Lateral Thinking

EOI (End of ISB)

2007-04-15T23:34:00.000+05:30

I will stop this chapter now. While sad that I am, life moves on, and so do we.

My original blog goes : nissimspace.blogspot.com

will be regular there from now on.

-n

2nd blog in a row...

2007-04-05T00:55:00.000+05:30

Second blog in a row. Still recovering from the mild surprise that I can still access net..

Reservations became another burning topic, and so some political parties found a reason to be destructive. Sanity prevailed in the Supreme court which has caused shocks within every political party. This is one topic that binds every party irrespective of their manifestos and perceptions. Not that I care, but what a reason! Therefore any person, affected or not by the reservations, should just be careful that ultimately the effect of reservation is not important to these "representatives of people". Its just a topic like Ayodhya, that these people love to dig from grave and use to exploit people's sentiments.

If it were in my hand, I would have made all these political parties pay for the damages they do. After all if you can make Unions of WB do it, you can potentially make even President of India do it. Its another matter that he will not do such attrocious thing in the first place.

-n

Plagiarism...

2007-04-05T00:50:00.000+05:30

I have borrowed this from a fellow blogger. Since I don't remember the source now and afraid of plagiarism, I will sit mum with the first line. So the quote goes ...

" Its not the end. Its not even the beginning of the end. Its the end of the beginning" ..

As I end ISB, these lines come to my mind... :)

-n

blast from the past..

2007-03-26T01:06:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, somethings remind you of past, the one that you buried under your pillow while sleeping. So while you can still dream, when you open your eyes, it will be gone.

Palkon ke kinare humne bhigoye hi nahi,
Wo samajhte hain hum roye hi nahi,
Wo poochhte hain khwaab mein kisko dekha,
Aur hum hain ki arsey se soye hi nahi

Well time and tide wait for none, and so all we can do is just flow on.....

To end with - "Life takes its toll, please keep the change handy" :-)

-n

And yet another higher order .... whatever..

2007-03-20T23:12:00.000+05:30

It takes time to realize that the world is not ideal, nothing is perfect and so one should not pursue this dream of utopia. So what are mores? Why have rules? What is wrong with chaos, if chaos is the destined way?

notes..

2007-03-19T00:34:00.000+05:30

There was a naughty boy in London,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland,
The people there to see,

There he found,
That the ground,
Was as hard,
That a yard,
Was as long,
That a song,
Was as merry,
That a cherry,
Was as red,
That lead,
Was as weighty,
That fourscore,
Was as eighty,
As in England.

So he stood on his shoes,
And he wondered.
He stood on his shoes, and he wondered.
---------------------------------------XXXX------------------------------------

This was my 6th class poem, and if I remember it till date is because of my teacher, and how in a very simple manner it explains the truth - humans are same wherever they are! Though the poem talks about all inanimate things, they are all human inventions, and therefore are same.

On a different note, over discussion today at tea time, I discovered that the best takeaway from ISB for me was given by Prof BC.
- Its important to sleep well in the night
- One should be Generous, Enthusiastic and Optimistic all the time

I think ISB has taught me a lot of things. More later though...

Indian Cricket team

2007-03-18T16:43:00.000+05:30

This will not be a rational debate on what is going wrong with Indian cricket team. This will be just an outburst.

We Indians have traditionally been fooled by a lot of people, Brits, Moghuls included. So why not people who already are Indians and know the kind of passion Indians have for cricket? Yes, you guessed it, the Indian cricket team is keeping all of us in a matrix. They show us the carrot and themselves eat Chicken Tandoori.

I am not proposing a conspiracy theory, but look at the facts -
1. Indian team does not have performance based incentive.
2. If they win, Pepsi comes up with an ad. If they lose, Pepsi comes up with an ad. Who is benefited?
3. In spite of non-performance on field (statistically proven) Sachin still manages to get endorsement contracts. Talk about perceptions!
4. Any MNC coming in exploits this!

Bottomline: We are a great nation, with foolish ideals!

What's important? - 2

2007-03-14T00:17:00.000+05:30

Empathy

Empathy is essential to understand the underlying emotions of any human being. In the world where there are people with all kinds of Dharma, you are bound to be felt gratified and cheated at the same time, in case your sense of empathy is strong. Though, it is important to note that these 2 feelings are just manifestation of that person's own Karma or deeds of past, and are not his Dharma. To correct the Karma, one needs to see the underlying motive and seek a way to appeal to that motive. This is also a property of one's sense of empathy. For example, if you see someone failing an exam, instead of finding out where he went wrong, try to find the motive which lead to this result. Ultimately, even laziness is something born out of one single incident happened somewhere in the childhood. Appeal to that motive, single it out, and then present the case to the person. The results will be astounding and you will have solved your purpose,

Where does this take you?
While it is totally selfish of me to write about this, it is of importance too. Ultimately we are all here for a purpose and that purpose needs to be satisfied one way or the other.
Your Karma is very basic step to solve this purpose. It makes you aware of what you can do. Being aware of the repurcussions of your Karma to your surroundings makes you aware of your impact. Both of these in tandem help you to achieve your purpose. But to enable your mind to achieve that purpose, empathy is key. Why?
For example, you know you are good at solving mathematical problems and you have an accounting job. Now you are working for a MNC which is committing frauds. You know you are good at it, but you know you are accountable too. Now its a matter of choice whether you do it or not. If everyone else is doing similar frauds, and its a norm but you cannot do it, you fail the system. But if you KNOW that your way is right, and understand why others are doing it to show them how they can correct the entire thing requires you to be empathic. This way you either beat the system or change it.

Your purpose can be as small as this, or bigger depending upon when you realize it. People end up spending entire life not realizing the purpose too. I have no authority to write about what happens to such people.

Conclusion
We all live one life, and in the entire gamut of things its too short. Its paramount for us to find our purpose, for the lack of it can lead to total disorientation too.
I am not telling you to be unhappy if you have not found it, but have an open outlook towards life. Be receptive!

-n

Sab bolo sare bolo sare bolo rangaa...

2007-03-11T00:57:00.000+05:30

There were 2 critical events in the life of a typical moti-ke-lal (**technocrats** from MNREC aka MNNIT aka NIT Allahabad aka my alma mater). One Techno and Two Culrav. If you missed any of these, you either were not supposed to be a part of any discussion, or be ready to given a title that would give you pain worse than damnation in hell for eternity - MAGGU.

Techno fever started in Jan as soon as the even sem started. A good analogy can be European League Soccer. Two kinds of people competed in this, one who were sure they could reach the semi-finals and ones who played for fun. (now whether the latter category used this as excuse is anyone's guess, but hey, no offence meant). Hostels used to be resonating with names like "BT (Basanti Tangewali)", "MPJ (Maaro Peeto Jeeto)" etc. I dont remember the genesis of Techno, but I dont like history anyway, and it was much more fun to watch it than remember the great heroes who sacrificed their engineering lives to make this a success. Anyway, the clashes used to start in the evening, at arnd 6. Junta returning after a light snack from numerous tapris would gather around the good stuff. Hooting used to begin shortly, and so did the competition. Umpires were revered, heroes were built and a plethora of emotions used to churn out in just an hour of the play. No one knows when the excitement used to kick in, when the sem started, when the planning began at the end of odd term, or when the teams were getting formed, but when those floodlights in the BBC (BasketBall court, hehe) used to light, all that mattered was victory. Eliminations and then the rounds - quarter, semi and then the day of Finals. Entire, and I mean all the 1200 ppl of the college used to be there or at least it used to feel that way. That day, Ladies and Gentlemen, the real guts used to be spilt on that court. You have heard of nail biting finishes but nothing, believe me nothing matches the excitement that Techno trophy final would bring.

As if that was not enough, within a week another big bang used to bombard the campus. Yes, Culrav. The event when everyone used to love late nights for some event or the other. The time when you were officially allowed to flirt with the girl you liked (of course, with permissions from seniors). The time when, under the name of sponsorship, you could eat drink and make merry for rest of the semester. (Ok Arts commitee, I am not leaking any extra info). And when the day 1 of Culrav hit, it was like a fever. Formals, Informals, Request stall, Disc, Controls, skating rink, BBC, MP hall everything used to come alive with colors. And so did our lives! For a brief time we were in different world. You were allowed to tie a bandana that showed "Pepsi Culrav 1998" in front of Profs strolling. You were allowed to take a small peg of whiskey hidden on tennis courts so that you can come back quickly to the informals for a dance. And you were definitely allowed to listen to or give gyaan to anyone in a totally inebriated stage about life..

"Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end"

-n

What's important?

2007-03-08T00:45:00.000+05:30

What is "ultimately" important in life - to be happy or to be "happy" knowing that happiness is just a nerve tingling a certain part of the brain?

In simple words, as GT would fondly like to put it, to be a part of this web that entangles you into sensual delicacies or to be a master of your mind and beat this matrix?

So Where do we go?
That is the choice we make, and that is what separates the chaff from the grain. At one time or the other, the truth stares right at our face, and the truth is, the more dependent we become on these outside attractions for our "happiness", the more hopelessly we lose the internal motivation to live. The earlier this truth dawns, that our happiness lies within us, and it does not depend on anything other than us, the happier we are for the rest of our lives.

That was simple? Or was it?
There is always a danger though, and that is the one of being outside the "system". On that front, only one rule applies - Beat the system. If you cannot, the system has a self-correction mechanism and it can get you back or worse, terminated.

Beating the system
Beating the system is not that easy. First of all, a lot of us would find it difficult to be honest to themselves. Because that's almost necessary, so the disclaimer. But once you are honest to yourself about what you are, your abilities and inabilities, vice, virtues etc, making choices is a simpler process. Once that is achieved, the choices come by themselves and it almost becomes intuitive.
This entire process shapes up the Dharma, your nature. Once your nature is known to you, you realize that other people's nature actually is your nature given their circumstances. This realization leads to empathy.

to be contd...

-n

Last term

2007-02-25T23:21:00.000+05:30

Its the last term at ISB. Its going to start tomorrow. Its amazing how fast time seemed to pass. Its amazing.

