Mood Indigo – A Management perspective

It was hyped as Asia’s largest college festival. During those days, IIT Bombay becomes the place where the World wants to be for the best four days of their lives. And finally, as a first year MBA student of Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay, I got a chance to witness this extravaganza. Reached campus on the morning of 20^th December in the middle of a semester break because it was time for Mood Indigo 2013!

The built up to the main event had been amazing with a lot of shows prior to the event, gatherings in different cities across India, strong promotion on social media and a buzz around the campus all of which raised the expectations from the festival. And indeed, Mood I, as we call it, did not disappoint. It was 4 days of non-stop entertainment where every corner of the 550 acres IITB campus was buzzing with activity. Be it the announced competitions, the on-the-spot fun events, extempore competitions, interactive sessions, workshops, entertainment events or media events, the enthusiasm of the crowd was there to be seen. Just when the energy levels were at their peak, there would be a fresh shot of adrenaline for the evening concerts. And after an intensity filled concert, late night shows would be a perfect way to chill while appreciating some classy acts. That followed by some fun sessions around a campfire which went on till the wee hours of the morning would ensure that no one sleeps during the 4 days of Mood I.

The events during the festival were classified into 3 categories and a different team managing each category. The “Competitions” category would have all the announced competitions grouped together where colleges would nominate teams and a contingent leader from each college contingent would co-ordinate participation from his/her college. This category covered almost every competition ever seen in a college festival, you name it and it was there! A hard fought battle of supremacy where each contingent put in their best men and women and weeks of tireless practices to bring glory to their college! The “Informals” category was about all the on-the-spot competitions, media events and sponsor events. Events like “pit stop challenge”, “She’s got the look” and many quizzes and races gave participants an opportunity to rare experiences.

The “Horizons” was the category of events where Mood Indigo threw all its star power at the crowd. Interactive sessions with the likes of Amir Khan, humour shows featuring the best of theater artists and performers from worldwide set to accomplish 1 task – Entertain! These events drew crowds from the other end of the globe and were expectedly, the most watched! The concerts featured the best performers with Euphoria on one evening and Mohit Chauhan on another. There was Mike Portnoy doing his magic with the drums too. There was of course, much more than went around the campus day and night everyday and every night!

So what is it that makes Mood Indigo such a success story? Asia’s largest college festival, and undoubtedly the best for such a long time. Is there something that the organizers manage to get right every time or are there any inherent advantages that Mood I enjoys? Let’s try and analyze this 4 days extravaganza from the lens of a management student.

Let’s first look at the most fundamental analysis of Mood I – The 4P analysis:-

Product: - The fundamental of marketing is to have a quality product which can be sold. Every college has its own cultural festival. So what is it about Mood Indigo as a festival that sets it apart? I believe it is the quality of competitions. To attract colleges, you need good competitions and Mood I manages a perfect mix of traditional competitions and a lot of innovative competitions which challenges the youth of the country to come and test their limits.

Price: - A good product would not sell if it isn’t priced appropriately is an uncompromising rule in marketing. All the competitions in Mood I are without any entry fee. Participants are provided accommodation for 4 days on campus at a minimal charge. All a participating college needs to do is to get on campus, participate with all their might and enjoy the event. The returns are alluring too! Winners not only get a healthy monetary reward but more importantly some opportunities they can grab are enviable. For example direct entries into Miss India audition finals!!

Place: - Mumbaaaiii! The financial and fun capital of India. Easy to attract sponsors and easy to attract participants and performers from all over the globe. To top it up, there is the brand name that IIT Bombay enjoys as the most prestigious college in the country. And with that comes all the facilities and facilitating power that the organizers use to the very best! An inherent advantage that makes the job of the organizers a tad easy.

Promotion: - Say the word “Mood Indigo” to a young graduate from a respectable college in India and you will know the brand image this festival enjoys! The promotion starts months in advance with a classy website and a lot of social media activity. Just the way they launch the name of the rock band which will perform for the event generates anticipation! You will have a countdown on Twitter and facebook, and the name announcement online will coincide with physical banners being put on all over the campus. All at one time! Besides, Mood I also does shows in cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Pune etc. months in advance as a built up to the main event. There are also shows done on campus like the Bawanraas concert in October this year along with Avenues and School of Management, IIT Bombay. Partnering with print, TV and radio media provides visibility of the best kind on a regular basis. Good promotion is what sells a product and Mood I puts its might into promoting the event extensively in the most impeccable manner possible! No wonder it attracts participation from over 3000 colleges and a footfall of over 1,04,000 people!

