The Chronicles of a Happy Life

Watched Omkara. nice movie. What is it about Ajay Devgan that makes him so fundoo as a ganster? I just loved his role in Company and now in Omkara.

Got quite a few of my midterm marks. I’ve made lots of stupid mistakes and strangely quite a few people here simply don’t make them. That’s the bad part. The good part is that I’m hoping that by the time I’m through with this place (rather, this place is through with me), I’ll be able to be consistently fast and accurate under high pressure situations.

We got our HRM mid-term marks yesterday - it was actually more of a strategy paper. I had always thought that I was good at that. My marks are below class average. Today we got our OM marks. I love that subject. It’s got the exact mix of soft stuff and hard math to interest and excite me. My marks are barely above average. I’m doing better in the other subjects and anyway, marks have lost their sting. I’ve seriously started to look at them objectively as indicators that tell me how well I’m doing instead of having some intrinisic value. But, OM still hurts. It’s been less than an hour since the papers were distributed. I should be back to normal after a while.

I’m starting to like ID. I’m still half scared of it because in almost every class, we are asked to take a psychometric test and I worry that one of them will reveal that I’m only a phony and not a very good manager. So far, that has not happened. But anyway, I like it because I think I’m understanding myself and the world a lot better because of this course. Also, I took this Myers-Briggs test. I don’t think I should reveal the results here - they are way too accurate.

Went on the 2nd IIIT-IIM treat in history :D It was fun. Thank you Vipul (I cannot bring myself to call him by his dorm-name!)

I’ve been listening to songs by Dido a lot lately, esp videos ;) Heard my first Dido song only a couple of days ago. Here are its lyrics:

“White Flag”

I know you think that I shouldn’t still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn’t say it, well I’d still have felt it
where’s the sense in that?

I promise I’m not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were

I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be

I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can’t talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of “it’s over”
then I’m sure that that makes sense

I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be

And when we meet
Which I’m sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I’ll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I’ve moved on….

I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be

I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be

I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be

Life has become less hectic after the midterms. I’ve made lots of friends, settled into a comfortable routine and the subjects and profs are less scary now. I’ve started to like this place as my own institute now. Before I was only in awe of it. The best thing that I like about WIMWI is that all the systems - processes / traditions are in place and highly evolved. Maybe, that’s because I’m subconsciously comparing it with IIIT which being a new institute wasn’t very organized. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about that because when I was there I didn’t really think big / long-term for the institute… and at the risk of sounding boastful, I think I could have made a difference. I had some ideas from time to time… but I cynically pushed them away without even trying, thinking that they were doomed to failure. Bad decision :(

One of the traditions here at WIMWI is the T-nite. On paper, it is something like the Amalgam we used to have in IIIT - an intra-college, inter-section cultural competition spread over four days. One could almost imagine how it must have started… One OB (Organizational Behavior - touchy-feely stuff about well… how organizations behave) prof must have decided that the students were doing nothing but studying.. and so wouldn’t a cultural competition be nice? (of course, he would have said this with a lot of OB mumbo-jumbo, but let’s not digress) (yes, OB is my least favorite area here - it’s too fuzzy and global for me).

In reality, the T-nite is the closest thing to war without guns. If you take around 300 of the most competitive people of the country and ask them to compete, you just can’t expect them to take things easy, can you? The preparation started with strategising with the tucchas… who gave us loads of tempo (enthusiasm) and gyaan in equal measure. In minutes, we had a list of coordinators ready - Logistics, dance, music, newsletter, pubrun (explained later), posters, tempo shouts (a Tam thing.. people shout non-sensical slogans in groups.. It’s tough to put it in words.. I just love tempo shouts. The title of the post is one of them, btw).

We were paranoid about secrecy. Every effort was made to conceal what we planned to do from the other sections and every effort was made to glean even the slightest bit of information about what they were doing.

It started with the pub-run. One runner from each section is ‘fired’ into the mess complex every minute for ten minutes. I was one of the runners for my section. Each runner is armed with newspaper rolls, bedsheets, chunaris and sticks of double-sided tape stuck all over their bodes. The objective is to capture as much wall-space in the complex by sticking stuff over it. In hindsight, the ideal runner is tall and strong, not necessarily fast, so that he can cover maximum real estate in the shortest time and won’t get pushed around. Since time is of the essence, strategy is very important - specific missions for each runner are decided. For example, my mission was to take out as much as I could of one of the upper arches. After that we put up posters - practically the entire section contributed in making the seventy odd posters that were eventually put up. Finally, we came second in the pubrun.

I was also in the newsletter team.. sadly, we didn’t do very well pointswise here. Ah points.. like I had said before, this place has highly evolved traditions. There are points for each and every thing - enthu, entry and exit of the section, participation, quality of performance, etc. All of us were 100% motivated to win. We were good on the first day and sucked on the second day. One hour before the performance of the third night, we played the Al Pacino’s ‘Life is a game of inches‘ speech from ‘Any Given Sunday‘. That night, our performance was so spectacular that we jumped from rank 4 (out of 5) straight to rank 1 with a huge margin. The system is designed so that every member of the section can contribute to winning or losing and so finally when we won (Yeehaw!) the jubiliation was heartfelt and personal for each and every person. We really came together as a section - before then, most of us had hardly had the time or the ocassion to talk to each other about stuff apart from the next assignment or the quiz. The tucchas had told us that you’ll make maximum number of friends during T-nite and I suppose they were absolutely right. I don’t think I can ever do justice to that fantastic experience in words… I’ll only say that this was one experience which I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.

Addendum: For those in general who want to know what more I contributed and for one person in particular, who thinks playing the guitar is the only real talent in the universe - Moi was also the most embarrassed tree (I was bang in the centre of the stage, almost always in the spotlight feeling like a total ass with my hands held high while everybody danced around me) in our class act.

The Pencil Maker took the pencil aside, just before putting him into the box.

“There are 5 things you need to know,” he told the pencil, “Before I send
you out into the world. Always remember them and never forget, and you
will become the best pencil you can be.”

“One: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow
yourself to be held in Someone’s hand.”

“Two: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but
you’ll need it to become a better pencil.”

“Three: You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make.”

“Four: The most important part of you will always be what’s inside.”

“And Five: On every surface you are used on, you must leave your mark. No
matter what the condition, you must continue to write.”

The pencil understood and promised to remember, and went into the box with
purpose in its heart.

Now replacing the place of the pencil with you.  Always remember them and
never forget, and you will become the best person you can be.

One: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow
yourself to be held in God’s hand. And allow other human beings to access
you for the many gifts you possess.

Two: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, by going
through various problems in life, but you’ll need it to become a stronger
person.

Three: You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make.

Four: The most important part of you will always be what’s on the inside.

And Five: On every surface you walk through, you must leave your mark. No
matter what the situation, you must continue to do your duties.

Allow this parable on the pencil to encourage you to know that you are a
special person and only you can fulfill the purpose to which you were born
to accomplish.

Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is
insignificant and cannot make a change.