My squirrel is fairer than yours

It's that time of the year again as the squirrel gets its share of heat and the war beckons all and sundry warriors whose swords and shields had come close to be declared out of service. Yes, the time is ripe once again for the famous Squirrel wars of IIMK (comes as a sequel to OCS wars, the multistarrer superhit caper that had audiences gasping for breath and rooting for more). The best part about these wars is that they are started by the most unexpected of people on the most trivial of issues (or even if the issues are not trivial...have to say this or I run the danger of being hanged till the next squirrel war...the treatment of the issues definitely is :-)). This time around, it is all about the access...access to what, you may ask...well, of all the things on this universe, the war is about access to the information about the incoming batch at IIMK.

Points are being raised about inadequacy of information preventing people from approaching prospective juniors to make them more aware about the institute and attract the best of the lot towards IIMK. Personally, I feel that it is more to do with getting the email id, yahoo id or phone number of whatever few girls there are in the coming batch. More than anything else (this is not an all pervasive statement...excludes the really serious will-do-anything-for-the-insti sorts), people are more interested in how soon they can make a pass at the fairer one-twentieth of the batch (or is it even less this time?). With the Student Council members wisely restricting the yahoo group (made exclusively for the doubt clearing for juniors) membership, nearly a dozen feathers were ruffled yesterday and I am sure that the mail box is going to be witness to a few more ruffled feathers before long...the SCon reply is yet to come, too...it is going to be fun and for a change, I shall have something to look forward to in the day. :-)

On a more serious note, I believe that IIMK has a lot many things going for it and we do not really need to bother too much about always keeping the sunny side up. Of course, we are the brand ambassadors of the institute as of now, and if the incoming batch (whether the particular person joins IIMK or not) has any doubt about the institute, it is our duty to clear the same...to go out of our way to attract people is perhaps, in my humble opinion, not something that any of us are going to need to do in the conventional sense but when it comes to war, there is nothing that is unfair...or conventional.

With even well-established institutes like IIMC and IIMB doing it, we, being backed up by some really good things to market (our small batch size, our campus and infrastructure, to name a few), can always take the aggressive route and market ourselves well because obviously, it is the students and future alumni who are going to shape the destiny of any educational institute. It goes without saying, of course, that aggressive marketing does not mean telling lies about your product (and in effect, being insensitive to the career plans of people, as in this case) because in the long run, it is the product attributes that are going to sell and not the catchy slogans. All that is needed is to prevent misinformation, ensure information and the rest should follow.

Talking about the students of IIMK, I and Sandipan went to IMS yesterday to play our role in the crusade and talked to the center manager there. It seems that we will be able to get a list of people with K calls and who are likely to have calls from no other higher IIMs...contacting them and arranging an informal meet with them should help. We also had a meeting arranged yesterday with a few seniors (three of them, in fact...Gautam, Pralay and Rupam) and one person of the incoming batch. I can't really call him a junior and once you get to know his profile, you will know why not. An MBBS of the batch of 1996, two years spent doing something in radiology...joined Civil Services in 1998...placed in BSNL right now with a work experience of six years to boot. And so it was that Mrs. and Dr. Jaidev Rajpal were with us as we made our entry to the pub, Someplace Else, at Park Street. This place has a nice lounge bar kind of ambience and is ideal for a little, though expensive, chit-chat. The happy hour allowed us (or should I say, the three seniors) to get away without a serious dent in their wallets...or at least, not too serious :-)

With my long-suppressed desire of having a pizza (it had been ages since I last had a pizza, what with Calicut being such a modern city and all that) coming up at just the right moment (with the seniors subtly hinting that we should foot the dinner bill and we knowing that it will never happen), we went to the now-famous 22, Camac Street. The place being deserted at the time, I did not really carry back the first-timer's fascination with the environs that I had heard about from many first-timers to the place, but the oldest Pizza Hut in Kolkata did not disappoint. A huge place with some colorful decor and more colorful people (by the way, people at Someplace Else were colorful, too and despite Mrs Jaidev bringing some decency to the rogues' group that we were, most of the guys in the group still feasted their eyes on the absolutely obscene and over-the-top skin show), Pizza Hut was good and the pizzas even better.

