Looking Back...

Last few days on campus, last few days of formal education, or definitely forced education (anything I do after this will be purely for fun and experience, i.e. nothing related to economics, finance, business or management) and last few days of hostel life! I remember it wasn’t long back when I started counting the firsts, and now, suddenly, I am going the other way round. A sure sign of ageing!!

So I walked into the SIC campus on 1st June, 2007 (one of my earliest posts on this blog), with promises of a life changing experience, a holistic education, a high-flying career and the much touted “exposure”. I will not get into a cost-benefit analysis of if it was all worth it, if it was worth giving up a job, if it was worth all those 100 credits of academics, late night assignments, the paranoia of placements and all that jazz: the point is that it is an irreversible event in my life and it has changed my life in many ways… so here’s one long ride down the memory lane:

I remember walking into Room No 213 with my mom only to discover that my assigned room mates have already staked their claims to the two beds below the fan and I have been relegated to the remaining cot at the far end, and for the last two years I have been subjected to bruises and pain every time some enthusiastic soul enters unannounced while I am sorting through my huge pile of outfits stuffed into the cupboard right next to the door. And I remember, being convinced that I would not like my room mates and I have been politely informed that they had felt the same way about me. So, it’s kind of a miracle that we have stuck it out through two years and become a part of each others’ lives…

I remember the Foundation exams and people struggling with Accounts assignment while I slept peacefully after I had bullied my dad into doing it for me as a parting gift…

I remember the OBL, my gaudy fluorescent orange track pants (what was I thinking) and finally meeting Shrijit after we had abused each other online almost as complete strangers. Well, we are still abusing… some things never change…

I remember my first lecture (ERP), as I struggled through an alien concept called
"technology" for two hours and even tried taking down notes. Well, that was the first and the last IT class where I paid attention…

I remember my initial classes, settling down to my seat (roll no 2007B42), judging my learning group members (they were so good that they made me lazy), the introduction sessions (where I would wait for Somvit Majhi’s colourful intro) and my valiant attempts at getting the faculty to pronounce my name correctly (Sir, it’s not Simanti, but Shimonti, though it’s spelt as Simanti…)

I remember the 12 hour daily schedules, the 18 subjects in first sem and me struggling through most of them without enjoying any of them except Accounts and WAC…

I remember being in awe of Prantosh and Priya Kher and Shivram Apte but wondering why I struggled so much in their classes…

I remember the late night assignments, the mad attempt to co-ordinate with the boys in the D Hostel with no internet connection, followed by early morning non acads followed by trying to sleep in class and envying Shalmoli for her seat in the corner as she slept peacefully like a baby through most lectures…

I remember Phatak as he successfully transformed my love for OR (which I cracked during graduation) to sheer loathing, finally reducing me to tears…

I remember my trysts with the attendance co-ordinators, being caught repeatedly on the wrong foot and thereby having the dubious distinction of being the most generous contributor to the SCMHRD Fine Fund…

I remember trying to guesstimate the first FCQ paper, the complete shock of the batch when we were handed the RM paper, and then the transition from freaking out before an FCQ to not studying at all…

I remember the shame and horror at my first failure (POM in the Foundation exams) and then making a habit of it (French, Excel, Powerpoint, International Finance). Backlogs have been a constant companion through my two years…

I remember my Freshers party and the whole brouhaha surrounding it, me going stag (because I was too shy to ask anybody out) and then having the time of my life…

I remember when the whole batch fell asleep in the audi during a guest lecture, being grounded on campus and yet me disappearing to Mumbai during that time…

I remember my dream summers and the dream turning into confusion when I got a PPO and from confusion to gratitude for having a job in such a market. So I effectively complete B school without sitting for a single GD or without going through the most rigorous struggle called “placements process”…

I remember Neev, the random calls, the packed audi during the final round of Augustus, the last minute ppt…

I remember the excitement in college for every little festival: Lohri, Holi, Onam, Pongal, Diwali, Christmas, New years, or even the Salsa workshop…

I remember my birthday, the midnight cake cutting, the mess (water, toothpaste, garbage, eggs and cake: I will never forgive you, Samleen) and taking a bath at 1 on a cold winter morning and the ugly cute pic…

