Maximus, Maximus Stupidus

In No Mans Land

2006-12-09T14:46:00.000+05:30

Thats where I am.

And I would not want to change it anyway. (Conditions apply)

Its a strange sensation, sort of doing a freelance work.

With no Bosses to Boss around. (Obviously why else would we call them bosses).

That brings me back to another thought. Well, strange as it may seem, thoughts are so rare now a days. Its all $s now. Thinking of even changing my name from Stupidus to $tupidu$. Ooops. More on that later. I am again wandering off.

Ok now that i was again caught wandering, I guess its time to take a resolution that I will stick to just one topic. A change in strategy. Lol, and if i were to put it in the B-school lingo, it would look somewhat like this,

Objective - To evoke interest and capture the attention of a bloggers time, spent on reading blogs.

Background - Bloggers come to read, if they find too long posts, they might leave it for latter, unless its as funny as "my dayz with myself" or some of the others. So, if you reduce the length of each blog, you succeed in making the blogger (wrong term, or is it? Does blogger mean only the one who writes blog, or does it also include the ones who read?) stay in your blog, finish atleast one of your entries and leave. (whats the whole point? well,,,even i do not have any clue. Might be some female would be so enamoured by the blog that she would end up loving me.' smirk')

sigh!!!...ok peepul, am tired now. From all this i guess the whole point was cause i am too lazy to sit down and write something. And well, you would also know that i lied when i said there are so few thoughts now a days.

If i were to decrypt and tell you what and all thoughts went behind, in the last 10-15 minutes it would go like this.

1) No mans land - Condition at my office. I am partially out of one dept, and partially in another new one.

2) No Boss - I sit in a cabin, which is my first boss's cabin. He comes very rarely to this office. But then my new dept. is in another floor itself. So they dont know when i come, when i go, what i do or more imortantly what i dont do.

3) $tupidus$ - My tryst with import/export, Commercial real estate opportunities, Stocks, IPOs, Net security providers etc etc. And needless to say, none kicked off till now.

4) The small blog theory - Even i have no clue. Might be cause i got tired of soo many thoughts.

Anyways, it was just that I am in the No Mans Land. Lol, again that gets me thinking about some Huuuuuge No mans Land, that we(bro and me) had seen in the map, between Iraq and Saudi, to the North-West of Kuwait. During the gulf war, we used to imagine, if we could go to that huge chunk (well, must be about 25% of kuwait) and claim the land.

:D Another random thought and PJ.

Here it goes...., if two government proclaim and area No Mans Land, is it possible for Women to stake a claim on the same? :P

Feminists- I have shown you the way ahead. Go get them before i come up with any more of these.

With love/hate/ekta kapoor,

$tupidu$

Post MBA blues Epidose 1

2006-08-09T18:43:00.000+05:30

99 % motivation and 1% perspiration, someone had said.
Well, thats true to a certain point, but what happens when one has almost reached the comfort level of ones own achievement. Or when one feels that what one is doing, how much ever good it is , not keeping with what one wants to do in the long term?

tough call , huh!!!!

Was never an academic, but got a decent achievement as far as acads were concerned. And landed up a decent job. Sustenance in this job would surely, in about 10-15 yrs time make sure that i am one of the hot properties in the job market. But that would be it...

a salary which not many would be able to surpass, and all the bells and whistles, u can say.

but all these do come at a cost, the cost of not being able to unwind urself completely, or rather apply your freewheeling thoughts or ideas. One remains suppressed, even if the organisations say that they promote entrepreneurial thinking and all....

hmmmmm.. but, a slight change in the philosophy. SEE this as a learning experinece which would empower you to think freely and more clearly and then everything starts to fall into place as if in a magic.

But the question or rather "THE" questions is how much learning you really need b4 you finally say "enuff is enuff"..

but here this resembles history, as we say history is the story of the winner. For example had hitler won, history would have celebrated Hitler as a crusader who united the whole world.
Similarly, the review about the timing i mentioned earlier would always be evaluated based upon my result!!!

if i am successful, then the timing would be termed perfect !!!!
and if i am not, then, i would be termed the biggest fool...

The return- as usual

2006-04-19T20:32:00.000+05:30

Well. been a long time since my last post, @ 2 months ago..

Nothing special happened in between, except for the daily, sure shot chores that were set to happen in life in the past 2 months- like graduating (y they never say post graduating?)

Convo- that hat on top, the job somewhere in Bombay at the typical salary ranges (except that the role i never dreamt of), and then the trip bak home etc etc.

People have been busy answering what happened, what transformations, what learnings blah blah blah in last 2 yrs...

Well. worth answering, but i guess what i learnt wud be evident only after i spent some time in the corporate world. Its of no use trying to come up with some hypothesis now. Lets see how i ll cope up with the vagaries and challenges of the corporate world..

Then what, the last post was quite long and people have gone mad trying to understand it :D....happy that i produce such an incomprehensible post..will try to up the bar next time..

thats it for now...

Shud start blogging sorta regularly once corp life starts...

MNC @ "holiday resort, also called a B-School"

2006-02-23T11:13:00.000+05:30

MNC- The mallus@ “u know where”. (Too many debates about kuntriness of the place going on..I love that kuntriness and would love to do anything and everything to keep it that way, but there is a smaaaall minority of pseudo junta who mite kick my arse.

But still to bansal dudette, am sorry If I turned out to be kuntry, but I had a whale of a time for last two years, and when I get out, I will share the same desk (or bench, as the case may be) as the ones who came out of that “brick walled, French designed (I hope so, she mentioned the name of some weirdo, well, atleast weirdo for the kuntry me ;D ) intimidating, structured, driven” place.

