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 395: 17th Oct, 2010 - Last mid-sems! :D

Woke up pretty late today. Late considering the fact that I did sleep comparatively early yesterday :-p , and early considering it's a SUNDAY! Breakfast of course was a distant dream. Settled for an early lunch at Fauzi. 

The afternoon was any other lazy one :D . Was listening to songs. Made a playlist after a long time.

Well, finally, something tangible indicating that we are inching towards the end of our course... From tomorrow, our mid-sems start. And this will be the last mid-sem here. Writing this sentence suddenly put me in a little bit of a flashback, my feelings about my first mid-sem here. Not that I was a super stud or anything, but for sure I definitely wasn't tensed even then (not even for the dreaded MANAC!). But I do remember putting in (a lot?) more effort :D . Including night-outs in the library! And not just me; the whole gang comprising also of Dhamdhere (teaching LAM to Mommy :-| ..), Vats et all. Memorable days for sure! And compare that to today, when we (Pachpan, Chatur & me) wrapped up studying for CBM in all of 2-3 hours :D . Smart work! :-p

By the time we finished, it became pretty late and nothing was available in the mess. So Pachpan and me went to Richi Rich. It was super crowded. So we had a pani puri while we waited outside :D . But still no vacancy. So we went to Zaffran. Sat there for 5 minutes, and then the waited told us they would take at least 15-20 minutes to serve any order! :-S . Back to Richi Rich! Luckily, we got a seat without any more to-and-fro trips. In retrospect, all I am wondering is - with infinite time ahead of us, why really were we being impatient? :-|

We had called for a small session with the Ops team. Although it was to be driven by the juniors in my team, I just went to see how it goes. Mostly just a nominal presence to boost their confidence :-) . All I did was narrate a couple of incidents from last year and ensure the team realises it's a happening place to be :D. Similar to what my senior did last year :-p

Day 279: 15th Jun, 2010

Had great fun collecting money (for the section celebration) during the SM class. Especially Dada's negotiations with Lima, raising his contribution from zero to Rs. 30/- 

Buried under an avalanche of work now!

Day 264: 25th Mar, 2010

Had our last class of PGP1 today.. I woke up at 10:01 for the 10'o clock MIS lecture. But I did want to attend it.. confirmed with Dhamdhere if he was coming. Reached class at 10:20 :-p .. luckily Sir didn't say anything. Captured a nice 8 min video :) And took the last snap in CR 103 for 2009-2010... a pic of the now empty classroom..

From there, yet another farewell.. to Pravin, who was finally leaving campus. The fellow would have stayed on if he could. Loaded with more stuff now - the best of the lot - speakers! :D . The speakers, though seem to have a little bit of Pravin's ghost or something.. as soon as I connected the speakers, I heard the 'Tum Mile' title song 3-4 times continuously. (Pravin used to hear the song in an infinite loop for days on end :-| .. much to the chagrin of his neighbour :D ..)

Two quizzes one day before the exam. Two ways to look at it:

a) Silly to bother us with this a day before the exam :-S

b) Good match practice, let's crack this one!

But people like me follow philosophy#3 - it's called "kya farak padta hai !"

Trying to study ADA since evening. I realised hearing about stuff from people isn't really working. So now I have been trying to go through the slides by myself.. 

Also had a refreshing entertainment session at the night mess - small drama over the room allocation thing. It was indeed funny the way some silly points were being thrown around by people, with super-animated pappa trying to fend it all off :D . As my friend Deepak said - "that's what happens when you put too many 'intelligent' people together".

Day 252: 13th Mar, 2010 - A Thousand Splendid Suns

Spent the first half of the day in trying to organise the pics and videos I have captured from my cell. (Half from when I woke up, 'coz technically half the day was already over by then :P)

Saw the great IPL match between MI and Rajasthan Royals..was awesome fun! Then went to the convocation. 320 proud graduating students. And even more proud parents of the students. Everyone's face beaming with pride and joy - A thousand splendid suns gleaming with the dazzle of happiness. Mr. Damadoran (the person credited for turning UTI around) was the chief guest. He spoke about the importance of values and about having noble means to attain a noble task.

And finally - at night we had our section party. H4,5,6 common volley court. We had SUCH a great time, words and all absolutely won't suffice. We danced like crazy (that's obviously a standard :P), danced more. Had a prize distribution ceremony - full serious business - getting certis signed by our CR! :D . Then we gave our CR a t-shirt (Sud's idea, my desigining, Ayan's acronym generation and AdiJ's printing). And then raising a lot of toasts amongst all of us. Followed by Nishant's superb video! Then dance again, dance again. Bonfire. Music. Silence. Music. Friends... :)

Went with Shreyas to GnB. Bought a Nimbuzz and parted. I then went to the fountains at Fauzi and sat there alone for say 15 min .. Just me and the sound of the water flowing from the fountains.. beautiful!

And last, but not the least, stopped by the INDEX room on my way back - to see Core2009's message :)

So, what's the time today? 7am in the morning :D . The sun not only has thrown its first rays, but it's now kinda showing off its glory. The rays crowding my window. Need to close by eyes, block all the light and get some rest. Enjoy folks!

