Happy Onam…….. and the (joys and sadness) of a nomad at IMD…

Onashamsakal (Happy Onam in my Indian language – ‘Malayalam’) everyone!!!

Yes, I know you all are probably wondering what in the world is Onam?? Onam is an Indian festival celebrated by South Indians from the State of Kerala in India...it is a (rice) harvest festival celebrated by all religions alike in Kerala…it is also a celebration of the generous, benevolent and judicious King Mahabali of Kerala who cared dearly about his people and the subjects of Kerala….it’s a celebration of prosperity and giving……for more Onam legends and stories

http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/Onam-Legends.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam

….but what did this all mean to me growing up outside India in Dubai – it simply meant a day with the entire family, relatives, friends with lots of traditional Keralite food served on a banana leaf and eating until the food coma would finally give you no choice but to pass out on the couch…..you would wake up and start eating sweet deserts again!! Since I had returned from the US, 4 years ago to Dubai, I was lucky to be able to spend Onam with the family in Dubai. However, yet again, this year was the first Onam when we didn't have the parents and family around….and I was not going to disappoint my North Indian wife (they don’t celebrate Onam in North India!!) and so I set out on Sunday to gather traditional Indian groceries in Lausanne to replicate some of my mom’s famous dishes – Sambar, Coconut chutney – and I got to work…luckily with my mom’s recipes, some magic Indian spices and lots of prayers, it turned out great and put a happy smile on our faces sitting miles away from home in Lausanne…

It’s interesting that all this is happening during week-2 of interviews at IMD and we constantly are asked “where would you like to work, would you like to return home or work in Europe, etc” …..so would I like to return to Dubai, join the family, the friends and familiar backgrounds or should we travel more and see the world? it’s a tough choice most days because on the one hand you have comfort and familarity while on the other hand it’s adventure and new beginnings….where do you draw the line between wanting to be around family and friends (aka being very happy) and between exploring new journeys and new adventures (aka not always being super happy)…..I can tell you for now, we have decided to take the adventure path and try to stay in Europe and explore…let’s hope the recruiting companies feel the same way about me J

But this is the life of a global nomad or an IMD MBA…most of us have lived and worked outside home and have a deeper appreciation for adventure and cultural diversity….but this means we have to keep travelling and venturing out there, exploring and this means many a missed Onam, Christmas, Ramadan, Eid or family gatherings, weddings, celebrations etc….this is the price we pay for that global adventure!.......as one of our professors has told me before - "I think you already made the choice between comfort and adventure when you decided to come to IMD!" 

For now I am absolutely enjoying the sambar I cooked, the many phone calls from the parents and family back home and the thought that we could be anywhere, anyplace come 2014 and the best part is ….we have no clue of where that place is going to be and probably won't until November.......

In the spirit of Onam – keep sharing, keep giving and keep smiling!

Best regards,

Vikas Menon​

 

The week(s) from hell…..

Yes, I am back from Earth’s darkest corners aka the IMD dungeons and Lorange……I must apologize to my 1.5 readers and any applicants who (like some of us did last year) were eagerly reading the blogs with no fresh information….it’s been the week(s) from hell…..between last week and this week we have had 2 applied finance exams (the first one definitely killed me), 7 job applications (and this is just the ones I applied to…I know some of my classmates who have had many more), 2 deadlines for papers, a full day of an innovation exercise, a strategy group case assignment, a Brazilian party, my lovely sister in law and her husband visiting us for a week, company presentations, our ICP 2(International Consulting Project) client and scoping meetings….and wait did I mention that we have a few more deadlines this week and our final integrative exercise coming up at the end of the week (yes, the one where we are forced to pretend that we can function on caffeine and absolutely no sleep for 2 days while trying to solve assignments that encompass everything we have learnt so far)….and oh wait, we have OCR (on campus recruitment) starting for 2 weeks from Monday! The word overwhelmed would be a mild statement to describe the way I feel…

Amidst all this intensity, we had our last Strategy class with Prof. Margaret today…fortunately for my ICP group, she is our faculty director so we will be seeing more of her in October…we had our last leadership class, our last innovation class and I guess tomorrow will be our last applied finance class……

My new ICP 2 project focuses on helping an emerging IT solutions company develop a global partnership strategy and I think we have an absolutely great team…..I will most definitely miss my previous team where we laughed every minute even if it meant working into the early hours of the morning or working on the plane en-route the client site….we have become close friends and have many ICP 1 memories from all the way in Helsinki to London through Lasuanne....having said that my ICP 2 team comprises of my Russian-Canadian, Tunisian-French, Canadian, Romanian, Russian classmates and my Indo-Dubai self…….between us we have backgrounds in M&A, Strategy, Business Development, IT, Telecom, Project Management, Consulting, Sales, General Management, etc……we start our project in October and until then we keep busy with first round of interviews….

While we say goodbye to a number of classes, we are also approaching those first interviews, case preparations, applications and all those things which looked like an eternity away earlier this year…

We bloggers will definitely try to update ya’ll with more info but if you don’t see us around, be sure to know that we are running on the espresso train to destination no sleep!

Ciao Ciao!

Vikas Menon