Day 527:4th Mar, 2011 - 'The Dhol' & INDEX Farewell!

So as so often and so easily, once again the Circadian cycle seems to have been inverted. Woke up pretty late and very hungry. However, was in no mood for lunch at the mess and all the 'other' places seemed "too usual and boring". That is when we decided to do the bike ride, all the way to the much acclaimed Break Point dhaba. And the long ride (with innumerable stops for directions) turned out to be worth it.

Got back and spent around an hour chatting with Chatur. In the evening, we had plans to go to Genesis for our INDEX farewell. But then, word got around about The Return of the Dhol! To celebrate the placement of the entire batch before the end of the placement week, the legendary dhol accompanied by some really wild dancing was organised. No way we could miss this one. One of my best times as PGP2 was that enthusiastic hour of energy in the mess, with so many of us dancing in the water thrown by the people of the mess, tearing each others' shirts off and gyrating our topless bodies :D

(Uploading the part before the shirt tearing spree started :-p)

And then - back to my INDEX farewell! Just my statement that the farewell beat even the Dhol must be enough to describe it. Since we couldn't go to Genesis, we had our own little setup in the common room of H11-H12. Some awesome home-made DJing by Kisaan, some great food from Aryans and unhindered dancing and masti by a group of very very very close individuals = AWESOMENESS! One of my best nights ever, right from the celebrations to the (extremely fantastic and well though out) gifts given by our juniors to Tila. Ending our journey at the exact same spot where we started :-)

Day 519:24th Feb, 2011

Feels so nice to wake up on a day, and find out you don't have any ppts lined up :-p . Did have one form filling to do. Was initially happy since the company had come during summers, and I had all the answers ready. Turns out the questions were different, and also more in number :-S

Finally finished with my KT session for the juniors. Gave this half with Pachpan; I think it's a good idea to give it in groups. You can remember more by bouncing thoughts and opinions off each other.. INDEX is definitely in good hands though :-)

Quickly finished off whatever was left of the form (thinking and filling two answers at super speed :P) to make myself free for the hostel party! Had good fun there :-) . Just like it marks all special occasions, it rained even on this night, to make the senseless dance a senseless rain dance :D

Had a really long and really random bakar session in my room after that with Pachpan, Kisaan and TG. Always so worthwhile to talk and enjoy for 3 hours on topics right from 'biology' to engineering days to stuff here :D

Day 464:31th Dec, 2010 - Bye Bye 2010! :)

Some people take their work super seriously. The maid here (persistently) came here THRICE in the morning. Now I had slept late yesterday, and so each time I kept asking her to come back "later". But finally I had to relent. She even (all by herself) took up the challenge of cleaning my super cluttered table (even though that was primarily just dumping all those things at other places :D).

After the LD class (the entire session btw was a video lecture on 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman, based on the book I am reading :P), we had made plans to go for Gulliver's Travels for the 4.30 show at Wave. As usual, the ideal plans got delayed (last minute bike jugaads + too much traffic!), and we reached the movie hall a couple of minutes into the movie. The hall was full of schoolgoers, including us ;-) . Nice movie, I am sure some scenes would have looked awesome in 3D. Though I would have it liked the movie more had they given some more time to Gulliver's stay at Brobdingnag.

Squeezed in a quick movie just before the insti party - Rogue Trader. Saw how easy it is for human nature to get deeper and deeper into the vortex of trouble. I think it is very difficult for humans to curb such things by themselves, mainly because of the realistic possibility of the end intentions being good. Made me think how important it is to have unbiased checks and balances in a system.

And then of course, time to welcome the New Year in style! :D . Had an awesome awesome New Year party. Honestly, I didn't expect to have that good a time here, but then, the little surprises in life are always nice :) . Wished a whole bunch of people, hugging and wishing everyone I bumped into. As usual, danced like crazy with all my friends and section people. And sang and sat till the very very end. Two brilliant cups of coffee later, I am now back in my room. In fact, it's been 2 hours since I came and I still haven't slept. Or felt sleepy for that matter. Always happens after an insti party - the effect shows only the next day :P . 

But anyways, got a lecture tomorrow. And I don't want to be missing the first lecture of the year :D . So will finally go get some sleep now [6am]. 

