A-Z of B-school placements

This article was also selected to be published on America On Line (AOL)'s Coolage. Find link here.

--

Year after years, generation after generations, everything else on the campus comes to a screeching standstill. We call it the placement season. XL-culture manifests itself in its divine unadulterated form when throat cutting competition is lubed with pampering and support. Presenting the A-Z of this extravaganza which, invariably, makes some eyes well up with satisfaction while shattering some dreams forever.

The terminologies might vary across B-schools. But the essence remains the same everywhere.

A- Attendance Call: You smoke that puff, chew that mint, make that phone call, read that report, cross those fingers, take that breath and pee those pants.

B- 'Bahot companies hain be. Load mat le.': You aren't getting shortlists for hours. The guy next to you has got eight. It is then when this quote of the season suddenly finds its way to you through every piehole you come across.

B- 'Bahadur Bhaiya, please report at the Logs desk.': For some weird reason not even known to Team Logs, Bahadur Bhaiya is more sought after than the Placecom Secy.

C- Cactus Tree: The official band of XLRI. All vocalists. The wake up call. Masterpieces include 'Chad gaya upar re', 'Choli ke peechhe kya hai' and 'Mujhko Ranaji' among others.

C- Controls: Wannabe Godfathers beating the same old offer-refuse quote to death for ages now. Hugest contributors to Indian GDP through BishuDa. Pastimes include drawing lines and dots on pink sheets.

C- CV: A4 size tissue papers for company representatives. Also used for shortlisting.

C- CRISP: The unsung heroes. The thankless CEOs.

D: Day 0/1/2: Larger the number, more widened the a-hole.

E- Extended shortlist: This is when you start believing that God exists and that He's one hell of a sadist.

F- Final round shortlist: The closest you can get to a job and still not get it.

G- Group Discussion: You say it best when you say nothing at all.

H- Holding Area: Best compared to a public toilet. Who's outside wants to get in. Who's in dies to get out.

I- Interview: The Gadha-Baap metaphor.

J- Job Loss: The disease with no cure known to man.

K- 'Kat gaya, bey.': Your favourite reply to any question asked to you regardless of the context.

L- Logs: A superset of Cactus Tree. Job description includes watching movies with earplugs, waking up people and lying to corporate bigshots to stall process on Placecom's behest. (I was a Logger :D)

L- Long term goals: Sawaal Dus Crore Ka. You know nothing about it. The interviewer knows that you know nothing about it. You know that the interviewer knows that you know nothing about it. You still bullshit. He laughs inside.

M- Master CV: The sum total of what you haven't done in your life and have managed to get it verified.

N- Notice Board: A wooden whore copulated by a Controls guy every two minutes.

O- Offer: Orgasm.

P- Placecom: Secret Service that never lets truth get in the way of 24-carat haggling. Activities include talking in hushed voices and oscillating in suits with no destination.

P- Pecking: Placecom sponsored Viagra leading to some serious KLPD. Contemporary Swayamvara.

P- Psychometric Test: Brainchild of the mind-numbingly important department of Human Resources. Purpose unknown.

Q- Questions: Cues that start the noble phenomenon of lying. Also, what company representatives are obliged to do in between cigarette breaks and hitting-on-the-HR-chick sessions.

R- 'Random process hai bey.': The usual reponse to 'Kat Gaya Bey'. Normally followed by 'Sutta maarega?'

S- Services Girls: The only reason why there are no riots. They make the rape worthwhile.

S- Small Audi: World's most densely populated space capsule with all basic amneties inside for survival. Mating ground for Controls.

S- Skirt: A widely common feature of successful Group Discussion participants. Usually results in Day zero signout, quality inversely propprtional to length.

T- 'Tell me something about yourself': In this very order, these five words spell doom. HR's idea of a full-tossed delivery which, in essence, is a beamer.

T- 'Tera nahi hoga toh kiska hoga?': Intended to be a rhetorical question. Answered by 'Skirt waali ka'.

U- 'Uski kahan lagi?': An inexplicable obsession with people you think are less deserving.

V- Verifier: The God who you never bother to talk to after the process.

W- Well Call: A cue to go missing. Usually followed by a quick phone call to Logs.

W- 'Walk me through your CV': A manifestation of the height of laziness. A lesser evil than 'Tell me something about yourself'.

X- XL Bonding: Respect! Impossible to explain to someone who hasn't been through the process.

Y- Y chromosome: An insurpassable handicap.

And when it's all over, Z- Zzz: The surreal sleep that had been eluding for a month. Usually followed by celebrations of unforeseen dimensions.

She

A romantic January night. Cool breeze from the window. Dim lights and some soft Elvis number pouring out of the speakers. I saw her for the first time. She was just perfect. Flawless. Awesome. I wasn't expecting her, like, at all. She was way out of my league.

I had fantasized about her in times of loneliness and despair. Lust knew no bounds. And I wasn't even ashamed. If only I could have her just one time! And here she was. Mine. All mine. The very sight of her gave me goosebumps. It was surreal: beyond all limits of conceivable thought.

But destiny had it's own plans. We soon had our differences and the damage was beyond repair. It wasn’t like she went out of my life. I bumped into her time and again in the arms of others, often being shared by multiple partners. It was painful. I even began questioning her character. Having no hopes of finding her back, I succumbed to anonymous mediocrity.

She was the first A I got in XLRI way back in Marketing 2. Eleven months and three trimesters down the line, I had her again. (And again, today! :D)

--

Okay, I'm doing this for the first time. A little newbie to Indiblogger, I'm finding my way around. Promote this post on Indivine by clicking here.

Why MBA?

