Monetisation of cricket

Now that I am home, my TV viewing is strictly regulated, so is my social life: yes, it’s back to the good old days of “what NOT to do”, but given it’s my last vacation, I am being the bigger person here, and giving in to my dad’s “ridiculous” demands and deadlines. Ahem, ahem!

And yes, I am also subjected to the double torture of IPL and Elections: that’s all my dad follows on TV, and follows it to excruciating details. So yes, I watch ALL (and I mean, ALL) election specials on NDTV (as well as their repeat telecasts) and if I am not watching the mud slinging in the name of politics, I am forced to watch another circus in the name of IPL, a poor cousin of the English Premier League.

Now people who have known me since childhood will swear by my cricket fanaticism, the days I spent glued in front of the TV, scrutinizing each minute of ANY cricket match (even one between Holland and UAE), or a boring day in a test match (when Gary Kirsten and Daryl Cullinan batted the whole day) or in times of desperation, English County matches. I am more the old world kinds who bunked school to sit in the sun in Eden Gardens each time India played, who enjoys the uncorrupted version of cricket (minus the cheerleaders, the glam girls, the noodle straps), who prefers the non-nonsense commentators who talked ONLY cricket (Ian Chappell, Richie Benaud, Geoff Boycott) instead of the dumbed down, Hinglish version in the name of ‘infotainment’, and who failed to move on and “evolve” with the game. Don’t get me wrong, I think the T20 concept rocks, it keeps you hooked and most importantly, unlike the old days, you need not abandon/postpone all your important chores to sit down and enjoy a game of cricket. The shorter version of the game allows you to get your work done AND find enough time to watch the match. What I do not like, however, is the hijacking of television rights by channels who have no business interfering in sports, but the fact that they cater to a larger audience (who derive their daily dose of entertainment from cricket) allows them to do exactly that! Throw in some models, some 30 minutes of pre match “extra innings”, some celebrities and some “slam book” interviews, you have the perfect recipe for keeping an average housewife entertained and therefore adding to your viewership and out goes ESPN, Star Sports, John Dykes and Harsha Bhogle to make way for Set Max, Charu Sharma, Mandira Bedi and the likes.

And to add insult to injury, we now have the IPL which has taken the nation by storm, which gleefully basks in the glory of opulence, which treats players as commodities, which makes headlines for auctioning the most expensive player, which unites Bollywood, business tycoons and cricketers under the common umbrella called “money”, which leaves no room for loyalty and therefore no pride for representation (because you cannot represent money vis-à-vis a country, or even a state) and of course as a follower of the game I am confused about who to support, because my heroes are all playing for different teams, the Pathan brothers are competing against each other and I can’t possibly choose between Sachin and Dravid.

So what if the KKR lost to MI?? I am here to enjoy a fast game and the fast girls…

Missing pieces...

I miss celebrating the little things…
I miss pouring my heart to him…
I miss cribbing about insignificant details…
I miss talking to him, first thing in the morning and last thing at night…
I miss looking forward to the weekends, going through newspapers for the latest movies, the latest eating joint and the latest buzz in the city…
I miss dressing up for him (and dressing down)…
I miss cosying up to him in the theatre…
I miss the quiet candlelit dinners when he tries to feed me that last spoon of dessert…
I miss the late night movies on DVD as we fight for the blanket…
I miss waking up next to him as he kisses me softly on the forehead and runs his hand through my unkempt hair…
I miss our cooking experiments gone wrong…
I miss our impromptu weekend trips…
I miss calling in sick at work and spending the whole day with him…
I miss our quiet walks by the sea and the loud karaoke nights…
I miss the surprise birthday parties which are really not that much of a surprise…
I miss the nonstop text messages…
I miss him…

The making of another brick in the wall

Now that my two year MBA journey is over, this is a good time to look back and do a post-mortem analysis of the entire experience. I have always been an easy-going person- never too competitive or ambitious or hard working, I have never applied myself whole heartedly to my career and every time I have performed below my expectations (which is on most occasions), I have always taken refuge in “better luck next time”. So my life has been kind of serendipity, not quite crafted by fierce ambitions, but rather a journey laced with confusions…

