MIND SPOTS SUNSHINE

Prologue:

Normally I finish the article first and then think of giving it a title…no guesses that this is the most logical way to do it but today somehow I liked these set of words mentioned as the title above, which I accidentally came up with and, conversely, I wanted to create an article in order to justify my title. May sound strange, but wish me best luck.

February 17th 2008 Hyderabad
Conference Room
Hotel Ohris (Basheerbagh)

I was speechless at that point and felt like a dead duck with no answer at all to the bunch of questions they posed, all of them (questions) testing my very purpose of why I need an MBA?
I took a 10 second pause and we all know what a 10 second pause literally means in a B-school interview. But the 10 second break worked. Just before the interviewers thought I had no answer at all and were proceeding to the next one I uttered the following words
“When I come to the Great lakes, a place where each student comes from a diverse background and has a lot of work experience to share with, which forms the very crux of your learning curriculum and to add to it the thoroughly designed PGPM which gives me an understanding of various business aspects like Finance, Marketing, HR & Operations which are like pillars of a business and give me a thorough understanding of how a business works from end to end. After undergoing this kind of learning, tomorrow, I have a complete understanding of what is happening around me in an organization and when I have such understanding it gives me confidence. And it is this confidence which finally powers me towards putting in those extra efforts and achieving sizeable successes.”

I couldn’t believe I said all this. It was an answer which I did not completely prepare for. To add to it was my tone which was simply perfect. And the interviewers too were all smiles and they stopped asking me Why MBA after this reply. After that what followed was a confident interview for another 10 minutes with firm handshakes in the end.

I climbed down the steps and started walking towards the parking lot with extreme confidence. With 30 months of work ex across the business development departments of an Automobile Giant and a minnow IT startup, I felt like it was my day and I have made it. Though I had given the GD-PI for IMT Ghaziabad I was pretty sure of being rejected owing to tougher competition, so GreatLakes was my best chance and something today just kept telling me that I was in and I have crossed the final frontier. With one deep breath I gained control over my overjoyed emotions and started driving to proceed for lunch.

March 5th 2008

As time passes you slowly start losing the confidence on great efforts too. On February 17th I was beaming with confidence as soon as I came out of the Interview Hall but today I am as scared as the worst performer would have been. The admissions department of Great Lakes told that the results were due yesterday viz on March 4th but somehow they did not appear. I checked the site repeatedly in the night till 2 and participated in those ever active cribbing Pagalguy.com before I fell asleep.

Last year I scored 98 percentile and felt equally confident about my NITIE interview but I had only disappointment to face. And the delay in announcing the results is making it scarier for me. Its already 1 in the noon and there is no response on the phone from the admissions department. I proceeded to lunch as I could not afford more delay.

Already I have been left behind in the race to B-schools amongst my Engineering classmates. The guys with whom I used to benchmark have made it to FMS, IIM, MDI, NITIE etc and here I am praying to get into GreatLakes, I thought while standing in the queue for the lunch buffet.
I can’t imagine the disappointment of my parents, who got involved too in my quest for MBA degree, if I don’t make it. I was filled with anxiety and nervousness that I was hardly able to eat my lunch when my phone buzzed and it was a call from a companion who too attended GreatLakes GD-PI. I knew that it was coming and with no further delay I answered it.

“Did you see the list?” he asked...
“No..are the results out” I asked
“Yeah I got waitlisted” he said
“Ohh…is my name there “ I continued “Hall ticket no. XXXXXXXXXX” I asked
30 seconds later
“Sorry dude I cannot find your name” he said.
My heart sank…I could no more eat my lunch...I went to the computer and checked the waiting bad news…I also checked the Pagalguy forums where hopeful & disappointed candidates like me were posting funny messages but I smiled with pain. Just then my boss called me for a meeting and trust me I could barely move my feet or lips in the meeting.

March 12th, 2008

Morning

Today the waitlist of Great lakes came up and to my dismay I don’t find my name yet again. The pain continues to haunt me. Six days ago the results were announced in which I could not find my name. This takes me back to the scenario I was facing last year where I had calls but ended up with no conversions. It looks as if last year’s pain had taken a temporary break and is back haunting me.

