If God was a Banker

Two months before I start my career in a multi-national bank, just out of XLRI with a fin specialization, a long journey to Chennai and back… why wouldn’t I pick up a book called “If God was a Banker”? But several long hours later, when I finally forced myself to finish this book, I was left deeply disappointed.

I chose to read this book because I absolutely love Chetan Bhagat’s writing. Surprisingly, not only is the publisher the same, the author is from a similar background, as well. The books look alike, the font is the same too. What I expected from the book were some insights in to the author’s profession, coupled with a decent plot and some pleasant writing. But that was not to be.

The plot is like any typical hindi movie’s storyline. There is a hero, who is the epitome of good things. Then there is an anti-hero, who is everything a man should not be. There are other characters to fill in the gaps. And then, there is the God of banking. As usual the initial 95% of the book goes on to explain how evil goes unnoticed, but at the very end, everything unravels. The villain suffers, repents and gains forgiveness. Bluh. And in between all this is the theory from the introduction chapter of my Commercial Banking handout – how old banks functioned, liberalization, entry of foreign banks, innovation and sales. There was also a little from the several placement presentations I’ve been through – organizational structure, career growth and job descriptions.

What I expected from an author who is obviously accomplished in his field, was something that only experience could provide. But various painful stereotypes are flung at us throughout the book. A Tam Brahm called Swaminathan, influenced by early family tragedies, extremely poor, swears by filter coffee, reads The Hindu, extremely ethical, soft-spoken, shy with the fairer-sex, a teetotaler , exceptionally faithful. He does not take a single wrong step throughout the story… so ideal, that he becomes tremendously boring. On the other hand, the bad guy is Sundeep, overtly aggressive, steals ideas, gets sloshed at every occasion, flirtatious, disloyal, sleeps with everyone, unethical in all his ways. He does not take a single right step throughout the plot… so wicked, that he becomes extremely predictable. No shades of gray!

And such stereotypes don’t stop here. Relationship managers are always good looking women who are ready to cross any limits for their own benefit. Every woman in the book seems to be super-hot, with a great body and a willing mind to sleep with strange men. The secretaries always entertain their bosses in more ways than one. The good subordinates stick to the good guy, the bad ones unquestioningly try to bring Swami down. Most chapters end with lines that try to revive interest. Too many names right in between kept me confused. And way too much drama in some parts!

The characters have no depth, the story has no twists and even after I finished the book, I failed to understand the title. “If God was a banker…” Other than being a line in the book, I don’t see why it should don the cover. Who is the hero here? Sundeep, Swami or Aditya? Was Aditya that important that the book is named after him? Or is the title just a way to grab some attention?

I liked the simplicity of the narrative, the pace as well. Ravi Subramanian has given some thought into timing of the entire story too. But I still don’t think it’s worth a purchase. MBA aspirants and banking amateurs might find it interesting, but beware of its flaws.

Thanks to this book, I did have an interesting conversation with a guy next to me on my return journey. But he wasn’t that good looking, so… naah! Definitely not worth it!

Chennai

The excuse given was a friend’s wedding, the intent was that and much more. One-and-a-half juice, an evening at the beach, a hilarious movie and several hours on the crowded roads under the scorching sun… if nothing else, a welcome change from long lonely days. Visiting Chennai after 15 long years was worth it.

Thanks to my neighbour/friend/sister/pseudo-mom who decided to get married and trouble only one man from now on, I got my chance to revisit my childhood city, my first home and lots more things. Places that I heard of, like Fruitshop and The Roxburry Chiller, Tea at Cup & Saucer, Corn on toast at Eden, Juice on Nugambakkam High road, shady burger at shady burger place… and people I had missed. The only disappointment being, that after some 20 minutes of searching and looking around, when I finally found the place, I absolutely could not recognize it… my childhood house, the place that saw my first 7 years.

Well, that aside this trip definitely made for some great memories. Bangalore seems so boring already…

Goodbye’s a bitch

I sit on the grass… alone. Four floors of people in front of me, smiling faces eating merrily on my right. A bunch of people sitting on the bench under the tree, laughing. I used to be one of them, not so long ago. But my time is up. This place has tolerated me enough. It’s time to leave.

Leaving XLRI is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. XL has given me more than anything I could ask for. Tonight, I leave XL, hoping that I could return some time, knowing that it wouldn’t be the same. Knowing that I would never be the same. I tried to absorb as much of this place as possible. I stayed here for two weeks in a virtually empty campus and then stayed back after convocation. But it’s never going to be enough. I wish I could write down the things that are running in my head right now, but they’re all stupid. XL has left an indelible mark on me, but I’m just another student from one of the 50 batches here. Yet, I am attempting to leave a record, so here goes.

