Prof. VN Asopa remembers...

Labdhi and I were neighbors for many years. Our children grew up together and now I do not recall when I stopped calling him Bhandari Sahab and started addressing him Labdhi. We shared a common hedge but part of it was removed for easy accessibility between two families. I remember there were times when we would both be in our respective gardens and chat without feeling the need to cross the hedge. There is a Gulmohar tree which was also our favourite spot for exchanging not only pleasantries but also holding serious professional discussions. 

What I most appreciated in Labdhi was his considerateness. He was always there to help but at the same time he never encroached on the other person's privacy. Once when my daughter's illness took a serious turn, I remember Labdhi rushing out to get the prescribed medicine before my wife could even complete the sentence. He very rarely expressed his feelings but his actions spoke volumes. He was a perfect gentleman and the most extreme criticism that he ever expressed about anyone was "I don't know why he behaves like this." 

Labdhi always held his teachers in high esteem. My brother and his wife taught him at the Jodhpur University. Once when my sister-in-law visited us, Labdhi specially came over to pay his respect to his former teacher. I also recall when Professor RL Sharma was at the Institute. He too was Labdhi's teacher at the Jodhpur University. The respect and courtesies Labdhi showed to him was remarkable. Labdhi was very attached to his family. Whatever time he could find from his busy schedule he would spend with his sons. He loved to play with them, talk to them, and take them out for special treats. 

Our professional interaction was not much - actually it was just about to begin. But from my contacts with industry I know the high esteem he was held there. He was the only man in the Institute who had a broad based contact with the industry, which recognized his intellectual capabilities and appreciated his contribution. To give an example of his standing in the industry, I remember several occasions when board meetings were held in Ahmedabad by various companies to ensure that Labdhi attended them. He strongly believed that the Institute should work towards strengthening its ties with industry. 

*Prof. VN Asopa was a colleague and neighbour of LRB at the IIM Ahmedabad. In 1988, they were on the verge of beginning a collaborating on a project for the Agricultural and Processed Foods Export Development Authority (APEDA) at the invitation of LRB's friend Kr. Fateh Singh Jasol. This tribute was written some time in 1988. 

S. Ramachander remembers...

Marketing Loses a Star

by S. Ramachander

When Prof. Labdhi Bhandari died in the air crash at Ahmedabad on 19 October 1988, the marketing profession in India lost one of its outstanding advocates. He was only 40 years old, but had already compressed into two decades, an exceptional career as a student, researcher, manager, professor and consultant. But then he was always precocious in the best meaning of the term. He was the youngest student on record at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in its second batch and went on to become easily the youngest senior manager at Hindustan Lever. 

A list of his attainments will show an unusual commitment to excellence: he won a top rank at IIM-A overcoming the handicap of an entirely Hindi medium undergraduate background. After a short but brilliant managerial stint, went on to an award winning doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. On his return he rose to be one of the most respected senior members of the faculty not only at the IIM but in the entire country. His consultancy assignments kept following in from the public and the private sectors. He was associated with prestigious, national policy level projects concerning the Tea Board, the Planning Commission, the Public Distribution System for Essential Commodities, and Family Planning, to mention just a few that I personally knew of. Only last year he added two more distinctions to this impressive list: a $10,000 research grant from the US and the STC Chair in Marketing. 

He remained consistently unflustered by the attention and the glamour of the multinational marketing world. Directorships of companies like EID Parry and Enfield India were to him the same as helping a friend out unobtrusively with a small scale marketing experiment which intellectually challenged him. He was very conscious of the fact that he was - and wished to be - a simple person, all of a piece. He never bothered to conceal his roots and cultural origins in semi-urban Rajasthan, to which he came back to do all his field work for his PhD thesis at Columbia University.  

His doctoral research concentrated on the adoption process of family planning by the rural population of Rajasthan and the resulting thesis emerged as the best among all those received that year in the US Universities towards a PhD in Marketing. It was later published as a book. which could serve as a model for any aspiring scholar. 

As a writer, Labdhi's style was like the man himself - spare, lean, precise and without the slightest air of pomp. Not for him the flamboyance of his friends in the ad. world nor the turgid prose of the more typical Americanised researcher. In speech, he came across with a directness and a light touch of humour which was often self deprecating and poking fun at the most irritatingly superficial ways of his own countrymen. He made no bones of the fact that the over glamorizing of the face of Marketing was a serious disservice to it both as a discipline as well as a profession.  

To his students of marketing it was nothing short of a privilege to attend his heavily over-subscribed elective courses which were a runaway success. While he was highly successful as a teacher, he was a stern disciplinarian, demanding very long hours on project work from his students. But he rewarded them with personal attention and detailed feedback often lasting 12 hours in a single day. 

I have had the privilege of knowing him for 23 years and our careers have run a strangely parallel course from Ahmedabad to Lever to the US and back to the Institute. Working closely with him, although as a visiting faculty over the last five years, I have had many a long discussion often late into the night on almost everything under the sun. He was seldom dogmatic or highly demonstrative but always had a thoughtful point to make. His somewhat shy and self effacing manner, particularly noticeable in the early stage of his career, often misled some people to thinking that he could be easily won over. But nothing was further from the truth. He was intellectually strong and had enormous courage. I should like to think that he went equally courageously - with few regrets. But when I next go to the campus, I shall miss the routine walk down the road through a smoky winter evening to his lawns where a welcome cup of tea and snacks invariably awaited me - or a message that he was out of town. 

But let me not be selfish. It has been a privilege knowing Labdhi for half his life. And for that one should be grateful. 

* This tribute to LRB was written by the Late S. Ramachander in 1988, soon after LRB's death. It was published in the IIM-A Alumnus magazine in January 1989. Mr. Ramachander, himself a pioneer of marketing, passed away in 2008. 

Mr. S. Santhanam remembers...

It was a great pleasure for me to work with Prof. Bhandari, particularly during his two year term as Chairman of Management Development Programmes (MDP). We used to meet him almost daily in that period.

Even before he took over as Chairman MDP, I would meet him occasionally for programmes that he was teaching, for case materials, etc. I remember that he had designed a novel, one-week programme on Product Policy and New Product Development/Management. The first programme was held in Goa. It was a major success. Later, it was shifted to the Management Development Centre (MDC) and IIM-A continued to offer the programme on a regular basis every year. Prof. Bhandari was regarded as a marketing guru, and many organizations would just send their executives for the programme so that they would have a chance to meet and interact with him. He would send special mailers to top-level executives in marketing and they would respond immediately and positively. Such was his charisma in the Marketing community. 

