The Weekend before the Holocaust !

Waking up on a Saturday morning is always special. Its weekend time ! But waking up this Saturday was different. The tension in the air was so thick that you could actually cut it with a knife. In fact I saw Neha Chaturvedi doing that early in the morning. She said something to Aviral, which as per conventions of marital conversations was not to be agreed upon unless they had a good argument about it. Later I heard that Neha wanted to hire a maid for cutting this tension in the air. So as happens in all events of Marital importance Aviral had to bow down to Neha. Backstage reports suggest a foreign hand in all this - specifically a hand from Chicago. Most likely the dreaded "Maggi" couple Arpit / Pankhti were behind all this.

I sat and wondered what it was. Was a holocaust predicted ? Everybody in campus seemed to behave as if there was no life after this weekend. Some people had packed and left for nearby places the evening before. For all I know that our CORE terms start after this weekend. Was this a deliberate ploy to simply hype things up so that we could show off to the outside world that we were in a rigorous One-year MBA progarm or was it actually going to be that way ? Only time has the answers. ISB junta's reaction was to advertise the hype using Facebook status messages.  

Mr. Diet Coke Keshto woke up today morning on the wrong side of the bed. He suddenly started feeling sick. Partly because he realised that his life was moving too fast and his hormones were moving faster. He got so nervous about statistics that he forgot his own vital statistics.  So he decided to give "Section - A" meet a miss. But at the breakfast table he had a heart transplant and decided to attend the "Lights and Sound" show at Golconda. I scanned through his breakfast and found nothing that could have triggered such irrational decision. Maybe the beautiful ambience of Goel did this to him. By the way I handed him a awesome Stats book just to calm down any nerves. 

Mr. Jiggy Shah probably dreamt about all this. So to cheer Mr. D.C. Keshto he wore a light pink shirt and bermuda garnished by a Nike cap. That reminded Mr. Zorro of his days in the Mexican prisons where they used to play Pinata wherein the Pony would be dressed in pink. If that didnt cheer Mr. DCK, even a hair transplant wouldnt. By evening Mr. DCK decided to transform as he had to go out to the section meet. He hit the gym, built some solid muscles even on his nose. He was now Rambo. Soon he headed to his room and took out Chopsticks. Chopsticks ?? To comb his hair. He was now truly Mr. Chopstick Rambo ! If he stands for any election, we all know what his symbol will be.

Since we didnt want to take chances with the Holocaust prediction we had planned to step out late in the night for a midnight buffet to OHRIS.  Mr. Restless was in his full spirits even before he had gulped down a single drop of spirit. He wanted to 'fly' on his bike. You tend get that feeling once you cant thrash other people's Facebook walls enough. To compensate for the shortfall in the virtual space, he was trying to make it up by talking trash on the streets. 

Mr. Zorro was feeling the Latino heat so started driving real fast on his bike. Ms. Nimbu Paani had to constantly stretch out her hand to create some Aerodynamic resistance and reduce the speed of the bike.  Sir Punter Pandey was thoroughly enjoying his bike ride, so did his pillion rider Mr. Vibhor. At one point they bonded so well that they were doing "Yeh dosti" (Sholay) steps on their bike. After their superlative performance you can now call the song "Yeh Dostana". Mr. Vijay Ramakrishnan decided to be the Mr. TwentyTun for the night but our Daroga Chacha in Khadi uniform did not seem to be appreciative of it. So they fined him Rs. 200 /-

Soon we were at the OHRIS. But the place was full and we were hungry so we decided to get into the buffet and eat standing. Mr. Nitin Vishwas and I didnt even bother taking the plates. We started to sample stright out of the buffet stand using just our forks. Mr. Rangeen, however, didnt have anything as OHRIS did not have anything "Namkeen" for this "Shaukeen". He also faced some serious issues with the manager who tried to woo Mr. Rangeen with a bowl of vegetable biryani. And there was no Hari Manjari aka Beero (Beer + Paro) to save him from another Vaishi Dareenda ! So stepped in the Ace photographer Nitin. Mr. Nitin Vishwas had his Value engineered L&T Cranes come and pick up the manager and put him in the thrash box. Mr. Rangeen had been saved again ! Nitin Vishwas's trip to the toilet had enlightened him as to what to expect in this place.

