Day 530:20th Mar, 2011 - Guess whoz back \m/

Back after an awesome trip to Sikkim, and a (mandatory) impromptu deviation to include Bhutan, thus ensuring my first foreign trip :D . In keeping with the mandate of this blog, won't talk about that trip here though.

One thing is for sure though - wherever you go, nothing like home. And for now, no home like helL. Made our way back to the campus at 8am. After a little email and facebooking, I went off to get some breakfast, trying to stay away from all the pakka colors being used in the Holi celebrations. Of course, didn't manage to do that entirely, and consequently was forced into having a nice early oil bath. All this ensured a nice little afternoon siesta to get me kick-started.

Although I didn't really get what the kick-start was for. Most of my friends still weren't on campus and I mainly stuck to downloading stuff from DC and watching Heroes. No dinner in the mess today, and unfortunately all PGP2 bikes had been packed and sent off. Big bonanza day for Dominoes, including some little contribution from us. MadMan, Shomo, Bala and me had a pizza treat and a random discussion.

Met up with Kisaan at night. Made a visit to Gupta to compensate for the lack of night mess. And then, a little more Heroes to end the day.

Day 521:26th Feb, 2011

Spent the entire morning through noon "trying" to wake up early. Started with targeting breakfast, ended up with almost missing lunch :-p

Since I had already read up a little bit of fin day before yesterday (cough cough), I thought I might as well get a bit more acquainted with marketing. Even sacrificed meeting up with a close friend who had come down from IMT G for that! Luckily, I did manage to get through quite some portion of that ppt, side by side enjoying the live streaming of the world cup.

The good part of the day - had pizza for dinner. Seemed like ages, mainly the delay due to extreme poverty :-p . Got some funds from dad (thank God we live in India), and celebrated with a double burst pizza, treating Pachpan as well. Felt really sleepy thanks to that, but somehow crossed that dozing off threshold. Trying to read up a little more on fin, but as usual, ended up reading a lot of random tabs! 5.30 now, time to get some sleep!

Day 490:26th Jan, 2011 - Happy Republic Day!

Although we tend to remain free almost all the time these days, it's still pretty nice to have an official 'holiday'. It's like having a license to kill (time, in this case). After a late, lazy morning, I simply did not have the mood for lunch in the mess. And so with, Shomo and Disha, I went to have some of that awesome chole at Aryans. It was nice and sunny, and I even took my own bike (after a long time, as it refuses to start easily in the cold weather). 

Seemed like providence wanted to compensate me for the Taj plan not happening. So even for dinner, Dada agreed to give us a pizza party! That was a good call, especially given the mess food was ultra boring :-S

At night, I decided to start up a bit on the pending IIMPrints thingie, but randomly, I first thought I'll just check out who is writing for whom. And there I realized there were still quite some people for whom no one had signed up yet! I didn't like that at all; due to oversight or whatever, this should not happen! So I sat down, noting down all ids who were left, looking up their etrigan details, trying to find out common friends and get someone to register for them :-)

Day 485:21st Jan, 2011 - Manfest 2011 starts!

Wasn't feeling too good when I got up. But still somehow went to the LD class as we had a presentation today and I was playing a substantial role this time, answering 2 out of 3 questions about the case. Had to leave the lecture midway though. Turns out it was just a case of a slight tummy upset :P

After a string of bad movies, we were really looking forward to see Dhobi Ghat, especially given the fact that it starred Aamir Khan and that the trailers were very promising. Could not have met with a bigger disappointment :-| . It definitely can't be called a "movie". At best, it was a stitch of 3-4 extremely amateurishly shot videos. The first time I actually experienced absolutely not understanding when the movie ended - suddenly the screen blacked out and names started rolling. Makwana's surely not getting the money back for this one! :P

Anyways, our annual management fest or Manfest is here! Today started off with a performance by Rahul Sharma on the santoor. (As expected, Vanki didn't even know that instrument :D). Good performance - these instruments have such a pleasing sound! Pachpan, kisaan and myself had pizza for dinner, sponsored to us by Manfest's Mr. Olam :D

As usual, lots of alums are here. Nice catching up with them. In fact, was about to get some sleep at around 2.30 when this bugger Jiggy came up. Some general chit-chatting and the usual 'corporate' cribbing and now the time is 4.30am. Sigh, just can't seem to avoid it.

