My Wall.... and My Graffiti

10 things I miss from TV in the 90s

2010-04-17T12:26:00.001+05:30

This discussion actually started off as a minor chatter on the balcony of our hostel a couple of weeks back. As our academic calendar draws to a close and every body is reminiscing about the good old days, we decided to really step into the past and pick up 10 things from the 90s television we would love to have in our lives once again. This is the list which we discussed after 2 hours of non-stop, non-utilitarian discussion and does not appear in any order of preference. So here goes:

1. Chitrahaar and Rangoli:

Our weekly dose of Bollywood was limited to these to programs. My guess is Chitrahaar was on Wednesdays and then moved to Fridays.. and then again moved back to Wednesday evenings but Rangoli was part of Sunday morning breakfast ritual. Dahi-jalebi with Rangoli... yummy!!! or in winters... watching Rangoli while hiding inside the razai.

2. Byomkesh Bakshi:

The baap of all "who-dunnit" serials in the world. The serial involved a complicated mix of medicine, chemistry, logical analysis and intuition, all the while keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. While many people might consider it as the Eastern rip-off of Sherlock Holmes.. with the doctor accomplice but to me it is probably one of the best detective series ever made, with a very simple production backing strong stories and some great acting.

3. Surabhi:

The Sistine Chapel of Indian TV's cultural revolution. Only person who could have rivalled Siddarth Kak in popularity might have been Arun Govil (who played Ram in Ramayan) but Renuka Shahane with her broad grin and emphatic namaskar was miles ahead of any female on Indian TV at that time in popularity. The show brought many cultures, many cuisines, sight and surroundings into the Indian middle class household for the first time, taking us on exotic travels and fuelling dreams of far and wide for many of us. That and of course, the huge number of postcards they used to receive for their TV competition, leading to the launch of the Rs3 special postcard by the Postal department. Some oppurtunism that !!!

4. Potli Baba Ki, Baloo (Talespin) and Duck Tales:

Bachha time now. Sundays 10 to 11.30 am were reserved for the kids of India, with the dubbed versions of Disney cartoons playing out on the small screen. While Baloooo was serenading his boss, Uncle Scrooge and his 3 nephews were always out on some crazy adventure involving mummies and genies, making our Sundays all the more fun.
This generation was followed by legends like Daanu the Danasur..of chipkali ke nana fame!!!
5. Alif Laila:

The pre-cursor to all those special effect serials that we now see on TV. Ramanand Sagar was immortalised by Ramayan, which was said to have brought the whole country to a stand still. But Alif Laila has a charm of its own. Right from its opening soundtrack to all those crazy sounds and special effects. Not to mention the fact that it had some of the more scantily dressed female protagonists for its times. With all the djinns, pari and shaitans, the serial would take us down a never ending path of fantasy and magic, with the good triumphs evil message splattered all across the storyline.

6. Shanti:

UTV Pictures presents Shanti...Shantiiii... Shantiiiiiiiii.....
After the baap of who-dunnits, we have the grand momma of all the modern day tear jerkers. In a convoluted plot of an illegitimate child, avenging a rape on a decaying family housing an underworld don as its servant, while the family itself is in self-destruct mode, our country's Lady Cricket Mandy Baby rocked the world with her reporter-giri and badle ki aag for Kamesh Mahadevan and Raj G J Singh. Bhandari with his crazy underworld act and finger-tapping dialogs and Nanu Jasoos were essential props to the Shanti success story.

7. Nukkad/Mr. Yogi/Mungeri Lal ke Haseen Sapne:

We hark back to the time when comedy did not mean stand up comedians dishing out corny one liners full of double entendre. Good clean humour, involving Mungeri's day dreaming, day to day happenings at the nukkad or the eteral search for his bride for Mr. Yogi (unsuccessfully ripped off in Wats your Rashee!!) is still a treat for the mind after a taxing days work.

8. Archaic ads of Laxman Sylvania, Link Locks and Nirma Detergent:

Everytime I see a bikini clad woman walking ashore for advertising JK Cement (the seriously WTF ad of the century!!!... if only sex and sleaze could sell everything) I am reminded of the Laxman Sylvania ad .."arre wo Ram Laxman wala bulb dena" or else the legendary Nirma gal or Link locks... featuring never seen before animation..where a filing rod is being used to break the lock and instead the rod breaks with lots of sparks flying around it!!! Simple, almost laughable and yet we are able to atleast relate the ad to the product.. Some times I wonder if we people have progressed o degenerated mentally!!!

9. Dekh Bhai Dekh/ Sarabhai vs Sarabhai/ Tu Tu Main Main:

The second generation of comedy serials, featuring up market families and primarily aired on the DD Metro network. DBD was a legend in itself with Deven Bhojani and Shekhar Suman pulling of comedy scenes with aplomb while Rosesh Sarabhai ki sadi hui kavitaon ka kya kehna. Sachin created the first ever saas-bahu item on Indian TV and all Indian male population would agree that it was million times better than the stuff being dished out now. Goooooooooooood ollldddddd daysssssss of laughter Momma!!!

10. Ajnabee:

My favorite army serial, featured Danny and some other leading actors and was about the life in terror stricken Kashmir... one of my favorite characters was a terrorist name Shakoor Rana, who could generate enormous hatred and revulsion through his cool attitude and devilish dialogs. No over hyped, false bearded terrorists as in Sunny paaji's movies. Just plain and simple story.. and yeah the opening sound track was good too.

So this is my list of 10 things which I hope would come back on TV and I can be happy again. Ofcourse, we discussed many other candidates like Hum Log and Buniyaad ( of which I have no great recollection!!), Vikram Betaal, Shaktimaan and Chandrakanta, Captain Vyom (I am sure this suggestion was more sarcastic than genuine!!) and the legendary Ramayan and Mahabharat. But I am sticking to these ten things... do let me know in case I am missing something else!!!

A case in favor of abolishing Valentine's Day!!!

2010-02-02T23:02:00.003+05:30

Unlike other posts, I am not wasting any time before coming to the topic. This time of the year is certainly one of the most stressful to me and to many others of my ilk.
As soon as India finishes observing a minute's silence to remember Gandhiji's martyrdom, the next big thing on the agenda for everyone is Valentine's Day. But why so, I must ask??
Yours truly is leading a solitary life and my relationship status is well-publicised among my friends and yet, I have already been bombarded with a substantial set of queries asking about my plans on V-day. Further, what is with these colors and how can a color really be used to indicate "if I am on the market"?? Every time somebody asks me the question ..so what color are you wearing this V-day... I am reminded of a stupid gimmick many ppl carried out on social media to increase awareness about breast cancer. Only I am not sure what is more embarassing.. flashing my underwear color on social media or wearing my relationship status all over my physical existence on V-Day. To an average bachelor residing in a hostel, managing two clean pieces of clothing is tricky enough, without the additional of complexity of colors conveying your love life's deepest secrets.
I googled out this whole color coding phenomenon and I am listing here the most popular connotations of colors:

Blue- I’m free
Green- I’m waiting
Orange- going to propose
Pink- accepted just now!!!
Black- proposal rejected
White- already booked
Yellow- broke up!!!
Gray- not interested…
Red- leave me

While I am not contesting these codes, I do have some questions in my mind. Does a deeper shade of RED mean a strong "leave me" as in "dont even think about it!!" or did the people wearing PINK keep it as spare, just in case, and just got lucky?? On the whole this entire coding business is driving us back to racial discrimination in its most sophisticated form, differentiating people on the basis of color.
Imagine the scenario, you enter a pub and see a person wearing BLACK or YELLOW, do you really want to sit near this character and hear their sob story (my gender neutrality begs appreciation here!!).On the other hand, you probably want to sit next to a PINKy person and try to grab to a free drink or two as celebration. Bingo... discrimination on the basis of color!!! (Me thinks, worse would be actually landing up next to an ORANGE and end up as his dress rehearsal partner...take that!!)
Now that socially essential arguments have been put forward, let me come down to the more personal/emotional arguments.
The two broad lines of argument on this topic are as follows:

this is a day for all the lovers to celebrate Love (almost as if its Diwali!!)
this is a day for all the others to find Love

Now lets rip them apart systematically.
Argument 1 is nonsense. Don't all lovers make/create/manufacture/concoct love for the remaining 364 days of the year. Its not like Diwali when you are bombarded with sweets and crackers for just that one day. We, the single, have been painful witnesses to your public cuddling, kootchi-cooing and what not!!! So don't tell me that you are celebrating Love on that particular day and abstain on the other days of the year. And what the hell.. when did you folks ever need a reason to gift a teddy bear, a chocolate box or watever else is in vogue now!!! Just don't call it the festival of Love...and to think that you are actually celebrating somebody's death!!!

Argument 2 is offensive. Nobody, take it from me NOBODY, ever finds love during Valentine's day. Not only does it provide false hope to the usual-suspects of solitary living, it also gives the whole romance thing a marketplace atmosphere, feeding on supply and demand. You are either already in love and the mass hysteria is helping you express it or you are just feeling the peer pressure of not being found alone (screw the subtlety, without arm candy!!). In the first case you get your hindside kicked and in the second case you are in deep $h&t with either a wrong decision or worse, a compromise!!! Anyways, in case any of you thinks that it is possible to find love on Valentine's Day, this is what I have to say on it:
Planning to find love on Valentine's Day is like selling notional futures contract in love. You will most probably end up squaring up your positions in the spot market!!!

Thus, having successfully and single handedly, sounded the alarm bell on Valentine Day celebrations, I request the powers that be to abolish the celebration of V-Day thus, protecting the society from racial hatred and keeping the population on a realistic leash of romanticism.
My Lord, I thereby rest my case!!!

P.S. Now time for something useful:
Check out this new cool Facebook group, as a designer you might be interested. Otherwise just spread the word.

Pareto Principle in B-School Classrooms

2010-01-20T02:06:00.000+05:30

This is post is continued from an incomplete draft early in September 2008 and it is only apt that this post be published now, with a complete flavor of the Pareto rule in B-Schools!!!

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The Pareto Principle, or the alternatively famous 80-20 rule, has been interpreted in the most mundane ways possible. I was oblivious to the greatness and versatility of the rule before I landed on the gates of a B-School. As life at B-school started sinking in, Pareto’s interpretation opened new avenues for conjuring 80-20 relations in many obscure ways. Let me try to put into words, the endless minutes of daydreaming to bring up few of the 80-20s, which I believe make life at B-schools really interesting.

80 percent of the batch is male, generating 20% interest in ice-breaking and the remaining 20%, even if it does not consist of that hot girl you met during your GD-PI, gets 80% attention in ice-breaking activities.
80% of the gyan comes from 20% of the seniors, while the remaining 80% sit back and enjoy as juniors are mercilessly slaughtered by these zealots,
Alternatively, after the first 10 days, 80% of the gyan is taken by only 20% juniors and the remaining 80% are deaf by this time.
80% doubts in class arise in the minds of 20% of the student, while the remaining students are content with sleeping (or dreaming up such stuff!!!)
All the team projects will be split in the 80-20 rule as follows:

80% of the PPTs are made by a single person
80% of the presentations are presented by a single person
80% of the data analysis will be done by a single person
100% of nothing will be done a very special single person

80% of your time in a term will be spent on a single subject which ends up contributing only 20% to your CPI
As the summer internships come to an end, 20% of the batch has an 80% probability of landing a PPO/PPI while the remaining 80% have a combined 20% of doing so
Come placement time, only 20% junta has an 80% chance of landing up in their dream job while remaining 80% looks to split the remaining 20% in the best way possible.
If an interviewer is smiling at your answer then 80% of the times he has found a way to nail your backside on the crucifix the remaining 20% he doesn’t have a clue as to what you are saying
And finally, 80% of the people who have read till here have no clue what this was about and the remaining 20% are out searching for me!!!