Crap...
What we are now going to do is something more than a quintessential "ISB-ian in the last term" drama. In fact we will not take the "... and we had some funny moments in term 3.." or "...darn best party on earth..." route. No.. I mean, sure, everyone knows that and wants to write about it, but we wont. Lets break the rut. Lets get to the basic facts and talk about hard truth.

Term 8 starts tomorrow, and someone just reminded me of reading 6 "things". I will tell you that most opinions will be "yeah, as if I care"... or some sort. And that is the truth. Apparently in some *well known institutes of management* people actually bunk the ENTIRE last sems. That is the hard fact. And the fact is, all that I wanted from a PGPM (c'mon all you Indian folks, it really ain't an MBA, please realize that!!) has been achieved!! It has been, seriously... See people all around you, are they all worried about pre-reads?? Heck no!! I have watched enough movies, had enough booze, had enough lunch and dinner outside, heck I even baby-sat my friends kiddo!! Beat that...! That my friend is reality staring right at our eyes. That we have got the job and to hell with whatever comes tomorrow...

If you think is evil, that one should not think like this, I say... ok I cannot say it in this blog, but in a privy discussion over a couple of beers, I can articulate my thoughts in pretty much 2 words...

I think all I am worried about right now is after a couple of months, how will I survive without someone knocking on my door in the morning calling "HOUSEKEEPING"....

Contd from last time...

2007-02-21T23:24:00.000+05:30

And I sat there in the corner of the room, and then the same flash again.. And I was dead sure this was going to be my day..

I am surely not the types who can spend a lot of time thinking about the Deja-Vu but when they happen it sure scares me like hell. The number was 2 this time and that too in a very short time as against the last one that probably happened years ago.

Again if anyone reading this has got such things happen to them, feel free to comment

---------------------- XX ----------------------

Some people leave an indelible mark on you, and sometimes it becomes too difficult to forget things. Especially when people choose just the right day to dig the graves. I was reading this blog and found myself in the same stage... looking at an old dead memory which comes to haunt me time and again... And then, however I hate to do that, I relive every moment again... again ... and again... The fault is not with the other party... Its me who just can't stop staring at the abyss..

---------------------- XX ----------------------

Current Melody

"Ae Hairath-e-aashiqui jaga matt,
Pairon se zameen zameen laga matt"

:-)

.. and it happened again

2007-02-12T00:05:00.000+05:30

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Johnson2.html

I am not sure how many people have this but it sure is scary as hell. After what happened today, I would rather fall sleep deeper than usual...

-n

observations....

2007-01-31T00:56:00.000+05:30

1. That it is very easy to "classify" someone, but very difficult to confess that you too are different...
2. That it is very easy to defend perceived truth, but very difficult to prove observed falsity.
3. That it is very easy to say "I can't", but very difficult to say "Allow me"
4. That it is very easy to blame, but very difficult to correct
AND
5. That it is very easy to hate, easiest to avoid, but difficult to commit, and even harder to say "I do"...

white spaces....

2007-01-27T22:37:00.000+05:30

And I heaved a sigh,
Thought something and hung up the phone,
Have I come so far in life,
That I hide things from people I call my own

And I heaved a sigh,
Trying hard to reach out,
Wasn't maturity supposed to suppress,
All those bad thoughts the mind shouts?

And I heaved a sigh,
Planning to keep myself up,
Isn't growing old supposed to teach,
To trade off and keep up?

And I heaved a sigh,
Looked at myself in mirror one last time,
Do I look like a mature person,
Who could perform a real life mime?

Days of Happy Nation...

2007-01-25T19:25:00.000+05:30

And then suddenly this song played the other day in class, "Land down under" I was suddenly transported back 9 years or so...

It all used to start after finishing Maths class... it used to be lunch time, and to take out all the frust of back to back 3 tuitions we used to chat our troubles away.. R's mom used to work, so the flat was all for us... and then the music.. Ace of Base, Peter Andre, and lots more... the world was about nothing else but (a) having good food at a restaurant at WHC and (b) ... ;-)

and then incessant rambling about how board exams kill, how entrance tests are not meant for us, how life is terribly pathetic, how every girl is checking P out and then killing P for it...

sigh!! memories... some good, some bad some sweet but mostly amusing.. :) .. I wonder if I will ever live those days again...

2007-01-22T00:58:00.000+05:30

I am at my hating best today... I m having a bad stomach and I am hating it so much that I am hating almost everything around me too including the faces of my quadmates. I just had a fight-club-ish fight with one just now. Well since I am hating things, and one of the signs of attaining Maslow's tip is to know oneself I am publishing a list of things I hate... Yes you got it, you picked the wrong day to read this blog..

1. First I'd apologize VT for borrowing his thought, but at this time, when placement season is reaching the peak, I am hating competition like I never hated before. To create a differentiation is such a P-I-T-A activity, I never ever imagined! To hell with resumes, preps and all those things...

2. I hate when movies by directors like Mani ratnam fail to deliver... I watched Guru and contrary to popular belief I didn't like the movie as a package.. No punch, nothing... And why the hell does Ash act anyway??

3. This one would take guts to accept, but I think I hate the idea of falling in love... I mean whats it? A rush of some stupid hormones at a wrong time?? what the f*** is it? I don't know neither do people who are in it, nor the people who had it.. Undefined things never attracted me... Oh so thats it!! Its undefined for me .. hmm... anyway I hate it..

4. If this were another time Immaturity would have topped this list, but I think to some extent its what gives some hate-loving people like me a purpose to write on days when they hate everything.. I am in a place where intelligentsia is not less and yet people show such brash-ness sometimes.. I wonder how India will progress with people like these!!

5. This would be the cliched one, so just saying it out.. I hate politics

6. Last but not the least I hate the thought of writing a blog like this.. a sorta hate list.. but when (a) one's stomach is upset (b) one cannot sleep (c) One is also hungry; and (d) I am the ONE... I think I have no other option..

good nite ppl and hope to get all cheery tomorrow...

-n

Singur, Nandigram et al...

2007-01-09T01:48:00.000+05:30

First of all, let me admit that the happenings in these 2 villages in WB are really disturbing. The violence, the deaths, the bloodshed, it all just gives us the feeling that while we progress at 8% p.a. economy-wise, somewhere in a far corner of the rural India, it really does not make any difference to the society.

If only governments REALLY cared for the public and assured their due diligence, this situation would have been avoided. But all that analysis crap is in hindsight.

Progress, they say, is not a spike, but a gradual process, and hence the name 'progress'. India, on the contrary, is just zooming ahead with Urban areas developing at an exponential rate. There is no justification one can give to this spectacular growth and the money thats getting infused. What happens next is anyone's guess.

Never before have any state government seen so much FDI coming to its doorsteps. AP govt's landmark $3 bn Semiconductor Fab deal being the torchbearer in this context. So while all this happens, our state govt gets pressurized. In a sense it is bringing things to speed, but on the other hand there is no balancing mechanism to over see all these activities. Thank God, Naidu had done his homework well that at least in Hyderabad and adjoining districts (Rangareddy, Medak, Sangareddy etc) available land is labeled.

WB on the other hand is on a roller coaster ride. Suddenly Buddhadeb realized that he has to cover a lot of ground before he even comes closer to what smaller states like Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, CG etc are doing - FDI infusion is driving success. So it starts to realize that it also has to invest in SEZs and all that jazz. And Nandigram happened.

I am not entirely sure, but one thing keeps popping in my head - Every state needs to realize its core competency. I know its a cliched word but it has to come. Maharashtra used its industries, AP software and Punjab/Haryana agriculture. Is it that difficult for state govts to see where the true potential lies?

Here is to the future, one that makes Orissa the most mineral rich state and WB the rice bowl of the country!!

Hic-hiker's guide...

2007-01-06T01:21:00.000+05:30

Umm you have a new year party, you have paid that 'extra' premium for being there, and you are all set to rock the world to bid good bye to an exciting year... You are ready to go to that party and just go wild in a manic sort of way...
And then the unfortunate things hit you... "resolution to cut down on any hard drink, and smoke".. UGGHH... ok...

So for my fellow friends here is a guide to have a totally sober new year...
First of all it is very important that you become rsponsible to drive to and fro the party site.. which means that you should also NOT have any competitors or substitutes. One way to make sure is to take your car... Even if that doesn't work, have the party at a place which is like at the fag end of the universe... or at least seems like it..
Another one of my favorite trick is to hang on with a person who is totally sloshed, and when I mean totally, I mean the way Big B is in Sharabi... Just happy with the world and walking like a crab.. (which reminded me of a joke, but later).. This way you condescendingly handle the guy and feel pretty good about it, apart from enjoying the party with him... its better that this person is not that emotionally attached to you otherwise all you'll remember of the party will be a sob saga ...
The last recipe of being sober is a trade secret. its a personal favorite and you can call or email me to get the details... Your privacy assured...

So here is cheers to life, and another year full of excitement, enthu and other such things that make booze a total waste of money!!

PSSSTTT, next time "Why IIMs are better than any other B-schools in India and why should ISB worry?"... interesting no??

Argumentative Indians..

2007-01-04T23:09:00.000+05:30

Our quad would have been Aristotle's delight, if he were alive today. And by Jove! GT would have been his most beloved disciple! With GT around, all the J 1-4 quad would be seething in argumentation...

So how do you argue? You start from dining hall to the quad. Mid-way GT will get some or the other philosophical idea.. Don't know if its the night, or the insects, but he gets it. And then he throws at us a conclusion.... No its not an argument, its a solid conclusion... like the other day when he said "As a society I think we are far better than previous generations"...

Enter VG. Now this guy cannot tolerate any statement (including Profs) without his brain processing its logic at 4 Gigs... So when such faff is thrown at him, he gets a purpose.. or rather his brain gets a direction... and the games begin...