And then when I look back, what I ll see is not the intimidation I felt, not the 90 % attendance rule, not the structured drive (don’t tell me they used canes also); but the time I spent gazing at the lakes, the time I had with my friends, the times I wasted away (haha) reading all IP bakars, the classes I missed, the glee when the profs tell they don’t mind proxies, and most important, the friends I made.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe, like a nation, (a nation is not the hills and mountains and plains, but the people who inhabit them), a B-school is not the buildings and infra and hostel rooms, but the people who reside in them.

Ok, enuff on the trivial ramblings, lets get on to the more serious things in life, like the chats the mallus had, in this one instance ….

At “u know where” had an opportunity to be part of one of the most friendly , honest, crooked, perverted, brilliant (there were guys with about 99.90 percentile in CAT amongst them, amazing isn’t it? :D ).

The following is an example of the likes of conversation, we used to have and still have.

The whole issue started when all the mallus decided to come together for the International Geopolitics project in the first sem. (Again, some brilliant mnz chaps scored the highest possible grade; A+ in the subject: D)

The following is how it all happened (names have been modified to save whatever remaining image we have in this institute: P)

In the internal X-mail, one of the mallus, lets call him Mr. Virility, send an x-mail to the group saying..

Mr Virility

I have sent eh following names,,,plz let me know if I have left out anyone. Guys just dont look at ur names alone, see the whole list and tell me if anyone was left out. Okay? BTW I am not responsible for the weird indentation in this mail!!!

PROJECT GROUP FOR I.G.P

GROUP LEADER: Mr. Virility
EMAIL:Virility@shakeelafanclub.com

MEMBERS:

NO: NAME : REG NO:
1 Mr.Virility ( the name is self explanatory, I guess)
2 Mr Balls ( well, nothing to do with his presence of lack of balls )
3 Mr. GD Tiger (phew, ask the guys who had the fate, tragic, to sit with him in gd’s)
4 Mr. Homo Orkuttian (haaa, just look at the orkut of any mallu gal, and u ll find him there)
5 Mr Spoilt brat (well, the son of the rubber baron in kottayam, baths in rubber milk J)
6 Ms..........( too afraid to call her any name)
7 Mr. Satellite ( well, with step babes around, he is like a satellite to them)
8 Mr Gay man ( well, self explanatory, pseudo when arrived, but now converted to the kuntriest of the kuntries)
9 Mr Gorilla King ( well…er,,, appearances are deceptive, wot say :D )
10 Conspiracy dude (This is the bone of contention. Here, Mr Virility had written conspiracy dudes, nickname) the guy finds out a conspiracy in everything, from y the dobby dint turn up today to y Saddam gave up.

So Mr Gorilla King points this out and there starts the run...

And soon.
Mr Balls raises the issue and said

"We need to seriously look into this issue....
The self proclaimed leader must give out an apology towards Mr. Conspiracy, and I request the General body to levy a fine of Rs200/- towards the same.
The General body could meet sometime tomorrow, and the amount of the fine can be expensed at CCD as proposed by Gorilla King.
One more thing, this is the last warning, next time any communication is sent regarding the igp group, please CC everyone in the group"

Supported by Mr. Gay man

"I had suggested that Mr. Conspiracy dude be the prez of our group. And in fact I had passed on this info to Conspi dude. and in fact he had even prepared a speech to be unleashed on MNC (Mallu National Corp) in acceptance of his leadership...but Mr. virility rained on his party...I appeal to Mr. gorilla and request him to do whatever is necessary to set the equation right and provide for necessary compensation to all affected parties and to all members of MNC. It is sad that one mans action has led to so many grievances... the meeting as proposed by Mr. Gorilla should be held near CCD. But personally I feel OH NC is god enough too... "

At this stage, Mr Virility rebutted

"As YOUR group LEADER, I feel that certain aspects of the case has been selectively obliterated from the collective conscience of the group by certain malefactors with malafide intentions and scurrilous minds which has resulted in much confusions and resultant confabulations as is witnessed by the increasing number of mails in this regard.
Firstly I was chosen the leader from a certain eclectic electorate known for their high mores ,great erudition and blazing intellect(ex: homo orkutian).It was deemed necessary that certain egregious elements(with the above mentioned malafide intents)who are neither capable nor worthy of consulting were superseded in the larger interest of the group in the consultation process(these include a person(?) who has been actively pursuing a certain four-legged-fauna for procreational purposes(SA nDy)!!! ).We were just following the precedent set by the Govt in this regard, which bars mentally challenged, sexually impaired and financially insolvent persons(the guy who started the whole ruckus and the subsequent CAMer)persons from participating in the electoral process.
Thirdly as regards Conspiracy dude(of the maniacally-paranoid-psyche out fame),I personally feel that he wud have been a good choice considering the "international flavour" he wud have bestowed upon the group ,enriching and enlivening our lives with his various globalised ventures with a certain half of the human species. But since the scope of the project is in India, and the aforementioned fornifactional capabilities are not required, I consider myself to be a better candidate. Lets us leave him to weave out new conspiracy theories, including a couple, in this regard.
I request you to kindly put water to all ur boiling dreams about a treat in CCD, coz such a dream has been deemed by default as null and void by none other than ur LEADER. and as ur LEADER I warn these certain midsummer night dreamers who are still continuing with the REM sleep in august, to desist from making such ignoble remarks and voicing out their unrealistic expectations. Continue being the bloodsucking leeches that u r but dont bother the group or its esteemed and great LEADER>"

Well. Most of the mallus did not understand about half of the words, used by Mr. Virility, whose occasional outbursts of anguish at having studied some 10000 English words for GRE and CAT, and still being unable to score above 99.98 percentile in vocabs in CAT, soon became evident to us. (Still, there were some really brilliant guys who achieved this landmark, and to Mr. Virility's despair; these were the chaps who had the least clue about the words that he used)

But soon, after referring to their dictionaries, the mallus understood the full implication of what Mr Virility had written.

