Ankush Modawal Blue Book

Life’s coming Attractions

Sneak peek at Blue Book

Blue Book is a novel based on a group of students that come from different worlds that
suddenly collide at The International Institute of Planning and Management, New Delhi.

Fun, witty and intensely fast-paced, it is a story full of everyday antics of those who are about
to be unleashed in the competitive corporate jungle. Full of real life situations and ones that are
blown up out of the author‟s imagination, Blue Book touches upon the hilarious sides of serious
things that every student at IIPM goes through. The book is full of comic characters with
whom you will fall in love with. Experience how life‟s most important lessons are taught to
them inside and outside the classroom.

The realities of doing an MBA in the college that gives full page advertisements and what all
really goes and can go down (up) there is here! The myths and truths about IIPMs notorious
MBA Mafia is here! Life at IIPM is here.

“When you think beyond,

you go beyond.”
-Ankush Modawal

st
1 Trimester

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Ankush Modawal Blue Book

1 st
presentation 1
29th May, 2007
Home

I was playing Need for Speed Underground on my newly inherited laptop when my cell beeped.
I wasn‟t expecting anyone so I opened the message mindlessly as I blazed my modified Nissan
Skyline at 246 Km/h.

I was honestly impressed. Laptops, Wi-Fi enabled campuses and now class schedules on your
mobile! These guys are technologically advanced and ruthlessly professional. Good planning
and management, I thought. Not bad, not bad at all. But then again, you don‟t call it the
International Institute of Planning and Management for nothing.

2nd June, 2007

IIPM International Campus
Satbari, New Delhi
Room No. B-6

I sat in the last row corner seat, the spot closest to the air conditioner vent. It is my belief that
it doesn‟t matter where you sit in class, what‟s important is where you stand.

The dreaded “P day” had finally arrived. The whole section of SI-2 was nervous. You could
smell fear in the Indian concentration camp. Even Hitler would‟ve been proud! The prisoners
paced up and down while reading. This exercise was done to stuff their brains with what they
had written for their presentation so that they could verbally vomit it out later exactly as they
had crammed it. It was the first dose of public speaking that was being forced down their
throats.

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One of them had a peculiarly interesting style of memorizing. He walked slowly and murmured
what he had written while looking up with his eyes closed. He seemed to be offering the devil
his speech as silent chants!

He kept his eyes closed until the unholy mantras were complete. When they were, he opened
his eyes suddenly and smiled a demonic smile which confirmed that he remembered everything.
This seemed to give him unholy strength of some sort! He must watch a lot of those Ramsey
horror movies, I thought and chuckled. It was seriously funny and scary to see him repeat this
ritual three times. After that, I got bored and started looking for other things that I could make
fun of.

All of the newly hatched chickens secretly hoped that the butcher falls sick in some magical
way so that they could survive till the next class. As they prayed, they continued to memorize
their respective parts for their presentations because they knew that their wish was just wishful
thinking. It was really amusing to see how scared they were.

What made the whole situation funnier were the clothes everyone had mistaken for formals. I
couldn‟t decide if it was more of a fancy dress competition or a rehearsal for a play for which
they were memorizing their parts from their scripts. Maybe both! One thing I was sure of is
that they had not dressed up for a formal presentation. If they actually had, they wouldn‟t be
wearing what they were wearing.

I felt superior to all of them. Sitting in that chair, I felt like god. I assumed that I was the
smartest of the herd. If they all are as dumb as their clothes suggest they are, these two years
are going to be a cakewalk.

As my thought process became wilder and funnier, I was struck by a fantastic sight.

A white suit! Was I imagining things! No I wasn‟t! One of them had actually dared to wear a
white suit. He was either very smart or either very brave! He was talking to someone who had
come in a shiny blue wedding suit, probably one that he wore on one of his relative‟s marriage
functions. They both seemed to be complimenting each other and were happy probably because
they thought that they really looked smart.

As my feelings of being god were being amplified by what I saw around me, my eyes met those
of an oversized unshaved monster. He looked as if he had just beaten the shit out of at least two
people and I would be his next victim if I didn‟t look away! So I did and saw a smart looking
fellow who wore a well tailored black suit. I saw competition. But I honestly felt relieved as I
had found myself at least one decent person in my class. After all, being god was becoming
boring.

