But there’s a problem: several media sources are reporting that “Sachin Tendulkar scored the first ever double century in one-day international cricket”. Well, that’s not really true.

The first ever double century in one-day international cricket was scored by Belinda Clark of Australia. As the captain of the Australian women’s cricket team, she scored 229 not out against Denmark at Mumbai during the 1997 Women’s Cricket World Cup.

Here’s a comparison of Belinda’s 229 n.o. and Sachin’s 200 n.o.:

Well, first double ton or not, Sachin’s 200 was an extraordinary innings, and the Sachin fans at SPJIMR had a great time today! Here are snaps of the moments leading to Sachin’s 200, at SP Jain’s Boys Hostel canteen:

48.6 Dhoni keeps the strike by taking single. Sachin fans not amused

49.1 Dhoni slams a six. Angry Sachin fans beat up the lone Dhoni fan in the crowd

49.3 Charl Langeveld runs up

Sachin's double century is here! It's time to celebrate!

As a part of the marketing course at SPJIMR, the participants are supposed to go through a ‘personal selling’ experience. We’ve to visit a pre-designated area in Mumbai for a few hours and sell subscriptions to Dimdima, a children’s magazine published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (which runs SPJIMR). Not a bad idea, considering the fact that Prof. Renuka Kamath chose it over other ideas like making us sell plants from Bhavan’s Nursery on a thela (handcart).

So, on a fine Sunday morning, me and my academic group partner Anuradha landed in Jogeshwari (West), the area alloted to us. Schools is what we would have ideally liked to target, but it was a Sunday. So, We decided to target the residents of the middle-class housing societies in the area. We started with the Evershine Green Tower. The watchman simply refused to let us in. We then proceeded to the New Link CHS and the Diamond House CHS. The secretaries of both the societies denied us the permission to visit the houses.

Vijay Vishal Air India CHS

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We had been walking for half an hour. The secretary of the Vijay Vishal Air India Cooperative Housing Society (CHS) finally let us in, after we convinced him that we won’t be pesky like other salespersons. There were a few kids playing in the society’s compound, so we were hopeful. We asked the watchman about the flats with kids, but his answer wasn’t specific — he simply told us “Yeah, there are kids here…” There were three buildings in the society, and we decided to cover all the flats in all three of them.

Our first success came early. In the second flat of the first building we visited, an upper middle class gentleman expressed his willingness to buy a subscription as soon we finished introducing ourselves and our magazine. He even gave us a Rs. 500 note, and asked us to come back to him after we had finished visiting other flats in the building. Much to our dismay, this was the only flat with a kid belonging to our target group, in the entire building.

The second building had two flats with the children in the age group we were targeting. One of them already had a Dimdima subscription — he said he liked the magazine. The other kid refused to have a look at the magazine, although we tried to convince her that it was an interesting and a fun read.

We had decided that we’ll also target flats without kids — we’ll ask people to gift a Dimdima subscription to someone they knew. However, there were no takers.

The visit to the third building also ended in disappointment. The building had two flats with children in our target age group. One proud mother arrogantly declared: “My child already has everything he needs.” The father in the other flat encouraged his girl to have a look at the magazine, but the 7-year old child said: “I’m not going to read this.” As we left, an old lady sitting at the entrance expressed her interest in the magazine, and told us that her house has a kid. However, after we told her that we had already visited the flat (where the kid wasn’t too keen on reading Dimdima), her interest disappeared.

Patliputra 1C

After a disappointing first adventure, we started looking at socities where we could see kids playing. At the Patliputra housing complex, we saw a number of kids playing cricket and other games. So, we barged in. There are several buildings in this complex, and each one of them forms a different society.

We first visited the building 1C. Fortunately, for us, an old lady near the entrance introduced us to the society secretary (her son). The secretary gave us the permission to visit the flats in the society, when he heard we were from a Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan institution — his brother was a lecturer in the Bhavan’s college. We had decided to zero in on the flats with kids. However, the secretary was in a hurry (the entire family was off to some place), so we couldn’t ask him which flats had kids.

The society had 28 flats. We visited each and every flat in the society (barring the six that were locked). The society had five flats with kids in our target age group.

