Management Development Institute, Gurgaon better known as MDI Gurgaon is one of the premier BSchools in India. I would be spending some time here for my PGPM course. This weBLOG would share the incidents and memories of the place.

Please note that the views presented herein are MY PERSONAL VIEWS and should not be taken as a general opinion.

This was written by Sandeep...

From: pg04sandeep_a Sent: Sat 7/24/2004 4:03 PM
To: PGPM2004
Cc:
Subject: Mother Dairy Visit
Attachments:

Hi everyone

Just a little recap of our Mother Dairy Visit today. Not all of us were there but i believe that 1/3rd of the batch was. It started around 8.00 A.M. with quite a few sleepy faces who were also sleeping in the Bus on the way to Mother Dairy(atleast for half the journey). Around half of the bus was still active in the morning and they eventually got the bus involved with a game of antakshri. Ofcourse one team (the people sitting upfront) were not as vociferous as compared to their peers sitting at the rear end. We reached MD in the course of this antakshri and had a good time there. especially with the AC on when the movie was playing (zzzz) and also with various parts of the dairy. The movie ended with some CP or DCP even when there were no Class Participation Marks.
Some of us actually wanted to climb the milk containers and probably wanted to peep into it. Then came the refreshments part of the Visit at Mother Dairy and that was the milk offered and sharma is the current record holder(i think) with 11 glasses of milk. And ofcourse everyone enjoyed the ice-creams as well. And we were back in the bus for the return journey.

It started with Arvind singing two beautiful hindi songs for us. He should be encouraged to sing more often. After that people were specifically asked to sing songs for the bus a few notable singers -
Swati, Pushkar, Amrit, Pochu, Khemka. Quite an active participation from the rest of the bus a few notables Saurabh G. , the other Saurabh , and Stayajit Gandhi.

There were a few dedications specially for Raj(two songs dedicated), Ruchika (one song dedicated), Some dedications to the quizzes and ..... . And for the rest of the journey almost all the bus was singing except for one or teo sleepy faces here and there. Again leading the Change Masters in their efforts were Soumaya, Amit Sharma, and Abhishek Kanodia

(who knows all the lyrics of all the songs). Their was shayari though not always good by khemka. It ended with a few songs that i cannot recall after entering MDI and some shayari. I think i will end here and sorry if i have missed something.

Looking forward to the next Industrial Visit.

Sandeep Agarwal
PGPM 2004

Apart from what Sandeep has to say, One thing I enjoyed most about Mother Diary visit was the advert jingle... "Doodh Dhoodh"... The tag line. It was played for us after the introductory presentation on Mother Diary was over. Everyone (about 40 of us) forgot our ages and sang along with the advert. It was AMAZING experience.

I would try to find out the lyrics somewhere and post em here.

P.S.: When coming back, I was sleeping ;)

It's 24th July 2004. A month has passed in a flash!

I landed at MDI on 24th June 2004 with a couple of bags and lots of hopes. Its been a month since I am here and I would be here for atleast another 11 months or so.

23rd June... There I was standing amongst 180 odd more "Change Masters" who had come to Gurgaon from All Over the India to Change their destinies and Master their lives. Some have already been successful in Changing and Mastering, some are almost there and there are some, like me, who are still trying to get used to the life here.

A typical day here would include sleeping for just 4 hours, eating the same "good" food daily, looking at your batch mates study for rest 20 hours and cursing yourself for not studying. And this is when we don't have difficult subjects, sweet professors, so many facilities and what not.

Everyone would talk about academic rigor here but one thing that goes most un-noticed is the student activities. Students here have innumerable options if they want to explore and develop themselves. One can run anything from a Kirana Store to a Mutual Fund here. Apart from running stuff, you can be a part of PlaceComm or Alumni Committee and make people run around.