But strangely, my feelings of being god returned when I saw that the person who was wearing
a well tailored black suit was also wearing white sport shoes with it.

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The feelings of being god were odd. I began to feel like the odd one out. Was there an SMS that
I didn‟t receive? One that said that you had to be formally dressed but at the same time also
wear something that will screw up your entire attire? What‟s wrong with all of them! Why
have they all dared to think beyond the normal formal dress code?

The girls definitely had a better dressing sense like they mostly do. One of them was very
attractive and seemed to be dressed up for a party. She was the page 3 types and seemed to have
popped straight out of today‟s Delhi Times. At least this was a better sight than seeing a black
suit and white sport shoes together!

I could make out that most of the girls were wearing formal shirts for the first time since they
were born. They had shopped and purchased recently what they were wearing. As I was
thinking all this, another attractive looking girl walked by in front of me and I accidently saw a
Benetton price tag dangling from her collar.

Okay, not purchased recently, but purchased very very recently! Too recently it seemed.
What‟s wrong with her! Had she magically teleported herself from the changing room to the
class or something!

As I was pondering upon the many possibilities and mysteries behind the price tag, the butcher
finally entered with his knives that were disguised as marks registers. All the chickens
instinctively knew that they would now be dead pretty soon.

He was a pleasant looking man. He seemed to look harmless. But you know what they say,
looks can be deceiving. He was a professor known by the name of Dhruv Trivedi who took
classes for OAEAL. I didn‟t know what OAEAL stood for, but I knew that it was a 2 credit
subject in which students had to give presentations in groups. Marks would be awarded on the
presentation of the presentations and were only given for group performance so you had to
make sure no one screws up.

“Modawal‟s group start.” He announced even before he sat on his chair.

Start! What does that mean start! Are we running some sort of a race over here, START! What
happened to the conventional good mornings and good afternoons? Have people stopped
saying all that shit to each other?

He was even unmoved by what most of the students had worn to class. Are we being taught by
robots that don‟t have any feelings whatsoever? Or was he used to seeing students dressed like
this. Is IIPM really so technologically advanced to have achieved robotic cloning? I now knew
how Keanu Reeves must‟ve felt when he was stuck in The Matrix.

I got up and began to walk towards the presentation area. Along with me rose two of my
teammates. I wasn‟t nervous in any way. In fact, I was excited at the thought of giving my first
presentation in my post graduation college. I had worked before as an emcee many times in my

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event management company on bigger and better stages than this one. So this was just a piece
of cake for me.

A feeling of worry slowly crept inside of me as I remembered the fact that it was a group
presentation. As I was the team leader, I would be held responsible for whatever happens
during the slaughter. Their performance would affect my marks too. Ironically, this was
something that I had completely forgotten and was now remembering.

I had forgotten that not every one is as good as me and in my cockiness, I didn‟t even ask how
well these two yahoos were prepared for this. To tell you the truth, I was seeing them for the
first time in life! I didn‟t even know who Gill or Jha were. All I knew is that there was a Jha and
a Gill! I had outsmarted myself.

We stood in line and faced the audience.

The geeky one was definitely a Jha. Jha looked geeky.

The intelligent guy looked like a Gill. The Gill guy looked intelligent.

But then again, I keep on forgetting that looks can be deceiving. But it was not Arjun Gill that
I was worried about. I was afraid of Rakesh Jha. He seemed to be too eager to perform, like a
caged dog which was pacing up and down relentlessly in his cage.

He seemed to be mentally shouting “Let me at „em, let me at „em,” so I let him go first.

Rakesh started shouting, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Dare to think beyond is what
IIPM is saying and I‟m proud to say that I did THUNK beyond! Before I begin my speech, I
will like to thank…”

Wow! Why was I forgetting so many things today? I had forgotten that dogs also come in
many breeds, shapes and sizes. I would‟ve been happy if I had a Rottweiler by my side, but
Rakesh was clearly a Chihuahua.

