We have a huge main lecture hall that can accommodate 300 people. A number of conferences are hosted there. They get pharma and instruments manufacturers to keep stalls outside the lecture hall and make a bit of money from that. The pharma and instruments companies are there to make sales to the delegates. They want to attract the buyers. So they make the stalls and surroundings look posh.
This conference seemed to be grander than usual. I could tell that the moment I stepped into the quadrangle in front of the lecture theater on my way to the department. Look at the following images (3D, not actual photographs) of the appearance before and after the conference people moved in.
Before
After
Normally two stray dogs sleep there near the left side wall all day. The conference guys drove them out, and put posh looking carpets on the floor. Later on they put their stalls over the carpets along both right and left walls. The poor dogs looked miserable standing outside what they considered to be their home.
The other posh thing about the conference was the pleasant smell of air freshener one could smell in the exhaust while passing along the corridor behind the toilet block, where one normally smelled ammoniacal smells in varying strengths. They had probably put so much of the air freshener there that the cost of that would have fed a family of five (below poverty line, of course) for a month.
The only thing that was not different was the people who attended the conference. On my way home in the evening, I saw plastic cups of mineral water thrown in pots of plants in the garden near the entrance. Praise the lord that they had not discarded the lunch dishes there too.
This conference seemed to be grander than usual. I could tell that the moment I stepped into the quadrangle in front of the lecture theater on my way to the department. Look at the following images (3D, not actual photographs) of the appearance before and after the conference people moved in.
Before
After
Normally two stray dogs sleep there near the left side wall all day. The conference guys drove them out, and put posh looking carpets on the floor. Later on they put their stalls over the carpets along both right and left walls. The poor dogs looked miserable standing outside what they considered to be their home.
The other posh thing about the conference was the pleasant smell of air freshener one could smell in the exhaust while passing along the corridor behind the toilet block, where one normally smelled ammoniacal smells in varying strengths. They had probably put so much of the air freshener there that the cost of that would have fed a family of five (below poverty line, of course) for a month.
The only thing that was not different was the people who attended the conference. On my way home in the evening, I saw plastic cups of mineral water thrown in pots of plants in the garden near the entrance. Praise the lord that they had not discarded the lunch dishes there too.
