19/08/2014

19/08/2014; 17:57:

17th evening saw a rather grand Janmashtami celebration at the Radha-Krishna Mandir, near the Faculty Quarters, courtesy the PGP Cultural Committee.
There was a Rangoli-Making competition organized the previous evening and the winner got to make the Janmashtami rangoli at the mandir for the big day.
Evening saw a host of games, fun for all being conducted in the garden near the temple. The saree-tying game was rather amusing; here participation was in pairs, preferably with a partner of the opposite gender. The task was simple; the girl had to dress the guy up in a saree, within 90 seconds as a cheering audience looked on! Another game, which involved a blind-folded partner and another seated on the floor with a matki on his head, ended in a lot of wet people. The blind-folded partner had to fill up the matki with water while the audience was in splits.
The much-awaited ‘Matki Phod’ event was the highlight of the evening. Just like last year, the IPM boys’ team successfully smashed their matki on the very first try and then also smashed the PGP matkis, once the PGP guys gave up!
Once the clock struck 12, signifying the birth of baby Krishna, appropriate religious rituals were carried out and everyone left with a bright red tika on their foreheads.

The evening was really well appreciated! It’s lovely how all festivals are celebrated with equal vigour & love, on our IIM-Indore campus!

All of 18th was spent playing & viewing the 'Chunauti '14' matches! 18th was Day 1 of Chunauti. We mostly won Women's' Throwball; however the last set of the game is pending, for the game had to be suspended due to low visibility as the game went on for over an hour & a half.
Chunauti's first round is being played between IPM & PGP-I ; the winners in each game shall then face the senior-most PGP-II in the finals! There's Women's Throwball, Badminton, Table Tennis & Basketball. The guys have Cricket, Football, Table Tennis, Badminton, Volleyball & Basketball.
Playing Throwball was all good; but, somehow, my name had found its way onto the Table Tennis list. Now, this was both disturbing & puzzling. Now, I was bound to lose, but, was okay with playing, for well, the spirit! Luckily, the other members who'd also been equally pleased to find their names on the Women's Table Tennis Team B list all mutually agreed that IPM must be represented by only one team. It was after all a question of putting the best racquet forward and compromises were both unnecessary & uncalled for. Phew! That took care of itself well enough.
Here's looking forward to the yet-to-come, coming-soon day 2, 3 & perhaps more of Chunauti.

All of 18th night was spent gossiping! It was all going great until some nice person realised that it was 5 a.m. Everyone promptly began to be sleepy and the session was disbanded. I trudged myself to my room and sat in front of my laptop, busily pretending to do a whole lot of Fest work. I managed to finally fall asleep at 7:30 a.m., but, my rest was short-lived. I was dutifully woken up at 9:15 a.m. and informed that there was a meeting with Atharv’s (our fest) media partner. Dealing with the media does of course fall within the domain of PR & Marketing and attending the meeting was the right & interesting thing to do!

The time spent waiting for the designated person to show up was considerably longer than the meeting itself. Our largest solace is the fact that we got a final agreement signed & it ended well for everyone! Walking along the busy A.B. road, waiting for our institute bus to turn up was all an activity that I enjoy, especially when I have company. Well, it’s the walking that’s enjoyable, not the waiting.
The worst type of waiting is the one where it doesn’t come with an upper limit! Waiting on a friend, to attend a concert together is a good kind of waiting, for the upper bound exists & a happy evening awaits. Waiting for the signal to turn green is an acceptable kind of waiting, for it isn’t going to be very long & it’s the same to everyone else; the fact that there are a hundred other people who mirror your instantaneous belief somehow makes the waiting better! Waiting for an undefined moment is both the best & the worst, for everyone, even though the reasons are never the same.

