The meeting with Mr. Kurien

EXAMS ARE OVER!!... THEY ARE OVER AT LONG LAST!!...lemme now do the traditional Mongolian Dance of Relief, before i resume typing. Exams got over the day before. Rushed to the room, packed up, had a quick lunch and rohith, joseph and myself took off to Bandra to catch a train to Anand in Gujurat. We had been planning this trip for a while, the sole reason being to get to see AMUL and how it works. Jo had been in touch with the PRO, Mr. Partha for a while. He was very helpful and along with him Jo had worked out the entire visit. Reached Anand around 11.00pm. Seeing the huge and neatly-constructed railway station, all 3 of us knew at once that this wasn't going to be just another small town we were expecting Anand to be (and we were right). Checked into our hotel room, switched on the TV and saw KKHH ( for the benefit of my international readers, KKHH is Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, a blockbuster hindi movie). 10.00 am next day we are sitting with Mr. Partha in his cabin at GCMMF (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation...they market the Amul brand of products). He takes us through the schedule for the day and then a brief corporate presentation. We then move to the main Amul dairy plant. Here Mr. Sundaran, PRO takes us through the entire plant, explaining the various steps in procuring and processing milk. He also took us to the Amul Museum, where we saw the history of Amul and the 3 men behind the revolution (Mr. Tribhuvan Das, Dr. Verghese Kurien, and Mr. H.Daliah). Had lunch and then left for the Tribhuvan Das foundation, which is charitable set-up providing help to the village community by provding free healthcare, daycare for childeren,etc. We moved to Vidya diary which is a Diary Technology institute cum plant, where diary students are trained hands-on for a year. The assistant manager gave us an overview of this plant and then we were taken into the plant and the some of the operations regarding how Emantelle Cheese and ice-cream were made, were explained. We then were taken to IRMA ( Institute of Rural Management, Anand). We met up with the PRO who explained to us the spirit behind this institution and how this institute was set up under the leadership of Dr.Verghese Kurien. Then came the moment we were waiting for - a meeting with Dr. Verghese Kurien - the father of the white revolution. We had heard so much about this great person. About how he integrated the villages across gujurat to create the most successful co-operative India has seen till date - AMUL. He was responsible for the sucess of Operation Flood and for making India Self-sufficeint in Diary. This was a man who married professionalism, profitablility and most importantly socio-economic welfare. And at 5.00 pm yesterday we were shown into his office and there we saw the legend - in the flesh. We spent about half an hour talking to him. He related to us quite a few anecdotes from his life. He was quite old, yet he was very sharp and quite a humorous and jovial person ( "I've tried....and I dont think i've done badly" .... this he said about his career!!!) Took a snap with him before we took his leave. :) 

 Having wrapped our programme for the day, we headed back to the hotel by around 7.00pm. The train wasnt until 10.20 pm and so we killed time by watching Andaz Apna Apna ( amazing PJ's! ). Had dinner , caught our train. We were lucky enough to get seats in the GC. And today morning we were back in Mumbai and back to classes at NITIE. No trip I've ever been on comes remotely close to the satisfaction I've had during this trip. The story and the people behind AMUL and meeting the man who kickstarted this revolution....what can I say? It was AMAZING!