3 weeks in Gods Own Country.

So it has been a while since I have posted something on my BLOG. It has been 20 days since I have landed in Gods Own Country. The experience so far has been like a fresh new day, new with each instance. So what experiences am I talking about here?

1) Practice the language before you reach a new place. Learn a few important words. And even after you have done then learn to see people laughing at you for your pronunciations! And just in case you haven't learnt any words then invoke the blessings from The Gods of Dumb Charades. I've been doing just that.

2) "When in Rome Be Like The Romans Are" So it's time for lungi /mundu. The natives still wouldn't accept you completely obviously because you are out of place. Confidence matters but with the fear of what would go faster, the Mundu or your IZZZAT, tell me where is the scope to have confidence and walk!

3) Learn to cook and eat. Unfortunately I am in a land of non vegetarian food lovers and me being an eggetarian struggle to find some good food. Funnier is when you DARE to EAT some North Indian dish and then spend time in the loo. :P It isn't as funny as one might feel on reading. I was MIGHTY PLEASED when I visited a 4 Star with an ambience which could give some of our Mumbai restaurants a run for their money. MULTI CUISINE RESTAURANT, they declared on their Tariff Card and I promised the Manager I would come back soon. The next time I visited the area I made it a point to visit the MULTI CUISINE RESTAURANT. "Paneer Kitne Din se nahin khaaya." my heart shouted!

Waiter: "Sir would you like to have some dish in Paneer for the main course?"

WTF???????????????

Me: "Ah well yeah. Get me a dish of Paneer Butter Masala along with a dish of Appam."

I waited patiently with a wish to have Paneer after 3 weeks! *Slurp*

The wait was't worth, the Paneer Butter Masala completely drowned my desire to come back to this MULTI CUISINE RESTAURANT. So from there I head to my meeting. All of a sudden there is some "hul-chal"

KAHAN?

Stomach dear had an immediate Mood Change due to the food at the MULTI CUISINE RESTAURANT. :( The rest? The lesser said the better!

4) Get ready for an overdose of the local actors on television. Movies, TV Advertisements, Hoardings, you will see them everywhere. If that wasn't less you would see them in the most funniest of poses and clothes!

5) Be ready to meet some visitors who might give you creeps. They are in plenty here. Thankfully the one's that I am scared of, haven't REALLY made their presence felt.

Is it all that bad?

1) The Peace here cannot be bought by any amount of urbanisation. All that we miss in a city like Mumbai is some peace which is in abundance here. :D A day full of working from home and then a walk with an elder to the local temple, the knowledge that you get while talking to them, the fields that you pass by, the local houses from where the kids come out running to see a person whom they haven't seen previously and all the customs and traditions which we as city dwellers can never experience. They still, also, use the traditional methods of cooking with the dried up wood what we call as the "Choolaah"

2) The smile and the warmth of the people whom you might not know and yet they would stand and explain to you, how they are related and then their favourite statements "How would you remember us? The last you had seen was when you were 6 years old!" What memory!!!!!! :-o

3) The weather during evening times is absolutely awesome! I have been experiencing breeze which we "could probably" experience only during Winters in city.

4) The sanctity of the holy places would have to be seen to be believed. The precision with which people follow each of these practices shows the power of beliefs! At many of the temples, including the local one,that I have visited the people still don't cross the path if they see the priest coming. The temples still haven't been commercialised. I have been completely bowled over by a group of 3 kids who used to come ever evening, until their schools started, to recite Bhajans. I doubt if this could be ever seen in the city.

5) Everything over here is so planned and organised in their own little way. We as city dwellers never get time from our usual schedule to have lunch on time, to have tea on time or probably to reach home for dinner on time. But here day in- day out,their schedules never go wrong. Breakfast is sharp at 7 (not for me though), another tea session by 11, followed by lunch at 1pm, Snacks at 4 and finally dinner by 10 pm. They plan for their day-to-day activity in advance. Like for eg. cut the wood and store well in advance before rains for cooking purposes. And to add to it they live a HAPPY (content) LIFE. Makes me wonder, what is it that I am searching for in life?

Each day that gets me a new experience, good or bad, has only reinforced my decision of having taken up a rural internship for my Summers.

