Showing posts with label mba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mba. Show all posts

My name is Chaudhary...

"So hows the German dream coming along?" One of my friends asked...

It was difficult to answer her. How was it coming along?

It all started with an ad which I saw when I was in the 7th standard.
The difference is- German Engineering. Opel.

Opel didnt work. But the ad did. That line somewhere stayed in my mind. The respect for Germany grew as I came to know more about them. The Engineering dream realised and I set my heart on doing my masters in Mechanical Engineering in Germany.

I got disillusioned during my engineering. 4 hours of travelling, overload of assignments, stupidity all over didnt help my case. The German dream died and I set my eyes on an MBA. In between happened Siemens, the respect for Germany increased and the dream was reborn.

I left Siemens, prepared for CAT to get into MDI's International Management course. One leg of the course was to be completed in ESCP, Berlin. The German dream kept coming back to me. It was destined or something.

This monday, I landed in Germany. It was not easy. Not at all. First the German Embassy acted like they didnt want us to come here. Then Deutsche Bank did their best to keep us out. German efficiency was thrown out of the window for inefficiency and stupidity. It was our luck that we finally got our Visas one day before leaving.

What followed next was a journey of a life time. I took the Air India flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt in the night at 2. I was so damn tired with all the running around, meeting friends and stuff. The flight was overbooked and I probably got the worst seats. Couldnt sleep a wink on the flight. I had an Air Berlin flight from Frankfurt to Berlin in the evening. That gave me around 12 hours to go around Frankfurt.


I landed at Fraport, was overwhelmed by the size of the airport. It was freaking cold outside. If Delhi cold was a bitch, Frankfurt cold was son of a bitch (does that make it worse or not?). Fraport is lovely, though I still feel mumbai airport is not too behind when it comes to management. (You can take me out of Mumbai, but u cant take Mumbai outta me.)

I had like 4 bags, one out of which was cabin baggage. I wanted to go around Frankfurt, so I deposited the bags at the Air Berlin counter for my flight in the evening. I had more baggage than the alloted 20 kgs. The girl at the counter (who I thought was spanish) however turned in 4 kgs more than alloted, which I thought was kinda sweet. I thanked her profusely, to which she said - You are Indian, I am Indian...
I felt so damn proud. No one every did anything special for me just coz I was Indian.

I went around the city. German Engineering everywhere. Footpaths which sloped at the edges so that you might not have a problem to get down and cross the road. Zebra crossings everywhere. Cars stopping for you even if there was no red signal. Grey skies. Biting cold. Costly food. But that didnt stop me from going on a 50 min cruise on the river Main.

In the evening I returned back to the airport or Fraport as they call it. I waited for the evening flight. After running around the Airport, I realised that the flight had been delayed. I waited. The flight was cancelled. I was stranded on the Airport. I contacted Air Berlin. German rules suggest that you stand in the line and wait for your turn, which incidentally took me around 1 hour. It was 9 in the night local time (1.30 night India) It was 40 hours since I had slept. Standing in line sucked.

"We will arrange your stay in a hotel and also arrange for pick up and drop" said the lady at the task.
They arranged for the hotel, but forgot the pick-up. Good for me though, I got to take a taxi (which means my dream of travelling my a Merc was fulfilled.) I was amazed to see my Hotel room (an Executive room at The Kongress Sheraton). One word - Awesome! I slept for 5 hours. The next flight was in the morning.


At the airport, I confirmed if my baggage was on the flight (since the last flight was cancelled.)
On reaching the Berlin airport after a rough flight which was more like a roller coaster than anything else, I found that one of my bags was missing. In spite of my confirming at Fraport that they were loaded on the very same flight that I was travelling by... How do you misplace baggage ON the Way? All my clothes were in that bag, and I was already late for the first class. Which meant I was gonna skip class. Not much of a problem that. With the jet lag, I might have slept in the class anyway.

It was damn difficult to find the place where the hostel was. It was 4 degrees outside, and if you know me, I hate cold. I come from a land of Warm sunny beaches, anything colder than 16 degrees is clearly unacceptable. This is one of the reasons Delhi is no longer a contender for me working there.

I reached the hostel with great difficulty and finally dropped dead on the bed. I dreamt.

I had a dream, the German dream... It took long to realize it. It was difficult. What a journey! I didnt wanna meet the President of the US or stuff like SRK wanted in "My name is Khan", but this journey was pretty difficult too.

For the record: My name is Chaudhary...

My name is Chaudhary...SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

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5 letters to the editor  

MDI, Gurgaon : Military training

Hello ji!
So you might have noticed the temperature has gone down in Mumbai. If you are wondering why is that, well, thats coz I have now left Mumbai. I am now in Gurgaon (which explains the heat wave here). Btw, for Mumbaikars who think everything to the north of Mumbai is UP-Bihar, well, Gurgaon is near Delhi.
So last week was my induction week at MDI, gurgaon. More on that later, but first, let me make fun of Delhi guys. Like for instance, they even talk English with a Punjabi accent- Thank you becomes Thank you ji, Sorry becomes Sorryji and Hello becomes Hello ji! Hence the change in my way of greeting you guys.
I have begun soaking the Delhi atmosphere in me. Like I have developed a special liking for Gobi ka paratha. Did you know Gobi ka paratha constitutes 2 % of Delhi's GDP? And you should see how much butter they eat here. Its almost like butter is the main dish, parathe toh galti se plate mein aa gaye.
Now back to the induction week. I will not discuss the details of the induction week else the coming batches wont enjoy it that much. The past week has been, er.. like a military camp, only worse.. guys usually sleep around 2-3 hours everynight. In order to give you a rough idea about things, let me ask you - Have you seen that Nana Patekar movie - Prahar, where he plays a commando? Dekhi hai? accha hai.. accha hai..
Know how he tortures the interns? Well, that is cakewalk in front of what we do! I say, if we continue doing this for 3 more weeks, I will be well prepared to take down the Al-quaeda or whtever is the most dangerous terrorist organisation in the world.

