About Me
Hello, everyone!
My name is Kunal Sahi and I am just two months away from completing my MBA from IIM Indore. I did my B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from NIT Kurukshetra after having completed my schooling from DPS Faridabad. I have always believed that the personality of an Individual overpowers everything else. Probably, that belief always has made me strive towards keeping myself involved in multiple activities. I have never been an academically outstanding student but I have always tried to make sure to maintain decent scores to keep me in the hunt and let my knowledge and my personality to make the way forward. I was a member of the team that secured 2nd runners up position at ITC Interrobang season 6. I am also the member of the marketing club, Mercur-I and the co-ordinator of Gordian Knot, the flagship S&M event at our Management fest, IRIS. As ironic as it may sound, I have completed my internship from Goldman Sachs where I could manage to stretch my limits and the consistent and dedicated effort helped me bag a PPO.
Tell us about your non-academic activities and achievements.
I have a very keen passion for dancing and had set up my own dance group that has won many competitions in the different college fests in the recent past. I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to lead teams as large as 100 members in my college while being the Convener of my college fest. I am a black belt in karate martial arts and have KVS Nationals gold medal in Badminton and Inter-DPS Nationals silver medal in long jump. Besides being on stage for dancing and singing, I have also hosted a lot of shows in my graduation college and I pretty much enjoy my time on stage. I was also the Secretary of SAC at NIT Kurukshetra. I have also held the position of the Captain of the Institute Badminton Team. I was also appointed the Head-boy of my Alma-Mater DPS Faridabad. I was also awarded the best all-rounder of my college at and also my school.
What is your x-factor?
My X -Factor I believe is my "go-get-it" attitude coupled with my ability to Multi-Task. A combination of these two has helped me to excel and at the same time redefine my own limits. I have been a hosteller for over 11 years and have switched places quite often. But I would consider it a boon for me as it made me much more adjusting as an individual. During my graduation and Post-graduation, the ability to carry out multiple tasks at the same time have been very useful as they developed my personality in a holistic manner and allowed me to delve into different activities while maintaining the balance with the others.
Give us an instance when you failed miserably and how did you overcome that downfall?
Life is all about the ups and downs. My life is no different. It has numerous success stories and equally bad failure stories. But one of them that I feel was the worst of all was when I failed as a friend. One of my closest friends needed me big time during a personal crisis he was going through. But due to the over-commitments, I had due to the various committees I was a part of. I was so much engrossed in what I was doing and the success I was achieving at one front that I totally neglected the failure I was heading towards at the other. Failing as a friend or family I believe is the biggest failure one could be a part of. I couldn't be there for him and I ended up almost losing one of the closest people I have. But I remember the beautiful line said in the movie "The Dark Knight" - Why do we fall? We fall to pick ourselves back again. That's when I made up my mind never to let that happen again. I took some pretty hard decisions that required me to give up on some of the most amazing opportunities I would have probably got in my life, to make sure I was there for my friend whom I considered equivalent to my family probably because I believe that opportunities can always be created but a bond once lost can never be got back. So, I made sure that I was there for my friend in his time of need and our friendship has gone stronger ever since. Since that day, I have made sure to take every relation that I am a part of seriously and play my part selflessly without any expectations because I hate failures and the last thing I would want is to see myself fail at being a family/friend.
What is the biggest risk that you have taken so far and why?
In the final year of my college, I was appointed the student convener of the annual cultural festival of my institute. As a part of the responsibility, I was entitled to rope in sponsors for the event at the same time promote the event to get maximum participation. Being a not so well connected city Kurukshetra offered a lot of restrictions to the sponsors and the time frame to manage the event was limited., so was the budget. But with a dedicated effort by my team of 3 members we were able to rope in a sponsorship of Rs.6,20,000 other than whatever the institute gave us. But, there was a moment where 3 days prior to the event our title sponsor (Paying 4.5 Lakhs.) informed us that they can provide us with the money only after the fest is completed and not before it. With the cash from the title sponsor not available at that instant, we were in a major crisis of making our payments. Moreover, our pro-nite involved a Pakistani artist Mustafa Zahid (Roxen Band) which created a different issue with the visa status and performance permission, all to be done in the last 72 hours. It was the fund from our title sponsor that was to be directed towards payment of the pro-nite with our professor in charge adamant on getting a very low budget artist and to cut down on the cash prizes owing to the cash crunch. That was when I took the biggest risk I had ever taken. I convinced my professor to go forward with the planned schedule and assured him of getting the money (which even I had no clue of where I would arrange from) and kept the visa application status of the artist only to myself. We worked in day and night to manage the funds and somehow got in more sponsors. With tickets for the pro-nite sold already, we couldn't have gone to any other artist. We had to get him. I personally went back and forth for 2 days to Delhi and got the visa and the permissions for the artist requesting and pleading the officials. Once the visa issues were resolved, we made a deal with the artist to make the payment to him as a post-dated cheque that could be encashed after 10 days within which we would receive our amount from our sponsor. That is how I hedged the biggest risk I had taken.
If you had a magic wand, what is the one problem in India that you would magically wish away? Explain why.
Copy - Edit - Submit. This simple 3 step procedure was something that struck every students’ mind for submitting the answers to the questions in this application. And this habit, technically more of a problem is exactly what I would like to change with the Indian population using the magic wand. There is instant trigger in the neural veins of most Indians to find a “Jugaad” - an easy, short and less straining method for anything and everything. Instead of reading the instructions put forth us for the purpose of understanding, we read and re-read until we find a short-cut. And in this haste, we don't realize that we are creating a hassle for the whole system by leading to unwanted delays in the procedural functions.