Day 513:18th Feb, 2011

Woke up (pretty late) to find that I needed to give the final touches to the FRA document. Got that done just in time to have some (crappy!) lunch, and then dashed off for the Jack&Jill ppt; only to find the guys walking in a complete hour late :-x . And then break the promise of finishing off the ppt in an hour. (No, the few soaps and lotions that were distributed did NOT compensate!)

Some intensive chest exercises at the gym today. Also spersed with some triceps exercises and a 3km run :D . I can feel my muscles getting tougher now ;-) . Might be a little biased though :-)

Had kutte jaisa bhook and even the dinner at the mess was really sad. Kisaan had gone to play a cricket match for sikander and so poor me had to go all alone to Fauzi. But then, you just need to sit at Fauzi for two minutes and you are sure to get company :D . Had dinner with cyberKGP and my Bridge colleagues, funnily over giving some Fin electives' gyaan to some facchas. Had a marketing session scheduled just after that; attendance wasn't mandatory for me, but I figured I wouldn't be doing anything productive anyways. With that simple logic, I went along. Don't know what I learnt, but I know I didn't lose anything.

The night mess visit that followed suddenly left me with a new brainwave - we get brownie there, heated up, with chocolate sauce. How about buying an ice cream from Guptaji to have some home-made (not so) Sizzling Brownie?! Definitely an idea worth a try I guess!

Went to my INDEX junior Mak's room to collect KungFuPanda's sweatshirt. Also ended up giving a little electives' gyaan to him as well. Poor fellow reminded me of the crossroads I was standing at last year...

I think I need to start locking my room when I leave. (Have I mentioned I (and many others) NEVER lock the door of the room while going out?). Yesterday had the instance of a friend randomly posting a status update from my FB account, regarding the way my name is (mis)spelt. Today, I suddenly saw my USB mouse was missing. My detective instincts told me the suspicion would be on Bala. And then, true to his remarkable style, Bala gave yet another demonstration.

Me: Do you have my mouse?

Bala: No, it's with Kisaan

Anyone reading the above statement would infer Kisaan came and took my mouse. But no, the great Bala came, took my mouse, went to Kisaan's room, gave my mouse to him, and took his mouse. And on my quizzing a little more about this 'arrangement', I was (in his characteristic style) "ordered" to use my "hands" till my mouse is available again :-S . The e-sikander AOE addiction :-S

Anyways, my intentions of sleeping early have gone bust big time. Been randomly reading stuff (as usual). 4.20 am now. Just read a random mail from some committee on campus who (God-knows-why) called someone, and now we all mandatorily will have to attend that. Arghh!!

Day 503:8th Feb, 2011 - Last class at helL!

Woah, 3rd consecutive day or so when I am having breakfast! Some record indeed!

The extra morning time and the breakfast turned out to be pretty useful as I had to miss lunch whilst I (started and) finished the PM report (and presentation) for today's class. My last class at helL :-) . My special contribution to myself - inserting a video in the ppt for the first time :P

Day 502:7th Feb, 2011

Woke up early, had breakfast! Then started getting bothered about the FRA project which was due, in 5 hours :-| . Went to the rooms of two of my group members; both were sleeping :-| . Man, term 6 is special! Anyways, one of them told me he had seen "a little" of what's to be done, and that he would come up with "something". Pretty risky terms in that statement, but I was helpless as I anyways had to attend my LD class where again our final presentation was due. That went OK. 

Immediately after my LD class, I contacted my group mates. As guessed, we were still close to have done nothing. Got an AMR guy to do "some regression" on "some data" and get "some result". Meanwhile, I even had to go to our prof to get our presentation scheduled, since we had already missed our alloted time. The good thing is profs are cooperative, definitely so in term 6 :-) . He agreed to see our ppt without any fuss, and having seen our ppt, very calmly declared the lack of effort, but fortunately he gave us another deadline to make improvements :-) 

The good part was in the small time gap between negotiating with the prof and waiting for my group to come, I managed to jump in and have some gulab jamun and Kwality ice-cream for this company's ppt which I didn't even attend. But as you sow, so you reap. The ppt that I was stipulated to attend - for the same company's IT division - didn't have attendance taken. To add salt to the wound, the next ppt which I skipped for my gym session, had attendance :-(

But God's generous. Good ending to the day :-) . Pizza for dinner - KungFu Panda's treat for his General Management PPO! And then lots of (re)Beginner's Luck at bridge! Naice!

