Saturday, March 26, 2011

The 9 month Nemesis

At wimwi, you live in analogies. If you look at the 9 months you spent as PGP1 and the 9 odd months in gestation, you beat thousands of competitors to be where you are, yet you feel out of place in the womb. Slowly, you settle, the size of the Globe bulges and the pain increases. And then at the end of 9 months, there is something called 'LIFE'. The PGP1 Survivor.

Strange it is how a place changes you faster than the speed at which you adopt it. And hence you are left asking yourself Why after you have done it. This place has Forever:
  • Changed the way I express my appreciation
  • Changed the way I consume and prepare Juices
  • Changed the speed with which I turn the pages
  • Changed the speed with which I walk on grass and concrete
  • Changed the way I express my words(Read: Bullet Points)

When I look back I see, some of my most cherished moments have a time stamp of xx:59:59 and some of the most humorous moments had a GPS Location: classroom. Attendance norms ensured it was almost always filled, and like one professor says, it is saturated with knowledge, because only the most talented students enter and when they leave they know nothing. True story.

Time flew really fast. Time flew a full cycle. At about this time last year, done with the interviews, I was busy reading random blogs by seniors about life at iim-x(x is a variable and not a city in the series of newly installed iim's), anxiously waiting for updates on Pagalguy, enjoying x versus y fights, taking advice from biased and unbiased mentors....

And it's almost time to welcome a new batch of Fachhas. On any day, you will be handling no less than a few millions of dollars of company's assets. On some days, you would go speechless, for you would have exhausted all your words in an over-night assignment. On some sundays, all you do is refresh your facebook page. On yet another, you are busy surveying people for a project.

On one No moon day, you might be hell-busy mixing colors to win a Rangoli competition. On yet another, in Prof's words, busy torturing data trying to get it confess something. On some 14th, you might stand embarrassed, with dear friends deciding to play a prank on your crush. On yet another, you might be giving a quiz, unannounced, unconvinced, unsure and unable.

PGP-1 changes your name forever and literally teaches you how to EXCEL. PGP-1 changes the time you sleep, the food you eat and the bare minimums you need. PGP-1 helps you understand your potential. Helps you calculate your modulus of elasticity.(Engineers Read: makes you realize how much you can stretch and yet return back to original state.) PGP1 ensures that every word written on this blog makes sense as you read it.

. . . . . . . . . When I look at my womb for 9 months, I see that the chairs were right there throughout. Every year a few feet sit together. At the end of the year they part ways. Very rarely are twins born. Very rarely are triplets born. Very rarely is life going to be as safe as the womb and as cosy as the room. Very rarely is the same experience relived.

The closest way any to relive them will be to read, like and comment on the incoming fachha's status updates and custom messages as they travel along these 9 wonderful months of Life. :|

Friday, March 11, 2011

Eyes Into Eyes. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Yet to Break the Ice. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
A Hidden Glance. A Guise. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Anxious. Rolling like a Dice. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Caught on. Paid the Price. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Once Bitten. Shy Twice. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Yet they yearn & Rise. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Unsure & Shy. They Realize. !!!

Eyes Into Eyes
Broke the Ice. !!!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Number Nostalgic

There are a few alphabets in everybody's name. There are also a few numbers in everybody's life. Numbers that bind you with memories. Your first room number. Your Dorm number. Your roll number. Your board examination total. Your B'date. Someone special's B'date.

At Wimwi, you are supposed to come prepared to class with Number-Work. NPV, EOQ, Working Capital, Payoff of a Call Option, Demand Forecast, Market Share, P/E - Everything is a number. Everyday you run into numbers - sometimes 3 places past decimal point. They stay in mind till the class ends or your attention ends - whichever is earlier.

There exists a different class of numbers stamped somewhere amongst neurons.

Over a game of bowling, I witnessed a number. 211. 4 Roommates on first day of the college. Each had a different story before we met. And then our stories overlapped. It remained the only room to have all 4 mechanical engineers. Now we live in all 4 directions of the country - Ahmedabad, Delhi, Jamshedpur & Bangalore.

A few months earlier 178 turned out to be net bill of a Big Bazaar Outlet. For very long in my life it was Just another even number. Came July 2005 and it was my identity. Must have written it some 1000 times in 4 years on exam papers, library book issues, event registrations, fee receipts, doodling randomly, etcetera.

19 was just another prime number. It already isn't. A few years down the line, It could turn up in strange ways. The price of a kilogram of tomatoes. An article of constitution. Points scored in one turn of Scrabble. Minimum temperature on a pleasant day. First Innings lead of team India. Group Size of your Workplace. It could touch you anywhere.

Then there are numbers you are sub-consciously conditioned. 3.14, 22/7 can mean only one thing. 273 will mostly remind you zero kelvin. 9 will be the number of planets. 101 will always be Dalmatians. 200 will be Sachin Tendulkar. 12 will be the signs of Zodiac. Inspite of Ophiuchus.

