Day 112 - 26th October 2010

Spent the entire day in MICANVAS concert ticket sales. Went with Mallu and Maushi to Gandhinagar, tried our luck at a couple of colleges - Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Communication and Technology and Deendayal Pandet Petroleum University. Both colleges have an amazing campus, also, Gandhinagar is brilliantly maintained. Got quite a few leads at both the colleges, need to follow up with them over the next couple of days. Bought new sandals from Woodland on the way back. Got back to campus by around 730 after which extended family decided to go out for dinner. Went to a place called Honey9 :-D apart from the name everything else about the place rocked! Awesome tandoori chicken at a really reasonable price. Had to rush back to campus for the events sub team meeting at 10, its now slowly sinking in that MICANVAS is not that far away. Spent the rest of the night packing and getting ready to move out of Palaash for the next 4 days. Feeling very very sleepy, will call it a day now, have another long day ahead tomorrow.

Day 111 - 25th October 2010

Had a 10 o'clock today so could afford to wake up a little late. The DC lecture had a major argument between a bunch of students and the prof. on whether divorce was a development issue or not. The prof. felt that it was an issue but majority of the class felt that the causes of divorce were development issues. It ended with no consensus whatsoever. IGD was all about power,influence and politics about the workplace. Got to some interesting facts about the way the Japanese and Europeans work. Was feeling extremely sleepy by the end of the lecture. Slept for a almost 3 hours in the afternoon. Woke up so that I could see a bit of the MCL game between Smokin Joes and Navy Square Cut, but the match was already over by then. Smokin Joes won by 92 runs.

Went to Bopal in the evening for a haircut. The road to Bopal is such a pleasure to ride on unlike how it was during the monsoon. There was a nice chill in the air as well. Tried to read up a bit about Ayodhya for tomorrow's Imagining India class. MICANVAS is 2 days away and things are now moving in full swing. Had a security meet in the night, this was for the concert on the 30th. A detailed security plan was shown to us. All the guys from PGP1 will be volunteering for security. We will also be moving in to senior hostels for the next 5 days. Have to pack for that as well. Will be going for another round of general sales tomorrow, not sure whether I will be able to update until MICANVAS is over, will try though!

Day 110 - 24th October 2010

Today inadvertently became a rest day. Had only one lecture - QT, which I missed because I overslept. Ended up waking up at 12 in the afternoon, proper sunday wala feeling :-) Tried to understand the concepts that I missed in the QT class, its a lot of excel related work, I never realized that excel is such a powerful tool! Spent the rest of the day doing general tp. Went to Bopal for ice cream after dinner. Had to get back in time for a MICANVAS batch meet. Back in the room now, will go to sleep. The size of this post is indirectly proportional to how sleepy I am feeling right now :P

Day 109 - 23rd October 2010

Last day of a marathon week. Today it was the QT prof's turn to provide the quote of the day - " You see learning linear programming is like trying to kill a tiger. If the bullet hits the tiger in the first go,he is dead. If it doesn't you're dead." CMA was also pretty interesting, had to build a balanced scorecard for MICA. The kind of discussions we have in the CMA class feel like a proper b school classroom discussion where a lot of ideas are exchanged and you actually get to learn a lot from your classmates. Had a 3 hour long siesta, this is not turning out to be a good idea! Need to come out of it. It takes at least 2-3 hours to come back to normal after a siesta. Had to collect a new LAN cable from the IT dept in the evening. Tried studying a bit of QT after that at the library, simplex isnt that simple,its very tedious! Dinner at the mess tonight was global cuisine - mexican corn salad for starters, lung fung soup, pizzas, russian salad and ice cream :D After dinner took my i-pod and went to the Asoka terrace, there was a nice chill in the air today. Was there for about an hour , came back to the room and was seeing some of the entries for the re-imagining India contest for MICANVAS, some really good ones in there. After sometime went back to the Asoka terrace with extended family and snacked on some chivda. The conversation went on till the wee hours of the morning! Fortunately have only one lecture tomorrow and am pretty free for the rest of the day.

