Archana Rao

Shirley passed away a couple of days ago due to kidney failure / complications from a blood infection. Shirley was my first dog... 9 years ago, I had fought hard to convince my parents for the need of a family pet and a watchdog. Shirley was a perfect watchdog. She even converted our second dog, a dalmatian, into a watch dog! 8 years is old age for a dog I guess. She lived a happy life. Nurturing Sonu and her pups... Keeping my dad and mom busy... She will be missed a lot...

Blogging after a while... lot has happened post passing out of ISB... I worked in IT sales in India (mumbai/pune) for a year and a half with some pretty good track record. 1.5 years in pune was an amazing time of my life... for the first time, really felt like I was living on my own. Living in the apt in Bangalore didn't feel that way, maybe cause of the proximity to my parents... but Pune felt far and alone initially.
But it was my roomies and more so Kriti who made me feel so at home those 1.5 years in pune... we had our fallouts and many of them, probably the first friend/roomie of mine who I actually fought with apart from my sister! Really feel bad for having missed her wedding in india last month. I think I would need to dedicate a separate blog for Kriti!! But the time Kriti, Richa and I had in Pune was awesome… it was like home away from home. They took such good care of me especially when I was sick. And then Ashwini moved to pune for her MBA. Helping her with her assignments made me feel like I was doing my MBA all over again. Staying so close to her reconnected our relationship after 13 years and she’s still my best friend, someone who I have fought with only once in my life!

Mayank and my relationship developed during this time in Pune while he was away in swiss. It’s amazing how we managed the journey from then to the wedding in 15 months out of which 14 months he was in swiss! His parents came to pune to meet me & my parents also came to pune at the same time. The first time my parents met him was at our engagement in April 2008 in Bangalore. Then my parents visitied etawah in August and then the wedding finally in Nov 2008. But the separation wasn’t over, he went back to swiss soon after and I could finally join him in Jan 2009.

My official married life only started then! It’s been 3 amazing months. Most would think it’s a constant honeymoon in swiss but with the kind of work pressures that both Mayank and I have, it’s far from that.
Personally, things couldn’t have been better but professionally, I feel exhausted. This is my 4th company and I’m quite tired of changing jobs before even stabilising in one place. Cognizant surprisingly has been a great experience. I think most people think of it as a 60,000 people company, a place where you could get lost. But the forced 6 months I had in Cognizant Pune laid a strong foundation for my work here. Testing was something I always looked down upon but in Cognizant I learnt how much money and business it meant and its one of the only streams in IT where the MBAs could be of good use. Finance was a stream I always dreaded. And now I’m working in IT for core investment banking/credit risk management for THE swiss bank (credit suisse) and actually doing decent (which I think is the bigger challenge!). Sounds great to me but the pressure that comes with the work is the biggest challenge. Work hours are not tiring, most days people can leave office here before 6 pm but there’s a lot of politics and people issues, something I had to only briefly face in India. Like my project stress is not enough, the Cognizant tasks and responsibilities add onto it.
But the better part of all this is how Mayank helps me deal with a lot of issues at work and how we understand each others issues and can actually TALK in detail about work. It’s a huge stress buster for me. But when both of us are bogged down with issues god help us!

Every now and then we try to take a vacation to recharge. Staying in Europe, access to the BEST and most scenic places on earth just a stone throw away is great.

Weekend trip to Venice in Jan was AWESOME. It was my birthday and Venice was THE place of my dreams! Although I hate to say that after seeing it you wonder what the big fuss is all about. 
The pics are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/raoarchie2/2009_01_18BirthdayInVenice#

Another recent trip to Prague in Czech republic left us thinking that most of Europe is the same! On my way to work this morning I noticed the buildings in Zurich and they looked so similar to Prague.
The pics are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/raoarchie2/2009_03_21Prague_CzechRepublic#
Mayank and I took a new apt across the Zurich lake. One sunny Saturday morning, we went to the lake to recharge and ended up discussing WORK issues for 2 hours sitting at one of the most romantic places I have been to! I guess that’s romance for us… being able to share our thoughts and fears.

Living and working in Europe last 3 months has been a very different experience for me. In India, ISB is now so popular that I didn’t even really need to work hard to prove my skills. But here, no one knows ISB… no one cares about your educational background! I have had to work hard to prove myself all over again. Guess now I understand why people want to go back to India.

