Examinations

  Episode 15 – Dark Clouds of Examination

It was the last day of the penultimate month of the year and with cold November winds coming directly from Himalayas, Shimla had become really chilly.  All of a sudden there was an intense rise in traffic towards the one and only small temple located inside university Campus. Although, there was no religious occasion but the TRP of “Mr. G” ( i.e. God) could have easily overtaken that of any India-Pakistan Cricket match. The continuous resonance of bells was an evidence enough to press the panic button for the dark clouds of examination. Moreover the drop dead silence at all the happening places was reminding me of the lull before a major storm. It had NOW started thundering on our innocent souls.

The war finally broke out next day and some regiments (departments) were already on the front. Date sheet was out and we had to be there in 5 days. Unfamiliar things had started happening, 90% of the crowd shifted its abode from dhaba’s (and Café’s) to Library and amazingly it had become the hottest point for all dating activities. Late night study in the 24/7 study section of the library seemed to be the latest fad.  For the very first time I could see all Books and Photostat shops doing more business in comparison to wine shops in the vicinity. Wikipedia became the most visited website, facebook slipped to no. 2 position. Sharing of notes, books etc was more prominent compared to movies and music. Previous year toppers alias studious seniors were in as much demand as Katrina Kaif in Bollywood or Angelina Jolie in Hollywood. Even the never-ending political agendas of political parties in the campus were kept on hold. Our very dear Sarkari had started showing a lot of behavioral changes. It was not his honeymoon but still he had locked himself in his room and secluded himself from rest of the world including Abhilasha. He had all the notes but sharing them for him was like sharing his family wealth. One could see the lights in his room until dawn. He gave up bathing and eating in the mess, he was surviving only on maggi, pasta, soups and endless supply of tea. Sometimes he even forgot brushing his teeth. He had lost all his contact with human beings and was constantly surrounded by Books, Books and some more books. His time proven strategy for examination was to mug up every topic just like a nicely trained Parrot. His roommates Nick and Vivek were having a very bad time so for fighting the battle of exams, they too shifted to my room and now our small hostel room is home to 6 guys.

Some categories of people like most of our female counterparts and of-course sarkari were revising for the 2^nd or 3^rd time. Whereas people like Hemant , Nick, Vivek and I, were trying to figure out the easiest way to survive the furious battle with help of Xeroxed notes that have been circulated amongst disaster managers like us from eternity. To our dismay they are not of much use because university had recently updated its syllabus (although it takes them a decade to do so.) For every topic we need to at least consult two or three books, which we never bought! All of the Funds allocated by our parents for Books and stuff were already invested on alcohol, movies and coffees. 

To win this war we had to survive six furious battles. Man, they were terrible and stressful, especially knowing that you don’t even have the slightest idea of questions you are going to face and according of my experience of last 20 years, 80% of the final exams were always based on the lectures you had missed and the topics you had left.

Undoubtedly we were totally screwed up, but can’t complain about it as in the last 5 months we had the most rocking time of our life. We caught every new movie, visited every nook and corner of the beautiful city, tasted all types of alcohol and much much more. We glanced over the syllabus for the first time to discover that we were as innocent as a 1 day old baby is to this managerial world and its jargons. 

Finally out of blue Vivek called everybody to the Hostel Canteen for some planning and strategy for our exams. For the first time we were discussing our subjects and we all shared a common target i.e.  40% marks. Everyone was delegated a subject of his choice for which he would be managing all notes and be responsible to teach others. A proper timesheet was created and was texted to all. Facebook was now officially banned. The only problem left was Accounts, unfortunately every one of us was emotional in accounts and Prof Dewakar Nath had publically announced that managing passing marks would not be an easy task for people like “Rahul”. Can’t complain, you see, he is one of those teachers who will teach you cooking "PLAIN RICE" in class and will expect you to cook "BIRYANI" in exams...!! So for cooking this biryani, we decided to search for a Voluntary tutor. We were badly short of time the only question pounding our mind was – “Will we be able to execute this plan of survival or will we be packing our stuff back home?”

EPISODES -:

Episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates

Episode - 2    Once Upon A Time In Shimla

Episode- 3   Save General Class

Episode-4  Fun And Frustrations Of A Hostel Life 

Episode 5 -  Fun-Sutra Of An Amusing Hostel Life  

Episode 6 - Room No. S8, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 7 - Room No. S9, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 8-First Set Of Love Birds Flew On An Old Maruti 800…

Episode 9 - Angel Lands Up In Accounts Class

Episode-10 - The 14 Sacred Rituals

Episode-11 - In Search Of Other-Worldly Creatures

Episode 12 - Why was his mobile switched off ?

