R.I.P, my friend

         Winters were yet to set in when one day, not long ago, as I was entering our block after walking our little angels, I spotted the silloutte of a small animal, probably a pup. It was well past 2100h and in the poorly lit corridor on the ground floor, I had seen that small little thing who had halted, probably having seen us. I came up but something inside me told me that the guy was hungry or week. There was some food lying in the kitchen and I took out some of it and went out. That little thing, instead of getting scared of two pets, had actually climbed up and had now been standing in our corridor on the first floor. And what a poor little thing it was...... just about less than a month old (or so he appeared in that state), he was thin to his ribs and looked starved. But he had a shine in his little eyes and he looked pretty cute with two raised ears. I fell for him at that very sight and our relationship started that very moment.

        Next day, he was already waiting outside our door as we started to feed our pets. And soon enough, our neighbours who stay opposite us, across the corridor, pitched in too. So, he started having two and even more than two meals a day between two houses. Before we realised, he had become guard of our flank as he started to hang around. Soon enough, he started following Czia and lady from other house everytime they went for a walk. Czia, inspired by his jet black coat, christened him as 'Pyaaru Kaalu'. He would always be there to see eachone of us off in the mornings and receive us back in the parking lot as we trudged in at the end of each day. So, there we were..... he had a name, we had another member in our family and it all looked pretty good. As days flew pat, he grew into a handsome, healthy youngster with a shiny coat and a very playful spirit. We also realised that he had a great fan following among children of the society and though there were few disgruntled souls (like everywhere else), he had many friends, both human and their pets.

     IN between, he missed his turn for evening meal only on two ocasions - once during Diwali when every year insensitive human beings make such creatures take flight out of fear (but he had returned two days later) and then last month when he just took a day off. I was, thus anxious a bit when he missed his meal the day before. And when he did not turn up yesterday nor was he seen all this while, I started to get a sinking feeling. I kept on checking out on him, the place where he would sleep downstairs or the area where he would always be jumping around. We were really worried by morning today when Deepika left for her office. Not content with my own search, I tasked two men to look for him in the colony and beyond. 

    It was 0945h and as I was getting ready to go to EBS for my exam, I heard what I had been praying not to be told by anyone. One of us, some  insensitive, careless man behind the wheels had hit him the night before. Kaalu had been found dead by conservancy staff in another part of the colony yesterday itself and his body had already been disposed off. For a moment, I did not know what to do or say! It were Deepika's words that gave me some courage as she said that he would be better off being an angel, away from this thankless world. 

   The second angel over such a short time (Googlie had turned one in September last year) and I am now inclined to pray that may be we do not want any more angels! But that is selfish me. Life moves on and we will get busy with own chores but as of now, I am missing him terribly.........!! This post  stands dedicated to you, my dear friend ......... may you Rest In Peace!

(Go safe........... this world is no longer a safe place to live in)

HA, Ha, ha, hA, HA..... well, this is the spill over from today's examination hall!

                                                                                 We had a DARK ROOM situation today while we were busy inventing new answers to old questions. One moment we were sitting in a well-lit hall and suddenly we plunged into TORA BORA CAVES......, at least that is what it felt like. But then students are students and while sharper ones did try to consult eachother, most of us laughed it out. Faculty was not happy, obviously!

                   Lighter things aside, there was a huge lesson for all of us, more so for the uninitiated ones...... whatever one may do, when things have to go wrong, they will! Many a time in our lives, we come across such situations where despite all our best efforts and sincerity, things would still go awry, leaving us gasping in the process. Sooner we accept this, lesser would be the need to gasp and suck in some extra molecules of oxygen on such occsions. But more importantly, as we go up the ladder, we must keep this in our minds when it comes to our team members, especially, subordinates. There will, as said before, be times when despite a youngster's best efforts, things may start to swing away. And under such circumstances, if we are able to keep our cool and just tap him/her on the back  and utter some kind words, he/she will learn a great lesson or two too. The best that could happen at that difficult moment may be the situation getting back on track and the worst.....well, the situation had, as it is, been running away...so, why worry!

                   1030h..... bang bang and the papers were distributed today without waiting for students to walk in. A good change that made many of us feel good and at the same time, it did make us realise the fact that how, when we ignore such small issues, people tend to take the system for granted. Assured of repeated delays that have been happening before, most of the guys (and gals) were late for the exam today. 1030 that would have started to mean 1045 for most of us, suddenly became 1030 today and many of our buddies were caught off-guard. They were permitted inside, courtesy some mercy shown by the faculty but imagine if they get used to such time variations and walk in late into a meeting and that too just when their careers are about to take off! I wish all of us 'All the Best' and hope that such trends continue and we learn when stakes are still not very high!

