The deal about doing your bit for society

We had the CEO of Coke India, Mr. Atul Singh, visiting us on campus today. Khemka was full as usual, with people billowing in from all entrances, accompanied by books and bags, and as for sections E,F,G and H, a tired expression accompanied them as well as they walked in. No, I am not going to summarize what he said, nor am I going to give my perspective on what he said. I guess someone or the other would 'minutize' it, and if not, I guess there were enough people in there to fill in those who did not manage to come in for the session. In a nutshell, he spoke of how Coke perceived the Indian market and how our predominantly rural market posed new advertising challenges as such for the beverage industry, in general, and the Coke brand of products in particular.

Towards the end however, he spoke of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives undertaken by Coke. Therein he spoke of how they were into rain water harvesting, providing water to schools, restoration of the Sarai Bawari at Amer, not to mention the natural calamity relief and aid work . He mentioned Coke's vision and plan of replenishing every drop of groundwater they take by the end of this year. An extremely commendable move indeed by one of the world's largest brands, whose every move commands almost the maximum number of eyeball attention. I guess such moves can prompt plenty of other industry players to do their bit for society.

But in the midst of all this, I was struck by a sense of deja vu. Just a few days ago, in one of our accounting classes, there was discussion on how Starbucks was into huge CSR initiatives. I won't go into the specifics of the discussion we had back then, but today's mention of CSR by another beverage company, put me in mind of the previous event, wherein we had seen the Starbucks site displaying its CSR initiatives in South America. I just wonder whether CSR is the new bug that has bitten the world of large conglomerates? Or is it that given the present economic situation, the glaring need to look elsewhere for economic stimulus and growth, has resulted in atypical avenues being targeted? Either way, I guess something good can only come out of the whole exercise. What say?

GOLDEN MANTRA - SISO (SNAKE IN-SNEAK OUT)

How do you react to slimy little newborns wriggling into your rooms?

1. Get the entire quad sprayed with some apparently snake-repelling liquid, till the stench makes you abandon your rooms as well. (The second snake in our quad appeared moments after the spray, like those AXE Effect babes unable to resist!!)

2. Start keeping the most quixotic mix of antivenoms, and take two ml with equal concentrations of Goel food.

3. Call Housekeeping even if rubber bands look suspicious (Murali usually comes to SV1 quads well-armed with broomstick and pickers)

4. If noone picks up the phone as in (3.), call 911. (for guys who declined US schools but never fail to mention they were in "States" for some time!)

5. Cry foul !! (They should have been more explicit when they mentioned about the famous peacock-crossing…You weren’t exactly expecting this right?)

6. Love nature, love thy neighbors, so do nothing.

By the way, if you choose 6. you are free to move into a ready-to-occupy Quad, SV1-C5. Don't panic if the non-paying residents are found watching TV, cooking Maggi, using the bathroom , etc.

We decided to opt out of the reality show.

I woke up yesterday with news that my quaddie Nakul had a snake in his room. Very few incidences in my personal life history have had the effect of waking me up so early, and so well (Well I do physically attend the morning classes at 8.15, but that isn’t an act in “full consciousness”). By the way, the housekeeping staff mentioned that the three snakes were of type ANACONDA!!


I find snakes as funny creatures: they don’t mind encroaching upon your personal space: bedroom or bathroom. And the worse part is, they are not willing to pay for the accomodation.



When we signed the life insurance and medical insurance forms as a part of the admission process, little did we bother about these potential threats lurking around the corners, wriggling into our fortresses of solitude (read Quad) with consummate ease.
 
There are quite a few lessons one could learn living with them:

1. Learn to share (your couch, commode, and so on…)




2. Learn to sleep with the enemy. (Married folks need not take this preterm!!)

3. Learn the law of the jungle. (MR=MC?? Not sure if that applies here…)

4. Learn what Steve Jobs learnt the hard way from Bill Gates (a small crevice may be enough for the enemy to creep in!!)

5. Learn the ultimate truth, that we all must meet the same end sooner or later (I wish I could position this realization to help the incorrigible ISB chain mail freak mellow down. In their unflinching resolve to be club presidents, you display infinite capacity to produce and consume snakeshit, and could well spare lesser mortals …)

 
So next time you see a mommy snake changing diapers for baby snake, you could use the formal decision making frameworks for action, marginal analysis of snake in = sneak out, statistics of occurence, or keep accruing the numbers.


Our 2-cents: Run for dear life!!!

Assignment 1: Birth of the Study Group

A common myth: One of the ways in which Profs ensure you do your studies like a good boy or girl @ ISB is by putting you in a Study Group. Wrong Answer Buddy ! You'll find the real answers in places where you look for them the least !

My study group met up at the Library on Friday to complete our first Group assignment. First thing when we met we decided to distribute responsibilities:

1. Prasanna: He is the Director - Logistics who ensures everybody gets to know what time we are originally planning to meet so that we can have it postponed as per our convenience.

2. Aastha: She is Director - Refreshments. She has been priveleged with the rights to arrange for resfreshments every 15 minutes for us.

3. Gaurav: He is Director - Common sense. He is the one who is supposed to collate the inputs, strip them into minute details and give the official 'go-ahead' for finalizing the answers only if they made sense to him.

4. Vishakha: She is Director - Communications of the group. After getting the go-ahead from Gaurav she is suppose to, in extremely neat handwriting, write down the answers on the assignment paper.

5. Myself have decided to take on the toughest job: Director - Credits and Blames. Yes I will take all credit for jobs well done and pass on the blame for assignments botched up to whosoever is willing to take it (within or outside the group).

It was all perfect. We were like Enid Blyton's Famous five unravelling the mysteries of Managerial Economics together. This way we tackled all the problems with great ease.  

Since we all realized the importance of "Bonding" we decided to take 4 hours for a 2-Hour assignment. In the end the experiement seemed to be working. 