EPISODE 13 - 55 m.i.n.u.t.e.s Late…

EPISODES HOME Copyright © 2010 Sudhanshu Kapoor, Preeti Arora

Episode 14 - Date Number ONE - Formatted Hard Disk…

Episode 15-Date Number ONE -Formatted Hard Disk

Like always she was looking awesomely awesome. Her Lips, face, earrings, T-Shirt, shoes, bracelet, mascara and handbag, everything on her looked super-duper cute. With the abundance of pink in her wardrobe, somehow even the aura she brings smelled Pink. She gave me an angry look as I was 3300 seconds late. Before I could say “sorry” she crinkled her nose a little, smiled and said “thank God you finally made it!” Her smile was mesmerizing and her face seemed divine due to sun reflecting on her face. 

Me: “Sorry… I tried being on time but things got messed up and you had to wait for 55 minutes…”

Megha: “No problem, I know people can get late, I get stuck in one thing or the other always… It’s just by chance that I am on time today.” (She chuckled while saying this.)

Me Thinking: “God!!! Even her chuckle is so melodious. How I wish that I could hear this voice 24x7… how I wish that this chuckle is the first thing that I hear in the morning instead of that stupid alarm… how I wish…”

“So where will be you fixing up my hard disk?” Her voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Let’s go to TREAT, it’s a very nice café, very calm and secluded, about 2 km’s from here, perfect place for me as I can apply my 100% concentration on all the coding, booting, application white listing, cloud disaster recovery, data tiering, path bridging and the rest to recover your hard disk data.” (This is how Computer Engineers and geeks make simple things sound as complicated as nuclear physics). Fortunately these hi-fi words work very well, with almost 99% success ratio with all non-techies… Actually I just have to install particular software and click the recovery button. That’s it! It’s a cakewalk for even a fifth grader, provided he has knowledge of the said software.

Megha with confused expressions, “I didn’t get a word but it does sound good…you know this techno thing that you engineers learn seems a bit difficult though.” 

(Mind: yup baby, that’s precisely the reason we engineer’s opt for MBA. For a very huge majority of us too this is like foreign language of which we manage to learn just 20-30 words after killing 4 years in B. Tech College)

Me: No it’s as easy as child’s play but it’s a littttle time consuming. (Well I am as intelligent as Google).

Megha: (smile) that’s great, shall we make a move then?

Me: Sure, would you like to walk or a ride on my bike?

Megha: You decide that, I m comfortable either way.

Me: Okay then why don’t you make my bike lucky today.

Yes I was flirting with her now! Responding to that, she treated my ears with the melodious chuckle again.

Within no time I started my bike and vroooom we went away! My back seat had never looked so sexy before. To impress her, I went a bit zigzag and with a little bit of rough driving I tried to make sure that I am the fastest rider on the road. Within 160 seconds we were at our destination. TREAT was almost empty with just two old foreigners enjoying coffee and the picturesque mountains through the huge window. TREAT is a café run by two young men and was a perfect haven for lovelorn couples. With chic interiors and beautiful view outside, it was worth the bills being charged. We took the corner table. I just wanted to keep looking at her beautiful big eyes and get comfortably numb from the outer world but without any delay she switched on her Lenovo notebook and handed it over to me. It was raining outside now and gosh! Weather seemed super romantic. To make my feelings more irrepressible the café started playing some great instrumental melodies. Even the smell of chocolate was now romantic. In short it’s the perfect platform for a date. Lekin Unfortunately I am here as THE engineer whose task is to fix up a screwed computer and that’s too free of cost, but… can’t complain because that’s the reason why I got a chance to be with her!

Approx 99% of her interest was in the well being of her laptop and not me. Just to spend a little more time with her, instead of logging into windows and starting up with the recovery software, I first logged into MS DOS and started inputting some homemade commands just to apply second C of marketing (Confuse the customer). Although those commands never existed for MS DOS but they were working good to give her a sweet hope.

It took her around 30 minutes just to order a coffee and sandwich and for the very first time my appetite was on Leave. She put micro-portions of food on her plate and kept the larger quantities on my plate. After concentrating hard for about 30 minutes on MS DOS she finally gave up and sat on the opposite side, finally starting up general bread n butter talks. We discussed some of our classmates and teachers.