One-tip Cricket and Management Fundas

2010-01-20T00:26:00.002+05:30

This one originated right this evening.
It was started by my bro GuGu ofcourse, with whom I have the pleasure of sharing many intellectually intense and invigorating debates... and all this while watching a dismal game of cricket. No, I am not refering to the 'ordinary' India-Bangla test match but to a game of cricket commonly known in the balconies, passages and verandahs of India as one-tip, one-hand cricket.
As to the origin of the name, there have hardly been more to-the-point names in the world, which leave you in no doubt as to the game ( I wish human names were as useful!!!). However, the debate did not rest on the mere nomenclature of the game rather hinging on a more intriguing part of the game. How is it that the rules for 1t1h cricket (1-tip 1-hand cricket..inspired by T20) are more or less the same across the country?
As is often the case, I began my answer in all earnest abstraction and hoped to end my monlogue with the famous "Elementary, my dear Watson" look. However, ever since I have been solicited for services by a name sake of the Jaya Prakash Murugan Chettiar Bank, the time on my hands has enabled me to delve deeper on entirely useless things!!! ( You might wish to argue that it was the case earlier too but let save it for later.)
So I took up the development of 1t1h cricket as a management problem and this is how I guess it must have worked out:

Need Identification: In India everybody wants to play cricket but hey, where is the space!!! So every possible quadrangular (or not so quadrangular space..) is put to good use. Now we Indians are competitive people and no cricket can happen without elaborate scoring systems and even more ritualisitc methods of getting out. Thus, the birth of 1t1h cricket owes itself to the space-strapped cricket maniacs of the country.
Early Adopters: Early adopters are the people to whom any product might give reasonable amount of credit for shaping usage patterns and augmenting product features. So while 1t1h started out as a simple variant, the early adopters to the game decided to add rules for hitting on the wall, hitting the tubelight, minimum runs in an over etc etc etc and more... thereby increasing the ability of the game to handle various tricky situations and obstructions.
Critical Mass: Many new product innovations have perished because of their ill-timed launches. While market timing is as much an art as a science, the rise of 1t1h cricket has coincided with the emergence of housing complexes, having more parking space than playing space (infact substitutable spaces... these two!!!). More controlling parents, who figure children are safer playing cricket in the balcony of their 8th floor apartment than on the ground and of course, the simple truth that any playground is hideously anti-social compared to filling the coffers of some builder bloke. Add to this the stereotypical picture of a cricket field in India.... 5 parallel pitches and close to 100 fielders packed into a regular size field. While the batsman's concerns are not limited to the opposition fielders alone but expand to include the pitch invading goons from other teams, the poor fielders have the additional worry of protecting their nether regions from a well directed pull shot. Hardly a pleasing sight you would say!!! Thus, the new baby in the cricketing world couldn't have come at a better time.
Standardisation: While many sports in India have secured an elitist status, its just impossible to keep any form of cricket away from the masses. Though in essence this penetration of the product into new market segments should be a good news for most firms, it also brings in the additional burden of standardisation. And I guess, we have no one to thank more than the kids of Defence personnel & other folks in transferable jobs for bringing about this standardisation of procedures/rules/rituals and other gimmicks in the sport of 1t1h cricket. These people have travelled far and wide, carrying with them the best practices in the sport and spreading it across the various parts of the country. Thus, many of the rules in the sport are now universally (read "nationally") accepted.

With this my analysis of the evolution of the sport has been concluded and all I now worry about is the survival of the game. You see there was this game we played as kids, it was called book cricket but with the advent of PDFs, laptops and Kindle the children of today have been deprived of the sheer thrill and adrenaline of playing the great sport of book cricket. I hope 1t1h does not meet such an unceremonious end. Amen!!!
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The above gyan is written without any backing of management studies. It is just a intuitive piece of imagination of how things might have worked out at a micro level, at the same time causing a sea change in the cricketing behavior of an entire nation. Believe it at your own risk!!!

Looking back on 3 Idiots!!!

2009-12-25T16:30:00.000+05:30

The entire IIT Bombay campus is getting up from the sleepy hangover of Mood Indigo 2009. An extravaganza in itself, it deserved a fitting finale, a finale as delivered by the awesome trio of Shankar Ehsaan and Loy on the last ProNite show of MoodI last night. The entire OAT was up and rocking for 2 hours as we sang ourselves hoarse and danced till the body could take it no more. At that point I could never have thought that anything else could go one up on that show that evening. But then there was the premiere of Mr. Perfect Khan's "3 Idiots" to contend with!!!

Well not many Bollywood movies move me enough to write a blog post about them, and those which have done are for all the wrong reasons but "3 Idiots" deserves to written about, talked about and felt good about so here goes....

To start off, the passage to the movie hall itself was a thriller, what with a hitched ride to the IIT Main Gate and a Bollywood ishtyle sprint to get on to the running bus, all of which enabled me to reach the place about 10 mins in advance. Only one thought ran in my mind ...this movie better be worth all the running around!! But after having read Chetan Bhagat's 5 Point Someone, frankly my expectations weren't very high.
But then if we take one of the finest acting talents in Indian cinema and mix it with the directorial talent of the legendary MunnaBhai series, fireworks are guaranteed.
3 Idiots has masterfully uncovered the dirty underbelly of the Indian education system. Right from unrealistic parental expectations and peer pressure all the way upto some of the drastic steps that students are forced to take, all of them have been dealt with seriously, delicately and passionately.
The storyline is not straight of the novel, which is good and makes it a TRUE 'adaptation', with a few unexpected twists and turns. The screenplay is crisp and the songs make sense ( and will be on your lips, on your way out!!!), and probably the only place where the script falters is towards the end, where the entire childbirth scene is a bit too much to handle. Apart from that I guess there are no gaping flaws in the movie.
Coming to the actors, well.... singing anymore praises to Amir is a waste of time because we have come to expect him as being nothing short of real, fresh and brilliant. To quote Amir aka Rancho from the movie itself... "strive for excellence and success will follow you around." and he has proved himself right. Madhavan as the narrator is restrained and yet full of energy, while Kareena as Pia is a deadly combo of sweet and sexy!!! After seeing him play the dean in Munnabhai, one would have thought that Boman Irani couldn't go one better but he has actually outdone himself with the potrayal of Virus, a hugely competitive and eccentric professor but also a defeated father. The chap who does the role of MadanMohan..or Millimeter is also good.
But for me the best performances came from Raju Rastogi (Sharmaan Joshi) and Chatur Ramalingam. Typical rags-to-riches boy, Raju is torn between his responsibilities towards the family and his loyalty to his friends and this internal conflict is reflected in all his actions in the entire movie. Sharmaan's ability to make those straight faced jokes really brings alive the character even though some of the jokes in the movie are oft-repeated college humor. Chatur Ramalingam is the quintessential padaku, a person who has mastered the current system and is so sure of tiding over any anamolies like the 3 Idiots with supreme arrogance and sheer weight of memory power. However, like all good Hindi movies, the supremacy of our hero is emphatically stamped on this rote-machine and he accepts defeat with a traditional salaam at the end. The balatkar speech delivered by Chatur will surely become part of college folklore for years to come.
The Kareena-Amir chemistry deserves special mention for its vibrance and "chooo-chweeet" factor. So much so that by the end of the movie you are almost rooting for Kareena to slap him and seal it with a kiss ( which she does). And to think that moi was sceptical about the pairing initially!!!
Who should watch the movie?? Well almost everyone, the junta studying in engineering colleges, people passed out of engineering colleges, people who couldn't make it to engineering colleges and of course, all the parents who decide at their child's birth as to what their child should become.
Amir and Raju Hirani have given us a great movie to savour and also maintained their tradition of delivering a strong message underneath a light, fun-filled experience.
As we all agreed last night after the movie... it gets a 4 out of 5 and is a must watch for everyone in the country!!!
"Ohh Bhaiya.. Aal izzz Well!!!"

Mummy... I want a state!!! Plz can I have one too?

2009-12-23T15:05:00.000+05:30

The post was written on the day Govt declared creation of the Telangana state. The delay in posting was caused by lack of access to Internet.

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This is the third consecutive day when I am posting on my blog. Understandably the amount of time on my hands is worrying for both me and the Saptarishis. Infact in relation to my previous post, I confided to a close friend that becoming a writer is a serious career option. But then that was yesterday.
Today, of course, India and the world woke up to one of the boldest blackmail heists in the history. As if right out of a Calvin & Hobbes strip, an unruly kid foregoes his meals to get a better Christmas gift and the hapless parents agree. And, of course, that carving out Telangana will motivate other such power-hungry ruffians to go on a fast and demand smaller states from the existing ones, is none of the Central Government's business.
I guess given the current state of 'bovine excrement' the Centre has landed itself into, is the perfect impetus for all the separatist movements. An the potential outcomes of their 'humble' requests can be quite interesting, coming primarily from some of the most productive lunch table group discussions. Lets have a look at some of them:

Possibly, we'll end up 545 states, where each constituency is a state in itself. We'll hv a small matter of 500+ state governments, potentially be renamed "The United States of India". Sounds cool, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's hardwork done to dust!!!
How about a spate of Union Territories, acting as regional headquarters and you can form whatever number states you want. So Mumbai is separate from Maharashtra, Hyderabad is separate from AP (Telangana..go figure this one!!), Bangalore is separate from Karnataka. I am sure the kids in school will hate it.. Imagine the enormous amount of gyan they'll have to memorise because of our politicians, some of whom actually never bothered going to school anyways.
Third, and this I find to be the most plausible, is the case for dual citizenship. I am sure this gives one Mr. Thackeray a smile on his face. People moving between states will have visa interviews and will have to clear exams with fanciful names like Test in Tamil Speech (who's acronym can't be written here!! Imagine if you had a guidebook to the exam saying "Ace your T&^*") or Test of Marathi as Professional Language.
What if the motivation for creating states changes? Currently states are formed according linguistic, cultural and of course, political considerations!! Imagine what happens if professional considerations are taken into account. What if the huge mass of software engineers strewn across country goes on a hunger strike demanding creation of niche states only for IT professionals? What will be the name of this state ... Soochna Pradesh will be unacceptable to the Madrasi anna while IT Nadu will be indigestible to the bhaiyaji!!! Some problem there. One thing is for sure Mark Zuckerberg will be proud!!!

Probably we could also pack up all these useless separatists into one state and build huge fences around it so that no one ever escapes from there to more conundrum in India. In the meanwhile I am planning to go on a hunger strike demanding creation of a state for all Priyanka Chopra fans!! Can anybody tell me if this wish will be granted?? Plz Mr. Prime Minister!!!!

The King(s) of the Good or the Bad Times... who cares!!

2009-12-09T03:42:00.000+05:30

As I mentioned in my previous post, it is indeed disturbing that I have so much time at my disposal. With the approaching placement season, we are all to work our posteriors off figuring out the nitty-gritties of Finance and try our best to untangle the mess of HR (Hamara Rape) questions. And rightly so, I must add.
From the interactions I have had with members of the industry and my brethren from the student community, it actually seems that Mr. Porter and his famed 5-forces of bargaining power have undergone a tectonic shift in the recruiter-recruit landscape. Bad timing one would say but as is my wont to take a look at things from unusual (read useless) perspectives, let us try and understand how the fina preparation of a final year MBA student would vary from the Good to the Bad times.
Before starting on this rather controversial, and yet soul-searching, quest lets set some benchmarks to demarcate the Gooooood times from the Bad ones:

Good times are HR-killers, Bad times are Placecom-killers
Average packages are cooked up in Good times, they are cooked harder in Bad times
Good time gossips include packages, locations, profiles, parties, Bad times gossip is just one question "sab place ho jayenge?"
In Good times entrepreneurship is a fad, in Bad times it is a different perspective of looking at life

Apart from remonstrating on the various differences that exist between the Good and Bad times, I did get one striking similarity in the two times. The preparation enthu of the students. Yes, come what may the students have distinct apathy towards "placement preparation". The Good times cause this phenomena by virtue of the euphoria surrounding everything in the world while the Bad times bring upon you a depression, almost resembling decay.
Most of the time is spent researching (read Google-ing) the Web in search of some arcane topic, which eventually gives way to "Top 10 ______ movies of all time" where _______ is filled by a particular genre, depending on your mood. In Good times, the genres are comedy, romance while in Bad times the focus is on drama and crime (possibly as an alternative career choice!!). While the students live between meals, new passions like untried sports, photography, poetry (the sad type, especially) are cultivated, which we hope will earn us brownie HR points. Sleep knows no upperbound while all the requisite books are neatly stacked near the bed, untouched.
Come Boom or Bust boss... we are the King of all times... Good or Bad who cares!!!

The Long and Short of a Haircut!!

2009-12-08T12:06:00.000+05:30

If I remember well, it was Mark Twain who once lamented on the ignominy of sitting helplessly in a dentist's chair. The other day I experienced the same sense of powerless subjugation while sitting in the chair of none other than our campus barber.
Somehow these trivial incidents make me think deeper than usual, a skill that can be disturbingly attributed to the amount of free time at my hands. My chain of thoughts centred on my impatience, helplessness and of course, the implications of a bad haircut on the impending placement season performance (how can that be missed!!!).
Ever since a boy reaches class 3 ( this is a hypotheses i am working hard to prove.. for now u can take my word for it!!), he is taught by his environment to be the alpha male, the uber cool and the person in control. Seldom of course are guys taught the opposite... to put complete trust in somebody else to handle the situation. And yet there are so many situations where the alpha male concept goes for a toss. The surgeons are a case in point. Not only does their hand writing beat you so does their talking. All you understand is that you are gonna be cut up and set alright. But then the alpha male is no less troubled by the barber. And you can see the parallels between a surgeon and a barber.