Enter me. Now the situation when I enter is always warm to hot depending on whether GT is standing or sitting (respectively)... As a arbitrator, I understand GT's philosphy sometimes and VGs logic sometimes... So 3 cases arise here
1. I dont understand either one of them, in which case, believe me it becomes a WAR!! Stick cricket was one of them.. I almost thought that post ISB I will only see one of them living.. and looking at them structurally it was going to be VG.. So I used to be sympathetic towards GT...
2. I understand one of them, in which case I used to form team and kill the other person live.. GT used to be slightly weak, but VG used to fight till death..
3. I understand both of them, in which case I used to bring out the obvious fallacy in their argument and shut them both up, or digress to a different topic to kill someone..

AAHHH.... SM, you missed all the fun man!! ;-)

I think I am going to miss ISB the max for this ... Jai ho Aristotle !!

Next time: Hic-hiker's guide to be sober on new year!

How not to get 'chhapak'-ed in someone else' Bday!!

2007-01-03T15:38:00.000+05:30

The story dates back to my undergrad days... Wow what days!! anyway, so there was this kick-ass attitude shown by all fellow ppl in hostel for one poor soul who used to be unfortunately born on that day... it used to be just kicks.. or sometimes a bucket full of water AND kicks...

So this is a ritual in ISB to dunk, and what happens is this..
1. Get the guy
2. All follow him till pool
3. 5 ppl carry him, and make like a jhoola
4. Throw him in the pool
5. Catch anyone else in vicinity who seems vulnerable, and repeat steps 1-4

Now to my great fortune, every time the section mail came for someone's bday I'd be -
a. Having a nice sleep
b. Gone to my friends place
c. Both!!

So that's one of the ways destiny helps you with avoiding dunking...
BUt I have been to some dunkings and here is what I have observed about ppl who are always left undunked..
--> Take the centerstage, and be the dunker... Offence is the single best defence...
--> If someone tries to make brouhaha abt u, catch that guy and throw him/her into the pool.. Na rahega baas... ;-)
--> Be stone drunk... So that even if you ARE drunk you don't feel it.. Ultimately our aim here is not to feel that 'cold'th in the night...
--> Make sure lot of unknown faces are present so that you try to mingle with them, and in doing so lose touch with potentials who can throw u... and please make it natural...

Disclaimer: These are 1-time strategies... Also since its a public blog, I am removing any comp advantage from the market!! :-)

Happy Dunking to all...

PS: Next time... "Argumentative Indians: Quad J -1 to 4, ISB, Gachibowli, Hyderabad"

Misnomer... 2

2007-01-02T10:24:00.000+05:30

ISB has many facets, and a sorta culture to this place... Altho unlike many other Bschools we don't have any particular lingo, but some words are more famous than others... here are some for u...

1. Arbit CP: So you slept late in the nite or didnt sleep at all, and then realized that the 8 am class is havin a 40% CP component... You gotta CP and all you have is a faint idea of the case that your neighbour told you in 2 mins... So what do you do? Here are some tips for the beginners..
(a) Just talk your experience in the area... and start with "When I was workin in XYZ for their ABC division, we'd a similar issue...." and then you have a liberty to faff...
(b) Grab the opportunity when Prof goes off the case and starts asking opinions... This has the highest reward and so is risk, but darn..
(c) Just do it!!!

2. Faff: I am not sure how the word came into existence, maybe from fluff, but after sitting through just one strategy course, I totally understood the importance of faff for the entire mankind!! I hope now audience should be clear abt what faff is, and if not I'd recommend going through the works of Gary Hamel, CK Prahlad etc. With all due respect, they are gurus, and therefore, I am not saying that faff is bad or good. It just depends on you. ;-)

3. Take: So this can be anyone's take... generally though its Prof's take.. And its fun to ask this question, because (a) Amazing CP.. and (b) Amazing CP grades.. Though the que can be asked in many ways the most common form is "Excuse me sir, what is your take on this?"..

4. Takeaway: This is the cousin of Take ... And often the answer to the "take" que is a takeaway... and then there are better ones called "Key Takeaways" that I have heard are really important to getting placed.. :)

Coming up... "How NOT to get dunked on someone else's birthday"..

Misnomer...?

2006-12-29T14:46:00.000+05:30

My blog site reads nissimatisb, and well I haven't written much about it at all. But rather than having a guilt, I am having a cup of tea right now, to digest this bitter fact. Alright this will be a sum total of what has happened with me in ISB till now... And for faint hearted, please stop right now!

My first blog, was about how I managed to tame my wild heart and got to socialize with junta. First 2 weeks were a blast with Tennis and T-nite stuff going full blown. We won the talent nite showdown, and made a turnaround from last to 2nd place!

Marketing was the first killer. Oh, and did I tell you I hate theory! So for marathon 2 terms I was molested by this subject. And my honorable quadie S, who has become a pukka MBA, was grinning all the way.. Meanwhile the other quadie V was preparing himself for all those coveted posts of student management which give people a kick and spike on the resume! He did his best but as things went it wasnt that best.

Accounting, and Finance subjects came next. I tell you these are very "lucrative" to read but when it comes to making decision, I almost fell like a Newtonian little kid staring at the ocean picking up a fancy shell or 2. DEFINITELY NOT MAJORING IN THIS, I thought (of course, out loud).

There was a tiny weeny IT subject in 4th term, my only hope to recover from the Grade BOP (Bottom of Pyramid, for the uninitiated), and it tricked us! I hit the abyss in this subject!!

Meanwhile Quadies were mingling more often.. V, G and I had fun time during inter-term breaks, mainly becoz S just had a fetish for Mumbai ... Yah right, everyone loves their home town but this was definitely more than that...

I will stop here since faint hearted didnt listen and are still reading... guys please....
OK later then!!

quote

2006-12-28T00:14:00.000+05:30

Its not the end. Its not even beginning of the end.
Its the end of the
beginning!

Just a thought, just an ordinary thought...

2006-12-22T22:53:00.000+05:30

so here is the story of a very ordinary man.. and it might sound very un-real but that was my grandfather, and when i drove 600 kms to console my granny's unconsolable loss, my mind wandered...

my grandfather was the only surviving member of his family. his parents and other siblings didn't survive, as used to be the norm at that time. he grew up with his maternal uncle who treated him like a slave. though his paternal aunt knew that he was entitled to all the property of his father which the m.u. had an eye on. so when he came to the legal age, his p.a. fought with the m.u. and gave him his due rights. he came to MP where the land was (and is) and started working days and nights together. from nothing he created everything. almost enviable. and severed relations with everyone from his maternal side.
he wasnt an educated fellow, but he knew he had to educate his kids, and so he sent all his kids to p.a.'s house in city where they all grew by themselves.
he was a true soldier, fought till the end. he was a man of the soil. he was the man who gave me passion to drive that long. a lot of my nature is like him.

its almost like tagore kept my gradfather in mind when he wrote this (english version):

"jodi tor daak shune keu naa aashe, tobe eklaa cholo re"

If they answer not to thy call walk alone,
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou of evil luck,open thy mind and speak out alone.
If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou of evil luck,trample the thorns under thy tread,
and along the blood-lined track travel alone.
If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
O thou of evil luck,with the thunder flame of pain ignite thy own heart
and let it burn alone.

my tributes to a man who stood on the ground, and challenged the sky.
my salute to "mannu patel", because you taught us "mushkil nahi hai kuch bhi agar thaan lijiye"

:'(

any comments?

2006-12-06T19:57:00.000+05:30

A few words I have heard a lot in last few days and a lot means *a lot to write a friggin' blog*!! Here are a few and their definitions -

1. Moving up the value chain - Ok so you have a offshoring shop in India and you are happy that you are going to be minting money. Wait! Did I hear that this is 2006? Dude! Please change your strategy and do something other than just hiring s/w engrs and make them code like mad. Ok here is a *road map*, try to hire some people who are MBA, give them fundas about what your clients are doing, and next day don't feel shy to promote your techno-functional consultants. Now you are moving up the value chain!!

2. Supply and Demand - They are fine by themselves but when you attach the word IT to it they can pretty tricky. Your normal supply comes from your suppliers, but you IT supply comes from within. The normal demand comes from customers, but IT demand ALSO comes from within. WTF? That's the world that McKinsey has portrayed and projected for all those stupid people who wasted their lives on IT businesses. And if McKinsey says it, please don't waste time arguing.

3. OPM - Option Pricing Model, well they taught us how to price the ESOPs using Black Scholes. Then they said ESOPs are now out. They are expense, in Warren Buffet's lingo. So we thought well they are out, so we were happy (my colleagues in B-schools would agree that Black Scholes is as complicated as one could get to find out the value of stock options. I love ESOPs as much as I hate BS). VOILA!! The curtain raised, and I find myself again pondering over this BS for valuation of option embedded IT projects.. WTF??... What a waste of time for all these months!!

That will be all for now... I think MBA is becoming very dynamic. They should only teach basic things and leave the rest (incl grades) on us.. ;-)

Life...

2006-11-26T12:55:00.000+05:30

Questions... Infinite questions....
What is one's priority? Is it life or death?
And how do you make those choices?

Can holding hands at the right time replace any amount of sympathy?
Can a thousand words replace a simple hug?
Can you console someone when you yourself are grieving?

Philosophies are for the un-touched. When emotions confront, all we are left is with a flood of myriad thoughts, nostalgia and dreams...

"Tum masarrat ka kaho, ya ise gham ka rishta
Kehte hain pyar ka rishta hai janam ka rishta,
Hai janam ka jo ye rishta, to badalta kyon hai?" :'(

Fields of gold....

2006-11-22T01:19:00.000+05:30

this song takes me actually to a field of barley, when I have never been to one actually.. max i reached is a field of paddy but that doesn't look romantic enough...

champagne in the fridge, breezers too, and I wonder about petty things like exams..

Planes flying low, another cost cutting sydrome??

Adobe CEO's son kidnapped, and returned, without ransom, how? why? Efficient Police or foolish nabbers?

"We adulterate and sell this product"... Is the man making this statement guilty?

Sansani always finds people who admit their crime candidly before camera. Are they real criminals then?

Harvard Biz school sends newsletters to everyone registered on their website. Why does a numero uno need *mass promotion*?

