Moments...

I seem to be in a fix. Supposed to start preparation for my exams and everytime I do it, just after 2 minutes of me leafing through a page, I drop ZZZzzzzzz . The maximum I clocked was 7 minutes. Not bad na !! I have tried by going through a different subject too but the same thing happens. No luck! And if I pick up a novel or any other non syllabus book, I am wide awake and I can read through the book for hours without pausing for even a water drink break. Oh well, I have been told that I have the symptoms of a true student. But I really wish this symptoms vanishes well before the exam.

I am still trying to get over the 3 letter acronyms and I thought about sharing a few that I use often... JLT - If you are wondering why I am sharing the acronyms, coz JLT (Just Like That!!) OMG - You may spot me with my hand over my head exclaiming OMG (Oh My Gad!) LWT - Often people tell me anything which they don't even follow themselves LWT (Look Who's Talking) OHT - Half of the time during the classes I have this blank look and the lecture just happens to be OHT (Over Head Transmission) TRY - Everytime you say TRY you have to "Take Responsibility for Yourself" - my prof used to say long time back. ASAP - Everybody knows this As soon as possible but it means something else by the person who tells you to do something ASAP. The person actually means "All Social Activity Prohibited" until the time the work is finished! TP - When anyone asks me what me doing - I am TPing (Time Passing) Its my favorite hobby. Maybe in one of my future TT , I might...

Imp thing to know - How good an MBA you are are measured by the number of 3 letter acronyms you know which others don't know! So we learned many acronyms . And then we also learned another imp and interesting MBA tool - The Matrix Just take 2 dimensions, draw a plus which divides the dimensions into 4 quadrants and put in anything to the dimensions and start with your explanation. Blah Blah.... Don't smile when you are explaining remember you are the MBA. I guess its enough for one class...

Me tried to attend the Aarti at least once in the day. Today was the 10t h day - Ananta Chaturdashi and it was time for Visarjan - bid adieu to the God. Dressed in traditional wear - Uncle in Dhoti and kurta and Aunt in a pretty Saree , along with us - me and T both dragging our feets as we were woken up early morning and dressed as usual in our jeans started our small procession towards the well. Aunt had placed the idol in a Thali with flowers and a small lamp. We reached the well and then started the puja . First Aunt lit the lamp and then facing towards the sun took 3 rounds with the idol, while Uncle chanted some shlokas . Then we all did Aarti . We were joined by the security guard, drivers, and some labourers in the Aarti . After that done, Uncle dropped the idol into the well. Aunt and Uncle thanked Lord that he was with them for 10 days and continue to be with them and then some more shlokas . We could see the idol slowly sink into the water. Me and T stood for a w...

I had long time back read this article on Hoarding and Sharing (We had used this article with Carol's permission in our newsletter). She talks about cultivating an instinct of sharing. Its surprising that in our class - all of us are professionals some of us are already HR professionals. We are the employee champions when it comes to our work field. Sadly, in class we behave the other way. We have the old (previous years question papers), I Xeroxed them and gave it to one of the classmates so that he scans and share the soft copy with the entire class. Surprise - when I offered the Xeroxed copies there were few takers - coz people had already xeroxed them discreetly. I am yet to understand will having the questions give them an edge over others. Its knowing the answers and be able to apply in real-life will give them the competitive advantage I guess. But You never know. I have met this strange hoarders who feel simply secured by having the notes - all hidden from others, how much...

Monday evening - Since I don't have a cable connection at home, I don't watch Television and I am quite happy not watching. I was untouched by the cricket fever unlike others - I guess the entire country. For me Cricket Match means Cricket is that annoying pesky insect and Match is short for match stick. The match started sometime in the evening when I was leaving for my class. It took me simply 30 minutes to reach the class. I love the match! On other days, it takes me nearly and hour sometimes even more than that depending on the traffic. There were these Ganesh Pandals on every nook and corner of the city and they had installed TV sets. So instead of loud music playing all you could hear was Cricket. Hordes of people stood glued to the TV sets. Anyways me reached the college to find the campus deserted. You could hear the occasional cries from the cafe where obviously there was a TV set. We were just a handful of students - the committed ones like us. Best part was Sir, walk...