When he was made Coordinator for the Top Tier of the 3-Tier Programmes, he made significant changes in its structure. He made it as a theme-based conference and admitted only the very top-level executives and rejected many nominations who would have otherwise found admission in earlier years in the same Top Tier. Many big companies were taken aback, but he stood his ground saying that once the companies understand our message, they will think twice before sending nominations for the Top Tier. At least for the two years that he coordinated the Top Tier of the 3-TP, he followed this policy. Also IIM-A continued to offer the Top Tier as a theme-based conference in later years.

In 1983, Prof. Bhandari started his two-year tenure as Chairman MDP. He told us that we should run the Management Development Centre as a cost-profit centre. Earlier MDP committees from the very beginning used to fix room/board tariff on an ad-hoc basis, raising them marginally every 2-3 years. The rates were abysmally low, and had no relationship to the cost of operations. Prof. Bhandari collected details from accounts and other relevant departments about the cost of constructing the building, installation of AC plants, furnitures/fixtures, annual electricity bills, provision bills for a year, laundry services, purchase of crockeries/cutleries, linen items etc. etc. and arrived at cost per participant on the basis of different occupancy ratios. Thereafter, the room and boarding tariff was fixed at realistic levels.

It was during Prof. Bhandari's tenure that the Advanced Management Programme (AMP) was developed and offered in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). The first AMP had been offered by IIM Calcuttta a couple of years before.¹. At the specific request of BPE, this programme was taken up by IIMA after discussion with BPE by then Director, Dr. I.G. Patel and Chairman MDP, Prof. Bhandari. Initially one programme was to be conducted by us.

The facilities at the Management Development Centre were at a primitive stage at that time. As the AMP was an important programme for IIMA, Prof. Bhandari wanted to enhance the facilities at MDC (airconditioning the dining hall, auditorium, basement class rooms etc., adding a library counter, reading room etc). Director was in full and complete support of his initiative and requested the then Chief Engineer, Mr Nirbubhai Desai to execute whatever modifications were requested by Prof. Bhandari, to start the work immediately and complete it in record time before AMP’s commencement. Director told Mr. Desai not to bother about financial sanction etc. as he would take care of it himself. He was given carte blanche to accomplish the task, which he did remarkably. Even today, MDC's old block is as per the modifications/improvements requested by LRB – except that the computer lab. was shifted to one end of the reception lobby. During his tenure as MDP Chairman, Prof. Bhandari preferred to hold meetings with visitors etc. at the MDC (even on Saturdays/Sundays/Holidays). Many outside visitors used to wait at MDC to meet him and he would telephone me from his residence about expected visitors for meetings. 

Looking to the huge cost involved in improving the infrastructure, we asked BPE to allot at least two AMPs for IIMA to partly offset the cost, which they readily agreed. We had about 30+ participants – It was designed in three modules – the first module was four weeks at IIM-A (Academic), 2nd module involved a foreign visit for about 2 weeks (to understand the practices/policies followed by PSUs in that country) and third module at New Delhi – with Government Interface – where participants used to visit various ministries, PSUs etc., followed finally by presentation by the groups before BPE officials and secretaries to GOI and other invitees of BPE. Two groups were formed for the overseas trips. One group went to Japan. Prof. Bhandari took care of this group and he visited in advance for preparation before the programme’s commencement.². The second one was to Hungary, probably led by Prof. GR Kulkarni.

LRB addressing the inaugural session of the Advanced Management Programme on the 2nd of July, 1984. On the dais are Mr. SM Krishna, then Minister of State for Finance and Industry (3rd from left), and RP Billimoria, Chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (2nd fro left).

The programme was a big success and for the next batch, some modifications were made - the first module remained same, the second module became the Government interface (as participants in the first batch felt that before going abroad, they should get first-hand knowledge/briefing from Govt. functionaries), followed by foreign visit and on return they worked for 2-3 days to make final presentations. Subsequently, many more batches were offered by IIM-A during Prof.NR Sheth's tenure as Director) 

After the AMP, Prof. Bhandari talked to me and my boss Mr. K. Rajagopal (Programmes officer, MDP) and said that to recoup the huge expenditure that was incurred for the MDC upgrades, whether we could also host the 3-Tier Programmes. The 3-Tier Programme, one of IIM-A's prestigious programmes was a 2 month programme for three tiers of management – middle, senior, top level executives. This programme usually ran into over 100 participants, with about 25-30 in the Top Tier, and IIM-A had historically held it in other locations such as Agra, Jaipur, Goa etc. My boss and I readily agreed to his suggestion of hosting this big programme at the MDC. LRB wrote an appreciative communication to the Director, saying that he had discussed the possibility of hosting 3-TPs at IIM-A with his colleagues (myself and my boss – he equated us as colleagues) and that they were confident of handling the programme without difficulty. In that communication he worked out the cost savings for the Institute for holding 3-TPs on the campus over a period of time. This probably enabled Director to convince the Building committee members about the cost effectiveness on the investment.

I also have vivid recollections of seeing Prof. Bhandari outside of work. I had a habit of coming in to work very early in the morning and working late. As a result, I often saw him in the morning or evenings during his walk in the campus with a small kid on his shoulder and a slightly older kid walking along with him, holding one of his hands.

His sudden death came as a shock to me personally and also my other MDC staff. I still cherish my association with him.

*Mr. S. Santhanam was a colleague of LRB at IIM-Ahmedabad. He administered the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Management Development Centre and worked closely with LRB during the latter's stint as the Chairman of Management Development Programmes.

Editor's Notes: 

1. Prof. Dharni Sinha, in his memoirs, claims that the AMP was, in-fact, first developed and offered by the Administrative Staff College of India in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Enterprises and that IIM-A copied its overall structure, including the foreign visit module. See: Sinha, D. Learning from Life, p203, Excel Books, 2007. 

2. N. Ravi, who was then the First Secretary (Economic and Commercial) at the Indian Embassy at Japan, has given us his account of this trip by LRB with the AMP participants. While in Japan, LRB also found some time to have meetings with Toy manufacturers in connection with diversification opportunities that he was exploring for Enfield India, where he was a member of the Board. 

Prof. Dwijendra Tripathy remembers...

Although I was on the IIM-A faculty when Labdhi joined the Institute's Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in July 1965, I had very little interaction with him as he had not taken my course. However, some of my colleagues, whose courses he had taken and who had known him better, often talked very favourably about his academic capabilities and sophisticated behaviour. I had a chance to get to know him better when he returned to the Institute as a member of the faculty after a stint as an executive with Hindustan Lever. He took very little time to adjust to his new environment and impressed his faculty colleagues as well as his students with his teaching ability.

