Day 342 - 26th November 2011

Had the business conclave for the alumni today. Alumni who have done well for themselves in different industries shared their experiences after graduating from here. Most of them have spent more than 10 years in the industry and had a lot of interesting anecdotes to share. The common piece of advice that all of them gave was to read as much as possible and make the most of the facilities available in the library. Personally, I liked the idea of the conclave a lot as there was an instant connect with the alumni once they started speaking about their life at MICA. Post lunch was busy with some MCSA work. Had to pack and leave in the evening for Bombay. Going for a day for a family function. The next post will be once I am back.

Day 341 - 25th November 2011

Had a rest day today on account of the grand alumni meet. Woke up at around 1030 and did some general tp. Played box cricket in the Gulmohar courtyard with the standard 'one tip one hand' rule. Had a ppt in the afternoon which went on for nearly a couple of hours. Got done with that by around 530 after which I came back to the room and slept off. Was woken up at 620 since the buses for Natrani were supposed to leave at 630. Sankalp stages their annual play at Natrani which is an open air theatre on the banks of the Sabarmati river every winter. The play is staged on Friday. Saturday and Sunday with  the Friday performance for MICAns and the other two days for the general public. The play was pretty decent with some really good performances. Sankalp had arranged for buses to ferry the student community to and from Natrani. An important discovery was the cafe at Natrani which serves amazing sandwiches and juices. Got back to campus by 11 and caught up with some of our seniors who have come down for the alumni meet. Have another rest day tomorrow, so can take the liberty of sleeping in!

Day 340 - 24th November 2011

Had a rest day today on account of the grand alumni meet and Natrani over the  weekend. The day started off with the pgp-2 womens' cricket match. Quite a festive atmosphere at the cricket ground with quite a lot of spectators who came to witness the action. The ladies were as competitive if not more than the boys, with some brutal sledging happening on and off the field :P All in good humour though. The match was a closely fought one though with the result being decided only in the last over. Post the match MCSA work kept me busy for a good 4 hours! Had to go to the city in the evening to pick up sandals. Got back by 9, dinner was at Chota courtesy the mess food. Some of the alumni have already started coming in. More are expected over the next couple of days. Should be fun!

Day 276 -26th July 2011

Woke up at 1030 today and had to take care of some internship work before heading for the 12 o'clock class. Today's CC class was about IMC from a sociological perspective. We discussed about the proliferation of brands and advertisements, about how advertisers are getting frustrated and consumers are getting infuriated. The average time for ads in a half an hour show is now nine minutes, up from 2-3 minutes from the 1980s. Product placements were also discussed with the Walt Disney+Monsters Inc.+ Pepsi versus Time Warner+Harry Potter+Coke case study being discussed. The whole point being that the number of ads and marketing strategies when viewed from a sociological perspective gives one a lot to think about.

The class was followed by a movie screening, today's movie was a French movie - Three colours blue. Was quite zonked out during the movie. Realized that movie appreciation isnt that easy! This movie is a part of a trilogy with the other colours being red and white. They are based on the colours of the French flag with each colour standing for a set of values which are explored in each of these movies.

Post dinner had discussions on committee budgets for Alumni, SCAM and MICANVAS. That took around a couple of hours. After that had to work on the concept note for the dissertation topic that has to be submitted tomorrow. As of now have thought about naming rights for stadiums across the world and its scope in India as a topic. Got done with that at 430. Will tweak it a bit tomorrow before submitting it.

Days 153 to 158 - 8th to 13th December 2010

Been away again for quite a long time. Had a pretty hectic week and have now finally got some time to update the blog. So after staying up the entire night making the trippy tunnel made it to class on time. First two classes were IMM and the fatigue and lack of sleep set in at the beginning of the first lecture, at the end of the lecture though I thought I would be able to survive the second lecture, and how wrong was I! Never realised when I dozed off in class only to be woken up by Geeko who told me that I was snoring :-S, decided thats all I could take so came back to the room after the lecture and dozed off a couple of hours. Woke up in the afternoon as some work needed to be done for the Bangalore meet. After that had to go to Bopal with Balaji a.k.a Sir to buy some stuff for the trippy tunnel. Carried 12 feet long wooden planks on the bike, Sir was looking like a knight going in for a joust ;-) Once we came back had to get down to working on the IMM presentation for the next day. I was lucky enough to work in a good group and one of the group mates had worked in AC Nielsen so making sense of the data in the excel that was given to us became a lot more easier. Worked on the presentation till around midnight before I crashed for the day. Had only the presentation on the 9th which went of pretty well. We were playing the role of a media agency and had to pitch to Aircel with an effective media plan. We were pretty happy with what we did. After the presentation Maushi and I went to the old city to buy stuff for the alumni creatives. We also had lunch a sumptuous lunch at Upper Crust. Got back to campus in the evening after which we got back to working the tunnel and other on ground creatives. Spent most of the night in installing the tunnel and other also did a bit of the tensile structure which was shaped like a DNA (double helix). We also had to move out of our rooms on 9th since some of the alumni had already checked in. A few of us decided to sleep in the community centre, was good fun, moved our mattresses and blankets to the community centre. The next day as well was spent working on the tunnel, it was no easy task! Finally got done with all the work which included installing the UV lights at around 1030 that night. The end result was very good, people appreciated it a lot. Have posted a few pics of what went into the making the tunnel and the final result. The guy in the third pic is Kalkar - the brains behind the tunnel and in the second pic I am holding the light for Sir who was in charge of implementing the construction of the tunnel.

