Prof. Atul Nerkar, who teaches us this course, has this amazing style of conducting his classes. In every class we discuss a case which involves a new entrepreneur. We are supposed to provide our thoughts about the case in advance, and the comments are then discussed in the class. Finally, we watch videos of the entrepreneurs talking about what they went through when the situation in the case was actually unfolding.

We were through 6 classes already, and had come across some very interesting individuals who started equally interesting ventures. The 7th case however, seemed a little vague. Partly because the case was very small in length, and partly because it had almost no data in it. I wondered what the learrnings from this case would be.

Fast forward to the classroom! The initial slides showed that I was among the minority who said that the venture would not be successful. We were given 2 more handouts in the class (a first) to take us further into the developments of the case. Then Prof. Nerkar solemnly informed us that unlike the usual routine we would not have any video for this case. In its stead (drums rolling, and change in tone) Jay Dehejia, one of the entrepreneurs from the case itself, was waiting outside to come in and address our queries. I have “Jay himself? Awesome!!!” engraved in my notebook. That’s how amazing the feeling was!

It was a pleasant surprise. We were not told that this was how this case would be discussed. Having a stalwart such as Mr. Dehejia in the classroom is not something one gets to see often. Jay gave us his perspective as he had ‘lived’ through the case. We talked about challenges in starting such ventures, basics of PE and Pledge funds, why PE or Pledge, and most importantly about when to start as an entrepreneur. The elaboration of the discussion would be a mini case in itself. This was one of those sessions which add so much to you within such short time.

The Entrepreneurship course has made me reconsider what I want to do with my life. This is what a great course does to you. If Prof. Nerkar poses the same question again, my answer will be a resounding “Yes! I will.” Thanks Professor!!

Premjeet Gaikwad, Class of 2010

What am I up to? Just dropped off a Management Accounting assignment an hour back and then hit an entrepreneurship case so that I can finish the online quiz on time. Both due in the morning of course. Thank God for afternoon classes this term!

Coming back to the reason for this post. I had a class today where I realized that around 50% of everything we have learnt over the last three months (has it already been that long?) can be explained by two simple graphs.

Graph - I

The ubiquitous supply-demand curve. Apparently, you can explain 75% of all economic theory using this figure. There are of course some slight variations, differences in variables along the axis etc, but the basic curves stay the same over multiple topics.

Graph - II

This ‘frontier’ graph has been verified as being the essence of multiple subjects, from Economics (the remaining 25%) to Marketing, and from Competitive Strategy to Operations Management. No wonder people can by now just walk to the board when cold called, draw this in their sleep, and be correct. Well, most of the time anyway.

The lesson? Remember these two figures and thats a major part of MBA teaching distilled right into your brain. I might just write a book (or a pamphlet?) about it. Title suggestions/comments welcome, though I am currently partial to: “The 2 minute MBA.”

- Jasnoor S Gill, Class of 2010

The Term started with an AIKYA function – where we got to meet our AIKYA families – the entire batch was in Indian formals (thanks to Guntas’ threatening) and I think this is the only time after orientation that almost the entire batch was together. The atrium was filled with people and it was an amazing day. The festivities started with a talent show and ended with lunch in the atrium.

Next came Smriti’s birthday. It started with the traditional dunking – with Smriti and friends being dunked at midnight.

All of us had planned a surprise party for her complete with party hats, friendship bands, birthday cake, etc etc. We also bought a lot of small gifts and hid them all around the campus and with each gift we left a small clue pointing towards the next gift. We waited for her to change into dry clothes to give her the first gift which was in her room and the poor girl had to run all around campus in the rain trying to find the other gifts (of course we went with her).

Finally ended the treasure hunt at her quad where she cut the cake and all of us partied some more.

The red horn in the photograph just reminded me of the noise we made that night. We had bought this hydraulic horn (working off compressed air) and the noise it made was horrible – and we made the most of it by making sure that everyone heard it 

Soon after we had a Karaoke party in my room – it started off with just another get-together, but went on till 4-5 AM. I think we saw the sunrise before sleeping.

(Did I mention that Guntas had dislocated her shoulder during the term break! That’s another story altogether)

We had started off with Talli singing and us humming along with him – but as the booze flowed, Talli finally gave up and we sang to our own tunes. We found lyrics on the net and projected them on the wall, put up instrumental mp3s in the background and sang to our hearts’ content – though barring Talli – none of us can sing to save our lives – but we sang ( in the loosest sense) nevertheless.

(There’s Deepika, Namrta and Anurag dancing on “Mera naam chin chin chu”)

That was one cool party – and we didn’t disturb the rest of the SV too!

Another such get-together we had was when we were just sitting in my room and someone mentioned the song “meri pant bhi sexy”. For the life of use we couldn’t remember the lyrics – so we did what we always do when in doubt – googled – and this led to the youtube video for the song. That led to a chain of obscure songs we had listened to in school times ranging from “sexy, sexy, sexy”, “hawaa hawaa” to “dil bole dole dole”. We went through the rounds with all the singers of that time – Suchitra, Anaida, Alisha, et al. By the time we got up – it was again 5 – I really don’t know where the time went and now don’t even remember the songs we heard – all I do remember is that we enjoyed a lot and laughed like crazy.

We changed venues and had our first barbecue party in Anurag’s balcony.

Though it rained that night and we had to shift the arrangements inside – party was fun and kudos to Anurag for organizing the same.

Next came Guntas’ birthday and we were at our wit’s ends deciding what to do for her birthday – she is the creative one and normally plans for the birthday parties. So finally we decided to surprise her by not planning anything in her quad – and gave her the impression that all of us were too busy with assignments and there won’t be any party for her. So we planned not to decorate her room and set-up Anurag’s quad for the party – boy did that backfire on us!! We had forgotten how popular she is J, first her section had planned a party for her – as they couldn’t dunk her – they balti-dunked her; then there was a small celebration at her room and finally she came to Anurag’s quad at 1:21 AM. Boy – were we bored waiting – here are some of the things we did while waiting:

Finally she came and the party truly started.

Amrita had made a crown and magic wand (complete with magic rays coming out) for her and we had bought a dress for her – the plan was to make her dress up as a magic princess – but we left out the dress as it was already too late. Of course we had also got some magic candles for her – the ones which don’t go off and had some fun watching her try to put them off.

Next Anurag had composed a song for her and we all sang (like I said earlier in the loosest sense of the word) – the lyrics are:

IK LADKI KO DEKHA TO AISA LAGA, JAISE,

ABHI PADI LAATH… JAISE,

KHATAM HUI BAAT… JAISE,

NIKLI HAI GUN… JAISE,

CHALO AB RUN… JAISE,

HUI HAL CHAL… JAISE,

IODEX MAL, JAISE,

 

(high pitch) ISB MEIN HOOOO… PYAARA DOST HUMARAAAAAA… HOOOO

Never seen Talli so excited about something . . .

Anyways the party was good fun, we had a round of passing the parcel (and with Ashish making the chits – the less said about the same the better – believe me it would get censored anyways) Anyways had lots of fun.

All too soon the term was over and we headed out to Dandeli for the term break (that’s a whole story on its own)