Ragging Blues

Disclaimer: The following is a real-life story narrated with a little bit of spice & humour. Readers are advised not to look for any resemblances & draw conclusions. The author will not be responsible for any such conclusions & the repercussions arising out of them :).

You feel so happy when you cherish your dreams. The dream could be anything. It could simply be ragging your junior. This story is about Pappu, who is an Engineer & is now in the second year of MBA. All the years, even when Pappu was in Engineering, never ragged a single junior! Ask him why, he’ll say that he doesn’t want to pass-on the pain that he had expressed during his ragging sessions. Let Pappu go to hell. Arey, how can ragging sessions always be painful? Well, ragging sessions can be great fun too. But ever heard of heart-breaking ragging sessions?? You wouldn’t believe but it happened with Pappu – the poor soul who attempted to rag someone for the first time in his life :(
How long can you tie-up yourself to the bed & curb all your inner-most desires just for the tag of a ‘good boy’?? Well, I’ve noticed it can’t be done for a very long time. The same happened with Pappu. Now that Pappu is in PG, he realised that this was his last chance of enjoying life. He was a studious guy all through his life. Never dared to enjoy life for the fear of losing out on academics. Never dared to try his hand at any sport. Never looked to bunk a class. Never dared to copy in an exam. Never dared to sneak into a petty fight. In short, Pappu had never dared to challenge anything & anyone in his life till now. But there is always room for change.
One fine day, Pappu reached college after finishing his summers. The Juniors had already arrived. They were already running tight scheduled, cursing the college, the director, the CLO etc. etc. for all the pains that they were going through. Pappu wondered if there were any juniors who would come to him & recognize him as a senior?!!?? Hehe..true, Pappu was in 2nd yr of MBA & he’d cleared all his 1st yr subjects by quite a good margin but then the looks should also tell the opposite person that you are the one – that you are the senior! Unfortunately, Pappu wasn’t that kind. He always looked lost, morose, calm, deserted, friend-less, unpassionate, unenthusiastic, sick, tired, bored, dumbo-like etc. etc. Poor Pappu, what could he do about it except for cribbing. But Pappu knew that there was something lacking in him which was preventing him from hogging the limelight. Pappu soon found out that he needed to change his attitude towards life & that it was the last chance that probably God is throwing at him. This time around, Pappu was not on the back-foot. Pappu picked up the signs from the almighty & set out to find the ultimate happiness in life.
Pappu was early into the 2nd yr & had not much of classes. On the other hand, the juniors were being grilled like loaves of bread in a toaster :(! It was freshers time. Yes, you guessed it rite. It’s the same time when the Juniors have to ask the Seniors out for a date ;). Pappu smelled a chance in here. He thought that if he didn’t act now, he would never get a girl in his life ever again. This was the time when he had a weapon in his arms that he was a Senior & that the Juniors can’t refuse anything he does. Ideally, the Juniors would’ve to come to the Seniors & ask them out. But given the stature of Pappu, the ideology could’ve failed! Hence, with this in mind, Pappu sought the help of a few of his friends who are girls from his batch & worked out a cool plot to trap a nice-looking girl with his geeky brain.
After several eventful circumstances, the stage was set for the asking-out ceremony to begin. Pappu was in the best of his moods, all geared-up. Though Pappu hadn’t prepared himself for the session, no sooner than it began, all the enthusiasm which he had curbed over the years appeared to overflow him & came out in the form of the creative pranks which he was throwing at the poor junior girl. Pappu starts-off with asking the girl her complete details. Name – School – College – Work Experience – Hobbies & Interests etc. etc. People around him watching the show are amazed at the creativity of Pappu. They wonder what had happened to Pappu all of a sudden. Where had the creative genius been hiding all the while??? Pappu is even more excited by the response that he is getting from the crowd. The poor junior also has been obliging every order from Pappu without much resistance. However, there has been some level of arrogance in the way the girl was answering. Though this has been hitting on Pappu’s mind, he decided to carry on & work on it a little later. Pappu’s friends also had come up with funny suggestions about how the girl should propose to Pappu & ask him out for a date. Pappu was so happy. It felt like the best moments of Pappu’s life. When asked to sing a song for Pappu, the girl started off with ‘Pehli nazar mein (RACE)..’ Wah! Could a guy ask for a better song from a girl?? That too from the one who is about to bow before you, propose to you & ask you out for a date?? The song was amazing. Pappu was awe-struck. Now, truly the best moments of Pappu’s life.
BUT, there is always a twist in the tale :(! All was going on well until Pappu threw that dreaded question at the girl. No one knew why Pappu felt like asking her that question. Poor Pappu, couldn’t overcome his anxiety & curiosity and shot that dreadful question at the girl. Ideally, a girl would’ve found it difficult to answer that question. But this girl didn’t feel even a needle’s prick! That made the blow all the more painful for Pappu. Poor Pappu, he almost had a heart-attack. People beside him could hear the sound of shattered glass! Pappu didn’t move an inch. Neither could he open his mouth. He heard something which he never wanted to hear. Pappu never expected that his best moments would be closely followed by his worst L! The ragging session had ended. The girl walked away without any signs of worry or regret of having caused pain to someone. The blow was sudden & it was terribly bad. Pappu couldn’t recover immediately. Pappu’s first & last ragging session ended abruptly & terribly. This is Pappu’s sad story – the story of a heart-breaking ragging session.

