Riding on the back of time

More than two fortnights since my last post. I know that this is now becoming more routine than incident and that every second post has almost the same starting line, but then again, I also know that it is not due to lack of motivation or inspiration. It has more to do with the time, as it usually has. Somehow, and probably for one of those rare occasions, time has given me a beating and a proper beating at that.

Backwaters is on in full flow and there has hardly been any day or any night when I, and the sTrEAM Backwaters, of course, have not been thinking of the event, its sponsorship, logistics. Issues are as myriad as they come. There is this need to get the maximum out of the sources of funds and at the same time, decide where you want to draw the line between going out for more funds and managing the operations with whatever you have. There is the task of talking to various college committees for funds, which is a bit of a pain despite the helpful initiatives by the people. It seems as if everyone is laughing at us behind our backs and we have become a pitiable stock with every gossip centered on the next level to which the Backwaters committee has fallen to get funds.

The elections to Placement committee, in fact, was one of those times that the members of the Backwaters committee got a good verbal thrashing. Everyone, who had the opportunity, made the most out of it and came out with explicit opinions as to the nature of affairs. Nilanjan said that he had come forward to get Backwaters out of the mess when asked about what he has done for the batch, and there was Mayank who seemed to know all the means that the committe has been adopting in getting the brand IIMK higher (including us supposedly asking for pathetically small amounts from local shopkeepers...did I hear anyone say 250 bucks from Mezbaan...comeon, we haven't fallen that much).

All this is frustrating, especially when I know that there is more than meets the eye in this case...and that it is not possible to tell all without destroying a few reputations, straining a few relationships...and I have had my fill of those...not any more, at least not for as long as I can avoid.

The other concerns are many, too. There is the need to keep the team together. Despite the excellent way in which the team has come together so far, and the way we keep smiling through the odds against us, there can be moments-a-dozen where the things might just be a little too much to handle. I must say that I am dreading the arrival of those moments but as of now, things are as well as they could have been.

Designing and maintaining the online games for Backwaters has given me more sleepless nights than any thing else that I have got myself into at any point in time. With a sleep debt (Pavan might not agree to this) of more than ten days, I had to miss six hours of classes one fine Monday. With a difficult deadline and an even more difficult sourcing of questions, we had to beat all standard practices by launching the games with the most minimal of testing, often causing blunders and technical problems that were, to put in a word, embarassing.

At the same time, there have been so many people who have volunteered and helped that it is hard to repay them for all that they have done in words. It has been because of them that we were able to meet the deadline and do a decent, if not a great job. More than the amount or level of work they might have done, what really touched me was their willingness to put in time and effort at something that they were not really duty bound to do. We, as part of the Backwaters Committee, however, were supposed to do all that and more, and I believe that even though we may succeed in carrying off Backwaters with some style finally, we would have failed...failed not in making Backwaters happen...but failed in meeting our own expectations.

Besides Backwaters, there have been a host of other things happening on campus. Yash, Raul and gang did a great job with Arthanomics, the finance seminar at IIMK. With the list of speakers reading like the Who's Who of the Indian finance industry, I am sure that the Fin enthusiasts would have had a great time. I really regret having to miss most of the sessions of the Arthanomics weekend (though I did try to attend as many as I could) due to the Backwaters work, especially the online events work which was going live on Monday.

Another event that came and went without much ado was the re-elections for the Student Council and for the Placement Committee. The last time I wrote about elections, it created such a big hue and cry that I had to actually take the post down. This time, I am sure that not many would even bother to read what I think of the elections, and thankfully so...not because I want to create a scandal or wanted to do that the first time, for that matter...for I still think that the situation has not changed much from what it was a few months ago.

It is actually sad to see that even in a supposedly intelligent society like an IIM, popularity and appeal get more prominence compared to real work, talent, and suitability for job. I know that many might not agree to me and that this is what makes democracy what it is, but I would still say that the reason people lose or win elections, even in a society representing the intelligentsia, is absolutely meaningless and has got nothing to do with what they are capable of doing or what they may have done in the past.

