The next day started late .. we had no plans; had breakfast and then Nimish made some calls to his friends . . it turned out that we were going to R-Mall from where Nimish would leave . . R-mall trip was pretty enjoyable too .. its been a long time since I’ve surfed any market . . .neither me nor Shubham are shopping freaks, so we visit markets only for our essential needs and never indulge market surfing when we move out in Mumbai . . but Nimish is a different guy . . he not only shops but makes shopping a wonderful experience by cracking jokes at every small and big item he notices . . .Nimish finally found his shoes here and also bought some other stuff . . one of his friends from his company was also there . . then we moved to Nirmal Lifestyles and had lunch at Smokin’ Joes.. well ‘twas time to c off Nimish. . . When I returned to campus, I found the badminton court buzzing with activity and all were waiting for Mixed doubles starting. Here I must mention that Sports Meet was on s

Saw this tagline on a hoarding the other day and discovered it happening to me too ... he he .. life has been fun since Diwali break ... I have spent another weekend today roaming around Mumbai. Last weekend I was roaming around with my Bro Abhishek but more on that later .. abhi I am just back seeing off Nimish to Pune. On thursday came an offer from ashii to go to ISB . . . I thought why not? After all this might be the last B-school event for me .. I had almost decided that I would go when news came that 2 tickets were booked. .. now Ashita and Milind had plans to go on those tickets .. and since Payal had almost given up on going so I was left alone without travel plans .. all my plans melted away .. I felt as if this weekend wud b a waste , shud say I was sad for the day.. . but soon came in a call from Nimish declaring he was coming to Mumbai . . . and thus started the bonanza Me and Shubham had plans to visit Elephanta Caves since long .. . Nimish gave us the opportunity ..

Ah!! What speed.. its hardly 12 hours since my last post and 12 visits have happened … god!! This is contagious ….. Anyway… here goes my post .. read on Soon after Prerana the next weekend was Dussera and I found an excuse to go home . . Home? He he … it was less of home and more of roam… I reached Bhopal on the 11th and proceeded to Indore the very same evening, reaching Indore by night. The next day we went over to Mandu – the old capital of many rulers of central India during the medieval times. Had lots of historical site-seeing … an old abandoned mosque, Rani Roopmati’s palace, one fort and Jahaz Mahal – a palace made like a giant ship with two ponds on its two sides, completing the ship-like effect. The trip was fun .. lots of driving and good time spent with mom-dad and Abhi after a looong time. The next day we proceeded to Onkareshwar – a Mahadev temple on the Banks of Narmada. Onkareshwar is specially known because it is a point where both the Satpura and Vindhyachal ra

I myself hit my blog probably after over a month today and was surprised to find the hit counter advanced quite a bit ! Well Well ..... the last post was on October 17th .. the day Prerana got over .. there's been lot after that .. in fact I havent updated this blog with news like my winning 2nd Prize in Prerana Summer Project Contest ... well lots to write .. probably will find time to do that soon .. Making this post just to give a wake up call to myself ... actually after seeing the status of the hit counter I felt guilty that so many ppl visit this blog pretty regularly (yes I do notice some IP addresses hitting at regular intervals.. though dont know who exactly these ppl r ?? after all IP addresses dont have names :)) and all I do to entertain them is NOT TO POST FOR OVER A MONTH !!! Well readers sorry for my negligence ... its my moral duty to keep posting ... and will do so now .. In fact as a memoir ..now that NITIE life is coming to an end fast .. i neeed to put in lot

Well Well! Seems God wants my tastes to change :) After the Reggae session at the ‘Shaggy Show’ , today I had another tête-à-tête with Western music, this time it was Rock. And the pleasure was greater still ‘coz we were having this show right in our own NITIE-lawns! Prerana, out flagship event, is turning into a proper festival – Prerana Rocks! NITIE Rocks!! Rock is all over!! I have never liked any form of Western music. In fact I belong to the pool of ‘Jagjit-Singh Fans‘. But the past two experiences have started having their effect on me. When you see die-hard Rock fans dancing/jumping . . . synchronously and in rhythm, you yourself feel the heat. And the Music was heating me up as well. Especially the Band Xenon (there were 2 more bands – Sceptre and Method) was really good! Their music pushed the adrenaline levels high inside me. As much as I like Indian music, I felt a different nerve for Rock too today. These guys are really mad, passionate about their music. They play it with