Evening

I check up with Great Lakes Admissions office and the news is that there will be no more wait lists as most of the candidates in the first list have taken up candidature. By now I was actually expecting it and I began thinking of the worst situation. Either I should enter KJ Somaiya or I should take up a job with Infosys that was offering me around 7 lacs.
I spoke to my closest pals phani and pavan, both empathized with me while trying their best to instill strength in me. When I spoke about KJ Somaiya they probably hid their disagreement because they didn’t want to suggest me another crack at CAT. Phani went a step ahead and told me that if I am good I will sell from anywhere and I better not drop my MBA plans if I make it to KJ Somaiya. I spoke to many people around me who didn’t find the same impressive enough. But I just didn’t want to end my MBA dreams this way and in order to stay positive I visited the website of KJ Somaiya and clicked their placements link.

March 20th,2008 Bangalore

I have just finished my GD-PI of KJ Somaiya and have felt very good about it. One reason possibly is because of the low percentiles of the candidates around me and secondly because I was very confident and sensible through out the process. I was really feeling confident that I will be at least in the first two waitlists and since KJ Som would be rejected by many candidates I could stand a better chance.
It was during lunch when I felt bad for myself…after 4 years of dedication to CAT here I am consoling myself to be in the waitlist of a college that I earlier didn’t plan for. But destiny decides right, if my efforts were lacking then I deserve this!

March 29th, 2008 Hyderabad
11:00 PM

After long while I had some good time with Shashank and Gowtham. I am done with my MBA campaign for the year 2008, whether I make it or not or if I need to take another crack at it doesn’t matter as of now as it’s too early to decide on anything. Thus, we had a nice get together and for some time I forgot all the pain. I enjoyed the dinner and had a quick ride home.
Once home I sat on my computer to check mails and as a usual practice I opened pagalguy.com. Something caught my attention then…there were too many IMT’s in the left panel clearly reflecting that for some reason IMT is all across the news today…and its very obvious for what reason it was. There was no need to guess as I typed

www.imt.edu and clicked on the admissions

It asked me to enter my CAT TR No and date of birth. I prayed god and with a deep breath I clicked submit and it returned

“Congratulations! You have been selected for PGDM-FT program. Fee details will follow”

April 15th, 2010 Hyderabad

I had been selected to KJ Somaiya’s flagship program too.


Epilogue: It’s been around 6 months since I passed out from that great institute. I had a great time during my MBA and it was the place where I met many firsts in my life.

IMT was sunshine for me.

JPRS

Mercy Madam Mercy!

She is in her 40's but she looks as if she is a 60 year old...half because of her unruly Grey hair and half because of the way she bends while she walks ...She has a monotonous way of talking where one could easily get lost into the day dreams. Insomniacs too enjoyed her class since they could sleep under her purview, sure about her arrested gaze

Today, she looked worse! Obviously it was a disappointing day for her since the entire class has performed poorly in her subject (Social Sciences)…She has probably received a sound thrashing from the principal which explains the lack of smile or the absence of a humane look on her face.

At that moment Aditya chose to enter the class, delayed due to a long queue( you know where), after the short recess we were usually given before this class…

The teacher gave a scornful look…she walked to the wrong side of the blackboard to pick a old looking wooden scale and stood in the middle of the passage created by the two divisions of benches like an executioner. Aditya’s face turned yellow as he anticipated the worst moment impending on him…he began taking slow steps, not able to believe the utter silence that has taken control in the room, trying to make eye contact with rest of the students to get a telepathic understanding of what has gone wrong …

How can Madam Padma who was considered such a friendly teacher turn evil today and set herself to thrash her favorite student Aditya. Aditya disbelievingly stretched his arm slowly and hadn’t yet unfolded his palm when Madam Padma raised her hand to signal the imminent slash, all this happening amidst the pin drop silence and a bunch of scared teenagers watching the scene in anticipation & horror.