17/08/2014

17/08/2014; 15:48:

We had a double RM-Research Methodology – lecture, on the morning of the 13th, where we learnt how to run the basic commands on SPSS- a statistical analysis software. Each term, there is at least one course, where you cannot afford to miss even a single class, coz well, the faculty is that good and the course that relevant. This term, it’s got to be RM.
Then, there was an e-mail, sent sometime in the day, announcing 'vertical heads' for the i-Help programme, since we've been making plans to increase scale of operations. I can now go by the title of 'HR Head- i-Help'. Sounds good; our job includes preparing the schedule, each week and arranging transport & packed breakfast for our volunteer visits to the schools.
By evening, the main entrance to the Acad Block was beautifully decorated, in colourful lights on occasion of the 68th Indian Independence Day.
Independence Day celebration on campus was rather grand. The The morning of 15th saw the Tricolour being hoisted, followed by the Director’s Address and a tree plantation on campus, courtesy Pragati- the PGP Social Committee. Trees were planted for some distance along the road leading from the under construction staff quarters to the under construction IPM hostels.

Once this was over, we received news that Atharv’s postponed Tree Plantation Drive, which was to take place at Treasure Fantasy, Indore was scheduled to happen at 2:00 p.m. aka in a few hours.
Transport, members of the Events Coverage team (along with their cameras) ,refreshments and an Atharv banner were arranged. The area itself is an under-construction housing project site and is rather green. There was a temple, half-completed, around which saplings- Rudraksh, Champa and Calendra – were planted by the Treasure Group MD, his team and our very own Atharv team. It was fun, fixing saplings in holes, adding manure and watering them. Post event, we sat by a waterfall which was by a lake, on the premises for around an hour. It felt like a perfect picnic! Were we glad we came!

Once we were back, we decided to do some ‘on-campus’ publicity for Atharv. Since we already had the Atharv banner- a decently sized 10 X 5 foot banner, we decided that it must be paraded around campus, which is exactly what we did! At the Pi-Shop, we saw that they had used the auspicious occasion to inaugurate a new ‘Grocery Section’. The Pi Shop now sells rice, daal and dhaniya powder, in addition to ice-cream, coffee and stationery. Also, I hear that they have expansion plans!

15th was rather eventful and it wasn’t even over yet!
Chirag, our IPM e-magazine was in the process of uploading their monthly release on their blog. A Cover Story was needed and I promptly sprang into action, penning a poem, that more or less fit their theme, ‘Patriotism’. Chirag had also organized a Donation Drive, for the benefit of war widows, on our Independence Day. Donation boxes were placed at 5-6 prominent locations on campus.
That night, two Chirag members and a donation box went around the girls’ hostel, collecting contributions.



16th & 17th August saw 2 seminars being organized as part of our course on International Relations. The topic on the 16th was ‘Oil is the main cause of the Middle East conflict’ and ‘Globalization is a blessing’ was discussed on the 17th. There was an introductory presentation made both for and against the topic, by one batch-mate each, this was followed by a healthy classroom discussion where people shared opinions, asked questions and added new dimensions to the discussion.
Later, the evening of 16th, was spent writing two Hindi articles, one about the Tree Plantation and one about Atharv in general, forDainik Bhaskar, Atharv’s media partner. Getting an article composed in formal Hindi (mainly done by Shruti) was easier than typing the thing out, using an online tool.

There is a series of events, scheduled this evening to celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna! I love how India is a land of festivals!

14/08/2014

14/08/2014; 01:38:

Today was rather exciting!
It’s probably been one of the first days of the term (well, over half of it is through, now!) when we had classes all day long.
Somewhere around lunch-time, we received an e-mail announcing an Inaugural Basketball Match, on the evening of 14th August, on the newly-made yet-to-be-played-on basketball court. I was pretty excited; we had been planning, waiting for this day for a while now! And, then, I read the last bit of the mail. The Sports Comm. had very conveniently left the best for last; the matches were to be for Boys only.
I was aghast. Anyway, our resolve only got stronger. We decided that we must go through with our plan to inaugurate the Court, Monika inaugurates one basket, I the other. The Boys had been asked to assemble on the evening of 13th August, 2014, probably in order to ‘audition’ for the Inaugural match. As soon as class got over, at 4:45, we rushed to our rooms, pulled on our sports shoes, raced across half the campus and got to The Court. We look- green & red – so inviting! To our absolute delight, the gate to the court was finally unlocked, after months of waiting! We spotted the Chair-HSA (Hostel & Student Affairs) and the Basketball Coach standing at the gate, admiring the court. We decided that the best course of action was to dash straight in, lest someone stop us, since the court was due to be inaugurated in less than 24 hours, by the Director of the Institute. The HSA-Chair, on the contrary, welcomed us to the court, happy to see such excited faces!
As per our agreement, Monika dribbled onto the court, passed the ball to me and I shot! It was a clean basket! I can’t even begin to think how it would’ve been if I’d missed the first-ever basket the court was to see! Then, we ran across to the other basket- it was Monika’s turn now. She shot too! We were ecstatic. We had done it! I love small victories.