Day 500:5th Feb, 2011 - Five Centuries :)

Woke up comparatively early (8.30 is early dude), partly because I still had to finish the LD report by noon, and partly because I had to be (nominally?) present in class for our QAF presentation. Worked around these two conflicting interests by taking my laptop to the QAF session :P

Much of the day was spent filling the application for this multinational FMCG; more specifically in coming up with answers for three HR questions. Each time this happens is like suddenly hitting the 'Pause' button in life and trying to think of what you did. Has the potential side-effect of making you think you live a rather shallow and empty life, hardly doing anything beyond the mundane. But given the fact that we are MBA students, that cannot be true ;-) and thus you keep thinking and re-thinking and writing and re-writing, usually till the deadline appears. I had to attend a game+learning combo session by the same organisation in the evening, and by then I came up with what I thought were pretty decent answers.

Got back to my room and suddenly entered into a Reformist Mode. Day before yesterday, a particular incident happened regarding the way a certain amendment was done. I personally thought the process was unfair, and have been trying to mobilize opinion. All I want to do is have the batch re-think over it :-)

Just got back to my room after a night mess session. Pachpan just got a huge download of politics, scams and other GK stuff from his KGP batchmates and we sat around discussing that for some time. And yes, the deadline for the application has been extended; yes, as usual, the answers were kinda trashed by Pachpan; yes, will give it a re-visit tomorrow.

And yeah, 500 days in helL, every single day on this blog :-) ! Three cheers! :-)

Day 494:30th Jan, 2011 - INDEX 2010: The End

Successfully made it to class for the presentation. That may partly be because of the early morning call I got from one member of my group to wake up Pachpan for some inputs for the presentation. But when we reached the class, and showed it to the prof, he said some additional things needed to be incorporated :-( . Task unfinished.

But none of that was really important. Today was to officially mark the culmination of one long journey - we had the final presentations and results of INDEX 2010 today. That made sure our afternoon was totally engaged, collating the results. It's really sad to see some deserving teams lose out very closely, but I guess that's just an unavoidable part of the game. It's harsh, but you got to do what you got to do! My heartiest congrats to the winners - Team S.I.G.Ma (Special Interest Group in Marketing) as well as to all the other teams for all the fantastic effort they put in.

After resuming my gymming, it was now time for some celebration! We went to this new place Cassia - a buffet kinda place (modeled on BBQ). The chinese was good. And desserts are always good :D . And the best part - it was converted into a treat from Haathi, Kisaan and MMR for their placements! :-)

Day 493:29th Jan, 2011

In spite of sleeping at 6am yesterday, I managed to wake up on time for the 9am class. Initially snoozed the alarms, then stopped them. Got up from the bed. Even applied toothpaste to my toothbrush. And then Pachpan told me the futility of attending the morning class (our group presentation was not happening :-S). And just like that, I went back to sleep :D

Attended LD. And then attended QAF after God knows how long. Nice prof though! I learnt I had exhausted the number of bunks available :-( . In the prof's own words, I need to "be more organised while indulging in this exercise" :D

The boring dinner at the mess (almost an everyday phenomenon now :-| ..) was compensated by some good company, parathas from Fauzi (speeding up the process by collecting them and taking them to my friend's room) and songs on youtube. Back to my room and a little more of Fountainhead. Will have an early Sunday tomorrow, got a presentation, it seems.

