ORSI

Nah, not some cool phrase put together in a 4 letter word ... ORSI - Operations Research Society of India ... An annual convention held at IIMA every year apparently ... 1st time we heard abt it was when this really nice professor we worked under for our CCS (Contemporary Concerns Study) in the 4th term asked us to go present our work at ORSI's student paper competition. So Vidya and I figured.. yep wat the hell .. once chance to try and score a win somewhere ... She's more enthu having worked so much more on it than i ever did.... So tickets were booked et al ... My travel life's finest hour i must say ... Money saving spree that i am on (Living 2nd year on the money wonderful wonderful Citibank paid during summers and on a borrowed sum on 3 k from parents ... and reluctant to borrow any more!) i figured I’d give traveling alone a chance ... Vidya had to go off ahead to meet some friends at Baroda ... and had to stay on at IIMA for longer than me ... So there i am ... Traveling Bangalore to Ahmedabad ... Alone ... 2nd Class ... in a 36 hour journey spanning the south to the west of the country ... FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE ...

Travel plans were made ... tickets booked ... and as is my tendency .. news broken to parents post preparation and decision were both irrevocable. Her reaction of course was the same as when i colored my hair red (HOW HOW HOW CUD U DO THIS WITHOUT SO MUCH AS TELLING ME FIRST!! HOW DARE U COLOR IT AND THEN COOLY LET ME KNOW! ) So there's all this selling that happens as to how her silly younger son so used to the plush luxury of Autos (v/s the buses i used to travel to school by) and Flights (latest trips have been train free and flighty thanks to mum and dad's LFC provisions)... I'll be the only kid in the family to actually go out thr and travel by myself .. be brave .. take risks and all that jazz... darned pathetic salesman id make coz she didn’t seem to buy in to much ... saving grace seemed to be the fact that i was hell bent on going alone ... and sitting there at home in Bombay she really cudnt do much (Me is beyond emotional blackmail now)... and had to lemme go.

All pals at IIMB simply stared dumbfounded when i told em ... apparently this is the nutttiest thing neones ever done ... why travel liek this by shady train for 36 hrs ALONE!!! wen u can easily fly in 2 hrs???? Well ... i started off again .. its abt the money .. abt the independence and abt getting used to travel like this coz I’m all set for a sales stint (Day 2 being one of my placement slot considerations) ... then the usual smirks from my IIMB family ... then concern ... then chipping in to make my trip a painless one ...Bags to pick and choose from (Thanks Srikant!), Cd's written with my fav music ... (Thanks Dush!!) ... Cd Player lent (Thanks Kunal!) .. Dropping the kid of the family off to the station (Thanks Sohit!!!) and tonnes of smses in the train so long as i had a network (Thanks Sai!)...

My last 5 mins in the train i had this moment of utter indecision... felt like it wasn’t tough to jus pack up and run bak ... Then with Sohit saying he'd have gone bak if he’d had dounbts ... I wasn't getting anywhere ... but decided to stay anyway ...

Journey to A was cool ... Stayed up .. Heard music ... (Dush says if the tam songs didn’t play then its the CD's fault - so i forgive him that :) ) read (NO LOGO is the worst book in the whole wide world ... EVER!!! .. but good if all u wanna do is keep falling asleep) and munched on biscuits and chips for 36 hours ...

IIMA was very cool ... loved their campus ... and MR Lehman Ankur Goel took us to lunch to this awesome place called Mirch Masala ... Damn good LAssi i say !!! and showed us around campus ... Well that was all i cud do .. left that evening itself all set for another 36 hour long journey ... this time broken into 2 - A to BBAY and then BBAY to BLORE. Mum came to see me at BBAY- went home for a half hour .. pained bro a little ... gave him my ORSI T shirt and Parker .. Then boarded train to BLore at DAdar ... was back in a jiffy .. .seems like it now ... didn’t seem too bad then either...


All in all a great great experience - for the sheer joy of doing something like that for the first time ever! Plus we won the Student paper contest ,... paid a measly 250 bucks but Vidya and Me are absolutely thrilled!!!

Cool True Story NO ????