With a full stomach and a good dinner conversation, I was in for another late entry into the PG. This time, I made the journey from Camac Street to Park Circus in a cab (charged me a bit more than it should have, I guess) and from there to Salt Lake in a shared shuttle van. I must say that Kolkata streets and the vehicles that ply on them are unique...different from any other place in the country. In no other city would you find tram lines intersecting the roads (even the most posh and famous of them) right across and giving a roller-coaster ride to the people sitting in the taxis, cars, scooters and three wheelers. Talking of three wheelers, I feel that it is a sacred and unwritten code for the three wheelers in the city to have as non-existent brakes as possible. I mean, I have had my share of loose brakes in my own motorbike a number of times, but the three wheelers of Kolkata beat me hands down on any given day...scares me stiff especially when they come near a signal at top speed and have to swerve in all possible (and impossible) directions to avoid a major accident and loss of limb (my limb, that is...since I mostly get the front seat...the privileged one, right besides the driver).

Once inside the PG, there was the serious choice that I had to make between a movie and sleep and I am glad that I made the right choice, what with the busy schedule that I have been having at work for the past few days. "When Harry met Sally", the "inspiration" of Hum Tum, and one of the defining romantic movies of Hollywood, was worth the one and a half hours that I spent on it last night. With Meg Ryan looking a million bucks and Billy Crystal making the picture complete with his often-dazed and expressionless expressions, the movie was good. I specially liked the parts where couples kept talking about their experiences between scenes and then the movie subsequently showing Harry's and Sally's lives as being so different from those experiences. 12 years and 2 months...don't know if I will be able to wait that long for anybody or for that matter, if any body will wait that long (or wait at all) for me...but then again, a good story...touches the heart strings some what.

No work seems to be coming my way this week and with the salary processing date coming close, my guide (and the entire HR department) is still busy...I wonder if I will get to leave for Patna tomorrow. If I do, it is good bye to the blog for three days...should be making an update on Monday with the Patna experiences and in all probability, a review of Kaal (the movie releases this Friday and my cousin is hell bent on making one of the first few shows...on my sponsorship, of course :-( )

On the wrong tracks

Rarely do I come to overtly criticizing a movie and considering the efforts that go into making a movie and more importantly, into making a movie palatable for the viewers of a country as diverse as ours, I justify myself and my afore-mentioned actions. However, Mumbai Express derailed me like no other movie had for quite some time. As far as I can remember, the last comparable movie which I had to struggle to complete was some caper with Preity Zinta and Venkatesh, some absolutely forgettable movie which, I am sure, does not even figure in Zinta's filmography.

I was just thinking about Kamal Haasan's language problems the other day but did not realize that even after solving those to a certain extent, he will still be plagued by problems...the ones of obesity and absolute lack of interest in the proceedings being just a few of them. The puffy face does little to help the apathy with which Kamal goes about playing Mumbai Express (that's what he is called in the movie, for those who have not even bothered to see the trailors on television) and the absolutely insincere attempts at comedy that are spread across the movie. I don't know if Kamal tried to re-create the Pushkar magic by going deaf in the movie but unfortunately, the viewers were not deaf and dumb enough to like the movie, which has been reflected in the movie's fate at the box office.

Quite a lot about the movie...on to more important things now...like work, or the absolute lack of it. It has been two whole days since I did anything substantial (in fact, four if you count the weekend) and I am getting kind of concerned about the project. There are only two other trainees who are doing anything worth the salt at all. Anirban from IIML, after a false start with some highly technical XBRL project, has moved into hardcore finance, something he is finding difficult but interesting. Sivaram from IIMC has started going to the client site with PwC consultants (am not sure what he does there). For the rest, it is the same story as mine and though they try to busy themselves but for most of the day, they do end up trying to find ways and means of taking yet another break.

Anurag came back to PG after two days and contrary to our expectations (or darkest fears, if you like to call them), he did not end up in becoming a model, what with the fashion show that he was busy choreographing at his college, IIIT. With the electricity doing another vanishing act (second time in two days and I thought Salt Lake was a posh locality), the entire PG gang was up on the terrace and of course, Anurag, Asif, Anand, Abhinav (funny how I know so many people whose names start with A), Rajiv, and myself were up there too. Apart from the cool breeze that gave respite from the Kolkata heat, the only other point of grace was a small game (not too small...lasted for about an hour) of I-can-laugh-more-hysterically-than-you-and-can-be-more-scary-in-the-darkness with people on the terrace of the neighboring house (two of the voices...in fact, the loudest ones, were of the foreigner couple residing in that building). It was good fun for as long as it lasted and before we were forced back into our rooms by the power coming back, for the torture that Mumbai Express was about to inflict on our poor rails...oops, souls.

