A new term and a new begining!!!

Today heralds Term 2 of my course at MDI. It feels like a new begining all over again. New books, new subjects, new profs... It really feels good.

First of all I want to incorporate all the learnings from the previous term. Term 1 was reeking with inefficiency, late nights, poor planning, tiredness and lethargy. Under the guise of 'BSchool life' I let my schedules go for a toss. Payed little attention in class. No pre-reads. Left everything for the last minute. In short, an engineering hangover.

All that will change from this term. I will sleep early. Get up early. Gym. Pre-readings. Efficient planning. Pay attention in class. No last minute studying. And make the best use of this place called MDI.

I am determined to make myself bloody disciplined, and began that with today. Hope that I can make this schedule last for the term. The first step to managing people is managng yourself.

Raging Bulls

Made it through Livestock, the stock trading competition from IIM A's Confluence. The event is a live trading floor where 50 top teams from across India will be participating for the top place. Our team called the ragingbulls consists of 4 Unnati people. For thse who don't know Unnati is our student initiative research and investment management group (in other words, a Mutual Fund) and me (I'm the non-Unnati guy). Between us we have 6 years worth of investing experience. Dhamija is a big mover, Anee and Goenka are said to handle big portfolios. I have done a bit and Sankalp also has investing experience.

The event kicked off with a qualification quiz of 60 marks which we were supposed to complete in 30 minutes. We have 3 junior teams and 2 senior team participating. Totally we have 5 teams from MDI.

We will be given Rs.25,000/- to trade with over a period of 3 months in the Indian stock markets. During this period we have to trade and produce research papers and justify our purchases. At the end of the period we will be evaluated on the final portfolio position, the cash on hand, the returns we generate and our research papers.

It all looks very exciting. We will be allowed to keep 30% of the profits we generate in addition to the prize money (forgot the actual figure but its pretty huge for small punters like us!!!). All's looking good, Looking forward to an exciting 3 months.....

Its almost over

The agony of the past 2 weeks seems to be nearing an end. Past two weeks have been an high octane existence. Sleep has always come in the wee hours of the morning. The entire night spent completing presentations interspersed with laughter, jokes, PJs, ordering food from the local call centre canteens, etc. Dunno what we would have done had there been no call centres canteens??!!

Eyes bloodshot. Body tired. Pushing the mind and soul for that extra bit every moment....MAN!!! MDI surely has some acad rigour. Sometimes I wonder if it is all necessary. I mean does the measure of a manager cme from how much academic bullshit he can handle.

Enough of gyaan ;-)... Me gotta finish the course on 'Managerial Economics' for tommo exam. It has made me less knowledgable on the topic, though the prof (Dr. Ashra) who teaches us is an exceptional fellow.

Till tommo 12:15 pm its back to exa mode........

The Absence

Hey... If any of you are wondering where the Hell I was...lemme assure you I was right there, in Hell. The week gone by had a tremendous amount of work in the form of end-term submissions and presentations. So much so that I ended up with two bloodshot eyes and a completely pooped out body at the end of it... Today I finally got some well deserved rest. Planning to sleep the cumulative total amount of the entire past weeks sleep. Whew!!! Why MBA?? My job was much better.

Well now that the submissions are almost over...(My acad group reminds me that we still have some work to be done...Nooooooooo!!!!) theres no respite since the end-term exams will start from Wednesday triggering another round of sleepless nights...But mercy me the agony lasts just a four days and even then the chastisement during that period lasts just 2 and a half hours.

Looking forward to Saturday night....the end of Term 1 and consequently 16.66% of MBA (real) and 25% (perceived) ;-) ... since only 4 terms are counted for placements!!!!

Marks, Chlormint and Lays...

Have been receiving the fruits of the long gone mid terms. The grapes are sour. Literally. But the consolation is that I had a tough time during the exams. And under those circumstances I consider myself to have done decently. But sure would have liked to be much much higher up in class. It doesnt help matters that the marking has been arbit at best. A few subjects have marking that defies logic. But then as they say.."You win some, you lose some."

Chlormint is the new flavour in Pradeep's life. So is it for Piyush (Mansur's gr8 gr8 roomie!!!)... Piyush in fact, has access to a lot of Chlormint, (from Prayas) enough to make all the guys from PGPM 05 (maybe even from PGPM 04...you can never be sure with Piyush) run for cover.

