Pertinent Observations

My idea of a perfect chill-out is to sit under the starry sky, strong wind in the air, a few good friends around me and a coffee dispenser nearby. And talk. Talk as if time didn’t exist. Talk as if there were no tomorrow. Talk about any arbitrary topic under the sun, under the moon I mean. No phones around. No watches in sight. Talk for hours on end…

Unfortunately, given the tight schedules here at IIMB and that people are always ‘running’ for something, such a thing hasn’t materialized for the past few months. Oh, how I miss pat! I mean Sri Gurunath Patisserie at IITM. The breeding ground for many a conversation. The location for many a philosophical discovery. The venue which bred many a great idea…

Open air… some broken plastic chairs thrown around metal tables fixed to the ground… so open… yet so private… when people see a group around a table, they generally choose to just put a ‘hi’ and go away… coffee (from the nestle dispenser) isn’t too great… but strong enough to stimulate conversation… and to draw people to the spot… except for the humidity, there couldn’t be a better place in the world to chill…

Why can’t I take it wherever I may roam?

First the negatives:

1. It has made me maajorly geela. The culture at IITM and the sex ratio meant that I had little interaction with the fairer (???) sex for four long years. After this I had a little difficulty in adjusting back to having normal healthy relationships with girls. Took me almost a month of IIMB to become normal.

2. It shattered my confidence, like it is supposed to do to every other IITian, but in my case it failed to rebuild it back. Though I had a pretty good background, people used to downplay it majorly and tried to make me feel like a useless piece of shit as I didn’t have good enough grades in IIT. Still struggling to get back my confidence.

3. Pushed me down quite a few notches in the pseud value scale. Funda is I made the mistake of trying to conform. Of trying to do what everyone else was doing. Again finding it difficult to get back to my old (pre-IIT) level of pseud… which I think is essential for a i-banking job.

4. Killed the fire in my belly. Branded me as too arrogant. Again my mistake of trying to conform and I changed my personality to one which I started hating. Became a conformist rather than the rebel I was in school. Mellowed down so much that it further pushed down my already ruined confidence.

Can’t remember anything else as of now…

By now you must be feeling IIT must be the worst place on earth if it can do this kind of stuff to someone like me… However, it HAS had a lot of positive impact on my life. Notably:

1. The brand: I have attached to me what I believe is India’s best internationally recognized brand – IITian.

2. The people: I got the opportunity to interact with some of India’s best scientific and engineering minds. I am proud to have known friends such as these and I am sure that one day when they make it big in life, I can have the satisfaction of being their good friend.

3. The living conditions: I became ‘tough’. Living with little or no water, lousy food, no electricity supply when temperatures crossed 40 and humidity was always over 90%. Whichever lousy place I am posted to henceforth, I can say something like “been there done that (or something similar to that)”.

4. Independence: 4 years of hostel life 360 km away from home has really gone a long way in making me independent and aware about the practicalities of life.

5. Acads: Some profs/courses WERE pretty good, though such kinds are in a minority. Nevertheless a lot of the stuff I learnt there finds a lot of application in everything I do, even in some mundane matters of life.

6. Nothing better: Despite all the shortcomings, I can’t think of any other undergraduate degree in India which comes close to BTech Computer Science from an IIT.

IITM Rocks… I am proud to be an IITian

Yesterday, I got a maajor ego-boost when THE TOPPER of our senior batch called me to teach him math! Guess my level hasn’t gone down SO much after all…

Had an exam in management accounting today morning. yes the same one was cribbing about yesterday. Syllabus had a section called “cost death spiral” or something like that. Stuff like if you drop one of your products because it is making losses, the company will have to close down all its products one by one until it shuts down.

I am confidently spouting gyaan here while sitting there in the exam hall, I gave one of my worst performances here. Simply couldn’t concentrate. Something was seriously wrong somewhere. An exam I should’ve ideally finished off in an hour took 2.5 hrs and even then I’d done everything wrong.

One thing I can’t forget is the thought process I went through during the last phase of the exam. It went something like “This is a quantitative subject – something I’m supposed to be good at. But I’m buckling under pressure so I’m not able to do well. My mom had initially warned me against IIMs saying I won’t be able to handle the pressure. I didn’t listen to her, so I’m here. If I can’t do well even in the quantitative stuff, nice try I’ll be able to do well in the other qualitative ones. Which means that my CGPA will take a huge beating. My form, or the lack of it, will continue and I’ll do badly in my internship. I won’t get a PPO. This, coupled with my low CG, will result in me not getting any shortlists in next year’s placement season. I’ll further buckle down and end up with one of the lousiest jobs. And why did I come to IIM if I were to do this badly?…. blah blah… “. As it happened, this subconscious thought flow interrupted with my conscious attempts to solve the problem which led me to actually do badly in today’s exam – thus sparking off another iteration of that thought process…

Truly a downward death spiral.

