Pre-Term Assessment Tests and Other Horror Stories

On March 25th, 500-odd people all over the world heaved a collective sigh of relief, at the fact that the deadlines for taking tests in Quant, Business Stats and Financial Accounting to determine eligibility for pre-term courses came to an end.

There was no more room for procrastinating, and those that had to, took the tests and got them done with once and for all.

I was one such unlucky soul.

For most of us, the last exam we'd have taken (not counting our numerous attempts at CAT, XAT, GMAT and so on) would have been the last paper in undergrad school.

The horrifying prospect of taking a test thereafter to examine one's abilities left me sweating profusely with nervousness.

At 9 PM on 25th March, I sat in front of my PC with a pen and notebook in hand, and began solving the assessment tests in earnest. Here is how I fared:

Quantitative Methods: Being an engineer didn't help too much, but having listened to what was told in class 11 and 12 most certainly did. Fourty objective type questions later, this is what appeared on my screen.

"Your performance at quant was simply mindblowing, and you needn't spend INR 5000 on taking the pre-terms. Spend it wisely on buying another suit and improving your appearance, you most certainly need it. You are awesome."

"I am modest too, you idiot", I grimaced, as I then plodded onward to the next test.

Business Statistics: Class 11 and 12 did help to a certain extent, as did class 10, but there were fundas here that made me get the 'cow look' on a regular basis. The last time I threw a profusion of cow looks was when I was introduced to couter-intuitive corporate jargon.

"You're decent at Stats", read the report, "but we'd rather you not while away your time drinking away to glory in your second week on campus, and attend classes for this subject instead. Kapish?"

Financial Accounting:
I don't even remember the questions for this one, for all I did was to select true in each question and then click submit.

"You are a retard. No question about that. Even a donkey knows more Fin. Acc. than you do, and I'm surprised you made it to ISB. It was a lucky fluke, nothing else. Be grateful you have paid the deposit money and we can't kick you out, but we'll be watching you."

And so it goes. Such is life. There are no more horror stories, unless you count my watching 13B a couple of days ago. Please don't watch it even if someone pays you money to do so.

Alea Jacta Est, et al.

Heroes !

"A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a person of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to act of derring-do in the public interest."

EPISODE 1: The rise of Smack D

I was just another mortal walking on the planet till November 20. Post Nov 20th something had changed though. Everyday I fought with myself intenally to try and understand what had changed but came up with blank answers. My friends saw no change in me. I was finally beginning to give up and think that all was as it was before. 

I couldnt figure out what and why till early February, sometime around Valentine's day. As I walked past 'Band Stand' trying to figure out the way ahead in life I saw two guys 'Restless' and' Rangeen' sitting by the rocks and whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears. India had been liberated : I thought. But turns out things are not the way they seemed. 'Restless' saw me and immediately signalled something to 'Rangeen'. 

Both came running to me and said "We have been expecting you. You are the chosen one." Confused I yelled sarcastically "Chosen for heading the Homo-sapiens?". Rangeen said "Oh ! It seems you dont know. You have superpowers." Then Restless said "We are from the future and have a message for you". I said "And that would be ??". Both 'Restless' and 'Rangeen' together "Save the Rabbashankar. Save the World!". I said "What Bullshit?". To this both 'Restless' and 'Rangeen' transformed themselves into their true self. I was dumbstruck at the very sight. 

Restless:

Rangeen came with two options:

And then they disappeared into thin air. It seemed too unbelievable. I said to myself "What superpowers? Who the hell is Rabbashankar? Must be a overdose of Lemon Iced Tea."

The Days ahead were spent wondering what happened that evening on Marine Drive. I sat on my balcony immersed in deep thought when I lost balance and fell off. In fear I had closed my eyes. A split second later when I opened my eyes I saw I could fly. Pinched myself hard and found that this was no dream. They were right ! Coming days I tried a variety of stuff like lifting some heavy objects etc. Could do all of that without breaking a sweat ! Now only the "Rabbashankar" puzzle was to be solved. 

Now I wondered what would be a good alibi to hide my super powers. One of my tries:

* MMM = Macho Machine Man

Then I thought that I needed a very deep alibi to hide the truth. Accidentally I came across a  quiz on the newly redesigned Facebook "What kind of a Woman are you?" and my result was "Action (Wo)Man". Eureka !! Now I knew the perfect alibi ! A Super-heroine !  Soon I was practicing my powers in my new costume.

