being rohit kaveeshwar

MBA Odyssey - Act 1

2012-02-07T20:25:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: Now this one is serious to the core. Cutting the crap and getting to the basics, I would say, I am writing this just for fun’s sake, & I do not have any intensions of insulting, abusing, or anything thereof to an individual or a group or anybody living or non-living. This is just a plain, simple post(s). Nevertheless I am not entitled to any kind of litigation or liability for any damages, etc that may happen to anybody through this post(s). And I am making myself very clear on this point (I have many different Life Insurance Policies, even my MacBook is insured against damages).

It was 18^th July 2010, I was at Saurabh’s place for his in-house birthday bash. It was a great feeling, me & my friends from engineering had some very good fun that night. I was over with all the Entrance Tests, Counseling, Interviews, etc, and had vowed never to go anywhere near them at-least till eternity or till I had a tombstone saying “R.I.P Rohit Kaveeshwar, 21^st July, 1987 - (I would have put the date if I knew better)”. I had made a decision of going in for MBA(FT) in Indore University, declining ITM Bangalore offer outright (full story on “The Late Edition Playoff”). I had paid the fees some 5 days back and was relieved of my decision (I am kind of bad at them). But little did I knew then, that this MBA was going to be something more that just fun & play, and for some moments, a big warehouse of gossips, emotions, misconceptions and some really big wars. I vowed it right there and then that this, like my Engineering Days is going on my blog.

Tuesday, 20^th July, 2010

Just a day before my 23^rd Birthday, I started my second innings. It was something I had well, not dreamed of in this setting (thats for the college part), and for some part always dreamed of it in more than one ways.

It was 9 AM as I reached School of Commerce, DAVV Takshashila Campus, Indore to kick-start MBA(Foreign Trade). I was at the parking lot and I saw the girl from the counseling night (ref: “The Late Edition Playoff”). Thanks to my short term memory, I could not remember her name, actually, on second thought, I never got a chance to ask her (she was all blabbering non-stop for the 30 min we were together). Anyways the college started and first up on the list was Accounting for Managers(just for the sake Accounts, and in MBA it’s good if you use long crap names that absolutely mean nothing at all). The faculty, well I should not say this, but it crossed my mind that he must have a feminine side to him.

So we were on the introductions and when he heard my background he was taken aback, “Really, Engineer, Computer Science!!!!!!”(yes, complete with the 6 exclamatory marks). I on the other hand got speechless and could only produce a sheepish smile thinking about the day I had that wretched counseling (and could not get the girl’s name, I almost dozed in the intro’s). Instantly I knew, I would be getting this more often than anything. Later that day we had a class on Global Business Environment (MBA & it’s terminologies), the faculty was someone I found to be interesting, she had the frequency configuration of an engineer (& she gave a good smile when I introduced myself as a engineer). And in reply I made a wise-sarcasm-filled statement and looked at Vatsala Mishra, and she was laughing probably imagining the same counseling night ( I got her name after failing thrice on the introduction, I am a complete idiot, no wonder she would kill me when she reads this).

All in all, first day went great, I had made friends with Vatsala Mishra, a girl from Kanpur (Kanpuriya, this from my side, one more stab in my ribs), Apurva Purohit, a pharmacy grad, and some more names I could not remember for the first day.

Our MBA was divided into 4 semesters of 7 subjects each, there was 100 marks for a paper that included 40 from internals & 60 from externals or end-sem exams. We would have 3 internals, 2 theory & 1 presentation, it was best 2 off 3 for 40 marks. Moreover passing marks were 30 off 100 ( 5 less than engineering, 1 pt. to MBA). It was literally a piece of cakewalk (or it was what I thought of it).

A month into the semester I had made friends with a large no. of people, there was Vatsala, Rahul, Tanmay, Surbhi, Gurpreet, Amol, Rahul Singh, Anuj, Ankit, Khan, etc etc etc. We all were having a great time. Half a month into the semester, we had a chance to apply for inter department transfer, although I failed miserably after applying for MBA (e-Comm) at IMS, thanks to Surbhi for cheering up my mood whole way through the counseling. Due to a 3^rd round of internal counseling we had one more member in our already large group, Akshat, a school friend of Rahul & Tanmay.

Late in August, came the first internal, I was hoping to have a fresh start, since I had screwed up every other exam in engineering. It was a 1 hour paper with 2 questions of 10 marks each. I used to complete the paper in 30 minutes or so except for accounts. When the results came, I was jumping with joy, not only was I scoring in the range of 15-17’s, but I was more efficient than this guy who used to write 4-5 sheets, what I managed in 2 pages. For the first time I was taking pride in being an Engineer. Of-course I scored 3-4 in Accounts but in others like French, GBE, Economics, EXIM, WTO, Org. Behavior I was efficiently successful. It was a feat rarely achieved.

The semester went on without any hiccups from Sept. - Oct. In between I failed miserably in the 2^nd Internal, from15-17’s I hit 7-8’s in every other subject. And the culprit this time were the outings, bunks, parties & every-college-student-screw-up-exam-recipe. Although the friendship we all developed with each other was something I was going to cherish for a lifetime. Especially Me, Surbhi & Vatsala were the so called “Lukkhe’s” & used to go out on every other opportunity to CCD, Tito’s, Dominoes, etc. There were times when we had reached a food joint well before it’s opening hours & CCD Navlakha topped that list. Also we, and as is always the case with me, had developed a kind of revolt-led-relations with the faculties. We organized the first ever Ganeshotsav with widespread success and were praised from our HOD. I, being an atheist do not know what actually happened at the Puja’s & all the celebrations, but I can say it was a first, successful, & greatly managed by me & my friends.

Spardha 2010, the sport’s week of our college was to be organized late Oct. & everyone was too much enthusiastic about it. Owing to some petty differences, our class was divided into two cricket teams & we had to go for a playoff to decide which team would qualify for the main event. This playoff was the reason of some fierce, harsh & brutal words, politics & conspiracies that got the whole thing blown out of proportion. We even had top of the line practice matches which set the road for the grueling competition it was. I still remember, there were two sides, one led by my group & others some extra-smart book-worms who were just jealous of our popularity. The playoff match was nothing less than a El Classico (for non-footballers, Real Madrid vs Barcelona). I still remember it was a Sunday & we got a call from the organizers that we had to be at the Stadium by 5 PM or else the match would be abandoned, and so would be our team. We all had literally cruised through the unruly traffic of indore to reach on time. In the end we not only played well, but we won in style & pride. The other side never even got a chance to overpower us. I am still proud of being a part of it. We also went to the Cricket Final, but were defeated superbly there. Although we gave a good performance in Badminton, Chess, TT, etc. Winning in your first ever college competition is something everyone dreams of.

Come November, & it was time for Final Presentations. This is the time when you have to pay for your deeds & shenanigans however good or bad they are. Owing to the strange reputation we had built up for ourselves we were tackling grudges for most of the time. Most of my presentations went good, being an engineer showed its advantages, I was more than confident about my presentations and public speaking skills. The problem was, I did not knew elementary technicalities of subjects like economics, commerce, oligopolies, BoP, BoT, etc. I had to give a presentation on Isoquants(yes, it’s a word, however alien to non-commerce students). And fact of the matter is, although I made a very good presentation on it, but I still can’t remember what that word was actually trying to say (to this day).

In another case , Me & Surbhi were to give a presentation on Job Satisfaction for Org. Behavior. The faculty thought that we & especially me, were kind of planning some conspiracy against her (we almost did), and just before the day of the presentation when we went to her about something, she gave us a dubious look & said “Can I even trust you both to give a presentation tomorrow” loud & clear for whole class to hear. It was a shrewd comment I could not forget, Surbhi vowed to take a full on revenge and give it back to her. I still remember the next day we both literally had her by her guts & she could not point a single flaw on our presentation, ending it with a clap & a disgust look on her face (a satisfaction on ours).

Vatsala on the other hand might had gotten on a wrong footing with our GBE faculty (the one who had freq. setting of an engineer). Trouble started when she refused to give presentation with her partner due to some work of hers. Hence she called that guy & faculty about it. The guy, the same whom I had blown over in 1^st internal, gave a cold reply that we have to give it tomorrow & there would be no change to this. The faculty also had the same cold reply. It was probably 10 PM and I still wonder how much I talked to vatsala that night about the issue with just 10% or less battery remaining on my phone. Vatsala that night put up the best show of swear words, and god knows what all & I was at the listening end with absolutely no fault of mine. In the end she grew utterly homesick and Surbhi & I had a hard time taking her back to senses. Rahul, Tanmay & Akshat also had to bear the heat of presentations but were through with some minor hiccups.

December saw the Final, End Semester Exams( Premier League Match-days), and that’s where we pushed the panic button ON. Nobody in the class had, since the start of semester, even a single feeble clue as to what was happening in Accounts. Everyone except for Rahul Mittal, and we turned to him for being the Jesus in the need of the hour. So every Sunday, holidays & PL’s we used to go to his home and miserably try to figure out the Ledgers, Journals, Trial Balance, Balance Sheets, Cost Sheets, Budgeting, Profit & Loss Sheet, etc, etc and never ever living up-to his expectations, he was like Hermione Granger in the subject. I literally swear to god if there is one subject which can take on the whole of engineering single-handedly, it would be without doubt Accounts. I still do not understand what all goes into this subject. Even Tanmay & Akshat who were also from commerce backgrounds & went to same school with Rahul, even having almost same courses, could not get the hang of it.

Nevertheless the exam turned out great since we had already scored passing marks, hence we were attempting papers with ease. On a funny note, Me & Surbhi had this thing that whenever anyone of us completed the paper & leave, the other would do the same. Actually it was not a trend we followed, it just became one. And we had a great time following it. It actually became a alarm for others for the 2 Hrs. completion.

The semester ended with a Comprehensive Viva which was just piece of formality crap. The guy who came to took our viva was too lame & I had a great time imparting my engineering knowledge with him every now & then.

And with that Semester 1 of MBA (FT) came to an end. There were 3 more to go, with lots of hidden treasures & surprises in store.

Signing Off….

Rohit Kaveeshwar

Engineer | Blogger | Soon-to-be-MBA

The Chick-n-Pox Story

2011-10-10T12:11:00.003+05:30

Disclaimer: I like writing Disclaimers, maybe it’s an obsession (maybe liking it too). This is the second time I am writing a post which has nothing (read almost nothing) to do with me, or never happened with/to me. The incident happened to Vatsala Mishra (the same girl who was talking non-stop to me in “The Late Edition Playoff”). Needless to say all the events//accidents happened to her and I am just writing it to give a vent to her feelings. I take no responsibility whatsoever on the accurateness & correctness of the timelines (which I may or may not tweak a bit). Of-course she is too lazy to write anything weird so here I am for the job. Also no need to kill me for any misconception or defamations arising from it (I have a LIFE Insurance policy, so it won’t do you much better). OK it’s gone too long. Back to basics.

Vatsala : Rohit, you are going to be murdered for this.

Rohit : Try Harder.

Yes, that pretty much sums up the page long conversation I had with Vatsala on “The Chick-n-Pox Story”.

Over to Vatsala

Sometimes life amazes you with things you never expect. And sometimes it gives you shocks at the most unwanted times. It was the time of our semester exams and everybody was going haywire with preparations & photocopying the notes, completing assignments, projects, meeting deadlines, presentations, etc, etc, etc. And if you have never seen a case, where the most bizarre things happens to you in the worst possible circumstances, well than you have never met me, Vatsala Mishra.

I am a girl from Kanpur, UP (Kanpuriya according to rohit) doing MBA (Foreign Trade) in DAVV, Indore, 3^rd semester, and probably the only one who is left to defend UP in this pro-MP-and-purely-pro-INDORE place, where almost all of my UP-mates (UP-paiyye , this from Surbhi) have turned INDORI.

Coming back to the story, it was the end of 2^nd semester and the exams were round the corner. Along with the semester exams, there was one more concern for me, my elder sister’s marriage which was clashing in between the exams. Maybe it’s in my nature to get people do exactly what I want (blush blush), I was somehow able to convince our Course Co-ordinator(despite her peek-a-boo-nature-against-me) to give a 3 day unscheduled break in between the exams so I could go to Kanpur and attend the wedding (not to mention help from my friends, and also the Wedding season). And as I said there is nothing in my life without a bizarre, well the co-ordinator had fixed our Op Research/ Quant Tech. Paper just the next day of my return. Little did I know that one of the most weirdest thing was hanging just on the next sunrise. It was probably our paper of Computers, the paper had gone good, and I had reached my hostel (read HOME) all famished & nothing better to do than take a nap. Later in the evening I felt t a bit odd since I was scratching a lot. By the night the cat was out of the bag, I was diagnosed of Chickenpox. SHIT, I was hell petrified. What am I going to do about the next paper, hell how was I about to reach Kanpur to attend my sister’s wedding, SHIT SHIT SHIT. On the day of next paper I called up surbhi and broke the chickenpox news to her. Of course by evening many people had come to know about it, and I was getting calls at an average of 3 per minute (I did not pickup many, and it’s quite normal that I don’t pickup many). I somehow gave the paper that day sitting in staff room. The next day I had to fly to Kanpur via delhi, and It was giving me shivers since I was in bad state thanks to those little red bubbles all over my body. Kanpur felt like second home and I forgot about the red-bubbles in between the wedding. On the day of my return, things took a violent turn, I was hell tired and couldn’t travel even to delhi to catch the early morning flight to indore. And I don’t know why I did this (and it still amazes me), but I called Rohit at 4 in the morning (yes bloody 4 AM). I knew I was going to meet swear words, and I did as expected. I explained the whole situation to him and asked for the one thing I am always confused with “What to do now” (yes even at 4 AM I had the freaking guts to do that). I was pretty damn sure, he must’ve blown his head out. He assured me that nothing will happen and you must start now or would miss the 6:30 AM train to delhi. I told him, that I can’t even walk two steps, Delhi was out of question & Indore was nowhere in sight. The whole talk went on for almost an hour with the final result that I would not be able to come to Indore to give the paper. My main worry was whether I would be failed in the exam or would they give me an ATKT. I enquired this again by calling rohit (more swear words, more harsh). He as always consoled me saying he will enquire about it and if you can, please have mercy on me since I have an exam in the morning for which I have not even prepared till now. Yes, I had disturbed a guy from his peaceful slumber and this was going to be trouble for me on all fronts. And all thanks to me, he could not get a good sleep that day, but luckily his paper went good. The next day at Kanpur felt better, I could at-least walk myself off my room and somehow made up my mind to complete the unfinished business back in Indore. I flew to Indore on the same day via delhi and straight away went to my hostel & locked myself up in my room. Rohit & Surbhi probably called me a hundred times but I neither had the courage nor any strength to attend their call (That made surbhi furious off limits & rohit could not do much to bring her back to senses). Even my “hosties” (hostel-mates, in case you do not know the girl-talks) were confused what had happened to me & had started to get worried, least I did something crap. It was all getting weird every passing second. The last two papers I gave with not much of a conviction, of-course sitting without your friends in a cranky, uncomfortable staff room can almost ruin your exam spirits to all time low. Top it with no fun & cheating, and you are damned. Of-course Surbhi, Rohit & others tried convincing our Op Research faculty for awarding me some marks since I had 30 off 40 in internals & as a matter of fact I had already passed the paper but the external paper was a compulsory formality. Unfortunately, I had missed the paper and the guy said if she was present in the paper I would have given all the marks she wanted, but bad luck prevails (or I can say my bad decision prevailed).

After the exam it was the External Viva. It went smoothly with fortunately no hiccups. I had a train the very next day & probably I spent one of the most wonderful evening at CCD with Surbhi & Rohit (it has become our de-facto-alternative-college and the staff there does not mind us sitting for hours even when we do not even buy a chocolate from them).

Coming back home to Kanpur never felt so much good, as I could have all the rest in the world, although I missed being in Indore & all the fun there, but I guess I needed that break from college. Although the break was just a excuse to keep us busy whole summer. The real deal was we had to do our summer internships & I had a hard time finding one mostly for the chickenpox & since I did not have a single clue as to what kind of internship I was going to do. In the end I ended up doing two separate internships (training), stories of which I think surbhi & rohit would better explain.

As of now I am completely relived of the chickenpox, although I liked the name of the disease (or whatever you call it, I am not a doctor or a biology student). But it showed me some of the most horrible days of my life. I had a hard time refraining myself from scratching those itsy-bitsy bubbles and add to it all the food restrictions imposed on me (even though I am full foodie types). The most horrendous was the medicines & the regular checkups which included blood tests, I have a die-hard phobia for syringes, called “syringpophobia”, and the docs had a hard time taking out samples of blood from my already thin arms. Anyways it’s all cured now and I am living a quite happy life in indore with all the fun, frolic and of-course studies. As far as chickenpox, well better if we both meet in next birth.

Hope I write again (:D)

Vatsala Mishra

Over to Rohit

I would have killed that girl right there & then. How could she even wake me up from my slumber at freaking 4 AM. And like that was not all, I somehow woke up whole of my family who were very deep into there peaceful sleep. And like that was not all, for all the 1 hour we did was arguing & chit-chat ( she must have lost her marbles completely, and I must be a paranoid for even taking up that call). Honestly when she first called I could not even figure out who she was (yes I can be a idiot of that level).

In the end, there was not much harm done and everything sorted out itself, of-course vatsala would have to give the paper again in 4^th semester, and I am having a good time teasing her for that.

Signing Off...

Rohit Kaveeshwar

Harry Potter & The Murphy Law

2011-07-22T22:36:00.003+05:30

The Standard Definition of Murphy’s Law (according to Wikipedia)

Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as:"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong"
OR
"Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment." (Extended Version)

Akshay Narnaware, Rohit Kaveeshwar, Shalaka Telang, we three can’t even start to describe (although I am taking the initiative, read blunder-task, Wait have I) as to how much close we had been to these two laws in all of mankind’s dynamic and largely volatile history.

Monday 18th July,2011 - Probably a typical normal day in our lives, until I texted Shalaka & Akshay about my incurable urge to watch a movie. Akshay as always confused about decision(s) and asked me to enquire with Shalaka. Maybe I should make myself very clear at this point, I had no choice of which movie to watch, actually I was so desperate that even a Bhojpuri film would have done the job, till it was screened at a multiplex. Shalaka’s replied (read ordered) me with Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part 2 in 3D at INOX Central Mall. I texted back with a military style “Affirmative”. We decided the 11:35 AM show since it was convenient for all of us to reach on time.

Even though July is my birthday month and I should have a moral responsibility to not to bitch and rant about this very 31-day-Stretch, but it’s one of the most unpredictable month in the whole calendar year. That very day the sun was shining in all it’s glory like a hot summer morning. At around 10:45 I had gone to take a bath and get ready for the movie. Just as I came out from the bathroom, behold the rains, maybe the rain gods had just realized it was high time to start the taps unless they get jammed or something. I cursed under my breath for this and just then shalaka called me up enquiring where was I. I said I would have left early but the showers had just started and it will take time. It was earlier decided whoever will reach first will take the tickets. As the rains somewhat dipped low I started out for the theatre. As I reached Manik Bagh, the rains suddenly stopped ( I again cursed, this time way too loudly). Halfway to theatre, I got a call from Akshay that we may not make it in time, and I should reach PVR Cinemas instead, since they were screening the English version but in 2D. I said okay and that I will probably reach ahead of you so will take the tickets (Shalaka has a unmanageable & incurable mania of always reminding to split the cost without giving a thought, and she reminded me of the same & I could only say “Jeee”). PVR Cinemas was a 5 Minute drive from INOX Central Mall. As I was reaching PVR, the uncertain month showed it’s uncertainty again. I was probably near Celebrations when the showers started again. Drenched & all furious I somehow reached Treasure Island Mall.

