17/02/2016

25/01/2016; 00:29:

It’s been an eventful week, with Nihilanth and classes.

I don’t think anyone got any sleep, the night before Nihilanth was to begin. We received an e-mail announcing the closure of Globe@I- it’s now to be closed indefinitely.
The IIT-BHU kids got to Khandwa Railway Station at 3 a.m., as scheduled. Initially, an institute bus was to pick them up from there but since, as we later realized, the distance is about 100 k.m., this was thus not arranged. They got themselves on a bus to Indore which would drop them at BhawarKuan at around 7 a.m.
An institute bus was arranged for this pick-up. At around 7 a.m., I got to Bhawarkuan, got the 24 kids on the bus and back to campus and into a common room. A lot of people in my batch are from IIT-BHU and they were happy to meet their juniors. Later, I headed to the HRC where we’d set up a registration desk. Registration forms, food coupons and copies of the schedule were to be handed out to each participant at the time of registration (this technically included the room keys too, but, those were handed out as soon as the participants got to campus). I headed up to the Academic Block to get print-outs- 250 copies each of all the requisite papers.

Meanwhile, one of our team members walked to the HRC, dejected. He’d spent at hour waiting at the airport for an arrival who apparently missed the flight and never bothered to inform us. By the time he was done telling his story, his phone buzzed- another team, from IIM-Bangalore I believe had just about landed in Indore. And then, just like that, he made his way back to the airport!

At around 10:30, we made our way to the railway station to pick up the IIT-Bombay kids. We had a hard time spotting them at the railway station even though there were about 25 of them! Finally, we got to campus and into the SR-09 common room.
Registrations went on till about 2 p.m. by which time all 20 participating colleges were on campus. There was a short opening ceremony at 2:45 p.m. post which the General Quiz began. Each quiz had more or less a similar format- there was a written prelim for everyone after which 8 teams/individuals qualified for the stage round. All questions were designed by the quizmaster in charge of that quiz and included audio-visual clues as well as star-marked questions.
First up was the General Quiz conducted by Mr. Vikram Joshi – Winner of the 2014 World Quizzing Championship- was held right after.
There were a total of 257 participants from 20 IIT’s and IIM’s including IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Calcutta, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Kharagpur.
IIT-Bombay won the General Quiz. The Sports Quiz began at 6 p.m., conducted by Mr. Chandrakant Nair.

After the prelims of the Sports Quiz, a comedy night was in store after a hectic day of quizzing- . Youtube star, Kenny Sebastian was here, from Bangalore, to entertain the crowd. The student community finds his jokes very relatable and he even strung together random words from the crowd into an original song, on the spot!
But, right after the comedy night, it was back to the quizzes- the prelims of the India Quiz and the stage round of the Sports Quiz. This was won by IIT-Madras.

It was back to business, early on Saturday morning. IIM-Indore won the business quiz, bringing the first and only victory for the IIM’s at this edition of Nihilanth. IIT-Madras won the India quiz too.

Post-lunch, the Science-Tech quiz was held, conducted by Mr. Navin Rajaram - Part of KQA and host of the Texas Instruments Sci-Tech Quiz. Here, IIT-Madras continued their winning streak- both the winning team as well as the runners-up were from there.

To add a touch of entertainment, the MELA Quiz was conducted by Mr. Venkatesh Srinivasan. The MELA i.e. Music, Entertainment, Literature and Art quiz was replete with audio-visual cues and very enjoyable. Just the sheer amount of random facts & figures that people in the quizzing world know is astounding. We sat in on a few quizzes and were pleasantly surprised to actually know quite a few answers in the prelims!

Through the day, we tried to closely follow the developments on the ‘Start Up India’ scene- the closing ceremony with the PM’s speech was broadcast live in all premier institutes including ours.

17th i.e. Sunday was the last day of the quizzing activities- and the Lone Wolf quiz conducted by Mr. Suraj Menon was the best way to end with a bang. It was the ultimate challenge- questions across domains and one single winner. Both the winner as well as the runner-up were from IIT-Madras.

The Prize Distribution saw IIT-Madras celebrating as they were crowned Nihilanth Champions for the third year in a row.
Pongal was celebrated on campus, in the evening with a series of games, culminating in a traditional Pongal feast and loud music!

The same weekend i.e. 16-17th January was also the 10 Year Alumni Reunion for the 2006 Batch. The campus was buzzing with activity since a lot of the alumni had brought along their families including little kids.
Arena, the Gaming Club held an Alumni v/s PGP CounterStrike tournament at 4 p.m. An interaction session with the alumni was held at 12:30 p.m. I also got to meet the Finance head from the company I’ll be interning at this summer- he’s an alumni of the 2006 batch and it seems like there will be a lot to learn over the 2 months.
18th morning began with an ISM (Information Systems for Managers) class. The professor has decided that each group ought to send in an analysis of every case that we’ll be dealing with. A total of 4 questions are sent the day before the ISM class, to be submitted the same evening. 4 groups (1 question per group) are then randomly called on, in class to discuss said questions.
We had our first session of RCB (Retail and Corporate Banking) in the afternoon. The course will be conducted in two parts- Retail Banking & Corporate Banking, to be taught by two different faculty. The Corporate Banking professor has been in the industry for nearly 20 years and there is just so much to learn!
Meanwhile, the PGP Office has been sending in the time-table for the next day, each single day. An integrated one, till the 15th of February has been uploaded on the intranet but does not resemble these daily time-tables. So along with the surprise quizzes, there is now a new element of suspense on the cards.

We had our first HRM (Human Resource Management) class on Tuesday. The professor is really nice; most of the session was spent picking on a guy in our section who’s worked at Infosys- the subject of the day’s case. Unfortunately, the course is only 2-credits, down from the 4 it was last year.
At 12:15 p.m., we assembled in the Old Auditorium to hear the President of India’s address on the topic ‘Youth and Nation Building’ as part of the National Knowledge Sharing Network.

Applications for the post of SAC-Coordinator were thrown open and I decided to try my luck. Of course, a series of pre-processes was in store- a necessary evil perhaps.

A briefing session was called for at 8 p.m., in the Academic Block. All applicants for the post of SAC-C were present as was the current SAC-C. The idea was to let us know exactly what we were attempting to sign up for. Round 1 of the pre-process was sent to us shortly after. There were a couple of questions to be answered including why you want to be SAC-C, instances of leadership in the past, and two candidates other than you who would be suitable for the post. One nice thing about such questions is the fact that they make you actually think about why you want to do certain things in a certain way, what values are important to you and the life lessons you’ve gained from different experiences.
We had an industry visit on the 20th i.e. Wednesday. We headed to our assigned company- we’d been working on our project for a while now and our final submission was ready to be presented and reviewed. It was good team-work that resulted in a detailed Balanced Score Card for the Rolling Department of the company. We were lauded for our efforts and a few tweaks and changes were suggested which we ought to incorporate before the final submission to the panel which will happen perhaps at the end of the term.
CulComm sent out an e-mail, inviting volunteers to help with the Farewell preparations. The Farewell for the senior batch.

Round 2 of the SAC-C pre-process was also a written one. There were a few questions to be answered in a word document- two things you would change as SAC-Coordinator; comparing one club/committee at IIM-Indore to a similar entity in another B-School and an e-mail to the director, on behalf of the batch, talking about the hectic schedule we currently have. I wrote about working to increase the number of students who come to campus on student exchange and having a single body to garner sponsorship for all events that happen on campus instead of a separate team for each event. I then compared the Academic Committee here to the one at IIM-Calcutta.
A workshop on Design Thinking has been introduced as part of the curriculum for the PGP1, this year. It is to be held in two parts, the first of which was held on the 21st. We were introduced to the idea of design thinking and given successful instances of corporate implantation of design thinking. We were then split into groups; each group was given a problem that was to be approached and solved from a design thinking perspective. The first step was to detail out the process involved; then, we were to interview the consumer, in our case the students of PGP1 and note their current experiences. These were then compiled into an idea map. We shall continue working on this, in the second part of the workshop which should be held soon. Most of the day was spent on this workshop.
22nd morning began with a few classes and the Design Thinking workshop for the other 4 sections. Meanwhile most end-term papers from last term were shown during the week, before the grades are finalized. We then had a Finance-II Quiz at 4:50 p.m. Of course, in keeping with the new tradition, the e-mail announcing the quiz was sent to us only at 3:30 p.m. The quiz was simple and based entirely on what we’d been doing in class.

The SAC-Treasurer sent out an e-mail to both the batches sharing the audited financial reports of the SAC for the financial year ended 31st March, 2015. The unaudited report for this financial year will be shared soon.

