My alma mater IIFT (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade), hosted an alumni meet of UK and EU chapter in London on Friday 8th July in Grand Royale Hotel, at Hyde Park in London. We have around 150 alumni living in the UK and the meet was attended by around 38 alumni. It was co-ordinated and hosted by Mr. Neeraj Dhingra of 1991-1993 batch.
The highlight of the meet was Dr Manoj Pant, the current Vice Chancellor of IIFT (VC because IIFT is a deemed University now) and head of alumni affairs Dr. Niti Chatnani (Ms.). It was an honour to meet them both. Since I am not working unlike everyone else, I reached on time and Mr. Dhingra introduced me to the Dr Pant and Dr Chatnani.
While we waited for the other alumni members to arrive, I had a privilege to talk to the esteemed faculty members and we ended up in discussing various issues, which I will mention in the paragraph after the next one.
During the formal meet, Dr Pant addressed the alumni and announced the he and Dr Chatnani are on tour to UK and then USA and seek co-ordination with the world’s best institutions that provide management degrees such as Cambridge University in the UK and Berkeley University in the USA. That was a very welcoming news as it would enhance the profile and reputation of IIFT even further, from the current standing as India’s number one institution providing post-graduate degree in International Business; under its flagship programme of Masters Programme in International Business (MPIB).
For that Dr Pant wanted IIFT alumni across the world to take an active interest in his proposal and support his initiative. He got a thunderous applause from the UK chapter of the alumni and sincere support from all the members present during the meet! After all, who doesn’t want to carry the prestige of his/her alma mater.
Coming back to the talks that I was having with Dr Pant before the start of the formal session, we happened to have touched on my illness (GBM Brain Cancer), that had rendered me disabled to an extant that I there were no prospects of me resuming my career in much stressful, London’s financial markets. Still, Dr Pant congratulated me for having survived much beyond the median rate of survival of 18 months. Dr Pant also advised me that I must keep working on whatever dreams I have and he encouraged me to read the memoirs of famous cricketer of India – Yuvraj Singh, who was so obsessed during his Cancer bout of very rare “Mediastinal Seminoma Cancer” (mediastinum being the area that separates the lungs. It is surrounded by the breastbone in front and the spine in back, with the lungs on either side), that he never stopped dreaming for going back to the Indian national Team and resume to play at international level yet again, which eventually he did.
That statement gave me immense boost and moment I reached home, I ordered the book and as I read it now, I really feel inspired from his courage and positive outlook towards life. I am certainly not interested in going back to the Financial Markets, but I do have other Software ideas in my mind that I am very passionate about.
Another reason that I got hooked with his story that we both belong to Chandigarh and when I was doing my pre-engineering (10+1 and 10+2), Yograj Singh’s son (everyone in the city knew about Yograj Singh – a talented cricketer whose career was cut short due to his aggressive personality) used to come to my DAV College in Sector 10 of the city to play cricket with the students of DAV college- 6 to 7 years older than him.
From the main gate as I would walk to my class, I could see him playing but of course never paid too much attention at him, except a cursory glance. In his book he mentioned that he was never interested in attending classes and was obsessed about playing Cricket – perfecting his sixes. I, on the other hand used to rush to the trigonometry class to learn about length, height and hypotenuse. In other words what I was learning at that time, he had started to “execute” them in the cricket field. I know these were our respective “pitches” and we both did well in our respective domains. Neither of us have any regrets on our lives and that is something common between us!
In my mind and spirit, I congratulate Yuvraj Singh and pray to the divinity to keep blessing both of us with good health and positive spirit!