Adventures in Dorm of Gentlemen...

Have you ever been amazed at how spectacularly bad and off-target one's assumptions can be ? ...

You know, things never turning out quite the way you would like them to be.... In fact, you would expect something and it turns out to be so so far out opposite that you are just speechless...

This incident happened a couple of days ago.... Let me introduce you to a few key players -

a) TUSBLIW - The Ugliest Slimmiest Black Lizard In the World - really slimy, really black, really ugly and the worst of it all - it decides to grace my room with its presence...

b) Vishal : Huge giant of a guy... all macho... the typical alpa-male... The kinds who makes heads at a pub turn when he would enter...Oh! btw, he is 6ft 2 inches tall and has the size of biceps equivalent to size of my face!!

c) Me : happy in my own world until pricked out my dreamy existence by the presence of TUSBLIW

So, here I was - lazy Wednesday afternoon... about to start my 2nd movie of the day when I see TUSBLIW take advantage of the open door and quickly enters the room... At the same time, I make a quick jump on top of my bed .... and start screaming for help.... You would think I would be more manly about the whole affair... I had thought the same about it... but this was no ordinary lizard- it had freaky glow-in-the-dark eyeballs!!!

Hearing my screaming- Vishal, the friendly giant next door, decides to heed my call....

"Yo Dude!!... Wassup ? Whats with the screaming on the bed for ? Did you get a shortlist from Mckinsey ??? "

" No!!! ... TTTttthere isssss ssssometttthing there....." I said, trembling... my quivering hand points out ...

"Dude.. Whats there ? " he asks... Now he looks behind the door...

I have seen many weird things in life.... (Stochastic Finance classes, McKinsey Shortlists, my recruitment letter... etc etc)

I have heard many weird things in life .... ( Desperate Class Participation in 0.25 credit courses, Every CP by the legends of Dorm Debaees...etc etc)

But... never have I seen and heard what happened next.... I saw Vishal fly !!! literally fly backwards, straight to the bed... it was as if I was watching one of those world famous Rajnikanth movies where he sends goons flying by just blowing at them.... This was exactly how it was... In a less than microsecond, Vishal boy was on standing on the bed, screaming absurdities in a strange blend of English, Tamil and some language I am convinced that is not from this planet...

So - imagine my plight... At this point - the following things were going thru my head

a) What to do if the bed collapses ? Where do run next ?

b) Whom to call for help now ?

Meanwhile, TUBSLIW was paying no attention to two screaming guys trying their best to scare it away...

At that precise moment- Sevaram, the friendly dorm caretaker enters the room... Looking at us, He had the second-most weirdest expression on his face I ever seen ... ( The most weirdest expression I have ever gotten is when I tried to answer a question asked by my Micro Eco prof)

It must have taken Sevaram a moment to register two dudes screaming and jumping on the bed., waving crazily in mid-air... He peeks in... and finally the WTF expression on his face gives way to Oh!!! ahaaa!!! expression...

It took Sevaram 30 seconds, a broomstick and deft legwork to get TUBSLIW out of the room... while two of us just stared at him...

I think sometimes, we are woefully inadequate for surviving. We have no life-skills of anysort.. stuff like cooking (edible) food, fixing a leaky water tap, using a hammer and nails to put a photoframe or changing the socket.... stuff like that... Sure, we may learning it when there is a need to... but still it was a humbling experience to depend on another person to ward off a lizard.... Sissies we are...

Darn!!!

The 8:43 am Effect...

Oh well...

Had a very interesting day today... read along ...

Faccha at 8.43 am

Holy Jesus!! I am dead... I am screwed.... Where the hell are my jeans... The shirt smells ok.. I am forgetting something... Oh Shit!!.. where is the casemat ???... I swear I was reading it yesterday night... or was it the day before... Darn!!!... I am gonna be late...That's it... I gibbup!!...

Takes one last look under the bed, finds his OM casemat, rushes out grabbing the Axe Effect deodorant. The faccha now does what he has trained for - Multitasking. While jumping down the stairs, buttoning up his shirt, buckling his belt, putting his mobile phone in the silent mode and trying to spray the Deo - all this at the same time .... Oh!!.. he is doing all this with holding the biblical OM casemat..

Meanwhile,... at precisely the same time ..

a Tuccha at 8.43 am

Holy Jesus!! I am dead... I am screwed.... Where the hell are my jeans... The shirt smells ok.. I am forgetting something... Oh Shit!!.. where is my glass ???... I swear I was drinking from it yesterday night... or was it the day before... Darn!!!... Why is it so bloody bright ??...That's it... I gibbup!!...

Takes one last look under the bed, finds his glass.... and now wonders two things

a) Why, in the holy name of the Lord, is he awake at 8.43 am ??

b) Why do dorms smell so nice in the mornings ?

At this point, the Tuccha's brain goes into a mental hibernation mode... At first, he tries to figure out if its worth figuring out the answers to what he was wondering about. By this time, other distractions creep in such as the Economic Times, the bhajan that is blaring from one of the fellow tuccha's room since 4 am and the eternally golden question -

I think I should go back to sleep.... Should I ?

This question is quickly resolved by opening up the internal IM Dbab. He goes to the Mess NB and clicks on the Menu for 15th Mar, Monday - Posted by JhanDhoo

"

Breakfast

Onion Poha

Namkeen

Lime Juice

mix fruit

Regular Menu"

....and soon the tuccha is back cozily tucking himself back in his nice cot... Multitasking - Refreshing the playlist on his Winamp player, redoing and clearing his bed, showing the empty Antiquity Blue bottles out of his room

all this with just one hand

....and reading the Economic Times as well....

