2nd term in all its glory

Just finished Reading Five Point Someone. Anyone who is in some way connected with an engg college would like this book. Finished it off in one go. Its a good coffee-table book. A good gift to give someone studying in an engg college...or maybe not :P

Next in line to read Barbarians at the gate: the fall of RJR Nabisco
Supposed to be a real life novel in Finance. Reading this purely to the dramatic narration given by my Finance Prof. He gave such a good intro to the book that I feel if I dont read this I may be losing out on something good. Which I am sure he would agree with.

I want......

Check out the new iPod Photo here and here.

drool drool

Maybe I can save the summers stiped and give it a go.
Where there's a wish, there's a way :)

US votes......

Fitting, isnt it?

What would life be without cartoons? :D

Munnar - land of tea gardens

It was a very wise decision when some of us girls at IIMK decided to spend a day and a night at Munnar - a well needed respite from the FMs and OMs and M in general!

There was a close tie between Munnar and Vayanad as our chosen destination but due to popular demand we decided to go to Munnar.

So it was on a usual busy evening when we had to submit the Company Track assignment

and the Indian Economic Indicators assignment that Pavithra, Neeta and Malini got down to the nitty gritties of the plan. Though initially only around 20 guys showed interest in accompanying us, once the D Day dawned, there were more people wanting to be part of the group. Finally we were a pack of 25 people all set to see how life was at a different Hill station in Kerala.

And different it was....here at K we have coconut grooves and there we saw tea gardens. Tea gardens all around! Nokkethadooram vare tea gardens!!!

Though I had been to Munnar once before, it was so long back that the only memories I had of that place were the Mattupetti garden, the huge healthy cows and the Research center where the man with the beard showed us bull-sperms through a microscope. And we thought it was those Keettanu that they show in the toothpaste commercials :P

Must have been in 4th or 5th then.

This time around, when we reached Munnar it was just past daybreak, the day was fresh. So was the hartal that was declared due to some murder. We proceeded to Munnar tourist home to freshen up and there we had another surprise waiting for us.

How to arrange for Breakfast for hungry and healthy 25 people!

And that too on a hartal day. All the restaurant had was 4 kutti puttu (cylinders of a rice preparation) and very few puris. The early ones, including me, got to have garam garam puttu. It was yummy without doubt.

But what about the rest 20? The manager of the restaurant told me that he cannot do anything about it. We struck a deal and he said that he will provide puri's in case we help him in the process!!! Ever heard of a restaurant where you go help them cook and serve the stuff and then pay for it through your nose!?

I did that on that day. I became a waitress-turned-budding-manager out of pure chance.

We somehow managed to finish our breakfast by noon(!) and proceeded to the Top Station. This meant around 1 hour of journey. But we didn't mind it since the way was flanked by breathtaking sceneries. More and more tea gardens, mountains hugged by clouds......the drizzle adding to the romantic beauty of the place. Sigh!

The next stop was Echopoint. Tried my best to get out a sound that would echo. But had to contend by hearing other people's voices getting echoed. Looks like whoever was there liked my voice so much that they didn't want to send it back :P

One thing I did not like about the place was the way it was slowly getting polluted.

Plastic covers and other waste and muck littered the entire place and nobody seemed to be bothered about it...that is, except me!

Next stop was Top station....where under the guidance on Nitai we all set out on a small trek to the Kerala-TN border. (In school, I actually thought that the borders that we see in the map really existed between each states! :P ) There was this small gate on top of this mountain that separated Mallu land from Tallu land. I could actually sense Vishy and VV feeling so much at home the minute we crossed the gate! :D

Though the trek down the hill was quite enjoyable the same way uphill wasn't that memorable. It kept me wondering whether I was 24 or 42! I was literally panting and gasping for air every 10 steps up the hill :(

If it wasn't for VV who kept on cracking PJs till we reached the top and Nallari who gave me some good pushes from behind to increase the momentum, I would have taken the whole day to climb that hill!

On the top of the hill, Passion fruit was waiting for me.

When I was in Bangalore, living on my own, Passion fruit juice was something that I regularly had with my breakfast and dinner and which was always present in my refrigerator. Thanks to all those long list of food advices from my mom - especially since I was cooking on my own, juice was something which I couldn't resist buying during my weekly visit to Foodworld.
Coming back to Passion fruit, though I loved the juice, had no idea how the fruit looked like. And ta da, there it was at Top Station. It seems Passion fruits are once-in-5-years fruits and it stays fresh for 5 years!
Well, have kept one of the passion fruits safely in my suitcase to check whether it's still passionate after a year. :P

Next in the agenda was Lunch. Since breakfast was a disaster for many, nobody wanted to compromise on lunch. So we pre-ordered lunch at a small home-turned-restaurant in the middle of all those tea gardens and proceeded for Boating : The one thing that everyone had been waiting for. Especially the guys who were waiting to get into those vroom vroom speed boats. But alas...we only got the usual 20 seater boat, which took the smile away from some people's faces, but nevertheless everyone enjoyed the boating. What with half the people trying to capsize the boat and the others trying to neutralise their effects and the glimpse of peaceful-wild-elephants, boating was fun.

