Victory...Oh so sweet!

Today 10 grown men openly proclaimed how much they all love the same guy! This wasn’t a “mass coming out of the closet” exercise, but the real reason was just as sensational.

The ISB Cricket Club won its first game of the season!

We were playing Intergraph for the second time this season. After having lost to them by a slender 5 run margin, we rrrreally wanted to win, considering our played 5 – lost 5 record. All games thus far had been scheduled in the wee hours of 10-11pm and we’d had a few heartbreaking losses as you undoubtedly know if you’ve as much as scrolled on this page J but this one was under bright sunshine at noon. They won the toss and batted on a reasonably green pitch that was fast drying out. Abhijit and I opened the bowling and while A found his line immediately, I had trouble adjusting to the red ball (previous games had been with white) which does not swing as much, and bowled quite a few wides down the leg-side. Nikhil then came in and took 2 wickets in his first over and it would’ve been 3 had ‘yours truly’ not dropped a sitter at mid-on. Our bowling was accurate with Pratik and Nikhil not giving them any four balls. RK and Phani were tidy too but some horrendous outfielding gave away too many extra runs. I alone was guilty of 2 dropped catches (the 2^nd was off my own bowling) and a misfield that cost 4. Intergraph’s captain played an awesome innings to remain not-out on 100 odd and they got to 177 of 20 overs.

This was at par at what we’d scored in the past games and gave ourselves a good chance of a successful chase; Llewellyn even offered special weightage on ELP projects for the top-scorer J. I and Neeraj opened and set about knocking singles interspersed with the odd big hit. Just then their first change bowler got N caught behind off his first delivery. Abhijit replaced him and we played the bowling on merit with some calculated hits. Abhijit 51(43 balls), was in awesome form lofting the bowlers to all parts of the ground and we got to 130 in 15 overs. We’d just had a chat and decided to stay till the end when A was yorked by their stand out bowler – a spinner who got good purchase from the green-top. Phani came in and set about busily collecting 1s and 2s. the next over I was given caught behind to a ball that was nowhere near the edge – I have a vague recollection of almost tearing off my helmet in a rage and saying words not suitable for all ages. The equation now was 3 overs remaining with 36 to get and we had that sinking feeling that this would be yet another close loss. But RK (11 off 3) gave us some hope but Nikhil was DA MAN, smashing their bowlers from the first ball he faced to score 25 amazing runs off 11 balls to win it for us with 5 balls to spare! Sure, I was given Man Of the Match for my 54(36 balls) but seriously, it was Nikhil’s (in case you didn’t figure, that’s the guy who everyone loves J) heroics in the end that made the difference.

The Hindu: (search for ISB or anoop ;) http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/29/stories/2005112909582200.htm

Hot Spice!!!

India was just shot out for 188 in the 4^th one-day against South Africa. I’ve got bigger problems to deal with though, in the form of the Managing IT write-up. Didn’t do a whole lot yesterday with the morning spent on the MKTR assignment which had already been completed for all practical purposes by A. Went to Prasadz with S to watch Garam Masala…well, it was either that or Harry Porter! The movie was abominable! It actually managed to fall below my already sub-terranean expectations from a David Dhawan flick. The highlight of the evening would have to be the auto ride to angeethi, what with flashing lights and loud hindi ‘ballads’ that S told me were from ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. it’s a miracle neither of us toppled out of the vehicle, we were laughing so hard! Was almost sorry when we reached our destination. Dinner at angeethi and some mind-blowing seekh kabab masala that I couldn’t have enough of though I was stuffed to the gills!

After much procrastination, finally got some documentation from one of the clients I worked for ‘in my past life’ J and have been trying to tie all of it into something cogent enough for 30% of the grade. Better get this done and start on the Strategy Writeup or else Shammak and Koshie and Jyoti are gonna lynch me.

T5 done...well almost

Marketing Implementation, my last end term for term 5 was done today. Doesn’t feel the same as the core terms where the campus heaved a collective sigh of relief, since other exams are still on.

MKTI had a case to analyze for 2 hours followed by 65 multiple choice q’s to answer in an hour. Made a mockery of the whole ‘open book’ concept. The Managing IT and Strategy Implementation submissions remain. Only then will be done with Term 5.

Can’t believe we’re done with more than half the course!

