Teaching the intellectuals...

Intellectuals and researchers are so caught up in their work that it is often very difficult to communicate with them. Normal words and meanings dont apply in their sphere of thought. They have their own language... their own methods...

After searching far and wide for a way of getting to them, i found the answer inscribed on a friend's T-Shirt... A path to explain The Meaning of Life in a way that they can comprehend... using commas...

:-)

The Art of Negotiation...

An MBA education teaches you a lot. Apart from the obvious subjects, it teaches you to work with a diverse bunch of motivated students with cut-throat competition on their minds. It teaches you to get along with BIG egos. It teaches you to be political at times. It teaches you to navigate your way thru a maze of problems and issues. On the lighter side, it also teaches you to read a 1000 page book in a single night. But frankly, these were things that I expected out of the MBA. What I dint expect was to learn so much from fellow classmates. Sometimes from interacting with them, sometimes from listening to them and sometimes from simply watching them. Its amazing the things you can pick up.

When you watch people from a distance, you pick up a lot of cues on mannerisms, some good, some not so good. You get to see how really capable people get things done and how incapable people cry for attention. You get to see who among the group is most likely to really go on to becoming good successful managers. You get to see who you can trust and who you cannot. You get to see cry babies. You get to see those few who are, as Prof. Venkat says, “Sheep Lions” (meaning they are really dynamic Lions, but do not realise it themselves... They think they are just sheep).

You also see people who are “Wolves in Sheep skin” - the bad type. You will see a few who will take advantage of just anyone, use them, and then throw them away – the worse type. You will also see outright vile cheats who will stop at nothing to meet their end and even cheat you of property – the worst type.

And then among all these, there are those few Gems, those normally quiet few who can, with one swift effortless sweep, get their things done without causing damage to anyone or anything around them.

A case in point happened a few days back when our Executive Director, PGPM, Prof. Rao and Executive Director, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Prof. Sriram had an informal chat with the entire batch to allay any issues that we faced (Great Lakes is good in that way – the administration listens to the concerns of the students.. Well, atleast most of them :D ). OK, before I recollect the incident let me ask you this – If you don’t agree with certain policies of your institution, how do you deal with it?

If you are like most people, including me, you will raise the issue, you will fight (sometimes to death, coz its the right thing to do or whatever), you will debate on it, sometimes you will close your ears to others logic, fight, fight and more fight – basically you will become a 4 year old child crying for a much wanted toy. I find that most people, young and old, fall in this category. So, is there a different way of getting your way? Yes. And I got to learn that from an expert himself.

Well, let me tell you the story. We get a lot (and by that I mean a LOT) of guest lectures at Great Lakes. Its basically industry people coming over to share gyan or anything that they want to talk about. These are not regular classroom sessions. The takeaway from the talks are varied depending on the speaker and the college puts in a lot of effort to get these going. Since some of these clashes with our regular classes for some sections, which ever section is free gets to sit thru the sessions.

Now, we know that even Amruth in large quantities is bad. During Term 1, students from Section 2 (E2) got to sit thru most, if not all, of the lectures. Things got to a point where they had to sit thru one of these lectures right before a Term Exam! Obviously, tempers were high and lot of resentment was in the air. So when Prof. Rao and Prof Sriram addressed the entire batch we were expecting a flurry of questions regarding it and expected it to be obviously along the lines that I previously mentioned.

At this point, before anyone raised the issue, Mr Ranjit Shankar, a classmate and friend, stood up and said
“Sir, I have a concern regarding the scheduling of the Guest Lectures” And I was thinking – So, the deluge begins... But something quite unexpected happened then.

Mr Ranjit continued “Sir, E2 section has had the good fortune of attending all the Guest Lectures, both scheduled and adhoc. While it is really great that we get to be part of all the Guest Lectures and learn so much from them, I feel that we are getting undue advantage here. The other sections also have an equal right to be part of the guest lectures and I feel we are depriving them of these wonderful opportunities. I hope that all future lectures will be scheduled so that the other 2 batches, E1 and E3, will also be be able to take full advantage of it. Infact, E2 is more than willing to sacrifice the opportunities and advantages for a while so that the other batches can catch up with us!”

All of us understood what he was hinting at, but the way he said it made us all sit up and take notice. Even Prof. Rao took the hint and replied in equal finesse:

“It is not that we have a plan to give the E2 section special advantage by depriving the other 2 sections from enjoying the benefits of the guest lectures, but it just happened that the time slots that we got from the guest lectures happened to clash with the schedules of the other sections. That’s all... Hence forth, we will try our level best to give the pleasure of the guest lectures to the other sections too. Please bear with us on this until we sort this out”

And in that smooth move, Mr Ranjit laid to rest an issue that could have brought the students locking horns with the management. And if you are wondering, he got results too. Not that there are any less of guest lectures to be content with, but nowadays E2 does not get “undue advantage” alone... The rest of the class gets to enjoy it along with them!!!

Many thanks to Mr Ranjit for showing me an alternate path in The Art of Negotiation...

:-)

Of Pots and Pans...

Way back when we were in school, my friend Vinod’s dad bought a complete set of non-stick cookware set as a gift for aunty. Non-stick cookware was such a novelty back then (and a very expensive one at that) that it was almost considered a Prestige Issue (pardon the pun) to own even one. And here was aunty with a complete set!

Now, I don’t mean to hint here that Vinod’s family was looking for a lot of Prestige (again, pardon the pun). Rather his dad loved his mom so much that he bought her the entire set so as to relieve her from the burden of washing away grime and dried up charcoal from the utensils after a hard evenings work of cooking the family dinner.

A couple of days after this the whole family went out leaving the domestic help in charge of cooking and cleaning. When they returned after a couple of hours of shopping, aunty was greeted by a full set of gleaming, swanky new set of aluminum utensils. And she couldn’t find her non-stick cookware anywhere.

When she asked the domestic help, she replied “Madam, I found all the utensils black in colour covered with charcoal due to burnt food... So I took a lot of pains to clean each of them until they gleamed... Good no?”

What culd aunty say to such dedication? Even if it meant having to see her precious gift shining in all its glory!!!

:-S

Fast track to success...

How would you define a fast track MBA program?

Is it finishing Operations Management in 5 days, 4 hours each and being done with 1 Quiz, 1 group case study and a finals in the allotted 20 hrs?

Or finishing Marketing management with 2 Quizzes, one group project and one finals in 20 hours

Or finishing Corporate Finance in the equal span of 20 hours but with 13 extra pre-readings (other than text chapters), 3 Quizzes, 1 finals, 1 individual case study and one group project?

ow about this: Having to read and understand the entire Bhagavath Gita (A 200 page book from Ramakrishna Math), a complicated research paper on “The Epic Period” and Vivekananda’s discourse on “The Sages of India” in one SINGLE night?

Well, I think the last one defines it the best.

MBA at Great lakes is so truly fast track that it makes me dizzy!!!

Oh! and BTW, all these are happening in parallel...

:-S

Meditation, its not always what it seems...

My first job was at Bangalore and being a bachelor way back then (Yea, it was along time back), I stayed with a bunch of my equally bachelor school friends - Vinod, Rohit, Anoob and Shyam. All the 5 of us used to be cramped in a tiny 1 BHK house. I mean the place was so tiny that to go to the toilet, you had to turn your bum to face the indian toilet, move in gingerly, make sure you had your plastic mug in your hands and then just sit. And for the next 5-10 mins, you can enjoy the clostrophobic feeling of a "made-to-order" size toilet.

My friends are great guys... truely world class. Each has his own set of tales. Ill talk about them sometime i guess. Anoob was a major Bhakt of Sri Sri Ravi Shanker. If he could help it, he would not for the world miss his morning and evening Art of Living yoga sessions. All of us would wake up to the enchanting sounds of his "OOooMMmm" and heavy breathing exercises.

