It is only in the last 6 months that I have truly experienced what "Bachelor Life" is all about in an Indian city. Even though I have been away from home during college too, this was something different , not in a hostel, no running for tuts , no curfews , no supres/wardens to watch out for and watching CL matches in your own hall, not a lodge.Lest I forget all this was funded by the wonderful "hands-on" experience creating internship ( aptly title Practice School) which was very very educative indeed.

The fact that all of this happened in Hyderabad , a city which I had been in last summer , was slightly familiar with and had a little knowledge of helped . After using the expertise of people around me for the first 1 month, I knew which were the eat-outs to which you could go to , where would be the best "ambience" for sports matches and of course the hip and happening places in the city. For those planning to visit the city , know that Chutney's is the place to go to for the Steamed Dosas, Guntur Idly's, Babai Hotel Idly's , exquisite Sambar and mouth-watering coconut chutney , Malgudi for authentic south Indian food and any of the Ohri's for the ambience. K Circle at YMCA and HQC proved to be the occassional tonic to keep myself in touch with the Quizzing world. As time moved on after the interview phase , I had more free time than anything , making more friends , having more "fun" and the only complaint I had was about the"Paying Guest" I was staying. Thankfully for the last 2 months, I live in a house and not a hostel.Friends from last summer - Arun and Kaushik ( who have now started on with the second "child" after Lootstreet ) were also around for the occasional get-together and Poker times amidst their busy schedules.Sandeep Prakash too could always be met in one of the book outlets on a Saturday evening for a pre-Poker conversation, looking forward to you making me familiar with Bangalore too.

The best part is and will remain my stay in the flat -Praveen , Pradeep, Thiaga and Mani being the other inhabitants. During this period , I have evolved into a fairly moderate "cooker" under the guidance and mentorship". The 5 of us have cooked 4 course meals and had lunches/ dinners while watching all-time favourite "Jest 4 Jolly" comedy clips from Tamil movies. There is nothing that can beat getting up in the morning, making a cup of coffee for yourself, watching the 1 hour back-to-back F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodes with a newspaper in your hands.All the conversations in the flat - the tips for becoming an excellent "peanut farmer" , Sports/Politics related arguements with Praveen ( more so when both of us were sitting in adjacent buildings in Oracle with absolutely nothing to do and debating over the transfer policy and brains of Benitez,Wenger and Florentino Perez) , cursing Dhoni for the CSK loss,disapppointment at India's catastrophic failure, ex-flatmate Psyche's nonchalance, "Ok Boys", never ending comedies and many more such special moments are just a few things I will miss.

Goodbye Hyderabad , I will miss everything from here - Hi-tech City, Rock View apartments, Cafe Nandhini, JMJ meals and being around each one of the above mentioned people. Here is to knowing that we will definitely be meeting again sooner or later .

An ode , 4 years of engineering , 3.5 years of village life , 0.5 years of "work-experience" , 8 semesters of "Education". A lot of memories, a series of amazing incidents , unforgettable times.In a format that is special to BITS. Here is how I remember 4 years in Pilani.A collage of almost everything I have been through.

