Harihar- Unique Days

My years (six and a half, 1995-2001) spent in Harihar, a small two-road town near Hubli, were unique in many ways. One of the unique things was the close relationship between everyone, the students, teachers and non-teaching staff. I still have fond memories, and occasionally meet the non-teaching staff from Harihar.

Raghavendra, Rajesh, Rajasekhar, Mr. Joshi (who passed away, was the librarian), Capt. Murukesan, Dr. Gopi, Karibasappa (aka Amitabh Bachhan), Parmeshwarappa, Pavan, Yuvaraj, Mehboob, KT Nagaraj, Umesh, were all like family, and we frequently went out for parties in the "best" restaurants in town- Narthaki was one- as equals. We also had a couple of picnics in rural Rajanahalli (river Tungabhadra) and Kondajji ( a hill-lake) nearby.

Many students from batch 1 to batch 4 that I was fortunate to interact with closely, are still in touch, from Dubai to Singapore, and in between. That feels great. Just in the last year, I have met Savitha, Sharmistha, Sunil Kataria, Shweta Agarwal, Nishka and Vikram, and before that, Achint, Padmapriya, Jogeswari, Dheeraj Mohan, Smita, Vidya TC and Swapna a couple of times at least..also Anushka Mishra and Zargar Basharat, though they are from recent batches that weren't around in my time (we met online first)!

Playing Golf (and learning from Sadanand who came from Belgaum) regularly was another unique feature. The caddies were among the best and taught us a few tricks! Made a few fast friends there, like Yashad Gaur, and my own colleagues Dhanapal and Vijayakumar, with whom I have played in various places.

Non-teaching Staff- A Tribute

Academic life has its pluses. Lots of reading time, opportunity to feel young in the company of youngsters who are full of life, etc... But it also has another angle. A lot of staff (non-teaching) who you get to work with. This is a tribute to some of them, from IIM Indore, IMT and Kirloskar Institute, Harihar that I feel fortunate to have worked with. The immediate trigger is the wedding yesterday of Neha, who works at the MDP office at IIM Indore.

Some really good officers have helped run the MDP/Training office here, like Pradeep, Manas and Bhupendra earlier. They worked untiringly to keep the training programs going efficiently, leading to a lot of repeat customers, and significant new business. I also had the good fortune of having a wonderful academic assistant (Saumya Sharma) and two secretaries (Limaye before, Naresh at present) who are a great help.

IMT Nagpur was a place where I headed the institute, and therefore, the role of the staff was extremely important for me. From Archana, my secretary, to Group Capt. Nath, a smiling ex-serviceman who headed admin, to Kamal Nayak and Vinod in accounts, to the ladies in the PGP office, to the guys who served tea and the drivers, Anand the mess manager, and Pankaj in transport, all of them performed their duties in a pleasant and efficient fashion. IMT N remains on my list of Best Places to Work, in no small measure due to all the staff. Similarly, Gaurav at IMT Ghaziabad and Aparna Dey. Raju Pujari at IFIM also I can never forget for his resourcefulness. And Somanna in accounts/admin. The Research Associates at IMTN were all hardworking, and I remember Tripti Shrivastava (who handled a conference all by herself) and Abhinav in particular.

KIAMS was an idyllic world, inhabited by some of the friendliest staff I have ever seen. Rajesh and Raghavendra stand out, along with Gururaj, Veena, Mehboob, Dr. Gopi, Srinath, Nagaraj, Umesh, Yuvaraj, Pavan, many of whom remain good friends to this day, and I look forward to meeting them, several years after I left Harihar.

These are unsung heroes who keep the institutes going, sometimes after faculty have left.