Mentos-Dimag ki batti jala de!

Superstitions are amazing.They have this kind of placebo effect on you where they make you believe that you will do well in an exam,an interview,a date(:P) and everything else that you do if you follow them.This might not be true but it gives a man strength to face situations which usually make him nervous.

I have a lot of superstitions.In the 2nd term of my engineering I failed an exam for the first time ever in my life.The paper was of Engineering Graphics or as we used to call it-EGR.Now this paper used to have 6 questions as all Pune University papers do.All these questions were do 1 out of the following 2 types.4 were of 16 marks each and 2 of 18 marks.

There was this rumour that no one could get less than 12 marks in the paper because you got 2 marks for every question if all you did was mark the x and the y axis.So if all you did in the paper was draw 6 xy axes you would be assured of 12 marks.

When I appeared for the paper,like always I solved all questions to the best of my ability.I have never really been very good at subjects like these which require you to be pinpoint when you are solving questions.People who have done the course will be shocked to know that I never ever used the DRAFTER!I always use to draw with the help of a simple roll-n-draw.

Anyway so the results came out and they were the worst results of my life.I had managed to get a princely score of 8 out of 100 in EGR.In effect,I broke the back of that belief that no one could score less than 12 marks.

I had bought a new T shirt and a new jeans before the next set of exams came around.Both were from the brand of Pepe jeans and when I started my 3rd term exams I wore them on the first day.The exam went quite well and I thought of wearing them again for the next paper.This continued and I kept wearing the same through all the 6 exams in that term(5+EGR).

After that term,I became so comfortable in those clothes that believe it or not,I have worn them in every exam season since.That would include the 4th,5th,6th,7th and 8th term papers durin engineering.I wore them during 2 or 3 of my mock CATs and I wore them on the most important day of my life on 16 November 2008 on CAT day.Since joining IIMC,I have worn them in all the 6 exam weeks so far.Even during the winters I used to wear the half sleeves T shirt and a full sleeves on top of it.

Another one of my superstitions is eating a Mentos chewing gum before starting any paper.Since I always have a good stock of mentos in my home,I had an easy access to them.I eat a mentos just as I receive the question paper.Have been doing it since the 6th term of engineering and the trend has carried on to the IIMC papers.

I know it sounds quite weird but that is how it is.The situation has come to a stage where sometimes I really wanna believe the Mentos tag line of 'Dimag ki batti jala de'!

PS-Thanks for the amazing response to the other blog.It has garnered more than 50 views on the first day and has more followers than this 2 year old blog.I hope you enjoyed reading the first post and that you will keep coming back for future ones.At the same time I hope that you will keep supporting this blog too.

A New Blog!

To all my readers especially those of you who are CAT/XAT/FMS/X MBA Entrance exam aspirants,I would like you to check out the new blog I have started which basically will give you a few tips and tricks on the quantitative section of the paper.The tricks handed out here basically have to do with numbers and techniques of how to deal with them.

I will be putting out a topic weekly hopefully and would hope that it would help the people who need help and those who have already cleared these exams will find the posts interesting.This basically goes out as the first step to me starting my own company in a few years time.Lets hope for the best..

Anyway have a look at the blog here-http://quanterstrike.blogspot.com/

and let me know what you think about it.The first post is coming soon.

PS-This blog will continue simultaneously with that one.I hope the regular readers of this one still follow it..

Of comfort level and the like

Saturday and I finally decided to pay my friend a visit at his coaching center where he is preparing for his actuarial examinations.I know not a lot of you would be aware about what an actuary means and I do not really know the exact definition either so the best idea would be to go and google it if you are that curious.

Ok so being the planners that he and I are we started hatching a plan yesterday night.He has a batchmate at his institute who is supposedly India's No.2 woman golfer.We talked about me acting as a sort of a manager for her the time I am here and if it were to progress smoothly look to carry it forward even when I went back to Joka.The real purpose though as in all our plans was something else.I would leave the answer to the readers guess.

As it happened I reached the institute around 1 and the class was still going on.This was basically a doubt class so my friend(we will call him AS from now on) could leave while it was still going on and we went and had lunch at this dinghy place nearby.South Campus is full of places like these.When we cam back,class had finished and we met the girl.Now AS has this weird thing in his head where he finds it very hard to introduce two people well.While we are standing there he goes-'This is my friend Prateek.I talked to you about him.He is looking to expand his social circle.'