“It's astounding, time is fleeting

Madness takes its toll

But listen closely, not for very much longer

I've got to keep control…” –The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack

MKTR and COBE

Marketing Research and Consumer Behavior end terms were done today. Went alright, unlike the routs I have grown accustomed to over the last 2 terms. The research paper was out of 200 points and covered pretty much the entire course from sampling, multiple regression, factor analysis, discriminant analysis and conjoint. The note saying “more than 2 bullet points for this answer will be penalized!” in the MKTR question paper was hilarious. All in all, was a good course with decent coverage of content given the ever-present time constraints.

The prof had promised fun in the COBE exam and he was true to his word. The note on the first page went something like… “this paper shouldn’t be a problem for those who listened in class and for those who surfed their way through the course…yes you! You, you and that gal over there, well, tough!” J his questions were along similar lines what with caselets on skin-darkening creams called “Wheatie” and “TanMan”. The last section even had a ‘bonus’ section where you could write him a poem or draw something or basically do anything to convince him to give you the 2.5 points. The paper was also very well-constructed asking questions that had us flipping through the textbook at warp speed. Unusually though, since this was one of those courses I really enjoyed, it wasn’t my first time with the textbook and I think most answers turned out ok. Of course, I could get a C and that would be that. Now for some dinner and to Marketing Implementation…

Weekend before the End Terms

It’s the weekend before the end terms. While the customary hush prevails around campus, the difference this time is people have their exams on different days with Marketing towards the beginning of the week and finance in the latter half. There are even some lucky souls gallivanting around campus with just the 1 exam. I have 3 tests with M Research and Consumer Behaviour on the first day followed by M Implementation on Tuesday. Have 3 submissions due in the term-break, so, can’t wait for that!

What with judgement day (read placements) creeping closer now, people seem intent on their prep for interviews. I’ve had this very efficient system of dealing with the myriad things that crop up; push everything to the term break. Of course, the term break is then exclusively spent getting drunk and sleeping late till the guilt of not having accomplished anything hits on the Sunday before the term starts but then who works on a Sunday?! J this time better be different though, have to atleast get started on the paper on Brand Equity that we’re supposed to do for Prof. Raju. It’s a good thing he’s at Wharton or I’d already have flunked out of this place.

Now its back to the enervating exercise of pretending to study till its time for dinner or till I can think of something urgently pointless to do. Come to think of it, its been a while since I reorganized my music…;)

Cricket update:

Stumbled across online scores of our game (search for isb):

08/11/05:
http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/08/stories/2005110810011800.htm

15/11/05:
http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/15/stories/2005111506882000.htm

Its Killing..oops Bidding Time!

Bidding season again…but this time there isn’t as much fanfare. Guess ppl got sick of trying to outthink and outbid their ‘mates’. Bid for 5 subjects with the intention of dropping one of ‘em making up some excuse. Got 3 of them, waitlisted for Pricing and Strategic HRM (go figure!) As of now, will be doing CFPD (Customer Focused Product Development), BPMT (Business Performance Management) and MKME (Marketing Metrics). The arduous task of forming groups all over again, cant even be sure who’re all in my group this term! Hope to get Pricing by the time the dust settles though.

COBE final presentation due tomorrow and have spent the better part of the day peering into our research results to figure out why TOI (The Times) does not sell as much as the Deccan Chronicle does. 6 hours later, I still don’t know! So what else is new?!

So near..yet so far...

Another week and another week packed with assignment submissions. The highlight, for me, however was the cricket match against Franklin Templeton. Having just made the deadline for the COBE essay of 5pm, we set off for Glendale High School, the venue of the Xius corporate cricket tournament.

As usual, there was a delay as the match before ours ran over by an hour. We won the toss and elected to field on one of the greenest playing surfaces I’ve ever seen! A decision was debatable to an extent, considering chasing has never been fun, ever. We had a different set of bowlers for this game and were optimistic about restricting the opposition to a manageable score of about 120 to 140. However, things didn’t begin too well with 18 coming off Doc’s (Rakesh) first over mainly by way of wides. Its never easy for anyone who’s not played any cricket in months to come and bowl with the new white ball. I opened from the other end and after an edged 4 past gully, landed one just right, that moved back off the seam and went between bat and pad and clipped the top of middle stump. An opening bowler’s dream J! After that there were some quiet overs as the batsmen played cautiously because of the movement, both in the air and off the pitch. I had a few near misses against their left-handed batsman getting good movement into him (whom I incidentally dropped off Pratik – a ridiculous effort where I had aeons to get in position and yet cudnt get a hand on the ball!). I ended with figures of 4 overs – 22 runs – 3 wickets. Nikhil, Pratik, Ruchir and RK were the other bowlers. All kept things under control for the most part, especially Nikhil and Pratik. Doc finished off his overs well after a bad start. A couple of expensive overs from Ruchir and the odd flurry of boundaries got them up to a mammoth 183.