Ok. Since he cud understand some part of what Mr. Virility had written, Gay man (isn’t it obvious? i.e. Virility and gay man?), retorted.

""Going by Mr. Gorillas in depth knowledge of the legal proceedings and his ability to infer the mental anguish of the legal parties I hereby propose the following posts
1) The judge: Mr. Balls (I hope he has seen enough illegal cases at IBM in addition to his tennis coaching abilities)
2) The lawyer defending the victim: Mr. Gorilla (with a US attached of course)
3) The victim: Mr. Conspiracy dude
4) The defendant: Mr. .F@$@k@#G Virility
5) The lawyer defending the defendant:******* vacant post... I hope the defendant will defend his devious acts himself
6) The jury: the rest of us excluding Mr. Satellite
7) the refreshment boy : Mr. Satellite (he will collect money from the defendant and arrange for refreshments to be served to one and all except Mr. Virility who shall be made to starve for his deeds)

I hope all the arrangements are to the convenience of all. My due condolences to conspiracy dude again. Cant believe he missed his class for this...our current leader is just free riding... friends, MNCs, country men.... arise. Topple the forces of capitalism and install our communist neta like a good mallu...

Mr. balls and Mr. gorilla are at liberty to disperse fines at wish over the F@#$KING S(@#(@!#$@#%^ Virility .... and proclaiming that Conspi dude has no chance in India and only abroad is a national insult to the premier institute of which he is a product...Conspi dude is from one of the best institutes in the world and he can handle anything and everything as he portrayed in the stats test scoring 25 after starting at eight on the previous night and not doing a full tutorial and the only reason he’s bunking classes is cause he knows he can still crack the end sems without mr.abrahams coaching. in fact Conspi dude can put fundaes on these topics to mr.abraham ..And mr.Virility had better mind his words and not use any unparliamentarily words

Final suggested solution: the real group leader shall be Conspi dude...and Mr. Virility shall be leader only on paper. I hope this is acceptable to all! And please fine Mr. Homo Orkuttian for proposing Mr. Virility's name as leader too!!!!!i hope the honorable IBM guy takes note of all this!

Not to be sidelined Mr. Balls rose to the occasion and proclaimed

""The MNC general body is a democratic organisation and proposing ones name for any post is acceptable within the rules and the absence of any sort or nominations or vocal support for the candidature of Mr. Conspi dude for the post of group lead during the time of nomination is not Mr. Virility’s fault.
Repeated use of FOUL language in the board by one particular member has not gone down well with most members of the MNC. Further use of such language shall lead to undesirable consequences
The CCD Treat by Mr. Virility still stands!!""

This turned out to be a landmark verdict in the Indian law history, wherein, a defendant was proclaimed innocent, but was still asked to pay for the initial crime that he had allegedly committed. It should be noted that this verdict was used as reference in many a cases which came up in future, wherein even if innocence was proved, the punishments for the alleged crimes were executed :P

This verdict required that Mr Verbal diarrheic Vitality reply and, never to be left out of an argument, he replied,

""I would like to bring to the notice of the MNC that the CCD treat is beyond my organizational responsibilities (as your L-E-A-D-E-R) and my financial capabilities. I also want to highlight the fact that it’s unfair and illogical to attempt to fleece me in such a wholly reprehensible manner! I also question the partiality and unholy motives of a particular jury member, who is influenced in such a manner that his queen of reason & morality has been dethroned in a despicable manner by 200ml of iced concoction .I exhort him to desist from such deviant workplace behavior in future. ur LEADER has to go out now, and wud reply in KIND later ''

The discussion had been moving on a singular plane till now, without much intrusion of the extra characters, when the deep rooted political moves, that were been executed by some of the sidey MNC’s were brought to the fore by Mr Gayman

""Dear MNC’s,
Mr. gorilla has mentioned something about Mrs .... Mailing out that all OH guys and gals would support the @#$@!#%$!@# Virility. i have not received this mail. So I assume miss ..... Has left me out while mailing. Mr. IBM, kindly arrange to have a fine levied for the same. and Mr. GD tiger must also be fined for sending in a one liner against me... I get the impression that all CETians are sticking up for the $!@#!$!@#% Virility... so I guess its a case of us versus them now...come on iitians, JMIT, KREC ..We need to kick some CET ass now. ""

This stunning revelation brought in several new dimensions to the ongoing debate.....
And what was coming next was completely unexpected, with Mr. Satellite chipping in with some information, which was as usual unsolicited: D

""Hey,

With Ref to - News--San dyi has approached SPCA and rumours are that he/she (confused, knowledgeable ones--leader, plz clarify) made an attempted suicide by putlaking..........matter is getting out of hands...

I am alive and kicking.......It is important that the judges seek out the rite info and not lower their prestige by making such irresponsible statements................I know this is too mild a reply...So be it.....Exercising self control that’s all......""

This put the entire court mechanism of MNC’s into a turmoil, since even Mr. Oxfart Virility found it difficult to find sense and the context of the above message.