Day 480:16th Jan, 2011

Wowie - managed to wake up so early on a Sunday that I had breakfast! How awesome is that in term 6 :D . (Though of course, truth be told, I had to finish a psychometric assessment for an application :P)

Now that I was up early, I continued my stint of repeat-watching movies. Started off with Unbreakable today - that's my favourite Shayamalan movie, even more than the popularly accepted The Sixth Sense. Went for running today too. Found it easier to run those two rounds today. Fell down while running though :-| . Didn't get any bruises, but slightly twisted my finger while trying to balance myself. And damn! it hurts in this cold!

When I came back to my room, Pachpan informed me I had been shortlisted for a process tomorrow (GM profile). That was indeed surprising, considering my track record during Summers and the brilliant stuff I pulled out during their psychometric test. But I guess the two things aren't really that connected.

Sunday dinners are usually horrible. Combine that with a little celebratory mood for pizza and that seals the deal. That guy came very late though :-| . Thanks to that though, we got to have pizzas (+ garlic bread + choco lava cake) for 200/- bucks :D

Day 470:6th Jan, 2011

CV time again. Somehow, in spite of working on it for HEPP, and a little after that for finals, it is amazing how there still was something to do just before submission deadline. Did that have something to do with the fact that I still hunted around for projects to put on my CV? ;-) . And making multiple versions of it out of thin air? :-p

Started watching Shutter Island, recommended by Kisaan since a long time. However, got interrupted in between by a dinner plan for pizza. Somehow (not exactly somehow), it became a treat by Chajju for Pachpan, Chatur, Kisaan and myself. Followed that by a movie Mirch, based on adultery by women. The movie has 4 short stories and each story has some amazing though by the female protagonist on getting away! Scary for menfolk! ;-)

Thought of resuming Shutter Island, but then swapped that for Big Bang instead. A little light humour before sleep :D

Day 456:23rd Dec, 2010

The day began pretty early as I had to go for part 2 of the process. I overslept a little (was calculated though :P), but hey, nothing more important than a relaxed mind :D . No hot water anywhere in the hostel (including the bathrooms in the top floor!), so I had to make-do with a shave. Reached the pcom office pretty much on time, as it seemed like the interviewers also preferred a little extra rest after the longish night :D . The process was like any other - sitting and waiting for your turn, whiling the time, trying to understand and probably figure out the kind of things being asked to others. Came to know the chit chat basically happened on the HR questions, and that is what happened with me too. (Except for the one binomial expansion!). All in all, I though it went OK.

Came back to my room after the Leadership Discovery class and caught up with the sleep missed out earlier. Woke up and called up AP to find out that only two people made it through, one of them a friend who had got an extended shortlist. Good for him! (No suspense, the other guy wasn't me :D).

Didn't have much to do again. So back to the new addiction - Dexter. Just as I was starting up on that, MMR came up and told me that "as committee members", we had to attend a session (mandatory!) for some event that was being conducted. Didn't turn out to be a bad deal for him - he ended up winning a Blackberry! And not too bad for us - we got free pizzas!

Day 444:5th Dec, 2010 - Lucknow Mahotsav & some Fog!

While I woke up real late yesterday, had to wake up really early today (Sunday!), thanks to the SDM quiz that we had! Indulged in the good takeaway i.e. breakfast. And then got back to my room to resume my siesta. 

