Friday, January 25, 2008
Chapter 6 – The Grind
After that first experience with the case, we had gotten down to studying in earnest. The competitive sprit at IIMA was intense. There were 200 of us, but McKinsey was going to recruit only seven or eight. This was clearly the dream job for most of us. Only some admitted the fact and others did not.
Every day we would have three classes in the first half of the day – from 9am to 1pm. The other 20 hours of the day, we would be studying in the dorm, or studying in the library or studying in the computer center preparing for the classes of the next day. We did not sleep in the first term.
On the first three days of the week we would have Introduction to Quantitative Techniques I (QT-I) from 9:00 to 10:10, then Computing Techniques (IC) from 10:20 to 11:30; followed by a twenty minute coffee break and finally Process and Operations Management (POM) from 11:50 to 1:00 pm. The coffee break was not just a namesake. The institute served Tea and Coffee in an open area between the classrooms and the dorms. We would gather there in the morning sunshine and over tea or coffee, chat about the nuances of the case we had just finished, or wonder about how the Prof in the next class was going to handle the case. The second half of the week – on Thursdays and Fridays, we had Human Resources Management (HR), followed by Managerial Accounting (MANAC) and Organisational Behaviour (OB).
Professor Sudhakar had earned a PhD in OR from the US.
He spoke with a strong nasal accent which most of believed made it easier for him to look down on us. Questions asked in a condescending manner in a nasal tone can have devastating effects on under-prepared students.
The very first reading in QT was about decision making under conditions of uncertain demand. It was about a newspaper boy who sold a single brand of newspapers at a single location. His purchase price was Rs 1.50 per unit and he sold them at Rs 2 per unit thus making a gross profit of 50 paise. This newspaper boy had diligently measured his daily demand for the last 6 months and found that the average daily demand was 20 newspapers with a standard deviation of 1. Demand followed a normal distribution. The question was straightforward. How many newspapers should he stock so as to maximize his profit.
The first answer that came to mind was obviously – 20. But could it be this simple? An average demand of 20 newspapers did not mean that the demand was exactly 20. On some days it was less than 20 and on other days it was more than 20. Only the average worked out to be twenty.
The problem was, there was no way of knowing what the demand would be for the coming day. If the newspaper-boy stocked too few newspapers, then he was in effect giving up his profit on some units that he could not sell because he did not have the stock to sell. On the other hand, if he stocked too many and the demand was less, then he risked losing the cost price of Rs 1.50 on the unsold newspapers. Obviously, newspapers were a perishable product and any newspapers remaining unsold at the end of the day were worthless the next day.
Other than to try and guess the number that would be demanded the next day, there did not seem to be any solution. (*Footnote – for those interested in the solution, I recommend reading Chapter 5 and Chapter 17 of the book Statistics for Management by Richard Levin and David Rubin)
The reading was followed by a more complicated case about a company that had a number of products that they sold in a number of markets. The problem facing the management was that there always seemed to be mismatched inventory. In some markets they were running short of a particular product while there were unsold stocks of this item in other markets. The company was solving the problem temporarily ( and expensively) by shipping the inventory over from the region with stock to the region with demand. Sometimes when demand was urgent, the goods were shipped by air. Needless to say, the top management was getting worried with this state of affairs. Even if the primary problem could not be solved, was there a way to minimize the transportation costs?
The case went on to state, (like many others we would see in the coming months) that the top management of the company approached the professors of a Well-known Institute of Management in Western India (WIM-WI) for advise.
Professor Sudhakar drove his class brutally. He did not have any qualms about throwing people out of class. And that was going easy on the students. His other techniques were much worse, as he demonstrated in his first session with us.
He leaned against his desk in class and asked in his nasal tone “Have we all read the case and attempted to solve the problem? Is there anyone here who has not read the case?” Nobody was about to raise their hand and confess. However, years of teaching have enabled Professors to spot the face that is just a little less confident and is giving away the lie silently. He picked on poor Sudhir up on the sky deck who was avoiding his gaze. He read the name off the plate on the edge of desk before Sudhakar, “Yes. Mr. Sudhir. Could you please come down to the board and help us through your solution for today’s case.” Sudhir fidgeted. He had had made a feeble attempt to read the case but not much had made it through into his sleep deprived brain. Sudhir tried to protest and make some excuse about not being sure of how to tackle the case, but Prof Sudhakar would have none of it. He insisted that Sudhir come down to the blackboard and show us the solution to the extent Sudhir had managed – even if it was incomplete, “We are all here to learn,” he had drawled in that nasal tone. Sudhir had no choice but to pick up his casemat and drag himself down to the board.
He had no clue about the case and decided to confess, “I am sorry sir, but I have not read the case.” He thought that this would cause the Prof to throw him out of class and end his misery. But Prof Sudhakar already knew that Sudhir had not read the case. He had other ideas. He said, “ Well you can start reading it now then.” And he settled down and got comfortable in the seat Sudhir had just vacated.
He made Sudhir squirm at the board for the remaining 55 minutes effectively wasting the entire session. When someone tried to help poor Sudhir out, he asked the other student, “Would you like to take his place at the board?”. Sensing the threat in the tone of the question, the other student wisely backed out. The class just watched Sudhir in pin drop silence. Prof Sudhakar had made his point. For good. You do NOT come to this class unprepared.
The rules were clear. You can’t win. You can’t break even. And you can’t quit the game.
A number of students took a dislike to this professor. He was ruthless. He was especially gleeful when we had an especially tough case and even the better students in class could not make much progress. On such days he would take some pity on us and walk us through some of the next steps towards reaching the solution.
POM - I
Professor Amar Kalro walked into class for the first session of Process and Operations Management. He was the acknowledged God of POM. He had an innate ability to explain complicated concepts in extremely simple terms. I had read somewhere, in a book by Issac Asimov I believe, that the true test of whether one had understood a subject was to try and gauge whether one can teach the subject matter in simple terms. Professor Kalro was the master of simplicity. The examples he chose were always real-life and elegant.
I remember distinctly, the topic he discussed with us that first day. Quality. “How many of would agree that a Mercedes Benz is a ‘better-quality’ automobile than a Maruti?” he asked. A large number of people raised their hands. I could sense by looking at their expressions that the others believed the statement to be true but sensed a trap.
Prof. Kalro then went on to explain, “Very often, we equate quality with a higher price or more features, or durability or longevity. We believe that the Mercedes is a better quality product because it costs ten times as much as the Maruti. Or because it has a more powerful engine, or leather upholstery, or ABS (Anti-lock Braking System). Or because it lasts longer. However we would then be no different from the untrained salesman who tries to defend the higher price of say a certain type of fabric just by stating it to be of ‘higher quality’ than another.” He paused for a few seconds to let us think about this and then continued,
“Quality is not a function of selling price, nor of the number of features that the product is embellished with. Actually quality is a fairly straightforward concept. Quality implies consistent conformance to promised standards. Let us go back to our example of the Maruti and the Mercedes. Let us say that the Maruti 800 has a prescribed service interval of 5000 km. This statement makes an implicit promise. That a user who takes his Maruti in for service every 5000 km, can expect trouble-free motoring during the interval between two such service events. Let us presume for a moment, that the Mercedes has a prescribed service interval of 20,000 km.” He paused again to see if any of us could see where he was leading with this line of argument. “If the Maruti 800 does indeed provide trouble free motoring for that interval – 5000 km, and if the Mercedes also provides trouble free motoring for its own, much greater, service interval, then they are both good quality products. The Maruti will not be judged against the promise made by Mercedes or vice-versa. It will only be judged against its own promise. Similarly, durability and longevity cannot be indices of quality either. How would we then ascribe quality to disposable products – with an intended and specified life of one use only. We do not say a paper cup is of poor quality because it did not last for years. We do not expect it to. The promised standard for disposable products is one use. If they conform to that promised standard then they are good quality products.
