Dhoom at Induction Program

 JIS University had an induction program, which ended with a lot of dhoom dhaam at a big city auditorium in Alipore.

A highlight, apart from a guest from Tunisia, was a talk by alumni, and also some dance and music by a talented bunch of students! We also gave away some awards from competitions run during the week-long program, for dance, music and photography. Some pics above.

Below, my exec assistant Shrabani, and her gang of friends, in the audience.

She's second from right. Debasmita Das in front. 

Mutual Admiration Societies

 How many have you formed? Alas, non-living objects can't speak, or else we could have had thousands.

But with humans (not bots, yet- don't know enough of them or about them), we can have some. I have experienced this at all stages of life. One of my first officially recognised ones was with Meghna Sinha, who used to write a blog while she was a student. Later, we met a few times, and bonded over books and coffee, and other beverages. 

The others include a few more students of IMT Nagpur, some of Kirloskar Institute, a couple from PES and IFIM B School, and some of IIM Indore. NMIMS too, I guess... faculty included, in most of these. 

Anusha Soni of Bhopal who I met during her IIM Indore IPM stint, was one. We bonded over Guavas, Golf and small talk, and she treated me to a lunch in my hometown Pune (I think it was her first salary!) and came home too. 

Prachi Jain and gang was a delightful bunch of Ph.D. scholars at IIM Indore, and we have had fun outings in Delhi, Indore and one in Kolkata with a gang member recently.

Abha Kulkarni and Sheetal Garg have been members of an MAS for many years now. 

Pallavi and Shafique, naturally, because GB calls us twins- all three!

Shatakshi (the confused genius), who I did not teach at IIM I, and Anushka Mishra who I did not teach at Kirloskar, also.. due to Fb and later, physical meetings. 

Natasha Kothari, who I met at a wedding, and Rimjhim, who I met through a music group I am a part of with her Mom!

Of course, there are more, but let me list those in MAS part 2.. to be continued.

Why I Like Dilliwasis

These are residents of Delhi, who may or may not have grown up there. Some have. 

They tend to have a gung ho attitude towards everything. It's not easy to live in a place that has only 2 months of good weather on average. And deal with invaders at one time, and uncouth drivers today. Road rage is a real thing there, just like in L.A.

But most people in Delhi NCR that I know are nice.. maybe it's me. But online and offline, I have encountered nice people 95% of the time. That's a good percentage, in my view. So anytime I visit, I am able to catch up with a couple of friends. 

I have now met Shweta Agarwal, Padmapriya (more than once), Sharmistha Singh and Sunil Kataria (once), Divya Singh, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag, Nikita Kumar/Ray (more than once), Abha Kulkarni (many times), Ananya Nandi De (thrice), Supriya Jain, Surbhi Mehta Chaddha, Shalini Sinha, Jaya Dulani (once each), Kanika Mhendiratta (twice), Harish Chaudhry, Himanshu Manglik, Pradip Acharya, Harish Arora, and my ex-colleague Harsh Halve

Classes and Classy Students

 Some classes have class, and some students too. Sample from different places, in class and out of class -

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.

Research Shows- 4

 My research shows that there are people who feel entitled in all walks of life.

First, are politicians at all levels. Few exceptions.

Bureaucrats, sometimes even more. Few exceptions.

Corporates high up in the hierarchy. With social media on the loose, sometimes even lower down the hierarchy. Not just in India. 

Academics who think they have killed it, but haven't. Lots of them around, if you look for them.

Students from rockstar colleges - read IIMs. There is an inverse correlation with the ranking of the college, in many cases.

Employers with no empathy, for whom employees are cogs in the profit-earning wheel. Both in academia and the corporates.

Employees who think the company/organisation revolves around them. It might not, except for a day or two.

Promoters-popularly known as Lalas in India, who micromanage stuff and run all good things into the ground, sometimes over decades, sometimes a lot faster.

 

Research Shows- 2

My research findings from life, continued.

Teaching is an art, and not everyone is an artist.

