Identity Crisis!

I was posting a comment on a post (a namesake: find it here ) and I realised...

"I'm surely not sure if I'm not sure for sure!!!"

Go figure!

Monkeys wrapped in suits!

"There is something about yourself that you don't know. Something that you will deny even exists, until it's too late to do anything about it. It's the only reason you get up in the morning. The only reason you suffer the shitty puss, the blood, the sweat and the tears. This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please, think I'm special. We share an addiction. We're approval junkies. We're all in it for the slap on the back and the gold watch. The hip-hip-hoo-fuckin' rah. Look at the clever boy with the badge, polishing his trophy. Shine on you crazy diamond, because we're just monkeys wrapped in suits, begging for the approval of others." - Jake Green

Thy great big one on me!

"Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee ; And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me"

- Robert Frost.

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August 26, 2009.

We have just taken a quiz of Managerial Economics. Every passing quiz reinforces my belief that there is no managerial quotient in me, let alone economics. Getting royally screwed up in the quizzes is a fact of life I've have now accepted, willy-nilly. But it hurts bad when the guy with the class's lowest cumulative score in Eco - half of mine - does the proverbial dance on the streets on coming out of the Father Prabhu Hall. Anyway, this post is not about that.

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"God has a sense of humor? Of course! It explains everything." - Dogbert

We have less than an hour to prepare a power point presentation for the BFA assignment. The assignment is somehow completed by other members of the group. My task is the power point crap. The very notion that shadowed us throughout the assignment was a simple logic of probability. Only two out of ten groups are going to be selected at random. The odds are stacked in our favour. The event that we would be asked to present is a long shot.

The lecture hall. As the events unfold, only one group will be raped. Probability of being asked to present gets halved to one-tenth! It is now that Pavani (not in our group) bets that we would be the group. We're pretty sure - hell, more than sure, we're convinced - that we're safe. The bet is accepted. We pity Pavani. Brave girl, naive girl!

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." - The Alchemist.

---

Our group is numbered 9. Over to Sengo and his classic theory of randomization by tossing a seemingly unbiased coin.

Heads : Groups 2,4,6,8,10 ; Tails : Groups 1,3,5,7,9

Tails it is. We're still 80% safe.

Heads : 1,3 ; Tails : 5,7,9

Tails it is. We're 60% safe. I'm convinced. I'm watching an episode of "The Three Stooges" on my laptop. Pavani's ecstatic. Alok's heartbeat shows a bullish trend.

Heads : 5 ; Tails : 7,9

Tails it is for the third time in a row.

The big moment. I turn off my laptop. Its any one's game.

---

"If anything can possibly go wrong, it will." - Murphy's Law.

Sengo does a somersault by reversing the order. Tails : 7 ; Heads : 9. Now I'm convinced we're secured. I love you Sengo.

The coin is tossed. There's a pin-drop silence. The flight of the coin is closely followed by the class from the moment it makes a snapping noise of Shubham's thumbnail hitting it till it takes a lifetime and Shubham announces...

"Heads!"

FUCK!!!

Gango na karey Sengo Ne Woh Kaam Kiya Hai!

Yet another quiz, yet another fuck-up!

But I wasn't the only one who got screwed up in the Basic Financial Accounting quiz today. The trick that the charismatic Prof. Sabyasachi Sengupta pulled out of his hat caught one and all with our pants down, a qualified C.A., C.S. included.

Sengo, as he is fondly known, is vastly admired for his unparalleled laid back style. He rides a Rajdoot, smokes Navy Cut, takes classes at 6 in the eve, wears oversized shirts over the baggy-pants n worn out slippers. He is the only professor here at XL who doesn't give a flying squirrel's ass to projects, assignments, or class participation. Yet he commands proficiency in all the three from the entire batch. He's totally against the hectic life of the XLers and does his bit by giving workable, though conceptual, quizzes. Sadism is not his cup of tea.

But BFA quiz dated August 24 was different and how!

