Mynd

One year

2008-04-01T17:12:00.003+05:30

A year ago...
robe. cap. audi. parents. diploma. promises. aspirations. enthu. friends.

A year later...
gold cards. sleek laptops. blackberrys/Nokia E series. excel sheets. ppts. hush puppies. arrow. traffic jams. air traffic control. 8:57 ki fast local. finding our better half (for some of us).

One year. hazzar memories. One truth. Joka was the best daze of my life.

ps: 1st April is the anniversary of my convocation.

if you were LOST ...

2008-03-14T19:21:00.002+05:30

The gtalk status message of a friend of mine read 'LOST' ... within minutes I had given him a dose of gyan on what I call going back to the nets ... I dunno if it helped him or not .. but it surely made me blog after a looooong time

lets spend a few lines on this funda .. basically .. every once in a while, we are stuck in a state of moodlessness or lostitude (i hope u understand what it means) ... it is beyond sheer disappointment or helplessness ... it is the state when our belief in ourselves is shaken to some extent ...

a way of coming out of this is to get back to the basics ... just as a cricketer goes back to the nets when he strikes poor form ... so where would I go ? may be to people who matter to me ... people who care to listen .. going back to things that I loved doing .. watching my favorite movie again ... plugging in the headphones and playing my favorite songs at full volume ... calling up a dear friend whom I havent talked to for a while .. eating daal chawal with hands ..
what would you do when u r Gtalk status would read LOST ?

How far .. and which way ?

2007-08-21T10:41:00.000+05:30

It was not a great day ..

In other words it was a forgettable day ...

Life to me has pretty much like left with Manmohan Singh and subprime with traders ...

Really dont wanna dissect my own mood right now ...

Too far backwards .. and I wud be ...

Too far ahead ... and I wud be ...

Some questions .. are better left alone

Lets not disturb them .. and let them not disturb me

good best hai ya best better hai

2007-05-22T01:03:00.000+05:30

this post is about 2 ways of life. and i want to come to the point right away.

So, the first one is called 'good-life'. It is basically about living a simple and comfortably paced life ( i am using comfortably instead of easy here, coz different people have different capabilities). It doesnt mean that one does not work hard, but it is about not running madly after things. Its about being a little sure of what you want, about enjoying the small things that happen to you. It is about feeling great that you have a 'good' life.

So far so good, ,many people would agree that this sounds great. But is it so easy? how many of us actually live a life like that? I dont say that such a life is free of complications. Complications to some extent make life challenging. So they are very much there in this good life too.

Now, lets call the other life - 'best-life' (pardon me if it reminds you of westlife, i dont like them at all). This is about running hard and harder and harder. Simple sa funda hai yaar, having an unending quest for perfection and excellence. Now is that good or bad? thats not really the question here. Many a times I have seen people troubling themselves in this pursuit of best-life. It seems that they are never satisfied, unless they achieve what is best according to them. And often, even that doesnt seem to make them happy. And sometimes, they have similar expectations from others. For them, anyone who settles for anything less than the best is no good. Imagine having a boss who thinks like that. Imagine what a 6 year old goes through when he has parents who are not satisfied with his 2nd rank.

So where are we going with this? am not passing a judgement on which of the 2 approaches are good. May be both, or may be there is a way to balance them. May be with time I would learn to appreciate the best-life more (I have learnt to appreciate it a bit in last 2 yrs). Till then .. hoping for a good-life as I start down counting my days at home .. wishing you a good-life or a best-life depending on what you feel is better.

ps: I honestly believe that this is a half cooked post. I should have given more thought to it before writing it down. But consider it to be a ceaserian rather than a normal delivery as I could not have held it for long in my mind.
I am trying to do away with my triple dot (...) style of writing and using proper english punctuations. Plz to correct me whrever the punctuations have gone terribly wrong.

Here I am ...

2007-04-29T02:43:00.000+05:30

Writing after a long time ....

Well!!! I m writing this post as aussies are on their way towards a world cup hattrick .. it was pak in 99 .. india in 03 and this time it is the island nation from the sub continent that is getting trashed ... I am writing this post as mandira bedi is in the middle of another controversy, no prizes for guessing that it is related to something that she was wearing .. after noodle straps and tatoo on bare back .. this time its her sari ...

