Day 369: 21st Sep, 2010 - Of Books & Crooks

How absolutely drab campus and committee life would be if it weren't for all the tiny and not-so-tiny confrontations that keep happening now and then! :D

So this small issue came up. I have always wondered how sometimes one needs to argue just to ensure something very blatantly and obviously stupid doesn't happen! Well, I agree that not all parties (as a result of not being apriori privy to all information) would know the actual point of debate is silly. But what is even more wondering is this - how one likes to stick to their original stance even after the additional data points come to light.

Anyways, one always hears about making an opportunity of an adversity. Today got a chance to implement it. Not entirely, not even in part, but just kind of sowing the seed in the mind. Suddenly remembered an old idea and discussed it amongst my colleagues. Lets see where that eventually ends..

Got two more books for the Leadership Through Literature course. And one of them is in Sanskrit! :-|

Day 64: 23rd Aug, 2009

My MOST eventful day at IIM L till date. And will definitely remain one of the most important days of my entire stay at IIM L. (No wonder the post will be long! .. but it will be nice)

Had breakfast on a Sunday morning for the first time in 2 months! Inspite of the fact that I eventually slept only at around 4am yesterday, I somehow automatically totally woke up by 8.30! And this was after I had already snoozed a couple of alarms before. Was the first time in 2 months that I was awake so early on a Sunday..!

Which meant even after breakfast I had wayyyy too much extra time for the rest of the day (which could either have stretched long or pruned short.. depending on committee selection results). Anyways, started off with something productive. Finished off coming up with part of the questions for a 1 BIO questionnaire that we need to make. Managed to meet the deadline that I myself had set yesterday (fortunately saved my own face there).

Then came the class t-shirt! Had taken it upon myself to make a t-shirt for the section. I personally thought I came up with something nice for the front side :) . Took a little bit of thinking but got implemented quickly. For the back design, thought of incorporating all names as per the seating pattern. That took a LOT of effort, considering each line in the pattern was a layer and each of them had to be adjusted in size. And then it had to be incorporated into a 'B'. And finally when I sent the designs to the class for feedback, most of them didn't get it :( .

Again, different kind of lunch occasion. It was a pizza party thrown by the Manfest team, only to convey a negative in a no hard feelings sorta way. I definitely didn't mind the free pizzas :D . Also got a sweatshirt, which is nice! Needs to be washed well though! :-p My hands got all itchy when I tried them out :-\

Took a stopover at Guptaji's on my way back, accompanied by Meshed R and Dhamdhere. Meshed suddenly expresses his desire to ride a bike and Deshpande (who is also there) throws him on his 194CC Bajaj Avenger :D. As we left Meshed to continue his practice session for another 10 min and reached my room, I couldn't find my keys! Sent Meshed back to search for the keys, meanwhile realised I had kept it inside my wallet :-p . After some rounds of abuses hurled at me, we settled down to take further our video making effort. (further from zero :p). Only thing we managed to do was catch up on a few funny animations (search castrol rajni, maakad man on youtube) and record another funny sound making conversation featuring yours truly. I personally killed some mosquitoes as well. Anyways, we also just wanted to spend some time that was left for the committee results. That was well achieved.

As a person from Aamchi Mumbai, Ganeshotsav is a big thing. Every nook and corner you go and someone or the other is blasting off the Ganesh Aarti. So many Ganesh pandals. But it was pretty low key here. Had a Ganesh Aarti in the evening.

And now for the most awaited moment. Committee results!!! Finally the time had come when all suspense would be put to rest. A lot of people assembled in CR 107. As we reached, the presi had already started announcing names in the alphabetical order of committees. Thoughts flooding the mind as he spoke out the names. Still 'A' going on.. so my result was still a suspense. And then .. "in INDEX" .. "Ashish ... Rohit " 1-2 names gone.. where am I .. "Saurabh Agarwal" .. cool!.. but am I? .. my name's announced .. yeyyy!! :D .. more committees .. "Placement committee" .. this one is the biggie .. " .. Kans*" sahi hai! game afterall! .. "Duryodhan* .. Menaka* .. " awesome! they pulled off the coup! .. Finally all names were announced. Felt bad for people who couldn't make through any. Really hard luck for quite a few of them. But then, it always happens.

