Significant Happenings

Asterix turned 50 recently. Millions of people across the world have enjoyed his adventures along with Obelix, the maker of the magic potion, Druid Getafix and so on. The names of the characters are great entertainment in themselves. I still carry around a particular one called Obelix and Co. which is a great take off on management- in particular, advertising and marketing. There is a smart alec who gets the Gauls addicted to making money by selling menhirs (he buys them himself)and succeeds in corrupting them. Great read for an MBA.

The bard Cacophonix is another briliant creation. We come across equivalent characters in real life so often, that he is easy to relate to. The caricature of Romans (particularly Julius Caesar)is hilarious, and should be compulsory reading for all would-be dictators.

Paul Samuelson, author of a great text book on Economics, passed away. I read his book during my MBA and it was the first one on Economics that I enjoyed reading.

The Telangana crisis set me thinking. I was born in Andhra (undivided), so will I have an identity crisis if that changes to Telangana? What is the economic rationale for a new stste to be formed? Will the reorganisation help the common man in any significant way?

Idlis and Orchids

Read a book called Idlis, Orchids and Willpower, written by Mr. Vithal Kamat who started the eco-friendly Orchid Hotel close to Mumbai airport. He is also from the family that runs Samrat and a couple of other restaurants in Mumbai. What I found interesting is that it is a service business (because I teach Services marketing), and a non-IT service business (because we have seen a lot written about them. Also, he has won several global awards for the environment-friendly ideas he has used in The Orchid.

In doing all this, he has drawn inspiration from a very traditional father and a home-maker mother. Also, he does not mince words about his siblings, and how family squabbles erupted at some points. Interesting style of writing too, not very sophisticated but appears to be straight from the heart. Interesting read for someone interested in biographies of entrepreneurs.

Coincidences

I happened to meet a student I had taught in 1991 while I worked at XIM. He came to the IMT Nagpur campus for recruiting our students. I do run into people from the past most unexpectedly. Another coincidence happened at a relative's place. I was trying to explain to a visitor about what IMT is and what I do there. To my surprise, he turned out to be a vendor of some services to our institute. A couple of days later, he was in my office discussing business.

An important visitor, the global head of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) visited the campus today. He lives in Silicon Valley, USA, and shared lots of experiences with students. He said from personal experience that India is now much more entrepreneur-friendly than it was in the days of Infosys starting up. We are hoping to do some joint events with TiE in future, through a student group called Kushagra, formed specifically by people who want to become entrepreneurs at some point.