Wednesday, April 23, 2008

IIM Ahmedabad - The Journey - Part 2 - Term 1 - Post 2 - T-Nite

Let’s get this straight. The first term at IIM Ahmedabad is tough. And it’s hectic. And it’s gruelling. Mostly we’re scared because we’re unsure of the rules. We’re scared of the profs, we’re scared of quizzes, we’re scared of being “Cold Called” in class, we’re scared of assignments, and we’re scared of exams. But there are some moments that make us forget all about this heavy burden these 300 odd poor souls shoulder every year. And the mother of all such moments is T-Nite.

T-Nite is something that all “Fachchas” and “Tuchchas” alike look forward to. For the Fachchas, it’s a break from the routine class preparations and the studies. And for the Tuchchas, it’s an opportunity for rekindle Section ties and bring back the old competitive spirit. And so arrived our T-Nite.

And what makes it even more brilliant is the timing of it all. T-Nite kicks off the evening the mid-term examinations end. And the last of those exams is spent mostly being exited about the 4 days that lay ahead. And it is not a very pleasant feeling when the last paper you get, the one only a few hours away from the famous “Pub-Run” is a four hour long HR paper which has a 25 page case! I still remember the name of the case … People’s Express! So once those 4 extremely painfully long hours were over, all the PGP-1s were busy getting ready for the PUB-RUN to be celebrating the end of the exams.

Now let me explain how it works. We have four sections out here, namely A,B,C and D, myself belonging to A. Other than the four of these, the PGP-X programme also joins in for T-Nite, being called Section X for obvious reasons!

THE PUB-RUN

The PUB-RUN, although the name might give other ideas, stands for “Publicity-Run”. You see, the first two days, or “nites” of T-Nite are held in the Mess building. Now during the Pub-Run, 10 runners from each section run from a designated starting point with a 10second interval between successive runners, to try and capture as much space for the section on the Mess walls as possible. And some of the places in the Mess are of strategic importance. So, I was the first runner for my section.

An hour before it began, everyone ran back to their rooms, stuffed their bags with old newspapers, whiteboard markers and paint. We even conjured up a snare drum and a dhol from somewhere. The time until Pub Run starts off is spent drawing large As on newspapers and old bedsheets. Meanwhile, us poor runners were being decorated with double sided tape. (You’ll understand why in a minute). Amongst this was all the “Tempo shouting” and cheering. And then, Cult Comm (the cultural affairs committee) called the sections to their respective starting places. So there we stood at LKP, (what better place to start of T-Nite?). I had one large bedsheet pre-stuck with tape in one hand. And stood at the starting blocks. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead. My eyes were focussed….yadayadayada..Im sure you get the point. So finally it began. I ran with four other runners and the next half hour was spent searching for any free space on the walls and climbing chairs, tables, chairs on top of tables and sticking those newspapers there. At the end of it all …. In the blink of an eye, the mess was completely covered.

All this time, the rest of the class was busy singing and shouting and cheering. After all, we had no studies to worry about. This was the time that everyone was completely carefree for the first time since they stepped into this blessed campus.

Straight after this, all of us headed back to our classrooms, and practise began. First we assigned people in charge of taking care of the various events for the next few days. I was assigned Music.

The artists of our class got to work designing the posters, and some of them were simply brilliant!! These were being done along almost all of the benches. In the well, the dancers were deciding steps for the songs to be done.

After a shower, I got back to class to discover our “Section Tuchchas” sitting in class, giving us the “Tuchcha Gyan” that seems to be an important part of life on campus. So with some of their help, we got around to practising, and I sat with Arun (Papa), Ameya (Maala) and Vignesh (Scuba) to decide what to do on the Music front.

The next day was “Mess Nite – 1” so we did not need to perform then, but we did need to do something for both the RJM Nites!

Yea I know! Im not gonna let you guys sit and wonder for yourselves what Mess Nite and RJM nite is!

The first two nights of T-Nite involves each section performing for 20 minutes each in the stage at the mess. These were more fun filled. The last two nights at the RJMCEI Auditorium were more serious and required good displays of talent.

But before we proceed to talk of these 4 days, it is important to understand some of the finer aspects as well.

1) The T-Shirt

You see, at T-Nite, every section has to have it’s T-Shirt. And ours was designed by Mohit Gidwani AKA Haddi. We still proudly wear it and it has everyone’s dorm names at the back. Which is one reason many of us do not wear it when we go home.

2) The Section Name

Every section has to have a name. This year they were, Arbit Raj, Beagles, Cla-C, Dhinchak and XtaC.

3) Tempo-Shouts

For the unaware, they are basically cheers. Every section will have a couple. Loads of fun to scream. Something to laugh about years later.

