ReMiNisCEnCinG tHe GeMs Of My LiFe Written By ThE SaANp

To The Gems Of My Life: Vishal, Nitin. Arun, Jyoti, Anuja, Ruchi, Neha, Sneha and Pawan (don’t need to write his name here because he has been there for as long as my poor memory takes me): the only good things that came out of my otherwise forget-worthy stay at SSGMCE.

I do not know why I write this because I do not want to believe that I am missing the one place that I had thought I would not ever miss. It is more than that I guess. It’s more about what that place gave me that I want to mention today. Apart from the gems (only the above mentioned people can understand this part), I think what that college gave me was the education of my life. People called SSGMCE a college but I had always preferred to call it “PLANET SHEGAON”. It was a living organism, with a host of beings. Now I know I am a mean mean person but I cannot make myself to call them humans, at least not educated and thinking ones. They were more like animals (now that would make Maneka Gandhi flip in her sleep and all animals take an offense) so let us just call them beings for now.

They taught me what the caste divide was (at least they tried, but the fact that I could not learn was my doing and my doing only). They taught me that one could not trust everyone and also that there was no test of trust other than the test of time itself. They taught me that people used other people till and when they needed and that friendship for some (unlike me and what I had seen) was just a zero sum game. They taught me that the best defence was silence and that silence was the hardest argument to refute.

Enough about those beings. This aint bout them but this is about the people I love and the people that I got during my stay at that college. Somehow the memories that I mentioned above are all hazy. All I remember are the late night snacks at the canteen, the mango shake, lassi and aam panha, the poha and the tea with parle G, the bakar before the exams, the trying to cheat at the exams and failing at it, the studying at the library(which meant everything but studying.), the movies at Akola, the rallying around akola on the bike, the masti at Krishna, the masti at Rasika, the masti at the temple while waiting for darshan, the studying and teaching sessions before the exam, the panic attack before results. the masti afterwards at pune, the coffee at Durga, the paratha at Chaitanya, the late night walks and coffee again, the fashion street shopping………

Typical masti of colleges and I had my share too but it would not have been possible without the awesome friends that I have. I was the saanp (read snake: for some screwed up reason) but still I am glad I was lucky enough for them to make me their friend.

This is for you guys: Vishal, Nitin. Arun, Jyoti, Anuja, Ruchi and Pawan : who are still there with me, and for Neha and Sneha who chose to move on but nonetheless would always be dear to me and very near to my heart. Love you all always and miss you forever…….

Have you ever been in love ??

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable, so weak. It opens up your heart and so that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defences, you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life and nothing is the same again...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They become a part of you. They didn’t want to be. They do something dumb one day, like hold your hand or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

WhaTEveR HapPeNs, hAPpenS foR 'NO' ReAsoN !!!!

All these thoughts are what i, at times call LOUD SILENCE that leave me lonely even in a room full of people.....and other times SILENT NOISES that keep screaming in my mind when I am alone.......

How well do u have know someone before you actually 'know' them??....Never if the person doesn't want you to and yet people keep trying........

How long and how well can anyone 'lie'??....It seems people can lie for as long and as beautifully as they like and yet we end up believing in some people.......

How long before you can 'trust' anyone??.....Everyone knows that you cant trust anyone but still you end up trusting someone......

How long does it actually take to 'forget' someone??.....Depends...... An eternity or merely a minute......

I don't know the answers to these questions. I am no philosopher; I am no great thinker to either to even try to give an answer. But i do believe that the answer to all of them is that there is no reason for anything that happens......There is no reason for people to be what they are, what they do and how they be.....people are just.....well just people.....

"People are like islands, no matter how close they come, they can never touch!!!”

(For all those people who think that they know what others are all about.....)

My all time favourite quote.....So true isn't it?...You think you know someone, you think you understand, u believe u can trust and that is the time that it really beings to go wrong.....It seems you can live an entire lifetime (or at least what seems like a lifetime !!) and yet not understand her a rat's ass bit....Worse yet you end up knowing and believing something that was never there.....

All said and done......Papa kehte hai whatever happens, happens for a reason but can there ever be a reason for deceit and can there be a reason for betrayal.....infact he says "जो होता है अच्छे के लिए होता है......."...Whats good about cheating, lying........

Why don't people realise......Its not a war, its not a game and its certainly not fun.....Its life, love and its the very reason to be here.....

P.S.: What I have written makes no sense.....Not even to me.....These are merely:

things that don't let me sleep at night : the loud beating of my heart,

things that don't let me sit in peace : my thoughts in pursuit of a reason of the inexplicable,

things that don’t let me be happy: my eternal hope in finding a last thread to cling,

things that don't let me live : my mind trying to find solace in the arms of misery.............

