Sunday, 20th July 2008
It was the third weekend in Indore. This time our determination was strong enough to cross the boundaries of IIMI. After having enough of quizzes, presentation and assignments, we understood the fact that we had to go out and at least see the city in this hectic schedule itself and there would be no time when we have nothing to do. The last 2 weeks were a kind of standard punishment of IPC (Indian Penal Act) - 15 days of jail (all minor crimes and wrongdoings attract this penalty...given our police prove the charges)! I went to city 3-4 days ago - thanks to the person who stole my cell phone. But, that was a visit to mobile store and not to the city.
We usually don't have any academic activities apart from classes in morning till 1.30 in afternoon. But, this was not the usual case, everything was coming as an obstacle in our way to city or more precisely way to movie. This time it was batch photograph for the placement brochure. I am in section D, a first time section at IIMI. It is not that only teachers are satisfying their sadistic wishes by the means of assignments, quizzes, presentations etc., many more things are there to test our patience. Our section's photography was scheduled last - at 1.00 PM on Sunday. With the dreams of going to watch a movie I slept on Saturday night and with the hope of making it I woke up at 10.00 AM on Sunday. After having lunch at afternoon, we came to know that photography of other section has overshot the time limit and ours is ultimately going to start at about 4.30 PM. What the hell was going on? Cursing my hard luck I came back to my room (more appropriatley "mera gaon": A construction funded by NABARD at IIMI) and slept. I was witnessing one more Sunday passing very fast and Monday approaching. To attend the photograph session I woke up at 3.45 PM and then got ready. Getting ready in formal dress and too formal means Suite...It was a time consuming task for me. Thankfully by 5.45 PM, the photography thing was over. I ran back to my room and changed dress. We thought about going outside the main gate and then catch some bus or taxi. But, then we realized the IIM van leaving at 6.30 PM would be a better option. This van will drop us at the beginning of city.
We started at 6.30 PM in the IIM van. Thanks to Sunday evening, this van was full. Anyway we managed to get packed in the van. Nothing was going right..just on reaching Rau railway crossing (4 Kms from here), the gate was closed!! There were two train crossings - means about 20-30 minutes of waiting. It was frustrating especially when we had to come back to the campus by 11.00 PM. We were five persons. Two of us came out of the van and started walking at the railway gate. We collected all the details from the gateman about the trains available from Rau to Indore and Indore to Rau. The gateman told us that one of two trains was going to Indore. After few minutes, we saw three of us, who were sitting in the van were running towards the train. They were telling us to run and catch the train. We also followed them and managed to catch the train at Rau. As we were running short of time, none of cared about buying the ticket.
What a memorable experience it was!! We were travelling in a train without ticket. This was the desperation to watch a movie or if tickets of movie not available then roam around the theater/mall. Our journey started with discussing different analysis about arrival of TTE and strategy formulations to get rid of TTE. We reached at a conclusion that considering the fact we were in local train running on a meter guage and too coming form MHOW (Army Cantt), there was hardly any possibility of meeting a TTE. So, we reached Indore station in just 20 minutes and that too without encountering any mamu (TTE). It was 7.10 PM by the time we came out of the station. We aske the first autowala " Bhaiya TI mall chaloge"? He replied "haan chalenge, kitne log ho? We told "5 log hai..le chaloge kya"? haan haan le chalenge..50 rupaye lagenge..
haan bhaiya jaldi chalo...". We reached the dream destination TI (Treasure Island) Mall located on M.G. Road Indore by 7.30 PM.
Oh my God!! is this a mall or a mob? This was the first impression after entering the mall. I was more comfortable with those kind of overcrowded malls. I still have the memories of weekends at Garuda and Forum mall at Bangalore. But, for many of us, who were not in Bangalore, this was just like a mob. We started running towards ticket counter at 4th floor. We needed 3 tickets of any movie (The Dark Knight or Janne Tu Ya Jaane Na was ok for us..of course we couldn't have tolerated RGV's Contract). Two of us were not watching the movie because they had to meet some of their friends. We reached the counter and the screen was showing sold out for JTYJN and fast filling for The Dark Knight. Great..we managed to get last three tickets of " The Dark Knight." Fortunately, movie was awesome. It turned out to be a real entertainer and that too in the need. But, the movie was longer than usual English movies. It was of 2 hours and 40 minutes. That meant movie would be over by 10.15 PM. We booked the cab in advance so that we could manage to reach the campus by the deadline of 11.00 PM. Once the movie was over and people have their part of dinner (McD burgers), we left the mall at 10.30 PM. Anyhow we managed to enter the maingate at 10.57 PM. Thank god..we entered just in time!! What a great weeekend...I went outside the campus and watched a movie in theater!
