Janmashtami and Jungle Fire

Two important events worth mentioning happened yesterday:

1. We had our MBA orientation program followed by a team exercise called “Jungle Fire”

2. We went to ISKON temple at midnight to celebrate Janmashtami .

The MBA Orientation program that kicked off the 2009 Full time MBA Program was held yesterday. The program was presided by the Dean and Assistant Dean of Rotman who gave us an insight into the current incoming class. Then we were given a brief introduction about the different cultures across the world so that we could get along with our team members with ease. There was also an introduction about the “Integrative Thinking” – a concept that Rotman specializes in. We were then divided into team members and we played the game of “Jungle Fire”.

Jungle Fire is a team experimental learning concept developed by “Eagle’s Flight”. The objective of the game is to win the maximum amount off Diamonds under the given set of rules. Given the constraints on the number of moves and time duration, surviving in the Jungle itself was deemed difficult. But we performed exceptionally well and our team came out within Top 5 teams out of the 56 teams. More than winning, the lessons learnt from Jungle Fire are important. We were told where we failed to plan, where we must have performed better and where we missed out. This was then translated into important corporate lessons. We really enjoyed the day.

At night we decided to go to ISKON temple to celebrate Janmashtami (the B’day of Lord Krishna). The Indian crowd was huge at ISKON and there was a play about circumstances under which Lord Krishna was born.

The bhajans started around 10PM with high energy levels among people and ended around 12PM with higher energy levels. When the doors were opened at midnight to signal the birth of Lord Krishna, everyone was dancing to the tune of the Bhajans. Having celebrated Janmashtami in India all these years, for me, seeing the plays in English, hearing the instructions in English was a different experience.