Classes would be much more interesting if Profs were to give real-life examples such as this to explain concepts better….

The last hindi movie I saw in a theatre was Yuva (last May), a real classic i must say. If not for anything, you must watch it for Abhishek Bacchan’s award-winning performance and……

kareena kapoor… she’s definitely not one of my favorite actresses but the performance in Yuva is (IMHO) really breathtaking… the carefree look on her face… the attitude she displays… as she jumps up and down to Rahman’s breathtakingly haunting-yet fastpaced “Fanaa”… her hair flying… without a hint of worry… shucks i’m repeating myself. i must say that i haven’t seen too many people who can display that kind of attitude. i really fell in love with that character.

As for “Fanaa…”, I came across this interesting piece of trivia in a quiz a few months ago… (courtesy Satyajit Chetri)…. as in the meaning of the word fanaa was given, it was told it’s related to a recent hindi song… yet i didn’t get it… felt like stabbing myself to death for not cracking it… didn’t do it so i’m writing this today.

For the record, Fanaa is a sufi word. it refers to a stage one passes through in which he becomes fully absorbed to the point of becoming unaware of himself or the objects around him. Every existing thing seems to vanish, and he feels free of every barrier that could stand in the way of his viewing the Remembered One and nothing else (forgive the grammar i did a ctrl+c ctrl+v). And I must say I see this feeling on Kareena’s face whenever i see the video of that song….

you can find more about Fanaa at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Sufis/truth.html

You Are the Individualist

4 You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. You are creative and dreamy… plus dramatic and unpredictable. You’re emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel.

To get an insight as to what might have happened to me the day I got really drunk and did lots of arbit things, I decided to have just a little bit of vodka (thus coming out of premature retirement) and see what exactly would have happened…

As my first peg was assimilated, I felt my knees go weak. I got this attitude that what others think doesn’t matter. It is just that I have to enjoy myself. I remembered a certain somebody telling me repeatedly that “parties are just an instrument for you to let go. don’t worry about opinions people make of you then”. However, I could never implement it thus far. Today, the little vodka in my blood made me get rid of all my self-consciousness (a good thing I must say) and I managed to dance around like a drunk monkey (though I was careful not to venture near “her”, whose feet i’d fallen at on the previous occasion).

I also noticed that time went damn slowly. I seemed to do so many things in so little time. Then a friend of mine told me to practice my proposal on , in my opinion the sweetest girl on campus. Was nice fun as she started beating me…

After this I managed to witness some really amazing scenes. A couple of civilian seniors from IITM (one a classmate here and the other visiting…) got totally sloshed and engaged in a really-funny-to-watch lesbian dance! Then there was this HUGE group of guys who were trying to put blade to “her”. Made interesting watching. Then a wingmate of mine got totally sloshed and went around hugging other guys and giving them gyaan (I happened to be his first victim). Just escorted him back to his room.

Well, I must tell you that two pegs of vodka and LOTS and LOTS of mirinda simply can’t simulate a “six and out” as I would call my “episode that day” (named in honor of Shane and Brett Lee). But nevertheless I had fun at this party.

Guess I’ll sleep now. Got two submissions on monday….

Plzzz don’t get psyched by reading this. Just some arbit stuff. And no, i’m not mad. and i’ve quit drinking….

Sometimes I have this vague feeling that I want to be accelerated. Somehow. Best thing would be to drive but that’s a li’l dangerous. I won’t mind a few people shoving me around. Or even beating me up. As long as it somehow makes me feel light in the head and happy. Sometimes even a nice joke will do the trick. I’ll laugh so much that I’ll be accelerated. Don’t know why this is happening. Is it because of some past incident? Is it because there’s something deep down that has been bottled in? Is there something I want that hasn’t been satisfied? Or is this simply how I relax? Speaking of relaxation, sometimes I do feel guilty that I haven’t worked enough to relax now! So why should I relax? Why is it that I’m not able to meet my long-term deadlines? Why is it that I start doing something and end up doing something totally different? I’ll stop here as thinking on these lines will make me get the feeling to be accelerated even further.

LOL!