Octa - IIMPrints Writeup

For those who think they have seen everything the world had to offer, Octa is god’s way of telling you “Got you, sucker!” Octa’s antics are legendary around campus and evoke memories of days when logic and tact actually meant something. His stubbornness clouds every shred of logic his mind can lend support to. What with him going around campus saying people who have girlfriends must be stupid. How can guys talk for more than 2 minutes with any girl? This macho façade however, doesn’t stop him from burning the midnight oil to do “favours” for girls. Now don’t get me wrong – I meant writing SOP’s and completing their projects. It also doesn’t matter to him one bit that the girls he tries to hit on already have boy friends!

Octa can be extremely sweet at times. Like this one time, when he took a Dreamy Damsel he’s had his eye on for a while to Hazratganj and bought her whatever she wanted, only on his fathers credit card!

His biggest regret to date has been that he is not an Australian. He worships anything Australian and has been known to support their cricket team to worlds end. The only thing that could have made him change his unpatriotic ways was 500 people baying for his blood when Australia LOST to India. He thought long and hard about the repercussions of continuing to support the Aussies when hiding from the murderous crowd in his toilet. Could he risk being lynched and retain his ideals? Or was his life more important? When faced with questions such as these, men have been known to falter. But not Octa. He decided to save himself by using the oh, so fortunate Symonds – Harbhajan altercation to his advantage and switching loyalties.

This came to light on one of his famous drinking binges at an insti party while listening to his favourite Punjabi & Hindi music. Octa is known to get high by just holding on to the vodka bottle. These are times when one doesn’t expect Octa to propound or confess anything, given he has no time in between running around in circles and doing the bunny hop to Himesh Reshammiya. This revelation was also followed by him accepting to logging in to 40 computers in the CC just so that he could cast his vote for Ponting against Sachin in an online poll on Blondie.

When he got to know about his confessions the next morning, Octa went into depression and leant on his true love for support – Orkut. He started forming communities like “I don’t mind crying” and “I love my therapy” to reach out to other aggrieved souls like him.

There are many more facets to Octa – his incessant cribbing about company presentations and double dips, but that my friends, is another story.

Charan N Reddy - IIMPrints Writeup

“Join us in saying "How da Charrrannnnnnn?" and worshipping the Simu-God, God of Gods, Master of Algorithms and Father of DNA Computing.” Thus goes the description on D – Babu Disciples, an Orkut community dedicated to the demi – god. But this is not all there is to Don Babu.

D Babu suffers from a chronic identity crisis; he has been unable to figure out whether he is a Tam, Gult, Arab, Swiss or German. Our efforts to unravel the mystery have proven futile as well.

CID Shankar’s much touted brilliance takes a backseat when invariably, he is the last to discover things that have become commonplace or accepted facts the world will vouch for. He has steadily climbed the ladder moving from CID to Scotland Yard, Mossad and more recently his ascension to a Ninja. The moves and litheness on this killing machine would put a Jedi Knight to shame.

The same cannot be said about his biking prowess. A “passionate biker” Charan drives at breakneck speeds of 20 kmph. A fact umpteen joggers who have overtaken him would testify. This could also be a front he puts up to hide from the world his real powers.

The quintessential ladies man, his suaveness puts the Brosnans and Gables of the world to shame. Proof of this lies in a gift by a particular German girl – a white t – shirt with pink hearts and “Naughty Boy” emblazoned in front. Whenever anyone says his name, she looks up at him with Bambi eyes, bats her eye lids and effortlessly reels off “Adi Paaaavi”, a Tamil phrase! Charan has done his best to keep his philandering ways a secret and has ensured he becomes XYZ’s raakhi brother the minute he senses we have latched onto something. This he feels would make us morally reprehensible.

Even though Don Babu could have had any girl he wanted, he had eyes for only one – Shriya Saran. A part of him died the day she decided to act in Tamil and Hindi movies. This emotional setback has left Charan not being able to trust any girl completely – a quality 007 too had, and is doubted to be one of the reasons for him turning to this life of intrigue.

Don Babu’s taste in movies and music remains loyal to the age of Chitragupt and Sehgal. This makes his existence in this day and age, a veritable anachronism.

