GreatLaker a.k.a crusader

Of Diwali and the joys of the bed tea...

2006-11-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

As a child I remember.. the manner in which my mom woke me up was…well different, she used to prepare this concoction which was a mixture of three parts milk and one part of elaichi tea. I used to wake up to my mom’s call of “Chinoo”, not actually wake up since my eyes would not be open to see where the glass was, it was more like I would be in a sitting position ready to drink what was given to me.

The flavor of that mixture used to decide the mood of the first part of my day. As of this day, I have been out of touch with this ritual for close to 14 years, but it all came back to me on the after diwali morning. I was sleeping like a log in the coziest of beds and the coolest of winds on the seventh floor of a high rise in Bangalore, having blasted some real good crackers the previous night on the eve of Diwali. The Hosts for me this time were Pradeep Sonthalia’s Bhaiya n Bhabhi and I have to say they are a wonderful couple. Their made up fights reminded me so much about the funny interactions of my parents. But coming back to the bed tea part, I was sleeping and all of a sudden I heard Bhabhi’s voice saying “ Manan Bhaiya”, I woke up and found bhabhi standing in the room with a tea cup in her hand, it was at this moment that all the memories came rushing to me, it was a moment before I could take the cup from her, all I could manage to say was “ Bhabhi, u will spoil me” to which she said “ I wont, u are here just for 2 days”.

It has been a really long time since I was offered a bed tea, but what strikes me as disturbing is that I have forgotten the simple pleasure that it is. For me, now a tea in the morning simply means a walk to the tea stall near college in the scorching sun, and an indifferent shop owner saying “Tea Saaaar”.

God only knows how many more such pleasures I have forgotten over the years and need to be reminded of. But at the same time I confess, I hope I have many such forgotten pleasures to be rediscovered in the times to come, the feeling of stumbling upon some such pleasure is worth the anxiety of having forgotten one.

A simple pleasure lost and found,
A feeling sets in, makes no sound,
It takes me over, makes me bound,
Of the olden roads, I take a round.

A simple pleasure, lost and found,
A simple pleasure so profound.

Catharsis long overdue....

2006-10-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Both my room partners have gone to pursue their respective internships. i am home alone. and i am yet to decide whether i am loving the experience or loathing t. well i have a month's time to figure it out. Sitashwa left by the 6 pm flight, and this time when i go to my room, i would know that i am going to be alone for the next month.... can almost feel the sentiment sitting at the college. i am ok with being alone...cant say the same about being lonely.

Generally when i am alone, i do not miss anyone. but, when i am lonely, i find myself lost in the middle of the best parties and people. There is the loneliness of heart and there is the loneliness of space. The former is a real pain in the a#$@ i tell u. lets change the topic..i think its getting overloaded with sentiapa.

6 months of the course have passed..and it seems as if i set foot in Chennai yesterday. The auto drivers are still the same blood sucking lot, the weather tests your patience, the water plays the role of Brutus, the food is a moody mistress, the classes are unending, the tests are fleeting moments of death, the marks are the mirror which show the face of the topper as the most beautiful, the mosquitoes love u as usual and leave the love marks, the stench of the Nullahs still betrays the effectiveness of the overbridges, the nights are short and the days are shorter, the assignments are the modern form of "Begar" or bonded labor... i can go on and on...

u must be thinking why i am complaining so much... i am not complaining, the reason for which i came to chennai is as strong a motivator as it ever was, i am trying to say that i am motivated INSPITE of all these problems.

Hey!!! some days ago, i got to see a wholly different side of Chennai. I went to the Golden Beach resort along with some of my friends, it was 8:30 pm and it was a full moon night. What can i say...i was in awe of the theme based architecture of the resort, little could i have imagined the beauty which awaited me at the beach...

As we were getting closer to the beach, we could hear the intermittent roars of the sea, we could not see it but could feel the wind on our faces. when i saw the beach..for a moment i forgot i was in the Chennai i know, it was beautiful, it was cool and yes it was a bit intimidating.

