Unleashed

As the college comes to an end, nostalgia is expected. But when you ask people to scribble in the Class of 2016 Yearbook, beans are spilled, the town is painted red, inside jokes come out, unheard of friendships speak tons in 100 characters, emotions are unleashed!

As is human nature, each person forms an opinion of others. Some you know inside-out (my GANG members are laughing at this double entendre), while some people are a 50 shades of surprise. Sometimes you read between lines and realize a conversation some x months ago in some y context had some z meaning. Whereas most of the times, you know where you got your hands dirty from and that your partners-in-crime are just airing your dirty laundry in public :P Even if you or your friends aren't involved, but your crushes are, your brain cells are so active you'll just read the entire book of testimonials and connect any and every dots.


You start seeing people in a new light. Like a guy seen as a man of few words is really an encyclopedia  on Rock music. Or a guy I knew as a tough task master, focussed on work work work, has a romantic side.

And then you see yourself through others' eyes. Boy o' boy! You and your close friends are the wild animals who have seen each other naked in the field (well, figuratively). They know your harkartein, they know your takia-kalam, they know your soch-vichar. And you too. So you are mentally prepared for whatever comes out of their "shabdo ki pichkari". And they too.
But when rest of the junta writes about you, many different chemical reactions take place in your "khali-dimaag-shaitan-ka-ghar" :P And when your friends read out stuff written for you, the "chamak" on their chehre only indicates a night long session of leg-pulling and assumptions and conclusions and predictions and endless laughter.

So in the process of creating memories, we create memories.

Solitary Contemplation

People can be with you till the penultimate, but you have to walk alone to the ultimate.

Every person walks their journey alone, as everyone's path is chalked out uniquely. Roads converge, diverge, turn a U-turn, dead end sometimes, or end as a seashore and then you swim. Or row a boat. But cross the river you must.

When in class two, I dreamt that I and two other kids are at the ocean. We're playing and walking on the water. We run till the point where the blue sky touches the surface of water, and then probably we fall out of earth. I had fallen out of the bed, almost.

I would play with five-six friends in school and with two of my neighbours at home, but as far as I remember, I was always alone. Not someone who went out of her way to make friends. In the new school, I automatically became close to other two new kids. It was convenient and thankfully, they were fun. Both loved the Harry Potter series, one of them introduced me to the world of cartoon strips and the other remains my friend till date. Then I switched to yet another school and this place was a culture shock. I didn't think I fit in. But once again my friends were the other new kids, one who followed me to college as my junior , and the other with whom I sometimes go on long walks around the city. A third friend from the third school also went to the college with me, and with her gregarious nature, found many many friends. I, on my part, stuck to my convenient strategy, and my first friends at college were my room-mates. We were inseparable, for two semesters. After which I and my one room-mate had a fallout with the third. Then we had to shift to the new hostel, where the occupancy was two people. I and my room-mate naturally continued our room-mate-ship. We became very close, like best friends. I also found a science geek, an athletic girl, a new kid who joined the hostel to live the hostel life and two more ladies who were my neighbours in the new place. Being in the hostel committee brought more proximity to more people. College fest is where I met crazy seniors and a short-lived crush. Some foreign students who were in my room-mate's class, the good-looking talented lads in our college bands, the CAT prep and towards the end, the last days of sentiyappa also added some people to my Facebook friend list.

New college. A girl walked up to me and asked, "Will you be my room-mate?" As I had absolutely no idea about anyone here, and since this saved me from asking the same question to others, I smiled and said yes. She introduced me to two other girls, a singer and a dancer. We met at the Pond. Newness was the binding factor for all. For a management game, I, my room-mate, the dancer and two other girls teamed up. We sat, brainstormed, laughed and won. In class I met many people, guys and girls from different worlds. I easily made many friends there. By the end of that year, I had my own gang, another group- 'book-o-holics', some committee friends, some more from the senior batch. The gang goes everywhere. We have faced so many things together, spent all waking hours with each other, helped each other for everything, and being the youngest I've been taken care of. So much so that in the start, I would wonder how come the friend-less me became a confidante for so many? Now, they all aren't just my go-to but my be-with people.

Friendship is a drug. It is. They have gone to their roads ahead, and today I sit alone on my bed, as each has to fight their battle alone. I know I have them just a phone call or a WhatsApp ping and an FB/Twitter DM away. Despite the emptiness in and around the hostel, I know they are there. With this knowledge, I'll cross my river.

First Mover (Dis)Advantage

" 

DEFINITION of 'First Mover'
A form of competitive advantage that a company earns by being the first to enter a specific market or industry. Being the first allows a company to acquire superior brand recognition and customer loyalty. The company also has more time to perfect its product or service.

" 

Investopedia 

That's the MBA side of things. First Mover Advantage. I pioneer in First Mover Disadvantage. 

Usually in my college, group assignments submission take place in a queue fashion. A Google sheet is shared with the class, and each group has to enter their group and project details. To avoid being the very first group, everyone fills the sheet leaving first n rows empty, considering n students in each group. And I always fill the sheet at the 11th hour, in total haste. 

So, once I got trapped by this n row trickery, and ended up filling the first group slot. Mine was the first group (=only group) to be axed. We set the bar so low, that all the other groups seemed Einstein-like to the professor. 

Another time, only two slots, first group's and last group's, were empty. I decided to fill the last one. Some of my group members decided to get the thing over with, and enjoy for the rest of the semester, hence the first slot. Meanwhile, a guy from another group lured me to defect into his team, who were also thinking of going for the last slot. Trying to stay loyal to my gang, I declined his offer, and before we knew it, only the first slot was left. 

If you think I'm a nerd, you're right. If you think my misfortunes are only in studies, I wish!

