Female education: Liberation or strangulation

From the Director’s Desk
Dear Participants,
Congratulations on the publication of Terra Firma 2012-13!
I enjoyed the variety of topics chosen by you for the issue. Was wondering at
the title “Female Education: Liberation or Strangulation” and the feminist
Hindi poetry - Are these inspired by the exceptional bonanza of a large
proportion of girls on our campus this year? Are you wondering if it will
continue next year? We wonder and hope as well.
Terra Firma is a good opportunity to unleash your creativity in writing prose
and poetry, and even painting, except for the cost of colour printing! Well,
leave that headache to the Terra Firma Editorial Team! A sense of humour,
very essential for “Life at IRMA”, emerges every year through these pages,
like the “Tragedy of the Backbenchers”. Whose tragedy is that, those in front
of the desk or behind it?
It is a happy occasion to see another batch of IRMAns ready to join the real
world. Or can we say being unleashed on an unsuspecting world!
I wish the graduating PRM and FPRM participants a wonderful career ahead.
Don’t forget to periodically ask yourself the quintessential question “Why
IRMA?” It will help you to remain grounded and also find the answer to
many questions that may rise in your minds as you grow and establish
yourselves in your field.
Warm Regards,
Jeemol Unni
Contents
1.
Capacity of Mediocrity………………………. …………………………….
1
2.
Corporate Social Responsibility: How “responsible” is it really? …………
3
Foreign Goods ………………………………………………………………
8
Female Education: Liberation or Strangulation …………………………...
11
The Days Gone By …………………………………………………………..
14
Education for Development in India: Challenges of the present model ….
17
Inside a Little Mind …………………………………………………………
23
सोचती हूँ ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
27
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Arjit Anand
Shubham Tomar
Ashish Agrawal
Anant Tiwari
Priyanka Toppo
Naivedya Parakkal
Krishn Kant Sharma
Nidhi Bansal
9.
Old Wine New Bottle ……………………………………………………….
Utsav Agarwal
31
10.
Physics and CAC ……………………………………………………………
33
11.
And quietly flows the river …………………………………………………
35
12.
चप
ु के से .......................................................................................................
37
Untitled Poem ………………………………………………………………
38
Rendezvous with Professor Hitesh Bhatt …………………………………..
41
My Fieldwork Experiences …………………………………………………
43
Football Crazy IRMA ………………………………………………………
51
Life at IRMA ………………………………………………………………...
53
FOSLA (Frustrated One Sided Lovers’ Association) ………………………
55
Football and Life ……………………………………………………………
57
20.
एक बार ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
60
21.
Tragedy of the Back-benchers ……………………………………………
63
22.
The Strife behind the Smile ………………………………………………...
66
23.
Sands of Time ………………………………………………………………
69
? ………………………………………………………………………….
71
Down the Memory Lane ……………………………………………………
73
Puzzles ………………………………………………………………………
77
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Neha Durga
Mridul Kumar Dhaniwala
Pushpak Kumar
Mridul Kumar Dhaniwala
Ashima Agrawal and Utsav Agarwal
Sunandan Madan
Sai Pramodh
Nidhi Bansal
Utsav Agarwal
Ajit Chaudhuri
Sankalp Tripathi
Swati Renduchintala
Kurian George
Megha Paryani
24.
25.
26.
Raja Panchal
Jainee Nathwani
Ashish Agrawal
From the Editor's Desk
This magazine has been an important part of our daily sojourn for a long time now, and its
publication has been a tedious journey.
Throughout this journey, this magazine has continuously changed in what it meant for us. What
started off as a platform to develop our own literary potential, then became a forum for the entire
batch to come together and develop something beautiful and creative. While we kept aiming for a
quality magazine, we learnt that quality doesn't lie in traditional definitions and industry
standards, but in the process itself.
The point of this magazine should never have been to create something of extremely high literary
quality, but to build something that is ours, and ours alone. Something that when we pick up, dust
ridden, off the corner of our bookshelf, several years hence, immediately teleports us back to this
beautiful world that we have created for ourselves here at IRMA.
This magazine shouldn't represent complex and revolutionary thought, but the immense variety of
issues that dictate our conversations and our everyday life. From making up silly stuff to put a
smile on our friend's face, to important issues that pervade our society; from romantic poems to
outbursts of anger; from subtle reflections to innovative interventions; we are everything, and yet,
so basic, almost not there.
And, thus, so is the magazine. Everything that we are, in 80 pages.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed; the fabric of this magazine is each one of you.
With the busy academic schedules, and the seemingly endless extra-academic options, that this
magazine is now on your palms is nothing short of a miracle.
Relish it, cherish it and a small suggestion - don't forget it. In a few years, this will be your key
back to the road less taken.
Priyanka Suresh Mehta
Dhruv Narang
12th April, 2013
The Creative Team
Arjit Anand handled and co-ordinated the photography
aspect of the magazine, which is a new inclusion in Terra
Firma.
Abhinav "Pinku" Sharma designed the layout and the cover
pages of the magazine.
Ikchhanshu Vishen shot the brilliant cover photo. He looks
at the photograph as representing "the path that few took,
but left their footprints all over the world."
Arjit Anand writes an emotionally churning article linking concepts of economics, collective
action and cooperation and Hindu mythology to condemn mediocrity and reach out for excellence
that each one of us is capable of.
Captivity of Mediocrity
The
most
common
thought
including mine that I have come
across is on the lines that I have
achieved a certain something with
very little effort, which means that if
I ‘want’ I ‘can’ raise my efforts to
achieve greater things.
greater things. Most of us, yes, US,
settle
for
mediocrity
which
according to me is sinister. Settling
for anything lesser that can be
achieved is a sin. I recently read an
interview of Mr Drew Houston,
founder of Dropbox who said the
worst outcome is mediocrity and not
I am sure most of you can recall a
failure. Mr Amartya Sen in his
similar person or incident in your
Capability Approach talks about the
life. But very few of us actually yield
opportunity to be given to achieve
to the need and go on to achieve
what they are capable of but I see so
many
people
sufficient
Trap’ that the developing economies
and
are caught in. We just need to give
capability to achieve whatever they
that little thrust to move from being
want but they fail to utilize them
‘mediocre’ to ‘better’.
opportunities,
with
chances
and settle for something lesser
because
it
is
easier
to
We
reach
need
to
indulge
in
ourselves to find the needed ‘thrust’
mediocrity and it gets easier with
because it is Kalyuga and there won’t
time to stay there.
be a Jambavan to remind us of our
If you are a failure, you would
powers. We need to fight it out with
probably try your hand at something
ourselves to defeat this demon
else or you may simply die being
within us. Freedom starts from here,
useless, it wouldn’t matter but if you
when you break free from the
are mediocre you live long, long
captivity of mediocrity.
enough to
consume
more
and
Mr. ‘A bird in hand is better
produce way too little than your real
than two in the bush’ needs to take a
ability and that’s when you become a
leave if Mr. ‘As many birds as he can’
burden on rest of the world. And it
has to arrive.
is very easy to visualise that majority
of the world’s population lives being
mediocre and hence the world is not
as good a place as it is capable of.
We, at IRMA listen and learn a lot
about
the
difference
between
‘having’ and ‘being’. A mediocre
person lives in the ‘having’ realm as
he settles for the things he has and
keeps dreaming about ‘being’ but
never becomes.
We can also relate this with
the economic concept of ‘Growth
2
Shubham Tomar critically examines the nature of Corporate Social Responsibility equipped with
his professional experience in the same domain.
Corporate Social Responsibility: How ‘responsible’ is
it really?
Traditionally,
corporations allot up to 2% of their
Corporate
budget to CSR.
Social Responsibility or CSR has
The reason is simple: CSR sells.
meant aligning the needs of the
community
objectives
voluntarily
with
by
corporate
The question remains, though,
contributing
does CSR address ‘real issues’?
towards
a
better
Does it respond to social and
society. Today, CSR is seen more as
environmental crises promptly and
a Public Relations’ stunt, a cheap
effectively? Having worked with
vehicle for advertising and building
the CSR arm of a corporation these
brand loyalty. Simply switch on
questions continue to vex me. Pop
any of the prime channels and you
any executive working with a CSR
will know what I mean.
wing the question, “Are you
Small wonder that most major
working for the development of the
3
community?” and pat comes the
CSR works not to empower but
reply, “Yes!” And out comes the
enslave the community it is
‘evidence’ in the form of an annual
supposed to be serving. The catch
report loaded with impressive facts
lies in making the community
and figures of projects with
dependent – as opposed to
attractive names in Hindi and
becoming self-sufficient – through
equally fetching pictures of smiling
its activities. The corporation in
rural beneficiaries. Throw in a
question engenders prosperity in
balance sheet showing corporate
the community falling short of
money well spent and the picture is
empowering it. Reason? An
complete.
empowered community would
eventually result in the cessation of
I got to see the murkier side
CSR activities negating its very
of the picture while attempting to
raison d’être: a robust PR domain.
speak to the
The management, which is
community; the very community
responsible for various activities,
that the CSR wing claimed to have
wins approval from the Board only
empowered. Virtually every
once its annual report looks
member of the community told me
thicker. So, the focus is on running
to “please leave us alone.” I was
myriad activities instead of the one
even warned to leave the village as
that will make the right impact.
soon as possible.
Some of these activities do not even
Scratching beneath the
cater to the community’s real
green wash of the company’s image
demands. For example, if the
I realised what had gone wrong: it
community needs 200 toilets, only
was the modus operandi of the
20 will be constructed to make it a
company. In the development
valid event for the annual reports.
world the focus is on empowering
The additional 180 toilets will be
the community through
constructed for the headlines and
sustainability. Looking closely at
content of yet another event. The
how CSR operates one realises how
logic is simple: the higher the
futilely Utopian such an ideal is.
number of activities shown on the
4
annual report, the better looks the
latter. A better-looking annual
report translates into better perks
for the management. Despite the
sustainability so passionately
propagated in the corporate
mission statement it is the opposite
that actually holds true. A satiated
community would lead to zero
dependability- and who wants that?
Not the corporate world surely.
Most communities are as better or
worse off compared to their
counterparts with nil CSR
impingement. While it is perfectly
alright to expand one’s consumer
base by exploiting the company’s
‘responsible’ image creating
infrastructure that is woefully
inadequate is not.
In the end, one simply
wants to cry out loud: “Please give
back to the community that gave
its land to bolster your profit
margin.” Anybody listening?
5
6
PHOTO CREDIT: NAMITA SIVASANKARAN
PHOTO CREDIT: NAMITA SIVASANKARAN
7
Ashish Agrawal tries to demystify macroeconomic theories and make them accessible to the layman.
Foreign Goods
Bharat.
upliftment of society since we have a
lot of personal responsibilities.
Hamari Jaan Hamari Shaan.
But, we can contribute to society in
many ways without affecting our
personal life.
Lekin aaj iski Shaan khatre mein hai.
I am not talking about external
aggression problem but referring to the
internal problems. Although all the
internal problems are interlinked, the
main problem that we see is population
and unemployment.
In this article, I will be dealing with the
impact of excessive use of foreign
brands in our day-to-day life, on our
country ’India’ whom we all love.
How does foreign exchange take place?
(In layman terms)There is an account
for each country in which net revenue
depends on the import and export a
country has.
Since we are professionals, it is not
possible for us to become social
workers and devote our lives for the
8
So, let’s assume if India imports
anything from USA, it has to pay the
bill in USA currency i.e., dollars. For
that, India must have dollars in its
account. For gaining dollars, one way is
to export the things to other countries
which will increase foreign currency in
India’s account.
oil, electronic goods and machineries.
So, we can estimate the difference in
the revenue due to import and export
of goods.
We all know that India exports spices,
food products etc. whereas it imports
Foreign Debt=Import-Export
Therefore, India is in huge debt of
foreign currency. It is increasing
continuously.
250
Foreign Debt(USD in Billion)
200
150
100
50
0
1981
1988
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
dollar deficit in India’s account, India’s
debt increases which India may not
ever be able to repay.
Source: Reserve Bank of India
 What happens when we buy any
foreign brand goods??
Here, we can see that foreign debt is
mainly non-government type i.e., due
to the purchases/investments our
public do.
When we purchase any foreign product
(Say a McDonalds burger), Indian govt.
has to pay dollar equivalent (currency
of the country to which that product
belongs) of total revenue generated by
McDonalds in India. Since there is
9
Debt in USD(billion)
250
Source: Reserve Bank Of India.
200
150
100
50
Govt.Debt
Non-Govt.Debt
0
What can we do?
