RIP dear friend

Jojo

5 May 2001 - 30 April 2011

Jojo died today morning. He was suffering for the last few months from chronic renal failure. His condition had worsened over the past week or so and it was in his best interest that he be put to sleep. We buried him at an animal rescue centre near sector 94. There were loads of dogs around. I am sure he'll be happy and must have already made friends with them.

Rest in peace dear friend,. You were always there when others weren't. Your unconditional love and brotherly affection always gave me strength whenever I was down. I will miss you.

PwC it is!

A lot of water has flown through the drains of ISB after my last post. We had our day 1 and day 2 of placements, over the past few weekends. So yeah it has been a stressful time to say the least. Day 1 was disappointing for me, got dinged in the two interviews after round 1. I probably was way too excited after getting the shortlist in both the cases, so messed up my interview.
Day 2 was draining, both physically and mentally! I had four interviews lined up and the process spilled over to the next day. Finally got the offer on evening of 30th January - Senior Consultant at PwC ! Sweet.
Location will be Mumbai in all probability. I'll be heading down to the office to meet the partner sometime next week. So, yeah the consulting dream finally comes true!

Boka in Joka

Ok, so finally an ego booster - we won a case competition at IIM Calcutta (or Joka as any IIM C loyalist would call it), to top it all McK was the organiser of the event . yippeee

Guess, what made the victory sweeter was the fact that we won it against all odds (in the hindsight all wins seem like that, but still)

• I and S didn't feel like submitting it in the first place, for us drinking at Solistice was more important - we only did it coz P pushed us - though she did a fab job I must say
• We had completely forgotten about the event - the shortlist came as a mighty suprise - 8 teams out of 197. Nice!
• We headed off to Kolkata amidst the gloom and doom of getting dinged left, right and centre
• We reached IIM C with a half baked presentation, only to discover that they had arranged for a dingy room with 6 mattress strewn over the floor. As S put it 'even Bunto (his dog) would be ashamed to sleep on them'. and they won't let P stay with us because it was a 'boys hostel'. At ISB such terms are archaic.
• So, we somehow finished our presentation, met up with a bunch of DCEites (they seemed to to be all over IIM C), shivered all night (thanks to the razer thin blankets they provided us).

So, what about the final presentation, well except 1-2 hiccups it went like a charm, P again did a fab job with the layout and structure and of course made the two lazy bongs work (ok so it was Cal, I am a bong there).

Impresssions about IIM C- beautiful campus - loved the lakes, dilapidated buildings, chilled out atmosphere - loved the concept of GGP

So here's to Team 'Matrixed' - consulting cos are you listening

Not a bad way to end 2010

Though I have never been a morning person and never will be, I do like getting up early once in a while and venture out a while. So, this morning I was woken up with a rattle on my window pane and asked to come to dam nearby (it's small water body near my SV). It was 6:30 in the morning and there was this beautiful morning light streaming through my window. It was too tempting an offer and I decided to give it a shot. Of course I didn't regret it - took some pictures, not very happy with how all of them came out, but nevertheless, they symbolise a good end to a good year

Dincharya

So, beta how was your day like today?
Well, I scrambled out of bed at 7:45 in the morning, took a shower, rushed to class, only to discover that I am a minute late for the 8 AM class and the TA won't give me attendance, then heard the self obsessed professor ramble and on about synergies and consummation of deals, give out dollops of gyan on 'interviews' and unabashedly share with the class how he cracked McKinsey and how he never joined because he wanted to follow his dream and join some bank (yeah right!), and arbit CP - well these my mind shuts off whenever I hear some self proclaimed fin jock share his 'industry experience", well it's funny the way they start "Sir, In my experience.. blah blah..."
So, back to my day, after the class got over, I drink my customary cup of coffee and head to the second class, where the prof is doling out numbers after numbers, graphs after graphs, simulations after simulations whizzing over my head like an Alan Donald bouncer (pity! he doesn't play anymore). After this class got over, I tried to mend broken fences, but I guess damage is too great, all I get are glares " why the f*** don't you just stop existing!"
OK, so I come back and sleep, play squash (yeah a good habit I picked up this term), eat some rubbish, do some random number crunching, submit yet another assignment, prepare my resume for yet another consulting job, why do I even care ! and yeah then the day ends...
I shall not complain. I shall not complain......
P.S by the way did I mention the "reject of the day!"

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

There are some moments which make you stronger person. These impulsive crazy moments are those life changing instances where you finally stand up for what you always knew was right. You finally crush that idiotic conscious of yours which has always held you back (and is actually still trying to hold you back from posting the blog). You stop hiding behind the make believe security of your ego and face reality for what it really is.

As I said above, all this while in your life your bloated ego was your false security. With that in your stride you fooled around, you had your drunk escapades, you laughed, you cried, but always ran away from reality. The irony is you still thought people will take you seriously.

I guess as you wake in the morning it is all about taking a deep breath and be prepared to face the consequences. You will have people laugh behind you , gossip about you, worse is you will most certainly lose a great friend. Having friends help, but in the end all that they will try do is try and help you return to status quo. So, that doesn't really help, as it will be like going back to square one. These are things you have deal with on your own.

Trick is I guess not to make a big deal out of it. You can't pretend nothing has happened, it has. But, you can't let it ruin the other things in your life. In other words you have to move on, whether or not your action has the intended consequences or not.

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What will happen next? I don't know. Things are still as blurry as they were last night. But who cares, I have done my bit and I am extremely proud of myself for finally having the courage to have done so! Yeah baby! I rock.

Time is right I guess to make a steaming hot cup of coffee and read the paper - little pleasure of life I have denied myself ever since I have come here.

Really wonder which of these is less intolerant

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/7916367/Indian-lecturer-barred-from-teaching-by-students-for-refusing-burka.html

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/French-Parliament-Approves-Burqa-Ban-98329849.html