LiFe @T 'IIFT' - Written when i had joined.(12th July 2008)

As the clock keeps ticking and with every passing second the eye lids get heavier and heavier, one begins to wonder that the deep pounding that one hears is the constant chugging of a loco running or is it one’s own heart..........

A sudden shout from the teachers jolts us back into reality {but without the euphoria of the time travel..}….It seems that the sheer concentration with which one tries to evade sleep, helps sleep elude us more..The VICIOUS CYCLE of SLEEP as i love to call it….

Then one realises while doing MATHS of how much time does one have to evade sleep that the PSYCHOLOGY of BUSINESS COMMUNICATION is that ECONOMICS is nothing but the MARKETING of the PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT which is like the ACCOUNTING for the STATISTICS of INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY…[ I know what I wrote makes no sense....but i guess GASSING is something that we should learn]…

The best [read WORST] part is the learning of names……With every person that enters or leaves the class, sits next to me in the canteen or mess, crosses me on the stairs or travels with me in the elevator…..All I can think of is “ISKA NAAM KYA HAI YAAR ???? “…..

Though for the pre existing and future LBs it has been a blessing in disguise as they can go up to any girl and say hey what’s your name and indulge in small talk…..Food for gossip : There seems to be a lot of people trying to win…..But it seems people dont respect equality of sexes because girls don’t seem to come out with nominations cos LB could stand for either….

As the days turn to weeks and with no respite from PDPs apparent on the horizon, the studies take a back seat as i yearn to learn WHAT TO DO @ IIFT….as opposed to what I thought I would be doing…[ Recall 5 point someone...:-)]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .F.R.I.E.N.D.S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To My Best Friends
Asha and Pankaj

Without Whom I Wouldn't Be What I Am

Friendship isn't easily described, I mean there aren't many words to describe the relationship or the feeling and we usually end up using many adjectives.......viz Close friend. Best friend. Childhood friend. Intimate friend. Trusted friend. Beloved friend and so on and so forth.....
But whether you use adjectives or different words, few could deny the nearly infinite meaning in such a simple word.......We do not choose our family members and we are definately limited in how many family members we have, Society and mores (and often our own conscience) dictate we select a single mate and we also do not get to chose our relatives, but we chose our friends.....
Friends are special people, because they make you what you are (atleast they get the best out in you, though in my case what came out was a bag of crap i know but what the heck I am still better because I may not be the best but hey at least I am not like the rest)......Its like our friends, in a very real sense, reflect the choices we make in life and the kind of person that we truly are......
Best friends are a separate deal altogether (Boring fact but best friend comes before family in the dictionary where as friend comes before relative).....My best friends occasionally(i should use often but hey this is my blog and i am entitled to use whatever may damn please me) bring out the worst in me and yet, they love me as unfinished and sometimes as broken as I am.....While I am yet to learn how to comfort myself, somehow they can and they do.....
This is one topic where I can go on and on and on.......My friends are my life......

Love All Of Them & Hope I never Lose Contact With Them

"Cut off the talk, and many a times you cut off the friendship". - Aristotle

iTs JusT aNoTheR TesT....

I do not understand what the fuss is all about...Tests, Quizzes etc...As in aren't just another one of a bunch that you have already gone through...Haven't we been giving tests for like ages...अब तक तो आदत हो जानी चाहिये थी.....पर ऐसा होता नही है....लोग अभी भी एकदम hyper हो जाते है...
Cheating नही करते..गलत answer बता देते है ताकि कोई उन्से ज़्यादा number ना ले आए...That too in b school...
Too childish and immature but hey who am I to pass a judgement...I was merely wondering is it bothers me only or others too....Gawd when are people going to understand that it is not just grades that matter, it is more about what you really have and what you can really show to the interviewers which matters in the end....And then again in the job what really matters are not grades but what mettle are you made up of....It is an entirely different ball game there.....
:-p

PaiD ToRcHeR : @TTeNdaNce

Now why is attendance compulsory??...Why is attendance taken at all in b-schools??...

Come to think of it, thousands of students slog for more than an year (some for many years in a row) to get into a b school but then they don't attend classes...Why do you think students want to get in college but not attend classes??...
As far as i know I came to college for a number of reasons, none of which were that 'I wanted to study'...There was the reason of taking a break from work (Phew two years of work was taking it toll on my health!!!), the monitory reason, the 'other' reason...;-)...
Anyways now that I have made it into one of the top 10 b schools, I wanted to chillax but that just doesn't seem to be possible...There is this constant fear of DGPs...(Deficit Grade Points) which means that you miss a couple of lectures and you are screwed for your MBA life !!...
I think, no wait, I know it for a fact that no amount of classes can do you any good if you do not want to attend them...besides, medical science says that an average human can not concentrate and listen for more than 45 minutes...50 minutes tops...(Though the recent internet survey suggest a more believable figure of 10 mins or so.....)Then imagine the plight of the students in two hour lectures....

