Of BarCamps and Tweetups

BarCamps started out as “unconferences”  with no formal agenda and schedule with no restrictions on etiquette and protocol. Over time it has evolved a certain level of structure and functionality as its popularity invoked more interest and participation that necessitates a certain level of organization. I came across BarCamps with the presumption that it was a meetup for bloggers talking about their blog and interacting with other bloggers. As a nascent blogger, I was interested and signed up for the first BarCamp that I came across – Bar Camp Chennai 2 (BCC2) in October 2008. I even attended one of their organizers meet, just to have an idea of what BarCamp exactly was.

It was on a Sunday evening in a BPO office in T Nagar. Few organizers had already come and they apparently knew each other from earlier events. There was a vague recollection of the Futurians that I was reading about in Asimov’s autobiography. The discussions started in the lines of organizing the resources, roping in more sponsors and the sessions registered for the event.

On the whole, BarCamp seemed to be exactly what I had expected it to be – A group of bloggers talking about blogging and related stuff, networking and building contacts and the works. But it catered to a rather niche set of bloggers, a set that I was not part of – the techie kind. By the time the organizers started brainstorming about new session topics, I was already lost in the syntax.  I did contribute though, making a mention of plagiarism of bloggers by newspapers, though that spiraled into a completely different, but hotly contested debate. It was fun to listen to the discussions, though my techie knowledge still remained in the fringes of their world.

Despite the lack of interesting topics (For me), I was still interested in taking part in the event, just out of curiosity (Also because I am not the type who likes to miss out on networking opportunities). But as it turned out, I had to give it a miss due to a delayed postponement of my college reunion to the BCC2 weekend.

Coincidentally, the next opportunity wasn’t that far off. I was in the process of shifting from Chennai to back home in Kerala in December 2008, when the third edition of Bar Camp Kerala was announced. Unlike the city based BarCamps that I’ve came across elsewhere, Kerala had a more state oriented view. It made sense to have a state wide location since, at least for me, Kerala is more like a widespread city, than an actual state.

BarCamp Kerala 3 (BCK3) was hosted in the CUSAT college grounds in the city of Kochi. I reached an hour late having traveled from my hometown 70 kms away from the city. The first session was already on the way and not surprisingly it was something techie – About ASP.NET (Hmm, my NIIT days predated .NET).  The next session fortunately was not that techie and I did have couple of queries to ask. A non techie blogger left some interesting live commentary of his experience in the tech driven event, which on the whole was a pretty interesting experience. I met up with the organizers and chatted with some of the participants later on. I stayed on for couple more of sessions and left for a short visit to the city of Kochi post lunch.

BarCamp Kerala 4 (BCK4) followed BCK3 pretty quickly at the IIMK campus in the city of Kozhikode. It was conducted during Backwaters, an annual B School competition at IIMK, though the participants of the event were mostly the techies from the earlier event and some of the IIMK students. The event turned out to be a disappointment, since it came with corporate involvement. Combine a corporate event and MBA students and you can pretty much predict how the event will end up.

The focus was on innovation and brainstorming and ideation seemed to be the buzzwords. The sessions came and went, though the underlying nature of a corporate event in B School stayed put. I had prepared a slide for the event, which in the end I chose not to present, since I felt it didn’t fit the innovative theme of the event (The slide was on the Second Punic War). Besides, I had old friends to meet. I left by tea to catch up with couple of high school friends in the college canteen (They were in the senior year at IIMK).  Incidentally, we had a brainstorming session there as well, which turned out be a lot more creative and fun.

Tweetups are the latest trend of the social media universe. People on Twitter meeting up for coffee. Informal chat. I doubt there are any regular tweeps (slang for twitter users) who tweet regularly from my hometown. So, I went to Kochi for their second edition of Kochi Tweetup on April 18 2009, referred to as #coktup (“#”, commonly referred to as hashtags, are used to tag tweets to a particular topic, the topic here being Cochin Tweetup, abbreviated for brevity as coktup). It was in a coffee place in Ernankulam and almost a score of Kochi Tweeps had turned up.

Varying topics were discussed ranging from the recent verdict against PirateBay to the IPL match playing on TV in the background. It was nice catching up with people who you converse online every day and good to meet few more. There were attempts to live tweet the event, though the only people managed to were via mobile (No wonder it is one of the main users of twitter). There was a net connection, but there were some technical issues that needed to be sorted out before live tweeting via computer could be made possible. They were still sorting out the issues when I left, having to leave early to get back home.

BarCamps and Tweetups give opportunities to meet new people, to understand them and like all geek groups before them, even Asimov’s Futurians from the 1930s or Dilbert’s Programmers & Aerobic Instructors Community, these also seem to be mostly male dominated in attendance.

BarCamp Kerala 5 occurred on May 3, 2009. But I missed out on that one, as I was traveling with my college buddies from Masingudi to Bengaluru to Chennai. Fear not. Plans for BarCamp Kerala 6 seemed to be already underway and a BlogCamp Kerala as well, which I hope will be not that tech oriented. But it remains to be seen whether I’ll be in Kerala during the time of the events.

MBA GD/PI Chronicles

Author’s Note : Based on excerpts taken from emails I send in February 2005 to my high school yahoogroups. (Slightly modified and appended)

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5th February 2005, New Delhi

Good f(x)

Pre Script: f(x) = Morning if time < 1200
Afternoon if time >1200 and < 1500
Evening >1500

This is me reporting live from Delhi.

The weather is cold up here. The temparature’s gone down to -16 degrees below freezing (Added : A double negative, in case you missed it). The dawn crept out of the death of the night life with the sun rising in the east. As the sun sets and the cold winds churn the city, the youth of the city shed the skins of the student life to have fun and party.

Earlier …

I started off at February 1 2005 AD, 1:15 PM 25 seconds from my home with my dad. This was my first time in North India, so my dad insisted he will come, though he was recuperating from an angioplasty. We placed the the luggage in the car. The driver turned the key in the ignition. (If the reader can add the sound of a car starting, it will be extremely helpful).

Everyone knows the sights and sounds of Thrissur (Added : I was writing to my school friends most of whom were from my hometown) , so I am skipping that. The train was late as expected.  So off we went, bidding adieu to the “city” of Thrissur at around 3 O’clock.

The train journey was long. There were a couple of army men going to Kashmir to defend the country from external threats. There was also a group of players from Punjab and Haryana who had come to play the National Champonship for Indoor Cricket.

Yeah. You read that write, Indoor Cricket (First time I’ve heard of it).

Unfortunately for us, they were given only a half ticket concession, whatever that means. So, the compartment was overcrowded for the entire journey. They were pretty friendly, talking about their journey and the cricket matches. There was a mention of how they ordered “upma” thinking it was a sweet dish and found out it was quite the contrary.