Type a 'why' on Google and the first suggestion that it throws up is 'Why MBA'. If you've landed here through Google search, I pity you. Please do not be under any illusions of enlightenment. Leave.

People all across the country, even Sri-sri-ek-hazaar-aath Arindam Chaudhuri, have torn their hair apart only to find themselves more confused every time. Some versions of Ramayana narrate the sleepless nights Rama spent in the endless pursuit. Even some great saints have been known to observe extreme penance to find the Ultimate Answer.

I still puke at the sight of brown newspapers. I still can't figure out the head or tail of an annual report. I still think that market research and statistics are buckets of shit. I still don't know how a stock market works.

But it's not been for nothing:

• I can define 'core competency' without falling down laughing
• I reply to 'What's Up' using a SWOT Analysis
• Requests for financial aids to parents are referred to as IPOs
• I ask my four-year old niece what the 'mission statement' in her life is
• I advise friends to lend some semblance of 'sustainability' to their relationships
• I talk to my girl about our future in terms of all the 'value' we can 'co-create'
• There are never less than six tabs on my browser
• 'Ctrl' is the most pressed button on my keyboard
• 'Reply to all' is my default action on reading a mail
• I make daily diary entries in MS Power Point

But the biggest 'value-add' to my life till now has been the mastery over GASing. For the uninitiated, GAS expands to Global Action Strategy. It refers to the art of blabbering/typing absolutely fucked up bullshit to a captive audience.

It usually starts with an epiphany - "Damn. I do not know jack about this" - usually followed by a quick reference to The Handbook Of Versatile MBA Jargon starring the likes of 'value', 'sustainability', 'strategy', 'organisational', 'leadership', 'hierarchy' and 'culture'. And then starts the quest for the Holy Grail: Frameworks!

Frameworks have been the most crucial inventions to mankind since sliced bread, wheels and condoms. For starters, these are lethally effective weapons of gas construction sired by jobless academicians and money-laundering consultants available to the rest of the world in hour of need/greed. The best of lot, my personal favourite is called a "Two-By-Two Matrix". TBTM is a motherfuckin' gem that swears to generalize even the most specific phenomena on earth. No person, animal or thing has ever been able to escape it's venom.

So, why MBA? The closest-to-acceptable answers are fat pay cheques and networking. If grades are any indicator of the cheque's flab, mine is bound to be severely malnutritioned. And networking, tch. My scorecard on this front shows all red. 553 days into the hallowed portals, I'm still as clueless as Manmohan Singh!

Here's FedEx take on the evil.

Pissed Off

Well, I've been off blogosphere for a full month now! This very place once used to be my escape-route to a non-artificial world. Not only did it serve as a vent to all the shit inside, it also made me connect to some really awesome writers (and persons). Sorry, folks for not keeping in touch, like, absolutely.

Reason 1: Absolute inability to express anymore. Or, something like it! I've tried and tried some more. But there are no shapes, there are no figures and there are no fuckin expressions. Blogger's block, probably, if such a creature exists.

Reason 2: MBA. But that's no news. I have been suffering from this goddamned disease for 525 days now and I should have gotten used to it. But I haven't. Actually, things are in the worst probable shape ever. I want out and I want it now. I'm mighty pissed off with everything associated with this fuckin plague and that makes the mood ever-irritable.

Reason 3. MBA, again. I have lately been swamped with work. Lots.

Reason 4. Sticksports.com. I just want the motherfucker who coded this shit called Stick Cricket to get ants in his ass. Alternatively, the site can be brought down. When there's no work, I play the absolutely addictive flash game, like, all the time.

Not much has happened in life in this last month. Well yeah, Facebook happened. I finally took the plunge and am sorry I did so. For all I know, this new fad has turned everyone into a crybaby vying for attention through 'like's and comments. More on that later, sometime, probably, in the near future, if at all.

Well, that's all. Also, Indi-fuckin-blogger, all of a sudden, thinks that my blog stinks (the ratings have fallen from 80 to 65 during the month I was inactive).

Bunking Chandra Chatterjee

Let's name this prof X and this course Y.

I had volunteered for providing my services for counselling twelfth grade students as a part of the ongoing "Joy Of Giving Week". The schedule happened to clash with Lecture 1 of Y. Now I couldn't let the organising team down by not turning up at the last moment. So, I decided to give the lecture a miss. I pushed the electric-start button at 8.55 am and accelerated. There he was, Sir X, on his way to the lecture hall. Evidently, I had 'bunked' the introductory session and was caught bike-handed by none other than the professor. Dumbfounded, I greeted him and he returned a wicked smile.

Lecture 2. Sir X enters the lecture hall and scans the student area.

Sir X: "I hope attendance is not required today. Everyone seems present."

(Giving me a mean look:) "Oh, you're present! Everyone is here then."

I died in embarassment.

Two days later. We were forced to bunk the Lecture 3 to submit a business plan on time whose deadline, awesomely, co-incided with the lecture. Not having slept for 36 hours, we decided to treat ourselves with the legendary Bauaji-tea. As fate would have it, Baua-ji wasn't open and we came back. While I parked the bike, there he was, Sir X, returning from the lecture. I was caught again, bike-handed. Dumbfounded, I greeted him to a no-response.

Lecture 4. Having a lot of assignments the previous night, I had not been able to read the case study scheduled for discussion.

Sir X: "So, what is the dilemma in this case? Varun, why don't you try?"

Clue-fuckin-less, I turned the pages of the thirty-page case study, hoping for a miracle.

"What is the dilemma? Is it a bird, an animal, what is it?" I stared blankly, biting my lower lip.

