Chp 24. Monu's folly

Our exams are over. And my biological clock is almost back to normal.

Staying up for nearly 40 hours at a stretch does indeed take a heavy toll on one’s body. Yesterday after our exam, I was planning to have a nice sleep. I was also a bit sore at screwing up my exam, coz some of the questions asked, I’m sure even Amartya Sen himself would find it difficult… You should read the comments on my earlier post. I posted a comment every hour during my “nite-out” just to stop me from dozing off.

But then, just as I was about to sleep, Amol and Monu came and told me we’re all going out for lunch! Aaarrgh. One part of me really wanted to hangout with my frens, while another part of me, a much tired part of me, wanted to sleep. Finally, the stronger conscience won, and there I was having a grand buffet lunch at Mainland China.

We were undecided where to go initially. Luckily Laura aka The Agony Aunt was online, so she suggested a number of places we could go to. In the end we decided on Mainland China.

Had a great time there. The prawn chips are amazing. The lunch buffet cost around 170 w/o tax, and it was definitely worth it. The service is also very good. Was teaching all my frens how to eat with chopsticks. Lol… laughed my ass out watching them struggle and trying all sorts of unorthodox method of holding a chopstick. In the end, they were so impressed with the whole chopstick thingie that they all took back one with them. Lol, me just wondering where for the love of Jesus are they ever going to use chopstick here in hostel!

By the way, one advice to all you bangaloreans. If you are going to Mainland China in a large group, always fake a birthday. Tell the Mainland China ppl that one of ur fren is giving a birthday treat. You’ll not only get a free cake, but also entertainment like a “happy birthday” song and… here’s the best part… a Chinese firework display! I’m sure if u ask, they can perform the Chinese Dragon dance too.

After a fantastic lunch we decided to watch the movie “Black”. But Shubha had some work. And slowly Tommy said he too had to go back… and then Ankita and Anita too joined the “Back to Campus” group. And so I told the guys that I too should probably go back and take a rest, otherwise I might faint. So the guys gave me one of the cars, and we parted ways. Tommy sat in the front seat to make sure I don’t fall asleep while driving

Reached hostel by 4pm. Slept immediately, but I set my alarm for 7pm coz I know that if I sleep at a stretch, I will wake up wide awake around 4 in the morning filled with hunger… Its better to sleep for 3 hours now and then sleep again around 11-12pm.

3 hours of sleep later, I got up (obviously), and the other guys who went for the movie “Black” had just returned. Monu told me that as he was walking back from the hostel parking area, he noticed an Indica lights on. There are only two Indicas in the hostel. One is Monu’s, the car that just came back. The other is Amol’s, the one that I drove back earlier. Amol immediately stared at me, and I was like “ooops”

So Amol and I went to the car park. The whole time we were walking I was like “Hey comon, its not exactly my fault. I was drowsy, I was sleepy… I didn’t sleep the whole nite…”

And when we reached the Parking area, guess whose car lights were on? MONU’s!!!!!!

Gawd… Amol and I never laughed that much before!!!! This is the heights of stupidity, clumsiness and foolishness all rolled into one Can u actually believe this? Monu parks his car forgetting to switch off his lights. He doesn’t notice this as he walks back to the hostel. 50 metres away, he turns back and sees his car lights on. And he actually thought its Amol’s car, which I have parked way at the end of the parking lot, far away from where he has just parked his car. And it wasn’t that dark yet!

On our way back, we met the hero Monu. He was standing there, waiting for us to return, grinning like the devil, bcoz he can now take my trip for goofing up. He looked at me, kept his hands on my shoulder and sarcastically said “its ok kima, everybody slips up now and then…” We looked at him and said “ya man…. It’s a very dumb thing forgetting to switch off the lights. But you know whats dumber than that? Forgetting which one is your car, especially after just driving it!” LOL… u should see the look on his face as he ran to his car


Click here to go to Monu’s blog and take his trip!