From harbouring dreams of being a detective to a globe trotter to the first woman cricket commentator on ESPN to just making a decent living as an average run-of-the-mill engineer with a sportsman husband (yeah high school fantasies), let’s just say, my life just happened when I busy making other plans! Obviously, 12th standard was kind of a reality check which took care of all such plans and I ended up in a new city with a new subject and yes, a brand new dream, and a very ambitious and expensive one at that: the MBA dream. But this time the difference was that I decided to do something about it, and for the first time I applied myself, and for the first time, one of my dreams actually came true: I made it to one of the top B schools in the country. Now at this point, as I write it, I can’t help that cynical smile on my face, but two years ago, it was like a blur…I had to pinch myself to actually believe that it was finally happening!

But now that I have been through this “rigorous learning experience”, I can’t help asking myself, “was it worth it?” and the answer to that it, “totally!” The thing is if you are really keen on knowledge and education, then a B school is probably not the right place for you. In spite of the 100 credits of academics, the “exposure” to some fifty different subjects in eight different disciplines (finance, marketing, HR, operations, IT, entrepreneurship, strategy, economics), it remains just that: an exposure without the in depth knowledge or expertise in any of them. Honestly speaking, I will have to admit that whatever I learnt in the past two years, could have been self taught (with a little help from dad) from the internet. But then again, a B school never sells knowledge (that’s upto you), what it sells is an “experience” and a “new lifestyle” and if you want to BUY a social status, a fast track career, a label, or even a highly sought after matrimonial profile in just two years, this is a perfect place to do that. I remember the reactions of the people when I joined work as a 21 year old graduate, when I told them I was “just an Eco grad” with no fancy MBA tag, how I had to wait for days before I was given ANY work (and I don’t mean MEANINGFUL work) and how difficult it was for my parents to introduce me in social gatherings. But now that I am on the other side of the fence, and yes, I have a fancy job in a fancy multinational to go with the fancy MBA tag, I still don’t understand why a company would pay me so much money for the kind of job which essentially can be done by anybody with decent amount of common sense. I could have done the same kind of work, two years ago, as a graduate for one third the money, but of course, at that time they wouldn’t have let me cross the threshold of the reception. So is B school education essentially a screening process which separates you from the rest and recruiting from one only saves a company from the time and cost of going through thousands of applications? Because the fact is that unlike any other professional degree (CA/CFA/ medicine/ law) very little of what you learn in a B school in terms of knowledge is actually applied on the job! Obviously if that’s the case, then can you save those few lakhs of rupees and the two years invested in your MBA by simply taking your entrance exam score to a company and getting yourself an interview because you are in the top 5 percentile of the most competitive exam in the world? And the answer to that is a definite NO!

Yes, SCMHRD didn’t bring out the best in me, yes I am somewhat disillusioned after two years, yes, I could’ve done better, yes, I take back some terrible experiences with the director, the admin, and the faculty and yes, I don’t feel the same attachment to this institute as I do for my school or my undergrad college (places I keep going back to even after so many years) but I am grateful to it for the opportunities it has presented, for the people I have met, for the relationships that I have forged and most of all, for a dream to live for! Thanks to it, now I have a “respectable” social standing (you may cringe your nose, but I know how important it is because I have been without one), I already have a short term career to make a decent living for myself for the time being, and also a long term career goal (and MBA has nothing to do with it)! So yes, I do appreciate these last two years, even if it is for the wrong reasons…

CONVOCATION!!

The convocation, the grand finale, the black coat and hat, the degree, the smiling faces, the proud parents in the front row: this is what dreams made are of, this is the picture that institutions over the years have portrayed to attract students, this is the final culmination of all the “hard work” for the past two decades of “formal education” and this is what we had waited for when we first walked into the campus two years back. The reality was somewhat different, but memorable all the same.

This being the year it is, the moods are sombre, the usual euphoria is missing, so is the monumental pay packages, the entire batch is yet to be placed, and the irony was that on the day of convocation, there was a company on campus for a process. So as we waited to bid our goodbye to the college, some people were still waiting with bated breath for lady luck to finally smile on them. This year, it was only a “commencement ceremony” instead of a full fledged convocation, which is scheduled for December, and given the state of things, the turn out was low (lower than even half the batch), there was no celebrity chief guest to give away the certificates, and yes, the proverbial black coat was also missing. This is more of a gesture rather than a ceremony, but then again, nobody was in a mood to celebrate!