You have no clue if they understand your case and are qualified to handle you.
You can only pray to God when they wield their instruments
You have to bear the brunt of their mistakes
Finally, you hear so many horror stories about both professions, doing to something to someone, who was a friend of somebody

Except for the first question, "cutting karna hai?" not many performance guidelines are sought by them and given their destructive nature of work, questions like "zyada chhota ho gaya kya?" are rendered immaterial. Infact delving deeper into the topic (as the barber was closing in on my scalp!!) I started regretting the existence of the barber himself. Our ancients could have certainly done with the advanced surgeons but i hope whoever invented this concept of barber-ism (pun intened) is roasting in the deepest furnaces of hell.
Some of my friends might argue the futility of this post, coming from me, a potential heir to lot of real estate on my scalp (read "baldness"). But again, my ample time and imaginative thinking was already creating arguments as to why this helpnessness in the barber's chair is a sign of other potential problems areas for me.
Suddenly a voice broke out.."Saheb ho gaya, aapke zyada baal nahi hain na, isliye aur chhota nahi kaat sakte!!!" Great, apart from keeping me in mortal fear of disfiguration, this guy also decides to take potshots at my hair (or the lack of it!!).
"Haan haan theek hai..kitna hua?"
I duly paid him the 30 bucks and vacated the chair, just as thoughts of therapy, herbal oils and wigs engulfed the space vacated by the alpha male, barber-ism and other utopian philosophies.

The future of user experience on Social Networking sites

2009-11-23T19:10:00.000+05:30

The following forms part of the work I did with AB, Sushant and Mandar for the Net.Works competition at Confluence'09 IIM-A. Though the actual paper is more detailed I thought of posting some musings I had while working on the topic..... feedback is welcome
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“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

– Arthur C. Clarke

Indeed to a person from a few decades back, the idea of connecting with lost contacts, collaborating across geographical boundaries and obtaining expert advice on a universe of topics, all at the mere click of a mouse would have seemed magical.

Today we live in a world of increased connectivity, more computing power and more social networks. Originating as a fad across college campuses in the United States, Facebook now has more than 300 million users, using 70 languages, half of which login atleast once in a day. The average user has 130 friends and 2 billion photos are uploaded each month on the site even as more than 70% of its user base resides outside the United States. Mind boggling numbers aren’t they and yet we have just talked about only one of the leading social networks of the world The proliferation of social networking websites in the past three to four years has led to the widespread discussion on the future size and form the networked world.

As every individual discovers the power of “communities” and innovative entrepreneurs take notice of latent business opportunities, the question that begs answering is will social networking remain the same, even a few years down the line? Will it become a substitute for the human interaction just as the email has killed the picture postcards? In a culturally diverse country like India, what will be the look and feel of social network with 500 million users? Are the current channels of delivering the network value sufficient or will see a radical shift in the way social networking happens in the years to come? What about the content offered to social network users, will we be happy updating statuses and sharing photos or do there exist opportunities to create new services, new applications and possibly even, new avenues to network in? How will the government and policy makers respond to this avalanche of information and public opinion?

The user experience on any social networking site will arise from a set of contributing factors. Each user will find his ideal experience from a unique combination of these contributing factors. So while we do try to create a scenario for the ‘ideal’ user experience, our task should be list out the contributing factors and figure out how they interact with each other, how they can be tweaked for each user.

In trying to understand I tried to list down what I feel would be the contributing factors, please feel free to add on or debate upon any of the existing items. The factors are:

accessibility – how do I get access to the platform
UI -- how does it look when I log in and when I am using the platform
Applications – okay so I have logged in, what do I do now, how engaged am I in the platform and what it has to offer.
Security – How secure is my profile, my data and what control do I have over this exposure
Network effect – how many people I know are on the platform, how connected am I with these people
Diversity of the content – for 500 million people a plain English medium will not suffice nor will they be content with their preferred language

The accessibility is aspect would come into the picture because imagining a broadband penetration in India of 500 million is impossible and we are probably talking about mobile access, not only through WAP and GPRS but potentially even through voice and text apps. The medium of usage will heavily impact usage experience.

The apps part will include photo/video sharing, games, quizzes and other forms of content creation. This is an area where I feel lot of futuristic thinking is applicable and our survey findings have revealed insights into the broad fields on which the future apps could/would/should concentrate.

UI will be an important aspect of experience coz while it needs to be crisp and uncluttered it should also bring forth all the functionalities that are present on the platform and there is a potential use of analytics to see what kind of UI should be made available for what kind of user.

In the area of security we might be looking at futuristic account verifications like biometric systems, especially if we are talking about financial transactions happening on the platform.

As mentioned the network effect will involve my interaction with other members of the platform, my friends, family and members of online communities. The concept of collaboration and how futuristic we are in imagining the collaborative levels will determine how we use this factor to create the intended user experience.

Finally, diversity of content is a factor/challenge that is very India-specific because of our cultural diversity. I am looking at multi language support, real time context based translation and other such opportunities.

Unlike what I had set out to do in the beginning, writing about my ideal user experience, I thought this way of looking at the problem might also provide some insights to what we are trying to do.

What I have been unable to accomplish here is to state the interactions between various factors. For example, the more the modes of access, the greater will be the security risks. Similarly I think we can come up with more offsetting scenarios where some sort of compromise has to be struck. If you guys think this approach might lead some where then that would be a potential candidate for further analysis.

Once we have explicitly (or at least with some level of clarity) expressed the interaction levels of these factors, we might go about discussing how to tweak them to satisfy various user classes (we might have to do some user segmentation in this regard)

Apart from thinking of more ideas to enhance the social networking experience of the future network, I think it would also be a great value addition if we could provide a theoretical framework for future developers to understand how the network can be enhanced to improve the user experience.

Going back to the six factors which I had mentioned before the ideas, I feel we could land up with some kind of user segmentation on the basis of these factors. Thus, we can club the six factors into two major categories as follows:

a. the intangible/aesthetic aspect: consisting of the UI experience, content diversity and the network effect

b. functional aspect: consisting of accessibility, availability of apps (easy navigation) and security

Thus the total user experience = aesthetic appeal x functional ability

IDEAS

Carrying on from the above thoughts, I have few ideas, which can potentially improve the UI experience of the user and also be monetized for financial viability.

Theme based UI: Though theme based UIs are already available and for free, the idea is to link ads for theme related activities and goods with the themes to create a holistic package which will then be available to the user. While the user uses the theme for free, the theme creator gets paid by the advertiser and the platform gets a share of the revenue based on the usage of the particular theme. While the theme creator is free to invite as many advertisers on their themes, they have to balance it with keeping the UI experience simple and unobtrusive to ensure user acceptance.

For example, with the growing following of Barclay’s Premier League in India, suppose the user in India is a fan of the Manchester United football club then he would select from one of the ManUtd themes available on the platform. The theme creators can tie up with advertisers of sports merchandise or agencies which can offer match tickets (with the possibility of these teams traveling to India in future). Taking this instance forward, it offers scope for the official website www.manutd.com another channel to reach out to its followers by broadcasting messages through widget based broadcast messages. Similar theme based activity can be used for popular artists, political and social causes etc.

Online Partying: While social networking gurus contemplate on the latent potential of the network, the origins of the phenomenon still reside in the fun and bonding aspect. So it is not difficult to imagine the potential of organizing online parties on the social media, with the DJ and related effects. The party can be by invitation, where you might need to authenticate your navigation onto a webpage, or simply walk-in, or click-in, and open for everyone in the network. The monetization model is similar to how it works offline, with a host bearing the expenses. The party-page can be visualized as having a shoutcast app, another app to post requests to the DJ and apps to create visual effects on the webpage, which will be visible to others in the party.

Similar to the offline scenario, this can give rise to party/event managers specializing in services for this genre of partying. The online party will be especially interesting for India as it has got a huge expatriate population and this provides them an occasion to join their families in the celebrations in a more personalized manner than just viewing a webcast.

P.S.>> Sorry for the images.. cdnt do a better job!!!

To Un-learn Social Networking!!!

2009-09-25T18:56:00.000+05:30

Today was a wonderful experience. The Marketing Continuum at the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay was a grand success with loads of illustrious speakers and many videos impressing upon us the true nature and color of the marketing profession.
One of the speakers was Mr. Paritosh Joshi ( follow on Twitter @paritoshZero) and he gave a wonderful seat of pants lecture, w/o the aid of a ppt on New Age Marketing. Apart from witnessing some stunning advertisements and marketing campaigns (yes!!! there is a helluva difference between them), we also witnessed a deluge of mentions and praises for Facebook and Twitter, most notably Burger King's campaign that left many people without friends but with loads of Whoopers and of course, the honorable mention of Twitter in bringing the Iran protests.
But amidst all the hosannas sung to social networking and crowdsourcing, I am trying to play Devil's Advocate to the heroes that Facebook and Twitter have become. I am not prophesizing any near term overkill of these phenomena but am wondering whether in the middle of the good these are doing, what is the price we are paying for it.
Of course, the most evident is the absolute lack of privacy for the user besides the issues of identity theft and unsavory incidents of accounts being hacked. On a stratospheric level, these interactions are actually replacing real interactions at the local chaiwalla and not only is that poor guy not making money but we have also lost the personal touch in the middle of the Tweets, RTs, # tags, pokes and quizzes etc etc etc and God knows wat else.
Many of my friends have lamented my absence from Facebook but I have strictly limited myself to one general networking (Orkut), one blog, one microblog (Twitter i.e.) and one professional network (LinkedIn) and if you feel that its insufficient connectivity then its your problem.

/*i have resumed this post after 2 months and in the meanwhile have opened a Facebook account and am regularly playing games and quizzes on it. */

So now with egg on my face I resume my crib about social networking overdose. I have developed a permanent fixation for checking updates on Twitterfox as well as FB and am looking for therapy to cure this.
I am sure many people need it!!!

Posting at 4am is not very good for my health so I'll sign off now!!
Tchao!!!

people of different flavors..

2009-09-09T11:56:00.001+05:30

this is gonna be a short one...
created a video abt diversity at SOM... uploading it here. hope u like it!!!

Welcome to Second year of MBA education

2009-07-18T23:46:00.000+05:30

Hi Junta

Despite my prolific presence on Twitter, I had a lingering feeling of neglect towards my primary passion of blogging here. So here I am at the doorstep of second year of management education in a stifling, congested hostel room ( which btw doesnt belong to either of the occupants) and all I want is to write something silly to appease my blogging appettite.
We had our Finance Continuum today and we will be having the Marketing Continuum tomorow to round off a packed weekend and give the junior batch a taste of things to come. The list of speakers was, as usual, illustrious and the experience was enriching. Though I have somewhat become tired of people cribbing about the recession and how everyone's backside is aching because of it, a couple of fresh perspectives did emerge from the day's proceedings.
One was that everyone talked about inclusive growth, something the policy makers have talked about since Independence and I have come to appreciate since my internship days. Secondly, a specific thrust on the SME space by the banking industry was also visible throughout the day. Glad to feel that I have worked and learnt some aspects of both these issues during my internship.
There was also a huge hue and cry about the budget and to put in my 2 cents to the pandemonium, I guess the FM missed a trick or two by letting the deficit balloon, taking the excuse of the recessionary period. It would have been a good idea to set things rolling on Public-Private partnership, specially in sectors like infrastructure. I think an oppotunity for implementing infrastructure partnerships on the build-operate-transfer model and enhancing the environment for such partnerships to prosper, has been offered and it should not be passed up in favor of the tried and tested, albeit risky proposition of public spending.
Thus, the government could have simulated demand and allowed private sector to participate in this effort to bring the country out of this hole.
Finally, it was heartening to hear our junior batch asking enthusiastic questions to the speakers. Some of the questions were really wonderful and I am hopeful that it'll be a great experience for us during the next year.

Adios!!!

P.S: Am working a organisation structure for firms based on technology platforms.. haven't been able to finalise it. Once its done that would be my next post. so keep waiting... Meanwhile started re-reading the book "Arab and Jew" while at home and am going good with it. Lets see if I actually manage to finish it this time.

India: The Hindu Nation

2009-05-26T22:39:00.000+05:30

There has been a sincere effort from my side to keep this blog apolitical and hence, before you read any further, you would be well advised to take the following paragraphs as a comment on the social philosophies prevalent in our times and not link them to any political ideologies.... Thanks in anticipation

This weekend really began well for me with a good, albeit long, walk around the fairytale landscape of South Bombay. While my romance with the place might form part of some other post, I was at loss when I quizzed myself on one of the people, after whom a landmark was named in the area. Then interesting enough I encountered the same name in an article I read today. It was then settled that I had to find out more about Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, and subsequently, Veer Sawarkar.
It was intriguing for me read about these people, who had sown the seeds of Hindu nationalism and in the context of the article I had read, I could understand why these people appear to be, or are made out to be, hardline fundamentalists. Of course, these leaders form convenient ideological benchmarks to classify people in to secular and communal citizens of India but viewed without the lens of political manipulations and hippocracy, they also represent a truth that we are unwilling to accept.
To say that India is a secular country, will be a gross contortion of ground realities. For a country that is the cradle of 2 major international religions and has a huge following of 2 others, which were brought to it by the rulers of the times, we can not be serious when we say that India doesn't identify itself with any religion or we, as Indians, are ambivalent to all religions. Given the fact that so much of religion is intertwined with our social fabric, it is impossible to keep religion out of daily life, the way we eat, the way we greet each other, the way we celebrate birth, enjoy weddings, mourn deaths or almost anything we think. This obviously goes on to affect our interactions with other members of our society, depending on whether their habits are same or different, or if their actions are guided by the same principles as ours. This eventually gives birth to affiliations to some groups while giving rise to discomfort about certain others.

