Winter Mornings... And a Plate of Kachori

Winter Mornings are my favourite. They are cold, foggy and you just want to continue sleeping endlessly curled up in that “Razzai”. The rays of sunlight through the fog seem ever so fresh and welcoming. The morning tea/coffee tastes so much more delicious. 

People may say that there is hardly any winter in Hyderabad, it is summer 365 days. Point taken, but the early mornings do get slightly chilly and the morning tea/coffee still tastes more delicious at this time of the year. More importantly, I love being curled up in my “Razzai” and sleeping that little bit extra every winter morning.

About a year ago, exactly at this time of the year, I had got my first job offer and was sleeping peacefully curled up in the “Razzai”, while bunking Prof. Jawed’s first class in the morning. Let me share with you the scene of that morning.

Location: Room No. 59, ‘C’-Wing, Sapphire Hostel, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.

It’s 7.30 in the morning. The alarm rings... “Good morning! ...Good morning! ...It’s time to wake up” (Yes it’s my alarm tone, an unknown lady wakes me up every day with her sexy voice :P). I put the alarm to snooze and sleep again hoping to wake up in five minutes. The snoozing of five minutes turns to sleeping of two hours and I finally wake up at 9.30. 

Oh Shit! “Jawed ki class phir miss kar di”. Realizing that I would never make it in time for the next class at 9.40, I call up my friend to say “Bhai, Please proxy laga dena yaar”. 

Phone Rings...

Friend: Hello... (Still Sleeping)

Me: Bhai, proxy ......... Abe so raha hai kya??? 

Friend: Haan yaar, abhi utha hun

Me: Abe time dekha hai... 9.30. ... Jawed ki class miss ho gayi!!!!

Friend: Bhak saala... and he blurts out a spell of expletives!!!

Me: Matiya yaar... chal Kachori khane chalte hain...! 

Friend: Thek hai, Jaldi aa jayio...nai toh khatam ho jayegi!

I get ready and head to my friend’s room. On my way, I peep into Dev and Sam’s room to check if any one of them had gone to the class. No chance of that happening!!! They were still sleeping and as I was about to leave Dev wakes up and says in that typical ‘Banarsi’ tone of his... ‘yaar ho sake toh proxy laga dena’

Me, Dev and Shalabh @ Canteen!

We reach canteen, put our legs up and shout... ‘Robin do plate kachori lana yaar’. On his phatphatiya scooter comes our ‘Jigyasa’. Looking tensed, he asks...Bhai attendance li kya aaj ??... and we both start laughing at his face!!!

Soon we are joined by Waffy, Jhabru, Maddu, Tingri, Pandey and others... and the ‘Bakchodi of Mining 2k11’ begins!!!

Today, a year later, I wake up on a chilly Hyderabad morning. I inadvertently pick up the phone to dial my friends number only to realise... that I am in Flat No. 402 and not in Room No. 59.

P.S... This post is dedicated to my friend Shalabh Malik, for all those winter mornings in which we bunked the class and went, just to have that Rs 4  Plate Kachori!

P.S... Deeps... Thank You for giving me the idea of writing this post! 

An Upgrade to hostel life!!!

Hostel Days! ... Each time, I talk with anyone of my batch mates those memories just come flooding back. No Jhanjhat and No Jhigjhig.... Bindaas full on Masti ...that’s what it was.

Having moved on from the laid back and lazy 'Hostel Days' to the present, fast and stretched to the limit, 'Bachelor Days', I finally get a day to dwell on my thoughts. The day I spent today, is typical to what I would have done on a lazy Sunday in ISM, albeit that it’s an Upgrade to Hostel Life. How??? Read on...

