PARTY TIME

3 IDIOTS

All thanks to Christmas, we are blessed to get a break from the hectic schedule and relax. So here in the chilling cold hostel rooms neatly wrapped under two blankets, we all have a lazy start on the 25th of Dec. As we go down for breakfast we realize that the space in front of the hostel building has been turned into Eden Garden and some of the GMPians are playing their most obsessed game, the CRICKET. But as they realize that few other of the cricket lovers are awake and the required number of players can be arranged they head their bats towards their age old LORD’S stadium. After the strategic victory of one team, both the teams return the hostel while discussing the strategies for the future matches.

The morning went by and the time strikes for lunch. In the mess we have a mouth watering lunch and after relishing every single bite of the ravishing lunch, everyone is geared up to make plans for the first free evening after the return from the International Immersion. Sitting on the flower bed edging, enjoying the hot sun, a plan for the evening got incarnated in one of the bright minds. Everyone zeroed in for going to watch the first day evening show of Raju Hirani’s “3 Idiots”. Before anyone could even realize the sun had almost set and we all are set to march towards the sole decent theatre in the city. The rickshaw journey was spent cherishing the cold winter wind. But were we in for a nightmare? Guess we were...

The group of 31 GMP guys tried to encircle the two brave GMP girls (who were brave enough not to run back to the hostel after looking at the cool theatre crowd) to protect them from the mob that was trying to push their way through the theatre gates and into the hall. Let me tell you why the crowd was so eager to get in the theatre, the seats were not numbered and was available on first come first serve basis. I had never seen such madness but yes I was witnessing it and my fellow mates were enjoying the reactions on my face. It was a task to make our way through the crowd and get some seats together though many were scattered in the large theatre.

As soon as we sat down we realized that the hall was suffocating and the seats were uncomfortable but as the movie started these realisations took a back seat. We were left laughing our guts out as many of the characters in the film were felt to be taken directly from our own vicinity and as and when any joke was cracked in the film, we all turned to each other taking names of the fellows from our own real world, the GMP. Oh God!!! It was just amazing and then comes the interval but not many leave their seats as everyone knew that the seats are not reserved and could be blocked by someone else by the time you returned. But we had an advantage of being in a big group so few of the guys go to buy the snackies while we all sat their keeping a close eye on their vacant seats.

By the time movie ends, every one of us has had a hearty laugh and is ready to head back to the hostel but with a new concept in mind, “aal is well”. There are few learning’s from the movie though how many of us implement on them is a totally different thing. Like how to study without keeping the focus on exams, marks and grades, how to be true to ourselves and to the society at large and how to follow the passion for life........

STAY AT NEW ORLEANS

Continuing from the previous blog this blog will take you through our explorations of the city, New Orleans. The first week seemed hectic with all the 29 GMPians running from Tulane University to Idea Village, hogging sandwiches and burgers. At the Idea Village, we all worked on four different entrepreneurial projects, Body Evolution, Feelgoodz, NuMe & Schedulists.

BODY EVOLUTION – This team worked on the market research for a product to improve the body image.

FEELGOODZ - A flip flop slipper, the ethical green product made of rubber, yes this was the product of this team. They worked on the market analysis and planning strategy.

NUME – My team worked on the industry and market analysis of the Medical food for Breast Cancer patients.

SCHEDULISTS (the team awesome) – This awesome team worked on scheduling the shifts of the staff to improve retention and also on preparation of prospectus and pricing strategy

After the Idea Village, it was time for the fun evening with tons of places to visit, the Bourbon Street, the Harrah’s Casino, the French Quarters, St. Charles Avenue, Magazine Street and lots more. The week end began on Friday evening after the work at Idea Village. The evenings were mostly spent at the pubs which had brass bands performing live jazz music. Most of the day time was spent exploring the city on foot, taking in the beautiful architecture and also spent some time aboard the steam-driven river Paddlewheeler.

On completion of the first week, we all were virtually dying for Indian food and that is when we discovered a Pakistani restaurant at walking distance from our hotel. Now this became a daily dinner destination for most of the GMPians. Our classes at the Tulane University were successfully completed and we started working full time at the Idea Village. This week cannot end without the mention of Xavier Pires, the star of XLRI, who made it to the Garland Robinette radio talk that highlighted the Entrepreneurship in New Orleans. On that day, Xavier had an audience of approximately 6 million listeners and Xavier completely rocked the show. Without flinching even once, Xavier charmed others by his comments, viz. GMPians sharing expertise; pure determination and will power of the entrepreneurs and the best - Americans party better than Indians. Here is the link to the talk show:

http://audio.wwl.com/m/audio/27511276/11-20-09-garland-s-entrepreneur-challenge-10am.htm

For the following week end we went to the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. A 600 mile drive one way was a cake walk for all of us, thanks to the infrastructure of US and the driving skills of the two GMPians.