• One man drove us away, but then called us from another floor, and brought a subscription for his daughters.
• One kid didn’t express any interest in Dimdima, although we tried our best to convince him to have a look at the colorful magazine.
• A middle-aged man with a young daughter had a look at the magazine, and then told me: “I’ll ask my mummy. Can you give me your visiting card?” I gladly handed over my card to him, never to hear back from him.
• One kid seemed enthusiastic about the magazine, but he was leaving for his tution classes when we visited his house. His grandma, the only person at the house, refused to have a look at the magazine.
• One kid loved the magazine, and took it inside his house to show it to his parents. A few minutes later, he returned with the magazine and said his parents had refused to buy a subscription.

The best experience of our entire campaign was with a young college lecturer. He brought the magazine because he thought reading it encouraged creative thinking. He said he would like to become a child again. Initially, he was interested in buying a six-months subscription, but after we told him that he would get a CD free with the 1-year subscription, he wrote us a cheque for the year-long subscription. He also invited us in; he and his mom chatted with us on various topics, including Rahul Mahajan’s new swayamwar show (Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega). Before we left, he gave us some tips on how to be an effective salesperson.

Patliputra 1D

The secretary of this building let us in, after we told him that the secretary of 1C had also given us the permission. Now that we had seen an adult buy a subscription, we no longer wanted to target only the households with kids. We were hopeful that a few other grown-ups would also be interested in buying the subscription. However, only one adult in the society expressed interested in Dimdima. She wanted it to gift it to her niece, but she was busy that time. So, she simply asked us to leave our contact number with her. We never heard from her again.

There were six households in the building with kids.

• In one flat, the mother flatly refused to even look at the magazine.
• One kid liked the magazine, but his mother refused to buy a subscription.
• Another kid loved the magazine, took the magazine to show it to his parents, but came back after a few minutes and said: “My mother is not interested.”
• Another kid’s parents banged the door on us.
• One flat had many kids (apparently, they had some family gathering), but the parents drove us away saying that they were busy.
• One child opened the door, but refused to even look at the magazine, in spite of our best marketing efforts.

One lady said that she didn’t have any kids, but gave us addresses of some flats with kids that would be interested in the magazine. We visited all these flats, but couldn’t sell a single subscription.

Patliputra 1E

We then proceeded to another building in the society, but the secretary here told us that he will have to first put forward a proposal in the next meeting in the society to grant us the permission. If the proposal gets approved, we could visit the flats in the building next Sunday. Dejected, we decided to try another building.

Patliputra 1A

It was already 2:30 PM, and we were hungry. But, we wanted to sell a few more subscriptions before the lunch. So, we entered the building 1A. We had to wait 15 minutes to meet the secretary, who was busy in a meeting.

The secretary and the man sitting with him threw a volley of questions at us, asking about our educational background and work experience. He also asked us to produce our college ID cards, which we did. The secretary asked us who is the placement in-charge at SP Jain these days. He told us that a few years back, he used to work for an NGO. At that time, he went to SPJIMR to hire a few management grads for his organization. He said that he offered salaries that were higher than the corporations were offering, but the ‘Gujarati placement officer’ at SP Jain didn’t understand what he wanted. After about 20 minutes of chatting, he finally granted us permission to visit the flats in the building.

We asked the watchman for the list of flats that had children. The watchman promptly gave us the flat numbers, and also told us which flats had irritable owners that should be left alone. We were still hopeful that someone might buy a subscription for a faraway relative or to enhance his/her “creative thinking” (like the lecturer did). So, we visited almost all the flats in the society (except the ones which the watchman had warned us about), although we spent more time in the flats with kids.

• One child told us that there were guests at home, and shut the door.
• Another kid had a look at the magazine, but said he wasn’t interested in a subscription.
• Another child, who was watching TV, seemed annoyed at the interruption caused by us, and said he wasn’t interested.
• Another child seemed to like the magazine, but his father didn’t seem interested. The dad simply asked for a visiting card, and said that he would get back to us (a polite way of saying “Get lost”). Anuradha made an interesting observation here about the degree to which people open their doors for us.

The only sale that we made was at the house of an Assistant Police Commissioner. We introduced the magazine to the ACP’s little boy with the perfect sales pitch. The boy loved the magazine, but his mom said that the boy read too many comics, and would flunk his exams if another was made available to him. I told her that the magazine was published by a trust that ran several educational institutions, and it wasn’t just a comic book — it was an educational children’s magazine. However, the lady told us that there were guests at home and indicated that we weren’t welcome. As promised to the society’s secretary, we didn’t pester her much and left immediately with a polite “Thank you for your time, ma’am”. However, the little boy followed us, and Anuradha cajoled him into talking to his parents for a subscription. A few minutes later, the boy came back and took us to his home. His father, the ACP, asked us a few questions about the magazine and bought a subscription.

