The wee(a)k that made us strong

Two mid-terms, a quiz, couple of presentations, few assignments and some lectures sandwiched between them.  All in one week.

Phew! This is overeating.

Welcome to the rigor of GMP - one year MBA at XLRI.

You cannot afford to miss lectures to prepare for other things, you cannot go ill-prepared for presentations and deadlines for assignments are sacrosanct. The only thing you can probably do is to forget about sleep. There was a fest going on in the campus and we were writing economics mid-term or taking notes in accounting lectures with music falling on your ears. Probably we are learning to concentrate without sleep and lots of distractions? 

At last it was over (temporarily). The best part of such restless weeks is the relief you get after they are over. The plan to catch up on sleep goes haywire with micro parties in every room next door going on till birds start chirping in the morning. It was the first crazy weeks since we have joined and we know it was not the last. There are many more to come and one is already looming.

We struggled, we slogged and we helped each other. We came out strong. We partied. 

Cheers GMP.

Stick

Here @ XL : An account of spirited LIFE!

Yes!  We have completed first month of our 15-month life at XL. We have savored every bit of sights and sounds of it. And in the process, we all have been spiritualized with the campus called XLRI. As for most of us, this is a school life after a long so called professional life, I had an image of stern serious folks eating, drinking and washing faces with business jargons and career plans. But on the contrary,the timeless banters, heartfelt laughers, delicate humors , fuming cuppas,  and all engaging camaderie have become the order of the day here @ XL.

A bunch of 120 professionals, by some god’s grace, landed up here in this GMP hostel at XLRI on 10^th June 2012 , with an aim of doing MBA. As time passed, as the ball was set rolling, all we have is a LIFE full of fun and frolic. MBA found a new meaning MMA – Master of Mad Activities. Madness started with the party in between C and D block and now has percolated in almost every nook and corner of XLRI.

Yes, so far it’s been an exciting journey with an underpinning of insanity. Out here it is an immaculate celebration of freedom and spirit. Adding color to it is a colorful bunch of homo-sapience hovering here and there , giving a new meaning to their new found abode after a tiring span of professional life. The rejuvenating vigor defines life here @ GMP , XLRI.

The professors seems to be quite upbeat about the all-embracing madness and are doing every bit they can to spice it up with their quizzes , assignments and mouse traps. A typical day starts with bread and butter , hot tea and talks of Le Oreal  on the corner of the canteen. Topics are abound and they change but what does not change is the verbal dissection   of marketing  case studies – be it coke or gilette – poor souls get a ruthless treatment as do the alu paratha. And finally, the speculation comes to a full circle in the ‘taxing’ class with an acid test of all futile breakfast-brainstorming. The day progresses and the madness in its due course.  In the communication class, our brave soldiers have become Sales Guru or the President or Soft skill expert with their equally intriguing harangue. Some souls preferred HongKong whatsoever and some the dreamland! Demand and Supply demanded a great deal of effort but finally was supplied with oblivion. After a period of one month , atleast I got it clear that hardly anyone in this band of brothers want to make this prized life a liability. And hence naturally, balance sheet of life is unequally heavy towards fun account rather than worries. Asset is the place and time and these 120 characters. Budding managers manage to peep into their future cabin in their dreams when the professors organize all his efforts to behave us. The impending quizzes and assignments must have taken a toll.

All said and done , the passion of this herd is unyielding. They face the quizzes as flamboyantly as they rappelled down the rock in the adventure trip. And, of course, many of them came out with flying colors – as colorful as the trouser of Fraud Shah! Some exhales a long breath  but soon sinks into a game of TT or lawn tennis or badminton.

The spirit is high and it reaches the highest when a dreaded quiz gets over or a weekend is around the corner. At night, after dinner, groups of comrades engage themselves into talks – topics know no bounds – from psychology to philosophy to business to arts to movies. Some takes a stroll thru the lush green park. ‘Aste Aste’ darkness engulfs the compound and the buildings flare up with lights – oh the crazy souls surely have some quiz tomorrow!

We really had ‘Time of our Life’ so far in this one month. This only tells that more exciting time is afoot along the way. With a gloomy economic scenario looming large , the spirits here did its bit to wipe it out from the moods of the gang! None knows what is in store for future. So our mantra is to take the life as it comes and make the most out of this – things will fall in face if we have kidney !!

It was just a glimpse of the mad state of affair that rules the roost here. However, the madness reached its pinnacle in the village and adventure trip. A peep in that trip will follow soon!

First 30 days at XL...

Tomorrow, most of us would have completed one month here in XL, 14 more to go! When I look back, I become more and more confident that coming here was one of the best things happened to me in the long time. Everything that I imagined, is happening here (albeit at a faster pace!), be it ice-breaker  and birthday parties on campus or Saturday night wet parties at some resto in Bistupur , or the endless discussions about forming committees or otherwise or Sunday morning football matches. Loving every bit of it! The moments captured in those pictures may not tell the whole story, but when we’ll get hold of them ten years from now, we’ll surely relive these wonderful, unforgettable moments. Sometimes, I feel, given any random the date and time in the last one month and I would be able to recollect what I was doing exactly!

Merely a month and we have it all: from anxious moments before first marketing quiz or speech in MCN class to late night case analysis to just a pleasing stroll post dinner around the lush-green campus. The zenith, I must say came on the adventure trip, when we returned exasperated with every bone and muscle in the body paining, yet with a  smile on the face , as if we have won a war ! That, one of the kind experience, provided fresh lease of life and will be etched strongly in our memory.

When 120 best brains in the country throng, differences in  opinion are bound to happen, but the way we have handled some of the natural (adventures on the adventure trip) and man (profs) made challenges, with so much ease and bonhomie, only makes my belief stronger that ‘the best is yet to come’. They say, it takes a moment to ‘click’ with someone and, XL has provided aplenty and continues to do so.  The bridges of friendship we have built in such a short span of time, amidst of all those dreadful words like “product cannibalization” and “better mousetrap fallacy”, is simply amazing. Those cerebral discourses in classrooms and around the dining table have now become the order of the day. On the surface, it seems any other class in a b -school of XL’s league, but with every passing day you find, many more poets, singers, dancers, musicians and sportsmen. Yeah, it’s surely gonna be transformation batch.   

Life surely doesn’t look easy with the news  about the sluggish economy emerging every other day, on one hand and so many assignments and quizzes giving those ominous look every other hour, on the other hand but yes, with those endless leg-pulling sessions and laughter in store, I’m sure we’ll leave no stone unturned  to get there.. Where we truly belong. Remember the lines “I have a dream, a song to sing…”?

 Come Alive...Come XLRI !!

Cheers.