The last sixth

Three mid-terms and two end-terms are out of the way - only the last set of end-terms and their accompanying quizzes remain. Each successive exam seems to have been greeted by ever increasing fatigue by the batch. During this exam, a very high proportion of people put in only half-hearted efforts or less. This is because people are taking a very chilled approach to life and only waiting for April to come and internships to begin.

I have followed the batch's trend in this regard. The mid-terms came and went as a blur and I still haven't finished the portion for many of the subjects. Luckily, except for Finance, I haven't done too badly in any exam. Was majorly helped by four out of six exams being open-book.

I was somewhat disappointed by the rail budget. I'd thought that a new timetable with faster trains would have been released. But we were only given a promise of the same being released during this year. Nothing major for Bombay's suburban network either. MUTP (Bombay Urban Transport Project) projects are behind schedule and phase 1 will probably end in 2008, though it was earlier scheduled to end by 2005. Still, was happy to hear about the railways' improved financial condition and the fact that the dedicated freight corridor project was announced (This will cost over 20 000 crores over the next 5 years for building dedicated freight corridors between Bombay-Delhi and Calcutta-Delhi).

Will read some more Guns, Germs and Steel now and then sleep. Somewhere in between, will squeeze in a reading for one subject out of three tomorrow :)

Year books and blocks

Readers of this blog have seen me being relaxed during exam time in the first two terms. In the first term, I had reasons to feel comfortable about my preparedness. Now I have none. Still, watch me being cocky! Blog entries at 6 am when there are 10 long chapters of Fin to go - that's how brave I'm (and stupid - which goes without saying)!

Finally finished a write up for the dorm for the year book. Chhedi and I had struggled to find a suitable theme for the article for the past 6-7 days. No good idea seemed to present itself. I was very frustrated with this unfinished business hanging over my head, with the submission deadline long past (LSD handles the year book making and I almost began avoiding Oka in the last two-three days!) Chhedi finally came up with some thoughts and we managed to piece together 1600+ words. Should be ready to publish by the evening. I missed getting into the magazine committee in DJ, and though the yearbook there was nothing special (more like an address book - and I didn't even get a copy), I would have loved to be part of its compilation process. Preparing the welcome kit for the incoming facchas should be a pleasure. What I also want to do is use the aegis of LSD to promote nonfiction writing in WIMWI - I do not have good enough ideas yet, but getting people to voice their opinions on politics, economics, science and history will be important to me next year. I also hope to restart writing my short essays soon.

Midterms begin in 27 hours. Will be great fun, doing Finance and Operations - including over 50% of the syllabus from scratch - in that period :)

Two treats

After a comparatively lean two weeks, I am back on the restaurant circuit again, it seems. Yesterday I treated most of my friends to dinner in Mirch Masala. Today it was time for me to be treated. The Chaos Admin team arranged for dinner in Orchid restaurant in Fortune Landmark hotel. Two good meals, and two great outings. But with the mid-terms beginning next Thursday, the partying will have to skip a week.


Can think of many things to write, but can't put a coherent line of thought together (feeling a bit sleepy after eating way too much in Orchid). So, will write something tomorrow. Perhaps the senti speech that I couldn't make yesterday...

Cake at last!

It was after over 5 years that I had cake in my mouth. The force with which Chhedi smeared my face was enough to push bits of the cake into my digestive system. Don't think I had too much cake though...spat as much out as I could. Cakes a big no-no for me. I was happier with my Fruit & Nut, logical contradictions notwithstanding. Thus ended my birthday celebration - a thoroughly enjoyable experience :)


The party began with the usual birthday invite being sent out to campus in the form of a Powerpoint presentation. And as usual D18's invite was ready about 30 minutes before the party. But Prostee, Moti and Jolly had done a great job - I really liked the invite! Kammo and Thoku presented me a guidebook on Japan and a biography of JRD Tata. I love books, and such appropriate ones are to die for! A reasonable crowd, mostly from Section D, turned up. Luckily Thoku has instituted a no bumps policy in the section recently and I was amongst the first beneficiaries. In any case, people for some reason tend to treat me with kid gloves (and I'm quite grateful for that!). So the beatings I received were not too painful. After the traditional rounds of wrestling (so embarrassing to be defeated by even someone like Moti), bumps and "Power of..." (won't bother explaining), it was time to cut the cake. My Guest of Honour was Titli - she would be the one doing the cake smearing in the public celebrations. Round one was done with cake on my face and in my ears. Then, cake, cold drinks and wafers served to the guests, it was time for them to 'katlofy' and for the dorm's second, private, celebration to begin.


