Straight From the Heart

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Sangharsh 2006:

The sports meet was announced quite long back but the enthu built up only gradually. The thing is that at this place if u ( a fachcha i mean ) wanna take part in any extra currics event, u gotta be mentally prepared to manage ur time to the absoloute second and be ready to put in the extra effort so as not to sacrifice on studies, which u really cant afford to

11 sports were scheduled in all that carried points and the rest few were just fun games like frisbee ( the IIMA sport ) and Tsepak ( the IIMB sport ) . The selections for all sports had started long back and even though the fachchas found it tough to manage, the response was pretty encouraging. I wont say the practice was upto the mark in most of the sports but considering the severe time constraints we all work under, I think we did a decent job in getting as much practice as we could barring a couple of sports.

The meet was scheduled over 3 days and was the first in the Sangharsh series which I hope both the institutes carry in for years to come. Kudos to both the sports coms for getting this event off the ground.

The IIMB team arrived on friday night/saturday morning and lo behold !!! What do we see......They have prepared special T-Shirts for the event that read : "Lets teach those nerds how to play ball" Holy cow...if they thought that we were some pushivers who dont know anything else other than academics, they were sadly and badly mistaken !! That very instant our resolve to beat them was strengthened and we were all pumped up to prove them wrong

Man, what audacity.....in a way it was good for us coz it got us going in full tempo. The tournament kicked start with Cricket. I have to accept that their team and preparation was very professional and even though we made a decent total, they chased it quite comfortably. Full marks to them......The overall scoreline ( IIMA-IIMB ) read 0-1.

We knew they were on a high after the victory and the second event planned for that day was Badminton. We knew we have to win this one to get level and we couldnt afford to get them away with 2 wins on the very first day. We heard they had a national level player but our resolve was made of steel.....We had faith in ourselves...We had hired a wooden court in a club outside and steadily crowd built up minutes beofre the start of play. By the time the match started, the court was full of supporters, shouting slogans and cheering the team....The enthu was seen to be believed....Every point that we got was met with huge applause and the standard tempo shouts. There were Singles/doubles/Mixed doubles matches planned, for both men and ladies. We lost a hard fought first Mens singles but after that it was WIMWI all the way We demolished them in all the other games and the final scoreline read 6-1 We had got our revenge, our entire sports team got a huge morale boost with this comeback and we were all geared up for the next 2 days.....The overall scoreline 1-1.

Before I go ahead, I just wanna mention that I represented IIMA in cricket and badminton and won my badminton singles match as well I may goof up in the order of some of the events from now on and i hope the WIMWIAans and IIMB people reading this would excuse me for that.

Tennis was next in line that took place at WIMWI campus way late into the night, after midnight. Now we have a class player in our team and we were confident of winning...and thats what precisely happened. We beat them by a heavy margin and there was no doubt all along who was dominant. So, end of day 1, we lead them 2-1

With every win, only 1 thought occupied our minds....to make them eat their own words of what they wrote on their t-shirts.

The next day was the most hectic one as majortiy of the events were lined up on that day. I may not be able to go into the details of all the other sports as I wasnt physically present for all of them, but briefly, here is what transpired. IIMB beat us in Chess, which I was told went to the final seconds, Ditto with swimming, where again the finish was very close but we lost. However, we got our revenge in Football and Snooker. We won football handsomely by 4-1 if i remember correctly. I am told it was a clinincal performance and i have no doubts abt that. Before this match, our football team had played a couple of matches in a tournament at NIRMA university and had won by margins of 9-1 in both the games We later went on to win the tournament comfortably and defend the title.

In snooker as well, we inflicted a heavy defeat on them with the star being our very own PGite Anubhav kaul. Both footbal and snooker, just like badminton and tennis, were almost one-sided.

We also went on to beat them in Table Tennis, again pretty heavily ( 6-1 again if i remeber correctly ) So the WIMWI team was on a roll and with each victory we moved from strength to strength. The support we got was awesome and the the constant tempo shouts kept us motivated in all the events.

By the evening, we led 5-3 and we knew one more victory and we would be the kings !!!

The next event in line was Volleyball and the court was jam packed with all the supporters. We had a graba night that time on campus but the noise and enthu was so much that people left their dances and came to the court to cheer WIMWI. The environment was electrifying to say the least We had prepared two banners as a response to their T-Shirt and held them all throughout the match to show them whos better !! I wont disclose one on a public forum but the other read :

" Sangharsh 2006 : Another chance for you to be the second best"

We beat them heavily in Volley as well and there it was !!! The Sangharsh trophy was ours We led 6-3 overall in a 11 event tournmanet. The crowd support was awesome to say the least during the volley match. There was sledging going on as well and the tempo shouts knew no end....we just kept on going and going...

The remaining two events were only for academic interest...Basketball and throwball (ladies). I have to say their basky team is awesome indeed and they displayed a thorough performance to rout our team.....But the real tension and sledging was going on among the supporters.....2 factions had formed and what sledging Oh god....I wouldnt have been surprised had things gone out of hand.....But maturity prevailed and finally all was peace.