Day 487:23rd Jan, 2011 - A Tick on my Checklist :)

So finally another tick on my long-term checklist. I wanted to make myself marathon-capable in these 2 years. Am nowhere close to that, but at least in the past one week, I have made myself capable of running some respectable distance. Today I finished the 8km run successfully. First time I realized and felt how a change in conditions can affect performance. In campus, I trained in the late evenings, when it was quite cold. Today though, the run was at 9am, and the sun was out and bright! And man, does that sap energy or what! But anyways, I am happy. I was only competing with myself ... and I won :-)

Was dead tired after all that. But somehow managed to stay awake. In fact I even attended a ppt for a GM profile from an energy major, which was looking forward to hiring from B-school campuses for the first time. Most noteworthy about that presentation was the presenter ;-)

Didn't have anything to do post that. Met Chatur during snacks and then spent some time watching the informalz. The arm wrestling match between the ladies was super tp :D . It almost always never reached towards a result. Either all girls are equally very strong or equally very weak. (Am not passing any judgement :P). And of course, I would like to remember the one microsecond worth sneak-peek memory that I got in between.

Evening was Bollywood Nite with the famous music duo of Salim Sulaimnan giving music to a scintillating (and raunchy) performance by Neha Bhasin (of Apple Bottoms fame). This was then followed by the (rebellious) party, with drinks NOT being served at the party ;-) . The party was awesome. I tried not to exert my super tired legs, and for a good one hour sat on the stage, using only my upper body for any dancing activity. But couldn't resist the high-energy atmosphere much. I went back to my room, got the red devil horns and the Caribbean cap, and there I was - scorching the dance floor with my moves :D . Both the props turned out to be super hits, with almost everyone borrowing them, eventually even breaking the horns. But I guess it served its purpose well :)

Post some 'conflict resolution', Pachpan, Kisaan (in the angry young man mode), GD, QuizChamp and myself spent some time at Fauzi, generally chatting away. Back to my room and it's almost 5.30am now. My body's seems to be absolutely broken :) . Lets see what happens tomorrow :D

Day 485:21st Jan, 2011 - Manfest 2011 starts!

Wasn't feeling too good when I got up. But still somehow went to the LD class as we had a presentation today and I was playing a substantial role this time, answering 2 out of 3 questions about the case. Had to leave the lecture midway though. Turns out it was just a case of a slight tummy upset :P

After a string of bad movies, we were really looking forward to see Dhobi Ghat, especially given the fact that it starred Aamir Khan and that the trailers were very promising. Could not have met with a bigger disappointment :-| . It definitely can't be called a "movie". At best, it was a stitch of 3-4 extremely amateurishly shot videos. The first time I actually experienced absolutely not understanding when the movie ended - suddenly the screen blacked out and names started rolling. Makwana's surely not getting the money back for this one! :P

Anyways, our annual management fest or Manfest is here! Today started off with a performance by Rahul Sharma on the santoor. (As expected, Vanki didn't even know that instrument :D). Good performance - these instruments have such a pleasing sound! Pachpan, kisaan and myself had pizza for dinner, sponsored to us by Manfest's Mr. Olam :D

As usual, lots of alums are here. Nice catching up with them. In fact, was about to get some sleep at around 2.30 when this bugger Jiggy came up. Some general chit-chatting and the usual 'corporate' cribbing and now the time is 4.30am. Sigh, just can't seem to avoid it.

Day 469:5th Jan, 2011 - Life in a freezer

A surprise test greeted us today in the FRA class. Luckily for me, it was non-evaluative :D.

But the big thing to write about would definitely be the temperature here! The barometer is hitting rock bottom! I woke up at 6.15 in the morning to check why my heater had stopped working. Only to realise it has not! :-S . It is THAT cold! And the fog too! At 9am, I can't even see Umang (the sports center - easily visible from my balcony usually).

