I am, in general, a copious note-taker. I had my favourite pens, some reusable paper and a nice folder with me on my trip to Mysore. I could’ve taken notes at TEDIndia and I would’ve if it hadn’t been for the philosophy of what one could call ‘immersion’ at TED.

Let me go back a second. If you don’t know what TED is, it’s one of the most exclusive conferences in the world. If you aren’t a TED fellow (a special individual who has been successful in her field and has contributed in spreading worthy ideas), a speaker, performer or otherwise a guest at TED, you pay anything from 2500 to 6000 USD to attend this conference. There’s more information about TED at the link above.

Since 2006 there are a number of formats in which you can participate in TED. You’ve probably heard of the TED talks, which are videos of some of the best speakers at the conferences available freely on the internet. Here is one of my favourites.

For the first time in TED history, the organisers decided to stream the first day’s sessions live on the web. There was also the Simulcast lounge at the venue for attendees who wanted to tweet and blog as the talks were going on. This was a more informal space with comfy chairs and food stalls. And then there was the traditional way in which TED takes place: in an auditorium, no laptops and phones allowed (except in the back), no talking when sessions are in progress. This is the format I chose for myself. And yes, you could take notes and pictures (no flash), but I decided to be as ‘immersed’ as possible. I decided that whatever stuck would be good enough for me. Besides the best talks would soon be at the TED website.

The day before day one

I arrived on the fourth. I was in the grumpiest mood possible. I hadn’t slept the previous night, the shuttle had left too late, took too long to reach, our driver was honking every two seconds, and we had a police escort that was making even more noise. Ergo — I’m allowed that word — I could not sleep on the bus. I was also troubled by the fact that one of the people on the bus was famous and that’s why we had an escort. I studied everyone with great suspicion and finally decided that a rather short, elderly man with very distinguished-looking hair was the celebrity. Little did I know that all of the TED shuttles from Bangalore to Mysore had police escorts and that the people on my shuttle were collectively about as famous as a pineapple.

When we reached we had to register, but of course my name wasn’t on the list. My performance had only been confirmed the previous day and naturally all of the information and the pictures I had sent them were of no use. I had to sit for a new picture, wait to get my room key, and then rush to the hotel for the welcome party, which was off-campus, for a rehearsal that did not happen. This meant that I hadn’t eaten a thing since 8 AM. It was 7 PM when I got to the hotel and managed to sneak some sandwiches into my purse.

The party was big and noisy and full of people. I soon discovered how not to feel lost among people you didn’t know at all. See, everyone was wearing an ID card around their neck. It was a bit corny, but very helpful in starting conversations. I must’ve spoken to at least forty people that one night, and I’m usually very shy at parties.

The reading went well. It was a very tiny side-event, and because of the (idiotic) way in which the sound was organised, most people didn’t hear the announcement that something was going on. I did, however, have an audience of forty or fifty people, with Swanand Kirkire, Hindi poet and Bollywood lyricist. It was the weirdest poetry reading I’ve ever been to, but it was still cool. While the majority responded with  ‘What poetry reading?’ when I told them that that was what I was doing here, I did meet quite a few people who were nice enough to respond to the poems, and that’s always cool.

Drinking at the party Photo: James Duncan Davidson

See how people are grabbing drinks? Everyone’s alcohol intake was severely compromised by the Infosys campus’ (which was where everyone was staying) Gandhian rule of no booze, so people were drinking all the bad wine they could get. Give me, OMG, give me, whatever you’ve got, before I dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Speakers I liked

I could do this day by day, session by session and it would take pages. So, let me organise this differently.

in chronological order

Hans Rosling, who began the first session called ‘Fast Forward,’ said nothing new: India and China are progressing rapidly, blah blah blah. What was amazing and new, however, was the way his take was presented. Think of looking at graphs and not being bored. This was one of the most successful examples of visual communication I’ve ever seen. There are several talks of his already available on the site, but you definitely want to see his TEDIndia talk, which should be up soon.

RA Mashelkar, Anil Gupta and Anupam Mishra spoke in the following sessions: ‘Fast Forward,’ ‘Reinventing Development’ and ‘Green and Blue.’ Even though they spoke of different things and worked on different projects, there were strong similarities in their work — particularly the idea that development no longer works through top-down information processes and that people from third world spaces do not need or want alien technologies forced on them. Again, not a new idea, but it was incredible to see ground results of their work. Mr Mishra, for example, is an environmental activist and works on ways to preserve traditional rainwater harvesting techniques; he showed how these methods were actually far more successful than ‘new’ and ’scientific’ methods.

Besides the content of these talks, it was interesting to see how the speakers, well, speak. The audience loved Mr Mishra. He began his talk with this request: ‘Just as you need to turn your mobile phones off, you need to turn your internal English grammar checker off.’ He wasn’t used to public speaking in English, but I would easily rate him as one of the best at the event. For one, having something to say and show instantly makes you interesting to an intelligent audience. Secondly, he had a great way of using his difficulties in English to his advantage without coming across as overly self-conscious. Thirdly, he had this wonderful deadpan sense of humour; I really hope they put his talk up so you can see it.

