Golf Courses I Played On

 The most exotic ones were around Pattaya, in Thailand, where I went with Golftripz in 2010. Laem Chabang was one of three we played, and a tough one. It was designed by Jack Nicklaus, I think. 

Where I learnt my Golf was actually a free (for us) Golf course in Harihar built by the Kirloskars. It was an 18 hole course with narrow fairways, so you had to hit straight. It also had a 3 par with a green surrounded by water, requiring a precise drop. 

Hyderabad Golf Association has a course around the Golconda Fort, very scenic. Also the Kodaikanal Golf Club, with winding fairways, and many ups and downs (apart from your game)-proud to have got a Hole in One there, in 2014. Also Wellington where I got a second one.

I also played at Ooty Gymkhana, ASC Bangalore, Air Force Golf Club at Nagpur, KGA and BGC at Bangalore, Madras Gymkhana, and a course in Kolar, near Bangalore.

Played with Yashad Gaur, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, and Muthu in Bangalore, classmates in Chennai, and Gadgil, in Nagpur. Garima Shah and Aditi Gupta and Akshar also joined us in Nagpur, and so did Smita Dabholkar and Madhu Helchel.

I am planning to do one in Kolkata soon.. more on that later..

Bouquets and Brickbats

 I got more bouquets than brickbats during a stay of around 11 months in Kolkata. So I consider the tenure a successful one, by that standard. But also from my own standards- how many people met, new friends made, etc. Did not do badly on that count as well, as the following pics may suggest-

Exiting the City of Joy

 Much depends on how you view your stay in a place. Every place can provide you with joy (or sorrow) depending on what you do to get along with that place, and the people in that place.

Though I was a visitor to Kolkata regularly for admissions since around 1996 (I was with Kirloskar Institute then), I had not lived here. A friend, Ajanta Sircar, worked here (she's a prof. at VIT Vellore now), and during one of our visits, she took me around to visit places here, including Olypub. Oxford Bookstore too. I have visited both since I started working here last year, and a couple of other places like Tollygunge Club, thanks to Dash, who is a member. 

I did not manage to play Golf so far, but might do so before I move out. Did go to a restaurant at the Ecopark Golf Course called Club de Golf though, to meet a visiting alum, Navneeta. Also met Amit Gope, a student from XIMB long ago, who is a Golfer himself. 

And re-met Ananya Ghosh and Sayantani Saha. Ananya I had met at XLRI once before, and I helped her a bit with her Ph.D. analysis here. Sayantani is an IMT Nagpur alumna, and works with ICICI Lombard ever since she graduated in 2012. 

Made a few  friends in the JIS University too, among colleagues at both campuses - New Town and Agarpara. Tried some food specialities from here. and liked most. A couple of old friends also visited, one a prof. from my XIMB days- Banikanta Mishra, and another, a Ph.D. student from Indore-turned prof. at OP Jindal, Akansh Khandelwal.

Also met Suhasini Barman, my third favourite after SD and RD Burman. This one runs a marketing and communications firm named after her, located in the Park Street area. Also guest lectures in B schools. We met on Linkedin, I think, and met a few times after that.

I also represented JIS University at a few events in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata over the last few months.

As I said, it depends on you too, whether you take the joy or the sorrow from a place..

Women Students and Colleagues

 I had a lot of women colleagues and even more women students at all the institutes I have worked in. Some that I am in touch with offline or online, after a varying number of years since I met them at those places-

IMT Nagpur- probably the maximum number from here. Sheetal Garg, Ananya Nandi De, Abha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Shraddha Nigdikar, Aditi Atre, Swati Jain, Nikita Kumar/Ray, Shreyashi Chakraborty, Shruti Sharma, Meghna Sinha, Meghana Khadilkar, Meghana Joshi, Meenu Mynam, Anshita Chetty, Rupam Verma, Gowri Kishore, Anusha Mamidanna, Twinkle Jain, Ishita Modi, Vrinda Khanna, Pallavi Bajpai (my twin, as per FB), Roshni Chhabra, Divya Singh, Sayantani Saha, Gunjan Nagpal, Nitya Pranav Chawla, Nidhi Naseri, Laura Shah, Noori Agarwal, Kanika Bhatia, Phalguni Banerjee, Priyanka Rajurkar, Karishma Dattani, Garima Shah, Esheeta Ghosh, and profs. Veena Pailwar, Smita Dabholkar Singh, Saleena Khan. Lots more, actually.. 