Just by reducing the use of foreign
goods we can help our government in
decreasing the deficit. It will also help
domestic market to flourish.
Your small steps today will make
India’s future bright.
START CONTRIBUTING.
Having said all this let me also clarify
that I am not advocating that we stop
using foreign goods. Today’s is a
globalised world and goods and
services are bound to cross national
boundaries. Also, as our income levels
rise, there is absolutely no harm in
desiring products of better quality. The
argument that I wish to make here is
that if you have a choice between two
products of equal quality, one
domestically produced and the other
imported, you should go for the locally
manufactured product. By doing so, on
one hand we decrease the demand for
imports in our economy and on the
other we give a small push to the
domestic production sector.
10
Anant Tiwari draws from his fieldwork experience to write about female education in the hinterlands of
India.
Female education: Liberation or strangulation
rticle 21 of the constitution of India
A
pride whenever the enrolment of girls in
guarantees life and personal liberty as
schools presents a decent figure. How on
a fundamental right to each citizen of the
earth can someone even think of attaching a
country. Since personal liberty is a rather
gagging overtone to a pursuit as noble as
intangible concept, a number of other rights
education? I stand the risk of being
have been conferred under its ambit. The
disgraced publicly for questioning the
right to free and compulsory education to all
promotion of girl education in a country
children of the age group 6 to 14 years is the
where no budget speech or plan document is
most recent addition to this list. The Sarva
complete without the mention of women
Shiksha
flagship
empowerment through education. However,
programme and the administration takes
the issue starts gaining some weight when
Abhiyan
remains
a
11
we take a deeper look into the kind of
power in the household, they are hardly able
paradoxes that exist in the hinterland of
to relish any of the fruits of a nation that is
India that is Bharat.
galloping at an average annual growth rate
of 8 per cent. Schooling has but only made
I witnessed the pith of the matter
them realize that there exists a glass ceiling
during a recent fieldwork in the tribal belt of
between them and the world of equal
Udaipur district in Rajasthan. I take the
opportunities.
liberty of extrapolating the finding to the
They know that girls are
becoming everything from engineers to
entire nation based on the fact that what we
district collectors to badminton players, but
are looking at here is a stigma that is all
they also know that the only place where
pervasive in most rural belts of the country.
they are expected to display their dexterity is
During the course of my stay, I was pleased
the kitchen. It is this dichotomy in the
to find a sizeable proportion of girls
treatments meted out to them that has made
attending school in the village. The village
their well-being levels really low and has
had both primary and secondary education
instilled in them a deep pining for freedom,
available and the parents were quite
in the real sense.
comfortable in sending their daughters to
schools. All seemed right until I started
What lies at the heart of the issue is
interacting with girls of the age group 14
the fact that rural families still do not see
and above, some of whom were married
their daughter as bread winners. Although
also. There was a strong negativity in their
with time, they have realized that there is
attitude and their enthusiasm levels towards
little harm in educating the girls up to a
their present life were abysmally low. This
certain level, they neither encourage these
was rather surprising, given that none of
girls to pursue any higher education by
their families was facing absolute poverty. A
moving out of their villages nor do they give
further investigation revealed that these girls
in to any such demands made by their
were not to blame. They were like the birds
daughters. So, what can be the solution?
that had been taught to fly and then caged
Establishment of a degree college in each
for life. Their education had made them
village is obviously not a pragmatic option.
aware of the niceties that existed in the
So am I suggesting that we should not
outside world. However, since they still do
educate girls in villages at all? Not at all.
not hold any substantial decision making
This will be like stopping the watering of a
12
plant that was dying due to lack of sunlight.
The solution suggested above will
However, if education is to play its
obviously have its share of hindrances and
liberating role in case of girls in the villages
local inertia. To expect that a plan aiming to
of India, it has to be able to give them the
bring girls out of the boundaries of their
strength to assert their rights. One solution
households will get implemented smoothly
that can be suggested here is to provide
is only wishful thinking. Still, it is
vocational training to girls along with formal
imperative that this be done somehow so as
education. With gradual opening up of the
to enable these girls to live their education,
rural
and not just go through it. The inner thirst of
society
materialistic
and
their
aspirations,
increasing
are
the rural educated girl of India can be
generally not against their daughters taking
quenched only if she is given the chance to
up some income generating activity as long
implement
as they are not moving away from their
knowledge she has gained during her
villages.
Getting into such productive
schooling. Unless this is done, these girls are
activities will have a twin effect on the lives
likely to experience the bitter pinch of not
of these girls. One, by virtue of attaining
being able to live a life with personal liberty
some
that,
financial
families
independence,
their
and
according
experiment
to
their
with
books,
the
was
confidence levels will rise and secondly,
guaranteed to them under the Constitution of
they will be able to demonstrate their
India.
abilities outside the house to their respective
families. If more and more girls are able to
generate money for their families, we can
expect the household system to slowly
realize their productive potential and give
them their rightful share in terms of
opportunities as well.
13
The Days Gone By
The isolations are embracing me here again
The days gone by when “YOU” drifted in my mind,
Ignited a naïve susceptible by your charm
Passion permeated as a zest to achieve you in my life, only I ever wished;
Giving me strength to escalate with increased accent,
Stimulating devoid life of mine to a new height for being with you.
Those days gone are tucked somewhere in the past and now you are no more to be with
me.
Now the days are lived with a shattered heart and disguised feelings,
Creating a vacuum in the void space of my heart
Abdicating me again in the initial stage.
-Priyanka Toppo
14
DIVA FEMALE CONDOMS
The Marketers
Prateek Bhatia
Tarana Agrawal
Tanuj Sharma
Vinay Srivastava
Sumedha Hiraji
Swati Renduchintala
15
PHOTO CREDIT: NAMITA SIVASANKARAN
16
Naivedya Parakkal analyses the current model of education in India: challenges faced, its
flaws and impact along with throwing light upon probable solutions on one of the most
debated topics of our times.
Education for Development in India: Challenges of the Present Model
T
he crucial relationship between
education and development has long
been established. Development is
directly linked to achieving the goals of
improved human rights, a better environment,
good health, a creative culture and therefore a
better lifestyle. Even though economic growth
and government policies can contribute
towards achieving these goals, the one thing
that can empower people to make desirable
changes in the society and live a life of dignity
is education.
Knowledge Commission and the Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan are few of the initiatives introduced
by the central government over the years to
provide free education for all. Apart from this,
there have been various state legislations and
non-governmental organisations trying to
bridge the education gap.
However, the statistics have a different
story to say. India still has the largest illiterate
population in the world. The 2011 census
indicate that the decadal literacy growth from
2010-2011 has been slower than the previous
year. The dropout rate is over 52%. This
signifies an obvious disconnect between our
education policy and its implementation. In
this essay, the problem of the present
In India, there have been innumerable
legislations and initiatives to provide education
to the masses. The National Policy on
Education, the National Literacy Mission, the
Mid-Day Meal scheme, the National
17
education model that is hindering
development process is analysed.
our
The problem of providing quality education
Significance of Education for Development
It is evident from the salient features of the
RTE act that the main focus is on building
infrastructure, appointing teachers and
ensuring students enrolment. This alone will
not ensure that after 8 years of education, the
student will learn what needs to be learned. A
glance at the key findings of ASER 2011 will
give us an idea about how far off we are from
the goal of providing quality education to our
children.
Education is arguably the most important
means for development because of the
following as observed by UNESCO
1. It enhances earning capabilities
contributing to economic growth.
2. Improves nutrition and health and hence
life expectancy.
3. Increases political and social awareness.
4. Reduces fertility rates.
Therefore it is clear that education is the
key for decreasing the gap between our GDP
(4th in the world) and HDI (134th in the
world). Here is a thought which ought to
shake the present set of policy makers and
educators out of complacency about the way
we are going about our education policy. The
children who enter kindergarten this year
should ideally be ready to enter the job market
by 2026. The world is changing at such a rapid
pace that we are not sure how our lifestyle will
be in the next five years and yet we are
attempting to prepare these children for an
unknown future through education. Are we
going about it in the right way? Will at least
50% of the youth contribute to effective
human capital in 2026? If the Annual Survey
of Education Report (ASER 2011) and the
results of the Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA) are to be believed,
we are probably not on the right path.
· All India figure for the proportion of
standard 5 students who can read a standard 2
level textbook has gone down from 53.7% in
2010 to 48.2% in 2011.
· The proportion of standard 3 students
who can do a standard 2 subtraction problem
with borrowing has declined from 36.3% in
2010 to 29.9% in 2011.
It is interesting to compare the above
findings with that of the enrolment figures of
the country.
As per the ASER 2011, 96.7% of all 6-14
year olds in rural India are enrolled in school.
Does this mean that India is going to churn
out a large number of ‘literate’ illiterates? Are
we pretending to educate a whole generation
just to increase our literacy rates?
Role of teachers
Another key factor that we ignore in our
policies is the quality of the teachers. There is
an assumption in India that young people who
choose to be school teachers are underachievers who could not make it in any other
field or do not have the motivation to perform.
This is partly because teachers are never
involved in the policy making process. The
curriculum and teaching methods are predefined and teachers are only expected to
parrot out the information to the students.
There is no demand on their creative skills and
hence there is no motivation to excel.
The Right to Education Act came into effect
in April 2010 with the aim of ensuring free and
compulsory education for all children between
the age of 6 and 14. The RTE norms are meant
to bring about the much needed change in our
present education scenario, to bridge the gap
between economic and social development.
However, there are a number of problems
pertaining to the effectiveness of the
implementation of our education policies.
18
It is important to provide an incentive for
young motivated people who can bring about a
change to enter the teaching profession. This
can be done in 3 ways
· Actively involve the teachers in
curriculum formation.
· Teachers should be given flexibility to
decide the teaching methods and strategies.
· Better pay.
· All students should undergo basic
education that will provide them with
functional literacy and numeracy skills and
basic technological skills.
· Introduce vocational skills in school
including carpentry, painting, hair dressing,
tailoring to name a few. Music, art, dance,
drama and physical education should be given
importance in the curriculum and not as
activities that will not result in a productive
career. This will help the students to make a
smooth transition in high school and the
students, parents and teachers can make an
informed decision as to whether the student
should move towards a college education or
towards vocational training.
· The students should be trained in practical
life skills, basic hygiene and simple laws of the
country.
High dropout rates
According to the National Sample Survey
(NSS) 53rd round data, the reasons for dropout among children aged 5-14 years is as
follows
1. Child not interested in studies.
2. Parents not interested in studies.
3. Unable to cope.
4. To work for wage/salary.
5. Attend to domestic duties.
6. Financial constraints.
The first and third points have a direct link.
Most probably, the inability to cope is the
main reason why children are not interested in
studies. This can be attributed to our
standardized education system where all
students are expected to go through the same
curriculum irrespective of their aptitude and
interest. It is quite obvious that a student who
has a talent in sculpture or art for instance,
would not want to spend time learning about
the working of an electric motor. This is why
we need to move the curriculum of high
school to a more flexible platform. In his book,
‘Way beyond the Three Rs: India’s Education
challenge in the 21st century’, Mr YS Rajan has
discussed the dangers fraught by equating
equal opportunities to a uniform syllabus and
assuming that a child is as good as the marks
he/she gets. He has proposed a skill
development initiative to cater to the needs of
children of all aptitudes which involves
creating a curriculum that revolves around the
following salient points.
This skill development initiative might be
the solution for reducing the large number of
students who drop out of school primarily
because they are unable to cope with the
syllabus and eventually lose interest.
Conclusion
Finland has the highest ranking in the
Programme
for
International
Student
Assessment (PISA).
Finland is a high performing country and
complies with all international indicators of a
good education system including high
graduation rates, low dropout rates, equal
opportunities, moderate overall spending and
high student achievement.
In his April 2010 address at the Learning
with the World Conference, Pasi Sahlberg,
DirectorGeneral-CIMC, described how Finland
created the highest ranking education system
in the world. He compared the salient points of
the Global Education Reform Movement
(GERM) with the Finnish model.
19
Global Education Reform Movement
1. Focus on core subjects
2. Competition
3. Standardization
4. Test based accountability Control
policy makers to ponder over the possibility of
shifting gradually towards an education model
which would actually do what a good
education is meant to do-empower people for
better development.
India today is at the crux of a major
economic and social change. Our education
policy will decide whether we remain a
country with a large chunk of illiterates with
an uncertain future or whether we convert our
abundant population into talented human
capital which will propel our nation towards
higher growth and development.
