From Kanpur Confectionery to Aravind Eye Care ..

It all began with THAT case on Kanpur Confectionery and ended with the last one on Aravind Eye Care. 

It has been a brilliant journey, with new friends and some really close ones at that. The memories at CR-7 will be cherished for life. Quizzes, Pointless CPs, T-Nite, Parties, Mugging, Classes, Company PPTs, Presentations, the wise-cracks in the last row. Suduko and Looping the Loop with Aayush, random discussions with Roshan, pulling Safique's leg now and then, the 'dude' talk with Prabhav, being blinded by Sagar's brightness (literally), the perversion of Shan and the 'men' of Sandeep. 

Our Class: CR-7 and that's my group making a presentation

Picture Courtesy: Rakesh Shejwal

The pitching for the mess committee elections, the summer placement process, grades, subjects, PPTs - every single thing has taught plenty of lessons. Last minute assignments, playing pass-the-buck till there's no one left to pass to, free-riding and dealing with free-riding, escaping without cold calls, some Godly lectures, some boring ones and a few that left me dazed with the level of knowledge that my peers had.

Being half way to a restaurant and then getting a call from a friend about a quiz, and the mad rush back leaving the auto driver being bewildered as to why any sane person will take an auto from one gate of the new campus to the next gate of the new campus! Teasing the work-ex guys as uncles, building tales and writing juices.

Posting random stuff on FB and then being pointed out to, by a prof that "I see you more on FB than elsewhere." That joy of a quiz going well, the dejection that comes with a screwed up quiz or an assignment that you least expected.

My seat for the last 9 months

Picture Courtesy: Rakesh Shejwal

Those little arguments, those petty fights, the seemingly intellectual discussions and the lone badminton match. Exams where I knew nothing, exams where I seemingly knew a lot (till the grades came)(PS: The post-exam FB comments were actually the best part though!)

Being part of a study group that met more for treats than for assignments. Living next to the institute topper. Being friends with a person who has founded a school. Talking to people with different views and perspectives about life.

Trying to beat the PGP Office by guessing quizzes, and at times getting it right. The few times at the library and the laments about not having enough time. Managing without night-outs or sleeping in class. Texting from one corner of the class to the other, and having that little increase in heart-beat-rate when the prof suddenly looks your way.

That's us, Section-A or the Aadamkhors (2011-13)

 Picture Courtesy: Rakesh Shejwal

The journey has helped me discover what I want to do in life. It has been a journey that has had more days of despair than joy, but will certainly be among the best memories of my life ever. Life here has had moments where I have been over-awed by the people who I have met here. It has taught me that it is the journey that matters, and not the destination. It has taught me to think, and think rationally. It has taught me to deal with a whole bunch of characters!

When I first stepped into the institute, I was in awe of it and was wondering whether I actually belonged here. This one year has not really given me an answer for the same. Probably miles to go before I find that out, but it has to be said that I am more closer to finding the answer out, than I was when I started out. 

PGP-1 has given a lot of memories, and in a way has changed my life quite a bit. Getting a chance to live life at a place where so many people dream to be, and living the dream to the fullest. An unbelievable experience it really has been.

Credits:

1. Mrunmayi, a good friend - for the title of the post. 

2. Rakesh - for the photographs that I have used.

From MANIT to Life at a B-school

Are you absolutely sure that you want to study an MBA?

 (This article appeared here in PaGaLGuY.com on Feb 27, 2012)

“Every morning in Africa, when a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.”

You must have read that quote before somewhere on the Internet, attributed variously to everyone from Charles de Gaulle to Abe Gubegna. If there was one line that perfectly described life at a good and rigorous business school, this would be it. Life at b-school is a complete antithesis of life at any engineering college. Just the first week, or even the first day will teach you how much tougher it is going to be compared to anything that most people have done before.

You will have to prepare before attending a lecture, not miss any classes, be on time to classes, meet submission deadlines and — probably the toughest thing for any engineer — do assignments on your own. Without copy-pasting off Google! (Which by the way will land you into so much trouble that you will end up wishing that you’d rather not have submitted anything at all and escaped with a zero.)

General lack of awareness and a lot of media hype have led many starry-eyed MBA applicants to harbour false impressions about how life at a b-school and after it is actually like. Most people begin aspiring for an MBA driven by day-dreams about six-digit monthly salaries, expecting that they will be the stars behind the next The Hindu vs The Times of India advertising war. Many get affected by the average salary figure of Rs 17 lakh at an IIM and can’t wait to be having breakfast with Ratan Tata and dinner with Mukesh Ambani in a matter of a few years. But they overlook the simple math and logic which dictates that for the salary average to be Rs 17 lakh, there must be roughly half the number of students on the other side of the figure as well.

The news media begins and ends with its limelight on the guys who get the best of the jobs and the crore packages. What they don’t tell you is that the student getting such a package would have had a few years of work-experience in a bank before his MBA and a topper both at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and at the b-school as well to boot. The popular obsession with the ‘IIM brand’ at times does not take into account the reality that a tag can only take you so far in life. Beyond that, hard work and what you truly are as a person, MBA or no MBA, only will carry you forward.

Your being a hard worker is taken for granted once you join MBA and in life after that. Considering that we are all used to sleeping 10 hours a day during engineering, it might seem unfathomable to function in a way that takes efficiency to another level. Like one of our professors says, “We all know that you are brilliant, and if given the time to do an assignment, you certainly will do a great job of it. That is why we make sure that you do not get enough time to do an assignment and want to see how good a job you can do when you have multiple things to do, and not enough time. Time management is what we want to 

teach you!”