I am writing this post at 1.30 am at home ... some of you would be a little surprised at the 'am' part of the time ... you might be thinking that what is this guy doing so late at home ... well i am trying to answer that question for myself for last few weeks ... honestly, i just do aimless surfing in the so called happy hours of my dial up connection ... dont worry, I am not hooked on to any of those sites which a lot of people would surf at this time of the day (night)

I am writing this post as I read few other blogs of people discontended from corporate life .. disappointed by indian cricket team and even the ones who are dejected coz a foreigner called richard gere managed to do what they always dreamt of ...

I am writing this post I am getting desperately restless because there is something inside my mynd that is dying to get an expression ... I am writing this is as a confused 26 yr old ... I am writing this not to keep my blog alive but to feel better .. I am writing this when I am with my family ... with people I love the most ... I am writing this while I am at home .. I am writing this while I feel alone ....

Of love-life, mouse and deep faith

2006-08-31T01:38:00.000+05:30

Had a few comments asking me to post more often even if I write about my sorry love life ... lekin saala murphy ko bhi akhha duniya mein apan-ij mila tha ... sorry to kya kisi bhi type ki love life se duur ka bhi vaasta nahi hai ... thoda idea apne friends log ki love life ka hai lekin usko kai koo public mein discuss karne ka ... so i have to scratch the rusting corners of my vacuum filled head to find some topic to write about ... The fact that i am sitting at home makes thinking even more difficult ... bole to naa to raat ko 1 baje music sun sakte hain aur naa hi is dial up connection par youtube se videos download hote hain ... to saala dimag chalega kaise

In June, I had my first experience of traveling with air-deccan, last week I had my second. With 19 other batch mates in the same flight we had good fun. The danger of being detained for suspicious behavior stopped us from doing too much non-sense like playing antakshari in the plane. Anyways, the real surprise came on Delhi railway station where checking of passenger luggage has become a new security measure.

With the innocent-soft-spoken-cultured-eligible-bachelor looks of mine, the chances of me being suspected to be a suicide bomber are only as high as malika sherawat playing the title role in jai santoshi maa. Still, as part of usual procedure, I was stopped for a security check at Delhi railway station. The fun started when the policeman asked me to open my laptop bag.

Scene: Delhi railway station,
Cast: me, policeman1 (we call him Hawaldar Bahadur) and policeman2 (we call him Crook-Bond)

With i-am-the-most-responsible-police-officer look on his face, Hawaldar Bahadur picks up my laptop charger

Hawaldar Bahadur (HB): Ye kya hai
Me: (with the kahan-fas-gaya look) Sirrr, Ye ch ch charger hai issska
HB: (with i-see-something-fishy-in-this look) kis liye
Me: (with the super-cool-sincere-student look) Sirrrrr, yye laptop ko ch ch charge karne ke liye
HB: (Inspecting the wire of the charger) remained silent and gave me a thakur-to-tu-gaya look

HB now picks up the external mouse
HB: (with the sherlock-holmes-meets-karamchand look) ye kya hai
Me: (trying hard to stick to the super-cool-sincere-student look) Sirr, ye ye woh mouse hai
HB: (with the stone-age-man-looking-at-paris-hilton-on-playboy-cover look) matlab, ye kya kaam ka hai
Me: (with the i-am-a-techie-nerd-who-thinks-osama-is-just-a-computer-virus look) sir ye woh iske saath (pointing at the laptop) lagate hain kaam karne ke liye
HB: (i cant even dare to look at his face to check his look now) Kaise kaam karta hai
Me: (with the chanting-hanuman-chalisa-yet-appearing-cool look) opened the laptop and tried explaining him what the hell it was

Suddenly, Crook-Bond who was standing a few feet away till now busy checking some other passenger chips in ..

Crook-Bond (CB): (with the humare-paas-har-problem-ka-solution-hai look) kya baat hai
Me: (turning to CB) sir kuch nahi, bas ye laptop hai
CB: Arey haan haan theek hai (gives a ullu-ke-pathhe-itna-bhi-nahi-pata look to HB)
Me: (smile reloaded on face) thank you sir ... pack my bag and leave

Moving to another incident ... The 8 day long festival of Jains ended last Monday (the one that ends with seeking forgiveness for all wrong doings) ... Now to give some background, Jainism gives a lot of importance to fasting ... and fasting here means not eating or drinking anything at all ... ya nothing at all ... now its common to see people doing such a fast for a day or may be two ... and every now and then we hear about people doing such a fast for 8 consecutive days ... the 13 year old girl of the priest of our temple did this 8 day fast this year ... She does not belong to a Jain family ... she stays in the temple premises with her family ... 8 days without any food or water the look on her face can be used to define divinity ... her act made be think about what wonders can deep faith do ...

