Day 418 - 6th March 2012

Woke up past noon today (again). Post lunch started working on what was (hopefully) my last assignment at MICA. Had to submit the Indian Cinema assignment by EoD today. We had to write about our learnings from the course and also send a pictorial representation of a topic that was taught in the course. My biggest learning from the course was the case study on Lagaan - about how it dealt with the caste system and at some levels was an insult to our intelligence. For pictorial representation I took up the topic of how women are potrayed in Sooraj Barjatya films. Some of the movie posters actually made me cringe! So I am guessing there is some learning at least that I am taking away from the course ;-)

Went for a jog upto the highway in the evening. Realised that jogging on the treadmill and on the road are two totally different things! There was an MLS in the evening, the COO of Idea Cellular was the speaker. It was a very nice talk on how things around us are changing. He used humour very well throughout his talk - his opening line was "Please use your phones during the talk, everytime I hear a phone ring I can also hear our coffers filling up, so if you get a call during the talk please answer it" :P

Sankalp had organized Showcase in the night, this is the platform for aspiring pgp-1 directors to put up their plays after which the directors for next year's Natrani production are chosen. There were 5 plays out of which I personally liked 2 of them. One dealt with 3 prisoners who were on the death roll and the relationships that were nurtured between them in the days leading up to their hanging. The second one used the concept of absurdity to take a dig at concepts like mass murder by capitalist powers and the justice system in place.

Got back to the room by 230, worked out some of the things that needed to be done for the senior committee selection process before calling it a day.

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 337 - 21st November 2011

Had a 930 start today with a double session on CIM which was about a qualitative research is designed. The prof. gave a few cases that had the problems faced by clients and he took us through how the research question and the accompanying methodology could be formulated. Didnt have any classes after CIM, which meant I came back to the room and slept off for a good 2 hours. By the time I woke up, lunch time at the mess was over so had to settle for lunch at Chota. Started reading a book which I had ordered last week and was delivered today. Its called Sacred Hoops and is written by Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Chicago Bulls in which he writes about the techniques he used to get the Chicago Bulls together during their purple patch in the early 90's. He also speaks about how spirituality helped him in some of the techniques he used. Read the book for a good 3-4 hours.

Sankalp's annual performance at Natrani is scheduled to happen this weekend and in an effort to creating buzz around the play they got the mess decorated during dinner time in tune with the name of the play 'The Party' with the actors performing one of the scenes from the play. Post dinner continued reading and took a break for a 'C-9' session ;-) More about C-9 in a later post. Have an early morning start tomorrow so but the afternoon sleep will ensure that I dont sleep before 4 in the night/morning.

Day 333 - 17th November 2011

Had only two lectures today starting at 930. After keeping an alarm for 830 and snoozing it once, I ended up waking up at 940! It meant I missed the first lecture of ROMI. Made it on time for the second lecture which covered brand valuation. Was free for the rest of the day once class was done. Had bought a book in June on the IPL which was about the Modi Tharoor saga and all the behind the scene happenings that transpired during IPL3 which led to both their downfalls. Written by a journalist who experienced the entire episode first hand, it felt like reading a fast paced novel. As is the case with most books that I like, finished this one in one sitting.

Post dinner Sankalp had organized Khula Aasma with 4 plays staged in the audi. That went on till 1 in the night. Have another early morning start tomorrow, cant afford to wake up late again!

Day 306 - 6th September 2011

Had the second day of the rural communication workshop today. Woke up late which meant I had to miss the first session, utilised the time to work on the LB assignment in the library. Went for the post lunch session which was on rural economics. It was taken by the same prof who had taken our ME course. A lot of interesting facts  came out from the session, he shared his own experience in rural research. He also explained to us as to we how we should go about choosing a village for our research.