15/01/2015

15/01/2016; 02:09:

It’s been a nice week since we’ve been back on campus after the term break (aka RIP). We got to campus around 11 a.m. on 10th morning. We ordered some nice pasta for lunch and then called it a day sometime in the evening- a whole week’s worth of sleep was to be caught up on.
Registration for Term 3 i.e. the last term of PGP-1 was to happen on 11th, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We headed to the registration place which was where the old PGP office used to be; all offices were recently moved to a newly constructed administrative block that is situated right next to the library.
There was the usual term registration form, additionally, there was a peer evaluation form that was to be filled up and submitted-this peer evaluation was a part of our grading for the OB course in Term-2; we were to rank our team-members (the assignment group for Term-2) on a 6-point scale on parameters including contribution, communication, team work and interest.
We then collected some material for Term-3 and then headed out for lunch and a movie. In the evening, Voyage Capital, the Capital Investment Club sent out an e-mail announcing the launch of an NFO (New Fund Offer). They are calling for students to invest in this fund that will be managed by the Club members; historically, the Voyage Capital portfolio has turned up much higher returns than the average return on the market. Students can choose to invest any amount with Rs. 1000 being the minimum investment and a Rs. 20000 cap on the investment. Voyage Capital promises to explain how the whole thing works; looking forward to some learning about the stock market.

12th morning began early; I was up at 9:30 a.m. for some unbeknownst reason and spent nearly the whole day in the hostel. The highlight of the day was an hour’s basketball game in the evening. Earlier, at 3:30 p.m., a guest lecture about the Finance for Housing market was held in the New Audi. It was a rather interesting lecture followed by a short documentary. Despite registration having been completed the day before, no classes were scheduled until the 14th.

On 13th morning, we headed out for our Industrial Visit. We left campus a little after 10, arriving at the company close to noon. An organizational profile was to be filled in and submitted so we got all the requisite information from the HR at the company. The HR project that we’ve been working on is nearly complete too; we’ve gathered all the requisite information to prepare a Balanced ScoreCard, only the final report needs to be compiled. Hopefully, it will be ready by our next visit which is a week later. We were back on campus close to 5 p.m. and picked up some more reading material from the new designated distribution centre aka the Old PGP Office.
After we’d compiled and sent in the aforementioned Organizational Profile, we causally strolled out of Gate 2, and walked to Baba Kulfi where we ate chaat and lots of kulfi. Happy, we returned to campus by about 9 p.m. where a celebration for Lohri was in order. Everyone was gathered at the Football field next to Mess 2 where a large bonfire was lit at around 9:30 p.m. There was a nice sound system, some music; popcorn, peanuts and rewri to toss into the fire and even a dhol-wala! We tossed some popcorn into the fire- an act that is supposed to be the tossing away of all negative energy from one’s life.

The first class of Term-3 i.e. Finance-II was held at 8:45 a.m. on the 14th. It was an interesting class where we basically realized that this course will deal with applying all the different analysis tools that we learnt in Finance-I, last term to ‘value’ a firm. A Nihilanth meeting was in order around 12 p.m. Nihilanth is the annual inter IIT-IIM quiz, started way back in 2003, by IIM-Indore. It is held at a different campus each year (decided by way of a bidding process) and after 13 years, hosting rights are back to IIM-Indore! The opening ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m., 15th Jan and the teams have begun arriving. We spent some time with some of the participants, showing them around campus and drinking lots of cups of chai. Looking forward to an eventful weekend!

10/01/2015

We were all set to usher in the New Year, after a hectic term. Our last end term exam ended on 31st afternoon post which our section was all set to have an EO quiz. We piled into the exam room at 1:10 p.m., only to be greeted with SM Quiz papers which were clearly intended for some other purpose. After about twenty minutes of confusion, the correct papers were arranged and most of us spent exactly 5 minutes filling in the paper and then rushing out, to head home, to head out or to go sleep.
We headed out for lunch and got back late in the evening and planned to head to the party being held on campus, courtesy the Cultural Committee. The theme for the evening was to be Black & White; it was supposed to be a masquerade party but I spotted exactly zero people with masks on including the Cultural Committee members themselves. The DJ continued playing until 3:30 a.m. and it was only after that that I finally left the dance floor. It was a great way to usher in the New Year, surrounded by friends, a great atmosphere and some music.
There were another two days to kill in Indore until we were to leave for our RIP on 3rd evening. Two new cafés – the popular chain Mocha and an independent coffee place called Café Square- had recently opened in Indore. We visited Mocha on 1st evening and Café Square the next day.
Later in the evening, we picked up medication, mosquito-repellent cream and some random snacks in preparation for our trip.
Our trip began at around 4 p.m. on the evening of 3rd January, when we left campus, headed for the railway station. We were to make our way to Dindori district, as part of our Rural Immersion Programme which is a compulsory part of the 1st year of the PGP Programme, here at IIM-Indore.
It’s a 12-hour train ride from Indore to Jabalpur and we got there at around 6:30 a.m. on 4th January.
We got ourselves (there were 9 of us) a large cab with an overhead carrier for all our luggage (which wasn’t much, everyone had packed light!) to Dindori. We got to Dindori close to mid-day, via pakodas, jalebis and parathas. Once there, we met the district coordinator for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a pleasant, talkative lady who seemed happy to have us there. We were to verify the ODF (Open Defecation Free) claim in Dindori district- 4 of 7 blocks had been declared ODF- a survey including physical verification was to be conducted over the span of a week. The same task was being carried out by other groups of students in other districts of Madhya Pradesh.
We headed to the nearby Government Rest House to freshen up before meeting the Collector of the district who was a much-loved lady- all the employees in the district had only good things to say about her. After, we met the CAO who was very cheerful, welcoming and advised us to get the work done efficiently and quickly, for if we had time left over, there was some wonderful sightseeing in store- they’d even prepared us an itinerary and everything!
Right after lunch at a close-by restaurant, we split into 2 groups of 4 and 5 people respectively and headed out to two separate GP’s (Gram Panchayats). MerMal- the GP we went to had two villages- Tipariya and Pipariya. We walked around the expanse of the villages, checking for toilets, asking questions about their usage and about hand-washing habits. All the households in both villages had toilets that had been constructed on an identical pattern- cemented walls and roof and trademark blue metal doors with a wash-basin on the outside. Nearly 90% of the toilets were being used on a regular basis, and hand-washing was a common practice after defecation- red Lifebuoy bars were everywhere. The harder part of the operation has been changing mind-sets- about indoor or closed toilets being unhygienic and the real need to eliminate open defecation. So far, at least in Dindori, the team has done a good job.
The schools in the GP- including the 2 Anganwadis, 2 Primary schools and a Middle school- all had indoor toilets, with separate washrooms for girls and boys.
Once we were done visiting the households, the head of the GP insisted that we stay for dinner. We got to eat cauliflower that had just been plucked from one of the household gardens, masoor dal which is grown in the region, hot puris and rice. I can still taste the food as I write this!
Right as we finished dinner, we walked out of the building and happened to glance skyward. And that single glance just morphed into an unending gaze. As far as the eye could see, there were countless stars- big, small, twinkling, smiling. The air was still, on a cloudless night. I have no recollection of how long we stood there, just looking, wanting to capture that sight into memory, forever. It was hauntingly beautiful- a sight that city life just does not allow.
From there we headed to the Government Rest House at Shahpura, another block in Dindori district- we’d been at the district headquarters and its surrounding villages in the day.
After a restful sleep on a chilly winter night, we awoke to a warm sun in the sky at around 9:30 a.m on Tuesday aka 5th January. We then left for the villages in the Shahpura area after a nice breakfast of piping hot parathas. We roamed the lanes of Ghughuwa and Bansa- one thing that I couldn’t help noticing about the whole area was the excellent condition of the roads. A lot of them had been constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Yojna (Prime Minister’s Scheme) - even the small lanes between the houses were paved, caked with cow dung and had not an inch of uncleanliness about them.
Here, at the Anganwadi, an immunization programme for new-borns was being held- expecting mothers were also called in for a talk on pre and post-natal care and were handed packets of nutritious food mix to feed young infants.
One of the households we visited had a colourful talking parrot in a cage, right at the entrance- it kept chanting ‘Mitthu’- presumably its name that it has heard repeatedly. The crops in the region include wheat, masoor dal, chana and seasonal vegetables that are mainly grown for personal consumption.
After visiting the households in both villages, we headed to Ghughuwa National Fossil Park, which we were told is the only of its kind in the country and one of the two in Asia. There was a Fossil Museum which had tree fossils on display. The area where Ghughuwa now lies used to be the coast by what is now the Arabian sea- a large excavation of tree fossils was undertaken here and the Fossil Park allows you to walk through a lightly forested area with mounds of different fossils on display at intervals. A lot of fossilized tree trunks and pieces still lie in or on the ground. Tree fossils are hard, almost like rock but differently textured. It was a very different experience, definitely not one that we’d anticipated (clearly, this Fossil Park is both under-rated and not popular enough!).
After this we had delicious lunch that was prepared in the Forest Canteen on the same campus. We then sat on some swings near the aforementioned Canteen, waiting on the other group to join us after their survey was done.

