R.I.P Common Sense

Inspired from an Obituary printed in the London Times.....Adapted to India's reality !!

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, or which caste he belonged to, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape and the Babu in-charge demanded Rs. 500/- to retrieve it for us. 

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Ownership of cow depends on who holds the stick;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. You can get away with murder but get jailed for a harmless criticism on Facebook. In a hospital, the FORM comes first not the LIFE of the patient.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools charged more for teaching your child ABCD than what you spent for your entire education. 

Common Sense lost the will to live as religious institutions became businesses; and criminals like Ajmal Kasab was fed chicken biriyani while Tukaram Ombule's family wonders about their future.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from your own elected MP when he grabbed your land where you planning to build a dream house and worse face police action if you resisted.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live when astrologers linked your rape to everything under the sun like chow mien, your zodiac sign BUT not the sick mindset of the criminal or the non-existent law & order.

Common Sense was preceded in death,
-by his parents, Truth and Trust,
-by his wife, Discretion,
-by his daughter, Responsibility,
-and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers;
- I Know My Rights
- I Want It Now
- Someone Else Is To Blame
- I'm A Victim
- Pay me for Doing Nothing

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing

Execution: The Differentiator

"Strategy is now an commodity. The Difference between organizations if now Execution" ~ D ShivKumar (approx words NOT verbatim)

As you may or may not be aware, PepsiCo got a new CEO 30 weeks back in D Shivkumar. In one of my privileged interactions with him, he was stressing on the importance of execution and why strategy's importance is increasingly getting diminished.

Its something we all intrinsically realize at a sub conscious level that a good strategy + Bad execution < Bad strategy + Good execution. In the latter you can course correct and always win big. In the former you are always doomed unless your competition does worse. 

So what is Execution? It has several definitions but the one I believe most strongly is that "Execution is the art of getting done what you wanted, right the first time".

Here is OPERATIONALLY what I feel you need to get right to get Execution right:

• Strategy needs to thorough. It needs to consider the entire journey upto the last mile.
• It needs to be absolutely clear to the last pair of hands which are going to execute your strategy
• It should be measurable and track-able by the last pair of hands
• There is should NOT be any scope for simplification/data processing for the last pair of hands. It should be as simple as print the page and do it.
• Execution guidelines, driven by 'Executer' insights, should suggest/recommend the path of least habit change. Otherwise energy will be spent in trying to change the habits rather than Execution.

However CULTURALLY we need to ensure that the last pair of hands don't try to play the role of a strategist. Once the strategy is set by the Strategy guys and translated into Field execution guidelines by the middle managers, others need to go DO IT and not 'plan' further. So discipline is something that can make and break your Execution.

All this is easier said than done. But how often are you paid well for doing something easy?

 

                              

SmackD's nuska to revive Indian Grand Prix

Recently its been all over the news that F1's journey in India would come to an abrupt end. I have been expecting this from the first time I saw Indian Grand Prix on TV. It was missing the essential Indian tadka to the entire F1 experience - Potholes !

 

Driving on Indian roads presents a unique unsurpassable adventure, only because some kind soul put the effort to bribe somebody and use sub-standard materials while constructing the road. No, this is no sarcastic remark. Once you have adjusted to the idea of potholes, the whole thing suddenly metamorphoses into a game.

 

If you ever had the pleasure in navigating through series of one-ways in Bangalore, you would realize that we have potholes for all walks of talented people. There is surely a underground cult working on creating, developing and executing potholes. This group works within the larger framework of extreme sports enthusiasts. But lest you think otherwise, this cult is not for Champus. Only the very best potheads get to work in it.

 

 

Below I present a handful of the many gems that Bangalore can offer F1 drivers:

• 'Chameli' the temptress : First on the list is the easy to create and innocuous looking, but very naughty, pothole. It is found bang center of the road and takes by surprise anyone new to the road. There is no way you can miss it unless you knew about its existence and changed lanes well in time. The formula is - create a pothole with Diameter > Width of the widest production car and with lesser space on its sides than the width of the narrowest production car. Veterans NEED to be respected and this pothole gets you loads of respect from the rookie. Also, given the impossibility of missing it once you enter Chameli’s suction zone (like a black hole), this is also a great way of punishing the incorrigible honker. The idea is simple – keep the honker on your tail and have him getting so hot in the head that he is ready to carve a sunroof in his car. Then just before you enter the suction zone, sidestep into the slow lane and give the ‘please pass me’ sign. The honker, senseless with rage, will finally see victory and rush to fill the gap created by you; flooring the accelerator until he realises the trap. Too late. Chameli gives him a nice rap on the knuckle. To add insult to injury, if you are the violent types, look into the honker’s eyes (he will be looking at you) and smile as you cut back into the fast lane while he is still in the pothole. Justice delivered.

