Random Thoughts

Right now I am sitting in the library. It’s really a nice idea to sit in the library, especially in the evening, facing this park or field or whatever and to write for my blog. So I am going to make it a habit to write one or two pages for my blog everyday...well almost.

Today we had a guest lecture. It was a very amazing lecture by a very good speaker. I noticed that half the class was sleeping. I think most of the people are so lost in getting good grades, that anything that is not directly related to grades doesn't interest them. they are not ready to take part in it. Here I don’t want to undermine the importance of grades. I know, grades are “the” most important thing here and I will try my best to graduate from this college with very good grades. But I am shocked to see, how people are not looking for overall improvement in their personality.

By joining this B-school I am paying a huge cost of opportunity. If after two years I don’t see any significant improvement in my personality, in my behavior and in my view point about the world within and outside then I guess it’s not worth doing an MBA.

I know I am giving lot of Gyaan, but today I am in a mood to talk to myself. So readers can simply skip this post.

In the lecture the speaker talked about importance of communication, both written and oral. And I guess I want to improve my written and oral communication skill. That’s a thing I want to do on a high priority basis. I know writing a blog would have very small role in improving my written communication skill. But I guess it would be better than not writing anything at all.

Now let me write something about today’s quiz. I got highest in Economics quiz. No it was not because of hard work. It was smart wrok. I tried studying ecpnomics yesterday night, but somehow I was not able to grasp the subject. May be my retarded mind was a hindrance in the process. But nevertheless I tried till 2am. Yesterday night I declined a daaru invitation, I tried like a fighter. But with that level of preparation I would have got three or four marks.

Today just before the quiz Maniks-the-Mecanics ( ya in India guys have strange names ) gave me a link of a website which had solution to all assignment questions. First tool used for smart work was using network resources, second was effective use of information technology. I did the smart work and mugged up all the answers and solutions. It was not a surprise that nine out of fifteen questions were from the assignments. So I cracked it. I got the highest, this was second time I got highest in my entire life. People also never expected me to get highest, so they started asking for a treat. I was a bit surprised because in every exam someone gets a highest but the whole class never asks for a treat. I guess people have realized what kind of export quality moron I am, who is not expected to get a highest in a small quiz.

“Shall I do anything to change that perception?”
Ya… Its high time I shall do that!

The Great OB Quiz!

For last several days life has become very hectic. With so many companies coming for summer placements, everyday I have to wear formals and have to attend PPTs. On most of occasions companies are not even short listing me. This whole thing leaves me in a very contemplative mood. After every rejection I go back to my room, lie down on my bed and start staring at the ceiling. At times I try to count the rpm of ceiling fan, while thinking about purpose of my life.

I always wonder what kind of job would suit my temperament. I think I would love the job of being a male domesticated dog, just like Jango. (By the way day before yesterday I observed that jango is planning to start a family. My best wishes are always with him.) Or may be I would love to be an usher in a cinema hall. That ways I would get to see the first day first show of any mithun da movie.

When I look around in IMT and think about the most meaningful job being performed by a person, I think the security guard standing near J-block gate is doing the most fulfilling job. I guess his sole objective is to prevent all suttabaaj and daarubaj from opening J-block gate. At times during the acute crisis we have tried all persuasive skills to convince him to open that gate, but he protects the gate as if it’s a door to heaven and he has been asked to protect all menkas and urvashis from daarubaj like us.

There are other meaningful jobs in IMT as well but about them I would be able to write only if I am planning to make my life even more difficult.

All my friends are getting into this habit of being rejected and then feeling low. After guys feel low, they drink, and they drink like fish. So I have been drinking more vodka than drinking water for last five days. Mathew has discovered a new place, where one can drink without being disturbed. Ya… that’s rooftop of J-block. So for last five days me, Mathew, Deepak lie down on the rooftop, in minimal clothing. Mathew has also devised a new law, that friends should drink from the same glass. So he makes very strong drinks and we spend our night talking about OB, MM and other projects. If Mathew’s GF is reading this, then I want to tell her that Mathew has a very dangerous habit of walking on the railing of roof after drinking ten pegs of Vodka.

Today also they are all drinking at the same place while I am writing this post. I have decided not to drink till my end-sem is over.