Day 108 -22nd October 2010

After sleeping for around 2 hours I surprisingly didn't feel sleepy in the lectures(am I getting used to this schedule??) CB was as entertaining as ever, quote of the day - "In-laws are those people who make you feel like outlaws!" :-P. Its funny no matter how dry a subject is if the prof. is good it seems to becomes so much more interesting, the reverse applies for a good subject and a not so good prof as well. Couldn't sleep in the afternoon because a company had come for a pre placement talk. But could leave early thankfully thanks to the fact that extended family volunteered for ticket sales for the Kailash Kher concert next week at MICANVAS. We had to try our luck at CG road. Selling tickets to strangers is definitely not easy! Maushi and Apu did all the talking, Mallu and I were just silent bystanders, ensuring nothing untoward happens :P Learnt a new range of excuses from 'I'm not in town that day' to 'I dont know who Kailash Kher is':D Apart from sales it also turned out a be foodie expidition, started with Pav Bhaji and Masala Pav at honest(yes there is a chain of fast food joints called honest!), followed by Vada Pav Amdavadi style near Vastrapur lake. The Amdavadi rendition is served with dollops of butter,toasted on a tawa and is served sweet chutney. Went to the Vastrapur lake after that, the surrounding area reminded me of a lot places in Bangalore, was missing the place for some strange reason! The grand finale was salads,pasta and pizza at Papa John's, always wanted to go that place in Bangalore but never got a chance to do so. Was pretty decent, a refreshing change from Dominos and Pizza Hut. The ride back to campus was in Azhar Bhai's rick, with the playlist ranging from Oasis to Bobby McFerrin. We decided to get off and walk the last kilometre back to campus. On a full moon night the road from Bopal coming to campus is a sight to behold! Couldn't get sleep so stayed up for a while reading some articles on cricinfo until 4. I wonder for how long will I be able to survive on such less sleep :P

Day 107 - 21st October 2010

Had another long day today, with 4 lectures for the fourth day on the trot. The highlight of the day though was in the CMA class when a person tried to pffaf his way through an answer to which the prof. replied "If only I could use the eight letter word in class" :-D. Apart from that CB was also pretty interesting with the usual dose of real life examples to explain almost every concept.

The tiredness and lack of sleep of the past 3-4 days finally took its toll, slept for 3 hours in the afternoon. Went to the library to do the CMA pre-read, theory on building a balanced scorecard and a case on Mobil US (the oil company). But before I could start it was time for Sankalp's Khula Aasmaan at the OAT. 3 plays were staged, one of them was an adaptation of Chicago the musical. It turned out quite well and the entire cast deserves a pat on the back for pulling it off :-) After Khula Aasmaan got back to the library to the start the CMA pre-reads, moved very very slowly. Got done by around 5 in the morning. Have another long day ahead! Will get some shut eye before that.

Day 106 - 20th October 2010

Not the best of days on campus. Phantoms lost the first game of the MCL, was a low scoring thriller. The detailed match report can be found here. Losing is a bad feeling, but we still have a chance to qualify for the next round.Somehow managed to stay awake through four lectures during the day.The match held was immediately after lectures got over. It was too humid today, must have lost at least 2 litres of water just by sweating :P After the match had a MICANVAS events sub team meet, just to brief us on what to expect on D day. Post dinner had the first junior ARC meeting. It was a fruitful discussion and each of us has taken up certain action items. Came to the library after that to do the CMA pre-read for tomorrow's class. Am half asleep as I type this one, hence such a short post, will go back to the room now and call it a day.

Day 105 - 19th October 2010

Back to grind of being awake for 21 hours at a stretch! Another full day of lectures, the Imagining India class was based on the reading material provided for Khalistan. There were some people who hadn't read it but confidently managed to pffaf their way through the discussion based on whatever prior knowledge they had. Im pretty sure the prof. could make that out. CB revolved all around the concept of joint families and their consumption patterns and also the changing family structures. After lectures had cricket practice in the evening, couldn't play on the ground as PGP2 had a practice match, so had to do with the area in front of SilverOak. Got done with practice at around 630. Tried to study a bit of CMA in the library but then 'extended family' decided to have an outing to CCD. Was good fun, haven't laughed this much for quite sometime :-) After CCD had Chana Bhatura for dinner at this place called Havmor, the Bhaturas were so huge that the four of us found it very difficult to finish two plates! Had to get back to campus in time for the Academic Review Committee (ARC) elections, Maushi and I were contesting alongwith 14 other people from the batch for 6 places. Each of us had to give a speech as to why we should be elected and then the floor was open for questions from the batch. I am generally pretty bad at pitching for myself, but still made an attempt. Voting was conducted immediately after the speeches were made, both Maushi and I made it :-) Tried to study again in the library after that but then got a call saying that people were working on the creatives for the Phantoms campaign, came up with a few ideas which were either spoofs of existing ads or extoled the values of not smoking :-D

