"My Last Few Days"
- by Anuj Arora *
"All my bags are packed, ready
to go..." with this John Denver song, I come back to continue my innings
with pen & paper aka keyboard & screen. Now, I and the whole of fachha community
in IIM-A is counting days, some ppl are even counting hours (this is true, I'm
not joking). The obvious question is counting what? We all are counting the days
to go before we make a big transition in our lives, the day we become TUCHHA.
Now you all must be wondering what's the big deal? The readers who have read my
previous articles would know what I'm talking about. This term has been busy
giving treat to seniors and also getting it from the ones who have cracked
placement scene. For example, five people in my dorm have been placed abroad and
another one has got the best domestic offer from McK. It feels good to be among
such studs, but its time for them to enter the corporate world and for us to
have a taste of it during internship.
Today we had our last submission
for one of the subject WAC; this was a grand finale with fifty pages long case.
Yeah, you read that right, although it was three students per group assignment,
even then half of the batch slept only three hours yesterday because everybody
was working on it. The very famous funda followed religiously is of JIT (Just In
Time). Although the Japanese would have conceptualized this for different
purpose, here it means work only when deadline is close.
In Ist year, the system makes you
stay awake till morning and in second year it is your own choice. Seniors are
sometime awake till 5:00 am, watching movie or playing games on LAN but they
won't sleep. One of the funniest comments was made by an European exchange
student who in his farewell letter gave all of us a suggestion & here I quote
him, "Guys, try sleeping at night, it is a good feeling, trust me."
What would I miss about first
year?? I would miss the time when I cooked Maggi at 4:30 am (no, I'm not
insane) and the best part is that even at that odd hour two guys came to my room
and I had to share it with them. It is a different issue that none of us knew
whether it was our dinner or breakfast. In my earlier articles, I'd mentioned
about time management problem in the morning, now it's all figured out. Now I
don't go for both bath & breakfast in the morning because sleep is a lot more
important to me. Class starts at 9:00 am and I usually wake up at 8:45 am,
sometimes I have even woken up at 8:55 am and been at class on time. JIT
remember!!!
In first year, when you feel
liking giving up, seniors come and motivate you. They are like big bros and
every dorm has a unique culture, which brings the respective dorm people very
close to each other. But if there is wrong combination like mine, my name is
Anuj and I'm in reality the Anuj of my dorm, i.e., the youngest, so can be the
subject of their fun, but then that is the part and parcel of the game. We
sometimes have inter-dorm cricket competition, which starts at 9:00 pm and ends
at 4:00 am, but remember, classes are always ON. Sometimes, I feel that I'm
living in some monument because no week passes by when we don't have some
foreign tourist coming to campus and taking snaps, etc. Exams are very
interesting, two exams of three hours each on one day, no PL system and last
time we had a bumper prize. Two exams of three and a half hours and four hours
on one day, and then talk by C. K. Prahlad, which all were too tired to listen
to, although lots of Ahmedabad people were there.
My friends sometimes say that why
do I tell all these things to outside people, but my reason is to motivate you
people to have a peek into life in here and then study damn hard to get in. Then
this system will make you study even harder to pass out. The expectations are
different from IIM grads and so is his pay. Company expects something better
from us and we have to deliver.
About this last year, this has
been an eventful year for IIMs, especially for IIM-A, with CAT scam & the HRD
ministry stepping in. We all are quite opposed to it, giving my example; I've
taken an educational loan for studies but even then, I prefer taking loan rather
than paying less fee. The reason is simple, we don't trust the HRD minister, he
has a record of interference in academic decisions and that is the last thing we
want.
I'm undecided whether to write
another article or not. Have given you account of life here without using any
jargons (always felt a strong urge to use them), you all must be tired of
reading my articles now. So will decide to continue the series or not based on
feedback, till then work hard and party harder.
