Mandi Experience - Part 2

With the sumo sized goons behind us, we tried to figure out.our next destination. Andheri seemed like a place where we could have had some sales, so with our destination in mind, we were heading in that direction with a debat between me and Anshul on how we could.have settled scores with those goons. Of course our wishful thinking was interrupted with a realization that our normal lunch time is running out. My teammate's hunger pangs were becoming evident. At this time, we were not looking out for possible sales point, but for places to eat. I reminded my friend about the huge inventory of toys still left unsold in our bag and tried to.persuade to him to skip lunch, but I guess my friends growling stomach does not like to be put on a lower priority. Despite my request to complete our sales targets, his stomach voiced its opinions loud and clear. Finally we went to a restaurant in Saki Naka, spent about 15 minutes waiting for a waiter(I guess our black yellow uniform t-shirts did give us a peculiar look, but it was interesting) then we spent over 40 minutes waiting for food, and finally spent more on our food than we had earned. Spending more than my earning,hah!!! Thankgod it was just an assignments of a college, had it been real life, my financial planning would have taken a beating by now. Next thing you know, I am defaulting on my payments. Anyways, with our stomachs now full of Chinese cuisine, we tried to search for a spot to sell a bag full of toys as close as possible to our location. With a full stomach, our motivation to sleep took over the motivation to complete our assignment.
We were now staring out of the autorickshaw at people waiting at bus stops, or walking on streets, or even trying to hail a cab, judging them for prospective customers. After half hour, our sleep was replaced with desperation to rid our bag.
From what we had heard, some students had already sold all their products, and it was late in the afternoon we were running behind schedule. The situation had turned critical, and we were just getting started on our work. So from Saki Naka, our team rushed to Kanjurmarg. The place where we were told that was a strong hold of NITIE Mandi team. We asked our driver to rush to the point, and the next thing you know, we were praying for seats and safety gear in the back seats. I think I need to recommend the driver to a formula one team for his excellent driving skills. When I stepped out of the car, I checked if I had wet my pants, checked if I was stable enough to walk. Yeah, all was well. I had just turned back into a theist.
With the rest of the NITIE students in sight, my team mate and I regained some confidence. Some of them had more inventory of toys left in their bag. Yes!!!!! Finally more people like us. On top of that, we had a popular music channel crew covering our event. With a camera and a pretty lady by our side, some of us were able to get the attention of lot more people than we were able to do earlier. Unfortunately, I was not among the lucky ones to sell products on camera. With another destination in our mind, we headed for Marine drive to sell the bag full of goods. Seriously??? Whose idea was it to travel 35 km in Mumbai traffic? Enroute to Marine drive, we had to stop by our deserted college to pick up my laptop. Why pickup the laptop? To utilize our travel time to do our media assignment. Again, seriously, whose weird idea was it? At 5 PM, there was a race against time for selling some toys and also completing the assignment. Lesson learnt- it was a bad bad idea. The next 1.5 hours were spent traveling in a corner space on.a car with my fingers furiously typing the keyboard of the laptop. Thankfully the keyboard survived my trembling angry fingers.

The long journey cramped in the back seat of a tiny car, really got me a sore back, and then finally when we reached our destination, my team mate and I were desperately working on our laptops and making multiple frantic calls until all the power in our cell phones and laptops got drained. Only after we realized that the ships have sailed, and we missed boarding it, we gave up. The assignment that I had for the day was left incomplete. Remind me once again about the main lesson I am supposed to have learnt about time management. Oh yeah, an MBA student without proper time management definitely ends up with watering eyes, be it from strained vision or drained emotion. Trust me, you will find some of us crying their guts out after horrible weekends without sleep, or exam results that went south.

Coming back to Mandi objective, it was close to 8:30 PM in the evening, and we were at Marine Drive stepping out of the car. We realized that the weather was pleasant, so who would not want to support a noble cause and bring additional solace to themselves? We set out again to scout for prospective customers, and this time, we saw many of our colleagues dressed in similar black yellow T-shirts without anything in their hands. At this point of time, I was hoping that they would have kept their bag full of inventory at some safe spot. But unfortunately god is not that gracious. They recounted their experiences wherein they were able to sell almost all their inventory, within minutes of entering Marine Drive. With a bit of hope, when we tried to approach some people, they jumped upon seeing us and desperately begged us, not to bother them. It seemed that our colleagues had swept this area clean of all prospective customers. We were now branded as the scum, untouchable, to be kept away, to be looked down upon. Before we could say much, most people put up a grumpy face or a highly vocal language (censored here) to shoo us away.

It was a tough next 2 hours selling some of the inventory, and by the end of the 2 hours, we had given up any more hopes of selling. The only motivation to walk after a treacherous day was the journey back to my room, my bed, my precious sleep.

So if someone asked for Counting the Goods sold - don’t care. Money earned - Don’t care.

Ultimate result – slept for 7 hours straight, well -except when someone woke me up to remind me that I was almost sleeping on the floor.