Too many B-schools advocate “academic rigour”. A 30-hour contact course in XLRI supposedly requires 70 hours of work outside the classroom. We have 7.5 courses this term (one of them is a 4.5-credit course as opposed to an ordinary 3-credit course).

Contact hours = 225 (7.5 x 30)
Outside classroom work expected = 525 (7.5 x 70)

Total hours to be dedicated to coursework = 750 hours

750 hours = 31.25 days, if we work continuously without taking breaks for food, water or anything else.

The fourth term here is approximately 70 days in duration. Also, don’t forget all the extra-curricular work that is expected of us.

Thanks to your rigour, what suffers is quality. If we have to do a project that I would ideally have liked to dedicate a week to, but have to finish in one night, you know that there’s not going to be enough research, and it’s all just going to be information that’s available on the surface. Is this what we’re supposed to learn in MBA? The art of fluffing, of using jargon and stellar presentations to impress your audience and hope that no probing questions are asked?

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I’m sitting in a straight-back, albeit moderately comfortable chair, listening to music pour out of the speakers, while the sub-woofer on the floor gently makes my wooden work-area vibrate gently with the rising bass. The fan is running at optimum speed, blowing a gentle wind on my neck and shoulders.

It’s as close to bliss as you can get in summer in XLRI (unless you find bliss in the air-conditioned classrooms, with the lecture going on).

What strikes me is how comfortable I am, alone in my room. How nice this all is, no rules or restrictions. This is my space, my home. Yes, it’s small (it’s only one room, after all), but it’s still all mine.

And maybe that has a deeper meaning. The loneliness of my room is all pervasive. It’s as much a part of our lives as our own skin is. We were alone in birth (not counting twins, I suppose) and will be alone in death and whatever lies beyond as well, probably. The only thing debatable is the in-between.

Here’s my opinion. No matter what you think, no matter what you say, you are and will always be, to a certain extent, alone. No one can read your mind, think like you do or form your opinions for you. No one can help you if you don’t want to be helped, or depress you if you don’t want to be saddened. I understand that it’s much easier to simplistically and generally make a global statement like I just did, but like I said, it’s merely an opinion. Maybe it’s something to ponder over, a fountainhead to set your own thoughts in motion.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Today, we attended a play called “Me Kash and Cruise”, a play that panned various genres including drama and comedy. Directed by Rahul da Cunha, it featured the extremely versatile Rajit Kapoor in a bunch of cameo roles. The play is narrated by one of the characters, a female of bubbly demeanour and a voice full of inflection and emotion, which somehow I felt doesn’t lend itself well  to narration, particularly when the narration involves a dark undertone which should have resonated with the audience by virtue of the voice rather than melodramatic emotional appeal. The first half of the play was mediocre, but the second half was simply brilliant. Rajit Kapoor, underutilised in the first half, took the play to a completely different level in the second half, playing all his various sub-roles to perfection and beyond. The best parts of the play were the lighter moments, the jokes that evoked much laughter and tongue-in-cheek remarks that regularly brought forth applause from the audience. Where it seemed to fall flat, I felt, was when they tried to become dramatic, serious, raise issues. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against using theatre to promote issues that plague our society, but I think it has to be done just right. The right atmosphere has to be created and the actors have to get it spot on. The end of the play, however, did manage to raise the audience to its feet for a standing ovation. For portions of the play, it was fully deserved.

At this point, if I had to compare the two plays, I’d say that Love on the Brink featured fantastic actors who played their roles to perfection. What let the play down, in my opinion, was the play itself. On the other hand, here in Me Kash and Cruise, we had a good enough story and a good enough play, but the actors (apart from Rajit Kapoor, who was simply brilliant, and Amit Mistry, who played the affable character of Cruise) were not the kind that you could praise for carrying the play on their shoulders alone. Maybe the characterisation was a little flawed and one-dimensional, though. I’m only a 2-play old theatre critic, so I should be cut some slack while writing these reviews, methinks.  Also, Love on the Brink gave us the programme beforehand, which introduced us to the cast and storyline and duration of the play, so that we were at least somewhat prepared what to expect. Today, the programme was missing, and there was no way of knowing that the play would feature strong language, such that a family or two was forced to walk out in the middle of the play. As one of my friends later remarked, there was no rating on the play posters either. Something that future theatre producers should bear in mind, I think.