SUMANA MANOHAR
Roll number : B06115
Youngest in the batch of 2006-08, the only one to enter at 19.
Lived in rooms 206 and 103 at TMTWR, had great neighbours.
My daily schedule included an hour of basketball, gymming and lots of tea.
Played, lost, won and enjoyed to the fullest in XL-IIMC.
One of the few genuine Library lovers at XL.
Scared of the third staircase in the acad block.
A regular at the badminton court, lost so many TT games in GH-3.
Loved Bishu Da’s fried maggi and egg roll, Daadu’s chutney cheese sandwich and nimbu paani.
Didn’t drink at a single wetnite, but danced my heart out every time.
Made some great friends, learnt some great things.
And I’m taking back a big piece of XL with me, intending to hold on to it forever.

I shot my last free throw and took my last lay-up on the baski court, walked my last walk around the football field, visited the library for the final time, ate burgers at HongKong, drank my last glass of nimbu paani at Daadu’s, played my last TT game, took my last shower… everything seems to be moving in slow motion. But these two hours will pass. And soon, I’ll be on my way home, from home.

People are scared of heights and water. I am scared of growing up.

I don’t know if any phase in my life can beat this. The fun I’ve had… the good times. I don’t want to work, I don’t want to go back home. I don’t want to stop writing. I don’t want to look at the time.

But I have to. Goodbye’s a bitch.

Signing out. My last post from XL.

- Mus

An island… and a man – 2

Genuine apologies for the second part coming in so late. But I really couldn’t help it… it’s been a pretty hectic week, whew! Over this week I’ve seen over a thousand snaps of our vacation, reminiscing the great week at Andaman! The places, the water and the beauty of the trip is surely recorded in its own limited way, but the other side to it, the good times with my fellow vacationers isn’t that easy to remember. But here goes my feeble attempt, the much awaited sequel to part 1.

A bunch of 21 XLers in a faraway land, with little else to entertain them, decided to play something. But what could you probably play with no skills and no equipment… just loads of people, an empty hotel room and a lot of time to kill? MAFIA!! (If you didn’t know that… well, go drown yourself!) An addiction that followed us everywhere at all times, we played mafia in crowded little rooms, on the beach, in the car, even on a volcano site! Pretending to be innocent, strategizing, accusing friends, killing enemies.. surely, this is the most fun game ever !

For the ignorant, here’s a crash course. A bunch of people sit around, preferably in a circle. One guy is appointed God, the rest of us live in a ‘village’. We start the game at ‘night’, when everyone is asleep. Some of us are appointed Mafia (by God or by chits) without the knowledge of the others, the innocent villagers. Hence, there are two sides, the villagers and the mafia, each trying to eliminate the other, those who manage to stay alive, obviously win. There are also two parts to the game. During the ‘day’ everyone pretends to be villagers and they ‘discuss’, (accusing and defending) and finally vote out one person, by a majority of votes. This brings the ‘night’ where the mafia kill one person of their choice. And then it’s day again. So basically, the game depends on how the mafia fools (or fails to fool) the villagers. Certain complications include, ‘Vampire’ and ‘Doctor’, played by choice.

When there are 16-18 people playing, one game takes 2 hours or more and it’s exhausting! People are surprisingly talented, loud, intuitive, vociferous and attentive. The seriousness of the game is hilarious in hindsight. Stupidity is immediately punished, silence is misunderstood. The most tactful players eventually survive. This game teaches you to talk, listen, defend, summarize and be strategic. Nowhere else have I seen such appropriate GD practice! And RG’s points, Mafia 101, Sushant’s plight and mostly Reddy’s brilliant moves, made the infinite hours we spent on this game, great fun!

The rest of the trip was always spent in Mafia’s shadow. The post-game discussions went on for hours! On the last day, when the volcano had brought down our spirits immensely, I thought to myself that only a game of mafia could cheer us up. But one man proved me wrong! Standing tall, with a cowboy hat on his head, sipping a drink and looking at the water in deep thought… what was running in RG’s head then, we don’t know. But a certain someone sure found his butt pretty attractive. ‘Slurp’! In front of a sizeable audience, ‘consult boy’ got his butt licked, by a beautiful black cow! The wet patch might still be evident on his pants. Starved for entertainment, everyone seemed jump on this momentous occasion to pull this great man’s leg! A series of jokes.. everyone laughing our heads off. A small part of me felt sorry for him, but it did seem like it was a part of Great design! Just a sample of what we came up with…

Qn : Which bike would RG ride?
Ans: ‘Cow’asaki!

