Pranay Gupta, an IIM-A student who presented a power point presentation on the Indian Railways in the presence of the minister, said: "I liked his earthy metaphors linking cow with the management. Like he said, 'the railways is like the jersey cow, you have to take nice care of her and she will give you good milk.'" However, some smart IIM students did raise a few awkward questions about railways recovery.

The most talked about question, however, was whether the now-famed turnaround of the Indian Railways is sustainable or not. The other was, why should railways go into the parcel service and food stalls business which is not its core competency?

At the end of the day, however, all agreed that Lalu is a highly intelligent leader who is using populism to his and his department's advantage. With the help of his talented Officer on Special Duty Sudhir Kumar, he has appointed just the right people in the right places to do the job.

IIM will now need another close-door session to understand how Lalu, playing on the alien IIM pitch, bowled over the IIM's creme de la creme.

A walkabout through the hallowed portals of IIM-A: When Lalu tried to change the railways, people made said 'Lalu rail ko chaopat kar dega' (Lalu will mess up the Railways). "But we proved them wrong," he said.