The Madras Mail

I’m sitting in the library now, that’s a first. Why? I had a look at everything I had to study by Monday for a myriad of quizzes, I freaked out, and I came here. I also have a headache now.

I think it’s now past the time where I can write about the firsts at XLRI. I’ve gotten used to waking up to the Departed Theme by Dropkick Murphys (which I truly and whole-heartedly hate now), run to Dadu’s to get that coffee and drink it so bloody fast that I scald my tongue, somehow try to stay awake during class, run back after class and manage to grab a few winks before the next lecture after lunch, manage to get a tie (which was knotted by someone else, I still can’t get the damned thing) on while looking like a complete idiot, get into a random discussion on theology with Hameed which just ends in both of us swearing a lot, discuss with the bL whether or not to have a party that night (that particular discussion mostly ends in ‘yea, what the hell’), and spend the rest of the night drinking and/or dancing, or just eating a lot of eggs at Bishu’s and sleeping it off.

I have to study.

No more parties till I get the academics sorted out. This should be interesting.

I will as a rule no longer clean up after Hameed.

I can say this with conviction, now that the puking days are behind me, as VG said, ‘the boy has become a man’. My study table now resembles a Russian Vodka Convention, Piotr Smirnov would have been proud; my alcohol-stream has a small, and steadily decreasing blood content; I can hear my liver crying out, ‘Dude…!’; I have 5 quizzes this week, a mid-term review tomorrow, and have 3 term papers to write; and to top it all, I have the mother of all colds, and am feeling all drippy.

I’m speaking the occasional Hindi nowadays.

Chalo, daaru peethen hai.

I’m not a special person, I don’t speak 71 languages, I can’t play the guitar with my feet, I can’t quote abstract business terminology and get away with it, nor can bring myself to truthfully answer the question, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ But then, that’s not what is required to get into a business school.

To be a part of an entity that has, for all practical purposes, always been, is truly wonderful. People come up to me and tell me that XLRI was the best thing that’s happened to me. That part I wholly agree with. But why, most people won’t know and will never be able to understand. Tradition cannot be talked about; in fact it would be demeaning to tradition to explain it in mere words, it is to be experienced. And at XL, we believe in doing things right, and by God we mean it. To spend two years in the company of friends, surprise quizzes, a non-existent sleep cycle, the bottle, the parties and such, is a feeling that cannot be explained.

I’ve never been at such a loss for words before.

When I came to XLRI for the first time on the 13th of June, ’08, it still hadn’t hit me that I was going to be a part of India’s most respected business schools. As a thumb rule, most of what people tell you will be wrong. People are so clouded by their opinions and prejudices that they for the most part fail to look beyond. I came here with a constant fear gnawing at my stomach that I had to do assignments all day, and turn into a report-writing machine. I do agree that the workload is gruelling, but that isn’t all to life at XL. Life at XL is about doing things that you wouldn’t normally do, it’s about being what you are rather than being what others want you to be; it’s about adventure and fun more than term papers and presentations. And by fun I don’t mean the hello-hello-ha-ha types, it’s about fun that is completely unbridled, utterly awesome and mind-numbingly amazing.

As someone said, ‘But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?’

(I published this in XL Meri Jaan too)

People who know me know that I can get crazy drunk and do some very crazy things, it’s not out of the normal, but the point is each person’s take on a wasted night is very different. People are judged by what they do when they’re drunk and rarely by what they do when sober. This is quite funny actually, a completely self motivated pursuit of loss of sanity contributes more to a friendship than a meaningful, intellectual discussion.

I’ve been here at XLRI for about 3 weeks now. These three weeks have been so frigging awesome that I can hardly bring myself to write it all down. The people, the endless bottles of booze, the suttas, the Hindi, El top, the wet nite, the legendary XL bonding, and so much more. The scene here is so vibrant that is so unlike anything I’ve seen before.

My whole objective, or rather my parents’ objective of making me come here was to give me a management education, and that is somehow supposed to help me make me a more ’successful’ person. I’m totally lost on this part of the argument. My life has never been planned. Everything I do in my life has been the product of someone’s advice. The point here is most people fall under this category but are too scared to accept it. I’m not, so it really doesn’t matter. The whole objective of life is to be happy, so for me happiness comes in all the small things. The beer with friends, the drive along a beach, a good book, travel, good food, and so forth. I really have no idea what I’ll do if I get a huge salary after I pass out, will probably spend most of it on travelling, and give the rest away as charity. I’m just trying to think here, that how many people are pretending that grades, personal image, and other equally unimportant things define them. Life is so much more. Laughing a lot, spending time with the people you like, are the most important things, others are just a face we put up to society, something that we pretend we are, but truly are unhappy about. I’ll be happy if people come and tell me if I’ve made a difference to their lives rather than a plaque with a ‘Best Employee’ embossed on it.

All this is just rants I’m making at 4 in the morning, but somehow feel important to write down.

Life is just so fucking amazing. Lol.