Sunday, June 21, 2009

Lucknow by Chance

There are two thoughts that catch the fancy of every adult Mallu male at least once in his life. The first is the idea of starting a bar - you even make plans for sourcing some good duty-free liquor through Gafoor ka dost in Dufai. That idea dies its natural death when the hangover wears off. The second is the thought of doing an MBA.

The latter thought is a more dangerous one, because once it catches hold of you it never goes away. Just when you think you've survived it, it comes back in the month of May like prickly heat. A normal Mallu will succumb to it, and 4 years ago, towards the end of 3rd year of engineering, I did too.

In May of 2005 in NIT Nagpur, aided by the searing white heat of Central India, certain changes started occuring in my brain. By the start of the final year in July, the transformation was complete and I started to understand what the others in my class were talking about - CAT, cutoffs, percentiles, etc. It was like the brotherhood of the insane. My vocabulary thus enhanced, it now made sense to me why Vikas was always reading Jeffrey Archer (to improve his English) or why Khoda started subscribing to Economic Times instead of One-Porn-Pic-a-Day Times (to understand bulls, bears and earnings per share).

And so, in November 2008, after many such itches had come and gone, I wrote CAT again. Properly convinced Convincing myself that I was doing the right thing (I now had work experience - 'workex' in b-school aspirant lingo), I had spent many many hours figuring out whether Chunnu or Munnu would reach point B faster and how much Jaikishen owed Ramkishen. Something seems to have clicked, because I got an obscene percentile and an admit in IIM Lucknow.

So for the next 2 years, the city of Nawabs and kebabs and Mayawati statues will be my home as I struggle to join the league of people who caught the itch and lived to see it through. Needless to say, blogging will be intermittent, if at all (ok, less frequent than my current infrequent posting). See you all somewhere along the way.

19 comments:

silverine said...

Nice title! Congrats and all the best in gods own frying pan i.e Lucknow!

Anupama said...

Heartiest Congratulations Philip! And have a great sojourn at IIM-L...wish you all the best for this new phase of life...

Philip said...

silverine: Thank you. A frying pan it is :)

Anupama: Thank you.

Anonymous said...

liked the post :D

but sad if it means tht ther will be less of u in the blogosphere..

Rada said...

Oh! Oh!

Err...All the best Philip! Hope you come out of it with your sanity and sense of humour intact! :-)

mathew said...

congrats buddy...!!
now i should be reading more tales from Thakur Philip! ;-D

Anonymous said...

wonderphul writing! should have also written what made you finally succumb to an MBA :)

nice read!

Arvind...

Philip said...

anon: Even I hope it doesn't mean less of me on blogosphere. But the first 2 terms are hel(L).

Rada: Thank you. Sense of humor, I'll try. But there's no guarantee about sanity ;)

mathew: Thank you :)
The Thakur will speak when it pleases him ;)

Arvind: Maybe..I have it written down in parts..but it's so boring I fell asleep writing it. So maybe not :)

Badri said...

dude, we miss you here.

And I think you have finally arrived in the blogging world. Proof : Our company information security firewall has banned your blog. finally.

skar said...

Aha! Great! Congratulations! May lucknow give you luck then!

Jina said...

Another lamb joins the cult..

Have fun...!!!And yes, congratulations!!!

Indian Madder said...

Hey that's great...congratulations!!:) Welcome to the club of..err.. suckers?? (Like yours truly...Eeevil laugh)

In the meantime, please make it a point to personally verify all the tales I've heard of Lucknow cuisine ;)

All the best, buddy, and have a blast!!

Philip said...

badri: I'm so happy that the company considers my blog a threat :)

karthik: Thank you :)

jina: And not just any other cult. One of the most universally hated cults and one that has caused more damage to the world that any other ;)

zahra: I always used to suck. I just hope that an MBA will give me the skills to be an awesome sucker.

The cuisine, by the way, is out of the world. And I've only sampled a bit of it. But the mangoes. By God! They are out of the universe :D

Unknown said...

Heartiest congrats!! great going dude!

Ashwadhy said...

Enjoyed the 1st great Mallu dream ;)
Congrats and all the best on the begining of the 2nd dream.

DPhatsez said...

Good on you mate!

To the realisation of the first mallu dream (hic!)

Cheers!

Hmm IIML eh? Got some pals there.

Raghav said...

Philipeeeeeeee all the best. Will keep u posted from the states.

thomas said...

A belated Congrats!! Manager in the making eh.

All the best with your future! :)

And awesome admit of course!

mathew said...

knock knock..would love to hear some knucknow..err lucknow stories..