Warning : Highly imaginative and exaggerated. My travel just provides the background :P

Well! The TAS submissions have been made and my popularity stint is over. So I should find some other topic to write. I have decided to share my travel experiences with all those who would care to read. Today I am going to narrate a story of three drunken souls in Kaza. To facilitate your understanding, Kaza is a town in Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh.
Reaching Kaza was a long journey of 12 hours undertaken in a green box with four wheels, of which these souls sat on one. This green box is called “Himachal Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation”. The experience was an out of the world one, as they gradually entered into dry and barren lands of spiti valley from an amazingly green Kinnaur valley. However the bus facilitate a 4 directional movement in east west, north south fashion owing to its continuous up and down movement in addition to a forward one.

They reached ‘safely’ and started hunting for the hotel. They made their way straight for the state tourism hotel, which was just 5 minutes walk from where ever consulted and after 5 such short walks they reached our destination. The place was not any way a dream hill station of their dreams but was pleasantly different. None of them had seen such a vast expanse of barren land which is cut only by the freezing spiti river. The snow capped dry mountains were magnanimous in view and they felt pitifully small in comparison. Approaching evening reminded them of arranging for the stay before light failed. With the hope of “Govt. is cheap”, they approached the reception, where the destroyer of their hopes sat, “Rent is 1500” he said calmly. They picked up their luggage and made their way to where they came from. “See the room atleast. We can arrange the payment”, smile lit up their faces. “Govt. is cheap. One way or the other”. They got the room for 800 and that too a room with the view (don’t get any fancy ideas, it was the river).
You must be wondering, when do these three souls get drunk? Well! Let’s skip the planning part that these people did. Now they left the safe haven of the hotel and ventured in the cold and dry realities of Kaza. These souls were wandering for food; the hotel they had chosen refused to subsidize food. A suitable Israeli place was chosen to eat ‘variety’ of food. One of these souls is a fan of beer and would drink nothing else. So this soul looked for beer, let’s call this soul Carlsberg however poor Carlsberg got some local brand of beer, which he drank like a true Carlsberg. The peculiarities of the eatery should also be appreciated here, Carlsberg was asked to hide his beer or close the curtain. On enquiry it was revealed that our heros could have alcohol with curtains drawn. Decision was taken and the other two souls decided on Old Monk, lets call them Old and Monk. Old went to fetch Old Monk and rest two ordered matching food. Curtains were drawn, drinks were served and the pack of cards was brought out by Monk. The game progressed, so did the drinks and curtains were duly checked from time to time. Food was ordered in batches and hints of the order were taken from the adjacent table where a group of Israeli hippies sat and ate, Old Monk confirmed a 75% success rate at these food orders.

Once full of food and alcohol, our heroes were served with bill and information of “we are closing”. They paid and came out satisfied, but the satisfaction did not last very long as the cold air entered their nostrils and made way to their inebriated soul. Our heroes resisted the attack to bring them back to real world and they succeeded in being where they were. Lets see where were they? We can only guess that through their actions that night. Monk was certainly on the moon as it kept on trying to capture moon in his shutter and ended up with a blurred spot in a black background (suspicion : I do know if it was still the moon for Monk or if he was on moon and he wanted to capture Earth). Monk sat in the middle of the road and took up the challenge of counting the stars while humming the tune of “aaj main uppar, aasman neeche” (that’s why the suspicion above). Old was busy noticing the mountains in the moonlight, he appeared to guessing their heights and time required to reach the top. I do not question the calculation of Old, as after a while I think he was already at the top. He was staring in the ground hard and mumbled, “Gosh, its too high.” And a tune followed, “main bahut door bahut door chala”.
Of these three souls the most practical thought was of Carlsberg who wanted to reach Spiti River. Water glowed like silver in the moonlight and the sound of it crashing against the rocks was pleasant. Carlsberg suggested and Old Monk followed. I do not and will not ever doubt the courage of any drunken soul. The fear disappears and is replaced by “adventure”. As they walked, they sang along “Chalo chalein Mitwa….inn unchi nichi rahon par”. Well! Old did his calculations, Carlsberg decided on the approach and Monk stood there randomly clicking. Phone torches were switched on, thanks to two of these souls who still carried primitive mobile phones. Carlsberg entered the area which was covered with thorn bushes and close inspection revealed they were allergic as well. Our heroes did not give up. Next they were faced by a wall, Carlsberg took a step forward and jumped, and so did Old Monk. The distance to the river had not reduced and Old was confused, his calculations were going wrong. Carlsberg was still moving ahead and Monk followed wondering how all these bushes did grow on moon, “there is no oxygen right?” (I discovered drunken souls do not breathe oxygen). Just then Carlsberg halted, staring in the valley below. The river was at least 20 feet below where they stood and the horizontal distance remained the same. Carlsberg still took a step forward and monk turned to leave, Old was still doing some calculations. Well! In the end they decided to go back. I guess the eyes overcame the brain and courage disappeared in the moonlight of deep valley.