As I mentioned, he did his yoga in the mornings and evenings. So we were surprised to hear him chant the Mantra in the afternoon. As was the custom at our house, no one disturbed him. But his "OOooMMmm"s became increasingly regular and one too many. We were wondering why he was chanting so many "OM"s. After a while, we could take it no more and decided to see what he was really upto.

We opened the door to bedroom to find Anoob lying on the bed as if contempltating though he had a distorted look on his face... Just as we were about to ask him abou all the "OM"s, he let out another even louder one...

"UUUuuuMMMMmmmm" We realised, He had just had a heavy lunch and he was burping..

:)

My monthly period...

"Om Shanthi..."

"Filled full with Brahman are the things we see,

Filled full with Brahman are the things we see not,

From out of Brahman floweth all that is,

From Brahman all -- yet he is still the same."

"Remember.. your aim in life should be to attain ultimate happiness"

"Do your Karma without expecting anything back, and you will attain the ultimate goal of any being... Moksha"

"Your Karma, or your actions, determines your reincarnation"

"All Karma has good and bad side... what is good for one person might be bad for another... hence there is no point in worrying about it... just do your best"

"If you think bad things, then your Karma will be bad... but instead if you think good things, then your Karma will be good"

"Freedom is the ultimate goal of every soul... and your Karma will determine if you achieve it or not"

"Don't be attached to your work... be free... don't have bondage... let go of all attachment"

Ok... Ok... I've not gone mad with the Upanishads (thanks to Great lakes). This "holy pain in the behind" transformation happens to me every month. Well, its only natural for me. It is my Life. It is my Lakshya... for the lord has commanded that once a month I turn into Sri Satya Sai Georgeaananda Baba!

The only way to Moksha is to shave my head... Om Shanthi... 

:)

Reliance... Reliance... why art thou so Unreliance...

I was again out of action due to my dada card having stopped working... This time for a whole 5 days and counting!! I’ve bitched about reliance before.. And a plan to continue doing the same. I mean they are so inefficient that they don’t deserve to stay in business. Infact, its amazing hey still are!

Once I found that my data card wasn’t working, I made a lot of frantic calls to their customer care. Reliance Customer Care is one of a kind, let me tell you that. And I’m pretty darn glad they are... Coz they truly suck at it! Here is a transcript of a couple of my calls. (Honestly, there is no fudging here... These were more or less actual conversations)

Call 1

Me: “Hi, my num is so-n-so, my data card is not working”
Cust care person: “We are very delighted to have your call”

What?! They should not be delighted at getting complaint calls. Its as if they are creating complaints just to delight themselves.

Me: “Right... In the mean time, I’m not able to connect to the net”
Cust care person: “I see that you have been using this for almost 2 months now.”
Me: “Yes”
Cust care person: “Are you sure you have the right settings?”

You should appreciate how much I have matured over the years to keep my cool at this point!

Me: ”Obviously, how else could I have been using the card all this while?!”
Cust care person: ”Ok, what operating system do you use?”
Me: “OS X”
Cust care person: ”No sir, Operating system... Like windows XP, Vista”
Me: “OS X... Mac OS X”
Cust care person: {curt reply} “We don’t service Macintosh”
Me: “What do you mean you don’t service? You sold me the modem for Mac!”
Cust care person: {curt reply} “We don’t service Macintosh”

And the call got disconnected. Yes, really! The way they avoided Mac, You would think Mac was some kind of medieval disease or something!!

Call 2

Me: “Hi, my num is so-n-so, I’m not able to connect to the net”
Cust care person: “Sure sir, I help you with data card”
Me: “Thanks, can you please take down the complaint”
Cust care person: “Sure sir. Please tell me problem”
Me: “Well... Like I said I’m not able to connect to the net”
Cust care person: “Are you connected modem?”

I could see that this conversation was going to be interesting.

Me: “Ofcourse yes...”
Cust care person: “Ok Sir, is there error message?”
Me: “Yes, error 649”
Cust care person: “Ok, I take down problem”
Me: “Thank you!”
Cust care person: “What is your OS?”
Me: “Mac OS X”
Me: {hastily} “But I have tried on Win XP too”
Cust care person: “Sorry sir, we not service you”

What the F***

Me: “WHAT?!! Why??!!”
Cust care person: “We not service Mac”
Me: “Dude... I told you I tried on an XP machine too!”
Cust care person: “Sir, It is happy that you take reliance. But we not service you”

IT is happy? What Reliance is run by some animal or something? Ofcourse! Mr Anil Ambani, the devil incarnate monster! But even his employees call him IT? Anyway, the call was cutoff again.

:-!

Rock Solid!!

“Its Rocky’s class man…”
“Rocky? Who’s that?”
“Prof. Rakesh Singh… Our Macro Economics Prof.”
“So, why the long face?”
“You’ll have one too if you knew about him. He is supposed to be a terror… “

Thus was my introduction of Prof. Singh. But we’ve had tough Profs before and so I took this in with a pinch of salt… C’mon.. How much worse can this get? Soon I realised the folly of thinking so. Prof. Singh made sure we understood that too. Him being a terror was an understatement! First time he came to class he asked us for our background and since most of us were engineers, he pooh-poohed us and got on with the class. He even told us that he knew he was known to be a tough nut… And he plans to keep up the reputation! At the end of the class he gave us an assignment that we were to submit by the end of the day.

All of us went to work and came up with what we thought were good reports. But he scoffed at these too!!! Man! This guy was sure hard to please. This cycle of assignments-submissions-scoffs went on for days with our patience running short as each day passed. Its not that we had a problem with doing the assignments per say (it was expected of us, and we are willing to do it too), but the way he reacted to them. And the worst part was, he would not even explain anything much to us save some funda about basic Macro Economic variables. But as to how it all tied together with the assignments we did, we dint have much clue! We were all in a state of utter confusion… Not knowing what is right and what is not. People began to crack, tempers started running high “Why on earth is he coming here Man! He dosen’t even teach anything! What a waste of all our time. Anything I’ve learnt in macro is purely due to my hard work in understanding it.” So on and so forth.

After a week and a half of this torture, we got a long break from him – about a week. But later we came to know that we were scheduled to have his classes for the 2 days preceding our term exams. Damn it! He is gonna give us some assignments and we will have to sit up late into the night doing them instead of preparing for the exams. And that’s exactly what happened. He asked us to figure out why the crisis of 1991 occurred and what after that. Tough one. But we managed. We even managed to write the exams pretty ok.

Then we had his last class on a Sunday @ 12 noon (the next day we were to have accounts and stats term exams). All of us were jittery, yet most of us were present even though there was a nasty rumour of a surprise quiz. That din’t happen, instead Prof Singh started his discourse on the economic history of India - since the time of independence. There was pin drop silence in the class. He went on and on and soon one and a half hours had zoomed past. At 1:30 PM Prof. Singh asked how many of us wanted to go for lunch. Just 3 hands shot up. The rest of us were glued to our chairs and waiting for him to go on. True to his word of him being democratic and taking the majority vote, he went on to speak for another 1 and quarter hours.

At 2:45 PM, a riveting 2 hours and 45 mins later, he stopped his story stating “And that is the India story. Thank you” and majestically walked out of the room to a sea of applause. I can honestly say it was the loudest we had given to any of our Profs. We were all amazed at the things he said, the clarity with which he summarised his thoughts and at the way he explained it all to us. It took most of us another 5 mins to budge from our seats. We were all in a trance…

Soon after this we were discussing this amongst ourselves. “Why couldn’t he have told us all this before itself? Why did he have to put us thru so much agony and mental torture?” The answer came to us almost instantly. There was no other way he could have taught a subject like Macro Economics in 10 hours. By putting us thru all that grind and umpteen assignments, he made sure that we had had most of our foundations intact before he told us the real thing. Otherwise we would never have understood or even appreciated the subject.

Needless to say, the Macro Economics Subject has been one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had this far in my MBA education. So much so that I cant wait to go thru this same harrowing experience with Micro Economics… But sadly, that will have to wait for 4th term…

Notebooks... Old and New

June 1st week used to be a dreaded time for me for most part of my life. Thats when school reopened after 2 months of summer vacations. My mom used to have all my books ready, texts and notes, covered by brown paper or plastic cover in the hope that I would somehow metamorphose into a model student. Sadly that never happened... She still dreams of how good it would have been to have an IIT-ian son!

