My Colleagues from IMT and PESIT

There were many colleagues who I run into now and then, from each of the places I worked in. Some are in touch through fb. We always remember the good old days.

Shahida from PESIT is now a prof. at ASCI, Hyderabad. A good communicator, and accomplished researcher, she was always willing to take on any challenge. Manasa, who did a lot of leg work to make one of the programs at PESIT take off, was always experimenting with work choices, independent consulting being one of them. A Bangalorean to the core, mild-mannered and friendly.

Murali Mohan (PESIT), apart from being well-liked by students, also danced his way into many hearts. He was a pro at Kathak- not many in my list are into classical dances. Males, none at all apart from him. Manoharan, who is a good friend, now at BMS in Bangalore, and I collaborated on several papers, and we presented a few at Great Lakes conferences in Chennai. SP Kumar, who was a guy with deep industry experience, introduced me to his club, City Institute in the heart of Bangalore, where we spent many evenings.

Prashant Bharadwaj, part-PESIT, and working with IUP in the US, was great to work with.

At IMT Nagpur, we had a great group, consisting of Gadgil, Vijayakumar (my Golf buddies), Halve, who initiated the annual faculty outings and faculty parties that rocked, and TK Chatterjee who is now a brand ambassador for karaoke in India (just kidding), and Anant Ram, and many more. Jitendra Sharma, Maheswaran, Ekkirala, Milind Fadnavis and Kamble, and Pradeep Mazumdar are also an integral part of IMTN.

Ghaziabad was made tolerable due to many nice colleagues- among them, Seeta Gupta, Bindu Gupta, Lipi, Shalini, Bhavna Bhalla, Sandeep Puri, Sita Mishra and Susmi with whom I collaborated to publish, and Jyoti and many others who joined during that time. Jayanti Ranjan remains in touch, and we met at a conference recently.

Some Colleagues from IIMB, IIML

We had a whole year-book dedicated to the IIMB batch, and I co-edited. But this is just a recounting of some that have been in touch regularly, and not an exhaustive one either-coz that would be exhausting!

Prabhakar- our interest in humour (Oscar Wilde, Wodehouse) brought us together after our PGDM/MBA, and our interest in spirited discussions to solve world problems over spirits like Single Malts have kept us fine-tuned. We HAD solved about 90% of the world problems, last time I checked. Remaining are piffling ones we'll leave to Modi and Trump.

Venky/Baddy. We reunited on a Badminton court and won a doubles match against opponents half our age on an IIMB court recently. He is the strong, silent type and I am neither, but it's great fun when we meet.

Parthos/Gopal Mahapatra. I went to work at XIMB because he was there, but he gave me the slip. No matter, I chased him down, and we are still good friends. He is the etrnal do-gooder, and just too good at it.

BK Mohanty. Not from the IIMB bunch.I have yet to see a prof like him. He teaches fuzzy logic, so that might explain it. A great friend, through thick and thin. Specialises in applying for jobs he doesn't want!

Harish Chaudhary. He is also an unlikely prof if there was one, but IITD students think he's great, and who am I to complain? His Muzaffarnagar jokes are the best.

Dash. The aforementioned co-editor of our year-book at IIMB. Was influenced by James Bond and turned a cop later. Continues to oversee the annihilation of various crimes and prevents many more. Has yet to achieve his other ambition-that of singing.

Snail. Known for his virtual dalliances (I mean with computers), he initiated us into our first e-group-it's still there, and alive in spite of WhatsApp.

Shanks. We played Golf in Chennai at times, with Bishop, another batchmate, and Paddy, a third. Used to be the talkative guy in G block back at IIMB, and on the net, but has since turned contemplative.

Sardie. We regularly met at his house in Goa for an exquisite dinner thanks to his wife, and one of my big moments was when his daughter, all of 19 at the time, announced she was a fan of my autobiography. I was thrilled no end!

To be continued. Another installment about the IMT colleagues and others will follow... 

Singapore is a Fine Country- What About Us?

