the change agents

The change agents work faster than we think they do. Just when you think that you have figured out the next step in your journey (that too after months of deliberation), there comes that gust of wind which fogs the path which looked crystal clear just a few days back and clears up the path which was never to be trodden upon again.

What does it take for these agents of change to come swooping down on us so surreptitiously?

It can be a deep, deep longing for the magic touch, which hits you with an unexpected force; It can be a craving to walk down those familiar paths again, the same ones you never wanted to put foot on again; It can be a dormant desire to touch those faces you left behind, the desire you never expected to become active so soon;

It can be a person's casual mention of your beloved hometown; It can be a heart to heart with your mother after a long time which makes you realize that that is one friend which is always there for you; It is sometimes usurping of the physical spaces you gradually started believing to be your rightful belonging because of the precious memories they possess, and the fear that those memories will now fade away ...

Or sometimes all it takes is a hazy, fading dream of all those people they call family ....

The Classroom

I know MBA in a certain way; it is what I have done every single day for the last ten months.

Today, as I wake up (or rather unable to sleep) to my last official In-the-Classroom day, I can't help but think of how the many firsts in Nitin Patwa's Basics of Excel class are going to be the lasts in Nirmal Gupta's Strategic Marketing class. I have a come a long way since the time I apprehensively put my namecard in front of me for the first time.

They say that in an MBA, the best learning takes place inside the four walls of a classroom. I couldn't agree more. Here's how the learning experience has been so far:

loading ourselves with assignments from every professor with every prof thinking his assignment to be the most important;

taking Very Important notes (read playing hangman and doodling); texting mindlessly during lectures;

abusing those oh-so-wonderful creations of Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page & Sergey Brin in the best possible way;

drawing caricatures of peers sitting across the classroom;

laughing shamelessly at professors;

giving supposedly Nobel prize winning answers only to be snubbed by the ever supportive peers;

stealing winks across the room;

reading your presentation slides ten minutes before the lecture or better still, while giving the presentation;

Oh, giving those never ending ten minute quizzes!!;

trying your best to stay awake in class; failing to do so and hence sleeping in class;

making weird and funny looking namecards;

smuggling food inside the classroom;

pointing the camera to your friend who is happily dozing;

forgetting your laptop/phone charger in the hostel room and realizing with a sinking feeling that your one and only source of survival is no longer with you;

passing a piece of paper to make a chain poem;

sitting apprehensively next to unknown people and ending up making friends for life;

pretending to be immersed in the world's toughest math problem while chattering away to glory on the SPJCM sleeping club;

awwwwinngggggg;

chanting to RD hymns;

celebrating twins day,secret santa day;

playing the guitar and singing in class;

pulling down your neighbor's chair at the moment prof is staring in your direction;

playing music on youtube on the projector;

clicking pictures of people sleeping to make a How-to-Sleep-in-class portfolio;

recording videos during lectures and making funny faces into it;
DCPing!;

photoshop-ing yourself and the girls of your class during QT lectures;

engaging in important debates like Apple is best, Apple is best, Apple is best;

trying desperately to upload last minute submissions on the not-so-loyal blackboard;

FAFFing;

admitting to drinking coffee at Irish village;

watching live streaming cricket matches on the projector .......

I could go on but I have to get ready to attend my last peer learning experience .. =)

.. Today, MBA in The Classroom as I know it, ends

.

Uncluttering

The mind is requesting for a pensieve ...

The body is begging for rest ...

.. And the heart, .... the heart is silently screaming to be heard ..

Its 12:30 am. An assignment needs to be finished. A quiz needs to be prepared. In the midst of all this, I realize what is missing. Its the tender touch, the warm hug that says "I know that times are tough. I probably can't make it go away, but I can make it easier for you with a hug. You are safe here"

Its the midas touch. Of your mother..

Stumbling, falling, getting up, moving

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

__________________________________

in Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton

A thought for THE day

Sometimes you meet people that you connect with just like that .. Like on Day 1 itself. You have ten people standing in front of you, but somehow your eyes find them and simply, rest on them.

