Day 356: 1st Sep, 2010

Bye for another week :)

PS: Strat man was simple. RM was weird :-|

Day 346: 22nd Aug, 2010

♫ "Woke up this morning, Got up with the fear of SM!" ♫

Needed to start (and finish) the SM project in a few hours before it was time for the extra lecture in Retail (on a Sunday, yes, :-( , sad, I know). Sud seems to have gone off the map, so I guess another consecutive ditch putting all the load on me. Never mind, taking a "cosmos" point of view, I think I'll balance it out next term (INDEX term!). Finished that thing.

Next up was a guest lecture by the founder of Crossword - R Sriram. Luckily, that lecture turned out to be nice. One of the things I found interesting was this thought he gave on rules; most organisations make rules for the 1% who are the outliers, people who'll do silly things. But what you can do instead is to relax those rules, make life more comfortable for the 99% and treat that 1% as a business cost. Point to ponder.

Next up was our conB viva. As I keep saying always, the prof is too good, really nice person. In his email informing us about the viva, he wrote - "my request is all of you should come with pleasant faces" :D. The viva itself went off smoothly, thanks to Bansal ji. 

Sunday dinner in the mess is made to push you to go out and enjoy :) . And of course, such things are to be followed. Off we went to Richi Rich - last minute ditch by Vanki, not sure why/for whom ;-)

Day 340: 16th Aug, 2010

Fortunately, I came to realize that I had wrongly been marked absent for 2 sessions of Retail Marketing, one of which was a graded field visit. Got that reversed (much needed, considering other factors).

Another thing that I seem to observe about myself is that my efficiency is exponentially proportional to available time, albeit (unfortunately) - negatively. When I do not have much time, I sometimes amaze myself with the work I do. Sadly, today I had ample time, and I was most inefficient in terms of return-on-time-invested, in my job of preparing a simple brief for INDEX. Very bad, I must improvise on this.

Day 339: 15th Aug, 2010

First things first,

Wish you all a very Happy Independence Day! :)

Managed to wake up well in time today to attend the flag hoisting ceremony. In fact, even managed to squeeze in my breakfast before the 9am event! :D . Pretty ironical, considering I miss my breakfast on most weekdays even though I have morning classes; but managed to have it on a Sunday.

The event was immediately followed by another irony, as 60 students (including yours truly) lost their freedom to a project submission. One of our group members took ill, so we had to patch up his part too. The even more difficult part was in finding somebody who had an active print account (most 2nd year students had exhausted their balance!). Then, as expected, caught a facchi who was kind enough to consent to an expense of 23 Rs. (yes, this is exactly why 2nd years don't have any balance - they get looted off by "smarter" classmates and "lesson-learnt" seniors).

As soon as I came back to my room, I somehow slipped into a nice loooong siesta. Remained dazed even as I went to have my dinner and stuff. That's the side-effect of a long sleep - keeps you in a stupor.

The only time I managed to come out of it was when we suddenly put some thought on getting our conB work done. Went to the night mess, from there to the CC. One useful tip: it pays to have a multi billionaire in your group ;-) . Thanks to the great Vanki, we took 160 printouts - 40 copies of a questionnaire, 4 pages each. Half the job done. The other half - getting them filled! ;-)

Anyways, that's for tomorrow. Getting back to my tryst with the Sleep Goddess for now. Can't even afford to miss Retail lecs anymore!

And yes... Jai Hind! :)

Days 334,335: 10th-11th Aug, 2010

Now this is simple inexcusable. I missed yesterday's entry out of sheer laziness! :-(

Wasn't the best start to the day, as I missed yet another session of retail due to oversleeping. I can't understand what the problem here is. Sleeping late is definitely not the ans; have slept late and woken up early many many times.No use pondering, but I do need to know the reason soon so that I can avoid it! Definitely can't afford to take grade drops and all.

The highlight of yesterday of course was the complete kabzaa of my room that INDEX facchas had done. They have just started working on a PGP1 exclusive event, and I did not have the heart to drive them out of my room as they did INDEX work for the first time together (with 2 of their men down!); guess I would have sacrificed any of my personal activity for facilitating that.

Just realised another WOW thing. I had dinner from outside on both these days. Yesterday, we went to Richi Rich (our 3rd visit in 2 weeks!) and had the veg kebab combo. All 6 of us ordered the samn thing :D . Today, we had pizza from Domino's - except that it was made right at the mess where they have put up a temporary outlet.

Now for some strange reason, our SM prof decided to ask us to submit an assignment - which would be graded, to make it a best 2 out of 3 scenario. I took Kisaan's assignment - to make changes in his - and submit mine too. Found out he had akso got a lot of stuff from a document on docstop!! Sat in the afternoon and read and analysed the whole case myself! :)

Day 333: 9th Aug, 2010

Woke up exactly 8 min before my Retail class. Even got ready pretty quickly, and then realised I don't have my bike, and it's too far off to run. So skipped it :D

Contrast this with the conB extra class in the evening. Fought against sleep, boredom, disinterest to sit through 1.5 hrs. And then came to know there is no attendance for this session :-(

Life is cruel at times!