Finnish Model
1. Breadth and creativity
2. Collaboration
3. Individualization
4. Trust based accountability
5. Autonomy
It is evident that in India we strictly follow
the GERM model and it has quite evidently not
helped us. It might be a good idea for the
20
Lisse Chocolate Wax Strips
The Marketers:
Sushant Bhatia
Abhinav Sharma
Daphne Alberqurque
Kriti Kaushal
Sunakshi Agarwal
Mridul Kumar Dhaniwala
21
22
Krishn Kant Sharma weaves a beautiful story of an impressionable mind and chaste conscience of a little
girl named Anu.
Inside a Little Mind
“Curiouser and Curiouser”, she recited her
favourite phrase from Alice in Wonderland.
One thing was clear to her now that if the
mug was sunk properly, that is vertically
then she had to put more effort to put it
deep. But the benefit was, by doing this the
size of the bubble, released by the water by
inverting the mug was also bigger. She
cautiously placed the mug again at the
bottom of the bucket and just before
inverting it closed her nostrils by one hand
and sunk her face into water with eyes open
to see the bubble coming up. But it was a
futile act. She was again unable to keep her
eyes open in water, and it had started
making her feel bad by now. Hopelessly she
put her hand in the bucket and started
making circles to create a small whirlpool
there. Miraculously the stirring brought an
idea; her goggles, which she had received as
a birthday present, could be of use now. A
broad smile appeared on her face. She stood
up and ran towards her room to get them.
Looking for them in her treasured box of
toys she wondered why hadn’t this idea
struck her before. Anyway, now the problem
was solved, she thought, and drew her
goggles out from their case and rushed again
to the bathroom. Her mother was standing in
the hallway holding her younger brother,
patting softly on his back.
23
“Anu, what are you doing with the goggles?
Come on, get ready quickly, Papa will be
coming anytime. We have to go to the
temple”, said her mother.
stupid. Really, who cries for milk and other
trivial things like he does?
On the way to the temple she sat in the back
seat of the car holding Shaan in her lap, and
the tax borne for all the luxury by the little
boy was that he had to learn how to spell her
name. He seemed disenchanted by this
endeavour and just kept staring with his eyes
wide open. It was an audacious gesture and
she didn’t like it. She lifted him up and
handed him to her mother who was sitting in
the front seat. But the boy was stoic like a
saint, and even this punishment failed to
break his concentration, the only thing it
changed was that, now he was staring at his
mother. It made Anu a little agitated and she
started looking out of the window. It had
started raining outside.
“But Mamma, I’ve not taken bath yet”, she
replied.
“WHAT! Then what were you doing in the
bathroom for half an hour? Now don’t tell
me that you were playing even in there!” her
mother shouted.
It always confused her, what reply did her
mother expect. She put the goggles right
there and started moving towards the
bathroom. Apparently, her wish to amaze
her classmates by revealing how a bubble
looks like in water had blown up.
Rajat and his wife Sonal, both doctors, had
moved in, in this small town two years ago,
attracted by a less hectic schedule of a newly
opened medical college’s professor. Both
had applied for the job, and were selected by
the board for the current batch. Their seven
year old daughter Anu had readily adapted
to this new environment, and with her warm
and curious behaviour made many friends.
Her younger brother was born six months
ago. She did not like him initially, because
he always kept crying in her arms, and,
moreover, she thought his name, Shaan, was
better than hers. Gradually she started liking
him. He had accepted her as someone close,
and did not cry much when she was around,
except for the times when she forcibly tried
to open his fist, which, for some unknown
reason, he always kept closed, or when she
tapped his cheeks while he was asleep.
Frankly, sometimes she thought he was
In next ten minutes they were at the temple.
Rajat parked the car nearest to the gate so
that they avoid getting wet while stepping
out to go inside the temple. Anu always
liked this temple. It had large pillars and a
big corridor where she could run and play
while her mother offered prayers. After
today’s prayers her mother gave her a silver
coin to drop in the donation box. It was a
beautifully minted piece, on one side it had
the details of weight and all which was not
at all appealing to her but the other side had
a small elephant carved on it. The coin was
of a type she had never seen before. It had a
peculiar shine which was different compared
to other ordinary coins. She flipped it for
some time then told her mother“Mamma, I want this coin.”
“No dear, it’s for offering. Drop it there; I’ll
get you another one.”
24
“But I’ve never seen a coin like this, and I
want this one only.”
She kept silent for some time and then
spoke again.
“Anu listen, this coin we are offering here is
for your brother’s wellbeing. I told you, I’ll
get another one for you, no? And if you drop
it there, on our way home I’ll get you two
balloons. Okay?”
“But why?”
“He had a little fever, dear”, he replied.
She kept mum again for some time. And
then she sat on a chair next to him, looking
at him reading the magazine, and waited for
him to finish. But when he did not look at
her for quite a while, she leaned on the table
and said, “But I don’t understand Papa. You
are a doctor, Mamma also is a doctor then
why do you need to take him to the hospital
in the first place? I don’t remember you
taking me to the hospital ever.” She asked
plainly while pouting her lips and with a rare
sincere look in her eyes which he could not
decipher was because of some guilt or sheer
apathy, and it all made the appearance of her
countenance too convincing to ignore and
uncannily intriguing to deserve an answer as
sincere as the question was.
Though she didn’t believe her mother but a
fairly good possibility of getting one and a
surety to get two balloons seemed a good
bargain. She pondered over it for a while
and then moved towards the donation box.
Back at home, she put her earned balloons in
her room, ate her breakfast and went to
school. When she returned in the afternoon,
she was not in a good mood. Usually when
she returned from school, she would go to
Shaan’s little bed, and play with him for
some time, but today she didn’t feel like
doing that. She was still feeling bad for her
failed effort of seeing a bubble inside water
and Shaan’s noncompliance to learn to spell
her name made it worse. She put her bag on
her desk, and went to sleep. When she woke
up, it was evening. She looked at the two
balloons, which were touching the ceiling.
She stood up, and jumped to catch the thread
they were attached to. The balloons had
become quite smaller than they were in the
morning, and were not even that bright now.
He stood up, put his hands lightly on her
shoulders and spoke in his most affectionate
but sincere voice. “No sweetie, we did take
you to the hospital many times. The thing is
you don’t remember it because you were too
young then like Shaan is now. And he has
got little fever, so it is better to not take risks
and admit him till he recuperates, right?
What do you think?”
In the living room Rajat was reading some
magazine. She went to Shaan’s bed but he
was not there. She came back to the living
room and asked Rajat-
But this response only made her feel even
worse. The earlier unresolved look had now
fully culminated into an expression of guilt.
“It is because of me, isn’t it? I never listen to
you. I have never been good to him either.”
Her voice trembled at the last words and she
started sobbing.
“Papa, where is Shaan?”
“Your mom has taken him to the hospital.”
Rajat replied without looking at her.
25
She must have realized that by asking why
they took Shaan to the hospital and not her,
she was being selfish, and she was feeling
guilty because she didn’t care for her
brother, Rajat thought. He lifted her up in
his hands, patted on her back slowly and
said -
recalling the road, but all her smart attention
and meticulous planning had skipped one
important thing. She realized later that after
all she was following the school bus’ path
and the school bus takes a longer path than
needed, and the time 45 minutes was going
to be too little now. She started panicking at
this thought. The sun was shining brightly
above her head, and to make things worse
she had not taken her lunch. She started
feeling weak and in little time her steps
became smaller and slower. She had walked
for around 30 minutes, and managed to
reach the circle of the 3 women statue. She
had made a very wrong decision she had
understood. She started feeling a bit dizzy
with every step, and after walking some 10
more steps fell down on the pavement.
“Don’t cry dear. You are a big girl now,
aren’t you? What will Shaan say if he knows
you cried like this? ”
In the night she was until late. She had
planned it all and was fairly convinced now.
She could remember all the turns and roads.
First turn left from that circle which has a
statue of 3 women having some sort of pots
in their hands and continuously pouring
water from them. And at the next circle
there was nothing but traffic lights and she
had to take one left from there too. And then
the road was straight from there. But the
problem was, what she remembered was the
way if she started from home. If she starts
from school, according to her plan, then she
would have to first reach that first circle
with a statue of 3 women. This path she was
unable to recall exactly, as she had mostly
travelled in school bus on this road.
Moreover the recess was of 45 minutes
duration only, and if she started having her
lunch then she might not be able to come
back to school on time, and the teachers
would call her father. So, she decided to skip
her lunch too. Problems were many, but she
was determined and wanted to execute her
plan.
The recess ending bell rang and the teacher
found Anu missing from the class. She
immediately informed the principal. They
looked for her in the school for some time
and then called Rajat informing Anu was
missing from school.
This news shocked both Rajat and Sonal,
who were in the hospital. Rajat rushed to
their home to see if she was there. A chill
ran down his spine, when he did not find her
home. He thought of all the possible places
where she could go, and then his cell-phone
rang. It was a call from a resident in his
college,
who
visited
their
home
occasionally. He said he had found Anu on
the temple road, in an unconscious state. She
had fainted, and he was bringing her to the
hospital with him. Rajat thanked him many
times and rushed back to the hospital. They
laid her down on a bed near Shaan, and
began to instil glucose. The doctor in charge
She waited eagerly for recess bell to ring,
and at the first sound of it, moved out of the
classroom taking speedy steps. Out of the
school she maintained her pace. She started
26
comforted Sonal, who wouldn’t stop crying.
Anu was fine and would regain
consciousness in half an hour.
Later, both the doctor in charge and the
resident left the room, leaving the family
inside. Rajat was wondering why Anu had
left school. She had never done it before,
and, in fact enjoyed being at school. Then
the resident came in again and said, “Sir, I
forgot to tell you, I found this in her hands.”
He handed him over a silver coin. It had a
beautifully carved elephant on one side of it.
“Children are like wet cement. Whatever
falls on them makes an impression.”
~ Dr. Haim Ginott
27
आज े सोचते ह,
क कल कु
और पा
ल तो सोची ह एक
न जाने कहाूँ जा
ल
ह को कु
ेरे ी कु
ल
े|
े|
ाब ह,
क तला ह|
क ी चाहती हूँ ह ा के सा बह जा
पर क ी ल ता ह ह तो सब करते ह|
इस
ल चाहता ह
सा कु
ा
ास ह?
ु हो जहाूँ सब,
कर जा ?
ी को जाने से पहले
एक ु कुराता हुआ सला
-
28
े जा |
NATURAL WATER COOLER
THE MARKETERS
Swapnil Agarwal
Surbhi Sood
Shweta Garg
Yathartha Dave
Siddharth Shankar
Dhruv Narang
29
30
Utsav Agarwal compares a myriad of brands to extract important observations on what makes a
brand work.
Old Wine New Bottle
E
ver imagined a person buying
a 25 year old case of ROYAL
STAG whisky for a premium, a person
buying WAGH BAKRI Earl Grey tea or
another one going for BRITANNIA’S
chocolate chip biscuits? Possible but
highly unlikely. Why is such a scenario
so difficult to imagine? Because when a
company launches a product in the
market it targets a particular segment.
After identifying the segment the
company channels all its energies to that
particular segment to reap maximum
benefits. With the marketing campaign
the company attaches an identity to that
product. People start identifying the
product from the marketing campaign
carefully spun around them. They
differentiate it from other products
available in the market.
I would like to ask another question.
Would you buy an ultra-luxury sedan
offering all the features of a ROLLS
ROYCE with the badge of MARUTI
SUZUKI even at half the price? Majority
of us would not even blink before
answering this. Forget this one. How
many would buy a 1000 cc superbike if
the bike would sport a badge of
MAHINDRA? I think we all know the
answer to this question as well. It takes
decades for a company to build the kind
of brand value and identification Rolls
Royce created for its cars.
31
Let us talk about one of the grandest
failures in Indian automotive industry.
This car gained international acclaim by
winning the ‘Most Beautiful Automobile’
award at the Milan Auto Show and ‘Best
Small Car’ at the UK Motor show.
Winner of 12 international and national
awards, the most ever by any small car, it
captured the entire nation’s imagination
upon its launch. Economic recession in
the parent country and operations failure
dealt a severe blow to the car
manufacturer and the car faded in
oblivion. The remains of the company
were bought by an American major and
the car was re-launched all over the
world including India. After rebranding
and a facelift, the car clocked astonishing
sales and helped the new manufacturers
of the car to establish a foothold in the
fiercely competitive auto sector. The
name of the car is CHEVROLET SPARK.
This car changed the fortunes of
GENERAL MOTORS in India.
things right. First and foremost was to
position the car in the same segment.
