The Mumbai Dabbawalas@K

White kurta - Pyjama with the latter being of the 70's style bell bots..wherein 2 people could fit in instead of one...A Gandhi cap....typical Marathi accent, oh not so fluent hindi. One look at the dabbawalas initially took me down memory lane to Pune where i spent 8 years. Same humility, rustic tinge....but wait something was different...

These guys walked and talked like simple maharashtrians but underneath were shrewd, intelligent and experienced businessmen. They were no MBA's..in fact only 8th - 10th pass. But they were marketing whizkids...The way they were going about making a brand for dabbawalas was not missable. They knew how to handle publicity. In fact, when the media photographers and other press people came to click pictures/take interviews, they handed them a business card. The photographer was overawed and we were impressed. They spoke in broken hinglish, but were eloquent speakers who could hold the audience...There took an occasional potshot at their lack of education, but they did indeed throw all the jargon that was ever needed in a supply chain conference...logistics, six sigma.. blah blah blah....They humbly ridiculed all management gurus, saying their six sigma certification for delivering 2 lakh lunch boxes everyday with an accuracy of 99.999999% was a result of dedication and no management jargon!!

The talk was indeed excellent and a wonderful learning experience. The biggest takeaway obviously was that - you don't need to be an MBA or for that matter even a graduate to run business. Here we had amongst us a bunch of village bumpkins who ran a 5000 strong organization of 36 crores and that too with almost zilch use of technology!!...They had seen the world, wined and dined with Prince Charles!! Thus, what it takes is commitment and single mindedness, a go-getter attitude and a passion to do well no matter what...To just hang in there...when things don't go as planned.... Well done Omega!! Thanks for a wonderful OPUS 2006.

The Samurai signs off.....

Rock on!!

Last Class For Section B!!

How time flies right? Seems like yesterday..i entered Section B, almost unsure of myself...The self doubts lingering.... 4 years since i attended any classes, will i be able to take the rigour..will i be able to match the young guns? Here let me start with a few peculiarities....

The V's Of Marketing: Can talk about anything under the sun right from Finance to Marketing to HR to Ops..these guys (Bondwal, Dalmia) are the masters at it all...And honestly, very impressive at that..secret sauce??? - They read a lot....

Sundeep Singh: Yeh sahab hain Asli waale fighter..Have learnt a lot from him...keeps me moving...Fresh grad IIT Delhi...9 pointer at engg.. The boy can fight and win anything...He knows only one thing..i.e. to win at anything and everything.. The maths whiz....not a people person, but a winner all the same...Does not believe in sleeping too much...

Suma Kamath: The affable gentle giant - Gives you an impression of being a toughie..but a real softie.. n ek dum fun to be with...She can do CP like no one else can..There have been times in the past when even the proffs have had to ask for permission to speak :-) Most hillarious moment, Mark. Research case, when suma down with laryngitis managed to give a presentation, when she cud barely hear herself speak...

Firdaus Mantri: Honest, Intelligent, a fighter in the true sense is how i would describe him..Does not cheat...Sits on the first seat, first row, does maximum CP (relevant though) but has been caught catching 40 winks every now and then... BTW - FM is also the fin god of the batch...motto - Simple Living and High Thinking...

Will keep this post running till i finish with all the people...abhi ke le agya di jiye...The Samurai now thinking about the Dabbawallah presentations as part of OPUS 2006!! Keep a tab!

cheers
rock on!!
The Samurai

Farce of a ppt!!
Well currently sitting in my sm class...listening to truckloads of globe...groups coming in one by one and hitting others with some innovative crap!! The audience smiling to themselves, each one murmuring...let my chance come...i'll give them a taste of their own medicene...My group is relaxed...There's dalmia and the samurai in the same team...both will try to go one up on the other in terms of giving total gyaan... God save the others!!