I simply must get some action today at work or else, I will be too rusty for any work this week. I am planning to go to Patna for the weekend to see my cousin, Shanu on his birthday and I just hope that all the pending work does not come knocking at the wrong moment.

Language lessons in the jhups

With the HSBC form-filling occupying most of the day and attention of my project guide, I was left with not much to do on an even otherwise lazy and extremely sweaty Monday. In fact, the Kolkata weather has been showing signs of going beyond any hope of redemption and if this is going to continue or worsen any further, all my wet bed covers and night clothes are surely going to take their toll on me and my early morning blues.

Also, the number of breaks that the gang of summer trainees take have been increasing in proportion to the heat. With Aditya back (he had to miss a few days due to some back pain problems) in action, we had another mind to think of ways and means to escape from the often dreary schedule of many. We had come up with the soup break on Friday apart from our regular Singhara break at the neighboring jhups (as Sandipan likes to call them). Monday saw the birth of the tea and sutta break which happens just outside the back gates of the office at a very shady looking tea stall that has more used tea leaves and empty egg shells than perhaps space for the stall owner to sit.

With Anurag missing from the PG for the second day in a row, I could not get to the CD shop for my quota of the day but I did make full use of my movie time by digging into the reserves and taking out the copy of Saagar that I had so painstakingly ripped from a DVD. I must say that I had thought so little of lingual differences in the past that this movie sort of re-opened my eyes. An allegedly (???) fine actor like Kamal Haasan was reduced to a caricature in this movie just because he was not able to pronounce his dialogues with as much ease as perhaps a decent, yet limited by his talent, Rishi Kapoor could. The sentimental scenes that might have impressed me when I was naiver actually made me laugh this time because I could relate to the difficulties that Kamal was having in expressing the emotions in a way that he was not used to doing. In my little time at Chennai and now at Calicut, I have seen similar things happening to myself and my friends and I can guess how comical we appear while trying to test our new found linguistic skills.

The guitar practice did start but the first day disappointed. I could not get the hang of what the instructor wanted me to do. I guess these are just initial exercises and the first few days are going to be a bit tough, anyways...got to persevere.

As another morning beckons, I realize that it is going to be a Tuesday with an empty stomach, a razor sharp morning and afternoon and a diametrically opposite and inefficient evening and night. Ideally, I would like this day to be relatively a little more productive, what with two things requiring my immediate attention in the project...an interview with the payroll staff and another with the appraisal people to get the details on the only two processes that I have not yet been able to chart out. Work ho!

Of dates, strings, and generous hosts

Life has come a full circle. It seems as if I am back in the Infosys days, looking forward to weekends and finishing off the Friday work as fast as possible. In fact, I used to be surprised at my own capacity to do work on Fridays in those days and that is something that surprised me this Friday, too. I finished off almost the entire presentation that is due for next week and that, too well in time to go back to the PG at 6, with quite a few suggestions on how to make the best of my weekend.

The remaining part of Friday was spent without doing much that can be counted. Most of the time went into trying to find if there was anything worth transferring from Anurag's laptop into my own...I did find some good songs and a few utility software applications but nothing worth the salt...well...till of course, I came across Super Mario...quite a good attempt at re-creating the original, this one made me all nostalgic and made sure that Friday night was real late.

As is evident from the late Friday night, there was hardly anything that could have got me up on Saturday at any time before 11. And so it was that Saturday was spent sleeping but for the date that everyone has been teasing me about.

The fact first: my project guide (who is, by the way, in her mid thirties and mother of a kid who studies in Grade 5) was kind enough to invite me out for lunch so that I do not bore myself stiff as on the last weekend.

The fiction: my good friends here, who have a lot of free time from their summer training at this company (the pack leader being Sandipan), have been making it sound like the date of the century with the story of Murder being re-written and my being lucky and what not...for God's sake, she is as good as my aunt and had asked me out in that sense, too but what the hell...tongues won't stop wagging...no, not even in this case.

Anyways, Saturday lunch it was to be and as I stood at Karunamoyee waiting for her car, Sunita, my project guide (or sub-guide, if you prefer) came along with her mother and uncle in an Esteem and picked me up for what later turned out to be a decent evening. We went to a place called Swabhumi which has been created as an amalgamation of markets in the traditional Indian style. Rajasthani craft, Delhi's Meena Bazaar and a lot of other traditional markets of India were replicated in Swabhumi, the place also carrying within itself, an open air theatre (which, fortunately, was playing some good Hinglish theatre when we went there and I spent quite some time watching the play, rather regardless of the three other people with me but then, theatre does that to me).