Now that the whole "secularism" rhetoric is out of the picture, let me talk about the Hindu nation. Mind you, a Hindu nation is not a country of Hindus or one practicing Hinduism alone, it'll be completely unethical, and most importantly unHindu, to deny other sects a rightful place to prosper and rightfully propagate but what it also must, and does, emphasise is that India consists of 80.5% people following Hinduism as a religion and a recognition for this fact is long overdue. As promised at the beginning at the post, this is a completely unpolitical post but the social scenarios that have resulted because of the political hubris, has left many Hindus bruised and disaffected with the whole concept of Hindustan.
The concept of a Hindu nation doesn't mean painting the whole country saffron, as has been routinely promoted, nor is it acceptable. A Hindu nation just reinforces the belief of the majority of people of the country that they haven't been converted into eternal sacrificial lambs at the altar of socio-political appeasement in the country. Too long have we been hearing our "secular" social beacons talking of the rise of Hindu nationalism, much in the same vein as the rise of an epidemic and have been warned of religious genocides, that will ensue should the nationalism take hold.
I wish to ask these great luminaries, what good has been their pessimistic acknowledgement of Hindu nationalism? If nothing, it has deepened the gulf between the majority and the minorities and the resultant chasm has been taken up by pea-brained "idealogues", willing to exploit every situation for their petty gains. The Hindu nationalism plank has till now only been used to paint a bleak picture for the minorities and present a "you are atleast better off now than in a Hindu state" excuse to cover up the spineless administrative shortcomings. Any possible constructive implications of a Hindu state have never been examined neither advocated and when such voices do rise, they are invariably branded as marauding fascists, whose sole aim is to create another holocaust and "cleanse" the land.
My closing statement, if at all there is one to this debate, dwells on the "how" and not on "whether". It has been oft said that Hindutva is a way of life. Thats as good as teaching my mom to operate the Hubble telescope. Its time that the advocates of Hindutva operationalise it, put down every inch of its components in tangible form and freely express the intangible ones. Only by practicing it, can we propagate it and remove apprehensions regarding it, among other members of the society. Lets keep in mind that no model or philosophy of life can sustain itself, if its intolerant and rigid in the face of change and amalgamation, thus Hindutva will evolve, should evolve and accomodate other parallel philosophies.
The success of any great nation always hinges on its people... and people means ALL people, not majorities neither minorities alone!!!

Summers of 2009: A mid-term review!!!

2009-05-25T22:38:00.000+05:30

Just to prove that my blog isn't dead, I have comeback from nowhere to post this. Two major reasons for staying away for so long are, one that idiot FakeIPLplayer, because of whom, no other blogs were to be read or followed for the past 40 days and secondly, I began my summer internship at a leading organisation in the financial sector.
Ironically enuff, the IPL's over and simultaeneously, my wall of patience has been breached by the rigours of the internship so I am back again to wreak havoc with words and give FIP a run for his shadowy money.
Well, frankly, I got nothing against the company... they have been gr8 to me, right to the point of expecting me to deliver on all commitments in one month so that they can give me more learning assignments. Talk about "9-wives-1-month-pregnancy" but I have been humbled by their faith in the bumbling, stumbling buffoon that I am, who's job no. 1 during the internship is to get appointments from the concerned people and then adjust all prior appointments for this latest one. So wat put me really off today was the fact that after 3 weeks, when I want some guidance on the faint gleanings of a solution, I am told that I have been running behind the wrong the target segment. If I felt like a vegetable in my marketing lectures, I really felt like cowdung during this meeting. I cried out all four letter expletives, at the top of my voice, within my mind and eventually, slowly and almost in hushed tones, promised better results next time round, which, by the way, is day after.
This event actually opened a barrage of emotions within me and hence, I decided to pour it out on this post. Dude, I mean seriously... the only good things that have happened to me in the last one month have been, number 1, the fact that I have befriended the DJ @ Jugheads, to the extent that he concedes one request per weekend for moi and number 2, I have discovered that weekend trips to Jugheads are also a license to ogle wolfishly at beautiful (read sexy, hot... and all other synonyms for stunners!!!) girls, who are least bothered about a random pack of pariahs salivating, while they down drink after drink.
Coming to this point in my post, I suddenly remembered that its the month of May and that this month has historically been unkind to me, so probably its a fitting thing that this May of 2009 be no different. But sorry for the diversion, let me get back to my rantings so that you pervs can get enuff fun off it.
So coming back to my work, there is not much of it actually. All I am supposed to do is to gather data and think about the data. I was, of course, dumb enough to ask around for data. It seems we are supposed to get the data but no one has a clue as to who is supposed to give the data. In this intense game of "ricocheting-balls" syndrome, alike pool, I have already been reminded of my limited time here and that I should now start thinking with watever data I have and let the remaining data, rest in peace. And so I start thinking now, which is somehow too big a task for me and all I can think of is the coffee machine, the water cooler, the loo and lunch time (not necessarily in that order).
Funnily enuff, I luved the title of the project first up and was already dreaming of all the frameworks I could apply in this particular scenario, similar to our marketing case studies. All my dream of SWOT and Porter's 5 forces vanished eventually when I discovered that applying these would effectively dig my grave because I can never get enough data to defend half of the points that I had written on a sheet on the first day of project discussion. The paper was put to its best use next weekend, when I wiped off 2-3 thick layers of dust from the Bible by Mr. Kotler, thus effectively taking away 1 year of my MBA education with all the slime attached to it.
From the dreamy-eyed expectations of becoming Mr. India to the real-life struggle of staying afloat inspite of the teen-guna Lagaan my summer internship has come a full circle in half the period. Of course, this is again in keeping with my company's theory of high expectations.
Finally, what keeps me going. I have asked this question myself and the only answer I get for this is a glass of sugarcane juice and malai-wali lassi.
===================================================================
P.S: All facts, statements, people and feeling are completely fictitious and modified suitably for reading pleasure. Their resemblance to any real fact, statement, person or feeling is impossible. If you still wanna believe this post I hold no obligations regarding setting things right later.

P.P.S: If you are wondering that why I have written such a post only to deny its truth, then keep wondering, its your own sweet time. I am off to make my 1baby with my 9 wives .. (all notional creatures)

The Hand of Gods!!! ... a first hand account

2009-04-10T11:20:00.000+05:30

Nothing infamous about this one.
We have been having our own football league, which we call SOM Premier League (SPL), in the hostel 1 grounds over the past week. I am part of a team called the Thunderbolts and though we dint start off thunderously in the tournament, we have been able to find our feet after the initial hiccups.
And it so happened that due to a manpower crunch, resulting out of corporate internship inductions, I got to play. I had played a total of 20 minutes in the last 3 games and that too in defense, something which I have never done. After much deliberation and strategising, I was asked where I'll be comfortable playing. In a team of 5, with one goalkeeper, you dont get much choices but still I ventured out and said," I'll play forward." Well, that really did change the evening for me.
I dont remember the exact timings of all the goals but I do remember how I scored them. Atleast 2 of them were good and 2 were plain dumb luck, while 1 could be put down to a defensive lapse by opponents. As I told everyone present, I was just lucky to be at the right place at the right time. The scoreline at the end of the match read 5-2 for Thunderbolts, with all 5 coming from my boot (OK, one was a header, make that 4+1!!). I felt that if I could just hang up my boots and walk into the sunset of my footballing career I would still be happy (lolzzz!!! nt much of a career actually!!). Anyways, most importantly, I had loads of fun and tons of laughs as I recounted the goals in my mind and probably thats wat counts the most. To borrow a term from my friend Ajit... Joga Bonito!!!!

Talking of Ajit, we have discovered our very own combination of Steve McMahon, Paul Masefield and Shebby Singh in this bloke. I wonder if he should take up sports journalism in all the right earnest... this is wat he had to say about the match...( mind you he was the opponent so the accolades are all the more special!!!)

A 5 star Parsu performance

It was Parsu's day out on the field as an unprecedented 5 goals from him helped Thunderbolts crush Gunners 5-2. The manner in which the goals were scored were noteworthy with each one being different from the previous. Although a couple of them were scored as a result of the generosity of Gunners defence, whose performance left a lot to be desired, the first of his five stood out for his positioning and deft touch. A goalmouth scramble following a corner led to the ball rolling to Parsu who had stationed himself at the farpost, one deft touch and it lobbed over Amit into the Gunners' goal. That opened the flood gates as Parsu completed the hat-trick
in just 18 minutes, a record that will surely stand for many SPL seasons to come.

The Gunners showed signs of a comeback with Ajit pulling a goal back at the start of the second half. However, a bad mistake at the goal post led to them conceding a very soft goal and the match was all but over. Bala soon made it two for the Gunners but it was all too late.
The limelight belonged to one man. With this wonderful SPL performance, he has surely qualified for the next GPL session.

Man of the match: Parsu


Gud going Rocky... just dont sue me IP.

Back on Blogger..no bang.. no fizz...

2009-03-23T22:24:00.001+05:30

Its been a while since I wrote anything. I almost feel like I should consult a doc regarding this writer's block but then nobody is to be blamed but me right!!!
A lot has happened since my last post ( which seems like an eternity!!!). I have scrambled like crazy for 4 days during the Admission process of the batch 2009-2011, felt nostalgic while giving presentations to aspirants, got sullied in mud during Holi, drank straight from a bottle of the OLD MONK ( i nvr thought i was cut out for the neat stuff but necessity - to be read as lack of Coke - is the mother of all invention), paced around SOM like an expecting father with the Consulting Continuum around the corner.... huff puff... still more... huff puff... suffered the ignominy of a CD in HR and (finally!!!) am struggling (again!!! as every term!!!) to keep up with the academic rigor.

Now I really hope all that absolves me off not being regular with my blog (one of ma secret New Year resolutions!!). This same time I have also discovered a love for Game Theory and plan to finish a small matter of 400 pages text on it amidst the acads here. And of course, I started with Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" online but lost interest in it because I can't hold the book while reading ( yeah am that finicky!!!). Discovered a new coffee shop nearby (only regret..visiting the coffee shop with a guy!!) which i cant afford in near future and revisited Pink Panther before watching Pink Panther2, which is good but nowhere near the first part (more because of the ingenuity.. in PP2 u trust Steve Martin to do something stupid... kills the fun!!)...hmmmmm... hmmmm... nw i cant remember...
yeah !! India won the first test match in New Zealand handsomely and the farewell for the senior batch is up next week (after the minor issue of 3 midterms and 3 cases, that is!!), have to be controlled with the booze as we are paying this tyme ( ha ha ha!!) and thats pretty much about it.

If you are wondering why did I return after so long to make this completely irrelevant post then I would attribute that to my habit of random browsing. While browsing thru blogs, I came across this wonderful term "Just Another Random Post" or JARP so this is my first JARP and i'll tag it so!!!
Besides important time of the year.. need to choose electives so i guess I'll renew my interest in energy, sustainability and Hubbert's peak theory!!!
For now I am sitting on a utterly distasteful piece of reading called "New Product Adoption and Diffusion" and am expecting no gains out of it. To top it all, I have a meet in another 10 mins!!!
So for now Adios Amigos....
Tata!!!

The long and short of Delhi6!!!

2009-03-02T18:47:00.000+05:30

It feels so good to be back on Blogosphere. With the exams over and a couple of chill days before I get down to work again, I thought I'll write about this really pathetic pot-pourri of Swades, national intergration, women's liberation, MonkeyMan and Ramleela.
That in short is Delhi-6.
Some RDB elements are found, crisp camera, realistic locales, amazing picturisation of songs except for one (why did they mete out cruelty to "Genda Phool" song?)... and then there is Sonam Kapoor... but Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra forgot to put in a plausible story line to tie all these together. In short, the movie was technically sound but what good is it without a sensible story.
Ofcourse, I did sit through the whole ordeal even though I was itching to run out of the hall during the last 30 minutes, with all the preaching and screaming...yaawwwnnn!!! It was only because of beautiful... nah... beautifullest Sonam Kapoor as Bittu Sharma that I stayed back and who was just about my only inspiration to weather the tirade of cliched dialogs, tearjerking auntijis and jalebis with its various connotations.
The pic above is the latest to adorn my desktop and hence, Sonam Kapoor has joined the elite company of Catherine Zeta Jones, Neha Dhupia, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, who have all been there.
Coming back to Delhi6.... Do watch it but do not expect chest pumping nationalism of RDB or the serene realism that was embodied in Swades but because in its own sweet way it makes you fall in love with Dilli and thats just about it. No great harping about it otherwise...
Ciao all ... got some non-blogging writing to do!!!

As an afterthought... Delhi6 is also a gud lesson for every student of Marketing as to how overkill can damage the efforts of clever product placement in movies... Clue:AB's fone!!!!

Lessons from Introduction to Marketing!!!!