The marketing campaign focussed on the
youngsters and the middle class. No
fancy words, just a cool car with a great
design and a very attractive price. The car
was available in the price range of INR
3,00,000 in the year 2000 and 2012 as
well.
Vespa has launched an entirely different
product with the same brand name.
What image comes to your mind when
someone says Vespa? I am sure many
would be able to recall that curvaceous
model which looked far better than the
scooters available at that time. We would
also recall that the scooter was affordable
and was a routine sight on the Indian
roads. Now Vespa has launched a
premium product in the Indian market.
It costs upwards of INR 65,000. You can
buy premium bikes for such an
exorbitant sum. The price of a standard
LML Vespa used to be in the vicinity of
INR 35,000. Can they justify this price in
the psyche of an average Indian with the
same brand name? The brand name
which gave this product an aura of
affordability right from the time its first
scooter rolled out in the market from
their stable. Yes, the brand name of
Vespa has instant recognition in the
market. It is a tried and tested brand. But
it remains to be seen whether people will
buy a premium product from a company
synonymous with affordability and the
common man in mind.
An iconic scooter brand that captured the
imagination of millions worldwide,
darling of the masses in India, had the
rug pulled off from beneath in the late
nineties. There was a time when you had
to book a unit, months in advance. The
consumer shift from scooters to
motorbikes at that time did the
maximum damage. Year 2012, this
scooter is again available for sale in the
Indian market. Re-branding and repositioning couldn’t revive the fortunes
of the scooter. The scooter I am talking
about is LML VESPA.
It is still very early to write off the
product. But perception is the key in the
Indian market. Many a company have
failed in front of lesser mortals due to
faulty perception.
Do we see a pattern emerging? No. But
why did a car succeed in re-establishing
itself but a scooter did not? Is the answer
simple? Yes.
When General Motors re-launched the
Daewoo Matiz in India, they did a few
32
Neha Durga talks about her first love- Physics and her newly found love- CAC. Her article makes
for an amusing read on a lover’s dilemma.
Physics and CAC
has been
Physics
favourite
subject,
my
as
Namita says, since bazillion years. If you
allow me to exaggerate a bit, even before
big bang happened. It is one subject
which gives the explanation for existence
of atoms at one instance through
quantum physics and galaxies at other
instance through astrophysics. Hence, it
is omnipresent. In fact some terms of
Physics are widely accepted in English
language to explain some situational
expressions like gravity of situation,
momentum in the action etc. I wonder
whether Physics gave birth to these
words and English adopted it or is it vice
versa. By now you must have figured out
that I am a true lover of ‘Physics’. I could
have comfortably accepted my love until
CAC came into my life. By CAC, I mean
Collective Action and Cooperation,
taught by Prof. Sony Pellissery. I don’t
know if it is the subject or the way he
taught. People say love happens once in a
lifetime but it struck me again, this time
it was CAC. This is not a universal
subject like Physics and is not taught at
most of the places but is tailor made for
IRMA. CAC teaches why people come
together or fall apart, how to bring
people together and how to break them. I
was about to commit myself to CAC but
it’s not always easy to dump your first
love and move on with the next even
33
though you believe the second one to be
your soul mate. Since I am an extremely
committed person, it was very difficult
for me to move on and I decided to
think.
placed in Electric Field, it gets charged
and becomes capable to do work. The
point to notice here is that, though the
work done is by an object but the
capacity was provided by the electric
field. All of us know that it is not the
object which is important but the electric
field. Very simply yet beautifully it
explains the idea of corruption and
cheating. Electric Field represents the
inefficiencies in system, in rules and
regulations and in policies. The lacunae
left to facilitate the creation of loopholes.
These loopholes in the system enable the
people to undertake undesirable work or
indulge in corrupt activities. Removing
or changing the person from powerful
position so as to avoid corruption is not
the solution to the problem; it is like
removing the object from the electric
field. Next object kept in the field, would
again be charged. Hence the problem is
the field dynamics that is rules &
regulations, policies, governance issues.
Until the structure changes, the policy
reforms would not be done and not
much would be achieved. So, physics was
able to explain this grave issue too. I was
confused and still am as to who is my
true love – Physics or CAC?
I thoughtfully decided to
understand collective action from
Physics’ point of view. I know it is quiet
weird to see Physics from the frame of
reference of sociology (a universally
accepted subject from which CAC is
derived and customized). But I realized
that one can actually explain many things
in sociology with the help of physics. For
instance Newton’s first law explains the
concept of inertia. So relevant it is with
respect to the society. All societies,
communities have inertia to change.
They remain in their position until some
force is applied. Newton’s second law
states that if force is applied on a body
with certain mass, it results in
acceleration. Force applied is directly
proportional to the mass of the body and
the acceleration produced. It is
magnificently true for a society. If one
wants to bring any change in the society,
the size of the society and the degree of
the change would decide the force
required. Let’s move on from Newton to
Faraday and from laws of motion to
electric field. We know that if an object is
34
And quietly flows the river
Based on an experience at Narmada Bachao Andolan, Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh
“The Road Less Travelled by Made
All The Difference”, I knew,
And hence,
And yet unheard of!
One and half moments of Wisdom
and perhaps a few
Ounces of Imagination took me there,
A story of a river, the way it had been,
The birth of its valleys it had seen,
Life blooming from its very womb,
A rabbit out of the magicians’ hat!
POP!
Less travelled and perhaps lesser
known, where,
Stars canopied the Night; the Horizon
was the Fence,
To the never –ending Sky.
Is all it took? Is it that simple?
When human malice, decided to
impregnate,
The sanctity of its virgin aqua
chalice!
The
Narmada
beckoning,
a
movement calling,
1am, 13th July on That Railway
Station, I knew was a Moments
Reckoning!
And miles of concrete monsters
Stamped their feet on the waters,
Life hiccupped, and choked!
As if Satan had written the suffering
himself
Before he would decide to poke
The Poison Dart of Death....
Careless winds, the weather was
busy,
Spells Of Rains, Bouts of Spotless
Sunshine,
Blessed we were and I don’t know
why!
Lives were been taken in the choicest
way,
Suck the soul out; leave the lifeless
lump called body
So that thou know not may,
It was overwhelming, to be among
The most inspiring people, to be a
part
Of India’s Biggest Movement since
1947,
It hits you then, life is not an appletart!
Take away the farmers, his land
The workers, his work
The women, her home
And let them be, what difference it
makes
After all, the soul has been traded,
Weighed on the scale of fairness
against
Green currency, all RBI graded!
Ten People who were living,
Living to make ten million lives
worth living
Truth is scarier than fiction,
Putting some sense into this
amalgamation of absurd diction!
Let me tell you a story, repeated
endlessly from silent mouths,
Where the power of the gun had been
used!
35
To usurp a town, pull out the very
roots,
Curse be on you man!
Your name will be part of history’s
hall of defame,
In crass, dark, black and sticky soot!
Let’s give NARMADA back, all and
more...
Of her lost sheen
The Battle horn had sounded twentyone years ago, small wars continue
There is no end; a beginning is what
every day ensures
The Mountains Stay, So does the
green,
The Farmers stay, so does the
Mother,
Alas! The evil rarely knows,
That he is the one who always bows,
A spark was all it took, to spread the
wildfire
To every corner and every nook.
The power of knowledge showed its
might,
People now knew the difference,
The wrong from the right,
A chord had been touched, five
fingers had closed
To make a million fists,
All ready to fight!
They all live, today,
To see the light of tomorrow
To commit suicide
And again survive!
And quietly flows The NARMADA,
Silently among her own.
Waging her war, flowing ahead
Ever strong!
The Light of Justice had finally risen,
The sun of hope, the valley had
finally seen,
A Common Song Could be heard in
the hills,
-Mridul Kumar Dhaniwala
36
जब स
पर परे ा न
तु
तेरे चेहरे पे
और त हा हो |
ा का
सा
त हो,
और स ा
हलक
ह ाना चाहता हूँ |
चेहरे से तेरे,
पर चुपके से |
कहने के बहाने
चुपके से जब स
तु हे े ता रहूँ,
तु और त हा हो |
और तेर पलक
ेर न रो से
लकर
ा का
क
ु जाती ह |
क
नाका को
को
बस आज
हर बार
क
न र आती ह |
उन सल
ु ल र नी
नहा हो |
कु
के सल
त हो
और स ा
हलक
पाने क क
ु ल र नी
नहा हो ….
े करती हो तु ,
"
37
"
आ क ताप से लोहे क
ार से
ल सको े ु से रह न चुपचाप ूँ
हसा के ार से लालच क लार से
बनी हूँ
स
पहचान ह
ेरे
ा ेर
ा ह
पर सुन पा
े
पा
े
ा ो
े
ा तु
े सच
े ेर आूँ
ब रता सा े तु हारा ह
सहती हो
और
र ा
कहके क ह ारा
तु ने क ा ह
ा तान ह
ुबान ह
ुलस जाते हो
ता
केले
कान ह
े हो ी
र ती हूँ
ल
ु के नाच सकती हूँ
के
ा ेरे चेहरे के तेज से
ूँ नह तु हे
ह कार क ब ल
ूँ च
ा बन
े हो तु
े हो तु
ले लूँ ी हक ह जो ेरा आज नह तो कल
उ ा
क
-
के पी े बाूँ
े ते हो
तो ब ा
ा ह े हालत
ी चलती ूँ
रते हो ु े ूँ सा ने े
रा ज बा तो ज ा
ूँ
रब
सब कर सकती हूँ
से
तु कहते तो हो आ ा
ल
ु के
नह चा हए सहारा ता त
ेरे ना ह
कहूँ तो कहने को ूँ तो एक पर
ी के लए पर
नह बात करो
तो जह हो ी
इस न न ु न ा े
ा ेरा ा ह
बह और ा
र ह हालत से कु
ा
के ार से
ा ेरा का और
बे
क
ूँ
38
ला लेना ु से
ेरे सा जो पाए तु चल
MELO SUNSCREEN
THE MARKETERS:
Pavan Kumar Chengalvala
Ankita Sirohi
Anshul Malik
Prerna Rana
Geeta Singhal
Sneh Prabha
39
40
Utsav Agarwal and Ashima Agrawal have a candid interview with Professor Hitesh Bhatt. Here are
some excerpts from the same.
Rendezvous with Professor Hitesh Bhatt
O
n a beautiful afternoon we had the
pleasure of interviewing Professor
Hitesh Bhatt for Terra Firma. Mildmannered,
frank
and
a
great
conversationalist he is an interviewer’s
delight. What transpired further was not
an interview but a great conversation,
worthy of a full-fledged article and the
only thing missing was a cup of tea,
which hopefully will accompany us some
other day.
Program in Management (FDPM) at IIM
Ahmedabad in the year 2007.
What we think
Shubham disagrees completely and
acknowledges that he is the most active
professor he has come across.
Throw a challenge and bring out the best
in him.
Professors at IIM A were very sceptical
about enrolling Prof. Hitesh Bhatt for the
Faculty Development Program in
Management (FDPM) as the next guy in
the batch was 25 years younger to him.
Ultimately, he got one of the best grades
in the entire class of some 28.
On his being a Professor at IRMA.
He thinks he is a very lousy teacher. To
become a better teacher, he enrolled
himself for the Faculty Development
41
The secret behind his success? Well he
frankly admits his competitive streak
enabled him to put in that extra effort.
When everyone slept at 1 am in the
morning after completing their daily
readings and assignments he slept at 2.30
am. Likewise when his batch mates woke
up at 7 am he woke up at 5.30 am.
What we think
What we think
Does the change in value system bother
him?
It is a continuous process and even if one
batch breaks the tradition the whole
process is derailed. We believe that it is a
collective responsibility and it is high
time that we take initiatives to increase
such interaction.
We can learn a lot from him. The extraordinary spirit displayed by the Professor
is testimony of his belief in striving
towards excellence.
He says of course it does. “Today less
number of students prepare for the
classes. Earlier participants felt sorry if
they turned up unprepared. But now they
don’t even feel guilty about it. “Today, if
my class comes less prepared, trust me I
can do my job with far less effort”. This
is likely to make me a less prepared
teacher in times to come. After a few
years some smart chaps will come and
probably say that this guy doesn’t know
anything.”
What are his views on the current
dynamics
of
student-teacher
relationship?
When he joined IRMA in 1995 he
advised 3-4 participants. And he fondly
remembers those days when they joined
him for a cup of coffee or at times even
for dinner, at his home. They knew each
other personally and shared a very
cordial relationship. Some of them are
still in touch with him.
What are your ideas of secret behind
anyone’s success?
