A Learning Experience

This one's a long delayed post on this speaker (we'll call him Mr K) we met....
He reversed all the mounting stereotypes we as a core committee have been carrying in our heads about speakers and personally id been forming, about mankind in general:p.
For some reason which i havent worked out as yet, im not ready to divulge his name.
But the one meeting and the many following phonecalls must be written about.
Maybe more than the bickered about not so cooperative others of his breed.
So here we were on a weekday afternoon, kinda late for our appointment thanks to an incident with a speaker, lets call him Mr A, ushered in about 5 mins after we announced our arrival.
The guy's the president of a hotshot company, no less, mind you;)
Exchanged pleasantries(!wow) and had a look at our concept papers, while talking on 4 out of 4 of his fones which rang incessantly, wrote a mail, checked out a screen.. (the man's multitasking king:D)
On observing a speaker on our "proposed list" (jee haan the same Mr A we'd just had a disaster with), whom he recognised, he quietly dialled him.
Spoke, chitter-chattered, fixed lunch at a swanky 5star place and hung up.
We were like, ab ye bhi gaya:p.
But he agreed to come so i took the chance of telling him Mr A hadnt relented.
He said he'd talk to him, and later on, actually made him agree to come:p.
Next, he called up a Mr V, a big guy on news television, telling him to give us an appointment!!!(we were looking for someone to moderate our finance session)
And a Ms S, another TV anchor, glamdoll, from a rival channel, to give us an appointment.
No jaan pehchaan, no contacts we had!
He told a story too. Which was the point of this post actually.
As a student some 20 years ago, a great Maestro had been invited by the college for a classical music nite, paid a whopping Rs 25,000 for his performance. He played a moody 20 mins, and walked off.
20 years ago, 25k wudve been even more money than it is to students today:p
And there was this relatively newcomer, a Zakir Hussain, who they hoped wud play atleast an hour. The guy (who's known as the charismatic, sexy man who never grows old apart from his prowess on the tabla and whose autograph i cherish:D) played till like 4 AM.
And commented he'd never played to such a receptive audience. All college students.
Now, asked Mr K, " who do you think id like to pay and watch? obviously Ustad Zakir, we chorused.
A lesson we learnt. Something, he said, one shouldnt forget. The student community always matters. And never dissappoint anyone who comes to you with lot of hopes. Students often have just that.
Thank god for that experience he had. He became our Zakir Hussain!
He has single handedly helped in putting together our finance session, and got us a superb keynote speaker. We're looking for ways to felicitate him, to show our gratitude. Such people usually don't look for felicitation. Probably why they should be given that extra mention!