ISB friends- Mr. Hellozz

That’s how a dear friend of mine always starts everything with. Hellozz. Countless meandering conversations and soul searching dialogues owe their origin to this word.

Between the two of us we have discussed, analyzed and dealt with almost every major occurrence at a grad school. We have gossiped about fellow mates – of crushes and affairs and had many ‘did you know he is secretly seeing her? Nooo really!’ conversations. We have analyzed all professors - their performances and quirks - and developed our own grading system for them (Few profs aced it. Some failed. :)) A and I have deliberated on the TAs and their relative usefulness in the grand scheme of things; on how certain TAs were sweet and nice - ready to ignore minor attendance deviances, mark all CP points and generally spread merriment all around and how a certain one was an absolute meanie with no heart ruining a career or two for personal gratification.

Our talks have on a lot of time focused on a common goal for the two of us- to get better at a sport – squash to be precise and a lot of time has been spent in motivating me to at least reach the squash court. It has to be said: An able squash player A tried a lot to get his protégé to a decent amateur status in the game, providing her with oodles of motivations, many smses scheduling squash appointments, taking responsibility of booking the courts and carrying an extra racquet always and finally sending ‘good game’ smses as well.

Towards the last few terms we were study group mates as well and happily may I report last two terms I do not think I did much work at all. Sadly though, let me add, my grades very sharply reflect that. As I used to tell A “it’s a catch 22 situation.” If you have a job you don’t feel like studying (grades then really do not matter) and incase you do not have one then in that case assignments and mid terms are the last thing you care about. A however diligently got the other people in the group working and ensured that we never missed a deadline.

I still chuckle as I recall a particular conversation we had. The subject was Retailing. We were 5 -6 people in the group. In those days we never met our study group members. Rather assignments were divided over emails and on the submission day the completed assignment was mass mailed to group with the standard sentence- PFA the assignment submitted. So a week post a project submission date (projects typically carried 30-40% of the grade) A and I have this conversation.

S: isn’t the project due soon?
A: Let me check.( a couple of minutes later) Oh It was due a week back.
S: Crap. Did some one submit it?
A: I am sure someone must have done it. I know people were working on it.
S: Kaun? (And rattle out a name)
A: Nahin. He is with us on another subject. Let me check the mail we sent to TA about group formation. (Searches for the mail and forwards the same to me) Dekho sincere log hain kar diya hoga. Yaar, abb kuch kaam karna chaiye iss term. :)

Yes we were that unconcerned and yet all assignments and projects got done on time (even the ones we were accountable for :D ) and let me add we were always above average in our submissions, weren’t we A?

The last few terms were also spent on career guidance and counseling. It was a chain rather. I was counseling another friend on his cover letter proof reading and ghost writing the same (PS: you promised a treat damn you post the Parthenon CL. I am still waiting. Kanjoos.) and A was doing the same for me. Sometimes he would send me his and I would edit it. Together we tried to fit two diverse backgrounds into the consulting mould and later the GM moulds. Unfortunately we didn’t do a good job of it. Rather the recession did us in! Today A and I are back to our old roles/ old profiles and no career switches. Although now we both claim this is what we wanted in the first place :P (don’t we, A?)

Anyways long telephonic conversations were spent discussing the merit of each line that we put in that damn CL, tailoring it for each profile and each role and I don’t even want to mention the nth iterations of the resume that we put ourselves through. I still do not know whether people for whom we did so much of work actually read the same given that in some cases the most bizarre people (in terms of role specifications) were sometimes short listed and more deserving candidates given a miss. Thanks to the free phone facility within ISB we were saved paying a bomb to TSPs. It was a tough few months for us. Some of our friends got placed on day 1, some (like me) on day 2 and some others had a longer wait. But more on the specifics later. It was a little strange because sometimes it felt as if each conversation I had with my friends depended on where that person and I were in terms of the placement scene. Those who got placed in the role of their choice were all happy and those whom the recession had hit below the belt were understandably frustrated. And then there were people like me. Not sure to which boat they belonged to and simply taking things as they were coming.

Placement season (7.85 blog entries (not more, I counted, sachi) can be written on it) I think was the most definitive learning experience at ISB. It showed us who we really were in many ways than one. I got to know more about the people I was with in this time than sitting in classes with them. And let me say certain people handled the whole string of defeats and drama with such class that I have enormous respect for them.

Now to lighter related things. A’s entire passion in the last 2 terms was to plan an excursion with friends to Rishikesh. This was further fueled by an innocuous trip that certain other people took to Thailand. The subject was well researched. Having been there in gud-old-engineering days, A was determined to relive the experience. Unfortunately none of the others cooperated and the trip still remains on A’s to do list.

A’s entire passion in the last 2 terms also was to cook for the entire gang. Fortunately that still remains on the to do list. :)

Btw I have to tell you, A is a good cook (as you can see I am well bribed). The kheer served on last Diwali is testament to that. However he doesn’t want his would be wife to know about this. He fears that he would otherwise be exploited by her (“ladkiyon ko batana nahin chahiye ki khana banana aata hai, nahin toh kitchen ka kaam karna padega umar bhar”)

Now can you guess what will be the first thing I will tell that girl (A’s wife- whenever he manages to get one; aunty please keep looking) )after helloz :D

These days our conversations have lessened to an occasional helloz over the weekend but the meaninglessness still remains. :)

I miss the ISB times. And now you all know some of the reasons for the same.