1. Vishakha bonded to the white sheets she was writing on. 

2. Aastha bonded with the Tea cups from which she was drinking. 

3. Gaurav bonded emotionally to the Assignment (Excuse he used: I'll drop it in "alone" after the final answer makes sense to me)

4. Prasanna bonded to the desktop picture on his laptop which strangely was rotated 90 degrees and in which you could see all the different stuff he got while processing loans for different countries at World Bank. His sports shoes looked Pakistani, Wrist watch Vietnamese, Pants Italian, Shirt Thai and Sun glasses Hawaiian. But he never got bribed. Try and question his integrity and you'll know how he got all those 'gifts'.

 

5. I bonded to the notion of having a fixed audience of 4 people who have no option but to bear the brunt of my (poor) jokes !

But all of them seemed to be treading the paths cautiously as has the been the case with 500+ other people on the campus whenever they are around me. I wonder why ! 

Photo-shoot

Apparently, not everybody at ISB was looking forward to the second week after getting a taste of the first. When I walked into the class on Monday morning, I could see several sleepy faces from my half-opened eyes. We were jolted awake when a quiz paper was shoved into our faces as soon as we stepped into the class. The test was over even before my mind woke up to the fact that I was taking a test.

Then came the real spice in life. A photo-shoot for CAS. Those of us who had to get ready for the photo-shoot scrambled around getting the last few creases out of our suits. People were dressed in their charming best and lined up at the make-shift studio. People were handed a board with their PGID. The first photo was for an identification, and you had to face the camera holding the board with a sheepish grin on your face. If Smack D was writing this blog, he would use something like this to amuse all of us. I am sure Smack D wouldn't mind.

I mean no offence to PGID 420. Please take it in your stride.

After getting done with the real photo-shoot, we went crazy shooting more photos. We had a lot of fun, but that's for another day.

For all those wondering why housekeeping guys were running around with sponges and buckets of watery liquid from the photo-room at about 5:30 PM yesterday, keep wondering. My friends who were with me when I walked into the photo-room know what it is all about, and they promised to keep it to themselves.

Jargon in ISB

First of all, a disclaimer:

While I never shy away from pulling someones leg, this is a generic post NOT intended to pull the leg of anyone in particular, just some stuff I have noticed in 'general' during classes in the last 2 weeks :D So if you take offense, its more a case of a guilty conscience than any particular effort from my side ;)

With so many smart people around, there are a lot of people who either assume that everyone is as smart as them, or, want to show how smart they are . Hence we have jargon filled sentences being fired at the profs during different classes, with people clamoring to show off their management knowledge / knowledge of that particular subject. Of course, I may be wrong and perhaps thats just how you talk after a couple of years as a manager/consultant, in which case I will apologize once I see it for myself, in a few years hopefully....

I dont even remember the jargon that gets used in class sometimes, its that heavy and difficult to follow. With contribution from some people in my section, in no particular order, heres a compilation of some jargon common among ISB students:

• It depends: This has been the favorite of everyone on campus, especially when you are asked a question by the professor and want to do a classic walk right on the fence to get CP points no matter which of the two options is correct.
• Paradigm Shift: Another favorite of people looking for fancy words. A paradigm shift can be applied to anything and by anyone, thus confusing the whole class sometimes, what to talk of the prof.
• Thought Leader: Ah yes,we are all expected to be thought leaders soon, but no one has a clear idea of what kind of thoughts a thought leader is supposed to have though.
• 20,000 feet overview: or was that 30,000 feet? Not that it matters much. A favorite of people during club presentations, when they haven't done something, but still want to show what they know, thus giving everyone a veryveryvery high level overview which is of no use to anyone.
• Reinvent the wheel: Another chestnut, can be applied anywhere and everywhere when someone wants to show how hes understood the concept and wants to state it in his own words hoping for some more CP.
• Dude: Universal term here. I use it as often as anyone. Can refer to anyone from a 24 yr old to a 45 year old, especially since more often than not, you dont know the name of the other person who you may just have met. The context and usage differ of course.
• Network: And of course, the grand daddy of them all, responsible for 'dude' above. The word many of us are sick and tired of, but which just wont go away. Something that we are all supposed to do as much as possible over the next one year.
  
• Gyan: Refers to all the top secret info imparted by alums before they left us to the mercy of the ISB campus for this year. Also may refer to information imparted by people during club sessions. Maybe good or bad, either way.
• Arbit: Universal term actually, referring to 'arbitrary', used a lot in context of ACP.
• ACP: The ghost of class participation which is destined to haunt some of our subjects this year.
  
• LRC: An incomprehensible term when mentioned to friends and family not in ISB. Refers to the college library or 'learning resource center' (Did I get that right?). The place which all the studious students hit till 2AM everyday.
• Quadee: Similar to roomie/room-mate. Refers to 4 people/quadies living in the shared apartments or 'quads', as they are referred.
• Comparative Advantage: Another hot term which is just spreading like wildfire in campus after recent economics lectures. Any economics term/question/reason that you dont understand may have this as the answer, at least that seems to be the current perception anyway :D

Thats pretty much what I have managed to gather. Feel free to add more terms in the comments below.

(NOTE: This is NOT the specific jargon some people use. Thats even more incomprehensible to me and too full of 3 and 4 letter abbreviations to remember)

Does it Really?

Well, with the grades of at least two exams out and more to follow... one things clear.

There's at least one place in B-school where the answer is never " It Depends"! :)

Where have all the Students gone....?

