Day 72: 31st Aug, 2009

It is raining surveys! Anyways we get a barrage of mails from a lot of different sources. To add to this pain, people are randomly spamming the group with links to their BIO project questionnaires! Every time I do a send-receive on my outlook, there are a dozen new survey links in my inbox :-S . Because of this volume, the effect is just lost. I am personally just deleting those mails now. I doubt if anyone else is doing anything different. But wait, how do I confirm that? A new survey perhaps :-p

Had an event called Finrush. A treasure hunt where the clues are accounting problems and the solutions would turn out to be places you need to run to next. Usually I am good with treasure hunts where the clues are puzzles, but was MANACally handicapped in this case. Had a couple of other studs in my team, so we did OK. But didn't win :( Only lots of running around. Apparently I was the lucky guy (303) with the 1st clue, but then our luck ran out there I guess :-p

Got marks for 2 more subjects - Communication and QAM. Comm marks have been totally arbit. Ranging from 32-35 for most people. I am 33, might be a mark below the class average, but never mind. Holding on to the average in QAM as well.

Day 71: 30th Aug, 2009

Eco has this fantastic ability of making fun of all deadlines you set for yourself. You think you are smart while estimating the time you would take to finish a chapter. Then you think you are smarter when you allocate a buffer just in case you get stuck up at some point. But eventually eco is going to have the last laugh when you realise you have taken more time than intended and eventually finished around 20% of your target :-(

Had our first all PGP1 INDEX meet. (INDEX in CAPS as said by Vigi :-p). Was pretty productive I must say. Nice to work in groups that are smart. Finding smart people is not very difficult here. Just that we need to ensure those people aren't a tad over-smart :-p .

Weekend over. But did it even start?

Day 70: 29th Aug, 2009

Met random Index alumns today. It is amazing to see how some things become a permanent part of you. And how it helps you bond with people who have that in common with you. Although on a transitive basis, Indexians across even the last ten years or so know each other! Isn't that cool?

Have heard stories of how the end terms define 'hell' here. I think we are pretty much on our way there. A barrage of quizzes and project submissions staring us on our face. And I have no clue what is happening in any subject. But then, what's new? :-p

Day 69: 28th Aug, 2009

The luckiest people on campus are not the ones who have great grades, great committees and stuff.. but they are the ones who have their birthdays during vacations/internship period. This guy in my class, Singla, had his bday today. He got his share of bumps in class again, which apparently was the third round for him. Poor fellow was a little shaken after all the hits on his backside. Felt bad for him.

Had a special session on Excel from two guest lecturers. I personally felt the lecture was useful. More than exactly learning how something is to be done, it gave an idea of the possibilities that could be explored with knowledge of excel, especially in the context of a manager and analysis of data.

Had an Index meet later in the night. This blog will see many such entries in future. Should I try and restrict their mention to the more important ones? Lets see..

Worked a lot on the sec tee at night. Trying to incorporate all the names at the back. Seriously painstaking and time consuming job! I have ended up giving more time to it than to my CV now!

Day 68: 27th Aug, 2009

I don't think I have mentioned this.. We are alloted permanent seating places for the whole year. But in today's eco lecture, anyone was sitting absolutely anywhere. The vantage points (which remained hidden from the prof's view) were understandably in great demand owing to their higher sleep utility. I had opened my laptop to start studying for the ITC quiz that we had later in the day. Realised that I was even able to connect to the net :D . So studies aside and back to chatting/orkutting etc.

Finally bought a nail cutter. The first time I have ever bought one. Made me suddenly wonder how a nail cutter manufacturer even makes profits. I mean.. I don't remember anyone in my family or friend circle ever buy a nail cutter. It just exists!

Was talking yesterday to a friend about how the government is thinking of incorporating 12th marks as a criteria to get into the IITs. Today I read about the Cabinet approval for increasing the number of IITs and IIMs. As my friend said, these are the things that generate so much brand value for India. Although it is essential to have more institutions that foster academic excellence, no point in going for volume at the risk of deterioration in quality. Not an area where tradeoff should be exercised.

Had the ITC quiz today. Excel on paper :-S . The test actually required us to remember excel formulae :-S . Lost the point of the course here. The best thing about the digital format is the convenience to correct things on the fly as and when you go wrong. Quite the converse on paper.

Slept off nicely in the evening. (am making this post at 4.15 in the morning :-p). Went off for another CV review. Had to also complete a writeup for the Eco project. Thanks to Shantanu and Shipra for that!