And I am thinking ... is there anything in which I have such strong faith ? The question lingers...

ps: I request all of u to forgive me for any act of mine that would have pained/offended u guys during last one year ..

Bas yun hi ...

2006-08-07T06:24:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: This post is written at 6 in the morning in a whitish mischeifish mood diluted by some REALly activ juice. The sole purpose of the post is to prevent my blog from atrophic dormancy rustio virus.

I do not recieve too many mails, offliners or orkut scraps. Barring the spam and the mails sent by some random wellwishers with subject lines like "v SAVE 82%: VIAGR*, AMBIE*, CIALI*, XANA*, RIVOTRI*, LEVITR*, CIPRO, MERIDI*, CELEBRE*, VALIU* prettier" i recieve mails less frequently then quizzes at IIMC. The average time between 2 scraps in my scrapbook is enough for increasing Indian population by a few thousands. In short my CyberLife is not really happening. So whenever i see more mails in my box than the number of balls that Ganguly faced before getting out, i get excited. Today was one such day. Most of those mails or scraps were about wishing me 'maitri diwas'. Thanks a lot guys and same 2 u.

I know that you might be shocked with the crap that i've written and would have already used the four letter word. Sorry for all this. It was neccesary to keep my blog alive.

12 years .....

2006-07-05T03:34:00.000+05:30

it takes twelve years for 2 separated twins to meet again in a bollywood movie .... coz the 'kumbh ka mela' happens once in every 12 years ....

in a sense, last twelve years have been a long wait for me .... 12 years ago a penatly stroke went way off the target .... it was the end of the italian dream at USA -94 .... i was just 14 yrs old and cud not sleep the whole night after watching my fav player Roberto Baggio missing the biggest shot of his life ... this mit sound stupid but the memory of that day still haunts me ... i am not a great fan of Italian football ... but i was a great fan of Baggio .... today Italy has reached the finals again .... honestly, i never thought that this italian team will make till to the finals on 9th july ... but now that they have done that ... i want them to win .... to erase the memory of 1994 world cup from my mind forever ....

I hardly saw Baggio playing except the 94 world cup ... still, he is my all time fav striker ... for last few years, Zidane has been my fav player ... he is sheer magic ... i would be really happy even if France wins because I think Zizou deserves it ...

If France reaches the finals .... I would be really glad ... coz either Italy would win to finish a job left incomplete 12 yrs ago ... or Zidane would prove that he is the greatest of his generation ...

1998 reloaded ...

2006-06-28T02:40:00.000+05:30

Will the magic continue ....

or Will he redeem himself ....

Of farewell, triumph and a bus in the air

2006-06-10T22:24:00.000+05:30

I had quite a few things in my mynd to write about when I left Chennai ... my laziness soared like Dhoni's sixes, the welcome rain in campus worked as a contraceptive for my mind and a post on farewell to Chennai died before conception...

The moment my cab entered the campus i felt very refreshing ... it was like coming to Miami beach after spending months in Antarctica analyzing the linguistic capabilities of infant penguins ... i cannot write more on this because expressing campus life in words is like asking Imran Hashmi to describe the word platonic

Taking a z turn to triumph ... I saw the movie Cinderella man ... it was my first movie on boxing and that too a movie set in the era of great depression ... it is difficult to imagine that people in America were poor and hungry at that time ... this movie made me think about triumph and the sense of achievement ... I must confess that I feel like crying and dancing while watching the climax scenes of jo jeeta wahi sikander, lagaan or lakshya to name a few ... these movies have captured victory beautifully ... they inspire you like anything ...

Finally about the bus that can fly ... I joined the traveled-in-air-deccan club last week ... the experience was so unique that I can write an entire post on that ... but respecting by laziness I’ll just key in a few lines here ... I always felt that if you want to see real India then travel in a train ... deccan comes close to that ...

