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).

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.

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.

Summers in Winter

Before I came to WIMWI, I was on PagalGuy. I was sure I was going to meet a lot of people who had too strong opinions on too strange topics and if you get the flow right, people whose messages read, "I attempted 57 out of 60 questions. Remaining three questions were wrong. I think the cutoff will be 58 out of 60. The system is so unfair." I did meet some of them.

Summers at Wimwi happen in early winter. Climatically it isn't cold enough. Emotionally very hot and intense. The name is somehow apt. Summers is celebrated with a lot of opinions here. Before entering one of the group-discussions my friend advised me to look up the horoscope. Taurus said that I was going to meet a lot of self-centered people today. Well, it predicted right.

If u observe closely, In any GD, you find the following characters:

1. The Ice-Breaker - His job is pretty similar to the tube-light starter. Chip in when everyone is hesitant, show some leadership and relax for the most part.
2. The know-it-all - Every alternate word spoken in the GD comes out of his throat.
3. The know-it-none - Frequently uses 'Adding to...', 'Building on...', 'Supporting his...',
4. The Tangent Thinker - Wanders away from the original topic by usage of words like "Thinking tangentially', "Radically different", "Looking from a new perspective..."
5. The De-digressor - His job is to chip in with "I think we are digressing from the topic" every 5 minutes.

People who do not believe in Class participation also fight to insert a point. There is always one individual whom everyone hates post the GD.

Interviews in many ways are the reverse of the pre-placement talks by firms. You face questions like "Tell me something about yourself that is not on your resume" and "Why this particular firm". The firms are just taking revenge of their ppt sessions when you asked Why are you here and Tell me something about yourself that is not in your ppt. This said, It is the most student-empowered placement program i have been through.

As the process progresses, facebook updates reach a peak, Usage of :D 's and :) 's. and subtle status messages rise. You find African nation 'Congo' in the trending topics. Perhaps due to excessive usage of abbreviated Congratulations. There are always comparisons. There are some backbites. There are some frontbites. Fortunately it isnt cold enough for a frost bite.

But there are things that bind us more than just placements. At the end of cluster 1, when a DayZee wimwian was asked, "Hey, Did you get placed?", the reply comes, "No, We aren't."
That is how we define 'You' and that is what defines us as a batch.

The Golden jubilee Batch - Wimwi 2010-2012 !!!

It comes once in 50 years and never again. You have to be a part of it to experience it.

The pursuit of HappEness

Some people blog just because they have it on their resume. Some others to express. Yet others to impress. The reasons do not matter. The blog does. And I decide to resume something that i classify as interests on my resume.

Life at Wimwi is cruelly awesome. For Cat Aspirants who assume we are all nerds wearing spectacles 5 diopters deep, Good news : The batch average goes less than 1 diopter deep. Pretty much in the reach right. Not the best of analogies but all the best for CAT 2010.

Life at Wimwi is gruelly awesome. You get to see the early bird catching the worm daily. Literally. Once you witness it you go safely to sleep. And then you wake up before the bird digests the worm.

Today, one such morning, I happened to witness this.And then I realized the importance of having a camera ready at hand. :)

More importantly i realized what I wanted to be. Deep down I am still a boy who likes to stare at a speeding airplane till it disappears in thin air(Literally). I am still the one who likes to throw water from the terrace and hear the sound as it taps the ground. Still the one who loves the distinct smell in the air after it rains, still the one who loves to experiment with the size and shape of shadows in the dark, still the one who loves reading old letters from friends & relatives ...

Somewhere in the rush you stop realizing it. The little things that make you happy.

Its festival time and a great opportunity to revisit old friends. Friends are like bank accounts. There is a savings account. There is a current account. You spend the whole life with your current account. You peak in to the savings account sometimes. Life goes on with the current account. All good memories are etched with the savings account.I have decided to send these memories (read photos) as part of an individual level 'Is diwali Aap Kisko Khush kar rahe ho' campaign.

The pursuit of HappEness is more than just a phrase. And there is more than one reason for the 'E' in HappEness.