Tuesday, February 16, 2010

emaN-Game


Shakespeare said, "Whats in a name?" but the irony is he wrote his name under it!

Our college starts at 9:00am and ends at 4:15pm. And being Engg. students we sleep late and wake up later! Almost 60% of our class is always late, most of us barely manage to even bath so you can imagine the rest. So somehow we make it to the class by 9:15 to 9:30am. (My worst timing till date is 9:37am). The teachers are also used to it and have given up on us. But in all this early morning rush we forget or skip the most important meal of the day a.k.a breakfast! We Engg. students are known to "manage" things really well, no wonder 70% of us end up doing MBA! OK so my point is we somehow manage to survive the first two lectures from 9 to 11am but the last 15 mins seem like eternity, but then we start warming the thoughts of a hot steamy coffee, frappe and numerous iced teas and not to forget the veg puffs that we get at the Nescafe outlet at the Cultural Center(CC). And this is the story of not only our class but the whole college. So at 11:00 am hundreds of us rush to the petite 10 * 12 ft Nescafe outlet. Often we are left at 11:05am so we barely have 10 mins to walk all the way to the CC, "fight" to get our order and make it back to the class.

To make things worse even some other colleges in our campus have their short recess between 11-11:15am. The Nescafe has 3 staff to serve hundreds of us. The scene at the Nescafe around 11:07 am is like this: people are throwing money at those 3 guys, shouting their orders at the top of their voice, often pulling their shirt in a rude manner and it doesn't end at that we give 100 rs. bill for a coffee worth 7 rs. so those 3 guys have to do the math as well!

This semester i have been lucky as i always got the Frappe in time but for the past couple of weeks all my efforts went in vain. Usually the small boy used to attend me but these past 2 weeks even he was ignoring my order!

I was wondering what was wrong with him? Or was something wrong with me!

Then it hit me......

I went to the small boy whom usually all call by the name Chotu. I asked, "What is your name?". With a big proud smile on his face he replied, "Naresh."

The next day, as usual, the lecture got over at 11:05am , i was at CC by 11:07am, the rush was full on, people were shouting, tearing those 3 guys apart, i somehow made my way to the counter, Chotu was close. I asked(with a smile on my face),"Naresh, can you please give me a Frappe?"

What happened then was that Naresh ignored all the others, smiled back at me and got me a Frappe!

I got my answer. From that day onwards till now i have never failed to get my Frappe. I get Frappes for my friends Alok and Vishal as well!

Dale Carnegie has said, "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest & most important sound in any language."

And i read somewhere that, "A man without a smiling face must not open a shop."

I have improvised it, "A man without a smiling face must not go to a shop!"

And if you are wondering about the title, its NAME-GAME!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

What Road Are You?

What do Mumbai, Pune, B'lore and Delhi have in common?

-M. G. Rd.!

Everyone of us has favourites. A favorite perfume, book, song, ice-cream. How about a favourite road? Do you have one?

I think everyone of us has a favourite road. A road that is familiar to us, a road we can relate to, a road on which we like talking with ourselves when walking alone, a road which we know inside out!

When i was in school i was the road from my home to the bus stop in Mhaisal(my native place). I used to love walking on that road. I used to leave home at 6:00 am and reach the bus stop by 6:10 am. I used to enjoy those 10 mins. I even remember the stones i used to purposely step on while walking. I still remember those!
So i was wondering what makes these roads so special?

Now-a-days i am the Fergusson College Road (F. C. Rd.). It is literally at a stones throw from my place. So when i get bored or have nothing to do i just go and walk.
Whenever i walk on it i always feel that there is something "young" about F. C.
Goodluck is the place where youngsters enjoy eating, Vaishali and Roopali are favourites among the senior citizens. The Chaitanya Parathas are awesome. There is CCD and Barista for coffee(I prefer Goodluck for coffee!). Manmeet is famous for its 'Chaat'. There is Subway and now recently Venky's have opened a take away chicken outlet. Theres Yana for sizzlers, Haka for Chinese. If you want to shop you will find every brand you want on F. C.

Come weekends and F. C. will be packed. It has a festive mood on weekends. Especially the winter evenings make it even more enjoyable. Me and my friends enjoy playing pool at 147. Its so much fun!

So what road are you? Leave a comment.....