Student Literature From Student Days at IIMB

 

Of Sirs, With Love

This piece was written to commemorate a guest lecture in a visiting faculty’s class. The visiting faculty was Prof. Kalyan Das. The style is based on a popular column in a mag called Blitz, then edited by Russi Karanjia.

The SLAVE who’s a clinical psychologist gave a gueshtu lecture yesterday on ‘Managing Change’, instead of the SLAVE who is WELFARE. . Samajh gaye na?

A large part of his opening was punctuated by shrieks and creaks of a tortured door- opened by the late Lateefs (and Lateefas) at regular intervals. The speaker paused at the twentieth interruption while saying “For instance, how do you sell home computers?”  (CRE…AK)

Looking at the door with trepidation, he continued, “We’ll see how….when the door is closed.”

He exhibited brilliant wit while narrating this one about how children relate to SCHEMAS- the images of things they see.

A child which sees a dog for the first time might say to its father, “Daddy, dog!” and point to it.

The pleased father, feeling proud of his child, may respond, “Shabhash beti. You are all set for the IIM already.”

Such was the KINSHIP effect that Jockey (a classmate) asked 3-minute-each questions full of words and containing some sentences. What JUNTA now wonders is- Who is next in the line of the illustrious SLAVE dynasty? K.C. SLAVE (the sweet shop) or our own SLAVE-H (Dash, another classmate) who is a LINE ?

-In collaboration with Rajan of India aka ROI.

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.

Research Shows- 6

 My research shows that-

the level of innovation in Indian academic institutions -particularly the management institutions- is low.

We imitate, rather than innovate. We still buy Harvard cases after 60 years, and send faculty to get trained on how to teach cases!!

We are still not doing enough original work, relative to the number of faculty we have in top-ranking institutions. Related to this, doctoral programs are not supported adequately.

Leaders in some of these institutions are not even aware of the lag, or have wrong priorities.

Not all the fault lies with the leaders, as faculty have a lot of autonomy.

Time to Say Goodbye

 As usual, the feelings are mixed. This time, it's not a new job I am leaving for, but a transition of a kind. But stepping down from a full-time role for now. Heading Prestige University as a founding VC has been an adventure, with multiple challenges. The location, Indore, is not top-of-the-mind for outsiders looking for a good education.

Faculty are always a challenge, whether you are at an IIM or any other B school (we started with a management dept.), and the fight for good faculty will continue. Infrastructure, luckily, wasn't a big challenge, as we have an award-winning building (for its architecture, by Sanjay Puri and co.) which is almost done. Only the student and faculty housing remain. 

Marketing, someone has said, has to be the mainstay of any business. So we tried participating in student admission fairs at various locations, doing a lot of digital marketing and branding through participating in invited events, and sometimes as guest faculty at other institutes too. All this, along with student activities through Clubs and committees, will pay off. A great placement team also helped.

Our industry connect through guest and visiting faculty has been exemplary, thanks to many of our contacts giving us generously of their time. Past students, classmates and others have helped us tremendously.

Here's hoping for a great future for the students, faculty and staff of Prestige University.

What I Got From my Employers-1

 This is likely to be a series. I may highlight some of my workplaces.

IMT Nagpur

Apart from Oranges in the city, I think I had the coolest bunch of students on campus. And some cool-headed faculty as well. I only taught one Seminar on Thought Leadership during my 3 and a half years there, but I interacted with a lot of students through their extra-curricular activities, and even faced a strike from some lovely guys/girls in my first year- they had a point!

No idea how that bond developed with so many students, but maybe alumni parties were one reason. We had 4-5 each year, and that was a great way to meet and keep in touch. Last week, I met an alumna in Mumbai- Sheetal Garg, and exchanged messages with another, Meenu Mynam who lives in the Gulf. I also keep meeting others- Kanika Mhendiratta, Surbhi Mehta Chadha, Abha Kulkarni, Ananya Nandi De, Shweta Sinha, Anupriya Pandit, Gowri, Sreeram, Anshita Chetty, Ishita Modi, Anurag Sikaria, Pallavi Bajpai, Shafique Gajdhar, Meghna Sinha, Swati Jain, Divya Singh, Vrinda Khanna, Keyur Bhalavat, Ishan Joshi, Ankita, Manjari Mundanad, Nikita Kumar/Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag are some I have met at least once. Abhinav Kamal's company, Ten Motion Arts, I wrote a case on. He is into film-making now.

Faculty like Smita Dabholkar went out of their way to do book launches of my autobiography. Ravi Gadgil helped design a green for Golf at the campus. Vijayakumar and others helped bring up the research profile. TK Chatterjee and Harsh Halve did a great job with Placements. 

Support staff like Archana and Vinod and Snehal, and Madhuri Helchel all did their bit. Also, RAs helped us run a Case Conference at Goa for 3 years. Tripti Srivastava and Abhinav Chandel were among those. Rachana Mittal helped create a PPT on Leadership that I used in many MDPs.

One of my greatest workplaces- I learnt a lot, and continue to learn from alumni and some friends there.

January 2024

 The month has ended, with a lot of happenings. Some I recounted earlier, but I also managed to travel for work to Coimbatore via Chennai, and met a couple of old friends and Golfers in both these places.

Below- the three of us on our last outing at Kodaikanal, in 2022 August.

I met both Dhanapal and Vijayakumar when working at Kirloskar Institute in Harihar. Along with a friend from Mysore Kirloskar company, YK Gaur, we formed a Golf team of sorts, and tried playing whenever we could- the Golf course was ours for the taking, just a 500 metre walk from our homes. 

