CHORDS AND CONVERSATIONS

The blog “CHORDS AND CONVERSATIONS” was written by Nimisha Rajendra, SIBM Hyderabad.

There usually comes a point in every person’s life when it feels like the world has come to a standstill. The nervous chatter in the waiting rooms coupled with my fellow batchmates clumsily pacing and waiting for their turn to audition for one of the most sought-after club “Antardhawani – The Cultural Club of SIBM H”. There was an air of exuberance, anxiety, and excitement that evening as each candidate was called into a room of different panels of those respective verticals namely – Aaroh (Music), Vibe (Dance), Panache (Fashion), Abhinay (Drama/theatrics) to audition for a spot in the cultural club. The beginning marked an era of new opportunities, collaboration and creativity that was later incorporated in the club with tangible results.

Over the years, I was self-trained in my musical career, and did not lay much emphasis on the significant impact it could have on my trajectory as a post grad student. As a management student you are always in pursuit of learning new trends, understanding your colleagues/ being empathetic, leveraging one’s creativity and delivering perceptible results. Another major milestone that management kids aim to achieve is differentiation and uniqueness. In order to stand out, there lays a creativity element that defines your standing. Last but not close to being the least the main intent of most business schools is to nurture diversity in the student community. All of which is what I learnt and subsumed as a member of Aaroh – the Music vertical and later went on to being the head of the vertical as well.

Leadership is the one of the standards against which a person’s competency and managerial skill is measured. Every student gets that window of opportunity to seize a position of responsibility at a smaller scale among their own peers. I was offered one such position to manage a team of 15 and incorporate my learnings from the academia to the cultural club within the team that I had fusioned. Conflict management, fostering an inclusive mindset, valuing everyone’s personal opinions, Networking with the Alumni’s, communicating effectively and adapting to various situations formed a major portion of my takeaways from this role.

Adapting to change posed to be a rather pertinent factor here as well. For instance, the senior team who had performed on several occasions previously followed a different theme and genre of music as opposed to the junior team. The junior team however proved to be far more curious and abundantly talented and inquisitive. And above all, they were not afraid to experiment on stage with their performances as well. As a head I must admit there was a hint of jubilance watching the new team pan out their creativity not just with the performances but their secondary responsibilities with respect to media visibility i.e., social media activities.

The next phase I believe would be the ceremonial “Passing of the Baton” to the next most capable individual to carry on the legacy of the music club. As quoted by Robert Fripp “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence” there is an imprint of music being an essential component in everybody’s lives. A feeble hum while working or attending to chores, grooving to the latest Bollywood hits on your ipod, mixing different music and exposing the world to a realm of creativity and ingenuity,… these tiny things are what I believe that give true meaning to life.