I had a personal taste of Labdhi's human qualities when I was his guest for a few days at New York in December 1973. He was doing his Ph.D. at Colmbia University with the Institute's sponsorship. I was on a brief visit to the United States as the Institute's Dean --- the position was newly created to assist the Director in discharge of his duties --- to study the process of academic planning in the American universities. Despite the heavy load of studies, Labdhi was very generous with his time and attention during my stay with him. I still have a vivid memory of his gracious hospitality. 

After he returned home with a Columbia Ph.D., he soon established himself as one of the most admired teachers at the Institute. Though somewhat withdrawn from the humdrum of campus life, he won the love and respect of his colleagues and students alike. There was a widespread belief in the Institute community that he would be the next Director. Alas, cruel death denied the Institute this good luck. His smiling face and gracious manners will always be missed by those who came in his contact. 

A day or two after the tragic air crash, I recall that Mudra, Ahmedabad (where a number of IIM-A graduates were working) had put up an advertisement in the Times of India as a tribute to Labdhi. If my memory serves right, it consisted of a lamp or candle, a symbol of light, that had been suddenly extinguished. It was a very touching tribute that summed up what everyone was feeling. 

*Prof. Dwijendra Tripathi was Prof. of Business History at IIM, Ahmedabad and a colleague of LRB.

Shekhar Vyas remembers....

Back in the 1980s, I was a young entrepreneur and Labdhi Saab was my mentor. He was India's most sought after marketing consultant. He felt that even the best-designed research project can fail because of poor field execution. He also felt there was a strong need for a sales promotion company because none existed in the industry. So he advised me to position my company as specialist market research and sales promotion firm with excellent field strength. He was the one who named the company MRSP - Market Research and Sales Promotions.

We worked on many projects with him. Most of these projects were his consulting projects at IIM-A, but as and when required, he would use the services of outside agencies for his research or consulting work. We were one such agency. Shyam Sunder's company - Marketing and Business Associates (MBA) was another one. He also worked closely with many advertising agencies - especially Lintas, O&M, Trikya, etc.

One of the projects I worked on with him was for Enfield India, where he was on the Board of Directors. Enfield had tied up with (and later bought) a German company called Zundapp and they wanted to launch two Zundapp motorcycles in the Indian market - Silver Plus and Explorer. We worked on the sales promotion of these products. I remember he had also bought one bike - an Explorer - and he gave it to me to use for some time.

Another project where I worked closely with Labdhi Saab was a promotion with Doctors for Saffola Edible Oil for Marico (then Bombay Oil industries). Mr. Harsh Mariwala the CMD of Marico was closely associated with him. In fact, Labdhi Saab had suggested the idea for a television serial that they produced with Hema Malini, who then also endorsed their other product - Parachute Oil.

In Ahmedabad, we worked under his guidance for a project with Cadilla Pharma for the launch of a drug called Oriprim DS. The project involved doing one of India's first prescription audits. Mr. Pankaj Patel, who is now the CMD of Zydus Cadilla was in charge of the project at the time. Mr. Patel also attended a course on Product Policy and New Product Management that Labdhi Saab taught.

Then, there was the promotion of The Week magazine that was published by Malayalam Manorama, who he was advising. One Mr. Balakrishnan was involved from their side. Another unique project was the launch of Vital Soya flour for Britannia - for which we did a school promotion. Chitra Talwar, an IIM-A alumnus was involved from their side and Labdhi Saab worked closely with her. We also worked with him for Sony Corporation of Japan and Motorola of USA for their entry into Indian Market after imports were liberalized in the late 1980s by the Rajiv Gandhi government.

I had met him on his last day in Ahmedabad. It was a Sunday. He had called me in the afternoon and he told me that he had to leave for a trip to Pune to meet 'Dada' Kirloskar. Labdhi Saab was very stretched with work at the time and he did not want to make the trip, but Mr. Kirloskar had insisted - even offering to send his private plane to drop him back at Ahmedabad if he was tied up. We met at his place, then walked over to the Management Development Centre. I remember he took a peon to task that day because a portrait of Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of IIM-A had not been clean. I had asked him if he had met Dr. Sarabhai - he said he hadn't, but respected him a lot. He described him as a 'future scientist' and an institution builder rather than an atomic scientist. He asked me to ride with him to the airport so that we could continue our work in the car. Before he left for Pune he told me that he was expecting a letter offering him an appointment as Director of IIM Ahmedabad. I think his plan was to retire two years after he completed the term as Director.

The next day, he called me from Pune from the Bajaj Auto office and asked me if could meet a certain Mr. Bhargava some time in the week. Normally I never said no, but that day I requested him that we take a call after he returns to Ahmedabad. I was supposed to meet him on Tuesday evening. But, at 7 pm, his wife called me and told me that he would only return on Wednesday. It was never to be. His plane crashed the next morning.

*Shekhar Vyas was a friend and protege of LRB. 

Sampat Singhvi remembers his childhood friend....

I write this with a heavy heart since Labdhi and I were childhood friends and classmates throughout our school years from elementary through high school (Higher Secondary as it was called during those years). He was one of a few school friends that I kept in touch with on a regular basis after I graduated. While he was an Arts student and I majored in Science, this only separated us from being in the same class from grades 9 to 11. Otherwise, we used to sit in the same class from primary school to 8^th grade.

We had a lot in common as we both came from a middle class family, from a small town (Sojat City with a population of 25,000 during our growing years), where education was given some importance but family guidance, support, and encouragement for studying hard and career building was lacking. So we had to build our own educational and professional careers.

During primary and middle school, either he or I would be the top student, but the recognition and rewards for being on top, from family, society, or school were simply missing. Consequently, we did not make much of being the top student in those schooling years. After High School graduation, Labdhi went to Jodhpur to do his BA, while I went to Pilani for my Pharmacy degree. During those years we probably did not see each other very much, although if were both back in Sojat in the summers, we would meet and spend time together.

My social meetings with him re-started and became more frequent after my graduation from Pilani in 1967, while I was living with my family in Mumbai for one year, before leaving for the US for graduate studies. During this year, Labdhi was working at Hindustan Lever after his graduation from IIM-A, and lived with Mr. HR Bhandari (another Sojat native) in Worli. So I would go see him and HR occasionally. Sometimes he would come to my house in Vile Parle and we would spend some time together, or meet for lunch near Churchgate close to his work place. I would consult with him about my career goals and what I should do in future. His clarity of thought and encouragement for higher education was instrumental in me applying for admission in US colleges for my graduate studies.

For a few years while I was studying in the US, we did not have close contact until 1971 when I returned to India for a summer break and to getting married. LRB was able to come to my wedding in Pune in the of summer of 1971; he was the only schoolmate from Sojat that attended my wedding, partly because I had lost touch with others during the five years that I was in Pilani and also because my wedding date was fixed in a hurry. I missed Labdhi’s wedding as I was still studying in the US towards my Ph.D.