Back in the room now working on an internet connection which reminds me of the dial up days, anyways will call it a day now. First match of the MCL tomorrow, hope the Phantoms do well :-)

Day 104 - 18th October 2010

Surprisingly woke up at 7 today and was feeling quite fresh, wasn't really expecting that after yesterday's dandiya antics :P. Full day of lectures today, the QT prof got pissed off with the class when only 3 out of 80 had solved a problem which he had given over the weekend. In our defence we thought it was just for practice and didn't expect it to be submitted today. In the Imagining India we were shown half of a movie made on Partition - Garm Hawa. It tells the story of Muslims who stayed back in India during the post partition days, pretty interesting stuff. The other two lectures were DC and CB. CB was as interesting as usual, with the prof. giving examples from his own industry research. However the best part of his lecture has to be names he gives people who sit w/o their nametags on their desks. He has christened people Anamika, Parvatiamma and Ram Khilavat Singh till now :-D

In the afternoon had to write an article on MICA winning the sports fest for TI. Had a practice cricket match against Navy 'Sqaure' Cut. Was a low scoring match which we won by 9 runs in the end. MCL starts day after so this was our last practice match I guess. The draws were announced today, there are 2 pools of 4 teams each. We (phantoms) are in the same pool as 502 Pataka, Marlboro Reds and Gudang Garam, our first game is day after against 502 Pataka. Skipped dinner at the mess and read a bit about the Khalistan movement in the library for tomorrow's Imagining India class, there is so much to read about!! Had a midnight snack - tadka maggi at Chota before coming back to the room.

Day 103 - 17th October 2010

First actual rest day of the term,had been to Adalaj on the previous rest day so it doesn't count, could finally wake up at 12 :-D Had breakfast at Chota and planned to laze around through most of the day. Post lunch read some articles on cricinfo. Mallu,Apu and Muashi came over for some general tp and placement related discussions in the afternoon, it was good fun, we are now extended family ;-) Our discussion went on till 930 in the night, the only reason we split was since we had dandiya on campus. Dandiya was good fun, after trying my hand at Garba and Dandiya(I somehow managed to break two sticks,sorry CulComm!) I gave up and started doing what I know best, the visarjan dance. The DJ also complied by "Apdi Pode" and the likes ;-) Got done by around 1 in the night after which I got back to the room. Have a long week ahead 5 back to back days of full day lectures. Hope to wake up on time tomorrow!

During the course of the day it was brought to my notice that although I have been mentioning Maushi on this blog, she hasn't been formally introduced as yet. So here goes-

Sania Narulkar aka Maushi -

She is called Maushi because she is one of the first Maharashtrians I met on campus, it was during the MICANVAS interviews, when our interview slots were one after the other. In return I am called Kaka :P She is one of the most versatile people in our batch, after having graduated from the best architecture college in the country, she decided to chuck it and get into brand management. She is also one of the core members of 4M - MICA Maharashtra Mitra Mandal :D Her claim to fame was as the choreographer of the 'Babli' dance for our freshers. And yeah the easiest way to make quick money is to partner with her for a quiz :-D

Maushi - sorry for not having introduced you earlier, hope all the 'mhaska' above makes up for it ;-)

Day 102 - 16th October 2010

The QT prof. seemed to have come back to normal today, he was his usual patient self. Now that is a good sign :-) Got done with lectures by 1130 so decided to go to Fabindia to buy a couple of kurtas, since Oorja will be happening on campus. Now as is generally the trend I couldn't come back to campus after buying just kurtas, had lunch at Uncle Sam's pizza, unlimited salad,pasta and pizza buffet for 150 bucks:-) Got back to campus at around 230 and did justice to the meal by sleeping for an hour. Played cricket for sometime in the evening, MCL will be beginning on the 20th, there are a lot of players whose base value was very low at the auction, but all of a sudden have started playing so well that they ought to have been priced higher. This substantiates my theory that in India everybody is a cricketer :-D For the first time out here I read a book for a good 2 hours, the one on what sport tells us about life, some really good insights in that one.

