Newborn and New Grand Initiative

Nanaaa…. Nanaaa.. a sweet, pure, tender sound from somewhere.. I opened my eyes, saw my young daughter, trying to wake me up from deep slumber. I realized a bit late that my younger daughter has grown up as well – now she is a little over one year.

Unknowingly, my arm extended under the pillow in search of a mobile phone. It was 8.30 AM, and I saw a few whats up notifications about last night's event. I thought to regurgitate the whole thing later.

As planned, I started a road trip to my hometown with family  - two trouble makers (daughters), mother of a trouble maker (my wife), also a multitasker. After a while, my younger one said, “Lalla, Lalla,” which means water. I Came back to senses and realized that she could even speak a few words. I said to my self – did I miss anything. My wife said yes, you missed many things - browsing through my WhatsUp messages and also helping my daughter to drink water.

I continued driving but a couple of things running parallelly in my mind with the speed of rotating wheels.

•   A grown-up daughter, I saw since morning
•   A grown-up initiative which we spectacled last night

When I look back in slow motion, like a baby in the womb, our initiative also grew incrementally but not in one womb – simultaneously in many:

•   Pankaj’s womb is so big, always jam-packed with many initiatives; but still  finds space for a few more. He can switch gears so quickly and can manage multiple things – don’t know what he drinks but his body is full of the brain with a Redbull.

•   Pritwin’s carry a virtual/digital womb. Because he is a tech-savvy and always looks at things from a different perspective. Visionary but also a small-time trouble maker (in a positive way). He picks the right things which are not evident for most of us but has a meaning which is deeply interwoven. He is a damn cool guy to rely on and manages stuff with so much calm.

• Prasad’s  comes from chemistry background (organic synthesis) but his simile is genuine, never a synthetic one. Didn’t see him being anxious nor angry, always there to carry his duties on his shoulders without much support. He has all the building blocks, catalysts and schema to quickly do the reaction with a full heart.

•  Soumya is there for everyone. He is with full of compassion and support. His womb is on his toes – active always, but he will never allow it to drop. He oozes a glue, which connects everyone strongly.

•  Manthan is very sharp and very rationale. He has experience in carrying such initiative with ease. He is a well-planned parent with clear thoughts. His inputs are always valid, and he knows when to do what.

• Tanvi gave heart and soul to nurture this event from the beginning. She conducted the orchestra well last night (27^th Dec 2019). No one knew that we are doing this for the first time. No one also knows her expression except me when she asks the salutations and profile of the Jury for 10^th time and I am like copy it from the website. If someone would be in her place, then my strings would be broken and muted forever.

•  Nilakshi connection with applicants was terrific. She used to get more emails than anyone asking the status of their application. She is very cooperative and answered about 200 emails. Equally, she played an essential role in promotion during her customer visits. 
• Sumeer is an escape artist -couldn't escape from this initiative. Though, he joined bit late to the patron, but along with Manthan worked diligently coordinating jury and shortlisted candidates. 

First trimester (April – June): This is the most critical phase of a baby’s life in the womb. The baby is so small (size of season seed), but has all the potential to grow as big as the banyan (MYSIAN) tree. Even though life is so small at the beginning, but it has a premature heart and it beats at high speed. So as our frequencies of online meetings. We have to start everything from scratch and decide on many things:

•   Eligibility criteria
•  Award money
•  Jury members
• Website
•  Schedule of the whole initiative

This is the phase, which has maximum iterations and has slow growth than any other phase.

Second trimester (July – Sept) : This is the phase where the organ starts forming so as the committees of our initiative:

•  Digital committee: Promotion on the digital world (Facebook, Google ads, Retargeting)
• Jury Committee: Coordinate with jury members
• Application committee: Design application fields and date of applications
• Customer-facing committee: Awareness in the scientific fraternity (Marketing, Sales and Technical sales)

 Each committee works for a cause to sustain life and equally helps in the growth of the initiative. As 5^th month scanning important for the doctor to determine the health and wellbeing of the baby, we have long meetings to examine our activities list. Not only we started accepting applications for the award, we have also begun planning for the final award event (delivery date).

Third Trimester (Oct – Dec): This phase has maximum growth in terms of size and scale and also the busiest trimester. As the baby matures, the activity of the baby in the womb increases, causing more pain and trouble for the mother. So as our initiative, as we close accepting applications, emails pouring from applicants asking the status of their application. Parents consult doctors more frequently and also very anxious about the final date.  So do we consulted our jury members asking their availability and understanding their convenience? As you don’t expect the date of delivery remains the same, each consultation postpones the delivery date. Finally, the date has been fixed to be 27^th Dec 2019.

As a parent of this big initiative, we spoke with the hotel and decided on the package. Sadly, on each passing day, the budget for the delivery was increasing. Like any grandparents, our leadership team is with us and reiterated that the health of the baby is most important than money.

Finally, the D-day has come. From morning 8.30 AM, we were walking to and fro outside the innovation room, as if we are waiting for good news from the operation theatre. In-between, the jury come out to relax and have tea/coffee, but we were holding our nerves and want to finish the final presentation session without any hiccup. Till afternoon, everything went smooth, and we delivered –no worries, it is not a  c-section.

Then comes the other more significant part of the day – award event. We are equally anxious about the evening ceremony – it is almost like a cradle ceremony. As an early guest whoever comes first enquire about the other guests, we keep hearing such questions. But, our whole energy is to see through the flow of the event and most importantly not to offend anyone during the ceremony. Everything went well, during the dinner, everyone wished the newborn (Merck Young Scientist Award) to grow well.

As natural as any parent, we started to think about how to grow this baby? When I asked the same question to my wife, she said, do you thought younger one how to walk, how to drink and how to eat? I became silent and said, “No” to myself.

I think as a parent, we should provide the necessary environment for the child to grow, thereby the baby grows and creates his/her own identity.