A trip to Brighton

7 a.m. in the morning on 17^th December 2010, my friend Rahul calls up... “Get ready, the cab will be here in half an hour”. Ohh yes, just 3 hours of sleep that too on the next day after the exams finished... is that fair? Actually, it is fair: four of us were to go to Brighton to celebrate completing one term...yay yay yay!

Within a few minutes we were in the cab on our way to MK, to my surprise there was traffic on the way, had never seen such traffic on the road from Cranfield to MK. Will we miss our train? Nope...we dint. We made it in time but the train developed some technical problems and we got delayed in reaching the station from where we had to change our train. However, we managed to board another train...and there we were in Brighton... a beautiful town on the banks of English Channel. We reached our abode... a nice cosy two-bedroom apartment, which had the view of the English channel from each of its large glass windows. Kept our luggage there. The comfi sofas looked so inviting...we could not resist and decided to relax before stepping out again for lunch. About 45 minutes’ bus journey got us to a pub on the banks of the English Channel. Some photo clicking, then a superb meal, and mouth-watering desserts. The view from the restaurant was breath taking! The lovely view, the great food and awesome company makes this lunch one of the most memorable meals of my life!

Lunch followed by shopping, movie at home, superb dinner and most importantly awesome company... a day well spent! The next morning was beautiful... got up to a snow-clad Brighton. In no time, it was time for us to leave Brighton. L We moved on and reached London. Once in London, we realised that the snow had disrupted lot of services. It had not snowed a lot in Sussex, so the effect was not felt to that extent on our way from Brighton to London.

The experience after that was one of the worst experiences I have had till date in UK. The train from London to Milton Keynes was the slowest ever. At Milton Keynes were greeted with 8 inch snow and no transport available to Cranfield. Two girls stranded in snow and no one to help... L  It took the two of us more than an hour to get a cab to go from Milton Keynes to Cranfield. One hour shivering in 8 inch snow while it was still snowing more, haggling with the cab drivers and persuading them to drop us at Cranfield took a toll on us. The taxi drivers were asking for 4 times more fare than the actual fare: opportunistic behaviour! And the most amazing part: when a taxi driver saw my fren talking in Hindi... he said, “kyonki aap hindi mein baat kar rahi hain isliye main risk leta hun par you will have to pay more. I will take you in thrice the fare.” We agreed. The moment we sat in the taxi, the driver says, “aap pehle pay kar dijiye”. We were shocked! Why pay in advance? Probably e thought we did not have enough money so we showed him that we had money but he kept insisting that we should pay him in advance. Probably he thought that if we got stuck in the traffic he would leave us there so we decided to get off the cab with even more worry that we might probably not be able to reach home at all. Friends kept calling to find out whether we got a cab and trying to arrange for people to pick us up from the station so that we either reach home or get a safe abode for the night. But alas! Nothing worked. Finally, after about an hour of haggling we got a cab for about thrice the fare but we had no option but to agree. The taxi driver was nice and despite the heavy almost still traffic we reached Cranfield in one hour and a half. Thankfully! Later, we found that a few people had taken 2.5 hours to get to Cranfield and some people had to stay back at strangers’ places for the night. 

End of year with shopping!

I got a feeling… that its gonna be a great new year! Celebrating new year with my family in Dilli dil walon ki! Being in Delhi after so long feels good…nothing can beat the spirit of Delhites. I love Mumbai too and Mumbaikars are great in their own way. Delhi has a different feel altogether. The streets are never empty of people, narrow corridors filled with people standing haphazardly and enjoying their chaat- a view you will probably not be able to find anywhere else in the world. The rush outside Bengali Sweets…puts some off but to me it brought a smile to my face! J I have seen this before and have even been one of these during my college days and will do it again!! 

As soon as I step in Delhi, my college memories always come flooding by. Those were the days. Shopping for the next season in the off-season sale, freaking on chaat and khatte laddoo, Mc. Donalds’ ka burger, Indian food at I-ching (guess that wasthe name of a small vibrant Chinese restaurant that served delicious Indian food- what a combination!), chocolate excess at Barista… these were a few of my favourite things. Delhi, I would say gives the best shopping experience, if not in the world then in India atleast.