Chasing this total was never going to be a cakewalk, but we felt we’d have a go and see what happened. I and Aditya opened with me taking strike. I’d felt the beginnings of a cramp in the last over that I’d bowled and was not very hopeful about lasting long at the crease because the last thing I wanted to do was eat up overs with an asking rate of over 9. After a good first over, all hell broke loose. I got some room from the other opening bowler and cut 2 fours. The bowler compensated and overpitched the next ball which I picked early and deposited out of the ground. We now had 16 in 2 overs and the chase was on! Aditya played anchor, unfurling the occasional big hit and turning the strike over while I continued chancing my arm and got away with it as the short square boundaries came into play and we rattled along at 10 an over. We got to 50 in the 6^th over and to 100 in the 11^th. I went to my 50 off a misfield off a drive that was hit powerfully but should’ve been stopped. Particularly enjoyed the shot next ball; was pitched up by a medium-fast bowler and took a big step out to meet the ball and hit it flat and hard over extra cover for 6, even stayed in the follow-through for a second to savour it! J With no wickets down, we were looking good to pull off a fantastic win. However, Aditya was asked to hit out and perished LBW playing across the line in the process. RK looked to hit one too early and we’d lost 2 wickets in quick time. Their leg-spinner was doing a good job of keeping things quiet with some very temptingly slow bowling. Neeraj joined me and we kept taking singles and the odd boundary. I was keen on staying till the end but a bad call from me for a single off a misfield that resulted in my runout for 87. The asking rate of over 10 at that point and it was unfair on the batsmen that followed to come out and hit out from the word go and we lost wickets regularly after that. Neeraj, Nikhil, Pratik all made a valiant effort with some lovely hits to the fence, but there were just too many runs to get and we fell short by 16 runs.

A heartbreaking loss for having got so close but I won’t forget one of the comments from the opposition new-ball bowler after the game – “That was the best innings I’ve ever seen”. Yeah I know what you’re thinking, “Enough with the self-promotion already!”…but that’s the whole point of having your own blog I guess  J

Cricket at last!

We played our first game in the Xius corporate cricket tournament yesterday. After our first attempt a couple of terms ago(0-3), we wanted this time to be different. Our game for 6pm was delayed by a couple of hours because of a soggy field. After twiddling our thumbs for that time and declarations from each about how we’d have finished a couple of assignments in the time lost, we were asked to bat after losing the toss by the Applabs team.

Kamalesh and RK started off well enough with 9 and 12 runs off the first 2 overs. Just when they looked settled, RK was ‘stumped’ off their opening bowler as he slipped while trying to get back in the crease after playing and missing at one. Ruchir then joined Kamalesh and the 2 of them set about collecting runs and the odd boundary. A driven six over cover by Kamalesh was a treat to watch. Ruchir injured his shoulder going hard at a widish delivery and retired. I went in and in the very next over Kamalesh charged the bowler and was caught behind. We’d lost 3 batsmen in 2 overs and hence had to go through a quiet period where the run rate hovered around the 6 mark with the odd boundary. Just when I and Venky were starting to get going, Venky was dismissed dabbing at a wide one. I decided to keep one end up and went about taking singles and chancing my arm every now and again to score 46. We lost a few more wickets at the other end and some lusty hitting by Nikhil in the final over got us to a respectable 159 off 20 overs.

Defendable as the score was, our rustiness showed with the ball as all the bowlers struggled to keep a consistent length and were dispatched to the short square boundaries by their opening pair. Applabs rattled off to 100 off 10 overs before the spinners slowed them to an extent. Nagraj bowled some excellent leg-spin to take 4 wickets and bring us back into the contest. In the end, they got home in the last over with 5 wickets to spare.

Amazing how you feel the exhaustion only after a loss, but all in all, a good change from the usual grind of assignments.

Midterms?

