Where We Met - Part 2

 Now on to some colleagues. 

KIAMS colleagues I still meet, Vijayakumar and Dhanapal in particular. Usually it's on a Golf course, because we began playing the game at Harihar on the 18-hole Kirloskar Golf course. We have played at Kodaikanal, and Munnar. Gadgil too, from IMT Nagpur.

Sohni Roy from Prestige (above) and I try out at a driving range in Indore- Bichholi Haapsi.

Have met Dayakara Rao and Thomas from VJIM, though it was some time ago.

Manoharan, Manasa and a S.P. Kumar from PESIT I have met later. Stayed with Manoharan in the same complex at Bangalore recently also.

IIM Indore colleagues, I still meet sometimes when I go to the campus. Shweta Kushal, Jayasimha, Sumit Ghosh, and a few others- Ashish Sadh, Rajhans Mishra, Abhishek Mishra..

IIM Lucknow colleagues also I have met a few times, though not at Lucknow. Shailendra Singh at Ranchi and Bharat Bhasker at Raipur, when they were directors there. 

Muthu, colleague from industry (M.R.) , I am in touch with and have played Golf with.

Tanmeet Kaur, Prerona Baruah and Alisha Thomas from NMIMS, at Bangalore.

Smita Dabholkar (at Bangalore and Pune too) and TKC from IMT at Nagpur. Saleena Khan too.

Maheswaran and Jitendra Sharma from IMT at Mumbai, at an alumni meet. Abhishek Singh, at Indore and Nagpur.

Jayasimha and I worked together at 4 institutes, and are still in touch, at Indore, our current place of residence. Bhagyalakshmi and I worked in two, and meet regularly in Mumbai or elsewhere. 

Where we Met

Starting with students from IMT. 

This is on the suggestion from Abha, whom I met at Nagpur, then Mumbai a couple of times, and Delhi, more recently, with Shalini Sinha. Nikita, I first met when she was Nikita Kumar, in Pune. Later, she moved to Hyderabad, and we met with her friend from Symbi, Ritika Sharma. Most recently, we caught up in Delhi. Meghna Sinha I first met in Delhi at a Starbucks, then at Yauwatcha, in BKC. Also met Meghana Joshi at The Good Wife, BKC with a couple of others. Vikas and Varun were there too. Garima Shah at Hiranandani, Mumbai, in The Yellow Chilli.

First three pics are IMT alums from various batches, in Mumbai, Bangalore and Mumbai alumni get together.

Abha, Sirisha and Tosha.

Ishita, Gowri, Rupam, Anshita and Anusha

Savitha of KIAMS Batch 1 

In some other meetings, Tosha and Abha were together, or Sirisha Adi and Anuj too, in Mumbai- Grandmama's Cafe was one. Sheetal Garg and I met mostly at Mumbai, and once in a large alumni meet where we sang a duet from Johnny Mera Naam! Ananya Nandi De at NOIDA, her place, and Delhi. Shraddha Nigdikar, at her place in Dadar, in Vashi and at Mulund at a friend's place. 

Abhinav Kamal, the digital marketer and film maker, I met in Bangalore, and in Mumbai after IMT Nagpur. I think Shuchi Bhatnagar was at a Hyderabad alumni meet. Divya Singh, first at Mumbai, where she also guest lectured in my class on Digital Marketing, then at Pune and more recently, Gurgaon. Harshad Lunavat and Meghana Khadilkar, at Pune. Target is to meet Karishma too, there. Anupriya Pandit, at Bangalore. Surbhi Mehta Chadha at Delhi. Also her neighbour Vrinda Khanna at her place in Delhi. Pallavi in Bangalore, Shafique in Bangalore and Indore recently. Kanika Mhendiratta in Delhi, twice, Swati Jain in Mumbai on a rainy evening. Khyati Jha, in Navi Mumbai.

In Ahmedabad, a whole gang of IMT students, led by Ishan, Ankita, Keyur and separately, Manjari two or three times. Also Punyashlok Dwibedy, who was at IIMA doing his Ph.D.

Anshita Abhishek Chetty organised two get-togethers for me to meet IMTans, and we met. In Bangalore, with Sreeram and Gowri, Rupam Verma, Ishita and Anurag with their kid, and Anshita's hubby Abhishek and their twins, Anusha Mamidanna and hubby Aashish were also part of the meets. Meenu Mynam, I met in Bangalore. Kedar Muley and gang at Thane -Ravi Mittal was part of that.

KIAMS students, everywhere- Smita in Dubai, Sudeshna and Sid Agarwal in Kolkata (and Delhi airport), Vidya TC and Swapna Gurijala at Singapore- twice. Nishka and Vikram in Mumbai, Rajiv Roy Chowdhury at Bangalore (his wife turned out to be from PESIT). Aditi Sood in Kolkata, Savitha, multiple times in Bangalore. Also Nidhi Kanungo in Indore a couple of times, but also in Lucknow, where her hubby is from. Jagdish Subramony, in Chennai, long ago. Jimmy in Bangalore, Mukesh in Kodaikanal. Also Navroze Sethna in Kodai, his hometown, Anupama at Bangalore, Padmapriya at Hyderabad and Delhi, Jogeswari in Hyderabad and Thailand (with her company Golftripz), apart from Calicut and Nagpur where she gave a guest lecture and shot a video. Sunil Kataria at Delhi along with Sharmishtha Singh. Nikhil Damle I met in Mumbai long ago, and Bangalore later. Anushka Mishra, at various bookstores on Church Street and also at 13th floor, MG Road. Zargar Basharat in Bangalore. Dheeraj Mohan in Chennai.