The final event was throwball the next morning which we again won very confortably....So there it was, a perfect end.

IIMA beat IIMB in Sangharsh 2006 by 7-4

IN the closing ceremony, their sports com president acknowledged candidly that they came here with the intention of teaching us a few things but underestimated our potential and didnt realize we wud be so good......
I have to appreciate his statement and his maturity.....A very gentleman like ending to the the sports meet and we all appreciated his frankness and maturity by giving a huge round of applause...

All said and done, kudos to IIMB for putting up a splendind show despite the tremendous home support we had...Hats off to you guys !!! We hope to have a good time next year as well when we visit them.

Personally, it was a super tough but exciting week for me. I am a big sports freak and had not played a single sport in the first term. And hence I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and was ready to put in the extra effort to do something which I love. Plus doing something apart from studies finally at WIMWI was thrilling. It was tough. We used to go for badminton pracitce night 9 to 11 to the club....I would come back and mug for the next day....and then wake up again at 5.30 to go for cricket practice....It was taking a toll on the body but my mind was relishing it

The tournament was so very exciting. The feeling of cheering your team mates and college on the sidelines of the court......Those tempo shouts, this time not of section A or dorm 23 but of WIMWI...The feeling of unity and spirit of being a part of the WIMWI family....I have to accept all this got me emotional.....I felt proud of being here, being wiht everyone, fighting for my college and sharing all the ups and downs together.

WIMWI showed great spirit and proved yet again that its the best, be its acads or sports. But what mattered to me the most was the strong bonding I reinforced with the institute and my tuchchas.....
...from holding up the college banner standing on an iron railing....to shouting "WIMWI ka tempo high hai" with the entire college....

...the feeling is exhilirating to say the least



Monday, October 02, 2006

Into the second term now...

I am so so tempted to start writing about the IIMA-IIMB sports meet thats happening on campus but I will do that a couple of days later....Coz I need to get hold of what has happened so far in the 2nd term !

After the 5 day break, everyone was back with only 1 feeling : The break was too too short. But somehow people weren't complaining so much about leaving home and coming back to WIMWI....That speaks of our changed attitude now. We were kinda enthu about getting back to campus....i think we have already got so used to the life here that it felt like leaving one home and coming back to another.

The 2nd term is said to be a lot more chiller than the first. I can see 2 reasons for that. One coz the workload is indeed less compared to first term; the subjects are not that taxing (barring a few including MANAC which i guess will keep running after me till i die ); the emphasis is more on group work now. So we have many more regular group meets coz there are lotsa presentations that we hv to make in order to prepare for the next class. But the actual mugging is certainly a bit less than the first term, not much though.And the second reason is pretty straight forward. We have already seen and faced the worst in the first term. And hence now we are mentally and physically prepared for anything..Its tough now for anything to psyche us out . Men of steel we have become !!

Plus the second term has lotsa extra currics happening ! The IIMA-IIMB sports meet is currently going on....we then have our marketing fair "Insight"....we have our B-School Summit "Confluence"...and the list goes on.

It has so far been a super duper hectic term for me...Not so much coz of the mugging, but coz of the plethora of things I have been doing. There are the group meets that we have almost every day which r good fun coz my grp is really cool . Plus I was busy giving interviews for a couple of clubs of WIMWI and managed to get selected in one of them too. Plus the practice for the sports meet. I got selected in the Badminton and Cricket teams. We would go for badminton practice every night 9 to 11....Come back....Mug for the next day and hence sleep by 2-3.....And again get up at 5.30 to go for Cricket practice to a nearby ground that we had booked. I used to have a great stamina but the inactivity in the first term had made me rusty and hence the toll on the body was huge.....It got pretty tought to manage all the mugging, sports, clubs etc at the same time but I was quite enthu abt it as finally I got play sports at WIMWI...something abt which I am so passionate....And hence I didn't mind the extra load .

Now that the sports meet gets over tomorrow morning, things look to be getting better in terms of paucity of time. But its great fun....The more I see the non-academic side of WIMWI, the more excited I get.

As far as the quizzes go, we have had one MANAC quiz and a couple of In-Class quizzes. More are sure to follow coming week but even the total quizzes are supposed to be less this term.

And ya, the Garba fever has gripped Ahmedabad and how could it leave WIMWI...So everyday some group of students or the other go to either NID or CEPT or few other places where Garba is famous and let their hair down.

IIMA played host to IIMB for a 3 day sports meet called Sangharsh 2006, that involved 17 sports out of which 11 were worth of points and remaining just for fun.

This was certainly the next most exciting event so far at my stay here after the T-Nites. What happened during these 3 days ? Who got the trophy ? Was there attitude & aggression ? Do the IIM guys know how to be kings in sports apart from academics ?

Coming up....Sangharsh 2006 !!!