A hardcore foodie, Charan’s room has stashed in it an unlimited supply of food – ala the Akshaya Paatram. The number of times he eats in a day is only masked by the number of devotees who visit Tirupathi everyday. A point we use to rib him; the reaction to which is a violent outburst on the most innocent person around who is thrashed mercilessly.

Though intrigue and sex define D Babu, he has proven time and again to be a friend worthy of our trust and respect. Kudos da Charan! “Adi Paaaavi.”

Raakesh Natraj - IIMPrint Writeup

Ordinary people become heroes when they throw caution to the winds and run headlong into extra – ordinary circumstances, one became a hero by running away from normal situations. Locking himself up in his room when called on for committee interviews, not replying to mails asking him to attend company presentations or doing his portion of a term project stands testament to this fact. This is also one of the reasons he has not replaced his “cell phone”. This way he is blissfully unaware of any kind of work people may want him to do.

Hands down the most talked about person on campus for his deeds, Arkesha TN Raja (as he like to call himself), has bent the PGP, Placement and STEX rules, often drawing up new ones that serve his purpose. Be it proving his work experience of a year to get into the HEPP process, providing documental evidence of CV points or submitting summer internship documents, Raakesh has shown that he is not about to bow down to rules of any kind.

There are 2 facets to Raakesh – one when he’s drunk and the other a philosopher who tries to reach out to people by appealing to them on a different level. Sometimes these 2 facets unite. Both these are equally funny. What with a drunken Raakesh abusing everyone at an insti party when the booze ran out at 1:30 AM or the DISCO head during hoax who tried to analyze why people copied during the test. Freud was proud.

This wannabe guitarist is verily a woman chaser. From leaving love notes in a H1 door (ably aided by a former council member) to trying to hook up with his latest crush by going after her best friend, Raakesh has tried everything in the book to have him a girl. His “standing” amongst the fairer sex took a nose dive when he got into a nasty fight with a very, very prominent Oculus member. Damage control in the form of going in for a new “look” – long hair, was resorted to and soon Don Juan thought he was back in the game. But little did he know that people had started to mistake him for Shwetha Jhamb and Nitya Venkatesh as his hair grew.

An angry Raakesh took to new forms of getting back at those who made fun of his new look – taking loans from them. This has ensured that he owes almost half the college, money. This soon became a disease and he started mooching stuff off almost everyone. Anyone noticed why Raakesh never goes inside Fauji anymore?

There has been something Raakesh has been totally committed to – his responsibilities. He is the sole reason for the Chess Club reaching the heights it has. He has also staked his claim to being the most useless TamCom president in history.Please do not draw conclusions about him from the above facts. Actually, please do. There’s nothing that can be written to defend him.

On Memories and Pain

“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances …”
William Wordsworth

Memory is the ability of an individual to store, retain, and subsequently recall information. This ability of ours shapes our past, present and future. A person is neither whole nor healthy without the memories of photo albums. They are the storybook of our lives and provide a nostalgic escape from the tormented days of the present.

Studies put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology, thanks to the work of people like Jean Piaget and Koffka. More recent developments have led to the linking between cognitive psychology and neuroscience, paving the path for cognitive neuroscience.

Leaving psychology aside for the moment, memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely. These memories provide us with flashes from incidents or people whom we have met or have been associated with on a deeper level.

These memories may be either good or bad, but as far as I can tell, only the good ones remain. The bad ones gradually dissolve and disappear with time, and that is the reason memories tend to make us warm and cozy. “The Carpenters” certainly got it right, when they went:
“All my best memories
Come back clearly to me
Some can even make me cry
Just like before
It’s yesterday once more”

Good memories make us happy, but at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I’ll add that they can also trigger off a melancholy. Ubiquitous as they are, they tend to cause a lot of grief.
My mother passed away last November. Not having been away from my home town for any period longer than a week, I have countless memories of being petted and spending quality time with her. Now that she’s gone, every little thing from doing the crossword to sitting on the swing reminds me of her. And that hurts big time. And these were good memories.