Let us now do a quick SWOT analysis of the festival to see what we do well and what is it that can be done better.

A close observation will yield some of the major strengths and weaknesses of Mood Indigo while a small thought will show some opportunities waiting to be capitalized. A little bit of effort and better involvement of the entire student community of IIT Bombay can help the organizers overcome the weaknesses listed above and make the festival more complete. Mood Indigo has many flagship events but there is an opportunity to create that one event which goes beyond global boundaries and is the most anticipated event of the year. Something like robowars in the field of robotics. Since the event attracts 1000s of people, crowd management becomes an important part and should be outsourced to agencies meant for specialized crowd management. Festivals like these often attract controversies and Mood I needs a good PR team to avoid and manage controversies if any.

All in all, there are some fundamental managerial advantages that Mood Indigo enjoys which make it Asia’s largest college festival and these need to be developed on a constant basis to ensure that the tag isn’t lost anytime soon.

Changing society – A man’s perspective

Over the last 1 year, we have seen a lot of concern in the country over security of our women. Cases of atrocities against women coming to light almost every day and getting extensive media coverage. We have seen candle marches and demonstrations of solidarity with women of our country. All this in a country which made sati a norm, is a refreshing sign, a sign of changing times. But on 16^th December, all Hindi news channels had shows asking if Delhi has changed and is more secure than a year before. Surprisingly, all of them concluded that not much has changed in Delhi. Then what is it that has actually changed?

When I went for a concert a week back, I stood in line for 2 hours to make sure I get to stand right in front in the audience. And I achieved that too. Half an hour into the concert, a girl approached me from behind and said “Excuse me, I can’t see a thing please move aside”. A gentle request in a jam packed place. I politely responded saying “There is hardly any place for me to move ma’am”. Then came her sharp reply “Dude I can’t see, MOVE!” This time, it was an order. And all I could do was just push back and allow her to go ahead. Then, her friend. And another friend. And in no time, I moved from 2^nd row to about 8^th. So much for all the effort in getting in line 2 hours in advance, braving the heat and moving in early!

In another incident, a friend of mine stood in a queue for an hour to get in to a talk by a Bollywood superstar. The queue happened to extend to hundreds of meters with over a thousand people in it. To his surprise, after an hour, the organizers asked the girls to move out and make another queue and that queue was allowed entry much earlier than the male queue. Girls who came into the queue an hour after my poor friend got in before him. On inquiring, he was told that one of the girls complained about a lot of “pushing” going on in the queue which made them feel uncomfortable. My friend later swore to me that there was absolutely nothing of that sort going on! But nothing would make the organizers agree to that fact!

THAT is what has changed in the past year! There is fear today amongst guys like me in confronting a girl no matter how right we are or how wrong the girl is. We fear because it may just lead to the next big controversy about women exploitation and no self respecting man wants to be seen as male chauvinist. This leads to an undue advantage to girls, “some” of whom exploit it to their benefit.

Our laws are getting stricter in favour of women which is a good thing as long as they do not put innocent men at a disadvantage. I do not know if the recent changes in our laws have put men at a disadvantage but it certainly has created a sense of fear in men. Fear in men wanting to do wrong to a woman is what we should attempt to create but fear in all men? We recently heard Mr. Farooq Abdullah saying that he fears keeping a female secretary. Unfortunately that is what we have managed to achieve!

Look at it this way. If a girl accuses you of exploitation of a physical nature, what defense do you have to prove your innocence? Before you can even try and prove yourself not guilty in the court of law, the society and the media would have already branded you guilty and barred you from all social interaction. How would you face your friends and relatives and neighbors? The media today tends to blow up every little case of women exploitation on just a complaint of the “victim” with little care for the court’s verdict. Once accused, you are assumed to be guilty without any doubt! And by the time you do manage to prove your innocence in court (if at all the law has provisions which may help you), thanks to our legal structure half your life is already over!

