Do animals adopt the behaviour of the people surrounding them....

Eureka!!! I have found the answer in Kolkata. The answer is they do btw. Here is a comparative study between animals from the same species in Mumbai and Kolkata

Cats: In Kolkata- I am a cat person... I had a pet cat so i pretty much understand what noises they make for what occassion. So here's the situation.. I am quietly studying for my exams tomorrow and I hear the sound of two tomcats readying for a fight. I tell Ashmita, those two cats are going to fight. For the next 15 mins I hear those cats making warning noises at each other. I finally reach the limits of my patience(anticipation???) and decide to investigate. What do you think i found??? In traditional Bengali syle, these two tomcats are standing at a foot distance from each other and growling away to glory. They are not even attacking each other... Not that i wante them to attack each other(Not a sadist) but I think after all that build up they should have at least left some scratch marks on each other.

The mumbai cats: I remember my cat,(stupid creature) always getting into fights. And he got into fights at exactly 6 in the morning, when i woke up because he knew i'd come get him out of it( For the unbelieving , I have actuallt hit another tomcat with a stick to get him to leave my cat alone...I think i was taking the girls getting into cat fights thing a little too seriously at that stage of life.. :P however coming back to the comparision without further digression, in Mumbai when these creatures decide to fight, they actually do that rather than have debates with each other like Bengali cats.

Similarly the dogs in Kolkata do not get off the road even if you honk at them. They continue sleeping and you have to drive around them. Because they are entitled to the roads you see. Thats the great thing about Kolkata, everyone knows their rights and stands up for them.... The dogs in Mumbai can usually be seen on the road only while crossing it. Which they cross after checking both sides I am sure.

And don't even get me started on the cattle in Kolkata. Crazy things come straight at you. I have not really observed the cattle in Mumbai because i guess they are too meek and like the dogs and cats of mumbai go about their business of grazing and producing milk in a quiet business like fashion.

Anyways, I am pretty sure by now you must have guessed my exams are around the corner, because thats when im at my nuttiest best. So im going to end this post as abruptly as I started it. And oh the cat's fight was finally split up by a stray dog who started barking at them. :P I love Kolkata....

Forced to turn into an Insomniac

Is'nt it funny! Just a year back I had sworn I could never be the type who would stay up late hours and sleep 4 hrs a day like all the other MBA grads. But now I find I never really had the choice. What makes me wonder is do I really want to willingly step into a world where I know that most of my time will be given to work, that i may not have the time to enjoy simple things like go for a swim or listen to music? How can I possibly be doing this voluntarily.

Or am I just not able to optimise my time even now. I know of classmates who sleep 7 hrs a day and still manage to do a darn good job of whatever they are doing.

Or am I as usual biting off more than i can chew. I hope this habit of mine does'n t take me down one day.

Well whatever it is, it needs to be sorted out fast. I think next month will be easier as we will have most of the painful things out of the way. Let's see.

For Payal

For Payal...

Why do bad things happen to good people? Here’s a query that has bothered me for a while now. And the thing that has brought it back into focus is that one of my best friend, Payal, visited me yesterday to hand over her wedding invitation. She was to get married on Saturday (yesterday was Thursday evening) and was leaving for Bhubaneswar today. We had a nice girlie chat, everyone including my mom was excited about her wedding. She left in time for dinner with her parents. Imagine my shock when today morning i get the following message: “Zabid met with an accident last evening. Is in the icu. He is stable. Plz pray 4 us”. And all of a sudden everything is tossed out of balance. Her wedding has been postponed to don’t know when and she will now be rushing to Bhubaneswar not to get married but nurse her husband back to health. It’s sad when it happens to people who are genuinely good. Maybe shit happens with everyone but its more noticeable when it happens to good people. And I think I am rambling now... but Im really upset about this and I just screamt at two of the guys from IIFT interning with me for cracking a stupid joke and I just want her to be ok and I want him to be ok and I want them to be happy. Please just take care of her and her family.

