Mohyna & Ajay

MOHYNA KHURANA & AJAY SRINIVASAN PGP 1987

It was surely a stroke of fate that brought my husband Ajay Srinivasan and me to the IIM A campus in 1985. We had both been students of Delhi University, albeit from different colleges prior to that, but had never met in the vast city of Delhi. Now, the close and nurturing environs of IIM at Vastrapur had brought us face-to-face in ‘C’ section of the 1985-87 PGP batch. Seated alphabetically, Srinivasan was a number of seats away from Khurana (yes we are another Two States couple, but the opposite of Chetan Bhagat’s amusing novel – Ajay being from the south and I from the north!). Help from supportive batch mates found him sitting directly behind me for most of the first year. Thus began the exchange of notes, chats and the shared burden of that tough first year. We did a number of WAC cases together and while we began making groups with other students for different projects, the two of us were always on the same group!

We also shared a common dislike, that of the taste of the mess food. Fed up with the monotonous fare, we often found ourselves taking off to the nearby restaurant Lutf for a quick lunch or dinner before meetings and group discussions. As we travelled back to Delhi at the end of the first semester, we continued to chat about the gruelling course load, when in a more relaxed manner, we could laugh and joke about the many tough moments at WIMWI. We spoke a common lingo now and our batchmates and professors gave us enough material to talk about over the journey of 24-hours. We got to speak of our families and our backgrounds as well and found the common ground of a good solid middle-class upbringing with similar values and ideals.

Thus began a life long relationship, one that we are truly happy and grateful for. We both found summer jobs at Citibank. Final placement took me to Hindustan Lever Ltd and Ajay to ICICI and lo! The offices were opposite each other in Backbay Reclamation, Bombay. Much to the amusement of our colleagues, we continued meeting for a stroll and a chat after lunch – after all old habits die hard! We married in December 1988 after I finished my 18-month management traineeship at HLL and though it has been 28 years since then, we still celebrate our meeting at IIM in June of 1985 as the true anniversary of our friendship and partnership.

I find we are instinctive partners in everything we do. Our common education and interests go a long way in making us good company for each other for there is always so much to talk about. Beside personal and family issues, corporate affairs in India and the world over are topics and we can talk with an informed point of view which is always great. Ajay is and will always be an avid cricketer and at IIM I watched him play several matches and cheered him on with gusto! Thanks to that my love of the game was born and we still enjoy watching both live and televised games together.

They say marriages are made in heaven…well IIMA played a huge role in our meeting and coming together in our lives and we will always remember our days there with great fondness!