After the session, FIF1 work kept me busy for the next 3 hours. Everyday I realise that there is so much work to be done with the finals just a week away! Post dinner had the first night of Khula Aasman by Sankalp which had 4 plays. All of them were excellent and were excellent to say the least, its amazing how people manage to practice so much and pull off such plays in the middle of all assignment submissions and examinations. Also had the pre rurals party to end the day which meant some good food before sleeping! ;-)

Day 292 - 18th August 2011

Got back to campus at around 2 in the night. Had a rest day today but unlike other rest days couldn't sleep in since there was some FIF1 work to be done. Had to go to Nirma and IIM-A as well which kept me busy until afternoon. Met Sania for lunch in the city, went to Curries. This place is known for its North Indian food and it did live up to my expectations :P

The only way to do justice for such a lunch was by according it a 2 hour siesta, which I ensured happened :P Tonight was opening night for Sankalp, where the directors put up a play for everyone. The play was an adaptation of a Ruskin Bond story which went on for about half an hour. Post that had nothing much to do. Its been extremely hot and humid here today, dont know how Im going to be able to sleep, nonetheless will give it a shot :P

Day 221 - 3rd March 2011

Was feeling extremely drowsy throughout the lectures today. However there were some interesting things that happened that kept me awake. In the CSMM class we had a Stanford alumnus to speak to us about marketing strategies in the digital era. He left us with some really good insights. ME was about the print industry in the country and had some major class participation.

The MCL final took place in the afternoon. It was between Phantoms and Lucky Strike. Unfortunately it turned out to be a pretty one sided affair with the strikes winning it quite easily in the end. They played some really good cricket and were helped by some poor fielding on our side. Anyways that brings this years MCL journey to an end for us. It was good fun while it lasted. Slept for a bit in the evening before we had to start working on the RM group assignment. Distributed work amongst ourselves and that got done by about midnight. After that had to go the audi for the Sankalp directors elections.

Have been clearing up my room for the past hour or so on account of Samar-the sports fest at MICA. All rooms in Palaash have to be vacated for the participants from other colleges. Have a long day tomorrow, there is a NZ Zim game in Ahmedabad and I need to be at the stadium by 830 since its a day game!

Day 220 - 2nd March 2011

Had a holiday today courtesy Mahashivratri. Needless to say. could take the liberty of waking up at 1230 :P Spent the afternoon trying to figure out the NVC assignment. We have to remove the text and logo of a particular brand and see what aspects of it communicate non verbally about it (shape,colour scheme,sounds etc.) In the evening had a practice session with some of the Phantoms. We have made it to the finals of the MCL which will be played tomorrow!

Went to the city with Maushi later in the evening. We got a very important insight about the eateries in Ahmedabad - its very difficult to find a place which serves non vegetarian food! Ended up settling for veg food, which was quite good eventually. Went to a place called Not Just Grill. Dont remember what cuisine it was but it involves the chef making the food in front of you. Tried Mongolian and Japanese cuisines. Came back to the campus at around 930, just in time to see the end of the England Ireland game. Ireland has this knack of pulling off an upset which invariably changes the course of the tournament. In the previous edition of the World Cup they defeated Pakistan and knocked them out of the World Cup. Whether or not this defeat will result in the same fate for England only time will tell. Its also very irritating to know that all good matches in Bangalore have happened after I moved out of the city :P Had the second round of showcase today. 5 plays in total ranging from a murder mystery to the Bhopal Gas tragedy and Maoism in Dantewada to the love story of Arjuna and Chitrangadha. All of them were really good plays. Got done with it at 145, will call it a day in a bit. Back to the routine from tomorrow.

Day 219 - 1st March 2011

Had 2 MDA lectures in the morning for which I managed to wake up with great difficulty. The lecture was pretty interesting though and it managed to hold my attention inspite of the fact that I was sleep deprived. Had a CSMM test in the afternoon, it was based on a case study which we were allowed to carry to class. The case was about LG's internationalization strategy. Evening was packed with MCSA work again. Also met a few of the people in the administration department whom we will be interacting with on a regular basis from now on. Sankalp staged thier first night of showcase, this will be used to select the directors for next year's play at Natrani. That went on till around 1230.Luckily tomorrow is a rest day so I can catch up on some sleep!

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 ;-)

Day 145 - 1st December 2010

Woke up at 630 today, its for the second time ever since I have come to MICA that I have woken up so early! Had to prepare points for the panel discussion Mother Pious Lady. The author of the book, Santosh Desai who is also the CEO of Future Brands, came to campus to talk to us about it. Although the book is a collection of article on the Indian middle class, it also serves as an excellent book on consumer insight for a marketer. How he has brought out the nuances that are a part of our daily life which we subconsciously knew existed but never thought of is quite amazing. Initially the session started off as a panel discussion with people who had prepared on certain parts of the book spoke to him about how they reacted to the book. The session then turned into an open house with people asking questions on questions ranging from the changing Hindi Film Hero to gender to homosexuality to cricket! A pretty enriching session to say the least.

