Service management

Its just a few days since i finished my marketing exam. Now there is only one thing i regret about that paper and that is the fact that I cant write it again. It was five days since I had started with the exams and the nerves in the back had started to throb. I needed a massage and a trim. Nobody expects the hottest chick in the world to caress me but the least I expected was a half hour session that would act as an analgesic and make me more presentable to the outer world..

Now IIM Lucknow is supposed to be an elite institution and things associated with it are meant to be professional. The barber’s shop on the other hand belongs to the Malgudi days. The man has a fair priced service, is not too bad with the manes and engages you in pretty interesting conversation......but there is something about his crotch. Let me clarify:-

Applies water to my hair, pats it down(the hair doesn’t obey).

Picks up the scissors, advances menacingly....caresses his crotch as if comforting it that everything is ok. He would attend to it soon.

Snip snip snip, the excess hair the back of my hair has disappeared. He lets out a sigh of satisfaction. Now the rim of his underwear is adjusted to take it away from the line of attack.

“Saab yeh IODEX, MOOV sab bekar hain, hamre paas aayiye hum dekh lenge”(IODEX, MOOV etc are all useless don’t worry I will take care of you). Yeah right. I can already hear Paras pharma cringing.

“Yeh MBA main kya sikhate saab?”(What do they teach you in MBA?). Now I am expected to put that in 2 sentences. Not unlike an interview with P&G. Just that the opposition here has a blade in his hand and a scratch in his.... Some explanation offered. He doesn’t look too satisfied. Now the hand goes in with one smooth motion and acts like a bear in the thicket.

Its time for the massage. I don’t want it. I offer some flimsy excuse about my back feeling fine. Its ‘brushed off’ in a hurry. He assures me that there is nothing to worry. Its my ‘first time’ so I need not be scared. The feel of those hands on my skin.....eeeek

Now, through the 3000m lumbering and the pebble lifting in the gym, there is quite a bit of lets say ‘spare energy’ left all over the body. A bit of it in the back. Two pinches and a tug.... I resemble an Albatross on its last flight. “Please saab thoda aur bend kariye”(Please sir bend a little more)... a couple more inches and I would be saying Hiii to the ‘nether’world.

“Head massage also sir?”. What the heck.....Can as well do the Full Monty. Now this actually felt good. I decided to shut my mind off from the intermissions and just enjoy the experience. Every cell in my brain is hammered into submission. The man would make a decent crafter of Aston Martins. The cars wont mind.

The ordeal ended a while later and I paid the man and his crotch Rs.30 for the effort. “Thanks saab come again”.

My flight took off from Hyderabad an hour ago. A sense of sadness creeps in as the wheels leave the ground. Another three months huh?

I am writing this post at 30,000ft on my way back to helL. In the past six months, I have only concentrated on survival. Tried to ensure that I avoid the failure grades like the plague and touch wood(only plastic is here) I am through. The trade off is that I have zero value addition to me as a person. All escape routes are now closed. I have to stay here for another 15 months. Its time to explore new avenues and lose a few kgs.

Santa Claus is coming(has come) to town

Last day of the dreaded Term II......

Finished 5 subjects.....No chances of F/D.

Got MANAC in a couple of hours time....already have passing grades in it (or so I think).

Have studied nothing for today's paper....Am goin home baby!!!!!

Believability in me is replaced by the sight of green(nah not money this time,for no fault of mine)...Zoom..Am goin home baby!!!!

The next semester promises the return of the 'eccentric king'....Still, am goin home baby!!!

Some really nice people may be pissed with me....But am goin home baby!!

Looks like I am villan No.1 in class....Well....am goin home baby!

A Merry Christmas and a Happy new year........

:)

Role Model?

Remember those essays you wrote back in school?

We were asked to write about our favorite vacations, movie stars, some current day happening or if the teacher chose to be morose(most do), your role model. The distribution would go as follows:-

Dad/Mom - 20%
Mahatma Gandhi/Subash Chandra Bose/Sachin Tendulkar - 60%
Abraham Lincoln/Florence Nightingale/Winston Churchill - 10%
Somebody else(chosen by losers/diligent souls often resulted in shoddy/classy work) - 5%

The rest.... We chose not to submit. In the seventh grade, I was asked to submit one such essay. Non compliance meant a march to the principals office. Now this was nothing new but I had to make the effort as Mum had an audience with the stern lady only a week earlier. The aftermath of these meetings got worse with an increase in frequency. I decided to write. I submitted 2000 words on how Adolf Hitler was my role model. I just wanted to be different, did not take into account the sensitivities involved. I tried to justify murder in the name of nationalism and drew parallels between him and a man whose face is on every bill of value. Mum got her usual call from school(a pity they did not have buddy cards those days) and freaked.