• 'Masterji' the teacher: Here you have two potholes so placed that the only way to avoid them is to put your tyre in the space between them. And the space between them is always equal to one tyre width (tread arc width for the technically inclined). For newbies this pothole is great fun. Because of the opportunity to learn steering precision control without too much punishment. The more your tyre overlaps the space, the less you get 'caned' the pothole. A perfect fit means you cheated the pothole of all its poison. It is not uncommon to see drivers pump their fists in jubilation when they do a perfect score on 'Masterji'. Now where in the world other than India do you get that kind of fun?
 
• 'Langda Tyagi': This is the next level. Same as above, only that you cannot drive straight through the gap zone (gap refers to parts where the road exists!). Once you reach the periphery of the first pothole you need to swerve just enough to keep the tyre on the road and yet avoid one of your tyres (usually rear) entering the next pothole. Great fun! Who cares what happens to traffic on the other side? Maybe you just drove an old uncle into the pavement or worse, killed his chance of winning his own pothole battle. Don’t you fret one bit. Everyone’s a student on Indian roads because the potholes keep changing shape, size, location and number. I tell you, our roads department knew about road games before the word got coined. Are Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft listening?
 
• 'Langda Tyagi Tritiya': Derived from 'Langda Tyagi' but then you have three potholes and have to swerve twice to keep your car from getting dunked. Unless you are an expert on 'Langda Tyagi', do not try this. Novices tend to overestimate their skills and jump into the Salsa action. Only to find their skills not matching the challenge and end up in one big mess at the third pothole (which is almost always the largest and deepest of all three). They either have to take their car to a garage or worse, take another road occupant to the hospital.
 

If you have mastered the above three types, welcome to the club of ‘Khadda Raja'. Members of this club can put any one front tyre into any possible line. Even if most of them failed their colouring lessons in school because they could not keep the crayon inside the line. Infact most of them have failed art classes.

 
• 'Chammak Challo' : A deadly variation of above types but with the potholes spaced at distances less than the car wheelbase. Now when you swerve to keep your front tyre on the road, unless you keep within tolerance, your rear tyre will enter the pothole the front tyre just escaped. Not many 'Khadda Rajas' realize the exponential challenge this represents until they have failed a couple of times. Power steering comes in handy here. And you really have to know how not to give a damn to other people right to the road. Basically, the rear end of your vehicle will twist such that Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie will look like an American cowboy practice session.
 

Remember all this pothole fun is possible only when you have 4 lane roads with a divider to physically separate traffic into two opposite directions. In other words, potholes are signs of our growing infrastructure and justify our demand for a seat in the UN Security Council. Also, I wonder why we still do not have temples to pay homage to our roadies. Especially when they are responsible for so many people getting close, real close, to God.

 

Non-Indians will never understand how vital these potholes are to upholding democracy in India. Like when they decided to level all roads in the locality I live. It was mayhem on the roads. People accustomed to potholes went berserk, and started seeing imaginary potholes and drove their vehicle into the pavement, lamppost and what-not. A vote was held and people turned out in large numbers to vote for moonscape roads. The road department relented and came up with a new pothole plan. That has kept people busy and away from their frightening selves.

 

So, while the Schumachers of this world were learning to tie their shoelaces, Srivastavs of this world were negotiating potholes at the speed of scooter.

 

I hope to have brought some respect to our potholes and help you realise they are works of art. Feel free to let me know if you have more pothole types or pictures to add.

SmackD style Solutioning

One of the problems of being extremely professional is that your verbatim gets so verbose and jingoist - its almost like you are the Oxford dictionary of jargons for your industry. This is my humble attempt to codify this corporate epidemic. 

Before I download this blog to you, I hope you’re up for some alignment – my two cents on the phrases we overuse and abuse. I have no doubt that you have the bandwidth to process it.

There was a time in my adolescence when somebody's professional language brightened my day. But at EOD there is only so much I can do FYI and hope it inspires some n/a from your end. There’s only so much Knowledge Transfer one can enjoy. Needless to say, this calls for a paradigm shift. Going forward, we need an action plan to revisit these phrases and downsize them. Once all this gets frozen we need to close all loops.

From my point of view, you will have to be a bit proactive and push the envelope. Perhaps you should start thinking outside the box. But on second thoughts just double check whatever value add you think you might be doing. Maybe for a differentiated outlook, you need to be disruptive and the benchmark practice is to realign your priorities and stay inside the box. 

Let me help drive clarity – originality is No child's play. If it was, it would have been on X-Box on Playstation or Lego. At this point, we need to remain goal-oriented and result-focused. For now, I’m even willing to pretend the two are not redundant. If you leverage your skill-set smartly, you could actually come up with a synergistic solution to every problem. And thats why, if we ever find ourselves on the same page, you could bookmark it.