I guess colleges need to understand that -

"You can take the horse to the river but you can not make it drink !!!"

aFTeR 'CAT' iTs a RaT RaCe !!!

A little over 2,00,000 graduates apply, only a handful get through to being 'branded for life !!'....
The rest either get motivated to try again or demotivated to take the next best college while some get demotivated enough to never try again...No prizes for guessing that I am talking about the CAT exam !!!!
Well I am not patronising CAT or taunting people who didnt get through....All I wanted to say was, "Been there Done that"
This is a sequel to the string of lies that I earlier wrote about....Again I was told, "Get into a good B school and then life would be a bed of roses.........". Agreed that they meant the IIMs but hey one of the top ten is good enough for me.....
Now the problem (as always) that I have is that the competition the urge to be better does not end with CAT, it was just the start....There is this race (I like to call it rat race...) to be better, to be known, to be judged the best......No one seems to understand or realise that even if you win it you are still a rat....This is fine to an extent but spice it up with a tinge of crab mentality (not a tinge but a bag load of it !!) and you have the recipe of a typical B school.....
Only a handful get a hang of this fact but then they feel that they are being bogged down by the hyper achievers that even they join the race (heartlessly and grudgingly)......

'la estupidez conquista todos' i.e. stupidity conquers all !!!

PResENTaTiOnS GaLoRe !!

Name starting with an 'A'. Is there a special reason why almost 18% of the people of india have their names started with that specific letter. (I know...I know I made the statistic up but sounds correct...doesn't it??)..But the parents who christen their children do not seem to understand that what the 'A's of the class of the have to face through school and college and in my case b school too...Being first on the roll call does not mean being first in the class similar to the way that being a front bencher does not mean that he/she would be a topper...It just means First Day First Show for all presentations, case studies, viva voce and almost everything else there is to do...
Anyways I think it is unfair for people of a certain kind to be punished for no apparent fault of theirs...But guess what the misery does not end with just that, being in 'Section A' also has the same drawbacks...All lectures at 9 being one of them...The list is endless and I cannot hlep complaining...
Wish there was someone who wud know the concept of rotation or the use the idea of luck/chance and use it for scheduling the presentations, case studies etc etc etc........So that the sad little 'A's of the world can breathe a sigh of relief.....
:-)

mY FaVoURiTe QuOTeS !!!!

People are like islands, no matter how close they come they can never touch!!

Money is NOT the most important thing in life....LOVE is, fortunately i LOVE money !!!!

I don't know why they call it heartbreak. It feels like every other part of my body is broken too.

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.

The eTeRNaL LiE !!!

Remember our golden years when we were little children and were told that lying is bad and that we should never do it....But there is one lie that almost all children are told and funnily enough it is not even considered a lie....This is my story so let me say it my way.....
I distinctly remember the times before my 10th board exams....I was told, "बेटा ये तुम्हारे लिये बहुत ही ज़्यादा important exam है । बस अभी मेहनतकर लो फ़िर पूरी ज़िन्दगी आराम रहेगा । "
Then came the 12th board when the 'IIT-JEE' fever catches on (For some people Medical fever too but that inconspicuous in comparison). Then came the extended version of the above statement, "सोनू, ये last मौका है सुघरने का....अभी भी time है, थोडी मेहनत कर लोगे तो पूरी life आराम करोगे. एक अच्छे college मे admission मिल जाये तो फ़िर कोई tension नही होगी life long।"
Then came the extended extended version of the above statements when I finally managed to get into a college. (well not good but a decent one for sure). It went like, "एक बार अच्छी नौकरी मिल् जाये तो फ़िर कोई भी tension नही होगी.बस ये आखरी बार है।"
When I finally managed to scrape through college and get a job. Then I realised that there is no end to this. Because then it comes down to a अच्छी company, अच्छा job and अच्छा pay.
This is just a vicious circle of lie that all children are told.....So that they keep running after a better life and an easy life.....Its like we are race horses programmmed to run....n keep running.... And the best part is that when we grow up and have children of our own, we, in all probability would do the same.....Like a elder sibling's hand me downs or a family heirloom this lie is going to percolate through generations and will be told to every gullible child...... Unfair isn't it??..But hey try complaining about the same when you have your own kids..... ;-)