In Zurich, you find people from all over Europe and even Asians and others. You hardly come across any native swiss people at work. People all over Europe who have proved their worth have moved to Zurich to work as this is the financial capital. Competition is fierce here and you need to work at your best throughout the year. That kind of work can lead to a burnout. You find a lot of good people from different countries and are competing with them. Language is a barrier, I need to learn German soon else I will loose my edge.

The only book I have read in the last one year, was one of the sweetest books I have read in a long time. I usually stick to fiction of the extreme kinds, so these kind of autobiographies are usually off my radar, UNLESS there's the picture of a very cute dog staring at you on the cover. Being a dog lover, it's hard to ignore such cute pups. It's actually just impossible to ignore pups!
The story is of the lives of John & Jenny grogan and their 3 kids and how their dog marley (the worlds worst dog) impacts their lives through the 13 years that they had him. Of course not to mention the numerous stories of how the dog embarassed them in public and also brought them fame!
The last couple of chapters are heartbreaking to read about the dog growing old and suffering, wish it wasn't explained in so much detail. I couldn't help stop thinking that my dogs (Sonu and shirley) would reach that stage sometime (although they still have a neat 10 years to go!).
Sonu was a lot more docile as a pup but too eager to show her affection. However shirley was absolutely destructive around the house, just like Marley!

Anyways, before I launch off into another loong blog about my dogs, just wanted to recommend this book. If you're a dog lover, you would definitely enjoy it and if you are one of those "pets: i love them in the zoo" kinds, then also you should read it. See the benefits of owning a dog for a pet. :)
Underlying hope: to convince my soon to be hubby who is absolutely scared of even pups to let me have a dog someday!

Oh and I also found out that the movie "marley and me" starring jennifer aniston and owen wilson is in progress and is expected to be released in dec this year. Can't wait for it!

I was just googling up some GD and PI material for my school friend who got an interview call for Symbiosis Instt of Health sciences MBA Program. I came across a question bank and came across the interview question that I was asked 1.5 years back when I went in for the ISB interview:
Sell me this pencil.
Although I can’t seem to remember exactly what I said, but being a techie at that point, it had been years since I used a pencil! So I blurted out about how these days with computers and laptops being used so extensively, and how the simple act of writing has been lost on people. Hence we should use the pencil more.
Although it seemed like a fairly normal answer to me, the panel seemed somewhat impressed with my answer; I didn’t really figure this out until today finally!
After the 1 year MBA at ISB in Marketing & Strategy and numerous courses and assignments in Marketing & advertising, it seems that I had actually used some of the right elements for selling the pencil! For example, I used an “emotional appeal” to sell the pencil rather than based on its attributes or pricing. Also, rather than selling it based on competition and take a larger slice of the pie, I decided to use “primary advertising” and “increase the pie” altogether – to encourage the increase in use of pencils rather than to buy my specific brand of pencils!
Talk about takeaways from this 1 year of MBA? It most certainly is TERMINOLOGIES!

ok, here's a warning for all of you who using or planning to use Yatra.com to book for travel.----- DON'T!!!
So when I had initially come down to pune, over 6 months back, I used Yatra.com to book for a ticket and after entering my credit card details, the system told me that the tickets were not available and that the amount would be credited back to my account. I even have an e-mail and a transaction ID stating the same. For about a month it didnt get credited back. Then i called the customer care like repeatedly, inspite of the failed transaction having full record, they wouldn't credit it back and would tell me to check how my credit card "limit" change would show it. It was ridiculous. I tried to convince them for almost 2-3 months after which, I gave up. It wasn't worth all the trauma i went through. If i had to raise a conflict, i'd have to disable my credit card and then raise the request within 3 months of the transaction. With that being my only credit card, i decided to let it go.
Moral of the story: Yatra.com SUCKS! Please do not use Yatra for your travel booking.

