"XL - A Home
Away From Home"
- by Swanand Ranade *
Home sweet home... That's exactly
what XL has been to me; in fact for all of us over past two years... you have
caring people around, a sense of academic responsibility, relationships to
fulfill, friendships to nurture and loads of memorable moments with every
passing day... If one had any apprehensions about the so-called B-school
'attitude' or 'hawa' associated with this place, they were lost in air within no
time with a very accommodative student fraternity and supporting administration
to aptly take care of the day-to-day affairs. One of those rare places where it
did not really matter whether the next-door guy was an IITian top ranker, BITS
Pilani stud or someone with fundu work ex of 3-4 years from a top multinational.
This place never nurtured such differences and everyone was on equal ground from
Day 0. If hostel life was a new thing for first timers and one had heard horror
stories of engineering experiences from their friends in the vicinity, they were
assimilated in the XL culture with ease. And then began a journey of two years
which has left an indelible mark on our life, career, feelings.
If XL taught us how to slog for
next day morning quizzes and mid-terms, end terms, it also taught us how to work
religiously for 'n' number of academic and no-academic committees on campus for
no CV value. Two years were all about time management when you had 100
activities to choose from while the number of hours in the day still remained
24. The first lessons of corporate discipline were learnt, not through
Organizational Behavior classes, but by observing the close-knit working of
different committees by mutual collaboration without harming each other's
autonomy or bypassing the traditionally followed norms or hierarchies. Where
else could we have experienced the deeply cherished traditional sports rivalry
of XLRI-IIMC sports meet in the true sense of India-Pakistan game spirit .The
cut throat competition on the battlefield on the ground of either B-schools is
just a hint of the closely fought business wars that one has to gear up for in
times to come. With the never ending load of assignments, projects, quizzes and
submissions, one has to be on one's feet all the time and Sunday is like any
other day of the week. Day with minimum number of classes turns out to be
Sunday, and with ever-changing timetables and surprise announcements of crash
courses, XL takes care that every week, Sunday happens to be on different day!!!
Numerous small traditions that XL
has cherished deeply over the years and passed on by every batch to next batch
make it such a special place and each Xler vies to feel those traditions by
coming back to the campus again and again and you still can't point out a single
thing that brought you back. They say "Once an Xler, always an Xler". The 25th
year alumni meet is a true reflection of this fact when Xlers turn up from
places like Canada and Hungary only for that day, for those few moments that
they share with their one time batch mates'. 25 years older they might have
become, Xler remains young at heart expressing the same kind of enthusiasm and
zeal to connect people. To me, the most important contribution of XL has been to
bring out good human being out of us and not just highly qualified
professionals, which I am sure we do become after two years of academic rigor by
imbibing inputs from courses and streams as diverse as strategy, human resources
and information technology. They form the building blocks of a structured
approach of thinking and doing things for next 35 years of corporate life. And
if you think it was only academic results that one has to deliver with no rescue
from the likes of Porters and Kotlers, only an Xler can knows what it means to
spend endless nights in the mess foyer over the cup of 'chai' reflecting
about life's miseries, broken hearts and missed grades, and last but not the
least the cheers of first A+... I am sure the never-say-die spirit of this place
has become a part of all of us and will keep me reminding of the best days of my
life... when I was part of Batch of 2004... XLRI, Jamshedpur...
