2011 Round - Up

To say that the blog isn’t getting updated often enough would be cliché to say the least, but who cares? As long as you have the will and drive to write, time will follow. To blame it on office work or the looming CAT exam would be the fashionable vindication I would have used had it not been my own blog. Thus, despite the office, sports and non-existent CAT preparations, pure, unadulterated, untainted and utter LAZINESS would be the reason, as usual.

Bulk of 2011 has whizzed past already and before I realize, whatever little is left of it will follow suit. “Reflection” would possibly be too divergent a word from my character, as I’m not too fond of looking over my shoulder. Still, never a bad time to do a reality check and see how the year affected you.

The last year ended on a high. In college days, Goa trip was too frequent for people from Manipal but as a student you’re always trying to limit your expenses. It was after one of such trips in 2008 that five of us, i.e. myself, Sagar, Anubhav, APS and Omveer (the Jaat ;) ) had decided that once we start earning, we’ll celebrate a New Year in Goa, the perfect time for witnessing peak crowds. Given that we were spread across three cities, the planning started in September itself and to our credit, things went off well and barring a couple of hiccups, we had a great time.

Return to Hyderabad ticked off the countdown for CAT results, something that I wasn’t too keen about, given my lack of preparation for it.  12^th Jan was the day CAT-2010 results were declared and more than my own score, I was happier for Sagar’s score of 99.73 %ile, which got him calls from all the IIMs and eventually, it translated into final calls from Bangalore and later, Ahmedabad. APS came in from Bangalore to join in the celebrations as well. My own score was not much of a consequence for me, as I was not willing to get started with my MBA without working for two years and secondly, I had underperformed in my book, as I had left a few questions without even reading them. A score of 96.98 gave me the confidence that it wasn’t beyond me to score better.

The month of February was the best of the lot, as we welcomed a baby boy to our family. My nephew was born on 18^th of February and that explains why I’ve visited home 4 times this year, massively contrasting the usual 2 trips a year regime that I had followed right from my engineering days.

May-June brought with itself the time that I live for in Infosys, the annual cricket tournament. 2010 was my debut year and I was little known then but thanks to my man of the match performance on debut, I was a better known name this year and as a result, was promoted to Tier 1 from Tier 3 J. I was on leave for the period leading up to the start of the tourney and that was the reason I was dropped from the starting 11 in our first game itself! Its never easy to sit out of a game of cricket and though you have to keep a brave face and keep smiling, it is impossible to do if you know that you are better than quite a few people who are on the ground. I took it on the chin and earned my place back from the second game onwards. What followed was a string of good performances by my team, which ensured that we finished at the third spot. I was famous for shouting at my captain and vice captains during a game, as I didn’t agree to their on-field decisions, which cost us the game and a place in the Finals, which doesn’t come on a platter every day. After shouting at him on and off the field, I didn’t even bother shaking hands after the game. Thankfully, I sorted myself out during the weekend and we played as a team  in the 3^rd place playoff on Monday. More than the cricket, it was the friendships that I formed during the tournament which I cherish, as you don’t meet like-minded people with common interests and apt sense of humor every day.

In July the trials were held for the inter DC Cricket tourney in Mysore and as my luck would have it, I injured my shoulder on the very first day of practice, which meant I wasn’t able to rotate my arm for about two months. Nevertheless, I did travel to Mysore with the team. We crashed out of the tournament in the semis, losing to the eventual champions, Mysore! If you’ve joined Infosys as a fresher and got trained in Mysore, you develop a soft spot for the place so honestly, I didn’t feel too bad about losing to them.  Secondly, it gave me a chance to go to Mysore Campus again and re-live the memories of my training days. I tried my best to do it but the fact is that Mysore isn’t the same without those colored tags, those assignments and unending module tests.

October brought along the annual sports fest of Infosys Hyderabad – Hydrenaline 2011. Though cricket will start off later this month, all the other games are over by now and I captained my MFG team again in my second love – Chess. We had a first round exit last year and it was personally very disappointing, as I did win 2 out of my 3 games last year but sadly, the teammates couldn’t earn even half a point from their 6 games. This time I was more careful with the trials and it paid off. We finished the tourney in the 3^rd spot which was quite an achievement, given that we had been seeded 7^th in the 14-team event.

