Life@ XIMB continues...

Well finally after sooooo many days my mood swings have begin to fall towards my right side of the shoulder, so I have just picked up the pen and started scribbling, which I have not done much in the last 1 year, after shifting to Bhubaneswar.
Off late, the peer group has started inquiring and thus occasionally the question crops up-so what did you write latest! And then I say, well.. let me see the date of the last post I have come up with on my blog.

And I noticed that I have penned nothing great and infact I have committed some serious and some non serious crimes(as they call it in a B school) with my pen like writing 3 extra sheets in ‘ Organisation Development paper’ and scribbling on a paper like a biddable, meek and submissive school kiddo ready for DCP in the marketing classes to get some score in class participation prodigally assuming that the Prof. would atleast acknowledge your sincerity in the class after looking your constant nodding of head and some scribbling!


But if you assume, you tend to make an ass out of you and me (acknowledging ‘ Silence of the Lambs’—one good thing after MBA happened to me, I have started giving references, because the plagiarism filters are extra sensitive here at XIMB), but you have to keep on trying in the hope that atleast some Prof. would someday write the new testament for sincerity detection!


Now, when you see some post these days, you tend to share the link on Facebook and get some eye balls, it doesn’t inspire you to write something instead.

I always say to my friends, that my management education has ruined my literary skills, if at all you do not count drafting a docx. file for a final submission on ‘ Strategic evolution of Tata in India’ in the list of same skills, for which you almost get the Nobel peace prize by your group mates everytime you faff and stuff in pages by the facts already known but rephrased.




Now I am not proclaiming to be the one of the better writers between 4° N and 37° 6' North Latitude and 68° 7 ' and 97° 25 ' East Longitudes, prior to coming to Bhubaneswar ,its just that I used to savor the pen, because I used to read, I used to contemplate, and I used to experience. 1 year and 2 months of management education has taken a lot from me as a person who used to have a hobby. Now as one is supposed to do in a management institute, I read Mckinsey Quarterly, try to decipher Bloomberg Data findings and experience a false sense of superiority, arising out of complex and self concocted web of hidden and hurt egos of a typical mba.


Hurt because, every other day you find someone else in the newspapers making some else sense out of the same fact, than you used to envisage was right. Now, that will make you do 1 thing, you will think you can never conclude why did you decide to do MBA in the first place.

Most of these guys and gals here are geeky engineers, some of them were not getting the opportunity to be onsite (a typical jargon used to describe the foreign location where the client is actually located), some of them were not getting recognition for their work-frustration -they call it, and finally some thought that a management education will help them in better prospects and then there are some people, who thought well it would be really nice idea to go back to a college and have fun for 2 years more before they could really face the grind.


And to mention, just the shade of what the lucky souls actually get is fancy remix of holy and sacred –

Another brick in the wall courtesy Sir Pink Floyd,
Stand next by Lord Jimi Hendrix,
Thunderstruck by Majesty AC/DC and
Beat It by His Highness and Long Live MJ.

Remix because you are simultaneously listening to all of them at the peak of the volumes of the speakers and beats, coming down heavily from the rooms of 4 different rooms adjacent to each other, belonging to 4 different seniors on B Top. Now that makes sure another thing, no juni. can play as loud as music as seniors can, atleast in the first term so as not to connive in the scheme of beats seniors would listen!

Suffering writing Overdose now and by the fear of getting bore if I move further!

Signing off..Time to pick the Bass!
30 August, 2010
03.50 am,
B 178,
GR1
Xavier Square

A Girl and A Boy..!

This post was posted on Valentines Day exactly 1 year ago on Arush’s blog(my younger brother)...But it took a bit longer to be rewritten than I “expected”…1 complete year. As they say, better late than never, and what better than the same day a year after. The time has changed, the place has changed, I as a person have changed, but somethings never change, your feeling is one such thing.

The story is about 12 years old and is still going on…

A boy was going on very easily with his life, one day he met a girl,
I year
Boy: Hi! I am new in this school, looking for some good friends; may I know your name?

[Boy was a complete flirt, he he!]
Girl: why should I?
Boy: Atleast you could wish me.
Girl: I won’t!

[The whole year passed by!]

