Naach Meri Jaan... NAMED !!!

For an institution, that been around for half a century, there are bound to be certain traditions...and certain rituals...
Ladies and Gentlemen... Welcome to the Dorm Name Culture...
the dorm name culture has been around for more than 4 decades.. Rest assured, that Harsha Bhogale, KV Kamath and so many others-all have been through this ritual...
Every single IIMA student is given a dorm name by his dorm mates.. This is a way of interacting with the seniors... and bonding with them.. simply because - from this day forth, till your last dying breath, you will have this dorm name with you... It is part and parcel of being a WIMWIan... so accept it...

So, how does one go about getting a dorm name... There are 24 dorms on campus.. all of which have evolved their own dorm culture and dorm naming ceremonies.. Some dorms have a tradition where all the fachas put up a skit ... some dorms ask the the fachas to submit a 2 page report filled with original content.. The more saucy , the better... and some dorms have story telling sessions... So it is a mixed bag...

The trick is to get a decent dorm name... something your mom will not blush while addressing you with... I mean, no self-respecting girl would like to call her boyfriend as 'Dildo' or 'Brasak'...
But Alas... the sadists Tuchas that they are... they will not let us live in peace...
Anyways... I had very high hopes of getting a decent name... ok!! I was not looking at being called "Jock", "Guru", "Nawab" ... ( would have been nice though)....
Anything that would not raise eyebrows ....
With such noble intentions , I went to the dorm meets... Through a series of interactions at these dorm meetings.. the name is concocted....

After cleansing myself of all my past sins, and taking a vow of allegiance to my dorm... I was given the proud name of "Mujra"....
(10 millions words in the universe... and I end up being called a brothel!!!... There goes my sex appeal...).. I can already see my future next year- An imaginary conversation with a hot fachi..
She says :"Hi.. I am a super hot girl in PGP1... "
I say : "Hi.. I am Mujra !!!" ....
(sigh......)

Quizzzzzed...

At IIMA, quizzes are an integral part of life... Every subject has quizzes... Well, you may think-" blah!!..what's the big deal ? " ... I personally feel the same way about it..
So, this is what happens.. Quizzes are never announced before hand. There are surprise quizzes..Right outside the mess, there is a notice board...
At precisely, 13.30, some kind soul will come to the notice board and put up the following
"All PGP1 - Please note -there shall be a Maths/MANAC/any subject quiz scheduled today at 2.30 pm in the respective classrooms. Students are requested to be seated in their seats by 2.25 pm" ...

So, you will often find all fachas enter the mess with a feeling of anticipation, dread and hope...
The Tuchas, on the other hand, also enter with similar feelings - except the dread part..
They WANT the fachas to have quizzes... Of course, we fachas, can do quite well without them..

What follows in the mess , is quite an interesting sight.. once the quiz is declared ... the Tuchas do a little jig...and start screaming "Muggo Facho !! Muggo !!" ...
The fachas started banging their steel glasses and plates to drown out the chants...
This is the place where one can see synchronised cacophony in motion...

The quizzes suffer from a CAT hungover...lots of questions, very little time to solve and negative marking and relative grading.. what a perfect recipe for disaster..!!
Last year, there were a few quizzes, where not attempting a single question would have gotten one a C grade...!!! Thanks to the negative marking and relative grading..many students ended with a negative mark... thus, the guy who didnt know anything was better off !!!... That's life ...

Eventually.. the quizzes start ruling our lives... I am ending this part with two quotes ..
" It is not the quiz which kills you.... It is the FEAR of the quiz that gets you... " -OralB (2008)
"Eventually, it is not a question of IF you will give up or not... but a question of WHEN you will give up ... " -Jhappi (2008)

A Crazy W(h)ac-ked day

Let me introduce you to Written Analysis of Case.. lovingly called WAC... no IIM A's life is complete without this wonderful experience...
This is what happens in brief- we are given a case. The student has to study the case thoroughly.
and then prepare a written solution to it. This usually comprises 4-5 pages and is expected to be a professional report complete with Situation Analysis, Options , How to evaluate those Options , Final Recommendation , Contingency plans, references... the works...

What follows is the chronology of the last 24 hours before a WAC submission :-
1320 : Class gets over. PGP1 runs to rooms/mess.
1330 : Maths Quiz announced.(This is an unprecedented event - a quiz in the FIRST week and that too - a WAC week !!) . Quiz will start at 14.30 hrs
15.30 : PGP1 come back to rooms... what a fantastic way to begin.
16.00 : I start my report writing..
The next 10 hrs goes in writing, surfing the net for inputs, dinner, ATP (associated time pass).
02.30 : I show my final draft to a couple of PGP2 seniors for their input. One started abusing me for writing a newspaper report !! and the other couldn't give much input cos he was too busy laughing his guts out as he read my report...(sigh!! ..and I had hoped for a nice 6 hr sleep)
So, after completing degrading my writing skills, my analytical skills, my formatting skills, (intermittently, they were kind enough to focus away from the report and started abusing me) and in general- all my skills, I sat down again to re-write my WAC report.