We reached Delhi on 3rd of Feb. From there we went to straight to the National Institute of Immunology (Where my uncle worked) and ran into a school friend who was doing a project there. My uncle gave me an introduction of the work he was doing related to the gene mapping of tigers. There was also lot of interesting stuff regarding animals there,

[Author's Note : The following paragraph about the girls at NII has been deleted, in case the friend from NII happens to go through the mail.]

Back to present …

As I was saying the next day started, with the sun rising in the east.  I had to go all the way to Ghaziabad for my first GD/PI. It was in the afternoon at 1330, but we were not sure of how to get there. Finally, we managed to find an auto to take us to the Delhi-UP border from where we hoped to catch a bus.

The auto guy was pretty trustworthy. He straight away informed us that his meter did not work and informed us of a set rate. (Yeah, right). Anywho, we managed to get to Ghaziabad without much hassles.

What happens next? How were the girls at Ghaziabad? Read my next mail. Ran out of time.

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9 February 2005, Hyderabad

Back to Delhi (Well actually Ghaziabad),

So I walked in wearing my new Raymonds suit to give my best for the panel. I ran into a friend from TIME in my hometown. He had just completed his GD in the morning and was about to leave. They were calling people alphabetically and there was no shortage of girls whose name start with R. But it could throw up some funny situations as well. Apparently they had a group of 12 in the morning all with the same name – Rahul. Would be a fun GD especially if the panel wanted to address someone by name.

I had reached a bit early. There was a girl from Ranchi and guy from Delhi who were also waiting for the evening sessions to start. We chatted for a while. The guy had a three year workex, was a Six Sigma Black Belt and had a call from IIMK. Wow. Now, that is a lot.

The GD was good to go. The guy next to me was a Sikh. I foolishly enquired whether he was from Punjab, since I was under the impression at that time that every Sikh was from Punjab. Fortunately, he took it lightly and informed me he was from Noida.

There were 12 people in my GD group. And 5 girls. Pretty high number of girls for a GD. Among the GDs I gave last year, only at Amrita University were there more than two girls.

The first girl was from Hyderabad. She apparently remembered me from the TIME classes there, when I attended the post CAT GD/PI sessions. I think I’ve seen her, but couldn’t recollect.

The second girl was from Delhi. She is from Andhra, born and bought up in Trivandrum and currently studying in Delhi and happen to know Malayalam. She had lovely eyes and looked great with her hair cut short. Was dressed kinda informal though, in sweater and trousers.

The third girl was from Punjab. Had a good smile.

The fourth girl was a Delhiite. All executive looking in her suit. Good looking girl. She basically controlled the GD. Was too good. Worked in TCS.

And the last was the girl from Ranchi I had met earlier.

So, that’s it for the girls from Ghaziabad. As for my GD, it was crap. I barely spoke. Don’t think I’ve had worser GDs that these. Not much expectations. The interview was semed more like a formality. They asked five six basic questions. Seemed like they had already rejected me after my weak GD.

After the process was over, my dad and I left for NII. We took couple of buses back, first from Ghaziabad, which seemed to be a marketplace on wheels, with 5-7 vendors selling stuff all the way. From the UP-Delhi border, we took another bus to NII. This one seemed to be sticking to the UP border. It took a gruelling two and a half hours to reach NII. For a while we were worried we had got on the wrong bus, especially when we saw outposts of Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Border Security Force. For a while I thought we had reached Tibet. But they dropped us off right next to JNU (which was adjacent to NII) in the end.

The next day, my dad and I had a trip in the Delhi metro. Was real cool. I was actually expecting a subway like in Kolkata, but as it turned out it was a sky rail. Shows you how much I know about Delhi. Got off a place called PratapNagar. Wish I hadn’t, because it was not a place I would have willingly gone to. The skyrail ride was pretty cool. You should try it next time you are in Delhi.

Dad had some business stuff to take care the next couple of days. We left Delhi on Monday to Hyderabad. Just got here today morning. I have a presentation and interview scheduled.

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10 February 2005, Hyderabad

Well, finished my interview today. Was a big disappointment as far as the girls was concerned. Completely unexpected it was though. There were around 500-600 ppl coming in for presentation/interview on the day. The B School had around 14 centers around the country and all were having a combined selections process. There were lot of girls, but nothing compared to Ghaziabad.

The presentation went OK. I had prepared one on “Mergers & Acquistions”. I was part of an 8 member group. The other members in the group asked questions after the presentation. Pretty standard stuff. The interview  followed. Three member panel. Asked questions relating to acads, job and hobbies. No complications there either. Everything was over by 1 o’clock. The complication was that the announcement of the result on the same day. Not many B Schools do that. So, I had to wait till the end of the day.

The results came in at 6 o’clock. Didn’t do that bad. Secured myself a seat in Hyderabad. Well, if things don’t work out elsewhere, I’ll be back in Hyderabad next year.

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14 Feburary 2005, Thrissur

This is me back in Thrissur after a long and grueling trip. My third GD/PI was a major disappointment. Just 1 girl. There were a total of 17 in the group. Reached IIM-B an hour early for the GD. The selection was for Delhi based B School. Got lost a couple of times before finding the GD venue, within IIMB. Fortunately ran into someone else who was also searching for the place. (We would join the same B School later). There was a 15 minute essay preceding the GD on “Possible solutions for the Kashmir problem”. The GD was about “Religious beliefs are rational or irrational. Do they do more harm than good?” It went well for me. A satisfactory change from my usual GD performance. The interview was pretty informal. We had an alumni asking most of the questions. That went on OK.

After the GD, I had lunch with few of my school friends. My dad had left for Kerala the previous day. So I was on my own. We went to a pub afterwards and took a couple of pitchers (hic), I mean pictures there. My friend happens to be the worst photographer one can ever find. He took a couple of photos of us and messed it up both the times. The girls who were sitting behind us were more dominant in the picture.

Bought Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” from Bangalore. Reached half way. Will give a review once I am done. (Added : Yeah, we used to review  a lot of books back then)

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20 February 2005, Manipal

My next process was for a B School in Manipal. Met a school senior while I was waiting for my interview. Didn’t talk much. He was in his second year there. Ran into another guy whom I knew from my PC days as well.

The B school happen to have a very long process starting with an extempore. For some unknown reason, I got stuck at the word go and froze. There blew any chances of selection. The GD and PI went okay. Incidentally, one of the faculties in the panel was in my panel the previous year as well, when I attempted CAT the first time.

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24 February 2005, Bangalore

Something unprecedented happened when I started off to Bangalore yesterday. The train actually came early. The station announcement said the train was going to come at 10:10, but it came at 10. Mind you, the scheduled time was actually 7:40 and the train was running 2.5 hours late.

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25 February 2005, Bangalore

Finished off my last process so far. It was a B school in Indore. My interview season is unofficially complete. BIM Trichy has to put up their list and if I get a call it will be late next month. NMIMS I had already decided to forego thanks to an additional fee for attending the next round. Also, my performance wasn’t that great and I was vary about their reserved seats.

