Did you know ?

Most people underestimate beer.

Not in the area of providing enjoyment of course,

Beer has always been accepted as the 'coolest' drink... and beer is a great way to bond with the dudes, and to become 'cool' quickly. I would like to quote a great expert on the various forms and brands, desi and otherwise, of alcohol..... the esteemed GG. If he gets to know that a particular guy does not like beer, he has only one thing to say... "Pussy." While in France, if at all I used to feel insecure while partying with the crazy all-night-long-drinking-drinking-and-more-drinking Germans, I would automatically say, "Yo ! I wanna attend Oktoberfest man ! J'aime la biere !".

but in the area of providing the high.

You see.. most people think that only the hard drinks.. whisky, vodka, the rest.. can get you really drunk. I thought so too myself. Until of course GG, when we recently met up in France, started exhibitting strange behaviour. The Arab and me were all for a bottle of Red Label. GG went for 3 500 ml cans of strong beer. We were like... "Pussy."

Yet, since that day, many a nice beer party later, I can say with confidence, that beer provides you a nice sustained party high like no other.

Mathematical Proof :

Strong Beer = 8% of alcohol
Whisky = 40% of alcohol

3 cans of 500 ml each = 1500 ml
8% * 1500 = 120 ml of pure alcohol

5 large (60 ml) pegs of whisky
40% * 300 = 120 ml of pure alcohol

Which means 3 cans of strong beer is equivalent to drinking 5 large pegs of whisky or any other hard drink of comparable alcohol content. QED.

Some more vishesh tippaniya and khas mentions

Paris is a really beautiful and romantic city.
The toilets in McDonalds are cleaner than the ones in Quick.
If you don't wear gloves, your hands will freeze. You won't be able to move ur hands or feel anything, and unfreezing them is a painful process.
Wear an iPod all the time - it makes you look like a decent tourist. Usually when I request people to take my photo, they always oblige. Today, for some time, I had removed my earphones. I requested this lady to take my photo. She shooed me away, thinking I was a con artist or a beggar ! I put my earphones on in a jiffy. Voila ! I had people queuing to take a photo for me.
Paris is a really beautiful and romantic city.
And, I forgot to mention this yesterday, you have to take a look at the UCB window on Champs-Elysees.

Some arbit comments

I came to France on the 5th of Jan. Some observations and tippanis.

Whenever I go to any place in France, it snows !
If you desperately need to sit on Champs-Elysees, munch on some bananas, give rest to your shoulders and legs, (free of charge), when it is raining, then there is a wonderful place very close to the Place de la Concorde end.
If you desperately need to pee while on Champs-Elysees, there are Quick restaurants near the Arc the Triumphe end, where you can unobtrusively enter, pee, not buy anything, keep your dignity, and walk out.
People are very understanding in Paris about your need to take photos, will graciously take as many photos as you ask them too. This lady obliged me by squatting in a most undignified position and taking a wonderful photo of me and Gustav's baby.
There are a lot of con artists hovering around Arc the Triumphe. I successfully saw through 2 con attacks within the space of 5 mins while I was strolling around Champs-Elysees. Remind me to tell you about the golden ring and 3000 euro suit.
There are infi varieties of wine and cheese, and I'm loving it !
Don't drink pastis, it tastes like 'badishep' or aftermint.
And yes, the girls in France are gorgeous.

Bon Soir

I know, I know. Photos, posts, etc, all due from my side. Patience fellas. I've got loads of stuff to put up. A few more days is all I ask.

'Fulldozing'

This was my submission for the course mentioned in the previous post.

 3 Ways to get away with Fulldozing !

 (From the author of ‘The Great IIFTian Dream’ and ‘Count your Sheep in every Batch’)

 Every class of students has its fair share of fulldozers. Fulldozers are those students who manage to doze off in class under the full glare of the teacher. In this article, I would like to elaborate on the various types of fulldozers that I have observed over a month and a half in IIFT. The aim, of course, is to observe and learn. The art of sleeping is not a very esoteric art – with a little guidance and a lot of self-motivation, it is but a blink of an eyelid away. So, without further ado, here goes.

 The Frontline Psuedo-readers

These people have been unfortunate enough to get a seat in the front rows where there’s apparently no escape. Apparently. First invented by Pannie and later successfully copied by many others, this style makes extensive use of a rigid contortion of your forearm. You tilt your neck inwards as if you were reading your textbook, and you rest your head on the palm. Once your head is comfortably ensconced in the soft comfort of your palm, and you are sure that it will not slip, you can rest those droopy eyelids and let yourself be seduced by one of nature’s greatest pleasures.  Be warned though, this is not for the light-handed, coz once slip and you will end up headbanging to a totally different tune.