Again I was back to normal campus life. Looking at timesheet of Monday, What assignments and pre-readings? Leave it.. I started thinking about the omnipresence of Gandhi in our life. Ye saala M.G. Road har city me aa jata hai..wo bhi prime locations pe..Gandhi ko notes pe aa ke chain nahi mila..sadko pe bhi apna naam likh diya!! M.G. Road Bangalore was like playground for me during last two years. Now, I reached M.G. Road Indore to enjoy weekends (it can't become the playground.. I don't have the liberties now!!). In this transition from M.G. Road Bangalore to M.G. Road Indore, I enjoyed the Without Ticket journey of Train. Hope to see the city soon!!
Friday, July 25, 2008
M. G. Road Bangalore to M. G. Road Indore: Without ticket train journey in between
Friday, July 11, 2008
Studying Economics is Interesting!!
Studying Economics is Interesting!!
After moving across the width and height of the country for last two months, finally I am settled for two years in Indore (better to say IIM Indore!!). I will prefer to say IIM Indore or Planet-I (IIMI is commonly known as Planet-I.... especially among student communities) not because to add IIM, but in order to reflect the real feel of this place. This place is about 20 Kms from Indore Railway station and airport. So, from Monday to Saturday life remains confined to the boundaries of IIMI or maximum it reaches till Rau (the local market place..about 3-4 Kms from here). Study, enjoy or celebrate - for all the purposes, we have campus as the only choice and that makes it a different planet. I have not yet got a chance to roam around Indore. We planned to go to city on last Sunday but the riots and subsequent curfew screwed our plan.
I reached here on 29th June ( a day before registration). Soon after arrival to campus I was dropped to my room in an ambulance (no, I was not injured or ill!!). Thanks to Arjun Singh's rapid expansion plan of IITs and IIMs. The new hostels were not yet completed so, we ( 60 out of 240) have been accommodated in newly built staff quarters. These staff quarters are slightly far from the rest of hostels. This distance adds 5-10 minutes overhead to every work of my routine. Another bad thing about these staff quarters is that these are not connected to Institiute's LAN. This resulted in having no net connection. The good thing about these quarters is that I have got attached bathroom (so, no waiting queues even during peak hours!!!). Currently I am sharing room with another guy from Bangalore. Sharing room is another something that people usually doesn’t like. But given the current tight schedule and no net connection at room, most of the time room is occupied by only one person. The interesting point is that the current busy schedule makes the need of single room even less important!!!
Before coming to this place I was anticipating that the registration and hostel allotment process would be a real pain. I still have the bad memories of standing in long queues and filling up the same information in countless number of forms during my admission process at IIT Roorkee, 6 years back. Surprisingly here these official procedures were smoother than my imaginations. Don't know if things have changed so over the period of 6 years or B-schools are good at managing processes.
To add to my surprise was the loan disbursement process of banks. Here it was a tough competition between State Bank of India and State bank of Indore. They both were trying their best to lure students to opt for their loan. Bank staffs were chasing the students worse than the credit card agents use to chase employed persons in cities. They were running with readymade drafts and telling students - Sir, aapne loan liya kya?? agar nahi liya hai to ye check lijiye and kal deposit kar dijiye aur formalities kal complete karenge! Even though I have already got my loan approved from State Bank of India before coming here, the bank personnels arrived at my room 3-4 times with drafts in their hands. Everytime I said that I have already got the loan. Their question was - achcha, kahan se liya loan?? As I said, State Bank of India se liya hai! This was resulting in a relaxed smile on the face of State Bank of India's staff and a sad expression on the State Bank of Indore's staff.
