Memories from the Golden Years of my life (7)

I got up next morning at around 7. No ragging had happened in the night. Maybe these MBA institutes had finally realized that ragging was such a futile exercise. Wasn’t I pleased to know that? We had our orientation at 8 AM. We were all supposed to reach the academic block with the particulars (which included a few photographs, letter of acceptance of advance fees and all the original mark sheets and certificates). I had a quick bath and got ready. I went to mess first to catch some breakfast. As usual, I had sufficient time on hand (I always had this habit of reaching any place before time) so had a full breakfast of cornflakes with milk, bread pakora and tea. There was omlette also, but as I believed that one should not have omlette and leave for any exam (this was my first day in the institute and hence equivalent to an exam), I skipped it.

I reached the academic block five minutes before eight and was surprised to find that I was not the only one who had arrived before time! Just to give a flavour about the academic block to those who haven’t been there, the block is made of red bricks and has five entrances, two of which are opened only during the time of placements. One of the three open entrances which is open faces the library (which is called as Gyanodaya) and the Computer Center (fondly called by everyone as CC) has a figure of Maa Saraswati sculpted on its top. The second entrance from the same side is closed. The other two entrances (which are the main ones) face the path leading to Samadhan (the administrative block) and Chintan (the faculty block). The fifth entrance leads to the green ground behind the block where temporary mess is set up during placements. As we enter the academic block from the main entrance (which is nearer to the library), on both sides are placed notice boards. The right side contained notice boards for our batch, which was PGP 21 (the 21st batch of post graduate programme in management) and the left side contained the notice boards for our seniors’ batch, PGP 20 (which was later replaced with PGP 22, once they left at the end of our first year). On the notice board, we saw, that the entire batch had been divided into 5 sections, for the purpose of induction. We were all supposed to gather in one of the big halls on the second floor, i.e. CR 203. I climbed up the stairs and reached the hall, to finds that already quite a few students had been occupying it. It was a large hall, with seating capacity of nearly 200 students. How 300 of us were to be accommodated there, nobody knew. The infrastructure has been generally good in IIMl.. The hall was equipped with a slide projector and a screen, was fully air conditioned and had good lighting for all purposes that it was supposed to be used. I found myself a seat, in the middle of the hall, to be seated for the rest of the day.

And, I introduced myself to the beautiful girl seated beside me, Helly Ajmera. She had a pleasant personality and seemed confident of what she spoke. We anyways did not have much to speak with anyone. So, the usual round of conversation was like … Where are you from? Which college? Any workex? Helly was from Bombay. It was later only, that I came to know that she had already completed first year of her MBA from another university in Bombay itself but had dropped the college to pursue MBA at IIML. I realized two things in this conversation. One, the IIM brand is really powerful. Powerful enough to make you drop one year. And secondly, that a part of my competition would be guys and gals who have already done first year of MBA once!

Soon, the hall was fully occupied. The first person to address us was Mr. M. Ravi Sunder (fondly known as MRS by everyone). He was the then Chairman of the PGP (Post Graduate Programmes). He welcomed us into the hallowed portals of IIML. He was generally not a great orator, but we were instantly able to connect to him because of his down to earth nature and simple speaking. At the very beginning, he warned us that the next two years are not going to be easy. We will need to put in our best efforts, although there is not reason to be scared of anything and we would manage well if we follow a daily routine of studies. (I guess the last comment was to dispel the apprehension which the batch had towards studies at IIML as last year, in our senior batch some 50-60 students had been asked to leave as they could not fulfill the minimum criteria for grades!)

This was followed by a couple of more lectures. Once that is clearly etched in memory is by our Dean, Academic Affairs - Mr. R. K. Srivastava, very commonly known as Rocky. The man is a complete riot in himself. Thankfully .... unlike others ... he was not preaching in his lecture. His welcome was really warm and it really showed on his face how happy he was. He showed us some past pictures of IIML .. some 15-20 years ago when we used to operate from the building now known as city office ... located in Aliganj, the early pictures of campus, the histroy of IIM Lucknow .... How they wanted to have an IIT at Lucknow .. and then the question was raised that there is already an IIT at Kanpur ... so the minister in concern (I wouldn't name him or her of course!) asked .. if not an IIT .. what else can we have at Lucknow? ... and the result was IIM Lucknow !!!