The next time we saw each other was when I was working in New Jersey and he came to NY for his Ph.D. program at Columbia University. We met frequently - mostly in NY, but also occasionally in NJ. Later he would be joined by his lovely wife, Santosh. Following his Ph.D. and return to India to take up a faculty position at IIM-A, we were only able to meet whenever I would visit India during my social visits. We remained in touch one way or the other. Then one day I heard about the tragic event that took his life and it was just unbelievably sad; I got all the details about how this happened from my family and our common friends. What a tragic loss to his family, close friends, society in general, and importantly to the whole country. As we all know, he was a great asset to the academic and industrial arena in the marketing field. His intellect, sharpness, and wit were just superb. He was simply an extraordinary man with a great potential to make immeasurable contribution to society and the country. What was amazing about him is that he chose to make his career in academia although he could have done much better in industry from a financial perspective. It was a choice he made to go into academia and he was proud of that decision without any hesitation or after thought.

For me personally, it was just as big a shock as I lost a very close friend that I had grown up with, a person who was so similar to me in many ways, and somebody who I could relate with in many different ways. My family liked to see him all the time and likewise, I also enjoyed seeing ‘Baiji’ and Labdhi’s brothers whenever I saw them. His older brother, Dr. B.S. Bhandari (Lalasa, as we called him, who is a great physicist), also stayed in US for a few years. My wife and I would visit him and his wife whenever we had an opportunity. For a while they were the source of getting information about Labdhi and his family.

LRB came from a small town, and a family with limited means, but made a name for himself by his superb accomplishments in business arena and his legacy will last forever.

*Dr. Sampat Singhvi was LRB's childhood friend. He recently retired after a long career in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and now lives in Princeton, NJ. 

LRB resigns from Hindustan Lever

LRB's resignation letter from HLL

On November 30, 1971, after 4 and a half years at Hindustan Lever Ltd., LRB finally submitted his resignation. He addressed the letter to David Webb, the Vice Chairman of HLL and requested that he be relieved by the end of the year. Tte decision to leave had been a difficult one that he had mulled over for a long time (and one that would write about in the future). LRB was leaving to join the faculty of IIM Ahmedabad as a young (he was 23) Assistant Professor to build a career in academics. In a few months, he would move to New York to join the Doctoral programme at Columbia Business School. 

It appears that LRB put a lot of time into composing this short resignation letter. Despite its brevity, the letter's tone, tenor and language has been carefully crafted. He takes pains to convey his reasons for moving on, emphasizing his firm belief that academics is his true calling. Like he would say in an interview years later, he "didn't leave to leave Levers". HLL had made a big contribution to LRB's personal growth and professional development. He had also tasted great success there. It seems clear that he felt a connection with the company and did not want to snap ties or leave his colleagues with an unpleasant feeling. Indeed, the letter acknowledges his deep gratitude and fond regard for the company and talks about staying in touch. The language is of a protege saying goodbye to his mentor. 

Hindustan Lever was sad to see LRB leave. It is very likely that LRB had been identified as a 'lister' - one of a few individuals identified by the company for potential fast-track advancement to top management. Prof. SK Bhattacharya, one of his mentors at IIM-A, once told a colleague that Levers rated LRB very highly, and that "if Labdhi had not left Hindustan Lever, he would have joined the company's Board of Directors in a few years."

On the cusp of his transition from HLL to IIM Ahmedabad, on the 30th of December, 1971, LRB would hear the sad news of the unexpected passing of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the visionary founding father of IIM-A. LRB would join the institute on the 3rd of January 1972. 3 days later, on the 6th of January, he would be joined by another young turk - CK Prahalad. That very month, on the the 25th of January 1972, Ravi J. Mathai, the celebrated Director of IIM Ahmedabad, and the man who had done the most to attract LRB and CKP to the institute, would drop a bombshell in the first faculty meeting of the year - he would be voluntarily stepping down from his position. The IIM-A torch was gently being passed to a new generation. 

Transcript of letter

November 30, 1971

Mr. D. F. Webb

Vice Chairman

Hindustan Lever Ltd. 

Through: R. A. Tofts

Dear Mr. Webb, 

It is with deep regret that I request you to accept my resignation from the Company in order to work towards a doctoral degree in the field of management studies in U.S.A. 

It is no secret that I have always been drawn towards academic pursuits and indeed the years with Hindustan Lever have been a highly educative and rewarding experience for me. However, it is only at the University, I believe, that I can find my true vocation - at least for the immediate future. A specific opportunity has now come my way as a result of which I now propose to join the faculty of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, preparatory to my doctoral studies. Towards this end, I request that I be released from the services of the Company by 31st December, 1971. 

I would like to take this opportunity to record my gratitude to the company for all that has been done for my professional training and development. May I add that it is my appreciation of what I owe the Company that makes it difficult for me to consider serving the firm with anything less than total commitment.

I contemplate a career in management education and I hope to be in touch regularly. Should I ever be in a position to be of service to Hindustan Lever, I would consider it a privilege to render such help. 

With kind regards, 

Yours sincerely 

Labdhi Bhandari

Why was Labdhi Bhandari so brash?

Sometime in May, 2013, as the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League rambled on, cricket commentator and journalist Harsha Bhogle (@bhoglesharsha) took to Twitter to complain about a new breed of intelligent, young bloggers who he found ill-mannered. The tweet generated a complex web of several dozen replies and retweets. Hidden among them was a reply from Ramesh Ram (@rameshramsw), who posed an oddly profound sounding counter-question to his fellow IIM-A alumnus: Why was Labdhi Bhandari so brash? This post attempts an answer. 

Over the past several years, we have contacted many of LRB's students, colleagues, contemporaries, friends and family members and asked them to share stories and their impressions of LRB. Two threads emerge out of these diverse memories - a consensus and a paradox. There is widespread consensus in the way everyone speaks about LRB's sharp intellect, his clarity of thought and the precision and economy of his expression. On the other hand, when we consider what people say about LRB's other personal characteristics, a sharp and paradoxical division emerges between his friends, teachers, colleagues and contemporaries on one side and a majority of his students on the other.   Dozens of people from the first group have called him soft-spoken, down-to-earth, humble, unassuming, and above all, very warm and friendly. His students, however, paint a very different portrait of him, calling him wooden, unfriendly, inaccessible, robot-like, aloof, arrogant, and ruthless. In the kinder accounts of his students, he is called formidable, no-nonsense and tough. A satirical piece from the 1980s on the IIM-A student's deification of LRB said it clearly: "We don't love him, we idolize him."