days after my first drive to mumbai alone... there was a need for another one... but this one for work.
so this time i had a few meetings scheduled and one night stay over needed as the meetings were scheduled over a span of 2 days,
i have stayed at andheri twice and this time i had to stay over at thane.
since i was to go alone, i decided to drive myself down than take a cab...
tuesday (day before y'day) i left home at 8 am and after a cumbersome drive thru the city, reached thane 4 hours later... around 1150 am.
meeting was at 12 and i was bang on time... except... i didnt take a single stop while driving and i really needed to use the rest room!
the meeting began immediately... and without even a cup of tea... went on for over an hour... i was starved since i skipped breakfast and the 4 hour drive and especially the last hour and a half thru some small roads in mumbai,thane had already taken the daylights out of me... finally lunch and another meeting post lunch... then i found the hotel and crashed... thankfully hotel was very close... i wasnt in a state to drive even 2 kms more... after a nap... had to finish off some office work, ordered dinner and went back to sleep.
next morning... drove from thane to andheri... a nice 2 hour drive... for another meeting. Post the meeting... it took me 2 more hours to drive from andheri to panvel through powai, thane and god knows which other places in mumbai... had already done some 100kms within mumbai that day with 4 hours on the road and TIRED was an understatement.
Had stopped over at ashwinis place in panvel for a cup of tea and she asked me to stay back and leave in the morning... seemed like a nice plan so crashed at her place...
left mumbai at 7 am and directly drove into work at 10 am today...
by lunch i was almost DEAD and still had meetings to go in the afternoon!
Have driven around 600 kms in the last 3 days and most of it alone....
phew!! i know i love driving but i think i overdid it slightly this time!

this diwali... going home was out of the picture as i had just returned from bangalore like 2 weeks back. Initially the plan was to spend it with roomies in pune but after those plans got cancelled, decided to spend it with my dear old school friend, Dr Ashwini Wagle in Panvel, Mumbai. She was down at her parents place for a 2 week vacation...
Now since i got my car... always wanted to drive myself to mumbai so thought this was the opportunity...
so on friday 9th morning, after i had a decent 5 hours of sleep and was sure i wouldnt doze off while driving, i picked up cappucino from coffee day and set off to mumbai from pune...
somehow thought that driving alone might be cumbersome, lonely and boring... but frankly... it was just the opposite.
I have been to mumbai by road with colleagues like 10 times atleast by now. I end up going to mumbai once in a week or two on an avg for work. However its usually a day trip, in a cab or someone else driving down and i sleep through atleast 80% of the journey! Something that almost everyone (who travels with me) comments on and has tried to change abt me!! But i figured sleep is the best remedy to motion sicknes... a close second comes driving myslef... once i can control the car.. i control the motion... so i guess motion sickness goes out of the window... not lliterally though!!
Anyways, the drive alone to mumbai was the best, maybe cause for once, i really did enjoy the view... in the broad daylight and was not worried abt being late to a meeting or how the meeting would go...
its beautiful... with mountains and tunnels... and the road... absolutely flawless...
i left home at 11 am... took me an hour to reach the highway as home is ALL the way on the opposite end of the city. And from there it took me only an hour and a half to cover some 130 odd kms, panvel is outskirts of mumbai and the first place u touch on expressway. Thankfully her house was just 3-4 kms off the highway.. but one wrong turn had me searching the place for almost 45 mins...
Anyways, diwali in mumbai was well spent, with her parents, her sister and her nephew. Those 3 days were very relaxing.. unlike most of my other vacations, esp the ones to bangalore... i always end up scheduling to meet up with as many friends as possible... driving thru the traffic and the entire city... hardly spend any time at home with parents... bangalore trips are always disastrous... guess bangalore needs a 10 day trip.. nothing less...
a little late though... but still... Happy diwali!

delivered on the 27th of july, this is my new santro xing xl. :)
my first fully owned new car!
transportation in pune is a TOTAL pain. Now its so much easier....

