What happened before and after I asked a question to Mr. Kamath!! :)

A brief background to the situation will help :)

Dainik Bhaskar (Indore's favorite and now half of India's favorite newspaper) has just completed its 30 yrs in Indore and is organizing a series of events, may it be the concert of Shankar Ehsaan Loy or talks by eminent corporate leaders! 

Few days back I had attended Mr. Piyush Pandey, the O&M chairman's session at the newly renovated Ravindra Natya Grah. I was awestruck at the beauty and grandness of the auditorium! Atleast 2-2.5k seats! Came to know that it has been renovated entirely by the Dainik Bhaskar group as a CSR activity!! Respect hai boss! Bhaskar rocks!

The newly renovated Ravindra Natya Grah!

2500+ capacity easily (50 per row*50 rows)!

The session was also very good as more than half of the time Mr. Pandey showed ads from some of his classic campaigns like Fevicol, Mentos, Dairy Milk, Asian Paints, Vodafone Zoozoos, MP & Guj Tourism, etc. He also gave some good fundas like Product lies in the mind and Brand lies in the heart! And also that using celebrities in ads simply shows lack of ideas :P Funny but confident person!

His talk was anchored by a smart person who was some head in the Dainik Bhaskar group and I had a faint desire to meet this person and appreciate his impromptu speaking style. Nonetheless, talk over, Kinetic start and off we go back home.

Next up, Bhaskar organised another talk. This time it was by Mr. K V Kamath. Mr. Kamath is the Chairman of Infosys and the Non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank from where he recently shifted. Being an MBA graduate about to join a marketing firm, I was not sure about going to the talk of a respectable Chairman who just moved from a Bank to an IT company! But thanks to the general enthu in attending such talks, I still collected the pass a day before the talk just in case. Also asked my bade-papa (uncle) but he didn't seem interested.

Next day, 1 hour before the session was scheduled to begin and I was happily shopping for spectacles with Dad, my uncle calls up and says that he got a pass from somewhere and that we could go together. I had almost forgotten about the talk but seeing his interest I said lets go. He also sounded half-hearted but it was better than doing nothing. Yes that's what i've been doing for the last few days.. Nothing! So we went there. It was a good session, Mr. Kamath talked about the ICICI growth story, then Mr. Venu (Managing Editor, The Financial Express) asked a few questions. 

Mr. Kamath talking about the ICICI growth story.. Impressive indeed :)

The Tete-a-tete with Mr. Kamath!

The the floor was opened for audience questions. As usual my mind was cooking up a question! Mr. Kamath was the Chairman, Board for IIM Indore. I asked a relevant question at the end about the disconnect b/w the number of seats in IIMs and the job opportunities and also mentioned that I'm from IIML where I just saw this all happening. He gave a not-so-satisfactory answer saying that its just a passing phase and that once the economy comes back to 8-10 % growth, all students will get jobs. Seeing the lack of time and lot of other people wanting to ask him a question, I decided not to ask him again about those 100 odd people who didn't get placed this year and maybe next few years too. Towards the end, the  man who anchored Mr. Piyush Pandey's talk gave a thank you note for Mr. Kamath. He spoke well as expected. 

We all got up and started leaving. Now we were going from the back door but then since it was crowded we decided to take the front door to exit. And there I was called by the gentleman who gave the thank you note by a wave of his hand. I thought what did I do. Was my question too lame and irrelevant. I went upto him and he asked which batch are you from in IIM Lucknow? I said I just graduated. And then he says that he's from PGP12 batch (i.e. 1998 batch) of IIM Lucknow! Whoa! That's what you call a pleasant surprise! His name's Puneet Bali and he heads the Dainik Bhaskar Group's MP & CG operations. He invited me to his office sometime and I in turn invited him for Nostalgia 2013, the 15-year reunion for his batch :)

So when I look back now, all these micro decisions:

1. deciding to take the pass + 

2. deciding to go, thanks to uncle's call + 

3. Mr. Kamath being the IIM-I chairperson which prompted the placement related question in me + 

4. my asking the question despite so many butterflies jumping in my stomach and so many other senior people around willing to ask more important and relevant questions + 

5. my mentioning that I'm from IIM Lucknow in the question + 

6. Mr. Bali's noting that point + 

7. deciding to take the front exit & Mr. Bali being present there + 

8. him remembering my face and calling me...

Finally led to my meeting the Head of Dainik Bhaskar MP Operations who happens to be a 15-yr old IIML alumnus! Whoa! Sometimes, your universe happens to be the best one among all the parallel universes since it appears to take the best possible decision at every step!

One big learning, its a small world and we should definitely say 'Yes' to every opportunity! I had once thought not to ask the question, there were lot of people willing around! But I did. I hadn't planned to mention that I'm from IIML, but I did. And there you go, The Dainik Bhaskar Head calls you to his office!

Sometimes in life, you get things just by a simple 'Yes' you say! Forget all the efforts and all the luck for the time being, just be a 'Yes!' man! Cheers!