"Have your read the case?" I shook my head.

"So you want a break? To read the case and come back? You want what: 10, 30 minutes? You want me to stop the class so that you can read it and enlighten us?"

I died in embarassment.

Lecture 5. I was feeling really proud of myself. Not only had I read the case study, I had also read the scheduled 16-page reading. There was no way in this world could I be raped this time. Bring it on.

"So, who all have read the reading?"

Sniffing an air of arrogance, I raised my hand: only to find that mine was the only one above the sea-level.

"Oh, for a change, Varun has read it."

Chuckles back to himself and repeats, "Today, for a change, Varun has done the reading!!!"

I died in embarassment, yet again!!!

P.S. A few minutes later while discussing the purchase behaviour for a bike, Sir X asked if anyone had recently got a bike for himself. Yours truly raised the fabled hand. Sir X dealt a crushing blow again.

"Oh yes, I have seen your bike."

Damn, this tiny XL campus!

Chulbul Pandey in XLRI

We at XL know one thing - to live life XL size! We have formal committees for the most informal of all things in the world. While the most popular committee ensures the absence of sobriety on the campus, Film Lovers In XLRI (FLIX) has pirates who screen awesome-quality shit on huge lecture screens. If it's a movie, it's on FLIX.

I'm one of the six pirates of the campus. We have screened all kinds of movies - from downrightly sleazy to cult classics with audience-of-five. But, this Tuesday was different. We screened Dabangg. The rest is history.

Marketing maniac that I think I am, this was the first teaser that I sent to the batch.

Normally, teasers cease to be anything more than movie posters. They aren't teasers, really, in absence of the tease quotient. But hype had to be created this time. The subject of the teaser read "SCREENING OF THE YEAR".

By 8pm, Anshat and I decided to spice up the movie watching experience. We got popcorn, cold drinks and 'thanda' paan!!! And I sent out another teaser with strategically placed fonts.

Next, I printed out the following and stuck it in the hostel elevator.

(Munni Zandu Balm hui, Darrrling tere liye)

2315 hours. Lecture Hall 2. The experience.

Imagine sitting in a theatre in Bengal watching a Mithoon-Da movie from the first few rows with the "mass audience", as we elitists call them. The atmosphere was equally electrifying in XLRI. The hall with a seating capacity of 70 had 90 people to start with. Whistles, desk-bangings, roars of "Why are we waiting, FLIX is masturbating!"

Chulbul 'Robin Hood' Pandey then took the hall by a storm, a tsunami rather. It was a cheap, sleazy, double-meaning dime-a-dozen flick with a difference. Colossal screen presence of Salman even when he breaks into a dance everytime between a fight, Gawd-level action sequences and "Makkhi" - it was more than we could take. [Makkhi happens to be the nickname of a batchmate Nitin Makhija whose name was shouted everytime "Makkhi" was mentioned onscreen].

Dialogues like "Dekhen, kiske batashe kitney gol hain!" [Let's see, who has the balls!"] flared the lecture hall more than what's happening in Kashmir.

And, among all this, there was Anshat, shouting out his sales-pitch "Popcorn-popcorn-popcorn"!!!!

A night to remember!

You Know What I Did This Summer

Summer Internship. Sales. FMCG. Jharkhand.

For the uninitiated, this means that the two months are NOT being spent in any cozy air-conditioned office with transparent walls and free internet. Instead, I’m living out of a suitcase ‘touring’ all of Jharkhand. This also includes the interiors with terrestrial connectivity worse than the jungles of Amazon. Anyway, it’s an experience of a lifetime. An account follows.

• Every address has ‘Near Hanuman Mandir’ on it. I wonder how many fans does the H-Man have in Jharkhand!
• I’ve come across incredibly innovative spellings and grammar. “Please your on laggage”!!!!!
• I have been sneezed and coughed upon in the face so many times now that I’m looking forward to being spitted upon – the Holy Grail.
• I have peed in the most unhygienic of places, sometimes after climbing hillocks of garbage!
• I have travelled in the most ‘rocking’ of vehicles – the desi version of Disneyland swings. My spinal cord seems wrecked for eternity.
• I met a person called ‘Birbal’ for the first time in my life.
• I have grown fond of Sattu – the desi Gatorade.
• The dust on the roads and places named Telmocho, Chas and Tipudana give me the feel of Latin America.
• I have pissed off a sales officer so bad that he has asked me not to call him up ever again.
• I have travelled in an auto-rickshaw without headlights on streets with no light whatsoever at eight in the evening in thunder, storm and rain. Talk about blind trust!
• I have come across a dilapidated hut named ‘Indian School of Learning’ that guarantees ‘100% placement’.

Half of this period has been spent in Ranchi. For people never been to the place, it is merely a newfangled capital of a newfangled underdeveloped tribal state. But the exponential rate of “development” has led to explosions – of population, traffic, pollution and noise. An account follows.

You know you are in Ranchi when:

• The roads are narrower than Keira Knightley’s waist: far worse than the by-lanes of Jamshedpur.
• You find no traffic lights but traffic police on squares in 2010!
• The traffic is excruciating for the size of the roads.
• All school buses are yellow in colour and are the biggest culprits in traffic jams.
• Stuck in a jam, if A is behind B and B is behind C, all three are honking at the same time.
• In a jam, if you don’t stick the nose of your vehicle up the ass of the one ahead, some vehicle is bound to cross the road from the gap in between.
• The rickshaws turn at ninety degrees without a whisker of a signal.
• Bumpers and potholes included, there are more speed breakers on the road than the rest of India combined.
• There is no civic sense – AT ALL!!!!
• There are no dustbins – AT ALL!!!!
• You find a lassi hawker everywhere. Fortunately, the town is a sucker for it.
• The favourite evening snack is Chinese food, especially rolls and momos. The extent of craze makes one wonder if it was once a Chinese colony!
• If you are on the opposite side of the road to Big Bazaar, you have to drive for 2 kilometres to come back to mall’s side of the road.
• Big Bazaar is a big big sham. It takes less time to shop there than to cross the road at 10 in the morning.
• The service in restaurants is abysmal and is not a function of prices charged.

