Mukund 'Marriage' Treat - 25-Oct

Hey! The meet was good.. though not many turned up.. it was good to meet up after a long time..
Me, vikram, supriya, mukund, kedar, sharath, dumma & mozz were the only ones who turned up. The food was great man.. and the desserts were yum.. and i miss them even now man.. :p It was a total binge out!
I was there as usual.. on time. And had to wait for about an hour for the others to pour in.. and there is nothing new about me.. working with Yokogawa, still alive and kicking! And i wasnt shy the other day ok.. it was just a way to make the others involve while making plans to meet up.
Vik turned up 20 mins late.. I meet him every other day so it wasnt so great to see him.. and there is nothing new to him either :p he is one kid who will never grow up. :p Oh yeah.. he did give a bad news, said that dumma couldnt make it cause he had booked a wrong flight and had missed it..
Soup came an hour late.. The news is.. her job is to teach french, table manners, etc etc..(forgot what the others were :p) and the big thing.. she got an awesome hike in her salary the other day.. so its gonna be her tret next.. :p
The man of the moment.. Mukund, came after soup.. The news is.. He has lost weight! And he cant stop blushing.. lol.. u just have to see him when he blushes.. hahaha.. talk abt bhavya.. oh sorry rashmi.. (His fiancée) and the next second he is all smiles.. giggling.. reaches out for a glass of water.. oh! Dude.. Is this really you? :-) Anyways.. cant wait to see mukund on the wedding day on the stage.. :-) and after a year, holding little mukund.. :p
Kedar & Sharath followed dumma.. and the news is kedar seems to be pissed with his job.. it was so visible.. (currently working for KPMG) and sharath was happily showing off his new phone.. it was quiet a cool one.. :-). Oh the driver code to the camera of that phone was written by sharath himself.. wow! and also seems like he is the next one to get married after mukund.. :D atleast looks like he is all ready!
Dumma makes a surprising entry.. he never misses a thing like this.. so proved it again.. :-). The news is.. he looks just the same to me since college.. :-) the little rock star!
Finally.. Mozz lands up after everything, he was starving so much that he didnt mind to finish the left overs.. hahaha.. the news is.. mozz is a business man now.. he manufactures jacuzzis and he talks in fluent kannada.. and he has put on loads of weight!!
Whoever missed it.. actually missed it! So next time, make some free time.. and lets plan properly so that more guys turn up..
Cya allPraveen

My 26 Birthday

My 26 birthday was on 20-08-2008. isn't that a pretty cool date! 2008-2008!! i was kinda hoping that even the day would turn out as spectacular as the date, but on the evening of 19th, i came back home with absolutely no plans for the night. couldn't remember the last time i had no plans on a birthday eve of mine.. anyway, decided to work it out once i got back to my guesthouse. but getting back itself was a problem, because exactly on this day, the skies decided to open up and bring cats, dogs and elephants down on Chennai. so i got stuck in the rain and used the time to buy some chocolates that i can distribute the next day and browse through some groceries. but no matter how much browsing i did to cut time, the rain just wouldn't subside. so i got back wet, only to find no power in the guesthouse. it was the only flat in the entire apartment without power! so there i sat, in my room, all alone, wet from the worst rain Chennai has seen, with no power and no plans for the night, and nothing but a box of chocolates for company. even my roommates who were staying in the guesthouse until a few days back had vacated. so lonliness had taken a whole new definition in my life!
i called my only good friend in Chennai - Harsh, and pretty much forced him to come out and spend some time with me. he was totally surprised that i don't have any plans for the night. i had to explain that i was in a strange city with very few friends and really with no options of going out and having some fun. so the poor guy obliged, and came riding all the way at 10 in the night. by the time we went to our usual hang-out - bikes n barrels, the only pub that allows stags (coz they have a separate section for "scum-bags" like us), it was past 11. we ordered beers and just hung out drinking and chatting. just when it turned 12, the waiter brings a cake! i couldn't believe my eyes. just 2 hours back, i was wondering how today is going to be my worst birthday ever, and here i was, having a good time with a good friend (which in so many ways is better than being out with a 100 people who hardly matter to you) and now with even a cake to cut! so i blew the candle, made an apt wish for the night and cut the cake and shared it wit Harsh. i gave him the rest of the cake and asked him to distribute it wit his roommates. soon the calls started coming through and i was wrapped in that for the next one hour, when Harsh drove me back to the guesthouse. pretty soon, i was grabbing my 40 winks and the next day, i wore my new 'birthday dress' and went to office and distributed the chocolates to everyone. spent the whole day doing the work my boss gave me and attending to calls and answering msgs on gtalk/orkut/facebook. by evening, i was once again faced with the dilemma of a plan for th rest of the night. i decided to ask my 2 colleagues out for dinner, and Vergis and Bishak were only too kind to give me company. so we went to a restaurant that i really wanted to go to for some time, had an awesome meal and then, after bidding goodbye, called Gita as she said she would meet up in case she was free. she was indeed free and i went out with her and one of her friends, Karthik to Zaras - the best club in Chennai. of course, it wasn't very happening as it was a week night, but we hung out there any case. just as were about to start on the drinks we ordered, the waiters began doing a round of the entire restaurant in a train like fashion with a cake in their hands. i was beginning to wonder whether it could be for me. but then dismissed the idea coz we just landed there, and there was no way my colleagues could have planned so much for me.
but all of a sudden, all the waiters gathered around our table, began singing happy birthday, even got my name right. they gave me the cake to cut and it was the sweetest thing ever! i shared the cake wit the other 2, and after my beer, came riding back to my place. when i entered the room, i find a bouquet of flowers saying, "wit love, from Bangalore" i knew instantly that China and Sin were behind this. it was the best thing ever. come back home after a really long day and find a beautiful set of flowers from the most beautiful city on this planet!
so now, im sitting in bed, just 15 minutes after my 26 bday (its 0015 hours now) and wondering how a day with maddening rains and no electricity turned out to be a day with 2 cakes to be cut, hanging out at two cool (of the only three!) places in Chennai, wit really cool friends and most of all - a lovely bunch of flowers from my favourite city.
this was really a fabulous birthday and i must really thank all the lovely friends that made it so special to me.