If there is an artist-teacher, he or she can captivate a learner. I have had the fortune to get some artist teachers in school (Hindi, English), MBA (Organizational Behaviour, Marketing) and Ph.D.  College, not many. I also tried to introduce artistic ways of teaching humdrum stuff like Marketing Research and not-so-humdrum stuff like Digital Marketing and Advertising.

Learners also respond to non-academic ways of connecting, if done right. Without biasing the evaluation that needs to be done professionally. 

Ties can go beyond the college/school years, between students, and also between teachers and students. Some of these bonds can be as strong as those between friends of the same age. I have been very lucky in this department, with alums of various institutions who are great friends now.

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.

Teachers Can Make a Difference

 I have been into teaching for as long as I can recollect, and I have also been a student a long time. Based on these many years, I would say that students are influenced by teachers-some of them, at least. The reasons may vary, but a strong human connect is usually one of these reasons. I often meet past students that I may not even have taught, and they share stories, opinions and views that echo these thoughts. You may be the cat's whiskers in your subject, and that awe initially may overwhelm a student. But what remains after distillation is a welcoming, supportive attitude towards the student, is what I think. In other words, a human connect and interest in their life.. and career.

Many students express what we couldn't in our generation. That is a great feeling- to receive a message on Social Media (got one from far away in Dubai yesterday), or a meeting set up in quick time over facebook (happened two days ago!), or just hearing them talk about bygone days on a forum somewhere.

I am in touch with many from IMT Nagpur, IIM Indore and Kirloskar Institute, for some reason. And some from IFIM and PESIT (now JagSoM and PES Univ). A couple from XIM and Vignana Jyoti too. Without exception, they are warm and chatty whenever we meet. Hopefully, this will go on forever!

I have also had a few students of Golf, including faculty and Doctoral students who were not in my area (Marketing).

Cheers to all students everywhere!

Where we Met

Starting with students from IMT. 

This is on the suggestion from Abha, whom I met at Nagpur, then Mumbai a couple of times, and Delhi, more recently, with Shalini Sinha. Nikita, I first met when she was Nikita Kumar, in Pune. Later, she moved to Hyderabad, and we met with her friend from Symbi, Ritika Sharma. Most recently, we caught up in Delhi. Meghna Sinha I first met in Delhi at a Starbucks, then at Yuwatcha, in BKC. Also met Meghana Joshi at The Good Wife, BKC with a couple of others. Vikas and Varun were there too. Garima Shah at Hiranandani, Mumbai, in The Yellow Chilli.

First three pics are IMT alums from various batches, in Mumbai, Bangalore and Mumbai alumni get together.

Abha, Sirisha and Tosha.

Ishita, Gowri, Rupam, Anshita and Anusha

Savitha of KIAMS Batch 1 

In some other meetings, Tosha and Abha were together, or Sirisha Adi and Anuj too, in Mumbai- Grandmama's Cafe was one. Sheetal Garg and I met mostly at Mumbai, and once in a large alumni meet where we sang a duet from Johnny Mera Naam! Ananya Nandi De at NOIDA, her place, and Delhi. Shraddha Nigdikar, at her place in Dadar, in Vashi and at Mulund at a friend's place. 

Abhinav Kamal, the digital marketer and film maker, I met in Bangalore, and in Mumbai after IMT Nagpur. I think Shuchi Bhatnagar was at a Hyderabad alumni meet. Divya Singh, first at Mumbai, where she also guest lectured in my class on Digital Marketing, then at Pune and more recently, Gurgaon. Harshad Lunavat and Meghana Khadilkar, at Pune. Target is to meet Karishma too, there. Anupriya Pandit, at Bangalore. Surbhi Mehta Chadha at Delhi. Also her neighbour Vrinda Khanna at her place in Delhi. Pallavi in Bangalore, Shafique in Bangalore and Indore recently. Kanika Mhendiratta in Delhi, twice, Swati Jain in Mumbai on a rainy evening. Khyati Jha, in Navi Mumbai.