Date 3rd june .. Air Deccan Chennai Calcutta flight ... scheduled at 7PM (just 20 minutes late ... thatz unlike Deccan)

5.30 - I checked in and paid a cool 770 bucks for the excesses fat that my suitcase had...

Rule I - Fat suitcases hurt your pocket more than slim girlfrnds

6.30 - no announcement for security check yet but I go in for security check and get thru

Rule II - Airport displays are as accurate as parthiv patels glove work

6.35 - Sudden announcement of boarding at gate no.1 and a queue is formed in a flash

Rule III - In India queues are not first in first out ... its fight urself in force urself out (FuIFuO)

6.45 - we board the bus (not the airbus dhakkan, but the bus to reach the aircraft), surprisingly everyone stands near the door ... because Deccan does not give seat number in flights … the FuIFuO logic works here also

Rule IV - fly Deccan only if you have substantial experience of local trains or public buses...

6.55 - We board the plane ... I take an the first isle seat found vacant ... other 5 seats in my row are already occupied ... a pretty girl walks in (my eyes wide open) she stops near me (I am on cloud nine) she sits on the seat behind my seat and I can’t see her now

Rule V - I am Murphy’s darling

7.30 - Flight takes off ... yes it waited 35 minutes after boarding ... I spend next 1.45 hours thinking that why the hell I didn't sit in a row where other seats were vacant and gave myself a chance

Rule VI - I am Murphy’s darling and I am an idiot

9.15 - Flights lands in Calcutta ... my ears are paining ... I meet up two batch mates at airport and take a cab to campus

Rule VII - kissi ne sahi kaha hai ... Ladki aur Bus ke peeche mat bhago ... ek jaati hai to doosri aati hai ...

Today is our first party as PGP2’s … it’s gonna be ABSOLUTely fantastic!!!

I absolutely adore this man ...

2006-05-26T21:41:00.000+05:30

You rock Malli -> http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS00vMjAwNi8wNS8yNiNBcjAwMjAy&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

And others: Pls download your e-certificate

Sabse Pagal Kaun

2006-05-23T09:58:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: The nature of this post has nothing to do with Author's constant exposure to extreme heat in Chennai.

Hello. I've been organizing the 'Sabse Pagal Kaun test' for some years now. And as anyone with an IQ of more than the cube root of pi would have guessed, I was the only participant and the only winner.

Given the changing times when even Budhadeb Bhattacharya is talking of reforms. I have decided to open this contest to private sector and to keep the left happy, a cap of 25% FDP (foreign direct participation) is put.

So here are the nominations for this year ...

1. Sensex - if eccentricity is anywhere close to madness, then Sensex is a big contender. The dip it shows in a day seems like Suraj Badjatya making 'hum aapke hain kaun' today and 'mein prem ki deewani hoon' the next day. And it is not only about crashing down, the ability to recover is equally maddening. I am sure that Sachin Tendulkar and Wayne Rooney would be already taking recovery tips from Sensex.

2. This nomination is sent by Youth for equality. If senility has anything to do with madness, Dear Mr. Arjun singh would win it hands down. Other participants would feel like India playing against England (in soccer not cricket).

3. Cannes - Our only foriegn entry (given the 25% FDP cap). Now I used to think that film festivals are about showcasing offscreen and onscreen talent. This has been amply (dis)proved by Aishwarya Rai and Malika Sherawat being the face of bollywood at Cannes. They can better buy a curvy mannequin and dress it up in a pathetic evening gown to get the same deadwood expression year on year. Come on guys, stop this pagalpan, have you heard of Nasser and Konkona, that’s what Indian cinema is.

4. The final entry is 'You' - Now there are many more exciting things in this world than the number of stars (black holes and quasars included) in Milky Way. Still, you have chosen to read this blog and have reached this far in this post, you know that you deserve a nomination. It mit be your only chance, I have heard that the HRD ministry is contemplating about reservation in this award also.

So here we are, time to vote for the most biased and undemocratic award celebrating meritocracy in madness. Winner will get a chance to meet George Bush (FYI, he has won the lifetime achievement award for a record sixth time)

ps: I know u'll have this urge to vote for yourself and win, pls. don do that, I'll anyways send you an eCertificate of participation. U deserve that, after all you've read this post.