Slept right through most of the early morning and noon. Woke up at around 2pm to find TG knocking for my bike's keys. Now, I had come to know that today was the last day of Lucknow Mahotsav, an annual cultural fair than happens here. Couldn't visit that last year, and it would indeed be a shame to not go there in our 2 years of stay. So somehow, alongwith Pachpan convinced him too to join us.

But first, hunger pangs had to be dealt with. So the four of us (Mr. Happiness too) first made our way to Dominos for some of that awesome double cheese burst pizza. And then we rode and rode and rode and rode. And finally reached the Mahotsav place.

But guys, for those of you reading this, you must visit this if you are going to study at IIML for 2 years. The kind of crowd there was at that place was awesome! Super traffic - couldn't find parking space - till literally God came to our rescue and people started parking their bikes inside a temple close by! :D . The fair had that proper feel that you are so often shown in Hindi movies, a kind of place where you could easily get lost (BTW, it did happen amongst us too - twice). There was a big replica of Rumi Darwaza created as an entrance. And so many of those little toys - we bought all of them - the hooter, the horns, the bow and arrow, bubbles and a parachute! :D . It was super duper fun to keep playing with the hooter and try hitting each other :D. Saw the Maut ka kuan game after many years - so risk those guys take! The ferris wheel ride (somehow keeping just the 4 of us instead of the usual 6) was awesome too, mainly because of TG getting scared :-p. Lots of food items too, a tad expensive though, compared to the other items at the fair. There even was a concert by Sonu Nigam - free! And even before he had come, the crowds had gone berserk at the performance of one local singer - and it was at that moment that we got a substantially better idea of what the local Lucknow junta exactly wants ;-) . No wonder that Planet Salsa show used to be such a hit :-P 

The return journey was no less eventful. We took the shortcut route that goes to the airport. And maybe because of all the open space around it, but I saw fog so dense I had never seen before! Or rather never imagined could be! In fact, the fog was so thick, that at so many points, our shadow due to the lights from vehicles behind us, was being formed IN AIR! It was almost as if a wall of fog was in front of us. The visibility was so poor I could hardly see 2-3 metres ahead of me, that too with great difficulty! :D . So basically, summing up, AWESOME bike ride! :D . Need to have a couple more of these! :-p

Day 437:28th Nov, 2010 - Double Mazzaa!

It would be criminal if I diluted today's super divine incident with anything else!

A few months back, I think I somewhat got an idea of how an orgasm would be when I had my first bite of sizzling hot cheese burst pizza from Dominos. Relived that moment today - seems there is a new thing on the market - DOUBLE cheese burst pizza! It has 2 layers of molten cheese, one the usual and another with a slightly sweetish tinge to it. 

Mahhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn .. simple AWESOME!! Special thanks to AdiJ and his other half Hansie for insisting on the pizza part. Thanks to Ghate for initiating the outing (and the Richi Rich panipuri). And Chatur and Sud, thanks jlt? :-p

Day 413: 4th Nov, 2010 - What we have all been waiting for!

Slept relatively early, but still managed to wake up only at around 10:10. Luckily we didn't have the early morning proj fin class. Read my way through the BE class, to follow it up with an INDEX meet at 12:00 noon! I think that's a first, never had a meeting in day time :D

I got too much exhortations from Kisaan on the necessity to go out and enjoy on Diwali eve rather than attend a class. (Did I really need it?). And anyways, my "shopping" was pending. Consequently, I bunked EPA and we instead went to the newly opened Phoenix Mall. It's definitely a disappointment especially in comparison to the publicity it did - much smaller than Sahara and Fun mall. Even the stores didn't have much variety. Ate a little in the food-court (paneer takatak - first time heard that name, so ordered, OK-OK stuff) and then left for FUN mall. But Kisaan brilliantly managed to be sure of the route and within 15 minutes lose his way. And so we somehow ended up going to Sahara mall - that place is definitely so much better. All the stores had a far better variety of stuff. Eventually however, I ended up buying one shirt, while Kisaan impulsively ended up shopping for a sweatjacket, a pair of shoes and a jeans :D . Ended the stint with a super Baskin Robbins ice-cream :D

Came back to my room and saw that our subcomm creative stud had finished the teaser video for INDEX 2010. And tell you what - it's just AWESOME!! :D

Also at,
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=454108805964

Just some time back, I suddenly saw the "Crazy Taxi" facebook application. And for some strange reason, threw myself a challenge that I would beat everyone else on my friend list :-| . After 40min, I now emerge victorious and as the highest scorer amongst my friends! \m/ Will sleep peacefully now!