Mr. Punter Pandey was sensing that some Gabbar Singh was at work at OHRIS and would have put some Jhulab ki Goli in his food. This was why he was thinking thrice before every morsel that he ate (which included smelling the dish). Vibhor could see only Rajnikant ice-creams (a hyper-tall slabs of ice-cream with all sorts of flavours).  He told the waiter "Enna Rascala, I having the spoon ! Do you having the ice-cream? If nobody cant ... Vibhorkant " Looking at the ambience, Niranjan thought he was at McDonalds, Sydney. So he started ordering Aussie dishes ! But all he got was blank stares and puzzled looks. We also came to know how YouTube has the cool and funny videos of common people. We got a live demo from Sreejita who used her charm over the staff there. They were dazed and feeling drunk (because Sree ke aankhon mein tha nasha). Its only when you are dazed or drunk you do really funny (read stupid) stuff. 

Shouvik didnt speak much as he constantly had his mouth stuffed with a different kind of Biryani every 5 minutes. Anyways since he couldnt manage the 'diversity' that he so badly needed, he kept his mouth shut lest he attract any undue comments / taunts from the "Diversity-starved". Chote Sarkar, we now know what your next poem is likely to be. A sample extract will read as:

Mr. Restless to the left. Mr. Vishwas to the right

Yesterday I missed the ladies, Today I am gonna fight.

Soon we wound up. The people in the Chaturvedi Benz thought that this was the golden opportunity to get rid of Mr. Restless as well as me in one go since both of us were on the same bike and didnt know the way back. But their strategy had a loophole. They didnt count on Mr. Punter Pandey & Mr. Vibhor also getting lost and managing to find us. What luck ! So all of us managed to return back to the Campus. Nature's law buddy : Garbage Out, Garbage In !

Poison Night & ISB Vellapanti Summit

If you thought that ISBians only knew how to study hard, think again, they party harder and have the most stimulating discussions known to humanity.

The other night a significant number of us decided to venture out of the Campus in search of some nocturnal pleasures before the Core term grind hit us. We had planned to go to COCO's in Jubilee Hills for a awesome night out. The place 'rocked' in the sense that the seating area was full of Rocks, pebbles and gravels. ISB truly rocks. I could see Section G guys / gals putting some of the rocks in their pockets. Parag D seemed to have brought his laptop bag only for that. As you might have guessed he was yet to get over the 'ISB Rocks' joke that his section had performed on Talent Nite. Hope he is at peace now. 

Reetu seemed to be very interested in the guy who was playing the music that evening. She was so smitten that she saw "Strawberries" everywhere. She now wanted to be a Strawberry farmer. Sindhu seemed to have put management to the back of the mind while she took census of all the sloppy and stingy people she saw. Hope she could get the count right in the dark. Rachita was there too though I havent seen her for a long long time and even this evening couldnt see her because it was too dark. But yes I heard her atleast if thats any consolation. In no time the place was full, in fact it was so crowded that Aviral & Neha couldnt even get down from their car downstairs and had to go back to the campus and drink away the sorrows in the comforts of their plush mansion on the ISB campus. So much for our management skills. I hear that back at their place, Nitin Vishwas got tipsy and wanted to shoot some pictures. Since he (as usual) didnt have his camera along with him decided to get innovative. Dont know how that went.

Back there at the Jubilee Hills, the inevitable happened and the whole gang split into multiple small groups. Our small group consisting of Ashwin Rambo, Hardik Rangeen, Hari Manjari, Lisa (pronounced as Lease-aaaa not Lee-zaaa), Mr. Class of TwentyTun Rishi (Doctor has asked him to drink Beer instead of water), 'Mobile' Innu (I always see her with the mobile glued to her ear ! Poor thing ! Who must have done this to her ? Cant have happened by birth !), Charlie's three married angels - Spriha, Soniya and Malavika, Kheer-ranjha Manish, Fluffy Ghosh and our own home-grown Jigniya Shah headed to "Poison" the pub. Being "ISB" definitely has its advantages in the outside world. The pub was not allowing any stag entry but waived off the requirement if you are Mr. ISB. So there we were ! But as soon as they saw me and Jiggy enter they immediately put up a warning sign on the dance floor.

At the pub there were other people too. One of the guys started hitting on Hardik. Hardik being very much the "straight" guy was feeling too awkward and embrassed. Thats were Hari Manjari stepped in with her Kung Fu credentials and what followed was an intense dishum-dishum Kung Fu panda style. Just when Manjari was losing the plot, the Shahs (Abhi & Jiggy) & Zorro started doing the latino-jiggy dance (Gujju freestyle) which distracted the other guy which was when Manjari landed the killer kick - straight to the jaw. The guy had to be admitted to Apollo. Manjari had won but not without paying a price - the final kick to the jaw landed very weirdly which resulted in major damages to her feet. The Doctor prescribed her to use the local Ferrari. She went for the driver's test but failed miserably. So they handed her a Learner's license and an ambassador instead of the coveted Ferrari. Last heard she was taking lessons from Tanya Schumacher.   

