Random

Nothing is going as you planned. Forget about the plan, everything is going exactly the opposite you wanted them to be heading. Nothing you do seems to be an iota of help. Friends, family and relatives none seem to be capable of offering any help. Every second that ticks by seems like a day long of agony. Every face you see seems like the devil himself. Is this life, you wonder, then I better be dead. And while introspecting in the night, you fall asleep, waking up to another day welcoming you to even more misery and pain.

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What to do? Once my friend asked me this , and then, a learned being that he was, he answered it himself.

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Cook a pot in the morning, morning after morning.

Take a nap in the afty, afty after afty.

Pour a drink every night, night after night.

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Until it passes away.

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P.S. I have to admit this is the crappiest post I have ever made, and will make in forseeable future. Still. it might appeal to a few people out there with, let's put it this way, a different sense of humor. So lets learn and put up with such stuff every once and a while.

The not-so-terrorist Killings...

Recently, several bomb explosions rocked the cities of Bangalore and Ahmadabad, while many others were prevented in the city of Surat, thanks to faulty circuit design and vigilant public. While casualties were in single digit in Bangalore, over 40 were killed in Ahmadabad. These incidents were covered in ample detail by the media for several days, and the government quickly blamed terrorist groups for disturbing social peace and playing with human life.

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The stampede in Naina Devi killed 145 pilgrims. It was a headline yesterday, today it figured somewhere in the backpages of national dailies. The government announced a relief package and a magistrate level probe. Everything is seemingly back to business now.

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Why am I writing this? Does anyone else see a parallel?

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Casualties caused by civil neglect have been much higher than those caused by terrorist acts. Still, it's the latter which catches all the attention, and whatever remedial efforts GoI actually undertakes. How much of common sense does it take to ensure proper systems around key pilgrimages, especially the high-altitude ones? I remember something similar happening in a rally organised by Miss Mayawati years back, we never seem to learn.

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Naina Devi episode is not the first in the list, and sadly won't be the last. Still, we would be more concerned about the terrorist acts perpetuated by forces from across the border over which we do not have a direct control, when perfect ingredients of equally horrible tragedies are already there within our borders, something which GoI should (and could) have addressed long back.

Heads and Tails

IIMB, as is the case with several other colleges, has a small, 24 hours canteen called Athikas, where one can go get tea and some other eatables as sandwitches, maggi etc. Nothing hi-fi, the people manning the shop are complete desi; no wonder Athikas is the favourite hang out place for us students. Notwithstanding the problems caused by the unprofessional managements (huh, that's an MBA speaking) like stockouts and hygiene neglect, people just love it.

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Recently, Amul opened a store inside the campus. Driven by the strong brand equity and the promise of healthy food, people started patronizing this new outlet, leaving Athikas owners slightly worried. To counter the threat, they stocked up on all the popular Amul items. Together with the extra services they offer, like credit line etc, Athikas once again seems to have regained the ground they lost temporarily. The Amul outlet resembles a barren land.

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However, did Amul, the company, lose out though? Its campus sales increased many times over; through Athikas and not through the Amul outlet though. Win-Win strategy!

The IIMC-XLRI Fiasco

Pagalguy.com recently had this as the main story on its home page - a video showing IIMC girls mouthing choicest of expletives during the IIMC-XLRI sports meet followed by long paragraphs on why this is unacceptable, how this classifies as the lowest level college culture could ever stoop, and that the IIMC girls (being girls and students of IIMC) should have refrained from this henious act.

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PG's arguments in favour of this article have been hollow and, as accpeted by the editorial board later on, misplaced. For, boys swear in almost all grad/postgrad colleges, PG has never cared to cover even one. But girls' swearing is a totally different ball-game for PG, it seems. Also, these girls being from IIMC, does it take away the license to do what is acceptable in other colleges?

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Notwithstanding PG's poort attempts at the positioning of this article and arguments provided thereon, it does indeed raise one valid question - Should explicit attempts be made to imbibe swearing as a part of college culture, as the article hinted at?

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Almost all inter-college sports festivals have their fair share of abusing, but indeed in the name of traditions, it seems to be formalized in IIMC campus - it appears abusing acts are rehearsed before the actual performance.

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No, IIMC is not an exception. IIMA has a top-5 tradition. IIMB has something similar, where the freshers, holding a broom you-know-where and a mug of water tugged just above the fly, recite in ample details their fantasies (often involving females from their batch) during the block parties. Many find it totally amusing, some others disgusting.

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The purpose of this post is not to criticize the IIM cultures, good and bad go along. But still, one should always try and weed out the bad stuff, be it the alleged institutionalized abusing culture of IIMC or utter disrespect for the opposite sex in IIMA/B in the name of tradition.

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The wheels are in motion. Seniors in some blocks opposed this tradition this year around in IIMB and managed to get it scrapped/reduced the vulgarity levels during their block parties. With time, hopefully, it would soon be a thing of past.

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Addeddum: The IIMC sports squad reached IIMB campus today (Aug 8), for the annual IIMB-IIMC sports meet, Samhar. To welcome the guests, the IIMB campus is all pasted with posters "Beware: This campus is under surveliance" . :)

Orkut

I have deleted my orkut profile.

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Orkut was fun, scrapping friends all sort of weird messages was a good enough timepass activity. What with the cool applications orkut just added (someone told me they stole it from facebook), it was just awesome.

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More for me came from the communities. For example, I joined the so-called India Pakistan Friendship Club (IPFC) just to bash some Pakis around. Instead I met some really incredible people from both sides of the border, who had formed a similar and smaller, but a much better community, IPFC Snobs - cheeky name:) Not contributing much myself, but it was thrilling to go through the lively debates these guys enagged in. Made some great friends and still in contact with. Then there was a school community I started, which helped me get back in contact with so many friends - we even managed to organize a couple of get-togethers. Or the IIMB Batch of 2009 community where we had helluva fun before even joining IIMB.

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But my friends list got unmanageable, over 600 and growing. Call it a bane from being a small town, where everyone seems/pretends/tries to know everyone else, or getting ito IIT, where your batch, and the immediate junior/senior hostelmates drop a friend request without even a courteous "hello" to go along with, or the IIM thing, which I mentioned once back here. I don't know, but getting such freind requests from people on pretext of such (shaky) common grounds just didn't work for me. Anyways, I accpeted them all, saamnewala might find it insulting otherwise. Networked, in literal sense.

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Anyhow, the bottom line is, I was spending too much time on it, day-after-day. Good Riddance!

Quartered...

Yesterday, ony of my friends turned 25. Celebrated it in the pure IIMB ishtyle, but also served to remind me that I too am gonna touch the same milestone a couple of weeks down the line. 25...Whoa! One hell of a ride so far...

So many things in life seem set to change at this juncture - college life is almost ending, the nite-outs with friends gonna be a distant thing, carefree laughter might also give way to oh-so-adult look, and what with the talks of nuptial thingy doing the rounds back at home (hah, thats definitely gonna wait dad), seems like the favourite boys' pastime would soon be a thing of the past :P

Time for dinner :)