Prof Bala Balachandran was a man who designed his own destiny.

He decided that he was the one to bring global quality management education to India.

When I met him a few months before he launched Great Lakes Institute of Management, I did not honestly think that he could pull it off given the stage of preparation. He not only launched on the date that he had targeted, but went on to build a remarkable institution, systematically defying every challenge that came his way.

Bala had almost a kid like enthusiasm, whenever he spoke of his new ideas. His ideas in turn gave him inexhaustible energy. His high energy ensured that his ideas became successful reality. Till the end, he never took a pause in ideation.

Bala had this wonderful knack of making a perfect stranger believe he was a close friend, within a few minutes of meeting. That's because he let his head talk rather than his head.

He must have been planning to do some pathbreaking stuff in the heavens, and in his usual way, left , unable to hold himself back.

R Seshasayee