Interesting Incidences of Mine, Abridged

There are a few moments in life, when you really sit back, put your feet up and just look at the ceiling corners, reflecting upon the place where you spent the best days of your life ? This is indeed a rewarding experience and you should do it immediately unless if you happen to be driving in which case my advice is don't. For most of the guys who passed from IIMA , the answer to this question would be quite clearly - IIMA.

My personal initiation to IIMA goes back to 1993, a time when people didn't bore your kneecaps with hydraulic drills, when you mentioned things like "eyeball share" or "Enron is a great scrip". Back then, I did not really seek the IIMs, rather they sought me. The reason was in my final days of engineering, I was surrounded by a tribe of people who were preparing for CAT. You could immediately make them out in a crowd. For, thanks to the IMS word lists, they used to talk like,

"Did you behold the nudiustertian TV schtick ?"

"Nay, was it of a terpischorean nature ? I abhor any form of tarantism."

Their's was a tribe who prayed to Messrs Barrons, Websters and Collins, put on body paint, and danced in a circle around a fire with arms around each other chanting "proceulusmatic" , "malversation" and such. That was my first familiarisation to the CAT. I realised that if I had to get into an IIM then I had to get past the "Beware of CAT" sign hanging at the door..

CAT was the toughest part to crack was the advise proffered to me by Sanjiv Naik who had appeared for CAT three times unsuccessfully and ergo was an authority on the subject. Told to me each time, with a confidence of a Gulliver in Lilliput. ( " Rahul, This time I have cracked the system", were the famous last words whispered to me always in a tone, that would have you believe that only he knew where the weapons of mass destruction really were). After I cleared the CAT, he told me the same thing about the infamous stress interviews. This I knew, .. coming from a guy who would break into a welter of hives trying to recall the answer to the question , "In which town is the leaning tower of Pisa located ?", could be ignored. Tough or not, eventually , I did get to walk up the Stanford Ramp and the Harvard steps.

The first few days at IIMA was spent reflecting in the time how long were my average sized brains going to withstand the intimidating presence of University toppers, IIT medallists and CA rankers. The next two years were going to make that happen.

IIMA was an experience. May be it was the faculty. It was a who's who of IVY league PhDs and captains of the Industry. The "who's who" part being reinforced by one of my more cerebral batchmates, who at the end of our second year asked me, "Who's he ?" , pointing his chin towards our Director, who incidentally had personally taught us courses and had so many PhD epaulettes that his centre of Gravity had shifted to his shoulders. May be it was the campus. The beauty of the IIM campus in Ahmedabad was that it was an architectural marvel. The Estonian architect Louis Kahn had designed the campus in such a way that almost from no point in campus was it possible to look directly into the girls dormitories but at the same time it was possible for the campus warden Sethumadhavan to look in to the farthest corners of the campus. Needless to say Louis Kahn's career graph suffered a dramatic decline after this. The highlight of the campus was the Louis Kahn Plaza, the sheer magnificence of which played host to countless proposals, where guys went down on one knee and looked up and said , " Sir... pleeeease pleeeeese make it a B+" . Or may be it was the curriculum design. We could pick and choose our 15 second year courses from a total of almost 80 courses. Then some guys used to pick and choose from this 15 courses, which are the ones that are worth missing a movie in the Movie-A-Day club.

If you ask me my personal opinion, then the true experience was the sheer confluence of 200 of the best and the brightest brought together for 2 years in a residential program. It created a bubbling intellectual broth, which did crystallise a different thought process into you. So instead of a vertical thinking, which is characteristic of any undergraduate studies , here we have discussion on alternate dimensions to the same problem. Just take an example of the dormitory (or dorm) discussion (with the emotional states in brackets) that were a typical feature after any major event like a broken heart, a REM session or discussing clear and present danger at the end terms. (NOTE : The names below are real and the conversations surreal)

Yaya (worried): "Boss, How do you think I can avoid sinking below C level in the MIS Credit "

Bosky (ingenious) : "You could try hacking in the computers and set it your grade to A. If you are found out, your hacking skills would still justify an A."

Pondy (drunk) : "Try wearing a miniskirt to the end terms and hope the RA marking your papers is a Gay".