He says for anyone to be successful in
this world, one must have at least three
qualities- ability to put in a lot of hard
work, develop goal clarity and be able to
take the right steps, when time comes.
After joining again in 2010, none of his
advisees responded to his mail which he
sent every year to invite them for a
personal interaction session. Taking a
cue from this, this year, he discontinued
the practice altogether.
He adds that he does not like the word
‘general manager’, one should rather
strive and deserve to be called ‘general
leader’. “Today everyone is concerned
about tackling people. For God’s sake
never tackle people. Tackle issues. “
He adds that there were people like Prof.
Balaji, Prof. Sriram and many others who
engaged participants till the wee hours in
mess lawns for intense discussions and
then some of them would also conduct a
quiz the very next morning. But the
participants took this brutal assault
sportingly and still remember those days
fondly.
Reaction on being compared to Clint
Eastwood by the PRM 33 batch.
“Oh my God! This is news to me – please
tell me which one - the one in ‘The
Good, Bad & Ugly’ of 1967 or the one in
the ‘Gran Torino’ of 2008”?
42
Sunandan Madan shares his interesting experiences and observations from his field-work. He
identifies subtle yet important issues in the rural life of Uttarakhand and proposes some very
innovative interventions that set your mind stirring.
My Fieldwork Experiences
learning is a completely
Practical
different
paradigm
from
very difficult to pass on any
information to all the households.
Roads become so slippery and
inaccessible during the winters and
the
monsoon
that
remote
households had to buy all essential
commodities in bulk.
classroom learning and has a different
value altogether. This was what I,
Sunandan Madan, and Swapnil Agarwal
realized during our two month fieldwork
segment in CHIRAG (Central Himalaya
Rural Action Group), Uttarakhand. Some
of the challenges which we came across,
which were consistency faced by the local
population, were:
2. Very few job opportunities for the
rural youth: Most of them migrate
to nearby industrial towns like
Rudarpur in search of a better
lifestyle and job opportunities.
1. Scattered households and difficult
terrain : Households were scattered
and it’s very difficult to go from one
household to another because of
the difficult terrain. It thus becomes
3. Scarcity of water: The only source
of water for the entire region is
rainfall, which has been severely
43
impacted by climate change. Now
the number of days with rainfall has
decreased and it has become much
more unpredictable. Most of the
rain water runs down the hill and
flows into the river. Very little rain
water harvesting is adopted in the
region. Natural sources of water get
dried up in the summer and people
have to travel a lot to fetch water,
spending close to 2 hours daily just
of fetching drinking water from the
nearest source. You can imagine
how these people will feed their
livestock which require close to 2025 litres of water per day.
4. Declining agriculture productivity:
There is lack of agriculture-related
information in a timely manner to
the farmers and a simultaneous
decline in productivity due to
climate change.
5. Poor Sanitation facilities: We found
some instances like people not
bathing for weeks, using the same
plastic mug for bathing as well as
the toilet; women above the age of
30 not using sanitary napkins and
instead using dirty clothes or
nothing at all mainly because of
high cost and lack of awareness.
6. Frequent forest fires: Pine trees
shed their leaves at the end of the
winter season. These leaves, also
known as pine needles, cover the
entire forest and thus prevent water
seepage during monsoon. Also pine
needles are highly inflammable and
as a result, they cause forest fires
during summer thus destroying
new vegetation. They also make the
soil acidic thus inhibiting the
growth of other species.
7. Women overburden with work:
They do all the household work,
feed and milk the animals, help at
the farms, bring fodder from the
farms, bring fuel wood from the
forest, along with taking care of the
family.
8. Decline in availability of fuel wood:
Women have to go deep into the
forest to collect fuel wood. They
generally carry 30-40 kgs of wood
on their head at a time and travel
up to a distance of 3-4 km on a
difficult terrain. It takes them 5-6
hours each time they go to collect
wood, and this much amount of
wood lasts 3 days.
These are only some of the key issues
which we observed through our transect
walks and interactions. After seeing so
many challenges, some of which we felt
needs to be addressed, on an urgent basis,
we decided to complete our RAC (Rural
Action Component) in finding alternate
livelihood opportunities in the region. We
decided not to take the RAC themes
related to collecting data or simply
interviewing people, because we wanted
whatever we do to result in something
actionable and address the above
mentioned challenges and generate
livelihood. After deliberation and analysis,
we proposed 5-6 different challenges to the
Executive Director which we would have
liked to work upon under the RAC. These
were:
1. Setting up a Low cost sanitary
napkin plant in the village, promote
and sell the pads through SHG.
44
2. Using pine needles to make
briquettes which could be used as a
replacement for fuel wood.
3. Hand Washing campaigns and low
cost herbal soaps.
4. Build forward and backward market
linkages for organic produce in the
region.
5. Finding better market for the herbs
produced in the region.
6. Setting up a SMS/Voice based
health reminder service.
The idea of setting up sanitary
making unit did not get a good response
either from the director because the NGO
has once tried it in the past but it ran into
huge losses because of unsold inventory.
Women didn’t buy the pads because of
poor quality.
So we worked on two projects
namely in which we fabricated a low-cost
briquetting machine costing around Rs 150
using a MIT open source technology for
making briquettes out of pine needles. In
this grinded pine needles are mixed with a
binder (cow dung) and some water to
prepare a mixture. This mixture is then
compressed in the briquetting machine
through mechanical pressure and then,
sun dried to form briquettes. These
briquettes can then be used as a
replacement to wood fuel. We also created
a business model around it which provides
livelihood opportunity to rural women,
apart from meeting their household fuel
requirements, wherein they can sell the
extra briquettes through SHGs. The
proposed model was decentralized,
scalable, cost effective and gave power in
the hands of women. We felt it was easy to
understand and replicate, and that it fitted
easily into the tight daily schedule of the
women.
After discussing with the Executive
Director over each of the ideas he gave us a
very good insight which we will remember
for the rest of our life. He told us to first
build the sales channel, and then look after
the production. If the sales channel
(forward market linkage) is strong, then
production is rarely an issue. Because of
this, we dropped the idea of making low
cost herbal soaps since the cost of making
the soap was coming out to be very high.
For selling it to the urban upper middle
class, we needed a strong market linkage
and sales channel which we couldn’t work
on due to the time constraint. Cost of
production was very high because, except
the herbs, all the other raw material like
oils, solutions, acids, packaging, etc. had to
be brought in from the plains.
45
46
Simultaneously, we also started
working on another idea in which we
proposed sending voice-based general
reminders (employment news, PDS
distribution dates, etc.) and health
reminders to fill the major existing
information gaps. The members found
certain
instances where
information
asymmetry had a large negative impact
on farmers' incomes. For example, in a
village in Uttarakhand, the NGO generally
asks its farmers to bring medicinal herbs.
But such orders were generally on a
short notice. The hilly terrain prevented
the necessary
information
(quantity
required, rate, venue etc.) to be
communicated to all the villagers, which
generally resulted in loss of additional
source of livelihood. As another
example, it was also observed that the
designated Accredited Social Health
Activists (ASHA) worker in a village did
not show either the expected level of
competence, or the requisite level of proactiveness. This was especially observed in
the case of reminding expecting mothers of
the vaccinations that they were scheduled
to take, and also ensuring that they take
the scheduled
vaccination when the
Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife(ANM) comes
for delivering the vaccinations. The same
is true for giving vaccinations to children
from 0-3 years of age. Further, due to high
rates of illiteracy and extremely pervasive
information and awareness gaps,
the
villagers and the expecting and new
mothers rarely seek these vaccinations
by themselves. This has a negative impact
on the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), and
besides that, doesn't give the child the
protection required to allow him or her to
develop fully. This has a long-term
impact on how much the child can
reach his or her potential and whether
or not they can come out of the
poverty trap which is created by poor
health, which in turn, is a direct
consequence of poor ante-natal and postnatal care. We then studied some
existing models that address the above
mentioned challenges. Through some
secondary research, we came to know
that there are lots of organizations that
send SMS based reminders but SMS has
some serious limitation which prevents
its reach to a large customer base like
difficulty in reading sms because of rural
people being uneducated, limited size of
the message (160 characters only), local
language not supported by the low end
phones.
Also we came across some
Government and Private initiatives
spreading information through both SMS
and voice based reminders but they were
mostly developed for in-house and
program-specific
use,
lacked
in
scalability potential and flexibility and
also weren't portable enough to be
adapted
by
other
implementing
agencies. So we wanted to build a
common tool which can be used by all
the
NGO’s/Development
Sector
Organization/Government
Organization
for delivering timely information ( market
rates of herbs, vaccination reminders,
upcoming dental check up camp etc)
to a selected group of users (villagers).
Thus
we
propose
using
IVRS
technology to send voice based general
and health reminders in order to fill
the information gap. Voice based
reminders overcome all the limitation
encountered during SMS since now people
47
will be receiving information just like
normal phone calls. Further, the sender
can record the voice message in his
own language/local dialect and large
information can be communicated in a 60
sec pulse. IVRS is the way ahead as mobile
phones have deep penetration in rural
areas and the information can be
disseminated in a fast and hassle free
manner.
health sector we are providing them with
an interface which enables them to
feed the data related to the due dates
of expecting mothers and birth dates of
children
who
should
be
given
vaccinations. Based on the information
provided the system will automatically
generate schedule for the expecting mother
and new born child and will automatically
send the pre-recorded
voice reminders
and it will also provide the ASHA
workers with the detailed schedule of
children who are to receive vaccination.
Our target market is the rural
sector in which 65% of the population
lives. In rural India, IVRS technology
complements the demand of the
development sector wherein they operate
in remote areas where reaching personally
to the various beneficiaries can prove to be
difficult and costly for an NGO. As far as
the size of our target market is concerned
it is quite substantial because a large
chunk of the many grass-root NGOs
deals with imparting timely information
to their beneficiaries which is used by
them to make informed and prompt
decisions. Our target customers are the
NGO’s working in different sectors,
development sector organizations and
other relevant Government organization
(E.g.: State Rural livelihood Promotion
Department, NRHM, State Government
hospitals etc). The proposed system
allows for a filtering option where in
the operator can send the voice
message to any number of villagers after
applying multiple filters (E.g.: Age,
Education, Sex, Occupation etc). In this
way they can ensure their message
reaches the target audience in a more
efficient and cost effective manner. Also, as
a key feature, for an NGO operating in
We are currently developing the
system and trying to cross subsidize the
cost of its operations by launching a
similar service in urban areas wherein we
would be sending health reminders in SMS
format and the revenue earned from their
will be diverted to the rural model.
I would like to end this article by
describing two common proverbs of the
region:
Surya ast to pahadi mast, which symbolizes
the issue of widespread alcoholism.
Pahad ka pani aur uski jawani kabhi kisi
ke kaam nahi aati - The first half means
that the rain water flows down to the
plains and thus is never available to the
people living in the hilly region. The
second half tells us that the migration of
youth to plain areas in search of better
lifestyle and job opportunities is actually
detrimental to the village's development.
48
49
50
Sai Pramodh Avutapalli writes about his passion for football and reveals the lifestyle of football
aficionados at IRMA.
Football Crazy IRMA
through the week, on and off the pitch.
It is like an addiction. It brings in love,
hate,
passion,
enjoyment,
disappointment and every emotion you
can think of.
I
t is into the second minute of
extra time, the supporters of
Manchester United are on the edge of
their seats while the Neutrals are having
the time of their lives. And then
it’s a cross from Giggs and Rooney scores
it. Another beauty from Manchester
United, they've won it again in the
death!!"
Manchester
United,
Chelsea,
Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City are
the football club names heard frequently
by everyone. They are heard so much so
that very few would be unaware of them
(non-football fans included!). The
college has numerous football fanatics
supporting various teams and has the
right kind of footballing environment
needed for football ADDICTION, Yes it is
an addiction. So much so that people at
times, to watch the complete 90 minutes
I was shouting at the top of my
voice and it was when my perplexed
neighbour, who woke me up that I got
to know I was reliving the memories of
the match last night! Such is the magic
of football; it grips you to the game all
51
live match, stay awake until 4 a.m.
totally unworried about the classes the
very day. Matches are mostly played on
weekends, but the fans bear an equal
amount of tension as that of the players,
perhaps even more!
everyone shouting in excitement at the
top
of their
voices that
echo in
the nearby hostel, while the
rival fans shake their heads in disbelief.
At the
end
of the final
whistle, all the fans of the winning club
jump with joy, congratulating each other,
and taunting the rival fans. A fight
would have ensued elsewhere, but here,
people take it in their stride. But the end
of the match is only the end of a battle.