We had some light lunch (it was too hot for anything else) and then made a move to Sunita's maternal home, a house, which she told me, was 150 years old. The typical Bengali decor, the typical Bengali atmosphere, and the typical Bengali people and their hospitality greeted me as I got to comparing the house with my own at Buxar (which must be close to 150 as well if ages are considered). However, the two houses are as alike as they are different. With artificial ceilings and damp interiors being common, the houses were different in the way they were lived in, each speaking volumes about the generations that have made the place their home for all these years.

The evening out with Sunita ended with some Luchi (I confused it with Leechi and agreed to it as soon as she asked me...it actually turned out to be pooris) and simple Aloo curry with sweets...a second lunch but then again, by that time, a lot of water had passed under the bridge and I was feeling that I had started sharing a decent rapport with Sunita and her family with jokes, confidences being shared and the atmosphere being pretty informal.

As I moved out of her place to go on to the metro station at Jatin Das Park, came the event of the weekend. I got down at MG Road and called up Arnav to find out the location of the guitar shop that he was supposed to take me to. With him being busy on the weekends and the weekdays being too full to take time out before the shops close their shutters, I decided that it was time that I took the matters in my hands and that is what I did. I took a taxi down to the place near Park Street that Arnav told me about and after two closed shops, I came to this place that deals specifically in guitars and with Arnav on the phone to help me out, I got myself an accoustic Hobner Guitar. I hope to make the best of my stay here and the relatively free time that I have to get an entry into this instrument and the rest, of course, is going to be shaped by further efforts and regular practice.

Sunday was not without its own share of events, either. With Asif making his entry into the PG (on the fourth and the last empty bed in our room), I had some good time talking to him and more than that, listening to him speak about his struggles since his father passed away and how he made it to Wipro after a long list of efforts unrewarded and failures unwarranted. In the meanwhile, Rajesh and Sandipan called me up to fix an evening out. With both of them in two opposite corners of the city, I had to choose between them and I chose to go out with Sandipan as that meant being able to meet the IIMK seniors who might not be available the next time. I just hope that Rajesh understood and did not take it the wrong way.

Finally, when I did go out to Park Street, a second time over the weekend, there were no IIMK seniors (too busy doing nothing, I guess) but instead Sandipan's girl friend and his friend/ex-colleague with his girl friend. As I made my way into Magnolia (a decent eat, by the way...close to Barista's..opposite The Park Hotel), I wondered if I will be the odd one out but as it turned out, the evening was just right...with food and drinks on Sandipan's friend (he said that I was a guest and was not supposed to pay the first time...good chap, that...I liked him from there on...two generous hosts in two days, I must be getting lucky) and conversation flowing too (at times in Bengali but then I have begun to get some hang of it, anyways), I had a decent time.

Today should not be too hectic because generally Mondays at job are spent procrastinating and in all probability, apart from doing the needful, I shall be doing the same...procrastinating, that is. Also, too many days have gone by without movies and if I am to get my quota of two a day, I got to do something fast...real fast. The guitar lessons should also kick off from today and that will need some time, as well. I just hope that my room mates at the PG will find me tolerable for the next few days as I sit tuning my guitar, tormenting them with the amateur string pulling.

Same difference...or is it?

Things are getting better everyday and as I meet new people here at PwC, I realize that the summer internship is more about meeting new people and developing new contacts rather than poring over some management concept and just making a good presentation/report. We had a meeting with the technical support people here and I must say that the guys there are really good-natured apart from, of course, knowing their stuff thoroughly. I had a great one hour discussing not just the project related stuff with them, but also trying to learn Bengali from them...they wanted me to learn a little bit so that I could appreciate their jokes...promised to start off the lessons with the "gaalis", which they say are the stepping stones to learning any new language.

It is good to be able to see all the processes and policies of this company and compare the same to Infosys, my previous employer and to other companies whose policies I know of (either on account of their being in the IT industry or on that of my friends and relatives working there). It is at these times that I understand what you mean by the culture of a company...it differs so much from place to place.

I also got to meet the two people who had taken my interview for the summers and chosen me for PwC. Hearing them talk about how everyone was good and how they found it difficult to choose only two proved to be quite insightful...to think that I may have to make such choices myself a few years from now...ah, well.