There was the sea, totally unmindful of our presence, romancing the moonlight. the crabs were going about their business as usual, the sand was cool and the silica had given a silvery hue to the beach...not even a single VENDOR or thele wala in sight. in short it was me and the nature having an undisturbed talk, and for a moment i felt at home, i felt i was in Udaipur, nearby the Fateh Sagar lake, talking to the stars....

It has been too long since i slept in her lap,
too long since i looked in her eyes and rejuvinated,
too long since i watched her smile,
too long since i screamed out..mom and saw her too.

Long time no see/sea

2006-08-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

This post is a proof to a fact:-

When we say goodbye to someone, we take so many things for granted, when i wrote my previous post, i did not imagine that Mumbai would be rocked by a series of bomb blasts, that the site of blogspot would be blocked and that i would be writing my next post after an eternity.... a simple request to all , next time u say bye to someone dear, make sure u mean it. Period.

a silent prayer for the victims of the Mumbai carnage.

Much water has passed under the bridge since my previous post, almost half of my MBA program has passed, i have moved out of my dilema.....so Arjun has jumped into the battle with all his strength. do not ask me who Krishna was....i thought about it and came to the conclusion that it was TIME, it was a matter of time if u wish.

M too tired to continue writing as of now, gotta wake up early tomorrow,

take care all,
goodnight.

To the eyes which weep in the silent darkness,
to the doors that await knocks in the night,
to the human spirit which stands tall after every battering,
to the resilience of the broken hearts
and to the doves of hope and peace,

i owe my allegiance.

Speed of time and the Geeta revisited

2006-07-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

U remember the deal with the speed of time:- that it moves slowly when u want it to just fly by(during rough times) and that it moves real fast when u want it to stand still( good times), unfortunately there is a third attribute to it too.

I will come back to it, meanwhile let me raise another issue close to my heart, people keep making a big deal about following what ur heart says and not ur mind.Like in the choice of a career path…turns out that it is easier said than done. how can u simply follow ur heart? wud it not be plain stupid? how can u jump an abyss that u r likely to fall into? u mite be tempted to call it a leap of faith,but that is a misnomer, its more like a leap of distrust,distrust of ur natural instincts. ur mind tells you not to jump but u still jump,believing the calculations of ur heart, HELLO!!! a heart is not supposed to make calculations, we have a mind for that.
And I question this thought so much because I am at one such crossroad in my life.The decision wud shape up at least the next 20 years of my life. I have wanted so badly to follow my heart all this while, and now when I am on the spot, I am split up b/w following my heart and mind. A geeta discourse seems to be in the order of things…Arjun’s confusion is complete…where is Krishna?

Coming back to the speed of time thing, the third unfortunate aspect is this:- it so happens that the ‘good time’ is not supposed to go slow, it is intrinsically ephemeral and as soon as the good time becomes sluggish it becomes bad. This is where the relativity of good and bad times comes in, u do not have a choice but to be a haggler dealing with fate. Can’t figure it out? Its ok, All puzzles need not have answers.

This time it seems I am stuck for good,

ve bin thinkin bout d the trees, ve cut no wood,

and soon i shall be hungry, havin thunk so much,

shud i stop cutin d trees,or think no more i shud?

The Sleepless Divinity and a reading overdose

2006-06-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

Krishna was great, is great...he could keep two huge armies (baying for each other's blood) completely petrified for the entire geeta discourse. He was in my view the only person in the whole of mahabharata who had a jolly good time...from the beginning till almost the end.

Krishna is great also because he could get a buffalo like me to stick with his 270 page book from the beginning to the end , if u know me...u would know what monumental achievement it is. My father has been after my life so that he could get me to read the Bhagwad Geeta since my 1st year of engineering.Did he succeed? no...but Venky did it, he not only got me to read the geeta, he topped the cake up with Upanishads, Vivekanand and karma yoga..... yeah i have read it all.

Coming to the sleep deprivation part, i have slept for a total of 58 mins in the past 24 hrs and i chose to write this blog as the last thing which i will do for the day. I did not want to miss this "feel" of the 1 year MBA program.The Bhagwad Geeta has becum my latest friend, i have a feeling this relationship shall go on for quite some time.