The rest of the evening was spent making phone calls to people in various colleges, inviting them to our fest, cooped up in the FPM Block Common Room, again. The whole event lasted over 3 hours; our Bhopal Campus Outreach plan was also finalized, our team shall be going to Bhopal, on the morning of 14th August. Due to sudden glitches, no saplings could be made available for the Tree Plantation Drive and it’s been shifted; it shall most probably happen on the 18th- Janmashtami.
So, tomorrow’s mostly free. Also, it is our i-Help day! I’ve been scheduled to teach English, this time around, after what happened last time. Last time, I was scheduled to teach Mathematics but, I went ahead and taught English anyway. It’s my personal opinion that the children do already know a decent bit of maths and it is Spoken English that we ought to focus on, especially given the children’s ages – class 3 to class 8. I shall be teaching class 7, tomorrow.

Soon after our calling session was at a close, I found myself perched atop a random cement structure by the side of the road. There was a strong breeze, which progressively went from being refreshing to cool to chilly. So much so that we had to abandon our stronghold for an alternate location- the OAT (Open Air Theatre) which is walled on three sides and thus permits no free flow of chilly winds at night, or ever.

Around 11, as I walked to the hostel, there was a gaggle of girls chasing the hostel warden as she left for the day. A brand new attendance register has been installed in the girls' hostel. Each lady is required to 'make an entry' , everyday, between 8 to 11 p.m. Nice safety measures, to add to the newly added grills on the ground floor. Well, it so happened that the warden was rather annoyed with most of us filling in the register after it was past 11 (only barely!) and had decided that the best course of action was to take the register with her when she left, at 11 p.m. It was usually handed over to the warden who had the next shift, so this change in the sequence of events caught the girls by surprise. And as I soon learnt, the gaggle was only chasing after the warden to put in their entries, for the day. It was rather funny, anyhow, to see 6 girls chasing after one uniformed warden , who was escaping, armed with a register.

Our new history sir LOVES watching movies; every lecture he recommends at least 4 movies that he believes we ought to watch. Most of these are the kind of films that have deeper meanings, need patience and inclination to understand and are actually enriching. He has promised to screen at least a couple in class or share them with us; either way, there's some good learning in store!

11/08/2014

11/08/2014; 19:22

There is so much to write about and so little time. I just returned from a batch-meet, that was organized with the purpose of spurring everyone to work hard, these last 20 days, to make the fest a roaring success. Okay, I’m going to try to maintain a chronological order as far as I can manage.

On Wednesday, 6th of August, after the Logic Mid-term, I spent about 3 hours at the District Collector’s Office in Indore. We were all set to have a Clean-Up Drive in Rajwada, Indore, on the 9th of August and needed permission for the event. Luckily, I anticipated the wait and was all prepared with a novel. The best part is that they are really nice to IIM-Indore students. The A.D.M. walked into his office at 2:00 p.m. I was allowed in at 2:03 p.m., my document was signed by 2:05 p.m. At 2:07 p.m. I walked out of the office after getting the seal marked on my document. The thrill stemming from small victories in life led me to almost skip the whole way down to the main road. I ate ‘Chhole Tikki’ in the rain and got myself back to campus, just in time for the 3:30 p.m. class.

The PGP Sports Comm is all set to organize Chunauti ’14 – the intra-IIM Sports Event, on the 15th, 16th & 17th of this month. There shall be 2 teams each, from IPM, PGP-I and PGP-II for each sport. The sports include Basketball, Throwball, Badminton and Table Tennis for the ladies and Badminton, Football, Cricket, Volleyball and Table Tennis for the guys. There were trials to be conducted, to select the teams, on the 6th of August. Due to incessant rain, everything except the Table Tennis trials was conducted on the evening of 7th August. Teams have been more or less finalized and we are all eagerly waiting for the 15th.

i-Help, an IPM Student-Initiative, that entails spending a couple of hours a week teaching students of local government schools received approval and our first trip (not counting the pilot visit) was organized on Thursday, 7th August. We paid a visit to 2 schools near campus and taught English and Mathematics to students of class 3-8. It was a rather nice experience for everyone involved. The children were all too happy to have someone almost their own age acting as instructors, and really insisted on all of us coming in again, as soon as possible. Of course, we promised to be back, the following week and left amid smiles and learning.