Its Midterm time…and for a change, I’m NOT sitting up at 4am wondering (wud be for the 5^th consecutive term) why I hadn’t been regular with my readings! That’s coz its that time of the year when segregation rears its ugly head on campus. Not so much on the basis of race/sex/religion but something much more intrinsic…your choice of major! The Fin people (not the country), are busy preparing for their opFr (Options and Futures) midterm and puns you’d only trust people of that branch to come up with…”No Option and Dark Future” are doing their rounds on campus. Of course, when these folk say they are unprepared, usually means they’re ill-equipped to add anything to the existing body of knowledge.  That’s not to say that I don’t have my cross to bear with assignments and take-home midterms due next week.

Week 1 and Dandiya!

End of Week 1 of T5 and everyone seems to be buried under bulkpacks earlier than usual. The atrium and café have a deserted look as groups huddle together in the LRC and other convenient locations trying to crack their first couple of assignments. Its not earth-shattering to note that most of these above-mentioned people are students of certain 'F' subjects…namley FIRA (Financial Reporting and Analysis), FIIN (Fixed Income), ADCF (Advanced Corf Fin) and OPFR (Options & Futures). After the first lectures of these subjects, there were considerable defections to the relatively safer confines of Rural Marketing, Knowledge Management and the like.

ISB has its own calendar and hence Saturday was earmarked for celebrating Navarathri and Dandiya. Was a neat event with the atrium decorated and a live 'band' performing. Folks were dressed in their K3G (that movie abt loving your parents?) best! There were performances by the spouses and students that were appreciated. With exchange season in full flow, wonder what the visitors from China and the US would've felt about watching the usually sober ISB population running around in circles while at the time skipping to the beat and apparently attacking each other with 2 wooden sticks. All in all, a good evening of loud (not necessarily melodious ;) music and revelry.

Term 5 Begins

Bidding season's over and classes have started in earnest. Having dismissed all Fin subjects as being too easy and not having got Mkt Implementation, had reconciled myself (with no small amount of relief) to doing 4 courses this term. But, by the time the umpteenth.."Bid-Sample-Drop-Hold-Hide-Pillage" round was done, found my name on the MKTI class list! Not the end of the world though, apparently, the prof received rave reviews for the first lecture. At the end of it all, have Consumer Behaviour, Market Research, Managing IT, Strategy Implemenation and of course Marketing Implementation. Another mammoth accomplishment was the formation of groups for the various subjects. After hundreds of emails and frantic phone calls, I believe I'm covered for all 5 subjects with about 20 'group-mates' to show for it all. With 4 lectures every other day and different classrooms to boot, it'll be a miracle if I'm in the right class at the right time.

The Bidding Wars...

It’s the last week of term 4 and the first round of bidding for the electives is in full flow. With 4000 points to play with for the 4 remaining terms and umpteen subjects that ppl are interested in makes for some excitement. Strategies and counter-strategies are developed using comprehensive game-theory models with people talking about 'prisoner's dilemma' being a threat to sanity. In the midst of all this, koshie unleashes hell by sending out an email with his purported list of subjects and his bids! There are a few nervous breakdowns on campus as news of FIRA for 1200 and MKTI for 1500 spread like wildfire. Finally the bid-results are out and most people have only seemed to have succeeded in outsmarting themselves. Terms like 'koshied' and 'kundooed' 'are coined for people who couldn't get a single subject of their choice while people who do get their subjects are left with about 10-15 points out of their 4000 for the other 3 terms. The final phase of the bidding is underway as we speak and there is no reason to believe that sanity has a chance.

Term 2 ends

It’s a bird!...Its a plane!...Its term 2!
For the way the start and the end of the term converged into one frenetic blur of activity, it might well have been called SuperTerm. Must’ve spent about half the time (read as number of days multiplied by 12) working on group assignments. MarkStrat was the leader by far in terms of time consumed…not to mention the satisfaction of being called upon by Prof. Raju in Khemka auditorium and being asked to explain how we managed the difficult task of maintaining constantly low profits. Pawan countered by saying we were more of an R&D company than a for-profit organization. Khemka auditorium erupts in laughter, yeah, it was funny…right. Atleast we now know what NOT to do in the damn thing!

