Kirloskar Institute Days

 The pic shows us with the Founders/ Board Members. Mr. Rahul and Sanjay are in the top row, along with colleagues Niranjan Swain and Vijayakumar, and Sudhir and Pannerselvam, and KS Bhat.

I am with Mr. Vikram Kirloskar, Atul and Vijay Kirloskar (then Chairman of Kirloskar Group), and Capt. Murukesan, admin. head.

I had my best time working there, with great students (we selected them through CAT and interviews across India), good colleagues-staff and faculty. And of course, an 18-hole Golf course built next door by Mysore Kirloskar Ltd., which we could play on.

We designed the MBA/PGDM program from scratch, and also created ads on Video/Print for admissions. Before the PGDM, we were into training, and did 40 MDPs in a year on an average. Faculty were invited from IIMA and IIMB as well. We had a great library aimed at practitioners, and Harvard cases.

There was also a Cricket ground, Lawn Tennis and Squash court. Small batch sizes meant it was like extended family, and we knew the students closely. Like Achint, who used to miss breakfast regularly, from Batch 1. One student was nicknamed Kotler! One became an actress in Malayalam films post a corporate stint-Padmapriya. Jogeswari started a Golf tours company with a couple of others- Golftripz. I went on their first tour to Thailand for some wonderful Golf. 

Savitha, Nikhil Damle, Shrishail, Smita Mohan, Nishka Kumar/Rathi, Nidhi Kanungo, Vidya TC, Swapna Gurijala, Sudeshna Ray/Srivastava, and a lot of other students are doing extremely well in their chosen fields. Vikas Sethia has launched Mio Pods at airports. Many are in touch, twenty years after they finished MBA. Including staff, like Rajesh Dixit, Veena, Mahboob, Raghavendra, Karibasappa, Rajshekhar, Yuvaraj and Pavan. Sreekumar I met at a Golf course in Bangalore! 

38 Together and Going

 Our anniversary is coming up on 26th.. it's number 38. Tough to remember all the ups and downs we went through, first couple of years in the U.S. and then the rest in India, with a few trips to Sri Lanka, cambodia and Vietnam thrown in. A Eurail tour on the way back took us to Greece, Italy and France, Netherlands etc. We went to a friend's place in Brittany, near the Northern coast where Mt. St. Michael is located. 

Made friends in the U.S., Ron and Carmon Green, Leslie and Bob, the Sonis, and Athena and her family, Annie and Samrendra Singh and their sons, and a few more. Wilma Reeves and a Filipino faculty, Ceferina Hess, for example.

We also had a group of Indian friends, Alok, Anil, Suresh and my brother Satish hung out together. Alok's wife Pam too. We went to Charleston, Gatlinburg, L.A.  and Las Vegas, plus a few National parks like Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and so on. Visited Kiran Kenjale and Neena in L.A. and Prakash and Meena, in Detroit.

Made a few friends in our long stay in India at multiple places- Bani and BK Mohanty in Bhubaneswar, Bhagyalakshmi and Shweta Kushal at IIM Indore, Smita Dabholkar and Gadgil at IMT Nagpur, Vijayakumar and family, Dhanapal and family and Yashad Gaur, in Harihar, Anjula Gurtoo in Lucknow, and Shraddha and Neeraj in IIMK. Also Ravi and Dipi in Calicut. We also have musical friends from a group on FB.

We have a wide social circle that includes her schoolmates and students from when she taught (Vaseem), and mine from IIMB, Osmania and all the places I taught in, like IIM Indore (Sanjana Rao, Anusha Soni, Pratima Gaekwad) and IMT, (Ishita Modi, Garima Shah). Keeps us occupied. Plus all the Plays and concerts that we are able to attend in Pune regularly. Life is a party, when you have the right company, right?

Anniversary Number 37

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? 

Started in Pune, continued to a stay in the U.S. till we returned to India in 1991. Then, we went places within India. Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Harihar, Lucknow, Kozhikode aka Calicut, and on to Bangalore, Nagpur, Indore. Then, back to Bangalore and a second stint in Indore. Possible last stop is now Kolkata, for work.

Two daughters came along the way, and both are now grown-up young ladies with minds of their own. We are growing old and heading towards a sunset, but it has been an enjoyable time on the whole. Whether to marry is a personal choice that you have to make. If you do marry, you will more likely than not have kids, and take care of elders in either family at some point. Also make friends, and keep some.

