Stop, Look and See

Hello,

It has certainly been quite a while since I have been active on the blogging front. Blame it on my curriculum or my way of living. Perhaps it is aptly said that B-Schools are breeding grounds for break-ups and if u have survived one then there can be only 2 implications: either your love is strong enough to place you in the same bracket as Romeo-Juliet or weak enough that you don't give a damn about it...both cases are weird to me. Whatever it is I have nothing to do with it and quite evidently i have digressed right at the beginning of this post. Lets shrug off these trivial things.

The Title of this post has been inspired from a Ruskin Bond chapter that I had studied in my standard 8th, ICSE. Well do not jump the gun by calling me a moron for remembering a rain-drops-falling-on-a-corrugated-tin-roof Ruskin Bond chapter. It somehow struck me when i woke up this morning and this has made me blog today.

Past couple of months have been crazy and suddenly this morning i get up with a thought that we have precisely 4 more months before we pass out with flying colours (never understood this goddamn phrase in my 23 year life till now) and become a corporate slave. It is then that I made ammends. The thought of leaving the campus, friends and sacrificing the freedom we enjoy here completely blows me away so i will stay away from discussing it. What is more important is to hold oneself back for a while in this time-poor life of ours and realise a few things. For me it has always been a comparision with the objectives I had set for myself before joining this college and see how much I have been able to fill the pot. Before joining this place, I had always thought of MBA as a great value addition in one's life both in an economical as well as spiritual point of views. It certainly is a great value add but more off the class than in it. It is what you learn from colleagues, friends, circumstances, fire-in-their-ass profs, non-sensical deadlines and unjust timelines etc. that counts.

I, as a matter of fact, find myself struggling to satiate myself when it comes to acquiring the gyaan that the textbooks flaunt or most of the profs teach. Well thats an ongoing process and I believe (an optimistic asshole that I am) I shall manage to do well enough to put myself decently. An element that I have been fairly satisfied with myself is being able to connect well with people around me. That quotient has pleased me right from the time I have been into this campus. The ability to deal with people, in most cases, is the key to a successful career in management (This shall soon be corroborated when a jobless American comes up with a book stating this and the entire intelligentsia will go gung-ho about it as if it was something as elementary as newton's laws). And this satisfaction, I think, is being projected today because last night i slept as a satisfied soul..satisfied with our efforts of..making a bunch of diverse thinking and unlike individuals come together as a team and curtail the distances among them. That moment of truth when i saw all of them rejoice..made the young boy in me jump out of jubilation...accentuating yet another intance where I have been happy with my ability to deal well with people may be.

A lot is in stake in the next 10-15 days...a prelim for a management game to be made, 2 online Quizzes to be prepared and publicity to be handled, preparations for the PPI which happens just before our college's fest. The next couple of weeks might as well decide a lot as to what is in store for me in the future. Right now just killing time and got reminded of a great quote which has enabled me to go my own way at things, beating several apprehensions:

"Those who danced, seemed to be insane to those who could not hear the music"

Cheers

Nishit

Figments of My Imagination

hello,

My midterms were on the verge and I had screwed up big time till then as far as my marks(Class Tests) were concerned....but nevertheless...discovered the poet in me that day.

Situation: FIM class was going on....and everything was going overhead...and the commerce guys were nodding their heads as if the Prof was teaching 1+1=2. Not finding anything interesting to do...I suddenly realised that my adrenaline levels were down because of the usual poor sleep i had had the night(morning) before....so I took the generous decision of going to sleep even though I was stupid enough to sit in the 3rd row.....Invariably just like othr classes...the Prof caught me and asked me to go wash my face and come.
I did tht and came back....now I had the dreadful task of attending the lecture(40 more minutes were left)...with all my senses wide awake....Suddenly I started writing..........

(by the way FIM stands for Finacial Institutions and Markets for the less/more privileged who haven't had a shot at it)

Here it goes: It is titled "FIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION"

Among the banks, big and small,
I want to say shit and fuck them all.
The class has been dead and awefully boring,
At times we find the Prof. sulking.

Then come the mighty stock exchanges,
Selling Stocks and bonds like oranges.
But pardon me they have big brothers,
SEBI and RBI are like dung in the feathers.

He looks like a prince who holds his head high,
And God knows why does he look at the sky.
At times we fiddle and kick his ass,
No No, it isnt the Prof. but Arun of my class.

The term is over and the marks come out,
Ocassional scare covers me round about.
I flunk big time and fuck my grades,
My Poem sucks and so does everything else.

My dawn arrives as soon as I sleep,
Ending my freedom with the alarm's beep.
I rush to the class amidst humour and tension,
Wondering whether these are facts or figments of my imagination..........