I do not believe in numerology. I don't care what it predicts. It is so open-ended, I could fit in anything that happens to me in it. Truth is you feel about some numbers consciously or sub-consciously. You Catch up on some old friends and memories and your day naturally turns out to be good (or bad).

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Facebook Diary 2010

So, 2010 died. I knew it for 12 long months. Looking at the facebook over the past year... In a moment injects you with the year gone-by. With due respect to my Dorm name here, Retrospecting Month by Month:

January : Zed hates working on sundays. Zed hates working on any day. Zed hates working. Zed loves working for sponsorship. Any Day. Zed loves Wheels. :)

February : Zed is mad at movie releases. Zed is still valentine hunting two weeks into the month. Zed hates people's horro(r)scope in the news feed.

March : Zed is reading volumes on PagalGuy. Zed watches KCK after a long A-Day interview.

April : Zed hates lack of summer holidays for first time in life. Zed posts 'A' on Apr 26th 2010 at 18:00 hours. Zed is busy replying ThanQ's on his facebook page.

May : Zed is enjoying Taureanism. Zed wishes he had a real WALL with all the scraps on it. Zed realises 'Earn a living' & 'Get a Life' sound similar but are not. Zed resigns. Zed gets his new Cam.

June : Zed gets his Dell'ivered. Zed enters A. Zed updates blog on a sleepless night. Zed enjoys under artificial rain in a leading Indian B-school's campus.

July : Zed is cross at Kathy Engel. Zed learns the power of W(ha)T(i)F Analysis. Zed Witnesses Wetness at Wimwi. Zed is looking for a washing machine REMedial. Zed carries a few coins, a deck of cards and a pair of dice to an open book probability exam so he could experiment even if he cant make out anything.

August : Zed is part of a historic T-riumph and a true EchhadharEE. Zed sets the alarm clock at 6 A.M to go to sleep. Zed played a game of Dumb C where 'Shawshank ka Badla' was guessed as a movie name.

September : Zed is dyslexic now. Zed learns the power & usage of Globe. Zed is knee deep in deadlines gasping for breath. Zed hates the inventor of snooze.

October : Zed identifies himself with Kotler Keller koshy & Zah. Zed cant make out what is LONG and what is SHORT - Be it Financial markets or Goals in Life.

November : Zed is :) in Unnees - The concept on Diwali Day. Zed is part of a week whose result was 378 :D 's. Zed involved in a huge Status Update War. Zed turns Tintin on Facebook Cartoon Week.

December : Zed completes an academic requirement named Leadership. Zed's Dell keeps him warm in winter. Zed has a lot of enemies and is excessively tagged on facebook for no fault of his. Zed turns a Zebra.

2010 : Zed is happy he is part of a Golden Jubilee Celebration of A college and an alumnus of another that is celebrating one in the same year. Zed is happy that a T-shirt design is worn by someone somewhere in campus daily. Zed is happy at the views generated on the college's Golden jubilee Video. Zed is happy at the Laser sized Life show at IIM - A.

Zed is happy that he could witness both Sachin's 200 and Sachin's 50th Test Century.
Zed is happy that he happened to meet a few special people.
Zed is :) Zed is :D Zed is :P Zed is :( Zed is :| Zed is :)

P.S : Zed is happy that he chose to write this blog over what is yet another Assignment.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Young at Heart !!!

Yesterday, was a field visit day. We witnessed a 100 experiments in Rs.1000/- initiative. Simple experiments to demonstrate simple facts that make you scratch your head. It was fun reliving the good old school days.

At Wimwi, this was not the only day we put ourselves in Class 5 shoes. The last time I played Four Cups (as popularly called in my part of the country) was Standard 5. 12 Years later I happened to play it again. Yes, The same game where you write colors on one side and a secret message on the other. And you get ready to be teased the rest of the day.

With the medium of instruction using management exercises & real cases over long laggard lectures, it is fun to actually be a part of the system. In the past one month we have made close to 2000 boats, 600 jumping frogs, Airplanes and other weird stuff hard to put a name to.

After all, most things that you learn here is something human brain is conditioned from birth with. There are so many things we as kids behaved rather than deciphering why.

When we were young, we played Name Place Animal Thing. The guessing game. Guess the same as the opposite player and you get 5 points. Guess differently and you get 10 points. Weren't we sub-consciously applying Nash Equilibrium (popularly Prisoner's Dilemma) when we actually chose a strategy to maximize our pay-offs.

When your elder brother wanted something, you wanted the same thing. You perhaps knew Operationally Standard product is easy to get over Customized product.

When someone asked us to choose between two options by pointing fingers at us. We playfully caught both fingers and said "Both of Em..." Weren't we actually hedging??

When we made Sand Castles at the beach, wasn't the work a piece of art without any product development analysis? It was purely judgmental.

We were young. We were creative. We didn't fear What is Next. We just couldn't spell the Jargon. Now, we pronounce the jargon. We lost the former. But being young at heart is a choice you can always make.

I started with the field visit. So it is only logical I end with it. This happened to be one of the most beautiful pixels on an eventful day less the long transit time.