Its a different matter that all the covered books would somehow become unwrapped in a matter of just 2 days. I'm still to unravel the mystery in the above mentioned unraveling. but it wasn't me who did it... honest ;) 

I thought that was the last I would see of covered notebooks. How wrong I was... 

There are all  kinds of people with all kinds of modern notebooks (read laptops) in my MBA class. But what I dint expect to find is a reminiscent of my school days in a modern form. 

Plastic covered Notebook! Take a look...

:-!

Stupid Reliance...

Wonder who thought up that name for the company. They are anything but reliable! 

For instance the latest Reliance Power IPO. Its was such a failure that even Mr Anil Ambani dint want the company's shares and was handing it out to anyone who would take it away from him!

Another case: My Reliance net connect does not work at my house anymore. It works only when I bring it to college. (and hence my not posting any blogs for the last 2 days). They told me I would get speeds of upto 144 Kbps. I should have guessed they included ZERO in that upto condition :-S So now I'm stuck with a connection that seldom works, gives me blaaaazing speeds of upto 7 Kbps (Including ZERO) and costs me Rs 1500 per month + tax! Aint I a lucky guy! 

BTW, would anyone be interested in buying the connection from me? 

:-D 

1/8th MBA... or am I?

Amidst all the chaos of macro and marketing assignments up until even the previous day, our  first term exams are finally over. Well, it sounds as if the exams took a month or something, but in reality it was just 3 days. 

So how did I do? 

Well, I would like to think that I did extremely well with the ANOVA, correlation, regression, marketing cash cows and dogs, GDP, NNP and mental schemas...

My Profs just might beg to differ...

Only time will tell...

:-|

The Seal of Zzuggzzezzzzz....

Every major industry was a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industr.. Zzzzzzzzz....

Until recently, the rural market was beyond the purview of the corporate radar. Most of the companies, in consumer durables space, concentrated on the urban market and selectively ignored th... Zzzzzzzz....

In recent years, the contagion effect has become more pronounced primarily because of the rapid integration of global economies. Though the phenomenon of global stock market contagion comes for deba... Zzzzzzzzz....

The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not.... Zzzzzzzzzzz...

One major reason for using marketing research is to idenify market opporunities. Once the research is complete, marketers must measure and forcast the size, growth and profit potential of each mar... Zzzzzzzzzz....

Interestingly, models of open innovation offer the promise that firms can achieve a greater return on their innovative activities and their intellectual property (IP) by loosening their control op.... Zzzzzzzzz....

BANG and there I had it! The Archimedes moment had arrived... I ran out of the library shouting “EUREKA! EUREKA! KITTI POYEEEE...” (sans the clothes bit, but with drool all over my face)

I had the answer to the ultimate question: What is the hallmark of a good research paper?

Answer: Put the average reader to sleep within the first 2 sentences!!
 
Man, I truly hope my research paper will be half as boring!!!

:)

Some unanswered questions...

I got this sms from Smrithi the other day and felt its something that needs to be shared... BTW, if you know the answer(s), please put it on the "Pies" section. 

1) If all the countries (including the US, the biggest of them all) are in debt, where did all the money go?

2) When they say "New and Improved, better taste!" for dog food, who tests it? 

3) If you spin an oriental man, does he become disoriented?

4) If the "BlackBox" flight recorder is not damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the entire damn plane built of that stuff?

5) Who has the copyright to the copyright symbol?

6) Why do doctors call what they do "Practice"? {Scary!}

7) If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around, does it still make a noise?

8) If a cannibal ate a clown, would it taste funny?

9) Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

10) If you try to fail and you fail, have you succeeded? or failed?

:)

The "MBA Paradox"

An MBA education makes your life all topsy-turvy. Infact its doing something very similar to that to me... something that I call the "MBA Paradox"

now that i have absolutely no time to waste or to spare, I'm wasting more of it!! 

now that i have absolutely no time to blog, I'm blogging more than ever... 

now that i have absolutely no time to sleep,  where I used to sleep just 4 hrs, I'm sleeping 6-8 hrs!! 

now that i have absolutely no time to surf, I'm surfin all the more...

now that i have absolutely no time to day dream, I'm day dreaming all the more... 

now that i have absolutely no time to ramble, I end up doing just that...

now that i have absolutely no time for extra-curriculars, thats all I'm doing.

Maybe I'm becoming more efficient than ever... or is that just wishful thinking?

I wonder...

:-/

Past perfect!

At Great Lakes the schedules are so tight that we seldom get more than a few fleeting hours to submit an assignment. One such assignment in Macro Economics that our Prof. gave us the other day involved having to analyse a plethora of raw data regarding GNP, NNP etc from 1950 onwards. There was a total of 456 values that had to be analysed in less than 4-5 hours. 

Naturally, right after class our group (11 of us) sat down to make sense of it all. Now, the beauty of an MBA education is that no one tells you what to do or even what is expected out of the report. We are expected to know what needs to be done and if not figure it out. An intelligent group will be able to, eventually, come up with the solution. At this juncture i think it will be fair to say that our group was never even near the solution :-D

Anyway, 5 minutes into the analysis we started receiving mails from Mr. D which had wierd looking graphs in them. While I ignored the first few, once it became too frequent, I had to ask him "Dude, we know what all kinds of graphs are there... before we use them we need to understand the data" 

"No man, these are graphs of the data set!"

No way! thats impossible! How could he start making graphs when we had not even looked at the data? They weren't even typed in!! 

I did a quick review of the graphs and realised that they actually made sense (well, atleast to my nincompoop brain...). 

I asked him a small question about one of them and he quickly went to work on them. I saw his hands move at such speed that i felt dizzy just looking a them. Within 20 seconds he had another 2 graphs with my clarifications in them. 

I was impressed! Must definitely have been some hi-fi investment banker or someone in his previous life (read before Great Lakes). How else can someone shell out graphs and stats at this speed and accuracy. Great! good for the group... especially since it was macro economics.

I decided to pose the question to him... about his sheer efficiency and mastery of excel... and about his bank.

He replied.. "Oh No.. I was not working with any bank... I've had lots of practice doing this.. I was a PM at Infosys!"

:-S

To Elope... or not to elope...

“Dear all,
I am getting married to Mr. A on 6th of June at Chennai.
It would be really nice blah blah blah..”

We got this mail from our classmate Miss R the other day. It was sent at 5 PM and since I was already home for day, I made a mental note to congratulate her the next day.

But as soon as I reached college the next day, another Miss R in class came up to me and said “Hey George, did you hear the news? Miss R is getting married to Mr A! Oh My GOD!! And its only been 3 weeks into our course!!”

I’m not the one to talk so I politely smiled at her and went about with my business. Up until then I dint know Miss R was marrying one of our own classmates. Maybe they knew each other before joining Great lakes.

No sooner had I entered the seminar hall did Mr S came upto me and said “Dude, you know the deal right? We are planning a party for the happy couple. We want Glick (the photography club at Great lakes) to cover the event.”

“Sure, but its on the 6th right? Don’t we have a Mid-Term on that day? “ I replied.

“Oh yeah! I dint think of that!” He ran off to discuss it with the group planning the party.

“Y’Know, you are right. I wonder how they are going to manage the Mid-Terms in between all this. Are the going to go get married and then write the the exams? Or are they going to write it and then go get married? Maybe they are going to get married right here in the hall... That way all of us will be saved of writing the exams.” That was a Miss L talking in a very hopeful tone.

The entire class was abuzz with the news.