After so many years, here I am in Delhi again, ready for a shopping spree with my best shopping mates… my Mom and my brother!! Yipppieeeeeeeeeeeeeee…. Happy Shopping! :D

The start of the new term with PMI experience!

After the refreshing Christmas break that I spent with family back home, I was looking forward to the new term. The term started with PMI (Project Management Introduction).  I knew there was going to be a simulation and I was excited about it...we did something similar in the Pre-MBA and it was a good experience. At the end of the week, I felt like I had run a marathon! 

• Do not try to put your hand into everything. Always divide work. 

• Trust your team. Well, this is a lesson I learnt from my Boss at work rather than here. So, I already did trust them. :)

• Patience and being calm in crisis is the key. Again, something I learnt from my Boss. :)

• Plan, plan and plan. And if something goes wrong, replan on the same lines as the original plan. The strategy remains the same.

 Classes from 8.45 am to 5.45 pm followed by team work to prepare for the Simulation. The most interesting and challenging part of the course was the Simulation. each team was given a contract and was required to build a warehouse profitably. The minimum time for delivering the project, if everything went well, would be 14 weeks (each cycle was one week). After the entire day of classes, the team would sit together and work on the projections, the deliverables and the strategy of how we would minimise costs. It was an interesting thing to do. So, there we kept sitting sometimes till even 2 am working on the reports or presentation for the simulation. After all, it would get us marks...the higher our profits, the higher will be our marks! There were a few keys lessons I learnt during this simulation:We followed these and made a profit. A few mistakes but a learning experience. :) 

Am I already lagging behind?

It’s just the start of the term and I seem to be lagging behind. Felt miserable today for having missed an email about a social venture competition. Over the past few months, my interest in social ventures and corporate social responsibility has been increasing. I have always wanted to work towards the cause of education and I was hoping to put forward my idea in this competition. The passion for doing something on those lines has made me think and rethink on the subject, and now that I had something clear in my mind, I missed this deadline. The worst is... TODAY was the deadline!

I seem to lagging behind on applications, interview preparation... but those are my targets for this term! I need to prioritise even more and to plan very efficiently. Have set a few targets for this term and need to achieve them. And, what about football? I really wanna be good at it by the time I leave from here so have to do some good practice for that too!!

Uncertainities of life!

24^th January 2011: Today I felt restless, worried, tensed all at the same time! I was preparing for a competition for tomorrow when Sinchan called. I usually do not pick calls when I am in team meetings but I don’t know why I picked this call up. As soon as I said ‘hello’, Sinchan said, ‘Pracs, wherever you are come quickly to my room, I fell down and I think I broke my leg’. I rushed to Sinchan’s room. When I rang the bell, he called again and said he could not move and so will not be able to come to open the door. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to have called another flat mate who had the keys. While waiting I kept trying to reach Rahul and Tanu but sadly their phones were on silent. After about 3 minutes, I got access to Sinchan’s room and reached there to see him sitting on the floor, his right leg swollen and shivering due to the pain.  He told us that he was sitting on his chair and working on his laptop for a long time and when he got up, his right leg went numb and he fell down and now has sever pain in his right leg. We helped him get on the bed and tried our ‘dadi maa ka nuskha’ of putting some ice on the swelling so that it reduces. In the meanwhile, Madhur (Sinchan’s flatmate) arranged for the security to come and help us. The security was quick in coming and came within 2/3 minutes. There was a round of questions and then they called the ambulance which was followed by another round of questions from the other end...’is the patient conscious?’, ‘is there any external bleeding?’, ‘can you explain again how the patient fell down?’, ‘is the patient relaxed?’, ‘is he talking?’... Gosh, I seriously felt these questions weren’t really required to call for an ambulance...but then procedures!!! 

