Time: About to be 1:00 am
Tomorrow have MIS and MC.
Songs: Aasman ke paar koi, raat hamari toh, tumse hi.
Feeling: Nostalgic.

Read an article that appeared in the Business Standard. The article attracted my attention as it had the photo I had seen recently. Someone on IP Msngr (The internal communication tool of the institute) had spammed his photo asking his name. The person looked like Rahul Dravid's relative.
The article was from Aswath Damodaran, a guru on evaluation of stocks and portfolio management, a prof at the Stern School of Management, NYC. The article was about the markets. The interviewer seemed to be lacking insight into the work of Damodaran, as he kept on asking the questions which i guess he would have surely answered in his book, like in what ways would you arrive at valuing a loss making company. Damodaran seems a cool guy, taking questions and answering them with the ease of a master, has the manner of a person who knows something about the stuff he is talking about, an insight which others seem to lack. An awesome feeling when you know something which is still a secret to the public in general. Take this from his webpage:

"I am lucky enough to be in a field where a little knowledge and a dose of common sense goes a long way, and achieving guru status seems relatively simple. What I do know is neither profound nor earth shattering, but I would like to share it on this site."

The man seems to ooze confidence, but with the quite smile of the sphinx, like he knows something we don't.

Had the first mid term paper today. The first was management accounting, which seemed quite doable, but messed up in their with a few questions. The other one was that of Social Transformation in India. There was a lot of stuff to be read in the notes, but having heard stories about the prof being extremely cool with the numbers, gave my instincts a shot. Didn't read much and was in the test fending for myself. It didn't go that bad.
Killed some time with friends and then came to the room. Last night a friend had called, so called her back and had a hearty chat. She seemed quite knowledgeable about my ability or the inability as I may put it of not being able to open myself with new people. She had asked about what I wanted to do with myself, I said I wasn't sure, and that was true. But I have one thing in perspective: my priorities. I want to live my life, not getting upset over silly things as the time is too short for that. The opportunities that I get here are aplenty and the worst that I can do is to lie down doing nothing. So here it is to action.
Got two more papers coming up tomorrow - Marketing and Organizational Behaviour.
Marketing seems quite interesting to read as it doesn't feel like reading curricula but a magazine. Organizational behaviour on the other hand is also interesting but only till you take it as play, if I try to get too tough with it, it refuses to seep through the grey matter. Ohh I forgot one more thing am watching heroes currently. Think they could have been better with the story which sometimes walks the tight rope between being classic and foolish. There are some parts which are not that appealing like the way Mohinder Suresh, the geneticist is portrayed. He seems quite a foolish guy, believing everyword the others say, does everything except working on genetics, works on some lousy program his dad had manufactured which just goes on giving random values, but Suresh is working day and night at it, God knows at what. There is an honest attempt to connect so many different characters, but at some point of time the connection is too complex to generate interest. The concept is good, though a major part of it seems to be adopted from X-Men, but the implementation could have been better.

From tomorrow the mid terms start. The mood in the hostels has changed. No more loud songs from any of the first years' rooms, though they can still be heard coming from the seniors' rooms(their mid terms are over). People who were into watching movies, playing games and doing bakar(aimless chatter) have taken to the solitude of their rooms. People say the best way to allay your fears is to face them, I think exams are an exception to this rule. These qualified people who have given exams throughout their lives behave like normal children in their fear for the papers. You can see it in their status messages in gtalk or on orkut, or the topic of discussions during lunch and dinner. No more loitering around the campus.
But there is something else that is visible. The level of cooperation that the students have shown. With the relative marking scheme put into place by the institute one would think that keeping information to oneself would be a dominant strategy for each player. But here I observe something 180 degrees opposite. There are mails giving lecture slides, some of the students have taken it upon themselves to show their passion towards the Right To Information. Seniors are also in a generous mood, sending previous years' question papers, and advice.
For me its just another paper. These things never seem to end. You motivate yourself by saying just this once, after that it will be alright, but then it comes at you once again. I guess there is no escaping. So I have stopped thinking about it. No more wasting of the precious time that I have here to the vicissitudes of student-dom. I am a free soul and will stay free come what may.