And now I am INDEXed. Forever! :) We went to a place near the Medusa sculpture. Had a small intro session. Felt excited to be a part of one of the biggies on campus. It was time to party! Came to my room and quickly changed. And went to Taj ! Most committees were there, but we went into a special reserved area :p :D . A little delay since pCom was also there. Greatttt fun there. Went around chatting till 1. From there went to this place Park Inn (so many places in Lucknow.. sahi hai!) which has a 24hr cafe. Sat there again for some time. Some story sessions, random nicknames, random facts... hahahaha.. total tp all in all. Left from there at around 3am and came back to college. And there, we got INDEX t-shirts! The only ones amongst our batch to have that INDEX t-shirt. Time of my Life.

Definitely the end of a phase... And me .. Am surely on the right track to having a good time ahead. Yoohoo!

* names have been changed to protect identity :)

Day 63: 22nd Aug, 2009

Day started at 11.45, with a call from my mom :) .. who apparently postponed the call so that I may not be disturbed out of an early sleep :D.

Went to attend a session on what-consulting-is by some alumni. IMHO, the session was OK. Lots of questions around CG again, basically suggesting that is what is going to get you your shortlist primarily.

But the main thing to be spoken about is the air on campus. The anxiety is there amongst so many in the batch. It is almost tangible...

Actually you know, time periods can be divided quantitatively - as in 3months, 6months, 1st term, etc. But more importantly perhaps, it can be divided qualitatively. Into what I would say phases...

Probably phase 1 would be our initial induction by the seniors. Brought the class together. Introduced us to a rigorous non-sleepy routine, etc.

And now this is phase 2. Probably might be one of the most important phases. Tomorrow, after committee results, there will be a change. Good amount of change in the life path ahead. Will be defining much of the remaining 2 years on campus. Heavy feeling? Yes, it is ...

Anyways, in the midst of all this, did the best possible thing by running off to the city again! :D Went to this place 'Cultures' @ FUN Republic for dinner. Kaushik, Dhamdhere, 55 and myself. Kaushik is almost on the verge of bashing up someone. But there are good chances the whole thing is a setup to psyche him. Suspense unfolds tomorrow...

Day 62: 21th Aug, 2009

There are some things that you think are humanly impossible till you actually see a human doing it. But then again, they have risen from being mere mortals to being an immortal God in the art. As the first inaugural event of SPIC MACAY - IIM L chapter, we had a performance by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on the Mohan Veena (his creation!). He was accompanied by Pt. Ram Kumar Mishra on the tabla. And boy, it was just awesome!

Now don't jump to conclusions and think it is because I am overtly involved with such stuff. No, am just another average guy, with just a general interest in most things. Infact, I hadn't even heard this person's name before! But he is a famous fellow, has won 3 Grammy awards and stuff, so the buzz was high. All I did was go there with a fresh open mind. And heard some absolutely brilliant music. I had learnt the word 'enthralling' years ago, but experienced it yesterday.

Btw, presentations in our BIO class are showing a larger element of fun (and boldness) nowadays. Last week, we had a presentation on the topic of child/adult something where there was a 5 min role play. 'The Rock' comes for his part, and in that 1 minute, takes super duper potshots at the three famous incidents of our class - Dhamdhere's OM remark, the why-dint-I-get-beer mail and Mr.Clear & Concise. But the fun was when the audience reacted with increased questions such as - so what if the person is like A Rock , will it still hold true? :D . I had bunked today's BIO session. We had a presentation by the class accountant TG wala group. But apparently in their example, they pronounced this chick of our class as sister to Mishra's underwear-alter ego pseudonym :-p .

Had my final INDEX presentation today. The last effort from my side for the committee tasks. Am happy it went off decently well :) .

Day 60: 19th Aug, 2009

At the start of the post midterm schedule, if there was one subject that I seriously thought would actually be a 'cakewalk', it was ITC. But just 2 weeks into the course, I am sternly reminded that any such notions of 'ease' at IIM L are bound to be disabused.