The reason I hate TI (Treasure Island’s nickname in Indore, it is also awarded the Best Mall in India) is their parking, you have to go to 2 levels below the ground to park your two wheeler. As I reached “Minus 2” (as it’s popularly called), I saw almost uncountable number of two wheelers parked there. Although it’s normal in TI but not at this hour. I somehow parked my Suzuki Access 125cc and reached the Ground Level, where they had a Box Office for PVR. Till that time I didn’t knew how much “Harry Potter Freaks” (except probably me & shalaka) lived in Indore. The line maybe was not too big, but the guy on the other side was probably the lamest guy I could have ever seen, he was working in UltraSlowMO, putting the Discovery’s Time Warp to shame. Halfway in the line I again called akshay & shalaka to know where were they. They had almost reached TI, and were in the parking lot. I asked them to directly take the lift & reach top floor where PVR had it’s main Ticketing Office and try for tickets since it seemed next to impossible here. I was probably 2nd in Queue, when akshay called me to say they are next and will get the tickets. I got out of the line immediately, thanks for getting rid of the UltraSlowMO torture. And here, the above mentioned Mr. Murphy came into picture, as soon as shalaka’s turn came the display board showed “FULL HOUSE” complete with big, bold, italicized & underlined letters of 45 pt. Size. I was halfway on the first floor escalator when they both came down cursing everything they could see.

Next shot, we came to McDonald’s since partly we are eternally starved & partly because we did not had anything since morning. Me & shalaka had McChicken (our all-time favorite), and even though Akshay has tasted Chicken(his “Akshay's General Theory of Food” states “I can eat anything other than wood, plastic & Non-Veg”) although deliberately and he simply denies it hands down, felt obliged to order a McVeggie (Code Word : “Ghass-Phoos”, this from me & shalaka again). The only bright thing that came out, which has always been the case for me, i:e you get a free coke if your order gets delayed for more than one minute (to which I thank that guy who devised this scheme) apart from the one I ordered myself, however akshay was back to his lordly self when it comes to anything free plus whenever the free is an eatable complying his rule, and wasted no time in grabbing the can. After two more McVeggies by me & shalaka (which we hardly could gulp down, it’s official having a veggie after a non-veggie, sucks) we decided to try the 2 PM show again at INOX Central Mall. Before that we reached BSNL Office to pay Shalaka’s phone bills, where we met a surprise “non-existent-queues”.

As we we neared Central Mall, the showers had started again, maybe rain gods does play dice with earth, if not poker at all. Maybe the parking problem in Malls is a universal thing, if you are going to hate TI’s Parking Lot, I am pretty much sure you will despise Central Mall’s left, right & center. After a hideous task of parking our 2 wheelers, we somehow reached the Top Floor where the great INOX theatre was situated.

I will take the liberty to say that the cutie(read “hottie”) at the other side of the counter was more than drop-dead-gorgeous, not only did she answered us sweetly the ugly-bitter truth that Harry Potter’s show is “HOUSE-FULL” but also there are a few tickets left for ZMND (probably just 1). Moreover all other shows for that day were already “advanced” booked. I could have stayed more to talk to the eye-candy but shalaka dragged both me & akshay out with a foot stamping anger, sitting bright red on her face. Mr. Murphy had played it’s part 2nd time in a span of 4 Hours, statistically speaking 1 in 2 Hrs on an average (silly MBA me). While we were sitting at a food joint, we decided on our next available alternatives, and so much for our poor, miserable fate, even Mr. Google was not able to help us better( there is only so much you can do when Mr. Murphy takes over the proceedings of the world and controls even Google too). And I think I should publically disclose this truth that sometimes Google can’t answer some of life’s simplest questions like movies. Later we decided to call this a day & book online tickets for next day shows after rejecting a trip to SATYAM multiplex & Adlabs unless Murphy showed his colors third time that day (increasing the average).

Coming back to akshay’s house (read “Narnaware Dharamshala®”) at around 4 PM we booked tickets, even here Mr. Murphy had the controls in his hands since the great “$25 PC“ had somehow created a keyboard problem and was not allowing us to feed anything, but thanks to Microsoft’s Online Keyboard (so much for my pro-Apple stand) we somehow entered every damn detail and made the payment for the Hindi Version (Rs. 50/- per ticket + Rs. 30/- as “Convenience charges”, that’s for you shalaka, hope you would not kill me for this)

Maybe the day was not over for me (at-least for me, I don’t know about both of them). I was sitting at my home, quietly reflecting on the day’s misery, just then I got a series of texts from Rahul Mittal & Surbhi (my college-mates, refer to The Panauti Day) about the start of college from the very next day at 8:30 AM, and like this was not all the very first class was of Stats by one of my most hated teachers Mr. X ( there is absolutely no need to mention his name). I had refused to come but surbhi’s persistent-as-hell texts forced me to promise her to come to class & then go for the movie. I should probably start to respect Mr. Murphy after all this.

19th July, 2011. Come next day I somehow got up at 7:35 AM (we were having a 2 Month long break, so I don’t think I need to clarify further), drove in that chilly winds till college, attended the 15-minute-late lecture in full-sleep-mode and as soon as it was over, literally dashed out of the college to reach Narnaware Dharamshala®.

Probably the movie came out good, actually funny since it was Hindi Version and I have never seen a more wretched dubbing of an english movie, but since it was in 3D, it turned out good with all the animations & graphics

The day ended with another cracker that Shalaka’s CA Final result had come out. And she was getting highly restless of it and was in no mood to listen about anything even though akshay & me kept reassuring her that she will do well.

Rohit Kaveeshwar
Engineer, Blogger, Soon-to-be-MBA...

Note: Narnaware Dharamshala®. Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission from Narnaware Dharamshala Trust.

3rd March, 2011 - The Panauti Day

2011-05-11T19:32:00.000+05:30

Life is a complex system even by oddball standards. This you come to experience when something bizarre, uncanny, weird, freakish things or events happen to you. But it crosses the human limits of mature understanding when 6 people get hay-wired in this complex system at the same time with no fault of theirs.

It was the 3rd of March, 2011, a fine Thursday morning, the winters had just started to say their final farewells and summers were traveling in to make their presence known. We had an 8:30 AM Financial Management aka Accounts class. You do not need a popular vote to decide how everybody hates getting out of bed at 7 in the morning, getting ready & traveling to your college at break neck speed and still reaching late.

That day of all days was something different, since we had reached, in like once in a million ages, well ahead of time, that included me, Akshat Bhansali, Rahul Mittal, Abhishek Gupta, Surbhi Bhansali & Vatsala Mishra. We all were waiting for the feudal lord aka our Financial Management professor (henceforth referred to as Mr. FM) to arrive and impart us his mind-freak philosophy of finance & financial decisions. Little did we 6 simple,innocent, docile human’s knew that today was destined to be the most idiosyncratic day of our MBA journey.

Me, akshat, rahul & abhishek were jabbering on some random topic, while surbhi & vatsala were busy with their usual female tête-à-tête. Just then Prof. Financial Manager arrived. Usually he used to give us some 5 minutes break before the class and after that he would go on with his monotonic and tranquilizing lecture for 2 hours straight as maybe he has not heard the word Human Right Commission.

I think Rahul, Abhishek, Vatsala & Surbhi all went upto him and asked some questions which were troubling them since the last assignment he gave us, while me & akshat were engrossed in our chats and did not even had the courtesy to greet him. I don’t know when but they all got into the class and the class commenced, of-course me & akshat got buzzes on our cellphones signaling the class has started but we ignored it. Maybe it was doomed to be, our chat had gone into some very interesting topics and we had, in a while included some juniors and some boys from another college who had a free lecture in the morning, for which we were abusing School of Commerce for their out-of-nowhere-8:30AM-authoritarian-schedule. And by hell’s grace we overshot time by 15 minutes, a brutal homicide by Mr. FM’s standards.

We knew what we had done, and little did we expect him to include us in his knowledge sessions but still courage & fear-nothing attitude is something not everybody posses. Slowly and steadily we both ascended the college stairs & went to our classroom. Now the bell-the-cat question was who would open the door & face the GUY(!). After like 2 minutes we decided upon doing it together. When the door opened the guy was facing us right into our eyes. One look, and I was 1001% sure he was furious at us. What he said was not only simple taunting but an aesthetically-crafted-humor by a huge margin. First of all he reminded us we had been almost 20 min late to class. Secondly, he had seen us sitting and chatting with others and was making a snide comment as why did you leave that all-important talk, the world is in deep-deep trouble now. Actually we were discussing some world political issues and he had overheard us on that. Thirdly, if you care to understand the dark sarcasm in his voice, he enquired wether we were waiting for someone PARTICULAR to show up. At my back Akshat was standing as if someone replaced him with his Wax Saute from Madam Tussaud, and speaking of myself, I might have cracked a bone or something trying not to laugh on this sarcasm but the whole class had almost 20 seconds of guffawing-stint on this. Shamelessly we closed the door and went back to the parking lot to discuss what to do next since the class was not going to end till 2 hours at-most. Not to mention we had a full laughing session since closing the door till the parking lot.

We decided to go to the University IIPS Hostel where a poor fellow-friend of ours, Amol Pratap Singh Sengar was in his royal snooze with wounds, cracks, fractures & bruises from his recent action-packed-cracker-of-a-accident. It must have been almost half an hour when the room’s door opened and in came Rahul & Abhishek. It amazed us seeing Rahul out of accounts class because of his love for the subject & abhishek was looking as if he was still wondering what the hell happened. The story they foretold was that they were having some kind of discussion during the class & somehow they gave a huge laugh which was invariably noticed by Mr. FM. Next second they found themselves outside the class with almost half-a-minute lecture from Mr. FM, mostly to his only-brightest student Rahul Mittal, actually he is the only guy in the whole class who has at-least 1% clue as to what that guy is teaching, others go in the class like a herd of sheeps who have no idea as to what, where, which, when things are happening on the blackboard. So to say Rahul Mittal is the only golden sheep in the class when it comes to anything related to Accounts would be anything but true to the Nader.

Nevertheless the 2 hours passed with we 5 enjoying some music & boy-talks. But maybe the day was not over for Mr. FM. There was still good 10 minutes for the class to end and the guy had just taken the daily attendance and had gone out of the room for some work. I am still not sure as to what got into the minds of Surbhi & Vatsala, that they assumed the class was over and decided to leave the class. As they closed the door behind them, the FM guy emerged into the other side of the corridor, of-course these two girls could not see him from their backs, but he had seen them leaving the class and got furious (of which at-least 66% were the shenanigans from we 4). Honestly speaking it was just a misunderstanding. After the class was actually over a random class-mate called us to look for the two girls and inform them that they should meet Mr. FM at 5 PM at IIPS. When these two got to know this, they were in state of shock and panic, and since surbhi had left for home, she had grown much more worried.

The day was still not over for any of us still. Everybody had one or more incidents happening with them for no fault of ours at college & other places. I do not want to get into all that since it was our personal incidents, maybe I will post mine sometime later. Vatsala even went to meet the guy at 5PM and apologized saying they thought the class was over and hence they left. After some more persuasion he agreed and gave up the matter, but I still think if we had gone to say sorry for what we did, we would have met more red-shot anger than some calmness & soothing.

It’s true that every dog has it’s day, but when too many dogs have the same day it’s called “THE PANAUTI DAY”

Hoping I would go through such moments again and again to bore you on this insane blog.

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Late Edition Playoff

2011-03-18T23:19:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer: Rather a warning, it’s a long post and I have included everything I have in my unformatted permanent memory, so anyone, anything, left out is not my fault. Needless to say, I am not hurting anyone’s sentiments, so you can’t claim any reimbursement from me and you better wish not to.

In a world full of Destiny, Fate, Karma, to be politically and at the same time rationally correct and up to the Tee, is something a few enlightened souls have ever achieved. Probably even being in full senses you’ll never know What, When, Where, Which, Why, will hit you, and you will just have to done a face of bewilderment without giving a damn to it.

In my case, after my graduation, the only thing I could ever see in my near future was getting the all-important MBA degree, bitter truth was it was so much easier said than done. Back in April I had played a qualifying playoff (for those of you, who do not know what I mean, refer to my earlier blog “those qualifying playoffs”) and It did not went the way I had expected it to. So with all the weird optimism left in me, I geared myself up for another Champions League fixture, only this time it was much nearer home, the accidentally famous DAVV-CET 2010.

Maybe it’s the story of my life, or maybe I am a lucky charm for many people, or maybe, pardon me if I am being too audacious to myself, whenever I have turned up to something new the thing has popularized hundredfold. This time the chants of DAVV CET had crossed Madhya Pradesh’s border and had breached into (especially) UP and many more unknown parts of Indian Peninsula. So was the popularity of CET that they had received some 6,000+ applications at-least from outside MP. Little did those generous, kind & innocent students knew that they only had a merge 20% stake on the overall seats at University PG Programs.

Nevertheless the Match-day 5 arrived and I, along with some 15,000+ last-ditch-survival-strategy students, was put up against DAVV CET 2010. My center, as far as my imagination goes, was Old Girls Degree College (10 minute drive from my home) on 9th June 2010 at around scorching summery 2 PM. The exam like all others I have gone through, was pretty normal affair, and I have for some untold reasons started to have a different outlook towards them. Anyways the exam ended at around 4 PM and I came home all tired, wishing this may be the last of all the fixtures I will need to play.

Maybe in this unorganized world you do have baggages from past that you need to clear off anywhere and anytime in the future, more importantly they bang their presence when you most certainly not expect them to. During my last GD-PI with Institute of Technology & Management (ITM), read qualifying playoff, that military style dean of ITM Bangalore, in the up-close and personal interview, had offered me ITM Warangal, which I had so much as denied without a second thought. Fast forward to morning of 19th June 2010, I was happily doing my mundane chores at home, when my telephone rang, the lady on the other end was the Admissions Co-ordinator at ITM Mumbai, she told me owing to my good performance in MAT & GD-PI, I was being offered a seat at ITM Bangalore, condition being I would have to say yes or no till the evening and send a DD of 25,000 within 3 days time.

Even though I am not to into any kind of professional business or not even doing MBA, I could somehow sense the urgency in her voice, the reality was there seats were not filling up, and they needed desperate measure to make the ends meet. For me it was somehow a strike of lightning in my otherwise dark, cold and uncertain academic career. Even though I should have said a yes then & there, I made a straight face and asked for 2 days time, owing to some family considerations. That day along with Nikhil, Vikas and my family members, had a brain storming session on what to do next, and by the time it ended there were more storms in my brain than Hurricane Katrina or any other Hurricane that visited dear Earth.

A purely social animal’s selfless expectations certainly has no limits, while I was still undecided on ITM, the CET results were out, and I had scored 903 AIR (my state rank was 768, again in top notch 1000 of MP’s brightest mind). Even though it did brought certain amount of joy on my face, reason being I was in the top 1000 of students DAVV had so graciously chosen to impart MBA knowledge to. At the downside, I was not so much sure about securing a seat in DAVV and only had an outside chance to it. Maybe for the 3rd time I played Gamble with my life. I decided to secure the ITM seat by paying the advance money and somehow prolong the admission process & at the same time I decided to go for the admission process of DAVV-CET Counseling which was to be held on 5th July 2010.

And here folks our story starts. As far as the buildup to the DAVV Qualification is concerned, I had almost lost interest in ITM, owing to the big fight I had with their Admission Co-ordinator, and my elder brother who was in bangalore doing a job, also was a little quacky on the Institute’s track record. Hence, my 2 year MBA-cum-Outing to Bangalore had almost finished.

On the D-DAY at around 4 PM I reached DAVV-IIPS, Takshashila Campus, Khandwa Road, Indore. Although the counseling time allotted to me was 6 PM, but I gave myself a 2 hours head-start, just to analyze the statistics & seat allocation and other things. Little did I know that, that day (or night) would be “The Longest Night of My Academic Life.”

There was a light drizzle in the early evening hours and as “Shab-E-Malwa” gained her charm and beauty into late night, it had turned into a heavy downpour, and my heart almost gave a skip as I recalled the tragedy that happened to me on this very soil almost a year before.

I had met some old school friends of mine and we all were having a great time sharing those unforgettable days and cursing DAVV for their lazy and dull attitude in the counseling process. There was this big screen on which the Seat status of every institute in DAVV was being displayed branch-wise. At around 6 PM I glanced towards the screen and there were still some seats left in my choice of branches, the bad news was my chance was almost 3-4 hours late than the stipulated time.

Shooting to around 9 PM, another of my curious glances went to the dreaded screen, and this time the heat had gained up much more than the last time I calculated it. The seats were depleting on a much faster rate, and people had started to grow anxious about everything. The guy who had designed the Counseling Website was maybe some cruel yet funny and creative guy, what he did was that whenever someone took up a seat, the website showed his/her name along with the branch and complete with confetti’s n balloons flying all over the screen, for which I have a hint the people were ready to homicide him for any cost since it had intensified the heat manifolds. But maybe the rain gods had anticipated this and had started their taps in full force. My dad, who had just came from office and my younger brother who came directly from coaching paid me a quick visit like I was some Prisoner of War (quite literally, if you think so) and cheered me up.

Coming to my turn, which came at around 1 AM, dead at night (of course I could sue DAVV, since they had inscribed 6 PM on the counseling letter, but there were some techno-political reasons for the delays, as the 4th July Counseling had been postponed to 5th July). After going through all the verification and validation hurdles of the Admission process, I was allowed entry into the main admission room. As I was waiting for my turn I had started chatting with someone called Vatsala Mishra, a girl from Kanpur(UP), who had the same rank as mine (!, another reason to sue DAVV) and was also fed up with the overall delays. We must have been chatting for some half & hour since the admission guy called her name at around 1:30 AM, including background checks of family, education & blah blah blah.

Her’s was a far more interesting story than mine, first of all she was outside MP, secondly she was a girl, thirdly the no. of seats for these (endangered) people was closing to the zero danger mark, and fourth, if you care to read, she was about to kill that guy on the other side of desk, because he had asked her choice of branch as if he had a whole stock of unclaimed seats lying somewhere back. First she asked for some branch, I think Finance, but was blankly rejected saying “not available”. With a dejected look on her face, she asked about MBA (Foreign Trade), since it was the only option left, and here too the seat-space was at premium, again the same “not-available” look, but this time she glared too much for that poor guy, who I don’t know because of telepathy or something started checking the seat status again, and this time he could put up a smile on his otherwise tired, weary and out-of-nowhere face. There was a seat available fitting her criteria “OUTSIDE-MP-GENERAL-FEMALE-SEAT”, which she instantly took up without a second thought. Her crux-version of the episode was “Hum sirf all-india ek seat ke liye lad rahe the” (I was fighting for only 1 all-india seat).

Next in line after her was me, and I made up an palely-energetic face and went to the guy on desk, who without asking for my choice and not even smiling (owing to the gender-difference and discrimination problem of india), offered me MBA (FT), and I took it up instantly, like I had come up and waited for 12 hours just for that one precious seat in this all-important branch. There was also this other guy, Rahul Mittal, who also took up MBA (FT), sharing the same rank as mine & vatsala’s, but I don’t know why we both could not see him, and this amazes me even today.

