You guessed right: I did spend an evening with the eloquent Shashi Tharoor. He graced the fifth International Conference on Complications in Neurosurgery as chief guest. Tharoor, in his characteristically erudite style, regaled us with a gem: “The scariest neurosurgeon from the patient’s point of view is one who manages to nick himself while shaving.” The room erupted in laughter, a sound rarely heard echoing through the hallowed halls of surgical conferences.

It’s a meeting we host every two years in India where neurosurgeons from across the world come together to deliberate their failures rather than talk about their triumphs. They travel to share their experiences on what went wrong, rather than what worked. Instead of addressing the latest advances, we discuss disasters. It’s the only meeting where, as a surgeon, you don’t feel too bad about yourself.