We were listening in rapt attention. Most of this was perhaps not new to some of us, but the way he explained it left no room for doubt. He had made an indelible impression on our minds. We would never again confuse quality with price or features.
Professor T.P. Ramarao taught us IC. In the first half of the term, he concentrated on showing us the power of modeling problems on spreadsheets. I had flipped through the IC casemat before the first class and I remember harbouring the impression that this was going to be a course on XL features. I could not have been more wrong. Most of us had used Microsoft Excel before, but Prof. Ramarao took it to another level. He would start with a case or a problem and show us how to model it on a spreadsheet and work with multiple scenarios. He could really make a spreadsheet come alive. He showed us how to work with large datasets on spreadsheets, the biggest one involved about 50,000 rows of data, and how to appreciate the power of What-If Scenarios. How, if we had modeled the problem elegantly, we could run large analysis modules rapidly. He taught us to implement conditional computations and If-Then-Else constructs. Among the more powerful techniques we learned to execute on spreadsheets were Linear Programming (and by extension, Quadratic and Integer Programming) and Multi-Variate Regression. He showed us an extremely powerful technique to get XL to solve for Quadratic Multi-Variate regression – this possible only with a neat way of modeling the problem that was truly elegant. Prof Ramarao laid a fair bit of emphasis on the elegance of the solution. Use of brute force computing did not impress him much and he would make his displeasure known in the grade sheet.
Prof. Ramarao was a very soft spoken person who used to bring his laptop to class, plug it into the LCD projector and walk us through the multiple ways in which the case could be modeled. He would then tell us how one method was advantageous for certain types of analysis and how another was better for a ‘quick and dirty’ back-of-the-envelope calculation. It struck me, that to these Professors, even a back-of-the-envelope calculation meant pretty serious number crunching on a spreadsheet. This was definite insight. There was zero tolerance for seat-of-the-pants decision making. 'Quick and dirty' was not an escape route. The numbers had to be done. 'Quick and dirty' only implied a willingness to sacrifice some degree of accuracy for the benefit of speed.
To use the LCD projector, Prof Ramarao had to switch off the lights in the class room and have the curtains drawn. This was a blessing for some of our batch-mates who would take this opportunity to catch up on some sleep in the resulting darkness. Others used to solve the crossword puzzle in class ( I don’t know if they carried flashlights to class – I did not notice any.)
I truly believe, to this day, that these idiots missed out on one of the best courses at IIM-A. These guys are still going around presenting grand strategies on PowerPoint slides and hoping that the IT departments or someone else within their companies will get the number-work done. Fortunately, they were a minority. Most of us paid attention in this class simply because this was the key to survival. Prof Ramarao was showing us techniques that would enable us to model and solve problems in hours instead of days.
In the second half of the term, Prof Ramarao scaled up the complexity rapidly. He got us to work in groups to model business problems on XL. He agreed to let us work in groups not because he believed in the power of teamwork. He was well aware that in any team there are some who do the work and some freeloaders. He allowed us to work in groups because the complexity and size of the problems he was getting us to work on were beyond the time available to one person. Of course, there were still some freeloaders in some groups.
To this day, every time I connect a spreadsheet to a large back-end database to run some analysis for one of my clients, I say a “Thank You” to Prof Ramarao. He showed us the Power (with a capital P) of what one can do with a spreadsheet connected to a database. He showed us how we can now model and solve problems in hours, that can take the IT departments of most companies weeks to build software for.
HR was a half credit course, and would end by the mid term. Thankfully. Of all the subjects I have studied at IIM-A this was perhaps the only truly worthless course. It taught absolutely nothing at all that was of any value. The Prof conducting the course did not help matters. If anything, he was the cause of this feeling among most of the students.
Prof Chinappa had studied in England. He was tall, rich and handsome. He owned some 200 acres of coffee plantations in Coorg and a couple of apartments in London. Rumour had it that his wife was a former Miss India. Once when a group of students were undertaking a market research project on consumer behaviour and the buying decision process for shoes, they tried to get Prof. Chinappa to be one of the respondents. He tried refusing very politely on the grounds that he had rather large feet and could not buy shoes off the shelf. He had to get them made. This group of students pressed anyway and asked where he got his shoes made to order. His answer – “There is this store on Bond Street.”
“Bond Street?” asked the students. There was a quizzical look on Prof Chinappa’s face.
“Bond Street.” He said again. “London.” The group of students quietly closed their file and left without a word.
He had an amazingly gracious style of teaching – never raised his voice, never got excited, never perturbed, and he took all questions in his stride – no matter how tough.
I had read the readings assigned for the first class and prepared the assignment – on a single sheet of paper. I could not bring myself to write any more drivel. As soon Prof Chinappa walked into class and introduced himself, before he began the class, I shot the question – which I still remember verbatim – because my batch-mates have never let me forget it. They still pull my leg over this one. “What is the point of giving us an assignment to do even before we have been taught anything in this subject - one could understand an assignment in something like Quantitative Techniques – in which at least some of us have some background?”
I think I asked the question in a slightly haughty tone of voice, because as soon as I had asked it, I could almost hear the class pull in its collective breath. There was a stony silence as people waited to see how the Prof would slaughter this insolence.
If Prof. Chinappa did not expect this, he did not show it. I was expecting him to take me on like Prof Ravichandran had indulged Brijesh in the first introductory lecture.
Prof Chinappa merely looked at me for a second and then raised his right hand above shoulder height and waved it in a wide arc slowly from his left to his right across all the students; “Would someone like to react to that?” he spoke slowly. That was it. The class let out its breath. This was a damp squib. Through the rest of the term, as far as I remember, Prof Chinappa did not teach us one single thing. No matter what the case, what the question, and who had asked it, he would stand tall in the well, wave his hand across the class and ask – magnanimously – “Would someone like to react to that?”
The one thing I learned in this course was this – You can remain cool and unflustered if you do not intend to do anything. You just deflect the problem to someone else. No accountability. No responsibility. No problems. In general this has been my view of HR and it has been corroborated by the behaviour of HR personnel in most companies. They do not have any real work to do. They contribute neither to the top line of the company, nor to the bottom line. They have just one primary objective – justify their own existence.