After that we both were escorted to the Director, School of Commerce under whose aegis this coveted course was running and were fished out details regarding the admission fees and other such stupid things. Later we made the initial payment of 10,000 by DD and completed the formalities for the admission. By this time the clock had struck 2:30 AM, and I can assure you anything that I own or not own, that if that day I was not given a seat, I was close to nothing but seriously burning this place down.

Driving back to home, I somehow made a happy yet tired face in front of my parents telling them about my successful admission. Of-course there was joy on their faces but that included a jibe on not going to Bangalore, which I know I have to endure for the rest of my MBA life and will always come as a party-pack with everything.

As the good-old saying goes, All’s well that ends well, I finally got admission into MBA (FT) at School of Commerce, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalay(Indore University), Takshashila Campus, Khandwa Road, Indore and my current official nameplate reads:
Rohit Anil Kaveeshwar,
B.E. (Comp Sc.), MBA - FT (in progress)

Signing Off (for the time being)…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of Our Engineering Lives - Epilogue

2011-03-13T12:17:00.003+05:30

One year later, 10 men, adorned with their engineering degrees along with ambitions, aspirations, hopes, dreams, responsibilities and everything that matter, gathered into their arsenal, stepped into a ruthless world that people term reality.

It took us humongous amount of courage, spirit, passion, devotion to get through this 4 years. Years that made us what we are, years that somehow defined who we will be or will be not in the future, maybe for a short while like a bubble or as long as death plays it’s part.

You must’ve been wondering what happened to this guy, he was perfectly normal when he started all this, and then suddenly at the end he went to an asylum phase. I say, you guessed it all wrong. When we 10 boys entered into engineering we had almost not even a single serious ambition in life. But as these 10 MEN stepped out of the college gates (that is to say if the college did have any, apart from the boundary fences, which we used to leap over even in our sleep) probably they had changed bottom’s up. And it’s true 4 years of engineering changes you head to toe. It brings out the mature, sensible, sophisticated and simply speaking a new you. I have now come to realize why does this happen. Even though you are thought science in engineering, you are thought a practical approach to life, a approach where you do not evaluate a situation in a theoretically traditional and orthodox way, but try to cause a change which is more rational, reliable, sensible and for the important part practical. Of-course nobody sees the effort it takes for a student to get through engineering since most of them are more concerned about the end product. But as the say, maybe the journey is much better than the destination.

In our case the final destination was Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Science, and if you could top it up with a well paid job, well it can’t get any better than the cherry on the icing of the cake. If you talk proportional wise, engineering students in India almost takes up half of the student community, the other half includes commerce, arts, humanities, science, etc etc. Mind you, I wrote science and engineering separate because they are, and their is a difference between a science graduate and an engineering graduate.

Coming back to the real life, we all had graduated from college. And so to say ready to step into reality. Truth to be told, there are only two options before you after your grads, one is to pursue higher education, getting into masters or PhD’s etc, the second which is the most lucrative of the two, and for that matter of all, at that time, is a job, but as it’s said, the grass is always greener on the other side. And so was it, which we all thought. Apurv, Ankit, Chandu & Vikas went ahead and took the second option, while apurv went on to Pune in search of job, ankit & chandu had gotten into on campus placed companies. Vikas on the other hand, with a lot of hard work & that included nearly venturing into the first option for higher studies outside India got into a software company. He just managed to score threshold scores in IELTS. And after much persuasion from me, nikhil, & saurabh finally decided to get a job first, but deep inside his heart he has the ambition of starting up his own business, which I am sure he will someday or the another.

Ashish went to join his father’s business and Saurabh, who I always admired as someone like a go-getter and who I believed had more brains than anyone of us put together went into in MBA terms, Entrepreneurship. He along with a friend of mine from school named Aaron Heumader and one more guy started what we call “Mangosteen Eco-Lifestyle” - Coffee | Technology | Exercise. Chandu who quit his old job joined him in the technology venture. Probably I should not say this publicly, but when saurabh first told me about his idea about his venture, I saw, for the first time, in his eyes a gleam of doing something meaningful, something creative, something out of passion. Of-course when you decline an 95+ Percentile CAT result after having the re-test, you must be crazy at mind and heart to do something like this. But then this was saurabh and I knew he will be something that nobody has ever thought off, and he proved everybody right. I remember when he cleared 10 out of 10 subject in engineering, a feat rarely achieved, he had distributed sweets to every other faculty in college. I could see the joy and emotion in his eyes, the same joy I saw when he started Mangosteen. And I wish him the very best of luck for it. Even before college was over Saurabh, Chandu, Ashish & our associate group member Vinu Jhon had already ventured into business, their Magus Developers had been bragging projects against top companies in Indore. Saurabh was the de-facto Marketing Head for it along with continuing his passion to RC Flying, Traveling to exotic places like Goa & Thailand (sponsored by Aaron, ofcourse).

Coming to Amol & Tiwari, well amol also followed vikas on his trip to IELTS and somehow did not make it through, instead he got into MBA and joined Sinhgad College in Pune. Rohit Tiwari, who was the shortest of all of us, height-wise, and hence termed Chotu did try his hand in MBA entrance, but could not get through, and is still dangling between job, family business & higher education.

As far as Me & Nikhil are concerned, Nikhil got into a high profile B-School - Balaji Institute of Management, Pune and is doing well in it, after much of his qualifying playoffs in various cities of India.

Last but not the least Me, having barely cleared CAT, somewhat good in MAT & SNAP and a disaster in XAT, finally took up admission in Indore University, School of Commerce for MBA in Foreign Trade, the story of which is more interesting than the reality (and it’s coming up in my mind as I write this).

2 years since, we all are still very great friends, and still hang out with each other whenever time permits. Of-course my college takes up much of my time and somehow I have been detached from others for quite sometime, but it’s never too late to catch up with old friends.

To be upmost honest, I loved & cherished every second of my engineering, and if it was not for these 9 guys, probably I would have never crossed the line. Somehow they make up much of my life in many ways, and I can bet every single Dollar I own on this.

Hope everyone finds the best in them...

Signing Off from Engineering

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 8/8

2011-01-06T22:44:00.001+05:30

And then we made it, the very last one, semester 8 of the 4th year of Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.). Frankly in our 1st semester we used to picture this as something out of this world, but when we stepped into it, it felt nothing like entering an alien spaceship, on the contrary it felt much like home. Of-course 4 years in college felt much more important than anything else in the world then, no to mention how we used to despise it as the only college which deprived us of some basic facilities like canteen, and some other less and non-less important things, but by this time we had started to love it, sort of a home away from home, and not just anything away, almost 10 KMs from the nearest joint in Indore, even measured in a straight line, well this does not include the 3 KMs steep ride up the hill on which our college was situated.

Nonetheless all things left aside, the only thing that mattered was we had made it and with a bang and style. The semester started with a good note, the results of 7th sem had come a little early than we had expected, and came it was, everybody had cleared successfully, something all of us were very proud of, even tiwari had surpassed the 65% mark with a huge margin (it meant a party on the list).

Throughout the semester the freedom which we had earned during the 3 years was paying off well. We were the senior most batch of the college and we were having a great time with no restrictions from the faculty and the staff, which to tell the truth we were missing incredibly. But that did not stop us from bunking every other useless lecture on the time-table. It was a feel-good-atmosphere around the college. Even the relationships (*) that had been made in these years, had started to strengthen and we could almost hear a wedding or two after our graduation. Everything was going great, and the cherry on the cake was the upcoming Prayas 09, the annual function, which by this time had become our all-time-favorite. It was the last for us so everybody in our batch was taking part in some of the most ridiculous events. But that stupidness was all washed into the high spirits that set the mood almost 3-4 weeks before the annual function. The sports events were also something to cheer about & even though we did not win cricket, given the age old rivalry with electronics dept., but we were crowned champions in football and defeated MBA 1st Year Class.

The function was something no one would ever forget. For one it included a fashion show of which some of the hottest girls in campus were taking part and I can bet you 100 grands that every other boy had given this their 100% undivided attention more than they gave during lectures. Secondly the DJ party after the function went on so as to say into the night, around 7 PM, a first for our college, and the whole college danced like there will be no tomorrow with even the teachers shedding their pride and joining us in shaking a leg or two, but thanks to the management that they stopped this chaos of feet after 7:30 PM or some nasty things were about to begin (I leave it to the smarties to imagine).

Not to forget, the placement season was also going on and to the best of my knowledge we had surpassed the half mark, some 35/40 out of 60. The major news that sem was the closing of Ripples Infotech of which saurabh, ashish & apurv were a part. The company had gone into legal trouble and their were some lawsuits filed against them for taking money against Training Period, so much for saurabh’s 6 months fame to glory (@iisaurabh don kill me for this).

As we approached the end semester everyone had a hint of emotions on their faces, the last steps in college, the last bunks, the last visits to canteens, CCD, insti terrace, etc etc etc. Each day everyone used to receive a sort of emotionally-charged, fully-sentimental, sort-of-farewell message on our phones( of which I was hell tired). Everyone was feeling happy that they have reached the final step, but sad that this all fun and frolic will soon end and we would have to look ahead, some with jobs in hand while some others going for MBA’s & M. Tech’s or something like that. It was an atmosphere of mixed emotions flowing everywhere and I don’t know why but the small quarrels, ego’s and rivalries that existed seem to evaporate in it.

Then came the Premier League, the final exam, the ultimate one, El Classico. I cannot define how happy everyone was giving the exam and given the fact that it was the easiest paper set in the history of RGPV (read Farji-PV), each and everyone in the college, and that included the dumbest of the dumbest even, were coming out of the hall like heroes of war.

And alas, came the final day of our graduation life, the last paper, I don’t know why but the anxiety levels that day had reached breaking point as if some storm was about to come, and came it thou, as the final bell of 3 Hrs for our paper rang, everybody from the final semester literally ran out of the class, damn those papers what are invigilators for, there was such a huge roar in the whole campus that everyone feared lest the building might give away. And it ended with innumerable camera clicks, hugs, wishes, smiles, air punches, high fives, not to mention discussing the paper, which was best left to the studious ones, crazy them. The Platinum Batch of Truba College of Engineering & Technology had passed out. I remember we had a sort of passing-out ceremony where the prof’s, faculties and the special guests, the students itself, were invited to speak of the memoirs they had during their college life, after which we were handed out mementos, which was a way of reminding us that you belonged to a place called Truba, situated 10 KMs form Indore in the most isolated place that ever existed on earth.

Personally speaking, and, on behalf of everybody from my group, and invariably from everybody in our batch, I thank everybody from the helpers to the faculties to the staff and management for making us complete our engineering, something which could not have been possible if it was not for these guys.

Hence with this came the end of a journey called Days of our Engineering Lives.

Thank-you

Signing Off… (not for ever)

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 7/8

2010-12-08T19:46:00.001+05:30

Good things in life tend to end faster than the bad ones. As we reached the final year we began to understand the true meaning of it. Statistically speaking we were just 2 Semesters or 10 Papers away from our Engineering Degree, not to neglect the 6 semesters behind us or 30 Papers that we cleared plus the amount of workload, assignments (that is if we did any), projects, SRS, synopsis, Reports, Practicals, Internals, Externals, Mid Semesters, etc etc, etc.

However, as we look back into the past, these things never mattered to us compared to the amount of enjoyment, happiness, craziness and the foolishness we made & endured. I don’t remember a single day in our engineering lives when we stood still or took a break for even a second.

Finally it was here Semester 7th of our Engineering, the very second last of the 8 grueling 6 months sessions. During our first year, we used to imagine how it would have be to live the last year, come this semester all of our inhibitions, doubts, instincts, intuitions were something far fetched than what we lived.

7th semester brought us the Free Trade Policy, and especially for us, reason one being we were the senior-most class in the college, second we were from Computer Science Branch, third the new HOD hardly cared as to where we are going, not to mention the Staff & Administration people, last but not the least the poise, panache, respect, confidence, and our image (which had gone from being the-only-notorious-ones to being-the-only-notorious-and-smart-ones) that we gained all these years.

This semester meant, especially for the non-placed and/or recruited ones to get into hyper-action mode and make this engineering worth because by this semester we were close to halfway mark (we had a batch of 60 & some 26 people were placed in our branch). Somewhere in the middle of the semester came a news so astonishing, breaking, surprising, remarkable, extraordinary that whoever heard it could not even believe their ears heard it right, or their brains processed it the correct way without compilation or interpretation errors, simply bad command or file name. The placement season as we know it was still going on. There was this Open Campus from a company called Ripples Infotech in Central College of Engineering, Indore and saurabh, ashish, apurv, vikas, ankit had gone to attend it, I backed out midway because there was a nice movie at Adlabs (it was near the college) and I was not going to ruin my day with these placements rather than watching a good flick. I never cared about the placement and straight away went to a party after the movie. I don’t know what was so special in that day, or maybe it’s true that every dog has his day ( that does not mean so many dogs have the same lucky day), the next day in college was nothing less than an Annual Function. The results of the Ripples Infotech placements were out and saurabh, ashish, apurv, and some other guys from IT dept were placed. As I already said nobody could believe their ears (that included even me, actually I never got a chance to talk to them after the placement). Back in our classroom, it was like India has acquired USA. We all were dancing and having tremendous fun in every possible way, but the guys who stole the entire show were Saurabh, because it was difficult to get him placed, and Apurv because he got placed even with a bad interview, in reality it was just his luck, actually a guy named nikki was before him on the list, and Ripples had finalized his name, but when the final list was prepared somehow, by innocent mistake, apurv’s name got ticked and he got his placement.

I can’t define that whole day in words, it was really a moment to live, everybody was congratulating us for the achievement, even the HoD and the College Director themselves came to our class to congratulate us. Somehow we had achieved our goal(although partly), a slap on the faces of people who thought we had no value and can’t be placed, or those who were against us right from the word go (the anti-us people).

Later during the semester vikas, chandu, vinu (an associate member, and a savior and messiah in disguise during exams and externals for me and Saurabh specially) got placed in various odd companies. Maybe this semester was the golden 6 month session for us.

The Final exam that sem was something we all looked forward to, and RGPV obliged us with setting the most easiest paper in their history ever.

With everything including the semester exams coming to an end, we started looking forward to next semester, and not just any, the final, the ultimate, the Champions League of sorts, 8th Semester of our Engineering Lives - The Final Act.

To be continued…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 6/8 - Addon

2010-10-22T17:38:00.004+05:30

Speaking of shenanigans, fiascoes & other things I don’t know how but I had left one of the most important member of this group & what the hell he did, maybe he will kill me for not writing it on the main blog post, but here it is @chandraprakash_deep_ajmera

Normally we live a quite, peaceful life especially when we are in the class i.e. when we are in the class. However, that day of all days had to be different in a way that nobody ever imagined.

As far as I can remember, it was the second lecture & the same guy who was-to-be-HOD, but could not due to the great old Indian tradition of politics, of which we are the experts. The guy was teaching us some stuff that we hardly cared about (mind you he never ever had a mood to teach us anything except picking us up for any odd thing we did). So picture this class is going on in good swing, the teacher’s teaching, the front row benches are engrossed in studying, we 10 are busy eating lunch courtesy Apurv, there are chilly winds blowing outside the windows, & last but not the least our great lad Chandu aka CP is chewing tobacco (he was also eating lunch, I don’t know how he did that, sounds gross). For the most of the lecture there was not a shot fired from either side. Anyway the lecture ended & the teacher was taking attendance( for which we gave 110% attention), I still don’t know how but that teacher as he reached chandu’s name in the register intentionally or unintentionally forgot to take his name. Damn the whole tension broke; Mr. Chandrapraksh Deep Ajmera got up from his seat, spat the tobacco on the walls & walked like a king towards that poor teacher. The teacher went into a total shock, but without wasting a moment CP told (or threatened) him that you did not take my name, the teacher as always refused & told him I had taken your name but you did not respond. Mr. Chandu then forcefully took the register form that guy’s hand & showed him that there was a blank in front of his name, the teacher refusing to that again. The next thing we knew chandu was holding his hands out ready to slap that guy, who by the time was sweating like anything.

Back at our place Me, Saurabh, Vikas, engrossed at eating our lunch, literally stopped midway. The last thing we wanted was chandu hitting him hard across his face. I swear that everybody in the class could actually hear me, saurabh & vikas praying that please don’t let him slap that guy, please, please, please.

This must have went on for five minutes or so for which we were literally in the freeze mode, not a single muscle inside us ever moved, even our mouths were open & hands stopped midway.

I really can’t tell what all emotions, feelings went within us for that five minutes, but I can assure you it was nothing less than a cardiac arrest, & if by any faint chance chandu would have slapped the teacher, bang I can bet anything in this world that we 3 would have been dead by now of heart attack or atleast not breathing.

After the whole drama ended, & the teacher went out with mixed emotions on his face, we literally sprinted out of our seats to stop chandu, if the matter went even worse. I really had an urge to hit chandu for what he had done & what he could have done.

Nevertheless, after the whole drama Chandu was escorted to the HOD of EC department where he was asked to apologies. Even there, he never stopped his ride & finally we all went to our CS HOD, who first laughed after hearing the whole episode but later asked chandu to apologies as it could have been a serious matter. I really don’t know whether he apologized or not but he never got the attendance marked for that lecture & so were the ones who followed him roll.

I want to apologies to chandu for not including this in the blog, but I would say this guy is in a league of his own, hence he needs a separate space all over, maybe some time later I would write a whole blog on Life’s & Lives of Chandrapraksh Ajmera (i.e. if he allows me to do that).

To be continued

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 6/8

2010-09-27T09:59:00.001+05:30

Truba College of Engineering & Technology, Indore

Computer Science Branch – Sem 6 – Year 3

True that our engineering was almost in dumps (as a manner of speaking) but this semester was one no one would ever forget specially we 10, for the fact that we were to be involved in cases so intense & pressurizing that it really needed guts to come out of it.

As we entered into semester sixth, the placement season was going strong but was not raining anywhere near Truba College of Engineering & Technology. For the fact that we were situated at the remotest location ever to be found on earth & second, if you really care to read, almost nobody in whole of Indore knew that a college with such a strong bond to Tirupati Balaji exists.

Maybe this could be my imagination but there was a scent of romance, love & courtship flowing through the campus winds & there would be lot of couples seen here & there along the corridors, canteen, playground, & the newly constructed mini-garden, a prime location in itself, hand in hand & thinking about a non-existent future or something more unworthy & crappy useless things.

As anybody would have imagined, given our respect among girls to be good actually great & hotshot, we would be the ones having the best of the lot, but sometimes you seem to neglect these kind of things & we were no exception to it, although we were famous on the campus for all the rumors related to some strange cases but we never got involved in it, or put our heart to it.

But then an exception showed up, Vikas Tharyani, a boy who I term as chubby cheeks & dimple chin, although a simple definition would be FATSO(which we call him), but I have started to respect this guy after the fiasco he did in this Sem. The story may have started well before the actual courtship but the real thriller was to be seen this semester.