the 'silver' lining on the dark cloud

We've heard this line many times as children, but today, when I'm on the threshold of going out into the corporate world as a grown man, this quote has become metaphorically so much more significant to me..

Last Saturday was my graduation day. The entire batch of some 500 odd MBA's from NMIMS University were to be conferred their degrees. The day before that, on Friday, we had the mock rehearsals for the entire session. That was followed by a Photo Session with our graduation gowns and caps. Then there was a ring ceremony. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Seema ma'am called me aside and asked if I was bringing my parents for the function the next day. I told them they are already in college and will even be attending the ring ceremony. She said that's good because there was a 'little surprise' in store for me. Apart from getting the degree certificate, the only other thing lined up for the day were awards given to meritorious students and faculty. 

I knew that the previous year, the three Presidents of that time, Vikas, Sujay and Chandan, received a Silver medal for their contributions to Student Activities. Being the President, I could assume that this time I would receive the same award. But I wasn't very sure, because we had interviews held for these awards, and my interview went terribly awry. The Dean in charge was so unsatisfied that he said thank you and asked me to leave even before I could talk for more than 2 minutes. It was the shortest interview I had. Either it has already been fixed and they didn't want to waste their time on me, or as the more rational and less arrogant thought would be, they were totally unimpressed with me. 

I felt really bad that my interview didn't go that well and tried consoling myself that not every day is a Sunday and I've had a pretty good run of luck with interviews the last few times. Maybe I was on a lower curve now! 

Anyway, it wasn't the interview alone that had bothered me. I also knew that there were a lot of issues this year. From Parampara, which was the first ever thing the Council organized in college, I've been getting on the wrong side of our Vice-Chancellor. We had decided a particular date for Parampara and somehow the VC got another date and he ended up getting wild with me because he had made other plans for the day we decided to have the event and he couldn't be there for the same. This was just the start of the troubles. The rest of the year, there were issues with Placements, Paragana and the whole Sectoral garb. From yelling at me for a small incident regarding selection of Food items for Paragana to completely blowing his top at me when the students decided to walk out on a dinner that he had personally organized for them to ease the Core-Sectoral issues, there were issues aplenty the whole year through. It was almost as if every time the VC would calm down on one issue, I would raise a hornets nest on another one, giving rise to another set of altercations between us. It became so bad, that I started fading off into a distance and not coming out and organizing too many things for fear of going wrong somewhere again. I completely slacked off during the end of the year and did not do a lot of things that I was supposed to get done. 