While we are at it, there’s another thing we need to transition into – we need to stop verbing nouns. Especially nouns which don’t exist. For instance, you do not incent people or punt on them. You pay them. It’s extremely annoying. Let me translation that for you – it really annoyances me.

You could use any method you deem fit and deploy buy your horses for diploma courses strategy. You could parachute in with fellow managers, do some blue sky thinking, or even resort to old-fashioned brainstorming. Statutory warning: The lattermost might require a brain. 

I do recommend thought showers, however. It might send right signals to our web partners that nothing they ever do has anything to do with the real sense of the term.

I’m certain by now you might have noticed how incoherent I’ve been sounding. Well, that’s how you sound 24/7. Don’t think any more. Just go ahead and pull the trigger. Else I will. The aftermath could be discussed during post-mortem.

We’ll touch base soon for a performance & development review - where I look forward to your developmental inputs. If you have anything further to add to this, lets take it offline.

(Credits: to some like-minded quotes from the net)

Truth, Lies & Everything in between !

We are always told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail, he can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but years later, an idea can still change the world. Ideas are very powerful, people kill in the name of them, and die defending them. I strongly believe in Ideas I think it can bring more change than other any thing in this world.

I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition though we keep humoring ourselves with mantras and chants for 'Change'. I enjoy them as much as any other human being. While the bullets/bombs may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this world, isn't it? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where you have the illusion of the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit but the truth is you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing our compliance in the name of being a "law-abiding citizen" couples with the fear of punishment and soliciting our lame submission to a corrupt group of people empowered by a hapless set of laws. I hope to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.

You may begin to wonder - How did this happen? Who's to blame? But again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

Isn't it obvious why we chose to do it? Fear, Insecurity ! Who wouldn't be? Riots, Terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt our reason and rob us of our common sense. Fear got the best of us, and in our panic we turned to politicians, diplomats and babus. They promised us order, they promised us peace, and all they demanded in return was our silent, obedient consent.

Why do we need order? Cant we have a unregulated world? Why so many laws that keeps the innocent in check and the outlaws free? Chaos sounds scary but believe me its a paradise compared to what we are submitting ourselves to today. People with vested interests would like you to believe otherwise. Think of it for a moment :: did we always have laws, democracy? Wasnt life peaceful then?

So if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, the rest, as they say, is history!

(** Adapted from "V for Vendetta" because it was apt and so fits today's scenario)

Bangalore Weekender

Bangalore features as "Best place to Live" in every possible ranking in the world. If you took the base Excel sheets made by those journos and chose to un-hide Rows between the title and number one ranked city you'll find Bangalore in there.

Let me take you through a typical weekend trip to a movie and dinner and you'll probably quit your job, sell off your family properties, board the next flight and come to Bangalore.

1. Autowalas

In geometry my teacher taught me that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. What he forgot to add was that the longest distance between any two points is what a Bangalore Autowala will show you. And to add salt to injury after they take you round and round the city, they round off the fare to the next multiple to 10 !

Imagine a Mahabharat-era setting, you the noble prince command your sarathi to take you to the nearing kingdom and he tells you "Meter se Rs. 20 extra lagega" ! Guaranteed WTF.

They follow a very flexible timing policy. The One and half starts hours before the actual stipulated time and end hours after the actual stipulated time.

2. Unique riding experience

Bangalore offers a riding experience like no other city. They offer the best of all worlds - Mumbai's refreshing congestion, Delhi's musical expletives, Kolkata's magic dust and rural India's energizing potholes.

Those potholes especially are legendary. They are inspired from the ruins of Babylon. The future vision is to host bungee jumping at the 2020 Olympics when wrestling gets the boot. People don't have to travel to far off lands burning hard-earned cash for it. The reason why BMC hasn't approved flying cars in Banaglore is because they haven't figured out how to introduce potholes in the sky.

The roads around Bangalore were probably designed by one of the guys laid off by a Supermarket. It makes you go through unnecessary areas through a careful and well-designed series of one-ways or prohibited turns.

3. Multiplexes

Pirates of the modern era. They use three absolutely convenient slabs for Ticket prices - 'Goodbye Salary', 'Hello highway robbery' and 'Time to sell my Kidney'.

And then they take a deposit for the 3D glasses inconveniencing everyone for change. I mean what good is their security for if people can easily escape the cinemas without returning the glasses. Its equivalent to a fine-dining restaurant taking deposit from you for eating in their cutlery.

For their in-cinema meals rather than putting up all of those MRPs they can simple point a gun and ask the consumer to handover all that he has got. 180 bucks for a burger ! Is Gold dust used for seasoning? And making a bucket load of margin on something as essential as water is plain cruelty.