I installed the data recovery software and to my dismay only in 15 minutes I was done, each and every bit of data was recovered. Before declaring the good news I thought of having one more glance at her beautiful face. I just fell in love with the way she always got a little crinkle on her nose when she looked at me like I'm complete nuts. My aandar ki aawaz direct from the deepest point of Mr Heart was shouting “dude you surely HAVE to spend more time here, may be even the rest of your life”

 

So I postponed my idea to notify her with good news and instead started my research project on her laptop. As a great philosopher* had once told me that the best way to know a girl is to know her likes and for that no source can be as good as her personal laptop. Before I started the operation my heart whispered “it is not ethical” but then my mind interrupted and said “Everything is fair in love and war. Nothing is wrong or right in this universe, there are just things you do and things you don’t do.” 

I ignored my heart this time and started my expedition with the D drive of her laptop. Around 35 % of her hard disk space was composed of music of different genre, mostly romantic numbers like that of Bryan Adams, Savage Garden etc and collection of golden Hindi numbers of which I don’t have much of knowledge. Something similar was the story with the movies folder; it was divided into two categories namely new and favorites. New contained all pirated holly-bolly stuff downloaded by torrents. The favorite folder, as expected, contained all time bolly-holly romantic  stuff like DDLJ, a walk to remember etc with two huge surprises that were, “The wallstreet “ and “Guru ”. Business flicks, how’s that possible? I’ve got myself an entrepreneur chick I guess…

I moved to the next and the most awaited folder named “memories forever”. As the name suggests, it homes all her beautiful pics starting from scanned copies of school time class photographs to her latest facebook profile Pics. After some deep research I found that two of her girl friends were also good… :P The next question that struck Mr mind was “does she had a boyfriend?” She had numerous college photographs with a group of boys but seriously all of them looked like her brothers. To ruin my excitement the next set of pics had a fat, specky guy with a yellow T-shirt with her. In all those pics she was looking slim and sexy like a 300ml coke glass bottle and Mr Yellow T-shirt was looking as pathetic as a Municipality Dustbin. Why him? My broken heart needed an answer. I moved on to the next Pic and got a reply - a Red Honda Civic! My mind said, “Obviously girls will date any guy alias a Municipality Dustbin who posses it.” Before my mind got further bombarded with more thoughts, she asked me – “ok tell me about your girlfriend “. 

Me -: I am still searching for the right one and you?

Megha -: same story…

Me -: c’mon don’t lie.

Megha -: what made you conclude that I am lying?

Me-: See… firstly you are beautiful and secondly I am a computer engineer.

Megha-: J Thanks for the first part, but what does being a computer engineer gotta do with this? Anyway Mr. Engineer wrong prediction, I guess you are not applying the right algorithm.

Me-: Nope dear my algorithm is 100% flawless… It says you have a boyfriend who owns a Red Honda civic.

Megha -: arre nahi yar he is not my boyfriend he is my schoolmate, neighbor and a friend but how do you know about him… (tube light on)… oh wow you fixed my hard-disk!!! Thaankssss…

Me -: No not completely, work in progress, 40% completed.

Megha -: you are the best…

To waste another 60 minutes, I put her hard disk on defragmentation and then to waste some more time, I started a complete antivirus scan. We ordered two more coffees and something more. We talked mostly of our past - our school and college days and bit of Hollywood, Bollywood. The best thing was that now I was completely sure of her “single and available” status. She did have a boyfriend in college but fortunately now she was again looking for Mr. Right!

Finally after taking 4.5 hours for a 15 minutes job I was done. Her laptop was fixed and so was her smile. It was 7:30 PM and we had to rush now as 8PM was the deadline for girls’ hostel. It was quite cold outside for a bike ride. God had given me enough that day and he seemed to be in a romantic mood, ‘coz all of a sudden it started Snowing.It was November and the first snow of season was already there.

Mathematically speaking -> Bike ride + snow+ beautiful lonely road + panoramic view + a charismatic beauty on your back seat =My heavenly Morning Dream come true!  And yups for the very first time the balance sheet of my life got matched…

*great philosopher = baba ji…

Episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates

Episode - 2    Once Upon A Time In Shimla

Episode- 3   Save General Class

Episode-4  Fun And Frustrations Of A Hostel Life 

Episode 5 -  Fun-Sutra Of An Amusing Hostel Life  

Episode 6 - Room No. S8, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 7 - Room No. S9, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 8-First Set Of Love Birds Flew On An Old Maruti 800…

Episode 9 - Angel Lands Up In Accounts Class

Episode-10 - The 14 Sacred Rituals

Episode-11 - In Search Of Other-Worldly Creatures

Episode 12 - Why was his mobile switched off ?

