Wedding of a Friend's Daughter

Weddings are certainly an Indian speciality, with multifarous dimensions. One such was that of Aditi, a friend's daughter. Lots of IIMB classmates and spouses added spice or zing to the proceedings. Some pics-

 The parents of the bride, with the two ..

 Beaming couple..

 A candid moment..

 Guests, spouses and batchmates.

 Bride's brother Amogh, with his girlfriend Camille.

 The feast (above), and Aditi (the bride) with my wife.

 Some of the guests..friends from MBA.

 Part 2- Another party ..and more friends turn up..

 The grandpa (89!) joins the bride and the father of the bride on the dance floor  above, and the lovely bridesmaids- below.

 The bride's now dressed up in a white gown.

 ..and comes in with dad and Uncle..

..to a groom who's getting edgy, and singing away.. watched by his dog.

Surprises Big and Small

Life throws surprises at us fairly regularly. Here are some that I like-

Finding a good book while browsing at a book store. I still do it the old-fashioned way, and may continue till the last book store on earth operates.

Meeting someone unexpectedly. It's great fun to catch up, and as I have said before, this happens to me with students from various B schools I have taught at- some recent ones that I encountered without warning have been Vishal Tibrewal, Animesh Jain (IMT Nagpur), Jimmy Jain (IIMK), Sowmyashree Gonibeedu (PESIT), Mrunal (PESIT), Bhuvneet Raheja and Sapna Patni (IIM Indore), Viju Varghese, Shreya Sengupta (also from PESIT, different programs), ..and of course, planned ones too, like Anupriya Pandit, Sheetal Garg, Shafique and Pallavi (IMTN), Jogeswari, Savitha, Achint, Vidya and Swapna Gurijala (KIAMS), Ratnashree, Shraddha, Divya Singh, Nikita, Meghna, Manjari, Supriya, all from IMT Nagpur.

This was not a surprise, but surprising-or maybe not. I joined a music group of Hindi film aficionados thanks to a former student, and met a few for the first time, and got along very well.

Every now and then, I get a pleasant surprise in the form of a chat with a Facebook friend, and sometimes it ends up being a long one. Shreyashi (a former student now doing her FPM) is really good at these, among some others.

Comments on fb, and answers to quizzes or general questions. Sometimes unexpected, surprising, amazing etc..Oscar-style acceptance speeches too.. 😄

I listen to the radio a lot, and hearing a favourite song play is a pleasant surprise, which ahppens frequently.

Sometimes, phone calls, but since I don't pick up the cell from unknown numbers,  I effectively prevent some (nasty?) surprises.

Learning From Big Brother

We live and learn. So it is that we learn from the Big Brother. There's only one left after the Gorbachev ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika, in case you haven't noticed.

Like everyone else, Big Brother also suffers scams, budget deficits and trade deficits. But unlike everone else, BB has a solution. There are two major angles to this.

1. Count the number of countries in the world. Around 190 at a rough count.

2. Bomb one every 2 years. Reasons, like an audit of a forest strewn with a few skeletons, can be found if you look hard enough. Any reason with a word like genocide, weapons, and innocent civilians sounds convincing enough. Soldiers on a draft have no choice, in any case.

You are now Ok for 380 years. After that, Martians may take over anyways.

The spinoff benefits on the main and ancillary industries, can keep you going for two years at least. There could be some add-ons if you also get oil cheap from the enemy of the country you bomb, in case the bombing happens in the Gulf region. Got it? Keep it simple, stupid, is the policy.

Biggest Indian Industries

Name the biggest Indian industries. Steel, cement, Power, IT, you said? Sorry but you are wrong. The following are our biggest.

1. Coaching industry. From IIT entrance to tying your new-born's diapers, they can coach you for anything. Even going to the moon, if you wish. The income is multi-billion dollars, but estimates are unreliable, as income is untraced for the most part.

2. The talking industry. This involves all the talkers who incessantly advise the cricket players, the Cricket board, the government, and everyone else. This might actually be the biggest creator of greenhouse gases, more than auto exhaust.

3. Movie and TV industry, euphemistically (and optimistically) known as the entertainment industry. Whom it entertains is anybody's guess, but in terms of turnover, it has made billionaires out of blocks of wood in human shape. And we are all the worse for it.

4. Cheap book publishing industry for class 1 to 10, 11 to 12, and college. And guide books for all these. Pavements of all Indian cities are full of these books, for a song, second hand and third hand too.