2009-02-17T18:28:00.000+05:30

Today has been a strange day. I got up early for once... rushed to an unscheduled marketing lecture only to watch a garam bhajan on Mitsubishi (DC++ users should get that pun), came back and got fooled into watching Boys in Telugu. Phew!!!! What a day.
A roundup of news informed me that the World Mobile Congress is going on in Barcelona and its difficult to keep track of all the new things they are coming up with... like a James Bond style wrist phone. Another interesting article was this.
Well another pathbreaking headlines for the day is that today was the last class of our Introduction to Marketing course. Yippee to that!!! Given the amount of cases, readings and surprise quizzes I have faced for the course, I have surprised myself that I haven't ranted (read blogged) about it yet!!!
But in hindsight (yeah, the most powerful and useless tool available to mankind) I find that it was the most realistic course in our term, and that's a scary admission. More so after reading the book by Trout and Riese "22 immutable laws of marketing".
The power of brand comes to fore every time I flinch at Pepsi, when I have asked for Coke. Valentine's Day is an exercise in positioning by all eligible (this topic by itself merits a post) and what to say about consumer buyer behavior, easily understood. The only issue with studying the course has been to reconcile all these innocuous acts with hair raising frameworks and psychological factors. The huge ocean of terms doesn't help the cause either. Why do I care if someone is an opinion leader or chief opinion dispenser (wow!!! i made that up) .. its just a guy whom i listen to!!! Plain and simple huh!!! now try not losing sleep while remembering painful terminologies!!!!
Perhaps the most important piece of truth was revealed in the last class, while discussing channels. The whole concept of buying/ selling value to/from consumers/companies can be laid into 3 statements:
1. Your product doesn't deserve to be bought
2. The customer doesn't think your product needs to be bought
3. Your product is not available to be bought

If we look carefully at the first point then it indicates a possible failure of both market research and the quality departments while the second indicates failure of promotions and marketing efforts. The third is a failure of the SCM guys and in management of channels. Neat huh!!

Anyways the most important point is that hopefully I'll use some of this gyan in my Introduction to Marketing exam as well!!!
Signing off... gotta do lotsa project work!!

The Next Generation Boom in Services Industry

2009-02-16T19:13:00.000+05:30

An article originally intended for L!VE, our student magazine @ SJMSOM:

Working in one of India’s leading software services exporters, what will be your reaction if you were to be transferred to Belapur? Confused. You shouldn’t be, if these are any indications of the times to come. Welcome to the next generation of expansion in the software service industry. The software industry of Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon is now moving deeper into the country. The new centers of information technology are no longer the big metros but low cost centers like Jaipur, Trivandrum and Chandigarh.

Unsurprisingly, the high cost of operation in the metros coupled with the high rates of attrition prevalent among the leading companies has made them look other places for a better option. The Tier II cities have a distinct advantage in this regard for many companies. The reported cost differential is around 10 percent for non-voice based services and higher for voice based services create a huge margin of operational profits for the firms. Also, thanks to the large population of the country and increasingly effective education system, the number of university graduates coming from these cities is enough to take care of the major manpower requirements for the companies.

All major outsourcing companies have scouted out new locations, away from the hustling bustling metropolitans to locales such as Kochi, Baroda and Coimbatore etc. These include companies like Wipro Spectramind, Infosys Technologies and Cognizant Technology Solutions. Kochi and Coimbatore are coming up as feasible alternatives to Bangalore and Chennai in south, while Pune has already cemented its place in the outsourcing pantheons because of its close proximity to Mumbai and its rich educational system, providing close to 1,00,000 graduates every year, acting as an essential resource pool for the companies.

One another reason associated to moving to Tier II cities is the low cost of transportation involved in the cities, because of their small geographical stretches and comparatively low count of vehicles compared to outsourcing hubs. The average employee starting out in the service industry is a college graduate, who mainly relies on public transport for commutation to the workplace. As an unwritten rule, the companies have decided to include transportation costs as part of the compensation packages, providing for company buses and cabs, which again hit the operating margins of the companies. Though the outsourcing industry has funneled in loads of money into the metropolitan cities, the infrastructure development has been unable to maintain pace with the rapid growth and the lack of development in transport facilities are not helping the cause of these cities.

An additional impact of the gradual shift towards Tier II cities has been the entry of many smaller service providers, specially the ones catering to niche sectors like high-end data analysis. The Tier II and Tier III cities make the entry level costs of these companies substantially less and are fostering the entrepreneurship ventures of many technology specialists. The presence of sufficient talent pool in these cities helps these firms by reducing their attrition rates and hence, their training and recruitment costs are also going down, further promoting the cause of the Tier II cities.

However, all is not well with the migration plans of these companies. The primary concern of all the companies is the infrastructure related issues that generally accompany the Tier II cities. The doubt that whether the smaller cities will be able to rise over the infrastructure handicap and dicey connectivity, to actually make the small city boom happen still looms large in the minds of the senior management of many companies. It is estimated that 30% of the workforce of all leading IT/ITES companies is going to be based in these Tier II and Tier III cities. Hence the onus is on the respective public bodies to develop the amenities in these places to provide for the large workforce.

Another area of concern for the companies is bringing quality talent to these cities, especially with respect to the senior management and experience middle management employees, to these smaller cities. Obviously the promise of better work-life balance is not a good enough reason for these executives to relocate to these new situations and hence, companies might be forced to offer relocation bonuses or other such perks to facilitate the shift of work force to the new places. Also, an interesting trend that has been observed in the recent recruits is that, they do not want to leave the glitz and glamour accompanying a metropolitan city for relocation for some nondescript city offering little or no life outside office hours or during weekends.

Another major impact of this relocation to smaller centers in the country will be a more symmetric distribution of the outsourcing pie between the large hubs and the fast catching up wannabes. The recent years had seen a skew in favor of the metros, with the retail and real estate booms in the city projecting them as the face of modern India. These recent developments will enable the smaller players in this field to develop their own identity in this market and present a more representative picture of modern India. Already signs to this effect are visible with an increase in spending by real estate giants in these centers and the entry of retailing giants like Reliance and Big Bazaar in these cities. The development of these new consumption centers is also good for related sectors of manufacturing and allied services, giving them further impetus for growth.

However, none of this is going to happen in near future. The challenges are still clear for all of us to see. Firstly, the infrastructure needs a great impetus from the government. It is heartening to see projects like the Golden Quadrilateral being visualized because they will improve connectivity of the smaller cities with the outsourcing hubs. Also, the telecom revolution in the country should help ensure that the network and data connectivity are maintained at requisite levels for the companies to show confidence in these cities. Finally, the public amenities need to be improved to attract the skilled labor into these cities rather than switching jobs in the major cities themselves. The rise of latent talent and potential in the smaller cities is not under any sort of doubt, it is just the timing of the event that is debatable. The sooner it happens, the better.

Diksha session @ SJMSOM

2009-02-15T23:19:00.000+05:30

So another weekend just flew by!!!! Tata weekend!!!
Just back to the room after collecting few materials for my Marketing project, its about Apollo tyres and currently, rudderless, inspite of the most energetic starts. On my way out i was wondering that some how the number of things you need to carry while moving out seems to be increasing.
Earlier it was just the little watch that Dad gifted for birthday, then came the wallet and gush of pride with it... Much later, of course, arrived the cell phone and now, whenever I move out of the room I carry a pendrive along with me, for some unforeseen data exchange. Of course, the tech-savvy will argue that a capable cell phone will make the pendrive redundant but currently such analysis is beyond my (and many others... with the crisis around) financial condition.
Another latest of latest developments has been my new-found love for Lynyrd Skynyrd, which makes them permanent fixtures on my playlist for the next week atleast. Ofcourse, the songs have been generously mixed with Delhi6 and DevD songs.
Saturday morning isn't the best time for any kind of industry interaction, let alone financial but then some people really do make us sit up and listen. So was the case this weekend when Mr A.V.Rajwade, visiting faculty at IIM A and SPJIMR and a practitioner in the financial services industry for more than 50 years, dropped by (for lack of better words) for a tete-a-tete with us. He talked about the existing financial crisis and brought out certain new perspectives to the issue, even though I thought there was nothing much left to discuss about the issue.
He started of discussing the various economic philosophies, right from Adam Smith to Keynes through Marx, and walked us through the socio-political transformations associated with the rise and fall of each of these beliefs. There was also a brief discussion on laissez faire capitalism and emergence of state responsibility in purely capitalist economies.
Thereafter the discussion moved to the banking business and I guess, the whole industry was summed up succintly when he said that it has moved from "lend and wait for repayment" to "originate and sell" model. He went on to explain certain aspects of the industry, especially risk-reward asymmetry and the disadvantages of complex of financial instruments. He attributed the current crisis to the willingness of most investors to invest in risky assets, even though they couldn't make much sense of the products that were being offered to them. He also initiated a brief discussion on various credit derivatives and their complexities.
Finally, and probably most importantly, he touched upon the things that a budding finance manager should learn from the crisis. To summarise in three points:
1. understand the risk/return compromise
2. Models are no substitute for common sense
3. Financial services are only slaves to the real economy and cannot be its master.

I also asked him whether he thinks this is the end of laissez faire capitalism to which he agreed. I, however, do not concur with his view. But more of that later need to publish this before the LAN stops working.

And yeah... I gotta know that I stood 4th in the PG cult elocution competition... Kudos to Vishesh for getting that info... he he he!!!
Tchao!!!

Sustainable Growth: A Few ideas on the future of Business

2009-02-11T18:59:00.000+05:30

Mother asks the son, ‘what use are thee?

Slay thy womb for riches, has it been decreed?

With knives of steel piercing my bosom,

Dipped in the poisons of thy greed.’

Businesses have been known to operate for the bottom lines. Through centuries of unbridled slaughter of the resources, we have steamed ahead on the path of ever-increasing gains. However, we stand at crossroads today, with a choice between the established path of blissful living, and yet eventual extinction, and a more mellow, conscientious disposition towards our Earth.

As business leaders of tomorrow, it is imperative not to focus just on the myopic margins of operational profit but to instill a greater, graver sense of sustainability and longevity. And if the purists scorn at this as altruism then let them be aware that this makes solid business sense. With increased awareness amongst the society and a watchful government, no business can succeed unless it conforms to the sustainability framework. Besides this, the positive correlation between financial performance and sustainability has been amplified by the growing energy costs and lack of viable alternatives for current energy sources. These factors make sustainability a completely business driven idea.

There are two specific things that can be mentioned in this regard.

One is that there has been a general rise in the number of engineering students in B-schools of India. This gives the future managers a techninal orientation in their approach of business. The onus therefore lies on us the techo-preneurs and techno-managers to "engineer" a path towards sustainable businesses and reliance on sustainable systems and products. Thus, I hope that India will be at the forefront of the technological and sociological revolution for sustainability. The key to this, however, lies in educating the business leaders towards this goal and making the current crop of practitioners (and students) sensitive to the future eminence of this topic, so that we don't miss the bus this time around.

Another thing that crossed me in the past week was a term called the Triple Bottom Line. Its an interesting concept which captures the holistic effects of a company's activities on the society. The method tries to capture the effects of the company's economic activities on the 3Ps, namely, People (human capital), Planet (ecological) and Profit (businees). Though the basic concept may sound similar to the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility in India, this platform provides a lot more quantitative basis for evaluation of company performances and could act a key determinant of corporate performance in the time to come. I am not sure how many companies in the country are actually aware of this method of cost accounting but a legislation in this regard will go a long way in improving the accountability of corporates towards societal and ecological responses.

Sustainability has long been contemplated and negotiated, both in business circles and on geo-political forums but unless the tangible effects of these methods are not visible to the corporate world, it would be altruistic to expect overnight transformations into sustainability evangelists. Thus, I see the development of the TBL concept as a major mvoe in that direction. As is widely quoted, “We have not inherited the earth from ancestors, rather we have loaned it from our children”. And we would be wise enough to remember that.

“Loathe me not, for I had been blinded,

With lust of gold and greed unknown.”

He spoke of love to “wash away thy pains of yore”,

Oh Mother!! Be resplendent again with glories galore!!!

Should we put constraints on media for national security?

2009-01-31T18:19:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

Been very busy with usual stuff that i have not been able to blog at all. Couple of times it was so bad that i abandoned posts midway.... so here i thought i'll put up something for the sake of continuity, and of course for you to ruminate... this is my speech for the PG Cult'09 elocution competition.

Our Preamble states that India is a sovereign, socialist, democratic, republic and as citizens of a free country we are endowed with certain fundamental rights. The most prominent among them is the right to free speech and therein resides the premise of an independent and strengthened media in the country. Of course, it would be inessential to exemplify the virtues of free and fair media in democracy, a debate long settled by Edmund Burke, when he said looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.’

However, in this cacophony of freedom and fairness, a growing section of the populace has started whispering another word too. That word is: Accountability. The world of media and information has changed dynamically from the good old days of Doordarshan and Akashvani. Predictably, the internet is at the forefront of this revolution but there has been enormous development and repackaging of existing channels, with news channels mushrooming overnight and tabloids raking in readership numbers unheard of. The media has undergone an era of crass commercialization and the emergence of 24x7 journalism has guaranteed that anything and everything under the sun is breaking news in India.