By late evening, we were on our way back where we stopped for dinner at a Dhaba- the same one we ate breakfast at, earlier the same morning- this dhaba was to be our regular haunt for the remainder of the week for both breakfast en route to our destination for the day and again for dinner on our way back to the rest house.

A mid-week break from surveying toilets was in order on Wednesday. A trip had been arranged to a nearby waterfall. We were at the waterfall a little after mid-day and spent a few hours dipping our feet in the river and watching the fall. Heck, I even jumped across the river to the other side and had more than my fair share of water for the day. A few hours later, we headed to a house in a nearby village- this was entirely a tribal area and the other group had stopped by a group of the Bastar tribes on their way. The house was large and presumably belonged to some affluent individuals. We were served spicy chicken curry with rice and rotis for lunch. The sole vegetarian in our group watched us slurp away as she picked on some dal-rice.
We got back to the rest-house via our dhaba by late evening.
Early on Thursday morning, we made our way to the district headquarters i.e. Zila Panchayat ,Dindori. We met both the district coordinator and the CAO and updated them about our findings. We then settled around a large table at the Dindori Rest House and got all of the paperwork in order. All registration numbers and data were provided to us by the administration.
By late evening, we were finally done and headed back post a dinner stop.
Since our work was almost entirely complete, we got to go out sightseeing on Friday. Narmada river originates close by, at Amarkantak. It was a short drive to Amarkantak where we first visited Kapil Dhara- a small flow of water off a high cliff that counts as a waterfall. Apparently it is a large gush during the rainy season. Here, we got a nice group picture clicked and printed in hard copy for keepsake! Post this, there were two temples to visit- one at the spot where River Son originates and another where Ma Narmada originates. We were able to spot River Son flowing down the hill but the structure at the Narmada origin was too elaborate to allow for a viewing of the river in its raw form. Finally, we made a stop at a series of large, elaborate Jain temples which were still under construction.
After a brief meeting with the officials, we left for Jabalpur around mid-day on 9th morning. We headed straight to Bhedaghat which is about 25 k.m. from Jabalpur. Bedhaghat is famous for having the Narmada flow through, cutting a gorgeous valley into the marble rock. We walked through a strategically located market that was selling mostly local handicrafts and munchies to the spot where the Dhuaadhaar Falls were. The falls are aptly named, for a large amount of water, crashes hard against the underlying flow over a large rocky cliff, hard enough to emanate in splashes that resemble a cloud of smoke. We took another picture (printed in hard-copy of course!) to add to more memories.
After that, we gazed at the handicrafts once more, taking in the delicately shaped marble-ware, everything from agarbati stands and earring to large statues and household decoration.
We then headed to the boating area where marble rocks in varied colour stand tall against calm-flowing water. We got ourselves on a boat- large row boats- and enjoyed an hour on the water, with the company of our very entertaining guide who made up stories about everything from the colour of the marble to their shape- the best part was that they all rhymed, and fit in perfect sync with our mood and the surroundings. The marble varied in colour from milky white to pink, creamy white and even black! We were informed that on full moon nights, boating is made available late into the night! The marble must look mesmerizing under the cooling warmth of the milky moon light.
We then headed to Jablapur city where we had a nice dinner at a ‘must-visit’ predominantly non-vegetarian restaurant. We then got on our train, our bodies tired, our minds full of memories and our hearts filled with a deep resonating peace that seeks to remain unparalleled for a time to come.

31/12/2015

When you haven’t written in so long, there’s this voice somewhere that tells you that it’s over- there will be no more writing, no more posts. Then this other inner urge wakes up and lets you know that there is hope, and you finally get writing!

5 & 6th of December saw Utkarsha- the Social Fest held on campus. It included a series of interesting events including a Social B-Plan competition, a CSR Strategy design event and a Photography Competition.
Classes began again on the 7th of December, after a week-long RIP break. Everyone had varied experiences, depending on the district they were assigned to but, everyone was happy. The plan this year was to check whether certain districts were truly ODF (Open Defecation Free) - teams would set out early, as early as 4 a.m. to survey the villages in the districts. The rest of the time was spent in compiling reports, enjoying local sights and food, and spending time with nature in its various forms.
Our professors decided to stage a nice welcome for us in the form of some surprise, some semi-surprise in-class quizzes. We had one in our SM class right at 8:45 and then one in the OM class right after too! And then we began learning how to draw decision trees in the QT class.
The PGP Office then announced their latest decision- all quizzes for the remainder of this term and the next will no longer be announced in advance. All quizzes without exception will be ‘surprise’ quizzes and we will get an hour’s notice before they happen- the notice board outside the classrooms will finally be put to some good use with this announcement.
Later in the evening, we headed to play Table Tennis since section wars were in progress. After a rather unsuccessful attempt at Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles and even Mixed Doubles, we lost to section F. Meanwhile Acad Comm sent out an email asking us to fill in our preferences for electives to be studied in the next term.
8th morning began with a few classes. The Marketing Class was spent in learning about the Marketing Simulation that was to happen in a few days. We were given a briefing as to how the system works and what we are expected to do. At 4:50 p.m., we had a MAC quiz- the quiz was fairly simple and was about 40 minutes long.
We got an e-mail from the Academic Associate, detailing the syllabus for a MacroEconomics quiz. While we wondered what that meant, we got yet another e-mail, with apologies and an announcement of a quiz on the 11th.
This year, there has been a change in the PGP-1 Course Curriculum. While electives were typically offered only in the second year of PGP, this year, Term-III shall see some electives on offer. We were asked to fill in our preferences- you ought to pick two subjects out of four possible options, including Corporate & Retail Banking, Supply Chain Management, Sales & Distribution Management and Market Research. The major aim of this change is to equip students with relevant knowledge before we head out for our internships over the summer. We had to state our preferences and a form was sent to this effect.
We had a VolleyBall match at 1 a.m. - it was a tie-breaker against Section F, to decide who goes on to play in the semi-finals. It was a well-fought game that we managed to win. We now had a semi-final to look forward to.

We had another Industry Visit on 9th December, like most Wednesdays. For some reason, no one from the other group or ours, other than the group leader turned up- turns out that Jaideep Ispat was busy that day too, so everything worked out! Later in the evening, Subway was on campus- they alternate between getting pre-prepared subs all wrapped up and getting their whole set-up here, to make the subs to order! At night (for some reason, perhaps because this place is most active only post 11 p.m.) some sports began as part of the section wars. There was a three-way tie for a semi-final place in both Cricket and Volleyball and three matches – a superover decider for cricket and a single-set decider for Volleyball were thus conducted accordingly.
Early on the 10th of December, someone forwarded a mail to the batch. A couple of people from Section H and gotten together, added everyone’s subject-wise scores and curated an entire batch rank-list!
We had a few classes in the morning and a Simulation Exercise as part of the Marketing course scheduled in the evening. At around 7 p.m., all of us collected in the designated team member’s room, ready to win the Marketing Simulation Exercise. It was a group activity, as per our assignment groups for the term. Each group was a laptop manufacturer, the market had 5 different target groups who had different desires and had varying willingness to pay as well. Each group had the same 2 existing laptop models and could choose to launch new products or modify existing ones to best meet consumer need. The game was played over 4 time periods, of an hour and a half each which were about a year in the game. New product development took one year and modification did too. We added one new product in the first time period which was then launched in the next period. We then added a second and third product too. By end of Round 2, we were the leading player in the market, aka Rank 1 as calculated by a composite score which took into account market share, market awareness, profits and more. We managed to get the trick right- our profits were the lowest of all players but the weightage given to profits in the final score was very little; the weightage to market share and other factors was much higher- our larger spending on advertising and our competitive prices ensured that our leading position was maintained until the end of the game.

By this point, Section Wars had managed to progress to the Semi-Final stage. We had one Basketball and another Volleyball match one after another. We managed to lose both despite putting in our best efforts.