Had a company ppt to attend late evening. Inspired myself to squeeze in a quick gym session before that. Didn't feel too well though. Managed only 3 minutes on the tread mill. Reduced all the other exercises to ensure I would shave, bathe, suit up and still get to the ppt on time. Only to realize the ppt was getting too delayed. And yea, the 'last mover advantage' theory is now more wide-spread. A lot more people were willing to explore that option, even bringing themselves to face the deterring cold outside the classroom. But, jo jeeta wohi sikander ;-) and yes, yours truly managed to ace it again :D

Day 466:2nd Jan, 2011

I have this weird sort of work experience duration which makes me just eligible for the laterals process as such, however still keeping me NOT eligible for most companies! The good thing about that was that I started working on my CV a little earlier and since this does not matter too much to me, the 'final version' of CV for this one would be a pretty good 'rough draft' for the actual finals process. The flip side of course is that it is boring to be the 12th man; kinda like you are a part of the team but you aren't playing. (I think sitting in the audience is a better deal.) Anyways, now and then a company comes along willing to take a look at those few people (who for some reason are considered 'immature' because of a 6-month lag, but some systems are difficult to explain). And there I was, back to filling those long HR forms. The good part of such an exercise is that it makes you pause and ponder what you have been doing with your life. The bad part is the honest answer that pops up in your head.

But still there I was, putting some ink on the paper. Worked on it in the morning a little and then again a little post lunch. Couldn't really figure out some things, tried to take some feedback from Chatur, resulting in two confused souls instead of one :D. Well I just put if off for later.

A company ppt was a bit of a speed breaker there. Luckily for me, a new phenomenon just seems to have hit town. It's called the 'Last mover advantage' ;-) . Thankfully, that allowed me to spare enough time for a kebab paratha dinner at Richi Rich. Long time after which I had something other than mess food. Good Sunday.

Back to my room and to the form. Was a couple of minutes late for submission :-( . Hope the fine is spared!

Day 456:23rd Dec, 2010

The day began pretty early as I had to go for part 2 of the process. I overslept a little (was calculated though :P), but hey, nothing more important than a relaxed mind :D . No hot water anywhere in the hostel (including the bathrooms in the top floor!), so I had to make-do with a shave. Reached the pcom office pretty much on time, as it seemed like the interviewers also preferred a little extra rest after the longish night :D . The process was like any other - sitting and waiting for your turn, whiling the time, trying to understand and probably figure out the kind of things being asked to others. Came to know the chit chat basically happened on the HR questions, and that is what happened with me too. (Except for the one binomial expansion!). All in all, I though it went OK.

Came back to my room after the Leadership Discovery class and caught up with the sleep missed out earlier. Woke up and called up AP to find out that only two people made it through, one of them a friend who had got an extended shortlist. Good for him! (No suspense, the other guy wasn't me :D).

Didn't have much to do again. So back to the new addiction - Dexter. Just as I was starting up on that, MMR came up and told me that "as committee members", we had to attend a session (mandatory!) for some event that was being conducted. Didn't turn out to be a bad deal for him - he ended up winning a Blackberry! And not too bad for us - we got free pizzas!

Day 455:22nd Dec, 2010 - Suited up!

Our FRA class was full entertainment today. The prof has a weird sense of humor. First was his playing around with the a < b < c representation. Then his only and specific involvement of the Stex student in pronouncing the foreign author names. And then the interaction during attendance - "Does any friend of his know why he hasn't comes for any lecture yet? Not a single friend? Everyone is his enemy?" and in response to a guy saying someone was absent as that person had fever "Why are you feeling shy to say that? Did you give it to him?" :D

Came back to my room and suddenly it so happened a process was to start today. Had to cut short on my trading timepass in order to take a bath. My quest for hot water took me across to 3 sets of bathrooms, including the one on the floor above, but still - no use :( . This was followed by a sparse late lunch, a chai at Fauzi, a pre-scheduled meeting at the PGP office regarding my attendance (resulting in some absurd weird condition!), and some more home-made sweets at Chatur's room.