II year
Boy: I know your name now! Ha-ha! Would you like to be my friend?
Girl: Not at all!
[Seriously, girl was a bit rude! X- and honestly it took that boy a complete year to know her name! Boy was too shy to ask someone for it! :P]

III year
Boy: I don’t give her a damn! Lemme study a bit!
Girl: [politely] excuse me...
[Boy was shocked!]
Boy: ha-ha! At last, you want to be my friend no..??
Girl: What!?! I am collecting notebooks; do you want to submit yours?
[Gosh! Girls--as always! ]

IV year
Girl: umm..I think I know you!
Boy thinking: *crap! It was supposed to be my line.*
*Girl tells him how.*
Boy: cool! So are we friends?
Girl: yes we are!
[Victory!] \m/

V year
Girl gave a call to the boy and he messed it up completely! Completely!
Girl: Hello!
Boy: Hey! How are you?
Girl: I am fine; listen...is my drawing book with you?
Boy: Nope!
[He smashed the phone quickly! Hell, why?]

VI year
[Grrr...I hate this part!]
Another friend for both of them, and unluckily he was a BOY! :P
Though all three of them proved to be good friends.


VII, VIII & IX year
These years were hell lot a busy for them!
Teachers were like monsters!
II boy was gone! Yippee!!

X year
But it seemed like ’III boy’ was waiting for entrance! :D
A great mess! Yup, this year was a great mess!
Not for everyone, but for the boy!
Girl: [blushing] hey, I want to tell you something, ----I am in love! ----
Boy: [expecting his name on her lips] Congratulations! Who is the lucky guy? :P
Girl:* ________*
Boy: [his legs shaking] Shall I ask him? [yup! It wasn’t his name!]
Girl: Only you can help me. Will you?
Boy did the job!
Girl and the III boy were together now!
The boy was feeling satisfied and shattered at the same moment.
He was satisfied because the girl he admired the most got her love, and was shattered because the one he loved was gone!
Chatting, ideas for gifts, orkut scraps and testimonials; boy helped the III boy everywhere in connection with that girl, just because he wanted to make her feel special and make her happy!

And one day for no reason they broke up!
You can call it a peaceful settlement! :P
III boy was out of the scene now!

XI year
Boy got admission in another school, so did the girl.
and now the only mode of their conversation---gtalk!---
Chatting, chatting and chatting!

Nothing special, always a general chat went on between both of them!
[boy never let her know that he loved her!]

XII year

A disaster!
Boy told her everything about his feelings!
Girl: what? Are you serious? What do you think of me? Who am I for you?
Boy: You are everything for me! Your eyes a sea wave, your hair a night without stars, your voice a sip of a wine, your smile a 1st day moon, your stare a blessing from god, your tears a mayhem.

[He, himself didn’t knew what he said and decided not to talk to that girl after all this happened, because he didn’t had enough guts to do the same, but girl insisted him and made him chat further.]

On 13th Feb. she wished Valentines Day to the boy and expected the same in return, boy didn’t wish her because he wanted to meet her. Boy felt too shy to ask her for a meet, and as always he messed it up again!

That Boy told me to write this post because he want that girl to forgive him, because he can’t tolerate her frustration and want to see her happy every moment of his life!

It might sound like a hindi film story to the readers, but it is true! God knows, what will be the end of this story!

Mumblings of a lost Mind..!!

Quite honestly let me admit at the very beginning, my blog has been the experiment chamber for my writing stint, prior to coming into B school life. But,as they say the schedule never ever allows you to do something else than savouring the sumptuous delicacies on the platter of a B school life.

This is the unedited version of one of my assignments-Employment Relations they call it(yes, unedited,because what I present here could not have been given to Prof as an assignment. In that case I would have got a Gross Grade Point....!!!)

I found the subject as interesting as the name of the subject, not because it talks about the relationships and all which gives enough scope for the gossip for the fertile minds at a place like XIMB, but because it has allowed me and many others like me to self google(A term derived by very dear friend of mine, Akash). The Prof.asked us to write an assignment on 'Tell Me Your story'.

What happened to you in your school, college, what decided your career path and what made you land here in Bhubaneswar, you can tell all that, but what matters is how do you make decisions in your life in regards to your career(and personal life).

Well now that really seems interesting, first time an assignment on which I spent more time thinking than doing(This deduces that I have been doing lot of assignments without much of thinking).

I have not been shy of forming opinions even if they differ from the crowd to an unmeasurable limit and believe in setting up my own contours. Perhaps that is why some of you call me whackily insane. And here at the Xavier square,they have started calling me BABY.(pun not intended)

Ever since I grew old enough to realize that my opinions matter, I started forming them with much more conviction, but I think the part of putting them forward also came out very strongly in my personality, even if I have to put them across to my family, the details of which I will be sharing in the latter half of ‘my story’.