My laptop bloody is suddenly showing 4-5 random lines on the screen! Noooooooo clue where it came from suddenly!! Wasn't there even in the morning!! :( ... Will wait and see if it auto-corrects by tomorrow or something (hope it does!).. else will need to call the service people..

Day 67: 26th Aug, 2009

Today's 8am ITC session was cancelled. So got that little extra blissful minutes of sleep. Got yesterday's test results. Got 7.5/10 .. I think that would be the class average or a little less. But I lost one mark for the silliest reason - not showing calculations! :-S .. The last time that happened was in school!

Worked for more time on my CV. This thing really takes time! Need to get some more reviews on it from seniors and all..

Myself and Tarun had fetched a nice cool cake :-p . And that too, brought it on Praveen's bike. It is a superb vehicle. So what if the bike has no mirrors, a gear box which supposedly is not in sync with the clutch, an accelerator which should NOT be used while turning, a silencer that may blast anytime, wheels that are not aligned properly and a speedometer which does not work. Rest everything is great.

Had our first Index meet today. Venue was the Index room! The place has such a nice casual feel to it. We need more chairs though :-p . Meeting was basically about the agenda ahead. Some brief points. Celebrated Ashish's bday then! Then celebrated 2 other birthdays in the mess. So basically lots of kicks flying around.

Day 66: 25th Aug, 2009

We were to have an OM quiz today morning. I tried to study for it yesterday in the lib. But I was SO sleepy that although I was looking at some scribble and alphabets on the textbook, they just wouldn't form sensible words or sentences in my head. As usual, slept off without putting in much of a fight. Woke up today morning and studied an hour for the test. A couple of good classmates had solved some sample problems neatly, taken photographs, uploaded it on the comp and emailed it to the class :D.

Test itself was OK. Seemed like everyone was having the same paper. One person on my bench copied an answer from his neighbour because he saw that it was different and he had more confidence in anyone else than himself :p. But after the test, the prof told us that around 6-7 different sets of Q papers had been circulated. Major remorse for that guy :D

Pcom work is showing its effect. Dhamdhere was dozing off all through the lecs. Au contraire, and very surprisingly, Kaushik and KR seemed to be wide awake today! :O

Am still majorly stuck up on the CV thing. Worked on it a little more. Thought it got better, but a review said it still has a lot of redundant stuff :-S

The struggle with misspelt name continues!! Pcom numbers list is out and my name is misspelt there as well. I so hope I could find out who the person was who made the initial master list, without even asking for a verification! I could just murder that person!! Bloody the mistake just cascades everywhere!

Meshed came up. He wanted some help with photoshop. Something I didn't know how to do, so struggled on that for quite a lot of time. Came up with multiple colors etc. I think eventually came up with something respectable. But apparently it didn't prove useful :-(

Day 65: 24th Aug, 2009

Lecture @ 8am. Wake up time: 7.55am!! Never before in my life have I acted with such speed. I usually take around 5 minutes just to move out and brush my teeth, but today, in 5 minutes, I had brushed my teeth, changed, packed my bag (books + laptop!) and run all the way to the PGP block (carrying the heavy heavy bag) with a few seconds to spare! :D

Post classes, spent time on building my CV. That is a huge area of concern. Have been hearing about the importance of building a good CV again and again, but problem is 'good' here is extremely subjective. Anyways, tried to modify and rephrase some sentences. Tried to revamp my work-ex section. Added INDEX Core Committee :)

Btw, we have an informal student DB intranet site called etrigan (don't ask me why!). It has this feature by which the top 5 searched profiles are shown. Ever since committee results are out, all Pcommers are topping the charts! :p Bahut demand hai junta mei :D

Also had Sikander football finals today. My hostel lost to H14 ..! :-( .. sheah! but never mind, time for the other sporting Gods from the hostels to show up! :D

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 61: 20th Aug, 2009

Wow! After many many days woke up with the rays of the sun falling on my face! :D . Now I know the PJ maker in you will arise and say "toh subah subah kya moonlight aaega". Well, my initial statement is significant because the last entire week was the wettest week till now. Mad perpetual rains. And hardly any sunshine. Today was nice.