Coming to the side effects of sleep deprivation:--
1) U seem to be on the edge, both 2 urself and the people around u
2) U have a feeling of the world floating around u, just like i can see the keys on my laptop floating around in cieckes...sorry that was CIRCLES
3) U feel so sleepy that a mundane task like getting rid of ur shoes and changing into a payjama becomes a climb to the K2.

Two moons, two suns, two mees, two yous,
too slow, too fast, too black, too blue,
the world seems to be wrapped in sleepyness,
do u see it now? would you know if its true?

Numero, non verba

2006-06-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

numbers speak louder than words,
they in fact scream.....
numbers have seldom given me a reason to smile, be they in the form of marks or in the form of percentiles.The hate relationship just got better today,and i could have been happier without the latest development.I almost feel like a gladiator,fighting with numbers.
But all was not that bad, the bright point was getting to know that my SWOT analysis was correct at least in the weakness department. This is as far as my optimism goes regarding numbers.
The guest leture was good, managing director of Apple India (Mr.Alok Sharma) chose the occasion to launch the latest apple laptop (boy she was a beauty) at an unbelievable price-feature combo.Students were gaping at the model and cursing the IT committee, for having settled with HP. But u cannot have it all can you, get the skies or get the earth, cant get both.
His personal example not-withstanding,the Idea of presenting your boss with your Value set is a bit on the steeper side, but the point on following Stephen Covey's advice has lodged within me somewhere......lets see how it manifests itself.
The sting of the thorns,has a lot of power,
however,all i see, is the flower.

Numbers or nemesis????

2006-06-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

Its official now, numbers shall be the end of me, inspite of getting a spirited teacher like Noor, i do not know what i have done in today's paper.

I guess my abhorence for financial accounting and related subjects, has become a self fulfilling prophecy.I hate it, and because i hate it...i can not love it and so i keep hating it..because i just can not bring myself to love it.

I desperately need to meet people like myself, i need to feel normal, i hope there is someone out there, who is close by.

As for my speciaization, i do not know what i will choose.....but on the brighter side..i know what i will NOT choose.....u guessed it right...Finance.

Body building is going on fine with 20 miute workouts, m not sure i m building anything worthwhile on that front.

The number game is over as far as this term is concerned...but how long can i rest without numbers in my life.. they will be back soon..

Of the Leonine ego and other issues...

2006-06-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

When to speak? when to keep quite? when to react? when to be passive? when to have an ego? when not to have it? when to be ruthless? when to be benevolent? when to cede? when to crush? when to smile? when to roar?....god, how i wish to know what is right at any random moment....

I react to things, i roar and at the end of it all, i have an awful feeling of remorse...Why did i do it the way i did it? why did i not behave wisely? Why did i get carried away? why could i not hold on to my own self?....i have only questions as of now, i guess this is how u gain experience and loose hair.

Gaining enemies is not my favorite pass time, i choose to just let it pass, but thanks to the stars above that gave me my Zodiac sign (LEO), i can not pass along with oppression and disrespect. Brush me the wrong way,and i promise you, sparks shall fly...thick and high.

I need to make people know where their circle of influence ends, more importantly.....that i am not a part of that circle.

Of exams and other happenings..

2006-06-11T03:17:00.000-07:00

The term 1 is over some more papers to go in this term but they will take care of themselves. For 24 hours now i have been in a state of moral levitation. This Sunday was vacant-meaning no classes, if u r a crusader u wud know what it means. Add to it the fact that i had just given the macroeconomics exam and what u have is an evening of fun and games at the Besant Nagar beach. We were a group of 11 guys, desperately seeking fun and..... things happenned.

I lost a shirt pocket, everyone got hit on the butt becz of a bumping frenzy which started out on its own, the police patrol at the beach became concerned and did nothing apart from blowing whistles. My backside was used to draw a 50 meter line on the besant nagar beach and for the first time i knew what it would feel like to be a pen, being handled by 4 guys.
We sang songs, threw mobiles ( nitin prabhaker's mobile was split into 6 pieces, all of which reassembled to make a functional NOKIA moblie..AGAIN!!!!), farted out loud and made sure everyone knew that something big( term 1) had recently concluded at Great Lakes.