I remember hating the loud parties with the same music, the same people and the same dance moves but looking forward to them and dressing up for them all the same…

I remember the fruit chart, the corn, the dabeli and vada pav, the cutting chai at Shivaji, the Indianized pizza at Savaloy, the paranthas from IIIT, soup and sandwich and coffee at Talk About, the bhel at Tamanna café, the drunken revelry at Mezza9, the desserts and pasta at Lemon Tree, the dosa at Idlicious, the pastries at Dorabjee, the lassi at Mann Dairy, the cold coffee at Atur Centre, the breakfast at Goodluck café followed by an early morning movie at E square, and many of our experiments with different kinds of food, some of them not so pleasant…

I remember our random city trips, waiting for the bus, squeezing into the bus, singing in the bus, the claustrophobia at times, my escapes to Mumbai, my solo shopping sprees, and my exchanges with autowalas…

I remember the rains, the quiet corners, the dark roads, my solitary walks, the music and the thoughts…

I remember my friends putting up with me during my worst mood swings, and my adopted family standing by me no matter what I do…

And I remember the Corpcomm team, for everything it has given to me and for everything it has not…

The turquoise saree...

The turquoise colored saree felt just right… why? I don’t know, it just did! I have tried different colours before and I used to think red complements my complexion and my personality: at least that’s what all the fashion magazines say- on paper it looks so perfect. It’s like made for me, and I can’t ask for more, but somehow, when I tried it on, there was something not quite right. I don’t know what was wrong with it, but the mirror said it all. And then, I spilt wine on it… and so that was the end of it. But a saree? Come on! It’s so different from who I am, I can’t even wear one properly (remember those days of guest lectures when I would run from pillar to post trying to find a kind soul who would help me with it?), I knew I would trip over and hurt myself sooner or later, I knew I would have to make alterations, I knew I would need new shoes to complement it, and I wasn’t sure that it would look good on me, but still that’s what I wanted and it seemed such a pity to throw it away without even trying it. It came for quite a price, but it was so worth it, and it felt so right, that I just had to have it…but I couldn't, not now, may be never!

Three Cheers to CKB!

My post on our Kerala Trip has received a lot of flak for allegedly being too formal, too factual and almost a forced thank you note and a travel guide! Hmmm… so much for all the effort I put in to enumerate our journey together. But, yeah secretly even I agree that it was too politically correct and not quite “me” which is why I don’t blog about friends, because I am always afraid of putting my foot in the mouth, or missing out someone or offending someone.

Let’s face it, we have been a family for almost two years now, perhaps the only time I have come close to having a family outside my family. And as they say, you choose your friends but your family chooses you, which was the case here. From being room mates to study group members, we were brought together by SCMHRD’s torture policy and we decided to stick it out, thick and thin. Yes, we are very different people, yes we have different tastes, yes at times I have no clue why we do some of the things we do, yes some of our conversations leave me completely exhausted, yes at times I feel claustrophobic, and yes, I do switch off some times (even during our Kerala trip) but the truth is this has been my family and by definition, families are annoying, frustrating, irritating, but they are family all the same!

They are the people that you cry to, they are the people who pick you up from the highway at midnight when you are stuck, they are the people who take you to the doctor when you are sick, they are the people who teach you two hours before the exam when you are freaking out, they are the people who support you through your backlogs (and re-backlogs), they are the people who wait for ages with you during your placements (or the lack of it), they are the people who lend you money and then make complicated excel sheets to figure out how much you owe them and forget all about it, they are the people who embarrass you at every possible restaurant (Mezza9 especially), they are the people who criticize your dressing sense, they are the people who make fun of you and keep you grounded, they are the people who are always there (and I mean, ALWAYS) for you, when your friends let you down, they are… your family!

