Post Dengue

Its been ages since I wrote anything. Been busy thinking about entrepreneurship and experiencing it. Add to this that my health has been the worst it has ever been.

From a prolapse in my disc from celebrating a Liverpool goal to a shaky knee , its been a bad year in terms of health. Bad health gives you a lot of time to pause , reflect and imagine.From feeling so full and eager about a better tomorrow to feeling objectively uninspired about every facet of life is a strange dualism to go through.

From feeling anti-social to feeling lonely to enjoying solitude is a diverse multitude to traverse during a day.

Just been out of hospital after a week of resting on Dengue fever. Guess all the rest has made me feel very spaced out

Just felt like typing a line or two. Trying to take a small step or two towards blogging again.

Currently in my home town Trichur. My sister is expected to deliver a baby on 3rd June and I have come down to witness the arrival of the next generation in the family.
I came down on 29th and have been waiting. "They" (People who have gone through this before and who appear to be more knowledgeable on the subject) say usually the first delivery has higher probability of being ahead of time. I was born 11 days ahead of schedule when my grandmother slipped and fell and my mom shrieked and got tensed and then poor me was taken out using forceps (Heard the forceps part of it yesterday over dinner). My twin sisters arrived a month ahead of schedule.

Keeping all this in mind I decided to come 5 days ahead of the scheduled date. So here I am waiting.

It is a little strange now for me now with regards to phone calls.

The moment I ring a close friend or relative they wait with bated breath for me to break the news even though I might just have called to say something as mundane as "Whats up"

If I dont call people up, they think I am busy with the delivery.

I am still figuring how to twitter. Probably my next message on twitter will be ...........

Bomb Conitnued

The Bomb- Continued
For some reason today, I feel extremely hollow as I find most things in life meaningless which kind of takes away motivation to do anything.

Today trying to write after a long time.As I do not feel like doing anything else, I am forcing myself to do something I have not done for long.Blog

This event goes back to 2003 or 2002 at Eng College. EDC - electronic devices and Components Internal Exams were coming and the teacher and me had the good fortune of enjoying each others presence only once for the whole term


One of the frequent topics discussed at hsotel was about the various methods of copying. Electrical Eng students had most of their exams in a 120 seater class room with umpteen windows and doors.

A method of copying which they had perfected and called "Bombing" involved the question papers being smuggled out through the window and picked up by other branch students who would fill up the answer sheets with the help of one of the electrical students who would not be writing the exam from the exam hall. Before the papers were collected the answer sheets would be filled in some other hall and smuggled back though the windows and people who had in advance booked their pre-filled answer sheets would be getting it and submitting it. There have been instances where Bombed sheets have found their way into the Bundle of Answer Sheets a couple of days after the exams

The modus operandi kind of excited me. I was never good at copying and never did other than the occasional desperate glance at other sheets which gave me a sense of "I am not the only one struggling" . The fear of failure or the Return by Risk ratio never appealed to me. However "Bombing" for some reason kind of gave me a sense of a challenge.

I decided to scoot my last EDC internals as I did not know head or tail of the subject and felt it was a waste of time going in to the exam hall.

But then things took a twist.

The electrical eng students were free at the time we were having the exam and encouraged us to try a bombing operation. One of my fellow mates from Compsci was desperate to pass and had not studied a word and asked if I could help the electrical guys bomb for us. Somebody from Compsci needed to tell them what answers to write. Since I was not planning to write I was to be the Chosen one (a really bad choice as I was almnost like an electrical student with regards to the subject but again beggars cant be choosers). Only 3 people wanted "bombed" answer sheets.


Word spread around that Compsci was going to do a bombing operation and more people from other branches joined into be the support team behind the operation. There was an air of tension, excitement and anticipation.

We have done a lot of dumb things at college but this one takes some beating.

"Bombing" as a modus operandi became popular whenever exams were held in the Eng Drawing Halls which had atleast 6 windows and umpteen open doors and had about 120 seats. Replicating this model in the Compsci class was like trying to apply logic to a David Dhawan movie.

The Compsci exam was happening in the 2nd Floor of the Compsci Bock and would have only about 30 students and the subject teacher herself was the invigilator.

As you entered the Compsci block, you would be greeted by a flight of stairs. If you went up these stairs on reaching the first floor immediately on your left would be the office where the H.O.D was seated.

If you climbed further up, you would reach floor 2 which abruptly ended in a prependicular corridor with a classroom door on your left .
The Classroom door on the left was the scene of the Crime. This class room had a 2windows which Spiderman would have been proud to reach from the outside.

I gulped as I realised that a narrow slit-like ventilator just below the ceiling of the wall to one's left as one climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor was our only outlet for smuggling the answer sheet back in.

The exam began and as attendance was taken somebody proxied for me. As there were no windows to throw out the question paper, the toilet excuse was used by one of the "bombees'" to get the question paper out. We were already late(10 minutes to get the question paper out and we had only 45 minutes left) and me and the electrical guys ran to a free class room outside the compsci block.

I looked at the questions and realised we were doomed. Three long answers which were concpetual in nature. I dug out some sections in the text book and asked every one to put down two big paragraphs which I felt had some sort of connection with the questions asked. Felt really stupid as even with a text book I did not know the answers!. The guys in electrical looked at me with some scorn.


We wrote as fast as our pens could. We barely filled 2 out of the three questions when we realised time was running out. We ran back to the Compsci block to smuggle the sheets back in.


