Day 12

Of a Very Special Day

I did MBA from one of the top 10 Bschools in India. That was the first time I moved out of my city. I went there very scared – I had heard enough stories of how cut throat the competition was, how you got to sleep for only 4-3 hours in one day and how tough it was to give all the exams and presentations etc etc.

I finished MBA in the March of 2009. I did so with tremendous lessons in life. And three gold medals. With 3 out of the 4 medals awarded that day. With all three academic ones open for the grab that day.

That day- the convocation - was undoubtedly the proudest moment in my life and I doubt if there will be one that will out do this one. I was rank one in engg also but I was never awarded a gold medal in front of sooo many people. So this was bigger and more special.

My brother had promised me that he will take leave from his med school (where leaves were very scarce) and attend my convocation if I were getting one medal. So, on that fine day, my brother came from his med school, my parents from my home city and Sid came from London to be with me on my very special day. Every one who mattered was there and that really mattered the most.

I knew I was the gold medallist for the batch that year because the results had been declared a couple of days back. Early that day I went to the section where the medal winners were supposed to line up for their cloaks and gowns. There was a list of medal winners there. I picked it up just to check if I was indeed getting the gold medal.

Gold Medal- My name.
I turned the next page and was about to keep the sheet down when my name caught my attention .

I read carefully.

The XYZ Special Prize for Best Student in Economics: My name.

I remember how I stopped breathing for a second. I had not even known that such an award existed.

And that was when I saw my name in another place.

The ABC award for Best Outgoing Student for the Batch of 2009 : My name.

I fail short of words here. I honestly do. You know I think there is such an amzing ring to the sound of the words- Best outgoing student of the year. It sounds so BIG. So final. So very absolutely unbeatable.

As I was jostled around by batchmates trying to get their robes , I recall being transported into a different world.

I had just realised- some one hour before the award ceremony , that I was going to get ALL academic gold medals open for my entire batch of 178 students..

I wore a green and pink saree that day along with a Gold watch and a string of pearls.

The saree was an ancient one belonging to my mother. I had often seen her in it and I felt that she looked fabulous each time she wore it. It did not look half as great on me (infact it looked quite horrible) but I wanted to wear something so very hers on my special day. It was my way of saying, I am yours and each achievement of mine is as yours as it is mine.

The string of pearls- My Mum and Dad gifted those to me on my 18th birthday. And as I opened my gift that day so many years ago I saw a piece of paper fall off. They had left a note inside the jewellery box. It said, in my fathers beautiful hand writing that I should have a focus in my life and give my all to achieve it.

The gold watch was a gift from my Grandfather. He takes immense pride in any academic achievement I have ever had and had gifted this watch to me when I had scored 92% in class ten. The Box reads—Merit award from my grand daughter. May you achieve many more, bigger, grander things.

I have often felt that that one day was my day. Absolutely , totally my day. I remember the collective gasp of the audience as my name was announced for the 3 rd consecutive gold medal and I knew each and every eye was on me as I made my third quick trip to the stage.

I remember the multitude of back slaps, the way a reporter came and asked me , before he interviewed me, if I were single. I remember how some random woman came and congratulated me and said, ‘ you seem to be the brightest around! And I am so proud you are girl’

I felt so blessed and so lucky. It was like all the hard work had paid off. I knew my parents would be the proudest set of parents sitting in that auditorium. I knew I had achieved something I had till now only dreamt of.

Why do I speak of that day today? I don’t know. This is one big experience that I had never shared with my blog readers and I wanted to let you guys be a part of my biggest day- that happened a long time back. The following is the link to the post that has me announce my Rank one but not the other things
:http://smilethesmile.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

I am putting up a pic as well. It is a hideous pic but it shows you the saree and if you look closely the watch and the string of pearls as well:)





Love
RP

So, the tri has dragged on to 12 weeks now.I am in the last week of the 4th trimester now.This will be followed by one week of exam, another week of port visit , one more week of home and the second last trimester here would begin.
I hated this place when I first came here and today I hate the thought that I would be leaving this place in another 6 months time.It scares me real bad.It is funny how I hated it so much and how much I love it right now.
Anyways, todays has been a lazy day, I have been feeling very lazy of late and am a little unwell too.I just had one class.An extended type of economics is dealt with in the class. The proff!! I so totally think I am in love with him and his way of teaching!!! He is ossum!!!The way he starst of with micro, puts in a little bit of macro and ends with developmental….aaaahhhhh…nothing like it. I swear I do not even miss half a sentence of what he says in class, I am so impressed with what he teaches!
Apart from this, I know things have been weird of late, I just want some strength..I need it so bad….I want someone out there to support me a little bit coz I am very tired of taking it all in…..I want to breathe easy…breathe easy once more….
Love to all
RP

Hi,
Yesterday I was visting my own blog after a long time and I started sifting through the previous posts…..its really funny you know when you have been blogging for so long – I can see a younger me in the earlier posts…I used to blog regularly then, so there is a lot about me there which I myself had forgotten.