On the night of 8th August, we sat planning our Bhopal Campus Outreach. On a crazy impulse, we decided to leave at 6 the next morning and go around Bhopal, conducting games and putting up posters in different colleges in Bhopal. Luckily, we were advised to hold our horses and put the plan on hold until we had a more concrete one. We re-made a plan for the 12th, only to realise that most colleges would be closed or empty on Saturday. We’re currently making another plan, probably for the 14th; hopefully, it shall materialize.


On 9th August, we were all prepared, with brooms, garbage bags and banners- 2 large printed ones and several beautifully-done hand-made ones, to carry out our Cleaning Drive. We left campus at 4 p.m., with volunteers from both my batch and the very enthusiastic new 2014 batch. We reached Rajwada and began vigorously cleaning the streets, sweeping, scooping garbage into the bags and flashing our banners. We soon began to shout out slogans along the lines of ‘Swachh Indore, Saaf Indore’ and ‘Indore ki sadkein saaf karo’; also, we locked people in an inspiring, powerful glance and chanted ‘ Aapka Indore, Hamara Indore- Saaf Karo!’ in order to instil a sense of responsibility and instigate people to work for something that is their own. A few students from the 2014 batch did a great job of the slogan-shouting and I’m sure at least 3-4 people lost their voices for a day or two after the event. About an hour into operations, we were greeted by the media who asked for a couple of details and took photographs. There was even a local news channel, who took an interview, asking questions on the lines of our action plan, our motivation and our fest-Atharv. The event went well and everyone was glad to return to campus, munching on hot samosas.

Later in the evening, lots of enthusiastic juniors and a few people of my batch gathered in the FPM Block Common Room, to make phone calls. We sourced all the contacts we could manage and sat in a large circle, making phone calls and confirming event participation and campus ambassador registrations.

Yesterday, i.e. 10th August, was Rakshabandhan. We had a promotional event lined up at Treasure Island Mall, Indore. We got there by 5, had a set-up ready by 6 and began to execute what I thought was a great show. It began with a musical performance by three talented guitarist-singers of my batch. This drew a fairly large crowd around the stage. We began with a simple game, where a song was sung, the participant had to identify the movie, the hero/heroine of the movie and sing another song of the same movie. This game was fairly enjoyable and every participant was able to correctly identify and sing! This then seamlessly merged into an on-audience-demand song dedication. Couple of people came forward to sing and dedicate songs to various loved ones. We then had a Push-Up competition- the first round of many more to follow. The winner managed a staggering 64 push-ups and left with the grand prize. We then had another round of the music performance. We then had a Rakhi-Themed game. The participant had to complete the phrase ‘Mera bhai sabse shaitan bhai hai kyunki…’ or ‘Meri behen sabsi nakhre wali behen hai kyunki…’. Then, a short shayari event was held, with one man stealing the show with his rendition of love shayaris! We then had at least 5-6 rounds of the surprisingly popular Push-Up competition. The 64-record was first broken by a school-age boy in a black shirt. The highlight of the evening was a young man who kept going at the Push-Ups well after 64. Once he had done 70, the crowd joined in the counting. He did a 100 and then another one for good-luck! He received loud applause and cheering from the crowd! We closed with a singing competition, which saw our youngest participant- all of 5 years. The evening was well-enjoyed and fruitful. All the while, our team at the registration desk kept talking to people, telling them both about our fest-Atharv and our EDM Dance Party to be held on the night if 7th September. There was also an on-going Lucky Draw with 5 free Dance Party passes to be won! We garnered well over 100 registrations and were very happy with our efforts!

Today was pretty uneventful apart from the batch meet in the evening. The idea of an ‘ideal type’ in social science is rather intriguing. An idea, born of the human mind, yet free of any external influence, an idea in its purest form.

