Life outside the IIM-A Library

The best place on the campus is probably the library. That's the place where you will meet most of the other exchange students regardless of the time of the day. Most importantly, the library has A/C and the temperature is pleasanter compared to the temperature in the rooms. The library has also magazines such as TIME, The Economist and India Today, because business students need to be aware about what is going on in the world.

However, it is not only about studying here. There are many student clubs at IIM-A which organize a lot of interesting events and activities for the students - there is everything between a Music Club and a Consult Club. For example, last week when the moon appeared red because of the lunar eclipse in some places of the world, the Stargazers, The Astronomy Club of IIM-A, arranged in the evening telescoped on the lawn to have a closer look at the moon and print-outs with information about the moon. It was pretty impressive to see the moon from so close.

The dance club Footloose organizes Bollywood Dance Workshop this week for the entire IIM-A community. For 5 € we have one hour of dancing 6 evenings in a row. Many mothers who have joined the classes. I am used to parents desperately looking for a babysitter to look after the children while they do something for themselves. Not in India - the children come to the class, too, and are exposed to the loud music. It is funny how the instructors are not bothered by the children running around screaming and crying.
There are many different styles of Bollywood music and it is also influenced by the Western styles. So there is for instance Bollyhop and Bollywood-salsa, but we mainly focused on a more traditional Bollywood dance. It is a lot of fun, but also difficult because the rhythm is very fast. On Tuesday the newspaper joined our classes and took pictures of the whole group. After the class, she also wanted individual pictures of all the exchange students who participate in the workshop and asked a few questions.

Then there are also sports clubs and some exchange students joined the clubs. Last weekend the IIM-A Sportscomm organized an inter-college tournament called Shaurya. It was very busy on the campus as the contestants also lived on our campus. Unfortunately, I had many classes on both Friday and Saturday overlapping with most of the games. I still managed to see some of the football matches and basketball matches. In both of the teams some exchange students are playing, and with the valuable contribution of our boys they both won the competition. Additionally, the overall winner of the whole tournament was IIM-A!