Today is one of those rare occassioins when my B school has given me a holiday.I am now so used to working 7 days a week that a holiday seems odd and out of place though always welcome obviously!

Yesterday I had an important viva.It dealt with the summer project I had done for my summers some time back.Of late I had been avoiding giving presentations… I just felt that there are better presenters in our core project group.So the final compliment from the panel was a welcome surprise.

The reason why I mention this is because I have to stop undermining my own abilities.But then my mind becomes a slish-slosh of everything. I don’t know how useful it would be…I don’t know..there is so much running through my head.

Apart from this to day next month this time (its 8:53 am) I would be home! I have been missing home a lot these days.I am tired of taking care of myself, I just want good rest, a relaxed atmosphere, a nice clean loo, I want to decide which tube light is to be kept on and which off, I want nice food, I want to watch TV , I want to be driven around in a car and not in a rickety auto.These days I have been feeling very exhausted with all this….I just want to go back home and curl on the bed and sleep for 2 days straight!

One month seems like a lot of time.Particularly after L (remember her? My frnd back home) thought I was coming home on the 29th of August and not 29th of September.
I want time to hurry up- but for once I know that as time passes by the day I will have to leave all this will also come closer.I don’t know what to wish for. I have had some bad times here of late- God knows I have had.But there has been a lot of good behind that bad.There have been times when I have felt very lonely but those moments have been few and numbered. I had often thought that I would never make friends at B school but I have been proven wrong and I am so glad about that.

I like the easy camraderie I share with my roomie.How easily I can read all her expressions and how easliy she can inspite of being who she is [:P] read mine. There are things about her which obviously I cannot understand even after staying with her for over an year but t the same time it is funny how fond I have become of her.[tw]

There are other people on campus, though few in number whose friendship I really value.Anyways that would make a post in itself.I will come up with one if I feel I can or if I feel the need for it..:)
So today is a lazy day..actually not really-I have a lot of work to wrap up today and I think I should get going ….
Lots of love
And work hard.
RP

Hi,

After a very bad 5-6 months I have started feeling better again…It was like this huge wave –I knew it was coming, it came with full force and left me broken in a million pieces .
However, now things are looking good.I know somethings can happen and others cannot…you win some, you loose some.Thats the way it is.
Anywyas, lets leave that aside.The days are filled bup to the brim here and though I crib like anything I know that I love it this way.I love to slog I love to do decent work.It gives me a high of some sorts.
Also this trimester was bad with resoect to competitions.I just got one short list! No wins.Last trimester it was like I had the midas touch-anything I touched truned to a nice cheque.hehe..anyways I realised suddenly how difficult it is to win these stupid Business school competitions!
Apart from that , my end term exams are round the corner.I want to give them my best shot and I have been working accordingly for it.Or so I think. I knw Rank one is far away but atleast that stupid bronze medal should stay, right?
At the end of the day I can, I guess only work rest all is upto the cosmos….but I want to do my bit honestly and sincerely….
Lots of love
RP.

The verdict

So, one year is done and over with.And the final verdict??

I love this place.

Totally. I don’t know if something real bad will happen next year and make me hate b skul but as of now..i love it every bit.
Last night I went for my now daily walk around campus and I was surprised at the memories that flooded me!!
The stairs where we were ragged, the hexagonal benches where again we were ragged, the academic building to which we rush to madly every morning during the trimester, the lane behind the hostel where I have taken umpteen number of walks with friends, the bench where I sat down and cheered the ’cricket’ match [infact just came back from cheering for another very happening match :P ]..hehe..The little garden like thing in front of the warden's house, the warm brown light at his door,the big huge trees and their beuatiful flowers which are a riot of colours in winter, the dhabas outside…the hostpitals nearby and the cremration grounds in front :P

So and so forth…. so many memories and all of them pleasant

I like the feeling of independence I get here. I like hanging out with friends..hell I even like the madness of classes and quizes which I invariably do badly in.
And btw, I love my class.I love us[err..:P ] because we are really cool.We are not as diligent as the other sectionbut neither are we as sderious or as mundane or as quiet , we fight like anything in class,the proffs , I have reasons to believe are scared of us..we can go crazy at times.I am glad I am in this section than the other.
The last trimester was very hectic.We did not even get a single Sunday off.We worked each day and on top of that I worked for competitions as well.So, yeah it was very very very hectic and now –with the summers going on, things are much more relaxed.