Let me first of all take you back in the flashback and give you the reason for the career dilemmas I faced and still facing in my life. My father wanted to be an IAS officer, he even appeared for it once in 1984, but due to some family problems he could never see himself realize his dream to be in the civil services. After that he got into job because he had a family to support, which got followed by his marriage and more responsibilities i.e. ME. !

My father used to practice strict discipline at home (which made me an obedient child) most probably because I think he had a fair idea what it takes to groom an IAS officer right from the childhood. I was very much convinced that the IAS is the only profile for me and thus after my schooling I am going to concentrate on my preparation for competition.

At the time when most of my friends opted for science after 10th standard, I opted for commerce; just because of the simple fact that I had decided that commerce was going to be one of my subjects for the civil services examination too. So, that was one of the important decisions of my life which I took without even realizing what I wanted to do.

But that was the time when India as an economy was growing and also the corporate salaries. Media bytes about high salaries and placements in B schools attracted my attention. Suddenly I realized that there are much more than IAS as a career opportunity.

My urge to be successful in corporate career and earn lots of money came out explicitly as my interest gradually starts shifting towards a career in corporate sector. I informed my father about my intentions of doing the management course. But as was expected, it was hard for him to see me going on a different career path altogether. Had I told him that I don’t want to be a babu but I want to be an IPS, then he would have accepted that somehow.


But my intentions of moving into the corporate sector, made my father astonished as for him the ‘government jobs’ are any day better than ‘private jobs’. But I was sure what I wanted to do, so in order to convince my father I decided to bring some modifications to my plan. We both decided that I will first do my management course, but after getting my MBA I shall sit for civil service examinations atleast once.
My decision about my career path made me land here at Bhubaneswar (nearly 2000 Ks from Chandigarh).

Having realized my dream of getting into a B school of my choice, the focus is now on the future. Candidly admitting, my short term vision was to enter into a B school, get some good marks in some subjects and decent in some others, and get a plum job and walk away out of the campus to enter the world to do what I always wanted to do, that is making a successful career in the corporate sector. Obviously, when you meet budding entrepreneurs and smartest minds in a B school, your thinking contours tend to touch new horizons.


I am discovering myself daily and learning new things about others and the immense possibilities which exist in the entire world outside the gates of the campus, other than earning money. Learn as much as possible, is what I am realizing now, for this learning will always be with me for the rest of my life. Earning money or moving abroad to earn greenbacks was a done thing for me when I entered the B school which now has taken a backseat; instead this seems too insignificant now. So, now the main reason why I entered into a B school stands futile, and I have no reason to offer to myself or to my father why did I enter a B school in the first place if I do not intend to make money and I really wanted to do something Big and significant.


I think at some point in life, money tends to cease importance. One wants to do the job which he wants to do irrespective of what material returns that ‘job’ will fetch. But that takes me back to the point on which I convinced my father, that a management degree will enable me to do things of my choice and earn enough so as to spend my life in the way I want to.

But due to this flip flop of career choices, today I am a half MBA and one fourth of an IAS aspirant, with one fourth still searching for more answers for my career path. After all, I do not want to join a job just for the sake of it, because my principles ask me to justify the position and responsibility which I have been assigned, and want me to do full justice to my job, thus ‘satisfying the job’.

All this comes from commitment, which matters the most for me. Discovering a new interest while being in another job, accounts for infidelity as per my opinion.


No job is interesting, and every job is interesting. The challenge is how to make a job joyful and interesting, so that each and every day at the workplace seems a ‘celebration’. One shall not always seek the job satisfying the employees, infact it shall be the flesh and blood satisfying the job, position and responsibilities. Changing careers due to flagging interests and plummeting levels of concentration are not good signs, even from an individual’s perspective.


This amounts that perhaps one has not given enough thought and time to oneself to think adequately and sufficiently about one’s career path. It doesn’t mean that there are definite career paths and everyone has to opt for one or the other, infact it implies that one should discover his interest and talent as soon as possible in his life, and then with unquestioned dedication move towards perfection, which itself is a sempiternal and absorbing odyssey, a reason enough to make the rest of life a celebration.



Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, but contempt is required for breaking the jinx and taking the path which both, our mind and heart commands but that happens less often. I thought of earning lots of money, but a short stint in my B school life has changed my thinking and has made me to rethink my career path.

Perhaps that is one of the many things which I am loving in my B School life!