But the college did a good job, the ceremony was short but well organized, Sasmit’s video about the life and times in SCMHRD was moving, the farewell dinner was decent, and so was the DJ even though barely 20 people were on the dance floor. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for Subbu’s speech which failed to touch the chord with any of us. The best student award for each Centre of Excellence invited a few pleasant surprises and therefore some really really short speeches. My dad managed to find time from his busy schedule and came down to Pune to be with me and for a moment I felt so grateful to him- I remembered the time when I was working and asked him for one year’s time so that I can crack the MBA entrance exam; he was against it (he never approved of MBA and now that I have been through it, I know why) but he was big enough to let me pursue my dreams instead of forcing his dreams (MA in economics or CA/CFA) on me. I missed my mom though (she didn’t get leave) and remembered her sms-es every Sunday afternoon I wrote my mock exams, her patience when I worked seven days a week and didn’t visit Kolkata for over a year, her support when I screwed up so many GDs/Interviews.

The graduation ceremony, however, wasn’t the highlight; it was barely an excuse to go back to campus, to meet up with friends, to spend the last few days of what had been a glorious two years! So yes, I was back with my adopted family (sans Hemant and Shevaita) and we spent the last couple of days glued to each other. From early morning breakfast at Vaishali, to movies and shopping (you know it’s family when even the guys tag along with you and help you select the perfect bracelet and earrings, when they rummage through tops in the “for sale” category and hold your handbag when you try on the shorts), to lunch at KFC and Mcdonalds, to sitting around and playing pool, to staring at women in the malls (I don’t know if it’s the effect of hanging around with nine guys, but these days I find myself staring at strange women more than men), to switching between Sweet Chariot and German Bakery, to shared auto rides, to buying my fifth pair of Osho chappal from the roadside because Uplaksh’s damned bike ate up my expensive shoes, to landing up at hard Rock Café and savouring your drink for as long as possible because you can’t possibly afford the main course, to standing in the middle of nowhere trying to hitch a ride to godforsaken Hinjewadi in the middle of the night, to eating poha and Maggie at the chowk at one in the morning- it was a last ditch effort to cram in as much activity as possible in 24 hours! And that, was my real graduation, my real convocation…

WORDS

Words I hate:

CUTE: As somebody will say, it means “ugly but tolerable” and I so believe it…
INNER BEAUTY: Often used when you want to highlight the absence of outer beauty
BUBBLY: You never know whether it’s a compliment or an insult. A safe answer to fall back on when you have to write about someone you don’t like too much in the yearbook
PARADIGM SHIFT: Management jargon which means NOTHING
COMMUNICATION/INTIMATION: HR jargon and invariably they do not communicate or intimate
WORK: Well, for obvious reasons…

Words I love:
RAIN: The four letter word which rhymes easily and is an inspiration for the poet in you
LAISSEZ FAIRE: I like the sound of it, and I like the meaning of it!
CRAP: It adequately describes most things in a short, sweet and succinct manner
PASSION: I have abused it enough in my writing, during my interviews, even in my FB/orkut profile, so yeah, I feel grateful to the word
RENDEZVOUS: The pronunciation fascinated me as a kid, the implications fascinate me now
IMPERFECT: well, for obvious reasons…

Interlude...

Back in campus, back for one last time, trying to cram in the things that I haven’t done in two years… spending quality time with MYSELF!! Some of the little things that makes me happy like sitting by the window listening to music during the one hour bus ride to/from the city, eating breakfast alone in Goodluck Café, watching a movie (Little Zizou is THE most awesome movie ever) alone in an empty theatre with a bunch of kids around me, walking down FC Road looking for cheap bargains (and getting them), refreshing myself with roadside cold coffee and nimboo paani and going back to E square to use the washroom (and shudder at my tanned tired face), browse through the books at Crossword, rummage through the cheap accessories adjacent to Crosswords: all in the cold comfort of the only multiplex in Pune that I have been to… and then of course the familiar chit chat with friends, the paranthas and lassi at Chaitanya and the Noborborsho (Bengali new year) special at Radhika, walks around the campus, long (and I mean really long) breakfast table gossip, it’s back to life as I know, and life as it will never be!