Why I deserve to be in the Rugby Team for India.

time 7:30 pm

Venue : kurla station

destination: Vikhroli station(with some luck)

Mode: A fully crowded train with a lot of angry, snobbish (since i travel first class) and quite a few menopausal(ooh.... these are the worst when they get angry) women

So after a days work I believe in some play. After all, all work and no play is said to make Jack a dumb boy according to an age old adage and in this age of equality of the sexes and feminism what's good for Jack is good for Mary too... :P So i have trudged up the stairs from the harbour line platform, and come to the central line after many angry, sharp elbows in the back to the weird, frisky and overly excited males at the station which they well deserved btw.... but that was just a warm up for what is to come. The train draws to a halt . All of us rush forward. SCRUM!!! For the uninitiated it is the thing where you see all those big fat sweaty men on the two rugby teams lock heads(for lack of horns) and then spin around trying to push each other. this is usually done in a match when you need to restart play after a minor penalty or infraction has occurred . Well in my case the infraction is that the train stopped at the station. The two teams formed spontaneously are the ones getting in and the ones getting out. After 20 seconds of wildly pushing and pulling and letting words a lady would never use in public fly around without a care of whom they hit ( yes ppl the F*** and B**** words are common here some may even call it sledging) we are finally in motion gain. mainly because the train is taken off. The ones who were left behind on either the platform amongst those who wanted to board the train and those who wished to alight ; well its survival of the fittest. And then you have the entire phase where you align yourself according to the optimum position to get out of the train at your stop. A lot of pushing and pullinh, twisting and turning, watvching new scrums form and dissolve later its time for you to get back in the field again. you adjust the team. get the ones who are noyt willing to cooperate and move in the direction you want to move in to back down by gving them so much attitude, they'd think you were a diva amongst the divas... Once more I am in a scrum, and I hold position no matter who may try to fall on top of me.. And I Push when the train hits the station. And I am out again. Glad to say I have never been on the losing side till now.. so give me a chance at women's ruby... and that will be one tournament that Mumbai railways' commuters will never lose....

Summer Internship ke kisse

So i'm at this consultancy where we are trying to figure out how best to help a container company which currently has an ICD and CFS to come up with a multimodal logistics Park and my Delhi Counterpart is on a project which involves her calling exporters and asking them how they export or import coal. today morning for some reason the alarm on my cell did not go off( I think it wasnt charged or something) But at 6:00 sharp i had this dream where I saw me sleeping and suddenly my mentor walks in and screams ICD at me... that definitely woke me up on time... But thats not where this story ends...When I narrated this to my friend, she tells me she had a dream that she had called her mentor on the phone and that woke her up... man we may not know how to tackle our projects seriously but we sure are damn serious about them...

One Year just whizzed past and I didnt even notice

OMG!!!!!!! Did a year just go by??? It seems just like yesterday that I arrived in Kolkata... I can even remember what I was wearing ( Khaki capris with a white turtle neck T for the unbelieveing)... Scared, wondering what hostel life would be like , never having stayed in a hostel ever before in my life.... Amazingly its now time to pack up and leave for summer internships... and im still finding it very hard to believe that we have completed our first year of MBA....

Well a lot has changed but still, I would say most of the things are the same....I am still in the same room for instance :P... I think the few things i learnt about myself in this short and really super fast forwarded period is that a) I sleep too much for an MBA.... b) I have finally adapte myself to th efood in Kolkata... however the water here is where i draw a line... what's with the taste ????c) I can really adapt to new cities well( thats a bonus since i really want to go for marketing) d) my immunity has reached new levels due to the brilliant sanitary conditions of where we eat(street food in Kolkata... I could make a whole entry on that ) But most importantly I think what has changed is my confidence level... this is turning into a boring post ..,... I wanted it to be funny and nostalgic... but watever .. im gonna post it anyways because i want to remember this... This one is purely for me to read and remember in the future so please dont mind it :P... weird the things u hear these days.... anyways im off to bed now... 1:45 ....

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Wow, this has been one of the most exciting weekends i have had ever in my life. We had our student body elections and i have been elected to the post of joint media coordinator. Its absolutely crazy. I am glad I stood for them though.not only did i get elected but i also got a great experience of facing the class... maybe i'll end up getting over my stage fright in some time.... anyways as u can make out i am still not in a state where i can think coherently... i guess soon this high will wane and i'll be back to normalcy.. until then ciao....