After the first couple of sessions of HR, I stopped reading the casemats. I had figured a brilliant way out of this. I would skim through the case quickly, read just enough to be aware of the story line, so that I knew the name of the company, the location and the names and designations of the protagonists. I would highlight these with a yellow magic marker. In class, if the Prof picked on me, I would make a couple of statements about the problem or about what I thought was the attitude of one of the characters and then deflect the question entirely to someone else by saying something like, “Just yesterday, I was discussing this case with Shalini and she had a rather interesting view on this matter. I do not agree with her point of view at all, but perhaps she can explain it first.” Then I would pause and look at Shalini who felt compelled to respond. This was fun. I could pick and choose which person in class would get it. Sometimes I even volunteered to open the case discussion. After all, I did not have to prepare for this. I just had to make some statement and then say “Kaushal has a rather interesting way of looking at this, I believe.” And toss the ball into Kaushal’s court.
Either the Prof did not figure out my gambit, or he didn’t care. But the students were definitely brighter. They figured this out and some of the ones I had picked on were waiting for revenge. One day, later in the term, when I was particularly bored with this HR mush, I decided to have fun once again. When Prof Chinappa entered the class and asked who would like to initiate the discussion, I raised my hand and picked on Brijesh and handed him the problem. Brijesh had probably been waiting for something like this to happen. Unfortunately, he had even prepared for this particular class along with Shalini – who was an out and out HR person. Brijesh looked at me, and then at the Prof, and said, “ It is interesting that Apte should state this. This case is clearly about misuse of power and then shirking of responsibility. The way Apte just did both, misused the power of being the first to speak in class and shirked his responsibility by handing the problem to me is almost symptomatic of the way in which the Operations Manager in our case has been behaving.”
I have to admit, I had not seen this coming. I knew I had been pulling too many peoples’ legs and that I was going to get it sometime.
Prof Chinappa had moved his gaze back at me to see how I would respond. In a momentary flash of brilliance, I knew what I had to do. I put on a solemn expression, raised my right hand, and swept it in a slow wide arc from my left to my right and asked the class; “Would someone like to react to that”. The class roared in laughter.
The Prof was taken aback for a second, but to his credit, he took it in good spirit. He smiled and then laughed.
Class Participation (CP) was a significant component of the total grade for any course. The only downside of all my CP in HR class and opening the discussion for all those cases, was that the Prof believed that I actually worked for this course. I got a rather good grade in HR. This was dangerous. If I kept this up, people would actually start to believe that I was good at this nonsense. Banish the thought. I could get branded as the “HR type”. The moment this thought occurred to me, I changed tack. I stopped reading the cases entirely and stopped “putting” CP in HR.
Every day we would have three classes in the first half of the day – from 9am to 1pm. The other 20 hours of the day, we would be studying in the dorm, or studying in the library or studying in the computer center preparing for the classes of the next day. We did not sleep in the first term.
On the first three days of the week we would have Introduction to Quantitative Techniques I (QT-I) from 9:00 to 10:10, then Computing Techniques (IC) from 10:20 to 11:30; followed by a twenty minute coffee break and finally Process and Operations Management (POM) from 11:50 to 1:00 pm. The coffee break was not just a namesake. The institute served Tea and Coffee in an open area between the classrooms and the dorms. We would gather there in the morning sunshine and over tea or coffee, chat about the nuances of the case we had just finished, or wonder about how the Prof in the next class was going to handle the case. The second half of the week – on Thursdays and Fridays, we had Human Resources Management (HR), followed by Managerial Accounting (MANAC) and Organisational Behaviour (OB).
Professor Sudhakar had earned a PhD in OR from the US.
He spoke with a strong nasal accent which most of believed made it easier for him to look down on us. Questions asked in a condescending manner in a nasal tone can have devastating effects on under-prepared students.
The very first reading in QT was about decision making under conditions of uncertain demand. It was about a newspaper boy who sold a single brand of newspapers at a single location. His purchase price was Rs 1.50 per unit and he sold them at Rs 2 per unit thus making a gross profit of 50 paise. This newspaper boy had diligently measured his daily demand for the last 6 months and found that the average daily demand was 20 newspapers with a standard deviation of 1. Demand followed a normal distribution. The question was straightforward. How many newspapers should he stock so as to maximize his profit.
The first answer that came to mind was obviously – 20. But could it be this simple? An average demand of 20 newspapers did not mean that the demand was exactly 20. On some days it was less than 20 and on other days it was more than 20. Only the average worked out to be twenty.
The problem was, there was no way of knowing what the demand would be for the coming day. If the newspaper-boy stocked too few newspapers, then he was in effect giving up his profit on some units that he could not sell because he did not have the stock to sell. On the other hand, if he stocked too many and the demand was less, then he risked losing the cost price of Rs 1.50 on the unsold newspapers. Obviously, newspapers were a perishable product and any newspapers remaining unsold at the end of the day were worthless the next day.
Other than to try and guess the number that would be demanded the next day, there did not seem to be any solution. (*Footnote – for those interested in the solution, I recommend reading Chapter 5 and Chapter 17 of the book Statistics for Management by Richard Levin and David Rubin)
The reading was followed by a more complicated case about a company that had a number of products that they sold in a number of markets. The problem facing the management was that there always seemed to be mismatched inventory. In some markets they were running short of a particular product while there were unsold stocks of this item in other markets. The company was solving the problem temporarily ( and expensively) by shipping the inventory over from the region with stock to the region with demand. Sometimes when demand was urgent, the goods were shipped by air. Needless to say, the top management was getting worried with this state of affairs. Even if the primary problem could not be solved, was there a way to minimize the transportation costs?
The case went on to state, (like many others we would see in the coming months) that the top management of the company approached the professors of a Well-known Institute of Management in Western India (WIM-WI) for advise.
Professor Sudhakar drove his class brutally. He did not have any qualms about throwing people out of class. And that was going easy on the students. His other techniques were much worse, as he demonstrated in his first session with us.
He leaned against his desk in class and asked in his nasal tone “Have we all read the case and attempted to solve the problem? Is there anyone here who has not read the case?” Nobody was about to raise their hand and confess. However, years of teaching have enabled Professors to spot the face that is just a little less confident and is giving away the lie silently. He picked on poor Sudhir up on the sky deck who was avoiding his gaze. He read the name off the plate on the edge of desk before Sudhakar, “Yes. Mr. Sudhir. Could you please come down to the board and help us through your solution for today’s case.” Sudhir fidgeted. He had had made a feeble attempt to read the case but not much had made it through into his sleep deprived brain. Sudhir tried to protest and make some excuse about not being sure of how to tackle the case, but Prof Sudhakar would have none of it. He insisted that Sudhir come down to the blackboard and show us the solution to the extent Sudhir had managed – even if it was incomplete, “We are all here to learn,” he had drawled in that nasal tone. Sudhir had no choice but to pick up his casemat and drag himself down to the board.
He had no clue about the case and decided to confess, “I am sorry sir, but I have not read the case.” He thought that this would cause the Prof to throw him out of class and end his misery. But Prof Sudhakar already knew that Sudhir had not read the case. He had other ideas. He said, “ Well you can start reading it now then.” And he settled down and got comfortable in the seat Sudhir had just vacated.
