When the clock strikes 1...

Something happens to perfectly rational, sane and otherwise normal people in the early hours of the morning. Like me for instance, blogging at 0200 AM. But I digress. So it's late in the night, or early, depending on whether you're in ISB or not, you've got a marketing assigment due in a few hours, some Economics and Stats to brush up on and sleep to catch up with, and it's threatening to rain. What do you do? Naturally, take the bike out in the rain and soak in the cool breeze. Then stand in a circle, and play catch with a coconut, a mango and a stress-ball in the shape of a brain, naturally. If the mango goes splotch (and it will) and the coconut cracks (and it will too), take a container, pretend the lid is a frisbee and...Game On!

At 0200 on Monday night, eight grown men and women, leaving their marketing, stats and all other inhibitions behind, began throwing random objects at each other. It had rained for about half an hour, and there was absolutel It started off with a "shaadi ka narial" and soon became any throwable or catchable object. So coconuts flew, mango got pulped, and the stress-ball brain bounced off people's heads. Strange thing - for a few brief moments, people in their mid-20s forgot what it was like to be responsible adults, and actually had a good time letting their hair down. I've never felt more alive at 0230 than I did last night when I was catching a broken coconut.

Midnight chais have become almost routine. It's when chai and rain combine, something magical happens. For a brief, fleeting moment, we forget we've got grades and assignments and study groups and what-nots happening, and just live for the moment. There seem to be two lessons here - bringing out your inner kid isn't such a bad thing, and more importantly, as you become a part of ISB, you get successively more f#$&ed in the head.

GSB president election fever is on. And seemingly among the most important things to accomplish at ISB in one year's time is to have an ice-cream parlour, 24x7 coffee vending machine and do "something about the TAs" (If I didn't mention it earlier, Abhijit and all other TAs rock!). Ah, the stresses of a one-year program.