After the play, we went and had dinner in this overpriced restaurant called Ruby Tuesdays. I ordered a Caesar Salad with chicken, which turned out to be much heavier than I wanted it to be, and it didn’t really go along too well with my Foster’s, but it was ok nonetheless. No review on the restaurant, though, sorry.

After dinner, we spent a few minutes on Marine Drive, discussing plays and other things, before heading home.

And now, bed-time.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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There is a restaurant on the road adjacent to the beach which always seems to have a huge line of people waiting to get in, and the clientele appear to be well-off, arriving in big, expensive cars and dressed well. This particular restaurant (called New Yorkers), which we had all assumed to be the expensive kind, has been on our list for quite some time, the crowd of eagerly awaiting customers outside adding to its appeal. There’s a small paan-dabba right outside it which also seems to do brisk business, selling to the diners that emerge from the restaurant after having had their meals. Some distance away, there’s another small place called Bachelor’s, which serves milk-shakes, cream with fruit and ice-cream a short distance away. I don’t know what it is about this place, which is basically a shack on the footpath, but it attracts clients from the highest strata of society. I’ve seen the most expensive cars pull up to have dessert here. The curiosity has had the better of me for quite some time, which put this one also on the aforementioned list.

So, 3 places I had to try out before leaving Mumbai, irrespective of how expensive they are. Yesterday, we tried them all, and here’s the outcome.

New Yorkers turned out to be not that expensive after all, which took me a bit by surprise. We ordered nachos, lasagne and some other Italian dish that I cannot spell to save my life. The nachos arrived first along with a wonderful drink. I was impressed, but the good impression didn’t last too long. The lasagne was terrible. As Hari said, it tasted more like pav-bhaji with some cheese on it. Big let-down. The other Italian dish was ok too, nothing to write home about.

Next, we had the paan. It was, to be perfectly honest, strictly ok. There’s another paan-wallah just up the road that serves a better (and bigger) paan for 2 rupees less. Yes, I know that 2 bucks is not really a big deal, but after all the hype inadvertently generated by the crowd, this was another let-down.

Finally, we had dessert at Bachelor’s—135 rupees for whipped cream with pieces of chocolate in it. Was it good? It was ok. Was it worth the money it cost? Are you freakin’ kidding me! 135 bucks! No freakin’ way! Luckily, Hari switched his mango-cream with me (which, by the way, cost just about the same, give or take 10 bucks). Again, this wasn’t too bad, but I couldn’t understand why people would drive here in their expensive cars to eat this.

What have I learnt from this?

The people of Mumbai have no taste. I mean, seriously. I’ve been hearing a lot about a “budget” restaurant called Crystal, which we haven’t been able to have dinner at because of the lengthy waiting line every day, but I managed to have lunch there the other day, and it was, unsurprisingly, shitty. What’s up, Mumbai? Why are you flocking to places that are strictly mediocre?

Anyway, so that was about that. I know how what gyaan to give juniors who have their summer internship in Mumbai next year: Stay away from all the places that have a big crowd.

Afterword:
Actually, come to think of it…in Mumbai, with its over-population and willingness of people to spend, there are barely any places that do NOT have a crowd. It can get on your nerves sometimes.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I have now been in Mumbai for about 4 days. I write this post from the office, on my second day of work. These initial days, I expect, are going to be a bit light and easy while I wait for everything to get set up (I’d post a few more details about what that means but I don’t know how much of Citi’s policies I can write about in the public domain, no matter how not confidential they logically seem).

It’s about 3:20 PM.

<interrupted by work…2 meetings and a short break later…>

It’s now about 5:10 PM. I like how I’ve written that I had “meetings”—sounds like I’m all hard-working and important. On a serious note, though, I’ve been given 3 projects to do this summer (which is not very common—people normally get one or two), and it looks like I’m going to be working pretty hard this summer, contrary to what seniors told me to expect.

So far, my summer internship experience has been quite interesting. And the post I had begun to write a couple hours ago has now disappeared from my head. Therefore, I’m going to have to end this post here.

