Hey guys,

I wrote this in the break between two PPTs. Life as such revolves around these talks, blanks and deadlines. I apologize for the delay in publication. Mad Mag has been passed on to a team of juniors. Being non-council (and of course non-academic), I was denied the joy of interviewing and ragging a few juniors. If given a chance, I would asked have asked questions on the Brand Equity of Mad Mag, the positioning strategy and the target audience!!

This issue revolves around CRP. Somehow, CRP is an eye-opener. It is a time when all of us wake up from our reverie to face the truth of the world. Sakshi’s article on her experiments with truth fits the theme of our issue. Also Phi has done it once again from the Fourth Dimension. The mute observer is at his comic best as always. The cleaning crew seems to have spent more time cleaning themselves than cleaning the college. At least they say that they had fun and that is all that matters!!!

Mad Mag is the pioneer to every other informal activity in SIBM. We never had to resort to gossip to hit the magic 3-digit number on our hit counter. We are planning to bring out ‘Reminiscences’, an account of the life we had led in SIBM in 2005. For more information, please mail me in person. 

For junta interested in our organizational structure, I remain the editor till March. Anush will continue to pitch in with his travelogues till then. Hope you guys keep clicking the link like you do every month.

All the best to the new team. To the seniors, Let’s face the truth.

~Nisha

The Mute Observer.

PLACEMENTS, FULL SWING - with apologies to Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits (Sing to the tune of Sultans of Swing)

Vishwabhavan hall is dark
Corporates enter the car park but meantime
South of NCC you stop and you hold everything
A cold wind is blowing, its placement time
You feel alright til you hear that warning bell ring

You step inside and you see all familiar faces
Coming in is the batch where all the gyan went down
Too much competition too many other places
But not a single friendly sound
No wise ass comments, no word from class clowns

You check out HR boys, don't know their IR laws
They're only reading up not mugging or anything
And to pray real hard is all they can afford
As they step into that dreaded room and say their thing

Lateral Girl doesn't mind if she doesn't make the scene
Old job to fall back on she's doing alright
She's been shooting jargon, like anything
Saving it up for this fateful night
With the placements, with the placements, full swing

And a crowd of young studs they're fooling around in the lobby now
Shaved and dressed in their best blue blazers and their polished soles
They don't give a damn about PPTs or salary bands
They've all got their PPO
And they've worn too much deo

And then the volunteer he steps right up to the microphone
And he glares as someones cellphone rings
The three of you wait, the rest can go home
And he reminds them all of one more thing
These are the placements, we're having placements full swing

Mine

do you see in to my depths
oh dear now that you know me?
words gone unsaid,
thoughts gone unheard.
clipped the wings of the bird
e'en before it could take flight,
never gave the truth a chance
even if it was right.
million times you have said
things i thought insane.
thousand times i had to agree,
feelings of sanity i hid.
now that i am free my dear
from the bonds that held me,
free to roam the skies,
to speak what is in my mind.
do i feel the happiness
that is rightfully mine
for which a price i had to pay,
the cost being my sanity?
shall never trade the thoughts i have
for the feeling that one desires
feelings are transitory dear
my thoughts are not for sale.

~Aditya Rajaraman

My experiments with truth!

Haven’t we always been told that honesty is the best policy? But somehow my experiments with truth have generally ended in explosive disasters.

I think it all began when I was a little girl of three. My baby brother was born and my mother extended him towards me with great motherly pride and affection. I cringed at the sight of a wrinkled mite of flesh and declared that he was positively ugly and that I hated him. My first experiment with truth created a lifelong rift between me and my sibling, all in the name of the father of the nation!!

But slow as I am, I did not learn my lesson then. In grade V we were introduced to the lethal combination of numbers and alphabets called ‘Algebra’. Given the propensity of my limbs going numb and my mind becoming hazy at the mere sight of mathematical problems, there was no reasonable chance of my passing an Algebra exam without the assistance of some brighter buddies. But stung by the serpent of honesty I then looked upon this innocuous assistance as ‘CHEATING’ and refused to resort to it. The result…a red mark in the report card and lots of melodramatic scenes at home.


Talking of drama… I used to be very good friends with this guy who was an amazing actor; but had to sacrifice that friendship on the altar of truth. I get exceptionally jittery when friendship starts to flirt with the idea of love. So I decided to end the confusion with one stoke of truth, unfortunately it killed the friendship too. Somehow men are extremely bad at dealing with declined proposals!


While treading the path of truth I have somehow ended up in the biggest illusion of my life… this whole MBA experience. I mean exactly where I am going now, in search of what truth? Is it the glint of money which is supposed to come with an MBA degree? Is it pursuit of knowledge and self improvement? Or is it just another truth of life, that for most things we do there is no true reason?

So for all disenchanted souls it is time to set out on the only meaningful quest, the quest for truth beyond petty ideas of self-righteousness.
Sakshi Dewan

News from the Fourth Dimension

The Rule of Four – Ian Caldwell

I read this particular book (it is along ‘The Da Vinci Code’ lines) in the first semester, August 2004 to be exact. So why write the review now? For one, Nisha gave me a deadline that seemed almost impossible to meet given the fact that I’m suffering from a syndrome that most of the wannabe writers complain of, a ‘writer’s block’. So, I decided to move away from the verbal accolades that I’ve been showering the book for the past twelve months to something more concrete. The second one, and more important, I still can’t get over it.

The words stay with you and haunt you once you’ve finished reading it. The ideas become a part of your daily existence, goading you deeper and deeper into the recesses of the paragraphs, making you search for the sentences that you missed the last time you read it, a particular string of words that would answer the latest question that life has posed to you.



The book is about the obsession of one man with a book (sounds vaguely familiar) called Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (literally translated as ‘the story of Poliphili falling in love in his dreams’) and the impact of this obsession on his life and the life of three of his friends (all four studying in Princeton). The author takes the reader on a virtual rollercoaster ride through the lives of the main protagonist, his past, present and future melting into nothingness in utter devotion to the love of his life, the book in question.



Trust me, when I say that the book is not for the faint hearted. It pushes you away, and then draws you near, makes you laugh, makes you cry: the ultimate seductress. If you seek instant gratification that so many of the present bestsellers offer, this book might not be your calling.



‘No matter how fast you go, you’re still falling like a rock. It makes you wonder if horizontal motion is an illusion. If we move just to convince ourselves we’re not falling.’ – Ian Caldwell, The Rule of Four.



Phi says: After reading this book, Phi is bereft of words. So no gyan from him this time. But for those who want to be as dumbstruck as I am, mail me at phi.sibm@gmail.com and I’ll send you a pdf copy of the same.

For all you 'Girlz' out there......

Too busy filling CVs, Brushing up your Kotler, Prasanna Chandra or was it The Factories Act????

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