While this was going on...Rahul and Tanu came. Only then did I realise that I had been so tensed seeing all this. The swelling on Sinchan’s leg started to reduce and we thought it would not be a fracture. Finally, the ambulance came and Rahul and Sinchan left for the hospital. We asked Rahul to give us regular updates. Initially he sent us an SMS saying, ‘swelling gone down won’t be a fracture’. I was glad! Then after sometime came a message, ‘bad news. Two fractures. One large, one small’. And a little more time passes by when Sinchan calls and says, ‘3 fractures, one large, two small’. I thought ‘well, fracture on the shin would mean a plaster from the ankle to the knee’. And then, they returned from the hospital at half past midnight and when Tanu and me entered the room, we were shocked to see Sinchan with his whole right leg plastered. It was a shock! Tanu almost fainted! Worse still...the plaster stays for 8 weeks and movement during these 8 weeks has to be kept to minimum. The five hours from 7.30 pm to 12.30 am were stressful and full of anxiousness for the three of us but for Sinchan, they were painful. Its difficult to even think of such a severe injury due to a fall in your own room while you were doing almost nothing!

I know what it is like to stay in a room all alone, all day (reminds me of my chicken pox days in NIBM!)... we are just trying that the next 8 weeks are not those dreadful lonely days for Sinchan.  And am sure he is gonna to walking much before those 8 weeks!! 

This blog is dedicated to Sinch... the ever-smiling, brave, angry young man! ;) Hope you get well really really soon!!!

Cranfield Vs. LBS and the Burns Night Ball

Women's Football teams from Cranfield & LBS

The much-awaited Burns night event happened exactly a week back! A day full of sports... football, rugby, badminton, squash, table tennis... against LBS. How badly we wanted to win this one. It was a cold day and everyone on the grounds- players and supporters alike- were freezing but that did not deter us from playing. We played hard and fair. Alas! We could not win any sport except the Table Tennis... the team that did us proud. I wish I had played football, not that we would have won if we played but standing their cheering my team made me feel like getting on the court and try. J The women football team played really well. Cheers to them! Many people were hurt during the games but no one was complaining. The best part was that I saw most of them dance in the evening during the Burns Night Ball.

The Table-tennis Champions!

The evening was a special affair... black suit party. I had always wanted to attend one of those black suit parties and being there did feel nice. Everyone was so immaculately dressed- perfect suits, suave gowns. There were people all around, some networking with LBS students followed by Scottish dance. The Scottish dance was the most enjoyable part of the evening. After having fun with the Scottish dance, we moved to CSA. I caught up with my old team at CSA and we had some good time teasing Chris. By the time I got back home, it was about 2 am. 

A good evening after a long time...lots of people, happy faces, lovely dresses and lots of fun! Felt just right!!

International week...the Indian show

The MBA International week started on 26^th January 20111 and ended on 31^st January 2011. Each evening was allocated to different countries to show case their culture, food etc to the cohort. It started with China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand followed by other and ended with a bang with the evening where we, the Indians, invited the cohort to experience our culture. As goes with the Indians, we put up our food stalls a bit late but once we had put the stalls up, people queued to taste the Indian food. Most of us were dressed in Indian attires- the girls in sarees or salwar kameez and the boys in kurtas. We played a video of the old ‘Mile sur mera tumhara’  and showed our cohort the different cultures of India and the video ended with a few of us stepping on to the stage to sing the chorus and folding hands for a ‘namaste’ to the cohort. The whole thing gave a feeling of immense joy and it was an emotional moment when the cohort applauded to this act. 

The cultural programme that followed included a classical dance, a presentation on various parts of India where we told people about the diversity of culture in India, a flute performance and a dance by the kids. We had some prize distributions for non-Indians based on who dances the best on songs like ‘Sheila ki jawani’. 

We had three course meal..where we served starters, main course and dessert, all made by the superb cooks on our cohort and we were amazed to see that everyone liked the food so much. 

People said they had been waiting for the Indian evening and they thoroughly enjoyed. These words make us swell with pride for being Indians. And so my Facebook message...’Prachi Khare is so proud to be an Indian’!!

The four day weekend

Been long since I wrote... Lots has happened since the International Week... Term 2 passed in a whiz and I could not decide whether time was passing too quickly or too slowly...a tough decision. Term 2 exams were interesting! Apply you knowledge was the challenge! J

The Easter break was the best time I have had till now in UK. I visited Scotland and enjoyed every moment of being there. Also spent sometime in London. Did a bit of shopping. That was one week..the next week, I just recharged my energy- i.e. slept, watched movies and generally lazed around!!

