Ten point somethings

A lot has happened in the past two months,albeit not here. MBA is taxing, especially when we try to make sense of business finance 3 hours prior to the exam  . All said, let us not talk ill of the dread. In the days i have spent here, i have learned and re-learned many a things. Let me reiterate some of them for the benefit of the general public who aspire to be in management. In order to sound more organized and to give you an idea of how long this is going to take, let me give a number to the list of things i will talk about:

10 Points:

1) The only things you would manage once you start your two year PGDM course is less sleep and more emails. 

2) If you do manage to stay awake and write down the seemingly-valid-points that you or your classmates make in the class, you would probably end up authoring a book titled  ’The Art of Pfaff’  which would be thicker than than ‘The art of war’ by Sun Tsu. (Point no.2 is an example)

3) The two most important phrases that a mican should acquaint thyself with are – ‘It depends‘ and ‘Chill maar yaar‘. Use the former with the faculty and latter with your friends to solve any problem under the sun.

4)  Re-learning:  CTRL+ALT+DELETE (this time to avoid terminations)

5) If you felt the competition to get into a b-school is tough, wait till you get here. It’s dog-eat-dog and pfaff-beats-pfaff world. You know your peers so much better than you did once you have been through a GD with them (you get to know more if they get in and you don’t  )

6)  Creative is subjective and everything is creative.

7) An open-book examination is tougher than a closed book, as you waste half your time searching hundreds of pages that you have never read.

8 ). The only conscious free time that you get would probably be in the loo. Make good use of it.

9) Remember, the two years of your life that you spend in a b-school is a paid social experiment.  Make the most out of it before it takes the most out of you.

10)  SOP, EOI, ROI, DCP .. You would start hating 3 letter acronyms

[This piece of writing is a blog post of a member of the literary committee and has been obtained with his consent. No Turning it in required  :)]

Grand Finale - MQC 2011

The patient build-up, a four legged trawl for the creme, the frenzied preparations behind scenes, the innumerable hours of lost sleep, zillions of google searches, an innocent penguin, a twisted thumb and a few gaffes, the MQC final was worth every bit of that and more. 

First up - A huge THANK YOU! to all involved - you participants who honored us with your presence, hounded us with your persistence - both above and below the board, Tarang and Pranjal - the hand that propped us up with external support, our Sponsors, the eminently lovable Senior Team LitComm and the equally adorable junies. 

Getting back to the quiz itself, the Final was an affair to remember - no warming up, it was for the battle hardened pros. They were:

Sania Narulkar & Divyanshu Bhoderia  (Anna ki tamanna)
Abhishek Rane & Dileep Tiwary        (Abhyutthaan)
Abhishek Joshi & Joseph Jacob  (Plan B)
RPulak Narain  Dhreeteman Das (Two 2 Tango)
Anupam Dhar & Divya Agarwal   (Hapless and hopeless)
Aditi Bose and Phalguni Aneja   (Apdi Pode)
Rohit Goswami & Abhimanyu Roy  (Que Pasa)

The format was different too - 35 Categories with 2 questions in each, teams getting to pick their choice for the first 2 rounds. The stake increased progressively with each round. The third round was a blind guess with the Topics masked by numbers, in return for 30 points for a direct answer, that came laced with a -10 for an incorrect answer. The killer touch came out with the 4th round, where the adjacent team picked out the topic for its previous team. This added a great deal of spice to the show as teams grappled to identify what their competitors were weakest at!

It was as exciting as a Finale could be with a different team leading at the end of each round. In the end it all boiled down to the rapidfire round, yet again. Divyanshu & Sania were in a close tussle with Pulak and Dhreeteeman for the top spot. A tense staccato of questions erupted with Bunty and Babloo definitely deserving their lead but the runners up not lagging far behind. All that held them from tying up for first spot was "Water" and "Waterman" for the inventor of the fountain pen. The winners received a cash prize of Rs. 4000 and two coveted trophies with the runners-up getting Rs. 2000 and it all ended up with jubilation from all quarters: the participants, the audience and the organisers who were left with a sweet taste of success in their mouths.

Sports & Entertainment Quiz

The final installment of the topic based rounds of MQC 2011 - the much awaited Sports and Entertainment quiz (SpEnt). And spent we were, what with over 50 participants in the prelims, 110 questions and an exciting Wild Card Round we were left huffing and puffing due to the sheer pace.

As expected, the presence of Sports and entertainment ensured a full-house, the prelim questions were tough but the high interest levels ensured that there was no dip in the qualifying scores. Top 6 teams made to the on-stage round. The On Stage round featured a new team - Avinash and Utkarsh who gave the regulars a run for their money. Sania and Divyanshu, the mainstay of all the 4 rounds saw off the challengers and clinched the first place.

This was followed by the Wild Card entry round where everyone, irrespective of their standings in any quiz could have a shot at qualifying to the finals. It was a 30 question marathon, along the lines of the prelims, but only of a higher difficulty and with questions from all domains. The wait for the results of this round was bordering on painful and we in the team correcting had to check the responses several times as the competition was cut-throat. Finally the team of QuePasa consisting of Abhimanyu Roy and Rohit Goswami got a well-deserved entry to the Grand Finale, pipping two other teams by the narrowest of margins and all they could say was "Finally!!".

And now finally the preparations for the Grandest of Finales are underway. Let the Literary Committee not find you all avid quizzers, cheerers and enthusiasts unprepared because if you thought the topical rounds were a delightful snack, get ready to expect a sumptuous feast in the end. We know you are going to be there, 24 hours away...we are counting, are you?