                   Today's paper was simple and straight and I would say that it was well set! It is another story that most of my attempts to invent new answers have gone awry too...... like I said a little while ago, things will go wrong when they have to! 

                      CHEERS! HAVE FUN!

Oooops, "WE" did it AGAIN!

                       How do I describe the first exam that just went past? Well, at loss with words, I would simply narrate what happened today and leave it for you to guess our plight (of whosoever it may concern)! 

       

                      Take 1/ 0955h: Parking Lot... Mr Pandit, the ever smiling security guy greets me with usual cheerfulness and utters words to this effect," Aaj Basement mein hai". Thanx to Naudie who had walked up to my car a few moments before, I knew the exact meaning of what Pandit Ji had been trying to say! Naudie had, while sharing the news about new location of our exams, had also confirmed that there would be desks and benches and not those useless chairs! So far so good. Basement of Era is pretty spacious and admittingly well-kept (not to forget that this is where we tend to let our hair loose whenever we have a musical night/ fresher's night and such like events). As we were descending to the basement, I overheard an optimistic colleague checking whether it was 'cafe' that had been meant when they had said 'basement'! Nothing wrong with being so optimistic but his belief was a bit misplaced- misplaced by some  dozen odd steps or 12 feet (one storey, ie). 

               Take 2/ 1010h: A Few Feet Under.... We are in the basement, discussing some pre-exam doubts and cooling off eachother by confessing/admitting/posing to be as unprepared and unread as our friends! And suddenly, we hear some noise. One major pipe starts to leak and then one smaller one on top of the faculty table gives in. Moments later, one bench was getting wet too. And suddenly, our attention shifted from upcoming exam to the debate whether the main pipe was from one of many toilets upstairs or not. Optimistics (again) like me tried to  relate that pipe to the cooling system of the central conditioning, taking off the fact that at least one smaller pipe (red in colour) was fire-extinguisher system's offshoot. Many others on the other end of the spectrum were just waiting for the smell to build up so that they could be proved right! The scene went on for 10 odd minutes as we joked about the option to SINK if we find the paper too tough to SWIM through. Suddenly, some containers (one with the caption,"जल ही जीवन है") appeared on the scene and flow of the water also reduced significantly because of someone's intervention on top (even though someone claimed to know that water would flow only when someone used a loo upstairs!). But honestly, it was a good way to divert some really anxious minds and few drags and pulls (shifting of furniture) later, we were all set to face the first ball!

                  Take 3/ 1035h: All Geared Up to Take On The Challenge....We   are late by a few minutes. But by now, one is used to such delays (what are a few minutes between friends, after all!). Our pens are out (the bat), calculators have been switched on (helmet adjusted), pencil's point has been checked (pads fitted), eraser is already out of the box (gloves pulled tight) and sharpener (the abdomen guard....ha, ha) is ready to get deployed at short notice. We see blank answer sheets being distributed in the first row (the baller has started to run in) and suddenly, there was some commotion! An umpire (read faculty) wants all those without ADMIT CARDS (as significant as a handkerchief, and that too if you are running cold; we say so because of our past experiences and the fact that we were actually handed over some similar cards last time by someone who had simply assumed the appointment of Registrar and had signed on a sheet of paper during those moments of crisis)! OK, lemme put it clearly.... all those who were not in possession of admit cards (duly printed by students themselves), were supposed to move out. Well, this is a story as painful as India's loss to England recently (full whitewash in the tests and one dayers). We had an extended weekend this time. And all of us, without exceptions, had been trying to get that damn card downloaded from our ERP. But how can such an expensive system change itself so easily! (other things apart, about this system, ie) So, we could not download the cards (tried "e" instead of "Chrome" and "Fox whose tail remains on fire" but to no avail). Frustrated and disgusted, many of us simply printed the screen-shots to prove the fact that we had tried! But here we were (by now third umpire had also joined in), being told that screen-prints were not valid because someone's signatures were not visible on such shots. Personally, I had been sending e-mails to many at EBS, telling them that the system had not been behaving over the weekend. And yet, a situation of 'push becoming a shove' was getting created for no rhyme or reason. Why can not they make sure that the white elephant works the way it is supposed to work. And if that is the degree of sensitivity (oh hell, that reminds me of ITDM... and Sensitivity Reports from Excel!), might as well print those cards and handover to eligible students. Life can always be made easier unless .....! So, rather than a bouncer from the bowler, it was an encounter of THIRD KIND that screwed our happiness early in the day. Thanks to the ghazal (Aahista, Aahista by Jagjit) that I had been listening to on my way to EBS, I cooled off soon. Others were not as lucky! One student got the answer sheet good 10 minutes after everyone else! Someone needs to take note of such a sad state of affairs!