Then started Term 3 with a bang! It started with a recruitment presentation by A.T.Kearney. Day 1 of Term 3 and we need to start job search at an accelerated pace. The deadlines are glaring into our faces and people are doing 4/5 applications per day. It makes me think whether I should be turning in applications at that rate or should I follow my current level of efforts into applications? Well, I decide to stick to my ways!

Last week I also had an Assessment Centre. My first real assessment centre. Actually, last week was very hectic. With SOAR pending (delayed to be true!!) and preparation for AC required, I was almost getting nervous about things. Finally, the AC went just alright (hope the results are alright too!) and I turned in the SOAR as a WAC (actually in lesser time than a WAC!).

The weekend that followed was the Easter weekend which is quickly coming to an end. The long four-day weekend is something I always look forward to... the weekend spent sleeping, shopping, reading, lazing and most importantly...job searching! Just one more day to go and still got a checklist to complete.... aaahhh...these checklists and me... God save me!!

US IBE- Wahington Chapter

11^th June 2011:

The group getting ready to board the bus from Cranfield

A group of 21 students accompanied by the US IBE Lead- Sean Rickard- landed in Washington Dalles a 1.30 pm EST on 11^th June 2011. The flight was long and tiring and the weather made the group feel a little more tired. The immigration process was quick. Our first observation about US... they had made an effort to remove the bottleneck... Interesting!

We checked into Holiday Inn Central by 4 pm. Sean took us to a place called J. Paul in Georgetown around 7 pm for dinner... a place with variety of crab dishes where I had roasted vegetables which consisted of 2/3 pieces of broccoli, exactly 4 pieces of red and yellow peppers, some mushrooms and that was just about all!

12^th June 2011:

The White House

A free day in Washington DC called for a sightseeing trip. After much deliberation on whether to take the bus tour or a walking tour, we decided on the walking tour given that our hotel was just a 15 minutes’ walk from the White House! So, the day started at 10 am. Walked to the White House which took just a little over 20 minutes. Went round the building and moved towards the Washington Monument. This huge tower is a memorial to George Washington, the first President of the United States and I read somewhere that by Law, no building in DC can be made taller than this one. The view around is beautiful with all the prominent landmarks in sight from this place. The walk continued towards Capitol Hill. We stopped the National Museum of American History... saw the beautiful gowns of the most talked about women of the world...the first ladies of America... science in America’s everyday life, Julia Child’s kitchen among other things. The tour continued towards the US Capitol, the magnificent white building that shone even from a distance. However, by the time we reached the Capitol, the sun had won over us and we could walk no more. So, the next stop was Union Station...which though a station did not look like one. It looked more like a shopping mall and had I not read the name of the place outside I would have thought the cab driver dropped us at a wrong place. This is the most beautiful station I have ever seen...there are various levels to it... food at the basement, shopping at level one and two... I don’t know where the trains are though! ;) Well... actually they too are at the basement but the entrance is separate. J Some food at the Union station, followed by buying snacks for the daily muching ended our day trip. Ohh wait..there is something very exciting after this....in order to explore the public transport system, we decided to take a bus back to the hotel. It took us about half an hour to figure out which bus to take and from where would we get it. There were absolutely no indicators on the station about where the bus stops were. Then it so happened that we were waiting for about 15 minutes in the wrong direction (confusion caused due to the Americans driving on wrong side of the road ;) haha). Having corrected this, it was another 5 minutes before the bus that we had decided on finally came and we told the bus driver where we wanted to go. She said the bus would not go there. We still remained on board the bus, opened our map and as the bus kept turning, we kept tracking our way....and when we thought we were near to the hotel, we disembarked. It was interesting coz we did not really know where we were going! We were just enjoying our ride it seems!

The day was tiresome yet lot of fun. We spotted a lot of differences between UK and USA. Most of them cultural but many business differences as well. The glaring difference was how pedestrian friendly UK is compared to the US. All roads and ways are so clearly marked in UK that you would never need to ask anyone for directions while in US there are almost no markings about directions! Lot of other differences which will form a part of my report!

13th June 2011:

A day spent at George Washington University: The group reached the University a little early and we had a photo session before starting the day. Had 3 back-to-back lectures. The first one about the various crisis in the world...the two major ones discussed were:

1. The 2007 US financial crisis that caused the global crisis. Its causes and impacts. What is next?
2. The Eurozone crisis.
3. The difference between them and whether they are curable?