PS: I do not have access to the internet, neither in the office nor at the hostel I’m putting up at. I’ll probably have to send this mail through a cyber-cafe. Very shortly, I plan to buy a USB internet device, which I’ll be able to use at the hostel as well as at work. Yeah, that’ll be a challenge…to ensure that I’m not wasting any time online despite having access to the internet.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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No, this is not an excuse**. It’s just a heads-up as to why I’ve not been posting anything lately.

* Slight exaggeration possible
** Or maybe it is?

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Anyhow, I was sitting behind Varun the other day when we went into town, and I realized something. I get slightly nervous when I sit behind someone on the bike, because I’m always thinking things like “I would keep the bike a little more to the right”, or “That was dangerous!”, or “Why doesn’t he just accelerate and overtake this guy quickly?”. Before I knew how to drive, however, it was much simpler, because I just put my life in the hands of the driver and enjoyed the ride. This realization led me to some of the “golden rules” of bike-riding. Here we go:

For the pillion-rider

1. Trust the rider. He (or she) is in complete control of the bike, just the way you would be were you riding.
2. If you do not trust the rider, then don’t get on the bike.
3. If you do trust the rider, then realize that you are going to put your life in his hands, and there’s nothing you can do to control the bike now. So relax, sit still and don’t do anything to distract the rider.

For the rider

1. Your passenger has trusted you with his life. You are now responsible not only for your own life, but also the life of the person sitting behind you. Drive carefully.
2. People can sometimes get scared or nervous sitting on the back-seat. Deal with it, or try driving a little more conservatively to put them at ease.
3. Your pillion-rider will more than occasionally want to indulge in some “back-seat driving”. This is natural. Learn not to get irritated and take it in your stride.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Lazy.

Everybody has had to have read or heard of the phrase “a lazy summer afternoon”. And it’s true, isn’t it? We tend to be lazy during the summer, not only because we have our summer vacation, but also probably because the heat makes us lethargic. It’s just too hot to do anything. The other problem is that you have to switch on the fan to make yourself comfortable, but we end up inadvertently making ourselves too comfortable, and the moment we pick up books to read, and lie under the fan, we tend more often than not to fall asleep.

(This post is probably an excuse for why I’m not studying Organisational Behaviour despite the fact that I have a quiz tomorrow!)

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I woke up at 11:45 AM, despite having resolved last night to wake up at 9 or so. I spent majority of the day playing Football Manager 2010. Lunch in the mess was distinctly average, but the real fun began in the evening. Today was COWBAXI Day (Cowbelt Association of XLRI, a group of students from the cow-belt region of India — states like Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, MP, etc.). They organised some traditional snacks like litti, and masala chai. It was delicious! They then organised a few cultural programmes that consisted of a couple of fun games and a couple of dance performances by the students.

And then, there was dinner.

There’s a reason I’ve put that line in its own paragraph. The dinner, I think, was the highlight of the night. It was incredibly delicious. Despite having gorged on two ghee-laden littis, I managed to eat a fairly heavy dinner. The number of dishes was not very high (in comparison to some of the other committees’ dinners), but each and every item tasted heavenly, and I guess a simple menu was clearly the way to go. It also helped that COWBAXI has the highest number of members among all regional committees, since their service was also spectacular. After dinner, we were treated to a small skit, a satire on the Mahabharata and on some of our professors here at XLRI. The amount of creativity, humour and wit that went into it were obvious and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

And then, to end the day, I came back to my room to read (and watch the last few minutes) of Manchester United’s 3-1 victory over Arsenal.

What a day!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Why?

For one thing, it gives me the ability to express myself clearly. I’ve had people tell me how lucky I am because I can articulate my thoughts so well. It’s true. I think I do have an advantage when it comes to written communication.

But writing to me is about a lot more than communication. It’s an outlet of creativity, it’s a passion that excites me, a reason to celebrate life, to view the world in all its beauty and all its flaws and be able to visualize it in other ways. It’s amazing to be able to see everyday occurrences and make stories about them that make them special and immortalize them in the pages of a book.

Every once in a while, I write something, fiction or otherwise, that makes me … happy, to put it succinctly. It may not be perfect for others, but to me, it feels like every word, every symbol of punctuation has fallen into place like a jigsaw puzzle. And when I read it after I’m done writing it…that, my friends, is the joy of being a writer.

PS: Yes, I know the jigsaw puzzle metaphor is terribly clichéd and overused now. I will try to avoid using it for a while in future posts!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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