The Nizam's Heritage Block.... The latest Buzz at S P Jain, Singapore!

I had promised to come back with more pics of the latest buzz at S P J - The newly restored Heritage Building... and here I keep my promise as always! :-)

I was always intrigued by the name "Hyderabad Road' ever since the day I landed here.
Yes, that's the name of the road on which the S P Jain, campus is located in Singapore.
Last month the new Leadership and Executive Education centre was inaugurated at the hands of the Education Minister of Singapore, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam. Read more about the inauguration here.

On a quiet rainy evening after the inauguration, last week I sneaked into the new block and got trigger happy with my camera. :-D Here they are!!

Me at the entrance of the New Leadership centre...


The Leadership Centre was earlier a Royal Vacation Mansion of the Nizam of Hyderabad... That's why "Hyderabad Road". :-)

And now... let my pictures do the talking!

One of those cosy corners...


A close up of one of those frames is shown below... Take a quick glance... What do you see? a Horse jumping over an obstacle? Bingo! There you go... Wrong! Observe carefully now! Its actually a Camel!! and not a horse. :-)


An ornate but pricey glass chandelier...


A close up of a portrait of the Nizam...


The entire leadership block at S P Jain, Singapore is full of more such antique pieces... When I was done clicking my pics, I decided to take a look at the Garden, which is now being restored to its original royal beauty by the S P Jain administration.

And that's Vineet at the Amphitheatre Outside...

Finally, take a look at the open garden on the other side of the Heritage Building... which is a part of the campus too.

Singapore from the 72nd Floor of the 'Swiss Stanford' - EQUINOX

We reached the place early so we don't miss the beautiful sunset. However, the smog ensured that the sun disappeared behind it prematurely... thus ruining our chances... Yet we made the most out of it! :-)

Perched on the top of the Swiss Stanford, the Equinox is an elegant palce and a recent hit with Top Class Singaporeans.


I was lucky enough to find a cushy and comortable place near a glass pane and that kept me trigger happy with my camera :-D Was fun watch those cars go about the sqares with crazy madness while here we were on the top of the world... doing... JUST NOTHING! Felt like God. :-)


Singapore... minutes after sunset.

Singapore through the wine glass...

Amazing View of the Singapore river along with the city horizons.


The view of the CBD (Central Business District) includes Corp HQ's of Finanial & Telecom Companies like HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Bank, DBS and SingTel etc.

The Majestic Chinese Gardens

All set to exploit a rare free day... College Entrance as seen from the Library Reading Room which by the way is a designated Heritage Building... (more about it later)


The Breath-taking beauty at the entrance of the Chinese Gardens...


The Japanese Pagoda...

Spiral stairs Inside the Japanese Pagoda... (reminded me of the Boot House in Mumbai)


The breath-taking scene from the top of the Japanese Pagoda...


In the Bonsai Gardens... (The small tree in the green vase to my left was more than 80 yrs old and had miniature fruits on it. Amazing! Isn't it??)


The trail winding its way to the smaller twin pagodas...



And that's Bala at his best... :-D

Visit to Singapore National Museum

The Grand Old Museum Building...


Interiors of the Museum Entrance Dome...


A Typical Singaporean Family Tree in snaps...


Trace your roots at the Ancestral Family Tree Exhibition in the visitors' lounge...


On the way back... VIVO City Mall - the latest attractions among Mall-crazy Singaporeans.

European 3PL Summit and Outsourcing Logistics event

Recently came across this website about Europe's biggest Industry Conference held in Brussels, Belgium. Quite informative, specially if you are some one interested in the Supply Chain & Logistics Field. You will especially find it useful to understand who are the leaders in the SCM Space (Ya! Capgemini - my previous employer and i2 my next assignment share spare under the same roof here :-).

The website also lists info about latest in the Transportation and Logistics space.

Interested already?

Check it out, now!

Night Safari

Ambience at the entrance...

A specially made collage of the Night Safari Trip...


With friends at the Night Safari... (Looks more like a Benetton Advt. ! Doesn't it??) :-D

Another collage with folks in the Tram Ride...

Earthshaking EarthQuakes...

Day Tuesday, 6th March. Time - @ 11-11:15 AM.

