What I Like About Countries

 The food, and foot massage.. in Thailand.

The Ha Long Bay, in Vietnam.. 

The discipline, in Singapore. Also the public transport.

The politeness, and the public baths- Onsens- in Japan.

The language, in Malaysia.

The National Parks, in the USA.

The pretty islands in Greece. And Moussaka, my favourite dish.

Simple, hospitable people in Cambodia.

Greenery in Sri Lanka.

The temples in Bali, Indonesia.

The openness in Holland.

Monuments in Italy. Venice too, though Bezos didn't invite me..

Of course, many things about India.. will list those out separately.

Conferences and Seminars

 I have by now attended countless conferences and seminars, and some were memorable. The first one was in the U.S., and the next two as well, while I was a Ph.D. student there. I even won a prize for one of my papers, at a Southeastern DSI conference. One was in Las Vegas, which became memorable due to the place!

At IIMK, IMT in India and also at PES, I organised conferences as well. One of our ideas to host one in Goa was a big hit. It was also a case conference, unlike most others which are research-paper based. The venue was an attraction for many participants, and I still get reminded of the Goa conferences by people I meet.

Among other international conferences I have been to, Tourism related ones in Colombo, Vietnam and Japan were the most interesting. I offered a course on Tourism Marketing during that time as well, at IIM Indore, for both Ph.D. students and MBA students (with a colleague, Jayasimha). The MBA course continues, I am told. 

Last week I attended a seminar at St. Xavier's University, in Kolkata on invitation. It was on Strategy, with the vision for India in 2047 as a theme. There was an interesting address by the Chairman of Coal India, Mr. Prasad, and a panel discussion with executives from industry.

What Travel Has Taught Me

 If you can afford to, travel. If you can't, still try to.. coz it's a great teacher. You learn through observation, immersion, and a lot of interactions. For instance, I was fascinated by the varied experiences in recent years at Vietnam, Ladakh, Japan, Bali, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, during international travels. Also, within India, I went to Nagaland for the first time, and had a fascinating interaction with an MLA and a Minister, and learnt a lot. Also met a businessman who drove us around, and told us about modernisation of business practices.

People in Bali including taxi drivers were very polite, punctual and well-behaved. Their architecture- temples particularly- is fascinating, and different. 

Japan is a very modern country technically, but they follow quite a few traditions too. Innovators in many ways, ahead of the West.

Vietnam- just the Ha Long Bay cruise is enough to give you goosebumps. And they have a Temple of Literature dedicated to Confucius, my hero..

Cambodia has a rich culture, partly Hindu, part Buddhist..

Sri Lanka grows a lot of tea and spices, and follows Ayurveda..

Singapore is known for good governance, and Management of govt. services. Great universities too.

Memories of Memorable Occasions

A screensaver from the hotel we stayed at in Udaipur -above. 

Below- Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.

A gathering of musical minds- a group I am part of-above

Below, a meetup at my niece Miskil's place, Mumbai, May 2023.

A scenic place on way to Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka.

Below, at an event organised by Prestige University, with Mr. Karthikeyan, IIML alum and entrepreneur.

Mt. St. Michael, France above, and at a Jigoku in Beppu, Japan, below.

Miners- coal mines, Kothagudem.

 This is a collection of many memorable occasions, visits, meets.. pictorial.

International Conference at NMIMS Mumbai

 Our Mumbai head office hosted an international conference for encouraging collaborations between Asian and European Universities. We had participants from Vietnam and Coventry online, and Bangla Desh, Spain and Bulgaria offline.

VIT and University of Hyderabad, who have internationalised themselves significantly were invited to share best practices too. MoUs were signed between various universities present. Some pics- 

Afghanistan

 What has been happening in Afghanistan probably has parallels with Vietnam in many ways. Fortunately Vietnam recovered from those events and became a thriving economy. I have visited the country, and found it very vibrant.

Hope that something good comes out eventually for the sake of the common people in Afghanistan. Even if they recover, it may take a few years or decades. Hope for the best.

In general, meddling in countries which are so far away, makes little sense. But then, is anyone listening?