Two days before the third edition of Prayas, the annual function, this person went into a nervous breakdown & even though I have heard (not seen) boys crying, this was not what I call an ultimate viewing pleasure. Vikas had gone to drop off his so called one sided girlfriend (I will not take her name and will address her “the girl” henceforth, owing to many reasons even though this post is uncensored) to her house along with one of her friend & Saurabh(for rescue, if he ever needed one) in Saurabh’s car. The plan was that he would be laying out his proposal in front of her & will have the Aye or Nay by the evening, of course an Aye meant we had a big rocking party that night sponsored by Vikas, but a Nay meant we had a group party, something we did every semester. It was evening & we all were back from college wishing vikas luck & were expecting his call any moment.

Almost at 6:30 in the evening Nikhil & me got a call from Saurabh that he needed us urgently & something tragic has happened. That day with almost no petrol in our vehicles, we literally cruised to saurabh’s home at break neck speed, almost colliding with some five odd vehicles on the way.

As we reached saurabh’s home traversing through the whole city, he was standing outside the gates eagerly waiting for us. We all went inside and lo, we find out Vikas crying, I promise all my gold, MF & shares and even my bank balance that I have not seen a sight more disgusting than this. Vikas was lying on the floor totally flooded in his tears, his body had almost gone numb & like that was not all, saurabh had placed earplugs in his ears & was playing Comfortably Numb from Pink Floyd (a sort of breakup song) o his brand new iPod Touch. I could have killed this guy just right then & there. Saurabh later told us that the plan went on smoothly but out of the blues the girl was sitting at the back seat & vikas, who was to sit next to her (saurabh & the girl's hot friend in the front seat @iisaurabh great luck), was driving & when they reached their home she straight away said to him that “I am not interested”. Damn from that moment vikas has almost lost his mind, body, consciousness & everything in between & when we reached our home, he had shut himself up in my room & had started crying like babies. Luckily saurabh’s parents were not at home or this thing would have blown out of proportion & each one of us would have to go through a Court hearing.

That night saurabh, Nikhil & I had counseled, consoled & motivated vikas into normalcy, which was more than we had anything tried for. Ultimately I somehow dropped vikas at is home came back home at 1 AM.

Fast forward to the annual function, an unseen & untold tension was going on between the two of them & even though the function was one of the best ever in the college vikas was not in the mood at all. Little did we know the repercussions of that day(& night) were just a breath away.

It was a fine hot march morning when our 5th semester results were out, which I don’t know how added more tensions to vikas’s hollow childish mind, he had scored 2 in Theory of Computation(TOC) which was a cracker of sorts, but the real deal was from me scoring just 1, the lowest ever in whole of RGPV’s history, the only joy about it was that some of the talented first benchers had also failed in the subject & for the first time they would be giving a carried paper this semester although it did not cheered him in any way.

Two days later vikas was being unbearable to himself & us. Maybe it was the lunch break or we were on our routine bunk from our classes (not being any kind of novelty), Vikas had somehow got his hands on the canteen’s deadliest & biggest knife and was holding it on his hand threatening to cut himself if she did not accept her offer (he had again proposed the second time, the balls of him), total filmy if you ask me, & literally we were taking it as a joke fed up with his nuisance’s especially to saurabh, Nikhil & me. I don’t know who started the “DARE to VIKAS” game but it went into motion with a proper video been shooted, so picture this everybody telling vikas to cut his hand, jokingly of course (which we were thinking, but vikas had something else in mind), & the next second when everybody’s attention had drifted to some gagging vikas did the unthinkable, the sharp edge of the knife had done it’s job, & then the second, & in the third cutting Ankit’s hand who by the time had realized what vikas was doing & was forcing him to stop. Blood was oozing out of vikas & ankit’s hand like fountain in the middle of a forest. I must say everybody & that included us & others in the canteen went numb at this sight & for a minute or two, nobody knew what to do. Then as our senses restored we somehow carried vikas & ankit to the office to get them medical attention, for which I had taken responsibility, & I promised myself I am not doing it the next time, come what may. Meanwhile this breaking news had reached the girl’s ear and saurabh & Nikhil were persuading her to at least talk to vikas but she said it’s no use & she is shutting the topic there itself. I really do not want to write about the ultra deep wounds in his hands, which were very hideous downright. My hands were all covered in vikas's blood & the wound was not clotting at all. Interestingly the story we made up for this fiasco in front of teachers was more amazing than what actually happened. The excuse made was vikas & ankit fell of on some nails & had wounded themselves while playing, something our teachers & office personnel were not at all keen on digesting it. We even persuaded the canteen’s owner to not to tell anything to the principal & staff about it and better throw that knife away from sight.

Atlas the scores were settled with one more medal on our jackets. Since then whenever that day is remembered we burst into an uncontrollable laughter, something which we all would never forget the whole of our life. Alas the video recorded never showed the actual climax but it has been stored in our minds ever since.

Coming back to business, the semester apart from the above shenanigan went on total smooth with nothing to stop us from being mischievous. The placement season, as I said, was not at all exciting thanks to the approaching Recession, but as always, we kept our hopes high & spirits oiled too well.

Just during the end of the semester came one more fiasco, SATYAM, & everybody who had a gloss on their faces being called a SATYAM-ian, lost it more quickly than ever it went on. It was something totally out of nowhere & we had a great time teasing & insulting these would-be-SATYAM-ian, something that we had developed as a hobby of sorts or to aptly put in Time-Pass.

I do not remember the first time I had given a ATKT paper, but the look on the faces of the people who had failed in TOC & especially those who were chronic mugger first benchers, reminded me of the chicken ready to be butchered. Me along with Vikas, who had somehow dropped his numbness for the time being, was the one with the coolest minds that day. I smile every time I remember the faces of people who had given their first ATKT of their life, they could not even remember their roll number, paper’s name, etc, etc.

The semester ended on a good happy note & come winter, we were to be in the final year of our Engineering, something I had not expected to become real from a wild dream.

To be continued…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

insomnia

2010-09-10T14:51:00.000+05:30

Dictionary says that Insomnia is inability to sleep.

Or so to aptly put in humane terms when those damn filthy channels do not shut off your mind & make you go crazy all night not to mention not letting you sleep. For me this has been a occasionally regular affair and somehow I have started to cope up with it, just laying around all night doing nothing thinking some of the most weird stuff ever & everything else in between.

One such insomnia filled night when I had tried everything like listening to every other song on my phone including those psychedelics courtesy Pink Floyd that included 23:46 min long Echoes, Comfortably Numb, Us & Them and the classical Shine on You Crazy Diamond, I haven’t had a single wink of sleep in my eyes. At-last I gave up all hopes & let Insomnia take the control.

Just to kill time I retracted back to thinking crazy stuff & one such thought came to my mind like a brain-wave: -

Why can’t boy’s, specially committed, remember dates like birthday’s anniversaries, etc while girls always have a spare dedicated associative memory space considering the fact that their main memory is always occupied with shopping lists, materialistic possessions & shrewd, stupid power game strategies.

Even though I don’t give my mind enough to think about & he is too grateful to me for that, this was something I could not resist at all so I started thinking invading those areas of my mind which I never knew existed let alone using it.

It took me probably 2 hours or so when I came to some conclusion. The reason boy’s don’t remember dates is simply because they can’t, girl’s do have an advantage there, but as always boy’s are one step ahead, While girls remember each & every other stupid date ranging from anniversary of proposal, first date to first blah blah blah for which they plan ahead already which gifts to buy & all, boy’s do the right thing, whenever they come to know of some date & need to buy a gift they would always take it to the eleventh hour, this way they buy the best thing available, this is evolution, we boy’s are made that way. But girls have a different strategy they would first make a shopping list of what to buy (normally it lays forgotten somewhere underneath the bag), and then at the shop they will take ages to decide & sometimes (invariably most of the time) they buy stuff which are not even worth the use & for that they have given hundred’s of bucks. Not only that they will traverse the whole city just to find a simple stupid thing costing more than preparing a survival kit to South Pole or any other remote location, I admit that would be fun if both of them go alone there. But then this is what evolution is. Girls tend to think every other calendar date has a meaning & there are sentiments, emotions, feelings & all other dark crappy stuff related to it, while boys, we may call it the natural tendency, masochism or anything weird it sounds, but the advantage they have is that they can have one look at a thing & can in a matter of seconds decide whether it is right or wrong & even worth something or not.

I think that’s why we call Men are from Mars & Women are from Venus.

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 5/8

2010-09-01T17:25:00.000+05:30

Truba College of Engineering & Technology, Indore
Computer Science Branch – Sem 5 – Year 3

From my insane experience I can surely say that making into the 3rd year of engineering is nothing less than a feat itself. It marks the second last step towards a world, which is nothing in comparison to the world you were forced or on your terms left behind in your schooling days. 3rd year in any engineering college across MP or for that matter anywhere in India marks the start of the all-important & eagerly awaited placement season, something every guy or gal looks forward to in anticipation as to what is to come next. The same was the case with us, though we did not expect any good company or for that matter any company to come anywhere near us, but human expectations since the start of civilization has no limits whatsoever.

I still remember my first day at 5th Sem, I had just came back from a holiday, everyone had started attending college, and it had rained the whole of Indore the earlier night. If there is one thing that our college has in abundance is the greenery during the rainy season, the chilly winds during winters, which make it an ideal picnic spots for those who are committed in love. I don’t know why doesn’t the management turn this “place-out–of-nowhere” into a picnic spot, it would give them more money than what they earning now & almost ruining hundreds of student making them engineers. The whole area around our college was lush green & there were waterfalls around the backside that gave a scenic view with hills at the backdrop. So lets figure this out, I was coming by the bus towards college, & was on the upward pass leading to our college, just then my friends came busting in my bus & literally took me out, the reason being we were all going for an outing, so much for my first day in 5th Sem. We had decided to go to Patalpani, a waterfall near Mhow that was the hotspot for bunkers picnickers, & couples (that are in dire need of isolation from the hassle & crowds of city). First we head headed for Mhow station & you would not believe we had taken a lift from a tractor & were sitting in its trolley. Anyways when we reached Mhow station the last train towards Patalpani had left, apurv suggested a crazy idea which was to walk along the railway track to reach Patalpani, he assured it’s not that far away hardly 5-6 Km. If you ask me I would have killed him for this insanity but then we had to do something & it’s a age old tradition among engineering students never to let a bunk fail off, so we all set out along the railway track towards Patalpani. There may be some 20 people along with us that included some juniors & some from other branches as well. At first the walk seem good given the windy & cool weather but afterwards it dawned on us that apurv must have made a wrong calculation because it was not that near & we had to walk some 20-25 Km (approximation, dunno what’s the actual distance, but we had surely walked this much). Well even though it was a long walking journey like those nomadic people who use to wander homelessly, but we enjoyed it the most & to the fullest. Maybe the whole walk was actually worth it, or to aptly put in totally worth that view we got at Patalpani with waterfall, swimming, cricket, etc. We enjoyed it to the fullest, there was an ‘A’ rated video made between ankit, vikas, apurv, chandu & ashish, but I would not get into it (better contact @iisaurabh for it). Nevertheless totally famished & satisfied with ankit, vikas, apurv, ashish, & chandu more than satisfied, we came back by the evening train which again we had almost missed, or it would been a long way home. Back at Indore we had a big feast that included lots of non-veg & veg delicacies & we headed back home. The funny thing was we had reached our homes just when we would have reached after college hours & that was an achievement of sorts & was the perfect ending for a bunk.

Bang in the middle of the semester came the 4th Sem results & since the fiasco at the annual function we had not expected it anything less than that, 8 out of 10 of us were failed in the electronics practical, with ashish, saurabh, ankit, apurv &, last but not the least in any kind of way, chandu were failed in 2 & me & vikas had 1. Interestingly amol & Rohit came out clean from the puddle of mud. That day we 10 on no purpose at all spent the whole day & the next 3 days going into every class just to say sorry for what happened last Sem. Surprisingly the apologizing came out good & the electronics department was criticized by each & everyone for their wrong doings & to the craziest of our imagination, the guy who started this all was literally thrown out along with some others. A special achievement that we celebrated over everything illegal.

Coming back to the placement season, we had a few or to be true no placements at all. Then somewhere in the middle of the Sem came Satyam that had an open campus & everyone one of us was jumping with joy. That day must have been the greatest day of Truba College because almost 10 people had got placed in Satyam from our college out of which 6 were from our branch. When the news broke out, the then short lived principal himself came into our class & congratulated the selected students, although nobody from our group got selected even though everyone tried hard apart from me & saurabh, we had actually gone to see a movie just because we hated that company, I told you we both paired together are the craziest pack ever to walk this earth. Nevertheless we had our first placements set on & that was really a good start to all of it. As is the case, the aftereffects of the placed students started coming from imagination to reality, they used to think they are the endangered species, the bestsellers in engineering & the most valuable asset ever to this college, little did they know what was lying ahead for them in the future & of course what we have in store for them, since then they had a hint of gloss on their faces literally and figuratively.

This Sem as you have seen didn’t turn out to be something worth writing for but then it was an important Sem in whole of our engineering life because one it was the third year & second the aforesaid placements and thirdly the politics & power.

I don’t know whether this is my imagination or something but this Sem set the foundation for the power, politics & diplomatic games that started in our class & would go on till a nasty end to it. By now everyone was settled in his or her groups & I don’t the reason why but even the girls had groups or to say lobby of their own, where the “POWER” games were played of the highest degree and in some ways it affected us boys too, for better or for worse I don’t know, but we were dragged into it.

The end of Sem saw us preparing for the carried practical’s & we knew we would be tortured to 4th degree & we were, the external that came intentionally asked us such stupid questions which no one knew, actually he was sent by the fired guy with his influence on the new HOD, but we held our guts & answered everything coolly & confidently, of course he could do us no harm because the management was on our side & we had already talked with them about it and they were ready to help us in any way they can.

At last the Sem ended with a high note with a good semester exam & in anticipation as to what is to come next, which to the wildest of our dreams never expected with love, suicide attempt, power games & more such crazy things.

To be continued…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 4/8

2010-08-01T14:35:00.001+05:30

Truba College of Engineering & Technology, Indore
Computer Science Branch – Year 2 – Semester 4

W-A-R, three letters that can best describe the 4th Semester of our Engineering lives. If 3rd SEM was where the groundwork for it had begun, this semester was where the cannons taken out, the bullets fired & first drops of blood were spilled.

As you can recall after the 3rd semester exam we, CS & EC, had gone into a mutual understandable cease-fire. But since as the great old tradition in war goes, one or the other who is always power hungry & desperate to win with all hooks & crooks, come what may, is always ready to fire at the faintest chance.

To start off, this semester never started with a bang, it had all the makings of a quite normal, trouble free one add to it the upcoming Annual Function Prayas, the 2nd edition, due to which there was a kind excitement on the campus & lest I forget, 4th semester marked the arrival of Juniors (Jr.), one of the many things which urged us to start off this semester without delays lest we deprive ourselves from the uncontrollable feeling of executing the Ragging Process.

Before the aforesaid war could ever happen, we had the biggest task of “Ragging” in our hands and like experts we were on it from the word GO. Of course without our seniors (we were the first damned batch of the college) supervising us we might not had been able to take it to the ultimate peak, but I can surely say we all had (& specially we) fun in all sorts of way.

According to Govt. Rules to curb ragging in colleges there has to be a Anti-Ragging Committee” in all colleges comprising the Principal, staff members, HOD’s, some senior & junior students from all branches. Of course we had this committee in our college, but since our reputation in the college being good people, I wonder how the staff members thought that & weird how principal approved this, but 5-6 out of our group were selected on the Committee. For the college it might be a good decision taking into account the control we had on all students, for us well we could not have asked for more. It was almost nothing short of license to kill & fly by without harm. Needless to say everyone in our group was onboard the committee from the very first day.

I still wonder how this incident happened, because Ashish, Ankit & Apurv were the core members of the Anti-Ragging Committee, but one fine day when they were busy with the juniors (read ragging them), someone else from the committee member informed the Principal about this, & bang that guy was there within minutes, it had happened so fast that nobody could do anything. Well it took an enormous effort on our part to calm everybody down but the three of them had to pray the price. They were suspended for 5 days & our HOD was too strict & furious about it.

Coming back to the WAR, if it was not for PRAYAS, we would have probably made it to the all-stars blacklist on Ragging probably would have more than a suspension or two. But then there were some juniors for which we had preferential treatment feeling. They had helped us in many ways they could apart from finishing our assignments & loads of other stuff not worth mentioning here.

This time PRAYAS was a 5 day event with the final function performing on the Building “LAWNS”. First up on the itinerary was football that took up two days with CS coming out as overall Winners. The trouble started or so to say the initial sparks went off when CS girls were in a planned way defeated by EC girls, of which the major role was played by the Umpires who were from EC dept.

The actual battle started in the last 2 overs of the Final Cricket Match between EC Seniors v/s CS Juniors. EC Sr. were chasing & had to make some 10 runs in the last over, earlier favoritism shown by EC teachers, who had been assigned as scorers, had sparked off Chandu invariably, but somehow everything calmed down.

In the last over when EC needed 10 runs a CS guy threw a wide ball, which costed 1 run, but then with great nepotism shown by EC teachers they wrote down two runs for it. After the first incident Chandu had been sitting with scorer to keep a check on him, when he noticed that EC guy (he was next-in-line to be HOD) has played foul, his fuse went off & bang the whole on-field nail biting tension shifted to off-field drama between Chandu & that poor guy, who was caught by his collar, & Chandu was shouting abusive word to the highest degree like anything. If I can say, this was the only (according to my living non-formatted memory) time when we could not control him (of course there have been times when he has gone off limits but our pacifying tactics have also been sharpened with it) with anything at all.

The fight broke out to such an extent that even the principal who had arrived there running (for the fact that he limps) & panting to control the situation could not do a damned thing about it. Interestingly since that day the principal post of our college has been jinxed & anyone who comes as a principal barely lasts a week and either leaves or becomes a director & goes into the far corner room of the office, I sill wonder how that small office room holds so many people & their accessories with them.

Next Chandu & all of us strode off to the main function area & started shouting words against the poor EC guy. We had called for a strike & threatened everybody that unless that guy apologizes publicly, we will not let this function happen. I still remember me, vikas, the girls & others were sitting on a strike in corridors of our wing while Chandu, Ashish, Amol, Apurv, Ankit, Saurabh & I don’t know who all were, all fighting with the staff. Even the CS HOD got a chance to lock horns with EC’s HOD & the rumor has it that he slapped him right across his face. Nikhil who had been conducting a competition went off the stage stopping the competition in the middle.

But then the scores were settled with many heated arguments. The next day which was the final day of the function, Amol, Chandu, Ashish, Apurv, Ankit & Rohit Tiwari were all locked up in principal’s office & were to be kept there till the function ended, but vikas, saurabh, me & Amol did everything so as to not to start the function until & unless they were released, so much for our unity that we cannot tolerate injustice especially towards us. Finally they were released but with a warning. The end of the function saw us apologizing the whole college for the deeds we had done, however right they were (of course we had some social & moral responsibility to make up with)

As far as the war was concerned, it went on & on, the first casualties of it, were to be discovered during the next SEM, but then we didn’t knew it at all.

Erstwhile the semester exams, internals & externals went on smoothly with we 10 getting a special treatment at the EC externals. But we took it sportingly, & came out too good off it.

To be continued…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 3/8

2010-07-08T18:41:00.000+05:30

Truba College if Engineering & Technology, Indore

Computer Science Brach – Year 2 – Semester 3

You must have been thinking what a boring engineering life this guy & his friends are living, after all engineering in MP is nothing less than chilling out & enjoying everyday with friends, giving a damn to studies until the semester exams loom around the corner. Well folks, I think you should all stop with that criticism because the “War” has just begun.

