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 520:25th Feb, 2011

Woke up.. no no.. was woken up at 1.30 (yes, in the afternoon) and rather abruptly by a group member insisting there was a ppt to attend in 30 minutes. Didn't even shave, secretly hoping I would get kicked out :-p . Alas, luck was not to be. Neither did I get kicked out, nor was there enough people to seize the last mover advantage, and worst of all - there wasn't any attendance :-(

After a long time went back to the Friday tradition of watching a movie - Tanu weds Manu it was, at PVR. OK movie, easily a one time watch. Also helped avoid the dinner in the mess :D . Had a little something at Yo China! in the food court and followed it up with some awesome sizzling brownie and chocolate fantasy at CCD! God bless the inventor of chocolate :D

The night mess session has almost become a mandatory practice of whiling some time of the day, and so be it today as well. Made and had some plans to study, but kinda sleepy now. Will look into it tomorrow.

Day 518:23rd Feb, 2011

These days, the body clock of all PGP2s has adjusted itself to a new external factor - the ppt schedule. Some 20 minutes before some ppt is scheduled, you could see all soggy eyelid-heavy faces going to the bathroom for a quick wash, and in extreme cases a quicker shave. 

So was it with me. Was glad I managed to wake up on time for the 1.45 afternoon presentation. Was infinitely more glad, when the last mover advantage played out and I could manage to stay outside the classroom and get attendance for nothing :D 

But just like two days back, this was avenged too. We had this presentation by one global bank. And another at around the same time by a local Indian bank. As per sat for the ppt, we saw from the back windows that pizzas were kept outside, and became all happy (free food some how has that effect), especially because, no way would a local Indian bank spend as against a global giant right? But Murphy's law won, mocked at us fair and square, through the pizza stuffed mouths of the students who went for the other one :( . BTW, should we take it as a sign of changing times? :-)

Some more wrap-up work w.r.t. INDEX. Had called an old vendor for some "negotiations", thanks to some things that weren't delivered as promised. As expected, didn't reach a definite conclusion, but made some headway in better understanding some points. Missed dinner (and apparently, one awesome new dessert :-( ...) and subsequently fell back on Fauzi. Had a nice time recalling and remembering some of the kaand that happened till now :-)

Have just spent some good bit of time mechanically reading and consciously closing the too many tabs that had been opened up on my browser. And now, one Contra session, TBBT episode and night snacks @ Fauzi later, it's time to bid good night!

Day 517:22nd Feb, 2011

Woke up (at noon :D) to find the adjunct student finally back on campus. Which meant sweets + tp (including fooling him about the "insti party") + lunch at Fauzi + pulling his leg by drawing attention to his Pcom group mates :-p

Spent the afternoon trying to rank companies. Made one initial list. Tried doing it on an excel first, then figured it was pretty useless to do that. Directly did it on Aghanim. Came up with a preliminary list - first cut, ranking around 70 companies, many of which might not even come on campus :D . par umheed pe toh duniya kaayam hai

Pachpan keeps complaining about always feeling pressure only on his biceps and forearms, whatever exercise he does! Finally today, he realised the importance of doing the exercises right rather than trying to be all macho and add high weights, thanks to your truly and one junior. And sure enough, the 50kg on the triceps press came down to 32kg :-) ..and still had him gasping and clenching his teeth :-p

Post dinner, sat down to finally finish off with the rankings. Came to know Ms. "sincere-as-ever" Chatur ranked 170 companies as against my 95 :D . In spite of having every DayZee shortlist! :D . Talk about confidence :-p . And then, for some strange and still inexplicable reason, started reading some fin at 2.30am :-| . And surprisingly, have sustained myself in that activity till 5.30am. Guess that's enough of being a Valuation God. For now ;-)

Day 492:28th Jan, 2011 - ZZZzzzzZZZZzzzz

What a sleepy sleepy day. I don't know why, but I slept all afternoon and evening, from 3 - 10 pm, a full seven hours! I think that's a new record!!

And as a consequence, am getting no sleep now. Have been whiling my time (re re re) reading The Fountainhead, one of the awesom-est books I have ever read! High chances I'll get into a slightly modified state of mind for the next couple of days :)

Anyways, 6am now. After a long time, I have actually stayed awake long enough to see a little bit of the sunrise :-) . Good night just doesn't seem the right phrase to use now :-) So, adios for now!

Day 488:24th Jan, 2011

As expected, a very sleepy day. Even skipped the morning class. And yes, as expected again, I now have a neck sprain :)

Heard about this video that simple grosses people out! My curiosity is ignited!