Today at Lunch we had the flagship ISB Vellapanti Summit outside 'The Cafe'. We had a Pav Bhaji fest on the table thanks to the foresight of Mr. TwentyTun. Rangeen used some of the Statistical tools that he was taught in class and combined it with some Quant funda given by Shouvik to come up with a magic order of 'extra' Pav. So if any of these guys are in your study group and have a case-study to do then do not trust these specific skills-sets that there outstanding students of ISB have. We also had Mr. Ashwin Rambo who has hit the gym so hard that he has grown muscles even on his ear lobes. Ms. Lisa (refer to pronounciation above & who was temporarily engaged to Mr. Mimoh ) was arguing as to how great food in Kolkata was compared to Mumbai. But she missed the irony that the Mumbaikars sitting on the table were looking well-fed while she was the only one who looked starved. I guess she must have only tasted the great Kolkata food but never eaten it.

Mr. Pankaj Poddar seemed to be in interrogatory mode. He wanted names and he wanted them fast. He was looking for those who had mailed the Core term Profs with their queries. The punishment in store is nothing less than capital. So all you loons who are guilty of this, this is your chance to run away as far as possible and hide yourself in the jungles because Mr. Poddar is coming to get you. This is the CLUB that you are most like to get.

The summit had to come to an premature end as the second half classes were about to begin.

Section Gyan : B

579 people cannot be taught together under the same roof unless ofcourse you want a parallel Parliament. Since ISB comes across to me as a peace-loving institute they have divided us into 8 sections lettered from "A" to "H". I was put in B.

 

Human beings like fighting for their identity and like to fight others for establishing the supremacy of their identity. So to spice up the life at ISB each section tries to create a identity of its own : Section Chants, Mascots etc. To establish their supremacy they have Section Points. In short its a adrenaline junkie's paradise. And things get only better if you have 579 capable and enthusiastic junta.  

We also had a Section Gyan session by the Alums. To break the ice we had a intro session where we need to give our name, an adjective & wackiest incident. A lot of interesting introductions came out the session. We had a Mr. XYZ who introduced himself as "The Game" XYZ but ended up pronouncing it as "The Gay" XYZ. When you do that in front of 75 smart people, you are bound to get smart-alec jokes. But he only compunded his misery when he narrated his wackiest incident wherein he had hit on a 'cute' Sardar. Before he could further dig his grave he was made to sit down. We also had Ms. McKakesy who has the talent to cut any given cake into numerous equal pieces. Adding colour to the whole introduction we also had Mr. Rangeen doing it his style. He was also courteous enough to acknowledge my role in publicizing his "Rangeen" lifestyle. Lady M keeping in tune with her mysterious ways revealed that she got her Espionage training by swimming in the gutter. Similarly there was one more lady who narrated her Dharavi experience where she earned her first fifty bucks after which she saw a lucrative career in that but lacked an MBA degree to pursue it. The stories are endless.

Section Chants hardly took any time. After some initial resistance, we decided to stick to our legacy Chant "B de patte, Chak de fatte !" which we felt was growing on us by the minute. We ended the session by cutting the cake in advance celebrations of a chap's birthday. Ms. McKakesy did the honours by cutting the cakes into equal pieces after our poor chap had it smeared on his face. We ended the session by chanting the legacy chant. And alums were graceful enough to remind us about the ego behind the section points.

The other section chants were as follows:

1. A - Aala re aala 'A' aala (Aala in Marathi is coming but they have no clue as to where they are even going)

2. C - Sec C (pronounces Sexy) - and thats not cliche ?

3. D - Go D Go D (but specify where to )

4. E - Rock E (they love dogs ! Rocky, Moti etc etc )

5. F - 4-3-2-1 Section F is number one (most innovative one)

6. G - Eh G oh G , here we go ji (again a confused aatma ki pukaar)

7. H - H H Hurray !! (Their mamma's must be proud of them)

The war for Section Points was on ! 

In the beginning

One in a new crowd of beautiful people. Is this one like any other random bunch? Despite the selection criteria, are there just one of every kind anyway - a representative for every philosophy of life, each with a different answer to the same question? It has always been so till now and I suspect it will be even here.

There isn’t much one can say having known people only for a few days. But impressions are being formed in every mind. There are more crowds than loners but some crowds seem lonely too, their conversation so forced that it radiates desperation.