More than that, the King Makers continued to rule, though the nature of their rule and influence has undergone a major change. They no longer exert an overt influence but there is a more covert appeal that goes out, a canvassing that is more felt than heard...but that is how a democracy operates, I guess...no rights or wrongs, just going where the herd goes. The only thing that pinches a little is the future of the big talks that we keep throwing and accepting about the pathetic state of Indian democracy and the rampant corruption. If this is how we are going to deal with it ourselves, I am not really clear about what we might do on the road ahead for the society and country at large. 

Yana Gupta Part 2 and What's in a Name...

I had joined the Backwaters committee with a lot of plans, to make possible an event that shall be remembered for a long time in IIM K. There were so many things and so much enthusiasm in the initial days but somehow, all of that petered off when it was time to do something to achieve the objectives. The reasons were many, the least of them being any work load due to the academic curriculum in IIMK. I was not really bothered if I had to lose out on a few grade points but more important for me was the feeling of involvement that is so necessary for me to give my best. It may have been misunderstandings, it may have been the truth but I started feeling that a lot of us committee members were not really required and this put me off enough to isolate myself from whatever little was happening on this front.

But as it has been on past occasions, sense caught up with me at last and in view of another edition of the fest where I might be able to fulfil my promising promises, I got involved, rather involuntarily, in this year's Backwaters. Vikhyat's enthusiasm and his never-say-die fundaes played a very important role in the transition, of course and here I was, willing to cut a little flab off for Backwaters 2005.

With hardly any effort having gone in so far from the side of many of us, it was time to hunt for some money. The local sponsors, though not big fish(es), were a good enough avenue to knock around and the Junior Backwaters team divided itself into three groups to tap as much of the local pool as possible. Qanynat (also known as Qayamat :-)) and I started off with the Archies' Gallery, but with not much luck. The next stop was the adjoining Louis Philippe showroom, which is where the first of the two strange events of the evening took place.

As we were ushered into the Manager's dingy and suffocating chamber, and Qaynat started explaining to the bespectacled, sunk-in-his-seat figure before us about the fest, I could hardly avoid noticing the open-mouthed admiration of the poor guy for Qaynat's Qayamati accent and her jeans and shirt clad self. Having spent his entire life in the strictly conservative Calicut society, he wouldn't have expected any girl to be this Qayamati :-)

The proof of all that I had been thinking for so long came soon enough...
Manager: Where are you from?

Qayamat: Sir, I...
Manager: Are you from India?
Qayamat:
Nitai:

Yes, we were left speechless, and as I tried hard to stop the big guffaw that was dying to escape from my mouth, I was just wondering what the others would have to say when I tell them the story. And they did have a lot to say...trying to make amends for Yana Gupta's not coming to grace Backwaters as per Vikhyat's plans. With Qayamat coming from outside India anyways, she might be, in all probability, Yana's sister and making her perform at Backwaters would perhaps makeup for Yana's absence:-)

Another interesting thing that happened was when we went to this jewellery shop called Malabar Gold. After explaining what we had come for, the managers/owners said that they do not sponsor anything but that they could give us donations for five hundred rupees or gifts worth about the same if we did not name them in the fest. I thought that I had heard it wrong and told them that of course, when we announce the prizes that they had sponsored, we would say that this prize is sponsored by Malabar Gold and so on...but that was when the bomb dropped...they said that if we do name them, they are not going to give us anything. Strange....very strange.

As we came out of the shop with the gifts tucked in our arms, we were childishly happy for the evening's work done and in that we were not returning empty-handed. There was a lot to do on campus, as well...with alternate day meetings and so much more to arrange/finalise before we can be confident of a good Backwaters '05...

Happy New Year!

Bombay, or Amchi Mumbai, as the locals call it lovingly and often with an awe-struck catch in their voice, is one of the cities that has its own memories for me. Not that I have been to this place many times, but despite the one time that I have been to Mumbai, the city haunts me whenever I am thinking of something fast and big, both at the same time. Having decided not to spend the new year in the train from home to IIMK, we (that is Aditya and me) had planned to make Mumbai the stopover for the night of the 31st and most of the day of the 1st. Aditya, of course, had his own plans of dumping me somewhere for the new year's but unfortunately, could not devise a suitable plan for the same in time.

