Now thats not another word from the Toyota Production System we have been learning or hearing of in our Operations Management class. Harakiri is precisely what I have committed in the OM mid-term paper yesterday … messed up everything even when I precisely knew what was the right way to do things … these days there is neither the desire nor the motivation to crack exams.

I really went to the next exam with a positive frame of mind expecting to do well as I had really liked the subject “Corporate Finance” and the way Professor Rangarajan Sundaram taught us (though he did start traveling at the speed of light in the last class and was over with everything before we realized anything). So what happens next? I am kind of trying to apply whatever I learnt and whatever I could manage to get into the single side cheat sheet (which we were allowed for the exam) and within 5 minutes I see people looking around here and there. I think “may be the paper is going to get tougher as I progress along”. Then suddenly the TA comes with a few corrections in the paper and before he starts speaking about the corrections, the students start telling the TA what is wrong where …. and I am like mighty impressed. Then in flat 15-20 minutes time, about 15-20 people have finished the paper and left the examination hall and I am left thinking whether I am the only fool left there still struggling with the paper ….. I mean I am stupid but never expected that someone could solve a decently tough paper in just a few minutes and walk away. Then I come out and get to know that the questions have been picked up from last year’s paper and most guys knew the answers beforehand and were refraining from doing calculations in the fear that they might change their mind and mark something wrong !!!