How the New Year has changed over the years ...

New Year ... I just love this period that starts from Christmas and ends at the New Year. I am not a Christian but I would have to agree that there is a general good feel in the air at this time which I have been finding missing even during Diwali, which is our main festival. The reasons have varied from year to year. So while it was school holidays during the good old days when we were in school, a reason to party when we were at college and now perhaps we are back to square one .. a break from the office work.

Winter Vacations have always been enjoyable. I have loved since eternity just sitting in a rajai ... doing nothing ... watching tv and having hot tea and samosas / pakoras. Let me take you through three 'New Years' which are still .. sort of etched in my memory ... Here we go ...

Terrible Mondays ....

Why are Mondays so terrible? ... God has made all days equal ... Why then Mondays seems so terrible to me? Why does the very thought of a Monday depresses me right from Sunday evening itself? Nothing goes well on a Monday ... Recently only I have had 2 Mondays which just turned out to be terrible right from the word go ... One ... when that stupid old tharki client of mine sent a mail that I would not send to my enemy and Two ... i.e. today ... when whatever I wanted to do just refused to happen .. I went to get a card for Sohini, the shop was closed .. I went to get a giftplus card from HDFC, they wanted id proof which I did not had ... terrible terrible terrible .. I wish there was a way that Tuesday straight away came after Sunday ... and there was nothing in this world called a Monday ..

Snapshots from Hell

I dont know if I ever mentioned about this. There was a blog that had been sent to all of us by our seniors before we had joined IIM Lucknow ... Its called "Snapshots from HELL" written by Aniruddh Marathe (IIML 2003-05). Believe me .. its one of the best stories ever told. In fact my blog is an inspiration from this blog only. Here is the link for that (in case anyone is interested). I would surely like to go through it .. even 10 years down the lane :)

http://iimhell.rediffblogs.com/2003_22_06_iimhell_archive.html

Memories from the golden years of my life (21)

This is the photo of Patanjali .. one of the guest houses at IIM Lucknow. The other one was called Chankya. Although I had always liked Patanjali better, my parents and Dhiraj never got a chance to stay in it. We were always placed in Chanakya. Patanjali was the new one. Chanakya was built earlier and hence obviously ...

Anyways... I will take off from where I had left before after this short break.

Memories from the golden years of my life (20)

One of the interesting incidents that I had failed to narrate earlier was that of my computer. Well its a story in itself ... I cant say that this was one companion that never left me alone or never ditched me because it did break down in term 4 ... and left me in lurch ... but ya .. otherwise it has been fairly faithful and has served me well! :)

Well the story begins with how this computer arrived in my life. It was quite certain that I would have to buy a comp. definitely. Whether it was to be a laptop or a desktop I was not so certain ... However I was biased in favour of a desktop ... more so because it was much cheaper than a laptop. I had postponed this decision to be taken in campus. When I arrived on campus .. I had absolutely no clue whom to ask or not to ask for this thing. In the first week only ... 3-4 vendors were called on campus to take our orders for comps. I picked up courage and asked a batchmate (who was repeating his first year) in hostel ... Praneet Parate. He looked like a good guy to me. He advised to go for a desktop ... because he said that a large amount of time that you would spend on campus would be spent in watching movies ... listening to songs ... and its not really fun to do that on a laptop even though it was covenient to carry it off to a class or to lets say library or CC. I saw point in his opinion and decided to go for a desktop. There were two models of desktops .. I chose the one with higher confiuguration ... because I didnt want to compromise on quality. I also got two excellent speakers (and they are really good, even till today) so that I could blow my horn in the hostel :P

We had to pay 1000 Rs. in advance for this which I did. The whole thing was costing me 32000, whereas the cheaper option would have costed me 26000. At that time 6000 was a big amount unlike today when I sometimes spend it in one days shopping. The guy was supposed to deliver my comp in next 3 days. The 3 days passed away .. However he didnt come for delivery .... I came to know that none others who had given their orders to this suppliers had got delivery... On calling up we were informed this might take a week more! ... A week passed buy. Still noone came. Now people started shouting on the supplier's personnel. Meanwhile I had to keep cash ready. I was a bit scared of keeping 30k+ in my room but there was no other option. In fact I was scared of even getting the whole amount (i.e. 15k in two trips) from the ATM ! More so because I had never handled such huge sums at that point in time. So I made 4-5 trips over two days carrying back 6-8 k every time. How silly of me :) ... Now when I think back .. I dont even realise what was it that I was fearing. Anyways, I used to lock my cupboard, lock my room also with 2 locks! and be there in my room even while it was being cleaned!