Anyway, its just a matter of 20 odd days and it gets over for good! Pray to God that I get strength enough to survive through all of this!

Surveyphobia

A plague has come upon XLRI. And it has its roots in new 'in' thing: 'status' messages. There was a good old time when I looked forward to the hyperlinks in them. It was our desi version of StumbleUpon. Anyone who discovered anything interesting over the web shared it with his e-circle of friends.

But this plague is different. Its called "Survey".

From carbonated drinks to smoking habits, from product placements to IPL and from a new car to a new home, every XLer has been bombarded with questions, the answers to which he has none. The questions are masterpieces in themselves. The best one I came across was"

• "During the past one month, how long(in minutes) have you usually taken to fall asleep at night?"

ROFL! I would lend my kidney to the person who could possibly answer this. Do notice the couple of words in brackets. "In minutes". Count baby, count.

And the seven-point scales. Phew!

Every morning I open my eyes, I ask myself:

• "I dont want to wake up."

Staunchly agree/strongly agree/a lil less strongly agree/moderately agree/weakly agree/slightly agree/neutral

If this continues, there would be a time when an XLer would propose to the girl of his dreams in the following fashion:

• "Rate on a scale of 1 to 7(7 being Strongly Agree). Would you marry me?"

The "surveyors" are leaving no stones unturned to make the survey reach even their mausi-ki-bua-ke-devar-ki-maami-ke-bhatije-ki-beti. Some surveys are even disguised in 'tinyurl's.

Yours truly has also joined the bandwagon. But this one's different. This one is not for market research. This one is for my blog! :)

Randumb Snippets

I never wear bright colours. Gurdit says that I wear colours resembling a 'dead lizard'. Can somebody explain to me what-in-the-name-of-that-lizard's-arse does it mean? And why does it have to be dead?

--

These are some of the masterstrokes by the genius professors we have out here at XLRI:

• "You would have looked very smart if you hadn't brought your face."
• "When rape is inevitable, its wise to enjoy it."
• "Boss, I can tell you at least maximum(!!!!????) would have done it wrong."
• "Saari Raamayan khatam ho gayi aur tum poochh rahe ho Seeta kiska Baap!"
• "You wretched-face creatures with no sense of dressing and walk in sleep..."
• "The only thing you have learnt in XLRI is how to stand still after a bottle of whiskey."
• "Can you please come down from the House of Lords (last benches, slightly elevated as you go back every level) and sit in the House of Commons (the front benches)?
• "(The graph is) pressed from the top and getting big from the bottom...
• "...but, a very big but..." [if you don't get this last one, Think JLO, think Malaika, think Nicole]

--

Sometimes I think what do the toppers(read: ghissus) get after burning midnight oil (it's a phrase!), slogging till their butt swells up, and giving up on the obvious delicacies of life! Even if they get an 'A' , their CQPI (cumulative grade) comes down! Poor souls! Their life can best be compared to the disclaimers on sleeping pills: "May not cause drowsiness"!! (link)

--

I got this sms a couple of minutes back. "Characteristics of VKG- finds smsing her taxing but blogs every moment. has nothing to talk about to her but adds a new topic to his blog daily. Finds walking with her taxing but goes to jubilee park with friends every week. Listens to everyone's complaints but not her. Will do every other work when with her but when alone, he either does "kuch nahi" or watches movies. Will give advice to everyone but not her."

Poor her! Or, poor me? :P

Sachin. God.

It happens only in India.

• Dhoni on strike. Off drive. Misfield at long-off. India is batting and we get an extra run. But everyone goes crazy and hurls the craziest abuses on the fielder.

• Dhoni on strike. Four. Cries of "Shit", "WTF". Next delivery. Six. Hall on fire. Wrath against Dhoni manifests itself in the form of a huge uproar and banging of tables. "Ek Do Teen Chaar...Dhoni Ki G**** M***".

This is the atmosphere in the Father Enright Mess when 'strike' eludes the little master for what seems like an eternity. We have waited 20 years for this moment. Some bugger from Ranchi can't snatch it away from us.

No one's moving from their places. India's GDP takes a dip. The whole nation is at a standstill. Its only in the last over when he touches the magic figure. The hall erupts. Yes, the wait is over. Gwalior is the new Mecca.

Click on the video to view crazy devotees in their moment of ecstasy

Yet another milestone. Yet another record. The day is not far when cricket will be remembered and addressed as a game this man played.

--

Don't bowl him bad balls. He hits the good ones for fours." - Michael Kasprowicz

--

My dad hates him like hell. He isn't quite fond of idolizing people and he knows what this man means to me. For me, he is beyond critiques.

When I was a eight, he was an example of someone who everyone seemed to know and love. Wills World Cup 1996 made me marry cricket. 523 runs in a single ODI tournament. Courtney Walsh couldn't make so many in his life!

When I was ten, he was reliability personified. 9 ODI centuries in 1998. Sharjah. Kangaroos. The tourney is etched in the collective conscience of a nation of fanatics. Indian cricket team ceased to be anything more than a one-man-army.

