Gennext Shines in the Middle East

Its been quite a while since yours truly pitched in with his words but TBK cannot really be faulted for the work that has been happening all around us at Gennext. Workaholic it has been the last few months and so I decided that this one Sunday will be the one to express my thoughts with all the hectic happenings all around us. For starters TBK is now officially a part of the Gennext Team. Personally its a great honor bestowed on me, to shoulder a great responsibility alongside one of the greatest Legends of the Game, our dearest mentor Ravichandran Ashwin.

I still recall one of the evenings a few months back, we were all gathered at RKM grounds in T. Nagar. It was one of the happy, fun evenings which is normally the case with my boss around, actually I am entitled to call him that officially now and it does feel great. So back to that evening, all happy faces around. All of a sudden, my mentors face turned grim and serious. At that point of time, I was still the happy go lucky fan boy and not a full time employee. Ashwin turned to Sudarshan and both of them had an animated discussion. I was like - Hope Things were fine.

It turned out that we had to vacate RKM ground in a months time and we had no place to go. It was almost as though the ground under us was pulled away and we were hurtling headlong into a dark abyss. Where do we go from here? What do we do? One single Center and One School was all that we had at that point of time. However this is where the leaders vision comes through. Ashwin was perturbed for a few minutes but he recovered from that initial shock almost immediately. He announced quite nonchalantly "Guys we are expanding. We are no longer going to be dependent on one single center." A magic few words were all that was needed to turn this entire organization around towards unheralded growth.

We moved to Loyola....KRM a school in Perambur fell in place. Pon Vidyashram our existing center in Valsaravalkam started to show exciting growth. APL in OMR, Chennai one of the upmarket schools decided to join hands with us.An announcement to follow shortly in this regard. At the time of penning down this blog we are in advanced talks of closing the deal with one of the leading schools in Chennai as our next center. While we seem to have more than discovered our mojo at our home base in Chennai we also have expanded our footprint beyond our shores into Foreign Land. We have now tied up with Desert Cubs in Dubai. Gennext Desert Cubs will cater to the requirements of Cricket Coaching in the Middle East. Our Team consisting of Ashwin, our COO-Sudarshan, our coaches Santosh and Srinivasan were there in Dubai last week to kick start our operations there.

The Visit to Dubai was a roaring success and Teams on either side are gung-ho about the relationship with a lot of interesting plans for the future. I would be failing in my duty at this point of time if I do not thank Mr Ramesh ,Mr Balaji and Mr Vinay who were the key architects of this exciting relationship. As I spoke with Ashwin yesterday he was pretty excited with all that transpired in Dubai. His words still ring in my ears"TBK, this tour to Dubai was a grand success and we are really crossing boundaries"

So much has transpired in the last few months and many more good tidings to come in the future. All that has happened has happened for the good including our move from RKM to Loyola. The biggest learning for all of us being that we were in a closed shell as long as we were at RKM, but the moment we decided to open up our vision, the world has become our stage, endless, seamless growth options. All this growth that we have experienced in the last few months has been entirely due to all our staff at Gennext. For me personally this has been an exciting new journey which I pray to continue for many more years to come.

Its Us Vs Us

An ideal morning for a lovely game of Cricket. There is nip in the air, clouds are a little low lying and there is this gentle air that is blowing across the ground. Typical Picnic morning English conditions when you may want to snooze around in lush green environs watching a lovely game of cricket. So when the COO of our institute asked TBK to come over and cover an interesting match as a reporter I was game for it. Now This was indeed a very unique match being played between Gennext Cricket Institute and Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists Association. 

One was that I was a tad bit nervous as I was covering a match between journalists and Cricketers. It was a match between Men who wield the Pen and the Keyboard and the Men who wield the bat and the ball. Why then the title "Its Us Vs Us" Well I am of the opinion that here was a motley group of sports journalists who day in and day out cover the matches of the cricketers, cornering their glory milestones, being their biggest critique, splashing newspaper headlines with their glorious achievements and making heros out of mere mortals. So in a sense there is no real match out here but the coming together of individuals, the coming together of expressions just for the cause of fun and celebration. Indeed Us Vs Us.

My daily morning begins with the newspaper and so when I came across a set of names to go along with my blog I was in a sense very excited because I was being given an opportunity to write about the gentlemen from the fourth estate. I have always made it a point to begin reading the newspaper from the sports page, like the Urdu script, that being my fascination for sports. So when names like TN Raghu,Santhosh kumar, N Srinivasa,Venkatnarayan,S Sudarsan,Dipak Ragav,EK Sanjay, Srikanth,Ashok Venugopal,Vivek Krishnan,S Bagawati Prasad pop up in front of your eyes in Bold, you are in a zone where you get to write about a group of gentlemen who write day in and day out for you.

