The Second Sojourn

"Welcome to the Devi Ahilyabai Airport at Indore. The time is 10.20 AM and the outside temperature is 24 degrees. We hope you had a pleasant experience and we wish you a nice time at the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh. Thank you for choosing Jetlite"

Tranquility was what was needed at that moment, and even this did not help. Sometimes, even the best voices fail to allay the fears, cool down emotions, reduce the agonies just because they lack the veracity, the sincerity to establish the connect. They are so very cliche.

"How on the earth, these people manage a smile all the day long. Crazy guys with robotic expressions and taped voices", Mayank wasn't looking to appreciate anything around.

16th April was the day. After days of slogging and a much longer wait for the results, finally people saw a smile on his face. He was offered admission to the Indian Institute of Management, Indore. Couldn't have been better!!! Finally an MBA and that too at one of the best places.
He was going to realize his dream, but the imbroglio of adversarial thoughts was too much for him. Leaving home was not something he was ready for, leaving everything behind, all his friends, the streets that have seen him in the most quirky hours, doing the craziest things. It is like chasing the light at the end of the tunnel, and trying to find a way out of this darkness but the path isn't visible. What's in store for you, nobody knows.

On his way to the college, in a prepaid cab, he looked out of the window. All the trees seemed as if they were being left behind. These trees were his friends, those friends who knew him not as a CAT percentiler, but as the kid who stole guavas from the nursery, as a kid who had a stammer till the eighth class and whose passion was football and that it meant the world for him.

"Can you please help me with the way to the Auditorium please", Mayank made an effort to sound good to first face he encountered at the hallowed insides of the IIM campus.
"Hey, I am Rachit. Me too going there. Let's go together, but do one thing, keep your luggage in your room and then we can proceed for registration"
"My room?"
"Yes, Don't you know this?", Rachit was surprised. "All of us have been allotted the rooms on a lottery basis. Come let's check out yours."
The next 15 minutes were the start of that "not just friendship". Even in the most competitive of environments, two individuals nurture and nourish the understanding, the support structure, the zeal and zest to be there for each other in times of need. They laugh and cry together, drink and dine together and this stays on for life, and that's what makes it "not just friends".

The registration hall was dark. It had too many people; too many unknown people. All of it was uncharted territory. You would never know whom you would bump into. He may be that nerd, that would make your life a "relative" hell for the next 24 months with his consistently good grades. New places and that too crowded with strangers were always too disconcerting.
"At Giridih, there aren't many people for such a multitude", Mayank thought and started looking around. His eyes stopped at a pint of white light. He knew her.

But didn't know how. He knew her eyes, her lips, her flowing hair, her voice, he knew the smile, but he couldn't fathom why. He seemed a bug and she a honeypot.
"Hey, Are you listening", Rachit was almost shouting. Mayank was awoken to his senses and tried replying back, "Nothing, just nothing. Was thinking something else." He stopped twice while filling the registration form, one for remembering his address and the other time for his blood group. She seemed to have an effect on him. He just couldn't concentrate. This gravitation was something he had never felt before. That day later, he met her again. In the Canteen.
"Hi, I am Shilpi, You?"
"Oh, I am Mayank."
"Finished with your registration?", Mayank asked, just to start a conversation.
"Yes, but have to finish off the paperwork for my SBI loan. Will do that tomorrow. Chalo, let's have something here"
"What will you have", Shilpi asked.
"Nothing much, just a Veg sandwich will do for me."
"I am giving the order here, you get some drinks, a cola or a juice."
At the counter, Mayank asked for Limca. He knew she loved Limca, but again never knew why. Even if it meant sacrificing a few hundred millilitres of his favourite, Thumbs Up.
"How did you know, that Limca is my favorite", Shilpi was more happy than curious.
The question was not supposed to be answered, but the answer was there, somewhere hidden in the meta-patterns that governed the universe. But it eluded Mayank.

It was some 15 days that passed by. It was the first weekend after the induction and all the things were over. This was the first Sunday, people would be having after 10 days of utter commotion and sleeplessness.

"Hey MT, how about a trip to Mandu. It is a beautiful place, and is even better in the rains", Rachit asked. Rachit was from Bhopal, he knew the places around, quite well. Mayank nodded in agreement. He tried his best, but his mind was fixated as it was a convex lens, converging all the incident light to one point, called the focus. She was the focus, the light was everything else around.

He collected himself and sat on the table. In the search tab, he typed in Mandu. Just to see, whether Rachit was really true in his description, he opened the first link that the PageRank algorithm threw at him. It was the story about some Rani and his lover, Baz Bahadur, the ruler of Rewa.

And there it was, the answer to the question. There it was, the potrait of the queen. There it was, the testimony to the fact, that History repeats itself and Life too, and that not too far away from Rewa.... Indore was only 96 kms away.