contd. from the Morning Rigour

When we had landed at the orphanage, we saw a place bristling with life. Actually the place, spread over an area of 13 acres, was an institution in itself. It had a school for the deaf and dumb, a school for the blind, a school for the orphans, vocational training facilities, hostels , a playground, training facility for the teachers. The place was started by Mr. Moinudeen Koya, retired ADM of the city, in the year 1977. The place had grown into an institute serving 350 blind and deaf and dumb children and about a 100 orphans.
When we got to the place I was wondering to find my way through people who spoke only in sign language (there were no teachers around as the teaching hours were over already). We managed to find the principal's office. He welcomed us with great warmth, and answered most of our queries. Then Mr. Koya alongside Mr.M. Mohammad, the secretary, came to us and gave us information about the institute and its working. He took us to visit the place and showed us around.
There was much more life in their than a normal educational institute where people keep sitting on their computers, either playing games, watching movies, or surfing the net. There was much more life in the place, hardly any students stayed inside the hostel once the classes were over. They were out into the fields playing. Even the blind were out in the cool breeze that was blowing outside and didn't keep to their rooms.
We met with Razzak, a blind guy who sang for us in Malayalam. They were eager to know about us and meet up. I was told that the world does not accept them as it does not have patience enough to know what they are communicating. But these students seemed so easy to talk to and so much more open to people that we made friends with them in a jiffy. Then we met up with a girl Ayesha, she was talking to Mr.Koya in Malayalam, I didn't understand a word but she seemed to throw out warmth in some way. She was about 3 feet tall, very lean and blind from birth. Were told that she was 12 years old. We curse everyone for our small misgivings. Here I saw people who were disadvantaged physically, but were mentally more at peace with themselves. The seemed so genuine and accommodating that when we went to the school for the mentally challenged we were greeted by handshakes and smiles.
When we left the place I was no longer tired, felt rejuvenated and ready to take whatever came.

Today I had to visit an orphanage. I was volunteering for the Social Services Group of my college, where we were to help out NGOs with structuring and management, provide them consulting to work better. When I had volunteered I thought I had the gusto in me to go all the way, but like other things in my life I thought I would be better off watching a movie in my room, or hang out with friends, especially after we have had a whopper of an accountancy paper.
I slept at around 4 in the morning, woke up at 9. I didn't even had the usual choices of either bathing or having breakfast, had to rush to the class to be on time. We had to prepare for a case which I had not done, prioritizing the quiz over the case. Somehow managed to read the case between the classes, but when the case class started I was too tired to even open my eyes. The class stretched to a half an hour more adding to everyone's misery, as it left no extra time to see the notes(they would have been no use had we only seen what was coming).
After a quick lunch, had to rush to the class for the quiz. 20 minutes later everyone was wondering what hit them.
The time was 3:00 pm and the meeting with school was scheduled for 4:30. God also seemed to be testing our commitment. It started raining while we were in the class, and it continued during the lunch break. The place was a good 30-35 km from the campus and going by a bus seemed an improbability in that weather. So we called up a cab and started for the place.
Managed a quick nap in the car. The cab seemed to be going on and on. We wondered whether we had lost the way. But an hour and a half later we were there.

contd.

People wonder where the society is heading. They point out flaws in the system just for the sake. The other day an erstwhile professor, a doctorate in sociology, was pointing out how the concept of feminism is exploited by the media and the advertisers to show woman as a mere object of desire, how women are portrayed as sensual beings, how their body is used in subtle ways to convey the same cliched meaning time and again. He was pointing out that educated people with whom we expect good intellectual and relevant advertisements exploit the same stereotype of the skimpily clad girl leaving nothing to the imagination, to sell their wares. Let me ask a question: If you are selling a lipstick what aspect of the product do you want to emphasize upon. What does a lipstick represent? Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal, says that lipstick is used by women to fake the appearance of the labia in their private parts to attract the male partner. With this implication of the lipstick how can one not associate it with anything but sexual feelings. It is a sexual signal as much as a fashion statement. It has deeper meaning than the mere mechanical application of just another cosmetic. So if an advertisement is showing that putting lipstick enhances your odds of getting a mate, then I ask what is so obscene about it? I do agree that the meaning of feminism is twisted sometimes. But in today's world where women have equal rights the mention of insecurity is sometimes absurd. True, women has been abused in the past but this age has empowered her to join the workforce at an equal level with the male, girls get opportunities to study in the premier institutes of learning. The cultural mix of the east with the west is helping the girls shed boundaries, be free and independent. So if you are hearing sir, Mr. Nutty Prof. you were awesome with the knowledge quotient but I beg to differ on feminism in the 21st century.