The train journey from Varanasi to Mumbai CST, aboard the Mahanagri Express was mostly uneventful, and if you discount the time that we spent sleeping, there was hardly anything left. So it was that I and Aditya landed up in Mumbai and met up with Mitali. The three of us had a new year to celebrate and not much to choose from, in terms of venue or party or whatever else people engage in to announce the arrival of the new year.

Gateway was to be our first destination. During my first visit to Bombay in 2000 around the same time, I had spent hours staring at the sea (of not just water, but more importantly, the sea of humanity) from the Gateway of India, trying to recollect the numerous movie sequences shot there and trying to pry the secrets out of the hundreds that gather there almost every other night. Looking at the oh-so-famous Taj Hotel had been another pastime and as expected, there were laughs galore as I told the limited audience that I had on the 31st of December, 2004 of my plans to occupy the Executive Suite of the Taj one fine day.

One chance meeting with Ravi (who was going to spend the new years in a private party aboard a boat in the sea) and watching camera crews going berserk over the occasion later, we were all ready to move on to our next destination...but not before I had bought for myself, a nice little contraption which will make its entry in IIMK shortly.

While going to Juhu, there was this party by the sea which did not look too expensive from the outside but when we thought of finding out the ticket prices, we were in for a shock. We couldn't even gather the courage to go to the ticket counter, having already seen the class audience dressed in strange leather skirts and pants with all sorts of makeup on their faces.

Juhu it was, finally and that was where the downslide started for me. Some snacks and the arrival of the new year were over, and the three of us were just sitting on the beach enjoying the ambience when she came. She has this uncanny habit, actually, of coming every time I stay just that little too long at a beach. The memories of our time together at the Besant Nagar beach (whatever little it had been) invariably flash before my eyes in such cases as I sit rapt, listening to her sing song after song in her unique voice.

Na jaane kyun hota hai ye zindagi ke saath...
Achaanak ye man, kisi ke jaane ke baad
phir kare uski yaad, choti choti si baat

Anyways, on my request, the other two decided to change the venue of our celebrations soon enough and we were treated to some really nice retro effect at Mocha, the cafe just outside the Juhu beach. We further decided to treat the Mocha people with a generous dose of our patronage and picked ourselves up only after we were reasonably sure of catching a local to our next destination, Bandra.

Bandstand was a lovers' paradise, and a place that was full of some ostentatious display, too. With film stars like Shahrukh Khan and others having built their 'nests' there, the glamour quotient was anyway high. This was added to, by the love-lorn couples adorning the coastline, cuddling up, walking hand in hand, and coochie-cooing as if there were no tomorrow. Having got into that mood at Juhu itself, Band stand was not very bearable either. Though I did appreciate the life of the place, perhaps that very life got to me too much to be able to really love all that went on around me.

The next day was not too momentous, with the morning spent in trying to find a suitable loo (we reched a McDee's at 8 in the morning, expecting it to be open:-)). The loo presented itself when we reached INOX, the latest theatre on the Bombay movie circuit and what a loo it was...neat and clean, it almost encouraged me to brush my teeth...but for the attendant :-)

After a really nice and cheerful movie, The Polar Express, a lot of roaming around in the Mumbai locals (including the luggage van of one of them), paying a fine for the wrong tickets, but only after explaining the naive innocence of us Allahabadis, left to fend for themselves in the big bad Bombay, an okay but expectation killing lunch at the exotically named Not Just Jazz By the Bay...we were ready to catch our train from Panvel, where we met Sundesh, Vikhyat and Jena who were also travelling with us to Calicut.

Also travelling with us were another set of passengers who were a little odd, to say the least. A group of young people, with a few middle aged ones thrown in to complete the party, occupied all other berths in our cabin apart from the two on which we were sleeping. When we opened our eyes during the night, varying scenes on the opposite berth attracted our attention every time we did open the eyes. Man and Woman, Man and Man, Woman and Woman...nothing seemed to be beyond them. The morning was even more shocking as they got closer to their destination, Kankanadi (Mangalore). With four lettered expletives making the rounds after every second spoken word, and some really explicit body-talk, there was enough entertainment for the two of us to last us for the remaining journey.