07/10/2014

07/08/2014; 23:35:

There really is a whole lot of fest-related work in progress, right now!
Also, there has been SO much happening.
The new batch, the 2014 batch is finally here. They probably do not know it, but, both our batch and the juniors have been really looking forward to having new people on campus- new IPM students to be more precise; honestly there really is a strong feeling of unity and mutual love & respect among all the students. I’m not saying so only because it sounds grand, but because that’s what it actually is.

The Registration for the new batch was on the 1st of August; their Induction was on the 2nd. By 29th evening, people had begun to arrive on campus. I walked myself to the Hostel Reception Centre, to look over the list of the fresh arrivals. Around 8 of 120 students were on campus already. I dialled a few random numbers and got myself a meeting with a guy who is from Mumbai. I promptly informed him that I was part of the 2014 Batch too. Of course, this game gave itself away much sooner than I would’ve liked, courtesy my juniors who happily greeted me as I walked from the HRC to the FPM Block, with my new friend. Mumbai was good grounds to begin a conversation.

Over the next couple of days, I met quite a few of the 2014 students. Most seem pretty excited and nervous. There was this boy who missed lunch because he could not find the Mess, the first day he was here! It’s interesting to note how varied people are- some so carefree that the sky would fall and they wouldn’t move half a finger, others so worried that a breath of air would not pass them by without being questioned, some already so at-home at a place they’ve just arrived at, others visibly confused as to how the roads are straight and curved; but, everyone is happy in their own way, and that’s probably what is important.

On the night of the 30th, since I was dressed in formals, for the SAC-Coordinator task, I got my hands on a room-allotment list and made a visit to the junior girls’ rooms. Most were still off campus but, the few that I did encounter were rather chirpy, even late in the night.

02/08/2014

02/08/2014; 19:01:

The whole SAC-Coordinator & SAC-Treasurer process was rather long, pretty interesting and very tiring.
On the first day, all applicants were asked to send in a Résumé and a Statement of Purpose. There was wonder as to how the short-listing would work, since most applicants seemed to have similar documents.
Three days later, a mail greeted the applicants at 8:16 p.m., dividing them into three groups for Task #1. An 8-slide PowerPoint presentation had to be prepared, pitching the IPM to the academia and HR managers of certain companies. This had to be sent in by 11:30 and be presented in front of the panel (comprising the 2013 SAC-Coordinator, Treasurer and Committee Coordinators) at 11:45. Each presentation itself was an almost 45-minute affair, with cross-questioning and arguments taking place. All applicants waited till the end of the presentations after which each applicant was asked to rate all of his/her group members on 4 different parameters – Team Work, Cooperation, Leadership and Communication.
Just as the applicants returned to their hostels, presentations presented & questions fended off, at well-past 2:00 a.m., another e-mail popped up at precisely 2:58, announcing Task #2. A list of all activities conducted by the SAC-Student Activity Council from September 2013 to July 2014 was to be compiled, complete with detailed analysis on the efficiency, strengths, weaknesses and possible improvements. Secondly, research work was expected on the activities undertaken by the SAC’s in other undergraduate colleges with suggestions as to how some of these could be adopted here. All this had to be compiled as a word document and a PowerPoint presentation on the topic was also expected. All of it was to be submitted by 8:00 p.m. with an individual presentation of your work to the panel at 9:00 p.m.
The presentation process began at 9:00 p.m. and went on till almost 2:00 a.m. The luckier applicants got done earlier while the rest sat around till well beyond midnight. Just as all the applicants were settling in to sleep, an e-mail greeted them, informing them that 8 applicants had made it to Task #3, for which they were expected to show up , without delay at 2:25 a.m. Frantic phone calls and scurrying around later, the 8 showed up. Task # 3 was a Group Discussion, the topic being ‘Is MBA Education Expensive?’.
Then, unsure of whether there were any more surprises to be expected, the 8 crept away to bed. The final task, Task #4 which was a personal interview was held on the evening of 1st August. 6 applicants made it to this. The interview mainly tested how the applicants would react in certain situations, once they were SAC-Coordinator.
Post this, 4 applicants made it to the final round- the election for SAC Coordinator. The applicants for SAC-Treasurer had had a similar experience, facing mainly accounting related tasks and finally faced with an interview, after a single elimination. 3 applicants made it to the final election round. Each then had to send in an election manifesto, which along with the Tasks grading was shared with all the students, presumably to allow everyone to make an unbiased decision.
The election was held from 11:30 to 1:15 a.m. A student-designed online portal was used for voting, though every student had to make a trip to the voting booth- designated rooms picked by the panel.
The results were declared less than an hour later. There is now a brand new SAC-C , Oshin Goel and a brand new SAC-Treasurer, Govinda Bhadada.

