Out Cold and Not so Loving It!

After exhausting all the bad puns like getting cold feet, receiving cold shoulders and giving me the shivers, i decided to explain my first real winter in Shillong. For a normal guy from Chennai whose only definition of winter is to keep the fan at speed 4 instead of 5 - 2 room heaters, gloves, socks, cap etc is an overkill of some magnitude. Its 2-3 degrees in the night and 10-11 in the day. I can imagine all the log in US smirking “dude, you call that winter?” but let me assure you, people who have seen 0 of Delhi say this is worse.

What about the winter, I have a problem with, i wonder. I guess the answer is a long list. The fact that we have to wake up before 9 for class, fact that it gets dark at 4pm, fact that u just can’t stay awake, fact that u can’t walk around the campus without being covered in truckloads of clothing and swearing under your breath, trying not to shiver in front of specimens of the opposite sex – its seriously not so fun. To compound that, a problem probably that shouldn’t be mentioned here, but having to contemplate “doing your duty” in the evening time for the fear of ice cold water....

As very philosophically I observe, every cloud has a silver lining; its the gold digger who is disappointed by that. Amidst all this while I’m all cuddled up under the rajai with the laptop actually on my lap top, can’t help but think of the positives. Like the frequency of baths – just once a day is sufficient! (this is for all my classmates). An excuse to laze around without a reason. And how can i forget the oh so beautiful winter foliage of trees that are completely pink!! This place is beautiful.



You know, its not helping..I surrender. I just went out to get a book and i was squirming like a 3rd std kid who had a full bladder. Till two weeks ago, while the ppl from rest of India were wearing jerkins and sweaters, we south Indians were the studs walking around in T-shirts. Now u should see us :D Give me hot, burn the place down, call it hell, I would be just fine. But cold and to that assignment deadlines, talk of limits.

I now dread to think I’ll have to prepare for 9 exams on a trot in 2 week’s time in this cold after which, Oh wait! I’d be flying home! Yo Chennai! I miss you :( More so after I read the 2 states. Nice book. Loved it and was able to relate to most parts :D Guess we are like that only! Wonder how tough it would be to convince my parents for a punjabi girl.. :P

PS: Just wondering.. noone in mind :).

Talk about fairness

Every time I faced a situation that warranted saying “This is not fair”, i would get back a prompt reply from any corner that says “Who said life is fair?” It never used to answer the question but it seemed an extremely calming reply. Like blaming politicians, Government, population, terrorism and now recently recession for anything and everything that goes wrong at the micro level. Somehow it is built into the system to take it in our stride i guess.

But at times, situations arise that will push to the limit like a Roadies task with Raghu in it. In all this corporate mist, there is an often over hyped but undervalued concept called honesty, sincerity etc that everyone stresses but no one bothers about. I mean i can imagine a prisoner’s dilemma problem with 2 really honest thieves that will always arrive at the dominant solution all the time. But in reality there ain’t much impetus for such ‘vices’ is there? I mean this is not the honesty that does the entire assignment days in advance and presenting the facts. No one ever does that!

2 years in my ‘corporate life’ (my ex-colleagues would jump up at this), i made friends. Professionalism to me atleast dealt more with being a straight shooter, probably choosing your words, but getting the point across. That is probably the reason I can still call them up one odd weekend and discuss their new car or marriage plans. But situations change, where shitload is all that is ever dumped on u for things u do and things u don’t do and to top it all u get penalized for your stupidity in believing in such stuff as fairness.

While i sound like the beaver (??) in Ice age who has lost his acorn again, it registers on me that it is all an srk movie dialogue of two paths etc etc. Somehow, at the moment though, i don’t see much logic in all the shit that needs to be taken over such outdated concepts. Perhaps it is high time to put a for sale sign over soul?

Talking of fairness, i got reminded of one of the gems. At some point of time 6 months back, 3 of us guys were discussing girls.
P1: “Which one is .......? Is she the fair one?”
P2: “I don’t know! I have never seen her arbitrate anything before”
P1: ?????
Me: ROFL

To that my favourite quote of Jack sparrow.
“You can trust a dishonest person to be dishonest. It is the honest ones who u have to worry about because u can never say when they would do something stupid”

A declaration that none of what is mentioned refers to some level as to the magnitude of Ramalinga Raju who thought the internet was the confession chamber. Nor am i planning to go around scheming (i generally do) devious plans to have my revenge. Guess this is just regretting the opportunity cost of a stupid decision. :)

Of Hospital Vigils and Idli Escapades

Experiences can be fun. No, its not that kind of a write up where u talk of learning from mistakes etc. Its pretty much about having a fun time and reminiscing about that.

Last to last Sunday, a friend of mine got admitted in the hospital at 10:30 in the night. Not a great start to the fun part, but when I decided to bunk the assignment and went over to be of some help, I didn’t know what i was getting into. 4 people had decided to stay vigil – 2 guys and 2 girls and as luck would have it they wouldn’t let guys into the ward and only 1 visitor per patient. So of the limited things to do, we decided to stay put in the car for the night. Swear words of the driver, trying to sleep, notwithstanding, it was a nonstop riot. I mean when you have nothing to do but practice corny lines on targets who just keep laughing or commenting on batch with people with excellent sense of timing, its more like a David Dhawan movie – cheap humour and yet time pass :)

Btw after a saga of phone calls and surgery arrangements, the friend was discharged the next day without a scratch and the doctors having no clue as to what was wrong. Prayers do work. Except for enjoying the looks of the extremely judgmental lady in the opposite bed who was going into conniptions at the idea of guys who are not husbands/brothers staying beside a girl, the friend missed out on most of the fun part. Thanks to sedatives and bottles of saline. The friend later tried to trip one of us and then poison two others so that she can also have all that fun. :P