The IM11 team has been the main reason for the success of MastishK. These people have worked really hard – all credits to them …. I am just a cog-wheel of the gears, they are the engine behind the Rocket called MastishK The specific credits are as follows (order is random, no preferences) To start with, Suraj , our central upload manager – a very efficient chap, hard working and dedicated. He was a major resource to us during the website coding. The homepage, the Registration and login areas and all other daily games were made by him. Without him we wouldn’t have completed most of the crucial stuff. And creditably, he even worked during his summers-placement process, and has always been the person whom we could rely on during constrained times. Arti – another dedicated worker! If you want to know what process ownership means, give a job to her and you’ll understand. The MastishK creative whiz, all MastishK wallpapers are her handwork. She also made sure that the Quiz runs everyda

MastishK has finally come to an end. The journey that started way back in February, through the months to October has finally reached a conclusion. This post is a thanks giving note from my side. Fully online games – the dream concept that I proposed to begin with has come out to be great success and has been appreciated across the nation today – thanks to all of you who helped me out make it a success. My first thanks goes to the Prerana Management Group for supporting the concept even at a time when it didn’t seem feasible. The support thereafter has been a big booster for us, and helped us concentrated on the quality of the event than other issues. Irrespective of the contentions that aroused time and again PMG stood by us during the tribulations. I once again thank them for the support. Next my gratitude goes to all my friends and team mates who made MastishK possible. To mention the names – ShoOOonya, Shubham, Kartik, Milind, Payal, Ashita, Sourjyendu and VAK worked as much o

We all have some goals in life – personal goals, professional goals . . . and for some of us even spiritual goals. But have you ever thought what makes us decide those goals? And how our life is dependent on some axiomatic assumptions that we might have made very early in our life? Let me explain. Suppose a teenager has a goal of joining the Army. From where did this goal come? Probably one of his parents or relatives served as the inspiration or may be a movie. Now, this teenager starts preparing himself for his goal. Regular workouts, practice tests etc. and so he grows strong and capable to join the army. And by the time he is to decide the career path for himself, ha has every reason to believe that he is 'made' for the Army. But it is actually like this – since he wanted to join the army, so he prepared himself for it – this is the simplest manifestation of the phrase “You are what you believe yourself to be”. Now, if this teenager was given an opportunity to go back in

From the day when I literally begged the Prerana committee for support to the online gaming event, to today when Mastishk has more than 11000 hits and beyond 2000 registrations – I have come a long way with MastishK. During the past 3 months I have spent numerous hours for making this event a success. . . and happily enough, the hard work has paid. But more than the satisfaction of having made it is my satisfaction of having learnt a lot from it. Take for example my understanding of SEI-CMM levels. I had read it in the course on Software Management, but I came to realise it lately, when we launched MastishK. As many times we struggled, as many times I remembered the definition of an SEI-CMM level 1 company. Chaos prevails, no processes are defined, success depends on heroic efforts of individual team members . . . and what not; each characteristic matches ! Talking of heroic efforts, I must whole heartedly thank my team mates from PGDIM XI (the junior batch). Without them this ev

If one of old friends or my parents are told that I went to the Reggae ‘Shaggy’ show, they won’t believe. I am not a die hard fan of western music; in fact leave alone being a die hard fan – I don’t even listen to western music – and amongst all Reggae? No way!! I have no collection of western music (hardly 8 English songs stored on my hard disk which holds 3.5 GB of music) and my listening of western music is limited to the songs I hear at parties or at my friends’ place. And you may often find me arguing in favour of Indian music to western. So when I first heard from Milind about the ‘Shaggy Show’, I wasn’t interested. Then one day we all came to know that Milind (a die-hard fan, according to me) wasn’t going to the show himself, because he didn’t get anyone to join in. Meanwhile I had been feeling the need to recoil myself, by doing something off-the-track, and suddenly this appeared to be a great opportunity! So when someone suggested that we – non die hard fans – join Milind,