At this point I would like to clarify that I do not justify or support any atrocities against women and am totally against all men who indulge in women harassment of any nature. I am also in favor of strict action against such men and better laws which help protect our women. My concern here is the nature of the change that our society is going through. We are slowly moving towards a more conservative and a closed social structure rather than a structure where men and women are at par, interact freely and without fear of any nature on either side. In a society where we talk of gender equality, is this change a good one? And whom should we blame for this state today? In fact can I call it a “state” at all? May be not because it is just a small section of men who would feel this way today and the larger section of society sadly, is still oppressive towards women. But if this does become the norm in the future, would we have succeeded in our motive of building a society which is not biased towards any gender?

Of cattle class travel and the masses of India

Woke up at 5AM for the 1st time this holiday to travel to Indore to meet some uncles I hadn't met in years. With temperatures at 8 degrees and a 6:30 train to catch, this was one difficult morning! As is the custom with me these days, I reached station seconds before the train departure time. But luckily, the train today was running late, thank fog for that because I had to still buy a ticket! Now I had never travelled general category which may be regarded as the "cattle class" of Indian railways and since this was a short 3 hour journey, I decided to take a chance. Life is nothing but a mix of experiences and I expected this one to be a hell of an experience!

So with the ticket secured, I was all set for the journey and waiting for the train which decided to show up only at 7! In the meanwhile, a man known to dad approached him and started off a conversation. He took stock of me and the rest of my family and gave us some uninvited gyaan about his family. I've always felt that such experiences where you get in contact with the masses offer a great insight into the society we live in and these journeys to and back from Indore were no different. And that is exactly what I had signed up for! For example, this gentleman of ours told us "mera bada beta pehle yahaan 8000 ki naukri kar raha tha ab Dilli mein 28000 pe hai, khush hai". Or "Saab 20 saal aur 200 crore ke ghotalo ke baad ab jaakar apne vidhaayak ji ka tod aaya hai" implying that the corrupt incumbent MLA finally lost. Or "samaaj ke Marriage fair mein jaa raha hun Saab, bade bete ke liye koi khaate peete khaandaan ki lugaai dekhne". Marriage fairs? Really?

Must confess that his last statement shook my determination to travel cattle class. I mean these marriage fairs attract a lot of people which means that the train would be overflowing with such people! Dad sensed my fear and with an "I told you so" expression, offered me a drop to the bus stand for me to take a comfortable bus instead. But hell! I may never get a chance to experience this again and I didn't wanna let it go! The train arrived, not as full as I expected and so I jumped in and managed to get myself a… ummmm…  seat if you can call it because I was the 6^th guy to sit on that seat made for 4. And thus, the journey began…

This post is about the different kind of people you will encounter in journeys like these – the real masses of a considerably backward state of Madhya Pradesh. So the first guy of the day was the over enthusiastic, overtly friendly gentleman of ours who valued everything in monetary terms.  Then there was the kumbakaran of the journey. This guy slept below our seat, on the floor of the train right through the journey totally oblivious to all the chaos around. It was only later after the train reached its destination that he told us he’s a labourer and has a hard day’s work ahead and has to travel somewhere else at night. He’s been doing that since a week and hasn’t got enough sleep hence, the 4 hour nap at everyone’s footrest to cover up. #Respect

Then there was the “bade baap ki aulaad” and the “jaat bhai”. So this guy entered the train to sell his chanas and was confronted by this mid aged man who was upset because he did not get a seat. A fight quickly brewed up where this man fired the chana guy for entering an overcrowded train for his business and the chana guy retaliated saying he’s just doing his job. Over the next 20 minutes I heard all possible bad words in Hindi where these 2 involved their mothers and sisters and the other guy’s mother and sister. For a moment I thought they were long lost friends. How else would they even know that the other guy had a mother or sister? ;) This man went on about how the other guy doesn’t know ki “main kaun hun” and the other guy went on about how he would get all his chana selling jaat bhais together to screw this man.