End of first leg of the journey @ scmhrd

After a long break, of course! The happiest news is that we got to go home!! Haha and yeah, it’s true! It couldn’t get any happier than that for all of us here at scmhrd. The icing on the cake was that our biggest threat turned out to be the silliest lollipop – I’m talking about our last exam, Operations Research. The first semester exams ended on 31st of October. The initial declaration was that we’d be having holidays from 4th to 11th Nov. I had made travel arrangements for the night of 3rd. Oracle sessions were scheduled between 1st and 3rd Nov. However, after the exams got over, I discovered that the finance batch had nothing to with those lectures and immediately changed my plans. I went out to the city, contacted the travel agents to find if I could find any train for Vizag. Though I couldn’t get any direct train, I got a bus to Hyderabad. I grabbed the ticket, went to the railway station to cancel the ‘confirmed’ ticket. The reason why I put the word ‘confirmed’ in quotes is to emphasize the importance of ‘confirmed’ tickets in today’s scenario. If you read one of my previous posts, you’d understand how mush difficulty I had faced in getting to Pune to join this institute. The lady at the reservation counter asked me twice before she punched in the entries to cancel the ticket. It was quite a tiresome proposition for that I had to stand in the queue for about 2 and half hours.

Finally, the time had come for me to set out to home! Yes, it surely gets exciting when you are going back home after a break of 5 big months. Another part of the excitement was that I’d be landing in Hyderabad – a place I’ve been to only once that too to give my CAT exam last year and I hadn’t stayed there for any longer than just a day. I had heard a lot about it and it’s actually a kinda shame telling people that I had never been to my state capital. Now was the chance to silence all the critics out there (sounding as though I’m that renowned Sachin Tendulkar consistently getting out on a NOT, am I not?). So after some high-drama while boarding the bus in Pune I finally reached Hyderabad at 10.00 in the morning while the bus was actually supposed to reach at least 2 or 3 hours earlier. I didn’t waste any time and immediately set out to the imax theatre. Met some friends there and watched “Happy Days” there. It’s a really well made movie and an ideal match for guys like us who have just passed out from engineering. It made us feel really nostalgic and we only hoped that we could relive those wonderful and amazing experiences we had had in the four year period. Though I later found that the movie was not to the liking of many from the parent community, as a recent pass out from an engineering college, I cannot resist but appreciate the way the director Shekar Kammula has crafted the movie!! Some of the best scenes are the ‘campus placements time’, ‘class bunking moments’ and all the songs have been excellently shot. Then the same night I caught a bus for Vizag and reached there early in the morning. Back, after 5 months.

I was in some kind of a jail at Pune, having not gone out more than just twice or thrice. I was actually expecting Vizag to have undergone a drastic change but all was normal and same as before. One day later, Mr. Puvvadi landed in Vizag for collecting his certificates and I had the pleasure of meeting him, accompanying him to the college and all. (For those of you who don’t know Mr. Puvvadi, he’s my best friend and he’s working for Mindtree Consulting at Bangalore). That Mr. Puvvadi was a little too busy to spend any quality time with me except for a few hours that we spent sitting at the beach road discussing life on the night before he was leaving for his house. After he left, it was quite boring for me. I had a good time with my bike which I got to ride after a long gap. It still felt the same way as it used to before I had left Vizag for Pune. I wish I could have the bike with me out here. I seriously miss it a lot! I had a wonderful time with my bike in the final year of engineering. Then on the 8th day of November, I bought a new mobile for myself, THE SONY ERICSSON K550i. It was amazing to have a camera phone for myself. It had all the features to satisfy all my needs and make my sister jealous. Took so many snaps, videos, transferred them onto the lappie and had a great time. Finally, the time came for me to leave. The vacation was over. Time to get back to the prison. Took the same route to come back to pune (Vizag – Hyd – Pune). Landed here on the morning of 12th. You know what, as I was walking into the hostel, I saw people running to the college saying “Subbu Sir’s batch meet!!”

