Photographs

The rooms where the work happened.

Some of this is easier to show than to describe: a room, a constituency, and somebody standing at the front of it.

FISA Pune, 2019 to 2021

Abba Oumar speaking at the podium at the FISA Pune Class of 2020 ceremony — 01At the podium, Class of 2020 ceremony. The association marks the end of every academic year for students whose families are usually on another continent.

A certificate of achievement presented on stage at a FISA Pune ceremony — 02Certificates of achievement, presented on stage. FISA Pune's committee is students, and the recognition goes to students.

The graduating class seated in the hall at a FISA Pune ceremony — 03The hall. Caps and gowns, a few hundred people, and a year that most of them spent a very long way from home.

Speaking from the lectern at a FISA Pune ceremony, Pune, India — 04The lectern again, from the floor. Most of a presidency is not this; it is the fortnight of phone calls that makes this possible.

Two attendees reading the association's publication during a FISA Pune ceremony — 05The association's yearbook, read in the room it was made for. Producing it was a committee of students with no budget and one deadline.

The dais at a FISA Pune ceremony, guests presenting the association's publication — 06The dais at the launch, with the association's guests and faculty. Getting these people into one room on one evening was the year's real test.

Waiting in the hotel lobby with guests before a FISA Pune ceremony — 07The lobby, before the doors open. Chief guests arrive on their own schedule and somebody has to be standing there when they do.

A conversation off the floor at a FISA Pune event — 08Off the floor. Half of this job is finding one person in a building and settling something in ninety seconds.

Walking guests through the venue at a FISA Pune ceremony — 09Walking the guests in. An association with no staff runs on whoever is willing to do the unglamorous half.

Students at the FISA Pune photo wall in 2018 — 10The 2018 photo wall, the year I joined as a member. A year later the association elected its committee and I ended up in front of it.

A student in the auditorium at a FISA Pune session — 11The other kind of event: a lecture hall, a smaller crowd, and the members the ceremonies are actually for.

Tell me where the business is now.

And where you want it to be. If I am not the right person for it, I will say so.

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