This is a line that refers to the discipline enforced with fines of various types by Singapore. If we wanted to make ours a fine country, and earn billions in revenue for use in social causes, these would be my top picks-

1. Loud-mouths fine-anyone speaking above a normal decibel level in public would face a debacle.

2. Dicourteousness fine- showing discourtesy to fellow human beings would be a fine reason for one.

3. Littering fine- not applicable to cats or dogs, but to humans who litter-they haveto realise they are not cats.

4. Boasters Fine- those who talk about themselves, their language, or place they come from in boastful terms would be eligible to pay up. My guess is, we might be able to end the puffery pretty quickly.

5. One for those who forward posts containing errors in spelling or grammar. This alone should net millions.

My Favourite Students

This is not a recounting of all my favourite students over the years, because there are about a million of those, but a select sample. Many of these I remember because we are in touch on fb or otherwise. From many different institutes, because I have seen a few of those too...XIMB, Vignana Jyothi, PESIT, KIAMS, IIML, IIMK, IIMI, IFIM, IMT Nagpur and Ghaziabad..

Yamini, Aishwarya and Anjali Iyer, Shreyashi, Shruti, Harshad Lunavat, Abhinav Kamal, Pradyumna Mohanty, Bhagyashree aka Bugzy, Parul Kashyap, Hitansh, Vivek Anant, Dushyant, Sreeram, Anupriya, Anuja, Shivashankar, Murtaza, Aashish Chaudhary, Sheetal Garg, Anumeha Saxena, Anukeha Jain, Shafique, Nikita Kumar, Meghna Sinha, Adarsh, Jasleen, Pallavi, Vidisha, Kanika Mhendiratta....IMTians all, with a creative spark..actually many more, but this sample might be representative. Adding Ananya Nandi De, Abha Kulkarni, Ishita, Anshita, Rupam to that list as I met them a few times too. Abha, who was at IMT later on..

Deepa, Ranjana, Deepthi, Sudhir, Roopali, Giri, Sanchit, from Vignana Jyoti, Hyderabad.

Smita, Aditi, Nidhi (she's from Indore), Vidya, Swapna, Padmapriya (National Award winning actress afterwards), Dheeraj, Jogeswari aka Jogi (director at Golftripz), Nikhil Damle, Praveen, Jimmy, Siddharth, Aman, all from Kirloskar Institute at Harihar, an idyllic place if there was one. Anushka Mishra, who came to KIAMS later, after I had left.

Anusha, Siddhant Patnaik, Aishwarya, Sowmyashree Gonibeedu, Viju Varghese, Chaitra, Sonam, Sushmita, Sanjeev Undri, ..from PESIT.

Shreesha, Bharath, Aashneet, Veena, Nagendra, Monika Ghosh, ..from IFIM.

Anusha, Sapna, Tamros, Monika, Barleen, Bhuvneet from IIMI. And all the bunch who acted in The Importance of Being Earnest (many from IPM, such as Sanjana, Jasmine, Shrunga, Avik, Philip, Ayushi, and Urvaksh from PGP)

And some who weren't my students- a big group  of Ph.D. students at IIM Indore who I became friends with, some on the Golf course- Prachi Jain, Akansh Khandelwal, Neeti Ingole, Pratishtha Batra, Vartika Varyani, Geeti Mishra.

Coal-fired Nostalgia

I grew up in a coal-mining town in Andhra Pradesh. Actually, three of them-Kothagudem, Bellampalli and Ramagundam, where Singareni Collieries had its mines. This was a remote set of towns, what you might call one-theatre towns, with Hindi films coming in six months after their Mumbai premiere.

The earliest film I remember seeing was Jewel thief. There was a club in each of these towns (a British legacy, as were the mines). This was the centre of social life, and sporting life. We kids of all ages played a lot of Badminton, Table Tennis, and used the swimming pool extensively when summer came along. Some billiards too, when allowed by the elders.

There used to be films screened outdoors in 16 mm with a whirring projector. I remember seeing a film called Aulad in which Mehmood donned a chaplinesque costume and sang Jodi hamari jamega kaise jani with Aruna Irani. Also remember an English film starring Shashi Kapoor.