Epilogue
Our heroes woke up in the morning to discover a few rashes here and there. Masses of thorn clung to their clothes and a few cuts needed attention. The first aid kit was readily brought out and few items like boroline, band aid, moov and pain killers were used. This was followed by a heated discussion over an apple pie, apple crumble and apple strudel over getting to the river. Two hours later, our heroes stood by the river, testing its freezing waters. It was broad day light and three drunken souls were Cappuccino, Latte and Masala Chai!

Warning: This piece of writing is full of irregularities and parts of it might be completely fictitious. The writer of this blog is a fan of herself and might have exaggerated some data. Please do not use it for any official purposes.
I am an awfully moody writer. Haven't published a single post since April, then why today…
I guess because it’s a lazy afternoon and I am bored of reviewing HR forms. As an alternative I could have chosen to study some financial derivatives but I think it’s clear why I chose to write a blog instead. For last two days I have seen about a dozen HR forms and have about half a dozen waiting for me. I like it and I don’t like it at the same time.
I like the attention that I am getting all of a sudden, with a lot of fachhas coming to me for advice on filling up the forms and getting them reviewed. I am being added by a lot of people on gtalk, of course I have been oblivious of their presence in this universe for all this time but etrigan saves me the trouble of asking the question “who are you? Have we met?” Etrigan is a true savior and I have never been more thankful to anyone before. By the way, for the first time I have figured in the top visited profiles of etrigan. I am planning to put it in my CV as soon as possible. However, I do not understand how is Nitin Jacob managing to be more popular than me, I don’t only feel jealous, as a girl I feel betrayed by the batch.
Now you must be wondering, where is the ‘I don’t like it’ part? Well! I am quite a lazy person and I want everything for free. But all this publicity is not coming to me for free; the price is a lot of work in terms of HR forms. Some people come with well formed answers, other with crap and yet others with vacant forms to be filled with my expert hands. I have a set of phrases that I use – integrate the answer, rephrase this part, sport a vision, put it in a structure and so on. I feel as if I am being telecast on Aastha channel for much needed gyaan, the difference being the topic of gyaan. I am myself unable to comprehend what I say sometimes. Last night, I picked up a call at 2.30 in the night, the voice on the other end asked me “can I come now?”. “Why ask me? I do not render these services.” I answered. Well! I did not realize it wasn’t a dream until I saw an SMS saying “What did you mean?” I felt bad for her, however I don’t know if she really wanted to know what I meant. I think she didn’t. Friends, the story of these assaults do not end here. I can’t stay online for long or roam around freely without an HR form coming my way. I am even thinking of requesting synapse to block my mail id for a couple of days (but keep etrigan up and running).
I think it was a good decision to write today. As tomorrow is the deadline for form submission and my popularity stint will end with it. Therefore, this celebrity kind of blog has to be published today, without delay.
In the end I thank all those who visited my profile on etrigan but did not send me their HR form.

I dedicate this blog to all those people who put boards outside their houses. My favorite amongst them are the warning boards that say 'Beware of Dogs'.

Indian Roads are really amusing. This discovery was brought about my observations while wandering aimlessly on these roads for past one week. I have lots of idle time and no desire to put it to any use. So I just read, eat, sleep and most importantly wander.
On one of these days my dad was driving a scooter and I had captured the backseat. I had nothing to do except for gazing around (my dad is strictly against talking while driving). So this is all I noticed, a board was hanging outside one of the houses and it said ‘To Let for girls’; I found this pretty interesting. The house owners want only girls, great! That is perhaps because girls don’t drink or smoke or spoil the walls or come back late and other such bad habits (this is the general belief, we are cashing on the reputation so far created :P). Well this is just a speculation; otherwise other options are like all the inmates of that house might be guys or girls with options open or somebody forgot to paint an ‘i’ on the board.
Next I noticed another board on a house with big black Iron Gate, the board said ‘Beware of Dogs’. What a wonderful welcome message in the nation of ‘Atithi devo bhav ’ (guest is equivalent to god). Well a big black Doberman behind the bars of the massive iron gate suggested me to take the warning seriously. I asked my brain to immediately stop processing any more thoughts against the warning or the reason behind it.
My dad was still driving silently and I was reading the nameplates outside the houses. One of these plates listed five- six doctors, three males and three females, all with same surnames. Then there was another board marking their area of specialization. This is great, they could share the basic instruments, office, stationery and even the white lab coat. Bad joke, i know but that was my first thought. Second was the perfect gender ratio, was it three couples or two couples and siblings and so on. Anyways most interesting part was the presence of two massive dogs behind the white gate and there was no board indicating the presence of these inmates, I guess they were the source of patients; the noble breadwinners of the family.
By now we were at our destination and as we dismounted, the street security marched towards us. The security demanded us to stand straight without any movement at all. Two gentlemen checked while two over saw the procedure. We were then allowed to leave, walking one step at a time. Well these gentlemen were four burly street dogs. I wonder if Municipal Corporation too is planning to put up the boards ‘beware of dogs’ at every entry point to the city.
“Welcome to Jaipur. Beware of Dogs.”