 The Spectaculars

These people are the ones blessed with glasses. The teacher’s penetrating glare is rendered ineffective due to one of nature’s most common phenomenons – reflection. Whether the student chooses to keep his eyes open or shut is his decision. Behind the safe shield of the glasses, even the most diligent of students are transported into a world of their own. There is only one catch – your body language, posture and facial muscles should radiate rapt attentiveness. IIFTians’s are quick learners, they think on their feet and also off their feet. My observations indicated that within a week’s time, this art had been mastered to dizzying depths of somnolence.

 The Improbables

These people have no special talents. They are jacks of no trade and masters of none. However, by virtue of having cornered a corner seat, they have the odds in their favour. A quick statistical analysis of the angles of rotation of the teacher’s neck enlightens one to the fact that the teacher seldom looks constantly at the extreme sides of the class. The mean, median and mode are all 0 degrees. The students also take into consideration another useful piece of info – their degree of sleepiness also varies between the states ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’. Hence, the weighted probability of the teacher catching these students asleep is really low. Thus, these students take their chance and doze off in a trance.

 With this, I conclude my short discourse. Many thanks to my classmates for their continuing support and relentless perseverance. Without their courage and innovativeness, this research article would not have been possible.

Guest : Gaurav Gujral

We had to submit an article as part of course work for Business Communication in our first trimester. This was what Gaurav came up with. I think it is a masterpiece.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ROOM NO. 46

 The alarm goes off at 7.30 am. The gentle giant is supposed to wake up first and take a 30- minute- shower. But guess whose early morning dreams are shattered by the alarm? Mine! I shout out – “Turn off the alarm, o gentle giant!!” and go back to sleep.

Cut to 6 hours later… 1.30 pm…

Students file out of the class. I hear a voice calling out my name- “Gaurav.. Gaurav… I don’t think we’ll like the food in the mess. Let’s go out and eat.” Seconding his opinion is my 2^nd roommate who, for obvious reasons, will be referred to as the ‘mimic’ in this piece of writing. I, the non-controversial person that I am, agree. After a wholesome and fulfilling lunch of 10 scrambled eggs (only for the giant), dal, paneer and paranthas, we rush off to class at 2.15 pm.

Cut to 5 hrs later… 7.15 pm…

The inhabitants of room no. 46 are trying to study in peace and serenity. Suddenly, the mimic recalls an incident, gets up from his bed and mimics the hell out of each and every person he has met during the day. Hilarious!! After a brief roll on the floor and with a hurting stomach, we get up to get back to studying. The calm lasts for only 2 minutes, broken this time by the sheer ‘lack of noise’ of Mozart’s symphonies, courtesy the giant. “God, what has the world come to?” I ask in terror. Rock fans reading this will sympathize with me. To go from the deafening drum beats of Megadeth to the sinfully noiseless violins of Mozart is an experience I pray none of my rock-loving friends ever go through.

Soon its dinner time and I hear a familiar suggestion - “Gaurav.. Gaurav… I don’t think we’ll like the food in the mess. Let’s go out and eat.” After a wholesome and fulfilling dinner of 10 scrambled eggs (only for the giant), dal, paneer and paranthas (the queer similarity of the last few lines to the lines in 2^nd paragraph is purely deliberate, just to emphasize the frequency with which this incident occurs), we head off to have ice-cream. Everything is fine until the giant asks for a Walls Kulfi from the Cream-Bell vendor. Another round of rolling in the ‘hay’ follows (for the uninitiated, ‘hay’ is the single most frequently uttered word by the giant and can be substituted for any word in the English language, eg. I don’t like the ‘hay’ we get in the mess. We should go to a really expensive place and have ‘hay’ there).

Back in room no. 46, the satisfied giant sets an alarm for 10 minutes and dozes off. His uncanny ability to go into deep slumber as soon as he closes his eyes manifests itself soon enough. The alarm is ringing at full volume, the mimic and I are shouting at the top of our voices but alas, no response from the giant. After a minute of shouting, he finally turns in his bed, sets another alarm for 10 minutes and dozes off. No points for guessing the situation after another 10 minutes – we need to bring in inhabitants of other rooms as well.

Cut to 4 hours later.. 2 am..