We suggest that this paradox arises from LRB consciously adopting a tough, no-nonsense teaching persona that was at odds with his natural personality. LRB, as a teacher, had a clear objective. He wanted to create a classroom environment in which the students could not fly by the seat of their pants. He wanted them to put in the hard hours and rely on careful thought and preparation, rather than just on their smarts. And, to this end, he cultivated a persona that was made-to-order. Everything he said or did clearly signalled that he meant business. He was very serious in his demeanor and seldom smiled. He deployed an acerbic wit and a biting sarcasm that punished anything that betrayed looseness or a lazy approach. As Pranesh Mishra, PGP 77, recalled: "One would be a fool to attend his class without reading the case in advance. He would pick students at random and ask for interpretation and point of view. God help you, if you were not prepared." Late Prof. MN Vora, LRB's teacher and senior colleague in the marketing department, said in 1988, just after LRB's death: "He was perceived to be tough by the students. Students were careful in his class. This was because he had a very sharp diagnostic sense and would not tolerate any looseness."

LRB found ways to keep the focus of the discussion in the classroom solely on the case or problem at hand. As Rajnish Agarwal, PGP 88 recalls..."He was very good at setting the tone and direction of the conversation. I am reminded of a moment in his very first class. Labdhi walked in and we barely said good-morning. We just sat huddled together, partly in fear of his reputation and partly in awe, overwhelmed I think with his presence and his serious demeanor. After a few pregnant minutes of uneasy silence, Labdhi said, 'So, what should Mr. Shah do?' We all looked at each other for the 'sacrificial one'. He then repeated, 'Has anyone read the case?' ... to which a brave one amongst us, at the very back of the class, sat up and said "Sir, would it not be better if you introduced yourself to us first?....Labdhi, composure personified, looked at him and said 'Would that help solve the case?' That set us up for the rest of his class and the term, I think!"

LRB in an IIM-A classroom

S. Ramanathan, PGP 82, gives us a fuller description of LRB in the classroom, warts and all: "Labdhi occasionally used his sarcastic comments to restrain the thought process of the students going astray. Otherwise, by and large his interactions were "therefore"or "so?" (meaning "you are in the right direction, go ahead; can you stretch your brain a little more?") or "I see" (meaning "you are lost somewhere; do you see") and consistently maintained an unfriendly, wooden face with these monosyllables uttered in a mechanical manner, while his hand was busy scribbling something with chalk on the table. These writings were religiously wiped off the table at the end of the class. Some students used to claim that on a rare occasion when he left it unerased, they deciphered it to say "Bullshit". That was Labdhi with a strong aversion for mediocrity. Like Ashtavakra, who was said to have squirmed in the womb with every wrong Vedic chant, every illogical statement brought forth pain in his face. His acutely economic expressions were sufficient to punch holes in the collective verbiage churned out by the class and Labdhi intervened at the right time to sum up the case, leaving Dr. Watsons wondering why they could not think on those lines. The next class we were better equipped or so we thought and Labdhi took the logical combat to a higher level and the story repeated. Did it look like that he derived sadistic pleasure in proving his unequal opponents inadequate? Some of us thought so. What we did not realize was that in each of these sessions , our minds were being chiseled into better and better logical moulds without our realizing it. That was the biggest reward of having been a Labdhi student. Was this the best pedagogic method? I doubt. I have always felt that with a little more user-friendliness, Labdhi would have encouraged much higher level of participation. On the whole, do we affectionately remember Labdhi? I doubt we had such emotional involvement. Some of us, who have been victims of his ruthless massacre hated to love him."

Evidence that this classroom persona was made to order comes from those who had the opportunity to interact with LRB both inside and outside the classroom. Dr. Amlan Roy, who as a student saw him in the classroom as well as for a project, says: "He was clear, eloquent and nice to me in the 1-on-1 interactions for the 2nd year project I was doing, but he was arrogant and aloof in the marketing course that he taught." Vijaylakshmi Rao, PGP 82, tells us an interesting story: "To all of us whose interests in Marketing and Product Management were kindled by his lectures and case studies, he was a learned, bright, not-so-friendly and at times sarcastic, but much-worshipped Guru. not someone you could crack jokes or discuss South Indian cooking with. But that is exactly what I did many years after leaving the institute at a conference in Delhi that he was co-ordinating. What I found most amusing (and flattering as well!) was that Labdhi often chose to sit next to me in the back bench, whispering comments about speakers he did not agree with or found boring! He insisted that I come along for the valedictory dinner saying he would otherwise get bored talking only to the 'serious types'! He was no more a Professor to me - he had become a good friend like so many of my batch mates at IIMA. I told him that my friends would probably be very surprised to know that he was just like one of us. To which he said "Don't tell them, that will spoil my image." He was not just a Marketing Legend but a warm, friendly, modest, fun loving person with a great sense of humor." 

Outside the classroom, LRB's warmth and modesty often stood out in the minds of those who remember him. Dr. NCB Nath, a senior colleague at Hindustan Lever and later a fellow academic, said this about him: "Labdhi was a very humble person and didn't show off at all. Normally people who are bright, I think, talk too much about themselves. He came across as low-key and unassuming, someone who knew his strengths but did not exhibit them. Labdhi was also a very friendly person and there were very few people who spoke ill of him. He was able to get along with a lot of people of different kinds. For instance, the IIM-A faculty consist of a lot of very different kinds of characters. He was able to make friends with a lot of them and no one ever said anything against him. In Sanskrit there is a term that applies to him very well, he was "Ajatashatru" - one whose enemies are unborn."

Ravi Sreedharan and Vijay Santhanam, PGP 1988 fondly remember a story: "That he was outside the classroom an absolutely warm person is etched in my mind with the Holi hug. On Holi, a few of us met him in the morning. I still remember the white kurta he was wearing. He opened his arms widely and hugged us in a warm embrace. That from "The Tiger in the class" this was beyond surprising."

So, why was Labdhi Bhadari so brash? As a former student, Rajnish Agarwal, PGP 88, says "Labdhi carried a deep sense of responsibility in our development and he was very conscientious of his role and impact to that effect". LRB's goal was not just to impart marketing knowledge but to prepare students for the tough world of business by shaping their thinking, beliefs and values. The origins of his approach lie in his own experience as a student. His two years at IIM-A as a young PGP student had been a life-changing experience. He came in to the programme confident of his abilities and expecting to do well. Instead, he quickly found himself out of depth and suffered a serious crisis of confidence. To emerge successful, he had to learn how to work very hard and improve slowly. This gave him tremendous self-confidence, of a new, truer sort. The trial-by-fire had a deep impact and would shape LRB's attitude. It led him to value hard work, preparation, and careful, rigorous thinking over intelligence and ability and to abhor looseness and laziness. As a teacher, he worked to inculcate the same values and demanded the same kind of dedicated hard work from his students that had helped him excel.

