Neuroticism

Once upon a time in a city quite nearby I was put through an assessment centre. If images of lab rats going through mazes and running around ferris wheels go through your mind, you are not too far off the mark. We had weird guys with long beards and weirder degrees doing weird things. But the point of this short post is one of the findings they decided was important enough to put on my report. They said in typical high fundae lingo which would probably be necessary to justify the high fees they charge that I scored very low on neuroticism. I was shocked, o God a low score, I freaked out and I ran around screaming pulling my hair out in clumps. Coming back once again to the point, I have always felt that I never truly got attached to anything in life. People come into my life and go out, places come and go. As the two years at IIM A wind down and I look back I have made no ties which would last a life time. I got along well with everyone except the sardar who did not believe in taking baths. It was like an episode of fear factor every time we had a group meet and in the long term interest of my olfactory glands I gave up. What brings about all this reminiscence? Generating options for flatmates in Mumbai.

how i learned to beat boredom and love the freedom

Getting stuck in the big city of Vallendar (population – couple of million if you count each person a gazillion times) over the last couple of days was not my idea of fun. But I discovered something which has enthralled, enticed and bewitched college students – torrents baby !! The following list is mainly borne out of that discovery.

1. Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers – where else to start. I would be self serving if I said that I did recognize all the roles he portrayed. Man, was I taken for a ride. I had seen George Scott once before as the upcountry imported lawyer in Anatomy of a murder but boy was he good in this. Over the top, brash and instigator of a million laughs, the Air Force General was unbelievable. The world might have ended but it sure brought about 90 minutes of laughs and no my body fluids were not corrupted

2. The Verdict
I have often wondered what makes a good actor. Paul Newman makes you feel his pain, you sympathize with his state and somehow the lesson that life is not about taking the easy way out sticks to you. Had a great ending and no it was not a happy ending. Might be the hallmark of a good movie, you do not need the protagonist to feel like a million bucks.

3. M*A*S*H
I am pretty sure that a darker comedy can never be made. Irreverent, sarcastic and with the ability to turn gore into stomach splitting, rib tickling jokes, this film was and will be unique, I guess.

4. The Sleuth (1972)
If you had told me that one of the most rivetting films I would see would have all of 2 actors in it, I would have laughhhed at you. But with just 2 actors (they are kinda legendary but still) this film manages what a hundred could not do. You can guess the plot towards the end but that takes nothing away from this masterpiece.

drei

1. The night train – it was my first journey on a night train in Europe. I found myself in a dark cabin with the overpowering smell of herbs and an Eritrean lady for company. She didn speak English and I obviously did not speak whatever language she spoke. However using my superlative detective skills I figured out that she was going to stay with her daughter in Milano. The paper she handed over to me did not play any part in that let me assure you of that. But the crux of the story was not her but the guy who got in somewhere near Munchen. A director whose first film was going to be screened in Milano, he was profound thought personified. Not sure if he was on drugs or whether the coffee houses of Europe do that to you but each reply was constructed in a language which must have been alien to him, so beautifully with so much thought behind it that you could not but admire it. Through the sniffing by the Swiss border guards, I meant the police dogs and their strange fascination for the Eritrean lady’s herbs; my nose after years of exposure to Indian spices was taken aback by the smell of the herbs, the dogs must have been literally tortured I guess, we continued our talk. Somehow I never asked his name, wonder how I will ever recognize him when he becomes famous. And vice versa.

2. who the fuck is Alice – the beer tents of Munchen, I would think that the memories of the beer would abound but somehow this song got stuck in my mind. How could I ever forget raising my glass and screaming with Flora and Shaurya – WHO D FUCK S ALICE. Maybe it was because it was the only English song which was sung that day or maybe it was the dance on the table tops, the reason evades me but who the fuck s alice

3. Indians and numbers – MARKSTRAT, one course I will never forget. For the uninitiated type vodites or sonites and do a google. 4 days of awesome fun, running numbers in Excel to model how the MARKSTRAT engine would respond, team meetings run by Nicholas in which everyone had a different opinion, Tim’s exuberance, Elena’s comments and the other guy’s (forgot his name) silence; the list goes on. The final team presentations were fun. While other teams did an analysis of their strategy and ended on what they could have done better, we presented on why we were so good. Damn we were good. I was accused of being arrogant by some random guy but hey I was good, I bloody perfected the art of segmenting and positioning using Excel. I don’t mind being the centre of attraction once in a while :p. The champagne when we were crowned winners was bubbly and the perfect grade was well, expected. Cheers

2nd year blues

I am not sure whether it is the Amdvad heat, its hot enough to scar you for life, whether it is the mess food, which will do the same to your taste buds or jus that the fact that I am in my room with little to do to pass the time, life has become so immeasurably uncool (it s the heat which has driven away t cool, damn it) that I am starting to blog again.