We had classes on 11th morning and then a MacroEconomics quiz at 2:30 p.m. The quiz was fairly simple and was, like all Economics Quizzes, MCQ-type with negative marking. After the quiz, an ECSR session was scheduled in the New Auditorium, for four sections at a time. Our director, Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan took this lecture which focused on the importance of Corporate Governance in an era where Corporate Scandals are wide-spread.
At night, the third-place matches were held. We got to play two 3rd place matches; we won one, lost one and then headed to watch the Football Semi-finals.

On 12th morning, we had our last Marketing session where we discussed the aforementioned Marketing Simulation Game. The Cola Wars: Pepsi v/s Coke was the topic of discussion in our Strategy class, carried over from the last class. Faasos was on campus; they seem to take over campus, every weekend now.
We watched a very interesting Volleyball final and cheered loudly at the Football final, hoping that our section would win at least one game. It was a very close match and we finally lost to section C on penalties. A celebration still followed, everyone was just happy to be playing/watching some good football action.
The Pi Shop remained closed for a few days at this point, citing inventory issues. Someone kindly replied to their e-mail, keeping the entire mailing list in CC, offering some help with inventory management. They even attached a pdf file containing some relevant concepts from our OM course.
Sunday was restful, like every other Sunday, a much-needed break from the hectic week gone by and of course, a chance to recharge and take on the new week with all its challenges- classes, pre-reads and quizzes.

14th December aka Monday morning began a little late, with our last MacroEco session for the term. In the Entrepreneurship class, we discussed the hindrances people face when planning to become entrepreneurs and decided that the main reason was the judgmental society that we live in, where a steady job is valued much higher than it should be. Finally though, everyone agreed that if one really had an idea that promised to solve a real problem, nothing could stop such an enterprise from succeeding.
An e-mail querying the whereabouts of a lost cap was sent out in the middle of the night. Said cap apparently had a picture of Homer Simpson and understandably had great sentimental value for the owner. No one ever sends out a ‘Thank You’ e-mail or any other follow-up e-mails with updates on the lost items, so we’ll never know if the cap was found. It’s about time all ‘Lost’ e-mails have periodic updates to follow so everyone knows when to stop looking for a particular item. This will also allow for determining the probability of finding a certain type of item and help owners who lose items make good judgment about whether to send out an institute-wide e-mail or not.
We had our last MAC session on the 15th, slow but sure signs that the term was coming to an end. In the EO class, each group presented a set of 5 business ideas for businesses that could be set-up on campus. Lots of different ideas surfaced, including ‘Nap-Pods’- a room in the Academic Building furnished with comfortable beds or bean-bags where students can go catch up on sleep in the breaks between classes or any other free time when heading down to the hostel and then back up doesn’t appeal too much and a Complaint Redressal System where the person submitting the grievance is paid a portion of the fine levied on the wrongdoer as a ‘reward’. Common ideas included a Café where students can spend time, studying, surfing the internet or talking; and an online or physical retail store for used books or photocopies of class-notes.
We then had a QT Quiz at 3:30 p.m. The quiz was very interesting- at the start of the term, our professor had promised us that he would attempt to make the course as non-mathematical as possible and the quiz definitely reflected that spirit. We weren’t asked to solve any numerical problems, instead a problem along with its solution was given to us and we had to interpret the solution. This often proves much harder than simply solving the problem using a set pattern as it requires a lot more detailed understanding of both the subject and the problem at hand.
We received an e-mail from a concerned student who decided that everyone on campus should get an easy shot at doing their little bit for the environment. He has apparently arranged for both grown plants as well seeds and urged each one to plant at least one. I should follow up on the success of his endeavour.

We had an Industrial Visit on 16th i.e. Wednesday. This time, perhaps because no one had turned up the last time, everyone other than our group leader was there. We headed to the industry and got a lot of our work done.

On 16th, 17th & 18th December, IIM-Indore hosted the 3rd PAN IIM World Conference. The theme for the conference this year was ‘India: The Next Decade’. Over three days, multiple guest lectures, panel discussions and paper presentation sessions were held. In preparation for the Conference, the entrance to the Old Audi had been done up, Hindi Lettering had been put up on all buildings and sign boards were everywhere. As a respite from all the dialogue through the day, magic shows and food stalls had been arranged in the Central Lawn.

We had an EO class, on 17th afternoon where each group had to run an evaluation of the top business idea of all the other groups. One group went ahead and started the show- they’d given our great idea very little points and our group proceeded to have a detailed argument with them. Before any other groups could begin to continue to trash our ideas, we took over the classroom and did a detailed analysis of everyone’s ideas for over 30 minutes before the professor finally stopped us to make some concluding remarks. That was one enjoyable session. Let’s see if some of the ideas that came out of the Entrepreneurship course can be put into practice!

Meanwhile, Sports Comm. managed to collate the points of the Section Wars. Section F won by a good margin while someone from our section decided to send out an e-mail asking for a survey to be filled, promising an hour’s worth of Finance lectures in return.

We had some classes on 18th morning that were held in NC-3 instead of our usual classroom which was being used for the conference. The change in setting was nice, and so was our last finance lecture- sir compiled all the learnings over the course of the course into an interactive presentation that had PGP1 students discussing things just the way they do!

During the lunch break, the PGP Office had a surprise in store for us- not a quiz this time around, but the End Term Examination Time-Table. There was an exam scheduled for Christmas day and one on the morning of New Year’s Eve.

We then had our first Finance Quiz at 4:50 p.m. – all other sections had managed to have 5 quizzes by this point in time; somehow the PGP Office had forgotten all about us and it was only now, when the Finance course had actually ended that our first quiz was held.
Meanwhile Express-o-mat, the campus laundromat announced a couple of New Year Offers, valid for six weeks, including free pick-up and drop facility at a different series of hostel blocks, each day of the week and free use of fabric softener on all clothes washed on some particular days.

We had a few classes before lunch, on Saturday- it was the last week of classes before the end terms were to begin and most courses were either over or coming to a close. Meanwhile, Faasos continued to be on campus in the evening, like they are, on most weekends.

Sunday was off for most people while Section G & H got to attend class! Pi-Shop had arranged in advance for food from KFC to be made available for lunch on Sunday. Of course, the chance to exercise that option is only available to people who are actually awake at lunch-time on a Sunday (which I most definitely never am!)
A report critically analysing the CSR activities of one company needed to be submitted in the evening, as part of our ECSR course. I decided to write my report about Cargill India- they’re in the Agri/Food business and accordingly, so it their CSR.

One session of each of the still to be finished courses was held on 21st i.e. Monday, a great start to a week whose second half had only end term exams in store. While we sat wrapping up the concept of Decision Trees, in the QT Class, the PGP Office was planning to make our day even more interesting- we had a second Finance Quiz in the Lunch Break!
After class, we had an OB Quiz at 4:50 p.m. The quiz was pretty interesting and the second part of the quiz was a crossword that needed to be filled in with lots of OB terms, according to the given clues.
Another plan was hatched, this time by the IT Department, to stop the large number of e-mails that are sent out on a daily basis about competitions, lost items and surveys. A new mail ID has been added, ‘batchmail’- all e-mails that need to be sent out to the student community can be sent to this mail ID, and all e-mails on a particular day will be collated and sent out as a single e-mail.

The CSR reports that we’d compiled and sent in were to be presented to the class in the last ECSR session on Tuesday. Since there wasn’t enough time for everyone to make a presentation, the professor had decided to call upon people by way of a lottery- all the roll numbers were duly written on chits and one was drawn out at a time. As luck would have it, my roll number was the first to be called. Luckily, I had even made a PowerPoint Presentation to support my report and I harped on about Cargill India’s good doings. Most people just scrolled through their reports, highlighting activities as they found necessary. Someone had picked Airtel as their company of choice and made a PowerPoint Presentation that was at least a hundred slides long, replete with pictures and animation!

The last class of Term-II, an OM session was held on 23rd morning. We received an e-mail from the director, forwarded from the Commissioner of Indore. A new initiative has been started in the city- it is called ‘Vidya Daan’ and, as the name suggests, it allows young professionals, students and all residents of the city to contribute a few hours each week, teaching at a government school. The website is rather user-friendly and I was able to easily sign-up, although I still haven’t been able to find a close-by school whose timings match mine given the erratic schedule we have (where mornings are for sleeping and nights are for eating and the afternoons are for classes and everything else in between!)
An ECSR Quiz was held at 3:30 p.m. post which everyone headed off to begin studying for the End Terms.

The Exams began with Macro Economics on the morning of Thursday, 24th December. The paper was in two parts- one objective section followed by a subjective section. Later in the day, we tried to arrange a visit to attend the MidNight mass at a church in the city. We spoke to the hostel office and curated a list of interested students. Unfortunately, the plan had to be called off at the last minute.

