Wednesday, December 27, 2006

something i wrote wen i had just joined XYZ organization (dil se aaya hai) . So , here goes

well , so the story goes like thisConfused MBA(hereafter referred to as CM) has joined a very respectable IT behemoth and like all big companies , there isnt much work for freshers to do.So CM goes right ahead and falls in love with the Pretty summer intern (PSI hereafter).She is so pretty, his heart skips a beat every time he looks at her.He keeps looking at her wen he thinks she is not aware of it, but of course she is aware of it , and CM gets caught quite a few times Thing is , he has had his share of crushes , but this time he knows it is solid gold plated "LOVE" Her summer internship is coming to an end,so he goes ahead and does wht he has never done before. He walks up to her and introduces himself , he is quite proud of himself , he has never done this before. He predicably walks on air for next couple of days.
It is her last day in office ,she walks out of the room and is talking to someone on the phone.CM goes to her and signals tht he wants 5 minutes of her time, she says okay and after her call goes right inside the office without letting him say what he wants to say.
CM is so angry, his face turns red , he spends the next 1 hr fuming. Suddenly she comes to his desk and says "u wanted to say something ?"he says , lets go outside , and they walk outside. She has to walk to tower I for some work, he offers to walk along with her and they walk. It is drizzling (this damn city , it rains all the time)it cud be thought of as quite romantic and CM also thinks it is quite romantic. She says "well ???? "CM says " u know , i am sure u have noticed that i keep looking at you all the time (this aint even corny , u know , downright creepy it is ).She says "YES" and then CM says " i keep thinking about u all the time, cant get my mind off you.."before he can go any further , she says " I will be equally frank with u , i am already committed",so then CM , being the decent chap that he is says " oh well , all the best then".
He is numb for rest of the afternoon, he stares at the computer screen for 4 hrs and takes the first available bus home. At home he stares at half empty bottle of Vodka for quite some time, it calls out to him like the siren calls the sailors, but he manages to resist it with superhuman effort( but for how long ???) well the story does not quite end here , but thts all for now i guess

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Nescafe , holistic and the walk to green park market

In my second year at IITD , I spent more time at Nescafe than in the classroom. I am pretty sure of it. Nescafe at IITD (the one behind textile department ) is a hotspot .This is where birthdays are celebrated, frustrations are let out and love blossoms. It is also the number one spot for not doing anything at all. U don’t need to buy a cup of coffee to hang around. Most of the times, I bought cup of coffee and spent hours at the Nescafe , of course with friends.
It was , still is I suppose, the place for everything. Birthday celebrations mean the guy /gal is taken to Nescafe. Junta is treated to frappe / chocolates / icetea. A part of the liquids is poured onto the persons head as well. And the birthday bumps, man, that is something, its almost like the person is being punished for being born

HFC (better known as HFC) is right next to Nescafe. I think I have spent an equal amount of time at holistic as at Nescafe. Holistic was the health food place where u cud get sprout laddos and awesome paranthas with dahi. And u cud get juices and shakes and all kinds of stuff. Back then I was a compulsive jogger. I used to jog 2-3 km every day. From himadri circle I used to walk to HFC, pick up a glass of orange juice and walk back to shivalik (my hostel).
After that I used to shower , change and head back to HFC to meet friends. This was followed by dinner at IIFT or rainbow or some such place. Then we indulged in bakC sessions. This continued till 2-3 am in the morning. During the bakC sessions almost half the class wud turn up at Nescafe at some time or the other. Sometimes I wondered if DMS ppl were known as most vella ppl in the campus
Now a days I get up at 7 am and I am asleep at 11 pm. It’s a shame, I tell u

One more place or experience for me was the walk to greenpark market. I don’t know how many ppl know of it , but the walk , for me was very relaxing.
There is a road between rose garden and SDA complex which goes to aurobindo place. Along this road are some of the best houses I have seen in delhi. It is my dream to own a place there but I don’t think it is very likely. From aurobindo place u take left turn then again a right turn and u reach the green park market. Somehow I always feel like I am in a carnival when I go there. Shops all along the pavement, ccd , pizza hut , costa café , evergreen McD’s, madras café. I have eaten at all these places, I don’t know why I am saying this , just that I am.
Many times I have walked there with nisha and a few times with harshita. Ppl thought I was crazy coz of my walking habit, but I dunno why it gave me a lot of peace.
There is a book café inside ccd at greenpark. I used to go there 2-3 times a week and read. I finished 2-3 books in this manner.

I don’t know why I am saying all this , but I feel my soul is lost somewhere in IIT delhi. I am now in Pune which was my dream city , but after coming here I feel as if a part of me is missing. I really want to move back to delhi but that seems almost impossible. Careerwise it is a really bad move.
Can you tell me what I should do ????