Yaya (worried, angry) : "You guys are nuts. I rather go to hell than ask you guys for advice".

Chaddi (shirtless) : "You rather go to Hell ? Boss, even to get there, you atleast need a MIS course B. Hell is difficult..... try for IIMC instead"

Yaya (worried, angry and a cricket bat in hand) : "Aiyoh , Muruga...I am asking for help and you '&%$$s are $$%@% me. "

The debate used to go in to a increasing decibel spiral until the next dorm used to tell us what they thought of us , a favour which was reciprocated jointly by our entire dorm as a team, in a sound level meriting an entry on the Richter scale. Dorms made you a team player. So did the Gaulish Village of Astreix. Infact the dorm was like the Gaulish village in the Astreix books, which opened with a free for all but always ended with merry making. Sure we had our fights, sleights and flights but at the end of it all, you still came back to the dorm, where a part of you belonged and a part of which belonged to you ........and also that was the only place where you could take a shower before your grocer started giving you moth balls instead of Sunsilk shampoo satchets.

The image for the outer world was that IIM, Ahmedabad played host to all sharp minds who had IQ levels high enough to suffer from bird strikes and who didn't enjoy Life. Though this might well be true and the fact was that Life inside the campus was really a tough grind and there was indeed a lot of hard work ...especially biting the chappatis in the mess, which were apparently made from the airplane seat belts but that did not mean that we did not have a life otherwise. The campus did bring out what was the best in a person. Of course not all were happy with what they got, but there is no egalitarianism in these matters. 200 guys and girls made sure that life continued nay flourished in the MAD Clubs, in the Wet DJs , in the Combos, in the IIMACTs, in the Dandias etc, in short the notion that we did not have a life was totally wrong.

In fact Life did not have us. We were larger than Life....well at least that's what we thought. We were at the top of the world and stayed there for two years till the world dropped us off. Life of course went on even after Ahmedabad but everyone of us took a piece of those two hundred acres with ourselves. Most of the guys who walked those chequered brickpaths walked them out wanting to become the masters of universes. Time.. that great judge ..duly announced the verdict anyway. Whatever the verdict, we knew we had the best lawyer. I still remember each and every minute spent on that campus. It is difficult not to. Those wild days, the even wilder nights and the perfectly tame grade sheets. Sometimes I think, in life the only things worth treasuring are your memories because only they are permanent. Everything else is not.

Ten years ago when I was still there, there used to be an anthem in campus, "Zindagi mil ke bitayenge, Haal-e-dil ga ke sunayenge".
If ever in the future, I can get back all those 180 guys and girls to relive my memories, I will... I surely will

The End Of Innocence

From the mouths of babes, come words of wisdom and indeed if you philosphically reflect on "Aiiiee oowww.....YEEEEEAA" , you actually experience an epiphany, which will change the way you look at yourself.......primarily because after that sound, you will be covered by an amalgam of baby puke, mashed bananas and the morning milk. But that is how babies are. Babies have this rule, if they want to be happy, you have to be uncomfortable. e.g

a) When you are in right in the middle of your meal , your baby will decide to unload the trade surplus of Japan in his diapers , accompanied by howls of joy that to the untrained ear sound like cries of discomfort. While you are getting up from the dinner table, swearing silently so that your wife doesn't skewer you with her looks, actually those tiny baby neurons are busy giving each other the high fives , wondering how can they improve upon this new record.

b) When you have just returned severely jetlagged from travelling a 18 hour economy class flight and have settled in your bed, showing just about enough movement to keep the lawyers from reading your will, your baby will tear the night skies with an incessant howl. This howl will marginally decrease only when you carry the baby in your arms, drop down drastically when you stand up and completely silenced when you stand on one foot. (For best results stand on broken glass)

c) When you have freshly showered and preparing for a tuck in and going against your common sense, you decide to take a small peek inside that cotton camouflage called diapers to asses the situation at ground zero. You decide to approach stealthily and take the briefest of looks through the tiniest of openings by lifting the flap when like a coiled up cobra , a high pressure jetstream of a supercompressed motion shoots your dry cleaned silk kurta to pieces.

