The much-hyped annual sports meet, called CLassiXX between Xavier Labour Research Institute (XLRI) Jamshedpur, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, IIM Lucknow and Xavier Institute of Management Bhubhaneshwar (XIMB) packed more than a punch on its inaugural day at the XLRI campus today.
An argument that apparently started with an alleged discrepancy in the score points table’ resulted in the IIMC contingent staging a loud walkout by afternoon.
The walkout was followed by hours of hectic parleys and heated discussion between sports officials of both the b-schools, but to no avail. In fact when PaGaLGuY spoke to an IIMC student who was on the venue in the afternoon, he said, “Nothing can be said as the Sports Secretary is still in talks.”
The talks however failed and the fallout of the brannigan was that a couple of knock-out matches got converted into league matches, in a round robin format. Not to forget the loss of time in trying to resolve the issue, since there were a bunch of different events packed in the tight 2-day schedule. The event is expected to conclude tomorrow (Sunday) night.
While XLRI declined to comment officially, an IIMC student told PaGaLGuY that the fracas began when it was noticed that that the entire contingent from IIML and XIMB had not arrived as scheduled this morning (Saturday).
“So XLRI took a decision to postpone some of the events to the next day. Now, there is no way that so many events can be held in just one day. So, we (IIMC) asked it in writing from XLRI that if all the events were not held, the trophy will be shared,” the student said.
He added that IIMC also requested that the winner win at least 1/3 of all the events, which XLRI did not agree to. “And hence the walkout.” The IIMC student further explained that the 1/3 clause was being pushed for only to eliminate the possibility of a b-school winning the meet on account of being the only finalists in most events, and not winning any event.
To further rid the event of colour, the altercation was soon followed by a very heavy downpour. When PaGaLGuY called up people at the venue at 6 pm, it was raining heavily.
The fracas was immediately reported on Facebook and Twitter, within minutes and even XLRI tweeted about it from its official account (see screenshot on top) only to be removed later. The controversy is still smouldering on the Life@XLRI thread on PaGaLGuY. However, a student from XIMB told PaGaLGuY, that there wasn’t as much of a problem now and the events were proceeding almost as planned.
While this meet is known as CLassiXX (the capital letters denoting the names of the participating colleges), the otherwise legendary XLRI-IIMC sports meets have always invited both bad and good publicity over the years, thanks to the highly charged environment in which the student sportsmen participate.
A cellphone video (in 200
taken at once such meet is still commonly discussed inside b-schools. The video, allegedly shot inside the XLRI campus, shows some of the women students of one of the b-schools gleefully cussing at the opponents. While cussing may not be too out of place given the excitement that surrounds the event, the revelation that the cussing was part of a well-planned ritual that the women were allegedly trained for, invited heated reactions from b-school students across the board.
Keeping aside all the controversy, the annual sports meets involving IIMC and XLRI are one of the most awaited and vigorously competed for events in India’s b-schools.