When parents of a fellow student come to visit, u generally don’t get all excited. Not unless you are in Shillong longing for south Indian food and they got with them 120 idlis with sambhar and molaga podi! I’m generally not one for exclusion, but when it comes to love, food or war – it is an altogether different game! Around 12 Tamil people and a chance few others (guys and girls), did the job of emptying all the 120 idlis in less than 40 mins to a very skewed distribution! Topped off with Sambhar rice made from the excess sambhar with an all out dip of hands into the container, I’m sure its not one pic i’d put on facebook :P More than the food, the way we had it, God! We thanked the guy’s mom profusely and assured her we’ll sponsor her tickets next time she comes :)

A mid night birthday party with wine(?), consecutive food outings, planned bunking strategies, shit load from different fronts and then laughing about it – all this amidst a week schedule that read 9 to 6 and a near 10 degree temperature.

People keep cribbing life is screwed up without realizing that it is this screwed up nature that keeps things from falling apart. Its not gonna get all that different. Faculty are gonna screw ur happiness, deadlines are always gonna go whooshing past, grades are gonna be in soup, but thats not reason enough to not enjoy the small moments that come your way. (:P just trying out JD’s method of summarizing at the end of the episode (scrubs-for the uninitiated))

A Sleepwalker's cup of coffee

Its tough to describe how exactly it feels, but i guess the closest will be the feeling of a live fly caught in butterscotch icecream. It knows it loves the surrounding, but there’s just too much of it and getting out alive is the prime concern.

I can say, without shame, i’ve sat through classes in engineering that were terribly sleep-inducing and at the end of it cover crap as passable questions and confuse the profs. But here i’m sleeping through classes that others find interesting and regaining consciousness only to realize I have missed some good 15 mins! The last time i did that was watching Jodhaa Akbar. Oh wait, i did that midway during my last blog....

Tho i thought ki i’ll write an extremely random updates kind of thingy (i remembered someone now :D), that have as much relevance to each other as Rakhi Sawant has to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan to cheer myself up.

Weekend following the term-end was awesome. Went to movie, food and cherrapunji and probably the best weekend in a long time! Awesome batch, cool bande aur truckloads of awesome pics. Something to cheer about. Of course not to mention a chewing gum is not a great thing to have in your mouth when cameras click. And ya, caves are places where a flash reminds you of how a deer feels, caught under the headlight.

Then a week of coming back to reality where after making fun of the profs we met for the first time, they started screwing us. Somehow i can’t seem to remember how I actually managed to read stuff in term 1 while all around ppl are frantically scanning pages of multiple books!

The last weekend had more drama than a sunny deol movie and since we were all players, had to dance around giving out threatening dialogues, open challenges and then senti monologues as well. The only thing missing was a badly choreographed song sequence.

One of my friends mentioned her hatred for the term roller coaster associated with life. Well, i agree totally. Roller coasters are so much more exciting and while falling, u at least know u are gonna be just fine. Anyways not a great deal of importance is ever associated to people’s words as it is to actions. As the song on my playlist plays as if on cue, you say it best when you say nothing at all :)

One more crazy thought that dawned between yawns in class is on temporal long distance. Spatial or geographical long distance can be bridged through diff mediums, but what about time driven? No its not about relationships, just the gap between want-to and have-to. I guess this should seriously be thought about.

Assignments beckon. Sigh.. Sleepwalking on a treadmill..

One sixth a Manager

One trimester over and here I am indulging myself in a movie marathon. After a bonfire and exercising my right to make a fool out of myself, I can’t help but think what has changed in the last 2 months!! (to what made me think of this, it was the dialogue “Its not who you are, but what you do that defines you” from batman begins) I can feel the change. Its in the form of jargons that I use, the way I break up the problem into concepts and the way I think letting your friend make a fool out of himself in front of a girl should not be stopped, since u never stop a competitor who makes a mistake :P But its extremely tough to study with nature’s breathtaking beauty around you :)

These are few truths realized in the trimester gone by in the most non academic way.

1) There are 3 types of people, the hard workers, the smart workers and those who think they are smart workers. I belong to the 3rd

2)Any professor who takes the time to develop his/her own theory, it pays off to paraphrase his viewpoints in class and ppts. Its not a suck up strategy but knowing your consumer needs say experts.

3)Professors who seem really friendly are the ones who are gonna screw you in papers

4)Any class, we can have A to Z varieties of DPs (Desperate Participation) and a combination of stuff too. I personally found it hilarious that people exhibit persistence, courage and a sense of conviction to ask such questions.

5)Bees love me. (Ph(f)oolish?) Courtesy of Keshav: With the number of bees around, tell me if this is a B-School or a Bee-School?

6)A smaller campus permits you to get up at 8.55 for a 9 class..

7)A 5 minutes ppt can be presented for 15 mins. If you have never seen the ppt before and u have to present it u can present it for half an hour.

8)Weekdays are better than weekends in terms of work load in a B-School

9)Exams that u need to write pages are the ones you generally don’t need to study much for.

10)All the horrible B-School experience based books, when they talk of staying up crazy hours, feeling you are slogging your posteriors off, are true.
Having said that, its a myth they actually work all that many hours.

11)Dilbert and Calvin philosophies work best in a B-School

12)After 4 years “Take it and Go” is again popular! History repeats itself

13) The key to reducing stress in an IIM is to have low expectations or be confident. I know, it sounds defeatist, but seriously, looking at a few friends slogging like crazy, its really tempting to tell them to google for some life and download the same!

After i slept off in front of comp while chatting with a friend midway thru post, i realized sleep is much more valuable than any movie, book or chat. 3 days of recuperation before the drill starts all over again.