Vodites...you're life is incomplete without one

Term2 has been chugging along at the usual ho-hum breakneck speed. The situation this term is only made better by the fact that 2 of the visiting faculty were only available for 3 weeks instead of the usual 5. but prof Jagmohan Raju and prof Anjani Jain were totally worth the skewed schedule. Listening to their command over their respective subjects and the insights they have to share with us from their experience has been a truly enlightening experience (and this is one place where the cliché fits perfectly). This term has been characterized by umpteen submissions, assignments, cases – both individual and group that make term 1 seem like a picnic. Another highlight is the very addictive marketing strategy game; Markstrat that involves marketing teams competing against each other to get the most profits out a market selling products that go by the name of Sonites and Vodites. With each firm having their own budgets and unique products (read inferior in our case), the only thing on peoples’ minds seems to be to kick the other team’s butts! Good fun overall! Midterm for global economics was done today…hence the willingness to blog’ J…instead of the demoralizing paper where you come out of the room to find that you have got probably 5 points out of 100, this one was subjective and involved actually writing out half page answers. The upside is you don’t quite know how bad you’ve screwed up. Thats about it for the update…have another markstrat decision due by tomorrow morning but now for some def leppard and a cold beer J

Term 2 begins...

I look outside my window and I see a bright blue sky dotted profusely with little clouds. I imagine the scene looks a lot like it would have to an inhabitant of Troy when seeing the thousand ships of the united Greek forces approaching. Of course, the Trojan would have felt a great deal more of consternation than I currently am, since the flecks of white in the azure sky have a rather calming effect.

Term 2 started last week and while my excuse for being tied up with the course might be plausible, they would be false. Week 1 only had 1 lecture a day and the overall feeling was of being a lot less hurried than in term 1. The week ended with the GSB party for the batch with lotsa loud music and free booze. That however has ended, and this week has a packed schedule that will be more in keeping with the theme that is ‘The ISB’.

The Term that was...

Term 1 ended yesterday…just like my previous post exulted…was quite an initiation into life at ISB. It all started innocently enough with some 'welcome to isb' and 'get-to-know' sessions. There was pre-term and orientation week…which was nothing but learning whats where on campus and some of the previous batch. Not having the seniors around to counsel you on life here and 'post'-here is probably one of the biggest drawbacks of the 1-year course.

Everything here has been a 'never been there - never done that' experience…with the lectures and the assignment and the case-studies. The objective of the 1st term was to lay the foundation of whats to come next. The material covered was great, with lively discussions in class. There was no doubt about the pedigree of the professors either, the only lingering doubt in my mind being whether they might not just treat the 4-week course as a vacation away from their travails in pennsylvania, columbia and so on. I needn't have worried…the content of the course was grade A, and special mention has to go to Prof. Finn for putting a lot of effort into making what was already a fantastic course, even more relevant to us as with references to Indian GAAP. The exams were however a different matter. Dunno if its just sour grapes…but found them to be a bit too mathematical. It seemed like one needed more hold over quadratic equations and derivations than the concepts of supply-demand…5Cs-4Ps etc. On the other hand, regular reading of the course material and thus a much better showing in the end-terms might just have had me saying the opposite about the course.

The idea is to make some (minor)modifications to the 'study protocol' :
1. Firstly….study! :)
2. Atleast TRY and keep up with whats being taught in class…something I've been told since I was in elementary school..lol

Can't help use a cliché to say…Its been quite a ride so far…and from what has been said about Term 2, we'd do well to tighten the seatbelt a notch!

T1 begone

June 08 - 2005: prospective employer..."Introduce yourself"..."Hi…this is anoop…am an mba…actually am 1/8th of an mba!"

Don’t blame me for the lame joke…blame 4 instruments of torture disguised as term 1 subjects!

End-terms were done today…biiiiiig sigh of relief. Didn’t do too flash though…accounts, eco and marketing…all bad! Stats was better, only comparatively though.

Anywayz…now its time to only unwind and stay up all night (this time voluntarily) consuming alcohol like its going out of fashion…marginal benefit be damned!

.................

Your head's pounding...your breath's coming in shallow gasps...the text on the page seems to be swimming in and out of focus...and you can't tell if its night or day...No its not quite your day of reckoning...just the day before term 1 exams at ISB..cough cough...

Exams already?!

Seems like only yesterday when we were attending the 4th week of our term and the exams are already here…Damn it!!! It was yesterday!!!

Things have been goin' by in a blur and its time for Term I end term exams. 4 exams - 2 days…now I know what Nicolas Cage felt like in 'Gone in sixty seconds'