Having an affair with an internship is perhaps the craziest
thing to do but I did end up into this quad core web of love with my summer
Internship. 300 Days much had happened
CAT-> IIM Indore-> PGP 1-> destiny-> friends>life needless to
say the time flied swiftly with these pointers more importantly because of this
salubrious epoch was joyous and idyllic. Each second of your life is that
fundamental unit which serves as the
foundation of your minutes, hours, days and years to come so one should make
sure that he or she is making that each second worth and that was the most
important lesson I learnt from my internship.
Bombay – the maximum
metropolis was the destination which where I was to work for this USD 27
Billion Indian Conglomerate ESSAR GROUP in their Corporate Finance Team. I
boarded a Jet Airways flight from Jaipur on the 3rd of April 2012
and was welcomed in a sea facing room on the 24th Floor of Ashok
Towers in South Bombay. The glittering and shimmering city of dreams at 2300
Hrs made me realize that there had to be a swagger in the walk before I started
my day the first day ever in office.
The first day in office took me through all the formalities
of Access Cards, email address, introductions at the floor and the Corporate
Finance Division of Essar Ports – the group company under which I was supposed
to do my project, the Cafeteria (more importantly for my appease for the so
called diet) and yeah the most important part the project title –
Identification and Evaluation of Debt Securities for Infrastructural Projects
in India being more specific to ports. The analysis had to be then implemented
on a live project in the evaluation of a port.
Coming back to the evening of the day I spent my evening relaxing and deciding
on how to decide the course of the project a tedious task though but had no
choice because of this hardcore tenacious agreement with the summer internship.
For the next few days from 0915 hrs to 1915 Hrs google.com was only web address entered into the google chrome browser as I was still waiting for the confirmation of my final mentor so I wanted to do as much as I could to prevent this OB practice of First Impression Error. But as you know there are incidents in life which make you feel that god is being too kind to you and you really expect to be him that ways at all important phases of your life and one such was the stroke of the clock I met my mentor.
An IIM L pass out with an excellent acumen of not only dealing with people but also a superfast knight with his key strokes on the project finance models and an excellent exemplifier of why this needs to be done. The day I met him, the first thing he told me after we shook hands was pack your bags I am sending you on a weeklong trip to our company’s port operations at Hazira and Vadinar.
“I want you to go because understanding operations is a must to understand how the numbers on the balance sheet and income statement are being created” were the words from his euphoric voice and at one I was on my HR’s desk for making the necessary bookings. I boarded the Rajdhani Express for Surat the same evening to welcome of the most thrilling and educative week of my life.
Hazira 21°08′04″N 72°38′52″E
India is connected to the high seas of the Gulf of Khambatt is a major port
centre as well as one of the biggest industrial belts of India. I was taken to
the 550 m long jetty of the Essar Bulk Terminal and was explained as to how
this all weather deep draft port has played an important role in streamlining
the operations of the group as whole. I was told about the basic terminologies
of the ports and how they record revenues in terms of vessel related charges
and cargo related charges. Before I lose track and get into more of the
technical stuff in one 0.38 mm shot , to be very simple I was experiencing one
of the most salubrious real time simulation of being a part of this corporate
giant. The Hazira trip also focused certain things on my retina which I had
never expected. Witnessing a land being
reclaimed live in the Arabian Sea with that engineers helmet on your head was
one of the best experiences I could ever have. Hazira trip did end but brought
with it a lot of experience and excitement in this sojourn voyage of life. I
went back to Bombay after spending three days in Hazira.
VADINAR 22°24′N 69°43′E I landed in an Air India plane
on the Air force station at Jamnagar. The thrill had already begun as I
witnessed the IAF fighter jets taking off and landing on the runway live as the
aircraft was taxiing to the civil terminal. I was taken to the Essar Oil Club,
a plush resort situated on the Vadinar Jamnagar highway to drop my luggage so
that I could quickly start with my work and report to the concerned in the
comapany’s office in the Essar Oil Refinery complex. I was astounded and my eye
lids did not move and blink for minutes after seeing the huge Oil refinery
complex and there I could only recall one thing in my mind “ This part of my
life means Business “. I was taken to the Oil terminal the next day which was a
completely different port as to what I had seen in Hazira with all together a
different terminology. My mentor was right you need to understand the business
first before you can start making money out of it. Vadinar is one of those
beautiful pages of epochs in my life that I would like to revisit often such is
its thrill that exists in my mind.
Back to work at Bombay - Engrossing my eyes and engorging my
neurons on the project work I did often made visits to the bank to enquire
about the current LIBOR spread on the ECB loans, tried mastering the RBI
Masters on Infrastructural financing policy in India, called up the IIFCL and
enquired into their lending requirements, contacted the IFC’s in India, googled
heavily on the existing debt schedules of the infra companies in India, DSCR
|ALM |LIBOR| ICDR| NPV| IRR|MIRR| FCFE| FCFF|WACC became my favorite jargons.
Presentations did shook hands many a times in the course of the intern but as I
was nearing the end I was onto a live model implementing my debt securities mix
to save some ( infact handsome) amount
of money for the company .
If the above intense practices took away mornings, evenings were at peace opposite the Air India building at Marine Drive which made me feel the sea moving through the shores of my soul. Being a Bombay fanatic I also explored the city in depth by visiting the old colonial buildings in the Fort, enjoying the night at Colaba (Leopold and Mondegar being favorites) , chatting with yellow black taxiwalas, reading the maximum city accounts by Suketu Mehta and finding out that places like Madanpura , Kamathipura, Dongri and Navpada did exist on the map of Bombay( read more to know more) , the Carter road evenings , the Bandstand sea shore , The high street palladium Emporio Armani and Burberry dreams and the most important of all my room on the 24th floor which used to pump in trillions of gallons of confidence in me to become something in life.
If the above intense practices took away mornings, evenings were at peace opposite the Air India building at Marine Drive which made me feel the sea moving through the shores of my soul. Being a Bombay fanatic I also explored the city in depth by visiting the old colonial buildings in the Fort, enjoying the night at Colaba (Leopold and Mondegar being favorites) , chatting with yellow black taxiwalas, reading the maximum city accounts by Suketu Mehta and finding out that places like Madanpura , Kamathipura, Dongri and Navpada did exist on the map of Bombay( read more to know more) , the Carter road evenings , the Bandstand sea shore , The high street palladium Emporio Armani and Burberry dreams and the most important of all my room on the 24th floor which used to pump in trillions of gallons of confidence in me to become something in life.
Before I conclude there is one thing which I always want
to recite every morning as Chetan Bhagat
says...."It s ohkk,bunk a few
classes,goof up a few interviews..take leave from work..enjoy with your
friends...fall in love...we are people not programmed devices” Making an
addition to the above “Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for
your own satisfaction and efficiency”.
This was my summer internship of 2012. Signing off Shantanu Consul IIM INDORE PGP 2011-2013
This was my summer internship of 2012. Signing off Shantanu Consul IIM INDORE PGP 2011-2013