Day 2

It was the first day of the congress and the second day in China for me. I was up and dressed up all in Suit and all. I went for a breakfast and ate a lot of good Chinese food.
Upon reaching the venue, I asked around about getting to the opening ceremony. Immediately a volunteer said that I could go to the parallel opening ceremony. I was a bit confused, I said, “I want to go to the opening ceremony in the real one.” She said, “yes you can go to the palelell opening ceremony in that loom”. I asked, “ why cant I go there to the main one” she said, “you need a ticket for that”. I said , “What ticket?”. She said, a ticket, then I said, “Show me how the ticket looks like, may be I can check if I have left it in my room”. She said, “No no , you need to have the ticket now,” she passed me on to another volunteer who was standing with a placard in his hand it said, “way to the parallel opening ceremony”.
Then I understood that the hall was too small to accommodate all the delegates and so there were session held in rooms where they would live telecast the ceremony. So I was able to see the opening ceremony amidst a packed audience in a hall. I must say that the live telecast was very good.
My next stop was at another hall, where the lecture was again live telecasted. It was on the way in which cities were growing the world.
It was only 11:00 am and they gave us a lunch break.
Post lunch there were two good lectures. The first one was on how colour and race were associated with mental capacities. The second was fascinating, it was about the preference of lighter skin in India. The speaker Dr Subdhra of Delhi university argued the roles of woman as devi Vs dasi. It was a great concept. She painted a caste and class picture very vividly and explained why men preferred either of the two.
Once that was over, It was time for my session. There were four speakers in the panel. Two hardcore anthropologists, one geographer and a poor social worker were set to start the sessions. I was the second batsman. I laid out the context of Tsunami and exclusion of the dalits. I also spoke of OfERR’s role in working with the dalits to alleviate the poverty.
The other two papers were also very good. One paper was on the Kosi river breach. It was good to compare the relief operations of the Kosi with the Tsunami.
We finally got to the end of the session. We were all tired. My session did attract a lot of questions and hence I was given the maximum time. I did explain the steps that were involved in the process.
Now it was time for Dinner at 5:30 pm. I had dinner and left for a long walk. It was raining, but did not worry too much about it. I walked for about 4 km and got back.
In the reception center there were a number of volunteers. I sat with them and had a long chat, we laughed so much about silly things and made fun of each other. Since it was past nine, I came to my room.
Tomorrow, I am going for a village visit. I am already excited to learn about it.