Things started off at 0900. 25 guys (no girls) divided into groups of three. We were divided into groups of eight (I was in an all Mallu group incidentally). Finally a small enough group that can actually have a decent GD without going to the fish market. I was the only non engineer (Might be helpful for selection). Everyone had high percentiles except for me and this other guy with 96.5 percentile. One had 99.99 percentile while another 99.97. Tough.

We had a case study for GD. A bank gets robbed. The teller lets the thief leave with the money, chases him down and captures him and becomes a hero. The problem is he broke the rule by chasing the robber. Bank policy was to wait for the cops. The Manager is been advised to let him off as well as to punish him to make sure it does not set a bad precedent. We discussed for 15 minutes and a 5 minute discussion summary followed.

As for the interview, they asked me a few questions from acads and some GK stuff (mountain ranges in India, earthquakes, tsunami, monsoons). I think the interview was quite short compared to others, but it isn’t easy to figure out from the interview room. Anyway, expecting the results in early April. They have interview on 31 Mar anyway.

Funny story. While we were chatting before the interview, we were comparing the percentages of engineering given out by different universties in Kerala. One of the guys who was from REC Calicut said, his friend’s neighbour had criticised him for getting only 75 in engineering. She was saying her granddaughter was getting 99 percentage. The funny thing was that her granddaughter was studying in LKG. Nice way people compare marks. Don’t expect the Indore guys to do the same anyway. Incidentally, though all of us were from Kerala, none of us spoke a word in Malayalam.

After the interview I caught up with another school friend at the Koramagala CCD. He had also completed a long inter state journey for MBA admission. Fortunately for him, he had cleared one of his interviews and was headed for Pune in the spring. I also bought a copy of Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress and Deception Point for reading on the way back.

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Author’s Note : I do sympathize with my friends who had to read these mails in 2005. My PJs are really bad. But it will be unfair to them if I let off others from reading them.

My First Job

25 May 2004, NIIT Residency Road, Bangalore – It was an early start to the morning. I was staring through the window watching people run for cover as a drizzle came from the heavens. Luckily, I was safe inside an air conditioned classroom with a cup of cold coffee in my hand.

I had two interviews lined up for the day –  A tech support job in a Hyderabad based startup and for a database administration role in an FMCG company. The first company took its time in getting there. Blame it on the traffic. At least, I could relish on the last sip of cold coffee from the machine as I watched water droplets trickle down across the windows.

It was a curious turn of events that brought me to Bangalore in the first place. I had been here only for a week, on a bootcamp from NIIT Ravipuram (Kochi). After enduring a fruitless couple of months of MBA interviews, I was distraught over the options available. With only a BBA from the local university, I didn’t see many immediate career options. CA was too tedious and long. I wanted to make better use of my memory than remembering all the legal nuances attached (I still have trouble forgetting the definitions in the Indian Contract Act 1872). I did not like auditing either. It felt like doing an autopsy, when you could have spend time finding a cure. So MBA, it was gonna be.

I went back to the Java book that I was fishing through. It has been two years since I wrote my last program and everything drew a blank. No. Cross that. Void, as per programming parlance.

… If you use too many nested ifs, you might end up being a headcase. Use switchcase instead … Int is a datatype and has no connection with the Ents in LOTR … The other datatypes are short, long (Hey, is this the stock market?), float, byte (?)… .

Time for a quick bite.

CAT was easy enough. I didn’t have any major concerns, though an IIM call was unlikely. But GDs have always been my Achilles’ Heel. I prefer to wait till everyone is done talking before I start.

(Hmm. This sandwich is good.)

But I needed a filler while I attempted CAT again. And that meant looking for a job.

The recruiters have finally arrived. They will be conducting some written tests and will be coming up with another shortlist after that. Damn! There goes the thin layer of hope I was holding on to. Back to the drawing board.

Getting a temporary job in my hometown wasn’t difficult. But I had been there for most of my life. I wanted a job outside Kerala, to learn about the people outside the state. For that I’ll need to rely on my computing skills than my accouting ones. And so I went back to my old NIIT center to see if they knew of any jobs available. It had been two years since I had gone there. In all likelihood they won’t even remember me.

The written test went ahead smoothly and I was shortlisted for the interview. First hurdle crossed.

I had shelved a programming career for a management one two years ago. I had completed a two year course at NIIT, but I still had two more years to complete my degree. Now with an year gap, I would have to get back to my programming roots.

The interview was a bit tricky. Though the job was for technical support, they were looking for good candidates who can become programmers may be six months down the line. They were not overtly concerned about your programming language skills either, since they used Delphi, which not many knew.

In hindsight putting my CAT percentile on the CV (On my mom’s insistence) was tactless. It was obvious that I would not be looking to commit to the company for a long period. Post MBA, it would be easy for me to get a job for ten times the salary they were offering (Which incidentally I did get) and given my academic background, MBA would have been the natural next step.

I reached the NIIT office early morning, but they were not able to help me much. Fortunately for me, I ran into one of my former faculties who was still teaching there. She informed me they’ll let me know if  anything comes up. I wasn’t expecting opportunities to prop up out of thin air, but at least I’ll be in the checklist for a while.

Having realized that I was a bit nervous as I awaited the final results. The other interview was to be in Whitefield, in the outskirts of the city. But I needed to stay at the center till the results came, in case there is another round of interview. As the clock ticked on, it grew more and more likely that I’ll have to skip the interview at Whitefield. There was no communication from the first company either. Dejected, I walked back to my hotel in Majestic and booked for my tickets back home. I called back home to inform of the results, rather the non-result.

The next day I got a call from Kochi telling me to report to Bangalore in two days. Apparently there was a bootcamp being organized for recruitment and they needed to sent a team. Couple of the students had dropped out in the last minute and they needed someone to fill in. As I had gone there only the day before, I was drafted in. Everything fell in place at the right time.

My dad told me to get in touch with NIIT. NIIT had contacted them (Since I had left my home phone as the contact number) to inform that I had cleared my interview and had to report to the Bangalore Stock Exchange the next day for induction (The company had a support team there).

Epilogue : I would shift to Hyderabad later, where after one month of further tests and training I was shifted into programming (with a marginal salary hike ). I left the job a few months later, before a GD/PI filled February 2005, satisfied with the learning acquired over the past months.

Finding Leo

It was a hot Monday afternoon. I got off the crowded Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus away from the busy life of the maximum city. The city greeted me with a cool breeze coming in from the Arabian Sea, giving some respite from the sweat drenched train ride.

It was my first time in Mumbai. A sea of people quickly engulfed me and I had to move before I was vanquished into oblivion. Millions travel on the local trains everyday as Mumbaikars head for their offices and homes. Some, like me though, would be hopping trains from one suburb to another searching for jobs in the city.

I had decided to take some time off my “busy” schedule in Mumbai to visit few of the places hit in the dastardly attack. Taj and Oberoi were a bit beyond my means (or so I presume) and the Chabad House was too non-descript. So, I settled for the hopefully cheaper Café Leopold.