Will there be tolerance for those who don’t feel the need for speed? Or will it be a cruel race to the finish line, destroying hope and will in the process? Will anyone hate the time to come, realizing this isn't the right fit - that the dream itself was false, though they made it come true.

There is so much noise all around. So many vying for attention. So many trying new things – will they like who they become? A classmate commented that things seemed so plastic and everyone seems so nice. Are they? Every logic presented and its completely opposite argument seems perfectly reasonable to me now.

Will the smiles be genuine always? Will conversations be born out of interest? Will we pat each other on the back and pull each other up to the mark? Or will that be too heavy a burden and all we can do is to try and get there ourselves?

What will it be in the end?

ISB - The time that flew by….

Finally a chance to sit at my lappy and blog. Nice nostalgic feeling. A little difference is that this time I am writing from a class rather than my workplace. Some habits never change :P. ~10 days at campus and we all have realized that there is storm that’s awaiting for us. The current week is perhaps the lightest in the foreseeable future. Few posts have been written by fellow classmates on different activities till w and I just intend to capture a brief snapshot of what all went by till now. Given the sheer amount of information shared and activities that happened, I would not be surprised if I just end up writing less than less than 10% of the whole story.

Registration Day
It all started on 11th April. Around 600 people burst into ISB Campus. Numerous dreams turned true. I checked into my room & awww welll, Awesome was the word I said. Then, the Recreation center and we all got out first taste of ISB life – A huge long circled LINE!! What the heck, do I have stand here for 2 hours. But then it was enticing to stand in that line and talk to all new people around. Networking, you know! Registration day went by with further hiccups and was soon over. Late in the evening, Dean addressed the Class of 2010 and gave an inspiring speech. The day concluded there.

Orientation Week – The Week that went by…..
It’s cruel to categorize this thing into a week. Tell me, how the heck can you fit in the following in one week:

25+ different presentations
Treasure Hunt Competitions
Club Meetings and Informal Sessions
4 parties that last whole night long
Beer Guzzling competitions
Talent Night Competitions
Team Building Activities
Case Studies and our first introduction to Class Participation (CP), Arbit CP & Desperate CP :P
Alumni Gyan Sessions
Speaker Series
Section Gyan
100s of Section chants – ROCK – EEEEEEEEE!!
That Damm “Networking” with 600+ people

Something is chronologically wrong with it. The activities in the whole week along with introducing yourself 50+ times a day, sometimes to the same person with whom you shared your contact info sometime back, was one of the finest experiences of my life till now. Of course this also led to a consensus that “Networking” is most abused word on campus. Refer to SAI’s post below. (If any of your friend just joined ISB Class of 2010, call him/her up and mention Networking somewhere. You will feel it from his/her response :P). On a serious note, I have learnt that ISB you are in constant mode of sacrifice. You like something, you do it. Don’t just hope to be everywhere. As a part of talent night competition we have prepared a pictorial prezo on this week and I shall soon be uploading the same on youtube.

Pre – Term - Here we are now!

Acads are picking up in the current week. Most of us are in hangover of the O’ Week and we soon realize our Accounting prof. is already done with Balance Sheet concepts and we have an assignment at hand. That’s the pace we got to get used to now. I have taken Business Stats and Accounting. Here is my take on

Accounting: - The class and the professor are pretty cool. Pretty good subject to learn and I am pretty happy with my decision to take this course.

Business Stats:- There are few things to pick up that may possibly be used in future. Further, the class gives people more opportunities to "Network :P“

Today, I am looking forward for the first CEO speech on campus – something I was looking forward to at ISB – Mr. Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs. I will update soon on the same. That’s all for now. The best I could succinctly capture. It’s impossible to pen down the spirit, the euphoria, the budding aspirations, and the insights floating around. You got to be at ISB to catch that. That’s why ISB… ROCKS!!!!!

Of dunkings, ADs and drunken orgies

ADs? Huh? What are ADs you say? With people being overwhelmed with so many abbreviations over the last 10 days what with so many clubs/initiatives and all, heres another one I discovered yesterday night.

AD = Arbit Dunking

Dunkings are a long established tradition and form an integral part of life at ISB. Many celebrations end with a dunking in the pool, with a dunk on birthdays being mandatory of course. Section E had one such dunking yesterday, with many people from E and sections as well turning up to wish the birthday girl. To her credit, she was a sport and volunteered to be dunked, THRICE! The birthday girl was followed into the pool by her cousin whos co-incidentally in the same batch.
While this was all well and fine, here is where the fun started. A call went up for her study group, but none were found. And this is where AD comes in. How this works is: Someone (anyone?) shouts a name from the back. If sufficiently popular, the chant goes up, and before the person can even realise whats happening, his belt/shoes/wallet/cell are off and hes being swung by four people till.....................

