You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category.
All hands on board…..Lockdown ahead !!!
So, whats a man to do during lockdown, how long to stare at the walls and study the rate at which paint dries. Have subscribed to quite a few streaming OTT’s.
And while I was doing this, a bulb lit up, in my head ofcourse…..its 12 noon and the sun is shing brightly ;-).
I felt some investment’s in order. So i look around the internet, and happen to land on FUBO. While its not available in my location, I read through the company prospectus and went through some numbers. Looked interesting.
FUBO:
FUBOTV is a streaming website focussed on sports content, they also have other entertainment options and are in the process of starting sports betting by Q4 2021. Now, who doesn’t like to lose money wagering money on sports !
Invested some small money on a 100 shares of FUBOTV at $20 a piece. I’ll keep tracking to see how that goes. While the rest of my business is going down the drain, some has been allocated to FUBO.
Lets see how this investment shapes up.
Found it on one of those obscure ‘weekend’ books….Awesome message….
Ithaca
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.
Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
Its been a long time since I updated LJ, was waiting to get back to it. As usual starting problem !
All the Sports activities for Kalpataru have begun. I am already out in Badminton singles, lost to Ushnish from the Junior batch and then lost the doubles also against Ushnish and Patro ! My doubles partner was 
animeshanand, not the best hand at baddy, (neither am I ), But there is an enormous kick in doing something thats IMPOSSIBLE !We gave it a shot, Didn’t work for us today, but given a chance I’ll do it again !
TT was a relative cakewalk with Ashirwad in the first match. It turned out to be more like a friendly, gave him some points. Next is a tough one with Prof. DKS. I beat him today in a friendly, but I am sure he will come back strong and getting past him would be tough !
TT doubles is going easy with Govind as my partner. Have lost only one match till now and that too against Dr. RK Singh and Prof. DKS after having defeated them 2 games continuously.
Among others, Shilpi lost to Pooja Kaim in Baddy (I still think she should have WON), but she got her revenge in TT (She almost lost it in the third and deciding game. Pooja fought back from 20-9 down to 20-19 before Shilpi sealed it ! Phew !) Maddu and Vinnet polished off Swapan and Prabhat in Baddy doubles.
Tommorrow is the Football match against the junior batch. We start the favourites, but as they say, “it ain’t over till the fat lady hoots the final whistle”. I as usual would be the Goaly. Hope to make some good saves !
All too good, but am wondering what would I be doing in the actual Kalpataru week, if I am to lose in everything, one week before Kalpataru ! All said and done, its turning out to be a busy week and quite enjoyable at that! So who’s complaining as long as there is some action !
Amitabh: Mausi, ladka IIFM me pad raha hai…
Mausi: Hai ram..
Amitabh: Aajkal Bhopal me OT kara raha hai
Mausi:To kya zindagi bhar bhopal me hi rahega ?
Amitabh: Ab C aur D grade layega to Winrock aur Care ki OT to nahi milegi na mausi…
Mausi:To kya C aur D grade bhi lata hai ?
Amitabh: Ab agar calss me sota rahe to A+ to nahin na milta hai mausi..
Mausi:To kya class me sota bhi hai ???
Amitabh: Ab agar time pe Assignment submit na kare to faculty thodi na chup reh sakti hai, Mausi…
Mausi:To kya time pe Assignment bhi nahi submit karta ?
Amitabh: Ab Electrical Enginering kar ke aaya hai, MBA course me settle hone me thoda time to lagega hi, Mausi…
Mausi:To kya ladka Electrical engineer hai..
Mausi:Kaunse college se kiya ..
Amitabh: Uska pataa lagte hi hum aapko khabar kar denge..
Amitabh: To kya main rishta pakka samjhun mausi..
Mausi:Bhale hi hamaari ladki kuwaari reh jaye par IIFM waale se katai nahin karegi…….
With most ppl gone for OT.. its kinda ‘shaanti’ here… hm… also that means i dun have to throw a party. So, that means that I can keep reading bakwaas and keep vomitting bakwaas on others.
I am a lot busy these days, with most of the time taken up by the sleeping activity, Healthy body needs good rest, I am told, so that part I’ve taken care of.