Happiness is a zero sum game for babies. That's the reason why the happiest babies are the ones with the most miserable looking parents. I am sure the actor Alok Nath has extremely happy babies. Babies are indeed miles ahead of anyone in this game of subterfuge and deceit and what helps them have a natural advantage are those innocent eyes. Those are the real weapons of mass destruction. Someone should tell that to George Bush instead of asking him to look into the camera like Emrann Hashmi does. These innocent eyes while seducing adults,lull them into a safety zone where they unknowingly step into the dangerous circle of inanity. This is the circle where normally sane adults end up going down on all fours and make nonsensical statements. A bit like Manmohan singh infront of Sonia Gandhi. This is the point when adults are going ,"oogie..boogie.......luchhu...buchhu" and the babies are going " OK that's it smartypants, you are doing fine, just come a little bit closer because your face is going to look like a cheese margarita Pizza, when I am done with my regurgitation" (PS : Contrary to conventional wisdom, babies have an advanced vocabulary of food processing. Most babies also know reflux, projectile motions etc).

My baby is no differrent and I suspect when she grows up she is always going to resent the fact that we did not name her gl_77669 despite the fact this email id is available on Hotmail as well as yahoo. But that is in the future, at the moment I really see no reason why there should be unprovoked physical attacks using body fluids. I am faced with the quandary that all parents the world over find themselves in provided they are able to spell "quandary" correctly. How do we get back ?

10000 years of human existence on the planet is yet to lead to a solution and I have a suggestion. Give them a taste of their own medicine....literally. The next time your baby starts howling, I suggest you join in . It is easy to do . All you have to do is
a) Get down on your back and raise your arms
b) Start howling at the top of your voice
c) Explain clearly in a normal voice , the reasons to the police and the courts as to why exactly were you doing that.

Hey, I never said it was easy. But when you are fighting for a just cause , it's all for a worthy reason. Generations of future parents will thank you for it, worship you in their houses, erect your statues etc, the possibilities are mind boggling. So all those parents out there , remember my words ..........,"oogie..boogie.......luchhu...buchhu".

Baby Boom
As crazy as it may sound , I have finally found the cause behind the world's booming economy. In one word it is "babies" and in two words it is "still babies". If you were ever to lift the hood and peep under the economic cycle , you would it powered by nothing more than a bunch of bald headed, toothless, diaper clad individuals, pedalling furiously away to generate enough lift to make the economy behave like a weather balloon. The entire economic boom is being driven by babies.

I am sure you do not believe me and as is often the case I don't give a damn. Just think about your childhood. In the old days when we were kids, our infant accessories basically consisted of a plastic bottle and a comfort blanket of an indeterminate colour nicknamed "tushybabu" or "kushypapu" or whatever. That was all we needed to see us to adulthood. You would have wedding vows like "Before I declare you John to be Grace's lawfully wedded husband , is there any soul present in the congregation , who would like to relieve the couple of their kushykushies". We were pretty much free to pee and poo anywhere and indeed in some cases like Arjun Singh , that is still the norm de rigueur.

But these days thanks to overzealous parents and the internet baby websites, your ordinary yesteryear "langot" has been replaced by Diaper, nappy cream, nappy sanitiser, nappy steriliser, bottom cleaner, bottom smoothener, bottom calibrator, ph Monitor etc. With this kind of value locked up in baby accessories it is a question of time before Governments accept baby accessories as legal tender. You would have those 3 lettered business channel panel discussions going like " Today the babydiapers dropped vis a vis the US dollar on renewed fears that the US Fed has pulled them up. However with the introduction of the new softfeel coating interest rates are likely to remain high ".

Where once baby's bottoms could be cleaned by a glass of water and a 15 year old girl called Lakshmi , now it requires the resources of a central american nation to do the same job. Driven by armies of overzealous parents who are convinced that their Clark Kent is just 1 diaper change away from turning into Superboy, the economy soars.

A small organisation which plays no insignificant part in this value supply chain is the baby products mafia. Operating under the cover of infant care shops, they ruthlessly, using slave labour, work night after night furiously to come up with new inventions to send parents on guilt trips. (The virtual smorgasbord of baby food is a good example. DHA fortified, Closline enhanced, lactose calibrated, with iron, and the list goes on. You have no idea which one to choose)

Just picture this. You go into a shop to buy some apparently straight forward accessory for baby e.g a pacifier or dummy, which is basically a small plastic nipple which keeps the babies and the fellow movie watchers calm. The conversation starts off innocously before stealthily sucking you into the downward spiral of diaper death.

