Jamshedur- the city of talent !

This week I am gonna talk about the city where I am currently. Thanks to my friend Abhishek, who gave me this link Jampot Jalwa which talks about people who have been from the steel city. Tanushree Datta, Sidharth Basu, Imtiaz Ali, Priyanka Chopra are some of those.

For people who have a 'predetermined' notion about Jharkhand, got to come here and see for themselves how beautiful the city is. It rains and rains, however, there is no waterlogging, the roads are clean and lined with trees. Compare this with Delhi or any other place. Every rain makes the city crumble and newspaper get some material to write.

The XL campus is the most beautiful and you got to see the pics (refer to my earlier post with the link to the same) to convince yourself.

Pics from outbound

Sorry, for the delay. Here are few pics from my adventure program. The lady in last pic is none other than Bachendri Pal, the first Indian lady to climb mt Everest.

Rediscovering Myself !

Last week, I had a chance to go for an adventure trip. As I had already mentioned in my previous blogs, a 3 day adventure is part of the GMP course and is mandatory for all students here. My turn was to go with 32 other souls last Friday.

We landed up at the adventure spot at 8 in the morning and after breakfast started with couple of management games. Then came in obstacle clearing which is more on the lines of whats done in Army' SSB interviews, there is monkey crawl, a tarzan rope, move from tyres, crawling through barbed wire cave and others. In the evening we were shown video from 1984 Mt Everest expedition.

The next day we started with obstacles again and then followed by rock climbing and caving. Even by a conservative estimate, the rocks would have been 100 ft tall with varying amount of steepness thrown in. The caving ensured that one had to crawl in different anatomical positions ! In second half, we did treasure hunt and rock down sailing. The down sailing was from a rock 70 ft high.

The third day, we went to Dimna Lake and did rafting followed by making our own boat and then sailing it through the waters.

All these days,
- we slept in tent without any mat or fan and had to depend on mother Earth for air,
- drank water from hand pump, no bisleri thrown in,
- were allocated utensils and had to bring for food e'time and also wash them after each use,
- eat just rice with fixed rotis and cooked vegetables/dal with no scope of local kiryana to buy something else.
- without any bath for 2 days,
- get up at 5 and sleep at 9, different matter though that not all could sleep 8 hrs.
- go for loo in open trenches !

Now, if it scares you, it did scare me as well when I heard my previous batch tell about their experiences. But as you go through, it makes you mentally tough. As Bachendri Pal told us that this trip is not about your physical prowesness but about your mental strength. Everybody can work in comfortable conditions but only people with mental toughness can survive in adverse conditions. [Bachendri Pal was the first Indian lady to climb Mt Everest and is the chairperson of the TSAF, the group which organized our trip. She came in the first day and addressed us all].

When I look back, I don't think I had imagined that I would be able to do all these activites. To be honest, I was actually thinking of a suitable reason to abstain if need arises. But somehow, I not only managed to complete all of the activities but also completed in allotted time ! Its fun to think how could I climb down a 70 feet wall with ropes or how could I sail through a boat that I have created in water which is 100 ft deep or how could I crawl in a cave which is barely tall for me to lie down. And thats why I say 'Rediscovering Myself' !!!


Coming Up Next- Photographs from the trip !

Football and Mining !

These pretty much sums up my activities during the weekend that just passed by.

Football - Not a big deal for people, but a big one for me, because I played after nothing less than 15 years !!! So, while I ran here and there, I did manage to put in one goal for my team out of 5 hey had in total. :-).. By the way, my team could tell, how much did I failed to convert too !!

Its a different story though that by the end of match, I was fairly exhausted and I decided to take rest for the complete week to be ready physically for adventure trip next week.