EPISODE 2: LOOK ! THERE IS MY DESTINY

18th March 2009: Last of Mumbai ISB meets that I was going to attend. We had a visitor from Bangalore. When I went to her she was narrating a harrowing tale of a guy called StalkWalker (SW) who had been stalking her eversince the R1 admit. 

She didnt know how to dodge him, he seemed to be omnipresent. Legend has it that even his parents have been trying to dodge him all these years but havent succeeded. In fact she had been attacked by him just before turning up for the meet. But the Karate Kittens protected her well against him. Three women is too difficult for anybody to handle at once. One could not help but feel sorry for this harassed soul. End of the story she introduced herself "Hi ! I am Cashwarya !" I said "... and your last name is ??". She said "RabbaShankar". I had the wind knocked out of my sails. Could this be my destiny? Was she the 'RabbaShankar' that 'Restless' and 'Rangeen' had told me about. Nevertheless it was on the back of my mind as I left Mumbai and flew to Mangalore. 

EPISODE 3: STALK THE TALK WITH THE DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

24th March 2009: Rabbashankar and the Karate Kittens were going to Hyderabad aboard the Kacheguda Express. 

I had my close eye on them as StalkWalker had promised make good his threat today. Three reasons:

1. The corridors of Kacheguda were dimly lit.
2. Stalkwalker's fantasy had always been to throw someone off a running train.
3. Karate Kittens were sound sleepers. (Even Tsunami wouldnt wake them)

And I was right ! Stalkwalker was there ! He managed to drug the Karate Kittens and then overwhelmed them leaving Rabbashankar to his mercy. 

He then carried her off in the trolley as she was too heavy to be carried in his hands. I would have saved her at that point of time itself but nature had called me on my Motoming phone so I got held up.

Before the Stalkwalker made good his threat we exchanged Dishum-dishum .. solid ones ! He kept saying NOPE NOPE whenever we exchanged punches ! Right then we had 'Restless' and 'Rangeen' appear out of nowhere with a ridiculously smelly Fart ! This distracted Stalkwaler and thus one of my punches landed better than I had hoped for and Stalkwalker fell of the Train. Rabbashankar had been saved ! The World had been saved as Rabbashankar was the one who would start a Pani Puri stall at ISB which would save many a lives on the Campus!

That was not the end of Stalkwalker for sure. What new he has in store would be unravelled in the next one year on the ISB campus ! Come April 11th ... come witness the extraordinary !

EPILOGUE

20 years later at Rabbashankar house ---

Pune meet @ Sigree: Of ISB, IITs, IIMs and IBS

The Pune ISB meet happened on a beautiful summer evening (the like of which can only be found in Pune) at Sigree. I walked in and found Jasnoor sitting alone at a table meant for about a dozen people – Manish seemed to be expecting a lot of female company (The solitary dame who attended seemed to belong more to ‘D’ company!). Manish, the guy who is trying to stick it to the man by buying a Macbook after years of selling IBM laptops, soon arrived. He seemed a little disconcerted at not seeing a certain someone at the table and even went out of the restaurant to check if that certain someone was waiting at the entrance. After this and numerous phone calls, he decided to end that love story (before it began) by starting a new one.

Presenting ‘Kheer-Ranjha’, where Mr. Manish Bage tries to drown his sorrows (in kheer?) by eating bowl after bowl of kheer throughout the evening.

Soon, Rishi and Vishant arrived and it looked like it would after all be a guys-only meet (which just prompted Manish to get more kheer). Vishant is a Tamil lad from Baroda who is currently working in Pune and knows Tamil and Gujarati, in addition to English and Hindi. He must have been confused about the language to use and hence was quiet most of the evening. He did say that though he himself did not drink alcohol, he liked to enjoy the sights of his drunken friends engaged in ‘high’ conversation. He said that while looking at me, which struck me as slightly odd.

Then entered the aforementioned solitary dame (who goes by the name of Malavika), who could not eat or drink what she liked because she was going through a ‘Art of Living Hell’ course. That must explain why she wanted to talk more about ISB Beat-up than ISB Meetup. Various individuals were ‘moved’ by her opinions on this topic.

