Why am I here? No, this is not a philosophical question where you look to explain the fundamental questions of life & existence. This is a question which directly addresses the reason why am I here at ISB. So...why am I here? Seeing my mid term marks I question these very reasons. As mentioned earlier, all i aspired was to be above the mean.

Till last evening I could proudly say that I was meeting these very ambitious targets. So what happened next which shook the foundations of my belief. Well....the mid term Stats marks were released. And to put it succintly...I sucked. Big time. To be very honest, I had modest expectations from this paper. But I never expected this. If the marks distribution is a sort of a pyramid, then I'm probably the foundation, dug deep into the earth, which props up the entire structure. To top it, my marks in the Stats quiz is following some sort of a rapidly downward sloping curve. I see no hope.

The classes for Term I get over tomorrow. Prof Waterman & Prof Kumar were outstanding. I have talked before about the pedigree of the visiting faculty. If possible, they were even better than Prof Stine & Prof Bell who taught the first half of the 2 papers. I'll not talk about Eco here as I have quite strong sentiments, albeit in a different way, about the faculty. So that brings us to the End Terms. It's funny that by this time next week the exams would be over & I am wasting time writing a blog nobody gives a damn about. But then again....I have already reached a zen state.

On a different note, the GSB Core elections are through. Happily for me everybody I voted for, except for the President, has won. Only time will tell whether mine & others confidence in these guys will be repaid properly. I was initially disappointed at the Presidential elections. I was supporting a friend of mine and helped in writing his manifesto & preparing his speech. The winner, to be very honest, was a complete dark horse. But I & a few others have interacted with him on quite a sensitive matter over the past couple of days & he's turned out to be a great guy. Being an Army guy, he may not have an exposure to the Corporate world, but he's a great people's guy, a very good organizer & man-manager. And after the Army, I think he'll be upto any pressure situations this year will throw at him. ATB, Major Saab.

We celebrated the 1st birthday of Javed's daughter today. His studio was full of kids & I, as always, felt a lump in my throat. It's been almost 1.5 months since Bubu & Arya went back. In between my schedule of assignments/reports/classes/booze sessions all of a sudden I feel overwhelmed. I wish they were with me. It's becoming so difficult without them. The good thing is that they will come for 4 days the next week.

We bid farewell to Arunava tonight with a small party in the SV1 lawns. He's leaving for IIM Bangalore this weekend. Over the last few weeks I have really grown to love the kid. Being a juniour from school he insisted from Day 1 that he'll call me Dada. Because he sits next to me, he has tried to keep me awake every single day in class & only lately has he given up totally. A crazy sense of humour & extremely sharp intellects....the whole class will miss him.

Finally....I got a mail from my office today. My F&F has been processed (at last!). Some welcome additions to my bank balance.

Cheerio