We also had caddies who were part-time coaches, having lived and played there for many years. We also had Sadanand, a coach who visited us from Belgaum once in a while. We were there between 1995 and 2001, and played a lot of Golf.

Since then, we also played at Nagpur (Vijayakumar and I with Ravi Gadgil). And took a few Golf vacations to Kodaikanal and Wellington near Ooty, and once to Munnar.

Hope to get one more under the belt this year, maybe at Kodaikanal again.

Tee Shots at Prestige University

 We will expand the team, and grow some grass, but we started off with a tee shot or two. Faculty and staff were the participants.. Prof. Juhee Singh features prominently in these pics.. and looking on is Mr. Dilip Shidhore who made it possible. He looks after the Projects.

I am surveying the Golf course which needs some greening.. will happen.

New Team Members at Prestige University

 Two new faculty members, Juhee Singh Verma and Bharat Singh Patel, joined us at Prestige University.

Pics of them, with me and some older team members - Amandeep, Group H.R. head, and Chandrakant Singh, Corporate Relations head.

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.. 

Visit to IIM Raipur

 I have been to IIM Raipur a couple of times earlier, for either a Ph.D. viva or a recruitment session. But this time it was to meet graduating doctoral students who might be interested in joining Prestige University. Had a nice discussion with the, explaining our vision for Prestige, and at the same time, meeting old friends and making new ones. Academia has people who are generally easygoing and easy to get along with, with very few exceptions- like Golfers.

Anyway, had a nice time chatting over cups of chai, thanks to Sanjeev Prasher. Met an old colleague, Prof. Kamal Jain also, who is a Dean there. We were at IIM Indore earlier. Some pics from the campus.

Friends, some old some new.. faculty.

Meeting with the Director..

Campus with a lake attached.

A prominent mall'

Another shot of me with faculty..

Teaching Golf

 These days, I am much more a Golf trainer than player. There is joy in teaching people what seems ordinarily inaccessible- which is exactly what Golf is to most people. Particularly in an educational institute. We were probably a lucky group to have had access to an 18-hole Golf course at Harihar -thanks to the Kirloskar family- right next to our homes. We honed our skills there, and some of us still continue to meet and play. But back to training. I tried, with some success, training people on the first and last shots-the drive or tee shot, and the putt, in almost every place I worked in, as long as we had a green patch. Some examples- faculty colleagues from IIM Indore- in pics below.

Radha Ladkani, above, and Subin Sudhir, below.

Creating Memories

 Living in the present is fine, but I think life is about creating memories-preferably good ones. So it's not surprising whether imprinted on a photograph or just on the mind, I am full of memories- mostly good ones. It's a different matter that I forget my passwords, but important people and time spent with them, I do remember. 

That process has started- compiling some memories of my two years at NMIMS Bangalore, with a lot of wonderful people. 

Above, Rakshita- we first met online during her induction. Later, in person.

Sreejani in a virtual performance at an event, during the pandemic

Manuja, my first Emcee at the virtual convocation we pioneered at NMIMS.

Felicitations.. staff and students, with Mr. Shenoy of MTR Foods.

PR Committee again, just after I had joined.

Below, a faculty dev. program I did.

The diverse programs..and my office.

Gayathri, a friend of Preei Ravikiran, andd a student (below) learn Golf.

Sandeep Rao (ex-PES, student) is now a prof in Dublin. Neelima Watve brought him to visit.

Prerona is a part-time Golfer too!

Diti Goswami sings a Bong song.

Shatakshi the guest faculty

Khushboo, Shaukat, Tanaya, Kavya, Sangram Wadkar from placements

Lily, Devi, Alisha, Santosha..

Prerona sings an Assamese song at a gathering we had.

Common Purpose, with Dundee and Brunel University students.

Shloka, Akshita Ghildiyal (her brother was also a student earlier), Jay from the P.R. Committee.

The Joy of Teaching

 I am talking of teaching Golf here, though it applies to teaching anything, I suppose. At NMIMS Bangalore, as in a couple of other institutions, I have tried imparting Golf basics to students and colleagues. So it was that Tanmeet and Prerona, two young profs. said they wanted to do this. We went off and did it, until a shower brought us back in. But managed a few shots and putting too. The last pic is from a recent outing I had at ASC Bangalore, where Sohail had a par, and I missed one! Dr. Vikram is on the left, Sohail in the middle.

Prerona above, and Tanmmet in the pic below.. 

Speeches- A Non-serious Look

 Speeches have many uses. As we faculty know very well, they are used most often to put unsuspecting or disinterested students to sleep. The others have to make heroic efforts to stay awake, and do.

Politicians tell us what they intend doing through election speeches. If they suffer from short-term memory loss shortly after elections, they need our sympathy, and treatment for it. At our expense.

Visiting dignitaries make speeches that sound good, are reported on by the press and P.R. agencies that provide them to the press.. where would we (and they) be, if no one visited anyone? We pay these countries (and their Press) back in kind, when we visit their countries. 

In a war-economic or military- both sides give speeches. One of the most impressive is actually by Charlie Chaplin talking gibberish while playing The Great Dictator- Hitler, who else?

If you are still interested, I can give a speech.. wait, why are you running away?

Placement Brochures and PES

 Placement brochures, like Yearbooks, are a storehouse of information, and memories. I recently chanced on this one from PES, Bangalore (now a University under Karnataka State) where I was between 2005 and 2008. Lots of these students are still in touch, on social media. Here are some excerpts from the Placement Brochure of one batch..