In the afternoon spent time with extended family , Maushi was leaving for Bombay later in the day, Mallu will also leave for the SP Jain sports fest tomorrow and yours truly will be leaving for IMT day after. Most of the evening was spent with family as well. For the past couple of weeks I've been searching for the school anthem of St.Vincents, my school in Pune but was not able to get hold of it. Today one of my friends shared it on facebook and I since then I must have heard it at least 20 times :-) Still gives me goosebumps!

Post dinner I went to see the rehearsal for the Sankalp play, since I will be missing the a performance at Natrani. I know it sounds repetitive but I just have to say it again - we have some supremely talented people out here :-) That went on till around 230 after which helped out the Alumni creative team in making some structures that the plan to put at places around campus during the Grand Alumni Meet. Went to Chota with Mallu at around 5. It was then that I realised that I have been awake for almost 24 hours, the moment I realised that tiredness set in :D So will crash after a 23 hour day ;-)

Day 125 - 11th November 2010

Today's post is written by Era 'Geeko' Bali. So here goes -

Hola!

After a long holiday back home, it was hard to drag my ass to the classes but i mustered some courage and finally made it to SH1 that too at 8:50 itself:) I was not surprised to see the CMA teacher already waiting! We were supposed to have a quiz on CMA that day and as per the MICAN tradition..ummm..belief ..or may be culture no one had even read a word before the quiz. Nonetheless, the quiz started on time and was supposed to end exactly after 20 minutes. Believe me taking a quiz like that had never before been so much fun! We cheated in 'chain'. To tell you what that means, Cheryl, Satya, Aila, Chillar, Arvind, Ranaji and I sat in a row. So, Satya did question 1, rest copied, Cheryl the next and the rest copied, Aila the third, the rest copied, Arvind the next to that next, the rest copied..blah blah..oh yes the rest copied..Ranaji..umm..nevermind but we still copied!

I was glad that the next two classes were Falguni's..i dont know for some reason i feel like calling her Falguni Ma'am. She is just a brilliant teacher. She knows exactly when to pick on who. You cannot sleep in her classes. Oh and whats worth mentioning is her love for Ishaan and his reciprocation...'ALL THE BEST'! The AM lectures(though double that too in a row) were good fun..some of the ads that she showed were outstanding!

Quick Read!

Campus looks pretty as usual....Waiting for the winter rains..like desperately...Cant wait for the onset of winters....trying to get over the post MICANVAS lull..excited about doing lights for Natrani and yes looking forward to the play as well..dont want to attend more IGD classes like NO NO..ummmmm..what else..ummm..dont know but there is something missing..the campus has become very languid..may be Sankalp will fill the gap..or may be there is not much gossip or may be there isnt enough DCP in classes or may be its the weather change or may be i have no one to stalk on facebook or may be its the mundane mess food or may be i am just BORED!

Phew..lalalalalala...blah...ummmmm...okaaaaaaaaay...sunday..monday..tuesday...wednesday..thursday..friday..saturday..lalala...i think i am growing old..aah i guess its the company of the 25 year olds who i hang out with..wink wink..and honestly i dont mind getting old like that because that 'company' is my bestest buddy and the official blogger of this page, 'Micalal'!

Cheers

Era 'Maachis' Bali

Day 107 - 21st October 2010

Had another long day today, with 4 lectures for the fourth day on the trot. The highlight of the day though was in the CMA class when a person tried to pffaf his way through an answer to which the prof. replied "If only I could use the eight letter word in class" :-D. Apart from that CB was also pretty interesting with the usual dose of real life examples to explain almost every concept.

The tiredness and lack of sleep of the past 3-4 days finally took its toll, slept for 3 hours in the afternoon. Went to the library to do the CMA pre-read, theory on building a balanced scorecard and a case on Mobil US (the oil company). But before I could start it was time for Sankalp's Khula Aasmaan at the OAT. 3 plays were staged, one of them was an adaptation of Chicago the musical. It turned out quite well and the entire cast deserves a pat on the back for pulling it off :-) After Khula Aasmaan got back to the library to the start the CMA pre-reads, moved very very slowly. Got done by around 5 in the morning. Have another long day ahead! Will get some shut eye before that.