I realised the extent it affected her when a month back she mentioned to me that she really thought I would end up as a terrorist. She told me of nights she couldn't sleep until she heard the turn of the key. My parents knew I stole the car each night and the service station let them know the nature of its usage. They never complained, afraid of exacerbating the issue. Now I am no proponent of morality but there is a line even I wouldn't cross.... I just feel sorry for them, especially mum who tends to take things very personally. She manufactures missiles by profession but is really the glue of the entire household. She is not keeping too well these days and her husband stays a holiday away, her elder son is lost in his own world and the younger is just 13.

Wouldn't mind trying out on those essays again but the lot I write here, well.....

Risk Premium

A fundamental equation that I have derived in the past few months is that the number of posts I write per unit time is directly proportional to my need to express which in turn is inversely proportional to the extent of worry in my thoughts. I call this the extent of worry and not the workload as I am not too sure if I am taking my risk minimizing behaviour a step too far. I have noticed an unhealthy trend creeping into me in the past few months. I started off my days at helL determined never to let a single opportunity pass by me. I had a point to prove. Days now are punctuated by marked absence in enthusiasm. A general lack of interest in things I would normally be in the thick of.

I sit today all alone in a campus that normally houses 600. I sit hoping to do a bit of studying in OM. My mid-term mark is not out yet. I sit trying to minimise risk. I sit knowing fully well knowing that the remaining 599 are out in the city. Some with new found love, some at the INDEX fair and some others at the movies.

I tried bowling to imaginary batsmen at the Eden gardens and contributed heavily towards sending Vodafone’s stock price into green. I tried out the latest developments in the Sun site and managed to instil some new functionality into a pet project of mine.

The 2.7km stretch of solitude beckons. And the exhaustion will give me the endorphins I so desperately need before I sleep.

I have realized why I can never be good at finance. I don’t seek to optimize risk, I seek to ELIMINATE it.

Am The King Of The World

The summer placements passed by IIM Lucknow like a passing cloud.. Slot zero looked amazing with people making offers that went into several thousand dollars per month. The placement week in general was marked by job losses and absence of companies. The placement committee blames it on Diwali and lack of quality. The students blame it on the placement committee and job loss. Some of my close friends blame me.

Now there are certain things in the world I am very confident about. I would never go to Roger Waters and compete in creating magic out of strings. The summers surprisingly gave me a chance to test my skills against the ‘best’ in the business. Sanju believes that I am good at only one thing in the world..... the ability to ‘crap’. People are gifted with musical talents, sporting abilities or sweep women off their feet. Yours truly got this. Am not really complaining, but well....

The summers as anticipated were more of a test of one’s soft skills rather than technical potential. Aah did it feel good. For once, I could confidently state that I was the king of the world. Nobody, kicks me in a group discussion...NOBODY. The process here starts off with a shortlist based on your CV followed by a group discussion and a couple of rounds of interviews. I thankfully made 9 shortlists in Slot 1 a pretty high number even by PGP standards. Now I remember each GD, the usual systematic process of target and eliminate worked wonders. With it went my last chances of anything special with the better half(one-twelfth actually) of helL. I managed Slot 1 and so did Chick, Basu and Saptarishi. The others weren't as lucky but got great offers in Slot 2. Dabbas 'The Terminator' has also managed an offer in Slot 4. A happy picture on a personal front but from the batch's point of view, 68 still remain.

People say I was wrong in my approach to eliminate competition rather than project myself better. My defense is this, if I was failing in a subject, the rest of the class would not lower its marks so that the cut-off gets lower. In an environment which fosters this mindset, it is better to slit rather than get spat on.

We are required to rank our companies in the order of preference. I managed to make it to IBM my rank 2(CTS gave me the miss I have no idea how!!). I ranked it above P&G, KPMG and Stan chart. I listen to the same peals of laughter I heard when I ranked STEX above PCOM.

One great thing about going to a premier institution is that it gives you the freedom to choose. A possibility of picking a less lucrative career option if you choose to. IBM would pay me one third of what I could have made otherwise, but I can get back to IT... my long lost mistress.

Sabbath......(at) last

My mid-sems ended yesterday. A free day at last. It sure was fun to sleep last night without setting the alarm. I plan to see three movies today and have a proper lunch. Some companies have come down for PPTs (they wont take ABM students) but my group will handle them. I bought myself a ‘Titan’ watch yesterday, an impulse purchase is what it is called. Nothing influenced me. ..Ate a whole pizza from Dominos, a burger from McDonalds in addition to the usual fried rice-curry dinner in the mess. A night out with the boys.....

I dreamt last night of being a pilot in the Indian Air Force. I dreamt of flying a white plane(its always been white) into the evening sky, a full rainbow in the horizon. I dreamt of watching rivulets flowing below. Of villages full of people going about their business. Mountains speaking with the clouds. Two planes at my side, a ‘V’ formation. I knew the dials in front of me. My days of playing the simulator....The enemy air base wasn’t too far away. I pushed up the throttle, tilted the plane at an angle fully knowing the risk of stalling. A huge city replete with multi-storied buildings, a crackle of the radio and I pressed the trigger. I have never dreamt beyond that..... I just knew what I had released from my plane and didn’t dare contemplate the consequences.
I celebrated yesterday cause I had no reason to. I rejoiced the end of one week of misery. I toasted to seven exams gone horribly wrong. I smiled at the prospect of going back home two semesters old. Although my head was hollow, I was feeling fine.