On 29th night seniors called a meeting of our batch and they announced a shocking schedule for us for coming weeks. We were told to assemble at Hostel lawn at 5.15 AM. From 5.30 AM it was physical exercises for 1 hour and then from 6.30 AM was the one hour lecture of SAD (Self Awareness and Discovery!!) and most importantly YOGA for another one hour!! Just after listening this schedule, the instant reaction was what the fuck is this?? This was just not enough, we have to attend the classes from 9.30 AM and to add all these miseries I was staying 5-10 minutes away from hostel! But, now when those morning rituals are over and a story of past I can say that was not so bad. In fact that helped a bit to get accustomed to the routine for the coming 20 months. I am not going to write the details of these routines here.
On the day of registration we got some 8-9 books, few spiral notes, few notebooks and other stationery items. We also got a 2-3 page printed document and the staff told us--- this is the case for your tomorrow’s introductory class. Oh! What is this? We are supposed to start study from the very first day! The next day it was inaugural of our program. BCG, India Director, Dr. Harshvardhan was the chief guest. On the day of inaugural I woke up at 5.00 AM and went for morning rituals (Exercises, SAD, YOGA etc.). Once the morning rituals were over I came back to room and then attended the inaugural ceremony. I tried my best to be awake during the inaugural and luckily I succeeded in that. After that it was the introductory class and that too a case discussion and for 70 minutes!! A big challenge for me! People who know me can imagine that how can I attend a 70 minutes class without sleeping? Anyways I was trying my best to remain active in class. The first impression of the prof also made me aware that I have to be careful. What a cool prof… He asked 3 guys to stand in a corner for the whole class (that too after negotiation.. else he asked them to leave class!). The mistake of these guys was that they didn’t bring the case printout with them. After some 40-45 minutes I yawned badly and that prof saw me in the class of 62 at that particular moment. “Do this next time, leave the class” was his immediate reaction! The sitting arrangement (fix seat in the class with nameplates in front of your desk) adds another pain.
Life is not so bad. God can’t be always so harsh on me. Just some adjustments were required and as an average Indian I am also not bad at this life of adjustments! Now it has been about 2 weeks and I am used to this routine. After attending the few nightmare lectures (how can I forget Material Science by bcc..fcc, Physics by Kelu..and many more..) By some of the pathetic profs at IIT Roorkee it was not much difficult to get used to the lectures here. Here I can classify profs under the category of good and bad but, almost everyone try his/her best in order to make classes interactive. At least they are tech savy! There are 8 courses in this semester. Few of them are interesting and few others are just to be digested. Fortunately we have Economics. I like Economics and have got the prof who tries to make it more interesting with his crazy jokes. Few of the jokes I can recall…
While explaining indifference curve he spoke 20 units of clothing and 30 units of food and then he clarified, don’t worry about the units the concept is more important. Unit of cloth may be meter for Rekhajee and Centimeter for Rakhijee!!
While explaining the concept of consumer satisfaction, he spoke that the basic assumption here is that “more is better”. Then he suddenly reacts ..there may be exceptions.. more of spouses is not better or that may also be better for some people!!
The best of the lot was when he was explaining the concept of marginal utility. In order to explain that once you get more amount of anything you are less willing to sacrifice any other thing for an additional unit of that thing (which you already have more). He told.. ”do you watch these IIFA awards, Filmfare awards…you would have noticed that for the first song the actresses/actors come fully dressed and then start removing their cloths very fast and when in the end they left with two or three pieces whatever you say they completely stop removing cloths. While that is time when people eagerly waits for the removal of those 2-3 pieces!!! What an example…now no one can forget the concept of marginal utility!!
Though being a South Indian he always enjoys pulling legs of South Indian eating habits. He never forgets to site an example of Kellogs. “Kellogs came India 10-15 years back with a goal in mind of changing the breakfast habit of Indians even if it takes 30-40 years. He says it seems almost impossible. Go to Chennai…in morning anywhere you will get Idalies at the rate of 50 paisa an Idaly. In Rs. 5 you will get 10 Idalies. So, why a south Indian would prefer paying Rs. 90 for 200 Gms of Kellogs instead of paying Rs. 5 for 10 Idalies!!!”