Meanwhile, Lays is the new flavour in Mansur's life...

The journey of a few thousand miles begins with a single click...

Ah, that famous quote. How very apt to what I am going to share. Today early morning when I was flying through some CRC work (you dont wanna know what that is), I hit a loud of boredom; then a cloud of restlessness and finally a cloud of irritation. What the heck... I said to myself. I logged in to Yahoo! to see if any kind soul was willing to chat. All contacts had some wierdo status to their nicks and I thought it best to leave them alone.

But, in the mess of yellow smilies I saw Mansur online...(a completely useless statement because he was exactly 3 metres away logged in on Pradeep's lappie). I typed in some text and the click of the "Send" button took those text via my LAN cable to MDI's servers. From there it was sent to the ISP provider who inturn passed it on to the international gateway VSNL. VSNL transported that text via underground cables (or did it not??...dont care and doesnt matter) to the US. At Yahoo!' s servers there it searched for Mansur's ID and then began a return journey (maybe a satellite could be involved .. I dunno...me no tech guy) back all the way and to our very room where it all began. A loud ping was heard and those few words which had kinda gone around the world plopped onto Mansur's screen. The entire exercise took a mere 4 seconds.

We played a lil' more... sent each other invectives when we could have easily shouted it across the 3 metres that separated our lappies. We laughed our heads out at the crazy journey data was making. It was the height of joblessness!!!

Thats what it was... The journey of some thousand miles... it began with a lazy click...

Spam Festival @ MDI

Today saw an unprecedented 200+ mails from 2230 hrs yesterday to 0315 hrs today. Am still in splits after going thru each of the 200 odd mails. Ultimate bullcrap and random stuff happening on campus. Every student worth worth his salt in all the batches (PGPM, PGHR and all NMP batches) had a torrent of mails flooding his/her mailbox.

It all started when a certain Kamlesh from the NMP batch sent an apology citing reasons why he was sending absolutely usolicited mail over the past few days. Some of the reasons claimed were the high level of stress that NMP goes thru (so PGPM indulges in social loafing eh?...) and also how he's been separated from his better half (Ardhangani according to him...seriously is he that stressed out??). Hence his decision to reduce the average stress level of every bloke on campus by indulging in crappy fwds. He aptly titled his apology "Closing of series"

What he got (and we in the bargain) was worse than a backlash. It didn't help matters that PG04 has their end-terms starting Monday and they too decided to "de-stress" themselves. We had our representation too, with Guru Bhobe, Piyush Joshi (Mansur's gr8 roomie), Singla, and many others freely spamming. Topics were arbit, replies even arbit, some guy copy-pasted Urdu poetry, another a research paper, yet another some crazy news. PJs reached a new level of sadism. The Maharashtrians did Marathi proud, the Bengalis followed suit, the Punjabis did an encore. There were many screaming for the whole thing to stop, and an equal number begging for it to go on.

One poor chap called Hemankur Upadhyaya got a bomb. (For the unintiated a bomb is when ur name is copied n number of times in the "To" field which sends you precisely that many mails.) To make matters worse people who replied to that spam knowingly or unknowlingly did a reply all. Poor Hemankur Upadhyaya got about 400 extra spams for no rhyme or reason.

When the junta got tired, they changed the "Closing of series" to "Here we go" reflecting change in the theme (which was not changed subsequently). People ranted and raved some more. After all the dust settled it was around 3 AM in the morning, with yours truly so busy reading and laughing his head off that he sent the penultimate mail of the festival.

Wish we had more of these... just a pleasant change from the usual MBA night outs.

Behind these hazel eyes

I can relate a lot to this song... And it's gripped me ever since I heard it... Its very apt... It just seems like my story... I wasnt going to post this until certain circumstances today afternoon forced me to... Here it is....

"Behind These Hazel Eyes" - KELLY CLARKSON

Seems like just yesterday
You were a part of me
I used to stand so tall
I used to be so strong
Your arms around me tight
Everything, it felt so right
Unbreakable, like nothin' could go wrong
Now I can't breathe
No, I can't sleep
I'm barely hanging on

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

I told you everything
Opened up and let you in
You made me feel alright
For once in my life
Now all that's left of me
Is what I pretend to be
So together, but so broken up inside
'Cause I can't breathe
No, I can't sleep
I'm barely hangin' on

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

Swallow me then spit me out
For hating you, I blame myself
Seeing you it kills me now
No, I don't cry on the outside
Anymore...