The reason why I have taken such a harsh decision is a bit weird. I will tell you what happened. Sunday evening we came to know that there were two quizzes scheduled for Monday. Till now I had studied well for each quiz and could manage average marks. I was planning to finish my OB project as soon as possible and start my preparation for the quiz. Then the usual thing happened. Mathew invited me for Vodka. As he feels so low these days, I decided to accept his invitation. We went to a nearby dhaba, brought food and Vodka. I don’t know how much I drank, but I was completely drunk. I tried to do my FAM assignment after that, and then slept for three hours. In a B-school you hardly get to sleep, so true in a way!

Next morning I had a severe hang over, I was completely stoned and I could feel the presence of high quality alcohol in my blood. Somehow I could manage to login for the quiz. My vision was blur and I was almost in a state of a trance. Then OB quiz started. As usual I looked at the number of questions and time. There were ten questions to be done and time provided was twenty minutes. I felt relieved thinking that I would be able to complete the paper even with such high level of alcohol in my body. Suddenly Pushpendra Sir came near me and said: “good work Kshitij.”

“May be he is trying to be sarcastic after seeing me so drunk”, I thought in the middle of the quiz and I looked at him with those bewda looks.
“good work done in the project”, he repeated again realizing about my mentally retarded state of mind.
Before I could have reacted he was gone. After some twenty five years somebody complimented me for my work. I remember last time I was praised for the sand castle I had made while I was two years old. It was a castle in which there were doors from four sides…ok ok I wont tell you about the secret design of my castle.

So after Sir left me, I started wondering why he praised me, as it was a group project and Ankit, Shuryabir, Aritri and GV had given their blood for this project. They worked harder than me and they didn’t drink vodka also. In the quiz only I realized how unfair it is to give the credit to the captain if Indian cricket team wins from Bangladesh. After all its team effort, Boss.

My thought process was interrupted by the timer. I had done two questions in five minutes. I was a little behind time as there were two minutes for each questions. I did a few more questions with my stoned mind and all of a sudden the rules of the game changed. Three minutes left and I had to do twelve questions. Or may be my kidneys were working double shift and alcohol in my blood was coming down. I realized that I had read the instructions wrongly. It was ten minutes and twenty questions.

Suddenly I was in the middle of a crisis. But let me tell you folks in crisis if you have some vodka inside, your mind will work with lot of creativity. Answers were coming from my subconscious or rather unconscious mind. I finished the quiz in time and could manage to score really good marks.

It was an experience…really an experience to be remembered forever. Now I have decided that I will drink only before papers which require use of unconscious mind and which have ten questions to be done in twenty minutes!

Mentally Challenged!!!

Can you spot the mentally retarded guy in this picture. Ya, thats me. See how khatarnak my looks are. Now you would be able to understand my stories better. Because of my short, dark,fat and ugly looks girls stay away from me. See in this picture also all the girls are standing at least six feet away from me. Still I am center of their attention. Let me tell this to all IMT girls:
"you can love me or you can hate me, but you can't ignore me!"

Golf Of Course

MM Project, GV & Me The Anti-Social Loafers

This post was written a few days back but then I didn’t have time to upload it so I am uploading it now.

Today I had a very different kind of experience. For the first time in my entire life I went to a girl’s hostel. When I was in IIT I used to dream about going to GH but no one ever invited a creature like me. I spent four years there without going inside any of the rooms of GH. I could only go inside corridor of GH, that too during election time. Ya… to paste posters of candidates of my choice.

So here in IMT when the moment I was invited in GH I felt a sense of euphoria…same euphoria Saurab Da must have felt while removing his t-shirt after winning a match. No, I didn’t think about removing my t-shirt as I am too afraid of dis-com (disciplinary committee).

Before I go any further in the story let me give you some background. I am a guy who comes from a very backward village. I have done my initial schooling from a place which doesn’t have electricity till date. (what an example of India shining.)
So in my entire life I haven’t interacted much with girls except my two sisters and my girlfriend.

So before I was coming to IMT one of my best friend Animesh, who did his MBA from ISB, told me that I should make it a point that I interact with babes in IMT. (Yes Ani always refers to girls as babes.)

