just like that

Starting with this post, Iam starting a new series – ‘My forgotten friends’. These posts will be about certain important companions (mostly my habits – not human beings) of mine whom I have slowly forgotten in the one-and-a-half years I have been in this place. I have been so busy with all the wonderful things that IIM Indore has kept me occupied with that I haven’t even realized that these guys are slowly slipping away. Anyways, now I would like to look back at them and see if any of them can still be rescued. So here we go!

I have lived the major portion of my life in Chennai. There are two things a Chennai guy will never argue about – The best film star and the best newspaper in the country. I have almost woken up everyday to find ‘THE HINDU’ on the sofa near my bed. I guess I started reading ‘Hindu’ when I was in sixth or seventh standard. Like all starters, I used to read only the sports section. That was also the period I got interested in cricket and I used to closely follow the fortunes of the Indian team through all the articles that came. I remember how automatically I used to take the paper, remove the supplement, go to the last page and flip back one page to reach the last but one page (Sports page). By the time I was in eleventh standard, Vijay Lokapally (the guy who wrote columns in the sports section) was one of my favorite writers. I liked Hindu also because it almost covered all the sports Indian players were taking part in, irrespective of where the event was happening. That’s how I kept track of how many titles Vishwanathan Anand was winning and how Geet Sethi was faring at the England Billiards championship. Some of the sports news that came in Hindu was carried by Doordarshan only in that day’s evening news and this impressed me even more.

When we were in ninth standard, a lot of boys in school always talked about sports. So it was a kind of show-off for most of us to talk about all the players, all the statistics and the gossips. And the fact that I didn’t have cable connection at home (meaning I didn’t have access to any sports channel) meant I had to read the sports section from top to bottom without leaving out even the slightest detail.

My grandfather was the one who had encouraged me to read Hindu from the beginning. He said whatever English knowledge he had was thanks to reading Hindu over the years. He was initially happy to let me just read the sports pages but slowly he was advocating me to read the other sections of the paper as well. When I was in eighth standard, he told me ‘you have to start reading the open page supplement’ that used to come on Tuesdays. In the second page, it had a section called ‘Know your English’ which was pretty interesting and I began to read that as well. Of course, my other favorites were the sports supplement and ‘Young world’ that came on Saturdays. I was deeply disappointed when Hindu discontinued this sports supplement sometime later.

As I moved into my eleventh and twelfth standard, my grandfather asked me to read the editorial and the ‘letters to the editor’ – he said that I will learn a lot from these things. I tried but found them boring and till my third year of engineering restricted myself to the first page for some headlines and of course the sports pages. Then midway through my third year, I joined IMS coaching centre for my CAT training. There was this guy, manager of the center, who talked so impressively and motivated all of us towards the test. As part of the preparation, he asked us to read the center page of the Hindu everyday. He said it will serve two purposes – one, improve your awareness about a lot of things and two, improve your language. He said whenever you find a word that you don’t understand, stop reading and immediately refer to the dictionary, understand the meaning, try to fit it back into the sentence and continue reading. So the Vimal who never read the editorial despite repeated pleas from his grandfather over the years finally began to read the center page because he wanted to clear CAT :)

It was during this period I began to realize what a brilliant paper ‘The Hindu’ was. The coverage was so complete; the editorials and opinions were so unbiased. In fact, one day I read another newspaper and felt so bad that I had to come back in the evening and read ‘The Hindu’ to console myself that everything was fine with this world. And this perfect love story continued until one fine day, I had to move to Mumbai to take up my job.

At first, I thought they were joking but when I learnt that people there really don’t read ‘The Hindu’, I was shocked. It was almost like waking up one fine morning to find your right hand missing. Even in my office, where even the ‘chotu mottu’ papers were bought everyday, I was stunned not to find Hindu amongst them. Pretty soon, I found that the only place I could get Hindu was in Mathunga (a predominantly Tamilian area in Mumbai) and I was living in Kandivali. On two Sundays of the month, we used to go to ‘Mathunga’ for two purposes – to have good tamil food and watch a tamil movie. The secret motive for me of course was also to buy ‘The Hindu’. You can’t believe the amount of joy I used to get when I read that paper later in the evening. Of course the disappointing fact was that there was no editorial on Sundays :)

The paper that was selling the most in Mumbai was the ‘Times of India’. One look at the newspaper and I wondered “people actually read this??” It never really seemed to have any issue that was important to the common man. All it was concerned was with any news that was sensational, any news about movie stars and cricket personalities (I remember recently there was a front page article about Sourav’s little daughter asking him ‘Papa, why are you not playing these days?’ after he was dropped). Basically it had anything which would make it sell. And I guess that’s what mattered at the end of the day. I resigned myself to reading the opinion pages of TOI. They weren’t exactly that bad after all but I couldn’t even begin to compare it with my paper. By the end of the year, I had started reading Hindu online and consoled myself.

The problem continued when I came here for pursuing my studies. Although Hindu was available in the city, it was a Delhi edition and came in pretty late. And since the campus is some 30 kms away from the city, the newspaper guy could get us ‘Hindu’ only one day late. Having been starved of it for over a year, I settled for even this. But after a few months, I found it really stupid as very often I would be reading news two days old and ultimately discontinued it. These days, I have a subscription to Business Standard. The paper just comes everyday in the afternoon and I hardly ever touch it.