0 % Attendance. You are a smart ! Retailer in 3rd year. Being "parliamentary". Lounge Piranha at 3.30 am.96 hours - Oasis and not desert for once. Galeez . Cheese Pizzas at Sky. Pappuji. PPW,MNB,Blue Moon,Chimpuji.Saint and Flatley - ELAS as a phoenix.Galeez.Magic of Wholesale and Retail.T20 finals in Audi.Heena at BOSM. Catfight at BOSM Girls BasketBall. OD's gift to Sponz. DOPY's truly "amazing" snaps, more so on delivery. Running from chowkis. "Are you a superstar ? " - Satpathi D.K. Roadies Audition - Devrishi shines, in Bear's room. Sitcom marathons. "Xchng Plsss" . Trivia, DC ++ . Dude/BOB/Kadalai/CRC Iyer. Chitappa's Night outs. "Interaction Sessions". OHT,OQ,BOB, AVQ. First Blood. Wordstock. Treasure hunt "decoys" and "Ahaa" moments."You are David".APK as Nathuram Godse.Nightout in C Lawns - Psyche grinning and "happy" throughout. Arsenal Vs Man U in CR , in high spirits. "How long can a 50 gm toothpaste tube last for 9 people ? " - Galeez has answers . Adirad saving me on Birthday(s). One comp for 8 eight Illads in first year - Janki, the man ! Kevalramani's EG classes .Challenges to VVS Pavan, the COSTAN ( or whatever it is rightly spelt as). Go "Fill Arbit Name here" Go ! DumbCharades in FD3 , the night before Workshop compre."Who Moved my Quiz" - India Quiz 2007. "Niiii!" - Shilpa. The best guitarist BITS has ever seen - You Know Who . Kaiser, the camper - Chitappa's CS avtar . EPC stapling sessions. Intros starting with "Myself XYZ".Suicide Notes in SMS language , courtesy OEP.OHT QM asking for a "peg" before the quiz.CL matches in Pilani Lodge.Sharma's Dinner. Revamped ANC , still "Sweat Maggi". Haran Rajkumar ! Aravind's fight for supremacy over the SWD Website - Instances : Nilam "Sweet" Babu,"AFHQ" . SUBASHREE@NAGALAKSHMI R. Specially for Illads, SAC Lunches. Psenti-sem without a wing. JB and Chitappa going at it. Chitappa neads black charts! Special entrant in Lights Booth. Bear beating up Ashwin.The secret Swimming Pool break-in.Joseph's never ending analysis of PS.Kiddo in demand.Chari and his secrets. Kaushik's love for robotics. Aswin's love for the truth. CuppyCake! CP 1, CP 2 "Evaluated Labs". Vivek's "Mech by choice" . Himesh! King Mama/Ravishing Ravi/King Diamond ! APK going "cuckoo" . Ramya looking lost all the time.Kairali Grubs and Dhotis.Beg/Borrow/Steal for Batch Snaps. "Happy Days" at Batch snaps.Vivek's walk-in pics. Super Special KC in the mimes.Psyche, Vasanth,Kutts and me at Mithali."Have you read Fountainhead" .The two wonderful TA's. Mech "reaching steady state takes infinite time" Labs. Upto 300 % error accepted.School Kids in Roctaves.Gossip Girl . Operation Deltaforce( Did I get the name right ? ) . "Love is in the air" 3-1 , also the article and after-effects.Wing Formation Politics. "Dont you just simply love Wodehouse" - Psyche in 3-1 . Psyche's special nuances . Impartial Chittu and Pres Treat.Mama's Sports Quiz - D13's sledging. Informals and ELAS tie-ups. KOTA karthik and his CraCing abilities. Anand Iyer - "Give Gossip".FL@SH-"Orgasmic" over TB's on DC++."I ate Zebra" says the Bear. List of missing items APK is responsible for. APK and his hidden stash of Pringles and Chocolates. Vladtepes being a madman.Mighty Joe young. Cheeku and the Saint fighting over hidden secrets from school. Kaushik throwing mudballs."You cannot eat Hide n Seek during Audi Ragging" . The EC brigade and their bags. Dhall hugging trees. Seinfeld- The key, starring Gangster ! No tracks for Pilani - save us from the dacoits.Bunty's, Chirawa and Punjabi Dhabas,Unforgettable "Good times".


For everything else , there is mastercard, this is simply Priceless.

To all my batchmates, wishing you a great future and the hope that we keep bumping into each other at every turn in our lives. Comments with more such lists would be really great, for that is the only place where I can add things that I have missed out.



P.S:

No Offences meant, extremely sorry if anyone feels hurt.

Despite having possibly the most balanced team in the Indian Premier League, Chennai SuperKings contrived to lose and that too in a pathetic fashion in the semi-finals.I am pretty sure every Chennai fan would have strangled M.S.Dhoni to death, if possible as soon as they saw the starting XI for the match. I cannot not rant and vent out my feelings of depression on seeing the same, please excuse me for this post.