He made Sudhir squirm at the board for the remaining 55 minutes effectively wasting the entire session. When someone tried to help poor Sudhir out, he asked the other student, “Would you like to take his place at the board?”. Sensing the threat in the tone of the question, the other student wisely backed out. The class just watched Sudhir in pin drop silence. Prof Sudhakar had made his point. For good. You do NOT come to this class unprepared.
The rules were clear. You can’t win. You can’t break even. And you can’t quit the game.
A number of students took a dislike to this professor. He was ruthless. He was especially gleeful when we had an especially tough case and even the better students in class could not make much progress. On such days he would take some pity on us and walk us through some of the next steps towards reaching the solution.
POM - I
Professor Amar Kalro walked into class for the first session of Process and Operations Management. He was the acknowledged God of POM. He had an innate ability to explain complicated concepts in extremely simple terms. I had read somewhere, in a book by Issac Asimov I believe, that the true test of whether one had understood a subject was to try and gauge whether one can teach the subject matter in simple terms. Professor Kalro was the master of simplicity. The examples he chose were always real-life and elegant.
I remember distinctly, the topic he discussed with us that first day. Quality. “How many of would agree that a Mercedes Benz is a ‘better-quality’ automobile than a Maruti?” he asked. A large number of people raised their hands. I could sense by looking at their expressions that the others believed the statement to be true but sensed a trap.
Prof. Kalro then went on to explain, “Very often, we equate quality with a higher price or more features, or durability or longevity. We believe that the Mercedes is a better quality product because it costs ten times as much as the Maruti. Or because it has a more powerful engine, or leather upholstery, or ABS (Anti-lock Braking System). Or because it lasts longer. However we would then be no different from the untrained salesman who tries to defend the higher price of say a certain type of fabric just by stating it to be of ‘higher quality’ than another.” He paused for a few seconds to let us think about this and then continued,
“Quality is not a function of selling price, nor of the number of features that the product is embellished with. Actually quality is a fairly straightforward concept. Quality implies consistent conformance to promised standards. Let us go back to our example of the Maruti and the Mercedes. Let us say that the Maruti 800 has a prescribed service interval of 5000 km. This statement makes an implicit promise. That a user who takes his Maruti in for service every 5000 km, can expect trouble-free motoring during the interval between two such service events. Let us presume for a moment, that the Mercedes has a prescribed service interval of 20,000 km.” He paused again to see if any of us could see where he was leading with this line of argument. “If the Maruti 800 does indeed provide trouble free motoring for that interval – 5000 km, and if the Mercedes also provides trouble free motoring for its own, much greater, service interval, then they are both good quality products. The Maruti will not be judged against the promise made by Mercedes or vice-versa. It will only be judged against its own promise. Similarly, durability and longevity cannot be indices of quality either. How would we then ascribe quality to disposable products – with an intended and specified life of one use only. We do not say a paper cup is of poor quality because it did not last for years. We do not expect it to. The promised standard for disposable products is one use. If they conform to that promised standard then they are good quality products.
We were listening in rapt attention. Most of this was perhaps not new to some of us, but the way he explained it left no room for doubt. He had made an indelible impression on our minds. We would never again confuse quality with price or features.
Professor T.P. Ramarao taught us IC. In the first half of the term, he concentrated on showing us the power of modeling problems on spreadsheets. I had flipped through the IC casemat before the first class and I remember harbouring the impression that this was going to be a course on XL features. I could not have been more wrong. Most of us had used Microsoft Excel before, but Prof. Ramarao took it to another level. He would start with a case or a problem and show us how to model it on a spreadsheet and work with multiple scenarios. He could really make a spreadsheet come alive. He showed us how to work with large datasets on spreadsheets, the biggest one involved about 50,000 rows of data, and how to appreciate the power of What-If Scenarios. How, if we had modeled the problem elegantly, we could run large analysis modules rapidly. He taught us to implement conditional computations and If-Then-Else constructs. Among the more powerful techniques we learned to execute on spreadsheets were Linear Programming (and by extension, Quadratic and Integer Programming) and Multi-Variate Regression. He showed us an extremely powerful technique to get XL to solve for Quadratic Multi-Variate regression – this possible only with a neat way of modeling the problem that was truly elegant. Prof Ramarao laid a fair bit of emphasis on the elegance of the solution. Use of brute force computing did not impress him much and he would make his displeasure known in the grade sheet.
Prof. Ramarao was a very soft spoken person who used to bring his laptop to class, plug it into the LCD projector and walk us through the multiple ways in which the case could be modeled. He would then tell us how one method was advantageous for certain types of analysis and how another was better for a ‘quick and dirty’ back-of-the-envelope calculation. It struck me, that to these Professors, even a back-of-the-envelope calculation meant pretty serious number crunching on a spreadsheet. This was definite insight. There was zero tolerance for seat-of-the-pants decision making. 'Quick and dirty' was not an escape route. The numbers had to be done. 'Quick and dirty' only implied a willingness to sacrifice some degree of accuracy for the benefit of speed.
To use the LCD projector, Prof Ramarao had to switch off the lights in the class room and have the curtains drawn. This was a blessing for some of our batch-mates who would take this opportunity to catch up on some sleep in the resulting darkness. Others used to solve the crossword puzzle in class ( I don’t know if they carried flashlights to class – I did not notice any.)
I truly believe, to this day, that these idiots missed out on one of the best courses at IIM-A. These guys are still going around presenting grand strategies on PowerPoint slides and hoping that the IT departments or someone else within their companies will get the number-work done. Fortunately, they were a minority. Most of us paid attention in this class simply because this was the key to survival. Prof Ramarao was showing us techniques that would enable us to model and solve problems in hours instead of days.
In the second half of the term, Prof Ramarao scaled up the complexity rapidly. He got us to work in groups to model business problems on XL. He agreed to let us work in groups not because he believed in the power of teamwork. He was well aware that in any team there are some who do the work and some freeloaders. He allowed us to work in groups because the complexity and size of the problems he was getting us to work on were beyond the time available to one person. Of course, there were still some freeloaders in some groups.
To this day, every time I connect a spreadsheet to a large back-end database to run some analysis for one of my clients, I say a “Thank You” to Prof Ramarao. He showed us the Power (with a capital P) of what one can do with a spreadsheet connected to a database. He showed us how we can now model and solve problems in hours, that can take the IT departments of most companies weeks to build software for.
HR was a half credit course, and would end by the mid term. Thankfully. Of all the subjects I have studied at IIM-A this was perhaps the only truly worthless course. It taught absolutely nothing at all that was of any value. The Prof conducting the course did not help matters. If anything, he was the cause of this feeling among most of the students.
Prof Chinappa had studied in England. He was tall, rich and handsome. He owned some 200 acres of coffee plantations in Coorg and a couple of apartments in London. Rumour had it that his wife was a former Miss India. Once when a group of students were undertaking a market research project on consumer behaviour and the buying decision process for shoes, they tried to get Prof. Chinappa to be one of the respondents. He tried refusing very politely on the grounds that he had rather large feet and could not buy shoes off the shelf. He had to get them made. This group of students pressed anyway and asked where he got his shoes made to order. His answer – “There is this store on Bond Street.”
“Bond Street?” asked the students. There was a quizzical look on Prof Chinappa’s face.
