Highlights of 2010-2020

 Highlights of the Last 10 Years

2009-2010- Started blogging. Read the book Zorba The Greek. Revival of Osmania engineering batch meets. Joined IMT Nagpur, made new friends among faculty, staff and students. (Hundreds are still in touch, from there on till today, including those who went on strike 😊 )

2011- Met a few engineering classmates at Delhi’s Air Force Golf Club, IMT alumni meets in multiple cities, for the first time. Mr. Sunil Mittal at first convocation done independently at Nagpur (was with Ghaziabad before this). One helicopter landed at IMT grounds.

2012- Blog crossed 25,000 views, met Mr. Mukesh Ambani (IMT Nagpur convocation), Two choppers landed at IMT. Discovered an elixir-Amrut Single Malt, made in namma Bengaluru! Alumni meets, Goa Case conference continued.

2013- Formed a couple of Mutual Admiration Societies..and they kept growing, lots of them with students of mine. Crossed 50,000 views of my blog, met Mr. Azim Premji (convo again), family vacation to Thailand, including a boat ride in the Chao Phraya. Faculty outing at Marble Rocks, Bhedaghat. But the highlight was meeting my marketing prof. from IIMB, JD Singh, with friends at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Delhi.

2014- Joining IIM Indore and making new friends (actually joined in Dec. 2013), Started teaching a new course-Digital Marketing, Discovered Mandu- my favourite destination for a Day visit, blog crossed 200,000 views. Saw Daawat-e-ishq, set in Lucknow and Hyderabad, among great biryanis. 30-year alumni meet at IIMB.

2015- Trip to Jaisalmer and Chittaurgarh by road, a trip to Beppu with skinny-dipping in hot spring baths or Onsen. Started Golf on Indore IIM’s cricket ground, Kishore Kumar Nite in Mumbai with Sudesh Bhosle doing KK.

2016 -Bid farewell to Saumyaa, my Acad. Assistant, one of the best (we are in touch still), played Golf at Wellington and Ooty (getting my second Hole-in-one too), Went to Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh finally!

2017- Hridaynath Mangeshkar live in concert at Pune.

2018- Visited Kishore Kumar’s Khandwa Memorial, with ex-roomie Anil Lahoti. Also Kancheepuram and its amazing temples with Vijayakumar and my brother who was visiting. Wedding in the Nargundkar family at Hyderabad-bringing many of the rare species together. Met Krishna Nukala, a Malt Maniac from India (the only one from India) thanks to Hari, and tasted 15 different Single Malt whiskeys in a day! Red-letter day!! Went to Hanoi, Vietnam – Ha Long Bay cruise and Temple of Literature dedicated to Confucius in Hanoi were highlights. Discovered there was a street named Hang Bong in Hanoi!

2019-early 2020 before COVID struck: Alumni meetings at Bangalore (Anshita and gang, Savitha, Anushka), Delhi (Sunil and Sharmistha), Ahmedabad (Ishan, Keyur, Manjari, Punyashlok), Mumbai (THE gang- Abha, Tosha, Siri, Anuj and another bigger IMTN party (with Abhinav Kamal, Garima, Dwipa, Divya Pragati the camera-girl) and then Sheetal and Abha again at the Koyla overlooking the Taj), Delhi (Bhuvneet Raheja, Surbhi Mehta Chadha, Kanika Mhendiratta, Pranksters Shruti/Aditya/ Nikita), Pune (Divya Singh, Neha Adiga), Wedding at Prabhakar’s house (his daughter’s). Met a childhood friend Kiran Kenjale who visited from L.A. Some alums visited Indore, like Anam, Harshad Sachani, Arshia, Ritu, Sapna Patni and Ruminder. Visited Pulicat Lake near Chennai with Vijayakumar-boat ride to the sea!

The blog views stand at 700, 000 plus now.

Looking Back at 2019

I know it's not December 31st, but I am looking back at the action-packed eight and a half months that have passed by. I started in January by reading a new author- Kazuo Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go was the book-poignant, about human-like creatures grown for a purpose, and how they turn even more human-like. Unexpectedly, the delayed fourth edition of my Marketing Research text came out, and I was able to release it at our own conference. Lots of students from IIM Indore a couple of years ago contributed the case studies, so it was a proud moment. There was a Delhi conference at IMT too, and I managed to meet Padmapriya and her hubby, after long!