Had to leave for Bangalore on 11the morning for the city meet. Went to venue to check out the facilities after we landed. The meet was scheduled for Sunday so was free for rest of the day on Saturday. Met a few ex colleagues, went to SBX - where we have seen many a IPL match :-) The meet went off well on Sunday, had a decent turnout around 60-70 people turned up. Was free after the meet on Sunday evening so went to Purple Haze, was good fun to be back there as well.

Today started off early, had a 10 o 'clock flight so had to wake up quite early. Slept well on the flight. Reached campus at around 130 and caught up on more sleep. The Imagining India assignment deadline, which is a 3000 word essay got pushed to 20th from 15th, so have some time for that as well. Spent sometime with extended family after which we headed to Micare where the interns were in charge of the store today. Mallu and Bulla were handling the store from 1030 to midnight and they sold some pretty innovative stuff like bhutta, masala papad and popcorn. In the midst of all this we go to know that the first term results had been declared. the list had been put up in SH1. What ensued was a mad scramble :D Yours truly got a B+ overall and just scraped through in FA. It was also one of the rare occasions where I did exceedingly well in QT. Got back to the room after that.Have an IMM quiz tomorrow but I am feeling very very sleepy, will wake up a little early tomorrow morning and read up.

Days 146 to 152 - 2nd December to 7th December 2010

Been away from the blog for almost a week now. A lot of things have been happening on and off campus that have kept me busy. So Sankalp, MICA's annual theatre fest started on the 3rd and most of day on 2nd was spent in helping out for the on ground creatives. Had to climb ladders to hang decorations from trees and the roof of the audi. Never done anything like that before, was good fun :-) Had to also prepare for the competition at IMT. Left for Delhi on 3rd evening amidst a lot of drama. Our onward journey tickets were confirmed and we had asked an agent to book our return journey tickets for the 5th i.e Sunday. However he ditched us at the last minute and we boarded the train to Delhi with no confirmed return tickets. We reached Delhi at around 8 on 4th morning and went to the Reservation center to book our return tickets. There was a huge line so in the meanwhile we asked a friend on campus to book the tickets online which luckily went through. Took a metro to Noida from where we took a rickshaw to IMT. It has a nice campus, they have an amazing library, it is quite grand and actually makes you feel like studying :-) There 7 of us from MICA so it was good fun. Our competition was on the 5th, it was a good learning experience (read as we didn't win ;-) ) But we did see a few areas of improvement which should help us out in the future.

We left for Delhi on 5th evening and wanted to make the most of the time that we had to explore the city. Khan Market, Connaught Place, GK, India Gate and Pahar Ganj were on the itinerary. Also made the most of happy hours ;-) The weather was also brilliant , dont think it ever crossed 20 deg. Pahar Ganj was an interesting place to go to, it is where most of Dev D was shot. Had to go around the place on a cycle rickshaw which was also a nice experience. Had a pretty uneventful return journey. Made the most of getting an upper berth and slept all the way from Delhi to Sabarmati :-) Reached campus at around 1130, could make it for the last class of RM, and as luck would have it, the prof. finally got his chance to say 'Wake Up Sid!' :D A few of us had a meeting with some consultants who are in the process of making a 5 year plan for MICA. They wanted to know our opinion about the place and where we saw the college heading. After that had an interface meeting, we have the Bangalore city meet next weekend for which I will be going :D:D but the flip side I will miss the Grand Alumni meet which I heard if going to be a lot of fun! In the evening played tennis and basketball and then went for a jog - had to make up for all the calories consumed in Delhi ;-) Post dinner had to help the alumni team with the on ground creatives. Kalkar has a really amazing idea in mind which when implemented will be something completely out of this world. Worked on it for the entire night! It required a lot of carpentry to be done. Had never used tools so much in engineering, quite ironical that I had to use it in a mgmt. program. Was really good fun though. The structure is called a 'trippy tunnel', will try and upload a pic once it is done. That work went on till about 845 in the morning courtesy which for the first time since I have come to MICA I have to attend lectures without taking a bath :P Somebody tells me that it is my right to passage ;-)