I like staying in the hostel even though there are very few people here.It is quiet.But lovely nevertheless.I love those walks I take in the night.
I am glad to be here now:)
Finally I think I have started thinking of this place as a home away from home:)
Love
RP

Aaah..am back in my city, one trimester over! One whole trimester over. Here are some of the highlights:

1. There was a point in time when I was so bugged up with life in a b skul, in particular my own that amidst another of those calls to when I cry and mum talks, to calm me, Mum promised to buy me the tickets back home. The deal was that I was to stay in the b skul till Saturday [that day was a Monday] and if even then I wanted to leave, the tickets would be ready.

2. Lets just say I stayed. J

3. Before coming to b skul, I used to sleep for 8 hours a day, after coming here I have managed on 8 hours in 4 days. And I survived!

4. There is this guy I study with, we actually study in a big group but since I stay away from most other guys and spend a lot of time with this one, people like pulling my leg about him and his about me!
So, much so that even I have started pulling his leg about me!!
Hehehe
It is sucha big joke between the two of us! It is my duty and job for the next year and a half to find a nice girl for him.Which hopefully I will.

5. I am very sensitive to the smell of a smoke! Some of the guys are catully scared of coming near me when they have just had a smoke!

6.I was in a pink saree during the second party we had here, it was the reverse freshers and I was supposed to put teeka on the forehead of the seniors.My roomie , however had to do coyote ugly, she was be at the bar.
Ek roomie ne teeka lagaya, doosari ne daaru pilayi
Said another roomie, very philosophically!

7.Finance. I hated it, only 3 days ago I have started liking it…my new found obsession with finance!
Imagine! I think I am in love with finance now .:

8. I think I have done miserably in the term. I studied quite hard and was very consistent and diligent and all of that, but still somehow I managed to screw it all for myself.

9. I did the maths end term so beautifully that I impressed myself no end. I sat cross legged during the exam, got myself a bottle of chilled water and solved one sum after the other, sipping water in between as if it were some great drink.
It was the first time in my life that I did a maths paper so confidently! However, the course, sadly is a non credit one!

10.I am truly and honestly in love with Ecomonics and am really looking forward to the eco course next trimester! I hope we get a good proff!
11.I am 3/4th myself, ¼ of me is the lappy!

12. Last but not the least , lots of good things have happened at B skul to me. Really! I have met ossum people, made some great friends, studied under some of the best proffs I have ever studied with, been busy and have loved it , have slogged and have loved it again.

One of the latest things to have happened is a place 3 hours from Paris. I will be spening one whole trimester in France come this January.
Enough said.
:)

So, tomm I have a Marketing End term and here I am, at 2:30 in the morning, putting up a blog post.

I surprsingly often end up hanging out with the Tamil gang. So, these people have a lot of fun at my expense when I attempt to speak in Tamil.
My Tamil is reasonably fluent now. I can speak 3 senetences. I am not really sure which one means what ..*ahem* but I am reasonably confident of my skills. So today while I was giving final touches to my CV I must confess I did contemplate putting down Tamil as a language I knew at the elementary level .

Huh!

Anyways, so today amidst copying Rajni kant and them almost luaghing their heads off over dialoges I could not make head or tail of, one of my friends taught me this:

waikai orvattum,[ I kept saying, waikai orkuttam :P ]
innnniki jaykravan, naliki tonam
inniki tonakram, nilliki jaipan!

It means that life is a circle, if someone is loosing out today, he will win tomm and if he is winning today he might loose out tomm.

For someone like me, going through what I am right now, these words provided great comfort.

So I htought it must be some grave profound Tamil shloka or something, and I asked that question. The entire Tam Gang burst out laughing again.
Apparently it was some famous tamil movie dialog!
:
:

Huh!

Another thing is that I need to start behaving more sensibly now, the only problem is that I dont want to...
*sigh*
*double sigh*
*triple sigh*
Sensible I shall be...yes, I will be :)

And on that resolute note, it is a buy buy and gunite from my side!
Ta!
-RP.

P.S Bhai coming to Bskul on his way home on the 7th.Yipeeeee!!! I have honestly never waited so much for him! Each and everyone of my friends knows about him coming now!!

Yog.

So we have Yoga classes every alternate day at the painful hour of 6 in the morning.We sleep at 3 the previous night and are woken up by the various alarm clocks we set by 5:30 am.

As a side note, last to last turn, my roomies simply could not wake me up for the class and they had to leave without me!

