I went for this one week management training program to Chennai because the owners of the NIIT franchise sent me for it and one of the partners infact did the program with me. I found the name MILT very strange and the trainer’s name a bit more… But it was the program that brought my soulmate Krishnan to sit across from me on the same table and yes we did do management training by managing to fall in love and deciding to marry :):)
In the trainer I also discovered my second idol for public speaking. Aporesh was a strange sounding name, but that was all that was strange about him. The way he would walk upto the podium or the way he would deliver a speech or the way he could convince the participants that winning that 100 bucks pen was the most important thing in life – he was an artist at work. Aporesh had gone to the US and got trained at the Dale Carnegie institute and came back to India to offer the program. He is the forerunner in the space of personality development programs and a truly great forerunner.
Ofcourse his feet were caked in clay – a failed marriage, dalliances, “my way or the highway” mentality, no tolerance for a difference in opinion and so many more forms of clay !! But when it came to his core offering of a trainer who could train you to speak in public without fear – he was par excellence.
He tried very hard to convince me to become a Miltonian but he didn’t succeed :):) Guess he is still sore about that. Today happens to be his birthday and I was remembering many of his positive contributions – the confidence building MILT sessions, the amazing atmosphere of the Alumni meetings, the close friendships that formed due to the 14 session program and just Aporesh’s sheer magnetism as a presenter. He has touched many lives – some destroyed by the touch but many who gained tremendously.
Happy birthday Aporesh and many many happy returns…. Thanks for holding that management training program in 1990 and putting Krishnan and I on the same table. Thanks also for the Milt fraternity – for the deep friendships that got facilitated by the program. May you find the peace that you want and need …. And stay on “top of the world”