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

Here I am, once again
I'm torn into pieces
Can't deny it, can't pretend
Just thought you were the one
Broken up, deep inside
But you won't get to see the tears I cry
Behind these hazel eyes

We are the Champions!!!

Section A of PGPM had a cricket match against Section B; and by Jove, we beat the shit outta them. We played 12 players against the tradional 11. (We make the rules Wo-kay...!!!)Prady (Sec A skipper) got us to bat first and we ammased 73 runs in the allocated 15 overs. Dhamija gave us a good start with a coupla fours and sixes. Then there was a lull for some time. It picked up again when Raghav went to the crease. (albeit this time the runs came from extras). Me went as last man scored a coupla runs before getting runout on the last ball.

The fun started when Sec B (skippered by Hada) came to bat. They lost 4 wickets in the 3rd over. (Bowled by me obviously!!! ;-)...) 2 of these were due to some sensless running and some brilliant fielding. one was a stumping (thanx Prady) and the other caught (thanks to Tommy also...). Then some real tight bowling by Raj and a stupendous spell from Rohit Prakash (2 wickets each) that really broke the back of secB. Rohit is a gem of a bowler. He has a good line and length and can come up with the surprise bouncer too. He was the quickest guy today. Prady too joined in the fun with a wicket. Dhamija got one too and the last was a run-out in my third over. Pity there were no cams to capture the moments :-( ...

The match over, sec B had a bumps session. Hada got kicked. And we hauled ourselves to the canteen for a treat!!!

Three cheers for sec A Hip Hip Hooray!!! ...Hip Hip Hooray!!! ...Hip Hip Hooray!!!

BCCI

Apart from the various clubs at MDI, this one club where you don't have to prepare for club membership interview...you dont have to have any interests...you are a member by default.

Introducing Bumps Core Committee Incorporated. (BCCI). We are a group of professional butt kickers. No incentives needed. No payment taken. Just plain simple butt kicking. All we need is a group of frustu people and an arbit reason (which happens 99% of the time...the rest are birthdays ;-)....)

A few examples where we have demonstrated our expertise....
Dheeresh got kicked for re-installing Windows
I got kicked for buying a new lappie
Hari usually gets kicked for scoring the highest in the quiz
Raj and Porter (Prashant) got kicked for DCP (Desparate Class Participation... more on that later)
Prady who got kicked for ummm.... (No, this has to remain secret!!!)
All the people elected/selected to prominent posts/committees in MDI. (There are many of them)
All the roomies/pseudo-roomies who get kicked whenever their roomie is kicked for any reason.

And many more arbit reasons...

If U are frustrated. If you have nothing better to do. If you just wanna get someone kicked, join us (No joining criterias), we have innovative reasons and we will not let you down ....

Hail BCCI!!!....

Pind Balluchi

Tradition demands that the junior core teams of all the clubs treat the senior core team of the respective club. And so, keepers of tradition that we are, a dinner was arranged at a nearby punjabi restautrant.

"Pind Balluchi" (thats the name of the restaurant) is a nice place with ambience for all settings. They have a family section, a kinda separate section (presumably for youth who prefer to rant, rave and scream between mouthfuls) and a short starry staircase which leads you to a dimly lit cave type setting with two chairs per table. (I dont think I need to mention the reasons for the above atmosphere)

The food was good. Obviously it is difficult to socialise at places where forty people descend onto few square feet and whose sole intention is to hog whatever the waiter brings on his tray. It reminded me of our birthday parties on campus where you can literally see cake disappear. (The waiter always lingered for the customary second it took to empty the tray so he could take it back an save his effort)

Back to campus and it was zzzz. Have late lectures tomorrow. Can afford to sleep and chuck the work!!!

Another Birthday

Seems to be raining Birthdays. Today's was Harshit Jain's. Pranesh's roomie and the macchhan down the hall.