First year has come and gone in a flash. If I said that I miss the FRA quizzes, I would be lying. If I said that I miss the group-work, I would be lying. If I said that I miss the early morning classes, I would be lying cos I have early morning classes on all days except Wednesday. Did you say idiot? If you did, I wouldn blame you. I console myself by saying that I love the courses I took. When I say it zillions of time, I actually sort of believe it myself. Seriously it works. Wow, I love my courses!!!

A New Beginning

The 5th of April 2009, a new part of my life opens up. I survived the first year at IIM - Ahmedabad and apart from the first term, the year was pretty good. Made some great friends, had a wonderful time and have enough memeories to last a lifetime. But I will surely miss the quiz notices. The palpable fear in the mess hall during lunch as a hundred hearts start ticking harder as the clock goes past 1:20 and where every small sound is mistaken as the sticking of a quiz notice. Every movie about life here cant leave out "Short FRA/MANAC quiz at 2:30 in your respective classrooms". There is a very strong reason for that after all.

Internship starts tomorrow and I am going to get paid for the first time in my life for a job. I liked the guys who tok my interview hope my project guide turns out to be similar. So Bangalore and the Bullwhip Effect, here I come.

Till next time then

Can you right a wrong????

There are many things in life which I am not proud of but one incident just stands out. I was around 12 years old, enjoying the freedom which a newly instituted allowance brings. Even then I liked to splurge and half my allowance finished within the first few days as ‘Centrefresh’ cards piled up in my bedroom.

One fine day as I was standing at a bus stop under the ubiquitous banyan tree ,I saw them. He was probably around 70, half blind and not very comfortable in walking. She was equally frail and led him by his hand. They went from person to person begging and as I later found out, they wanted money to buy medicines. As they came closer, I saw their faces better. It was a mixture of bewilderment and sadness. Bewilderment probably targeted at the world which treated them like this and embarrassment which I think, came out of doing something which was so obviously below their dignity. They were not the usual beggar couple, he wore a clean white mundu and shirt and she wore a cotton saree. Somehow it was clear that they would never ever have imagined fate dealing them such a blow.

We middle class Indians as a rule are not very tolerant of people approaching us for money on the streets, though at our homes we are far more altruistic when someone comes knocking. They were not very successful and as people started shaking their heads, she gently tugged at his hand and they moved on. I looked at the faces of the commuters standing next to me and I knew that I was not the only one embarrassed by the situation.

I still remember having 18 rupees with me. I had a ten rupee note in my purse and the rest as loose change. As they came closer I decided to hand over the note. Like a movie in slow motion they slowly came to me. She asked me. I still do not know why but I shook my head in dismissal. They stared at my face for a second and she tugged his hand.

I cried that night. Life s funny, even when u know that what u r about to do s t right thing, u don’t do it and u regret it later. Even today I regret what I did that day and I know that what little I have later given out to people who have approached me for alms, will never make right that wrong.

Pehla Nasha

It was one of those subjects you would rather forget in school. I was no different, I had as much interest in the subject as a cat would have in taking a dip in water. I mean its just not natural for a teenage boy who loved nothing better than being on the football field to sit and learn that. As was natural for all students in Trivandrum at that time I too went to a coaching class. The logic was simple, if you flunked you had someone other than yourself to blame.

I knew her from sometime back. She had struck me as one of those overtly lively people, so lively that once she actually picked up a snail to admire it. All of 14 years at that time I couldn’t let her get away that, could I?? No sir. I too admired the slime sliding off its back and I still remember eating with a spoon for a week after that. That is another story for another time.

The tuition classroom was designed in the shape of a “T” with the teacher standing at the intersection. There was a big gang of us and we sat directly opposite the girls (some amount of segregation was prevalent; Trivandrum hasn’t yet managed to escape from its conservative straightjacket). So one fine day as I sat and perfunctorily glanced across, I caught her eye. Its hard to describe what one feels in such instances but somehow I kept staring. I didn’t see her face just those eyes glued to mine and like one of the charmed cobras or like a dumb dog or like a drug hazed junkie my glance never strayed. If it was a Hindi film, the whole class would have risen up in song and dance and I would have probably kissed her on her neck. Hmmm

The accident blossomed into a true infatuation. It became so much of a routine that the first thing I did in each class was to pick her out from the crowd. Unlike those space flicks contacting Houston was not a problem; our frequencies were perfectly tuned. But I could never muster the courage to speak to her outside class. I was afraid that the one thing that I looked forward to every week would somehow be lost.

Unlike a bollywood film there was no happy endings (life s not like OSO). One day she stopped looking and then I……………………………………..............