The past 2 weeks at ISB were full of life. You could find people milling about at any time of the day or night (as much as you can with 500 people on a huge campus). There was always something or the other lined up for us to do, from the orientation games/presentations to the pre-terms preparing us for the 2 hour classes ahead of us. Not to mention the multiple parties, hanging out with people we were meeting for the first time and trying to 'network' with. Life was busy busy busy till the 26th.
All of a sudden, the mood on campus changed, and on Sunday, there was hardly anyone to be seen on campus. I took a stroll and thought everyone was out for a party, till I reached the Atrium that is apparently the only place people find to meet up on campus, especially when they want to study/talk about studying. The atrium was completely full, crowded by masses of study groups, people walking about with books under their arms and zombie-like expressions on their faces. Occasionally you would hear stuff like "Explain this concept again, I need those CP points." :P Everyone seemed to be hard at work trying to get those pre-reads right. You could cut the tension with a knife.

Well, the week came and went. For the non-ISBians, ISB follows a 4day week (Mon-Thu), with the other three days for studying and completing weekend assignments :P And an interesting weeks its turned out to be. It wasnt as worse as some people were afraid it would be. There were new subjects, new concepts, and even a Quiz we all managed to complete.

The weekends here. Study groups are still getting together to complete various assignments, but the faces are less zombified than what they were last weekend. :) We even had a Week1 survival party Yday evening.
As for the coming weeks, not to mention the mid-terms (Already!!!!!!!!!!) the week after this, stay tuned. :)

Dunkings galore

What better way to kick start my stint at 'superstardom' (quoting Vinit who told me to celebrate my elevation from being a mere mortal to being a blogger on MMX!!!) than to write about the one event that gets people charged up close to midnight on some random day? Yup! Its all about grabbing an individual who, perhaps for the first time in life feels bad about the day marking the addition of a year in his life, and swinging him precariously over a pool and screaming ONE.... TWO.... THREE in perhaps the most evil way possible. Till splosh!!! or perhaps splotch!!! or some such thing. The poor fellow / fellie (forgive the rotten word usage), then needs to grin while the water goes gurgling through God knows where, and in some cases, needs to look through wet spectacles, all the while smiling sweetly, as the rest of the gang (dry... mind you), watches, claps, enthusiastically, like how the family/friends of the Bakra on MTV Bakra used to. And as if this were not enough, they make many more people feel hopelessly soaked about the fact that it is some person's birthday. Yup! The study group, the quad mates. And if these many people do not fill the pool sufficiently, the beeeeeeeeeeeeest friend is thrown in. And if that also does not suffice, then in a sudden burst of extreme over enthusiasm, the whole class jumps in. Some even get carried away by the concept of experiential marketing (don't dunk me for this), and describe at length the 'benefits' of getting dunked, and also explain the lost opportunity cost of not getting dunked (for this statement, I can imagine myself at the bottom of the pool!!!). Some go a step further. 'DUNK ME DUNK ME... I am up for grabs' (literally), is the mantra on some lips! And ever since marketing started, we have had another reason to dunk! Oh yeah! The CPs. Arbit or otherwise!

So much for the description. I for one, feel that the attitude of our people towards the whole 'yeah I caught a cold on my Birthday of 2009' is real cool. Even better is the massive turnout of the class / batchmates, quadies, whoever, who make the birthday special for all those away from the original friends and family with whom they used to herald in their birthdays till last year. And... as for the ACP kings and queens - cheers to you guys for the zinda dill attitude - in class and at the pool :) And the icing on the cake is when the class gets carried away and lands up into the pool, as a show of solidarity.. Oh hell, no solidarity, the weather is much too hot and musty!!!!

So, no cartoons here, no long winded gyaan here. Just my take on some things I find sweet and cute here at ISB. Happy reading guys, and please note, I AM NOT AVAILABLE TO BE DUNKED IN CASE YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I WRITE. In case you don't like anything I write, dunk Vijeth and Vinit, and ok.. dunk anyone you want. They'd perhaps jump in anyway!

Week-3 Case Study

During the first week, the treasure hunt and the Bind Unwind programs took the wind out of our lungs, the moisture out of our tongues. We lost a few pounds and felt a lot younger. During the second week, we lined up to the Rec center to try out hand at figuring out the kinetics and dynamics of various predominantly spherical objects. Long walks, hot showers, cold beer... the list goes on and on. Life was so good that even Goel food tasted heavenly.

As announcement after annoucement started dropping on the blackboard, the tone of the whole campus changed. People started walking across campus with a sense of determination. Everybody looked like they have been on the dreaded spiral staircase atleast once in the past 24 hours. The professional clubs were a phenomenon, and there's a lot written about it already.

I never realized it was Monday until my alarm went on a frenzy at 7 in the morning. The tension was so high in the air that even the bunch of chinese students visiting ISB that day could smell it in the air.

The pre-terms really endowed me with some key skills that proved very helpful in classes. Here are some... mind you... these skills are hard to come by.

1. Yawning without opening my mouth
2. Sleeping with my eyes open (source: Vignesh aka Jignes)
3. Sitting in a chair continuously for two hours
4. Not uttering my favourite explitive when something doesn't make sense\
5. Understanding the irony of life when an old 5 rupee coin means the whole world to me
6. Holding a pen between my fingers without consciously thinking about it
7. Appreciating the inner bliss when I stand in queues

There are skills that the pre-terms didn't teach us, but we managed to acquire - Smack D hinted at some of them in his post.