After the Rangmanch which I skipped coz of tiredness, we had a good time splashing cake and getting splashed too. Pranesh had arranged ummm..."balloons" :-) to be tied around Jain's neck. After the revelries where I perfected the art of cake snacthing. (We gotta do tht here else you are left high and dry), we landed our asses at the Nescafe stall on campus where Prady got bumps for reasons best kept secret.

Later we hauled ourselves to the HERO ITES canteen across the road where we hogged on mutton rolls, chicken rolls, Maggi and soft drinks.

Nice treat... stomach was bloody filled. Good end to an evening after listening to a speaker on business excellence.

A belated Birthday

Roomie Pradeep Verghese's birthday was on the 14th of August; when me and Mansur (our pseudo-roomie) were out on holidays. We din't get a chance to kick him and Prady and Pranesh had taken the roomie's honours on our behalf (For the uninitiated, roomie's honours entail splashing cake on the bday boys face and also getting bumps from the mob that joins in the revelry.

Considering the fact that we hadn't gifted Pradeep and the unfairness to Prady and Pranesh we decided to have a small re-take.

We got Pradeep a brown-grey Tshirt, essentianlly because he has many black tees. Mansur was hell bent on changing his wardrobe (actually Pradeep's almirah is still not filled coz he's not unpacked). We also got him "Short tales of Saki" by some Hector Munro (Mansur's choice... im not a lit guy!!). All the macchhans of the ground floor, neighbour Dheeresh and Comm. Jt. Secy. Karishma descended to our room and surprised Verghese.

(Verghese surprised)

Clockwise : Birthday boy Pradeep (black tee), Pranesh, Abhishek, Prady (hidden), me, Suresh (can just see his glasses), Mansur and Karishma.

Verghese checking out his tee

It ended with birthday fags, Dunhill sponsered by Abhishek and lit by Pradeep. The smokers puffed. Non smokers (me included) watched. And then it was the traditional butt kicking session!!!

BDay fags... Dheeresh looks on

PS: Kindly forgive the clothesline in the room. We just decided to do our Laundry that day.

Dumb C Contest

The dark horses...entering a competition with sleepy eyes...not interested in the proceedings...and leaving the battleground 200 bucks richer and a second place to boot.

That kinda sums up my experience today at the Marquity Dumb Charades competition. We (Mansur, Pradeep and me) entered just for the heck of it. It was a bit unfair too coz we finished second by just a second. we guessed in 10 seconds and the winners in 9 seconds. But gracious second placers that we are, we accepted it gleefully.

We also probably guessed the maximum number of charades when we were tied up for the qualifiers to the final with Ankit and team and the tie-break went to three rounds!!! It was also a unique tie-break wherein a tie-break was played on two different scores. Anyways doesn't matter now that it is over. it was close on many occassions during that tie-break and i guess it was the most exciting and nailbiting situation of the day.

Hip hip Hooray!!! Hip hip Hooray!!!Hip hip Hooray!!!

What love is for me...

Went thru certain experiences in the last two weeks which have made me introspect into the meaning of love... and here are my thoughts raw .....

Love is all encompassing. It is the creator of life. Without love there cannot be life. You cannot go through life without love. Life then becomes a burden, a liability.

Love includes many things. It has the good and the bad times. It includes great and not-so-great experiences. It includes happiness and sorrow.

When you love someone, you love without restraint. You give of yourself, completely and totally. You don’t think of what you want. “You” becomes immaterial. The person you love becomes paramount. You forget your needs. You give and give and give.

Love forgives. It doesn’t hold grudges, nor does it want to take revenge. In bad times also, it exults in the person you love.

It doesn’t look at appearances. It looks straight into the heart. It looks for true meaning.

Love grows. It takes the people with it on a journey of self-discovery. It teaches the mind, it trains the soul. It educates the individual.

Love is pure. It is clean. It is glorious.

Love brings forth fruit. It gives birth to emotions. It gives rise to feelings. It gives rise to passions. But it doesn’t mean that if the fruit is not there the tree is bad. The tree requires nourishment. Love requires re-enforcement.

Love can also bring forth experiences which may not be good. These may include pain, suffering, misery, anxiety, remorse and the like. These are testing times for love. They test the true nature and character of love. They set new benchmarks, to know the limits to which you can love. They are necessary to show you where you stand and where you can be.