I have been travelling a lot lately, meeting a lot of new people and chatting with them. This blog is inspired by one such conversation I had with someone, whom I met on train.

My long discussions with myself haven’t yielded much just some thoughts I could put into words.
Around me I see a lot of people with problems and I don’t find a single person with no problems at all. Married people and unmarried people, young people and old people, any type of people you name it.
A few of these people asked me if I had any problems, I refused. My refusal was not for ‘having any problems’, rather I refuse to admit I have any problems and next step is to refuse to have any problems at all till they start affecting my very existence on this mother earth.
One tormented soul asked me, what brings happiness. I also wonder about the same.
After a few days this is what I told my new friend ‘the tormented soul’. I said, “Don’t feel guilty about selfishness”.
The soul grimaced and expressed its displeasure at such a ‘grotesque’ thought.
My heart questioned my brain and my brain blamed my mouth to have said it this way.
I smiled at my critique, the tormented soul and asked, “Aren’t humans by nature selfish?”
The soul looked at me with hollow eyes, its dry lips opening up to answer but then it averted its gaze.
Well done! My heart complimented my brain.
“Look everyone wants to be happy and is yet sad because we all depend on others for our happiness. The others is everybody except for you. This ways not only you get rid of the burden of your own happiness but also you get someone to blame for your sorrow. Remember there are choices to be made at every step and being happy or sad is one of them. You will live your life but its your choice to live the present/ repent the past or dread the future. Live your life in moments, this world is full of experiences waiting for the moments of exploration. Set yourself free, O tormented soul and take what this life offers you.
Take care of your loved ones but let it be unconditional. Don’t torture yourself with too many ifs and buts, let your life roll. Look around you, the world is such a great place to be. My dear friend tormented soul if you want to do something for this world, first choose to make yourself happy.”
It looked at me and smiled. “You just preach but you fail to understand, I am very sad.” tormented soul said in a hurt tone.
I again refuse to be moved by those tears or the pain in the voice.
“Is it others who fail to understand us or we refuse to understand ourselves?” I said.
This was the end of this conversation. My heart tried to intervene but was stopped by my brain. Mouth refused to say any more. My brain still kept a question mark in my eyes.

Today while writing this blog the only thought on my mind is my survival through the great IIM dream for I find myself gasping for breath as I run the marathon of fancy job promises every day.
Every day my hypothesis of cracking a ‘good’ job changes based on the opinions I listen to everyday, sometimes asked and most of it unasked, one day it’s Acads, second it changes to extra currics and next it becomes the most glamorous term ‘knowledge’.
However what is a good job is the question unanswered till date.
There are different speculations like money defines it well or work is the factor but then there are people who look at ‘long term’ growth and there are people like me who just listen and plan ‘long term’ with an unknown short term.
In the crux I am confused of why I am here and what this great IIM dream is.

I don’t blame anyone for this confusion of mine but I do blame all collectively for doing this. Since the day I joined IIM I have heard to faculty, seniors of all categories like seniors with good committee, seniors with bad committee, seniors with good grades, seniors with bad grades and so on and I have heard my batch mates, all I can conclude is everybody believes in this dream and is proud to be a part of it.

Now coming to the point what is this great IIM dream?
Is it great job? Or is it great pay pack? Or is it learning? Or is it exposure?

I think it’s a package, of which the above factors are just a part. This dream is actually an obsession of achievement that seeps in the day one gets into an IIM, and two years here just add to it.

Faculty is glad to be teaching at IIM and is obsessed with the power they posses, holding the reigns of students future in totality. The completion of the degree is at their mercy, however what they can add to a student’s knowledge base is a question of research and a mortal soul like me should refrain to comment on that. They (faculty) are henceforth referred to as pedagogue.

Now the first category of students that’s the Seniors (of all kind), what are they obsessed with? They become seniors after surviving the onslaught of the pedagogue, you can visualize it as a ecosystem and darwin’s theory ‘survival of the fittest at work’. After all the factors like relative grading, out of syllabus exams, surprise quizzes and 80% attendance make the ecosystem quite hostile. Added to that they have survived the Disha sessions, CV making, Committee selections and a series of mentors successfully too. Well I think by the work surviving only I am understating their adaptation skills, they have adapted to the ecosystem and are passing it on to the other set that is ‘Juniors’. After the series of accomplishments I think CAT is the thing of past for this well adaptive species.