People I knew had suddenly taken a great step forward, sceptical though they are of the future. Some understandings can never be understood, but then again who am I to understand it?.

Chick is almost into Barclays, a $8000/month job in the offing. The dominos was her way of saying thanks.

I wouldn’t mind doing my summer internship posted at 8000ft procuring helicopter components.

Welcome back

My last post needed a bit more background...

The journey back home wasn’t too eventful. I just had to do the use the old Indian charm towards bureaucracy, the show of the currency note to the Ticket Checker and Voila!! It gets converted into a II AC reserved berth. A short flight later, I was back home. The week that ensued was like a dream, I was a son coming back home, a grandson with a newly fixed wrist and a boyfriend who was missed. It was pure bliss. A week later, I was back.

“I am the GHOST you see when you open your eyes. In my 15 lectures, I will make you weep. Think of me as a BULLDOG”.

Aah Professor Mishra... the first class of the ‘infamous’ second semester. He liked to define the rules of the game before it was played. Always a better option. A minute late to class and you wouldn’t be allowed in. Coming to class unprepared exposed you to the risk of being questioned and mocked at. 15 lectures down the line, It wasn’t that bad. As a matter of fact, I actually enjoyed the chap’s last lecture. I give him complete credit for my decent performance in the mid sems (MANAC-II seems manageable).

“Be silence!!”

A phrase brimming with philosophy. Unfortunately, it is just a grammatical error by another one of my dear profs. Now here was a man who would never trouble you in class. A perfect gentleman who knew his subject like I knew the names of the actresses in the X rated movies. He taught a subject I was very confident of. I am an engineer after all.

And the next was a jolly looking professor who taught us math. He would pick on a guy each class and teach math the way it was to be taught, slow and easy. Our Economics teacher for some reason, loved telling us how a ‘helicopter that dropped money would change the economy’, the Finance Prof had given marks to everybody who completed his paper the previous year and the HR and marketing professors by reputation were harmless. Perfectly nice people.

Perfectly nice, except for the fact that five out of these were responsible for sending 41 people back home last year. They carried the infamous reputation of awarding the maximum number of Fs and Ds and would lend no ear to pleas of mercy from the council. It was pure luck that we got all of them in a single semester.

I wasn’t too bothered. I had managed a 6.9 after all in the first semester. An A+ in Law meant I could compete with the best. I had the council elections, PCOM task and a broken hand to contend with in term I. Nothing could stop me now. I just had lousy PPTs from companies to attend to every day and endless forms to fill. Most companies though have banned ABM from their placement process. To me, it defies logic if Cadbury does not accept ABM. Something is flawed. Anyways, the quizzes went bad upto the mid-sems, but the rest of the class screwed up too. My preparation for accounts was close to perfect. I approached the mid-sems brimming with confidence..

An Expert Review

"Impressive re!!! very technical so couldn`t understand much... the J2EE n stuff but sounds good. The entrepeneural thing sounds too good to be true though. The positions u`ve held n all that is very impresiive and i luv the impression that the india vs france match gives!!! sounda like ur majorly made an effort, especially since that is the only concrete thing in the responsibilities part... the others could jus be air..y did u mention kane and abel??? looks to me like there is no scope there... i mean if u wanted to mention something so specifically wouldn`t u wanna mention something that would garner immediate interest and would lead to further questions!! like blogging... thats got scope... the book need not be high-brow philosophy (then it`ll jus look like bullshit!!) but something striking and different so u`ll stand apart in the eyes of someone who`ll look at atleast a hundred people like u. Think about it.... "
- Sanj's thoughts on my CV

Companies are pouring in with their pre-placement talks(A two hour bore orchestrated by the placement committee) and the junta is starting to see green. Summer internship offers are going into SIX figures. PCOM brought out a new rule this year asking people to mention their degree and year of joining which has caused quite a stir among the ABM students and the repeaters who feel this is going to seriously jeopardise their chances. Personally I feel better now than later, no point living in denial. The .4%tile in CAT makes all the difference.

I can safely acknowledge that my programming days are now beyond me. The thought of never being able to write another algorithm is sad to say the least cause this is what I thought I would do for my entire life. New avenues are now opening up. Branding and Advertising look great, but too little money there. Finance is a big NO, Marketing involves too much travel, Operations doesn't involve an Air conditioned workplace, HR(dad feels insulted, he thought a B.Com(hons) from SRCC would get a peon's job) and therefore by selection or elimination I end up with what I started.......IT.

Am not too bothered with the placements, people have started to go mad. Am doing my best to keep peer pressure at an arm's length. I believe money is not a major driver, or am I just kidding myself???

Four nurses.....three male

“Think of helL as a simulation of the corporate world. Just cause your hand breaks, the competition doesn’t stop.”