IMT Ghaziabad- Profs. Lubna Nafees, Sita Mishra, Jayanti Ranjan, Rashmi Agarwal, 

IIM Indore- Prof. Shweta Kushal, Prof. Surbhi Dayal, Radha Ladkani. Students- Anusha Soni, Shatakshi Tripathi, Shailja Gupta Kapoor, Pratima Gaekwad, Sapna Patni, Prachi Jain, Neeti Ingole, Geeti Mishra, Vartika Varyani, Pratiksha Batra, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Shreya Surana, Anam Nuhi, Bhuvneet Raheja

Kirloskar Institute- Nidhi Kanungo, Achint Kaur, Savitha, Jogeswari, Sharmistha Singh, Shweta Agarwal, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Nishka Rathi, Sudeshna Srivastava, Pooja Daniel, Smita Mohan, Vidya TC, Swapna Gurijala, Anushka Mishra..

Prestige University- Prof. Juhee Singh, Sohni Roy, Divya Sairam, Ayushi Kabra, and students Bhavna Ojha, Annette, Jayantaa, Nandini, Roshni, Sakshi,.. and admissions team.

JIS University- Bratati Bhattacharyya, Surjyasikha Das, Moumala Bhattacharya, Shrabani, Debasmita, Ankita, Riya of admissions team, Sanghamitra Kundu, Sunita Samanta and Karanjyot Kaur from exam cell, ..

Vignana Jyoti- Deepa, Deepthi, Ranjana, Rashmi, 

PESIT- Pooja NM, Yogita Shanbhag, Roopshree Narayan, Profs. Manasa Nagabhushanam, Bhagyalakshmi Venkatesh, 

IFIM- Chaithu Gunapali, 

Jeffrey Epstein

 This is darker than any fiction an author could cook up. The scale of his operation, which went unchallenged for so many years, aided apparently by a lady who recruited other handlers or procurers, was unprecedented. We do hear of gangs of sex traffickers, but usually those are gangs of criminals. This was a gang of sophisticated socialites who routinely did sick stuff and blackmailed the elite of the U.S. and the world to perhaps arm-twist them into paying money, and using influence to silence any attempts to inquire into their crimes.

Thanks to some activists in the U.S., the DoJ has been forced to release the possible evidence of wrong-doing. Funnily, no American other than the lady Maxwell has been arrested, or charged, in spite of a lot of statements which are in the files. Other countries have done slightly better.

No idea when this will end or how, but surely, some more people must be guilty?

Ghalib in New Delhi- Play Review

 Reminded me of Adrak ke Panje by Babban Khan. That was in the 70s. I think Sayeed Alam acted as Ghalib. He was brilliant. Ghalib takes birth again in Modern Delhi, is the basic storyline. He asks God to give him rebirth in either Varanasi or Delhi. God says there is already a tough guy with a beard in Varanasi. So he sends him to Delhi.

It is full of jokes about politics, society, education, corruption, language and everything in between. And includes all that is happening, therefore topical and relatable. 

The best jokes were about Galgotias University, which was in the news recently. Also about Kejriwal, whose contribution was to give khaansi (cough) to the whole of Delhi.. and as a result, the IQ of Delhi went up (a joke about the current CM, who doesn't know the difference between AQI and IQ). 

Also, many jokes about Kangana, Language deterioration, Haryanvis, Gurgaon, Yamuna-paar Dilliwasis, Modi's travels, Chara ghotala of Lalu Yadav, removal of Mughals from history books, and so on.

He says, If Kapil Dev can learn English, anyone can.. 

It's in the form of 5-6 skits, including Ghalib's encounters with a paanwali, a drunk, two taxi/auto drivers, a Punjabi landlady (with jokes about Punjabis included), a police constable who thinks he's a terrorist, and a couple of ad agency executives who try designing a campaign to make him famous- through photoshoots with Mallika Sherawat or Kareena Kapoor.  Very engaging, a laugh a minute. Political and social satire at its best!

Meetings With Old Friends in Kolkata

 Met Navneeta, Shakti Ghosal and Indukant Gautam of IIMB 1982-84 fame, in the last year.

Met Banikanta Mishra of XIMB- a colleague from 1991-92, on his visit. Also Amit Gope, a student from the same institute, who is settled in Kolkata.

Renewed contact with Ananya Ghosh, a Ph.D. scholar with St. Xavier's University, whom I had earlier met in XLRI at a doctoral consortium. She is close to finishing her Ph.D.

Akansh Khandelwal, a former Ph.D. student at IIM Indore.

Jasbir Matharu, a former colleague, along with Abhinav Chandel, both from IMT Nagpur.

Sayantani Saha, also a former student at Nagpur who is with ICICI Lombard.

And of course, Dash who is also an IIMB classmate, retired cop now settled here.