Library is huge! You have any book you name. One book I found missing was good old Champak that I love so much. And no copies of Panchtantra. Seriously speaking, Panchtantra is one of the best Management Books you can ever find and still no mention about it in the library. I tried asking the librarian but alas! He said there are no plans to procure it in the near future. I would certainly think about it once I become the General Secy. or the PG Rep.
Talking of posts and the power associated with them, we have had elections, booze parties, campaigning, slogans, mud slinging etc. It was certainly fun. Politics here at MDI aren't like those we have at Delhi University. People think about it for a day, forget it the next day. The candidate I was favoring and campaigned for lost in the CR elections. I would be taking the revenge next year ;)

Right now I am sitting in the Comp Center. Its open from 9 AM to 5 AM. Yes 0900 hrs to 0500 hrs. You can play music of your choice in the Comp Centre, Occasionally Study, Play Games, the hottest ones being Icy Tower and Pocket Tanks. I suck at both of them even though I think am champ with gaming ;)

Computer Games remind me of TOL. They were fired yesterday. Will post about it in the War of Words.

So every student here has a senior student mentor and a faculty mentor. My student mentor is Ruchi Pokhriyal. She is from Delhi, an engineer and ex-classmate of Jyoti. She is majoring into Marketing and HR and she happens to hold a few key positions here. She is one of the five members of the Alumni Committee and a Panelist at the Delphique/Imperium HR panel. Imperium/Delphique is our inter-college fest and there is immense competition to get through these panels. There was this event where I was supposed to talk to seniors and write about Ruchi. I hope the report I wrote is still with Ruchi and as soon as I get it, I would post it here. I am still not sure if I should call her "TU" or "AAP". She is more of a friend than a senior, but again this is one of those things that are debatable ;) Enough about Ruchi and coming to my faculty mentor, Prof. Kalra, he is one of the pioneers in the Organizational Behaviour. Just search for HPM and you would know the stature of the man. He takes our Organizational Behaviour Classes and to tell the truth, he is AMAZINGLY good.

To Be Contd ...

OCPS - Oral Comunicatoin and Presentation Skills. This is one credit course that we have here. We will be taught presentatoin and communication skills and thye would teach us speaking with courtsey, using busniess slangs, eye contact, body movements while speaking, way we start, way we end etc.
 
The first excersise was giving a one to two minute speech on a topic of choice. I was supposed to speak today and I had to talk about Computer Gaming. I scribbled few points when I was waiting for my turn to come up and had prepared everything like a friend who would prompt me every minute so that I can keep track of time. Ah, one thing I forgot to mention here is that tihs speech would be videotaped and distributed back to us so that we know where we lack and may be help us laugh on other pepole ;) This videotaping was done with a regular 70 mm film camera with a flash light on top that made me look fairer (did pretty good job I guess). As soon as I reached there and I saw the camra for the first time, I wanted to run back to my seat and hide under the bench. But again with all those "divas" watching me there was no turning back. I started in the usual mannre, stammering, nrevously, not confident of myself but as evreyone konws once I start talking, I am unstoppable. So I started talking and talking and talking about the gaming industry and etc etc and went on. I finally decided to stop and our Prof told me that I spoke for 3 minutes and 50 seconds and I thought I was in the time limits. And this was when Sandeep prompted me after a minute.
 
I got the regular feedback of being fast and not speaking clearly. The Prof was trying to tell me the ways to improve and ways to buid confidence but who was listening, I was dying to get back to the seat and and hide.
 
I noticed one thing though... I could not gather enough applauses from people as some of the other speakers. Lesson to be learnt: There are better people and you gotta slog, kick them in the butt and get better than em.
 
Let me tell you it IS difficult to talk in fornt of people and people who are into Public Speaking gotta be very very brave and confident. I tihnk if I practise hard enough and get my speed right, I can be serious competitoin to Navjot Singh Sidhu !
 
It was one of those brong HBO classes when some creative individual thought abpout statring an opinion poll in the class. The Question was "Who according to you is the funniest sleeper in our class?". Following lucky people were listed as the options... Ankit Srivastava, Saurabh Garg aka ME, Raj Kiran Sharma, Shubhi Sood, Satyadeep Maheshwari etc.
 
Dr. Kalra was taking the lecture and this question was being passed among the people and it completed the round and dear Ankit won it hands down. He got 27 votes. The next person in the list was Pushkar Joshi. He got all of 9 votes.I managed one SELF VOTE :D.
 
Signing off till next time.

One of the traditions at MDI is to celebrate the Birthdays. The Hostel and Mess Secretary would send an EMail to all the people that there is one BirthDay boy and everyone would asemble in front of the mess to celebrate.
 