There is such a barrage of mails here that most mails are just read superficially. Just 3 days back, a mail was sent informing people that classes have been preponed by 15 minutes. Still, majority junta walked in at the usual time! With a nice shocked expression on their faces :D

Had the MANAC quiz in the evening. As I said, love such quizzes where everyone gets screwed :D. Actually, a little-short-on-time types paper. Some more time would have helped. Oh well, not helped me, but some people atleast :-p .

But all in all, super chillax day. Nothing apart from these things. I slept off at approximately 10.15! HEEEHAHAHHAA! :D

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 56: 15th Aug, 2009

Happy Independence Day! :)

Normally there is this notion of 'Indian Standard Time'. But Independence day and Republic day are two days on which things happen as per schedule. Even in my colony, where typically the delay is at least an hour, flag hoisting is punctual. I wanted to attend the flag hoisting function which was to be held at 9.00 am sharp. Woke up at around 8.45 somehow. But in my miscalculation of time to indulge in essential morning activities, got delayed. Left my room only at 8.59. Ran (without even bolting the door) all the way but reached there only at 9.01 :-( . Anyways, was nice to see the Indian Tricolour fluttering :-) We had some cultural programmes lined up. But just as they were to start, the rains came in full force. We initially took refuge under a temporary plastic sheet that was put up, but soon realised the sheet had more pores than a sieve. So everyone had to rush inside the indoor badminton court. The programmes resumed after a break of around 15min. There were a couple of songs, a skit and a dance. They were nice.

But the problem with getting up so early on a holiday is you have a lot of time on you. Not to say that I don't have work (I actually have lots of work) but when I get so much time, I just have to spend it doing some random tp. I really wanted to go and watch Kaminey, but no plan was falling in place. Went back to my room and worked on some Index poster. That is something I liked to do - designing some random stuff. Experimented a little, but lots more than can be done.

In the evening, suddenly made up a plan to watch Kaminey! Five of us (Deshpande, Dhamdhere, Mishra, Ghate and myself) went for it. We ditched our bikes as it was raining quite a bit. Took an auto instead for FUN cinemas. The autodriver drove at a supersonic speed of around 5-10kmph. At one point, I was afraid that time should not run so fast that our paths would be retraced :-p . Anyways, reached in time for an 8.45 evening show. Found the movie OK. But the shaky camera movements really sucked. The to and fro conversations were real fun though :D . Came back, thought of resuming some poster designing stuff. Was called for the intersection skit. Enjoyed that. Worked from 3.30-6.30 on it and finally slept at around 7am.

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 53: 12th Aug, 2009

We have a new subject - Operations Management - for the post midterm schedule. On day#1, at the start of the session, I wrote on the top of a fresh new page - "10/08/09 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT". And now after 3 days, that is all I have written in the notebook. Some serious random globe seems to be going on in that lecture.

Towards the end of the lecture today, we were asked to read a case and discuss a little bit. The case was primarily about a reduction in productivity and we were to analyse the reasons for the same. Some CP desperate people kept giving random solutions and we had already overshot the lecture timing by 5 min. At this point, the guy next to me (S) just stands up to leave for the break. And gave a CP remark which was just out of the world! :D

Prof : Some people seem to be eager to leave the classroom.

S: Sir, actually if we look at the case, one of the major reasons for fall in productivity was that the workers were made to work overtime and that is always a major demotivating factor.

Needless to say, that was the last statement of the lecture :D

Also, had a 'Fun Quiz' in MANAC. Not fun as in what-is-the-longest-a-snake-can-grow type questions. Probably the explanation would be that it was NOT a "serious" quiz. Here again, S answered the first question in a flash. We stayed quiet and mum for the rest of the quiz, smartly avoiding any negative points. This conservatism approach paid off well and we eventually stood second in the class, earning a valuable 1.5 marks :D

Day 52: 11th Aug, 2009

Sleeeeeeeeeeeppppppppyyyyyyyyyyyyy day!

ZZzzzzZZZzz... lecs ... zzzZZZzz... lunch ... ZZZzzzzzZZZzz ... dinner, little tp ... ZZzzzzZZZZZzzZZ...

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!

Day 50: 9th Aug, 2009

Of Parties, headbanging and VOLINI !

I will never indulge in headbanging again. Never ever! I make this promise to myself after every party and break it only to badly sprain my neck the next day. And trust me, a sprain in the neck is a major pain in the backside. Every time someone calls you, you need to slowly turn your neck around to respond. Like one of those robots that you have in Korean car commercials.

