Day 494:30th Jan, 2011 - INDEX 2010: The End

Successfully made it to class for the presentation. That may partly be because of the early morning call I got from one member of my group to wake up Pachpan for some inputs for the presentation. But when we reached the class, and showed it to the prof, he said some additional things needed to be incorporated :-( . Task unfinished.

But none of that was really important. Today was to officially mark the culmination of one long journey - we had the final presentations and results of INDEX 2010 today. That made sure our afternoon was totally engaged, collating the results. It's really sad to see some deserving teams lose out very closely, but I guess that's just an unavoidable part of the game. It's harsh, but you got to do what you got to do! My heartiest congrats to the winners - Team S.I.G.Ma (Special Interest Group in Marketing) as well as to all the other teams for all the fantastic effort they put in.

After resuming my gymming, it was now time for some celebration! We went to this new place Cassia - a buffet kinda place (modeled on BBQ). The chinese was good. And desserts are always good :D . And the best part - it was converted into a treat from Haathi, Kisaan and MMR for their placements! :-)

Day 471:7th Jan, 2011

These days one just can't make out whether it is 12 in the afternoon or 6.30 in the morning with a glance outside. No wonder, it is becoming more and more difficult to attend even afternoon classes! Luckily managed to make it to this LD class, which was good as we even had our presentation today. No issues there, I played my part of the slide-changer (and thus contributed more than 33% of our group).

Just as I was having lunch wondering how to spend the day, plans got made. (That is often a consequence of Pachpan being around). We left to watch No One Killed Jessica at Fun. The first theatre movie for 2011 and it turned out to be pretty good. (BTW, they played the National Anthem before the movie here too. Something I have seen happen only in Bombay. But definitely, something welcome.) Based quite a lot on facts (Jessica Lal case), the movie was quite hard hitting. I would highly recommend everyone to see the movie.

While Pachpan and Kisaan left immediately after the movie, Bala, Shomo, MMR and myself stayed back for some shopping and food. Got myself a new belt (and a pretty expensive Satya Paul one!), as if that's what is going to get me the job :-P . Also got myself a new brand of 'clothes', the first time I switched after many many years. Followed up all that shopping with a nice dinner at Cultures (where I should have ordered something better than a Risotto!), braved the freezing cold even though I was riding pillion and survived. Somehow, from somewhere, got into an ultra long, convoluted but engrossing conversation on gTalk. And now that it is done, time to put myself to sleep. So long!

Day 463:30th Dec, 2010 - Load them HDDs!

It is that time of the year when PGP2s suddenly start realizing the one thing they will really miss post campus - DC++ ! Indeed, we would not have count of the number of times when this little piece of software comes handy when one is looking for - anything! Be it movies, sitcoms, academic material (The 'catchXX' tradition!) and well .. other stuff too :-p . DC++ has helped make heroes, the ones who are always there online, taking the load of most sharing (almost like the 80:20 rule), our hero being abracadabra. And to ensure I don't miss any of the treasure behind, I had purchased two 1-terabyte HDDs. In my super zeal to fill it up, a couple of days back, I randomly selected a user and endlessly added tonnes of stuff to download. And then realized I got some really bad speed from that user. And since I had added so much stuff to download, my DC would hang every time I clicked on the 'download queue'. Finally, 2 days and some 35 odd GB of download later, some stability has come back to my DC. All I can say is - let the party begin!

Speaking of parties, I had one for Sud's birthday - so 6 of us (Sud, Ghate, Justice, AdiJ, Bugger and me) went for dinner to Cellar. Some good food and lots of cheese. 

Had a sudden and unplanned but super splendid night out with Shanky and Chatur! One of my best ones. Two movies - Ip Man 1 and 2 and one ultra-hilarious music video :D . Just awesome. And then came back to my room to even finish off Notting Hill. That's one more movie than one can watch often :) . Not too sleepy even now, but I think it's a good decision to end the day on this nice note :) [at 5.30 am :D]

Day 449:10th Dec, 2010

The problem with two-papers-in-a-day is that it leaves you with zero enthu for even a little studying in the rest of the day. Especially with addictive distractions like Crazy Taxi around! Consequently, hadn't started a word for PF yesterday. And not just me, nobody seemed to be doing it! This, even though, it was the scariest mid-term paper.

But of course, that had ensured that entire morning today was dedicated to it. One more super level threat from MMR - he is scary man when he does that! As far as answering the paper itself was concerned, I had to re-play my yesterday's role of the human photocopier. But this time from the question paper itself! You may find this very very confusing - but I really seemed to think all the answers were in the question paper :-| And I made good use of that!

