1)The CG (cumulative grade) slut – Knows the relative grading system inside out. Judges people based on their respective grades. Occasionally asks the sweeper what his CG is. In-your-face kind of character – gloats if he^* scores high on a quiz, morose otherwise.

Strategy: Avoid unless you have just scored an A+ and he hasn’t, in which case, do rub it in.

2)The I’m so fly guy – Calls himself an ‘all-rounder’. Believes that he’s too cool for this world and the afterlife beyond. Wears shades at night. Talks fast, incessantly, mostly about how awesome he is. Every hot chick will sleep with him (or so his mama told him). Frequently calls himself insane. Young, high on energy and douchebaggery. Usually has his own morontourage (I warned you).

Strategy: Mild irritant. Wash yourself repeatedly if you come in contact with a member of this species. Contempt and sarcasm bounce off them. Keep that witty remark to yourself. Patience is the key. Prime candidate for nervous breakdown later in life (karma is a bitch).

3)The compulsive CP (class-participation) guy – Always eager to share with the class. His life experiences are valuable and unlike those of other people’s. Usually a fresher, frequently city-bred. Often has the smug look of a eunuch at a crotch-kicking contest.

Strategy: Two words – ear plugs.

4)The douche bag – The douche bag in its etymological sense. Always in the company of the opposite sex. Takes pride in calling the not-so-fortunate gay. Huge insecurities, frequently a ‘musician’ or ‘artist’ of some kind. Prefers vodka to whisky. Often has sympathetic menstrual cycles synchronized with that of the socially dominant female in his ‘gang’.

Strategy: Mostly harmless. If you’re a girl or look like a girl, grow a stubble.

5)The moaning moron – The unstoppable whiner. Sample quotes – “My life is so fucked”, “If I were a girl, I would’ve got that job”, “I won only $10,000 on a 10 rupee lottery ticket. Why O God, why??!!”, etc.

Strategy: Fortunately, this guy does not come on strong. Leave if you dislike whines. Else, contribute and enrich the conversation.

6) The LEADER – Born leader. Likely to be loud and obnoxious. Typically has a weak neck/back and hence packs light in the cranial area. Uncanny ability to convince people otherwise, as long as conversation does not extend beyond a few minutes. Always full of himself. Supreme confidence in his self-perceived abilities. At best, deluded; at worst, schizophrenic.

Strategy: There are two kinds of people in this world – leaders and those who couldn’t care less. Hobson’s choice as far as I’m concerned.

7)The cynical passive-aggressive misfit – Not to be confused with #5 above. Displays similar characteristics. Lives in the past, complains about the present, indifferent about the future. Writes passive-aggressive notes about batch mates and about how he’s too good for this place and above it all. The quintessential outsider, self-deprecating loser (aka sober_mallu, myndfcukd, veggie_bong, etc)

Strategy: Avoid at all costs.

*he/himself = she/herself

Surprised Dork

In keeping with the surprise sentiment, we have a guest/surprise lecturer today. Veggie_Bong is a distinguised member of our group and can be often spotted in the previously mentioned obscure, shady places (brush up on the previous classes’ notes). I will let him take over from here …

Today we look at IIMA and how it has created deep impressions on thinkers, poets, song writers, MBAs, fishermen and doodhwalas alike. Contrary to what you may think, the references to IIMA in pop-culture are numerous and have instigated deep, insightful debates, over various interpretations, that are mostly hogwash. Given that we have a limited amount of time allotted to this course, we shall, for once, allot everyone CP marks and hope the ones who survive on it keep their traps shut.

John Lennon, when he sang Imagine, referred to the darkest days of his life in IIMA. Of course, he wasn’t known as John Lennon then – he went by dorm name JaybLo. The first line of Imagine refers to IIMA in a very obvious way(“Imagine there’s no heaven”) – it brings to light the disillusion typically faced by a PGP1 since those days. It is indeed easy if you try. He hasn’t been the only dreamer of course; deep in the core of every “Wimwian” we all have a dream. When professor Sober_Mallu refers to lonely nights during which the Harvard Steps seem like the steps to a parallel universe, he displays his characteristic awareness of the references built into the song.

