I have been reading and listening about reservations a lot now. It matters to all of us that institutes of higher learning should be kept out of this mess simply because India has seen its development because of them. I think we all know where all this will go. Today 5 Medical colleges in Delhi protested and the way they staged it was more than enough to invoke emotions in anyone.

So where are we going with all this? No one is happy. The toiling "general" candidate has to put up with lot of competition now. Even the OBCs for whom the quota is meant are not happy, simply because in a competition-intensive environment, such things will only guarantee an admission to a good institute, not success. Dealing with such a pressure the quota students might be stressed out. Though, vote-bank-wise it is good, the people who are going to get affected are not very keen on it.

Suggestion 1 - Let us keep quota only till primary and secondary education. Once on his/her own, the student has to prove his mettle by appearing to the entrance examination like everyone else.

Suggestion 2 - Facilitation of financial assistance to financially not-so-well families to sustain an educational background. My visit to a Govt Primary school opened my eyes as to how kids coming from low income families juggle between running the house and studying. While they can do so, as education demands time and energy, without enough support the enthu goes down.

Suggestion 3 - State takes a bigger role in education till High school. After this to provide for more industry oriented education, private operators should be brought in. With a controlled environment and laws we have to make sure that we continue to have education as our competitive advantage in the world.

Of course, as a common man or a voter I have a right to speak out my opinion but when I see every single political party supporting this, I really feel that there is a bigger change needed somewhere else too.

Lateral thinking - I

This is my first blog after I joined ISB. This is a great place and I got myself well acquainted with my quadies (people who stay with you in your quad), and group mates, slightly acquainted with people of my community service group, and shook hands with a lot of section mates, party animals and whoever-was-standing-in-the-darn-admission-queue-near-me. That's as far as networking works for me.

I was never good at meeting and talking to new people. The way my parents pushed me (yeah physically) to get ahead and shake hands could change my nature, but my genes won't give in. So in short this ISB experience was HORRIBLE for me. I mean, c'mon guys, you cannot physically remember 431 people like that!! Or you'd rather be at MIT, with disheveled hair, test-tube in one hand, note book in another and crying "eureka!! No of people I know is inversely proportional to the gravitational constant G times electron mass of hydrogen atom"... or something like that.

That said, a lot of people do know you if you do some jigs like organize parties, some cult activity and general stuff that makes you interesting in people's (especially dames') eyes. For nerds(like me), creating some freaking document to make people use BBs also works, but in a weird sort of way. Try this only if you are not very eager to make a impression of "Yo! Babe look at me. I am the BB guy". Nah, it doesn't work that way. My advice - try getting stoned and dance in a party instead!

According to one of the innumerable gyaan received from the alums was that to succeed in MBA you spend a lot of time either room-bound or outbound, meaning that you either crack acads or crack people mad. Either ways you are making your way to that dream job you have had nightmares about losing out on. Former is easier for nerds/geeks who think that knowledge is all about cramming things up, puking them all over your answer sheet in a way that the prof goes "wow" and you breeze through the terms with amazing grades. Latter is something that should be tried under strict supervision of experienced professionals (read: all those guys you see just throwing gas at everyone else).

In the end, a lot of things to learn at ISB. Its a reincarnation of sorts, and while I am at it, "Yo! dude BB is cooooool".