People always ask you to move on. It’s very easy to say something like that and shift your frame elsewhere. Sometimes I wonder why I have these memories that torment me so. God’s plan is still very, very vague. I’m still in search of that elusive answer. Let me know if you have a solution to this.

BIO "Deb"acle

DISCLAIMER: All incidents in this post are true. Names of members have been withheld to
ensure anonymity.

Our presentation today was seriously one for the ages. A sterling display of what not to do
on stage.We had to do a role play and presentation on social loafing. A seemingly easy task. We spent the better part of last night coming up with an idea that, though not spectacular could have fetched us 8 marks atleast given the leniency of the prof.

The entire skirmish started of with the narrator(a distinguished writer and orator, or so he
chooses to kid himself) for our role play not coming to class on time, which resulted in him
being left out of the proceedings for an hour.When it was our turn to present we had the unenviable task of going up to DC and requesting him to permit our narrator into class. We got this permission and moved on.

I presented the opening few slides (without incident I must add) and turned the floor over
to the others to perform the role play. The first part of our role play went on fine.Then our narrator explained some bullshit that went totally against the grain of the role
play and the topic!!! I silently cursed this screwup and hoped that the audience would not
notice the faux pas.

Onto the next part of the role play and the "lead" actor (cum comedian of the group) turns
his back to the audience, stares at the board and delivers his dialogues!!! Lets get one
thing straight.Dude, people just dont wanna see your butt. You are not endowed with a butt
like J Lo, which people would love to see if you caught them in the middle of an enema.

The presentation went on without any further screw ups. This was followed by a "feedback"
session from the audience about the goof ups and why our lead wanted to flash his assets for
the major part of the role play.

We all have to live with our mistakes and I hope my group and I can move on and complete the
rest of this globe course called BIO.

We need something or someone to really motivate our group to avoid this kind of situation in
the future...Neone have J Lo's number?

Who's at fault?

Relationships signify the extent of ones development, mentally and socially. Past relationships leave their traces in a person's psyche enabling or disabling, as the case may be, action/response to some event at a later date. You can't stop loving or wanting to love because when its right, it's the best thing in the world. When you're in a relationship and it's good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.
Lets cut to the chase. We guys need our girl friends more than they need us.(No offence meant girls!!Thats just how attached we get to things!) It doesnt matter who wears the pants in the relationship, the girls have US eating out of their hands at the end of the day. But in return, our "masters" provide us with a sense of being complete and just being there for us.
Having said all this, when blips on the relationship radar start to appear, the question of whose fault it was invariably arises. This is when the proverbial shit hits the ceiling.Words are twisted out of context, shouting and yelling become passe and rationality is thrown to the winds.
Experience has taught me that there is nothing that can't be solved by talking things out.People in love usually tend to understand stuff and adjust to whats happening(it just takes a little while). The other person is just as desperate to get back to you. Give them some space.
Realize that you got into the relationship to be together and not apart. Be secure. Talk to a friend. Fresh ideas can sometimes dislodge any block in your cerebrum. Be sincere.
Know that it doesnt really matter whose fault it is. What matters is the intention that the same thing should not crop up again in the future. Make this your committment.
OK, that concludes your 15 fifteen minutes for today. Please be on time for your next meeting. You can pay my fees to my receptionist on the way out.

La Dolce Vita??? My foot!!!

For the uninitiated, La Dolce Vita means "The Sweet Life" in Italian. Nothings sweet about my life now at IIM L (read Hell). Midsems were on last week and we experienced first hand how a rape takes place.
The first exam was the one everyone slogged their a****s off to study - the dreaded Manac (thats what we call Management Accounting out here, though we call the teacher a ***). This jerk comes out with questions that had even a few of our seniors stumped. To top it all off, the *** comes to class and discusses each and every question in the paper with an all knowing Mona Lisa smile. "I knew you people will fall into the trap i set for you. Year after year everybody gets trapped". @#$*!#$. The guy would have orgasmed reading our papers that night.
The other papers were relatively a walk in the park. Left it up to the relative grading now.
2 days after the exams got over and 4 movies down I still haven't got over the manac debacle. Lets see how it goes...