People sending out resumes in large numbers for any post. Ex post, adverse selection?

Resumes leaving the norm for a post. Ex-post, diluting brand value?

Is MBA that difficult to apply to real life? No. What is difficult is to understand the jargons in a layman's language.

"You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold"

Serendipity OST

2006-11-19T20:41:00.001+05:30

Amazing movie, amazing song... and Kate's accent.. ;-)

Amazing lines!! :-)

2006-11-12T22:14:00.000+05:30

pathhar ke inn raston pe
phoolon ki ek chadar hain
jabse milen ho hamko
badla har ek manzar hain
dekho jahaan mein neele neele aasmaan tale
rang naye naye hain jaise ghulte hue
soye the khwaab mere jaage tere waaste
tere khayaalon se hai bheege mere raaste
kya mujhe pyar hain....

- From Dishant.com

Ek aur wicket... :-)

2006-11-11T01:32:00.000+05:30

Ahuja's marriage date is fixed. Unlike *some* people in agf this was pretty predictable. A dependable model of "engagement-getting to know each other-marriage" was followed, unlike the 'no mangni, only byah' model that was about to become the norm (ab launde hi aise the ki poochhiye matt).. ;-)).

Disclaimer: I might be writing things that should not be seen by Mrs Ahuja for the reason that I particularly would not like to see the most loud-mouth of our group sitting silent for the rest of his life... :-) So this would be my 'virtual' gift to the to-be-married couple..

Ahuja was the most loud character in the college. Some things like 'kya chal raha hai yaar' which can be spoken at acceptable human decibel levels used to fall on my ear as if ahuja is asking the entire wing at the same time... It took time to realize that this quality comes only to people with a clear conscience !!

Hujja was a gossip-monger to the core, this guy was the BBC/CNN, oh no wait we had a broadcasting company on his name man... ABC... and ABC news, mind you ppl, was NEVER wrong.. well sometimes there were instances when some miscreants, just to prove a point, skewed the news. I imagine if we'd really opened ABC, it'd have a USP like this -
"Malviya se lekar VIBGYOR tak, aur Tagore se lekar, Avtar tak, ABC, sabse aage sabse tez... Bachpan se.. "... :-).. and in English...
"From Malviya to VIBGYOR, Tagore to Avtar, current affairs, latest in Rajesh/Pappu, and latest in fashion from CC, this is ABC.." ... In short, if you have to make sense of 2&2 becoming 5, here is a chap who probably predicts it already...

He was the one who really taught me what friendship is.. I remember the incident when I had to go to Ngp, and catch a train, and he promised to drop me but his senior was there too and our friend was 4 beers down.. BUT he (and lovely... :-)) dropped me even in that state...

Ok now the real story...
11:30 in the nite, Katra chauraha, a pig cuts across the road 100 m away from us, and screeeeeech... we brake... "Ahuje kya hua".. "abbe wo suar".. "Abbe wo bahut duur hai".. "Theek hai yaar"... "$^&*#^ kitni pee hai saale".. "Abbe ek hi peeke aaya hun"..."Lovely, chal bhai bhagwan ko yaad karna chalu kar"... :-)))..

To some people, the word promise, means life... To me such people are exemplary....

Sirsi, Bdays, Movies... Na one movie... Pyaar tune kya kiya... LOL... Kanpur Univ ki junta and hum paanch... in bhari dupahari... :D ... life couldn't have gotten any worse and interesting at the same time...

Bhaang samaroh, with "Aath ande ki bhujiya aur 32 slices"... LOL.. Only hujjaa... none else can match his cali...

He was the thread of our grp, something that gave us energy to shout out loud when someone said "Please maintain some decency"... :-)))))

One person many facets, many values and just one adjective... Honorable...

Amazing article by Gurcharan Das

2006-11-06T16:40:00.000+05:30

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1973651.cms

"Marathi ase aapuli maayboli"...

2006-10-30T16:35:00.000+05:30

To begin, the title translates as "Marathi is my mothertongue". India being a melting pot of so many cultures and language-speaking people, its obvious that language is a major binding force. I also somehow fall into the category of people who feel compelled to speak Marathi when I identify someone as being a fellow Marathi. Though the intensity of that urge has come down considerably along the years.

People tend to take this binding force a step forward to create a sense of belongingness to the language. Hence in every state which has industrialization, we have these set of people who think that their language is under threat! We have Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Bong etc saving communities - i.e. people who see to it that the language is preserved from foreign attack.

I started thinking, how can anything be bigger than human being? And language for that matter? Do we force people to speak our language just because we want our comfort more than anything else? Why do people lose focus so easily about the fact that we are here for the betterment of human beings and not language? So does it really matter to me if the guy in my neighbor who is a nice human being otherwise, speaks my language?

Guess people do not have guts to have a better purpose in life, and so they are happy in their little shells to think of such things!!

Some thinking...

2006-10-21T01:30:00.001+05:30

Ok a bit of background, have been seeing people fighting a lot lately. I really am not a fighter, I mean I really don't believe in fighting for every small thing, sometimes the benefit is in letting things go. Also I think fighting for a thing makes you possessive to a degree that cannot be justified in common sensical terms. Of course, for larger things like rights etc, I can fight but looking at my past, the last big fight I had was in 9th std where I stood for myself ( and don't ask what entailed)

Whatever it may be, today's blog is dedicated to all those people who take smallest of things with great seriousness and fight for it, without recognizing that it JUST might not be at all in a long term benefit. I will draw hugely from MBA terminology but you will get a hang towards the end.

Opportunity cost - What is the benefit I am giving up my pursuing this fight? Ask yourself, if you would have used this energy (mental or physical or spiritual) for some other use, would you have made a difference to yourself. I am concerned since people doing MBA fail to do this! E.g. instead of spending time thinking about how education system is bad, if that same intensity can be used for thinking about how current education can be used to analyse a situation in society, wouldn't that be a positive proposition?

Adverse Selection - We all know, or should know, that ultimately, everything in this world boils down to an individual. Admissions, job opportunity, your case getting selected, everything. You might, at this point say committees, but go back to influencing skills workshop, and remember the key takeaway. Its ultimately a minority that influences the majority and most of the times just one influencer! So if the world is that subjective, what matters is not to prove to the world you are good or bad but to that person? Isn't this hurting your ego a bit. Now world becomes a pretty decent place to live if we assume that everyone is good at what they do. You will realize that once you adopt this funda, you create a positive network externality, plus you create an indirect pressure on the person before you to be responsible.

To sum, what if today, we all think that life is not about just being good in the system, but to use the system to make the world a better place, I'd say that is education. Otherwise, I see nothing but wasted brilliance...

Kalaakari... !!

2006-10-19T00:02:00.000+05:30

"Inside Outside"

"Stairwell to Heaven"
Camera: DSC T1 , night mode

Tryst.... - 2

2006-10-14T12:58:00.000+05:30

Who says you cannot lose way in Indian highways? Yeah, even if there is no "network" of roads, there are no directions too and then on any given 4-way in a city you might lose your way. Thank God for creating paanwaalas and the junta there that one can easily find their way out...

Tech revolution of some kind?
There was this typical small village, and it barely had like 10 shops BUT there was NIIT center!! And then all the villages till I hit Maharashtra border were having TATA Sky type small dish. Probably the DISH TV itself.. What the ..!! India is marching forward, and with progressive governments like AP, the villages speak of themselves.

Market economy
Every village had a main road that I used to touch. And every main road had a bazaar. And every bazaar was laid out in exactly the same way. They all begin with small auto-car-truck repair shops, in vicinity a petrol pump, hardware shops, grocery stores and right in the middle will be garments shops... and the pattern continues in opposite direction as you move out of the town. Vegetable vendors are in front of grocery stores.. Every single town I touched had almost the same bazaar structure.. Sounds to me like another effecient market hypothesis, albeit in MGTO terms.. :-)

Reliance petrol pumps
These pumps sure are worth mentioning. Slowly they are changing the way Indians travel on the road. Food quality being a different issue, at least there were decent wash rooms and TVs (refer to DISH TV context) so that one can chillax on way.. Helpful staff and a big parking area... I was almost transported to Route 90 in US... :-)

More later....

Nostalgia...

2006-10-13T01:43:00.000+05:30

Nowadays, when mind has nowhere to wander, its transported to Nashua, NH. I distinctly remember my first day in Nashua. From Manchester airport, I got a taxi. The driver asked me which exit, and that was the first time I had heard that word. Curse you A, I was all alone in the night in a totally foreign nation.

But in US things work exactly by the book. I read somewhere that the taxi cab takes $40 and whoa it was exactly the same amount he asked me. I was totally surprised. :-)

I had a bit of snow-darshan in Detroit while stop-over, so snow didn't remain as much a fancy. And I thought how big could it get until I saw the kind of snow that Nashua had to show me. It was too much, and for too long. Driving used to get so messy, my entire body was shivering one day as my muscles had totally tensed up after driving what felt like an age on 3-North.

We saw Rt 3N-S building up. We saw how, after the traffic increased, the highway was reshaped to accommodate Rt 495 traffic.

US is all about its highways. I still remember my way to
1. Bollywood grill (our fav restaurant, thanks to S) - Rt 3 South -> Rt 495 N (Exit for Lawrence)
2. Boston Airport - Rt 3 S -> Rt 93 N -> Rt 95 S (Airport exit, and TOLL while coming back)
3. Alewife T station (red line) - Rt 3 S -> Rt 95 S -> Rt 2E ("Yaatriyon se nivedan hai ki...") :)

Crazy days... We used to be so afraid of getting lost 'coz the time delay was just too much. And then every town in America looks the same... :)
I got lost in Boston every single time I went, every single time.. Can you beat that?

Fall colors were highlight of New Hampshire. They were, as one would put it, the very essence of NH. Its like the colors red, orange, yellow and brown are linked to the streets of Nashua, and valleys of the White Mountains

White mountain: I never ever got tired travelling to White Mountains. Never. We had coffee by the foot of a hill. Mt Washington was a terror to reach but was a sort of heaven up there. Fog, record breaking winds, and hot chocolate...

