Sleeper Hits

A fourteen hour train journey in a sleeper coach in India is probably more entertaining than the entire LOTR trilogy (and is only half as long) provided you meet some fascinating people. Here are some people who make the hassles of travelling non-AC, totally worth it.


Seven Fascinating People you meet on a train!


1. The Vuvuzelas: They are usually old. When you first see them, you pity them for having to travel alone at that age, however soon you realise that their family is in the adjoining compartment. They are alone because they are strategically planted in your compartment. They would have a constant frown on their face which would not change even for the small kid who regularly brings them something to eat from the next compartment. Every few minutes you see them move their thigh a bit, make a thunderous vuvuzela sound and straighten up without altering their frown by a micrometer. They even reply to your questions (Could I switch on the fan?) with the vuvuzela sound!


2. The Statistician Patriots: They will convince you with their 3 hour long monologue, that corruption is the single greatest challenge that this country faces. They would furnish the latest (generated 7 seconds ago) statistics about people and their behaviour and propose strategies to change this country by 90% (whatever that means). When the TTE (train ticket examiner) arrives, they take less than 7 seconds to slip him a 100 rupee note to speed up the seat allocation process by 200%. “It cost me 50% more last time!” They’ll tell you later with a huge grin.


3. Gold-Fingers: They would probably be sitting next to you. They have a mutant nail on their little finger (could be an inch long). The nail would keep probing every orifice on and around their face looking for gold. However after passionate searching, once they have found the gold, they just flick it away with the indifference of a monk towards treasure. Your journey suddenly becomes exciting, trying to keep yourself away from the projectile of the relinquished riches. You mind also stays busy trying to keep the gold-finger away from your body.


4. Chhota Kotler: He’s young, about 25, a little naive and has just started a new business of making stuffed toys. He is carrying pictures of his products and is trying to show them off to everyone in compartment, the neighbouring compartment and to the TTE. Everyone patronizes him. The statistician patriot gives him some advice to reduce the costs by 50%. The gold-finger runs his prized asset all over the pictures before handing them to you. Even the vuvuzela chips in by trying to give a squeaky sound effect to the picture of a stuffed squirrel that you are watching.


5. The Lady Boys: Even the strongest dudes shudder on hearing the sharp claps marking the arrival of the lady boys. They extort you and there is nothing you can do about it. Your biceps and your ‘contacts’ are rendered useless once they start calling you ‘mere SAROOKH’ and blow kisses at you. You simply pay up. Sometimes you may get flattered when they call you “Aamir Khan” and decide to give them 10 bucks extra, but you tend to change that decision a second later when you hear them call Mr. vuvuzela, “Hrithik!”. Nothing scares them except perhaps Chhota Kotler who tries to make them see his stuffed-toy-pictures!


6. The Snipers: They never sit by the window. Their mouths are so full that when they talk, all you hear is gurgling. After continuing in gurglish for a few minutes they finally decide to give their drowning tongue some space by leaning over your shoulder and letting out spittle jet with the accuracy of an archer fish, right out of the window. From about 2 feet away they manage to empty their mouth without spilling a droplet on the window bars or your shirt. It’s an act that deserves a standing ovation. Better entertainment than Ripley’s!


7. The Wandering Targets: They show up at 4 am with their stereophonic chants of ‘CHAI CHAI’ and collect more abuses than orders. Their true value however lies in the reactions that they invoke. The vuvuzela greets them in his signature fashion. The statistician patriot sleepily mumbles a strategy to reduce the Chaiwallah’s kin by 90%. The gold-finger, disturbed by the commotion, tries to find comfort by setting his wild animal free and Chhota Kotler wakes up with a start and rummages through his bag to find the pictures before the Chaiwallah disappears!

Research This!!!

About two months into the MBA program, I have finally completed my research about the origins of management and related subjects! Intensive research (based on primary and secondary data) has revealed to me the source and the underlying philosophy behind management subjects. Here is my analysis for you all (before I send it to the Harvard Business Review for publishing).


Seven Facts about Management, Uncovered!

1. In 1945 when the Nazi regime was about to come to an end, a decision was taken by the Nazis to keep their propaganda alive in the form of Management Education. Management education was designed by them to promote hatred. “With every lecture they should hate their teachers, with every assignment they should hate their group mates, and with every result declaration they should hate themselves!” These were the words of the Fuehrer himself. The underlying mission was to create an army of hateful drones to massacre all art and creativity on the planet. Their legacy lives on.


2. In 1963 a bunch of nerds with zero social acceptance, decided to become ‘cool’ by developing an alien language. However when development began, they realised that none of them had an ounce of creativity in them to carry out such a feat. They therefore decided to incorporate what they understood rather well, into the language: numbers! The resulting ‘alien language with numbers’ became an instant hit all across the world and is now globally recognized as ‘Finance’.


3. In 1965 an Arab-American boy who was a descendent of a long line of Persian Alchemists from the medieval age, was challenged by his American friends to bring them a fragment of the ‘Philosopher’s stone’. They threw cow excreta at him and asked him to make gold out of it. Enraged, the boy returned to his motherland to find the stone. Within two years the boy returned to America with the stone which could convert bullshit into gold. However, to maintain anonymity and for his own safety he renamed the stone as ‘Marketing’.


4. The average number of brain cells used by a management student during a lecture is 35. This number is slightly higher than the number of brain cells used by a coma patient in a minute. This is also 2 more than the number of members of All India Tusshar Kapoor Fan Club.


5. ‘Deception 101’ is a subject secretly taught to all management faculties as an integral part of their job training. “The idea is to see how well the students deal with deception” A renowned education expert says. “The faculty would ask the students not to cram and then judge them only on cramming skills. The students would be asked not to attend the lectures if they aren’t interested, but if they skip a lecture they are ******! It’s a part of their training for the corporate world.”


6. Around 1990s Neo Nazi organizations over the world realised that in spite of the effectiveness of the Nazi propaganda, people still appeared to be satisfied with work. Detailed marketing research revealed that this was due to ‘Hope’ that people had. In order to make their Pandora’s box full proof by destroying all hope, they created a sophisticated hope squishing instrument called ‘Human Resources  Management’


7. The greatest management research company in the world is ‘The Carlsberg Group’ which empowers and enables young and inexperienced researchers like yours truly to accomplish great tasks of uncovering some of the deadliest secrets in history.