Me : "I want a dummy"

Salesman : "I will get you the manager"

Me : "I mean a pacifier"

Salesman : "Oh!.......We don't have one in your size but for your baby we do have one. Haa Haa. Which one would you like ?"

Before you feel like longing for the salesman to have a pacifier for himself , he would take out a plastic piece the size of a MP's brain and calmly tell you ,

"This one is for 35 dollars. But I would recommend you going in for a antiseptic , self cleaning pacifier with 3G connectivity and a built in GPS transponder which we have on offer for 750 dollars."

"Why does it need a GPS transponder ? (without having an idea , like most middle class family men, what the hell a transponder is and acting as though the price is no big deal)

"Oh yes you do need one because didn't you read the papers the other day where the baby went crawling on all fours out of the house and was only found 18 years later in Australia hanging on to a yellowed piece of plastic surviving on body lice and ear wax. You can never be too careful. You wouldn't want that to happen to your precious ones. Infact the next generation of pacifiers is going to come with a homing beacon and a radio gyrocsopic autopilot."

"OK I will take that"

"Oh take two as you need one spare while charging the first one"

"OK " reply I , in a reduced font size.

":....and surely you don't want to skimp on a back up generator to make sure that you can charge the pacifier"

and so on continues the sales spiel till I return home with the purchase of a generator, a platinum tipped non corrosive electrical cabling system and a small share of the Alaskan oil fields.

These salesmen have to be charter holders of the Chartered Baby Mafia program in order to work in these jobs. You really have to wonder where is our civilisation headed to. We had perfectly normal GPS disabled and non radio magnetic childhoods but the baby manufacturers mafia would have you believe that were it not for them , this world would have been full of messed up individuals who would not think twice before putting on their cotton nappies ,wash themselves with inorganic cleansers and hold the march of humanity hostage. But as is often the case , if you can't beat them, join them and on that note let me just give this investment tip to the fellow new parents out there , Go short on the langots. Without any market intervention, they are likely to head south.

Number Theory

0.03 - The average time in seconds after a flight touches down, the first moron will switch on his cell and make a call/sms stating "Hi, Just landed"

2 - The average time in minutes in which a minister will get heart pains after being served judicial summons or after being photographed naked with a goat

12 - The average number of people that have to sit on a mumbai local bench before you are required to travel as a standee.

1 - The probability a consiracy theory will be created by a politician when currency notes are found stuffed in his dhoti

0 - The probablity that a guy is speaking the truth when he tells his girfriend/wife/mistress that he finds porn movies replusive

3,000,000 - The amount in dollars that tobacco companies would have saved by the time you finish reading the sentence, in advertising expenses and have absolutely no effect in their sales.

543 - The rough number of political parties represented in our parliament by 2050 and hence by definition of coalition politics also the parties represented in the Union cabinet. There is good chance that we will reached such a level of micromanagement that have a separate ministry for welfare of women, welfare of men, welfare of women who think they are men, welfare of women who think they are too pretty to talk to the average Janardan at a party etc.

2.3 - The percentage of body area covered by some kind of fabric for an average remix video model.

85 - The number of film award functions in a year that will be hosted by various companies like Filmfare, Zee, Stardust, Manikchand, etc. Actors will be so busy particpating in functions around the world that the Bollywood movies will be shot entirely using video conferencing.

754477 - Rupees per square foot that you will pay in South mumbai for a residential apartment which has no pool, tennis court, lift and may be even no electricity but offers a splendid view i.e. of another residential property that has been built so close that residents of the 2 can brush each others teeth through their windows.

110 - The operating margins in percentage terms that stock markets expect of the big 3 IT companies . The newspapers would read like "Infosys reports 8000% growth, discovery of weapons of mass destruction and cheaper environmental alternative to oil ......Market dissapointed"

20 - The number of times Saurav Ganguly would blink looking alternately at mid pitch and then the bowler before he takes his guard. Get a new pair of contact lenses for heaven's sake.

