Fundaes to a Cousin

I have a cousin.
(Innner Voice - So?)

He is currently studying engineering in Surat.
(Inner Voice - Big deal. And btw nobody "studies" engineering. People "survive" engineering)

He would be sitting for CAT next year.
(IV - Hold on, hold on, hold on! Dont tell me his parents asked you to guide him. Shastry, listen to me carefully...very carefully.......you can't do that. More importantly, you should'nt do that. Just because you got through to IIMB doesn't mean you know how to do it. And knowing you, I am sure you wouldn't be knowing how you did it either. You guiding someone is like a hen teaching cats to lay eggs. And you are like that hen who doesn't even realise there was a rooster behind - literally - your success. Tell me you asked him to go to some professional people. Tell me you didn't speak to him. )

Well, I asked him to come over this weekend.
(IV - Screw you Shastry! Screw You!)

Initially I thought I will teach him a dew DI tricks, a little speech on why reading speed will make a difference, how to build a monster vocab and all.....but then with my damn Inner Voice ranting from within (wouldn't be wrong to say my feeble conscience is alive only because its on IV), I decided to show him the things that really work for an MBA aspirant.

(IV - This sounds worse than I feared)

I knew I had to keep it simple.
Down to some 2-3 basic points only.
Else he will forget it all, or get confused.
Did I tell you he is an engineer - basically someone who knows how to close his mind to information?

He came here on Friday.
After dinner that night, I took him to a movie - the 11 pm show.
There were 7 other people with us of who I knew only 2. They were all married but for one guy (my darned luck!!).
The movie finished at 2 am.
On the way back home, I told him the late night movie with 7 strangers was a MBA parable.
The learnings from the parable were thus -

1) Working in a group of people whom you hardly know and can in no way relate to.

2) Staying up late into the wee hours, whilst folks at home think you have been slogging all night, and thats why you sounded so groggy on the call from home the next morning


Next day morning, I took him to a Hanuman temple and a Ram temple.
There were three learnings here -

1) To stay happy, a bachelor must tag on to a married couple.
I know this was not an MBA funda. But I still gave it to him because it was a life funda. And
life fundas can be, and should be given anytime. This was the MBA funda - that MBAs are
giving life fundas all the time.

2) Once you are married, you have had it man! You are buggered for life (you can leave everything in between and read the bold parts as one sentence, it still makes sense). Relatives don't give a damn for you as you are no longer marriage material. You may leave your home and all and walk away into the jungles, lekin wo peechha nahin chhodegi. You will pick fights with absolute strangers because of her. And at the end of it all, you will turn to your bachelor friends who you thought were apeing around with life, for help.

She is not after your money, she is after your happiness dude, she is after your blood. Ask female mosquitos if you don't believe me. Women thrive on that. Have you seen the movie Monster Inc? It is based on the funda that monsters store the screams of little kids in huge battery tanks, and use that "scream power" to charge themselves. Similar is the case with women and men's happiness. Women suck all the happiness out of a man to charge themselves. It is one of the beauty secrets of a married woman.

Still don't believe me?

Well, there is an ancient yet secret Indian ritual I think I should tell you about, which might convince you.
Have you seen the movie Kalidas - the new one with Shahrukh and Aishwarya and Madhuri in it? In it there is a funda that the idol of Durga for the Navratri puja must be made with earth taken from the doorstep of a whore's house. The idea being that a man leaves behind all his goodness, all his "punya" at that doorstep before he enters the house of sin.

The ancient, secret ritual I was telling you about is on similar logical constructs.

The idol of the God of Happiness is made from the earth taken from the doorstep of a married man.

Such men leave all their happiness at the doorstep before entering the house of marital "bliss".

(IV - Another Life funda.....I wonder, what next)

3) And this is the most important funda -

Only God can help you.

Only He knows how to get you into an IIM, and more importantly, how to get you out of it in time.

Rest all is MBA Bull.

(IV - Hmmm....perhaps....you might have actually avoided doing any damage...Otherwise also, he is an engineer...he knows how to block information from his mind)