Arthalaya: The Beginning
Woke up later than usual, had watched a movie last night celebrating my brother's birthday. Rushed to complete all the daily works soon. Had left my phone on the bed. Found 2 missed calls and a caring message. Replied it with a call. Had done nothing in preparation for Arthalaya, 5-6 day long workshop. Need to reach the office of Samriddhi @ 12 sharp. After the meal, I started packing and getting ready. Somehow, I managed to reach the office on time. There I met, lots of people, some of whom I had known earlier during the group discussion. I noticed that besides one, all of the members of our group discussion were selected for Arthalaya. We waited for about an hour, then headed to Dhulikhel where we were to stay for next 5 days. In the bus, we enjoyed interacting and joking with new friends and knowing more about one another. I helped put everybody's luggage and get them off the bus from its top.
Before we noticed, we were there at Dhulikhel Village Resort. The Arthalaya had begun. As we entered the conference room, we had a short introduction on what we were going to do that day. Then we were allotted the room to be shared among a group of 3. We had just 15 minutes time to reach back to the conference hall, and we needed to put our stuffs to the allocated room, have tea and snacks within the allocated time. We realized, our hasty schedule had begun.
WeĀ rushed to the hall, then the formal session began with the introduction (introduction game) - enjoyed it, rule setting - setting trap for self, brainstorming and setting up business firm, (which had to be registered right after the dinner). The business was the actual simulation of how business is done by a company in the real world. The concept was awesome. Shall describe the company and business simulation further, later. Everything here was new to me, beginning from location, food, and environment, reaching to concepts, things to be done as well, and almost everything was just so different and yes, that includes participants who were unique, too.
We had some talks in search of team members to get together to register a company, team selection, discussion about the firm to establish, which had to be decided right after the dinner. A group of four was formed, however, the idea of business was absolutely new, so we were not much clear about what to register for. The decision point was approaching nearer, meanwhile the time for our dinner was coming to an end. We had our dinner under pressure, and finally, concluded somehow to get a "One Stop Solution", company registered, trying to make our business scope as flexible as possible, having to deal with both product and services. After the dinner, the company was registered. The session of that day was coming to an end. All of us seemed so happy for there was only half an hour more to go after a tiresome day, to let our body meet the bed as per its request.
Absolutely tired after the travel and the days session, before we could take a long sigh of comfort, we were again assigned with the article reading and group discussion assignment. We needed to get our newly prepared team ready for the summary presentation task tomorrow during breakfast. Right after the announcement of end of the sessions for the day, we a team of 6 came to a friends room and started to read, as my room was locked from inside and the key we were provided with was not working on the door. Finally, somehow we discussed a little and managed to escape the first day of torture. Back to my room, we 3 of us, got ready to sleep. As per my words, I turned on my laptop to start typing my experience of first day in Arthalaya, to keep the records.
The internet connection was not working, so I started to type my diary, a friend of mine was not asleep, so we started talking. He was a small guy, seem to be serious and quiet till then, but was concealing his fun filled and friendly nature. To my surprise, he had returned back to Nepal just 3 months back, after his 4 to 5 years stay in Australia.
We had a talk about the life in Australia, how much he missed, how he dealt with different situations he faced, some of them included his happy and masti in life and some of them were of course his tough times in the foreign land. I found him very friendly. According to him, while in Australia, he used to helped other new comers from his homeland to the new land in the way that he would have been really grateful of if somebody had done for him during his beginning days. And I do believe him. He told that he earned money and spent extravagantly at times, and sometimes, was also completely broke, even to cover his daily meals. Though, people earned huge sum, the definition of happiness in there was actually really confusing. He was not so sure if he was happy or others living in there were, specially concerning about the foreign students.
Our talks further ranged from family, Taplejung, Australia, Kathmandu to strange ways parents treat their children and so forth .... dynamic talks. The other roommate was Dibeev, the Arthalaya giant, above 6. I mean his height. He was very frank and friendly, and was snoring while two of us were chatting. May be because the bed was short for him, yes it was, or may be pillow, or I dont know. Anyways, it was nice talking to Kosish, though long, and as the time is already 2:51 AM, Im gonna be late for tomorrows session which begins at 7:00AM and for which I have to read a bit of the article and make some summarizing points then have some short discussion with the team before I reach there for breakfast.