Week 13 - Friendly visits from past

Week 13! This week looked exciting right from Day 1. And there were plenty of reasons for that. No classes on Saturday. No major assignments or quizzes because we have end-term exams next week. TRBS club runs were scheduled. And three of my really close friends were visiting over the weekend.

But amidst all that excitement, there was also a big, hard-hitting reality check. July 14 marked exactly three months since we came here. That means a quarter of our time at IIM-A is already over. It feels like yesterday that we were reading our first-ever case - Kanpur Confectioneries - trying to understand the dilemmas of Alok Kumar Gupta. And now, here we are, wrapping up Part 1 of Term 2 and gearing up for the end-terms next week.

Monday to Thursday went by like a blur. Two to three classes a day, a bunch of cases to read, and the looming anxiety of the exams. But we made sure Thursday didn’t end on a boring note. A few of us headed out to the Sabarmati Riverfront. If you’ve been to Ahmedabad, you know the peace a walk at that place brings. We didn’t just walk; we rented electric scooters and zipped along the riverside. Some even picked up minor injuries, but totally worth it.

Friday morning, my friends reached campus by 9 AM. And when people from your pre-IIM life are around, you just pause everything IIM-A. That’s exactly what I did. We stayed up till late, woke up even later, the room was a mess, we ordered food for almost every meal, and of course, went for LKP walks. (That tradition stays, no matter who’s visiting.)

Through those three days, there was one IIM-A thing that I couldn’t keep away, the TRBS club runs. For those not familiar, this is when you present your vision for the fest and invite people to join your team. It was also the first time the entire TRBS team was on stage together.

Saturday dinner, too, was spent with my friends. We went to this beautiful restaurant in Ahmedabad called Under the Neem Tree. It was our last dinner together on this trip since they were leaving the next morning. And just like that, the tiny room that had somehow managed to fit four people went back to just me. After cleaning up the mess from the past three days, I started prepping myself for the normalcy of next week.

But let’s be honest. Next week doesn’t really seem “normal.” We’ve got five exams in three days. Is that what normal looks like here? At IIM-A, maybe it is.