Bangalore Visit, January 21-25, 2009: Background

This year, after a three year gap, I decided to once again attend the annual national pediatricians' gathering. This, the 46th Pedicon, would be held at Bangalore, or Bengaluru as it is now called by the government of Karnataka, from the 22nd to the 25th of January, 2009. I registered as a delegate some time in August, and received a confirmation receipt a month later.

I was excited to go, and even suggested to my wife Nishrin that she should accompany me, since I would be returning to this city after exactly 19 years - we had gone there together for our honeymoon in 1990. It would be a sort of romantic return - but as was expected, Nish could not come owing to the fact that her salon practice would be on in full swing. Therefore, I decided to go alone. I asked some of my colleagues as to who would be going - and eventually, Praful - my friend and colleague from Masina - officially Dr. Praful Shanbhag - and I - coordinated as much as possible - and decided to explore the Pedicon together.

I booked my onward flight journey for the 21st morning, as I would also be attending a workshop on early recognition and management of cerebral palsy; Praful would come to B'lore on the next morning, and he booked his flight with his own agent. However, it fell upon me to book a hotel room for the two of us, and to book a common flight for the return journey on Sunday the 26th of January. Both these bookings I did with my credit card, and later on, Praful reimbursed me his share of the flight ticket AND ALSO PAID THE FULL ROOM CHARGES FOR BOTH OF US. I think he will get someone from some pharma company to sponsor the room charges, but even so, that was awfully nice of him.  

The theme of the conference was "Redefining Child Care". I was in intermittent touch with some of the B'lore pediatricians who were on the organising panel, the chief one being Dr. R. Nisarga, the main organising secretary.

For booking the hotel, I called upon a dear friend from Writing.com who is  staying in the same city - viz. Vikramadith Raman. He was kind to point me to this site (which is only for Bangalore), from where I finally arranged the booking for both Praful and myself in a double Delux room, the hotel being about 2 km from the conference venue and very reasonably priced. It was called Hotel Atlaantic Inn and it is located at J C Nagar opposite "Fun World". The room rates were Rs. 1500/= per night plus 12% luxury tax. I even requested Vikram to go to the hotel and check it out. Which he did. Wasn't that really sweet of him? I kept in touch with him, and later, also got in touch with another Writing.com friend from B'lore, one Mr. B.A. Satish. More about these two friends in a later post.

To replace me at the clinic, I requested my senior registrar at Masina Dr. Sandeep to visit and see my patients daily in the evenings. He complied with this very nicely. At Dholkawala Hospital, Dr. Munira Khambati filled in for me and at Masina, Dr. Avinash Desai. 

In the last few months, one pharma co. reimbursed me the entire flight charges, while another  sponsored my entire registration package. Thus, the trip became a reality.