And technically, it's 4 am, and Diwali now ;-) Happy Diwali! :)

Days 334,335: 10th-11th Aug, 2010

Now this is simple inexcusable. I missed yesterday's entry out of sheer laziness! :-(

Wasn't the best start to the day, as I missed yet another session of retail due to oversleeping. I can't understand what the problem here is. Sleeping late is definitely not the ans; have slept late and woken up early many many times.No use pondering, but I do need to know the reason soon so that I can avoid it! Definitely can't afford to take grade drops and all.

The highlight of yesterday of course was the complete kabzaa of my room that INDEX facchas had done. They have just started working on a PGP1 exclusive event, and I did not have the heart to drive them out of my room as they did INDEX work for the first time together (with 2 of their men down!); guess I would have sacrificed any of my personal activity for facilitating that.

Just realised another WOW thing. I had dinner from outside on both these days. Yesterday, we went to Richi Rich (our 3rd visit in 2 weeks!) and had the veg kebab combo. All 6 of us ordered the samn thing :D . Today, we had pizza from Domino's - except that it was made right at the mess where they have put up a temporary outlet.

Now for some strange reason, our SM prof decided to ask us to submit an assignment - which would be graded, to make it a best 2 out of 3 scenario. I took Kisaan's assignment - to make changes in his - and submit mine too. Found out he had akso got a lot of stuff from a document on docstop!! Sat in the afternoon and read and analysed the whole case myself! :)

Day 328: 3rd Aug, 2010

The mess lunch was SO boring today (even as per me :-p) that I had to try out Tarun's combination - sasta Veg roll at IET corner + Garlic bread from Dominos :D . Pretty good combination, I must confess!

Had a ..hmm.. sine-curvish experience today. Came back and checked my mail - and the curve suddenly dipped to the trough, but then again, by evening, another piece of mail sent it back to near the crest :)

Had to make a trip to the city. As I was coming back on my bike, I suddenly felt a very very sharp prick on my right arm. And a shooting sensation the very next moment. My first ever bee sting! Now I know why it's so scary. Immediately found a paanwala and applied some chuna over the sting. There's a small mark there, but I like it for now - serves as a little piece of an adventurous memory :-p . Though I sure want it to go away soooon!

Day 321: 27th Jul, 2010

Back to the sleeping at sunrise phase. And of course, only for INDEX. Had our final presentations today. People like to keep speaking about every single bullet point they have on their presentation; no wonder, we were running pretty late! We started off at 6 in the evening and finished at around 4 am early morning! Got some new and interesting data points though. Some tough calls need to be taken...

Much unlike the weather, which (at least for now) seems to have shed off its coat of cruelty. It was raining/drizzling all day - so the weather is nice and pleasant. Consequently, indulged in some khushiyon ki home delivery - Dominos! And even extended it a step ahead by bunking the strat man class. Would have been criminal to stay in an artificial AC environment in such awesome weather! :)

Day 269: 30th Mar, 2010

Wrote a loooooong MIS paper today. Must admit it was an interesting open book exam; you had to do your bit of work to get the answer required.

