Faux Pass 2

Scene: BIO exam morning, 11th September, 2007

Background info:
According to recent estimates, I take about 20 mins to get ready every morning.
Exam starts: 9.30, reporting time: 9.15, PGP rule: if you reach after 9.25, you can enter 30 mins after the time that you reach.

Situation: Even though this course(usually called a Globe course, though you don’t get any marks for any kind of globe in its exam) has a nice fat book, not particularly uninteresting or difficult, half of which had to be mugged for each exam, we had not read a single page of it from the portion coming in this exam. I downloaded the slides for the chapters after the exam the previous day, and the only target was to go through those slides somehow.. We managed to do most of it by 3 the previous night, and decided to leave the rest and sleep.


Got up the next morning and wanted to go through the parts we had most obviously forgotten.. decided not to take a bath for lack of time, and abundance of cleanliness ;) so went on mugging again.. now Mattu goes to take a bath, and when she comes, I decide to follow suite, not hearing her bickering.. so she leaves at 9.15 to have her breakfast.. shouting on me to come very soon.. I try my best and reach the examination hall at.. yes, you guessed it.. 9.25!!

The door was shut on our face, I use ‘our’ because, I had company!!
4 of us were left stranded outside the examination hall for the next 30 mins J
Hows that for time management lessons at IIML :)

Its interesting what each one of us did in those 30 mins. First 5 mins naturally we were trying to get the door open… peeping and sneering inside from the windows at our comfortably-in classmates until their exam started… and then pleading people in charge to let us go in.. trying stupid tactics…

Profs coming and going were horrified to see us.. one of the student is repeating the year and had to listen to ‘Not you!!’ kind of remarks, one is a PCom guy and had red eyes as usual for lack of sleep.. and I just stood there hoping no one reads my T-shirt, which ironically had ‘Greatness is in ME’ printed on it.

Then gave up, and had a nice time waiting outside.. the nice old PGPO guy got chairs arranged for us.. and don’t think I am being euphemistic when I say we had a nice time.. I would suggest you seriously consider trying it out… because I can’t quite put into words how it feels when all your batchmates are taking an exam and you are not... :) One of the student outside was keen on using that time to study more… maybe he thought that way he could recollect and write faster in the exam… he actually went downstairs and got his book, and tried to look busy with it for the rest of the time. Two of us were just grinning and looking here and there when the third one(the ‘not you!!’ guy) suggested that he and the other guy(PCom) go downstairs for.. err.. a smoke :P

What better way to spend the time? I at one point, considered catching some sleep, but didn’t because there was always someone coming and going.. and we couldn’t look as if we were utilizing this time to do what all we couldn’t otherwise do whether in exam time or otherwise… but, we did actually do that… just relax…

And soon the 30 mins ended, we stood outside the classroom at 9.52 and waited for the clock to hit 9.55… and then… the inevitable.. what else?
Wrote the globe exam.

Faux Pass 1

Scene: Agr! Bus!ness Conference, Day 2, 12th August, 2007

Situation: As a volunteer, I was co-ordinating one of the sessions, which essentially meant I had to change ppts and hand the projector’s remote control to the guest speakers. And being my usual self, I thought, a natural responsibility was to answer anyone and everyone’s queries. So while I was sitting there, this gentleman approached me, kept his hands on the table and leaned over… lets call him DS

DS: Hi.. There are a couple of students here from Bikaner, and they want to meet you all… just a small interaction
(With this one line, I assumed he was the prof accompanying those students and was trying to be intrusive and show his students what students here were like)

Me: Ok Sir, you mean the abm students here?
DS: Yes.. you are an abm student here, right?
Me: Yes sir..
DS: So, ask some of your classmates and arrange an informal meeting, they just want to know what all you people study, what you do etc.
Me: Sure sir, I’ll ask my seniors and classmates and let you know…

(Now, being extremely formal and suddenly feeling the need to be extra courteous, I used the most clichéd of ways to ask his name…)

Me: Sir, your good name please?
DS: huh??
Me: Umm.. sir, so how shall I inform you… your contact no… you staying at the guest house?
DS: Well.. my name is Dev! S!ngh… You don’t have to inform me, you can tell Mr. S Kum@r, your abm head, he’ll arrange the meeting…

WOOOW!
^$&#%*#&@!