And Chhedi was responsible for the second round of smearing. What happened has already been described.


The rest of day was nothing too fancy. But I did get phone calls and emails from quite a few friends. Especially pleased to talk to Manas and Nishaat after a very long time. Thanks guys! All in all, not a bad way to mark the day when Galileo was born, and when I began my 23rd year of existence.

A history of DBabb nicks

I have occasionally touched upon the topic of DBabble, our internal messenger, in this blog. For the first few months in WIMWI I had only two nicks in all - FiFo@7813 (7813 is my phone extension) and Dare D'Evil FiFo (during T-Nite, as a symbol of section solidarity). On December 10, however, I joined the bandwagon of the regular nick-changers. In the ensuing two months and a bit, I have had 37 different DBabb IDs (nothing exceptional about this - Khakee changes her nick every 12 hours, it seems). Me being whom I am, each of these nicks has been recorded. Most have little stories behind them - CCCFs, in WIMWI parlance. Some of the more memorable ones, I have described below.

Smoothening Consumption (Dec 17): After my unexpected placement into a well-paying internship, my principled notions of controlling expenses disappeared rather quickly. In Bombay, I could easily manage with 1000-1200 bucks a month. Now I probably spend thrice that amount. A concept that we learnt in economics comes as a handy excuse - I am increasing my present spending in anticipation of future income - consumption smoothening, it is called.





Juxtaposition (Jan 7): On my trip to Bombay during the term break, I finally managed to go to Town. Was blown away, as I always am, by the sight of the stone architecture and the endless sea. Clicked some great snaps, amongst which was one of the BSE building and the Rajabai Tower of Bombay University juxtaposed together. Way too beautiful!

Dice and Counters (Jan 13): One of our economics professors, Prof. Sujoy, regularly conducts experiments in economics (related to game theory, I think), where participants can win a few hundred rupees without doing much work. I participated in one of those sessions around that time, and was enamoured of the ten-sided dice used in the experiment. Those were also the days of the student elections, and I was the polling agent aka counter for Chhedi. Dice and counters suddenly became important words in my vocabulary.

Hoping to avoid joining the 67 club (Jan 28): India's sex ratio in 2001 was 933 females to every 1000 males. The 67 club was founded by those unfortunate 67 who would be left stranded. And I of course am very much hoping to avoid joining their ranks.

Gullible me (Feb 5): Thoku, Prostee and others called me to their room urgently the night before. I went there to discover Prostee lying on the bed almost passed out and ready to puke. They said they wanted me to take Prostee back to his room, since they themselves were too drunk to do so. After ten minutes of unsuccessfully dealing with an inebriated Prostee, I was told that it was all a hoax! Prostee is a damn good actor. And I am too gullible :)

Beyond hitchhiking at last (Feb 7): I had borrowed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy from Khakee on August 23. Almost half a year later, I was on the verge of finishing it. Two days after using this nick, I had finally completed the 800+ page long, but very delightful work, and I was beyond hitchhiking. The book that Khakee got back wasn't quite the same one that I completed though. Due to some unfortunate decisions on my part, her copy suffered some damage. I duly bought her a replacement in December.

Some other nice nicks whose CCCF is too high-context to be explained in public though:

Time and Space (Dec 18)
Mostly Clueless (Dec 21)
Strange Hangouts (Dec 27)
Pleasantly Lost (Jan 27)

I am sure I will stumble upon more nicks with curious explanations over the rest of my time in WIMWI. My curent nick is quite straightforward: "Sharing Galileo's birthday" - a reference to my birthday which coincides with that of the great Italian scientist.

Prelude to tucchadom

Read a report in the Express (I think) today about the rail budget. Seems like a serious overhaul of train schedules is in the offing. The Bombay-Delhi Rajdhani, for example, is going to be speeded up from its present time of 17 hours to 15. Trains are also likely to be lengthened to a standard of 24 coaches. All this is meant to increase capacity, reduce turn around times for rakes, speed up travel and cut running costs by about 20%. Go Indian Railways! Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I really admire the people who run the train network despite all the financial and political constraints they work under. And for all the venom that I am ready to spew at Laloo Yadav for what he did in Bihar; as Railway minister, his performance has not been all that bad. He hasn't used IR as a gravy train to the extent that might have been feared. IR has a long, long way to go yet, but the improvements over the last 10 years give me hope.

