When It Rains, It Pours

And this isn't even a post on the weather, Subir's got that covered.

I'm talking about sponsorship and publicity for ACE. In 2006 and 2007, we started talking about and planning for ACE pretty early. Emails went out in early March, the first meetings more or less corresponded with the death anniversary of Julius Caesar, and by the time early April rolled around (bright eyed and bushy tailed) we would shoot off emails and phone calls to all and sundari (who was utterly mystified) asking them to sponsorship.

Then started struggle. Why? Mails sent, calls made, sponsors absent. Sooner or later, we (i.e. the hapless Asha Hyd volunteers) would go into a sort of With Or Without You mode as far as sponsors were concerned. In 2007, we lucked out in the nick of time, thanks to the generosity of unexpected well-wishers and all said and done were nicely covered by the day of the event.

This year was different right from the start. The perseverance of the last few years at Asha Hyderabad seems to have paid off, our Diamond Sponsor found us, rather than the other way round, and so far we seem to gel nicely with each other. The beginnings of a beautiful friendship? These guys have been in town for a while, but now want to be proactive about being seen as a socially responsible and intellectually oriented corporate. And thanks to the kindness of friends and strangers, we have Hyderabad's top site, one of India's top FM radio channels, and one of India's top bookstores involved.

Which explains the title of this post. This should be the biggest and bestest ACE yet, but we'll know in 2 weeks, won't we?