It was a wonderful Sunday :D Me got a chance to visit NDA Yippee!! For all those who don't know only a privileged few can visit the place and also get the royal treatment as we did :D We a group of 10 (my classmates from B-school) bundled into 2 cars reached NDA around 11ish. (Although had planned to reach much earlier and .... better me not tell all what happened - the usual delays, last minute cancellations, last minute joiners...) On with what we did at NDA. Now a little bit about the place, NDA is located at Khadakvasla, picturesque location occupying somewhere close to 8000 acres of land! Imagine the huge place. All green and silent settled far away from the hustle bustle of the city but replete with all the amenities - a complete self-sustained township. I wont be giving too much details about the buildings or places but will restrict to what we did. I would have loved to describe the buildings there but I am not too sure whether I can. If you want you can visit and read from...

Thursday was not worth mentioning. I dont know what happened in the class coz mentally I was asleep actually exhausted by the trip in the crowded bus. Today we had this surprise test. Oh my god I hate being a student. It sure was a Sar - pe -rise!! They are doing this to check if we are studying or not :( What I don't get it, our college is going to give us 10 day vacation as Preparatory Leave for exams, then why are they having these surprise ones now??? They dont understand they are wasting papers / our precious times and what not...Some people simply dont understand!!

Thoroughly enjoyed A Particular Friendship by Dirk Bogarde . I was dying to read something less distressing and depressing after having read If and Bad Blood . In fact reading the whole thing reminded me of someone :D Let me not digress and get on with the book... This book is wonderful - A quaint and sweet relationship between an unknown lady and an Actor. the book is a collection of mails (snail mails) exchanged between an Actor and a lady who lived in the house which he currently lives. They are little more than just pen friends an extraordinary friendship in which they have a pact not to speak to each other nor even see each other but only write to each other. For according to D. B. - " What one writes one does not necessarily say" "...The written word has its own delight depending on the eye and mind of the receiver . The spoken word crushes so often." How very true!! The pact - Dick is at disadvantage being an Actor, a well known personality, the lady gets to...

I added the Mister Linky to my post a little later and to see how it works I added some of the TTs who dropped in and left comments :D

My Favorite 13 Status Messages @ GTalk 1. This space is available for Sale / rent / lease ...Please send a cheque of $1 Million to book the space and please dont ping me for discounts. 2. Lost! Can you pls tell me what I am looking for? 3. Ok, fine...now please go back to work! 4. You must be bored if you are reading people's status messages. I must be bored if I am telling you how bored you are. 5. Please ping me so that I can find my computer from somewhere under my bed. 6. Shhh! I am reading other people's status messages. Please do not disturb me! 7. I know you all are desperate to chat with me but I am very busy chatting... 8. Needed: yummy cheese pizza. Ping only if its on the way!! 9. Dont you have any better thing to do, than reading my status msg? 10. I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid! 11. Next time you come online, remind me not to talk to you. 12. Do you see that little [X] at the top right hand corner of the ...

Today I left early after yesterday's delay - a lesson learned. And thankfully it was a good decision for it took me more than a good 2 hours to reach college. Traffic diversions because of the Ganesh Festival. Anyways me was tired - mentally more than physically - actually stressed out by the travel in that over crowded bus. The strength in the class was also very sparse. Came to know that today is Gauri Puja - part of the Ganesh Festival celebration. I am yet to know what this Gauri Puja is all about just was given this bit of information that unmarried girls do some kind of Puja most probably to get a good husband :D. Me missed today evenings celebrations coz left early and reached late :( Today's session, the Prof had to spend half of the time trying to keep us awake and also keep refreshing our memory. He plans to have a refresher session soon. I was glad to know that I was not the only one tired :D Back home and desperately waiting for this week to end.

