held in Mumbai and is non-residential in nature. The cost per person is Rs.1200/- inclusive of meals for both the days.

Workshop is loosely based on the idea of Experiential Learning in various group processes in T-group situations. Aroon has suggested that the participants can bring in to the lab any situation which could be of interest to the group.

The nominations will be accepted on first come first serve basis.  Total number of seats are limited, keeping in mind the lab structure and infrastructure limitations.
 
Address of venue is…
 
Sarvodaya
St. Pius College,
Aarey road,
Goregaon -  East.
 
(10-15 mins walk from station… minimum fare by autorickshaw… plenty of parking space)
  
Event timing : 9.00am to 6.00pm.
 
Lata Rajan has taken the intiative in putting this event together and she will be co-ordinating for the whole event. Please send in your nominations to her on mail at larajan@yahoo.com . Alternately, you can send in a mail to Sonali Kelkar at sonalikelkar@gmail.com. She is partnering Lata in the co-ordination activities.
 
Feeling excited about the first event of the year! :))
 
Oh! forgot to mention that if any one needs accomodation, St. Pius has rooms at Rs.200/-. You can ask Lata for more details.
 
Cheerio!

Gauri.

Just had a conversation with Vikram, and as the rumours have been flying, we are indeed going to be having a two week event for the Mumbai Chapter in Septmember. We are calling it the Barkha 2008.

Week 1 will be from 17th September to 21st September and week 2 will be from 23rd September to 27th September.

The brochure is attached. I am so proud of the proceedings in our chapter!

Download Barkha Brochure

I have been an active member of the Mumbai Chapter of ISABS since my ALHP. Now, I have reached a stage where I need to attend an intern’s lab in a National Event to begin my internship, and thus, for the first time in a long time, I was free, but I didn’t attend an ISABS Mumbai region Event.

I missed the community. I have invested a lot of myself in ISABS, and I was aware that this was the second Umang Event, which is an outreach kind of thing for lower budgets. This time, the Umang Event was sponsored heavily by Chapter Funds and took place in the regular event location, instead of a cheap location like the first event. I was interested in seeing the impact on the community.

So, me being me, I invited myself to the last evening party just to touch base with the community. For the first time, I was in the community, but without the pressure of being a participant. I hadn’t even realized that there is a pressure in being a participant. But it was a new experience. I could stay up late without worrying about waking up in time for the morning lab, I could eat to my fill at lunch without worrying about falling asleep in the afternoon lab……

But I digress.

I traveled by train and miscalculated the required time horribly as it took me three and a half hours to reach Karjat, much of which was spent in absolutely mind-bogglingly crowded trains. Things got better after Dombivli (though I still didn’t have a seat) and I joined a group of women singing songs to pass the time. Now, I have a fairly good voice, and the enthusiasm with which one team accepted me helped allay some of my misery and got me into party mood in the unlikeliest of places - an overcrowded train.

Sang and chatted much of my way to Karjat, looking at the time and willing the train to go faster, but alas, it took as much time as it took. Being late was worth it, because a gorgeous hunk called Raka was concerned about me traveling to Modi at night alone, and came to pick me up from the station and thus I finally arrived.

What I found amazing about this event was that there were 3 BLHPs and 3 ALHPs. This ratio is amazing for me. Usually, the BLHPs are about 3-4 times as many as the ALHPs. On one level, I was excited to see the percentage of participants taking their journeys ahead in our Umang community. On the other, I was concerned that the higher budget of this time (as compared to the previous time) might have blocked new entrants from the low budget category. Indeed, much of the “low budget category” was in the ALHPs.

The party itself was an amazing experience for me. Having attended the previous Umang, most of the ALHP participants were known to me, and my entry into the party was one of great welcome and surprised excitement. The warmth overwhelmed me. This is perhaps the first event where I walked in knowing so many of the participants.

I spend almost the first hour of the party just seeing people and hugging the ones I was close to, meeting the others, asking about them…….. catching up. I met Kishore again, who was doing his co-facilitation (he’d done his internship lab with us when I did my Phase B), Ashish (we did Phase A together), Sowmya (ALHP), Dr Satish (he’s a total fun riot), Raka (my husband - and the good doctor’s partner in crime), Farida, Artee, Chandan, Kiran, Sunita, Sushma, Meghna…… and maaaany more from the previous Umang gang. I was amazed that people remembered me so much!

A couple of friends came to tell me things like “you made the party complete for me” and “I had missed you”. Others took me aside and we had heart-to-heart catching ups….. It was an incredible feeling of being welcomed, included and totally drenched in affection.

The facilitators seemed rather busy with Raji not feeling too well, but I did get to spend some time with Sanjeev who seemed more interested in my husband than me (alas, the woes of having attractive husbands and fickle friends ). I met Vikram, KK, Shridhar and Altaf at various points in the evening and the rest on the next day.