Mega Mall

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It was 3:15 PM, and we decided to end our sales campaign. We visited Mega Mall for the lunch, and saw two of our colleagues making a sale there. By this time, a few others had informed us that the malls were the most ‘fertile grounds’ for selling Dimdima subscriptions: people who paid a hundred rupees for a burger didn’t mind paying Rs. 240/- for a one-year subscription to a children’s magazine. If you could dodge the supervisors at the mall, you could make a killing here. We tried selling a few subscriptions, but the people we approached had already been approached by our colleagues.

At 4:00 PM, we officially ended our campaign, having failed to achieve our target of selling 10 subscriptions.

I always knew I wasn’t a good marketer (which explains why I have opted for the Information Management specialization at SPJIMR), but selling Dimdima was a good lesson in marketing and sales. The “lessons” I’d save for an assignment which I’m supposed to submit tomorrow, but one thing I’m sure about is that I’ll be more considerate the next time I encounter a door-to-door salesperson.

SPJIMR Academic Conclave Core Team at Work

I haven’t had time to update this blog in past few months, thanks to quizzes, end-terms and more importantly, the recently concluded SPJIMR Academic Conclave (14-17 January 2010). As a part of the core team behind the Conclave, I spent a huge amount of my time and energy organizing the Conclave.

I’ve been part of the organizing team for several events during engineering college and school days, but with several CEOs, MDs, SVPs, senior consultants and other industry bigwigs as guests, the Conclave was not just another such event. It was a great lesson in administration and organization. Plus, it was an authentic way of knowing who works and who doesn’t before the Placement Committee elections commence at SPJIMR.

With not a free day in the schedule alloted for relaxation, I’m back to studies, which promise to be more hectic than earlier, because I’ve been devoting less time to academics all these days!

To develop a culture of collaborative learning in its schools, the Government of Kerala has launched schoolwiki.in under the aegis of its IT@School project. The website was made accessible for the schools in Kerala yesterday on the Kerala Piravi Dinam.

schoolwiki.in, a part of the Kerala's IT@School project

Unlike the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, which decided to spend Rs. 2 crore in duplicating efforts of Kannada-language Wikipedia, the IT@School folks have decided to use their resources for more useful things. The schoolwiki.in website doesn’t aim to create yet another Malaylam Wikipedia; in fact, it links to Malayalam-language editions of the Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, Wikiversity, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiquote. It aims to create a comprehensive knowledge database of all the schools in Kerala, plus a repository of the educational contents prepared by the teachers and the outcomes of academic group activities of the students.

The schools can edit the wiki to enter details such as information about the school, statistics, alumni listings, websites and blogs, clubs and student groups, class magazines, images and videos. The best part is that the students in Standard 8, 9 and 10 will contribute to the schoolwiki.in in form of school newsletter (Pradeshika patram), local encyclopedia (Nadodi Vijnanakoshan), “My Village” pages (Ente Nadu), under the guidance of Malayalam language teachers.

Isn’t that a great way of helping the students learn the value of collaboration and teamwork in the Internet age, and at the same time enhance their ICT skills? Hopefully, other states will follow the suit.

I voted

Today, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Arunachal Pradesh witnessed state assembly elections. A few months ago, I stood in a queue for 2 hours for getting my Electors Photo Identity Card, and submitted all the required documents. Unfortunately I haven’t got one yet. My PAN Card came in handy today.

Of the three states that underwent polling today, Maharashtra has the highest literacy rate, but the lowest voter turnout. Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, was especially disappointing with a low 50% voter turnout. Yes, there are a lot of people in Mumbai, whose name is not the electoral rolls. But, even of those who are registered as voters, only ~50% voted!

Last time, people said that the low voter turnout in Mumbai was due to elections not being scheduled properly: election holiday + Saturday + Sunday provided people an opportunity to go outside the city for a mini-vacation. This time, the election was scheduled on Tuesday — there is no vacation excuse. And I doubt that uncooperative polling booth administrators are a problem either. At least in my case, the polling booth administrators have always been very friendly and helpful.

What could be the reason, then? Why is PB + D < C? Do people feel that their vote doesn’t count? Or do they feel that elections are future because all parties are same: corrupt and incompetent? Are they apathetic? Or are they simply lazy?