I’m sure that the whole process was a very enjoyable one, despite being extremely hectic and surprising (not always in a good way!). There was a lot learnt, since the PGP Committee selections happen in the same way. Committee & Club heads are to be appointed, a process which will follow a similar procedure.

27/07/2014

27/07/2014; 23:23:

Great. My today’s post managed to get lost in transition from a word document to my blog mainly thanks to the errant internet. The internet’s been acting a little moody, these last 2-3 days. We’d visited the IT Department and it’s a lot better. Action here is pretty prompt, on most such matters. This afternoon, we let the authorities know about our fan – it had only two speeds- zero and everything’s blowing away- and, our fan was promptly fitted with a new regulator by 6 p.m.

‘Kick’ was screened on campus, yesterday. I hear that it had no storyline but was almost entertaining. The ‘no-brainer’ / ‘leave your brain at home’ concept is being followed a tad bit too literally by our Bollywood. Apparently, the Telugu version, of which ‘Kick’ is a re-make, was a lot better. Of course, I wouldn’t know, for I haven’t managed to learn any Telugu yet.

The Introduction to Engineering classes are rather interesting. Sir alternates between theory lectures and activities. Our first two sessions were spent making a bridge out of popsicle sticks and glue. The next theory lecture was spent understanding the working of two & four-stroke engines. The very next class saw us building steam-powered boats to put theory into application. We built dainty vessels out of a tetra pack, a soda can, a candle and straws.

The form inviting nominations for SAC-Coordinator and Treasurer were sent to our batch yesterday. There was a follow-up e-mail in the evening, asking for more nominations for there didn’t seem to be quite enough responses. The selection procedure has been altered from being a democratic election were the person with the highest votes wins to being a three-step process. There is to be a pre-process, an interview and elections. This evening, a mail asking for the pre-process submission was sent to all the aspirants. They were asked to send in a Résumé and a Statement of Purpose, the deadline for which is in about half an hour.

My room-mate unfortunately managed to discover my post about her. It was purely accidental. Kavya was on my laptop, approving my Résumé and my blog was open in the background. I was on the phone; my post was spotted and my room-mate promptly informed. Fortunately, she’s taking it quite well and I even heard her boasting about the post, over the phone. Phew! Trouble averted.

There’s a play happening on the 15th of August. My room-mate is to be the narrator in said play and is now missing from the room, for practice, every night at the perfect hour from 11 to 1. In nicer news, we discovered a ‘South Indian Supermarket’ in Indore, yesterday- it had all types of exotic-looking spices, vegetables and duck eggs for sale. I picked up Jack-fruit and Tapioca chips, both of which I rather enjoy. Today evening thus had a large supply of snacks.

And, there are 40 days to go, until the first-ever edition of Atharv- our very own IPM fest, in September. Our Instagram & Twitter accounts were inaugurated today and we’re hoping to acquire a large follower-base soon!

24/07/2014

23/07/2014; 19:16:

There were two mid-terms today, one on International Relations and one for Drama. We’d been grouped in pairs and had to create a short play that revolved around a piece of paper. The piece of paper could be used to roll up & eat bhel-puri out of, as a photograph, as a piece of evidence, the works!

24/07/2014; 16:26:

There was just a meeting with the Hostel & Student’s Affairs Office, regarding the progress of our fest work. It was such a different atmosphere from the last time we were there. Last time, we were all clueless and enthusiastic. This time, we were happy to see that good progress has been made, while enthusiasm is now coupled with pragmatism.