A New Experience

I ventured out of home with a sick body to carry out an initiative in college called MET-NAG (News Analysis Group). All through my way I was confused as to what would I present to the group and finally I found a topic or rather an article on education which I could speak about.

As soon as I entered the classroom I was glad to see 10% of the class sitting and discussing/ analysing the news. But in between the discussion I came to know abot STORMET Marketing activities to be held in less than an hour. Brand Charade and Case Study on Virgin Mobile. Wow Case Study and that too Virgin Mobile, sounded cool! So I followed a couple of my classmates to the computer lab.

Start Google! Start Wikipedia! Start everything that could help me gather news about Uncle Richard! Looked to be an interesting case as I started guessing what could be the issue they would want us to present on. Branding / Communication / strategies, what could it be? Why haven't they succeeded? What on earth could be the actual topic of discussion?

I gathered as much info as possible and was moved to the venue. I was greeted with scenes of people working on laptops. Discussing the financial numbers, the reach of the advertisements, the everything and anything that I didn't search for. Nevertheless it wasn't the time to sit and analyse what you didn't have and rather consolidate your position. So I settled down with my group members and we started sharing our data. I was completely geared and raring to hit the audience with my thoughts and ideas.

Volunteers started moving around with pieces of folded paper which had the group number. We picked one and announced that we were the second group. I was glad as we would be able to present our ideas sooner than later and all that initial enthusiasm would not die. Wow!

Finally the organiser stood in front of us and started speaking out the rules & regulations. Ok! Now this is new but maybe could be some innovative rules for a case study. Maybe? Suddenly the organiser says, you cannot point out at objects in the classroom. Pointing at objects for case study? WTF? Aren't we supposed to present case study? What does pointing at objects have to do with case study? I finally gathered my courage to call one of the volunteers and asked him, "how would it affect if I point at any object in between a case study?" To my shock and disbelief I was told," the case study was cancelled just 10 mins back and you're the second group for brand charades!"

WTF!

Now I sit here trying to guess what people intend to say about brand names and their tag lines! Huh? I never played this game in my entire life not even when I was bored to death! So hmmmm I'm sitting here and guessing and trying to understand what exactly the "F" is it when you pull your ear lobe, what's it that you indicate when you hit your elbow, what do you convey when you stamp your fist? What the hell is it?

But what I did learn is that communication does happen without words and with minimal actions, with a lot of vigour and excitement which makes verbal communication not so exciting in front of this medium. :-)

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Another week in the B-School.

Body gave up last evening in its fight against traveling to college and the ever fluctuating weather. Lying on the bed, listening to music since morning, the one thing that I feel good about is that thoughts haven't stopped trickling onto my BlackBerry. (Wow! I'm learning IBA - In Blog Advertising :P)

The last one week has been a good time observing classmates and trying to understand their behaviour towards each other.

Camouflaged or how real? Slowly and steadily the gossips, likes and dislikes are coming out. The frustrations are being thrown out in the open. People who looked from one side as level headed and extremely knowledgeable turned out to be very self-centred. Would it mean that the countdown to groupism have begun? I wouldn't know (maybe I'm avoiding truth) and hope not.

In all this there are two classmates who really caught my attention. Both from outside Maharashtra. Both too casual. Both crowd pullers. Both athletic. Both with lots of enthusiasm and energy. But one is more on the calmer side and the other a bit too impulsive.

The calmer guy is more like a visiting faculty and does things with a certain amount of confidence. He also has a knack of becoming teachers pet. Somehow he manages to create a niche for himself in every ones mind.

The impulsive fellow is very regular to the class. Always participating in the right ways. He has confidence which can take him places and is very promising in terms of capabilities.

So would that mean that the rest of them don't really come under that bracket of "would-be-great" people. Definitely not! And I'd be the last one to judge someone like that but these two are people who leave their marks whenever they go somewhere, besides they dare to take the walks which others would be a bit reluctant to take initiative about. Like the calmer guy is a hit among seniors and the peer group alike. While the impulsive has gone ahead and become a part of the debating society. Two things which define a person in college are; how well you can interact with your seniors and how well you could debate with them to put your points. Both help to shape your thought processes. These two have ventured into each of these territories individually but still I would rate them as the most promising in the class because to be successful you need not be a part of everything around. It is all about playing to your strengths and not letting your weaknesses out, which I see in both of them.