So three cheers to our family, three cheers to the CKB group (no names, no individuals), three cheers to being together forever, three cheers to US…

2 years @ corpcomm

So we are at a B school, and the rank of a B school is directly proportional to the number of committees it has, and your “success” quotient in turn, is directly proportional to the number of committees you are part of, or so you are made to believe as you sit wide eyed in the Assembly Hall at midnight, listening to your seniors go on and on and on about their respective committees- Placements, Alumni, Corporate Relations, E cell, Admissions, Consultancy Cell, Six Sigma, Neev, Finance Club, Marketing Club and so on and so forth- all of them having more stringent selection process than the admission process of SCMHRD! As you fill up the nth form, talk to the nth senior and the nth friend in the nth B school, wondering which committee offers the best, is the most prestigious and allows you to bunk the most number of lectures, you tend to ignore the most important aspect: which committee do you really want to work for!!

So as I got caught up in the usual mad rush of signing up and attending “inane” interviews at inane hours, I finally stopped to take a deep breath and realized that if it wasn’t for peer pressure and the fringe benefits, I wouldn’t like to work for ANY of these committees. The only committee which really offered me the “job satisfaction” was the much understated Corporate Communications headed by four very understated guys who struggled to get applications from “aspiring” juniors who “aspired” for something “better” and “more rewarding”. They didn’t have a financial support from the college, they didn’t have a faculty to guide them, they didn’t have an event of their own, they didn’t even have a room to have meetings in, they did all the dirty work for other committees rather like a poor cousin for the big brothers (very much parallel to India acting as a low cost outsourcing hub for Big Brother U.S.A.) but I couldn’t care less- this was the committee I wanted to work for! So I went for the interview, relaxed and casually dressed and for a change I wasn’t made to wait outside for the “process” and for the first time I had an honest answer to the question, “why do you want to join Corpcomm?” as I simply replied, “because I am passionate about writing”. However, the final round with the Director was not quite a cakewalk as he embarrassed me to the core, and even now, when I look back, I can’t help blushing at the very thought of him reciting a cheesy poem looking straight into my eyes. But there we were, the chosen ones- four junior girls (Ratika, Mani, Samleen and me) along with the four senior guys: we were a small but happy family!

While the initial handholding was over, we found ourselves neck deep in work, some of it even more hectic than our regular academics of 18 subjects! From being editors of the college magazine Hyperbol and the alumni magazine Sandes to making 11th hour presentations before every event, from calling up random press people begging for a little space in the daily for free to hurried event coverage, from laboriously taking down notes during boring guest lectures to chasing after the guests for some interesting sound bites, from coming up with catchy taglines to designing advertorials, from sorting through over a thousand photographs to come up with the best to struggling through windows moviemaker and flash, from amateur PowerPoint slides to sleek Publisher and CorelDraw graphics, from alumni meets to Risk Management seminars, from hating our senior team for ordering us about to growing to love and respect them, from midnight meetings at the atrium to wild cake cutting sessions- it was a long and self motivated journey which made us stronger and closer!

As we said goodbye to the seniors and took over the reigns, we survived one of the mindless reshuffling of teams, the ensuing chaos of too many cooks spoiling the broth, too much of compartmentalization and too much of independent talent. A team which barely found any takers was suddenly inundated with applications and after a week of grueling interviews, written tests and Subbu onslaught we finally came up with a much bigger family of twelve people. It was a rollercoaster ride, a more complicated one but one that got noticed, that got respected but had its share of brickbats too.

At the end of two years, I can safely claim that my biggest takeaway at SCMHRD was undoubtedly the Corpcomm team, the friends that I made, and the amount of learning was certainly far greater than all of the hundred credits worth of academics. I joined the team to cultivate a hobby, and I will be leaving it with a heavy heart, a new career goal and a deeper passion!

Kerala Trip

So it finally happened: the much awaited trip to Kerala which also explains my short hiatus. The last time I visited God’s Own Country, I was an 11 year old studying in the sixth standard. So I barely remember anything, except the 44 hour train journey in sleeper class, getting stuck in a shady local hospital on our way to Tekdi and me proudly announcing to my parents how I gained 5 kgs during the trip!

