MILAN 2008 - Part II

Ok, so picking the threads from where we left last time (lagta hai jaise koi sweater bana raha hoon :)), once the reception activities were over, we all settled in Dome-2 for the fun to begin. And it was truly fun-filled and at the same time informative evening.

We had participants from PGPM105, PGPM206, and PGPM306 batches, apart from the current PGPM407 batch. PGPM306 – you were sorely missed, with lot of people not being able to make it for various reasons. We hope to see more of you in MILAN 2009. From the faculty side, we had Prof. Sawant and Prof. Siddiqui.

DC did the compeering for the first part of the event. The event started with a ragging session – ragging with a difference. PGPM being a one-year course, there is very little overlap between two consecutive batches. As a result, senior-junior interaction (read ragging) is very limited. Hence, we took advantage of this Alumni meet (sorry, what was it, oh yeah ‘senior interaction’, remember the tabooed words) for the ragging sessions. But, then where was the difference. Well, here the juniors got to rag the seniors! :) So, we had some participants from different PGPM batches get called upon the dais and perform for the entertainment of the class.

From the seniors’ side, Harish and Sudhir spoke, and they spoke brilliantly – showing all signs of a true MBA… some really inspiring stuff. From PGPM407, we had DC, Munish, Padma and AriD getting ragged. AriD was the rock-star as usual. Padma was graceful as ever, Munish got trapped in his own mayajaal when he was asked to speak on ‘Marriage – Before or After MBA’. DC was good, but then when is he not? So no lines for him; plus he also didn’t allow me to send my CV for Accenture, so he doesn’t get a line here.

After all this began the serious stuff, or supposedly serious stuff. Tarun took over the compeering from DC; thank you Tarun for that :P. Kaustubh, from 206 batch, was called on dias to talk about ‘Brand PGPM’. Just to add some weight to the blog, Kaustubh is the Deputy Director at Frost & Sullivan. He appears on the Economic Times almost every other day. Well again, he is not some “Most Wanted” guy. He just happens to offer very thoughtful and insightful suggestions to various industries which gets published. Haan, abhi kaan khade ho gaye na, ab suno :). Yeah, so where were we, Kaustubh, yes, oh man, you had to be there to hear the uproar when Kaustubh got up to speak. The man had some weight, I thought (and saw also, big man he is, you see). Then Kaustubh started, and we listened, and he spoke more and we all just listened. Wow, what oratory skills. Readers, buy Frost & Sullivan stocks if it is a listed company, the company is in absolutely safe hands and has a great future! :)

Next to arrive was M. S. Sudhir from SAP India. He was to talk to us about the Emerging opportunities from the IM perspective. That was a difficult topic to speak on, given the current state of the market. Sab kuch to doob raha hai, Emerging kahan se kuch hoga. But, Sudhir spoke exceptionally well. And that’s the learning from these guys, the clarity of thought that they have, and the way they put it forward. All I can say is that these guys are blessed!

Devendra Kumar, Associate Vice-President from HSBC (PGPM105 participant) was the next on stage. Yeah, yeah, I am flaunting the designation. And why not, these are the people who have done us proud. Devendra - an OM guy, rather a proud OM guy, spoke about the markets from the OM perspective. He did give a big hope to all our friends who want to barge the financial domain and make a name (and a little bit of money) for themselves. The good part of listening to guys like Devendra is that you get to know the latest things in the industry, and more importantly the practical aspects of such issues. After all, who asks you about Porter’s five forces, when you are trying to sell a new product to a customer.

Next man on was the most queerest and talented entertainer of the evening. He did not speak on any topic in particular; was invited to talk since our next speaker was running late. The man is Vishal Jain, PGPM206 guy, at ATOS Origin right now. The ‘right now’ bit in the previous sentence is important:P. Despite other better orators at the event, if there is one person I’d like to emulate, Vishal would be it. He delivers each line with a punch. And by each line, I am not exaggerating. Without sounding repetitive at all, he delivered a punch in EVERY SINGLE LINE he spoke. I think he can join the boxing ring some day if only boxing were done with words! Sigh! Extremely talented man, he had people laughing and applauding all through. Sitcom guys, here’s your next superstar. Jerry (Seinfield) goodbye!

Before leaving Vishal gave a prelude of things to come. But, we never thought he was serious about our next speaker. But, when Pradeep Mishra arrived, all doubts in our minds were cleared. Pradeep comes from the second batch, and is currently working with Reliance Retail and I am sure he knows more about retail then any of those guys at Reliance, or for that matter any other Retail store. Power-packed retail session; even our own retail guru – Akshat – was impressed. Whether we understood everything he spoke about or not, he definitely had us thinking and by the time he finished we were starving (for real food)

With dinner time just minutes away, we had the ceremonial event closure talks. Prof. Sawant came on stage to conclude the proceedings, and smart to sense our hungry looks. He came, he spoke and he conquered, all in 90 seconds. To everyone’s delight, here was a Prof who sounded like he was one amongst us! He’s a youngster after all :)

Thanking time came and everyone expected DC to deliver. But we saw Prof. Siddiqqui walking up to the dias. Surprise package we thought. And, what a surprise it was. He won many a heart, and deservingly so. He didn’t miss out any name, made special mention of each and everyone who was directly or indirectly part of the event. Sir, you were truly awesome! Thank you for the thank you speech.

