Jaggu's and Kal's juice centre

Jaggu and gang. Former Volleyball champs

Kailash and his fruits at his outlet

These places has its own history. When we came in to GIM in 2006, there was no food served at Jaggu's then and the place was simply used for packaged foods like wafers, kurkure, etc, beverages like tea, coffee and cold drinks and ice creams.
We also used to purchase our stationary items from there. Phone recharge was also one amenity available there. Food sucked at Joe's and hence we used to either eat at Gene's or go out or selectively eat at Joe's.

Kal's juice center was crowded at specific intervals like just before 8:30 or 9 am classes, breaks in between 2 consequtive lectures, post lunch or post dinner, etc. Some ppl used to have their lunch in the form of fruit plate.

Both Kailash and Jaggu provided taxi services to the students (and one or two fac members) which used to be quite a respite to all us as both Madgaon station and Dabolim Airport were like 45 min to 1.5 hours of journey. A phone call was enough to take care of the logistics.

We became a lot closer to Jaggu especially after he got the approval to prepare Paratha's and Maggi and bread-omlette and curry-rice and other "non-meal" items. Our going out to dine was drastically reduced especially in 4th and 5th terms when the elective selectively were ripping our asses apart.

Turn wise mktg guys, fin guys and HR guys had to continuously attend anywhere between 3 to 6 lectures per day . And we used to have small breaks in between 2 lectures of 10 to 15 min. Both Jaggu and Kailash (and Casa....post on which is coming soon) gave us the necessary break.

The food item was just a tool to ooze off our mental fatigue which was done usually by Bakar sessions either with a smoke or just like that.

Parathas for lunch with a coke and Rajma or curry chawal for dinner followed by coffee or ice cream was a routine thing. Capstone, MI, Pricing, voleyball, cricket, football, movies, fac members, juniors, leg pulling of fellow batchmates, companies, career.

Everything was discussed on those stairs. It was open forum where everyone participated (while on their way to Jaggu's) and gave their opinions.
An example:
We were having dinner and while having dinner, we were trying to prove why Anant Sandhu is called a poojari or a sethbaaj!! After at least 3 to 4 rounds of rigorous discussions, which involved not less than 10 to 12 ppl, we could convincingly prove that Anant Sandhu is a sethbaaj and he is a poojari!!

All of these are not coming back to us. We might come back to them once every year for a day or 2 to relive these moments. But for the meantime, we don't have those parathas or chai and above all those bakar sessions.

Blog Community

The blogs which have been launched by our batchmates so far are as follows:

1) http://peace-memories.blogspot.com/
(Tapan)

2) http://eplanalysis.blogspot.com/
(Ashish Bardapurkar)

3) http://askdpankazz.blogspot.com/
(Pankazzz)

4) http://csthinks.wordpress.com/
(CS)

5) http://daysofhourlives.blogspot.com/
(Ishaan)

6) http://vivekspeakz.blogspot.com/
(Vivek)

7) http://iplbydruid.blogspot.com/
(Sundaram)

Football memories

Did he score any goal? Maybe that's why that pose?


How did Falcons score that goal is still a mystery. But they scored it against Nanak!!


She doesn't have anything to do with the match!! That's P.An for u!!



The post-match analysis at Casa. Lemon Soda and Maggi and Kadak cha and etc.


The champs of 2008!

aaaa and lalala

I don't exactly remember which class in the very first term of our PGP1 days was it, when I was given this "aaaa" tag. The man behind this hugely famous tag is none other than hamaara neta Vaibhav Rampuria. I still can't figure out why did he do it. But it made me known as aaaa or made aaaaa know as Tapan.

I am still called Tapaaaan or simply "aaaaa" or "lalala"

The history of its origin goes back to the CP days of PGP1 in the first term when all were unusually active in class and hardly 3 to 5 ppl slept in the class. Courses like Marketing 1 and OSD drove enthu CPs whereas courses like FAM and Micro Eco drove forced CPs.

Irrespective of the course, my style of delivering a CP was unique. This unique style was advertised in a big way!! And following are the examples of how it was advertised and my aaaa (which is just a natural pause either between sentences or words) was made famous:

My attendance was never in the form yes sir/ma'am, but a loud "aaaa" from the crowd.

Whenever a fac asked me about my views, then it was preceded by an aaaa from the crowd

I actually was asked to sing a song "Kaun hai jo...." which had an aaaa in every line of its mukhdaa.....man that was something i must say.

In Mumbai, during our summers and in the first Mumbai meet, i was actually addressed as aaaa at CCD, Carter rd....thanks to Batta.

the first line in the Yearbook starts with a long aaaa!!! and my middle name in the year book is lalala.

GBMs, hi/hellos, Counter-strike, bakar sessions at Jaggu's and innumerable instances when this aaaa and lalala were used.

lalala has its own history.

I never played CS in the first year. I somehow managed to get a hand on it during the summer break where i used to stay in Wilson, Chowpati. I and Alton used to compete on our own machines as to who can kill the max terrorists at the same difficulty level and with the same no. of bots.

He never kept a name and i kept lalala.....maybe because of the music played in the room and i humming the tone. I never changed the name (and continued using it till the last time i played CS) and loved the response when my CS friends found out that lalala was me !!!

I never felt bad about it. In fact, marketing says, brands are recalled best by their distinctive characteristics which we imprint in our minds.

aaaa and lalala were just ways ppl used to recognize and turn around and look at me. There was an element of ridicule which initially was intended for. But eventually, these were just names (brands !!) which everyone used in those 2 lovely years to address me.

And everyone is definitely gonna remember these names in many years to come.

I want them to remember me as these names.

Be Together

I was thinking of continuing to write my blog the way i had planned earlier. But i don't think this plan is allowing me to share what i really have been longing for.

This includes my 2 absolutely fabulous years at GIM, my joinig HUL, my birthday get together recently held at Mumbai (where i almost got drowned!!) and many more. This would at least give me a kick to restart my blog ;)

So, i start with the latest. My birthday get-together. This day clearly is one of my most memorable days ever. To show their benign presence on this day were my closest of buddies. It was a great feeling when 21 ppl got together on an eve which ended the next day at 6 am!!

The excuse was to be there on my birthday; but the intention was to meet those ppl with whom there was a strong bondage. This bondage was an outcome of the 2 lovely years we spent at GIM. This bondage was just a reflection of the kind of proximity we demonstrated being the batch of 2008.

Why would one spent 6 grand and come from Delhi to Mumbai to just get together? Why would one fight with his folks to come from Nagpur in a train with his ticket not confirmed and bribe the TTC for just some sleep? All this for a get together? Why would one spend 5 grand and come from Hyderabad just because it is friend's birthday? And why would one come to Mumbai from Aurangabad to watch a Chelsea-Bolton Wanderers match in a place which just has an ambience to boast but no space to accomodate all their ardent fans?

All these ppl didn't turn up to be there just for my birthday. All these ppl turned up because they "really wanted" to be with their friends. Friends mean a lot to these ppl. Friends mean a lot to me. And this is why our batch is so special. We just need an excuse to be together.

We may live different lives in different circumstances. But when we get together, we live and talk and breathe the way we used to in GIM. Ppl who claim they have stopped drinking, all of a sudden order pitchers of beer!! We used to goto Aces in Goa, and we now goto Monde or SBX or even Gokul in Colaba!!

These things are never gonna change. We still would keep getting together, every now and then, and would keep enjoying every moment of those get togethers!