Touching Lives- Mine

 From the nuns in primary school, and classmates in school, teachers in high school, professors and classmates during college and IIM Bangalore, and at Clemson University where I went or a Ph.D., it's a long list. But it does not stop there.

Many friends made in later years- or re-friended due to common interests- also touched my life. Golfer friends Vikram Venkateswaran, Dhanapal, Vijayakumar, and Venugopal Reddy are some.

But apart from colleagues who became friends- Bhagyalakshmi is one, Shweta Kushal and Jayasimha, B.K. Mohanty, Tanmeet, Preeti are some - there's also another category that I am privileged to have. My ex-students. 

Alumni of various B schools I have been in have touched my life in many ways. Some, I have been in touch with for a decade or more now. They bring a new perspective to everything we discuss when we meet. Gowri, Anshita Chetty, Ishita, Vanshika, Prachi, Pratishtha, Swati Jain, Sheetal Garg, Nidhi Kanungo, Nishka Kumar, Abha Kulkarni, Nikita Ray, Vrinda Khanna, Bharath Shenoy, Sirisha Adi, Pallavi Bajpai and Shafique Gajdhar (both my twins as per FB!), Anusha Soni, Anushka Mishra, Meghna Sinha, Meghana Khadilkar, Pavan Tarawade, Akshat Surana, Pradyumna Mohanty, Aishwarya Omprakash, Aishwarya Iyer, Anchal, Shuchi Bhatnagar, Pooja Shukla (we haven't even met), Laura Shah, Swati Sinha, Sampark Sachdeva, Vaishali Bathla, Divyaa Sharma, Dheeraj Mohan, Vidya TC, Smita Mohan, Sanjana Rao, Harshad Lunavat, Garima Shah, Abhinav Kamal, Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi, Tosha Dubey, Bhuvneet Raheja, Sharanya, are some who fall in this category. 

Annie and Samrendra Singh, the Soni family, Leslie, Ron and Carmon Green, were good friends during our stay in the US. Kiran Ken Jolly and Neena too, apart from relatives- Jayashree and Sheelu among them.

Faculty Colleagues

 Recent ones include ones I recruited, at Prestige University. Juhee, Riyaz, Bharat, Jyoti Dua and Asmita Mahapatra.

And some lady golfers from NMIMS Bangalore- Tanmeet, Alisha Thomas, Prerona Baruah, Preeti Ravikiran. Briefly, Diti Goswami too. 

Shahida and Manasa from PESIT Mgt. dept. were very dynamic. Manoharan and S.P. Kumar are still in touch.

Kirloskar Institute Harihar had Dhanapal and Vijayakumar. We still play Golf together. 

B.K. Mohanty and Banikanta Mishra at XIMB. 

IIM K, SSS Kumar and Keyoor Purani. Jeyavelu too.

IIM Indore, Shweta Kushal and Jayasimha. And marketing colleague Abhishek, IT colleague Rajhans. 

Thomas from VJIM. Dayakara Rao too.

Visiting faculty Nitin Sinha, Veronica Thavonat, Snehal Singh and Sayantan at Prestige.

Meeting Old Friends

 This time, it was a colleague of my wife's, and her husband. They had taught in a school in Bangalore, many years ago. He worked at Bosch, and is retired. We went to their place for a delhicious lunch! It was actually in Gurgaon, but that's almost Delhi. We escaped from Delhi before the pollution levels hit the record levels that it is famous for.

Mr. Ramesh and Mrs. Madhu Mathur, who hosted us at home for lunch.

Where We Met - Part 2

 Now on to some colleagues. 

KIAMS colleagues I still meet, Vijayakumar and Dhanapal in particular. Usually it's on a Golf course, because we began playing the game at Harihar on the 18-hole Kirloskar Golf course. We have played at Kodaikanal, and Munnar. Gadgil too, from IMT Nagpur.

Sohni Roy from Prestige (above) and I try out at a driving range in Indore- Bichholi Haapsi.

Have met Dayakara Rao and Thomas from VJIM, though it was some time ago.

