Jatt Risky After Whisky

Ever since the little lad called Prince was saved, India has shown consistent potential for a podium finish only if Kid-Extraction-From-Deep-Holes was to be an Olympic sport. Purists are now arguing that the sport be duly given its well-earned National Sport status. To further the cause, an unassuming Indian Hockey contingent’s performance at the Olympics has managed to displace Pinki’s feat of failing the gender test as the biggest embarrassment to Indian Sports in the last decade. Or wait, is it being Rohit Sharma ?

 Heartbreak set aside, the Olympics have managed to invoke nostalgia for me. The closest I ever got to Olympic glory was precisely four years ago when I legitimately went past the Delhi Transport Licensing Authority and earned myself a driving license. Interestingly, four years also marks the time when both Saina and I ventured into our respective careers of Badminton and Law. Aside from sumptuous calf muscles, she boasts of an Olympic Bronze today and I run the risk of setting up a Steel Porta-Cabin outside Tis Hazari for my bread and butter. But lets save the discussion about my insecurities for some other day. This one’s about the rather secure ride on the Delhi roads.

The Wasseypur tale is archaic. Vengeance fuels our blood and we prefer settling scores just after three signals rather than sitting on it for three generations. If you dare overtaking us from the left, we shall hunt you down and chase you until we roll down the windows, glance into your eyes and scare you with the Kangana Ranaut-Showstopper look from Corporate. Quite often, the look is laced with verbal insults and unique harms that would put Lee-Hesh spats to shame. To come across as intimidating during such occasions, the intellectuals amongst us also sport the Advocate/Doctor/CA/Engineer tag on the windscreens while others show true allegiance to their parents and vividly flaunt their “Mom’s Gift/Dad’s Gift”. Or better still, a stick-on mentioning the venue of Baba Ramdev/Anna Hazare’s next live Protest Music Concert ( Read : Anshan ). The ill-fated ones with Tushar Kapoor’s frustration levels who haven’t been gifted either the Automobile/Intellect/Love by their Parents/God/Spouses respectively, eventually end up splashing – “Bina Vajah To Kutta Bhi Nahi Bhonkta – Do not honk” on their windscreens.

Half the reason why ‘Hum do Hamare Do’ campaign never took off was because we had a handicapped choice of effective role models (Read : Laloo Yadav), who further had a handicap with the effective use of rubber. The other half was the combined effect of traffic jams in the capital and the largest number of registered four wheelers in the country. This essentially means that you’d even go past the time taken by Indian Athletes to complete the Marathon run at the Olympics while driving home on the ring road.

The rollercoaster ride is incomplete without the mention of the quintessential female driver. First things first, wearing sunglasses in the late evening hours is very Rabbi-Performing-Live-Like and makes as much sense as Chetan Bhagat’s “literature”. Additionally, the women paint a very happy picture of the traffic lights in their conscience ( Read : Fancy Chinese Diwali Lights ), capturing the Zebra Crossing at almost every display of red as if unhappy at the very idea of Jaywalking being an offence. The ones who actually stop in time are as proficient with Handbrakes as Sourav Ganguly was with Shoaib Akhtar’s bouncers. Owing to such handicap, they give the Handbrake a miss and do an Emran Hashmi every signal while slightly kissing the rear bumper of their car with the front bumper of the following car. Its high time they realized that every cylindrical entity eventually needs a pair of dexterous hands to come to life and perform.

P.S – Understanding the extreme risk of being termed as an EM-CEE-PEE, the author hereby quotes and clarifies that he has strong feminist orientations, if any. Mom wasn’t around for a couple of days and our maid had a hearty laugh at our (me and my Dad’s) attempts to successfully convert Milk and Mango into an edible drink.

P.P.S – To those women who’d want to prove a point or two, lets go for a test drive? Your ride. Your gas/petrol.  Okay. My place, may be ?

Life@NITIE : The first week

With bag and baggage and lots of hopes and aspirations about that dream job (yeah, I even got placed with a 15+ package company in my dream the earlier night :D), the landing in God' s own campus brought in a feeling of pride and awesomeness. Most of us simply fell in love with the campus again. The feeling had not yet sunk in when we reached at the reception of hotel 1-2, and it suddenly vanished. The long line for room allotment gave a pinch of the MBA struggle ahead.

Little did we know that the biggest surprise was yet to come. As we entered the room, we were welcome by cobwebs, termites and the rust-painted washrooms making us realize that this was a 49 year old campus. A clan of termites and other wildlife have evolved during this time(apart from Team Murphy, of course). Anyway, the cleaning campaign started and went on till midnight. We were advised to sleep well because apparently, GROOVE was gonna start the next day. Surprise again!! (you know it !!!). But on the positive side, this one gave us a chance to visit Mumbai’s exotic destinations including Aksa beach (the cleanest beach of the city), Bandstand, infinity mall and some others. It was a pleasure to finally meet some of the awesome people I have been interacting online over the past few weeks.