We gathered outside Mess 1 close to 11 p.m. A Christmas Tree had been set up in front of the mess and Carol Singing was in order, followed by a cake-cutting. We procured a large knife from the mess, well in advance, ready to cut the cake as soon as it was time, and before the designated cutter could get to work (and before the Cultural Committee members spotted us of course!). Our plan was working well until Santa Claus descended on the scene, throwing toffees as he entered. Our knife was spotted and handed over to Santa who then cut the cake! Later, we collected outside the hostel to cut our own Christmas cake- a delicious chocolate-strawberry flavoured one!
We then set-up a Christmas tree in one of our rooms- this was the same tree that we’d collectively bought during our second year- complete with baubles, lights and stars! We even had some snowflakes that we’d cut out earlier left over and added those too!

Christmas Carols were blaring at a decent volume and we cut a second cake. We then took lots of pictures before someone suddenly seemed to remember the exam the next day and one by one, everyone dispersed.

The MAC paper on Christmas day was 3-hours long but fairly simple. Under the ‘date’ coloumn on the answer sheet, I thought for a moment and promptly put down ‘Christmas’.

A case-study based OB paper was held on 26th morning. It was a very interesting paper. The first question talked of an organization that was looking to expand and restructure accordingly. Our task was to design a suitable organization structure for the company. The second question talked about an HR Manager facing a dilemma- a plant needed to be either closed down, have employees laid off or wages cut since it was loss-making. The HR Manager had a strong, unrelenting Union to deal with and come up with an agreeable solution.

27th morning began with the Marketing End Term. There was an interesting case given to us, along with some questions to be answered. A team of young B-School graduates had invented a solar-powered lamp and were looking to launch the product in rural India. Questions pertained to break-even market penetration and Sales & Distribution planning.

The QT End term was on the same afternoon. It was a very challenging paper (the questions had hints!), and only 90 minutes long.

28th and 29th December were a break from the End Terms, mostly owing to our IGNOU exams. Nearly everyone had an exam on one or both of the days; some people even had two papers on a single day.

The last two exams were OM and SM, on the 30th and 31st respectively. The SM paper was very interesting and had both case-based questions and an objective section that tested our understanding of the major concepts in Strategy. The OM paper was positively difficult but at least the term was at a close!

01/12/2015

01/12//15/; 17:14:

It’s the start of a new month, the last one of this year. It’s surprising to feel that the year is nearly over; there’s this thing about student life that’s really nice- you get to spend time reminiscing the year gone by and celebrate the new year, twice each year, once with the rest of the world, in December & January and another time when the academic year ends and begins, in April & July.
The Rural Immersion Programme kicked off, yesterday. People have headed off to different districts in the state; the aim of this year’s Programme is to work with the Ministry on the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, with specific focus on curbing the problem of open defecation.
Meanwhile, some of us are stuck here, giving IGNOU exams. We went out for lunch on Monday, since the IGNOU papers were to being only on the 1st of December.
I had a ‘Communication Skills in English’ paper at 2p.m. today; it was to be a 3-hour paper and got over some time ago.
Recently, we were talking to the guards at Gate 2 about the growing dog population on campus. In addition to grills, metal net has been put up on the gates since it was thought that the dogs were entering through the space between the grills. Some guards then reported to the authorities that the dogs were in fact scaling the campus boundary wall to get in; the boundary wall is at least 7 feet high and no one seemed to believe this. Two security guards were then posted on either side of a suspected spot of the boundary wall, with recording equipment. After 8-10 days were spent gathering evidence, there was recorded proof of dogs jumping in over the wall and even jumping out at leaving! The walls have since been fitted with barbed wire on top but the dog population seems to keep growing. They’ve even gone past the point where they eat fallen/thrown food and straight up jump at people to grab whatever they wish to eat.
After we’d been receiving an average of 4 e-mails a day about lost stuff, ranging from lost bags and wallets to lost money and reading material, someone decided to create a Google Spreadsheet dedicated entirely to this lost/found business. Whether it’s actually being used or not is uncertain, but, the number of e-mails have definitely gone down!
Perhaps, I should get some more details about the RIP and write about that, but, well.

30/11/2015

30/11/2015; 03:21:

27th morning began with classes. We have a short, 5-session Workshop on Entrepreneurial Orientation that began on Friday morning. We attempted to list what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur; who qualifies to be one and who doesn’t.
We then had a Finance Class, the 13th of a 15-session course. All other sections have managed to have 3 quizzes by this point in time, but we haven’t received even the slightest hint of one it!
And then since we’re so short on time, we had an OM quiz bang in the middle of our lunch break, at 1:40 p.m. A rather drained-out QT class where even the professor eventually let us off 5 minutes before time then followed.
Some sleep later, we were on the Basketball court for a match- the last of the league matches before we proceed to having the semis and then the finals for each game. We managed to win this one too!
The Operations Club, Kaizen, held a quiz at 10 p.m., the same night. It was a fairly interesting quiz, based largely on all the Operations Concepts that we’ve been learning in class.
We had a Volleyball match at 11 p.m., against section H who have pretty much the best team- the best centre is on their team as is the best lifter. We needed to win this one to have a shot at the semis. We played rather well, and did manage to win a very close match. One thing that really works for our section is the fact that the women on our team can play rather well. The format requires each team to have 4 men and 2 women; most teams end up focussing on ‘covering’ the women on their team; the other team launched at least 4 shots in the direction of the women, expecting free points. What they did not expect was for the ball to be hit back into their court and, they failed to hit it back in time, each time, without exception.
28th morning began with only 2 classes post which we headed out to eat, only getting back late in the night post which we proceeded to amble around campus- it was a Saturday night and understandably, everyone was out roaming.
Given the loads of roaming the night before, most of Sunday was spent sleeping late into the afternoon. I got a marketing assignment done post-dinner. We then proceeded to roam around.

27/11/2015

27/11/2015; 02:14:

We had a few classes post-lunch, on 23rd aka Monday. We’d sent out a pre-event report about Utsaha to the papers, the day before and some of them had it in print.

We worked on finalizing the details of ‘Paparazzi- The Media Quiz’ that Media Comm was to conduct on 25th night. A lot of discussion went into finalizing the dates for there’s been just so much going on, on campus.
Nihilanth- the inter IIT-IIM Quiz is finally back where it began- after kick-starting the event in 2003, IIM-Indore will finally get a go at organizing Nihilanth again! A pre-process was to be sent in, to be part of the organizing team. I sent in a write-up about a campus event, as directed, to be part of the Media team.

Section Wars: The Sports Edition took off on 23rd night with some cricket, football and volleyball matches. Our section boys managed to lose the cricket match by 5 runs; F section’s strategy worked rather well and they won the football match 1-0 against our section- they managed to score one goal and then their whole team proceeded to just linger around their goal till the end of the game, making an equalizer rather impossible.