However, this time it was a different story altogether: our gang of 12 people from college (we call ourselves as the ckb group, the apt full form of which is “chaddi ke bahar” implies that we always end up doing things which are slightly ambitious, logistically impossible and financially draining) decided to boldly conquer “God’s Own Country” when we have struggled to put together day trips, dinner plans or even simple chai outings- 12 different people, 12 different opinions, 1000 permutations and combinations: no, it definitely wasn’t easy. But finally we all came together to make it possible and we are all very very grateful to Thomas V George and his sweet sweet family who played the perfect host as we rampaged through their home, emptied their water tanks, dirtied their cutlery, ate some awesome food, wasted some awesome food and in general made a nuisance of ourselves…

The journey began on 27th February from Panvel by Garibrath as we squeezed ourselves in 2 seats (Mumbai local trains revisited): it was a fun ride as we discovered our prowess in all kinds of silly games (Uplaksh Tewary emerged as the undisputed winner, but I repeat, the games were SILLY), tried watching Via Darjeeling (I think I am head over heels in love with K K Menon), drove the other people in the bogie(especially a sweet old couple) nuts with our loudness and I realized why society doesn’t look upon students so kindly- let’s face it, we are a bunch of noisy losers!

We reached Kochi in a little less than 24 hours and attacked Thomas’ aunt’s house with full vengeance for a couple of days. I also discovered that my strength lay in tasting food and not so much in cooking and the only way I could contribute was by washing dishes and making coffee (which I suspect Shrijit didn’t like much). Dinner mostly consisted of Maggie, egg bhujji, some snacks and lots and lots of booze (I was proclaimed a loser in this respect). A visit to the Cherai beach ended up with me spoiling my cell phone and therefore all my contacts, so now every time I get a friendly sms/ call from an unknown number, my reply template is: “Who is this?” which has pissed off a lot of people (including parents)!

Day two began nice and early as we set out for Munnar- a picturesque hill station dotted with tea gardens, lakes and waterfalls as we made numerous unscheduled stops and our photographers (Sama and Thomas) went berserk.

The next day we went to “veega land”, a water theme park near Kochi which was even more fun than it promised to be. While the water rides were a relief, some of the land rides (and I mean space gun) were like flirting with death. I know I want to have two near death experiences, and I think I have successfully had my first!

Kerala Trip (contd)

Day four offered the best of Kerala as we cruised through the backwaters of Aleppi in a houseboat complete with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room with deck chairs and sofas and dining table. We tried our hand at fishing and rowing and even plucked coconuts from the trees when the boat was docked for lunch. They served a delicious meal (I ate fish after almost a decade: hereby I admit shamefully that I am a pseudo bong) in the boat itself. But I did find my drink! the only reason I am a teetotaler is that I don't like the taste of alcohol (except my occasional tryst with vodka)but the country liquor (fermented coconut) that I tasted in the boat was like made for me and most importantly it was cheap! For 80 bucks we got a litre of it and it didn't take me too long to finish it. Finally the cruise came to an end around six in the evening and by then most of us had posed for like a million photographs ready to inflict them upon thousands of unsuspecting singles in the matrimonial space. So hereby I warn you: DO NOT BE FOOLED!! Our guys aren’t as hot as they look; it’s the magic of camera and the cameramen. It was a long drive from Aleppi to Punalur- Thomas’ native place and once more we invaded his serene home as twelve of us bathed and dined and embarrassed Thomas nearly driving his mom crazy. But she was undoubtedly the best cook I know, and I can still taste the fish curry and mutton biryani that she made for us. After a sumptuous dinner we spent the night at their house in the rubber plantation in the middle of nowhere- dark, secluded, amidst the jungle- it seemed formidable to people like us, used to the cold comforts of city life, but Thomas, who had spent his childhood days there, seemed perfectly at home as he knew the place like the back of his hand. Nature, music, guitar, late night chats with friends and booze is probably one of the best combinations you can have.