As for the work, I did quite a lot and tied up some of the loose ends before leaving for PG at about 6 (yet again :-)). The movies for the day were Psycho and Psycho....yes, the original by Alfred Hitchcock and the most famous re-make starring Julianne Moore. I know that people might envy my time and pity my intellect that I have been strange enough to watch one after the other and compare two versions of the same movie. But believe me or not, this thing is interesting, trying to figure out the minor differences due to difference in time periods (about a fifty years), due to the difference in approach of the directors and due to so much more.

I felt that the original was by far better as far as the performances were concerned. The character who played Norman Bates was so accurate for a Psycho and the way he giggled was just perfect. Though the guy in the re-make tried something similar, he could not really achieve the same results. Morevoer, Marion Krane character was portrayed by a bewitchingly beautiful woman in the original while the re-make did not impress. Thankfully, the music or what can more aptly be called the background score (which is the soul of this movie) was done by the same person (or may be they used the same music) and thus was equally effective in both versions.

There were some minor differences in the treatment too with the modern one being a little more practical and in tune with the current times. I liked the part where the re-make tried to correct the original and the policeman asked for the registration papers along with the driving licence and then went to the car's bumper to check the number. In the original, the policeman had just asked for the driving licence and had gone ahead to inspect the car's number-plate...don't know if the car's registration number used to be mentioned on the driving licence all those years ago.

Another instance was when our Psycho guy was peering through the key hole and watching Marion undress...he was actually shown jacking off in the re-make and the girl was showwn fully undressed whereas in the original, he just had a satisfied look on the face with the girl still in her under garments...subtle differences, but all the same making up for some interesting emphasis on style...to each his own.

Today should be good in terms of work, too...first Friday at work when I am in formals but what the heck, got to finish off the work today and get going for the weekend...this time, it should be better compared to the last one...at least I hope so.

*yawn* Tired *yawn*

I could not produce much in the name of work yesterday but had the satisfaction of showing and getting hearty approval on the work that I had done so far. However, waiting for the people to be free, making fine adjustments in the presentation, getting misunderstood on a few points, appreciated on a few others, completely wiped off on some takes a toll. By the end of the day, although I had not done much real work, I was dead tired and when I left for PG, I was not thinking of anything at all...not even movies...I was blank and just wanted to go back and relax.

After Vikhyat's comment on my blog, I realized that it was Reddy's birthday the day before, which I missed...tried calling him but could not get through. In the process, I called up so many of my friends...was not feeling good at all so wanted to loosen myself up by talking to them...called up Nikhil, Amol, Abhijeet, Sweta, and Qaynat...but could not really get the rejuvenation I was looking for. Two of them commented on how jaded I was sounding and the others did not notice but what the hell, jaded I was and I just hope this does not go on today, as well. I have got to complete the work I have been doing and present it to the person coming from PwC US in the first week of May. That should be a challenge and I wish to be all geared up for it.

After a pathetic dinner at the BJ market (some rotten Paneer with equally rotten Rotis...or perhaps it was just me), I decided to fill my quota of movies for the day but that did not happen in full, either. The Godfather Part 3 was on, of course, after the two parts that I had gorged on yesterday but I could not manage another movie after it though it was quite early that the first one ended (about a quarter to midnight, I believe).

Anyways, as in the first two parts, Al Pacino was amazing in this movie, too. As for the rest of the cast, Andy Garcia impressed and I believe that he had studied the first two parts very carefully before enacting his role. He did look so much like the young Michael Corleone (that is, Al Pacino in the earlier versions of the movie). It is really interesting to be watching three movies made at different points in time but still presenting a story that is actually woven in a series, fitting oh-so-perfectly like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

People here do not seem to be really satisfied with the work that they are doing. It seems to most of them that they are not adding any specific value to their work by using any concepts learned during the one year of management study. In fact, they seem to be doing things that they could have done even before studying in a B-School. I don't know if I agree, though because for me, the work has been decent enough and though the HR word keeps coming up in my mind now and then, the project does entail using some MBA concepts, if not many...and who wants so many concepts anyway...

