iBrand 2010 and the Hand of God

Campus was buzzing with activity after midterms and turnout for every miniscule event was phenomenal. These events are fun for some, CV point for few, learning for a very few and waste of time for the remaining. During the same time, one of the committees launched iBrand, and the criterion for the first round was a creative product and practical feasibility was not a constraint. I did not have any such product flash in my mind, so did not even care to form a team.

Tuesday, 24th July, I was in accounting class when I suddenly got an idea about a product which would wake up so many students, sleeping in class. I checked with my friends about the deadline of iBrand and it was the same day! I had less than a day to make a concept, shoot an ad, edit it, come up with a name and a caption and then submit it. I had the concept and even the caption ready by the end of the next class. I could not stop myself from thinking about the project, with the concept seeming a definite hit.

I discussed it with a few of my friends during lunch and they seemed ok with the idea. So we had the cast and crew ready by 3PM. But there was no screenplay as we were still not sure of the various functions of the product. The only thing we knew was that our product looked like a hand and does many things for us. Ideas were flowing from everyone. So we had shot 6 scenes in all each showing various functions. The shooting was the easier part with very few retakes. Both of my friends who acted were actually pretty good at acting, and even the scene with a melodramatic sequence was done in a single shot.

Still, the tougher part remained. There was a lot of editing and mixing needed to be done and also we had to come up with a name. I had started editing with my little knowledge of windows movie maker and had a really tough time especially with splitting the audio. As we were halfway through, the name "Hand of God" had come up and so we decided to go ahead with it as we dint have anything better. The video was also done by midnight and submitted. After watching the videos of other entries, I really felt happy that we did a good job and had a gut feeling that we will go through.

The results were out in 2 days and as expected we were through. The second round was one hell of an experience. It was a live promotion project and we had video slots, poster places chosen by auction. Thanks to Kalyan, we had the most hatke and innovative posters, among all other teams, ready well before midnight. We had 3 videos made in one day and after which I had become a pro in movie maker! There were videos played, posters put up, games designed and many more conceptualized and executed, all in less than two days. As the event information is confidential, I cannot disclose any more details.

Thanks to our team Akatsuki (Dinesh, Naveen, Sneha, Kalyan and me), we had two wonderful days of action, promotion, learning and more than all, lots of fun.

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The Striking Eight

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”

In the pic (left to right): Ravi Teja, Karthik, Dheeru, Prashanti, Jhansi, Satya, Kishore, Nagendra, Mukesh.

9:30 PM, July 31st, 2010

"Sir, aapka pizza ready hai", a guy from Dominos was speaking to me on phone. What the hell! I did not order any pizza. But the number and address he told are exactly mine. Who could have ordered a pizza on my name?? I thought it was a prank and told him not to waste time thinking about this order.

9:40 PM: "Era pizza vadda? (don't want pizza?)", Nagendra, one of my friends from B Tech has ordered it for me. It was friendship day the next day. How could I forget it??

Its been more than two years since B Tech and we, the members of our small gang "The Striking Eight (Yea! there are nine members in the pic, and still its Striking Eight!)", are now in six different cities. Though there was no regular hanging out, parties, outings as we had during our engineering, we still have the same essence of friendship, sharing our joy, tears, experiences etc..

Graduation days are the best days of our lives for most of us. And may be striking eight is one of the prominent reasons that I still cherish my B Tech life. Not only we had lots of fun together, but there was something unique about each one of us. We shared the most personal of things, advised the toughest advices, always had a shoulder to lean on.

"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success" - Oscar Wilde

True isn't it? We found great joy in each others successes. Striking eight is the first thing comes to my mind to share any joy. I cannot forget the night IIM L's results were out. I was in Pune then, had a small but a great party with Kishore and Nagendra, who were equally happy on my success. This year had been a wonderful year so far for us, as four of us left our IT jobs for something bigger and better. This includes me getting into IIM L, Karthik getting into MDI and Nagendra becoming a scientist at ISRO.

Missing you all.. Wishing you all the very best in life.. Three cheers to Striking Eight..!!

Karthik had a wonderful experience to add to this post

"First Puf and First Sip!!

In the peak winters of Jaipur, with Marlboro packet (we never compromise on brand as always :P), we are scouting for a place to taste our first puff. I remember the reactions on every body's face, the confusion whether to smoke or not. Then our mentor Kishore lighted up the ceremony and all inexperienced followers tried their hand. What a memorable night it was!

Then comes our philosophical journey of drinking, which was initiated by our Dheeru. I remember his uneasiness to get into that wine shop to ask for a beer :-). Though it was not a successful step, We ended up drinking RED BULLS! My first step into the world of drinking and no stopping there after ;). Finally that beer bottle was used as a model, guys lined up to take a photo with it. Not to mention our Nag was damn good at giving his wonderful poses as always :-) haha.. another adventurous night to remember..