And slowly and unknowingly they creep into your life and take a special place. You become so used to their presence, that it is their absence that makes you realize their importance .. and well all you want is to care for them and wish for them to be safe.

They may not do bigg things .. its just the little and special things they do ... :)

Team Dynamics

So, the day I had unknowingly been waiting for finally arrived. That is another story that it took my room mate four-five attempts to wake me up on this particular day.

I was finally going to get to play ! And that too a team game, something I have rarely done. FYI, I am no sports person. I don't have medals to speak of. But, I love Sports. And yes, like loads of other professions that I could have excelled in, I have often dreamed about winning the Wimbeldon or an Olympics medal.

Move on to the day. There was going to be a throwball and a volleyball match. Throwball for the ladies and Volleyball for the men. All geared up to play for my team, Team Blue Monks ( Yaah, I knowwWWWW, its silly! ), I came to know that there was going to be some shuffling because of some missing team members. One of my team had to go to the other.

Numbers were assigned to every person. Whoever's number was called out had to play for the other team. I was assigned five. I went away to practice not expecting a five to be called out when there were Eight numbers to be chosen from. I mean what are the odds!

"FIVE", I heard a voice shout. NO !! This can't be. They call Not three ... Not seven .... FIVE !

With a funny feeling, I went to play for the other team. It was a sudden shift from what I was mentally prepared for. My solace? I was going to be playing with one of the best sportswomen I have come across, my room pal, Al Arab Ballafi.

Game 1 begins. Instead of going into the details, Ill make it easy. We were Royally screwed.

And then it happened.

God sent us an angel. An angel who was dressed in pink, truly representative of something called as 'Victorious Secret'. Yes, it was Vinnensota, our very own Mir Ranjan Negi.

Innundating us with his wisdom-ous wisdom, he pumped us up to play as a team, to shuffle players and to attack the other team on its Achilles' Heel. No later, tables turned. From being down to a very shameful score, we went ahead and took a lead in the score. There was a definite shift in the momentum and the team was visibly gelling together. There were hi-fi's all around and an urgency to defeat the other team.

And me? Well, Not for a split second did the thought come into my mind that I was actually playing against my own team. All that mattered during those few minutes was that I give it my best and get the team I was playing for, home.

We lost eventually, but not before putting up a big fight. The team (under the able guidance of our coach, Of Course) stuck together and fought well. As for me, I did not know exactly what to feel. I wanted to be happy for my actual team, but it was not that easy!

It was a Team Win, but a Personal Loss.

I got a good taste of team dynamics that day. Like I said, I have never played official team games. Except for the time when my two bodyguards ably defended me during PaintBall. That actually makes for another interesting story.

Anyhow, my team stands at position 2. The "Monks" are meditating ( Bah! ). Looking forward to more team games.

Till then, Adios !

A Thursday Night in International City

This is probably my seventh or eighth attempt at writing something after leaving home. Most were sorry attempts at writing something about the new world I was in. A few were for the heck of posting Anything on my almost-defunct blog.

This is another lame attempt. Actually, I just got done with revamping the look of my blog. Its a little too pink for my comfort but I guess I will make do with it for the time being!

Sooooo, its a Thursday night in Dubai; my only free evening in the entire week. Yes, its my weekend which will probably end in less than twenty-four hours. And in these twenty-hours am usually supposed to be partying, finishing assignments for the next week, catching up with family back home, doing the household chores and if some minutes permit, relaxing.

But then, its a choice I made. To leave my perfectly comfortable life and live this madness.

The madness of getting up every darn morning fully cognizant of the day that awaits me. The madness of meeting deadlines and making space for new deadlines in my already cluttered planner. The madness was at its peak in the first couple of months.

Has it reduced? ... I don't think so. I guess I have just become used to it! And what has become of the person?

Well, the person is definitely facing new challenges. The challenges of, say, living without proper meals! This slightly spoilt kid was fed proper breakfast every morning at home and special care was taken to customize food to suit my taste buds. Other stuff would gag me.