I had a faint recollection from the omnipresent news media on the scene that the café was close to one of the main places that was attacked – CST, Taj, Oberoi and the Chabad house. Assuming it was CST, I took a train there expecting to get directions from there.

An elderly shopkeeper was busy tending his shop across the street. He greeted me with a smile when I approached him, thinking me as a new customer. The smile turned into a frown when I asked him I was looking for Café Leopold.

99% of the time I’ve seen people willing to help strangers looking for directions to their destination. But 1% of the time the people may not be able to help you since they themselves don’t know the place (Usually happens when people asks me for direction). Sadly for me this was one such occasion.

The shopkeeper frowned with disappointment as he informed me he had not heard of the place. He enquired if I had an address, which I hadn’t. Disappointed, I moved onto the nearest bus stop. In this era Google Maps and Nokia Navigator, it is difficult for people to not find a well-renowned place, but I had access to neither.

A long haired wannabe at the bus stop told me it was near Coloba, but I didn’t know where Coloba was. I called up a friend familiar with the area who recommended I take a cab and said it was near the Taj. Unwilling to spend on a cab, I asked around for directions to the Taj. Though not as famous as its namegiver in Agra, the Taja Mahal Hotel was a piece of the city heritage. A suit told me it was half an hour down the road and so off I went, on with my journey to find Leo.

A cool evening had replaced the unpleasantly hot afternoon. With the wind in my face, it was a pleasant walk down the road, sipping an overpriced half litre Pepsi bottle (Note to self: Mumbaikars charge two bucks extra for cooling) towards the Arabian Sea on whose shore stood the Taj Mahal Hotel.

Soon, I came upon the illustrious Gateway of India and what I presumed to be the Taj Mahal hotel next to it. Tourists went around taking photographs, while affluent school kids enjoyed the sea breeze with a glass of water melon juice.

The kids confirmed me I was looking at the Taj, but they also had no idea to the whereabouts of Café Leopold. I was starting to wonder whether there actually was a Café Leopold, when the pushcart vendor selling the water melon juice to the kids told me to go down the road, take a right, left and a right. Thanking him, I took the road he pointed towards, while he gave further detailed instructions.

The problem with lengthy directions is that you will easily forget them or end up being confused about them. Thirty meters down the road the pushcart vendor pointed out, my mind drew a blank on his detailed instructions. Hastily I enquired a car driver parked next to the Taj, who informed me to continue on and ask later.

4% of the time I’ve seen people give the wrong direction unintentionally because they were not sure of it themselves.

As I reached down the road and asked again, I got the impression Café Leopold was near Hotel Oberoi and not near the Taj. Since people still were not familiar with the Café, I chose to ask for directions to Oberoi, rather than the Café. Soon, I was gazing at the tall Trident hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea and a distant Mumbai skyline.

One of the many patrons walking on the Marine Drive along the sea showed me workers rebuilding damages on Hotel Oberoi from the 26/11 attacks, though I felt the Trident Hotel next door seemed more like the terror victim on the news than the smaller Hotel Oberoi. He also drew a blank when it came to Café Leopold as he went back to his evening business papers.

Next I approached one of guards at Trident who informed me he was new and was not familiar with the surroundings. Disenchanted by the general lack of awareness of Mumbaikars over Café Leopold, I closed my camera and packed my bags to get back to CST. Seeing my disappointment, the guard directed me to a more experienced employee of the hotel, looked like a baggage handler, who was glad to give the directions. He told me it was near the Taj and when I mentioned I was coming from there, he told me to take the road next to the Trident and look for Regal Cinemas.

Finally with some proper direction and landmark in mind, I set out in the direction the baggage handler showed. I encountered a government worker who told me to keep going when I asked him for the Cinema. I was going in the right direction. For the first time in the day, I had to add. Curiously, he was the only person so far to have connected Café Leopold with 26/11, though he erroneously mentioned it to be the place where there was a bomb blast.

Regal Cinema soon came into view and it was playing Luck By Chance, Slumdog Millionaire and (No, not Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye) The Stoneman Murders. There was a book shop nearby when my spending frenzy took over me to buy a copy of Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

Café Leopold was not far off and soon I was placing an order for a beef burger (Time to be a non-conformist. I prefer chicken) and an iced lemon tea (I had already finished three bottles of Pepsi, Coke and Thumps Up by the time I reached my destination).

The place was filled with foreigners or at least Caucasians (could be Anglo Indians as well) and everyone was seemed to be having their 6 o clock beer (or other assorted alcohol) except for a mother daughter combine who had Pepsi (Diet, that too) and left.

There were few Indians in the next table as well digging into the clichéd North Indian dishes which got me wondering why they would come here for having generic food. Maybe the fact that there was one girl and four guys at the table could be the reason.

The place was expensive, but the burger was scrumptious and heavy. I settled the bill on cash and left an 8% tip before I left for the Churchgate railway station, which turned out to be much closer than CST (And happen to have a Wimpy serving Pepsi in a Coke bottle, but that’s another story).

Note : Location of Cafe Leopold and the road taken from CST maybe slightly incorrect. (Map courtesy : Google Maps)

… And a Flight to Forget

Author’s Note: You can read the first part here.

HONK. HONK. The Volvo at the APTDC office announced itself ready for its ride to the airport. Not that it meant much. There were only four passengers and we were all deep into the complimentary copy of The Hindu they provided. The day before, one of my good MBA buddies (Thanks, Bugs) had recommended this bus service when I had mentioned I was planning to take a cab back to the airport.

As we passed through the Hyderabad city, I was astounded by the progress in the city in the last four years. I had felt Hyderabad had the better road network among the Southern Cities. But that was four years ago. The longest flyover then, at least to my knowledge, was the one in Begumpet. But that has changed completely. A long flyover connecting Begumpet to Panjagutta had surpassed it by a distance (Though I got stuck under it for over half an hour, because of some VIPs). Even more incredible is the new Begumpet flyover that now dwarves the old one by landing on old one. Then there is the 13 odd kilometer long freeway they are building connecting the city with the airport. The city is being build in an anticipation of a continuing economic upswing, unlike Bangalore were people have had to satisfice and wait for the infrastructure to be put in place later.

The airport is well designed. The lounge and the restaurants for the non travelers were open air and little birds were chirping in delight away from the hot sun. I had reached exceedingly early at the airport owing to the extra security expected. With not much to do, I checked out the airport.

There were two McDonalds and a Café Coffee Day for the fast food enthusiasts. Unfortunately, there was a power cut at McD and I had to settle for a sandwich from CCD for lunch. There were apparently five store Landmarks as well, though I only saw two. The recently (at that time) released “Imagining India” by the Infosys Chairman hogged the stands. 699 bucks! Instinctively put it down. Imagine an India where people can buy books worth 700 bucks. I finally settled down for KA Nilakanta Sastri’s “A History of South India”, though I have no clue how good the book is. The second history book in my library after Adrian Goldsworthy’s “In The Name of Rome” (An absolutely delightful and informative read).

