Daydream

Dedicated to the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.

Your eyes don’t speak, just hide
like an ocean on a moonless night, guide

to the fragility of the truth, lied
to the author of the verse, who tried

to escape the inexplicable, reside
through the play of heavenly, decide

the destiny of the fallible, inside
your eyes, don’t speak, just hide

-

Twenty Months, One Lifetime

This evening when I was walking by the Sunset Point, snapshots from last 20 months kept on flashing in front of my eyes. I saw a bunch of guys standing in front of guard room swamped in the enthusiasm and excitement of having made it to IIM Indore. I saw the night when we fought it hard to be crowned as the most talented section and the crazy evening when India won T20 world cup and people danced bare chest while being showered and splashed with water smelling like Harpic. Trying to build a human pyramid and break the mataki, covered in mud all become one again. I saw people running around the campus during IRIS while some others chose to sleep in their rooms with their indifference and one crazy guy writing 'wake up calls' on bathroom mirrors.

I saw 'A Top Parties' and 'late night walk scandals'. I saw people joyous and miserable during placements. I saw glint in every person's eye and chuckle on their cheeks when a new member, 'the most adorable guy' of the campus joined our family. I saw pranks that we pulled and the pranks that were pulled on us. I saw sleepy heads hiding behind water flask in the class rooms and the happy days when we had 20% off rule.

I saw the sky pouring over campus creating artificial cascades on the stairs behind the library and the foggy mornings when you can not see the ground where you are about to land your feet. I saw melting pot once the venue of every party, now the temple of butt-kicking ritual and D Block court always abuzz with cricket and some of the most memorable parties of our times.

I saw my life and others' as I walked back to the hostel. I saw what I am going to miss for rest of my life.

IIM Indore - I 'lived' here!


Just another participant
Batch of 2009

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

The movie opens up with Surinder Sahni, (the loser twin of Major Ram from Main Hun Naa they never told you about :P), finding himself in the middle of a script from a 1967 Rajesh Khanna movie where he has to hold the hands of love-of-my-life-way-out-of-my-league-chic (Tani, played by Anushka Sharma), as a favour/promise to his dying old school principal. That doesn’t make you cry but for rest of the first half of the movie there is a consistent smile on your face that might prove to be slightly and sweetly painful to your facial muscles. Well blame that on Bobby Khosla (played by Vinay Pathak, Dasvidaniya and Bheja Fry fame) along with Surinder Kohli “Punjab Power – Lightening up your life” and Raj – “Hum Hai Raahi Pyar Ke Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte” (both played by SRK aka the entertainer aka God).


While the first half of the movie may seem like an extension to the retro parade on the lines of OSO or Main Hun Naa, Aditya Chopra touch can be witnessed in certain subtle and not so subtle ways. Music is entertaining and enjoyable, although a little long. Songs are beautifully picturised and at most of the occasions help the story to move ahead. The first song of the movie Haule-Haule will remind you of Chalte Chalte Yun Hi from Mohabbatein. Another song from the movie, Hum Hai Raahi Pyar Ke Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte is a tribute to the Indian Film Industry and is beautifully painted on the celluloid. Not only the sets that are larger than life and the lyrics that is drenched in the filmy nostalgia entertain you but also watching divas like Kajol, Lara Dutta, Rani Mukherji and Preity Zinta dazzling the silver screen make you leave a sigh in awe and fascination.


While all of this is happening on screen, I was wondering and doubting to some extent whether it is Aditya Chopra's desperate attempt to ride on SRK’s retro-look-star-studded OSO wave in order to make a successful come back . It made sense to me then and I sincerely hoped to be proven wrong.

Well I did not have to wait for too long. The second half of the movie cleared every single doubt I had in my head. Movie progresses as the lives of characters start to intertwine with each other in complex ways while still keeping the story light and humorous. Among some larger than life visuals, the story becomes a tussle between the happy-go-lucky Raj and RK Narayan’s common man Surinder for love of their lives, Tani. Just around this time the plot takes a dramatic turn and tadaa!!! The stage is set for you to take the hankies out of your pocket. But not yet, here comes the beautiful Golden Temple where Rab Ji makes the story take another talespin and before you know your hankies are at work.