Since most of INDEX core is leaving early tomorrow, we had a pizza session in the INDEX room. Finally got Vanki (or rather Saurabh :-p) to come out with the little secret :D

Last paper tomorrow - HRM. It must suffer being the casualty that the last paper turns out to be. Even more so considering it is the last paper of PGP1! Am not studying anything at all! Even went to the mess twice - once for celebrating Venkkatessan's and Bugger's birthdays (badly beaten!) and then once again to meet Dhamdhere and Maanas. It's now almost 4 and I have kinda yet to start. Am going to pull an all-nighter today (rather tonight). Have invested in a Red Bull to keep me awake through the paper tomorrow :D

Day 229: 18th Feb, 2010

Heard some not-so-great news about certain loopholes being exploited in certain systems and processes. Simply not done.

Needed to write the summary for those 3 HRM journal papers. Spent a good bit of time fluctuating between the states of 'who-the-hell-writes-such-things' and 'is-this-even-in-english' and 'why-is-it-taking-infinite-time' etc. Spent a little time on actually being productive and wrote the summary for one more paper.

In the afternoon, the rest of us wingies had gone and pestered Bellam for his CFA treat. Unfortunately Bellam was in a 'i-am-playing-CounterStrike-very seriously' mood. And therefore got wild when we disturbed him (though I personally think it was just an excuse at venting out his frustration which actually arose because he was invariably dying within 2 seconds of coming out in the open :D). And even threw away his soap because it got dirty (pretty ironic!).

He did have a change of heart in the evening and we wingies went out for dinner, to the dominoes outlet from where pizzas are delivered to the campus. Man!!..it's quite far off!! Anything for a cheese burst pizza though :D. On our return, we promptly changed our gTalk status message to "Long Live CFA Bellam though he doesn't survive for more than 2 secs in Counter Strike after coming out in open"

Day 226: 15th Feb, 2010

One of the things I miss about school or engineering is after the holidays that we would get after exams. Here bloody we had 2 exams on a Sunday and regular classes from Monday onwards (today!).

One very different thing was that I was quite attentive and *participative* during lectures today. Our new Marketing Research prof for MM2 post midterm has a reputation that precedes him. Of course, his lecture today didn't reflect much of that, but was super fun thanks to his pronunciation of certain words :D . We were to have read about a case for the session. I, for once, had actually done that, though I didn't make it nor intended to make it very public. The funny thing was the prof randomly picked up a group number (no prizes for guessing it was mine) to ask a question. One very special thing that happens in my section is when a prof calls out a group number, for a good one minute nobody gives any response. After the long pause, we raised our hands and were immediately bombarded with - 

Sir: "So, have you read the case?"

Yet another not-so-brief period of silence.

Sir: "Arre kuch toh bolo.. yes or no.. I am not going to kill you"

Me: "Sir we have read the case but not discussed the case."

Sir: "Uska kya matlab hai?"

Me: "Sir.. matlab hum ne read kiya hai par aapas mein discuss nahi kiya." (absolutely the same thing in hindi .. as if I was giving a whole new insight)

Fortunately, sir shifted to asking a couple of questions about the case. They turned out to be pretty simple (or was that because I had read the case?) and I answered them quickly. Felt nice to play the knight in shining armour in the academic battlefield :D

But of course, the CV point earned today was on a different plane - finally made our gujju bhai Sanghvi give his PPO treat :D . Phirbhi saale ne teen log ke paise pe paanch log (pachpan, shady, chatur, sanghvi and me) ko treat kar diya :D ... LOL! (Sanghvi please don't stop following my blog after this :P)

Day 217: 6th Feb, 2010

Boy, as I write this, my alarms to wake me up are going off :D . God knows why I set alarms at 6 am.. (Does it matter that I had a small nap from midnight to 4 am ;-) :-p )

As I spoke about the MIS class incident two days back, turns out the prof eventually asked the poor fellow to say sorry in front of the class. I don't think it achieved anything other than satisfying his ego.

Had a lecture on BTL marketing by a couple of guys from 141 Sercon. About the increasing relevance of using non-traditional methods of marketing esp. social networking. You could get more details on the session at my friend's blog.