The last sad post for a while I assure you. No concessions are allowed to enter the gates of helL. No extra time, no easy correction, no remedials....the best I got was Ram Nevaj(BLESS HIM)an attendant who acted as my scribe. It sure was fun spelling H-E-I-R-A-R-C-H-I-A-L, drawing diagrams and explaining what exactly is the symbol ampersand in the midst of a ten minute quiz. I lost four precious minutes in my Operations quiz due to a certain genius who insisted on finishing his tea before he started writing. Government zindaabad. The paradox is that I actually ended up doing better in my quizzes with the broken wrist than before. Beats me how.

I had four amazing people who assisted me through the ordeal, keeping my spirits up, getting me food everyday(I cannot hold a plate you see) and even buttoning my pants. Twenty such days later the end term exams arrived. I did surprisingly well in all of them, well above my expectations. The exams ended on the 15th of September. My place in the second term was assured. I had to take a train to Delhi and a plane from there to get home. The lucknow mail left for Delhi at 10:00pm. A bus was arranged to get us to the station. At 9:50pm, the person who booked my tickets said “Mava dengindhi(Dude we're f****d), this ticket is for the 16th!!”.

A tale of a coconut, a sublime high and quizzes...Part II

" Blurred faces start staring at you like ghosts in smoke. I remember myself shouting that I am losing my sight. Who was I kidding as if Lucifer is going to help me. I have an inkling I will be his most esteemed guest. I was now going deaf. I wondered how it would be to feel my heart stop beating. The feeling is extremely weird when you can't hear, can't see and can't feel but yet, you are fully concious. Water on my face, aah a sensation. have I reached the river that borders life and death? Somebody is screaming.... I have reached already??. The ghosts reappear. Wait a second I am not really dead."

3.4 is the name of our insti band. I personally am not a big fan of rock music and they do not help their cause when they start practising in the H11 common room, only 4 inches of cement separate us and is often not good enough to guard my sleep. 3.4 also happens to be the name of a crossing 3.4kms from helL. The place where a very questionable daba and the liquor stores lie. My first sights after (re)opening my eyes.

Now the spasms of pain started to hit me. My wrist was a gonner for sure and I somehow managed to take off my helmet. Some kind souls.... yes they still exist, got me some water to drink. A familiar face popped up among the crowd. It was Anuj my hostelmate. My loyalties sure are warped and the first thing I managed to utter was “ghaadi kaisi hain??” (how is the bike??). He picked up my bike(still in fifth gear) and we made a few calls to the guys.

At helL, time is everything. The most precious commodity. An extra minute or two are snatched at all costs. Its truly moving when in such a scenario, guys took time off to get me to the hospital, got my hand bandaged, my head MRIed and my bruises dressed. Bhanu and Pandey take a bow. The favour shall not be forgotten.

I started writing this post mentioning that I had just given my second Quiz in MANAC. Quizzes and assignments are your lifelines at helL. You cannot afford to neglect them. Again, a question of warped loyalties, I refused to get my hand cast in plaster. Hoped a bandage would do. A decision I am regretting already. ‘Signature’ was my painkiller and the nights were long and painful. Two brave days and tons of abuse from Mr.Basu & Chick drilled some sense and I got my hand cast.

A tale of a coconut, a sublime high and quizzes...Part I

“ A feeling like this comes but once in a lifetime. A feel that you know is your last. The last light of life being snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Somehow, things that mattered a lot to me a few minutes back didn’t seem so significant anymore. All my troubles were now behind me. I must admit, I never thought dying would be so calming. As I prepared for my journey beyond, thoughts of what I was leaving behind came to my head. My loved ones came first, Mum I sympathised with her cause I was sure she would be devastated by the news......, Sanju, who would never let me end a single telephone conversation without a formal goodbye.... and then came MANAC naah thats not a loved one, not even close, Management Accounting the most dreaded subject in helL... I could never clear it now. I also thought of the child I was never going to have and the pretty girls I would never see.........I slowly started to regain my sight”.

Aah the feel of being able to write a blog again is not too far from Wills Menthol burning my lungs after a long hiatus. I am sorry if I have been sounding suicidal. The truth is far from it. I love my life too much to try and get away from it.

ITS NOW OR NEVER – Apache 150, my first motorbike. Bright Red, looks like smouldering coal in the evening sun. My reward for a great show in college. I drove the 36km to college in under 40min every day. The feel when the speedometer borders 115km/hr on an empty highway with the helmet pressed closed to my face and the air muscles filling my shirt is something that I have gotten used to. I am sure every guy would nod along when I claim that there is a certain feel whizzing along the roads with a pretty girl at the back with her arms around your neck, you are the envy of street, the Dude and at the risk of sounding cliché ‘The king of the world’.... and speed breakers, now thats a separate joy in itself.