Of course, having the VC get mad at me was not the only reason why I became inactive towards the end. There were many other reasons as well. Things like having to deal with someone called Professor Rane who was instated as the person responsible for student activities and he ended up eating my head about absolutely inane things. I kept putting up with him because the show had to go on and nobody else in the Council wanted to approach him for anything. I somehow kept dealing with him, until one particular time he insulted me for the lack of effort I had put into the CNBC deal during Paragana. This completely broke me, almost to the point of tears welling in my eyes that had actually dried up many years back. I was the only one who worked on the CNBC deal. I was assisted immensely by all my fellow Council members, but I received absolutely no senior\professional help from anyone in the college, inspite of the deal running into so many Lakhs of Rupees. I still dealt with the whole thing myself and at the end of it, had to hear things from Prof Rane that I was incompetent with the deal.. The worse part of it was, because of all the situations in college, I even ended up looking like a criminal in front of a huge Corporate like CNBC. This is the worst thing any regular aspiring-for-a-good-professional-life MBA like me could do!

Anyway, the VC getting mad at me on one too many occasions, having to deal with a character like Prof Rane, and also having a bunch of extremely capable juniors who very quickly learnt how to run the show on their own, all made me start slacking off towards the end. 

I can very easily assess if I've done a good job about something or not, and I knew very well that towards the end of the year, I did not hold up my duties as President as well as I would have probably wanted to. This reason, combined with my disastrous interview was what convinced me that I may not win any award this year. 

I anyway stopped thinking about it because I always felt that I had received so much during my stint as President in terms of learning about life and meeting some great people, that that itself was enough, and I could do without a medal.

During the ring ceremony on Friday evening, I was asked to come and deliver a speech about my musings of the last 2 years in college. I started talking about a lot of things and concluded thanking only one person, the VC. I could have thanked a whole bunch of them, but the last time I had done that, during Razzy's of Euphoria, I really ran into a lot of trouble for having missed out a few names. So I really did not want to get into that situation and just thanked only one single person with whom I felt I really had to set a whole bunch of things straight. So I said "Exactly one year ago, during the Ring ceremony of the previous batch, a bunch of us students were huddled into the MDP room and conferred our new positions in the Council. That was the time I was declared President and it was the beginning of my interactions with this one person with whom I've always felt I've shared a love-hate relationship. It was more like I loved him and he used to hate me for all the times I have irritated him. I'm talking about our dear Vice-Chancellor who has been such a good role model and a support for all of us during one of the toughest times of NMIMS when we saw sea changes in terms of Placements and dealing with new Sectoral courses. Thank you so much Sir for everything in the last one year". 

Then came Saturday, the big day. All the students walked into the hall led by the Council which was in turn led by me and after we took our seats, the show began. We all went and received our certificates and then came the time for the awards. People around started saying 'best of luck' and stuff to me, but as explained earlier, I wasn't sure at all about it. Pretty soon the student awards got over and the faculty awards began. Suddenly it dawned on me that there was no award for me.. Alok had just received the award for 'Contribution to Student Activities' and I felt this was the surprise Seema ma'am was talking about. Also, during the VC speech, he never made a mention of Paragana or any other Council organized events in the year. So basically this was it. I did feel quite bad that I couldn't emulate what our seniors had done and only had myself to blame for the slacking off that I had done and for the poor interview I had given. 

I was just preparing to face all the students around, my family and even Sujay who had turned up there to justify why I hadn't won anything, when the VC declared that the faculty awards were over and said "Now there is a final award that is to be given to a student. One who has done so much for college and even told in his speech yesterday how we are all doing our best to cope with the changes going on at NMIMS. I call upon Sandeep John Mathew for the Silver medal for best All round performance for 2007-2008"

....

It was then that I realized that slow motion was not restricted to movies alone.. it happens in real life too! I adjusted my robe and cap that had come off quite some time back and walked slowly to the stage. Watched all the students standing and clapping as I walked down the aisle. Went up on stage and collected the certificate and had the medal worn around my neck. When I turned to face the audience, I realized I had my first standing ovation! It was heart warming, and supremely shocking as I had quite given up on it. As I walked back to my seat, I first went up to my parents and gave them the medal. Then after I came and settled down, the announcement for the National Anthem was made. It was during this time that I really felt like hugging someone, and it had to be Pooja. I messaged her as soon as the Anthem concluded when people were preparing to throw off their hats, and during the pandemonium that ensued with the hat throwing, I went up to her and got a long tight hug from probably my best friend at NM and one of the few people in Bombay who truly knew and understood all the things I had gone through here. It felt so comforting. I swear, if not for those dried up tear glands, I'd be crying like a baby at that time. 