4) The website

Every section must create and maintain a website for T-Nite.

5) The Newsletter

Every section also has a newsletter where they provide a completely biased view of the happenings, and is a good opportunity to have a good laugh at the expense of the other sections.

And so with your fundamentals of T-Nite covered, we can now proceed to my memories of what happened. : )

MESS NITE - 1

The slots for performance during all days is decided by lots. And on Mess Nite 1, we drew the last slot. We all decided to wear our section T-shirts, and went ahead and performed. Our opening act was one that not many will forget in the near future. A stunner dance routine headed by Mihir Lal AKA Syler. This was followed up by our take on a portion of the Mahabharat. A couple of dances more and out time slot was up. But unfortunately, we apparently were not too good, and ended up with the least points on that day. And we had left a prop on stage!! And lost points for that as well!

I remember that night after the scores came out perfectly. Many of us were sitting on Dorm 20’s terrace, trying to figure out what to do the next day when the scores came out. Even though our seniors had mentioned that the other sections were better, we did not expect this.

So went on a discussion about what to do the next day, what to perform and so on. And this continued till late in the night. Which according to normal people clocks would be early in the morning.

MESS NITE – 2

The second day, we were determined to redeem ourselves and prove ourselves to be strong contenders for the T-Nite title.

The change was evident from the moment we entered the mess. In bright colours, in a carnival theme, we ran and cartwheeled our way onto the stage and we had some impressive dances. With star dancer Rajiv G in full flow.

With our skit also going off well, Mess Nite 2 altogether was a very good day. We ended up in second for the day, just behind the PGP-X guys.

After that performance, we had so much fun in class! Some of us stayed up till 5 in the morning practising, singing, watching music videos on the screen and cleaning up. We had our own little party in class.

RJM Night –1

Here was the first of the two big days! Majority of the weightage was for these two days. We had to do a good job. Our best dancer, Rajiv was ill, but still managed to get himself up for practise.

And then comes the music. This requires some elaboration. The guys who were gonna play for the section band along with me are some of the most talented musicians I’ve met. Papa in particular. But they were also lazy Asses. And so we’d go to the Music room during the time allocated for practise and do absolute timepass. We’d start jamming to random songs, and not practise anything for the show. We finally decided to perform Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall and the Friend’s theme, and also a bit of Roadhouse Blues and Smoke on the Water.

On stage, somehow we managed to pull it off. No big f*** ups. And everyone liked it a lot as well. The dances went of nicely. The random act, conjured up by the king of arbitness and starring himself in the villain’s role, was completely random and arbit but hilariously funny!

Before the performance, the artists including Gouri and Dash (can’t remember who else was involved) created a massive back drop depicting our theme for the day’s performance. It was “opposites”!

At the same time, Mahima and Syler were busy in class preparing for the Fash-P ( Fashion Parade) for those who don’t know. On returning from the 40 min performance of dance and what not, people began dressing up for the Fash-P. Duski and Miski were fire, Tenzing, Himanshu and Guppi were ice. We had our own private army, we had peace. We had the new and the old. We even had Fachchas and Tuchchas, in which I played the most critical role, without which, the whole Fash-P was disastrous!! I was a signboard! I proudly held up a thermocole board that read “Tuchadom!! (I still have that in my room btw. I’ll be sure to hold it up in the air as I scream “Muggo Fachchon Muggo!!” come June!) It ended amazingly to a standing ovation. And with that ended RJM nite 1.

RJM Night –2

At this point of time, Cla-C and the PGP-X were out in the lead. We again continued our practice from early in the day till the very last minute until we were to go on stage.

Music practise, as usual was a couple of hours of timepass with each of us switching instruments and playing a different song. We ended up playing Californication and Aadat with no practice at all. As a joke, we were talking about making a “Section song”. Maala picks up the guitar, began strumming and making up lyrics at the same time. We had a good laugh then, and decided that was our section song, just for the fun of it.

We had our class act, which went off really well, which was in line with our theme of the circle of life. Rajiv had a brilliant solo dance routine to Ek pal ka jeena and Black Eyed Peas’ Bebo. We’ll atleast it was supposed to be a solo dance routine. We were standing near the entrance to the auditorium watching the dance when all of a sudden, Maala walks off onto center stage and proves to WIMWI that he too, can dance.

Incidentally, we got the last slot for the day. Meaning we would be the last ones to perform at T-Nite 2007. The bands performance was over and the organisers said that time was up. And so we went into a huddle and discussed whether we should do the section song or not. And we decided in the affirmative. And so Papa, Scuba and Maala begin the song, with me supposed to join in with drums when Papa stops the guitaring in the middle. But guess what! He doesn’t stop. I kept waiting for the entire length of that song, waiting for my cue, but in vain. But it was good fun nonetheless. And we received a standing ovation, yet again.