“I am not comfortable in talking to girls, then why do I need to talk to them”, I asked like a village boy.
“you are not comfortable in talking to girls, that’s the precise reason why you should make it a point to interact with girls, firstly its much more fun to have a few girls in your group, secondly once you go in corporate world, in order to be more efficient you got to be very comfortable with all kind of people”, he said in a very philosophical tone.

I take Ani’s advice very seriously so once I came to IMT I tried talking to girls. What kind of disaster it was, I have already written about it in my last post.

Now let me take you to my class room. It was our fourth or fifth MM class. Groups for project had to be formed. I don’t know why Deepak did not include me in his group. I felt depressed because of his behavior. And you know guys whenever I feel depressed I turn to only one guy in IMT. That’s GV. I told GV that no one was ready to take me in his group.

“chill out yaar, no one is taking me either. Let me add some spice in your life”, he said with mischievous smile on his face.

“What do you mean”, I asked GV, knowing that MM project was last thing he was thinking about.

“What do you think of those two girls”, he asked pointing towards two of our classmates.
“hmmm… they are among the most beautiful girls in our campus”, I said without any emotions, fearing to be judged by GV.

“If you think IMT girls are beautiful then wait till you meet my DU friends”, “don’t have this small village boy mentality”, he said in a very gyani mode.
I felt ashamed of being honest in front of GV.

I asked him why he was asking all that. “what if these two girls become our MM project partners” he asked very objectively.
“why would they become our project partners, we are famous as bhasad, darubaaj. We are rather infamous”.

“the way you think no one wants to take you in his project, these girls might also be thinking that no one wants to take them, play on somebody else’s insecurities boss”, he said thoughtfully.

“But both of them have so many admirers, anyone would like to include them in his group”, I asked like a four year old child.
“Boss they even might not be knowing that they are beautiful or intelligent or whatever, everybody has his or her own complexes”, GV told me in the voice of a MM instructor.

Finally I told GV that I was not comfortable in working with girls and as a result project would suffer. He also told me that I should be comfortable, He told me that I need to grow up.

Then before I could realize it GV convinced Shublina and Priyanka to become our project partners. I tell you guys GV’s charm works. I guess its tall dark handsome funda or may be the way he handles the situation. I mean I need to learn lot of things from him.

As it is I am very shy in talking to girls and GV does not have time for either project or IMT girls (that’s why he goes to delhi and noida so frequently, he says he goes to chill out.), so we didn’t have any project meeting till last Friday.

At times I tried doing the whole project alone. Firstly, because topic is something very close to my heart, those who know me they know how much I love PVR. And secondly I was hesitant in calling a project meeting.

We never visited PVR because I never took an initiative. Many a times I went to PVR all alone, trying to figure out its consumers and trying to figure out how consumer preferences are changing. People say that I have an eye for detail, so I tried my best to capture details of PVR, JAM and other multiplexes.

Let me be honest guys, I never even thought of asking these girls to go to PVR for the project. I mean going to PVR had always been a memorable experience for me…I still remember I used to wait for hours sitting at the stairs of Priya waiting for my girlfriend, and she was never on time.

Last Friday I almost panicked as I was realizing that my project was much more difficult than Nirma, “Nimbu ki shakti” or any other popular brand. I was not able to figure out what to write or do in the project.

So I decided to call a project meeting. Since then it had been a roller coaster ride…will write more very soon, so wait for more!

Silence so Priceless

Right now I am feeling very happy. Its 5 am in the morning. I got up just an hour ago, to study Law. If I think about the possible reason why I am happy, probably I wont be able to think of any, but for the first time in IMT I am getting one thing which is priceless. Yes I am referring to silence. IMT is so full of noises and distracters, that I feel lost in this noisy world.

Now when I have silence in the outside world, I can feel the noise that is there within me. At times listening to the noise of our inner self is very important. It makes us think about the choices that we have made… it makes us think about our future life and many more things.

When I was a small child, in the morning I used to go near the river Ganges( My house was on the bank of the river, in Allahabad) and I used to sit at its bank for hours watching the flow of the river. My servant “jokhan Bhaiya” was always there with me. He used to think that I was crazy. He used to call me “babu”. Every day he used to tell my mom: “memsaab lagta hai bade hoke babu sadhu na ban jayein” (Madam I think babu is going to become a saint after he grows up).