Now... if only I knew why is it that the dorm stank when I was a faccha and now it smells of the Axe Effect .... I wonder why ??!!!

amreeekaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Just landed in the land of opportunities...
so much to share ..

Looking at the rigor of the american MBA systems, right now I'm feeling woefully inadequate with the training and the education I have recieved over the last one year at WIMWI..

But I will only write more abt my experiences if I get more than 7 replies to this post..
I have a sneeky feeling that I may be the only one reading my own posts..

hmmm.....

Coldcalled on SuVar

Its exam time here at WIMWI...
but not for the beloved tuchhas.. its exam time for the Facchas..
There is a long-standing ritual that's followed at WIMWI..
A few dorms still actively participate in it..
All the 15-20 dorm seniors from a particular dorm will get together and scream the almost national slogan of WIMWI- 3 words.. but it one that reverberates right thru the spines of the innocent facchas..
its "MUGGO FACCHO MUGGO"....


There are several such instances like these... but none of these compare to the absurdities one gets to witness in the classrooms...
Our classrooms are designed amphitheatre style.. with name-tags in front of the students..
Now these name-tags are easily amenable to folding and twisting leading to complete mutilation of the original names..
Thus,
an Arvind Kumar Meena becomes a KaMeena or
or a Reena L. Deepak becomes a ReeL. Deep ... you get the drift..


Now imagine the plight of the professors who are into cold calling... Cold calling is the ultimate weapon used against the poor students who didn't get time off from watching movies or playing the latest Empire series....


Thus, the other day, a Prof. was holding fort on the virtues of Open economic transactions when he coldcalled SuVar ( Sumeet Varma) on a question...
The fun gets multiplied simply because poor li'l Sumeet Varma has positively no clue that some pranskster has twisted his name to SuVar... thus, the class is laughing at SuVar while SuVar has no clue whats going on and joins the laughter ... leading to more laughter from the class.. until some kind soul sitting ahead of the Sumeet points out the unfortunate-ness thats been inflicted on him ... getting Cold Called on SuVar..


Sometimes, the profs are not spared either.. Prof. Asha wants to say good work to Rahul Shah .. but ends up saying "good work ASha".... leading to absolute discomfort for the Prof and an expression of dismay on Rahul's face...


Such is life.... What's in a name ? ... well, quite a lot... sometimes...

Drivers, ReStrat your engines...

Yes.. Yes... Mea Culpa...
Guilty as charged...
For not talking about Chaos 2009 when Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia was inspired by Ol'Groucho boy - somewhere along the lines of having perfect evenings before but this not being one of them...
What a co-incidence - the crowd felt the same... Talk about being one with the audience...

For not talking about the summers at the world's biggest FMCG company...where all that Kotler spoke about was actually practised.... where women actually decide which Gilette is the best fit for you...

For not talking about the life that went by in between ....It's been the end of an eventful year... so much to learn ... so many times I've felt handicapped because what I learnt was not enough... for the innumerable times you see that glint in the eyes of people when you talk about your college...

For not talking about the most innovative abuses hurled on LKP when you drop a sitter while playing frisbee....

Well.. all is not lost.... The Fachhas are here... The breeze is lovely... The Fraudness is rampant...
The Sloth returns...

How many times ... ?

At WIMWI...

How many times have you promised to study more regularly once these exams got over ?
How many times have you wished you had studied before ? If only to appreciate the subject better ...
How many times have you made timetables and then forgotten all about it and had fun instead ?
How many times have you felt guilty afterwards ?
How many times have you liked a song so much that it keeps playing in your head while you are trying to appear for an exam ?
How many times have you fallen in love with someone you can't be with ?
How many times have you wished that you could become slimmer ?
How many times have you wished that you could be somewhere else ... Anywhere but in the boring lecture at 8.45 in the morning ?
How many times have you wished you could be better at sports or at dancing ? ...
....And they said that life got easier once you got in here !!!

A Question of Faith

There is this itch... gnawing at us... this quiet restlessness...
This itch .... this insatiable feeling that life has more to it...
This irritating feeling that there is more to me than writing code or talking to clients...
This urge to make things happen...it gets difficult to live with Status Quo ...

Everyday, you will read stories in awe of IIM A students and Faculty diving into untested waters... Why do we do this ? ....
They say, sometimes the flapping of a butterfly's wings can create rainstorms halfway across the world..Sometimes, the things we do at IIM A scare us... but if we don't flap our wings, how will we move ahead ? ...

The placement sessions are starting...The eyes of the world ... students from every nook and corner of the country... the best talent of the country is watching us....
Everything that has meant anything finally culminates in these few hours of destiny....
and that is exactly how a nation of young students gets duped ... simply cos this is not the end...
this is the beginning....just a door.. a platform...an opportunity...
I know that there are debts to pay off...I understand that feeling of being left in the lurch..
The world is watching us...the media will slam us... HRD ministries will try to stifle us... but I know this - Falling down is not defeat, staying down is...I only have the rhetorics...not the answers...

In time, we will know who stood up... and who gave up... To the victor go the spoils....
Ultimately, all that separates those who stood out from others is their absolute faith in themselves..it is a question of faith and the power to ask yourself, when no one else is watching - "WHAT'S AHEAD ?"....