Chp 23. Exams again!!!!!

Aaaaarrgh. Today was horrible. Mid-term exams. “Competition & Strategy” paper.

First of all, none of us had any clue how to prepare for this exam. The question paper could be as arbit as… chiru posting a message on bracket Thankgod it was atleast an open book exam. Although an open book exam signifies the fact that there’s no point in taking any material inside the exam hall bcoz anything asked in the paper will not be there anywhere in the book, it does give us a small glimmer of hope!

8:30am exam started. It was a 4 freaking hours exam. We had just one case. One HUGE case. It was about “Coors breweries”. 22 pages long. With lots and lots of numbers. Just one question : “Write a comprehensive analysis of the case” This was really tough, but u know what was the toughest part? Staying awake! I got up to wash my face atleast three times. So did many others. Comon, 8:30 in the morning, after staying up till 5 in the morning (3 hours of sleep!), it was not exactly an interesting paper too. I somehow managed to apply Potter’s 5 Forces Model here and there and the rest is all blurry ... Atleast one good thing was, the case was about beer, my favourite topic

Would love to write more but I have another paper tomorrow. Macro economics. Lets see how a computer science engineer is going to fare in it Right now, everything I do, everywhere I look, the only thing that comes to my mind is
C + G + I + NX = Y = YD + (TA - TR) = C + S + (TA - TR)

With that I rest my keyboard for the day.

Goodnite.

Chp 22. Love, jealousy & ex-girlfrens : A Valentine's Day Special

Long long time ago, before the invention of the wheel, the male homo sapiens left their rugged dark caves during the day in search of meat while their women remained in the close confinement of the caves gossiping away. And at the end of the day they all returned to their respective female homo sapiens with whatever they managed to lay their hands on. A dodo, a saber-tooth, or even a mammoth.

They were happy indeed. Each guy had his own woman. Ofcourse there was no courting involved. It was more a matter of brute strength. The strongest guy in the gang gets the first choice to choose who his woman will be. Sometimes he may choose more than one, but paleontologists haven’t proved that yet.

Once the two were paired up, the woman became a sex slave to the man, and he in turn became the victim of the earliest form of nagging in history This makes you wonder. Was our ancestor romantic? I’m sure he wouldn’t have given his woman a red rose, but maybe he atleast tried. Comon, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, after all, we wouldn’t even be here today had the woman firmly crossed her legs. I’m sure he must have done something or said something to her to make her melt in his arms.

Maybe he took her for a walk by the creepy mosquito-infested swamp in the night. And then gifted her a necklace made up of dried animal skulls to show how much he care. And then one thing led to the other… and viola, the human generation continued! And ofcourse he need not worry about protection or venereal diseases at that time, the lucky bastard.

But there’s one thing I’ve always wondered. What if things between him and his designated woman did not work out? How do they break up? And if they find new partners after that, do they feel anything about their old flame?

Ofcourse the woman might have cut off his manhood to display her anger on being dumped *ouch*. Or maybe they simply stopped talking to each other again. They both definitely had a hard time dealing with such issues.

Fast forward. Thousands of years later, mankind is still struggling on how to deal with ex-girlfrens/ex-boyfrens.

I guess I am one of the very few lucky ones to have such a good relationship with my ex. We are like very close frens now. We still talk to each other almost every nite and tell each other whats going on with our lives.

In a way, although I’ve never gotten married before, breaking up with someone ur really serious about is like getting a divorce. You’re cutting off every connection you had with someone you’ve shared everything in life with, someone who knows everything about you inside out.

Ofcourse there are many downsides. Like if you suddenly have this urge to speak to her just to hear her voice again at 3 in the morning after drinking half a bottle of rum, and u see her number “busy”, It does kinda make u feel a bit... left out.