Another memory of October would be the fact that I got courteously scolded by one good looking female for offering her a chocolate for her birthday. Can’t really recall the last time such treatment was meted out to me, so I’d like to think of it as a lesson in “When not to offer a chocolate to a girl”.

It was nice to spend Diwali with family after years and then take the CAT exam a week after it. Though the exam went OK, it missed getting into the “excellent” category by just 3 or 4 questions and I just can’t overstate the importance of it. Still, hopes are high and 11^th January will be the Judgement Day.

The best part is that now I can look forward to go back to office and relax, spend time with friends, hopefully add a new friend to the list, play cricket AND, BLOG MORE OFTEN. Fingers crossed about the last one though!

Cricket, Work, Problems, Friends, Fun, Goodbyes - LIFE

Even though the lazy Jayant has dominated Blogger Jayant for the past few months (or rather years) but thankfully, once in a blue moon, on occasions like this, the Blogger Jayant comes up trumps and hence, this blog gets updated. There was a time when I used to refer to my earlier post while writing a new one (because I never forgot what I blogged about previously, like I have now! ). Anyways, my last update was somewhere in December 2009, which would be roughly within a month from attending Vishal's marriage and then taking the CAT exam. It's not that I've won The Nobel Prize or something in the time between then and now but yes, there have been a few good updates.
There was the long-planned Goa Trip with my college friends which was truly amazing and a nice time to get together for friends. Really hope that everyone takes out 3-4 days like these for each other, out of an otherwise packed 365 days of the year. About ten days after the trip ended, I was in for a surprise. After a casual preparation, scoring a percentile of 96.98 in CAT made me feel that after all, I can fight for the top 1 percentile next year around, which, I believe, is what you should target if you start off with something, be it exam, sports, anything. Hence, I would like to believe that this year I will actually go at it real hard and get something more than a "decent" score out of it. However, the things to follow in this post would heavily bet against it.
February is normally considered the spring season and my bhaiya-bhabhi were blessed with a baby boy, who's growing cuter and naughtier by the day, which is making my stay away from home all the more difficult. It has been the happiest news on family front for quite some time, especially after we lost Nanaji and Dadima in the past two years. He's gone a long way in helping Mummy and Papa cope up with the losses.
Sagar conquering his dream by getting into IIM-A has been the biggest news of the year outside my family and we all were so happy for him. He thoroughly earned his place and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. APS came to Hyderabad for a weekend to join in the fun and we surely had a good time, but we still missed Jaat.

The glue that kept me in Infy Hyd for so long

Then came the much awaited annual Cricket Tournament of Infosys Hyderabad, which was this year named as P3L, i.e. Pearl and Prakriti Premier League. (Pearl and Prakriti are the name of the 2 development centres Infy has here in Hyderabad). Thanks to my one-hit wonder performance from last year's tournament, I was promoted to "Tier 1" in the auctions. I got picked up by a team called The Aryans and incidentally, its the same team against which we lost our game last year and ultimately it cost us a place in the next round. A few players were still there from the last year but mostly it was a fresh squad. I was made to sit out of the first game itself. I was in no way thrilled about it and that confirmed my suspicion that since it was a team chosen by guys from Andhra, regionalism will prevail. However, I got my chance in the next game and  played every game thereafter. We finished 3rd in a 20-team tourney which was a good achievement. The highlight for me was bowling the last over in the quarter finals when the opponents, Gangstars, needed only 7 to win and containing them for 5 runs, which secured a win by 1 run for us! More than the game, it was the friends that I made during P3L which I am thankful to and really hope it continues.
Looking ahead, there's a lot on my platter right now. For a start, I'll be travelling with the Infosys Hyderabad Cricket Team to Mysore for a tournament and I'm really looking forward to it. A trip to Mysore, 18 months after completing the training will really be nostalgic and when I go with a group like this, it surely will be fun. It's about time I tightened up with my MBA preparation and of late, I've been bitten by the GMAT bug as well, so really hope to put in the tough miles during the next 6 months.

The Flat Disaster

Having been an extremely active non-blogger for the past 6 months has left me with a lot of self-invented,nonsensical ideas and what better place to get rid of them than the blog. Its not that there's been nothing to share about in the past 6 months; in fact, its quite the opposite so I'll try to break down the time period chronologically. Taking a cue from the now-behind-bars-but-still-adored-by-me famous Mr. Julian Assange, I intend to release the cables(read blog posts) one by one over the next few days/weeks/months/years so as to keep my non existent readerbase on their toes.