FB: a social nuisance!!!

I don’t like Facebook, I don’t like the constant updates about what “my friends” (some of whom I have never spoken to in person mind you) are upto every minute of their lives, I don’t care what quizzes they took or their results, I don’t give a damn who wrote what on their walls, and I definitely don’t care about their relationship status! I like the option of uploading snaps and tagging your friends and commenting on the snaps (and this too has been taken to annoying heights by some of my friends who now use the forum to make fun of me) but I absolutely HATE the complete invasion of privacy at the name of “social networking” and to a certain AD: cut it out!! I don’t give a damn about which “stumbleupon” page you stumbled on to!!

There!! Now that I got it out of my system, something about the FB Sex and the City (SATC) quiz: no I didn’t take the quiz, I don’t need some stranger to tell me which character I resemble, because I know it. As much as I would love to be like the carefree, emotionally unattached sexually liberated Samantha (I don’t know any such woman in real life, but if they do exist, hats off to them!! They totally rock and I would give anything to be like them), the truth is I am like Carrie (no, not even Miranda), i.e. like most women. But yes, Carrie could easily be my American counterpart ten years down the road. To begin with, she is a writer (and a frivolous one at that… very much like me) and while she has made a career out of it and I am yet to get there, but I still have time on my side! She is as much of a New Yorker, as I am a Mumbaiite, addicted to the city for no good reason! She is a compulsive shopaholic and while she thrives on Prada and Gucci, I am yet to graduate beyond the sale season at Pantaloons, but I am getting there. And finally, as much as I hate to admit it, in spite of being a single, independent, so-called “successful” woman with a mind of her own, I am as much of a relationship addict as she is: needy, whiny, obsessive, paranoid, confused, attracted to the wrong kind of people, complaining about commitment phobes, while she herself is one, who flaunts her single status and yet is defined by relationships! She has her dysfunctional relationship with Mr. Big, and god knows, I have had my share of dysfunctional associations. Now all I need is a gay male friend, and my journey towards Carriedom will be complete!!

Confusions of a democratic mind

So it’s election time, and people all around me are writing about it and I am not; well, my last post was about my compulsive shopping!! I mean, I know I am shallow and hollow and a bit of an airhead and I never claimed to be otherwise and my blog has never been about anything of national importance, but still herd mentality rocks!! If everyone has something to say about our big bad democracy, I can’t possibly afford to miss the bus!

But say what? As it is, politics gets me all worked up; I can’t imagine that elections can be lost and won on such frivolous grounds (religion, reservation, free power, colour TV sets…), that votes can be bought and bribed, that most of our “leaders” have illustrious criminal records behind them and honestly, in todays age of coalition politics, political agenda takes a backseat to sheer number counting! So yes, I am confused, and I am well within my rights to be so and I don’t know which way to turn: right, left or centre!

The SP manifesto nearly had me running for cover: I mean, who in his right mind talks about banning English as a medium of education, of doing away with computers to restore employment but of course Mulayam Singh Yadav is a marketing man: he knows his audience and he is doing everything to cater to his audience. So that raises the question of the audience- the people who vote! I am going to stick my tongue out at the risk of sounding elitist but I do believe that the “wrong” kind of people vote and if we elect such “leaders” for such promises then well, we deserve them! And as for the “elitists” like us who are too cynical, who have given up on politics, who believe India is still a superpower despite its politics and not because of it, who can’t bother to go out and vote, well, we deserve it too, because we refuse to exercise our rights and hence should live with the choices made for us.

The burning issues so far in this year’s dance of democracy: the “budhiya-gudiya” debate between Priyanka Gandhi and Narendra Modi, the “shoe incident” involving Jarnail Singh and P Chidambaram, Jagdish Tytler’s clean chit and Varun Gandhi’s hate speech. Good governance, terrorism, economics, infrastructure still remain largely on the sidelines.

