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The best thing about being young and tiny is that you care for no one. I miss those days, when I would be by myself. The world was all good. No one was critical of what I did. I loved to play, soil my clothes and dared to imagine what I wished. I did not worry about any girl or subject or money or career or politics or ………or…..or…… I was cute, very very very cute. Everybody loved me. And I loved to hug my mom a lot, jump on her stomach every now and then. I would worry when my dad would be late from his MNC. I miss my mother’s baby talk and my Dad’s simple middle class moustache. I miss those days when I could negotiate a rupee for the bubblegum. I miss those days when I would sleep off in the bus and forget to get down on my stop. I really miss the water bottle and the BMX bike. I miss those people who would pull my cheeks and give me pat on the back for no reason at all. There were those days in school when I was wild, when I was trying hard to fall in love. Love stories in the m...

We had moved into our new house in April, 2002 and this was to be our first Diwali in our new home. 4th November, 2002 was the date. I was excited about the evening's celebration. I was not planning to burst crackers, because I had chose to pollute less, but I was busy decorating the whole house, putting up the lights. Our flat was looking very beautiful and I was busy calling everyone and wishing them Happy Diwali. Father brought us some surprises that day, a new 29 inch flat screen Sony TV and a huge microwave oven. My mother was obviously overjoyed. My parents decided to visit my cousins who were actually in the next block itself. I had a minor tiff with my father earlier. So I sat in my room with a long face. I was alone in the house. Trying to get over my anger. Then my uncle called and coerced me into coming over, which I didn't want to because I was busy being angry. But anyway I decided to go over to their place. Me and my cousin got ourselves busy by bursting some cra...

It's a Sunday on 24th September 2006. Alok Singhal is getting married today. He was in college with me. He is getting married to his girlfriend, then a fiancee, now wife, Deepika. I was excited to be there with my friends. Fortunately, IIM Indore managed to give me vacation in such a way that my last day at home would be the day when Alok would tie the knot. Interestingly Alok had too arrived to his place from Mumbai for the weekend to get married and take his wife with him there. I was doubly excited as I expected to meet most of batchmates after a long time as well. The first stop was the petrol refilling station. To great my luck, the petrol pump stopped in between while the fuel was being pumped. A delay of 15 minutes. I am a person who is very particular about time. IIM Indore has transformed me into a person who is 'finicky' about time. So I was irritated. No frustrated. Anyway, I did get onto to the road finally. Turned on the music...Ahhh...rolled up the windows.......

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding- riding-riding- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin; They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh! And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred; He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's dau...

Winters are really romantic in Delhi. I love the fog, it makes me feel I am in heaven. Things look cleaner and everyone looks cute. Late November of 2001 was not so chilly. But the sunshine in the foggy winter mornings felt very nice, whenever it got the chance to hit my skin. That morning I boarded my school bus and found a seat behind the exit stairs at the back. There was more legroom in that seat and I could see more of the outside world from that seat. I was listening to Instant Karma on my walkman when my bus turned it's final turn to reach the final stretch of the road. Shaan sang into my ears ' Hum bewafa ' with the soothing and ambient music by Bally Sagoo. I could see, that I could not see far ahead on the road. The fog was thick here. This road which led me to the school, had trees on both sides of it. The trees covered most of the road. In summers these provided shade and in winters....an aura. Music can do wonders. And slow music can do miracles. It made time m...

A water tank, that was my first sight of the IIM Indore campus. On that bright shiny day t he gates of the campus looked as grand as that of a palace. The winding road took me, my parents and my three bags past the academic block and to the hostel block. I got a room untouched by anyone, that obviously excludes the workers who built it. E-207 was a nea t room, sufficient for me and had a marvelous green door. I was among the lucky few who got rooms at the newly built E-block. My father and mother did most of the unpacking and arranged my stuff neatly. They insisted on doing that, as I was bad at that. Me and mother went to the mess to do so some food survey. Caterers at IIM Indore are very sma rt people, after all they were at IIM too. They knew when parents flock the campus, so the food tasted like ...like ....food. My mother is a very observant lady. More than that Dr.Rashmi Paul is a bit too frank for my comfort. While having our lunch in the mess, she noticed that the girl across t...