Manchester: It all started at 80 Dunbarton Road.. :-) And it seemed like it'd never end.. Thanks P and M for making our trip memorable.. P's Patties, M's chai , our barging in at un-earthly hours, T's surprise, A-G's xmas party, U-J's newport trip, S's tripping over the covered swimming pool and the trip to Big Apple.... :)

Niagara: :-) :-) .. "Suno no suno na sun lo na".. Chalte Chalte got attached so badly to our 400 mile journey that I don't think Dada, A, S and I can ever erase this memory...
Rain, rest areas, NY thruway - Massachussets Turnpike, Buffalo, upstate NY, Lighthouse..

Olive Garden, Crispy chicken at BK, BK veggie, and host of Indian restaurants. Whats life without food!!

San Jose, CA. Seattle, WA. Raleigh, NC. Lawrence, MA. Lowell, MA. Stamford, Ct.

Innumerable airports, bus stops, people, souvenirs of memories...

I couldn't believe that I would treasure so much in 2 years!! Really life is too short to experience everything... including first seat adventure of world's deadliest roller coaster!! :-)

Let us think big...

2006-10-12T16:47:00.000+05:30

Agriculture employs 67% of workers in India. Agriculture contributes to 34% of GDP. Agriculture's growth rate is 3%. I see a grim picture. I see a tremendous opportunity -

1. Potential for farmers to collaborate - Rather than being owner of small 1 acre land, why can't some farmers consolidate and work. Risk hedging by finances as well as whatever fertility difference in soil.

2. Potential for getting sponsored by retailers - Doable but not easy. e-choupal is a start but we need to remember that it was ITC that started it.

3. Potential to kick someone's a** at Mandi - Let us accept it, Mandi system sucks and that is the biggest pain to any farmer. From point 1, a united front of farmers can wake Mandi up and demand some rights.

I know Unionization can be said as a potential threat, but we do need it where we need it. And of course, laws can also be made to avoid such a situation. All I am saying is that building some bargaining power in farmers will try to balance the power equation.

Selection Bias - its everywhere...

2006-10-10T18:56:00.000+05:30

This is a new term that we learnt this term, and by Jove! Its omnipresent... Take the following examples from daily life -
1. "Yaar pehle kya maza aata tha job/ghar/college".. Dude you can't see the future, and present (bcoz of the statement's context is sad) so past can ONLY be good...

2. "Yaar confused.. people say X major is not that beneficial... I am ok with current Y major".. Well if all the people you asked 'X' about were all frust with X so how can they??

Amazing concept!!

Tryst with Destiny - 1

2006-10-01T11:10:00.000+05:30

This is the first part of something I think I will take more time to think about before writing. Some things happen in your life that alter the way you are. A 1500 km drive, alone, with some music can definitely qualify as one of them.

1500 km on car, alone, music
And the inevitable happened. Things you cannot do anything about. Then you need to take decision. Drive, 480 + 150 kms. Yes I will drive. That's how it all started.

Music..

"Mushkil nahi hai kuchh bhi agar thaan lijiye" - Umrao Jaan

"Hona jo bhi hai, hoga kal yahan, roke se ruke, aisa pal kahan,
Saans li mar gaye, kya khata kar gaye, maut se dar gaye, jo kiya wo kiya bewajah" - Sangharsh

Highways need to be better..
No this wouldnt be your typical, "Kya kharab rasta hai yaar"... With Reliance coming up with all those fancy restaurants, and ditto with HP, I think people need to hit the road... to see the green paddy fields as you rise atop a mountain... as you touch the clouds on the top... a heavenly moment, all lost because of bad roads... Roads HAVE to be good...

A new angle
So while roads are getting better, speeds are going higher, more boards with "Durghatna grast kshetra" mushrooming.. but all the accidents that happen are never in 5 km vicinity of that board.. I wonder if this was false positive or false negative...

More later...

Privacy...

2006-09-16T01:15:00.000+05:30

While wondering about Google and its playing with people's privacy, following thought came to my mind - "Does privacy promote immorality?". Let me start by giving a roadmap to this thought first.
Being social is the characteristic of human beings. We all live in a society, whether we need to or not will be left to one's own judgment. But in almost all cases we need to too. Having a solid credibility in place comes next. If one chooses to trade freely in the society, credibility goes a long way in making sure it happens in seamless fashion. And I mean trade of goods, services even ideas.
Credibility comes with having little or no dark secrets or dust beneath the rug etc. While there is no certain way someone can confirm one's credibility, almost all of us make sure we hide our secrets well or at least do our bit to justify. In any case, we want to slightly open our books to make sure we look good in the public. Sometimes this can get slightly out of hand and people go overboard with their image.
Privacy and the respect for it actually is a progeny of western individualistic school of thought. Obviously what I am doing in my own damn business, but with an emerging market economy everywhere, who knows it might hurt someone else's damn business. This is where the trick lies. Let us take an example -
Mr X is your normal office goer who (according to his friends) loves movies, books and is generally a homebound down-to-earth types person. Interesting in his own ways. Mr X though privately does a lot of sidey things over net like has a alias for sex chat etc. This part only he knows. Mr X has a girlfriend Ms Y. Y likes X for what she knows he is. One day this geeky friend of Y tells her that she found X chatting in lewd lingo over net. Busted!!! Ok now thats not that easy but you can imagine.

Where am I heading? well ok, I think privacy laws just make us more prone to being accountable to society. So if the person is not upright by himself, there is no way you can make him upright.
On the contrary, Indian society laid emphasis on slightly more non-privacy oriented model. This makes sure that each individual in the society keeps a tab on the other as far as morality is concerned.
So while Google is playing with our privacy, I think we are evolving towards a more open society, a society which while empowering an individual, also makes sure that none of his deeds go unwatched!

Good one..

2006-09-11T19:34:00.000+05:30

On my Dad's shirt that I gifted him...

"The road to heaven might not be a road at all"... Amazing!!

Reward?

2006-09-10T23:52:00.000+05:30

Our PM has declared relief package for farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha. He seems to be so moved by this one event that it even appeared in his Independence day speech. Quite a contrast that after declaring this package, the suicide didn't stop but actually increased. From a common man's perspective, this is contradictory. From an economic perspective not.

Come to think of it, aren't we providing an incentive for farmers to commit suicide by offering such packages. As such agriculture isn't a very lucrative business. Lack of infrastructure facilities, money and any governmental help, farmers are faced with so many adversities that there life resembles a saga of struggle against everything. Add to this the suicide package, and what we get is a recipe for disaster.

I cannot think of any solution, but I can definitely say that merely providing financial help is not help at all.

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life" - Chinese proverb.

Here is praying for those deceased farmers, and wishing that things become better for hapless farmers of our nation.

If by Rudyard Kipling

2006-09-06T19:15:00.000+05:30

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Train Journeys...

2006-09-03T11:29:00.000+05:30

I like train journeys... Rather I love them... Its a good way to see how people react and you can have fun if you have a slightly amazing sense of humor.. :)
Will try to reminisce some exciting and intriguing incidents -

So here I was sitting with an elderly gentleman on side lower. He'd spread the berth like they do when someone wants to sleep.. So we are having a nice little chat about stations and stuff.. you know like "I think we will reach Blah station by blah time".. Now I happen to be hungry at the same time.. Ok, and I was doing another annoying thing which was to ask that person "Let me know if you want to sleep" (of course seeing the position of the berth and with all due respect to the age).. Coming to the hungry bit, I had a pack of biscuits with me. Now if you have seen the ads that Railways wants people to travel safe, almost all of them have a pack of "poisonous" biscuits in it. I offered the pack of biscuits to the person in front, and believe me he just left the seat... I mean totally left it... only to return when he found me in deep slumber... Ithink this is what might have happened -
Over enthu me --> Asking if he wants to sleep --> Seeing that he is awake offering biscuits!!
:-))

Another incident while travelling back to Hyd.. So I have got a free upgrade which I am totally unaware of, and so my seat is allocated to someone else. And like me there is another guy.. SO in toto there are 4 of us for 2 seats and there is other junta legally in their seats.. Since I had the right to sit on my seat I just grabbed it... the other person had to eat lunch so he grabbed the window seat... the guy s'posed to sit on window, sat besides the lunch eater.. Because of which the everyone shifted one place right... Let me show you a li'l diagram..
62 - my seat
62 - the other guy --> eating lunch at 58
59 - main guy -> shifted to 58
58 - main guy -> shifted to 57
57 - main guy -> rock steady on 57
61 - no one occupied
60 - another guy...
So for about 15 mins there were 4 guys on 3 seats and on my side 2 guys on 3 seats.. LOL.. and NO ONE even thought about 'adjusting' thinking that the other will do it....

Many more to come..

Community mentality....

2006-08-31T16:25:00.000+05:30

I have been seeing a lot of 'community' activity on orkut lately. Makes me wonder why does a person want to belong to a certain community? Does community make people more divided or united? Does it give a purpose to live to some?

The answer lies in between. While college communities make people nostalgic and we all really cherished our college days very much, there are some other types of communities that really bother you. One such person contacted me for joining a certain regional community. I believe making communities based on region or religion is dividing in nature. People belonging to such communities, I believe, see humans as a sumtotal of something abstract. A community of people working in same organization leads to constructive ideas, and co-operation. A community belonging to a region makes people very constricted in their view of world.

To borrow from Fountainhead, a community build to empower human and not to make him dependent on the community itself.

Koi Fariyaad....

2006-08-29T08:53:00.000+05:30

Koi fariyaad tere dil mein dabi ho jaise,
Tune aankhon se koi baat kahi ho jaise,
Jaagte -2 ek umar kati ho jaise,
Jaan baaki hai magar saans ruki ho jaise,

Har mulakat pe mahsoos yahi hota hai,
mujhse kuchh teri nazar poochh rahi ho jaise

Raah chalte hue aksar ye guma hota hai,
Wo nazar chhupke mujhe dekh rahi ho jaise

Ek lamhe mein simat aaya hai sadiyon ka safar,
Zindagi tez bahut tez chali ho jaise

Is tarah paharon tujhe sochta rehta hun main
Meri har saans tere naam likhi ho jaise

PS: From the movie "Tum Bin"...
PPS: 'coz ppl thot 'twas my creation.. thnx all... ;)

Perspective...

