The Know it alls

Amongst the numerous encounters with people, this is one clan which amuses me to a great extent. I would never miss on an opportunity to interact with these people coz I learn from them how not to live life.

Scene 1

Prologue: Before the start of the Business Ethics class – one of the best courses that we went thru during our stint at Great Lakes.

G : What the hell does this man teach?
Me : Ethics

G : Sure, but he is supposed to teach business ethics. Where is the business part of it?
Me : Well, that depends on your definition of ethics and business ethics. In my opinion being ethical in personal life or business doesn’t vary much. It’s gotta do with your integrity basically.

G : Yaar, still I don’t agree. Take for example ‘International Entrepreneurship’ course. I know what I know before going into the class and what I learned after the class. There is nothing I am learning here that I can count or recollect.
Me : Why dontya listen with an open mind. Be it ethics or Business ethics, may be you would learn something at the end of it. How does it matter what the title is?
G: Nah. Doesn’t make any sense. If he is here to teach he ought to teach Business Ethics and nothing else. How can I learn anything which is not supposed to be taught???



Scene 2

Prologue: In the canteen, during the lunch one of the gals strikes a conversation with a chap who would never ever say any prof is good or that he learnt anything in the course. He bullshits every famed professor and all that they teach. I would like to believe this fella is gyani who knows everything under the sun but unfortunately……

Miss R : Hey how is ‘….’ course going on? I heard that it is too good and the professor is doing a wonderful job.
Mr. H : What the heck. He is so dumb. He doesn’t know what he is talking. I cant stand him. And anyways don’t we know all that he teaches?

Miss R : Hey. I always wanted to ask you something.
Mr. H : Shoot

Miss R : What is your expectation out of this course or for that matter even MBA?
(I am searching for words to explain the expression of Mr H’s and everyone else around)

Age is an Attitude

It was a much needed coffee break after a very long lecture. All of us set out for a chai and thus goes the discussion between me and my class mate, who is a year younger than I. If you are wondering the relevance of age, you need to be more patient and read on..

My Friend : Oh my God ! We might be late (may be by 15 seconds) – continuous panicky
Me : Chill lady, the professor is not so strict and he wouldn’t mind it.

My Friend : Nahi yaar, we need to rush back. We will be late and people will stare at us. Lets go. Lets go. Lets go.
Me : Grow up yaar. Its ok. Chill

My Friend : Yaar you don’t take tension and you are pretty relaxed coz you are elder !!!

Now this line of hers, for a second, made me feel like I am her mom. Indeed it turned my thinking process on. Has age got anything to do with one’s attitude? Now what’s the correlation, if any and how does it influence??

When I rushed back into the lecture, there was our most energetic and jubilant professor I have ever seen in my life and all my peers would agree to it. He is our professor for statistics, Prof P.K.Vishwanathan famously called PKV. The radiance he emits in the class, the exuberance he exhibits, the energy levels he has, the love for the subject – I bet no one can beat him. He does some salsa, jive and cha cha cha in every class he teaches. He gets so engrossed that he has this 1000 Watt glow when he successfully explains some intricate concept. All the 165 of us are JEALOUS of this great man, his attitude and flamboyance. Here comes the news – He is just around 65 years old.

A while ago, when I attended a training session, there was a mix of age groups. There were people ranging from 25 year to 70 year old. The trainer to split the audience, asked – ‘How many of you here are youth’ and the first hand that shot up was from a 70 year old man. His justification – ‘Age is in your head. Would anyone want to contest that I am not youth?’ Needless to say, the only expression we had was – ‘Wow’.

Now, I am not someone who explains the most obvious facts. I give my readers freedom of interpretation and to draw the point I wanna drive home. I believe you are smart enough, if you have read so far.

A bit here and a bit there

Marketing Management classes: Goddess of sleep takes us over in the classes and we humbly give up. I bet there is not even a single fella who didn’t sleep for atleast 5 minutes in these sessions. The best part comes when all of us are so damn fresh and full of pep after just after the class. Someone tell me the secret. As for me, I have been successfully sleeping in the visible proximity of our professor who smartly ignores it and goes on with his class.

The Best part comes today as we had no sessions all day long and our first and only session is of Marketing at 4:45 in the evening. With a strong resolve to defeat the Goddess, we step in with all armors and shields. At 4:46, I see people collapsing and hitting the desk in front.

Idea of the day comes when the prof. mentions that there are tools to allocate costs to products and same with revenues but there isn’t any to allocate profits. And if some one came up with it, that’s invention. For this, one of the students out of deep sleep says – ‘Oh! It’s so simple. It should be reverse of cost tool’. Did you say a ‘Wow’ now? You betta do.

At coffee break – The hot topic – ‘Techniques to evade sleep in marketing classes.’

1. Some one tries to take notes but still doesn’t work coz after sometime he lands up with drawing lines. After conscious efforts his eyes are open but he looses the power of distinction (coz of sleep) and thus writes even ‘Any questions?’ ‘Now let’s do this task’. Someone help him please!!!
2. Someone does close to ‘Kathakali’ changing postures. And still doesn’t help.
3. Some try to ask sleep questions. The Prof answers the same one just before a second and he gives a quizzical expression. Now someone help the Prof please.

Ab thoda senti: I was watching my sister’s wedding video and pics and I couldn’t believe that it was the same sweet lil sis who used to trouble my mom playing in the froth and never let her wash clothes. Very inadvertently, without the help of a time machine, I go back in time and a tear rolls down…

Musical night @ Veerannam: Mind boggling singing performances, head banging on Altaf Raja songs, Dances on Govinda and Illa Arun songs at 2:00 AM midnight. Oh! We would do anything to keep our sleep at bay.

Great Lakes Jargons:

SP: Special Chai on the street corner chai stall. We wouldn’t have survived without it so far.
CoCo: Course Co-ordinator
CoCi: Feminine gender of CoCo
ER: Empricial Research
LS: Lake Superior
LV: Lake Veerannam
LM: Lake Manassarovar (All these are our classrooms. Now you know why it is Great Lakes)

Flash Flash: There’s a Chennai bloggers’ meet on 8^th June at 16:00 hours, where all bloggers down south are meeting up. Looking forward to it.

Its 4:00 in the morning and how I wish the Goddess of sleep takes over me now and not in my marketing classes.