Ciao!

in the pursuit of being an MBA...

Don’t you get carried away from what was written in my last post…that was just the beginning and as I had mentioned there, those two were the only days where we had our ‘last laughs’ @ scmhrd!! I’m not kidding for the fact that we’re studying 18 subjects this semester says it all!! The day actually starts at 6.00 A.M with compulsory attendance for the non-acads forcing us out of our beds after a late night sleep. However, God has showered his grace upon us and Subbu (our director) has come up with some kinda option for us guys. We’re supposed to clock-in 5 hrs of non-acads in a week. Be it Gym, Yoga, Aerobics or Swimming…it’s entirely our choice. It’s an idea our seniors are envying upon.. So, that has brought about a bit of slack in our attitude and working hours. After been used to sleeping early at home (by early I mean 11 P.M), it’s hard to stay awake for any longer after that period. No matter how hard you try, it simply doesn’t seem to work! Putting the non-acads aside, the classes usually begin at 9.00 A.M. and run till 8.30 P.M in the worst case. It’s been a rough journey so far and we’re assured that it’s only gonna get worse as we progress…

That’s the general view of life @ scmhrd. There is buzzing activity at Sweety Stores (the only departmental stores in campus which caters to the needs of all the students on campus) once the classes get over. People are seen sitting with their laptops open and their heads buried under the screens giving an impression of working on a very important presentation or something but a slight peep reveals the truth which everyone knows, gtalk!! I happened to ask a few of my batchmates if we really needed to have the laptop and what people always keep doing with their laptops open and sitting in every nook and corner of the campus. I got a very amusing answer with the local touch of words. One of the guys replied it’s just for the sake of ‘tashan’ (something like a showoff!!). To give people a feeling that you’re an MBA, a laptop was a basic requirement in their view.

I guess I’m still talking only about the little bit of fun that exists at this place. Let me tell you, it’s not such a nice place to be for those who are quite a bit lazy like me. This place demands a lot from you. You need to be really strong both physically and mentally to take the torture and pressure which they put on you. Let me tell you an example. We have an exam scheduled on the 24th of this month which is at 6.00 A.M. Yes, you heard it right, 6.00 A.M. And did you notice that it’s a Sunday?? Yeah, we have the bulk of our classes on Sundays!! Incidentally, once you’re at scmhrd, you tend to not realise what day of the week it is. Like our marketing professor Mr. Prantosh Banerjee says, it’s a Sunday everyday for us out here at scmhrd!! I forgot to mention, some of our profs are quite good. Two are IIM-A pass outs and the marketing one I just mentioned is just awesome. Would you believe if I tell you that the tagline of bajaj pulsar ‘definitely male’ is his brainchild?? And we’ve got a course called ‘Written Analysis and Communication’ which is offered only by IIM-A and scmhrd in the entirety of India!! Now that’s something great, isn’t it?? Well, whatever, how much ever great it is, its hard when it comes bundled with a package of 17 other hard nuts to crack. I had never imagined that I’d be facing 18 subjects in a single semester in my life!! Just to give you an idea of how tough a task it is, it’s hard to even remember the names of all the subjects. In the first week I had a really tough time recollecting just the face of the prof who had taught us in the first class, put aside remembering what he had taught!! That’s enough of exposure I guess…

Now there are selections going on for various committees in our college. The likes of Placement Committee, Guest Lecture Committee and Alumni Committee have been conducting interviews to shortlist people. Considering the workload and my capabilities, I had applied to none of them. However there are a lot more Committees lined up for recruitment and once I feel like managing my stuff, I’ll try to sneak into one of these! I had actually wanted to get into the admissions committee, selections for which are still to take place but then when I had expressed this idea to one of the seniors whom I knew, she simply said ‘are u crazy??’ Now what the hell was that supposed to mean? Whatever it meant, but it really drained off the little bit of interest I had in joining these committees.

Hmm..feel like sharing more with you guys but don’t have much time for all that now. Will sneak in as and when I find time and feel like writing. There are actually a lot more things to share but I don’t have my own laptop as yet. Well, I’m planning to take a Dell Latitude D630. Once I get that, I’ll probably have more flexibility about my posts! By the way, I’m learning Spanish as well!

Adios Amigo!!