And my final message: All the very very best to PGP24!

Day 251: 12th Mar, 2010

I don't know why.. but for some strange reason I woke up thinking today was a Sunday. (It's only Friday, not even Saturday!) Maybe it was because lectures started only at 10. Which I eventually bunked exercising my luxurious attendance backup.

We had a section photoshoot today. We did have one a few months back - but that was the official one. And not all of us were in it together. This time, we planned and coordinated to have everyone together :D . Some great pics & videos have come out, which I'll cherish for years to come.

Met Mr. Psycho in the mess. He now seems to have graduated to psycho^2 levels. Attended PGP day - a function to commemorate a lot of students for the various events as also to award trophies to the various departments at IIM L. Shruti gave a nice speech on behalf of INDEX. Then took a 'peanut butter sandwich' treat from Shanky @ Just Tea and we three had a nice looooong chat in the backdrop of the convocation dinner and the fountain :)

Day 234: 23rd Feb, 2010

Trust Rohit Yadav to always speak his mind out as straight as he can. Today our post-mid adjunct faculty prof for SCM started the course with a very small revision of the terms used pre-mid. He asked if any of us had any doubts. Prompt came Rohit Yadav's God level question: "Sir, I don't remember any of these terms" :D

Finally a pretty decent plan for the extended weekend's trip has now been put into place, mainly thanks to Mr. Rajat Ghate. Am really looking to the trip for sure! The only thing I'll seriously miss is the failure of my plan to see KCK on the day of release :(

Tomorrow we have classes the whole day. Right from morning to evening 6 .. thanks to all the guest lectures. .. !! Shucks! :(

Day 226: 15th Feb, 2010

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

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

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

Yet another not-so-brief period of silence.

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

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

Sir: "Uska kya matlab hai?"

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

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

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

Day 219: 8th Feb, 2010 - Monkey Management!

Our section is quite (in)famous for asking for deadline extensions. True to the record, a few guys had been asking for postponement of submission of a couple of assignments. The efforts did pay off - the boring HRM journal reading task had been extended. But our FM prof's style of putting through the same point for his subject was awesome :D . His mail -

"The date for the first assignment submission is extended to 16th Feb 2010.

A line of advise for the lobbies. No more extensions on any course related matters will be entertained. You manage your monkey and I will manage mine.

Cheers until then "

Allowed myself to bunk a QAM class in the morning today to enjoy the luxury of some extra sleep :D :D

The next MIS class was the usual - scrambling to copy the assignment in the first 5 min, listening as the prof whiled his time (and ours) rambling on something that has no coherence or relevance to what he should be speaking on. Doesn't seem to be a good course at this juncture in the first place. Would have been much more logical to have a strategy course now and keep this as an elective next year.

INDEX room is now spacious, thanks to kisaan. Poor fellow had to become a mazdoor to unload the boxes at the shop :D . Had the extension of yesterday's meeting today. Things came to a logical conclusion.

Have my exams from day after. Doesn't seem like that at all. I have friends who are worried about tests a few days away.. and here I am to restore nature's balance.

And just as I finish writing this post, it's started to rain. Wonders never cease!

Day 217: 6th Feb, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

In that context, the conversation should have gone as:

Aman: Hi

Me: Oyee, pizza khaega?

Aman: blah blah ..

But it went like this:

Aman: Hi, who is this?

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

Aman: (a little nervous) Yea..

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

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

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

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

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

Day 210: 30th Jan, 2010 - Smart or Smarter?

If you are smart, you can make good ppts in term 3. If you are smarter, you won't need to make ppts in term 3 :D . Won't go into details here, but SKD and KR did just that today :D

I managed to write another poem today. Tried some variation with the rhyme scheme. You can check out the poem by clicking here.

We had an MM quiz today. Earlier, during the lecture, we asked our prof if there would be objectives in the paper. He said "some of it". He wasn't lying - one question of the 10 had alternatives.

After playing some VERY poor TT, went with TG to the city to handover some certis. Made him more of a man by asking him to ride the bike for a part of the return journey.

And after aeons, the INDEX room is now clean! Wayyy tooooooo clean.. kuch karna padega to make it more acceptable :-p

Day 200: 20th Jan, 2010

Firstly, Celebrations! 200 days @ helL!

Was pretty a chill day too... only 2 hours of lectures.. which passed by rapidly thanks to my Kane and Abel. Was reading that through the day, skipping dinner :-p

Day 148: 23rd Nov, 2009

Post midterm we have this prof for MANAC 2. He is the proper character-sketch strict prof types. Always comes on time. Shuts the door. AND the worst part... asks questions to hapless students.

Now my seating in class is in a pretty noticeable position, due to which I NEVER put my nametag. But this guy, in a typically expected behaviour, forces us all to place our nametags on front. And immediately after that, catches me and asks me some fundu question on the case which 50% of the class hasn't read, and 90% of the remaining half hasn't bothered to solve! :S .. Anyways, I am taking refuge in my usual stoic and stony non expressive face mask.

