What I Got From my Employers-3

 I have worked at 3 different IIMs in the past 25 years. Let me try and expound on the first IIM I worked in, Lucknow, first.

Went there in 2001, stayed till 2003. I was slightly nonplussed by the unfamiliar weather pattern, but learnt to enjoy what I could. Had good friends, old and new. Prof. Akbar was one of the new ones I met, along with Bharat Bhasker (now heads IIM A), Shailendra Singh, Avinash Mulky, Vinay and Madhu Karmakar. Their wives too became family friends. BK Mohanty was a long-time friend from XIMB days-one of the reasons I applied to Lucknow. We were neighbours at Bhubaneswar.

Student quality was good. I remember among them was the daughter of a Cashew king of Goa (Zantye?) -Poonam, I think was her name. And a nephew of my BIL too. And Sameer Ghurye, grandson of my parents' contemporary from the company in Andhra Pradesh. Got along well with JK Das and others in my area- marketing. Neelam Kinra, Prem Purwar and Avinash Mulky were some of them. I also became area chair for a while.

I published my first book-Marketing Research, though it was mostly written at Kirloskar Institute. Tata McGraw- Hill was the publisher. Now in its fourth edition, the Third edition was a bestseller. Also attended a conference at MDI, and met a co-author, Gurvinder Shergill with whom I got a journal paper later in the Journal of Global Marketing. On Marketing Innovation.

Vivek Gupta was a great colleague, and we shared a large office space. He was an IT wizard, and taught me a few tricks on using computers.

The kababs and biryanis in Hazratganj and Ameenabad were out of the world. Not a bad 2 years at all!

Lucknow Diary

Had a chance to go to Lucknow to speak at a conference recently. I was pleasantly surprised to find several people whom I had never met but was aware of. Rama Bijapurkar, who has worked in advertising and marketing research (like me) was a co-speaker. Prof. Mirza Saiyadein, whom I had heard of, but never met, retired prof from IIM Ahmedabad. And then, many faculty who had some links to IIM Lucknow, where I had worked before, 2001 through 2003. That's where my first book got published (Marketing Research, First edition)-  I am fairly bookish.

Lucknow has grown from being a small, under-developed capital, to a decent-sized city, and has good roads-at least ones I travelled on were good. Did not get a chance to go Ganjing at Hazratganj, but saw a branch of CMS, the school where my daughters went for a couple of years. I still remember the kababs with a melt-in-your mouth texture that we had eaten there.

Made famous by its tehzeeb (don't think it can be translated-just look it up), and the famous 'pehle aap', it remains a beacon in a state which has always performed below its potential, and remains plagued by many negatives-perceived or otherwise.