Later we learnt that we brought some of our Section seniors to tears (thy names shall not be mentioned). Apparently we brought out the true spirit of T-Nite, and ended T-Nite on the right note and all that jazz.

Section C emerged winners, with PGP-X in second. We were a close third.

But seriously. T-Nite served its purpose. It is meant to be an opportunity for the people in a section to get to know each other. And it did happen. I met some people who have become some of my closest friends on campus at T-Nite. A sense of camaraderie is formed. And in the end, it was a lot of fun!

The whole of next day’s classes were spent deep in sleep. And normal life at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad continued.

Monday, April 21, 2008

IIM Ahmedabad - The Journey - Part 2 - Term 1 - Post 1

SITUATION ANALYSIS

The first term at IIM Ahmedabad is LEGEN….wait for it …..DARY!! And there are a number of factors that contribute to its fame. And in honour of one of the most painful subjects in that term, ie. WAC or “Written Analysis and Communication”, I shall format my post as a WAC report. Anyone who got into IIM for the 2008-10 batch…BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (Evil laugh)!!!!

PROBLEM STATEMENT

How exactly was my first year at IIMA?

AVAILABLE OPTIONS

1)Awesome (or as it’s said here…OSSUM!!)

2) Crappy

3) “It depends”

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION and EVALUATION OF OPTIONS

CRITERIA 1 – Studies

Any story about the first term at IIMA wouldn’t even have begun if it does not mention the academics involved. The time before I joined was filled with stories about the enormous amount of studies that would be involved in my two years there, and the first term was filled with the Tuchchas constantly reminding us of how hectic the first year was with their chants of “Muggo Fachchon Muggo!!!”….which after a point of time, we became immune to. (Looking forward to being on the delivery side in June :D).

Those chants were not unjustified though! Academics are tough out here. HRM, OM, MC, QM, ID, WAC, EA and the dreaded “MANAC”!!!

HRM classes were a joy just because of the professor, someone who many a student has referred to as “GOD LEVEL!!!” (That’s just one of the terms that are so overused on campus that it has lost all significance.). I still remember a 3.5 hours session he once took. And honestly, that has been my best class in WIMWI to date. It was simply brilliant.

The first few weeks, I never understood how people could sleep in class. Don’t they sleep at night? Sheesh!!

A few more days later, I understood. In the first term, the amount I slept in class was actually quite less…especially when compared to the hours I spent sleeping in class in Term 3, but that’s a story for another time. While some classes were spent in absolute bewilderment at the sheer brilliance of the professor’s analytical skills, some were spent also in bewilderment at the sheer complexity of the subject (or was it my sheer stupidity for not understanding?? I cant remember!) There were loads of assignments to do (again…nothing compared to term 3!) but some of them were fun as well.

The exams are very scary….atleast the first time. I didn’t know what to expect, and on top of that, I didn’t know anything related to the subjects. So most of my exams involved pure gas. And that was when I discovered my secret to surviving the first year here:- Fart! The success of a person here is dependant to a certain extent on his/her ability to talk absolute bullcrap for hours about anything under the sun. And I was quick to learn that. But that my friends, is not applicable to all subjects.

This gives me an appropriate opportunity to introduce to you, the subject known as “Managerial Accounting and Control - 1” or as we like to call it (or do we??) MANAC-1! My reasoning for why this is arguably the most dreaded subject in the first year is that no matter how much I work on this subject, I’m still gonna get f*****!! Classes were generally a lot of fun as the Prof had a good sense of humour ( Arjun and Anirudh might disagree), even though I never understood anything, hence leading to it being one of my worst subjects in the first term.

And what better topic to lead me onto my next “sub-division” than MANAC!!

CRITERIA 2- Quizzes

This was the biggest pain in the @$$ for the whole of the first year. But it never hits you as hard as it does during the first term. I mean, at that point of time, we just aren’t ready for this kind of torture! The nature of quizzes can be broadly classified into two:

A) The Shotgun : One shot and youre dead! (Remember QM-1)

There are only one or two of them, but they are of such critical importance that the cost of screwing one up is astronomical. And I am sure all of my batchmates will never forget the first QM-1 quiz we had.

Weightage : 20%

Maximum score : 20

Highest score : 20 A+

Batch average: 4 D+

My score: 2 D

Lowest score : -10 F

Need I say anymore?


B) The machine gun: Too many bullets in the chest and too quickly!

Every other day, we would go to the mess tired and completely drained after 4 hrs of classes, only to our dread, find pinned to the “Quiz Notice Board”, a strip of paper that had written upon them those words that have caused many a nightmare: “This is to inform you that there will be a short MANAC-1 quiz in your classrooms at 2:30pm today. Thank you.”