Panic all around; these were few of the status messages that adorned gtalk :

Vinayak Mehta : Et tu, Sengo!
Aditi Shukla : Last rays of hope are gone.
Vidisha Vijay : From one disaster to another
Avinash Mehra : BFA is BewaFA
Marshal Sonavane : Phir BewaFAi
Meet Kachchy : CFA to pass ho gaya, BFA ka pata nahi!
Sandeep Somisetty : 2 out of 30 in bfa quiz 2..now 30 on 45 needed..tuffer than eco now..
Shifa Shalini Tirkey : helpppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
Abha Inamdar : Even Ganpati Bappa has given up on me
Abha Inamdar : Ay kaash ki hum hosh mein aa paaye!
Shubham Singhal : I see a distant C,,which i cannot cross coz I dont know how to swim
Ruchika Sinha : Passing accounting suddenly has begun to look like a herculean task !!!
Pathikrit Basu : The Horror!! The horror!!
Rajkamal Roka : screwed up ...top to bottom
Sakyabrata Dutta : BFA is fast approaching the point of no recovery.
Varun Gupta : Gango na karey Sengo Ne Woh Kaam Kiya Hai!

We're fucked!

Miles To Go And Yet I Sleep!

18th August 2009.

66 days into the expedition that got off the mark with an ecstatic "Yay!" on learning that I had got a single-seater room, we were in for some serious carsickness. Three quizzes on the same day : QT, OB and MM.

A quick sneak-peak at some of the visually unsettling status messages on Gtalk that day :

Aditi Shukla : Teen Tigada Kaam Bigada
Sandeep Somisetty : 3 quizzes in a day...I'm immune now bring it on!
Rishabh Chindalia : Getting screwed the big way...3 quizzes in a day.
Avinash Mehra : Ab toh aadat si hai mujhko Gang(o) Rape ki.
Shifa Shalini Tirkey : No Place to Run :(
Sowmya Srinivasan : To hell with everything!
Shubham Singhal : Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna Ab Hamare Dil Mein Hai
Shubham Singhal : Jab Sheher Hamara Sota Hai...
Sakyabrata Dutta : Fire @ Ass
Sakyabrata Dutta : Don't even ask!
Veenu Singla : Nights are long!

The status of an intellectually challenged and neurally inept duo read :

Sayan Majumder : Mauja Hi Mauja
Rajkamal Roka : Kya Baat Hai...Maza Aa Gaya :P

The first on the roll was QT at 11am. Bombed! Three questions, Three unknowns. Insult adds to injury when :

Gango : "Howz the paper, Varun?" [I had scored 19 and 23 in the last two 30-markers]
Me : "Ummm...tough"
Gango (with a wicked smile making a ":P" in his mind) : "UMMMMM...TOUGH."

Second, or so I thought, was OB at 5pm. Unsuccessfully attempting to cram the colossus of the syllabus in a couple of hours, I got ready and got out for the quiz. The hostel wing was uncharacteristically silent. Comprehending this to be their punctuality induced reaching-before-time crap, I was on my way when I met Marshall and Avinash returning.

The MM quiz was at 4!

I've scored ducks. I have the shortest attendance in the batch. I've been forbidden to enter the lecture hall n number of times. And now, I've missed quizzes. I've done everything!! Yay, again!

"Butt"erfly!!

couldn't stop myself from posting this video...the world leaders looking at things "differently"...nothing eludes their attention :)

Socha tha MBA Kar Lein...

Good old Aristotle once subtly prophesied, "Studying won't kill anyone." I didn't take a chance.
Socrates commented, "XL and quizzes go hand in hand." I took my chances.
Here I am, bowled over.

Quiz 1 : July 7

Its was raining outside. I had my lunch and rushed to the lecture hall, quite bewildered to see others with the study material and text books with them. I probably had a blocked nose because by and large I'm good at smelling when things get fishy. The prof came and remarked, "This is not a surprise, I believe," and took out the quiz papers. Whoooooosh!

I had actually slept off the recess in which others got to know that Section-A had an open notes test. Blissfully ignorant that I generally am, I had no resources; though I must tell you that while others kept on browsing the text for jargon and many could not even finish off, I submitted the paper before the allotted time of 20 minutes. The questions were quite generic in nature but the absence of marketing jargon was a factor that couldn't be overlooked.

Quiz 2 : July 7

The same lecture. Whatever happened to the nutty Prof wasn't pleasant enough. Minutes after the first quiz got over, he gave us a four-minute quiz where we had to do an environment analysis of a non-tobacco product called Nirdosh Bidi. Quite merrily, I discussed about the positive effects that the absence of tobacco had on the environment. I roped in phenomena like pollution, hygiene, passive smoking etc.

I later found out that environment analysis happens to be something like a SWOT analysis.

Quiz 3 : July 8 : Gango's Quiz

Gango's quiz is an calamity of national importance in XL. Seniors had organised a Gyaan session the previous night that I had missed for a marathon Federer-Roddick Wimbledon encounter. Others seemed genuinely sympathetic. I actually had no hopes from myself. But the question paper wasn't that difficult. I got 19/30 - probably in the third quartile from the top. Twenty-two got 30 on 30.

