As we prepare for the fourth reunion of our PGPMAX batch, I came across an old post of mine about Term 2 at ISB. Term 2 for us was in the second week of September and I would write a blog at the end of each term. Reposting it here, after correcting a grammatical error that I found as I re-read it. I will also have to add tags to my old posts as I didn’t know how to use tags then. I was very new to blogging :).
So many things are different today – Prof Martins has added many awards to his already huge list and we continue to chat every now and then. Prof Shamika Ravi is in Delhi and we still haven’t managed to meet up. She again is presenting important papers and speaking at different forums, as enthusiastically as ever and with the same infectious laugh. As for Antony and I – we continue to remain irrational and delusional as ever. No change to that mental state :). Feroze is CEO of Hitachi Consulting now and Arun is an entrepreneur with n!Factorial (obviously analytics). Sreedhar and Bhat are dancing to different tunes these days; Mehraj and Vineet are also singing different tunes; Sajive and Archita are not even in the country and Prabhu is highlighting his career from above the ground rather than inside a mine; Lalit took the right fork on his decision tree and GE is reaping the rewards of his brilliant mind; what can I say of partner Anir ? the ethical hacker is ethically growing in his career…. This is a quick update on all those mentioned in the blog that I wrote in 2012. What amazing days we spent together.
Read the blog I wrote then – https://90rollsroyces.com/2012/09/21/term-2-rational-to-delusional/
Reposting here as well –
The term started with two words “motivation” and “intuition” and in a Managerial Economics class ! So fascinating that what we thought would be just numbers, turned out to have an “intuitive” element as well. More on that …
We discovered so much more about each other in this term.. Sreedhar and Bhat’s dancing, Mehraj and Vineet’s singing, Sajive’s bowling skills coming back with every sip of alcohol, Archita’s “shayari” and Prabhu’s fixation for the highlighted answer. All it needed was some bowling and a game of antakshari with both sides singing all the songs together. Sajive was unsure if one could bowl in a saree, hope he is convinced that it can be done. I also discovered, much to my dismay that I am becoming more predictable than unpredictable for doing things that are unpredictable !! Hmmm serious dent to my image :):) this is from the gala dinner game that Antony and Bhat had devised.
This was also the term where Bhat’s intuition for Maths got replaced with my intuition for MOLC but our collective intuition for Economics is slow in coming – apologies Prof Shamika, we will get the intuition, one way or the other.
The high voltage enthusiasm of Prof Shamika Ravi and the sheer class act of Prof Luis Martins was an interesting combination. Steve Jobs spoke of the intersection of science and arts and Luis is just that – from completing his masters in Maths by the time he was 19 to scoring at the 98th percentile in GMAT to now researching virtual teams – just the spectrum is fascinating. His gift of engaging with the class, the timely examples and repartees, the Dilberts, videos and the smart way that he made us do the pre-read by keeping a quiz everyday before the class started – in one word was just CLASSIC. We went from agreeing not to accept monkeys to building a Cult of our own to being more self aware to Simulating change to getting toasted in a fire to all the way mistakenly racing our car when we should not have !! Prof Martins – you walked the talk, you said just two words were important to you “Alignment” and “Clarity” and you stayed aligned and clear all through.
A few complaints though – I do think the algorithm in the simulation is wrong – we finished first and got close to the NASA score and still came second ? :):) Please also ask Bibhu to give us the 0.5 marks that he ate up for a snack 🙁 . The biggest complaint though is – you raised the bar way high and everyone now goes up against that.
Prof Martins – Thanks for an amazing learning experience of the likes we seldom see. We couldn’t fully return the favor with a quiz of our own, but we will certainly try !! My cheap thrill for the past two days was beating you in reaching the classroom 🙂 so am good for now.
Prof Shamika – we will all benefit greatly from colluding with you in the monopoly that you have over “enthusiasm” and that ready laugh. The last lecture on what this program means to us was simply brilliant.
In Prof Shamika Ravi’s classes we will remember Feroze and Arun competing with each other on who will ask the 20th question first in the sequential game ! Sometimes Feroze had the first mover advantage and sometimes it was Arun – but clearly, they displayed the greed that Economists bank on that you don’t quit when you are ahead 🙂 maybe the next question will get me more returns. We also relearnt our Kindergarten lesson “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush!” The only thing that am still not able to reconcile myself to is the fact that Economists can prove Antony and I are rational. I know that was the shock in the first class from which Antony hasn’t recovered yet.
Prof Martins had a reason for showing that video on children being able to delay gratification – We are now victims of delayed gratification for our profs – two tests as we come back and two more fat books to pre read !
A simple conversation between two people about the real estate industry interrupted a whole study session turning it into a enlightening session on personal lives of famous persons …. with Bhat still in shock, trying to rationalize, Lalit coming to terms with the facts, and Anir agreeing the world is bad afterall 🙂 Sanchita and Archita’s “adda” session never happened.
Before I forget, Team F from term 1 – please be motivated to thank Lalit for his intuition during term 1 to fold the darned tree back in quiz 2 – you saved us from DMUU hell brother !
Term 2 has ended … Leaving all of us rational beings slightly delusional. The rains today just confirming the storms we will face in Term 3. Brace up folks !