The Eurotrip... Ooh la la la!!

People! For the last three months, I lived in my dreams. Since the first Eurotrip I had always dreamt of some things. So this! was that time. I lived in my dreams, just to make some memories.. the memories which are to stay for ever. But more than that, expose me to this culture and kinds of people who have shaken my very fundamentals.. with whom I shared some priceless moments. And most important was this recession! Worst time had to hit when I am doing an MBA in such a screwed up state. So why not consider these as the last few days of the best times of life :)
Here are few of those best things... censored version :)

Exchange@IIM... Surprisingly, even to me, this has been more than the best take-away from IIMB. You can go around somewhere in the world and not just live a non-IIM life for 3 months, but by Indian standards - a crazy student life for some time.

BEM School of Management... :P :P .... Life at a lukkha college in the lukkha country of France is beyond the thought of any Indian student. It turned out to be a big time blessing in disguise that I was kinda alone from IIMB which made the first few days terribly boring, but helped to completely get into the real student culture there. Learning french would have solved almost all the big problems I faced, but anyways I optimized over that difficulty. I experienced the lukkha times at its peak, pathetic standards of hard work, unbalanced gender ratio (actually too many girls), the "coolness" and above all the crazy parties all along. So this school was the official reason for my 3 months Eurotrip :P

Bordeaux, and in general France... After going around too many places, I got kinda bored of being in Bordeaux and in France too. People looked pretty sophisticated and the chaos which I could see in Italy and East Europe was missing. Actually, I got bored because things were good :P. But I love the country for all the sweet people and nice places and Bordeaux was one of the best of them. I learnt from French people that life is not about slogging to satisfying some desires but actually enjoying the things already at hand. Also, wine was the cheapest available drink!

Schengen Visa and the Eurail Global Youth Pass... My Best Souvenir of Europe, just like the magician's wand, this pass was for my Eurotrip. This Europe rail pass costed 800 euros but if I had to buy all the train tickets it would have crossed some 5,000 euros! Hats off to the German train website bahn.de on which I searched for my train connections to the extent a trader would use bloomberg.

Oktoberfest... The best way to start the Europe experience! Some 6-7 million litres of beer in a period of 3 weeks in 14 tents with around 8-10K ppl per tent is not a joke! This fest opened my eyes to an altogether different level of partying. I have a dream that I will visit this fest sometime once again.

Belgium and The Netherlands... In our childhood we used to have the scenery drawings with awesome nice houses with triangular tops, canals and projecting some exotic feel of the place. Places in Holland are like that. I loved the houses constructed in brick walls throughout Belgium and the Netherlands. People there are very very tall and speak nice English. Not a day went without eating lots of fries, chocolates and ice-creams. I will always remember the chilly winds in sub-zero temperature at Bruges.

Paris... I have visited Paris some 6-7 times and no wonder its such an amazing city that I have seen something different every time that I visited there.

Italiano... On the way to Milan, as soon as I changed over from a French to an Italian train, scenes drastically changed. There was a lot of "life" around and I was into a kind of the most awaited disorder. Italian people are incredible and so much relatable to Indians. I tasted some real pasta and pizza for the first time. I never got bored of seeing anything in Rome and Florence. And Venice! .. If I have shitloads of money when I marry (:P), Venice shall be THE honeymoon place.

Prague, Czech Republic... I just checked a book Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die by Steve Davey. There are no hi-funda cities to visit in that book, just some amazing exotic and mystic places. Gladly, Prague is one of them. The scenes of the Charles river and the bridge will stay as eternal snapshots in my memory. It was the right place to taste some exotic cuisine as well. And.. crazy night life was there :)

Barcelona!... People in this city live a typical IITians' schedule. They hardly sleep at night! This city showed what really, nightlife is. Sangria was the drink ;). Three nice days at this place and I loved it. Lisbon also turned out to be a nice place. But it was a totally wrong time to visit the right places, should have been in the Hot summer.

Budapest and the East Europe... This part of the world rocks! I had to cross Germany and Austria to reach all the way to Budapest but was totally worth it. This place has some crazy shit! I can actually think of making a complete tour of East Europe which is not so costly as the western countries of Europe.

Exchange junta... 100+ ppl were there from every corner of the world. Spending so much time with these fellas, I found out how fcuked up my ideas about life are. Even if I felt they were pathetic in the knowledge and wisdom of academic courses, they had strong fundamentals of life in them and I could just see and try to understand. And above all, these people knew how to party :D.

True to my mission statement - "Exploring places and people in Europe", I guess this trip was a grand success. To live in this real world, I guess now is not a time to create some kind of a bucket list for the future.. but just to find something (job?) to which I can hang on to live in a survival mode for at least a few years. Even though I feel like being back to square one, life has been completely changed by this Eurotrip experience and the nostalgia shoots up quite often to fill up my thoughts completely :)

Rocks! .. \m/

Peace...

Exactly 3 weeks ago I finished off my Term 4 at IIMB. In a sense, I am actually over with the academic aspect of the student life :). "Studying for exams" - I loved screwing it up at all times and now, once and for all, its over!

Time flies faster than ever, even if there is nothing to do in life. I had cherished for the time that I spent in the last 3 weeks. There was food, sleep and AOE. I had sacrificed my entire second year at IIT for this amazing game which sends you in a different world altogether and hours pass by like minutes. Also, I climbed up to the Sinhagad fort just to find that I have grown up like a 40 years old Faatso. In these 3 weeks, life was full of peace without pain and if asked for the days which I would like to live for ever... these are the only days.