The war for ’the best team' goes on until
the year ends. In the meantime, between
matches, fans read football news, keep
themselves updated about their club and
gear up for the next weekend, for another
crunching football match in this football
‘crazy’ campus.
And then in the lead up to the
match day there is an air of excitement
on what the strategy would be, the
starting line ups, and the score line
prediction. The atmosphere during the
match day in the T.V. room is just the
replica of the atmosphere at the
stadium. The kick-off approaches fast
and the fans start praying for their
club to win. People are glued to the TV
and soon, abuses start being showered at
the opponent players. They are jeered
(just like in the stadium) and every touch
by the players of their club calls for an
applause. If a goal is scored, frenzy
breaks out in the T.V. room with
52
Nidhi Bansal sums up the life at IRMA in a capsule. Her article has been earlier published in the
CSR magazine.
Life at IRMA
I
nstitute
of
Rural
Management located in
Anand
is
a
unique
institution for its Management program in
the rural domain. When we hear the word
‘rural’, we start imagining classrooms
without desks and people in rustic attire,
students sitting on the ground and some
professor talking about a social or a political
subject.
the brainchild of late Dr. Verghese Kurien, is
one of the top class management institutions
of India. While classrooms are modern, the
discussions make you traverse through a
different age altogether. While reading about
rural society, you go back 100 years in time.
In the Field Work segment we are made to
stay in villages where we experience groundlevel reality with all its beauty, charm and
harshness. By studying the core management
subjects like Finance, Marketing, Supply
Chain Management etc. we gain skills
required to address both present and
futuristic issues.
Institute of Rural Management located in
Anand is a unique institution for its
Management program in the rural domain.
When we hear the word ‘rural’, we start
imagining classrooms without desks and
people in rustic attire, students sitting on the
ground and some professor talking about a
social or a political subject. But this institute,
This year students have initiated
IRMA Social Entrepreneurship cell, ISEC to
encourage entrepreneurial spirit among the
students. This has caused fresh ideas to find
53
expression and platform. Entrepreneurs from
different verticals of development sector are
invited for experience sharing, workshops
and panel discussions to learn from their
experiences. Out of the classroom we are
back to a world full of energy and fun. No
amount of assignments or quizzes can reduce
the enthusiasm of the participants for sports
and other physical activities. Every evening
the sports complex is occupied by not just
students, but also faculty members and other
staff. Over weekends, the students set
themselves loose to the musical beats at
“grind” in the mess lawns.
adapts costume, food and language specific
to the festival and it is here that you feel
proud of the diversity that an IRMAN
experiences. Apart from religious festivals,
IRMA has a series of its own celebrations. It
has been just eight months in campus and
we have already had more than 8 events.
Milaap, an alumni home-coming, brings
together the IRMA community across the
world to the campus. Jatra, an inter-block
event, instils block-spirit in the campus. In
Sangarsh, two batches at the campus are
pitted against each other in the sphere of
sports and games. Every time it is a new
spirit being relived in old traditions.
IRMA is a small community at the
heart of Anand but it is very diverse. You can
find here people from all the parts of India
from different cultural backgrounds and
diverse schools of thought. Every festival is
celebrated with great enthusiasm. We enjoy
Rasam Rice on Onam, Sevai on Id, Sarson ka
sag on Lohri and all festivals. Everybody
Above all it is adventure that brings us
here. We explore different worlds. We grow
as a part of the community and learn how to
make communities work. In short, these two
years are of fun, learning and adventure.
54
FOSLA (FRUSTRATED ONE SIDED LOVERS’ ASSOCIATION)
Utsav Agarwal discovers FOSLA – a secret association that has been thriving for years and
manages to interview a member revealing some astonishing facts.
I
RMA has always been the breeding
ground for lovers. And there are
countless instances when these mushy
romances
have
culminated
into
marriages. These incidents are regularly
remembered by the alumni, but what
about the ones who lost the battle?
U - When did you become the member of
this secret clan?
X – I can’t reveal the date as per the rules
framed by the governing body. I was
smitten by the looks of this beautiful girl.
One look at her and my heart would
flutter with joy. I was madly in love. We
went on long walks admiring the peace
and the beauty of the campus. I was just
looking for an opportunity to propose.
But one day lightning struck. My friend
told me that he saw her walking with
another guy. And they both are now a
couple. My heart broke. I cried for two
entire days. Then FOSLA approached me.
They assigned me a mentor who faced
the same situation in the previous year.
They helped me get over the trauma. I
was made to perform a secret ritual and
now I can proudly call myself a member
of FOSLA.
There is a secret society in IRMA. Every
year several IRMAns join this secret
association. It is an elite group of people
who never found success in love during
their stay at IRMA. These gifted
individuals hold clandestine meetings.
Their activities are so secret that not even
their neighbours and best friends know
about it. And this legacy is passed on for
generations.
Yours truly has always been interested in
investigative journalism. I toiled hard for
several months and finally located a
member of this secret clan - FOSLA.
Initially the member denied the existence
of such an association but after persisting
him for weeks he decided to open up and
reveal some astonishing facts. He
requested that his identity be kept a
secret. So let us call him X.
U - What was the biggest challenge as a
member?
X - When the guy who was involved with
my crush joined FOSLA I didn’t know
what hit me. It was very difficult for me
to accept him as a member and I
petitioned the governing council for his
rejection. But FOSLA always maintained
that this association is open for every
broken soul. Later this guy clarified that
the girl was committed and had a
boyfriend already and was just looking
for friendship and nothing more. Today
we both are friends and share a drink or
two in the evenings and go for a walk
together.
Here are the excerpts:
U - It is an honour to interview you Mr
X. As promised your identity will be kept
a secret. So what exactly is FOSLA?
X - Thank you Utsav. FOSLA is
Frustrated
One
Sided
Lovers’
Association. It is a sort of rehabilitation
and rejuvenation unit for frustrated
lovers at IRMA who never got their girl.
U - How many active members are there
in FOSLA?
55
X – Well I can’t tell you the exact
number as I am bound by the oath of
secrecy. But the number is a healthy
three digit figure and growing. Today
FOSLAs are everywhere. They are
heading
multinationals,
corporate,
NGOs. They have reached the pinnacle of
success.
evaluating her case. During evaluation
her frustration index came out to be a
remarkable 4.12 out of 4.33, the highest
ever. The Board had no choice but to
accept her membership. Apparently a few
members of the clan started flirting with
her during a secret meeting. The girl too
was enamoured by the new found
attention she got. One of the members
proposed to her and she accepted. Today
they are a happily married couple. It was
the biggest setback FOSLA has ever
faced. All the members of the Board had
to resign after the incident, a new
Governing Council was created and
major structural changes were initiated.
We are reviewing the situation so that
such incidents don’t happen again. But
there is a lot of pressure on the Council
to accept females due to increased batch
size.
U - Reports are rife that there is a lot of
dissent among FOSLAs.
X – To an extent the reports are true.
There is a lot of ideology clash. Veterans
maintain that a FOSLA can never set his
aim on another girl after joining the clan,
till the completion of the course. But the
younger generation has violated that
norm more than once. One such person
tried to lobby for a re-entry after yet
another rejection. My message to them is
that they are debarred for life. Another
rule stipulated that a FOSLA member can
never like a post or picture of the girl he
once loved on Facebook. But we
continuously get reports from our silent
observers that this rule is violated many
times. One such guy happens to be a
serial offender. He not only likes the
posts and pictures posted by the girl but
also comments on them. Things got out
of hand when he posted Happy Birthday
on her wall. The Board is considering
disciplinary action. But he has contacts at
the top. Obviously he is being given
preferential treatment.
U - There is speculation that the Board is
planning to groom young FOSLA
members for leadership roles to plan
strategy and future course of action. Our
readers would love to know what will be
the criteria for selection.
The Board is looking for candidates par
excellence. He should have demonstrated
extreme frustration in the past. A
frustration index of more than 3 will be
desirable. The One Who Shall Not Be
Named (Founder of FOSLA) during his
heydays was rejected by all the girls in
the campus. Such a rejection rate is near
impossible these days. But the hunt is on
and we are very optimistic. Some
members look extremely promising.
U - A lot of voices are being raised to
allow females to join FOSLA?
X – A few years ago the Board allowed a
female to join the elite clan after
56
Ajit Chaudhari pens down his witty and humorous insights on the fading boundaries between
family and football.
Football and Life
Football’s not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that:
Bill Shankly
football lovers in the
ForIRMA
student community,
dispensable time pass that you should
‘grow out of’.
life is easy! The parents are far away,
the workload is light (and anyway
everyone is up through the night),
and spouses, where they exist, have
yet to acquire bargaining power –
there are few barriers to watching and
playing as much football as you like.
Things are, however, going to change
once you step out of this cocoon and
into the wild world. Work and bosses
come into the picture, and spouses get
secure enough to demand attention.
The responsibilities will only increase
as time goes on, both on the work and
personal fronts, with the pressures of
promotion, marriage, children, paying
rent and school fees, etc., taking their
toll. Ensuring your football
entitlements requires delicate
negotiation with stakeholders who do
not share your view that this is a
necessity and not a luxury or a
Dealing with work and bosses is
relatively easy (on this front at least)!
For the most part, football is a
weekend activity that can be ringfenced from one’s profession. And as
for the World Cup and the Euros, you
can plan your leave well in advance
for summers of even number years. If
you can’t, don’t worry, most offices
have a critical mass of people looking
bleary eyed at this time – you merely
have to blend in. And if you actually
have some work to do? Well, the
minimum that an IRMA education is
supposed to provide is knowhow (and
experience) in the art of bullshitting
through days when you have been up
the night before. Anyway, at least you
know that, in 15 years, you will be the
boss and then, if you choose to visit
clients in Madrid when the Bernabeu
is hosting an el Classico, to shift a
57
board meeting because Ruben Kazan
is playing Terek Grozny the night
before, or to take Monday off because
of aches and pains from playing on
Sunday, well, there’s nothing anyone
can do about it.
and their time spent watching and
playing the game also far more (there
is a reason for the term ‘golf widow’).
Crack jokes that emphasize this (such
as – a golf foursome were playing a
round when one of them peered over
the course compound wall and told
the others, ‘Hey, come and have a
look, there are a bunch of nut-cases
out there ice-skating on the pond in
this blizzard’). You will seem tame in
comparison.
Handling the spouse requires a
little more subtlety! Things start OK
because she (you will have to excuse
the assumption in this paper that the
typical football lover is male, made
because of the tediousness of gender
neutral writing, s/he, his/her, etc.) is
strategically encouraging in the early
period of the relationship and, if she
doesn’t come to watch you play, at
least has nimbu-paani ready for you
when you return and is good for a
massage if you get hurt. Things also
get OK later, when she becomes
resigned to her fate, thinks of you as a
‘sunk cost’, and rationalizes that
things could have been worse. It is the
years in between, the juggling football
with ‘lover boy’, ‘sensitive husband’
and ‘caring father’ roles that are a
minefield. So, here is some pooled
wisdom from experienced veterans on
negotiating this period.
Third, take the kids along to
your games – she will be thrilled at
the prospect of time to herself. Be
warned, though, this usually lasts
until the kids repeat words that, while
suitable on the field when you have
just been aggressively tackled, don’t
sound so good on the dining table
when her parents are visiting. Fourth,
get a mistress! Wife will think you are
with mistress, mistress will think you
are with wife, and you can play
football in peace. Fifth, play up the
health aspect. Never waste the
opportunities provided by early health
problems
of
colleagues
and
acquaintances to make the point that
this could have been you but for the
time spent playing football. And sixth,
and only if you have the cojones, tell
her that ‘a man’s gotta do what a
man’s gotta do!’ and just go about
doing it.
First, play up those HR articles
that point to the need for harmony
and
balance
between
one’s
professional, family and personal
lives, and thereby to the fact that
family and personal lives are distinct.
Put across that football is part of your
personal life and that it is OK to be
passionate about something. Second,
point to the golfers and bridge players
in your friends group – their
addiction levels are invariably more,
At some point, she will figure
out that your love for football is not a
liking, nor a passing interest, nor a
one-night stand, but LOVE. And,
luckily, most women understand love
– the pleasure, the pain, and the void
58
caused by separation! And spouses, if
you happen to hitch up with a
football lover, here is advice
(variations of this are available on the
Internet) on passing those strenuous
four weeks every four years that
coincide with a World Cup –
assuming that you have not been
packed off to visit your parents or
something.
during the advertisements) or after
the game. If he’s upset about a
result, do not say ‘get over it, it’s
only a game’ or ‘don’t worry,
they’ll win next time’.