In my mynd: If :) is a smiley ... what do we call :(

Passing the parcel

2006-05-19T19:04:00.000+05:30

I have received 3 mails(fwds) and 2 SMSs on this:

AIIMS: 96 hours after their hunger strike almost 100 students have collapsed. Please come out for support before its too late. What they are doing is for all of us! Its not only the doctors who are against the reservations, so are we and we should come out with full support. The media is prohibited by the government from covering the issue. Please Please Please spread the word...and do something...

I have been reading loads of views on the quota issue on blogs, message boards and mails. Some of them are written with really a balanced, well thought-off approach. Others were just plain anti-reservation rhetoric. I have been away from newspapers for more than a month now, but I assume that every one from Shobha De to Vir Sanghvi must have been writing about this. The point is, when would we say, “Ok, enuf has been written and said, now lets take ACTION”. ACTION, the big painful word.

No matter how strongly I feel about this issue, there is something missing inside me due to which I will never be able to do what my the doctors of my generation are doing. In simple words I lack courage. Thats why I dont even feel worthy of voicing an opinion. It’s not that I am helpless, I am clearly HOPELESS.

Hats off to those who are ready to stand up. God bless you guys. And for the rest, this is what you and I can do, fwd mails and SMSs saying -

“Please Please Please spread the word...and do something...“

Pass the parcel … the parcel of our country’s future, our future. It stopped mattering to us, and we'll cease to matter.

In my mynd:
Hawaon ki hawas kam nahi hoti
Chitaon pe bhi iskon sukoon aata hai
Tum ummeed ka daaman thaame rehna
Diyon pe bhi mashaal sa junoon aata hai

Encounters of the third kind

2006-05-14T18:11:00.000+05:30

Update: after pondering over Y2's comment and realizing that its more probable to see an alien in chennai than a chic ... i rename the post ... although i am not putting 'close' before 'encounters'

i can understand how it feels to find smthing that u've been looking for really really badly ... now my knowledge of history is as limited as clothes on mallika sherawat's body ... so if i remember correctly, archimedes (my spellings are as bad as pathiv patel's keeping) had to work on finding whether the crown of the king was pure gold or not ... when he discovered what we call the law of displaced-water-equal-to-the-mass-of-the-body, he was thrilled enuf to run naked on the streets of rome, was it cairo, was it athens ... whatever. He ran and he screamed Eureka .... i feel the same now .. i have found eye-tonic in chennai .. can u believe it ... ya read again 'eye-tonic in chennai' ....

Scene I - Ascendas tech park. Food court. 9 in the night .. cool place with hot crowd. BPOs rock .

Scene II- Savera Hotel. Disc and Pub. 11 in the nit. was she really wearing only what she was wearning ... huhh ...

Eurekaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa .....

now m not as despo as it sounds ... its just m happy to see some good crowd ... suddenly chennai feels a lot better ...

in my mynd: "naa ji bhar ke dekha naa kuch baat ki, badi aarzoo thi mulaqat ki"

Half time whistle

2006-05-09T13:05:00.000+05:30

Summer internship is half way thru. The no work- no life balance has just tilted to no work-some life

4 weeks in Chennai. Seems a lot longer than that. Given that I spent my 7 years in Indore in just 2 places. 3 different accomodations in 4 weeks in Chennai has been a lot of fun. I have packed my bags so often that I feel I am doing my summers in a live-out-of-a-suitcase types marketing role.

I have seen 3 beaches in last 4 weeks. Given that I had seen only one in the first 25 years of my life. It has been a jackpot. I kinda like the sea. Its really soothing to walk on that sand holding someones hand (wait, thats just a rhyme, it never happened).

I met some old friends after years and made some new ones. They were all very kind souls to treat and feed this debt-ridden-half-mba-with-no-stipend-yet friend. We talked of all the sweet memories of engg. college and work over soup, coffee, nariyal pani and few other beverages. Man!!! nostalgia is so versatile, makes u laugh, makes u cry.

I have spent last 3 days in bangalore. Till last week, I belonged to that rare species of software engineers who are also lovers of rock music and still haven't been to B'lore. 3 days in B'lore were a blast. Especially after spending most of the April in Chennai, B'lore feels like a hill station. Adding to its already gud weather was the Breeze(r) that kept flowing. Bangalore serves you heavy doses of that essential nutrient that your eyes are completely deprived of in Chennai. This eye-tonic is available everywhere in pubs, malls, streets but is diluted and mixed with crowd.