To smaller matters then. My 'vacation' in WIMWI continues. Soon I'll be in a state where a day with only one outing would count as a quiet one :) Assuming of course that my Dad continues to fund my extravagance. Today I went to Sugar and Spices, a small fast food joint somewhere near NID, with Kammo, Thoku and Pankhi. Yesterday, it was Upper Crust. A day before it was Rang de Basanti at Fun Republic (the same movie I saw a week before at the same theatre!)

Needless to say, the effects on my studies have been telling. In term 1, there were hardly any days when I reached class without having read each paragraph of every assigned reading. In this term, knowing the title of the case is a big achievement. Given that I haven't got any F's or D's yet, it's very clear though that there is little correlation between knowledge, preparation and grades :)

Maths classes are optional and I have attended only 3 out of 7 or 8. On Saturday, the maths open-book quiz was about to begin in another 30 minutes. I thought that I might just want to introduce myself to chapter 10 of the textbook (9 and 10 were to be tested - and I'd read 9 in the morning, in a 20 min break between classes). I quickly flipped the pages to arrive at chapter 10. In bold letters, it read,"Quality Control." I don't know any quant, but something wasn't right. Decided to look at the cover once again. Operations Management, it said. How lovely! Just run back the entire campus length from Section D to Dorm 18, and fetch the maths book, I smiled to myself. Finally opened the book 10 minutes before the quiz. Since the quiz was open-book, I enjoyed searching through the book like I was giving a foreign language reading comprehension exam and trying to match words in the questions to those in the passage, and scribbling down whatever seemed to be required without understanding a word of it!

The Chaos entry will have to wait a bit. But in the meanwhile, I have to report my selection into the core teams of LSD - the literary activities club, and Insight - the marketing research fair. After the disappointing (if very exciting) results of the dorm placecommer election and failing to get into the Stargazers (astronomy) club, LSD and Insight were the few remaining clubs/events which I was genuinely interested in joining. My vacation will probably end soon when my work in both of these starts in earnest. I enjoyed working in Chaos, and I am sure I'll enjoy my activities in these teams too.

A request to all the 3-4 people who frequent this blog regularly. Please leave a comment about some posts. Just curious to know my readers...

One step forward, two backward?

The struggle over airport modernisation has started and the AAI employees seem to have begun on the back foot. Except for Calcutta, airports all over the country are functioning fairly smoothly, notwithstanding strewn garbage and the occasional morchas. The government seems determined to avoid any rollbacks this time.

Yet, as this reformist plan is implemented, the PM announced yesterday that a 6th Pay Commission may be formed this year. After the disaster that the 5th Commission proved to be, even the thought of a new one sends shivers down my spine. That Commission, formed in 1998 I think, proposed a 20% hike in government employee salaries (over and above the annual inflation linked increment). The burden on the Centre was significant enough, but the states were forced to follow up with their own commissions and the hiked wages crippled many of them. Of course, in addition to the salary hikes, the Commission had recommended a 30% cut in the workforce and a reduction in the number of public holidays as well. None of these steps were implemented. If the action plan recommended by the 5th Commission has still not been executed completely, where's the need for a 6th Commission?

The states have only recently begun to recover from the impact of the 5th Commission. The Centre is committed to the Fiscal Responsibility Act and will have to eliminate the revenue deficit in 3 years, and curtail the fiscal deficit to 3% in 2 years. Money is required for the massive social initiatives like the Employment Guarantee Scheme. We simply cannot afford another pay hike for government employees. Not unless it is preceeded by substantial cuts in the size of the bureacracy.

In the present climate of the country, even the mention of such a commission should be taboo. The economy is doing well enough to not force the hand of policymakers. They can afford to pursue shortsighted policies that might gain them votes in the next election, but which ultimately make the citizens of this nation less well-off than they would otherwise be. Heavens will not fall if a new pay commission is formed, but every such step takes us away from attaining the conditions where we could grow for 25 straight years at 9-10%. China's the benchmark.