Coming to the match itself. I never intended to do a ball by ball ball coverage, neither an elaborate article of who win or who lost. TNSJA came together, Thanks to Balaji Sir, Sudarshan and Baggs whose idea it was to play this match. We grow up in life ,become adults and make a mark in a chosen professional field, yet the child in us refuses to die down. Exactly what happened on the Cricket Field today. The esteemed gentlemen from the press wielded their bats with a lot of clout and willowful power. A Few sixes and fours rained across the field. With all that breeze around its never easy to clear the ground that too with a tennis ball, but TNSJA were clearly here to have some fun and display that they as adept at wielding the bat as they power their pen . We were pleasantly left surprised at their fielding prowess. A few stunning catches and we had to dig in to playing some amount of serious cricket. The Game of Cricket had emerged victorious.

Our most respected Ravichandran uncle was there in person to give away the prizes to all the winners. We wish to thank Manna Foods India for those lovely gift hampers, Specsmakers for their goodies and Dollars & Pounds for their Gift Vouchers. It was indeed a wonderful gesture on the part of the sponsors. The event in totality was a feel good factor, end of the day it is these wonderful gentlemen who represent us in print and the joining together of hands bodes very well for the cricketers and the journalists. On the whole a very pleasant and happy outing and I am sure that this is just the first such event of many more to come.

Straight Drive with Ravichandran Sir

The moment you enter our institute grounds, of course you will be greeted by a lush green outfield and a good splattering of kids enjoying the game of cricket. More than anything else you will be greeted by smiling young coaches, one amongst them , yours truly. You will into most occasions bump into an elderly, young simple Gentleman, Ravichandran who also happens to be the founder of our institute and Ashwins father.

My encounter with him was dramatic no less. I was walking away from the institute when I found Ravichandran sir seated on one of the steps, when he enquired about me. I introduced myself. Sudarshan our COO was close by and added a few words. My stupid ignorance gave way at this point of time and I had the gall to know who he was. Sir said the following words. "I am Ravichandran, the founder of this institute" I only felt like kicking myself but also was taken aback by his simplicity. From that time I have always wanted to write a piece on Ravichandran sir and I am very happy that this column of "Straight Drive" will be used for the very purpose. At first when i broached him with the idea about the blog, he said that he would tell me about a fathers side of the story, and then it took a few weeks to get there but in between we have had a few sittings where i could really understand why Ashwin reached where he is currently, only because of a uncompromising parental system that worked wonders in the backend.

For us fans it is always about the Idiot box in front of us, cheering our hero as he takes a couple of hundred wickets but hardly are we aware about the making of our hero and his days of struggle, the pains that the family has gone through and the sacrifice that they have had to make. Ravichandran Sir took me through glimpses of his past and his role in all of it. Not many of us would know that Sir is himself is a foodie and food for him has to be sumptuous. He cannot compromise any shortcomings as far as taste is concerned. Indeed we can call him a perfectionist. He tells me "Karthik come over and I will make you the best possible Masala Dosa." He cannot tolerate to see a person go hungry. Whenever he sees a person in hunger he feeds them with food. Noble Quality of the highest order.

Sir is very concerned that just as parents need to take care of children, the role sort of reverses when the parents grow older. It is the turn of the children to take care of the parents. It pains him no less when it comes to his ears of children abandoning their parents.

We spoke at length about Ashwin and here is where Sir let out his emotions. He told me about how he would tutor Ashwin and help him with his lessons. At a stage when cricket became a important priority in Ashwins life, he would have to miss classes. Sir would go to the class take the note books from other children, have them xeroxed and bring them home for Ashwin to study. Sir would himself study the entire chapter, mark out important sections in the lesson so that Ashwin could focus on the same. Later on in the night when the entire world would be lured into slumber, Sir would ask questions from the lesson, the dutiful son would answer the question correctly. Sir stresses that Ashwin has always cooperated as far as academics is concerned and was always studious as a child.

When it came to Cricket Sir would drop and pick up Ashwin from the ground after the match. In fact he comes to our institute sometimes on the same bike that he would use to drop Ashwin. He continues to maintain the same bike till date. These were the days of struggle. There were occasions when Ashwin would be overlooked despite his talent, and the hard decision would have to be conveyed to him by sir. The youngster was quite mature beyond his years and would quite nonchalantly say "Appa, No problem, lets go home".There were times when people around the family would cast aspertions around how Cricket could make a career, today the same people shower the family with praises. An Emotional Ravichandran Sir told me how life has come a full circle for the entire family. I could myself feel a lump in my throat when he was sharing his experiences.

There is always a word of advice about the finer nuances of the game when a cricketer approaches him for his advice. For those of you who dont know, Sir was a fine medium pacer in his heydays. He has always advocated that academics is as important as Cricket and that both should compliment each other. Sir also stresses on the importance of Parents supporting the child by encouraging the talent in him or her. He also adds that when you send your children for cricket practice or for matches, do sit and watch them play. When the child is at the center, he does crave for attention, he looks up at the galleries to see if someone is watching him, at that moment a gentle wave of the hand works wonders.

Of course our philosophy is about "Creating Tomorrows Cricketing Superstars" but the unsaid silent philosophy that is always at the back of our mind is to create a better human being, which was the intention of our founder Ravichandran sir when he was parenting Ashwin, and that is the exact image that keeps coming to TallboyKarthiks mind each time he meets Ashwin, a genuinely great human being. Hats off to Mrs and Mr Ravichandran for giving to us Ravichandran Ashwin.....