New Home from Home

It started 6 years ago when I left my home for the first time; it has only been bigger and better every time I chose a new home away from home. This time it’s IIM-Lucknow. It’s been nearly a month since I had come over to this place. The way I got here was not a very pleasant experience; no one would call a journey in a train for 50hrs all alone a very pleasant experience. Only in movies do interesting things happen in a train ;)…But after that, it has been nothing short of a great movie (of course there hasn't been a heroin intro yet)

There I stood in front of the gates of IIML with lot of excitement, expectations, queries and questions. It was something that I always wanted to do since my third year in college. I always wanted to make the first steps that I take into IIML special, something like “A small step for Esh, but a big rod in the ass for the next 2 years”, but thanks to the AC coach, all that was in my mind was to rush to the loo..:)

The classes were to start on 25^th june for which I had arrived on 20^th, so I had nothing to do except check out the place and one thing I loved about this place was, it had a indoor badminton court very near to my hostel room. One thing that I found peculiar about Lucknow was that when one person travels through a particular stretch of 3-4kms, he gets confused if he had travelled in time 50years ahead. One part of the city is in 1920’s and other part 1970’s. No offence meant just a little observation. I still could not believe that this is a state's capital. The distance of the campus from the city and excellent transport facilities in UP gave me no chance to check out beautiful Lucknow gals :(.

On the first day after the official induction was complete, there was an induction by the seniors. Well in Management lingo Induction = Ragging, the students president gave a performance that was akin to old Sivaji movies, Over acting to the core. Then we were asked to take a test and based on which our concentration (specialization) for the next year will be decided by the seniors. I yawned during the test and that caught the attention of one senior. All the seniors in the room looked at me as I was some serial killer and was asked to come to the “DISCO” at 0000 hrs. I thought this whole exercise will be over today and there was some discotheque or insti party the same night until one of my batch mate enlightened that DISCO stands for “Disciplinary Committee”... WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D

The hostel experience was totally different one which I enjoyed, though I would have enjoyed more had I really known more Hindi swear words. The costume for the hostel induction was very minimal, how minimal is left to your imagination (it was just the next best thing > JOCKEY) ROFL, also it was the first time I was forced to apply lipstick, yuck!! I hated that; I could never wet my lips without eating that crap. There was free booze and smoke during the hostel induction and I don’t take both, so had to settle with the potato chips which unsettled my stomach next day. We were finally let to go to sleep at 4am. I came back watched Hancock and went to sleep at 6am. I am starting to live by the following golden rule.

“When you see the first rays of sunlight, it’s the time to go to bed”.

In IIML there is a peculiar thing called class participation (CP), the degree of activeness that you show in the class proceedings fetch you extra credit when your grades are determined. Well apart from the following questions, pretty much all sorts of questions have come up during the class,

(i)Prof I am trying to ask questions just for the sake of asking, will u give me CP marks?

(ii)Prof, I have no idea as to what u are teaching, but I dearly need the CP, so pls ignore what I have to say for another 3 minutes and give me the 0.5/1000 for CP. (I also included the probability that the prof will remember the question that a student asks)

(iii)Prof, I had slept through the entire class, so I am not aware of which class I am in, can you explain what class is this?? Will this count towards CP??

Well I over exaggerated as always, having said all this even I ask questions sometime. But CP is the least thing on my mind. It’s proven scientifically that when you ask a question, there is an adrenalin pump that energizes you and makes you more attentive.( OK stop the crap, this is another way to define CP).. :P :P

Is the course really tough?? No doubt it is very tough!!!! that is what is being told through the ages and I dare not to contradict that. But it’s more to do with perception (contrast bias to put it exactly) of people to compare engg with management. If engg was squeezed into 2 years, I am sure it would be suicide to choose engineering. Every day I use 5hrs in activities which most of the students here don’t do. I watch Scrubs(2hrs), Play baddy/football (1-2 hrs), Exploring ways to download new movies(1 hr), watch the downloaded movie.

So as you can see, the time constraint is because of the way I had designed my calendar. But I have no complains about it. This place is after all not that “Hell”y as it was claimed, I am starting to really love this place. I have 3 projects to complete, 1 assignment and 2 quizzes to prepare tonight, but that is not going to stop me from doing what I wish. It’s become part of the system. For me the distinction between day and night has vanished, I feel alert/sleepy through the day J, I have a constant urge to work towards mastering the system, at the same time an attitude for having reached IIM not to mention the biggest fear of being screwed by the system,.

Between did I ever tell you that I am taking CAT again this year??? I am not the only crazy person, there is one guy in my batch who wants to get into IIMA. If you want to swear him, pl drop a comment and I would make sure that it is conveyed to him. J I am writing CAT just to experience CAT without any pressure to perform, and I am damn sure that I would not attend any interview expect L even if I get all 7 calls ;)…. I am not leaving HelL for anything, the devil has found safe h(e)aven at Hel(L)…

I am sorry to have wasted your precious time, I am sure you are trying to make out some meaning of this and finding it damn difficult to do the same, well if you are preparing for CAT’08, then consider it as a RC practice. I wanted to record few of my initial moments at L and hence thought of writing it, I could have kept it to myself, but I thought this would give a new dimension to the screwing aspect in IIM. I am not sure when I would find time for the next blog, because I am not ready to sacrifice another episode of scrubs. So until then!!!! I am now signing off to do a boring assignment... ;)