Gems From Our Wall magazine- the Mural

 We ran a wall magazine on our Notice Board- and were noticed. During 1982-84 at IIM Bangalore campus. 

Some of the gems that went on it and adorned the wall mag. 

Classmates as Guest Faculty

 A rich source of guest faculty is my class from IIM Bangalore. Therefore, we at Prestige University have started tapping into this. We have had B.B. Dash, Ph.D. from IIT Delhi in addition to the MBA, recently. The latest was Shankara Rajan, also nicknamed Rajan of India, as a guest faculty in H.R. He was head of H.R. Transformation at Reliance Industries in his last corporate foray.

Pics from his visit-

Even more recently, in March/April 2024, we had Dr. Sunil Gupta, an IIT Delhi Ph.D. once again (after IIMB). We co-taught a course called Business Research Methods.

IIMB PGP Inaugural and Distinguished Alumni Awards

 IIM Bangalore, my alma mater, chose three distinguished alumni for the awards. This awards ceremony was also combined with the inauguration of the 50th batch of PGP (MBA). I was among the invitees and it was wonderful listening to the achievements of the awardees in different areas- the corporate world (Abhijit), entrepreneurship (Teamlease) and Social Entrepreneurship (Samina). They were from these batches-

• Abhijit Roy, PGP 1991
• Ashok Reddy, PGP 1995
• Samina Bano PGP 2010

The Chief Guest, Rashmi Mohanty, also was an alum, and is now the CFO at SBI Cards. There were around 600 new entrants into the MBA programs lapping up every word. Some pics..

The new entrants, Batch 50 of PGP.

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The Chief Guest, above.

Gopal Mahaptra, my batchmate and now a Professor of Practice, IIMB. This was our classroom in 1982-84.

My t shirt marks  the 50th year -Golden Jubilee year of IIMB. It started in 1973.

I also tried out a set of drums before the event!

Architecture

 It can impress. The first Ayn Rand book I read had an architect hero. But it is still rare that you find buildings in your life which are brilliant in conception and execution. I was fortunate to live in one such campus- the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and recently got hold of a few more pics from our times (1980s), out of a couple of Yearbooks of seniors/juniors. Here are some of those pics.. with masala added in the form of quotes.

The Yearbook of the 1986 batch (above), and a hostel in Jayanagar that our seniors lived in (below)

Trip to an MBA Class

 I mean my MBA class, as a student. That would be late 1982. The subject was Organizational Behaviour. I recently found some notes-cyclostyled (you may not know what that is, but it was a primitive form of copying or Xeroxing. They involved some readings, an exam description, a definition, and an analysis of my personality. Here they are. Most are self-explanatory-

This set of courses- 3 of them, including one elective, were some of the best I had at IIMB and the others were not bad either! Only a couple I slept through. But O.B. really opened my eyes, helped me understand myself and others a lot better, and I think may have contributed to whatever little success I have had at managing people in various positions of academic leadership I have held in my 40 years since! That's a lot of contribution, but of course it was the foundation for other learning over the years. This is probably the most important subject in an MBA program, if taught by experts.

Pics From Four IIMs

 I worked at three, and was a student at one. Here's a short tour of those four IIMs. I have visited Ranchi, Raipur, Trichy and Rohtak too, some before they had a campus. Udaipur is on my list for a visit.

Kozhikode, in my view the prettiest IIM campus.

Indore's not too bad, either..

These two are from Bangalore- looking out from g-10, my room, below, and a game of Frisbee Footer against the famous tank from 3 Idiots (shot here many years after we idiots left)

More from Indore, above.

Lucknow during a hailstorm, 2001 and Bangalore, recently on a visit.

Prof AK Rao No More

Just heard from friends that Prof. AK Rao who taught us Operations Research is no more. He was famous for a coastal Andhra accent while teaching it, and we still remember some of the Cake mix problems, though the subject itself was nobody's favourite,. but he was, and that's wonderful, I think. He was always smiling, and friendly, in and out of class, even if you had got a D in his course (I didn't say I did). I once taught O.R. in the US, and mainly due to his course that I had taken before. I had met him during and after his stint as the director of SDM, Mysore. His article for our student mag IMBIBE is also fresh in my mind, because he was sporting enough to write for us editors. Here it is, as a small tribute.