Open for scrutiny.

Ain’t it just so frustrating when you know the answer is right there in front of you while you look the world over for it. When you rummage your drawers to pull our everything to find that your spectacles are pulled up on your head.

Anyway, I believe the depleted cranium of mine is the reason why I couldn’t figure out what things meant. I have been supremely selfish since long. Yeah, being selfish has always being out of vogue. Being selfish is not something you about which you can say , “Selfish? So what? I am just made this way. I can’t help it. Why don’t you just deal with it?”

We are not made selfish, are we? I mean, you can’t go like….’Yeah, I had fun with that guy, he/she is nice, great guy/girl, and hugely selfish. He/she is lovely!’

So, I just went back to the last time, I had done something so selfless that it was hard for me, as well as everyone around us to believe that I did what I did. Not that I haven’t some times regretted the decision of doing what I did, but more than I have really been regretful, I have been proud.Was it something I did in a spur of a moment, or did it mean something more that?

If it was something more than that, should I have given it a little more importance than I gave it? If the answer was there much before I had even asked the question, why wasn’t I looking in the right place?

As I look for these reasons and answers today, I feel content. I am looking in the right direction. And I see….I see sparkling blue water, a lone boat, few sea gulls…and beyond……what is that??? Bikini girls???

Just found an answer I guess!

Will be back soon.

There is only one song I can think about today! Remember this song sung by a skinny man in golden shoes in a Puma advertisement?

Woke up cold one tuesday,
i’m looking tired and feeling quite sick,
i felt like there was something missing in my day to day life,
so i quickly opened the wardrobe,
pulled out some jeans and a T-Shirt that seemed clean,
topped it off with a pair of old shoes,
that were ripped around the seams,
and i thought these shoes just don’t suit me.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
and suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody’s smiling,
it so inviting,
Oh, short on money,
but long on time,
slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
and i’m running late,
and i don’t need an excuse,
’cause i’m wearing my brand new shoes!!!!!

Yeah, it is hard if not impossible to stick to them, but at least you know where to start from. Here is my list :

• Fitness, the knee giving some major trouble these days and going back under the knife is the last thing I would want. Plus, joining a gym would be cheaper than renewing my medical insurance. Not to mention, nurses Vs. Girls with washboard tummies ….We all know who wins.

• Not a lot of people know this, but I have tried my hand at a serious hard hitting manuscript and it’s a serious joke up till now. Nonetheless, End of year, end of manuscript. I will sell it for free, but I will finish it. Penguin, Listening? You wouldn’t want to miss out on this one! Why? They do publish Ira Trivedi, don’t they!

• Be in touch with people, try to pick up more calls, try to answer more calls, try and reply before the message says ‘&$%&% You ‘ and try not to play spoilsport - Top Priority.

• Get my car painted metallic chocolate brown. Since it is not getting any better with age and broken down shockers, I can live with some change. So can the people around me.

• Cut down on useless expenses and invest! – Top priority too!

• Get a hold on life and stop drifting….this is a recurring statement that has featured ever since the word resolution entered my dictionary, but it means more now than it ever had.

• Read – Not get judgemental, and read. Anything and everything. Even if it means reading trash like OILY and NTYR.

• Not put all eggs in one basket….No matter how beautiful the basket is. Eggs? Tadpoles? Whatever.

• And since the management course will be nearing it’s end, find something to do afterwards, since a job is not my thing. Not because I am too good for it, but au contraire. Read – Finally find a rich one to marry.

Now for some impossible ones :

• Bathe everyday
• Change socks.
• No nose picking.
• Pen caps not supposed to go any further than ear lobes
• Eating healthy
• Learn cooking

Like it or not, you will be updated on how these go.

Wish you the best of luck for the coming year!

Hope it’s great for you.

As usual, I stopped writing here. And as usual, I am back again.

The reasons are multifold.

Exams. They always do me in.

The next book. Nearing completion.

A new phase in life. And it doesn’t really mean a good one. Just a new one. Let’s see how this one goes.

Till next time, this is all I have.

(Man! The writer’s block is killing me. Though I love using the phrase - writer’s block.)

This has been quite a week of surprises. The Meteorological Department has finally stopped pulling out chits from a box while deciding on cloud movements. It rained. And it rained good.

I also managed to get my car cleaned up and serviced for the first time on my own. They said they found species they thought were extinct. The others were obviously totally new. Mutation resulting from the engine oil leaking into the coolant, which then mixed with sulphur from the lubricating oil and sweat and bile from the pile of clothes on the back seat (and a few more things), they told me.

The big ones now, two friends of mine will show up on television a week or two from now. One got chosen for the Real beauty, Real woman campaign of a very popular cosmetic giant. The other one was handpicked amongst millions for some reality show to be aired on Star Plus.