Neeru Nanda's If, a collection of short stories. Her writing style is not too appealing but her stories are different and a few of them are very interesting. All stories are close to reality and touch upon sensitive issues - adoption, widow remarriage, poverty, old parents left to fend themselves.... The first one was too good, it had the what happens next appeal and another story "Mentoring Sunita " was also excellent. The first story simply kept me hooked on and had such a great impact that it made me continue reading other stories. Sadly, all her stories end on a very disturbing note though. They do portray the truth - whats happening in the real world - but one cannot help but feeling disturbed. I hoped that she would change the ending to a lesser realistic and more of a happy one maybe :(

Me was so busy with Sleeping Beauty's party that me didn't do anything about the festival today :( In our class, today, T got Modak's :D So me atleast had Prasad and some kind of participation. :D BTW I was invited for Puja in the evening, but because of my classes, me couldn't go.

Since morning its been raining n raining n raining and rains and rains and.... ok u get the idea Listening to the rhythm of the failing rain I was ZZZzzzzing all day. 8 in the morn I went off to sleep only to be woken by the neighbour kiddo at 11:30. I was pleased to see the 3 year old lad. We watched once again the rerun of Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. He loves Dobby and calls him "Noddy" I tried correcting him but after innumerable tries I not only gave up but also rechristened Dobby as Noddy. It's simpler. :D He only watches the first 10 minutes till Harry Potter is rescued by his friends. After that he loses interest and keeps repeating "Oh Noddy nahin hain " (Noddy isn't there). So me have to switch off the movie and then he sits in front of the cupboard and takes out all the CDs . I have to read out the name of each movie and then he shakes his head "No No Aacha nahin hain " (Its not nice) and once he is done with that he...

Monday was surprisingly not bad as I expected it would be. I had got this book from the library to study but didnt find it relevant. It talked about something which is not covered in our syllabus. Guess me need to stick to fictions and non-fictions and not try and read course books. Lets see how I manage my exams. BTW me just finished a book - compilation of short stories. Will post the review soon. On with the class - Finance class...These days solving problems. We have to compute the taxable amount of salary....blah blah. I am so lost between the Gratuity, Pension, Provident Fund, HRA... All I ever noticed was my take-home amount and filling of taxes done by my tax consultant - after all they are specialized people. Now me doing some tax planning exercises for Mr. X and Mr. Y - why cant these people go to a tax consultant instead?? And I have to appear for the exam too and solve more problems, leaving the contact details of my tax consultant is not permitted :-(

I missed the morning Aarti :-( but made it up by attending the evening one. This time the Aarti was performed by a cousin of Aunt and his wife. There 2 daughters, me and T, had fun. We all had loads of Prasads - fruits (apple, banana, papaya, pear, chickoo , musk melon...to name a few) We relished this. Then we had yummy food. We had corn and cheese sandwiches. Aunt grilled it for us with loads of yummy butter. I prefer so much butter that makes my lips and my fingers shiny ;-D We had a choice of vegetable sandwich too. But I preferred the corn one. :D We had it with Oriental Chilly Sauce - this one was a little spicy and had garlic pieces but was very yummy. Then we had Fried rice with loads of veggies - carrot, corn, capsicum, onion.... I hogged so much and finally couldn't budge an inch. Then uncle offered us ice candy - but me didn't have coz of my sore throat :-( We planned to watch some nice movie and got Cinderella Man from the rental library. After that heavy m...

Today is the first day of the festival and we started with the Puja . Yesterday, after classes, me helped my aunt with the decorations of the room where the idol would be placed. Both aunt and me were pleased with the decoration and today we received quite a lot of approving glances from friends and visitors and also few pat on our back :D Lemme share this with you - my aunt is a Bengali and my uncle is a Gujarati but they still celebrate this festival. Some of the customs done is a blend of all communities and it actually adds up to the flavor of the festival. By the time, me had reached their place, the idol was installed and adorned with beautiful flowers - mauve, red and white ones. Modaks and fruits were placed at his feet. [no Ganesh puja is complete without Modak, they are sweet steamed dumplings given the shape of onion] I also joined in the Puja. We began with Shudhhi-karan (Cleansing). Wherein aunt sprinkled Ganga Jal (Water from the holy river Ganges ) over us. Then we did P...