And here’s a nice funny post I came across on the web….made good reading…………..
There are these two people in IIM Bangalore. I shall blatantly violate their privacy by calling them Zulu and Chhamiya (because that is what everyone calls them). To clarify things- and this point does need clarification- Chhamiya is male and Zulu is female- despite what their names suggest.
The thing with these two is that all of last term, they made a practice of disappearing on early morning walks on Sunday mornings after L2. In fact, they may have had their morning walks on other mornings as well. Nobody was there to notice, though, so this lies in the realm of speculation.
These morning walks were engrossing enough that Chhamiya declared Zulu his muse of theatre, and became IIMB’s resident director within a month of joining. He put up a play (in which Zulu was cast as Aunty) for Ecstasy, our inter-college dramatics fest. In fact, he was so inspired by Zulu that the play was a masterpiece of direction and social commentary. It went over the heads of everybody in the audience, but that is a peril all inspired directors must face. Such is life. Chhamiya and Zulu were happy, which is the important thing.
Unfortunately, the going is only good upto a point. Slightly over a month ago- in fact, on the day of the Section C trip- Zulu left for Sweden on the exchange program. To replace her, Sweden provided a strapping Swede named Lars. Lars did his best to be a suitable substitute for Zulu. He put CP in the lectures, ate the Indian grub in the mess with relish, and even joined the Orange Brigade. However, as far as Chhamiya was concerned, Lars was at best a pale imitation. He (Chhamiya, not Lars) pined for Zulu. And one day something snapped and Chhamiya decided to become Devdas.
When becoming Devdas, the first step is to get drunk. The next L2, Chhamiya swigged prodigous quantities of booze. So far so good. Except for one tiny flaw in the plan. When the original Devdas got drunk, he would get more maudlin and depressed, eventually ending up dead in a gutter. At least, I think he ended up dead in a gutter. I’ve never had the patience to sit through any version of Devdas. The point is that Chhamiya didn’t get more maudlin and depressed, he got happier and happier with every drink. At one in the morning he was excitedly putting Bhangra. Two hours later, he was blissfully doing the rumba to Tam numbers. Modesty compels me to leave out the account of what he did when the DJ played Kylie Minogue.
There is a point to all this salacious gossip, and I will get to it. But first, another story.
This story is about three people from Section-C (where else?). I shall be slightly more discreet with their identities, and call them Premi, Cripple, and Rasna.
Premi harboured the same feelings for Rasna that Chhamiya did for Zulu. And quite like Chhamiya, Premi didn’t let the grass grow under his feet. If Chhamiya went for long morning walks with Zulu, Premi invited Rasna to his room to watch Hum Tum. Rasna accepted. Twice. How anybody can watch Hum Tum thrice (for they had also seen it in theatres) is a matter that passes understanding, but we can ignore that particular point for the moment. The important thing is that they watched it. Rasna was not as reciprocative as Zulu, but things were moving along steadily.
However, things were not to be. Cripple entered the picture.
Cripple and Rasna both happen to be FII (Forum for Industrial Interaction) members. FII organises Vista, which is the biggest management festival in India. Vista is on the first weekend of November. As Vista got closer, the work to be done for it increased. Cripple and Rasna were thrown together. They began to talk about things other than Vista. Premi’s stock was falling and fast. He too went off and became Devdas.
But again, there is a twist in the tale. Rather than throwing himself into booze, Premi threw himself into Business, Government and Society notes. He mugged BGS with all the passion he had earlier reserved for watching Hum Tum. And though the endterm marks are yet to arrive, I (and the rest of Section C) have every expectation that Premi will crack BGS.
So now lets get to the actual point of all this.
The actual point of all this is that it is not being heartbroken which turns a man into a pitful piece of drunken detritus. The actual cause is being heartbroken in Calcutta (or as the natives are calling it these days, Kolkata).
Let me emphasise my point. The problem is Calcutta.
If Devdas had been in Bombay, he would have laughed off the wound to his heart and moved on. A Bambaiyya is immune to such trifles. If he had been in Chennai or Delhi he would have gone and sobbed on his friends shoulders, and they would have consoled him. It would have taken time, but Devdas would have recovered. Had he been in Bangalore, the balmy weather would have worked its magic. A week later, Devdas would have been pub-hopping on Brigade Road. But, alas for poor Devdas, he was in Calcutta.