Rishi: What is your favourite colour?
Lady M: Black and Blue. That is how I would like to turn my course organizers and some of the people on the ‘Class Of 2010’ Yahoo! Group.
Rishi: I like how you think (Moves away a little).

Lady M: Has anyone seen Gulaal? I loved it!
Jasnoor: I heard it’s really violent.
Lady M: Whats wrong with that? I like violence. Violence is good.
Jasnoor: Hmm (Moves away a little).

The wooden tables had a sunk-in barbeque with hot skewers which everyone picked up at critical junctures to make their point with the least resistance.

Rishi: The Jeep is the finest vehicle in the world.
Jasnoor: I think that it is subjective…
Rishi(picking up a hot skewer with smoking meat and vegetables for effect): The Jeep is THE finest freakin’ vehicle in the universe.
Jasnoor: I agree!

Finally Saurav, the guy who keeps forgetting that he is married, arrived. As a result of this affliction, he keeps getting a call from his wife every 14 minutes as a reminder that he is not single. (Although the fact is tattooed on his chest, she does it to save him the embarrassment of stripping to his waist every 14 minutes. A sign of true love, aww!)

After confirming that no one at the table was from IITs, people started giving their frank opinions about the venerable institutions. It seemed like a case of sour grapes for some, though.

Someone: This wine tastes like it has been made from sour grapes.
Someone else: That’s because its beer.
Of course, there was no such sour grape issue about the other great Indian B-school, the ICFAI Business School (IBS). And people were happy that they were going to ISB and not IBS (one person more than the others). Still, they are both Top-20 schools (yeah, right!).
(BusinessToday placed IBS in the Top 20 B-schools of the world in its April 1 edition a few years ago. This led to a spike in the number of applications to IBS that year and consequently the theme song for the school was titled ‘Fools rush in’).

As the barbeque feast progressed, the conversations started to take an interesting turn. Facebook users know that Rishi is souping up his jeep for Hyderabad. Manish decided to question him on this.

Manish(in between spoonfuls of kheer): What does ‘souping up’ mean?
Rishi: That means carrying soup packets to prepare on army kit stoves when you go ‘off-roading’.

Lady M saw us as clearly as 3D (‘Desperate’, ‘Deprived’ and ‘Depraved’ were the exact terms she used), and gave us Chota Chetans some advice. “Ditch the girls that like Salman. Get the ones that like John. You can’t go wrong!” Saurav (the Memento/Ghajini guy) started scribbling on the Polaroid photo of her that he had clicked earlier “My friend. Gives good dating advice.” Then his phone rang and he was seen scratching that off.

Throughout the evening, people gave various reasons for joining ISB. Some of the top ones are: “I joined ISB for rubbing it in my so-called friends’ faces”, “I joined ISB for the cheap alcohol” and “I joined ISB so that my mom can rub it in her so-called friends’ faces at the next kitty party”. I decided to join in this honest conversation by saying that “I joined ISB so that I can go to such meetups and write tell-all blogs about it”. And that seemed to break up the party really fast. Hopefully, people will still turn up for the next meet!

Calcutta 3 or the Fact vs Fiction Challenge

What happens in Calcutta stays in Calcutta? Maybe not! Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you some highlights from Calcutta 3.0. Full marks for identifying fact from fiction.


1) The city was struck by bandhs. Inspite of that we ventured out to meet fellow ISBians. Such is our commitment to our classmates!

2) We Calcuttans are obviously deprived of sunlight. Why else would an open air poolside lounge be a possible venue at 11 am on a hot sultry day?

3) Speaking of restaurants and venues- we were promptly ushered into a corner. Then the restaurant forgot all about us and our hunger pangs for a good hour and a half.

4) Which suited us fine because we had a lot to talk about. Sample this: Vivek " Sometimes when I fill up a form, I have to stop and count whether I'm Jhunjhunwala or Jhunjhunjhunwala" It was Pallavi to the rescue with a great mathematical alternative.

5) Aditi did not rag Sreejita for almost forgetting her name for a bit. Specially since they'd met up for an hour and a half a day ago. Sreejita did not make matters worse by calling Kaushal, Gaurav throughmost of the meet. Any number of compliments about Aditi's funky eye wear did not placate her. Sreejita was made to repeat the names of everyone at the table.