Like, I heard Miss K say, “Woow.. Its chhooo chweet na? I think they make a lovely couple. Maybe we will have a Baby Great Laker by the end of the year too!! That’ll make us 166 in number!”
Or Mr D sayin “Man, Mr A is my roomie... And he never mentioned anything of the sort or even gave a hint that he knew Miss R!! Looks like we will need to put up an ad for a new roomie now”

Suddenly I heard a huge commotion at the back of the hall. And I could see Mr A talking animatedly. Not knowing what was happening, I enquired with the friend standing nearby “Dude what happened to Mr A?”

“Dunno, but he seems upset!” she replied.

There was a big uproar and Mr A announced “ITS A BIG FAT LIE. I’VE BEEN FRAMED. I haven't even talked to Miss R till now! How can I be marrying her?? Gerroffame.. I DON’T WANT YOUR CONGRATS!”

“Hey, you are Mr A from Anna Nagar right? It says so in the mail!” someone shouted.

“Yes, I’m A from Anna Nagar. But I’m definitely not the A that’s marrying Miss R!!!”

“Boss, looks like you are having second thoughts. Calm down and think it over.. Think of her...“

“Why should I think of her??! I don’t even know her!”

Ok, something was definitely wrong. I hate scandals, and this sure was turning out to be one. I needed to go to the class behind the seminar hall. On the way I had to pass Mr A. I tried avoiding eye contact. I hate having to listen to these sob love stories. But he wouldn’t let me pass without his explanation. “Someone believe me! Hey George, really man.. Its not true. Its all one big frame-up. Pleaseee”

“Alright.. Alright.. Dude, calm down. Go and talk to Miss R and see why she sent the mail out. Hey, maybe she like you!” I tried consoling him.

“But I’m not ready for a relationship! I’m here to study! Cummon guys, stick with me!!”

I got out of that awkward situation soon enough and sat down at an empty seat waiting for the Prof. to come to class.

Then there was a second uproar and I heard a girls voice, screaming at the top of her voice... It gradually trailed away.. .as if she ran out of the hall. People rushed into the seminar hall to get a look. Apparently Miss R had come to class and Mr A went chasing after her!

We didn’t see either of them for the rest of the day... Rumours were abundant and floating about like dust. None of us concentrated in class that day. We were all excited about the entire incident. Groups were already formed to handle he situation. Some supporting Miss R, some Mr A... All in all, it was one of the most exciting days in college...

Later in the evening we got a mail from Miss R which cleared up the entire controversy.

“Hello everyone, 
I seem to have created some confusion by mentioning that I am getting married to A as if its someone you know. 
Well I’m writing this to clear that confusion. This guys name is A B and it’s not someone any of you know.
 Sorry about the confusion.
 Regards,
R D”

165 X 1... Disaster!!!

Solve this riddle: What happens when you pit 165 of the best brains in the country against one of the best professors in the statistics? Who wins? The Prof or the students? After all, its 165 against 1. The odds for the students winning is almost a given. Ahh well, such a battle was played out at Great Lakes on Friday.

4 weeks into our course we had our first twin mid-term exams – Financial Accountancy and Statistics. First up was Financial Accountancy. It was challenging. 3 Qns, 1.5 hours. We came out of the exam hall all confused about the answers. 165 of us had 165 answers. Well, atleast we had answers!!!

Then after 2 hours of Macro Economics lecture, we went in for Statistics. Our professor Prof. Vishwanathan had told us it would be an open book – open laptop exam! Cool.. No need to study any formulae.. No need to do any revision... What more could we ask for... “This exam’s gonna be a breeze, man” I heard someone say...

Well, he could not have been farther from the truth. Prof. Vishwanathan projected on to the screen what he said was a “simple problem designed to challenge our minds”. That was the understatement of the year!!! Before we knew it, we were hit with one single problem which encompassed almost everything that was learnt so far in statistics. Decision Tree, normal distribution, MVP, etc, etc, etc...

By the time the stipulated half hour was over ( Prof. Vishwanathan even granted us 15 minutes over the limit), the entire class was in a kind if trance. Some we gawking around open mouthed, some were staring at the board with a lost expression, some were even crying... All-in-all, we were stumped!

Prof. Vishwanathan had, in his own simple and humbling way, shown all of us our rightful place. Hats Off!

---

For some reactions during and after the test, please see pics below. 

What?! Is that a question?

Eeehhhh.... {Drool}

Dude... I dont even know what that means!!

AAahhhhgggg..... I dont know what to do for the answer!!!

Boo hoo hoo... There goes my grades...

The mystery of the disappearing food...

Back when my sisters and I were studying in school my mom experienced a series of very surreal and bizarre incidents involving what she thought was a haunting. 

It all started with food vanishing from kitchen tops, even though they used to be covered. My mom attributed these first incidents to a few cats that were living in the vicinity. This belief was reinforced when she caught a cat red handed at the act of stealing food from her reserves. But try as she might, she could not see any way by which food was disappearing even when covered. I mean, cats could not eat food and then put the lid back again to cover their tracks could they? 

Consequently she started keeping the food inside the fridge so as to thwart any attempts by cats at gaining access to the food. A few days passed peacefully and Amma had all but forgotten the incidents. She now truly believed that cats were the reason for the food crisis at our house.

Then it started again. Food started disappearing from inside the fridge... and she would not even know of this until she opened a dabba to heat the food for us during lunch or dinner time. This was coz the vessel which contained the food would not seem to be touched in any way. It would be inside the fridge just as she had kept it the previous night... but the dabba itself would be empty!!! There was no sign of entry or any proof on it being handled by a human being. To her,  it was the real sign of some unearthly presence. 

"Maybe it is the Athma of a poor soul who died of hunger" she would tell us.

This really freaked her out and after this happened a few more times I noticed that she started praying a lot more. She became a lot more pious. She was convinced that this was a haunting. She even started keeping food outside the fridge for the "poor soul". After this food began disappearing from both inside and outside the fridge. Evidently, the neighbourhood cats were having a gala time. Try as he might even my dad could not drill sense into her.

My sister finally got through and convinced her that it was all quite impossible and that there had to be some rational explanation to this. She convinced Amma to sit up with her the next night to finally see what was going on.  

So the next night my mom and sister hid at a corner of the kitchen strategically placed to observe what was happening. My mom was obviously in an excited state of mind. Around the twilight hours, they heard the door creaking open. The creak was so faint that they wouldn't know it unless they listened carefully. They heard the muffled sounds feet. The perpetuator opened the fridge and took out one of the vessels with a quick sleight of his hand and started hogging the food. 

With not a moment to loose, my mom and sister moved in to apprehend the thief - the one who had my mom at her wits end for the last couple of weeks... They pounced on him and overpowered him in a swift motion. He did not even let out a scream or shout... rather he could not...

My mouth was full of the stolen chicken!!!

:-)

A birdie story...

Ahh, what a lovely day it was today... Hot.. But lovely. I reached Great Lakes and was greeted by lush green trees and lawns, blooming flowers, birds chirping, birds chirping, birds chirping... Hey, there was something wrong with the picture... Too many birds chirping... Well we do have many birds in our class but their chirping is different... And lovely in a different sort of way...

This was the real thing. Hmm... Is it migratory season already? If so, why have they all descended on Great Lakes? Maybe they have bought a bunch of Love Birds. But the chirping was too loud to be that of small little Love Birds.

I looked around for the source and finally tracked it down to it coming from our Resource Centre (Library). And there was a bunch of people at the entrance heatedly discussing soemthing... Maybe a flock of them got in somehow and were holed up inside. For sometime the sound seemed to have abated. I moved in to see what was happening. Just as I passed thru the door the chirping restarted...

And that’s when I realised it. Apparently there was a short circuit and the RFID detection machine had gone bonkers. Whenever anyone with the ID tags passed thru the door, the blooming thing would chirp!!

For the rest of the day our classes were amidst nature calls (in more ways than one). Gurukul System at its best
:)

The Clubin Champs...

TCB – What does it stand for with reference to GLIM? The Champions Batch... But more relevant expansion would be The Clubs Batch... I reckon that’s what we are going to be known as.