1. Losing nametags, sunglasses, underwear etc.
2. Writing extremely long emails (because I can type)
3. Using Outlook rules and the oh-so-sweet sweet delete button (See 2 above)
4. Drinking coffee at 3 in the morning and then chanting 'MR = MC' about 108 times
5. Declaring that the buffet at Goel is heavy and expensive and substituting it with 3 plates of Chole Bature at the Cafe, 3 almond frappes at CCD, 3 triple sundaes at Baskin Robbins and 3 chilled beers with 3 packets of chips.
6. Setting an entry fee for our own party (Practical applications to price elasticity of demand)
7. Waiting for 20 minutes with our hand raised for a 20-second chance to speak
8. Understanding that obesity is caused by a 'paradigm shift'

Here's the summarized accounting for the 3 weeks (We regret the bad formatting - I'm learning HTML to make it look neater - WIP)

Week-1
Particulars Debit Credit
----------------------------- ---------- --------------
Goel Account Rs. 1700
Cash Account Rs. 1700
Hot sun 22 Liter
Body water 22 Liter

Week-2

Goel Account Rs.1700
Cash Account Rs.1700
Work-out account 3 kg
Body weight Account 3 kg
Pre-term account Rs.15000
Cash Account Rs.15000

Week 3

Cafe account Rs.2000
CCD Account Rs.1200
Baskin Robbins account Rs.1000
Wine Shop Account Rs.5000
Party Account Rs.500
Coffee Machine Account Rs.100
Sun-glass Acct (Written off) Rs.5000
Cash Account Rs. 14800
Body weight account 6 kg
Binami account 6 kg



Assignment (20 marks)
Prepare a retrospective analysis of the value proposition offered by Week-3 to ISB students at the start of the week, and how the perspective of students changed from Monday through Thursday. Prepare a balance sheet, Cash flow statement and Income statement for Week 1 to 3. Describe how different Week-3 could have been if students didn't lose their nametags. (No less than 5000 words).

Week 1: The Disability Week

Week 1: History ! Done and dusted under my bed (which the housekeeping will clear in an hour from now). The week that went by went off smoother than probably most of us expected. Each one had hyped it up to be a week when even peeing peacefully would be a luxury. From how it went by that was not even close to it.

It has been a week of self-disovery and disability. People kept discovering new ways of getting injured - twisting ankles, falling from bikes, falling after getting drunk etc etc. The Local Ferrari has been kept continuously busy. While others learnt that they were disabled in some way or the other. I saw a lot of people who were Statistically-Challenged, Economically-downtrodden, Financially-unstable & Marketing-Goofs. Talk about diversity ! 

Most slept through the time they should have been awake and were wide awake when they should be instead sleeping. Personally I discovered how life can be ironic. I coordinated and scheduled my Study group meeting and when the time came I was fast asleep in my room. 

I also saw the different forms of Class Participation (CP) on full display. You can categorize them as follows:

1. Desperate CP would think "Everybody has spoken atleast once. I have to say something else I'll get lowest in CP" and would say "Professor, I totally agree with him. *blah blah .. repeat the same points in Greek *"

2. Arbit CP would think "I gotta say something that must look intelligent." and say "Professor, you taught about Balance sheets today. What if it didnt balance, would you still call it Balance Sheet"

3. Infinite CP would not think. He would go on and on and on till somebody threw a short at him or the world came to an end.

4. Extra CP would say "Professor you ave asked us to read 12 chapters from XYZ book and come for tomorrow morning's class. Should we be also solving problems given in ABC book?"

5. After CP would run after the Prof as soon as class gets over and say "Professor, I wanna create a smart and intellectual image of myself in your eyes so can I ask you about something fancy that was in the Economic times today morning and is remotely connected to your subject"

I saw conversations shift from "Have we met? What is your name? Which Section are you in?" to "Dude, have you read the pre-read? Is it connected to what is taught in Class? How is the Prof ? Did you have a surprise quiz?"

The number of Club related SPAMs came down while "I lost my Name tag" mails hit the roof. Coffee sales hit a new high. Big long queues shifted from Goel Dining Hall to the Cafe. Swimming Pool saw more dunking than swimming.

.... and as for me I only sat and watched in amazement !

CP blues...

I’m starting to write this halfway through the first case discussion in marketing class where class participation counts for the final grade. I don’t think I’m going to be any good at CP. The pressure to say something is just too much. Everyone’s hand is in the air – some even before the complete question is framed. Some hands are almost never down. The pace is very very rapid. People jump in with words, hardly taking the time to frame a coherent sentence.

Genuine questions or doubts or requests for the professor to repeat a concept are suppressed when classmates are so impatient to speak themselves that they don’t want to listen to another. Everyone wants to talk before all the good points are taken. Some people have questions much beyond the concept being covered and people from other backgrounds are left behind. It is also very depressing if in such controlled conditions, you aren’t able to come up with the answers that your classmate can.

But then, I am different. I need some time to absorb a subject and to really get into a conversation. I like to listen when someone is talking. I take some time to process that information and respond. But, there is no time here.

I must say that the professor managed this chaos admirably. I would go crazy in his place.

I am reminded of this dialogue from the sitcom FRIENDS – the episode where Chandler is up for an interview where Phoebe says

Phoebe: Yes, when I first met you, you were like, "Blah, blah, blah." I was like, shhh!

That is it. shhhh!

Eternal April !

579 hyperactive strangers. One campus. Access to Student mailing list. Result: Madness

We had quite a few people clogging the mailboxes by trying to take initiatives on Professional Clubs like Consulting, Finance etc as well as Social Club like Dance etc as well as new ones like Fight Club, Running club, Sports Club etc etc and then you have people like me who clog inboxes with what may seem to some as Humor and SPAM to others. To compound miseries we have others hitting only the REPLY TO ALL button and sharing their views (which in most cases is unnecessary). Till now I used to attribute the hyperactivity on the emails here to the fact that we had 579 eager beavers on campus - each trying to take a new initiative. 

But thanks to some of my smart and fun buddies I was exposed to the fact that this was known phenomenon - famously referred to as Eternal September (the time when students would join B-Schools in the US). So though each person is variedly different from each other but collectively we do exhibit a similar trait. As we deal with this deluge of mails we learn about respecting others time and sensitivity (in short netiquettes) which shows that with experiences people smarten. 

I learnt my lesson the hard way yesterday how one little humor initiative leads to a whole lot of spamming and in turn leads to quite a few people getting pissed off. But all said and done, it does not matter what the intent was and what the result was, what matters is the ability to admit flaws and not repeat the mistake.  

Hope the chaos and disorder would die down within a months' time and people can look forward to seeing just a dozen mails (as opposed to about 100 mails) everyday.

