Forever NIITian
There is
always a next time, they say, but I am not sure about it. So, I was one of
those who felt bad having missed out on the ReUNIITe 1.0. For one reason or the
other, it was looking like I might have to miss this one too, however, I kept
telling myself that this time, I am gonna make it happen. And touchwood, I did J
While I
have been part of the mailing list of this group since the beginning, I wasn’t
a part of any WA or Telegram groups and it was Renu Samuel who finally got me
added into these, approaching the event. The constant chatter kind of helped and
I confirmed to Hari about attending the event. Of course, there was this golden
opportunity to meet up with many people who have been instrumental in shaping
my career; and the big bait of being able to meet up with the pillars of the
NIIT like RSP, VKT, AT, PR etc., once again! I was excited at the chance and
while I knew very few of the people chatting away in the group, I still decided to attend the year end party. Suffice to say, as expected, the year is
ending on a high note just because of this one event and the wonderful moments
it gave J
I am amazed
at the people behind the event and the extremely high energy and the enthusiasm
they have put in behind this whole stuff. It was as professional an event as
the NIIT annual days of the yonder days; the feel was pretty much the same,
especially with the presence of the people who used to drive the annual days
back then.
As I sat
through and listened to the various anecdotes, and the down memory lane type of
quiz, I realized how each and every one of us had contributed to the
organization, called NIIT. For many of us, it was our first corporate job, the
bridge between our academic life and the industry. We were young, and luckily
found the right place to get moulded. Reminds me of this scene from Aamir’s movie
PK, where he asks whether people come with a ‘chaap’ to indicate what religion they belong to. I think all os us who have been part of this
organization, actually walked out with a ‘chaap’ of being NIITian J It is like
how babies are incubated in a mother’s womb, but we have to cut the umbilical
cord at one point. But that does not in any way take away the bondage that the
baby and the mother shares. Such is the link that all of us have with this organization
called NIIT. Which is why we are dubbed as Forever NIITians; in every walk of
life, wherever we went, whomsoever we interacted with, when we mentioned NIIT,
we could easily see the respect that the name commanded!
Thinking
back, to me, NIIT gave me an identity, it honed my skills and confidence,
strengthened my abilities and pushed me to pick up new ones which I otherwise
may not have. NIIT in many ways, was way ahead of the times, the courseware and the teaching methodology, I still consider, one of the best to this date.
My daughter, while doing her engineering was struggling with a few topics and I
dusted out my NIIT courseware, to try and explain RDBMS and Linked List to her
and she was amazed. She quickly ran through her topics and “downloaded” all the
relevant courseware from the loft and kept referring to it. Nothing and no one
can explain these concepts better than NIIT courseware and NIITians even today.
That reminds me of the joke, that for NIITians, a pointer would always be a PTR,
and counter always a CTR😂
The other
aspect of NIIT that amazed me was the women empowerment that I saw all around from top to bottom, while even today many others are still
struggling to dispel this disparity. The absolutely innovative and ingenious
sales and marketing techniques, the unique connect with people (students and
parents), the incessant push to make sure people achieved targets beyond which
they believed they could, etc., are a few things that I can never forget. I still
remember how as a faculty with sales targets, got us
brainstorming; and we started making cold calls around the Residency Road centre. And that
is how I stumbled on the LIC deal one day. The people I talked to in the big, stone LIC building at the end of the M G Road, lead us to their regional office
and thus came the corporate order for the Swift course!!!!
I also had a tough task of teaching the various subjects to two batches of Korean students. They
hardly spoke English, their laptops were installed with Korean version of
Windows, and they were feeling terribly homesick J
My success depended on finding out where they could find sticky rice, to figuring out where they could fix dental and haircut appointments, and buy second hand bikes J Teaching Java, VB, ASP, and more was easy, but English was tough!!! They ended up teaching me little
Korean, which I still remember. And with time, I learnt to decipher the error
messages in their Korean Windows laptops. The one solace for me was the World Cup
Soccer, hosted by South Korea that started during the course, that was indeed
a common language we had !!! Overall, it was fun and a big learning for me and
perhaps that is how I ended up with an excellence award that year and true to the NIIT tradition, quit the same year as well J
However,
the strong foundation of commitment to work, the quality output, the never say die
spirit, the camaraderie, the team spirit, the drive to achieve team goals, and expecting the unexpected, are all qualities that I still credit this
organization with. And as I heard RSP speak at the end of the event, I realized
that perhaps, on that count, nothing much as changed. They were still the same
people who could drive people to achieve unbelievable results and think ahead
of time, which is why the organization evolved with time and is still standing
tall. So, glad and proud to have been an NIITian and will always thankfully
remain a “Forever NIITian” !
Wonderful articulation of all our bond, admiration and affection with niit. Anupam
ReplyDeleteWell written Nandini.Portrays your journey with all the life learnings that you have reaped.best wishes- Vijay
ReplyDeleteWonderful. You have captured the essence of the Forever NIITian movement.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot everyone :)
ReplyDeleteDon't know why my comment is not visible... Your article was a good run through about ur part in NIIT. But what I liked is that you found time to immediately sit and pen down your thoughts. I have started about Dec 22nd event but not been able to finish it.
ReplyDelete