Ravi Sreedharan, PGP 88, remembers LRB's own answer to the question: "In Labdhi's final class in PGP1, we had an open house with him and were giving him feedback. One of the students said to him: "Why are you so nasty with us in case discussions? You sometimes make us feel so foolish."....and his reply was "I would rather you look foolish in this classroom than when you are out there in the actual market place"" 25+ years later, do his students agree? 

*This article was put together by Apoorva Bhandari on the basis of the testimony of the people named in the note. Please leave your comments below and do share your own memories of LRB with us. 

LRB remembers his PGP1 struggles ...

In 1966 LRB was 18 years old and a 2nd year PGP student at IIM-Ahmedabad. An assignment for a  course on inter-personal relations required him to write a detailed biographical sketch and carry out a self-analysis. Remarkably, this hand-written, 20+ page document has survived almost 50 years and gives us a remarkable glimpse into how LRB's early years. Below, we present an edited extract from the document that describes his experience as a PGP-1 student at IIM-A. LRB describes his struggles with the IIM-A environment and curriculum, the resulting crisis of confidence, and the transformation that he went through. The extract has been edited for clarity and grammar. 

I arrived at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with my friend from Jodhpur University on the 6th of July 1965. I still had 23 more days to go before I was 17 years old. I came here with lots of hopes, fears and uncertainties in my mind about the future, but also a lot of confidence. I had done well in my college final examinations, despite not having studied much. I felt confident about facing the IIM-A environment.

As soon as I entered, however, everything began to change. All the people around me were older, more sophisticated, and smartly dressed. I was completely lost. I had had a similar experience at the time of entering college - but this was more severe. At college, at least communication was no problem. I could talk to people in Hindi, but here everybody was talking in English and I could not even speak English correctly and fluently.¹ I had only studied 'General English' as a subject during school and two years of college. I had never written my other papers in English and occasions to speak in English had been very rare. My friend, who was 23 years old, came from an English-medium school and he could manage in this environment. But he was to stay in a different flat² than me, and I was completely lost. 

The orientation programme created more fears in my mind than it cleared. The first week of classes frustrated me even more. I could not even finish the first reading of cases and assigned readings during that time. I did not know what was happening. People were participating in class, but I couldn't open my mouth even once during the first month. Some of the courses were heavy in mathematics. Mathematics has never been my favorite subject, and here it brought me to the brink of collapse.

Many people were thinking of leaving the course and the dropouts had already started. I gave a thought to this idea and immediately rejected it. I had come here on my own, absolutely on my own - in fact against my family's and relation's wishes. I couldn't go back and say that IIM-A is too difficult for me to go through. I wrote back home to say that I wouldn't come back unless I was thrown out. By the end of two months, the rate of dropouts had increased. Our first set of grades had come back,  bringing another wave of shocks. My father came down to Ahmedabad and so did my friend's father. I told my father not to bother about me. I wouldn't leave IIM-A. I would like to fight with all this.

About 20 days later, after another shock wave of grades had hit us, my friend left the institute. He was very frustrated. His arrival at his home in Jodhpur created trouble in my family and my aunty³ advised me by telegram to come home if I was not comfortable. But I had decided to face all this. By this time my flat mates and I had come closer and could share this frustration. But all of them had adjusted themselves better than what I had done. 

I started working very hard by cutting into my sleeping time. Reading and grasping new subjects  written in English (a foreign language to me) was a tough job for me. I couldn't follow some of the professor's accents. But my tutor realized my plight and supported me. He used to call me and help me in everything, encourage me and give me special opportunities in class to talk. This coupled with my hard work (I have never worked so hard in my life) gave me a boost of confidence. I was improving and trying to fall in the 'satisfactory' category. I did my best and I could see that I was improving steeply. The class also had an image of me as someone who was trying to improve his position and they would give me a privileged response in class to encourage me. The first term passed in this struggle for existence. My self image, confidence and identity had been shattered badly, but I had started repairing them. Meanwhile, I could only hope to keep my head above water.

IIM-A students (LRB is 2nd from left) crowding around Louis Kahn, the celebrated architect, and Prof. Ravi Mathai.

I returned from the term holidays to continue the struggle. One classmate of mine (who was at the time one of the topmost students) congratulated me for securing an A grade in Marketing - the only A of the class. I thought they were joking and felt really bad that people were pulling my leg and laughing at my plight. Some more people started talking about it at the tea table and later on I came to know that I had really got an 'A'. My other grades also were quite good. My confidence was again rebuilt overnight. I started on second term subjects with a lot of enthusiasm, working late in the nights in solving cases. I used to participate in class everyday. My image was improved amongst my class mates.

About a month after the second term had started, however, I fell sick⁴. I had to be out of touch with studies for more than 35 days. I again became skeptical about my existence at IIM-A. The thought of whether or not I would be able to recover the study time I was losing kept eating my mind all the time. But all the instructors were impressed by me and were very sympathetic after I came back. They gave me all the help required and I was soon able to cope with the class. Now I was amongst above average students. My performance in the last term was very encouraging. I secured second rank in the institute missing first by one grade point.⁵

But another thing happened during the final term of the first year. Summer placement activities had started and everybody was hunting for jobs. It so happened that I was called for interviews for almost every job I applied, but I was not selected. Major influencing factor for the decisions against me was my exceptionally young age. Everybody said: you are too young. I was very frustrated by this and started cursing myself for starting my studies early, coming to IIM-A etc. I was confident about my abilities and I also cursed employers for not recognizing my abilities and colouring their attitude with mere chronological age. Eventually, I accepted a summer project in south India for which selection was made by resume. 

I went to the south in the summer all alone for this project. I was traveling such a long distance alone for the first time. My aunty sent me with a heavy heart. I joined the company and started work on a project about which we had not learned anything during the first year. But, I decided to do a good job for the company anyway. I had taken some books and notes along and started the work. I could get information help from colleagues by my nice behavior with them. I became a good listener and let others talk and feel satisfied. I did a very good job on the project in my opinion and also in the opinion of the company. They indirectly indicated to me that they would be interested in me for long-term employment. This fact gave me a lot of satisfaction and removed all the frustrations of my experience at the selection stage. I entered the second year at IIM-A with terrific confidence and the learnings from this summer project.