SPLASH!

P.S., who had become the first victim of AD the last time, was nowhere to be found! The section was apparently so enthu about the whole thing that 2 more people ended up being dunked. Some of those doing the actual swinging/dunking were even found trying to 'network' with the guy they had just dunked without even knowing who it was :P
It was a fun night overall. The presence of 3 cakes ensured that there was enough to go around both for smearing as well as for eating. Some of the dunked guys were later seen trying to get others into the pool (they no longer have anything to lose ;)) as well.

EXTRA CAKE!!!!!!!

All in all a very fun night. On the way back I was informed that a wild boar and even a monkey had been spotted in the student villages. I dont know whether its a part of the 'diversity' thing we have going on here or whether its just a story started by guys to be able to walk girls home :P

This being my first post on the mmx blog, please skip/ignore any errors in convention I may have made. Even better, mail me and let me know about it! Till next time.....

PS: For those looking for stuff on the 'drunken orgies', that was just to get the page hits up :P

What's in a name?

Me: Hi! Have we met? I am Sai.
Him: Abe Sai... Doon kya kaan ke neeche ek...

I've had enough of this and I can't even recall how many times I've got myself into soup this way. It's well established across all 2010 students that I am a retard when it comes to remembering names and faces. (I hope I am not classified as a retard in other areas). After a lot of effort, I think I can now barely recognize my study-group-mates. Forget about all the 579 students, I think it would be a great achievement for me if I can recall the names of everyone in my section.

Take a look at this interesting data for the class of 2010 - This analysis was inspired by my statistics pre-term course.

5 Abhinavs
11 Abhisheks
5 Adityas
9 Amits
12 Gauravs
6 Rahuls
6 Rohits
11 Saurabhs (including 1 Sorabh)
6 Swethas (and we have multiple spellings to deal with)
9 Viveks

These results are staggering and If I have my Stats concepts right, the mode of this population is ‘Gaurav’. Please note that I did not include many names that were shared by four people and less.

How do I deal with this? I’ve been mugging up the photo-directory of all students circulated to us yesterday. But I obviously didn’t get anywhere.

Is this some nasty joke played by all parents on this pour soul of mine? Parents go through a lot of effort in giving their children the best childhood they can provide. I am sure everybody agrees it involves creative thinking. Then why oh why did they cut-down on their creative juices when it’s time to name their precious kid? Why did they do this to me?

An advice to future parents though... name your kids one of the above, and the probability of them making it to ISB will be dramatically increased!

I intend to register for an “Independent study” to figure out the best way to remember 579 names. Is there anyone out there who wants to join me in this study?

No. I can’t recall your name…

Orientation Blues

As I stand here and begin to speak
I can feel my knees growing weak.
It isnt stage fright, it isnt arthritis,
It’s this wretched little verse, I hope you like this.

Engineers and acountants, doctors and lawyers,
Running around for treasure, like little Tom Sawyers.
Was that a cute sight? I really wouldn’t know.
I was busy getting sunburnt, like a little Jamaican ‘bro.

I’m already four shades darker, just like the rest of you.
My mother would’ve cried, if only mama knew.
They call this Orientation Week? Felt more like boot camp,
My body’s been steamrolled, and armpit’s still damp.

Queues to the left of me, queues to the right.
I didn’t get Goel’s chicken yesterday, today I’ll fight.
A queue for coffee, a coffee in the loo,
And while my bladder’s on overdrive, I’, saying: “Nice to meet you.”

Sombre, serious, funny guys, now they’re all friends of mine,
As for the ladies, I have to admit, they’re really, really fine.
It’s been a tough week, will I find what I seek, when it’s time to pull up my socks?
Recession, regression, standard deviation notwithstanding, ISB well and truly rocks.

'O'-Week : Treasure Hunt and Party no. 1

April 12th

Today was Day 1 of what History would remember as an endless week. We had been divided on Sectional lines and to ensure that there was no dearth in motivation we were enticed by the whole notion of Section points. 

The first half of the day was full of powerpoint presentations by whole lot of people. For people like me who are not used to sitting at one place for long, this was a welcome practice session. Also I also saw a practical demonstration of all possible CPs. One of them was so shitty that people gave him a standing ovation at the end of it. I now propose that we put up the following sign outside every lecture theatre.

