My first tryst with an IIM: Episode 1

It all began with a ping from a dear friend here at SP who said – ‘ye link dekh le. see if we can participate in something.’ Our last paper together was for XIMB where we got wait listed for the finals. He had worked on it mostly while I had just done the final decorations as its called. This time, it was my turn. Tons of assignments (I remember we had at least 7 assignments to be submitted in that week) and a couple of exams lined up before the Diwali break wasn’t really the ideal time to work on a paper. However, we decided to go ahead and give it a shot. You call it pushing yourself to do more in times of stress? I wouldn’t disagree.

As expected, we had to squeeze time in between our hectic schedule to do what we liked to do more than what we were supposed to do… :P Soon we came to the day when we split for Diwali vacations! A couple of meetings and some brainstorming was all what we had done. I felt even worse cuz this was my responsibility primarily and I had been unable to come out with something concrete. Promising myself that I would work on it on the flight, I packed up hurriedly and left Mumbai. Much to my discomfort, I got a seat in between two very talkative co-passengers. Forget about doing something productive, I could not even open my laptop for a few minutes with some silence around me! :D

I arrived at Bengaluru in the evening only to find myself so excited to be home that I forgot all about everything else until late that night. Next morning, I woke up with Mamma’s familiar ‘yeddu yeLallva??’₁. Smiling to myself, that I was finally back home, I dived into my paper – Need for shopper marketing to complement Consumer Marketing.

Skipping breakfast, lunch et all, in the midst of a series of ‘baiguLa’ ₂ from ammamma ₃ and amma, I finished what I had set out to do. In the bargain, I even missed the marriage of a friend! :P

There…. That was our entry for Papyrus – Marketing event of IIM I’s fest IRIS.

After days of waiting and endless refreshes on the home page of IRIS, I almost gave up! I still recall how I slept off at 3 AM on 16^th morning hoping the results would soon be announced. The next thing I remember was excitedly talking later the same morning to Ayush on the phone! He was saying – We have made it!! And I could not believe my ears! It was as if a dream had come true.

With that began our plan to go to IIM Indore… :)

Watch this space for more…

1 – wont u wake up in kannada

2 – scolding or rebuke in kannada

3 – maternal grandmother in Telugu; call her that cuz she is a telegaite.. :)