The flip side being the finances, my account is running out of mudra at an alarming pace, dunno what pop is gonna make out of it.... After every test u feel that u deserve a treat and some nice freakin out activity ..such is the pressure of this program...have another test lined up for 14th...so the story continues...

full moon, stars so bright and the breeze,
take my hand, look into my eyes please,
and then maybe i will say something,
it might be smooth, it might be a tease.

building up..muscles and tempo..

2006-06-06T03:15:00.000-07:00

All the guys are all into lifting weights,and body building.
For initial few days they find it hard to wear pants, shirts and some other essential apparel,
but that does not deter them from rippling their scanty muscles. The idea is to have an all round development( as if the shape of a guy's beer belly does not matter).
The real good thing about working out hard is that it makes you really thirsty for a beer.....so there u get the point...most of the guys do it so that they can justify a binge in the evening.

as far as the tempo is concerned, the exams are here, over us...gave one today..giving one day after tomorow, many more to follow, not to talk about the assignments.

If only muscles could help us in cracking the exams...

cant say much today, its one of those days,
when words escape you...finding new ways...

Just blew it...and forgot it too...

2006-05-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

As a child i often thought..what could be the speed of time,
the reason for the question was that its passing rate was a variable, it used to slow down when things were not going right and it used to fly by when i was having a nice time.

And now that i have entered the busiest phase of my life so far....Time has actually taken on an entirely new avataar, i have started missing it. It works both as a healer and an antagonizer.
And it seems to reduce me to the status of a by-stander in my own life....NOW do u know how fast it is moving?

It is a miracle that i am able to remember the right things at the right time ( Confidence level about 67%). and the good part is that i am not able to remember the things that i have forgotton...luckily people around me forget to remind me about it because...U said it..they just forget it....Convenient..isnt it?

I will soon forget all that I did not get,I'll just let it go,
When it all came down to a single question, I chose to say NO.

WHO AM I???????

2006-05-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

am i a goat, or a sheep..or an ass..or a beaver..or a hedgehog...or a Cheshire cat????

I got a B grade, half the class got it, but that is not the problem.
having been a mediocre all my life i came to associate a B with comfortable mediocrity..now things have changed, somehow this B does not hold a comforting pillow to my hurting A&%.

First a Zero..then a B...i dunno where i am going.....

This one is going to be short...

Who can show me a mirror, who can show me ME?
Can i just BE, or do i need to see ME to ..be ME...?

Yam came slowly and.....

2006-05-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

And...well i am not dead as of yet. The classic case of having underestimated my own strenght...
I survived, more than just survived actually, have completed the philosophy study material and m ready for tomorrows paper.

So this goes to prove that underestimation is an intrinsic ill that i need to take care of, there are people here still struggling wid the course, and i m fortunate enuf to not b one of them.Tomorrows paper will b more then a test of my knowledge, it wud be a test of my faith.

So m keepin my fingers crossed.

As for the day, i almost missed PKV's class, this was the closest i came to my definition of disaster. Geetha's call saved it all from goin down the drain.....

As if out of the blue, the sting woke me up,
And as i lay smarting from the blow,
I realised.....it was just a smile, my own smile.....

Almost dead......

2006-05-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

I guess the picture sums up my condition in the most precise manner possible.
That is actually the way i feel inside, and this is just the starting of the week,
ISSUES have started cuming up one after another,i now have a first hand feel of the Crown and the Head phrase.
Not that i had not anticipated this, just that i was hoping to get some breathing space between two fatal accidents ( HA HA..... Now THAT is wishful thinking).

Rise and shine the son of SUN, rise n roar the king of all Zodiacs( LEO), wake up to the infinite bundle of energy that u store in your body and become the all encompassing and all permeating being....the BRAHMAN.
If that got u confused, let me explain....The philosophy test is going to hit me in 3 more mad days...i m practising elocution here.... forget it.

I held the sun in my hand, looked at it keenly,
it burnt my hand and turned me blind meanly.