Immortalised by Billy Joel, the oft quoted line “Sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it’s better than drinking alone” is another obvious reference to the great college we all revere.  The only drink you get here is loneliness, indeed! It’s a dry state goddamit!! The pianoman and the waitress who practises politics are the ravings of a hallucinating mind, that’s ALL! And I double dare you to ask me any more questions on that.

I’m given to occasional emotional rants. Please bear with me. Even better, please Child Bear with me.

In order to understand the next section, you would need to be familiar with a few terms. WAC – Written Analysis and Communication. In other words, the “science” of writing business reports. It is a much dreaded course that you will have to take during the first year. RA – Research Assistant. They correct all our papers and decide our grades. On an entirely unrelated note, they’re awesome. They rock our worlds.

Moving to the arts of film-making and literature, Doug Adams recalls his young days as a PGP1 as days of inebriation (my lips are sealed – I will NOT talk about the illegal channels(drop me a personal message for details(potshot at Sober_Mallu who thinks using a lot of paranthesised sentences makes up for being unfunny))) and depravity. The experiences of these days led to his fairly average book about hitchhiking and what not. A little known fact is that the first draft talks of a failed love affair he had with a WAC RA. Being very embarrassed about the incident, he chose to omit it in the final version. Folklore has it, that Douglas Adams was found whispering sweet nothings to a tree after having smoked something at Rambhai. The jealous RA ditched him, gave him an F and subjected him to endless nights of writing report after report. Some people also claim that the tree obtained a restraining order. Of course, we do know how Douglas had the last laugh by writing an average book (according to the WAC book of standard English writing) and earning unparalleled fame and the attention of scantily clad women the world over.

“ONE HUNDRED YEARS of SOLITUDE”. Need I say more? Marquez was not a very Ibank-y PGP1 and hence he suffered.

Many movies have also taken inspiration from life at IIMA. One of the more popular ones is Shawshank Redemption. Originally intended as a satire on the lack of hope for a PGP1 at IIMA, the pranksters became the prankees(sue me) when this movie turned into a message of eternal hope for millions (haha, suckers!). Hope, is as abundant as snowfall here. Unlike Tim Robbins, you can’t escape this brick walled prison alive.

Various other songs were actually written by PGP1s. Dennis Leary wrote a pretty famous one about himself as a super competitive PGP1. I forget the name …

As you can see, this series of lectures has a vast course outline. For today’s class, this is all we have. Hope you will come prepared for next class.

This is how CP is structured. CP stands for Class Participation and surprise, surprise – it is a grade component for almost all courses you will take at IIMA – imagine the above paragraph with each sentence coming from a different participant. More on CP later.

With its beautiful open-brick structure, IIMA is an imposing sight, with phrases like Awesome architecture, structurally magnificent, spiritual experience often used to describe the campus and its buildings. Designed and built by the famous Louis Kahn (who also built some insignificant part of Yale), the campus looks like something with a history (read dilapidated). He took into account everything, they say – ventilation, space constraints, aesthetics. We even have a lawn named after him – the Louis Kahn Plaza (LKP). He was a brilliant man who believed that MBA education was for the privileged, the high and mighty – the leaders of tomorrow. And thus, the disabled find no place in this scheme of things. There are stairs everywhere, with a couple of lifts/ramps as an after-thought. The disabled do not deserve to reach such heights. This is a fundamental learning we get from the architecture and design of IIMA. In true master-style, Louis Kahn made rewiring impossible, making sure that the budding managers of new India live like the 1960s’ aam admi. This seemingly socialist/communist idealogy might have been the work of Nehru, one suspects, but then it is not known if Louis Kahn had a beautiful wife. But, we digress.