Sometimes the Samurai wonders...MBA course should be of 1 year duration. After summers all that you are doing is giving lots and lots of ppts. But then the flipside is that you get loads of confidence....you feel that you can talk your way out of anything....So much so that students do not even bother to put in enough efforts in making ppts, thinking, arrey yaar samjha denge sabko...dont worry!! No wonder the IIM grads are sometimes despiced in the the industry...Bloody underworked and overpaid ... glorified mba's.

Righto then...coming back to the class...Kaushik starts off earnestly...such honesty and passion in voice..aahaa mazjja aa gaya sir...and there's himanshu (same presenting team) who knows the truth, who is smiling to himself... "Ladka MBA Ban Gaya Hai" :)) Reminds me of an interesting incident in today morning class of IB. Swarup the doormouse (refer Alice In Wonderland) suddenly woke up mid way in the class and said...Sir can we wind up..we have an international Finance class immediately... Well, there was 30 mins for the class to get over!! Imagine...trying to tell the proff time is up when the class is in progress...I guess the gentleman proff. actually let him off the hook with a joke saying something to the effect of wise man has woken up :) so all in all a fun filled day....

Ahh and the sad part is that we had to sit through 3 ppts in the SM class without getting a chance to present one. Now the buggers will get away scot free and will not attend tomorrow's class... and we will have to do with newer audience.. Chalo koi na...we'll make the best out of the audience we get with a 60 slide ppt :) The Samurai sayeth...Lord save them!!

Until then

Rock on!!

cheers
Samurai

Gyaan
Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test your limits. Everything in life teaches you a lesson...Keep learning!!

Flicked this from somewhere, but could not have been more true. A lot of us do get setbacks in life everynow and then. For sometime (depending on the setback intensity) there is the feeling that sky has fallen, but then all this while you are just being tested. You realise later that there will always be some things in your hand and not others. At every point in life, what is required is 100% effort and commitment. If that is missing, if there was a lack of effort from your side or you did not try hard enough, then you should look back, otherwise, move on..

This reminds me of a thought that one of my very good friends Javed left for me one of the days that i had a crucial interview..He wrote "Bhanu, let there never be a task in life which you do and say later that... I wish could have....maybe done better...or that i could have tried something else...If it still does not work out, it was not meant to ..." It helped the Samurai then and will always do so.

Probably that is what drives sportsmen to perform everytime they enter the field. At the end of the day it will always be your commitment. With Placements season approaching, probably its thoughts like this that will keep the Samurai going......

And then obviously, there was V's fundae in life...Yeh sab ch..... hain yaar...Mein inka papa hoon...I will beat them all hands down and end up with the best....Bottom line was "I AM DA STUD". Did work for him....not sure if its a silver bullet. But i do admit it does work most of the times for the Samurai... :P

Coming back to where i started off, one must be ready to learn at each stage in life...where the learning stops, everything does!! It may not mean bookish learning, anything and everything should be welcome. You never know when you might need it...

Hmm...This was the Samurai's Gyaan Blog :) .. His favourite past time....

So Long!
Rock On!!
Samurai

Swimmers Delite!


It was raining cats and dogs at 3:30 PM in the afternoon today.... The three musketeers read db, dg and cd were all set to go swimming...Now, logically swimming in the rain does not make too much sense does it..that too after driving 6 kms!!

But there was no stopping them...they drove through the rain with near zero visibility...logic..we are going to be wet in the pool right...so might as well do so in the rain first :) On the way, DG taught DB a humbling lesson in faffing!! While it was difficult to see 5 mtrs ahead because of the heavy rains..DG boasted that 30 mtrs ahead there was a Tata 407 truck running at full speed...And he poked fun at DB saying awww come on dude...you can do better than that!! DB on the other hand thought he saw a white ambassador instead......He meekly mentioned so, but was scoffed at :) To top it all DG said that the visibility is great and driving in this weather is even more fun!! Nonetheless, when we did manage to catch up with the vehicles ahead, it indeed turned out to be a white ambasaador :-( Moral of the story...when u faff make sure u are confident!!