To top it off they bombard you with so many commercials you need a Interval between commercials and not between the the actual Movie. Maybe someday I have to pay for the commercials and the movie will be free.

4. Restaurants

If the multiplexes didn't cavity search you and take all you got then the Restaurants will. They insist on Reservations even if you were the last two people on the planet. Gone are the days when you could walk into a restaurant. Now it looks the Doctor's office where everybody has an appointment and are waiting their turns.

If they want to fleece you, all they have do is add some designer cut carrots and some beans along with potato mash to a regular meal. From a two digit price menu it got transformed to three digit and four digit price menu.

Well that's only the tip of the iceberg. Now I pay more in taxes than for the blessed meal itself. And who the hell invented Service charge? Have the waiters stopped getting salaries and now live off this Service charge ? Is there a self-service option?

Imagine one goes through all this and the higher mortals still ask why are there two Bharats !  

Keep it Simple Dude !

Human beings pride on bring the smartest beings on the planet though history will time and again prove that our 'smartness' has done more damage than good to mother nature.

In Bangalore the law mandates for stores NOT to provide free plastic bags. Now we have to pay from Rs. 1 to Rs. 5 depending on size for a plastic bag or bring our own.  At first sight it seems like a good move. Junta will stop treating plastic like free stuff and use it with a bit more responsibility and make mother nature stronger in its big fight to survive human onslaught.

But like all human moves this too has a catch - not visible to the naked eye when viewed in isloation. Now let me to put  this move in context to my trips to the local supermarket store Aushan (pronounced O-Shan). 

First thing, the very first thing, after I walk into the store I realize that I didn't bring my reusable bags (again!). This makes me feel like a dumbo !

Then I start looking for milk, only to discover that some genius in the store thinks that milk should be placed in over a number of different locations throughout the store. You have your regular milk here, your tetrapack milk there, your slim milk somewhere else, and so on. There is no logic that I could conjure up to justify this. Five minutes into my shopping, I am filled with rage and I feel manipulated. I assume someone at Aushan's marketing department decided that inconveniencing me would somehow make me buy more shit because I end up walking down every goddamn aisle in the store looking for milk. It's not the inconvenience that bugs me so much as the feeling of manipulation. After-all I am an MBA-Engineer, if anything I should be manipulating others and not the other way around.

After this I look for the shortest checkout line. The 10 Items or Less line looks good, but I'm never confident in how they do that calculation. Is a '3 pack bundle' one item or three? What about multiples of the same product for which only one needs to be scanned and the cashier can just punch the exact number in the qty column of his billing software? Will the lady behind me feel I just cheated? Will the cashier give me a disgusted look and mentally abuse me? Will he kick me out of the line ? What exactly is the process for dealing with junta who cheat in 10 items of Less lines? 

I can't stand the ambiguity or do I want to risk humiliation at the hands of the cashier so I head for the regular checkout stand and its a longer line. When it's my turn to pay I am faced with the choice of proving I have a loyalty card or paying a penalty if I can't. I don't carry loyalty cards with me because I would need a thela for all of them. The cashier asks me for the phone number the card is registered against. But which phone number was it? Its registered in my wife's name but with our last few years being extremely nomadic I can't remember where and what number she might have used while registering. After a couple of futile and embarrassing attempts I give up. The people behind me have deployed their angry glares at me and my time-wasting hesitation, or at least it feels that way. 

Now I have to decide on Cash vs. Debit vs. Credit. I choose credit because one of my MBA Profs told me that ultimately CASH is reality so I delay parting ways with this cash I surely have. Plus the added rider of my PAYBACK points associated with the credit card, which is another mindfuck of complexity. I get mad just thinking about my points.

Now the cashier asks if I want to donate a Rupee to some worthwhile charity. I approve of the charity, but it pisses me off that they ask me in this particular situation. It's manipulative. I JUST WANT MY DAMN MILK !!!!

Now I have to mentally figure my way out of the plastic bags situation. Cannot carry it in my hands because I have too many items. HOW ?? Because in my search for MILK I stumbled upon Mordor and Middle Earth and I ended up buying stuff I didn't even know I needed. It only got worse as I got hungrier and hungrier over the course of my milk safari. Damn you, Aushan marketing department! Damn you!

The cashier asks, as law requires, whether I want to pay 2 bucks for the plastic bag. I would happily pay the 2 bucks if the cost were factored into the total price, but something about being asked in front of witnesses makes it feel wrong. And I know that if I do buy the bag I will be destroying the planet for future generations. I will feel guilty buying it, guilty taking it into my home, and guilty recycling it later. 

By the time I reach my home I feel frustrated, angry, guilty, stupid, incompetent, belittled, weak, humiliated, ripped off, and inconvenienced. The feeling lasts until my wife says, "That's the wrong milk." That feeling pretty much replaces all the other ones.