• In the hostel, you live in a twin-sharing room as dirty and messy as it can get. Now, you share a 3 BHK flat and your flat is the same even though you have a ‘Bai’ and pay her for keeping it clean.
• In the hostel, you invariably get late for the first class and then finally take a ‘Cycle Rickshaw’ to make it in time for the attendance. Now also you invariably get late for office and then drive your bike at break neck speed to reach office in time.
• In the hostel you sit together with friends and all of you throw slangs at the professors for not giving enough marks. Now also you sit together with your colleagues and discuss how you are being paid less compared to your competitors, though in a slightly dignified language.
• In the hostel you have to satisfy yourselves with whatever the mess has to offer. Now you have a cook and choose to eat what you want and even have McDonalds and Dominos at your disposal. But after a few months you realise that you no longer fit into your college jeans and need to reduce that pot belly coming up!
• When you are in the hostel your parents ask ... Do you have a girlfriend???...Are you in a relationship??? Now, your parents are ready to give you the license and ask... Why don’t you get married and start a family??? (Not the case with me, but definitely with some of my seniors and elder friends!)
• In the hostel you spend your dad’s money without the slightest hesitation for movies, girlfriends, boozing etc. etc. and had to give an explanation as to how and why you spent it. Now you spend your own money for the same things and don’t have to explain it to anyone. But one thing remains same... At the end of the month you had zero balance then, and you have zero balance now also!!!

Life moves on. You have a new job, You move to a new place, You meet new people but 'You' remain constant.

In hostel You learnt ‘Matiyana’, You learnt ‘Bakchodi’, You learnt giving ‘Fundaes’ but most importantly You learnt to how to be a ‘Bhokali’ ISMITE. (Even if you aren’t :P)

Hostel Days... Those were the best days of my life!!!

M@verick’s signing off... Proud to be a product of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad!

P.S. For those who don’t understand the words used in the last paragraph... Get in touch with any ISMITE and he/she will explain in detail the meaning of these! :)

First Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to me and all my readers!!! :)

I have finally completed one year as a blogger. Finally managed to pursue one of my hobbies seriously and actually managed to keep it going for an year! Whoa!

Some of you have appreciated my posts and some of you have criticized them. I thank all of you for actually sparing some time to read my blog!.  I really appreciate it.


As of now I have Midsems on my head. I really think they should do away with exams in the 8th semester! After getting a job who wants to read all this crap!

 Keep reading my experiences and thoughts on life.

Cheers Readers!

For now it's M@verick signing off!!! :)

SENSEX and the Opposite Sex!

For the past few weeks there are two things I have been doing with dedication. One of them is to follow the SENSEX and invest my virtual money in it. The other is to follow the ‘Birds’ (Cute Chicks), as my friend calls it, on the campus, on FB, on the phone or on any other medium of interaction possible.

This Sunday morning, as I woke up alone in my room and picked up the copy of Economic Times lying on the floor, I had some weird similarities between these two distinct subjects cropping up in my mind. Let me share them with you.

'Bird Hunting' by applying Stock Fundas!

One of the basic investment strategies is to invest early and long in fundamentally strong stocks. People who would have invested in Reliance, Infosys etc. say 4-5 years back surely would have made a lot of money by now. The same strategy applies to these ‘Birds’. You have to identify the fundamentally strong ‘Birds’ (Those who have the right mix of Beauty and Brains!) early and invest long in them. I say early because if you don’t have a fundamentally strong ‘Bird’ in your cage by the time you are in class 11 or 12 then the chances of you finding one are diminishing by the day!

Investors are advised to ‘Cherry Pick’ their stocks according to their budget and risk profile. Likewise you too need to ‘Cherry Pick’ your ‘Birds’, according to your personality and taste. Just like you don't put your money on every stock listed on the SENSEX, don't try and hit on every 'Bird' on the Radar. If you pick someone way out of your league, it is more likely that the 'Bird' would use you, burn a hole in your pocket and then finally dump you!

