And it RAINED!!!!!

It has been a long and tiresome summer in Bangalore. And at-last, the rain Gods had waken up. The heat and the sweat had become unbearable for me. Though I have seen much severe summers than this in the north, Kurukshetra, the heat just doesn't suit me.

As I walked out of the AC encloser of my office, it was still hot outside. But suddenly, everything changed as I descended down the last stairs of the office building. The sweat dried up in seconds. Chilling winds, lightening, and the dark sky belittled all the tension and exhaustion that had gathered in me after 10 long hours of monotonous and futile work. I wished the rains to come down with full vigour and not stop for days. I wished I had a bike and go back up home riding, getting wet. I wished I would stop somewhere, all drenched up, to have a hot cup of tea. I wished when I reach home, someone would open the door, and shout at me for getting wet. I wished, wished and wished for 5 minutes. But, I had to return back to the reality.

I had a phone in my pocket which should be protected from the rain. I had some important official documents(not so important) that would have been destroyed if I had to ride back on my bike. And then, there will be nobody at my PG to open the door for me and shout at me for getting wet. Though I was happy that it was about to rain and I wished I would stand under the rains and embrace the rain drops, simultaneously, I was thinking about the consequences of getting wet. I also had a minor cold which would have aggravated if my wishes would have come true. I had to come to office the next day in any case for some important work(not so important).

And then I realized, they all were wishes. None of them could have come true today. Even if I wanted to get wet, I couldn't have, since I had to board my office shuttle to go back home (13kms), I couldn't have walked that distance. I didn't have a bike and I was in Bangalore, away from home, nobody waiting for me at home.

When I boarded the shuttle, it started raining heavily. And inside the shuttle, it was hot and humid. Everyone had closed the windows. They obviously didn't want the rain, at-least not before they reach their safe homes. And in minutes, I was completely drenched in sweat.


Weren't my wishes very simple? Would anyone have lost anything, if my wishes were to be fulfilled? Would anyone have felt good, if my wishes were fulfilled? Would anyone have felt bad about it? I can think of only one answer to all these questions, "NO".

My Valentine's Lost Forever

Wow, one more year gone by, and Destiny has been able to fend off the feminine gender from encroaching into my heart and mind. I am blaming Destiny, because all my life, I have been trying to beat Destiny in this little duel; it has always been victorious. So this Valentine's Day for me would be again; as normal, usual and ordinary as any other day of the year.

I made my last move against Destiny today which again was so deftly counter-attacked; I was awe-struck at the Destiny's might. How can a meagre human match the permanence and mercilessness of one's Destiny. All these days, I thought someday I will be able to change my Destiny, but it now seems an impossible task. I didn't believe in Destiny till today, but from now on, I have changed my perception.

Let’s talk about my last move.

Third Last Move -

Many people know about my first crush from school. Last year, after so much orkutting, I was able to find her yahoo id. I sent her a friend request which she accepted. We started chatting;talking about school, lost friends, old days, school teachers, couples who still speak to each other, couples who broke up, friends who got married, friends who were divorced already, jobs, life etc. And then finally when the topic gradually shifted from her and me, she seemed to be less responsive while I was abnormally typing in more characters than usual.

Then suddenly she stopped responding. Destiny won here. But I was still determined.

Second Last Move -

I frequently left offline messages on yahoo for her, but she never replied. Orkut helped me again. Rather, Destiny was devising another move to beat me again. I found her gtalk id. I sent her a friend request which again was accepted. But every time she came online, her status was set to "Busy". I thought it would be very impolite on my part to disturb her. Perhaps, this was a trap that would have given Destiny one more point. I avoided falling into it. I was trying to make a counter move. I got her number. On diwali, I sent her a message; signing off with my name (I was sure that she won't have my number). But she didn't reply. On gtalk, I stopped seeing her online. I thought she was too busy. Destiny won again. Still determined, I waited for 13th February to make my last move.

Last Move -

Today, I searched for her name on gtalk, and to my surprise, didn't find her. Destiny was playing dirty. She had removed me from her friend's list. I was a little disappointed, but wasn't heartbroken; to give up before executing my last move. I sent her a friend request again, when I found out from a third party resource that she was online. This time also, Destiny made her accept my request.
I could now she her online, but again her status was “Busy". This time around, since I thought this would be the deciding move for both of us, I walked into Destiny's trap happily and perhaps aware of the result. I pinged her "Hi".

I waited eagerly for almost 5 minutes, waiting for her reply, staring at the chat window, without even blinking; I could hear my heart pumping that extra cc of blood for each passing second and finally, Destiny struck its final blow and she went offline. The battle was won and lost.

And now, I am convinced that I can't ever beat Destiny. My Valentine's Lost forever.