Another week passed by and after constant shouting the guy did arrive on campus. To my horror he had not got my comp ! He said that because mine was of a higher configuration this was going to take time! I was furious and asked for my money back ... on that he gave me a substitute comp which he had got for someone else .. However this one was with lower configuration! But he took the full amount from me! And I kicked myself for giving him that after I realized what I had done. Anyways .. I consoled myself saying it would be 6000 lost which I would cover up later. ... But thankfully such a need did not arise .. the guy came back next day with my comp :) .. Although the idiot didnt get my spikebuster.

Now when he configured it ... it was working fine. ... but as soon as he left I realised that the internet was not working!!! The comp would be so useless for me then ... I called him back immediately. He sent another of his persons to do the needful. Now this guy did whatever he could and proclaimed that some card in the comp was missing!!! I tried calling the orginal person back ... but he did not pick up his phone... Now I just freaked out. I shouted on this guy and told him that this is simply not done ... Thankfully once again .. he was able to turn internet on and he confirmed that whatever that card was ... it was very much present in the comp and I finally heaved a sigh of relief.... Of course the next whole night and day was spent in installing all the softwares and especially DC++ from which I did some hazar download !! The next day I also got my spikebuster and the free headphones (which turned out to be pretty useless)!

The comp served me well during my two years and was often my only companion and source of entertainment. Even now its working fine even though the monitor is no longer there ...

Memories from the golden years of my life (19)

The mid semester examinations were over. Papa, mummy and Dhiraj ... all were coming to visit me. Mummy wanted to see me at any cost .. for obvious reasons and more so because of my foot illness. Well they came and I will talk about those memories later. But if I had to change something then I would have changed this ... all of them should not have come. Because chachu was alone at home. Though they were here for only 2 days and chachu was all right when they had come, one cant help what God has already planned for us. Chachu fell ill while they were here. Two days after they left, I got a call from papa in the morning that Chachu had passed away .. In a way I blamed myself for this because I had wanted all of them to come ... though papa had never wanted this. Look at God's way of doing things .... That day I did feel lonely, hurt, and extremely concerned about papa.

Now some people may call me selfish .... some may say that I am the most emotionless person they have ever seen ... but to be very frank .. the grief did not last long for me .... I did not miss chachu .. for two reasons ... one i was never too close to him .. and secondly because I wasnt even at home when all this happened ... I was just concerned about papa .... and thats it. Within 2 days my life was back to normal! .. and now when I look back .. I find it extremely strange .. This is a classic example of life at campus gulfing you in such a way that nothing else matter .. you leave everything behind you .. your family ..your friends .. .... Ye jagah hi aisi hai ... even a small thing that happens here .. matters a lot ... and anything away from it does not matter ....

Memories from the golden years of my life (18)

Thanks Manish for your comment. I completely agree with you that all the 3.4 (especially the hindi 1.7 half) members were completely useless. Some of them could not sing to save their life. You might guess whom am I alluding to :P. I will definitely come to Debchat's HR class ... but remember .. that was in term 2 ... and we are still here in term 1 only.

I now need to talk about my mid semester examinations. Well .. first exams in a totally alien environment ... with new people .. new competitors. Frankly, I had not set very high targets for myself for these exams partially because of my foot problems and also because I had no clue what the competition was like. As I had said before it was important to do well ... but it was more important to do better than others. Somehow ... last years papers had been arranged ... They were most essential for any exam. This tradition has been followed religously by any student who has ever visited an engineering college. You can prepare for the exam without the basic textbook .. without a single note but you simply cant manage without last years papers. ... And the engineering tradition very well carried off into management also ....

I still remember our first paper was BIO (Behaviour in organizations) .... just a 20 marks paper ... having 3 questions (5, 5, 10 marks). I wrote globe to the best of my abilities. But for the last 10 marks question I was never sure. The question could have been answered by looking at it from many perspectives ... and I had chosen one with which I myself was not completely satisfied after coming out of exam. And this thing was troubling me .... However I did one good thing... whatever Debchat used to say in class ..whatever language he used to use ... I used that in paper .. liberally so ... "It is not difficult .. it is challenging" ... "Capture the learnings" .... "The layers of human thinking" ... "The conscious and the subconcious" ... and many others ... Ultimately professors are not difficult people to understand ... obviously they want to see in answer sheet what they have preached ... which massages their self ego that the students have paid attention and importance to what they had been preaching .. even if it is crap. I had already started applying BIO at my work :P

One by one all the mid term examinations passed away ... QAM (I thought that this went off well), Economics (All globe questions repeated from last year ... I again did same thing .. wrote what the prof had been blabbing about) .. MANAC (This one was particularly tough .. what with the competition coming from all the CAs ... and an above average paper .. I was doubtful of scoring even 50% from a 35 marks paper ... thankfully many others did not seem to have done it too well), COM (lotsa globe with lotsa charts ..and trees .. just like Raina liked it) and one more subject (which I dont even remember now) ... Finally they were over! And believe me ... mid sems week was much better than the week before (both professionally and personally)!