Since then I have tried my best to spend some time alone. The moment I came to delhi I made sure that my flat was independent without any background noise of loud music. During winter after coming back from CL I used to sit on my huge terrace. Again I had a servant cum driver named Riyaj. He used to lit coal…yes lot of Imli ka koila..thats wooden coal…and I used to stare at the distant horizon trying to think about nothing.

After I came to IMT the only thing I miss the most is silence and solitude. I try to go for long walks, that’s the only time I am able feel the silence. I never get a feel that this room belongs to me. I haven’t shared a room for last six years so I feel quite uncomfortable in sharing it now. Specially when I am sleeping I need total darkness and silence…which I think is going to be a dream in IMT.
A dream...

"Celebrating Life"

Garlic bread with cheese
Cream of Chicken soup
Garden salad
Non-veg 7 toppings large pizza with extra cheese
Country feast Veg pizza with extra cheese
Ice Tea

This is what we had at pecific mall tonight. Me, Deepak and Gaurav went there to celebrate. No it was not any birthday, no one was getting married either. If Kshitij anand is a brand then its positioning is with the punch line:

“celebrating life”.

For last three days I was feeling heavily depressed. There was no specific reason, or may be there was some reason about which I didn’t want to talk about.

Then I had this huge FAM project, and I was not getting any clue about how to go about it. So I called my girlfriend, she is very good in accounts and her father is one of very famous CAs of Bombay. Her grandpa is also a CA. So she is having accounts in her genes. I am telling all this to people who make fun of me in matters relating to accounting, once I meet my gf I will learn all the fundas of accounts and then I will outsmart all those b.com grads.

So I called my GF and I asked her to do some research on revenue recognition. She is taking her mid sem exams these days. But she agreed to do my project. God has made GFs that ways only. They always wait for their BF’s call, or mail or scrap. And they are always ready to please their boyfriends.

And I am such selfish creature, I gave my work to my GF and went to pecific mall. As Gaurav puts it, to do some competitor analysis.

After a long time I was riding my bike for such a long distance. It was fun, I took my camera with me, we clicked lots of pictures( again to mail them to my gf). None of us had much cash as initial plan was to eat Mcdonald burger only, that would have costed us 80 bucks, but we ended up spending 800 bucks, thanks to debit cards. Did someone say “impulsive buyer behavior”.

The Mysterious Girl

I wanted to write next article about Mathew, but he wanted me to edit most of the things so I decided that I would write about him later.

Before I start writing about mysterious girl (MG) some background information is necessary. I want to provide this information to my readers that I have a Girlfriend. Those who find it impossible to believe that a FUS( Fat, ugly and short) guy can have a girlfriend, for them its useless reading this blog.

I have a girlfriend for six years now and everything I do, I do it for her. For example I picked up this name Omkara on orkut. Actually whenever I ask my girlfriend whether she would marry me or not, she used to say “Pata nahi”, meaning I don’t know. So I told her that in case she decides not to marry me then I will kidnap her in typical omkara style and I will imprison her in my ancient haveli in my village. Then this name Rhett should also be very obvious to my readers. Next time whenever I meet my GF I will treat her the way Rhett treated scarlett O'hara in “Gone with the wind”. So the bottom line is I am as committed to my Gf as Osama is committed to terrorism.

She is a cool girl, takes everything sportingly. This T-shirt that I wear, with “you remind me of my next GF”, this was gifted to me by her on my last birthday.

I cant write much about my Gf as I have promised her that my first book would be about my love story.

So I was telling you about this MG. One Friday, when Omkara was released, I asked Deepak to accompany me to watch Omkara. He plainly declined, saying that he doesn’t like movies much. And Guys, I am such a big movie fan and I have made PVR so rich by watching so many movies in delhi that they could construct Spice world in Noida. In other words they have used my money.

So that Friday I went to Noida spice world, yes alone. Those who don’t know me let me enlighten them, I like watching movies alone and I have watched 99% movies alone only. I love being lonely.

That Friday night I could not watch Omkara as it was houseful. I came back to my hostel feeling as disappointed as Sachin feels after getting out on Zero. That night me, Mathew and Deepak drank Vodka. This Mathew Video thing happened that night only.

