Paanch

Posted courtesy Dipta of the 99 batch

Some names have been changed to protect the identity of the xlers in question

Dusting the cobwebs off my memory, if I go back to those harrowing days of February 1999 when we hurried along the corridors of the men's hostel trying to get placed, the most popular question the recruiters asked seemed to be the one we had least knowledge of but were best prepared for... WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF FIVE YEARS FROM NOW?

In between the urges to be honest ("I don't have a fucking clue..."), flamboyant ("With Catherine Zeta Jones in the Bahamas..."), conservative ("heading a division to achieve its topline and bottomline targets...") and ambitious ("On the other side of the table, buster...") - we managed to croak out some inanities about value-adding to self & organisation, shifting
some paradigm, building customer value and hey! They must have believed us... since Eco Times and BS all gushed that XLRI students were snapped up in two days flat!

But, truthfully, did we really see us five years from now?

Did the bohemian UC see himself still handling bottles?

Did the ladies' man Chat realise that he would end up following the
movements of a married woman early in the morning?

Did M realise that she would eagerly await the arrival of a man at her doorstep every Saturday night?

Before you guys get all envious of these people who appear to be setting the social circuits into a tizzy, let me quickly clarify that their present pre-occupations are much mundane than they sounded... UC's multiple bottles have resulted from feeding his six-month old son at three-hourly intervals (or some such complex algorithm), the married woman in Chat's life (with full knowledge and consent of his wife) is the bai and M's man for the weekend is the friendly neighbourhood DVD wallah...

Interestingly, the ads which the Class of 1999 have completely loved cease to be the Bacardi-Pepsi-Axe varieties... Instead they seem to be completely taken by Asian Paints (at this point, Har Home Loan Kuch Kehta Hain...), Saffola (the one in which the guy goes for a jog and eats bhelpuri instead!) and of course Manhattan Credit Card!

In fact, having been part of several name-deciding focus groups in the recent past, my entire friend circle has agreed unanimously that I am the guy who suggests the name Ghatotkach!

Campari to cholesterol, Insomnia to insurance plans... the Jalebi batch seems to screaming and shouting as it gets dragged into the cohorts of old people.

Earlier, we were mortally scared of pretty girls calling us bhaiyya, now we have to contend with being called uncles... yes, I am told this epidemic is spreading beyond Kaku nowadays.

As I type this, I hear a colleague in the next cubicle, trying to
distinguish between the prices of a Singapore cruise - one option has a room with a balcony, the other is a room with a picture window... Five years ago, I would have got extremely jealous at the good fortune of this guy. But now, I have the knowldge and maturity to know that it cannot be for himself but for the distributors who have won the Saffola contest in Quarter II...

May God give us the wisdom to see yourselves five MORE years from now! Have fun, all of you!

Dipta