(B) School Chaley Hum!

I dimly heard doors slamming in different corners of the hostel. A bleary eyed glimpse at the time catapulted me into high tempo action and within 7 minutes I was sitting in class with a slightly glazed look on my face. I had made it by the skin of my teeth!

That’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg that is the life of a b-school bachha. It doesn’t matter where you are from, the conveyor belt churning out engineers or from the House of Clichés – an arts student. This life right here is like a crazy roller coaster ride. You get on it with trepidation, whiz through it and get off exhilarated and a bit sad that it got over so quick.

So phase one is where you are friends with everyone!!! I mean it! Your milk of humanity bathes one and all and everyone (well almost) is a friend. It’s a heady rush I must say. In a batch of 205 people for a long time you are constantly meeting new participants, connecting over Game of Thrones, linguistic comforts, True Detective, and tentative opinions about mess food. Soon comes the student body elections and you can find the true colours of Indian democracy – electing people based on social clout (or if you like the look of the candidate).

Village Fieldwork Segment swoops in after three short months flinging people in remote corners of India, whilst really testing budding buddy bonds. Suddenly people comprehend new dimensions of relationships – all kinds really. Return from VFS witnesses a carnival of bonhomie, indelible differences, and boy do the lovers rise up in full force. Love blooms in all corners. Sigh!

A little further down the road you tend to get a slightly better sense of the true friends that you can count on. If you think that’s where the relationship dynamics stop…hah! Naïve much! That never stops surprising you. Groups which look like they are having the time of their life has a general tendency to fall apart like a house of cards.

Of course there must be some good stuff to make you feel nostalgic about this gale force speedy life. Now that I have experimented with the lovely shades of grey about a tiny bit of B-school experience I am going to throw in some pearly white in the palette. In a place which is as competitive as a B-school judging people based on their grades is surprisingly rare. The jocks, the poets, the dudes, the babes, the regular Joes and all in this unending list finds a comfortable corner in the social map. Virtues and vices are celebrated and “dissed” in equal measures keeping a certain level of sanity in both.

A judgmental nature just might be an off shoot of too much free time, because after all don’t we believe that and idle mind is the devil’s workshop? In this pressure packed life people usually can’t carve out the time to sit and really make a meal out of judging a person for their taste in friends or lovers.

The general body meeting or the GBM, another exciting feature, is a double edged sword – the heady rush of a democratic proceeding and the doom spelt by the same. When someone says, “let’s reach a consensus” that’s when I feel dread clutch my wildly beating heart! Consensus is usually that ever receding zenith that once in a blue moon becomes a concrete reality!

The biggest learning experience in this setting comes from the events organized by the students out here. Practically every subject finds an application in the proceedings and you get a real sense of what it entails to be a manager.  

They say your personality really gets moulded by the time you get out of grad school. To them I say – wait till you step into the life in a business school. You’ve seen nothing yet – neither the best nor the worst. 

Blighted by Blyton

It seems to me reading too much of Enid Blyton or watching too much of Bob The Builder can really addle a small portion of one's brain. A tiny part of mine is indelibly altered by the prolific writer and maybe not in the best way.
Remember the Five O'Clock Tales, The Toys at Night and many more in a similar vein? You know what the similar vein happens to be? I'll tell ya. Toys come alive at night. Inanimate objects actually have opinions about the owners as well as feelings. Sure, Toy Story 1,2 and 3 go on the same lines as do a lot of other films but, Blyton's books and these fantastic ideas have put down roots in my head and its was just a couple of days ago that I suddenly realized that I flinch when I look at dented and scratched up cars as if they are wounded animals. I hate the local meat shop since they ill treat their overworked air conditioner by leaving the huge entrance door wide open all the time!
I live in the controversial capital of the grand old India. The city is the political powerhouse of the country and a host to thousands and thousands of wounded cars. Where I live a stroll through the streets in the dead of night would reveal rows and rows of cars parked carelessly on both sides of the road. Some sleek and shiny like a dainty ballerina. Others in their middle age having suffered the brunt of life (or rather the road) but still going strong. If you love cars or if Enid Blyton has made your imagination richer than it really needs to be your eyes can pick out the ones who bear the scars of their first tryst with the road.
But there is one particular car that screams for help. In the backyard of a building there rests a red Volkswagen Beetle. It's wheels flat, covered in a thick coat of dirt, the interior swathed in cobwebs, and cream coloured seats (not the bucket seat monstrosity but seats belonging to simpler times) still inviting anyone who would have her. It is a vintage beauty ravaged by time and heinous neglect. While the world goes gaga about the latest automobile beauties I dream of that perky red VW bug all cleaned up and sassy waiting for me to get behind its wheel!

Moving Forward

Every blog I started there was often a post where I would treat my trivial pieces with disdain. I never felt like what I wrote for myself was good enough for the world (or the big void called cyberspace) to read. It took me a while to realize that the small pieces I coughed up marked those moments, mostly the little ones, that struck a chord in my soul and maybe contributed a little to the person I am today.
Let me be done second guessing myself and give in to the heady pleasure of creation, the creation of meaning for myself (the world can wait).
I discovered in the last few months that while being rudderless in the ocean of seemingly endless yet frustratingly unattainable educational opportunities took the stuffing out of me it also gave me time to open my eyes a little wider. From meeting an incredibly cool and interesting person on a journey, being gently nudged to a more positive bent of mind, watching a beautiful documentary starring my beloved dogs, experiencing intense joy on hearing about a great singer taking the stage again, falling in love with Clifford Geertz, to experiencing a different dimension of wonderful emotions, my life seems to have gotten re-calibrated for the better while going through the roughest patch till date.
Someone recently commented on the baffling range of dreams and aspiration I horde in my heart forcing to me to appreciate the privilege of my youth and what a lot I can still look forward to experience and achieve.
As I write I wear a smile of contentment albeit overcast with a little bit of cautiousness but nevertheless, joyful.

A fresh start

So this one here happens to be my third, and hopefully final, blog. There others I created were a little trashy owing to horrible content and appalling grammar! After going through all the posts before deleting the blogs I realized what a huge difference five years of college can make to the development of a personality. I also realized the ill effects of watching amazing sitcoms with a dedication very much like drug addiction. I lost two things in the process: the habit of devouring books like your typical bookworm and my half decent capacity of creative writing.
People, I know watching Friends over and over again makes perfect sense (it's only the best sitcom ever!) and waiting for the final episode of Breaking Bad is totally allowed because the script is one of most brilliant in the history of TV serials. But you know what, while I watched Monica get her dream job, Phoebe getting married to an amazing man, Rachel and Ross having a baby, I felt like I was living their screen life with them but when I glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost four in the morning. I realized I spent the whole night sitting on my ass, watching a well scripted set of lives and meanwhile my real life, more importantly my work, suffered the brunt of my addiction. I still indulge in this stupidity occasionally but 5 years of pulling all-nighters has left me a wee bit wiser and tired enough to say "I am too old for this stuff".
So this is me, trying to wean myself off the sweet windows of escape called serials.