The next half hour passed with hugging all my other fellow MBA's and introducing my parents to some of the students and teachers who were around, and somewhere in the middle of all that, I ran into Seema ma'am once again who I looked and said "that was the 'little' surprise???" 

"of course dear" she said and gave me the second best hug of the evening.

After all the pleasantries were exchanged and some issues sorted with some people who still came to me for assistance on different things, I walked towards my den, my second home, the Student Council Room, hugging a little red box with my silver medal and I looked up at the sky and thought.. So there is a silver lining on every dark cloud!

Arranged Marriage

wat the hell is wrong with the people of this country man!! especially those who call themselves parents! i've come of age where me and my friends around are thinking of marriage, and just about everyone has one common problem - parents! its parents, society, religion, caste, yada yada yada that seem to determine the fate of a couple working out. things like love, compatability, comfort - all these just dont matter at all. 'you're not a brahmin, my family has been for centuries, how can i marry you?', 'i'm a muslin and you're a hindu, you have any idea how society will consider this?' oh god i say.. wat the hell are people talking about?? Don't their feelings matter at all? does it only come down to asking stupid questions like this? i really really just dont get this one thing about this country. There are some amazing things about this place, but no matter how much we progress, looks like this will remain like this all the time. I remember when I was young, I used to chat with this one friend of mine about marriage and things, and I used to tell her, that no matter what I will never let anyone or anything else determine who I get married to. This girl agreed with what I was saying and used to advocate the same notion, and guess what? She got married good old Indian arranged marriage Ishtyle! And its not just her, so many other people around me are going that way. I really used to think that my generation will change this about India. I can understand where our parents come from, but I didn't want to walk that line. But looks like culture is culture and people will just continue doing this. I wonder if the next generation at least will change this whole 'get married to someone you've never met in your life, coz guess what? as long as things like caste and kundli match - they are made for each other' what!!!!
Well, India does has a low divorce rate. So you think this arranged marriage thing has a say in the divorce rate? Look at it this way, the poor idiots didn't have a say in ending up with each other, you think they'l have a say in getting out of it?? Society bloody decides that also. Its just tabboo to seperate, so no matter how much you dont get along, you just have to put up with what you were forced to get into. Is this life?? I dont understand freedom and democracy and concepts like that, if you're just forced to live your life based on what other people tell you for the rest of your life. I mean, really, its just colonization again.. and worse, by your own people this time!!! Its just really terrible. The number of people I regularly keep seeing hurting around, its just crazy. Either they are hurting because it didn't work out because of society, or, hehe, because it did! Its the same dam story whether you couldn't married or were forced into marriage. At least if you made the decision on your own, you can take responsibility and decide to be in it or walk out if it doesnt work. You dont need to be a slave all your life.
I really am totally against this whole concept of arranged marriage and being forced into something just because of the people around! One should never get into something one doesnt like - or so I thought was the definition of our freedom!
Anyway, to all my friends who have had to undergo the pains caused to them, not by their lovers, but by a bunch of loonies - you have my sympathies.

One evening at the multiplex…

When three guys, tired of their regular grind at a b-school, feel like a break, this is what they do..

Bala, muni and I go out for a movie coz it’s a Tuesday and more importantly, we’re all free together. Tuesdays are special here, coz Hutch gives an offer to all its sincere customers, whereby you can get one free ticket with the purchase of one silver class ticket at Fame Adlabs, one of the most expensive multiplexes here. Getting a ticket for half price there is almost the same as buying a regular ticket anywhere else. But since we’ve never been there before and because Hutch has decided to honour our loyalty to them, we decided to make use of the offer and go for a movie.

So we land up at Fame and we see 2 lines. One with 3-4 people and the other snaking its way almost to the vehicle entrance of the multiplex. We ask the guard and he tells us that the really long line is the one for Hutch customers. Guess there are a lot of smart people like us here who are loyal customers to Hutch. Anyway, we stand in the line and that’s when we notice a board that says, on Tuesdays Hutch gives its one plus one offer and on all other days, Fame give a buy 2 and get 1 free offer. Since we were anyway 3 in number, it would have worked out to the same thing. The whole Tuesday plan seemed quite foolish all of a sudden.

Anyway, we continued to stand in the line and we were just trying to figure out what movie to watch. After a lot of haranguing, we came down to a movie and that seemed to be the only one worth watching there. But it was due to start in 5 minutes.