In my head I went-'What the hell moron?' but that didnt really come out as words.The next 15 minutes were very very awkward.I just could not bring myself around to initiating a conversation with that girl and AS told me later that she said the following about me-'Why is he acting so weirdly?'.Ok so some part of it was my mistake but was it fully my mistake?I do not know why but I just did not feel comfortable in the company of that girl.And she did not really make any effort to make me comfortable too.

Later when we were standing at the bus stand to catch our respective buses(he to gurgaon and I to Uttam nagar) I started pestering him to go to Noida to meet this girl he has been talking to for a long time now.I mean there were no surreptitious intentions there like there are with most of our plans.The point was just to have some fun and waste some time.I asked him to call his friend up which he did.And he started telling her that he wanted to come but could not coz he had lots of studying to do(Yeah his exams are in the 2nd week of may and he is taking 3 at one go).I on the other hand was prompting him again and again to go.Finally it irritated him so much that he handed the phone to me.Now I had never talked to this girl before.But when I did start talking it all came out so naturally.For two people who were talking for the first time,we talked very easily and it somehow made me realize something.

It made me realize that being comfortable in someone's company is not really a choice for you to make.It just happens by itself.You will not really make an extra effort but some people just have that compatibility level with you from the beginning which makes you pretty relaxed in their company.While other people do not and you need a lot of time with them to make good friends with them.

So all in all a successful day.Another lesson learnt..:)

Finally learnt how to upload pics...Here are some from the Goa trip...

A face in the metro and another plan!

As my regular readers would know,I have been interning with Dabur India Ltd. at their corporate office at Ghaziabad.To come here everyday,I have to board the Delhi Metro at the Janakpuri West station and get down at Anand Vihar which is 25 stations away.When I get inside the metro I usually dont get a place to sit and the bigger problem is that I have to carry my laptop to work everyday.I keep standing for 20 stations on an average and finally get to sit around the Yamuna bank station.Throughout the first week of these metro rides,I kept noticing a face.She was usually in the train before I got in and got out one station before me.I so wanted to initiate a conversation but when I finally grew up enough courage by the 2nd week,she was nowhere to be seen.I have been doing some market visits so have boarded the train only twice in the last week but I havent seen her.But I make a promise to myself.If I do see her again in the train,I will start up a conversation.

The other part of todays post is about what I plan to do after my MBA.Having had no work ex before joining IIMC,I had no idea about how I would fare in a job.And having done 2 weeks here,I have grown even more doubtful if I have it in me to be successful at a daily desk job.When I think about that I also think about the option of owning something of my own.I have a couple of options in mind the most prominent is the education sector.When I look back at what I have done all my life,the most enjoyable time for me was preparing for CAT and taking classes for a SNAP batch at IMS simultaneously.And when I think about it,people might call the education sector saturated but when one really looks at it,most sectors are saturated.One just has to come up with something that will connect to people and thats what I will look to do.To that end,I want to start taking some sessions wherein I would look at talking to people regarding CAT.Anant talked about organising these sessions before I leave Delhi.Lets see how this plan pans out!

A baby and the heat!

This was a fairly free week.Not a lot of work plus 1 chutti in between on Wednesday.Thanks to Dr. Ambedekar for being born.Two other things have been noticeable this week.

Number one-My baby niece Aaliyah has become quite the little devil these days.This is around the time in her life when babies start growing teeth and also start walking apparently.So she keeps us quite busy as she keeps climbing things in her will to stand on her own.Yesterday I achieved a new high in my handling of babies.I made her sleep all by myself.And today the other side of the coin came down.I was to watch her when her mom went somewhere for 15 minutes.And she tripped and fell while standing against a table.A little bump came up and it made me feel miserable.Guess you have to get used to these things when you have a baby around.Also I think that I will be a small expert on how to handle babies when I leave Delhi.Will add to my longggggggggg list of amazing qualities.Lol.On a serious note,I think its a good quality to have without actually ever having to handle your own child.