I have hit off with a few people around me and I enjoy their company as well. Besides there's this group of dudes who are also a great company, a group which keeps the class lively. Infact the Group of Dudes and the Group of the Impulsive guy had lunch together, yesterday and it was indeed a nice sight seeing so many people bonding together! Makes me feel proud of the place I am. :-) There have been certain surprises too,like a really sweet but quiet looking girl making an excellent, confident and clear voice pitch during her I.T. for Management Presentation. But yeah she has got a long way to go.

The one sad part is that there's no representation in our class from the North East. I would really have been happy to see them, especially since they are music freaks. It would have been a perfect setting of a Mini-India. That's one thing that I would be looking forward to, interacting with people from different parts of India. The course has to open up minds for things which are not referred in the syllabus of Mumbai University.

But I'm sure looking & interacting with specifically these two classmates atleast for the next two years I would be able to open my mind and learn more about North Indias two most powerful places; Jammu & Delhi.

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Thoughts

A few days back I got up early morning at 3 & was feeling restless for some unknown reason! A few hours later I could pen the following thoughts;



"A look out of my window actually shows how calm everything is when it's dark. The irony is we humans just cant see when it is dark but calm and rather prefer to search for everything when there is light and noise during the day. I guess it's because we fear to do something in darkness,just because we cannot see it. It's so unfortunate that we lay so much importance to seeing things and doing rather than feeling! "





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A foot into the PG World!

So finally it has been a week since I joined Mumbai Educational Trust's Institute of Management at Bandra for my M.M.S.(which for layman is the MBA Degree awarded by Mumbai University.)

Week 1 was good. I really enjoyed most of my lectures except the but obvious Finance Tutorials. It's not that the prof is bad but I have a weaknees and that's Finance. I really need peace and tranquility equal to attaining Bliss to understand Finance, so now you know what I mean!

Most of the professors are really good when it comes to delivering lectures and probably that's the reason why I'm enjoying it. I read this on Captn.C.K. Gopinath's Tweet today,""The mediocre teacher tells.The good teacher explains.The superior teacher states.The great teacher inspires." William Arthur Ward " It speaks the best of what I want to say.

To come to the point of my classmates, people with whom I would be spending most part of my day, I should say it has been a mixed reaction (sort of 80-20) 80% of them are good and 20% not bad. I liked the way they all gelled and jumped on the day of the photoshoot! It was terrific to be in that experience, sitting there and watching everyone make noise, jump, smile and click! It was an experience which really helped me sit back and soak the environment I would be in, for the next 2 years. I liked a few of them, a certain guy from a Market Research Agency, got good brains I should say but I only wish he opens up too often. That's something which I felt in this class, that they are scared inspite of the fact that they have been in college now for more than 3 weeks! It reminds me of what my undergraduate prof had said, "Speak, Open up. Even if you make a fool of yourself it's better to make that here in front of your classmates rather than in the Board room." I guess they should start adapting this policy. They will I guess in a matter of time. Some of the guys are helpful, like one who earnestly came forth and explained me the groups and the projects. Another one did some "jugaad" and got me into his group. They are nice, nice people! Some couples already exist in class I guess and of the two that I assumed, I liked the pair! Fantastic they look together! :) I hope I guessed it right.

Masti during lectures is full on, even during some really serious lectures. Like the other day during the Accounts lec by one of the noted professors of the city, Prof.Chopade, a guy actually had the gutts to do mischief by passing the slippers of his partner (as in person sitting next to him) to the person sitting next to the door. The facts to note are 1) he was sitting at one end of the class and the door guy was at the other end. 2) the girl (the partner) was oblivious to all of this until forced by habit she wanted to put on her slippers, after a while. I still cannot forget the "SHOCK" on her face on realisation and the other moment which I cannot forget is the way she clenched her fist and thumped her legs on the floor to drain her frustration! "LOL" was the word of that moment!

I just pray and hope that as the course draws more seriousness all this camarederie isn't lost, all this spirit of being classmates doesn't evaporate and this oneness remains forever keeping the spirit of education!