Saina Nehwal was at the airport. She was headed for Vijayawada. This was the time when she still had a valid passport. I would have asked for an autograph, but I wasn’t sure where to ask for a signature. It was not like I would carry an autograph book around expecting to meet celebrities at the airport.

3:30 PM. The people for the 4:30 flight were called for. I got my luggage checked in and went onto the boarding area and waited for the airplane to arrive. The trip had gone well so far, though the result of the interview was still awaited. There were three more rounds, the last with their European parent, which happened after the close of work at the Hyderabad office. It was a bit awkward when I left the interview at 6:30 in the evening to see an empty, almost unlit office and a security guard waiting at the door to let me out. I met up with a couple of my MBA friends as well, one for dinner and the other for breakfast (He has a night shift job).

Things turned awry soon though. At four, the airplane was delayed by half an hour. Later airplanes were being called in to board. Every five minutes from then on, the airline added another ten minutes to the scheduled departure. I was a bit perplexed about the cause, since I was traveling by the same airliner (and I had assumed the same plane) to and fro. The later it got the more difficult it got for me to get back home, since I had to travel interstate.

6:30 PM. Finally the sign for boarding appeared and the relieved passengers were led to the airplane. Even while boarding, there was an unnecessary delay as some of the passengers were instructed to wait for the baggage trolley to arrive. Something about balancing the weight of the plane and preventing it from falling. WTF. The thought of the mechanical delay started weighing on me. The airplane was of a different make than my earlier trip, taken from its sister company’s roster.

Nervously, I waited for the flight to take off. The flutters in the stomach that had been comfortably vanquished the previous flight returned. The takeoff was not pretty, but I was glad to know we were up in the air. The lights took a long time to come back on.

Hang on, why are the windows slanted?

Then I realized the airplane was flying slanted. Do planes fly slanted, as though they were struggling to stay up in the sky? I recalled the statement while boarding about balancing the weight and prevent it from ….

Oh My God!

Everybody else seemed to be behaving normally, though. But then most of them were already asleep. Am I the only one who’s thinking the airplane may not reach back safe?

The airplane seems to finally evened out. A small sigh of relief. But not for long, as airplane continued on its slanted course. I tried to ease my mind with some music. But the first song was Sweet Home Alabama, as Steve Buscemi put it well in ConAir a song about a plane crash sung by a band who died in a plane crash. That eased my nerves, all right.

The air hostesses went on with their normal routines – Appetizers were served, trash taken away, flyers distributed. One of the air hostesses was cute, while the other looked average. Not much worth mentioning there. I was still tense as the airplane announced it was landing.

I gripped the seat belt strongly worried the plane is about to crash. The air hostess sitting in the front, the cute one, looked calm. Practically no emotion at all. The plane landed on the runway with an uncomfortable jerk. But it landed safely. I ran out of the plane and out off the airport to get some fresh air. Curiously, nobody got in my way as I hurried out of the airport. No security. Nothing.

The exit of the Coimbatore airport had an eerie feeling to it. It was desolate like a grave in the midnight. No autos, cabs and their like. No street light either (If there were, it was not well-lit). I had to walk on for ten more minutes through a dark road to spot any sign of life; near the highway to the city.

With some help from the people around, I managed to get a bus to the city. I got off the bus to a maze of bus depots. There was a depot for inter city buses, one for intra state buses and a flurry of tourist buses going around. In the midst of this muddle lay the inter-state depot which I was looking for.

I had got off at the inter-city depot where I was told I’ll get inter-state buses across the street. There I was informed to go to the other end of the depot, where I had to deal with the marauding tourist bus operators. Reluctant to shell out extra bucks for the tourist buses, I searched around for the inter-state depot.

One of the bus operators informed he had a ticket for a 9:15 bus. Fifteen more minutes. With no luck in finding the inter-state and only bus operators and clueless travelers to ask around, I finally took the ticket, partly relieved to be heading home soon. As he took the cash, he mentioned the bus was at 9:45 and not 9:15. Drained of every ounce of strength to protest, I reluctantly took the ticket and waited for the bus at the operator’s office.

9:40 PM. No sign of the bus. Annoyed at yet another delay, I asked the operator where the bus was. He kindly informed me the bus was at 10:45. The chap who sold me the ticket was an agent and had outright lied to me about the bus timings. Tired and angry, I waited for the bus to arrive, while trying to think if undue stress caused can be reasons to justify murder on grounds of temporary insanity or self protection.

While waiting for the bus to arrive, I found where the inter-state terminus was. The bus agents had carefully hidden it, by crowding in front of it. There weren’t many buses there either and I had mistaken it for just another shopping or office building.

The bus finally came at 11:00 PM and I somehow had all my senses functioning when I reached home at 3:30 in the morning. Another 90 minutes delay en route. Exhausted from the entire journey, I was finally relieved to just reach home.

As for the interview, I was later informed I didn’t clear it. The company, after going through my CV for over month, decided I lacked the experience for the role. At least, I got my travel expenses reimbursed, after waiting for two months, though three weeks were courtesy of the banks.

25 Random Things About Me

I’ve been tagged on facebook by my good friend Sreejith. Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this on facebook, go to “Notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, then click publish.)

1. I am a Malayali, though I have very few recognizable Malayali characters except being a hard-core non-vegetarian.

2. I am an INTJ as per the MBTI test.

3. I love to eat, but only if it is non-veg and I hate seeing food go waste. I make sure that no roti or chicken is left behind, when I go out with friends

4. I skip meals a lot, which may seem to be a contradiction to the earlier point. It isn’t.

5. I do not drink, smoke or do drugs. I never needed to.

6. I hate jogging. If I want to reach somewhere I’ll either run or walk. As a form of exercise, it disrupts the rhythm of my mind (My God. What kind of excuses will I make up for not exercising?).

7. I also do not work out in a gym. The reason for this is the cold in my chest acts up when I put stress on it. (I’ll stoop to any level to find a reason to not exercise).

8. I am a history buff (Mostly European history, though), my favorite hobby is trying to understand the mind, people’s behavior and reaction and my favorite author is Isaac Asimov. You can choose or not choose to connect the three.

9. I have a very short temper. If you see me shouting or throwing things at people or kicking stuff, I’ll recommend you leave the area. However, anything that does not involve even the slightest attempt to destruction of property means that I am approaching it after clear thought and consideration.

10. I take mostly after my mom in character. I approach things with an analytical frame emphasizing on logic rather than creativity.

11. I have some genes of creativity, from my father, but I keep them in check since I am worried how it may fuse with my short temper and general liking to destroy things.

12. I am extremely disorganized in the short run, preferring to let things clutter on my desk. However, every now and then I clean up my desktop, inbox, reader and even my table and cupboard so that I appear organized in the long run.