And somehow, I once again randomly spent so much time that is 4am! Got to be more conscious about this!

Day 481:17th Jan, 2011

Apart from one FRA class in the morning, spent mostly the entire day in the process. Pretty long one that. First a one-hour handwritten analysis on a 16-page case, followed by a discussion on that same thing. Next up was a kind of a soft skill activity, crafts more precisely :D. And last of all, a preliminary assessment interview, which I rocked so much! :P

The good news was that my good friend Haathi really truly aced the process, and was the sole guy on campus to end up with an offer. Awesome! This post is dedicated to him \m/

Pretty exhausted from the whole thing though. Will get some good amount of sleep. Retiring for the day @ a super-early 11.00pm. Cya!

Days 474,475: 10th-11th Jan, 2011 - Inverted Circadian Cycle

One thing I feel genuinely proud of is the fact that no matter how late I go to sleep, usually I somehow manage to wake up on time to attend the morning class. Funny how I can manage to take pride in such things while entire sections on my HR forms remain empty :P . The FRA class, observing the bloodbath on Dalal Street, and some more of Big Bang Theory easily saw my afternoon through.

Had a ppt to attend in the evening, about a highly sought after profile offered by the most trusted brand in the country. That was followed by 'High Tea' which basically was all about a bunch of B-schoolers hogging up free food :-)

Now yesterday when I went to Kisaan's room, I realised of this new type of time pass - entering into the imprompto online quiz-types competitions of Manfest. There are only few of these - I had already missed the one yesterday - so today I made sure I signed up for it along with Chatur and Shanky. Call For Arms - definitely good tp. What was even better was it lead to even more tp after the event. We first saw a movie Fighter in my room. The movie's about a boxer, I found it extremely average. Then time for a night mess break, after which we started off with yet another movie. This one - Remember the Titans was much better. 

By then it was around 4am. Now we had a quiz 'the next day' (technically that same day) at 9am. And by experience, we all know this 5 hr window of sleep if super dangerous. Hence we decided to pull an all-nighter, chitchatting our way through the wee hours. Of course, eventually I was the lone man standing even as the others dozed off. They did wake up on time for the quiz. Shanky - in that sleep induced state - leaned on the side of the bed and the furniture broke :D

By the time I had given the quiz and struggled myself awake through FRA, my circadian cycle had inverted itself. Came back and fell flat on my bed and dozed away in full glory through the entire day :D

Woke up around 6pm, remained dazed for another couple of hours. Some aloo parathas for dinner at the morning adda, a little more tp, and I finally am going to go for an early sleep. Preferably waking up with my body clock on usual mode :D

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 458:25th Dec, 2010

Merry Christmas!

If Santa were to give gifts to people of IIM L, he would rather walk in during morning rather than late night :-p . Woke up real late today - 12.30 in the noon. No real surprise there though considering the time when I slept. Over lunch with Kisaan and Chatur, made strong plans to go for a city tour, which immediately post-lunch weakened mainly due to the laziness of others :( . Substituted that with the movie 'Eurotrip' - that typical movie which depends on hyperbole for the comedy quotient. Timepass watch though.

Went on a little walk around the campus. Felt nice doing some "activity" in an otherwise docile existence. Came back to my room to introduce the topper to my latest addiction - Dexter. An hour later, we and TG went for the consult session taken by our PPO boys - pretty good session, those guys had prepared well.

Ending the day with plans to go for the most elusive Taj breakfast!

Days 453,454: 20th-21st Dec, 2010 - Walking the last mile

Wow! Just can't believe the speed with which 5 terms have passed by!

Anyways, the combined post is because I slept off early yesterday, 8.30pm, a little too early infact for helL's standards :D. Not much to do yesterday. Finished off with the registration formalities. Caught up with a few stex-returned batchmates - finally saw the guy who lost half of himself back there! A few others who were back from stex also seemed to have lost weight, except of course for my good friend Kung Fu Panda, who seems to have gained a few more kilos of awesomeness :P + of course it was freezing cold and I had this feeling that excessive exposure to it wouldn't bode well. And hence, I just found a nice excuse to snuggle myself on the bed and get some sleep.

