Love. Hate.  Frustration. Joy.  Relief.  Sadness.  Music.  Dance.  Exhaustion. Tears.  Laughter.  Gravity.

Elements of a quintessential Bollywood movie.  Erm…also, the range of emotions, experiences the 31 of us went through over the last one-year.

It was dark, dull and grey when I landed into Berlin in January.  I was scared, lonely and had no clue what the year would be like.

It is dark, dull and grey today in Berlin on the eve in of our graduation. But there’s music, dance and bright twinkling lights everywhere now. 

It has been a rollercoaster of a ride – there were moments when one wanted to tear one’s hair apart.  There were moments when one had no recollection of the cab ride from Wohnzimmer to school.  There were times when there were potatoes, potatoes, potatoes and potatoes for lunch.  Then there were times that one wanted to bite everyone in sight.

Then there’s today.  An evening to remember.  With my friends, some, who will forever be a part of my life. 

There’s a lot more to say, but there will be time enough for reminiscing when we are old.  But tonight lets go dancing, you and I, for indeed there will be time for many more stories to be told.

This is what happened to us, soon after practice project teams were revealed.  

The joy, the agony, the ‘WTF, did you read this email’ ~ all these emotions were drowned in three, no four bottles of world class wine & sekt.   

Serendipity, spontaneity, weak moments & win-win situations – that’s what makes this MBA a memorable affair…

prost, cheers, salud, gan bei, zum wohl!  

Heck Mirko, I could hate you. Well, almost. You made me cry twice at your wedding. And that is when everything was in Deustche & I didn’t understand a word being spoken.

But I guess that’s what it is about. There are some moments that have no language barriers and this was a wedding to prove it. Beautiful, simple and warm. It was, by far, one of my most memorable evenings in Berlin.

The church on a cliff by the lake. Sigh. Drinking Proseco in the garden in the church on a cliff by the lake. Double sigh.

Of course, Mirko, honey, you were so pretty - that made it even more beautiful!

Carnations with your name on it, soap bubbles, strawberries & cream, dancing with your girlfriends to retro music (fantastic by the way, compliments to the DJ please) at a summer wedding. This is stuff that Hollywood movies are made of ~ such was the evening of 26 July, 2008.

To quote Emily Dickinson:

It’s such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh;

And yet by trades the size of these

We men and women die!

To Jana & Mirko ~ Herzlichen Glückwunsch und viel Glück!

It’s here. The bergfest before the summer break.

There’s nothing that’s been so welcoming in a very long time. Sighh.

So we toast to the India trip, and we toast to the China trip. We also toast to Intopia, which we wearily went through. I’m sure that after the Sekt goes down, there’s enough learnings to made out of every moment that we spent here last week.

But for now, it’s just enough to say – have lovely summer holiday!

Cheers!

There’s so many people on the streets, you can’t walk 5 metes without bumping into some one.

People get on to the middle of the roads and start to block cars from going ahead.

The cars on the road are blowing their horns for no reason at all. Loudly. Incessantly.

There’s so much noise on the streets, you can’t hear yourself shout. People are screaming, shouting – it may also include singing.

Strangers come to you; smile widely all the while screaming. Funnily enough, you reciprocate similarly.

Where are you, you ask your self? This cannot be Germany. These cannot be Germans. Some one must have changed their genetic code!

Yeah, this happens when the Deutschland Fussball team makes them proud. The night gets magical, there’s energy, conviviality and it is catching! Amazingly enough, even the Polizei smile knowingly and let it pass.

Finale, Finale – the air resounds with this cheer. If there’s one night that you should be in Berlin, it’s this moment. Come tomorrow, there’ll be strict (and perhaps sometime mundane) efficiency again. But tonight, Berliners, Germans & friends – we all celebrate…

Post Script: Deutschland won against Turkey in the semis, but unfortunately a similar show on the streets wasn’t possible after their performance in the Finals.

There’re ironies about doing an MBA in a city that was once at the heart of socialist communist pride.

Yeah, no one will tell you that you led a dull life, at least.