The lectures ended by the evening. There was a notice on the notice board which said that there was a lecture by some guest who had arrived (I don't remember specifically but I think he was some alumni). There was also another notice on the test that was supposed to be held tonight at 9:30 PM!!! Apparently it was a very very important test, as on that basis we would be divided into sections. We had anyways been anticipating this as IIML had sent a book on accounting for us to study with their letter of confirmation of receival of fees. This came as a real shock to all of us. Althought I had read the book ... completed it thoroughly ... yet I was not sure if I remembered everything. (I had done it long time back). Some of the guys were least bothered about it while others were simply aghast to see it as they had not even opened the book.

Memories from the golden years of my life (6)

Papa had left the campus ... and I had to move forward. As rightly put by Manish ... I had mixed thoughts and emotions at this time. I was anxious for the future, I was excited to discover a new world, I was sad because I was all alone ... away from home for the first time in my life and I was apprehensive, not so much for what lay in store ahead ... but for the ragging. I was actually very scared of ragging ... as I always have been (perhaps Shounak can elaborate more on this), althouth i had not heard of any bad kinda ragging (you know what I am referring to) in IIM Hostels. (There was this blog written by one of our seniors in IIML, who had written about day to day life at L. This had been sent to us on yahoo group before we had joined. I had gone through the entire blog and it had given me no sense on any serious ragging)

Anyways ... I just set up some remaining stuff in my room and ventured out. I was thirsty. There was a water cooler in our floor at the intersection of the two wings I had mentioned earlier. I filled in water in the bottle I had got from home (now you can imagine what a detailed preparation we had done :-) ) from the cooler and got back to room. Next I located the washing machine. It was just below the water cooler on the ground floor. So ground floor had the washing machine and first floor had the cooler (At that time I had not visited second floor. In fact it was after quite a few days stay that I came to knew that there was a washing machine at the second floor also).

Having nothing else to do ... I thought I might as well visit the only person I knew on campus at that time. So, I went to hostel 3, to visit Tarun Maheshwari. I was a bit surprised to see him studying!! We had just only arrived in campus. We had no clue what was there in course / syllabi ... and this guy was studying already! In fact ... at that time I did not know the book, but if I am now able to recall correctly, he was reading Prasanna Chandra! (Thats the basic book in financial management). As anyone can guess what the answers could be when I asked him what was he reading and why, he just said ... for timepass :-) ... At that moment only I realised its gonna be a lot more tougher that what I am prepared for. As we had nothing much to talk, I came back to my room. As I was just wondering, what to do next, papa called ... he had reached station safely and there was 4 hours of wait in front of him (all thanks to me). After that I called home and spoke with mummy and Dhiraj. After that I needed something (I cant figure out what it was now), so just went to Manish's room to borrow it. There I met Arkaj Agarwal. Hw was in room 512, just next to Manish. So, Manish had met both his neighbours, I was yet to meet one more. Arkaj was of good height, slightly dark complexion. He introduced himself from BHU. I actually for the first time, did not form any impression about him ... maybe because our interaction was dtoo brief ... Manish welcomed me .... and I sat there for about 5 min. But since Manish and Arkaj apparently knew each other ... they were talking quite freely. Stupid person that I am I started feeling uncomfortable, took the excuse of setting up my room and left. then I just fiddled around with my room till it was time for dinner.

At 7:45 sharp, (this was the time we used to have dinner at home), went to mess for dinner. In my first term at Lucknow, I did not had non veg in mess. (Okay ... now this seems to be absolutely absurd, but my thoughts were, my parents are spending so much on me ... and they had not even allowed me to take a loan (which is a different story in itself) ... so I must try and keep my expenses to a minimum. One had to pay extra for non veg in dinner .... ) The mess was quite empty at that time with very few people having dinner. As I knew none, had my dinner alone. I ate well ... (Not that the food was great ... but I was thinking of all the things that mummy had told me ... most of which were about food and she was sure to ask what all had I eaten ... when we talked next ...).

After having food ... I went to Computer Center (fondly called as CC) ... to chat with Dhiraj. A kind senior there (no, i don't remember ... any of them) told me how to login ... and how to do settings for yahoo messenger .... (yes, it was quite some time before gtalk stormed our lives). I chatted with Dhiraj and mummy about all things .. campus, people, room .. and especially about food :-) . Around 10, went back to my room .... prayed to God .. and tried sleeping (though I had a nagging feeling about ragging) ... No one knew what was going to happen next ...

In Remembrance ... Sham Ahuja

1st April, 2008 was a sad day in all our lives. My Jiju passed away. It came as a big shock for all of us. As soon as I was back from office, papa informed me of the news. I dont want to write about all the details ... as it would bring back all the pain that we have somehow managed to push at the back of our hearts. But at the same time ... I do pray to God to give his helping hand to Sonia Didi and her two sons.