Had the Oorja competitions at the audi in the night. There were fashion shows, MICA's got talent, jugalbandi's,group dances and poem recitals. The fashion shows had some nice themes - evvolution of the underworld and 7 cardinal sins. My favourite group dance was the one on 'Munni Badnaam', those are the kind of songs for which you can dance even without preparing and still pull it off :-) The highlight of the show had to be when the MC for the evening imitated some of the seniors in front of them, that was just too hilarious! During the course of the competition we also got to know that MICA defeated IIM-A in a lot of sports at their sports fest. Such moments are ones to cherish- the entire audi celebrating in unison, as they really foster the spirit of belonging to this college. That got done by around midnight, will call it a day early today and plus tomorrow is a rest day, so shall sleep for at least 10 hours ;-)

Day 101 - 15th October 2010

Woke up at 630 for the first time out here - not to study but to play cricket :-) Had a practice match against the Marlboro Reds which we won with an over to spare. Had almost forgotten what it feels like to play a cricket match early in the morning with dew all over the place. Was good fun though, winning is always a good feeling even when it is a practice match. Lectures began only at 1130 today so had most of the morning free, used the free time to finish off some pending work.

Had our first QT lecture of the term, its the same prof. from the first term who did an excellent job. However today for some reason he was pretty strict with the class today, some people believe this is the after effect of correcting our QT I papers, which could be true. He even sent a stinker to the entire batch after class and marked the admin in Cc.

Apart from that Oorja - our annual cultural fest kicked off today. Had a puppet show on campus today. Have some more events planned for tomorrow and day after as well. Slept for 3 hours in the afternoon and didn't really feel like doing anything in the evening, so started reading the book about what sport teaches us about life. Its been pretty interesting so far. Had a MICANVAS batch meet at midnight regarding volunteers for the events. After that a few of us stayed back to stamp the concert tickets, 1000 of them had to be done. That took about an hour. Back in the room now, nothing much to do, may just go to Chota before calling it a day.

Day 100 - 14th October 2010

Century at MICA! And had a pretty nice day as well. Had only 2 lectures - DC and SM. Got done at 1130 and had the rest of the day free. Went to Bopal and ISCON mall with the intention of buying bathroom slippers but ended up spending 5 times the amount that can be spent on slippers! Ended up going to landmark and bought 2 books - one on the IPL and the other on what sport teaches us about life. As a part of the Imagining India course we are also expected to read Mother Pious Lady by Santosh Desai, its his take on the new Indian middle class. And I also bought a book on the rise of Dhirubhai Ambani - Ambani and Sons. So that makes it four books to read over the next 3 months. With the kind of schedule I have here I wonder how I am going to find the time to read all of them.

Anyways back to today, the highlight of the day was lunch at Mainland China (yes I went out to buy bathroom slippers :-P ) Had authentic chinese food for the first time in Gujju Land, was really good and it is one of the few places that serves non vegetarian food as well. Had to get back to campus for an interface meeting. Got done with that at around 430 after which I played tennis (for a change). Felt good to get back on the court after a long time. This was followed by the first major event of the term - the MCL player auctions with the tagline "Know your real value" :-D. Players were divided into buckets with base prices of 30,50,70 and 90 and captains had a budget of 1000 while bidding for a squad of 14. There were core teams of 3 members already formed, with each captain choosing two 'star' players. Yours truly was in one such core team. The theme for naming the teams this year is cigarettes, now since the team which I am a part of consists mainly of non-smokers we have chosen the name Phantom Sweet Cigarettes :-)

The other teams worth a mention are 502 Pataka and Navy 'Square' Cut.

The auction went on for a good 3-4 hours and at the end of it we got a pretty decent squad. Had a team meeting after that(yes, MCL is serious cricket) Got free by around 1230 in the night after which I decided to sleep early since we have practice at 645 tomorrow morning!