Infact I was wondering what could be a possible cause of this indulgence. And this what I felt holds true. Point is insti parties – or any other party that an average collegian attends – are defined by loud music, dance and drinks (soft/hard depending on budget :p). Now ‘dance’ in such a context is a little misleading. It can at best be described as crazy hypercharged youngsters moving around flinging their limbs in directions and ways they apparently feel are coordinated. And the easiest ‘step’ in such a ‘dance’ is headbanging! (alongwith patang udaana, note barsaana and going around in circles holding each others’ shoulders.) Because of this great levelling attribute called simplicity, headbanging is unanimously embraced and practiced.

Needless to say, I ended up with a bad sprain the next day. Which brings me to the adventure with VOLINI ! I don’t know how many of you have heard of Volini... it basically is a little similar to Relispray.

Well, that is what it is supposed to be atleast. In practicality, it is nothing less than molten lava. I just sprayed a little bit of it on my neck and – oh .. my .. God ! – in a minute, there was unbelievable burning on the nape of my neck! I mean... I can’t describe it here but if I just write ‘volini’ 4-5 times on this page, the webserver may catch fire. Boy, they should put ‘A’ , ‘U/A’ etc type signs on medicines(?) now as they do in movies.

And as the title of the post says, reached 50 days at IIM L today! *raises the bat* Just the start of the innings :)

Update: I forgot to add that today we had our photo session for the official pics. Everyone dressed in business suits! Looked great!

Day 49: 8th Aug, 2009

AWESOME! The only word that fits.

Ate outside. Fell madly in love all over again. Danced like crazy in the insti party. Full chillax.

Midterms ended today. Thought I will do some work and stuff instead of going out. Then thought... am going to get this day only 12 times in my curriculum! So left everything else aside and went to the city - saharaganj.

Ate at McDs there. Then saw a movie at PVR- Love Aaj Kal and I liked it! And Deepika is SOOOO nice man. Full babe! In love with her again...

Returned at 11. ROCKING insti party today. Danced like crazyyy. Broke my floaters in the process :-p . Party went on till about 4am. Went to Gupta, had a Amul Kool. Now going to sleep. It is daylight, but a new beginning from now :).

Impending photoshoot tomorrow at 11.45... hope I wake up! so long!

Day 48: 7th Aug, 2009

Had a paper in engineering for which I mugged like crazy the night before, only to experience a total blank out during the exam :-| . History repeats, a little moderated this time though. Super GLOBE-ish BIO paper. Later realised (when pointed out to by someone else) that we were supposed to be brief in our answers or else marks may be deducted. I hope I haven't written so much gas that I end up with negative marks :D.

Have my last paper - QAM - tomorrow. It is supposed to be easy for engineers considering their "strong previous mathematical skills". A pseudo engineer like me would beg to differ :) . So yet another struggle! Am typing this post at 6 in the morning! With a substantial part of the syllabus yet to cover. And this includes learning the subject only theoretically - haven't solved any problem by myself!

Adios... good night... err... good morning?? bahh!

Day 47: 6th Aug, 2009

Yet another 3 hour paper we had today - LAM or Legal Aspects of Management. Funny thing was people started finishing off within 1 hour itself. A couple of cases - I personally found them interesting (which is not to be miscontrued as easy). Then some short answer questions... didn't take much time... lots of globe there. I myself managed to finish it off in around 2 hrs, finally coming up with 5 inventions that cannot be patented :-p .

It is now 4 in the morning and I am trying to read up on weird motivation theories, none of which seems to have any effect on me or the remaining junta seated here. BIO (Behaviour in Organisations) is by FARRRRR the most theoretical subject we have on our course. Trying to mug up stuff like crazy, but recall value is abysmal. Darn! Am unable to remember stuff that I read on just the previous page.

Anyways, give up time for now - will go and sleep. So long!

Day 46: 5th Aug, 2009

Wow! :D It finally feels like you are writing your exams in an IIM. I think today's ECO paper was set for Amartya Sen or Montek Singh Ahluwalia or the likes. The last question had a 4 side writeup(small font, 4 tables, 1 graph) on some government wheat storing policy that we were supposed to read and then analyse/suggest policy measures. But never mind. I love such papers which are totally g**nd faadu. My reasons:

1. When we get simple papers, I am the only one who has made a mess. But with such papers, the playing field is levelled... the fighters brutally crushed and flattened!

2. Studying over a limit makes no sense. It only creates a depressing atmosphere apart from scaring the shit out of people around. Doesn't really fetch too many marks over a limit. It is only after such exams that people come to terms with such facts.

