There were screams... somebody ran madly through the dark corridors of the hostel, someone had just fainted outside the academic block, the guys ran towards shops selling diluted water and the professors silently thanked the Good Lord. It was the end of Semester One.
Exaggeration is an art but it is true that Semester One is kind of like 'The Villain' in every MBA's story. Kind of like what Voldemort was t0 Harry Potter and Gabbar to Veeru and Jai. To stop stating the obvious, Semester One is where you definitely fall, get up again and fall again. By the time, you have identified that most of the batch is on the ground with you and you see that falling is a cumulative effect. But then the most important thing that you learn, as the professors would say, ‘It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. Just remember to get up every time.’ It sounds straight out of a celluloid inspirational dream but experience has taught us that the truth is often repeated.
Now, while the going is good and we finally take long breaths after about 5 months, some things about the first semester come haunting back.

The Yoga Gurus :
It is mandatory to do Yoga or gym in the morning even if you are Shilpa Shetty here. It does not matter if you slept at 6:55 am after completing all the assignments and the Yoga class is at 7:00 am. You just drag yourself to the meditation hall and do the only asana that was created for the benefit of the down-and-out MBA : The Shavasana. As we lie down and the hypnotic voice of the instructor drones in the background, you have slowly drifted to nirvana which ends promptly in 5 minutes. The next thing, you know all the yoga gurus are running out with one of their socks in their hands to have a bath.

Fast and Breakfast :
The first lecture is at 9 and it is 8:56 on the clock. Is it impossible to run to the Canteen and grab breakfast? Not really. As I run to the canteen thinking that if I could run any faster, I should be India’s next official entry to the marathon at the Olympics, I see that G is still ambling towards the canteen, glued to the phone. One of the principles in G’s life is ‘Breakfast comes before anything other than the person on the phone.’ She never misses breakfast. Even if the exam is at 9:00 am sharp, it is almost a law of nature that food is still travelling through G’s oesophagus at 8:59:59.
Most of the batch misses breakfast. The girls call it a ‘fast’ and the boys simply eat out of other’s plates during lunch.

Learning groups :
To facilitate the important process of learning, there are five other confused souls who are thrown in with you and you are officially christened “Group B12”. Every learning group is ideally constituted of six members but two in ours were forewarnes, I think, and they never landed on campus. Thus I was left with Arun, Alok and Amol. Now I had warned them I would publicly mention there names in my blog. But they crave publicity so shamelessly that they actually promised to give me a party, which of course, I think will happen when it is 3000AD.
Now the learning group sits together and is supposed to give intellectual and creative input every time there is a case discussion. Now a group that sits together thinks together or so says Sooraj Barjatya. Wrong. I remember one time we were discussing the HR case, ours was the most noisy group in the room. The case was on resolving issues among workers in a mine. Our typical conversation would be something like this:

Me: So what do you think the ideal solution should be?
Amol : I think that Ranbir is not as good as Rishi.
Alok: How can you…..??
Me: Yeah, can we please talk about the case? Alok…
Alok: I was about to say that Rishi himself was not as good as Raj Kapoor.
Arun: Guys, who is Rishi?
(For the uninitiated, Arun is a hot-sambar blooded Tamilian from down south whose vast hindi vocabulary includes ‘Kya re’ ‘Acha’ ‘Bhaiya pani chahiye’ and ends right there. He is very happy about it though. Amol is the last to enter the class and the first to leave. At parties, he ties the handkerchief to his head and does a good imitation of Mr.Bachchan. Alok finds both of them very funny.)
Me: How can you not know Rishi?
Arun : Do you know Muthuraman? Shame on you. You are a South Indian.
(The Professor has just passed us and clears her throat on the way. We return back to the case.)
Alok: Miners are people who do a lot of physical work. There is also a lot of mental pressure on them.
Amol: Think about the dark caves and the scary things down there.
Arun : Do you know there is statistical estimation that there are 5 angry bats per 25 caves.
(This is an absurd statistical calculation but great according to my proficiency in the subject. Arun is a whiz at Statistics and always sneaks in Statistics in his daily conversations that the canteen guys serve him with cotton plugs in their ears. Alok is a CA.)
There are two minutes left to discuss. More and more crazy diversions intrude but we do manage to ‘discuss’ the case and present it on time.

Technology Dooms or Doom the Technology :
There is a mobile alert system in the campus that keeps you on your toes. Normal needs and consequences go like this:
1. Need: Feel dirty and hence take a bath
Action: Take a bath
Consequence: Feel fresh and clean.
2. Need: Feel sleepy.
Action: Nap.
Consequence: Wake up and feel rested.
3. Need: Feel hungry
Action: Eat
Consequence: Feel Satiated
With the mobile alerts screaming ‘Batch meet in 0.05 minutes. Assemble immediately’, all the rules are changed.
1. Need: Feel dirty and hence take a bath
Action: Take a bath
Interruption: Batch meet in 5 minutes
Consequence: Batchmates sit two chairs away from you
2. Need: Feel sleepy.
Action: Nap.
Interruption: Batch meet in 2 minutes.
Consequence: Alterations between sleep and glare of the staff.
3. Need: Feel hungry
Action: Eat
Interruption: batch meet in a minute
Consequence: You wonder if wood is actually edible.

There are definitely good instances to this side of the story but another post will do justice to that. Semester One is past us and makes us feel like victorious bravehearts but three more of them are standing in the horizon and smirking at us….