Why? Coz as of the last count, there are 3 new clubs formed by members of the present batch. GLick – The Great lakes Click a photography club, The Fountain – A management book discussion club and a Yet-To-Be_Named Financial markets Club. Mind, this is apart from the umpteen number of committees that we already have here at GLIM. And I’m pretty sure there are a couple more ideas floating about in people’s minds.

They say that the idle mind is the devils workshop... But I beg to differ. We dint come up with the Clubs for the sake of it. There is an agenda behind each of them which is integrally connected to GLIM in a direct way. If The Fountain is striving to instill the habit of reading up on and understanding management books so that managers can take better decisions, the Financial Markets club is trying to teach interested parties the nuts and bolts of trading and investments while GLick is heavily into branding on the institution. Ours is a very gung-ho batch with a never say die spirit. By the looks of it each of these clubs will not only survive, but go on to be quiet successful setting precedents for the coming batches.

And that’s what you get when a group of highly motivated MBA grads are holed up in a seminar hall and left to fend for themselves. They come up with the weirdest and innovative of ideas... Pitch it to the Professors and students... Gather support... And make sure that they see it to completion. At first glance, it seems to be a very ambitious to have so many Clubs, committees apart from all the extra curriculars coming our way. I mean, the seniors din’t have any of these clubs and associated extra work to content with and yet they barely scraped thru the year due to the nature of the course. With work and studies piling up, all of us have started to feel the pinch too.

So the real question is, is our enthusiasm misplaced? Will we succumb to the pressure and get bogged down? Will the clubs meet a premature demise? Will Harry meet Sally? So many questions, so lil time to answer...

Its true that only time will tell, but sometimes you just know, y’know...

Casting couch...

If you've been to school and have not broken a bone, then I'd say you've lost out on half the fun. For the record, I've had one and a half times the fun compared to the non-bone breaking guy. Two of those incidents were so... well, embarrassing, that I'd rather not mention it. Reason being there was not much punch to it. On the contrary it was I who got punched.

But the third incident was different. It put me on the school map. The guy who... well, let me not spoil the story before you read it below. 

I still remember that day. It was just perfect Kochi weather - hot and humid seasoned with a li'l bit of smog from the nearby industrial area. We had 2 hours of back-to-back PT. (I believe one of the teachers fell to the ravages of either the smog or the students. Which is worse, you decide.) Being the athlete that I am, I usually used to walk around giving pointers to the rest of the junta playing everything from badminton to volleyball to football. 

Back then it was a lesser known matter that I had absolutely no idea of these games and did the above just so as to create an aura of being a person in the know and to escape having to play. Whenever someone called me to play some game, I'd either go deaf or pretend that someone just called me from the other side of the playground. Sometimes, there would not be anyone there and people would be all confused. But on that fateful day, all this changed.

Looking back, I guess I pulled the "Someone calling me" stunt a bit too often. There were a bunch of guys playing football and one of the 2 teams had a player short. I was on the edge of the ground shouting pointers to the teams. After a few minutes, one of the members of the disadvantaged team came up to me and asked me to join them. Before i cud pull my time tested stunt he said:

"George, there is no one calling you for help. Join us if you are a man!"

Well, that did it! I could not back out now. My girl fan club was close by looking at me. I had to join the game and prove my manliness. 

Reluctantly I stepped in amidst cheering from the girls. Man, I really had to put on a good show now. I was given the opportunity to kick off the ball from our end of the ground. 

I scanned the ground for the teams.

I dint know which guy belonged to which team.

Frankly, i dint care. I concentrated.

I had to get the ball to the other side of the ground.

The ball was a standard football made of black and white hexagons sewed together. 

I ran at the ball and with all the strength I could muster, gave it a powerful kick. Simultaneously I heard a crack... and I passed out. When I woke up I was in the nearby hospital with  my leg on a cast. I had broken a bone on my leg from kicking the ball :-S

For the next 4 weeks, I was limping on crutches and my secret was out in the open. 

Luckily my girl fans took pity on my condition and I was able to use a couple of them as live crutches atleast for a few hours a day. Sigh! How I wished my cast dint have to come off so soon... 

:-)

Hamare Paas...

We were discussing work experience in class the yesterday. Most of us came out with figures like 3 years, 4 years etc... through all this Miss P (of Role fame) was quiet. When it came to her, she blurted out the figure.. 8 years!!! 

Woow... that was the highest years of experience I had heard here in class... Heck! that was the highest figure that I've heard even among my colleagues at the various companies that I have worked in!!! We were shell shocked at this revelation... especially since she dosen't look that old... (actually she is a very young n sweet person and has just 2 yrs of exp, she was exaggerating too...) I think she is taking a leaf outta my book... hmmm... gotta copyright this funny bizz ;)

Anyway, later during the day, we had a small falling out with another group over a project. Their arrogance was apparent in the way they tried to undermine us... One of the ladies in the group came up to us in the heat of the exchanges and in classic style stated...

"Hamare paas gaadi hai, latest laptops hai, mobile phones bhi hai... Tere paas kya hai??"

Pat came the reply from me pointing to Miss P... in true Shasi Kapoor melodrama... 

"Hamare paas... Maa hai!!" 

:-)

The race to nightingale-ness

Today I heard one of my classmates humming a tune. Since I'm interested in music, I listened in. But try as I might, I could not make out the words. 

"Maybe its a song in some vernacular dialect" I thought.

I listened harder. But again, I could not for the world make out what she was trying to sing. 

Finally, exasperated I turned and looked at her. 

And thats when I realised, she wasn't trying to sing at all...

All she was trying to do was to practice some sentences in Chinese... 

:-S

For the uninitiated, Chinese is a required subject at GLIM.

Role reversals of today...

In the days of yore (and by that I mean up until about 5 years back - Hey, thats days of yore nowadays!) whenever there was a marriage proposal at hand we used to hear the guys say things like:

"I want the girl to be able to cook"

"I want her to be respectful to elders" etc, etc, etc. 

And the gals would say things like:

"I want my husband to love me"

"I want to be able to bear him 3 children" 

All this seems to have changed in the last few years. Girls have become a little more demanding... Why, just today I heard my group mate Miss P say:

"I want my husband to cook for me"

"I want him to clean the house"

"I want him to wash the clothes"

"I want him to do the dishes"

"I want him to wait on me head and foot" 

My advice to her? Get married to a Software Engineer who has been onsite for atleast a year!!! 

P.S: Honestly, I'm really glad and relieved that she dint say "I want him to bear 10 kids for me!!!"

:) 

An Obituary!

"I'm so sorry for your loss..." This is a sentence oft expressed at funerals. This was uttered to me today by one of my classmates though in a different setting and situation. 

The conversation between Miss D and Me went as thus:

Me: Hey D... Good Morning! :)

D: Hey George... GM! :)

After she had settled down, I asked her...

Me: Listen, what's the name of that tall, fair girl who looks like a foreigner?

D: It's S! You din't know that? 

Me: Ahh.. Yes... now I remember...

With a sly twinkle in her eyes, she looked at me and said... 

D: Why George, what's with the inquisitiveness? Hmm? Why all the questions?

Me: Dude! She is the only other person in class with a Mac! And hey, if you dint know... Im happily married you know!

She dint even hesitate to think... and immediately replied...

D: Oh! Im so sorry George!

:-S

I've become defenseless

Everyone has their own way of facing sticky and life threatening situations. Some find an alternate route to circumvent the situation. Some face the issue. Some even put their lives at risk and show heroism. 

I for one don't do any of the above. :-S 

 I have 2 extremely effective ways of escaping a scary situation. 

1) Run away - the most effective. :) 

2) Use my head - literally...  i use my hair as a defensive weapon.

Yes, I have a Sai Baba style hair. And my hair is probably the coarsest on planet earth. In fact, my friends use it to scrub grime off soiled plates. It is so coarse that I have a special barber trained in the delicate art to cut my hair. And it takes special equipment too. Considering that my  hair is probably the hardest naturally occurring substance known to man, it takes a specialised lawn shear tipped with some space age materials to get the job done. 

