After zigzagging in this maze, the annual festival happened to lift us out of this quagmire and re-incarnate us. It promised to set the soul free and give it a lift. It was as if the heavens had opened for us. The descendants of Eve who descended down made us remember once again the famous saying by Keats - "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". Not to deride the womenfolk in my B-school - they carry a beauty of their own. But as we humans are, a change is always welcomed with more than two hands rushing to the occasion. The music had still not stopped ringing when we had to go back to the mundane task of hearing the good, old Professor (assuming everyone listens to the Professor in class). It required no less than a superhuman effort to do this with Keats's beauty back to its original abode.

Then the Summers appeared to augment our troubles. By this time we had become adept at using the B-school lingo for anything and everything. It was something like using something as abstruse sounding as "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda" when "7-Up" would have sufficed. After all, George Washington once said, "When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world." We weren't fools to let go of such an opportunity to tell the world that the future managers of the country had finally arrived.

How can any talk of a B-school be complete without a mention of the "home away from home"? Yes, our very own HOSTEL. In the hostel, life begins after dinner. The din starts to take off and becomes vociferous as the night deepens. Don't go away, the day has just begun. Then starts a cycle of endless inactivity.

The summers proved to be a great experience. I realized the vagaries of not being academically bent. As unlike popular belief, a lot of alien things we were supposed to learn in the first year did come across to me. And it seemed to me like I have been told to face up to Shoaib Akhtar's bouncers without wearing a helmet. Fortunately, I was able to escape unscathed. So all those first yearites reading this, do not commit the folly, which this pour soul committed. You might not be as lucky as I was.

All said and done, it was a great first year in a B-school. I learned the tricks of the trade, hopefully I did. The trade was to survive in a B-school. I was bruised, battered, but like those warriors of yore, refused to give up and rose back again the next day. There are poor souls like me who are still in the same state of ignorance as we were when we came here, but there are others who claim to have undergone a lot of value addition, whatever it means. Its time I should end my day as its already 4:00 am. And I have to get up tomorrow to live yet another day.