I'll make you an offer you can't refuse

I think that my guide did not turn up yesterday or even if she did, she was too busy to be at her place anytime yesterday. Anyways, I had the option of lazing around for the entire day but contrary to my wont, I actually decided to do some work and some interesting work it finally ended in. As of now, I am still not sure if I have to prepare just the work flow of the processes in the company or the data flow or both. So, I decided to take the initiative and take up the work flow and data flow for the most complicated of processes, recruitment. I am now waiting to show it to my guide and my Project Manager so that they may be able to decide if we want either or both (or neither :-( ). I know that I may have put myself in a bad position and this might just result in actual work being thrust upon me, but I still feel that it was the least I could do. As for the work load and the rest of it, let's see...still a lot of time to think about it.

By the way, the DFD Context diagram turned out to be a real sweetie...perhaps the most complicated Powerpoint slide I have ever made. I just hope that the animation I have put in helps people to understand the thing and it is not rejected just because it appears too clumsy.

In addition to all the hard work, I had some value-adding surfing time, too. Just how value-adding it was can be guessed by the fact that half of the time, I was searching for the names of myself and friends over search engines to see what pops up. Something interesting did pop up when I searched for my name. It seems that the work that I did at JNCASR under Prof. CNR "God" Rao has actually got into a paper and got published in Materials Research Bulletin (look here). It is really a great honor, having a paper published as a co-author with one of the greatest contemporary scientists of the world (Prof. CNR Rao is our next Nobel hope).

Another place I could find myself was of course the MSDN article that I had contributed to, while in Infosys (look here). That one is also a big value-add, at least when I mention it in my CV...looks impressive ;-).

I just got to hear that my guide was in an induction program the whole day yesterday...anyways, whatever it was, I got free at 6 and left for my PG with an intent to watch my quota of two movies for the day...and watch I did. The Godfather is one hell of a movie and the way Al Pacino plays Michael Corleone is something that has to be seen to be believed. The legendary Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and the rest of the people in the two movies (yes, I watched the first and second parts yesterday...the third is on for today) were simply amazing.

They brought to life so vividly, the various colors in the life of people who don't think twice before murdering another but, all the same, are bound by the strictest of codes when it comes to their own families. The famous Sicilian code of revenge was in full display as the gangsters fought amongst themselves and all the while The Godfather, and his successor rose above it all to vanquish all those who dared to back stab or even speak against the Corleone family...man, am I speaking their tongue now...must have been a solid six hours that I spent watching the two movies so this is expected, too in a way.

Today should be a busy day, at least in comparison to the last couple of days where I may not have worked to my full potential (though I seriously doubt if I ever will). Anyways, got to meet my guide in a few minutes so got to leave...signing off till next time.

Of chance encounters with Cupid's arrows

With all batteries charged after a long weekend, I believed myself to be good for some solid work on Monday. The only thing that needed to be done was for some one to give me a little motivation. The first half had its share of motivation as I started work on my presentation that has to depict the process flows of all the HR procedures at PwC. After a few slides of some plain jane stuff, I decided to give things a twist (what with the time that I had to complete this thing) and introduced some animation into the presentation. I know that it also makes the presentation more readable but all the same, if I had been under pressure of time, I would certainly have skipped the part.

But skip I did not and as a result, at about quarter past two, I had this first phase of the presentation ready, full of hyperlinks and animation and boxes coming and arrows flying and what not. However, before I could impress my guide with the flashy things, she had to leave for some other work and I was left stranded, working some more to extend the presentation but necessarily, just reading up stuff to get more insight into the project and specifically the part that I am supposed to address.

That done, it was time for me to pack the bags and leave the office at about 6, which, as I am sure most of my colleagues will agree, is a tad early for a summer trainee. Whatever it may be, I was at my PG pretty soon, looking at ways and means to pass my time. Vikhyat, in one of his mails, had suggested that I (why me specifically???) should watch Khamosh and the tone, of course, was sarcastic (to be deduced to say that only I can like such a stupid movie). To cut a long story short, my mates at PG had got the CD of Khamosh and it turned out to be my entetainment masala for the next two hours. I must say that it is no classic but all the same, it is not too bad either. Loosely based on Ten Little Niggers and Psycho, the movie comes nowhere close to either of the originals but it entertains and that is what I was after.

The sumptuous and yet cheap dinner made up for whatever little mood crashing was caused by Khamosh and I was anything but Khamosh after dinner and a good long walk across the residential areas of Salt Lake. There were more hours to be spent before I hit the sack and there was another movie lying around. This one was supposed to be good but just how good it was, I realized only after I got into seeing it, tooth line and stinker.