“I don’t give surprise quizzes but my quizzes will surprise you” – Prof. S.C.Bansal

There aren’t too many pretty girls in helL and even if one of them agreed to get on my bike, it would be tantamount to signing my own death certificate. The walls have ears!! I was too used to my bike and decided to get it to helL. On the 17th of August 2007, a surprise quiz was announced in MANAC. It went surprisingly well and I was sure of making a 8.5 on 10. It was also time for me to collect my phone from the service centre and my new pair of spectacles from the store. Dabbas told me in the morning that he had to get his specs fixed too but unfortunately, he was nowhere in sight. It looked like it was going to rain, so I packed my jacket in my backpack. Why take a chance?. With a song in my heart and something resembling it flowing through my lips I set out to get the stuff. No hassles there.

The road that leads back to helL was unusually desolate. The multitude of trucks that whiz past with the sobriety of their drivers in serious doubt were not there to litter my path. I eased the bike into fifth. The needle touched 70. Looks like MANAC is not that bad after all. I might just clear it.... 80. Not too much work to do today, I should get to sleep by 12 maybe even catch a movie.... 100. A bus ahead of me refuses to make room to overtake... damn I thought I could touch 110 for the first time in lucknow. The bus eased ahead and I noticed an object on the road..... A damn coconut. There was no was to avoid it, I was too close to manoeuvre around it. I jammed the breaks. Disc breaks are great. They give you amazing feels when there is a chick at the back but they couldn’t save me. I went over the coconut, skidded, smashed my helmet against the road and after what seemed an eternity, came to a halt some thirty feet away from where my beautiful bike lay sprawled on the road. Getting up was easy enough, I did not feel a thing, I managed to get to the corner of the road away from potential trucks. I hate to think of all the scratches on smooth steel. I started to lose my vision.

86400 ticks to freedom

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance..... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."


- Tryst With Destiny
Jawaharlal Nehru


Have you ever felt that you were a set of keywords.... under what index would you be stored in a search engine? What are the tags that you carry, that cut down the sample space under which you may be placed? Ever thought of what you may profiled as, when a person comes up to you with a sheet of paper he calls a 'survey'? Under what category are you listed at the call center?

The need to belong. The need to acquire an identity. The need to preserve it. The need to defend it. From the awarding of gallantry awards to bursting crackers when Sohail's off stump is uprooted. The scale varies, the feeling is the same. helL is not too different.

I for one have always felt the need to 'Get Indexed'(I hope thats not copyrighted). Mum did not hesitate while making her final project presentation at IIT-Madras cause she wanted me to live with the brand right before I was born. The need was compounded after my class 12 debacle when only the infamous 'backdoor entry' could get me into a half-decent college. I must add here, that I know not where I would be if not for some amazing support(monetary in this case) from dad. The college I was getting into, with my rank in the engineering entrance was set in a pristine environment, lush greenery everywhere and a roof that allowed peeks at the sun. You can't get much with a rank of 22347 in your state can ya?

I guess this is the main reason, I gave my heart and soul to get into helL after my CAT results. I guess the entire rush behind the Council and PCOM was also to acquire more tags, but at some point........ you pause to wonder if its all worth it and thats when you draw the line. StEX looks like a happy tradeoff and is well worth being my first choice.

I had started this post when there were still 86400 ticks to independance day. Am off to celebrate with my StEX teammates(amazing bunch bless them). I don't think Nehru would have meant waking up to independance day with a hangover or in my case an upset stomach as the perfect way of starting another year, but hey I am trying hard to discover my own meaning of freedom..... Am even starting to get glimpses of it.

As you like it.....

You've got to give it to the bard. I don't know about the world being a stage but it is evident when you try, you can make it one. There is a mental tussle that is perennially on when an equally weighted binary choice needs to be taken. Whenever I was taken to a toy store as a child, I was given a fixed budget and asked to take anything. The amount was restricted, the choice was not. Any combination of toys I would buy, could never exhaust my budget to the last paisa. But then, I had to spend the entire amount.......I just had to. I remember buying things I would never use...things like erasers, gum, toothpicks, paperclips, tooth powder..... anything, but I just had to use the whole thing up. I never could give it away.

People say I have changed. I don't pull pigtails anymore but the girls still think I am a jerk. I don't steal my dad's car anymore but I haven't seen him either. I don't stuff my mouth with food any longer but food has just stopped tasting the same. I don't come home late anymore, but then..... I am not even at home.

A couple of hundred thousand people take 'The Mother of all exams' each year to suffix three letters to their name. I have no idea why I wrote CAT, I never wanted to study further. I had a job that was a ten minute walk from home. An upcoming firm of my own which made me 60k in three weeks. Why then did I make this choice..... I made it, to get the power to choose. Beggars can't be choosers.

I am now officially a part of STEX, the Student Exchange Cell of helL. We help facilitate sinners to temporarily escape our confines and entice gullible souls to be charred by our flames. The profile is not glamorous and it doesn't make much sense to the payoff matrix, but I have friends here. Makes a helL lot of difference to the whole equation. I read in some case out here about how people leave managers and not companies... how true. Not many people agree with my choice, some may even call me a fool behind my back. I might sound contradictory if you have been following my thought flow until now, but I made my choice.... My first step towards getting my affairs back in order.

