Travel Diaries

 “To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world”

                                                                 By Anonymous

                                                     

Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to Kuala Lumpur! Announced the pilot…The Morning blues skies of June 27th 2014 and a tireless journey of 6 hours, and here I was in Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia. The excitement outweighed my fatigue and anxiety for living in a new country for the next 2 Months.

Each and every moments, from landing at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and setting my watch two and half hours ahead of IST to reverting it exactly 60 days later, was memorable!

The cab moved swiftly through traffic and dropped me at Furama Bukit Bitang Hotel, at 18^th Floor from the glasses of my hotel room I was mesmerized by the scene outside- The revered KL skyline shinning in the evening lights twilight and the Petronas tower standing proud to its right! For the next few moments, I gazed spellbound at the manmade beauty outside, eventually the physical burnout made me realize that I need to go for sleep.

My project team consists of 9 members from 9 different nationalities so there is an impressive diversity! Diversity of not just a people but diversity of thought, Diversity of action which helped me understands the various cultures and other parts of the world.

 So after spending 4 days in a hotel, we’ve planned to stay together in Condos (Apartment) so after the heck loads of paperwork we are able to get Condos at 21^st floor in the heart of KL.

Whenever you travel to any place your taste buds are the ones that gets tested the most and mine could not be far behind, from the sharks Fin soup to Deep fried scorpion!! I tasted whatever cuisines I could from Modifies “Indian pratha” and “Dhosai” to the ‘Hainanese Nasilama”

 I would never forget the time I spend exploring Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Thailand in those 6 weeks, the city is just a lot more to it than just spectacular Petronas Twin Tower, Marina Bay or Merlion. It does not lake long to figure it out why Malaysia is called Truly Asia. It is a very big centre of music, films, theaters, dance, art and Restaurants of various cuisines, the city has everything in abundance. Not least, and throughout the time I spend there I never felt out of place. There was plenty to do and weekends always flew by leading to not the most pleasant Monday mornings, but leaving me with plenty of fond memories that I have with me till today.

 In the last few days the roads looked longer, the MRT Station looked lonelier as we walked back to the airport with new friends from different corner of the worlds, loads of memories and gigabytes of photos-that’s what I bring from one of the amazing summer, in Malaysia and Singapore.

  

IIM Diaries

                     

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember but involve me and I learn.”

                                                                                                By Benjamin Franklin.

When one thinks of excellence in management education in India, the name that usually pops into mind is the Indian Institute of Management.

I always wonder that for a Business Studies student like myself, for whom an MBA seems like an obvious choice to go for in the future but I've choose fairly different path. Being Fascinated by Research papers, my journey starts at IIM-C. The internship turned out to be an amazing learning experience not just in Academic Research projects, Journals and Marketing but in various aspects of life.


I met people from one of my favorite ESSEC Business School, HEC Paris, INSEAD etc who was working in the same research project on “Bottom of Pyramid”, Further, I got to know a lot about the culture of IIM and Three things that I liked most in IIM-C were library, people and food was simply superb with around 12 different types of curries serving all palettes. IIM-C library [24/4 Open] is a book lover’s paradise with books ranging from Indian culture to Harvard Business Reviews in abundance of knowledge. I even had a chance to attend IIMC 50^th Convocation Ceremony.

What surprised me was how warm and welcoming everyone was!

During the past twenty weeks, I lived on campus Dorms (which I add, is upright), attended various seminars and workshops along with the students there along with working on a live project of Unconventional / innovative business model of bottom of pyramid in south East Asian countries and experienced its full glory.

So, in these Twenty weeks, I had the chance to see IIM-C as an insider. And though it wasn't as a student, it was still a beautiful experience and the best part was Meeting with the Dean of ESSEC Business School, Paris and got letter of Recommendation for GMATE application.

So last but not the least this is what campus looks like in the evenings, surrounded by 7 huge lakes and the view is just mesmerizing!