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
