As I was sauntering around in the airport departure lounge, my eyes fell on the latest issue of the 'Business World' magazine which was a special edition covering the "A-List" of "Top B Schools".
My attention was drawn to the top edge of the magazine which showcased the pictures of some of the best and finest Professors from the top B Schools across the country... The list predictably included Ashish Nanda, a HBS legend and currently the Director of IIM, Ahmedabad. I was also indeed very happy to see the photographs of C P Shrimali and M L Singla who taught me HR and Information Systems courses respectively during my B School days...
Seeing Prof M L Singla's photograph after a gap of nearly 19 years took me on a trip down my memory lane to an incident that happened in August 1996. I was sitting in the 'Information Systems' class and Dr M L Singla was talking on the topic of 'Parallel Processing Architectures and Vector Computing'. The freshly minted Computer Engineer that I was then disagreed with his point of view on a certain specific sub-topic. We started debating on the topic and finally the Professor was exasperated and asked to me to take the white board marker from him and explain my point of view to the class. The confident, immature and gutsy young man that I was in those days took the white board marker, stepped on to the podium and started explaining my point of view to the entire PGPM class.
I went on talking for about 15 or so minutes when our Professor interrupted me, looked at me seriously and said, "Mr Pelluru , can I now have my marker pen back so that I can do my job please?"
Only then did it strike me that I was rather too naive, foolish and inappropriate for the setting that we were in and that I should not have done what I had done. After the class got over, my batchmates and well wishers warned me that I might have to face the consequences of what might be possibly interpreted by the faculty as a rude and impolite act...
However Dr Singla was a perfect gentleman in all ways and he never let this incident impact my grades in any manner. As a matter of fact I went on to become his favourite student for the next 2 years...
No sooner had I came out of my reverie than I heard the boarding announcement of my flight to Calicut...
As I boarded the flight, it occurred to me that during my B School years, this was perhaps my own version of "Staying Hungry and Staying Foolish"......
As the flight was taking off, it suddenly struck me that December, 2015 marked the completion of "20 years of CAT '95", the examination which was in ways more than one the corner stone of where many of us are today....
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