The point is that in a democracy with a billion people especially with such huge differences in culture, backgrounds, financial status you can’t possibly make everyone happy and it’s not the government’s job to make everyone happy. It doesn’t work for individuals, it works for industries because that’s where the money is which is perfectly fine with me! If only it is honest enough to admit it, go all out and make policies which are corporate India friendly it would save a lot of trouble and funds. Let the government take care of the industries and the industries will take care of its employees but then again there is agriculture and the poor farmers which leave ample scope for populist measures and therefore hypocrisy and therefore a volte face!

So many parties, so many ideologies, so many “leaders”- I am still confused, and I still think democracy is largely by the “wrong” people, for the “wrong” people based on the “wrong” promises, and here I don’t use the word “wrong” as an opposite of “right” but as “majority”, but a choice by “majority” need not mean the “right” choice! There, talk about confusion!

Confessions of a compulsive shopper

As you grow up, you evolve as a person; for instance the same boybands that you adored as a teenager seem to be silly and affected a couple of years later, the mushy teenflicks you devoured in the 8th standard make your stomach churn by the time you reach college and the tall, dark handsome heroes of Mills and Boons who made you go weak in the knees give way to the imperfect modern day Dev D… so yeah, evolution does exist!

And this post is about my evolution as a shopper. Now I have always been a compulsive shopper, but over the years, the objects of obsession have varied widely. My earliest memories as a shopper go as far back as the 3rd standard (at that time I was yet to discover the magic of clothes shopping) when I would lose myself for hours in a bookshop and buy whatever Satyajit Ray and Enid Blyton books that I could lay my hands on. This was followed by hours and hours of shopping in the annual Kolkata bookfair where I would sacrifice all my savings for the last one year and borrow the rest from my much annoyed mom. For the next seven years, this ritual continued, though my reading habits changed considerably. The next obsession was music and in those days we were yet to discover computers, pirated CDs, file sharing, U Tube and free music download and so I actually spent money on buying cassettes of my favourite rock bands. Come on, I was in high school and I had to keep up with the guys or else risk being with the girls. So yeah, I shopped for “the very best of” collections of U2, Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Metallica, GNR, Scorpions etc etc. And then, and then my foreign trips happened! In a span of two years I hopped across Muscat, Singapore, London, Amsterdam and Bangkok, I was enamored by the mall culture, I was fascinated by the wide range of clothing right in front of my eyes which I can just pick up and try on without asking anybody, without having to explain to the sales girls, without having to go through piles of T shirts before I find the right size. And by the time I was a college girl in Mumbai I was firmly hooked! I saved up on books (borrowing from the library, friends or making dad buy them), and music (getting my tech savvy friends to download free music from the net), movies (no multiplexes, strictly shady single screen theatres), transport (I walked my way through college) and food (less I spent on eating meant more for that extra pair of jeans, and a couple of pounds less for me to fit into that extra small black top), I saved up on tuitions and I bought second hand text books which I again sold off after clearing the exams! So all that saved money was sacrificed at the altar of Westside, Pantaloons, Globus, Fab India, Central or even the streets of Crawford market, Colaba Causeway, Linking Road or Fashion Street especially during the sale season which will find me alone on the streets with a jhola shopping for hours! And the worst thing about clothes shopping is that it invites trouble in the form of accessories (so I also have this huge collection of junk jewelry), shoes (yes, I don’t need three pairs of Osho chappals but I have them all the same) and other unexplainable things that I have in my closet which I have never used (flowery dresses, scarfs, bandanas, so on so forth). My latest objects of affection are my new Titan Raga watch, Polaroid shades and the Escada perfume strategically placed on the table so that I see them first thing in the morning after I wake up.

PS: I NEVER liked boybands or teen flicks or Mills & Boons… so my evolution has been limited to shopping (from books, to music, to clothes to shoes to junk jewelry to accessories)

the answer is blowing in the wind...

Let’s talk about boundaries, let’s talk about drawing the line, let’s talk about the thin line between right and wrong, ummm… let’s talk about black and white, let’s talk about the perfect world, let’s talk about things that do not exist…

Conscience, value system, principles, scruples, morality: some of the loaded words that come in the way of LIVING, but when do you stop living and start compromising?

What do you do when you run out of black and white and settle for a tentative grey?

When do you ditch the right thing for something that feels right?