Now that you have a background about my hair, whats the technique I use in the face of an attack? Well, id like to think that Zidane learned the art of head-butting from me. All I need to do is face a potential attacker, run at him and head-butt him while also scratching the very skin off the area in question by shaking my head. You get the idea right? almost like a porcupine in attack position... only I'm more effective.

Chennai being Chennai (hot and humid), I had expected my hair to become even more lethal. and I was banking heavily on this aspect to get thru life at this city. But a week from landing here and taking bath in the salty murky waters of Chennai, my hair has started to from coarse and powerful to soft and silky!!! So much so that if this level of degradation were to continue, ill be modeling (at-least my hair) for Sunsilk shampoo soon. 

And ive all but lost my defense weapon... rendering me virtually defenseless :(

My 5 Laws of Babies

People who are close to me would know the effect I have on kids. And by kids I mean newborns to 5 year olds.  

From my observations I've formulated a few Laws that seem to explain this phenomenon.

Law 1

--------

Newborns (or any kind of baby) will instinctively cry if I'm somewhere around. 

Law 2

--------

The crying will not stop until I am 10 Kms away from them (again instinct).

Law 3

--------

Once the babies start crawling, they instinctively crawl in the opposite direction upon sensing my presence. And if they cant do that, then Law 1 applies followed by Law 2

Law 4

--------

The moment I enter a room, all toddlers who are able to walk will spot its parent and run faster than a speeding bullet to go and hide behind the parent. A corollary to the rule is that they will also take to peeking from behind them from time to time. 

Law 5

--------

As soon as they cross the magic age of 5, a transformation will take place where by they ensure that Law 1, Law 2, Law 3 and Law 4 will apply to me in that order :)

The Bike Race

Those of you who read my previous post on my sporting capabilities will appreciate that im not too good at it... But you will also appreciate that i do not shy away from a challenge either :) In that same spirit, i entered a bike race while i was in college. 

I got my first bike just before i joined college as a gift from my mom for passing the Kerala entrance and securing admission in my college. So you can imagine how charged up i was when barely a few months from getting the bike i got the opportunity to showcase my driving skills. I spent days... nay, weeks day dreaming of utter glory. Unlike normal athletics where your muscles and stamina are tested, this did not require ay of that. all it required was driving skills and a good bike... 

And damn it! i had the best bike there was. A Yamaha RXZ. THE bike of the day. There was no other bike like that in college (Mine being a pretty small one at that!). I prepared hard for the race. Used to get up in the morning and go riding. I knew the grounds of my college and they were no mean feat. i reckoned it would be kinda cross country. And hence i drove the bike to Munnar dragging along sheer cliffs and jagged rocks. One mistake, and i wouldnt be here writing this blog. 

The D-Day arrived. I was ready. Clothed in racing helmets and jackets and gloves and trainers. I looked around to see the other participants either in regular jeans or in Mundu (Traditional Kerala attire)... Poor devils... they had no chance!

We got ready at the starting line. I was revving my engine. I cud see the ladies shouting and waving. Man! im gonna be smothered after i win this... and its gonna be a breeze. 

The whistle blew.... I zoomed ahead leaving the rest to eat my dust. Before i knew it, i was at the finish line. That was pretty short... just a 50 meter race. maybe it was a pure drag race... anyway it dint matter... i was first.. I turned back at the slow pokes... 

But why were they sooo slow? 

The surprise... the shame... The irony of it all!!! 

It was a Slow Bike Race... The LAST one across is FIRST!!! :-S

The Deluded War

Last Saturday I went to the movies at PVR. I usually go alone these days as my wife is away minting US Dollars for my MBA study (which, as it turns out, was not necessary after all not that i have got admission to GLIM). Anyway, I was searching for something interesting and that’s when it caught my eye. A giant snake wrapped around some huge skyscraper. No, it wasn’t the New York twin towers - the disaster magnet in all English movies... (funny how that turned out eh?).

Almost immediately something in me also raised its ugly head... kinda like I was being drawn to it. I sometimes wonder if I’m a snake in disguise - my wife swears that I hiss in my sleep and I keep telling her its my way of snoring... I slither around in bed but that’s normally in search of the blanket that fell of while I was slithering... so on and so forth.

So, it was a new release, an English movie - D-War. I found myself drawn to the counter. On the way, my foot slipped and I almost fell face first. Was it a sign or just coincidence? I did not pay heed. I rushed over to the counter.

"Do you have tickets left for D-War?" I asked.

The clerk gave me a smile and asked "How many sir?"

"One, can I choose the seats please?"

"Oh, that won’t be necessary. You'll find that you can comfortably sit anywhere" That was the second sign. I still did not pay heed. But I did pay the clerk Rs 200/- for the ticket.

Wondering why none of the seats seemed to be taken, I move to the frisking area. As soon as they made sure that i did not have outside food on me in the guise of security check, I was ushered into the waiting area. After just 5 mins, the announcement for the movie was flashed on the display. I went in, accompanied by hardly 15 similar souls. It was 10 AM

The movie started off with an old man telling a child some story about some snake sand dragons… I lost my interest somewhere about that time… I looked at my watch.. 10:02AM. Great! It’s gonna be lovely aint it?!

Well, to sum it up, to say that I was clinically depressed after seeing it would be an understatement!! I’m yet to get over the effects... and I think its affecting the little brain that I have.. I’m still depressed, and about to kill myself for the Rs200 I paid for the ticket.

People sitting on my either side left by the time of the break. Smart… which is not something that I can say so myself… (Well, in this context!!) Since I had nothing better to do, I sat thru the whole ordeal, my brain going numb with every passing minute. Really, after the movie, all those sinful souls (I’m certain it was providence punishing us) who sat thru the entire drab walked out of the theatre like a group of zombies... I’m not kidding... not my imagination... honest... I’m pretty sure they sprayed some biological contaminant during the show...

By the time I found myself, I had somehow managed to reach the ground floor... and soon I fled from Forum. I was more worried about the looks that people were giving me. It was like I had done some big crime... I vividly remember someone shouting, "Stop that man!"... dunno if they meant me but I dint wait to find out!!

The day i ran for my life...

I’ve never been the athletic type. Sports and games have never appealed to me. So it naturally follows that I was quite the unhealthy, scrawny(well, not really) and timid kid. Infact, so much so that I couldn’t raise a stone if it were attached to a dragonfly! Up until my 7th std, my favourite lunch time activity was catching tadpoles in the near by spring and ofcourse eating lunch. Don’t start being squeamish, I never did both at the same time! Sheesh…

But this was not always the case. There was the time when I was in the NCC. I was fit as a fiddle. I could march across fields and mountains. I could lift boulders with my strong muscular arms. I could swim across raging rivers. I was your regular boy next door Arnold Swarchenegger. Heck! Who am I kidding.. I was more like a pig on steroids!! Nowadays, my pathetically puny body cannot even walk 2 paces without having an asthmatic attack.

Back then I never wasted an opportunity during the annual sports days in my school to show off the little athletics skills that I did have… namely, iddily and pie eating contests. These were part of the homour sports we used to have. Sadly, I wouldn’t come first even for that either… there were bigger and better pigs around! But this post is not about how piggy I can get, rather about a time when I entered the 800m race.

Like I mentioned before, I never wasted an opportunity. But usually I was not allowed to enter as there were limits kept on the number of ppl who are allowed to enter from a house. As luck would have it, there was a shortage of athletes for the 800m event and I jumped at the chance and entered. Our physical education master gave me a scornful look as he put in my name. And my house captain was looking around for a replacement so as to escape the humiliation of having one of his house come in last. I think he was secretly hoping that I would atleast finish the race. Little did they know I was going to shock them and the entire school in a couple of minutes.

The race consisted of running 4 rounds on the 200m track that was set up for the games. I took up my position on the 3rd track from the inside. I looked around to see my fellow athletes and found all of them with hungry looks on their faces as if they were going to run all over my tired ass. I looked around to the spectators. There were none. The 800m event was not a very popular event. Good, I thought. Less the number of people who see me the better. The Phy ED master asked us to get ready. And I saw all of them go down on their knees ready for the sprint. I dint bother! Hey I was not there for the glory, I was there purely for the shame!!! I too got into position, and by that I mean standing there wondering about how best to avoid being trampled.

