Incessant Chase(s) of Life

In couple of few days life has definitely turn around a whole circle. People are now calling me as whether to join IMT or not? and i recall my days as a MBA aspirant when i was so much confused that once i almost decided to drop MBA. Thank god, common sense prevailed and i joined IMT. But after one year of the so called management education, i came to know about one thing, no education in any of the school can make you a manager, it has to come from inside. The only thing which you can learn from a B School , is to apply common sense , and believe me its very uncommon, as there are numerous examples of various well planned campaigns went for toss. As quoted by somebody " After MBA, you feel that you doesn't need to do an MBA.. bit to feel this you gave to a MBA".

More on personal note.. things are not going that smooth. Life is never kind to anyone, but on some of the days i ask questions to the god and more to myself.. Why Me? I know people ask these questions only when they are in pain and not when al the things are going right for them. Some times things doesnt go your way, despite you give your best of the efforts. You try to improve yourself, change the habits in you, just to have something you desire. And its not the case that i desire a lot. Although there is no end of human aspirations, i only desire have company of someone who is dearest to me !!!!!

But at the end of the day, there are somethings which you can do.. and there are somethings which just happen. You can study hard.. you can try to improve yourself.. you can make efforts to excel in your life.. but you cant make a person become a friend of you . Friendship and Love are the things which usually happens. So, then why people try for it, if the effort is not required at all. Again the vagaries of human life, the more a thing elude you , the more you are after it. In life we do not value the things which we have, and constantly chase those which we do not have. So, for the time being , just have to keep the matter in cold.. and i think i should believe in adage of true love? Lets test the age old mantra .....

10 things I've learnt during the first year of PGDM

1. Don't go for CGPA, you will learn more and feel better. Remember 3 Idiots! Go for the excellence, not success.

2. Don't think about placements, prepare yourself to understand management.

3. Be passionate towards your course, irrespective of what the world thinks.

4. Use laptop only when necessary. Make an entertainment window for FB, youtube, movies etc. It's very difficult to resist in high speed internet facility!

5. If you become part of any club/committee, show (by your work) that you run it.

6. Those who become NCCs (No Clubs and Committees), need not get disheartened. NCCs are the most creative people in the campus.

7. Beware of the socialization virus. It will kill your time.

8. Read books at Library. It will enhance your ROI.

9. Respect the faculty and do interact with them. They are expert in their field.

10. Follow your hobbies and play outdoor Games.

The global meltdown of 2008 offers multiple case studies in management. B-schools should cash in on them.

(This article was published in the Financial Express dated March 29, 2010 in which IMT Ghaziabad was the featured B-school in its Campus Page. I'm posting the same here on Ishan Rohit's insistence.)

I think it is appropriate for me to make a disclaimer here-the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the author... :)


According to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “the only thing that is constant is change”. This dictum has been central to everything in the universe. Everything evolves, and the agent of change galvanises this process.

Management education in India has also undergone change and evolved in the past few decades. It started off by understanding business practices in the western world and trying to implement them in the Indian context. Somewhere down the line, we also studied the slightly different Japanese management styles. Indian institutions managed to incorporate the best of all worlds and put it into a concise curriculum to be taught to budding managers in our B-schools.

But what has come of it? Have we actually created business leaders who can drive organisations through times of crises and prosperity or have we simply created managers who end up making bad decisions in uncertain times?

The economic liberalisation started in the 1990s brought with it economic development in the country. The boom times brought with it opportunities like never before. Management institutes, sensing the need of the industry started responding to the market and began churning out industry-ready managers. The students were given a feel of the industry through internship programmes and the mind was moulded to look forward to the jet setting lifestyle in the corporate world.

Suddenly, the subprime housing crisis in the US snowballed into the worst financial crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression. The Wall Street banking industry caused a lot of damage and their excesses affected the Main Street. There were millions of bonuses given, but some of the over-pampered bankers were committing grave mistakes by way of short-term risk taking. Ill-advised risks were taken in the mortgage business. From mid-2008, the global economy turned upside down and ripples were felt in India, too.

