Endless Longings

Whenever I have enough time to sit back on my chair and think, I yearn for our China Study Trip and the time when Sid and I would finally live together. I want time to zoom past until the study trip, and then slow down for those exciting (I hope) days in China, then conveniently zoom past again until the time I am with Sid and then perhaps slow down as per my wishes.

This makes me realise that my life is more like a series of longings for something or the other. Last year at the end of February I was longing for coming to Belgium. When I was finally here, I longed for our Christmas break to go back to India. After the Christmas break here I am, yearning for the China Trip and going back to India for being together with Sid. I am sure the craving would be for something else after I have lived these two experiences. Do we ever get satisfied and live completely, uncomplainingly in the moment? Or is it just me? I like to imagine that when I will live with Sid and we would have the careers of our choice and live in the country of our dreams, I will long no more and be unquestioningly satisfied and sickeningly happy. But is that true? Would there be something else to crave for then? Babies, perhaps? I don't know, I am just guessing!

The thing is that why can't I just be happy in the moment. Not that I am not happy, but there is just this endless longing and waiting. After all I am now living the life for which I was counting days a year back. Why then, am I waiting for this time to just fly by? Perhaps because I believe that I have more exciting things to look forward to. I am thankful that I have such a life at the moment, that every time I have newer and better things to look forward to, but I should also be able to completely live the experience that I wished for in a not so distant past. Isn't this insulting to that 'someone' up there who grants our wishes if we just keep desiring for more and better?

Is it just normal human nature or is it the paranoia of someone who can never be satisfied? Am I just human or am I insane? Or am I being insane right now by blogging my useless (?) reflections when I have to study for the frightening Corporate Finance exam?

Karma and Holi

A Very Happy Colorful Holy Holi To All

I am visiting my cousins in Kanpur for Holi this year, and although I have never in my life liked Kanpur, I am looking forward to celebrating Holi with my cousins. This will be my first Holi here and I have heard that Kanpur people go wild when celebrating the festival of colors. I have been singled out as today's target by cousins, brothers-in-law, nephews, and nieces alike. I know I am going to get a raw deal today :(

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My to-be-school Vlerick is constantly on my mind these days. It feels like I am infatuated with the school, and I am sure if there was any such thing as love with inanimate objects, then I would have called it the beginning of a love affair. Well, come to think of it, to my mind Vlerick is not at all an inanimate object. However, I don't want to go blah-blah about my school again because that is exactly what I am doing since many days and people around me now grab any nearby object to stuff it either in my mouth or in their ears, whichever is easier. I would just write about my love relationship with Vlerick :)

In February, I first saw its name on the 2008 Financial Times rankings and because it was in Europe, I visited the college website. It was simply love at first sight. The college campus was beautiful and the city even more so. The various stats about the college were very impressive and I knew that we were meant to be together. I had a fair idea that my chances were bleak considering the reputation of Vlerick in Europe. I nevertheless decided to give it a try. It was tough, the application, the essays et all, but the path of true love is never easy. I submitted the application and waited for some days with bated breath (just figuratively), praying throughout and asking my friends to pray for me. I think that Gods were kind and I came to know my results in 6 days flat. I am the only person out of those admitted who had the results in that unbelievably short duration. For everybody else it took more than 2 weeks. I made it, I have been accepted by my love and I can't wait for our new life together. The latest FT rankings just gave me more reason to rejoice, because Vlerick jumped up by 22 places (now ranks 75 in the world), which makes it the fastest moving-up-the-ladder school. I have to now complete the registration process to legalise our relationship and then Vlerick would be officially mine. We will live together from 1st September.

Give this couple your blessings :D

Alright, so I just demonstrated my insane infatuation but so what!

Fingers Crossed

I am sorry about the sporadic posts, but this was one time of my life when I started hating the activity of writing.

