Wk5, Day 5: Humility triumphs.
While most of the Baker hall was sleeping on Thursday I night, I was awake working the computer. Normally, outside the window, the darkness was largely un-interrupted, except for once a while, police vehicle racing along, with sirens blaring. Normally this felt comforting as well.
Not tonight.
The blue, red flashes on the streets were far too common and too frequent to be comforting. Twitter was the early messenger reporting the Boston shootout. Hurriedly, TV was checked and the developing news became evident. One of the Bomber of the Boston bombing and one policeman was killed (in gun fight), and the other was on the run, throwing grenades and explosives outside the car (learnt later). All this happening within a mile of where we are.
My room and our living group is almost towards the Soldiers Field road, right at the edge of the campus. For a brief 3-4 minutes, there was a huge convoy of police vehicles - must be more than 30-40 of them, descended right below our window, almost ready to pull into the campus. That seemed to be most scary part of the experience, to believe that someone could have entered your campus with guns and grenades. Fortunately, they seemed to move on, and for the night our campus was safe.
Anyways, most of us woke up in the morning under curfew. None of us were allowed to go out of the Baker Hall, and the surrounding areas were shut. Obviously the professors could not make it to the campus either. And hence lectures were cancelled.
All through the day, the events on television kept moving from one spot to another, and the police cars kept converging on to the ground zero (Dexter, Watertown). While we could not actually see the spot from our fourth windows, but were very certain, action was right behind one of the buildings. This was perhaps the nation's most intense man-hunt, more than 9000 officials were deployed to hunt down the suspect (one had already died and the other was on the run),
So we spent, the full day, exploring nooks and corner of our room and our living group.
At a time, when there were no public transport system and the state has asked you to stay inside, some individuals took the huge effort to make it to office for our sake. They kept our kitchen running, on top of it - to lift our sunk spirits, we also had a reception dinner in the evening, with a luxurious spread of Prawns, Crab Legs, Chicken, Steaks and what not. Imagine, all this to lift our spirits !!
That was not all, it seemed that Dean (Mr. Nitin Nohria) thought, it to be important to connect with us, in this difficult time. Not only, did he come in for the dinner, he made it a point to go to each table and exchange a few words (and this was a shared event between AMP+GMP - so am guessing 300 people !!). Of-course, some of the participants thought, this would be a great opportunity for a photo-op and he obliged smilingly.
What drives you to be super-successful, and then also be sensitive to your community needs and prompts you to walk the extra mile ... Humility.
This day, has been etched into my memory for the rest of the life. A tragic reminder, once again, that we are leaving behind a huge burden of terrorism for our next generation.
My key learnings today.
1. The table lamp on my study table did have a knob to make it turn. Hence, when switched on, it did not always shine directly at my eyes. Damn, I knew I was missing something...
Did I not tell you, that we spent the full day inside.
Stay safe. !!
Alok
While most of the Baker hall was sleeping on Thursday I night, I was awake working the computer. Normally, outside the window, the darkness was largely un-interrupted, except for once a while, police vehicle racing along, with sirens blaring. Normally this felt comforting as well.
Not tonight.
The blue, red flashes on the streets were far too common and too frequent to be comforting. Twitter was the early messenger reporting the Boston shootout. Hurriedly, TV was checked and the developing news became evident. One of the Bomber of the Boston bombing and one policeman was killed (in gun fight), and the other was on the run, throwing grenades and explosives outside the car (learnt later). All this happening within a mile of where we are.
My room and our living group is almost towards the Soldiers Field road, right at the edge of the campus. For a brief 3-4 minutes, there was a huge convoy of police vehicles - must be more than 30-40 of them, descended right below our window, almost ready to pull into the campus. That seemed to be most scary part of the experience, to believe that someone could have entered your campus with guns and grenades. Fortunately, they seemed to move on, and for the night our campus was safe.
Anyways, most of us woke up in the morning under curfew. None of us were allowed to go out of the Baker Hall, and the surrounding areas were shut. Obviously the professors could not make it to the campus either. And hence lectures were cancelled.
All through the day, the events on television kept moving from one spot to another, and the police cars kept converging on to the ground zero (Dexter, Watertown). While we could not actually see the spot from our fourth windows, but were very certain, action was right behind one of the buildings. This was perhaps the nation's most intense man-hunt, more than 9000 officials were deployed to hunt down the suspect (one had already died and the other was on the run),
So we spent, the full day, exploring nooks and corner of our room and our living group.
At a time, when there were no public transport system and the state has asked you to stay inside, some individuals took the huge effort to make it to office for our sake. They kept our kitchen running, on top of it - to lift our sunk spirits, we also had a reception dinner in the evening, with a luxurious spread of Prawns, Crab Legs, Chicken, Steaks and what not. Imagine, all this to lift our spirits !!
That was not all, it seemed that Dean (Mr. Nitin Nohria) thought, it to be important to connect with us, in this difficult time. Not only, did he come in for the dinner, he made it a point to go to each table and exchange a few words (and this was a shared event between AMP+GMP - so am guessing 300 people !!). Of-course, some of the participants thought, this would be a great opportunity for a photo-op and he obliged smilingly.
What drives you to be super-successful, and then also be sensitive to your community needs and prompts you to walk the extra mile ... Humility.
This day, has been etched into my memory for the rest of the life. A tragic reminder, once again, that we are leaving behind a huge burden of terrorism for our next generation.
My key learnings today.
1. The table lamp on my study table did have a knob to make it turn. Hence, when switched on, it did not always shine directly at my eyes. Damn, I knew I was missing something...
Did I not tell you, that we spent the full day inside.
Stay safe. !!
Alok
nice note
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