Good bye dear students! It will be so hard for me not to come back to campus without your stressed faces , yet seeing you grow up into people who took challenges ...sacrificed the life of a normal student and opted for something far more demanding and totally unexpected ..Adieu and of course I salute your courage and your humility. I salute your resoluteness in the midst of all adversity. You never lost your cool. This is the stuff leaders are made of. As I look back at the entire year I cannot even begin to list the amount of work you have done in just doing your Major. I am sure it was more like a full time 24x7 course, more demanding than anything you faced in your life before!
Our first session was on the film called "An Enigma Called Entrepreneurship" ...with an assignment of 2500 words..returned back a few times until you got it right!
In the same session I gave you less than 7 days to finish a 10,000 words essay on several books. Most of you had never finished a book back to back before! then came the mother of all cases "Dharavi"!!! It was so amusing to see you people go through the case and not be able to figure what is happening !
But you never gave up! Not once did you guys complain about anything! Not even once! I am sure the back office talk was all foul, but you did respect me enough not to vent it out in front of me!
Then as the Dharavi case began to be put together , I could almost see your eyes glow in confidence and you began to believe that you can do anything.. no matter how demanding it was...
You then had Boris And Ala and you went through the Innovation workshop with them and with Prof.Sandip Mistry.
Subsequently, you had to start your own enterprise with a small seed capital , work at it, maintain accounts, be raided ... it was ll learning and fun..
You had Psychology classes, then you had Theology and Ethics and writing classes. Then Dalia gave you Anthropological insights into rural marketing... The Drama "Sheer and Utter Nonsense" was a revelation!
The mother of all challenges was the Discover India Project. The jury was truly international. PG's are supposed to be "constipated"...they proved me totally wrong .! Both the groups did a fabulous job and were so immersed into the creation... I just cannot tell you how happy and proud I felt...I had goosebumps when I saw you present your work .. The jury was just too stunned!
And then Bala came. Huge reputation. Ex Harvard Professor. Teaching Strategy. I was putting my reputation on the line and you made my day when he said your students are as good as anyone he has seen! Thank you guys!
Remember, you may or may not find everything useful, but this course taught you 2 important lessons...to believe in yourself and to have the confidence to work very hard..
To Keval for his unflinching faith and fabulous intellect,
to Amol for his Love and devotion,
to Anirudha for his dedication,
to Sukirti for her transformation,
to Siddhartha for his insights,
to Kushal for his endearing smile,
to Aarshin for his perseverance,
to Mayank for his faith in the course..
to Monil for his admiration and faith ...
to Vidhi for her love and care...
to Himay for transforming into a man...
to Ankit for his positive energy
to Smit for his fabulous observations and hard work...
to Kruti for her sincerity and hard work..
to Ritika for her faith in me...
to Mini for her quite contributions,
to Shreyas for his passion ,
to Samkit for his Project Report,
to Aditya for his amazing ability to manage his anger...
to Ayush for his questions to everyone I may have missed ,
to Shivani who has the potential to make a unique music academy,
to Archit who always did his work on time...
to Naman who actually started working!
to Trauneet who saw life beyond his horizons!..
to Ankush who trusted me so much!
to Parth for his cool attitude and calm demeanor (sorry mate!)
to Rachit who has great creativity and intellect.. My hats off to all of you...
This teacher will always miss you ... Go make your family , institution, organisation proud of you.. To my dying day I will not forget what you taught me most...to believe in the youth of tomorrow...to believe that if you give the young a challenge...there is a Dhoni in every one of you.. Captains enough to win the nation glory and pride...
Goodbye.. God bless.