So with 2 and a half hours of beauty sleep, the couple of us troop down to the place where the yoga sessions happen.
Yoga is compulsory though it is a non credit course.

One can easily spot poeple with tousled hair, crumpled clothes, straight out of the beds, glad to have managed to wke up at 6. Almost everyone is in a trance, we move like zombies, with our eyes closed, hoping to make it to the right room.
Eyes closed, I generally make way to the place where the mats are piled up, and with eyes closed I pick one of them and return to the hall where the yoga begins.

Till the time our instructor begins the session, we simply lie on the floor to catch up on sleep, most of us have to be woken up by guruji himself when he is about to start the session.

Now we have guruji who wears a white kurta payjama and comes to teach us the subtle nuances of yoga.
The session starts with us chanting something, even after many yoga sessions I am not really sure about what we chant...I just make weird noises and hope that that is what is being said.

The sad part is that this chanting has to be done with our eyes closed.Now with just 2.5 hours of sleep the previous night, keeping eyes closed and staying awake is totally impossible..so a couple of us start dozing off as soon as the chanting begins. This irks guruji very much.

The next thing in line is 'Bhatrika'. I personally do not even attempt bhastrika. And apparenlty there are many like me. So during the last class, a guy from my batch , closed his eyes, sat in the mudra and promptly fell asleep when he was supposed to be breathing in and out doing bhastrika. Guruji is smarrt. He can sense a sleeping yogi pretending to do yoga from a distance. So what he did was that he calmly walked upto the guy in question and put the mike in his hand right under the guy's nose.

All remained silent.

None of the heavy duty breathing sound that should have rightfully eminated from the mike.
Guruji kept the mike there for 30 40 seconds .The guy slept for the next 30-40 seconds.
Then guruji had had enough, he prodded the guy saying 'arre devdas, utho'

Devdas, blissfully asleep sitting in padmasan, was jerked out of his slumber. Within seconds he was back to doing bhastrika to the bets of his abilities amidst laughter around.

The point is that , shav asan is our fave asan, the moment guruji says, 'abb, aap kripiya let jaye, shav asan ki sthiti mein' , we give a mental whoop of joy and lie down on the mats , ready to catch a couple of minutes sleep.

Guruji spends the next few minutes waking up people by prodding them with his feet as he moves along the students.

When guruji begins the yoga class he always makes it a point to ask the class this question,' kaun kaun pet saaf karke aaya hai'.
Initially we were too embaressed to say anything and not a single hand would go up when this question was put up.But...now approximately 6-7 hands shoot up.
The reason is simple, guruji does not allow thses people to sit for yoga lessons, asks them to drink a cup of warm water, take a small 2 minute strol around and then spend soem time in the loo and then come back for yoga.So these guys just leave not to come till it is almost 7 and time to give attendance.

Yoga is good for health. Yoga gives us about 5-6 minutes of sleep, if you are a good potential manager you can grab upto 10 minutes of sleep.

aaaahhhh..sleep...ossum !

Gunite guys!
RP.

Hi,
So It has been 12 days in this place now.It is 2:25 in the morning and I still have loads of work I need to wrap up before I call it a day.
Highlights:

1.I have managed with about an hours sleep, e.g come back from a session with the seniors at 3, jab /settle down by 4, get up 5:30 to drag yourself for yoga at 6.

2.I am generally oscillating between extremes here. Sometimes I miss home so bad that it is almost a physical pain.

3.I keep looking at the gates of my bskul , and have been tempted real bad to just run away and never come back.

4.In the past week, I had a stomach upset followed with some fancy insect taking a fancy to my face, crawling across it and leaving a huge scar behind. If that was not enough I promptly fell ill again, viral fever being the culprit this time .

5.Fo the first time today in 12 days I laughed my guts out, I laughed so bad that I thought I would die laughing. This guy in class was enacting the nirma super ad while the proff was droning on and on about direct and derived demand.Gosh, he was funny!

6.I am so much in awe of the students I am studying with.90%of them are toppers .

7.I messed up the first quiz I wrote here so terribly bad that I cannot even begin to talk about it!

8.I have realised that if I have free time , it almost kills me!!!

I hope you guys have been doing good, as far as I am concerned , I am hoping I will soon start feeling better here.

gunite
RP.

P.S. Will try to be more regular with blogging from now on!

So, apparently, I am the only one who has managed a vaguely decent convert from my coaching institute[ Yes, you can go be as surprised as you wish to be ]. The centre heads had decided to arrange a seminar for the entire batch for CAT 07 and I was cordially invited to share with the students my own experiences.

Ahem.