This is not all about the Economics. There are countless of graphs, theories and equations. But, yes studying Economics is interesting!
Some of my good friends might be wondering that I have not written anything about Indore yet whereas they claim I came to Indore by choice! Great! When I hear that I have come to IIMI by choice it adds some height to my greatness! Getting only 2 calls and finally converting IIMI only, I didn’t have a choice. But, these comments make me feel that I have opted for Indore. Last week riots and then subsequent curfew made it impossible to visit Indore city yet. This weekend it will be preparation of reports, presentations and studying for quizzes. So, It seems I will not be able to comment on Indore for coming few days. In the end what all I can say is..yes, I am enjoying life at IIMI and Indore!!
After moving across the width and height of the country for last two months, finally I am settled for two years in Indore (better to say IIM Indore!!). I will prefer to say IIM Indore or Planet-I (IIMI is commonly known as Planet-I.... especially among student communities) not because to add IIM, but in order to reflect the real feel of this place. This place is about 20 Kms from Indore Railway station and airport. So, from Monday to Saturday life remains confined to the boundaries of IIMI or maximum it reaches till Rau (the local market place..about 3-4 Kms from here). Study, enjoy or celebrate - for all the purposes, we have campus as the only choice and that makes it a different planet. I have not yet got a chance to roam around Indore. We planned to go to city on last Sunday but the riots and subsequent curfew screwed our plan.
I reached here on 29th June ( a day before registration). Soon after arrival to campus I was dropped to my room in an ambulance (no, I was not injured or ill!!). Thanks to Arjun Singh's rapid expansion plan of IITs and IIMs. The new hostels were not yet completed so, we ( 60 out of 240) have been accommodated in newly built staff quarters. These staff quarters are slightly far from the rest of hostels. This distance adds 5-10 minutes overhead to every work of my routine. Another bad thing about these staff quarters is that these are not connected to Institiute's LAN. This resulted in having no net connection. The good thing about these quarters is that I have got attached bathroom (so, no waiting queues even during peak hours!!!). Currently I am sharing room with another guy from Bangalore. Sharing room is another something that people usually doesn’t like. But given the current tight schedule and no net connection at room, most of the time room is occupied by only one person. The interesting point is that the current busy schedule makes the need of single room even less important!!!
Before coming to this place I was anticipating that the registration and hostel allotment process would be a real pain. I still have the bad memories of standing in long queues and filling up the same information in countless number of forms during my admission process at IIT Roorkee, 6 years back. Surprisingly here these official procedures were smoother than my imaginations. Don't know if things have changed so over the period of 6 years or B-schools are good at managing processes.
To add to my surprise was the loan disbursement process of banks. Here it was a tough competition between State Bank of India and State bank of Indore. They both were trying their best to lure students to opt for their loan. Bank staffs were chasing the students worse than the credit card agents use to chase employed persons in cities. They were running with readymade drafts and telling students - Sir, aapne loan liya kya?? agar nahi liya hai to ye check lijiye and kal deposit kar dijiye aur formalities kal complete karenge! Even though I have already got my loan approved from State Bank of India before coming here, the bank personnels arrived at my room 3-4 times with drafts in their hands. Everytime I said that I have already got the loan. Their question was - achcha, kahan se liya loan?? As I said, State Bank of India se liya hai! This was resulting in a relaxed smile on the face of State Bank of India's staff and a sad expression on the State Bank of Indore's staff.
On 29th night seniors called a meeting of our batch and they announced a shocking schedule for us for coming weeks. We were told to assemble at Hostel lawn at 5.15 AM. From 5.30 AM it was physical exercises for 1 hour and then from 6.30 AM was the one hour lecture of SAD (Self Awareness and Discovery!!) and most importantly YOGA for another one hour!! Just after listening this schedule, the instant reaction was what the fuck is this?? This was just not enough, we have to attend the classes from 9.30 AM and to add all these miseries I was staying 5-10 minutes away from hostel! But, now when those morning rituals are over and a story of past I can say that was not so bad. In fact that helped a bit to get accustomed to the routine for the coming 20 months. I am not going to write the details of these routines here.