When I was eleven, he was an example of guts, grit and gumption. The legend stormed the Kenyan side in the 1999 WC by his 140* immediately after he returned from home after the most tragic incident in his life - his father's death. That's fortitude. That's determination.

When I was twelve, he was an idol already. He gave Shane Warne nightmares in 2000. That was what he could do to one of Wisden's five cricketers of the century. And this is what he can do to a server in Bangalore: cricinfo.com is down from the moment he brushed past 200.

When I was fifteen, he was an example of consistency and living upto the expectations of a billion loons. This man singlehandedly took the Indian side to the WC 2003 finals with 673 runs in 11 matches.

When I was seventeen, he told me what will power is when he returned with full steam after the tennis elbow injury to rule the world again in 2005 by hitting his 35th test century.

When I was eighteen, he showed me how to defy all odds and emerge a winner. He was booed at his home ground and he underwent a painful shoulder surgery. But he rewrote history with a 141* on his comeback debut in 2006.

When I was nineteen, he taught me how to remain unaffected of the criticism,keep the insatiable spirit alive and finally let go of the nerves that made him get out in his nineties seven times in 2007.

He is a living example of humility in the true sense of the word. Rahul Dravid's declaration in Multan, the ball tampering controversy, the Chappell brothers' wrath and even the newspapers calling hin "ENDulkar": he knew how to maintain his composure and let the newer stars balk in the newfound adulation. He saw the likes of Sehwag and Dhoni rise to what they are today. He even recommended Dhoni as the captain to the selectors and we all know he's never wrong. He's the one who is placed in an eternal pressure cooker with the colossal expectation of a one billion people burdening his shoulders everytime he comes to bat. The man has remained in the top for twenty years now. And he's practically unaffected. He's not one of the dime-a-dozen "rockstars" who change in a flash by fifteen-minutes-of-fame. Every single opponent who has had the (mis)fortune of playing against him admires him. And he's as respected, if not more, off the field as on it.

And today when I'm twenty two, he did something that around 2000 cricketers with ODI caps till date can only think of. He made 200 runs and remained unbeaten in a single one-day international!

He is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He's God.

C se Chomu!

I just cant stop rolling on the floor laughing!

Here I was living my temporarily miserable life due to the sudden spate of quizzes follwing the XL-IIMC meet and my blog was "attacked", unbelievably poorly though.

The image shows a statistic of the blog visitors around 6pm. 32 visitors were online simultaneously - 31 of them from Calcutta!!!!!!!!!! And then started an incredibly hilarious episode of cribbing by the Chickens. At some moments, I really had my heart out at the sheer ignorance of the JOKArs. At others, I laughed my butt off at their "logic". I really wonder at the filtering process of the IIMs now. :P

XLer or not, visit this post(link) and have the laugh of your life. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease go through all the comments. It'll take time but will be totally worth it. The same cribs again and again - lesser the logic, more the frequency. :D

The highlight was something else though. Somehow, the JOKArs read this post of mine.(link). Here I wrote about how I wanted to go to IIMC of all the IIMs because it was my father's dream. Now the idiots' pea sized brains made them mock me as if I'm making fun of the people out there only because I didnt get through it. A couple of them asked me to prove that I did by putting up the offer letter on the blog. LOL! For the people who mocked me for preferring XL, rest assured I'm having the time of my life out here. Thank God I made this choice. :)

Now, let me stop laughing like a dork first. Hmm. Now. I made fun of the lack of sportsman spirit, you buggers. I never said IIMC is not a premier institute. Or, I never compared it with XL. It was strictly pertaining to the meet. How did that argument-cum-personal-attack come into the picture?

To add insult to your injury, I am terribly sorry for you. This is the offer letter you wanted. (link). And my TR number is in the image itself. Go to your admissions office and, what were the words..."do the honours"!!! More proof? Here it is. (link)To your horror, I actually preferred XL over IIMC. Sorry again! Never thought I would have to prove this, but what the hell and let me be honest, I'm loving it. :D

P.S. For the weak-at-RC folks out there, this is an example of making fun. So please dont start again cribbing about me being a "crybaby"!!! LOL! I posted this because I was forced to :D

P.P.S.: For 'the fingers on the keyboard": I respect the way you put forward your points. :)

The intention is not to malign IIMC at all. Its just that a few people were incredibly illogical.

C for Crybabies

So close...and yet so far! The two day extravaganza couldn't have got a better conclusion - a photo finish.

Sledging and scuffling knew no bounds. Tempers ran high. Higher ran the emotions.

The scoreline read 9-9. Football happened to be the decider - penalty shootouts at that. A cliffhanger. A nail-biting sensation. And the JOKArs won it 5-4.

The winners failed to win the hearts though. Cribbing, complaining and crying never seemed to die. Sportsman spirit was something they might never have heard of. The following two examples show how ridiculous they were.

1. Internet. On the field.

Our goalie was injured during the match. The swelling on his wrist had beyond doubt rendered him incapable of performing his duties anymore. As a result, we had to have a different one. The cribbing started. A new rule in football suddenly seemed to be in the air. The goalie change was opposed and how! The game had to be stopped for half an hour because the buggers were checking out the rules on the internet...on the field!!!!!! The official FIFA rules seemed to have no mercy for the cribbers who finally had to accept the rationality.

2. LOL!

Can a group of postgraduate students in management be this pathetic??!!??!! The women's volleyball was stalled for more than an hour. The reason: they wanted the rules to be changed. They wanted to do away with the rotating serve because they had only two who could serve!! The arguments were as hilarious as they could get. Imagine: Indian cricket team captain goes to the umpire and says only two of the eleven can bowl and wants each of them to bowl 25 overs each!! ROFL! The referee had to intervene when the stalemate seemed to last forever. He, logically, refused to pay their "concerns" any heed. The losers didn't even give it a shot and gave us a walk-over!