Juniors, the most naïve sect of this ecosystem called IIM, proud of cracking CAT, still talking of CAT percentiles and last organizations. This species is caught in the flood of dreams and look for a boat called mentorship to lift him up and save him. He will turn into a senior after adaptation. Again Darwin’s ‘Survival of the fittest’ at work!

All those who survive through this dream get the promised benefits but it’s a small interval before the next part of the struggle called job performance and targets get started.

Struggle never stops and never stops the adaptation.
Till then let’s keep struggling and let’s keep adapting.

Congrats for IIM dream!

Well…skipping the marriage series for a moment, I am jumping over to my experience at IIML as a new student.

Disclaimer: These are highly distorted facts about my first Sunday at IIML and any similarity with real events is a coincidence. (Though highly probable!!)

Before I start the narration, please read the following definition:

JTI: Juniors…The Ignorants: Students of this breed are dreamers, doomed with over enthusiasm and blessed with ignorance.

STBA: Seniors…The Benevolent Angels: This is a breed superior to JTIs, they are the experienced ones at helL and as a superior race they take the initiative (seriously than required) of pulling JTIs out of darkness. They mention time and again that they are not demons and are thus approachable (I don’t understand this place is called hell, isn’t it?? Still I should better trust them after all I am just a JTI !!!!)

IIML or IIM helL as people call it lovingly is an institute of post graduation but however
Somebody has nicknamed it wrongly I guess ‘coz in this place called hell, I see either angels or humans but no devils or demons.
A peculiar thing I noticed this Sunday was that even students take attendance of students at this place and this is treated as a fairly serious matter, what I mean is STBAs arrange for sessions always marked mandatory to educate the JTIs about anything and everything, at these sessions they call out the names of JTIs who respond by saying ‘Yes Sir’ (usually) to mark the attendance. Here I would also like to appreciate the patience both species show (atleast at par at something) ‘coz it takes 15 mins minimum.
So this Sunday was the education day devoted to different houses of IIM angels commonly named as committees. The key feature is that a mortal like me had no choice of being an atheist.
The session started with promisingly small preachings by different godheads but as it proceeded it became fairly clear to me that my Sunday was screwed.
As I sat there I couldn’t stop thinking about the missionaries sent to civilize people, who would convert people by all means and thus civilize them. As my thoughts started to engulf me after the lunchtime, the scenario around me started to change; the room was transformed into a decrepit compound full of strangely clad tribal, people had a feather cap on their head, wore very colorful frock like dresses and had a bhala in their hands; while their were some strange looking beings perhaps from some other planet, they wore white shiny clothes and had a wand and had wings, a few of them were flying across the room reprimanding the tribal over etiquettes and one of them was trying to communicate with the tribal. I scared of the scene decided to flee and thus rushed to the door, but I was spotted and one of them rushed towards me, I instinctively closed my eyes and begged forgiveness.
Next I opened my eyes I was still in the same room, spread out on my chair and my friend was waking me up ‘coz we were not allowed to sleep too.
The session took 9 hours of my idle life and gave me life saving information about the angelic houses, I believe there is hope for me too and I can also become an angel in helL.
STBAs rock!!

Amen!!!

Feb to June : A journey undertaken.

Long time since I wrote anything, my life has been moving too fast for last 3-4 months and a lot has changed in these months; I am now married and I am about to join an IIM.
The events of these months are pretty interesting and I think will make an interesting read.
I will be writing about these events in many blogs. This being the first one is introductory to the upcoming series.
I had 3 IIM calls and my interviews started on 1st of February with IIM lucknow. Life was simply awesome, my boy friend was transferred in my town, I had IIM calls and was leaving Infy. It was by February end, I came back from my second interview which was IIM Kozikhode that my parents started getting worried about my boy friend’s presence in my close proximity, So my mom came down to stay with for the month that was also my notice period to the company and it was the same month when me and mom started fighting my dad for my marriage to my BF.
Next in April I screwed up the IIM Bangalore interview, finished my notice period with my company and moved to jaipur where I was finally engaged (to my BF) towards the month end. It was the same month when my IIM results were delayed coz of reservation issue.
On first day of month I cleared IIML and IIMK and was married later in the month. This was the month of result, wedding, in-Laws, parties and honeymoon (I know you want details.).
Current month that is June is proving to be the month of enjoyment, last days of vacation and a short stint of housewife role.

This was in short the summary of my life of last few months. I will write in detail about all.