Today morning I attended my first class of the last term. (Even had breakfast after what seems like a zillions years!) Due to the PGP1 exams, we ended up having the class in CR103 - my old classroom. My actual seat was already occupied, so I ended up sitting one row behind. But that didn't stop me from reminiscing about all the super brilliant moments spent in that class - 3 cheers to section B for that! :-) . Then went to Chatur's room to gorge on all those sweets gotten from home. Not to mention the bonus of getting a few chocolates from the stex people nearby :D . And finally saw the movie 'Usual Suspects' - I found it OK.

Had a company ppt in the afternoon. Many more to follow. I guess a good amount of time this term is going to go this way. The funny part today though was that a Pcommer's name was called out and he wasn't there! :P . Had the burger in the mess (newly rechristened as 'Annapoorna') - seems like a 'Warm Welcome' sign with the most popular item.

Meanwhile, TG got his pappu. Spent some time talking about that, a lot more negotiating for the scale of the treat and then a lot more on random bakwaas. Which somehow ended up in the decision that we were not going to eat in the mess. And so we went to the (by now default) Brij ki Rasoi and stuffed ourselves to the max - no one else paid and it became a 'starter to the main treat' ;-)

Also Pachpan, Bala and me were riding triples and we kind of had a 'standstill skid' from the bike at 3.4 :D. Nobody got hurt or anything, but it was uncanny considering I had joked about it just that evening with a couple of other friends! Spoooky no?! :D

Slept off immediately when I came back. But then got up a couple of hours ago. Anyways, too much of pointless browsing done. It's 5.30 am now :-p . Good by helL's standards and have now more than made up for yesterday's early retirement. Time to go to sleep again so I wake up for tomorrow's class. Gn.

Day 447:8th Dec, 2010

Didn't have any exam today. So woke up blissfully late and in a carefree mode. 

In the afternoon, the sudden fall in markets and specifically in a couple of scripts jagaofied the trader in Pachpan and my demat account was utilized to make a phantom purchase for him. (Unless of course, I profit in which case I can be all evil and keep the profit :-P). And as usual, people generally are eternally vella and the little activity in my room magnetically pulled more people here with the consequence of the multiplier effect eventually generating even more tp.

Anyways, I have two papers tomorrow. The evening one is an open book, open notes etc marketing case based exam - so basically no issues there. The worrisome part would happen to be in the afternoon - EPA! It was an interesting course but the problem is the paper would be completely application of theory. Which implicitly requires a prior knowledge of theory. So there I have been - trying to go through the slides and making sense of all the data and hypotheses and theories. Also, since I had missed one quiz, I had to write a critical review of one paper and submit it to the prof after tomorrow's paper. But since that would clash with my evening exam, I thought of getting it done tonight itself.

So that, a lot of Russel Peters (somebody's gonna geta hurt REAL BAD :D, SS's awesome level leg-pulling by Taklu and my usual tryst with random blogs is what has been keeping me up till 5.10am! And if I don't get some sleep now - I am going to be dozing off during the papers tomorrow! Cya!

Day 443:4th Dec, 2010

Woke up pretty late today. The good thing about that is it leaves you with that much less time to think and wonder how you will spend it. Not only for the time you were asleep, but for the next couple of hours spent away eating, bathing and generally in a state of laziness, drowsiness and inertia.

Late evening, when some senses were about to hit me and prompt me into some action, a movie plan came up. And off went Pachpan, Shomu, Chatur and myself to wave to watch Phas Gaya Re Obama. Now suddenly these kind of movies are being made these days which concentrate on one simple plot and weave a humourous story around them. And just like the rest, even this one turns out to be a pretty decent plot. Has a pretty ingenious climax too :D

We thought of watching one more movie straight. But didn't have enough time. So we just had dinner outside at the eatery in the lane behind Wave. For those who don't know, it is a pretty nice place. Very cheap, and good stuff. I had pav bhaji - they make it well here, but couldn't help remembering that I'll be having the authentic version in 10 days! :-)

Somehow, when Pachpan came to my room at night, the conversation restarted from where we left it yesterday. Discussions ranging from foreign profiles to money to entrepreneurship to career options to career goals to feasibilities and such arbit stuff happened in quick succession. Unintentionally took up quite some time.

Anyways, remember my CV work? A couple of people told me my 2 page CV is twice as weak :-P . So right now, I am remaking and remodeling it to fit it in one page. Using the great MMR's CV template - so well structured that I am finding it difficult to modify it :D. Finally getting to understand that thing though - more than anything, I keep learning a little more about MS Office through these little experiences. Anyways, have done some bit on the CV to get it down to one page. 4.30am now. Will get some sleep. Have a quiz at 8.15am! :-S . Hope I wake up.