Had our first official meeting with the facchas. Gave them some dope on an immediate action plan for them. Very nice bunch of people - you can feel assured they'll make INDEX bigger and better when they get the chance :)

Day 333: 8th Aug, 2010

Heee haw haw haw! Super funny incident - I was lying on my bed in the afternoon when all of a sudden Vanki comes up and asks this -

"oyee.. what do you call an umbrella in hindi?"

:D :D

Apparently, he wanted to communicate something with one of the fellows at (the Awesome) GnB, but couldn't get his point across for want of this :D

Spent a good amount of time on the Retail Marketing Final Project. But the problem is, having people like Sud in my group is super helpful, but in a weird sort of manner, also a little painful. She has just completed her internship at PUMA - and all the knowledge which I discovered and documented after these long hours seems peanuts for her :-( . Sheah - have promised to put in some more time and improve my deliverable - hope to get that done asap.

Our Ops guru is on campus (yet again! :-p). We all met up at Fauji, along with the facchas and did some tp. Then had the laugh of my life as he showed me one particular pic that was taken last year during recruitments - hahahaha! Some people are just so weird!! :D

Day 327: 2nd Aug, 2010

One of those typical days.

Was pretty tired yesterday, so happened to doze off comparatively early. Woke up today at 6. Stop alarm. Then at 7. Stop alarm. Then at 8. Stop alarm. Then at 9.30 - Get alarmed about missing the lecture and RUSH for it! Missed breakfast :-(

A very interesting incident happened in the Strat Man class - I suddenly saw the usually docile Tiwari furiously scribbling away and making notes in a book :-O . I was super amazed, and wanted to ask him about his actions, in a manner as if he had broken some unspoken brotherly code. I forgot about it at the end of the lecture. I only had to wait for another hour though - when I went to play Bridge in the evening, I realised he was jotting down relevant stuff!

To give company to the infinite book (Atlas Shrugged), I have also started watching the infinite movie (LOTR 2 - The Twin Towers). There seems to be no concept of 'finite' for these two things!

Day 320: 26th Jul, 2010

Just continuing from where I left, I gave a pretty decent presentation, on the content I prepared yesterday :)

Had another of those market visits. Went to FUN mall in the evening. I took my bike along, so I can enjoy the choice to leave whenever I wanted. Not that I ran off pretty soon, but the bike did come handy. 

Loooooong INDEX meeting today. Almost the end of recruitments now. Umpteen debates on who are the best people to whom the baton should be passed. Final presentations tomorrow - the last chance for facchas to prove themselves, the final lap they have to run. Lets see who makes it to the final cut. All the best to the candidates! :)

Day 319: 25th Jul, 2010

Wow, woke up at 8.10 in the morning - all by myself. Not bad. Rushed for the e-Choupal visit (8 am was the time the bus was to leave, but come on :) , one knows better :P ). I reached at around 8.35, thankfully not much blame on me as 2 others came in after me :D. A two hour journey to a place called Hardoi. I tried to get some sleep, but as usual, wasn't able to doze off in the bus.

The visit itself was quite interesting. We first went to the Choupal Sagar where we had a small session on the way the whole thing works. Came to know that ITC comes second in procurement (roughly 10%), after the government. There is a strong insistence on quality. The whole process has ensured much fairer prices to farmers. And while I was imagining that their biggest obstacle would be to sell the concept to farmers, the ground reality was something that I had not expected - competition from the government while procurement!

Then we went to an actual e-Choupal center a few kilometres away (walking some distance because the bus driver wanted to avoid scratches from the tree branches :-| .. ). We met the Sanchalak, who happens to be a popular person in the village, whose responsibility is to share the information with the farmers. And one of the most noticeable things about both these sessions was the interaction level of the students. Some super-duper CP levels were reached - just shows the students will be enthusiastic if you feed them something interesting.

I guess it's true when they say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Paid Rs. 75/- per lunch - not very subsidised eh? :P . Indulged in a little walk inside the Choupal Sagar retail outlet. Treated myself to 3 hours of my ipod shuffle on the return journey.

Late at night, got a call from Hariya - our Retail Marketing CR. One of those ominous "Kabira speaking" type of calls which you know is going to bring some bad news :-p . I was told we were to submit a presentation on 2 chapters. I took it up, and spent some 4 hours in building the ppt. I guess it is much more than what I should have taken, but I am hoping the output will be appreciated tomorrow. Lets wait and watch.

Day 318: 24th Jul, 2010

Two guest lectures today. One guy from Ogilvy came for the prom strat class - every time I get drawn and think to myself I should get into advertising. Seems like fun! Had an extra class for Retail Marketing - a lecture from the CEO of Planet M, and an alumnus of our institute - 1992 batch. Good talk - he gave some nice ground level pointers.