My summers is more than half way thru. Loads of work to be done. I still don feel like working.

The Purple Haze has not faded yet.

rasam sweat and nariyal pani

2006-04-09T19:39:00.000+05:30

vannaakkamm

me in chennai ... last 2 days have been exciting and boring at the same time. Waiting on railway stations for the train to come and then waiting in the train for the destination to come is really boring. sadly i experienced both.

in a boring train journey one of your constant companions are the ads of hakims and doctors who can treat all 'gupt' ailments. these ads can be seen from the train window almost everywhere in India. hours before reaching chennai when i peeked outside the train window i can see these ads in a script that was way different from hindi. i got the second signal of stepping into annaland when rasam was served as a starter instead of soup. train was a few hours from chennai but for me chennai had arrived.

i must say that so far i m impressed by chennai. apart frm the usual hassels of dishonest auto richshaw drivers, alien language and excessive garam masala in my kadai veg (btw it had only capsicum and beans in the name of kadai veg) chennai has been mostly gud.

i thought that kolkata was hot and humid but a day in chennai and i feel kolkata is a hill station. the gud part is that the heat makes me drink more of orange juice and nariyal pani. must say that the nariyal pani here is the best i ever had. it was zimplee waasum (thats simply awesome in tamil).

next 8 weeks are surely gonna be rocking .. m looking forward to a gud time at office and hopefully an AC aprtment... definitely more of nariyal pani, some Rasssam and a species called Tam Babes (is this an oxymoron) ...

ciao (i dunno how to say bye in tamil)

2006-03-31T01:05:00.000+05:30

Its one of those days when u desperately want to write but ur mynd is in stand-by/hibernation. trivial and arbit things kept popping up during last one hour as i tried to key in something. finally some random thoughts ...

I visited the school were i studied from class I to V. it is a really cute feeling to walk again in those galleries where a gud part of ur childhood was spent. even though the school was closed ( a written test for admission in primary classes was goin but no classes) there was a sense of discipline, purity and innocence in air. Its like those movie scenes when u suddenly jump into flashback. i cud c myelf wearing that cute uniform a bag a water bottle neat socks and polished shoes ... although i don miss any of these things what i miss is that innocence that i cud c on every kids face ... wonder if i can be a kid again .. just for a day ... but may be i'll not enjoi that innocence now ... may be!!!

these days i m exposed to severly high doses of Saas-Bahus (both on screen and offscreen) ... ever since ekta kapoor invented the K-virus ... coming back home is never same ... to add to it all the aunts and bhabhis that come to meet my Mom tell some real life saas bahu stories which at times are more spicy than their TV versions. Now my mom has no interest in these real life saas-bahu soaps but even she cant stop those aunties ... i m sure that given a chance they'll beat Ekta Kapoor in her own game ... but i must confess .. the TV versions of K virus have some really cute faces ... they make better eye candy than all those item numbers and remixes ...

think i shud stop here. period.

Nostalgia

2006-03-26T01:58:00.000+05:30

Found something on my comp at home ... pics from college days or i shud say ... engg days ... these pics rekindled the memories of those magical days ... its so great that communication today is easy n inexpensive .. thanks to net n cellphones that m in touch with most of engg friends ... wonder how the generations before us managed to stay connected ...

cannot express the joy of those days in words .. so let the pictures do all the talking ...

awesome pic from a party at Rahul's house ... i m not seen and thats y the pic looks even better ...

my gang with Kashyap Maam ...

Miss u guys ........

end of fuchaadom

2006-03-17T23:09:00.000+05:30

i am MBA/2 .... 1st year is over and and i cant imagine how quickly these 9 months went by ... Life@ IIMC had all the ingredients that make campus life so special ... our holi celebration was just one of them ... i had a huge huge exam on 15th and 14th was holiday coz it was holi day in bengal ...

i was woken up by ppl shouting and banging my door at 11:00 am ... even before i had woken up completely i was already red green blue and what not .... it was pleasing to c that ppl were not bogged down by the OpRess exam and enjoyed holi .... the holi celebration was reloaded on 15th after the exam .... ( m still a lill red blue n green) .... overall it was a fitting end to the most rocking yr of my life ... as i always say 'a near life experience' ...

will miss IIMC in summers ....

rats, indian idols and headlines

2006-03-14T04:02:00.000+05:30

Well .. goin with the flavor of the season ... i got to talk about the salaries and placements at IIMs ... there were certain things that were troubling me the day it all started i.e the placements for 2006. For many B-school grads placements is the chequered flag of a rat race that they have been running for last 2 years or may be for last 24-25 odd yrs of their existence.

