We reached the place, it was a small one bedroom, hall and kitchen apartment which is the norm in 1 BHK as it's called. I was surprised when he told me that it cost them Rs 8000 per month for this shack. He talked to me for 30 mins and then explained that he's free now coz of we ppl having the GD/PI and so he was at another friend's place watching Australian Open's Men's Final when i called and he wanted to get back to it. So he handed me the keys and said that there's no food at home and told me where i can get some food.
I badly needed a bath, since i had been wearing the same clothes for the past 40 hours and so the 1st thing i did was to take a bath. After the bath i got myself a fresh pair of clothes and set out to explore the place after locking the door. I walked around a bit and found that the place had a Domino's Pizza nearby and also some hifi mall named Piramyd! I was checking out these places when my stomach rumbled and i looked around a lot for a restaurant, but all i could find were roadside shops, no not shops, they were just too small to be called shops. The kind that we see people selling tea and banana fry! Only difference was that here they sold most things which came in the menu of a pretty decent food joint. Starting from cold coffee to American Chopsuey. I ordered a cold coffee and got myself a chicken fried rice parcelled. The cold coffee was among the best i had and i expected the fried rice to be even better when i ate it at home!
It was 7:30 PM and it was 3 hours since i got off at Pune station. I got inside, latched the door and got down to savour my dinner. The fried rice wasn't that good as compared to the coffee, but still it was cheap for 40 buks! I finished my dinner and was just going through the study material that i had brought along with me for some tips on GD's and interview's. The time was around 8-8:30 and i heard someone knocking on the door. I answered the door and found a tall brawny guy and an equally sized gal. The conversation that followed was like this:
Guy: Wher's Nikhil??
Me: He's gone out, who are u??
Gal: U sure he's not here??
Me: Yea, he went out at 5:30; will be back by 9:30-10.
Gal: I just talked to him 5 mins back and he told he's at home. He owes us money from a quiz he did at SIBM two months back. He told he has the money at home today and he will give it.
Me(stunned): I don't have any money here and Nikhil didn't tell me anything of the sort too.
Guy:( Calls Nikhil a few nice names, even rem's to get his parent's involved too) Nikhil will get nicely this time, its been 2 months since we won the program and he's running since then.
Gal: Who are u??
Me: I came from Trivandrum today, i have an interview at SIBM on tuesday.
Gal: How do u know Nikhil?
Me: He's the son of my dad's colleague. His dad work's in the same office as my dad.
Guy: So he gave the house to you and went off?? Are you that good friends??
Me: Well today was the 1st time i ever saw Nikhil, he was in a hurry to reach somewhere and he went giving me the key.
Gal: Do u think we are stupid enough to believe the crap you just told?? Do we even look like that??
Me: Well i know it sounds weird, but this is the truth!( starts to sweat very badly)
Guy: Did Nikhil go to Mumbai?? Has he taken any stuff??
Gal: Where's his laptop??
Me: He didn't say of going to Mumbai or anywhere. He said he will be back by 930-10 and the laptop's not here.
Gal: He must have left for Mumbai. We need our money. How much do you have??
Me(GULP!): I don't have any money, i just came today for an interview!
Guy(calls Nikhil on the phone, doesn't get any reply. Again swears!): Nikhil will get nicely from me, is there anything valuable in here??
Me:There are just some clothes!
Gal: Who needs that!
Guy's still trying to get Nikhil on the phone and finally gets him
Guy: You ****ER Nikhil, where the hell are u? We are waiting outside your home, where's our money you M********ER??
I thought it was a joke at first but then the way the guy and gal were swearing made me think that MAYBE its a serious issue and then when i was almost mad the guy handed me the phone and i heard Nikhil on the other end asking me: Didn't you understand its a joke?
Me(Trying to be smart):I did feel so, but then they were too good in their act!
Nikhil: I will be down there in 5 mins, let them in.
After this we had FORMAL intro's. The guy and the gal had a hearty laugh looking at my face when i was talkin to Nikhil. Nikhil came after 2-3 mins and he too joined the party!
After sometime Nikhil's roommate turned up and about 4-5 people were having fun in the room when Nikhil got a call from another guy whom he had met online and he was also having the GD/PI on 30th, but not in my slot. His name was Ashish. He was also loooking for acoomodation and Nikhil the Daanveer, allowed him also into the 1BHK appartment. When he did turn up, it seemed i knew him better than Nikhil. We had met through Pagalguy and recognised each other from the id's we use there.
So that was my 1st day @ Pune! In short it was a very EVENTFUL day
The 2nd day wasn't SOOOOO eventful. Had our breakfast from outside, stayed home till 2, and then went out to have out lunch. The lunch was North Indian food and its been long since i had such good food. As the saying goes in Hindi "Ungli chaate rah gaya" after i had the food! Then we walked back to home and me and Ashish went to have a look at the insti to which we had applied for and have the GD's on the next day.
My first impression about the place was " Is that it??" Well what else will you say when you see a 5 or 6 storied building as the place where you might possible study for 2 years! The place was really small. Its smaller than my present college. Well all will say what's the big deal in that! IF you have seen my college, you will understand! So we walked in and the security allowed us to go in when we told that we had an interview tmrw. We went and snooped around for some INSIDE info on the process the next day. We even met a few seniors who were involved in the admission process and they were quite helpful and asked us to have a good look around!
