My musings after a long time

Man its been a while since I penned down my thoughts at this blog.
Lots have happened in the last one month. I returned back to India on
the 20th of Sep. joined work on the 23rd of September. Got into a new
apartment at Bhubaneswar - The top floor 2/2 of Gangotri Apartments
with a motley crew of 3 other Infoscions. Spent Puja at home in
Kolkata after a long time. It was fun – enjoyed every bit of it and
well yes this year I had a reason to celebrate during the Puja.

In between I have been a weekly traveler between Bhubaneswar and
Kolkata. Living practically out of a suitcase, its been fun. Am back
to riding my bike in Bhubaneswar, the faithful Yamaha Libero though am
still getting used to the traffic.

In the mean time I resigned from Infy on the 29th of this month. This
action of mine elicited a mixed reaction from my colleagues and
seniors at work. I am not totally surprised as I had kind of
anticipated this.

On the 17th of the month, I went to IIMC for the interview. Had been
shortlisted for the PGPEX. The interview experience was fine, nothing
to write home about. I was the last guy of the day and the
interviewers were kind of in a hurry to shut down shop. I felt that I
had a decent interview, not too sure how the panel felt. More on the
interview piece later.

I took a week off during Diwali and took off on a cross country trip.
Started from Bhubaneshwar on the 16th and went to Delhi. The idea was
not to do Delhi Darshan but rather spend some quality time with my
best friend Tithi ( who btw is expecting). Landed in Delhi with a sore
throat, bad case of cough and a temperature of 101 degree. Had pizza
for dinner but threw it all up. Spent Saturday at home. On Sunday went
to watch the movie “Blue”. But at the end of it I could not understand
why someone would spend the time and money to create such a mind less
flick, guess for someone like me to watch!!! On Monday we went to Old
Delhi to eat at Karims – the famous eating joint. Enjoyed the food
there but the Chicken Jahangiri was so Spicy that it had me in tears.
But the Burra kebab had a delectable but out of this world taste.
Tuesday stayed indoors for most of the day. On Wednesday stepped out
to visit the mall at Gurgaon and was surprised to see that all the
brands I had seen at the malls in US were available albeit even at the
same prices, multiplied by the exact exchange rate though 

Then on Friday 23rd early morning I took the flight to Mumbai to
attend the 3 day contact program at SPJIMR for the PGPM course. The
day didn’t start of too well with a delayed flight from Delhi – the
flight was delayed by an hour. Landed at Mumbai and was immediately
struck by its hot, sultry and humid weather. So finally got a cab and
landed at the “Bhawan’s College Campus” which actually houses SPJAIN.
Was simply struck by the fact that the famed and hallowed institute
was just housed in one building. The building is actually a maze as I
later came to find out. Checked into the hostel and it was fine. The
first day was great, had the basic registration session followed by a
faculty interaction. This was followed by interaction with the seniors
and then dinner.

The second day started early. Had a 9 am class on Financial Accounting
which was for 2:30 hours with a 15 minute break in between. Had a
breakfast of “Vada-Pav” – Mumbai swears by it – it’s a Spicy Ball of
Potato sandwiched between bread. Rushed to the class to be bamboozled
by Receivables, cash statements, NPAs, liabilities, expenses , balance
sheets , notes to balance sheets etc. Those 2 hours showed that the 11
months ahead would be a lot of sweat and tears. After a quick lunch it
was time for Micro-Economics. A class that started with great promise
but was totally spoilt by a mindless discussion between the professor
and a couple of over-eager students about B-Schools in Bhopal. I still
could not understand why the fuss but it ate up the entire hour. The
next session started on the same subject and this one was eaten by
another 2 enterprising students commenting on a quadratic equation.
After class there was a social nite hosted by the seniors where they
performed among other feats a jugalbandi between a violin and guitar,
a live band performance (with drums too loud, low guitar tones and a
range of voices none of whom were mellifluous), a skit and a group
dance performance. In my opinion the performance by my batchmates
stole the show. A hastily put performance with Gopal and Rahul on the
guitar and Siddharth on the harmonica. Sidharth played Mumbai Meri
Jaan, Gopal sang In Dino and an Own Comp – in all it was fabulous.

Sunday had classes at 9 am (again). This time it was Cost Accounting –
phew, for once I did understand something. After class, a minor
faculty interaction and we were left free to go. Had lunch with 4
other batchmates at a shady beer bar in the neighbourhood – not only I
stayed away from booze but being a Sunday it was veggie day for me!!!