Manoharan, Manasa and a S.P. Kumar from PESIT I have met later. Stayed with Manoharan in the same complex at Bangalore recently also.

IIM Indore colleagues, I still meet sometimes when I go to the campus. Shweta Kushal, Jayasimha, Sumit Ghosh, and a few others- Ashish Sadh, Rajhans Mishra, Abhishek Mishra..

IIM Lucknow colleagues also I have met a few times, though not at Lucknow. Shailendra Singh at Ranchi and Bharat Bhasker at Raipur, when they were directors there. 

Muthu, colleague from industry (M.R.) , I am in touch with and have played Golf with.

Tanmeet Kaur, Prerona Baruah and Alisha Thomas from NMIMS, at Bangalore.

Smita Dabholkar (at Bangalore and Pune too) and TKC from IMT at Nagpur. Saleena Khan too.

Maheswaran and Jitendra Sharma from IMT at Mumbai, at an alumni meet. Abhishek Singh, at Indore and Nagpur.

Jayasimha and I worked together at 4 institutes, and are still in touch, at Indore, our current place of residence. Bhagyalakshmi and I worked in two, and meet regularly in Mumbai or elsewhere. 

Faculty Colleagues

 NMIMS Bangalore faculty - who are also Women Golfers. Met three recently, two at an appropriate place for Golf players- Hole in the Wall. 

With Tanmeet Kaur Sahiwal and Alisha Thomas

and Prerona Baruah.

Coimbatore and Chennai

 Managed to meet some old colleagues at Chennai, and Coimbatore during the course of work travel.

Dr. Vijayakumar, Dr. Dhanapal and Gururaj Khasnis were all colleagues at KIAMS, Harihar in the late nineties. Vijayakumar, also at IMT Nagpur later. Now he is retired but active in Chennai.

Dhanapal runs a school and a construction outfit, as entrepreneurial as ever.

Gururaj has moved to SDMIMD at Mysore, a management school like KIAMS. 

We were at Coimbatore trying to attract students from the region to Prestige University. Met some and tried persuading them.

Best Friends- Part 2

 Some more- Gopal Mahapatra, Manoharan, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, Himanshu Manglik, Rajan of India, Harish Chaudhry, Alisha Thomas, Nisha Verma, Vrinda Khanna, Pallavi Bajpai, Anushka Mishra, Divya Sisodiya, Chaithu Gunapali, Pooja Varun, Roshni Chhabra, Bhavana Daga Sonthalia, Bhawana Moondra, Anusha Ramakrishnan, Saumyaa Sharma, Nikita Kumar Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag, TK Chatterjee, Prerona Baruah, Ekalavya Barua, Aditya Deshbandhu, Venugopal Reddy, Nagarjuna, KS Murthy, G Sreenivas, Sreenivas Garudachar, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Sohni Roy, Anshita Abhishek Chetty, Gowri, Sreeram, Anusha Mamidanna, Meenu Mynam, Arvind Joshi, Usha Narayanan, Padmapriya, Jogeswari, Ranjana Rudra, Jaya Jha, Devapriya Roy, ...

The list will continue..

People I am Impressed With

 Lots of people impressed me, over the years, for many different qualities. 

Among colleagues, Thomas and Dayakar Rao, from VJIM. Dayakar later became VC of ITM Univ. at Raipur. And Banikanta Mishra from XIM, B.K. Mohanty from IIML and XIM, Bharat Bhasker of IIML (now director of IIMA), Harsh Halve of IMT Nagpur, along with Jitendra Sharma, Maheswaran, Smita Dabholkar, Ekkirala, TK C, also from there, Manoharan, Manasa, Shahida from PES, Dhanapal and Vijayakumar of KIAMS, Yashad Gaur from Mysore Kirlsokar, and Indrajit, Jayasimha, Harshal, Shweta Kushal of IIM Indore, Preeti Ravikiran, Narayani, Deepak from NMIMS. The reasons are varied, and will fill a chapter or two.