P.S. To commemorate 100 days at MICA and the spirit of MCL I shall indulge in a little narcissism and

share this pic.

Day 99 - 13th October 2010

Today was the official launch of the cricket season at MICA, with a match between PGP1 and PGP2. What an anticlimax it turned out to be - we got thrashed! Were bowled out for 89 and PGP2 comfortably chased down the target. To their credit they fielded brilliantly, withh 3 stunning catches. Yours truly couldn't make too much of a contribution, scored only 10 runs. Anyways have 3 months of cricket to look forward to now.

Apart from that had only 3 lectures today, could attend only 2 as quite a few of us got locked out for reaching 5 minutes late for the DC lecture. Utilized the time to finish of some pending work. After the lectures, saw a bit of the India Aus match at Bangalore. Unbelievable series , who would have thought that India could have had a clean sweep against Australia. Slept for a while after that before heading to the play the match.

In the night Mallu, Maushi and I went to NID for their Garba festival. Wanted to see how garba is actually done in Gujju land. It was pretty ok. Cant help but quote Mallu "I've been to funerals with better music", thats Mallu for you at his optimistic best:-P

Day 98 - 12th October 2010

The CB lectures get even more interesting by the day! A statement made by the prof. today was a brilliant example of consumer insight - "When a child idolizes Sachin Tendulkar, he doesn't play cricket for 14 hours, he drinks boost!" That was one of the many examples he gave in class and each one of them made so much sense! The other lectures were on SM and DC, both were ok. After lunch had to go meet the communication managers for MICA alongwith TI. Had planned to go to Bopal for some work after that but came back to the room and slept for a good 2 hours.

Went to Bopal in the evening to buy some junk food. Had to come back and design another sports marketing event for MICANVAS. Came up with an idea of branding of stadiums and came up with an event around that, have submitted it to the events team,lets see what happens. After that took part in an online business quiz conducted by IIM Rohtak, was a very well made quiz. This was followed by the MCL meeting where we had to elect four captains from PGP1, the election process was good fun, we even asked the candidates to give speeches :-P Now that the 4 captains have been elected they have to come up with team names and there will be an auction for players over the next couple of days. After that was done got down to the pre read for the Imagining India class. Had to read a piece written by Dr.Ambedkar on whether there is a case for the formation of Pakistan, pretty interesting stuff, should be an interesting discussion in class tomorrow.

Day 97 - 11th October 2010

Woke up today with aches in parts of the body which I never even knew existed! Was a struggle dragging myself to class. First day of the term where we had a full day of lectures. CMA was pretty interesting, the case study approach is an amazing way to teach a subject, of course it also depends on the faculty member teaching it. CB is also taught really well, since the prof. has a lot of industry experience he has some really good real life examples on consumer insight. Imagining India was all about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. We discussed the case of Pakistan, was a really interesting discussion, but it is also the class which has maximum DCP which can get quite entertaining ;-)

Most of the afternoon was spent designing a sports marketing event for MICANVAS and then pitching for sponsors. Got to learn a lot from the experience. The event has to be designed based on the sponsors in mind so had to come up with a couple of events and will have to design another event tomorrow. Had a batch meet which was to discuss the formation of an Academic Review Committee (ARC), elections will be held for that pretty soon, have sent in an EOI. That was followed by a TI meeting. Have a lot to do wrt interface as well this sem. After that got back to designing the sports marketing event. Before I could realise it was 430 in the morning, its only the beginning of the term and have already reached that phase where I am not sleeping before 4!

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Day 96 - 10th October 2010

First rest day of the term and first trip road trip after coming to MICA. Went to a place called Adalaj which has a stepwell. Its a pretty nice place to go to with some good wall carvings and brilliant symmetry. We were 11 of us who traveled by 3 bikes and a car. The roads were really good, rode on such an empty stretch for the first time :-P From Adalaj we decided to go to a place on the way to Mehsana through which the tropic of cancer passes, rode for so long that it felt like we had even crossed the equator! Headed to upper crust for lunch from there, had heard a lot about the place and it is totally justified. Had to finish lunch quickly and come back to campus by3 as we had a practice match against PGP2. As usual it was a close match and we ended up winning it of the last ball by one run! Yours truly helped the scorers by not troubling them at all but the fact that we won made up for it :-) Was dead tired by evening, riding nearly 100 kilometres and playing cricket for 3 hours can definitely take its toll. NID had invited MICA students for garba to their campus. Most of PGP1 went but I decided to take a rain check, was in no state to stand/dance. Read a bit of the cases for tomorrows classes and didn't even realise when I slept off!