Was super sleepy in class nonetheless. I don't even remember much of what happened. My kinda hangover :-p

Had to go to the city with Shruti. Some more work here and there. The awesome thing was that I was going on MY DISCOVER now! Yippeeee!!

Day 134: 9th Nov, 2009

Came to know only in class that Soumen has also got placed. That completes the quota for our bench. Time to redeem the party promise. Souvick, being the first one placed, gave a pizza treat! (For now I have paid for it though :-p). The pizza was surprisingly hot, and the cheese was still dripping :D

And who would think mid sems are starting tomorrow. No wonder seniors are so chilled about their exams. It's just term 2 and we have stopped bothering. But I don't think it's time to opine yet. This maggu batch won't give up without a fight. Lets wait and watch! 2 papers tomorrow - MM & OM. Got to buy a new pen... on second thoughts... I don't think I'll run out of ink in the near future :p

Day 131: 6th Nov, 2009

Pretty interesting day today!

Got our 1st term CGs. Have done better than what I thought I would. But yea, a little bit of a maggu batch this one... CG level seems to have gone up overall as well. And my section has gone bonkers - four 9-pointers; howzzat ! INDEX seniors are massively disappointed :-p .. Shruti is the big thing disguised as a small package, scoring a 9-pointer! I think it might be a first in INDEX ever :D

Had the 3rd interview today. Another round of HR questions. I really like the fact that they are serious about evaluating their candidates. But yea, it would be a little silly to not get through after the 3rd round interview.

Slowly people are recollecting the harsh truth called exams. Went for the MANAC remedials late evening. In the midst of the lecture, got to know from Shreyas' SMS that I got through Quetzal ! Awesome!! Summers over for me, finally! I guess this marks another qualitative landmark of the IIM L stay -

Went to the INDEX room. Bloody I got bumps again! Got started with all the pending INDEX work :)

Day 130: 5th Nov, 2009

Boring boring classes have started again. We got our OM prof to postpone the quiz. The real fun was when the prof came back after all the lectures had ended and told us that the quiz cannot be postponed :-| ... this at 2.30 pm for the quiz scheduled at 4.30 :-| ... fortunately we managed to convince the prof that it is impossible to inform everyone of the revised schedule and they might miss the quiz. Negotiation of evasion successful.

Had an interview for this startup founded by 4 IIM A alumni. (Have heard of it before from a friend here who has worked there and also because half the founders are from my engineering college.) Anyways, the interview was nice in the sense that they were keen on delving into every answer. Got through to the 2nd round. That was conducted by another founder. It is actually nice to see that people are genuinely interested in evaluating you. Got through this to the 3rd round.. that's scheduled for tomorrow.. lets see how this one works out.

More than anything else, I need to get through so that I can focus on INDEX work too. Saala am tied down to being inside campus!

Day 123: 29th Oct, 2009

The classroom was real empty today. All the top guns of the class had gone to take a shot at their top guns.

Anyways, the consequent drop in average population (due to the absence of above average people) resulted in an exponential drop in class participation. People like me became hapless victims to the phenomenon. Me was asked questions in the eco lecture. Twice!

Really nothing much to do during the day. Had a batch meet at night for which Shreyas and myself were to postpone dinner. Until the futility of the occasion for us struck.

Some smiles. Some stoic. Some dejects. The roller coaster sets in motion... When will I get the chance to sit on it?

Day 117: 23rd Oct, 2009

M v/s M. Sir was explaining one problem on some costing method when our Mr. Hansraj M. asks "Sir, why don't we calculate this on a monthly basis?" The boy sure had to pay his price for this. Came the reply, "if you think it is a better method, why didn't you get the answer?" :-|

Another interesting never-before thing happened today. PK sat down to have lunch with us! (And that's a hattrick as far as a mention on this blog is concerned :P)

Went to the police station to get some permission. And as I say, it is only when you step outside that you realise the value the college has. We were actually received warmly even in such power-oriented places.

Went to Saharaganj from there. Finally I was able to cross off some items from my ever growing list of things to do. Well not things like scaling the Everest and all, but I started off with buying some dry fruits and stuff. And of course some air-tight and more importantly ant-tight containers.

PS: The tents outside the PGP blocks are coming up. The tension has not come up. Yet.

Day 116: 22nd Oct, 2009

I have a serious doubt about some biology fundamentals. I have a strong suspicion that females have a 47th gene - for sincerity! What else can explain the general sincerity with which girls study and come? Today for eg. we had an oral quiz in DWO. The queen of this game, Preeti, just went on and on and on. The girl just doesn't have a stop button :D. Next was where we had to get data on some recent M&As. Again, Madhavi and Jinal went on a rampage. I just don't understand how they motivate themselves to study such subjects in so much detail! But the most important point of the day - PK called me "*andu" :D . Hehehe.

Again slept off at around 10.30! I must be the subject of envy amongst people here. But bloody had to wake up in between, and that too 'coz that ass Bellam didn't write his birth date on one form! :-X

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!