Met many new people as well. Many people who knew Raka from this event had this intense curiosity for who his wife could be, and I found people introducing themselves and sharing this curiosity and approval - we were pronounced “made for each other”, which makes me giddy with joy, but it was also strange - we were mostly doing our own things, and not really “couple stuff”. I’m so used to connecting with Raka as a friend and part of group in public, that this whole thing with “Raka’s wife” in ISABS - which is like my own home ground - was a different perspective, and quite nice in its own way.

Of course, the music was on, and when there’s music, there’s me, moving to it. I’m not much of a dancer, but what I lack in skill, I make up in enthusiasm, and it was great fun.

This party was edgier and faster paced in terms of intoxication than my previous ISABS parties and while puking was right up there on my “ick” factor, thankfully it didn’t happen much, and the whole “unplugged feeling” was amazing in a very “dil se” way.

Some of the night passed in confusion and back up with some participants drunk (hey, which party is complete without that?), Raji falling ill from something she ate (or didn’t), an extremely dedicated doctor Shiela ensuring her comfort, Vikram hunting for medicines in the middle of the night at local hospitals…..

The surprising bit is that while the party atmosphere gets to me always, this time I was jhooming after having drunk very little (which no one believed, but I really had only two glasses). Must be the fumes in the air. I was swaying, but my head was clear - strange. Might also be tiredness - I hadn’t slept much the last whole week.

I was crashing in Asha and Anisha’s room. Hey that’s interesting - Asha-Anisha….. and we had loads of girly time walking on that eternal Modi road and then in our room……. until we finally….. slept.

PS: Spent some fabulous girl time with Raji under the heading of “taking care of her” the next morning until she felt better enough to attend the second lab of the day onwards. We had met on earlier events in the community and had liked each other on sight, but rarely spoken more than “hello, how are things going?” I had nothing to do, and she wasn’t feeling well, so she had taken the first session off. We chatted, gossiped and did all the catching up that we had been unable to do by virtue of being busy with something or the other on earlier events. In short, we ignored her illness in favour of having fun and starved of all the attention, it reluctantly slunk away.

Hi,

I know its a lot of posts in one day after a long drought. What do I say, once I get started, I keep remembering things I need to share.

I just realized that not many people know about the Mumbai Chapter’s initiative to translate the reading material provided in the BLHP and ALHP into Hindi. Many people who attend our events are not able to utilize the material provided in English effectively. We are trying to bridge that gap.

At the moment, there are a couple of people working on translations, but its very scattered, and not easy to structure. We are looking for volunteers who have good Hindi and translation skills to help us with this, so that we can make it available at the soonest - ideally, on this Umang Event itself, but failing that, in our regular monsoon event taking place a month or so later.

Really, we need big time help on this. Please comment on this post using your correct email ID, so that I can get in touch with you if you are able and willing to volunteer.

I realize that there are some people who have done a little work here and there - if you guys could step up and share what you have done, perhaps we can collaborate and get this show running faster - we will be able to ensure that effort is not wasted with people working on the same articles and ensure that all articles are covered, etc. Basically, the idea is this, that even if one person translates an article or so each, with enough volunteers, its going to mean two entire books getting translated mighty quickly.

Pleeeeeease! It will be fantastic if the Mumbai Chapter can develop this to contribute to the growth of ISABS.

Hi folks,

The monthly meeting for June 2008 has been decided for the 14th of June 2008 at Vignesh’s office. Those of you who attended the National Event may know this already. Those who don’t…. well you know now

This is the first meeting since the Summer National Event, and I am hoping to have contacted everyone new in this chapter, but I would appreciate it if you spread the word around so that if there is anyone who has missed this announcement, they will know. I know how important it is for participants who have been on an event to have support with their “ISABS withdrawal symptoms”

Time: 4:30pm
Coordinators: Altaf and Vidyut

Kamino International
Address: 301, The Sangeet Plaza, Marol, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059

Please let us know your attendance status.  You may call Altaf or Vidyut (if you have the numbers or they will be in the newsletter) or you can post a comment on this post so that we can read and know you are coming. Also, if you say you can come, and something happens to change that, please let us know that as well. Currently, we recognize three kinds of attendance status - “YES” “NO” and “MAYBE”. It helps to know how many people to expect.

It is short notice, so please let us know as early as you can.

Vidyut

Got this email from Anuradha Prasad. Its about a Group Relations Conference. Not exactly ISABS, but an opportunity for all the ISABSians who wish to experience the Tavistock Model to grab and run with. From my experience of the “extra session” requests, there are quite a few of us who want that, so here is the brochure.

I have no connections with the organization, and please contact them directly if interested.

Dear Colleagues,

Here is an exciting opportunity to participate in a Group Relations Conference! I request you to also forward it to others who might be ineterested.

Do call me if you need any more information to help you decide.

Best regards,

Anuradha Prasad

Brochures:

• gender-grc-brochure-2008
• application-form-gender-grc-2008
• schedule-gender-grc-20082