But anyways, it had been a long long time, and we were still to celebrate the Summers of our INDEX facchas. So today finally, we all went to this place called UV (UltraViolet). The sad part was that the place served no alcohol (.. ;-) Muaahahaha! :D ) . The starters were nice, the veg main course was average (actually a little less than average). But the best part was the whole lot of chocolate that I had - 50% (shared with others) of - Kitkat shake, nutty mocha shake, cookie monster shake, choco chip fudge and a sizzling brownie :D . And no, I am still not (even a tiny bit) averse to chocolates! :D

Day 362: 14th Sep, 2010

Woke up really early today - 6 am! Mornings are really beautiful :-) . Listened to music for a good 2 hours, side by side finishing off some pending work.

Had a productive CBM class :D - I drew caricatures on my INDEX core friends :-p . Whatever anyone else may think, I felt very proud of myself ;-)

It is funny the way paradoxes keeping popping up. I just finished my Service Marketing class and went to the local SBI branch to get some work done. And felt 5000% that the fellow on the opposite side should be attending the class :-S

It is equally funny (but not surprising) how everyone is always available for a treat :D . Becomes so very difficult to get everyone's approval for a party or a meeting, but mention a treat and wagging tongues show up in no time :D . The occasion was the celebration of Chatur & Kisaan's PPO/PPI (resp.) in INDEX - with Vanki's addition today! We went to this new place called Zaafran, which claimed to specialise in Mughlai cuisine :-P . Didn't seem like that, but the place was pretty ok. Super quantity though! Not having looted the treat givers enough, we made our way to CCD. Unfortunately, my recently discovered chocolate indulgence Dark Passion wasn't available :-( . Settled with Devil's Own. Not bad ;-)

Got back and we had a small INDEX meet in my room. Few updates, few plans, few arguments. That ended at 01:00 am. 

But now it's 3.40 am. And guess what, I am ending my day exactly as it began - another 2 beautiful hours of music. C'est la vie!

Day 292: 28th Jun, 2010

Lots of classes today! Attended Barood's NVP session, then the session on Retail Mark, the Strat Man session and an Int Fin extra class. The Int Fin class was particularly interesting. Shruti was sitting with Pachpan's best friend - Mr. Khadiya :D . Anyways, as the class started, Khadiya left to the sit with Sudeep in the adjacent row and Pachpan shifted ahead. And then began the exchanging of love notes between the two :D . Kids man these MBA grads are :-P

Went to Barbeque Nation :-D .. Chatur and Psycho's treat! Had a real nice time out there. Cursed the mad man initially for delaying the outing :-p And of course, the brilliant tashan shown by him towards Shanky for lifting off the helmet :D . Vanki saala is still refusing to acknowledge 'the secret'. Need to get the cat out of the bag. Of course, even he couldn't stop blushing when his alleged date walked in to the table right next to us :D , and that too along with someone who owes his establishment a good sum of money :-P . And yes, I lived right up to my sweet tooth reputation by having around 10 angoori gulabjamuns, dipped in ice cream :D

Had an english play by Abhivyakti - the theatre group on campus. The play was crafted around a mystery, and although I couldn't see the whole of it, whatever I saw was pretty nice.

Day 233: 22nd Feb, 2010

Good times come to an end. Back to waking up early and running to the classrooms and back to the lectures!

But yoohoo!.. Party time! We juniors took a treat from the rest of the seniors for their placements. Went to Chote Nawaab yet again. (I went on my bike especially as I had got my helmet back!) The food was better this time though - I need to remember paneer seekh kabab as the starter to be ordered!

Not the greatest of news awaited when we came back to campus though. Sometimes, you just can't form an opinion on certain things.. Sleeping super late relatively.. almost 4.30 am .. even PCOMers have gone to sleep now :)

Day 230: 19th Feb, 2010

These few days on campus are super precious. I just don't imagine we will EVER get such days again. Unfortunately I couldn't make and implement any plans to go on any trip, but it's still great to be super-vella (North Indian slang for 'free') on campus.

I have INDEX for me though, so that does manage to keep me occupied here and there. Had to go to the city to meet the RSC guy. Unexpected encounter that one :-| 

Went to the city in the evening to correct my specs. (Ya, had broken it YET again when I rolled over while sleeping :-( .. sheah!). Chatur came along to buy something for her cousins. Met PK somewhere in the city and I was introduced to one fruit called ras-bhari - weird khatta-meetha taste it has. Went to MINT for dinner, but it was booked for some function. Guess that place still ain't got lucky enough to be graced by me. Anyways, went to Chote Nawaab from there. I superbly tapped my sense of deja vu to take the correct turns to land up at that exact place :D . I must say I felt very proud of my geographic sense at that moment :D . Our contrasting gastronomic preferences ensured we ordered something that turned out to be only okay-ish, but theek hai, a nice dinner time conversation compensated for it.

