18 June, 2016 900 HRS:
I step out of the Warp Drive 2.0. It took me just 6 minutes to travel the breadth of this country from Assam to Ghaziabad, contrary to the usual 36 hr train journey. The Warp Drive 2.0 travels faster than the speed of light and sound combined and can take you around the world in 80 minutes. My first glance from the gates of IMT embraced the space age design building in front of me. I’ve heard each inch of this campus is ambient temperature controlled. So, no sweltering hostels or spine chilling classrooms can be found. This part of the country is notorious for the extremes in temperatures. IMT has a campus so lush and colossal that no person has ever explored it in its entirety. So there are still ample places for those clandestine rendezvous. I boarded the air conditioned Walkalator X2 that serpentined the entire campus towards my stride into IMT. A small step from me, a giant leap of faith.
The documentation is taken care of by Robots eliminating any delay or glitches. We were allotted hostel rooms on the basis of an exhaustive form filled up by us about our likes, dislikes, principles and propositions. An erroneous roommate might mean a year of pain in the place meant only for sitting down on or excreting with.
Then we move on to the Luncheon organized for us, with an extensive spread of delicacies from around the world. For the non-vegetarians you can hunt/fish your own meal and for the vegetarians you can cut your own trees, fresh to your platter. What great fun lunch can be. In a corner of the canteen stood the BodyBetter 2.0, the knobs facilitated in picking the exact body structure you want to achieve, walk in and voila! You are Shakira or you are Beckham.
The hostel rooms are like no other, fully temperature controlled, self-cleaning, room-serviced, two bedroom apartments with state-of –the-art amenities. The dreary process of unpacking and setting up base for 2 years was handled by the UnZip Department consisting of human supervisors and Humanoid employees.
What happened next has a beautiful Assamese word to it - “Godhuli” the scarlet sun went down behind the library building. The buzz of IMT turned into a hum. IMT is a study of social and cultural milieu of the species present. And campus crop circle called the Amphitheatre, its breeding ground. You chance upon the placement agnostic and also the believer. You encounter the sutte-baaz smoking his last…cigarette, also the health freak on his N-th run around the ground. You hang out with a breed of music high performers while grinning at the bookworm dash for the library.
Classes at IMT do not start immediately, as you get time to ease yourself in to the culture shock, and a diversity of other shocks yet to befall upon you. So, its 10 days of fun, frolic, socializing, letting your hair down for a while and rewarding yourself for cracking a tough egg like IMT. I’ve heard these 10 days seep into our usual action-packed schedules and are a fresh breath of parties amongst the pre-reads, assignments, market surveys, PPTs.
Every day is a special day. Each class a magical one. Each teacher is equipped with a technologically advanced and revolutionary tool, a Wand-R-Last, a hi-tech techno-wand that recreates audio visual examples, theories, concepts right there in front of your eyes. The instructor waves his wand and recreates Maslow’s Pyramid. No engineer, no non-economist is ever left wondering in class about the concept he just couldn’t grasp. That’s the T in IMT, technology.
Every little birdie spreads its wings and takes the leap of faith to see itself soaring high. And so the little birdies of IMT are speculate and look forward to the 2 year after event- Placements. Now IMT’s placements are one of a kind. It relishes exclusive upper hand over companies for being the best among the Indian B School Titans. Companies arrive on campus and file a Letter of Intent which is then mailed to the students. A student shortlists a maximum of 5 dream companies and interviews their HR. The general line of questioning follows: “Why should I work for your company?”, “Please give an example of how your company survived the crunch and how it will be able to retain and interest an IMTian?”, “How do you feel about me working from home?”, etc. In case a company is able to astound a student, their offer is accepted and the company is asked to wait for a joining date from the student.
P.S It was difficult to concoct IMT into a Utopia, because you devise one out of a dystopia but IMT is as utopian as it gets. I’ve found tranquility in its chaos.