Countries I am Aware of

 I became aware of England due to the language that they left behind. Vilayat meant England. There were a few Anglo-Indian families too, when I was growing up. Not sure if there are too many left. But in college days, USA was definitely the dream destination for many. I applied for an M.S. too, but managed to go there later for a Ph.D.- not in engineering, but Management. During stopovers in Europe, visited Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany (West at the time), and Holland. France more intimately, thanks to Anne, a friend from Brittany we met at Clemson. 

Many years later, I have met people from Sri Lanka (have a good friend Samudrika there), Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, S. Korea, New Zealand, Dubai, Sharjah, Australia, England, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China ( I have a couple of friends there), and so on. 

I am yet to visit Down Under (Covid stole my thunder), and a few countries like China, and South America and Africa. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But I had friends from Iran, Nigeria and Portugal in my Ph.D. program, and also from Turkey, and a colleague from Venezuela at Greenwood where I taught.

That is not a bad score! Yes, I know there are around 190 countries, but I am just one person..

Places Like No Other

 There are many places with a unique flavour to them (not just the food!), across the world. Here are a few in my list. All these I have visited at least once.

Japan as a country is unique in many ways. They are extremely polite, and cellphones are not used in most public places. Efficiency is prized, and trains and buses run on time.

Greece. The islands are a unique mix of Mediterranean blue and homes in white. 

Sri Lanka. Emerald isle indeed. Very beautiful, friendly people.

Vietnam. Hard working people, and one of the fastest growing economies, with good reason. After all, they beat the U.S. in a war earlier.

Ladakh is a cold mountain/desert with great views, and I haven't seen anything like it anywhere. My daughter visited again to do a course at Sonam Wangchuk's place, and got to see some Ice Stupas too, used to store water.

Coonoor, Darjeeling.. Tea gardens are the unique thing in both.

Yellowstone National Park..Very large, diverse, with Host springs, geysers, Buffalo (American variety) and lots more

Bryce Canyon- amazing sight, unforgettable. Grand Canyon too.

Las Vegas. Mayanagari in a desert. Unique, heady feeling that makes you bet big at the casinos..one almost empathises with the Pandavas.

 

My Avatars on Earth- 7

 The other avatars- Golf Trainer (above), In Step with the Family (below)

 Above, The depressed listener of modern Hindi songs/remixes/non-music

 The pagdi-wearer with swag in Kuldhara Rajasthan (above), and a chilled-out specimen on a boat in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam (below).

2019-What I Look Forward To

 A pavement in Clemson (above) which has my name on it ..that is looking back, a pre-requisite to looking ahead.

Look forward to-playing golf, travelling (road trips too), teaching and mentoring, having conversations on the tea and lunch table with colleagues, karaoke-ing, blogging, watching more films, reading good books/blogs, tasting some more Single Malts, listening to a lot of music, maybe a few more concerts (like the one below)..and some completely unexpected experiences! My book on Marketing Research is set to come out with a fourth edition soon too. 

 

Look forward to random and planned meetings- I met at least these friends/students in the last 2 years (at least some whose names are in italics I met for the first time, having known them pretty much from Facebook-I am grateful to Zuckerberg for this- some others I have subjected to torture in my classes).

Meghana Joshi, Varun Somaiya, Vikas Jain, Vishal Golchha, Anant Ajmera, Navroze Sethna, Abha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Pallavi Sharma, Sirisha Adi, Khyati Jha, Divya Singh, Urvasi Anand, Shatakshi Tripathi, Garima Shah, Shreyashi Chakraborty, Nidhi Kanungo, Jogeswari, Bhuvneet Raheja, Shruti Suman, Swathika Selvam, Akash Gupta, Shafique Gajdhar, Anupriya Pandit, Zargar Basharat, Manjari Mundanad, Achint, Savitha, Punyashlok Dwibedy, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Sapna Patni, Shripad Kulkarni, Dheeraj Mohan, Mrunal M B, Pragya Singh, Arvind Joshi, Supriya Jain, Umesh M., Vishal Tibrewal, Vrinda Khanna, Aishwarya Omprakash, Sidhanta Patnaik, Bhagyalakshmi, Shahida, Saumya Sharma, Gadgil, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, TK Chatterjee, Anant Ram, Milind Fadnavis, Radhika J., and a little earlier, Vidya and Swapna Reddy, Meghna Sinha, Nikita Kumar, Animesh,..