My point is that the new plastic bag law is entirely reasonable when viewed in isolation. But we don't live in a highly interconnected world where nothing can exist in isolation. Remember "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. Aushan and BMC have made the buying Milk so complicated that I'd rather directly milk the cow standing behind the store than endure the pain of shopping inside the store. 

This is an interesting issue because every business decision that causes inconvenience for customers is viewed in isolation. When you take that perspective, eventually the entire process becomes so complicated it is barely competitive with milking the cow.

So the need of the hour is to see things from start to finish. The first complication usually doesn't cause much problem. The tenth complication - no matter how well-meaning - destroys the system. 

Being a part of the FMCG industry where lots of people are trying to solve lots of problems to unlock Sales growth. The reason why most of them haven't accomplished anything is because they over-complicate things trying to cover too many bases. Also they think of solutions from their perspective and NOT from the one facing the problem. The ones who use the problem-facer's perspective are the ones that come up with simple solutions and achieve success and fame.

But here's my real problem with this whole issue. You see, brains are like muscles. They can take only take a limited load. If you lift too many heavy objects, your muscles will tire. Likewise, if you use up all of your brain cycles on nonsense, you have nothing left for the important things in life. 

On a serious note, there is a hidden cost of complexity. Every minute you spend trying to find milk, and trying to pay for it without getting mob-bashed, is time you aren't thinking about solutions to real problems. If this seems like no big deal, you might be wrong. What happens to a world-class engineer or entrepreneur when he or she has to siphon off more brain energy to satisfying Aushan's marketing strategy instead of designing new products? Now multiply that times a hundred because every retailer, website, and business is trying to complicate your life too. Right ?

Creative inputs for Zucky

I feel its been quite sometime since Zuckerberg & Co. have come out with a 'pathbreaking' feature on Facebook. And since the global mantra for quite sometime now has been on localization to reach deeper I thought Zucky could use some of my selfless creative inputs to spice Facebook up for us.

Politicians

To be able to be politically correct always they need a few buttons - "Outside Support Like", "Secular Like", "Liking only to keep communal forces out", "Anticipatory Like" and instead of "Poke" they can have "Vandalize" and instead of "Liking" Pages they should be able to "Defect" to pages. Also instead of educational and work qualifications they should allow them to post Scams and their respective amounts to their profile.

Consultants

They should be able to "Consultize" - where a normal sentence will be converted into so much sophistication that even Oxford dictionary would start shitting bricks to make sense.

For e.g. "Things will never be the same again" would consultize to "History has to be regarded as a chaotic formation, in which acceleration puts an end to linearity and the turbulence created by acceleration deflects history definitively from its end." 

MBAs

In addition to "Like" and "Comment" they should also have a "It Depends" button

Dilli junta

They should have a "Tu jaanta hai main kaun hoon" button

Bangaloreans

They should have a Chill Macha/Chill Maadi button.

Punjabis

Since Punjabis love "Big" in whatever they do, FB should have a "Patiala Like" button. Also all status updates after 9pm should automatically get converted to English.

Gujjus

"Pages you may like" recommendations should be based on American demographics and preferences. Instead of "Sushant Patel and 9 friends Like this" it should be "Greg Stevens and 100 Americans like this"

Bengalis

They should have a "Udi Baba" button and "Pages you might Bhalo bashi"

Stock Brokers

Instead of "Like" and "Comment" they should be able to "Buy" and "Sell"

Fundamentalist feature

Facebook should not let you change your relationship status more than 3 times. After that it should change your status to "Unstable", "Loose" or "Corrupted by Western Culture"

In-built therapist

Smacking News

Likely headlines in newspapers tomorrow after 2-1 loss to Pakistan cricket team

• Runs are scored in Bharat, only wickets fall in India : RSS supremo

• The gangrape happened because of the Bihari captain : MNS supremo

• India lost cricket matches due to eating chowmein : Khaps

• Cricketers should know their maryada (limit), if they get out of the crease they will get run out / stumped : BJP minister

• If they have would scored less than 75 runs I would have taken match fixing allegations seriously : Beni Prasad Verma

• Theek hai ? : Manmohan Singh

• Those who are playing in the name of cricketers in the series, they are bhalo chele, highly dented and painted : Abhijeet Mukherjee

• It is a political conspiracy by Maoists against my government: Mamata Di

                                   

• Even the PM did not know that we had lost the series, he came to know it from the news : Home Minister

Rajnikant @ ISB

If Rajni were at ISB:

1. Elective courses would bid for Rajni

2. Kellogg & Wharton would come to Rajni on a exchange

3. Professors would get marks for RP (Rajni Participation)

4. On ISB day, Rajni would dunk the pool

5. Coffee vending machine would throw out Rs. 5 coin to serve coffee to Rajni

6. Rajni would shortlist companies and interview them during placements

7. Cases would study Rajni before class

8. Rajat Gupta would get the Rajni All-rounder award

9. Rajni would adopt 4 Aikya families

10. Rajni would be the 6th force in Porter's framework

The Weekend before the holocaust (The M-files)

Waking up on a Saturday morning is always special. Its weekend time ! But waking up this Saturday was different. The tension in the air was so thick that you could actually cut it with a knife. In fact I saw Neha Chaturvedi doing that early in the morning. She said something to Aviral, which as per conventions of marital conversations was not to be agreed upon unless they had a good argument about it. Later I heard that Neha wanted to hire a maid for cutting this tension in the air. So as happens in all events of Marital importance Aviral had to bow down to Neha. Backstage reports suggest a foreign hand in all this - specifically a hand from Chicago. Most likely the dreaded "Maggi" couple Arpit / Pankhti were behind all this.

I sat and wondered what it was. Was a holocaust predicted ? Everybody in campus seemed to behave as if there was no life after this weekend. Some people had packed and left for nearby places the evening before. For all I know that our CORE terms start after this weekend. Was this a deliberate ploy to simply hype things up so that we could show off to the outside world that we were in a rigorous One-year MBA progarm or was it actually going to be that way ? Only time has the answers. ISB junta's reaction was to advertise the hype using Facebook status messages.  

Mr. Diet Coke Keshto woke up today morning on the wrong side of the bed. He suddenly started feeling sick. Partly because he realised that his life was moving too fast and his hormones were moving faster. He got so nervous about statistics that he forgot his own vital statistics.  So he decided to give "Section - A" meet a miss. But at the breakfast table he had a heart transplant and decided to attend the "Lights and Sound" show at Golconda. I scanned through his breakfast and found nothing that could have triggered such irrational decision. Maybe the beautiful ambience of Goel did this to him. By the way I handed him a awesome Stats book just to calm down any nerves. 

Mr. Jiggy Shah probably dreamt about all this. So to cheer Mr. D.C. Keshto he wore a light pink shirt and bermuda garnished by a Nike cap. That reminded Mr. Zorro of his days in the Mexican prisons where they used to play Pinata wherein the Pony would be dressed in pink. If that didnt cheer Mr. DCK, even a hair transplant wouldnt. By evening Mr. DCK decided to transform as he had to go out to the section meet. He hit the gym, built some solid muscles even on his nose. He was now Rambo. Soon he headed to his room and took out Chopsticks. Chopsticks ?? To comb his hair. He was now truly Mr. Chopstick Rambo ! If he stands for any election, we all know what his symbol will be.

Since we didnt want to take chances with the Holocaust prediction we had planned to step out late in the night for a midnight buffet to OHRIS.  Mr. Restless was in his full spirits even before he had gulped down a single drop of spirit. He wanted to 'fly' on his bike. You tend get that feeling once you cant thrash other people's Facebook walls enough. To compensate for the shortfall in the virtual space, he was trying to make it up by talking trash on the streets. 

Mr. Zorro was feeling the Latino heat so started driving real fast on his bike. Ms. Nimbu Paani had to constantly stretch out her hand to create some Aerodynamic resistance and reduce the speed of the bike.  Sir Punter Pandey was thoroughly enjoying his bike ride, so did his pillion rider Mr. Vibhor. At one point they bonded so well that they were doing "Yeh dosti" (Sholay) steps on their bike. After their superlative performance you can now call the song "Yeh Dostana". Mr. Vijay Ramakrishnan decided to be the Mr. TwentyTun for the night but our Daroga Chacha in Khadi uniform did not seem to be appreciative of it. So they fined him Rs. 200 /-

Soon we were at the OHRIS. But the place was full and we were hungry so we decided to get into the buffet and eat standing. Mr. Nitin Vishwas and I didnt even bother taking the plates. We started to sample stright out of the buffet stand using just our forks. Mr. Rangeen, however, didnt have anything as OHRIS did not have anything "Namkeen" for this "Shaukeen". He also faced some serious issues with the manager who tried to woo Mr. Rangeen with a bowl of vegetable biryani. And there was no Hari Manjari aka Beero (Beer + Paro) to save him from another Vaishi Dareenda ! So stepped in the Ace photographer Nitin. Mr. Nitin Vishwas had his Value engineered L&T Cranes come and pick up the manager and put him in the thrash box. Mr. Rangeen had been saved again ! Nitin Vishwas's trip to the toilet had enlightened him as to what to expect in this place.

