Limits

I once did a mistake of declaring in a B-School interview that I had a great sense of humor. I was asked to crack a joke, and I froze. It happened again today. I didn't freeze, and managed to blabber something. And one of the interviewers burst out laughing, unusually loud, while the others had no clue what was going on. Don't know what the funny guy found funny in my joke, but there must have been something. I find it really hard to crack a joke when somebody asks me to. I find it hard to demonstrate any of my talents when asked to. I can do it when I like, but not on request.

I have conducted various kinds of experiments with people's sense of humor, and each one has been a great experience. It's really amazing how people behave at the very upper limit of their sense of humor, the point at which everything breaks down and they behave in strange and unexpected ways. It's like the Zero Kelvin - you never know how things would behave until you reach there. Teasing people is fun, even at the extreme limits. I feel proud to say that I was beaten once and was on the verge of being beaten on multiple occasions. Some started crying. Some embarrassed me in public. Once a strong guy got so pissed off that he lifted me and held me upside down for about 5 minutes, until I promised I'd never tease him again. People have tested my limits too. But we'll talk about my limits some other time ;-)

I think, not only humor, but for every personality trait, the best way to judge a person is to take him/her to the extreme limit. That's where you get the real picture of the personality. This reminds me of Stress Interviews, which are based on the same concept. So it seems I am not talking "globe", as they say in the IIMs :-)

Law

The weirdest thing about Law is that it is never taught to us, though we are all expected to be law-abiding citizens. How much can we learn from movies, family, society and media? It is easy to miss a lot. Most of our sense of law is out of common sense and the inherent human moral and ethical values. Besides that, we don't know what's there in the books. The only people who know law are those who are there to punish us or defend us. That's funny.

Sochvichaar Post Mid-Term...

Mid-term exams ended yesterday. I had a good time writing the exams. In fact it was my best time at IIML so far - I had enough time to sleep (almost 10 hours everyday), there was no running around doing assignments, no "uninteresting-but-attendance-mandatory" stuff organized by the seniors and no lectures to attend. And as far as studying for the exams was concerned, it didn't require much effort. That is because we are forced to study soon after the lecture whatever is taught in it. Otherwise we will not be able to do the assignments or take the quizzes, which are in plenty and evenly spread all over the terms.

Not that I did all exams well, in fact I screwed a few so badly that I feel ashamed when I think of what I wrote in those, but that is what exams are all about. And when they end, it's celebration time. It doesn't matter whether you were mugging day and night or sleeping 10 hours. When the exams end, you must chill out.

So to chill out, I went in the evening with a few of my friends to the most popular hang-out for IIML guys - the Saharaganj mall. It's a good mall by all standards and has a multiplex too (PVR Cinemas). The quality of the crowd is not even as good as it is in Chennai, but sometimes you get to spot cute faces with their moms and dads.

I also watched a movie - the latest one in the Mummy series. It was gross. I had tried hard to convince everyone for "Ugly aur Pagli" but nobody agreed. It seemed that everyone was incredibly prejudiced when it came to selecting a movie. I was not able to decide whether it's past experiences that determine people's future decisions, or whether it's prejudice, or whether it's the fear of accepting a liking for something that is not socially popular or has a low acceptance. Probably it's the sum of all three, and a few other factors. But I am forced to conclude based on this, that not many people form opinions by looking at things in isolation with an open mind. And moreover, there is always some gap, which may be huge for some people, between the opinions that they express and the opinions that they truly hold. The latter may even be buried inside oneself, with people lying to themselves about what they truly believe in.

I also had plans to drink, but finally I didn't because of lack of enthu and lack company. Another strange phenomenon - not many seem to drink at IIML, not the majority for sure.

A thought crossed my mind as I was sitting through the economics lecture today. All my understanding about human beings has come out of a domain of people with whom I have interacted to a certain degree. And it's a natural tendency of every human being to interact more with people he/she is more comfortable with, which is usually people who are similar to him/her. Complementarity of personality could be another criterion - like a person who is weak in his leadership skills would try to be in either of 2 kinds of groups, again depending on his motivation. One - a group with a strong leader, if he chooses and likes to be a follower. Two - a group full of people with weaker leadership skills or stronger skills of 'following', where he can assume leadership position, if he really wants to lead inspite of his disability. (Is following a skill? It is normally seen as lack of a skill rather than a skill in itself. There are quite a few qualities like this. But over time, some of these voids have come to be seen as skills. Can you name a few such qualities? Am I writing a textbook :P?)

I concluded from the analysis in the last para that howsoever I try, I will never be able to understand all people. Because finally I'd always project myself over them and look at them as if they are like me. If not me, very similar to me. I realize that it's very difficult to appreciate the fact that all human beings are different. Though we know it, we never accept it or recognize it. Perhaps because that would make us feel different from others. Which is scary; because the way we see things and ourselves, we accentuate all negative differences and even tend to see the positive ones in a negative light. That's our internal defense mechanism. We want to get rid of all negative differences before it hurts. This kind of short-sightedness and bias in judging people pervades all our personalities and so it is never possible really, to even understand people with a free and independent mind. Perhaps that's the reason many books on personality development ask you not to try to understand people because no matter how much you try, you'd never be able to understand people fully. That may be on the very extreme, but the reality lies somewhere not very far from it.

Our classes started today itself, the day after the last mid-term exam. It feels as if nothing happened the last one week. As if it was a beautiful night of sleep with dreams both good and bad, but then we woke up again in the morning, just early enough to manage some corn flakes for the breakfast and then run to reach for the lecture on time, so that we don't miss the attendance.