“Bond Street.” He said again. “London.” The group of students quietly closed their file and left without a word.
He had an amazingly gracious style of teaching – never raised his voice, never got excited, never perturbed, and he took all questions in his stride – no matter how tough.
I had read the readings assigned for the first class and prepared the assignment – on a single sheet of paper. I could not bring myself to write any more drivel. As soon Prof Chinappa walked into class and introduced himself, before he began the class, I shot the question – which I still remember verbatim – because my batch-mates have never let me forget it. They still pull my leg over this one. “What is the point of giving us an assignment to do even before we have been taught anything in this subject - one could understand an assignment in something like Quantitative Techniques – in which at least some of us have some background?”
I think I asked the question in a slightly haughty tone of voice, because as soon as I had asked it, I could almost hear the class pull in its collective breath. There was a stony silence as people waited to see how the Prof would slaughter this insolence.
If Prof. Chinappa did not expect this, he did not show it. I was expecting him to take me on like Prof Ravichandran had indulged Brijesh in the first introductory lecture.
Prof Chinappa merely looked at me for a second and then raised his right hand above shoulder height and waved it in a wide arc slowly from his left to his right across all the students; “Would someone like to react to that?” he spoke slowly. That was it. The class let out its breath. This was a damp squib. Through the rest of the term, as far as I remember, Prof Chinappa did not teach us one single thing. No matter what the case, what the question, and who had asked it, he would stand tall in the well, wave his hand across the class and ask – magnanimously – “Would someone like to react to that?”
The one thing I learned in this course was this – You can remain cool and unflustered if you do not intend to do anything. You just deflect the problem to someone else. No accountability. No responsibility. No problems. In general this has been my view of HR and it has been corroborated by the behaviour of HR personnel in most companies. They do not have any real work to do. They contribute neither to the top line of the company, nor to the bottom line. They have just one primary objective – justify their own existence.
After the first couple of sessions of HR, I stopped reading the casemats. I had figured a brilliant way out of this. I would skim through the case quickly, read just enough to be aware of the story line, so that I knew the name of the company, the location and the names and designations of the protagonists. I would highlight these with a yellow magic marker. In class, if the Prof picked on me, I would make a couple of statements about the problem or about what I thought was the attitude of one of the characters and then deflect the question entirely to someone else by saying something like, “Just yesterday, I was discussing this case with Shalini and she had a rather interesting view on this matter. I do not agree with her point of view at all, but perhaps she can explain it first.” Then I would pause and look at Shalini who felt compelled to respond. This was fun. I could pick and choose which person in class would get it. Sometimes I even volunteered to open the case discussion. After all, I did not have to prepare for this. I just had to make some statement and then say “Kaushal has a rather interesting way of looking at this, I believe.” And toss the ball into Kaushal’s court.
Either the Prof did not figure out my gambit, or he didn’t care. But the students were definitely brighter. They figured this out and some of the ones I had picked on were waiting for revenge. One day, later in the term, when I was particularly bored with this HR mush, I decided to have fun once again. When Prof Chinappa entered the class and asked who would like to initiate the discussion, I raised my hand and picked on Brijesh and handed him the problem. Brijesh had probably been waiting for something like this to happen. Unfortunately, he had even prepared for this particular class along with Shalini – who was an out and out HR person. Brijesh looked at me, and then at the Prof, and said, “ It is interesting that Apte should state this. This case is clearly about misuse of power and then shirking of responsibility. The way Apte just did both, misused the power of being the first to speak in class and shirked his responsibility by handing the problem to me is almost symptomatic of the way in which the Operations Manager in our case has been behaving.”
I have to admit, I had not seen this coming. I knew I had been pulling too many peoples’ legs and that I was going to get it sometime.
Prof Chinappa had moved his gaze back at me to see how I would respond. In a momentary flash of brilliance, I knew what I had to do. I put on a solemn expression, raised my right hand, and swept it in a slow wide arc from my left to my right and asked the class; “Would someone like to react to that”. The class roared in laughter.
The Prof was taken aback for a second, but to his credit, he took it in good spirit. He smiled and then laughed.
Class Participation (CP) was a significant component of the total grade for any course. The only downside of all my CP in HR class and opening the discussion for all those cases, was that the Prof believed that I actually worked for this course. I got a rather good grade in HR. This was dangerous. If I kept this up, people would actually start to believe that I was good at this nonsense. Banish the thought. I could get branded as the “HR type”. The moment this thought occurred to me, I changed tack. I stopped reading the cases entirely and stopped “putting” CP in HR.
Chapter 5 –The Seniors – and life in the Dorm.
A couple of weeks later, when we got back to our dorms after class, we met a few new faces. The seniors had returned from their summer training. The first year classes commence in early June and the seniors come back to campus towards the second half of the month.
One of the first things the seniors did after their arrival was to call a dorm GBM – a General Body Meeting. After the introductions, the seniors set the fraternity rules. They impressed upon our impressionable young minds, the place of pride that the dorm held in the scheme of things. Indranil Mukherjee (Indro), said solemnly, “From now on, in life, the Dorm comes first, then your family and then your job.” It was anathema to even think that another dorm was better than one’s own. “Other dorms can be referred to as ‘dorms’ ” he advised us, “but one’s own dorm was always ‘The Dorm’ – with a capital D”. People who requested a change of rooms to another dorm in the second year were looked upon as traitors.
The seniors introduced us to few dorm traditions in rapid succession. On a sunny Friday afternoon a couple of days later, they got us juniors to assemble below the Dorm for a group picture. Sasi, another senior, brought out his camera and was telling us where we should stand – while Indro played ringmaster – directing the event. Renny, a third senior – a guy with a permanent impish smile plastered on his face – ran upstairs to get his camera too.
Sasi was spending far too much time in trying to ensure that the juniors were in the perfect position. We were all beginning to think that he was taking his job a little too seriously. Actually this was rather true. He WAS trying to get us in the perfect position. Because unknown to us, while were out there taking orders from Sasi and Indro, Renny and the other seniors were busy filling up about a dozen huge buckets with cold water. When Sasi finally shouted, “Say Cheese… three… two… one… NOW!” - it wasn’t for our benefit. It was to time the dunk. The picture was taken at the precise moment when a quarter of a ton of water hit us. The ease with which we were suckered is incredible. There was roar of laughter and we looked up to see the other seniors grinning at us from the balcony of the Dorm.
Looking up was a mistake. They were waiting for us to do precisely that. We noticed another flashbulb firing in our peripheral vision. The second picture caught on film a bunch of idiots staring up at another deluge of water coming at them. Straight in the face. Twice in a row! Damn! We had to get our revenge. We would, but not until much much later.
Later that evening – they told us they were taking us out for the welcome treat to a snack-and-ice-cream parlour called Chills Thrills and Frills – CTF for short. The reason for this show of affection and generosity became clear to me later. They were going to get us again and I was the target of this one. After we had chatted through dinner, the seniors were about to order ice-cream when Ujjwal Deb (Bappa) announced that we would also be electing the new Dorm Representative to take over the mantle from Sasi. Sudhakar and Sapnakanta nominated each other and were seconded by myself and Neeraj.
