Doing धन्दा  is not गन्दा !!         

                                                                        

17th June was the day when I left my job life and joined NITIE. It was a mixed emotion for me - on one side I shall not be getting my regular salary on 25th of every month on the other hand I was delighted that after fierce competition in CAT I am ultimately able to join an institute of my choice which may lead and guide me to achieve my dream.

Class for Dr. T.Prasad, more popularly known as Dr Mandi was quite unusual for me... I think the same must be for others also. Once he entered the room we stood up but what he did perplexed us all. He directly sat on the floor and asked us to do the same. For about a minute we could not realise what was actually going on, we looked at each other's face and all followed our Guru.

Believe me at first I thought that it might be a punishment but after sitting comfortably the session proceeded in a different way; I may say a very down to earth approach. He stressed more on the application part of our management education. Enough of studies till class 10,12 or Engineering...... if we cannot convert our knowledge to money then there is no point of carrying a MBA degree. He  told us that money mindedness is not a crime and it is actually desired only. He brought forward the practicality that those who left jobs to join the program are effectively paying a large money and if within these 2 years they are not earning a penny then they are actually committing 'paap'.

On that day discussion mostly revolved around the famous activity "Mandi" which was initiated by him since PGDIM 10 batch. During this activity students come out of their comfort zones to sell products in the streets of Mumbai. For me the concept was new but drew me to watch the video whose link I have provided below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFPHoj16XBE

The idea behind this can be summarised simply in his words :

"Soacho.. Becho; Becho.. Seekho; Seekho .. Soacho

                    Earning by Learning & Earning for Learning"

 ie. its the best way to learn selling on the raw streets where the management gyans can be applied and this learning while interacting with different people from different strata of societies only will make our management education more holistic. That's the basic motive. By selling the products in one way we are reaching society with goods and in return we are getting the knowledge of how to interact with customers and deal with them.

He pulled out some amazing stuffs out of his bag- a globe ball, Newton ball and a balancing bird - a few of the items sold in Mandi.

He told us the story of a few guys who used these simple objects to make their fortune as entrepreneur when they were only in their engineering college. Then he stressed on the most evident point that we need to unleash our inner potential and find every way to convert opportunity into money(Staying in financial capital of India gives us an extra advantage).... No need to wait to get an MBA degree. We can go for hunt today itself.

"Aaj ka roti -- Aaj hi khamayenge

The whole session was very knowledgeable and interactive and inspirational and i realised that such interactions can never be done sitting in mundane chairs of NITIE. Better be down to earth.

I want to reach more people with my experience and I am following his suggestion to blog. As I never did blogging earlier, I feel it very difficult to summarise all those that happened in that  eventful class.

 

But sharing knowledge is what can help us all because knowledge accumulation is cumulative only. I remembered the lines of Rabindranath Tagore " In the heaven of freedom where knowledge is free". So I am enjoying sharing this with all and will carry on the same. For all those who are also new to this activity I want to say ..........