Someone was tapping on my shoulders. Turning away from the mesmerizing scenes outside the window, I came back to the mumbo jumbo of the registration hall. A beautiful girl was asking for a pen. Soon we struck a chord and I came to know that she had flown air force planes! A few minutes later, I came across a regional movie actor. Moving along, that day I met plethora of people from all walks of life. My first day at NITIE. Oh! What a day that was.
Seniors stood up to their reputation of being very friendly and helpful. They told us about the beautiful view from Vihar and Powai lakes and I decided to explore it. She joined me and we went on to the top of MDP hostel to watch the scenic lakes. Not only the lakes, entire Mumbai was in front of us. Someone had truly said it was like a hill station in the middle of Mumbai. To top that all, we had the beautiful NITIE pond in the middle of the campus. “Ok. Out of here” She dragged me to reality.” We have a meeting at 6 in the baddy (badminton) court.” This was our first meeting with the seniors. Or was it the welcome party? Nobody knew.
Well it was definitely not the kind of welcome party we have thought of. What was in for us, was a complete surprise. After the introductions were over, grilling started. At 12:30am when the session was announced to be over, we were so tired that we could not wait to go to bed. But surprises continued. We were given a marketing case study to be analysed and submitted by 6:59 am next morning. We also had to be present on the PPO road (the road leading to the famous 96 steps) at 6:30 am sharp for campus tour. Most of us did not sleep that day! Later we came to know that it was better than what our friends at many other B schools went through!
The bombardment of case studies, group discussions and management games continued for the next few days. Burning the midnight oil became a common phenomenon. We could not wait for the “fuccha” week to get over. However our dream of relaxation soon evaporated. Professors took over the mantle from seniors. Weekdays were hectic, weekends were even more hectic. On normal days we had to meet only one deadline! No wonder, they say NITIE never sleeps. The overnight Nescafe outlet in the campus does brisk business. Once at 4:45 am in the night, I was coming back from some committee interview. I saw the sweeper cleaning the hostel then. He came running to me. “Sir, room cleaning?” “Please come.” I chuckled. “Not his fault.” This has become the way of life here.
Snapshot of our first class at NITIE: Three professors entered the classroom at the same time. One was an Organizational Behaviour professor (Dr Prasad), other from Marketing (Prof Dhume) and another one from Behavioural Studies (Dr. Mehta). The professors got a standing ovation. Everybody recognised them from the previous day’s introduction session. What a session! But this session unlike previous one was on a bit serious tone. The professors discussed about MANDI, an annual event in NITIE when students get down to the streets of Mumbai to sell toys. They kept addressing the class one after another, analysing the situation from different perspectives, novel dimensions and new fangled angles. The observations from my classmates were none the less revealing. It was like being in an august company! I thought “Wow. I have heard about case method of pedagogy in Harvard, role plays in Kellogg. But this is different!”
The bell rang. Oh. No. I thought. Not so soon. I did not want to come out of that feeling of trance. I felt some one tapping my shoulders vigorously again. It was my roommate, Amitabh trying to wake me up. “Dude, the alarm has been buzzing for long. Wake up. Its class time already.”
Note: MANDI was awarded Gold Medal for Innovation Pedagogy by Dr. Deepak Jain, Dean Kellogg Business School, at All India Management Institutions' annual Convention held at ISB, Hyderabad on August 29, 2009
