Retreat ● Recharge ● Reconnect
18 – 20 September 2026
The Leela Kovalam, A Raviz Hotel, Keralam
Against the Tides
Friday
18th September
2:00 PM
Traditional Welcome
A Kerala welcome to begin two days shaped by the sea, the landscape and the many worlds that have met on this coast
2:00 – 3:00 PM
Lunch
The Arabian Sea, a silent protagonist of every story we tell this weekend, provides space for an unhurried culinary introduction to the coast.
3:15 – 4:15 PM
4:30 – 5:45 PM
The Grey Between Right and Wrong
Ethics, Dilemma and Choices we Make
Ashok Khemka
Former IAS Officer & Public Intellectual
From turning down an opportunity to leave India for the US to choosing a life in public service, Ashok Khemka has followed an instinct for evidence, justice and institutional integrity even when it came at the cost of 66 transfers and stalled postings. Drawing on dilemmas from public life, professional experience and the wisdom embedded in folk stories, he will examine the space between what is legal, what is right and what is ethical. A conversation about judgement, principles and the difficult choices that arise when there is no right answer.
5:45 – 7:00 PM
The Other Side of the Story
What Anti-Heroes & Asuras Can Teach Us
Anand Neelakantan
An engineer who spent more than two decades at Indian Oil before becoming one of India’s bestselling authors, Anand Neelakantan has made a career of turning familiar stories inside out. His Asura: Tale of the Vanquished retold the Ramayana through Ravana’s eyes; Ajaya entered the Mahabharata through Duryodhana’s perspective; while his Baahubali novels explored the epic’s world through characters and histories beyond the hero’s familiar frame. Through the voices of asuras, anti-heroes and outsiders, Neelakantan asks what happens when we change the vantage point and what leaders might learn from questioning the version of the story everyone has agreed to believe.
7:30 – 8:30 PM
Seeing is not Believing
One of India’s best-known mentalists and psychological illusionists
Karan Singh Magic
Karan has performed for some of the country’s most recognisable names from revealing Shah Rukh Khan’s ATM PIN and reading the word on Shashi Tharoor’s mind to identifying the childhood friend Virat Kohli was thinking of. Through live experience and interaction, Karan will take the members inside the mechanics of perception: how attention is manipulated, how assumptions become convictions, and how easily we can mistake what we think we see for what is actually happening.
8:00 PM onwards
Immersion
Cultural immersion, dinner and cocktails
As evening settles over the coast, the retreat moves from conversation to culture. A Kerala evening of performance, music, food and local traditions—a chance to experience the state as a living culture.
A visit to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple
Before the day begins, a visit to one of India’s most storied living temples. A place where faith, history, architecture and time converge, and where the rhythms of Kerala are felt long before the rest of the city wakes.
9:00 – 10:00 AM
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Settings Sail, Finding Your Way
Endurance, Uncertainty & the Discipline to Keep Going
Commander Abhilash Tomy
Former naval officer and circumnavigator
Cdr Abhilash Tomy, the first Indian to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the world under sail, knows what it means to keep moving when there is no margin for error. During the 2018 Golden Globe Race, a storm dismasted his boat, fractured his spine and left him stranded in the Southern Ocean, triggering a complex international rescue. Four years later, he returned to the same race with a titanium rod in his spine and finished second — the first Asian to reach the podium. His story is ultimately less about survival than what came after it: the decision to return, recalibrate and begin again. A conversation about endurance, decision-making in isolation and the judgement required to know when to persist, adapt or change course.
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Reading the Current
Prof. Brahma Chellaney
A strategist, author and former adviser to India’s National Security Council, Prof. Brahma Chellaney brings the long view to a world increasingly defined by the redistribution of power. The author of nine books, including Asian Juggernaut and the award-winning Water: Asia’s New Battleground, he has spent decades examining the forces reshaping Asia and India’s choices within it. At a moment when yesterday’s certainties are becoming tomorrow’s liabilities, the conversation will look beyond the headlines to the deeper currents shaping India’s place in the world.
1:00 – 3:00 PM
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Sport
Going First, Mapping the Ground
Instinct, Risk & the Making of High-Performance Teams
Krishnamachari Srikkanth
Krishnamachari Srikkanth has lived through some of Indian cricket’s most consequential moments from opening for India under immense pressure to captaining the side and later helping shape the country’s cricketing establishment. As a member of India’s 1983 World Cup-winning team, he experienced what happens when a team enters a contest it is not expected to win and leaves having changed the possibilities for everyone who follows. Through stories from the dressing room, the field and the years beyond it, Srikkanth will explore instinct, risk, team chemistry and the difference between individual talent and collective belief.
4:00 – 4:30 PM
4:30 – 5:30 PM
Sport
On The Ground with Srikkanth
With a bowling machine, a bat in hand and members stepping up to the crease, Kris Srikkanth turns the game into a live leadership experiment. He will watch how members approach the ball their instinct to attack or defend, their response to pressure, their appetite for risk, their patience and their ability to adapt and decode what their batting reveals about their leadership styles.
It is cricket as a mirror: how you play the ball in front of you may say more about how you lead than the leadership style you think you have.
5:30 – 7:00 PM
7:00 PM onwards
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