It was December 23, just the first day of our conference in Pakistan.
The South Asian Economic Students Meet (SAESM) is an economic competition, held in a different South Asian country every year.
But that day, the World Bank had suddenly decided to hold their policy competition. We were exasperated. With no idea about our teammates and literally no time, what did they expect us to do?
At breakfast, we were given a list of team members. We’d have to give a 5 minute presentation based on the topic ‘Economic competitiveness through regional co-operation,’ having only one 30 minutes meeting to prepare.
Evening arrived and the team met. We hailed from different countries and didn’t know each other at all. I was in group one. Thankfully, Abir, my fellow Bangladeshi and only friend there, was on my team.
We had no idea what the situation would be at the end of the evening. Would it end with making new friends? Or would it end in acrimony and a poor presentation?
Our Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Afghan, Sri Lankan and Bhutanese teammates turned out to be great. It took no time at all for us to become friends and work as a team. It was magical how we all just ‘clicked,’ and how were all excitedly sharing ideas, contemplating creative methods while having such fun.
There was laughter, but we were united by a passion for what we were doing: exploring how coordination between our countries could make development programmes more efficient.
We were immersed in our ideas, and our racket caught the attention of a World Bank organiser who came tby o ask us how we were doing.
We ended up blurting out to him that with our fourteen heads sprouting so many innovative ideas in just half an hour, we were sure we would have come up with something worthy of a Nobel Prize if we had enough time!
We decided to try an innovative approach in presenting our ideas. We started by imagining a hypothetical situation where students at a conference were staying in two rooms: the dark room and the happy room.
The students in the dark room were un-cooperative, egoistical and there was a negative, dampening atmosphere. On the other hand, the happy room students were helpful, cooperative. A harmonious atmosphere thrived there.
We portrayed a situation where the students of each room had, like us, suddenly been told to present a five minute idea on a given topic.
In our thought experiment, we imagined that the dark-room students were so competitive and selfish that they ended up not performing as a team. The students of the happy room pooled their talents, uniting to put up a sensational performance.
We related the room scenarios to the possible relations between our countries, and ended our five minutes by joining hands and asking: “Which room do you want to be in?”
That evening, we won the World Bank Policy Competition. Our teamwork and the sight of us having fun, like long lost friends, helped everyone get the message of unity we were trying to convey.
That evening, besides leaving me with great memories, got me thinking about how uniting for the greater good is really what our countries need right now. And how this is something that has been left to our generation to pursue.
My stay in Pakistan was remarkable. In trying times when the past compels us to hoist up emotions that our nation was founded on, it’s natural that a trip to the land once known to be our enemy would be a journey dreaded and feared.
I continued on in Pakistan as part of a Bangladesh team competing in Pakistan for the 2013 South Asian Economic Students Meet, where our hosts had arranged an amazing retreat; we travelled around Islamabad, Harappa and visited the old parts of Lahore.
The breath-taking scenery on the way to Islamabad, feeling on top of the world in Monal and visiting Turab Sir’s home and being fed Pakistani delicacies prepared by his mother were unparalleled experiences.
It left us wishing we had more days to explore Pakistan and left us knowing that we would probably never taste better kebabs for the rest of our lives.