First Day at Stewarts!!!!

At times it becomes so hard to remember the name of a childhood friend. I curse myself for forgetting those childhood days. Recently, I met a very old school friend in a mall in Bangalore. I had last met him in school. Since then, 6 years have passed, but somehow I remembered his name. (Thanks to ORKUT FACEBOOK). What a moment that was!!!! I was back in school days. We were not great friends at school, but I couldn't help thinking about my school days.

The very first moments that I recalled were the oldest ones that I can possible remember. It was my first day at school. Actually, it was my first day in a new school. I can't tell if I was scared or nervous. I was very shy then. We had shifted to a new house, and I was admitted into a new school, where I studied till the 10th. I ll try to remember some details.

I was admitted to Class 1. On the first day, all dressed up with my new uniform, (they wanted to me to wear a tie also, which seemed to be the weirdest things to put on a man), Papa took me to the new school on his scooter(Bajaj Super - We still have it). It was a long ride. Papa was telling me that it was the best school in the city and some other details( don't exactly remember though). I was nervous, can't remember the reason. Don't really remember what was going in my mind then. Finally we reached there. The size of the campus terrified me. The school to which I had been before this was so small as compared to this castle.

There's another thing I would like to share:
Before joining this school, I had completed my UKG in a SMALL school called "Dream Diamond". What I mean by small, might really surprise you. I was the only student in UKG in that school. the only other class in that school was LKG with around 10 students. So, I was the senior-most student in the whole SMALL school. My classroom was the principal's office and my teacher was The Principal.In all my exams, I came first. I was the Monitor of UKG, LKG and the school as well. I still have around 20 certificates from this school, for sports, quiz, painting etc, almost all of them mentioning "First", except for Dance. I was pathetic at dancing then.

So, after spending almost a year in this SMALL school, I thought I I wouldn't be able to adjust with so many classmates. I was told that there will be around 40 other students in my class. I had no clue what it would be like.

We entered the gate and walked to the principal's office. Papa had a very short talk with him and then we came out into the corridor. There was a row of benches just outside his office for the visitors. Papa asked me to sit there. He also sat with me. With a smile, he looked at me and said :

"You are in UKG. Just wait here. I will be back in 10 minutes. "

I was relaxed to hear this. He wasn't going to leave me alone, i thought. So, with the bag on my shoulders, water bottle hanging around my neck, that TIE around my neck I was waiting for him. There were noise all over the place. Everybody seemed happy. A person came to me and asked which class did I belong to. I told him that I was with my father and he will be coming back soon. He went away.

But he didn't come. I must have sat there for 30 minutes now. The bell rang, and suddenly everything was silent. I could only hear roll calls in the nearby classes. I looked at the gate, but he wasn't there. I didn't cry. I was tough.....

I kept waiting. Another bell rang, still no sign of him. No crying yet. Another bell, the campus was lively again. We had break after every two periods. Still no crying. I had so much patience then, even now also. After this two more rings either made the school go into the silence or crazy. Then I heard another one. This time, I saw something different. This made me cry. I could see children running towards the gate with their bags. The classes were over for the juniors. All the tears that I was trying to hold up, started pouring out. I hadn't moved an inch from the place, neither had I unloaded my bag from my shoulders. I had never wanted to see Papa so badly and he wasn't their yet.

I cried and cried and cried, kept my eyes on the gate with the hope that he might be there, testing my patience. But no sign of him yet. I must have cried for 10 minutes, and then finally I saw him. I got up from the bench and ran towards him, and clung to him. I don't exactly remember what happened that day at home, but I was told later that Papa was supposed to take me into the class, but he thought that somebody will come and take me.

This is all I remember from that day. I don't remember how I reached my class the next day, but I certainly remember the first friends in my new school. Deepak and Hara....Middle Row, First Bench....Hara on my left and Deepak on my right.

CATrified!!!!!!!

CAT 2007, My first attempt at the so-called toughest exam for MBA admissions was quite an event worth remembering. I don't know yet, how it went, since I haven't checked my answers and I would not do it as well. I have seen peoples' confidence crashing down after checking their answers.

After the exam, I was chatting with this guy, who we (Koramangala junta) believed, would score quite high.

Vishal: Hey, I got 43.
Me : Great, in which section?
Vishal: Total.......

Another coversation..

SURI: I think I will clear the two sections but English. I am getting ZERO in English, might be negative also. (This was his third attempt)

Another one...

Me: Checked your answers??
Kunal : No.
Me: Why?
Kunal: Mainu ki farak painda.....(How will it matter to me).