PESIT students I have met mostly in Bangalore, like Pooja Varun, and Aishwarya Omprakash with her hubby and kid. IFIM students too- Chaithu Gunapali, Bharath Shenoy, and Nagendra Shenoy. At an airport, I met Shreya Sengupta from PESIT_IUP. 

IIM Indore

Shatakshi Tripathi, Varun  and Shailaja Gupta from the IIM Indore (Mumbai campus) at Bangalore. And Pratima Gaikwad of the same program, only at Hyderabad- 3 or 4 times! 

Anusha Soni, IIM Indore student, and Neha Adiga, in Pune. Sapna Patni, Anam Nuhi and Harshad Sachani at Indore- him at Nagpur too! Bhuvneet Raheja, In Delhi. 

Vignana Jyoti students- Giri at Bangalore with his wife, Ranjana Rudra and Deepthi Balagiri last year in Hyderabad. Sudhir many years ago at Bangalore, with his wife Poulomi.

Lots of Ph.D.  students from IIM Indore, at Indore and some at Delhi recently. Akansh, Prachi, Vartika, Neeti Ingole, Geeti, Vanshika, Pratishtha are a few others. 

Lots more I would like to meet, like Pooja Shukla, who is hiding in the U.S. and Aashneet Gautam, no idea where. Tanya Jakhar, in Bangalore. Ruby Shukla, Delhi. Vaishali Bathla, Delhi, I think. Bhagyashree Agarwal.

Regions of India

 I have worked in all 5 regions of India, the longest being South and Central. Hyderabad (Vignana Jyoti Institute), Harihar (KIAMS), Bangalore (PESIT, IFIM, and NMIMS apart from a company, MBA, earlier) in the South. Also IIM Kozhikode in Kerala. Probably the longest of all. 

In the West, Mumbai in the same company, MBA. Also Bhubaneswar in XIMB (East). North- Lucknow and Delhi. My first job was with an ad agency, New Horizons, in C.P. in Delhi. Appu Ghar and Modern Suitings, Alwar, were our clients, and India Today and Bombay magazines.

In Lucknow, it was the IIM. Also IMT Ghaziabad more recently.. around 10 years ago.

Centre has been a long stint, Nagpur IMT for 3 and a half years, Indore IIM for 7 and Prestige University as their first VC for around 1.5 years.

Prestige University students-above and below, Indore

RED FM RJ Shreya and I, at their studio, Indore.

I have also visited many places in most states, including Ladakh, Kanyakumari, Shillong, Dibrugarh, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad, and Puri and Konarak. Also a few in M.P. like Jabalpur, Gwalior, Satna and Bhopal.

Though I liked something about each place, Harihar was the best in many ways. Small, with friendly people and with a Golf course in the campus (then). What more can you want in life? Many students of Harihar and Nagpur are in touch with me too. So there's something in the Oranges too, I guess.

Faculty Colleagues

 NMIMS Bangalore faculty - who are also Women Golfers. Met three recently, two at an appropriate place for Golf players- Hole in the Wall. 

With Tanmeet Kaur Sahiwal and Alisha Thomas

and Prerona Baruah.

Meeting Alums

 In this case, turned out to be alums of two kinds- students and faculty- from IMT Nagpur, which I left in 2013. That hasn't mattered, coz the alums are warm and welcoming, even today. Applies to some faculty alums too.

The pic below has both- students Abha Kulkarni and Shalini Sinha, from around 15-16, and Harsh Halve, who was a faculty member and Placement Chair there. We had a great time, in spite of the high decibel levels trying to prevent us from talking! Mrs. Deepshri Halve, a personal friend, was there too. We also remembered other alums, like Kanika Mhendiratta, Nikita Ray, Ananya Nandi De and Sheetal Garg.

Economic Times Education Summit

 I participated as a speaker on a couple of panels. Overall, it was a nice attempt to bring together thought leaders from government regulators, academic leaders and industry participants. IBM and Google were two major industry partners, apart from many others. 

I talked about the need to leverage alumni connects, and the need for autonomy, or freedom from excessive regulation of the unnecessary kind in our country. Higher education needs to be free to experiment and innovate with programs, curricula, pedagogy and more. The UGC chairman hinted that these would happen, with the NEP and a new outlook. He also talked about how industry and academia need to support each other. 

Pics from the event. My colleagues Sudhir Pradhan, and Anju Jadon also participated.

Above- One of the panels in which I was a speaker.

Below- another Round Table at the event, moderated by Devina Lason of ET. 

This (below) was the Round Table topic, with industry and academia participating.

Sudhir Pradhan, and Anju Jadon- above.

An ad for the event, on the ET page.

IMT Nagpur Convocation 2012

 This one was special in many ways. One, it saw two helicopters land on campus. The Chief Guest was Mr. Mukesh Ambani, so the students were thrilled. We all became celebs for a day.