I am planning to go off to sleep when I see the giant getting up. Yes, his 10 minutes had extended to 4 hours. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wake him up this time. I hope to catch up on my sleep now, wishing to wake up to the sound of my alarm rather than the one which sounds at 7.30 am. Another day in the life of room no. 46 beckons.

Gaurav Gujral

----

No points for guessing who the gentle giant is.

An update from my side

An update from my side has long been due. Thoughts, clauses, sentences .. are coming to my mind in random fashion, so I'll try to put them in chronological order, and without further ado.. start shooting.

29th June, we set off from CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, previously known as VT or Victoria Terminus, which got caught up in the renaming frenzy some years back. The airports in Bombay, incidentally, are also named after Chhatrapati Shivaji. And btw, we are soon gonna have Mumbai Dyeing on the MSE... the Mumbai Stock Exchange. I digress too much).

As I said before, we boarded the Rajdhani on the afternoon of the 29th. For fun, we decided to travel by first class. We got a four bed coupe all to ourselves.. and it was fun ! The food was par excellence, and playing cards with nice music in the background was an awesome experience. 30th we reached Delhi. Amidst bustling traffic and scaring looking touts, we made our way to some arbit taxi, who took us to NSCI Delhi, where my parents had booked rooms. After a quick shower, we headed straight to IIFT.

We had gone for a holiday to Dehra Dun and Mussoorie just a week before this, and had stopped over at Delhi for a couple of days. During that time, we had come to IIFT to take a first peek. So we knew the road, more or less.

At IIFT, I got my room almost immediately. One of my roomies had in fact already come, dumped his luggage, booked his bed and gone away. My parents helped me with my luggage. My mom also helped me in dusting the mattress and setting up my bed, and in dusting up the place too. Then they bid their dear son adieu while he vowed to conquer academics like never before.

Fine then. Both my roomies arrived the next day. I must mention that I have been very very lucky to have had excellent roomies. We keep saying this to each other. Having high compatibility with your roomies can be the difference between heaven and hell. One was.. is a Delhiite. Gaurav Gujral. The other's a bong, who doesn't look like a bong and keeps other bongs at arm's length. Dwij Chatterjee. Righto.

Classes began almost immediately. From the 2nd of July, to be precise. Scary shit. We were given huge tomes for each of the 9 subjects that we had. A rigid packed schedule for the entire week ahead of us. Classes on the weekend. Clubs activities, guest sessions, arbit tutorials. As I said before, scary shit. And yes, 2 hour lectures. I used to find the 1 hour classes at NIT Calicut unbearable. But I had gone there with a lot of psyching up. I decided to take it all in my stride. Waise bhi, there wasn't any option !

The first two to three weeks were really hectic. I had been told by umpteen number of people that during your MBA, you sleep for only about 4 hrs on an average. And I must say, for the first 2 weeks I did that. However, where there is a will there is a way. And I willed that I should sleep for at least 8 hrs. And I got my way. I soon found out that all this was bunkum, and that one could sleep the full quota of 8 hrs if one made certain minimal sacrifices. What these sacrifices are I shall explain in full detail once I finish my MBA.

Ah yes. There was this inter-section basketball game organised by one enthusiastic basketball player. I am 6'4", and I know a little bit of basketball. So it was but natural that I should go and take part in this game. I did... and I began well. I got possession of the ball for my side during the jumpball (?). I was tackling decently and defending even better. Not bad. Then at some point, I jumped high to get the ball and landed with my foot in an obverse possession. Excruciating pain. I got up and hobbled around a little. Saw that I could still run, and continued playing in the heat of the moment. We won, the game got over. Immediately I realised how much my foot was paining. I painstakingly hobbled back to my room and saw my foot. Fully swollen. The x-ray the next day confirmed that I had indeed broken the fifth meta-tarsal of my left foot. And I was in this gruelling MBA course. With a lot of help from my 3 friends.. (Did I mention that Diksha, Dr. Diksha, is part of the gang ? She joined our 'group' some time during this time) and a little bit of help from many others, I managed. Waise, this fracture is among the least bothering ones. I didn't need a plaster cast. I could in fact walk about slowly without crutches too... with an ankle brace providing the necessary support.  However, to prevent strain, I did get crutches soon. It took me a little more than 6 weeks to get back to normal walking.