You wake up in the morning, you gulp a coffee down & manage to reach a 9 AM class, even though you don’t really feel alive till after the first break. But even this terribly exciting life, replete with cracking case analysis by 6 PM the previous eve needs some food for thought.

If it’s 1 Mai in Berlin, there’s enough to go around.

In Kreuzberg, especially. Where Beck is the official sponsor of Mayday. Or so it seems. You roam around Kotbusser Tor, in search of a revolution. But unlike this good fella, you are on the wrong side of the left side.

Anarchists, punks, rebels – where are they? Down the streets of Kreuzberg – there men making bar-be-que, pretty young girls selling Mojitos & folks are swinging to deutsche hip-hop.

Despite everything though, you know there’s hope. Because there’s a sense of humor.

In the unconscious capitalistic soul of the revolutionary.

yeah, yeah, same old story you’d say.

But like Elka pointed out - - have you ever seen so much knowledge concentrated in such little space?
Yup - here’s to the most fun we’ve had in ESMT, so far, with our clothes on!

gutten appetit good people!

A short cut again…but they these folks at the MBA program office keep us busy - one can not write two blogs and deal with all these modules…

6 weeks ago, I read this piece by Robert Rubin – an optional reading for the beginning for the Decision Making class.

“…the intellectual framework through which I viewed everything that came my way, including the decision-making that has been the critical core of my professional life, both on Wall Street and in government. … I believe that decision-making will be at the core of your lives, too, no matter what you do. The only question will be how well you make those decisions.

Just for these words, this reading should be made mandatory. Not just for a course in Decision Making, not just for an MBA degree, but for life itself.

12 years ago, as an undergraduate student of Physics, I learnt that logic and philosophy are two sides of the same coin. Over time, I forgot about it.

Cut to 2008. Berlin. ESMT. A 2-credit course in Decision Making. Exam day. Last class with Francis De Vericout.

Six minutes after the test, I was pissed off. If I had only 20 more minutes, I could’ve cracked it. Heck, I wanted to crack it and I hate myself when I know I could’ve but never did so. And I didn’t want to disappoint the professor.

13 minutes post the test, I read Robert Rubin again. I was wise once more (even if it was for a little while).

Ah hindsight.

Like with most special things in life (and thus so with Decision Making, our point being very obvious here!), it is the journey that is the destination. When I told my brother about the class, he cheekily retorted, “ I hope you can now be trusted not to take the stupid decisions like you used to�?. Ouch. Well, we’ll see.

Well, it was a steep learning curve. But I think and hope, a relatively permanent one. I hate to admit it, but over the last few years I’ve seen complacency creep over like moss. There was comfort and inertia.

But,

Empirical studies indicate that training in decision analysis is correlated positively with general aptitude to make sound decisions and can prevent common decision traps.

So, I’m hoping to be a part of the sample that continues to prove the above!

Some philosophies can give us the means of determining and understanding choices, responsibility, and consequences to behavior – it is up to us to take what we can. And so long as the net pay off is positive, and there’s happiness associated with it, it was a journey that was well worth it.

The module on decision making gets firmly classified here.

A li’l bit of a short cut - but then an MBA is all about managing, right! Here’s a piece that I’d written for my blog - it’s just a start:

We meet. We talk. We’re all dressed in business suits. We all look nice.

31 of us. 15 different nationalities. Average age of 30.5 years. Average work experience of 6.5 years.

There. We’re done with the statistics of it. We’ve even gone through the fun and formality of introducing ourselves. But as the Dean gives his opening speech and raises a toast to the class of 2008, we look ahead and afar – some searching, some in anticipation, all wondering in some way or the other – how this year will turn out. A few of us will find friends where we never expected do, while some, even in a small group like ours, may remain strangers.

For me, this year might just make me push my limits more than I ordinarily do. Low temperatures, open spaces and no crowds I am not used to. A whole year away from friends, family, ostensible work responsibilities, people I love, people who love me – it is inevitably a year of freedom. A year to experience and live. May be learn some.

Maybe I will learn to cook me a meal, or maybe I will just learn to survive on really cold fresh air (any love? uh oh) and 3.5% fett Vollmilch. Eitherways – I think this year will make an impact on our lives. On 31 lives, if you will.