Temple of money

I hid apprehension in my heart. And walked into a temple robed in saffron and dust. The place that was most sacred. Where they would come to give gratitude, take blessings, rid their fear. Where they saw and knew Him. And now, it lay. Former grandeur fallen to ignorance and disregard. Not a shadow of the ancient glory and reverence fell over it. The splendor of an era, enshrouded in the stillness of death. I walked on, embraced in to the house of the Lord.

The priest professed holy religion. He spoke in half tongues. He knew not the truth of that he spoke. He knew not that we listened, he cared not that they, of the frightened, followed. He promised blessings of the mother. The ancient keepers of knowledge, the pure and virgin of spirit and flesh. The cunning perpetrators of the vile trades that he, and his brothers everywhere, practiced. He stayed, and spun money. Gold and coins were his jewels, he was paid not in words. I walked out, rudely sent away.

The foul scatter their filth for the innocent, always.

Waiting

We spoke of time and touch, a life when we knew nothing, when our minds flitted through magic and beauty. You took me to a garden of roses and spoke to me in the language of angels. I loved the taste of your innocence. The world was still young, replete with pain and desire. Its wounds were not healed, it longed to know its ever caring guardian, to feel. Saints had written about him long ago, they cautioned, they warned. She tasted blood and mercy. And yet, fate flirted. It touched, he stayed. Fairies may dance and sing, they may draw you to villages, hills and palaces. Life was a strange dream, a wild passion. There was nothing, just a nymph and a centaur, and women watching in disbelief. Of fantasies they saw, of kisses they shared, in wands they believed. Oceans meant little when heavens were with them. Time flung aside nights they shared. It brought rushed goodbyes, ecstasies and elation. Even the stars blushed, so sweet, so perfect it was. Beauty come in its entirety. Stolen moments, secrets, love.

Pity and scorn

It's so easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You cannot fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self respect on one's standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence. You can profess ambition and effort but your incompetence will drag you down. You cannot replace your ineptitude with mirages of vision and leadership. They are often stubborn. They refuse to acknowledge perfection. Your obstinacy will be your undoing to worthlessness. Look within and your soul will be the arbiter, you cannot seize or insist on respect and grace, you cannot claim what is not rightfully yours. There is a place for everyone in the world - understand this. Or you will only bring upon yourself pity and scorn.

Of 4 C's, 3 P's and 7 S's

I have always hated studying for and writing papers for HR courses, they being among the most globe courses, i.e. we have to bluff our way through them to the greatest possible extent. I wondered why ennui struck the moment the name of HR was mentioned, given that the idiosyncrasies of humans and their unsurpassed ability to deviate from logic and reasoning in their behavior was reason enough to render the subject interesting. Maybe it is the fact that there is a tendency to classify every theory or observation into an existing model and explain it by known and studied standards. Or it could be the ambitious desire to try to comprehend and provide a rational explanation for every human action. Why is that necessary? Why does there exist an urgency to fathom every aspect of human behavior, relate it to something someone has previously done and fit it into a strait jacket?

An Uneventful Trip :)

We had heard about the beautiful sanctuary called Nalsarovar about 60kms from Ahmedabad, where exotic birds visit. So one boring weekend, a couple of people from my class decided to go for a bike trip to see the place. At 4am in the dead of the night, 12 people, 6 bikes, dark empty stretches of roads, the chilly morning wind, clear diamond-studded midnight skies- it seemed perfect! And so we set off, racing along, occasionally taking the wrong turn and asking for directions from the rare passer-by.

It was smooth going and we were hoping to reach there in time to watch the sunrise until we met the dangerous and by now very famous sharp right turn midway to the place. One second we were on the bike, the next we had missed sensing the turn in the pitch dark, had moved off the road and were air borne, and before we could realize what had happened, we were submerged in a pool of mud! I dimly remember surfacing and instantly hoping it was not quicksand. Once I was convinced it was not, I was praying it was not shit.

If anyone could have seen me then, which I am sure 11 people did, they would surely have thought me a mud-woman action figure or a goddess of mud who emerges from its midst like in Indian mythological tales. I was shivering to the bone! The most interesting thing that happened then was another bike following us into the mud. After we had extricated ourselves and the bikes from the mud, we half rode half walked to the nearest house, roused the poor family from their sleep and begged them to let us use their washroom. They seemed unsurprised by our sudden and dirty appearance, which had a lot to do with the not so rare incidents of hapless bikes and cars diving into the mud at that godforsaken time of the day.

A bath and a new warm sweater later - which I entirely owe to a friend and which did not survive to tell the tale (the print vanished when I subjected it to an intense cleaning session after getting back) - and of course after trying our best to ignore and feel bad about the grumbling by the lady of the house (who advised us to bathe in the lake we were going to rather than dirty her house), we were disappointed at the way our trip was to end. Until one of us cried out "Okay enough time spent! Lets get back on our bikes and go on to the lake. No way should we let this little thing spoil our moods or our plan!" Renewed excitement saw us resume our interrupted trip. :)

We reached well after sunrise and immediately took a boat to the other side of the lake. The journey up was uneventful, the birds flew away as soon as we got near them and were pretty ordinary to look at, the heat was excruciating by the time we started back. A few of us were disappointed. It all seemed a waste of time and money. Wrong thought, too soon! We had been debating for a long time on what it would be like to swim in the lake. We gave it a try! Shedding all concerns for cleanliness (like I could do that!) we dived into the 3 foot deep lake. ;P And soon convinced the others (even those who did not know swimming) to follow suit.

It was a mess alright! The lake bottom was full of weeds and grass which surfaced due to the disturbance along with the resident mud. The water was a respite from the sun! It's said that fun can be had at the most unlikely places and at the most unexpected times. This was certainly one of those instances! It was filthy water in which we played water frisbee, shouting, snatching and cheating et al. We then pushed the boat from the water and hung out of it, to the silent discomfort of the poor boatmen. :D Pretending to drown and rowing the boat were the icing on the cake! And finally we ended up swimming at least 1/4th of the entire distance!

All in all, it was a very memorable and awesomax trip!
:D

First day at work

My first day at work was exactly like attending lectures in Section D. Our project had not started so we were relatively free. All that happened was pretty much this:

Got bored.
Felt sleepy.
Went out of the room.
Stood and talked.
Sat on the stairs and slept.
Got some reports to read, and fell asleep on the chair reading them.
:D

The next few days followed up with:
Feel hot.
Go to the shop outside and have Amul Kool Milk/Kool Kafe.
:P

The End

And the first year at IIM-A has finally come to an end! What a year it has been! I have learnt and unlearnt so much. Things have happened that have changed the way I think, stuff I have always believed in, my life, my entire existence, me! It was a roller coaster ride, full of unstoppable fun, joys and fears, delightful moments, unnerving pressure, tears of pleasure; frothing together, waiting to burst, overwhelming me. There is so much I want to say, so much I feel. I have so much to think about as I go on a completely new journey, my summer internship at a consulting firm in Gurgaon. It has been such a wonderful first year, gruelling in terms of academic requirements while being interspersed with fun stuff like T-Nite, Intersection Sports, trips near Ahmedabad. It was full of unique experiences, each day a fairytale in itself, that I can only wonder what the second year will bring. I am filled with a sadness that I cannot explain and for the first time, I am not excited about going home to Bombay. I feel like a small part of me has gone, died; while I have been reborn, as a phoenix, to await new wonders.

I have survived the first year at IIM-A!