Yeah, you heard me right, we were in the 2nd Year of Engineering life, & right from Day 1 of Semester 3, the all-important, much awaited, ruthless, cunning, barbarian, merciless, cruel, no-holds-barred WAR between Computer Science (CS) & Electronics and Communication Dept.(EC) had begun with a bang. And there would be no marks for guessing, & surely no early bird prizes, that we 10 were on the front leading the side as strikers (we were part of defense too, but it does not matter anyhow). Actually the battlefield was drawn earlier in the 2nd semester between the departments, we were the soldiers who mattered in the whole scheme. What started as a cut-throat competition between the departments ended up including us, the innocent Baker Street Irregulars.

We had quite a lot of Electronic subject in the semester, hence every EC faculty was in any ways it could, trying to harass us. The ultimate weapon in their hands was catching us using mobiles in the class. Actually there is a blanket/umbrella ban on use of mobile phones in the college campus according to RGPV, but who the hell listens to them & gives a damn to their rules & regulations. It had turned so nasty that even if we would touch our phones outside our pockets they would catch us, took the phones in their custody, & until and unless we apologies to them a hundred times, they would not return it to us. The same was happening to EC students from CS faculty, since they too had computer science subject. Needless to say we, front liners, were the ones targeted the most. Even our HOD locked horns with his EC counterpart on a regular basis.

Though we were the regular targeted causalities on an everyday basis, there were others in the class who had put up a good fight. At least two nasty incidents happened involving me.

It was probably the post-lunch lecture when some EC faculty was teaching us a subject he hardly cared about. I had a terrible headache (even here they would not spare us & we had to get a written permission even to blink our eyes in their lecture) & was not in the mood of studying anything, so along with Nikhil, was sitting at the last bench. I think Nikhil was working on his phone transferring some files via Bluetooth. Almost 70 pc of the lecture had passed without a gunshot fired(a record of sorts that time). The faculty was taking a round of the class teaching us some unpronounceable topic, suddenly he spotted Nikhil with a mobile phone, actually he had kept the phones on the underside of the table, but as I said even a glimpse of a communication device was more than enough to fire the cannon. The teacher came up to us, & confisticated the phones and told us to go to the dept & bring a written permission to sit in the class. Nikhil was all arguing with him that the phones were just kept there & he was not using them, actually it was Nikhil who was using them, I was just sitting with him. But when you are at war everything is fair & justified, I with a headache & that lecturer shouting on top of my head got up gave that guy a stern glare, threw the notebook & dashed out of the class. Next thing Nikhil & I knew, we had to bring written application from the principal to sit in the class.

On the second instance, which was in many ways the funniest incident ever, involved saurabh, vikas & me, three of us sitting in 1 bench, yes with vikas too, we were playing with our phones & the lecturer caught us, took them in custody & asked us to meet in the dept after the college hours. I can surely say that day was the most boring day of our life, I don’t know how but the clocks had gone into a slow motion. After the hours we 3 went to EC dept to get vikas’s phone back(saurabh & me had smartly hidden ours before that guy came in, of course vikas couldn’t do it given his huge figure). After much talks & apologizing he agreed to give us back & told us to go outside & wait near the Library. It was such a lazy day that I was almost drifting to sleep & was resting on vikas’s shoulders (he was saurabh & mine favorite pillow). I never knew what hit me but as the EC guy (he was the next in line to be HOD) was coming I said “YEH ****** AADMI HAI KI PAJAMA”. Those words had just came out of my mouth & bang that guy was in front of me, I am sorry I cannot say what all happened at that instant, because it was a moment to live. At his back everybody was laughing, even the others who were in the corridor, I had said it too loud probably for the entire corridor to hear. The Lecturer eyes were just scanning me, sweat broke on my forehead, & I think I must have broken some ribs of mine trying not to laugh, while others were just laughing uncontrollably. Nevertheless the score was settled, with a final warning to me not to mention a strong stare from him. Since then I seemed to enjoy this war & whenever anybody of us saw that guy even in lecture, we could hardly suppress a grin. Courtesy me, that guy got a nickname ‘PAJAMA”. Everybody even the EC students accepted the name too.

The days passed by with incidents happening at almost a regular basis, even in the winter season the battle raised the temperature to keep us warm & charged up. I think there were some corridor fights which helped to keep the tension on appropriate levels

The bad thing about RGPV are their results, it has a tradition of coming on a Saturday night since I don’t know when. After the exams everybody’s heart starts to pump fast on a Saturday in anticipation of result. And come did they, & as always we were the ones who barely got through with the theory, interestingly or fortunately saurabh & me ( I always knew we both had a connection between us even if he is a year older to me) got the same papers to carry.

The internals & externals that semester apart from being a normal affair made us to have a break from the aforementioned war, but EC Dept/ especially to us, gave a hard time in the Viva & practical’s. I remember since I had not attended too many classes that semester had to do all the practical’s of electronics, but rohit tiwari who was regular just because of his girlfriend(read just a friend this being the girl’s version), ended up doing all of them, given that we shared the same name & I was scot free.

You must be thinking, ATKT papers are an added tension to engineering students. In our case you are terribly wrong, for saurabh & me, who have lived life without a tinge of tension, take them as if it’s just another waste of day. True we both had 5 regular & additional 4 Carry’s, totaling 9 papers with at least 2-2 on consecutive days. But we both had pledged to ourselves that come what may, we are clearing them by hook or crook, If I am not mistake (@iisaurabh) we had Engineering Mathematics 2, Engineering Drawing, Basic Electrical & Engineering Mathematics 1 for the carried part. I may be hallucinating but that semester RGPV had set some of the easiest papers in their history, add to it an all theory paper of Basic Electrical that traditionally is filled up with the dullest & cunning numericals ever. The most dreaded regular paper was Network Analysis, which thanks to the 4 Rahul’s sitting beside me went extraordinarily well by my standards.

The semester ended with a warning that 4th Semester would be something that would change the equations, anybody would ever expect.

To be Continued (of course with the war)...

Rohit Kaveeshwar

The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 2/8

2010-06-23T17:14:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: All Disclaimers for this post remain as it is from The Days of our Engineering Lives – Uncensored Version – Part 1/8.

Truba College if Engineering & Technology, Indore

Computer Science Branch – Year 1 – Semester 2

Welcome to Semester 2 of engineering, we 10 guys have still not left our craziness, though we think it’s high time we did it & the fact that it still is not that late to leave the weirdness we so respectfully posses. But then there has to be someone to balance things out. And then who wants to do it, its just second sem buddy!

To start off I would rather say we were happy to make it to 2nd semester of engineering, including the whole class & the college for sure, because that meant the Annual Function was due. Of course the one thing that really pissed us off was that it would happen in hot summer month of March, & then like that was not enough, to the craziest of our imaginations, it was going to be organized in the Workshop Area.

Prayas ‘05, yes that’s what we would be calling it, the first ever Annual Function of Truba College of Engineering & Technology, Kailod Kartal, Off Indore Dewas Bypass Road, Indore, built on a small cliff some 14 Kms from city, where if you allowed me to say even if the Narmada in it’s blues of the blues gets flooded & the whole of Indore gets submerged, I am pretty well, actually, damn sure our college is where the action would be, not to mention it would make a great makeshift camp for survivors & military’s evacuation procedures.

Coming back to the topic, well we were having our first ever-annual function in broad daylight (in night there would be things, so nasty happening that I don’t want to talk about it, but would love doing it as many other boys will agree with me, except the studious types). But then it was something we all were actually feeling proud of, not to mention the classes we bunked on it’s name, it gave us liberty to roam around freely all day long, no questions asked, & even if there were some, we would coolly reply to them as being members of Disciplinary Committee (!).

We also had two days of sports before the function including cricket & football for boys & badminton for girls, Table tennis for both the genders. I still remember the trials that we conducted for cricket & football at Dusshera Maidan near my house, the domination by us at the selection & the opposition, or rather the depressed opposition shown by the other side. Although we included some of the best players in our team & that included anti-us & the neutral ones (yes they existed) but we probably had the best team in college apart from EC’s, with whom Chandu was eager to have rough match.

Bang, probably on the second day of Sports just before the finals, there came the most awaited, feared & anticipated thing, THE RESULTS, almost the whole college was running to Computer Labs. It finally had come with a month long rumors & whisperings, not to mention the increased heartbeats it gave us, even the teachers had fun with us on that. We had the first set of grades in our engineering & almost everybody doing pretty much well, although I think me, saurabh, Ankit, rohit, Amol & vikas carried a paper or two. I still remember the faces of vikas with his whining & probably the last time anybody would see Saurabh CRYING over his grades (I hope I had a camera then, it would surely made one hell of an archive). Though the results helped to dampen our spirits for some time, but it was a matter of time till we immersed ourselves into the function again.

That semester Truba College saw one of the best cricket matches to be played on the ground (!). It was CS v/s EC for the final & it turned out to be a nail biting finish like India winning against Pakistan at World T20 final. Though we lost at the end but had put up the best performance ever.

I remember a play we had put up for the annual function, I think it was a mix of Salim - Anarkali story with Don, where almost 5 boys played Salim’s role & Saurabh donning the Don, Anarkali was done by the then best rated girl in our class *****(Confidentiality & Privacy reasons). It turned out to be so well that we received the best play by a popular vote amongst the crowd. I don’t think anybody in the group will ever forget the practice we had at Saurabh’s house & the voting & the vetoing on which girl to take for Anarkali’s role ( it was really a scene worth seeing then).

For the bad part, first up was the Workshop Practice we had & I kid you not it was the most intolerable thing I ever did in my life. Actually our college being on the outskirts of the city & situated in an open field out of nowhere, received immense amount of heat during summers, the workshop was a separate building outside the main campus, with a trussed Tin shed on top, which meant so much amount of heat that we could have almost run a steam engine, or at least melted Diamond, if nothing else. Apart form the summer heat wave, me saurabh, rohit & vikas had a great time since all our workshops jobs were patiently carried out to perfect completion by the workshop teaching staff. (I don’t know how did the other batches went, so better comment on it).

Secondly we had Engineering Drawing that sem, & I bet you 100 bucks that anyone who can’t draw a single straight line would probably hate this place as much as I do. I couldn’t get the hang of it ever & so did many others as the course advanced from simple lines to some of the most complex man-made drawings.

We really treat anyone who is on our side to the best respectful way, & this we showed when a bunch of IT guys harassed Vinu (our associate member) over a small issue of bus’s window, but that was enough for our ever-leading, 5 inch tall, spectacled & always ready for anything with his friends CHANDU alias Chandra Prakash Deep Ajmera to get into a fight. And boy if it was just a 2 min fight we would have never ever gave any consideration to it, or I would have never wrote it here, but this went on for almost 2 days with the Finale happening nowhere else than just in front of our Principal’s room, & on top of it just in the morning when he had came out instructing us to get back in the classes (or to say no bunking, boys), he had a habit of this & we were his regular customers at it. Well as every other fight goes it had to end in principal’s room with almost 3 Hrs of continuous non-stop, eyes watering & yawning lecture of ethics, morals, values & some other such stuff I dare not to remember.

I don’t know how but I think clouds answered our prayers, and because of that we had a good early monsoon that season probably in Late April – Early May. Well it cooled down things pretty much. Those rains brought out some of the most wonderful scenery, something worth a camera-click. We had the whole of Indore spread out ahead of us & it looked like we were on some hill station or so. I remember our Engineering Drawing Internal that sem, it rained like cat’s & dogs that day, everybody in my class was over with the vivas, excluding me & others who were to follow, I who could not resist rains ever along with my friends took a whole campus walk & we saw some of the best Kodak Moments ever. Of course we got a good lectures from the teachers who waited for us till we got in whole drenched in rains to give our vivas but it was kinda fun to do it.

The sem brought out one of the best kept secrets in RGPV, the internals & mid semester are probably the best joke played by them ever, & since then, in our living memory we have ever given two hoots to them till the last sem.

Externals turned out to be a pretty normal affair & went out like a breeze. But the most awaited thing, mainly by the peoples who had carried papers were the Semester Exams. Somehow it was an added tension for us, will we, or will we not was the million dollars question that time.

But then like just another obstacle in our way, this could not hold on for very long & we got through with it, eagerly awaiting the result that was to come next sem.

To be Continued...

Rohit Kaveeshwar

Days of our (Engineering) Lives - Uncensored Version- Part 1/8

2010-06-13T11:07:00.006+05:30

Disclaimer: This has become an obsession for me, but this time it’s the most important thing on the post, for one there would be instances which neither me or anyone in my group would ever in our wildest dreams would dare to bare. Secondly I am being forcibly pushed to write it, so guys this is just for that sake, I am really sorry if anyone get’s hurt. Last but not the least, if you want to sue somebody sue them, not me I am a mere writer nothing else. Thanks.

Well, thank you for hearing out the disclaimer; it’s something I love to write. Just hold on a sec, Before starting I wanna tell that I would be writing in a semester wise fashion so this is the first of the 8 long & tedious parts of the whole blog.

Truba College of Engineering & Technology, Indore

Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science Branch - Year 1 – Semester 1

What do you expect from a student just out of school, into an engineering college for the first time, actually into a college for the very first time, that too being in the very first, so to say Platinum Batch. You expect him to be anything but notorious & the-talk-of-the-campus. Well in our case we were 10, a hell lot more than anything anyone, anywhere in the world would expect.

At the start allow me to introduce us, according to roll no. - Amol Nandode, Ankit Khandekar, Apurv Khariwal, Ashish Trivedi, Chandra Prakash Deep Ajmera, Nikhil Neema, Rohit Kaveeshwar (that’s me), Rohit Tiwari, Saurabh Shrivastava, & last but not the least (literally & figuratively) Vikas Tharyani.

I really think the college would not have expected this, at least from the Platinum’s. But here we were 10 of the most Unimaginable, Notorious, well known, famed, celebrated, renowned, eminent, prominent, illustrious, legendary, recognized, Talk-of-the-campus, teachers & girls of the college, It was just because of us that any outsider (that is if they ever came) would call this College – a CAMPUS. And like that was not all we were the most respected ones in the class too. Actually only we 10 made that damn-class THE CLASS & I think everyone should be grateful to us for that.

I don’t remember how we 10 got together; maybe it was our attitude, thought process, or simply our frequencies matched, without any resistance whatsoever. We were literally a gang of sorts; actually the only gang in the class & of course the whole college.

We were a batch of 60, with almost 35% comprising girls, but I don’t remember that anyone getting along so well like we did because barely a week into the first sem we had the coveted reward of being the strongest & united group in the college.

Semester 1 of B.E. is something nobody of us would ever forget. For one it marked the starting of our group, 2nd we had enemies to tackle right from the word GO & it comprised of people from the studious zone (padhne wale bachhe, we used to call them), the anti –us group, who were always thinking of means to break us down. Well they never succeeded, but every time they tried they failed disastrously.

Contrary to notorious-tag, we had a respect that nobody ever got (or would have never imagined getting one). We had a full row to ourselves near the windows & not a single lecture went without a wisecrack or any other such thing coming from our side of the classroom. I still remember that even though we had a full row to ourselves, with most of the benches remaining empty, but nobody outside our group even dared to sit with us, & interestingly no teacher, had ever dared to pan into our area, & even if they mistakably did, they never dared saying anything to us, of course, we enjoyed the QoS we received but at some point we regretted the non-attention we got. Of course we never stopped anybody coming near us, but then that VIP status always comes with a price.

I can’t forget Apurv Khariwal, his oratory skills that I would hold on a sec, but he was too good at grabbing lunchboxes. I don’t remember a single day throughout the entire college days when this man would have rested without a lunchbox, & like that’s not all no lunchbox ever remained full after 3rd lecture, of course it was tough to keep him away while we were eating during lectures (I dunno if it was his sixth sense or just his nose), but then we got away with it barely a few times, his main target included me, vikas, rohit, nikhil & amol, with vikas being the no. 1. But thanks to him & his stash of lunchboxes, we always got through with every damn-boring lecture for the 4 years.

It was one such day when we were all resting in the so-called-garden of college, it was the last lecture & we usually bunked it, as the college got over, people started getting out of their classes, we were in our usual habit of passing comments on any tom-dick-harry that passed by us, one such group of girls passed by us, & I think Chandu unintentionally said something which one of the girl thought it was pointed to her, she came dashing towards Chandu who literally was taken aback from her huge figure, she then called her brother, who was in her class (I think EC) & he came with his gang to even things out with us, but no on-the-spot action occurred since the principal came out to cool things up.

Next day those EC guys came again, over some heated discussions, Chandu who had lost his temper was thinking of some serious revenge. So that day everybody apart from me & vikas went along with chandu in his bus. Little did they know that those EC's were also on the same bus, on board they again had some serious discussion. As chandu's stop came he got down, those EC guys followed suit & surrounded him, little did they know that Ashish, Apurv, Ankit, amol, rohit & saurabh had taken them from behind. A fierce fight broke out between the two groups, saurabh had already informed his brother of this incident, as had chandu to his fleet of friends, totaling more than a dozen guys against a handful of EC chaps, well they had no chance to escape at all & we won in style. Chandu was so out of control that day that he immediately filed up an FIR against them. Such was the craziness within us, that we never left a stone unturned. And since then nobody ever dared to take a stance against us.

Well the first sem went on with all of us including we 10 completing each & every assignment’s, practical’s etc in a disciplinary manner, but we never missed out on our actions. I remember one such incident, everybody in the group decided to go on a Mass bunk (the first official mass bunk, although we had innumerable bunks before & after that), but this one was special, we had decided to watch Garam Masala at velocity that day, & I would rather Apurv & Chandu describe the whole in the comments because it was them who were the center of attraction the whole day & what did they talk on phone still remains a mystery. But we enjoyed the whole trip very much; of course we missed Garam Masala & had to watch Biwi No. 1 or some such film, but it was fun. Back at the Class things were pretty actually totally low, the teachers, students & especially the girls never liked us skipping class that day & it was a whole boring day for them (girls do enjoy seeing action, not that they show it off). Well the good thing was the studious type got to learn in silence (so much for them).

Among the entire teachers there was one Sachin Patel, who really blended with us, He used to teach us Civil & Engg. Mechanics. His on-the-field Civil Engg. Practical would be something saurabh, vikas & me would never forget (I don know about others), with the tea, coffee, snacks & everything he served us while others slogged away in hot afternoons doing stupid things on the grounds. His lab was the one perfect hiding place for us during our bunks & there too we received top-most hospitality.

RGPV has a strange rule of conducting a Exam in the middle of a happy semester, our college going a step further with conducting the exam at 1 O’clock , it really took the brains out of us (that is if we had any), the results as we had expected never came out good, but it was a shock for even the studious types & girls, they literally cried for the poor marks & going to the extent to requesting the principal for a retest. I don’t know why, but thanks to our teachers, there was a rumor that if you fail in mid-sem, there would be no semester exam for you. Of course we never paid any attention to these stupid things & we were all cool about it except for, I think Vikas & maybe Nikhil to some extent. I remember Amol getting 3/100 in a subject, accidentally that being his roll no.