Mining Visit - As part of educational visit, I went to Uranium mines at Narwapahar, 28 kms from XLRI. After the usual chai-pani that was offered to all students, we were taken to four different levels under ground, with the least being 350 mts. Since this was my first visit to any mine, I cannot put down a comparison, but what I could see and gather was that this was one of the best mechanised mines in Asia. The mines had provision for collecting and recycling of water coming out of extraction, drilling and collecting of rocks, proper air circulation and multiple routes for workers. The fun part was to see 3 mtr tall trucks at different levels for drilling and collection. The other noticeable thing was highly motivated stuff and the enthusiasm and pride with which they displayed the entire mines !

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pic as my camera phone was collected at gate itself !

Hear your inner voice !

This post talks about speech made by Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Computers. This has got nothing to do with the GMP course, but I put it here because its such a powerful speech and I thought everybody should give it a read atleast once. I have read it multiple times since the first time I read, sometimes last week, and everytime I read, I am charged up !

I am quoting few lines from the speech ---
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Very true and very relavent, isn't it !!

Ok, now here is the link --> Link

XLRI in pictures

Prof Madhukar Shukla has posted some nice pics of XLRI campus and its students.

1. Virtual Tour through the XLRI Campus: http://lifeatxl.blogspot.com/

2. The XLRI over the years: http://tinyurl.com/64ds3c

Status Update -1

Thanks to 3 day break starting tomorrow :-), I am able to write down this post. I am gonna cover what has happened in last 10 days and whats gonna happen in next 10 days ....

1. Official Dining Hall Inauguration- As I wrote in my last post , a new dining hall has come up exclusively for GMP students. This was officially inaugurated on 25 June. The event was a good way to unwind and talk to the faculty along with wonderful dinner and cocktails. Few of the enthusiasts clicked couple of pics too. Here is one ... Well, I am being selfish enough to pick the one where I am in center :-)


2. Different Committees- As in any civil society, you need people who can volunteer to work that extra mile to achieve something that can be mutually beneficial for the entire society, you need these volunteers for the betterment of the GMP juntaa too. How much do these volunteers actually volunteer and how much result can they bring forward is a debatable question though ;). Nevertheless, we had elections (yes, you read correctly elections- we did closed ballot voting, open voting, selection ) to elect members to these committees. Members to Media, Admin, Brochure, Finance, Extra-currics were elected.
I happen to be part of Media committee..:-)


3. Outbound Program- The entire batch of 100 has been divided into three groups. Starting this Friday- Sunday, for three consecutive weeks, one group will be going for an industrial visit to Tata Steel/ mines, one group to Outbound trekking program and third group to bed (Ahhh, that elusive sleep) !!! Its gonna be fun in either of these activities and I am especially looking forward to Steel plant and mines visit. Coming from a Comp Sciences background means I have always been playing around with 'dabba', little seen the big furnaces and deep mines..


4. Academics- I specifically put this down in the last, so that I can write long notes on this. I am not gonna talk about longgggggg study hrs or 6 hrs sleep or case assignments, which is a norm here but rather about things that make me feel excited -
Lets start with micro economics.. there are functions, typically production functions that help you predict what quantity of prodn. is the optimal quantity.. anything less or more will make you lose profits...

Macro- Economics- The big daddy of economics, helps you predict where the national economy is going. You look at country' figures and find for yourself if the economy is sound enough for investment !

Accounting- Checking the balance sheet of companies and trying making meaning out of the same. Where has the company hid its money is something thats interesting ! Will take some time to learn Enron's- creative accounting though!

Quant- Helps you figure out the expected value of anything, like, for example, how many people would visit my blog today? Or whats the probability that people coming to this site will read my friends blogs too !

Ethics and CSR- Interesting to see how people are working for betterment of society and still making money, a win- win situation for all.

Organization Behavior- Different exercises have enabled me to see what kind of person I am and what shortcomings do I need to work through !

The reason why I find all this interesting is that it gets closer to real life problems per se, unlike the java or .net where your only partner is a compiler !! With 20 days of course, I am already feeling enlightened ! and Thanks to the wonderful profs here who have made their subjects pretty interesting !