Monday, December 4, 2006

Trial by fire

I came to a B school to make money . As simple as that. People came in order to get more exposure , better job profiles and God knows what else, but me , I came for money.
I do not need to defend myself but still, when you work at a power plant with men temp. of 45 deg C , workers cursing everyone and u get a pittance for it , u gotta leave. One fine day , that is exactly what I did.
I was the fourth guy to get a summer placement , it was the second company in campus. The stipend was highest in history of DMS. The point here is , the earlier u get ur summers , the more you have to wait for ur final placements, or so our seniors told us.

14th December , IBM is first company on campus. I have not been shortlisted. I am not surprised , my cgpa is below par. Then the idiots come up with a second list which has my name.
As usual , they throw me out in the GD. I know a bit about ERP. In fact that is the only thing I know in IT. IBM is offering ERP profile. I coach shiraz and rohit coz they have been shortlisted.
Then I and tamal go for lunch , a very heavy lunch and I go to sleep. When i wake up, I find that shiraz and rohit are thru and I have been shortlisted for Citibank. Some relief.
Citibank interview : REJECTED. Well , after their PPT , where couple of our alumni were not able to describe what they did , I was a bit hesitant abt Citibank, but still it hurt.
What really hurt was that the bitch Krina got thru Citibank. I called nisha , she asked krish to cool me down. He came to my room and we calculated that lots of jobs were coming, so no need to worry.
I managed to clear Wipro GD ( a first for me ). I also chose not to appear for SBI interview (in hindsight one of my better decisions).
The next day , I cleared HCL GD and chose not to appear for kotak GD (again an excellent decision). But in HCL interview I got screwed. HCL picked up 6 ppl about whom the whole class was worried, defaulters of first order ( and some of them my best friends). Aryan cried in nisha’s car , I barely managed not to.
After that I worked hard to find out what was wrong. Qambar and shiraz helped me a lot. They walked me thru mock interviews , pointing numerous mistakes I made. I owe a lot to these ppl , especially qambar.
Infy PPT. All thru the year I had studied ERP coz tht was the profile infy had offered to our seniors. For our batch they offered testing and telecom. I had exactly zero knowledge about both of these.
Had you asked anyone in class where I wanted to go , the answer would have been Infosys. But it was not to be. Last hope shattered.
Wipro was the only good chance I had remaining. I had never felt so down in my life ( later on I would , but tht is another story)
Dday , first interview was Wipro. I came out of DHL GD , and rohit told me that Wipro ppl were calling for me.
I ran up 4 flights of stairs to 6th floor. I walked into the room and said “sir , I have just run up 4 flights of stairs , I need to catch my breath “
After that the interview was smooth. They asked me about my previous job , about the IT industry in general and SAP in particular. Since ERP was the only thing I had studied in 2 years, I snowed them.
They asked me to wait outside the room , then called me inside and said “Mangesh , we would like to make u an offer.”
That was it.
The stress was so much , I had a headache for the rest of the day , but I could not care less.
In the end I got ERP profile, the city I wanted (pune), all in all , life turned out to be okay.
I can laugh about it now , but back then , it was tough.
Now I can say , I MADE IT .

Guys turn into spineless morons once they have GF (me excluded)

This is the story of Aryan , one of my very good friends.. Aryan, I , krish and nisha were known as the family in IITD, coz of our propensity to always hang out together. Then came smita , the home wrecker.
Some background is necessary for this story.
Aryan keeps falling in love (not quite unlike me ). He falls in love at the slightest pretext , or so it seems to me. I have known 5 girls that he has been in love with. Thankfully (or not) he is marrying the fifth.
The first one was pratiksha, her father got her married off to some guy in the US. End of story. I am pretty sure she also was in love with Aryan, but ……..
Second one was a bitch in our class. He refuses to accept that he was in love with her but I have corroboration from a lot of people that he was. That thing never went ahead beyond friendship .
Third one was a girl he met at some quiz contest. He once shopped for a gift for the girl with me , for reasons he never told me. I think , in fact a lot of people think that he proposed to her and she refused , but dont have clinching evidence to prove the same.
Fourth one is really interesting, I am the only one who knows about it. No one else on this earth knows about it. He did not quite tell the girl how he felt but assumed that she refused (twisted , isn’t it ??)
Now comes the interesting part. After the supposed refusal by the mystery gal , he meets pratiksha. He knew that se was senti about him and asked us how he could refuse her politely. So I thought that he is past it. I remember me sitting with him and some other ppl and discussing as to what wud be the best way to say no to her. We assumed he is safely beyond the machinations of this female.
Then one night wen I was sitting with nisha at Nescafe , he says to us “I am getting married to pratiksha “
We were too stunned to say anything , but like the true friends we were , we took him to comesum at nizamuddin and extracted a treat out if him.
For the life of me I cant understand how he went from “how can I refuse her in the nicest possible manner “to “I am getting married to her “
But the worst part was yet to come. This female systematically tore him apart from us( or so I believe). He used to spend 25hrs in day with us , now he wud never be seen . I got lot of heartburn about it.
Perhaps this is how it happens,. I agree that he has to spend rest of his life with her , but we were also his friends. I think I have cribbed enough about this.
But he question is , do all guys turn into spineless idiots after they fall (whtever) in love with a girl ?
More important thing is , will this happen to me as well??