6) By this point we'd ordered, our orders had been confused. Pallavi discovered Chocolate Milk Shakes and Chocolate Doughnuts are actually the same in the city. What's in the last name of a dish after all? We'd exchanged a lot of stories and named no names. But the merriment was shortlived. At this point, the waiters firmly offered to bring us our cheque and politely but firmly told us we should be on our way. It was a Saturday morning after all, surely potential managers should have a lot to do than just chatter away endlessly?

7) Not to be daunted, we just switched places. And voila! A change of location prompted a confession from Lisa. She's heartbroken that her birthday falls on the 29th of February and she won't be dunked in the swimming pool. Lisa loves swimming!

8) Meanwhile Innu's still mystified by whether Hyderabad or Calcutta is a better city for an ISB interview. We added to her confusion by introducing our Delhi interview experiences into the mix.

9) In the midst of all this, Charu got our undivided attention by telling us she can cook. There a traffic stoppers and there are conversation stoppers. This was one. After all, it's a handy fact, when we get tired of the wonders of Goel Dining Hall.

10) It's official. Calcutta doesn't need Facebook. Everyone's a networker by default. Within minutes of meeting we discovered, Kaushal, Innu and Vivek went to the same college, Lisa, Pallavi and Aditi went to school together. Sreejita, Aditi, Lisa, Innu and Kaushal had common friends. Kaushal and Vivek were related... ok. enough already! Rashmi was the only one spared all the networking. Charu too, but she just moved here. Give us a while and our network shall follow.

11) Shouvik zoomed in on his bike for a guest appearance.

12) Presenting Calcutta- poster city for women in business! The number of women at the meet far outnumbered the men.

13 ) Great fun was had by all! ( come on, there had to be one easy one, right? )

Mumbai 11.0

Mumbai 11.0 started amidst much fanfare at The Tasting room, Lower Parel which was by the way not "Somewhere in the Phoenix Mills" ! So much for the poll !! We had quite a few new faces, most of which belonged to the female cult, about whom you would discover as we go on !

I went straight from Office so reached there much earlier than others (6.45pm to be exact). But one person still managed to beat me - Priya. She reached so early that it was time for her to go before anybody else came. So much for being the early bird ! Anyways she looked different from the first (and only) time I had seen her on Mumbai 1.0. She had grown her hair slightly. She opined that it was time to get a haircut, I begged to differ though. 

As usual Ashwin, the Diet Coke Keshto, joined me.  Flaunting his biceps he came in a red Swiss Tee. Soon others started pouring in. Sujata probably wanted to repent for winning the Best friend award so she came along with Shishir to boost his spirits ! Nitin Vishwas wanted to make a dramatic entry ! And boy didnt he? He walked right into the mini-fountain. Love blinds you but friendship? Sindhu, who was right behind, made a smart entry after Nitin Vishwas's famous "Walk on the water" ! The Karaoke (singer) lover Akshay Pai wasnt too late either !

We also had Pranjal Desai (female please) who came up with a award winning pickup line:

Pranjal: So are you married?

Me: *Blank* <> Not yet atleast

Pranjal: But I am ! 

Shruti (aka Shoozie coz her shoes are choozie) made a threatening entry. 

Shoozie: Today you are going back with fewer teeth ! How dare you call me Navjot Sidhu?

Me: How the hell did you come to know that? I had lost a few teeth from Shishir's dentures but I had told noone about it !

Salome was probably the most tortured one of all ! As if remembering so many names on her first meet was easy, almost everybody she met was introducing themself as Shishir. On top of it she didnt even like the food. She spent the entire evening ordering take-out from another restaurant.

We also had a foreign import in our midst - Samyukta who had dark circles - all thanks to mis-information she received about ISB meets happening in some of the other cities. She spent two sleepless nights memorizing GMAT scores for Mumbai admits since she expected us to also play the memory game. For last minute revision she had written down the GMAT scores on a tissue paper. Her exams in childhood days had given her enough training on how to make chits !

The Mumbai meets seem to have really caught the attention of people in other cities. This time we had people visiting from Bangalore - Aishwarya Ravishankar ! And she literally swore that she saw PGK lurking around the corner ! 