Started a new photography competition on fb in addition to usual awards and quizzes..discovering good photographers is a byproduct.

As usual, I met a lot of past students, some who visited Indore (like Anam and Harshad), and many more outside Indore on my travels to Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Ahmedabad (that was for a book release by a friend at MICA). Pune too, where I met Neha Adiga. Also gatecrashed (no, I was invited) into an alum meet of IMT Nagpur in Mumbai.

Met Sharmistha Singh, Shweta Agarwal and Sunil Kataria of KIAMS after about 16 years- and Anushka Mishra for the first time (we'd met on fb first). Also met Bharat of IFIM and Shatakshi of IIMI in Bangalore. In May, I went to Reva University for a talk on Smart Cities and ran into Shinu Abhi, a former colleague. Met SP Kumar and Manoharan, also past colleagues at PES. In Mumbai, visited Bhagyalakshmi and family. Met Shraddha Nigdikar too.

My friends from MBA too. I met Dash in Kolkata, and a big gang at Venky's boy's wedding. Stayed at the Presidency Golf Club too, a first. Also went for a conference at Goa, but missed out on meeting Prashant who lives there as he was busy. Harish and Snail at Delhi and Hyderabad I did meet.

IIT Guwahati was a revelation. It looks like a European town, with lakes on campus. Had gone to Belgaum's Gogte Institute on invitation, and had a fabulous drive through the Chorla Ghat, with the rains and clouds for company. Saw a few good films too, and read a few more books-among them old favourites by A.A. Fair and Rex Stout.

Also visited Bali for a conference, and went rafting on a river. Not bad for eight months!

2017 Memories

 Shafique and Pallavi, my twins according to Facebook. Bangalore.

 Mom's 88th birthday. Pune, August 2017.

 Mumbai with Garima- golfer, student. Below, outing with a lovely MDP group (Digital Marketing) at Indore.

My mom completed 88 years of an accomplished life on the planet, and we celebrated that in August, around her birth date. Quite a good gathering of cousins and aunts/uncles and kids, of course. Lots of old pics were flashing on the screen, reminding us all of the golden years (hers and ours).

Meeting friends and old students was another highlight. Visited Bangalore for a conference, and went to have a home-cooked dinner at Pallavi’s new home with her husband. Also met Shafique and Zargar Basharat, two likely authors of digital marketing cases for a forthcoming book. On the same lines, caught up with Supriya Jain, another student of IMT Nagpur who is into Content Writing/Digital Marketing at Delhi. Met Garima Shah, an ex-student who played Golf with me at IMT Nagpur. That is always special! And re-discovered Divya Singh and Shraddha Nigdikar, both in Mumbai.

Had a get-together with the IIM Indore student team (Kalaivani, et. al.) that won the Google Online Marketing Challenge, with karaoke skills being tested in various languages. It was great fun. Taught a batch of PGP-MX (our weekend MBA program) in which the women (Kamayani, Lalita, and others) were clear toppers in participation- and one of these women also topped the batch later on, at their Convocation.

There was a conference visit to Sri Lanka, where a multi-cultural crowd of Tourism researchers was a highlight-they were from all over-U.K., Australia, U.S., Africa and Asia-Vietnam, Japan. This was my second trip to Lanka, and I fell in love with the Emerald Isle all over again- and especially its easy visa process.

Meeting new and old friends in Chennai brought up the end of the year, during a visit to Great Lakes Institute. Dheeraj is an alum of Kirloskar Institute, and Indira, a friend from my music group. Radha was an old Hyderabad neighbour when I worked at Vignana Jyoti (VJIM) and lived in Habsiguda. Connected with a couple of VJIM alums on Facebook, too- Ranjana and Rashmi.

An eventful year!