The event came to a closure with a well-served dinner.

The end of MILAN 2008 marked the beginning of a completely new chapter in the PGPM story – the MILAN story. And we are more than grateful to the authors of this new chapter. Thanks again Ram, Karthik, Vaibhav, Manish, Mittal, Hemant, Tarun and DC. Miles to go before we hit our respective beds, I guess!

Love,

Baldi

PS: There is a small note on MILAN that needs to be published; will be out in a couple of days time, group works permitting!

MILAN 2008 – Part I

No no, its not about the fashion event; MILAN is just a small ‘get-together’ for PGPM folks to meet their ‘seniors’.   Actually we at PGPM also wanted to use heavy-duty words like ‘conclave’ (for get-together), ‘alumni’ (for seniors), but such words are considered too MBA'ish, more so when they come from PGPM mouths. So we decided to use bachchu words. What we called it was MILAN. Simple enough I guess. However, we did use these words in the acronym below :)

MILAN is: 

Meet Intended for Leveraging Alumni Network

First and foremost (unlike the usual last but not the least) these are the elegant eight who made MILAN possible - Ram, Vaibhav, Karthik, Manish, Mittal Bros - Mittal Shah & Hemant Mittal, Tarun and DC.   Given the success of MILAN, I am sure these eight men will hold their head high in pride for a long time to come for their stupendous achievements.   More importantly they will proudly tell their grand-children about the first ever MILAN and how they started this grand-event!  And we, PGPM407, and the entire PGPM community will be grateful to them for a long time to come for taking up this initiative. And maybe we might have a statue erected in campus as well. Or…atleast somewhere near Pran Ganga if the administration does not have a problem with it!

Ok, I’ll accept it; MILAN team did sponsor my breakfast at Shetty’s this morning :P and I must admit it was pretty sumptuous.

Fine let us now get down to the event – MILAN 2008.  Wow, what a day it was.  The evening started with high-tea.  A small goof-up by the team meant that all of us could pounce on the veg-sandwiches after a long day in class.  That’s where the fun started, and fortunately for all of us, it did not end there.

We had Ram, Karthik and Vaibhav at the reception.   Knowing how diligent these three are, you won’t be surprised if I told you that these guys were calling the alumni, oops! sorry ‘seniors’ (taboo word you see) till the last moment.  Then, Karthik received a call from a certain Naina from second batch, saying that she would not be able to the make it to the event, no no ‘get-together’ (thou shalt not use tabooed words), and that she won’t be able to make it since she was pregnant.   Now, Karthik was perplexed for two good reasons –

-          Who was Naina, because her name did not figure in the list of seniors he had.

-          And if at all she was a senior who Karthik had contacted earlier for the get-together, then why did she NOT tell him earlier about her inability to come to the get-together.  How did she become pregnant all of a sudden? (Actually honestly speaking, I don’t think the guys thought about the last question at all. I am just penning it down to make it look more sane.)

Anyway, Karthik said ok, fine, congrats etc etc and moved ahead calling other people.  After some time his mobile rings again, and Naina apologizes profusely for not being able to make it.  After some convincing she does hang-up, only to call 5 minutes later again.  This time Karthik hands over the phone to AmitG.   Another bakra for Naina to tell her story.  Amit listens carefully and does his round of ok, fine, congrats etc etc.   When the phone rings again after 10 mins, Karthik is pissed; so in comes savior Ram. Same story, same response again.   In the midst of all this, whoever is free is calling other seniors and getting confirmation.

Its 6:15pm and our reception guys are still at the reception waiting for some seniors who are ‘perpetually stuck in traffic’.   The proceedings for the day were supposed to start at 6:00pm, but are postponed for some time – just 60 mins :)

Karthik’s mobile rings again.  Naina it is.   Naina – “Hey Karthik! Sorry for bothering you.  But I just wanted to tell you that I have delivered a baby!  Please announce it to the gathering, so that my batch mates are aware of this.  They’ll be happy to know, you see!”

Karthik, though pissed, congratulates her and promises to announce.

Naina strikes again after some time, this time its Ram.  In all this, something tells Ram and Kathik that there is something fishy.   At this point in time, a long-faced Srikanth comes and asks these guys if they got a call from someone called Naina.  That’s was it, Karthik and Ram were short of abuses and curses for Sri, realizing that it was he who was bugging them since morning.  People around could not stop laughing when Sri spoke in his err her err his .. whatever Naina voice.

Later I heard of a rumor that these reception heroes were wondering how they forgot to find out the gender of the baby and whether they must call back Naina to find out about it! Duh!!!

Well, after this commotion, it was time for DC and the other folks to escort the rest of PGPM407 batch and the seniors to Dome-2 for the 1 hour delayed beginning of the proceedings.

So that was the whole big story upto the completion of reception.   I’ll take 4 more parts to write till the end of the event.  So 4 more parts coming your way. Please please bear with me.

Love,

Baldi