Encounters Planned and Otherwise

 These are not the cop kind of encounters, but friendly ones. Sometimes they take you by surprise, as it happened to me in Jayanagar last month- I ran into an ex-student from 2010! But this one was a planned meet at a restaurant near Lalbagh, to meet friends, one of whom was visiting from Hyderabad. And so we met. Pics- 

The place (above), and the chandaal chaukdi (us), below.

Blasts From the Past

I get recognised fairly often- not because I am a celebrity, but because I have taught at different places in India-perks of teaching, if you will. Usually, this happens in malls, or on the street where I am spotted by an ex-student. Today, it happened at IIM Indore itself, where I met Venkat who used to work at KOEL (not the bird, but Kirloskar Oil Engines Ltd. at Pune). When I worked at Kirloskar Institute, we had done a BPR consulting project for the group company, and Venkat had coordinated it from KOEL.

He is now a freelancer based out of Bangalore, and consults and teaches. So it was that he came to IIM Indore- to teach Retailing. And that's how we met. Reminded me of that meeting on Bangalore streets with Soumyashree, and in a pub with Mrunal, and in a mall in Bhubaneswar with an IIM Indore student, Rohit Kumar. Bhawana Sahay (IMT alum) in a Hyderabad theatre too, where we saw Newton. I am now getting used to these pleasant surprisesthey are all pleasant, without exception.

Planned meets have their own charm (have had lots of these recently), but these are also great!

Meetings

Some are planned, others fortuitous (hope that's the right word). Happened to do a bit of both. Or rather, both happened on this visit to Bangalore. I had a planned meeting with an IMT Nagpur (ex) student, and ran into another from PESIT while taking a walk. And yet another friend from my IIM batch.

It is always a pleasure to be recognised, more so when you least expect it. So it was this time. This is not the first time, because I have ex-students all over the country. The first time I was surprised was in Mumbai a few years ago when Padmapriya, ex-student from Kirloskar Institute met me after recognising me in low light in an instant. I thought with the grey hair and so on, that would be close to impossible. The second, at a Delhi airport, when another PESIT student found me, and said he was living in Delhi, married to a batchmate.

Monday's incident was also similar, as it was dark, and Sowmya appeared out of the blue (or black), and said she worked close by. Anyway, it was great catching up, and we did quite a bit of it. She is also responsible for the readership of this blog taking off (through her blog which is a good one).

Today there is a planned meeting on the cards, with a couple of faculty friends. The weather here is lovely, adding another dimension to the simple pleasures of life. Cheers to more such meetings, planned or not!