Of bikes and barrels...oh well, just the bikes...

Finally I had one weekend which I can really call well-spent. It's not that there was something extraordinary to do in this site of hermitage, which the believers call IIMK. However, will finds a way, or so I believe. As per the heavy duty schedule that we have been having recently, we had classes on Saturday, as well. We got off early, though and decided to go for an outing, some outing...any outing. There were plans to go for a trek on Sunday to Wayanad, supposed to be a beautiful place, and a trekker's paradise, too. Initially, I thought that I will join the group but when I heard of their plans to start at three in the morning, my instinctive self made me back off instinctively and instantaneously.

With the trek standing cancelled, I had to do something, go out somewhere...and the bike came to the rescue. My poor fatfatiya has been rusting away to glory in the shed of what is called the substation (!!!). Every morning, just before I leave for the classes, I have a look at the machine and let out a sigh...this one instinctive, too. On Saturday, the resolve was firm...the sigh is not enough :-). We started at about six in the evening with the intention of doing some city scaling, getting some stuff (I wanted some posters from the Archies' Gallery to cover up the glass panes of the door and window to the balcony), and then having dinner at some nice (read non-Southie) place.

For people who have not experienced it earlier, riding a bike on Calicut roads...or perhaps I should rephrase it as the roads joining Calicut to IIMK...is actually very soothing and at the same time exciting like hell. At one end, you have the coconut trees flanking you on both the sides, mild breeze blowing against your hair, and even rain drops making their presence felt in the form of drizzles and even bursts. If you thought that this is a relaxed picture of bliss that is emerging, I am extremely sorry for having to break the glass...because on the second end, you have the bus drivers of Calicut, who do not consider themselves any inferior, when compared to the likes of Schumacher...no, not inferior at all, not even for a nanosecond.

Also, just like the F1 cars do not have horns (I am not sure but I think that they don't), Calicut bus drivers make it a point (honorable intention, I must say, of not disturbing the biker's luxurious bliss) not to blow away the horn at the poor biker going at a speed of 50-60 compared to the bus screaming down at over 80 kmph. Rather, the bus drivers assume the blowing away to mean something else...and instead of the horn, if it is something else that is blown away, all the better...at least, the task of blowing away is done...ends justify the means, what??? Somehow, they asume that the person in front...or back for that matter...will have sense enough to get out of the way...if he doesn't, too bad for him...end of story.

So it was, that braving all odds of survival, we reached the city, went to a lot of places, discovered many one-way streets which made us lose our way back, and most importantly found that Calicut (yes, talking about Calicut here, listen, all ye first year IIMK-ites) has many branded apparel retailers. We could see Lee, Scullers, Arrow, Basics and many more...
Archies' Gallery was a major let-down, though...hardly any choice and expectedly, too...few takers for posters in this city, I guess. I had to do with a teenie-weenie poster that declares...Stay Cool...instead of some good life-sized ones I was looking for to fill up the glassy space (black and white Madhubala would have been nice).

We (that is Ravi, Abhijit, and yours truly) had dinner at a place called Mezbaan, which as one of the seniors told us, is usually patronized by the IIM junta. The food was good and especially the 'balti' approach of serving food reminded me of 'Quality Riveira' in Chennai. Another group from the IIM came in while we were there...the gang was a senior gang, also out on the Saturday to have fun, I am sure...

We rushed back to the campus after dinner to be in time for Garfiled, the public screening of which, mask-e-raid, the fun group at IIMK, had promised. It was not to be, however, and we ended up with a not-so-public screening of Shrek2, which could hold my attention for hardly half an hour. Also, since I had so many things lined up for Sunday (so many presentations for the various interest groups, for instance), I decided to call it an early night so that I am wide awake on Sunday morning.

I did get up quite early...at about eight...not because I had decided to start at the work but because Bikes Part 2 was still to be. Abhijit's bike was supposed to come from Delhi by Mangala Express and the train was about to reach here by 9:30. Having heard stories about the bike not getting unloaded here at Calicut and going to a further destination instead, we wanted to be there at the platform when the train arrives. The route to the railway station was pretty straight...at least, that is what I remembered from my only visit to the place (when I landed up in Calicut for the first time). However, it so turned out that we had to cover nearly 25 kilometres to reach a place that was only 15 kms away. In the process, we lost on time and subsequently on the bike, as well, which actually went ahead to Ernakulam from where it is expected back anytime within 1 day to 1 month. What I personally gained from the futile exercise was a headache and a full day subsequent sleeping schedule which left me with no time to do anything else.

I had been feeling pretty unenthusiastic (read, dull and uninspired) since the morning and things got worse with the stupid test that we had to take for Prof. Gopal Chowdhry's Quant class. The test could have been cleared...no, not just cleared...maxed by any 6th standard student and giving so much time to CAT qualifiers for the 'open book' test was really too much. Things improved a little in the Managerial Communication class when we had to do a couple of role plays that, though repetitive of what I had already done at Infy, turned out to be an okay time pass.

The very next target after the communication class was the project briefing we were scheduled to get from Prof Panda. Our group has planned to do a marketing project on ITC, and their Wills Sport unit will be our specific focus. Before going in to Prof. Panda's room, I had no idea of what I was expected to do in this project...after coming out of his room, I still have no idea about the thing...the only diffrence being that now, I am much more educated (yes, this one is a jargon, for all you know). The amount of research that is expected of the team in this project, if properly done, will put any marketing research firm to shame. I do not know how much of it is possible but if done, I think that this is going to be a good learning...much better than the now-stale jokes of Prof Panda.