But never needing any sense for blabbering, Mr. Gay man made a quick come back and

""Extremely sorry to have created a stereotype of all CETians... Conspi dude... we love u man!!! U rocks and reminds me of miss Sonia Gandhi in his response to the allegations made by the spiteful double-faced cunning Machiavellian Mr. Virility with his three cars (and his Bangalore contacts and his official nokia repair boy status.)

So I assume by consensus, that Conspi dude hamara neta hai!!!!

and Mr. IBM, why haven’t u fined miss....... and Mr. GD Tiger till now for not including certain members of MNC in the mailing lists...if Mr. IBM further delays i assume he will fine himself for the delay... and let us collect all the fines to go to a central pool which will fund Friday night dinners at good hotels like ONE STEP UP from now on! Man GAYMAN rocks with his awesome ideas!!! Long live GAYMAN!!!""""

And by this time, Mr. Gorilla was finding it strange that Mr. Conspi dude was not yet responding to any of these allegations and started a covert operation with an aim of finding out the present status of Conspi dude. Soon satellite imagery gave the startling discovery and Gorilla king informed MNC’s about the same

"MNC s,

Mr.Conspi dude was actually so tired after rendering his esteemed services to one half of the species, across the globe, throughout yesterday night, that he fell asleep and missed his classes. So nice of him to submit himself to the needy, the signs of a true leader, with so little concern for his well being...am in loss for words.
and now that Mr. Satellite has practiced what he preaches, he proved that CET ians r rational by coming out firmly with his support for Conspi dude....
Notice--anytime now,,,u can expect a message from our true leader,,Conspi dude...deeply agonized as he is, but still holding up the light of hope for the downtrodden half across the globe""

Might be since he cud capture the snooping rays from the spy satellites, Conspi dude woke up from his mid afternoon slumber, (differences in time zones, u see), and went through the entire arguments in horror. And soon to everyone else’s horror, reacted

""????????????????????????????????????????????
what the HELL has been happening??????????
ONE more goddamned message and all of u will be the first Indians to land on the MOON""

It was the sheer visionary nature of Conspi dudes personality that even in such a stressed out situation he was thinking of achieving an almost impossible technological feet for India, i.e. putting almost 9 people on moon simultaneously. No wonder, he was contested for being the true leader.

But again being a true leader, the dispute was settled by this message from conspi dude to Mr. Virility

""Respected Leader,
We all know that u r the most fit to lead this group which include dumbwits like "darkest" horse and "Sandy #@$%$ great" GAY man. I absolve myself of all that crap these two have been doing under my name. I really feel that u shud be the one,, and the only one who cud LEAD our group, myself hoping to free ride on ur earnest efforts. I pray to u to allow me to be ur humble servant. hoping u wud extend all encouragement in my efforts at PR with the international female student fraternity while u lead our group to victory and subsequent glory.
your's loyally
Conspi Dude''''

And that was the debate. Many interesting conversation had happened in between, but I couldn’t capture them all in my x-mail .

But had a great time in “u know where” for the last two years, and am happy that when I go out, I ll be having some pleasant memories, rather than a horrid image of a brick walled cellular jail modeled place where I found myself insignificant.

Howard Roark and Fountain head rocks….Period.

Binu, his hardworking gorillas, and their partners

2006-01-29T07:46:00.000+05:30

"Start"

"ACTION"

OHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..
WAAAAAAAAAAH.
HOW COULD U DO THIS TO ME??
THIS WAS SOOOOO CRUEL......
SOOOOO SADISTIC..

"ishtoppppppppppppppppp"

Ninan tagged me,,whatever that means i dont know...
but when i tried searching what tagging meant, i could almost identify most of the threads, the tag threads, from the openings as mentioned above..
While starting the author will somehow make it a point that this was the most unhumane thing that the guy/gal who tagged him/her, could have done.

OK.
The point i have is that, blogs became popular cause they were different, represented personal opinions, and at times, one came across one of the best, balanced opinions that one could get.

But, but, soon this gave way to a trend. A nice one, infact, where comedy came in and then (i guess sidins was the most famous, or AFAIK) there was a whirlwind of opinions, camouflaged in comic instances, thoughts etc etc.

Everyone started getting REAL.
Everybody could point at the loops and the loopholes and make a damn good, easy and fun to read story about that.
So much so that, now a days, u visit any blog, u get almost the same stuff, u take one post from one persons blog and put it into another; still no one notices the differences. Everything flows in so perfectly, so much in unison with the flow.

OK. If u ask me, whether this is a good trend or not, i dont know.
But, i guess, the mob behavior have started gaining foothold into the blogger world as well.

OK.And now as the typical blogger i mentioned above would say,
"Lets cut the gyan and come to the matter in hand"...:D
( I never said i was different, i am also a part of the above mob :D )

OK. What was the issue?
8 things i look in my partner?
oops..things??1,2,3,4,wellll....5.6...............hmmm. Can i consider the head as one or as nose, lips, eyes? :P..then that makes it 9...

ok..so lets leave "things" out.