There are some good things and some bad things about doing an MBA. After working for more than 3 years, it was such a relief to shed those formals, attend classes once again and play MAFIA (superlike J) during nights. Long live the guy who invented MAFIA(:D). Some professors even think of it as “Marketing, finance and accounts” and they think they know Gen-Y(Seriously, we need to teach these profs some real Gen-Y stuff. Can we have a game of MAFIA among all the deans and profs, and evaluate them on the basis of their efficiency and effectiveness?? :D). With all due respect to them, I guess most of us don’t like or support the 75% attendance rule. (Why us? L) Yeah, life is unfair. Even MBA is not an exception. But in the end, you get everything you desire even though during the course they make you ponder “what do you really want?” :O  

We also had some awe-inspiring campus tours including a visit to the roof top of the MDP hostel. We climbed up the height of the water tank on the roof and rediscovered the magnificent beauty of the campus through a panoramic breathtaking view. You can see the pond, Hiranandani, the new hostel, the new academic building, all at once from there, and its marvelous.

Everyday I find a new reason to be in love with the campus. And I guess most of us do. Everybody here may have different aspirations but we all will share the same brand of being a NITIEan. It will remain forever. And that’s why I love NITIE. 

Eurotrip 2007

One of the most memorable trips of my life, Eurotrip 2007, during my internship at Berlin.

We embarked on our journey from kaiserdam bus station to paris. We slept

throughout the journey and went straight to the Sacred Heart Basilica,

situated at a great height. The panoramic view of the eiffel tower was a

pleasure to the eye. After that, we went to the pantheon and the famous

notre dame cathedral. In the night, we went to the the eiffel tower and

enjoyed the view of the city from the top floor.

Next day, we visited the Lourve's museum, the abode of the Mona Lisa. It

took us the whole day to absorb the grandeur of the museum and we flew

from paris to rome in the evening.

At rome, we first went to the colosseum, the fighting place of the

gladiators and then to castel St. Angelo, whose imposing mass still

dominates the panorama of Rome. After that, we climbed up the 320 steps

of St. Peter's dome and relaxed at St. Peter's Square. The following day we went to see the vatican museum and the most famous, the Sistine chapel, the residence of the Pope. We enjoyed the evening at

the beach and took the train to pisa the next day.

As soon as we reached pisa, we scuttled to see the leaning tower, one of

the 7 wonders of the world. We took pictures in front of the tower and

moved on to venice through the train.

Venice is situated on a sea and we had to take a boat pass to roam

around the city. We enjoyed sailing in the boat and also paid a visit to the

san marco piazza where you can see a whole slew of pigeons.

We came to bremen from venice the next day by ryanair and then took 3

lander tickets to reach berlin.

The whole 1 week trip was a lifetime experience.

Team Murphy: An enigma, redefined ;)

Prologue : 

All those wondering “What is this Team Murphy? ” please read my previous post  (The journey so far..) to introduce you to the Team. This post is not for beginners (:P). Those who have read that and still underestimate the powers of Team Murphy, this is going to be an eye opener for you. You may think that they are just a bunch of mosquitoes, but then you are only looking at the tip of the iceberg ;). Wait till I tell u …

Secret Chapter # 1 : Team Murphy, redefined ;)

All the mighty mosquitoes in the world, after pursuing their graduation from MII (Murphy International Institute), join the world’s largest organization called Team Murphy. The team is headed by Dr. Murphy himself and has its presence all over the world (especially in tropical countries, thanks to global warming and continual environmental degradation). Although they are omnipresent, the (All)mighty Team manage their operations from the God’s own campus :), since they very well know that it is the Mecca of Operations :). His Excellency, Dr. Murphy has a penchant for operations research and is recognized all over the world. No, I am not kidding. But wait till I tell you…

First, let us have a look at some distinguished members of the Team who like to operate in pairs:

• Louie - Duie ( the fatso couple who are faster and quicker than Edward in Twilight and have amazing ducking skills despite their high body mass index), 
• Legen - Dary (they can’t wait for each other and are always seen in suits.)

• Dick - Harry (the gay couple who is fighting for their rights since long ago ;))

Well, The list is endless and you will discover many pairs when you come to the campus :D

Secret Chapter # 2: Profile and Achievements

Right from their birth, they are given training for singing (precisely within an eccentricity of 2 cm from your ears while revolving in an elliptical orbit, switiching positions to and fro from apogee to perigee) and drinking (they like all blood groups and religiously help in govt’s campaign of blood donation by sucking the blood out of those who don’t donate by themselves). They even have a secret blood bank where they can take out blood as an interest-free-loan and deposit the same later. They are nocturnal and like attacking in groups (the attack is highly “anti-soporific” unlike the long lectures which you grumble about for being highly narcotic). 

