Network = Notwork

No Water | Total Network
No Oxygen | Total Network
No Land | Total Network
No Light | Total Network

Total XLRI | No Network

The first 4 lines form part of the advertisement for Reliance communication which is being aired now. I could only pity the XLers for being in Jamshedpur where NO Network reliably works. Initially, it was only the Reliance (Smart) network which gets conked off. Now it is true with every other network, including Airtel - supposedly the best network in India. Wonder what happened to all those service level commitments. Mr.Sunil Bharti Mittal, please try to reach me by my Airtel connection, if you can....

Electing the Electives

Almost 90% of the people choose electives not based on the learning value of a course but based on how their CQPI gets affected by the choice of a particular course. Of course, there are those really focused people in all streams – Finance, Marketing etc. but the point is even those who are really interested, say in finance, are not taking a particular course as a 'credit' course but as 'audit' course as the former may harm their CQs. A unanimous feedback from the seniors has been that people will not extract the full learning value out of a course if they take it as 'audit' as the natural complacency is bound to set in considering the work load from other courses and various other activities under the 'XL culture' banner. The audit applicants also stand to lose out the opportunity to attend the course at all if the faculty thinks that there are too many auditors than creditors. Many are ready to take such risks just for grades. I have been present closest to the placement process and what I make out is that grades do not matter greatly – in fact for placements nothing other than good communication skill really matters in most companies. Except for consults which look for the top 20% of the students, most others short list people arbitrarily or using some superhuman radio-technological parameters. What matters while in the corporate world is the stuff inside the skull and not the number on a sheet of paper – this does not mean I degrade grades, but there is something more important than that – knowledge.

Should they be happy?

This is the last month in the XLRI campus for most of my seniors. There are two possible sets of people: Those who feel happy as they would be completing their MBA course and heading into the corporate world with fat pay cheques; Those who are sad as they would be leaving the place where they probably would have spent the best times of their lives. There is also a third set who do not know how to react and do not even realize they would be leaving the campus in a month and spend their last month too in the same way they have spent the previous 20 months. During the completion of my Engineering at Anna University, I was part of the third set. I did not realize that college life is coming to an end and once it did close, there was a sort of vacuum felt as I was not really prepared for it.

The situation is even more daisy considering the fact that the placements happen after the completion of term 6. There would be immense amount of anxiety for the seniors as to where they are headed and want that anxiety to get over as soon as possible. At the same time, the campus life would be over by that time.

Blessed are those who have landed in plum jobs and get to stay in campus with only memories to gather in the last month!

XLer recruited as CEO

One of the students of XL's 1 year General Management Programme has been recruited as CEO of ABN Amro Foundation. The person has tons of experience as VP of NABARD prior to joining XL.

For more,
XLRI Blog
CoolAvenues

Diwali - the XLRI way

The last 3 diwalis have been quite different experiences for me.

The 2004 diwali was a solo affair with no one around. I was alone in Gurgaon - not having my roomie and office-friends with me for the occasion. All of them had gone to their homes and I was working hard for CAT. The day went on with some sweets from neighbours, some quant problems, some newspaper articles, some tv programmes and some phone calls. A different day.

For the 2005 diwali, Gurgaon was different for me. My entire neighbourhood was full of friends, some known houses, all reasons to celebrate in Gurgaon itself. But 10 months away from home was a bit tough and I went to Chennai for the festival. Home after 10 months is really a sweet home. Lots of sweets, lots of idlis, litres of sambhar, loads of relatives and friends. A lovely day.

This time, it was at XLRI. As usual in XL, I got bowled over by the aura of 'XL culture'. The day was a usual one as is for a festival day. We got invitations from two faculty members to visit their houses in the evening. We were ready and neat with our new clothes for the evening. We started with those who invited us and started barging (we thought that way initially) into other faculties houses to wish them. We were astonished to see the hospitality and the amount of effort not one, not two but almost every faculty who stayed on campus showed. We wondered whether these are the same ones who extract so much work out of us during the courses. Of course, they knew their roles exquisitely and as in teaching they were exceptional in their hospitality too - one step better, I would say. We had everything from Ghee Idli, Lemon rice, Indian noodles, Coconut burfi, Kaju kathli, Kesari, ghajar halwa, rava laddoo, biscuits, dahi vada, veg roll, gulab jamun, motichur laddu and many more whose names I don't know.

Back to hostel we started playing with crackers which went on till 12. 22nd being my birthday, people started playing crackers on my back. I would have got about 30-40 tender(!) blows on my butt, I lost count as that part of the body was numb after the initial blows. Some with Nike, some with reebok, adidas, woodlands, plain old bathroom chappals - got everything.

It's time to give back the favour. I have some 'not-so-black' mischiefs waiting for my 'No.1' friends!!

Damning days ahead

The first week back at XL has been great with fun. The weeks ahead are showing signs of being damn exacting, though not thoroughly unexciting. A Quality assessment project (to be submitted to an International body), an equity research contest, rating of ads, selling pottery, acads, SIP interviews and filling of application forms and the most important thing of all:Age of Empires competition.

I thought first term was the toughest and I could chill out this term, I may be wrong. Hope I am not....