After this we returned and then i went to buy a dress for my sister and walked on till i found one MEGA MALL, the so called all in one places. I went in and roamed around at first before i found the clothes section. There i had a tough time selecting the right stuff for my sister. After around 30-40 mins watching the dresses and the beauties around me i finally settled on a dress. I paid for it and then on the way back i took some money for my further expenses at Pune from the ATM. In the evening we got some time to get online courtesy of Nikhil and his roommate. We also met some other seniors who shared some GYAAN about how to face the interview and how to give THE perfect answer and stuff. We slept early by around 11-12.
The D-Day or rather the G-Day( sorry if it was a PJ). Got up LATE, by around 10 and then had the usual breakfast of puff's and sandwiches. Loafed around till 1, had lunch then got ready and was looking my best in the Charagh Din shirt and the tie that i had borrowed from a friend. It was good as per Nikhil. So we both marched to SIBM with the files in our hands and it was the first time i was walking on a public road wearing a tie. Well it wasn't such a big thing in Pune for sure, but if it was in my hometown, people WILL look and think "Oi, who's this guy trying to be someone he's not!"
We got there by 3:50 and our slot was at 4. So we got in and for the actual GD/PI process i shall put the Post i made in Pagalguy, coz that's the one which i wrote as soon as i got home after the interview and i am sure, if i try to remember stuff now, i will not be as good as that post. So here it goes:
Link to the Actual post
Re: SIBM 2007 GD/PI experiences..
I was in the 4 pm batch and my GD PI was just over. It was a good experience and first things first:
NO NORMAL GD, NO EXTEMPORE!
The 4 pm batch had a PPT at 1st and the ppt was over at 430 pm, which was over in 3 mins. After this we had an essay and the topic was: Films are more of an industry, less of an art!
After this, the A and B batches were taken for their GD's and we had a short time break. After this we were taken to our 1st Group task. It was never mentioned that it was a TASK when we got in. We were asked to stand in a queue and then we had 2 tasks:
1st was a task in which we were all blind folded and then asked to form a SQUARE and the only thing that aided us in this was a long rope. It was a havoc at 1st and then we fuigured it out after some time and it looked pretty much like a square. We had 7 mins to do the task. People who are going tmrw beware that the people who asses your performance also join in and then try to screw up your SQUARE!
After this we had the 2nd task, it was a 2 person team and then we had a role in which we were asked to take turns being a RESTRAINER and a CAPTIVE, it was fun. The thing is that the restrainer tries to restrict the movement of the captive and the captive's objective is to reach to the other end of the room and touch a person's hand. It was real fun adn at the end of the task we were asked which role we liked. I told i liked the captive's role for the sheer joy of breaking free of the restriction.
After this we had a short break before our Case Study; the case was like this. Don't rem much, i shall type what all i rem:
We are suppliers of limestone to a cement company. The company requires a limestone with 45% strength and they pay you Rs 2500/ tonne of limestone. We have a mine which has a limestone of strenght of 30% and the cost of mining is Rs 2000/tonne. We have another mine nearby which is closed for ages and has a strength of 75% and the cost of ming will be Rs 2500/Tonne. It has a problem though, the people living near are tribals and they are not in favour of opening the mine and then they are having not so good jobs and then are not so good with their minds and are volatile.
Their's a village panchayath which is asking a royalty of Rs1000/tonne and if we don't pay them they will complain to the Mining and Geology dept. The cement company is strict on the %'s and will not give in to low standards.
What will you do??
The case was long and they gave very less time for discussion, just 6-7 mins. We did start off well and i spoke 4-5 times. They asked people who hadn't spoken to give some point at the end.
After this my group had a few mins break before the PI and since the group was numbered alphabetically i was the 1st to go for PI. It was very short and i was expecting a Extempore, unfortunatly their was nothing like that. The panel had 3 people in it. Two were faculty members and the other was a HR Exec from Pepsi. The interview was short just 3-4 mins.
The questions were something like this:
P1-Pepsi guy
P2-Prof 1
P3-Prof 2
M-Me
P2- Tell us something about yourself that's not their in the annexure?
M-blah blah
P3-Why MBA??
M-Again usual blah blah
P1-Why be an entrepreneur when you get upto a crore as paycheck in the MBA's??(i had told so)
M-Again something which i was expecting for it! So had a good answer
P2-Tell me something about the industry in which you wanna start up?
M-Auto components and something about it!
P3-Why not work before MBA?
M-Again 1 which i was expecting(Lucky me)
P2-There are so many people who come up with such dreams but give up, how do we know if you won't do same
M-I assure you sir! blah blah
P1-Thank you
M-Have a good day sir's
Some more q's were there i think, don't rem it.
After this they gave us feedback forms about the process and then a CD about SIBM, that's it!
So that's it about my GD/PI @ SIBM. Hope all puys have a great time. The Group coord's were amazing guys and gals and pepped us with great words and kept us on our toes and kept the enthu high!
Met a lotta puys and i had MBA Struggler as my Group Coord!
All the best guys!
Loads of LUCK Buddies, go crack it open!
Mexxian
After the process we both got home together and i got the laptop from Nikhil and posted about my experience at SIBM on pagalguy, being the ever so helpful-mexxian. After this i had a delicious dinner of Chicken Biriyaani. Slept late around 1 or 2 am and that was how the G-day went!
Then next day i got up early, by 5:30 AM and got ready by 7. Since i had to leave Pune as my return train was from Panvel.
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