13. I prefer to listen to people without maintaining an eye-to-eye contact, unless it is absolutely necessary (like in a one-to-one conversation). It is easier for me to visualize what is being said, since my eyes do not have a changing reference to deal with, and hence understand it better.

14. I crack too many PJs. This is partly due to the sadistic pleasure I get by bringing misery on others but mostly due to the thrill of being able to connect two far off seemingly distant points. It is a test of associative memory, developed into a reflex.

15. I am a statistician and a programmer by nature, though not by academic background or profession. I maintain four excels to maintain my day to day activities and one of them has a macro.

16. I find it extremely difficult to lie, but that do not mean I do not tell lies. I’ll let my friends be the judge on this.

17. I have the parasitic tendency of consistently wrecking my future when it is going well. It is more due to coincidence than any conscious decision.

18. I maintain two blogs – one to express my logical side and the other to explore my creative side slowly and carefully.

19. I hardly ever talk to people. Even in conversations with friends, I drift unseen into a silent corner, till I crack a PJ to everyone’s anguish.

20. Of my crushes so far, only two can be classified as love at first sight. I saw both of them in the second half of 2007 while traveling in Chennai. Fortunately or unfortunately, I know neither of them personally.

21. I prefer to play basketball barefoot, even on a concrete floor. This is because I rely on my toes to move quickly or jump. Normal shoes hinder its action. My sole has been hardened by playing on concrete, so I’ve never had any injuries from it. Forgive the pun.

22. I’ve set some goals for life. I’ve posted them on my blog earlier.

23. I consider my memory to be 99% perfect. I keep a 1% buffer in case I have to forget an assignment or an email.

24. I can recall any movie I’ve seen within 10 seconds of any frame of the movie. I don’t find it remarkable, but there are others who have.

25. I quit going to church when I was 14 around the same time as I quit studying and being a geek, became an athlete, started using a comb and got a haircut every month, instead every three months.

26(Bonus). Advice for the people I’ve tagged. Got a NY Times article of how to fill these random things. For me, #26 was the best one.

A Flight To Remember …

Author’s Note : Written in early December 2008. It is mentioned in line,  just in case u missed it.

Have you ever waved at an airplane as it whizzed past above you from a nearby airport? Ever followed the jet stream of a distant plane in the sky? Traveling the skies can always capture the fantasy of any one who haven’t traveled by air. I’ve never been on an airplane since returning from UAE when I was four. Never needed to, to be honest. Air travel is often left as the travel of the last resort and that too only in case you need to travel immediately or reach the destination quickly (Of course, I mean domestic travel). But the freedom to fly into the skies, away from the stress ridden lithosphere tends to give you a sense of completion.

So there I was, waiting to board an airplane for Hyderabad at the Coimbatore Airport in early December. My dad had just dropped me off at the airport, three hours away from home. I had a copy of Neal Stephenson’s QuickSilver for company, though I hardly managed to read the book, brimming with excitement about the flight.

I had a job interview in Hyderabad, which I was pretty confident I’ll clear. They had already grilled me for couple of interviews, on top of three online tests to test logical thinking and character. And they were glad to take care of my travel expenses as well (Which was a factor while choosing air travel).

I was also planning to catch up with few of my friends there, if time permitted. I had worked in Hyderabad earlier, though I have kind of lost touch with them. There were few from my MBA batch as well.

The plane was on time and we were called on to the boarding area. The heightened security post 26/11 was visible. I had the standard carry on luggage only and had no hassles at the check-in, though there was a delay for a chap carrying six small bags. He finally managed to pack them all into a single large one. Is that what they mean by a six pack?

With no further delay, we were ushered in comfortably to our seats on the plane. I had a window seat. Not that it meant much. The sun had nearly set and barely anything was visible outside. The plane was not fully occupied and I wondered whether it was normal for airplanes to run under-booked.

There were two air hostesses – one was pretty and the other sexy. As I took the seat, the pretty air hostess approached and asked me if I could shift to the front seat opposite to hers. Okay. Wow. I was about to respond, when she continued to say, they needed someone to operate the emergency exit at the window in case of, well, an emergency and since nobody had occupied the seat, I was next in line.

Crestfallen, I proceeded to the front left window seat. Not exactly the most welcome greeting though, for a first time flier to hear that he will be responsible in an emergency, but then again she said it with a comforting tone as to say that the chances of an emergency are so remote that you have nothing to worry about. Relaxed, I put on the seat belts and looked out into to the dark night as the airplane sped to the runway.

I was worried the take-off would be strenuous, but it was to be of no concern. Though they were some flutters in the stomach when I felt the airplane accelerate, there was nothing jittery about the takeoff as we took off smoothly. I looked out of the window and the lights of the Coimbatore night were fast becoming distant like a reassuring wave saying everything was fine.

The “Seat Belts On” sign soon came off and the air hostess sitting in front informed me I can switch on my MP3 (She had earlier asked me to switch it off during take off). As I got back to my book, the MP3 was chiming to the dulcet voice of Chantal Kreviazuk singing “I am leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again” from the Armageddon soundtrack. Talk about timing.

I couldn’t read the book much. It was based in 1650-1750 Europe and America. Though the historic references were deep and interesting, I was not looking for a thoughtful book for the travel. I looked around to see how other passengers were doing. Some of the passengers, first timers like me, were eager to take photos of (No, not the air hostesses) the city lights far below as we passed over Bangalore and other cities. But mostly it was a peaceful crowd of techies and their like headed for their cubicles at work.

The city lights were a beautiful sight to watch. Lines of light escaping the shadowy darkness of the night. An explosion of activity in the middle of an eerie shroud of inactivity.

There was no in-flight movie and just a slight appetizer, by my standards, for nourishment. (No, I haven’t taken any photos like Richard Branson’s customers). But the good thing was that they had very good chocolate ice cream cooled to perfection. There were also flyers for the airline’s frequent flyer scheme (WTF, flyer for a flyer?) which the air hostesses tried to sell. Too bad, they didn’t ask me if I would be interested.

The airport soon reached the Shamshabad airport in the outskirts of the Hyderabad city. No flutters in the stomach this time. I was looking forward to a nice cold shower in the hotel once the plane landed. Not a slightest concern over the landing. The flight had gone without incident and took away any possible anxiety over the landing. And it went picture perfect as well.

I called up my dad to tell him I had reached. He was still on his way back home. Two points for air travel. It used to take me an entire day to travel on an oddly timed noon to noon Sabari Express to travel from Hyderabad to my home. The flight took around two hours only.

As I exited of the airport, I was expecting a furor like the one shown in the movie Rang de Basanti where the passengers are hounded by vendors trying to sell maps and stuff. Nothing like that here, though. The travelers were greeted by formally dressed good looking women, placed there by cab companies to get customers (No burly cab drivers trying to take away your luggage either). Since the city was an hour or so from the airport, I decided to take a cab (1250 bucks, btw). No, the good looking women had nothing to do with that decision. Besides, I could claim it later. The expenses, I mean.