Day 441:2nd Dec, 2010

Spent all the afternoon getting super bored doing routine stuff. That is why I decided to watch a movie in the evening. Saw 'The Illusionist'. Another movie which has magic as its backdrop (after 'The Prestige') and comes up with a brilliant climax.Time well spent.

And exactly at the same time as I was watching this movie full screen on my laptop, with earphones plugged in, it so happened my SDM group had a meeting. They tried to reach me through incessant pings and calls, none of which I realised :-p . But I am not to blame - they sent out the email at 6.20 asking everyone to assemble in the library at 6.30! By then, the show was already ON.

Had the CV verification activity late night. It is an essential activity, chiefly because of the tendency of a big big bunch of MBA students to inflate their "achievements" to unimaginable proportions. In fact, with the kind of figures people state on their CVs, one would imagine half of India's GDP is contributed by IIM L students. However, there are things about the verification process which need to be ironed out. "How?" would be the million dollar question though. It is ailing mainly from the same disease India's legal system and everything else is - the "influential" and "big" people know to bend the rules to win the game, while the system eventually often troubles the poor, simple lot.

Anyways, the process was running late - thanks to some in the latter category. I waited in the CC for my turn. Discovered something new ;-) 

My own verification happened quickly, as I had a simple honest CV with all the proofs in order. Now working on the SDM presentation for tomorrow. Halfway through it, but super sleepy. Will finish it tomorrow. So long!

Day 440:1st Dec, 2010

Today seems like a reallllllyyyy long day. I think it is substantially due to the fact that I woke up at 5am - yes you read that right - 5am today! After a quick bite at GnB (and of course, capturing the atrocities committed on their staff), we made our way to Lohia Park. Today being World Aids Day, INDEX was supporting the local government organisation in organizing a City Run to raise AIDS awareness. The run went off very well - had a good response from people.

Though all this meant that I had lost out on a lot of sleep over the past 3 days. Made up all of that with a nice and not-so-short siesta :D

Through evening till now that, one of my old temporary addictions is back - the hunt for good mobile apps. I must have surely mentioned this before - that the very reason I bought my present N79 is to explore for apps, as I see that all the great features of a phone are going to be delivered through independent software apps. One major problem with Symbian though is that it requires all software to be signed and have a valid certificate - which is a big big issue when it comes to some ingenious apps available at sidey-types websites :-p . Finally remembered the way by which I had resolved this issue. Had to go through the whole process though - thanks to the new IMEI number on my new handset :-p

Day 423:14th Nov, 2010 - Power Play

Man o' man... Seems like a Super Sunday! Shattered all previous existing records - woke up at 1.30 in the afternoon! :-o . And that too with a week to go for INDEX :-p

Did fill in the afternoon with a lot of work though. Especially since there was a plan to finally head out for the facchas Summers party; to Barbecue Nation! But the place seriously seems to be jinxed. Just as I was returning from Body-builder's room (strategic location in my prev hostel :-|.. I missed it!), got a call from some people calling me for a "short meeting" at around 6.30pm. The last time such a thing happened, it ran from 11pm to 4pm or so. That never struck my mind at the start. But what followed turned out to be something absolutely unexpected. A discussion that with them ran for 3 hours, and then amongst us through the night. Simply incomprehensible things seem at times. Last thing one would want in the midst of all this activity. Not over yet, lets see how this goes forward tomorrow. Lots of plans and measures in the head - of all ranges and degree.

Day 422:13th Nov, 2010

Was super chilly inside the classroom too for some reason. Not to mention my own internal running nose problem. And already I have an issue in not being capable of sleeping in a uncomfortable sitting posture. All these powers combined to ensure I couldn't even catch up on a wink of sleep during the lecture.

Anyways, broke all time records today. We launched our last MR project of the season. The final tally now stands at 18! That makes it more than any other INDEX by atleast 25%! \m/

Had an insti party. Got loads of work, but insti parties are not to be avoided. So I thought I'll just go there for 15min or so, hear some loud music and make my way out. The plan went off beautifully except for part 3. And instead of making my way out, I stayed on right till the very end, the part when we have randomly begun sitting in the lights AFTER the music is off, and singing a random bunch of songs :D. Pretty masaledaar party though :-p . Lots of happening stuff on the dance floor :-p . No limit to the things people do (and entertainment they provide to us) when they are a couple (ok, a little more than that) of drinks down ;-) . Finally back in my room. 4.45am. Work postponed to tomorrow :-p

Day 416: 7th Nov, 2010

The hemisphere confusion phase continues.