2006-08-24T00:49:00.000+05:30

Another one tonight, another argument in the mind -
While preparing for the ELP several thoughts crossed my mind. I will just list them out for any reader to form an opinion.

1. How many people from rural area would like to pay for water? Lets take a fair assumption that no one in the village really cares if water is potable or not.
2. So promotion would be absolute necessity, and how'd we do that?
3. What will happen if they get good water? The benefits in short vs long term
4. What if 10 years hence the villagers are healthier and are economically more productive (meaning earning more)? Would they still want this "cheap" source of water?
5. What if no one buys this concept till employment guarantee comes in picture? Thats politicizing but heck, it might happen.

And myriad such thoughts crossed my mind... an ELP can change your life!!

2006-08-23T00:57:00.000+05:30

Wrote this last week..

Dil-e-nadan se kya poochhiye haal-e-dil,
Ab humein zindagi ek imtehaan nazar aati hai

Aansuon ne rishta sa bana liya chehre se,
Ke jaise zindagi ki naav majhdhaar pe nazar aati hai,

Kaun thee wo, kaisa tha wo rishta,
Ke aaj bhi wo khayalon mein nazar aati hai,

Kabhi chaha tha ki apna le use hum,
Ab to zabaan se nikli aah hi nazar aati hai.

G'nite..

there used to be a time...

2006-08-21T02:55:00.000+05:30

...when I used to make sure i get at least 6-7 hrs of sleep... no more...
thanks ISB!!

World is Flat and AJ's blog..

2006-08-17T23:04:00.000+05:30

"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up and knows that it will have to outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. And, every morning in Africa a lion wakes up and knows that it will have to outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. So, in Africa, it doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle. When that sun comes up, you had better be running. "
- African proverb

God helps those who help themselves - A proof

2006-08-17T00:31:00.000+05:30

According to latest statistics, religion is the single most discussed topic on the entire planet (and I didn't hire anyone to find that out... Look around !). So here I was thinking with whatever is left of my brain to think about all such extraordinary matters about God. We all know He is the supreme creator, operator and destroyer of everything around us. One may argue about big bang and all that blah, but let us accept that however far and deep we go in discovering the matter, we will not be able to answer the big HOW - How is everything the way it is? Or rather who decides property of matter? Who says that electrons, while jumping from higher energy level to lower one SHOULD emit energy in the form of light? It might as well have been something else!!

There is someone who has created the laws, and then has let run the system on its own to take shape. Much in a similar way that turtles leave their eggs in sand, so when they hatch, the baby turtles find their way to the sea all by themselves. So there is God, who created laws, and built a primitive system to evolve by itself into what we currently see around us. We are just starting to discover the laws in a better way and to understand it.

Its obvious that God must be really brilliant. I mean just think of the universe which runs on His laws with minimum break down and is extremely self sustaining. God has to be super brilliant, and super modest, not to ever brag about it. People do respect God and that respect is from the sheer brilliance of things around us.

So with all these qualities, would God really care if all we lesser mortals pray everyday and make ourselves faithful to him? On the contrary, God would rather want us to be self dependent, and probably be more responsible and aware of our surroundings to start making sense of His design. This way ( as any good manager would want) God would have more free time to do better things. Who knows we might see something wonderful in our own planet too!!

To sum, "God helps those who help themselves"...

hazaron khwahishein aisi...

2006-08-04T00:02:00.000+05:30

Feeling like ...

"Hazaron khwahishein aisi
Ke har khwahish pe dum nikale
Bahut nikle mere armaan
Lekin phir bhi kam nikale

Nikalna khund se adam ka sunte aaye hain lekin
Bahut be-aabroo hokar tere kuche se hum nikale"

Love this...
"Mohabbat mein nahi hai fark jeene aur marne ka
Usi ko dekh kar jeete jis kaafir pe dum nikale"

Aur mohabbat ki intehaan...
"Kahan maykhane ka darwaza ghalib aur kahan waayiz,
Bas itna jaante hain kal wo jaata tha ki hum nikle"

Bahut khoob janaab Ghalib!!

Be a rebel...

2006-08-03T21:39:00.000+05:30

I just heard from someone what I already knew about myself. "You are a rebel, you don't want to be in the system". Yeah, so? Nah and I am not trying to show any attitude here. Just, what is the big deal with the "system" and how do you define one. Its something like GAAP, you have it because people who believe in accounting principle want it, because the accounting has become so darn complex that people can take it for a ride, so we have GAAP.

Thats how system works. A very small set of people decide what should be true and what should be false. A majority plainly has faith in such people, because of their credibility or dominance or both. And this is how a system is born. Exams, traffic rules, nothing can defy system. People love it, why? Because as with GAAP, it does good to a majority. We will call such people "Believers"

Those who cannot be a part of that system are thrown out, seen as outlaws etc. Such people can be a part of system and be out of it when they want to. They can be a part of it, and people are happy to be with them. At the same time they are out of it and seeing the obvious fallacy of the system. Let us call these people "Hackers"

Believers are generally happy, sad, angry, satisfied based on events that happen in the system. Ditto with hackers, but hackers are often on negative plane when their interpretation of the system is challenged by some weird events. But more than sad, a hacker sees this as a challenge and tries to defy it time and again till it breaks. Believers think "Wow this guy really knows how to beat the system". Hacker smiles, thinking he has achieved what he set out to achieve.

Believers build the system robust, and Hacker tries to break it. We all have a hacker inside us, but some of us are happy being a believer as they have faith in it. "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path"...

2006-07-31T00:18:00.000+05:30

I met this Sales guy the other day. It was raining pretty hard, my quadie had to run some last minute errand, and I was DYING to get out of campus to enjoy the rains. On our way out we met this guy. Now when I say I have met a lot of people and sales people in particular, believe me I have. But this guy was special. He was a born-sales person. And I mean every word I just said.

I had experienced how salesman, just to make that wicked sale, would smile, flatter and sometimes (with opposite gender) even flirt. Once their work was done, they really don't care if you were worthy of all that. But this guy was different. He had a perpetual smile which said, "I am really happy with all that going around me, and BTW here is my card, so if you need to etch graphics on your glass window you know whom to call" (Yah that big a statement from that smile). I dropped him at Madhapur, and he'd the typical salesman smile. We shook hands and all, and I observed that as he got out, the smile won't leave him.. 1...2...3...4... My God, he had that smile forever!! Now that was interesting. Hence the word "Born Salesman".

How I wanted to be born-something!! anything... even a salesman would have done man!!

Old Post: Law and order

2006-07-30T09:05:00.000+05:30

I have been watching 'Law and Order' quite a lot lately. I have been pretty fascinated by the opening lines -
"In the criminal justice system, the People are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute offenders"

The reason for my fascination being -
1. This is a pretty reasonable, straightforward and understandable-to-layman type of definition of the roles played by crime watchers of the society
2. Because of reason 1, we all know pretty easily what is whose responsibility, and whether or not he or she is playing the role properly.
3. In addition, it reflects a lot about the justice system in democracies, and how they ideally should work.

Being an Indian, and watching this American series, I thought how law is being made effective in US. Leaving aside all the dramatization in the series that would provoke anyone's emotions, the main thing to note is that ultimately the offender is punished by the district attorneys. Then this thought came to my mind, why are we not able to stop criminals like this. Why do we have to use extreme measures like Encounters to stop crimes from happening? Aren't we moved enough by how unsafe we make a place if we keep a criminal looming on large?

I think the answers lies in ourselves. Isn't it ultimately us who have to take a step forward and do something? Or is it that we doubt our own self to take that step? Or are we just too fond of minding our own when others are getting hurt out there?

I think there are too many questions that need some answer. And then I ask myself this question. Would I take that step? Yes. And then probably, someone would tell me that I should not, that court takes a lot of time to settle, that police is corrupt and that the whole society does not care a damn.

Ask yourself, isn't it true that all we care about is ourselves? All we think is how we would be? Some people call it being worldly wise, but in this case, I would call it cowardice. To understand the fact that no matter how friendly a snake is to you if its poisonous it's got to hurt someone, does not take an IQ of 200. So why do we still think that we are different from our society? And isn't police supposed to investigate crimes? Or isn't court supposed to give justice fast? Aren't we supposed to go out and make sure we perform our duties, so that we make others aware that they have to do theirs too? That law is not something which is forced, but something we ourselves devise to make our lives easier? How long will it take for the largest democracy on the planet to understand that "In the criminal justice system, the People are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute offenders"....

Old Post: Last monsoons

2006-07-30T09:02:00.000+05:30

As I start writing this blog, I am filled with the grim picture of Mumbai rain and the havoc it has wreaked across the country. Mumbai, the industrial and commercial heart of our nation was paralyzed for 2 days. As it was coming back to normalcy, yet another spell has come to the great misfortune of all the mumbaiites and us Indians.

We are trying to cope with the situation, and I am pretty sure we will. Though, there is one thing that will be forever engraved in my memory. The almost no-role played by Indian media that touches the heart of almost 60% of population. In fact, all they did was spread panic by various means like showing ghastly pictures of floods, of people crying and the disaster that Mumbai was. The question that arose in my mind was, is the media to be blamed or are we such people that panic and ONLY panic can take our attention to matters of national interest?

I started watching TV in the night of 31st July, when almost every Indian was shocked by the news of yet another spell on Mumbai. Every channel (I can name them but don't want to) were showing people coping with the floods. In my mind I was searching for something that the news failed to provide. With all the scientific breakthroughs, these news channels failed to provide any scientific information that the layman could use.

--> What EXACTLY happened that caused the 94 cm rain (a graphical analysis probably)?
--> Will the situation get worse or better and when?
--> Can this happen again and what seems the best solution to this?