The last day, we woke up late, had a leisurely breakfast where Shalmoli exhibited her talent in the kitchen, coming up with 13 omlettes at top speed. My contribution was limited to breaking one egg and dropping it on the floor! Then we went for a trek around the plantation where I successfully dropped myself twisting my ankle (did I mention I wore a white skirt and Osho chappals for the trek) as Thomas explained the intricacies of extracting rubber to a mesmerized audience. After a marathon bath and an elaborate lunch at his home (where we managed to exhaust the entire water supply) we were off to the zoo in Trivandrum followed by our last destination: Kovalam Beach! Quite appropriately, the journey which began with a beach ended with another, in a land that offered everything that an enthusiastic tourist could possibly ask for: hills, beach, backwaters, wildlife, a new language, a new culture and a whole new experience! The last night was a long one, and the only night that I got “sloshed” as some people will claim (I believe I was completely in my senses, so just because they took some incriminating snaps doesn’t mean I was drunk… it’s the cameramen I tell you)

Courtesy: members of the ckb group: Vikas, Ritesh, Upendra, Sama, Hemant, Uplaksh, Shrijit, Thomas (a very special thank you), Shevaita, Shalmoli, Shivangi, Me

And Vibhor, we missed you!

Crying out loud...

I hate her fake smile… she is only doing her job but then I hate her job
I hate leaving… leaving any place: old home, new home, Kolkata, Mumbai, campus
I hate leaving… leaving people, people like my little niece- we worked hard for two days to get to know each other, and now I don’t know when I will see her again, I don’t know if she will remember me, I don’t know how much I will miss in her life- the next time I meet her she will probably start her anorexic journey, she will run her race in the right direction and she will like boys (arrrghhhhh…..)
I hate it when my dad calls me a shaMBA, a wasteful spoilt brat, a consumerist materialistic prodigal
I hate waiting… waiting for sms replies, gtalk replies, for phone calls, for tickets, for trains, for people, for the perfect life
I hate hype and the fact that “poverty porn sells” (with due acknowledgements to the person who came up with the term) and I still can’t get over the fact that the UPA government claimed its “due share of credit for providing a conducive democratic environment”… all for nothing!! SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE IS NOT AN INDIAN MOVIE

Me the "machhi"

Large dark eyes, silky short hair, chubby cheeks… meet my cute and adorable niece, all of two and a half years, a walking talking Japanese doll. But do not, I repeat do not underestimate her!! She is very much a matured, young lady (well, lady may be stretching it a little too far), who can’t yet read or write, but who shows off as she solemnly sits with a book and a marker, who goes to her “Butterfly” school in her green and yellow butterfly uniform, who runs in the opposite direction during her event and proudly declares she reached the finishing line before everybody else, who dances with complete strangers in Goa, who walks very fast and politely wishes people “good morning” on her way, who takes care of her appearance as she dresses herself in her short skirts and Shoppers Stop tunics and puts on hideous lipstick and big bangles, who firmly occupies the drivers’ seat in the car and fastens her seatbelt all ready to drive, who tries to make herself useful around the house as she runs errands and who dismisses her little sister as a helpless “baby”…

My weekend trip to the picturesque township of Haldia Petrochemicals (3 hours from Kolkata) to my sister’s place was spent in complete awe of my niece as I went back a couple of decades and found myself reciting nursery rhymes (it never fails to surprise me how well I remember Humpty Dumpty learnt twenty years back, while I struggle to memorize HR basics learnt in the last semester) with full enthusiasm, as I chased her down in the open lawns, as I took her for piggy back rides, as we fought for the last bite of the Kit Kat bar and as we cried together when it was time to leave…

She is my little angel, and I am a sucker for the way she calls me, “machhi”, the cuter version of “mashi” (aunt)

The other side of the story

Yesterday, I woke up to a sms from a friend, “hey, congrats! Your dad is in the papers. Mint, first page…” Now, I am not a fan of Mint, or for that matter, any business newspaper (yes, I am an MBA, so what?). The only thing I read in Economic Times is the Dilbert strip and the editorial. But as soon as I got the sms I jumped up and logged in to check the online edition of Mint (a new personal low). So that was what my dad was cribbing about the night before when he called- he doesn’t like the press, especially perky young journalists who ask uncomfortable questions (may be that’s why I am so enamoured with the profession). As the page uploaded, I stared at my dad’s pic, complete with a tie and blazer (he hates that outfit), screamed at my mom and grandmom and the three of us stared at the pic together… before long I was shamelessly forwarding the link to some of my friends who knew me well enough and hated me well enough to not judge me as an arrogant vain brat! Then again I called up my dad, super excited, and congratulated him. He seemed a little taken aback, and then calmly told me, “Did you even read the article, or just looked at my pic? The point is that my company is in trouble and the results aren’t exactly great, so all that publicity is actually negative publicity. But of course, you are too illiterate to appreciate the gravity of the situation…” I was, but who cares, my dad was in the papers, not something that happens to a middle class girl every day, and I had every right to be foolishly excited!! And then, I went back to thinking…