Since it is the first time that I am actually being treated this way, let me share with you guys all that happened.
First of all, I had no idea what I should ideally wear for the occasion! [ A day before that a class 12 girl who wanted to speak to me had exclaimed on seeing me ‘ Didi toh humare age ki lagati hai ‘ .
Huh! ]
So, Western wear was totally out, it makes me look much younger than I actually am , so I settled for a light pink churidaar salwaar kameez with substantial chikan work all over in white, tiny pink danglers and a touch of kohl for the eyes. The cotton suit + hair in a pony, academic, hard working girl look! :P

Ma dropped me off at the venue and Chotu Bhaiyya [ the odd job guy at the coaching I used to be very good friends with when I was regular with the classes] on seeing me waved a cheerful ‘hello’ and directed me to the hall.
It was a HUGE hall and had around 200 seats, the centre Head#1 was on stage giving gyaan about the various terms used in business mags et al. Centre head #2 , a female who has without fail failed to impress me , was seated in the front row.On seeing me, she waved and asked me to come over, So I sat next to her and listened to centre head #1 give gyan. It was actually a pretty decent lecture and I listened very attentively to all that was being said while centre head #2 yawned and yawned non stop beside me.
Other faculty members were also there and it was nice to talk to them once in a while in hushed whispers…
One hour later, centre head #1, wrapped up his lecture and Centre head#2 went on stage and introduced to the audience the three of us.
Before calling me to the podium, she said ‘I have to mention one thing about this girl, she happens to be one the most hard working girls I have ever come across’

Nice thing to say?
Yeah , you might say so..but it rang quite hollow for me simply coz I know Centre Head #2 never bothered about me during the time I was studying with them..it just did not make a lot of sense ..
Anyways..I had no idea really about what to say…I think I gave gyan about the AIMCATs, asked those kids to read as much as they could and stressed on how important revision is.
Blah blah!

After the whole thing was done with, I was standing outside the hall, surrounded by a group of boys asking a variety of questions. One of them, a very enthu type of a guy[ he put up a pertinent koschan . ‘I am really very serious and want to do my MBA from abroad.How should I prepare for GRE’!! Ahem.Double Ahem ]was asking most of them.
Suddenly he thrust his register at me and said, ‘ Ma’am can I have your autograph please’
I was too taken aback to know what to do, it was sooo silly! One senior standing near me started laughing and said that he should leave the star and her fans alone.
Grrrrrrrrrr…
So, well, I refused to give the silly autograph as it made no sense to do so, but then the boy kept insisting and I did not wish o create a huge issue out of it, so I asked his name, wrote his name, and wrote my name a little lower and a ‘have fun’ in between.

The boy looked at me and said, ‘ Ma’am aapka pehla autograph!’

Ahem.

This reached the centre heads also and they pulled my leg real bad about it  , one of them , centre head #2, actually pretended to fish out her own autograph book and asked me for a autograph as well. All of us had a jolly good laugh about the whole thing.
Anyways, for the next 30-45 minutes I was surrounded by students who had a variety of questions they wished to ask me.

As I was answering their questions there were some things that kept coming back to my mind.

First and foremost, I had this overwhelming feeling that all the CAT +Bskul tamasha had finally come to an end for me. I know I am not heading for an IIM, but I do not regret anything per se. I genuinely never was IIM material. CAT tests your IQ, hard work can only take you that far..I know this sounds pessimistic but then one can only do as much as one can possibly do. I worked as hard as I could and yet my performance in CAT was worse than it had been in most of the AIMCATs and the SIMCATs.English was my forte and I messed it up so bad, if an institute kicks me out coz they believe that my English is rotten, then so be it ..but I cannot be bitter about it….
Almost always I end up in an institute that I have never even contemplated going to which is quite a funny thing in its own way.

My B skul, although not one which had been my dream college, is respectable enough for me. The IIM dream remains one that I could not realize but I guess that is okay.
I will try to make the best of whatever opportunities that come my way and lets see where I head to.

In the beginning of 3rd year I had put up a cynical, irritated post. 3rd year is going ot be tough, I had written angrily as if the weight of the world was on my slim shoulders.
I need to get placed and I need to get thru a good b skul.
Even as I was putting down those words I remember wondering which out of these two I will get and which one I won’t.
I got the first job I interviewed for, maintained my rank in college, got a decent b skul.And to add to it, Adobe came visiting our campus , and after 3 rounds of lambaa interviews , picked a handful of people including.And the package is about 2.5 time more than what I was getting earlier!Also till I go join my bskul, my coaching people want me to work for them
So, I have 3 jobs and one b skul admit.

Academically and professionally what more can I ask for?

:P