EPISODE 13 - 55 m.i.n.u.t.e.s Late…

Episode 15-  Date Number ONE - Formatted Hard Disk…

EPISODES HOME Copyright © 2010 Sudhanshu Kapoor, Preeti Arora

Love story of Shimla Hills

                EPISODE 13 - 55 m.i.n.u.t.e.s Late…

Finally after a long halt it had started snowing heavily in Shimla. The narrow road located in between the woods was looking heavenly! Everything was under the blanket of snow including “us”... It was chilly, very chilly. We were stuck in heavy snow. She had turned almost blue due to the immense cold.  I offered her my Jacket and stood before her as the snowflakes fell on her face. I want to lean in, hold her in my arms and kiss her red chubby lips. A wave of passion is racing through my body but haplessly I am not sure about her intentions. She leaned on my shoulders. I put my arm around her to let her in. She looked back straight in my eyes with a welcoming smile. Undoubtedly it was the perfect moment to execute my desire.  I moved my lips towards hers and the moment was about to arrive, a sudden loud sound distracted me. It sounded like some emergency alert but thank God it was not any terrorist attack it was just my alarm clock. Unfortunately both snow and the girl with red chubby lips were just a part of a dream, the most beautiful one indeed but within a fraction of second both disappeared like a puff of smoke. 

I sat back, closed my eyes and tried re-creating the dream episode. Few moments later, I glanced over my window to discover that it is a sunny working day and I have to be in the same boring accounts class at sharp 10 am. I don’t have any option to bunk as my attendance sheet was bankrupt and my professor was too miser to lend me some credit. My inner sense knows that if I get late by even a minute, he will give me a look something like I just asked him for his daughter’s hand which will be followed by some sarcastic dialogue ordering me to get out.

Attending a class at 10 am sharp that morning seemed frightening, terrifying and out of question as I had managed to sleep at 6 am after watching two back to back movies, listening to the wisdom of universe from baba ji and of course that beautiful morning dream. However due to my alarm clock I did get up at 9 am, saw both my roomies having the sleep of their life, and decided to snooze for another 5 minutes. As usual, the 5 minutes snooze lasted for 55 minutes and I had to miss the class again. Next Class was at 11 AM so I again decided to stretch out in the bed for a little while, but it became possessive for me and its warmth and coziness made me sleep like a log, missing both the 2^nd and 3^rd class respectively.  Don’t know why I had to face this ugly truth every morning… I’m in Bed, it is 9am. I close my eyes for 5 minutes... and it is 9:55! In those boring classes, it's 10:30 am and I close my eyes for 5 minutes and it is just 10:31. Is this the new law of relativity??? I guess it is….

Finally I woke up at 12:30 pm, now I didn’t find any reason to go to campus for the last class before lunch as I could easily manage a proxy for this one. I had nothing better to do, so I just switched on my laptop, to complete my 14 sacred facebook rituals that I used to perform religiously every day.

I logged into facebook and saw an update from my Ms. Beautiful - Megha with no words but some emoticons : -( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( representing her sadness that day.  I didn’t know what to comment and as usual dislike button was missing. I opened my chat window, she was online, and seemed like she wasn’t in the class either. Even on the tiny facebook window she looked as good as Aishwarya Rai on Red carpet. Without any delay I pinged her for Chat.

Me: Hello, how are you doing? Not attending the class?

(Reply came after almost 65 seconds)

Megha:  Not feeling good :-( :-(, so not in the mood to attend any classes today…

Me: Hmmm… I know, your wall told me that. What Happened?

Megha: My laptop hard disk crashed, I lost all my photographs, music collection, important documents, unfinished assignments… I am missing almost everything, they are damn important, especially my photo albums… … all the sweet memories of my life captured in them… L L

Me: Awww…. That’s sad; did you try recovering it?

Megha: - My friends at hostel said that’s now it’s not possible...L I had taken my laptop to a Computer shop near campus but the guy said something like… it’s not possible to recover it when it is formatted from Hard Disk…

(My mind – Thank God for not empowering her with any technical knowledge)

Me: may I have the honor to fix it up?

Megha: but howww??? Even the computer guy said no… Are you some sort of magician?

Me: No I am a Computer Engineer… and that computer guy seems to be a fool.

Megha: - Really, is it possible?

Me: I can’t guarantee that but till date I have operated on two hard disks with 100% success rate. ;)

Megha: wow that’s awesome. J When can you take out time for me…???

(Mr.Mind –  ….… I have all the time in world for you!)

Me: well I am almost free just trying to finish accounts assignment but that’s too difficult.

Megha: I will do that for you. I will help you out with those balance sheets.

Me: Ok great. J (deal)

Megha: can we meet post lunch then?

Me: Sure it will be a pleasure and do bring your laptop and charger.

Megha: I will, let’s meet opposite university library at 2 pm, is it ok?

