Conference season is on us. Yikes! Summits, symposiums, seminars, forums, conventions, call them what you will, this particular form of high-class hot air has endeared itself to the Indian heart and no one does it better than Delhi. Witness the last month where the pickings have been rich by any standards: the HT Leadership Summit followed by the FICCI Higher Education Summit, followed by the World Economic Forum India summit, all held in the capital (while in Mysore, TED, the cool avatar of conferences, undulated to the beat of percussionist Sivamani’s drums at the Infosys campus.)
What is the attraction of these well-heeled gangbangs? Why do their organisers shell out large sums of money to bag big-name speakers? (An ex-US prezzie was rumoured to have received $2 million to sing for his supper). On what basis are the audiences chosen? And why does the general public (read you and me) need to be subjected to this particular form of conceit and blather?
The anthropology of conferences is fascinating: from the base level of a Ball-Bearing Association of Bhandup slugfest to the more rarefied versions at the IIC and the Taj Palace, there is a universal theme that runs through all these well-heeled love-ins: big names, networking and lots of blather. The big names are what grabs the media attention, the networking is the reason people come, and the blather is the grease that oils the whole conference machine.
Of the big names that get invited to speak, of course pre-eminent are the current Indian triumvirate of PM, Sonia and FM. Some conferences manage all three. Some a combination of two. But no conference or summit that aspires to the big league can afford to go without at least one of these three. Once this part of the equation is in place, then organisers can get creative; often the same talent that fuels a hostess’s lust to sprinkle her parties with ‘interesting faces’ fuels the search of organisers for speakers.
Indira Nooyi? Female, inaccessible, US-based big name. Check. Deepak Chopra? Spiritually correct, mellifluous, international new-age alpha male. Check. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton? Ex-world leaders with table manners. Check. Check. Organisers know just what will get them an inch or two in the dailies; they solicit the aforementioned names with the zeal that would do a Malabar Hill socialite proud. Once a few big names are assured, then the rest of the roster is duly filled up with the usual suspects: Shekhar Kapoor for some urbane Bollyspeak, Sri Sri for colour, Anu Aga for gravitas.... Yes sir, names are what keeps the conference wheels a-turning.
But what lies at the heart of the conference culture are not the names but the networking. And in this respect, there is a great democracy that prevails. Everyone, but everyone—regardless of whether they’re at an import-export all-day gangbang in a 2-star hotel, or at a more chi-chi gathering at the India Habitat Centre—is there for the simple purpose of making friends and influencing people.
Visiting cards get thrown around like confetti, handshakes and backslapping are the order of the day, and cell numbers are forwarded ferociously. If delegates have had to shell out big bucks for attendance, the networking is frantic; if the audience is invited on the basis of their status, glamour factor or their proximity to the organiser, the networking is covert.
Which brings us to the blather, on stage and off. Cute one-liners by moderators, hollow triumphalism by politicians, tall claims by economists, grandstanding by bureaucrats—the list of insults to our intelligence is uncountable.
Names, networking and blather at such summits aggregate into a sense of self-importance in both the speakers and the spoken-to. Watch the TV coverage of any of these events and you are never likely to witness roomfuls of more self-satisfied individuals. (“Gosh, I must be important to be in this room!” was writ large on the forehead of one ditzy designer. “Will I get evicted from Table One?” was the thought balloon of a minor royal.)
And the off-stage preening and posturing! Draped in their pashminas and bandhgallas, the participants at these conferences exude a sense of overweening pomposity. Who gets to sit where, schmooze with whom and attend which session is life-defining. A recent overheard cryptic exchange captured this wonderfully: Delegate A: “So, see you at the plenary?” Delegate B: “No, I have Nooyi.”