I am having a hard time explaining people that I know them. Obviously doesn’t help because both of them are awesomely good looking. I wish I had asked out at least one of them. Should I now?

The biggest one now. Got our first mid term papers. Accounts. For how that exam went, go through the previous post!

I have already counted fifteen who have either scored less or as much as I have! Though people here now have a suicidal tendencies reflecting from their faces I have totally fallen in love with my professor. Some people are walking around with such drooping that I feel like giving over some of my marks.

Yeah, I know those people would be queuing outside his office even as we speak to get marks they dont deserve or even do but then who cares?

Meanwhile, a few days back, a very sweet girl at The Times of India asked me to be on the editors’ panel along with Them Clones, the Bhambri siblings and Rohanjt for the  Delhi Times special issue on the 15th of August.

Here is the outcome.

Introductory : http://tinyurl.com/q6hok6

Main Article :http://tinyurl.com/oowyms

A lot of people have since asked me as to why was I cynical during the whole interview. Try attending five lectures, doing three assignments, two presentations, driving sixty kilometers in peak traffic running over a few kids and cows, all in one day.

I wish all this was applicable.

Why am I cynical? Yet to figure that one out.

There are some things you just can’t shake off. Be it the dung on your sneakers just before you meet somebody, toilet paper off your ***, or mediocrcity.

Finally saw the end of exams. And vice versa.

Microeconomics :

There are some basic fundamentals that had me intrigued in the entire paper, that other guys in class are so conversant in they can now a answere questions about them in their sleep.

“The price of sugar drops, and you start drinking more tea.”

Am I the only one who finds this strange?

Quite obviously I am not amongst the top few.

Accounts :

“Can anyone do this? Aren’t we supposed to be learning easier things? It’s MBA after all. Everybody does it! “

Statistics :

“On an average there are three accidents in a day. Out of those three accidents, 33 percent are fatal. 20 percent of the rest can be fatal with a probability of .86 if they don’t recieve proper medical care whose probablity is .95, but that is subject to the fact the day is a weekend. if the day is not a weekend the probabilty goes up to .98, and weekends mean more traffic so the fatality of accidents go up by 15 percent, but that fifteen percent is subject to the availibility….blah.”

Three pages of numbers, figures, statements and probablities.

And then the question.

What is the probability that the patient that comes on that weekend dies?

Answer : Depends entirely on whether he read this question or not.

These were the worst three. The other three weren’t that different either but they definetly escape being used as a humour tool in class.

Mittal did much better with his exam papers. I hope he rots in hell. Khandelwal did even better. Giving his vodoo doll the final touches.

More recent developments?

‘Of Course I love You….’ completed a year and I am still smiling.

‘Now That You’re Rich…’ Hitting the bookstands this week.

I am painstakingly trying to push my books more this time.

Our section lost in football semifinals. Lesson learnt : Hindi expletives, no matter how offensive don’t work when the oppostion has two Germans and a French guy who operate on batteries that never run out. Can we ever match up?

P.S. – Met the Bhambhri siblings and Them Clones at the Times Of India office. More on that later.

The word is out. And Gupta is nowhere in the Committee list. The girl who told him that he would figure in the list was drunk last night, apart from being awesomely cute, so Gupta stayed shut. Not that he could have done anything! Gupta is really going to miss ‘interacting’ with exchange students from Germany/France/other countries where-women-are-taller-than-you-are-fairer-than-Isha-Shravani (Google her, she is the girl from Kisna opposite Vivek Oberoi. Google him too and tell me who he is).

Poor,confused, innocent pretty women from across the oceans desperate to learn the way around Delhi will have someone else to help them around the city. Poor Gupta.

Lat nights’(Satuday night, I started writing this post on Sunday, but as we are supposed to look like, I am extremely busy with case papers, presentations, assignments, live projects and market researchs) party was a blur as all free booze parties are, but somebody extremely high (Could be Gupta but I wouldn’t know) , came up with a very nice line I intend to use as my own.

‘It is not a bad thing to be an ass(Chu*****). What’s bad is when you are one and you think you are not.’ This was said to in reference to an aweful stage performance by one of our batchmates, who proabably still thinks he did a great job.

The next morning and the days thereafter were slightly strange. People who had talked about their lives, girlfriends, intimate problems, sexual orientations didn’t seem to recognize me anymore.

Conclusion : Friends you make in booze parties WILL forget you. Period.

So basically I have smiled at people who replied back with who-the-fuck-are-you expression. But I smile back again. I know the guy is gay. I know the girl slept with his sisters’ boyfriend. And is still doing it. They have reasons not to know me!