Students are actually many more in number. I will start with a few- A for Abha, Anchal, Anusha Soni, Anushka Mishra, Aashneet Gautam, Aishwarya (Iyer and Omprakash), Anupama, B for Bhuvneet, Bugzy, Bhawana, Bhavana, Bharath Shenoy, C for Chittaranjan, Chaitra Hegde, D for Deepa Beena, Divya Anand, Divya Sharma, G for Gowri, J for Jogeswari aka Jogi, Jasmine, K for Kokila Chopra, Kanika (2-Mhendiratta and Bhatia), L for Laura Shah,  M for Meenu (Mynam), P for Praveen Kotta, Pavan (Tarawade), Praddy, Padmapriya, H for Harshad (Lunavat), N for Nikita, Nandini, Namrutha, Nikhil, Nishka, R for Ruminder Kaur, S for Sheetal, Sirisha, Sanjana Rao, Shreyashi, Sandeep (prof. in U.K. now), Shruti, Shatakshi, Shailaja Gupta, Sanjeev Undri, T for Tosha, Thoshitha, Tanaya Kar, Tanya Jakhar, U for Urmi Patel, Y for Yogita, Yamini Sha, Z for Zenitha and a bunch of Ph.D. students I met recently, including Neeti, Pratishtha, Geeti, Vanshika, ..

Golfers have a special place- Aditi, Garima, Prachi Jain, Aakansh, Sohni Roy (yeah, even a Range qualifies), Muskan Agarwal, Mahek Singhal, and some women faculty - Tanmeet, Alisha and Prerona from NMIMS and Radha Ladkani, IIMI. My regulars Gadgil, Vijayakumar with whom I have been to Kodaikanal for Golf and Dhanapal (we went to Pattaya too with Jogi who runs Golftripz).

Many others, musically minded, but that's for another day.. 

Fair weather Friends

 These are usually because of some position you hold. That they may want to benefit from. So if you happen to lose that 'position' as a potential benefactor, the friends go away in the blink of an eye.

Could happen anywhere, in any profession, because brown-nosing is an eternal pastime, and has been.

On the other hand, it's a joy to have friends who don't give a damn about who you are in terms of your position, job held or anything else other than the real you. I am grateful for many such friends, from among colleagues, or classmates, or past students from classes taught years ago.

Sometimes, just random meetings from social media connects have developed into friendships that are hard to define. 

Of course, professional friends who are, well, professional, are fine too.

Social Skills

 I have noticed that social skills are not uniformly distributed across genders, even if you keep some things constant. There seems to be a gender disparity, that is statistically significant. The women in general, have much better social skills, than the (poor) men. I am not sure if the men are aware and are happy about this (if they are aware, that is). But in my view, we should not be too thrilled (again, assuming my findings are right).

Why do I say so? I have now interacted with thousands of students in and out of class. During the teaching term, if any students came up and asked for any more inputs or expressed a fear of stats (what little was in my Marketing Research courses), it was mostly the women students. Also for extra-curriculars, clubs, committees, it was the women members who took the lead to approach me to participate, write, contribute, etc.. no idea why.

Even more pronounced is the banter on social media. Though a couple of men students/alumni are good at it, including comments (one in particular, from KIAMS), in general, the women alums known to me from various B schools are generally more involved, more frequent in engaging in a chat, or in asking for advice about a course, or responding positively to any request to meet up in their city. I have therefore ended up meeting a lot of alums of the fairer sex in all these years. This includes a couple outside India such as Smita in Dubai and Swapna and Vidya in Singapore. These have been very enriching meetups too, I must add, for me. 

With ex-colleagues, it is more balanced, with some of the men outdoing the women in catching up- maybe for a drink or a game of Golf. So far.

Not sure about readers of the blog yet, unless there's some more research to back it up. 

Caselets on People- 4

 These are a few colleagues at NMIMS Bangalore, which I headed from November 2020 till Oct. 2022- the peak of COVID (2nd wave) included. Came out unscathed thanks to some of them too.

Narayani

Not sure where she gets her energy from, but she is indefatigable, like another colleague I had before. MBA chair, but also my successor as Campus head at Bangalore (NMIMS). Very meticulous note-taker, and therefore effective in writing up, documenting things. Wish her all the best in running the campus. I am sure she will run it better than I did.

