"PUN"E INTENDED!!

10.30 pm, Tuesday, 24/02/2009 -

With a thumb in the air pointing towards PUNE and my fists clenched firmly, I hopelessly watched as each and every vehicle blissfully avoided me. Any thoughts of returning back home could not be entertained, because going to the other side of the road and pointing towards MUMBAI wouldn't help. Its not that you get stranded at the MUMBAI-PUNE expressway everyday at 10.30 in the night you know.

Well, the day had begun quite normally with me going to the college in the morning and after finishing up with work rushing back home to catch the 4.30 bus to pune. I had my interview scheduled in an MBA college the next day! The moment I reached home, I realised that I had forgotten to take an oh-so important printout which was to be submitted the next day! I finished my packing quickly, took the printout, withdrew some money from the ATM and reached the place by 4.20!

4.25 - No sign of the bus!
4.30 - No sign of the bus!
4.35 - Finally a volvo bus arrives, not mine though!
4.40 - Still no f***ing sign of the bus!
4.45 - I think of calling up the concerned person and abusing him with the dirtiest expletives!
4.50 - I finally call up, with my temper raising ( I hate it when people turn up late)
Me - Hello?
Fellow - Hallu?
Me - Vijay bol rahe ho kya?
Fellow - Haan, kaun?
Me (with extreme mildness, angry someone?) - Bhaisaab, aap ab tak pahuche nahi? Kya huaa? Mein national park ke idhar khada hun, kahaan ho AAP?
Fellow - Arre aa rahaan hai na, baba! 5-10 min mein pahuchta hun!!
Me - Theek hai, aaraam se!!
5.00 - 10 mins over, where is he?
5.15 - Finally my beloved bus arrives!!

Then this vijay guy takes approximately 2 hrs just to reach vashi from borivali ( He stopped at each and every corner on the road and shouted "PUNE, PUNE". I was travelling in a Volvo bus....really!!) and by the time we left mumbai, it was past 7.30!! On top of that, this guy had the guts to take a dinner-break at around 9.00 pm for about 20 minutes! And finally, at around 10.30 pm somewhere near the talegaon checknaka the bus had the guts to conk off!! I got down from the bus, frustated, and thought maybe I could reach pune faster by asking for a lift!! So, after unsuccessfully trying for, say around 10-15 minutes, I was finally able to stop a car(You don't need to be a girl, to do that you know!). The driver of the car, after several negotiations agreed to drop me off at pune for 100 rs. :((

This fellow then dropped me to some unknown location named shivaji nagar in pune!! It was about 11.30 in the night!! I called up my friend, told him about my whereabouts and pleaded him to come and pick me up!! He arrived 20 minutes later and took me to McDonald's for dinner. Wow!! A place I have never been before!! (Being Sarcastic!!) After having a couple of burgers and a regular serving of french fries ( Ya, I eat a lot!!!) we finally headed home! We reached his place by 12.30 in the night, and by 12.40 I was fast asleep!!


5.30 am, Wednesday, 25/02/2009

Tringggggggggggg!! The alarm bell rings and I get up!! I took a look at my watch and heaved a sigh of relief! I had ample time to get ready! Got up to carry on with my morning ablutions, brushed my teeth, shaved my beard and then desperately tried to wake my friend up. I didn't know how to operate the lame water heater he had in his house!! He gave me standard instructions, still half asleep! I swear, I did all that he told me to. After waiting for about 15 minutes, I touched the water, it was DEAD COLD!! Waited for ten more minutes, STILL DEAD COLD!! Assuming that something is wrong with the heater, I had my bath with the freaking cold water at 6.30 am in the morning in pune with the temperature being not more than 15 degree Celsius!! I came out of the bathroom freezing, desperate to get into my clothes. I got ready, kicked my friend to wake him up, and left for the MBA college with him on his bike! Reached the MBA college at around 7.20 where a bus was waiting to take us to the new campus of the college which is a good 45 minutes away from the city!! The new campus was at a breath taking location with a mind boggling infrastructure.

**For the entire experience in the MBA college, please search for my post in www.pagalguy.com. I can't risk boring you with so many details at the same time!!**

On our way back to the city in the college bus, the smart ass in me got a new idea. I thought, that the bus I intend to catch would obviously pass through the mumbai-pune expressway, why not get down at the highway itself and catch the bus then and there. Brilliant isn't it? I, so happy with my brilliant plan, had my lunch at a roadside dhaba ( yummy food, the place is called vir-da-dhaba, its near a big toyota ka showroom) and waited for a bus to arrive, with my thumb pointing towards Mumbai this time around................................for an entire hour!!