The management education at SPJIMR largely revolves around understanding – most of the tests are open book/open laptop, and don’t require any rote learning. The Mumbai University exams were an altogether different experience: “mugging up” was an absolute necessity, a vast majority of the student ‘projects’ were farce, and the syllabus was completely outdated.

Today, I was going through an article by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, which speaks about two initiatives taken by the Government to tackle the primary challenges being faced by the Indian education system: (1) revamping an outdated curriculum and (2) upgrading the faculty.

While making the curriculum up-to-date and ‘upgrading’ the existing faculty are necessary, I believe that the primary challenges are two other inter-related issues:

1. Ensuring good quality of education amid the exponential increase in the number of educational institutes
2. Attracting bright minds to the teaching profession

With incompetent regulatory bodies like AICTE (which is mired in controversy and corruption) at helm, the increase in the number of educational institutes (esp. MBA and engineering colleges) over the past decade has not resulted in a proportional increase in quality of education. On the contrary, the number of ‘accredited degree mills’ has increased significantly.

There are a number of colleges (esp. MBA institutes) that charge lakhs of rupees as fee, and as a result have excellent infrastructure to showcase. These institutes have great-looking brochures that boast about the quality of education and rich academic experience on the offer. But, the truth is that the academic standards in most of these colleges are pathetic, to say the least. What’s the reason?

First, there is lack of good faculty: teaching, as an occupation, is not the primary choice for vast majority of the bright Indian students. Most of these students prefer taking up MNC jobs, which promise them a good salary and a higher standard of living. Many of those who are interested in teaching end up teaching in coaching classes, which offer them better salaries. Those belonging the academically inclined and research-oriented minority, are forced to limit themselves to the the top Indian institutes or the renowned foreign universities, where they get respect and money for what they do, in addition to good students and a wide range of opportunities.

This has become a vicious cycle: Because the salaries in most colleges are not good, these colleges attract incompetent faculty. Because the faculty is incompetent, the students are incompetent. Because both faculty and students are incompetent, the colleges do not have a sound reputation. Because the students are bad and the colleges are not reputed, the competent academics stay away from these institutes, paving way for incompetent faculty members who are ready to work at low salaries.

Issues like caste-based reservations only add to the problem.

The main challenge that India faces is ensuring that the bright minds in the nation have incentives (monetary or otherwise) to pick up teaching as a profession. This will automatically result in a better education system.

As a part of the Abhyudaya project, the PGDM participants at SPJIMR get an opportunity to mentor talented schoolchildren coming from economically weak backgrounds.

On 21 July 2009, we had a workshop on the mentoring process, which was conducted by the noted TISS alumni Ms. Pratima Havaldar and Ms. Kamini Kapadia. Later, a few of our batchmates were assigned the responsibility to mentor the schoolchildren mentored by our seniors last year. And on 26 July 2009, I and some of my batchmates were assigned the responsibility of mentoring the 45 kids new to this programme.

Each child selected for the Abhyudaya project is assigned two mentors. My mentee is Suraj, and I’ll mentor him jointly with the fellow SPJIMR participant, Shreyas Subedar.

Suraj with his balloon

Suraj studies in Std. VII, in the D N Nagar Marathi Medium Municipal School. His family lives in the Adarsh Nagar slums in Jogeshwari. His father is an insurance agent, and his mother works as a maid. Suraj has an elder sister, who studies in Std. IX, and a younger brother, Neeraj, who studies in Std. V. Suraj has won a couple of prizes in math exams, and has a win in an inter-school Yoga competition to his credit as well.

Suraj and Shreyas

Suraj

Shreyas and I met Suraj and his parents during a function organized at SPJIMR auditorium yesterday. Like other mentors, we talked with our mentee for some time, and then as a fun exercise, taught him how to build a tall tower using toy blocks.

Suraj with me

Later, the three of us interacted with the other children selected as a part of the Abhyudaya programme. We played Posham Pa* – when Suraj was caught, we asked him to sing. Although Suraj was a little hesitant initially, Shreyas and Aditi coaxed him into singing “Dhagala Lagli Kala”.

Suraj singing Dhagala Lagli

We reached Suraj’s home at 4 in the evening, and spent around two hours there. His modest but neat home is tucked away in a small corner of a slum in Jogeshwari. His mom welcomed us, and asked him to lay out a bedsheet on the floor for us.