Remember the Wednesday I told was my best day :D here's why - Me taking part in the Ganesh celebrations this year!! Please do not ask me details about the festival - the history and all, I have absolutely no clue about it :-( You can read from it here ... In fact, me have completed a good two years in the city and coincidentally, moved into this city during the festival two years back. This year, I decided to actually be a part of the city and find whats all about the festival...and voila me got an opportunity to participate too. My neighbour, every year celebrates at her home. This year, she requested me to help her with the festivities. :D That's exactly what me was waiting for and jumped at the idea! Thus begins my celebrations from Wednesday. Sadly me miss my camera and cannot share the pics or else me would have had the best collection of pics for all to see. The Wednesday - We went shopping for decorations for the home. We got multi-colored papers, confetti's, multi-...

Thanks Angie for introducing me to this :D This is fun!! Well all I could think about was comparing myself with Garfield. Thanks Thursday Thirteen, you are like Garfield's Pooky - you very well know how to spoil the good bad mood! Thirteen Things about Garfield (the comic character I love) and me have in common 1. His Teddy's name and my first doll's name was POOKY!! 2. The 'silliest thing' we both have heard "Why do you always want to be the center of attention?" 3. Only me and Garfield can sleep all day long with noises all around and then feel tired and sleep all night too. 4. We both just love the Squishy Spiders ... 5. We both love Ice Cream!!! Yum!!! Me can Scream all day long!! 6. Garfield and me both like the Gold Fish bowl sans the Gold fish - I forget to feed it and Garfield... you know what... 7. Garfield and me go all around searching for the right thing - The remote - mine is always lost among the pile of CDs. 8. Garfield and me both cannot ...

Now this ones really proves that how self-absorbed one can be. Ok this ones not so good a post - so please do not read it any further. Thanks! I walk into the class after a 3 day hiatus and I hear such sweet words - "Hey where were you? We missed you in the class!" I am synonymous with the 2 nd seat "we missed you on the 2 nd seat" ...and similar more Now, I have to confess here - I dont even know if someone has missed a class :-( For I enter the class and am busy reading my novel, till the time the class starts and once the class ends I try to be the first to leave for home :-(

If you remember I had shared about this , Manual Vs Mental Labour and the case of the watchman, how much s/he earns compared to the VP. I really wanted to know what exactly does the watchman do. They have to sit all day / night and keep a watch at what / on whom? I started to watch the person stationed in my society and I have noticed him do the following things - Now the question arises, what a watchman supposed to do? 1. He was asked to remove the mouse from the mouse trap 2. A lady requested him to come and open the tap which was not opening 3. Another one asked him to open a door which got jammed 4. He has to shoo away dogs from entering our building 5. This is the best one .... He was requested by this young chap to play badminton with him as he couldn't find any playmates :D I will add more to this list... BTW another bit of info....the cab drivers - call center cab drivers - they are paid less than 3500 and are PENALISED 500 for reaching late. They generally belong to the...

Well I love Wednesday’s class…”I might be repeating myself here :D” Anyways today was something more to it. I love this day too. I will tell you later about this day. First let me finish up with the class, coz don’t you remember, I forget things!! (Don’t worry me wont forget about the days' events its too good to be 4-got-10 :D Watch the space for me soon going to be posting about it.) On with the class - This prof is simply too good. Excellent trainer. He knows and in fact uses just the right things to keep the class motivated and simultaneoudly keep a grip on the entire session without letting a single minute go off track. We have free discussions, people exchange their point of views and all, and today I thought for a minute that our discussion was simply going on and on without us even getting past the first slide. But me was pleasantly proven wrong. He kept us talking and all the while summarizing the lecture and slowly nudging it towards his desired next slide concept and ...