When finally a bus came, it was an S.T bus, which I arrogantly avoided, waiting for a volvo! At around 5 pm, when I ran out of patience I caught an S.T bus( YAAY!!), which was not going to drop me at borivli, but at dadar!! What luck!! Some random thoughts during the journey -

1) From CAT to MICAT!!

The title looks like a straight lift from a recent bollywood movie. Can't help it, am still reeling under the effects of the "Slumdog" Oscars!! Well, my season of writing management entrance exams started on the 16th of November, 2008! It was my first proper season, if I can call it so. I hope this is my last season too! Well the entire journey of writing these tests, was excruciating, if nothing else! It started of with CAT, followed by IIFT, JMET, SNAP, NMAT, XAT, FMS, MAT, CET and finally MICAT!! All in all quite a satisfying season!!

2) The WHITE TIGER!!

Was reading this book during the entire journey (well, almost the entire journey.... when not thinking of the above point!!). Quite an engrossing book!! A recommended read from my side!!

3) Flashbacks of a fool!!

Not the movie, but I was actually thinking about the entire journey I had, and the WRONG choices I made. Quite an adventurous trip though!!

4) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!

Yes, I suffer from road sickness. So, I try to sleep through my entire journey, unless reading a book!! But, sometimes the churning of my stomach gets the better of me, and I end up ditching the book for a quick nap!!


I finally reached Dadar at around 8.30pm, caught a train for borivli. The train was so crowded, with people hanging for their lives, that I almost jumped off it! Reached home by around 9.30!! By 9.45.....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! HOME SWEET HOME!!

RAJ!

P.S - If you find this post too long, boring, childish or whatever epithet you can think off, I don't care!! I liked MY trip, this is MY blog, where I can write anything that I like!! :P!!!!

P.P.S - Do, go to vir-da-dhaba....awesome food!!

P.P.P.S - Nothing, Just wanted to say bye!! :D!!

I am what I am!

Well, well, well......its been agesssssssssssss since I last updated my blog and posted an entry, I have been busy and how!! Well a quick update on what I was upto this last six months, took up a job as a lecturer in my own college ( not the boring types thou!), gave CAT and many, many of its clones, got a few calls, and have been preparing for them ever since!!


For the past six months, all that I could think of was an MBA.....nightmares, dreams, day-dreams et al. A recent study says that men think about women and sex once in every seven seconds. My analysis of the MBA preps say that an MBA aspirant thinks about Quantitative Aptitude, Verbal Ability and Data Interpretation once in every 3 seconds. That leaves out no time for any other malicious thoughts. To prove my point let me give a small list of the blog entries that I thought of, started and left midway.

In chronological order!!
1) And thus raj shrugged!!
2) When private is no longer PRIVATE!!
3) A corrupt mind is an Indian's workshop!!
4) Back from the hiatus....

Don't worry, you will never get to see the final copy!! Jokes apart, The past six months have taught me a lot, not only in terms of the knowledge I gained, but also in terms of knowing ME and my country!! When I had gone for my first ever GD/PI session (Group Discussion/Personal Interview for the unknown)...ARKS sir told us to learn a lot about many things. But, he said three things were of prime importance.....I, INDIA and the link between the two!! Learning and gaining knowledge about the country was not difficult, Google is a never ending resource with information being made available to you at lightning speed. Then came the difficult part, knowing myself.

"We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves" ~ Jean Guitton

I started off by listing things that are commonly known to everyone. Name, Background, College, Family, DOB.....i.e whatever my profile on Orkut/Facebook says! But these are stuff that everyone knows, I needed to research a lot on "ME". Slowly and steadily I sat down to make a chronological list of the events/happenings in my life. Then how has those events affected me as a person was next in the list. I was overwhelmed at the fact, that, there were so many things about me that I had blissfully ignored. And when I came down to link my life to the knowledge I had gained about India, I came to know one very important fact. My contribution to the country, or its progress is nothing but..............ZILCH!!

The preparations for MBA has had its bearing on me. I have started behaving as if, finance and economics was something I was ingrained with right from schooling. Take this incident for example...I was walking with a friend of mine. A house maid was walking towards us, she was using a high end mobile phone. My friend told me that the kaamwaali baai has a better phone than what we use. And all I could think was the TRICKLE DOWN EFFECT!! Now if I would have been my usual self, I would have just cursed my luck for not having a better phone, but the new MBA guy in me makes me think stuff that I could have scarcely imagined earlier. And the worst part is that at times I get into a state of soliloquy and people think that I am either crazy or divine!!


All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
~James Thurber

On this note I bid goodbye, as I have a lot more to learn about economics, marketing, my acads, my country and most importantly..ME!! I AM WHAT I AM!!