Whackkkkkkk…Whackkkk…Whackkkk….three shots in a span of little less than 5 seconds and one felt sorry to see aditya waving his hand in pain and holding it with his left hand to give comfort to it. His face was red and one could see twinkle in his eyes. Few minutes ago he was cracking funny jokes and now here he is, about to breakdown, in front of his whole class staring at his agony like a stage performance…

Just then to his horror the unforgiving teacher uttered “Aggain…”

“Show me your hand come on” she thundered…

Aditya sported a sympathetic face and this time stretched his left arm (pain sharing technique) and opened his palm with heightened fear. This time to every one’s horror the teacher lifted the stick very far into the air indicating that this is going to be a big one…the room was filled with nerve breaking tension and the shot finally came off…

Aditya couldn’t take it any more and just before the stick had to make contact with his hand…he slightly moved the hand away from the stick and this led to a wasted shot and embarrassment for the teacher…Embarassment because the shot landed on a table making a funny noise and a couple of us sitting in the last bench couldn’t resist the chuckle looking at this funny occurrence…

But only after we chuckled did we realize that the rest of the class didn’t find it funny which meant the teacher’s attention is diverted now…To escape suspicion and make the job easy for the teacher every one turned their heads and stared at us to give enough hint to the teacher about the culprits…Both Raghu and I were being sacrificed at the heat of this moment to goddess padma for our act of innocence; but more innocence was to follow. Raghu avoided eye contact with the teacher and began staring at me as if it was I who did it while I was submissively staring into the teacher’s man-eater eyes & preparing my ill-fated hands to be the next victim.

“What is your score” She asked

“85 I mumbled”. Yeah I was the topper this time and probably one of those few students whom she could point to save herself from the principal

But it didn’t impress her

“So getting more marks means you can laugh at people’s misery” she said

“Mam” (stunned at her words)

“Show me your hand you shameless creature” She said

I could now see students silently giggling at me as an undeserving punishment couldn’t get funnier.

Saddened and embarrassed I stretched out my arm and closed my eyes waiting for that deadly moment when a touch of timber would kill some skin cells of mine leaving a temporary color on my hand before I felt fresh breeze passing over my forehead and the sound of tiny droplets hitting my windowpane…Slowly the noise grew loud enough, to wake me up, to show me the morning rain that had just begun with mild thunders accompanied by black clouds that looked menacingly deep. It was hardly 7:15 am but it looked as if its still 6 in the morning and the breeze in deccan’s lovely city Hyderabad just got stronger to rip off clothes of their hangers, blow off the broken ceilings and shake the tall trees as if they were dancing to nature’s music.

Mom was watching me all this time and she asked me

“emaindi peedakala” (Was that a bad dream)

“em ledu (nothing)” I replied with a smile filled with nostalgia

Lovely old days I thought and got down to pick my coffee…

The New World Order!

Sometimes we really long to write…not that our fingers are itching but it is just one of those days when our thoughts are in a song and they drag us to the keyboard compelling one to begin with some random stuff before they get streamlined to carve a fine narration…Yes a fine narration would do well to complete the quest of my thoughts…So I am writing again to just reflect upon some common happenings in an MBA’s life…

Rule 1: In a group discussion of 10 people if there is only one girl she becomes the differentiating factor.

Rule 2: In a group discussion of 10 people if you are the only guy, then the 9 girls comprise the differentiating factor unless you are a male chauvinist ready to raise your voice!

On a particularly weird Placement Day a student finally breaks the rules and dares to do something that the entire college would look, hear and talk in awe…He promptly goes to the Placement Process room where the HR managers are seated and gathers all his wit, amidst the agony, to ask a question that most guys wanted to ask owing to a perplexing vertigo caused by a blinding judgment (Delivered), that would be struck off as Jealousy if expressed, for over a decade and a half now.

“Where did I go wrong to lose a chance over her in the process?” he asked (Shamelessly)

The HR managers were stoned…

While they were expecting a Pizza and refreshments after a tiresome process, a question like this would be the last thing they were prepared for…Of course they washed their hands in anticipation; not the thoughts to provide a pristine response.