In Ahmedabad, a whole gang of IMT students, led by Ishan, Ankita, Keyur and separately, Manjari two or three times. Also Punyashlok Dwibedy, who was at IIMA doing his Ph.D.

Anshita Abhishek Chetty organised two get-togethers for me to meet IMTans, and we met. In Bangalore, with Sreeram and Gowri, Rupam Verma, Ishita and Anurag with their kid, and Anshita's hubby Abhishek and their twins, Anusha Mamidanna and hubby Aashish were also part of the meets. Meenu Mynam, I met in Bangalore. Kedar Muley and gang at Thane -Ravi Mittal was part of that.

KIAMS students, everywhere- Smita in Dubai, Sudeshna and Sid Agarwal in Kolkata (and Delhi airport), Vidya TC and Swapna Gurijala at Singapore- twice. Nishka and Vikram in Mumbai, Rajiv Roy Chowdhury at Bangalore (his wife turned out to be from PESIT). Aditi Sood in Kolkata, Savitha, multiple times in Bangalore. Also Nidhi Kanungo in Indore a couple of times, but also in Lucknow, where her hubby is from. Jagdish Subramony, in Chennai, long ago. Jimmy in Bangalore, Mukesh in Kodaikanal. Also Navroze Sethna in Kodai, his hometown, Anupama at Bangalore, Padmapriya at Hyderabad and Delhi, Jogeswari in Hyderabad and Thailand (with her company Golftripz), apart from Calicut and Nagpur where she gave a guest lecture and shot a video. Sunil Kataria at Delhi along with Sharmishtha Singh. Nikhil Damle I met in Mumbai long ago, and Bangalore later. Anushka Mishra, at various bookstores on Church Street and also at 13th floor, MG Road. Zargar Basharat in Bangalore. Dheeraj Mohan in Chennai.

PESIT students I have met mostly in Bangalore, like Pooja Varun, and Aishwarya Omprakash with her hubby and kid. IFIM students too- Chaithu Gunapali, Bharath Shenoy, and Nagendra Shenoy. At an airport, I met Shreya Sengupta from PESIT_IUP. 

IIM Indore

Shatakshi Tripathi, Varun  and Shailaja Gupta from the IIM Indore (Mumbai campus) at Bangalore. And Pratima Gaikwad of the same program, only at Hyderabad- 3 or 4 times! 

Anusha Soni, IIM Indore student, and Neha Adiga, in Pune. Sapna Patni, Anam Nuhi and Harshad Sachani at Indore- him at Nagpur too! Bhuvneet Raheja, In Delhi. 

Vignana Jyoti students- Giri at Bangalore with his wife, Ranjana Rudra and Deepthi Balagiri last year in Hyderabad. Sudhir many years ago at Bangalore, with his wife Poulomi.

Lots of Ph.D.  students from IIM Indore, at Indore and some at Delhi recently. Akansh, Prachi, Vartika, Neeti Ingole, Geeti, Vanshika, Pratishtha are a few others. 

Lots more I would like to meet, like Pooja Shukla, who is hiding in the U.S. and Aashneet Gautam, no idea where. Tanya Jakhar, in Bangalore. Ruby Shukla, Delhi. Vaishali Bathla, Delhi, I think. Bhagyashree Agarwal.

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.

Success Stories of My Students

 Very regularly now, I see success stories of many students who choose to share them over the media. Some don't share them here, but one gets to hear them through a common friend, or somebody else.

Some that are on Social Media include Aditi Atre, Swati Sinha, Abhinav Kamal, Priyadarshi Matruprasad, Shrishail Deshnur, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Tanya Jakhar, Nikita Ray, Divya Singh, Shatakshi Tripathi, Savitha NK, Sunil Kataria, Ananya Nandi De, Ishita Modi, Sheetal Saxena, Shreya Sengupta, Shreyashi Chakraborty, Sandeep Das, Nishka Rathi, Bharath Shenoy, Sudeshna, Roopsha, ...

Some who I found out about indirectly or directly include Anupama Vadnagra, who I understand is with a fragrances company, based on her uncanny ability to spot fragrances of different kinds..like a wine taster or tea taster, in a way.

