At first glance IIMA can be an imposing sight to newbies. At second glance IIMA can be an imposing sight to newbies. At third glance (you may be sensing a pattern emerging here) IIMA can be an imposing sight to newbies …

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.