ITC is Information Technology Concepts. Primarily, it is a course on Microsoft Excel. (So much for encouragement of Open Source :) .. but that is a different matter altogether.) I always knew excel had a lot of features that an average user doesn't even know about. But still, after 4 years of engineering, I thought I could confidently assume myself to become comfortable with that. Now, class after class, week after week, am hearing all random functions in MS Excel, and it suddenly seems to be even tougher than writing code for a microprocessor! :-S

Finished my final individual presentation/review for Manfest! The most important part of it was when they asked me to take the project screen up. That is when I saw that my name had been improperly written with a random space in between. I just HATE it when my name is misspelt. My name was even misspelt on the name tags that we got; I had to make do with a duplicate cheap quality non-laminated one :-( . Anyways, corrected my name , took names of a couple of people I would want to work with, and one with whom I wouldn't want to work with ;-) . No hard feelings, just plain fair evaluation though. Still, I felt wicked when I met up with that person later on and made casual conversation :-p . Done with it anyways. On to INDEX now...

Have the first post midterm quiz tomorrow, on MANAC. It is funny when profs say the syllabus is 'whatever has been taught in the last 2 weeks' and only then you try to recollect 'what' has been taught in the last 2 weeks :D . Anyways, couldn't do much today (sleeping away). Started reading in the afternoon, slept off. Started again in the evening, felt drowsy. I thought it is 'cos of the room. So went to the lib. Opened the book there and slept off again. Realised (or rather accepted) the factors were internal rather than external :-p . Didn't put in too much of a fight. Will think about it tomorrow.

Goodnight. Sss..ZZzzzZ..oo long..

Day 59: 18th Aug, 2009

Solid fight to submit the final presentation for Manfest individual task. Came back from my lectures at 2pm.. worked with some better focus (finally!) and completed something. Took up all afternoon and some part of the evening. Did nothing significant the rest of the day. Slept off in the evening a bit. Attended a random Pcom meet. Need to gather some proofs and all. Then celebrated our CR's birthday at 00:00. That's fun always!

Day 58: 17th Aug, 2009

Considering the fact that I had not slept the previous day at all, I had good reason to catch up on a siesta. But there seemed to be something mystical. I don't know whether it was the lecture or the weather or what.. but EVERYONE just seemed to be dead sleepy. As soon as the lec was over, all the heads tumbled in meek submission to the Goddess of sleep.

Beauty is some one non-sleepy classmate happened to take a pic of the moment. And trust me, it is NOT staged even a bit :D.

Had our intersection skit in the evening. Practiced all afternoon for it. Balanced it with some preparation for the Manfest group review that I had later in the night.

Met up in the evening. Dhamdhere had brought costumes and all! There is always a first time for so many things in life. Today was the first time I wore costumes in a skit. The only "skits" (read HardSell :p) that I had been a part of never required any costumes and all. I played a Devta. Felt really excited to wear those flowing robes and fake hair and stuff :D. The skit went off pretty well! The jokes were well appreciated by the audience and there was good coordination amongst us as well! But apparently, the judges were looking forward to some sort of "message" :-S ... so we didn't win. But still, I will remember it as an experience which we enjoyed! Right from making the script to all the acting including the dog barks :D.. hehehe :D!

Had dinner and went back to my room at around 9.45. Thought I'll take a short nap to recharge for the Manfest group review at 12.20 midnight. Next thing I know is my hostel neighbour was waking me up and the time was around 12.40!! Shucks! Had badly overslept.. and my team members were all frantically trying to call me! Finally they traced my neighbour's number and had him wake me up! I rannnn all the way to the PGP block. As soooon as I entered the room, had to go on stage and deliver the presentation on my part. And the sad part is.. as I was giving my presentation, I realised the concept was good with nice potential to be developed.. just wished I had worked more on it! But anyways, thanks to my semi drowsiness and the run, I could deliver only a just-average presentation. Darn.. I also missed out an apology for the delay at the start of the presentation ..!

Day 57: 16th Aug, 2009

I HATE ANTS. Despise them to the core. And unfortunately they happen to be ubiquitous only next to God. Apparently, they don't even have a sense of smell or anything.. they just happen to bump into foodstuffs,etc by a matter of chance. I can't even buy this. I mean.. Is is that their only job on earth is to keep walking and walking and walking until they find something? Don't ants have hobbies and stuff? Really silly!

Yet, I can't understand how they get anywhere and everywhere. From Bombay to Bhubaneshwar to Bangalore to Lucknow. Everything would be normal at one instant, and yet after a couple of hours when you open the same shelf/cupboard, billions of those tiny red bastards are roaming around. As you would have guessed, this sudden random outburst is the outcome of such an invasion on my cupboard today. Wasted a fair bit of time dusting/crushing those creatures off.

