The Chennai Diaries: 21/04/2010

Hey!

Its 8:58 am on my laptop and I am at Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji Domestic Airport. After spending the past week and a half in Mumbai/Goa on what can be termed only as a paid vacation, its time to do some serious work and hence GCPL has packed me off to Chennai. Its one more of life's jokes that a person who would give his right arm to do this project from Mumbai needs to go to Chennai and work out the project in the south. Hence this series of posts will be labelled the Chennai Diaries, capturing the life and times of a GCPL summer intern in an unknown city.

The past few months can be termed as the months of discontentment. There was soo much internal negativity around everything I did or wanted to do, that I ended up doing quite a bit of crap in the first 3 months of the year. Not quite the way I would have wanted to start of the year! But things are slowly getting better, and I have had probably the best days of the entire year in the last week and a half. So when I was told that I needed to get to Chennai asap, I thought God's magnum rifle is out again. Going to Chennai means leaving a lot of things behind, friends, Mumbai, family, vada pav, but you always need to take the rough with the smooth. But I guess I am beginning to understand how chacha must have felt when he left for Hyderabad and also why the 'cutie pie' had such a radiant smile at the airport. I guess when you live with a bunch of people for 8 months straight 24X7 you get attached wether you like it or not, wether you want to or not. And this attachement is usually stronger towards people rather than the place itself. I mean if I had Sumeet, Maddy, Chacha, Bheem, Balls and the rest of the gang in Chennai, that would become heaven!

So Chennai it is. I have been to Chennai before but that was quite a while back somewhere abouts 2002, gosh thats already 8 years man! I hope that Chennai doesn't turn out to be as boring as people have told me. Language is a big barrier in that city I agree, but that does not mean non-Tamil speaking people don't survive in Chennai. I hope that I can get to know the city very well and explore it properly and have a good time. Prima facie it doesn't look like it, but still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Work is going to be hectic but I guess I'll be learning a lot since my project involves a lot of field visits ans stuff. My guide is pretty awesome and pretty busy so its kinda hard both ways. Actually I am pretty sacred about my work. I guess its just the fact that I have never worked before, so these are like pre-game jitters and stuff. The FMCG industry is so varied and changes so fast that its quite scary to try and understand the industry as a whole in just about 2 months. I just hope that I don't end up maing a complete fool of myself out there. There are a lot of decisions to be made, right from wether FMCG is the right place for me to work to wether GCPL is worth the effort.

I think I am defined by the randomness of thoughts that prevade my mind at any given point of time. The key is to find the chain that links each of these thoughts together. It sometimes surprises even me as to how many different thoughts can co-exist in a human brain. So I struggle to find that calm, that lost island of equanimity within. Meanwhile, is it a sign from the Gods or fate's way of testing me further, I don't know but my flight just got delayed again!

See you when the rain comes home!

cheers,

Omkar

In Retrospect...... :D

So it has ended..... officially the first year of my MBA @ MDI is over and done with.

The farewell party for the seniors is done and dusted with. When we come back next term on June the 14th we are going to be seniors. Thats pretty scary. Scary because according to me thats a big responsibility, especially in a course like MBA. I remember the Ecclesia we had in Mumbai last year. We met up with so many seniors and alumni. I got a lot of sound advice from most of the people I met there. I think the Buffet Dinner analogy was the best. :D

Past one year has been one of tremendous ups and downs. I have learnt many new lessons and re-learnt many of the old ones. I wanted to do a lot of things at MDI, some I could do, some I could not. The learning curve has been pretty steep for me. Slowly it has dawned on me that there are more thorns than roses in anybody's path.

But for me the past year is not characterized by the thorns but the roses that I have picked up. It is about the amazing set of friends I have made. It is about the awesome singing sessions on Gurukul steps. Its about dancing to Rang De Basanti at sunrise on Pammi's birthday. Its about Sumeet chasing me all over Kshitij for jumping on top of him. Its about Vindi's closed mouth. Its about Phillip mistaking the headlights of a truck for two bikes in a fog and trying to pass between them. Its about Sachin beating us at bowling and Suraj loosing his sleep over it. It is about Mohit going crazy with Imperium fund re-imbursment. Its about Shubhayan getting caught cheating in an exam. Its about Nitin getting drunk and showing me the middle finger. Its about Nadi shouting expletives at random rickshaw waalas at IFFCO chowk. Its about 'You say sssupp...... we say Bhabi!!'. Its about Priyata trying to speak proper Hindi. Its about Ritambara breaking her bed. Its about Ayushi topping Corporate Finance. Its about Dev becoming a hero. Its about Bala picking up luggage. Its about 'awww...' and 'there....there'. Its about JD staring. Its about Divya fretting about a 0.01 drop in her CG. Its about Puja and PUPI. Its about Anup and his PJs. Its about Maddy and dog imitations. Its about having crazy profs and talking about them. Its about all the photos and videos. Its about being the Kitty Party. Its about going to Ritambara's place in Manesar for awesome food. Its about presentations at 1:00 am. Its about Maddy's parents coming over for her birthday. Its about molesting Shrek in 207K. Its about 'Bazzinga'. Its about eating like hogs but never in the mess. Its about trying to get the first row in CF class. Its about sleeping through OM lectures. Its about Boom thinking the prof is a ghost. Its about arcus,jhaji and sharmaji. Its about scoring a C- in MICROECONOMICS and an A in MP-II. Its about the pain of loosing Kshitij but the balm of gaining a brilliant roomie. Its about flights and ETAs. Its about all the bowling binges. Its about badminton at 2 am. Its about winning medals in swimming. Its about fucking the Naagin. Its about Shefali and 'Kya hai?'. Its about Ronny and jute bags. Its about Riddhi and burkhas. Its about Placeeom vs. Exchange. Its about the night time walks. Its about having C-square meetings at 10:30 pm on gtalk. Its about the bench. Its about crushing disappointments. Its about learning that the person in front of you is not perfect yet loving him/her. Its about learning more about yourself than ever before. Its about forgiving and being forgived. Its about taking the rough with the smooth. Its about knowing that people have got your back. Its about finding love and hate both. Its about loving yourself and loving your life. Its about being human.

How will the second year be? Will the internship change us? Will we repeat everything we did last year or will our bhasad reach newer heights? Will we be able to do justice to ourselves? Will we learn even more? Will we struggle? Will we sail? Will we love? Will we hate? Will we grow up? Will the coming year be the most memorable of our lives?

You know what, I just cannot wait to find out. :)

See you when the rain comes home.

cheers,

Omkar