                        Take 4/ 1045h: Opening the Innings With Spin Bowling!    We get to begin now and the bowler shoots in! Well, bowler has all the right to bowl whatever he wants to bowl as long as he does not cross the line or throws it too wide. In this case, it was more of 'Doosra" and "Chinaman" than straight and fast bouncers. I hate to play slow deliveries that tend to fool you! Most of us, as it turned out later, did get hassled a lot while playing Ferozeshah Turners but most of us did finally manage to get through the day!

                           We face a great team tomorrow! And there is no time to waste but without this release, I would have found it difficult to proceed. So, here I am signing off till next INTERRUPTION! 

                            'MAY THE GOOD SENSE PREVAIL'

Second Trimester Just Flew Past

              Yep, the second trimester is practically over; tail of the elephant is remaining and this tail can actually make the big beast struggle. So, the tail, read exams, begins coming Monday. It has been a breezy trimester this time. Reasons could be  a shorter timeframe or shorter days full of historical chills but the fact remains that it has been a fast work in all.

               However, certain basics appear to be remaining unchanged... a sluggish start, a fast middle and a bewildering finish; bewildering because, like last time, there has been practically no gap between finishing of our mid-terms and beginning of the finals, esp so if we count in quiz tests that have  a habit of cropping up every now and then. And quite astonishing is the similarity (despite a functional EBS Blackboard this time) in the fact that our Admit Cards are still un-downable. This is really worrisome in a way!

                  But life goes on... here the smarty prepares for the encounter ahead....

                   This post, however, goes to all our friends of 11'13 and 12'14 batch as they sit for the tests two days from now. Do well, guys! Have a great time!

Belated HNY 2013

                                              Yes, here I am wishing you all a belated Happy New Year 2013! I have been away for a while, 21 days to be precise but it has been as intentional as it has been unintentional. With heads hung in shame over Nirbhaya's (name being immaterial) plight, we gave new year celebrations a skip. An ambient temperature of Minus 18 had not prevented me from sharing a drink or two with friends at Leh in 2009 but here we were - so much in the national capital and yet away from a place where lights are dimmed as the countdown to the midnight begins. I am so proud of the fact that our organisation (to which I belong to) did a similar thing and then there were so many who went a yard ahead and spent the night at Jantar Mantar.... hats off!

                              At a personal level, I am off Facebook as of now; not exactly a new year resolution but in a way, a useful decision in the end. Anyways, back to EBS..... life is moving on. As if a replay of a similar timeline of first trimester, life has suddenly become too hectic. And equally amazing (or astonishing) is the fact that our mid-terms are going on while finals are less that two weeks away!! And while one threat follows another threat so closely, day-2-day life has suddenly become too hot to handle. For past two weeks or so, ie, since the dawn of new year, it has been a ride through presentations, quiz tests, online tests and so on. Such a unbalanced regime would do good to no one, except of course, to those who will make great managers and fast work horses in years to come (leaders? Nay!)

                            I intend catching up a bit later since we are still embroiled in the cycle of tests and presentations but not before mentioning about another issue that has been creating troubles for our bottoms and that too for quite sometime now....

 (Chairs are now too painful to sit at and then there is that danger that always lurks..... one girl student has been lucky to survive a fall without any injuries; hope most of us get that lucky when our moment of FALL comes..... and it will come, sooner or later!)

                                                   

                                                    Now, this is something that has just turned more disgusting. You touch any chair and see what happens- only two major possibilities! First, its top will come off (as seen in the pic above) or the whole thing will come off (right from the base). A few may have other profiles, i.e, being shaky to tilted to being alright but majority is SKEWED, as our ITDM faculty will put it. There is, however, some hope, now that someone has assured us of repairs soon and words of that somebody are supposed to be trustworthy. So, here we wait anxiously while wall clock goes out (having lost its steam first and then when re-fitted with a new battery, refusing to come out of its hibernation). And not to forget the door handle (Room No 204) that has come off again (this time from outside)

                                       The next bug is wi-fi! Attrocious! (not worth wasting any more space on this). EBS Blackboard has developed a habit of joining protests taking place on streets of this country. So, needless to say how infrequent is this in its functionality and how frequent it is in blacking out itself! It hits you in the face and with an increased ferocity when you read about the money that you have been paying for these defunct facilities on quarterly basis.

                                         And here comes another instance of poor housekeeping. See the pic below! This chart has been so dutifully pasted on a door in our cafe's washroom. When this pic was taken, ie on 11 Jan 14, it had not been filled since Monday (07th). I am sure the management is paying someone 'Not' only to fill the records but also to ensure the cleanliness. And yet if the record has not been filled, rest is anybody's guess!.

