amreeekaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Just landed in the land of opportunities...
so much to share ..

Looking at the rigor of the american MBA systems, right now I'm feeling woefully inadequate with the training and the education I have recieved over the last one year at WIMWI..

But I will only write more abt my experiences if I get more than 7 replies to this post..
I have a sneeky feeling that I may be the only one reading my own posts..

hmmm.....

Coldcalled on SuVar

Its exam time here at WIMWI...
but not for the beloved tuchhas.. its exam time for the Facchas..
There is a long-standing ritual that's followed at WIMWI..
A few dorms still actively participate in it..
All the 15-20 dorm seniors from a particular dorm will get together and scream the almost national slogan of WIMWI- 3 words.. but it one that reverberates right thru the spines of the innocent facchas..
its "MUGGO FACCHO MUGGO"....


There are several such instances like these... but none of these compare to the absurdities one gets to witness in the classrooms...
Our classrooms are designed amphitheatre style.. with name-tags in front of the students..
Now these name-tags are easily amenable to folding and twisting leading to complete mutilation of the original names..
Thus,
an Arvind Kumar Meena becomes a KaMeena or
or a Reena L. Deepak becomes a ReeL. Deep ... you get the drift..


Now imagine the plight of the professors who are into cold calling... Cold calling is the ultimate weapon used against the poor students who didn't get time off from watching movies or playing the latest Empire series....


Thus, the other day, a Prof. was holding fort on the virtues of Open economic transactions when he coldcalled SuVar ( Sumeet Varma) on a question...
The fun gets multiplied simply because poor li'l Sumeet Varma has positively no clue that some pranskster has twisted his name to SuVar... thus, the class is laughing at SuVar while SuVar has no clue whats going on and joins the laughter ... leading to more laughter from the class.. until some kind soul sitting ahead of the Sumeet points out the unfortunate-ness thats been inflicted on him ... getting Cold Called on SuVar..


Sometimes, the profs are not spared either.. Prof. Asha wants to say good work to Rahul Shah .. but ends up saying "good work ASha".... leading to absolute discomfort for the Prof and an expression of dismay on Rahul's face...


Such is life.... What's in a name ? ... well, quite a lot... sometimes...

Drivers, ReStrat your engines...

Yes.. Yes... Mea Culpa...
Guilty as charged...
For not talking about Chaos 2009 when Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia was inspired by Ol'Groucho boy - somewhere along the lines of having perfect evenings before but this not being one of them...
What a co-incidence - the crowd felt the same... Talk about being one with the audience...

For not talking about the summers at the world's biggest FMCG company...where all that Kotler spoke about was actually practised.... where women actually decide which Gilette is the best fit for you...

For not talking about the life that went by in between ....It's been the end of an eventful year... so much to learn ... so many times I've felt handicapped because what I learnt was not enough... for the innumerable times you see that glint in the eyes of people when you talk about your college...

For not talking about the most innovative abuses hurled on LKP when you drop a sitter while playing frisbee....

Well.. all is not lost.... The Fachhas are here... The breeze is lovely... The Fraudness is rampant...
The Sloth returns...

How many times ... ?

At WIMWI...

How many times have you promised to study more regularly once these exams got over ?
How many times have you wished you had studied before ? If only to appreciate the subject better ...
How many times have you made timetables and then forgotten all about it and had fun instead ?
How many times have you felt guilty afterwards ?
How many times have you liked a song so much that it keeps playing in your head while you are trying to appear for an exam ?
How many times have you fallen in love with someone you can't be with ?
How many times have you wished that you could become slimmer ?
How many times have you wished that you could be somewhere else ... Anywhere but in the boring lecture at 8.45 in the morning ?
How many times have you wished you could be better at sports or at dancing ? ...
....And they said that life got easier once you got in here !!!

A Question of Faith

There is this itch... gnawing at us... this quiet restlessness...
This itch .... this insatiable feeling that life has more to it...
This irritating feeling that there is more to me than writing code or talking to clients...
This urge to make things happen...it gets difficult to live with Status Quo ...

Everyday, you will read stories in awe of IIM A students and Faculty diving into untested waters... Why do we do this ? ....
They say, sometimes the flapping of a butterfly's wings can create rainstorms halfway across the world..Sometimes, the things we do at IIM A scare us... but if we don't flap our wings, how will we move ahead ? ...

