Mean Streets of Ahmedabad

End term exams are coming to a close, and ive got my last exam tomorrow, whereas BaLLLma® had finished his exams today and was leaving for home. (Lucky B*st*rd, exams over a day early) anyways there was an auto rickshaw strike, and hence BaLLLma® was stranded with just 40 minutes to go for the train departure and no mode of transport. Thats where me and my bike (Hardly Davidson) come in. BaLLLma® asks me whether I could drop him of on my bike. Well for a 90 kg guys carrying a largish suitcase to go pillion on my paltry 100 cc 7.2 bhp bike with a wobbling rear wheel would be a tough job, but for a fellow RCPP, Ant-Eye Marketing Club and generally a ‘I wanna juice Nippo’ co-conspirator how could I say no.
So off we go on my ‘Hardly’ zipping through the Ahmedabad traffic. On a day where there were no rickshaws the road was full of two wheelers. And once you cross the Ellis Bridge and move to the Old City, the streets are narrow and mean. Every one, I mean every one is a skilful over taker with scant respect for traffic laws (traffic signals are like decorative pieces on the road for these guys.) When I say every one, I mean the 60 year old grandpa on his 50cc moped, the middle aged over weight house wife on her kinetic, 13 year old unlicensed kid whizzing past on his Yamaha, and last but not the least the haath-gaadi waalas, they too can teach a thing bout cutting and squeezing ahead. The strrets are narrow, you’ve got stray cows peacefully lying on the middle of the road, and vehicles zooming past. When I say these streets are crowded don’t think this is a Mumbai type traffic jam moving in 1st gear. This is road huggers zipping past frantic over taking, and lots of blind curves, some by lanes joining the road.
With such over taking and a deadline to reach the station in quick time and BaLLLma® trying to balance his suitcase on his left thigh and me trying to balance the underpowered motorcycle with a wobbling rear wheel, we reached the station unscathed.

But boy was that some kinda experience. My concentration levels were higher here than any other 1000 km free rider trip. The highways with trucks are no match for these mean streets of ahmedabad.

Now that I am going to Europe, hope the riding there isn’t as taxing as it was here.

FORM Dance

FORM (Futures, Options and Risk Management) is a subject that we fin focussed pgp2s take. Well it is one of the toughest courses that one might come across (Cs Ds and even Fs are common, you don’t want those on you). We had the exam today, and yes thanks to a little regular studying (looking at Jamun mug sure motivates you), having a personal copy of “Solutions to Hull” and the infinite doubts which were all cleared by Jamun, the exam sure went well.(I think it went fine, actually I’m still hoping it wasn’t that bad). Jamun for the uninitiated is the stud boy of D16, who takes mugging to a different level, it is rumoured he sleeps with his text books.

Anyways coming to the topic, yesterday night at 3 AM Bamboo comes to my room with some godforsaken problem in some old question paper, unable to solve it after racking our brains for 30 minutes we go to our saviour Jamun, he too was unable to solve it and hence we thought ‘whats the point?’ No point studying any further and thus all of D16 first floor started playing music, and we had our very own FORM Dance. Well when a batch rank 3 cant solve it after studying regularly for 3 months what are the odds you would after studying for 3 days? And hence began the party. At the unearthly hours (3.30AM to 4.00AM) lasted our dance party (actually bamboo was the sole dancer, whereas me, Nippo and BaLLLma were onlookers). I have the video of it and lemme tell ya its surely entertaining.

The exam was at 9.00AM and luckily got up in time after our late night revelry, and fortunately the paper wasn’t that bad.

P.S.
These tough FORM exams have led to Billu making the great statement (obviously lifted from cricket commentators, but fits perfectly in the context)

“FORM is temporary, class is permanent”

PPS
Due to entire term studying FORM, I guess I have messed up my other end terms. but who cares, tuchhadom means I don’t care bout grades any more.