The Gandhian in a B-school

In June 2004, as a young student at what was then NITIE Mumbai (now IIM Mumbai), I stood on the streets of Mumbai with simple educational toys in my hand, a modest sales target, and a very unconventional assignment from one unconventional professor: Dr. T. Prasad, fondly known today as “Mandi Sir” was debuting the very first edition of Mandi. What looked like a freak, even frivolous, street‑selling exercise that day has since grown into a nationwide movement in entrepreneurial, Gandhian, hands‑on learning - the Mandi and Maha Mandi pedagogy.

Two decades later, as Dr. T. Prasad retires from IIM Mumbai, it feels the right moment to pause, reflect, and celebrate the revolution he quietly sparked and the thousands of students and entrepreneurs he has shaped along the way.

From tailor to “Mandi Sir”

Dr. Prasad’s own journey adds extraordinary moral weight to his message. In various talks and interviews, he has openly shared how he funded his own education by doing tailoring work on weekends, carrying his experience of dignity of labour into the classroom as a core value rather than just an anecdote. This lived understanding of work, frugality, and self‑reliance is what makes his advocacy of “Earn While You Learn” and Gandhian entrepreneurship authentic, not theoretical.

Over the years, that philosophy evolved into a distinctive pedagogical brand: Mandi, Maha Mandi, Gandhi Mandi, Ambedkar Mandi and other variants that place students directly in the marketplace, selling meaningful products and discovering management principles through real transactions.

Mandi: Learning by the hand, not just the head

At its heart, Mandi started as a simple but radical idea. Students were sent out onto the streets to sell low‑cost, educational toys and learning aids to everyday families. In a single day, they experienced the full cycle of marketing and personal selling: identifying prospects, pitching value, handling objections, closing sales, and reflecting on what worked and what did not.

The toys themselves - such as Jodo and Tangram (back then) - were designed to teach concepts in mathematics, chemistry, and problem‑solving, so students are not just selling products but advocating for better learning for children. The field experience was then expected to be integrated back into the curriculum, connecting what happened on the street to courses in marketing, managerial economics, consumer behaviour, communication, and organisational behaviour.

What began as an experiment got support from other faculty over the years. Initially it was only Dr Prasad who gave credits for participation and performance in Mandi, but later, as the pedagogy got recognized by other professors, every course had credits related to Mandi. The event also became a magnet for attracting celebrities to IIM Mumbai, combining academic learning with a festival‑like socio‑entrepreneurial experience every year. Gradually participation scaled from IIM Mumbai to more than a thousand participants, including students from other institutions such as IIT Bombay’s SJMSOM, KJ Somaiya, and NMIMS, turning streets into live laboratories of management education.

Beyond Mumbai and educational toys - Gandhi Mandi, Ambedkar Mandi and the power of ideas

One of Dr. Prasad’s most powerful innovations was to extend this model beyond toys to ideas, starting with Gandhi Mandi. In this variant, students sell Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, turning a simple book assignment into a live exercise in disseminating Gandhian thought while earning a modest commission per copy. Inspired by this success, similar experiments such as Ambedkar Mandi - selling Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s writings and biographies - have emerged, taking the same “learning by hand” philosophy into the realm of social justice, constitutional values, and critical thought. These models show that Mandi is not just about learning sales; it is about making the sale itself a vehicle for spreading transformative ideas across metros, tier‑1/2 towns, and smaller towns and villages.

Institutionalising student entrepreneurship

Dr. Prasad did not stop at events. He has been instrumental in establishing the NITIE Centre for Student Startups (later referred to as the NITIE Centre for Student Enterprises), supported by the DST–NSTEDB, Government of India, to turn student assignments into structured entrepreneurial ventures.

Across more than two decades of teaching, Dr. Prasad has consistently positioned students as the best candidates to start companies, proudly noting that hundreds of those who embraced “learning by earning” have gone on to become entrepreneurs. His faculty profile and public talks highlight a remarkable list of ventures led by his former students — from unicorns like Polygon, DealShare, and Square Yards to startups such as Cashify, Vaave, Lal10, Magenta and many others - all of which he cites not as personal accolades but as proof that experiential pedagogy can translate into real enterprises.

On social media, under the “Mandi Sir Start Ups” banner, he regularly celebrates alumni founders, shares their interviews and podcasts, and uses their stories as inspiration for current batches, creating a living archive of entrepreneurial journeys emerging from IIM Mumbai. His encouragement played a direct role in my own decision to walk the path of entrepreneurship; knowing that a professor believed in students registering companies while still on campus made it far easier to take that leap and treat experimentation as a legitimate, even essential, part of my career.

Recognition, podcasts and the broader discourse on education

In recent years, Dr. Prasad has taken the Mandi story to a wider audience through multiple podcasts and media appearances. Long‑form conversations delve into flaws in the Indian education system, the need for practical, value‑centric learning, and real case studies of students. These dialogues have helped reposition Mandi not just as a quirky campus event, but as a serious framework for education reform and entrepreneurship education in India based on the ideas established by the Father of the Nation.

He has repeatedly argued that Gandhi saw entrepreneurship as integral to education, famously advocating for charkhas in schools so students could contribute to funding their own learning. In this spirit, Mandi’s core motto - “Learning expenses are earned in learning, through learning and for learning” - challenges the idea that education must always be financed; instead, it can be self‑respecting and productive from within the student community itself.

A personal note of gratitude

I must confess that when I heard about the idea of Mandi, I was not very enthused. Here I was coming to study “Management”, expecting to be placed with an MNC at the end of the course, being told to sell like a door-to-door salesman! It wasn’t until much later after the experience did I realize the value of Mandi. Mandi, as it grew on me over the years, was an early masterclass in customer empathy, courage, and humility. Selling on the street strips away titles and comfort zones. You learn to listen, adapt your pitch in real time, and accept rejection with grace. Those lessons have grown over me across my later journey in entrepreneurship, product development, and business strategy - domains that, on the surface, look far removed from street selling, but at their core still require deep listening and value creation for real people.

Dr. Prasad created a culture in which students (including many from my batch) felt encouraged to try unconventional ideas, test business models, and see themselves as entrepreneurs long before “startup” became a mainstream aspiration on campus. His relentless focus on student‑led ventures and his willingness to stand behind unorthodox experiments have inspired countless alumni to build, not just to be placed.

Looking ahead: Mandi beyond the campus

As Dr. T. Prasad steps into retirement from IIM Mumbai, I sincerely hope it is only a transition in institutional role, not in mission. The Mandi model - learning by the hand rather than only by the head - is exactly what India needs at scale: in metros and tier‑1 cities, yes, but also in tier‑2 towns, smaller districts, and villages where young people are hungry for opportunity but often disconnected from formal networks of entrepreneurship.

If post‑retirement Mandi evolves into a broader movement - partnering with colleges, NGOs, self‑help groups, and local governments - it can catalyse an entirely new wave of entrepreneurship‑led growth for India: grounded in dignity of labour, frugal innovation, and the courage to step onto the street with an idea, a product, and a story. In celebrating Dr. Prasad’s tenure at IIM Mumbai, I also want to celebrate the future that his pedagogy points to - a future where millions of students earn while they learn, serve while they learn, and, in doing so, help build a more self‑reliant and just India.

Thank you, 🙏🏽 Mandi Sir, for trusting your students with the street, with responsibility, and with the power of Gandhian thought. As one of the many who learnt from that first 2004 experiment, I wish you strength, health, and relentless energy to keep expanding the Mandi revolution in the years to come.

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