Another thing of note is that the roomie of the Birthday Boy is supposed to arrange for the cake.
 
So today, 19th July 2004, it was Lucky Me. My Roomie aka Prasad aka Pochu had his Birthday. I wasnt at hostel, went home :D and when I came back at around 10, Shubhi informed me that it was Pochu's Birthday and I need to arrage for the cake. Me and Gupta went to Sec. 14 market and bought the cake for dear Pochu.
 
So we have a Birthday Boy, a Cake, A reason to celebrate and so many people waiting to get their hands (or should I say legs) on the Birthday Boy and the roomie.
 
Monday, we were suppsed to submit three major assignments and seniors' mid terms were starting. So everyone was kinda awake and everyone was ready for the Party.
 
I forgot to mention one thing here. People here give Birthday Bumps to the Birthday Boy and THE ROOMIE. Yes the Roomie.
 
Since Prasad happens to be a very popular guy, almost 50 odd people gathered there and everyone wanted him out. He finally appeared and people immediately lifted him and started kicking on the bums. Everyone was finished in about 5 seconds. Now the hunt started for the roomie aka ME. I was very innocently standing there amidst confusion and yeling stuff like bring in the roomie and kill him and etc etc but since we are at MDi, there are quite a few smart chaps around, someone figured that I as the roomie and then they started with me. Initially it was fnu to be lifted but as soon as people's real love started coming out in form of kicks on the butt, I realized for the first time that a Birthday is not something to be happy about.
 
But again it was fun, then came the bucket full of water for the Birthday Boy and he was all wet in an instant. Next in line was the cake. With cakes, people here would make every part of your body eat the cake except your mouth. There was cake on his eyes, nose, forehead, chin etc etc.
 
Finally when the REAL cake came, everyone ran towards it as if it would the last meal. I managed to get a few pieces of the cake and I was also made to eat the cake with my eyes etc.
 
And after all the celebrations, people dispersed and me, Mohile, Ridhima, Shubhi etc. went to Prakash and listened to him sing Pal by KK. I recorded him as usual and after that dear Prasad moved to the canteen without giving me the keys. I was supposed to take a bath and I could not.
 
Finally I managed to take a bath later at around 4 and before that I had tried my hands at Hard Court Tennis with Piyush, Arvind and Devendra. I soon realized I suck at it.
 
I completed my assignments and could'nt sleep and right now me, Ashish and Harry are planing to goto the library or the Comp. Centre. in pursuit of my latest crush... A Senior :)

Courtesy Dr. Satish Kalra, Professor of Organizational Behaviour @ MDI Gurgaon, India, few people from PGPM 2004 - 2006 batch have been rechristened.
 
Mr. Pushkar Joshi aka Pooch-Kar Joshi aka PJ would be called 'Po with an attitude'. Ms. Sugandha would be called 'Su' and Ms. Sleeping Beauty would be called 'Fun Loving Girl'
 
The reasons for renaming these people are classified and the way it happened is also not to be disclosd as a policy matter ;)
 
I just hope to get more time to write about these 'small' incidents that make life worth living.
 
To Be Contd...

MDI - Managemet Development Institute.

MDI is my new home, my new passion, my new love, my new life, my new ME !

MDI has been a dream since last two years. I strangely decided to take CAT in 2003 because all my classmates at Maharaja Agrasen College were taking it. I took CAT and few other B School entrance tests. Got call from MDI and I was'nt selected.

Started working at a company and things didnt turn out well and had to leave that place and decided to take cat again in 2004. Took CAT and finally made it to MDI after the waitlist cleared till 30.

That was the History of me bing at MDI. Coming to the Current...

MDI offers two courses at graduate level. Regular PGPM and specialized PGP-HRM. I am enrolled at PGPM course and the person with MAX CAT percentile has 99.96 and the person at the end is 95.48 with a years experience in some call centre.

One thing that stands apart for MDI is that EVERYONE, I mean EVERYONE is very very good. Right from the senior batch to faculty and the management team, people are experienced, understanding and they KNOW ! And who needs to give an introduction for Dr. Pritam Singh. Everything about him could be summed up by mentioning the fact that hes been awarded Padma Shri by the Republic of India.

To Be Edited and Contd...