The halls of Kellogg's School of Management in Chicago and the Great lakes school of management in Chennai are silent today, Kellogg's lost an Emeritus professor who has been teaching there since 1973 and Great Lakes lost its founder and Chairman. He was Professor Bala in Kellogg's and Uncle Bala in Great lakes to all the students and the faculty.

For me he was a Management guru and my Professor Bala. I have known Professor Bala for the last 20 years.

I first met Prof Bala when I was in Hindustan lever and the then Chairman Keki Dadiseth organized a day with him for senior managers. He was incisive, sharp and an excellent teacher that day. I then lost touch with him and then bumped into him again when I joined the Godrej consumer products Board in 2008. My education from him re-started again as I was a first time board member, and I learnt a lot from seeing him on the board, his views on how organizations build information systems, how they should allocate capital and how they should think of human capital.

Professor Bala was involved in the selection of the IIM Bangalore faculty in the late 60s and 70s, he was involved with MDI, Gurgaon and he was on the founding faculty list of ISB, Hyderabad. He played a crucial role in shaping the thinking and syllabus in all three places. He had more than a hundred research papers to his credit.

Professor Bala was an institution builder and a proud Indian. In 2008, Roshni Nadar, current Chairperson HCL and then who was on the Kellogg's India Day committee asked me to do a key note session at Kellogg's. It was a wonderful India day event which had Ambassador Ronen Sen and Shashi Tharoor as key note speakers that day. I was very impressed with the event and asked the students for the origins of the event. Lo and behold, the India Day was started by Prof Bala at Kellogg's in 1991 and his first speaker was Dr Manmohan Singh, later to be PM of India. I discussed this with Professor Bala when I met him next. He mentioned to me that in 1991, few students and fewer businesses in the US had exposure to India and he felt that India would be a future economic force and hence he started the India Day at Kellogg's. His idea was ti build India in America in his known way – through a thought leadership event. Today most famous business schools have an India Day. Prof Bala was 30 years ahead of everyone in visioning India and its promise.

I then was more regularly in touch with Professor Bala after he started Great lakes Business School in Chennai. I went and spoke at the old Saidapet campus first and I have spoken at Great Lakes at least a dozen times in the last ten years. Great Lakes was his labour of love and he was passionate to develop an excellent institution. Professor Bala was a genial guy, full of fun and jokes, the only time I have seen him being tough is when he saw time indiscipline amongst his students. He was a strict disciplinarian. A walk with him in the Great Lakes library is an education, it has pictures of him with the legendary Dean Jacobs of Kellogg's and President Obama amongst others and every picture had a nice backstory to it.

Prof Bala started a second campus of Great lakes in Gurgaon and I spent some time with him on a few occasions there. Prof Bala loved his students, to them he was Uncle Bala and signed off all mails to his students as Uncle Bala. He was amazing. In 2016, he called me to do a speech at his book launch. He co-authored a book "Living legends, Learning lessons" with a student of his – Kavipriya. That was an amazing event and I cannot think of many great , celebrity professors co -authoring books with their students. That spoke volumes about his connect and humility.

I last spoke with him in April this year.

Prof Bala will be remembered for his trade mark attire - white shirt and white trousers, with a blue blazer thrown in. He was a great Sivaji Ganesan fan and would hum many of the old Tamil songs in board meetings and in various sessions. Profesor Bala had a wicked sense of humor. He would always tell me " Shiv, I paid for one bypass and got a quadarpule bypass, I got a buy one get three free offer" I would tell him " Prof you have done more in one life than what people can do in four, may you live long"

I can't say that to him anymore. Professor Bala, Uncle Bala, Board Director Bala, Chairman Bala, Entrepreneur Bala, Researcher Bala, Author Bala, Padmashree Bala,you have been a guru to so many, a lot of business school graduates in India owe their thinking to you. I will always be your student. RIP professor Bala.

Shiv shivakumar