This was a New Year eve party of company secretaries. Our parties are not usually more about fun but about professional gathering and slightly boring for most. Most of us pretend to be serious professional not in formal professional gathering but in such deemed to be fun filled parties.
I noticed a tall young person with professionally correct party attire was on dance floor. Young girls were circling around him. I saw little competition. Suddenly, a lady nearby joked on another young man, “your girlfriend is dancing and trying to lure Divesh Goyal”. I saw, professionally correct smile on many faces, including that poor boy. I was about to form my first opinion about that young man on dance floor. Dance is not my cup of tea but I was keen to interact with this man on dance floor. I positioned myself strategically near dance floor.
I could not remember the person who introduced this young man to me; he was introduced to me as a potential threat – particularly for my academic and writing interests. I saw many friends who turn out to be a competitors and even professional rival sometime. Why should not I welcome a young energetic charming smiling boy as competitor? Best competitor is not a person who wants to push you back; he is a person who wants to stay ahead. We had some informal discussion that day in usual fashion about profession, surrounding and common friends. Soon, first meeting was over, as party fishes were there for a big catch – an eligible bachelor.
After few months, we were in a round table to discuss development on corporate law and amendment proposed by the government. This was our first formal interaction. At his age, he was good in understanding of law. He has flair for writing –legal writing and no doubt good legal reading.
Soon, we developed a strong bonding. First thing, we understood about each other; we are going to be good competitors. We decided our terms of competition when we were sharing our hotel room arranged for us on twin sharing by organizers. We decided to develop our own separate writing style. I advised him to bring all his writing at one place online as a blog. He advised me about skilled use of social media – particularly social media devise called mobile phone. I learned selfie from Divesh Goyal only.
Selfie in Selfie – Aishwarya M Gahrana capturing selfie skill of Divesh Goyal
When we got out first offer as guest speaker as replacement speaker, we prepared our presentation in New Delhi –Mumbai Rajdhani and delivered it next day. This was not very good but we celebrate our success and failures of that day together.
Thereafter, we were roommate for more than half a dozen meetings, conferences and round-tables outside Delhi. Sometimes; we, along with two dozen other competitors, worked 24 hours continuous for three or more days. I may not share details of these meeting, though many people know about outcome of these meetings. In these high voltage meetings, we usually do not sleep same time to ensure presence of at least one of us be present there. Many times, we leave the meetings to have fight on legal issues being discussed in the meetings. Soon, local crowd of company secretaries in Delhi started recognizing us together in Delhi.
We have several places for these professional conferences; we roam around these cities for place of tourists interests. We ate street food together. We have our Google presence together.
How many rocks rocking in rock garden?
I heard about a professional relationship, competition and friendship of Amitabh Bachchan and Shaturghan Sinha. They will tomorrow be together on a show dedicated to such long lasting friendships. This television series will be put celebrity friendships to test through a series of fun challenges and tasks.
AishMGhrana 