Not anymore. The taste no longer bothers me. I guess the parallel mental calculations of making it through yet another day have made my taste buds immune. Where my mom would take special care in cooking low-cal fat-free food for me, here I am living on junk, floating-in-oil food every single day.

I have learnt to live without a full-length mirror, of rushing out of my room in dripping, imperfect hair. Back home, I couldn't even dream about it.

My mom would get the shock of her life if she knew that the bed I am sleeping in probably gets cleaned once a week. Somehow I cherish that one minute of extra sleep I get from avoiding the chore. Sometimes, I end up sleeping on my books and clothes that litter the bed. Thank God for my angel roommate who at least keeps my laptop in a safe place when I fall asleep on it.

Yesterday, I finally found my hairbrush beneath my blanket. I had been looking for it for a week. Talk about throwing everything on the floor to find that missing thing. Trust me, its the easiest way to find missing objects in piles and piles of rubbish.

(Ok, that was a little bit exaggerated. I ain't that messy! Infact, I am quite a cleanliness freak. These are just a few side effects of a packed day :D )

So, right now, I have a laundry to take care of, a snack stock to be refilled, a research project to be done and a dance performance to be practiced upon, when all I want to do is pick up a guitar and learn this song I reall...ly like.

Sighhhh ... unfortunately life ain't that sweet. But then, am I complaining?

Hell, no .

uh-oh

So, I have picked up my guitar after some 30 days.

Thirty ! That is a lot if we consider the practices and the "singing" running into late nights and early mornings prior to that time.

I hit a chord. The sound is strange to my ears. The pain in my fingers ain't encouraging. And if all this is any indication, I don't wanna think of how it would be six months from now.

So basically picking up my guitar to shake off some sad, scary thoughts was not such a good idea. If anything, the count just increased by one.

sigghh ... looks like the search for a cathartic agent will go on ..

Flavors

I have been feeling too buoyant today. And with good reason! The light drizzle since morning has been gently tip-tapping against my office window. A walk around my green campus, in the gentle wind has taken my usually high spirits even higher.

And now, I have come across this ... sitting pretty, all tied up together.

I have been staring at this bundle of joy for almost fifteen minutes, intermittently switching to my boring, grey linux terminal. It perfectly sums up the flavors of my day. The sweet, earthy smelling browns sprouting with the abundant greens, which are bathed in the water droplets falling from a light grey, cloudy sky; a sky punctured with dashes of various yellows of the sunlight..

Now if only I could feed my taste buds ...

a prayer and a thought

My brains have been hibernating these days. With a major backlog of sleep from the previous week, I have almost resembled a walking zombie. Anyhow, I thought of catching up on a movie last evening. A better option would have been to turn on a rom-com, which I could have seen even with my eyes closed, but instead, I chose to go for this complex, use-your-head sci-fi. No wonder my zapped out brains turned my eyes off somewhere during the all important climax.

Morning arrives. The realization of missing out on the ending (I don't like leaving movies half-seen) and the craving to watch it, dawn. A quick prayer goes up "Dear God, please make my car pool guys late by 15 minutes". It was a HUGE shot in the dark, by the way, since these guys are punctual to the point of being painful, and I mean Real painful. That's another story, but. I get ready and wait for that godforsaken call, any second now. Temptation takes over and I start the movie. A minute of the climax if nothing else, maybe.

Five minutes go by. No call. Eight. Ten. Twelve. Could this Really be happening? Movie ends. Credits roll. The phone rings.

**Drumrolls** Prayer answered! Thank you Lord for making something that hasn't happened in months, happen!

I pick up my bag (I haven't changed it yet). A thought that usually enters my head at times like these, enters: "Kya yaar, kuch aur maang liya hota toh shaayad woh bhi mil jaata!!" Usual greediness at work, I know. I start thinking: Simple prayers like these sometimes get answered so instantaneously, they totally make your day. You just got to wait a we..e..ee bit longer for those paramount life-altering ones (admit, job, life-partner). Maybe, it takes that bit longer because what you want may not not always be what is right for you.

With that thought, I leave my home, smiling.