The cab soon exited the airport, with “Leaving on a Jet Plane” still ringing in my ears. I still had an interview to attend …

au revoir, Chennai

Author’s note : The post was written on January 2, 2009.

I start off late in the evening bidding a final farewell to my roomates as they help me get an auto to the railway station. I have been in Chennai for the past 21 months and time has finally come for me to depart.

The auto slowly wades through the heavy traffic on the LB Road.

The first two months were not easy either. I didn’t have a place to stay for a while hopping from one place to another. But everything else went fine. The job was good and the weather was fine, but most of all I had good friends, both at work and in the city, who helped me out. Soon I found a place, the seventh in three months, where I would stay for the rest of my tenure in the city.

The traffic has now eased up as we approach the Santhome High Road running alongside the Marina Beach. It’s pretty windy out here, with the cool sea breeze coming in.

The first year went on smoothly. Few of my MBA batchmates joined later on and a social circle developed. New opportunities came up at work every now and then as I added onto my job profile. The first year was mostly positive, except one or two sad notes.

Looks like there is a road block up ahead. The auto may need to take a diversion. Good thing I had started early and have some time in hand.

Second year, though, was a complete contrast. Leaving my job wasn’t easy, but it had to be done. It was bit of a paradox. Normally, it is the company which dismisses employees for not meeting their standards. I’ll be the first to admit, though, that hunting for new job didn’t go as per plan, not that I could have done any better. Blaming recession or the Satyam debacle is just a meek excuse, since I’ve searching well before that (And was surprised by neither events). Perhaps….

Finally reached the station. The auto guy asks for an extra 10. Sigh. They’ll never change. The coolies queue up, but I ignore them as usual. Bought a bottle of water and sipped a few drops as I watched the display of train timing refreshing before my eyes, the old ones fading from the view.

Memories of Chennai slip by. I’ll miss my friends in Chennai, since they’ve reached out to me and tried to help out the last year (Some have already left Chennai, though). I’ll also miss the Landmark and Sathyam. Both were part of my weekend routine starting with browsing with books and at times buying a few at the Landmark, couple of movies at Sathyam and a long walk back to my apartment in Thiruvanmiyur.

The train has reached the station. I climb on and it departs. Time to go home, grinding the hours away.

Life moves on…..

B School Placements in the Yule Tide

Disclaimer : The following post is fictional, though inspired by real events.

The pleasant winds of Christmas bring tidings of hope and propsperity in the New Year. And so it was, two years ago in 2006, when a group of MBA students eagerly awaited their placements before the Yuletide.

With careers on the line, placements are the most fought over incident in a B School life. The students have to be emotionally roused to perform at their best all the time. Few bad exchanges in a group discussion or some bad advices are enough to spill the boiling pot. So, the chances of something giving away are always strong. However going with the spirit of the season, these batch of students sought to tackle their placements together with a touch of solidarity.

It all started a month before Christmas. The campus was frenzy with rumors of our “step-sister institute” (so called because though they had better facilities, they catered to a lower rung of students who demanded more) to reach into our placement kitty. We were pushed into a corner by these concerns and attempted to address the situation by meeting the administration. The Director, however, stood steady as a rock (like the current Pakistani President) in light of the furore, which left us unsure of whether he knew what was going on. Fed up with his flip-flops and left fending for ourselves, we called for an “Open House” to see ourselves through the placements.

Open Houses are part of our college tradition, where the entire batch is called up in the middle of the night to discuss some factor affecting all of us and reach a consensus (though many a time it rarely did). Usually it will result in a flurry of ideas coming forth from all directions, like the outdated brainstorming sessions, and they will have to be resolved in more Open Houses. Since this was in the pre-twitter era, the option of live tweeting these Open Houses did not exist, so these valuable sessions are forever lost. The general rule was that every student had the right to call for two and a half open houses.

The Open House was called for and all of us assembled in the college auditorium. The topic was set and ideas poured in on how to tackle terrorism the overreaching attempts of the other institute to disrupt our placements. As expected several strategies came up, ranging from completely illogical (collective bargaining with the management and the administration) to more sensible ones like kidnapping a Cabinet minister (It was alleged later that the persons who came up with this suggestion had just been smoking marijuana growing on the volley court, after playing 48 hours of Counter Strike non-stop). Fortuitously, things resolved itself amicably as the other institute completed their placements well before our process had started. However, the whole episode brought the batch together into a cohesive unit which would see us through to placements.

The Placement Slots opened a week before Christmas. Early morning, the mess staff were greeted by a long queue of “student managers” surprisingly wide awake. They had gotten used to seeing us stumble to our breakfast tables half asleep (and in some very rare cases half drunk) seconds before the mess closed. Our juniors were also in early, as they had to handle the companies coming for placements and organize the entire placement process. Fortunately, the mess was well prepared to tackle the sudden onslaught of hungry students, though it was still pretty hectic out there.

The companies came in soon, some with shortlists in hand ready for the group discussions. The juniors met them at the gates and, unlike Horatius Cocles, let them in and took over from there, taking care of the interviewers while we moved on from one company to another. The tension was visible on many faces as the second shortlists came. Many missed the cut, but there were no drooping shoulder in sight.

My mentor for my summer internship had mentioned how crucial the support of your friends are in times of placements, to keep you motivated. The batch acted as the catcher in the rye holding together the dejected candidates telling to them keep their chin up and pepping them up for their next group discussion. As for the ones who got through, there were always a lot of “global” gurus to prep them for the next round.

Few of the students had been placed prior to the placement process having received pre placement offers from the company they did their summer internship. There were also couple of companies who had come earlier owing to their long term relationship with the institute (One of them got one of  the highest packages on offer that year despite having one of the lowest CGPA, shattering any myths about CGPA). Of the ones that were placed early, most stayed back, helping out their batchmates advising them and motivating them. (One annoying chap, however, stayed back to note down where everyone got placed, to the extend of staying outside the interviewer’s rooms questioning everyone, inviting the ire of the dejected candidates). Overall, the entire batch acted as a unit making sure nobody fell midway and everyone came through in he end. The juniors did a meticulous and efficient job taking care of the recruiters. The placement committee ensured the process went through without a glitch. A well-oiled machine was put to test and it came out with flying colors.

As the companies went by, most people came through. We crowded around whenever a final list was revealed cheering for the ones who cleared. Each list was greeted by a celebration, as more students got placed. The camaraderie among the batch was clear, evident and resounding. There were no signs of bad blood or disgruntlement over lost opportunity as everyone took part in congratulating the ones who got through.

Day 1 arrived, but by this time most were placed save less than a score. A horde of companies had to fight it out for these last few and the CV of these companies were good enough that few of the students placed earlier, chose to appear for some of them as well.