Qn: What is RG’s favourite Indipop song?
Ans : ‘Bull’a ki jaana main kaun

Qn: Why is RG scared of cows?
Ans: Because he is a ‘cow’ard

Qn: How would RG greet all of us?
Ans: “Hi, Gaays!”

This list is never ending, but it sure brought the trip to a great end. With everyone headed off in different directions, it seems pretty unreasonable that we’ll ever get a chance to have such fun. But, as a great man once said, “Such is life”! Thanks for making it a great trip, guys!

An island… and a man – 1

As a part of the traditional post-CRP pre-convocation vacation, a bunch of us went to a tiny ignored part of India. And that week turned out to be one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. Two reasons – the place and the people.

THE PLACE
As our flight started descending on our destination the view from the tiny windows was breathtaking. It seemed like the God has dropped little pieces of heaven on earth. The little of bunch of islands that were together called the Andaman Islands was indeed welcoming. A quick ride to our hotel, a few hours of sleep, lunch and then we were finally ready for our first beach.

10 mins by car, we reached Corbyn’s Cove. A cozy beach tucked in to the far end of Port Blair. The water seemed like it was calling out to me. And when I stepped in to it, it was ice cold. Did I need a better reason to stay in it? I don’t know how to swim, but that made no difference. Just splashing around was more than sufficient. But we had to leave at some point and so we made our way to the Cellular Jail for the ‘Light and Sound show’. I was looking forward to roaming around the premises, peeping in to the cells and in the meanwhile discovering the story of ‘Kaala Pani’. But instead, we were made to sit and listen to Om Puri narrating the story as a peepal tree, in orthodox hindi. My best efforts of following the narrative were of no use, the nap was refreshing though. Some dinner at the dingy little Gagan Hotel followed by shopping meant that we were tired enough to sleep well through the night.

We started Day 2 by taking a boat to Havelock Island. The ride itself was fun! Staring at endless water around you makes one pensive (and others sea-sick). But even after loads of snaps, no monster popping out of the ocean and yet, no land in sight, the ride got a little boring. But we did reach Havelock at the end, and the journey seemed worth it. Crystal clear water at the harbour was just a teaser. A 30 min ride in a dinghy took us to Elephant Island beach. And wow! The tsunami apparently left only a fraction of the beach intact and yet, what a place! Clean sand, clear water, a cool breeze… boats bumping in to each other, huge trees providing the much needed shade. Just floating around, looking at the blue cloudless sky, it was the best beach I’d ever been too. (At that point I thought nothing could beat it, I was to be shocked later). And then God proved His knack for beauty in the smallest things on earth. We went snorkeling. Fascinating fish, colourful corals, stunning stones… I discovered previously unseen shades, colours, shapes! I stepped on live corals, touched orange fish… it was a dream in slow motion. Too bad it had to end.

As I had a lip-smacking lunch at a small place called ‘Nala’s Kingdom’, I thought to myself that the highlight of the trip was surely over. But this was before we went to Radhanagar beach. Known for its sunset, this beach was selected by TIME magazine in 2004 as the best beach in Asia. And it was mind-blowing! Too scared to be a blemish on the perfect shoreline, I couldn’t convince myself to get into water. A never ending walk next to the bluish-green water, waves tickling my ankles, beautiful sand patterns, a hundred tiny crabs running around my feet, an elephant which for once didn’t look that majestic next to the magnificent beach, a green forest encircling the coastline, smooth white sand, turning around just in time to see the sun disappearing behind some clouds… heaven cannot be better than this! No way! I had to return, come back here once more…

… And I did. The next morning some of us ditched scuba-diving plans and the beach in front of our resort to come back to Radhanagar beach. Lying down on the sand, reading a book, chatting up with friends and then I couldn’t resist it any more. The water was fantastic! Playing 20 questions as the waves hit us with amazing consistency was simply brilliant! I don’t know how long we were there, I don’t care. That place made me genuinely happy. No worries, no issues. Quite simply, heaven on earth!