The extremely long Hutch line took such a long time, that by the time we reached the counter, we were over 20 minutes late into the movie. Suddenly, all 3 of us lost interest in watching the movie. We were anyway late, and we could get the same deal on any other day even without being loyal Hutch customers.

But since we had anyway stood in the line for such a long time, we decided to make the most of it and on reaching the counter, with an absolutely straight face I ask the usher, ‘can I have 3 tickets to the da vinci code please?’ usher is totally confused. He checks his system and says that movie isn’t running. Bala tells him that the posters are put up outside. Usher gets confused and confers with another fellow usher. Both of them are totally confused now. Bala and I continue to insisnt on da vinci code tickets only, as we are extremely loyal Hutch customers and also spent the last half an hour standing in the queue. Usher is trying his best to convince us that the movie isn’t running, and finally when people behind us realized what we were upto and started yelling at us, we decided to call in quits and left the place.

Man, what a good laugh we had. And since we saved 200 bucks by not getting the discounted ticket at Fame, we decided to put the money to good use and went to an Italian restaurant very originally called Little Italy. But the place was awesome not because they had Cobra beers or good food or even a live band performing, but because there were real live Italians sitting on the table next to us looking as beautiful as a European could possibly look. 4 super pretty girls and one negligible guy. All 3 of us with 3 Cobras down just couldn’t take our eyes off of them.

Finally, when we realized we cant possibly spend any more cash there and that we has really overstayed our welcome, we decided to leave and go to our good old friendly neighbourhood multiplex called Fun Republic and watched a fun movie called Woh Lamhe and the recent convert to Hindi movies, bala, decided to convert back after watching that movie coz he’s never ever gonna go for another hindi film after this!
But overall, good, unadulterated fun at Bombay..

The day I redefined irresponsibility

One of my biggest weaknesses is my callous carelessness, and on 2^nd September, 2006, I went overboard with this weakness and nearly messed up so many things. It was with the pure grace of God and tons and tons of luck that I actually made it through and rejoined my parents in probably one of their most important days of their lives.

Well, to start off, I had a flight to catch at 11:15 a.m. and I had gone to sleep at about 4 a.m. that day after going clubbing with my friends from college. I knew while hitting the sack that I had a flight at 11:15, but I was so confident of waking up on time as I’ve always managed to wake up before 7. But I guess the fact that I was little drunk while going to bed and that I had tired myself dancing prior to that, made me over sleep, and I had slept till 10:30. Just 45 minutes before my departure.

I woke up with such a start. Hurriedly put on the same clothes I’d worn the previous day. Threw in a pair that I had selected earlier for the function. Grabbed my flight ticket and was out of the house in less than 3 minutes. Thankfully I found an auto just outside the apartment and I told him to rush to the airport and money was no object. He was going at a pretty normal rate though despite my hollering every now and then asking him to hurry up. On the way I turned on my phone which was switched off until then and was one of the biggest reasons for my not waking up because either mom or sin would have normally called in the morning. I see 2 messages from mom there asking me what’s going on. I didn’t have the nerve to call her back. I was just too tensed. The time was 10:40. I called Kingfisher help desk and told them about my predicament and that I was rushing as soon as possible. They told me that the counter closed half an hour prior to the departure and I would be able to make it if I made it to the airport in 5 minutes. I thought I would, but it was nearly 10:50 by the time I got out of the auto. Thanks to his slightly above average speed and the always reliable chock and block traffic of Mumbai. Anyway, I thankfully knew the counter of Kingfisher as I had traveled by it the last time and it happens to be in the older terminal and not the new one. So I asked the auto driver to go there, but he still takes a wrong turn and I asked him to just stop as I was all ready to run now. I got out of the auto and took out my wallet to pay him, and that was when I realized I spent the entire amount of 1000 bucks the previous night at the club. I was left with just 15 bucks. I gave this to him and asked him to go back to the place he picked me up from and I would ask my friend to come there and pay him the money, but as of then, I really had to leave. I didn’t even give him a chance to be understanding as I just left him after that and began running. On the way I even dropped some coins I had in my wallet and was now officially broke. But nothing mattered as long as I just made it to the flight.

I rush all the way to the counter and its 10:55 now. I cut the line and go straight ahead and they person there tells me I’m too late!

