The Thrill of Slog Overs

5 balls and 10 runs to win...India likes to be in that position a lot of times. Truly the Indian cricket team can make a boring, easy winning game exciting by adding few thrills in the slog overs, gasping to cross the crease of victory. I cannot help but to find uncanny resemblance of it to my life. Time and again, I feel as if I am that Batsman trying to take the 5th run to move closer to win. Right from my 11th std admissions, Engg Admissions and Even MBA admissions, I have made it on the nth hour. July 30, 2010 was one such day. I was definite that the slog overs would come back to haunt me.

After rejecting my Loan proposal for the first year, for a really stupid reason worth mentioning here, the Indian PSU Bank Giant tried considering it the second time around for my second year. After months of being ping ponged, I finally managed to get the date when the most wanted DD was going to disbursed. I was not at all surprised when I found that the Date had to coincide with my Summer Internship Presentations in the college and the last date to pay the fees. Over No. 11.30, I was in the bank, trying to convince an aunty-ish officer to clear my DD as soon as possible. Finally, after lot of cajoling, I got the DD! Trust me I was not as much happy when I got my MBA Results. This was really a feat achieved, despite all odds. I had almost lost hope. But I always chose to trust my experience of Slog Overs. My Time for presentation was 1.30, but God chose to add more entertainment in my life. The Faculty,as I came to know from one of my classmates, chose to come early by around 1pm. The DD had to be submitted to another bank before its closing time, which was around 2.30. Now as my grey cells where slowly doing all the calculations, I decided to do my presentations first and then go to bank. I literally ran in the rains with my laptop to catch the 12.26 train. I got it, as I did a bollywood ishtyle stunt by catching a running train. Still more excitement? Here you go, The train was going at a snails pace due to heavy rains. After lots of patience testing, I finally reached my college and managed to sneak through the class room where the presentations were being held. I presented just after the presentation that was going on, and left immediately after it looking at Jealous faces of my classmates who were supposedly bored to death by their friends. I just managed to reach the bank, and I felt like the batsman who pounces to the crease to score that winning run! Wish some one could record the day on a handycam, It would have made a perfect climax for a thriller.

Never say bye, say TATA

Another Corporate Stint comes to an end. It was truly a dream come true for me to work as a Summer Intern with India's Biggest Automobile Compay - Tata Motors. Let me introduce you to the main characters, Mr.Mishra ,my project mentor, he is a Product Manger at Tata Motors, hardly available when needed, has made me wait endlessly, yet has made is presence felt in a Big way!. The guys at the dealers, who made my life hell for 2 months, had to run behind them to get something to fill my report. The Territory managers, who are as busy as stock brocker, whom I thought to bypass completely to access the Dealerships. Mr. Amol, the most accessible Territory Manager, who tried giving me a sneak preview at dealerships and also the organisation. The CRM guys, who got tired giving me reports and finally chose to teach me how to pull the reports as and when I required and finally the bunch of confused, helpless, ready-to-roar, ignored, neglected, creative....(this limits my knowledge of adjectives to be used for MBA students)...interns including me who wondered 24-7 what the hell are we supposed to do, will some one please tell us!?

The first week, I had some sort of corporate vacation inside that plush office at Bandra Kurla Complex. Aaah finally some piece of work, after gulping gallons of free juices, munching sandwiches, dozing off after a heavy lunch, trying to use facebook in that snail-paced Aircel Mobile internet, I was told to do field visits at all dealerships. I still wonder whether this was a tactic to keep me out of office so that other employees donot get demotivated and lethargic looking at me. The Excitement of field work got fried under the hot sun! Travelling from one dealership to other, with my cellphone and ipod. They were there with me through my testing times, when I used to wait for hours to get lazy asses at dealerships moving to give me some crap to analyse and also during the never ending bus-train-rick-train-taxi-bus-rick tales.

After 2 months of slogging, finally managed to collect some amount of information which I could analyse (oh, come on, an MBA must show his importance after all!). But looking back, I can tell that this was easily my best working experience that too in a sector which is so close to my heart. Each time when I was one step away from doing something in automobiles, right from a diploma in auto engg after 10th, BE in Auto Engg after 12th, Auto Design after Engg, Nissan Student Brand Manager during MBA, this compensated for all of them. And I know, this is what I am made for!