1) Tuhin's Album

2) Shweta's album

3) Avik's Album

I landed here at Pune at 6 pm on 7th may. Office cab picked me up at the airport and took me to the guest house, which to my surprise was a flat and I was gonna be sharing a room with another girl. Not what I expected but I’m glad about it. Landing up in a new city with close to no friends, can be scary. Sharing a room with someone you get along with is a blessing. You don’t feel lonely at this point which is probably the most important thing. Had I been put up in say a nice hotel room alone, I’d have scooted for my life in a couple hours.
Exploring pune almost began immediately. I’m glad I have that adventurous streak in me to maybe keep myself on the go… I guess I wasn’t nicknamed “ants in pants” for no reason. Although, few people know how lazy I was before isb…
Was put up in magarpatta city for a week before Kriti and I shifted to the guest house closer to office in Nyati empire in Kharadi. Househunting began with kalyani nagar. Soon realization dawned on me that I can’t afford a decent place in that area so the search got limited to viman nagar. It’s also closer to office and avoids the traffic jam to some extent. After a few tours with the brokers, again new realization dawned on me that brokers are expensive. Min 1.5-2 months rent… anything from 20-30 k. Definitely not worth it. I could furnish an empty apartment in the brokerage I’d otherwise pay.
I guess joining early may was required for househunting, else I’d land here and take off to Mumbai for induction and not have time for house hunting.
It’s become a way of living. So much so that my parents don’t even bother too much about it. They have so much confidence in their daughter, I’m proud of myself. They are definitely not the suffocating kinds. Although I’m very excited about setting up my house and getting them to visit here. Parents were in pune for a couple years before I was born. Dad did his post graduation here and this is where my sister was born. This is the first time I have visited Pune. Although I lived in Mumbai for a couple years as a little kid - I studied 1st to 3rd std in Mumbai. While coming from jaipur, I had to switch flights in Mumbai. When you fly over Mumbai, you realize such a big part of mumai is covered in slums, and they are packed one next to the other without any space between any 2 adjacent slums. That’s when you realize how much space crunch exists in Mumbai.
Coming back to pune, as a lot of people have already told me, the roads are bad, but the city is not so heavily populated. Just developing. I guess something like what Bangalore was when we landed up there in 1990. But that time my lifestyle was not even comparable to present. Change is so much more difficult the older you get.

Graduation was heartbreaking. Especially the couple of days before the “check out” date were tough. Just didn’t feel like leaving. Thought of all options including whether they would let me repeat a year if I flunked!
Dad had come down for the graduation but mom couldn’t make it as she had fallen sick. The most time I have spent with dad in the last couple years. All families would be seen around campus… and the short skirts had to be put away. That anyways was the least of the concerns… the life to be led post that was of much greater concern… graduation was on 7th april and most people were leaving campus on 8th. Although my train was also scheduled for 8th evening, I literally packed my bags in 2 hours and scooted from campus just so I wouldn’t have to see people leave. Nothing is worse than saying goodbye to people while you have to stay in the same place. An empty isb campus after you have spent an entire year with 420 odd souls is eerie.
So, 7th evening I packed for good within 2 hours and left to my aunts place. Also met up with some family friends before spending a day with my aunts and cousins. Funny part is the train I took back to Bangalore from hyd had quite a few ISBians. It kind of felt better at that point actually.
Back to Bangalore, life seemed weird. I hadn’t stayed at home (that being my parents place) for almost 4 years now. Although last year I had spent a week or so at home but Aarati, my sister was down then, so it wasn’t lonely mornings and afternoons all the way. Both mom and dad work, so unless I wake up before 8 am, I’d wake up to an empty house until 6 pm when mom would be back. Dad would come back even later than that. On one hand, it’s too far off for lazy me to just get out of home without planning and on the other hand, there’s nothing much to be done at home except watching tv and surfing the net. Net access also stopped after a week due to some problems which I still haven’t resolved. So after almost a week of sitting at home and cribbing, I finally started going out. Thanks to Chetna and Shweta who made the last couple of days of mine in Bangalore thoroughly enjoyable. I’d stay over at chetna’s almost every alternate night. So much so that mom was more than eager to send me off to start work. “Anyways she’s not home most of the time, so might as well let her go to pune than stay out of home while in Bangalore! “
Helped Chetna pack and send her stuffs across to delhi and move the rest of the stuff to Shweta’s place. It still didn’t sink in that she’d be leaving the country in a couple months. I have lived with her for 2.5 yrs before ISB. It’s so difficult to accept change in life… just thought to myself that I’d meet her again in jaipur and then she’d probably come to pune before she leaves so it’s ok. With me, it’s always postponing bidding farewell.
Anyways, I still had to attend Preethi and Ruchirs wedding in jaipur. I did cancel my return ticket from jaipur to Bangalore and booked jaipur to pune instead. Had to carry my bag and baggage to jaipur. Rajasthan was HOT. Four days just went by so fast, I never realized. Hawa mahal and shopping lanes in jaipur got the visit they deserved. The engagement and wedding were a lot of fun. Especially getting hold of Ruchir’s joote and hiding them from his cousins was some task.
7th morning was again tough. Leaving to pune. Bidding farewell to everyone – chetna, preethi, avik, shweta, sumiti, anusha, tuhin… and leaving alone to the airport was sad. Kinda hit me that I’m gonna start a brand new life, all over again. I was sad when I left Motorola, but I knew an exciting one year was ahead of me. I never had time to miss anything or anyone. Although I did go home 6 times the last year, it still was hectic. But this is different. I hardly know anyone in pune… hope it all goes well.