Right now, the very thought of me sitting on the sofa with a 'Hindu' and sipping the hot coffee that my grandmother makes is enough motivation for me to get a job in Chennai :)

I shall close with the links for my favorite paper.

The Hindu online - http://hindu.com/
The ePaper - http://epaper.thehindu.com/

P.S. – I just realized how nostalgic this post had gotten. So if you are allergic to it, keep your distance from this series :)

That is the name of one of the courses we did here in IIM Indore. This is a very unique course across B-schools and was designed keeping in mind the vision of IIM Indore to produce socially conscious managers. The course is done in two parts – a theoretical part in Term IV and a practical part in Term V. In the theoretical part we looked at the relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in today’s scenario via the help of a lot of cases. We saw how CSR is more and more becoming an integral part of corporate strategy today. We had lively debates during some of the cases about why the business of business is more than just business. Then came the practical part in the fifth term where we were to take up a specific project in the neighboring community (like Rau, Pithampur) and study and if possible, make realistic recommendations. The Profs we had for this course were pretty good and they made it very clear in the beginning itself that the basic aim was to sensitize ourselves to the community around us. In the process, if we can come up with any recommendations which can be implemented, well and good.

Now six days were allotted in the term to make these field visits. Our group chose to study about the contract laborers (security guards) working on campus. To be honest, most of the groups didn’t take it seriously and were doing it just like any other project. The course was viewed by most of us as just a necessary evil wherein we do all this big talk about society but actually achieve nothing at the end of the day. In fact, the way some people were doing it, I began to wonder whether there was any purpose in doing this course.

And then one day, myself and a friend interviewed a couple of security guards as part of the project. That half an hour came as a rude awakening to me. It really laid before me, in black and white, the people I meet almost everyday but about whom I barely stop and think about. I realized what a different life these guys are leading and what are the various difficulties they are facing. Those guys weren’t struggling for food or anything but a lot of things which we take for granted are only a dream to most of them. Most of us had been mocking at the course and its relevance but for the one hour after we finished the interview, I really wanted to do something for all these people. I don’t even know what that is but the thought is there. Today, as I was just making the report for the final submission, I thought I would write about this course. But what I begun to write about and what I have to say now are somewhat different. Sometimes we are all so immersed in our worlds that we fail to see how important a responsibility we all owe to our society. I would request anyone who is reading this to give something back to the society in whatever way you can. Not necessarily now but as and when you are in a position to do that. It might be as simple as providing one meal to a beggar or something as important as supporting the education of one poor child. Believe me - it gives you great happiness when you see a small deed of yours make even a little difference to someone’s life.

When I was in first year, I always used to think that what a good time the seniors were having. I remember saying to myself that in the second year, I will do the things that I always wanted to do in all the free time I will have.

Alas, second year has been an entirely different story so far. The fourth term was short and packed with credits, so I let it go. All my eyes were on the long three-and-a-half month fifth term where I was sure I will get my time. However, things have been totally different. Due to a variety of reasons from acads to IRIS, I have literally been on the run right through. So today, as I completed the last exam in the afternoon and the last project submission in the evening, there was more than anything a huge sense of relief that came over me.

Of course, we did have our share of fun – we celebrated dusshera, Diwali, IRIS and the birthdays and parties. I also managed to go someway with one of my goals for the year – Reading Kotler. Hope to complete it in the next term.

The next term is not only the last term here but also the most important one. Most people have already begun the countdown. As for me, I still have no idea where Iam headed after MBA. The next term will hopefully provide some answers.

Right now though it is time to sit back and relax for a while. A few of my friends are going to Goa. Iam going back home. Will be back in ten days time. That’s all Folks!

‘Idanim’ is the new drama and theater club in IIM Indore. The brainchild of a few enthusiasts , the first play was made for Independence Day and by all counts was a great beginning. So when they decided on putting up a play for the alumni meet, they actually took auditions for the various characters. Having dedicated a great deal of my life to drama[:)], I was naturally interested. I was eventually selected to play one of the roles.

The play basically revolves around seven characters – people who are all going back from an alumni meet and due to a flight delay are caught up in the airport. Tanvi (script-writer and co-director) supposedly based most of the content from what we normally hear from our seniors and from alumni blogs. It was a wonderful script – in fact that set the basis for a superlative performance from some of us. And the casting was once again perfect. Whether it was Christoph as the rock star (during college days) or Saurabh as this son of the soil, it looked like these guys were made for it. Needless to say, we all had great fun while rehearsing. Two hours of practice time would mean only half an hour of actual practice. The rest of the time was spent in making fun of the characters and sometimes the script writer and the other director (Dibyak).

Anyways, finally it came off very well and everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. In the words of my director, “Dying is easy. It’s comedy that is hard” (originally made by some one else) and I guess we did a fair job of giving people a good laugh that day.

Good work Idanim! Keep it up! Looking forward to at least a couple more plays before the academic year ends.

P.S. – Idanim has also been screening some really great movies (classics) in the audi now and then. Recently watched ‘Amelie’ thanks to that.