Number Two-The sweltering Delhi heat.42.9 degree celsius.This was Fridays temperature.42.6 was Thursdays.Due to my summer project I had to roam around a lot during these two days and I am happy to have this day off.As I did this,I saw a lot of people who do this roaming around everyday.And I salute them.It also made me thing how people would survive on this Earth lets say 20 years from now.At the rate things are moving it wont be a big deal to see a 50 degree day quite regularly in the future.Also does that 2012 theory hold any water?Well we would have to wait to find out.

Its time for a change to come!

I have been posting a lot these days.Frankly I dont have a lot of work to do at this point and sit on the internet a lot.Anyway two things happened in the last 2 days which have made me keen on making some changes with my life.

First of all the results for the IIMC GD-PI process came out on the 10th.The same day they came out for us last year.The date brought back memories of probably the greatest day of my life.The 2nd thing was that today while coming on the metro I heard the early days song again after a long time.And this brought a flood of memories.It just took me back to last year when after I was assured a place at Joka,how I used to listen to this song time and time again.And these 2 things just made me realize of fortunate I really am.Studying at one of the greatest places on the Earth and certainly the greatest in India,I should be counting my blessings.Cant believe it has been one year already and that now we will be welcoming our junior batch.Frankly when I look back it has really been the greatest year of my life.

This made me think to myself-Why do I still keep sulking so much?Why dont I care about the place I am at?I have seen friends who have tried for 3-4 years to reach this place,friends who have been trying for 2-3 and still havent managed to get here.And sometimes I believe that maybe I got here too easily.

But I promise myself today that I will change.I will stop feeling sorry for myself.I have been so intent on looking at the depressing things in life that I have forgotten to look at the things that should make me happy.At this point,I just dont think that I love myself enough and its time to change that.Its time to change my source of gratification to something inside myself rather than to keep looking at people to make me happy.Its time to stop thinking about what I dont have and its time to enjoy what I do have instead.Coz however hard one tries one cant get everything in life can he?

Anyway as I close this I would just like to welcome the batch of 47/17 to IIM Calcutta.Would just tell them at this point that it will be the greatest daze of your lives as we like to say it.And to all my batchmates and friends,I hope we have another fulfilling year at Joka and leave a legacy behind for other batches to follow.I hope we are able to give back to this place because frankly it has given us a lot.

A Passion?Is it?

Someone who has been following my blog regularly would know that I had bought a camera while I was leaving for IIMC.Its a Sony w210 12.1 MP 4X optical zoom camera.For the first 5 or 6 months I used it to click random shots of the campus,a few more pictures when my parents visited Calcutta and very little else.Then came our Goa trip in Mid March.And I think I have developed a new interest.

I took more than 200 shots in the 3 day trip and some certainly didnt have either me or my family.By the way I have not talked about that trip before but it was an awesome one.I had been to Goa once way back when I was like 2 years old.Obviously I did not remember any of it.This time I tried to take in as much as I could.Also I felt that this was a great time to be in Goa.I had heard a lot of stories about the heat in Goa at this point of the year.Honestly I do not know why people told me that.Yeah it was hot but it was not nearly as hot as had been described to me.And as I went it with low expectations I ended up enjoying it a lot more.

We stayed very close to the Calangute Beach for the first 2 days.We hired 2 Taxis on the 2nd day and managed to visit some of the prime sites of Goa in the Lighthouse,Saint Francis Church and also visited 3 beaches in Sinquerim,Anjuna and Vagator.The beaches got better from the first to the last.I was told that Musafir was shot at Anjuna and Dil Chahta Hai at Vagator.

On the 3rd day we moved to Panjim and visited Dona Paula and Miramar beach.In the evening we took a ride in the famous Paradise ferry.That was an amazing trip too.

Anyway back to the passion.I enjoyed taking all those pictures and learnt a lot about working with my camera well.As I close this I look forward to going to Rishikesh on the weekend.That should be another good trip with the camera.We also have plans of visiting Leh in June.Lets see if that works out.

I will make sure of one thing though.For the 2 months that I am in Delhi I will visit all the famous places around here.The camera will be my constant companion on these visits.I will also learn how to put pictures on this blog and hopefully will post a few soon.

PS-The Rishikesh plan has gone to hell...:D

Another short one!

Just wanted to mention that I have finally realized the meaning of 'What goes around comes around'.Too bad the lesson had to be so harsh...