A session on unity

On the morning on 11th June 2017, a Saturday, as most students of the college entered with the expectation of leaving the campus in three to four hours, all the 78 students of BA HEP (History, Econonmics nd Political Science) faced a different fate. They were expected to stay in college until 4 pm on a weekend. Little did any of them know how much they would enjoy the eight hours spent in college on that day. Taking their orientation session was JaiKumar Chandrashekar, an alumnus of CHRIST (Deemed to be University). Mr. Chandrashekar is the founder and CEO of Inner Voice, an organization that seeks to build social relationships in working environment. He used his official proficiency on the students of HEP to help them build interpersonal relationships. Starting with some simple, comical exercises, he lightened the mood of the room, quickly bringing the students to their feet. He then proceeded to providing each student with a chart paper and a marker pen. Students were asked to draw portraits of their classmates, who, being extremely unprofessional in the field of art, turned the whole event into a laughter riot. He then proceeded to divide the class into groups of eight, asking students to talk to each other. This exercise completely changed the mood of the room. As the students interacted with each other, they shared past experience of hurt, loss, heartache and personal problems. The students commented on how close they felt to other students in a matter of minute because of the heart-to-heart conversations that many of them shared. Mr. Chandrashekar proceeded to divide the class into five groups with five leaders. The leaders were told they were a part of one firm and had one goal – to get as many clients as possible. Only, the clients were floor mats, marked from number 1 to number 40. The leaders were to tell their classmates to touch each mat in the ascending order and do so as many times as they could. Since they were to represent a firm, the leaders were told that they were not competing against one another, rather, were working with one another. For the final round, he set the goal of 800, asking the class to collectively score this ginormous number. With a conviction to do right by the class, each team stepped in the room and came out joyously screaming their excellent results. The class had performed beyond anyone’s expectation, scoring 875, earning commendable praise from the conductor. The students were then asked to comment on their leader’s and teammates’ performances. Each student commemorated their teams’ and leader’s performance and grieved over how they had not felt this much connected to their classmates before. At the end, he asked the class to stand in a circle, and then asked everyone to go around the class and compliment people they felt truly good about. People felt elated as their classmates complimented them on minute things. Everyone in the class hurdled together in an effort of a group hug, chanting “HEP HEP hurray!”. As the class dispersed after the session, many students surprisingly stayed on campus, sharing beverage and discussing their new-found friendship. As the weekend rolled into another working day, the effect of the session stayed and many of the students felt more at home as they settled into a class that was now truly, theirs.