Reflections of a sleepy mind

It has been almost a month at IIMA. It feels like I have been here forever, so much has happened. My time sense has been really screwed up.  And studying PG is definitely not half as fun as UG was, at least so far. There is this invisible aura of responsibility that is hanging in the air. It is not spoken of, but it is like everyone here has just somehow managed to avoid its clutches and be free for a short time. It lies in wait, for the day we step out - really a buzz kill.

Once I came here, I heard a lot of background stories and the success which this place has produced. I don’t feel much radical attitude change so far. One incident though has been stuck in my mind. It was during a class, when I contemplated for a second putting a smiley near a problem, when the professor had given a cricket reference. It was a fleeting moment, and the next second was one of enlightenment. Let me walk you through the steps.

1.       I was awake in class.

2.       The professor was teaching something which interested me.

3.       I was paying attention to it, despite probably a few 18-hour days prior to this.

4.       I was actually writing that stuff down

5.       I had contemplated a smiley, an act which would have seemed a heinous sin the day before I joined.

If they can do this to me, then they can make successful managers out of anyone. But then again, the PGP office here is cunning, so I won’t put anything past them. They take in the supposedly brightest minds of the nation and still manage to surprise them with quizzes despite all of our predictions. Although I do believe that a month more would have inured me to feeling any surprise. The resignation has not begun to settle in.

I don’t feel like doing long posts. Of course, some of my friends were asking me what I was doing, chatting with them when I should be studying, so they must think of even short blog articles as some sort of sacrilege. The “overworked IIMA student” part is really too hyped up. I don’t want to sound pretentious or anything, it’s just my opinion. I know I am supposed to over the moon having joined here, that I should be thankful to everything etc. But once you are in here, it is like just another college really, with a bit more work. I believe the process over here is mainly for some psychological effect which I am mostly not grasping.

I am possibly beginning to ramble, so I am going to stop with this. It’s been too long a period without writing and I am not really sure what to write right now. I will post in the future on a more regular basis I guess.

 

First Impressions - Episode 7

The next room in the hostel, Room 37, was populated by Aditya Balaraman and yours truly. When I started writing this series, I was not planning to write about myself. It was mainly because I thought it would be retarded to write about my first impression of myself. I have known myself for a very long time, and I don’t think too many people would be interested in hearing what I thought about the freedom of eating whenever I wanted, pooping wherever I wanted and still be considered adorable. In retrospect, I have revised this view. I am now going to take some time to effectively vilify myself using a more relevant timeframe, at least to show that I am not partial. 

My late school life was what you would typically expect from an overly ambitious IIT-tuition going nerd who actually had no clue what any of that was about. My weekly time was chiefly occupied with just about managing to get through school and eighteen grueling hours of classes in extremely sweaty conditions, and hence I really did not have much time to introspect. But for once the adage that “If you work now, you can rest later,” worked, and all this work got me into NIT Trichy at least. I finally had the freedom to do nothing. And my impressions of hostel life had their effects on me.

A person keeps changing. My route on joining college was more akin to that of a novice programmer’s source code. If you don’t get it right at first, just label it version 1.0 and scrap most of the stuff later. I won’t be going into details, but suffice to say, I like it and that’s all that matters. And it was all so ‘cool’, Except for innate geekiness, an internet addiction and a hardcore-gaming habit. They are actually not very hard to get rid of, comprising a single step really – let go of the mouse.

Another interesting fact, which somehow complements the earlier impression (well maybe not, but I am going to say it anyway) - it was when I entered NITT that I actually tried my hand at writing. I wanted to write something that people would relate with, make them react, scream and cry. I should have gotten a job at Microsoft writing error messages. But I didn’t realize it at that point and that dream went down the drain.

I did finally manage to stop studying, at least until the night before the exam. And I learnt several valuable lessons by doing that - classes were the time to get my day’s quota of sleep, I could know nothing and pass and that much of my education would comprise of studying copies of other people’s notes and that as long as I had company to do all of this, staying idle is better than working. But everything you like is bad for you in some way, so I wouldn’t recommend trying any of these.

This regression was mostly because I was not good at just studying any more, and somehow acquired this habit, that if you do something, either you do it well or don’t do it at all. That’s probably one of the reasons I did not get into any team sports (apart from the ones on the computer). Or maybe it was because the closest I got to actually playing was as a stand-in goalie for the first year hockey team, where my entire role comprised of wearing a lot of padding and still managing to stand up.