Finally the last week at New Orleans began. Everyone was immersed in their respective projects. After the final presentation of the projects to the clients on Tuesday, Idea Village took all of us for an excellent dinner. The next day was the wrapping up and the debriefing session for the GMPians at the Idea Village and then the much awaited lunch at the Indian Restaurant, Nirvana.

After this it was only the party time for all of us, roaming, gaming, partying was all we did from Wednesday evening to the early hours of Friday. And finally the back home journey began, some (including me) were excited as they had an extended vacation to their respective home towns but the others were cheerless. How can I end this trip without the mention of my two Guardian Angels who made every possible effort to make my trip a memorable experience.

Yes now we all are back at XLRI and the grinding has begun, but let us all respect the past in the full measure of its desserts, but let us not make the mistake of confusing it with the present nor seek in it the ideals of the future.

From Jamshedpur to New Orleans

The 44 hour long journey with parts of it spent on chair car in trains, domestic flights, international flights and domestic flights with a few breaks in between got us to the brink of crashing. But this journey cannot be termed as a strenuous journey alone because when a batch of 48 GMPians, just out of the exam mode, come together on the journey, it could only be an awesome experience with lots of fun onboard. Just like a local bus journey the journey of some GMPians ends at O’Hare Airport, Chicago and finally the 28 GMPians took the flight to reach their destination, their home for the next 3 weeks. After this fun-filled yet tiring trip, and on reaching New Orleans, the Queen sized beds at the Staybridge Suites, Tchoupitoulas seemed very inviting and everyone finally retired for the day with a few late night owls still roaming in the city.

The next day began with a gourmet breakfast at the hotel and a pleasant walk to the Idea Village with Daryn Dodson, the Director of University Partnerships at the Idea Village. The Idea Village is a an organization with a mission to identify, support and retain entrepreneurial talent in New Orleans by providing business resources to high-impact ventures. This organization works on a very basic mantra: “Trust Your Crazy Ideas.” The Idea Village follows the POPCORN STRATEGY where you start with some oil in the pan, add popcorn and then sit and wait patiently all ears for the noise of the puffing up of the popcorn. In the organization they gather the entrepreneurs, with innovative ideas, support them by providing business strategy, marketing support and financial direction and then wait patiently for the growth of the ideas and retention of high impact entrepreneurs.

The Idea Village supports high impact entrepreneurs with innovative solutions that fuel long-term and sustained economic growth and those with the ability to become role models that encourage others to innovate and take risks. They do not charge the entrepreneurs upfront rather wait for them to contribute after they achieve success, even if the gestation period of the project is too high. They believe that failure is good and that success which comes after failure brings with it a different kind of kick altogether.

Then we marched towards the bus for the city tour. We went to see the area which was devastated by the Hurricane Katrina and has still not recovered from the same. Now the houses, there, are built on stubs, at least to give them some additional height to fight smaller water tables. Then we went to the rather developed areas where the construction could be briefly described as revival of Renaissance and Gothic Architecture with a few delightfully colonnaded mansions and villas. All this seemed to be a treat to the sleepy eyes of the long lost architect within me.

The City Park was untouched by the hurricane and so had massive sized Oak trees all around. The garden also accommodated few beautiful white and black swans in the free flowing lake, botanical gardens, story-land, museum, sculpture garden and few facilities for the visitors like boating, golf, tennis courts and Park view cafe.

The ride through the city also took us around the French Quarters, the Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cathedral, the World War II Museum just to name a few. How can the city tour be complete without a mention of the City of the Dead! Sounds scary... it’s actually a beautiful city with above-ground tombs in the cemeteries. The sun bleached tombs had beautiful rusted ironwork which decorated the entry to the tombs, the crosses and the statues adorned the roof tops. These tombs have vaults that house coffins of all the deceased of one family. Actually not the coffins of all members but something similar to that, let’s not get into the details which might give some eerie feeling. It is said that the Cities of the Dead is alluring to the eyes but dangerous.