Utsaha began on 24th morning; there were also some classes to attend. We had a presentation to make, in the Ethics class. Each group had to pick a piece of literature or a movie and analyse an ethical dilemma that forms part of the plot line of said book or movie. Ideas ranged from The Dark Knight & The Wolf of Wall Street to Harry Potter. We picked the Mahabharata as our text of choice for it is full of ethical dilemmas. We picked the part where Drona is deceitfully killed on the 15th day of the battle. Towards the end of our presentation, Sir had a few questions to ask.
Professor: So, you haven’t made a recommendation about how the dilemma ought to have been resolved, since you condemned the act as unethical.
Us: But, sir, we really have no right to make recommendations about The Mahabharata.
Cue laughter from the entire class; sir began laughing as well and conceded that we did have a point and let us off!
We then roamed around, eating before heading off to our hostels for a nap. Later in the evening, the IPM Dance Club held Footloose- an informal dance event at JAM. A new Chinese Outlet was on campus, selling mainly noodles; Meximus was also on campus and we ate some nice nachos.
Our section had a Volleyball match at 11 p.m. which we rather unfortunately lost to section F. At around 11:30 p.m., we were on the Basketball court- the girls managed to win their match, 8-0 while the boys lost a well-fought match, 11-13. Two members of our girls’ team managed to twist their ankles, at the exact same moment in the game which wasn’t too nice.
Wednesday was off for most people while just a few groups had an Industrial Visit lined up. Everyone else headed off to enjoy the mela where Utsaha was being held! The final day of Utsaha was one big celebration! It was the holy day of Kathik Poornima and evidently, everyone was out to spend some time with their families. Over two days, more than one lakh people visited the mela- the highlight of this year was the participation of an overwhelmingly large number of children in the mela. Specifically aimed at the children were a Magic show and a game of Musical chairs. Given the USP of Utsaha, the Disguised Rural Marketing Research, different projects were worked on for the partner clients, through the mode of games and events. Rural Beverage consumption was measured while benchmarking specifically the reach of PepsiCo as compared to its competitors. This along with the offering from Prataap snacks in way of a segmentation project attracted a lot of children- perhaps due to the colourful packaging and relevance of the food items concerned. Emami wished to explore the grooming behaviour of rural men; using Bollywood poster-boys as a ready icon, the reach of their ‘for men-only’ fairness cream, Fair & Handsome was explored. Effectiveness of an aggressive advertising campaign was measured for Ghadi Detergent which is a well-accepted household name. Goodies for participating in the games ranged from detergents to face creams and shampoos which served as an excellent incentive, driving large numbers to flock to the stalls. Due to the much larger turnout, survey targets were met much before closing time. Over 500 students must have visited the mela over the 2 days, many of them enjoying traditional delicacies and the giant wheel which remains the central attraction.
Later in the evening, once everyone was back on campus, we sent out a press release along with some bright, colourful pictures. I also got working on our Marketing Assignment which needed to be sent in before mid-night.
We had a Volleyball Match at 9:30 p.m. We played well and won! As soon as the match ended, I ran up to SR-9 to give an interview to join the media team for Nihilanth. Immediately after, we were on the Basketball court for our match, at 11:30 p.m. We managed to win this one too, along with a Badminton match that was happening at about the same time. We’d even played Pittu, earlier in the evening!
Questions for the Media Comm. Quiz had been prepared by late afternoon and the online quiz which focused on scandals began at 11:15 p.m. The quiz received a good number of responses which we should get around to evaluating!
Thursday i.e. 26th morning began with a few classes; everyone was mostly looking forward to the Boat Building Activity scheduled post lunch as part of our OB course.
By 2 p.m., everyone was assembled in the New Auditorium, waiting for the activity to begin. We’d been divided into different groups- there were 36 competing Boat Building Firms, 6 agents who’d be buying the finished boats, 4 suppliers of raw material, 4 banks to hand out loans, a vigilance department to ensure ethical trade practices and a team of auditors to check for financial irregularities.

I should add some details, soon.
Right after, there was a briefing session about the Rural Immersion Programme that begins on 30th November. We then collected reading material for a course on ‘Entrepreneurial Orientation’ for there was an assignment to be written up and submitted in the first class which is tomorrow.

The evening was one that’s supposed to be typical of a PGP-1 student’s schedule- a QT assignment, a Marketing assignment, the aforementioned EO assignment, an OM quiz lined up and everyone attending an Utsaha meeting at 11:45 p.m.
I shall now attempt to get some sleep!

23/11/2015

23/11/15; 13:46:


On 18th evening, close to 10 p.m., we gathered in front of JAM, with candles light- we then took a short walk before ending up at Mess1 were the candles were arranged in the shape of the international symbol of peace. Several placards with slogans expressing solidarity were put up on one pillar. We then stood in silence, hoping, praying for the best- violence is best answered with peace, to put an end to it all, once and for all. As long as there is hope, violence cannot triumph, not forever, not ever. A short prayer that gave words to our shared sentiment was then read aloud. In that moment, we were one- everyone gathered there, the victims from across the world, their families, time, the inflictors of violence, the ever hopeful- one soul, with one common thought.

Some while later, we headed to Mess2 to get some food. As we walked to the counter, wondering what to order, a hot dosa was brought out and we saw a friend walking up to pick up his food. Acting quickly, we picked up his dosa, began laughing and sat down to eat it while he looked on, aghast. Another dosa was brought for him in some time and he did take our joke in good spirit!
I went down to my room before heading back up for a Media Comm meeting at 11:30 p.m. On my way up, I met people going down to the basketball court. Promising to join them as soon as the meeting ended, I reached the venue exactly on time. The meeting began half an hour late since most other people were late and ended only by 1 p.m. As I headed back down, in anticipation, I met the same bunch of people, coming back up from the basketball court. My luck is so incredibly perfect that the meeting ran for the precise duration of the basketball game.

Thursday i.e. 19th began with 5 classes too. Soon after classes ended by 4:45 p.m., there was stuff in store! At around 5:30, DebSoc’s event, JAM @ JAM (that’s Just A Minute at Juices And More!) took off! I absolutely adore the concept of JAM- there’s one topic, 60 seconds and about 6 people attempting to speak. One speaker begins speaking at the start of the clock- the idea is for him to keep speaking for 60 seconds, about the topic. Now, that sounds fairly simple in theory, but, it really isn’t. The other speakers must attempt to catch the guy speaking, when he falters- relevant objections include the classic ‘Hesitation, Repetition & Deviation’ further objections might include Gesticulation, Voice Modulation, incorrect grammar and nonsensical content. Discretion of whether an objection is valid or not lies entirely with the JAM master. It was a fun event that ran for over 2 hours!
Close to 9 p.m., I headed to the library basement to attempt to get to know something regarding the QT quiz that was to happen soon.
We had 5 classes on Friday too. We’d been told that the Quiz later in the day would cover mainly LPP formulation. And then, towards the end of the QT class, sir grinningly informed us that there would be no formulation-related questions on the quiz. The quiz began at 4:50 p.m., right after class; it was a short quiz that only wanted answers, no processes.
Meanwhile, the Sports Committee announced a Sports Edition of the Section Wars that’d happened in Term-1. Some sports, like Volleyball have mixed teams requiring the six member team from each section to comprise of 4 boys and 2 girls. This shall be fun!

Saturday was no different from the rest of the week and we had 5 classes again. The MacroEco class was exceptionally interesting. Sir explained how the Aggregate Supply curve works- it is horizontal in the short-term, vertical in the long-run and sloping in the medium-run!

The weekend saw two days of activity- it was FootPrints- the Annual Alumni meet! The Alumni interacted with the faculty in the morning; the newly launched alumni portal, iConnect was formally inaugurated! A cultural evening of song and dance was put together by Harmon-I, the Music Club and Vibes, the Dance Club. A DJ party began at 10:30 p.m. and went on until nearly 4 a.m.! We then spent some time with some 2011-13 batch alumni who told us stories from their Student Exchange time and their time at their workplaces.

Sunday morning saw a ceremonial cake-cutting; a lunch was hosted for the alumni before most of them left for home and work, in the early hours of the evening. Mess-2 had decided to do their own bit, this FootPrints and held a ‘Food Carnival’. A large variety of food had been prepared and we did our share of sampling!

Later in the night, I wandered around, clicking pictures of the various Utsaha teams at work. The fest is in less than 24 hours and excitement levels are at an all-time high! Brightly coloured posters were being put together and spirts were equally high.

We then indulged in some VolleyBall for everyone’s geared up for the Section Wars that start today.

We had another WAC report writing before lunch; there are now classes to get to; I’ll be off!

18/11/21015

18/11/2015; 20:37:

I got back to campus at around 11:30 p.m. on the 12th. The campus still looked a little deserted. We settled on the stairs outside Mess 3 to share food and catch-up on each other’s lives.

13th morning began with MAC class where we discussed process costing. There was a Finance Class scheduled to happen right after, but, it managed to get cancelled.
At 11:45, we had our first class of the course on Ethics & CSR- the course began straight with a case that had a young salesperson facing an ethical dilemma.
We then had an OM class after a long time- we’ll be having a quiz soon since there wasn’t a mid-term.
Later in the evening, I headed out to the city to meet an old friend who was in town. I couldn’t spend much time with him since he had to leave soon; I was back on campus close to 9 p.m.

We had a couple of classes on Saturday too. At 2 p.m. we headed to the acad block for a MAC class, we waited, watching YouTube videos on the projector but there was no sign of the professor. Turns out, he wasn’t informed about the class at all. I then headed out to the city to meet a friend who was visiting- this one had all the time in the world and I got back to campus, courtesy Ola, around 10:30 p.m.

The cancelled Finance class was held on Sunday morning after which we headed out to eat. Most people were back to campus by Sunday evening, and just in time too! Starting Monday, we had a rather hectic schedule of classes- 5 of them, each day.