The recent Mumbai attacks revealed this dirty underbelly of Indian media, with each TV channel, tabloid and news forum competing with each other to bring the latest piece of action, much in the same vein of reporting the live scorecard of an India-Australia cricket match. Of course, it didn’t occur to them that revealing key operational details of the mission, committing diplomatic farces like commenting on the nationality of attackers 2 hours into the attack, would compromise the diplomatic and military actions taking place on the ground. If you have the guts to pompously announce that the attackers are watching your channel to get ground level information then where are your sensibilities in regulating what you reveal on the show? When it comes to national security, free and fair reporting is a flimsy garb for sensationalism and irresponsibility.

Unfortunately, it seems that the media has entered into a vicious cycle of generating news and creating hype, for sustenance and only external hands can rein them in. If we can have regulators for content on movies then shouldn’t we ensure that the way the sensitive information is presented to the world also be guarded closely and monitored. Lest of course, ladies and gentleman, the next time you want the attackers to have a free and fair chance at fighting back, the media should indeed be constrained when reporting about issues of national security.

Socialist or Selfish

2009-01-18T14:37:00.000+05:30

Its 4.30am and I am reporting from my hostel (big deal huh!!!!!). I have nothing to write but it’s the only thing that’s keeping me going and that has saved me from potential unemployment so I turn to it for some succor.

Understandably (or not… I couldn’t care less) I have nothing to write about except the whole set of things that has caused me so much discomfort for some time. I remember one of the passages from my school days. It’s from the book “My Experiments with Truth” and the passage debates upon individualistic and socialistic existence of men. In other words, to exist for oneself or to live for the society. As is becoming of a good book, it extols the greatness of living for the society while stressing on the right to self fulfillment as a basic tenet of democracy. Thus, I am confused as to where should one should draw the line when it comes to making a choice. Be selfish or be socialist in your attitude.

In this regard, I have a story to relate. Being a student with above average credentials prodded me towards teaching many students in younger classes. One of my students, lets call him Ram, was one of my brightest students. I could never fathom his parents’ obsession of seeking my guidance for their son but I took it up for the money all the same. Ram was like any other 8^th grader but with a unique disposition of dexterity at Social Studies and Mathematics alike, and everything in between. That is to say that he was good at every subject and though he wasn’t top of class, he was well recognized for his versatility and innovativeness.

Ram was one of my last students for the day. He is one of the students who need least guidance and cause least mental exhaustion. Ideal for the last batch. But that day he was unusually quiet and his actions were more robotic than usual. When initial prodding didn’t get me far, I tried the hostile I-will-tell-your-parents method to get his part of the story.

Ram: Bhaiya, in 2 days time we have an inspection in school. Since we are an upcoming government school, sirf class 8 tak hi hai na, we need to impress the inspector coming from the department, to improve the stature of the school and to get us more funds for expansion.

Me: Hmmm… that’s good for you and your school. Why are you worried? Don’t worry you’ll do fine.

Ram: Nahi nahi. Not afraid of the inspection. Actually, Mr. Jay called me after the class for a discussion. We had a talk on certain issues for considerable time and I am wondering what to do about his proposal.

Me: Proposal?? What kinda proposal does an 8^th grader get from his class teacher?

Ram: Well Jay Sir says that this inspection is very critical for our school as there are many schools vying for aid and unless the inspector feels that the whole batch is good, we would not get anything in aid and our school won’t get the necessary permission to scale up to class X with all the facilities.

Me: Good to see that your teacher is so worried about the school and the students. (And most importantly, about his increment, I mumbled inside.) But that’s pretty simple isn’t it? Just ensure that your best students are showcased in front of the inspector. That way the impression of the class will also be improved and the teacher’s work is also less in training the students, as they will be talented automatically. Just divide the work amongst the best students. Simple.

Ram: I thought so too Bhaiya. Infact when Jay Sir was making the teams for each subject I was worried I would be in atleast 3 teams because he had used the annual exam marks for deciding the composition of each subject’s team. But finally, my name was declared in the list of students, who had to memorize the prayer songs which we sang from our prayer book for our daily assembly. You see, I am one of the few born singers in the class. It seems the inspector might want to hear some prayer songs from us.

Me: Good hai yaar. Now as your tuition teacher, do I teach you prayer songs? And I don’t see any proposal still.

Ram: (Chuckles) Nahi Bhaiya. Prayer song toh I can sing anytime, no sweat. The proposal actually materialized when Jay sir said he wanted to meet me after class. He started by saying that he was sorry that he couldn’t put me in any teams as the head master had restricted him from placing students under excessive stress and placing me in any one team would be undermining my proficiency in any other.

Me: So, he left you with the prayer songs?

Ram: Shayad. But he promised that I will get to contribute in individual team preparations for their subjects. The teams will make use of my notes for the inspection and take my help in ironing out few additional answers. But I am not supposed to volunteer for giving any answers as I generally do. The answers will be given by students handpicked by Sir. Only they are supposed to raise hands for a particular subject. In lieu, of course, Sir has said he’s going to think of me as a great team player and keep me in mind for his future plans.

Me: Ohh… so you are going to be in all teams, rather coordinating all teams, with a centralized consultant kinda role. That’s cool.

Ram: Uff Bhaiya. Nothing like that. I am still part of prayer team. Of course, I will be making significant contributions to the inspection preparation and play a critical role in the development of the school. Isn’t that cool!!! Besides the central coordination roles were already decided while I was away watching “War of the Words: The Great Debacle” last year, which had our school seniors in the finals so wo place to gayi na.

Me (Now it’s going beyond my comprehension): So you are basically rattofying the prayer songs while slogging your ass off for other teams to do well.

Ram: Aisa mat bolo, Bhaiya. Look at my contribution to the school’s expansion. That’s going to be cool right. Tomorrow if the school gets a permission to expand up to high school, I can proudly say that I was part of the team which did it.

Me: But what if he didn’t ask for the prayer songs. Then your contribution is zero isn’t it?

Ram: But Jay Sir to jaante hain na.

Me: Haan theek hai. But high school ki scholarship ke liye headmaster hi nominate karenge and he’ll give it to some person who answered Mathematics questions brightly or to someone who supervised the preparation of all the subject teams. Not someone who memorized a bunch of prayer songs. Hai na?

Ram: Hmmmm wo to hai. Anyways its late now, I need to leave now and I can’t come tomorrow. You see I need to sit with various subject teams and prepare with them, besides the bunch of prayer songs. I hope that’s not a problem. Perhaps we can do an extra Sunday.

Me: Theek hai. But just think over what I said. School ke liye fight maarna hai ki apne liye scholarship ka scene banana hai.

Ram: Ok Bhaiya. (And he left…)

Two days later, when the inspector asked a question about equations, 5 hands went up in the class. I don’t know if one of them was Ram nor do I know what I would have done if had I been in his place. Even if I had known how would I know that it’s the right decision.

Is it ever possible to know what the right decision is?

Ouch!! I can’t write about S….E….X

2009-01-15T23:25:00.000+05:30

Well its 3.30 am and I am writing in my hostel room, simultaneously cursing the LAN-ban in our campus. Another usual B-school day will come to an end for me, in say about an hour. Reading before classes is certainly a first for me, so I have to get accustomed to it pretty fast, besides there is the usual din of totally useless activities in hostels that you get addicted to here. Eating in the night canteen for instance.

Matthew Hayden retired today but I could care less. I never liked him anyways and that has nothing to do with his relationship with Bhajji. He is a typical example of a struggler, who fought his way back in to the Aussie squad after being dropped. He is not a purist’s cricketer and he is big, burly and remorseless, quite unlike the batsmen I like, for example apna Tendlya, small, vulnerable (by the looks… not his cricket. That’s another debate) and emotionally charged.

Of course, it would take a certain degree of ignorance to completely dismiss his contributions to Aussie and world cricket and I, infact, do salute him for his achievements though I’ll still say I am pleased to see the back of him.

My latest GTalk signature says: “Love is the answer, but while you’re waiting for the answer sex does raise some interesting questions. ” Woody Allen

As soon as I changed it, I got a few pings about it. Like all normal things, the reaction was mixed and I couldn’t pick any reaction extraordinaire amongst them. What it set me thinking on was why we attach so much attention and connotations to the word “SEX”. I still remember a particular incident from graduation. Final year, when we were learning the art of drafting our resumes, there was a section regarding personal information. This is what our faculty had to say about it, “And finally, kindly use the word GENDER and then write MALE or FEMALE, please do no use the word S….E…X”". Yeah, that’s what she did. She didn’t say “… do use the word SEX” but “… word S…E…X”. Just the individual letters not the word. As if uttering the word would destine her to the deepest and hottest cauldrons of hell.

Final thought, Indian attitude towards SEX is akin to the American attitude towards Outsourcing. We both don’t like to talk about it but we seem to have no hassles in practicing it. With our huge population and their huge cost cuttings, we have proof enough.

Adios!!!

Hurray... Time for yet another SOM Rocks!!!

2009-01-11T10:34:00.000+05:30

Reporting from room number 307 of hostel A in SIC campus.
Cosy room, cosier blanket and the perfect time for garama-garam chai and pakode. Well, i aint here to enjoy the hospitality though. I came here yesterday, about the same time of the day, for participating in a marketing event Out2B in the business festival of SIIB, Ignisense. Eventful journey to say the least, we worried about missing the event because of the delays caused by the bus-wala. Anyhow we didnt have to face our worst fears and managed the reaching the campus and registering in time.
We had a 20 minute presentation and i was supposed to present it. But guess what, I haven't even seen the slides more than 2 times and not one rehearsal. So Sachin made me do a couple of practices with the slides and I guess I really need to be thankful to him for ironing out a few chinks in the armour.
We risked being late rather than being shabby at the event and it paid off handsomely as our presentation went off well. We were applauded for our well thought out and prepared presentation and that for me was battle won. However, we still had to answer a few tricky ones from the judges and I think really Sachin did a great job at that. We got off stage with a general feeling that we have done a pretty good job if nothing exceptional.
Some of the participants were really good with their product ideas or market strategies, however I felt they missed some major point or the other while making their presentations. These things came back to haunt them during the question and answer round.
The results were out shortly after that and we were declared the WINNERS of Out2B!!!!!!!!!!!!! This culminated our continuous slogging over the past 2 days and after a round of congratulations, we moved for lunch.
After lunch, with not much to do for the day, I went to meet Neha, my friend from school. Reached her flat around 4.30, nice place I must add. Usual round of gappe-shappe over Frooti and Haldiram's khatta meetha followed by a quick nap for me. I was woken up with some wonderful coffee and another round gappe ensued. I left her place around 8.30 after a dose of some Roadies action and a meal of 2 aloo paratha and anda bhurji with dahi. It took some effort to reach campus, especially because I could not figure out the rationale behind the pricing strategy of the autorickshaw drivers in Pune. But after some time, my body didn't have the patience to stand and argue with them so I just took what seemed to be the least exploitative price and headed back.
Reaching campus, I heard there was a fashion show at 10 and I had reached in time. But could my body take any more exhaustion ? Yes Sir, it could. So I went to the show, had a nice time for about an hour and came back to my room for the first proper sleep in 3 days.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.........................................
That was when I was sleeping. Got up at 9am. The SIIB guy put up with us in the room was supposed to get up at 5 to help with the event but its 11 now and there are no signs of him getting up. Pleasant surprise at breakfast was the meeting with Harsh Maskara (The Mask) of PagalGuy.com. I know Harsh as he had come to campus a few days back to do a writeup on SJMSOM. Interestingly enough, yours truly has also been mentioned in the article for one of the many wisecracks during our interaction.
Thereafter its been boring, so now I am planning to move out of the room.
Next post will be from Mumbai...
Tata !!!
And yeah ... SOM Rocks!!!

Mera Bharat Mahan!!!!!!!!!!

2008-12-02T23:42:00.000+05:30

Well, I am holidaying here at home and that’s the reason why I am away from blogosphere. It’s a week since those darned exams got over and I had an uneventful journey back while Mumbai has had an eventful week, which by the way it could have done without.
I was watching this crazy series on HBO titled “Mumbai Calling”. It ranted for an hour about domineering Indian parents and I found it tough hiding a smile whilst all this mummy-papa bashing was going on. Funny the series should worth mention here except that my parents have been fussing over me all this time and I am literally hiding from them, to pen down my thoughts. And yes, I just finished an iconic battle with a couple of cockroaches for territorial supremacy in my room. Full of bloodshed, like a Bruce Willis movie, so lets skip the gory details.
My thoughts are extremely scrambled right now. Unsurprising, you would say but it’s probably got to do with the huge backlog of events or the enormity of the events that actually happened. I have been in Mumbai for 4 months only, having come to love the city for whatever little I have seen of it and this attack (or the set of attacks) left me shocked, searching for contacts frenetically and trying to find out the ground situation. I wish to express my heartfelt condolences towards the deceased and salute the spirit and courage of our security forces, whose efforts thwarted the terrorists from carrying out any more heinous acts.
While I am trying to read a book side-by-side, the events that took place today still jangle my mind. Oh the shenanigans of Indian politics and democracy!!! A major security lapse has been represented as a government failure, used by dysfunctional spokespersons as tool to grab airtime and converted into a mega serial of the “saas-bahu” genre by our venerable news networks. I am left wondering if the Indian people have actually become so gullible that feeding them so much of noise in the form of news will make them forget the actual issue at hand. If so, then God tussi great ho.
While nationalistic jingoism was at its peak when the commandos killed the terrorists and emerged victorious from the “battlefields” and the past few days of frustration against the political classes, I am pretty sure that all this will die down in a couple of weeks. Blasphemous eh?? Well it’s just a question of time before the necessities of life and the challenges of succeeding in a billion-strong populace take hold of us and back we go on our daily pursuits of roti, kapda aur makaan. That this compulsion will be repackaged as the Mumbai or Jaipur “spirit” or the “resilience” of Ahmedabad, telecast back to us and will make us feel proud, has no consequence for us.
We have become institutionalized, and that is the root cause of our bull headed behavior. We are expected to live from one terrorist attack to another. Each time we hope that we are not at the wrong place at the wrong time. Feel bad and forget it, it’s a mantra we have practiced with perfection. But what happens when the luck runs out? Simple. Someone else takes our place, expresses sympathies and goes back to their 24x7 struggle for survival.
Till this attitude remains I have only one thing to say. Mera Bharat Mahan!!!
Now let me get back to my book, need to finish it before the terrorists find me.