What i c in the outgoin batch is something disturbing. there is a decent number of ppl who have 'salary' focus as the only focus. these r the ppl who wud join the highest payin firm irrespective of the job/work at offer. Now there r not too many of them but they aren't too few to be discounted as exceptions. No wonder that media is so crazy abt our placements. ppl inside b-schools r equally crazy abt 'salaries' as the ppl outside.

Seems that the institutes and the media both fail to act in a responsible manner in this case. Indian media is facing extreme dearth of saleble news given the number of channels/ newpapers/ websites. News abt b-school placements sell like hot cakes. Every year u can create an 'indian idol' out of of a Ravi Sinha or a Gaurav Agarwal.The fact that salaries quoted are bloated figures is almost public knowledge. Still it is gud enuf to lure more ppl to appear for CAT and finally to an institute. i wont surprized if CAT applicants touches 2 lacs in 2006.

i can just hope that media and b-schools will start acting in a more matured manner .... i don want to see a day when a sting operation on 'b-school placements' hits the headlines ...

all that u need ....

2006-03-03T03:12:00.000+05:30

read this on a blog ...

"What does it cost to have a celebration?

A winter evening.
Four friends.
One barsaati.
Four glasses of chai.

Hundred bucks of gas.
A rusty old bike.
And an open road.

Maggi noodles.
A hostel room.
4:25 am.

3 old friends.
3 separate cities.
3 coffee mugs.
1 Indiatimes messenger.

Rain on a hot tin roof.
Pakoras deep frying.
Neighbours dropping in.
An impromptu party.

You and mom.
A summer night.
A bottle of coconut oil.
A head massage.
Gossiping about absent family members.

you can spend
hundreds on birthdays,
thousands on festivals,
lakhs on weddings,
but to celebrate
all you have to spend
is your time.".....celebrate life..

is everything ok

2006-02-18T00:40:00.000+05:30

Every now and then i keep lookin back .. thinking about the time i've spent in IIMC ... the classes , the studies, the hostel life, parties, the bakar sessions etc etc ... coming here was surely the high point of my academic life ... but is the time spent here a high point of my life ???

no doubt that each and every moment spent in IIMC is a near-life experience ... absolutely rocking ... but then is the time spent on right things ... m i really doin what i shud be doin .. m i doin what any gud B-school grad shud be doing ... i had 5 classes yesterday ... the first one at 8 in the morning ... we usually do not have classes that early but the prof is a visiting prof so class was rescheduled .... what do we end up with ... sleepy souls barely listening to what the prof was teaching ....

there r many other things which i believe shud not be happening at a B-school .. but they r very much here and elsewhere .... i have read blogs of ppl from other IIMs who are not convinced with the way the 2 yrs at IIM are planned, atleast on the academic front ... too many courses .. little feedback and a mad rush for jobs and CGPA ... not to forget the surprisingly high levels of time, bandwidth and disk space spent on 'entertainment' ... whatz wrong (if at all anything is wrong) .. the system , the people or my mynd that is just not ready to accept things the way they are...

the question lingers ....

Akele hain ....

2006-02-14T00:49:00.000+05:30

V day has some strange effect on people ... most of my friends know that there is no way i can have a girl friend .. they know that any sane girl will not waste her time on me ... still they go ahead and ask me with a naughty smile on their face .. 'kya plans hain' .. they have been asking this for yrs now and know the answer also ... some things dont change .. do they ...