1.There was no logical explanation for Jacob Oram being an "important player" . Despite never being used as a bowler in the league stages, the captain believed that when called to do a job Oram could deliver the goods.The reasoning would have been extremely sound if Oram had been used consistently throughout the tournament, been used to bowling such a thing called as "dibbly-dobbly"/millitary pace/ medium fast.It clearly showed when Oram could not even hit the deck and managed to save some trouble by using his expertise to concede 14 runs in 4 balls.

2. Mike Hussey. It is probably only in a country like Australia that a player of the calibre of Mike Hussey could be kept out of the national team till he was 28( 30 in case of tests ! ). Irrespective of however excellent Jacob Oram is , nothing should have kept Hussey out of the Chennai Super Kings team,especially after he made himself available despite the taxing international schedule for the knockout stages. Form or no form , any Chennai school kid knows who Mr.Cricket is , only the man in charge doesn't.

3. The love for small town boys has been carried a bit too far. Joginder Sharma and Manpreet Singh Gony do not win you matches. The captain seems to be in love with "rural development", but you are not being paid for that, you are being paid to win. M.S.Gony's 2 overs cost 23 runs, it always has. For no fault of his, Sudeep Tyagi was missing from the line-up, his 2 overs might have cost the same, but it probably would not have been the rank long-hops and full tosses that deserved to be smacked. Tyagi seemed to have mastered the art of bowling 2 overs in the start, taking a wicket and getting done with the job ( except for maybe McCullum). This was not right and might have lead to the team's victory, hence drop him !

4.Taking charge was the captains responsibility and man did he do it well.Throughout the 2 seasons of IPL, Subramaniam Badrinath was grossly under-utilised.A player of his mould is best coming in at no.3/4 in the first ten overs after the fall of wickets, not in the 18th over when you use your ingenious batting technique to swat balls down the track. But again this might have lead to better performance and hence forget that.The innings in the semi-final was excruciatingly painful to watch, the consolidation and building up was much better left in the hands of Badrinath, the "slam-bang-thank-you-ma'm" is something which players like Badri (I should add Dravid too here) cannot learn.

I do have my own theory which can back this up, the performance of Badri could have cost one very good friend of the captain a place in the test side. Badri is due a place in the national test team, the fact that he fails to suck up to Dhoni is the cause for him not being there is disheartening. Smacking Stuart Broad for 36 runs in a T20 match does not make you fit to become a test player.

The failure was in no part the fault of the players, the fault lies in all its entirety with the "Cool Dude" - "Win my Love Songs " - "I can field as badly as you guys too" Captain Fantastic Dhoni. Being Cool is over-rated *. It does not bode well if you stand around and smile while your team is dropping catches left, right and center . In the semi-final,where you have a small possibility of winning, this demands some intensity/display of emotion/inspiration from the captain, which was very clearly missing.In sharp contrast at the other end the captain was Anil Kumble and you could clearly see the difference in attitude.

I have always stood with the fact that Dhoni has been riding his luck. The current Indian team is probably the best ever to play in a long time, we have a good pack of pacers up front who can perform in any set of conditions, few decent spinners ( according to the cricinfo Page 2 resume one of them is the best spinner for India abroad after Irfan Pathan ) and a batting line-up which no longer revolves around one man.This team does not need an inspirational/special/magical/made in heavens captain, it will probably perform the same if the "match ke pehle first ball" captain continues to captain the team throughout the T20 World Cup.

At the end of the tournament, none of the teams looked like champion material.Though, I really feel for Anil Kumble, under him the Royal Challengers were a different team, he did his best and the others just could not deliver when it mattered. The IPL is yet to be won by an Indian captain - Sachin can never be a great captain, Dhoni's luck has run out, Kumble needs an ounce of luck and Yuvraj needs to do something other than take hat-tricks (Sehwag/Gambhir dont deserve a mention) .It is going to take sometime coming , but I hope it comes soon.

P.S:

1.The T-20 "Champions League" beckons and in all probability that will be a bigger farce (or in Lalit Modi's words "Marketing Success" ) than the IPL . Do the rules of the IPL stick there too ? - Not more than 4 overseas players ? Isn't that putting Deccan/RCB/Delhi to a disadvantage ? If you know the answer, please leave a comment.