60 second guide to Management Consulting....

2008-11-21T19:30:00.000+05:30

The last complete book i read was "The Mckinsey way" by Ethan Rasiel. Its a book about life at The Firm and the tips to become a successful management consultant. Most impressive among them being the "MECE" trick... "Mutually Exclusive Completely Exhaustive". While I am not going to review the book and present a judgement on the book (which I assure you is extremely positive), a sudden thought crossed my mind, which I thought best to elaborate here.

Even though it might sound a bit sacrilegious to any Management consultant worth his salt but I feel that any good flirt will make a good management consultant. Though I cant vouch for the reverse to be true, I think the incentive is huge for the consulting community to prove the axiom works both ways. The more i read through the pages of "The Mckinsey Way" clearer it became to me that all the jargons aside the most essential requisite for becoming a consultant is O.A.D. yup ... Obsessive Attention to Detail will get you places in the consulting domain.
Why drive home this simple point with a blasphemous comparision ?? well, there are products and then there are products which sell well. For the latter you need to package it well and thats what i have tried to do.
Well, OAD being the root competency of consulting is easier said than done. The fact you are being called up to clear someone else's mess obviously shows they dont know where to begin and that's where OAD comes into picture. You need to have that animal instinct to pick up a loose thread and it doesn't come easily, read a million cases, follow umpteen principles and build hundreds of reports on your learnings from the previous project but I am pretty sure that a gud management consultant will be sweating his palms on the eve of his next assignment.
When companies call up a management consultant, they generally want a third party view on their set of woes. More often than not, its because they know their processes too well and detailing them will cause them more mental discomfiture than simply off-loading it a consultant.
Sometimes even the most mundane aspects of a process or a product or an assembly line may be the root of all misery, hence OAD can help you get that added edge while going into the project.

Well, as to why I said that a flirtatious guy can make a good management consultant is because on first glance a lot of common things arise between a client and your girlfriend. Both are fussy, confused and need someone to pacify them when the shit hits the fan (of course, going by my brash attitude you would have figured out that I am single!!!) hence, a gentleman who has had the fortune (or misfortune, as the case may be ) to be associated with a few young ladies will by now have developed a genuine obsession towards details. The amount of details involved can give you a headache if you are starting afresh in the consulting industry but if you are in the category just described then any amount of data will appear miniscule in front of all the anniversary's, dog's birthday, three favorite flavors of ice cream, best non-fat topping for pizza and ( this is my favorite!!!!) which PowerPoint Background will go with the color of the dress!!!!
So all those gentlemen who think they have had some success with the fairer gender, feel free to send their resumes to the leading consulting firms of the globe.
happy Consulting!!!

PS: I have to make an apology and give a disclaimer at the same time...
Apology: To all the leading consulting firms. Both for the deluge of resumes that will come your way, with work experience looking some what like this :

Name of organisation (Months)

Rita (12)
Savita (6)
Pamela (3) (present)

and for the crass comparisions made.

Disclaimer: Aspirants in consulting domain are requested to persist with their internships in reputed companies rather than look for greener pastures!!!

Its a certified disaster!!!!

2008-11-21T17:20:00.000+05:30

After AB pointed out in my last post that i am no good at proof reading, this afternoon it has been proved beyond doubt that i am no good at Macroeconomics either. It should give you some idea of my anguish that I am writing this post barely an hour after the scheduled close of the exam and had it not been for the miracle called GTalk it would have been much earlier.
There are only two scenarios to the exam which got over at 4.30 pm. Bad and worst. I really need to meet the guy who said that every cloud has a silverlining but before that person I need to lay my hands on this Philip guy and ask him why i should be interested in his curves anyways!!!
Economically speaking I was suffering from an acute supply shock of answers during the whole exam and as it turns out my actual output was nowhere near the expected output, leaving me crucified on the Keynesian cross. If all this sounds over the top to you then imagine my condition while i was sweating it out in the exam hall. Being the eternal optimist that i am, i still hope to escape today's fiasco only if the faculty is ready to accept my answer sheet as my seminal research paper on a new field of macroeconomics, i chose to name... bleakonomics.
All hail John Maynard Keynes!!!!

Sauce Wars, Embarassing Typos and my ruminations on Democracy!!!!!

2008-11-20T00:27:00.000+05:30

I have nothing else to do today so i am clearing up my backlog of posts and now i have settled on writing this too. Interesting things have happened in the last 24 hours.
When I went to Pizza Hut last night, fighting with a bottle of tomato sauce was not on my agenda however i landed up doing just that. For about 2-3 minutes I struggled to get a single drop of sauce out of the bottle while my whole body jerked up and down to the rythmic movements of my hand. The sauce finally yielded to my repeated attempts and finally, out came from the bottle some fresh, tasty looking tomato sauce to go with my Garlic Bread Exotica... yummy.. which brings me back to the question... is there is no standard viscosity for tomato sauce ??? shouldn't somebody look into this matter!!!!
Standardisation also involves weeding out the errors to maintain conformity. I was never a fan of proof reading, blame it on my impatience, but this stance has changed over the last couple of hours. If you have been patient enough to read through my story "Coffee Machine" i have used the word "pantry" a number of times and a crazy typo, in JUST one place, left one of my friends moist eyed, flushed and out of breath, because she (yeah SHE!!!! can you believe it !!!)couldn't stop laughing... If you have understood the whole situation I expect you to be in a similar state as she was and I am now the newest member of the "Proof Reading is Essential" fan club !!!
Tragedies apart, there is an eerie air of political activism in my surroundings for the past few days. Suddenly the most insignificant members of the group are becoming the most-soughtafter souls and words like agenda, responsibility, voting, lobbying and parleying have become common day parlance. Welcome to the world of elections and democracy!!!
The strength of democracy rises from the representative nature of power in the system, "Of the people, by the people, for the people" as it is often referred. It, of course, goes on with the assumption that all people have equal access to the power and the utmost willingness to exercise the same. What this idealism discounts is the inherent self-centred nature of the people and the various "facilitators" that thrive in the system, acting as if on behalf on the masses while in fact serving their own agenda. These "facilitators" are whom we call the politicians and should not be confused with the great leaders of yore, instrumental in envisioning the system. The great leaders of previous era have been replaced by this self-serving polity because the next generation of kurta clad, dreamy-eyed, ideological evangelists could never graduate to leading from following and were promptly replaced by a breed of sycophants, weak on idealogy and unyielding on ambition.
Thus, the failure of democracy lies in a short-sighted bourgeoisie, a legion of self-serving, power hungry polity and most of all, the inability to create a stream of leaders, who are ideologically lofty yet grounded hard in political reality.
It might intrigue people as to my ranking of the three major causes of democratic failure. It has been debated quite frequently, and none less in management circles, as to the procedure that will ensure a steady stream of leaders. Leadership has been mystified over the times and worse still, deformed. However, in its original form, it is the primary responsibility of leaders to envision long term goals and help the bourgeoisie understand the same while marginalising the self-seeking political class. With the advent of leaders, a dramatic power struggle is imminent. The bourgeoisie has to play its part in this drama, no doubt, and so will the incumbents, the current holders of political power but as of now, the stagnation in democracy is resulting from a major crunch in leaders and huge influx of politicians!!!!
Hope the times throw up some good leaders. Amen!!!!

PS: Article has proof read. If you still find typos, please feel free to slaughter me!!!

वो नज़्म और तेरी उन आँखों का पानी

2008-11-13T16:34:00.000+05:30

My first try at writing something substantial in hindi...
Based on a true story!!!!
but dont mistake me for a sad love failed loner... ha ha ha... its just the way it came out for me.

वो नज़्म और तेरी उन आँखों का पानी
याद आ गयी आज मुझको तेरी कहानी
हथेली में मेरे था तेरा लाल कंगन
कहा था जो मैंने "ये है जन्मों का बंधन "

वो लम्बी सी राहों में दिन भर का चलना
वो छुप छुप के महफिल में नज़रों का मिलना
वो चाय की चुस्की पर मीठी सी बातें
मुझे मिलने आया आज मेरा वो माजी
वो नज़्म और तेरी उन आँखों का पानी
याद आ गयी आज मुझको तेरी कहानी

मेरी रुखसती पर तेरे दो बूँद आंसू
लफ्जों में लिपटे बेवफाई के आंसू
कहा था तुम्हे "कभी तुम न रोना "
तो तोहफा दिए तुने मुझे वोही आंसू
वो नज़्म और तेरी उन आँखों का पानी
याद आ गयी आज मुझको तेरी कहानी

ख्वाब था तू , ये दिलासा है मुझको
मगर आज दिल को फिर से फुर्सत मिली है
सर्दी की रातों में अकेले ठिठुरना
ज़रुरत का कम्बल या तेरी कमी है
वो नज़्म और तेरी उन आँखों का पानी
याद आ गयी आज मुझको तेरी कहानी

Back to home turf!!!

2008-11-06T19:09:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since i posted anything here aint it ?
I was active on the AVENUES08 blog temporarily before going off the radar completely owing to Diwali and my own insipid interest towards typing... yeah thats all.
So what do i talk about now ? During the time i have been off the blog, i made a presentation on a very powerful book "Power Shift" by the legendary Alvin Toffler and was introduced to the idea of a "knowledge worker". Owing to my ad hoc reading habits, the next book was "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker, which has been suspended due to end-term presentations, and there too i found mention of the phrase "knowledge worker".
I suddenly visit my blog and have this whole clutter of drafts lying around that it becomes absolutely impossible to move ahead without moving the mess. So I have done that and now i hope to be a bit more regular with the blogging.
Time to pay proper tributes to the AVENUES'08 blog. AVENUES'08 blog was a wonderful place to be and it really felt great being a part of the pack, crazily posting all sorts of information, trivia and behind-the-scenes action. Special thanks to AB (Aditya Banerjee) for handholding the blog, Vishal (Vendetta) for his contributions and a certain Avenues_Rocks for being the first to post....
For those who missed out on the blog here it is... AVENUES'08
Job well done guys!!!! Hope to be back next year better than ever!!!!

Daily Scribblings....

2008-07-27T00:29:00.000+05:30

Maintaining a diary seems ridiculous at this frenetic pace... I cant afford to update the blog about what I am doing daily.. Because I will miss out on the fun while I am spending time twirling fingers over the keyboard... still my best try... date followed by whats hot on campus...

21/07/2008

The orientation and hostel allocation left me bugged up initially but I am getting accustomed to things slowly. The seniors of SOM'09 batch have been really helpful ... not to mention the ice breaking activity (which also helped me discover the masseur within me!!). Though we still havent come to grips with all the things on campus and classes are yet to begin (ohh shucks!!!)
I think we'll b havin a gr8 time here....

23/07/2008

And finally they begin... bole to...classes. after 2 years of slogging it out in the offices its really difficult to sit out a lecture that too for 2 hours.
But its fun, gettin to learn new things, acknowledge the fact that some ppl in our batch have a lot more understandings of the topic being talked about
and to find our feet amongst this knowledgable crowd. and yes, its finally sinkin in.. the feel of an IIT campus, both in its enormity and its vibrance.
our first real interaction with seniors has started... dekhte hain kaun kisse pahle pakta hai.
watch this place for more on life@SJMSOM

25/07/2008

First weekend of active life @ SJMSOM and boy did we want it ??
so much to do and so little time, volunteered for one more committee.. and now I am beginning to wonder if 24 hrs will be enuff to take in the fun I am having here ...

details abt the weekend will follow.. gotta rush for dinner... planning to sleep early today!!!!

26/07/2008

Its getting scary now. I have done nothing of note today yet I am huffing and puffing to fulfill all commitments on the calendar.. tomoro got another round of presentations and thereafter I need to start preparations for my own presentation.. first assignment of Bschool life and I can see a couple of rocking days ahead...
btw today and tomoro are supposed to be weekends ... notionally i suppose because the mail doesn't stop working on weekends... and ya last nite's plan to sleep early got deferred by some 4 hours. hopes of making up the lost sleep seem slim ..in near future atleast ..
but bottom line I am having fun !!!

