First Days in Gujarat
Coming to study at IIM Ahmedabad meant setting a foot on Gujarat's soil - a state that has been in news for most of the times in the last three years or so, and on most of the times, for the same reason again and again. Of course I'm talking about the riots - a subject that attracted dozens of documentaries, hundreds of editorials, thousands of news articles and millions of murmurings. And so when I arrived at Ahmedabad airport, a mix of excitement and curiosity grabbed me. Excitement that I was going to be a part of an institution that was inarguably the best in India, and curiosity to find out how much "ground reality" was there to all the documentaries, articles and murmurings. Well, in the last 20 days that I have spent here, I have not been able to find out much. In fact, I've hardly made a conscious effort to find out or talk about the riots that took place in February-March 2002. I've moved out of IIM campus either to buy something for my personal ...