The drama leads you to the climax of the movie that represents hope and optimism for the common guy, the ordinary, the underdog, the loser, the lover, the end user of this industry known as Indian Film Industry aka Bollywood. They say that movies are make believe art, but more over they are a world where you can become what ever you want and achieve whatever you can not in the real life. You see yourself in the characters of the story and applaud on their success and cry for their sorrow.

The larger than life celluloid screen sells the dreams and hopes and Aditya Chopra knows it very well. As certain themes and elements are so common among Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Main Hun Naa and OSO, it is difficult for me to say whether these elements are influenced by SRK’s recent ventures or not but it can be said for sure that Aditya Chopra has brought a definite entertainer for the audience. The movie, specially second half of it, has signatures of the director's style.

The movie is no where near to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge or even to Mohabbatein but it works alright. I won't give any five stars rating yet, just not the right guy to do so! But I will say, go watch the movie, may be not with logic and reason but surely for some light entertainment, for Shahrukh Khan (awesome work both as Surinder as well as Raj), for Vinay Pathak, (Brilliant as usual) and for Anushka Sharma (Promising). And no matter what, don’t miss the end credits. They are genuinely brilliant. :)

A ride to the heaven

Nov 08, 2008, Morning 5 a.m.

After two long hectic days, a long night without any provision of sleep and a disturbed mood for whatsoever reason, I was out there in the open to cover Ashwamedha, the flagship event of our annual fest IRIS, on a notice as short as 30 minutes. I was running out of battery in my camera, had no charger and it was not the best time in the day to ask people for their cameras or chargers. I walked down to melting pot, a place in front of our canteen, to meet the organizing team and the finalists to get started for the day. But wait, it had to go worse. I was told that the organizers had a surprise rural stint for the finalists at a village called Harsola about 30 odd kms from IIM Indore. Damn! With no camera, no batteries, no breakfast, no open shops in the path at this time of day, what the hell am I going to do there?


When things can not go worse, they can only get better. So I raided one of the fellow batchmates room and took his camera and charger, put it on charging. Grabbed a junior and took his charger and put my batteries on charging. A few minutes later, got another camera from another fellow batchmate. Ashwa team was running late by about an hour or so and with that I got those extra 60 minutes to get my arsenal charged. Canteen was open by this time so got myself fueled up with some nice Poha and a cup of hot coffee.


Oh yeah! I had heard about this interesting finalist (read nice looking girl) so the motivation that was amiss all this while, was coming back to life.


And then suddenly one guy asks me, can you ride a bike? Damn you idiot! I don't want to ride a bike. I want to sit in the cab and click pics. That is my job for the day! Furthermore, that is where the chick is going to be. But what the heck, I said, Yes I can.

He handed over to me the key of a brand new 200cc bike. A tamed beast to say the least. (Does it rhyme?) Ah, something better than the chick, I thought. And so it started. "It" - It is what I wanted to tell you about. It is what I was preparing you all this while for. It is what you have to read all of above junk to know about. It was a ride through wide open highways outside the city of Indore, with breeze sifting through my hair, and a landscape so beautiful, I was feeling like heaven.

I know the story has a great potential for literary genius but the ability of my language to explain this experience ends here. And though it sounds like just-another-ride, it was spiritual/orgasmic (chose your extreme :P) high for me! Or may be even better. I was riding there on the road and jukebox in my head was busy playing, "on a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair..." This could not be anything but the heaven! It was heaven. :)

The day continued to get better. Saw a herd of camels that day - more than a hundred of them, flocks of sheep, consisting of more than several thousands, went door-to-door and saw the so called best MBAs of India trying to sell stuff of daily needs to villagers and villagers outsmarting them. A few cups of tea by the roadside. Hell lot of pics. A great day, one of the best in my life.


