31 May 2007

The Law

I was skimming thru some NBA news today, when I read this… (context: One of the teams – Portland Trailblazers got a new Asst. GM)

In the process, the Blazers get perhaps one of the most interesting and diverse executives in the league, one whose background includes a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer in Illinois. During that 61/2-year span as a defense lawyer, Penn secured victories in cases involving a man accused of murder, a man charged with armed robbery and a man charged with felony drug possession.

16 May 2007

Work Hard, Fart Harder

This is that time of the year when the IIM Indore vs IIM Kozhikode debate clogs up discussion forums... people engage in heated arguments using long write-ups and twisted facts… from academics to discipline to scenic beauty to – maybe cleaner toilets.

I find this typically capitalistic… whether I swear by Clinic All-Clear or Pantene depends only on where I got recruited – HLL or P&G and not because I have some strong original opinion.

Moving on, some of these freshers are eager to know about life at the insti… and someone made the mistake of mentioning brand-building and PR at the insti… so these seniors who reply to these queries go all-out to hype everything up… so some dumbass would ask something inane like “What's the farting scene on campus?” and a senior would reply “@dumbass… yes, Planet I (some fuck-all name for IIM Indore which I’ve never seen outside discussion forums) takes its farting very seriously… regular farting games.. interest clubs.. watchout for special festive meals… be prepared, cuz this is no ordinary campus… here at Planet I, we take our farting very seriously… our motto is to work hard and fart harder!”

The system requires hype to survive… and people to fuel it… personally, I don’t think there is much difference between any of these institutes… 30 years down the line, you’re not gonna give a fuck about which institute you went to… maybe if you’re strong enough to give up this beaten MBA path and pursue art or travel or teaching kids or whatever it is that you really wanna do, you’d remember that very well.

Disclaimer: People who’re really, honestly in love with an MBA, please excuse the above lines… they’re not meant for you.

11 May 2007

The Sunny Rain Dance

In my quest for timepass in Coimbatore, I went to this local bar accompanied by the sales rep that I’d met a couple of hours earlier. It was one of those places which has never seen a woman.

The tables were cramped, like a tea shop, so that no conversation in that room is private. Not that anyone in that room had anything private to talk about... even if they did, a few drinks later, how does it matter?

All eyes were glued to this single TV screen, which had one local bombshell doing an ‘erotic’ dance in the middle of a road, surrounded by roughly 50 sex-starved, dancing men.

The bomb was doing a rain-dance and getting a sun-tan simultaneously. Can’t they pick a cloudy day for the rain-dance, or a better time of a sunny day? I guess you need some alcohol to digest that.

Anyway, they took the ‘last order’ at 1030… I wonder why they call it that, because it never works. Slowly, as the clock ticked towards 11, they politely asked us to leave, by switching off the tv… then they switched off the ac… anyway, we left respectfully, before they got the brooms out.

I enjoyed that conversation immensely. It’s the best part about random conversations with strangers… no baggage from the past, nothing to guard against in the future… reminded me of all the people that I’ve met while travelling.

And some others.