Campus Updates - It's picking up now !!

With acads picking up, corridor conversations have shifted dramatically over past few days. From "Which Section you are in" to "Have you completed pre-reads". Increasingly people are forming their own comfort zones and hanging out there. However, you will still find many people whom you haven't met but most of the times there are now common friend to lead the introduction. Still there are times when the big bad octopus of Network encircles you and you bump into a complete stranger. Both parties introduce each other with a mutual understanding that both will soon forget the names but remember the face, and greet each other next time you bump in. Those are the updates on ISB Networking.

As for the classes, here goes some of my observations.. "Your CP is your legacy. Years down the line, your class mates will remember you by the quality of CP you make" was the first thing told to us by our marketing professor. So much for the peer pressure at ISB. But I take it as more of fun. Understandably there will be people who will do CP that will sound as ACP or DCP to many. But I think challenge for all of us is to learn to not get turned off by those comments. Rather gain the patience to embrace them or better do some CCP (Constructive CP) to bring the topic back to potent discussion. Somewhere everyone is right in his/her own world. It's takes courage to stand against the crowd and speak what you stand for. I trust that soon we will settle down and things will make lot more sense to all of us. Incessant positivist!!

Digging further into my experiences of the first day and the pre-reads / post-reads associated with the class, I have enjoyed my marketing class. While most of us submerged ourselves in the pre-read, the prof rocked the topic with numerous example that helped make sense of the all the circuitous concepts in the book. I like this example the most - Coca Cola was about to launch a vending machine that determined price of the bottle based on two different sensors - One that counts the no: of bottles left and the other that gauges the temp outside. So much for innovation and marketing!

Currently, I am on to my Stats pre-read. (Honestly I don't know why I am here - Writing. I still have 2 chapters to complete)...As much analytical people may think it to be, I guess the pre-read rocks with the practical applications of the subject. Everything written is just general concepts that we all apply in our daily lives. It's great to learn the structure around the same. Given my incessant liking for example, I will quote one from my pre-read - Walmart maintains database of all the transaction that has happened in its stores and the size of the database is three times the size of all material on Internet {:O}. Given this huge repository, Walmart was able to calculate what exactly people need while stocking stuff for Hurricane - Strawberry Pop-Sticks - and stuffed the same. Cool!! I increasingly feel that all the concepts we will learn are all common sense a.k.a Management. It's the practical applications and example from past will underscore our understanding of the concepts.

Finished with the random rambling and hence rejuvenated. Back to my stats pre-reads!! Ciao!!

The Weekend before the Holocaust !

Waking up on a Saturday morning is always special. Its weekend time ! But waking up this Saturday was different. The tension in the air was so thick that you could actually cut it with a knife. In fact I saw Neha Chaturvedi doing that early in the morning. She said something to Aviral, which as per conventions of marital conversations was not to be agreed upon unless they had a good argument about it. Later I heard that Neha wanted to hire a maid for cutting this tension in the air. So as happens in all events of Marital importance Aviral had to bow down to Neha. Backstage reports suggest a foreign hand in all this - specifically a hand from Chicago. Most likely the dreaded "Maggi" couple Arpit / Pankhti were behind all this.

I sat and wondered what it was. Was a holocaust predicted ? Everybody in campus seemed to behave as if there was no life after this weekend. Some people had packed and left for nearby places the evening before. For all I know that our CORE terms start after this weekend. Was this a deliberate ploy to simply hype things up so that we could show off to the outside world that we were in a rigorous One-year MBA progarm or was it actually going to be that way ? Only time has the answers. ISB junta's reaction was to advertise the hype using Facebook status messages.  

Mr. Diet Coke Keshto woke up today morning on the wrong side of the bed. He suddenly started feeling sick. Partly because he realised that his life was moving too fast and his hormones were moving faster. He got so nervous about statistics that he forgot his own vital statistics.  So he decided to give "Section - A" meet a miss. But at the breakfast table he had a heart transplant and decided to attend the "Lights and Sound" show at Golconda. I scanned through his breakfast and found nothing that could have triggered such irrational decision. Maybe the beautiful ambience of Goel did this to him. By the way I handed him a awesome Stats book just to calm down any nerves. 

Mr. Jiggy Shah probably dreamt about all this. So to cheer Mr. D.C. Keshto he wore a light pink shirt and bermuda garnished by a Nike cap. That reminded Mr. Zorro of his days in the Mexican prisons where they used to play Pinata wherein the Pony would be dressed in pink. If that didnt cheer Mr. DCK, even a hair transplant wouldnt. By evening Mr. DCK decided to transform as he had to go out to the section meet. He hit the gym, built some solid muscles even on his nose. He was now Rambo. Soon he headed to his room and took out Chopsticks. Chopsticks ?? To comb his hair. He was now truly Mr. Chopstick Rambo ! If he stands for any election, we all know what his symbol will be.

Since we didnt want to take chances with the Holocaust prediction we had planned to step out late in the night for a midnight buffet to OHRIS.  Mr. Restless was in his full spirits even before he had gulped down a single drop of spirit. He wanted to 'fly' on his bike. You tend get that feeling once you cant thrash other people's Facebook walls enough. To compensate for the shortfall in the virtual space, he was trying to make it up by talking trash on the streets. 

