The Case of Case Writing

We went to the street,
To follow a lead.
Some hit the jackpot,
Some failed to get a slot.

Then the transition came from field to data,
Where we floundered in the now and was is.
Impressed as we were with the entrepreneur,
There was time when there were delays due to busy schedules.

Egos were deflated, advices given but not taken.
Some were lost in translation or trapped in protocols.
From long conversations- half in mind and half on screen.
Came out a case which added to our KASH.*

Hope we get a green signal,
To put it in spiral binding.
And enter a class one day and say.
This case written by my batchmate,
Tells you how to manage the customers and their tastes.

written in April 2008.

( This is for all those PhD scholars out there and for those who aren't too. It was written in my second year of FPM here in IIM A when we had a course on management teaching where we had to write a case with a decision problem for class teaching. It was great fun doing it. My first academic work. I wrote it along with Dada (Bhaskar Bhowmick) my batch mate from the strategy area. We got it registered in the IIM A case repository also, all thanks to his efforts actually !! This poem was written in the last class on the last page of my register while others were presenting !! :) and after a long long time ..actually rediscovered my writing skills during writing this poem. The poem describes our journey from the field to the case when we went out randomly on the streets to search for a lead. Some went to restaurants, paanwallas, chaiwallas and the likes.. Our professor told us to just go walk the streets and discover some interesting leads. He recounted his days as a consultant when he used to leave a poem behind on the desk of the CEO after completing his assignment based on his experiences of the project. This inspired me to write and I read it in class too. It added to my *KASH i.e. Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habit too !!!!!!! :) So long then .. Hasta Pronto !! )