I haven't been jogging since the past 10 days. I feel a little bad about it. Fortunately, 6 out of those 10 days I can write off, cos' of Prerana and Confluence ( my girlfriend and my pet chameleon respectively ..... ok ok..just kidding..refer to previous blogs to know what those 2 are).

But I can't write off the other days now can I? So while Rohith, went jogging each morning, going from strength to strength(literally!)...Me, I've been generally lying around.

Consequence: Rohith has taken his morning exploits one step ahead and now plays Tennis in the evenings. I, on the other hand, have taken my slumber beyond the confines of my room and into the sacred realms of the classroom.

To offset this excessive and continued downtrend of my eyelids. I've decided i'm going to lie on my bed and think about what i'm going to do ...to...er..umm... offset this excessive and continued downtrend of my eyelids.

Some of my more intelligent readers would be probably be on their way to my room to pat me on my back or writing me congratulatory emails, as they read the above paragraph. The reason is simple. In the above para, i've subtly introduced the inside-out method of bodily rejuventaion.

Let me explain.

The human consists of 3 fundamental planes arranged in a sort of hierarchy - soul/spirit, mind, body. My technique simply advocates that in order to get your body all energetic again, you have to start at the roots - namely, the spirit. Then we move on the mind. A healthy state of the spirit and mind will automatically ensure a healthy body.

Which is why i'm going to lie on my bed and think. (I've skipped the spiritual development part here....it is assumed that 4 years in engineering and 2 years at NITIE is enough for anyone to develop a strong spiritual inclination. For the others who havent been through these 6 years...believe me, you shouldn't be complaining)


I think I'll go disturb Rohith now. (notice the subtle intertwining of the mind and body, resulting in physical action....my theory is already at work!...beat that Einstien!!)

Was at IIM-A the last 3 days. Had an extended weekend, so six of us took off to Ahmedabad to attend Confluence at IIM-A.

I would like to classify my time spent there into two. Time spent comepeting and Time spent not competing.

With regards to the former, stranger things couldnt have happened. We cleared the stratosphere prelims, only to be told an hour later that the results had to be recalculated. In the new list we failed to make the mark.

We played the finance simulation game and we won( surprising i know...but we actually hit the jackpot!)...only to be told a half and hour later that the results had to be recalculated. No prizes for guessing.....the latest rankings put us at 4th.

And finally we actually qualified for BizQuizitive hosted by Sid Basu. Well almost.
Only 6 teams were required for the finals. Unfortuantely there was a tie between 2 teams for the 6th spot - IIMC and us. This had to be resolved first, which was to be done using a buzzer. The question was fairly simple and i think we might have missed out on the buzzer by a nano-second. IIM-C got in and we walked back.

As these fiascos happened one after another... I felt awed. It was almost as if there was this pattern .. a certain design that the 6 of us had to go through. It was too deliberate to be coincidence ( and no i'm in no way accusing anyone here of malpractice or anything of that sort...i believe the mistakes made in calcualtions were genuine).

I learnt a lot from the experience...and strangely , i feel good about losing. I never feel that way....but this time i did. I somehow believe it was almost as if we were actually kept from winning by a certain force ..for an unknown reason. But a definite reason nevertheless. What that reason is, i dont know...but it will manifest itself to the six of us sometime in the future...of that i am sure.


Regarding my time spent not competing - I had a jolly good time. Caught up with a lot of friends of mine at IIM-A and even some friends of mine who cams as participants from other colleges. I still can't forget some of the awesome free corporate lunches i had during these 3 days ( who said there's nothing like a free lunch ?). Breaksfast was amazing too. And in between all this, I spend some time alone taking a walk through the surreally lit corridors of the IIM-A buildings. Gave me a sense of otherworldliness....very hard to describe in words.



On the whole a mentally enriching experience....

Its been Hectic...Exhilarating...Tiring...enriching....an experience....

Its been Prerana 2004 - NITIE's annual B-school fest.

Its our last Prerana...leaving NITIE in about 3 months...its fun experiences like these that i KNOW i will miss out on.


Been listening to "Jeene ke ishaare" from the movie Phir Milenge...been mesmerizing me for the past few days.

The meeting with Mr. Kurien

EXAMS ARE OVER!!... THEY ARE OVER AT LONG LAST!!...lemme now do the traditional Mongolian Dance of Relief, before i resume typing. Exams got over the day before. Rushed to the room, packed up, had a quick lunch and rohith, joseph and myself took off to Bandra to catch a train to Anand in Gujurat. We had been planning this trip for a while, the sole reason being to get to see AMUL and how it works. Jo had been in touch with the PRO, Mr. Partha for a while. He was very helpful and along with him Jo had worked out the entire visit. Reached Anand around 11.00pm. Seeing the huge and neatly-constructed railway station, all 3 of us knew at once that this wasn't going to be just another small town we were expecting Anand to be (and we were right). Checked into our hotel room, switched on the TV and saw KKHH ( for the benefit of my international readers, KKHH is Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, a blockbuster hindi movie). 10.00 am next day we are sitting with Mr. Partha in his cabin at GCMMF (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation...they market the Amul brand of products). He takes us through the schedule for the day and then a brief corporate presentation. We then move to the main Amul dairy plant. Here Mr. Sundaran, PRO takes us through the entire plant, explaining the various steps in procuring and processing milk. He also took us to the Amul Museum, where we saw the history of Amul and the 3 men behind the revolution (Mr. Tribhuvan Das, Dr. Verghese Kurien, and Mr. H.Daliah). Had lunch and then left for the Tribhuvan Das foundation, which is charitable set-up providing help to the village community by provding free healthcare, daycare for childeren,etc. We moved to Vidya diary which is a Diary Technology institute cum plant, where diary students are trained hands-on for a year. The assistant manager gave us an overview of this plant and then we were taken into the plant and the some of the operations regarding how Emantelle Cheese and ice-cream were made, were explained. We then were taken to IRMA ( Institute of Rural Management, Anand). We met up with the PRO who explained to us the spirit behind this institution and how this institute was set up under the leadership of Dr.Verghese Kurien. Then came the moment we were waiting for - a meeting with Dr. Verghese Kurien - the father of the white revolution. We had heard so much about this great person. About how he integrated the villages across gujurat to create the most successful co-operative India has seen till date - AMUL. He was responsible for the sucess of Operation Flood and for making India Self-sufficeint in Diary. This was a man who married professionalism, profitablility and most importantly socio-economic welfare. And at 5.00 pm yesterday we were shown into his office and there we saw the legend - in the flesh. We spent about half an hour talking to him. He related to us quite a few anecdotes from his life. He was quite old, yet he was very sharp and quite a humorous and jovial person ( "I've tried....and I dont think i've done badly" .... this he said about his career!!!) Took a snap with him before we took his leave. :) 

 Having wrapped our programme for the day, we headed back to the hotel by around 7.00pm. The train wasnt until 10.20 pm and so we killed time by watching Andaz Apna Apna ( amazing PJ's! ). Had dinner , caught our train. We were lucky enough to get seats in the GC. And today morning we were back in Mumbai and back to classes at NITIE. No trip I've ever been on comes remotely close to the satisfaction I've had during this trip. The story and the people behind AMUL and meeting the man who kickstarted this revolution....what can I say? It was AMAZING!