Somewhere in the commotion, I was nominated and seconded. “It is a three way race,” Indro announced, “for the coveted position of Dorm-Rep of the most respected Dorm on campus.” The twelve of use were given small pieces of paper on which we were expected to write the name of the person we voted for. Ujjwal collected the pieces of paper and put them into a bowl. Vijay Chauhan would be in charge of the counting. Vijay was a senior with a grand demeanour. He was tall Rajput with deep commanding voice.
Vijay pulled the first vote out of the glass bowl and unfolded it. “Apte” he announced. Then another “Apte again”. The third and the fourth were also votes for me. “I must be popular.” I remember thinking. The next two votes went to Sudhakar and Sapnakant. Then Vijay pulled out the next one and unfolded it. “Apte” he read. And the next one was “Apte again” I had already won. Six votes out of twelve. They did not need to open the remaining votes.
Indro and Sasi picked me up on their shoulders and there were cheers of Hip-Hip-Hurray.
Ujjwal then said that Dorm tradition dictated that I would be required to eat an entire brick of ice-cream – a full pack. I would be allowed to choose the flavour though. I figured Vanilla would be the easiest to manage and Vanilla it was.
I started out in earnest, downing the ice-cream with Indro and Sasi egging me on. They told me that no Dorm-Rep in the history of D-3 had ever managed to finish the entire brick. I was so charged and so overcome with stupid joy, that I did not bother to think how they would know this to be true. Was there a log somewhere in the dorm where this worthless statistic was maintained? Between shouts of “Come on – Apte” I was swallowing the cold ice-cream in large gulps. My plan was to down it before my stomach could sense it was full. The last couple of bites were nearly impossible. But I managed.
“Yes!” exclaimed Indro and slammed his fist on the table. “I had bet you could do it.” Sasi and Renny and Vijay pulled out their wallets and handed Indro a tenner each – all shaking their heads. “Speech. Speech.” Encouraged the seniors and made me stand up on my chair. This was getting a little embarrassing. But the frat rules dictated that I do not douse the enthusiasm. Ujjwal pulled out a small cassette recorder and held it before my face like a mock microphone. I tried to make up a solemn speech. But try speaking after you have been through a liter of frozen ice cream. Most of what I tried to say came out something like “Tank oo. I am honouled to take this lisponsib… lisponsility . Oooble the yeals, the Dolm Thlee ……” I could not continue. The other people in the restaurant were staring at me with a bemused look on their face. My dorm-mates were roaring with laughter - holding their stomachs – rolling on the floor. I blinked. I suddenly realized how stupid I looked. I stepped off the chair and sat down.
Indro took charge of the situation. He raised his glass of Coke and announced to all and sundry in the restaurant. “Ladies and Gentlemen. We have witnessed history.” He was struggling to maintain a serious tone of voice while people in the restaurant were giggling. “Never befole has a person finished an entire blick of ice-cleam and lived to make a speech. This will go down in the annals of IIM-A.” I then got my first sample Alok’s lethal choice of words, “It will go down Apte’s annals too,” he announced as he raised his glass. The place errupted with laughter while I tried to hide my face in the napkin.
We drove back to the Dorm. The worst was yet to come. When I woke up the next morning, I found the glass bowl outside my door. The pieces of paper with the votes were still inside. I picked them up and unfolded them. I had not been the winner at all. And the whole Dorm-Rep election thing was a setup. A Sham. I had been had. I groaned and looked up to find the seniors grinning at me. They all clapped and laughed and slapped me on the back. Ujjwal then handed me the cassette recorder so I could play back the tape and hear what a complete ass I had made of myself. It was all in good humour.
Another dorm tradition in most dorms was the namakaran sanskar – the naming ceremony during which the seniors accorded the juniors new names. In most cases there was a rather convoluted logic (if any) to the manner in which names were chosen. These names, were by and large, quite weird and inexplicable for a commoner.
Imagine bright young individuals being called Kaali, Maarlee, Bogs, Cramps, Bhangi, Paro, Chumma, Bugs, Hypo, Makoda, Bogie, Daku, Nifty, Frustu, Goriya, Foxy... Quite amazingly these (and many many more) names stuck.
Each dorm had its own peculiarities. Prashant Gupta in dorm 17 became Phoney because he was always the first to pick up the phone when it rang in the dorm. We did not have a phone in each room then – unlike now. Some dorms had a preference for a category of words – for example dorm 7 used names of animals and birds (ahem) like Cock and Pussy for its inhabitants. Dorm 2 had an interesting solution to the problem of coming up with new dorm names every year. The person who occupied the room closest to dorm 1 on the first floor became Dedh-Singh (One-and-a-half Singh) The person occupying the room directly above Dedh-Singh on the second floor became Dhai Singh (Two-and-a-half) and the poor guy in the basement room below Dedh Singh became Aadha-Singh (Half Singh).
Some stories on how dorm names came to be were downright hilarious. Legend has it that some years before our arrival there was a guy called Bipin Rathore in dorm 6 who, to his misfortune was given the email id BRA@pgplan.iimahd.ernet.in
Even before the poor guy spoke to the system administrators to get this changed, the news leaked out and he became “bra” on campus. He sighed and probably resigned himself to be called “the bra” for the two years on campus – and perhaps forever by his batch-mates. However imagine the plight of the poor guy who occupied the room directly below the bra. For the sole reason that he happened to be occupying the room right below the bra – the poor guy was promptly christened “Panty”. This is not all. To make matters worse, dorm-mates in the dorm find this combination so funny, that they ensure that the names remain. Every year – the poor souls chosen by the warden to occupy those two rooms are stuck with Bra and Panty for dorm names. Some years hence – perhaps nobody will even remember why this is so. There might be a management lesson hidden in here – “It has always been this way.”
Some dorm names are chosen by seniors to be an anti-thesis of the character of the recipient. Polished pseude guys from places like St. Stephen’s Delhi and La-Martz Calcutta would invariably end up with rather crude and unflattering names such as “chaddi” or “langot”. Yet other dorms trapped the juniors into choosing a dorm name for themselves and then warping it. Fortunately in The Dorm, we were spared this humiliation as Indro declared in the GBM that The Dorm was above all these frivolities and there would be no dorm-names in The Dorm. However our relief was short lived. I soon became “shapte” on campus (my login id was 7shapte), Neeraj soon became the GoAT (God of All Things) and R.D. Sudhakar became RDX. But these were definitely preferable to bra and panty. I have often imagined what the parents thought when they called their son on campus and the guy who answered the phone yelled out stuff like, “Pan-teeee– Tera phone!” at the top of their lungs. Some parents, no doubt started to harbour misgivings about their ward’s sanity, or cross-dressing tendencies – or perhaps both.
As the weeks passed, the work-load skyrocketed. After the last class for the day ended at 1:00 pm, we used to head for the mess and get some lunch. Then most of us walked back to our rooms or to the library to start reading for the next day. The readings easily took up three or four hours and then we still had to start grappling with the cases. However, at about 5 pm we took a break - Most of us headed back to the mess for tea or coffee. This was followed by a game of Frisball on the LKP lawns and on the D18 lawns. (The guys from D12 launched a major campaign in our second year to re-christen this area the D12 lawns; but this ended in failure).