Absolute Uncertainty....well almost

2006-05-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

A final test, 5 assignments, a new course starting, some 8 new chapters to be read in two days, a project submission deadline, a surprise test in the coming....how do i put it, i am as good as a dead bird sitting on some other bird's egg, doing nuthin....as i am dead already.

U did not get it...no probs, i will not elaborate, the point of this dialogue is that i should be able to vent my internal upheavels.

Coming to nicer things, Rocky's class is no more a threat to me, i have tided over the fear of being questioned by him, so i m going to enjoy his classes from this point on.
As it is i m finding time to catch up on my sleep these days, m not counting upon it to go on for long, but i will enjoy it for the moment.

U can not go in for any long term planning here, u live in the day...more precisely u live in the moment.

If it will take me a lifetime, to learn to live a life well,
i shall not learn, i shall live my way, i shall live swell.

Tao does nuthin..yet nuthin stays undone

2006-05-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

A gap of 2 days...well time sure moves fast in this part of Chennai,

No complaints though.

PKV has done it, he succeeded in reminding me along with my entire batch that perfection is not a goal, its an achieveable target...so i ended up getting a perfect ZERO!!!!(BAD KARMA??? but i did not do anything in stats ;-) it is actually a very promising development, keeping in mind that there is no negative marking, i can safely assume that the only way to go from this place is..UP....

I had 2 hours of sound sleep in the afternoon..this was as close as it comes to witnessing a miracle here.

Karma is slowly becumin the talk of the masses here, Venky has surely embedded the idea into our psyche.

Its good in the sense that,this batch has started showing the first signs of having an IDENTITY

afterall that is what makes any batch unique.

The flow takes you through it all,
the scenery on the banks changes,
The climb gets steeper ,
but u see more ranges.

Pain is not absolute

2006-05-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Met someone today.

She is a transgender, a woman born with the body of a male, she was disowned by her family when she was just 13 years of age, underwent a sex change operation when she was 17, discovered that she is HIV +ve when she was 30 years old and now at 56 she heads an NGO which has taken upon itself the responsibility of getting this oppressed and pariah social group its dignity.

The meeting was an incident that would remain with me forever, it was humbling, eyeopening and yes...painful to a large extent.

Her story is a rude awakening to people like me, who are so obsessed with the SELF, that the smallest of discomfort becomes a pain. Its a case in point to prove that pain as i know it does not exist,its a relative phenomenon, which due to my insensitivity to others, became an absolute.

There are many others like me who should know about her existence.

I was too busy trying to put out the fire within,
till i saw her, leading others,in the light of her burning body,
to the spring, that shall dowse their flames,all this while SMILING.

Dizzy n Busy

2006-05-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

Its so easy to forget your breakfast and lunch in this 100 meter hurdle race. U stop noticing this fact after some time becoz in most of the cases there is no damn thing u can do about it, u cant get up early, u cant go to sleep early, u cant 'CAN DO' anythin bout it.

I have been drinkin apple juice for breakfast and lunch, the food is becumin an issue with each passing day, possible intervention is just around the corner.Food committe will get down to brassattacks soon.

The assignment scene has not worsened as of yet, so things can still be managed.

Tomorrow i shall be meetin CSWs for the karma yoga project, each meeting drains me out emotionally but strengthens my will to be of some help to this lot.

I can see my plans being successful, so i know i will succeed.

Amen

The matters of the facts...

2006-05-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

It looks like the lull before the storm,

have been free for 2 hours now, 2 STRAIGHT HOURS and have already started thinking about watchin 'gangster', but the normalisation effect has already come into play, Prof Raghu Aiyar has sent in a sweet assignment by mail, news came in even as i was writing this piece, so the title has to change...but let me improvise....

this blog has become my diary,was into this habit for some 9 years before going into job n then things changed, there was no time.

But here it seems that i m hell bent upon utilising each and every minute i get, thats not me, so the matter of fact is i m changing.

my concern is, would i be able to sustain this?.....

Have i been writing too much heavy stuff??

paralysis by analysis

2006-05-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

There is a certain degree of madness required to gel in with the demands of a 1 year MBA.