Now to reach the slit of the ventilator you needed to put your self on the railing of the stair case and stretch yourself and get a leg up and still you just barely reached it. Imagine one leg on the railing and the other leg on a somebodys cupped hand and full stretch with some answer sheets which need to be pushed though a narrow slit and time running out with the risk of some faculty coming up. One of us stood on First Floor Corridor to signal anyone coming from First Floor to the 2nd Floor.

Now the tricky part was ensuring that when the papers fell in through the ventilator the teacher did not see it. The class had figured what was happening outside and were fully tuned in.

One of the samaritans finished his exam early and came out and opened the door to the class and stood outside as if he was waitng for the rest to complete and come out. He signalled to the guy who was sitting at the bottomright of the class to ask a doubt and distract teacher. It is a different matter that the guy asking the doubt was a geek and could close his eyes and clear any doubt the teacher had about the subject.
This was our opportunity and the acrobatically poised bomber pushed the papers through the ventialtor as teacher earnestly was trying to understand what doubt could someone so knowledgable have.


What I describe next, I have not seen but heard and have replayed it quite often in my mind

Filled up Answer Papers flying and floating all over the class from the ventilator and everyone trying to bring its flight to an end as teacher had her back facing the ventilator. After clearing the imaginary doubt, when she turned around she sensed soemthing had happened in the class and something had just settled down but didnt know what. At the stair case just as we finished pushing the papers we got a signal from down and we hurriedly jumped off the rails to see the HOD coming up and did our best to look casual.

We had done it. Our first and last bombing.It was bloody damn exciting and required a lot of team work and luck.

Its a different matter that the score of 12 out of 30, that I got was one of the lowest and the others who wanted " bombed" sheets for themselves had managed to do a better job of copying inside the class and rejected my sheets (Only if they knew the effort that went into getting it there)

The Bomb

“Some things remain etched in memory” is a common phrase I use. What I mean by this, is that there is a photograph or picture in my minds eye which associates to an event or incident. Often amidst mundane activities these still pictures [ usually in sepia brown or black and white] come in to my mind and I go into a trip about that event or incident. All I need to replay an event is my mind recollecting that still picture with which I associate that event.

Now one such picture of an event that happened and which I replay in my mind is a little strange for the reason that the picture captured in my mind is something I have not seen but instead heard about from the others. However I associate this unseen picture to the event as that was the most interesting part of the event, in hindsight.

Will talk about the event in the next blog

Jyothish becomes an Uncle

Last night was a get together organized by Jyothish to celebrate him becoming an uncle as his sister gave birth to a baby girl.

Its a different matter that, in spite of the younger players on the football field shouting out to me, "Uncle , Pass the ball" that I have not thrown a party.

Everything will be sealed and fine

Our consultancy work involved finding a promising company(a SME) some funding from the right kind of investor. We were to value the company and negotiate and close the deal.

I had managed to convince a potential investor to fly down from Hyderabad to meet my clients. Spend the morning and a good part of afternoon with the investor at the Barista at Leela.
In our 4 to 5 hours discussion the potential investor made one long trip to the rest room.

After realising that negotiations were going in circles with an inreasing rpm we decided that we would take a trip to my client's factory.

My client was eagerly awaiting the arrival of their potential investor. They had their best smiles and were eager to impress. The investor came into the factory and promptly asked for the rest room.
So my client and I waited for him to return from his trip to the rest room. The air was tense(atleast for me, the investor I had brought to the factory had rushed to the rest room like a first standard school kid . What would my client be thinking" ). The silence kind of amplified it. I decided to break it and blurted out, "I think his stomach is kind of upset. Must be the plane food" [this was pure conjecture from my side]

So my client said, "Pop a somethng_ol and everything will be sealed and fine".
I smiled. My client added,"Really man, it works all the time. I always carry it while traveling"

By this time the investor had returned from the restroom to the area where we were waiting. Now to break the ice with the potential investor my client said," If you need any medicines, do let me know, I always carry it". I was chuckling wildly within as I saw the investor fight off his bemusement and say," No thanks".

I still chuckle thinking about what might have gone though the investors mind.

Probable Investor Thought Bubble: [I meet a guy for the first time in my life with a view to investing in his company and he asks me if I need medcines. !!!!!!!]

I slept with my boss

"Well it's been ages since I posted" is repeatedly becoming the opening line for my blog posts.
Anyway will be trying to post couple of entries today to buck that trend.

The heading of this post looks juicy[ignore the pun] but let me take the juice out of it

First and foremost I am male[feels a bit girlish to announce that I am male]. My boss is male too. My boss was my batch mate at IIM Lucknow. We started up together. One fine day we felt we needed a leader and had a “process” [more about the “process” in our future best seller: "How to do all the wrong things and succeed in Entrepreneurship'] to elect the leader and from then he [Doc] became our boss.

Our fledgling consultancy work has resulted in a lot of travel.

They say , Consultants are experts at fleecing the customer and in this regard we seem to be pretty black-sheepish and have been at the receiving end of most of the fleecing.

Anyway one such assignment was at Calicut [a 8 hour overnight bus ride from Bangalore].

Instead of taking the Rs 550 Volvo we decided to go for the Rs 340 sleeper for two reasons.

a) Economic sense [ being fleeced, meant economic sense came naturally to us]
b) I cannot sleep in a sitting position

Doc[boss] did the bookings and for some reason [ I did not bother to investigate] got a double bed.

Anyway lying in the double bed of the bus with Doc and being tossed up and down at the slightest jerk of the bus was amusing. It meant that the usually “abletosleepoffinanyposition Doc” failed to get any sleep. Me got to know all this next day after waking up from a comfortable slumber.