Highlights of Four Years at Indore

I saw Sholay again (in 3D this time). Not comparable to the 70 m.m. version, but good. Saw quite a few other films in our institute auditorium. Finding Fanny, Dhoom 3, Happy Bhag Jayegi were some of them. Went out and saw Bahubali and its sequel, and the Rajnikant film Kabali (I am a fan. He's magical on screen).

 I played some Golf at our greens.

 Looking down at the new complex (above) and Shweta (below).

Met a lot of new faculty at the mess, as they came in. Met a few old colleagues here from places past. Taught in a few MDPs (short term programs), designed a couple, and taught in a wide variety of programs, from doctoral to part-time MBA in Mumbai and Dubai. Apart from my staple Marketing Research, I tried Advertising/IMC, Retailing for FPM, and Digital Marketing. Also taught some German students.

Saw the brilliantly directed and performed plays staged here, directed by Shweta, a colleague, and acted in by Sanjana, Jasmine, Avik, Shrunga, Philip and Ayushi and Urvaksh in the first of those-The Importance of Being Earnest.

Advised (!!) a few students including some doctoral students, collaborated with IPM students Satchi, Ayushi and a couple of others for joint papers. Presented papers at international conferences in Japan, Indonesia, Colombo and Phnom Penh apart from a few in Indian conferences. Wrote a couple of cases like Euroflex and Ten Motion Arts.

 A road trip to Jaisalmer, Udaipur.

 My Japanese avatar.

 Veenus, the conference manager of our conference.

Was fortunate to have some good academic assistants like Abhishek, Saumya Sharma, Veenus and Sarada who helped out in Indore, and Aiman in Mumbai. Kritika Gupta topping the M.R. end term with a 100% score was a highlight this year. Another was a student team led by Kalaivani comprising Swathika, Sadhana, Akshaya, Madhan and Chandran winning the Google Online Marketing Challenge 2017 Asia Pacfic title under my mentorship.

A marketing conference we ran in July 2017 was a big hit.

Highlights of 2015

Looking back, I made a maiden trip to Japan for a conference in Beppu. Learnt a lot about Japan, and was impressed by their politeness. Skinny-dipping in their onsen (hot water spring/bath) was a first, after childhood. Made another trip to Singapore, and met a couple of former students, Vidya and Swapna, from KIAMS-from the 2000-02 batch! Caught up with another KIAMS alum, Jogeswari, who runs Golftripz, at Hyderabad. Met a few IMT Nagpur alums in Hyderabad (Nikita), and Delhi (Meghna) as well. And Animesh Jain in Bhopal. And of course, enjoyed interactions with lots more on facebook-too numerous to list! Caught up with a few IIMB classmates during visits to Bangalore and Delhi. An XIMB alumnus I taught in 1991 introduced me to a music group on Facebook. We are fans of old Hindi film music.

In Indore, my current abode, taught a couple of new courses (including at the Mumbai campus), and planned a couple more. Completed an interesting study on Personal Branding with some qualitative research, for a change. Started one on Identity and Social media, to be completed soon. Wrote a case on international marketing by Euroflex, an Indian B to B (Business to Business) marketer. Got some new clients for our MDP (management development programs) this year, including Tata Trent.

 My niece having fun at Mandu-Jahaz mahal.

 At Indore campus with my wife and cousin.

A road trip to Chittaurgarh (a song from Guide was shot here), and Jaisalmer (pic above in the dunes) via Jodhpur with family was another highlight. Five days of fun culminating in a desert safari. Another one with friends to Munnar to play Golf there was different, as it was my first visit to the place. One to Nagpur to rekindle old golfing days was also good. Wound up the year with a trip to Shrivardhan on the Konkan coast with some cousins. And for good measure, a party at Pune to celebrate a niece's wedding. My brother who lives in the U.S. was also in attendance.

Saw some good films, like Masaan, Dum Laga ke Haisha, Court (Marathi), Bahubali, Katyar Kaljat Ghusli (Marathi) and Bajirao Mastani. Read fewer books this year, but some good ones, as usual. Twinkle Khanna's was a surprise. Matt Ridley's book about the Evolution of Everything found me agreeing with him that almost everything is about slow and steady change. Maybe that explains why slow cooked food tastes so good!