We enjoy together.. We spoil together.. STICKY STRIKING 8!!!"

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When nights started turning into day!

Its been two months now, at helL. After a brief and hectic episode of projects, assignments, case studies, committee tasks, life is a lot peaceful during the mid term examinations, except for the one day battings going on. Mid terms have been an eye opener in a way, revealing that I should let go of burning the midnight oil and start studying from day one. The word "Day one" is making me a bit nervous but I desperately need to get used to studying at least in regular intervals.

After the preparatory classes for two weeks, where there was badminton, TT, Gym, squash and even pool ( anything if the court is free) and of course, classes, there was official induction scheduled for three days. All the seniors, as though looking for a chance to have some fun, were waiting for our induction process to begin. And there it was, on the evening of first day of official induction, an announcement that all the fachchas should assemble in class rooms at 10PM, in formals. I was a little excited than scared, and was imagining lots of fun. But it was very formal with lots of deadlines, presentations, formals, classes, even exams.

I will never forget the presentation session, where our ppts were completely morphed. Words like "instant shit" in place of "instant hit" were great pieces of fun and we struggled to control our laughter. It was a really innovative comedy and we wondered how they could act so serious even without a smile. Nights were becoming longer and longer, day after day. And now, hostel interaction after induction. It was fun though, to be awake till sunrise and sleep for two hours and rush for official induction. Amazingly, we had more number of deadlines during those 4 days, (for assignments, submissions, presentations, cases), than the total number we had till date, during the actual classes!

Finally the induction (both official and unofficial) has come to an end with the insti party. There was a batch meet before the party to announce that the entire induction was a hoax and was intended to get us used to the rigor. One of our seniors asked what is the one occasion when the entire campus rejoices, to which his answer was arrival of first years. With those words, the entire room was filled with applause and we will never forget that moment. Suddenly there was a wonderful feeling in the class, especially among the fachchas and all the seniors seemed very close. Had a great party after that, where IIML's own band, 3.4 performed, and lots of songs, dance and fun.

We had overtures of all the committees, the next day. I was amazed by the innovation and hard work of the students. There was a committee for every damn thing I can dream of! Clubs like Abhivyakti, Bhavishya, Quizzing commoners, Random walk, 3.4 were doing a wonderful job by not only entertaining students but also setting up a stage to perform. I was amazed by the amount of work put in by committees like Placecom, Alcom, Oculus, E Cell, Mess, Synapse, Disha for common benefit of all the students. Then of course Manfest, Index, Prism, Media etc who does a great job by their respective events.

Classes started the next day, little more seriously this time with assignments, quizzes, presentations submissions almost every other day. The level of commitment shown by the faculty, one of the best in India, is amazing. To take away all the stress of the classwork there were many events organised by students themselves. "Atonement" by team Abhivyakti was my first play and the way every character was portrayed was simply awesome. The main challenge in a 10 minute scene would be to ignore the crowd, flashing cameras, applaud, and other noise. All these were overcome with ease, My hats off to the Atonement team. Then there was Parichay, where all the fachchas rocked. It was fun when all the seniors were shouting "ek do theen char, bandh karo ye atyachaar", "Simon Go back" and many other funny lines to dominate the junior's performance. I remember one of my friends shouting that it is due to inferiority complex :-) :-). The Mime at the end, which was about a farmer and his problems, got a standing ovation and it surely deserved it.

Committee tasks have become a more or less a part of pre-mid term course for a few. Then came the CV reviews. It was another eye opener as I never would have known that CV is the most important one page I'll ever write at IIM L and I never would have been able to make my CV the way it is now. There is learning every where from the hostel parties where, there is more open interaction after a lot of booze to the all the gyan taught in the classes. And there are the competitions, almost in every other field, to give you a feel of the application part.

The last week before mid terms had been the busiest week in campus. From quizzes to presentations to project submissions to committee final reviews. After all the activity and exams, we had a great Insti party to sign off the pre-mid term. As though indicated by a very peaceful Sunday morning that calm comes before storm the post-mid term, which started this week, has even more activity, with lots of projects, assignments, inter hostel games in the nights, CV work etc.

With a very little difference between night and day, Life goes on at helL..

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The Beer Game

What struck your mind after looking at the name "Beer Game"?? My first thought when I saw the mail about the game, was the competition between Aamir and Sharman Joshi in RDB. But some how interested by the name and the creative poster, we formed a team to participate.