Post-Lunch session we had the treasure hunt. I got to meet my study group which needless to say consisted of diversity - a ISB hallmark. We had a CA from World bank, Science honours graduate working in Sales & Marketing at HUL & an Engineer from Tata Bluescope Steel. The fifth member of the group was missing. But I am sure he would only add diversity.

Well the CA and me got along well and made a awesome plan. Basically I would spare him the PJs and he would in turn help me take over the world. How ? Well he works in the loan disbursement department and for those of you who had your Introductory Accounting class would know Survival = Cash and for nations across the world Cash = World Bank loan money. So by controlling loans I will indirectly have control over these hapless nations. Tips learnt from UBI should be helpful I guess ! 

Soon we were joined by the corresponding A - Batch. Of them Nikhil seemed to be very eager as he had some serious Karma to wash off for the pandemonium he caused on Pagal guy with his Doc Update theory. He stood on his head for quite sometime hoping that the blood gushing down to his head would wash off the memories. Diganta seemed to be real thirsty as he gulped down that big bottle of Kingfisher Beer at one of the tasks in one shot. No wonder he completed all the other tasks in high spirits. I guess Manas was hoping that he atleast share a sip. Atleast being a CA he had accounted for it. Pallavi was worried that this would really affect her daily scheduled wine-tasting sessions and that the beer would spoil the taste. Aastha Bajaj spent the entire treasure hunt wishing she was connected to the Bajajs' of Bajaj Auto which would have helped us commute from one corner of the campus to another faster and will less fatigue. Vishakha knew quite a few things around the campus thanks to her husband who showed her all the possible hideouts just in case we got attacked by the Nazis. Preeti was so fed up of me that she went off with my T-shirt after I got dunked in the pool. I walked topless from the Recreation centre to my SV showing off my 6-in-1 pack abs and natural biceps. One of the women who was probably enjoying her evening walk (till then) puked too.

The Treasure hunt also saw the birth of ISB's very own Michelle Schumacherni in rather unfortunate circumstances though. Others watched in daze while the Local ferrari vroomed around the campus. To add the nitro boost, most people seemed more interested in the Ferrari than the injured driver. 

After I reached my SV I quickly took a refreshing shower and headed to Aviral's plush flat (disguised as a studio apartment) where we were blessed with the presence of quite a few people. Niranjan - the youngest refree in a Olympic final - told us that he took to refreeing as he wanted officiate women's beach volleyballs and apply sun tan on the players. But the governing body tricked him into the Olympics. Mr. Natwark Lal aka Shishir shared with us that adding 300 ml of water to 100 ml of Orange juice and then having a biscuit dipped in it really enhances Restlessness. Jay decided to act like those toys which did something when you pulled on a string. So whenever someone pulled his leg, he would simply laugh. After seeing the relentless slaughter around her, Saroni quickly figured out the best possible strategy was stay put and stay quiet. Ashwin had shared on numerous times that he wanted to do different things on the campus but the only different thing he did in the evening was to switch from Diet Coke to Appy Fizz. Soon we headed to the party.

There was a queue here too - this time at the Booze counter but guess who beat the queue and was there before anybody else - Resltess Fish. Later that evening even I went to the Bartender and asked him for a Coke - Large and 'On the Rocks' which would explain why he didnt serve me again the entire evening. Later I caught hold of another bartender and asked him for a Large Coke which I had Neat. Pankaj Poddar couldnt see all this, he so wished that he went blind before he could even see any of this. I guess fortune only favours the brave and not the comedians. There were lot of people on the dance party. At one point there were so many people on the dance floor that I could hear "Sorry" more than the music. Whoever shaked a leg or waved his hand hit about 4 people (atleast). I feel sorry for those who got hit below the belt. But that didnt down the spirits. Blow after blow people were up, dancing more intense than ever. By about 4.30 am quite a significant number of people left before the sunrise caught and burnt them. A few people like me were up for the challenge though. We wanted to beat the 6.30 am record mark made by Co2009.

We danced but the DJ packed up by 6am just after sunrise. But we were 6 of us who were giving company to each other. First we had the extremely talented (and drunk) Adarsh demonstrating his awesome singing talent. By the time he was done it was 6.20am and now people were beginning to feel sleepy. But I saved the morning by chipping with a few PJs which knocked the sleep out of  Bharadwaj R, Nikethana & Preeti Sood. I am sure they would have nightmares when they would have caught up with sleep. Shishir was too seasoned and too drunk for the PJs to hit him. He was extremely determined to beat the 6.30am mark. And when we crossed it he messaged Jacob (Alum - Co2009) that the record was now beaten. We finally split at 7am. Later we came to know that there were section points for being the Last Man standing. So hurray ! I had just got the opening points for my Section viz. B. 

