The Chennai Tale

Hi there,

Sorry for keeping all you guys waiting so long for my next post. So much water has flown down the Indus and so much has changed since my last post. I am done with my sales stint. A lot of stuff happenned. Cant write about all those in a public blog but I am sure some of you folks would have heard about my saga by now.

I am currently stuck up in Chennai for my sales commercials stint. Chennai is where the branch office is and so I have had the opportunity to get in touch with some of the other BLTs. Had company from Ashish & Aalap during the first half of the four weeks that I have to serve in Chennai. This place is boring. Nothing to do and hence no adventures to write about. Such a change from my sales stint where everyday was a plunge into the unknown. Thoroughly enjoyed that. Not enjoying this stint even one bit.

Guess my next post will be either from a factory or a village. Hope to have somehing to write about then.

First Paycheck

It has finally arrived. My first salary. My first ever paycheck!!!!
I am so very excited. I remember when I was in my 11th standard, I had promised myself that I would buy the entire Calvin & Hobbes catalogue with my first salary. I plan on doing exactly that. So Landmark here I come.

Now I need to buy my parents and my kid bro something really special. I have always been very poor at gifts. So people, I need your help in this regard. Kindly unleash your suggestions on me.

Cheers

Am I evil? Yes I am!

Did something downright evil today and thoroughly enjoyed doing it. Cant tell u folks anything more as it may spoil the surprise that I have planned for some folks who are least expecting anything to befall them right now.

hehehehe (gleefully rubbing hands in anticipation)

Cheers

Kissa Straw Hat Ka

Phew. I am in Pondy and it is HOT outside. This is where my faithful straw hat comes to my rescue. So what if it makes me look like a Vietnamese rice farmer.

My first stint is a sales stint in South Karnataka (Which means Bangalore/Mysore). So it looks like I will escape (somewhat) the unforgiving Indian summer which some of the other BLT juntha will experience first hand (what with Banjo and Aalap being despatched to Bihar, Vishy to Ahmednagar and JK to Hubli). The good part is that I have been given a PDA. I know. Kewl eh.

The first 4 days of last week were spent in getting gyaan at the Chennai branch office. Friday was differrent 'cause we went to a Depot (a C&FA station). Got some amazing pics of us (JK, Shreyas, Nikhil and myself) in steel hats. Will put them up next week.

In the meanwhile, this is us. The May batch of BLT '007.



Come Saturday and me n Shreyas decided to run to Pondy to meet Vaidy. Pondy is better than Chennai anyday (The last line was a special note to Nikhil Jacob who was supposed to go to Pondy for his TSI stint but now he is staying back in Chennai).

Gotta run now. Got some funny stories from last week which I will put down in this blog sometime next week.

Cheers

Ps: All the factory juntha seem to be jobless. Vaidy and Suchita generally seem to be online all the while.

Bahut Lagegi Teri a.k.a. BLT FAM 2007 (May Batch)

It all started with mom forcefeeding me a whole lot of special dishes on the 2nd of May. After all, her son was going to embark on a 'Bharat Yatra' from that day on. So armed with two bags, who will be my faithful companions for the next 15 months, I arrived at Gautum Complex and promptly got drunk ( Hey! What else is a guy expected to do).

Day 1:

7:45 am - Hell why did I come here??? Why are they making me wake up so early???
9:05 am - Fast asleep.
10 am: Shreyas rudely wakes me up and askes me to have a look at the 'BLT survival kit'
10:04 am - Back to sleep (BTW I wasnt the only one sleeping)
10:30 am - Steve Remedios delivers a awesome talk on his BLT experiences and in the process giving us a kick ass tagline for out BLT Tee - Bahut Lagegi Teri . This dude actually made the PPT after we got him drunk the previous night.
11:45 am - I actually win Steve's quiz :))

The rest of the day was a blur and was mostly spent in anticipation of the 'dinner party'. And what a party it was. NO BOOZE??? WHY WHY WHY???


Also, It is OK to thumb your way to victory (or in our case, defeat) in a carrom march. For any doubts pls contact Vaidy or Ashish or ' The girl who taught me to cheat in carrom'

Day 2 a.k.a The day we almost missed watching Spidey 3 but ended up watching Shady Spidey instead.

Spiderman 3 SUCKS. Period. Also Shreyas got high on beer and slept thru most of the movie. This dude falls asleep when Tobey is proposing Katie and wakes up when Katie is kissing the Osbourne chap. Result - Total disorientation.

Day 3: Its nickname time!!!

I wrote a whole lot of movies onto the laptop. And I finished giving nicknames to most of the BLT juntha.

Here they are:

'The guy whose name was spelt wrong' - Aalap
'The guy who knows the password a.k.a. I cracked it' - Vaidy
'The girl from ISB with the wierd name' - Oshiya
'The girl who taught me to cheat in carrom' - Geeta
' The girl who was never there' - Divya
' The dood who did not invite only someone to his cul fest' - Vinay Singh
'The girl who lives 5 mins away from Mondy's (I know. Damn Lucky) who is also going to Silvassa - Suchita a.k.a. Silvassa Suchita

Phew. Typing this made me tired so I will introduce the rest of the juntha the next time around.

In the meanwhile, the Chennai Chummery isnt even a Chummery. It is a slightly shady hotel. Wow. What a start.

Disclaimers!!!

All right! Before I rekickstart this blog let me lay down the standard disclaimers first up. This is very much a private blog. It is meant to be read primarily only by those people who are meant to read them (This includes all those of you who get invites to read my blog, my 25 BLT mates, and some of my closest friends who will read the blog immaterial of whether I invite them or not)

The only reason why this blog is still in public domain is that I am too lazy to put a password on it and circulate that password amongst all the right juntha. So if you however happen to read this blog, please be aware that the stuff here wasnt meant for you. So if something I write affects your sensibilities... well you weren't supposed to be reading this in the first place.

I am back!!!!

To all my non existent fans (yes! both of you), thank you for waiting all this while for my return.Quite a few things have changed since I last posted here.

One: I have finally finished my course at NITIE. Landed a plum job at http://www.unilever.com at the end of it. The job involves loads of travelling (just the kind of job a travel freak like me hopes for)

Two: I actually wrote the GMAT. I know, I know... Writing the GMAT a couple of months after having completed a management course from one of the country's top BSkools... But I have always wanted to go to Harvard ever since I was a kid. And I just decided that I am going there one day. And so the GMAT. Scored 730. Not bad eh...

Since I have nothing better to write about now, I will ramble about my 'Phoren' BSkool plans. Harvard was my dream ever since I was a kid. But in the last two years I heard a lot about and did a lot of research on INSEAD. So now even that is somewhere on top of my list. But then again, since last October, the idea of actually going to Wharton has really excited me. So at this moment I will say the Wharton is right on top of my list, followed by INSEAD and Harvard.

Enough of rambling. I restarted blogging because I wanted to write about something in particular. I have decided to make my blog a theme blog. Actually two themes. First and foremost, I am going to write about all the places I visit during the BLT (The first year at Unilever is called the Business Leadership Training Program. This consists of rotation across all functions of the company with each stint (roughly lasting about 45 days each) based out of a different location. So u guessed it write. I hope to visit a lot of places)

Secondly I plan to write about my experiences in the two colleges I have been to (RVCE and NITIE). I do not plan on changing some names in order to 'protect' certain people (I plan to write totally scandalous stuff...hehe). So I hope u guys will have some fun reading this blog.

I hope to update this blog atleast once a week from now on. Signing off on this note.

See ya...