Aah yes, the magnificent tradition! Oh! What poetic language do I use to describe it? For once in my life, I fall short of words (remember this is a cardinal sin at IIMA. Faff is the essence of our lives.). IIMA was the brain-child of the extraordinary and charming Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and the illegitimate child of Harvard Business School. IIMA takes after the father it never met. We copy most of the things that our father does. Case study methodology, traditions, culture. Of course everything is an illegitimate version. Harvard steps. Though I have heard of this term often, I do not know which flight of stairs is actually associated with this name. During lonely, sleepless nights, I’d like to think of them as a flight of stairs that leads to freedom – out of this place into a parallel universe. This thought keeps me awake and I mug (IIMA lingo for study) for the next day. Another strict tradition is the Harvard dinner. This involves the seniors (lingo – tucchas) serving mess food to the juniors (facchas). All this, while both parties are dressed in business formals. As ridiculous as it may sound, it is indeed ridiculous. How serving mess food (aka rat poison/ prison grub) to the juniors while dressed in stifling formals in 48 degree weather can serve any purpose is beyond me. But then, this is IIMA and tradition rules.

Then, there is the dorm naming tradition. Every faccha is given a dorm name (dorm = hostel, dorm name = nickname) by an elite panel of tucchas. Of course, there is a way in which this is done – a tradition. As a faccha, you rattle out a cheesy tale of lust and depravity to the panel of perverts/tucchas who rub their hands(?) in glee and come up with an impossibly lame name. There are two kinds of names – I’d like to call them p.star and f.lush (in keeping with some of the IIMA rules). P.star – pornstar, self explanatory. F.lush – flush, the name sounds like the noises you would expect when you flush something down the toilet, something that is not meant to be flushed. Say, for example, our spineless PM … ok wrong example, he is pretty flushable. Lets say a mini-train … it would go something like fochoochoo.

Legend has it that your dorm name supercedes your real name even decades later. Vindi Banga is often suggested as an example. But, call me revolutionary, I do not see Bhajao, Hilao, Sussu or love-day heading HUL one day.

Let us end today’s class with that note.

Next class, we might look at the academic life at IIMA. You’ll do well to come prepared with the idolist interpretation that we’ll seek to ridicule.

Such a course has never been offered to the outside world and as such should knock your socks off.

Instructors : Primarily myndfcukd and Sober_Mallu. Guest instructors as needed.

Pedagogy: A remote delivery model utilising the power and reach of the internet. Course will be delivered through blog posts. Audio-Visual aids may be used as necessary.

Evaluation: The evaluation scheme is as follows and a grand prize awaits the topper

Comments made        20%

Links                          20%

Arbit component        20%

Final Exam                 60%     

“To forgive may be divine, but, to err is to um .. err.. stutter.”

A Great Man

And for an IIMA aspirant, this can be fatal during GDs.

There are countless blogs on what to do to get into IIMA, what to do once you are here, how to masquerade as an IIMA grad and, more recently, how to recruit IIMA grads to manage the Afghan terrorists into surrender.

What “differentiates” (marketing lingo – drop dead if you haven’t heard of it) this blog? We present the other side of IIMA – The underbelly, the dark side, the outsiders. No starry-eyed fan-boy club this. We like to think that some sane people exist here – people who aren’t taken in by the notion of studying in the best business school in India.

You will find us in dark alleys, under the ramp, at Rambhai and during late nights, at LKP. You will not notice us during class, for we make no CPs. You will not notice us outside class because we don’t take part in the traditional events; but, we DO exist.

We believe in liberation through sarcasm – LtoS (pronounced El toss – exemplifying another facet of MBA education wherein a mind numbingly simple set of words can be worked into an abbreviatory jargon that sounds scary/heavy) – and we intend to use it in this introductory series to “Life” at IIMA.

Like all things at IIMA, there is a structure, there are grades. This course is mandatory. Register now, seats limited.

“Good that you are confused. Confusion leads to clarification. Hope you will become Confucius one day.”

Prof. SV, IIMA

I waited; I waited for clarity on what I intend to scribble on this blog. I appear to be moving farther away from any coherent excuse of an unmet need that I will cater to, as more time passes from the moment of germination of this inutile idea.

Essentially, this is a reflex response to the thousands of posts written by more able men celebrating life at IIMA, whose tenor, I believe needs correction. 

Part personal journal and part collection of myopic observations, LoL@IIMA begins.