Monday, August 15, 2005

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day India...

Never before have I been so thrilled to celebrate our Independence. For starters, I've never celebrated Independence Day at midnight. Now when I look back, I wonder why not ? It makes perfect sense since the first one was celebrated with much joy "at the stroke of the midnight hour", when the world slept and India awoke to Independence and freedom.

At midnight, all the guys landed up on our floor. Slowly, chants of "Bharat Mata Ki....Jai" filled the air and before we knew it, we were called to the ground floor by our seniors. Under normal circumstances, this call would've been seen as an invitation to lessons in hostel rules. But the nationalistic fervor was so high, that the entire junior batch marched downstairs singing songs dipped in patriotism.

Once gathered at the front gate, we realised that the meeting had been gathered to celebrate Independence Day and not to advise us to keep quiet at late hours (the same being the case a few days ago when a particular gentleman's birthday was celebrated on the 7th floor).

What followed next cannot be described by words. I experienced the joy of being an Indian for the next one hour as song after song was sung by a group of to-be-MBAs. To hell with 'babudom' and to hell with 'parliamentary politeness'.. We were here to proclaim, and proclaim loudly, to the entire world that we were Indians.

The songs and dances went on for an hour and even the poor hostel guard, whose sleep was hampered by all the shouting and chanting, was a quiet spectator to scenes of jubilation. By now, the loud shouting and singing was slowly making the voices hoarse, but nobody seemed to care and continued singing at the top of their voices.

I have just one message for the politicians and the ever oh-so-remorseful-for-the-country aunts and uncles. Don't ever say that this country doesn't have any hope or that you don't see the same sort of nationalistic pride in the younger generation. Perhaps, there haven't been challenges which have been apparent, whenever the challenge presents itself, you can be sure of one thing... we, the youth of India, shall be up to the task.

Signing off on a patriotic note....Jai Hind

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Time flies...

Whew !! Finally the weekend is here and we can bid goodbye to the first week post mid-terms. "Laidback" is a term which defines the attitude here after the exhausting midnight studies we needed to do for our mid-terms. Everyone is on the "Chilled Out" mode right now and mentions of pre-readings evokes sentiments of dismay/anger/bewilderment. One has but little option.

Not that this relaxed attitude has been without results. Twice in this week has the class been told about the severe repercussions we might have to face the next time the 'janta' attends a class without doing the pre-reading.

This caused me to wonder. When and how does time fly ? There have been numerous occassions when one has returned to the hostel from the institute building around 6 in the evening but isn't able to get down to 'serious' work before midnight or 1. Why ? Where does all the time go ? We surely aren't working on our assignments or pre-readings for the next day or researching stuff in the library or on the Internet. So, is it just our extra-curricular activities, the different clubs that take up so much of our time ?

It would be interesting to see the comments I get for this one. As far as I'm concerned, I'll post my thoughts about where I end up spending time as soon as I figure it out myself.... :)

Thursday, August 11, 2005

My first post

Hi. So, this is how one does their Organisational Behavior assignments !!

Before I get into the technical nitty-gritties, let me introduce myself. I'm Shekhar Ruparelia, currently pursuing my MBA at Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad. This is where the story begins....

I logged onto the Internet at around 3 to try and find some relevant info on the OB assignment. Ended up creating a blogspot of my own. That's my life for you. Unpredictable, fun...and some seriousness thrown in for good measure.

Haven't got an audience in mind. I shall mainly attempt to write whatever I think is worth mentioning and thereby not turn this place into a morose jungle of personal tribulations. And yes, I shall definitely mention why I chose "Adventures of a Traveller" as a blog name.

Till then, ciao.