Department of MBA , IIT Kanpur organized "Prabandhan"- its Annual Management Conclave.
That fine evening Chitra asked me nonchalantly if I would be interested in participating in one main event of the programme called "Saudagar"-The Marketing Extravaganza.It involved coming up with innovative marketing strategies for a flailing company given in their case study. Challenge was in the time limit- we had one day to submit the executive summary! I am always game for any new experience of this sort especially…so how can I ever say no? So we became a TEAM!
As we started working on it, I realized how much hard work is required for participating in such events. We took guidance from some very helpful seniors. We sincerely incorporated our learning and the executive summary started taking a satisfactory shape. After rounds of review and correction we submitted our proposal to Prabhandhan team and waited with fingers crossed. The result was supposed to come out the next day.
Entire day we waited. Inadvertently thoughts would deviate towards the forthcoming results and a wave of hope and excitement would run through us. But alas the website showed no result till the time I went to bed. At our 5 in the morning I was woken up with a call from Chitra, a look at the name flashing on screen gave me the joyous inkling of what the news would be. Yes we had cleared the first round. I felt rapturous when I saw the result on the website. We were among the 5 teams selected all over India and other teams who made it were from IIM Indore, XLRI Jamshedpur, FMS Delhi and IIT Kanpur. Seeing KJ Somaiya(SIMSR) name among them was huge pleasure.
Well then comes the grueling part. If preparing for the executive summary was hard-work then now we slogged to prepare the detailed document and presentation. Seniors helped us in understanding the concepts that were not yet taught to us and faculty members encouraged us. It was a very different and nice experience, a superb break away from the mundane day-to-day life of college where excitement comes by way of deadlines for submissions of assignments or doing presentations in class or going out somewhere for "time pass"(though there is hardly enough time……)
A journey to Kanpur from Mumbai is around 24 hours. We studiously took tickets in tatkal for sleeper class . It had been ages we traveled in sleeper coach since 3rd AC has become the norm of travelling these days. But I didn't mind because I wanted to relive those childhood days when we use to travel to "nanighar" like this feeling the air on our face and eating from all possible vendors that came selling their goodies…As we started early morning to catch the train our journey started on an adventurous note. First we didn't have the ticket print-out(kudos to our carelessness) and second, we started really late. We ran to the station, jumped local trains, prayed continuously and somehow caught the train in nick of the time. We showed ticket to TT on our laptop(thankfully only 1 came) and completed our presentation in train. As we reached Kanpur, it was raining heavily there. Chitra's all desire to see the place died down because from where we entered the city all we could see were dilapidated buildings, pot-holed roads…everything looked ages old… But the moment we took the turn towards IIT Kanpur, lo behold there was a magical change! The view that awaited us was simply heavenly. The impoverished surroundings changed suddenly to one of pure wonder, well-maintained huge green parks with peacocks dancing, beautiful houses, well spread out buildings, stadiums, foot-ball and cricket grounds, basket ball courts….welcome to IIT Kanpur! We were given a superb room in their VH(Visitor's Hostel) well equipped with A.C,T.V and whatever was needed. It even had a cute balcony overlooking a green meadow-like ground with a serene willow tree(I guess).
It all looked like dream world. We met the organizers of the Prabandhan,roamed around in IIT campus and also completed our presentation and practiced it.
The D-day of presentation came. We decked up nicely in our college formals. We thanked SIMSR of giving us the formals in time. All our competitors were there looking smart and confident in their formals. Surprisingly we didn't feel much nervous. We were not supposed to see others presentation. When our turn came we presented well though we felt we could have still done better. The judges grilled us on some questions. We answered but then had our own doubts when it got over. We returned to our room thinking its all over for us. There was hope but lot of apprehensions. We had to submit the accounts assignment in college the next day so we sat down with the work. In evening suddenly Chitra shouted….we have won the first prize..!!!I jumped…it was like the best thing to hear..!
Yes it was their on the website... "Dexterous Duo from SIMSR" had indeed won the first prize. We were elated…these last few days were wonderful…like a roller-coaster ride but soooo good! There were congratulations from all sides and it all felt so good. Now as I sit in the train writing all this…it feels all the more good to go back to college with the with the winner's prize for SIMSR.. :)