Losers...who won the trophy but lost the respect!

P.S. Amidst all this high-adrenaline drama, the staging of 'Red Black'(link) happened to kick ass. We rocked the show!!

C-Sickness X-humed

Exhume /eks"hju:m/ /eg"zu:m/ verb [T] to dig up for reburial.

--

Behold. Beware. Its that turn of the fate again. The monsters have woken up from their cocoons. The cobwebs have been gotten rid of. The swords have been sharpened. The soothsayers are wary. The chroniclers are ready. The battlefield is set. All it needs is blood. And there will be blood.

February 19, 2010. The deadliest, the fiercest, and honestly the grooviest battle will commence. Its a 35-year old tradition - the XL-IIMC Sports Meet. For the uninitiated, it is the most awaited event of the year where the only rule is: "There are no rules". Where pinching the bums of the players are as much allowed as flashing the manhood in frustration. Yes, the latter has been the talk-of-the-towns since it happened. A couple of ignorant out-of-line females who dared to challenge the endowment of a young man were proved wrong with immediate evidence by an act of the mighty - "flashing".

For the never-walked-out-of-the-couch, XLRI-Jamshedpur and IIM-Calcutta are two of the most hallowed institutes across the country where we also learn business management. Thanks to the potentially explosive but perennially idle and available grey matter on campus, these are some of the T-shirt quotes that adorned the mighty XLers in the past:

• Only XLence matters. The rest is IIMmaterial.
• 3 decades. 2 B-Schools. Both try. One XLs.
• 60 miles above C level
• CAL-i-fornication

The list is endless. Well, to be fair to the Chussus, they did try to put their best foot forward. But its just not in them. The poor sods with their slogged and spent asses are already like living zombies. In their crammed schedules that involve 21 hours a day of Microsoft eXceLing, they could come up with slogans like:

• C is constant. X is unknown.

Awwwww!! Poor souls! All I can compare them is to Ashish Nehra and the look he gives to the batsmen after each wide that he bowls - the look that intends to offend but ends up amusing.

For the IIMC-IIM B meet, the JOKArs did try to go through their colossal database of research papers they're proud of. (We're proud of the colossal database of movies on our server, by the way). And thus they came up with something bordering on Ishant Sharma - a notch above Ashish Nehra.

• And we thought there could B no worse than XL.

And immediately below was written "IIM Calcutta". Aaarrghhh!!

The pitiable male cherubs can't even come up with foul swearing. That too, has been relegated to the females. Kindly type "IIMC XLRI Swearing Scandal" in the Youtube search box and witness a shameful exhibition of un-feminity.

Well, to each his own. We'll keep on being the ones with the bigger heart. As Anil Kumble once remarked, "Only one team played in the spirit of the game." We'll gladly be that team.

Let the graves be dug. Again. Let the weak be tamed. Again. Let the show begin. Again.

Because...any sport elsewhere needs just one ball!!!

P.S. Yours truly is not in the cricket team. *Gulp*

Arbit! Again!

Read 'Arbit!' here(link)

--

Image by Dr. Madhukar Shukla, XLRI.

Its the same mood again. Something's wrong. Somewhere. I want to write. And there's nothing. Or, probably, there's too much. This is the third time I'm putting up this caveat in this blog - do not proceed if you do not have time for shit. The placement season is on. Pressures and emotions are high. But if it weren't for pressure, wouldn't a diamond still be coal? There are only five seniors I respect like anything, whom I want to see big in life. They deserve every bit of it. One is still left, waiting to be 'placed' - as if we are commodities waiting to be placed on a FMCG shelf. Better the 'package', more the 'shelf space'. Better the 'brand', more at the 'eye-level'. And that we are - tradable commodities ever-ready to sell ourselves. The whole system is flawed. Do I have a solution? But, if I am not a part of the cure, am I necessarily a part of the disease? Guess I am. Guess everyone is. Committees' elections are approaching. The people are a lot nicer. They need votes. They need friends. Why don't I have friends? Why do people have friends? I've seen 'friendship' stoop real low here. Bitching behind backs is a custom. The better your grades are, the more number of friends you have. Do I need such phonies? Am I alone? Am I lonely? I entered the Yahoo! chat room after ages. Was disgusted by the plethora of bots and despo males. Get a life, you morons, or get a porn CD!!! I don't feel like watching a movie. Is it the same me? Guess no. I've changed. Why can't I be the same person again? Why the heck do I keep on harping the same and crib? Why do I want to be the same? Why can't I accept change to be the only constant and move on? Why do I blog? Why do I have to scribble shit that would make no sense to anyone, whatsoever. And even if it does, can they ever share my frame of reference? Can they see things as I want them to see? They can't. Can I see things like they do? I can't. We're fuckin' normal. That's what we are - trapped in normalcy! I've screwed up this academic year real bad. Can I recover? Do I want to recover? Do I have the balls to put in the effort? Where am I heading? Am I lost? Or, are they lost - the rats in the race? I've started reading random blogs. Lots of them.Trying to relate to more and more strangers - the 'weird' ones. The un-understood ones. I'm loving it. I feel attached to them. Some of them feel like real close ones. Its a shame I cant let them know that. Everything sucks! As someone said: life is like a nigger's left bum - it ain't right and it ain't fair!

The Powerpuff Girl!