Check out the pics:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shrivastava.sun/AshwamedhaRuralStintIRIS2008#

-

Setting an example - II

Here is another interesting piece of news. Topper of his management class at IIM Ahmedabad, Kaushalendra, has come up with an interesting entrepreneurial venture. Something that I wish more graduates from IITs, IIMs and other premier institutes of India should be doing. This news caught my attention especially because for quite some time now bitching about the worsening condition of law and order in Bihar and UP has become the "In-thing" but no one ever bothers to think of a solution. Here is one guy who is trying to make a difference. We need many more Kaushalendras. Way to go dude.

Read more at Financial Express
and Economic Times

Setting an example

Mr. Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Governer of West Bengal, has decided to go for a voluntary two hours power cut at Raj Bhavan (Governer's House).

Read more at Time of India

Frequencies

I read a piece of writing yesterday, something that compared light and music. As there are notes to sound, so are the colours to light. Wonderful, goosebumpy thought. So true, so elementary, still I doubt how many of us observe it.

[Read more at http://just-colours.blogspot.com/ ]

MBA for dummies

With three trimesters and two and a half weeks (reminds me of new show that I am watching, two and a half men :D) into the summer internship, here I am all set to write some globe about MBA. Globe, as you must have noticed is a word that doesn’t belong to most of you people’s vocabulary in a way it belongs to mine. This is a glimpse of our never-ending-ever-expanding lingo, something like the universe. Now as you may notice that the mention of universe here is quite arbit (another lingo). That is how our communications are like.

I somehow feel weird using word MBA as I am not doing an MBA. I am doing a course in management and as a philosophy I believe that management is much bigger than MBA. However for conformity matters, I accept to use MBA and the two terms will be used interchangeably throughout our discussions. :D. I know it has got nothing to do with this discussion but I find it worth mentioning that I am very fond of using smiley-s so don’t be overwhelmed with overwhelming (and mostly unnecessary) use of those. :)

I don’t know why people do MBA. It has always confused me. I wanted to do MBA because I wanted to go back to studies and have some good time there. Having done my graduation from my hometown, I wanted to experience life in a residential program and that too in a world class institute. I guess others have better reasons to do it. Some of them are too bored from their jobs and want a break so instead of taking a small vacation they chose the extended one (that too sometimes on company expense) and in reality end up regretting the decision under the piles of books and never ending assignments and term papers/projects. And then there are a few kids who are confused as ever, troubled from the education so much that they want to finish it up, once for all and hence right after their graduations they join MBA(worth a pity, seriously!). Rest of the people can be classified as serious MBA candidates who state to have bigger and better reasons to do it but when we go for a Root Cause Analysis everything boils down to those extra zeroes on the pay checks. :) However as even in my soberest effort, I can not relate to these muggoo-s and ghissoo-s [nerds, that too incurable] (though I appreciate the extra zeroes), I shall refrain from any discussion regarding them unless strictly required. :)

If you think that I just wrote too long a passage, it may be blamed to the endless journals and papers that we are forced to read during the course. Just in case if you have the slightest of intentions of adding an MBA to your nameplate or visiting card and you find the above paragraph anywhere remotely close to long, May heavens help you! I think media and movies are in a big way responsible for the charm that is attached with MBA (like everything else that happens around us, what a cliche, sigh!).

No, I am not talking about the exorbitant salaries that they mention (as that is indeed a given) but the other factors.
How do you get to see an MBA in the movies? They wear great suits, dine at amazing hotels, drink best vines, can just walk in and pick up the best (read hottest) girl in the bar, live in the most amazing villas and condos… the list goes on. So far I haven’t met any of them in real life and if you have please don’t let me know (I am rather happy with my blissfully ignorant shabby life).

So far so good, I guess this much of crap must be sufficient to appease our blog-guru for the time being. I do welcome feedback. You may write to me at shrivastava.sun@gmail.com (applauds, slaps, criticisms are good; cash, gifts, kisses, dates are better) in case you think you can handle any more of me :D or be simple, just drop in a comment, we appreciate that quite as much. :)


Saurabh

[Originally published at http://mbaglobe.blogspot.com/]