On festive occasions we had parties, where the food was usually good. On Christmas Eve there was a fancy dress and I once became a coal-miner, with a dhoti, and a miner's lamp. Santa also gave us gifts, and it was fun.

We did a lot of cycling those days, and played all kinds of games outdoors. NTPC putting up a big new Super-thermal power plant was a sight worth seeing in Ramagundam, and so was a wide Godavari river. 

To get out of Kothagudem by train (on steam engine trains), we travelled through quaintly named stations such as Tadkalpudi, Bethampudi and reached a junction called Dornakal, which was a gateway to Delhi and Madras. Similarly, Kazipet was always on the way from Ramagundam to Hyderabad. There was a metre gauge line from Kacheguda (Hyderabad) to Ajmer via Indore, and we travelled on it once to visit an aunt in Indore.

Monarchy in Modern Times

This is triggered by the visit of William and Kate (just found that it is short for Kathryn, many years after that lesson called Late Kate in school). Why is it that we (England in this case) persist with Kings and Queens in a democracy?

The urge to have a Messiah, a figure that is larger-than-life, perhaps? But God already serves that purpose for most of us in most faiths. So why is it that we need a King/Queen?

Not that I would mind being a  King. I feel qualified too, because my name at home is an exact translation of the word. And who wouldn't want a bit of extra-constitutional authority and a limitless expense account? Or to be waited upon by the likes of Tendulkar and Vengsarkar (at the Mumbai Oval maidan yesterday), or maybe Aishwarya Rai (yet to happen in this case)?

There's more. I could probably send little notes to the Head of the Nation (the one who people elected) on what I think he should be doing in various spheres that I knew nothing about. Not to mention the numerous meaningless inaugurations and speeches I could try my hand at, when I was not attending Grand Balls, receptions or just good old parties, and having a good time. Who wants an account in Panama when you can have it all right where you are?

Long Live the Queens, and Kings.

My favourite heroines

This I will begin by describing some heroines from earlier years-my major movie-going ones.

I liked Mumtaz for her vivaciousness. She came across as a regular girl, unlike the heavenly Madhubala (who is also a favourite, like 100 percent of the male population who has ever watched her films), and had quite a few roles where she acted well. Khilona, for instance, where she takes care of a mad Sanjeev Kumar, and Apradh, where she has a vampish role with Feroz Khan. Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand are two others with whom she did well on screen. Tere Mere Sapne and Roti (Gore rang pe na itna gumaan kar was a favourite song of mine, from Roti) were two with these guys I remember well.

Hema Malini was and is the most beautiful of the heroines for the last 40 years. She actually got the correct label of Dream Girl in her first film, and it stuck. Her romance with Dharmendra was of course one aspect, but she was fantastic teaming up with Dev Anand (Johny Mera Naam is my favourite here, particularly the duet O mere Raja). Sholay's Basanti was a classic too.

I liked Saira Banu for her exotic looks and her good role in the film Padosan, which I think is a film that is hard to beat on many counts-humour being the foremost. Her solo songs, and the innocence she brought to her role was fantastic.

Rekha was another favourite, particularly her roles in the films Muqaddar ka Sikandar and Khubsoorat. Particularly the latter, where she espouses the cause of freedom and delight- nirmal anand.

Smita Patil was another gorgeous woman of substance. Any role she played got elevated a few notches by her presence. I saw quite a few of her films, and liked her in art and commercial films (Namak Halaal, Chakra).

Vidya Balan and Kajol will probably round up the list. Vidya was capable of much more than we saw of her in films like Kahani. Kajol was like a breath of fresh air-completely original. Gupt and Dilwale Dulhaniya are two of my favourite films of hers, apart from Baazigar.

Some others who might make it to the list are Tanuja, and Chitrangada Singh. The former in Hathi Mere Sathi, Jewel Thief, and the latter in Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi were great.

Shriya Saran and Tapsee Pannu are two recent heroines I liked in one film each that I saw of theirs. And Deepika Padukone, in most films. Queen's heroine Kangana also gets an honourable mention. She was good in Tanu Weds Manu also.