Mr. Zorro was feeling the Latino heat so started driving real fast on his bike. Ms. Nimbu Paani had to constantly stretch out her hand to create some Aerodynamic resistance and reduce the speed of the bike.  Sir Punter Pandey was thoroughly enjoying his bike ride, so did his pillion rider Mr. Vibhor. At one point they bonded so well that they were doing "Yeh dosti" (Sholay) steps on their bike. After their superlative performance you can now call the song "Yeh Dostana". Mr. Vijay Ramakrishnan decided to be the Mr. TwentyTun for the night but our Daroga Chacha in Khadi uniform did not seem to be appreciative of it. So they fined him Rs. 200 /-

Soon we were at the OHRIS. But the place was full and we were hungry so we decided to get into the buffet and eat standing. Mr. Nitin Vishwas and I didnt even bother taking the plates. We started to sample stright out of the buffet stand using just our forks. Mr. Rangeen, however, didnt have anything as OHRIS did not have anything "Namkeen" for this "Shaukeen". He also faced some serious issues with the manager who tried to woo Mr. Rangeen with a bowl of vegetable biryani. And there was no Hari Manjari aka Beero (Beer + Paro) to save him from another Vaishi Dareenda ! So stepped in the Ace photographer Nitin. Mr. Nitin Vishwas had his Value engineered L&T Cranes come and pick up the manager and put him in the thrash box. Mr. Rangeen had been saved again ! Nitin Vishwas's trip to the toilet had enlightened him as to what to expect in this place.

Mr. Punter Pandey was sensing that some Gabbar Singh was at work at OHRIS and would have put some Jhulab ki Goli in his food. This was why he was thinking thrice before every morsel that he ate (which included smelling the dish). Vibhor could see only Rajnikant ice-creams (a hyper-tall slabs of ice-cream with all sorts of flavours).  He told the waiter "Enna Rascala, I having the spoon ! Do you having the ice-cream? If nobody cant ... Vibhorkant " Looking at the ambience, Niranjan thought he was at McDonalds, Sydney. So he started ordering Aussie dishes ! But all he got was blank stares and puzzled looks. We also came to know how YouTube has the cool and funny videos of common people. We got a live demo from Sreejita who used her charm over the staff there. They were dazed and feeling drunk (because Sree ke aankhon mein tha nasha). Its only when you are dazed or drunk you do really funny (read stupid) stuff. 

Shouvik didnt speak much as he constantly had his mouth stuffed with a different kind of Biryani every 5 minutes. Anyways since he couldnt manage the 'diversity' that he so badly needed, he kept his mouth shut lest he attract any undue comments / taunts from the "Diversity-starved". Chote Sarkar, we now know what your next poem is likely to be. A sample extract will read as:

Mr. Restless to the left. Mr. Vishwas to the right

Yesterday I missed the ladies, Today I am gonna fight.

Soon we wound up. The people in the Chaturvedi Benz thought that this was the golden opportunity to get rid of Mr. Restless as well as me in one go since both of us were on the same bike and didnt know the way back. But their strategy had a loophole. They didnt count on Mr. Punter Pandey & Mr. Vibhor also getting lost and managing to find us. What luck ! So all of us managed to return back to the Campus. Nature's law buddy : Garbage Out, Garbage In !

Poison Night & ISB Vellapanti Summit

If you thought that ISBians only knew how to study hard, think again, they party harder and have the most stimulating discussions known to humanity.

The other night a significant number of us decided to venture out of the Campus in search of some nocturnal pleasures before the Core term grind hit us. We had planned to go to COCO's in Jubilee Hills for a awesome night out. The place 'rocked' in the sense that the seating area was full of Rocks, pebbles and gravels. ISB truly rocks. I could see Section G guys / gals putting some of the rocks in their pockets. Parag D seemed to have brought his laptop bag only for that. As you might have guessed he was yet to get over the 'ISB Rocks' joke that his section had performed on Talent Nite. Hope he is at peace now. 

Reetu seemed to be very interested in the guy who was playing the music that evening. She was so smitten that she saw "Strawberries" everywhere. She now wanted to be a Strawberry farmer. Sindhu seemed to have put management to the back of the mind while she took census of all the sloppy and stingy people she saw. Hope she could get the count right in the dark. Rachita was there too though I havent seen her for a long long time and even this evening couldnt see her because it was too dark. But yes I heard her atleast if thats any consolation. In no time the place was full, in fact it was so crowded that Aviral & Neha couldnt even get down from their car downstairs and had to go back to the campus and drink away the sorrows in the comforts of their plush mansion on the ISB campus. So much for our management skills. I hear that back at their place, Nitin Vishwas got tipsy and wanted to shoot some pictures. Since he (as usual) didnt have his camera along with him decided to get innovative. Dont know how that went.

Back there at the Jubilee Hills, the inevitable happened and the whole gang split into multiple small groups. Our small group consisting of Ashwin Rambo, Hardik Rangeen, Hari Manjari, Lisa (pronounced as Lease-aaaa not Lee-zaaa), Mr. Class of TwentyTun Rishi (Doctor has asked him to drink Beer instead of water), 'Mobile' Innu (I always see her with the mobile glued to her ear ! Poor thing ! Who must have done this to her ? Cant have happened by birth !), Charlie's three married angels - Spriha, Soniya and Malavika, Kheer-ranjha Manish, Fluffy Ghosh and our own home-grown Jigniya Shah headed to "Poison" the pub. Being "ISB" definitely has its advantages in the outside world. The pub was not allowing any stag entry but waived off the requirement if you are Mr. ISB. So there we were ! But as soon as they saw me and Jiggy enter they immediately put up a warning sign on the dance floor.

At the pub there were other people too. One of the guys started hitting on Hardik. Hardik being very much the "straight" guy was feeling too awkward and embrassed. Thats were Hari Manjari stepped in with her Kung Fu credentials and what followed was an intense dishum-dishum Kung Fu panda style. Just when Manjari was losing the plot, the Shahs (Abhi & Jiggy) & Zorro started doing the latino-jiggy dance (Gujju freestyle) which distracted the other guy which was when Manjari landed the killer kick - straight to the jaw. The guy had to be admitted to Apollo. Manjari had won but not without paying a price - the final kick to the jaw landed very weirdly which resulted in major damages to her feet. The Doctor prescribed her to use the local Ferrari. She went for the driver's test but failed miserably. So they handed her a Learner's license and an ambassador instead of the coveted Ferrari. Last heard she was taking lessons from Tanya Schumacher.   