Once again, woke up past 12. And it was an absolutely max-level vella Sunday. Spent a good 2 hours coming up to date with the latest in HIMYM. The series does not have its initial charm though. Escalation of commitment compels me to watch it till I know who goes on to be Ted's wife (and I am tending to get the feeling that would be a real dampener!). Even Barney seems to be losing some of his sheen! :-(

Now something that probably has never come up on this blog before (not sure about that) is that I adore boxing! I don't know why, but something in that sport has always attracted me. And not as a follower or critic; more so in a manner that I should be an active participant. Probably that's why, the few boxing movies that I have seen have also been interesting. So when I came across the fact that the "Cinderella Man" is one of the all-time top boxing movies, I just had to see it. And that is what I did; and wasn't disappointed :D . The movies is based on the real life fairy-tale rise of a boxer (James Braddock) who had almost been written off. Engaging movie; the fights were very well-shot.

And obviously, it being a Sunday, no scope of eating the mess food. And where else to go, but the mess away from mess - Brij ki Rasoi. Even had a new visitor amongst us, Karraju. Though considering that the placement process is now totally over, guess we can look forward to more of his presence henceforth.

Have been reading up a little more on random stuff, mainly boxing. Even saw a few more videos of Mohammed Ali, Mike Tyson. What players! Mohammed Ali's swiftness and Tyson's aggression would have been such a deadly combination! Shudder to think of the player who would come up against that combination :-P

Anyways, 2.45 now. Early by standards of the last 2-3 days. So hopefully will wake up a little sooner too. The only pain point - the early morning CBM class is cancelled. So how to motivate myself to get up?

Day 408: 30th Oct, 2010 - Design Time \m/

Woke up to find missed calls and mails that had asked me to come back for a liaison stint at 11.30 am. Missed that totally :-|

Instead, woke up to a conversation to remember for a very long time :-)

Anyways. How boring it would be if everything would be organised too smoothly. Latest information brought to light the urgency of the t-shirt/sweatshirt design conundrum. Seems like every place that manufactures all this stuff is going to go on a looooong holiday for Diwali; and therefore the requirements / designs have to be given to them ASAP. And since our chief in-house designer for 2010 was occupied with shaping his Apr-May 2011 plans, I had to go back a year and step into my "designer shoes"! :D . Not that I minded it at all. Was quite happy to get back to something where I can see a very immediate and tangible result :-) . Plus, dabbling around in photoshop is something that intrinsically makes me happy :-) Even managed to learn a couple of new tricks today!

In fact, as I was mainly driving the designs last year as well, there were quite a few creatives that had been made, but never saw the light of the day :-( . So today, I revived an old tag-line which I had thought of last year, and came up with a design around it. Hopefully it will be well-received by the batch :-)

Day 393: 15th Oct, 2010

Woke up pretty late today morning. So late that I might have almost missed my 12.15 pm lecture :-p

You never know the intensity with which some thing might hurt you will you actually get hit. Probably now you are expecting some masala stuff :-p . Sorry to disappoint you; all I am talking about is my loan. So many times, in so many problems, I have calculated principals, interests etc and understood how the outstanding dues keep piling up. But only a few days back, when I took a print of my loan statement, did I realise how expensive it is.. I was paying around Rs.100/- each day as interest :-| . I could instead avoid the mess food one each day! :-| . so today, finally, on my dad's advice (and expense! :-p), I pre-paid the entire amount :-)

So why didn't I do this before? Point is a lot of us at this point of time want to be "independent". Having a loan against our name seems to be better than taking money from our folks at home. Especially since there is a high possibility that they won't take it back from us! Fair and ideal thought. But then, as I read the loan statement, I realised it is far better to take money from them, and gift them something if they don't directly accept money. The moolah stays home anyways.

Company presentations have started for the first years. We constantly find ourselves going to meet the various HRs/marketing people for INDEX. Sometimes, it so happens that a lot of companies come down simultaneously, and it becomes tough to coordinate amongst ourselves, given the various class timings, other engagements etc. Leads to some high-charged moments as we rush to solve that DI problem :D. I even got chided for asking many questions :-|

But not much time for all that. It's Friday! Movie time! And these days we often even seem to find a car easily. We went to PVR this time (instead of the usual WAVE). After some persuasion, we zeroed in on watching Aakrosh. And well, after a sustained string of extremely average to horrible movies, it turned out to be a good choice! Definitely recommended.