Page 25 - Here and Now – Apr 2024

My journey with ISABS thus far

The Preamble

I was doing fine at work…. or so I thought! Busy schedules, meeting deadlines,
intense interactions with colleagues; happy with pats on the back.
Occasional and probably inevitable frowns as well from boss…

Time was flowing in a rhythmic stream…yes… so I thought!!

And so, it was a bit of a surprise when I was nominated for a residential
‘Human Process Lab’ that was to be conducted at Agra under the aegis

of ISABS. What’s that? I was told ISABS was a renowned Applied Behavior
Science & Lab Institute in India.

Truth be told…I was immensely skeptic about this proposition. Till then I had harbored the idea
that I was affable, easily acceptable and had the ability of getting along with people - even the
‘difficult’ ones. That I had recently become a father then and had to stay away from the new-
born for a week was also making me feel insecure, restless. I conveyed these things to my boss
in no uncertain terms. He heard me patiently but implored me to attend this programme. ‘You
would immensely benefit by attending this as you would discover many things about yourself
that you don’t know now’…was his firm message.

So, on a slightly wintry afternoon I reached Agra…not expecting much, but curious to know what

it was all about and what could be in store for me. That evening was spent among completely
unknown faces with bits of fun and ‘play.’

I came to know later that ten of us were assigned a group, selected
with care to accommodate complete strangers of diverse ages,
cultures and both genders.

The journey begins

The start was bizarre, to say the least. There was one senior man
present. Later, we learnt that he was the ‘facilitator’ of our group.

Curiously, he preferred to stay completely mum for most of the initial period. In fact, was this
not the time when we needed him most? So we ignored him and started chatting among
ourselves. We got to know something about each other. It was then that our facilitator very
slowly started speaking. To our surprise, we found that, by then, he had memorized each of our
names, gave a very brief overview about what to expect (“the unexpected” of course), to

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