And with that, I end my last post of this year! Which technically would be posted in the New Year, but we know what we are talking about :D . And yes, once again my dear blog reader/follower, wishing you a very very Happy New Year! :)

Day 371: 23rd Sep, 2010

After quite a few days, I am back to my love affair with technology :-)

Spent more than 3 hours trying to install one software. Half of that time went in trying to somehow manage to read .iso files, without trying to plugin the ethernet cable (as I was meddling around with some setup). Didn't manage to find anything like that on my laptop, so finally had to relent and bow to the power of google. And that of course took care of things in a jiffy. A couple of clicks to download the setup, a couple more to install it, and finally a further couple of clicks to mount by creating virtual CDs :-D . But that of course, wasn't the end of it all. Figured out that the key I had to installing the master suite was expired :-( . Full effort waste.

So now I started off with a new setup itself. And the install status bar progressed and progressed, and then abruptly stopped. Oops - that setup was meant for a 64-bit OS.

But give up I don't. At least, not when it comes to installing software I want :-p . Downloaded the setup for yet another version of the software. And yes, third time lucky indeed! :-)

Of course, each time the set-up was running OR I had to uninstall the old version OR restart my system, I had free time. And what better to do with your time than to go disturb your friends :-P . And so I put in frequent visits to Pachpan's room, where he was working on some document with Chatur since afternoon. In one of those visits, I just made a casual reference/opinion w.r.t. the state of Vocational Education in India, and woah, it expanded into a full-blown debate for more than an hour! :D . And this is what I would say is the most awesome thing about an IIM :-)

Day 304: 10th Jul, 2010

Today definitely seems like a day God made to test the melting point of Lucknow citizens! The weather's been super hot and sultry today. Have been trying out the ELTC (Evaporation Leads To Cooling) technique all day long, spraying water all over the room (walls and floor both!). But not much success. Not cool, literally.

FINALLY, finished the entire season of LOST. Kinda lost though - what exactly happened :-S .

In the evening, I attended a session on entrepreneurship by Nandini Vaidyanathan. Found the session OK. But that's just a personal opinion :) Many others found it pretty good. Maybe, I just have too high expectations :-p , especially after hearing Sunil Handa Sir :D

I just had another shower to cool myself. But my room is literally a boiler today. Especially as I have closed the balcony door to keep off the flying insects. Am going to put off all lights and put myself to sleep now. So long then!

Day 272: 8th Jun, 2010

Yoooooooooooooo!! 

And here I am ! Back to the campus and this blog after a brief hiatus - my internship! I spent the last 2 months in Bombay - had an absolutely wonderful time back there. Got to catch up with quite a lot of friends too. Though not much of anything since my internship itself turned out to be ultra hectic.

Anyways, true to the nature of this blog, I'll come back to my campus narrations. 

One of the primal instincts of the human mind is to compare. And there I was, thinking about how different things were just one year back. I remember being curious and apprehensive. I remember trying to spot for someone heading to IIM L so I could share a cab. I remember the dry hot dust laden winds that slapped my face with tenacious regularity. And today, there were so many familiar faces that we could share not just the taxi fare, but also the extra baggage amongst us! Why, last year, I even remember getting lost at a place that I can surely walk even blindfolded now! And to top it all, I even guided a first year prep course student around the campus :P . Funny sometimes the way events fold up!

Came to my new room. Threw a pretty good first impression space wise (again a huge deviation from last year!). But (there is always a 'but'), unfortunately, the cleaners had all left and my room does not have even a square millimeter of space which is free from dust! Have just dumped my luggage here. Will unpack tomorrow once I get it cleaned.

Also made multiple trips to my old room to collect my stuff. With even more stopovers at Gupta - consuming a huge number of Shikanjis (just remembered I didn't even know what this word meant a year back!). Half my stuff is in my new room now. Got bored. Also went to the INDEX room. Looks like an absolute extension to my own dust covered room!

Even managed to have a small debate with the Airtel guys in the midst of all this. The funny chaps there had, for some reason, still kept my incoming calls barred. (some stolen identity jhol had happened during my internship - never mind that now). The helpline (the number which I got only after 3 attempts) guy initially said he will 'note' my complaint and an airtel executive will contact me in '6 days'! How is that happening at all ?! Made him transfer the call to his supervisor. I explain the situation and the job gets done in 2min !

