When the world came home to think

Emoto Masaru hasn’t even heard of THINK, let alone come hereto discuss his work, but his ideas were being discussed and debated across ‘themagic table’ at the Grand Hyatt lawns. Anant Singh holds a wine bottle, filledwith water, and describes the Japanese’s scientist’s theory about water havingspecial properties. “This water is energised,” he says soberly, “Masaru saysthat water has memory, it has the ability to change things. You can just talkto water and it responds by refreshing you. It doesn’t taste any differentthough.” Later Singh tries to infuse light and sound into the bottle of waterby running the neck along the very expensive chandelier at the five star hotel,making an interesting sound but scaring the security guards and staff for amoment.

Singh, a few years out of college, lives near Mysore,helping his 60-odd year old grandmother at her organic farm. His grandmother, aformer German national, came to the area over 20 years ago, loved the land anddecided to covert the brown land into green space. Now with a compressed spine,she doesn’t get out much, “but she still goes into the field for a little whileevery day to get her hands dirty .” Singh came to THINK2012 to figure outwhat’s new in the world.

Sitting across Singh at ‘the magic table’ dubbed thusbecause of the unique exchange of ideas, theories and more, among people thatonly just met at this festival of ideas, is Madhur Anand. Anand, from Bhopal,is still discovering himself, having followed instructions from SwarajUniversity, where he studies, to come to the festival and imbibe knowledge. Justa few hours after an interesting discussion in the main hall on the landacquisition act, people at ‘magic table’ start to find a relation between thattopic and David Quinn’s Ishmael, a book about ‘Leavers’ and ‘Takers.’

But THINK2012 wasn’t just about telepathic gorillas andenergised water. It was about getting inspired by idols, meeting people whosework you had read or were familiar with. Ryan Lobo is a fan of Erica Jung. Herbook, ‘Seducing the demon’ has always been one of his favourites. So, when hegot the chance to strike up a conversation with her at one of the lounges, hejumped at the chance. “I told her I loved the book and we had a shortconversation. She asked me about what I do,” says Ryan, a film-maker andphotographer, who has family in Goa, but has spent his entire life inBangalore. Ryan even related to some of the experiences that Stalin K andJessica Mayberry, the founders of Video Volunteers, have gone through over theyears, finding it “very humbling”. But, the session that he enjoyed the most,was the battle of wits between Javed Akhtar and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. “I’msurprised that Javed Akhtar lost his cool a few times. Perhaps something thatwas said brought back a bad memory. I don’t know. It was interesting to watchthough.”

On a late Sunday afternoon, Maya Tideman sits on the stairsin the lawns, sipping a glass of masala chai. Her pixie-like features light upwhen she talks about THINK. Born in Pune, this half Dutch, half Indian beautydecided to take a break from the monotony and come to Goa to exercise herbrain. Fabio Carvalho, from South Goa, sits nearby, having a discussion with anew friend, Nikhil Mahen, that he made at the festival. He surprised that hedoesn’t see more Goans at THINK. “It’s a great opportunity to learn so much.Some of these sessions are so enlightening.”

Fabio heads out to show Nikhil the city and introduce him tocutlet pao. The Coke Studio team fires up the sound on the lawns. Workers startdismantling the installations inside the Airtel lounge. The three days ofthinking are over. Now for a lifetime of putting those ideas into action.