------

Editor's notes: 

1. Mr. Madan Mohanka, who was LRB's batch mate at IIM-A, remembers how Prof. VL Mote helped them get over their problems with spoken English. He lent them a tape recorder and advised them to record their own conversations in English, play them back to themselves. He said that it made a big difference. 

2. The IIM-A campus was still under construction in those days and from July 1964 to March 1966, PGP students lived in flats that the institute had rented from the Gujarat Housing Board. They were located a couple of kilometers from the campus. In the middle of March, 1966 they moved to the campus, but not to the dorms, which were being used as faculty and administrative offices. The students, instead, lived in houses built for faculty. 

3. LRB's biological mother passed away when he was a baby. He was brought up by his widowed aunt - Smt. Tej Kanwar Bhandari, or Baiji as she is known in the family. LRB was very close to her and she would eventually adopt him formally. 

4. We have little information about LRB's extended illness. One story comes from his batch mate, the late Mr. Bipin Bhatt, who remembered that LRB suffered a head injury as a result of a prank. This remains to be verified. In a curious co-incidence, LRB spent some time during this illness convalescing at the campus dispensary, which was, at the time, located in what would become house no. 316, LRB's home from 1976 to 1988. 

5. This remarkable turnaround would have a deep impact on LRB's mindset and his beliefs about the factors that determine success. In another section of the 20-page document, he speaks about how it helped him overcome a common belief he had imbibed from his friends and peers at university (and to some extent, also at IIM-A): the idea that if you are intelligent, you do not need to work hard. Indeed, he speaks of how people who worked hard were seen in a negative light in his peer group at Jodhpur University and at IIM-A because it implied that they were not very intelligent. At university, this peer culture influenced him and he took his studies lightly - relying on his natural intelligence to get him through. His struggle-filled experience at IIM-A, however, drove home the value of hard work and to appreciate the value of improving over time. He began to hold the view that your natural ability might influence your choice of career, but eventually, your success will depend on your sincerity and willingness to work really hard. In modern psychology, this would be referred to as a shift from a 'fixed mindset' to a 'growth mindset' and for LRB, was at the heart of his transformation. Three years later, he would call IIM-A his 'break' in life. 

Mohan Menon remembers...

I first met Dr Bhandari when we were making a presentation to Enfield India, makers of motorcycles. We were already the agency for Enfield and handled their iconic brand ‘Bullet’. Enfield had just entered into a collaboration with a German company Zundapp for making and launching their two-wheelers in India. This was, as I recall, in the early 80’s. 

Dr Bhandari had been on the Board of Enfield India, but this was the first time he was interacting with us. He struck us as being a fairly young intellectual. At the time, we did not know anything about his pedigree. During this meeting he was very open-minded about the strategy and the creative work. While he did have some queries, he liked the scripts and was fine with our plan. The Enfield team was also supportive and we were good to go.

There were two new brands that they wanted to launch and for which we had to shoot TV commercials: a moped named ‘Silver Plus ‘ and a light motorbike named ‘Explorer’. I was then the creative chief and had crafted an endearing commercial for Silver Plus with a liitle girl and her father encountering Sunil Gavaskar, which we had shot in Pune. The commercial for Explorer featured a young couple traversing interesting locales in harmony with a memorable song. D-Day dawned and we were in an anxious state as revealed the two commercials to the Enfield team. We were intently watching Dr.Bhandari’s reactions as the commercials rolled. To our intense relief and elation, he broke into a smile as he complimented the agency. The commercials went on air soon after. Later, we had a number of meetings later about the Bullet, a mini-Bullet and another Zundapp Brand named ‘Fury’ and over these meetings, Dr Bhandari and I had struck up an excellent relationship. 

In one conversation with me, he shared some of his views on IIM-A’s PGP programme and said that he felt that the final year students would really benefit from a session on creativity and he was keen that I conduct such a session. Needless to say,  I felt hugely privileged and honoured. I enjoyed my sessions at Ahmedabad and visited the institute for 3 years. One day, I received a call from Dr. Bhandari about a session he wanted me to conduct at a workshop in Goa in November 1988. I readily agreed.

That program in Goa was never to be. I was on the road from Pondicherry to Chennai when I heard the tragic news about the crash of an Indian Airlines flight bound for Ahmedabad. Little did I know that Dr.Bhandari had been on board.

*Mohan Menon was a Former Board Member of Ogilvy & Mather.

Vinita Bali remembers...

Professor Bhandari was an icon and all of us young marketing managers at that time, put him on a pedestal - for his intellect, for his insight and for his ability to take you to a place that would be hard to find on your own.

Cadbury House at Peddar Road, Bombay, where
LRB had his final work meeting. 

I was fortunate enough to interact with Professor Bhandari in 1988, when I was General Manager of Marketing at Cadbury India and he consulted with us on how to accelerate the profitable growth trajectory of our brands. In fact, he was in Bombay for a meeting in Cadbury on October 18th and we worked late that evening, going through all kinds of consumer and market data. It was at an early stage of the consultation and I remember being fascinated by his approach and his unique ability to probe and generate insights that the rest of us would have struggled to find. Little did we know that this was to be his very last meeting. It was a shock to learn the next day that his plane back to Ahmedabad had crashed. I still remember the uncanny silence that the entire office fell into, on hearing the news.

In the short time that I interacted with him, he was curious about how these brands were marketed in other countries. I had returned from my stint in the UK and I remember we spent long hours talking about the relevance of the category in India and the UK and what were the drivers and differentiators for consumers in these markets. His approach was fresh, his piercing intellect and his ability to draw out information and play it back was unique. He was a natural teacher and taught as he talked. What I remember most from those interactions is his love for his work, a keen intellect and his ability to get to key insights very quickly. He was a true scholar and a great teacher.

*Vinita Bali is the Founder of the Britannia Nutrition Foundation, and recently stepped down as the Managing Director of Britannia Industries. In her long career as an executive, she has worked with Cadbury's, The Coca Cola Co., and the Zyman Group.

A SWO(T) analysis of LRB at 18

In 1966 LRB was 18 years old and a 2nd year PGP student at IIM-Ahmedabad. In preparation for the upcoming placement season, he prepared a five-page analysis of himself, his life objectives,  strengths, weaknesses and the opportunities available. 50 years later, this fraying document provides a remarkable glimpse into how LRB viewed himself at the time. Astonishingly, despite the vagaries of chance, his career appears to have closely followed the plans he set himself at the time. Until, of course, chance played its cruel part in his untimely death in 1988. 

A scan of the original copy of LRB's SWOT analysis. The text is reproduced below, lightly edited for clarity. 

LRB at age 18 or 19.

Name: Labdhipat Raj Bhandari

Age: 18 years (July 22, 1948)*

Academic Background:

Bachelor of Arts (1965) from Jodhpur University with Philosophy, Literature and Economics. Joined IIM Ahmedabad immediately after that.

