Oxford- where you run into excellence at random!

Earlier in the evening today I attended an event organized by the Oxford Indian Society. The session was a Q&A with Members of Indian Parliament. And whilst the tete-a-tete was a great reminder that India continues to have quality speakers as the voice of her democracy, it was equally refreshing to know that well educated people are driving the country forward (amongst the panelists were {in the order they were seated- left to right} a Cambridge alum, an academic on agriculture, a Indiana University MBA alum who worked at McKinsey, a LSE graduate alum and a Magdalen College, Oxford, alum) The Q&A was interesting because the panelists were asked a variety of questions ranging from India's view of solar energy to the right to education bill and from the relevance of identity politics to the prevalence of dynastic politics. It was gratifying to see the panelists agree and disagree on a number of points. Isn't that the whole point of democracy after all? Living in peaceful disagreements!

But equally exciting was that I ran into a few Indians who are visiting Oxford as Chevening scholars (11 of them to be precise) and they will be in Oxford only for a couple of months. I met 3 people and one of them was a journalist, another a academician and one working for a large corporate house. They all had very different backgrounds and were all keen to explore Oxford! They really liked my idea to invite them to my college (Green Templeton) for a formal dinner with the MBAs and other students at the college. It would be another great opportunity for people from different backgrounds to mingle. One can only imagine what happens when excellence meets excellence! And so as we prepare for Week 1 of the Trinity term, I'll look to arrange a formal dinner and see how it goes from there. Oxford is one place where you run into excellence at random, indeed!