I can c some couple in campus already in V day mood ... and lot of V day wishes floating on IP messenger (IIMC internal messaging) by guys who don have that some special to wish ... I read somewhere that archies is expecting a 5 crore rupee sales of cards (goodies excluded) for V-day ... if we add gifts n choclates n flowers n dinners ... and yes the phone calls and SMSs ... the figure wud be staggering ... so for many ppl ... this day brings more of their first love .. money .

my V day will be spent asking ppl to fill a survey form for my marketing research project .. i guess lot of frustrated guys n gals waiting for their someone special for that special evening will be my target respondents .. if u c a seeda sada boy on streets of calcutta being beaten up by mob .. don assume that hez a over enthu majnu .. he mit be a poor chap from IIMC out to get his project completed .. wish me luck guys .. i need to get those forms filled ...

for others .. enjoi the V day ... and do fill up my survey form .. ciao

ps : one of my friends wrote - 'Realize that V day is ONLY a commercial holiday. It is NOT about love and relationships. It is about selling flowers.\, candy and diamond jewlery. Think of all the money you r saving'

one more time ....

2006-02-09T23:04:00.000+05:30

yet another attempt to keep the blog rolling ....

m in my 3rd term ... close to 43% MBA .... this time has passed in a flash ... i've started calling my days at IIMC a near-life experience ... there r so many things that i did here for the first time ... like going to library ... before u form any opinion let me warn u that i don study much ... i go to the library 2-3 times in a term ... my sidey goes more often than that in a week ...

another thing is ... dancing till the wee hours of the morning in the Quad parties ... with all the party animals of joka .. some high some not so ... the parties here are one the most cherished things ....

seems the inertia is too high n i really cant think of anything more to write ... may be it'll take sm more posts to really get the blog goin ... lets c if i can keep it alive ...

Where there is a will ... there is a left

2005-06-05T17:29:00.000+05:30

UPA govt. has completed one year sometime back. There were loads of reports,articles and news features presenting a report card of govt. Ever since the UPA govt. came into power, expectations on the economic front were huge ... they should be ... when u have a Prime minister who is considered the father of economic reforms and a harvard educated finance minister. My own expecatations from the duo were lesser considering that they were part of a coalition. But even I missed to see that the coalition partner was none than the left parties ....

On numerous occasions, they failed to take a decision which they badly wanted to. Recent case is of the proposed hike in oil prices. I had once seen a GD topic .. ' Good economics is bad politics' ... seems right ... On one hand Indian corporate is dreaming to beat China and is looking towards the government for reforms ... On the other, PM shows concern for farmers, wants subsidies to go and blah blah blah ... but when it comes to a decision, a policy reform .... they keep mum (visibly helpless) ..... I sometimes wonder how does Manmohan Singh sleep knowing that slowly and slowly his regime is undoing (atleast decelarating) the reforms that he had himself started .... may be I am being a little harsh on him ... but dear Mr PM ... we had huges hopes .... and nothin seems to be working ....

I am not sure if left should be blamed for all this .... they have their own ideology ... infact they are probly the only Indian party to have some sort of idealogy .... but its discomforting to see that a party with a handful (thats a big number in a coalition) of members of parliament can dominate countries economic policies .... Mr. PM don't allow the left to be a roadblock ... destiny is a matter of choice ... u have to choose India's future ... be strong ... u have an opportunity to change the fortune of a billion people .... just do it ....

Success

2005-04-26T15:42:00.000+05:30

17 days ago ... half asleep on a saturday morning ... i clicked the submit button that brought a change in my life that i am yet to see .... I saw the page on the IIM Cal website which sweetly said that this 6 feet (almost there) sloth has made it to Cal .... since am a would be IIM student ... blogging is not only my karma but my dharma as well ... so MYND is re-activated ....

Few days back... someone told me ... ' nothing succeeds like success' ... he was refering to the change in the way people percieve you when you hit the bulls eye ... and that made me think what success is .... what has changed with this result ... am I not the same Prayank ....

Probly this is not the time to think about all this .... its time to party .... the excitement about the life to come is surely tremendous .... what can I say ... I'm loving it ....

N + 1 ... the number of blogs on net ...

2005-02-11T17:59:00.000+05:30

... here I am .. another blog is born .. just as those stars in the sky... shimmering in some corner of WWW ... tryin to find a place for itself ...

I call it mynd ... mind with a Y .. coz .. it seems that Y is the most commonly found alphabet in my mynd ...

So .. I welcome all of you .. come share my Y's ... lets see if I can fight some of them and create some space in my mynd ...