Lunch turned to be a near-fiasco with demand far more than the supply.

Important learning : While managing trips with 20+ people, better arrange for food well in advance and in good quantity especially if boys are the major chunk of the group.

By the time we finished lunch and got back to the city it was evening and everyone was tired of all the traveling. That's when we decided to snoop around the small town.

Got hold of these Yummy choclates made in Kodaikanal. Had about 3 packets of them non-stop! That is where everyone had this wild idea of buying these 10-rupee topis, which went on to playing a very crucial role in a drama that would unfold later in the trip.

After a small walk in the town and dinner at a swanky place with murals of angry Ganpathy, it was time to get back to the hotel for the party. Party saw a court martial of a case of 4 topis mediated by Reddy and Gagan. Got a bit boring towards the end. But it got me wondering whether we were studying PG or Pre-G!!!

A chilly night and the departure early morning ended the trip.

Maybe the most memorable things about the trip was the journey, the fun in the bus - DumbC and antakshari, the Gandh gang and the gangsta photo sessions, people falling asleep on each other and being photographed, couples being made and broken, Vishy finding his Guru and enlightening me about Losers over an asparagus soup, the gossip sessions in the bus, some of my North Indian friends actually enjoying a Mallu movie, Vishy and Nallari complaining about how difficult it is to get decent food in Kerala compared to all the Sharvanabhavans in TamilNadu and me trying to fight it out in vain, VV's self-obsessed photo sessions in the bus, Reddy and his undercover agents trying to get scoops for the newly born AbTakSabseTej- K's gossip paper, Gagan's instant to-die-for comedy, getting to know people more closely..........I am glad I went on this trip.

Take a look at some of the pics here.

Kdio

As every day goes by I get more and more confident that I am going to get majorly
screwed up in this term. The 20 hours I am awake each day seem to evaporate without leaving any trace behind. All the resolutions I made before this term have been promptly broken. Now that I think of it.....can't think of even a single resolution that I've stuck to till the end :(
I am already dreading December.

Yesterday night spent a lot of time with Kdio.

Well Kdio is K's apna radio (K's radio for the DUH)...live from 10PM to 4AM nonstop. Best part is the request process. Complete anonymity ensures that true feelings(!) really come out! Or it was made sure that those feelings were brought out by someone else. Me and Neeta were hooked on to it last night and couldn't stop once we started fooling around ;)

For all those in bangalore who feel sumg about the fact that that they have Radiocity and that nothing can beat it, here are some things to think about
- No advertisements in Kdio, 100% music
- Requests are actually played. No busy tone
- but, priority is given to songs dedicated to RJ :P
- No irritating RJs yapping away in Kannda
- ENGLISH SONGS rules
- power cuts don't cut out the music

I think I have made my point well enough.

Ciao for now.

Hope ---- Frustration ---- Desperation ----Self-pity ---- Anger ---- &%$&%$*^ ---- Helplessness ---- Relief

Went through all these in the last 2 days, until I finally got a summer project from a firm in Noida.
Now it's just a sense of relief and an excitement of getting a chance to go to north India. Have never gone anywere north-er than Bombay!
But then I have been advised by many of my well-wishers that it's gonna be scorching hot out there during summers. hmmmmmmmm

Summers was a mix of emotions and hilarious insights.

Yogesh shared his secret of curling his hair to look like a banker before apprearing for the selection process of a bank

Then there's the birthday luck of Neeta and Malini.

Kanav who blushed like a bride when he realised that HR was his passion.



VV's lilac tie

Always branded Vishy, who was the cause of a fight between two leading IT companies

Saurabh, the Crap-man of our batch, who got selected in the zeroth slot itself, proving that 'Crap, it's only crap that matters!'

Raul who has promised unlimited candy for everyone.

Nallari, the consulting guy.

Abhijit, the ciggy chap.

Bops, who made a tough negotiation.

Nallur, who was selected even before he could say anything!
Same for Devroop!

Gagan, who gonna paint K a bright colour from his shadecard.

Shukla, who would be going back to his same desk.

