Interesting Incidences of Mine, Abridged

There are a few moments in life, when you really sit back, put your feet up and just look at the ceiling corners, reflecting upon the place where you spent the best days of your life ? This is indeed a rewarding experience and you should do it immediately unless if you happen to be driving in which case my advice is don't. For most of the guys who passed from IIMA , the answer to this question would be quite clearly - IIMA.

My personal initiation to IIMA goes back to 1993, a time when people didn't bore your kneecaps with hydraulic drills, when you mentioned things like "eyeball share" or "Enron is a great scrip". Back then, I did not really seek the IIMs, rather they sought me. The reason was in my final days of engineering, I was surrounded by a tribe of people who were preparing for CAT. You could immediately make them out in a crowd. For, thanks to the IMS word lists, they used to talk like,

"Did you behold the nudiustertian TV schtick ?"

"Nay, was it of a terpischorean nature ? I abhor any form of tarantism."

Their's was a tribe who prayed to Messrs Barrons, Websters and Collins, put on body paint, and danced in a circle around a fire with arms around each other chanting "proceulusmatic" , "malversation" and such. That was my first familiarisation to the CAT. I realised that if I had to get into an IIM then I had to get past the "Beware of CAT" sign hanging at the door..

CAT was the toughest part to crack was the advise proffered to me by Sanjiv Naik who had appeared for CAT three times unsuccessfully and ergo was an authority on the subject. Told to me each time, with a confidence of a Gulliver in Lilliput. ( " Rahul, This time I have cracked the system", were the famous last words whispered to me always in a tone, that would have you believe that only he knew where the weapons of mass destruction really were). After I cleared the CAT, he told me the same thing about the infamous stress interviews. This I knew, .. coming from a guy who would break into a welter of hives trying to recall the answer to the question , "In which town is the leaning tower of Pisa located ?", could be ignored. Tough or not, eventually , I did get to walk up the Stanford Ramp and the Harvard steps.

The first few days at IIMA was spent reflecting in the time how long were my average sized brains going to withstand the intimidating presence of University toppers, IIT medallists and CA rankers. The next two years were going to make that happen.

IIMA was an experience. May be it was the faculty. It was a who's who of IVY league PhDs and captains of the Industry. The "who's who" part being reinforced by one of my more cerebral batchmates, who at the end of our second year asked me, "Who's he ?" , pointing his chin towards our Director, who incidentally had personally taught us courses and had so many PhD epaulettes that his centre of Gravity had shifted to his shoulders. May be it was the campus. The beauty of the IIM campus in Ahmedabad was that it was an architectural marvel. The Estonian architect Louis Kahn had designed the campus in such a way that almost from no point in campus was it possible to look directly into the girls dormitories but at the same time it was possible for the campus warden Sethumadhavan to look in to the farthest corners of the campus. Needless to say Louis Kahn's career graph suffered a dramatic decline after this. The highlight of the campus was the Louis Kahn Plaza, the sheer magnificence of which played host to countless proposals, where guys went down on one knee and looked up and said , " Sir... pleeeease pleeeeese make it a B+" . Or may be it was the curriculum design. We could pick and choose our 15 second year courses from a total of almost 80 courses. Then some guys used to pick and choose from this 15 courses, which are the ones that are worth missing a movie in the Movie-A-Day club.

If you ask me my personal opinion, then the true experience was the sheer confluence of 200 of the best and the brightest brought together for 2 years in a residential program. It created a bubbling intellectual broth, which did crystallise a different thought process into you. So instead of a vertical thinking, which is characteristic of any undergraduate studies , here we have discussion on alternate dimensions to the same problem. Just take an example of the dormitory (or dorm) discussion (with the emotional states in brackets) that were a typical feature after any major event like a broken heart, a REM session or discussing clear and present danger at the end terms. (NOTE : The names below are real and the conversations surreal)

Yaya (worried): "Boss, How do you think I can avoid sinking below C level in the MIS Credit "

Bosky (ingenious) : "You could try hacking in the computers and set it your grade to A. If you are found out, your hacking skills would still justify an A."

Pondy (drunk) : "Try wearing a miniskirt to the end terms and hope the RA marking your papers is a Gay".

Yaya (worried, angry) : "You guys are nuts. I rather go to hell than ask you guys for advice".

Chaddi (shirtless) : "You rather go to Hell ? Boss, even to get there, you atleast need a MIS course B. Hell is difficult..... try for IIMC instead"

Yaya (worried, angry and a cricket bat in hand) : "Aiyoh , Muruga...I am asking for help and you '&%$$s are $$%@% me. "

The debate used to go in to a increasing decibel spiral until the next dorm used to tell us what they thought of us , a favour which was reciprocated jointly by our entire dorm as a team, in a sound level meriting an entry on the Richter scale. Dorms made you a team player. So did the Gaulish Village of Astreix. Infact the dorm was like the Gaulish village in the Astreix books, which opened with a free for all but always ended with merry making. Sure we had our fights, sleights and flights but at the end of it all, you still came back to the dorm, where a part of you belonged and a part of which belonged to you ........and also that was the only place where you could take a shower before your grocer started giving you moth balls instead of Sunsilk shampoo satchets.

The image for the outer world was that IIM, Ahmedabad played host to all sharp minds who had IQ levels high enough to suffer from bird strikes and who didn't enjoy Life. Though this might well be true and the fact was that Life inside the campus was really a tough grind and there was indeed a lot of hard work ...especially biting the chappatis in the mess, which were apparently made from the airplane seat belts but that did not mean that we did not have a life otherwise. The campus did bring out what was the best in a person. Of course not all were happy with what they got, but there is no egalitarianism in these matters. 200 guys and girls made sure that life continued nay flourished in the MAD Clubs, in the Wet DJs , in the Combos, in the IIMACTs, in the Dandias etc, in short the notion that we did not have a life was totally wrong.

In fact Life did not have us. We were larger than Life....well at least that's what we thought. We were at the top of the world and stayed there for two years till the world dropped us off. Life of course went on even after Ahmedabad but everyone of us took a piece of those two hundred acres with ourselves. Most of the guys who walked those chequered brickpaths walked them out wanting to become the masters of universes. Time.. that great judge ..duly announced the verdict anyway. Whatever the verdict, we knew we had the best lawyer. I still remember each and every minute spent on that campus. It is difficult not to. Those wild days, the even wilder nights and the perfectly tame grade sheets. Sometimes I think, in life the only things worth treasuring are your memories because only they are permanent. Everything else is not.

Ten years ago when I was still there, there used to be an anthem in campus, "Zindagi mil ke bitayenge, Haal-e-dil ga ke sunayenge".
If ever in the future, I can get back all those 180 guys and girls to relive my memories, I will... I surely will