Aquatech Exhibition, truly technical ( part 1)

I was rejoiced when my Head of the Department asked me whether I was interested in attending a technical exhibition which was going on in Pragati Maidaan.What instantly flashed in my mind was the golden opportunity to enjoy outside while still on official duty(hardly happens in Reliance) and I did not have a second thought on it, retorted with a BIG yes. Soon it was decided that I would accompany my senior manager to the exhibition. Now I was more delighted as Manish Gupta, one of senior manger (I have 4 in my department) is the most sensible of the lot was the one who I had to accompany.

Even though Pragati Maidaan(Delhi) was a bit far from my office (at Noida ),the Metro services connected directly the places. We took off from our office in Manish Sir’s Bike to the metro station nearby, which was Noida City Centre Station. As Manish Sir parked his vehicle at the DMRC authorized Parking space (as informed by him) , I took a very critical study of the place and staff involved in the process. To my surprise they did not have any uniform or badge or any thing of that sort to justify that they were DMRC authenticated people. To my shock, I found no Security guards, which I thought was essential and most needed in places like Noida where people steal your valuable in the blink of your eye. So I asked the guy how you can justify a person that you guys are Authentic DMRC people. He put his hands around my shoulder and turned me around to show me a highly rusted DMRC board. And with great difficulty I read the DMRC on it. By the time Manish Sir had find the parking space for his bike and had got the parking ticket as well. When I told this to Manish sir he told me that the rusted board itself is a great satisfaction, and you should be happy about that. Well it implied a lot and a common phenomenon in the city(or may be in the country), one which everyone knew and I had no intention of polluting my maiden official trip with these incessant infested discussions.

Metro has really made the trip to Delhi for the people of Noida very simple and pleasurable.We got ourself ticket for Pragati Maidaan and boarded the Metro train which started from city center(Metro from Noida starts from City Centre).After 3-4 stops the metro became Damn Crowded, well to be very frank I get suffocated with crowds places .Interestingly, Manish Sir did not mind the Crowd(in the metro) as he said you get to see a lot of good girls. Well,it has become commonplace to see people with same mentality and I nodded my head(I don't know in agreement or disagreement) as he looked at me for my views on the same.At the same time, i noticed that there were quite a number of good looking girls on the train. Suddenly, I saw a girl reading a book even though she was finding it hard to stand on two legs.I wondered why she was taking so much pains to read in the most uncomfortable situation, she can always find a better place once she gets off the train. But as I saw the cover page of thebook and I could understand her curiosity. She was reading the famous book “SHANTARAM”. Awesome book to say the least. A very good read and it keeps even a novice reader on his toes to know what happens next and I seriously cannot blame her for reading Shataram in the most irritating crowded Delhi metro. Soon we reached Pragati Maidaan, Metro has made travel so Simple and fast.

Now, we had to find Gate no 7 said Manish Sir.I told him I knew where it is as it was the same entrance through which I had made an entry for the AUTOEXPO-2010, which happened here recently. I took the lead as we walked through the well maintained pavement along the beautiful Delhi streets. As we walked, I told Manish Sir how much I loved Delhi, It is second most desired place for me(obviously the first one is my hometown Cochin) and for him it was Lucknow as he was from there. Then he told me that people in Delhi are not that trustworthy and he continued to tell me that he had good experience in Bombay(Sorry Bal Thackeray)..Mumbai and in Gujarat (he had worked in Jamnagar RIL) as compared to Delhi.I really did not agree with him. The feeling one gets while being in Delhi, cannot be experienced being anywhere for not just one reason but many.Firstly,it is the capital City with all those constitutionally acknowledged Building, it truly brings pride when you see them. As I went on to explain more we reached Gate no 7.

As soon as we moved further towards the gate we could see a big hoardings and it read Delhi book Fair 2010.BINGO!!.I was very happy seeing that because I very well knew that the technical exhibition which we are going for will be definitely boring and tiring and book fair will be a good refreshment .My face lighted up seeing the hoarding and turned back to find Manish Sir a bit surprised and worried. Obviously, we had come here for the Aquatech Exhibition and we could’nt find anything of Aquatech. We started to look around for some stall of Aquatech and Manish Sir was quick enough to spot the registration counter .We were more than happy that we could atleast find one guy sitting in the stall. Well, his sad face told me that he was irritated sitting there and Manish Sir did the formalities to get our self the entry pass. We entered the place and was very crowded again. I had no second thought on the fact that these people might have come here for the book fair which happened in more than one hall than to see technical exhibition was been staged in only one hall.

After a long disgusting time walking all around , in the quest of finding the hall, we finally succeeded and guess what? some more formalities of registration. Reliance name helped a lot as things happened fast for us. We entered the hall, I could see a lot of small stalls put together into one place. But it was not cramped up rather was very tidy and well maintained .There were many things on the Display from Common domestic Water purifiers to Complex Water Treatment technologies for industrial application (something which we are interested in).There were also components displayed, Butterfly valves and all kind of small and big motors and other stuffs were also found . I was surprised to see a submergible vertical motor. We visited GE, Philips, ION Exchange and other some major player's stalls. Well impressive they were but unfortunately we could not study the Control and Instrumentation part of any as they hardly had any specialist in the stall. I was also surprised to see Wipro’s stall there as I never knew they were into water Treatment...Most of the stall were of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. Very true Chinese badly wants to capture the Indian market with their improved technology and less costly products. We went around and had a good look at all the stalls put up ,only to find that nothing much of our relevance was there. Eventually, it turned highly unpleasing,then a bit irritating and once it became intolerable we decided to quit and have a look at the Book Exhibition as Expected.

...to be Continued.