Ok..i guess a matrimonial ad shud do..easiest way..
1) Fair
2) beautiful- yeah long hair Is a must. Ok...... inversely proportional to the next point :D
3) Loads of cash, .......OK..u r against dowry? fine with me..but u shud be the only daughter of a 60 yr old millionaire, who has already had 2 heart attacks, and have chances of the next, if a cat crosses the road , while he is sitting in the back seat of the car.(merecedes, preferably)
4) Homely- Guess it means, doesnt want to work, will do all the house hold work, etc etc
5) Educated- Yeah, shud be minimum a post graduate, but shud never even dream of working.
6) Shud be a good ceook- yah,,very very essential..well..ok..Point 3 rules supreme here also.
7) hmmmmm,,points drying out.....yeah got it...Hindu, Nair- should be a firm believer in god, but shud never ask me to do so, and shud never ask me to visit temples.
8) and yeah,,below 24 yrs of age

phew.....that was easy...
OK,,b4 binu starts cursing me and plans to have all the money in the cheque from MDI, i will write more..
i desparately need the 4 K from MDI..:(

OK..here we go..
There are things, oops,,from now on "things" mean personality traits, characteristics etc etc.
OK, so there are things i care and some that i dont, will list both

1) She (yeah, its a she, sorry gag) should be childish. I HATE females who act as if they are the epitome of sense, practicality, knowledge etc etc. Give me a brk...i am not loooking forward to be married to a counsellor. And if anyone shud take that position up, i would rather take that up.

2) Career minded. I can stand women who go for jobs, cause they might get bored at home etc etc. But i dont find career minded women very engaging. OK, and that for matter, even i might not be that career minded, that might be the reason.

3)Temperrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr--- NO NO NO....
pls dont go into hysteria every time i forget to call home, or turns up late. I dont want to live in a charged up environment, remembering democles and his hairy sword. But, But, i dont mind her getting concerned about me, in fact i would love it.

4)Intelligence- I DONT WANT TO MARRY A VERY INTELLIGENT GAL.
:D,,no, it has got nothing to do with IQ levels. its all about attitude. I would marry a gal who would read that sentence and wud say " naah, might be am not that intelligent". I wouldnt care if that one female is a Mensa member, a JEE/CAT topper or whatever.

5) Lazy, not that partying types- would love that. Dont want to spent my time after work in some discos or pubs and start using hearing aids by my 40th yr of existence. Would rather stretch myself in a cozy sofa or bed, watching TV, sipping tea/coffee etc, at my home. And when i am lazing around like this, pls dont complain than i am lazy :D

6)Cookingggggggggggggg- Should know how to cook well. Its not an MCP thing, but i anyway dont know cooking, so wud be better if she knows. and i might as well help also. But plsssss,,dont engage in "if i do this then u also shud do this" kinda stuff. If we were supposed to do the same things, y were we made differently?. so lets do those different things :D.

7)She should be able to withstand, or rather understand my possessiveness- :D
I might get extremellllllly possessive. Not that i wudnt allow her to talk to others or stuff like that. It will more or less be like how elder siblings gets possessive of their younger ones. And since moi dint have any one younger to me, it will be a tad more powerful.

8) Acceptability- In terms of education, looks, etc. But most importantly, acceptability for my family. U think this is bullshit, but once u have tread thru the path, u know that without ur parents agreeing, its a hell...a proper, well kept, oiled, burning hell. So, its better that she be acceptable in the first place.

OK. Thats it. 8 traits.
But most of them rotate around some points only.
and most of them wud qualify to be called the view points of an MCP,
but still, its my partner. right?

wow...got my password and username right ....:D

2006-01-16T22:20:00.000+05:30

Hmmmmm..

Gonna post after a loooooong time. Yeah, its 2006 in between. So its safe to say that i blogged an year back. Have put blogging as a CV point. So might as well copy paste what others have written in their blogs and show the prospective recruiters the depth and spread of my writings..

And what else? Lemme see what changed since the last post..
1) They call me B Star now..:(
P Star is the short form of P*rn star. And since accoridng to people my name featured in most of the b schools fests, they call me B star.
2) Six grade drops :D
Thats something i am proud of. Managed to get six grade drops in one sem. And i am thinking of making that also a Cv point. The conversation will go something like this.
The fat guy across the table (recruiter) - So, what happened? ur academic performances seem to be poor.
The fatter guy this side of me table (moi :D) - well. sir u know, i had this condition of my back, becasue of which i had lotsa attedance shortages and had to suffer a total of 8 grade drops. If not for those grade drops, i would have been...(stop here, with emotions welling up)

3) And yups- the visit to the ortho surgeon
The best part of my last visit to kerala. Went to see an ortho surgeon. He is what u wud call a cool dude.
Bro shows my scan reports. Cool dude glances through them, while asking bro about the latest gossips in the medical fraternity in and around kollam. And soon my scan is forgotten and me sits with a frozen smile wondering what the heck this guy is doing.
Bro realises; and ask cool dude
Cool dude asks me - ever felt u cant walk or cant move an inch?
Me- well, nothing like that, and yeah in the last sem i was in bed for a week, and couldnt move a bit.
Cool dude- and u recovered after one week right?
Me- well, yeah, i did.
Bro- he has got sensory loss in his left leg and lymphocercoma of the right ventricular collinear nerve. (hehe, gibberish, but i thot what he told sounded the same, doc speak u know ;) )
Cool dude - Thats fine. You still can feel ur left leg no?
Me- yeah, i can feel my left leg, its all right.
And now cool dude makes the statement.
Cool dude- Its all right. operation is outta question now. either u lose alll sensations in ur left leg, or u cant move a bit, then we ll do the operation.
Me- wow, so, u mean i can go on till i dont feel my left leg and then come limping on my right leg to the operation theatre? (dint ask this bit though)

So, thats my future, now i should wait for my left leg to hang like a paavakka :D...
But in retrospect cool dude seems to have made the right decision. Even i would rather prolong the time to let the metal pierce my skin :((

and soon to come ... The modern Yossarian.....

