Caveat

Tables have turned. Volunteers become job seekers and juniors become volunteers.
J – Teams run the show. Madman retires and a new MadTeam takes over.

Rahul Pillai turns cynical about volunteering for the CRPs. Is he planning to go on a holiday during the CRPs???

Madman gives us insights about the crucial month of December and what it has in store for us.

We have a new cartoonist Vijay Thomas. Learn to speak the new language that he teaches.

What happens when a Mumbaiite goes to Chennai? Harshal Modi’s Travelogue.

Richa suddenly finds SIBM a new place after her supposedly terrific vacation. Does she share a common feeling??? Check it out.

Don’t know how better it can get but take a look at the scenic lover in Vijay Chandrasekhar. Its beautiful…

~Praveen

Chopsuey - Rahul Pillai

Winter months have perhaps never been so heated up before, especially for the SIBM batch of 2005-07. Roughly a month post Summers’, SIBM prepares to take on yet another battle, this time, however of a much larger magnitude.

CRP returns, and this time with a bang. On an all time high, we could this year witness unbelievable placements on campus. No matter what, the inevitable is around the corner.

And behold!! Guess what is going on in the minds of the junior batch at present???

Here they go:

“Wow!! CRPs starting??? So how many days’ holidays do we have?? We need to start booking tickets back home.”

Another one….. “Last week of December and first week of January for CRPs??? That’s great!! Let’s plan our New Year bash at Goa na!!!”

I don’t know whether these statements run in tone with your opinion or not, but it definitely is a slap on the face of gratitude. Gratitude to all those whom we owe our summers.

We got placed for Summers…all right!!

But was it not the result of selfless contribution and dedication on behalf of the senior batch. It was the result of volunteering of those people who abandoned their sleep, comfort and at times even food to get us placed.

And here we are sitting safely in our classrooms, looking for CRPs to begin so that we can rush home.

Are we going to be a letdown to the legacy of an institute that carries itself on the shoulders of its students….of an institute that believes in its students and nobody else on the surface of this earth?

Let us for once seek a change…let us for once step forward. For once do something to make us proud of ourselves. As for the seniors, a legacy waits knocking at the door. It’s all a matter of reaching out for it.

You know YOU CAN DO IT.

We know YOU CAN DO IT.

So JUST DO IT.

And make us proud. Mad Mag is there for you.

~Rahul Pillai

Running in circles - Aditya

The circle has finally closed and I have been relegated to the post of contributor. No more worrying about whether this person is going to write, if that person is going to cartoon and if I need to break my head and Anugya’s Daniel's and Majhi's the night before the release asking them to come up with the good for the next day.

With the placements coming on campus, there is a new feeling in college. People have a spring in their steps, a new sparkle in their eyes as they being to dust books that they have not touched in the last three semesters.

Summer projects long forgotten are treated as a new chapter to the New Testament, people trying to make sense of things that they will not have done if they are asked to do it all over again.

The strange thing is that with all the codes being thrown up, L and I and AA, with all the dreams that people harbor, there have been times that I wish that this will get done and over with. I am not saying that this is not personally important, this is one of the decisions that are going to change my life, but the hype and the tension that one is put through, I am not too sure that I will be sane at the end of it.

With the MadMagress (Nisha) coming down to campus for Convocation, I guess that it will be the first meeting between her and the people that run the show now. Hope that she thinks that they are good enough and they think that she is not over hyped.

Over all this is going to be one rocking month and I wish all my class mates that they are placed where they dream and wish the PAT that they have the least trouble possible.

~Aditya

The new language - Vijay Thomas

Back to the grind - Richa

Phones ringing, projects on the anvil, assignments to be completed, tasks from council, oh no…the grind has begun again. The vacations, the peace just got over. The moments of peace when we stood in front of the vast expanse of sea and felt the tranquility in its turbulent waves, the moments when we drifted off to sleep with no deadlines to meet the next day, the complete satiation of the mum ka khana, the aimless loafing around in the mohalla in the evening….how fast time flies…

NOW it is back to Apte assignments, PR campaigns, presentations, projects, deadlines, tasks, work plans blah blah...
College is certainly buzzing with activity now, with the mantle of the S-teams handing it over to the J-teams, Earnest and emotional exhortations for joining the specialization clubs, volunteering for CRPs, volunteering for Transcend, volunteering for admissions… Never mind the fact that we didn’t shift to Lavale as promised or that we didn’t get the books that we don’t really study from, or that we are shooed out of college after 9, we certainly are still learning to work under a lot constraints!

Oh Yes, Life is rocking again at SIBM.

So guys, gear up for another happening semester and get up and get involved in all that there is.

~Richa

Photon Factory - Vijay Chandrasekhar

A cityslicker’s tryst with a new city...- Harshal Modi

My, my. What a way to enter Chennai. My first visit to the city. I don’t know a word of the local language, the local English undecipherable... and Karthick’s scooter, carrying the both of us, my two bags, a roll of banners, and a backpack decides to stop in the middle of the road. A roadside mechanic soon parts us with some of our (parents’) monies to get us back on track.

Ok... why is Madmag, about life@SIBM, being addled upon about Chennai? Well, you see, I was in Chennai the whole of last week for ‘Coffee with SIBM’, an event for MBA aspirants wanting to join SIBM. So instead of reading about the first week of the second semester, read on about my first visit to the south of India (Actually, the first visit outside this state after the age of 18, and the fourth ever... I haven’t travelled too much)

The Bay of Bengal from Besant Nagar Beach is not too different from the Arabian sea from Juhu Chowpatti. Except that, the water is purer, deeper, bluer, the beaches sandier, longer. There’s the same flotsam, the same beach food, the same couples, the same merry-go-rounds, the same balloon targets. But the scars of the tsunami 23 months ago still remain, in the broken concrete structures around the beach.

Chennai worships its leaders & film stars. You find them everywhere. On posters, walls, billboards, statues (yes!) and so on. There is a tendency to photograph every leader, (and every leader’s to get photographed). Many such photographs put up, of (male) leaders, in the pose where the chin rests on the hand. Will someone tell them that it’s a schoolgirl’s pose, way past its expiry date?

The roads are WIDE. At least for a Mumbaiite it is. And how can the Chennai police vehicles look more like out of a Hollywood film? I mean, C segment vehicles, with blue & red lights on top! Just like in the English films. How can they afford them? And we at Mumbai are stuck with Jeeps and Gypsies, and the latest additions being the Qualises... And first aid boxes on every traffic junction! How? Don’t they get pilfered daily?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that every other scooter in the city is a Scooty (Pep, Pep+, ES... whatever make, but a Scooty). Now, this is a bike I believed was for girls because it is tiny. When I drive it, forget a pillion rider, there’s no space for my backpack! It hangs behind the scooter(-ette, actually) the same way as it would had I been the pillion rider. Yet, I find men and women alike riding it with abandon. How can they fit??

Hoping to visit the city again soon…..
~Grondmaster.