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How Sekhar Anand got wasted, got dumb and never had a life

As I was looking through the JEE results a few days back, I couldn't help but reminisce those amazing days of my life. The preparation for JEE ... aah, they were the battlegrounds of the very best brains in India. (Well, at least that's what I thought before I came here and got wasted.) The exam became a challenge, and believe me I am pretty bad at them. As an avid reader of the fantasy genre, I came across the statement "Adversity and sorrow carve out a person's soul, so that he might have the heart to behold happiness". Was fantasy nothing but a different cloak on the thing we call reality, I wondered. It were these thoughts that led me to finally arrive at my life's motto, "Aim for the stars, you will atleast go sky high".

So I set out preparing for this exam with an aim of becoming the AIR1 and nothing less. The first year passed by in a blur. The masti was there, the shame was there and there was also a dissatisfaction. That summer something clicked in me, thanks to my mom. My holidays were spent in my study rather than outside it ... some might say that I worked hard, but for me that became a challenge and thus fun. The second year started with a bang. Pen-fighting was a matter of honor and organic chemistry was the new buzzword (thanks to rajnie sir). The second breakfasts I had at maurya with Akshay, pypa and Sid & the stupid book thefts of pypa that I took part in are the memories that will last a lifetime. The teachers this time around were even more cool. We had fun in the classes -the probability problems in maths, the quick fire organic in chem, and neelesh sir in physics. Then came the AITS, the moronic boards and finally the biggie.

JEE ... physics went average, maths was cool and I got to stare at the walls during chemistry. A stupid friend made me to believe that I was nowhere near the cut-off. I told of this to my mother, contemplated for half an hour("Shit maan .. Not again") and for the next month I prepared for the other exams with a resolve that become well proverbial in the household. Within the span of a week I gave AIEEE, EAMCET, BITS and ISI; and excelled in all of them. The day of IIT results - i was expecting nothing great out of it. I was drinking tea happily when my dad calls up to tell me that I scraped through. I didn't celebrate a lot. I now had all the
pride of an Ishkan knight burning in my heart.

The next time something big comes my way there's a small change, a small belief that I could draw upon my resolve once again and that the only thing that could ever stand in my way would be me.
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Well, rather serious post,eh? Here come the fun trivia! My top five memories from those days:
1. The penfights, the farzi football games, the country waale antakshari game (heck noone named this game) !!!

2. The books Pranay and I stole, the samosas and the sweets Sid n I never paid for and finally the cool drinks that Ajay and I lifted for the whole gang!!! Damn I was among kleptomaniacs ..

3. The humiliating yet funny "stand up and ..." in English, French, Maths and Chem classes. (SK Rajesh was particularly into me with his "Sheiigarrr")

4. The second breakfasts at Maurya with Akshay and Sid ... aah the chutney there ...

5. The bus rides back home to KKP ... The whole dumbass bunch of teens (me, Yash, Harish and CPP) somehow magically again got transferred to the same place - IITG!!!

ys

And so it begins ...

Summer's back! And all the boredom in the corporate cubicles of an iit-ian is filled invariably with one past time - blogging. Hell, so here's The Dude's version ...

Some say dropping an intern at IBM is not a move a sane man makes. Hello ... I chose MnC with AIR 670; I could as well have chosen CS and tried to change the world from my compu using C++ and JAVA. I chose MATLAB and Bloomberg instead and I'm sticking to that ... well atleast now I am.
Well, my intern's started off like any desi industry intern ... instead of all the boring details, lemme share a few standout experiences here ... IBank Intern Funde ....

1. BEST suxx man ... Matter-of-fact, Mumbai traffic suxx man. The moment you enter the city the first thing that stands out about Mumbai is the amount of fly-overs in the city and the traffic congestion, inspite of them. It took me 3 hours to get to my office in a bus !!! and hell i wasn't even living in the farthest parts of the city!!!

2. (1) => Local trains ... And man, they are awesome. Get a first class pass and then the travel's just cruise mode ...

3. My office's filled with football fans .. I mean there were discussions about Paul Scholes and Munaf Patel, Liverpool and their title draught,et al.. And seriously, does anybody out there like Chelsea except Usha Kiran?

4. Bloomberg's legen ..... dary !!! I mean you feel like the God of the Financial World sitting on it.Every single piece of info including the address of Paul Scholes is in it!!! The analysis and the freedom it provides is mind-blowing. Figure this, my first day at the internship. A nervous bloke, who just spent half an hour outside the building to put on his tie walks in.

Guide: "Hi maan"
Bloke: "Good morning, sir"
Guide: "Yaar aaj HR waale nahin hain. So, here's Bloomberg and Reuters ... Fiddle around with them!! Chill maar yaar"
Bloke (in his mind): Wtf .. Hell yeah !!!

5. Well in an Asset Management Centre where crores are hedged everyday, phrases like "I don't give a f%$#", "Chutiya", "Gaand maar le", "Chillax dude" aren't as uncommon as they seem to be ... :P

6. Had lunch at INOX foodcourt for a week (which is just next door, btw) and then corn maggi at the canteen. Corn maggi ... who the f adds corn to maggi? Dumbass ...

More to come as the days go by ... Well, the work's cool and have a bunch of IIT-ians beside me.

PS: Read "The Witch of Portobello" by Paulo Coelho .. a nice read if you have a day to kill and are in a mood for a bit of senseful arbitaapa.

PPS: Check this out -
Office 7:30 - 8:30 13 hours
Sleep 11:30 - 6:30 7 hours
That leaves me with (24-20 =) 4 hours in which I have to eat, bathe, wear a formal dress and figure out the intricacies of tieing a tie knot!!!! Insane maaan ...