Frisball was played with a Frisbee but the game was a mix of the rules of football (soccer) and basketball. The objective was to get the Frisbee tossed through the goal posts of the opposing team as in soccer. And a-la basketball, running with the Frisbee was not permitted. One leg had to remain pegged to the ground while you held the Frisbee. The number of players per team was flexible – dictated by the number who turned up to play and the size of the field available. Others played Badminton on one of the 6 courts located at multiple places on campus. Yet others preferred Tennis or Basketball on the courts behind the Comp-C. After an hour or two of play, and dinner between 7 and 9 pm, we were back at work.
Most of the cases required us to work on a computer. The Computer Center (Comp-C) was open twenty-four hours a day and was populated by students all through the night. It was not unusual to be walking back to the dorm room at three in the morning after working in the Comp-C for 8 hours straight after dinner. What was perhaps unusual, although we did not even notice it at the time, was that while we were walking back to our rooms, other students were heading towards the Comp-C at three in the morning. These people were planning on working through what remained of the day and arrive straight to class at nine am without sleeping. I often wondered if these guys remembered to brush their teeth.
On nights when we were studying in the dorms, it was perfectly normal to see lights burning in almost all the rooms at three or four in the morning. There were times when one of the dorm mates would decide he had had enough of studying and would come out of the room and loudly announce a game of cricket. A bat and a ball would materialize seemingly out of nowhere. Most of the others would pour out of their rooms in an instant and the game would begin. The cricket was played in the Dorm – with the usual quirky rules of galli cricket – a ball sent flying full toss out of the huge round windows of the Dorm meant Out; a ball hit full-toss above the door frames was a Six; it was also a Six if the fielder was touching a wall when he ‘caught’ a batsman; the boundary was delineated by the external wall of the Dorm on the North and the East Side and by the closed doors or the rooms on the South and East side. If one of the rooms was open then the boundary was the far wall of the room.
After this game – which could be anything between four and five in the morning, we would walk to the Night Retreat – a privately run café above the mess. The contractor there served Tea and Coffee apart from Dosas and Noodles.
On good days, we could catch some sleep for a couple of hours between six and eight in the morning. At eight, the alarm clocks went off and we trooped to the washrooms for our SSSB and then to breakfast and then back to class – to get embarrassed all over again by the profs.
One of the first things the seniors did after their arrival was to call a dorm GBM – a General Body Meeting. After the introductions, the seniors set the fraternity rules. They impressed upon our impressionable young minds, the place of pride that the dorm held in the scheme of things. Indranil Mukherjee (Indro), said solemnly, “From now on, in life, the Dorm comes first, then your family and then your job.” It was anathema to even think that another dorm was better than one’s own. “Other dorms can be referred to as ‘dorms’ ” he advised us, “but one’s own dorm was always ‘The Dorm’ – with a capital D”. People who requested a change of rooms to another dorm in the second year were looked upon as traitors.
The seniors introduced us to few dorm traditions in rapid succession. On a sunny Friday afternoon a couple of days later, they got us juniors to assemble below the Dorm for a group picture. Sasi, another senior, brought out his camera and was telling us where we should stand – while Indro played ringmaster – directing the event. Renny, a third senior – a guy with a permanent impish smile plastered on his face – ran upstairs to get his camera too.
Sasi was spending far too much time in trying to ensure that the juniors were in the perfect position. We were all beginning to think that he was taking his job a little too seriously. Actually this was rather true. He WAS trying to get us in the perfect position. Because unknown to us, while were out there taking orders from Sasi and Indro, Renny and the other seniors were busy filling up about a dozen huge buckets with cold water. When Sasi finally shouted, “Say Cheese… three… two… one… NOW!” - it wasn’t for our benefit. It was to time the dunk. The picture was taken at the precise moment when a quarter of a ton of water hit us. The ease with which we were suckered is incredible. There was roar of laughter and we looked up to see the other seniors grinning at us from the balcony of the Dorm.
Looking up was a mistake. They were waiting for us to do precisely that. We noticed another flashbulb firing in our peripheral vision. The second picture caught on film a bunch of idiots staring up at another deluge of water coming at them. Straight in the face. Twice in a row! Damn! We had to get our revenge. We would, but not until much much later.
Later that evening – they told us they were taking us out for the welcome treat to a snack-and-ice-cream parlour called Chills Thrills and Frills – CTF for short. The reason for this show of affection and generosity became clear to me later. They were going to get us again and I was the target of this one. After we had chatted through dinner, the seniors were about to order ice-cream when Ujjwal Deb (Bappa) announced that we would also be electing the new Dorm Representative to take over the mantle from Sasi. Sudhakar and Sapnakanta nominated each other and were seconded by myself and Neeraj.
Somewhere in the commotion, I was nominated and seconded. “It is a three way race,” Indro announced, “for the coveted position of Dorm-Rep of the most respected Dorm on campus.” The twelve of use were given small pieces of paper on which we were expected to write the name of the person we voted for. Ujjwal collected the pieces of paper and put them into a bowl. Vijay Chauhan would be in charge of the counting. Vijay was a senior with a grand demeanour. He was tall Rajput with deep commanding voice.
Vijay pulled the first vote out of the glass bowl and unfolded it. “Apte” he announced. Then another “Apte again”. The third and the fourth were also votes for me. “I must be popular.” I remember thinking. The next two votes went to Sudhakar and Sapnakant. Then Vijay pulled out the next one and unfolded it. “Apte” he read. And the next one was “Apte again” I had already won. Six votes out of twelve. They did not need to open the remaining votes.
Indro and Sasi picked me up on their shoulders and there were cheers of Hip-Hip-Hurray.
Ujjwal then said that Dorm tradition dictated that I would be required to eat an entire brick of ice-cream – a full pack. I would be allowed to choose the flavour though. I figured Vanilla would be the easiest to manage and Vanilla it was.
I started out in earnest, downing the ice-cream with Indro and Sasi egging me on. They told me that no Dorm-Rep in the history of D-3 had ever managed to finish the entire brick. I was so charged and so overcome with stupid joy, that I did not bother to think how they would know this to be true. Was there a log somewhere in the dorm where this worthless statistic was maintained? Between shouts of “Come on – Apte” I was swallowing the cold ice-cream in large gulps. My plan was to down it before my stomach could sense it was full. The last couple of bites were nearly impossible. But I managed.
“Yes!” exclaimed Indro and slammed his fist on the table. “I had bet you could do it.” Sasi and Renny and Vijay pulled out their wallets and handed Indro a tenner each – all shaking their heads. “Speech. Speech.” Encouraged the seniors and made me stand up on my chair. This was getting a little embarrassing. But the frat rules dictated that I do not douse the enthusiasm. Ujjwal pulled out a small cassette recorder and held it before my face like a mock microphone. I tried to make up a solemn speech. But try speaking after you have been through a liter of frozen ice cream. Most of what I tried to say came out something like “Tank oo. I am honouled to take this lisponsib… lisponsility . Oooble the yeals, the Dolm Thlee ……” I could not continue. The other people in the restaurant were staring at me with a bemused look on their face. My dorm-mates were roaring with laughter - holding their stomachs – rolling on the floor. I blinked. I suddenly realized how stupid I looked. I stepped off the chair and sat down.