3 - The speed in kilometres per year that rush hour traffic will move in Mumbai after Ratan Tata launches his 1 Lakh car.

7 - The number of people that will head to the toilets after the Seat belt lights come on and the Captain says "Cabin crew , be seated for landing"

2 - The time in months that elapses before you see a newspaper article rubbishing the benefits of a food group which was published earlier. i.e. "Scientists say Tomato skin prevents cancer" and 2 months later you see "Scientists say Tomato skin is the leading cause behind anal polyps that grow to the size of cricket balls"

Only that glitters is Gold

There was a recent furore over some catwallk models who were refused to let their wardrobe malfunction because they were so thin that organisers feared the audience might mistake them for organic clothes hangers. According to these organisers something was drastically wrong as the average fashion model today weighs no more than a dictionary. Infact today most dictionaries are being rewritten to define "Fashion model - N,irr,sep V - The shortest distance between 2 points". Most of the models when they heard the news went straightaway to the windows of their Paris , Milan penthouses to jump to their deaths. But the evening breeze blew them away gently till they ended up landing softly in Jungles of the Congo Valley, where they blended in smoothly with the praying mantis colonies. The brouhaha was because the organisers felt these thin models served as bad role models to the current teenage generation. Indeed this caused me great concern , e.g Teenagers having role models !!!. In my time teenagers did not have any role models. We barely had enough time to show off our knowledge at clandestine booze parties

Teen 1 = "Dude just add some cigarette ash to make your beer smooth"

Dude in question (who similar to Teen 1had no idea what exactly a smooth beer is) - "Cool man, ash with slight chilli sauce to make it acid smooth"

Teen 1 = "Rocking dude "

.......and so went on the endless meets with teen 1 and dude adding stuff like Cigarette ash, chilli sauce, Dabur Chyawanprash, Iodex etc to their beer to make it like funky smooth. A time came when we had to stir our beer with mechanised sailing oars to mix in the cool stuff. We had no time for role models. We were too busy with our own theories and experiments.

e.g. Theory : Anita Chopra has the hots for Dude 1.
Experiment : Dude 1 to ask her out by wolf whistling her down college corridors singing hindi songs with the subtle elegance of a 1980s Jeetendra movie.
Result : Rakhee on the wrist.
Conclusion : Anita Chopra is a lesbian.

But apparently things have changed and nowadays teens do have role models like Britney Spears, Liz Jagger and other models whose names I was too lazy too google for. I was wondering in my own naive non teen way, in what way exactly do these catwalkers serve as models. These guys barely know how to choose a pair of trousers. If you ever watch them , you see them walking with that rather silly stern expression. I mean what is with the stern expression. Here you are wearing Jute sacks that seem to be the secret love child of a umbrella and a tuxedo and you are looking on with the stern expression as though you are on your way to a critical cardiac bypass operation. Infact these models should be wearing an expression that suggests "Hey look at me, am a functioning adult even though a few chromosomes are missing". But despite the missing chromosome, apparently they do serve as idols for the teens.

So we have girls wanting to be Barbies and guys wanting to be Arnold Schwarzenneger (but with a simple surname). Such unrealistic ideals of human perfection no matter how superficial appeal more to people than your personality. Your success is thought to be a direct muliple of your appearances.

So all encompassing is the glamour that appearances are more than skin deep. Society today has such misplaced ideas of beauty. If you are fat, short, ugly, dark etc (I am not necessarily talking about my friend Rajit here), then you are deemed to be the human equivalent of Bangladesh. It does not matter that you might be talented, Intelligent, artistic etc because beauty is only skin deep. It is better off looking like a Hrithik Roshan and having the intelligence of Bangaru Laxman than having the intelligent persona of a V Anand or the talent of a A R Rehman. Everybody wants to be a hero but none ... an actor. So there is no dearth of customers for numerous products, services, establishments etc who promise to make you slimmer, fairer, restore hair, improve your bustline, prettier etc .

So we have fashion models whose only talent is having the body fat content of a flower pot and wearing lampshades upside down but still manage to inspire the teenage generation. whereas a Satyendra Dubey or a Manjunath last in public memory shorter than a Adnan Sami's gym session. I wonder who needs to be banned more.