Internals that sem was something we all looked forward to. I still have memories how we had helped each other (& in some cases people outside the group) with finishing their assignments, diagrams, sketches, observations etc, & I still cherish the memories those internals held for us, it was all fun everywhere (of course it would be the very last time we would ever be that serious for internals, later on it was just a little joke for us). Even the externals were something we looked upon too, the vivas, the tensions; gossips, files, shivani’s & vinu who helped saurabh & me get past all the hurdles now & later on, the mood of the external, all this added to the excitement & craziness of semester viva’s. I remember our Engineering Physics External, that day we had used the Bluetooth Technology to its actual & practical use, something for which it was made for. What we did was to capture all the observation tables, procedures, etc with our mobile’s cameras. Once inside the lab we all switched on our Bluetooth forming a piconet (a total of 7 +1 connected devices) & shared all the observations between us. The teacher & external could not even sense what we were doing all the time.

After the viva’s it was time for the big one, the semester exams. We knew we were not so well in our studies (thanks to our mutual understandings), but still we accepted the challenge, & come did they and we faced them bravely, after all it was the final exam of sorts & it took us just 5 papers to get through with it. It was the time when we really saw Vikas sweating profusely & of course loosing at least some Kilos if not much. For me, saurabh & the rest all thanks to Vinu John our associate member, who took us to our books & made us read them (even if they were Shivani’s Engineering Question Bank, called shivani mata). He was the biggest & probably the only help we (read saurabh & me) got (apart from girls) during Internals & Externals & that relationship was surely going to last a long way.

And then Bang the first sem had ended & we could not believe we had lived through it.

To Be Continued…

Rohit Kaveeshwar

Those "Qualifying Playoffs"

2010-05-10T13:20:00.000+05:30

To be very honest & utmost true to myself & others I had never imagined in all my life that I would score about 85 percentile in MAT-09, & if you still care about even when I was writing it, but since it had, I don’t know by luck, handwork, or whatever rational & irrational things that exist, it was true. For the first 2 minutes after seeing the result I could not believe my eyes, I was completely awestruck or whatever you may call it. After-all getting up at 6AM, driving across literally the whole of Indore (not to mention those chilly winds of Late-December), going to that cramped college & sitting in those neck-paining-extra-super-duper cramped benches for 3 Hrs nonstop did payed-off well, Thank-you very much.

But since everything in life does not end so easily & specially when you most desperately want it to be ( in my case I have had enough COMPETITIVE EXAMS for a lifetime), there was still a part which I hated from the core of my heart, the aforementioned “Qualifying Playoffs” (if you still don’t get it, you still eat lollipops mate). So after my Traumatic-Jaundice-Phase, I took up courage and started looking for colleges to apply for, after much of deliberation (fake, as you know it), surfing the net for college & hell-knows-what-all, I bought the Institute of Technology & Management(ITM) Admission Form for PGDM 2010-12 Programme (thanks & courtesy @nikhilneema) at the start of February.

Thanks to my addiction to laziness (which certainly has no cure, whatsoever) & the last date for sending the form being 15th March, 2010 I was more than relaxed to fill it & kept postponing it (Note: Procrastination is helluva job to do). After that the last date got extended upto 30th March, & I was sure all lazos like me would be jumping with happiness. Finally sent the form on 21st March.

After almost half a month I got a letter from ITM inviting me to attend “Qualifying Playoffs” on 20th April at Cerebral Heights, Indore, a coaching Insti for wannabe-MBA’s like me (!). The letter contained the T&C’s & other crap details, what it specially mentioned was a DD of 25k bucks to be submitted if you took up admission, rest of the fees can come later. Although totally shocked by this special mention, I completed all the requisites & on the D-day again drove across the whole of Indore and reached almost 10 minutes late to the venue (reporting time 9AM sharp, crap). Here the story starts :

This may be my imagination or anything you can call it, the Coordinator from ITM, had & I am most certain & anybody who was in that room would surely vouch for it, a hint of Feminism in him. Anyway the Qualification process started & first up was the Group Discussion, some 10 students including me & 1 too hot & pretty girl (Ira from Vidisha) went into a room, our GD Coordinator being a retired military officer & Dean of ITM Bangalore, interestingly as we later found out his mobile’s ring-tone was an sleazy item no. From some Bollywood flick. After his advertisement of ITM B we started off, the topic being “IPL is all about money & nothing about cricket”. At first it seemed nice topic but as we progressed it turned out to be more messy than a messy “fish market” with everyone throwing extensive comments on IPL, I remember we had even reached the English Premier League (glad we did not took i-League in the discussion). The fish market ended in 15 minutes & it was time for the dean to speak, he gave us feedback on our parts in the GD & left.

Next came the Personal Interview or the PI session. One thing I noticed during the Interviews, since we were in the main hall of the Institute, that some of the girls there were best of the lot even by a crap institute’s standards & surely it helped boys to pass the time quickly. Well my chance came & I sat in front of that Dean in an AC-ed Room (thanks CH). After going through my application form & my past records & talking to me about how-brilliant-i-am stuff not to mention one more Ad of his ITM B, he offered me ITM Warangal Campus(!), saying I would be in top-10 from that campus (I later found out he was Co-Dean of ITM W too), which I was in no mood to take. I was not settling in for anything less than ITM Mumbai or ITM Pune whereas ITM B was in my consideration list. I deliberated with him for almost 5-10 min but his excuse was my poor performance in Grad. & School (well it’s true my past sins never tend to leave me alone). All said & done the final results were out & against my all hopes that he will soften a little bit because of my not so sentimental (which I am terrible at putting at) I was officially offered ITM Warangal which I refused.

To this day I have not attended any other Qualifying Playoffs but I think would have too, thanks to my parents who are getting irritated at seeing their son sitting idle at home doing nothing (well I write this blog, but parents will be parents). I really wish some descent college offers me a admission with no-questions-asked & I get out of Indore as fast as I can.

Thanks

Rohit Kaveeshwar
(Wannabe-MBA)

The Days of our (Engineering) Lives

2010-04-14T00:52:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: Here i am again with yet another disclaimer, but this time i mean it because it has something to do with me & my college friends lives and i don't want to insult somebody or harass someone's image or any kind of things thereof. Although the people in the incidents will know what & whom i am talking about, but this is for the rest of the world to know (@my_college_group: this is just a blog, so don't kill me for it, i wanted to write about it, so i am doing it). Secondly, i am for any matter not implying anything on anybody, so just take it as a joke & nothing else. And let me as well remind you this is purely MY BLOG & MY VERSION. (FULL-STOP)

Okay, so who in his right mind would first give the disclaimer & then start off with his whining, well probably a typical engineer might, since his right mind is occupied by college, semester, girls, exams, shivani's, externals and assignments(accounts for less than 1%, but you can't ignore it), for the left side, well has anybody heard of it, i think no, so no point talking about it.

Now i presume i have to talk about our engineering lives, well then meet (according to roll no.)

0830CS051003 aka Amol Nandode

0830CS051006 aka Ankit Khandekar

0830CS051013 aka Apurv Khariwal

0830CS051016 aka Ashish Trivedi

0830CS051020 aka Chandra Prakash Deep Ajmera

0830CS051032 aka Nikhil Neema

0830CS051041 aka Rohit Kaveeshwar

0830CS051042 aka Rohit Tiwari

0830CS051049 aka Saurabh Shrivastava

& (last but not the least in any kinda way)

0830CS051058 aka Vikas Tharyani

Ten of the most grueling, sophisticated, practical, “hard-working”, insane, crazy, known-by-all kinda guys in a batch of 60. Yes, we were the ones who actually made up THE CLASS, its hard for me to remember how we all became the best united-buddies on campus, but 1 week into the 1^st sem we all had bonded with each other quickly than FeviQuick could possibly do.

Now RGPV's B.E. is a full on course of 8 Semester divided into four years (2/year or 6-months/sem) with 10 subjects/sem including 5 theory & 5 practical totaling up to some 40 theory & 40 practicals (including externals & internals) looks like a cakewalk isn't it, well you will know in due course. Hence for a total of 80 papers in 4 years, heck is a definitely an understatement.

We had one full row to ourselves, that made us even more special & not to mention that even if we would sit in groups of 3(yes, even with vikas) with the individual bench capacity of 2 and most of the benches in the row remained empty, nobody even dared to think let alone “dare to do” sitting with the 10 of us, maybe you would call it our so called Terror, but frankly it was not, actually we had never restricted anybody to not to sit with us, and we would welcome anybody(believing in our Open-Door-Policy), but still nobody came to us so we were all cool about it, the other reason being by the time we all had settled in college life, we were the most coolest, talk-of-the-staff-room, always-ready-for-nuisance kind of guys, we were hated by most for our unity within the class & outside too & we were always on the wrong side of every teacher(read Faculty, Prof or anything), so naturally those studious-types would not even try to befriend us thinking that would diminish their image in front of teachers. I remember a time when all 10 of us had gone on a mass bunk(that's a whole different story,certainly needing a blog) & literally the whole class went as boring as hell (this from the teachers).

Even the stories of our terror flowed down to other classes and especially between teachers who during the class would not even dare to look into our row, he/she would pan each & every row, but their eyes would not land on us, as they knew if somehow i even scolded them for talking in the class, stealing & eating lunch from our and others tiffin, & letting us do what we want, they would have the worst day of their whole teaching career (if there is any). I remember some 1 month into the first sem, we had a awesome fight in the middle of the city on some communication issues with the IT branch. It was something that made the principal calling us to his room & giving us lectures on some moral stuff.

In the 2^nd sem, which was the shortest semester barely lasting 3 full months, we had our College's first Annual function called PRAYAS, the funny thing being it was to be held in the Engineering Workshop in scorching March (temp above 45 deg Celsius both inside & outside) & that too in broad daylight, the sad thing being that our 1^st Sem results were out and as anyone could have expected we did not do well, though we were through in practical, courtesy our ability to persuade (& somewhat terrorize) the influential people in the staff, we had not done well in theory,some had cleared on boundary, while some had failed, I remember me, saurabh, vikas, ankit, amol & rohit tiwari getting backlogs in 1 or 2 subjects. But still that didn't dampen our spirits in any way for PRAYAS, even though it was like sitting in a furnace, burning ourselves in that workshop area we still enjoyed it to the fullest.

The semester exams were just a breeze, we all even though had not done any assignments and others had cogged up all their strengths on it, we were the ones who got the highest sessional, but as fate has it the theory as usual sucked.

Come 3^rd sem & we were our lordly best one reason being making it to the 2^nd year without any difficulties(which was an achievement for me & saurabh) second being, we would be THE SENIORS. Of-course the second being irrelevant to some extent as every other teacher's eyes were especially on us, but we didn't miss any chance of Ragging the juniors. I still remember that incident when ashish, chandu & ankit were suspended for 3 days by our HOD, they were caught ragging and it had become the talk-of-the-campus. But the fact was we were totally friendly to them & some juniors who matched our thought frequency always got preferential treatment from us (eg. No ragging for them). Finally 3^rd sem came to an end & we got busy with exams, i remember me & saurabh had to give 9 papers(exactly same), with at-least 2-2 of them on consecutive days including backlog & regulars, and we cleared 7 out of it (another achievement of us). Finally it was all over and we had a sigh of relief.

4^th Sem is where the story of our unity & craziness actually starts as we gave a new definition to College Sports & Leadership Skills & every imaginable border between a student & teacher was broken off-limits. It all started in the next edition of PRAYAS (still in summer afternoon), we had two days of sports events followed by the cultural program on 3^rd Day. It was probably the grand finale of CS(1^st year) v/s EC(2^nd Year),EC needed some 12 runs to win in 10 balls with 3 wickets remaining, it was a tense situation. The scorer sitting was the next-in-line for HOD from EC dept. The bang started when that poor guy intentionally gave two runs to a wide ball, everybody protested, earlier they had done everything possible to defeat CS girls in Badminton, but this had been the limits, Chandu who is too small for his mile-long name couldn't control it, went to that chap & literally warned him and almost went into a scuffle, Bang the whole excitement on-the field shifted to off-the-field with all sorts of abusive languages & fist-fight broke out, Our principal came in to cool things up but even he couldn't ( I mean we cannot control Chandu when he is on his trip, others are out of equation). After this we all went on a strike & everybody from CS dept, participating walked out, it was the unity of the CS dept led by Chandu, Ashish, Apurv, Ankit, Saurabh, Amol, Rohit Tiwari who led from the front with me and vikas on the backups if something nasty happened, not to mention our HOD Sir who was encouraging us on it since he also had a thing against EC Dept. We said we would not let the function happen if we are not made the winners, even students who were participating in Cultural's walked out, I reckon Nikhil walking out of the stage in the middle of a program, but nevertheless the scores were settled & no clear winners announced. But we had to pay the price of this by carrying our EC Dept. practicals, and that include everyone in our group while all others (studious & anti-us lot who creeped in the shadows) came out clean.

5^th Sem was an ordinary, but made us proud that we are in the 3^rd year(another for me & saurabh) and that meant Placement season was due. Of-course with a T&P Officer like someone we got (Lucky us!) we stood no chance of any company coming to us, still we were hopeful. Everyone in the class was really excited plus everyone apart from us were jumping with joy because for once they would be able to top against we 10 guys, and they did for quite some time, but couldn't hold on to it for long.

Let me tell you about these studious lot, they may seem to be united against us from outside, but inside they are all in small pieces, which we knew, & had a tit-for-tat with them, result was even more pieces with no harm to us. Another thing is that they are utmost foolish people on earth, i can say this because we used them against themselves.

Though 5^th sem marked the beginning of the placements and we had quite a few people getting placed, the top most were who got SATYAM & had a hint of gloss on their faces. As the time went on the placement number grew in numbers and till 6^th Sem we were approaching half numbers. Of-course some of our group also got placed like Chandu, Ankit amongst them, but were not in the top notch, though they gave a tough fight to the opponents.

6^th Sem came & went like a drizzle. The gossip that sem included on the approaching recession & it’s effect on us, of-course it affected us & hit us invariably hard but we never feared it. Some so-called IT Co’s did came to us (the one’s who have 1 room office & do not even have a decent website of their own) but it was all a low key affair. The only positive came out that towards the end almost 30 students of the class got some or other companies. Then the satyam fiasco made every would-be-Satyam-ian cry at top of their voice & ultimately they too came in the category of JOBLESS.

7^th Sem the 2^nd last final sem of the final year, it was a time to start looking back at all those happy moments we all had shared during our college lives and somehow that did cheer us up rather than downing our morale, for the first time officially we were allowed to skip(bunk) classes which we had been doing from Day 1 of 1^st Sem. The great phase of unlimited freedom, those were the days when nobody said anything to us, or to aptly put in nobody dared to say anything to us after our 3 years of Respect & Glory, & that meant we could roam around freely, go to the back of the canteen for our joints, abuse every other anti-us guys in the class even during lectures which we hardly attended (we used to literally lure them to a Treat thrown by us & would then rip them off like anything & totally into bits). Bang in the middle of the Sem came a Breaking News (completely true) something that Saurabh, ashish & Apurv would never forget the whole of their life, reason being Open Campus from Ripples Infotech, and they made it through competing thousands of students(which was another amazing achievement especially for saurabh). I still remember the look on the face of the other side which included the studious & hate-us group, ahh what relief that day was, it was like a festival in our class(at-least in our part of the classroom) & we did not let any teacher teach us, not even those damn EC chaps. Somehow that was the one big achievement for all of us & a slap on those who criticized & hated us all throughout the college. The exams that semester was something none of us could have ever thought of. Each & every one of us was All Clear & for the first time of (at-least me & saurabh) our lives we had crossed that 60% barrier by a huge margin. Even our sessionals were something every studious type would envy. All in all the semester ended on a high note & we were all happy partied hard everyday.

Come 8^th Semester, the last 6 months of engineering, the so-called Champions League Finale, was something we could only dream of, and it had turned out real. A achievement for everyone of us. The happiness, the joy, the golden period, something no words can ever define. We cherished each & every living moment of it. The Annual Function PRAYAS ’09 was the best of all the functions held at our campus, everyone from final year was happily taking part in every other competition, however stupid they may be. For the first time in entire life of Prayas (apart from placement days) we had seen the night at our college, the whole campus was lit up & looked like the 29^th Jan Lighting from the Beating Retreat Parade at the Parliament. We had every imaginable & un-imaginable kind of fun that time. Even the Semester Exam were something for which we all felt a mutual longing & came did they as promised (thanks RGPV, for your wonderful work), we had the most easiest papers ever set in the history. For the first time in our lives we never felt any fear,anticipation, or any stuffs like that for the results. It was the best of our whole-Engineering lives ever. Something no-one amongst us can ever forget.

And then it all ended, we had all become Engineers, twisted however it may be, but we had done it.

Some people worth mentioning here are Vinu John, thanks to his hard work, me & saurabh have became engineers plus his efforts to make us study, something that made the impossible seemingly possible, and Mohit Shrivastava & nasty bit of craziness that he bought with himself. They were the ones who always supported us right from day zero. They both were the Associate members of our group.

For me personally these 4 years had been the best years of my life, of-course my schooling was also all-big-fun but it lacked the charm of engineering. I had the most wonderful friends by my side & I was sure they are certainly for life till death.

Thanks Everybody for everything

Rohit Kaveeshwar

My experiences on running a House “ALONE”

2010-02-15T17:44:00.000+05:30

Thanks for not commenting on my last post, I knew it was not even worth it, for which guy in his right(or even left, up, down & center) mind will ever write on a trip to hospital, blasphemous me, of-course, but I wanted to write & even though I have written quite a much, I was probably not satisfied with it at all. Thanks Inner buddy.

This time as the tradition of “being rohit kaveeshwar” goes I am going to harass (maybe I am using it too much, but I can’t find a word other than that, my English is very poor, don’t harass me for that) you again, this time it will be on how I lived 7 (although saying a week would be quite fine, but saying “SEVEN LONG DAYS” makes it look grand) days in my home “alone” along with my brother & grandma as mom & dad had gone to Manali on holidays.

10th,February,2009
The day started with quite a lot of fuss with lot’s of last minute packing, eatable items, & hell knows what not as my mom & dad were leaving by the 1620 Hrs(according to railway time) Indore - Nizamuddin Express to New Delhi, which was according to Railway Telephone Enquiry System (139) was late by 0100 Hrs (at-least), well as the great ol' railway’s tradition goes it started even late 1845 Hrs to be precise, actually it came to Indore 1600 Hrs(Scheduled Arrival 1140 Hrs), and it soon left for Delhi.

Now it was me alone at house, though there were my brother and grandma but since I have told you this is about a first-hand-experience on running a house alone & I bet you Twenty-Thousand grands that it’s not in any way and in any case simple, I can even go to the extent of saying that hard is surely what anyone can call an understatement. I really wonder how any female & that includes mothers,daughter,wives,sisters and everybody connected, as how they manage all this stuff single-handedly. They must be the ones who should be given MBA degrees as a respect to what all they really do, or better case they should be allowed to teach at those unpronounceable B-Schools of today and it includes the IIM’s too. I on the other hand even if was given 20 men to support me, it would be utterly next-to-impossible thing to do.

I really cannot explain how I lived these “SEVEN LONG DAYS” with my house not overfilling with pigeons, cockroaches, spiders with their nasty webs all around, & other hideous insects with their unidentified names( I wonder if even the extinct one could have shown up). A typical day (during these 7 days) started with me getting up at 0630 Hrs, with the maid who came to bathe my grandma banging on the doors (& if for hell’s sake, she did not come, I was the one responsible for getting my grandma to the bathroom and all). Next step was to bring in the milk pouches & empty them in bowls and heat them up, a boring task given that for 90% of the times it was on the verge of spilling out of the bowl, not to mention extra work to clean it up. Also making Maggie or Smoodles or sandwiches (it really is a tedious task) for my brother before he left for school.