We had to leave Havelock that night. Dinner at Gagan, a late night walk next to the shore, yet nothing could get rid of the memories of a still perfect shoreline in my head. The next morning we visited Ross Island (of interesting historical significance), Viper Island (of a building, boredom and nothing else) and a beach (with some name, dirty water and mafia). Perhaps the best part of the day was walking a mile at night looking into the sea. On the penultimate day we went shopping, looking at a drab aquarium skipped several other non-water places. The last day was interesting though.

We got up at 3 in the morning, having been promised of a scary ride through a tribal reserve. Errrm, we saw 3 tribals looking at us with such indifference that it hurt my little ego. And then we had to cross over in a huge boat to go to the next island. Some of us could have swum faster, but the area was apparently ‘crocodile-infested’. Errrm, we didn’t see a single fish. An interesting motorboat ride through canvassing mangroves lead us to see some sterile limestone caves. After which was supposed to be the ultimate destination – active-mud volcano! We trekked our way to the site, only to see a bucketful of cold mud and the occasional plop of a mud-bubble. Yeah yeah! Not so much of a great day! That’s what we thought, until… you have to read this in the second part of this post! Just have to!

We wrapped up the trip by a second visit to Corbyn’s cove where we ran around playing chain. Our last dinner at Gagan, a good night’s sleep and the next morning we were on a flight again, looking at the same islands. As I sat back in my seat, I thought of the good times. My most memorable moment though had to be sitting on a bench at the edge of Dolphin resort at Havelock with a friend, waves crashing at our feet, a conversation about the past, the future and innumerable bollywood beach songs.

Go to Andaman… someday! You might just run in to me, because I’m definitely going back.

Farewell, XL

Two years gone past,
Too soon, too fast
My time on heaven,
Has come to end, at last.

The place that let me be me
And taught me how to see
Oh! I don’t want to leave
The place that set me free

The place that let me grow
A chance to let me show
The world that I am here!
It’s so hard to let it go.

A place that gave me friends
More in the future, it intends
Why should I still be around?
When my time here ends?

A place where I had my say
Lead me, shown me the way
Why should I leave XL?
When I so badly want to stay?

Yet I depart with no regret,
No worries, I shall not fret
Except I know inside my head
It shall be so very hard to forget

Glad to have been here
A place too special and dear
Very far though I may go,
XL! You shall always be near…

No Man's Land

This piece of writing won the Best Movie Review for the Drac Movie Festival

"I am always wary of watching an Oscar nominated movie or reading a Booker prize nominated book. They seem to be meant for intellectuals of a higher level, packed with themes I don’t comprehend and characters I don’t understand. Hence, on the second night of the DRACULA movie festival, I hoped to watch a simple Tamil movie. A movie I had watched 3 times before, a movie that I knew would not disappoint me. A common man’s movie. But due to some “technical” difficulties they screened No Man’s Land instead. And I am glad they did.

No Man’s Land is a fantastically written movie that goes beyond boundaries, languages and cultures. Based on the incidents of one single day, the movie has no excuses to digress from its main story and characters. Two soldiers of opposing countries at war, Serbia and Bosnia, are stuck in a trench, situated beyond both boundaries, in no man’s land. Initially each is out to blame the other and ensure his survival, but soon they realize that it is essential that they work together to get out of the place, alive. Complicating the situation is a third soldier, who survived a shooting spree only to lie alive on a mine, that stays unexploded till he moves away. The movie depicts the impracticality of human behaviour when saving three men takes a backseat to bureaucracy, mistrust and self-created enmity.

The UN gets involved in the crisis after a sergeant uses a British pressperson to initiate critical media glare on the UN. But their men are unable to defuse the mine under the wounded soldier. The other two who do make it out of the trench, let their emotions take over their mind and get fatally shot in the process. The movie ends as strongly as it began. The problem still unresolved, a man still stuck in the trench and the hostility set to continue the next day.

The futility of the war is stark in the background throughout the movie. Perhaps, the scene that sets the tone for rest of the movie is the one with the first two soldiers arguing about which side initiated the war, each blaming the other, while their armies are firing overhead. The reluctance to befriend each other, even in the face of death makes the viewer truly feel for them. The French UN soldier is helpless, yet eager to help and makes us question the necessity of red tape even in such dire situations. Yet, the show stealer is the third soldier, lying down. Even though he neither moves nor talks a lot, he depicts the message of the movie powerfully.

What sets this movie apart is the steady tone of humour, that makes it unnecessary for us to understand the language or even the background of the situation to enjoy the movie. Director Danis Tanovic deserves a big hand for delivering this undeniable classic. I believe that it deserved the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, above Lagaan, for not only conveying a vital message, but for remaining a common man’s movie."