As promised, we had 5 classes on Monday, including an OB class where we discussed the existence and purpose of organizations. We’ll move to learning the details of organizational structure, soon.
Tuesday was all classes too- 5 of them to be precise.
Later in the night, we worked on a brief report on Balanced ScoreCards, for our Industry project- our group has picked an HR project.
Wednesday brings a good change, bang in the middle of the week, in the form of our Industrial Visits. We left campus at around 9:30 a.m. in a larger bus than the usual 24-seater one- ours was one of the last stops along the way and we were seated in the office by 11 a.m. We were to work on an HR Project, focusing on the Rolling Area- the company is divided into functional areas as per the production process that goes into making the steel rods. Within Rolling, there are 5 subareas- Production, Electrical Maintenance, Mechanical Maintenance, Quality and Workshop. We split into three 2-person subgroups and set about meeting the different sub-area heads, gathering information about the process, the employees involved, their work hours, the performance measurement scales and the incentive schemes. The engineers in our group picked up a lot more technical information than we did and we were done by around 3 p.m. The bus was ready to pick us up by around 4 p.m. and we headed back to campus.
All the clubs are in ultra-active mode, conducting events! The Economics Club has come up with a rather interesting sounding event called ‘Snake-o-nomics’ which promises a life-sized Snakes & Ladders game for the finale. Right now, there’s a Consulting Club event in progress, with a Live Project and Rs.5000 on offer as prizes!
Perhaps, this is the result of new-found enthusiasm post the PGP2’s return from their Himalayan Outbound Programme!
There was a Book Launch on campus, this evening- Ishqiyaapa- To Hell with Love by Mr. Pankaj Dubey. There is a candlelight vigil to be held at 10 p.m., today to express our solidarity for the chaos that’s going on over the world.
Also, Utsaha- the Rural Marketing Fest is right around the corner- a Rural Marketing themed quiz titled Utsukta (I credit myself with coming up with a great name!) will be held tonight at 11 p.m. It's just one event after another! And, there's another 5 classes, tomorrow!

12/11/2015

12/11/2015; 17:12:
5th morning began as promised, with a MAC Quiz- the Quiz was fairly simple and based entirely on what we’d discussed in class.
Soon after the MAC Quiz, there was an OM quiz, followed by a QT quiz in the afternoon. Of course, our section got really lucky and we only had the one MAC quiz while a couple of other sections got to write all three. I utilized all the extra free time by sleeping for nearly 20 hours.

I then got about 45 minutes to prepare for the MacroEconomics Mid-Term, the only one that I'd really needed to prepare for, since the others had been open book/ case-based. The MacroEco paper was rather nice and was followed by some food at Mess 2.

The Marketing Paper later in the afternoon was both simple and brief- it took only about half an hour to write out. Then of course, plans were in order for the rest of the evening! We headed to the newly opened 'Sardarji's Punjabi Zyaka Restaurant' for some unexpectedly spicy butter chicken.

Most of 7th was spent sleeping; we ordered some lunch from Bake n Shake and then headed to Chappan in the evening. A lot of people had headed home on 6th evening and most others would be heading home soon. I had a flight to catch, on Sunday morning- and I was home by lunch-time!

It's been a nice 4 days in Mumbai, catching up with friends and my mother. Meanwhile, the IPM-2013 Batch is the only one on campus (other than the FPM guys who're almost always there!)

I now have a flight back to Indore; further updates, straight from IIM-Indore, coming soon!

05/11/2015

05/11/2015; 05:44:

I think I’ve been procrastinating writing this blogpost forever now! It’s actually been over a week (it's a different month, even!) since I last got around to writing and I haven’t even been that busy. Ah, well, I’ve always been a strong believer in ‘better late than never’ and my belief is only stronger now!

26th began with 5 classes; it was hard getting used to class again, after the endless excitement of the fest. We had a session on Negotiation, in the OB class- we were paired up, each member of the pair was given a role sheet with some information on it- one of each pair was either a buyer or seller for a plot of land- some information was common while some was confidential. We were then asked to negotiate a deal- it was an interesting exercise. The negotiation I engaged in ended in 7 seconds flat. I asked the ‘seller’ if he had a price to offer, he made what I considered to be a fair offer- exactly half-way between both our BATNA’s (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) and I accepted immediately. Some other pairs kept haggling, but only one pair ended up with a ‘No Deal’. The exercise was interesting- some buyers outright cheated their sellers while some sellers made unbelievable profits.
Our Marketing Class for the day was cancelled, for unbeknownst reasons. We then had an OB Quiz at 5 p.m. It was a simple, MCQ quiz based on our understanding of the classroom discussions.
Some ambling around later, we ended up in the night mess- it was one typical day here at IIM-Indore- classes, a quiz and food in the night mess.

Tuesday began well, with a finance class where we were to decided whether or not it makes sense to give out an additional loan to an auto parts manufacturer. Two marketing classes ( one that was already on schedule and a second that was carried forward from being cancelled the previous day) followed where we discussed the importance of customer satisfaction. Our marketing teacher now has a favourite student, courtesy his disagreement with every second point raised in these two classes.
Our OB class was spent discussing motivation and leadership styles. The case in hand dealt with two very different basketball coaches- one a strong believer in discipline and the other who treated his team like family- both were effective in their own way. We were asked to recall times when we had been motivated/ we had motivated others. Ultimately the effectiveness of a coach depends on your own learning style.
Some food and sleep later, I headed to SR-16, the IPM girls' hostel to get résumé iteration done before the deadline set by the IPM social committee. We then had a media Comm meeting, the main agenda of which was to tell the junior team to pull up their socks and get working on some new ideas. Meanwhile, the biggest problem confronting one of our members is the distribution of mice (I'm guessing the plural is still mice, even for the computer ones)- there's a free mouse to everyone who's gotten a year long subscription of a particular magazine and he seems unable to track down all the relevant people.
On 28th October i.e. Wednesday, we were to go on a second visit to our allocated industry. Our group had agreed (by way of democratic voting despite our leader's other interests) to work on the HR project the company had to offer. We got to the venue by 11:30 and discussed our choice of project with their boss. The other group who's been assigned the same company decided after much deliberation to work on a operations project. The guys at the company have rather high expectations of us- they strongly believe that 8 visits will not be nearly enough to do justice to the projects we've undertaken- I really hope we live up to these expectations!
After our confabulation, the HR project seemed like a perfect choice- the company has only just added an HR department and any contribution will be a positive step. We then had lunch, a discussion with the HR head and put in requests for some data relevant to the project before our bus arrived and we decided to head back to campus.
En route, we picked up hot jalebis ( mostly since I'd gotten jalebis into everyone's heads on the morning ride, talking on and on about the staple Indore ( or well, M.P.) breakfast of poha-jalebi).
We were back on campus around 5 p.m. Once the sun was down, we took a long walk around campus, ending up at the Meximus setup where we got nachos and some laughs courtesy a friend doing a really bad job of eating a burrito.
There was a Bengali feast set to begin at 8:30 p.m., courtesy the Bengali community on campus and the (Durga Puja) festive season. After an endless wait (wherein I'd convinced myself and everyone around me that the food was most definitely over), we were finally eating, close to 10 p.m. The food was delicious- I don't really like fish most of the time, but, the fish was awesome! I think it's time I learnt some Bengali-style cooking!
29th morning began with a bunch of classes just as it’s supposed to be. There was a surprise in store, for the OB class. There was a case that was to be a ‘role-play’ but, we were in no way prepared for what was coming our way! A toy manufacturer had been blamed for 2 child deaths resulting from swallowing of small parts- a board room meeting was in progress with all the important people (role playing, by our classmates). As they discussed whether to change the product, do a complete recall or just do nothing, an angry mob stormed into the classroom, with loud cries of ‘Hai Hai Chamanlal, down with Asian Toys’. Sobbing mothers, angry media and concerned activists made up most of the crowd. It looked like the real deal; the angry mob later turned out to be a bunch of management students from the Acropolis Institute nearby. They did a marvellous job of scaring the company management into rethinking their decisions. In one of the sections, shirts were torn even, in the midst of an escalated argument!

After this unexpected excitement, we had a MacroEconomics quiz to write. The quiz was fairly simple, MCQ type. We headed for a walk around campus, somewhere at around 7 p.m. A bunch of ‘watch towers’ were installed along the boundary of the campus, some time ago. They’re now functional and unlocked. We just had to climb up and explore! We picked one close to the new cricket ground and slowly made our way up the winding staircase- the view was nice, the cool winter evening breeze was better!
There was then some pending résumé iteration to be done, so I headed straight to SR-16, later going up to the mess to catch up with people. We then indulged in our last favourite pass time, which involves ‘eating a dear friend’s head’- not literally though, but, it’s good fun (mostly because he doesn’t seem to mind either!)

Just as we were heading back to the hostel a little after 11, I spotted a bunch of people with a basketball and they seemed to be heading in the direction of the basketball court. Of course, I had to join them! Nothing is more fun than 2 hours of midnight basketball!