It's an Endurance Test of a kind too, as there will be ups and downs of various types. But through it all, you have an assurance that you are not alone. That is a comforting thought, and makes it worthwhile. Just my view..

Regions of India

 I have worked in all 5 regions of India, the longest being South and Central. Hyderabad (Vignana Jyoti Institute), Harihar (KIAMS), Bangalore (PESIT, IFIM, and NMIMS apart from a company, MBA, earlier) in the South. Also IIM Kozhikode in Kerala. Probably the longest of all. 

In the West, Mumbai in the same company, MBA. Also Bhubaneswar in XIMB (East). North- Lucknow and Delhi. My first job was with an ad agency, New Horizons, in C.P. in Delhi. Appu Ghar and Modern Suitings, Alwar, were our clients, and India Today and Bombay magazines.

In Lucknow, it was the IIM. Also IMT Ghaziabad more recently.. around 10 years ago.

Centre has been a long stint, Nagpur IMT for 3 and a half years, Indore IIM for 7 and Prestige University as their first VC for around 1.5 years.

Prestige University students-above and below, Indore

RED FM RJ Shreya and I, at their studio, Indore.

I have also visited many places in most states, including Ladakh, Kanyakumari, Shillong, Dibrugarh, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad, and Puri and Konarak. Also a few in M.P. like Jabalpur, Gwalior, Satna and Bhopal.

Though I liked something about each place, Harihar was the best in many ways. Small, with friendly people and with a Golf course in the campus (then). What more can you want in life? Many students of Harihar and Nagpur are in touch with me too. So there's something in the Oranges too, I guess.

Coimbatore and Chennai

 Managed to meet some old colleagues at Chennai, and Coimbatore during the course of work travel.

Dr. Vijayakumar, Dr. Dhanapal and Gururaj Khasnis were all colleagues at KIAMS, Harihar in the late nineties. Vijayakumar, also at IMT Nagpur later. Now he is retired but active in Chennai.

Dhanapal runs a school and a construction outfit, as entrepreneurial as ever.

Gururaj has moved to SDMIMD at Mysore, a management school like KIAMS. 

We were at Coimbatore trying to attract students from the region to Prestige University. Met some and tried persuading them.

Meeting Nidhi

 A long time ago, when I worked with Kirloskar Institute at Harihar, we launched a brand new PGDM program there. The first batch of students were 30 from all over India. Among them, I have been in touch with some regularly, and some I met too. Nidhi Kanungo, after quite some time. She happens to be from Indore, my place of residence right now. So, we met, while she was on a visit from the U.S. 

At our campus.. last time I met her Dad at IIM Indore.

This time, her Mom was with her.

Her Mom with my wife above,

and cheers! below.

Teaching Golf

 These days, I am much more a Golf trainer than player. There is joy in teaching people what seems ordinarily inaccessible- which is exactly what Golf is to most people. Particularly in an educational institute. We were probably a lucky group to have had access to an 18-hole Golf course at Harihar -thanks to the Kirloskar family- right next to our homes. We honed our skills there, and some of us still continue to meet and play. But back to training. I tried, with some success, training people on the first and last shots-the drive or tee shot, and the putt, in almost every place I worked in, as long as we had a green patch. Some examples- faculty colleagues from IIM Indore- in pics below.

Radha Ladkani, above, and Subin Sudhir, below.

Meetings and More

 Physical meetings are the best medicine for the gadget-mania that we all seem to suffer from, in the digital age. That's how we used to spend most of our hours before the gadgets came and took over our lives.

Anyway, I try my best to have meetings with friends, new and old. This includes colleagues, classmates, Golfers, and ex-students. No guesses as to which category is the largest one- students/alumni who I have taught, or not (because I knew them as an admin.)

Savitha has been a constant for 20 years or more, and we met quite often in this stint of mine at Bangalore. Now, on my way out, we met again, and recounted the KIAMS, Harihar times, and taking stock of our life and careers. Thoroughly enjoyed meeting her, as always. 