It is said that no crisis should be wasted for the lessons it teaches. So, B-schools around the world are embracing the financial turmoil as a valuable teaching tool.

Maybe it's time to look at management education as something more than just preparing for the corporate world. These days, courses like innovation, creativity, leadership and entrepreneurship are in much demand. It is imperative for B-schools to respond to the changing business climate and come up with these types of courses. B-schools should also take conscious steps to nurture an entrepreneurship mindset among its students.

The real goal of management education must not be in pushing students for plush corporate jobs with mind-boggling salaries. It should rather be in sowing the seeds of entrepreneurship which would create more jobs and propel the country forward. The financial crisis brought with it various lessons to be learnt. The B-school curriculum needs to be revamped to include all these lessons which can ensure better learning, understanding and decision making by the managers of tomorrow. Most management institutes have responded promptly and are in the process of incorporating these modifications in the curriculum.

The global meltdown of 2008 offers multiple case studies in management theory and practice. B-schools should cash in on them to stay relevant.

Smoke art...

Smoke art is a form of photography to bend and blend smoke to create some abstract shapes. The interpretation of each picture varies according to the person viewing it, some might think of picture as meaningless smoke while other will see a shape, object or a story..

some of my work...

Motherhood...
An abstract form of smoke depicting a mother carrying her baby.



Dhol Wala


Burning Desires...


Heart of a lady..



The Flying Beast..



Sound of Music...


for more, Click here

Thanks to seniors for allowing me to showcase my work.

Regards
Tarun Chawla
IMT 2010-12

And the Search Begins..

Half past midnight.. one of the days when the sleep is shying away... so once again back to writing something.. one of the thing which engages me quite well !!... Last month has been a pretty happening one.. once again back to corporate jungle (read internship) after a wonderful 1 year sojourn at IMT. But somehow today mood is quite thoughtful.. may be rainfall couple of days before is having some lagging effect.

Last weekend i went to home, and while i was traveling i saw a very interesting scene in train. There was a couple and a small kid, and as usual the baby is troubling parents and was not in mood to eat anything. Then the father hold him in hand, while mother took the bowl and then they start travelling all over the compartment trying to distract him, by showing him different things. Seeing it, i remembered my childhood days. Papa used to tell me lots of stories and in between put stuff in my mouth , and that's how i eat the food then. Today, we sometimes take our parents for granted, but we don't know what efforts they had put in bringing us up. It was really like traveling down the memory lane for me.

In life we do mistakes, and some time the situation is like that you know you are doing a mistake, but you cant stop yourself. This is the beauty of life. Rational and irrational are very much hyped concepts, just tweak the consequences and you will see the most rational person in the world behaving irrationally. The problem lies in trying too hard for something. There are somethings in life which just happen. you cant force those things to happen.But poor mortals, the heart can defy every logic presented by mind.

So i will also try to dissociate myself, dunno how successful, i would be, but still i will give it a fair try. Somehow, today there is a new hope inside me, somehow i feel myself lighter. I was too much afraid of loosing something, that i was not even asking myself that was i happy holding on to that thing? really wanna thank someone who said " do those things in life which make you happy", this is the only way you can make your loved ones happy. Will try to follow the path, and hope for the god's grace with me.. till then c ya.....

The Journey

And so the wheel of time comes a full circle. May 2009 is when I started this journey. I took my final year exams, and gave some thought to which direction to take after graduation. I wanted to go to B-school; after having studied three years of theory, I thought B-school would be where I'd learn to place it a practical context, the first step to entering the corporate world.

I'd taken for CAT in '08 as well, just to see if I was even reasonably equipped to enter a top B-school. I never studied seriously for it; it would have been gruelling to do that in my final year. And I achieved a 90th percentile. "Not bad," I thought to myself. "I can spend a few months preparing for CAT and other exams, then take on the exam season."