Mr. Punter Pandey was sensing that some Gabbar Singh was at work at OHRIS and would have put some Jhulab ki Goli in his food. This was why he was thinking thrice before every morsel that he ate (which included smelling the dish). Vibhor could see only Rajnikant ice-creams (a hyper-tall slabs of ice-cream with all sorts of flavours).  He told the waiter "Enna Rascala, I having the spoon ! Do you having the ice-cream? If nobody cant ... Vibhorkant " Looking at the ambience, Niranjan thought he was at McDonalds, Sydney. So he started ordering Aussie dishes ! But all he got was blank stares and puzzled looks. We also came to know how YouTube has the cool and funny videos of common people. We got a live demo from Sreejita who used her charm over the staff there. They were dazed and feeling drunk (because Sree ke aankhon mein tha nasha). Its only when you are dazed or drunk you do really funny (read stupid) stuff. 

Shouvik didnt speak much as he constantly had his mouth stuffed with a different kind of Biryani every 5 minutes. Anyways since he couldnt manage the 'diversity' that he so badly needed, he kept his mouth shut lest he attract any undue comments / taunts from the "Diversity-starved". Chote Sarkar, we now know what your next poem is likely to be. A sample extract will read as:

Mr. Restless to the left. Mr. Vishwas to the right

Yesterday I missed the ladies, Today I am gonna fight.

Soon we wound up. The people in the Chaturvedi Benz thought that this was the golden opportunity to get rid of Mr. Restless as well as me in one go since both of us were on the same bike and didnt know the way back. But their strategy had a loophole. They didnt count on Mr. Punter Pandey & Mr. Vibhor also getting lost and managing to find us. What luck ! So all of us managed to return back to the Campus. Nature's law buddy : Garbage Out, Garbage In !

Section Gyan (The M-files)

579 people cannot be taught together under the same roof unless ofcourse you want a parallel Parliament. Since ISB comes across to me as a peace-loving institute they have divided us into 8 sections lettered from "A" to "H". I was put in B.

 

Human beings like fighting for their identity and like to fight others for establishing the supremacy of their identity. So to spice up the life at ISB each section tries to create a identity of its own : Section Chants, Mascots etc. To establish their supremacy they have Section Points. In short its a adrenaline junkie's paradise. And things get only better if you have 579 capable and enthusiastic junta.  

We also had a Section Gyan session by the Alums. To break the ice we had a intro session where we need to give our name, an adjective & wackiest incident. A lot of interesting introductions came out the session. We had a Mr. XYZ who introduced himself as "The Game" XYZ but ended up pronouncing it as "The Gay" XYZ. When you do that in front of 75 smart people, you are bound to get smart-alec jokes. But he only compunded his misery when he narrated his wackiest incident wherein he had hit on a 'cute' Sardar. Before he could further dig his grave he was made to sit down. We also had Ms. McKakesy who has the talent to cut any given cake into numerous equal pieces. Adding colour to the whole introduction we also had Mr. Rangeen doing it his style. He was also courteous enough to acknowledge my role in publicizing his "Rangeen" lifestyle. Lady M keeping in tune with her mysterious ways revealed that she got her Espionage training by swimming in the gutter. Similarly there was one more lady who narrated her Dharavi experience where she earned her first fifty bucks after which she saw a lucrative career in that but lacked an MBA degree to pursue it. The stories are endless.

Section Chants hardly took any time. After some initial resistance, we decided to stick to our legacy Chant "B de patte, Chak de fatte !" which we felt was growing on us by the minute. We ended the session by cutting the cake in advance celebrations of a chap's birthday. Ms. McKakesy did the honours by cutting the cakes into equal pieces after our poor chap had it smeared on his face. We ended the session by chanting the legacy chant. And alums were graceful enough to remind us about the ego behind the section points.

The other section chants were as follows:

1. A - Aala re aala 'A' aala (Aala in Marathi is coming but they have no clue as to where they are even going)

2. C - Sec C (pronounces Sexy) - and thats not cliche ?

3. D - Go D Go D (but specify where to )

4. E - Rock E (they love dogs ! Rocky, Moti etc etc )

5. F - 4-3-2-1 Section F is number one (most innovative one)

6. G - Eh G oh G , here we go ji (again a confused aatma ki pukaar)

7. H - H H Hurray !! (Their mamma's must be proud of them)

The war for Section Points was on ! 

'O'-Week : Treasure Hunt and Party no. 1 (The M-files)

April 12th

Today was Day 1 of what History would remember as an endless week. We had been divided on Sectional lines and to ensure that there was no dearth in motivation we were enticed by the whole notion of Section points. 

The first half of the day was full of powerpoint presentations by whole lot of people. For people like me who are not used to sitting at one place for long, this was a welcome practice session. Also I also saw a practical demonstration of all possible CPs. One of them was so shitty that people gave him a standing ovation at the end of it. I now propose that we put up the following sign outside every lecture theatre.

