Over a cuppa chai…

During my engineering days we called it “maangaa” sessions (in tamil slang) or “laccha” or "guppe maarna" (in the general college lingo)… those were trivial pursuits done in unknown innocence… these days we call it “intellectually stimulating discussions”… how is that for the mba touch…

It all begins when at least one of the "thinkers" feels some kind of emotion – ranging from being down in the dumps or to the perfect ecstasy – in other words, any which way, who cares. It is almost always late night, but it can occur during the day too, provided rule 1 above applies. We just need a trigger and we somehow always find it.

What do these discussions contain? It is done generally as a feel good discussion where we discuss anything and everything ranging from politics to your roomies stinking underwear.

This is the place where we criticize AB for his expressionless acting talent. Here is where we criticize the guy who said “yaar, AB mein thoda talent tho hai”…

Here is where we criticize the subjects that we are forced study to despite their irrelevance… and here is where we criticize the prof when the subject is chosen by us…

Here is where we criticize the marking and grading system of the college… and here is where we criticize the management for not coming up with some form of evaluation that is overall fair and beneficial to all…

Here is where we discuss sensitive issues that are plaguing the Indian government like lack of education and the deprived mass… here is where we crib about our spacious and snug flats and crib how boring it is to study…

Here is where we talk about making drugs and alcohol legal… and here is where we talk about the benefits of making it into a slab based tax structure scheme based on the weight by volume ratio of alcohol in the drink to increase sales and capture market share…

Here is where we discuss about our placements and our dream companies… and here is where we criticize the ppt of the very same company for its lack of life and enthusiasm…

We criticize others and add points to our superiority score tally. We criticize the system and add more points. We criticize the system and others who follow the system and add more points. Finally we criticize the others who don’t follow the system and add still more points to the brimming tally. Here is where we draw energy from each others low stock and amplify it with each passing second. Here is where we revel in the fact that we are too proud to be proved wrong and how the others can never match in this level of intellectual maturity… and here is where revelations like “my mediocrity is definitely less mediocre than the mediocrity of others” happen…

Amazing thing I would miss when I leave this place – the intellectual cuppa chai… our intellectual stimulant.