An uncle, the wise guy, sitting next to me finally ended the fight saying “baatein band karo aur maarna shuru karo” after which, both our “brave” men quietly walked away from each other. A little later, our “bade baap ki aulaad” announced in the bogie that all of us should make place for all ladies to get a seat. “koi mata aur behene khadi nahi rahengi aaj” he said to my surprise considering that minutes back he was using all the maa-behen abuses known to mankind.

Nothing more on the onward journey but enough on the return journey to make me tweet incessantly from the train and eventually write this blog post. So I again reached the station minutes before the train would depart only to learn that this time, I had no place to sit in the train at all! The Marriage fair was supposedly over and everyone decided to return by this very train! I still got in with the determination to stand for the next 3 hours but NOTHING could get me to leave this train and take a bus instead! Yeah I am like that, ek baar jo maine decide kar liya fir main kisi ki nahi sunta. :P Luckily, in a while I got a seat. This one, on the top berth meant for luggage and on a platform made of wood! Damn this wasn’t expected! Out of a mini depression, I picked up a book and started to read.

Very soon, something caught my ears. It was a conversation between the uncles sitting below about Aam Aadmi Party, its promises and its fortunes in Delhi. Now that’s interesting. Here there were some mid aged to old aged men making a mockery of a political party which a lot of youth consider the future of Indian politics. Given my interest in politics, I HAD to listen to this! Very soon the conversation got the whole compartment involved. There was an old uncle, a few mid aged uncles, a few young uncles and 3 guys of my age sitting on top listening to the great uncles share there gyaan. The old uncle was the pessimist who said that AAP wouldn’t run for 3 months. A younger uncle who was also trying to be the ring leader said that he would give AAP less than a month and a half. Somehow, all the uncles agreed that AAP wouldn’t last long to which we young guys, just looked at each other and smiled.

The conversation soon turned to predictions about the 2014 general elections where the uncles bet on a sweep for BJP in the Hindi heartland and a majority for regional parties in other areas. All of them completely wrote off the Congress and called our Prime Minister a “rubber stamp” PM. That jibe somehow, has never gone down well with me. I mean c’mon, he is after all the Prime Minister of our country and we ought to be respectful to the post! But here, I was just a listener and not a contributor to the conversation. May be I would give my verdict in a most filmy manner while getting off the train and then expect a standing ovation from the uncles just like in the movies. ;)

The conversation soon moved on to corruption where each of them cited various instances where they have faced corruption. Quite ironic as most of them were travelling without tickets and blaming the government for the state of the nation. “Saab raajneeti ne desh ko duba diya hai… Is government ne toh akaash, bhu, agni, paani kisi bhi cheez ko nahi choda”. Sadly it’s become a trend for our countrymen to blame the government for everything wrong while we ourselves are responsible for making things so wrong with our country! Such hypocrites we are aren’t we?

A statement from the uncles I will never forget. “Engineer 2 tarah ke hote hain. Government college waale aur bazaar waale”. Was highly amusing to me how private colleges were referred to as “bazaar”. It is after all a market with Indore itself having more than 100 private engineering colleges! An interesting topic then started about the advent of mobile phones and Internet. A supposedly “modern” uncle spoke about this “great” new technology which tells a person where he is at that moment and to other uncle’s disbelief, can direct him to his destination with exact instructions. On hearing that, I quickly closed my Google maps which I was using to track my train’s progress and put my phone in my pocket.

While our learned old men conversed about almost every topic from politics to technology and education to weddings, we, “the future of India” as they called us, were quietly listening and absorbing and tweeting in my case. Their conversation was then interrupted by what I would call, the moment of the journey. A guy entered the bogie to sell his bhel and his unique style would put the best marketeers in our country to shame. I cannot recollect his whole “advertisement” for the bhel but the punch line went like “agar maza na aaye khaane mein toh rapat likhaao meri thane mein”! There was also a mention of Asaram Bapu in his pitch which invited a big laugh from all the passengers. Obviously, it resulted in good sale for him.

There is something that you will notice about people if you look carefully. We tend to be more accommodating and considerate when we sit together and have a random conversation to which, we share the same point of view. In an overtly full compartment, our uncles suddenly noticed a couple of men standing on the side and quickly made some adjustments and invited them to take a seat. It probably is a way to earn brownie points in a gathering of like-minded people by showing others how considerate you are as there isn’t much that differentiates you from others.