Day 1 also saw the campus back to full atttendence. Few of the students who were placed early had left for their homes, but now everyone was back cheering on the last few as they came from their interviews. The news of the last few getting placed was met with great zeal that cannot be easily rivaled. And so, the batch saw through the hectic placement process and all were smiles at the end, right on time for Christmas.

When all was said and done, we went around the campus for a quick money collection and a last minute party was organized in honor of the juniors who had come through for their seniors. But soon everyone had to hit the books as exams approached post Christmas.

A Dasvidaniya Things To Do Post

Inspired by the movie Dasvidaniya (Warning: Possible spoilers and a rather longish post ahead), I thought I’ll jot down a list of things I would love to do before I die. No, I have not been diagnosed with stomach cancer or anything remotely life threatening, beyond a diagnosis of asthma last year, the veracity of which I completely doubt. Still, considering my pure non-vegetarian diet and over reliance on Coke and Pepsi in place of water, I may have to rethink that pretty soon.

I did not want to make a fancy list of expensive things to do, like in “The Bucket List”, for which I’ll need Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to sponsor (Or better yet the bailout-happy US government). If I did, it would include
Scale the tallest mountain in the world (No, not the itty bitty 8848m Everest, but the 10,000m tall Mauna Kea)
Take a dip in the Mariana Trench
Walk from Calais to Cape Lopatka to Cape Town and back to Calais, all without a passport
Discover the connection between the gods of Mittani, Parsi and Aryans
Develop a commercially viable form of nuclear fusion
Develop a working model of psychohistory
Build a time machine to travel to the past
World peace

Okay, I admit, it may be impossible to bring world peace, but people always want to hear world peace to feel good about themselves.

In the end, I decided to copy paste (Ah, the core competence of an MBA) the list from Dasvidaniya, customized to my preferences.

A new car – I do not attach any significance to material possessions like a car or a bike. After all I do spend every waking hour in front of a computer. It is obvious I attach more value to my laptop (As you can see in an overdramatized earlier post). In the end, though, the need for speed rules. Nothing beats the thrill of racing. I was warned a few times for racing with the school bus while returning home from PC Thomas engineering entrance coaching classes on my bicycle. My best races, though, have always been on the track.

So, for my first on RememberTheMilk I’ll have completing 100 metres in 11 seconds. Okay, it is not exactly Usain Bolt, but I want to keep it realistic. For the record, my best time is 11.7 seconds clocked in 1999 when I was 16. That was followed by gobbling up every ounce of chicken I can find for the next four months, kissing any athletic future good bye (In my defence, It was my XIIth study holidays and I was eating four times a day of home cooked food)

Foreign Trip – I’ve been to a foreign nation. Not exactly a remarkable feat, seeing that most people have. Just like it is “compulsory” for every Indian to work in an IT/ITES company, it was compulsory for every Keralite of my parents’ generation to work in the Gulf. So, I spend three years (my first three) in the warm clime of Abu Dhabi.

But in theses days, where everyone lead their life away from home, it is a trip back home that is more in need. So, for my second, to be home when I die.

Guitar – I was never the musical or the artistic type. Those genes went from my dad to my sister (who is an architect now). But I have inherited some of my father’s flair in doing things. Currently, I am working on a book, the theme of whihch is almost done. I doubt I’ll be able to sell it; still I do want to complete it.

Neha – In the movie, Neha (played by Neha Dhupia) is the lifelong crush of the protagonist. My first crush was when I was in IXth, my second was nine minutes later, when I saw another girl. Crushes come and go and it is something I have hardly given any importance. May be someday I’ll find Miss Perfect.

Mumma – In the movie, the protagonist is nervous about telling about his illness to his mother. Since that is not my concern here, I wish to include my entire family, my parents and my sister.

I take mostly after my mom (and my sister after my dad), but all three have significant contributions to the good bits of my characters (I am completely responsible for the bad bits). My mom has been responsible for making sure I study and get something into the lazy brain that I have and my dad has always been source of inspiration. My sister, unfortunately, has always been at the wrong end of my temper tantrums when we were kids. Anyway, they are all responsible for churning out any talent that I have to something productive. They all form important parts of my life and I intend to keep them close.

Boss ka boss – In the movie, the protagonist has the boss from hell, referred to as Hari Sadoo (Remember the naukri ad). I’ve handled two jobs so far and four bosses (If I include my internship). Fortunately, all have been capable people and I will always be glad to work for them, provided the situation presented itself. But, that doesn’t mean my work has not been hindered by the powers that be. Here, I have to say I have completed my task.

The first occasion was in school, when I told the school administration very nicely to f*** off (Not in the exact words, though). The story has progressed into a legend in the school (At least it comes up in the school orkut community every now and then) added on with rumors and half truths that every story adopts over the years. The second was when I quit a job over the incompetence of the HR of that company. So, I can confidently say “Boss ka boss” is over and done.

Rajiv – In the movie, Rajiv is the protagonist’s best friend, but has drifted away over the years. I never had a close friend. It is mainly due to my short temper as a kid, where I would pick a fight with few of them over something silly and shuts myself out from the rest of the world for a long time. As a result, I am used to being a loner. Fortunately, all my school friends have stuck by me despite my temper, even the one I stabbed with a pencil in third standard or threw a brick at in ninth standard (The brick missed).

Over the years, I have become more sociable, though I very rarely have had a close group of friends, always aloof from the rest of the world, browsing the net on my comp. As a result, I know everyone I’ve come across and they know me as well (Can be inferred from my orkut and facebook friends list), but I have very few close friends. And I do try to keep in touch with everyone by moderating my school and class orkut communities and B School batch’s yahoo group and of course being always active on social networking sites like orkut, facebook and twitter.

Love – As mentioned earlier, may be one of these days I’ll find lady love.

Photo on the front page – My name has come on the front page of the newspaper; thanks to T.I.M.E who gratefully published the names of IIM callees in Kerala in 2004-05 (Though they had mispelt my name and erroneously mentioned my call as IIM-L when it was IIM-I). My photo has made it to the front cover (If I recall correctly) of an unfortunate business magazine who was reviewing B Schools. I was drafted in as a last minute replacement and did not realize it was for a photo shoot. Had I known, I would have backed out. (In case you don’t know, I don’t smile in front of cameras). So, I consider this task half done.

Vivek – In the movie, Vivek is the estranged brother of the protagonist. I have a sister and I’ve included her earlier already. I’ve always had an invisible wall around me, so I’ve never had any sort of personal attachment with anyone I’ve known. But there are two people who I’ve known, albeit briefly, who have been able to break that wall. Incidentally, both of them are girls and no, I was not attracted to either of them. I’ve lost complete contact with the first and the same seem to be the case of the second.

No things to do list will be complete if I don’t mention that I’ll kill some people. So as a footnote, I’ll add that I plan to kill a conservative estimate of two billion people. Hey, you never know, maybe we can have world peace after all. Now, where is my cup of Kopi Luwak?

FYI : Check out the cool Dasvidaniya Facebook App, which I haven’t tried out.