The Extraordinary Tale of Alumni Assisting their Former Director from Symbiosis, Pune, to Set Up his own Institution
January 29th, 2009“I cannot believe that our institute has actually started functioning”, says an exuberant Prof M.S. Pillai while showing around his institute, merely days after it commenced its operations in the busy city centre at Pune.
To say the least, Pillai, when he found himself without a job on 27 April 2004 after he fell out with the Symbiosis management after spending 16 years of service, was paranoid as to how he was going to meet the house and car payments, besides his household expense. “My first thought was to look for a job and I even had an immediate offer from a friend and former colleague Prof Balasubramaniam who runs a prominent set of educational institutions in Pune,” reminisces Pillai. It was, in fact, Prof Bala who first set the ball rolling by offering a massive sum purely as a gesture of friendship to bale out Pillai, despite knowing that Pillai’s institute could easily become a competitor. “He was my former teacher, under whom I did my MBA and I couldn’t see him being employed with me and I suggested that he set up an institute of his own and promised all assistance.” says Prof Col. Balasubramaniam, executive director of IIMM, Pune.
Pillai’s abrupt departure from SCMHRD as its founder director had created major ripples among Pune’s academic community and the first ones to react had been its own students, who perhaps started the deluge of mails, SMSS and snail mails from the institute alumni, that poured from all over promising support and urging Pillai to act. “My first supporters to set up an institute were my former attender and one of the accountants from SCMHRD, “My first supporters to set up an institute were my former attender and one of the accountants from SCMHRD,” Pillai recalls.
“Meanwhile as the alumni started persuading me, around 25 visiting faculty members either over the telephone or in person conveyed that they would also teach free of cost in case I decided to start an institute. Even the stationery supplier, the printer and the travel agent offered that they would not bill me for at least a year until I stabilize. It was a great feeling that in the world there are plenty of wonderful people still around,” Pillai adds.
After agonising almost the whole of the month of May, Pillai finally relented to pressures from his friends and peers, and started to design the concept of a management institute. “I did not want the institute to be a commercial one, nor should it be something which I would come to own with other people’s money. I wanted it to be run on trusteeship basis and I wanted the friends and alumni to form the trust and run it, while I would work as a director on a salary,” Pillai says.
It was the relentless pursuit of the SCMHRD alumni that actuallly resulted in the founding of the SCMLD. “A former colleague from Delhi flew in with a cheque of Rs 2 lakh. An alumni came in and offered to sit with me to set up the institute physically, several more came up with air-conditioning equipment, chairs, tables, hostel furniture…It was simply overwhelming.”
“As this was going on, I received and excel sheet via e-mail wherein 152 ex-students of mine (alumni) committed an amount of Rs 3 crore over a period of time, requesting vehemently to start the institute. I was deeply touched and went more into silence and reflection,” recalls Pillai.
But the real trigger had been his chance meeting with one Sairam on reference from an alumni based in Dubai. “Sairam immediately understood my problem and offered that I take up his entire building and agreed that he would act as a Dean to our institute” There was no going back after that. Sadhana Centre for Management and Leadership Development (SCMLD) started rapidly taking shape.
SCMLD concept was frozen and the first small quarter page advertisement in Times of India Delhi was released on 6 June. “The admission season had just ended and we did not hope to get good candidates.” admits Pillai. “I somehow felt that Pillai was simply missing the point. If you want to be in business, it should be stated loud and clear,” states Col. Bala emphatically. He designed the next advertisement for his friend, a full-page one with screaming headlines hardselling Pillai and it hit home. And how! Within the next fortnight everything around SCMLD went into a mad frenzy interviews for admissions, selection of faculty, carpentry work, purchase of materials, setting up of computer labs, locating boys hostels, refurbishing the top two floors for ladies hostels…everything was moving at breakneck speed until 14 July 2004, when SCMLD, the institute which the sishyas set up for their guru, started its formal sessions.
- A.THOTHATHRI RAMAN
Contact Person
M.S. Pillai
Founder Director
Address:
SCMLD
392 A, Mahale plot,
Deep bungalow – Vetal chowk Road,
Model colony P.O.
Pune : 411 016
Ph: 020 – 25672026 /27
Fax: 020 -66033796
URL: http://scmld.org/
Email: [email protected]