Karfa, the fin grandfather of the batch.

Rahul Ranjan who is gonna be talking to a lot of truck drivers.

SGopal who was tired after the rapid fire round in the interview and who's going back to Pune

Bunty who's gonna be helping someone sell oil.

Shaunak who almost got the offer during the PPT itself.

Tarun who's gonna be with the biggest bank of India.

Summers is going great till now. Record no of people placed in just 3 days.
Hats off to the Placecomm team who are working so tirelessly for it. Their commitment and spirit is just awesome! Great show guys.

Hot Summer Wave

Sports Meet ended on a sombre note.
With IIMB carrying away most of the points and we missing out on a close Cricket match and a questionable but pardoned Chess tournament, it was a big moment for us.

An interesting outcome of the Sports meet was the observations during the 'Saturday night party'. I thought it was just bengali women who had ncontrollable libidoes, but then bengali 'boys' seem to be catching up with them!!!
I know I am exaggerating by generalising this, but I just couldn't resist. :P


Summer wave is riding high on campus these days...With the process about to start there's nothing other than that on everyone's lips. Hope a good number of people get placed in the first leg itself.

Term2 pressure is slowly picking up....Groups have been made for each subject and the assignments and quizzes are on their way already. Well group formation is an
interesting subject. What with free riding on full swing there is a lot of hungama in the way groups are formed. Will write about it sometime later.

Interesting

Bangalore city on an average gets two new MNC IT companies every fortnight!!!

Dare to SPIT?

Some interesting words I came across today.

Arachibutyrophobia : the fear that peanut butter will stick to the roof of one's mouth.
Well think I enjoy arachibutyrophobia.

spIM : unwanted advertising sent by instant messaging
I am sure Yash would surely qualify to be a Manager to handle that section.

spIT : voicemail spam sent using IT or internet telephony.
It hasn't happened yet, but one firm has already created a spit filter to weed out such commercial messages (a term that's a potential source of confusion, as broadcasters have long used it for a device that keeps oral effluvia out of microphones). The company also predicts that spitbots will soon be released on the network to launch denial-of-service attacks to block phone lines.
:P

Just wait, in a few decades, English will become so convoluted.

Here at K, the flavour of the weekend is Sports.
IIMK-IIMB sports meet. Around 50 guys and gals from IIMB have ascended to our sacred campus. Its gonna be two days full of play.

All the best to the warriors .

Cream em johnny! :)

2 Fin or not

Sometimes even understanding English is tough.

Trying to make some sense out of some assigned reading for tomorrow.
In comes Corporate Finance, out goes my confidence.

As I read more and more, even the language started seeming alien. Hope I get the hang of it in this term itself.

Have a small feeling its something to do with the way its being given in the book; not very student friendly for someone who's new to finance and who didn't know what PV and BV were.

Revelation

"The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again and had my voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things because they cannot concentrate their mind at all."

- Swami Vivekananda

Get set go!!!! 2nd term at K

Back in K after the break. Good thing about being in an institution which has students from all over India is the foodies that everyone bring after the break. I had so many different types of sweets that my marginal utility has actually become negative. Tummy ache and a regret that I don't have a big enough tummy to accomodate so many yummy stuff.
Anyways long live Karachi biscuits. Can't have enough of them. Yum Yum drool drool
Thank you Swaroop for lugging it all the way from Hyd.

Second term at K is slowly kicking off. With summer placements round the corner things and all the business contests in the air, things are slowely snowballing. Second term has some interesting subjects and equally interesting professors and even more interesting quizzes and assignments. A quiz on ET articles and news items and a week-by-week financial update on a company and an economic analysis of far and distant countries and an accouting prof who wouldn't mind if we credited some dough to his account and a very vibrant OB professor promise for a very interesting term ahead.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Happy 85th birthday paatti

Family Reunions are one of the best things in the world. While my granny celebrated the completion of her 85th year on this planet, it was a good reason for the family to come together, have another sumptious sadya and have fun.


With cousins on Paatti's 85th bday

My small cousins are growing up.............and fast!!
My cousin, Shankar has just finished his engineering and has already became an enterprising businessman.
Well, I guess he always had it in him. Earlier he earned his pocket money by assembling PCs and now he is actually running a BPO!!! It's a one-man show and he tells me that he can easily earn around 30K each month. Hope his so-called employees don't see through the plan. But it seems even then, there's enough pie to go around! Well, you are very shrewd and smart Shankar.

And I really appreaciate the work you have been doing for Chaithanya. Now I am mighty proud of you too.

Just take a little care of your bulging tummy and your alopecia. But with these you look like the perfect Kerala businessman :P