On the day of registration we got some 8-9 books, few spiral notes, few notebooks and other stationery items. We also got a 2-3 page printed document and the staff told us--- this is the case for your tomorrow’s introductory class. Oh! What is this? We are supposed to start study from the very first day! The next day it was inaugural of our program. BCG, India Director, Dr. Harshvardhan was the chief guest. On the day of inaugural I woke up at 5.00 AM and went for morning rituals (Exercises, SAD, YOGA etc.). Once the morning rituals were over I came back to room and then attended the inaugural ceremony. I tried my best to be awake during the inaugural and luckily I succeeded in that. After that it was the introductory class and that too a case discussion and for 70 minutes!! A big challenge for me! People who know me can imagine that how can I attend a 70 minutes class without sleeping? Anyways I was trying my best to remain active in class. The first impression of the prof also made me aware that I have to be careful. What a cool prof… He asked 3 guys to stand in a corner for the whole class (that too after negotiation.. else he asked them to leave class!). The mistake of these guys was that they didn’t bring the case printout with them. After some 40-45 minutes I yawned badly and that prof saw me in the class of 62 at that particular moment. “Do this next time, leave the class” was his immediate reaction! The sitting arrangement (fix seat in the class with nameplates in front of your desk) adds another pain.
Life is not so bad. God can’t be always so harsh on me. Just some adjustments were required and as an average Indian I am also not bad at this life of adjustments! Now it has been about 2 weeks and I am used to this routine. After attending the few nightmare lectures (how can I forget Material Science by bcc..fcc, Physics by Kelu..and many more..) By some of the pathetic profs at IIT Roorkee it was not much difficult to get used to the lectures here. Here I can classify profs under the category of good and bad but, almost everyone try his/her best in order to make classes interactive. At least they are tech savy! There are 8 courses in this semester. Few of them are interesting and few others are just to be digested. Fortunately we have Economics. I like Economics and have got the prof who tries to make it more interesting with his crazy jokes. Few of the jokes I can recall…
While explaining indifference curve he spoke 20 units of clothing and 30 units of food and then he clarified, don’t worry about the units the concept is more important. Unit of cloth may be meter for Rekhajee and Centimeter for Rakhijee!!
While explaining the concept of consumer satisfaction, he spoke that the basic assumption here is that “more is better”. Then he suddenly reacts ..there may be exceptions.. more of spouses is not better or that may also be better for some people!!
The best of the lot was when he was explaining the concept of marginal utility. In order to explain that once you get more amount of anything you are less willing to sacrifice any other thing for an additional unit of that thing (which you already have more). He told.. ”do you watch these IIFA awards, Filmfare awards…you would have noticed that for the first song the actresses/actors come fully dressed and then start removing their cloths very fast and when in the end they left with two or three pieces whatever you say they completely stop removing cloths. While that is time when people eagerly waits for the removal of those 2-3 pieces!!! What an example…now no one can forget the concept of marginal utility!!
Though being a South Indian he always enjoys pulling legs of South Indian eating habits. He never forgets to site an example of Kellogs. “Kellogs came India 10-15 years back with a goal in mind of changing the breakfast habit of Indians even if it takes 30-40 years. He says it seems almost impossible. Go to Chennai…in morning anywhere you will get Idalies at the rate of 50 paisa an Idaly. In Rs. 5 you will get 10 Idalies. So, why a south Indian would prefer paying Rs. 90 for 200 Gms of Kellogs instead of paying Rs. 5 for 10 Idalies!!!”
This is not all about the Economics. There are countless of graphs, theories and equations. But, yes studying Economics is interesting!
Some of my good friends might be wondering that I have not written anything about Indore yet whereas they claim I came to Indore by choice! Great! When I hear that I have come to IIMI by choice it adds some height to my greatness! Getting only 2 calls and finally converting IIMI only, I didn’t have a choice. But, these comments make me feel that I have opted for Indore. Last week riots and then subsequent curfew made it impossible to visit Indore city yet. This weekend it will be preparation of reports, presentations and studying for quizzes. So, It seems I will not be able to comment on Indore for coming few days. In the end what all I can say is..yes, I am enjoying life at IIMI and Indore!!
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