When do you push yourself a little further ahead of the line, and then a little more, a little more and then suddenly you are so far beyond the line, that it doesn’t matter anyways?

When do you finally have the courage to say “no” but decide against it because it’s no longer important?

When do you refuse to give up and decide to give in?

When do you listen to the voice inside rather than the noise outside?

When do you stop asking and start answering?

Tears in Heaven...

So it was the last day… those 689 days were finally over… our room was turned upside down as we moaned all the shopping we had done in two years, all the coffee mugs and bowls and plates and dabbas and blankets that we never used and as we squealed in unexpected delight as long lost pens and hair clips and watches turned up when we had given up all hope of ever finding them. The guys made it easier: they simply donated all their clothes to charity with the excuse that they needed a wardrobe makeover (well, we do agree)… and we left, just like that, struggling with 21 pieces of luggage! We hugged repeatedly, we made excuses to come back, we cracked silly jokes and pulled each others’ legs trying to prove that we were fine, that it was just a little break for holidays and things will be same as before, that we were not choking back tears. Some of us cried, some of us laughed louder than usual and some of us just sat quietly like zombies… there were souvenirs distributed, snaps taken, landline numbers exchanged, promises to come back, promises to meet up, promises to keep in touch, while we all knew secretly that things will never be quite the same.

I didn’t cry, I didn’t joke, I didn’t laugh a little louder than I usually do, and I didn’t even sit like a zombie. I dealt with it in my way, by revisiting the past, albeit it was different, but it was the past all the same. And then I cried: not howled, just a few drops of tears: silent, dignified, heartfelt…

Girls in Goa

This weekend we decided to go off to Goa: just us, the three girls- me and my roomies! The guys had already left a day earlier and the idea was to give them a surprise by suddenly landing up in Goa! However, it turned out to be a shock instead of a surprise as they simply refused to believe us (are we so bad that we can’t even plan a trip without them?) and therefore we didn’t even meet them. So it ended up being just us, and no, we ain’t complaining!

From Garibrath (during our Kerala trip) to dirty sleeper class, we are just getting cheaper by the day. But it ended up being an unexpectedly pleasant journey! Putting up at Dona Paula, 3 kms away from Miramar, the nearest beach, it was a comfortable 3 days, but a very hectic one too as we went beach hopping in the middle of the afternoon, with oodles of sunscreen dripping off our faces, smudged kajal and tanned arms! My previous trips to Goa were with my parents and therefore extremely low on the cool quotient and I was determined to make up for it this time. We did the usual rounds to the beaches (Vagatore, Anjuna, Baga, Colva and Calangute), posed for pictures in Dil Chahta Hai style at the Aguada Fort, apparently got fleeced during our boatride at Dolphin Point (but no regrets, the dolphins were worth a watch), waved to the prisoners in Goa central jail (even criminals in Goa have a great lifestyle with residences overlooking the sea), visited a couple of temples and churches (including the famous St. Francis Xaviers church), as also the artificial little Goa village, “Spice” where we literally paid through our noses for a little bit of shade and respite from the sun (but due credit to the “local experience”) and finally the cruise across the Mandovi river with Goan music and folk dances and a lot of crowd involvement. Then there was late night drinking and somehow managing to walk back home, cheap shopping (junk jewelry, souvenirs, cashews and of course cheap wine) and getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon and then boarding the train. And then there was the Bong guy who was in charge of the water sports and our animated discussions like we were long lost siblings. There was me, walking 6 kms all by myself to the Miramar beach as I remembered my dad carrying me on his shoulders for two hours as I refused to walk and I was a heavy kid of nearly seven!However the high point of the trip was definitely getting high on pheni (30 ml for 15 bucks is something I am still getting over) and fried fish and going for water sports (water scooter, banana ride, bumper ride, and parasailing) and puking in the sea. But I had never had so much fun in a long long time!

