Monday, April 02, 2007

M.B.A, Interrupted: Curtain Call for End of 1st Year


Let us observe a moment of silence..not for India’s exit from the World Cup, but since today was the last day of our 1st Year as MBA’s at SCMHRD. Done? Ok.. On 29th of March, we gave our Man.Accting paper, the last paper in the long list of exams(probably a backlog, the questions from the last 2 years paper’s which I had mugged and gone were no where to be seen. Lucky me.)

The guys in the hostel were all going home before summers and busy with throwing out with relish the books they thought they would never use. I could see the raw satisfaction in the eyes of my crazed mates as they vehemently threw the numerous Xerox’s (ok photocopies for the politically correct) of the Econometrics/Accountancy notes. Some even went to the extent of labeling them as “Burn in Hell you #$%^&*” ( Only for mature audiences) . I understand your pain boys.

Incidentally I still have my Fin Man,Man Acct papers, better safe then sorry. The Indian Cricket team has a better chance of winning the world cup in Synchronized Swimming in the Sahara Desert Sands then I do of clearing my Accounting papers. People scoff at me now for keeping all this ‘trash’, but I will have the last laugh. I predict now its value is nothing but in a years time when we have to give the re-exams with the juniors, its worth will sky rocket like an InfoSys ADR and a chance to score with the junior chicks who need our ‘experience’ ;)

Me and my roomie(raja) stripped our room naked (and ourselves to bare minimum with war paint donned on to get into the groove of destroying/tearing stuff with occasional animal like war cries) of all our belongings and hastily dumped them in anything that would hold stuff. ( I managed to put in a unused RIN bar in between my Business Statistics Book, which incidentally I spent Rs 350 for , never used it and got 1 more free from college and am still trying to get out a piece of rubber lodged in my right eardrum..so much capacity utilization!).

I found other interesting stuff while clearing out my closet : My 1 black sandal (the other one is still missing), my broken pink umbrella (I want to lose this I never can…dammit!), my moth infested T-shirt, a new pack of Gillette Mach III blades (yea the cool ones as in the ad with the hot babe running her hand over the guy’s ‘mached’ cheek..I thought I had no blades, so threw off the razor..Smart move huh? )… and some stuff that is quite illegal in these parts of the country but legal in No 15, Afghanistan Farm Road, Afghanistan. (For those who stopped and re-read this line, yea, it is a rip-off of Chandlers line @ Friends). So Sue me.

We have left the most important books in our rooms itself (Vedanta, Indian Economy-6th edition, Six Sigma Manual) so that the lucky junior who gets our room will get a head start ahead of his peers. Purely done out of space constraints. Cellophane tape is the most sought after commodity whilst packing and we lost about 25% of the tape trying to get it evenly out as most of the times it would split into two halves as one takes it from the roll! Even if you do manage to get the tape across the carton, the scissors would not be within proximity for cutting the tape. (Animal War Cry here).

We took a couple of pics of our room 839 just for old time’s sake and made our mark present to show the world (3 juniors in this case) that this was the crib where the rockstars Raghav and Raja were chillin! Goodbyes for guys are a very difficult thing..I mean however close you are its difficult..so we were actin like them niggas..you know clenched hands punching, chest slamming and a firm handshake( like when bond Vs the bad guy saying this ain't over yet).


1)Outside our legendary room..to be turned into a museum shortly.



2) Smart Camera work..guess where the camera is :P ? Btw, u can see three brushes in the pic, 1 for each of us and 1 and till date we don’t know who/how the third brush came along..we auctioned it for a half used tube of shaving cream.

The train journey back home (Chennai not California this time) was a blast as we encountered colorful personalities ( Transvestites/ ‘Ombodhus’-9 in Tamil) as we passed AP. Raja had a bad experience with them earlier so as soon as he spotted a trio he ran and locked himself in the toilet for 5 mins. They came and asked me for cash told them in my most polished English to GTFO off my face and they cursed me with 7 years of bad luck. (Ironically today was the last day of the 3 year curse I had from a midget in the Jumbo Circus who I did not wave to after he was shot out off a cannon. Damn 1 curse lifted and lo comes another…!) We (I and Prashanth G) in fact let Raja wait in the bathroom for an extra 2 minutes ;p He thought he had the last laugh when they returned and he had to pay up five big ones to satisfy their collections..lol it was a sight I’d never forget in a hurry..As usual Murphys law would apply to us and our train was delayed in a No-Mans-Land station for over 2 hours (The most technologically advanced thing in that station was a modified analog watch whose hour hand outpaced the second hand). Finally we reached at 8:00 am and left for home..

The second semester for me personally has been the best 5 odd months of my life. Summer Placements for juniors , Admissions Drive(went home), placements for seniors where me with the help of hospitality girls earned back 10% of the investment here and last but definitely not the least in any sense, our cultural fest Neev, (the foundation..in more than 1 way for me ;p ) .

D-Hostel had a lot of special memories for me…my 1st home away from home, great neighbors in all the directions (Roy’s /Aravind’s/Prashanth’s), the midnight birthday bashes(random beating, roomie beating and bakra beating), the TT & TV room, the Nepalese-Guys run Canteen (who scoffed at me saying he has SAARC & u, India can't even qualify for the super 8, wondered if I should be stunned at his GK levels or die in ignominy of shame of India’s Cricketing skills ) who made the best pyass paratas (Im assuming these were good I don’t have a benchmark I’ve never eaten it before) , the walks to the same canteen on nights where you don’t need even feel hungry but just want to hang with friends in the cool zephyr at 3 am, the basket ball & Volley ball court, the laundry room where I 1st heard my favorite song ‘kya muje pyar hain’ the mess which served the worst food but by the most friendly mess guys. U rock dudes.

The rooms of D-hostel might be barren, but the corridors of the same will be always filled with the wonderful memories that the we had the last 10 months..

Dedicated to: All the guys @ D-hostel, and special callout to Khaitan G (scroll down to see a clown decked up in orange!). Thanks Man, great knowing you..U made IInd sem what It is for me...…I owe you big time for you know what..;p

PS: We will get that Venezuela report published at McCkinsey ;)