Rang De Basanti. 70 rupees per ticket. 4th row from back. I was with Avantika, Vivek, Kartikeya, Ravish, Neeraj, Rupali and Gaurav. The characters in the movie were becoming mature. They were waking up to life. We were in our final days of college life. We were sharing our last laughs together. The characters in the movie were well known to us. They were us. Everyone of us had dry mouths in the end of the movie and a thought in the back of our mind. Three months before the movie 'hit' us, we were all sitting nicely in the winter sun, chatting. The practical examinations were going on, the college fest was 4 days away. Ravish pops in a 'masala' news item to us. A lecturer had asked students obscene questions in the practical examinations. We are all angry to hear what had happened. Furious but immobile. I don't know what happened to me, but I did not say anything to anyone. I just got up and started walking furiously towards the laboratories to find the 'culprit...

On 5th August 2002, while listening to the Orientation Lecture in the library I kept cursing my fate....870 rank in CEE and I still can't get into DCE...what the ....A simple sardarjee whom I met in the couselling, Simarjeet Singh, gave me company and asked me how I liked that girl there with the short one. I didn't pay attention, that girl was Charu Sharma and you know who is the little one, Rupali ,of course. Simranjeet strongly felt that she had too much make up, maybe she could share some with us. Outside me, our sikh friend and Apoorv were greeted with seniors , who tried to rag us but they were not trained properly. Simranjeet tried to scare them away by saying " I AM SIMRANJEET SINGH KHALSA". Khalsa ? Where did that come from. Nice tactic, I would say. Then I got to know some goofy people like Mr.Divya Kr. Gupta, stung by the DCE bug. I got friendly with this fellow patient. And we got chatting. Then came the trio of Mansi, Avantika and Vivek Garg. Mansi , I th...

ETME-110 - Mechanics - Marks Obtained=47 - Credits Earned =0, that’s how the second year started. That Bee Gees song was a perfect fit for the moment - Tragedy. GGSIPU had a nice way of telling me that I shouldn’t give IIT mains a day before your mechanics semester exam. Point noted. For those who still don’t get it , I had managed to earn a backlog or if I simpy put it I had failed. But that is just OK. I knew what I’m capable of and moved on. We had come of age. All of us in the group were now in possession of the teenage toy - the mobile phone. We people are Information Technology students. We need a mobile phone. Mobile phone provides 'information' and it is the latest 'technology'. Hence Proved, that we all rightly needed mobile phones. Maybe that was not the right reason. Everyone in my gang, or the group if you like, were now in a relationship. They were in ‘el oh vee ee’. I say they, because I used to apply an anti-cupid cream. I was spared. Lucky me. So to keep...

I had entered the finest time of my life. The third year of MSIT, is something I will never forget in my life. I had just completed summer training which made me a confident chap. The subjects this time were very well clubbed together. Each subject complemented the other and I got to know how a computer really works. One fine day Alok called and asked me if I was willing to work on a freelance project. I said yes and didn’t ask about the monetary benefits. I Guess money did not matter to me. It was a Parking Manager software that we had to develop for the parking lots in Connaught Place. It was quite a task to understand what our client wanted. Eventually we never understood what he wanted. Anyway, I worked days and weeks to get that thing working perfectly. All that integration with a web cam, the low power PC it had to run on and with the dot matrix printer was a big ask. We did it; we got only Rs.2000 per head for it. We tried to sell the software to local mall as well, but the mall...

The emotions were high after the first MSIT batch passed out. The MSIT Hub needed a new moderator. Pratosh, the man behind the hub, gave me the privilege of being the one. So I went about showing off my heavenly powers over the group. Email posts from a mysterious email address caught my attention. Someone with a signature – “keep smiling” was posting emails very regularly. I thought I could send a funky reply to this person and assert my authority just a wee bit. So began a series of mails between us. Mail No.1, Me to Keep Smiling Through the Hub: Hi! I've always wondered who this "keep smiling" is. So who is this? You better reveal yourself to me. You better pay heed to my words. Because I’m the moderator of the hub and I can, you know, wield my powers on you. Don’t ask me to keep guessing! Anyway, yeah already replied to Morpheus (Pratosh) met the Oracle (you) and I realize that I am the chosen one. But I'm no Neo, I'm just plain old' me. Yeah the HUB is gr...