Consider his predicament. His heart was aching. On top of that, he had to endure the notorious Calcutta weather- hot and muggy. He could not distract himself in the contemplation of beauty, for the simple reason that there is none in Calcutta. As for talking to his friends- of course he could have talked to them. But what use would it have been? The message would have been lost in the massacre of vowels that is the Bengali accent. Anyway, as latent communism fiends, they would have been unable to give him sensible advice. Which brings me on to the final point- every time he stepped out of his house he would have seen a hartal blocking the street. Is it any wonder the fellow turned to drink?
And now that we have dived deep into the roots of the issue, we come full circle and return to practical application. And the practical application of everything that has been discussed is this:
If you have a choice between IIM-B and IIM-C, take IIM-B. Otherwise you’ll end up like Devdas.
Well, How much ever it would be hard to believe, but its TRUE (Cause we have the trophy and the certificates to prove 😉 ), we have been declared as the National Champions of the AIMA-Infosys Student Business Games Contest finals which was held in Coimbatore.
The best part of the whole exercise was the kewl 20,000 bucks….Not bad for doing nothing though !!! add to that, travelling on ‘sarkari kharcha’. They said some 170 b-schools from all over the country had participated in it…..but who cares if it was only us who had participated as long as we got our $$$$$$
It all started with a ‘Jai Rajni’ slogan (after Rajnikanth, the hero), imposed on Madu and Nimo by me and mallu as soon as they got out of the train in Coimbatore. Poor madu and nimo had no other option but to keep repeating ‘Jai Rajni’ whenever we asked them to, cause they were now standing on Alien Land (aka Tamil Nadu) and me and mallu(to some extent) were their only gateway to civilisation.
Then ensued a long trip to Jansons School of Business, where our accomodation had been arranged. Located outside Coimbatore in a place called Karumathampatti (try pronouncing it….might even qualify as a gr8 tongue twister). Then left for tirupur and had great Ghee Roast Dosas followed by a hot steaming cup of Filter Coffee….aahh Heavenly….
The nxt day in the competition, there were ppl in blazers and ties and here were me and nimo in our tee’s and Nike’s looking like the last thing we bothered was this competition….the Symbiosis team was also more like us. This Nationals was a relative Cakewalk, we were first right from the Frist Quarter….Very less of those superstitious beliefs of touching all 4 corners of a table (I still can’t believe i did all that….Which deity in this world would be impressed by my touching all 4 corners of a table, I would never understand !), but we continued, with nimo collecting the results, mallu with Raw Material Calculations, Madu filling the Sample Decision form in Pencil and me finally filling the Final Decision form only with Nimo’s pen……
Just about everyone there knew, that we had won the competition, Symbi guys even congratulated us way before the results were out.
Trigger Happy Madu: While the results were being announced, they started with the second runners-up to the Winners, As the Prof read out the runners up team, for some reason Madu jumped up and started shouting….WOW, WE WON….all the while we were pulling him down saying this is not us…..And when madu realised it….the whole room was roaring in laughter and madu was trying to hide his face, that was scene worth seeing…..hehehehe, what probably saved him and was the best reply was that we were called out for the Winners….and this time we had to tell him that this really is us…..And then followed a big trophy with 20K worth cheques…..WAKAW !!!!!!!
And as I keep telling everyone, I just hope that they don’t revise the results.
JAI RAJNI !
Now I know how it feels to have failed. I had to conduct an Oath taking ceremony as CEO in the presence of the Director and other faculty members. Quite a significant event in IIFM’s history, considering that this was the formation of the First Student Council. In plain simple terms, I messed it up ! There is probably no other word, a mess, is what it was. There is no blaming anyone, just me ! Now, I know what it feels to be on an uninhabited island……..Alone !
I have never felt like this, a feeling so unexpressable, a feeling where you think you are responsible for someone else’s debacle, a feeling where your heart stops beating, where words don’t come out of your mouth….when you feel that inertia is everywhere and it takes effort to stop walking, a feeling of utter lowlyness….I probably will never be able to pen down the feeling, but what I am sure is that this and some more is what failure consists of !