Breaking News: Heavy duty girl power on display

XLRI, Jan 30-31. Roars of applause on every sentence completed. Shouts of "Unfair" on every below the belt blow to her by "the brotherhood". A brave face, a new face. A fresh zing to everything - a desi tadka. A need for change that suddenly got a voice. Attacks involving unchartered territories fended incredibly. Nervous home team. This was the scene in the Father Prabhu Hall during the marathon elections.

Calm. Composed. One-woman army screwed them all who ganged up against one brave soul who didn't just have the dream but actually gathered up the guts to be the only one who stood up against the "system".

Had the previous show involving six protagonists and six hundred questions - majorly by the candidates' proxies themselves - been a little less unbearable; had people not been off to BishuDa for a quick smoke and tea; had they witnessed the racing-throttle-response by this hell of a lady I have an acquaintance with...who knows...it would have been the greatest upset in history!!!

Pyrrhic victory indeed!

--

"Which were the first and the last companies to visit during this LRP process?" ... LMAO...Get A Life!!!

Arbit!

Disclaimer: My mental state is far from stable. Do not proceed if you want to read something that makes sense.

I've just come back to my room after an end-term paper. We have the last one tomorrow. I'll be one-third of a manager. Its been five times I've clicked on "New Post" and then aborted the operation. I desperately want to write about something. Some...thing. But it eludes me. I don't know what it is. I don't have a frickin' clue, whatsoever. Read about an IIM-I prof murdered at her residence. Its bothering me. I want to watch 'City Of God' for ages and its right there on my hard disk drive. Why do people always misunderstand me? Why do I always want people to understand me? Am I an approval junkie - a monkey wrapped in suits? (Link) I pretty much pride myself of being exactly the opposite. I am what I am. The tagline has made me loyal to Rbk. I don't give a nine-legged spider's ass to what they think. I think I do. I think I've started doing that. Heck. Suleimann Benn manhandled Mitchell Johnson. Haddin instigated them. Cricket is no longer a gentlemen's game. Am I a gentleman? I want BM to win the Prestige Cup 7-0. Why cant I bowl leg-breaks the way I can bowl off-breaks. I believe in God. I used to talk to him. It has reduced to a mere formality now. I am not on Twitter. I want to tweet. What's so special about Google Wave? Is it a distorted example of Missionary Selling? Do I care? New orkut sucks like hell. I want a PPO in HJ Heinz. I want to prove things to the world. Again. I suck. I'm changing. I don't like the change. I will quit smoking one day. Smoking kills. It has started showing effects on my lungs. I don't smoke much. Why me? Why cant I quit? Bon Jovi is religion. Their music never got its due. I've ceased listening to music. I need to install Windows 7. I wish I had a Macbook. I like Pacino. Is De Niro better? I want to act. I think I can. Everybody thinks he can. Is "everybody" singular? The show's name is Everybody LoveS Raymond. Its singular, or is it? I need to get my bike serviced. I'm just in love with the machine. Its the best babe on earth. Why don't people leave a word of appreciation/critique on reading a post? Why can't they do a little thing that means so much to the blogger? Why is it important to the blogger? I've started drinking again. Jesu's business dinner was awesome. The same White Mischief felt so different, so smooth. Five-rupee coins are being smuggled to Bangladesh where they are melted to make razors. Six of them, two-rupee each from a five rupee coin. This would contribute towards a liquidity crunch. Inflation will rise. As if I care. I don't have another B-school interview scheduled. MBA sucks. The education system is as outdated as Ashish Nehra's scantily disguised out-swingers. There's a lot of learning involved. Outside the classroom, of course. Would I spend my life selling sabun-tel? FMCG attracts me. I've been trying to find dental floss for some time now. What has come upon Jamshedpur? There's no Gilette deo as well. So much for the 'push' strategy - the thumb rule in FMCG. I loved yesterday's Marketing question paper. People thought it was gas. It was a quality B-school paper after months. Practical problems that required on-the-feet out-of-the-box thinking. I want to make ads. I think I'm creative. How? I don't know. I am. I haven't done anything to proclaim it. MTV Roadies is deteriorating. I miss Roadies 4 and 5. Our senior is there - one of the roadies - in Africa in the current edition. I don't wanna end this post. Would I publish it? I think I would. Would anyone be interested? Do i want them to be? I think I do. Again.

Sorry!

Oh! If only I can!

Chapter 1: JLT, Wet Night, Inglourious Basterds

There's a few feet wide path that separates the Father Enright Men's Residence from the JLT - Just Like That. It refers to the lush green lawn and the area surrounding it. Its the heart of XL - the sacrosanct place that holds a special place in every XLer's heart.

JLT

Its a Wet Night tonight at JLT. It refers to an inseparable part of XL culture. We booze and dance all night long. But this wet night is different. It was preceded by a Bodhi Tree performance (JLT again!). It rocked in patches. There was the God on drums. The national anthem on electric guitars literally gave me goosebumps. But I wasn't in the mood for the most part. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't myself. I wasn't me.

I have decided to give this Wet Night a miss. A Bishu-Da egg roll, a Mongini's Keyk, a smoke and Inglourious Basterds. It was screened yesterday (JLT, again!) but I had to leave it midway. So I finish off with it today. Kilasik!!! I bow to thee, Lord Quintin Tarantinou!

Chapter 2: Crap!

I go out to brush my teeth. Its 4 am. Coming back, I realize I've been locked outside thanks to the electronic lock. The looooong quest for the Bahadur bhaiya begins. He holds the key to the sacred land of Room No. 406; and he's always at the last place you look. In this case, I walk for around a kilometre to find him a ten feet from the hostel! But the walk's a much needed one. I reflect a lot.

Chapter 3: Reflections!