It is a luxury, nothing less to be able to come home. By home, I mean a house that contains people who love you..... people you love. helL's 185 acres house the best in India. It has an in-house fully air conditioned discotheque!!!. Hostel buildings, each of which would rival any other campus. A state of the art library and computer lab. Wide open spaces that are meant to stimulate the mind. The sound of silence that one hears on a jog at two in the night is unearthly. Wolves run around in the more exotic areas of the campus. I almost stepped on a python the other day... I have made some amazing friends. The conversations are witty. People are mostly sweet. I am ready for the second half of the term.................I wanna go home.

Breaking point

The great sages have often advocated that the answer to the question "Who Am I?" is one if discovered, gets you in touch with the eternal truth. It would be so simple if one can clearly define his limitations and work within them. Limitations differ from one being to another. A tiger marks his limitation by urinating on the trees that define his boundary, a new born infant lets out a scream, water starts to boil and even the wind flows around the cliffs.

In Economics, we learn about the budget line which defines how much a consumer can purchase given his constraints. The indifference curves talk about the various combinations of goods that can give the same satisfaction to a consumer. If only life were as simple as that..... If only we knew the speed limits.... the list goes on.

The unrelenting torrent of exams finally ended yesterday by noon. I have mixed emotions about my performance. I managed to do great at Math, my perennial bug bear but did very poorly at Accounts and Economics. The rest were all like local bands who play before and after the big boys show up. They never really merit much attention.

The hiatus gave us a chance to make a trip to the city. Couples have started to form already. Due to the lack of the fairer sex, if a single girl is present in a group, all members may consider themselves to be fractions in the 'couple'. After all, the first thing you see on entering the campus are statues depicting scenes from the 'Mahabharata'. Unfortunately, yours truly had to go with Mr.Basu (I truly recognise my limitations here).

McDonalds makes really good burgers. Its a wonder they come without a warning for health. I am sure people make more number of resolutions sitting at McDonalds than at New Years. Shopping for underwear, formal shirts and soap followed. The man at the counter gave me the weirdest of looks when I handed him 10 cakes of pears green, Is it a crime for a guy to buy the soap of his choice? Why is it not weird when a girl says "Oh! but the cut is 0.001mm too wide, lets go honey"...... My debit card finally managed to shut him up. We also saw the movie "Gandhi - My father" and had dinner at a fancy chinese place. The poignant scenes of freedom fighters made the struggle at helL seem reasonable. Finally found some scenes I could relate to. I hope I can devote a lot more time to Praveen Jr(no that won't be his name). A thought from rediff.com comes to my mind "On your deathbed, you never think of how much more time you must have spent at office".

However big a fool one might be within the confines of helL, he turns into the most eligible bachelor once he crosses cerberus. One gets to experience the feelings of a well endowed female as she walks into a room. I am buying every T-shirt there is on sale from now.

As we re-entered the gates of helL, the fun-ended and the grind began. I missed the insti party that is held every fortnight(unlimited booze, limited girls) and sat coding for the STEX task. Once the sun came up on a lazy summer morning, I decieded to treat myself to a luxury. I slept for six hours.

Today is the only buffer day we have between the end of our mid-term exams and the onset of the post-mid term session. The day of Sabbath, of fun, rest and frolic. Did I bite off more than I could chew in the pre-mid term session?? Its too late to think about that. Am just going to keep trying to discover that point where I will break. I just hope I will never discover it.... But a sweet little birdie who was crying to me last night told me its not too far.

We did not bag the 'ghadi' project(came third). Its time to gear up for the last week of my PCOM task and the beginning of another challenge. Whatever happens, I am going to start jogging from today. No matter what. PCOM meet begins in 10 min. My teammates are nowhere to be seen.......

'Flab'bergasted....

Isn't it amazing how the phrase a six-pack can be referred both to cans of beers and a certain ordering of muscles in your stomach. Would you not rate god's six days of toil much higher had he given a positive co-relation between the two, unfortunately god has got his(or her) own plans and I, now have a very visible belly.

I have forever been used to the fact that I can never put on weight no matter what. The endless sessions of hyderabad biryani coupled with 1.5Lt bottles of coke, or for that matter the tons of alu fry lovingly prepared by pati never made much of an impact on my fat quotient. My dad has some excellent theories when it comes to life. The context compels me to let one out of the bag -"You start putting on weight, first when you get a job and second when you get married..... after that, well you just stop noticing". Given this biblical truth, my jitters get even higher as my only shot at a job is two years from now, and marriage well.......

My first few days @ helL were all fun compared to what is in store right now, I actually managed to go down to the city twice to gorge on some lovely authentic food, watched shootout at lokhandwala with a couple of Frenchmen, drank every brand of liquor from desi daru to signature..... man am getting nostalgic. What I forgot to mention is that I also used to go on a 3km brisk jog around the campus every night. A ligament in my leg just refused to see the point of doing all the exercise and a month and a half later, I can't see my damn belt buckle anymore!!

