Salsa, Statistics and Stifler

Week 4 at B School

This is the last week we would be having with only 3 subjects on us, as from next week we have 5 subjects. We stll haven’t managed to keep up pace with these three subjects as pre reading and case study’s still take a lot of time. We are still in the incipent stages of being a B schooler. Well if one does a lot of hardwork, should’nt there be some way to let off steam.

At 11 pm, when most of us at Lake Veeranam(A seminar hall at GL) are studying, some decide to break the monotony by playing Cricket 2007. An hour later, I see almost the whole hall playing Cricket 2007. The deadly virus has made its way into our study and the guy who propagated the virus is supposedly staring at his Karma(that’s me) and basking in the 16 degree air of the airconditioner proud of his effort to propagate his love for cricket. Cricket seemed to be a religion that night, with every one converting to it in a matter of an hour. Vivekanda’s theory of religion propagation was practically preached and practised and Vivekananda’s speeches no more lulled me. I started re reading the previous chapters with a new found zeal, before an alarm rang to remind me of the pending statistics case study.

I opened up my statistics book, and was just learning the ropes of how to play around with statistics on excel, when a few intelligent guys, bored of playing cricket had every one in the room to the count of 3…..every one hands up…. No Robber Policeman here, but the hands were immediately up, at the suggestion of American Pie 5 ,when it was announced what movie to watch at night.

We immediately had a movies club formed where one guy would use the projector in the room to air a movie. Each guy’s claim to fame was when he lent his laptop for the screening of the movie on his laptop. Generally the projector would be used for studying some general case study at night, when some thing needs to be explained to many people, but considering all of us were tired, that night Stifler seemed more important than Statistics. (Preferring Stifler over statistics would decrease our karma assets and thus liabilities in pending case study would increase on the balance sheet as on 3 am on that day.)

Statistsics seems to be the most interesting subject so far in term 1, beating Eastern Philosophies and Principles of Management. Our Statistics Professor Mr P.K.Vishwanathan, is an amazingly enthusiastic professor for whom teaching is like conducting a music sympony. His knowledge of the subject is excellent and so far, and his vibrant interest for math and statistics seems to attract even the last bencher who would have otherwise invested his time to doze off.

Apart from Statistics , last week’s attraction was obviously the salsa classes, which a group of folks had evinced interest to learn. More than Salsa, we ended up learning jive and Tappankuthu- A Chennaite would know this inside out.

Salsa classes happened on three days, more so eating into the weekend. We had roughly 2x males and x females, so when the dance was on, we would invariably have x guys who would be on “bench” waiting for their turns. Now the guys on bench would have guys of both types, the one’s who know how to shake their legs, the others were the one’s who were not so good at shaking their legs to the beat. The smart and shrewd ones kept a keen eye on the competition and tapped the guys who had a chick dancing. There were times when there would be advance booking for a girl to dance with upto three people waiting. The ones tired of competition would go around wandering just to see who gets free.

The girls had no choice, they had to keep on dancing. They rarely had a break as they were lesser in number. The only thing that the girls could do, to beat the sweat was to purposely dance in such a way that their body along with their partners moved to a place right next to a wall fan or air conditioner, which had to be competed along with the free loaders who specialised in admiring the beauty and the grace of some couples dancing.

The Salsa is all about dancing to the beats, and the initial “1, 2,3 ….” Steps were basically meant to teach the beginner to move their legs, more than acquire perfection in dancing. The one’s who really rocked were the one’s who were innovative in their steps and danced with gay abandon. The one’s like me, were more focussed on watching the leg movements and getting the steps right invariably got it all wrong and had to think twice before wanting to embarrass any girl with those dance steps.

Salsa was an advanced exercise in social networking beyond Orkut, and it did help most of break the ice between us. The guys who were tired of waiting for getting a girl decided to amuse themselves and dance with each other, and the comical thing was both the guys did the guys steps so the harmony was lost as every one thought thought the movements from the Male’s perspective, and when both of them realised what went wrong with their dance, they unconsciously switched to the female perspective and againt went wrong. Geez!!! Two hands are indeed needed for a clap!

There were a couple of tamil guys who were silent spectators, but when the Tappankuthu dance number’s turn came, these guys were into their elements. Learning Tappankuthu can also be fun, as the steps are easy to master and having them on Kollywood a hajaar times, that’s some instant respite for folks like me.

Learning dance, though largely unsuccessful can be a great mentally stimulating experience as it is charting through unconquered virgin territory that throws up a few challenges that initially can be embarrassing. It’s totally a mind and body game that can easily be a personality enhancer as the grace that a salsa gives to the dancer, apart from the applause is worth having.

So that was week 4, with a mix of Statistics, stifler and Salsa

Keep Tuned in for more updates….on my life at a B School.

All the Salsa Video can be found here