The last part of my journey was something that summed it up for me. When the conversation between the uncles was on the topic of sanskaars and how money cannot by sanskaars, one of them started smoking a beedi, an Indian alternative to a cigarette. To this, another middle aged gentleman, who had been quiet right through the journey said “uncle abhi sanskaaron ki baat kar rahe the aur ab bahu-betiyon ke saamne beedi pe rahe ho”? I so wanted to start clapping for this gentleman who delivered the punch line which I hoped to deliver myself at the end of the journey! Such hypocrites we are aren’t we?

With that arrived my station and I took leave of these strangers whom I would probably never see again but helped me to an entertaining and enriching journey. Entertaining as I did not realize how those 3 hours passed and enriching as there is always so much you can learn about people whom you don’t interact with on a day-to-day basis through such experiences.  Guys and girls, if you are adventures and want to learn what our real masses think like, take my advice and travel cattle class in train once. Be open to all kind of people around and do not hesitate in dropping in to a random conversation. You never know when and where an experience like this might come in handy…

Sexism in Mood Indigo? Yeah Right!

It was Day 2 of the most amazing college festival that I had ever attended and after standing in queue for over an hour, we managed to get passes to the Euphoria concert that evening. The day had been good with some amazing competitions and shows and the built up to the concert had been brilliant with Papon and the East India company entertaining the 6800+ crowd at IIT Bombay. The concert had been highly anticipated and Euphoria did not disappoint! The energy they brought to the whole place was simply amazing! And with that ended yet another day at Asia’s largest college festival…

It wasn't until the next evening that I logged on to Twitter and saw Palash Sen trending. On further investigation, I learnt that some of his comments during the concert last evening had “hurt” one of my female colleagues who went on to write a blog about it which has been now blown into a full-fledged controversy. WHAT? Really? It was such an amazing concert! On reading the blog I felt disappointed that it was written by a fellow student at India’s most prestigious institute. If the world calls us the most intelligent kids in the country, shouldn't we be more tolerant and appreciative of humor? And sadly, Palash Sen was quoted completely out of context in the blog and later during the “outrage” on social media. Disappointing is how I would describe this whole episode and here is my humble attempt at justifying some good humor that happened at IIT Bombay.

So my fellow student says that Palash Sen asked the students in attendance if there are good looking women in IIT. Standing in probably the 3^rd or 4^th row from the stage, I saw that as a genuine question (if you may call it) to the crowd. His words went “IIT ki khubsoorat ladkiyon” which tells me that he probably wanted to dedicate the next song to all the girls in IIT or something. And since in our culture, we are taught to treat our women with respect, he added a prefix “khubsoorat”. I mean, how would just “IIT ki ladkiyon” sound? He is, after all, an entertainer and cannot afford to be boring on stage. Yeah the majority of the crowd did say a loud NO in unison with a shake of the hand but hey, that is what we feel. If you go back and check the gender ratio in IIT Bombay you will be surprised by how skewed it is. In a democracy, we are free to express what we feel aren't we? Like writing blogs and stuff? So we did answer that question and unfortunately the answer was NO from almost all IIT Bombay male students and no, it wasn't preplanned! Now I’m sure Palash Sen would not have expected the answer he got from the crowd as there were, after all many pretty ladies on the campus during the festival. The innocent question sadly, has been misunderstood as an attempt to humiliate women and make them feel small. Sad!

No ma’am we do not believe that the world is made to “please us, our sensibilities and our sexual fantasies”. But yes we all want people around us to be good looking don’t we? I do not know a single girl who would not mention “good looking” as the 1^st or at max the 2^nd criterion as a must for the guy of her dreams. So please take it as it was, just a genuine response to an innocent question and not an attempt to malign women in any way. And yes we were talking about physical beauty alone at that juncture and not the inner beauty that we ALL possess.