(My mind – take her to a place where you can seclude her from the world )

Me: superb! But I will need a place where I can concentrate and also have a power point for laptop battery as it might take some time.

Megha:  So do you know any good place nearby?

Me: Yes there are few good restaurants in the vicinity, I will find out a good one.

Megha: That’s great, J thanks in advance, see you soon and my number is 98*****000 (VIP no.)

Me: Ciao… see you at 2 p.m.

Gosh it was already 1 p.m. I had to download the software for data recovery, had to test it, get ready and most important – had to prepare how/what should I talk on my hard-drive recovery date. I switched from facebook to google and keyed “hard disk recovery software “The search displayed few free and few paid software. I downloaded all free ones but as usual free things never work. So I decided to get a fully paid version for free using a crack. I used the invention named peer to peer sharing and started downloading one with a crack. In my heart I was constantly murmuring, “God please make it work.” With the super slow speed of my data card (advertised as 3.1 mbps speed) it took around 30 minutes for a 20 MB download. It was 1:40. I applied the crack, deleted some files and thank you Mr. G, it worked! I was able to restore all the files. It was already 2 pm, seemed like time was running with the speed of Rocket. I texted her, “sorry I will be little late, approximately 20 minutes.” 

The Clouds of Confusion

It was an emergency situation; In 20 minutes I had to take a bath, iron my clothes, shave, look good and reach HSV Campus. To my dismay, I discovered there is no water in the tap nor had we stored it. The only option left was to steal it from my neighbors. I made my way to Nick’s and found a bucket of hot water in his bathroom that he was going to use for his bath. Before he could move in, I hijacked his bathroom, to have the most needed bath of my life. Sorry Nick, I was in Love from the very first sight and I wouldn’t be able to capitalize on this opportunity looking ugly and dirty.

Now for the very first time I was confused what to wear, what will look good with what and so on?  I was thinking just like girls. I decided to keep it simple - my favorite shirt + denim, since all my other clothes were any way in the laundry. I switched on the iron for the shirt. Before I could complete it, my cell beeped… it was in Nick’s bathroom, I knew it would be Megha, she texted me – “its 2:20, how long should I wait more?”

 I replied – “I am just on my way and will be there in 5 minutes.”  I ran back to the iron table just to discover little smell in the air, and then I saw a big reddish brown patch on the shirt exactly matching the size of iron.  I lost my favorite shirt!!! Instead of lamenting further, somehow I managed an unwashed and un-ironed t-shirt.  I kicked my bike, accelerated it to move as fast as I could but when I reached near the univ gate, I realised that I had left the pen drive with the software at hostel only and Damn it! Now I had to go back to take it. If all this was not enough, when I had taken a U-turn, and was speeding-up the bike downhill, BANG! I bumped into the bumper of a White Ambassador; which co-incidentally belonged to the vice-chancellor of the University. Luckily there was no damage to the car and the vice chancellor was not in there. Finally I took the pen drive, drove back and after all the drama I made it at 2:55 pm. Late by Just 55 minutes.

Continue Reading ---- >>>>

Episodes – Funsutra

Episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates

Episode - 2    Once Upon A Time In Shimla

Episode- 3   Save General Class

Episode-4  Fun And Frustrations Of A Hostel Life 

Episode 5 -  Fun-Sutra Of An Amusing Hostel Life  

Episode 6 - Room No. S8, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 7 - Room No. S9, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 8-First Set Of Love Birds Flew On An Old Maruti 800…

Episode 9 - Angel Lands Up In Accounts Class

Episode-10 - The 14 Sacred Rituals

Episode-11 - In Search Of Other-Worldly Creatures

 Episode 12 - Why was his mobile switched off ?

EPISODE 13 - 55 m.i.n.u.t.e.s Late…

Episode 15-  Date Number ONE - Formatted Hard Disk…

  

EPISODES HOME Copyright © 2010 Sudhanshu Kapoor, Preeti Arora

GHOST STORY OF SHIMLA HILLS

 Episode 12 - Why was his mobile switched off ?

Madness was at its heights. Without “any managerial level” planning we began our expedition at 12:55 AM to the mysterious haunted house where no one even dared to go even in sunny afternoons. My often neglected “andar ki aawaaz” knew that this is going to turn out as adventurous, foolish, crazy and wild but ain’t no use in complaining because that’s how it works in Hostels.

Our destination, the haunted house, was in the deep, dark woods on an isolated hill. Although no one knows the reality but everyone had heard various creepy rumors about the property. According to the Baba ji’s research, the house belonged to a retired English army man who lived here about 75 years ago with his wife. The Englishman’s wife poisoned him and his mistress after she caught them during their love making session. After the murder, she hung herself to death. Since then the property has never been inhabited.