The entire evening went in the process. A small window period where a zillion possibilities were analysed. It is indeed a wonder how the brain works so fast under constraints. Eventually though, the final click of the button - whether to apply or unapply - came from the heart, MMR being a classic case in point. I hadn't been able to decide and continued being a part of the process, simultaneously making ISD calls to confirm more details. Anyways, I think I am more sure now, though with me one never knows :D. Have made it through to the next round - which happens to be early tomorrow morning. So need to wake up soon. So I better zzZZzz now. Adios!

Day 442:3rd Dec, 2010

Woke up suddenly to realise the SDM presentation was still pending. Sat on it and finished it off at one go. And consequently very efficiently played the role of 'slide-changer' during my group's presentation :D

These days, I am spending most afternoons in front of my laptop watching my new addiction - the stock markets. Dirty mind! :P

Once again, went to Brij for dinner. My bike just wouldn't start because of the cold - and therefore I found myself riding a junior's 200cc Bajaj avenger - man, 200cc is some power! Some extra riding happened, thanks to Shomu da exhausting his bike's fuel midway. Standard order - I don't think the waiter will even ask us the next time we go :D. And somehow, especially these cold winter days, Brij seems to double our appetites! We ate voraciously. Even the simple rice and dal here is SO awesome! Wish the mess picks up a cue!

At night, went to ask Pachpan a few things about a fin career. Ended up talking a little about that and a lot about a lot more. Jointly came up with a plan to salvage some lost time. Lets see how that works out!

Day 439:30th Nov, 2010

I generally diligently attend all initial classes and save up my bunks for towards the end. Unfortunately though, strategy failed as we had a "final project quiz" in the CBM class today and I had to attend it. Not that much came out of giving that quiz anyway.

Pretty packed day though. This was immediately followed by a session about a company that evokes dichotomous reactions. A lot of us are very enthusiastic about it and an even greater lot want to have nothing to do with it. Mainly due to the location where they send us. And of course, the "rumours" about what kind of heads comprise of their CTC. Anyways, an alum had come down for the session, and it was pretty much informal (except for the dress code). The job sounds exciting and adventurous to me. Wouldn't mind it at all!

Immediately after that, I had to revamp a ppt for a presentation we had in our SM class. Did that in my room and then in the back benches of the classroom. The presentation itself went off smoothly though - that's one thing we have had enough practice of here :D

That was followed by an LTL class. Somehow, because of a few cancellations and reschedulings, turns out we have 5 whole sessions of LTL left. Still time for me to use my buffer. Also, funny thing during attendance - the prof looked up at me after I had answered my attendance. Courteously, even I looked back at him. Then he enquiringly nodded at me. I nodded back - confused. (Absolutely didn't understand where the dumb-charades game was going.) Then I realised the prof was asking me why I had missed the previous lecture. I had no clue why (!! ... who keeps a track of everything) and that is exactly what I told him :-p . Don't know why the class found it funny though :-p

Had a small meeting in the evening. Closing small small issues. Leaving the bigger ones for later discussion, since we all need to sleep early and wake up really really early tomorrow!

Day 393: 15th Oct, 2010

Woke up pretty late today morning. So late that I might have almost missed my 12.15 pm lecture :-p

You never know the intensity with which some thing might hurt you will you actually get hit. Probably now you are expecting some masala stuff :-p . Sorry to disappoint you; all I am talking about is my loan. So many times, in so many problems, I have calculated principals, interests etc and understood how the outstanding dues keep piling up. But only a few days back, when I took a print of my loan statement, did I realise how expensive it is.. I was paying around Rs.100/- each day as interest :-| . I could instead avoid the mess food one each day! :-| . so today, finally, on my dad's advice (and expense! :-p), I pre-paid the entire amount :-)

So why didn't I do this before? Point is a lot of us at this point of time want to be "independent". Having a loan against our name seems to be better than taking money from our folks at home. Especially since there is a high possibility that they won't take it back from us! Fair and ideal thought. But then, as I read the loan statement, I realised it is far better to take money from them, and gift them something if they don't directly accept money. The moolah stays home anyways.