I do not know, why I am feeling so low, probably because failure is not someone i’ve met very often. I am writing this now so that I have a record of this, so that everytime I have to do something important, I look at it and tell myself that I need to work more, I need to be meticulous, I need to make sure that I have got everything right ! I am also writing this so that I could pen down my current feelings, I do not want to write about this once I have got over it….It would not be accurate, it would be diluted….It already is diluted to some extent !
But one thing for which I thank god is the fact that I have been blessed with good friends. I am basically a very reserved kind of a guy, who does not open up very much and it is probably only with these friends that i speak what i do. I have not spoken about this to many people, just to Gaurav, Somali and Divya at the moment and it already feels a lot better. At this point of time, I am reminded of what a friend of mine would always say:-
“I believe in angels, they are all around me, they are everywhere.Its just that I call them friends.”
I do not know what has happened to me, but I hope that i will recover. I think what i need desperately is a good 8 hr sleep.
Is Sweet Dreams the right phrase for the moment ?
Some men are born stupid, some men achieve stupidity and some men just have stupidity thrust upon them. At the moment I feel that I am in the 3rd category and if I stay with my Reporting Officer (RO) long enough, It wouldn’t be long before I move into the second one.
What else can you say about a guy who is ever ready with his sarcastic statements, constantly looking for a chance to vomit it on you. And whenever you need answers to some queries or have some doubts, he’s busy cause he’s calculating 29 + 35 on his calculator !
Imagine me, my RO and a couple of his colleagues sitting for Project Discussion in CIP room (thats Continuous Improvement Process for you). I explain him that Iintend to measure the Energy Consumption of the Effluent Treatment Plant,a nd pat comes his reply “How do you think you would measure it ? Will you catch the wire in your hands and see how much of electricity is flowing in it ?”. And the room bursts out in laughter, only because they have to. And I give him a sheepish smile thinking ” I wish I had a boulder to throw on his head “. And then he tells me he was just joking. Thank God he told me that !
But, He’s not really Amrish Puri/ Gulshan Grover all the time. At times he’s quite good too ! Just to make you think, is it the same guy I met a couple of minutes ago.
His good deeds sometime later, cause my internet session’s already clocked 45 min and if I continue, my mother won’t be as good as she’s been over teh past 4 weeks !!
My Project is all about Shit (read effluents /wastes). I have to analyze what all constituents shit, how shit is generated, what happens when shit is generated, how it is transported to shit treatment plant. Once its transported, how we take the SHIT out of shit ! Once we take the shit out of shit, what do we do with either of those shit…if releasing this shit into the environment generates any other type of shit (no I am not talking about isotopes)….somewhere I also have to calculate how much energy is consumed in taking the shit out of shit……Too much for a project isn’t it ???OOOOOOOWWWWWPPPPPP That’s me Vomiting……Hmm Yes, I am paid to do it.
Gone are the days when you could just piss anywhere, empty places, garbage bins, round the corner, anywhere you could feel happy to have given back something back to Nature in the form of fertilizer. These days all potential ‘pissing’ points are being monitored and that too by Females !!
The other day at a Traffic Signal, near a potential pissing point, a man was standing with his face to the wall. Once he relieved himself, he got the shock of his life. Now, there was standing a lady with hands on her hips and a facial expression similar to that of a Bulldog when he doesn’t like you. Next thing she said was something similar to what Monica had said to Joey in FRIENDS, “Put your mouse inside its House”. And then he got a real dressing down , interspersed with a lecture on how to keep the neighbourhood and environment clean. She was repeating ‘Namma Bangalore, Swachha Bangalore”.
Some months ago, this would have amused to death, But now that there has been a sudden spurt of interest in Energy and Environment, to that extent that I am doing a Project I know nothing of….all this seems very Valid. The first day I got there, the letters TCE were flying all over and I thought TCS must have changed its name to Tata Conculting Enterprise or something of that sort, it was only later in the day, I got to know that they were talking about Tri Chloro Ethylene, which is Carcinogenic. Phew !
The Cabbage Diaries 