 It is also believed that most of the rumors were spread by the Nepali Chowkidar who once took care of this property. According to him the ghost of the Englishman, the mistress and his wife still haunts the place. They are usually harmless, until you cross over the fence into the house.  According to Raju Bhaiya (one of our mess assistant and a follower of Baba ji), some people who tried settling in that house experienced weird incidents. Some say they saw an old woman crying on the staircase. Some had seen the shadow of the Englishman on the floor. A few had heard some banging noises on the wall, like someone was pushing the couches against it. According to the Chowkidar’s tale many times he heard a very sharp sound like a tree was falling on the roof, but there would be nothing when checked.

 We started with a little curiosity mixed with fear and a mind full of unclear questions. The chillness of fear was enhanced by some mist, Cool breeze, clear sky and the full moon. We were on the deserted road and only the lights of the girls hostels scattered on the opposite hill were keeping Vivek, Hemant and my spirits high. For Baba and Nick, it was vodka in their blood doing the trick. If I ignore the eerie thoughts in my mind, the mid-night stroll in the mysterious moon-flecked jungle path was a heavenly experience. Had I been a movie director, I would have used that patch for shooting some real romantic scenes. It was a good half-hour later that we reached the haunted house.

It was a beautiful wooden cottage, a perfect example of traditional British architecture. It also had a lawn (which had been encroached upon by thorny bushes with time). I thought of clicking a shot but I realized that my mobile was out of battery. For a few moments, Ghosts were out of my mind, I was charmed by the beauty of this place. I had also made list of its potential uses, for instance, the place can be a great hide out for a Full moon party, a bachelor party or a romantic encounter. Unfortunately we were here to get up, close and personal with some other-worldly creatures.

The very next moment, Nick crossed the fence with no evident fear and all of us just followed him.

Baba ji had instructed us to communicate only by sign language and not respond to any familiar voice calling our name because spirits can imitate any voice. If you respond in any way, you’ll be their prey.We moved towards the entrance, it was a big old wooden door.  On the wall above the door someone had scribbled “Go away from here”. We ignored the message and entered the house. There were dust and spider webs all around. With our two torches we thus began our adventure.  There was some very old furniture. After some inspection we discovered a dusty, big, broken painting canvas with a half done painting.

We spent around 5 minutes on the ground floor without witnessing any paranormal activity. We moved up to the first floor next. It was not very dark in there; moon light from windows was illuminating the room. We heard some footsteps although nobody was visible. It was enough to set the panic button on but then we had a general consensus on Vivek’s view, “yar Bandar ya langoor hoge chhat pe”

Hemant and I moved to the other room, it had a double bed and a very big mirror. I casually flashed the torch on mirror and for a quarter second we saw a black figure behind us. With a scream both of us turned back just to see nothing. Baba, Vivek and Nick also invaded the room in shock. I pointed towards the mirror but this time there was nothing. Suddenly Nick screamed (not because he saw something but mockingly just to irritate Baba) Both Hemant and I were petrified so all of us decided to go back, although Nick was not in any mood. The moment we stepped out of the room we again saw a figure on the wall opposite the door. Only this time the figure was clear. It appeared to be of a middle-aged, grey-haired woman in a dressing gown and a hat. Run was the Call. We all ran like hell and within no time we were out of boundary wall.

With trembling legs and faded faces, we stared at each other with a sense of relief.  Before the next breath, first we heard faint sounds of bells and then terrifying sound of a woman giving a low moan like as if she was crying. We did not try to figure out what it was. We just ran away from the haunted villa as fast as people do when a group of mad bulls chases them. Despite the distance, we could hear that the intensity of the howl was becoming sharper. There was something that was forcing us to keep looking back over our shoulder. After a little while the sound disappeared and it was drop dead silence all around. We could even hear our breaths clearly.

 Our mind, body and soul were already on tenterhooks to add on, out of the blue, it started raining. The pattering raindrops from the gigantic cedars made it even more spine-chilling. It was cold, very cold. A far distant light on the opposite hill seemed like our one and only hope. We kept moving and the next 1200 seconds seemed like eternity. After those longest 20 minutes of our lives we reached the main road, finally out from the jungle. We finally had the breath of our life. The very next moment we lost our breath again upon the discovery that Nick was missing! Butterflies had started playing football in our stomachs now. We all turned back yelling “NICK “,“ Nick “,“ nick “,“nic”. To our dismay there was no answer. Without wasting any more time we ran backwards yelling his name. After about 200 meters, out Of nowhere, we saw a figure standing on the edge of the woods. This time though it was not any ghost, it was Nick! He was busy explaining to Prof Kriti* that “why his mobile was switched off? “

*Prof. Kriti = It stands for that one really hot college teacher we all wish to date.

Episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates

Episode - 2    Once Upon A Time In Shimla

Episode- 3   Save General Class

Episode-4  Fun And Frustrations Of A Hostel Life 

Episode 5 -  Fun-Sutra Of An Amusing Hostel Life  

Episode 6 - Room No. S8, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 7 - Room No. S9, Buddha Hostel Hsv

Episode 8-First Set Of Love Birds Flew On An Old Maruti 800…

Episode 9 - Angel Lands Up In Accounts Class

Episode-10 - The 14 Sacred Rituals

Episode-11 - In Search Of Other-Worldly Creatures

Episode 12 - Why was his mobile switched off ?

EPISODES HOME Copyright © 2010 Sudhanshu Kapoor, Preeti Arora

MBA DEGREE | Sudhanshu Kapoor | HPU | MBA FUN MASTI

       Fun-Sutra of a Ruined MBA Degree

                                            

               

  A  Story about two fun packed years of  
                                    MBA

                                    
                                          
                               Author -    Sudhanshu   Kapoor

                                                           

                               
                                  
                                     Editor -    Preeti Arora

                                                      Dedicated to all my Friends...

Shimla | Ragging | Beautiful Girls | Ragging | HPU IMS | HPU UBS

Episode 2....Once upon a time in  Shimla..

 

Life now is a run for money, power, fame and a few unachievable targets; earlier it was completely different… life during the two years of my MBA.

It was about bunking classes, fully faltoo presentations, non-stop leg pulling sessions, cut-copy-paste assignments, screwed up attendance and crisis management on a night before exams with Xeroxed notes. It was also about relishing paranthas at dhabas as well as coffees in swanky cafés, walking dates at thandi sadak, gedi’s at mall, long and short drives, late night cocktail parties and an all India trip to remember.

There was a love story that started on cloud number 9 and ended as the cold November rain, some small fights and some memorable idiotic moments. For most of the people, MBA is Masters of Business Administration, but for me it was, Mera Bachpan Aagaya!

I’m driving back the memory lane…26th July -my first day of MBA at IBS (Imperial Business School), Shimla. It was a big day, as I was back to being a student after screwing up my job, maiden business venture and CAT. For the very first time in my life I was on time. We were supposed to assemble at the college auditorium at sharp 10 am, and I could see the majority of fresher’s on time. Anxious souls were waiting for the professors for the induction and the formal welcome marking the beginning of the two year MBA journey. Every eye was looking around inquisitively seeking new faces. I knew it that it is the time to make new friends and witness some love stories.

“Now, let me find my place among the future corporate”, I said to myself. Last row had always been my favourite but sigh they had already been taken. I spotted an empty seat somewhere in the middle and before someone else took it I jumped like a ninja to grab the opportunity. The guy sitting next to me had the same expressions on his face like I did. It was the introduction day i.e. getting face to face with some sweet and some sour devils alias, “our seniors”. Within few minutes, groups of devils started invading the auditorium. Almost all the devils were out there, looking good in the formals i.e. a black business suit, sky blue shirt and a bright colored tie with the insignia of IBS.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Planning and creativity is the most important element of management today and as being the students of best B-school in the state, our seniors were there with box full of creative plans to rag the innocent helpless juniors. Within no time the devils started up with their plans. So, here it is… our first class… and the most interesting one too - intro sessions or ragging whatever sounds better. Contrary to popular belief, it was total fun. Most of the devils were really cool and professionals in their behaviour and were not a frustrated bunch of people like the one evident in some other professional colleges. In words of Ms Abhilasha one of our seniors – “We at IBS do not rag. It is a PDP that stands for personality development program that helps out every junior to uncap his or her hidden talent. We here stand to help you out and prepare you for the corporate world”. She added. No doubt she was GORGEOUS but after these words she also proved herself as smart and intelligent. Next she began explaining the “Code of Conduct” that every fresher was supposed to follow. According to the instructions whenever any senior enters the class we had to stand and wish them as a token of respect. “Respect, oh yeah… As if they are coming direct from Beijing Olympics with a gold medal” I murmured to myself. Although with their poise and stature, no doubt they all did stand out as a league of extraordinary gentlemen (and women)!