A little gyan, The beer game was developed at MIT in the 1960s. The beer game exercise is a simulation of a production-distribution system for a consumer product, such as beer. The exercise demonstrates the impact of system structure on human performance in a complex process. Each team has a Manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler and a retailer with Each player's goal being maximizing profit. The customers would be the people organizing the event and there would be no communication between the players except for the placing of orders by passing of a sheet. The winner would be the team which maximizes profits by reducing the losses and the inventory costs.

The game started after a little strategy making and our strategy was that the manufacturer and the distributor (thats me) would maintain large inventories and the retailer and the wholesaler maintains considerably smaller inventories. The first two rounds were a cake walk until the demand started becoming very unstable. I felt that we somehow missed the logic that even the wholesaler needs to have a large inventory. But the rules of the game doesn't allow me to communicate that to the wholesaler. The demand dropped sharply towards the end and we were left with huge scrap inventory which was a loss.

Keeping the game aside, there was a great learning. It was an actual simulation of any company which has a large supply chain involved. I understood the importance of strategy and may be the McKinseys and the BCGs into play here. The inventory cost and the scrap costs also wouldn't matter if the profit per unit is quite high compared to the costs.

Three cheers and a big pat on the back for OIG (Operations Interest Group, IIM L) for the wonderful experience.

{Sources: http://maaw.info/TheBeerGame.htm

http://www.public.asu.edu/~kirkwood/sysdyn/BGame/BGame.htm}

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Aisha

People made fun of me after I announced on FB that "Kites" was not as bad as it was being publicized. After watching all sorts of nonsensical movies over the past few years, I feel that I am one of those patient watchers of movies. After Aisha, I give full credit to the Aisha team for making me rethink about my stand on my movie watching ability.

We had our last mid-term exam in the afternoon and everybody were really excited to go to the city and have some fun. The plan was to watch "Once upon a time Mumbai" till we reached the box office of PVR Cinemas. After a little argument about the movie, we finally settled for "Aisha" and I was one of the few who were advocating for Aisha. We had a little shopping session in between as the movie was supposed to start an hour later.

The movie started with a high class wedding, of Sonam's aunt. There was luxury every where from cars like Beetle, Mercedes in every scene to costumes which were of a different level altogether. Scene after scene started rolling but the story never seemed to have started. I remember telling my friends to be a little patient when they were losing hope on the movie. I tried to watch the movie as positively as I can, forcing myself to laugh for all the Jokes which seemed a thousand years old. The few scenes in a movie where the audience would relate to themselves would be the ones which would glue them to their seats and wait for the rest of the movie. As this movie, which was supposed to attract the youth junta, had none of the elements to relate to, we were almost feeling drained by intermission.

There were a few friends who were questioning "How could Abhay Deol do this?", "Are we allowed move into the other movie for the second half" and few were busy compensating for the movie by eating. During the second half we decided to have some comedy on our own by clapping, shouting, etc. Though there were scenes, where Sonam mistakenly expresses her feelings at a wrong place, only to add the comic element, I don't think few of us even cared to follow what was going on after 90 minutes of a never intriguing story.

Anybody who had watched a few Bollywood movies would easily guess the climax of this movie in the first half, so the climax was even more tiring. Finally there was a moral told that "Love cannot be planned", and I leave the depth of this moral to your imagination. The movie ended with a song and luckily for us the doors were opened even before the song was completed. The only discussion then was about why did we choose Aisha over Once upon a time in Mumbai.

I remember that TOI rated this movie 4/5 and the first thing I did after coming back was to confirm what I remember is correct. To my surprise it is given FOUR stars. I understood that the rating was given for the costumes as the following line summarizes the same, "First and foremost, the movie dazzles you with the style quotient". I googled the purpose of a film review and found that "A film review is going to tell you who might like a movie and who should definitely stay away" and wondered how TOI missed it.

I found lines like "Join the fun", "Join the Confusion", "Join the madness" on a few posters of the movie, and now I wonder whether that there is hardly any of those in the movie except the last one, which we unfortunately did. There was another poster which said "Loreal Paris proudly presents the Aisha collection". That could be one of the best objectives of the movie, as it did not seem to have any other.

After coming back to the campus, I found out that people who watched "Once upon a time in Mumbai" were also in a situation not so different from ours. There were a few people who watched both the movies, one after another. I was surprised and asked them why did they plan for a second movie immediately, they said that after the disappointment in the first movie, they desperately wanted to watch a good movie and they chose Aisha. Luckily we had the Insti party the same night, a much needed one for all those poor souls, who in search of enjoyment ended up having a horrible evening.

{Sources: http://www.videojug.com/interview/becoming-a-film-critic;

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archi

ve&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIL/2010/08/07&PageLabel=5&

ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar00500&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T}

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