so a couple of days back i get a call from a familiar number which is actually not stored in my phone... and guess who it is... its the guy whose number matches 9 out of 10 digits of my mobile number! its the same guy who'd called me 6 months back wanting my sim card cause he wanted the number...
i think i had mentioned something about giving my number on my cv to recruiters, hence not being able to change it...
so he called me to find out my status... asked me about placements and even congratulated me!
and then again comes down to wanting the sim... so i said i'd be leaving the city in 2 months, and he could have it...
can't believe he wants the sim so bad... !

here's the list of companies i attended for placements...
Day 1: HLL - BLT
Day 2: Hutch mktg, Bharati–Airtel AES corporate sales
Day 3: Godrej aadhar-retail; Tech Mahindra BDM; Verizon Program Mgr
Day 4: Honeywell – strategy consulting; BP energy – brand manager; HCL tech: presales datawarehousing
Day 5: exl services.com: BD/Migration
Day 6: Dabur – mktg/MT
Day 7: info edge- manager (analytics), patni – acct mgr, zensar – marketing manager

The highest points being when you sign the letter of intent (LOI) and the lowest points being when you sign the LOI and not get the offer... feels like thats something only the most political and sad companies would do..
Anyways... i did manage to get 3 offers in hand,
1) hutch - deputy manager - prepaid marketing division - mumbai
2) info edge (i) pvt ltd - manager (analytics) - delhi/noida
3) zensar - marketing manager - pune
although the hutch offers seems closest to fmcg marketing as suggested by a friend, and the info edge offer seems exciting as it involves me setting up the non-existent analytics division in close working relationship with the CEO sanjeev bikchandani and COO hitesh oberoi, i'm more inclined towards zensar cause i was given marketing manager role and full flexibility to move across any domains, any verticals and any functions whenever i wanted... something that the rest of them only offered in case positions are available and only after 1 year!
I guess however, sometimes ignorance is bliss... in a lot of cases, as a management graduate, you get interviewed by CEOs, COOs, head of HR etc etc... and its absolutely important that you keep your calm... so when you dont know that its sanjeev bikhchandani, the brain behind naukri.com and jeevansaathi.com, sitting across the table from you and interviewing you... it helps a lot.
And its the absolute worst when they have come to isb to specifically give a talk on their business and a preplacement talk... and they ask you if you attended it and you have to say, i'm sorry but i couldn't attend it... this happened with me in almost all my interviews... worst thing is that you cant lie about such things cause you never know if they'd ask you any details from the session!
Anyways, coming back to the jobs, i have until 02 march 5 pm to decide on which of the 3 offers to take up. Hutch seems like a great brandname i'd like to have on my cv, but i'm a little apprehensive about it cause they want me to manage their intelligent network systems delivery, negotiation, time deadlines with ericsson thats implementing it for hutch. This would be for an year before they move me into actual marketing function, although i would be a part of their core marketing team from day 1.
Info edge seems very exciting as i have to build up a new division from scratch, would be good visibility and close working relationship with the top level manegement team but about analytics, i have been told that either you entirely love it or absolutely hate it. Data analytics has too much to do with data mining, building models, running regressions... and much less about people management.
Finally zensar is about marketing management in IT services, KPO, BPO environment... typical but the flexibility is a BIG relief, also pune is closest to home and its a big company as well (as opposed to info edge). Anyhow, i have 5 days to make up my mind and i have to do it soon!
Apart from the job hunt, Parul asked me this question which freaked me out quite a bit... she asked me now that job is done ... what is the next thing i'm looking forward to and i was speechless. The last 5 years or so... i had known that i wanted to pursue an MBA and that has been at the top of my list... but now that its almost done, i frankly have nothing much to look forward to... the next 25-30 years would be spent in work... and that doesnt seem so very exciting... which is why i realise i have to constantly keep setting long term goals... it helps one keep focus...
hope i can figure out some kind of a long term goal in the next couple of weeks to keep me going!

