Thursday, December 29, 2005

First Day at BMS

Having been busy with some interesting research (will update in the coming days ) for the past few days & coupled with the increased hours of load shedding in our area has ensured that I post to the bare minimum which will make Tanisha aka " Nikki " also proud . Now that my head is confused with fuzzy logic I thought what better time to share my mundane experience of the first day @ bms.


If I do remember correctly it was June 13, 2000 ( time has zipped past huh ! ) and we students as well as some parents were seated in a big classroom good enough for around 120 people. Its was supposedly a Ice-Breaking party so that we get introduced with our seniors and also about the course in general which was pretty new . In the whole classroom I was knowing 3 persons and out of them 2 were from my school itself. Enter a middle aged man with a not so welcome gesture and I learnt from an individual from the next bench that he was the course co-ordinator. Then there was this boy who was having very high fever , but despite that he managed to make a point by attending the first day which was and is still a mystery for me.


Now the session started with the co-ordinator welcoming us and all that usual crap and then our seniors were asked to introduce themselves first and then we were asked to introduce ourselves and also to explain the reason on why did we choose the particular course. I had no particular reason except for the fact that I had heard that after finishing the course one could get directly admitted to JBIMS which had incidentally facilitated the entrance exam for our course. However at that time I had very little courage to speak to a audience of more than 25 people. ( So conveniently forget the 100 plus people gathered that day. ) Thanks to this I did not utter much and just said that I heard that this course was pretty good compared to the traditional courses such as B.Com. Well before my introduction I rememeber very vividly that there was this guy who on his introductory speech told that a pink paper called the Economic Times was a essential read. Here was I who had never gone past the last 3 pages of the sports page of TOI and now I had this daunting task of reading a business paper " Daily ." I uttered to myself that perhaps I was a total mismatch for this course .


As the introductions got over the co-ordinator started to speak about some shit rules of the college and course and on hearing which I happened to laugh a bit on a couple of occasions . But unfortunately I had taken a bit too far for his liking and he soon caught me smiling to one of my school friends when he was busy reading out some serious rules. I was asked to stand up and asked from which college I had done my +12 . I replied " Model College ". He " Please do not bring that rowdy culture and now you may get out of my class. " Not knowing what to do I pleaded sorry frantically to no effect and was subsequently thrown out of the class .


Humans have this tendency to repeat history . So did it in my case where after about 15 mins another couple of guys were thrown out for talking and laughing ( yes I still can't believe it ) in the class . The co-ordinator came to us and told us that we could reconsider on joining the college and he would be happy to refund our whole 9000 bucks. Now this was serious stuff , but still one of the other 2 was still controlling his laughter which was evident to the co-ordinator. This made him more angry to say the least and I wanted to smack this guys head right on for ruining my chances. Imagine what reason could I have told my parents about my being thrown out from a reputed college and for a upcoming course . Soon the session ended and some seniors came out and comforted us ( more me ) and told that the co-ordinator had this insane habit of terrifying students initially and that he was a kind person . Again we approached him and he gave all of us a warning that such behaviour would not be tolerated to say the least.


What followed for the next 2 sems . was that I was overcautious and made a point to never to be in bad books . One year passed and our college had a new co-ordinator and from there on started my freedom ride .

Monday, December 26, 2005

Indian of the year !

NDTV is running a SMS poll for deciding the " Indian of the Year . " The contenders include people from sports, politics, business , philanthropy . At a time when lakhs of votes are being cast on stupid shows for deciding a better singer , I think we can do much better by showcasing our votes to people like S. Manjunath - Truly an Indian Idol .
For more information please check this link.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

GOD is ONE .


Manushyan matangal shrishtichu
Matangal dyvangal shristichu

The above lines are from a hit malayalam song which tries to spread the message of brotherhood and unity among people of all caste, religions, race and nationality. The first line says that Man created Religions and the second follows saying that these Religions created Gods. How true !
Essentially all religions preach the same message however people interpret the message in different ways and assume that their religion is superior to others. I feel deeply annoyed when I hear some so called ' religious mentors ' praising about their own religion and showing as if their religion is the Unltimate means to reach god. Is it by a choice that one gets birth in a Hindu, Muslim or a Christian family ? No it is just by sheer chance . I come from a school of thought which believes in the presence of the omnipresent and omnipotent force governing the Universe who may be referred as Krishna, Allah, Christ , Buddha or anyone else. I just fail to understand the loathsome attitude of all people who think that their religion or god is superior to others.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Hows yours ?


Me : How’s Yours ?

1st Colleague : Mine is long, juicy and pink.

Me : How’s Yours ?

2nd Colleague : Mine is dry.

Me : How’s yours ?

3rd Colleague : Mine is broad and juicy.




By now I am sure you might have had very wild imaginations which are similar to the ones which occurred to me.


Well not to blame you the above is a game wherein an incumbent (in the above me) asks the question (How’s …) and is given three clues by three different people and the incumbent has to guess the body part pre-decided by the others in 2 chances. Well as for me I was very straightforward and answered in a stentorian manner but later on was embarrassed to find that the final answer to my questions was actually “LIPS “. Can you believe that?

Hope that now you know which games & questions to avoid!

Hope you all have a good one too :-) !

Saturday, December 03, 2005

What's in a Credit Card ?

Some people have been always enamored of owning credit cards of Foreign Banks such as AMEX. Fortunately I have never felt the need of having one in my wallet and consequently never owned one. This feeling of non-ownership is result of the exorbitant and hidden charges (read interest rates) some of these credit cards have. It is not very strange to hear people cribbing about high charges. But what happened last week to one of my relatives was indeed shocking.

A sales executive from a MNC bank approached a month back and had offered a “FREE” card. Though firmly reluctant to gain that card the executive convinced finally to apply for the card and made fill all the application forms.

3 Weeks Later.

An envelope comes from the bank stating charges of around Rs.600. So I assumed that this was another story of some hidden charges or perhaps the charges were result of the usage of the card. Till now the story was no different from many others who have been aggrieved by many banks. I had a small chat with my relative and came to know that they had not even sent the Credit Card until now and much before that comes a statement claiming charges of Rs.600 under I repeat a “FREE” card.
Within the next couple of days the bank was informed about the whole situation which had occurred and in their response all one got to hear was an apology and yes waiver of the current charges. But still they reiterated the fact that it was a free card. So are they billing us for someone else’s account? No satisfactory replies. But just like before they stated that they were sorry for messing up the whole situation. Now that completely pissed off my relative and gave his piece of mind left, right and center.

2 days later a guy came to deliver the credit card and very smartly he was shown the door. This incident only reaffirmed my belief that owning a credit card may not be that good an idea though I definitely agree that it is more than useful at times. Also it is very much possible some of us may have some very positive experiences to share.
But as far as I am concerned I still say “Thanks. nahin chahiye“ whenever a sales executive comes to offer any credit card.