The next objection raised was about the “rotiyaan belna” comment made by Palash Sen. Dear ma’am, since you confessed that you did miss out on the order of things that happened, I consider it my duty to remind you the complete statement there. He said “ladkiyaan tumhare liye rotiyaan belengi aur tum unke pair dabaoge” in almost the same breadth. And till the time of writing this article I did not hear any guy complaining about the “pair dabana” comment. Yes I totally agree that girls are not made to cook food for us and I am all for gender equality in the kitchen. But hey, are we made to dabaofy pair of women? Or is it that girls find rotiyaan belna demeaning and guys find pair dabaana rewarding? I leave that question for all to answer themselves but as for me, I do not find any of it demeaning or rewarding.

“You have to agree that men are more intelligent than women” you quote these words of his which, I must agree sound sexist. Well similarly our Gods killing our demons sound unfair or a judge sentencing a man to death sounds murderous. Why? Because they are all quoted out of context! If you take the whole episode into consideration, you will realize that he was referring to the skewed gender ratio in IIT Bombay which shows that more men have made it to IIT than women which may give an impression that men are more intelligent. And that is what he was referring to! But you choose to mislead readers by quoting something completely out of context.

“God is also a man” you say? In that case I should stop praying to all the devi’s we consider supreme. Poor Maa Laxmi has been spreading wealth around and poor Maa Saraswati has been spreading knowledge and Maa Kali destroying the evil. All in waste! Tch tch...

I completely agree that women are meant for larger things, to pursue their goals and not to look beautiful for the sake of someone else. Sadly, I now learn that they are not meant to enjoy some good humor in a festival meant for entertainment. And that is purely disappointing. Don’t remember when was the last time a guy felt “offended” by a joke cracked on him. Oh and before you ask, there are many floating around through messages and whatsapp. Should I, as a Marwari feel offended on all the kanjoos Marwari jokes doing the rounds? Think of those poor sardars who have been a subject of humor for ages now. If we all get so busy feeling offended and our media gets so busy covering all the offended people, what will happen of our country? Poor Kapil Sharma will be out of job in no time. Oh and I don’t even want to imagine what will happen of Russel Peters. Think of a society without sense of humor!

Dr. Palash Sen then went on to say that ladkiyaan padhaai karo aur IIT mein admission lo, to which, mind you, the whole crowd cheered and clapped (including guys)! I find it amazing how the advice has been taken as “unsolicited” while all the jokes have created such a “mental mob” and "violence" for you. Double standards you would call it? In my opinion, the advice is totally justified and I have the gender ratio data in IIT Bombay to back my comment.

Yes dear lady, people are “respectful and lovable beyond beauty or brains” but can we keep that aside and just enjoy a concert while being appreciative towards a guy genuinely trying to entertain? We can leave that discussion to a debate on the famous topic “Do beauty pageants objectify women?” This was neither the time nor the place to get so serious.

Some other details of the concert that have been conveniently forgotten are that Palash Sen did compliment one of the IIT B female students as the most beautiful member present in the crowd through a hindi proverb. He also said that “if boys were dumb, then why would there be a majority of boys at IIT?” Makes sense doesn't it? He also said that “women are the most beautiful creation of God” and at this time, I do believe it was the “inner beauty” he was talking about.

Towards the end of the concert I saw someone saying something into Palash Sen’s ears and he immediately coming on stage and stating an apology if he offended anyone with his comments. I now understand that it was either Euphoria manager or Mood Indigo organizer and this was done when our lady expressed her disappointment. Yes Palash Sen did apologize to the same crowd he supposedly offended on the same stage at the same time. Still, our lady demands a public apology? I somehow find this difficult to fathom.

Palash Sen says that he has been cracking this or a similar joke at every educational institute over the last 10 years. Why is it that it has offended our women only now? And by virtue of being most intelligent kids in the country (I don’t believe that, it’s just what people say), shouldn't we be able to appreciate humor better too?

To sum it up, I find this issue unnecessarily blown out of proportion and feel disappointed that a thoroughly entertaining concert has been overshadowed by this senseless controversy. I hope this ends right here in a good spirit and we as a country learn to be more tolerant and appreciative of good humor. Thank You Dr. Palash Sen and Euphoria for entertaining us, your energy right thorough the concert was commendable. And a genuine apology from me for the uncalled for controversy that followed.