He blew the whistle. I shut my eyes and started running like I never did before. Occasionally I opend my eyes to see if I was on the track. After what seemed an eternity and many many rounds, I started hearing people shouting at me in encouragement. There were really rubbing it in weren’t they. Did the others already finish the race 2 hours back?

I opened my eyes to a shocking sight. There was the finish line and across it the red ribbon welcoming the winner. And I was in front of everyone! I glance back to take a look at the others. The fastest boy in school, Mr Joseph, was a few meters behind me. I looked around to see a swarm of open mouthed spectators cheering me on. I doubled my effort to run even faster. Maybe ill set a school record.

Thru the corner of my eye I could see Joseph gaining on me. I could not loose now. Every muscle in my body was aching. But it dint matter. What mattered was that I was in front of everyone else. I strained. Just a few meters more. I ran as fast as my chubby legs would take me. But ultimately Joseph beat me and passed the beautiful red ribbon inches ahead of me.

A moment of silence and then the crowd erupted. All my housemates came rushing to me. Our house was trailing in the over all rankings. And all of a sudden the second prize belonged to our house… precious second prize. I was down. People piled all over me. Girls boys… there was no stopping them.

Then the Phy ED master came up to us blowing his whistle. Maybe that’s how he salutes winners, I thought. He was waving his arms frantically over his head. he was shouting. Something about my second prize being null and void!! What?! Why?! How unfair. We demanded the reason for the preferential treatment. And he readily gave it to us.

We were’t awarded the second prize because… I never completed the race… I was a good one lap behind everyone!!! :-S

One washed out story :)

“Mon, my water broke!” It was my sister on the phone. She sounded half scared, half excited.

“What!?” I was driving home from work and I screeched to a halt.

I knew from the sound of her voice that it was not good. But knowing my sis, I knew she would go get worked up over the silliest things. This is bad. And so not the time for it. Why did their silly Sintex water tank have to go mechanically weak now?

“Did you call someone about it?” I asked

“Yeah! I called Abey” That’s my Bro-In-Law.

“Good, what did he say?” I asked

“He is excited, obviously!” she answered, sounding as though I had said something stupid. (Well, in her defense, can’t really blame her for thinking that!)

He is excited? What for? Dude! I know you are a damn good engineer and architect, but this is not the time to get excited about a household chore! After all, my sis was in her final weeks of pregnancy and she needed all the care and support she could get without her husband drooling over fixing a doomed water tank!!

“Okie…” I paused. I needed some who I could rely on to take charge of the situation without adding undue stress to my sis.

“Put Appa on the phone” I told her. My parents were visiting them so as to help her during these testing times. Like I mentioned, she needed all the support she could get!

She passed the phone to Appa.

“Hello, Yes, we are going to the hospital” Appa said.

What! Why are they going to the hospital for this? Maybe they know the janitor, and they are going to ask for this help/expertise on the subject.

“Oh! You are going to get the janitor?” I asked

“Janitor? What for? We are off to see the doctor!” He replied.

The doctor? Did they mean Dr FixIt? Or someone else? Maybe they need the dexterous hand of the doctor to get it fixed.

“Okie… when will u get back with him?” I asked

“Get back with him? Are you crazy? We don’t have the time! We are driving to the hospital for the treatment!” I could sense Appa reaching the end of his patience.

I wanted to cool Appa down. After all why was he getting so overexcited and going hypersonic on the phone? Its just a damn water tank!

“Appa cool down… you cannot possibly be thinking of driving the tank all the way to the hospital!” I tried to reason with him.

That did it. He blew it.

“How dare you say that! How could you even think of saying that! Couldn’t you atleast think of your sis’s condition?” He scolded me. I dint know we men could be so passionate about something as mundane as a water tank! Man oh man! This is it. I’m doomed. Ill be disinherited for sure…

“Appa, I dint mean to offend you or Sindhu Chechi. I just thought it wouldn’t be the best idea at the moment. C’mon, think of it for a moment. Taking the tank to the hospital? Maybe a hardware store would be better!” I implored.

“Stop calling her that! Just because she has some water retention, it does not give you the freedom to call her that!” Shouted Appa.

Some water retention? Well, hello… that’s what a tank is supposed to do for crying out loud! And come to think of it, the problem in the first place and the reason why all of us are at the edge of our seats is because the blooming tank can’t retain enough water!

“And what do you mean hardware store!?” Continued Appa.

“Well, it’s the best place to get the tools for the ‘treatment’. Saws, screwdrivers, M-Seal etc ” I replied.

“Oh my goodness! Son, just listen to yourself. Are you in your right mind? Are you drunk? Are you on weed?” wailed Appa.

I couldn’t understand. Why was this so difficult for him to comprehend?

“Put Amma on the phone, ill talk to her” I told Appa.

Amma tends to be a bit more calm about things.

“Oh no you don’t! don’t you dare say all this to your poor mother!”

“No Appa. I promise, I wont say anything wrong.”

Well, to be honest. I dint know what part of it all was wrong. I knew I had to be careful. I couldn’t get Amma all worried too.

“Hello, Son, what did you tell Appa to get him so worried? And what’s all this about you being drunk and on weed?” Amma sounded anxious.

“No Amma, its all some big misunderstanding. I’m not drunk or on weed. I was just telling Appa how best to handle the situation.”

“Whatever it is, ill talk to you later. We really need to get to the hospital now. Bye!”

And she slammed the phone down. Hospital? Again? Has everyone in this world except me gone mad?

Well, after six nail biting hours when I was blacked out from my family, I finally got a call from my dad.

My sister had finally given birth to a healthy baby boy.

And that’s when it all finally dawned on me!!!

I’m proud and honoured to introduce to you my nephew, Born 17th March, 2008

Joshua Mathew George :)

Get Out House!

Truely Blue...

What comes to your mind when you hear the word Blue?

Blue
1) Colour
2) Sky
3) Men in Blue
4) Films? ;)

Im sure there are more that can be added to the list, but i stop here. And yes, i intentionally put Men in Blue and Films together.

Recenly i got a forward. It had the picture of the Indian cricket team being fecilitated after their fantastic win over the Monkeys... Oops i mean Aussies...

There were crowds of ppl throngin to catch a glimpse of our heros... there were kids looking up at them in awe... there were girls screaming and shouting... There were even men with tears (of joy or jealousy i do not know) in their eyes...

In the middle of all this were our heros. And did they notice all of them? did the Men in Blue wave at them? oh no, there were other things to do. Dhoni was autographing, Sachin was reminiscing... and Robin,Dinesh and Yuvraj? well, see for ur self :)



Truely Blue, Yes? :)

Here comes the Krishna!! :)

Saturday morning 1AM...
Sitting in front of the borrowed comp...
Waiting in anticipation for my GLIM results...
YES!! they have posted it...

Now its just a matter of opening the PDF...
I download the doc...
Open it...
and i see... DOTS!!!

Damn!! the damn computer does not have the latest working version of PDF reader...

I panic... (well, its no picnic waiting for the results for 3 weeks)
Immidiately I call up my wifey...
She takes forever to boot up her silly lappy...
Waited for an eternity (2 mins)...

Her voice is grave...
It quivers just a bit...
But I detect it...
There is no denying the fact...

She is trying to tell me something...
And then she speaks...
In that sweet, seductive voice of her's...
"Whats the url of the site?"

!!!
Im stumped...
I quickly tell her to get on with it...
She opens the site and downloads the doc...

Am I in???
Has fate smiled on me???
Will He-Man beat Skeletor???
Errr... No, thats not a qn for this forum....

Finally...
3 weeks of holding my breath...
I had turned blue...
Like Krishna...