I was waiting for at least one channel to bring a IMD meteorologist to get into a discussion, so people could ask questions. We know govt failed to understand the warning given by met dept. But with the power that media carries, should it just sit there and blame govt? Does it not have a responsibility to spread the warning to ordinary people?

With 50 years of free press behind us, and all this new age information revolution in India, if this is the state of media, I think part of the blame lies in us. People who can make change anyway form an opinion and people who cannot do anything are attracted by the panic-driven media.

The height of this panic-creation was another "breaking news" that some airline is routed to Delhi for emergency landing (London-Mumbai AI111). I was wondering what fun do this people get by creating such extremely sadistic moods in Indian people.

All in all a hopelessly dim condition arises because of this. And I believe we, the people with knowledge and information have a onus on us to change this!!

2006-07-30T09:00:00.000+05:30

From my last post about Indian media, I started getting uneasy. I had made an argument there where I sought to find if Indians themselves were responsible to give rise to such pathetic media in the first place. This set me thinking in a very different direction. To make my argument, this time I will start with an example.

When I return home from office in the evening, I come across one junction that is forever jammed by the traffic. Reason is clear – no one follows the rule. As far as a police constable is doing his job everything is fine. As soon as he is off, things start getting worse and become worst at some stage, before becoming normal. This happens DAILY!
When I got stuck the last time, I did a different thing than I usually do, and which we all do easily – swearing at the guy in front and honking. I got down from my bike, went to the junction, and started to regulate the traffic. Some people came out from their cars too and we managed to straighten things out. I called up the traffic police control and told him about this, to which he sheepishly informed that he’d sent someone immediately at this place.

I asked myself, “Why are we like this?” Almost 50% of people driving on Indian urban roads today are people with decent enough education and decent enough living that are essential to have a rational mind. I am making an exception for auto and taxi drivers. So why do we just sit in our cars and swear our way to glory thinking that some miracle will smoothen the traffic. I am sure most of us would agree that this is true not just for traffic but for everything. We swear at the government officials for slowing down the work, we swear at the govt. that our infrastructure sucks, we swear at our neighbors because they play loud music in the night, and that’s what we do – we swear. Sum total of the swearing – nothing. We achieve nothing but more frustration in our lives.

What if today each of us went on the roads, maintained lanes (wherever possible)? What if, we really told the police officer standing there eating supari that it’d be great if he can help the jam with you? What if we pushed that babu for our work and don’t give him any money? What if today when we enter a junction on road, we stop for sometime to see the traffic, show some patience and then start again? We are a country known for our virtue of restrain, so why are we so eager to get everything done NOW?

A lot of questions and the answer I want to give is that it all lies with us. The chunk of educated and learned mass that can make a difference not by just thinking and discussing in their cozy living rooms, but getting out there and making it happen.

- Old post of mine..

Village of innocence

2006-07-30T08:58:00.000+05:30

If anyone has seen the movie 'The Village', we can understand the apparent paradox of the category the movie was put into - Horror. I was horrified to see that. But then some sane person in the Ratings department corrected it to Drama. I really liked this movie. It was different from most movies and provided a very good insight of how societies of today funtion.

Fear, is the central theme of the movie. It was so insightful to see how people are united and bound by fear. I was so moved by the apparent analogy to today's world I could not stop admiring Shyamalan. Isn't it really the fear that is the single most uniting factor of any kind of society? If a nation fears an enemy, and worst of all the enemy keeps attacking, the people forget their differences and fight against that enemy. If there is no enemy, there is no purpose. In fact world exists on a purpose and what better purpose than to kill the enemy and make peace for the society.

At this point, I saw the main difference in the movie and real world. Well, the enemy in the movie was this mythical, devilish creature. Our enemies on the contrary are humans. Real people who look like us, walk like us, speak, eat, read, write. So why are they our enemies? In the animal kingdom, no same species kill each other like the way humans do. So being the most intelligent animal in the world has taught us this? To 'create' enemies, guard 'created' boundaries and to kill each other for that? I don't seem to get this.

For a moment there I had forgotten the law that nature has outlined. Survival of the fittest. I think the most basic law rules, and all people live by that. We have to accept the fact that there is a limit to which the earth can support all these creatures on its own. So it puts this law, if you are fit, you survive. If you can live in any environment, defend yourself in any condition, you survive, you live and you rule your life. For if you cannot survive, you are dead, and lost your chance to enjoy this world. THAT is the drive, THAT is the motivation and when people fail to see THAT, their 'created' leaders create FEAR!!!

Argumentation

2006-07-29T00:46:00.000+05:30

Had an amazing dinner, there is a party going on but (as usual) I am not in a party mood, partly because of this amazing nature of mine which goes out to all those fighter souls in my family taking it with their fates to shape their destinies. But as I sit down to write this blog and yawn my day off, there are a bunch out their arguing about a whole lot of issues in the world.

So what really constitutes an argument and why do we Indians love to do it? No I really mean it, Indians just looooove it.

Place: The office I use to work in US
Time: Nearly evening snack, say, 6-ish
Characters: An american colleague and I

I just asked her what kind of food she liked. She liked Thai and chinese. Like a typical not-seen-the-world types, I asked her if there was anything like American cuisine. She thought for a while, and said she never cared. I thought, what a loser!

Yah those were the thoughts I had and now I think if really every Indian is born with that kind of mentality. Really, what does it really matter what food you eat until you are having something good and attributing it to the person who made it. Does it really matter for any nation to have their cuisine so that one knows the culture? After staying for 2 years in US, a strong negation would be my answer. And yet we argue.

So now you would ask whats argument got to do with it. I think argument is a result of a lot of ample time, or a lot of information or sometimes both. We, Indians, rarely argue to find solutions. More than half of the time it is to prove a point with little consideration as to what the other person is thinking or where he/she is coming from to counter-argue.

People who have something or the other to do to keep their minds occupied rarely argue. That is also proven by the fact that such people often have their actions speak for them. Rare quality, but learnable.

While I am listening to the argument thats going on outside, I feel "What a mess!" And I don't care a damn 'coz I am yawning my day off with this blog. For a developing economy, we definitely don't need argumentation. Be it religion, philosophy, my neighbour or otherwise!!

Customer centric approach and MBA

2006-07-26T22:29:00.000+05:30

This is a slightly MBA-ish blog, but then the reflection my current education can have some effect. Its about being customer centric, i.e. if you are in a business ask yourself what needs of the customers are you satisfying by running the business.

A slightly tangential thought - all top B-schools generally have people who have a healthy no of achievements in their quiver. The way MBA curriculum is designed, it strengthens one's believes, shatters some and generally refine to take up a leadership role in the corporate world.

The motivation - A customer centric approach requires one to be empathic of the needs of the customer. The more understanding means a larger profitability or recognition or both.

The question - So all these confident managers being churned out in leading B-schools nurture their power of empathy, or do they internalize more to understand the concepts? To put it in perspective, coming in a B-school one tends to network NOT to show himself off, but to understand other people to develop this empathizing technique. But does the course actually teach us to do so?

Another tangent - Am I asking this because I am in a 1-year programme? I don't think so. I think a B-school, more than anything else, should focus on building just this one competency. If anyone school comes up with a curriculum to do so, it will be a hit!

From Good Will Hunting.. Courtesy un-official.com

2006-07-17T18:40:00.000+05:30

I got reminded of Macroeconomics with a spice of politics after I heard this dialog from Good Will Hunting.. or was it opposite?? :)

"Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government tht would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State."
"So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President."

Big yellow taxi.. only part I like..

2006-07-16T20:25:00.000+05:30

They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parkin' lot

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees - please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

From - www.lyrics007.com

Kitni baatein....

2006-07-13T23:49:00.000+05:30

Kitni baatein yaad aati hain
Tasveer aisi ban jaati hai
Main kaise inhe bhoolun
Dil ko kya samjhaun

Kitni baatein kehne ki hain
Hothon par jo sehmi si hain
Ek roz inhe sun lo
Kyon aise gumsum ho

Kyon poori ho na paayi daastan
Kaise aayi hain aisi duuriyan

Dono ke dilon mein chhupa hai jo ek anjaana sa gham
Kya ho payega wo kam
Koi kya kahe
Dono ne jo kabhi zindagi ki ek mod pe thee jo paayi
Hai kaisi wo tanhayee
Koi kya kahe

Kitna veeran hai ye sama

Saanson mein jaise ghulta hai dhuan
Kaise aayi hain aisi duuriyan
Kitni baatein....

Tumse aaj yun milke dil ko yaad aaye lamhe kal ke
Ye aansun kyon hai chhalke
Koi Kya kahe

Tumne humko dekha jo aise to ek ummeed hai jaagi
Phir tumse pyaar paane ki
Ab kya kahein

Aa gaye hum kahan se kahan
Dekhe mood ke ye dil ka kaarwaan
Kaise aayi hain aisi duuriyan

Kitni baatein

Community service

2006-07-13T22:53:00.000+05:30

Today's blog is totally inspired by what happened in the school today. Very specfically our student village. Now this guy in a good-natured spirit took an initiative of keeping cold drinks in the common area. This was a no-profit-no-loss initiative, meaning the guy (say, A) would get the soda cans and keep them. Whoever takes the can has to write his/her name in the register so the cost is appropriately charged. As fate would have it a total 5 cans were taken without registering, so A stopped the initiative. But then he started this again, and within days same story happened again. As a result he sent a mail across to the SV junta expressing his dejection and anger/frust.

There are 2 ways to see this incident -
1. The "Social" way - All the SV is a community in itself. Therefore, if someone comes forward to do community's good, he should be backed by the community since its for communitys benefit in the end. Therefore, in the interest of the common good, junta should try to make sure there are no such incidents happen.

2. The "Individual" way - All the SV is a residence of people from different background, and though it is a community it is a forced one. So if someone takes an initiative, he/she runs a risk since he cannot guarantee the behaviour of a diverse crowd. Appealing to such a crowd is foolish since people only see whats good to them in a short term and it really does not matter what long term hold since as Keynes said "In long term, we are all dead".

