Manish - God of Mind

First of all i must confess that it is my first blog. Although i have been a avid reader and visitor on several blog sites over the past 3-4 years but never thought of contributing myself. Anyways as they say nothing is late in life (although i have doubts on MBA program after 3 years of professional experience) , here i am planning to write a series of posts on some of my friends which in a way will also express my gratitude towards them which is always implicit in a friendship.

The first friend whom i will introduce to you is a Puri ( and not a poorie) from Ferozepur in Punjab. You must have guessed his first name by now from the title of the post but still to complete the formalities his name is Manish Puri. The word Manish meaning 'God of Mind' made me laugh when i asked him the meaning of his name today . We always find our friends to be notty, silly and suddenly when one discovers meanings like 'God, Mind' etc. one feel like laughing at their face. At this time i must not conceal that my name also has a meaning on the similar lines as it means 'Someone to be worshipped' and i know many people reading this blog will also have similar meaning as in india names are kept after some serious discussions and big ceremonies as in name will decide the fate itself. But having said that, i also cannot deny the fact that he has enormous brain power and no one can defeat him when it comes to number crunching ( Manish , don't puff out your chest).

I first met him during the so called PDP sessions (B-school's euphemism to ragging) of IMT. I asked him about his college and he told me GNDU (GNDU is a popular university in Punjab). But i heard JNU. I thought that he must be a very nalaik guy who came all the way from Punjab to do Engineering in JNU which is never looked up on as a place for engineering. Moreover as during the PDP session he was very angry and was constantly saying 'Main saliyan de mar dunga' ( I will hit them) , i perceived him as a very arrogant guy and more importantly it vindicated my first thought of him being a nalaik guy. But the impression changed over a period of time and now he is one of my best friend.

The so called synergy (my SM teacher will gloat at this) appeared between us as we both had inclination towards finance and wanted to shift to finance from marketing. Soon more people joined in the group and partying on weekends and bakar on weekdays made both of us strong friends. One more helping person was our Dhol (keep guessing) as he was the both the source of inspiration and target for bantering during class breaks and group walk after dinner. I will write a seperate post about Dhol in near future as he deserves it the most. Our commom interest in Table Tennis also helped in taking the friendship forward. During the first two months we regularly went to play table tennis during 2 0r 3 in the night (6 Pack guy of our class can corroborate the same). Moreover our almost adjacent roll numbers made us work together in 2-3 projects. The nail in the coffin was our summer placements in which we both and many others had to go through the mental trauma collectively. I still remember when me, manish, Dhol and J-man(a google search expert) used to sit in a row in the auditorium and everytime when short list was announced it only contained roll number 22 after 12 and after 22 came 30 or so. The roll number of all four of us was usually not there. We use to complain so much and literally blasted the company and the institute of course the roll number 22 itself.

Over the period of time, even my initial perception of him being very angry has also got changed. Infact he is very calm and and is ready to laugh up on himself to any extent possible. I still remember he touting me as a 'baniya' (my caste) when i had my status message as 'Jat di pasand jat ne'. He is a very good learner also as after our I semester result he understood reason of my success and emulated it perfectly. It was not long before we both got the 'Extra Sheet' award. The day is not far enough when we both will get the "mutual proxy care takers" of each other as universal proxy king had gone for exchange programe to France. It will be unfair to not to menion our special outing to Chandni Chowk in Delhi in which our group enjoyed very much. The most intersting part was that Dhol (again keep guessing) was suffering from acidity and we were eating delicious chicken right in front of him and me and manish constantly making gestures to make Dhol feel jealous.

Well i must also mention some of his achievements. He is a university Table Tennis champion. Got % in higher 99 in CAT. Most importantly he has his name written in blue over such a place that people like Dhol can just imagine it (don't feel jealous my preet - u will also get to do spa****g one day).

One thing that i have analysed over a period of time is that common home state (we both being from Punjab) is not in any way reason for our friendship beacuse i harldy remember a 1 hour period where we have conversed in Punjabi. Now i am looking forward to a trip to Manali with him and our group. I hope this will help in entrusting our friendship more.

Its almost 4 in the morning and i don't want to miss the poorie ( yes it is poorie now) in the breakfast tommorow. So good night and happy reading


Cheers
Anchit