Showing posts with label Life at IIMA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life at IIMA. Show all posts

Lede er igangværende hen til københavn






I experienced a mixture of feelings on Saturday. Woke up early since i had slept really early the night before . Thought about taking a nature walk around campus. It turned out to be an amazing decision for i witnessed the glory of nature bestowed upon the WIMWI campus. After the winters the trees around campus are getting laden with new leaves. The symmetrically planted trees near the entrance with their black branches and light green colored leaves just looked amazing. To top it off the sunset from various locations along with the play of brush strokes of various hues ranging from orange to blue across the sky was mesmerizing. The weather was cool which exacerbated my pleasure of having hot 'moti chai' outside the campus gate.

In the afternoon i attended the allocation for foreign exchange seats and was lucky to get Copenhagen Business school. But after looking at the foreign allocation list a few not too happy thoughts cropped in my mind. A few weeks ago i had applied for various clubs and events for the post of organizing member. At IIMA club coords are chosen who in turn choose their team . During interactions just about everyone told me that since you are going on exchange it would be difficult to do the work and so number of exchange people is limited in the clubs. I thought it was fair enough.

But after looking at the list of outgoing students i found a significant overlap. Now i know my capability , at least in organizing events , so it was kind of a shock. I tried to find reasons but then i realized how pointless it is.

One of the best things about JEE or CAT(not this year :( ) is that by and large it is a level playing field. You are judged according to the same parameters as everybody else. But all this objectivity goes to the dolphins( Hitchhiker's hangover) once the human angle comes into play. Howsoever stringent the parameters might be one can never remove the inherent randomness originating from the complexities of the human mind. Also factors like favoritism, friendship and a range of other groupings ranging from country, religion to even your 'gali- mahaullah' comes into play. Add to this ,the preconceived notions which leave an indelible mark upon the decision making neurons of people.

As aptly stated by my Finance professor in class today " Life is not fair, you make the effort and somebody else reaps the benefits". The number of uncontrollable variables which influence our life (at least in the materialistic sense)is huge. But then how does one live with this . How does one enjoy a peaceful sleep knowing that he is as good or even better than his boss ( or fellow students / co workers etc) but does not get what he deserves in life ?

A simple solution as suggested by a yogi is to realize that all this is maya (now don't get any naughty ideas ). Live in a detached manner, observe life and all its happenings as a meek observer. Enjoy the 'Raslila'. Since eventually all of this shall pass away. Do the 'Karma' and accept the results. Don't try to find reasons for all the randomness in this world. Accept that this is how it is .

Do i agree??? Guess ....

P.S: The title is in Danish :)

Chaos at IIM Ahmedabad




After an exceptionally pathetic operations surprise quiz on Friday , i was greeted by a misty Saturday morning. But soon the mist lifted to give way to a bright and sunny morning. A fitting start to Chaos, the annual national Cultural festival of IIMA.



Rushing to the Hospitality desk of the event i witnessed a huge crowd of students waiting to get their accommodation. This was to continue through the next 2 days with the maximum participation of out station students in a long long time at chaos.

Officially the event had started the previous evening with an exceptionally stimulating performance by Grammy award winner pundit Vishwa mohan Bahtt.


Over the next three days there were hoards of events full of color, music, creativity and fun. The Fashion parade by NIFT Gandhinagar and NID were just amazing. I was totally blown over by their creativity. Same was the case with the choreography performance by IITB and NID . The local teams of IIMA gave a commendable performance considering the short time they had for preparation.



But the best part of the whole event for me was the music. After such a long time i got to head bang to some metal in a live concert. The performances of the various amateur college bands , solo performances and finally by Outro , a delhi based band were awesome. The crowd turnout at the Sonu Nigam concert was tremendous.



There were some brilliant musical and street plays which culminated with the performance of the play scripted by Anuragh Kashyap starring Tom Altar . A number of informal events like pulsar stuntmania and MTV Wassup kept the participants enthralled.


All in all the, 3 chaotic days were among the best days of my time spent so far here at IIMA. Maybe it was due to the events ,the performances , the semblance of feeling that i was in college or just the fact that it was a break from the normal pressurized and competitive life at IIMA.


Whatever it might have been , IIMA makes you come back to your senses soon enough. How ?
Greeting the happily chaotic 1st years by a horrible out of course decision making quiz a day after Chaos ....

1st Diwali at IIMA


I always get things in life which i may not expect to get but i truly require. The same continued today i.e my 1st diwali away from home. I was quite apprehensive and a bit sad thinking how this diwali would be. This was exacerbated by some not too great happenings lately and by the dread of such unwanted happening to follow.

This is in tune with the happenings near last year's diwali. I was feeling probably my lowest in a long time a day before diwali but diwali brought in loads of happiness , cheerfulness and luck ( which saw me through the portals of IIMA).

It turned out to be a Deja Vu of sorts this year as well ( and i hope the luck part will follow in the crucial weeks to follow) . The day, rather the afternoon started with bike rides and shopping ,through the length and breadth of ahmedabad , for crackers, colors for rangoli, diyas , flowers, sweets and candles . It was fun and tiring but helped me in having a first hand look at the enthusiasm of Gujarati shoppers .