 Ever since we moved into a real cheap 2 BHK with pathetic surroundings in the month of March (due to lack of options and mostly due to the fact that it was close to my friends' home), we had been on the lookout for a better home and we didn't mind paying that extra bit for that. Then, one fine day while I was on bench and lucky to have got hold of a system here in Infosys Hyderabad kiosk, I read an advertisement which said a certain gentleman was looking for 2 people to share a 3 BHK flat. 8 hours later we were at the flat and beat our nearest competitor by about 5 steps in handing over the advance(It was in 5-figures, in case anyone was curious to  know) to one Saurabh (whom we had met barely 15 mins ago and who, as you would have guessed, was going to be our new flatmate). Thus, we sealed the deal for our new home and were elated. The new flat, despite costing us about 63% more than the current one (blame my hopeless CAT preparation for reporting the figure in percentage... more on how my CAT preparation started and ended well before the actual exam(which, by the way, I eventually took) will follow later), had its benefits:

1. It was closer to the office, which means we saved Rs. 5 per trip and Rs. 10 in total (for my fellow college/office/flat/bench - mate Sagar it meant saving Rs. 20 per day, given his swipe-in -> breakfast -> come home -> sleep whole day at home -> dinner @ office -> swipe-out time table).
2. It was at a walkable distance from the famous and highly unhygienic Kothaguda junction, where we were so used to feast ourselves on probably the filthiest paani puri in Hyderabad which I don't know how still tasted great.
3. My friends' home was still walkable(if you can walk about 1.5 kms without ending up rolling around on the roadside gasping for water and breath, in no particular order)
4. Reason 2 was too tempting.
5. The surroundings were far better and it came across as an excellent strategical outpost from where to lauch the long awaited "mission-girlfriend-hunt", which had been pushed to the backburner during the past week and "mission-flat-hunt" had taken over.

So, the deal was struck some 20 days in advance and we were all set to move in from the 1st of August. Moving into a new city, playing cricket for a month in office, getting a good flat, being put on bench for a seemingly indefinite period, it made me believe that nothing could go wrong in life. There was no communication at all between us and our new flat mate for the next 20 days or so, as he was busy with his Investment Banking work and I was busy.... well... technically I didn't have any work but then, why disclose all your cards up front? I was busy pretending that I was not such a useless person in office and actually it was the office work which kept me from calling/visiting him to pay the remainder of the amount.

Sunday, 1st August, 11:00 am: I was offloading the tempo containing our beloved TV, Refrigerator, tables, chairs, etc from the tempo into the lift of Bhavya Shanti Sadan, our new home. Ten minutes later, I was shaking hands with Saurabh, who was welcoming us into the new house, which, at that instant, also contained 4 other people.

Saurabh: "Man, you sure you people are bachelors? Mast samaan-vamaan lekar aa gaye tum log to!"

Jayant: (trying to act cool and unpertrubed at the sight of 4 unexpected people in the flat) "Yeah, what can we do? We're so addicted to Sports and Beer. Hence the TV and refrigerator respectively"

(laughter all around, even from those 4 unwanted people who were sitting too far to hear the conversation)

After exchanging the usual pleasantaries and enquiring about when exactly did the ex-occupant intended to clear up the mess he had left in the flat, if at all, we were on our way back in the same luggage tempo.

"God, this flat has brought about good omen from the heavens. We've started saving from the first day itself", I murmured to Sagar and Anubhav, who had come up to help with the luggage transportation.
Same day, 08:00 pm: We were at Shilpa Park, home to Sagar,Anubhav,Vinit and Urvi (and also to us on weekends) playing our newly purchased ultra-modern 6-player LUDO when my cell displayed,

Saurabh Flatmate
Calling...

Jayant: "Hello Saurabh, what's up?"

Saurabh: "Yaar, there's a bad news. Owner called me right now and we have to vacate the flat by 1st September."

Jayant: "But... how can he? We've just moved in..."

Saurabh: "Sorry man, we had an agreement of a month's notice from either party and he's sticking to it."

Well, that pretty  much concludes the flat-hunt part of the story. There are more disasters to follow and if I manage to retain the enthusiasm, they will be out shortly.