Thursday, November 09, 2006

'Bunker' reminiscences - 1

I have always been a 'bunker'. My mom tells me stories about how as a kid (i am talking about the KGs here), i used to run back home for lunch and have a peaceful siesta for the rest of the afternoon while the school carried on.

Over time, all addictions get worse. Michael jackson wouldnt stop fondling little boys, the bush family wouldnt stop obsessing with iraq, the indian politicians couldnt stop being corrupt and i continued bunking. However with age comes more challenges. School provided quite a few of them. If there was one thing my school management did, it was to cook up elaborate disincentives to bunking classes like flogging and electric treatment. Kidding! But to put it in any investor's words "It was a highly skewed risk-return structure". Thankfully, when it comes to bunking classes i am a risk lover. I had to bunk. It was an addiction. I made it through school with sufficient number of bunks (not at will though) to keep me going. Of course, my as-of-yet-unmeasured-but-exceptionally-high IQ helped me cook up a plethora of valid excuses like an unbelievable headache that showed all indications of a potentially life killing virus, an exam the day after which i was sure to fail and my career doomed for ever if did not have a day off or a heavy downpour which i was sure was an acid rain (after i learnt it in social science class) that could potentially kill me. And it didnt help my ego one bit as i rattled off excuses to convince my gullible mom into letting me stay at home and then conjuring much more valid excuses for my school principal. On hindsight, its apparent that although she saw through my excuses she just let me have my fun.

And then there were those special days - sports days, school days, independence days. If there is one thing i am the most thankful to god, it was my small, thin frame back in those days. I could scale and slip through the small gaps in fences, scale up walls and generally remain anonymous and merge with the sourroundings with elan. Any commando would be proud of me. As a sorry school parade marched in the burning sun with its off beat trumpet and weak drumming, i would be busy compromising the facility, wriggling my way through one small opening out of the school ground. If ever there was a character narrating my life as Red does in Shawshank redemption, he would have a climax every so often. I was a free men at so many times a year as i proudly walked away from the school grounds thinking 'What now?'

College was a turning point in my bunking career. For once, i was in total control. No more stupid excuses. But with control came responsibility. You see, although i am addicted to bunking, i never let it screw up anything for me. College managements are better at laying down your disincentives. You can bunk 25% of the classes, not more, they said. Now i had to set up elaborate bunk management policies to control and allocate bunks through the calender year. Now, not only did i have to control the allocation across time but i also had to have buffers for contingencies like when a section of the class decides to bunk and go for movies. Solid planning was called for. It was good but not very exciting.

The real excitement started when i joined the 'Marks and Spencer' account in Cognizant Technology Solutions....


...to be continued

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice term 'bunk management policy' :) ... reminds me of the good fun i had during college and at cts, chn... bunking at onsite is more challenging tho.. have managed to bunk only twice here..let me know if u get bright innovative ideas..and fyi we never get acid rain here.. so get me more believable ideas :) ..

Tyagarajan S said...

@priya:- will write a complete thesis on this soon...hopefully will help u...that acid rain part was an intended sarcasm....