Coming to less dangerous stuff, I got my room, as in, at the hostel. The IDPL hostel that I am at are beautiful. There are two hostels, the on campus and the idpl cma, which is around 5 kms from the MDI campus. The idpl cma hostels are bunglows each having 7 rooms each. I have a lovely single room, with an attached bathroom and the door of my room opens directly on to the terrace. That however isnt necessarily a good thing. Its super hot here (you know why) and my room heats up like a furnace sometimes. I hope the heat reduces in days to come.
Anyway, coming to the sweeter aspects of my hostel, we have monkeys here(dunno why that is sweet). No no, I dont mean the students, I mean ReaL monkeys, with tails and red asses and stuff... And we have peacocks here! You can get real close to them, trust me mate, there are fewer sights prettier than watching a peacock up close.
I am in love with the MDI campus btw. Its 40 acres of pure bliss. Manicured lawns, pretty red buildings, the works, you know. Sometimes I wish I was a campus too and I would woo MDI and she would fall in love with me and then we would give birth to 4-5 small small campuses... Ah.. such a beautiful thought... Okay, this got out of hand here.

Anyway, moving to the topic why my desperate engineering friends are here. Girls.
This is what my friends had to tell me about Delhi girls before I departed for MDI.
Male Friend 1: Abbe wahan ladkiyaan sahi hoti hai yaar...
Male Friend 2: Haan be.. all gori-gori..
Me: Tumlogko ke khandan mein koi Dahisar ke aage nahi gaya, delhi ki ladkiyon ke bare mein tumlogon ko kaise malum saalon?
Male Friend 1: Abbe mera roomie hai na, uske best friend ke friend ki girl friend Delhi ki hai..
Male friend 2: Arre haan.. sahi hai woh..
Male friend 1: (to MF2) tereko kaise malum bey, tu kab mila usse?
Male Friend 2: nahi mila, lekin tere bolne se lagta hai sahi hogi..

This is what my female friends had to say about them.
Female friend 1: Delhi jaa raha hai unke Ladkiyon se bach ke rehna.
Female friend 2: Haan. Keep away from them haan.
Me: Dont worry ladies, I will come back untouched and then you can have me.
Punches thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, talking about the Delhi girls (the guys are waiting with bated breath). Well, they are good looking. No two ways about it. Everytime I look at them, I wonder - Where does all that butter go?! Another point noted is that they are quite free, they are in essence no different than Delhi boys, only they are better looking.
We had a freshers party the night before, I dont drink and also wasnt well, so I went to sleep around 11. There is a bus that takes us from MDI to IDPL, it was scheduled to leave around 3 in the morning, so I went to sleep in a friend's room. By 3 I came down to the party scene, the party was still alive. The DJ was real good, the only problem being he would play songs with the words - "soniye" "tainu" "mainu", you know, the usual panju stuff...
As I entered the dance floor, I saw all this girls dancing in 6 inch heels or whatever they call them. I swear to God, if I tried, I wont be able to walk in them, and these girls were dancing! We have quite a few firangs on the campus and there was this girl with blonde hair who seemed to be suffering from an overdose of Bollywood and movies like Singh is king. She had all the steps in place. I have never felt more sorry for my inability to dance.
I wanted to have a look at how a professional bar looks like so I came up to the bar where there was this huge haryanvi bartender who was drinking himself than serving others. I came to the bar and started looking around, reading the contents written on the bottle.

Haryanvi bartender : Nahi nahi.. tujhe nahi peeni.. tu abhi aaya hai(he must have guessed looking at my relatively sweatless face) tu pehle dance ker ke aa phir milegi..
Me: Lekin..
HB: Oyeee.. bhains nahi karni... chal ja..
What the? Who was this guy? But I didnt want the drink, and I was kinda sleepy so dancing was out of question. But I had a gulp of pepsi, since I didnt want to come out saying tht I didnt "drink".
One thing that I notice about Delhi girls is that how much they are ease with their sexuality. Sometimes, to someguy from outside this place, these girls might come across as bold. Though I find them extremely cute and colourful, I will always fall for the subtle sexuality of a Bombay girl. The balance that she achieves, coupling class and style, will always be the draw for me.
So the good news is, all you Bombay girls who have been secretly falling in love with me, hiding behind trees to get a glimpse of me, watching mere mortals like Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig on Dvd since I am gone, have heart, I will be back!

That is enough for now I guess, I am at the end of my break now. I have a French class in around 20 minutes. So Au Revoir(abhi tak itna hi seekha hai) my friends. Keep checking this space, will be posting frequently from now on. MDI, Gurgaon : Military trainingSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , , , ,
17 letters to the editor  

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