What‟s worse is that when I looked closely, he didn‟t even seem like a dog now! I had an over
excited mouse by my side who had bad English. And by bad English, I can‟t amplify the word
“bad” enough to describe it. We were screwed. Royally!

“STOP! Please do stop!” sir laughed.

“Have some mercy on an old man son! I‟ve just had lunch and I know for a fact that if I let you
carry on with your speech, you will entertain me better than Johnny Lever and Jim Carey
combined. But I don‟t want to end up with a stomachache right now,” sir announced.

So I‟m not the only one in this world with a cocky sense of humor. There are others like me
who have the same powers, I thought.

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“Modawal, your group will give the presentation in my next class. You guys can leave the
classroom if you wish,” sir told us.

All three of us left the class and started to walk in the empty blue hallway. Arjun was fuming
while I was recovering from the shock. The last fifteen seconds of my life had been very
intense. I had felt so many different emotions in such a short time.

I wasn‟t sure if laughing at what had happened would be appropriate because some people do
tend to laugh a lot when they are deeply disturbed by something. I had seen chimpanzees on
Discovery Channel laughing loudly when they sensed danger. People laugh in depression too,
so I broke the silence and started laughing.

Removing his tie, Arjun barked, “Rakesh, you fucker you bastard, you know what you just did?
You just raped our entire presentation in less than five seconds! That‟s a new world record in
the world of screwing presentations! Now we are in the middle of nowhere with our asses stuck
and hanging over the shitpot until Trivedi‟s next presentation class.”

Whoah! This guy can cuss! He would make a good rapper, I thought. (Sometimes, I‟m not very
proud of my thought processes.)

“What I say,” Rakesh enquired.

“There is no word as „THUNK!‟ What were you thinking? Oh! I‟m sorry! My bad! I forgot that
you were thinking beyond! Oh no wait! You thunk soooo beyond that you even went beyond
the boundaries of normal words of English language,” Arjun grumbled.

“You didn‟t understand! I have to pay the education loan that I take. I belong to a very poor
family and I must excel in my studies if I want to become something in life. My mother sold her
grandmother's jewelry to get me into the best college I could study. I know that I‟m not been
to a public school in Bihar like you have but I want to try learning English,” Rajesh explained.

“Oh great! So you‟re from Bihar. That explains a lot of things,” Arjun said turning away from
him.

“You mock my English all you wanted but I will one day learn sexy English!” Rakesh said
almost crying.

His passion, story and “geekiness” were strangely touching.

“Whoah! Dude! Your tenses are really making me tense. Stop fucking around with the past that
is screwing up your present continuous continuously! For god sakes stop speaking English
otherwise you will fuck mine like you‟ve raped yours. Take a chill pill. Don‟t take life too
seriously or it will bite you in the ass,” Arjun advised.

“Angrezi mein tapar tapar karna band kar warna bahut maarunga saale,” Rakesh erupted.

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I was surprised to see such a violent outbreak of frustration from that little geek. As soon as
Arjun heard these words from Rakesh‟s mouth, there was complete silence and the only thing I
could hear was a motor running somewhere far away. There was extreme tension in the air and
I prepared myself to stop the Great Dane if he chose to fight the geeky Chihuahua.

I know a lot about dogs because I absolutely love them. A small Note about these two breeds:

The Great Dane's large and imposing appearance belies its friendly nature; the breed is often
referred to as a gentle giant. Great Danes are generally well-disposed toward other dogs,
other non-canine pets, wild animals, and humans (including strangers and children). Some
Great Danes have dominance issues, are aggressive with other dogs of the same sex, or
chase small animals; however, this is quite rare. They are the tallest breed of dogs in the
world.

The Chihuahua is the smallest breed of dog in the world and is named after the state of
Chihuahua in Mexico, where it was discovered in 1850. They have a tendency to bite when
frightened and seem to have no concept of their own size and may fearlessly confront larger
animals, which can result in injury. Chihuahuas also tend to have a "clannish" nature, often
preferring the companionship of other Chihuahuas over other dogs!

What is this place and who are these people! Where the hell did I end up! It seemed to me as
La-La land, a world where different cartoon characters from Cartoon Network had somehow
got stuck.