My parents were completely supportive when I decided to not work and devote one hundred percent to entrance exam prep. I enrolled in coaching classes, took the mock tests, pored over the newspaper like my life depended on it. But to be honest, it was hard to stick to a study schedule when I was completely vella :D And so I enjoyed the wonderful city of Delhi with the most wonderful bunch of friends a girl could ask for.

Exam season rolled around. Nerves have never been a problem with me. IIFT went badly; that was to be expected. CAT was a complete fiasco, with all the glitches and whatnot. I had an early slot, so I had no way of knowing what would be a good attempt. I did 42 questions and felt ecstatic. Later I got to know that all the brainy ppl attempted well over 50 questions. Crap.

That only made me work harder for the other exams. TISS, SNAP, XAT, FMS, NMAT.. I studied like a robot and took all the exams on one after the other, mechanically, Sunday-to-Sunday. January end, I was finally done with all of these papers. And I took a well-deserved few weeks off, to rest, relax (still read the paper like my life depended on it, though!)

XAT results came first, and I nearly fell over in disbelief. I'd gotten a 98.6! XLRI apparently had pretty high sectional cut-offs, but I got a call from GIM :) The interview was weird. The interviewers didnt ask me one single question about Eco, why MBA, etc. They grilled me about rock music for a while. Then told me that as a fresher, I didnt have much hope of competing against the work ex ppl. I left that interview room completely demoralized.

Then CAT results came out.

I had had literally zero expectations from CAT. To see a 96+ score was.. Mindblowing. Literally. I dont remember much about that day. Mostly I just bounced around the room, walking on air, talking on the phone to a zillion people. I had done it! The late nights with mock-tests, the stressing over unconquerable geometry questions, the uncertainty of sitting at home and wondering if I took the right step - All worth it.

So what if I had no IIM calls? (Low Math score) I had interview calls from LBS and IMI and TAPMI and IMT and KJS! Surely I would get through somewhere!

The next month went by in a blur. I sat through umpteen GDs and interviews (and 1 case analysis :D ), till the point came when I no longer stressed when interviewers fired questions at me such as "Where is the Nifty at today? Sensex? What is the current price of gold? India's GDP? How many kms of Metro track in the NCR?" I learnt that its ok to not be able to answer these questions. The IMT interview, though, went well. Best of the lot. I could steer the interview along my lines.

Somewhere along the way, I got calls from TISS, NM and FMS (the latter with a fantastic 99.3 %ile). I went to Bombay twice. I found time to visit my grandmother in Jaipur. To see Avatar three times in the hall. I cried when I didnt convert FMS. I jumped for joy when I got through GIM- the idea of studying in Goa was fantastic! Then I got a little immune to the whole process, and took the NM conversion and TISS non-conversion in my stride.

But I was still not rid of the uncertainty. GIM or NM? I ruled out NM cuz I didnt get the course I wanted. My folks wanted me to stay in Delhi so badly, that I even considered LBS. The night the IMI results came out, April 30th, I was stuck. IMI was good. Was it better than GIM? Should I send the 2nd instalment to GIM? Did I want to stay at home or experience the hostel life? Should I leave it to my parents to decide?

That was a long night. I prayed for the IMT results to be positive. I refreshed the damned site every ten minutes. By next morning, May 1st, I'd spoken to alumni from both IMI and GIM. There wasn't much to choose between them. I steeled myself to give Goa up, for my parents. We were drafting the cancellation of admission letter to GIM, when, out of habit, I checked the IMT website. "Congratulations," it said, and I didnt even finish reading the rest of that sentence. End of confusion. I. Was. Going. To. IMT!

So there was the end of the journey. A full year after it started. May 2010, and I had been accepted at one of the most prestigious B-schools in the country, in the course I wanted! Life seems colourful again!

And now, after having communicated with other IMT entrants and seniors, I just know it: Its going to be a great two years!

And so the drop-year is officially over. That journey has ended. And another one begins.