CATCH 22 Revisited :D
Till then
Byez

Pujas in Cal- But what am i doing in Manali?

2005-10-30T00:35:00.000+05:30

Had a wonderful idea. what about outsourcing blogging? In fact, I am. Say, the line will go like this

"Guys. wanna know about my manali trip?. telling u , it was cool. Just click here . er, well ,just change the name from Binu to siva, I was also there u see. :D"

Ok. and there goes my manali trip. but, ohh, he hasnt put up any pictures huh? ok. will take u through that also, without revealing identities ofcourse :D. there should be some innovation right?

OK...here we go...

First, the train journey from Cal to delhi....
Initially it was all soooo peaceful. Empty seats, passing landscape, wow, Enchanting North India.

But the honeymoon ended very soon. And tragically i should say. In an hour, the train got filled. And yeah, the picture below is of that of a sleeper class compartment and in fact at times, a child was sleeping beneath my seat, with 4 people other than us (myself and binu), the poor passengers who paid for the seat, sitting. Hmm, silence and patience are virtues u learn to appreciate, especially when one is in the land of the Lalloos and Mulayams.

And yeah, the TTI came, and checked OUR tickets and went. Wow, democracy, i love this (tears in my eyes).

Now comes MDI........

Well, i never thought management education in India have stooped to this levels. But when we got two prizes and lifted the "Trophy for the best b-school award". (ahem, 2nd best, infact according to MDI and since they gave me two CV points and more importantly because my prize money cheque is yet to arrive, I ll agree to whatever they say), i was pretty sure of the bottomless pit that the management education have fallen to. :P.

The Trip to Manali--- OK..we had enuff experiences with rural India, Swades style, that we decided that was worth a lifetime and decided never to relive that wonderful (er!!) experience. So off we went to Manali on a Volvo Sleeper. too good a trip. Except that when the bus started climbing hills, at each hairpin, i felt as if i wud break the glass and be thrown out and so i clutched on to the small handle they have provided, with all my dear life. Anyways, wherever i go i believe in being one with nature and contribue in some way or the other to it. I guess the pic effectively captures my philospohy :P

And we reached Manali, safe and sound, me feeling gr8 after fulfilling my responsibilities to nature and off we went along the bank of beas in search of a hotel. And soon found one with this awesome view.

That evening itself went to Solang valley in an Alto. But by the time we reached, it was pretty dark and since i felt that if the lights went down further, it would be really difficult for my friends to figure me out (was in a serious mood, u see, so no smile either :)) ), we returned back to manali.
Had dinner in a Tibetan restaurant, got some spirit, and had a riot with blojoe and ninan, testing the limits of their imagination.

OK...day 2, Rohtang pass. have to see snow. Snow to a mallu is like beach to a kashmiri or delhite. :D. so snow comes real high in our priority list.And off we went to Rohtang in that tiny Alto, through cliff edges (left-down), river beds (right-down)

And through steeper cliffs (oops), and dodging trucks whose tyres defined the edge of the cliff

And soon the traffic stopped,and we were covered with snow. BUT, BUT, still i continued my contribution :P. And we climbed the mountain, er, snow

Had boiled eggs and tea at the snow point,and well, for a change in that pic its me giving the Rs 100 note. :D. And frozen numb, we started back

On our way back we also visited the worlds highest Pizza hut (literally :P) and the tibetan monastery in Manali.
The night fell, we made some small shopping, had food, had apple juice :P , some more spirit (oops, not the motor one), and crashed. The next day, plans were made to make a trip to Naggar. And of we went to the Naggar castle. Amazing and awesome , if both could be combined to form one word, thats Naggar. Had lunch, in one of the most scenic locations in the country, and who cares about the cost (ahem, well, exagerration, we did, infact ) . And after Naggar, it was time for us to go back. Back to delhi, by a bus which can proudly stake its claim to be the bumpiest and from there to cal by Rajadhani. Contrasts, did anyone say!!!

Vision- Eradicate blindness, Visionary- With crippled fingers, The mission- Aravind

2005-10-23T20:33:00.000+05:30

Coming from that part of the country, famous for its red movements, (read- Communism, mumbaites may get some other ideas), and as a result of been brought up primarily in a rural setting, the idea of communism was always a big hit with me. Eventhough i made n number of forays to various books and magazines hoping to get a hold of what marx had written, i never quite got the hang of it. Years later, exposure to banglore and the hedonistic cultures of various metros (hypocrite in action here, i LOVED those cultures), made me cut down on the rhetoric for society and socialism. And then came Calcutta.

One of the biggest contributions from my insti in calcutta was that it made me believe in what i stood for. It encouraged me to believe that whatever ideals i had, they can co-exist with all others in the world, and that i can still find my own,personal space in world, where i can feel like a king. So, West Bengal , the visit to the slums as part of the first yr INCA project (made a decision that i wud go back and give some gifts t those little children in those slums, but as usual, never happened), and mebbe the eco profs (an awesome lot, was soooo much awed by them that i barely managed to pass all three eco courses, verdict- Economics is not yet a completely developed science....:D, reason- How can I go wrong in economics....? ) made me look back again at socialism...but there was a diffference this time, i wanted to make money also. I wanted my social venture to be as damn profitable as any bloody MNC run by the dollar hungry bastards, that we MBA's are. And then i stumbled upon Aravind eye care.