Yet another movie! Saw Salt - the Angelina Jolie action flick. Was quite engaging - even though Jolie didn't exactly stick to her core competency :-p . Also, seems like Vanki skipped the show, to avoid "bumping" into us ;-) . Poor fellow, had to make do with the mess :D

Sleeping super late today. It's almost 4. Just gave some feedback to one mentee. Got to wake up in 4 hrs - a visit to ITC e-Choupal planned tomorrow!

Day 315: 21st Jul, 2010

What sort of a test is this?! We got 48 'fill in the blanks' (yes you read it right) today. Without alternatives! :-| . Sometimes I am just clueless about some things! Oh, btw, also had the Strat Man paper in the morning :-) Was a case based paper - yet another open-book exam where the book didn't come into any use!

But the important part - exams over!! To celebrate (bahana!), we went to watch Tere Bin Laden. Though not "very funny", it has its moments. What I would appreciate is that it was well thought out. Wasn't nonsensical just to be funny; though again, that's not really a problem :D

Now for all the hearsay about Lucknow being a great "foodie place", it is pretty much restricted to a few places and mostly only if you are a non-vegetarian. I hadn't found a single place here which served good dosas, which is pretty surprising considering it is one of the easiest things to make! 

Until today.

Went to this place called Dasprakash - famous for South Indian cuisine. Didn't get disappointed :-) Ate some good dosas and uttappas! 

A little weather update - the monsoon finally seems to have come to Lucknow. Twice in the morning this week - it got so chill I had to switch off the fan :D

Day 314: 20th Jul, 2010

And there comes Retail Mark to haunt us :-( . 11 chapters from one book, another 6 from another book and 12 presentations. Even MY day is majorly spent with my nose buried inside the 'Why we Buy' book. Pretty easy and light read though.

Day 306: 12th Jul, 2010

It feel real nice to wake up a good 2 hrs before class. That way you can stop (not snooze!) the alarm and get back to sleep. What's not cool is that the next you wake up, you realise you have overslept by 7 minutes and missed the class :-( . That's the story for Retail class today.

Have been more or less adhering to my compromised every-alternate-day-swimming schedule. The more interesting game however was the ones I played after that. Armed with ONE table tennis bat and a ball, we went to the TT room. The usually present common TT bat wasn't available. So lack of resources prompted creativity. Started playing TT with hand. Also tried playing it with chappals. Finally zeroed in on playing a highly modified version of squash - single player, TT ball, TT bat, wall :D . Was SUPER fun though!

Day 299: 5th Jul, 2010

I had subscribed to the assumption that the mess has some sort of hidden under-the-table contract with Guptaji - the juice wala. The food has been so bad on quite a few occasions that it has kinda become mandatory to gulp down a milkshake with every meal. Now of course, the mess has done a smart thing - they are offering the milkshakes themselves! (at an additional cost of course :P). Jokes apart (though not too much of a joke), something seriously needs to be done about the mess. Under mysterious circumstances, they even took off the popular items like maggi (during snacks).

Hectic day academically. Had to review 12 articles for our RM prof. Had to search for another 3-4 articles for our ConB prof. Argghh!! We have access to a whole bunch of good databases from our library, but still found that it took ages!

The best part of today was however the last part of the day. Me, pachpan and kisaan riding triples on my bike - headlights not working - and going for a purposeless round around the campus :D

Day 285: 21st Jun, 2010

So we had our Retail Mark presentation in the first lecture of the day. I have been super busy with some INDEX work and had no time for playing any part in the making of the ppt. But as my luck with presentations go, I ended up being the introductory speaker on ours :-| .. Used to it by now though :-p

All the students (and for now, quite a few parents) are on campus. And presently, the mess is in a terrible mess. No place to eat, i.e. if there is food left to eat, i.e. if at all you can manage to call it "food" :-|

Celebrated Chatur's bday at midnight. God alone knows why she suddenly became psycho-ish, started chasing us with the sauce bottle in hand. Woh bhi chappal nikaalke :-O . My new unbreakable specs had it's first test. Fortunately, it lived up to it :D

Day 280: 16th Jun, 2010

The interesting thing about today was a visit we had to the local market for our Retail Marketing class. Basically all of us were packed off on a bus and taken to this weekly bazaar that happens at this place called Mahanagar every Wednesday.

What impressed me was the entire setting. Have read in books (ok ok Tinkle :-p) about this kind of weekly markets, but seeing one was an experience. There were literally hundreds of makeshift stalls that had sprung up on the street. Selling absolutely anything and everything. Of course, prices were always jacked up and you had to be that hard-nosed bargainer to get your worth. Easy for me - I know that's not quite my stuff - so stayed away from actually buying anything.

For the class itself, we had to just go around and talk to shopkeepers and get some details. Got a little bit of that. Then treated it like a mini-outing and walked around with Ghate tasting some new items like panna (tasted like pani-puri ka pani), chana kheer, mango kheer (both AWESOME sweets!).

Of course, my mind kept drifting to INDEX. Reason being it was exactly the location where the prior editions of INDEX was held (not possible now since a multi-level parking is being constructed there!!), but I was just super envious of the location. Would be so brilliant to get people there!