So, as our first set of exams come near , batchmates are scampering for previous year papers, notes, extra reading material, any scraps of paper that has the words organisation or business written on it. Gupta too did his share of preparing for his exams.

He got FIFA 09.

Not only that, he made us install it on our Laptops, just in case of some bizzare circumstances :

• His laptop doesn’t work.
• His laptop doesn’t nor does his Roomates’.
• Neither of his laptop, his roomies, my roomies laptop work!

So, now we are four of us with FIFA 09 on our computer and three day after he did that, top most on our agenda is to get a Playstation ASAP. No wonder Gupta is smiling.

Exams are still a week away. We have time.

We started off with fourteen days and seven subjects. Yesterday it became seven subjects and seven days. Then a very good friend of mine, who sits on the first bench, and whose every second sentence has the words markets, capital and the like pointed out -

“Law is darn easy, Marketing is all gas, Organisational Behaviour won’t take more than a few hours, Oral commincation and presentation skills doesn’t even qualify as a subect .That leaves you with just accounts, which just needs some basic concepts, you are too brainy for statistics and Microeconomics is nothing great, just a few graphs.”

‘You might have a point there. So what are we doing tonight?’

‘I was just thinking I would revise Law and then probably try making some balance sheets and profit and loss accounts. I have a case study for marketing too. I need to finish it by tonight because tomorrow I will do Ethics from the Org. Behaviour reference book….’

I left his room and found Rastogi is my room talking to my roomie about his playstation back at his place which no one uses……

To be contd….

Inside sources say, he is through (Read more about it here). And he is more than convinced that he will be kicked out within days on accounts of non performance.

Guys like us never have false expectations from ourselves. We know our true worth. Talking of worth, the Potter movie we saw yesterday, something about a half blood prince who turns out to be Snape and before you curse me for letting it out, let me tell you that it is not the greatest of suspenses, was not even worth the fifty bucks we shelled out. I slept through the latter half. (The statement is not figurative, it is literal.) Cut short, people who don’t read potter books can’t enjoy the movie. Others might still.

It also reminds me the number of potholes we went over last night. Contrary to what people say I am quite fine with percentage of roads that are totally horrendous to drive on in Gurgaon. I too would have liked to have granite flooring in my bungalow than have a great road fifty kilometers from my place. I forgive them.

Though I really don’t understand people who update their facebook status telling the world how fine the weather is and still stay put behind closed doors.

So, last evening it poured. Much to the relief of us hostellers who every morning wake up in the pool of our own sweat. Human body is such a miracle, you dont even feel the stench after a week or so. The bedsheets can still be on your bed till it turns brown/gets holes.

I still equally hate to see topless guys with bulging paunches in and around hostels, but that is nothing when compared to the pure hatred I have for guys who roam around in boxers.

Can somebody please tell them that the sight is really not pretty?

P.S. – Boxers are underwears.

P.S. – Couldn’t get up for my first class. It is such a wonderful feeling, I should do it more often!

While I am still increasingly concerned about the side effects of Lomos tablets I take as my stomach makes valiant efforts to keep up with things that make their way down my food pipe these, there are others who are working nights to make Management Development Insitute (MDI) a better place, a better institute.

Hats off to them!

The table I bought today creaked last a little, and I spent the day wondering if it would last the night.

Others though were busy discussing Hedge funds, Reverse Repo rates and making presentations on a company-I-heard-about-a-few-months-back-and-unlike-others-have-no-clue-about-it’s-marketing-strategy.

The alienation is appalling.

Though I always find myself soothing company.

Gupta spent the day hassled for We-hold-placards-for-the-french Committee had given him a task that need comprehensive googling, extensive copying and pasting, and to end it, another excruciating hour of font size calibration.He managed it, though his laptop, probably overworked for the first time, refused to detect his pen drive, and then hung during the interview.Nonetheless, he managed to come out of the room un-abused.

Maybe, he will get through and get to ferry our foreign exchange students from Airport to the college.

Fostering student relationships.

I don’t think he has gone through the ideology manual of  We-hold-placards-for-the-french Commitee. The first point says – You can’t hook up with them.

Meanwhile, Sachdev, came up with something which probably holds true.

For Engineering colleges, as well as management colleges.

The first day, you spot of few pretty looking faces and hopes go through the roof.

The next day, you realize they are seniors.

The next day, you get to know the only looker in your batch has a boyfriend in IIM Calcutta/Yale/Harvard….depending on how screwed your luck is.

A week later, you have a crush on ten of your batch mates.

A year later, you lay amongst a pile of empty vodka bottles and a CGPA threatening the wrong side of five.

An important lesson learnt today :

When in doubt regarding any question, use strategy and Value addition in your answer.

P.S. – No matter what I say, The committee does shit loads of work and does good to MDIs brand Image.