Anyways, swimming in the rain was even better than we expected...the water was warm and relaxing...you could see steam near the surface where cold rain drops met the warm water....this time CD tried a fake story :) and was caught....naaah not confident enough.... We enjoyed for an hour and half and returned back wet again, as the rain had not stopped....The predicament now was whether to enter the class late, or to enter the class wet or even better...not go at all...We chose the middle path and finally attended a thriller of a case......Brand Pipes!! Well, let me not start off again about proff.. K. otherwise this will be another looong blog....


2:oo AM in the night and the Samurai next decides.... ki aage kya karne ka hai....Well this indecisive Libran is sure headed for a looong night...


Till Then!!
Rock on

Samurai!!

The Samurai breaks the Final Frontier!!



Well, took me 27 yrs to decide to do it.... :) Finally, i said enuff is enuff.....how long can you live with taboos in life...The last 3-4 months have already seen a lot of changes in me as a person...and i said another one will not do any harm. Hic Hic!! So Ladies and Gentlemen, here goes my first blog... a little tipsy.... BTW the pic to the left is just a decoy!! :))


Well, so an honest confession here...what made me do it? Well, i just realise that there is a first time for everything.....So no harm in tasting...this is also something i need to take away from K. I don't want myself making faces at the mention of word drinks at work (after office i.e. :) ).. I have no intentions of being a social drinker even. .. But yes ek baar life mein try karna tha..so ho gaya...Hope that makes sense...


cheers
Samurai...

A life in the day of a Scon

Taking off from where i left, life@K taught me to take responsibility for my actions....accept failure/follies graciously, and then learn from them...so when the samurai decided to stand up and fight again....This feels like the days after my engineering...backs to the wall....but then..has the samurai ever given up? here is how the day went ahead....

Slept at 4:30 AM - Woke up at 9:30 AM...for the 10:10 class which i made JIT. 1.5 hrs over Lexington labs and its decentralized strategy and i knew i had had enough....Yipee!! No more classes till 9:00 PM...so followed up the class with a TT rubber with Sid...Saaala yeh bhi koi game hai!! Lost again...Ah!! I sure do suck at racquet games...Gym time folks..so in the gym till 1:45 after that...took a bath and off to lunch.... 3PM in the library...trying my hand at some dumb looking financial ratios!! I know now, why i cant do a 9 - 9 job in a fin company.... :(

7:00 PM folks...time for the Scon meeting....

Starts with giving the jscon boys a firing!! Thats the best way to start a meeting if you see complacency setting in...politely but firmly...gave them a piece of my mind...This was followed by an intense discussion on branding and task allocation....Its fun watching the boys become enthusiastic about things!! Makes me miss my days when the fire was still burning!! I still feel i have a responsibility to SCon and also to this institution...So just a humble attempt to ensure that the baton is passed on....and passed on well.. that scon always ROCKS!!!

9:00 PM B2B marketing ka class...kya beautiful case tha sir....i was on the edge of my seat, cause Proff. K was asking me questions left right and center for like 15 minutes... :) After succesfully negotiateing them...actually cracking!! felt good... :) The samurai is still there....This course has been a high point of coming to IIMK....have yet to see a more accomplished proff. than Proff. K.... Awesome....kya badhiya delivery hai sir!! For those who dont know....despite his flawless accent, just to evoke interest he breaks into Hindi every now and then (with a Bihari accent) . He'd crack a joke and by the time its over...you'd realise what a fantastic lesson he has taught you..... Hats off sir!! After 2 hrs of Becton Dickinson case study (which is to be continued tomorrow)... i am back to the library...was really tired mentally...so thought of taking a break....

But Ladies and Gentlemen, the night is still young and loads to read up.....so hopefully....will write some more in the night..... Till then the ramblings stop here....

cheers
The Samurai