2.*Thanks to Srikanth, my PS team-mate for this.

The last 12 months have easily been the most eventful period in my life so far . There have been some unforgettable experiences , over-the-moon periods , down in the dump despair times and of course just the fun of the exciting life in the city and not a village . But taking into account everything, it has been the most enjoyable spell irrespective of successes and failures.


The Good :

There is no guessing what occupies the top spot. The entire experience, preparing , trying to make sense of completely random terms in the Economic Times , making new friends , "selling myself",learning about Mr.TKGR (the above-God authority) - all this compromises what I call the B Experience .

But I should say something that I enjoyed more would be the summer of 2008 , which is more or less responsible for the above mentioned result.Working for 2 months with Arun and Kaushik , the benefits of learning while you work , the chance to visit the campus of IIM Ahmedabad ( which now unfortunately has become the taboo word ) and of course the chance to see a lot of surprised faces when being told that I was still a student who was trying his hand with work in the firm . It truly was something which changed me in all terms and will probably be a part of my introduction to anyone for a few more years to come.

Even though its significance has been lost in view of the present situation, getting the job at Morgan Stanley was another thing which gave me an "unrecoverable" high. I had people abusing me for the grin on my face while walking on the roads for even a week after the results.At that point of time, I was completely overwhelmed by the same.

The Bad :


Even though , it should not be counted as bad if you get paid for doing nothing except occasionally being asked to do something which even Zimbu, the monkey could probably do,PS 2 falls in this category for me. But fortunately, the people and the firm are really a great place to spend 6 months and it has been a mixed bag to say the least.

Despite spending 4 ( ok, not 4 , 3.5 ) years in Pilani , there was absolutely a lack of "emotion" if I can call it that when I left the campus. Most people have been taken aback by my obvious relief on leaving the place.Like many of my previous posts, it is always the people that made the place so enjoyable for me and I shall be ensuring that I get more of those moments with the people whom I spent those 3.5 years in that village in Rajasthan.
Unfortunately , the times have changed since the time we were on campus for our placements.

This semester has been particularly bad for many friends I know and I am sure everyone will find / make their own way out of this messy situation, if I might add , all that it takes might be some patience and compromise for better things to happen to you soon.

The Ugly:

Fortunately/Unfortunately this happens to do with only my sports affiliations .

Arsenal F.C has progressed from bad to worse in this period. The signing of the wizard Andrei Arshavin must have injected some sense into the all-knowing, kids-loving Professor we fans hope. Development or not, the club needs to progress and it is the time to make a few inspired signings rather than harp on the talent present in the academy. 16 year old Luke Freeman is not going to win us anything next season.


I shall still call him by the same name I always refer to him with : His Royal Highness Roger Federer is going through his worst slump of form and for the love of the game I hope he returns to his stylish and devastating best.

Formula 1 is being hijacked by teams who previously had nothing significant attached to them. Ross Brawn is a technical genius beyond doubt , but I do hope that things return to normal soon and more importantly Scuderia Ferrari getting things back in place.

That ends what is a brief description of how my last one year has been. Though , I am not celebrating my birthday or anything of that sort , I just realised that the technical 1 year - 365 day period for which I have mentioned the activities above will be coming to a close soon.

P.S:

1. Of Course something are just priceless , such as the 5 months in Hyderabad , where I have had the opportunity to meet so many people, weekends spent just watching football and playing UNO , learning a few nuances of poker - everything has made this a really enjoyable experience .

2. I co-hosted a quiz last week for the K Circle with Psyche(less popularly known as Vijay ), Hyderabad Chapter whose review can be found here, written by dear friend Praveen. Thanks to him for portraying the quiz as not the complete disaster it actually was.

The wait has ended and the title must have more or less given it away . I have made it into IIM Bangalore for the PGP Batch of 2009-2011. What I feel at this moment is relief, more than anything else .After all this, I wouldn't have really wanted to go through this entire process again, fortunately I don't have to . This post if any longer wont make much sense and I stop it here.


A special thanks to the Great Man Above .