She approached Nishank for help who vowed to fight Mr. PGK until the last drop of wine in Jay's glass ! In the meanwhile Janani was polishing her Taekwando skills while Rachita was training her on the different styles of self-defence she learnt on her incredible India tour ! Together they were gonna be the Karate kittens in ISB !

In the meanwhile PK had managed to walk into the meet. He seemed to be very interested in photography. The two females sitting on the next table will testify to this. He spent nearly 15 minutes with them. Shishir was as usual in his elements. He also got into the photography and seemed to take PK's pics from behind. When asked why he said "PK looks better from behind !" Parag D and Shouvik too had managed to join us. Shouvik had a relatively tough cutting lanes on the express highway.

In the meanwhile Parag D managed to do a Nitin Vishwas. He too walked straight into water. Our better half of the Hedge fund buddies Amit had come along with his wife. On their way Amit almost got robbed. Only his sound I-banking instincts managed to get him out of this one.

Shweta Divecha wouldnt give Shishir the number of the photographer who had taken her perfect picture because she like Shah Jahan had cut off the hands of that photographer. Akansha was there too but she would call Sharmaji every 5 minutes to check what he was doing. In case he was going to have an iota of fun in her absence, she would immediately head home and take 'corrective' action. Yakeen nahin? Sharmaji se poocho !

Poor restaurant ! They had a torrid time with us being there with all that noise. Infact to cancel our noise they tried to play loud music too ! But come hell or high water things were not gonna change. 

From there we decided to go to Ghetto. Quite a few of us split from there while most carried over the action to Ghetto at midnight. We were joined by Delli-6 awardee and the oldest waiting ISBian-to-be Rishika (admit since R2 Class of 2009) ! The ultraviolet light inside the ghetto was just about right for some more action !

This was when I decided to play the little Vodka trick. I filled a glass of chilled water and took it around as if it was real Vodka. I offered Pranjal a sip from my drink which she accepted without much hesistation. But she found it strong ! After all water is heavier than Vodka ! Ditto with Rachita who had one for the road ! Am I evil or what ? All the ladies except Rishika bid adieu. We were then joined by Colonel Muthoo (Sandeep) and Mr. 10 minutes (Sid).

Soon we were joined by PK's two angels (from the Tasting Room) and hence PK got busy again. But Shishir had started feeling jealous now. So he went to them and took PK's case in front of them. So much for the Bachi-kuchi ijjat !

Towards the end Shishir was feeling 500 bucks too rich. So he decided to bet with PK. The bet: would Rishika know my name? The result: Rishika could only tell that my name started with V. So much for Hugo weaving's character ! A famous saying - Shishir and his money are soon parted!

From there at about 1.30 am we decided to head to Red Lights (a pub). It was closed. Then we went to Polyester. It was open but the cover charges were too exorbitant. So we decided to go to Bade Miyan ! We had all the Bade Miyan specials - the bhunas and the rolls. 

Shishir to waiter: "Arre yaar ! Mujhe Bhaida roti khana hai. Lekin mujhe Bachhe paida karna hai toh roti mein Tel jyada mat dalna. Doctor ne bola hai !" (Wonder which fertility clinic he went to!)

Over the next hour we had awesome conversation to go with the awesome food. Shishir was frequently interupted by the waiter and asked not to be too loud as people in nearby buildings were sleeping. By 3.30am we were done and tired. 

Its been a long but Galatically awesome night. Hopefully these are clear signs of things to come in the next one year !

P.s: The history of Smack D's blogs -

ISB MMX Awards

Here is Smack D's Dean list ! Thanks to quite a few people for nominating some cool awards !

1. Most over abused term - "My two cents" (say that on campus to get yourself killed)

2. Most words typed per email - Vivek J (Hands down winner ! btw his hands would have to be down if he has to type)

3. Best performance in a satire / artistically challenged - Pankaj Poddar (Any surprises?)

4. Best performance in a leadership role / Most expensive emails - MRC (1 lakh to 1 crore)

5. Best Historian - Vijeth (Mumbai blogs)

6. Helen of Troy award - Yevheniya K, for being the name that launched a thousand emails. (Need I explain)

7. Ms. Question Bank - Tanya Rawal (One more question please)

8. Mr. 10 minutes - Siddharth Negandhi (Powai to Ghatkopar)

9. Nature's boy - Hardik Jhaveri (whom nature calls on his blackberry)

10. Designated Driver's conundrum - Shouvik Sarkar (for potraying a dog as his designated driver to a suspecting cop @ Mumbai 5.0)