Yeah, my ex is now seeing somebody and I’m really happy for her. Even though sometimes I do feel a bit jealous about it, its not like one of those jealousy waves that hits you when ur still going around and she disappears with somebody else while ur at the dancefloor (not that she ever did that, I’m just giving an example ). It’s a different kind of jealousy here. Its just that, its kinda difficult to accept the fact that someone you know so well and shared so much together, is now in the arms of another man.

Ofcourse I don’t have any rights to tell her anything about it, but I do have the rights to feel jealous. Even she told me that there’s nothing wrong in getting jealous. This is what happens to couples who break up.

We ofcourse have both gotten over each other. But I still don’t know why I am so uncomfortable with this entire charade. Is it because of the history that we had? Or is it simply because of the fact that I know her current boyfren very well back in college? Coz, one of the unwritten rule is that guys do not go for a close fren’s girlfren even if they break up. Girls will never understand this. It’s a complete guy thing. We NEVER make a move on our fren’s ex-girlfren.

But then, I am happy for her as she has found her destiny. Anything that makes her happy, makes me happy too. And there’s no other guy I’d want her to be with other than this guy she’s seeing right now. Makes me feel like a father giving his one and only daughter his blessings . But I will always feel uncomfortable being in the same room as she and her current boyfren. A couple of months ago, I was invited to one of my fren’s bday party. She has also invited my ex and her boyfren. When I heard about that, I cancelled out the last minute. I mean, I really don’t wanna be close to them when they are cuddling and coochie cooing each other. I can spend the whole day with my ex, or with my ex’s boyfren. But definitely not when they are together. Period.

On the brighter side, I am still happy with whats going on here. Coz I know so many guys out there we have mega problems with their ex. Not just guys but the fairer sexes too. I’ve even heard some cases about being stalked and stuff!

The only thing I wanna know is, is it possible to break up with someone and yet be such wonderful frens? As long as the two of you are not seeing anybody else, ya, I think its possible. But the moment one of you hook up with somebody, the other person obviously gets isolated. Reality bites.

My ex always calls me up now and then, and tells me to find a girlfren its just that, our heavy IIM schedule prevents me from finding the time for any commitments... Ok, that’s a very lame excuse on why I ain’t serious with anybody yet. The real reason is… guess I’m not ready yet. You know, this is really funny. Usually it’s the guy who gets over a relationship almost immediately while the girl is still hung up on him. After we broke up and I moved to Hyderabad, I’ve dated many times. I went out with this girl, I went out with that girl. It was a break that I needed. And while I was running around, my dear ex never saw anybody. And when she finally went out with somebody, she became serious with him. Where as, me, I get completely freaked out whenever anything is starting to become serious. And the final result: She is happily back in wonderland while I still roam the streets of brokenhearts alone.

Dating is fun, but its just not the same as spending time with someone u truly love.

With someone ur madly in love with, well, the time u spend with her seems to be the most wonderful time u’ve ever spend in ur entire life. Its as if time has just stopped moving and its just the two of you in this entire world. You don’t care who’s giving you a stare or notice the two auto drivers beating up each other in the distance. The most wonderful thing about being in love is the way you can see right through each other like nobody else can. You don’t need to put on a fake smile or a false accent. You don’t need to give any excuses for being late. You don’t need to give a rose for forgetting a date. At the same time you don’t need a reason to give her a rose; you can give her one whenever you feel like. You can take each other for granted. You don’t need to consult each other to make a plan for a party or an outing. You just know that the other person would love to go along. You know each other’s deepest darkest secrets. And when you tell each other that, well, the secret is no longer "dark"... She fills everything dark and sad in your life with light and warmth. You fight a lot too, but at the end of the day you always make up, promising never to fight again. And very soon, you fight again. And then make up again. The strangest thing about love is that, everytime you fight, you grow closer to each other. You fall more and more madly in love with each other everytime you say that you don’t want to speak to each other again. Sometimes you don’t need to say sorry for something you did that hurt the other person. You can make it out easily from the other person’s behaviour that even though he never said sorry, he meant sorry in every action that he makes or every sentence that comes out of his mouth. Love means never having to say you’re sorry – Eric Segal.

