If you've read the Brave New World by Huxley, then you can skip the next few interesting lines.
In Brave New World, happiness derives from consuming mass-produced goods, sports such as Obstacle Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-puppy, promiscuous sex, "the feelies", and most famously of all, a supposedly perfect pleasure-drug, soma.
Soma is not really a utopian wonderdrug at all. It does make you high. Yet it's more akin to a hangoverless tranquilliser or an opiate - or like Prozac - than a truly life-transforming elixir.
Anyway, so what has ISB or rather the students at ISB got to do with Soma?
Some of it goes like this....
-Find the profit associated with building a plant to produce Soma. Gosh, someone is asking me calculate the profit from illegal trade. What if the answer is "Ek Peti" for a Soma?
-If Soma costs zero to produce (for god's sake, can anyone produce anything at zero cost, except for Advice?), then discuss effect of profitability.
-Consider effects on profits when a firm that sells Soma, backward integrates and acquires the manufacturer. Sounds like one of those "Bhai Log" situations.
So this was all that happened during the last three days. Two individual assignments and one group assignment, all with a Monday deadline, was everything for everyone.
Amidst all this, we had our leadership deveopment program. I'd rather speak a lot about this because soft skills training is something I like. Maybe a few years down the line, I'll do some training of this sort for a lot of people.
The Sunday started off pretty well. We were organised into groups. What I would have wanted is that people from different sections be clubbed for the session rather than having people from the same section. This would have given chance for more diversity and sometimes its really boring to see people form your section for anything and everything. When will we get to know the other people?
Group Discussions are always a bit chaotic. I've been through N number of GD's,also similar programs like this one and I knew what I was looking for.
Effective Communication cannot happen just like that. Even when NASA lost its space shuttle - Challenger, the major problem that was faced by the NASA Authorities, well this came out after a huge investigation that was conducted by famous people like Richard Feynman. It was quoted organizational problems. The fundamental problem was improper communication between the contractors and NASA Engineers.
The situation in our classroom was nothing great. People did have a lot of comm. problems and things werent that much in control. But it was fun. A lot of people actually got back at one another through the feedback, which gave some of us a feeling of being in a war.
Another important event that is worth mentioning is Schumacher's Stunt at the Monaco Grand Prix. Having taken the pole position during saturday's practice, Schumi was quite sure that Alonso who was only a second or less behind would definitely catch up during the last minute and probably get the pole. So, with less than one minute to finish, Schumi parked his car on one of the turns. Though at that point, it seemed as if it was a driver error, the intentions were quite clear. As far as Monaco is concerned, it is a circuit where drivers CANNOT overtake. Pole positions and Pit Stops determine your position in the race. And this is mainly because the Monaco Circuit is on the normal city roads. Isnt that fun. F1 cars zipping past your apartment? So, for that Schumi did on Saturday, Ferrari was penalised and Schumi started from the Pits.
Till now, there has been a party every weekend. I thought that Junta would be studying for the Exams and doing assingments this weekend, but one section had some birthday party with music playing till about half past two. But I am quite sure that this weekend, there will be NO PARTY.
Will someone prove me wrong?
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