New Life, New Beginning

Day one of college life (Part II) started with the 'God’s Own Campus' (NITIE is called just that) greeting us with lovely weather. A promising start, one would think. I woke up early to avoid being late on the very first day, however, every molecule of my body was willing to succumb to the mesmerizing climate, and crawl back into the bed. I somehow climbed out and got ready for the new beginning.

First session lined up for the day was cancelled due to the unavailability of the Professor in-charge, but somewhat to our fortune, the session was taken-up by Professor Mandi (aka Prof. T. Prasad).

Professor Prasad came to Syndicate-1 (fancy name for a classroom) to enlighten us with the simple and basic principles of Organization and Management, a course that he has mastered over the years. Professor Prasad started with throwing a few stress balls around the class and passing on some very basic but intriguing toys, which included a self-balancing butterfly and a wooden hen that could walk down a slope without any ‘worldly’ force. I was wondering what he meant to do with them. I mean, here we were in a class, filled with some of the best minds, and the Professor shows up with toys, that didn't even feel remotely related to what we’d learn.

Professor Mandi walked up to me, handed over that pink butterfly, and asked a very simple question, ‘What can you teach someone about this?’ To my surprise, I was able to come up with a few physics concepts, with which he was pleased. He went to other students as well and asked the same question. People did give some really good suggestions (best minds, aren’t they).

He then took centre stage and explained why he was going about asking those questions. He, very humbly, told how good it would be if we could teach these simple concepts to the students less fortunate than us. If we could have a documented account of whatever we learned in the class and made it available to the world, how beneficial it would be for the society; the entire concept of clichéd classroom teaching would become completely obsolete. It then struck me what the Man was talking about. He made me realize the importance of sharing and not limiting the knowledge to oneself.

A very enlightening thing happened later in the class, where Professor Prasad made some calculations about our personal daily cost. I analysed that for a day, my investment comes to around Rs 2500; that’s the cost of me leaving my job, paying the fees of the college and staying in the city of Mumbai. Shocked!!! Even I was, but that’s ‘economical’ compared to other B-schools. Professor Prasad, in a very distinct way of his, showed the importance of earning my daily chores; making a point to earn my ‘roti’ (‘Aaj ki roti, aaj hi kamaao’ is what he said) for the day. He very cleverly, connected this simple analysis to the complicated concept of Entrepreneurship which would ultimately be connected to the course that he would be teaching us in the coming days.

Towards the later part of the class, Professor Prasad discussed his own and much talked about management jargon, ‘Socho Becho, Becho Seekho, Seekho Socho’; that’s think and sell, sell and learn, and learn and think. Intriguing thought?

A simple idea but then I thought it can’t be so simple when Professor Mandi is around. Professor Prasad explained it to the class that how easy it becomes for students to learn about management while actually running their own company. He also gave us a glimpse of the events that have been lined up for the future.

In the second half of the day, we had another session with Professor Mandi, where to our surprise we got an opportunity to sing along with the class. And what better song could it be than the classic ‘Brick in the Wall’ from Pink Floyd. Professor Prasad holds the song close to himself, owing to the message that it delivers. 

Rarely would you find a Professor himself condemning the format of education being followed in the country.
Towards the end of the session, the course outline was also discussed.

In totality, a fun filled start to the 'new life'; somewhat unexpected. But I think it was Professor Prasad’s way to get us gelled to the new format of learning that will be followed here in NITIE.