Saturday, September 17, 2011

'SLOT'tered

" Yaar, 6 ghante lagaataar soya hoon. Fir bhi neend aa rahi hain. ( I have slept for 6 hours but I stil feel like sleepy)" said 'ChoMu', my dorm-mate as he rubbed his blood-red eyes.

He had not got more than a few hrs of sleep in the past 4 days.
There was an element of guilt in his tone, for even a minute lapsed beyond the 'prescribed' sleeping time in WIMWI was akin to a sin committed.


"Abey Koi nahi! Peace Maar. Slot-2 khatam ho gaya ab.!!"
I patted him and assured him that an extra hour of sleep would do no harm to his grades.

ChoMu's red eyes were a reflection of the pain all of us had been through in slot-1 and slot-2.

If ever there was a menu-card for Slot-1 and Slot-2, this is how it would have read:

8 surprise quizzes (slot 1)
8 more quizzes (slot-2, which ironically wasnt a surprise for us by then)
5 mid-term exam
8 end-term exams
9 marketing presentatons,
2 marketing projects
2 PS projects
5 WAC submissions
10 MC assignments
2 MC submissions
4 PLPs
1 GLP

....and countless cases from 13 casemats and an equivalent number of books which looked like "Yellow Pages" clones.
All this within 3 months.


" Main toh B******d 2 din tak subah hi nahi dekhoonga. Slot-3 se baad mein nipat lenge (I wont wake up in the near future. Slot-3 can wait)" quipped ChoMu with an air of nonchalance.
Quite understandably, my reassuring words had ensured he would not wake up till 11 pm that night.

Of the 29 dorms in WIMWI, Our Dorm, Dorm-7 (7th heaven) has the least number of Fachchas (juniors). There are 6 of us and 13 tuchchas (seniors). The 20th person in the dorm is a nerdy Mexican by the name of Jaymie (pronounced 'Hymie') who has just come on a 3-month long exchange programme along with 60-odd other people from different nationalities. The guy who stayed in the rooom before the Mexican arrived was Louie from France who it seems came here with the sole idea of touring india and seldom stayed in his room.
Of the 6 fahcchas, 4 of us-Bingo, Dhanno, Champ and me reside on the 1st floor while ChoMu and Gyaan are on the 2nd. The fact that we are just the 6 facchas in our dorm worked in our favour. It meant that we gelled up faster and better, (especially the 4 of us - ChoMu,Gyaan, Bingo and me, when we took refuge in our books in the cold confines of the library).

ChoMu is the quintessential aggressive and 'in-your-face' Haryanvi who would run rough-shod given a chance. He is from the dairy industry. He has a never-say-die attitude which makes him ideal WIMWI material. Slot-2 served as the ideal wake-up call for the normally relaxed and enthu-filled ChoMu.
He summed up his life here quite aptly in his sentences (of which a major proportion are unmentionables, censored in public interest)" @$%%%&& Aaj tak maine zindagi mein itni fight nahi maari,#$%### jitna har din yahaan maar rahaa hoon. Kuch samaj nahi aa raha, kya %@#$@@ ho raha hain" %##%##, #$#@@$, %#$%## .....

Dhanno is an epitome of studious-ness, hard-work and work-a-holism ,ready to latch on to any tit-bit of info which he thinks will equip him with the 'X' factor to propel himself ahead of others. A network engineer from CISCO, he is, by any stretch of imagination, the 'muggu' of the highest order (Pronounced as "Maggu", someone who Mugs and studies a lot more than the others do, WIMWI lingo) in our dorm. Has all the makings of a potential 'I-Schol'

Bingo,from the energy sector, is the eternally confused fachcha from IIT-M who has mastered the fine art of giving submissions at 5:59. well before the 6 pm deadline (Of course, not without losing enough sleep on it). He is credited with adulterating the WIMWI lingo with the IIT-M lingo (which actually sounds very user-friendly!). He has had his share of moments and 'claims-to-fame' in life.

Gyaan,from Renault with an aerospace degree from IIT-K to boast of, has probably earned a reputation of understating himself much too often. Given a chance between a drop-dead gorgeous woman and a bike, he would safely turn a blind eye to the lady and choose the machine. His craze for these mean machines almost made him weep on the day of the PS exam when the new R15 was being launched when he was in the examination hall.
Any negative talk/criticism about Delhi would be met with a very stiff and patriotic response from the man.

Champ,from Yahoo, makes it to the caricature of the software techie you would associate most Banglorean professionals with. A NIT-Suratkal product, he is well-versed with the knowledge of bits and bytes till the last molecule. His room also houses our 'pseudo' dorm-mate 'Suppandi' (Dorm 8 "Deity").

As I write this blog, people have just loosened up and put their feet up, albeit for the next 24 hrs till the registration for the next slot begins. There is also a mail from the TA (Teaching Associate) which tells us to prepare the marketing case for the next slot.

The next entry may take some while as this one did.

Over to Slot-3.


Regards

Vish