Introspection - II

This is the second part of my introspection post, that i had promised long back. People say, some are born poor and are deprived of all the basic necessities of life. Why do people born in poor families suffer and others born with a silver spoon indulge in all the material pleasures of life. Here comes my take on this. Life gives everybody his share of pain and pleasures. The person born in the rich family may not be blessed with the mental serenity as people who live carelessly and jovially even in the most abject circumstances. A rustic farmer doesn’t need Z-grade security nor he is a subject of so called lifestyle diseases, but yes he struggles to make both his ends meet, to send his children to school, to marry his daughter, to pay off the loan he has. Still, he has the gift of a good night’s sleep. I repeat what I said in my earlier posts - Life has its own idiosyncratic way of leveling things around.

Obsession with money and material pleasures makes you forget the basic essence of life – those titillating moments when you offer a seat to an old woman in the bus, smile on your mother’s face when you are home, the broken lisp of your niece/nephew. People make money and then instead of being satisfied, want even more and then screw up. In the end, they are left with a heap of notes and nothing else.

What to do in this case then? I don’t think I have the best solution, but I would suggest balancing out life or otherwise life will balance you out. How to do that? Here, do whatever that makes you happy and yes, if making money makes you happy, please do it. This is the basic thumb rule that I tried to work out for myself, may be it will work for you too.

Signing Off,

Simply SK

I Dare2compete

http://www.dare2compete.com/

It started with the Indore Marathon 2010, and it went to things like goals, passion and finally to CAT preps - the strategy and effort you need to put in to go in an top notch B-school. I am talking about the conversation I had with DAVV, Indore students yesterday. In this group, there was one girl who was quite enthusiastic and went about asking many questions. Incidentally, I asked her what her current mocks scores were. She replied without a wink - "Not much, it is the range of 83-91".
For many people, this would have been a joke. At the current centiles, the Ivy League is just a distant dream. Even, I agree to this, but here what we call is the basic tenet of human existence. Hope. Three years ago, as a CAT aspirant, even I had my own share of insecurities, ghosts, ghouls and low mock scores. I dared to compete and not just once, I dared it thrice. That's what makes us, homo sapiens different from all other living beings. It is inherent in us to hope for the better and strive for it, no matter how miserably you fail.
I salute the 2 lakh aspirants that give the CAT every year. It is they that give an essence to the top 200o that qualify. To all of you, don't be encumbered by history or be disheartened by the poor performances. Dare2compete and life will come a full circle.. it always does.

I love Yatra.com for the best deals they offer and as it is the one stop shop for anything connected to travel.. even remotely!!!

Introspection

‘Life’ is one of the most unfair propositions you will ever come across. Do you believe this? No matter how miserable I am today and even considering the fact I am one of the most celebrated members of the ‘B’ group, I still believe in one thing. Life has its own idiosyncratic way of leveling things around. It is just that our myopic vision is not able to decipher the subtleties and our intellect is made to think otherwise.

Consider this;
I overheard a conversation between two people sometime back. Let’s name the first person FP and the second person SP and the subject as SB.

FP: SB is a lucky chap. God has gifted him in so many ways, he was one of the top performers in his class, he has represented his company in the TC Quiz and to top it all he is a fantastic singer.

SP: Yes, it is true; look he is too popular with all the people around. I wish I too was a dude like he is.

SB is not lucky. This is the problem with the ‘I-Phone’ generation. We all adore the glamour and the glitz but only a few realize the hard work SB might have put in practicing arithmetic tables, how boring it was for him to sit and read the Bournvita Quiz Book, while his friends were busy playing cricket. They do not realize, how parched his throats must have felt, after subjecting them to a gruesome ‘riyaaz’.

He is enjoying the moment today because he cared to make the right choices, he invested in his future, he went through all that pain, he conquered all his insecurities and he negotiated all the vicissitudes that life threw at him. You call it unfair, I call it unfair. He is better than you because he made a choice to be better than you. You call it unfair, I do not.

Take it in some other context. Say, placements. Many people strive hard for a short term, say maybe 10 months and seek to outsmart a person who has cared to be consistent all throughout his life. This may or may not happen. He may not be putting the same effort as you may do, but still his aggregate effort is more than anybody else. In the end, he wins. Is this unfair?Next in the same series comes tomorrow.

Signing off,
Simply Loser, Simply SK

Loservilla... Khadke Style

An acquaintance of mine, Mr. Saurabh Khadke, Second year student at IIM-A, has come out with what he calls 'loserisms'. Well, the name explains it all. All proverbs, anecdotes, allegories are for born winners, Khadke writes for proverbial losers (Group - B people). For more information on Group - B, Murphy's Law and Loserisms please visit the page of Loservilla at FB.