We didn’t have a lot of classes on Friday i.e. 30th October. We spent two WAC classes talking about a case that dealt with Greenpeace taking on FaceBook- for FaceBook had decided to set up data centres that would not be environmental-friendly enough. Greenpeace’s weapon of choice? A social media campaign driven on FaceBook!
We were then sitting around in my room, in the evening when someone called asking for a basketball; soon enough we were on the court- the growing interest in basketball is a good sign; one can only hope that it is here to stay! After a good game, we walked out Gate-2 to get some good chicken and walked back in record time to get back at exactly 10:30 p.m.!



Saturday morning began with a Marketing Class where we had a rather unusual case at hand- a company wanted to begin manufacturing and marketing eye lenses for chicken!
I have no idea how everyone (the professor included) managed to not make a single reference to the oddity of the product, through the entire discussion.
After lunch, at 2 p.m., there was an event on campus, in view of Utsaha- the Rural Marketing Fest. Class 12 students of the Government School at Manpur, in Janpav Kutti were invited to join the MBA 1st year students for a whole afternoon of activities. A session on ‘Career Counselling: New Ideas’ was held for the students. IIM-Indore Faculty, Prof.Sushanta Kumar Mishra of the OB Department and Prof. Shweta Kushal of the Communications department spoke to the students about the importance of having a goal in life and working towards that goal. Ideas emphasised included the need for self-confidence, having belief in oneself and one’s family and friends are essential to succeed in life. The children were quick to understand that money alone does not equate to success. Peace of mind, helping everyone around you, and being happy in life are much more valuable than material wealth. The children shared their dreams, many want to be doctors and contribute to society. The faculty emphasised the importance of diverse career options- a country cannot function with only doctors and engineers; musicians and artists are necessary too.
Following this, there was an informal interaction with the MBA 1st year students where college and life stories were swapped. Just as this informal interaction was beginning, refreshments arrived- hot samosas. I suggested that everyone eat and we then get back to where we were. No one seemed to understand the problem with letting the samosas get cold. I struck up a conversation with a group of girls sitting in the first row and let them know that the samosas were getting cold. While 2 of them were called on to participate in the first ice-breaker activity that involved introductions, one of them and me snuck out, ate piping hot samosas and were back inside before anyone even realised that we were gone. That done, I headed down to my room to file a press release for the event.
Some refreshments for everyone else and a campus tour that I missed brought the event to a delightful close. The Umeed team is a new addition to Utsaha this year. They plan to undertake social welfare and engagement activities in the village, in the run up to the event; this event was part of the same.
We headed out later in the evening, since Saturday calls for good food i.e. Subway sandwiches. We picked up some bedsheets for a friend while we were out; the best part was leaving them behind in the cab we took back to campus- I’m still in the process of trying to retrieve them- hope that works out well.

The new month began on a Sunday which somehow wasn’t spent sleeping until evening- I was up at 11:30 a.m. We ate lots of fruits and then contemplated ordering some pasta for lunch but eventually decided against it, for no one felt like eating cold food.
Then of course, it was Globe@I to the rescue. Mess 2 has decided to put off cooking any food until the PGP2’s who’ve gone off for their Himalayan Outbound Program (a week-long holiday up in the mountains!) are back.
After all the food, I fell asleep at 8, perhaps planning to be up again by around midnight. But, just like it always is with sleep & me (we’re very happy together, thank you) I was up only at 8 the next morning, right in time for class. Waking up exactly when you should be, without an alarm clock is a wonderful feeling, and having slept for 12 hours in the run up to it leaves for words to be added to the English language.
A wonderful Monday morning, with a few classes before lunch. The last class, right before lunch was WAC where we read through and discussed a case involving a soon-to-graduate Business Administration student who needed to pick between two jobs. It was a very relatable case, for most of the class. We were then informed that we would be writing out a detailed WAC report on the case, post lunch. We made our way to our assigned classrooms for the ‘exam’ which began at 2 and went on until 5 p.m.
By 3 p.m., I was at JAM, eating a chicken sandwich. Here, I met the new IPM Media Committee Coordinator, who handed me a copy of the ‘IPM Oracle’. It’s a new initiative- an IPM newsletter! And, it makes for a very interesting read- a roundup of the events and the gossip on campus!
Recently, I’ve discovered a newly begun business venture in Indore. They’re called ‘LalApple.com’ and they deliver fresh fruits and vegetables right to your doorstep! The fruit-seller on campus doesn’t always have all the fruits & veggies I’m looking for, so, this is perfect! I think I’ve been ordering from them everyday since I discovered them, sometime in the last week of October.
We ate delicious butter chicken at a newly opened restaurant close to campus for dinner. I helped a friend with some OM concepts and in return I was introduced to a nice song! I’ve been listening to it on repeat, for 3 days now! That’s just how I ‘do’ music!

All of Tuesday i.e. 3rd November was spent sleeping save for a single Marketing class at 8:45 a.m.
We spent the evening mostly eating- sandwiches, since Royal Sandwich was on campus, then rolls at Globe@I and even lemonade at Mess2.
We then ambled around, got tea and headed back to the hostel. At 1 a.m., I proceeded to walk around campus and get some more tea- the OB midterm the next day was an open-book one so there was definitely no studying to be done.

I fell asleep somewhere after sunrise and was up at 9, just in time for the paper. The paper was interesting- we had to use three of four lenses- Team Design, Team Identification, Leadership and Trust among team members to analyse what could have been done differently in the given case.
Right after the paper, I slept for 7 hours straight, getting up somewhere in the evening, to eat my freshly-delivered fruits and some fried rice.

That's one long blog post! That's probably what happens when you put off writing for so long! And this, when the three days of IRIS had their own post! I should probably get some sleep, there's a MAC quiz in the morning, soon!

26/10/2015

26/10/2015; 02:00:
IRIS 2015! The event kicked off with the Inauguration Ceremony at 9 a.m., in the Old Auditorium. The Auditorium was packed with a bunch of excited souls, waiting for the actual event to begin after days of excitement.
The event kicked off with an opening speech by Prof. Ganesh who spoke about the large number of events the student community holds on campus. Mr. Parmesh Shahani, Head of Godrej India Culture Lab, Author of Gay Bombay, TED & Yale World Fellow, the keynote speaker for the event spoke emphasised the importance of ‘thinking hatke’, accepting differences, working together, sharing value, to make the best of what we have, the best for everyone involved.
A guest lecture by Dr. Mrs. Janak Palta McGilligan, Padma Shri Awardee, Founder Trustee of Jimmy McGilligan Centre for Sustainable Development followed. She is a well-known name in Indore and around, and runs an educational facility for tribal girls- and the facility is entirely self-sustained- as she said, only 4 things- salt, oil, tea and are sourced from outside the facility!
A short presentation by Mr. Rangarajan Shesardi, the CEO of Neeyamo was up next, followed by a joint press release by him and our IPM Chair, Prof. Ranjeet Nambudri. Neeyamo is an HR Consultancy and the lecture was very interesting- it focused on talent acquisition, the limitless possibilities to recruit talent in an increasingly connected world and the need to build HR leaders.

The events took off soon after- Kalpavriksha- the Social B-Plan competition that had funding from the Dorabji Tata Fund this year began with Dr. Janak Palta as the main judge.
Ashwamedha- our flagship management event began with an ice-breaker session- participants (20 of them) who had been selected after a bunch of online processes were now to spend 3 gruelling days, to find the real leader! Tasks over three days tested them on a whole array of personality traits all of which are touted to be equally important for a leader.

I headed over to watch Kalpavriksha, but after a long speech by the judge, an hour-long lunch break was in order before the actual event would begin. I then bid good-bye to the journalists who didn’t want to eat anything and headed to my room.

Voice of Indore- the Singing event of IRIS was set to begin at 4 p.m. I got help getting dressed since I was to be on stage, hosting the event and headed to the Central Lawn. The judge had gotten delayed on the way and the event began by 4:45 p.m. By this time, Kalpavriksha was nearly over and the details of the winners had to be taken, for the press release to be compiled soon.
The event went well, with me falling into character a few performances in, cracking jokes (oft at my own expense, and at that of my co-host). A large standee of our sponsor, ‘Selfie- the Unisex Salon’ was moved onto stage as we stepped on to introduce the next singer- 18 singers had been selected for the finale after a whole month of city-wide auditions- we decided that the standee was our next performer but it shied away and parked itself next to the stage instead.
Right after Voice of Indore, the group dance event of Lasya was set to happen. I got to host this one too. There were 7 teams, each better than the next. And, they had a bunch of crazy names, from ‘D Injectors’ to ‘The Danciners’ Yard’!