Adieu,
Nishit

I need serenity....

Alright…I kno it has been like an epoch since I had last posted here.better late than never. Couldn’t resist the urge of posting today/night…I dnt know wat to call this time of the day…its like 5:14 am and still I refuse to call it day since sleep follows this post….Yeah…I have returned to campus..which is an absolute bliss sans the seniors who I had bonded like a family….the junis have taken their place but only on the records…thrs still a long way to go for it to happen….
Anyways…was off to Bombay/Bangalore/Hyderabad for my summers..did it @ LOreal…burnt sum calories..on the streets of Blore and Hyderabad…and finished the summers with a decent presentation @ Bombay….enjoyed a lot in the experience though….returned to campus a fortnight back…and the strings of nightouts and academic loads have already started taking a toll….
Its raining out here in bbsr….it gets really amazing in the monsoon…especially wen u r awake @ 5 in the morning and the clouds jst pour it on u….nature at its best…

Sleep has ditched me for long now
To give me some more time to myself
But the more I give it to myself
The more cynical I become

There are ups and downs
and there are crests and troughs
Its becoming such a whirlpool
From which I shall never emerge
And if at all I do,
I ll hav to lose myself and become new

Right now no more thoughts come to my mind….just getting used to becoming comfortably numb….numb with the void tht exists deep within and questions everytime I lay on my bed and look at the scary ceiling.

Shall keep u updated regularly henceforth…okay I ll atleast try to.

Cheers n Adieu

The Cucumber Seller Of Chennai By Subroto Bagchi

hello all,

The following is an article about a real-life incident which happened with Subroto Bagchi.

Read and feel blessed....

(November 1, 2004)

"At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor "

On a hot July day, my colleague Moses and I were trying to locate our car on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road in front of Nalli Silks when I saw a roadside cart laden with cucumbers. The seller was vacantly gazing at passersby. Clad in a white shirt and a dhoti worn in the traditional Chennai style, he had long hair and an unkempt beard. I did not know Tamil, and asked Moses to find out the price. One rupee apiece, came the reply.

We wanted one piece each. The cucumber seller began deftly slicing them to put salt and the delectable red chilly powder on the neat halves. As we bit into the cucumber, I asked Moses to tell him that his pricing was too low, and that he should raise it. Moses conveyed this. The seller shook his head, and replied that “customer satisfaction” is more important than extra profit. The words ‘customer satisfaction’ were in English. I gulped my patronising comment. At this time, Moses excused himself to find our car. After a few moments, the seller asked me in English where I was from. From Bangalore, I replied. What follows here is our conversation. His statements are highlighted.

Isn’t the Karnataka budget due to be presented tomorrow? Yes, that is true. Living in Karnataka, it was easy for me to concur on this.

I wonder how the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will ever solve the water-sharing problem. Man cannot solve this problem. It has to be God. After all, it is an issue of how much rain is going to fall! I nodded. I was not sure if I had a view at all.

See the way the monsoon is progressing. It does not look good. The progress of the rains is leaving a ‘V’ of a dry patch as the clouds move north. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the states up north will have problems. Politicians are the ones who use such problems to create a divide among people. They always do it. They use water, religion, anything they can, to create a divide. Look at the way Amarinder Singh of Punjab is taking a stand. I looked at him, in part admiration and part disbelief.

You’re from Bangalore. Things are going well for you folks. But I don’t understand how people with shady business interests can become representatives of public opinion there. It was part complaint and part observation.

At this point, a fellow peddler arrived — helped himself to some of the cucumber, and the two had a quick conversation on some issue I did not understand. After the other person left, I asked him if selling cucumber was his full-time vocation. He told me that right now it was. Earlier, he sold lottery tickets, the trading of which has since been banned. As a result he had to switch his business to selling cucumbers on the wheeled cart. No complaints and no issues. Meaning to engage him further, I asked him his religion. This drew an instant look of disappointment from him: “Sir, I am an Indian. That is my religion. In my eyes, all people are equal, and it does not matter to me at all.”

The clarity of his response and his conviction took me completely by surprise. His net worth was probably equal to his day’s turnover. The newspaper and magazines he reads, to keep abreast of things, wipe off the disposable income he generates. Bare feet on this busy, dusty road, he sold a low-value, perishable product from a rickety cart. At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor.

We are not complete if we are not connected. It is only when we are connected that things make sense. Only when things make sense, we can form an opinion. Standing there, I wondered how many in the corporate world know who the chief minister of Punjab is, and about the progress of the monsoon! How many have an informed view on river water politics and budget proceedings of another state.

Soon, Moses appeared with our car. It was time for me to go. I shook hands with the nameless cucumber seller of Chennai. Actually, I wanted to touch his feet.