One man, sometime in 1976, somewhere in South India (for the effect, i know damn well it's in Madurai), had a vision- To provide eye sight to all. But, he had crippled fingers, a rare form of rheumatic arthritis, robbed his fingers and body of its dexterity,and he dint have funds, Yet, yet, yet........he believed he cud setup procedures and systems in place, so that he will be able to sell his service (cataract surgeries), just like Mcdonalds sell hamburgers. Vision-visionary, one as magnanimous as it can get, and the other as simple as one can get.

The crippled hands, propelled by the power of the vision, went on to perform about a 100 thousand cataract surgeries. And in the course, mobilised an entire family, of professionals, who could have been earning in dollars or whatever, to work for the vision. And the result was Aravind,as we see today.

Business? yeah....some pointers
profitability- 40%, now beat that,
CAGR- 35% over some three decades, any challengers?
Quality- they beat the british medical system in infections per patients.(6 /10k in britain Vs 4/10k people, for aravind)

And this saturday morning, the man stood there, in the podium, to make the presentation- NO, it was not the visionary, but someone who did as much as the visionary himself to propagate the cause- R.D Thyagarajan, an IIM Calcutta MBA, who went back to Aravind, from a promising corporate career. A quintessential simpleton (hope its not an oxymoron, weak with english u see), he stood there, made the presentation, no jazzy usages, answered were well thought, and never tried to hog the lime lite. Maybe this comes from having that feeling of confidence and superiroty, of having done something, which very few others can stake a claim to have done.

And in the end he showed the 40 minute video, which was again simple, yet powerful. Thats when i noticed those fingers, the fingers which performed the mission, he was not able to say a proper "namaste" with those fingers, since they were crippled, Yet,

Inspiring, amazing, etc etc......

hope one day, i too will be able to do something like that, even if not something as stupendous, but still...
and then i ll sit in that corner of the world, and grin like a fool, for i know that i have done my part.....

~signing off.....
Stupidus, maximus idealogical.....

Stupidus- the history

2005-09-30T18:07:00.000+05:30

How long can the powers that be relegate Stupidus to those parts of the country that are least important one way or the other? Lets see the places i have been to till now..

Schooling- till 7th- Kaithakuzhy (slight modifications to the pronounciation will make the word mean "the donkey pit"...oooops..did i leave a clue?)

then till 10th- Sabarigiri- wow...giri means Peak---that was some climb i guess, from a pit to a peak.....and i suddenly found out that from being 2 nd last in class i can jump to 2nd rank..err .from the top that is. That was the first of a series of shocks that i wud give to my folks,friends and well,,everyone who had the privilege to get in touch with me. :P

OK.....in school also i did something quite interesting. well not so interesting for the school headmaster ( someone i respect very very much ) and the principal (no comments). U see.. in my immediate senior batch, our school picked up a state rank. And as fate wud have it, in my batch, the school decided to train me as the prospective rank for the year. Sigh....everything went fine till the model tests, where i came first, and then came the study leave...And for your info, the cricket world cup was exactly in the same slot....the rest is history, i performed exceptionally well (or so i believed) to come a glorious second in my class. Yeah.....u read it right "second" and the day i went to get certi had an earful from my headmaster, in front of a considerably well read and educated (read my batchmates and their parents :O) public.

Phew,,,,,and then the wounded tiger (lets leave the elephant for later epidoses) came to the state capital....all determined to crack the entrance exams. Got into Mar Ivanios, fixed tuitions with some well known professors and everything seemed picture perfect. But again two things happened. First stay in a hostel and the babes in Mar Ivanios.......needless to say, i just saved my ass in ivanios.

and the entrance exams...well..i never believed in tuitions u know, and the entrance exams almost made me believe in them...what with me fetching such fanciful numbers like 8882 and 6662 etc...hmmmmm...sad

but there came Karnataka and there was this one tiny name in the counselling board, with automobile written against it. and i jumped in right away. Little did i know that the college is one of the biggest not because of its infra but because of the sanctuary like campus (land was available almost at free u see), and that its located some 200 kms from banglore......little said about the shock the better...and yeah, the awe never happened..it was just shock after shock..:P

anyway, i believe in being the underdog (still do), and off i went to chitradurga, all determined again, to rock the world of automobiles.. But in midst of all those rocks( really,,,its damn rocky a terrain) and the windmills (bastards, no wonder the place is soo windy, y the heck did they have to put up sooo many fans) i started dreaming. And two years down th line, suddenly woke upto find that am 2nd last in the class..ooooops

and the wonder happened again, a sudden jump from 2nd last to topper. It surprised every one soo much so that one prof was found scolding the "previous" topper that the topper is damn lazy in his studies for people like me to get the position. :D.......impressions i guess...

well, u know, to be an underdog u need to have some handicap, and i worked really hard to be one again..quite successfully i should say, and managed to flunk in a subject the very next term. that made the profs really happy ( only one i shud say).

and then it was pretty much the same story- the exercycle, the stint with popular etc for some 2 yrs, and then suddenly the CAT result in everyones face. The shock was so much so that i guess many of my relatives and contacts have given up writing cat :P...ok,,but that is an entirely different story,will dwell deep into it sometime else.

Hmmm,,,so conclusion?. i guess it has been predictable in many ways but unpredictable in several other ways. predictable in the general trend- school, engg, job, mba etc...
unpredictable within these boundaries,,wow....predictably unpredictable???

and all the time i went to a new place,,had lots of hopes...tvm, then bangalore and then cal..but ...saaaaadly..they were trumpled :(.....

