Professor VL Mote - IIM Ahmedabad on Volunteering and being a role model Teacher

At IIM-Ahmedabad, the legendary Professor VL Mote told incoming batches that they are likely to gain more business wisdom by drinking Sabarmati water than time spent in the hallowed portals of the institute

The late Dr VL Mote taught legions of business leaders at IIM-A

Inspired by Vikram Sarabhai, Dr Mote, a Ph.D in quantitative methods from North Carolina working with Calico Mills, quit his job and became the second faculty member to be appointed at IIM-A in 1962.

When Dr Mote entered the classroom, a collective shiver would run down everyone’s spine. He pushed very hard and left no stone unturned to make sure we learnt, not merely to absorb the tools of quantitative analysis but to use them to think for ourselves and come up with sound solutions to business problems. Stories about the way he taught are legendary.

Suddenly, during a class, he would become the main protagonist of a case study we were discussing, and he would literally be on the floor, at the feet of some hapless student in the third row, begging him, “You are my mai-baap , tell me how I should solve this problem.” That day, the problem was about how a textile business could cut cloth with minimum wastage, and the answer lay in the magical world of managerial economics that he taught.

He also taught a legendary course called MSM, legendary because even those quant heroes from IIT usually failed quizzes early on, and everyone was cut down to size so that the learning could begin. MSM was officially Mathematics and Statistics for Management. But, unofficially and more popularly, it was known as “Mote Saha Malya”, for the indomitable trio that taught it. They had only one goal — that students learnt — and they pursued it relentlessly. IIM-A folklore is replete with Mote stories. Every class has a hugely amusing (in retrospect) story of how some hapless person had a chalk or a duster whizzing through the air past his or her ear for not measuring up when called upon to answer! Students wondered for years if he just had bad aim or whether he was very careful, because none of those flying objects ever came into contact with anyone!

Dr Mote had a formidable intellect and a keenly curious mind that brooked no silos. It easily transported itself across contexts — whether it was typical business issues, work in social sectors such as health and education or working with government on policy. He gave advertising its first media planning model, the Clarion Mote model, at a time when the only models ad agencies knew were humans.

what would strike students and inspire Teachers today is how he listened so intently and patiently to brash 20- and 30-year-olds who had a strong (and usually incompletely thought through) opinion on everything. He would then nudge and push through sharp and persistent questioning to get the answer that he was willing to accept.

I came across an article by Rama Bijapurkar dated July 25th 2019 on Professor V L Mote.

i have been reading up more and more about him ...

Volunteering and being in public service shapes character ...

"At IIM-Ahmedabad, the legendary Professor VL Mote told incoming batches that they are likely to gain more business wisdom by drinking Sabarmati water than time spent in the hallowed portals of the institute"

Sabarmati water is synonymous with the Gandhi Ashram and the ethos of public service.

When i read this , it struck me that if only all our institutions and organizations in their halls emphasized on volunteering and service ....

Professor V L Mote as a phenomenal Teacher and world builder through his life's work will live on .. and this message on drinking "Sabarmati water " will stay with us at " The Bodhi Tree "