Most of us facchas(the first year lambs) have bought a laptop and already run file sharing softwares, so the night gets longer and the schedule a little tighter. The internet speed is pretty amazing here, only wish I had the time and to do full justice to the facilities. All the presentations in the subjects for the first mid-term are done with me giving the introduction in each presentation(thanks guys). All my experience with impromptu speaking were put to good use and I came through unscathed.

Will VLCC, dieting and slimming pills start doing their rounds?? Only time can tell. I slightly have more urgent problems to look into right now. My first major academic challenge, the first mid-term examination begins on Monday with the endemic MANAC and carry on for the rest of the week. Will sure have a lot to say in my post next Saturday, just hope am in good enough spirits to write one. Oh! and by the way I got a 6 on 10 in my first MANAC quiz, the first step towards scaling the mean of MANAC.

The stuffed capsicum was really good today. Am off to grab a snack before my 4pm lecture(attendance crisis).......burrrp

Soap salesman

After seeing all those life on the edge movies about corporate life and the stimulating work environments, I came to helL looking for some catalyst that would transform my otherwise mundane career profile. Had I not landed here, I would like thousands of other Indian Engineers be working for some IT banner in a non-descript cubicle. I would have made close to 4 lakhs per annum, looked forward to friday night, sneaked a way through the office's firewall to surf banned sites, watched Shivaji in its first week of release, started reading on potter's last days at Hogwarts and at the very least slept 10 hours a day.

There is this new buzz around the campus with P&G announcing a live project. There are 10 teams of 20 people each competing towards decoding the strategy of 'ghadi', some unheard of detergent which is apparently doing well in the rural areas of UP and Uttaranchal. The work done by us dutiful slaves would then enable P&G launch its own brand in the mass market. The winners of this contest can hope for the holy grail of marketing hopefuls a Pre-placement interview(PPI). After losing out in the council elections, I was available for picking and am now a part of one of the best teams on campus.

This is where people should understand the amount of stale work that goes into a seemingly glamorous profession. I don't think anybody in his right mind would want to emulate the work of a census taker. It is not fun walking around in the streets of Lucknow asking people "Do you use ghadi??" and if that harassed person actually bothers to respond, grab the opportunity and poke him until he leaks all his data. Once all the data is compiled, you then make a proposal (bending on both knees) and pray. Pray that two years down the line, you end up as a soap salesman.

Numbers bring to mind another fiasco that occured today - our first quiz in MANAC(management accounting), the most dreaded subject in the first semester. It had a casualty rate of 15 last year. The professor hands us a 4 page case study and announces "you have 13 minutes". 13 MINUTES???. Looks like I am going to end up on the wrong hook of the bell curve as usual.

Am getting glares from my teammates now, have 2 presentations for tomorrow.

Life at the bottom of the bell curve

Whats the most natural thing you say when you meet someone and have to make petty conversation?? My take generally is "Howz life?". An acquaintance today asked me the same question and the only reply I could muster was "going on...." DUH what kind of an answer is that?. Looking back, actually looking way back(20 days is an eternity here), I wonder if given a chance, I would make the same decisions again. It has not been a smooth flow, I lost the cultural secretary elections by 1 vote in the repoll(the first was a tie). Ended up in the bottom 8 in my class in the Quam quiz and am almost sure to be chucked out by all the committees I applied for.

Contrary to Sanjana's analysis of me being a 35yr old banker, I consider myself to be a gambler. There is this seperate thrill when you push things beyond the limit and the stakes are all or nothing. Ever heard of this management funda called SWOT analysis?? I am sure you have for if not, you wouldn't really have reached this far down in my blog. Anyways, the SW & O seem to have taken a walk and only the T stands in all its glory. Lets look at the situation on hand....

I have reached the task round of PCOM(placement committee), the most elite body in IIM Lucknow. The selection procedure comprises of 2 rounds of interviews, two concurrent task rounds and a final presentation. Now, here is a committee I would really like to join both for the brand name and the kind of work they do. The members themselves are zombies and the only time they manage to sleep is in class. The stakes are high and so is the price to pay... aah now we are talking.

Every subject @ helL( we have six in the pre-mid term) requires you to complete a group assignment and make a presentation on it, the deadlines approach in a week. The mid-term themselves are in twelve days.

Only three of us have made it to this stage of PCOM from ABM and Mr.Basu has already dropped out. I tried my hand at it but the PCOM guys asked me to give it another shot. I just hope I am not shooting my own foot.

What exactly am I doing blogging when the going is such?? Just trying to push the barbed wire a wee bit closer to my neck. I welcome myself to life at the bottom of the bell curve where even reaching the mean is an uphill task.

Siestaaaaah

Ever heard of people suffering from this disease called 'insomnia'??? Whats that? I mean how can someone not get his forty winks. There is this feeling of bliss that I experience every time I flop down on my sweaty pillow knowing fully well that the I am immune from the fires of helL at least for the next few hours. I have been used to getting 56 hrs of sleep a week at the very least and the thing that scares me most out here, is whether I will have to pawn this at the feet of the omnipresent god called CGPA. There is this senior in my wing who claims to have gone a whole week without sleeping. Come on now.. we are talking about 168 hrs straight. I have heard stories of Samson breaking pillars and a horse which can count but this tops it all. But somewhere in the very corner of my mind, the thought lingers "could it be true?".