There were ample number of indicators to tell everyone that year ahead was going to one hell of a roller coaster ride ! So are you ready to begin ?

'O' - Week: Day Zero @ Ground Zero

Well Ladies and gentleman, the cat is finally out of the bag ! 570 people have become The ISB on April 11th. To ensure the smooth transition from Joblessness  to Timelessness we have the Orientation week aka 'O'-week wherein the outgoing class (Class of 2009) ushers in the new class (Class of 2010 i.e us) through a varied range of activities. 

Let me take you through the week in my Ishtyle:

April 11th

This was the beginning of welcome ceremony @ ISB. I checked into my SV viz. SV4 [latest erection on campus] and headed to the recreation centre. After finishing through with the well-structured process I was finally registered as ISB student at 11am. April 11th also saw the birth of the infamous Queuing theory i.e. where there is a will there is a way and where there is a way there is a que ! To an outsider it looked like the que for Indian Idol auditions but when 600 people are registering on a single day you gotta expect a que. One of the que jumpers at the bank loan counter nearly got clobbered ! In fact there was a huge queue outside the toilets as well.

In the evening we had the Dean's address who declared us as the ISB. Mr. Restless got excited and even before he realized he had started shaking a leg. Then we had the welcome dinner. Again a Que. But me being me preferred to hit the desert counter and boy didnt the Carrot Halwa justify my 'strategy'. As for the dinner, I must not have been particularly hungry as I went in the Dinner line but came out with only the Papad in my plate. The evening also saw a lot of people who were plain attention seekers choosing to distract rather than attract attention.

Meanwhile Saurabh Goyal walked upto me but I let him come close after I was sure he wasnt carrying a Fork to stab me after what I had done to him on Yahoo Groups ! During the entire course of the evening  I caught up with a lot of people whom I had traumatized in Mumbai or over Yahoo groups or Facebook.  Shouvik understood the nuances of missing a train when one's carrying a huge baggage. Hardik was out looking for people he had bonded / challenged in the past months. Shishir was wondering as to where and how he can go about in his new role as Mr. Natwork Lal. 

Colonel Sandeep Muthoot was wondering as to how he could hide his paunch. Ashwin was flaggergasted to not see a counter for diet coke. Jay Shah was elated on learning that ISB already had a wine club but that Khushi turned into a Gham when he found out that places near ISB didnt serve wine. PK (after shedding the multi-layer personality driven clothes he wore to the airport in the morning) was wondering if it was fate that put him in SV1 where there is no 'diversity' that he sought. 

Aishwarya seemed to be in high spirits, afterall it was the beginning of no-stalking days in her life. Mamta aka Lady M was back to her mysterious ways while Pranjal double checked anything I offered her (water, advice and jokes) since she didnt want history of 'Vodka' to repeat itself. Parag D (or now Swamy D) as usual was hunting for his D-spot where he could park his ass and dive away from wine, women and glory. Rishi was his usual self, Bollywood hunk, looking down to run down any idiot or trouble maker with his little Romeo. Siddharth Negandhi was trying to distinguish himself from all the other Siddharths through Negandhigiri. Pruthvi was contemplating the whole evening whether to eat the salad first or the Papad which I solved by eating the Papad off his plate.

After that we had a mini-booze party in front of SV3 and no prizes for guessing which Restless character was the order taker. Sai Pondalur was trying real hard to get an image-makeover from a white-underwear hater cum Shishir basher. He ended up pitching his tent outside SV3. Saroni (pronounced as Sha-roni) decided to a honorary engineer and demonstrate entropy (chaos and restlessness) i.e. she was so hyper-excited about her new independent life that I doubt if she could manage to fall asleep that night. Soon a lot of people joined in but I was feeling too tired so decided to call it a day. Diet Coke Keshto Ashwin decided to give me company since we lived in the same SV.

It was a long and tiring day for sure but not without the usual share of thrills and frills. An exciting year awaited us !

NEXT: Treasure Hunt and the First Party !