"A fortunate accident" is how the word Serendipity is defined as and for me, it was a fortunate accident to be seeing this movie (just how it was an accident is a long story...some other time perhaps). Not boasting of any big stars, the movie however touches you like anything. With a chance meeting between a guy and a girl in a New York store (the fortunate accident) on Christmas eve opening the proceedings, it seemed like any other Yule spirit movies.

However, with the sharp focus on destiny and the girl deciding to give the guy a miss on the first night in the belief that if they are destined to meet, they will meet, the movie changed colors pretty fast. The rest of the movie is spent in conveying the truth in the concept of "The Plan of Life", as the protagonists search for each other years after that chance encounter, in the hope of meeting that elusive man/woman destiny has associated with them.

The final few moments of the movie, though smelling faintly of a wonders-will-never-cease Hindi movie, are good in their own way as they go on to re-inforce the belief of die-hard romantics (I used to count myself as one some time back) in the concept of true love and the concept of someone somewhere being made for you.

So it was, after two movies and a good dinner in the break between the two, that I fell off to sleep with thoughts of trying to rationalize the chance encounter funda and of course, instead of the Cupid's arrows, seeing my presentation's arrows flying all across the computer screen :-))

Fishing on the weekend

The first weekend at training is over and I am yet to get a grip over things. At office, work has just started as I realize that the project I have been given is a full-blown HR project with hardly any scope for showing Fin/Mark antics. The consulting part might just come in but that, too sometime later (hope it is not too late, though). Surprisingly however, I am kind of enjoying the work that has been given to me, HR or no HR. As my guide keeps telling me, it is all about common sense and very little about MBA jargon or things that are by way of being rote.

Anyway, I was talking about the first weekend at Cal and an extended weekend at that. With Friday being off due to Bengali New Year's Day, I had three days of nothing to look forward to. Going into the weekend, I was a bit apprehensive, and given Calcutta's heat and the fact that most of my friends here stay pretty far from where I have my digs, I was not really looking at the world with rose-tinted glasses.

As one of the rarest Mondays (one that I thought I will actually look forward to) comes and I am back in office, I don't think that I had too nasty a time. Although the damn heat was damning enough to keep me indoors for most of the day (in fact, going outdoors any time before five was tortuous, so much so that I missed breakfast and lunch three days in a row), I did have some nice time in the evenings. Arnav, Rajesh, Debayan, and others that I had met in the first week of coming here were also not available for the weekend (the long weekend automatically giving birth to some long-distance plans for most of them) but there were new friends to be made, new people to be met.

Most of my time on Friday and Saturday (that is, the time that I spent outdoors) was spent with Anurag, a fellow digger and a student of IIIT here. The guy is good and unassuming enough to be in my good books right from Day 1. He has been a great help, taking time out for me and helping me get familiar with this place in a jiffy. He introduced me to "fishing" at the City Centre, one of the hip malls of Calcutta. There is, according to Anurag, a proper pool (read an area with lots of steps where people sit with Pepsi and wafers) where fishes (read girls) come in and where baiters (read stag guys with nothing better to do) sit for the entire evenings, waiting for their chance to strike a conversation and thus catch "fish". Atrocious, I know...but all the same, fun to watch. I spent nearly three hours there on Friday and almost the same on Saturday, watching the baiters catch the fish and believe me, at times, it can be a spectacle, especially when the fish puts up a fight and the baiter gets entangled in his own line.

After all the fishing, Sunday evening was pretty uneventful as I spent most of it wallking across the length and breadth of Salt Lake. With some half a dozen kilometres behind me, it was a tired me that came back to the PG place. Anurag suggested I watch the movie America's Sweethearts to freshen myself up and that is what I did. A good entertainer, this but more on movies that I have seen recently in some other post...right now, it is time to get to work and so, signing off...

Getting a hold over my self

It has been four days since I joined PwC (as the HR guys requested, I must be careful how I write it, even if it is in the short form...in full, by the way, it is written as PricewaterhouseCoopers with only the P and the C in caps). These four days have been a little confusing, at times raising my hopes and at others, dashing them right down the ground. However, I am rushing myself in excitement of the new things that have been happening in my life without really being what could probably be called systematic.