Ensemble, our fest had gotten over today and the chief guest for the closing ceremony was the former billiards world champ Michael Ferreira. Speaking on the theme of "Integrity and Initiative", the instances that he narrated from his life shook me from within.

There was nothing new. Zilch. But somehow he managed to make me realize that even someone like me who prided himself for not resigning to the sorry state of affairs had actually done the same. Its too easy to scribble here on the blogosphere, condemning the modern day demons like Koda. But what have I done to deserve the right to comment under the aegis of free expression?

An MBA followed by an exhausting job. That's what my life is going to be. An "executive" - hitting the treadmill in the morning to control the blood pressure and cholesterol levels from skyrocketing; rushy breakfasts; projects after projects; brands after brands; promotions; parties; politics; sleeping pills - with a debilitated personal life. I'll swear at the bureaucracy whenever the projects hit roadblocks and then un-hopefully leverage the same to my advantage at other times.

Chapter 4: Oh! If only I can!

But I'll make a difference. At an infinitesimal, individual level. I will stay true to my core values and be the same person I am today. I wont let my morals to go rot for materialistic one-upmanship. I'll stop when the signal is red regardless of the absence of khaki. I'll refuse to bend the system by finding legal but unethical loopholes. I won't bribe - even under the direst circumstances. I will search for dustbins. I will vote.

Oh! If only I can!

Michael Ferreira says that if you can change just one person by your upright behaviour, your work is done. Fingers crossed.

Shawls and Quarter Pants!

Disclaimer:

• Trust me, I'm not an MCP; more not so in these swine flu riddled times.
• I've tried to keep the language as aethethic and formal as possible. The intention is not to demean/undermine.
• I intend to lampoon. (Article 19(i)(a), Constitution of India)

Bishu Da's. Post-midnight. Any day.

The weather's changing. Mercury is dipping slowly but steadily. Here I am, bamboozled. I fail to logically deduce whether its cold enough based on the physically visible evidence. Contradiction is in the cool (or not?) air.

Our counterparts with the absence of a certain chromosome are endorsing a certain plurality in their dressing sense hitherto unwitnessed by me. Their upper bodies are well protected by aesthetically appealing shawls, subtly suggesting the onset of my favourite season. But they also sport shorts in the south - quarter pants to be mathematically precise - equally suggestive of the summer heat.

I acknowledge my sucky IQ. But the given instance does defy all means of logical reasoning. Innit??

To OB or not to OB!

As if he hadn't learnt how to behave through Organisational Behaviour-I, here we have OB-II bugging us wantonly in the second term. We have supposedly advanced into the stage where we're learning how are organisations and their hierarchies designed. (Why the heck!)

OB - the shit it is!

God save the HR guys, who have to deal with this crap all their pitiful existence called life. The paper is the height of gas in itself. Jargonization couldn't have been more blatantly futile. Why - o why- do we have to understand that authority is the power to make people accountable while control is the power to co-ordinate them. Wont I, as a manager - ooooh, lemme wallow in this fantasy for a while - have both of these so-called powers? Or, are there specialised managers for both of these seemingly same bush, around which we keep on beating?

Oct13-Oct14 cusp. A normal "day" at XL.

An exhausting day ends to usher into another crappy one. We study the marketing strategies of Red Bull, Inc in a case study and try to figure out the solutions to problems that could not be solved by people like us with a degree in Business, albeit a million times more experienced. We work in virtual teams (:P another jargon, borrowed from OB-II); one of us compiles everything and does the submission in time.

We head towards BishuDa's - our night canteen. We spend an hour there: undoubtedly the best time of the day. Then begins the quest of nailing the OB quiz on returning. Sayan and I try to make sense out of the shittiest text ever where every distinction is blurry and every jargon, redundant. The same thing again, and again, and a million times over, in disguise.

Its 4 in the morn. Bishu Da must have been wrapping up. I get a smoke. I'm trying to quit. A few drags. No more. I need tea. But that can be had only at 6, after the mess boys wake up. Frustrated, I decide to wake up the couple of hours, watching episodes from the inimitable comedy "Whose Line Is It Anyway". A nice refreshing cup of tea could follow and then could be done the ultra-needed revision.

Physically incapable of being up anymore at 0542, I ping Sayan to wake me up at 0600. Ohhh, what a divine feeling that follows closing my eyes!!! The bugger wakes me up at 0558, asking me to wake him up at 8 for the revision - In symbiosis we trust!

And then I do something that I do everyday. I set an alarm to ring at 0605, hold the cellphone tightly to be woken up by the vibrations, if not the sound. Poor Sayan... he's counting on me.

Next thing I know, Sayan wakes me up at 0842!

--X--

Alec Smart says, "If OB-I is referred to as 'Singhal', is OB-II 'double' ???"

Found In Translation!

Google Translator. My XLRI Mailbox. English to Hindi. Just check out the new meaning that some of the words find in translation. Gosh!

Without much ado, presenting...the masterpieces:

"Red Hot Meet Kachchy" becomes "Kachchy लाल गर्म मिलो"
"Doing The Worst Leg" becomes "सबसे ख़राब टांग कर रहा"
"SIP" becomes "घूँट" :D
"Mock Interview" becomes "नकली साक्षात्कार"
"CV Call" becomes "CV बुलाओ"

"COMA is as per schedule" becomes "गहरी बेहोशी अनुसूची के अनुसार है"
/* COMA ~ COst and Management Accounting */

As always, the cherries at last:"Placement Committee - XL" becomes "स्थान समिति - एक्स्ट्रा लार्ज" LOL!!!!

and..."CRISP" becomes...."कुरकुरा" ROFL!!!!!