Today at Lunch we had the flagship ISB Vellapanti Summit outside 'The Cafe'. We had a Pav Bhaji fest on the table thanks to the foresight of Mr. TwentyTun. Rangeen used some of the Statistical tools that he was taught in class and combined it with some Quant funda given by Shouvik to come up with a magic order of 'extra' Pav. So if any of these guys are in your study group and have a case-study to do then do not trust these specific skills-sets that there outstanding students of ISB have. We also had Mr. Ashwin Rambo who has hit the gym so hard that he has grown muscles even on his ear lobes. Ms. Lisa (refer to pronounciation above & who was temporarily engaged to Mr. Mimoh ) was arguing as to how great food in Kolkata was compared to Mumbai. But she missed the irony that the Mumbaikars sitting on the table were looking well-fed while she was the only one who looked starved. I guess she must have only tasted the great Kolkata food but never eaten it.

Mr. Pankaj Poddar seemed to be in interrogatory mode. He wanted names and he wanted them fast. He was looking for those who had mailed the Core term Profs with their queries. The punishment in store is nothing less than capital. So all you loons who are guilty of this, this is your chance to run away as far as possible and hide yourself in the jungles because Mr. Poddar is coming to get you. This is the CLUB that you are most like to get.

The summit had to come to an premature end as the second half classes were about to begin.

Section Gyan : B

579 people cannot be taught together under the same roof unless ofcourse you want a parallel Parliament. Since ISB comes across to me as a peace-loving institute they have divided us into 8 sections lettered from "A" to "H". I was put in B.

 

Human beings like fighting for their identity and like to fight others for establishing the supremacy of their identity. So to spice up the life at ISB each section tries to create a identity of its own : Section Chants, Mascots etc. To establish their supremacy they have Section Points. In short its a adrenaline junkie's paradise. And things get only better if you have 579 capable and enthusiastic junta.  

We also had a Section Gyan session by the Alums. To break the ice we had a intro session where we need to give our name, an adjective & wackiest incident. A lot of interesting introductions came out the session. We had a Mr. XYZ who introduced himself as "The Game" XYZ but ended up pronouncing it as "The Gay" XYZ. When you do that in front of 75 smart people, you are bound to get smart-alec jokes. But he only compunded his misery when he narrated his wackiest incident wherein he had hit on a 'cute' Sardar. Before he could further dig his grave he was made to sit down. We also had Ms. McKakesy who has the talent to cut any given cake into numerous equal pieces. Adding colour to the whole introduction we also had Mr. Rangeen doing it his style. He was also courteous enough to acknowledge my role in publicizing his "Rangeen" lifestyle. Lady M keeping in tune with her mysterious ways revealed that she got her Espionage training by swimming in the gutter. Similarly there was one more lady who narrated her Dharavi experience where she earned her first fifty bucks after which she saw a lucrative career in that but lacked an MBA degree to pursue it. The stories are endless.

Section Chants hardly took any time. After some initial resistance, we decided to stick to our legacy Chant "B de patte, Chak de fatte !" which we felt was growing on us by the minute. We ended the session by cutting the cake in advance celebrations of a chap's birthday. Ms. McKakesy did the honours by cutting the cakes into equal pieces after our poor chap had it smeared on his face. We ended the session by chanting the legacy chant. And alums were graceful enough to remind us about the ego behind the section points.

The other section chants were as follows:

1. A - Aala re aala 'A' aala (Aala in Marathi is coming but they have no clue as to where they are even going)

2. C - Sec C (pronounces Sexy) - and thats not cliche ?

3. D - Go D Go D (but specify where to )

4. E - Rock E (they love dogs ! Rocky, Moti etc etc )

5. F - 4-3-2-1 Section F is number one (most innovative one)

6. G - Eh G oh G , here we go ji (again a confused aatma ki pukaar)

7. H - H H Hurray !! (Their mamma's must be proud of them)

The war for Section Points was on ! 

In the beginning

One in a new crowd of beautiful people. Is this one like any other random bunch? Despite the selection criteria, are there just one of every kind anyway - a representative for every philosophy of life, each with a different answer to the same question? It has always been so till now and I suspect it will be even here.

There isn’t much one can say having known people only for a few days. But impressions are being formed in every mind. There are more crowds than loners but some crowds seem lonely too, their conversation so forced that it radiates desperation.

Will there be tolerance for those who don’t feel the need for speed? Or will it be a cruel race to the finish line, destroying hope and will in the process? Will anyone hate the time to come, realizing this isn't the right fit - that the dream itself was false, though they made it come true.

There is so much noise all around. So many vying for attention. So many trying new things – will they like who they become? A classmate commented that things seemed so plastic and everyone seems so nice. Are they? Every logic presented and its completely opposite argument seems perfectly reasonable to me now.

Will the smiles be genuine always? Will conversations be born out of interest? Will we pat each other on the back and pull each other up to the mark? Or will that be too heavy a burden and all we can do is to try and get there ourselves?

What will it be in the end?

ISB - The time that flew by….

Finally a chance to sit at my lappy and blog. Nice nostalgic feeling. A little difference is that this time I am writing from a class rather than my workplace. Some habits never change :P. ~10 days at campus and we all have realized that there is storm that’s awaiting for us. The current week is perhaps the lightest in the foreseeable future. Few posts have been written by fellow classmates on different activities till w and I just intend to capture a brief snapshot of what all went by till now. Given the sheer amount of information shared and activities that happened, I would not be surprised if I just end up writing less than less than 10% of the whole story.

Registration Day
It all started on 11th April. Around 600 people burst into ISB Campus. Numerous dreams turned true. I checked into my room & awww welll, Awesome was the word I said. Then, the Recreation center and we all got out first taste of ISB life – A huge long circled LINE!! What the heck, do I have stand here for 2 hours. But then it was enticing to stand in that line and talk to all new people around. Networking, you know! Registration day went by with further hiccups and was soon over. Late in the evening, Dean addressed the Class of 2010 and gave an inspiring speech. The day concluded there.