3. You learn to appreciate the subject for the intricacies involved and for the levels that can actually be attained if you really stick to working hard without caring about point 2 above :-p

Anyways, tomorrow another 3 hour paper on LAM (Legal Aspects of Management). Apparently, 4 sentence questions call for 4 page answers!!! Hehehe... lets see if I manage to put 4 words together.

Day 45: 4th Aug, 2009

After many many days - a 3 hr paper!! Don't recollect the last time I gave such a lengthy paper. (Technically many papers in engineering were very lengthy but I never had much problem because of the limited content I need to fill).

As expected, tons and tons of crap in the Comm-1 paper. The clincher question however - write two journals you referred to for your comm project. Hehehe, I thank all of us team members will end up writing different answers? :D

Anyways, eco tomorrow. I am very very sleepy. Hopefully tomorrow morning will be a little enlightening.

Day 44: 3rd August, 2009

So how would you feel if you were expecting someone to fire a nuclear missile at you and all you get hit by are a few stones? A sigh of relief perhaps? But what if those seemingly harmless stones were enough to cause a few fractures? That is bad!

A similar thing happened today. I think our section got the simplest of balance sheet problems in the 25 year history at IIM L. And yet yours truly here managed to screw it up! :-S . As usual, ended up with an unbalanced sheet.

Actually the problem with mistakes is that they have this quality of causing a temporary addictiveness to error. Typically, while solving a problem, you often realise midway that something is wrong. You then try to retrace the problem from the start with the intention of finding out where/what went wrong. But this is where your mind plays tricks - you again have the exact same thought process and commit the exact same mistake!

Anyways, over and out with MANAC for now. Comm-1 (Communication) paper tomorrow. Need to have a heavy breakfast and lunch - loads of crap to be generated :-p .

PS: Took one round around the campus ring road at night. Saw foxes! (they looked a lot like dogs, but my friend at the pillion rider was pretty sure they were foxes :-p). So that's a new entrant to the list of wildlife animals! Yet to see the snake and porcupine though!

Day 43: 2nd August, 2009

Facing the Legend

Right from the day we got our admissions to IIM L, the one thing unanimously agreed on by all the seniors was the legendary terror of facing MANAC. Well, tomorrow we have our very first set of exams here and it is going to start with - what else - MANAC.

Basically a subject about balance sheets, profit and loss statements etc etc. As remarked in all my previous posts, all my attempts at problem solving have only generated im-balance sheets. I am a little sceptical as to how important it is for us - future managers - to get into so much depth about accounting. As far as my opinion goes, most important is to know whether a transaction is an ADVANTAGE/DISADVANTAGE to the company, rather than knowing under what name and sub name it should come.

Also, all people around me seem to be studying and learning like crazy. A friend of mine in another section is super surprised by my coolness and relaxed approach. I am, in contrast, equally surprised that to see him work SO much! Anyways, to each his own. Let me see if I manage to break the jinx and bring some average performance atleast tomorrow. ATB!

Day 42: 1st Aug, 2009

Finally things have switched into the exam mode. All other activities seem to be at a standstill and everyone around waist deep into their books.

I am been struggling to put myself into that mode. Then I have been struggling to get myself to pick up a book. Then of course the HUGE struggle of trying to make some sense of all the gibberish. Just tried my hand at a big MANAC problem. Spent close to an hour or may be more and the result - as usual, an im-balanced sheet :-( . Just hoping we get some marks for steps and stuff... !

Day 41: 31st July, 2009

We have Relative Grading here in IIM Lucknow. Which means your absolute performance does not matter; what matters is where you stand compared to others. What I definitely didn't expect is to get a "taste" of it today during breakfast. Woke up well in time to grab a bite, but realised when I went to the mess that half the menu items had been hogged-to-finish by the early arrivers. Had to make do with the standard cornflakes/milk and bread/butter/jam.

PCom(Placement Committee) next shortlist was released. Got chucked out :-( . Quite disappointing. Not very sure what went amiss. But anyways, disappointments never stay with me much :-p .

Today happened to be the last day before our first exams here. Indication that it is time to start studying. Anyways, bored and distracted as I was with the very thought of picking up a book, some creative juices of my mind set flowing - and presenting before you yet another limerick! :D

Exams I have from Monday

On books my mind doesn't stay

Subjects galore

Each one's a bore

Time to seek The Divine and pray!