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