Company presentations have started for the first years. We constantly find ourselves going to meet the various HRs/marketing people for INDEX. Sometimes, it so happens that a lot of companies come down simultaneously, and it becomes tough to coordinate amongst ourselves, given the various class timings, other engagements etc. Leads to some high-charged moments as we rush to solve that DI problem :D. I even got chided for asking many questions :-|

But not much time for all that. It's Friday! Movie time! And these days we often even seem to find a car easily. We went to PVR this time (instead of the usual WAVE). After some persuasion, we zeroed in on watching Aakrosh. And well, after a sustained string of extremely average to horrible movies, it turned out to be a good choice! Definitely recommended.

Day 347: 23rd Aug, 2010

Today marks the celebration of one AWESOME year of being an INDEXian! :) :)

Sometimes, somethings are memorable forever. They need not always be big things. For eg., this short SMS that pachpan received - 'Pls meet the prof for your conB viva'. And the guy had no clue that the rest of his group (including yours truly) had already met the prof :D . Super devilish that was! :D

Was also the savior for my SM group. Had made the complete ppt and mailed it across to them, but they just didn't happen to take it in a pen-drive. Rushed to class (15min late!!) with the presentation on my hdd. Got blamed for not getting along the word doc :-| , as the others hadn't read up on the parts on which they were supposed to speak :-| . The presentations were a little fun too, especially the recommendations part. One of the groups actually said - "Should gain market share". Hello? Who wouldn't want to?! :D

Day 321: 27th Jul, 2010

Back to the sleeping at sunrise phase. And of course, only for INDEX. Had our final presentations today. People like to keep speaking about every single bullet point they have on their presentation; no wonder, we were running pretty late! We started off at 6 in the evening and finished at around 4 am early morning! Got some new and interesting data points though. Some tough calls need to be taken...

Much unlike the weather, which (at least for now) seems to have shed off its coat of cruelty. It was raining/drizzling all day - so the weather is nice and pleasant. Consequently, indulged in some khushiyon ki home delivery - Dominos! And even extended it a step ahead by bunking the strat man class. Would have been criminal to stay in an artificial AC environment in such awesome weather! :)

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 288: 24th Jun, 2010

So Pachpan decided to remain all rolled up in his bed, banking on a proxy for his first class. I had already refused to do this (seriously, no giving/taking proxy from/for me) and therefore the focus was shifted to Vanki. At the last moment, he felt it was not possible. And it was fun (a little sadistic :-p) to see Pachpan's reaction at this discovery in the next class :-p

Spent 3 whole hours in the afternoon getting the INDEX room cleaned. Was a major cleaning exercise. Disposed off a whole lot of old redundant stuff ! The room looks super spacious now. And eerily clean :-p

We had our team building class in the evening today as we were supposed to have an outdoor activity. And man, what an activity it turned out to be. Basically, we were divided into teams and each of us had to go from A to B WITHOUT any member's feet touching the ground. Before you start imagining us doing Rajnikanth or Mithun da level stunts, let me tell you our modus operandi. We all had a limited number of thermocols, newspapers, etc. and we make our way by stepping on these. Now, if you can imagine this happening, the first person bends a little, puts something ahead, steps on it. Everyone in the middle just take a step ahead and pass the sheet coming from the back to the front. But the last person has to completely bend after every step, reach out and pick the material left behind and pass it ahead. So you can imagine - for 200 odd steps in our path - that person had to do some 200 quick and successive sit-ups along with other movements. I guess by now you would have understood I was the last person in my team. And in short - totally lagg gayi !

But the post-activity analysis had 2 useful things that I came across:

1. For all members of a team to give their best, there has to be a strong sense of a Common Purpose.

2. It is very essential (and practically quite difficult) to identify the weak link (may be a person, activity, process anything) and give it support.

Had the presentations today in the induction. They sure are fun :D 

Also celebrated the mad man's birthday. The fellow got bashed up, but I guess still much less than what he does :-p .