MBA will be hectic, irrespective of where you do it from and it will require a lot of 

commitment, dedication and certain sacrifices. One should be mentally prepared for a different kind of lifestyle once they join an MBA programme. To get a an estimate of how much of stress it can cause, think of the most stressful day you ever had during engineering college, and imagine living that day for 300 out of the 365 days in a year. That would probably be it.

Taking up an MBA is a choice that will stay with you for life, but you should make that choice only after putting in a lot of thought. The first year of engineering is definitely not the time to make the choice, like many tend to do. Not only should you think through the “Why MBA?” question, you should also give equal consideration to the “Why not MS/MTech or working in a job instead?” question too and hopefully find all the answers you need.

(Added later) All said and done, MBA is not just about the rigour and academics. There is definitely fun and you enjoy a lot too.

Life at PSBB - Fond Memories are all that remain

"Pattaani Sundal Bonda Bajji Suda Suda Sambar" used to be the popular refrain that those anti-PSBBians used to go to, in those days of yore, when I was part of that wonderful institution called PSBBSSS. Plenty of nostalgic and wonderful memories and I had the most wonderful times in school. 

Yesterday, as I was mindlessly facebooking, as ever, I came across this picture of the old Nataraj Eraser with the yellow wrapper that we used to get in those days. It is probably something that I wouldn't forget for a long time in my life, due to the pain it gave me when due to some mad reason I put a couple of small pieces into my ear without even realizing I did it. Two months of pain in the ear before it was discovered and flushed out. That picture took me back in time, and has got me back to blogging in this new year 2012. 

Who can ever forget the old Balamurugan Store - the one stop shop for buying everything that you needed for your exams/classes/entertainment/eating. Fryums, 'Rasna', the old lady in the store. I can remember everything like it was yesterday, though sadly the store is no longer there as it has now been replaced by a swanky store - sign of the change within PSBB as well, in terms of the students, I guess. 

Time has not taken away AB (Anand Bakery) though another AB in the form of Adyar Bakery has come to steal its swagger. The Samosa Channa from AB, and watching some friends 'shoplifting' a couple of bottles from there - unforgettable. Nor can I ever forget that mad rush for the 'Special Numbers' in the Cycle tokens that we had to buy to park our cycles in the school. Or distracting the security 'Marimuthu' with songs and what not, to escape outside without cycles if we didn't have a token. 

Football in the basketball court was another special memory. The 200 (??!!) odd people who used to running about the small area in the lunch break chasing tennis balls and plastic balls, or at times the balls from the 'Play Pen' for the kindergarten kids. Getting caught once on the school CCTV cameras for jumping into a house next to school, to retrieve the ball. Or Simon 'Sir' - the "legendary" teacher who  everyone thought would retire at the beginning of every year we spent in school - only to find him there with his ubiquitous spectacles. Or Revichandran who could give Arsene Wenger a run, with his football 'tactics' and 'selection' processes. 

The jinxed sports day that used to get postponed every year thanks to the rain. And the rain holidays we used to get when it never rained. The games inside the classroom ranging from the Pen Game to Book Cricket and then 'A to G' Cricket. The 'tactics' that were employed ranging from taking a thin book or a thick book to a short book or a longer one. Or cricket with a paper ball that was stuck together with cello-tape as the ball and a bound text book or the exam pad as a bat. 

No one could beat PSBB when it came to ''different'' 'subjects'. Transcendental Meditation where we were taught a 'secret' mantra in a dark classroom or Western Music with Felix sir and Samuel sir. But nothing can even come close to beating 'Work Experience' where we were 'taught' to make objects with useless items or cook up some 'delicacies' like Sandwiches with Biscuits and what not. 

Oh Yeah! Future kids - the computer classes when we were supposed to learn Paint, Excel, Access (till date the only time I've used this software) but ended up playing the few games that used to be installed in some 'secret' folder for the entertainment of the teachers' kids. Those times when we used 'Network Neighbourhood' to trick our way through assignments or cause pain to people we didn't quite like by deleting their files. Or Chemistry lab where the lab assistant would give away the name of the compound we had to test.

Those fights between girls and boys for 'superiority'. I even remember some occasions where we had a running race across the sports ground much to the amusement of other onlookers to prove our superiority. And the 'black mark' charts that laid the foundation for the 'boy-girl' teasing that would happen. The 'helping hands' who would help their friends convey their 'love' and the inter-class and inter-batch fights that resulted because of the 'love'. The 'detective' girl who recorded a conversation of a boy proposing to her and had him caught, and the multifarious rumours that used to do the rounds during the days of ''Boys" - the movie.

The elections for the School Pupil Leader which were of much fanfare, and the time when PSBB asked us to wear 'Traditional Dresses' to school and then asked the guys who wore a 'Dhoti' to write an apology letter for the same. Or running to the audio-visual room in the school - the only one with a TV - to check the score of the Indian Cricket matches when they were on.

Those 'Call Parent' meetings for those who failed, and the 'Anniversary Test' and 'Project Test' that helped a few (including me) to scrape a pass. Bharat Kalachar 'reviews' for which the Hindu provided generous help and the tactical EPL discussions that would put Shebby Singh to shame.

PSBB has always had a special place in my heart, and so will all these memories. Plenty more that I can write about, but probably that can wait for another post.

Who can ever forget school-life and what would I not give to be back there again?