In trivandrum ivanios was on the way home,so the city never happened, In durga, Bangalore was on the way home ..fine..but it was far too distant ...that left me with the rocks, the fort and the windmills (but it did give me some friends...some frickin'ly awesome friendships, bastards, all of us were, but still the bestest of friends ) . And infact the wound was deepened by the tantalising sights of bangalore on my way back hom :((.

And then calcutta, came here after seeing yuva...boyyyy............. charged up to change the world...and the city instantly transported me back some two decades. Now i know what time travel is :P

so, till now the hedonistic (smirk smirk) urbane civilisations have managed to escape Stupidus. Not any longer....muahaha.....( god {am an agnostic,,but for this i ll call any god and offer anything} pleaseeeeeeeeee dont send me to mongolia or inner china or easter n siberia on my assignment )

hmmm,,whatever,,dont think any of the above makes any sense...but that is what stupidus is supposed to be, right?

Signing off------
Stupidus Maximus, 35 kms and lightyears away from modern civilization

Stupidus on vacation

2005-09-19T01:12:00.000+05:30

phew...
i know it....
i know that unless i write some crap out here now,,,this moment,am never gonna blog again.
been almost a month since my first and latest blog.

so what have i done since then?
a trip back to kerala, stay at home for 2 weeks, and memorable( too brave to write fearsome) stay inside an mri scan machine for some 30 minutes, a forgettable experience( really,,it was..:() in an X-ray machine, then that apocalyptic warning from the doctor,who in some 5 minutes turned everything upside down for me.
hmm,,quite interesting,
well it was -for me...

ok, the trip back to kerala. ever since deccan made flying simple, i had taken quite a few flights.
this time also, it was deccan, and they lived upto their name, by delaying the flite by about 4-5 hours. that meant i reached chennai at about 4, with the group of 4. Nothing special in chennai, except that i found people take a great fancy in feeding me, and i find it sooo easy to relent.

u see, i cant say no to people..:D..
and one attempt at locating the uti atm and the relatives jumped upon the opportunity to pay for all my expenses...woww...wowwoww...now i know that i need to take care of only my expenses till chennai..:P.

was mighty impressed with the loyalty and work ethics of tamilians. my love for everything tamil increased even more, and then the journey back home in bus..Man, the scenary when the bus passes through tirunelveli is awesssome...felt like am back in chitradurga, with the mountains all around and the windmills being silent spectators.

and finally at home, as soon as i reached home,went to hospital to fetch mom. that meant a trip to kayamkulam to grandmom's house. again, she said i have grown fat, but when i refused food, changed her views..aaha.. suddenly it became u shud eat to maintain health.

and then it started, the food fest at home...ohh my god...i had allll the dishes i wud ever think of...too good. then about one week of general vellapanthi.
put on lotssss of weight
and then the final visit to brother's senior surgeon at VSM hospital mavelikkara.
The doctor has a nice way of saying things. started of with questions such as how big is calcutta, as big as bombay?.r all building old etc etc.

and then the chit for mri scan. MRI is a funny machine.Magnetic resonance,,a very heavy magnetic field will be passed through your body,which will oscillate and fluctuate the polarisation of water molecules. Thus, it means that if u have some metal implants, it will simply come out. Not sure if this is just one of the stories, but this is what i heard.

so, the greatest worry i had was,,what if some small iron pellet had went inside my stomach, or inside my eye during those unprotected welding operations?...wow..interesting, so hoping for the best of humanity (remember, stupidus is the gr8 leader), went inside the machine, only to hear some strange noises inside. And then the most boring 30 minutes of my life inside that machine.
Anyway, humanity was saved and i came out unscathed.

and then i saw the report. ok ,nothing pathbreaking, but now i know y i never became the 6 footer, that eluding one inch,,it was supposed to be there,but fate and my disc decided otherwise.

err, that reminds me of the experience in that x-ray machine. i know i am fat, but never thought that i was as fat to make the operator try thrice to get a decent enough x-ray. :D
well, to the unsuspecting onlookers i told , some trouble with the voltage, but the operator knew the truth, which was soon splashed across the hospital.

and with these results i went to see the doctor , who in a very jovial mood told me to take a bedrest, and even advised me the one and only one position i should lie....
phew........that was some shock..
anyways, doctors can say that, somewhere have read that human body has a factor of safety of 4 or above. ie u actually can survive with much less capabilities. Lets see if i can prolong the surgery, which according to the doctor was the only remedy.

so, off i go on a six month challenge, and every moment defying a medical advise.
hope it doesnt do much harm.
phew,,am gonna post this...hope i return back soon enuff with the next post.....

My name is Maximus, Maximus Stupidus

2005-08-27T10:22:00.000+05:30

The crowd all around were cheering. They were amazed, inspired, and awestruck by my sheer brilliance. In all their lives, they have never seen and will probably never see a man as great, as knowledgeable, as magnanimous, as gracious, as brilliant, as profound, as me.

For I lead them, lead that small bunch of hapless men, through fearsome fires and storms, through ambushes and tragedies. And here they were, looking upto me to rise once again, as their leader, the one force they believed in.

And here we were, in the midst of an infinite mass of humanity, standing up against the dark forces that pervaded, that ruled planet earth.

It was time for me to rise higher up, to take up that role, which will change the face of earth in the future.

And then I turned back, to face those dark forces.

Slowly,slowly, eyes to the ground......

Then came my moment........

Ever so slowly I raised my eyes and met their gaze, the cold, steely gaze of the dark forces and held them steady. Then, I removed that mask which I had kept on for my life, the one that had shielded me life long.

And said- " My name is Maximus, Maximus Stupidus. Commander of the .........................."