With many genuine problems, most of them solved, some of them unreasonable concerns- the moving in became an issue. Inside-everyone wants to move to the new place. Outside- no one wants to be the first one to move- be called a bitch- a traitor- seen as scared of administration-the stooge who can be blamed and used as a reason for others to move.

Yes, I'm that first mover. Haha, I'm the villain!!

Disadvantaged? 

As I see it, I'm winning. Others 'caught' me moving in the new place, started packing their stuff and have plans to move tomorrow. They accede to my courage, use it as an example and make the move. The sooner one moves in, the faster she gets used to the new things and sooner does she get back to normalcy. Many friends come and see how I have arranged my new room, they borrow my layout, feel re-assured, bring more friends and they see it too. Some find my decorations not so cool, make a blueprint in their minds and smirk at my poor arrangement. All of those who see me see how happy I am. This is a clear advantage :)

Tea in Coffee Lovers' Central Perk Mugs,
 that's a lethal mix :D

Girlies, I can only tell you how I felt- while packing, moving, un-packing, arranging, re-arranging with my roomie; we had a ton of fun. You get to know each others' idiosyncrasies, learn a few living hacks, get ideas about a dozen things, love and hate the changes, get absolutely tired, then prepare tea and enjoy it with biscuits in your new room. The feeling- out of this world! Change is inevitable, and if we want it to be, enjoyable. 

Cheers :)

Happyness is standing up for what you believe in,
and sharing it with your friends :)

Keeda

Everyone has a keeda.

Some people have a love bug. They just want to fall in love. And some have the wedding bug. 

Some are afflicted with sports keeda. While some are bitten by the grammar bug.

Some have debugging bug! And then some don't...

              

                                           

Some have the shopping bug

Shopping soothes them. And when that's not working, shop some more...

Sometimes, they know they can't afford it. 

So to earn the extra few bucks, they do odd jobs ....

But then, their clothes or shoes or accessories also have a soul... The shopping bags call out to the shoppers..

So, to all those bitten by various bugs, don't ask the bug in you to bug off until it bugs you too much! 

I Did.

2014
Resolution to read a Wodehouse. Political blogs. Belling the CAT. Getting my article "The Gift of Time" published in AS WE ARE. Being nostalgic about AS WE ARE. And Renesa.  Hostel Day- LBD, check! Farewell to NIT Surat- Saree, check. And The Takeaways. 

Living in Mumbai . Space Crunch. Took part in a city-wide treasure hunt #FirstTime. Starbucks, Mumbai Local Train and BEST bus #FirstTime. Tweeting. Stage antics on-camera, in-front of whole college and Godrej executives ;)

Fracture :'(

Business Suits. Feel Harvey Specter-like. 100 stairs. Pond. Green Tea. Girlfriends. One-piece. Zumba. Garba Night in Chatak Gulabi Chaniya-Choli. Making friends over cuppa coffee and Lijjat Papad. Video-making. Wrote the first-ever article in insideiim.com series "Weekend Wordsmiths". Halloween themed Birthday. Composed the winning tweet for a marketing proposition of a new brand. 

Caught the selfie fever. I blame my Nexus 5.
Got as many as 5 friends to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. <PROUD OF MY SELF >
Latest Crush: Fawad Khan 
Can make breakfast for self. Omelette :D 
Doing household chores #FinallySaysMom 
Baking a Cake. 

J J J 
2015

Fun Funny and Fragile

A lot has happened since my last post. Life at NITIE is fast, furious and fiery. And as it turns out, I am fun, funny and fragile.

There have been times when all seemed to be going wrong. The Ms. Studious was not studying, the Ms. Blogger wasn't blogging, the Ms. Book-lover just could not read books. So basically I wasn't doing any regular stuff. My regular stuff.
Freshers' Party was round the corner. Every other girl seemed to be shopping, or thinking of going shopping or sitting in front of the laptop: e-shopping. Girly things have never been my things. Ron Weasley, Ross Geller, Jim Parsons and the Ellen Show are sort of my things.

My "non-alcoholic" drink ;)

Anyway, somehow I found myself going mad when everyone else seemed to have shopped till they dropped (rather till the Sales and stock were great). I did buy what was like the first one-piece of my life and the last one left in all the malls of Mumbai. J

This also reminds me of the first ever party I went to. First taste of night-life. Some 10 of us, "breaking the ice" while some crushed ice into their drinks, and I maintained my teetotaler status. J

Meanwhile, I had to undergo three daunting weeks of dentist appointments L.

After the initial euphoric vigor to participate in EVERY event died, the glum gloominess of not doing ANYTHING took over my senses.

And many stories remained untold (some in the drafts of this blog, some in the recycle bin of this laptop).
Celebrations like Friendships' Day, Raksha Bandhan, Dahi-Handi happened, but not really. Rohit, a friend, on his pan-India tour to reconnect with friends and travel different cities, came just a stone's throw away and I could not meet him. Well because of the dentist appointment.

Freshers' Party showed me that I can dance, I mean I CAN DANCE. Cool!

In my niche group of friends (it's better than "small group of friends" and much better than "intimate group of close friends" ;) ), it is quite well known that I can provide some comedy.

All these things aside, who am I, if not the clumsy little girl who's prone to getting injured. So brace yourselves, we have a fracture coming our way. With broken toes and determination, I faced the last one week of examinations. Accompanying me, in these testing times were Rosesh Sarabhai, Abhishek-John's Dostana, my room-mate's kettle and Sonal's extra soft pillow. If there's one thing I have learnt, then that is: "If you want a Princess-like treatment, injure your limbs". That's the easiest, albeit a painful way. 

And all these woes seemed endless, until today. 

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi :)

The moment I saw Lord Ganeshji, all dressed up and adorned in flowers and lights, I knew everything is fine. God Bless us all. :)