Santa Brings me a Gift

 This was my gift, a signature, beautiful drawing on my plaster cast. And the pint-sized Santa who gave it is in the pic below-my niece Maya.

 A Christmas gathering of some of our extended family members was the occasion.

 So now, I believe in Santa all over again.

There is no Superman

As you grow up, you discover things about the world. At first, you think there is a Santa Claus. He comes every Christmas, and brings you gifts. Then, you discover that he does not exist.

Then, you discover that Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy also don't exist.  Would be fun to have a talking mouse and duck, I think. Would beat some of the boring humans I know.

By and by, you also discover that Richie Rich exists, but that it is not you.

But you still believe in Superman. For saving the world, there is no one like him. But then, it is a big blow to discover that he is a figment of someone's imagination.

The consolation is that you find people who are changing the world, and that you can do it too, in a small way.

Round of Some IIMs

I was out on a mission (possible?) of meeting potential faculty candidates for the IMT group. My quest took me to IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore this week. Shreyashi, an alum of IMT Nagpur from 2010, is doing her FPM (PhD, coded in language that Pakistan can't understand) from IIMC. Through her, met a lot of her colleagues doing their FPM, while enjoying the campus ambience of theirs-had not been for a while, since my faculty days at IIMK and IIML. Managed to generate some interest in applying to IMT group among them.

I then moved to my alma mater for a similar meet with FPM students there. Had a fruitful meeting with half-a-dozen budding Fellows. Not as in 'He's a jolly good, fellow', but a 'Fellow' Fellow. Anyway, there is a huge shortage of good faculty members in management, and it is going to be there for a while. Industry folks are interested, at times, but don't always have the skills-or the will to acquire a PhD. Anyone listening, interested, please apply.

By the way, Santa must be around the corner,waiting to shower presents on us. Merry Christmas, to anyone who believes in him. You should, if he brings you gifts.

If I were Santa Claus...

If I were Santa Claus with the power to gift things to kids of all ages, these are a few things I would gift-

1. A pin to all those powers-that-be who are puffed up with imagined glory, greatness of their selves. All it would take is a tiny prick of this pin, and they'd be normal again.

2. A tape of old songs to all new/budding/upcoming music directors, to remind them that music can be melodious too.

3. An auto-edit machine to Hindi film-makers that will cut their films to (2/3rd) their size.

4. A cut-and-paste software that doesn't work, to students , so that they put on their thinking caps. Caps will be complimentary.

5. A boomerang that will bring back all negative thoughts to the thinker with twice the force. That will usher in positive thinking, better than Dale Carnegie and all the others.

6. Automatically turn all silly TV programs into something meaningful. That might get people to do other things than TV watching, which would benefit humanity, besides keeping everybody healthy.

7. Eliminate 2012 from the calendar, and skip to 2013, so the world need not end- not sure if that's a good thing to do though!

8. Ability to produce flowers at will, so you can't forget them on important occasions. May save a few lives.

9. Auto-reminders of birthdays...no, sorry, Facebook's already done that!

10. Make playing a game/playing with children mandatory for all grown-ups, for an hour a day. This may kill the anti-depressant drug industry.