The placement sessions are starting...The eyes of the world ... students from every nook and corner of the country... the best talent of the country is watching us....
Everything that has meant anything finally culminates in these few hours of destiny....
and that is exactly how a nation of young students gets duped ... simply cos this is not the end...
this is the beginning....just a door.. a platform...an opportunity...
I know that there are debts to pay off...I understand that feeling of being left in the lurch..
The world is watching us...the media will slam us... HRD ministries will try to stifle us... but I know this - Falling down is not defeat, staying down is...I only have the rhetorics...not the answers...

In time, we will know who stood up... and who gave up... To the victor go the spoils....
Ultimately, all that separates those who stood out from others is their absolute faith in themselves..it is a question of faith and the power to ask yourself, when no one else is watching - "WHAT'S AHEAD ?"....

Return of the Son

The prodigal son returns...

It's been a long time since I wandered into these portals... There will be many who would have been a trifle upset had they bothered to read about my misadventures in the first place.. but the truth must be told... and so here i am.. with a new set of stories and foot-in-the-mouths...

The first things that students miss when they reach wimwi, is sleep... And no, it is not because we are studying all the time .. rather quite the contrary... we don't study when we are supposed to... we will soak up all the latest gossip on campus, discuss the current industry happenings threadbare for a couple of hours and finish a couple of episodes of Prison Break and finally we will hit the books.. obviously the stress levels are therefore high...
It is not for nothing that this place teaches us JIT- everything is always Just-in-time... assignments, reports , everything is given at the last possible minute... Each time, after every adventure, I solemnly promise - next time, I will put in a 24 hour buffer for my WAC report...
What is fascinating to watch is how those buffers wear down and are completely annihilated when faced with deadlines...

This strange thing happened with me the other day... We have study groups; six of us in one group and we work on the various assignements given by Profs... one such assignment was the study of how technology changed the way banks do business...
We were called to present the finding of two of our group members...Often ,what happens in such situations is that one person has done the actual work and another is asked to present.. This can sometimes lead to hilarious situations...The essence is to last 5 mins that are allotted... This is what followed :
Groupie1 : We have analysed the way technology affects loans processes of banks... We take a typical case.. When we want a loan, we first go to the bank and they give us a form which we have to fill.. On this form, we have to give details such as our name, our father's name , our date of birth, our address...

By this time, the class realises what has happened.. They saw that we were only five of us.. We got locked in such a situation, where the guy who did the actual work was up so late working on the assignment that he ended up missing the class .. and since none of us had any idea of what to say, we had to resort to such filibustering tactics.. we would have gotten away with it too had the class not resorted to wild thumping and applauding groupie1's attempt to save us from disaster...
The Prof responds:
" I can guarantee you that all of us know what is there in a bank form, and we are not interested in knowing what you know... Could you pray please proceed ? "

Groupie1 : Ok, so once you have filled the form, you submit it to the loan officer and from there, the file and application is passed to a loan committee and this committee has to verify all the details filled in the form. They do this either by calling our references or by checking if we are bonafide students... They have other techniques as well...

At this point, the class goes beserk.... Groupie 1 tries his best to keep a straight face, the other three groupies have no idea what in the lord's name is going on.. and I am staring faraway, lost in space.. praying for the nightmare to get over ....

The third term has started.. This term is filled with group oriented activities.. essentially we focus on organisational aspects of a company, and its HR related issues..
At the same time, new traditions have been opened up to us.. There are have been elections for the Student Activity Council - this holds significance as this group of elected 12 guys will ensure our well-being for the next year.. from mess food to placements to movie stocks.. these 12 guys take on huge responsiblities next year...

I am ending with this conversation that happened last week..

Prof : So Rohit, are you awake ?
Rohit (dazed) : Yes sir..
Prof : Good, tell the class what you have learnt in our last class..
Rohit : Sir... in the last class, we studied production quanties and how they varied with costs..
Prof : How did we do that ?
Rohit : Sir, through ...uh... through curves..
Prof: Hmm.. what kind of curves.. ?
Rohit ( Makes gestures with his hands) : Sir, these curves would come down and then go up .. (he is trying to say that the graph has a minima but ends up on a different plane)
Prof: Rohit, we understand your state of mind... maybe you could say "graphs" !!!
Rohit ( goes red) : Yes..urg.. sir..
Prof : So where did we get this data from ?
Rohit (silent and trembling a bit)
Prof : Rohit, answer...
Rohit (very very reluctanly and with an expression of knowing that doom is near) : Sir, we got these from the FIGURES...

Class goes wild and starts thumping the desks.. Profs looks incredulous and walks away...

Such are the adventures of life....