I held my forehead in disgust over myself.. and made no attempt to hide it.. For god sake, that’s The Director of the Institute, and I am NOT supposed to forget HIS face after listening to him for an hour during induction, even if that was on a sleepy morning, from the last bench of the biggest hall here(leave alone the other sources where I should have and must have seen his pictures).

Me: I am extremely sorry sir.
DS: Never mind, that’s fine. Just arrange that meeting..
Me: Sure sir

Ain’t I certified in performing blunders after this?

WHY THE HELL???

There are two pertinent problems with me which make me question why the hell am I in a B-school? Now this question HAS TO sound idiotic coming from a person who took CAT thrice and still managed not to get through and finally took an arranged marriage like deal to reach the gates of what is called Hell.

Yes… the problems:

Bad Memory
Bad sense of time

Ever since school days, I knew that I was bad at remembering names of people who meant nothing except recipient of some award or inventors of some thing which deserved a mention in our GK books. With people I met even once, I would remember their names forever… That was then, and I believe even till college.

But that kind of changed. I can’t remember names now unless I personally know anyone. It doesn’t matter if I’ve had personal interactions with the person.
Could it be that I’ve saturated the number of faces and names I can remember? After attending 2 schools(discounting the separate nursery & prep schools), 1.5 months of a science college, 4 years of B.Tech, 2 years of work, and now coming for a PG course, I have filled my memory to the point that I can accommodate more names and faces only when it is absolutely unavoidable or extremely outshining. There was a time I remembered phone numbers of everyone I knew and almost never had to look up the phone book for it… I hate to think about it but is it because I am growing(as I like to put it) wiser?

The two biggest faux pass I’ve done here as a result of these two problems deserve separate posts altogether… and so they shall get.

Meanwhile, there are good ways too in which I’ve changed

My closest friends have felt this over past years that I wouldn’t share a problem with them… and its true I wouldn’t. They’d ask… tu kuchh bataati kyun nahi hai?? Itna to bolti hun… would be my reply. But there comes the gap… Saying and telling… even small, insignificant things… I just dropped the habit somewhere after distances set me away from people I loved to share everything with, without the slightest of hesitation… S!m!, P@rul, Sh!kul, P@nz!… Talking on phone or meeting occasionally can not and does not substitute for what is there when you live together.

Sharma ji once said to me when I was truly in a bad state and still won’t open my mouth… not with them… not with family… Shweta, we all love you and you know it, but the problem is that you only love yourself… you just won’t tell us.

I wondered then how did he know?? Well, somehow he does… that’s a different story… Sharma ji can read minds… if he asks a question, you don’t even speak a word… but he’ll know the answer.

My thoughts were that why should I bore or bother people with trivial details or my small problems? How does it matter to them and how would it change things?

Call it the ‘Musketeers’ effect... this has taken a 360 degree turn.
I can’t hide anything even if I want to, and with them, I don’t want to, don’t need to.
I can’t explain the way this changed and how, or may be I can, but I would rather not. Coz sometimes saying things spoils them… I think they get the message..

Besides this, the culture of this place is also quite different… Right since induction, whenever you get into a group interaction with seniors/peers… they would ask you to introduce yourself such that you have to start by telling things you normally don’t go around telling the world about. Obviously, people don’t always like such forceful intrusions. But when you start with such things, you are forced to drop your inhibitions… and concentrate on here and now than keep guarding your past.

Its only once we speak out one thought do we stop cultivating it over and over and move on to the next.

Glad I found such friends where people find none… I miss my gold here.. but none the less, happy that they were once with me, and happier that I’ve found more to treasure!