I was applying to a very reputed, very prestigious MBA College in Belgium and as a part of my application had to write '12 essays' to let the admissions committee know more about me. It took me a week to write those essays and to finally hit the submit button on my application and I think that there's nothing left about my life that the adcom won't know now (except my love life). I wrote and re-wrote those essays because I am dying to go to that school, and totally exhausted myself in the process. After doing the final add-a-comma, delete-a-word thing on my essays, I reviewed my application again and to my horror discovered that if I want to apply for a scholarship I have to write another essay building my case. This was new for me; I have applied to 2 colleges so far and at both places all applicants are automatically considered for scholarship. I was not prepared for it and by now harbored a severe contempt for writing essays. I opted, and I still can't believe it, to not apply for the scholarship. I don't know of anyone who does not apply for a scholarship and I think the adcom would think of me as being the richest young female in India, which I am not :-(

Anyway, that was the reason I was not posting on my blog. I wanted a break from writing but it's nowhere to be seen in near future. I have decided to apply to another college, which is in Spain. Although they ask for only 2 essays, but I have to write nonetheless. Therefore, I gave up trying to avoid writing, and returned to my blog. By the way, I also want to ask all my blogdosts, whoever would read this post, to pray for me to get an offer from the B-School in Belgium. I am already so much in love with the school, despite its weird name, Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management. I told you it's a weird name. However, it is the IIM-A of Belgium, being among the top 100 MBA colleges in the world, with a 1-year MBA that includes a residential program of some weeks at another reputed school in China :-). The only problem is that the average student at Vlerick is almost 30 years old and has 5 years of work-experience. I am counting only on my GMAT score, my diverse profile and my gender to make it to the school, yeah; they try to maintain a female strength of 40% in their very small class of 65 students from around 30 countries. I could go on and on about the positives and I have not even started talking about how good a place Belgium is, with the world's biggest brewery (InBev) having it's headquarters there :-)
Please Please Please pray for me to make it. I am applying to other European colleges too but Vlerick is the place where I really want to go. After writing those 12 essays and taking 8 days to submit my application, I am obsessed with Vlerick. My family silently bears with me while I blabber non-stop about what a certain Indian alumni had to say about Vlerick, what the Director of the Vlerick MBA said to me when I met him while he was in Delhi, what I wrote in my essays and blah blah blah. I would be heartbroken if I don't make it, even though I am very late in applying and I am stretching my chances too far at such a reputed college. But I don't care how far I am stretching my chances, I just want to go there.
Keep watching this space for updates on whether I made it or not :-)

Delhi Bomb Blasts

I was out with my friends at the Great India Place mall in Noida yesterday and got a call from my Mom towards late evening. She was somewhat panicky and asked me to get back home early as there had been a bomb blast somewhere in Karol Bagh. Now my sister lives in Karol Bagh and we could not talk to her or her husband because the networks were all congested. Boy, was it a panicky situation while I frantically tried to connect with my sister! I finally talked with her and she said all was fine but she too had not been able to talk with Jiju who being a doc was in hospital. With some relief I resumed shopping with my friends when a shop attendant informed us that their had been bomb blasts in Greater Kailash too. Shit!!! What was happening!! I now tried calling my Dad who was coming home from airport.
My friends and I decided to return back to our homes but when we drove out of the parking, it seemed as if we would never get home. All roads were blocked due to traffic congestion. I suppose everybody was trying to rush back home as soon as possible. While stuck in traffic, I got a call again from Mom. There had been 5 blasts in all, including one in the Central Park at Connaught Place. I closed my eyes, and just wished to be back home quickly. I looked at the posh market around me and thought of the possibility of a bomb blast there. I tried to clear my head of the unpleasant thoughts as I started receiving calls from many relatives in other cities, who wanted to know whether we were all fine.
I reached home at 8, my Dad had reached only 10 minutes back. So, we were all at home, safe but shaken. The only person with whom nobody had been able to connect was my sister's husband, my jiju, who was at the hospital. However, he probably realised that everyone at home must be trying his number, so he messaged us all that he was really busy because of the blast victims at his hospital. When he came back home today he told us that 2 people were brought dead and the others were badly injured. Both the men who were brought dead were young guys, one of whom had a girlfriend who had many injuries. Poor girl did not even know that his boyfriend was dead. Some victims were in a very critical state with ugly injuries. Jiju had blood stains over his clothes and even being a doctor he said he was feeling really sick after seeing such injuries.
Since yesterday, all news channels are showing the same news about the blasts. What the hell is wrong with these people who are behind the blasts? Do they really think that they are serving God or some part of humanity with their work? It is just impossible to imagine that they take the name of God to justify their heinous deeds. Please, say whatever you may but don't say that you do this in the name of God.