Star Students

 Most of my students I consider as star students. For different accomplishments, of course. In disparate careers or even family life. Some who have reached out and remained in touch, online or off-

From KIAMS- Jogeswari, Sunil Kataria, Sharmistha Singh, Anushka Mishra, Nishka and Vikram Rathi, Pooja Daniel, Swapna Reddy, Vidya TC, Savitha, Smita Mohan, Navroze, Achint, Dheeraj Mohan, Siddharth Agarwal, Praveen Kotta, Aninda Bannerjee, Sandhya Sajeev, Sarvani Akella, and lots more

KIAMS students Savitha above, Anushka below

Shailaja Gupta, above and Nagendra Shenoy, below- at Bangalore

Shweta Jha, and Anusha and Shantanu (the golfers)

IIM Indore

Prachi above, and Wahid and Alisha below- all Ph.D. students at Indore

the one above is with my brother and cousin.. 

Indore play cast, above

Abha and Sheetal above, IIM Indore class below.

Surbhi and hubby above, and Bhuvneet Raheja, below- Delhi

Meghna Sinha above, and Ravi Mittal, Kedar Muley and co. below..Mumbai.

Rohit in Bhubaneswar..

From IMT Nagpur- Meghna Sinha, Meghana Joshi, Abhinav Kamal, Anshita Chetty, Rupam Verma, Kedar Muley, Ravi Mittal, Surbhi Mehta, Vrinda Khanna, Nikita Kumar, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag, Sreeram, Gowri, Siri Adi, Sheetal Garg, Tosha Dubey, Abha Kulkarni, Divya Singh, Shraddha Nigdikar, Ishita Modi, Anurag Sikaria, Meghana Khadilkar, 

From IIM Indore- Neha Adiga, Zenitha Das, Anusha Soni, Sambit Halder, Shantanu Verma, Sanjana Rao, Thoshitha Bobbadi, Shweta Jha, Aarushi Jain, Ankita Sahai, Alisha Dhal, Sakshi Agarwal, Sanket, Pulkit More, Sayali Jagdale, Shreya Surana, Bhuvneet Raheja, Anwesha, Shailaja Gupta Kapoor, Shatakshi Tripathi, Sunil Patil, Kshitija Deshmukh, Megha Bansal, Kokila Chopra, 

Digitizing Slides Part 2

 Some more slides which I recently got converted into digital photographs. Removes the need for a slide projector, though that is an experience in itself. Some of these digitized pics- 

The flyers- we actually took a joy ride in this Cessna (above). 

Below, the guys who flew first at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina- Wright brothers.

Picnic at a Clemson Park.

A real Golf Club where I learnt most of my Golf from Sadanand, and below, my Dad trying out Putt-putt Golf in the U.S.

Niagara, with parents (above) and Sravanabelagola (below) with friends from Harihar

On the Harihar Golf course, and below, Kirloskar Institute, at Harihar where I spent 7 years. (1995-2001)

KIAMS Memories

 We were a bunch of five or six profs., and a few staff members who saw KIAMS develop its first batch of MBA/PGDM in 1998-2000. This was after a couple of years of pure-play training involving Kirloskar group executives, and a few others. It was a challenge, and we did a good job, albeit with small numbers. An ad that said "World Class Mgt. Program from the House of Kirloskars", and interviews done in Delhi and Bangalore for admissions, setting up the syllabus, and running the first batch, were all stimulating-like a startup. I am still in touch with many of that first batch, so we must have done something right. Here are a few colleagues from then.

 

Adventures of a Couple

 I am one half of that couple, and we have been at it for 33 years now. Well, adventurous life has meant travel, living in two continents, six states in India, and of course, raising two kids in this roundabout tour of Bharat. The best part is, it's not over yet, so we don't know how many more adventures are in store-at least till we are immobilised by old age. Till then, we are like a combo of Sindbad the Sailor and Baron Von Munchausen with a bit of our own masti thrown in. Maybe a bit of Don Quixote too, since my wife has visited his hometown-must have rubbed off.

Along the way, we made lots of friends. These number in the thousands, since both of us have taught a few hundred kids at different times and of different age groups. Some are globally spread out, and we will attend a Zoom wedding of one such in a couple of days-they are marrying in Finland.

A pictorial representation of some good moments from this journey.

Ha Long Bay, above. Grand Tetons near Yellowstone, below, with my Dad.

Arizona, and NY, my cousin's house.

Kondajji, Harihar, above and Nagpur, below.

Maheshwar on the Narmada, above, and Khandagiri, Orissa, below.

NY, and Las Vegas.

Negombo, Sri Lanka above, and Jaisalmer, below.

Padukone (town), above and Coral Island, Pattaya, below.. the kid has grown up.

At the start- 1988. My parents and hers.

The cake we had on the occasion...ok, two cakes we had.