Moved to Wordpress

I have upgraded myself to Wordpress.
Link: My Wordpress Account

My Birthday in Great Lakes

Wow !!!

This is the only word which came out when I entered my room yesterday night, my birthday night. Thanks to all my friends who made my birthday special.

It was one of those nights when I enjoyed the most. Right from the cake to balloons, cards to gifts and chocolates and what not, everything had my fellow friends love written all over it..

A special thanks to Ajith, Priyank and Sonakshi for arranging everything amidst the busy schedule. Also Purnendu, Rachna and Tina for coming and making it a memorable night. I was touched by the preparation and didn't had words to show my happiness. However, this was one of the most memorable Birthdays I have ever celebrated. Thank you all.

Pics can be seen at My Birthday Pics

Cheers'

Karma Yoga

A day in Vayalur village.

A group of 10 people went for our first visit to the village. Great Lakes has adopted 30 villages and all of us are supposed to visit respective villages once a week to help villagers solve their problems and make some difference in their life.

We started around 10:30 am after our first lecture and reached the village around 11am. We were supposed to find the Village Officer and get some information about the village. Unfortunately VO wasn’t available and we had to do the information collection on our own in the scorching heat. Out of the 10 of us, 2 people knew Tamil which was of great value in understanding their problems.

Villagers were very helpful and appreciated our effort. A lot needs to be done to improve their lifestyle. We plan to impart education and raise funds for them through various initiatives initially. Something worth doing in life, isn’t it?

Pictures uploaded in Picassa: Rahul's Picassa Album

Cheers’

Birthday Celebration in Great Lakes

Enjoy the video.
People are scared to admit their birthday nowadays in Great Lakes :P.

Good fun.

Cheers'

Cultural Fest in Great Lakes

First cultural show of Gladiators amidst rain couldn’t have been better. Considering the amount of workload everyone has, it was an excellent show. Show was scheduled to start at 9 in the night. Excitement was at its peak even though rain threatened to disrupt.

Our last class ended at 7:30 and I went to canteen to see what’s in for dinner. There were 2 varieties of Uthapam (Veg and Onion) and I decided its time to head towards Akshaya, only place outside campus where non-veg and beer was served. It has become quite a routine to visit Akshaya 3-4 times a week. People have started saying that Akshaya would have given some money to our canteen people to prepare food which will drive us to them more.

After finishing the food, I went to the amphitheatre where the program was scheduled to start. It started on time despite continuous drizzle, courtesy Laila. All the ladies and boys were dressed nicely and Masti was in the air. A series of performances kept us glued and entertained. Talent was evident and considering time constraint, it was an awesome show. Love songs seemed to be the order of night and it was very well executed as well. Some of the songs and the weather reminded me of my own courtship days which are still fresh in my mind. Every performance was made special because of the weather. Even Rajiv’s Tamil Love song was a hit in the audience even though no-one understood the lyrics. It’s been long I had seen so much love and energy around. It felt good. Then came our college Rock Band, “Straight F” and set the stage on fire with unmatched energy and passion. It was an amazing performance and left us wanting for more. I will be uploading pics on Picassa soon which will enable all of you to live the moment.

However there were some performances which weren’t appreciated by the audience and were rejected in a unique way with the chanting of slogan, “Ek Do Teen Chaar, Band Karo Yeh Atyachaar” continuously. Dance performances were extremely colourful and innovative. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Show ended with people hitting the dance floor. It eventually became Rain dance because of heavy drizzle later on. I came back to my room at 2 am and there was a Marketing Management lecture at 8:30 am with 50 pages of pre-read and case study for the same. Finished the pre-read and went to sleep. It was already 4:30. Life isn’t easy here.

Cheers’

A Day in Great Lakes

All the books that you see in the picture needs to be completed by Term 1 which is 7 weeks long. I have uploaded the picture else, I won’t make sense when I will describe my day here.

My day starts at 8 in the morning. I go and pick up Economic Times and TOI news paper first. After getting fresh, I go to canteen to see if there is something I can eat. More often than not I skip my breakfast unless, we have pooris. 8:30 is usually the first class of Marketing Management. Somehow I reach just in time before the doors are closed at sharp 8:30. We pick up keywords in those 2 hours of lecture and try to “re-semanticize” as TNS says most of the concepts learnt in the class. We have picked up few keywords in marketing from Prof TNS, “Value proposition, competitive advantage, customer cognitive space” and the list gets longer. After getting rid of those 2 hours, we get back to our room and do the pre-read for afternoon session. We are so engrossed in Marketing terms that, once Prof TNS saw a student was sleeping in the lecture room, he asked him a simple question. To which the poor soul answered, it has something to do with 3Cs and 4Ps which obviously TNS was not expecting.

After having Lunch, we proceed for our next lecture Micro Economics which is impossible to study after lunch. Prof Shanthi runs through slides and all of us one eye on the watch just sit helplessly and wait for 2 hours to finish. After a coffee break, we finish one more lecture and it’s already 7 pm.

I come back to my room in the comfort of AC and try to figure out how many pages I need to read before I sleep today. After taking dinner, I start the pre-reads and try to finish as much as I can. Around 1 am, I usually go and play TT since that’s the time when expert players are not around. After taking a round of campus, I come back to my room and somehow flip through pages to finish the remaining ones. I usually sleep at 4 am. 3 - 4 hours is what I sleep these days. And I am not complaining.

Not to forget, we have quizzes, mid-term, Marketing Plan submission, Presentations etc going on simultaneously too for all courses. Sundays is what we keep to clear backlogs. This week, I have Marketing Management and Business Stats mid-term which is like half of each book. Also, Micro Economics and Group Process Quiz along with Marketing Plan submission and some more which are not yet known. This will be a long week.

Cheers’

An Hour in Amphitheatre everyday

Wind is blowing slowly across the amphitheatre. It’s an hour past midnight right now. Week had been hectic as usual. There were lots of pre-reads, backlogs and preparation for surprise quizzes and not to forget mid-term for Marketing Management on coming Monday. This is the place where I usually come and sit for sometime alone at this hour and reflect on the time that has passed. I see some people sitting in Bistro chit chatting and few people roaming around the campus. There are few of my friends sitting on the stairs of amphitheatre discussing Marketing Plan.

In between all these, if there is something missing from my life, its old friends and their unconditional love over the years. We don’t realize their importance till the time we loose them. And as Rangarajan says, “Not everyone gets everything. Make it count”. Life is very short and very cruel. Love your friends and value them before they feel ignored. We are so busy in Networking that we forget to connect with people.

We have a course on Karma Yoga here. Karma Yoga is kind of a fresh breeze amidst Economics, Stats and Marketing course; although my entire class will differ here. Only if I would have understood the essence of Karma earlier, I wouldn’t have been disappointed in my life. Karma says, we should just do our duty without being attached. It further states that, we should not expect any personal return from any of the duty we perform towards our folks. We should just keep doing our duty under any circumstances. This saves us from future disappointment. I have started following the principle of Karma. I guess at times we need to touch our spiritual side which somehow seems to have been lost.

Cheers’