North East

 For me, this includes North and East, not just North-East. So many of my student friends are from these two regions, that I feel completely integrated. Particularly from Kolkata, Odisha, Bihar, and U.P. (Lucknow, Ghaziabad included), and M.P. (Jabalpur, Bhopal, Indore in particular), and of course, Delhi, Jaipur and so on, I can count hundreds of students/alumni.

There are some characteristics that are unique to various parts of India. East and North also have some distinctive ones. Outgoing, respectful to elders, and generous, is what I found Northerners to be. Slightly more reserved, well-read and even more respectful to teachers and elders are what Easterners typically are.

Since I grew up in the South and had relatives in the Mumbai-Pune region because of our roots, my first interaction with the North happened in 1984, when I went to work in Delhi at Living Media. A colleague in IIM Lucknow later told me a joke in which a passenger travels from Delhi to Kolkata in a train, that has him asking somebody to do something, and the answers he gets in various places range from Haan, ho jayega, ..to 'Cholbey na..' 

Anyway, our diversity is amazing, and I have found nice people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (yes, I have had students from Kashmir too, in two B schools, and I visited Srinagar as a tourist and stayed on the Dal Lake in a houseboat long ago). Cheers to all Indians, from everywhere.

Random Reminiscences

Since every day is like a weekend (Thanks, Corona), I decided to ramble and remember things (Random Walk Theory, or early signs of..., you decide).

Many years ago, we were in a small town called Harihar. Now we are at Indore, where it's mostly Har (Shiva) that rules. I know that among Iyers and Iyengars, one follows Vishnu and another Shiva, but which is which, I forget..

I have known a lot of smart Iyers- among students too, Anjali and Aishwarya come to mind. Since Iyengars did not use their tags, not sure which ones were.

My first visit to the North of India included Delhi, Amritsar, Shimla, Agra, Haridwar, and Srinagar, Gulmarg, Wular Lake, Pahalgam- I still remember staying on a Houseboat owned by one Ali Mohammad Dubloo who fed us Gushtaba and lots more.

I had relatives in Mumbai, Nagpur, Indore, Baroda, Delhi, Satna, Jabalpur, Pune, Hyderabad,..but not in Orissa and West Bengal. Made up with a job at Bhubaneswar in 1991, and visits to Kolkata.

Lander College in Greenwood, where I taught once, had a good Dramatics dept., and staged plays regularly. One was Equus, I remember. Impressed by the three I saw at IIM Indore over the last few years, involving a talented bunch of students (Sanjana, Jasmine, Shreya, Shrunga, Avik, Philip, Prachi, Kaavya, ..), and my director-friend Shweta, with her Woman Friday, Varunika.

Managed to visit Kodikkarai, from where Sri Lanka is just a small walk across the sea, thanks to a Golfing trip deep south with Gadgil and Vijayakumar. The Golfing trips southwards have been very productive, and gave me a Hole-in-one twice, at Kodaikanal and Wellington Golf Clubs, which I can boast about for the rest of my life.

Northies in My Life

North of the Vindhyas is North for us Southies. And no, this is not a rant, but just a fond recounting of the Sharmas, Sinhas and Srivastavas-not to forget the Dwivedis, Trivedis and Chaturvedis, and of course the Mishras, Agarwals and Gargs.

Sheetal Garg is a sweet Haryanvi who studied at IMT Nagpur, and joined a leading bank. We also had some Gargs as neighbours when I was growing up (in the South). Alok Srivastava was my friend, philosopher, guide through the Hyderabad days at engineering, and in the land of milk and honey (and Trump-life's sweet AND sour!).

Shatakshi Tripathi is a friend I made on facebook, as we never faced each other at IIM Indore. Neeraj Dwivedi was a colleague at Kozhikode (go ahead, pronounce it!). Saumya Sharma was my super-efficient academic associate, and Anjali Sharma is a student.

The Jhas have also been omni-present, as have the Sinhas (I assume most of them are from Bihar). Meghna Sinha and I have a Mutual Admiration Society going since I met her at Nagpur and then in Delhi. I also had a classmate, Sanjay Sinha, in sixth standard, and we called him Tingu.

Ok, the Mishras. Rajhans and Abhishek are just two, current colleagues. Anushka is a former student and friend, and a winner of my nice DP award a couple of times.

Kiran Shah and Siraj Siddiqui were Gujju classmates at IIMB, and Harish Chaudhary, Kusum Ailawadi and Sudhir Goel were a few other Northies there. Ankita Saboo (now Joshi) and Ishita Modi were students at IMT.

Some rare names also figure, like Bhalavat, or Thapliyal-Sneha is a colleague- and not so rare ones, like Singh. Divya Singh is an example. Roopali Saxena was a student at Vignana Jyoti Hyderabad. Nikita Chaturvedi of the vedic traditions, and Madhulika Gaur of Aligarh are the others I recall, and Parul Kashyap Thakur, who writes a terrific blog. Of course, the Punjabis are there too, whom I alluded too in an earlier blog, like Aman Chawla and Sonia Arora, students from different institutes.