Had our second SPIC MACAY performance, this time by the flute maestro Pt. Rajendra Prasanna. I don't understand much about the technicalities in music, but those natural sounds are very pleasant and soothing to hear.

Deshpande, Sud and me decided to have pizzas for dinner. We were randomly calling people to check if they would join us. Aman was one such call.

In that context, the conversation should have gone as:

Aman: Hi

Me: Oyee, pizza khaega?

Aman: blah blah ..

But it went like this:

Aman: Hi, who is this?

Me: (oh! so he doesn't recognise my number) .. (tough voice) Is this Aman Arora?

Aman: (a little nervous) Yea..

Me: This is the UP state police department speaking. (!!!!!! I have no clue why I thought of that!) Do you think you can get away with anything just because you are an IIM student?

Aman: (I can feel his voice becoming more tense) Sir, what have I done?

Me: (Raising my voice) Don't try to act. We know everything.

and so on for a good one minute.. and that was because I just HAD to laugh out loudly.. so I disconnected the call :D . Of course, we did tell him who we were in the next couple of minutes :p.

Chatted along for a while waiting for the pizzas. Ghate and Yogsconnect joined in later. Dominos cheese burst is so wow! :D

Day 202: 22nd Jan, 2010 - Parikrama!

Just when we thought the cold would go away, it's back! And worse than what it was! Damn cold day today. Dense fog from around 8pm itself!

Today's lectures were painfully slow, even with the novel. Worked on another small INDEX notice after class. (NB was kinda empty!) Had a meeting in the evening.

Day 1 of manfest today! We INDEXians then went to watch HellRaiser - the rock show/competition. That was OK. Had cheese burst domino's pizza. That was superb! :D . After that we had a show by Parikrama. That was AWESOME! Super energetic! A great start to day#1.

Back in the confines of my room.. listening to a couple of parikrama songs. No lectures tomorrow. So no tension of waking up :D . Am making use of this by randomly listening to a lot of songs now. It's almost 4.15 am. Guess I'll go to sleep now, awaiting another good event tomorrow!

Day 186: 6th Jan, 2010 - Finally, it happened!

Finally, it happened!

First of all, let me talk about something that is so not happening these days - breakfast. Something about the weather, it's EXTREMELY sleep inducing! Yesterday my class started at 9.30, but yet I rushed in for a 2 min breakfast. Today, my class started only at 10.15, but yet I rushed in for a 2 min breakfast! The later the class is, the more I want to sleep. My bench-mate Shreyas is another case in point - he's missed all the first lectures till now :D

Anyways, back to the topic. So, finally what happened? Hmmm, before your mind starts running into all not-so-required directions, let me clear it up myself. I finally did an assignment all by myself. Well, it was a non-evaluative abstract that needed to be written, but even then, I would like to take the credit :D .. **applauds**

Non-mess day. Went to Brij ki Rasoi for lunch - the svastha aani mastha (marathi: cheap & good) option. Dinner was a pizza treat for Sudeshna's birthday. Only thing I had in the mess was the badam milk. Swell :D

Day 175: 20th Dec, 2009

The Great Indian Fraud

Imagine this. You are asked to prepare some Chinese food. But all you do is order some pizza. And when the person comes, you treat him to the pizza. And yet, eventually when he leaves, he feels he had the best Chinese food ever! ;-) . Talk about GLOBE! This one far outclasses any other effort :D

Exams in 2 days. Most people have started with something. I started watching Inglourious Basterds -yet another Tarantino movie. Found it ok, not as great as Kill Bill definitely !

It's pretty chilly today. I guess the cold weather is catching up. I just hope it does not induce me to keep sleeping. Really can't afford that in the next few days!

Had pizza for dinner today with Saurabh, Riza and Shruti over some general tp/chat about Riza-Fiza, CG, insti parties, Saurabh's-hunt-for-US'T', etc etc. Good fun. And to top it all, the cheese was still dripping from the pizza! Yummmyyyyy!!