Prerona

She was hired when we were in near-dire straits in the Economics area, and she proved her mettle, after being thrown into leading the program as a chairperson.. baptism by fire. Very level-headed, pleasant to work with, and a budding Golfer!

Archana

My secretary at Bangalore. Coincidentally, she has the same name as my secretary at IMT Nagpur. She is very calm, and despite a personal tragedy during COVID, has done well to recover and back her kids- one has gone to study in the U.S. 

Vishnu Bhat

With a name like that, you can't go wrong. He has ably managed admin. at Bangalore campus, including the tough job of coordinating with Head office for various approvals. The hostels too, though they are outsourced. Invaluable in my stint as director at NMIMS Bangalore.

Ekalavya

Rock-solid on placements, he has actually set up the processes and the relationships with corporates from scratch. No wonder the alumni hold him in great respect. Helped me meet up with quite a few alums and current placecom teams during my stint. The success of the MBA program rests on his shoulders to a large extent.

Colleagues at NMIMS

 Here is a quick run-down on some of my colleagues at NMIMS Bangalore

Ekalavya, the placement Don. Has put in place the process, and his knowledge of the corporate world has also helped get excellent campus placements for our MBA students these past few years. A good relationship manager.

Sangram Wadkar-It's rare that you recruit someone who plays Golf, anywhere in India-there are so few who do. Therefore, a great surprise that he ends up being one. Latest addition to our placement team.

Preeti Ravikiran- a friendly soul who also is keenly interested in sports- very sporting, in other words. A good teacher of some quant courses including Visual Analytics, the current buzzword. 

Smruti Rammohan- The world is small. She worked with Jasmine Shah in the Delhi government, and he is the husband of my ex-student Padmapriya. And she is from Hyderabad.

Srinivasa Murthy- a librarian, and also a great singer.

Sridarshan- American-educated prof. who taught strategy. Also into spiritual pursuits.

Prerona- An inspiration to many, I am sure. A bright Ph.D. from IIT G, in Economics. Golfer too, now.

Tanmeet- A great smile complements a pleasant personality. Will captain the Women's Golf team at NM.

Archana- a very friendly and balanced person, my secretary for two years.

Rajeshwari- in addition to the telephone, she handles a camera quite well. 

Deepak Sharma- a caricaturist par excellence, and HR faculty who published in newspapers regularly.

Vishnu Bhat- Bhagwan ka avatar? Troubleshooter par excellence, with prior work-ex at IBS.

Aparna- much-loved quant faculty... aisa bhi ho sakta hai..miracles will never cease!

Narayani- MBA Chair, and my successor. All-rounder like Kapil Dev. Her energy levels have to be seen to be believed.

Bakalavati- Unique name, and a unique person. A talented academic coordinator.

Celebrating People

 ... And moments spent with people who like you, or those you like, is probably the most precious thing in life on Earth- not sure about Mars yet, not having lived there. 

And why not? From the parents who give you unconditional love, to friends who see you through critical junctures of childhood and teenhood, to all the rest who cross your path- colleagues, or bosses, or unknown benefactors at times, they are all we have. Kids, later in life, if we choose to have them/adopt them.

I think celebrating people is even more important than celebrating a festival. Unless you do this with some of those people, of course. I remember a few Christmas celebrations while living in the U.S. - I had raw Oysters in one of the parties! Diwali from childhood was the best, due to the interest in noisy crackers, which our parents indulged. Now, of course, I like the light better than sound! 

In my case, I like celebrating my students-of all hues, since I started teaching, in 1986 as a Teaching assistant in USA-Clemson University, and through a few Indian institutions. Around 10 of them, maybe more. Also colleagues, of all hues- researchers, accountants, secretaries, and my own teaching assistants. Some trivia- I have had two secretaries by the same name-Archana. 

Pub and Restaurant Hopping

A recent discovery, Residency Road (above) and an old haunt rediscovered at Forum mall (below, with an NMIMS alum)

13th floor, with Savitha, an old friend, above, and Uru, near IIMB, with Avinash and Medha.