Do not know about anyone else, but for Hemant and me, it was total fun like having a holiday in Goa. Did I introduce Hemant? Well, he is the same guy who was sitting right beside me with the same dazed look on his face like I had. After a brief introduction and fifteen minutes with each other, we knew we’ll hit out pretty well together. Later I’ll give you more info on Hemant. Right now let’s concentrate on the topic. LOL, “concentrate” a thing that I always do at the wrong time and the wrong place. I’m drifting again from the topic. Let’s see where were we? Okay so we were at the intro session. It was fun. The senior girls alias our respected madams were hot, beautiful, gorgeous and all the adjectives that that you can think of. Hemant and I were literally drooling over the eye candies. “Never mind if they are somewhat bossy, they are STUNNING!” was the thought that ran in my mind. Now, as per the tradition seniors called us “jangu” an alias for junior. Every jangu was called on the stage according to the wishes of the seniors. As you all know wishes meant calling up pretty gals first by male seniors and hunks first by the pretty women. After being called up, first one had to bend in a 90 degree posture so as to salute the esteemed senior clan.Top of Form

Bottom of Form

We had to introduce ourselves in shudh Hindi without using a single Angrezi word because a good manager should always be able to act and communicate local even while thinking global. One mistake and we had to start it all over again, and yes, as told by another pretty senior Kashish, we had to raise our hands and repeat the word TRAHIMAAM thrice! As expected, most of us, who had grown up with MTV and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. were bad at that. Like a true Gen Y Indian we have this habit of using HINGLISH rather than pure Hindi or English.  The first jangu was given the task of enacting the role of Ram Dev Baba.Poor guy had to sit on the table doing some really funny yogic exercises. The next convict was asked to perform a Himesh number with hand holding nose and the other a microphone! After refreshing themselves with Himesh Reshamiya songs the seniors thought of enlightening themselves with information about some other professions. So, here it goes, they chose Kartik, a Hotel Management grad. He was asked to describe the recipe for Rajmah, using the tail IN MY PYAJAMAS at the end of each line... LOL, it was funny, “soak rajmah for 5 hours in my pajamas, boil for two hours in my pajamas. So on and so forth. From selling rotten tomatoes to campaigning for Lalu Prasad Yadav, from a photo shoot to advertising for undergarments, I saw it all. Honestly, I must admit that I was in company of some real creative minds.

Things were really getting exciting. I was enjoying the drama just like I enjoy watching a scary movie or American Pie. But all the enjoyment came to a halt. I got too engrossed in enjoying the show that I laughed real loud once. That was it! Silence spread in the room and all the heads turned towards me. “Here you go my boy!” said a voice in me. Before I could calm down my inner voice, my ears stood up to hear a beautiful, yet commanding voice of a lady yelling –“you red t-shirt 6^thbench come down!”Need not to mention it was me. The Devils had a new bakra - Rahul. To my dismay, it’s now my turn to face the Hitler’s army all alone.

Like others I did start out with bending down and join my hands to show my respect towards my seniors, although I had no intentions to do so. I started up with my introduction in pure hindi, but I discovered that my Hindi teacher at school was hundred percent right “shudh hindi aapke liye kisi videshi bhasha se kam nahi hai”. After 5 unsuccessful attempts and with the help of some good people, I turned the impossible into possible. “Yes! Yes! Yes”.

Well the devils want more fun so Ms.Ally the unopposed sweety pie between the devils asked me to name and identify 10 seniors. I began, with her name, 2^nd kashish ma’am, 3^rd Aashima ma’am, 4^thAvantika ma’am…” at this I was interrupted in my dedicated work by a heavy commanding voice “ki gal hai kake, sari ladkiya? Male human species nazar nahi aayi kya? No more girls!” It’s only the names of the beautiful lady seniors that I was able to memorize since I was never interested in their brothers…LOL! So here my brain started cooking and I thought of using some of the most popular Indian names. I started with Sachin (as it is one of the most common names). I thought it had hit the bull’s eye and no one even asked me to go and identify Mr. Sachin.  Next I knew that my name was the most common name in the country. So with a soft voice I said “Rahul sir”. Everybody in the seniors fraternity started searching for Mr. Rahul, later I came to know they are not having Mr.Rahul as well as Mr. Sachin in the Team. Finally after some good fun I was directed to make a move to the college office, to get the list of all seniors and to memorize the name of every male in the senior’s fraternity by heart, as it was my assignment of MBA… meri MBA matlab, Mera Bachpan Aagaya.

Live Episodes...

episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates
episode - 2    Once Upon a Time in Shimla
episode- 3   Save General Class
episode-4  Fun and Frustrations of a Hostel Life 
episode 5 -  Fun-sutra of an Amusing Hostel Life

episode 6 - Room no. S8, Buddha Hostel HSV


episode 7 - Room no. S9, Buddha Hostel HSV

episode 8-First set of love birds flew on an old Maruti 800…

 
episode (6-15)       Coming soon....