Next at 0900 Hrs came the maid who would do the dishes. Since I did not mention Indore has a quite a shortage of water & it comes on alternate days, it was always me who had to fill it up, not to mention managing water tanks, in my case 3, helluva lot.

Then came the hideous task of laundry, I really don’t understand as why there are more clothes in the washing area than in our Almira & Closet’s, though mine is always a messy lot & I haven’t cleaned it up for ages, so surely I can’t tell. I had to gather all the clothes from the bathroom plus all the clothes strewn around by me & neatly compiled by my brother (though dirty) and then somehow literally stuff it inside the washing machine. Here I would confess that even though I am an Engineer that too a Comp Sc. I really cannot understand my washing machine and how to operate it. First it’s a IFB Front Loading machine, secondly it has a knob which has too many alphabets on it A to J, not to mention it turns only clockwise, with every alphabet for a different process, interestingly there is no ‘I’ on it, may be a mistake of Manufacturer or he could not place a job that started with ‘I’, thirdly apart from alphabets it has many weird signs on it which I cannot understand, fourth it has some buttons which says hot, warm, & cold water (heck what’s the major difference between hot & warm, also the tap water which goes into it is always cold), last but not the least, the amount of clothes & keeping it with water in proportion. Of-course my mom had told me how to operate it before leaving but I instantly forgot half of it, which is always the case.

Next came the maid who makes food for us, this I thought would be easy, but found out that it needed something more than an MBA too, & I am bad at it, first I had to tell her the vegetables add to it no. of chapati's (read roti's) to be made considering if there are any leftovers from the previous night plus who will eat what and what not & in what proportions. But because she is working in our house for a very long time, she knew about us so me giving out instructions was not much if not more.

An interesting fact of our house is that even though we are FIVE people living, there are at-least SIX maids to control us or so to put in control our house. The next maid who comes at around 1200 Hrs is the one who looks after my grandma & carrying out her instruction till 1600 Hrs. with the fact that they are always addressed to me. We normally have our lunch at around 1300 Hrs. & this maid is always ready to help us, which is a sigh of relief for me at-least.

After this the noon passes quite easily & also the evening, the drama starts at around 2000 Hrs when it’s time for the maid again to make food for us, again the whole round of MFA starts, I would not write all that again & if you want you can copy it down here, but spare me ( really do have a lot of work).

We have our food at around 2130 Hrs along with the TV (sorry Amir Khan, Tata Sky+, Gul Panag & others, it’s our favorite pass-time & also a tradition in Kaveeshwars). Keeping up with the tradition the calling-it-a- day ritual comes at around 2300 Hrs. & the night falls literally & figuratively.

Some things I need to warn all the rest of us that never ever try to run the house alone, you will just land in a disaster, like me. I really have had all this for a lifetime & the next time mom & dad go on a holiday, I am going on mine too, that’s for sure. Secondly, if by luck (read bad luck) you fall into something which I have undergone, please it’s my earnest request shed all your normal guy’s habit, it will never work out like sleeping late till noon, etc,etc,etc.

Thank you, I can’t write more now & hoping this post will come handy if not more, or else just read it & get it out of your system.

P.S It really is a genuine post so don't take it as I am pretending or faking something.

Happy House-Keeping (sorry, nothing else came to my mind)

Me, Hosptal & Jaundice - The Bhopal Tragedy

2010-02-03T14:02:00.001+05:30

Before I startup with this blog I want to thank everybody from my mom, dad, brother, grandma, nikhil, abhishek, the doc, his juniors & interns, the maid who cleaned my room after every 2 hrs or so & many others.
Well as for this blog I am going to narrate my first time experience of a stuck up life in a hospital (8 days to be precise) for something as mere as jaundice, Medically called Hepatitis Type A or Icterus (I really don’t understand why doctors use such unpronounceable names). This event started, or which I think, on 3rd of January, 2010, the day of my XAT. My center was in LNCT, Bhopal, some 200 KM from Indore, so I woke up at 3 AM in the morning got dressed and started driving to Bhopal along with dad at 4 AM. Reached the Center at around 9, the exam started at 10. One thing that I noticed there was every other guy or girl there was from indore and at-least had a Adidas, Nike, RBK gears on them(I mean you really can’t ignore these things even if they seem unimportant), I myself was wearing a Adidas Jersey, L517 Jeans, Puma Pullover & RBK Shoes, Secondly the girls were the most hottest lot & at once I knew this test would not be that easy, I mean what do you expect from boys, write that damn paper or stare at the hotties, well there were some extra exceptional cases too, but I will not get into it. Even the paper lacked all the charm & not even a single person was anything close to interested in giving that paper.

The paper ended at around 1 PM after which I had to head back home by the 2 PM MPT Bus from Palash Hotel. I was hungry off limits because of the paper (not to mention the hotties). So I took lunch of Rajma Chawal at the hotel (even though I was in the mood of some South Indian). The bus left at 2 PM and after a 4 hrs long journey which included a movie called DO KNOT DISTURB & a bumpy rickshaw ride from Palasia I was home by around 6:30 PM. Next day went fine with no trouble, me & my friend abhishek had a great time (we both were meeting after a long time even though we lived in the same colony). The story starts on Tuesday 5th, Jan,2010 - In the morning I had a mild stomach ache, which I ignored, thought must be some morning sickness or something, later that day I started to feel a little bit of nausea which I ignored again. The next it started to hit me fast & I vomited in the morning, my eyes showed a little bit of yellowishness, taking precaution I did a blood test, which dreadfully confirmed it (Murphy’s Law, when something has to go wrong it definitely will). I went to our family doc, who prescribed me some medicines saying its a too early stage (my Bilirubin was 3 & SGPT 1200),

The week & the next week went fine without any problems of-course I would be having food minus the oil & fat with immediate effect. The next Sunday (17th Jan, 2010) I had severe pains in my stomach & my eyes & had turned totally yellow. I could not even walk out of my room, so on Monday dad took me to the doc who immediately admitted me in citing critical condition, yeah it actually was my Bilirubin had shot upto 10.4 & SGPT - 3800 (anything more than that meant I could be in coma or at-least a Sclerosis). Well to speak the truth this was the first time I was admitted into an hospital throughout my life ( apart from when I had to undergo an Endoscopy because a measly little stapler pin was hanging upside down in my Lower Abdomen) & not just any ordinary, I was born here (& probably would have died in a few minutes, but thanks to that Gynecologist, oh sorry ,I forgot to mention her above, I still live to harass you with my blogs). Its altogether a different feeling when you get into a hospital, I mean I don’t fear them & all and have visited every other hospital in Indore, but this is something you definitely are unprepared for. I was immediately fitted with a IV Syringe & a bottle of 10pc Dextrose+ Taxim +Zopher + B-Complex(I know this because I know these things, not that hard to understand I guess). I was all excited & messaged every friend of mine of my current status I even updated my FB. Later that day I had been give 4 such bottles & had a light food and medicines, ofcourse my friends abhishek, nikhil, akshay & many others had come to meet me, so the day went fine with no problems, even though they were there.

Tuesday was a hellouva a day for me I was not feeling anything good, the B-Complex in my bottles was torturing me, it had made me to vomit 3 times till noon, & by evening I was anything close to death(voila second time in my life, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye). I immediately called for the doctor & he instructed that I should not be given any B-Complex through Drips(of-course the routine 4 Drips a day will still go on). By night I was not even in the state to breathe, I was spread on the bed like a leftover mass, not to mention the pain caused by the drips, it really is unbearable, & on top of that I had to bear cold fomentation plus the swelling on my hand. Wednesday was my miraculous return to normalcy, finally I could feel some kind of energy in me & at-least get up from the bed, That day mom,dad & nikhil nursed me so that I could atleast talk. I was given fruit juices mixed with Glucose (& it really tastes like shit). I tell you in the night I was in such a bad state that I could not even close my eyes & go to sleep, I had even thrown up my medicines during the meals.

Thursday I was back to normal & could do my chores, NIkhil used to come everyday & sit with during mid noon, & we would be watching TV(just to grab attention the TV needed more drips than me, first the remote worked within inches from the TV & the buttons seemed to be interconnected with each other so if you wanted to change the channel instead the volume changed so on & so forth) along with Jr. Doc’s & interns for whom my room was a hangout place, I had two beds other than the patient’s bed to myself, & even though my room was big enough but it looked really small due to my XXLL carelessness. I again had a blood test on Friday & thanks to all those medicines, Dextrose bottles & everything mentionable, my Bilirubin came down to 7 but the SGPT was still hovering @ 3300 mark (the normal is up-to 40mg/MLS, so you can imagine my state). Even the doc was tensed with this, I relaxed him saying it will come down, give it some time, and by that I didn't really mean too much time, but I think he took it to his heart.

By this time I had literally started hating the hospital & wanted to get hell out of here, I had even gone to the point where I would be kidnapped by my friends and had spent a sleepless night thinking about the plan, how to escape & all (so much for my shrewd intelligence, if that is). Saturday was the day when I was finally back to normal, I was having all my medicines food & everything, even my score of bottles (it’s hard to keep track on this but when you are in a hospital, there is so much you can do) had crossed 25, my scores of coconut water was also hovering around 30( & still growing as I write), I would not tell you about the amount of chocolates I had eaten or you would beat me to death. Sunday went fine with the regular medicines+food+bottles of 10 pc Dextrose & other injections+coconut water+CHOCOLATES (5-Star, my favorite)+TV & other stuff not worth mentioning.

On Monday 25th Jan,2010 I again had a Blood Test & this time it was the reason of joy for me my T.Bilirubin had dropped drastically to 5.1 & SGPT was at a record breaking low of 1800(thanks to all those bottles,coconut water & of course the Chocolates). Even the doctor was also pleased with my recovery & he finally gave me the news that I was eagerly waiting for - I could go home tomorrow, & like that was not all it would be 26th Jan, 2010 - The Independence Day (oh sorry, that was for me for ROI it would be Republic Day, I guess). I really don’t know how I spend that day & soon my departure arrived (that was an oxymoron). Although it took me around 12 in the noon to finally depart because they still had one drip remaining for me (loser’s all of them), but that went out quickly & by 12:30 I was back at my home (refer my FB for that day).

Of-course the precautions still existed meaning no oil,ghee & exertion for a minimum of 15 days (so much for that Jaundice thing). I am still living with all those precautions & this means no outing or anything but once I get over with this I would just dash out & eat all those things which I have missed out all these days including Butter Chicken, Mc Chicken, Pani Puri’s, Domino's Hot Chocolate Lava Cake, mmmmmmmmmmm, that’s not any dish it’s my mouth watering, etc, etc, etc.

Well I think this must be the end of the blog not that good as always but this is just an attempt as to how screwed up life could be with Jaundice - it affect your liver, damages it & takes hell of a time to recover, I really wish that nobody gets into this.

Wish Me Speedy Recovery
Thanks
Being Rohit Kaveeshwar

P.S I am doing my Blood test again by tomorrow, so please wish that bilirubin & SGPT comes down. I am also attaching some of my reports here, i know i shouldn't be doing this but like who cares it's my blog in the first place. So here it goes, feast your eyes if you find anything to feast upon

my blood report No. 1

my blood report that caused all the trouble

rep of sonography Whole Abdomen

ultrasound pics 1

ultrasound pics 2

second blood report ( a sigh of relief)

blood report 3 ( a huge sigh)

thanks again

A tryst with CAT..... Photogenic Contrasts

2009-12-09T15:06:00.003+05:30

This is in continuation with my earlier blog named A tryst with CAT.

Here i have uploaded our photos before after the CAT

I request you to please make a satisfactory note of the varying changes in moods of saurabh (he will kill me for it, but like who cares)

Just before the CAT 2009

Time : Somewhere round 1515 Hrs.

Date : Saturday 28th November,2009

Location : ChameliDevi Institute of Technology & Management,

Gram Umrikheda,

Khandwa Road

Near Toll Booth

Indore, MP, India

Just after the CAT 2009

Time : Somewhere round 1845 Hrs.

Date : Saturday 28th November,2009

Location : ChameliDevi Institute of Technology & Management,

Gram Umrikheda,

Khandwa Road

Near Toll Booth

Indore, MP, India

I wonder how a day can have so many moods...

Thanks again .....

A tryst with CAT

2009-12-05T15:29:00.002+05:30

Before I start this insane of a blog, I have some disclaimers to make, for one this purely is not my blog post, i may have written in but all the incidents which i am going to tell henceforth are true and they really happened in reality, i can vouch for them if someone wants. Secondly as i said this is not my post, the incidents happened with one of my very good friend Saurabh Shrivastava, so what better way is it to speak in his voice, though he will not put his bum on a chair and write up a full story, so here i am writing in his words the things that happened. thank you...now if you want you can still read on... no worries....

28th November, 2009 a day that started in the most unusual but fairly normal kind of way was to end with the worst day i ever had in my all life.

I think you will wonder why, so let me tell you.

The morning which one really thinks should be a dry but a cheerful & happy morning, was actually quite wetty & not to mention with a canine smell, yeah my dog TINKU licking me all over my face, trying to wake me up(my version), showing affection(his version), telling me to get up (my mum's version). I kicked him hard on his back and he fell down with a thud and ran away from my room probably to tell my mother that your lazy-son is all awake.

So all wet (i dare you to think any other things here) and groggy i somehow got up, which was also way unusual for my morning wake up time that's 10:00 PM, oops sorry, 10:00 AM, I am to groggy to figure out anything. So here I was waking up at 4 O'Clock just to revise my notes for today's tryst with IIM CAT '09.

What a day that was, i was gearing up for the most high profile exams conducted in this South Asian country called India & on top of that I was going to be one of the first victim of the Online (if you can call it) Computer Based CAT.

I left my home at 12:30 reached the Center Chameli Devi Institute of Technology at around 1:00 PM, for the tryst.

My appointment with CAT was scheduled for 1530 Hrs(sounds like millitary, but hardly any), and those schmucks had called us latest by1330 Hrs, the reason was they wanted to complete some formalities plus record our fingerprints and take our pictures (like we were some war refugees, who are entering this country without any legal documents). Before that we were frisked to the point where i could really sue them for public molestation acts as their security personnels were putting hands in the you-know-where territory, they wouldn't allow us our hankies or even a pen, let alone a cellphone & wallets or any other electronic gadgets (who the hell thinks to cheat through hankies, hey that's a great idea, will surely use it)

So be it, this legalities ended by around 1400 Hrs (their version), & we were all made to sit on our respective PC's staring at them like some fools who didn't knew “how to spell a COMPUTER”.

Then came the most boring phase we would had to sit before the PC staring at it like fools till 1530 Hrs. Ofcourse those IIM-CAT-logo doned Jacket men allowed us to go & pee and do our stuff but till 1500 hrs only, after that they closed us in the Non-AC-Fanless-Dimligted-total suffocating ROOMS (read Secure Zone, if you want the official terminology).

Our official test started at exactly 1530 Hrs (i guess for someone from kind-of-millitary background, time does matter a lot), First their was a small lame tutorial of some 9 slides which showed how to go with the test along with how to click with the mouse and write with keyboard & some other stuff ( i told you, Prometric thinks nobody in India knows computers, although more than 70% who work their are Indians, not to mention 90%in the US Top Co's).

Anyways, the (optional) tutorial ended and we started with the test,

So picture this, I am like keenly giving the test(so much for my concentration), Question No. 1 okay an easy one, no doubt i can solve it, great, damn easy answer, i can answer this even with a bottle of Vodka in me. all in all first question got great, buddy let's move on to the next.

Question No. 2, Okay this is somewhat tough, though not that hard if i try to concentrate(which i hardly do in anything remotely connected to studies), so let's try, or maybe should leave it for later, damn those negative markings, the inner buddy(my intution) says leave it.

Question No. 3, okay this is going great, consecutive two questions & i can't answer them, okay so what, inner buddy says the previous question is easy than this, you can spend time on it, go back you fool.

I hit REVIEW(i don't know why,because there was a previous button, but as i told you my-so-called inner budy), but then again something hit me. I decide to go to the next question and hit the END button, VOILA, whats this nothing happened, I hit END again, nothing for the second time, maybe third time lucky, i call upon the patron telling him that maybe the computer is NOT RESPONDING, i am hitting the end button but it is not processing or something.

He tells me don't worry press it agian, i do but the same old story, he said try double clicking it, again i follow the instructions and out of the blues of the blues this time the computer responds but it is the time i stop responding.

Yes i was in total shock because the screen was showing a smiley face with a message that read something like this “ Thank-you for appearing in the Prometric IIM CBT CAT. Your result will satrt showing up on IIM Website from 22nd January,2010” .

What the...... I was in total shock i could not imagine this, i lasted barely 10 min on the exam, I looked with a quite a angry expression on the patron's face and he had the same look as i had seconds before, he was too in total shock, he consoled me and said i will call upon the center admin to check out on this.

The center admin came up after some 20 min and said i am looking into the matter meanwhile you again try to log in & see if anything comes up, but since bad luck has it and my association with the great Murphy's law dates back to whole lotta years, there was probably or i can say actually no chance of retesting or anything for that matter.

After like a millions of hours the Center Admin came and tried to put the blame on me saying you were the one who pressed the END button and there is nothing we can do, I had the urge of kicking him on his butts like i did to my doggy today morning, He was saying all this so calmly as if he as pure as milk.

I asked them can i get out of this hellhole of a place, but they said no, nobody in this center leaves until everybody finishes with the test.

So here I was sucked in a place for the rest two & a half hours with nothing to do except staring at other candidates who were happily giving their exam, damnit, why does all crap things happen to me and me only,although there were other people who could not give the test either, almost 10, some had not started with the test because of link failure, someone's test had stopped midway and was not reconnecting,

All in all it was the worst day of my life the reason being i had prepared for this for almost a year or so, but neither me or my inner buddy had any feeling that it would be over in 10 minutes...

The test ended at around 1830 Hrs and finally we were allowed to move out of the TEST-CENTER, I made a vow not to come here as long as i can possibly want.

After that there is nothing much to tell, me & my friend went to Chlorophyll had a sandwich a Red-Bull and a Sheesha (Green-Grape flavored), primarily to cheer up our moods,which to say didn't help to cheer-up our moods.
All down I went home and somehow it was the end of the story but not actually an Happy one.

Gambling you way to MBA

2009-11-15T23:29:00.000+05:30

Yeah, you heard me right, at the core of it all, which every want-to-be-an-MBA plays every year with all those entrance exams and individual college admissions forms its as simple as a Gamble.

Probably I may not be making sense , given the pre-conceived notions & perceptions about these prestigious exams, actually i could not believe myself for the first time. I was filling my CAT form and planning for other exams as well, during that time this reality struck me, was i really giving these exams because I want to crack all of them or something. No, probably not, i am just giving these exams because I want more options with me when I enter the so called "B-Schools" of today.

Almost every other college (oops sorry B Schools) accepts almost every other stupid exams scores for their admissions including their own. So what's the big urge to give all these other exams like SNAP, NMAT, IIFT, etc etc etc.

Well the answer lies just round the corner, we are doing this just because we want more than one college at hand, that is to say we want more options so we can bargain on it.