Next day I got up at 1:30 and while going for lunch I had decided that I was going for the Movie, 3:40 show. I was sitting at the so called dining table all alone. Then suddenly a very beautiful, elegant and graceful girl came in front of me. She was holding a plateful of Thali and searching for a place to sit. She said hi to me and sat in front of me. A girl saying hi to me was like Mussarraf getting nobel peace prize. I replied back in as decent manner as possible. But this song from the movie road, “Hi jo boli to babu ko bekabu kar gayi re”, was already playing in my mind.

So MG was accompanied by her roommate. Her roommate was also beautiful and sober. Her roommate was from IB and MG was from HR. Suddenly they started talking to me. Talking to a girl on lunch table is the most difficult thing in IMT. I had to concentrate on so delicious Food, had to evaluate how beautiful the girls were and at the same time I had to sustain the interest of the girl. And I am very poor in multi tasking.

MG was feeling very homesick and depressed too. What a common thing between me and her. Then we talked about Ghaziabad law and order situation, compared it with that of metros like delhi, Mumbai and kolkata. In the process she told me that Friday night she went to watch Omkara but couldn’t get the tickets.

For the first time I was enjoying my conversation with a girl in IMT. She sounded mature. Most of the time we talked about the movie Omkara, again the common thing was that both of us were big movie fans. She liked movies of Govinda and me of Rajnikant. The whole conversation was so interesting that I didn’t want to leave the table, so I kept on eating more and more missi rotis, and I was eating it very slowly, chewing It properly. After eating 12 missi roti I had to get up otherwise I would have soiled my pants there only.

After getting up I went to the wash basin, thinking and wishing that this conversation would have lasted longer. Before I could have kept track of my thoughts I was in front of her again and I said something which will embarrass me forever.

I said:
“I am going for the movie, if you want you can come along.”

Both MG and her room mate were stunned by this offer of mine. I mean they hardly knew me. Her roommate who was very nice to me till now (As she was from my home town), looked at me with those I-Know-U-the-deadliest-despo-of-Dynamic-city-of-Ghaziabad looks.

I was already regretting about my offer. I was expecting some harsh reply from MG. But through non-verbal communication she said: “What a silly boy you are”

She asked for my phone number and she said that she will give me a call if she decided to go for a movie. That’s the beauty of HR people, when they say No it sounds like almost-a-yes.

I knew she would not call. That call never came but let me tell you guys, FUS guys like me also have high hopes at times.

Finally at 3:40 I bought my ticket, and watched the movie. I thanked MG for not coming for the movie as movie had such awesome dialogues like Kood M*******, and songs like Bidi jalayle…I almost started dancing. I would not have enjoyed this movie with a girl.

Then after coming back from the movie I met Deepak, and I narrated the whole incident of me and MG to Deepak. Deepak looked at me the way we look at smashed earthworms. He said: “ What have you done, You are from IIT and you are not supposed to do such an act.

“Bas mistake ho gayi yaar, but don’t tell me what an IITian is supposed to do”

I mean, I am fed of being told what iitians are supposed to do and what they are not supposed to do. People tell me Iitians r not supposed to go to Indian potty, they are not supposed to eat with their hand. Are iitians not supposed to be themselves? Last thing that IIT would have taught us was how to behave in a social set up. I guess all It taught was to set examples and change the rules of the game so that others could follow.

So Deepak gave me the verdict that this MG would think that I was desperate.

“very soon every girl in IMT would stop talking to you thinking that you are despo. And what will happen if tomorrow you take an HR elective and she becomes your project partner?”

“I won’t ask for any project meeting and I would do all the project work all alone then.”
“What should I do to repair the damage”, I asked.

“Now don’t look at MG and don’t try to engage her in any conversation, may be slowly she will forget”, he said very thoughtfully.

In my entire life I was considered a nice harmless guy, so this new label of despo guy was making me anxious and nervous.