It gave me a glimpse of how different countries think about these crises. A very thought provoking class. There was also a mention about whether China was capable of becoming the world’s super power. This session gave me a lot of food for thought and quite of bit of a material for my report as well!!

The second lecture was about Corporate Responsibility and stimulated some discussions in the class. We questioned each others’ definitions of CR and whether it was a cause or a result. The professor acted like a moderator for the class giving the students the liberty to discuss what was on their mind, which was quite like some professors at Cranfield do.

The last lecture was about mortgages in US. More about what makes people want to buy mortgages and why all sub-standard mortgage borrowers do not default. A bit more on the psychology behind these things.

After resting for about an hour we a group of 9 of us left for Chinatown in a expectation to taste some good Chinese food. But, I would rather not mention the pathetic food there. L All in all a good day though.

14th June 2011:

The day started at World Bank office. A talk on what the World Bank does...its history and its aims. We got some insight on how the World Bank functions. Next was IFC’s talk on opportunities within IFC for Finance professionals followed by an alum talking of his experience after his Cranfield MBA. We had a delicious lunch at World Bank Cafe. Indian food in US... which tasted exactly like Indian food should... that’s the specificity of the World Bank! After the great lunch and photo session, we went to the IMF head quarters for our next session. Most of us dozed through that session after the awesome lunch. But the discussion towards the end of the session about IMF and what it has been doing about the recent crisis et al became interesting and woke everyone up.

Flags at the World Bank

A quick coffee at starbucks and then back to the hotel for some rest followed by a small party at the hotel. We are off to New York tomorrow. So, the next blog will start tomorrow. 

US IBE- New York Chapter

15^th June 2011:

The journey to New York started at 9 a.m. We were finally going to NYC!! Yay yay yay. The excitement grew as we neared NYC...the infrastructure as we neared NYC changed and the view made us gasp. It looked beautiful. Checked into Novotel at Times Square and after freshening up we headed to find our way to Manhattan. Took a subway to World Trade Centre and then walked around Manhattan...saw the 9/11 memorial, the new WTC in the making, then we walked to Wall Street...Fed Reserve, NYSE...all the big banks... wow...this was the place to be. The only hitch was while taking the subway, we had a tough time getting the tickets...there were again no instructions and no one to show directions. However, the views at Manhattan took away all the irritation. After walking all this long...we did not give up...we even walked across Brooklyn bridge. After a tiring day, returned to the hotel after a filling meal at a Deli at Times Square. Ohh yes...I should mention them, all around there are these 24 hour Delis which serve hot food. Its a buffet and has good variety and awesome taste. There were two right in front of our hotel.

On our way to New York

 16^th June 2011:

The morning was occupied by a session at Barclays Wealth where an alum briefed us about the ‘truth after MBA’!! It was the most truthful and unbiased view I have heard till now. In the evening we went shopping...Times Square shopping. We stayed at Times Square past midnight and it was full of people. It was such a great feeling especially as compared to UK where one does not find such crowds anywhere so late in the night. Finally I did some shopping...!! J

Times Square at midnight

 17^th June 2011:

A late morning, a brief meeting and then shopping. Bought gifts for family. Lots of walking again. In the evening arranged for cake for Rahul for a 12 o’clock celebration and then retired to the hotel to relax a bit. The tiredness was slowly sinking in. In the evening, we again went to Times Square, its a place you can’t resist going to!!! Was supposed to meet an old friend but it had to be cancelled. Then at night we celebrated Rahul’s b’day and then spent some time at the terrace of the hotel. It had rained in the evening and the entire place looked beautiful.

 18^th June 2011:

Our final day in US. A visit to the Statue of Liberty. We were taken aback by the long queue for the ticket and another one for boarding the boat. But we were lucky enough to have our dear friend Sinchan with his famous crutches which helped us get a priority treatment and skip the queues!! The scorching sun itself was a deterrent enough and the long queue would have only spoilt the fun of the visit. The best part of the visit was the view of the NYC skyline from Liberty Island. Had a delicious lunch at Saigon and then we left for the airport for our flight.

The Statue of Liberty

NYC skyline

So now, we are all back to the bubble, still jet lagged and trying to meet the deadlines for report submissions et al.