Lag gayi

I mean, Tag lag gayi... Abhinav tagged me. I'm honored. My chest swells up with pride. I float in mid-air. In walks my roomie, moves his hands around in another attempt to outdo the great Rajesh Khanna, successfully impersonates Bruce Lee and pricks a pin in my thought bubble, saying, "Abe saale, neeche aaja...neeche aaja.."

Back to earth, I proceed towards my laptop, with a smack of the lips and a devilish gleam in my eye. I'd been dying to get back to my laptop to punch the keys and come up with another one of 'em posts...but Abhinav bhai gives me the required ammunition as well.

"Will you walk into my parlour?", said Shekhar to the reader...


Mainu ki achha nahin lagta?

1. I HATE eve-teasers with the same intensity that Osama Bin Laden hates America. Harmless flirting, fine. Eve teasing.. NOTHIN' DOING. I hate it when Indian men lustily stare at a woman walking by on the road. It gets even worse when there's a foreigner around. A quick glance? Understandable. Stare at her as if gazing at some poster advertising a free Domino's meal which includes a veg. pizza with extra mozzarella cheese, ginger bread and a bottle of Coke? Unacceptable.

And NO, asking a girl for directions to a courier office is NOT an offence.

2.I don't like violence. I do not mind the scenes prevalent in the hostel at midnight when some poor person is first 'shuddh' karo-fied with bathroom ka paani and then interesting patterns resembling shoeprints mysteriously make their way on to his shorts. What I do mind are the scenes which are regularly seen on TV news channels.

I had the good fortune to be the part of a theatre workshop conducted by Parnab Da (Parnab Mukherjee). As a result of that workshop, we put up a play at the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad in Calcutta. I was one of the actors who played the role of a victim of the Gujarat riots. It was a 75 minute silent play. Yes...not a single word was uttered right throughout the 75 minutes. We emoted purely through our body language. Life was never the same again.

3. I don't like reaching class late. Yet, it seems I might soon 'run' myself into the Late Class-Entrants Hall of Fame. Running the 10 km marathon at Nirma Champions League was fine; running every day to the classroom as if being chased by the Hound of Nirmaville, thinking of an 'original' excuse to gain the kind permission of the faculty to enter the class, panting helplessly while stumbling over bags and legs in an attempt to reach your seat and sitting through the first lecture of the day on an empty stomach devoid of the 'messy' breakfast pleasures isn't my idea of the beginning of a chapter titled "A Day in the life of Shekhar".

4. Confusion. One word that defines 80% of my time spent thinking. Ever heard of 'em birds who decided to flock ek doosre ke aas-pados mein? Yep, that's my story. A bunch of friends here have organised themselves into a group on IP messenger, calling ourselves "Confu-zone". Being true MBA students, we've even come up with a Mission Statement: To create an atmosphere of true confusion for the benefit of mankind in general and us dear darlings in particular. Group activities include gazing at the starry sky and wondering what the hell we're doing, staring at our laptops and practicing playing minesweeper when there are 2 quizzes and 1 group presentation the next day and (my personal favorite) trying to perfect the line ala Sachin: Main kaun hoon? Main kahaan hoon? (Who am I? Where am I?). Group trivia: I'm the ONLY Libran here, and feeling a bit lonely. Interested in helping out? Fast...hit the comments button!!

5. Memorizing tomes on Management learning. Yikes !! For Christ's sake, aren't we supposed to be managers? Why should we bother becoming a 'popat' (Hindi and especially Gujju talk for 'parrot'). I know, I know. The mid-term exam wounds are still fresh, and hence I type with extra vengeance. However, I eagerly pray to God for some faculty to read this.

Don't ask us in a question paper to reproduce 'such and such' matrix.....ask us instead what strategy A & Co. should use to market product B in country C, and we should be the ones coming up with interesting answers. True, some will quote the BCG matrix, some may photocopy some 12 pages of the text with the precision of a Canon copier, but lurking amongst us is the guy who's going to propose a new way of looking at markets, products, companies and competition. Helloooooo ?? How about giving him the space to voice HIS opinion, and NOT Kotler's ?

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The flame of the tag passes on to Moonwalker, Amit, Sayesha and Arpana (previously mis-spelt here as Arpita). God bless. :D