I took part in some quizzes during this first trisemester, the highlight being coming third in the regional round of BT Acumen. The trisem was over quite soon. I went back to Bombay on the 20th of September. Ah yes, just a week before the trisem got over, I got selected for an exchange program to Grenoble, France. This was among the few extended programs which spilled over into April and May of the next year. So, I had to opt out of summers, which I wasn't very keen on in any case. Which also meant that I got an extended mid-sem break.. others had to report to college on the 26th of Sep.. I coolly came on the 9th of October. My roomies and my quiz partner Praveen, all of us applied for the extended exchange program. In between, I went down to Infosys campus, Electronic City, Bangalore along with Praveen and came second in the national quiz competition held by Infy. We won a Cybershot each for our efforts !

The second trisem which concluded recently on the 20th of Dec, was of an even shorter duration. The highlights of this trisem were running around for my Grenoble application, learning a decent amount of French, getting back to jogging, eating out almost every other day, learning the art of appreciating whisky, and some other arbit things. I also celebrated my birthday at the beginning of this month.

During my 6 months at Delhi, I've got to know quite a bit of Delhi roads. Gaurav has a car, and he's taken us around quite a bit. I have also become familiar with the north indian culture to a significant degree. Right now I am at Pune, attending a plethora of marriage functions. I'm leaving for France on the 5th of Jan. I've completed a large part of the shopping, but some things remain. The major issue would be that of packing, 20 kg being my check in luggage limit.

The next 5 and a half months or so shall be in France.. Au revoir !

Fauja Singh : 89 :: Dhruv Chandras : ?

Too many vows made... only a few of them kept.

I will run a half marathon in two years and a marathon three years from now. I state so publicly so that I may be held accountable.

How I Love This Place Now - HSH

BT Acumen 2008

The north-zone round of BT Acumen 08 got over today. IIFT put up a decent show. We won the debate and came third in the quiz.

Praveen and I were representing IIFT in the quiz. We fell short of the first place by a margin of 10 points (at 55, we were just one correct question away). We got off to a slow start and tho' we caught up later on, the initial gap made a difference in the end. I thought all teams were good, and as such, it was a well fought quiz. IIML and FMS were tied at 65, and finally IIML went thru because FMS hit the buzzer and missed.

Sad, considering that we had done quite well for ourselves in the prelims. Sadder still, coz had we won we would have made a clean sweep, and also had the chance to accompany Anchal and Rahul to Bombay for the National Finals. (Anchal had already reached the national finals last year with Arka, who was the winner the year before that. Let's hope he keeps the tradition alive.)

After we lost, my same-name loomie scrapped me this today...

ecclesiastes 9:11
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all."

Incidentally

Popular School Legends

I suppose every school has some teacher who makes absent minded mistakes leading to funny sentences. These funny sentences are quoted around and soon other funny sentences are also attributed to the concerned teacher. This is how school legends are made, and we get a huge list of extremely funny sentences apparently originating from this famous leader, when in fact, only one or two might actually be his/hers.

We had a teacher in school who used to teach us drawing, and sometimes Hindi as well. This is how the legend went.

Once while she was taking attendence, she ordered, "Absent boys raise your hands !". Another time, while teaching geometric shapes, she shouted, "Now draw a straight circle !" On a particularly stuffy day, when we students had forgotten to open the windows, she announced, "Boys, you should not be sitting in such conditions. Open the air and let the windows come in !". Then while telling us about her family, "I have two daughters, and both are girls !". I know for fact that she had only one child, and that too a son. (I had once met them at the railway station, a couple of years after I passed out from school, and we had chatted for some time.)

A little while ago I mentioned a few of these witticisms to my room-mate, and he claimed that his school too had a teacher to whom some of the very same quotes were attributed. He had one priceless gem to the above list. "Children, the scooter is under standing the tree !".

I will end this post with the only quote of this teacher which I have heard first hand. She was a pretty lenient teacher, but she used to loath squabbling children, and used to make such students go and stand outside the class. At least once in every class she used utter her trademark utterance, namely, "If any complaint and both will get punishment !".

I now have a face . . . . .

I forgot to mention this.. a few days back I added my profile pic. On some arbitrary evening, while all of us corridor mates at E hostel, NITC, were standing and gappa-maroafying (chatting), my neighbour and ex-roomie Harsha snapped an impromptu pic of me and another mate Shreyas discussing something. I don't remember what we were discussing, but through some involuntary contortion of my facial muscles, and just for that split-second, my face managed that expression which I believe seems to show that I am thinking, that there is some intelligence in my eyes.. god, it even makes me look vaguely philosophical. Naturally, I chose that pic.