What can I say. We guys are lousy with words when it comes to love. Its up to the girl to understand what we really mean

Valentine’s day. Another dogged day for the lonely hearted. I don’t wanna call up my ex and ask her what her plans are for the day. As long as I am surviving out here and she’s having fun down there, all is well.

Maybe I’ll spend the day with my frens. Get drunk and crib about old flames… or go to Club X with my frens and dance the night away... who the Hell am I kidding here? We have our freaking exams on 14th, 15th and 16th!

IIMB truly rox!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Chp 21. Addendum to previous post

To add to my previous post (read my earlier post FIRST, and then only read this! ), today I was called to the PGP Office for yet another “meeting” with the Chairperson.

He was very happy and impressed with the improvement that I’ve shown in the second semester. He also told me to stop playing soccer for the 3rd semester and show an even much better improvement. I assured him that I won’t play soccer this semester. I just didn’t have the courage to tell him that I’m a basketball player and not a footballer

It feels good to know that he’s happy with my performance. But you know what really made me happy today? The fact that he called me “kima”.

“Kima” is what all my close frens and people I know well call me. But the professors call me “Vanlalruatkima” or “Vanlal”. I hate that name. And I really don’t know why I hate being called “Vanlal”. Maybe bcoz all my life, people I know call me “Kima” and I guess I want things to be that way.

Today I was a bit taken back when the PGP Chairperson called me “Kima”. I have never told him that people call me “Kima”. But here he was, fraternizing with me and addressing me by the name that I am so familiar with.

Feels really good you know…

Chp 20. Plagiarism!

Just how do u think I’ll feel when the PGP Chairperson calls me to his office and tells me I am the most talked about student in the faculty lounge? he he he, in a way it feels good coz ur leaving some kinda legacy behind in this prestigious institution. Imagine two IIMB students having this conversation somewhere in the future.

Student 1: “Hey I heard the PGP office wanted to see you personally?”
Student 2: “Yup, guess I got kimaad”.



A couple of days ago, I received a letter from the PGP office.

It started with “Dear Vanlalruatkima…. “

I always wondered why they always address me with a “dear”.

Many of the professors have mailed me “Dear Vanlalruatkima, I am afraid I will have to grade you a “D” because your performance was not up to mark” or “Dear Vanlalruatkima, your presentation was not well prepared, hence I got no other option but to judge you as unsatisfactory”.

Nowadays, whenever I receive a mail from any of the faculties that start with a “Dear Vanlalruatkima”, I know at once that it is bad news its not just about being addressed as “dear” but also the fact that they used my full name.

Anyway, back to the letter I received from the PGP office. It goes like this.

Dear Vanlalruatkima,
The course Instructors of the Managerial Communication-II course have brought to my notice that you have lifted one phrase from the internet magazine without any acknowledgement, in assignment 1 of the MC-II course. As you know, the Institute takes a very serious view of any such incident of cheating by students. The PGP Committee discussed this matter and has decided to give you a zero for this assignment.

WTF! All I did was copy one single sentence as my introduction from the net. And I have no freaking idea how the management found out about it. They must be using some Hi-Tech state-of-the-art software to detect just that.

It really sux. And for that single sentence which I lifted from the net, the institute had a faculty-student meeting just to discuss what kinda punishment must be met by me and a couple of other guys who lifted phrases from the internet without any acknowledgement.

Well, anyway its all over now. A couple of heads had to roll. An example was set. And life is back to normal here in IIMB.

This is the institute’s way of reminding the rest of the students that ethic sense and value is treated with the top most priority here.

