Shoolini sparks a domino effect with the TEDx Talks

Solan, May 7

Speakers at the TEDx event organised by the Shoolini Tedx club kept the audience spell bound with a series of talks by eminent personalities from diverse fields at Shoolini University campus on Saturday.

Besides it’s own students, the university campus was bustling with school students from Solan, Panchkula and Parwanoo.

This list of speakers included The Kashmir Files filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, Television and Movie actor Shishir Sharma, last seen in the mystery-thriller Gaslight. The lineup also included former Director General of CISF Manjari Jaruhar, Padma Shree Dr Niru Kumar, the first female professional Tabla player Anuradha Pal and many more.

The TEDx Talk this year revolved around the theory named The Domino Effect. It focussed on how a change in one behaviour can create a chain reaction and cause a shift in the behaviours of the rest.

The first speaker ex-IPS Officer Manjari Jaruhar shared her story and stated, “I was supposed to go and study Domestic Sciences, it was chosen for me because it would lead me to have a good groom. It had nothing to do with my subsequent career.” she later said that she decided to take the civil service exam without knowing much about it but because it was very prestigious.

This was followed by Film Journalist Manju Ramanan, who began with her failure in life and emphasised how she had to first savour the pain of not making it in order to realise her potential. “Learn to flow and be adaptable to change, it might be uncomfortable but nothing grows out of your comfort zones,” she added.

The key speaker Vivek Agnihotri, who is a writer and the filmmaker of movies like Buddha in a Traffic Jam, The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files began with an old quirky story of Mulla Naseeruddin where he loses his keys and searches for them at the wrong place. He also asked everyone to view the world from an alien’s point and everything about life will be amusing. When asked about his biggest learning in life, he answered, “We have stopped listening: the sound of nature and of ourselves, we are filling our minds with garbage which is why poetry is dying, so is the beauty of nature and human beings.” and said, “that is why we are becoming dehydrated, second-hand people, I believe everything begins from hearing and learning.”

“I do not read newspapers, the information that needs to reach me, eventually does.” he told the audience. “What is a controversy? It is simple, two people disagreeing is a controversy, but nobody in this world can deny that a genocide happened in Kashmir in the 90s.”

Tabla player Anuradha Pal who recently performed at the DIOR Fashion Week 2023 in Mumbai also took to the stage to play the tabla and delivered her speech.

The 40-year-old TED organisation aims to spread ideas that spark imagination and conversation and promote the inclusivity of people and knowledge.