Author: SK

You think of a wonderful scenario. You start day-dreaming about it. You day-dream about it so much that you start believing it’s true. Now it becomes part and parcel of your life. You start planning and building your life around it.

When it hits you that this is all not true, there can be no worse feeling than that!

On the same lines, aren’t bad dreams better than good dreams? When you have a bad dream, you wake up thinking that life is so much more wonderful than what it could be and that makes you happy! (happened to me last week). As against a good dream when you realize that life is not all that good and stuff…

There’s a party on in campus right now. One of those where the drinks are free. And I’ve taken a conscious decision not to drink tonight. Not even taken my bandana along. Guzzled some 10 cups of tea. And just watched. Just stood in a corner, headbanged a little, and watched the people. Watched them get drunk, dance, fall all over each other, and tell stories.

I see the pillar just below the basketball board. Brings to memory that January night… when I decided to get drunk but not lose control. There had been no communication from her for a long time, and I was quite depressed. And I kept hugging the pillar assuming it was her.

The music changes… Fanaa starts playing… Used to be my favorite party song in 1st year. And I had dedicated it to MotherJ a couple of times. And watched her dance, and remember Kareena Kapoor in the original video. I had once even pulled her to the floor when this song played.

Today she is also doing what I am doing, standing by and watching. I continue headbanging and remember the original video. The carefree expression on Kareena’s face. And I suddenly remember that it’s been a long time I’ve felt “Fanaa”. Almost a year since I last felt that feeling of extreme liberation.

I go on one of my “random walks”. Just go all round the dance floor and say hello to a few people. Everyone seems drunk anyway, I seem to be the only sober guy around! I am amazed that I’m not able to “sink in” into the party. Typically all it took was a couple of headbangs to get in. Don’t know what’s happened to me. Maybe I’ve once again started thinking too much.

As the sounds of Rahman’s “Chaiya Chaiya” fill the air, I remember October 31 1998. The day I think I became a kind of hero in NPS. It was our school picnic. A friend and I get on top of the bus and start dancing. I remember a few girls presenting us bottles of Pepsi as a congratulatory gift the next day!

I soon run into Beedi. He seems totally drunk. His argument is that IIMB doesn’t give drunkards the respect they deserve. He goes on to say that when people get drunk and do some stupid things in the process, people make caricatures out of you and make sure you are embarrassed. Like yesterday there was this buzz here that “SKimpy proposed to four girls in A block” or “SKimpy puked all over J Block”. Being on the wrong end of this treatment a couple of times, I must agree with him.

Shilpa also raised this issue when I was talking to her a couple of days back. She said that if people took advantage of the fact that I was drunk and made me do stupid things, they must be really mean guys. Somehow defended these guys yesterday (or maybe I changed the topic), but now I seem to be in agreement.

Coming back to the party, my inability to “settle in” reminds me of those numerous parties when I’ve felt totally out of place. Everyone else is familiar but still in some sense so unfamiliar! So unfamiliar you don’t feel like letting go. You get that horrible feeling that you don’t belong. That there’s something wrong with you. That you should have gotten drunk.

After about an hour and a half of just loitering around the place, I decide to head back. Do one last random walk, and then head straight back. And get down to writing this bullcrap.

I feel i’m growing older
And the songs that I have sung echo in the distance…

Yesterday I got a mail from irctc announcing “training returns”. Indian Railways is soon going to start its own version of loyalty programs. Every time I book a ticket for a 2AC train journey, I’ll get a certain number of points which can be later redeemed for free tickets.

The mail doesn’t mention any details but it’s a really nice thing to see the Railways coming up with such programs. With the advent of low-cost airlines, it looks like the Railways have realized that they are losing out a lot of the upper class traffic and are hence taking efforts to compete with the airlines. Would be interesting to see how this rail-air battle goes. Have a feeling the airlines might just win.

