Not again. Seriously...not again. I have been here for less than 3 months & this would be the 4th time I would be writing exams. Last time when I was in the business of writing pages & pages of bullshit was during CA...& those were like once in 6 months. At times I curse myself & the imbecile decision which took me out of my cosy cocoon & planted me in this mad mad place.

Enough of cribbing...I do love this place. But that doesn't actually shift the focus away from the exams. There I go again...I think the crib factor is a bit too high today, so please bear with me. I just thought that I have written a lot about the fun we have around here, the parties, the all night-outs, the general chill out sessions. Let me portray things from a different point of view today. Make no mistake about it, ISB is a seriously tough place to be in. You loosen up a bit & you are like miles behind in the race. So here goes my account of a typical day:

10.25 am : Wake up (after ignoring numerous snoozes on my mobile)
10.45 am : Rush for 1st class (usually with breakfast in hand)
11.45 am : Break...mad dash for coffee
12.15 pm : Feeling sleep taking control....man, gotta do some CP
12.45 pm : Class over...rush to Goel...more crap food....why can't they have some decent food for a change
1.15 pm : General chit chat in the Atrium...thinking whether to go for the 2nd class or go to studio & sleep
1.45 pm : The class wins...sigh
2.00 pm : Asleep in class....(nudge from my neighbour - prof is looking at you)...who gives a damn
2.45 pm : Break....mad dash for coffee
3.00 pm : Asleep...again
3.45 pm : Class over...tell study group that I need to catch up on my sleep
4.00 pm : Asleep....at least now I am in my bed
6.00 pm : Stumble into LRC..
6.00 pm - 8.00 pm : Refine Markstrat decision & mail to TA
8.00 pm : Dinner
9.00 pm : Markstrat decision....we got $150 mn this time!!!
9.30 pm : Start reading Eco...Solow Curve & Y, K, L etc etc
12.30 am : Enough of Eco...oh shit, had almost forgotten about the DMOP homework submission -> Start DMOP
2.00 am : LRC closes down...down to CCD
3.00 am : Still DMOP
4.00 am : Still DMOP
5.00 am : Stagger back home....gotta do compstrat pre-read...the case is only 60 pages long
6.00 am : zzzzzzz......(pre-read can go to hell)

Sort of the way the day pans out. It's brutal, it's killing....but there is a sense of joy & accomplishment when we actually drop the assignment into those stupid drop-boxes. Life is tough but we are really living upto it.

A great thing we did in this term was to run away to Hampi for a weekend. You can read about it here. I thought of writing about it but then ID is a poet...he does & will do a better job anyday. Also if there is a remote possibility of anybody wanting to see the pics of the trip they can be seen here. Now that the travel bug has bit us, we plan to do Pondy after the mid terms in Term 3.

By now, all the clubs have get their teams in place things are hotting up. Lot of activities/new initiatives are lined up (yours truly has volunteered for quite a few & is expected to co-lead a couple of them!). We had a session with BCG, Microsoft & Google. But the best thing probably was a chat by Dr Ric Charlesworth on lessons of business from sports. Dr Ric was an olympian & world cup winner with the Aussie hockey team. Plus he coached the Aussie hockey team to 2 successive Olympics Gold Medals & 2 World Cups. Plus he was a member of the Australian Parliament for 10 years. And oh....he is also a doctor. Seriously inspirational stuff. Kudos to VR (ex India hockey captain himself) for arranging that.

I go home next week for the first time in 3 months. I am taking quite a lot of work to Delhi. Have a pretty big agenda...meet folks back in office, get some industry contacts, find out what PwC is thinking about recruitment this year...& so on. Let's see how much I can get done. Apart from that all i want to do is loaf around & get some proper food inside me. Also have to find out if any new food joints have opened up. I seriously miss Sabina Sehgal Saikia's reviews in the Friday TOI. Miss Flavors, Big Chill, Mainland China & other fab places. But what I miss most is some good old fashioned true homemade rice & fish curry.....

So long...

So the first month is over. And what a month it has been. But I am getting these conflicting feelings. At times it feels like I walked in yesterday....at times it feels as if I have been here for ages.