If u r sane, u will probably freak out when u look into the nitty gritty of how things happen....They JUST HAPPEN.

Pretty much like the classical macroeconomic theory motto- "Economy self adjusts". Things fall into a sequence...classes followed by assignments and case studies followed by committee meetings followed by group meetings followed by lunch and so on..... if u were to plan each and everything in advance...u wud require at least an hour to make things smooth...and that time my friend u dont have...so what do u do?

"THINK ON YOUR FEET"...that is the only sensible way...initially there wud be failures...some big ones too...but u wud get second chances (like al things- dont count on it) and then u will learn to be MAD. Simple..isnt it??

Call me mad, call me bad, call me something really sad,

Call me names, play some games,just giv me my daily bread.

Time for change???

2006-05-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

A rhetorical question i guess, but that is what i have been askin myself 4 the past two days,
everything seems to be moving at the speed of light, even before i close my eyes for sleep at night it seems that the morning has arrived with another 12 Hrs of running around to be done.

This place seems to be on the trot forever, no one rests, no one sleeps and no one complains.I would really like to be of this nature. I guess i will transform over the next month or so.

I am good at making adjustments, so i will be counting on it for the testing times to come.
Need to think a slogan that beats the rest hollow,time runnin out.

If it were not for my love of things simple ,
I would not be watchin u for so long,
And yet your gaze seems to be complicating things for me.

hope floats

2006-05-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

Funny how the worst nightmares turn into laughable memories for some of us,

the class that i was so worried about actually passed away without any damage done.

Rocky happenned to be tired by the time our turn at the Garotte came, so he left us with an assignment for 9 am tomorrow and some food for thought.

As for my fever, it has subsided but now i m dealing with cough, antibiotics are taking their own sweet time to rid me of the throat infection.

An old friend got in touch, it was good,somehow i compare meeting with an old friend to a foggy morning, u r engulfed by a shroud that blurs everything apart from the immediate vicinity and for that moment, there is just the two of u to share your thoughts and communicate.

The next 14 days will come like a tempest and i dont really know what shall remain after it has subsided, non stop classes, projects,new courses being introduced, our journal moving into its crucial sponsorship stage and hell lot of other things.

As of now, lets not talk, lets just walk to the sweet moon,
4 all i know, tomorrow's moon might just not make me swoon.

posterity

2006-05-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hmm.......
having read what i wrote in my previous post, i am a bit surprised with myself, i was really touched by the warmth and vibrations the post carried.
i have also come up with an explanation, i had a fever of 102 along with a pile of material to be read for the night, so the warmth and vibrations are explained.
Some 80 odd pages yet to be read and i can feel things returning to normalcy already.
prof Rakesh Singh will almost certainly be a part of tonight's dreams.

About tomorrow i dont want to think,about today i have thunk enuf,
About reason my heart knows nuthin, without reasons i have thunk enuf.

Rebirth a la Phoenix

2006-05-11T03:09:00.000-07:00

As the Rig Veda says,
"At the start of it all there was nothing" and as the not-yet-famous manan sharma says "This place is cool to the extent of beeing freezing".
My experience at Great Lakes Institute of Management so far has been exhilerating and thrilling.I am convinced that i was a nothing before coming here in as much as i am convinced that i would be something when i leave this place.

I came here as a student and within a period of a week, i have started identifying myself as a co-owner of this DREAM. The idea here is not to elevate someone by resting upon him a title or a salutation, the idea is to groom a future manager by demanding him to be a manager for each of the 365 days that he or she gets to spend here.

Managing is not about glamour, its not about accolades and it is definetly not about power.Its about being responsible,about being efficient without being mechanical and about being a good person.No Business school can teach this,and if any B-school makes a pretence to do so, it means it is trying to redefine foolishness.

The above mentioned attributes are paid due weightage in the selection process at Great Lakes, so we are not being made into managers, all of us already know that we are managers (otherwise we would not be here) , we are here to get better with each passing day.

As Uncle Bala would say, we are being Educated to be 'Business Ready Managers',
there is still a long way to go in this year, and I look upon these coming times
as those filled with challenges and expectations.......OF COURSE I AM LOVING IT