Or in other words: “This is to inform you that you will have to line up against that nice brick wall at 2:30 today so that the firing squad can have some shooting practise. Thank you.”

And it certainly felt like facing a firing squad! The build up was humungous! We skipped lunch, ran back to class, got quick Rems (remedials for the uninitiated) and prayed to the All Mighty to spare our poor souls for once. But it got over before we knew it. All we remember is getting the question paper. These MANAC quizzes are so short that no one knows when it begins and when it ends. Inevitable, the instant that the concepts strike me is when the time is up!

Over time, we got used to these quizzes and they too became a part of routine life.

CRITERIA 3 – Group Work

With the number of assignments and submissions that are present in the first term, group work is extremely important. Mine was a 5 member group. In alphabetical order, they are:

Harish V Rao

Rajiv G

Rohin Thampi (Me :D)

Sandeep Gupta

Tenzing Loden Lepcha

Most of our group meets were in either Sandeep’s or Tenzing’s room. Me, Rajiv and Tenzing would end up sleeping around half an hour into the group meets, leaving poor Sandeep (AKA Maggi) and Harish to do the work. But later on as we began to adjust to life on campus, we formed strong bonds of friendship and hung out together when not studying.

---- Due to the fact that I have reached the limit for a WAC report – 1000 words + /- 10%, I shall continue this report in the next part. Also T-Nite deserves a post of its own. Till then, Adios----

Sunday, April 20, 2008

IIM Ahmedabad - The Journey - Part 1 - Epilogue

After a long Hiatus of almost a year, I hereby return to the world of Blogging! (Sound of trumpets and a drum roll please…Thank you!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve missed you all… (Yea right!)

The truth is, I was too busy with my first year at IIMA (not busy mugging! That was there, but I was also busy having fun!). So since I do maintain this blog more like a personal diary that I allow others to read, I guess that I’ll want to write down whatever I remember of my first year so that years down the line, when hopefully I become a big shot manager dude (keeping fingers crossed), I can remember how it was like there. Since I have a habit of giving extremely detailed descriptions of happenings in my life, (which is in line with how much I talk), I am going to follow a chapter wise detailed report once again :D.

So here goes:

Day 0: June 20th 2007.

I flew in from Bangalore and reached the campus in the afternoon. It was beautiful. I was here…. The mother of all management institutes in the country! I had seen pictures of the place before, but it was amazing to see it personally. The brick buildings and the greenery. I had made it! I was in my dream institute!

After dragging by luggage to the SAO (Students Activities Office), I learnt to my horror that I had to drag all that heavy baggage all the way to the new campus! The new campus is on the other end of the spectrum when compared to the old campus. Even though they follow similar architectural principles, they were extremely different. The new campus was very imposing. Large concrete structures, modern… professional. I walked into Dorm 23, nervous yet excited. This was my home for two years!

My room was number 40, all the way on the top floor (later on I came to realise that this was the last room of the last dorm for students). I dumped my luggage in the room and left to meet people whom I knew and to ask about what to do. So the rest of the day was spent walking around aimlessly and talking to friends about how we would be extremely happy to just get by these two years with 4D’s a year and just manage to scrape through. And towards the night, it rained. And WIMWI is full of traditions. This being one of them. According to urban legend , the “Fachchas” bring the rain, and so it happened. The day we arrived, it rained.

The next day was registration. And that day was when it all began! Mile high stacks of books and casemats! HRM, OM, MANAC (The dreaded MANAC!!). They were all in there…

So the rest of the day was spent in fear and absolute confusion as I peeped into those infamous casemats.

Orientation happened, where the faculty explained to us the details of the courses and the summer internship and generally about life on campus. That night we had our very first “dorm meet”. All the dorm Tuchchas and Fachchas were present. We introduced ourselves and we met the seniors and generally got to know each other. The seniors told us about the rules and regulations of the institute and about how things work. About the professors and about the subjects. About how life is on campus and how to survive here.

CLUBs and SIGs

The club presentations happened towards the end of the first week. All the clubs and SIGs (Special interest groups) made their presentations and answered questions that we had. These clubs were one of the most important aspects of life on campus. The clubs opened up their applications and we were required to fill in forms and submit them at the relevant locations. Interviews were scheduled and selections occurred. I was fortunate enough to get into Niche- the marketing club, and the music club.

And with this ended the first week on campus. I hav’nt written a large part of the first week that relates to the classes and the studies and I’ll write about that in the “First Term” post.

PS : Due to numerous complaints regarding the length of my posts, I’m gonna cut them short from now on :D