School NSM 2009 : First hand account

As I write this I am sure many editors are busy sharpening their blogposts with mindblowing vocab and pin point precise grammar . ….Here goes my first hand account of this school NSM….

Right from the day we had started looking for the venue Rohit always had this suspicious look on me that being a Rathore from Jodhpur I will escort him to the desert of Rajasthan so had happened whenever he tried to push for Srinagar,Leh,Laddakh or Jammu as a destination , I had something or other from Raj which scored above, Finally we kind of settled down to choose Udaipur because it has got everything from lakes ,royal Palaces, greenery and hills and I am sure this consensus satisfied both of us .

Although a shorter journey compared with Goa we were ready with our stuff of playing cards , CDs and IPODs and as usual Nikhil did wonderful arrangement for on the House facilities. We took over three bogies of train and were singing and dancing throughout as if we were birds just set free from cages.

We landed in Udaipur well in time and were greeted at Trident with traditional Aarti , Tika welcome . Everybody was overwhelmed by the scenic beauty and royal ambience in and around Trident.

Well people told me that Conference schedule was bit hectic as this year we had this combined presentations by sales and editorial for frontlist titles…..thanks to award winning idea of Diyasree as compared to the previous year the presentations were more interactive this time round.




On the final day of presentations I had this herculean task to hold back 140 people for corporate quiz , you have to believe me if you see the pictures time and again I had to pose as crucified Jesus to hold back audience and participants , who were shouting I know!!...I know!! at the top of their voices.....




All the product presentations went on really well ,,,tough time for the judges to choose best presentation.


Then their was Business Ideas session where in a short span of time teams were really able to sell their !deas to the judges ,,,,I hope Sanjeev is putting some money on the prize winning idea.


Days were engaging ……evenings were equally entertaining …..with party games ,,,this was first time I had won an award for guzzling beer ….otherwise its generally fat restaurant bills or some tough words from my wife.

The cultural evening during the Galla dinner was really touching as the folk dances really struck the chords with people and they just cant help but get on the dance floor and perform with the folk artist .


Finally the DJ party and I could see almost everybody on the dance floor but the people who stole the hearts of crowd were Abhishek and Shilpi ,,,,they almost recreated the famous song of ‘Hum’ the Jumma C**** number on the dance floor .Perfect ending to three eventful days.

Finally… as I had promised, Rohit , I hope I have delivered …..

few strange things which I would like to mention ….Thank heavens that their were no ghost sightings this time but here was one “other Rohit” which used to get activated only in the evenings after 8 pm and will just refuse to go back to sleep till he is forced to do so …and “the other Rohit” was doing things which “Rohit” we know from 10.00 am to 06.00 pm can never do…and then there was this “other Naveen” who can bring life to any party once he gets hold of mike, he can organize games, beat the full time DJ with the mixing of songs, get everybody including the most non interested parties to the dance floor ,,,,Please let me know if any of you had these sightings of “the others” other than what I have noticed.

Well that’s all from me for this NSM……

Prashant Rathore

Coming soon……… many more blog posts by ……….Saumitri….Gitesh…Diya …. …..Jaydeep

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This blog is for all employees of Pearson in India . We hope to share updates - both personal and professional - from the worlds of education and publishing.