Well once the movie started, it had the glimpses of the movie Miracle in there (I had watched this one in my movie watching spree ) - the ice hockey players from different states of US learn to work as a team and belong to the one US team - the Indian Hockey Gals team with gals from different states all too learn to call themselves the INDIAN TEAM and how these underdogs prove their mettle. I had thoroughly enjoyed the movie Miracle and here was watching the Desi version in Bollywood - istyle . Oh Kurt Russel as the coach was amazing. But SRK also wasnt bad either in the Desi version. Actually is pretty good. Although the movie Miracle was much more realistic and the training scenes were hard and cold and the process of how they unified under a common banner to play as a team - the US Team. At some point of time, the movie Chak De slacked. Anyways me shouldn't be comparing both the movie but some of the scenes (the camera shots) and dialogues were directly lifted that I cant h...

Today me generally feeling low! So me took the spirits pill - again watched my fav Million Dollar Baby and even watched a bit of Gone with the Wind - just the ending to get me back ready for another Monday!!! Me have been bunking classes - actually 2 in a stretch :D Why you ask, you can choose any of the reason (alibis ;-)) which you think justifies my not going to the class :D 1. Because you should do whatever you like to do and not something which you don't like. I did just that. I don't like attending the class, so I didn't attend. Will this be called as bunking? 2. I don't like the nearly an hour of commuting to and fro from the college and the crowd in the bus and the pollution and ..... I don't want to take the auto as it would cost me somewhere nearly 150 bugs for the to and fro journey and I don't want to add up to the traffic and the crowd and the .... 3. I wanted to catch up on sleep, I have had enough of sleeping in the class. You know your classmate...

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage - an autobiography – personal memoirs – she shares her childhood and adolescent years, how it all shaped up as the writer and the person she became. Its outrageously shocking at times, sad and painful most of the time and you live with the pain and the shock and the anger that she has aganist only to be redeemed by her humor and the never say die attitude and most importantly the honesty by which she bares it all. It simply gets into you and along with her you re-live the 280 pages - her young life! Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph as rightly said ‘She lifts your spirits even as she hurts your heart’ Worth reading!

I was introduced to this http://www.surveymonkey.com/ and I generally decided to try creating a survey. You can too participate in the survey. Click to the the right ..."You cannot live without..." I can conduct the survey by using a pop up invitation or linking to their site. I choose the pop up invite first but it doesn't work because of the pop up blocker, so I choose the link. As this is a free version, once you submit your answer by clicking on Done, you are taken to the home page of Survey Monkey. You wont be able to see your answer or other answers in the survey. I received two response to my question "One thing you cannot live without ......" 1. Specs (Of course, how else would you be reading this) 2. air, food,water, TV, inet, laptop, house, dad, mom, brother, friends, work, watch, mobile phone, flights, buses, cars, restaurants etc etc... (Now this person doesn't know what is meant by "one" or seems to have too many things that s/he ca...

Today me forgot the umbrella back home! Its the rainy season here and you simply cannot go without an umbrella or else you are sure to catch the cold. (Which I still have :-(... ) And me had the same feeling that you have when you - forget your cell phone dont get to check your e-mails for that day For the non techno savvy people, its the same feeling you have when you - forget the Deo I escaped the rains though but I am still getting over the fact that I gave so much importance to my dear umbrella treating it at par with my cell and lappy . Hmm ...

Happy Teachers Day to all the teachers!! Todays class started on an interesting note! We had to calculate the monthly grocery bill. Whats that supposed to do with the study - HR. Well his style of teaching blends different activities with concepts. Just go with his flow. You do go with his flow for he has built that trust and established his credibility - things important for the trainer. Well it was something to do with the salary part. We were calculating how much bare minimum you need to spend on your grocery bill in proportion to your salary. There was a small debate on whether men are good at handling grocery shopping or female. It ended on a note by our P that gender should not be a criteria, either of the people who is good at handling finances can do shopping. We proceeded to look into the compensation and salary part. [I just came to know this in today's class. From now on I have to be careful about whatever I pen here, for some of my class mates have started reading my b...

I found the book OK, didnt meet up to the recommendations. Summary of the learnings - Get out the Fear for losing, Self Doubt, Procrastination - Laziness by staying Busy Arrogance is a result of low self-esteem and its simply a tool to hide ignorance. Mathematically Arrogance = Ego + ignorance Reason should always be greater than reality where Reason = Wants + Dont wants Action beats Inaction. Have self - control / Self - discipline, develop the power of internal fortitude simply put guts.