I am not saying this is absolutely wrong, on the contrary its absolutely perfect and positively no crime, on the funnier side its more like Management of Slot Machines or whatever it is called. You put in a coin pull the lever and wait for the lucky number, if it dosen't come out you put in another coin, or maybe play on 2-3 slot machines at the same time hoping one would hit the jackpot.

What I found weird & interesting & funny is that the so called "counselors", who maybe thinking on the same lines as i am but they don't speak of it in front of students who come for seeking help as to which exam to give & which not or which college to apply for & which not. They judge you by the scores you get in the Practice or Mock CAT's, which is rational, but not practical, for one how can you justify someone's ability to give an exam by the Practice papers he gives which are set by the coaching institutes, maybe he may score well in the most toughest exam and get busted in the easiest exam, you simply cannot predict it. In the same way you cannot predict what the testing pattern will be for these exams. So better put your own mind into gears and start thinking. Secondly, why think the way these coaching insti's think, they may have done an enormous research on these exams their testing & scoring pattern, but ultimately its the human brain that is analyzing this, maybe one insti's analyzing pattern may be different from another for the same situation, worst case they may contradict each other. Better to think our own way.

What I personally think is give as many exams you can, of course fill the forms according to your choice & scores you get, but do not think about giving an exam or not, its really a gamble at the end and you have o play it wether you like it or not, & you will never know which stupid looking exam can be the jackpot you wanted.

To end it, this is my first serious post...

CAT-o-Sphere

2009-10-01T17:02:00.001+05:30

Common Admission Test, or as we call it The CAT, It may sound weird but the most popular, hyped and prestigious competitive exam held every year in India and controlled by central board of Indian Institute of Management is basically a female, why keep guessing, (govt should really consider the Women reservation bill after reading this much), but the fact remains. Nearly lakhs of student every year sit to give a female (I mean CAT) & of course all of them have the single ambition “Cracking the CAT”. These herd includes, doctors, engineers, professional businessmen (like they did not have a much better thing to do then write a stupid exam), students and god knows who all, the latest I have heard is that anyone above the age of maturity can give this exam, it does not matter if you are a oldie in ur late 90’s or a student doing B.Com, you are always welcomed at the hip teen joint “IIM”. Imagine a hot sexy chick sitting beside an 99 year old(expiry date itself has expired), but still ready to flirt with her, or a handsome guy going on a walk date with a 90 year old grandmother., at some point in India the generation gap has no meaning at all.

I will not say that I had the same dream of making into IIM, I mean I was not even sure I will get into engineering and then go on for the project CAT-09, but here I was (probably due to my dad, not sure again). I enrolled into Professional Tutorials, the one stop shop for CAT Training or education, whatever you call it. Actually I would have not even had enrolled into PT, if it was not for the craziest friend of mine, Saurabh, he called me and said “Rohit, listen to what I am saying, we two are probably the biggest, craziest, and strongest losers on earth, I am saying this because I have been estimating myself for the last couple of days, & we would not even have a job after engineering, so what you say let’s take one more risk and try for MBA” all I could say was “I don’t know but since you have evaluated yourself, and my valuation cannot be anything different so, damn it, let’s hit the deck” He said “Let’s join PT” to which I said “Yes”, I still don’t know why I even entered into CAT coaching(ahh, one more word for training), for one I see no point in going to an evening class and stuff yourself with boring lectures, instead you can roam freely all over the city doing nothing, secondly the name of coaching insti’s itself freaks me out, I have never ever been to any coaching insti’s all my life, I just hate them. But since we had paid a huge amount to PT there was no question of hating it. I would love it till the end of my life.

Well so this way our classes started, first in the course were the 3 month long Pinnacle Vital classes, which included the basic techniques of solving questions, something more like a bridge class. All you had to know was the basic mathematics which you had learnt in school, sound simple and boring, but for me even this was hard, I can’t remember what has been taught to me yesterday so remembering something from the ancient archives it out of question. Well to say the class came out good as the teachers were really professional (doing justice to PT’s name), they taught us everything from the old school, gradually we picked up.

After the Vital classes there was break because by this time the most freakiest thing was lurking round the corner, the semester exams, and not just any, the final semester, and given that we had not attended any class this semester we had a promising belief that we would not get cleared this time also(courtesy Saurabh again, and not to mention our track record of the previous years). So we took a break from the classes pledging ourselves to join in again as soon as after the exams.

And so we did, it took us nearly a month or so since our semester exams to join our heads again with PT and look into the future. Well this time the path was rather bumpy since we were in the Regular phase, here the course was much more dangerous, horrible, totally sucked up, and no to mention in their words “Advanced”. I was pretty damn sure I would not be able to do this at any cost. Well the classes started with the orientation lecture, which was crap because they were trying to lift up our morale screaming on top of their voice KAR KE DIKHAYENGE, which I found more amusing than a morale booster.

So all in all the classes started, Me n saurabh always used to sit on the last benches of the class, which turned out good because as soon as the class started we would fell asleep, the class timings were 6:45-8:45, good for a little nap, Slowly and steadily other PT-Zen’s around us started to realize they are just two big lazy asses who just come here to take PT sheets home and do nothing. We didn’t care about it unless the teacher came up to us and started asking stupid questions.

Amazingly, the regular classes brought out hidden talents from us. And by the time the course ended we were very good at drawing sketches.. n playing board games n other crazy stuff I can’t recall (maybe saurabh can throw some light in this area).

I am compiling our artworks during the classes for you to look. Hope u find it amusing and mind it that we really studied in the classes apart from sleeping which you will seee if u hav a closer look.

saurabh n me.. coming from our rare visits to PT

i know mobiles are not allowed.. but we are proffesionals when it comes to breaking rules

That’s brings me to end of this lengthy blog. We both are giving CAT on 28^th Nov. not to mention some other exams like MAT,XAT,SNAP, n more to follow. So just wish us best of “our” luck, that we make in time to reach there, (just kidin).

Signing off….

The Cat at Gates of Dawn

2009-08-27T14:15:00.001+05:30

Sorry for the first blog, guys I hope you have not liked it, though that’s not going to take my morale down and I would continue to write n harassing you with my stories. So here goes one more.

This is about a new member in my family. Don’t let your imagination fly to some far off lengths and you make to many rumors. So putting an end to all those gossip trains I tell you it’s a Cat, yeah a nice little cat who has just joined our household rather forcibly (our version) and sympathetically (her version)

Actually this new coming in our family started when my Granddad left us. She used to come to our house everyday and I don’t that it might be out of sympathy we started feeding this cat with milk and chapatti. Slowly and steadily like those shown in the Ekta Kapoor style daily soaps, that cat had become a permanent member of our house.

The first thing in the morning she does is to come banging inside our house at 7’o clock, when most of us and positively me are sleeping, go into the kitchen and meow in the top of her voice which awoke everyone of us, excluding me, I mean cats or no cats nobody can wake me up from my deep slumber, my mum could not do it in 22 years so a mere cat is out of question, well she keeps her meowing and strolling all by herself as if she is the king of the house or something, and she keeps on doing that for an hour or unless someone gets up and give her milk and chapatti's whichever is earlier. Then really like a boy who has been overfed with pampering by his parents she insists us to stroke her back while she takes early morning breakfast (before anyone of us).

Come 12’ O clock, this cat of ours again comes in the house of course with a bang, serenading her way to the kitchen and demands milk and chapatti’s and not just any chapatti’s or milk from leftovers of last night, she wants everything fresh even her milk should be mild warm and her chapatti should be hot, (she knows we have the maid which comes in at 9 or 10 and makes the lunch). So again the whole process of giving her the milk and chapatti continues not to mention stroking her back.

The same things happen at dinner. It’s strange because she has her dinner even before anyone of us think of having our food. Ofcouse she finds her non-vegetarian food all by herself in which she is a professional and thanks to her we have got rid of the one nasty mouse who was living with us since god knows when for which my mum n grandmother are too happy.

Then came that day when she brought her own kitty with her, a small little extra furred kitty which everyone of us liked because of her soft fur and jumping here and there on every step.

I want to show how this kitten got her place in our hearts in the most amazingly political way there is, the mother cat brings this kitty of hers in and both of them shows us their innocent faces and we melt faster than chocolate. She always brings her kitty with her and when we give them milk she lets her kitty have the milk and keeps a watch on her (just a tactic, nothing more than that). Well this kitty also has made her way into our hearts specially my younger brother, who has a big space for this cat somewhere in his heart. He does not like us yelling out on this kitty given that she comes into our house at any chance she gets, she’s like guarding at our gates looking for a chance to dash in.

The more mysterious nature of this cat is that she needs to see what type of milk we are giving her (she does not like chapatti’s, thanks kitty for that). She will actually come inside the kitchen and watch us pouring milk in her plate, as if we are going to add up something in it. Moreover she wants her plate to be cleaned after every meal she has, she will not drink her milk until and unless we have cleaned her plate that too in front of her, yeah she keeps a check on it too.

Moreover this kitty of ours has a very unique way to ask us for milk, she will come near our legs and start circling around it or rubbing her body with our legs. She always needs a ball that too a stress ball made out of foam to play with. She will suddenly jump on our laps and stare at us until we start stroking her.

It’s been almost 5 months these cats and kitty have become our family members. Interestingly, we learnt from some of our neighbor’s that the cat used to come to their house too and has very smartly replaced herself with her kitty at each and every house. I was like awestruck when I heard this, how smart these cat’s can be yaar, the way she intelligently made her kitty get her food supplies for all her life is simply amazing to me. I wish I were a cat too, so I would not have to do anything, just drinking milk from one selected house which my mother will assign me, and enjoying the rest of my life with laying back, sleeping, and lazing around all day.

Here are some pictures of the cat and the kitty

Thanks, hope you don’t like it

P.S I named the kitty "Pilchard"

The Curious case of duplicate keys

2009-08-25T18:19:00.002+05:30

This might seem awkward given the situation and the work or so as to say the project/mission that was to be done, but the facts are true to the best of my knowledge and before I start I must tell you that I would be taking names of almost all the roads/places which I have heard of and which I had heard during the course of the struggle, given that I am living in Indore for the past 22 years or so, my knowledge of roads and places is bare minimum.

As you all know on 22^nd July,2009 , one day after my birthday which was filled with all sorts of thrills including rains, MBA, keys and everything, I decided or rather my mum gave me strict orders to make some duplicate keys of Activa unless I again loose them because they were the last, I myself had lost the first one due to my stupidness (if you can remember, otherwise just take it for the record). So it so happened that I paid no attention to my mum’s instruction like I always do when she has to give one hell of a job. This was the same thing, I kept on saying yes mom I will make it one day or the another. Then it so happened that I once again lost the keys but since they were lost inside the house so they were found within half an hour (just bcoz mom was breathing down my neck, or it would have taken me almost a day or so).

I finally got determined that I will make the duplicate keys once and for all, of course my determination was one part of the story, the other being my mom’s red and angry face, so the same day I went out to make the duplicate keys, or you can say the project of duplicating the keys. I knew some of the places in Indore who made duplicate keys, like in rajwada, edge of sapna sangeeta, tower chouraha, palasia square, Kothari market, Rani pura and many such places. I literally I mean I actually scanned every nook and corner of these places but I could not get any key makers, I asked a few shopkeepers in these particular areas, they aid he must be here only just go and have a better look, like I need a special specs to look for them. But with no luck I came home.

This continued for almost a month or so when I used to search on every road for any sign that gave me a direction to key makers but it was all in vain. i went out to places which I have never seen in my entire life and had absolutely no idea from where did they pop-up like Ada bazaar, bajaj khana, chhoti gwaltoli, ( I don’t remember the names exactly but there are loads, and I can bet you 100 bucks that I would not be able to find these places again for the rest of my life), I used to have my friends who were more than a guide to me to go to these places and look for some key makers but aghast it so happened that whenever I would go the key maker would not be there or even if he would according to nearby shopkeepers there were no signs of him like the earth just sucked him before my arrival. This to happened for some days, after which I finally decided damn those keys I am not going to waste my time in these useless pursuits however important they may be, I actually used to spent almost 3 hours on them, not to mention burning my petrol and no luck at all for all you know.

After almost a month and two days I finally found the angel for whom I was looking for so long, I don’t know that I may have passed through that road a numerous times but better be it because I found a duplicate key maker just at the road linking Rani pura with the backside of Kothari market, and what a man he was with almost half bald and looking like an discarded human whose expiry date had finished ages ago, I went up to him and asked for making duplicate keys for my activa, after much of baffling we agreed upon 15/key he was saying 25/key. I persuaded him saying you are the only key make I could find in the whole of Indore after a month long search, he was so happy to hear that, though he didn’t offer anymore discounts for which I was eagerly waiting for. After almost thanking him a tones I got two keys done and went back home, handed them to my mother putting an end to that Project Duplicate Keys. The very first thing I did after making the keys was to delete the “make duplicate keys” reminder which I had set up on my mobile and which used to annoy me everyday with its Vodafone beat, giving me a lifetime of relief. I as of now do not have any such projects in the pipeline (or in my phone’s reminder), and I don’t want them for the rest of my life.

Mee, Paus n chabee - a story of keyphobia

2009-08-03T16:47:00.000+05:30

Here I am writing something that I call it my first blog (official)
I don’t know as how many people would have this strange kind of phobia… I mean I really don’t know even if this phobia exists or not… but since I have recently developed this phobia, so stuff it guys I am giving it whatever damn name I want to.
It all started on 22nd July 2009 at around 5 PM. It was usual raining the whole day in the Indore city and no one knew that it would be the heaviest rains indore had seen this season (thanks to all those sucked up Yagyas n whatever hell people did to get rains not to mention all those traffic jams they caused, full credit to them). I was going to DAVV Auditorium (for non- Indorians read Indore University Auditorium) for those special PT lectures or GK Primer. As I reached the DAVV gates all hell broke loose suddenly there was a huge and heavy shower, which completely drenched me in seconds. I was getting late for the lecture (thanks to the punctuality of PT which I hate), when I entered the Audi it was like I had stepped into a huge cold storage room, I was like totally drenched in water and those fellas were running the AC’s with full power and like that was not all they were running the fans too. I was shivering like anything and add to it a front row seat meaning I cud not doze off during the lectures. I had my whole jeans wet and was sitting near the edge with a fan hovering above my head telling me this is what you will get when you have slept the whole of your engineering and PT classes.
After what looked like a century a guy came forward and said the lectures would start in 5 min (read 15 min) maximum. Then another guy came and made us promise that we would donate blood on 15th Aug. I really had the urge to get up and give that guy a kick on his back, what the hell does he think of himself, we all are here shivering with cold courtesy your AC’s and fans and you have the guts to ask us to donate blood when we all have become cold blooded and given a couple of minutes more we would freeze to death, then you can take all the blood from our body, probably it would be easy to carry since it would have turned into ice. But I think courtesy prevailed and I restrained myself from doing it. So atlast the lecture started with a guy called Sandeep Manudhane (I know I should properly address him given he is the founder chairman of PT, but this is my blog and I can write whatever I want, criticize anybody, throw tantrums, etc, etc, etc). The lecture started with the topic being World Politics since last 100 years. I should say it turned out good and that man told us what caused World War 1 & 2, the fall of USSR, Hitler Era, Rise of USA, etc, etc. The lecture lasted some 3 hours and since actually on the inside had gone warm but outside in the city their were people who were in more than a shock when their houses got flooded with water and all the roads were blocked and their was a mayhem in the city like Indore had become the Underwater City form that Disney Cartoon movie
Because of rains there were many insanes who wanted to enjoy driving in the rains including me. So we went to the open parking lot to take our bikes and just then I found out I don't not have the most precious item with me, the keys to my Activa. I thought they must be in my bag so I went inside the Audi and checked my bag there but nothing came out of my bag, apart from all those junks I keep in it, then it instantly hit me, I must have left my keys inside the dickey. I felt kicking myself for this stupidity. I then did one of the most foolish things I ever did, asking everybody if they had an Activa so that I can open the dickey and take out those damn keys which has caused so much trouble, but since bad luck has it and murphy’s law is always applicable in these cases with me, no key could possibly open the seat, and others must be thinking why not take him to a mental hospital, specially girls they were looking at me like I am a total jerk or something ( I was mostly asking the girls for their keys). Still trying for some 2 hours or more I gave up this job. It was better to stand quietly rather than make a fool of myself asking for keys. Then a guy came to me, I think he recognized me as a student of his batch, I could not because I have a better time sleeping during the classes, he said there was somebody in there who had found a key and you should go and check. But here too murphy’s law came true and PT faculties had already left the building (leaving us stranded in the rains) and there was no one there. Later I found out that some guy had found the key and instead of announcing it in the auditorium had gone straight to the PT HQ and submitted it there. I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown as to who the hell does these kinds of things.
Luckily or fortunately or whatever my dad was just near the PT office working, and I disturbed him calling that you go urgently to the PT office and take those damn keys come here to the Auditorium so I can go home. Tell you the truth folks my dad had given me a 15 min lecture as to why cannot you keep things as simple as keys in a proper way and stop misplacing them. After all what I had done plus asking dad to get out of an important meeting and bring those keys, I surely deserved this lecture. Finally dad came around and brought the keys to me at around 10. In the meantime I was shivering like hell and everybody else had left giving me words of sympathies like I had lost something valuable (ofcourse keys are valuable if you have misplaced them). I was alone in the Audi’s open parking lot dead at night and rains pouring down and with no intention to stop. I was wearing a adidas football jersey’s and jeans, which had completely gone wet and were not drying off since the time I came here.
Then I did one of the biggest shameless things, I took out my jeans luckily I was wearing my boxers so I took a night time walk over the whole university and wandered even into the faculty housing colony.
After a long time dad came in his car and gave me the keys, which looked like one of the most expensive materialistic things I can ever posses. The journey back home was not easy one since all the roads were flooded with water and I was driving in the open and till reaching home I was completely wet again the third time in the day(not to mention 4 days of getting wet the whole day continuously for no rational reasons thereof). Once there was this flowing water on the road and when I went through it since there was no other option the water like having some attraction towards me came all over me instead splashing on the other drivers by my side and I could not see anything, twice I narrowly escaped getting into an accident and almost uncountable times there was serious danger of water entering the exhaust.
Finally I made it home like some gladiator coming back winning a war (and losing his bike’s keys). And like this was not the end, there was mom standing on the door eagerly waiting for her son. My heart gave a skip and I feared if mom would ask me to tell an every-minute-detail of the whole episode or worst case start lecturing me for hours about my stupidness (sorry, I forgot to tell these were the only keys, I had myself misplaced an extra key before and that incident was a disaster). Someone has rightly said your worst fears comes true sooner or later and always come as a party pack, they came and I had to narrate each and every details some 10 times to my mom, she did not let me change and have dinner properly. at about 12 mom allowed me to go to bed when I had dinner not to mention answering mom’s incomprehensible and senseless questions, which I was kinda relieved it ended but still mom looked she might do with some more. I just dozed off in my bed thinking what a day it was.
And since then I have developed a uncontrollable fear of loosing my keys or keyphobia, I now regularly check my keys in the pockets every 2 min just to be sure I have them, I have still not made any extra bunch of keys despite mom shouting on my head to make them. I excuse it saying I don have time, but actually its my laziness, I don’t know how I have written all this in just two days but better be it, and all’s well that end’s well.
Thanks for reading me
Rohit

P.S always have a spare bunch of keys with you, and when you don’t have them, be sure your worst fears have come true