Post-Lunch session we had the treasure hunt. I got to meet my study group which needless to say consisted of diversity - a ISB hallmark. We had a CA from World bank, Science honours graduate working in Sales & Marketing at HUL & an Engineer from Tata Bluescope Steel. The fifth member of the group was missing. But I am sure he would only add diversity.

Well the CA and me got along well and made a awesome plan. Basically I would spare him the PJs and he would in turn help me take over the world. How ? Well he works in the loan disbursement department and for those of you who had your Introductory Accounting class would know Survival = Cash and for nations across the world Cash = World Bank loan money. So by controlling loans I will indirectly have control over these hapless nations. Tips learnt from UBI should be helpful I guess ! 

Soon we were joined by the corresponding A - Batch. Of them Nikhil seemed to be very eager as he had some serious Karma to wash off for the pandemonium he caused on Pagal guy with his Doc Update theory. He stood on his head for quite sometime hoping that the blood gushing down to his head would wash off the memories. Diganta seemed to be real thirsty as he gulped down that big bottle of Kingfisher Beer at one of the tasks in one shot. No wonder he completed all the other tasks in high spirits. I guess Manas was hoping that he atleast share a sip. Atleast being a CA he had accounted for it. Pallavi was worried that this would really affect her daily scheduled wine-tasting sessions and that the beer would spoil the taste. Aastha Bajaj spent the entire treasure hunt wishing she was connected to the Bajajs' of Bajaj Auto which would have helped us commute from one corner of the campus to another faster and will less fatigue. Vishakha knew quite a few things around the campus thanks to her husband who showed her all the possible hideouts just in case we got attacked by the Nazis. Preeti was so fed up of me that she went off with my T-shirt after I got dunked in the pool. I walked topless from the Recreation centre to my SV showing off my 6-in-1 pack abs and natural biceps. One of the women who was probably enjoying her evening walk (till then) puked too.

The Treasure hunt also saw the birth of ISB's very own Michelle Schumacherni in rather unfortunate circumstances though. Others watched in daze while the Local ferrari vroomed around the campus. To add the nitro boost, most people seemed more interested in the Ferrari than the injured driver. 

After I reached my SV I quickly took a refreshing shower and headed to Aviral's plush flat (disguised as a studio apartment) where we were blessed with the presence of quite a few people. Niranjan - the youngest refree in a Olympic final - told us that he took to refreeing as he wanted officiate women's beach volleyballs and apply sun tan on the players. But the governing body tricked him into the Olympics. Mr. Natwark Lal aka Shishir shared with us that adding 300 ml of water to 100 ml of Orange juice and then having a biscuit dipped in it really enhances Restlessness. Jay decided to act like those toys which did something when you pulled on a string. So whenever someone pulled his leg, he would simply laugh. After seeing the relentless slaughter around her, Saroni quickly figured out the best possible strategy was stay put and stay quiet. Ashwin had shared on numerous times that he wanted to do different things on the campus but the only different thing he did in the evening was to switch from Diet Coke to Appy Fizz. Soon we headed to the party.

There was a queue here too - this time at the Booze counter but guess who beat the queue and was there before anybody else - Resltess Fish. Later that evening even I went to the Bartender and asked him for a Coke - Large and 'On the Rocks' which would explain why he didnt serve me again the entire evening. Later I caught hold of another bartender and asked him for a Large Coke which I had Neat. Pankaj Poddar couldnt see all this, he so wished that he went blind before he could even see any of this. I guess fortune only favours the brave and not the comedians. There were lot of people on the dance party. At one point there were so many people on the dance floor that I could hear "Sorry" more than the music. Whoever shaked a leg or waved his hand hit about 4 people (atleast). I feel sorry for those who got hit below the belt. But that didnt down the spirits. Blow after blow people were up, dancing more intense than ever. By about 4.30 am quite a significant number of people left before the sunrise caught and burnt them. A few people like me were up for the challenge though. We wanted to beat the 6.30 am record mark made by Co2009.

We danced but the DJ packed up by 6am just after sunrise. But we were 6 of us who were giving company to each other. First we had the extremely talented (and drunk) Adarsh demonstrating his awesome singing talent. By the time he was done it was 6.20am and now people were beginning to feel sleepy. But I saved the morning by chipping with a few PJs which knocked the sleep out of  Bharadwaj R, Nikethana & Preeti Sood. I am sure they would have nightmares when they would have caught up with sleep. Shishir was too seasoned and too drunk for the PJs to hit him. He was extremely determined to beat the 6.30am mark. And when we crossed it he messaged Jacob (Alum - Co2009) that the record was now beaten. We finally split at 7am. Later we came to know that there were section points for being the Last Man standing. So hurray ! I had just got the opening points for my Section viz. B. 

There were ample number of indicators to tell everyone that year ahead was going to one hell of a roller coaster ride ! So are you ready to begin ?