Playing with fire

Simple rule of life , u play with fire, u end up getting burnt. What could be simpler ?
But being the ass I am , I had to find it for myself.
Enter madam krina. She was my classmate and I found her , well, interesting. This incident is by the way from the 2nd sem.
So one day I am getting bored in my room, I think I will borrow LOTR from her. So I call her up and ask her for the book. She says “fine , but that will cost you a coffee at Nescafe”
I thought , what the heck, TP to ho hi jayega, so I walk to Nescafe. She had not reached yet , so I asked the guy at Nescafe for a coffee. He says , “I don’t have sugar” , so I decided to skip the coffee.
Then I start walking to wards her hostel, so I could take the book from her . I met her at himadri (girls hostel at IITD) circle and I told her coffee is on hold.
Then suddenly , out of the blue , I asked her if she would like to have a coffee at the Barista across the road from IIT main gate. She said fine and we go over to that place.
It was interesting experience. She seemed to be knowledgeable ( I am sure she is , but I cant get over my hatred for her )
So thus started the stupid phase of my iit days.
They say that the path less trodden is so for a reason , I was stupid enuf to not take the hint. So I took the path less traveled and it has indeed made a lot of difference J
These coffee dates continued and time went by. Junta was of course yanking my chain about it, but I kept my peace.
Do you believe in sixth sense? After this episode I have started to believe in it. I mean I liked the female and all but something always told me that there was something not quite right and eventually I was proved right but not before a lot of trouble.
Cut to valentine’s day . I was with abdul and tamal , they were working on some fin paper and I was quite unceremoniously asked to leave. ( my experiences with finance is something I will later cover in some other post – not a pretty story )
So I come out of Jwala hostel and suddenly decide to call her . the conversation goes something like this
Me : feel like having a cup of coffee ?
Krina : can u be here in 10 minutes
Me : be there in half and hour

So I go to kailash hostel in half an hour ,pick her up and then we go to barista. I must admit I had a good time , I wonder if she did . But tht is besides the point.
After barista we walked in the campus for abt 30 minutes or so and I dropped her off at her hostel.
In a related matter , harshita , one of my classmates , whom I made really good friends with later on ( she is also a very good friend now ), had seen me with krina that day.
Later when we had turned good friends, she told me “we saw the two of you together on valentine’s day , and we thought , good, two angry people together”
Some of my other classmates had comments like “ instead of four lives getting ruined , better that two get ruined “
Finding out what people think about you is really educational , isn’t it ? J

Couple of day after this we were discussing something in some class, arguing , more like , and she says , “I am absolutely right , u are absolutely wrong ,and that is all there is to it “
Well after that , we went our separate ways , which I guess reflects on my egotism as well , but I am the author here , I call the shots.
This story does not have a end as such , just that I wanted to say that , if you play with fire , u are gonna get burnt.

Interesting things in first semester

In the first sem I was , and I am still , very good friends with shiraz , tamal , rohit and abdul. I had a thing for walking long distances in the campus and was promptly named the rocket because of it.
We had a standard route for roaming around in the night. Shiraz and rohit would come to my room , we would then go to ex hall , pester people studying there , go to Nescafe and back to hostel.
About these sojourns two interesting things I remember. We once went to ex hall where abhishek was studying/pretending to study finance with akanksha. So we go there, talk to him in general ( test his patience more like) and walk off to Nescafe. At Nescafe I feel like we should visit abhi again. So we come back to ex hall and there he is , studying.
But the interesting thing is, even after 25 min , he is still reading the same page.
So we said to him “kya yaar , page to change kar liya kar , it makes for a good pretense”
All this while , shikha was sitting near them and studying. Suddenly , she gets all fired up.
Ppl like u , she says , u study in hostel and then do not let other ppl study. The bitch , I cud have killed her. But then I just walked away. Of course when the first sem results came, I was way behind the bitch, which was not an issue with me, I cud hardly care less. I did care later on in 3rd sem when a 8 CGPA was considered necessary , but thts a different story.

One more thing , for all abhi studying with akanksha,, he lost to the playboy of our class , Shankar. I had seen Shankar with the most amazing of babes, lots of times. For someone like me , he was an ideal, which of course I never achieved.
One more thing , during my first few days at IIT , I had tagged akanksha as “the kind of girl u take home to meet ur mom”, boy I never knew how wrong I was.
So during the last day of rendezvous, ppl se akanksha leaving the campus with Shankar and she comes back at 5 am, which also some ppl noticed.
From then till now , I am still ridiculed by friends abt the take home girl.
Abhi of course , promptly went off to haridwar for rafting , but some ppl said that he had taken sanyas.