Will Bollywood Movies are going to be a part of B-School?

Bollywood, the nickname for Hindi film industry, is not just creating films for entertainment with all that masala stuff but depicting the lessons for life. Some of them are great inspiration for the society as well as acts as an unflattering mirror to our ever-changing society.

The Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneshwar XIMB has selected Bollywood films such as Manthan, Swades and Chak De as a study material for its students.

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) will shortly start the first-ever course based on Bollywood. Approval and confirmation from Sanjay Gadhvi, maker of ‘Dhoom 2′ as well as more recent, ‘Kidnap’ and Apoorva Lakhia, director of  ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’, have been received and Ghajini starrer Aamir Khan and director of ‘Fashion’ Madhur Bhandarkar, have also shown great interest in this matter.

This course has also resulted in bigger class of enthusiast students eager to learn compare to the class, which was lectured by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. It has met an overwhelming response with 86 students registering for it.

Edutainment, as a part of present day exercise in academics, acts as a helping chain for the students and get a better feel of ‘Community Mobilisation and Institution Building.’

One of the students at the institution, Payodhi said, “Learning through films is actually very helpful because they reflect the society and you tend to understand the societal dynamics through movies.”

Sashank Tripathy, one more student, XIMB said, “If I can watch a movie and there are some theoretical concepts which have been depicted over there then that’s a better way to retain knowledge. Since, management is experiential learning the film brings that element into it.”

In this course, the films act as the text and the students are supposed to deduce theories of rural management from the storyline. Apart from students, even teachers are happy saying that they are benefiting.

“These films are able to meet my objectives. Therefore, ‘Swadesh’ a true personification as the characteristic of the mobiliser, is helping me. If I am teaching mobilization process, ‘Manthan’ is of great help. And, if I am teaching the village institution building, ‘Chak De India’ helps me,” said Neeraj Kumar, Professor at Rural Management, XIMB.

Greater sense of involvement of students is the result of this new method. Even for a change, animated discussions have taken the place of yawns.

Divya Krishnaswamy, a student of XIMB said, “Having films on our course menu bring that extra edge to the whole thing and it is fun”.

After experiencing the outstanding success of this film-based rural management course, XIMB is planning to work on the same footsteps for other upcoming courses provided, they find the films that match the content of the syllabus.

Dr. Shailesh Thaker is a management guru in India and outside the country. He has shown these films in Japan, Korea, Egypt, Dubai, Singapore and Pakistan. Of course, it had been shown with sub-titles in English. He concluded that the effect was very high. Adults learnt very easily and acceptance of concept was of very high level. As it is rightly said, the tone picture is equal to one thousand words.

Watching the movies of Bollywood, I start seeing it with academic attitude. I perceive great learning messages from them. Some of them are as follows.

A) Lagaan: Facing challenges, skill and unskilled team management, over confidence, Team building, Family involvement, Willingness to win, Do or die sprit, Jealousy, Ego handling, and Emotions management.
B) Baghban: Family leadership, Finance management, Presentation skills and Public speaking skills. Generation gap, Realisation of relationship and bonding, Relationship management and Finance for Non-Finance people as well as husband-wife bonding.

C) Fashion: Aiming at High dreams, Digesting success, sustaining success, achieving success, how to raise from one’s failure, Family interventions, Systems prevailing in each industry, Bad habits a factor to rule you out, willingness to comeback and regain the bygone glory, recovering from depression, leader is never the best performer and facing different seasons in life.

D) Swades: Giving importance to Nation first, Building a team in a village, Love for motherland, Resistance and change management, Imbalance in world and society.

E) Gandhi : Balancing roles, Mission accomplishment, Values and Principles, Power of mission statement, Power of prayer, Happiness is inside, community benefit, love for the nation, giving top priority to Nation, Decision making, Legendary attitude and Leadership through demonstration.