11. Smoked Crusader - Tom (Kabhi defeat Kabhi Gum)

12. Versatility in Restlessness - Shishir (Youngnrestless, Restless Fish/Charmer/Netowrker)

13. Byomkesh Bakshi Award - Vivek Pandey (for finding the three reason behind crimes - land, money & women)

14. Karaoke (Singer) lover - Akshay Pai (The singer is always better than the song)

15. Diet Coke Keshto - Ashwin Uppal (for messing all up after two shots of Diet Coke)

16. Discount Ninja - Jay Shah (aka Jignesh who can get a discount on anything icluding something thats free)

17. Dev D award - Parag D (for his awesome performance on Mumbai 9.0)

18. Mr. & Mrs. Smith award - Neha-Aviral Chaturvedi (oh Yeah ! The barb wire, thanks to Diet Coke Keshto, was only temporary)

19. Best friend award - Sujata D (for bringing her friend-cum-Shishir basher along for Mumbai 9.0)

20. Relentless Traveller - Rachita (Done with India !)

21. Head of ISB secret service - Mamta Saini (The Lady called M)

22. The Google paradox award - Sreejita Deb (Google gaddar - Ah yes ! she uses FB more than orkut)

23. MRC's great ISB idea award - Aditya Kulkarni (For hedging his placement)

24. Shakespeare's muse - Ritu / Reetu (two spellings for the same name ! Shakespeare asks whats in a name, She says whats in the spelling of the name)

25. Successful marketing campaign - Chalo Chennai (for the huge number of underwhelming responses)

26. FODU Award - Father of Doc updates Nikhil (aka Narnikhil who spread chaos at Pagalguy)

27. The Truck stopping Show stopper - Rishi (late night adventurist on the Lonavala highway !)

28. Chaddi Buddy / Six pack award - Pallavi (for taking the pink chaddis to Ram Sene and for developing the six pack abs on her King Kong costume)

29. Mr. Addiction - Maninder Gulati (for his addiction - to tobacco @ ITC & female models @ Fiama Di wills)

30. Mr Negotiator - Krishna Kumar aka KK (Can I re-negotiate this award too?)

31. Colonel Weed - Sandeep (Army commando-cum-Weed farmer)

32. Childhood buddy - Shweta Divecha (for being Shishir's childhood buddy)

33. Ms. Muscles - Malavika (Damn ! I couldnt manage to dodge the Gym instructor again today !)

34. Mr. Underwater Cybershot - Arjun Guha (for his underwater pics)

35. Photographical Paradox - Nitin Vishwas (the Pro photographer who hardly clicks pictures at Mumbai meets)

36. Mr. Mean Streak - Saurabh Goyal (he does have a mean streak in him ! Doesnt he ?)

37. Hedge fund buddies - PK & Amit (who plan to prosper by investing in laughing stocks as well as liquid stocks)

38. The Karate Kid - Manish Acharya (for suddenly discovering that he knew Karate)

39. Ialive award - Nishant Banore (for still staying alive despite teasing the Karate kid)

40. Ms. Nimbu Pani award - Saroni Ghosh the teetotaller ( Jamegi mehfil jab mil baithenge aap, main aur Nimbu Paani)

41. Navjot Sidhu award - Shruti Narayan (who used her infectious laughter to make us laugh at all Shishir jokes)

42. Con man's paradise - Pruthviraj Haral (Yes he is the boy who fell to the wolf cries)

43. Homer Simpson award - Given to the Junta on Facebook who actually thought that these awards are gonna be given for real at Hyderabad. (Duh ?)

44. Delli-6 award - Rishika (the brain behind the Dell deal) 

45. Mentor award - Raghav Wate (for being the first to accept me as his (tor)mentor !)

46. Bachha award - Ankur Vaish (aka Sodium for being the Bacche for UBI fellow)

47. Genda Phool award - Sweta (she loves her life too, a 25yr old, greedy, self-obsessed, competitive, ambitious, naughty one !)