Finally we head back to the Idea Village to meet the Entrepreneurs for whom we all, in groups of 7-8 each, are supposed to work. Since I am not supposed to reveal the details of the project let me just say that it is a related to the R&D of a health care product. And then at last we are free for the day at 5.00 p.m. and we head back towards our hotel rooms. Everyone gets connected to the whole world online and also make plans for the long evening. Some head towards Walmart for grocery shopping, some march towards Harrah’s to play gamblers for the night and some relax for the evening and then head towards the French Quarters for a few drinks.......

The Term that it was

"Only those who are asleep make no mistakes." And as I did not intend to make mistakes, I slept the whole of yesterday. Actually that’s not the sole reason, the other reason being the completion of the second term and here I am with nothing to do at all or rather with lots of planning to do for the forth coming international immersion trip to New Orleans, USA.

The second term flew by from not only my life but also from the life of all the GMPians and now we can call ourselves half MBA’s. The GMPians life was filled with a lot of action for the last two months... Life seemed hectic from day 1 with loads of case studies and tons of reading handouts given for every alternate day’s lectures, sometimes even for the next day’s lectures. From the first week itself every GMPian started the midnight walk to the XLRI night cafe so as to take a break from the intensive course contents. When some of the GMPians felt that ‘The most wasted of all days is one without laughter’, to get back what everyone had lost, they planned for Durga puja holidays. And that was the last final days when I remember sleepingL.

The Mid Terms started and along with that came the key responsibility of the GMPians; organizing the Dow Jones CEO meet. On the event, Mr. Christopher Mitya New, Managing Director, Dow Jones India delivered a talk on "Corporate Turnaround at a time of Economic Turnaround". The lively and intellectual interaction between Mr. New, the faculty of XLRI and the GMPians was the take away for all the attendees.

How can I forget to mention the quiz after the CEO meet!!! Though it was a cake walk for many, others still felt distressed at the end of the day. There is a saying, ‘All’s well that ends well’ but probably it is not made for the GMPians and at the end of the very same day we all realize that there is one more quiz lined up for the next to next day. Then finally the end term begins and guess what we get to know, our USA visa interviews are scheduled in-between the exams.

The discussion on the second term of GMPians cannot be ended without the mention of a few, the cute professors who took pains to teach us (the GMPians) and the sweet professors who used to get pained when we gave incorrect answers (NO!!!!!!!!!!!), the professors who made the most boring subjects fun and the fellow GMPians without whom this journey would have been very tough.

LECTURE VERSUS FILMS

Yesterday when one of the GMPian wrote on how to view lectures as films, the subject-chapter as story line and the teacher as the Actor; my memory drifted back to one of the lectures by one of our esteemed professors. The lecture was on ‘Group Dynamics & Team Building’ where the related side topic was ‘5 – Stage Group Development Model’.

To make the students better understand the importance of the various stages of the above mentioned topic the professor related the topic with one of the 2007 blockbuster movie ‘Chak De’. The stages of the Group Development Model were described as follows:

1. Forming group: In the movie, the 16 women hockey players who come from all sections of India come together to represent India in Hockey World Cup. And in this manner the group is formed.
2. Storming (Members resist the control by the leader): Kabir Khan, the coach of the team appoints makes Vidya Sharma as the team captain. In response contender of the said post and the most experienced player, Bindia Naik repeatedly attempts to encourage the players to revolt against Khan. Bindia finally succeeds in creating a storm within the team.
3. Norming (Members develop camaraderie and norms of conduct in the group): During a fight with some of the local guys who pass comments and try to make pass at one of the team members, all the team members develop a camaraderie and eventually request Khan to withdraw his resignation.
4. Performing (work towards achieving goals): The newly formed coherence in the group helps them in overcoming through a series of additional challenges, like a challenge match against the men’s team to prove their competence. Even though they lose this match, their overwhelming performance leaves a mark on the officials who are finally forced to change their mind and send the team to The World Championship.
5. Adjourning (group disbands either because the job is done or because the members leave): The team is sent to Australia where they face a number of low keys and struggle to remain in the league of the contenders. Finally everyone unites as a team and eventually declare themselves ‘The World Champions’ of the Hockey World Cup. And to end the story all the glorious 16 winners and their honoured coach part and move on in their respective lives.

So here is the lecture that could virtually be related to a movie.

This blog is not only to remind everyone of the excellent learning experience we all have had but also to support the GMPian who requested all to view lectures as films and enjoy the lectures, which would ultimately help us in absorbing more and exploring more.