F) Munnabhai M.B.B.S: Effect due to Place and position, Power of positive attitude, Interpersonal communication and relationship, Power of belief, Applicable learning, Positive affirmations and People perform their best in what they like even in all odds.

G) Chake De India: Goal Achievement, Team building, Team management, Team spirit, Role of seniors, Coaching leadership, Focus, Benefits of homework, Positive affirmation and Power of subconscious mind, Talent management, Organisational goal versus, Individual goals, Sacrifice and win, Male dominance as well as Women as a performer.
H) Taare Zameen Par : Role of academic institutions, Role of a teacher, Power of creativity, Coaching leadership, Role of parents in their children’s lives, Creative visualisation, Out-of-box thinking, Effects of comparison and Value addition to the education system.

 I) Jodhaa Akbar: Power of Wisdom, Decision-making, Consequences of doubts, Behavioural games and negative attitude, Competency management, Management by walking around, Supremacy of leadership, and Prime importance given to Nation and organisation.

 J) Waqt: Conflict between perception and communication, Gap between intention and communication, Intention and behaviour is different, Effects of miss communication, No alternative to hard work, Demonstration of devotion, Success never comes overnight, Role of parents in moulding children’s lives and Role of children in the family.

 K) Veera Zaara: Leadership inspires people to lay their lives for you, Philosophy of love, Commitment value in personal life, care and share, sacrifice and winning.

 L) Black: Role of a trainer, Believe in results, Patience, Change is permanent, Human Capital Management; Satisfaction is above money factor.

M) Lakshya: Mission statement, Goal achievement, Willingness to do and achieve, Inner driven leadership, Visible change, Difference between ordinary and extra ordinary and Daily homework.

 N) Wednesday: Time management, Delegation and empowerment, Facing challenges, Crisis management, Balancing roles, Mission accomplishment, Power of technology and Killing instincts.

O) Dipti Naval: Family management, Relationship management of husband and wife, Balancing work and family, Different priorities, Over lapping of commitments, Love turning to hatred, Red feelings and Situational leadership.

P) Earth: Effects of bad habits, Relationship between husband and wife, Power of values, Over ambition, Love is a need of life, Woman as an equaliser and creator, Self-realisation.

Q) Ghajini: Corporate management, Egoless relationship, Helping society, Unexpected positive strokes, Spiritual leadership, Power of communication and silent, Life is spontaneity, Helping people before they ask and give more than they expect, Imbalance in society and unethical leaders in power, Valuing relationship, Sacrificing and winning, Physical fitness, Health management, Role acceptance, Hard work, Change management.

R) Corporate: Power of ethics and values, Business rivalry, Pressure at work place,  Short-cut to success, Past forcing you to live in the contemporary future, Valueless career, Association and unseen relationship of religious, politics and business houses.

S) Om Shanti Om: Power of super divine, Reincarnation, Spiritual help and blessings, Power of burning desire, Unethical business leaders, Talent management.

T) (Naseeruddin Shah) Iqbal: Role of a coach, Limited resources, challenges to become successful, Blaming and negative stroking, under expecting human capital, Passion is everything, Create your creative workplace and Career is beyond money.

U) Aankhen: Teamwork and team management, Adult learning and performing, Power of external motivation, Benefits of homework, and Planning before any action.

V) Guru: Power of ambition and vision, Conflict in relationship, Unethical business houses, Growth without principles, Value addition, Changing your orbit, Courageous corporate leader, Negotiation skills, Growth and speed and Self confidence.

W) Sarkar: Loyalty, Handling conflicts, Pressure management, Unethical leadership, Double standards in relationship, Action versus reaction, Family leadership and Self-centric leadership.

X) Mohabbatein: Leadership with norms, Institutional leadership, Code of conduct and Standardise norms in Institutes, Power of love, Disagreement of principles, War of ideas, Philosophy and Ideology.

Y) Manthan: Rural management, Society building, People management, Semi-skilled and unskilled work force, People upliftment and Creating organisation with ownership feelings.