One of my most memorable birthdays... another 2 people in ISB were born on the same day, so we were all dunked together into the pool. Cake all over my face, hair and clothes and a private D3 party post the dunking. The day was nice, unlike most of my other birthdays!
Later that week, Sharad, Sudeep and I threw a party for Section D, Section F and a few others. I think about 180 invited. The turnout was quite amazing given that placement season was around the corner. The party was on till 5 am.
Here are some photos of dunking & party.

this is really late as classes for term 7 have also finished, but i guess i better catch up.

Managerial decision making - most people would think this is a very faffy course, but it wasn't. I especially liked the assignments, they needed work, interviews with people and were very insightful. First one about overconfidence in professionals, one about value analysis, value tree & importance weighing, one more about framing and one about lessons learnt/learning from experience. The importance of following good process for decision making, outcomes, uncontrollable factors, gathering intelligence, frames, shadows,reframing, group decision making, decision frames, yardsticks, intuition, bootstrapping, weighted linear model, multi attribute valuation, value trees. The prof, Joseph Russo from cornell was really good at teaching... every class was full of out of class activities. Not a class where u can sleep!

Outsourcing and IT based businesses - this was the only course i took which fell under the IT&ops specialization, and i hate to admit that i didnt pay attention during most of the lectures. But the prof, George Geis was one among the best and the sweetest. An ex-mckinsey consultant, his wife and 3 adorable daughters were all over the campus during the term. Back to the subject, it had some really interesting cases, Bharati Airtel and others. Learning value was also very high, esp for me (coming from IT background). The presentation i gave on wimax was good as lot of research went into it. Also the final paper i wrote on Motorola's outsourcing strategies and mobile phones value chain was high learning value. The course was mostly case based.

Strategy Implementation - was also highly case based. The only problem was that it was an 8 am class and was very difficult for me to make it... most days i'd show up with 1-2 hours sleep and once i showed up without any sleep. It was about strategies of companies, mergers and acquisitions, alliances etc. Some good cases were amazon, sabeena airlines, BBC and the most interesting was this case where in this management guy deals with labour and some issues in the way the kitchen and food processing of sabeena airlines. This prof was also top class, Jay Anand. He hosted a beer n snacks party for us.

Marketing Research - well, first about the prof, he was a total guru in this field, Xavier Dreze from wharton and had an awesome sense of humor. The way he'd make fun of students in class was amazing. Concepts wise, i think this was one of the few courses where i learnt like a host of new concepts. I knew this was one quant based subject so made sure i put in some effort in doing most of the assignments. Types of research : exploratory, descriptive, causal. Bayes rule - calculating probabilities and expected profits. Secondary data sources: published data, store audits,scanner data, internet etc. Effects of promotion on sales volumes, Primary data collection - quantitative(focus groups, interviews) and qualitative. Regression using Jmp. Questionnaire design, measurement scales-nominal, ordinal, ratio, comparative and LIKERT! Sampling - simple random sampling, proportionate & disproportionate stratified sampling, cluster sampling, non probabilistic sampling. Confidence intervalssampling errors, Experimentation - fishers randomization test,matching, blocking. Data analysis - chi square test, hypothesis testing, Anova and regression. Conjoint Analysis yet again! Clustering segments - hierarchical clustering, non hierarchical (K-means). Customer lifetime value. Factor Analysis. Now i'm done. So you know how much value this course had!

