Date- 05th March 2013;
Bill Watterson told the graduating class of 1990 at Kenyon College, "It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves." Nobody notices the grass growing or pays attention to a slow development trend. Still, the grassland comes on a patch of empty land. I have used these two years to build something different. Something the rural managers can be proud of. Something of the past for the future. Such was my vision for this blog at the beginning of the span.
The mission is usually a luxury of a resourceful entity. I don't have an abundance resource of time in the college life. This blog is born due to an urge to write and retrospect on each passing day in B school. I am not claiming to be an activist but just a freelance recorder of history. The more I wrote, the more I knew myself, and the more I knew where to improve as a rural manager. This seeking never stops but only becomes enriched with the growing experiences. A self-promise to document two years in a blog, then writing a big post each week is not only personally satisfying but also helps in increasing outreach of the rural management domain.
I have no background in living or working in rural areas. Only a resolution to understand rural India brought me to XIMB. Hence, this account is a witness literature of rural management courses. This blog is full of interpretations, biases, concerns, and assumptions on which I have based my understandings and judgments. It may help to provide a 'sneak peek' about pedagogy, career, and limitations of rural management in India.
One should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. I am only trying to provoke people from my point of view that can never explain a complete scenario. Hence, this reading is only a single perspective of a wide spectrum of thoughts prevailing in the academic zone. The world of academia in India is surrounded by closed walls where knowledge is for economic incentives only. Education is not about just mugging for exams and jobs, it is learning through interactions, challenging each other perceptions, and innovating new interpretations.
Distortions of the college history to make every college memory awesome go almost unchallenged in both student and alumni communities. But the golden college days are more a myth rather than facts. No history even counter mainstream is illegal and this blog is a campaign to save one of our non-glamorized stories of B School life. I want to connect with the people and tell my views to whoever will listen to them. This whole process is like knocking on the sky and listening to the sound.
This blog has remained in the dark for more than 2 years only having a limited view of (7-10) people. The main focus of such secrecy was to provide a safety net for the author from any backlash from authorities and to negate any chances of "conflict of interest (COI)" in the brand-sensitive world of B schools. Yes, going public may affect the brand value of the college in both good and bad sense. But, do we exist as a brand entity only? I survived as an individual who had views, stories, and experiences that may be counterproductive to the aura created by colleges of higher education. This blog is full of shit experiences, news items, youtube videos, and some 'declassified information' (:P). Thanks to Wikipedia, Nitin Pai's blog: Barefoot Manager, and Wikileaks that inspired me for this adventure. Thanks to Arpit Asthana for going through the blog and notifying the grammatical mistake.
Endnotes:- The Letter that Changed Me: Advice to a Young Artist by Namit Arora.
Blog Policy:- The Blogger's Code of Conduct is a proposal by Tim O'Reilly for bloggers to enforce civility on their blogs. O'Reilly and others came up with a list of seven proposed ideas:
1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.