On Monday I spotted MG in acads block, as per plan I started looking away. But she said a big hi to me and straight away started asking: “how was the movie” I told her about the movie including kood wala dialogue and why I liked beedi wala song so much. She was pretending that she didn’t think of me as a despo guy. I was feeling relieved. I asked her if she had watched the movie. For ten seconds she couldn’t answer and then she said, “no I haven’t watched it and now I am not planning to watch it as it’s a very rusty movie”. Her eyes betrayed her. She was lying to me. I could read her mind. Did I tell you guys that I am a mind reader. I could not understand why she was lying to me. “May be it’s a convention to tell a lie to despo guys” I thought.

Then very slowly and gradually she stopped talking to me, through her non verbal communication it became evident that she had labeled me as a desperate guy.

Just before QTBD mid-sem I was feeling sleepy, lot of course had to be covered. A sudden idea came to my mind. “if she considers me a despo guy let me show her that I am despo”. I thought. After all we all become what society labels us. Ask any criminal he would tell you that. So on that QTBT night at 1:00am I sent an sms to her asking her to come for a cup of coffee. I am sure even if I would have asked any of the security guards, even he would have refused a coffee with a despo like me. I thought she would not reply. But she replied and bluntly told me,”look you don’t deserve a coffee with me”.

Instead of feeling sad at being turned down I felt happy with my new label…despo guy.

Since then I keep sending mails to her. No I don’t send those “please send it to ten million people or nothing will happen in your life” kind of forwards. I send personalized mails, yes long mails. She never replied and whenever we meet in mess or acads block both of us communicate only non verbally. She looks at me with disgust and I enjoy my new label.

I am reproducing one of my mails as it is. I am looking forward to my readers’ comments, but please don’t ask the name of the girl, I might be required to do some elective with her.

chhoti malkin,
aapko hum gareeb ne ek chhitti dali thi, uska jawab nahi diya aapne. Khair chaliye kauno baat nahi sayad aap kaam-kaaj mein mashgool rahi hongi...hum to khalihar(jobless) aadmi hain, is liye hamne socha ki aapko ek aur chhithi likh dein aur shukriya aada kar dein hum gareeb ko “Hi” bolne ke liye. aapka sevak
Budhi heen

As usual she never replied….but IMT I am loving it!!!!!!

Two Evils

Taking forward introduction of characters, I want to introduce two more characters. One is GV and other is Mathew. These are two evils of IMT, very touchy about me saying anything about them on my blog.

About GV, This guy has lived in Hostel for almost entire life. Whenever I meet him our discussion is centered around either girls or which brand of daru to drink on coming weekend. Drinking alcohol is the only thing that he plans in advance, rest of the things just happen by chance.

Whenever I encounter him in the mess, with his wide lively eyes he would say:
“Boss daru peete hain”
If I nod affirmatively he would say, “Lets drink xyz this weekend”.
He would say xyz in such a style as if he is talking about blue label, but xyz happens to be some cheapest daru in town given to Jawans on our siachen border to keep their bodies and heads warm and cool respectively. I normally don’t drink anything less than signature( Yes I have classic choices), so each time I have to turn down his request.

Second thing unique about this guy is, he refers to girls as chicks. I mean be it any girl, he would call her chick. I am sure if I take him to my house and ask him to meet my one year old daughter, he would smile mischievously and he would say,

“Kshitij, you have got a nice chick.”

But believe me guys, this guy is such a sweetheart, even if he calls my wife or daughter a chick I won’t mind. I will tell you why. He is a real “friend-in-need, friend-indeed” kind of a guy. In every Economics Quiz he sits next to me and he makes doubly sure that I get as many marks as he gets. (He is having Eco background.)

Once I was feeling heavily depressed and there were three quizzes lined up the next day. I thought of going to Deepak’s room. But I wanted to give Deepak his own space and I didnt go to Deepak’s room. I sent an sos message to GV. I didn’t write anything about my depression but this guy sensed it. He asked me to come for a walk. This was around one am. Just by looking at my face he knew that there was something wrong with my mood. He didn’t ask anything about my problem, that’s called ideal companionship. I mean when a guy is depressed, the last thing he wants to talk about is his problem.

So that night GV talked about Chicks in his life and other interesting stuff, but you know the best part was he never showed any hurry to go back to his books. I mean once he knows that you are facing some problem his problems take absolute backseat. That night we talked for about two hours. Needless to say next day both of us screwed up our quizzes.

Guys, Stuff related to Mathew will rock the whole of IMT, so wait till I take his permission.