Orientation Week – The Week that went by…..
It’s cruel to categorize this thing into a week. Tell me, how the heck can you fit in the following in one week:

25+ different presentations
Treasure Hunt Competitions
Club Meetings and Informal Sessions
4 parties that last whole night long
Beer Guzzling competitions
Talent Night Competitions
Team Building Activities
Case Studies and our first introduction to Class Participation (CP), Arbit CP & Desperate CP :P
Alumni Gyan Sessions
Speaker Series
Section Gyan
100s of Section chants – ROCK – EEEEEEEEE!!
That Damm “Networking” with 600+ people

Something is chronologically wrong with it. The activities in the whole week along with introducing yourself 50+ times a day, sometimes to the same person with whom you shared your contact info sometime back, was one of the finest experiences of my life till now. Of course this also led to a consensus that “Networking” is most abused word on campus. Refer to SAI’s post below. (If any of your friend just joined ISB Class of 2010, call him/her up and mention Networking somewhere. You will feel it from his/her response :P). On a serious note, I have learnt that ISB you are in constant mode of sacrifice. You like something, you do it. Don’t just hope to be everywhere. As a part of talent night competition we have prepared a pictorial prezo on this week and I shall soon be uploading the same on youtube.

Pre – Term - Here we are now!

Acads are picking up in the current week. Most of us are in hangover of the O’ Week and we soon realize our Accounting prof. is already done with Balance Sheet concepts and we have an assignment at hand. That’s the pace we got to get used to now. I have taken Business Stats and Accounting. Here is my take on

Accounting: - The class and the professor are pretty cool. Pretty good subject to learn and I am pretty happy with my decision to take this course.

Business Stats:- There are few things to pick up that may possibly be used in future. Further, the class gives people more opportunities to "Network :P“

Today, I am looking forward for the first CEO speech on campus – something I was looking forward to at ISB – Mr. Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs. I will update soon on the same. That’s all for now. The best I could succinctly capture. It’s impossible to pen down the spirit, the euphoria, the budding aspirations, and the insights floating around. You got to be at ISB to catch that. That’s why ISB… ROCKS!!!!!

Of dunkings, ADs and drunken orgies

ADs? Huh? What are ADs you say? With people being overwhelmed with so many abbreviations over the last 10 days what with so many clubs/initiatives and all, heres another one I discovered yesterday night.

AD = Arbit Dunking

Dunkings are a long established tradition and form an integral part of life at ISB. Many celebrations end with a dunking in the pool, with a dunk on birthdays being mandatory of course. Section E had one such dunking yesterday, with many people from E and sections as well turning up to wish the birthday girl. To her credit, she was a sport and volunteered to be dunked, THRICE! The birthday girl was followed into the pool by her cousin whos co-incidentally in the same batch.
While this was all well and fine, here is where the fun started. A call went up for her study group, but none were found. And this is where AD comes in. How this works is: Someone (anyone?) shouts a name from the back. If sufficiently popular, the chant goes up, and before the person can even realise whats happening, his belt/shoes/wallet/cell are off and hes being swung by four people till.....................

SPLASH!

P.S., who had become the first victim of AD the last time, was nowhere to be found! The section was apparently so enthu about the whole thing that 2 more people ended up being dunked. Some of those doing the actual swinging/dunking were even found trying to 'network' with the guy they had just dunked without even knowing who it was :P
It was a fun night overall. The presence of 3 cakes ensured that there was enough to go around both for smearing as well as for eating. Some of the dunked guys were later seen trying to get others into the pool (they no longer have anything to lose ;)) as well.

EXTRA CAKE!!!!!!!

All in all a very fun night. On the way back I was informed that a wild boar and even a monkey had been spotted in the student villages. I dont know whether its a part of the 'diversity' thing we have going on here or whether its just a story started by guys to be able to walk girls home :P

This being my first post on the mmx blog, please skip/ignore any errors in convention I may have made. Even better, mail me and let me know about it! Till next time.....

PS: For those looking for stuff on the 'drunken orgies', that was just to get the page hits up :P

What's in a name?

Me: Hi! Have we met? I am Sai.
Him: Abe Sai... Doon kya kaan ke neeche ek...

I've had enough of this and I can't even recall how many times I've got myself into soup this way. It's well established across all 2010 students that I am a retard when it comes to remembering names and faces. (I hope I am not classified as a retard in other areas). After a lot of effort, I think I can now barely recognize my study-group-mates. Forget about all the 579 students, I think it would be a great achievement for me if I can recall the names of everyone in my section.

Take a look at this interesting data for the class of 2010 - This analysis was inspired by my statistics pre-term course.

5 Abhinavs
11 Abhisheks
5 Adityas
9 Amits
12 Gauravs
6 Rahuls
6 Rohits
11 Saurabhs (including 1 Sorabh)
6 Swethas (and we have multiple spellings to deal with)
9 Viveks

These results are staggering and If I have my Stats concepts right, the mode of this population is ‘Gaurav’. Please note that I did not include many names that were shared by four people and less.

How do I deal with this? I’ve been mugging up the photo-directory of all students circulated to us yesterday. But I obviously didn’t get anywhere.

Is this some nasty joke played by all parents on this pour soul of mine? Parents go through a lot of effort in giving their children the best childhood they can provide. I am sure everybody agrees it involves creative thinking. Then why oh why did they cut-down on their creative juices when it’s time to name their precious kid? Why did they do this to me?

An advice to future parents though... name your kids one of the above, and the probability of them making it to ISB will be dramatically increased!

I intend to register for an “Independent study” to figure out the best way to remember 579 names. Is there anyone out there who wants to join me in this study?

No. I can’t recall your name…