After greeting the family members, we had a look at all of Suraj’s textbooks. It was nice to see that the textbooks had been given for free, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. There are eight subjects:

• English
• नागरिकशास्त्र आणि प्रशासन (Civics and Administration)
• सामान्य विज्ञान (General Science)
• भूगोल (Geography)
• हिन्दी (Hindi)
• इतिहास (History)
• मराठी (Marathi)
• गणित (Mathematics)

Although I can read and understand Marathi pretty well, I am not a flawless speaker. Shreyas, who speaks Marathi fluently despite being a Gujju, came in handy this time!

During the function, SPJIMR had presented each kid with an Oxford School Atlas, an English-to-kid’s mother tongue dictionary, and few cusrive writing books. First, we asked Suraj to fill up a few lines in the English cursive writing book. Then, we decided to teach him how to use the English-to-Marathi dictionary.

After that, we came to Mathematics. His mathematics textbook uses several Marathi terms unfamiliar to us (कोण द्विभाजक for angle bisector, for example), but it wasn’t much difficult comprehending the text. We brushed up a few concepts such as line bisector, angle bisector etc., and taught him how to use a protractor to measure angles. Then, we had some fun with multiplication of two-digit numbers and indices.

Before leaving his home, we gave Suraj some “homework”: practising cursive handwriting, looking up two words in the English-Marathi dictionary every day, and some math exercises. Shreyas threatened Suraj with more homework for calling us “Sir” instead of dada (Marathi for brother)!

Suraj wants to be a pilot, when he grows up. I know that his plans will most probably change as he grows up, but joining Air Force might be a good option for him, if they don’t. As of now, we need to prepare him for the Std. VII scholarship exam — his success in this exam will not only help him financially, but will also boost his confidence.

Other plans I’ve for him are to teach him spoken English, to improve his computer skills, to get him to participate in more extra-curricular activities, to improve his academic performance, and to develop his personality in general. Too big of a task? We shall see.

* For the uninitiated, this is (or at least was, when I was a kid) a popular kids game in northern parts of India. Two kids join hands to form an arch, and the others pass under this arch. The kids sing:

Posham Pa Bhai Poshampa
Dakiye Ne Kya Kiya! (What did the postman do!)
100 Rupaye Ki Ghadi Churayi (Stole the watch worth 100 rupees)
Ab To Jail Mein Jaana Padega (Will have to go to the jail now)
Jail Ki Roti Khani Padegi (Will have to eat the jail’s bread now)
Jail Ka Pani Peena Padega (Will have to drink the jail’s water now)
…
[some nonsensical words to end the song]

At the instance the song ends, the kid currently under the arch is trapped, and gets some “punishment”.

The Personal Growth Lab (PG Lab) is an important part of the SPJIMR PGDM curriculum. Conducted at Lonavala every year for the new batch, it is a mix of fun with learning.

The PG Lab for our batch was conducted from 16 to 20 July 2009. 178 of us (half of whom were still strangers to me) set out for Lonavala from Mumbai in four buses. We stopped at Expressway Food Mall for breakfast, before entering the beautiful Sahyadris.

Dancing in the bus. From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

At Lonavala, our “laboratory” was the D T Shahani Holiday Home. The Lab started with an ice-breaking session. We were asked to form groups of five people such that none of the five members belong to the same gender, same city, same state or have the same bachelor’s degree. After the formation of the group, the group members were asked to introduce themselves to the other group members. Each of these groups was then asked to merge with another group to form groups of 10 people each. This process continued until three groups, each consisting of 60 members, emerged. The three groups were named “Cocktail”, “Outliers”, and “Floaters”.

Subrajit enjoying the last piece of cake at George’s birthday bash. From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

The first two days in the classroom mainly revolved around psychological testing tools such as the perceived self and the ideal self, the Big Five, Johari window, EQ Map, FIRO-B etc. These helped us know more about ourselves and our fellow participants.

Self-concept of a participant: Boat. From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

The evenings were spent in birthday celebrations, DJ nights, egg contraption contests, dumb charades, Pictionary and Antakshari.

Finally, on the third and the fourth day, we had the outside activities – trekking, team building games (”Assault”) and the treasure hunt.

The trekking destination was the Lohagad fort. Trekking being one of my favorite activities, I was right behind (sometimes ahead of) the guide. One of the things I hate most about trekking with large groups is that people walk too slowly! Fortunately, this time, I had at least five to ten people accompanying me. The trekking experience was amazing, thanks to the beautiful scenery and waterfalls, the rains and the “reverse waterfall” at the top, where the water was rising upwards due to the strong wind.

