Back to the Future - I

Jul 13

The yeasty smell emanating from the bakery took me back to another time and place . When we were under going a course at administrative staff college of India.Reminded me of the fantastic aromas emanating from the kitchen of ASCI. Almost two years ago on 20th November we ,as the first course had passed out of the college . Since then almost all of us retired from the armed forces. Most of us as predicted wanted to work in the civil organisations. 

Nov20

As the course was begun , it ended in the same way. We had congregated again in the lecture hall CR-1. Again there were a whole lot of eminent persons sitting on the stage . The air was full of scented aerosol spray and smelling good. A few bouquets on the stage added to the colour. Aerosols had not yet been declared carcinogenic by the Concerned authorities. And since ignorance is bliss everyone concerned was enjoying the spirit of bonhomie prevalent in the air. In the past six months many of us had taken part in the projects of ASCI. Partly due to our interest and partly due to our availability. In the past six months we had learnt a lot of economics , finance , Organisational Behaviour , Marketing , Public Relations and a whole lot of other subjects which we hoped would stand us good in the civil environment which we endeavoured to embrace for our second innings.

Yes ; That is what it was - A Second chance at having a stab at life in a totally different atmosphere. Most of us felt vulnerable and alone . Not knowing what the future held for us. We were sure that unlike the services where life was dynamic , we would have to settle down to a static 9 - 5 job. In the past month our brochure started paying dividends. While at first there was not much enthusiasm in the companies to have a look at us ,  things started changing when a stream of head honchos from various companies started to interact with us . Based on the knowledge acquired purely due to the diligent efforts of the accomplished staff at ASCI , our penetrative questioning impressed them and soon the word spread around . Within no time we were getting offers from various companies and some of us landed some good jobs...

2017

Perumal decided that he was not for any corporate employment. His mind was always on agriculture and land improvement. He steadfastly refused jobs which would have suited him . In 2016 after a protracted battle with the authorities for his pension he found himself in chennai where in answer to an advertisement of the department of agriculture of Tamil Nadu State he landed a job with them . His down to earth behaviour and his ability to connect with the drought hit farmers of TN made him a suitable interface between the populace and the government of TN. He became the chief troubleshooter for the agriculture ministry of TN. He became a pioneer of the drip irrigation in TN. His intervention made him much sought after guest speaker in various institutions and state government symposiums. He is slated to make an appearance at ASCI to lecture the third course for retiring services officers and the topic of his lecture will be business management and agriculture...

GJ Rao joined an international school at Hyderabad as part of the board of directors. His education back ground along with his business acumen developed at ASCI stood him in good stead. His school prospered and soon he was busy in spreading the business of education through the states of andhra and telengana. His pet project of helping down and out people and thus contributing to the reduced suicides in both the states saw him shoot to prominence. His oratorical skills driven by ambition moved him to join politics. He is at present touring kazipet area to garner support for being elected as the Member of the legislative assembly . In case he wins he will almost certainly be the next education Minister of the state from the elected government. He is also planning to introduce his kith and kin to politics...

2015

We had no idea of all this at the present. As of now we are diligently toiling away at the marketing class trying to help Kotak Mahindra in kerala to corner the lucrative market of HNIs . We are taking baby steps in this process and most of our suggestions have been shot down by Ms Malini Reddy through her logical  reasoning ,as she poked holes in our strategies to acquire the market. By afternoon we came to a tenuous and acceptable solution . Post lunch saw us feverishly working on excel sheets to establish a trend in the customers of a garment shop to see how we can maximise sales and increase our profits. More than anything else we were also learning the operation of the excel sheets. While some of us were adept in this arcane skill most of had no idea and it was dual learning for us....

Tomorrow and the days after are another day... when we shall see how the rest have fared..