If they chose to fight, it would be Dexter with bad English versus Mr. Fantastic who could
diss! It had been so long since I had witnessed a fight, especially between dogs! I was betting on
Marmaduke.

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The Great Dane suddenly started laughing at the little dog‟s puny attempt to intimidate him
and the motor was no longer audible now. I had been expecting a fight though. (Spoil sports!)

“Dude, you are a nice guy but you should really learn to control your emotions. If I would‟ve
reacted to what you just said, I would‟ve beaten and extracted the apology you owe me out
from your asshole! I don‟t want to insult myself and my past record by beating you. I only fight
and beat people who are my size or at least anywhere near it.” Arjun joked.

Seriously speaking though, he wasn‟t joking. Rakesh was about 5 Feet short and the lumberjack
was about the same size as I am, which is 6‟2.

“I‟ll tell you what, let‟s go to the canteen. Let‟s have a bite, a sip and a ciggy. I heard they also
got a Coffee Day Xpress in this campus. Now that we have nothing to do for the next hour and
a half, lets at least explore our college.” Arjun beamed.

“Is ciggy something like the burgers that we get in McDonalds?”

“Wow! You thunk beyond again! Dude, you need to stop being so inspired by all this thinking
beyond and shit. More than half of what you hear is rubbish and the rest is garbage. By ciggy I
mean cigarette dude. Let‟s smoke a cigarette, eat and sleep in the lawn before the next lecture
begins,” Arjun beamed again.

I liked him and his plan.

“But I don‟t smoke, especially ciggies,” Rakesh informed him.

“Come with us brother. Let‟s grab something to eat,” I suggested too.

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“I have to go to the library to issue numerous books. I wants to excel in my next presentation
and want to have sexy English like you guys,” Rakesh told us.

“Come with us to the canteen brother, the more the merrier. I promise to teach you how to
speak sexy English,” I said laughing.

“Really?” His eyes brimmed with joy, hope and excitement.

“Really dude,” Arjun added. “We both will help you achieve sexy English and whatever the fuck
you want us to help you with. Let‟s have a ciggy and life will be wonderful again. Let‟s go.”

Rakesh Jha‟s greatest asset was his childlike sincerity. He was just a regular geek who truly
believed in hard work. He belonged to a poor but dignified family that lived in a village in Uttar
Pradesh. His father, a farmer had to go through a lot of formalities and humiliations to get a
part of the educational loan for his studies. The rest of the amount was obtained by selling off
his mother‟s ancestral gold jewelry to pay the fees.

Life‟s difficulties and struggles showed on his face and clothes, but Rakesh was determined to
prove that he was bigger than them. Confidence is something which he had. But too much
confidence with a small body structure like his was a dangerous combination. It could be
hazardous to his personal health. In fights, size does matter.

But then again, even Hitler was a big little man with great confidence. And he proved to the
world that little men if pissed off could be very hazardous to others health too! From this, we
can safely infer that we should never underestimate anyone.

Rakesh‟s cause was bigger than Arjun‟s size. It‟s not the size of a dog in a fight but the size of a
fight in a dog that matters. The Chihuahua seemed bigger than the Great Dane now.

Arjun Singh Gill‟s greatest asset on the other hand was his decent abusive motor mouth
personality! He was tall, with a lanky frame of a Punjabi. He wore black Givenchy glasses over
his dreamy brown eyes that hid his casual wit. He belonged to a very affluent family from
Punjab and his father was a high ranking Army official.

Nonetheless, Arjun never used his family‟s name to gain fame or to earn respect amongst his
peers. After all, those who want respect care about what others think about you. Arjun never
did. He didn‟t even care about himself much so caring about others was just expecting too
much from him.

Arjun lit up a ciggy and we started walking towards the canteen. Strangely, the screw up and
the fight had somehow strengthened the friendship between us. We felt like a team now rather
than just a group. There are so many people with so many different emotions who feel
differently about so many different things. But from so many different things, they all want the
same thing; happiness.

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For the first time, I now felt that the next two years of my life aren‟t gonna be that bad after all.
I was about to be proved wrong.

The next two years would turn out to be the best days of my life. I also wasn‟t aware of the fact
that the funny and scary people I had seen today were destined to become my best buddies.

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