Thursday, November 06, 2008

Anatomy of a B school Class

Though I can endlessly talk about how is life at MICA ( I do promise to dedicate a post to that, now that I have actually pulled myself to writing a post), beyond the hallowed portals of any good school and the rosy picture all aspirants create in their heads, lies a harsh reality which mere mortals like me have to confront on a daily basis. A picture which has all the emotions of a bollywood potboiler power packed in a matter of 90 minutes. Its the apparently exciting portrait of a regular class, which is supposed to be an event where work experience is leveraged in class participation, insights are obtained in moments of truth and collective learning is a way of life. Fortunately, at MICA most of the classes are somewhere near to what I just described. Fortunately( which gives me an opportunity to break my blog coma), some are not. I would thus like to bring to you some startling findings in light of my recent experiences and complex analysis of my study. ( I am getting better at pffaf!)

Lets switch from my gyaan to our lovely bodies. The human body has a few organs like the appendix. These apparently serve no purpose. But they still have the ability to cause immense pain and suffering. A boring class is just like the appendix. The purpose of its existence is yet to be fathomed by innocent and naive students like us. Maybe its a part of some larger order of things , maybe it is a part of the grand design. As of now, it just gives me an opportunity to wonder as to why we are trying to relive Auswitch.

The Boring Class can be broken down into its respective organs, namely

1. The Brain: Considered the most vital organ for meaningful existence, the faculty assumes the position of the brain, who has suffered from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, selective amnesia etc, and yet considers himself indispensable for the ideological upliftment of half confused half dazed bunch of pseudo intellectual morons, who are wondering where did Herbert Spencer go wrong with Survival of the fittest theory?

2. The Heart: The Subject. Which we are subjected to and later subjugated to. Its just a humongous cute kid who just ends up being caught in the wrong body. It tries pumping sense into the brain, knowing very well that its all it can do. But then , the heart has reasons reason knows nothing of.

3. The Rest of the Body: Obviously, the aforesaid morons. I wont go into vivid descriptions about these mutated earthlings. But each of us can assume specific parts, as I shall deliberate later

Brace yourself, the giant monster of this body is up. 9:00 am

The brain decides that it his noble duty to ensure that the body parts function effectively. So it starts off its discourse. Now, as they say, do baatein ho sakti hain.

Baat 1

Its a monologue. The supreme being has decided that today is an extremely important topic and discussions may lead us to a bottomless pit of uninformed opinions and half baked concepts. The faculty exercises , what I call the " Learned mans burden" and goes on to enlighten our tottered souls with pearls of his wisdom. Meanwhile, the heart is about to go into cardiac arrest. The body parts have lost all sense of what is happening around them, and thus they speak ( equivalent to passing notes in class)

I feel like a soldier who is in the line of fire, the first regiment to face the enemy attack, to face the first bullets.

This man is the personification of the word ennui. His voice lulls me into a sense of absurdity and non sensibility and I write statements like these

My chief organ - the brain is reorganising itself if he goes on another 5 minutes talking about organisational restructuring

How would you like to die !

He is going to break the record for the longest pauses between sentences.

The last nail in the coffin! All I wanted was diagrammatic gas

This is a dark, dark world we live in. We have all been caught for thought crime and this is our punishment.

And then, when it becomes too much to bear

The Lord compels me to call upon the pro literate to punish the sinner, the wicked man, the child of Satan, because of whom, the hour of doom is upon us. Arise, awake and stop not until the death of our minds is bereaved

With all this and everything else, the poor student suffers from the Buttered CAT paradox. Most of you will not click on an embedded link, let me provide an explanation.

The Buttered Cat paradox is combination of two adages:

  • Cat always land on their feet.
  • Buttered toast always falls on the buttered side down

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.

As the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state of hovering a short distance from the ground while rotating at high speed as both the buttered side of the toast and the cat’s feet attempt to land on the ground.

The Poor Student Paradox ( by yours truly)

  • You will feel sleepy in a horrendously boring class
  • The faculty will only catch you sleeping amongst all others
The poor student is forever stuck between falling asleep, thus saving him from the agony of seeing his IQ getting sucked up slowly and being awake so that he has the most important commodity in a b school: Attendance. He thus goes into an infinite loop of battling his own thoughts.

Somewhere in between the class ends. Amen

If you still remembered that there is a Baat 2, hope that I post again.

8 comments:

GB said...

All this in class dada ?? not bad not bad at all :) thats what i call gainful useof time.. cheers

Anirudh Dastidar said...

Buttered Cat Paradox, ROTFLMAO!! :D

Welcome back to the world where we mortal (read friends) can read bout ur whereabouts and howabouts.

Neha said...

hey...sometimes you must write about the presentation season as well!! (I heard of quite a few instances that happened today) :P
well put btw!

Anonymous said...

hey too good... hope u will kp on updating it wit more anecdotes..we hv a long way to go..its jus term2 ;)

Utsav Mamoria said...

@ Grrr
You are referring to the Law of useful class time. I shall throw light on that too !

@Anirudh

Dasti, I know you would always appreciate random shit like this. I am trying to find my virtual footprints again on this blog. keep visiting

@NehaG

@MICA, there is never a dearth of things to write about. Oh the joys of being a MICAn

@Saeka

You make MICA actually sound like Austwich :P

Yes more from me soon ! Sigh

Akshaya said...

Hahhaa! Your poor student paradox is very nice. I am impressed :P

Utsav Mamoria said...

@Akshaya

*takes a bow*

The law is a result of keen observation and unimaginable suffering on my part. I also draw inspiration from my fellow sufferers.And I know you have been a victim more than once :P

Kasturi Shinde said...

Hey choool post..great analogy..appendix haan :) :)
You've made boring class so interesting to read
I liked your style :)
\\Somewhere in between the class ends. Amen ROFLLL