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H

After reading through the countless (and exceedingly hilarious) X.0 versions of Mumbai meets I was almost hoping to walk into chants of "Smack-Deee... Smack D" as I would enter the campus. Is it surprising then dear watson that the bloke turned out to be the most gentle, and chweet and chubby guys you'd ever come across !! Or maybe my opinion may change yet again as he unravels over the next few weeks.
Time sure flies. Once upon a not-so-distant time we were all in the same boat with the same "fears and expectations", but today how mercilessly the world has divided us into sections and study groups gunning for each other's necks (healthy competition ? I don't think so). And all that to what avail ? When the result is such a foregone conclusion - 4-3-2-1, section F is number 1 - and yet it is so sad to see 7 other sections trying to change the inevitable.
For the casual reader who might stray into these fjords someday, Co2010 is "divided" into 8 sections creatively labelled A to H. We have our chants (of which the best of-course is 4-3-2-1, section F is number 1 !!) and our traditions (sans G and H of course which are NK(s)OTB)
We fight in the fields chasing balls, we fight in the khemka audi over quizzes and we fight over all forms of art trying to prove we (section {Xi}) are the best...
Its been a joyride so far. After this O-week, there is a week of pre-term, then 6 weeks of term and then another 7 such terms. Going by the "gyan" that's been downloaded onto us in these 6 days, we would all probably hate the fact that the earth takes just 24 hours for a full rotation over the next one year !!
anyways, a big disclaimer for all reading this blog - you can never get the full picture of what ISB is just by reading blogs; coz people who really do the cool stuff on campus, very rarely blog ! So only hope for all you non-ISBians out there is to try and get to ISB campus, preferably as a full time student, and experience the zing from within.
More, later... the light in my student village (4) has already gone on-and-off 4 times and I want to be deep in sleep by the time it happens for the 5th time !! (teething troubles they say, duh !!)

ISB meet at "God only knows where"

One of the million mottos of ISB-MMX is this

A bloggers words will not go in vain.

Hari's words did not go in vain. An ISB meet has to happen at "God only knows where else" and that's exactly what happened on April 1st, a day before the blog-post was written.

Subhen and I met up at Shirdi, a place that's a perfect fit for the adjective God only knows where. After several discussions over email and phone, we arranged to take up the challenge of putting faces to names. Subhen had landed from Singapore along with his family and 110kg of "goodies". I was back from the US a month ago, and chilling out in the hot Hyderabad sun. We couldn't think of a better place to meet up than Shirdi. Although we didn't discuss sensitive topics like what our initial impressions at seeing each other were, we did discuss quite a bit about a wide range of topics ranging from the weather at Singapore to the concerts I've been to in the US.

In other news, we're got exactly one more week to kill before we all touch-down on the ISB tarmac in our favorite business jets. And hopefully, we'll have something to talk about in a year's time from now.

The Mysore ISB Meet

Turns out that there have been consistent meets happening on a periodic basis among the admits of the class of 2010, primarily because they want to know more and interact substantially with their peers who will be spending a whole year with them, and secondly and more importantly because everyone is absolutely jobless.

Yes, you can't continue working till the eleventh hour, shut off your monitor, hand in your ID card and walk straight to the airport / train station with your baggage and hit the ground running in Hyderabad. Or maybe you can, since I speak for mere mortals such as yours truly. I've discovered lots of crazy strange things about the fun interesting people here and I wouldn't rule out people who might conform to this scenario that I just dished out.

Anyway, for those not part of the class of 2010 reading this blog hoping you can make it, there is some hope if you are from a small /medium city as well, and your application will not be rejected because you're not cosmopolitan enough. Do take care, however, not to have a couple of cosmopolitans before you head for interview, in any case.

So, the ISB junta in Mysore decided to have a meet-up, to mirror the ones that their fellow batchmates were having in places like New York, Singapore, New Delhi, Old Delhi, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and God only knows where else.

However, for the sake of brevity, the Mysoreans chose not to spam the already flooded yahoo group with more garbled mails, and hence phone was the chosen medium of contact. Zero fanfare was the motto of this ecclectic group of people.

Of course, it is relevant here to mention that the ISB Mysore meet comprised of two people, Nitin Vishwas and yours truly, even though we've masterfully managed to infiltrate the Mumbai / Bangalore / Pune groups on occasion just for kicks.

As is the norm in every meeting, we did discuss loans, laptops and course work for exactly 33 seconds, but some of it was drowned out since I was sneezing. The rest of the evening was spent in discussing cocktails and movies and music and books and travel, basically all the things we are going to miss a lot when we're on campus.

If there are people from around Mysore who want to hold another meet-up here, please do drop in a mail to both Nitin and me, and we'll make sure we're there in a jiffy. Temporary unemployment does have its advantages you see.

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!