I did start doing a lot of other good stuff though, and I finally cultivated an interest in physical activity. And the constant power-cuts, water-cuts, dust and insects, generally bad food and internet access or lack thereof didn’t faze me, or stop me from having fun. That part did lead to a lot of close shaves though - constantly getting by in all semesters, labs and projects. People would not believe it if I narrated how we got all of this stuff done, but it all worked out in the end. So all of this generally boosted my impression of myself, that I was much more capable than what I gave myself credit for. So I truly believe that hostel life has changed me in this aspect, maybe for the better.

Coming to the end of this post, I never really thought I could pull off something like this. My actual thought was that who would be interested in reading such drivel, the ramblings of a jobless guy about himself. But then again, what are friends for?

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us.
I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us.
I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us. I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

 

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us. I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling me about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This  guy just would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 5

Room 38. This room actually had three inmates in our final year, but for certain reasons, I am going to tell you now about only two of them, and leave the third one for later. First comes Siddharth Kulasekaran (Pooch). This was another guy whom I had already seen in IIT classes, but I came to meet and interact with him only in college. This was basically because he was from DAV (a school), and from attending IIT classes, the general impression I got of those people was that they were a bunch of snobbish geeks whose primary job was to brown-nose the professors (I was proved wrong later).

So in college, I got to know him through my friend S Chidanand, with whom he was classmates. It was during the short interval we had during the morning, and we spoke politely. But it was not like we spoke to each other much really. This being the initial days of college, we had had time to properly check out the females in our batch, and conversation had naturally narrowed down to that category. VK was doing most of the talking, and the rest of us were just listening. Bala (another friend) had tried to intervene with something about a wacky professor, but it didn't really work out. (Girls always triumphs as a topic. Bala had other reasons for trying to change the subject. But I will not reveal them here).

From getting to know more about Pooch later on, I can only say that his reactions at that point were quite restrained, so nothing much jumped out right then. It wasn't the sort of exciting (relatively) introduction that I had had to several others in the group. It was after we moved to Agate 22, which was much closer to his room that I actually met him a lot more. At that point, my initial impression of DAV students hadn't been dispelled and K Si (as we called him at that time. Way too cool for him. His rechristening happened quite soon after the move) almost fit perfectly into that mould, except for the fact that he also seemed to enjoy a bit of law-breaking. It was at that point that my perception began to change.

The first thing I noticed was that he had quite an excitable temperament, especially during our long Agate terrace night-time talks Incidentally, I think that's the closest most of us got to something resembling intentional bonding activities in a mass, half-gay self-help group atmosphere (Thank god no one except us heard the stuff we talked about there. Now don't get ideas. That will only make it worse). Anyway, for every story or incident, this guy would be quivering with anticipation, jumping and squealing like a little girl, especially when it got to the good parts. So excitable is actually a bit of an understatement. 

However, Pooch was also clean and methodical. His side of the room had an air of hospital-cleanliness about it, almost as if the guy had licked away the last pieces of dirt and insects from the corners. His bed was always made up, and his books arranged on a table, with a god-damn table lamp to study with! This DAV training proved handy when it came to the cycle tests and we actually wanted to study. Our room was a very 'happening' room, making it nearly impossible to study in, so we would go to his, although we ended up disturbing his poor roommate who went and studied in the watchman's chair. His other roommates were barely there half the time, and well, let's just say that their presence necessitated someone in the room anyway.

It was because of his general excitable nature (we had a very racist term for that) that I enjoyed doing the stupid, childish things with Pooch back then. There is one incident I just have to narrate. It was during a first year Rotaract Valentine bash. The organisers were making couples play 'Pin the tail on the donkey', and Pooch had somehow become one of the organisers (Pooch, Valentine's and girls, ladies, women and anything related to such threads is too long to talk about here. Yearning seems to be a very good word). So the two of us had been noticing something about Chidanand, and basically got the idea to announce him and another girl, whose name I will not mention here, as contestants. I was flabbergasted when they actually ended up going on a date later on. Pooch 's reaction was priceless. He was disappointed, I think, that he had ended up playing matchmaker when he was single.

Looking back, it really amazes me now that we got along really well in the initial period when we barely knew each other. We had very little in common, but somehow ended up being friends, and I am glad for that. The general EEE madness aside (I mean it in the most polite way possible), we grew into the friendship and various common activities. But Pooch will always be the impish (well not literally. He is too sturdy now to be an imp anyway) and studious boy with the slightly increased hormone levels that I got to know.