I cannot let this happen to me. Till the results are out, I want to believe that all my answers are correct. I don't want to be depressed and frustrated like all the other fellows who have determined how much they are going to score approximately. I haven't seen a happy face till now who is satisfied with his predicted score.
I am also not very sure about the correctness of the solutions posted by several institutions on their websites. I have already heard about some questions being answered differently by these institutions, especially the questions in english. So guys, dont give up hope yet. Who knows, the IIMs answers might just match with what you have marked. I haven't given up. Just wait for the results.

But, my real fear is not about getting a very low score. I had no preparations at all. That wont bother me much. But, if I get lucky, and score somewhere around 98, or may be more than that, I will consider myself a genius, atleast among the Koramangala junta. May be I won't get a call from the IIMs, but I would certainly miss the chance of applying to other colleges, like SP Jain, NITIE etc, if this were to happen. So, right now, I am in a dillema. Should I check my answers? Just the thought of it gives me shivers. It is actually a very brave thing to do after the CAT exams. One of my friends shut himself up in his room while he was doing this, and came out of the room after 2 and a half hours :-)

There is a strong urge to check my answers, but when I think the after-effects, the optimistic "me" denies to do this. I cant take this pressure any more. I am eagerly waiting for the IIMs to declare the results. I have another fear too. I dont want to score the lowest among the Koramangala junta, else, I have to treat 4 people. But, I have a feeling that, when the results are declared, the koramangala junta will celebrate another DIWALI,not with crackers but with LAUGHTERS. I want to be there when the results are declared. I think we already know, who is going to be the BAKRA (score the lowest and treat others). While deciding on this bet, we thought that this kind of a condition would push everyone to perform better. After we agreed to this, one of them(Felix) , deliberately didn't send the application for submission (He said he didn't have his degree certificate with him, I don't believe him) . After the exams, 2 of them tried to back off. Me and Suri are the only ones that still believe that we wont get the lowest scores. But, anything can happen SURI, we still have time to cancel this whole thing. Decide now!!!!


On a serious note:
CAT is not everything in my life, morever, this was my first attempt, a real live MOCK CAT for me. And I have already started preparing for the next year's CAT. It just takes a MAN to crack the CAT.

Smokers vs Non-Smokers

My smoker friends, have you ever realized how much money and time you spend on this activity (smoking). You might have a rough idea about the percentage of your salary you would be spending on cigarettes per month. I tried to work out a daily average(number of cigarettes per day) a person would smoke. My data showed that the magic number was 14.75. I have calculated this based on the person's mood or the ocassion, since the number of cigarettes consumed is directly proportional to these two factors(mainly). This statistical data might disappoint the more aggressive smokers, but nevertheless, for such people, I guess, we can increase the daily average figure by 4, i.e, 18.75.

Please see the figures for further details.















So, now let us calculate the average monthly expenditure on cigarettes per person.

The number of cigarettes an average smoker will consume per month = 442.5 wow!!!!!!

If you take the average cost of a cigarette to be Rs. 3.50/-

Then the average monthly expenses will come to around = Rs.1548.75/-

Well, so a normal smoker will smoke Rs.1550/- worth of cigarettes per month. For the more aggressive smokers, this amount might well go upto Rs.1800/-

Now, if we do our calculations for a Leap Year(366 days), the annual expenditure on cigarettes will be roughly Rs. 18,585/- for a normal smoker and Rs. 23,625/- for chain smokers. Are you surprised!!! The next section might just throw you off the ground. Please read along.

Now we will try to calculate, how many extra minutes people spend smoking or on smoking related activities as compared to the non-smokers. Since, it is safe to assume that nobody will have their cigarettes delivered at their doorsteps every morning along with the newspapers (well, this is a damn good idea), I would use the following values for calculations:

Number of trips to the Cigarette ki Dukaan(Shop)/Day = 4
Average Time spent on each trip = 30 minutes
Average Time to consume a single cigarette = 4 minutes (Not for cigars)
Average number of cigarettes per day per person = 14.75 (as calculated from above)

So, Minutes / Day = 179
Minutes / Month = 5370
Minutes / Year = 64440 (44.75 days)

We all know that time is money. Lets assume that 1 minute is equivalent to Rs. 0.50 (for NITK guys only), so the total equivalent money spent will be = Rs.32,200/-

So, when we add up the two totals, we arrive at this fact that, the normal smokers spend away about Rs 50,805/- annually more than the non-smokers.

This is quite interesting. Is Bill Gates a smoker? Mukesh Ambani (just bet Mr. Bill Gates as the richest) is surely not a smoker . I saw it on some interview of his somewhere. I googled a bit more and realized that, none of the top ten richest persons in the world are smokers. I thought, Mukesh Ambani had great management skills, but now, I dont. I am not still sure of Bill Gates though. Is he really intelligent or is he a non-smoker?????? I will try to find out.