Akhtar is the beautician on campus at ISB. She's been attending to women on campus for 4 batches now. I guess she is the best example of how to be congenial to people even under the worst circumstances. She has more than enough customers here at ISB to turn off the rude ones, the ones who treat her like a slave. She doesn't do it for the money so just cause you pay her doesn't mean you can treat her anyways and its not her duty to listen to everyone. And I hate to mention this, even at a place like ISB, I have seen things happen this way too many times. If only she puts a board up saying that she reserves the right to refuse customers! I guess a beautician in india is not treated with half the respect these same people would give to a beautician in say USA! I don't get it!
Not that i'm trying to show how i know how to treat people nicely, but its amazing how she is so very congenial, when people throw around attitude, "i have class till so and so time, give me this slot." "I cant come later, make it happen now." And she's always the one apologising, "sorry madam, can you please come at this time". She can just say, sorry im booked, pick some other time! But she still choses to be nice !
So there were a few times she asked me for some tiny things, like a printout of the extension numbers of the students, or a bottle for her to drink water. Things, small enough that I would have done for a person i wouldnt even know. But this woman was so grateful to me, (it made me feel damn weird though) that she insisted on taking me out for lunch.
So, yesterday, Aditi, Akhtar and I went out. We had lunch (yummy chicken biryani, hyd style) around Charminar. I saw charminar for the 2nd time in my life, first time being sometime in 4th std i guess. Then she took us (Aditi and me) to Salar Jung Museum. A huge museum, we couldnt see everything on display cause of lack of time. Although i really liked the pieces made from ivory. Then we went for the Nizam's jewellary exhibition, and i gotta admit, seeing all those diamonds there, i felt like a hopelessly feminine thing! Diamonds just do that to you i guess. I have never owned or worn or been gifted a diamond. Still waiting for my first. :) The object of my affection among all things there was this single huge piece called the Jacob diamond. I have never been in such close proximity to something that is so expensive !

Estimated to cost around 400 crores, the only thing i came out thinking was about Dhoom 2 :)) But the security is really tight at that place. I was frisked and violated thrice before they let me enter the jewellary exhibition.
Anyways, got back around 7 pm, was a day spent well. Finally saw some parts of hyderabad which could truly be called hyderabad, although the old city's traffic situation sucks. And Akhtar didnt let Aditi or me, pay for anything. She sponsored everything from lunch to museum tickets to transportation costs!

Did a lot of factory job this weekend... But its sometimes nice to do things which dont need the use of brains... just yourt hands! So Parul and I ended up volunteering, initially we were supposed to be at the registration desk, but later it was altogether removed, no spot registrations for alums. We spent a couple of hours making the welcome kits for alums that contained a diary, a key chain, Megh's album CD, some dinner/drinks coupons, schedule for Solstice and iCAP registration form. Trust me, among other things, its not an easy job to print some 2000 coupons, and stamp them and pin them up... its hard labour!! :) Hope it was worth the effort. I joined in only around 5 pm.. but Parul was working right from the afternoon. This was on friday evening.
Friday night was sudden plans of an awesome party, which i stayed in till about 430 am. Of course, the real big Solstice Party was planned Sat night. Some 10 of us gathered in Pranav's quad around the late afternoon and started preparing for the party. I must say i have come across some of the most creative people here out of all the places in ISB. Take a look at the menu and you'll know.
However, bartending was even more fun!!
Party was apparently on till about 630 am... i left a little after 5. Defnitely worth all the effort!
Btw, merry christmas and a happy new year !!

And before you start panicking that you missed my birthday cause you are a close pal, let me first clarify that my birthday is actually quite far! :)
Birthdays have typically been the worst day in the entire year... more so cause of your own set expectations and usually there's just one person needed to make it that extra special for you! And sometimes, it need not be the one you are romantically involved with and in fact its best if its not!!
And then there's the getting older by another year part... which used to be exciting when we were below 20, now it seems like more of a reason for the parents and relatives to launch off on "you are getting older and now you should "settle" in life... the longer you wait, the tougher it gets for a girl... " etc etc
So the last conversation with my sister i got to know that she was actually planning to surprise me on my b'day by landing up at my door step, all the way from the otherside of the globe. The aptness of this is not fully understood unless you know that in the last 6 years, i have spend just about 2-3 weeks with her. She, being the best friend I have ever had, this was THE best gift I could have ever asked for... even if things don't materialse... just the thought is more than enough to make my day... my year !! But with the pressures of a b-school, she & mom thought it might not be a very idea to land up unannouced and find me stuck up with work. That's why the surprise factor has been removed from the plan.
I guess, she's been the one to make ALL my birthdays special every single year, although i hate to admit that I haven't been able to do the same for her...
Once she organized a lunch for mom,dad and me in oberoi in bangalore, although i have NO idea how she managed to set it up from there. Then there's the i-pod with the personalised message. And so many more.
Reminds me of when we were living together, how we'd strategically buy each other birthday gifts that we could ourselves use!!