I was heartbroken. I didn’t know what I was going to do. There was a person next to me in the line who was trying to help me out by scolding the Kingfisher guy at the counter saying it’s their fault that passengers get late as they have so many counters and things are so complex and end up moving very slowly. That guy just said sorry, but there was nothing he could do. So, dejected, I started walking back. Wondering how I’m going to explain this to mummy. 5000 bucks down the drain, and I mostly may not even get another flight to Cochin and might miss the entire function. I was just feeling extremely terrible, when the guy at the counter calls me back and says he will print the ticket for me. I couldn’t believe what was happening. He asked me for a choice of seat and I told him “anywhere” and thought to myself “as long as I am on that flight”.

The moment he gave me the ticket, I ran to the security check, sent my phones in another persons tray and he was a sweet old man was telling me not to run away with his stuff. I told him that there is a good chance that I would leave behind my stuff for him because my flight was in ten minutes. The time was 11:05. After the security check, I began running and realized that I did leave my phone behind, so I ran back to pick it up and that was when Jeetu called me. I told her that I was running to catch the flight and that I might just make it. And when I reached Gate 6 which was for Cochin passengers, I didn’t see anyone there. I thought I missed it and when I asked the guard, he told me that the gates have not yet opened. That’s when I realized that probably the reason I got the boarding pass was only because I didn’t have a check in baggage and that the flight had got slightly delayed.

Anyway, I finally got time to breathe. Went to the toilet, washed myself up, waited till I started breathing normally, called bala and explained the situation to him, called mom and told her that I’m on my way, and soon, by 11:15, the gates had opened and I was on my way to the plane. Well, things didn’t stop there. My adventure was bound to continue. There were small glitches, like I asked for non veg meal and ended up with veg and only realized it when I was close to finishing the food. I was so annoyed with the fact that I didn’t even check the label on it before opening the food. Anyway, the way the day was going, this was not even anything to be upset about. In fact I was more than grateful to the Kingfisher guys to have at least allowed me to fly.

Well, I got off at Cochin at about 2. Walked out and was looking for a phone booth to call Raju uncle and just then I noticed him sitting in the waiting lounge and at the same time realized that I would have been able to call him anyway because I had even dropped the last bits of change I had while running away from the auto driver in Mumbai. Seemed like luck decided to stick around with me for a just a bit longer. Well, uncle was sweet enough to take me till the bus stop and put me into a bus headed for Kottayam. And just before alighting, he asked me if I had any cash! Thank God for that, because if he hadn’t asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to pay the bus fare and would probably have been asked to get down in the absolute middle of nowhere. That’s when I explained my situation to him and uncle gave me 150 bucks to keep. The bus fare was just 48. Anyway, got into a bus around 2:45 and it was really crowded, but I had no qualms and knew not to crib about anything after the irresponsibility I showed during the day. A normal journey from Cochin to Kottayam would have lasted about 2 hours, but this one took nearly 3 hours to get there, mostly because of the road blocks in lieu of the ongoing Onam celebrations. When I got off, Anita aunty was waiting for me and she told me that Jomi Uncle, Puttu, Vinu and Amachi were also there waiting with her, but since I was getting so late, they left and went back and only she was waiting. Well, the 2 of us got into the Tavera that was booked by dad for running the errands during this period and I reached the hotel by 7. Freshened up, wore the same undies I’d been wearing since yesterday as I forgot to bring a new one in the hurry I left home, ate my first decent meal of the day and then went to church.

It was finally in the peace and quiet of that church which I’ve gone to almost every time I’ve come to Kerala that I found peace in myself for the first time in the entire day. I was so thankful to have actually made it and rejoined with my entire family and was there with my parents on the day they were realizing their dream, that of building their dream home at Kottayam. And I was really glad I made it. Most of the family was there and we were all having a good time and I got to appreciate the work of my dad who had put in everything he had into making his dream come true and I was so glad I actually made it on this very special day of his.

My first day of summer internship at HLL

Clean shaven? Check

“smart casuals” as per Anuj Dutt’s mail? Check

Prepared for ‘Corporate Strategy’? Check.. But take the book along any case

Read Anuj’s “instruction” mail once again? Check

Alright… with that, I was ready to leave to the HLL Training Center at Worli Sea Face at 10a.m. on 15^th April 2007, a beautiful Sunday morning.

Did a pit stop at the church, where I said a quick prayer and grabbed a bite and was on my way to Lower Parel in the Mumbai trains. It was a steam bath, both while buying tickets and sitting in the train… was just hoping that all that perfume and deodorant that I used in the morning is of some use.

On reaching ‘Gulita’, which was the HLL Learning Centre’s name, I run into the first summer trainee there.. Arun from ‘A’! Later on, I met Sourab from ‘B’! Then Vishwanath from ‘L’! Man, these guys don’t even say IIM before that, coz its anyway understood here! Almost everyone is from an IIM!!