Innovative gathering of alumni of various IIMs, with Shailaja at HSR layout.

Milind, and Anjali squared at Lalbagh outer circle. (below)

Old colleagues above, nearby -Toast on the Terrace.

Below, a new friend and bookworm, Anushka. Chai Villa.

Old colleagues when I was at Indore. Saumya and Shweta Kushal.
 

Friend Retires

 We joined IIM Lucknow as marketing faculty in 2001. I left in 2003 for Kozhikode, and a few years later, he migrated to IIM Bangalore. He now retires after many years of teaching there. I have re-entered Bangalore recently for a new stint at NMIMS. So we met up for a tete-a-tete with our wives, as we are now family friends. Some pics.

Avinash and Medha, and us..Bagpiper nahi hai, bas..

Personal Brands I Know

 Personal Brands

Some people that are personal brands for me- reasons for it too, and names of institutes I know them from-

Mir Ali Husain- lyricist of many Nagesh Kukunoor films, and a Prof. in the US. (my junior too, at O.U. and IIMB)

Madhan Rehan- dancer, digital marketer, IIM Indore. Wrote a case for me along with a team headed by Kalaivani, from their Google Online Marketing Challenge-winning entry (Asia Pacific).

Shahida- tireless, enthusiastic, quick learner of many things- research and case teaching at PESIT. (now with ASCI)

Manoharan- gentle, firm, understated in a loud world.(PESIT)

Kritika Gupta, Manjunath- toppers in M.R. at Indore. Kritika was not a marketing student, but her cases figure in my book.

Singers- Shruti Sharma, Shweta Sinha (IMT), Anuja Anand  (IIMI)

Authors- Pavan Tarawade, Sreeram, Khyati Jha, Tanya Shrivastava (IMT)

Homeo doctor and Indore MBA- Arshia Mulla- very unusual..From Bijapur (roots, I found later).

Advertising industry- Anchal Sharma, Adarsh Kamath (IMT), Anu Bhoopathy from KIAMS (in N.Y. now)

Digital Marketers- Divya Singh, Shafique Gajdhar (IMT), Zargar Basharat (KIAMS)

Jogeswari – batch topper, KIAMS. .had a fanbase among her juniors. Golftripz director, Hyderabadi.

Padmapriya – National Award winning actress (Malayalam), worked at GE, worked at Sahapaedia, an NGO. Back in films.

Abhinav Kamal (IMT)- asst. director of Stree (Hindi film), started Ten Motion Arts, directed a  web-series with Renuka Shahane and Parikshit Sahni

Aradhya Vats, Shivangi Goel, Ayushi Agarwal, Satchi Sahay (conference papers-IPM students all)

Bharath Shenoy (M.R. industry, from IFIM B School)

Divya Sisodiya, Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi (PESIT, IFIM, both have great photos across the world)

Neha Adiga, Swathika Selvam- personal connections, accidentally discovered, both very talented.

Book lovers- Anushka Mishra, Nishka Rathi (ghost-writer too!)

Himanshu Manglik- Corporate look, right from our MBA student days, to this day.

Vrinda Khanna -wine lover

Pallavi Sharma- Biryani lover. (fb says we are twins!)

Gadgil- authentic American accent, golfer

Vijayakumar- Stats expert, humble, open to new ideas, great host and gourmet

Dhanapal- serial entrepreneur, ex-faculty (runs a school today), great golfer and holiday companion.

Ph.D.s- Shreyashi Chakraborty (faculty at XLRI, and in UK now, IMT student I met at IIM Calcutta), Manjari (doing Ph.D. at Nirma Univ. , Punyashlok (IIMA), Shripad Kulkarni (finished from IIMI)

Sidhanta Patnaik- cricketer and author (PESIT)

Bhavana Daga- Lady Daga, child-like (don't grow up!)