He was a typical simple, suburbian Bong guy raised in the small town of Asansol, not too ambitious, with typical simple middle class dreams (or the lack of them). He did well in school, but did better in sports. He went to St. Xaviers to study Chemistry Honours, and then succumbed to the usual pressures that affect a teenaged boy, new to the city life. Bad habits, hostel life, active Naxalite Politics of Bengal, competitive football and yes, serious obsession with Communism (Marx, Engel, Lenin, Che Guevara… he read them all) and very little of Chemistry, resulted in the inevitable- a 2nd class in graduation, and therefore no admission to M. Sc and therefore wrath of my grandfather, who refused to support him anymore. The next step was to get into something which was easy to get through and did not have a qualifying cut off in graduation. The only option was C.A. and so by elimination he tried his luck in something he had no background in. For somebody who had never done accounts, who wasn’t a commerce guy, who had never heard of double entry accounting, it wasn’t a good start. I don’t know how he managed to clear his C.A. in his first attempt with an impressive all India rank (hard work and application I suppose, something I am not used to), but thereafter it wasn’t smooth sailing either. He decided to get married when he earned a “handsome” salary of 1500 bucks per month, most of which went into house rent and baby food for me. My earliest memories of my dad go back to the time when he used to accompany me to my landlord’s flat downstairs to watch Mahabharata on Doordarshan and patiently explain it, when he carried me on his shoulders for hours as we explored the zoo in Kolkata every year during winter vacation, when he would wake me up after coming home from office much to mom’s annoyance and read to me and disappear to Liluah every alternate weekend to play cricket or football with his friends. While my mom worked hard to raise me into a “cultured” young lady (she enrolled me to godforsaken classes for Bharatnatyam, art and swimming), my dad was the one who spoilt me, who let me explore my wild streak, and yes, who dressed me up and photographed me randomly. And somehow I managed to grow up, with terrible manners, cheering for Azharuddin, fighting over who is superior between Monica Seles and Steffi Graf and reading Satyajit Ray and Enid Blyton: since my dad liked them, I never doubted that they were the best! And one advantage of starting out with nothing, is that you get to celebrate every little thing: television, phone connection, internet, a new car, and finally a new house- I was involved in each of these purchase decisions, and solemnly informed about the sacrifices I will have to make in order for us to have these things.

As he climbed up the ladder, he made it a point not to get along with his bosses and there was a time when he permanently carried a printed resignation letter in his pocket! He wrote long letters to his superiors, and got it proof read by me. Very often he would come home and gleefully tell me how good it felt to give a piece of his mind to a “stuffed, left brained jerk” (I am not naming names… he is kind of famous). And once, when a frustrated CXO asked him, “What’s your problem in life”, he replied, “You are!!”… So yeah, my dad kind of rocks, and while personally I think he would have made a better philosophy professor, he must be a pretty decent finance guy too…

But yes, that man in the papers is still my dad, somebody I pee-ed on, someone who signed my report cards with a sigh, someone who taught me to play cards, someone who wrestled with me when I was obsessed with WWF… and yes, someone who still doesn’t know how to knot a tie and waits for me to go home so that I can do it. And yes, he is definitely much more interesting and not a boring pompous guy spelling out meaningless jargon- why would anybody publish that shit is beyond me…