How Money Works

For many days I was considering starting a blog on a passion of mine - money. I want to understand everything that I can wrt to 'money'. The exact flow of money starting from the printing bureau to the central bank to the commercial banks to the people to the government and, in some part, back to the central bank. The impact of all the weird press notes emanating from the central banks. The various money making instruments and avenues. The stock market. F&O. Economics. And all the interesting theories that are part and parcel of it. The dealings in the corporate world and the science behind it. The effect of international relations. Trade and it's trade-offs. Forex. There's so much.

Not that I am ever gonna be able to know everything. And maybe, I might now benefit as such (in short, financially) from many of the things I put in so much effort to know. But that's what you call passion right ? Anyway, this new blog will be more like a diary mentioning all the books and articles I read, and the ideas I come across in my 'quest'.

The blog address is how--money--works.blogspot.com. Do check it out !

I passed my B.Tech

Yeah, that's right. The S8 results have come out, and I am officially an engineer. I am now Dhruv Chandras, B.Tech, CSE. Ha !

CSE stands for Computer Science and Engineering. B.Tech for Bachelor of Technology - a more fundoo sounding version of your regular BE. Instead of being plain engineers, we are now technocrats. A few years later, we will have B.Inno and B.Entre degrees.. (For innovators and entrepreneurs..)

I don't know why so many people today do engineering.

Actually, I do.

You see, it is a very respectable degree to have. From the earliest times, engineers were respected for their logical brains and innovative capabilities. They were the people who actually made things that you and me used. Houses, cars, appliances, etc. In my grand-dad's era, an engineering degree was sufficient to make one's way to the top of the organisation. (Well, it was sufficient for him !)

Also, for someone from a middle class background, it fills some solid bricks in the wall of your resume.

In 4 years, you learn stuff that you would probably never ever use again in your life. I want to do an MBA. Most engineers want to do an MBA. And even those who pursue MS degrees rarely end up applying what they learnt for 6 years. But then, the BE/BTech is the stepping stone to that coveted MS / MBA degree, which in turn is a gateway to lucrative career options, mainly in the upper echelons of management. If you look at all the management schools today, they are clogged with engineers. (Mind you, the directors of all these b-schools have tried to remedy this to diversify the intake, and they have tried hard. Short of setting quotas, they have done everything else. The percentage of engineers in the batch has remained unchanged ! Shows how many desperate engineers are out there trying make their BE/BTech worthwhile by capping it off with an MBA !)

I remember my school days. If you were among the top 10, then medicine or engineering was THE way for you. At least that's what you were told. If you were even decently good at studies, you were pushed into engineering. Most 10th standard board merit rankers used to take PCMB (i.e. Physics, Chemistry, Maths And Biology). Why - I asked a friend who had come in the SSC Top 50. To keep my options open, he said. Meaning, medicine ya engineering. He ended up an engineer, or to be more precise, a technocrat. I remember how shocked everyone was when one of our school toppers, Rahul Daga, choose to do commerce. He was very focussed though, and ended up topping his insti.

So, from the learning and application point of view, it is a totally useless degree to have. And most "engineers" will agree with me. But, as I said before, from the overall perspective, it is a pretty good, and SAFE degree to have. Besides the aforementioned points of a) being respectable b) being a good resume-filler c) being a passport to a good life, the BE/BTech degree has some more good things to offer.

For example, the 4 years of my B.Tech life provided me with innumerable opportunities for personality development, expansion of the mind and exposure to various people, cultures and situations. It gave time to think and to find out what I wanted to do in life. It toughened me up and gave me a chance to be more independent. Without doubt, I learnt a lot of stuff (mostly non-academic!!).

Thus the degree has been a great 'filler'. However, I would like to add that a large chunk of the benefits I mentioned in the previous para were possible only due to living a hostel life in a strange land, with students representing practically every part of India.

If, before you select your under-grad course, you know exactly what you want to do, then pursue that in a very specific way. Don't waste your time doing engineering. If however, you don't know what you want to do, or want to give yourself more time, then pursue an engineering degree by all means. However, do try to do it from an IIT/NIT/any other prestigious univ with a vibrant hostel life. It makes all the difference in the world.

What started out on a satirical note became a little preachy-sermonish in between, and ended on a slightly senti note ! The joyride/ordeal of B.Tech is over. Amen. Anyway, expect a lot more posts revolving around the B.Tech theme in the next few weeks. I have a lot of ideas... !