Aniruddh
Mukerji and Ravi Kumar Singh (Posing from left to right)
Bright lights, fast cars, beautiful people,
the city that never sleeps. Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, the home
of Bollywood and the city I was destined to do my SIP (Summer Internship Program)
in. Being an Operations enthusiast, I was pretty clear about the companies to
opt for during the summer placement at IIM Raipur. I got selected in a Business
Analytics profile at a leading Marine consulting firm based out of Navi Mumbai.
My hometown being the steel city Jamshedpur
(home of Tata Steel), I have been used to a peaceful life of a well planned
township since early days - nothing like the chaos of a cosmopolitan that is
Mumbai. But this was precisely what I needed. I wanted to experience this chaos
– the famous Mumbai local, the busy life in general. So here I was in Mumbai on
the 7th of April, all charged up to start my Summers and to
experience the city. Actually, the firm had selected two students from IIM
Raipur, one was of course yours truly and the other was my fellow colleague, a
former mariner with 3 years of sailing experience in Merchant Navy. While in
college, we had a fair amount of interaction but this SIP stay strengthened the
bond further. It is amazing how people discover one another’s likes, dislikes,
similarities, dissimilarities given the time and situation. One of the few
things we share is the passion for travel and good food. Also, having visited
Mumbai several times earlier he has a good knowhow of the city which we
leveraged to cover as many places as possible, including the most iconic places
to eat in Mumbai – Bademiyan, Brittannia & Co. (Iranian and Parsi cuisine),
Taste of Kerela, Leopold, Mondegar to name a few. The sites we visited include
the usual suspects – Gateway of India, Elephanta, Alibaag, Juhu Chowpati,
Marine drive, Band stand, Mahalaksmi, Siddhivinayak, Haji Ali among others.
Having a great appetite for both travel and food helped us cover a lot of
ground (sometimes on foot) notwithstanding the hot and humid weather of Mumbai.
The office being in Navi Mumbai – Belapur,
to be precise – we decided to find a nearby place to stay for the next 2
months. We were lucky to get a flat just 2 blocks away from the office which
saved us from the daily local train travel. This meant we could stay awake till
late (work or have fun) and get up late than others, which was awesome. On the
first day of Internship we were greeted by the CEO himself. He being from an
IIT+IIM background himself had a good amount of expectation from us. We
discussed about the academic rigour at an IIM, the faculty and how the new IIMs
are growing up fast. The CEO asked us, whether we wanted a ‘Pressure Cooker’
project or a ‘9 to 5 Relaxed’ project. Obviously we chose the former one – I
don’t think this was even a choice. We learnt a lot from our interactions with
him with respect to consulting, commitment and some unique stuff such as -
“what is usually unusual for a client should be unusually usual for a
consultant” or “If you are different and you say you are different then you are
actually not” and “If one is a yes man, then he is a no man”.
One and a half months down the line, I have
had my fair share of ups and downs both with respect to office as well as
personally, but the overall experience has been a great one. We've had office
parties, work related disagreements, chasing deadlines, lots of learning,
discovering the city on weekends, eagerly waiting for our stipend to arrive and
then seeing it get spent so quickly. All put together has been one hell of an
experience, the kind I was looking forward to. Honestly, I am missing college and
my friends, but meanwhile trying to pack in as much experience as possible in
the remaining 20 days of SIP.
Throbbing with the vitality of dreams and the will to realise them,
of reaching for the stars, Mumbai is a city of instant changes, constant
changes, a city of opportunities, a city of fortune. It is where tomorrow
stands today. I believe if you have the guts and the gall to live in Mumbai,
survive it, and enjoy it, you have arrived. This experience has made Mumbai
‘Number 1’ in my list of places I would like to work in after MBA.
This article is written by Ravi Kumar Singh of PGP 2013-15. He can be contacted at pgp13103.ravi@iimraipur.ac.in