Now to some observations about what makes Goa, well, Goa…

1. Dirt cheap alcohol (cheaper than soft drinks), so you don’t have an option but to get drunk
2. Clothes or the lack of them… it’s the only place in India where you can get away with wearing anything (and I have pictures to prove so) or nothing
3. The laidback attitude… being from Kolkata that’s something I can always identify with
4. The friendly people especially if you tell them “Hum Indians hi hain bhai, foreigners nahi; so there is no point in trying to fleece us” to which they grin and reply back, “We know and we also know that Indians will always bargain and therefore we always have to ask for more than the fair price”… POINT!!
Yes, we had to skip some things like Tito’s, and late night drinking on the beach and dope, and yes we did miss the guys (especially when we had to walk home late with no one to chaperon us safely) but at times, this kind of all girls’ trip is very empowering!

Legacies of Room No 213

1. Pushkar ke kapde 
2. Smuggling a bottle of wine in the room and getting drunk
3. Me getting bruised each time I am near the cupboard and somebody walks in unannounced (every bloody time)
4. Our room getting flooded a day before the six sigma exam and instead of studying we spent the whole night in cleaning up
5. Shivangi getting hyper during exams
6. Shivangi making the exam timetable and sticking it up on the wall and every time a paper finishes, she rushes upstairs to cancel it before I could (I am a bad omen, I have been told)
7. Storing junk food during exams for late night study sessions. The end result is me finishing the food before 11 pm and going to bed while my roomies struggled through the night in an empty stomach
8. The night before the CMM exam Shivangi went on a prowl to see what people were studying (she didn’t even have that elective, but I did and I was fast asleep) and she got freaked and came back, screamed at me and woke me up and I studied for an hour to make her happy and I scored an A 
9. Shevaita shouting at me every morning to open the windows and again every evening to close the windows
10. The confusions before every outing and every party about what to wear as the floor and the chairs disappear under a heap of clothing and we fight for the solo mirror on the wall
11. The three photo collages on the walls (birthday gifts to one another)
12. The leisurely meals on the floor with elaborate arrangements after we had ordered food from Savaloy, IIIT, D Hostel or simply made bhel for ourselves
13. Me setting an alarm for 4 am in the morning and then going back to bed till breakfast time
14. The phrases we picked up from each other: “For what joy?”, “Look, you don’t understand”, “FO”, “Whatever”, “Get a life”…
15. Banging on the bathroom door before a 9 o’clock lecture

For all the long nights, for all the gossip sessions, for all the fights, for all the cold wars, for all the open wars, for all the times spent together… Room No. B213 rocks!!

Jointly contributed by Shevaita, Shivangi and me

Convincing myself...

I just wrote my last exam, probably the last exam of my life (unless I have to come back in October for yet another backlog paper), and it’s time to go, it’s time to move on, it’s time to pack, it’s time for goodbyes, and it’s time for those nauseous gtalk status messages about leaving and nostalgia and missing people…

But this is where I step in (to add some perspective to the situation) with my list (yet another) of the things at SCMHRD that I am NOT going to miss:

1. The Exam department and all its nakras, and attitude and its oath to make life as difficult for as possible. From the first day when my FCQ paper was scrapped because I wore sleeveless to the last day when they refused to tell my backlog marks even when they had it; it’s been one hell of a journey, and by hell, I use it literally! And I am not the only victim here, ask any student and you will know what we have been subjected to. So, saying goodbye to the exam department is going to be a sweet sweet experience!
2. The attendance and admin department for all the fines they imposed, for all the sleepless nights (and early mornings in the gym) they forced us into, for all the missed breakfasts, for all the TNGs, for all the faked exemptions, for all the begging, pleading, crying, they were just doing their job, and boy, were they doing it well!
3. The here today, gone tomorrow wifi connection. And just for the record, no, we do NOT have wifi on that far off mountain…
4. The regular power cuts in the 2nd year…
5. The claustrophobic bus rides which gives rise to all the rumour mills…
6. The security guards and their jarring whistles at 11:30 sharp to send the boys and the girls on their separate ways. Really, who does that in a B school?
7. The HRD-IT-IB rivalry which at times turned ugly especially during Symbiolympics.
8. The monotony of being stuck in a godforsaken place tucked away in one godforsaken corner
9. The 12 hour classes, the IT subjects, the FCQs, the rat race, the long nights
10. And finally, Subbu… no, I am definitely not going to miss him!

Yeah, I am done, with my last ditch pathetic attempt to make myself feel better about leaving this place but no. it’s not working…I am going to miss this place not because of it, but in spite of it!