(Heights of shamming)

                       

                                          

                                          Having been an advocate of fairness in the exams, I tasted a bit of another extreme during one of the tests the other day. It was a quiz test and that too a short one. It went off well, at least that was what I had thought! But to my utter shock, when we got our papers back for confirmation, I saw 'MINUS 02' marks (about 10% deduction) endorsed and used to calculate my final score. On checking further, I was told that the invigilator of the day, had written that because someone else had been trying to peep into my paper (we have stepped classrooms wherein seat rows have height differentials... like my good old college). Wow! Why, if it were so, the other gentleman had not been moved from his seat? Why no warning was given to one or both of us? Why no general caution had been sounded prior to implementing such a progressive idea. And the worst part is the fact that one girl student (a topper otherwise) had also been handed over such a Talibaani verdict without any chance/opportunity to place her argument! While the motive behind such a technique looks great, two things needed (that is what common sense says) to be done. First, inform everyone so that we are extra careful, especially,when we have no interest in  looking into someone else's domain. Secondly, such an arrangement can not be left to whims and fancies of people who are not even part of our faculty. This gentleman, a librarian (amazes us as to why a librarian for such a duty and that too independently), had damaged a student pretty gravely during finals of the last trimester (something that costed the poor guy good about 50K eventually!). 

                                           Equally disturbing was the experience when we were hurled into the seminar hall the other day for another test. Ours is a close knit group with people of all hues and shades. Of late, I have (and so have others, both from within and outside the group) observed a phenomenon that deliberate attempts are being made by a few to break this group on some pretext or the other. So, as we sat on our chairs waiting for the warrant (read paper) to be distributed, we were told to shift (good move if it were a group of mischieveous people...hell, three out of us are amongst first five in the merit). Anyways, that was alright as such funny things do happen at times when invigilators have a self doubt that someone is gonna be smarter than their vigil. But thereafter, a disturbing scenario started to prevail. Probably having broken our group and having shifted a few others (of course, we had not been singled out), staff simply started to feel too comfortable; so comfortable that many buddies did get a free run and they made best use of the opportunity! So, what was that? 

                                       Anyways, let us look at the brighter side. Era has kept its promise of awarding scholarships to each one of us, based on MAT exams and first trimester results. There were, of course, some avoidable situations but all is well now. I am sure there is a lesson for all the concerned people. While students need to be patient, especially in the face of baseless rumours, management also needs to take measures to counter the grapevine. And for Jesus sake, days of testing waters (in such situations wherein someone in the place of authority tries to give silly explanations as to why a certain course of action can/should not be adopted) have gone long past. And on our part, as a mark of respect to our faculty, five of us (Anju, Renu, Akanksha, Mathews and self... the biggest beneficiaries) did host a cup of tea for the faculty and staff. There were some 'ego-related' issues but not worth a mention here (though it is amazing to see such egos in some insignificant characters!). It was great to see some of the most respected of the lot present there for the get-together.

                                          The other day, we were having an informal chit-chat with one of the faculty members when someone passed down pessimistic rumours about placements. Someone else was also disaapointed that his communication skills have not really improved. But I had a point or two to share with them and they were kind enough to hear me out. First is the simple fact that our own abilities have the greatest role to play in the whole process of placements. EBS may get us best of the companies but once one sits on the hot seat, nothing but one's own abilities and talent play up for the individual. And for that all we need to do is to be attentive and study a bit (not much if you have been awake in the class). The second point is the need to do a comparative analysis between the state that most of us were in on the day 1 (when the very thought of speaking in front of the class would give shivers) and that of today (when we have the guts to stand in front and pull a fast one whenever cornered)! So, as I see them, most of them have travelled a long distance since our foundation classes. They may not be perfect; they are improving by the day.

                                       Another silver lining..... mature handling of an issue carried the day today. We had Managerial Accounting mid-term exam today and to our horror, we realised that it would be held in the Seminar Room (repeat of that painful experience of similar paper during Ist Trimester). Protests were as natural as was the understanding by concerned faculty members. Very soon, therefore, venue was changed and everything went off OK.

                                           Time now to have a peep into the way our life has been around these days....

(While studying is so sacred that someone is sitting bare feet as if in a temple.... (Never mind the shaky pivot))

(..... someone else has gone into meditation OR is it an attempt to connect with God while manual wi-fi was down?)

(Bhaalu, Bhaalu....Bear, Bear!)

(Obviously, the cap does not belong to him!) 

(What?? my portfolio crashed?............... Must be some important call!)

(Walking has replaced the rush for elevators)

                             More shall follow as I would try and keep up with this passion of mine.

                                 TAKE CARE!!