Before investing in any stock you are advised to take a good look at the P/E ratio (Price/Equity ratio), Balance sheet and Dividends of the stock. Similarly, before you hit on any ‘Bird’ do analyse her ‘S/A ratio’ (Sex Appeal/Attitude ratio). Scrutinise her ‘Balance sheets’ i.e.  Family background (Make sure that she doesn’t have any rowdy brother or a mafia don father!), Past relationships (If any) etc. Most importantly, estimate and calculate your ‘Dividends’ (you all know what I mean by this ryt?).

Just like the prices of stocks fluctuate on the SENSEX, the ratings of these ‘Birds’ also fluctuate on the Opposite Sex’s Radar. The minute we see a cute girl, wearing a sexy outfit, swaggering in the canteen we have a ‘BUY’ call on her. We have scores of Boys taking the ‘Buy’ call and investing their time and money trying to hit on the girl. Soon she is “The THING” in the campus. The next week/month when we hear the news that she is now committed with an ‘X’ guy, we have a ‘SELL’ call on her.

Right now we have a recession of these ‘Birds’ on the campus. May be like the government influxes liquidity in the market by tweaking interest rates, the admin needs to influx liquidity in the campus by tweaking reservation policies!

For now its M@verick signing off!!! :)


P.S. All you girls who read this post... Don't misunderstand that i think of you as 'Birds'... Its just one of my fantasy posts! If I like anyone of you... it's b'coz I like you from my heart... My heart doesn't know any fundas of investment, trading, profits... It knows only the funda of Love!

Unplanned Plans!

One of my friends has already blogged about the topic I had in mind. 

So…What should I do?  

Cry and complain that he telepathically stole my ideas (Even though I myself told him the topic)??
 

Common… I say what the heck! Let me pick a random topic and just blog… Let me test my capabilities (I doubt if I have any :P).
 

Life is a sweet bitch that makes your plans go haywire 8 out of 10 times. Listing out the instances when I planned and they worked out would turn out to be in the ISM lingo… P*t*e de raha hai saala!
 

Here are some instances when my Unplanned Plans worked out…

• Each time there was a quiz competition in ISM I would plan to participate and prepare for it, only to be disappointed that I didn’t even qualify the prelims. Three days ago, I won the quiz competition @ Srijan ’11. How?
B’coz, I was not actually present when the prelims were being held. Instead a junior wrote my name in the team and called me when he had qualified!
Mind you I did answer some questions in the final round… especially the last question to clinch victory. I swear there was no politics involved in this and we won the final round fair and square.

• Three weeks ago, I had booked return tickets in the Howrah-Yeshvantpur Duronto to go home just in case I got tickets for the India-England match at Bengaluru. I didn’t get the tickets before the date of journey and also forgot to cancel the ticket before chart preparation. Cancelling tickets now meant a loss of 1000 bugs. Hence, I took the train and went home.
What a journey it was! Met some fantastic people on the train, finally got the tickets on the day before the match, saw Sachin Tendulkar (A.K.A. GOD!!!) score a century and the match got tied!!! Whoa!!!

• Five months ago, I enacted the best example in my life that sometimes your Unplanned Plans do work and when they do you get rewarded big time! I got my first job when I didn’t prepare an iota for the interview and told all sorts of things which came to my head in the interview.

• Two years ago, I and a group of my friends went on a trip to Puri. We decided to go at 10 in the morning and had a train at 5 in the evening. From travelling in 3 tier A.C. with general tickets in hand to wandering in Puri in search of accommodation to spending those awesome nights on the beach, the trip had every ingredient in it to make it -as they say- Simply Awesome!!!
 

It is already 1.30 in the night and I am feeling sleepy. I was in the mood to write and just had to write something because today is her B’Day. She is the reason this blog exists and she is the reason I discovered this passion of mine. I hope I have come up with something bearable.

For now its M@verick Signing off! :)

P.S. Many Many Happy Returns Of the Day!

       May God Bless You and May You have an awesome year ahead!

       Wishing you a Happy Birthday!!!

P.S. ............. you are too Lovely!!!