Love doesn’t aim to change people. It takes pride in the diversity of itself. It doesn’t tailor the person to suit its needs.

Thats all for now... will add more later

Those were happy times

Four years have gone by… almost four years…and now life tells me it’s time to forget it all…how can life be so cruel??? Those were happy times…or so I thought…the world looked conquerable…the universe finite… and now today it seems vast, dominating, menacing…I pray for strength to walk the world ahead alone…the one who used to walk by me so far has chosen to go by a different path…it’d difficult, it’s tough, it’s hard…but I was told that life isn’t fair…so I must tread along…

Simple as I am…unsophisticated…uncomplicated…I don’t want to make sense for reason has far lost it’s path… how did I miss the bus? Where did I go wrong? These are questions that I don’t think I’ll get answers to …

Those happy times…they will come back…they will haunt my mind…every place visited…every moment cherished… hits like a thunder clap…jolts me outta my sleep…

Is this destiny??? Is this reality??? Destiny I don’t know… but reality it is for sure…bye dear friend…those were happy times…(for me at least)…I dunno whether we can be the same again…I dunno whether I must wait or move on…right here, right now I guess it’s best to take one day at a time…and wait for what tomorrow brings……

Homesick

Gave the FA mids without studyin as much as a word. Dunno how the two hours went... Just rambled on the paper... dint balance the balance sheet and dint get the P&L statement right....

dint matter anyways. Have pressing matters on my mind at present. Eco was horrible. I doubt i'll even get 10. Havent been eating well too. I Think i'm homesick...

Planned to go home just arbitrarily... tickets have arrivd too... leaving this place as soon as stats is over on thursday. bunking class on friday. giving up the trip to rishikesh on saturday. i wanna go home...

plan to get back on the 15th night. This mid term is going nowhere.....

Mid terms coming up

Its been a wake up call. I havent looked at the books for quite some time now and its a bit scary coz i have a lot to complete and do before i get confident abt myself.

Marketing, Human Behavior, Legal aspects of Biz, Financial Accounting, Economics, Stats, oral omm and presentation skills....damn the list is long.....

Just pray to God for grace to go through these trying times :) Lets see what happens.... first one FA coming up 8th August.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink

Tuesday and Wednesday were probably the first time I really felt away from home. Mumbai was flooded and badly at that. I was oblivious of the entire turn of events until I received an SMS from my friend Rupesh. The message just read "Its pouring like hell here in mumbai. evrythng flooded & eytg shutdwn. schools clsd 4 nxt 2 days. Audrey safe in hosp.Puni @ uncls plc in ddr.Cal if pos."

Calling home was futile as the networks were jammed. But after numerous attempts finally got thru and came to know that dad had decided to spend the night at the office, Mom had just taken 3 hrs to walk from work to home, siblings were safe, etc. Couldn't get thru Audrey, and was glad that Rupesh had taken care of that angle.

The aftermath was bad. Numerous people lost house and belongings. Others lost loved ones. Huge losses shops. Industries shut down. Collapse of the infrastructure. Politicians disowning the responsibility, etc. The estimated loss is increasing by the day. Last estimates (as per my knowledge) were around Rs.1800 crores ( roughly US$ 413 mn). Around 900 people have lost their lives.

We need to ask some hard questions here. Why does a city that is so crucial to India is at the mercy of the elements? Why does the civic infrastucture fail every mnsoon? Drains are either filled with filth or clogged. Why can't Mumbaikars take care of the way they manage their surroundings? People openly transfer garbage from their locus to the drains. None take the effort to shift it to where it actually belongs. And the worst excuse is that how can my compliance make a difference? Why is the Met office always wrong in its predictions? Dont we have the best in supercomputers which is used for forecasting?

Lots of questions, but everyone wants to talk only of the 'spirit' of Mumbai. Can I say more?

Induction and memories of home....

Had an amazing induction... Was awake non-stop for 3x24 hours... a new record by my standards. Had a host of activities ranging from crazy ones to some really good ones too. but most of all liked the outbound exercises a lot.

BSchool life is much different from what I expected. Hope it keeps me sane through the two years I have to spend here.

Miss home a lot... and also the long evening walks with Audrey. Miss Siemens and all colleagues there... miss Orlem and the great crowd there...

Class starts 30th June...till then its zzzzz....