The whole team is trained to work in groups and croon in people’s ears’ during night. They enjoy flying randomly, are restless and are always keen to try new species in dinner. In the evenings, they tend to extract energy from your aura by revolving on the top of your head (they utilize this energy to maintain their eccentricity of 2cm throughout the night). Recently, they have started training camps where they immune themselves against sprays and are also trained to duck human’s clap (without disturbing their elliptical orbit). Yes, they include all these achievements in their CV and don’t need any certificate to validate them. :P

Secret Chapter # 3 : Murphy’s Law

To the surprise of many, Murphy has been a researcher throughout his life. He even has a law well acknowledged by Google and Wikipedia (google search on murphy's law). Yes, Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”(yes, the law is universal, u can google to check and it even applies to placements at B-Skul!!!) . Dr. Murphy has even been mentioned in a book, “A History of Murphy’s Law”, though many others have tried to claim it in their name. The book is available on flipkart with discounts ranging from 12-20%. But that won’t tell you about the special powers of Team Murphy. ;)

Secret Chapter # 4 : Special Powers of Murphy

As they are blessed with some special powers, they defy all laws of motion and can easily put Newton to shame. How?? Just wait till I tell you…

They use India’s railway network to travel from one place to another for managing their food supply chain. While in a train, they continue to travel nonchalantly with the speed of Rajdhani and with such ease which makes you marvel at their special powers. They don’t require that frame-of-reference to travel. They don’t care about inertia when the train starts, stops, accelerates or retards. (Yeah, all they care is about tasting new blood groups every night.) Legend has it that they once assaulted Newton who then had to make an exception to his laws for them. 

Epilogue :

The Team has a great leader in the form of Dr. Murphy. They created their website even before humans discovered Internet. The site is no longer a secret (http://www.murphys-laws.com/) and the team regularly updates it. They manage their operations better than any management graduate and defy all laws of science and engineering. I guess we all have met them, clapped for them (:D :D), even slept with them at least once in our life. They still are an enigma, aren’t they?

The journey so far : with Team Impact

Every year, someday in January when the CAT results are out, a large number of aspirants in the RAT race realize something. Life is a bitch. It gives you that twist-of-fate when you least expect it. On the other side, it never ceases to surprise you with serendipitous moments as well. 


After a series of rejects, from MIIs and few others, for 5 long years (yes, that’s how many times I have had an outing with CAT), I had stopped expecting my name in any list. But it was a pleasant surprise when NITIE’s result came out and there it was, I had got my only call of the season (Why didn’t I apply to NITIE before? :( ). Few days later, I got a mail from my mentor, congratulating all the call getters, with a list of general FAQs and some gyan(:P) . I have got calls before but this was the first time I had a mentor to clear all my doubts. So if I wanted to convince my parents about “Why NITIE ?”, I had someone to rely upon(;)).


I had my GDPI scheduled on 13th, I got it rescheduled to 12th and was the first person to enter the MDP hostel at 2 am in the morning (What is the full form of MDP?). I had my tryst with Team Murphy (read : NITIE’s mosquito’s team headed by Murphy) that night and cursed Team IMPACT to not mention about that before. We practically had nothing to guard against Team Murphy (I bet they have this party every year, and the whole Team Murphy gets pretty drunk). I even thought that there is a nexus between Team Murphy and Team Impact. Anyways, I pledged to take my revenge over the next two years. 


The next day, I woke up to a marvelous view from MDP’s balcony which helped alleviate the pain from last night’s assault by Team Murphy. We rambled around the pond and the serene and lush green campus. Suddenly had this French feeling called Déjà vu. I felt I have come back to my alma mater (read : IIT Guwahati) after a long period of 3.5 years (Yes, my rivalry with Team Murphy had started there, but I didn’t know they are present in campuses all over India!). We also went to the top of the guest house and clicked some panoramic views of the lush green campus(Déjà vu again!!) and some with the Mumbai skyscrapers and the Vihar Lake. We played TT in the evening (and I found that as there’s no railing on the staircase, its dangerous for someone who’s drunk to enter into the TT room ;)). (Part of Safety guidelines :P)


Based on the feedback from my friend at NITIE, I was pretty confident about cracking the GDPI. I was more worried about waiting for the entire day for my PI. After being such a critic, this was the time to applaud Team Impact for wonderfully conducting the entire GDPI process. From guiding our way to the Syndicates to getting all the reschedules in PIs, you made each and every process go smooth and hassle free. All those who were wondering “Why MBA” got the answers(at least for the PI) in your presentations. The quiz was awesome and the general gyan helped in cooling down the nerves. From replying to our silly queries to helping us choose between colleges, we got all our doubts cleared, instantly. Finally, my GD went good and PI was excellent. This was an interview where I did not feel myself to be at the “Bottom of the pyramid” (you’ll know this term during mba, for now just read this: http://www.pagalguy.com/2012/04/pagalguy-comic-contest-2-the-result/)
. 
Thank you Team Impact for the wonderful journey so far. I wonder how would admissions department deal with the process without u. Special thanks to Varun(of course), Amit, Dainishi, Arun, Jatin, Harsh, and other seniors for instantly replying to our petty queries. Looking forward to meet you all at GROOVE. 
Team Murphy : BEWARE!!! (BTW, What are the other creatures we’re gonna see live and free of cost at NITIE, apart from leopards ?)


P.S. : No character mentioned in the above write up is fictional. The author has had first hand experience with all of them ;)
P.P.S : Really missed the PG smileys while writing this.