On another note, it is interesting to note that the Railways Minister is not someone who has been known for any kind of reforms or development. Probably he is too busy with his party politics and hence is maintaining a hands-off kind of approach. Anyways, that doesn’t matter as long as the Railways does its job and makes sure the trains reach on time!#

recently joined orkut and added about a dozen people from our batch (i guess she’s added more but they haven’t accepted the invites yet) as her friends. Now, among the set that she added, some of us were hitherto unconnected. We had “not seen” each other on orkut before.

Given that her friends’ list is so small, it is easy for us to see the hitherto unseen people, and add them. Can go on writing about this but no enthu now. So i’ll stop. Just wanted to point out that how a node with a small degree has helped connect various other nodes with large degrees!

I just woke up. Found the door of my room open. Found that everything on my bed had been pushed to the left half and I’d been sleeping on the right. There’s some goo on the floor. There’s some puke outside the room, but I don’t know if it’s mine. I find my watch on my wrist, and my spectacles neatly folded onto my table. I haven’t used a blanket, just pushed everything aside and slept.

There are no chairs in the room, I remember Khare borrowing both of them for the drinks yesterday. I remember leading me to the girls’ block at past 3 in the night challenging me to knock on ‘s door. I remember coming to the wing and me telling him that we should start prep for placements soon.

I had a dozen shots of Khare’s expensive Pernod. Really good stuff. Contrary to my last week’s dream, I didn’t break the bottle. I remember going to the shop to get pepsi, lay’s and biscuits, don’t remember devouring them.

Anyways, I still feel drunk. And I have a statement of purpose to write by tonight. God save me! And yeah, I’m waiting for to wake up so that I can hear the story!

i’m so drunk
and it feels so good

thanks khare for the booze

it was really tasy

The final placement process has been once again set into motion today with the first shortlist coming out. A prominent management consultancy company has shortlisted me. Not that it was much of a surprise, but still feels good to be on the right side of the list. And yeah, everyone from our wing who had applied, including and made the list.

As an aside, I usually don’t expand my initial so a lot of people started wondering who this new guy was when they saw the surname “Shashidhar” on the list.

Somehow think I’m different from most people. If we can find a “distance metric” by which we can measure the similarity between two people, I can safely be classified as an outlier. Along most dimensions.

Dark side of being unique:
1. Most people can’t appreciate my view point.
2. Absolutely no one can understand me; not even my mom.
3. I’ll have trouble clearing “culture fit” tests in interviews.

Many more which I can’t think of right now…

It’s high time I get down to mugging for my final placements. Hardly 3 weeks left and I haven’t even started. Looking back, I started wondering how I managed to mug for those entrance exams I managed to do well in…

Going back six years. All of April 2000, I studied for not less than 10 hours a day. Intensified to around 14 a day as the JEE approached closer. It used to be such a pleasure solving those problems in coordinate geometry… Used to give such a high when I managed to crack one of those conversions in Organic Chemistry… I would almost masturbate when I would use multiple Physics concepts to solve a problem…

The basic reason I managed to push myself so hard was because I enjoyed the PROCESS. It was NOT because I had dreamt of getting into IIT ever since I was six years old. It was not because someone else told me that unless I study hard I won’t be able to crack the JEE. It was simply the process of mugging I loved! That I eventually did well in the JEE was simply a side-effect!

It’s exactly 2 years since I wrote CAT. Exactly 2 years since I came out of the Loyola Auditorium singing “Comfortably Numb”. And English, Math and “Data Interpretation” aren’t exactly the kind of stuff one would particularly enjoy muggging. The way I did it was to just do sample papers. Did around 30 Mock CATs leading up to the real CAT. Those time-constrained pressure cooker situations I used to put myself under made my mugging fairly enjoyable!

Where do I go from here? I need to prepare for the case interviews but the HBS interview guide is hardly inspriring. Hopefully, when I actually start doing the cases, I should start enjoying the process. Else, jai only!

When i’m not in form (which is the case quite often of late), I can be a really boring guy. Hope i don’t lose form on placement day!