The Hostel & Student Affairs Office is sure having a busy day. They were here, to ‘check’ our rooms, mainly for substance and prohibited items in the morning. They also looked over the rooms that are to be allotted to the new batch girls. Then, the fest meeting that took a good 2 hours. And, now, they’re planning to shift some IPM boys from one block to another, to make space for the new batch!

20:34:

The last patch of undone road, near Gate 3 has been spotted and work is in progress, even in the rain! It should be ready in a week or so. Our very own 26 Hills which had ceremoniously moved inside campus has now shut down. They’d decided to move onto campus when the PGP batches were out, which obviously let to a large decline in their footfall. I hear they’ve moved back to their original location, near Mashal. Which is not too far from campus either, so , it’s a win-win for everyone!

The skies finally held up, after almost 48 hours of non-stop rain. It’s gotten nice & chilly; I even see people with hoodies. I absolutely love the weather; standing atop the IIM-Indore hill (Prabandh Shikhar), looking out across green fields. You see mountains afar, capped with mysterious, voluminous bundles of clouds and a sky that is banded in dull silver, an almost purple, blue and black. The late-evening sky is a dreamy amalgamation of the darkest blue and the lightest purple; the sky is deep blue, like an endless abyss leading to the bottom of a still, swift-flowing river.

22/07/2014

22/07/2014; 15:30:

It was my room-mate’s birthday, yesterday. I felt like James Bond, sneaking a cake into the room & hiding her gifts, all without her managing to even get a whiff of my plan. Now, since it is her birthday, like a good room-mate, I ought to make her day special. Of course, I fully intend to.
Everyone has quirky room-mate stories, some even borderline disgusting. This isn’t the latter; it might not even qualify as a story, but, well.

10 reasons why my Room-Mate is, well, for sake of politeness, different:

1. All the students on campus have laptops, for a lot of our studying happens through online source and power point presentations. My room-mate has a Desktop; she claims that it is mainly for the 23 inches that it has to offer.
2. Most of the girls have pillows (I couldn’t say the same about the boys!) that are rectangular, you know, regular-sized. She has two tiny cotton-stuffed squares that she tries to pass off as pillows.
3. There is a large bag of GoDiva exotic chocolates on our coffee table that I was thrilled to spot. I eagerly opened it and extracted the contents only to find several green-tea bags. Such deceit!
4. Most persons use their bed-side tables to stash alarm clocks, tablets, chocolates and buttons. Ours has been deemed to be a shoe-rack, ever since my room-mate spotted it.
5. Adding insult to injury is a tin of delicious-looking butter cookies that houses Jalani Jal Jeera sachets.
6. The Executive Residence beds are all box-beds, to allow extra storage space. Most people have dumped rarely-if-ever accessed items here. My room-mate keeps her notebooks in here, notebooks that are used every day.
7. Most non-engineering students cart their dysfunctional mobile phones to a service centre, my room-mate calmly opened up hers and diagnosed the problem herself. I am actually in awe at her deftness with a screw-driver in specific and all tools in general.
Currently, one Wi-Fi router has been set-up and delivered and another lies on our spare chair, awaiting her attention.
8. Okay, so much for 10.
9. She’s fun!
10. Happy Birthday, Room-mate!

20/07/2014

20/07/2014; 09:32:

We were supposed to have an 8:45 International Relations class. It's one of the few times when Section B had the morning class instead of Section A. And, of course, the class has now been postponed to 10:15.

One of my batch-mates has decided to get a 'temporary permanent tattoo '(the 3-month kinds) for her 21st birthday. And, we did even find a tattoo parlour in Indore. Life's good.

Our fest promotional activity has been nicely constructed – details have been charted & permissions have been arranged. We’re planning to hold two events at Treasure Island Mall in Indore, where, Games shall be organized, we shall perform a gig and we will set up a registration desk. Successful participants shall be given vouchers and tickets to our pro-nite which shall be on the 6th of September. We’ve scheduled the Clean-up Drive and the Tree Plantation to both happen once the new batch is here! We’re making good progress on our social cause.

16/07/2014

12/07/2014; 22:40:

It’s nice to see the campus all full of people and life. The junior batch is finally back from their rather-long vacation. One of them related his vacation experience- an almost-life changing event, up in the mountains. Stricken with a love for trekking and the mountains, going on multiple treks, with different groups of people and putting photography skills to use sound like a perfect break to me. This coupled with the trepidation and later relief melting into ecstasy at saving the life of a fellow-trekker who very nearly drowned. This incident is chilling and calming, all at once.

