Podar Moneta Challenge

Chapter 1

13.12.09

06:30 a.m

Fazal calling Nisha: Yaar Nisha, Patla Varun and Naiyer are not picking up their phones…I have been trying to wake them up since 5 o clock….

Nisha: Don’t worry, our train is at 8:30…there is still 2 hours left…

Fazal: Ya, but I'm in tension..I'm awake because I didn’t sleep at all…Those guys slept at 3:00 a.m.. We were having masti in Varun’s room till then…I shall keep calling them..

07:15 a.m

Fazal calling Nisha (for 10^th time): NISHAAAAAAA……..Im losing my mind!!!!! Those guys are going to miss the train, we can’t go without them!!!! They are in charge of everything!!!!!

Nisha: Calm down Fazal, I will try calling Varun, you run to Naiyer’s house and wake him up and get him ready…..

07:30 a.m

Nisha calling Varun: Varun???? Finally! You picked up!

Varun: Uhhhhhhh……..HHHHHHuh? whoooooo????

Nisha: WAKE UP VARUN!!!!! Its ME NISHA!!!!

Varun: HHHHHHHuhhhh??? What’s a mean isha?

NISHA: AAARGHHHHHH….Wake up you **$$%##, you’re going to miss the train…..

Varun: ughhhhhhhhhhhh………Train shmain….call me after half an hour….

Nisha: Varun, the train leaves within an hour…and you need half an hour to reach the station… And you never leave your room without taking a bath or praying…sooooo…….

Varun….HUH!!!! whatimeisit??wha?wha? NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Thus started our journey to Mumbai… Surprisingly, we all reached the Hazrat Nizammuddin Station on time. But as I expected, the train left half hour late. There was never any need to take so much of tensiom, I tried (rather unsuccessfully) to tell Fazal and Nisha..There were six of us-Varun Nair, Naiyer Alam, Nisha Singh, Anam Khan, Fazlur Rehman and Varun Narain. We left early on a cold (actually freezing) December morning on the 13^th to go to Mumbai. Our aim was to take part in the Podar College of Commerce and Economics mega fest “MONETA“. It consisted of 3 days of intense financial games and seminars-an extravaganza to stimulate the passion for finance in today’s youth. The second we heard about it, Naiyer, Fazal and I signed up. We knew that this was an opportunity that we simply couldn’t miss. And luckiliy, we were joined by the three others later on. It took a lot of effort and time to resolve all the nagging details, especially of our travel, our accommodation and our events registration. But in the end, it was worth it…we gained a treasure load of experience and knowledge.

The journey was very VERY enjoyable, full of MASTI (as Fazal put it). Since we were going in sleeper class, we were worried that we may have to share our berths with strange people..But nothing of that sort happened. We spent the entire morning eating snacks and playing cards. We must have played around 5 different card games. Naiyer, Varun2 and myself also tried our hand at a couple of ‘magic tricks’..After lunch (a mixture of home cooked food, snacks and food from the train) we started exploring the train and clicking various pictures of the scenery outside (and 4 times that of pictures of ourselves). . In evening time, we watched a horror movie (THE EYE) in Fazal’s lappy..After that it was antakshari time, then chess time, and then……finally sleeping time! I decided not to sleep, as no one would be there to look after our belongings..But mercifully, Nisha relieved me after 4 hours and took over…I quickly got some shut eye before our station arrived…

We got off at Bombay Central Station on 14^th morning at 5:00 a.m. The welcoming committee of Podar College sent a couple of students with 2 cars to pick us up. I still remember the first thing that they asked, the second they laid their eyes on us, “WOW!!! Is it really that cold in Delhi?”

TO BE CONTINUED...