P.S:

The madNavin most of you know is in some other dimension and cannot be reached at this moment due to the state of euphoria he is in. This post is by his alter ego : N Madhavan.

The long wait has not yet ended for me. The results for admissions to IIM Bangalore have come out and I have been Waitlisted for admissions with WaitList No : 48 . I do not know whether this is something which I should rejoice or be dejected about, for my next 1 year is still a mystery to me . My results are such that when told to someone they do not know what would be the right thing to say . It is very evident to me that most of you are stuck without knowing what my chances are and whether this result is good or bad. Frankly , even I have absolutely no idea as to what I should expect based on such a result. To help you interpret my chances here are a few facts:

Fact 1 : I am amongst the last 5 candidates to be shortlisted by IIM B in the General Category (52 is the total number )

Fact 2 : This Waitlist no does not indicate that 47 people not taking up their seat would result in me getting admission. The admission panel is smart, they have already given 23 buffer offers from whatever I know and this would mean at least 70 people turning down their seats for me to stand a chance of making it .

Fact 3 : Last year , the Waitlist moved till 46, with a probably lesser number of buffer calls and a lesser number of seats. This might indicate that my chances are better and I hope they are .

Besides the above facts remain the choices that people make . The growing popularity of IIM Calcutta and its outstanding finance expertise is also going to be a factor which will influence my results .

Today, I know that there is an extremely high probability that I would either be amongst the last candidates to make into the institution or be amongst the first ones to miss it . The latter will be a very difficult fact to digest, rejection is simpler to face , but knowing that probably not guessing one answer in the verbal section might have resulted in me making it will haunt me . Whatever the result, I still have hope to hang onto for at least the next 1 month or so and at the end of it I will be a different person.

P.S:

1. The Killer - I will be getting an admission letter from IIM Bangalore, I hope it turns out to be more than just a souvenir .
2. Congratulations to everyone who has cleared the final hurdle and heading to the best B Schools in the country to spend the next 2 years.

Before Nov 16, 2008 :

I knew that in all probability I would be spending the next 1 or 2 years working in Morgan Stanley , something which seemed really exciting at that point of time and I was more than happy to take up the same .Even though before I had reached campus for the semester I was intent on taking CAT seriously and trying to continue with education , the "dream job" offer changed my mindset.

Nov 16, 2008 - Jan 9, 2009

After what I thought was not a complete disaster as expected on the day of CAT, I harbored hopes of a few calls, with the more important question being whether any one of them would be from the big ones. As the days went by and I kept hearing scores of 200 and increasing, I had doubts as to whether anything good would come out at all on Jan 9th .

Jan 9, 2009 - Feb 23, 2009

When the results did come out , the time-tested weightage to academics pulled me through for a call to one call that mattered - IIM Bangalore . The next 45 days were a mad rush with me trying to get things in place and get them perfect and polished for the big day . The 4 hours spent in IIM Bangalore on the actual day was not the way I had dreamt of it, with a GD that was more than peaceful and an interview which was completely out of the blue. I did come out of the interview room with a big grin on my face , but that was more because I knew I had given my best shot, the preparations were over and now all that remained was to wait for the results

Feb 23, 2009 - Now :

Despite all the post-mortem analysis,PagalGuy visits to see how other competitors fared , I am presently back to a preparation phase. Preparing myself for the Chequered flag , trying to be ready to digest the message that will popup on the results page. Whatever the results , I will have to brace myself and face it. Easy to write and say,but when it does dawn on me , I have absolutely no idea how I will take it. To be honest,before this there has been nothing else for which I had put such a dedicated and concentrated effort to achieve.Unlike before when I was all geared up to work in Morgan Stanley, that would be a disappointment for me now.At the end of highly engaging discussions with Praveen and Psyche, fellow "wait-ers" hoping that April 10 comes sooner , the only conclusion that I could draw was that there is only so much we can do, the rest is the "secret ingredient" , give it whatever name - Luck,Destiny or Fate.

All the best to everyone of my friends and competitors who are expecting ( some including me - dreading ) and hoping that their efforts do not go in vain.