Day 95 - 9th October 2010

Had only one lecture today - CMA. Was done by 10 in the morning and had nothing much to do after that. Tried sleeping a bit before lunch but could hardly get any sleep. Played cricket again in the afternoon. Had to umpire for one game before playing the next one. Its funny how when it comes to playing cricket, whether you are five or twenty five years old somethings never change. If you feel you are wrongly given out you will not think twice before creating a scene and start arguing with the umpire, the opposition team will then join in and support the umpire and the confrontation ensues until a couple of people intervene and restore normalcy. This was just one of the incidents that took place today, there were many more but the contents of those cannot be reproduced on this blog ;-)

Spent the evening washing clothes and having some more discussions about Palaash Corp. with our leaders :-P Hope the website and online game materialise, would be a part of our legacy. Played a little badminton after dinner but my skills seem to have deteriorated to say the least(not that I was Gopichand earlier),my hand eye co-ordination amounts to zero when it comes to this game. Dont know when it will improve. Feeling very tired, guess its because of the entire week of cricket. Will call it a day soon today and sleep into the rest day tomorrow :-)

Day 94 - 8th October

Had only 2 lectures today. One of them was our first lecture on cost accounting. Now based on my experience in FA I wasn't exactly looking forward to this course, however the prof. is really good and I really liked his first lecture. He is an IIM-A alumni and his method of teaching is similar to their style of delivering courses. There are pre reads and cases that need to be done before the class and anybody in class can be questioned on them, so it has to be done! And to add to that he is a very very knowledgable guy with more nearly 40 years of corporate experience, so there is loads to learn from him.

Played cricket in the afternoon, after which I had to take the bike for servicing. But I did everything except that! The service centre was running over capacity so I couldn't leave the bike for servicing, Apu had also come along since she needed to buy some stuff from Bopal, so we decided to go to subway. At subway we called Mallu and Maushi and asked them to meet us at chocolate room. Chocolate room is similar to Mocha where you get milkshakes,pancakes, pizzas and many other things all made from chocolate. Was my first visit there, hogged on death by chocolate pancake and ferroro rocher milkshake. Such impromptu trips are always fun. During the ride through the city noticed a lot of pandals which were very well lit up, Navaratri is going to be fun in this place, looking forward to it!

Day 93 - 7th October 2010

This is the busiest of all three terms when it comes to extra curricular activities- we have the MICA Cricket League(MCL), MICANVAS, Sankalp and the grand alumni meet in that order. MCL practice has been happening for the past couple of days, there will be 4 teams formed from PGP1 and there will be 8 teams in all, 3 more teams from PGP2 and one which will be a combination of the other courses. MICANVAS is the annual fest, which is supposed to be 3 of the best days on campus. The grand finale is Adrenalin, the music concert, this year Kailash Kher will be performing. Had a batch meet with the MICANVAS senior team today, we were told what to expect for the next 20 days i.e until the fest begins. Palaash and Parijat will have to be vacated for the participants. We will have to move in with our room baaps for those 3 days, but then again nobody sleeps during MICANVAS :-P.

Apart from the extra curricular activities we also have some pretty interesting subjects this term with good faculty as well. One such subject is Imagining India, the reading material has some pretty interesting articles, the course will consist of panel discussions on the articles given in the book. The panelists will be a group of students who would have prepared their views based on the reading material, its a very interesting way of learning a subject.