Harimohan- Author, ex-Ranji cricketer, Selector,

Bhuvneet Raheja (Microsoft), Sapna Patni (Mondelez), Anam Nuhi (IOCL Sales), Ruminder Kaur, Tamros Mondal, Harshad Sachani -kept in touch after Indore MBA.   Nikita Kumar, from IMT too- met in Pune, Hyd. and Delhi

TK Chatterjee/TKC (Karaoke fan, great company, IMT placement chief), Jitendra Sharma (English play),

Navroze Sethna- plantation owner, builder in Ooty (KIAMS)

Meghna Sinha- blogger, book lover, Asian Paints, .. (IMT)

Parul Kashyap Thakur- blogging celebrity. (IMT)

Muthu- Market researcher (MBA, Nielsen, ORG-MARG), golfer and now a golf referee, two-daughters club

Sunil Kataria- entrepreneur in finance, Hindi film music, did another IIMK program after KIAMS

Surbhi Mehta Chadha, Animesh Jain (IMT)-entrepreneurs

Jimmy Jain (IIMK)- Trainer

Siri Adi- works in M.R., fellow-Telugu. Dad was in BPCL..(her Mom and I broke our arms around the same time)

Sheetal Garg - (ex-SBI), Hindi film songs, singer/dancer, ran the retail store on IMT campus

Smita Dabholkar- promoted my autobiography..2 launches, which she managed single-handedly

Aditi Gupta, Garima Shah- student golfers (IMT)

Prerona, Alisha, Tanmeet- Women golfers (faculty, from NMIMS Bangalore)

Abha Kulkarni- HR Manager (one of our students did a summer project with her)-also a unique, curly  hair style, traveller

Smita Mohan (KIAMS) in Dubai is also in HR. Worked for IMT Dubai also. Got an A in my marketing course!

Anshita Maharishi/Chetty, Kedar Muley, Tosha Dubey, Meghana Joshi (IMT) -good managers of my small alum meets

Harshad Lunavat, Pradyumna Mohanty, Vivek Anant, Bugzy, - Photographers

Meha Kapoor (IMT N)- Radio

Sruthi Chandrasenan (IIM I in my Dig. Mktg. class, studied in Calicut earlier, visited Iceland- a video and pics from there)

Kanika Mhendiratta..tea marketer who drinks coffee!

My academic associates- Tripti Shrivastava (ran a conference in Goa for IMT), Saumyaa Sharma (my AA at IIM Indore)..

Sanjana Rao, Jasmine Kaur, Shreya Surana, Prachi Jain, Avik Gugalia, Shrunga Hede- play-actors from IIM Indore and Vaishali Bathla, from IMT (film), Divya Sharma from KIAMS (films, TV)

Savitha- Batch 1 of KIAMS (always special, first batches), one of the nicest people I know.

Arvind Joshi- dance teacher (PESIT)

Murali Mohan (Faculty+Kathak dancer)

Shatakshi Tripathi (NGO, Digital Marketing entrepreneur, Confused Genius is her brand)

Many due to an amazing facebook DP or two- Bhawana Sahay/Raj (Hyderabadi), Harnam Kaur, Shefali Dixit, Sayali Jagdale, Ananya Satle, Komal Nagdavne, Aishani Verma, Twinkle Jain, Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi, Anusha Soni (we met in class after she'd won my DP Award!)

Looking Back at 2019

I know it's not December 31st, but I am looking back at the action-packed eight and a half months that have passed by. I started in January by reading a new author- Kazuo Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go was the book-poignant, about human-like creatures grown for a purpose, and how they turn even more human-like. Unexpectedly, the delayed fourth edition of my Marketing Research text came out, and I was able to release it at our own conference. Lots of students from IIM Indore a couple of years ago contributed the case studies, so it was a proud moment. There was a Delhi conference at IMT too, and I managed to meet Padmapriya and her hubby, after long!

Started a new photography competition on fb in addition to usual awards and quizzes..discovering good photographers is a byproduct.

As usual, I met a lot of past students, some who visited Indore (like Anam and Harshad), and many more outside Indore on my travels to Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Ahmedabad (that was for a book release by a friend at MICA). Pune too, where I met Neha Adiga. Also gatecrashed (no, I was invited) into an alum meet of IMT Nagpur in Mumbai.