Anyway, I was quite relieved to see the tension on everyone else’s faces. They all seemed as, if not more, lost and confused than me. Then I found out that we need to change our shirts and shoes into the one’s that were given from HLL and mine were lying in the room that was allotted to me, which was in another hotel, called Hiltop Hotel, a short distance from Gulita. So I walked up there, found my room and met my would-be roommate, Sairam. We were just getting acquainted, when he says ‘Man, they are just gonna feed us gas today.. well, everything about this stream is gas anyway!!’ and then he offers me a smoke. My kind of guy! I knew we’d get along instantly!!

After some more chit-chat, we made our way to the lobby, where we met some more fellow interns, and all of us headed to Gulita, where we had lunch. After lunch, we were asked to enter a particular hall, and I somehow landed first in line there. But Shreya from ‘B’ was next to me and I offered her to go in first. She got a garland and a laddoo from two pretty ladies in silk sarees! So sweet! Then I also went in wearing my garland and having my laddoo, when I noticed, my name was missing among the name tags that positioned around some well arranged décor pertaining to the theme of the summer course at HLL this year, Pathshala. I couldn’t even enjoy the ambience that was set up much, as I was anxious to find out what happened to my name tag. I find Anuj wandering around and asked him and he said he would look into it. Apparently, they thought I wouldn’t be coming today and so didn’t bother to arrange for my name tag and other material. I did indeed tell them that my exams would be starting and hence wouldn’t be able to make it until the 30^th. But I intended to go for the first day and it turned out to be a communication snag.

The whole thing was so embarrassing! I was just thinking to myself that I have to do this everywhere! Just have to do something that makes me stand out, no matter how hard I try to remain inconspicuous.

Anyway, the embarrassment didn’t last too long, as Shikha, the resource coordinator next in line after Anuj, assisted me to a seat and Haremb, the guy from HLL I befriended during the placement process brought me my paraphernalia.

Soon got settled in and Anuj gave an opening talk and handed the mic over to the emcee for the day, who was a guy I actually knew quite well. His name was Rehman and he was one of the finalists for the MTV VJ Hunt. The reason I knew him was because he was in my round during the preliminary round of the VJ Hunt contest when it was held in The Club, Bangalore. Yea, I had also tried my hand at it, but Rehman was clearly the best entrant for that day and we all knew he had a pretty good chance of making it to the top. But don’t really know what happened to him after that, but I’ve seen him emcee quite a few shows in Bangalore and now he seems to be into this sort of outbound training programs for companies in Bombay.

Anyway, he came up, introduced himself and all of us to the itinerary for the day, broke us into 5 groups and got us working on the first task; choosing a leader and a name for the group. We had one person in our group who was not wearing the kurta HLL gave us, he was definitely looking different and I suggested we make him the captain. Then one of us came up with the name ‘Arjun’ for our group, because of the theme at HLL, ‘Pathshala’, and we thought this would go along with the theme.. Plus of course, make up some gas about how we, as a team, possess all those qualities that Arjun did! Man, these MBA’s can come up with anything!!

Next, we were asked to take 15 minutes to get to know everyone in our group and the captain makes a presentation for 1 minute on his group. Best presentation wins, and giving a good presentation is usually never a problem for any of us, and we are talking about some of the best in the country here.

Anyway, we got to work. Began introducing ourselves and stuff. But 15 minutes seemed just too long, because in just 10 minutes, we were completely out of stuff to talk about. I was just looking around at the other groups and there was such frenetic activity in all of them. One group didn’t even sit down during the entire process. I was thinking to myself that I have ended up in the most boring group of the lot! Besides, there was not a single person I befriended till this point who was there in my group. So it was one more fresh start of trying to remember faces and names!!

Anyway, our 15 minutes were up and we were asked to come and give our first presentation. I had a strong feeling Rehman would ask us to go first, as it was pretty clear that we had no clue what to do. Vishwanath, our captain made a presentation like a typical MBA. Extremely good articulation, but no content! I did sort of expect that, and with the rest of the teams following doing a brilliant job, I only felt worse about being in this group. Little did I know how things were going to change as the day proceeded...

Next, Rehman called one representative from each group to come up and he played songs and asked them to dance impromptu. These were exactly the kind of things I am supremely uncomfortable with, and it was treat to watch the 5 people up on stage, dancing without a care in the world and so full of confidence. Was just thinking to myself that this is what makes MBA’s different from the rest. There are very few things that they really can’t do!