Apart from that a pretty routine day, have gotten back to the routine of clocking in less than 4 hours of sleep by doing absolutely nothing :-D

Day 92 - 6th October 2010

Guess I spoke to soon when I said there is so much time and so little to do. The assignments and pre reads for this term seem to have picked up from where they left off last term. Have a two group dynamics assignments - the deadline for one is tomorrow and the other is day after. Also have a lot of pre reading to do for the Services Marketing and Consumer Behaviour classes. But all of that took a backseat in the afternoon as a cricket match had to be played :-P. Had a practice match - 20 overs, pgp1 v/s pgp2. After restricting them to 94 we seemed to be cruising at 70/2 after 14 overs. But then in true Indian style there was a dramatic collapse, we ended up losing the match by seven runs with the last over of the chase being a maiden!! Yours truly after getting a decent start threw his wicket away trying to finish off the match soon.

Most of the evening was spent analysing the match and deciding on what could be the possible team combinations for the MCL could be. Got to know today that the MCL is quite a long tournament with at least 7 teams (3 each from pgp1 and pgp2 and one from the other courses) and each team playing the other 6 teams once and it is bloody serious cricket! There is absolutely no love lost at the end of some of the matches ;-) After all the cricket related duties were performed it was time to start the GD assignment (glad to know my priorities are all sorted out ;-) ).

Day 91 - 5th October 2010

What a day! Most of it was consumed by the drama of the Mohali test match. Was in class when all the drama was unfolding. But all of us kept getting constant updates throughout the lecture. The tension in class was palpable :-P Finally when the winning runs were hit and we got to know about it couldnt help but celebrate in class itself, even the prof. joined in the celebrations, was amazing fun. One of those days when everything seemed to be going great for Indian sport, with the medals tally at the CWG being second only to Australia. The last day which was similar was way back in 2001 when on the first day of the India Aus test match at Kolkata Bhajji became the first Indian test bowler to take a hattrick and Pullela Gopichand won the All England Badminton championship. Its really amazing how sport can raise the morale of an entire nation. Until a week back everybody was cursing the Indian system and how things work over here and today everybody is proud to be an Indian. Something similar happened to Spain in 2008 when they were going through a major financial crisis, they won the Euro Cup and Rafa won Wimbledon that year. Both victories brightened the nation's mood!

Couldn't help but digressing and writing about sport. Now back to MICAland! Played cricket again today, more than 30 people turned up. Am now in this phase of the term where there is a lot of time and not much to do, Im loving it :-D Dunno for how long it will continue though. Had some really tasty Puran Poli in the evening, a friend had got it from home. Spent the rest of the evening reading articles about the match. Dinner at the mess was Chinese, which was pretty decent. Spent nearly half an hour laughing thanks to discussions about Palaash Corp. and its products, you may be wondering what is Palaash Corp. , that will be known in due course of time.

Decided to sleep early today(for a change), so will try and call it a day at 1130 pm which according to the MICAn clock is 630 in the evening :-P

P.S - Facebook became Laxman Central today thanks to his heroics, yours truly also made a contribution : Fosters new campaign - VVS Laxman - Australian for fear. ;-)

Day 90 - 4th October 2010

First day of term II. Was relatively free in the morning since the registration and fees payment got done quite fast. Had only two lectures which started at 1130 in the morning - Organization Behaviour and Consumer Behaviour. CB seems to be a pretty interesting subject and the prof. is also quite knowledgeable. He has requested the class to sit with their nametags in front of the desk otherwise he would call them by names he would deem appropriate like Ram Bharose :-P Saw a bit of the India Aus test match after lunch but couldn't fight the urge to resist a siesta. Was woken up by a friend at around 530 as we had been called for Interface work. After that headed to play cricket, the ground looks prim and proper and is all set for the MICA cricket league (MCL) which should begin next week. Realised that my stamina level is quite low, need to work on it!

A few of us made plans to watch Robot at PVR in the evening. The plan got extended to having dinner as well. What initially started as a group of four ended becoming a group of 10 - guess thats the Rajnikant effect :-) As for the movie there's only one way to sum it up - on a Monday night for a 10 o'clock show in a city like Ahmedabad it was housefull! Some of the visual effects were brilliant and the lyrics for all songs were hilarious - they covered everything from Einstein to Asimov, protons and neutrons to Kilamanjaro and Mohenjo Daro !! Was good fun watching it in a packed theatre, the audience would start clapping at some of thr typical Rajni scenes and the movie even received a standing ovation at the end. Got back to campus by around 130, classes start from 9 tomorrow, back to the grind!!