All copyrights reserved by Khadke and Company :)

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#10: "To know how deep the water is, you have to dive in...you can also throw in the guy next to you"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#9: "Money cant buy you everything...but it sure does help in the amount of bargaining you have to do"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#8: "When the going gets tough, you need to get going.....going somewhere it isnt that tough"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#7: "Be selfless when helping others....but also be selfish when working for yourself"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#6: "When you give advice do it with a spoon of sugar, and when you take it...no dont take it"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#5: "To be SUCCESSFUL...dream big...to DREAM big...keep sleeping"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#4: "Everything happens for the good...yes..but not for your good loser!!"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#3: "Practice makes you perfect....well yeah...makes you a perfect clown who can't do shit"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#2: "If you've missed twice, its better you give up. 'Third time lucky' is a myth you don't wanna trust"

Khadke's Loserisms ‎#1 : "Having the experience of losing is better than having no experience at all.......NOT!!!"

Here I am

A story, I had written long back. This whole blogging thing makes me think, I am moving from self awareness to self promotion. Still, it's fun.. isn't it.

There was once a boy named Dhanu Ram. He was just like another boy you would find on the streets. He would pass off as just another 20 year old, with normal hopes, dreams and aspirations. He was not great in academics, just good enough to come within the top ten of the class. In sports, like all other 30 million youngsters, he was fond of cricket and for him sports was synonymous with cricket. He managed decently in cricket and was famous as a “TEST WALA PLAYER” in his neighborhood. In subtler domain, he was a dud and not a dude. Arts, music and all that girlie stuff did not appeal to him. The last time he sung in public was in front of his seniors during ragging in First year. The figures he drew in Moral Science and Biology classes were just laughter medicine for the evaluator, nothing else. Ask him to draw a horse and I can bet he will manage no better than a donkey, or even worse than that, it will appear as the Minotaur. The last time we saw the guitar gifted to him by his Grandpa’, was in the attic, with all wires protruding out as the hairs of a marauding octogenarian. But one day, everything changed. Dhanu Ram became “DR” and he became the cynosure of all among his friends.

Wanna guess what happened. He got himself a girlfriend. Don’t ask me how, that is an another story, that I will narrate some other day. All in a day, he moved from the ranks of “TOM, DICK and HARRY” to a wiser, ostensibly more attractive and gifted lot of humans. After all he had a GF. He did what the topper of the college could not. He was on the top of the world, but was unaware of the impending dangers that would be unleashed on him very soon.

His transformation from a good for nothing sybarite to a bonded slave was immediate. All time hooked on a call (made by a RIM phone..of course). Whatever little time he devoted to studies was gone, and cricket was left long ago. All the time, he was found at a food joint, feeding a hungry lady, whose hunger for jewelry, paraphernalia and most importantly food couldn’t be satiated. His monthly expenditure rose exponentially from 1500 to 5500 and this made his mother anxious. Poor lady, she started that to believe that her very own Dhanu has started taking drugs. Only a surprise visit to Dhanu’s college could assuage her fears. After all, Dhanu who scored a nine every time had a six grade this time. Mother was made to believe it was hard luck nothing else. A swish of good luck moved his GF out of the city to Jaipur and then things began to ease out a little. Now again DR was in the nines and made a good name for him in a industrial project. Things improved a little more, and one day finally he was rid of the curse.

How it happened is what you will read below.

Dhanu had a close friend, Montu, who was a mutual friend of “Madam” also. He was working with the sales department of a company and happened to visit Jaipur. Montu was asked to meet “Madam” at Dhanu’s behest in Jaipur. Montu called up “Madam” and informed her that he was in her city for a few days. A friend of hers heard the conversation on the phone and after she finished, asked him who this new boy was. On hearing, that the boy on the phone was somebody related to DR, she had the devil inside her aroused. She asked “Madam” to test her love and her lover, and how much he loved him. God!!! When will these women learn that love cannot be quantified? It happened so, that “Madam” appeared a lot friendly with Montu and took him all around the city and also had a decent lunch with him. To top it all, they even watched a movie together. For all you lesser mortals, who cannot decipher what “Madam” was up to, let me explain.

She went out, or took out Montu and was kind to him only to get this across to Dhanu. She wanted to know the reaction of Dhanu, when he learned what happened behind his back. She wanted Montu to tell him exactly what were the dynamics between his GF and his BEST FRIEND, and Montu as a good friend of DR did not disappoint. The story now moves in conversation mode.

Montu:- Are yaar, teri GF to bahut chipak rahi thi yaar, mere se.

DR:- Kyun kya hua?

Montu: -She went out with me, took me around the whole of the Pink city, we had a lunch and also a movie the next day, which of course, I paid for.

DR:- Abe thik hai, use bola tha kit u aane wala hain, To tere saath chali gayi hogi to isme bada baat kya hain.