The Dark Knight... tribute to anti heroes

I watched Dev D after I had already read rave reviews on one hand, and heard cribbing friends (mostly male) chastising the movie as “unconventionally bad”, “exploring female sexuality aggressively” and “a complete waste” on the other. While my brother continuously complained, I found it refreshingly different even if it didn’t live up to all the hype and expectations. But one thing that it did do was strengthen my obsession with anti heroes- Abhay Deol, as the protagonist who plays the modern day Devdas is a typical loser that your parents do not want you to grow up to be. And that is precisely what makes his character so damn real and attractive: he is weak, he is confused, he is vulnerable, he is flawed and “conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities”, i.e. he is like US!! While literature and art have exploited the anti hero concept over the ages through glamorous characters like Mephistopheles (Faust), Yossarian (Catch 22), Hamlet, Macbeth, Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye), Satan/Lucifer (Paradise Lost), Randle McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest), Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair), Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), , Tyler Durden (Fight Club), Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein), Gollum (TLOTR), to name a few, my personal favourites are:


Shylock: From the Shakespearean villain in the romantic comedy, “The Merchant of Venice”, Shylock has emerged as the tragic anti hero, an angry inconvenient man destroyed by an unjust quibble in the law, a good man undone by a tragic flaw, his inability to control his rage against an overwhelmingly powerful society that will never recognize his generosity and never accept him. His famous speech “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?...” screams of his insistence on his basic right to self respect even as a Jew.

Heathcliff: I did not like Wuthering Heights (dad, if your are reading, Classics AINT the best thing that happened to literature), but the only thing that kept me going till the end of the novel was the character of Heathcliff- the typical romantic Byronic hero whose all consuming passions are enough to destroy himself and the world around him. Passionate, dark, brooding and vindictive, he crosses the fine line between love and obsession, as he grows into a bitter haunted man devoting his life to vengeance.

Dorian Gray: Dorian Gray, the protagonist of Oscar Wilde’s only published novel which churned out a lot of controversy, is an extremely handsome, slightly naïve, young man who becomes enthralled by his own beauty and obsessed with the idea that beauty is the only thing in life worth pursuing. Consumed by a new hedonism, he sells his soul plunging himself into a series of debauched acts. His portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin being displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging, while his external appearance remains as fresh and beautiful as ever.

Lester Burnham: The 42-year old advertising executive in the critically acclaimed movie “American Beauty” depicts everything that’s wrong with America- he is a self proclaimed loser in a dead end job with bosses he doesn’t respect and a dysfunctional family that doesn’t respect him. However, he suddenly finds something to live for as he gropes his way through midlife crisis and becomes infatuated with his teenaged daughter’s friend. As he becomes obsessed with his desire “to look good naked”, his life around him falls apart. My personal favourite moment in the film: When Angela asks him, “how are you?”, he smirks, and replies with a tinge of surprise, “God, it's been a long time since anybody asked me that… I am great… I am great”- and he certainly wasn’t!

Travis Bickle: Robert De Niro’s portrayal of a young, lonely and depressed cab driver gone vigilante in the movie “Taxi Driver” is a great example of how the darkness can seep in. First off, you tend to sympathize with him, but his motives remain unknown throughout the film which makes it hard to stay with his actions, especially as it becomes clear that he’s not completely all there, and then the assassination attempt of a political candidate seems straight out evil until he saves a child prostitute, but his head is so messed up you don’t know why he’s doing anything any more, making even heroic actions seem, well, really creepy.

And finally, the best of all…

Scarlet O Hara: The protagonist of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, “Gone with the Wind” is my favourite female fictional character, slightly ahead of Elizabeth Bennett of “Pride and Prejudice”. Not conventionally beautiful, she is wickedly attractive, selfish, shrewd and vain. She repeatedly challenges 19th century society’s gender roles and is the least stereotypically feminine of women and also the most disliked character of the novel. Scarlett's ongoing internal conflict between her feelings for the Southern gentleman Ashley and her attraction to the sardonic, opportunistic Rhett Butler—who becomes her third husband—embodies the general position of The South in the Civil War era.

Windy and pretentious, the antiheroes leave an indelible mark on us. The overweening pride and the arrogance mark their culmination. We see him not as the knight in the shining armour but as a darker counterpart of the hero, or the dark knight.