Alliance Memoirs - Pals

In Alliance, I have met and befriended some of the most graceful people of my life. I have my share of some beautiful experiences and some forgettable experiences. Here, I have tried to document some of the people and their personalities. I don’t like the process of describing any person because one can never do justice to it. But I have just budged to the temptation of documenting them!! First I will go with the people of our section and then the other section.

Sharath:

Here comes the first person from our core group. The group consisted of him, me, Yeshwanth, Mario, Rakesh, and sometimes Shiva.

Sharath, arguably one of the most brilliant persons I’d ever had as my classmates. No wonder he was the state topper of the entrance test for MBA!! A very sensitive person, had great attributes to be a team player, fantastic analytical mind, and had modesty.

I had had some beautiful discussions with him. I cherish one discussion in particular which I remember to this day. One day we were discussing about handling anger. I said to him that I never became angry outside though I was inside and I usually vented anger on my parents for no strong reasons. He told never to do that. Anger should be handled then and there itself and never to vent on parents. He made one statement which struck me ‘they deserve the best of you’! He was absolutely right. I valued those words and still I do.

Yeshwant:

This is one of a few people whom I admired for some qualities and disliked for some. Among all my x-classmates who were close to me, if I have seen some fearless people, I can list a few. Yeshwant comes in the forefront. I have seen him giving presentations, addressing people, interacting with people. Absolutely fearless creature he was. That’s an incredible quality in itself and can take you places. He had great ambitions, the quality of taking initiatives and getting things done.

            The thing that I disliked is that the person always indulged in self aggrandizement & carried an aristocratic bearing with him. I think there is nothing wrong in tooting one’s horns but not at the cost of others.

            Whatever! the person never envied his peer’s success, always had that khullam-khulla attitude (open book, he was), always had good intentions for his friends and I consider him to be a very reliable person among many I know.

           

Mario:

Perhaps he is the one liked by all in the class and he’d that charisma, no doubt. I remember some wise man saying that joy is contagious. If you see the guy, you would accept the statement. So cheerful he always was that I rarely saw him being in a somber mood. I loved spontaneity & the sense of humor of the person very much. He had a great passion for music. He was a kind of rock star of our class. It was always fun to discuss music with him

With Mario, aristocratic bearing manifested in a different way: Sarcasm. He was very much identified with it. If someone gets strongly identified with something, the person applies that something for everything. As Abraham Maslow put it ‘he that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail’. He had his own philosophies to live by. Though some of them seemed crazy, he articulated them well. I loved to listen to him.

He’d the wit and many a times I thought ‘you are at a wrong place buddy!’ He could have done much better things if he’d followed his passion, I would think. If he goes in the right direction, he can achieve big. Creativity as far as I think, can’t be taught. This person had it naturally. All that’s needed is nurturing and some fine tuning.

Rakesh:

Too childish at times, he was an artless person. Did not have any artificiality and was good at heart. He did not have any grand philosophies of life, was simple and so obviously cheerful.

Shiva:

A typical product of St. Joseph’s :) His English accent attracted instant notice. Often friendly, sometimes short-tempered, a foodie, a great game buff was shiva. The guy was not bored to play computer games round the clock and there are more stories about his computer and his enormous collection which can’t be discussed here.

He had good knowledge about a few subjects and was creative in creating some puzzles, which I really enjoyed solving.

Divianand and Shivank:

These are the two people who always appeared to be professional in their mannerisms, etiquettes, attire and all other aspects. They looked like the real businessmen and of course Divi was already one. Shivank was the best presenter of our class without any doubt. Divi, though came from a very affluent background and had his own company, he was always grounded, a very good character. As they say simplicity and humility are two hallmarks of greatness!

Prakash, Ramsagar, Arvind, Pavan, Sharan:

All the lords of last bench were extremely fun loving and were there in their own world. Probably this is the group which enjoyed the most in our class.

Vipin, Saurish:
Two close friends who've always been together. Vipin was a surprise package. He surprised all of us when he got placed for the highest package in Volvo !!

Abhinandan, Pavan, Prabhakar, Sanjeev, Venkatesh:

All were from North Karnataka region. One thing I loved in the people of north Karnataka is that the people from there are very sincere and honest. There is very less amount of artificiality in them as far as I have observed.

Shilpa, Mary, Megha:

3 musketeers as we would call them, they always flocked together. Shilpa’s mother tongue was telugu, mary’s tamil and megha’s marathi. Whenever they conversed with each other, they would converse in Kannada. That made me happy.

Manoj:

He’d raw talent, if fine tuned, could be of a great use. He was a voracious reader, probably numero uno in the class.

Nihal, Nidhi, Rajesh:

Another group of 3 always in their own world. I can take a bet that there was no one from our class who had talked as much as nidhi. Too verbose she was.

Srishti, Harsh, Sunitha, Monisha, Namratha:

One more group of our class. (Shivank and Sanjeev included). They mingled with the rest more than any other groups.

I’ve missed the details of two names: Monisha and Namratha. Because as they say, the best always comes in the end!!

Namratha:

One girl with whom anyone could dare to be themselves. Namratha a.k.a Nami was such a sport and a darling of all of us in the college. A fun loving, open minded, care free, a self-confessed nerd she was. One of a few companies I really enjoyed and first girl I’d ever met who liked some extreme rock bands such as cradle of filth or Children of Bodom.

Monisha:

I may become poet if I start describing her beauty!! An epitome of bewitching beauty she was. I’d many crushes in my life. The crush I had with/for her (if I may use the word) was the last and the most beautiful of my academic life. Her name, her beauty and her smile will be inscribed in my memory forever. At the end of the semester, she got engaged. Don’t know how many hearts were broken!

Now, coming to the people from the other section

Most of the people who I had know before entering the college were from the other section. I many times wished I was in the other class.

Amit, Tarun, Rasik, Rahul: These are the ones I’d met on the day one of the counseling. When the class was divided into two sections, all went to the other section and I was disappointed in the beginning.

            A special mention in Rasik: This is a typical Mr. Perfect student, may be the very quality made people dislike him. Because it was not normal to be perfect, needless to say the favorite student for most of the teachers.

Pavan, Abhin, Dilip, Mudassar: I think I got close with these guys mainly because on common specialization and most importantly because of Facebook!!

Soumya, Binitha: Quasi-sisters I fondly called them, they were like Siamese twins always together. Soumya was one of the persons whom I’d met in counseling. She had a bit of traditionalism which I admired. Rare to find these days you know!!

Anoop: This is one of the best presenters that I have ever seen, had a perfect professional look and body language. If Shivank is for B section, Anoop was for A.

Sumanth Reddy: I'd lost touch with Telugu for many years. It was revived by conversing with Reddy. 

Rakesh: Always in his own world, a reserved guy who worried, cared only about career aspects, had a good knowledge about finance, especially stock market.

Hemanth: A cheerful guy who took responsibilities and handled them well, he was a natural team player.

Rhea: This is one person with whom I could discuss Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka or J.krishnamurti. In all my student life I had never found any person with I could share these topics. She was verbose, somewhat touchy at times. I liked talking with her 

These are just brief memories. When I write my autobiography, will go for elaborate descriptions. Anyway, will be having a rough draft in blogspot!! :)