Our next task was to go outside and play tug-of-war. We were to choose 4 guys and 1 girl, and my team conveniently ignored me. I don’t blame them, my role in physical games have always been to cheer from the sidelines, so decided to do just that. With the shrillest whistle and the loudest screams, I made sure my team got the best encouragement of everyone else, and we did pretty well, beating every other team, except one, and ending up in second position.

The next task was to tie a turban on the prettiest lady of each group. We had only one lady in our group, so a chance for a beauty contest was clearly ruled out. My team was also making such a fuss about the fact that we only ended up with one girl, that Sourav from our group was suggesting we rename ourselves to ‘Definitely Male’. Even Parul, the girl in our group, didn’t seem to mind the name change. But anyway, we stuck around with Arjun itself.

Well, we tied a turban on Parul and we were the first to finish and our turban clearly looked the neatest of the lot. But since the criteria was creativity, there was one turban that made this girl look like a sunflower at a Halloween party, and she was given the first prize just for the “creativity”. I didn’t know creativity went hand in hand with ugly! But anyway, we just had to settle with second prize, again.

The next game was to collect flowers from a bag and run them through a needle and thread given to us to make a garland and the longest garland wins. I did my best to grab as many flowers from the bag I could, but we didn’t require more that half of it, as we ran out of time before we could run them through the needle. And during the measurement of the longest garland, with 20 flowers in ours, we came in second for the third time in a row.

Next we had a Rangoli contest. We went into another room, where colours were kept ready for us, and when we were given the go, my creative mind began its routine, bouncing off ideas from what the others were hollering. “We could make an arrow… the leaf-like HLL symbol could become the arrow-head… we could use the colours yellow and red which were the colours of the theme ‘Pathshala’ for the base of the arrow… the bow would be the Unilever symbol… and together, we have a bow and arrow… significant of ‘Arun’…” brilliant!!

The team got to work. We worked like a well oiled machine. I was beginning to get so proud of the way we were functioning. Bouncing off ideas, each person fitting into a particular role, everyone doing their bit and ultimately, our Rangoli turned out to be one of the better one’s on display.

Once we got back to the lobby, we were just backtracking on the events of the day, and figured we’ve fared marginally well in all the events. Coming second in all of them, and though the ‘Rangoli’ results were not out yet, we figured we should be in the top two. So all we really required was a ‘win’ to become the best team.

Then came the final event, we were asked to hold hands and form a circle with our team facing each other, and continuing to hold hands in the same way, we should face outwards. The moment he said it, I figured how we should do it. I tried explaining it to the group, some of them just about got it, but most had no idea. I just told them to trust me as I know what I was doing and follow my lead. I was just so glad I got the support from my team, because when we were given the go, our team followed what I was doing and we completed the task before the rest could even figure out what was going on. We received a huge applause from everyone and Rehman and Anuj asked us to do it once again for the benefit of the rest and we did it once more and it looked beautiful. We were all so excited, high fives and high tens and everyone patting my back for coming up with the idea.

Then we walked back to the main audi where we were initially seated and while climbing up the stairs, our group was chanting some kind of ‘champion’ slogans and the camaraderie between us was just superb. Suddenly, our team seemed to be the best of the lot. What a shift from my initial reaction to it!

Once in the audi, Rehman tallied the scores and announced the second prize winners to be the ‘one-ders’ and the moment he said that, Vishwanath looks back at me with a smile. I knew what the smile meant and was almost halfway up my seat to pick up the award for first prize. When Rehman did announce our name, we all got up hooting and shouting and it was such a good moment for all of us. I was so proud of myself and the whole team.

Following this, we had some presentations on the entire Summer program and with that, the session ended. I took some phone numbers of people that I planned to keep in touch with as I would be joining in much later. Thereafter I went to Hiltop Hotel to pick my stuff, chatted with Sairam about the days events, our project and girls over another smoke. Finally, took a cab to the train station with Karan.

Was sitting in the train and messaging some people telling them about my day, and Vikas, my boss in college, replied asking me to make him proud by converting this to a PPO and that he was confident I would. Felt so good to hear that, especially when I still keep hearing shite from certain people about me being here! PPO or not, I just want to do my best. Anyway, just closed my eyes and rest my head on the seat and kept replaying the entire day and was thinking to myself this was one of the most mentally and physically exhausting days I’ve had in a while and I loved every bit of it…