Indian summers are hot, and a lot of people found themselves in the cool of the mountains- in Leh, Ladhak, Uttrakhand, Kashmir and travelling the breadth of Himachal Pradesh. Trips were made with family, friends and solo ( accompanied by a camera, to document the trip). Of course, there are some infinitely lucky people that LIVE in the mountains, full-time. But, of course, we resent them only during the summer break.
Summer Internships that the seniors returned from do sound like good experiences. From joining CRY in Bengaluru which meant easy access to Goa to working on research projects in Delhi, the experiences are varied and vast.

The junior boys have been moved to a hostel off campus, for paucity of space. While it is only 600m away in physical distance, they’re missing out a lot more otherwise. But of course, the interested ones do remain on campus until 11 p.m., post which of course no movement is allowed in & out of the institute gates.

16/07/2014; 21:29:

The Director paid the junior boys a visit at their new hostel, promising most of the changes that they need. It was a rather positive gesture.

We’re just back from eating dinner, after camping on the water tank on the terrace, earlier in the evening. It had been raining most of the afternoon, today, and the weather was lovely. There is a slight nip in the air, with a thin blanket of humidity, ruffled by well-paced wind.

We’ve been planning a couple of promotional activities for our upcoming fest—our plans include entertainment/games at Treasure Island- Indore’s most happening mall, a clean-up drive, a tree plantation drive for Independence Day and work towards our social cause- The Stigma attached to Menstruation. We hope we’re able to pull off our rather ambitious plans successfully.

The skies spent all of yesterday evening raining and we spent it playing Monopoly. I must admit that it was a rather fun evening. I was reading last night and have absolutely no recollection of when & how I fell asleep.

Our Business Etiquette course is almost half-way through, and we’ve had a few new things to learn- from dressing for white-tie & formal dinners to electronic etiquette (telephones, video-calls, e-mails). Also, our professor has advised us to dress in smart casuals for the class, and it’s nice to see everyone smartly dressed, hair combed & shirts ironed!

11/07/2014

11/07/2014; 04:09:

The FIFA World Cup 2014 has beautifully altered my sleep schedule. I’m surprised that falling into a routine of keeping up till 4, to watch the 1:30 game in entirety has proven to be easier than falling out of the routine.

I discovered what I shall deem to be an ingenious way of carting laundry to & fro the Laundry. Sharing a room has led me to the discovery that an entire large shelf cannot be devoted to the sole purpose of housing dirty clothes. So, I shifted to housing them in my largely unused bucket instead. Now, this bucket is my tool of practice. Once full, its contents shall be deposited at the laundry and the freshly-washed & ironed clothes shall be placed in the safe interior of the bucket to be trudged across campus.

Indore saw its first rain of the season, yesterday in the form of a slightly extended light drizzle. It rained some more today. I sat by my window reading. Suddenly, I was hit by splashes of the incoming rain. I was forced to put down my book (well, Kindle, but I’ll let it count as a book for now) and sit staring as the rain came down in sheets. Falling hard, uninterrupted, the sheer strength of the sheets not allowing them to be drifted apart by the wind , but merely making them fall at an angle, as the ground soaked up the drops with eager conquest.
I sat watching till the clouds ceased to let up any more raindrops down to earth.

I reckon, and with good reason too, that there is a certain curse that looms over the fateful person who is elected to be the CR of our Batch. Starting with our CR in the first year, who suffered all sorts of (health) complications trying to adapt to the food & water of Indore to our last year’s CR who actually received the news of her appointment in the hospital, the curse has found its way to this year’s chosen ones. One CR has a ligament tear & damage to the soft tissue in her foot that has earned her 3-weeks of bed-rest and a wheel-chair; the other CR managed to hurt his knee during a game of basketball; and a third CR is seen with a crepe bandage around her right thigh/knee. We’re all watching the fourth CR anxiously.

Cool, almost cold breeze is blowing as I sit perched on the stairs outside my new hostel. In the distance I hear the call for prayer, for it is the holy month of Ramzan. The sanctity of prayer.