Day 228: 17th Feb, 2010

I learnt an important lesson in negotiation today. My Dell laptop's battery is horribly messed up, and that too within just 8 months of usage. So I called up their service center and asked if anything could be done about it (obviously I wanted them to replace the battery on their own accord). And they gave the standard reply that battery is a consumable item (i.e. life depends on usage) and it is not covered under warranty. This is when I played my IIM L card and told them how we had gone for a different make of laptops for the bulk deal but I still stuck with Dell. And how it would be an embarrassment for me and the brand if I now end up looking like a fool. And it worked - I was promised a new battery as a sign of goodwill :) Thanks Dell!

This encounter and also my tryst with some INDEX brochure designing attempt ensured I was to stay hungry till around 3 in the afternoon. Went to this place - Manbhavan Dhaba on the highway (take a right from .7 then further ahead around 200-300m on your left) with Saurabh. The best thing about these places are they are pretty economical. A sumptuous lunch for 2 cost us 75/- (including a bottle of bisleri) :D

Day 215: 4th Feb, 2010

One thing I don't like at all is when profs continue teaching beyond their stipulated lecture hours. A one-off incident is OK, but some of them do this repeatedly. Two reasons why I don't like this happening. One, I feel a prof must have the ability to time his content. And two (more importantly), we often miss breakfast or even otherwise feel hungry after a session. Students look forward to grabbing a quick bite in the 15min break, and this is not possible if a prof extends the lec by 5-7 min.

Our MIS prof today asked us to start our presentation just 5 min before the lecture was to get over. Now that is unjust on two counts - no student would be interested in our presentation and our effort just goes waste + we miss our break. Even after pointing this out, he was pretty unrelenting and asked us to give our presentation anyways. A few people walked out, and unfortunately, one person was singled out by him. Not the kind of behaviour I would expect from a prof to a post-graduate student.

Had our first INDEX KT session - started with Shady's ancient wisdom. Session surprisingly went much beyond what I thought it would. The great thing was that it ended with us managing to convince him to give us all a treat (combined with Praveen). And so off we went to Genesis, all of us on bikes. Kisaan and Pachpan managed to even pull off the stunt on the pebble-laden road. Had a fun time there. I am loving INDEX more and more as the days pass by :)

Day 111: 17th Oct, 2009

Disclaimer: Nelson's number today. But don't think this post was made with me standing on one leg :-p

Firstly, a very Happy Diwali to all the readers of this blog! :)

Traditionally, at my home, Diwali would always start with all of us getting up early and taking an oil bath. And a customary smear of oil would first be applied by my grandmom. Hence, it was only befitting that my day began with a call from my grandmom early in the morning :)

Mithun Chakravarthy started dancing in the jungle. However, the initial velocity of a body thrown down is zero. At the end, Obama's foreign policy is quite unclear. If you could make any sense of the above three sentences, then you must watch BLUE. Unrelated scenes pop up after each other. And there is a mind blowing climax as well. Btw, even if you didn't make sense of the above sentences, you have a reason to watch BLUE. Only and only for Lara Dutta. Diwali phataka man! She is SO hot in the movie that half the water in the ocean evaporated.

Diwali came truly alive in the evening. The hostels were decorated with lights. All hostels had a Rangoli in front. Lots of diyas everywhere ! The entrance to the mess had so many diyas. The festival of lights in its full glory! We had a Puja in the mess and this was followed by a super-duper display of fireworks! :) :) ... Super stuff!

Day 110: 16th Oct, 2009

Today a path breaking phenomenon happened! The scene: MANAC 2 lecture. Against all natural inclination, I actually put my hand up and asked a doubt. To the great Mr. Mishra himself. And the return comment "it's good to see that people are taking interest in my course and asking difficult questions." :D

The mood on campus is all happy happy. Everyone's gtalk/facebook status is now 'Happy Diwali'. And the smiles are just bouncing off each other.

Some of us INDEX people went out for dinner to this place 'Chotte Nawab'. If you ever go there, you must try the paneer malai seekh starter... it's yum! We came back and went to the mess to have some tea. Vigi was still in the stud mode with jacket open, white t-shirt and a glass (of tea) in his hand. Suddenly Praveen pushed a helmet right on to Vigi and transformed his t-shirt into a TEA-shirt (credit to Swetha for the term) :D .. am not going to risk writing Vigi's reaction. He might just hack this blog and destroy it or worst case perhaps may he might hack me itself :p