Indro took charge of the situation. He raised his glass of Coke and announced to all and sundry in the restaurant. “Ladies and Gentlemen. We have witnessed history.” He was struggling to maintain a serious tone of voice while people in the restaurant were giggling. “Never befole has a person finished an entire blick of ice-cleam and lived to make a speech. This will go down in the annals of IIM-A.” I then got my first sample Alok’s lethal choice of words, “It will go down Apte’s annals too,” he announced as he raised his glass. The place errupted with laughter while I tried to hide my face in the napkin.
We drove back to the Dorm. The worst was yet to come. When I woke up the next morning, I found the glass bowl outside my door. The pieces of paper with the votes were still inside. I picked them up and unfolded them. I had not been the winner at all. And the whole Dorm-Rep election thing was a setup. A Sham. I had been had. I groaned and looked up to find the seniors grinning at me. They all clapped and laughed and slapped me on the back. Ujjwal then handed me the cassette recorder so I could play back the tape and hear what a complete ass I had made of myself. It was all in good humour.
Another dorm tradition in most dorms was the namakaran sanskar – the naming ceremony during which the seniors accorded the juniors new names. In most cases there was a rather convoluted logic (if any) to the manner in which names were chosen. These names, were by and large, quite weird and inexplicable for a commoner.
Imagine bright young individuals being called Kaali, Maarlee, Bogs, Cramps, Bhangi, Paro, Chumma, Bugs, Hypo, Makoda, Bogie, Daku, Nifty, Frustu, Goriya, Foxy... Quite amazingly these (and many many more) names stuck.
Each dorm had its own peculiarities. Prashant Gupta in dorm 17 became Phoney because he was always the first to pick up the phone when it rang in the dorm. We did not have a phone in each room then – unlike now. Some dorms had a preference for a category of words – for example dorm 7 used names of animals and birds (ahem) like Cock and Pussy for its inhabitants. Dorm 2 had an interesting solution to the problem of coming up with new dorm names every year. The person who occupied the room closest to dorm 1 on the first floor became Dedh-Singh (One-and-a-half Singh) The person occupying the room directly above Dedh-Singh on the second floor became Dhai Singh (Two-and-a-half) and the poor guy in the basement room below Dedh Singh became Aadha-Singh (Half Singh).
Some stories on how dorm names came to be were downright hilarious. Legend has it that some years before our arrival there was a guy called Bipin Rathore in dorm 6 who, to his misfortune was given the email id BRA@pgplan.iimahd.ernet.in
Even before the poor guy spoke to the system administrators to get this changed, the news leaked out and he became “bra” on campus. He sighed and probably resigned himself to be called “the bra” for the two years on campus – and perhaps forever by his batch-mates. However imagine the plight of the poor guy who occupied the room directly below the bra. For the sole reason that he happened to be occupying the room right below the bra – the poor guy was promptly christened “Panty”. This is not all. To make matters worse, dorm-mates in the dorm find this combination so funny, that they ensure that the names remain. Every year – the poor souls chosen by the warden to occupy those two rooms are stuck with Bra and Panty for dorm names. Some years hence – perhaps nobody will even remember why this is so. There might be a management lesson hidden in here – “It has always been this way.”
Some dorm names are chosen by seniors to be an anti-thesis of the character of the recipient. Polished pseude guys from places like St. Stephen’s Delhi and La-Martz Calcutta would invariably end up with rather crude and unflattering names such as “chaddi” or “langot”. Yet other dorms trapped the juniors into choosing a dorm name for themselves and then warping it. Fortunately in The Dorm, we were spared this humiliation as Indro declared in the GBM that The Dorm was above all these frivolities and there would be no dorm-names in The Dorm. However our relief was short lived. I soon became “shapte” on campus (my login id was 7shapte), Neeraj soon became the GoAT (God of All Things) and R.D. Sudhakar became RDX. But these were definitely preferable to bra and panty. I have often imagined what the parents thought when they called their son on campus and the guy who answered the phone yelled out stuff like, “Pan-teeee– Tera phone!” at the top of their lungs. Some parents, no doubt started to harbour misgivings about their ward’s sanity, or cross-dressing tendencies – or perhaps both.
As the weeks passed, the work-load skyrocketed. After the last class for the day ended at 1:00 pm, we used to head for the mess and get some lunch. Then most of us walked back to our rooms or to the library to start reading for the next day. The readings easily took up three or four hours and then we still had to start grappling with the cases. However, at about 5 pm we took a break - Most of us headed back to the mess for tea or coffee. This was followed by a game of Frisball on the LKP lawns and on the D18 lawns. (The guys from D12 launched a major campaign in our second year to re-christen this area the D12 lawns; but this ended in failure).
Frisball was played with a Frisbee but the game was a mix of the rules of football (soccer) and basketball. The objective was to get the Frisbee tossed through the goal posts of the opposing team as in soccer. And a-la basketball, running with the Frisbee was not permitted. One leg had to remain pegged to the ground while you held the Frisbee. The number of players per team was flexible – dictated by the number who turned up to play and the size of the field available. Others played Badminton on one of the 6 courts located at multiple places on campus. Yet others preferred Tennis or Basketball on the courts behind the Comp-C. After an hour or two of play, and dinner between 7 and 9 pm, we were back at work.
Most of the cases required us to work on a computer. The Computer Center (Comp-C) was open twenty-four hours a day and was populated by students all through the night. It was not unusual to be walking back to the dorm room at three in the morning after working in the Comp-C for 8 hours straight after dinner. What was perhaps unusual, although we did not even notice it at the time, was that while we were walking back to our rooms, other students were heading towards the Comp-C at three in the morning. These people were planning on working through what remained of the day and arrive straight to class at nine am without sleeping. I often wondered if these guys remembered to brush their teeth.
On nights when we were studying in the dorms, it was perfectly normal to see lights burning in almost all the rooms at three or four in the morning. There were times when one of the dorm mates would decide he had had enough of studying and would come out of the room and loudly announce a game of cricket. A bat and a ball would materialize seemingly out of nowhere. Most of the others would pour out of their rooms in an instant and the game would begin. The cricket was played in the Dorm – with the usual quirky rules of galli cricket – a ball sent flying full toss out of the huge round windows of the Dorm meant Out; a ball hit full-toss above the door frames was a Six; it was also a Six if the fielder was touching a wall when he ‘caught’ a batsman; the boundary was delineated by the external wall of the Dorm on the North and the East Side and by the closed doors or the rooms on the South and East side. If one of the rooms was open then the boundary was the far wall of the room.
After this game – which could be anything between four and five in the morning, we would walk to the Night Retreat – a privately run café above the mess. The contractor there served Tea and Coffee apart from Dosas and Noodles.
On good days, we could catch some sleep for a couple of hours between six and eight in the morning. At eight, the alarm clocks went off and we trooped to the washrooms for our SSSB and then to breakfast and then back to class – to get embarrassed all over again by the profs.
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