At first I was a bit sore at being penalized for such a trivial offence. Comon, it was just one frigging sentence. But then, when I think about it now, yeah, it does make sense. Coz most of us have been copying extracts from articles off the net to add to our own work. And we always get away with it. In India, this is not a serious crime. What the heck, its not even a crime. But in the US of A or any other place for that matter, plagiarism is dealt with severely. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can sue you for publishing anything that’s not yours. Makes me proud to be an Indian

At the end of the day, I have just one thing to say. Thank God the subject where I was penalized for copying, was just a 1 credit course and not 3 credits like the rest of the other subjects!

Chp 19. what happened.

Lots of stuff happened the past few days.

One of the most remarkable incident was when i bought a bean bag! Sidhu, PGP 2nd year, auctioned his bean bag on bracket. Bracket is our internal communicator here in IIM, where students actively take part in all the various discussion forums like Sports, Buying n Selling, Request, Technical etc… and also act as a messenger service (à la yahoo messenger).

Below is the transcript of the bid process….

Sunil: 100 bucks
Sundeep: 125
Allen: 200 bucks
Sundeep 225
Gawir: 250
Sundeep: 275
Gawir: 325
Sundeep: 350
Sidhu: Auction closes midday Monday.
Gawir: 400
Sundeep: 425
Gawir: 475
Sundeep: 500
Gawir: 550
Sundeep: 575
Gawir: 625
Sundeep: 650
Gawir: 700
Sundeep: 725
Gawir: 775
Sundeep: 800
Gawir: 850
Kima: 900
Anirvan: 901
Peeyush: 950
Kima: 975
Peeyush: shut up kima “1000”
Kima: I can do this all night “1025”
Sidhu: going once.. going twice… sold to kima!

And here’s the beauty of it. Guess what’s the original price of the bean bag I bought? 2400 bucks! It was only after I bought it that Monu, Amra and all the other guys found out about it, and they were all like, “damn, if only I knew there was a bidding going on, I would have definitely bid for more”. Phew! And Monu was even ready to bid for more than 1400 bucks! he he he. I thank the almighty God for not letting them check that particular Forum while the bidding was going on

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Today I was watching “Joey” episodes 10 to14 which I have just downloaded over the LAN, while relaxing on my new beanie. And I truly enjoyed that moment. Gawd… it is sheer Heaven to just relax and sit comfortably while watching one of your favourite comedy sitcoms. I always used to say that “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” was way better than “Joey”. But after watching those 4 latest episodes today, I really felt “Joey” was as good as “F.R.I.E.N.D.S”. Maybe those episodes are more hilarious than the earlier ones, or maybe it’s just the bean bag talking. But bottom-line is, I really had a great time its not everyday that you sit all alone watching a comedy flick and still end up bursting into laughter. (Believe me, u try this urself. Its really difficult to burst out laughing when ur watching something funny, no matter how funny it is, as long as ur watching it all alone. You may be laughing your ass out deep inside, but physically, one normally do not laugh out when there’s nobody around. Its Human nature. Ask Freud.)

From today onwards I swore never to play “Armies of Exigo” again. It has taken too much of my precious time. Agony Aunt asked me whats with guys and playing video games. I think I will answer her here. Dear Agony, first of all, its not a video game It’s a PC game. Strategy. It involves building your own town and managing the various resources, and then creating an army to destroy the opponent’s army and town. Its something guys love doing. Ask Bush and also, I guess boys will always be boys. We never grow up deep inside. The child in us will never die no matter how many hair falls down or how many times we get married. That’s a fact. I will trade anything just to go back in time and re-live those innocent days.

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Last Sunday, one huge gang went to Indie Joe’s again for the buffet lunch. This time we made sure we booked our reservations way in advance. We got our tables immediately the moment we reached there. All together there were 14 of us. Had a blast. I didn’t know about the lunch buffet plan before that, so like a fool I had a heavy breakfast around 10am. Therefore I could not eat much at Indie’s Joe’s. But ofcourse I had my share of fun taking Monu’s trip.

Below are some of the snaps I took on my phone cam.