Outside... Many things happened. Investment banks got pwned big time. Not a day passes without thinking about the the last few days of my summer internship. If some things seem to show dreams of a heavenly life, it just takes some time to see all the hopes crushed and the day-dreams converted into nightmares. No ppo, no cg, no laterals, no confidence... Its like in a plague-struck city, where perfect chaos rules. But in the midst of such a misery, there are some people who get doped. Momentarily they are transferred to an imaginary world, incredibly interesting and memorable. They only want to make the best ever out of the next few moments. Who cares what it might be like after coming back to reality, its all dark for sure :) So... in a few days begins the second Eurotrip. The place is the wine capital of the world. Parties, travel plans and all the chill... are there!

Awesome!

After Sam Anderson, this is the next thing from youtube that made me roll of the floor!

(Absolutely no offense intended!)

Student Life

Dear student,
- don't accept anything without questioning
- ask again and again, do not stop until you understand the lesson clearly
- an hour's study with concentration is far better than several hours of reading without concentration
- don't postpone today's work to tomorrow
- your mind is strong, you can learn anything, if you mind
- obey your parents and elders
- have compassion for old and disabled
- student life is golden life make ornaments from it

On a notebook cover, I found these fundaes for living a student life. Given that after the internship I have found myself as a useless piece of shit living in South Park, I couldn't help but rip apart this lame stuff which is taught to spoil the young minds.

- don't accept anything without questioning
Why the **** should I accept this? I don't understand how did the person who advised this tried to make a self-conflicting statement.

- ask again and again, do not stop until you understand the lesson clearly
What do you mean by this? I haven't understood at all...
Actually, this funda goes much deeper into real life. You see moths hurling themselves against flames all the time. They get the burning shock and immediately revert back. But again they want to catch the flame and they keep on doing this till they die. Man has been finding pleasure and the so called 'happiness' from the things which can never be found. We seek happiness from illusions and try to cling onto them till we get a hit on our head. Our brittle dreams get cracked, the sand castles we build get wiped by the tides, the flights of fancy end up crashing in mid-air... but do we learn then? Naah! Just like the moths we want to hurl ourselves against all the futile pursuits in this world and get cheated all the time until we die like a loser.

- an hour's study with concentration is far better than several hours of reading without concentration
This defeats the whole purpose. You wouldn't be looking like you are studying if you study only for an hour. A real nerd has to study for days long, so remember that concentration is bad! Just like cattle grazing in the field and pigs loitering in the dirt, you should be reading the books.

- don't postpone today's work to tomorrow
This sentence is imcomplete. You should never postpone your work to anytime in the future - Just avoid it altogether! Who cares! Why get the hands dirty in work if its so convenient to avoid it completely. Don't worry, life is pretty short for the things to rebound back to you :)

- you mind is strong, you can learn anything, if you mind
Never Mind!
If you can understand properly, this world is run by some crazy fools who have the power to strike a deal with those who can accept a shit deal. Your mind is strong, you can learn everything, you are a genius, .. But never mind, you aren't a good fit for this place - Get the **** Off! (I have learnt this is how you get fired.)

- obey your parents and elders
Obey your parents and elders. Period. There is nothing else you can do.

- have compassion for old and disabled
Seriously! You are going to be one someday soon. Traveling happily through the stream of life you have to drop down the waterfall some day... Look down there and await for that day.

- student life is golden life make ornaments from it
This is a killer. I cannot help but contrast the two extremes of perception of a student life. Take the student life of a kid coming from a middle class Indian family. He has to slog his way out of all the misery inflicted upon him by the school, institution and society. Every student is academically compared with every other student and this comparison becomes finer as you study further. High grades means you are among the pseud, white-collared ones in the rat race and low grades means you are among the sinners and bane for mankind. For the other end, this pic on the T-shirt which I got from Camden Market in London explains all.


Moral of this story is you make ornaments out of mud-balls but you should be ignorant of ornaments made of gold.


Well, I don't know if I have made ornaments out of my student life till now. But surely, I have made gold out of it :). Even if the destination turned out to be the entrance of a gutter, the journey was through the lake-sides and a beautiful forest!

watssup...

khwaab the sheeshe ke
lekin duniya nikli pathhar ki

Berojgar

I can truly see - I have complained long about the wind and I have expected long for it to change. But now... I would rather adjust the sails.

Sweet and Sexy European Air

April to June

Barclays Capital, London

• Canary Wharf
  
• Investment Bank
  
• Great people
  
• Stock Markets
  
• Mathematics, ...

Sept to December

University of Bordeaux, France

• The Grand European Dream - Eurotrip part 2
  
• Chillmax Univ
• The Wine Country
  
• Parties
  
• Loads of fun in the Land of Enjoyment, ...

Life and Career.. Looking forward with hope..

One small simple stupid story

If you want it to be simple, take "****ing around" as something which is absolutely meaningless.

Once upon a time, a chap was sitting besides a parrot in some plane. The parrot kept on flapping its wings for no reason. The airhostess warned the parrot to stop doing that else it would be thrown out of the plane. But the parrot said, "Why!? I'm just ****ing around." This chap thought that it looked cool, even he could do it and so he did the same. He too replied that he was just ****ing around. So both ended up being thrown out of the plane. Now! The parrot started flying off while this innocent chap began to fall down. He shouted to the parrot, "Dude!! I'm gonna die, I cannot fly like you!!". Parrot, without showing much concern, just replied, "You Fool! Why the hell had you to **** around if you cannot fly!". The parrot flew off and lived happily ever after. Our chap fell down and died like a loser!

I've received a profound message out of this story which appears to be so abrupt and stupid. The more you can understand it in detail, the more relevant you can find it!