Then came the making of the rangoli which was mostly done by my dorm mates and photo session. Then i did a solo puja on my desk . Then spent some time roaming around campus looking at other dorm rangolis and lighting. D13 won and they truly deserved it with their theme of Ramayana and awesome anime style rangoli of lord Ram.

Then came the best part --- crackers. I never thought it would be so much fun but i guess my enthusiasm seeped into my dorm mates who broke all shackles of IIMA seriousness. It was amazing. The duration of my laughter in those 1-2 hours was more than what have laughed till now at IIMA, and that's whole 4 months.

Now i am experiencing the sad feeling that diwali is over which i have every year. Also i missed mom n home a lot although it was mitigated . And i am hoping that this diwali brings me luck like last year. :)

Stumbled Upon

After being sad whole day due to my WAC grade and the general pessimism i am experiencing these days i stumbled upon this blog.

It is such a refreshig idea. The blog contains pictures of bookmarks , notes and scribblings left by people in old used books and notebooks. The author of the blog works at a used books store and comes across these "Antiques" frequently.

It reminded me of my feelings which i have inadvertantly when i witness some beautiful spectacle of nature like a sunset , water bodies, hills , tee plantations, meadows, lush jungles e.t.c . The feeling which makes me say out loud that "There is more to life than just the materialism which forms the better part of our lives ".

Getting back to books, which i truly and dearly love reading, smelling and collecting. I also happen to scribble thoughts on pages and margins . Make bookmarks out of Old photos and post cards. Write on each book a short history. When did i buy it or who gifted it to me or anything diffrent associated with that book.

Memories. Sweet memories.

Reading Tinkle and Raj comics in afternoons after lunch . Swapping them with friends. Telling stories . Fighting over them . Taking them to school and reading them during classes . Miss those days. Days when my whole life was not about competition, grades, placements, cv and getting bullet points on my resume. When i was actually busy having a wonderful childhood.

Why did i ever grow up :(
Life should stop in class 9th and start over again .

Why worry about grades and materialism when there is so much more to life .

Learnings at IIMA

Statistics class

"The role of a manager is like a catalyst "

Quite aptly said .

I remember reading somewhere

"9 out of 10 people in the
world work for the 10th.I am training to be the 10th "

:)

Scamper.. Breathe.. Run



The title of the post pretty much sums up my life right now . I am currently in the shortest and the sweetest phase ; Breathe. This phase commenced post 5 traumatic days of WAC submission and Mid Term exams. WAC stands for Written Analysis and Communication , a course which aims to make grammatically sound managers out of us with expertise in report writing. Sounds cool right. It sounded to me also when i heard about it .

But i beg to differ after 2 such submissions and one peer evaluation. Writing a blog or cooking up stories is one thing but writing a report on some actual case which is supposed to affect some business and its stakeholders is another. We are supposed to analyse the problem , consider the options objectively and find the best one. Alas all options look the same to the harried students and one has to twist and interpret facts in ways to make the one of his choice (or was it the choice of the guy whom i met in mess today) as the one most delicious with a cherry thrown in at the top.

Somehow the report submission landed on our already taxed heads a day before the Mid Terms. Human Rights guys. Are you listening . Thus began my 5 sleepless nights . It was a group assignment so me and Pankaj started it at 11 in the night . Watched videos , talked and ordered and ate food from CT(Canteen in IIM Ahmedabad). Then the alarm bells rang and we ended up with a good enough report and 1 hour of sleep the next day . WAC run.. Um will tell about it later.

Then began the actual hiking. The mid terms . Studying for subjects is a zero sum game at WIMWI. You study one and the other is left out . The same thing happened with me and i was fairly comfortable in the day 1 exams but was totally at my wit's end in the next two.

The fear was so much that i actually went to a seniors and looked at last years stats about the number of failures . Thankfully they were minimal ,0-3 , in a batch of 300 +.

Having this assurance i struggled with them and eventually managed to do OK ( that is pass ) , i think . Another easy paper and my 5 day long ordeal ended. The exam got over at 10:30 and we got our next slot books at 1 :) .

This slot has 2 of the most important subjects - Marketing -1 and Financial Markets. I hope their Profs are good.

The exams ended and the whole campus was gripped and is currently suffering from the T NITE fever( along with an actual flu which has actually got a lot of victims on campus ). More about T NITE after its completion .

The highlight is that i spent one of the best moments at IIM Ahmedabad last night. Out of impulse i left my room at 1 in the night and strolled through the campus . The campus is so beautiful , serene and calm . The buildings here actually reassure you that you belong here . It gives you a sense of achievement. So many times i have confronted this question in the past month whether i belong here or not . But last night i knew the answer. And the feeling was amazing. I hope i carry this feeling always with me throughout my life .

The full moon looked splendid from the spot in the parking where i sat . The weather was perfect with cool breeze carrying the sweet scent of wild flowers . The feeling in my mind was satisfying and the thought of someone whom i was missing was pleasurably painful in my heart :)