Makes me very happy, that they are doing well in their chosen fields.

Nagaland- a First

 I had been to Assam a couple of times before, but not to other parts of the North East. This time, both by train- a vistadome compartment, no less, and road, managed to travel to Dimapur and Kohima, both in Nagaland. Also found a Golf course near Jorhat, called Kaziranga Golf Course/Resort. Worth going to again, some day. It is owned by one Mr. Barooah, reminding me of two colleagues, Ekalavya and Prerona Baruah from NMIMS at Bangalore. Also ate duck for the first time- like a cross between mutton and chicken.

We were trying to promote our MBA programs and also tie up for other activities, such as Entrepreneurship training. Or corporate training programs. Met the ONGC ED, and a dynamic edu-entrepreneur, among others. A minister also, and an MLA from Nagaland. Very positive, all of them, including the director of NIT at Dimapur, Nagaland.

These hats are worn by plantation workers to keep off the Sun. Resemble the Mexican sombreros.

At Jorhat engg. college, set up in 1960, one of the oldest in Assam. Being introduced by a prof. of Computer Science, and placement cell head.

At CKB college for a seminar in Jorhat.

Dynamic edupreneurs at Dimapur. Mr. Kvulo Lorin and Dr. Hewasa L. Khing (left) who run Tetso College, a vibrant institution.

 

At a seminar in Golaghat engg college above, and with Dr. Venugopal and faculty at NIT Dimapur.

The Minister of Education and Tourism, above and MLA below.

The vistadome, and a lake where we stopped for lunch with a view.

Lady seller at Umiyam lake near Shillong -above

Above and below- IIT Guwahati with Dr. Priyankoo Sarmah, and below, a building nearby

Friends Made After 25

 College and school friends and langotiya yaars happened before 25. The largest group was at IIMB, as we were 120 students, approx. and many became friends. Some have remained, as the group meets have proved. Ditto, engineering college, slightly fewer. School, even less, due to the time span. 

After 25, I made friends at work, at Clemson University during Ph.D., and then, colleagues at various places where I taught- KIAMS, XIMB, VJIM, PES, IFIM, IMT, IIML, IIMK, IIMI, NMIMS and now, Prestige University- just met one ex-colleague of IMT yesterday! But the largest group would be alums (ex-students) of various places I have taught in. And of course, a music group I am a part of on facebook, called MSMT-short for Mile Sur Mera Tumhara.

All in all, just wanted to say that friends made when you are a grown-up are no less important than the ones from many years earlier. At least in my case, it's very true, and I am grateful to all the friends through the 'ages' - because of my teaching stints, many of them are a third of my age! Some have grown up to half or two-thirds too.

The Ones That Got Away

 Maybe they are better off for it. I mean, the students who were there in institutes I was in, but who I never taught. Either because I was there at a different time or because I was in an admin. role. Not knowing how lucky they had been, they sought me out on FB and befriended me. And even met me (and often, treated me or called me home!)

Out of many such, the ones I have met in the last few years include Pallavi Bajpai and Shafique Gajdhar (BOTH are my twins, fb says), Sheetal Garg, Ishita Modi, Anurag Sikaria, Swati Jain, Anshita Abhishek Chetty, Abha Anagha Kulkarni, Anushka Mishra, Sirisha Adi, Ananya Nandi De, Anupriya P., Vrinda Khanna, Meghana Khadilkar, Harshad Lunavat, Shatakshi Tripathi, Varun, ....

Some I met at alumni meets, which we did regularly when I was at IMT Nagpur, Ghaziabad, or at NMIMS Bangalore. Some NMIMS students I met only in my office or at Placement parties (Tanya Sardana, is one I remember and Manuja Seth, Divya Anand and Sreelekha Bannerjee too) and the Golf course. Avanii, Rakshita, Muskan, Mahek are some of them.

Students- Cat 5

 Indore IIM students

My Students-Cat 4

 Mostly IMtans.