Touching Lives- Mine

 From the nuns in primary school, and classmates in school, teachers in high school, professors and classmates during college and IIM Bangalore, and at Clemson University where I went or a Ph.D., it's a long list. But it does not stop there.

Many friends made in later years- or re-friended due to common interests- also touched my life. Golfer friends Vikram Venkateswaran, Dhanapal, Vijayakumar, and Venugopal Reddy are some.

But apart from colleagues who became friends- Bhagyalakshmi is one, Shweta Kushal and Jayasimha, B.K. Mohanty, Tanmeet, Preeti are some - there's also another category that I am privileged to have. My ex-students. 

Alumni of various B schools I have been in have touched my life in many ways. Some, I have been in touch with for a decade or more now. They bring a new perspective to everything we discuss when we meet. Gowri, Anshita Chetty, Ishita, Vanshika, Prachi, Pratishtha, Swati Jain, Sheetal Garg, Nidhi Kanungo, Nishka Kumar, Abha Kulkarni, Nikita Ray, Vrinda Khanna, Bharath Shenoy, Sirisha Adi, Pallavi Bajpai and Shafique Gajdhar (both my twins as per FB!), Anusha Soni, Anushka Mishra, Meghna Sinha, Meghana Khadilkar, Pavan Tarawade, Akshat Surana, Pradyumna Mohanty, Aishwarya Omprakash, Aishwarya Iyer, Anchal, Shuchi Bhatnagar, Pooja Shukla (we haven't even met), Laura Shah, Swati Sinha, Sampark Sachdeva, Vaishali Bathla, Divyaa Sharma, Dheeraj Mohan, Vidya TC, Smita Mohan, Sanjana Rao, Harshad Lunavat, Garima Shah, Abhinav Kamal, Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi, Tosha Dubey, Bhuvneet Raheja, Sharanya, are some who fall in this category. 

Annie and Samrendra Singh, the Soni family, Leslie, Ron and Carmon Green, were good friends during our stay in the US. Kiran Ken Jolly and Neena too, apart from relatives- Jayashree and Sheelu among them.

Reflections From Academia

 Just as corporates have their learnings from the company they keep (or the company that keeps them), academics have our own.

When can one call an academic successful? When he publishes a huge amount of papers? When he earns a lot? 

Practically, I would say, in order of ranks 1 to many, these could measure his success-

1. Touching lives of students in some way- inspiring them or showing them the path to self-discovery.

2. Treating the students with respect- lots of teachers fail on this count.

3. Blending practice with theory or concepts in the same course, in a trimester or a semester.

4. Doing contemporary projects with or without industry cooperation. Case writing could be one kind.

5. Bringing his/her experiences into the class. Therefore, getting those experiences too..

6. Using innovative learning methods, experimenting with many.