Made some new friends from Conferences- among them people from China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, (finally went to Vietnam too). Reconnected with some from Vignana Jyoti on fb.

Tried some new things while teaching Digital Marketing and Marketing Research, and from collaborations with students of our programs- from IPM (Shivangi, Aradhya, Satchi, Ayushi,...) to FPM (Shweta Jha, Anjali Sharma, among others). Presented a few of these papers in conferences.

2017-18 in Pics

Some pics from this year and last.

 Two spots of significance- Sigiriya, Sri Lanka (above) and the Gurudwara in Nanded.

 Above- looking out at Pondicherry, and below, cruising at Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.

 Flowers on show, January, at Pune's Empress Garden. And below, celebrating my Mom's 88th, also at Pune.

Qasbah, a restaurant in Hyderabad where some of us Engineering college-mates met.

Nearing 5 Years at Indore

I have been notorious for changing workplaces faster than Hindi film heroines changed their costumes in song situations. But looks like I am trying to change. Must be the poha-jalebis, and the nice people of Indore. I am about to reach my fifth anniversary at Indore, in early December. So what are my thoughts?

The beauty of the campus is incomparable- inspired by buildings at Mandu.

The Sun rises over IIM Indore (above), and below,  Singing in progress- Sadhana Lakshmi tries out her skills- karaoke party with my Google Online Challenge champs-Kalaivani and team

 Above-Nidhi Kanungo with her dad, visits. She was my student in 2000 at Kirloskar Institute. Below, our first Digital Marketing executive program in 2017, at Indore-dinner at Mashaal.

 Gulmohar gar tumhara naam hota..

 Above-Indrajit at the Mumbai campus, and below, the PGPMX 16-18 batch at Mumbai, during the Convocation visit to Indore.

I am thrilled with the peace and quiet, for one thing, on the campus. The variety provided by the PGP/MBA, short term MDPs, and the Executive programs at Indore and Mumbai is a great plus point. We did a couple of interesting programs for Trent, Whirlpool, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.

A chance to experiment with new courses, particularly in the Doctoral program, is for me a definite attraction. Even in the MBA, I started teaching Digital Marketing for the first time in my career, and have learnt a lot from it. I had only one stint with the IPM in a seminar course, apart from some good CIS projects they did with me. But I did interact with a few good actors and actresses during the plays they acted in.

Bright students are like Oxygen, and there have been quite a few, from the first batch whom I taught Advertising to, to the batches thereon, whom I taught Marketing Research and Digital Marketing-you know who you are 😃 Some champions have also won numerous awards and recognition- not necessarily due to me, I might add! I also have been on Doctoral committees of various students in the full-time and part-time programs.

Faculty colleagues are also great fun to be with, and I have had a chance to meet most at breakfast, lunch or dinner, informally, if not at recruitment seminars. Many past students and colleagues visited me at Indore, and I met a few elsewhere during these years. Some also contributed to books that I managed to edit, publish, and I look forward to meeting many more.

Had two admin. stints as MDP chair and Dean-Faculty, that were also enriching. I ended up visiting (for conferences) a lot of nice destinations, from Beppu in Japan to Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Since I also teach Tourism Marketing, it was all useful in my teaching too.

Enjoyed visits to places nearby such as Maheshwar, Pataalpani, Omkareshwar, and Mandu (several times-my favourite). 

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam- Part 2

One post about this fantastic site is not enough. So here is the second. "Halong Bay is a beautiful natural wonder in northern Vietnam near the Chinese border. The Bay is dotted with 1,600 limestone islands and islets and covers an area of over 1,500 sqkm. This extraordinary area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. For many tourists, this place is like something right out of a movie (quite accurate, in my view). The fact is that Halong Bay features a wide range of biodiversity, while the surrealistic scenery has indeed featured in endless movies. The best way to get to Halong City is by car, minibus or bus from Hanoi which is only 170km away."- the description is from a site on the net.

Read more at: http://www.vietnam-guide.com/ha-long-bay/?cid=ch:OTH:001

 This view is from a vantage point on an island to whose top you can trek-420 steps, totally worth it.