My association with ISABS was more through the people. I heard about it in 1972 from Udai while it was being formed. We were both at Udaipur and Udai used to tell me of the attempts being made to form this body. Later in 1974 I was admitted directly to the second phase as I had these., T-Group experiences and the sensitivity camp of Pulin at IIMA and was conducting Achievement Motivation Training using structured experiences. Indira , Aroon, Ivan Mathias, Oriol Pujal, Sastry were in this batch. Later I co-trained with Pulin , Indira, Udai and Somnath at IIMA. I was rather a passive co-trainer in a number of these. My first contact with T-Group was through a conducted by Udai and Somnath and again another program by Udai, Suresh Srivastava and Somnath and the third one by Somnath and Sujit - all at NIHAE in 1970.

I used to watch at IIMA Somnath and Pulin spend a lot of time on ISABS . I do not think there is any one today who would spend even a fraction of the time these spent on ISABS . They were living and breathing ISABS. IIMA provided the institutional support. Every candidate was discussed,provided co-training opportunities and closely monitored like a family member.

I used to be very upset when the ISABS trainers we respected fought among themselves. I always held the view that ISABS should use T-Group as a base and grow, and should not limit itself to this group. It should absorb all "Applied Behavioural Science" and should not exclude others who don't have T-group training. Most fights (or free expressions of feelings and emotions) in the early years were around this point and we lost a good number of "Applied Behavioural Scientists" due to this exclusion = inclusion problem.

People around us are quite sensitive to our behaviour and they expect more collaboration and teamwork from the facilitator. At IIMA where most of the practising ISABSIANS lived, they were known more as "fighters" and highly individualistic than as team workers. This bothered me a lot. When ISABS started splitting it was the most agonizing thing for several of us. The issue was "Why are we not able to work together and why do we have such low tolerance for each other? Does sensitivity mean low tolerance? When I was called to be the President of ISABS I took it as an opportunity to continue rebuilding it. I had a lot of support from all members. I focused on networking with other bodies increasing the base through BHPs and offering low cost programs. We networked with HRD Network ; shifted the venue to NPA and got nearly a community of 200 to go through ISABS, and started programs on creativity ,and stepped up "Train the Trainer" and HRD Facilitators program. We also initiated a dialogue with NTL and planned an Institute of Applied Behavioural Science. Those were the years of learning, excitement and carrying forward. Senior trainers began to become busy and less involved in ISABS but they were always with us emotionally.

My disappointment with ourselves is that we have not been able to set up our own institute and we should have grown in all directions at least a hundred times more than what we are today.

----T.V.Rao