48. Global ISBian - Vinit Garg (for having a blog with a global reach)

49. Khabri - Nitin Pulyani (for giving us the inside dope on ISB)

50. Destiny's child - Priyom Sarkar (for his accidents and achievements)

In case of any disputes, first take bath in ice-cold water & then shoot yourself in the butt !

Mumbai 9.5 - Enter the Waitlists !

Mumbai 9.5 happened on Wednesday 4th March at Apna dhaba, Andheri. After the grand chaos of Mumbai 9.0 where a sizeable crowd had gathered, Mumbai 9.5 was borne out of the necessity to connect better - courtesy a smaller crowd. So around 6-7 people were expected but we finally had about 14 people (Half of whom were waitlist-to-admit junta). So the spirits were high !

 

The meet began on a rather shocking note ! Discovered a species I didnt believe existed ! Enter re-applicant-cum waitlist convert no. 1: Shruti Narayan ! Shruti had managed to do the unthinkable - she not only laughed at all of Shishir's jokes (Yup ! ALL of them) but understood them at first crack ! And her infectious laugh ensured the others laughed along with her as well. That left even Shishir shocked - something he thought was not possible in his lifetime. 

We had in our midst a mystery women who would answer to the name M. You are most likely to spot her in Milan wearing Diesel branded clothes and being chased by Diesel salesman ! 

Her initial experience was good till the point the crowd mixed and she found herself sitting next to me. Food had just been served! Our conversation began as follows:

M: Anything vegetarian on the table?

Me: Yup ! 4 pcs of Nimbu and Pudina chatni !

She didnt know what hit her ! And she took a long time to recover. Hope I didnt put her off future meets !

Soon the discussion veered towards Laptops. At this point the man who answers to Gandhiji (and its derivatives) was at his best. Somebody asked him as to how one could gauge the speed of laptops ! To which he answered "You know its got a good speed if it can go from Powai to Ghatkopar in 10 mins". 

Then the debate on the best possible laptop - I proposed the Napkin ! It saved your lap, was extremely light, came in different colours & foldable into smaller sizes but unfortunately other than Pruthvi (who is a salesman's paradise) I found no takers !

Sid is Shishir's bunny i.e. Shishir can pull Sid's legs in 12 different directions at the same time (depending on Vaastu) ! All evening we had moments that were full of that.  At one point when they sat next to each other we had to clear the forks and knives from the table just in case Sid would attempt to kill Shishir. 

We also had the Angel Broker Red riding hood Neha in our midst. She was most of the time caught in the cross fire between Shishir and Sid. Poor girl was so traumatized by the experience that she was thinking twice even before uttering a word lest she got engaged in a cross-fire ! 

Shishir's childhood buddy Shweta was there. Shishir says that she is responsible for all his childhood's memories (and we all know that Shishir had a very disturbing childhood) ! 

Our Colonel Weed (Sandeep) was mostly busy plotting the next coup along with his deputy Vikram. He had arranged for the funding from M**hoot Finance for his deadly mission. 

We were joined in very late by Shishir's biggest admirer PK - for whom Shishir is nothing less than a magnet ! Wherever Shishir is present he follows - both in real world as well as the world wide web ! He was seen restlessly roaming around Apna Dhaba when Sid sat next to Shishir ! He would have almost wanted to kill Sid ! He and Amit quicky swooped on the group with the hedge fund idea ! And they found takers ! They invested my money in the laughing stocks ! I could now see their future:

Amit's enthusiasm was understandable given his exposure to childhood failytales.

We also had Maninder Gulati in our midst who was webcasting our meet on the net ! He told us about his years at ITC where he started out in the tobacco division but had to shift after he got addicted to it. Then he was enjoying at Product development for Fiama Di Wills where he would test the products on female models - a very much hands-on approach. Unfortunately fearing a s**ual harassment case he fled to where he was today ! 

We also had the 2nd Parag (Panjwani) in the group who was almost on a maun vrat ! He reminded me of a Blockbuster Kannada movie called "Tirupati" whose tagline was "When God is silent, he is violent" ! True to his name he uttered only Paanch Vaani during the entire evening. A quick message from our sponsorers -

The meet was a lot of fun with jokes and puns flying all over ! 

For all the guys/gals of other cities, the secret behind the successful Mumbai meets:

Try it and see the difference !