Best Friends- Part 3

 More of them-

Akshat Surana, Sampark Sachdeva, Ishan and Ankita Joshi, Khyati Jha, Siri Adi, Nagendra Rao, Omprakash and Geeta Chaudhary, Indira Kanagasabai, Rajan Mani, Venkatesh Gopalan, Lalita, Usha and Shiva, Ravindra Marghade, Rajni and Rimjhim Verma, Subbu, Mohan Gopalratnam, Lakshmi Rajgopal, Namratha Muralidhar, Poonam Bhatia, Muralimohan K., Bharath Shenoy, Shreya Sengupta, Tanaya Kar, Sharmishtha Singh, Shweta Agarwal, Supriya Shenoy, Roopsha Chatterjee, Sugandha Kumari, Bidipta, Harnam Kaur, Murtaza Kuwarawala, Navroze Sethna, Meha Kapoor, Abhinav Kamal, Girija Vemaraju, J. Radhika, ...

to be continued ..

Best Friends- Part 2

 Some more- Gopal Mahapatra, Manoharan, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, Himanshu Manglik, Rajan of India, Harish Chaudhry, Alisha Thomas, Nisha Verma, Vrinda Khanna, Pallavi Bajpai, Anushka Mishra, Divya Sisodiya, Chaithu Gunapali, Pooja Varun, Roshni Chhabra, Bhavana Daga Sonthalia, Bhawana Moondra, Anusha Ramakrishnan, Saumyaa Sharma, Nikita Kumar Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag, TK Chatterjee, Prerona Baruah, Ekalavya Barua, Aditya Deshbandhu, Venugopal Reddy, Nagarjuna, KS Murthy, G Sreenivas, Sreenivas Garudachar, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Sohni Roy, Anshita Abhishek Chetty, Gowri, Sreeram, Anusha Mamidanna, Meenu Mynam, Arvind Joshi, Usha Narayanan, Padmapriya, Jogeswari, Ranjana Rudra, Jaya Jha, Devapriya Roy, ...

The list will continue..

Will Zoom Survive?

 In case we all revert to life as in February 2020, what will happen to Zoom and Teams? There may be occasional use by some, and a regular use by a few, but the bulk of users may forget the online and move on to the face to face paradigm again.

By the way, even at the start of the online/WFH movement, whatever happened to Skype? Did it morph into Teams, or is it dead and gone? It was too complicated for most, I thought.

So maybe the lesson-another one- is that the better designed service will win. Zoom over Skype and Gmail over Yahoo earlier, are cases in point.

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!

Friends

This is not about the TV serial, but my friends. Friends are great, for many reasons, and it doesn't matter where they are- next to you, or in another corner of the world, as long as you connect when both are inclined to connect (HMT watches had a slogan once- If you have the inclination, we have THE TIME).

I am energised constantly by my friends-online and offline. It helps to meet sometimes, obviously, but that's not always possible. Where it is, I try, whether it's a work trip or a holiday. Most times, I am able to meet an ex-student, or a friend I haven't met in a while, and share lovely conversations about the good old days. In terms of numbers, many are from IMT Nagpur, my IIM Bangalore batch, Kirloskar Institute, PESIT, IFIM and then, IMT G, IIMK, IIML, VJIM, and of course, IIM Indore (my second longest stint after Kirloskar Institute-I love poha).

Sometimes, we end up playing Golf, but just chats are great too, over a beer or coffee. Sometimes I bug my friends to write cases or give guest lectures (ha, ha, beware!), and some actually oblige. But more often, there's no agenda, it's purely for fun and joy.

Here's to more meetings with friends, or chats online-these happen regularly too. I notice people asking me for advice these days-all that grey hair probably makes them think I know something they don't -wink, wink...

Names in My Friend-list

Some names are unique, and some ubiquitous. I thought I would list out some names that occur frequently and not-so-frequently in my friend-list (online and off).

Frequent, but of course, each one is unique. Apoorv, Ankit, Ankita, Abhishek, Neha, Chandni, Isha, Sriram, Anuradha, Pooja, Priyanka, Aditi, Aditya, Vishal, Praveen, Deepti, Divya, Anjali, Animesh, Naveen, Saumya, Garima, Siddhartha, Gunjan, Vikas, Vijay, Sheetal, Aishwarya, Akanksha, Archana, Bhawana, Sudipto, Bibhuti, Srinivas, Smita, Meghna, Sneha, Supriya, Shalini, Swati, Sapna, Shraddha, Rajesh, Alok, Suresh, Ramesh, Priyanka, Anant, Gautam, Milind, Deepak, Shruti, Madhuri, Ekta, Urvasi, Shweta, Pavan, Rohit, Saurabh, Kriti. Kritika, Monika,   ..

Infrequent or unique. Tosha, Tanaya, Paridhi, Harika, Yoshitha, Sabala, Sarvani, Satchi, Rewa, Angaee, Anupriya, Aman, Aashneet, Mrunal, Manasa, Laura, Lubna, Arafat, Tamros, Bhuvneet, Sarita, Anwesha, Khushboo, Manjari, Roshni, Murtaza, Indrajit, Indranil, Banikanta, Radha, Mishleen, Jasmine, Ruminder, Jasleen, Harnam, Harshdeep, Barleen, Vrinda, Shatakshi, Shreyashi, Jayasimha, Shahida, Harshad, Dheeru, Dheeraj, Vishesh, Hiral, Ishita, Parul, Aishani, Dhaarna, Lionel, Navroze, Jogeswari, Indira, Shikhar, Ratnashree, Shrunga, Ojasvi, Eisha, Sirisha, Nikita, Reitu, Pradyumna, Dhanapal, Nagendra, Avadhanulu, Keyur, Kamonasish, Miten, Geegesh, Zargar, Jyotirmoy, Shrishail, Shuchi, Sounak, Noori, Nancy, Shafique, Amlan, Damini, Swathika, Kalaivani, Sadhana, Natalija, Fanni, Yapin, Twinkle, Ron, Leslie, Lingaraju, Anumeha, Padmapriya, Prabhuvardhan, Bernadette, Alpana, Kanika, Shatabdee, Savitha, Shonika, Shyamli, Nits, Vidya, Swapna, Frane, Ansh, Anshita, Sirsa, Virajay, Oshin, Nagarjuna, Huma, Smriti, Novi, Pragya, Nisarg, Devank, Pulkit, Sucharita, Susmi, Sita, Vatsal, Radhika, Darwish, Uddipta, Aalap, Anubhuti, Anindita, Anuj, ..

Among other things, during this exercise, I discovered that I make friends with the Kaurs quite easily..can that be called a Kaur competence?

I think I have mentioned in an earlier blog the surnames that I seem to be surrounded by- the Sharmas, Sinhas, Singhs, Mishras and Srivastavas. Not to mention the Guptas, Jains and Agarwals.. so I won't get into that again.