Venue : Coffee Board Bangalore
Time: 9:00 AM, 28th Jan'08
Reached there around 8 AM sipped coffee in a nearby garden restaurant, read through the morning newspaper sitting there.
Went into the building, the junta I must say is pretty experienced these days, few guys with suit on, just one girl
, people ready with neatly prepared files and stuff, few people with IIM calls, few with just one call, few giving IIFt interview second time
and few were doing just regular bakwaas to ease of the tension.
First of all the essay section is scrapped, so those who dint like to scribble much, be happy
GD topic: Changes in investment patterns of the Indian Middle Class
The discussion went quite well, I think I found people with similar opinion to me (2 of them) so the discussion went well for people like us who were trying to speak something other than stock markets. During discussion people came up with so called amazing facts,
"our markets have moved from 10000 to 20000 in just 429 sessions"
(i smiled at this one, maybe even giggled a bit)
"FII push-pull, foreign investors"
"Reliance IPO, grey market price, white market, 450-460-900"
People were talking complete nonsense, few people tried to restore sense by putting good points forward like Social investments, Indian mindset, EMI's, double income family, changes in family structures, trust based investments in India, changes in banking rates, investment in health and education, all quite good.
Infact apart from a few times where it was going haywire, it was mostly ok, and I think we did okay enough as a group. I would rate my performance here quite good as i barged in at the right time and also had some of the good points on offer.
Interview: Some room, low sofa, four panelists
I think I am the first person interviewed by IIFT guys (as I was the first at this center). Some honour
Panelists: P1(finance prof) P2(marketing prof), p3,p4(industry guys)
P1: Tell me about yourself???
deshh: bakbak...
p2: Tell us more about your work
deshh: bakbak...about client, how we work on software, how are we different etc etc
p3: KM catalyst???
deshh: explained my role and how KM function works as such, motivating people is the main role.
p3:How do you motivate people?
deshh: awards, appreciation mails, leading by example, making things easy to use and club it properly with process
p3: Some more things about work?
deshh: bakbak
p2: One moment which made you feel proud about your work?
deshh: talked about team getting award and something
p2: some thing specific, which you were more a part of
deshh:told a story about client, difficult time dealing with her, gave the deliverables still, something came out
p2: something about DAIICT
deshh: hehe, jai dhirubhai
p1: Brave New world, when was it written???
deshh: around 1930's
p1: do you think something similar will happen?
deshh: if we chuck our value system, leave out things which are central to our life our culture family etc. there is a chance. Although that kind of happiness wont be satisfying.
Also if the government starts distributing Drugs/Dope for free and our marital structure breaks down there is surely a brave new world around
hahahahaha (everyone laughs...i too joined the party
p2: Do you read news papers?
deshh: yep
p2: dollar rupee thing?
deshh: told something which sounded convincing, after that quoted chidambram, bhagwati etc, davos, something that someone sneezes we wont catch cold, we should take pride in our economy, look towards a economy which is so strong that its not affected by such things, took nationalistic tones, bilkul jai hind mode
p1:dollar rupee, it companies, your company??
deshh: euro/pound billing deals, hedging, increasing gross margins through better utilization of resources.
p2: (all of a sudden as I was still discussing the IT company thing) comment allez vous??
deshh: j'ampple Abhishek
For those who don't know french they asked how is it going? and I answered My name is Abhishek
Everyone started laughing and then I too joined the party. Hereafter the interview turned into quite a nice and funny experience.
p2: why did you learn french?
deshh: (
straight form the heart) because the teacher was good (laughing cont...)
p4: Do you think Animal Farm is still relevant in the post soviet era?
deshh: told something about power corrupts those in power. Gave example of Suharto, also told a story about people getting oppressed in China.
p4: All of sudden, about the dollar things, we didn't discuss the imports, we should happy about oil getting cheaper for us?
deshh:something about yes it will have short term effects, Indian energy sector is diversifying it self, lots of stuff on power sector I start speaking
p4: Oh yeah, I can see that your father works in NTPC
deshh: yep yep, I think we can have lots of discussions on power sector
p3: Ok, so whats your fav dish????
deshh: (hehe, i wrote cooking as an interest) Bengali Khichdi sir!!!
p1 and p3: Why because you cook it well?
deshh: Yep I cook it but there is another story behind it. As kids we use to to these Durga Puja pendals in our township and serve khichdi with that khajoor ka chutney (mouth watering for me and two others in panel). There i discovered my fondness for khichdi.
Kids were then rewarded with extra ghee for there efforts and you can clearly see where all the extra ghee has gone
(looking at me)
all:: hahaha
p2: Thanks Abhishek
deshh: Thanks Mam, sir etc.
Have a a great day!!!
Missed out maybe a few things but this covers most of it.
One thing I should say the, the profs and industry guys involved were great people.
Profs who did the GD and PI were great and surely if they are so cool it will be an awesome time at IIFT if get through.
Hats off to IIFT and the way they handled there admission process. Even if don't get in I surely enjoyed the process yesterday. They gave the right information about everything and made us feel extremely comfortable with everything.
It's NOW or neva 
since last 18 months ... 
(ya ya, I shd have prepared this). Textile and IT services will rank very high though
Not sure again sir. But Crude Oil will rank very high. We import 76% of our Crude Oil requirements.