Chalking out new course on good old blackboard

At one of the recent conferences, I was surprised to see my co-speaker come without a PowerPoint presentation. How could someone even imagine speaking without it! In the past two decades, this has become almost the norm.

- Dr Gulbahar S Sidhu

Instead, my friend and colleague, when called to the stage, pulled up the screen and got it folded, rummaged through his pockets, and came up with a couple of chalks, with which he wrote the title of his lecture on the good-old blackboard that lay hidden beneath the white screen and, I must say, the audience, comprising mental health professionals from all over the country, listened intently and with interest right till the end of his presentation.

This incident took me back to the time I was in school, where the blackboard used to be the centre of learning. It would come to life, quite literally, with the teachers scribbling and underlining the "must-know" points on it.