Montu:- Phir bhi yaar tu dekh le yaar.. kuch to gadbad hain.

DR:- Haan be.. thik hai. Tu tension na le.

That same evening, Madam called DR.

DR:- Kaisi ho.

Madam:- Bahut badhiya, pata kal Montu chala gaya. I went to see him off, and you know, we had a great time together. We went for a movie and it was great fun. These 2 days were quite fun. Wat about urs?

Ab yeh bechara kya bole, Kya pooche – tu kyun gayi thi Montu ke saath, agar yeh poocha to phir badi baat ho jayegi, female independence and male chauvinism pe jaad pad jayegi. Isi liye DR ne lagaya buddhi. Aur bol yeh…

DR:- Accha hai, uska bhi man lag gaya hoga. Thanks for it. Mere dost ka khayal rakhane ke liye.

Madam:- Haan, woh to mera bhi dost hain.

Madam ko yeh baat pacchi nahi, ki Dhanu ne unko is baat ke liye kuch bhi nahi bola. Har roz phone karti aur sochti ki aaj DR kahega : - “Kyun kiya tumne aisa, Mere pyar mein koi kami rah gayi thi, jo uske saath chali gayi. Mujhe ek baar bol diya hota, to main daud daud kar aata, tujhe khana khilata, picture dikhata.” Aur baad mein ye bhi kehta” I love you very much janeman.”

Madam wanted again a servile acquiescence from DR, she wanted him to once again profess his love for her. Even though he had done it 199999 times already, she still wanted more. She wanted to make him feel him long for her, but I don’t think DR took it that way. And this didn’t happen.

Finally when madam couldn’t take it anymore, she called him up .. which was the last time, how we will learn later.

Madam:- What stupid, silly fool you are? Your GF goes out with somebody and there is no response from you. Just a nonchalant “Yes”. This is what I and my love deserve from you. You had no feelings and emotion that a lover has for his sweetheart, how could you behave like this. Where has all your sensitivities gone. At least you could have me something, but it seems you are just dead. You were never like this, Dhanu.

Dhanu beta to kuch samajh hi nahi aaya, kya kahen. Unke mind mein yeh sab ban rahe the - !@#@#$@#$$$$@#$!$%@#%%%^^^Q@!$%#%%%.

Man hi man soch raha tha, duniya mein koi acchai nahi rahi. Saala, accha karo to yeh milta hain. Bata deti gali hin dena tha, iske pure khandan ko acchi acchi gali deta. Ab kya karun…

DR:- Are main to yehi chahta tha ki tum enjoy karo. Waise tum bacchi to ho nahi ki tum kis se ke saath ja rahi ho who dekhna pade. Isi liye kuch nahi bola.

Madam:- Shut up, don’t give lame excuses.

DR: Nahi yaar, I trust you and thus I didn’t think I should say something. Also Montu bhi mera accha dost hain.

Madam:- Montu gaya bhad mein.

Kahe ka montu gaya bhad mein, saare maje to usi ne liye. Bechara Dhanu.

Madam:- Tell me something, it means that you also go out with other girls and you do not tell me, as you are not a baccha any more. Isn’t it true, Dhanu.

Dhanu:- Ahhh hhh.. emmm.. emmm .. Main tumhe kaise …

Call ended. Relationship ended. Madam put up the phone and moved one. Dhanu wahin reh gaya.

Yahi thi … baki DHANU aaj kahan hai aur kya kar rahe hai.. yeh nahi bata sakta kyunki woh phir hansi ke patra ban jayenge. But itna hain jab se is bhootni ka saaya unse hata who tarriki ke rah par chal diye. Padne lage aur bahut kuch aage haasil kiya.

I Day at Planet - I

It is an eerie thing to notice.. the number of 'I's in my life has been increasing lately. It is "I' who is currently whiling away his time at a place that starts with a 'I', in a city with an 'I' and then all the social institutions here have an 'I'. You have to be at this place to know what 'I' am talking about. It is August 15th, and here comes another 'I'. May be 'I' will land up with a girlfriend whose name starts with an 'I'. :) You never know.
At the 64th independence day, even 'I' would like to give some gyan to the whole world. The idea comes from a tweetsation 'I' was having with a celebrity on Twitter. The preamble says 'I' aspires to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. It has been quite some time and is the 'I' we know today - sovereign, socialist, secular (WTF), democratic (WTFFFFF)? The idea of 'I' is dying today. The very strength of being a pluralistic society has been eating at our identity. 'I' is more conscious of what divides it: religion, region, caste, language, ethnicity. All these identities have been used for political maneuvering and what's the result? Today it is more important for 'I' to be a Hindu, a Marathi, a Gujjar, a Yadav and all other fancy names you can find. What about 'I' being an Indian. Have we ever thought about it.

It is sad, that though India was created 63 years go, 'Indians' have not been created till date.