Still a HR manager smiled courteously and said… “We respect your frankness…Excuse me what is your name”

“Hari”

“Yes Hari...We respect your honesty and braveness but that lady happened to be the initiator of the discussion and a team player too…Didn’t you see the whole team agreeing with her” said the manager

“Sir…but the topic was How well is the Indian Cricket Team armed to take on Australia and she started off by drawing parallels between the muscularly strong players of both teams…wasn’t it to be discussed on the strengths and weaknesses of a team as a unit…In the entire discussion I was only trying to do that..”

“Buddy... (Sigh of impatience) ...she had the entire group stuck to her point and you had to move on from there...you could not convince the group…she did it” the manager declared.

‘Well what can you do if an entire group can be so lost in just being loud than sensible....’ he thought… “Thank You Sirs” He greeted and walked to open the knob of the door beyond which a world (Placecom) is waiting for him to dictate a new world order.

The HR managers however were proud of being magnanimous and were rightfully presented with a Pizza lunch.

The student was debarred by his placecom and sub consciously abandoned by some of his friends. Sometimes the cool dudes did bother to hi5 him coz his act of dare or sacrifice was a freaking cool thing while his good friends forever wondered what would be his mood like...

The spring had arrived and it was the time for convocation. All the students yelled and cried for one last time and slowly left to their respective destinies…In those fading days of a batch an email jumped into the Institute Director’s account which read like this:

Dear Sir,

Today I want to share a feeling that had been bothering me for a while now…Kindly let me know your response

I believe that an Organization excels if it had women working in Sales & Marketing while the Men did it in the Human Resources? The explanation goes on below

The Customers if Men, would be very much interested to spend time understanding a Product or a Service from a beautiful woman than an illustrious male...no wonder why presentations click with women and why the phone calls get extended and most of the times the deal is a success too.

Now you may ask me what if the customers are women…Well women are still not at the helm of decision making, and even if they were if you think that a very good looking male salesman is going to do the trick then its sheer bullshit. It rarely works that way. If only the safety aspects are taken care, I can go on record to say that women make better salesmen than men.

Now coming to my claim of Men making it big at Human Resources...Every organization survives on sales and in simple words they need better salesmen to sustain...

So we all know what most of the men are good at…Yes you are right...We can tap this god given talent of men and use our mediocre sense in choosing promising Sales Women. Needless to say, married men are good listeners to people whining at them. Trust me; they make far better HR managers than women.

I solemnly urge you to give a serious reading and let me know your candid response.

Hari

Ten days later a mail appeared into Hari’s account...It read

“:-D”

The Director

XYZ Institute

Disclaimer: I am not here to undermine the talent or efforts of young ladies...I am only reflecting on the feelings of some stunned guys who could never understand the nuances.

Ravi Shanker

What Chakravyuh meant on December 10th, 2009

Pretext

God: What did we (the gods) do to make the spring colorful?

Student 1: The nature unleashes a new born energy

Student 2: Everything around blooms to life

Student 3: I think all these compliment ‘the mighty Chakravyuh’ that happens every spring…

God: Who is that???

God: 08FT-0XX…

God: 08FT-0XX………………..

Student 3:uhhh ohhhh …….(Just wakes up from his sleep and realizes that he forgot answering the roll call in the lecture)

Phew! Talk of daydreamers (insomniacs?)

What Chakravyuh meant on December 10^th to Junta in IMT

For Non-IMT junta: Chakravyuh is a non-stop 72 hours Sports festival of IMT and is the biggest festival of IMT both in terms of participation and magnitude. The preparations, deliberations & the intensity witnessed in the tournament makes it a spectacle indeed!!! So with this we shall proceed to the blog now…

December 10th 2009

Time: 9:30 PM (A time when the busiest managers of IMT indulge in gossip)

Place: The Parking stand outside mess

“Ohh lord the Chakravyuh is here…have you seen the teaser, I think the mascot is a boar..” said Onlooker 1

“I don’t think it’s a boar, it is a standing tiger… I mean a tiger standing on its hind legs” Onlooker 2

Yeah people were busy understanding the teasers and the publicity messages but the launch in December, though too early, created ripples among sections of IMT.