Most speakers tried to use some form of humour. For example, Sendhil Mullainathan (session 4: ‘Reinventing Development’), a behavioural economist from Harvard, tried several times to use a kind of self-deprecating humour — oh look! I can’t remember a word as simple as ‘advance’ – that didn’t get as many laughs as Mr Mishra’s emotionless Now let’s take a short commercial break to see what the government’s techniques lead to followed by an image of a waterway filled with water hyacinth and no sign of usable water.

I’m not criticising the Harvard professor: humour is hard to do. I’m just pointing to what I think most people unconsciously or consciously preferred, and this includes me.

Chris Anderson in conversation with Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev (Photo: James Duncan Davidson)

Now, my impression of spiritual leaders who use communication channels outside of their religious spaces goes something like this: FRAUD.

And no, I did not understand or believe most of what Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev (session 3: ‘Wonder Wonders’) said in his talk. However, I do not think he is a fraud. At all. He spoke well, he was aware of the limitations of what he was saying and how it would be received, he had a sense of humour, and all in all, came across as a genuine person. It was great to be in his presence and also His Holiness the Divine Karmapa (session 9: ‘Within You, Without You’), who spoke on day three.

After each talk, the hosts generally ask the speaker a couple of questions. Chris Anderson, curator and co-host, asked Sadguru to sing a little and he sang a short bhajan in Sanskrit. Afterwards, he was asked to translate it, and he said (and I paraphrase):

A lady saw a man coming towards her. She began to tremble — not out of fear. <laughter> When the man reached her, she asked, ‘What are you going to do to me?’ He said, ‘Lady, it’s your dream. You tell me.’

It would almost be wrong not to mention Pranav Mistry (session 3: ‘Wonder Wonders’), known generally at TED as ‘the whiz kid.’ You may have already heard of his sixth sense technology, as had many other audience members. I, however, had never heard of him, and when he first came on stage I was puzzled. Who was this young inarticulate person and why was he giving us an 18-minute talk? Then he showed us his demo video and guided us through it. Check it out here.

I was just talking to my cousin; he is what you would call a techie and owns his own company. He isn’t as impressed with Mistry as I am and says that what he has done isn’t ‘rocket science.’ I don’t know what to make of that comment, but since I come from a humanities background, I can’t help but anticipate how this dissemination and adoption of this technology would radically change our lives, our sense of reality, our means of communication. Talk about hyperreal.

I loved Charles Anderson’s talk (session 6: ‘Green and Blue’) as well. A marine biologist living in the Maldives, he has traced migration patterns of a species of dragonfly from India through the Maldives to East Africa. That’s a long and crazy journey for an insect to make. Oh, and I hate nature channels, but this guy demands your attention.

Ryan Lobo (session 7:  ‘The Power of Stories’) began his talk by acknowledging that he was speaking after Shekhar Kapur and that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Wrong. We needed a break from the idiocy of Shekhar Kapur (more later) to listen to something genuine, and Ryan’s talk on compassionate storytelling was it.

Ryan Lobo at TED (Photo: James Duncan Davidson)

To be honest — as required by all reviewers, even mere bloggers — I’d met Ryan at the welcome party and later at another evening event, much before his talk. And I think you are more liable to like work by someone you’ve already had a conversation with. The first thing I said to him was, ‘I already know a Ryan Lobo, but he’s not you.’ He looked at me like I was crazy, but really, what sort of Mangalorean doesn’t know a Ryan Lobo?

Ryan is Goan, which is very different but also kind of the same as being Mangalorean. After some jokes about me being a Mangalorean poet and drunken advice about the worthlessness of degrees, I knew I was interested in what Ryan had to say.

Having worked as a documentary filmmaker for National Geographic, he knew the kinds of structures such TV documentaries fall into, how certain stories are silenced and certain other stories highlighted — a case with all mainstream communication. Although he didn’t go into details (it would get him into trouble, I suppose) he showed how he’d moved towards still photography to tell ‘compassionate stories.’ The photographs he showed us were, if I remember correctly, of war-torn Liberia, the Delhi fire brigade and an Indian female peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. It was good work and Ryan is definitely one to look out for.

CK Prahalad (session 8: ‘Learning to Learn’), the man behind ‘bottom of the pyramid’ economics, was perhaps the densest speaker. It was good to listen to someone I studied at university, and I admire the way he answered Chris Anderson’s questions at the end of his segment. He had, I think, the best answers.

A Balasubramaniam did not give a talk so much as showcase his work, and this too I enjoyed. Excuse my arty-fartiness and also my general ignorance of visual art, but I liked some of his work. I can’t find the ones I liked best, but here is an image of something I like.

Set of 4 hidden waves, A Balasubramaniam, 2008

When your word count exceeds 2000 on a blog, you know you need to break this into bits. So expect a Part 2 soon.

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Edit: Here’s part 2.