While (almost) everyone has been showering love on my blogs, praising how I have been capturing my IIM Ahmedabad escapades in the sweetest, most binge-worthy manner, one mysterious batchmate has decided to zig while the world zags. According to them, I have been doing less rosy memoir and more woe-is-me diary. Now, my first instinct was to laugh it off and keep marching to my own tune. But, for a change (and perhaps to keep the mystery alive), I have decided to play along and sprinkle in their feedback. So, if my writing suddenly feels different, you know exactly who to thank (or blame).

Week-16 here refers to the week of August 04, 2025 to August 10, 2025. Taking a leaf out of my mysterious batchmate’s rose-tinted playbook, I shall focus only on the wins this week, conveniently sweeping under the rug that tiny episode from Management Communication where the impromptu speaking activity had us simmering in anxiety and flirting dangerously with existential dread. And let’s just pretend Section-A didn’t endure five back-to-back classes in a single day, prompting flashbacks to school and the soul-searching question: How on earth did we survive this as kids?

On the brighter side, many of us marked Raksha Bandhan, not in the grand, chaotic, all-hands-on-deck PGPX style, but in the quietly cherished way we all secretly long for: with our siblings, wrapped in the warm, unspoken comfort of family. The rest of the PGPX gang finally got the quiet time they had all been pining for and, hopefully, managed to recharge in the most luxurious way imaginable: drifting off into blissful slumber that stretched shamelessly from night deep into the morning. So, as you can see, life here isn’t all about gloom, doom, and quiz-crammed afternoons. Or is it?

While I am technically not supposed to dwell on quizzes, I simply must talk about the adrenaline-spiking spectacle that was this week’s impromptu speaking activity. You would think the seasoned PGPX crowd, veterans of top firms across the globe, would ooze confidence when spouting both wisdom and absolute nonsense in front of a packed room. And yet, you would be gloriously mistaken. I won’t say we did badly, but let’s just say the PGPX batch is firmly on the path to becoming future CEOs, just not quite ready to print the business cards yet. Mine certainly did, and my feedback sheet made sure of it.

But in a strange way, the jolt was necessary; we needed that mirror moment to shake us out of our cozy little slumber. And then it hits youm that’s the true spirit of an MBA: breaking you down ever so subtly, just so you can rebuild yourself into something spectacular. Nevertheless, we had our share of genuinely great speakers, and a few wonderfully theatrical ones, the kind whose performances will stick in your memory, ready to make you smile (or cringe) when you look back and reflect on them 20 years from now.

Jokes aside, what is IIMA if you can’t indulge in a little academic cribbing? Another week, another lunch peppered with the looming dread of quizzes on anything we have ever so much as breathed past in class. Monday and Tuesday brought the usual suspects, and the anxiety they so generously gift us. But by now, our immunity has toughened; each quiz feels less like an ambush and more like just another item on the day’s to-do list.

Adding to the academic pressure was the mock bidding process for the upcoming term. For the uninitiated, this is an academic auction of sorts, where 90% of the crowd remains thoroughly confused until the whole thing is over, 9% strut around convinced they have cracked the perfect strategy, and the remaining 1% walk away with all the cherries on the cake. The week was marked by people metaphorically banging their heads against the wall, desperately trying to balance the electives they wanted with the ones they were actually eligible for.

The mock bidding process turned out to be more fun than stressful, and while I escaped relatively unscathed, a few brave souls went all in, only to still end up in that fateful 90% of the batch.And the best part? This was just the mock run. The real deal promises even more confusion, more angst, and, somehow, even more fun.

But alongside all the academic cribbing lies the true main course of the week: gastronomic indulgence. This week saw more restaurant visits than mess appearances, with the highlights including pizza at 1 AM, Kung Pao bowl at 11 PM, Rava Onion Masala Dosa at 7 PM, Matcha Bubble Tea at 2 AM, and Bun Maska at 11 AM. I may have already forgotten what was taught in Corporate Finance this week, but I will forever remember the 1 AM Friday night pistachio affogato my friend ordered, and the sharp sting of dessert envy that came with it.

For the record, Ahmedabad has some of the best restaurants I have visited in months, a fact my taste buds celebrate but my bank account deeply resents. Moreover, my current state of unemployment is doing an abysmal job of reminding me that eating out should be a rare indulgence, not a daily ritual. May the heavens have mercy on my shrinking bank balance and my tightening jeans, which, for the record, I could still squeeze into just two days ago.

Riding that same wave of questionable decisions, I picked up a new hobby this week, and the irony is delicious. I used to rank this sport among the more obnoxious ones: squash. But thanks to (or should I say, because of) one over-enthusiastic Syndicate member, I now find myself on court daily, trading shots and collecting body aches like trophies after each exhausting hour. Nevertheless, I hope this hobby has staying power, and doesn’t quietly slip into the once upon a time pile like so many of my past enthusiasms.

So, as you can see, life at IIM Ahmedabad shifts faster than the tide: one moment you are riding high on pure enjoyment, the next you are staring down a mountain of academic load. But true to its word, IIM Ahmedabad delivers the experience of a lifetime. I don’t know where I will be 20 years from now, but I do know that the time spent here and the memories made will be enough to last more than one lifetime. Onwards, then, to another week of quizzes, deadlines, and all the beautiful chaos that comes with it (hope you are watching, mysterious batchmate!).