Had to make arrangements to sleep (my bed was totally dust covered!). The mattress from last year to the rescue. Have put it over my bed right now. Good idea that one.

Anyways, registration tomorrow. And am damn tired and sleepy. Adios ppl. Cya around!

Day 263: 24th Mar, 2010

Many of us 'slums' people were in a very Inqilab Zindabad sort of mood since yesterday over the room allocation thing. Multiple emails in one fiery thread discussed new alternatives and strategies. Heck.. we even had a small precursor meeting to the batch meet in the afternoon.

Never mind all this turned out to be a damp squib eventually, but still, I enjoyed taking a stand and voicing an opinion. You might think everyone would do this if it concerned their interests. Unfortunately though, it's not quite true... a lot of people just do not participate in such activities!

The effect of this was yet another huge 'game-theory' based activity. Lots of number-crunching all around - how many groups are moving, moving where, will we get rooms and many such questions being discussed. Man, choice does become boring!

PS: my late sleeping saga continues.. comparatively slightly early today - just 4.45 am :P

Day 262: 23rd Mar, 2010

I have an alarm set at 5.45am. Why so early? I don't know. But I like to have it then. Interestingly, for the last one week, that alarm has primarily been responsible in alerting me that it is time to go and sleep!

As I said yesterday, submissions were due soon and today somehow was that day of the term when all your submissions need to be completed in those few hours. So there we were, sitting in the library till around 3-3.30am putting things together. (It's still an improvement over our first term performance when we used to sit till 6-7am.)

Once we had finished off with our MM (donnn), ADA (the jugaad) and FM (Golden GLOBE nominee), I left and came back to my room with the intention of doing the HRM project (which was again to read those never-ending cases and summarise them).

But the night was dark and beautiful. The silence was soulful. It needed a melody. So there I was - earphones plugged in, listening to some nice soft numbers. Awesome!

Never realised the time go by, until of course, my alarm reminded me that it is time to go to sleep..

PS: We also had an FM quiz today - 10min was the time limit. Everyone came out and complained about the lack of time to arrive at all answers. By the way, I had finished it in 8min flat. This way or that way, atleast I know to respect time :-p

Also, mass mobilisation in progress to argue over the proposed 2nd year room allocation procedure. More on that tomorrow. So long then!

Day 195: 15th Jan, 2010

We had a great QAM attendance today. Even the perenially busy breed of PCOMers managed to find time (so what if they attended the lecture wearing suits :-p). All in the hopes of a "surprise" quiz which was to be conducted. Indeed there was a not-so-pleasant surprise as the test didn't happen as predicted. Respite however did come in the form of Singla getting caught for sitting in the lecture without any book or pen :D (sadistic humour only makes it funnier).

These days, your probability of finding an oil well here would be greater than the probability of finding a soul who takes bath everyday. (I know people whose bath taking frequency is now once per week). And in this situation, today I took bath TWICE (and skipped lunch), on account of the solar eclipse. Not that I am a very religious or spiritual person or a 'believer'. Just a person who does not disbelieve.

Pssst: Party in the girls' hostels. Hoping to get some nice stories/gossip :D

Day 191: 11th Jan, 2010 - Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry

Yea, I know the book title is different. But then, I am not talking about that :-p

As I have pointed out, the weather is totally making me lazy (sleep is just a subset of laziness). Today I did not have any inclination to life my behind out of my bed at all! My bottle of water had been lying empty since I came back to my room and I just didn't go and fill it at all, rather resorting to the few ml of saliva left in my parched mouth to quench my thirst. It reached a more extreme situation when I decided to skip dinner for want of any enthu to move. Thanks to this silly decision, I did end up feeling a little hungry after a couple of hours. Luckily for me I have some dry fruits in my room!

Along with the involuntary overdose of laziness, I am also subjecting myself to a voluntary overdose of LOST. Finished season 1 after putting in 5 hrs of viewing time!

However, there WAS one thing today for which I did manage to get myself out of my room - and that is to catch my wing-mate red handed (or should I say wet-legged?) giving himself a nice pedicure :D . Despite a lot of resistance, we did manage to grab some pics - posted below! :D