The down to earth man who scaled the peaks

The adventure club took on the onus of conducting a grand session for the students. It was ideal as Malli was the founder of this club. The club organized a 15 km (10 rounds of the campus) for the students, an opportunity to spend that time setting the pace with our alum. Two of our PGP2 students Vikram Murthy & Bhuvanprasad (Both members of the Adventure Club) were the only ones to complete the run with Malli. Not to mention that Malli was taking it easy on the boys and running at a leisurely pace. Next in line was the interactive session at our lecture room after dinner.

Students started to pour in for the session much before the scheduled time. Something that we don’t get to see for our lecture sessions on a daily basis but this was different. A first hand informative session with the fastest 7 summiter in the world. It as close as you can get to climbing Mount Everest without actually doing so. The session began with a big round of desk thumping for the alum when he entered, a tradition that has been followed at IIM Calcutta for years. Malli had a long look around the class. Maybe trying to soak in the classroom ambience or maybe trying to find an old glimpse of him in the students eagerly looking at him.

With a small pause he addressed the students. Starting from his reasons to setup the adventure club and his experiences in college. Just for the facts, Malli never joined any club in his first year. All the while, he stressed on the need to pause sometime in life and ponder about our life’s calling. He explained to his students about how mountaineering came about for him and the troubles he had to face. Then came the brilliant pictures of his various treks around the world. For MBA students, the CV is the Holy Grail. Well how about Mt. Kilimanjaro & Mt. Vinson Massif for starters. Oh, if that is not enough just a small matter of Mt. Everest to top it all. Another round of thumping followed when he displayed the above picture on the screen. We can claim to be the first IIM with its emblem at Mt. Vinson Massif, Antarctica.

The question on everyone’s mind was asked by our current president of adventure club, Jaideep Choudhary. What next, Malli? The answer was humble yet monumental. Scaling the highest 14 peaks (8000m and above) across the world and his personal dream of conducting a trek for the IIM Students. He ended the session with a statement in respect of Mount Everest ““ “˜This is not a mountain where you can have rules’. Well he ought to know it.

Akshat Patil

Question: Can you tell us more about the run?

JD: The run was about 5 KM (for boys) and 3.5 KM (for girls), which meant three rounds of the campus (from the New Teaching Block (NTB) via main gate via faculty quarters via Howrah bridge via auditorium and back to NTB) for boys and two rounds for girls. To qualify, boys had to finish the race within 35 minutes and girls had to do the same in 25 minutes.

Question: That sounds like some distance! What kind of response did the race elicit?

JD: To say the least, it was overwhelming! There were 71 students who took part in the race, including two girls. The fastest recorded timing was 23 minutes 30 seconds by Saurabh Sharma. Overall, more than 90% of the participants completed the race, and 49 boys finished the race within the qualifying time of 35 minutes, which is a more than 100% increase over the last year’s figure.

Question: That’s a huge number! But then, going forward do you think it would be possible to increase the number of girls participating in the race? What would you recommend?

JD: To increase the participation from girls, we are exploring the possibility of increasing the visibility of the club through weekly campus jogs or similar events. One more way could be to encourage girls to participate in the club activities such as treks which are going to happen over next two terms. Also, if we are able to see an increase in girl participation for the current PGP1 batch, we can rely on them to pass on their experiences to incoming batch, i.e. “˜Word-of-mouth’ strategy in marketing parlance!

Question: But with the overall number of participants going up significantly, I am sure this is a positive sign?

JD: Indeed, this is a very encouraging sign for the club, and also for me. With more number of participants we will be able to choose the right people for the club in sufficient numbers. This will surely have positive impact on all future club activities.

Question: Also, JD could you throw some light on the activities planned for Adventure Club in the coming year?

JD: We are yet to finalize this year’s plan for club, reason being we actually wanted the incoming PGP1 members to actively participate in the planning process, and incorporate their ideas before finalizing our plans. But then broadly speaking, we will continue to organize treks and trips, especially in the north-eastern region of India. Apart from this we are also planning to have a biking trip for the members. We are also looking at the feasibility of organizing programs in collaboration with some professional institute. This would help to train members of the club in trekking and other related activities. And of-course, Tour-de-Joka will be there and it will be bigger than ever before!

For Jokatimes

Mayank Jain

Adventure Club was a brainchild of Malli Mastaan Babu  ( 39th batch IIM Cian)”“ the patron saint of all trekkers.  The man who achieved the incredible feat of scaling the highest peaks of the seven continents in 172 days, the fastest so far . Having begun under such able hands the club took it’s task seriously and    organized treks, hikes and camping trips for the students of IIM-Calcutta during vacations. And also a fair bit of on-campus activities like triathlons, crowd-runs (where a huge group of students jog together) , wall-climbing, etc.

This rich heritage has been given a structure, now the club comprises of three branches -treks team , on-campus team  and design team. The number of on campus events have increased like GMTs i.e. great mob runs where many members jog together for fitness awareness, Tour de joka ““ biathlon of running and cycling, wall rappelling workshop and many more.

All this hasn’t decreased treks and trips off course. In fact by using video promotions and marketing campaigns Armageddon has hooked up many more students in many more trips to more locations. Last year’s destinations include Susunia, Mathaburu, Sunderbans , Sikkim and other exotic locations which I can’t spell.

Recently the baton of command at Armageddon passed to junior batch students and looking at their enthusiasm adventure club will no doubt climb new heights. And who knows maybe even on all continents and faster than anyone else.