Now who are these sections…The sections that took it seriously were the following

1. Farmers

2. Crammers

3. Achievers

Farmers

The farmers believed in a single crop or girl and they invested their faith, time, ego, money & hope into a single chick or at times two and a half chicks. They had two simple rules

Rule 1: The Chick is right

Rule 2: If not read ‘Rule 1’ 20 times

December 10th

Now the chakravyuh was like the lohri/sankranti for these farmers (its harvest time) so one had to be extremely careful with the further steps taken. They had two plans

Plan A (to be executed if the chick likes to play)

Jog with her, encourage her by participating in the sport she plays and try teaching her a move or two if you can do that. Encourage her to work out and prepare a time table that’s optimal for the chick. (Minors in Operations preferred)

Plan B (If she doesn’t like to play)

Make travel plans for the 3 day holiday, sports suck and a ego massaging session isn’t a bad idea…Give her company and double the care, since she loses some attention during those 3 days.

Note: The term “2 and a half chicks” refers to the fall back option the farmer has if he were to lose the prime chick. However these fallbacks were stout & hefty and I am sorry for quantifying that.

Crammers

Disclaimer: The word crammer here refers to all academically serious people and doesn’t literally mean book worms or something. However the word is used since it rhymed with the previous one…

December 10th

The crammers though were expected to be the least bothered, were the most offended.

"What is this hakravyuh" asked a geek (confused by the graphic font)

"Its chakravyuh dude" said another student accompanying the geek

“This is stupidity….no! heights of stupidity” said the Geek

“Kyon kya ho gaya” student asked

“The placements are fast approaching and who on earth would do publicity for chakravyuh’10 now……and why is imt obsessed with these teasers” said the geek

Luckily the other student, later, showed the student a certain company’s “We are hiring” teaser and that did calm the storm.

So what the crammers planned to do…

I dare not to put it in an unorganized way so let they be in bullets

· Read ET, Kotler, Sales & subjects of interest with rigor

· Find a way to access the “GOD folder” created by the big brains

· Chakravyuh doesn’t matter, its Pappachan who matters

· To look fresh try sleeping early

· Take tips from seniors, super seniors & alumnus too…..

· Rest of plan tomorrow, feeling sleepy now hit the SAC

PEACE…..Snore

Achievers

Here come the darlings and we do have loads of them, don’t we…

We are not talking about the “Will be Gold medalists” or Wizards or the Gurus out here…

We are discussing Sporting Personalities and the star players over here…

These are the ones who have zoomed to popularity in no time with their sporting talent and have created a brand for themselves in this sports frenzy college…Though critics and crammers may disagree nothing sells in IMT like an intense sporting season and it is these people who matter the most then…

A mistake in any decision by the Achievers may lead to home team’s exit from football or any game in the coveted tournament and talk about redemption - you have one long year to wait for it. So it makes sense when they show sporadic seriousness in many activities during the run up…

December 10th

So a sports enthusiast when coming across an achiever during a post dinner walk, near the amphitheater, thought of asking a question

You cannot ask a stupid question like “Are you playing in Chakravyuh”

However the answer he gets for it does deserve the stupid question. Because the common answer is “See dude I have a fractured thumb/ligament tear/tennis elbow and I might not actually play this time”

Now the enthusiast turns pale at the sad news but sometime later, to his ecstasy, the achiever does play… While some achievers did begin scouting for junior achievers to make a super team, some kept mum post December 10^th..

Some achievers went a step ahead by playing sports that they generally do not otherwise to reflect the feel chill attitude… errrrrr “How many eyeballs watching”

J

Epilogue

I can’t help writing these epilogues… If any one finds similarities of above mentioned examples to certain events; Trust me its purely coincidental. If you are wanting to ask me which category I fit into I will say put me in ‘Losers’ for writing stupid blogs like these J…but then don’t call me loser coz I may assume you have read the blog.