5. Replays and highlights are
important! It doesn’t matter how
many times he has seen a replay,
he still wants to see it again. Do
not say ‘but you’ve already seen
this, let’s watch something else?’
See #1 above!
6. Ensure that family and friends
don’t fall ill, die, marry, have
babies, or do anything that
requires his attention or presence
during the month.
1. Cede the TV for the month! Do
not even glance covetously at the
remote!
2. Do not cross the TV during a
game! If it is necessary (for
example, you are getting him a
cold beer or some kebabs), ensure
that you are not in the line of sight
(do it crawling on the floor or
whatever).
3. He will be blind, deaf and mute
during the games (unless he
requires the items listed in #2). Do
not expect him to answer
doorbells and phones or to deal
with crying babies that have hurt
themselves, etc.
4. If you watch with him, it’s OK to
talk only at half time (but only
Don’t waste your time thinking ‘thank
God the World Cup is only once in
four years’! After this comes the
Primera Liga, the EPL, the Bundesliga,
the Serie A, the Champions Trophy,
the Euros, the Europa League, the
Club World Cup, the Tippeligaen,
etc., etc., etc.!
59
ए
कसी क आूँ
कसी के
का ोती चुरा कर े ो
को
क नह होती
ो ा सा
पे
ाूँ बा ने से ब ती ह
ु
लस ा ह आ
क न कहता ह
ीन पर
पना बना कर े ो
लक से सतारे तो ला
के
ु
पक जला कर े ो
रते ह आूँ
ाने ल ती ह
े ब चे को क ी ब कु
क न कहता ह जाने ाले
कसी क राह
ला कर े ो
र नह आते
पलक तो ब ा कर े ो
नह होते ह स ी लो
रा कु
ा कर े ो
ेबा
हाूँ
ो ती के हा ब ा कर े ो
60
Coco-Licious Aerated Coconut Water
The Marketers:
Rutambhara Pragyabadini Mishra
Swati Batra
Shweta Singh
Shivaprasad Bachu
Ikchhanshu Vishen
Kanav Bhalla
61
62
Swati Renduchintala writes about the travails of being a back-bencher with generously sprinkled
sarcasm and how her classroom seating position has developed her perceptions and behaviour.
Tragedy of the Back-benchers
W
hat’s there in a name?
being a back bencher is to derive how
So said Shakespeare.
analogous the place has become in
But apparently at IRMA there is too
understanding of social relations in
much in the name. The seats are
class and outside.
allotted on the basis of the names in
How much IRMA would make
alphabetical order. In school we sat
me a professional rural manager is a
height wise which was logical enough
and
in
graduation
the
matter yet to be seen but it is in
seating
process of making me (along with my
arrangement was random. But in
wolf pack of other backbenchers of
IRMA the seating arrangement for the
section B) great social observers, that
first year is done by marking a place
is for sure. Sitting on the last bench of
for everyone with a name tag in front
the last row of a theatrical class of
of their desk. So you are deemed to sit
section B almost feels like GOD
in the same place for three terms in
(Seriously!). Everything is visible
health and in sickness, in happiness
thanks to the strategic location , what
or otherwise. And this process of
a
seating arrangement has probably
changed
everything
that
group
of
roughly
55
young
enthusiastic minds do , their actions ,
would
their expressions and their not so
happen to me in IRMA. The ‘rationale’
discreet activities. You text, we know!
of writing an article on a silly topic of
63
To whom the texts are sent to, we
point, in this process we miss what
know that too! You peek-a-boo at
the professor’s next point is, which
your crush, caught in action! You
our loss is but it is something we are
doze, you drool, you pick your nose-
trying to work upon. (You just can’t
everything has been seen.
Do we
be too awesome in a 70 minute class,
study? Yes we do, we try hearing the
can you?). And yes we get caught
professor
frequently
but
before
his/her
by
the
professors
for
information is simulated in our brains
talking to each other but as the ex-
we do register your actions as well,
president Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam puts
cannot be helped due to the long
it “the best minds of the country are
distance between the professor and us
often found on the back benches”.
and a dynamic class in between. We
Maybe this can sober some people
hardly are visible to the professors
hopefully. The common problems
and even if they are it is probably just
faced by us has resulted into a back
our heads hanging among a sea of
benchers association or the BBA
other
What
where we party when a member
happens on the bench, below the
achieves a feat, support each other
bench, back of the bench is mostly
when we get cornered by a professor .
not seen and is not meant to.
It has at times happened that the
heads
(true
story).
attention span in some classes is not
For the front bencher (by it I
much and in the process we have
mean the rest of the class) back bench
ended up fuming many classmates
is a place where they can come to
and
sleep when they don’t feel like
have
borne
the
wrath
of
professors. We are guilty of having a
studying. Really! No people it isn’t
lack of seriousness on our part at
true. It’s an auspicious place where
times but it’s once in a while
you can reflect on what the professor
situation. It has invariably led to a
just taught and discuss immediately
common perception of us being
without waiting for class to get over
casual, which by the way is not true.
and thus we don’t miss the critical
64
There are hitches and glitches
becomes cooler in the rest of the class
we observe and sometimes are even
and not above. So before the cool air
part
class
reaches to the back bench there are
participation, to get the professors
notification for switching off the AC
attention on our point, the weakening
either
eye-sight due to the decreasing font
messages, chits etc. In this process
size of the lecturers writing on the
eventually we end up sweating and
board, the mike issue, the light issue,
suffocated. How the cool air is to be
all comes in the package of being a
distributed equally is a matter yet to
back bencher. The war of the AC in
be resolved. The solution doesn’t lie
the class is same as the example of
in changing places since it is not an
collective action for distribution of
individual person who gets affected
water . The backbenchers are at the
rather it is the location of the place
head of the resource here namely the
which is the problem.
of
.
The
battle
of
operating of the AC. Of course AC is a
by
non-verbal
actions,
In a nutshell whether you are a
common property but in the middle
front bencher, a back bencher or
of the class we have the control of its
sitting anywhere in the class, how you
switches (assuming you would not get
adapt to the situation you have been
up all the way to the back bench to
provided determines your behaviour.
switch it on or off, which is mostly
It is in situations like these that norms
not done). Science tells us that cold
emerge, you not only adapt but adopt.
air is heavier and hence travels
Some consider you to be weird but “it
downwards. The temperature thus
is better to be weird than be nothing”.
65
Kurian George passionately writes about the strife in the lives of a Rag-picker and how being at
IRMA gave him and his batch mates a chance to make a difference to the community.
The strife behind the smile
O
ne of the unique
opportunities that you get at
IRMA is that of exploring the lives of
certain communities and people that
usually lies hidden from the purview of
the common man. I was blessed with
such an opportunity when a few friends
of mine and I were offered an invitation
from an NGO called Manav Sadhna, to
associate with and explore the lives of the
Rag-pickers community of Ram Pir ki
Tekdi slum. This was a community that
subsisted in the very heart of Ahmedabad
city but remained well hidden from the
eyes of the general populace in the
bustling city. As part of this study, we
spent many days actively interacting with
and understanding the Rag-picker
community themselves as well as their
immediate social and work environment.
What captures your attention first
as you walk towards the slum from a
distance is a burst of colours that hit you
from the periphery of the slum. As you
inch closer to this apparent anomaly,
your trained city eyes soon determine
this to be piles of multi-coloured paper
and plastic waste like the ones seen at
waste dumps in many cities. You also get
your first glimpses of life amidst this pile
of waste, in the form of Rag-pickers,
66
young and old as well as a plethora of
animals and birds like dogs, crows and
even buffalos rummaging through this
pile. The slum itself stands tall like a
citadel, consisting of tightly packed
houses arranged like a pack of cards with
narrow alleyways cutting through them.
As you walk along these narrow
alleyways, one thing that takes you by
surprise is the cleanliness of the
surroundings. There are around 3-4 lakh
people living in the slum, most of them
migrant laborers who have come from
various parts of Gujarat. There is a caste
based geographic division of households
in the slum.
their bare hands and bend their backs a
couple of hundred times in the space of
those few hours. Their work often takes
them far away (8 to 10 kms) from their
homes to parts of the city unfamiliar to
them. Here, they face various kinds of
threats from street dogs who are attracted
to the smell of the waste to inebriated
men who look to take advantage of their
vulnerable situation. Since the women
don’t have any formal recognition, they
get little support from cops or any other
authorities and are often chased away
when they go near residential or
commercial areas by these authorities
without realizing the value of the work
they do. Once they are done collecting
enough waste, they head back to the
slum where the next process of sorting
and segregation of waste starts. This
work too is tiresome and timeconsuming but something they have to
get over with as fast as possible since
their families often depend on the
revenue earned from this to buy
provisions to meet daily needs. The Petawalas who buy waste from them pay
them a pittance and often cheat them by
showing them the wrong weights for the
waste that they collect. They also face
sexual exploitation by these Peta-walas.
Most of the women are tied to the Petawalas who are also loan sharks who
charge exorbitant interest rates for the
money they take. The end result of this is
that the Rag-picker is left with very little
savings at the end of the day and often
needs to go back to the Peta-wala for
more loans when any unexpected
expenditure comes up. Many of the
women also face difficulties at home as
most of their husbands are alcoholics and
The Rag-pickers belong to the two
lowest classes in the Tekdi, Harijans and
Bangis. All the Rag-picking families live
close to each other as most of them are of
the same class and closely associate with
each other on a daily basis for various
reasons. Most of the Rag-pickers in the
slum are women with only a few men
involved in the business mostly to do the
job of heavy-lifting or transportation of
waste. These women face great
difficulties to earn a living from waste
and it is their story we tried to decipher
during our days with the community.
The typical day for these women
starts very early at around 3:00 am in the
morning when the city sleeps peacefully.
For the next four hours or so, they roam
around the streets of the city picking up
anything they can see of value while
fighting the cold and the darkness. They
have no access to any equipment or tools
to do this and therefore they have to
rummage through harmful waste with
67
take away the money they earn. Many of
the women have also been widowed due
to the alcohol problem in the slum.
we deserve to help them even if it’s just
for a few hours of our time that can make
such dramatic influence to a whole
community. It is not that you do not
come across such opportunities outside
IRMA but just that you are made a little
more aware, a little more sensitive to
such situations at IRMA than anywhere
else. The reason behind it is that at some
point of your stay at IRMA you realize
that it is possible for you to make a
substantial impact on someone’s life with
even the very limited resources you have.
It is this perspective building that is one
of the crucial parts of the learning
process at IRMA.
But despite all this misery and
sadness, the women do their work with
much dignity and happiness. The women
share with each other all their problems
and their joys as they go together to work
before sunrise. Considering the amount
of ‘unclean’ garbage that is brought to the
slum daily for recycling, the level of
attention the Rag-pickers pay to
cleanliness and hygiene is remarkable.
They dress themselves in clean clothes
whether they are out picking rags or at
home. In fact if it wasn’t for the huge
sacks which they carried on their backs it
would be hard for anyone to guess what
they did. They send their children to
school and ensure that they are well fed
even if it means skipping a meal
themselves. Despite their busy schedules
and limited resources, they will insist
that you sit with them and serve ‘chaai’ to
you with their parched and pencil thin
hands when they meet you. They cannot
offer you anything more than this but
what they do offer is the perennial smile
behind which they hide all their
concerns, sorrows and insecurities.
The one thing that the Rag-pickers
of Ram Pir ki Tekdi reiterate through
their conduct and their work is that if
one can look beyond all the ‘impurities
and disgust’ one faces in life, there is
indeed great wealth to be found at the
bottom of all the waste.
Thanks to the cooperation of the
community, we were able to do our study
with very little resistance and it is clear
now that there is scope for substantially
improving their lives with very little use
of the knowledge and resources that have
been endowed upon us. It’s opportunities
like these that we need to utilize, not
only because the people at the tekdi
deserve it but more importantly because
68
Megha Paryani shares her views on having completed almost half her journey at IRMA and fondly
recalls the time gone by as well as tells us about her anticipations.