Quiz 4 : July 9

It was Managerial Economics - a weird subject to say the least. There'e not a single concept that eludes my pint-sized brain when Prof. Sarkar teaches in his unique way. But when it comes to applying the same theories to practice, I'm bummed. No prospects, again. But the questions seemed to be at little variance from the ones solved in class. And it was an open-notes test again. :P Rocked the test. 8/10.

Quiz 5 : July 13

I had bunked the morning lecture of CSE. And there happened to be a surprise quiz. (Though I must admit I didn't know squat about "Ecological Security" either - the quiz question :D)

Quiz 6 : July 15

I reached the lecture hall at 0901 hours, sixty seconds late!! The sadist of a professor (CSE again!!) didn't let me in and took a surprise quiz. F*ck!

Quiz 7 : July 15

There was a twenty-four hour event - MAXI Bazaar - the last day. Somehow the seniors thought that we had an OB quiz the next day. They tried talking to the professor to defer the quiz. As the events unfurled, there was no quiz scheduled. But he got so incensed that he dropped in a mail at 0100 hours about one in the next lecture. Exhausted as I was from the event, I didn't overestimate my ability to cram the entire crap in a few hours' time. So I didn't. Got screwed up badly in the quiz, yet again.

Lines from the XL anthem rebound in my head :

"Socha tha MBA kar lein
Hum tum bhi thoda sa padh lein
Lo aa gaye XLR

Khwabon mein socha jo humne
Aaye usey poora karney
Lekin hui aankhein chaar"

I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry!

Guys, we accept you as you are. Coming out of the closet was the bravest thing to do. You've been the Harvey Milks of India, the true champions of your cause. We're proud of you, folks. Keep it "up"!


"Sabse pyara inka pyar, No more 377 ki deewar"

You’ve got to be kidding me!

We’re just back from our first Industrial trip at XLRI. We visited the Jamshedpur plant of Tata-Robins-Fraser, supposedly to get the knowhow of operations on the shop floor. High thinking as I am, my attention was focused on the shop walls rather than the floor. And these are few of the masterpieces that the wall was adorned with.

Disclaimer : The author of the post takes no guarantee of what and how you interpret the following “instructions” to “workers”. Any resemblance to anything…ahem ahem…is purely co-incidental.

* Vibrator Equipment : True Flow.
* Assly. Vibrator : Testing bed
* It works only when its open.
* Close tap after use.
* Manufacturing Manual : Nut Bolts, Tight Screws…
* Do not overtake at sharp turns.
* Garm Padaarth Na Chhuyein.
* Cost is long forgotten but the quality is remembered forever.
* Wear safety belts when working at “heights”.
* Deep thought and Hard work.
* Nagn aankhon se na dekhein.
* Never take chance. Think in advance.
* Safety First!

And here comes the legen…dary :

* Do it right. First time. Everytime.

No wonder the subject is called “Production and Operations Management” .

Time For Reflection

Stats first :

Its been 21 days in XL.
I've had breakfast 4 times.
I've bunked(or missed) lectures 6 times.
I've slept in class (n-1) times where n=number of lectures attended.
I've cussed infinitely.
I've studied infinitesimally.
I've completed ZERO out of three projects allotted till now.
I've made progress on ZERO out of three projects allotted till now.
I've plans for how to proceed on ZERO out of three projects allotted till now.

Pre-readings(stuff to be read before a lecture), projects, forthcoming quizzes. That's pretty much the picture of the initial days at XLRI. People here are nice. People here are good. People here know what they're here for. People here think. People here work. I'm somehow the odd one out - a square peg in a round hole!

A square peg in a round hole...that's pretty much GMD. True as it is, GMD is the order of the day. Its an uncanny feeling watching the junta around slogging their asses off while you cant relate yourself to the multi-coloured fonts. Gosh! Am I dyslexic? Am I a moron? Am I paranoid?

But there are quite a few "friends" here. Yes, friends. A newly-reintroduced concept after a four-year vacuum. And there's this senior whom I respect more than anyone else in this campus. The chill-pill. And there's Internet. Ultra-high speed. And there's FLIX - our movie server. And there's air conditioning. And there's this lovely weather after yesterday's cat-and-dog rain.

Life's good. Life's great. I'm living my dream as an XLer. I'm not happy. I'm paranoid...inexplicably!