Powetalk with Praksh Iyer

11.35pm ,15 October 2011

Today is the 2^nd day of the flagship event  of our college event Lakshaya. This year there is more addition to it and it is Power talks. Harsha bhogle and Prakash Iyer was invited for the talks.

I have already listened to the speech of both the dignitaries in TIE and Indian Institute of Mountaineering or something like that in words of Mr.Iyer. I was very crazy about the talks and went there 1 hr. before the scheduled time of the event. 

As the event take off, first of all was a speech by our director who announced that Harsha will not be able to make it to our college. The Nitie lawns, where the event was organized was jam packed and it is primarily due to the Harsha Bhogle, who is a successful cricket commentator and columnist in most esteemed sports magazine and newspaper, if he not be a successful commentator today would be a lousy engineer or a bad manager today. Everybody  was shocked and I thought it would be  disappointing for Mr. Iyer. But as he was invited to talk, He begun like that “if you are missing the Harsha, Count me in too.” There was a big round of applause and he seemed to make the presence felt already. He was junior to Harsha in IIM A and both shared some good old memories together. 

In the beginning, the speech was similar to what I had heard already but still listening it live and the author of “The Habit of Winning”, just a steps away was in itself an enthralling and mesmerizing experience. He shared some stories with us which I can think is the best way he can share his pearls of wisdom with us. Suddenly, he said, “Before ending I would like to share …..” It was bit shocking as the time went too quickly, perhaps he made it too engrossing and interesting. He shared his experience and observations from the time  when he was in HUL selling the soap, when he was in Pepsico selling the colas till today when he is the current MD of the Kimberly Clark selling the Kotex and Huggies. 

Questions and Answers session at the end also went quite well. Budding managers asked a lot of questions and he answered them very genuinely. His answers were also quite practical and not ideal. Later, One of our placement Dean in the speech at the very end mentioned perhaps the audiences will not be able to digest the both the talks. And yes, I think he is pretty correct. Like the name of the show, It was much more powerful than I had imagined. After that Signed copies of his book was sold at a discounted price. He was a very down to earth person with excellent sense of humour. He dined at VIP guest house of our college and fortunately, I was present there. Altogether, it was a good feeling with a sense of satisfaction. 

Note: Sharing the tit bits of the speech would not be appropriate as the use of camera/video recording was not advisable during the speech.

Just now, i checked the couple of tweets by Harsha Bhogle. I would like to share them with you.

• "sorry all you guys at nitie.was really looking forward to meeting you;two drafts of talk ready,all dressed up but pick up car far too late...Tweeted by Harsha Bhogle "

• "hope you enjoy the session with prakash iyer; he's a lovely man with a wealth of experience and a serious writer............Tweeted by Harsha Bhogle"