On my way back to my room, I bumped into a familiar face- my batch mate.. He kinda looked smug. This is never a good sign.. A facha has this kind of look only in cases- a) He has finished all the home works/assignments and maybe even front logged. b) He is so badly screwed, he is beyond the stage of despair... and is close to lunacy.
In Either case, one must be cautious when one sees a Facha smiling for too long... (It is absolutely acceptable when u have crossed over to become a Tucha )

So, I asked him - "What happened ?"
He showed me the most hideous sight ever to anybody re-writing a WAC report, 8 hours before submission. He showed me his completed WAC report- all neatly typed and stapled. For some reason, I felt sick and repulsed by his show of exhuberance.

So, without saying a word, and silently cursing him and all his future generations, I came to my room and sat down to restart my WAC.

Submission is scheduled at 12.30-1300 hrs.... It was 0314 in my watch.

After working for 6 hours on the trot, I managed to get done. Come hell, or high water or heaven, I am not editing a word any more!!!
It was then, that I discovered a few principles of report-writing
a) Errors will only become visible in a report after you have wasted 4 pages printing it.
b) A new error will be become apparent after your 2nd reprint.
c) The more you read your report, the more you will be tempted to edit/refine/polish it.
d) And lastly, for every 1 hour of writing, you will spend 10 minutes to run around searching for staplers without pins in them, pens that will empty out, replacing printer cartridges. The number of such idiotic things is directly proportional to how important that report is.

12:43 : I submitted my WAC...

There is a tradition at WIMWI- its called the WAC run . Students are often seen running with their WAC reports at 12.58.. rushing to submit before 12.59.59. Our ever-helpful Tuchas will often gather around putting road blocks in the way. Sometimes, they lock up poor unsuspecting fachas in their rooms and open the room only at 12.56 to see him dash out of the room to submit the report.... They say- You have not done justice to the WAC report if u have not run the WAC run.... I have no intentions of finding out.. Given my prior track records with deadlines, I will need a WAC miracle !!!

1300 - crash at my room.. doze off till 8 pm
12 in the night - RAMP party- to celebrate our first week at this place... and our first WAC...

It's a crazy life.. I tell you...

Class Participation

I saw her... she was pretty... Suddenly, this place was not that bad..
The PGP office allots every student a particular seat in the classroom. The seat will have your name on it even before you attend your first class. This is the seat/place that you will adhere to for the rest of the year... Basically, you can't sit as you wish , or where you wish... You are confined to your seat for the next 10 months...
If you ask me why, for most hours of the day, I will say - cos it helps the Teaching/Academic Associates to assign grades.... However, for a few hours everyday, I believe that all this is an evil trick to prove that at IIMs, we do things so differently, that it becomes a different things altogether!!!... In my case...a bloody joke !!!

Anyways.. she was pretty..and she was going to sit next to me... Suddenly, I thought there was hope after all in this world ..
On the first day, we didn't talk much.. in fact we didn't talk at all...
Second day, I tried to overcome my emotions.. but nope.. still no talk...
Third day.. I really tried my best to talk to her ...I mean, I really focused on my controlling my emotions... but all in vain...
On the fourth day... I gave up...
You know why ? ... Cos the Girl just wouldn't stop talking in class!!!...
Welcome to the world of Class Participation... CP as it is fondly called..
CP is a concept that once upon a time, formed the cornerstone of Case Based study approach..
Today, it is basically the 10 % weightage that is given to students while evaluating a students performance...Do note, not all subjects give weightage to CP... Only a few subjects where the prof is a someone you don't want to mess with... or the when the subject is something you don't want to bother with .... often its both...
So, back to our heroine... This otherwise specimen, would just not understand that CP was limited to 10 % at the max!!.. and not all subjects needed a CP!!!... But noooo...she would just not stop... She would "like to add on the point made", or she would like to bring "another perspective that might have been overlooked" or she "believes that the class could concentrate another aspect of the case". She is consistent in the superfluous content of her CP, she is dedicated to the concept of CP all kinds - so you will have senseless,arbitrary, eccentric, global - all types of CPs coming out of her mouth and lastly - she is loyal to all subjects..So,even if the subject does not have CP marks, she will still be ready with her CP....
and I think " OH... MY.... LORD !!.... Heeeellllppppppp"


Now, most of you who know me- also know two facts about me
a) I usually finish my backlog of sleep IN CLASS...
b) I really like and I really mean it - I like talking to people...
Ever since, my existence has been the host to this unique organism...
a) I CANNOT SLEEP... cos the Prof is always looking here...
b) I CANNOT TALK to her or anybody for that matter....

90 places in the whole class.. and I get one of the two seats Bang next to her !!!... what are the odds??

This is my first painful lesson in Positioning... For no fault of mine, I will have to suffer the pains of someone else' sins.... Why is it a sin ? .. Well, participating in the class with a comment or two is one thing... but competing with the Prof for getting in more words - well, that plain criminal!!!...

The optimistic lining of positioning is I getting stuck in a lift with Warren Buffet for 45 minutes...
The other extreme is I getting stuck in same lift for 15 minutes with the girl I have just written about...

In the end, I believe that CP is the most effective weapon to destroy all people sitting besides you . As you stand there beaming that toothy smile of yours and others around you die. They die becuase of the exasperation since you started a discussion on elasticities of information 24 seconds before class is supposed to end !!!!....

Death to all CP makers...