And this just compounded an already busy day. Final reviews are in the next 2 days for one committee that I have applied to (Manfest). Group task review tomorrow. Been doing some work for that. Finalised an event for the same - group task. Indi task... hmm... no comments!

Apart from this, lots of work wrt the implementation of the script prepared yesterday. People have been jumping in and out of this skit majorly because of multiple responsibilities on most of them. Still quite a few of us stayed and practised a little till almost 2.30-3am. The script is turning out to be nice though.

Went to the lib after that to continue with the Manfest task. Got held up in that a bit (5am!). Was sure I wouldn't wake up if I go to sleep that late. Stayed up the entire night.. ! So much for a lazy Sunday!

Day 55: 14th Aug, 2009

Totally forgot to update this -> the much spirited SIKANDER is here! Sikander is the interhostel sports tournament that we have - lots of sports where the hostels are pitted against each other. Sikander started off with table tennis - and H4/5/6 (my hostel!) won! But that was quite expected - we have a deadly TT team! Infact the team that came second was routed 3-0 in the final :) . Now we are having football matches played under halogens at night. The ground looks AWESOME in those lights! We also have commentary for those matches - who are more obsessed with describing and kheechofying people rather than concentrating on the game :D . But that plan works out really well.

We had this one fellow who became famous as 'Bhavishya Patwadi' during the game - eg. "abb ball hai Bhavishya ke paas.. par woh vartmaan mei ball kyu nahi rakh paa rahe hai" etc etc. There was this one guy who got a lot of cheering when he stepped into the field. Commentary - "D ke aate hii bahut cheering ho rahi hai.. lagta hai D ke bahut saare fans hai.. correction D ke bahut saare male fans hai.. " :D

Went to play some pool then with 3 other friends from my section. This guy, RG, always claims he plays at an 'average' level and then ends up playing better than most of us! Guess his 'average' needs to be redefined! Anyways, played a little, gossiped a little ;-) and went back to my room at around 2am.

Am also meddling a little with the committee tasks - a little designing stuff this time. That is something I find interesting. Hope to come up with something decent. Final review dates are also out for a couple of committees. Time's running out fast. Very soon, on this side or that...

Day 54: 13th Aug, 2009

AFTER I had made the post yesterday, I met up with a couple of my friends to discuss about the video making thing. Had some random discussions till 4.30-5. From there went to the CC to take a printout of a some FIRO SPIRO stuff that we were supposed to submit the next day.. and finally slept at 6am! The result -> missed the Eco lecture at 10.15! :D

Actually it is partly also the mistake of the guy who 's there 2 doors away. I wake him up almost every other day, but whenever he is supposed to wake me up, I miss the lecture. He claims to have woken me up even today at 8.30 but I guess he is not persuasive and effective enough :-p.

One good thing that happened was I finally managed to move away from the state of inertia w.r.t. committee tasks. I went to the city exclusively for this. But as luck would have it, halfway through, there was a downpour!! Got drenched totally. The first thing I did after I went to the mall was buy new clothes and change! :D Then went about making a few enquiries. Got a couple of leads that I need to follow. But the experience was fun.. realised the brand value of an IIM :) . People stop and listen to you.

Day 51: 10th Aug, 2009

This one is quite a paradox. Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. But ask any student of IIM Lucknow his/her plans for the weekend and pat comes the response - "City jaega". Apparently, only a part of Lucknow happens to be a 'city'. And the rest of it is outskirts(greater percentage) of the city. IIM L campus may perhaps qualify to be on the outskirts of the outskirts :-p.

Anyways, I needed to get some stuff and some committees related info. So myself and a batchmate set off for ‘city’.

I have already told you about the brilliant traffic (non)sense that the people of Lucknow are blessed with. But I realised that was only a part of the story. Seems like the psyche has also got ingrained in the animals of Lucknow. Previously when I was in Bhubaneshwar, I have encountered herds of cows occupying the entire road. But what differentiates the animals here is a sort of pride with which they move about the roads. I can seriously vouch that in Bombay and Bangalore, animals respond to the honks and move aside. But none of that happens here. The animal will stay put where it is and it is you who must adjust. Some really complicated traffic dynamics where almost any moving object, living or non-living, can suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Anyways, classes started today. Miss the breaks we used to get before and after exams (and during exams as well :D) during engineering. Back to lectures, assignments, profs, committee tasks...! Bring them on!