There are a lot of things happening around us. The foremost has to be the mid terms. Now, I am sort of mentally okay with the exams thing. But there are 2 things I am definitely not being able to reconcile with:
1. No study leave before exams
2. No chilling out period after they get over

I mean, how can ISB do this to us? We have classes till thursday (for which we are expected to do our pre-reads), our exams are on Friday & Saturday & then on Monday we have a Stats quiz & a marketing assignment due on Tuesday. "Bachhe ka jaan loge kya?"

We have new profs from tomorrow. We had our last classes with RS, AB, DB & MV over the last 2 days. I have spoken at length about their quality & the finesse with which they have conducted the class. It speaks volumes for their ability that each of them got a standing ovation from the entire class. I do hope the profs to come are of the same standard. It's a pleasure & privilege to learn from the masters of the trade. I loved the small poem MV left us with. I don't remember the exact words but the basic meaning was - we'll meet again and we'll be happy to see each other & if we aren't happy then this parting probably makes more sense. Even RS gave a superb closing speech...in one year you all will forget me, forget the stats class, but you will have a great set of friends....learn together, enjoy together, grow together...AB also had a fantastic closing. Undoubtedly the last 1 hr was the best he taught during the entire course. DB deserves a very speciall mention here. He had, to my opinion, the driest subject...marketing. The enthusiasm he brought to the class, the involvement he managed to extract from us (CP or no CP) was simply awesome. Hats off to all of them. They are simply the best people I have ever learned from.


Section E wanted to have a dress code for the day. We actually woke up sometime late last night to get something going. Around 2 at night we had reached a consensus. The theme was Blazers + Shorts (preferably with a tie). As always, this decision was not unanimous. In the end, around 8 of us turned up like that...but, there were almost 40 other guys who wore blazers. So all in all, a good showing.

I leave you with a couple of pictures taken in the last couple of days. My next post will in all probabilities be after the mid terms. Till then.....ATB

It's been a long time since I have been part of a Section anywhere. I have studied in sections B, D, D2 (!!!) & C for various durations during my school. I'm not really counting college here since I hardly ever attended it. I obviously knew that in ISB one is divided into sections for the core terms. But there was always a doubt in my mind about how this is going to work out. I mean, you take 75 strangers, all from different cities, qualifications & work experience & put them in a room & say that you guys are going to study together for the next 6 months. It's kind of weird.

The registration day is when one comes to know about his section. I got Section E. I was slightly sad....only due to the fact that I would have preferred C or D as these were the sections in school where I had the most fun. But, section selection is absolutely the pregorative of ISB & if I had gone to them with a request on the above mentioned grounds they probably would have asked me to go back to South Point again. We are, however, all given Section T-Shirts. The Sec E T-shirtis cool. It's in black with the E written in a zany style in purple. As the alums told us, we are generally required to wear it for any inter-section activity like sports & stuff.

Also, apparently all the Sections have their own chants. Some of them are pure shit....like D's Go-D-Go & Sec F's 4-3-2-1 Sec F is no. 1. On the other hand ours i.e. Rock-E-eeeee & Sec C (Sec-C rhyming with sexy) is pretty cool. The alums took us through the paces & soon you could feel the Audi just pulsing with 450 people screaming their own section chants. Right at that moment, I realised....ISB has got this bang-on. Apart from the logistical simplicity of dividing people up, it gives an amazing oppurtunity to get to know people better & to foster a feeling of competition & rivalry.

Sec E formally met for some classroom sessions on Thursday. As the entire section introduced themselves, one thing was very apparent. There is a fantastic diversity among the people here. We had people with just about 2 yrs of work-ex to people with over 10 yrs, people from IT, Media, Consulting, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Event Management, Doctors etc etc. It would be fun learning with them & also learning from them.

We also had the Sports in the last week. Football we lost out on goal difference & could not qualify for the semis & in cricket we lost in the final. Both, incidentally, were won by Sec C. We won the quiz though. And tonight is the talent nite. I, obviously, will be just a part of the audience. Once that's over the inter-section points for the orientation week would be announced. As of now, C probably has the edge. But we won't be much far behind either. Tonight would be the key night. Let's see how things work out.