[ Lucky tiger! : Shubha nad Amra ]


[ Girish, Andy and Iyer ]


[ Nidhi and Arushi ]



It was fun taking Monu and Amra’s trip. He he, even together, I don’t think they can come up with any retort to counteract mine after all, they don’t call me “the king of trips” back in engg college for nothing and poor monu had to bear the brunt of my mockeries. Coz my favourite targets Amol and Tommy did not come that day bcoz of personal commitments, so it was just him that I could pick on


And very slowly he took his revenge. Monday night. Yesterday. 10pm. We all went to PVR, Forum, to watch the movie “Black”. Two cars. Monu, Amra, Rubber and his girlfren in the first car. I drove the second car. Suddenly he zoomed out of the campus without waiting for us ) I didn’t suspect anything at that time. It was only when I reached Forum that I realized what his evil scheming plan was all about. Those guys coolly bought tickets for “Page 3”!!!!!!! Aaaaargh. Not only am I pathetic in hindi, but I have also read the review about that movie “Page 3”. But what choices do I have then? So there I was, actually sitting down and watching a hindi movie. Trust me, even back in Coimbatore I went for a hindi movie just once, wit my ex, and that too after she nagged and nagged me to go for a hindi flick (I wrote this line purposely bcoz today she called up to tell me she has started reading my blog )

Well, for the first 30 minutes or so, I was cursing them. It was such a fucked up movie. Everywhere they only showed how the socialites of mumbai party the nite away. Hell, I party way wilder than them. But slowly I got into the groove. It was only when Konkana Sen switched her role from being a Page 3 correspondent to a crime-beat correspondent that the story finally started becoming interesting. In the end, well, I frankly did not regret seeing the movie. It wasn’t like one of those typical hindi movies, running around the trees singing in the rain etc. This movie is very realistic.

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Another highlight of the past few days. Someone very special from Hyderabad came down here just to catch up with whats going on. Kini ofcourse. Model, compere, V.J., D.J., R.J., u name it, she’s been there done that. Right now, Hyderabad’s “WOW!” magazine has named her the hottest eM Cee in town. She hosts around 3 shows a week, including the wednesday Karaoke Nite at Bottles and Chimney, one of the most happening Pub in Hyderabad. It was so nice to spend some time with her again. She filled me in with whats happening in all my frens’ lives back in Hyde. We talked about the movie she’s acting in, which will be released soon. We talked about the latest Hiphop releases and popular numbers being played in the various discs. We talked about basketball, our favourite game. We also discussed about Arsenal’s loss to Manchester United the previous day. We are both hardcore Arsenal fans and anybody who criticizes Arsenal infront of us is dead-meat. She is indeed my bestest fren, and maybe more. I dropped her at Kalasipallyam bus-stand on Saturday nite. And guess who was there on the same bus? Tara! She’s her ex boyfren’s current girlfren. We said hi to her. I frankly do not see why everyone I know in Hyderabad finds her so hot. I mean, ofcourse she has the hottest ass I’ve seen in real life. And I guess this is what gives my kinsipoo an inferiority complex. Comon. I think we should all grow past that. Many girls still think guys go only for the hot ones. I mean, yeah we do go for the hot ones, but hot is not the only thing we look at. There are so many other factors involved, which I prefer not discussing right now coz this blog is becoming too long

Kini and I had a wonderful time together. I copied all the latest songs playing in the Hyderabad discs currently from her. She was the one who showed me that Mylo’s “Drop the pressure” is actually in English. And all these time I thought it was in some foreign language. The whole song is actually just one sentence repeated over and over again.
“Mother fucker’s gonna drop the pressure”

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One last interesting thing that happened. I finally removed my Christmas star from my ceiling and also from my window outside. 45 days after Christmas and its finally gone. But I did not have the courage (or energy) to dismantle my Christmas tree. It was decorated by my close frens here : Amra, Ankita, Amol and Monu. Somehow I cannot just remove all the decorations and throw away the tree. So I just moved the tree to one corner of my room. I will let it be as it is until the term ends