Those 8 hours of the day

There have been some significant changes in life post IIM Indore. They are significant because I have nothing significant going on these days. This time just after graduation and before joining your company is the most boring and toughest time ever, which I will later magically realize was the bestest time ever. I will leave the repenting to the later stages of my life, and also the figuring out what productive things could have been done. Just like we made suggestions to case studies. Oh, history is so fun to correct, comment and criticize.

Getting back to the issue, the most significant change that has happened to me are dreams. I now discover that 2 years at IIM I, I never had a dream. Never ever. Now does this have a deeper meaning to it ? Umm...I think you and I should not delve much into it, because it is not going to give an inspirational touch to it, it would rather break the heart of the B-School fan. But if I say that 'we were living a dream, so didn't need one', I think it should trigger inspirational music in your head and make you weep. No? Whatever! But practically thinking I believe the dreamlessness was there because we never used to get a real comfortable sleep. One of the culprits of the uncomfortable sleep was the sleeper himself. A typical b-schooler would catch sleep at the oddest hours possible, living a nocturnal life. Now that I have come to the topic of sleeping, let me take you through the history, err...legacy of slumber at IIM I.

The day I arrived at the hostels from Delhi, I was so pleased to find a fresh new room, with sun blocking curtains and a fundoo mattress. I was so happy to be well endowed with my sleeping infrastructure. Little did I know that some morning sessions will make me wake up at 5. Then to make things even tougher they moved me to C-Block. A hostel block which 120 out of 180 people didn't knew existed or didn't know the way to. I was shoved into an even more indiscoverable room in the corner of the block. At first sight it seemed perfect for sleep - away from the noisy mess-hall, disconnected from the heavy traffic of the corridors and oblivious neighbors. But just as I sat on the bed, everything came crashing down. Not the bed, my dreams of sleeping. The mattress was like the ones they have in DTC buses. So my back had a lot of getting used to coming up. But the worst was yet to come.

My neighbor, my senior, my oh so popular neighbor was Vivek Mishra. He loves playing AOE. Age of Empires for him - Age of Ensomnia for me. (Yes smarty pants, I know it's spelled wrong, ignore it, it's very important for the joke.) Mishraji loves to play his AOE with speakers on high volume. I don't know what rush he gets out of it. I understand the adrenaline from playing FPS games or NFS at high volume, but AOE ? The cling-clang sword-fighting sounds does not let me even count my sheeps properly, not even with the second pillow over my ears. Then when I finally manage a shuteye at somewhere around 3, there is a sound - "TADA !!!....ding-dong...... Argghhh". Oh shit, some man just died in the middle of the night with a huge cry. An archer from the other village just killed a villager from Mishraji's village. That sound used to wake me up every single AOE night, and after that you just cannot sleep. Because then there is a war between Mishraji's village and Viagra's village. And after that Mishraji will come out of his room, shout obscenities at Viagra on the third floor and asking him why the hell he attacked when they had a pact. Then they will meet, at where else - Mishraji's to discuss what had happened. Whether they should have attacked with cavalry or with archers, from the right or left, should they have built a fort or sent a villager....I mean what the hell !!? Iraq, Afghanistan war is virtually still on, is there not enough war on earth? Give peace a chance! When the fighting stops, Mishraji's Winamp lines up with 2 tracks and those two songs play 24x7. I think the longest monotony was 1.5 weeks. Only 2 songs from some Govinda movie. Even if they were good songs, I started hating them, because they deprived me of my precious afternoon nap as well. He let those 2 songs loop endlessly even when he locked his room and went for class. Give peace a chance ! Give me a chance (to sleep) !

I never had the pleasure of dreaming at IIM Indore. Was it because I slept never before 1 ? Was it because the mattress was bad ? Or was it because I had something or the other on my mind ? God only knows, because I have none of these things to worry me, except I still sleep at 1. The bed at my home is so lovely, muah! I have so many cushions and pillows to select from. Nobody disturbs me, I can sleep till 12 noon. And I get dreams, every time. I dream about my life at IIM I a lot. I dream about hanging out with my friends too. I dream about my engineering days too. About my family. And I dream about some beautiful faces too, yeah baby ! But the every single dream has something to do with eating. I always see food there, delicious yummy cuisine. And it has some of favorite things to eat. It's simply an amazement why I dream about eating so much. Maybe because I eat less these days. Or it could be that I am jogging regularly. But, Roshin, who has also been facing the same 'abnormality' says that it's probably because we miss the night canteen at campus a lot. The midnight Maggies were the yummiest thing, but at home there is no such option of eating Maggi at 2 in the night. My stomach misses IIM I too, it misses the night canteen the most. Ok I have to stop now, coz I am finally sleepy...and yes ashamedly hungry too.