So, let me try to be just that...a little systematic and try to recount all (or at least some of all) that has happened since I last wrote...will try to be brief about it but don't know how far I will succeed. For firsts, the Coorg trip happened and what an eventful trip it turned out to be. Apart from being a throughly enjoyable one in the first half, it had a night and an ensuing second day that forced me to write a blog entry that could not have got on to Mode C for anything, despite all my earlier pretensions (or that's what people think) of being honest and true to this blog. In fact, the post was so disturbing and end result of it all so personally frustrating that I decided to bring the curtains down on the blog itself. Incidentally, I must say that I realized later that there were actually quite a few people who actually read my blog quite regularly and enjoyed it, too. With suggestions and concerns coming to me dime-a-dozen, I was overwhelmed enough to change my decision of out right deletion of the blog.

Letting the blog remain, I kind of made it live my mood for many days, right till the end of the term. Though I did delete the last post that reeked badly of pessimism, frustration and what-not, I was still not prepared to revive the blog. Whenever I did come across to writing something new, so many things used to come to mind...admonitions by people in authority for writing what I shouldn't have...remarks by colleagues about the blog making too many of the things public, things that I had no right to make public...and of course, my own problems that were fast making life diffcult (especially with the exams approaching).

All this was nothing but an addition to the mental burden that I was carrying with myself to home but as someone intelligent said sometime, nothing like mom's cooking to get your tail up. Believe me or not, my tail is nothing but up right now. With three weeks of Ma's cooking behind me...a well spent Holi with Bhabhi and Bharat Bhaiya enlivening the proceedings at home...Anoushka, my one year old niece making life amazingly sweet and innocent (absolutely nothing can be compared to have a kid smile at you right after she wets herself all over you)...having Bua and Pallavi visit us for my last few days at home (Pallavi is quite excited about joining her new job and why not...a well paying one and a well deserved one after two years at GIM)...there couldn't have been more eventful three weeks to lift a person's mood and so it turned out to be for me, too.

And thus it was in absolutely good spirits that I landed in The City of Joy on the 10th of April at Howrah Junction, backdrop to the famous Howrah bridge and its screamingly mad, speeding traffic. With one foren-maal in front of me and another behind, even the queue for the pre-paid taxi was worth the time and of course, the sweat that Kolkata greeted me with. The next step was the PG place that was arranged for me by Rajesh, my friend at DPS who is now working with Cognizant in Cal. The owners of this place are interesting, especially the worse half (that is, the master of the house) who pasionately believes that he must entertain all those who have to listen to him (for any reason or compulsion, whatsoever) with tales of how PG places in the UK in his time were called digs and people who stayed there diggers (he actually expected me to laugh at this).

This place is quite close to the PwC office (about 3-4 kms away) and even the room and room-mates are cool...went for a roam-the-city trip the very first evening. Calcutta has grown from the last time I was here...there are some places (Forum, Crossword to name a few) that actually make the place good enough to be called a metro. Big Bazaar is amazingly cheap and good to shop. Though I had heard a lot about the sense in shopping at this place and how it has revolutionized the apparel industry, I never knew that things were changing this fast...trousers and jeans for as low as three hundred bucks...tees for a hundred bucks...wonders never ceased for the two hours that shopping and subsequent rain made us stop at the place.

The first day at PwC was interesting and not the least for the people from other institutes that I met at the place. Half a dozen guys from IIMC, a guy from IIML I knew to be a trainee right from the moment that I saw him at the bus stop, one apparently haughty female along with another long lost contact from the days at Infy, Chennai from XLRI, 2 Bongs from IIMA (one of them is also going to ESCP-EAP with us) and of course Sandipan added masala to a pretty uneventful first day as far as work is concerned.

More masala and a lot of nostalgia kicked in as I met Rajesh and Arnav for lunch. All the people at school, how each Dipsite is doing right now, where are the old flames of people sashaying nowadays were topics that kept the three of us busy for nearly two hours. I also met Debayan in the evening and I am really happy that he got through IIMC this time. He was really unlucky to miss out last time but this year, he got what he deserved.

I was briefed about the work on Monday and apparently, it has to deal with the business process mapping of the consulting practices of PwC as well as their internal HR policies and procedures. Although the HR aspect is a little off-putting right now, the project has all the potential to turn into something interesting once the consulting practices part comes in. In fact, while reading the Assurance division policy today (which was given to me after quite a lot of consultations with the HR head due to its secret and confidential nature ;-)), I could make out how much the events at Arthur Andersen have affected the consulting industry and its policies.

So far, the stage at which the project stands right now can, at most, be called initial and the heat has not really caught on yet. As the days progress, however, things are certainly going to be more eventful and hopefully, more interesting.