Trekking to Lohagad: Reverse Waterfall – Strong winds make the water rise up! From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

The “Assault” team-building exercises were my next favorite in the PG Lab. Our group of 60 people was subdivided into 6 teams (one of which named themselves “The Chindichors”!), and each of the teams had to do six activities in minimum time possible. The six activities were:

• Acid Walk: In this game, we were given n+1 wooden planks (for n team members), and had to cross a “river of acid” with the help of these wooden planks.
• A-Frame: Here, we were given a huge A-shaped wooden frame, having four ropes attached to it. One person had to stand on the frame and make it move from one place to another like a compass, while the others had to pull the ropes to balance it.
• River Crossing: Here, we were suppposed to cross a distance of few meters, assuming it to be a river. We were given two wooden planks with strings attached to them. We had to stand on the wooden planks and make sure that we didn’t step out of the wooden planks. Every time a member stepped outside the wooden plank, s/he had to stand in the reverse direction. The ‘river” consisted of two zones: a communication zone (in which we could converse with each other), and a silent zone (in which we had to use hand signals to communicate with each other).
• Roller Coaster: Here we had transfer few balls from one point to another using a series of small pipes, without dropping the balls. Once the ball sets rolling, the team has to keep forming a chain quickly to make sure that the ball doesn’t drop.
• Transfer of Goods: In this activity, we had to transfer balls from one bucket filled with water to another. The only medium we had was a basket with ropes attached to it, and we had to stand in a circle, away from both the buckets.
• Waving the Flock: In this game, one person was the shepherd, and rest of the team members were blindfolded sheep. The shepherd had to guide the sheep (located at different places) to their pen, without using any human language.

Each of the Assault activities required logical thinking, coordination and teamwork.

Assault team-building games: River Crossing. From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

The last outdoor activity was the treasure hunt in the open meadows and hills, and the “treasure” was a packet of chikkis!

From The mariner’s compass came in handy during the treasure hunt. SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

Finally, we had talent search contest, in which everybody was supposed to participate. In spite of almost no time to practice, our batch put up a great show.

From SPJIMR PG Lab 16-20 July 2009

On the last day, we were asked to reflect over our strengths and areas of improvement, and prepare a Personal Development Plan for the rest of our stay at SPJIMR. After this, we had two hours to explore the Lonavala market, and most of us preferred to haunt the chocolate fudge and the chikki shops.

By the time we set out for Mumbai, I knew almost everyone in the 178-strong batch! Overall, a great experience!

Here are some of the photos; I’ve some videos too, but unfortunately, the SPJIMR computer center has put limits on the size of files that can be uploaded or downloaded.

Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://ut7.in/blog/2009/07/24/spjimr-personal-growth-lab-2009/feed/ 0 http://ut7.in/blog/2009/07/10/spjimr-pgdm-freshers-party-2009/ http://ut7.in/blog/2009/07/10/spjimr-pgdm-freshers-party-2009/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:48:19 +0000 ut http://ut7.in/blog/?p=38 As a result of too many assignments, quizzes and other course-related things, I’ve been unable to update this blog in last few days, although I’ve a lot to write.

Well, yesterday, we had a freshers party at SPJIMR. There was dance, drama and music. My only contribution was slightly screwing up a play by playing wrong music. Since I don’t have time to write more words or upload more photos, this is all you get:

SPJIMR PGDM Freshers Party 2009

First we caught a bus and reached Castella de Aguada, from where you can get a stunning view of the sea link at the night.

Bandra Worli Sea Link as viewed from Castella de Aguada

Then, we proceeded to the Bandra Reclamation. The entry to the Sea Link was crowded, with many TV channels recording videos of the traffic and interviewing people. Unfortunately, we had no vehicle, and the link was not open to the pedestrians or the auto-rickshaws. There were no BEST buses plying on the link either. After waiting for about half an hour, we finally got hold of a taxi, whose driver was visiting the Sea link just to have a look at it.

Chetan, Dhruv and Naitik

Since the toll collection had not started yet, a huge number of vehicles made the ride on the sea link much slower than what I expected. Plus, there were cops patrolling the Link, and getting into arguments with people trying to make U-turn and tourists (like us) who were getting out of their vehicles midway to get themselves photographed.

Too much traffic on the first day!

Hopefully, traveling on the link will be much faster when the initial tourist surge comes down, and the toll collection starts.