Family Background:

Our family traditionally falls in the category of those 'intelligentsia" who capitalize on their professional (or educational) skills to make living. My father is (and my grand-father was) a "law practitioner". This means I have no tangible backing (business establishment etc) from family. I have been a "self-made man" by developing my own skills. I am second in rank in the family of 7 brothers and sisters.

Personal Aspirations (Ultimate Objective): To lead a very comfortable, satisfactory and reputable life (in economic sense, to afford all necessities, comforts and luxuries of life for me and all members of my family); and at the same time to obtain satisfaction by attaining extraordinary competency in the field of my career (management).

Alternative Strategic plans: 

1. Managing (and/or advising for managing) business houses for their financiers and proprietors.
2. Teaching the subject of Management at Academic and Educational Institutions; doing further research in the field and rendering consultancy services to the business and industry.
3. Managing, controlling and owning one or more industrial and/or business undertakings.

It may be noted that all the three alternative plans satisfy the requirements for attaining the objectives spelled out under the Personal Aspirations (Ultimate Objective) title.

Assessment of my Resources:

Strengths:

1. Full moral support and freedom from my parents for deciding on my career planning and implementing it, unless it is very risky. 
2. A fairly reasonable "intellectual competence" and mental maturity which, I believe, I have got. I also consider my clarity of reasoning and thinking and taking actions which I have developed, as a plus point in me.
3. My fairly good academic record, though not excellent at school and undergraduate level. School Final - 59% marks and 1st position in school faculty; College degree - 56% marks and second position; IIM-A: Second position in the first year.
4. I personally consider my exceptionally young age (18 years) as a plus point. Firstly, it provides a cushion of about five years in which i can take liberty of changing plans, if required; learning from life without creating new responsibilities (like wife etc). Secondly, it provides me flexibility in my formulation of ideals ways of doing things etc. This helped me a great deal in the first year of IIM which was a great transitional period.

Limitations:

1. Lack of tangible backing from my family, if i were to start my own business venture, or to proceed abroad for further studies.
2. Lack of an impressive physique and want of very good health.
3. My exceptionally young age, which works as a disadvantage as people relate, traditionally, age with maturity and thus fail to recognize my worth. This restricts the prospects of opportunities for me especially when they can find people with similar qualifications (MBA) of older age. This was my experience last summer during interviews for summer job.
4. Inability to create glamour around myself in very short time - due to the lack of snobbish behaviour; tendency of mix with any one and polite behaviour with older people. However, I have been able to create positive favorable impression in people's minds, but that is through tangible achievement and exposure to my competence which takes longer time than an interview period.
5. Lack of complete confidence in my abilities and a doubtful tendency towards them, has developed  mainly due to my unsuccessful placement interviews last year.

Responsibilities:

We are a big family and I have great deal of family responsibilities. I am second in the rank of 7 brothers and sisters with 3 younger sisters whose marriage is a big job in our society. Thus my assistance for that is required.

Opportunities-Environmental:

1. Job prospects in executive cadre in Indian business and industry. With the expert assistance of placement office of the Institute, the job prospects are much better than what they would have been otherwise. But, in view of my last year's placement experience, I am very much skeptical about my own job prospects. And, the main reason again is my young age - viewed by my employers as a minus point. I don't have any exceptional advantage over others (like additional degrees or work experience) to offset the age disadvantage. But if any company recognized my worth and offers me a good job, I would very much like to take it up. But, I would be reluctant to take up a job which I consider as one which does not offer satisfaction, challenge and status commensurate with my own worth. I would not mind joining big business houses as management trainee.
2. Another environmental opportunity which could be available is admission and financial aid for Doctor of Business Administration course in some good business school in USA. This again is uncertain mainly due to the financial assistance prospects which are very low. I do not have any finances of my own to finance even a fraction of the expenditure. I am trying for it and nothing can be said till the decisions come from the universities (due in mid or late April, 1967).

Evaluation:

Assuming the availability of this opportunity, my analysis of the two sides of the coin is as follows: In the fair side, this utilizes my age advantage, the period which I have spare at my hand thus - at the age of an average MBA, 22 or 23, I will be DBA with some business experience in USA. This in fact turns my age from a disadvantageous to advantageous factor. I will also get some experience and knowledge from living in USA. The US degree may also give me a push in terms of getting a good job in industry or academic setting. This also reconciles the two alternative strategies i.e. of taking a job in Business or taking a job in Educational Institutions. I may take a job in one of the Educational Institutions in India after working in US for 2-3 years after DBA. Then, after completing 3 years or so in Education field I may shift to Industry directly at a senior level. Of course there are risks that I may not get opportunity in management later on.

The other side of the coin is that there is a great risk of becoming an academician for all the life, which I don't want to become from today's thinking. And if I were to come back to business only, then why should I waste three years in doing DBA which does not have any significant marginal utility over MBA for the management purposes. I will also be detached from my family for 5 to 7 years, especially when I have some family responsibilities in terms of assisting my father. Moreover, there is also a risk of losing determination of coming back to Indian society after a long stay in US, which again is not commensurate with the long term family responsibilities I have.

There is a theory which suggests that brilliant people should always engage themselves in teaching and research in order to get job satisfaction which is absent otherwise (in business management for example, the job becomes routine after some time and one doesn't derive satisfaction out of it). Although I don't claim to be very brilliant, but yet if the theory is true, I would prefer to be in teaching and research. But still the need and importance of practical experience in research and teaching (esp. in Management) cannot be denied. Thus one can always shift back to teaching after working in business. This is easier for me especially as I would not have additional responsibilities to discourage shifts and changes for another 5 to 7 years. I can go for DBA after 3 years work in Industry. In fact I would learn more and there are better prospects for financial assistance. Thus, this analysis of mine suggests that, if available, taking a job in industry would be preferable to DBA.

Role of Opportunities:

I don't think I am in a position to decide either plan of action. Much depends on opportunities. Suppose I don't get a good job and I am able to secure admission and financial aid in US for DBA, I might like to go ahead with it. And suppose there are job opportunities available without DBA opportunities, I have to take up the job. But the decision problem arises when both are available. Both the sides are strong and I defer my decision till I get some counseling from you**. Another possibility is that I don't have opportunities on either side. The course of action to be taken then, also I would like to discuss with you.

*LRB's date of birth appears as 22nd July in most official records. He was actually born, however, on 29th July 1948 a week later than the official record suggests. 

**The person referred to in the final paragraph may be Prof. Surinder Pruthi who was on the placement committee and remembers discussing LRB's options with him.