But looks like i'll get to be a Krishna of a different kind...
Im IN!!!
Yes, Im IN!!!
GLIM Gals... here come ur Krishna ;)

Having the cane (cake), and (b)eating it too

That I was quite the rotten apple when I was young would be an understatement!! I used to get under my moms skin, not study word, flunk all exams and basically waste my life away. This was what i used to do from class 1 to class 7. Well, I guess i was just like any other normal kid :D... Could I have been THAT bad, u ask? Well, hows this for proof? my mom used to take leave from hospital and come and sit at my school during my exams... y? cos I used to walk out of the exam hall 5 mins after the exam started :)... after I did that for the first few exams, my mom would come and sit outside the exam hall and promptly drive me back in if i came out... My poor mom... :) like I told u, I used to be quite the character back then...

I feel it had a lot, in fact everything, to do with the school i was in. St. Thomas Residential School... Apparently the best in the business in trivandrum... yea... I know... I was at trivandrum during my early years... but to me, that was one sick school... and i hated it with all my heart... if my mom had not made the decision to pull me outta there and shift me to cochin, i wud have become the worst person who walked the earth... a total uneducated duffer... well, since she did move me out, im now just a regular joe duffer :D

Anyway, thats a story for a later time.. Now, my mom had a cane (Chooral) with which she used to beat me black and blue when i did something wrong... I used to get a good dose of Chooral Kashayam almost on a daily basis... in my moms desparate attempts to right me... Then, the inevitable happened... NO, I dint right myself, rather the cane broke in two in the attempt!! (u can imagine the trashing I used to get if that had to happen :) ). I think this was when I was in 5th std or something... And the innocent, loving guy that I was, I felt really really bad that the cane broke because of me... I loved my mom a lot (still do) and I dint want her to feel bad... so what did I do? the logical thing ofcourse according to my 10 yr old mind... well the very next day when I came home from school, I had in my hand a longer and much more sturdy cane that I picked up from the school grounds which I presented to my mom, beaming, so that she cud continue trashing me :) they (my parents and sisters) still talk of this incident... :)

Its Official! Bajji and Symonds Tie the Knot!!

I cant believe it... after all this time... this what they really wanted.

A good clean marriage :)

Pregnant Pause...

I had the best weekend ever… if crouching in front of the TV and watching it with bulging, droopy, watery eyes if your idea of fun. On the other hand, if you are like most ppl and prefer going out somewhere on a weekend, then… well, I dint get any of that… All thru the weekend I was stretched out in front of the TV as if I was about to give birth. And if a mid-wife were present, I’m sure she would have pulled one bundle of joy outta me by the end of it all.

Why was I in this predicament you ask? Well, the speakers to my TV conked out and the only way I could listen to the sermons from the holy box (and by that I mean program information about upcoming bikini shows on FTV) was to connect my earphone to the damned thing and slop 2 feet from the screen. You will appreciate the difficulty and gravity of the situation. Here I am, watching the TV with all the intensity and reverence that I’ve always held towards it, but with no space to maneuver, it was a constant struggle between man and machine to see who will buckle first.

Well, I can proudly say that I won the struggle for supremacy albeit with a god damned pain to my rear end, not to mention my spine (the good thing is now I know for sure that im not spine less)

DINK, DINKY, SITCOM... the urban acronyms

was so insulted the other day! An acquaintance used the filthy D word on me! He called me a DINK! How utterly insulting! Dude, I’m not a DINK… I’m a DINKY… Hello… will u keep up with the times please… But seriously, what id really like to be is DINKWAD… but as it stands I’m a DINKYANDE.

I know what you are thinking… that I’ve gone bonkers? I’m way ahead of you buddy, I’d gone bonkers a long time back :P But that’s a topic for serious discussion at a later point in time. For now, lets get back to and stick to the insult I had to undergo. I’m quite sure most of you would have heard of the word DINK. But have you ever given it a thought? Have you ever thought of what it means? Have you ever thought of what it does to people who are called that? It’s shocking I tell you… shocking!! Sob… Sob…

DINK is part of a wide array of urban acronyms that have bloomed since the 1970s – 80s in the western world and like all things western which takes 2-3 decades to reach India; we are now exposed to this fantastic phenomenon ourselves. Talk about aping the west! Sometimes I think we are on a path to negative evolution as so rightly illustrated here! :)



Coming back to our post modern urban acronyms, its fun to see what each of them means. As the famous line goes – “In the beginning there was the command line…” Oops! Wrong line. The real line is “In the beginning there was nothing... Then God said ‘Let there be Wi-Fi’” and so began the lifestyles that gave rise to these now iconic acronyms. And boy, they come in different flavours… one for every aspect of post modern urban life.

Starting with the basics, one of the first acronym to have been coined was YUP (Young Upcoming Professional) which eventually became YUPPIE. YUPPIE is a HIPPIE who works except they are far from being HIPPIEs. YUPPIE stands for Young Upcoming Prosperous Professional. In simple terms (s)he is a self-centered egoistic, materialistic, very mobile, gadgets and gizmos loving, on the hottest wheels and carry themselves about in an air of bluff heartiness. As they get older and become team leads and managers they metamorphose into MUPPIEs (Middle-aged Upcoming Prosperous Professional). Basically much older and wiser(?) YUPPIEs. And like Canara Bank, nothing changes with a change in Logo does it?

DINK (Double Income No Kids) – Both partners too busy with personal and professional life to have kids to bother them. This is a fast growing breed. And if the breed grows beyond control, there goes human race!!! What with all the work pressure and fast paced life, sprinkled with impotency and a touch of poor health, its no wonder the breed is growing.

DINS (Double Income No Sex) – I would reckon many DINKs are also at this place in life. Atleast no sex with each other ;)

NOK (NO Kids) – These are couples who may or may not have a double income, but they surely do not want to have kids. Just like DINKs, they value their independence and freedom too much to have a screaming demanding baby demand attention.

DINKWAD (Double Income No Kids With A Dog) – A variation of the DINK but with a yearning for unconditional love and gratitude which they get from their sweet cute doggie.

DINKY (Double Income No Kids Yet!) – Mostly a Confused desi or too busy at the present. But there is hope. These couples will sooner or later succumb to social pressures and have their bundle of joy. This will earn them the right to metamorphose into DEWKs, SILKs or worse, SITCOMs or SINKs. Once this happens, life comes full circle and the couple can’t wait to go back to being DINKs! Basically, all hell breaks loose and they can’t seem to tie their loose ends!!

DINKYANDE (Double Income No Kids Yet And No Dog Either) – Basically life sucks. They are no closer to being a DINKY than being a DINKWAD.

DEWK (Dual Employed With Kids) – They are poor people. Not monetarily, but poor for time. They have money and lots of it. They can buy all the happiness for their kids but don’t have the time to be part of it. They burn their asses out to earn even more so as to give even more to their kids to make up for lack of time. Typical catch22 situation.

SITCOM (Single Income, Two Kids, Oppressive Mortgage) – I have no words for them but I do extend my heartfelt condolences.

SILK (Single Income Lots of Kids) – It’s a war zone out there. Parents struggling to keep the boat afloat, kids struggling equally hard to sink it!!

And then we have SINK (Single Income Numerous Kids) – On the brink of bankruptcy. And looks like it’s the lady who works. The guy has no other job!!

Apart from this we also have,

BURP - Branded Urban Rebuilding Professional
MURP - Massively Urban Rebuilding Professional
SLURP - Single Literate Urban Rebuilding Professional
TWURP - Totally Wholesome Useless Rebuilding Professional
SYRURP - Sexy Young & Restless Urban Rebuilding Professional
SNERT - Snot Nosed Egoistical Rude Teenagers.
YAVIS - Young Attractive Verbal Intelligent Successful.
KIPPERS - Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings.
SINBAD - Single Income No Boyfriend And Desperate.

And where do we all go from here?

GLAM - Greying, Leisured, Affluent, Married.
PODWOG - Parents Of Dinks WithOut Grandchildren.
WOOF - Well Off Older Folk.

Go figure!!