A Breath of Fresh Air...

I rushed up the stairs as quickly as I could, cursing the numbers(the famed '96 Stairs to Knowledge'). I was looking around searching for a familiar face, anyone... but to no avail. I hurried through the corridors; the sweeper working there gave me wry smile and a condescending shake of the head and I could only grin back at him.

For the second day in two days since the start of the term, I was late for the first class. And not knowing what lay in store when I reached the class (as we had never experienced the professor scheduled to come and going by the previous day’s happenings), only made the struggle more severe.

I thanked the heavens when I found only my fellow students waiting in the class and suddenly, the entire drama (within my mind) seemed uncalled for. With a smiling nod to the known faces, I started easing down in the now-familiar cushioned seat on the last row.

No sooner had I settled down, an elderly-looking person strode in nonchalantly to the classroom and I could only guess that he was the professor for the lecture. I immediately stood up to wish (again, an outcome of the previous day’s acrimonious experience) and the person with a wave of the hand, commanded us to sit. Once more as I settled in to the cushions, I saw people moving ahead upto the professor. I joined the crowd thinking that the professor was calling us closer to demonstrate something. A bit early in the class, but still did not come across as overly odd.

Imagine my (and everyone else’s) surprise when he asked us sit on the floor around him. This was something new, completely a bolt from the blue for me and with astonishment writ on our faces, we settled down around the professor. And that was when we were introduced to the maverick mind of Dr. Prasad, fondly known as ‘Dr. Mandi’.

Dr. Mandi - Among the junta

For the next hundred minutes or so, he amazed us with his non-conformist thinking, unconventional vision, peculiar talking style and witty sense of humour.

The discussion primarily revolved around the particulars of NITIE’s famous event ‘Mandi’ – where budding managers from NITIE are asked to take to the streets of Mumbai to sell an educational/socially-relevant product/toy.

‘Mumbai’ – the breeding grounds for entrepreneurship and its ‘Streets’ – the perfect cauldron to learn the basics of salesmanship at its rawest. The idea intrigued me instantly and I resolved to get into its groove at the slightest chance offered. As we discussed more on the topic, the specifics got clearer and the participation of the class and our interest in the topic began increasing.

Dr. Mandi then produced certain items from his ‘potli’ – a stress ball with a globe painted on it and a self-balancing toy – to add to a Newton’s swing he had earlier taken out. He then went on chide our ‘engineering knowledge’ (the lack of it) on the physics of the same. But these were the things to sell in ‘Mandi’ and we were encouraged to think of ways to do precisely that – something that we will be required to do as managers in the future. We hoped that we could do better as managers than as the engineers that we had just demonstrated.

Two things from the lecture stood out for me:

• Dr. Mandi said that, in any endeavour that we do, we should not only profit from it ourselves but see to it that the person we engage with during it, also profits, in any or all manner possible.                                                                                                      Made sense for selling educational products (and not just any fancy junk) in an activity like Mandi, making it socially responsible as well. Consider a boy playing with the globe ball; it may well increase his knowledge about the world’s geography while playing.
• Dr. Mandi’s concept of ‘aaj ka khana aaj hi kamao’. 85% of our class had left well-paying jobs to enrol in a 6-lakh course at NITIE. The earning potential we have foregone is enormous. To gain back that amount, we need to ensure that we earned something for ourselves during our time on the campus (apart from knowledge and the ‘degree’ of course).                                                                                         These were precisely my thoughts before joining the course and to find a professor reiterate the same made me think hard about it again. And already, I have got some ideas which hopefully will be put into action (more on those ideas will come later)

Though Dr. Mandi propounded many more thoughts and concepts, these were the two that will remain with me as takeaways from the lecture.

An amazing start to what promises to be a very interesting term with a very interesting professor.

The empty chairs in Dr. Mandi's class

Frankly, I was a bit fazed by the usual line-up of professors that had come and taught us so far in the preceding day. It was like engineering college all over again. I thought ‘But this was supposed to be NITIE, one among the premier colleges of the country’. 

Then, along came Dr. Mandi, like a breath of fresh air. If nothing else, made me happy about my decision of coming here and not going elsewhere.

Hope to write many more such experiences in the times to come…