Abstract. Stars are seen to form in a clustered mode within molecular clouds in galaxies. While most of these clusters emerge as unbound associations, after the system loses gas due to momentum input from the stars that are born, a few percent of them emerge bound as open clusters. Since only less than ten percent of the mass of a cloud gets converted to stars, the formation of open clusters has been a puzzle. Observations have shown that some clusters can show significant mass segregation at a dynamically young age itself. Also, the brown dwarf stars associated with a cluster are seen distributed in a wider region compared to the core. Here, we examine whether gas dynamical friction, operating on prestellar objects in the embedded phase, holds the key to solving some of the puzzles associated with open clusters.

Key words: (Galaxy:) open clusters and associations: general -- galaxies: star clusters -- stars: pre-main-sequence