I go with the second option. Everything including charity is ultimately a business where the owner should be benefitted. The incentives can vary and need not be financial alone but the cause should serve the purpose. While this was a noble cause and was going to benefit all, the market was not ready for this (obviously) and the unintended happened. A better alternative could have been to wait, and build a network so that there is a critical mass which upholds this venture. With that support I think there would have been less incentive to go "unregistered".

Now you know...

2006-07-10T21:01:00.000+05:30

There used to be 2 columns in my science text book (NCERT) till 10th. Every lesson used to start with "Do you know?" with a few questions whose answers could be found in the lesson and at the end "Now you know" to summarize answers to the earlier column's question. ISB to me is sort of like this. Every term opens up a new vista, and then you get the A-ha experience...

Back to perspectives, I was telling my sis that the most effective way to stay on track in life is (a) believe in GOD and believe that he/she is watching every move you make OR (b) remember "What goes around, comes around". I am a strong believer in latter, i.e. Karma theory. So far so moderate... Actually haven't really done really good to anyone. hmm, now that sets me thinking. Ok noted..

A thousand things that I am passionate about.. movies, biryani, books, tennis... I wonder if some day I will get enough time to do all these... I mean I start my day with tennis, come back to a hot biryani lunch, post-nap movie , tea with books and yah it should then start raining like hell. Now that I am imagining, a house of glass, and the rain drops falling on the glass and going down (Pls see ICICI retirement plan ad for visualizing)... I'd probably need a wife but thats add on.. this is heaven man!!

Back to life... Back to studies..

Good luck ma friend..

2006-07-09T23:00:00.000+05:30

How difficult can it get to say "Goodbye" to someone? If you do that to a close friend on an airport, it becomes harder than climbing Mt Everest.

"why did she say this to me yaar... Is it because.. " "Abbe kal bat kar lete hain!!"...
"F*** man, why am I not getting Visa??" "Ask S na... "
"Life needs change every year man" "...."
"Look maan take that tonnol" "OK".. "WHAT??"... :-))

You suddenly realize that you will have to part ways with thinking that he is always around to listen you out. And then you also have to part with all those spur of the moment comments. You realize it was all those small feelings that built something as strong as a fort, and now your ship is leaving the island containing that fort. Though the fort stays, I have to feel good that I will enjoy only its photos, the real thing might be a rare occassion!

Here is one to A... All the best buddy!!

GAAHHH,,

2006-07-06T17:09:00.000+05:30

Lets accept the fact - I am taking way too much time to warm up. Can I blame something? Probbly my health... With all those nauseating, and sleep-inducing pills I am not sure how am I gonna survive this term!! :(

Hopefully next end terms will be better...

2006-06-27T16:40:00.000+05:30

Today in the econ class when he taught about the education thing, I think I can imagine why Manmohan Singh supports reservation.
Till today a majority of institutions in India have been reputed because of 2 things -
1. Govt funding, so subsidised and therefore attracting a lot of middle class and brilliant students.
2. A better infrastructure also attracts a better faculty

For the 2nd point, only a handful can be given as examples, e.g. IITs. But for the 1st point, the league starts from Primary schools. Where I have done most of my education, I could not find a single reason why my junior college attracts so many good students (I mean I know that they were more liberal, but not academically strong). So good students of one passing batch used to influence the good students of next batch and so the reputation of the school grew. Ditto with RECs. Agreed that RECs have marginally better facilities but ultimately its the students that drive better placements and which stands as a key differentiator. Its the entry criteria to RECs is that I think makes the companies want to come to these campuses.

Let us take a hypothesis where suddenly all these colleges decide to decrease the no of seats. What does that lead us to? Obviously more better students will be forced to go to 2nd/3rd rung colleges in their areas or state colleges or private colleges. Once this starts, word of mouth spreads and you get more bright students opting for these colleges. A similar analogy can be drawn from Pune, where students stick to colleges in the city than venturing out. Economy sustatins it, and local companies make sure that students are absorbed somewhere.

With advent of orkut and other networking websites, alumni networks are gaining importance by the day. In fact in some instances these are driving the development of the institution. My school can be quoted as a good example. We have a .com website on school's name and reunions happen every year which are advertised heavily. Such networks also contribute to better development of the school and increasing awareness.

Now if we just replace that earlier hypothesis of reduction of seats to Reservations, in a long term it might just be beneficial to the society and economy in general. Not only are we creating a place for all the colleges to compete equally, we are giving a chance for the human capital to distribute much more uniformly than it is currently.

There might be counter-arguments, but all I can think of is, well macroeconomics makes you think a lot!!

IT - Has it been really India's boon?

2006-06-24T22:58:00.000+05:30

Motivation - As we were preparing ourselves for the Business Presentation, one of the fellow students mentioned that IT has done good to only a select few in the country. A large mass still remains untouched by the so-called IT Revolution. In fact, one went ahead and said that Mobile phones were a true revolution and not IT.

So it goes that now 50% of India's GDP comes from Services, more specifically software/hardware related services. If we say that 2-3% of India's population is doing this, so it makes up the point of motivation. Let us look at the other part of the fact. India's GDP is US$ 3.3 Trillion as I write this. Can you imagine the kind of money Services sector is pouring in? Yes people might argue with deficits and other factors, but still you end up getting a whole lot of money.

Hypothesis - Money attracts money.

Yes I mean it. And no I don't say this in any negative connotation. Let's say I am a typical s/w engineer who would otherwise have earned less than 10K per month, but thanks to booming industry I start my career anywhere from 15k to 30k per month. I need a place to live since there is a 90% chance that I did my college from a different place. As I start living and settling, I need a person to clean my house, provide me dinner (assuming lunch in the office), provide for a cup of tea and newspaper in the morning, and entertainment over the weekend. Boy, its just me, but am I proving to increase the economic value of everything I touch. And then there are my friends who are doing the same elsewhere.

The kaamwaali bai who used to earn less, now earns more with the new bunch of s/w pros starting to live in the building. Her husband works in the same building as a guard. He also earns marginally more as a result. They can safely choose to send both their kids to govt school and hope for their bright futures. Perhaps they are now also able to send some money to their ailing parents in the village from where they'd migrated a few years back.

Where am I leading this discussion? Well I think its anyone's guess that the benefits from the IT revolution have started to trickle down to every corner of society. What we need is time and patience. What we also need is the proper utilization of this money so that right talent in people is nurtured. After all the biggest lesson that we have learnt from what one of our profs calls "accidental revolution" is that there is no greater investment than the one done on human resources.

Google

2006-06-20T17:33:00.000+05:30

Google makes me nervous every time it gets a headline. It doesn't mean I am pro-Microsoft, its just that I wonder if any other present brand can create such a great thing. Let us see why. I first learnt of google from a very techie friend of mine in college. We had to use Linux to access net that time, and the bandwidth was low, but google was fast even those days. Slowly searching and googling became synonymous. Google worked on its image as the fastest engine that anyone can use.

Since then whatever google has touched or entered into has turned gold. And they came as innovators. Gmail, Orkut, Google Earth, Trends, Video and what not. What struck me now is that Google is now coming in with a spreadsheet software. Believe me Excel is so much into pressure, one cannot imagine, simply because of Google's credibility in the market. Meanwhile you can go to http://spreadsheets.google.com/ to get a glimpse. Looks kinda weird after excel but does same functions.

Good thing is features like wrap text and merge are easily accessible. Plus less cluttered menu makes it easier for spreadsheet operations.

A strong negative would be web based thing. Plus sharing means inviting people, rather than unrestrictive editing by all. Apart from this they should really work in aesthetics.

All in all, worth a try and by God this also has a potential!! :)

Reservations - II

2006-06-14T23:40:00.000+05:30

Caution - This can be read as a Pro-reservation blog so please don't get agitated. Just listen out and think what the other side has to say.

I got hold of the Mandal commission report's analysis by a pro-reservation person. I read it on a website and, though I am not convinced, I will try to put the other point across. BP Mandal, after doing a thorough analysis of societal structure, observed that casteism is still pretty much alive in India (esp Northern India). Therefore, he thought it just to recommend a way to make sure that the oppressed are brought on the same plane as the so called upper classes.
According to 2001 census, around 72% of Indian population lived in Rural areas. Considering this fact, and that around 50% of the Indian population is North of MP, we can imagine that this situation is not totally false. So what went awry?
Implementation...

Imagine this, if only Mandal commission's report was taken in a better way than just drawing lines between castes or classes, things would be lot different. Who is oppressed? A person who is denied the basic human rights. So why do we want to still maintain that difference?

I still maintain that a better implementation is to identify such people NOT on the basis of their caste, but on the basis of the fact that irrespective of being upper or lower class, they are oppressed.

I'd end with this - Mandal commission recommended a 27% reservation for backward classes that constitute 75% of the Indian population. Is this asking more or less for the oppressed?

Perspective...

2006-06-10T22:41:00.000+05:30

I had thought to be more aware than I was in Infy but it has hopelessly failed. So I would try to be terse here.
Reservations are here to stay. After a long battle fueled by the student power, a heart rendering saga came to a tragic end. And at what cost? A claim that all the impacted institutes will undergo a increase in seats. My take - Amazing. After all that globalization crap, welcome to India with populism at its peak.

Federer vs Nadal, and no point in bragging about Federer. His play against Nalbandian was visibly a topsy turvy. I said F word so many times I really got scared at one time. Thankfully, Nadal will be a good competition.

For some vague reasons, I used to think that sting operations were used by media to increase accountability in the crucial govt departments. Guess I was so grossly wrong, that I am in angst for the reason that it was a publicity stunt. Has it made any difference? Yes, and No. Yes, because it coincided with the Right to Information Act so clearly no one can say. So No...

E-governance is taking shape in India. And in what form? Its now reaching every small village in Vidarbha. Flipside - people implementing it simply cannot think the way a villager would. Advice - KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid!!

2006-04-27T09:24:00.000+05:30

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

2006-04-23T20:51:00.000+05:30

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".