One night sans sleeps gets me far more woozy than 6 pegs of McDowells or for that matter, one joint of Lucknowi ganja. Imagine such a person being subject to the strongest amphetamine in the world......CLASS. Right from my kinder garden days to college, I have paid homage to the last row in class. How can helL not infringe upon this fundamental right??? is it possible that the system will leave this small pleasure to us? Welcome to the system of fixed seating arrangement. The system where 26 year olds sit at their assigned seats like the teeth in your mouth. Every absence is conspicuous. Imagine smiling with a few tooth knocked out. This blunts the only weapon we davids possess against the tall requirements of attendance. Just in case I did not mention this before, we require 80% attendance for every course. Sounds like a School???????.............. Welcome to life at a B-School.

Relationships.....

As an engineer, one is expected to have an analytical mind and look at the entire gamut of phenomenon in a quantitative or sequential manner. Can this be applied to all kinds of happenings, lets take a few relationships for instance.

My mother is supposed to love me, typical of every mom on the planet. We have a variable here 'love' and two actors, me and my mom. In any kind of transaction between two mentally-adept parties, the yardstick is that the result should be mutually beneficial. Right from the moment my mother heard that I have gotten into IIM, she has started every sentence with "you know praveen, he is now in IIM". Suddenly, the nuisance turned into a golden boy. I guess everybody must have read the story about the pretty princess who kissed a frog and turned him into a handsome prince. helL can never be described as pretty and surely I looked better than a frog. Now, does this mean that my mother loves me more than she did before I got in here?, or is it just that she now has a socially justifiable reason to express her feelings for me?


Sanjana on the other hand is not taking the whole thing too well. The days are littered with phone calls that sometimes go into hours. I have already spent 1200 rupees topping up my phone. Personally, I can understand what she must be going through, for my mom's list of expectations totally differ from that of Sanjana. Sanju's scared that helL will expose the two horns that have been suppressed through the years. helL is a place where slitting a throat is not only justified but is a skill that must be perfected. The very system of relative grading and the razor sharp rules act as a sharpening stone and each passing day gives another opportunity for your dagger to say hi to the stone. Oh!! by the way Sanjana is my girlfriend. The girl whom I used to tease with my friend in high school, forgot in classes 11 and 12 and then fell head over heels in love with in my graduation. Are you my lucky charm Sanju??? Now thats a question that must be put across to mom.

The first few days @ helL

There are some points in life; call them moments, scenarios or events when one is given to think whether the course of life is tailored. Stepping out of the Gorakhpur Express on the 2nd of June with the mercury hitting 45C was one such moment.

In my opinion, life is a perfectly balanced equation consisting of a well defined set of variables. I always try to relate an event with the scenarios preceding it, if something does not make sense, you have the universal balancing co-efficient to add to it - luck

I had a childhood which some would call individualistic, my parents have often been chided for giving rise to a loose cannon. Not many kids I know were allowed to come home anytime in the night when they were six years old. I started this paragraph with 'I had a childhood' does that mean I am a child no more. Are the smattering of grey hair on top having their say??

On the 6th of June, I had gone to Charbaugh station to bid goodbye to mum when I got a call from Chennai about my final semester results, I am now officially Praveen Dwarakanath B.Tech. Pride is a word that is often used in a negative tone. Down south, it is no big deal if you are an engineer, they come a dime a dozen(they do cost slightly more these days). Only I know what that parchment with a blue stamp and the signature or a person who never knew me means. The basis for obtaining degrees are marks in various theory courses and laboratories which mainly test your ability to cram and to an extent your IQ, what is the weight given to one's EQ?. What is a degree anyways? Is it a license to practice a profession? A paper which advertises your capabilities? A basic requirement these days to get married?. Why is it that I always feel a tinge of pride when I stand up on the ragging wells in Hostel 11 and announce "I am Praveen Dwarakanath. I am a Computer Science Engineer from SRM Chennai" fully aware that my audience has a pedigree that I can never match.

In my first class at helL I distinctly remember Prof.Sushil Kumar cautioning us against becoming highly individualistic. I guess what he meant was that people stop interacting among themselves and start spending too much time behind the yellow wooden doors of the hostels. The irony came in his next sentence "keep it in the back of your mind that not all who get in here, get out with a diploma". Geez mate we are talking about people who score a 99 percentile in CAT. Am I going spend more time with my books than under the sun? Will I get to spend two years of my life here? Only time will tell.

The course at helL is fully residential and the hostels are divided into two types The city and The slums. Hostels 1-8 are called slums and 9-13 form the city. The hostels themselves are huge two-storied buildings that are meant to jail the best of india. The confinement is never physical, there are no timings, restrictions or anything that can be put in black and white. It is just a feeling, one that initiates a sense of guilt and foreboding everytime you step out for a non academic purpose.