Sands of Time
T
he beautiful spring of February
When we are rushing to get to the classes
brings with itself the appropriate
before the chimes strike 9 we see the
depiction of the title. For the PRM 33 it
bunch
is a time when they see themselves being
students lined up for their admission
a part of two worlds at a time- the world
interviews. When we get back we see the
they
their
seniors celebrating their placements. I
prospective juniors and the other world
sometimes feel this ‘being in two worlds
that their seniors are a part of now. One
at the same time’ concept is the most
group is on a journey to imbibe in itself
beautiful thing one can experience here
the legacy that IRMA is and the other one
at IRMA. Eight months down the line we
is on a journey to take the legacy of
are proud of ourselves for making it here
IRMA to the world outside its realm. It is
and at the same time apprehensive about
the time for placements and admissions.
our future. As a part of our Financial
see
from
the
eyes
of
69
of
anxious
yet
enthusiastic
Management course we are taught the
years the students are here, they evolve
time value of money. What is the
to become more enriched and vibrant
monetary value of the time you’ve put in
individuals. It is famously known that
a particular endeavour? As I sit on my
much of the art of management comes
desk to try and calculate the value of the
from avenues outside the academic
eight months that I’ve given to this place
milieu, and here at IRMA it is made sure
I am sure I speak for everybody when I
that this aspect of management sciences
say that we lack the metrics to measure
is taken care of. So a few months down
that value. How can you measure the
the line when we will experience IRMA’s
experience of being IRMAN?
The
values being taken out to the world, we
serenity of the campus, the vibrancy of
would have an effervescent bunch of
the cultural functions, the camaraderie of
students ready to embrace all that IRMA
the hostels, the meals at the mess table,
stands for. On their shoulders stands the
the tea at the mess lawns- each of these
responsibility
things irrespective of how miniscule they
goodness of this institute and then
are have had a profound impact on each
handing it over to their successors. I call
our personalities. The place gives you a
the
galore
explore
because every new participant is in one
yourself – your latent potentials and
way the ruler of the campus which
calibre. Each day of your life at IRMA is
he/she has inherited from the seniors.
inundated with a lot of work doing
These
assignments,
quizzes,
responsible for taking care of everything
organising events etc. When you finally
that happens around here- the studies,
retire for the day and go to sleep, you’d
the placements, the food, the culture, the
be surprised when you reflect at the
hostels, the money and the sports. But all
sheer magnitude of work you’ve done in
I can say is that two years at IRMA are
the last 24 hours. It wouldn’t be fair for
the ones that would probably change the
me to speak about campus life in other B-
way you look at the world and the people
schools, but something which I can say
inhabiting the world. You would learn to
with certainty is that this place gives you
become tolerant, responsible and more
an opportunity to grow. The designers of
than anything else, you will become an
the IRMA fabric made it sure that the two
IRMAN!
of
opportunities
to
presentations,
70
of
forthcoming
rulers
of
epitomising
batch
the
the
“successors”
campus
are
दो और ददन होते तो क्या होता
प्रस्ततु पंक्तिय ाँ उन भ वों को समक्तपित हैं जो अन य स ही में दो वर्ि परू होने के ब द आ ज ते हैं एक ओर
आप जीवन क एक नय प ठ शरू
ु करते हैं तो दसू री ओर इस प ठ पर पर्ू ि क्तवर म लग ते हैं उस समय कुछ
ऐसी ही भ वन एाँ हैं जो उभर कर आती हैं
के म्पस की पहली धपू को इसके सनु हरे रूप को
से पहल प्य र थ एक अनमन बख
ु रथ
ठंडी चली बह र को य रों के पहले प्य र को
हृदय की इस तरंग के समु न क्तवक्तभन्न रंग के
बरख प्रथम फुह र को य दों के इस उपह र को
कुछ नग और अपनी य दों मे क्तपरोत
कुछ और पल अपने सीने मे संजोत
दो और क्तदन होते तो क्य होत
दो और क्तदन होते तो क्य होत
घर ये जो घर से दरू थ भ वन ओ ं से भरपरू थ
मन मे थी जो तरंग बही मचल मचल के ही सही
71
दो वर्ि की हर एक श्व स को कुटुम्ब के एहस स
को
अब एक से अनेक थ ज न हुआ हरे क थ
कुछ य र ऐसे क्तमल गये जीवन मे रंग क्तखल गये
कुछ क्षर् और अपने भ वों मे क्तभगोत
कुछ क्तदन और इनके स थ स री र त न सोत
दो और क्तदन होते तो ये होत
दो और क्तदन होते तो क्य होत
दो और क्तदन होते तो ये होत
मेस च य सध्ं य प न हो जयप ल की दक
ु न हो
मगं लव र क पर ठ हो हर रोज़ ही बट ट हो
उस हरे मैद न को बकर के उस रसप न को
कुछ पल और सनु त और सनु त
दो और क्तदन होते तो क्य होत
समय ने याँू अगं ड ई ली दो वर्ि की दहु ई दी
ये जो आक्तशय ाँ बस य थ अटखेक्तलयों से सज य
थ
क्तवद ई क हुक
ं र थ अतं र्द्वदं भी अप र थ
कुछ समय और इस क्तगरती रे त को ह थों में संजोत
दो और क्तदन होते तो क्य होत
नव र ह पर जीवन चल छोड ये भतू ल चल
समय जो थोड ही रह खक्तु शयों से थ क्तसमट
हुआ
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Jainee Nathwani reminisces her two years spent at IRMA and swears that the memories made here
will stay on with her forever.
Down The Memory Lane
A
nd when I sit to pen
down my thoughts of the
time spent at IRMA, I feel short of
words. How do I describe this
journey, which is so full of teachings
and learnings, memories and
moments, love and life; in words? It
seems like an impossible task,
especially, when I sit to write it at a
time when the countdown to leave
this amazing place, has already begun.
But I still choose to put these feelings
in words; for feelings are best shared
and felt, when expressed!
interview itself. But when you step
inside this place to live the two most
important years of your life, you
develop not only the love for the
scenic beauty around, but also the
apprehensions of what would be in
store for you in the time to come!
Would you be able to survive the
perceived differences of studying in a
‘Rural Management’ institute? Would
your ‘expectations’ be met? Would it
be worth the effort and the struggle so
far to reach here? All this and more,
were the thoughts that kept whirling
in my mind.
28th May 2011 it was! Sure I
had fallen in love with the campus
like everyone else at the time of
I was a part of those privileged
few, who got a chance to come to the
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campus earlier than the rest of the lot,
in the glory of ‘Remedial Sessions’. I
wonder what I learnt in those 7 days
in class or did it really do any remedy
for the future classes! But, I can surely
say, that I learnt a lot outside the
class, in those 7 days itself! It started
with long walks and talks, of who
does what, who wishes to do what
and of course ‘who likes whom’! But it
wasn’t limited to this. These were just
few moments that led to my
understanding, acknowledging, and
accepting of ‘diversity’.
It was
amazing to know the different
thought processes of the individuals
whom I got to observe and be closely
with during remedial sessions. It was
this closeness that was to shape my
behaviour of what should be the ideal
‘Do’s and Don’ts’ at a place like IRMA,
and what would best suit me!
fear of non-acceptance by “the
group”, and managing a bare
minimum smile to make others feel, I
am a part of it! Change is always
difficult to accept, and when there is
this difficulty, there is nothing more
than frustration that builds up.
Had it not been for the
induction field work, I don’t think I
would have seen IRMA in the light I
see it today. If it was 7 days of
remedials that made me feel like a
misfit; it was again the 7 days of
Induction Field Work, which was to
be the reason for re-instilling the faith
in my choice of being at IRMA. 7 days
of absolutely nothing to do, but to
enjoy and take a feel of a different life
which we only get to see in movies
and documentaries! Right from seeing
how a milk collection centre works to
milking a cow myself, from listening
to how SHGs work to being a part of
SHG meetings, from cutting of fodder
for the cattle to making Bajre ki roti,
from mangos at the host family’s place
to sugarcane in the fields, from rock
climbing in the middle of the journey
to tractor and chakda driving, from
rivers to canals and from adults to
kids; every person at the village and
every single thing associated with the
visit, was memorable and worth
cherishing for a lifetime! More than
that, the various realizations that
dawned on me during those 7 days; be
it of the people I was with, or the
group back at IRMA; made it really
perplexing. There was a mixed bag of
feelings now. There were feelings of
getting back to the love my group
Learning and growth does not
happen by acceptance alone, it
happens by rejection too, and it
happens by the courage to go against
the tide. I come from a college where
things were very different from what
we have at IRMA. Be it the quality and
quantity of faculty interaction, the
senior-junior interactions, the kind of
people that come to IRMA; everything
was different! The time I spent over
here during remedials, brought these
differences so vividly and alarmingly
that I often wondered then, if I had
made the right choice to be here. If I
am to be honest here, for a long time,
I thought that I had made a wrong
choice and I was a misfit here! I just
kept passing by the motions, with the
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showered,
but
there
were
apprehensions of passing by the
unwanted
motions;
there
was
happiness on having found new good
friends, and there was fear of what
goes next when the “real IRMA”
begins! With all this, when I got back
to campus, one thing was sure, I liked
the place more than before, and it was
the “differences” that I was exploring
every single day that made me love it
more!
ok if things go wrong, because I am
not the only one! Life is a learning
phase, and smiling against all odds is
the key to live it right!
Friends always show you the
correct path, but your critics show
you that part of you, that probably
nobody ever could! Not always are
your opponents correct in judging
you, but yes, you at least get to know,
what message you pass on to them!
Sometimes, it’s saddening to know
how wrongly you are interpreted,
while sometimes it’s a sheer sight of
laughter to see how some people are
actually so ignorant of themselves and
the reality, that they seek pleasure in
making merry out of the false
mockery they make of others. I have
had the experience of both. And in
retrospect I now feel, if they judged
me wrong, probably it is my faulty
communication that needs to be taken
care of. Since this realization, I have
started liking my detractors and I take
this opportunity to thank them here,
for they have taught me to never take
things for granted. You can never, and
you should never predict things in
your favour, especially when you seek
something that is desired by many. It
is always easy to be critical than to be
correct and I am glad, that after
having some great critical episodes, I
have been led to a path which is
definitely more correct.
Ever since then, every day has
been an experience – some
memorable, some cherishable and
some others - those that provide
immense learning for a life to come!
Abhivyakti,
Independence
Day,
Milaap, Jatra, block parties, mess
lawns, mid-night teas, walks, talks,
the never ending “grinds” and of
course all kind of meetings have all
had a role to make IRMA life what it
is. As one of the professors rightly
says- IRMA is place where we live in
different centuries together! From
Fieldwork in villages to disco-dance
in grinds, we live it all here, together!
I have had the chance of learning
lessons of a lifetime from some great
people of my batch, some adorable
seniors, and some lovable juniors. The
various interactions that I have had
with all of them throughout these two
years have shaped me to who I am
today. And apart from those whom I
got a chance to interact with, there
were also those, who made me learn
from them just by observing them.
They made me understand that it is
And then, IRMA is not only
about critics and meeting. Some of
the fondest memories we gather in the
journey of life are the ones that
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remind us of our beloved friends!
Moments of endless laughter, longest
chats and beautiful times shared with
friends are simply priceless. I was
lucky to have found some real and
true friends even in a competitive
atmosphere like ours, and I feel so
blessed to have had them throughout
the ups and downs of my two years
stay. But for their love and support, I
don’t think I would have been able to
live it as wonderfully as I think I have.
I thank them from the bottom of my
heart for being there with me through
thick and thin, and for making me
believe that there exists selfless love
and true friendship in this world even
today.
IRMA. OTS and MTS experiences
were a testimony to it. The fieldwork
segment has clearly made me
understand one thing, “Bottom of the
Pyramid” is not a fancy tag line alone,
it means a lot to that part of the
society whom we are indebted in
some way or the other, be it for giving
us our food, or for making our lives
easier by their constant slogging.
Every time that I have heard the
Manthan Song, every time that I have
heard stories of AMUL and Dr.
Kurien, the times when we interact
with various alumni, the professors,
and everybody and anybody for that
matter whom we have interacted with
at IRMA; have made me realize time
and again, what an honour it is, to
have been associated with such a
prestigious institution whose values
and ethos are so great that they would
be last me for a lifetime! I don’t know
how deeply would I be working in the
“sector” and when, but I know one
thing for sure, I surely would;
someday, to pay back my debts to my
alma-mater who has given me so
much!
Recently somebody had asked
me, what is it that I take back from
IRMA after spending two years of my
life here. It might have sounded
clichéd and exaggerated, but I
answered what most of us feel when
we end our tenure here. Apart from
core management subjects which are
taught at every other run-of-the-mill
B-school; some great subjects that
IRMA teaches like CAC, MAC, SEEL,
MC, PPA etc. are the ones that
differentiates us so vividly from the
crowd, that it instantly makes us
proud of having graduated from
IRMA is Forever and Ever!
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Puzzles
by Ashish Agrawal
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