Day 93 - 7th October 2010

This is the busiest of all three terms when it comes to extra curricular activities- we have the MICA Cricket League(MCL), MICANVAS, Sankalp and the grand alumni meet in that order. MCL practice has been happening for the past couple of days, there will be 4 teams formed from PGP1 and there will be 8 teams in all, 3 more teams from PGP2 and one which will be a combination of the other courses. MICANVAS is the annual fest, which is supposed to be 3 of the best days on campus. The grand finale is Adrenalin, the music concert, this year Kailash Kher will be performing. Had a batch meet with the MICANVAS senior team today, we were told what to expect for the next 20 days i.e until the fest begins. Palaash and Parijat will have to be vacated for the participants. We will have to move in with our room baaps for those 3 days, but then again nobody sleeps during MICANVAS :-P.

Apart from the extra curricular activities we also have some pretty interesting subjects this term with good faculty as well. One such subject is Imagining India, the reading material has some pretty interesting articles, the course will consist of panel discussions on the articles given in the book. The panelists will be a group of students who would have prepared their views based on the reading material, its a very interesting way of learning a subject.

Apart from that a pretty routine day, have gotten back to the routine of clocking in less than 4 hours of sleep by doing absolutely nothing :-D

Day 71 - 5th September 2010

The eco. prof really knows how to make people study. After most of the batch stayed awake the whole of last night trying to complete the assignment, he didn't ask anybody to present it in front of the class. Instead he announced that there would be two surprise tests anytime this week! Thereby ensuring that we continue studying.

Something very strange has been happening over the past couple of days - no matter how much I sleep, I still end up feeling sleepy! I slept for 7 hours last night, which is a luxury out here, still I ended up feeling drowsy throughout class. Came back after lunch and slept for 2 more hours! That also didn't seem to help and continued to feel drowsy for the rest of the evening. Had plans to play tennis in the evening but laziness got the better of me and a I continued my journey in slumberland. All this has to happen at a time when sleep ought to be the last thing on a person's mind :D

Sankalp had planned the first set of performances of the year at the Open Air Theatre(OAT), this time it was from directors in PGP1. However there is something strange relationship between rain and our batch, during our freshers party it rained the entire night and it rained tonight as well, so the plays had to be performed in the audi. Nonetheless they were really good, there were 2 english plays, 1 hindi play and a mime. As repetitive as this may sound but our batch has some supremely talented people and it comes up at places where you least expect it! That got over by around 1 in the night and was followed by a batch meet with PlaceComm.

Once that was done our Markops group had to prepare a presentation on our company's performance and what were the key learnings. Our team has become famous not only in our batch but also amongst the seniors. Two major reasons, our (in)famous performance and more importantly the team name - Aila!Markops. That went on till about 3 after which I wasn't feeling sleepy at all. Went to Chota with Apu and Maushi before heading back to the room and calling it a day.

Day 42 - 7th August 2010

The last day of the week always has everyone in high spirits. Had only 3 lectures today, thanks to that got done by 1230. Saw the last part of the India SL test match at the community centre. What made it special apart from India winning the match was that it was a fourth innings chase. Its good fun to watch a match in a group like we did today, hope there are many more matches like this.

The weather has just been deteriorating out here. Whenever there is some free time the rain Gods decide to pay a visit. Thanks to that all plans of playing tennis were washed out. Had a PlaceComm meet in the evening. Some basics about our CV and what to prepare for interviews. After the PlaceComm meet , MCSA met the batch to take some general feedback about issues faced by us. One thing I've noticed about feedback sessions, not just over here but in general, people use it as a platform only to give negative feedback, at times positive feedback can also be given :-)

Sankalp, the theatre group at MICA, kicked off the 2010 season with 3 plays at the audi. My pick of the plays was the one on multiple personality disorder, it was a brilliant concept and had an ending very people could have anticipated. That got done by around midnight, had to come back to my room and prepare a writeup about the opening night for TI. Had plans to go to Chota but the rain ensured that I was confined to the Palaash veranda. Hope the rains dont ruin tomorrow's holiday.