Met Sharmistha Singh, Shweta Agarwal and Sunil Kataria of KIAMS after about 16 years- and Anushka Mishra for the first time (we'd met on fb first). Also met Bharat of IFIM and Shatakshi of IIMI in Bangalore. In May, I went to Reva University for a talk on Smart Cities and ran into Shinu Abhi, a former colleague. Met SP Kumar and Manoharan, also past colleagues at PES. In Mumbai, visited Bhagyalakshmi and family. Met Shraddha Nigdikar too.

My friends from MBA too. I met Dash in Kolkata, and a big gang at Venky's boy's wedding. Stayed at the Presidency Golf Club too, a first. Also went for a conference at Goa, but missed out on meeting Prashant who lives there as he was busy. Harish and Snail at Delhi and Hyderabad I did meet.

IIT Guwahati was a revelation. It looks like a European town, with lakes on campus. Had gone to Belgaum's Gogte Institute on invitation, and had a fabulous drive through the Chorla Ghat, with the rains and clouds for company. Saw a few good films too, and read a few more books-among them old favourites by A.A. Fair and Rex Stout.

Also visited Bali for a conference, and went rafting on a river. Not bad for eight months!

IIM Lucknow Days Remembered

 Two of my colleagues from Lucknow days- Prof. KN Singh and Sengar. It was great remembering my days at Lucknow (2001-2003), and finding that many ex-colleagues are now heading IIMs. Also met Srinivasan, who is now a prof. at IIM Bangalore, and Sushil Kumar, who is still at Lucknow and hails from the hottest place on earth (!)- Chandrapur, according to the stats published a couple of days ago.

 Met them at Ranchi, where another colleague, Dr. Shailendra Singh is director of the IIM.
The pics are from Kanke Dam/Lake in Ranchi. Incidentally, my first trip to the city.
I also ran into Prof. Venugopal of XLRI, who had come to our NASMEI conference at IIM Indore in 2017, and is expected again in July this year.

I have written about my Lucknow days in my autobiography, so I won't go into them here.

Dilli O Dilli

 Went to Delhi and a conference at IMT Ghaziabad, where I found old colleagues. Two of them, Rashmi and Jayanthi were in a mood to smile, so here they are (above). Below, a special session on Retailing (a course I teach to doctoral students at Indore).

 The address below is my workplace in Connaught Place, that I adorned (!) between 1984 and 1985.-now you know how ancient I am :)  It used to be an Ad agency of the Living Media/Thomson Press group. My work life began here.

 An interesting way to adorn the outer wall of a restaurant in C.P. (below)

 And my visit to a city is never complete without a book store being included..this one has a tea room called Cha bar attached! The layout of the books is really tasteful too.

Starry Names

When we named our daughter no. 2 Pooja, there were two actresses around by that name- Bedi and Bhatt were their surnames. I am trying to recall students or colleagues who had starry names -

Jitendra (Sharma) was a colleague at IMT.

Anushka was a student. So were three Aishwaryas- Omprakash, Iyer and Saraswat, more recently.

Sreedevi was a colleague at Bangalore.

There have been a couple of Rajesh-s though not with a Khanna surname. Amitabh is a colleague right here.

Supriya, Shruti (Suman, Shah, Sharma) and Smita are also names of stars- the stars were Pathak, Haasan and Patil, a favourite actress.

Divya (Singh/Sisodiya) reminds me of Divya Bharti, the late actress.

Oormila (spelt differently) and Urmila Matondkar, the star.

Mohnish (Waikar) and Behl, the actor.

Shreyas is an actor's name too- Talpade.

Manisha (Rawat) and Janwadkar are reminders of the Koirala.

Sanjana Rao is a reminder of Sanjana Kapoor.

Pankaj reminds me of Pankaj Kapur, a brilliant actor.

Sanjeev Prashar ( a Prof.) and Undri, a student, remind me of Sanjeev Kumar, a favourite actor.

Vidya (TC) was a student, and Balan is the favourite heroine.

Shilpa (Arora) were names of more than one students, and Shetty is the star equivalent.

Madhuri Helchel, a former colleague and also a niece (Pai)- Madhuri Dixit is the star equivalent.