I saw this traffic constable helping a physically challenged person cross the road. Hats off to the cop who didn't lose his patience and shout at the person for trying to cross amidst all the chaos on the road. Instead helped him to cross. If I have to spend a day - not even a day, in fact in a few hours I would be venting fire standing amidst the vehicles spewing smoke and blaring honks. When the cop passed my auto, I gave him an admiring glance and his smile simply said you should also do something good if you really want to thank me. Hmm... I suddenly realised that my posts are turning out to be more of a personal diary. As if earlier it wasn't. Duh! Let me leave the topic for the time being - in my Profs words - वो बात फिर कभी... Today's class was good. Actually the topic was a pretty interesting one - Conflict Management - no conflicts in learning and understanding :D Next week's is Leadership. Looking forward to it. While returning, I left a bus because it was too...

From my window, you can see a landscaped garden. The pathway from the garden leads to the Club House and the swimming pool. Early mornings these days are lovely. The garden is all green because of the rains and smells good too. There is this beautiful wooden bench in the lawn. The backrest of the bench has nice carvings. There sat this young man just at the center of the bench. His arms stretched, touching the sides of the bench. Sitting with a cup of hot drink - let me assume its coffee. Relaxed! Wow what a way to spend the morning hour. He takes a sip of coffee and then looks towards the sky. I get distracted by some noise and then I again look back towards him. Now I see him looking towards the sky and whistling. Whistling? What are those rings!! Nah!! Then I see him move his right hand and take a sip of coffee. Then move his left hand and .... now I know! Yes he was blowing and making smoke rings. I rephrase my words - What a waste of the morning hour!

The Office Space one-liner fit me well as I walked into the class today! Anyways let the matter rest for a while, for the truth is that I look like "a case of Mondays" on the other days of the week only that...Forget it!! You get the point!! Even if you don't you better get the point!! Today, me wanted to read the book but my neighbour kiddo arrived at my place. I spend a good half hour playing with him. And just that half hour was the best part of the day. The rest of the day was spent in trying to read the book. There arrived my all time confused friend. He can never really know what he wants to do but he has to plan everything. And his planning are the worst. The plan not only troubles him but also others. Anyways, now that he was at my place, I spent some time chatting. Today again me stood waiting for the bus, a good half hour. On with the class: Last class, I decided to first unlearn the concepts and try and learn from him, the way he wants us to learn. For he comes...

An unconventional story of a 64 year old wanting to marry 34 year old with objections only from the would be father-in-law who is 6 years younger to the groom. The presentation of the story is too good. Actors Big B and Tabu are awesome too, actually both rock – that’s how JD would put. Big B, so effortlessly, hesitates just like a young boy fallen in love and the very next moment is a stern, arrogant man. He is simply WOW. There is an interesting part of the story. After some good half hour the characters actually ask each others name and thats when I also realised that the names were never known. There are few other characters whom I fell in love with – the long toothed waiter fondly called Colgate and the talks about his lady love – Maya. The adorable Zohra Sehgal who plays his mother. I simply love her since the days of Tandoor Nights which used to be telecast in TV ages back. (I hope my failing memory has got the name of the serial right!) Not to forget the English waiter who...

Ok this is simply great, better than the last one . I have a Dial-up connection. The connection speed was slow. I call up the customer support and tell them about the problem. The lady tells me that the server is under maintenance. It will be up by today late evening. OK Thanks!! The Speed improved by evening. I closed the complaint status. After three days, I get a call from the Internet people, asking if any Technical Support guy has visited my place. I was completely lost. On further questioning, he explained that I had complaint that my Internet was not working and so they were sending the Techie to check my Internet connection. "But didn't your people tell me that the server was under maintenance ?" "Oh Ok Yes, Yes! The server was under maintenance. Is your problem resolved Ma'm. Thank You Have a Great Day!