I was in my room watching 'Notting Hill' when I felt someone hit my bed and move it... I ignored... It happened again and then again until the point I couldn't ignore it anymore!! I knew something was wrong. That it is an unexpected, unpleasant and earthshaking earthquake became evident when HP (Hiral Patel for the uninitiated :-) ) came to my room... hairs ruffled and shouting... "Hemant bhai bhagoo!! earthquake aya hai..." (Hemant!! Run, It's an earthquake!!").

And he wasn't alone... the entire passage was full of people running to 'save their souls'. I too joined them. We ran down 5 flights of stairs, hearts throbbing as if they are gonna pop out any moment out of their cabinets. Trust me... I never ran down 5 stairs at such an amazing speed ever before. Had it been an actual race, I bet I would have won hands down! :-)

On a serious note, Google News later revealed that there was a Major Earthquake in Indonesia that day followed by similar seismic activity a couple of hours later. It left more than 70 people dead. And the number of injured ran into thousands.

And now as I write this mail, there's newsflash on FT.com of fresh tremors in Melbourne, Australia and I wonder if this nature play is even going to stop.

My roomie, Jigar says next time you are in doubt, just watch the water in the glasses kept on our study tables. If there are ripples, you better take cover. Being from Ahmedabad and having experienced the Bhuj quakes first hand, he should know better.

I pray I never get to see those ripples though!! For handling earthquakes is definitely not my cup of tea!!

Either You Sell or you Don't !! There are no two ways about it !

Ah... Another refreshing Marketing experience! Kind of brought back memories from the BRAINWAVES era at Finolex when our publicity team had to do a lot of Institute and event selling to ensure that we achieve the sponsorship targets!

The occasion was the Career 2007 expo held annually by the Education Devp Board, Govt of Singapore. Growing rapidly in size and strength every year, the CAREER Expo Series has become the Largest and Longest career and educational event in Singapore and the region. It has maintained an impressive track record over the years with increasing number of quality exhibitors and visitors at each year’s exhibition and as a full time student; yours truly got the opportunity to represent S P Jain at the exhibition.

This year there were 3 different pavilions in the education sector:
Renowned Local & Foreign Institutions and Universities (S P Jain, NUS, NTU, UNSW etc.)
The European Pavilion (Les Roches, IMI, Switzerland etc.) and
Special Interest Pavilion (the most popular being the Casino Training Institute!!:-)

It was a kind of a totally different experience...

It was a kind of a totally different experience for a variety of reasons...


For one, I had never met so many people (more than a thousand) belonging to different races, ethnicity, occupations, countries and backgrounds; all in a span of just 3 days


Secondly, the event gave me a wonderful opportunity to model and develop my own elevator pitch for S P Jain and I can safely assume that by Day 3 I was able to optimise the pitch to 100% effectiveness.

Third, it taught me how to focus and market to the target audience. Not everyone can be given the same AIR time you know!

and fourth, it taught me much needed endurance in a typical sales role. It was very tiring to stand and interact with the seemingly never ending queue of visitors... (I almost crashed out after Day 3!! :) )

Some funny incidents...

It happened a couple of times that when I tried pitching the S P Jain, 1-year Dual City MBA model to a parent, he heard me out patiently and then said... "Dude, you know what? You have just sold my own MBA degree back to me!" I was flabbergasted! "How on earth can that be!!" I wondered...
“Yeah! I am an MBA from SP Jain, Mumbai - Batch 4, 1985, now working as a MD with a leading financial institution!", came the quick, assertive reply followed by a appreciative grin. :-)

And then there was this cute Chinese girl on day 1 who came to our stall and uttered "Easpee P ee Jaineee?"... I took off with my elevator pitch for the next one minute or so, she listened intently and then after I had finished my pitch, she innocently said "no Englisaa... only Chineseee...."
"Uh Oh!!" How I wished I vanished somewhere that very moment! "Puff...!!"

And then there were many interesting people I got a chance to work with... Nirmala Ma'm, who has got a helluva lots of enthusiasm that is utterly contagious (wow! she sold helicopters at one point in her career! How cool!!), Neethu, with whom I worked with for the World MBA tour as well, and many other including a 20-strong team of budding MBAs who just joined the S P Jain GMBA program.

I met some very famous people too... the Education Minister of Singapore, head of the EDB, an industrialist from Pune (India), a journalist from India and representatives and academics from leading universities.

We had a really good time I must say! And although our batch of 2007 is at the fag end of our mba life, I'd like to have the opportunity of an encore.