PS: Almost forgot.. it never stops raining here... big problem...

27/07/2008

Weekend over... first weekend in recent years where I hv slept an avg of 6.5 hrs only. Attending presentations by clubs and running around for the business suit. Right now busy with the assignment.. God knows wats gonna happen with that. Lots of plans for the weekend remained just that, mere plans!!!! no sleeping like a log.. no reading financial reports of company.. lots of Googling though... guys around me are getting their laptops now... all latest configs. makes me feel like an archaelogy professor in quantum physics class!!!!
Weekend's over..whew can't believe it!!!
gotta go ... need to prep for the assignment...

28/08/2008

yeah yeah yeah.. its been one month but its lucky that i have made it thus far. spent sleepless nites fillin value added questionnaires.. dreaming up resume bullet points and running from class to club meets... nt to mention the continuums, L!ve meet and hundred other arbit works.. its no wonder that i have been away from blogosphere. next weekend term ends can u believe that.. even i cant but thats the way it goes.. hope to scribble something soon.

19/11/2008

I wont say there was nothing to scribble about in the past three months but just couldn't get any time off. Approaching the end of another term and with this we are no more novices to the intricacies of B-School life. Next term expects us to stand up and be counted as we start the mantle from our senior batch.
yeah abt the exams which are going on now... u can understand my level of preparation from the very fact that I am blogging rite in the middle of the exams..

21/11/2008

Exams suck big time!!!!

Pagalguy ka infamous video and moral policing ki maa ki &**^!!!!

2008-07-24T19:56:00.000+05:30

I am an ardent fan of the concept of Pagalguy. Besides being a wonderful platform for all Bschool aspirants , it all provides growing Bschools an oppurtunity to connect with prospective students. Above all this, student community trusts PG and treats it with reverence.
A recently posted video, showing girls of one premier Bschool hurling abuses at the students of another premier Bschool, has created quite a stir. As the people incharge of PG have come out with a well timed riposte to all those accusing them of sensationalism, the broader question of moral degradation and moral policing have largely been left unanswered.
There can be no absolute standards when it comes to morals... and hence, whats ok/right/normal for me might be despicable/stupid/obnoxious to you. Moral policing is possibly the most customised and dynamic consulting industry and also the shadiest of regulatory systems. And surprisingly just as the biggest question in morality is "where do we draw the line?" the biggest question in moral policing is also the same. At what point does any moral brigade turn into an obstructive force and by virtue of its actions become a liability to the very society it seeks to protect.
Now people may argue that the case in point here, PG's infamous video may be a trivial incident in the magnum opus called "moral policing" and that debating the bigger question in light of this incident would be irrelevant. I agree we have seen bigger cases, and with more serious consequences, of moral policing but then since this issue has generated nothing short of a controversy on a reputed forum like PG, automatically qualifies this as a candidate for discussion.

The whole prelude above, kind off simplifies the question I wish to answer here... Where does moral policing draw a line in a country, which is keen on discarding its sexual inhibitions, discovering the joy of being expressive and finally not afraid of calling a spade a spade ??

As a introduction to this, let me introduce you to the biggest sham (of course, we discount the democratic system, we claim to have) running around in the country. Welcome to the world of the B-schools. Every year students of prestigious B-schools get into the limelight with million dollar packages and a never-ending grin on their faces. Almost all TV channels line up outside the haloed portals of certain traditionally great B-schools to get those beaming faces on camera, talking about Wall Street jobs, Hollywood lifestyles. Brain drain probably was never more glorified, I guess. The constant bombardment of these faces creates a dreamy eyed aspirant in almost every home, which has a TV. Of course, in a country where you either need that kind of a lifestyle or a politically motivated reservation quota to take you somewhere, there is not much of a choice. But spare a thought to the trials and tribulations that beaming face on the news channel faced during the 2 years, and even before that, to get to that place. There have been tears, anguish and tempers have flared, words have been exchanged. To say that the competition is cut throat is an understatement.Listening from first hand experiences, I can evidence that the guys ( no gender bias here...just that it comes more naturally to me !!!) are no angels, not out of their predilection for selfish behavior but more because of the system's structure. Hence, higher we go in the value chain of B-schools we have more competition and everyone wants to be that beaming beacon of capitalistic glory. It doesn't matter how many heads are crushed as you step over them or how many backs have been stabbed en route. It is natural that such journey will leave you bruised, battle-scarred and with scant respect for your fellow mates or competitors (whichever way you wish to see them!!!).
Should our sensibilities get hurt when we see girls leading the way in hurling abuses at mothers and sisters of others ? Well these are well-bred, well-educated girls coming from reputed families. Families similar to that of ours, perhaps someone we know. Surely the morals imparted to them by their families can't be so shallow. It sounds male chauvinistic rhetoric but if the role models of the country, our cricketers, can go around swearing on their competitor's mothers then such an incident can't be too far behind. Indeed it is strange that the same country which once supported its cricketers swearing on the field as a rise of the new world against against old-world capitalists, has now abandoned the same reasoning to gain moral high ground. Can't the expression of emotion have been a heat-of-the-moment act ? Even if the event was preplanned then it just represents the off-the-field maneuvering which happens in against every guest team by home team supporters.

TO BE CONTINUED....

First Impressions @ a Bschool!!!

2008-07-22T00:11:00.000+05:30

It is extremely unfortunate that these days we need to be diplomatic everywhere. Every word ever uttered by us has to be insured against any misunderstanding by issuing "Disclaimers". So here I am "disclaiming" that the views expressed below are personal to me and others might have had a different experience. Thus, the description below is just for knowing what are the scenarios people can face when they are new to a B-school but certainly no definitive guide towards the teething troubles of any fresher in B-school.

I came to SJMSOM (to the uninitiated it is Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, hereafter referred to as SJMSOM or SOM) with a baggage of mixed feelings. True that IIT Bombay had been my dream college but that dream had evaporated 6 years back and now I was coming back to my "old flame" to do my Master of Mgmt.
If it wasn't bad enough that I hadn't got into the IIMs the picture was turning gloomier each time I had to explain to some "Uncleji" that I was going to an IIT to get a management degree. I resigned myself to this state of uneasiness about an "engineering college" giving a MBA degree (the phrase of course, is borrowed from a very respectable Uncleji ).
In due course of time I get my date of joining and orientation schedule and all arrangements for my Mumbai travel are done. Parents of course, are happy that their son is going to an IIT for his higher education and so are all relatives and well-wishers. In the midst of various warnings about Mumbai's lifestyle and the lure of various earthly pleasures, I was also offered a few words of inspiration by one and all. It seems to the collective responsibility of the neighborhood to make the life of people like me, who are travelling out for jobs, education etc., miserable with infinite tales of distant relatives and son's of family friends, who went all wrong the moment they landed in a metro. well thats just about it... finally this heavily taxing ordeal of giving my farewell ended and i set off towards this uncharted territory called SJMSOM..and more importantly, a degree in Management.

2 words to describe my first day in IIT B... "pissed off" ..ha ha ha surprised na... but then we stuck out like a sore finger in the batch of PG students. We couldnt find a mention in the speeche s of most speakers nor were our courses listed on most of the forms provided at the time of joining. The last straw was the hostel... we knew that the accomodation would be for 2 people in a room but the rooms were not exactly in the ideal condition.... I have no words to describe the sinking feeling I had when I was lunch on the day of registration. It was akin to being promised a luncheon with silver cutlery and being given porridge with a wooden spoon.

The Coffee Machine

2008-05-19T15:24:00.000+05:30

I seem to be obsessed with IPL so I need to get out of it. Besides there is this other thing that has been going through my mind for quite sometime so let me tell you about this.

Its this coffee vending machine placed in the pantry in my office lobby. Not something downright beautiful right ?

Anyways, there is this particularly ancient looking coffee vending machine. First impression it seems the machine was always there and has stood witness to many office gossip and a multitude of tea-time chit-chat. I have been in this office for the last two years and the coffee machine looks like its grown roots in its place and is immovable. Initially, I approached the machine with all the insensitivity I could have towards an inanimate object. No more than a occaisional thought about its pathetic state-of-affairs and the obvious criticism of being the most-replacable item in the office building.

Remember how people grow on you ? Strangely, the coffee machine has grew on me and I looked to it every morning and afternoon for support, succour and gentle mischief played out between friends. Now that suddenly things stand where they are, I not bemused but rather shocked and aggreived as if struck by the loss of one of my kin.

Let me start by describing my dear coffee vending machine. Big burly mass of steel, this gentleman must never have had a whiff of the word "elegance". Four nozzles entrusted with supplying hot milk, water and decoction for coffee this machine is the only option for the people who do not wish to settle for the ultimate torture of the insipid ready made tea. So workman-like and unsophisticated was my first impression of Mr. Coffee Machine.

As happens to most people in any office, I was entitled to my share of romantic attachments in office and in my case, I was lucky enough to find one in the wing right opposite mine. Hence, not only did we share the same lobby but we also shared the same pantry and guess what, the same coffee machine. As it so often happens, every love story has its share of villains, often so very powerful that the hero has to wait for divine intervention to make his presence felt in front of the girl.

One fine day, without any warning, she appeared, with this apparently close "guy" friend of hers, in the pantry, obviously looking for some refreshment. This guy was obviously the most important obstacle in my life for the moment and I was ( fruitlessly, I may add!!) plotting his downfall when the divine intervention happened. There came a spurt from the "Hot Milk" nozzle drenching him waist down in hot, steaming milk. I had to make a genuine effort not to laugh at the guy going "hot in his pants" in front of the girl, who was the bone of contention between us. He excused himself to the wash room and there was this golden chance. The dream girl all alone with me in the pantry. Something told me that this was time to go broke, before my tongue dried up as it had on a dozen previous occasions. Come on!!!

"Huh.. (clearing my throat!!!)Hmm.. Unfortunate that should happen to your friend", I started. Inside my heart, I was laughing at the guy's condition and hoped he was going to lose more than just his girl here. "Well, yeah!! Infact now I am afraid to use the machine",she said meekly. Thats my chance. Thank you, God. If this goes well I will start visiting the local Balaji temple every morning for the rest of my life. "Hey, that shouldn't be a problem, you just need to be careful with the nozzle. Be gentle while turning it and it'll behave fine." And I let out a big grin, all the while thinking if this was some devilish plot of destiny to make me look idiotic, with hot milk on my trousers and egg on my face after that sermon." Slowly, and the slowest slowly of my life, I turned the nozzle open and there it was, the smooth flowing hot, steaming milk that came out of the nozzle and filled the cup. God be praised. "You just want the milk or would like some coffee to go with it ?", I enquired. "Well... I dont know. Generally I stay away from coffee." was her reply. "Well, then you should get closer to it, believe me, its a good thing. Here let me make one for you", I was a gambler on the gambling highway placing bets at breakneck speed. She shrugged and agreed. Fortunately, making coffee four times a day helped me in this situation and I managed to dish out a decent cup of coffee. "Well... its nice and maybe you are right, I should start drinking coffee more often, now on", she said and smiled as she left the pantry.

If I was dumb enough to miss the point in her statement, her smile left me beyond no doubt that if I did not goof this up extraordinarily then this was going some where. Puffed with happiness, I grabbed my own cup of coffee and was preparing to leave the pantry, when I stopped instinctively, turned to the vending machine and blurted out a "Thanks" to my new found friend !!

Thereafter, the coffee machine became a constant companion in my early days of courtship, as it was the starting point of many a meetings and dates. My girl never understood why I got grumpy when someone complained about the coffee machine but then brushed it off as one of my idiosyncrasies related to coffee. Our coffee never took less than half an hour to make and surprisingly, her "friend" always had to bear some misfortune with the coffee machine. One particular instance was when he literally challenged her that he can make better coffee than me ( you know how we guys are rite!!!!) and magically from the milk vent, instead came out hot water ,thus, completing ruining my rival's challenge. I later saw him arguing with the housekeeping staff and threatening him with escalation, all the while glancing at me and the menacing coffee machine, as if looking at some rampant elephant being harnessed back into control by his mahout, while I made a fresh cup of coffee.

It all must seem extremely coincidental to you. It should. And yet, surprisingly, to me it all seemed natural. Maybe the fact that the resultant circumstances were favorable to me caused it but then did I really care. My morning started in the pantry, with a gentle good morning tap to the machine, before Sanjana arrived expecting me to be there. If she thought that I was always there before her so that she wouldn't have to wait for me then she was mistaken. I didn't want my daily ritual to be seen by anyone and that was the actual reason. That she thought otherwise didn't hurt matters.

Apart from my blossoming romance, the machine was also witness to my first tiff with the boss, and also the second one on the same day, my first effort at two-timing, which the machined ended effortlessly, my first appraisal rating and its consequent discussion. It approved of my decision to quit the company and my decision to propose to Sanjana.

This eternal bliss continued till I stayed in the company, and on the last day, with my very last cup of coffee, i paid silent homage to our friendship and may be a loud "Thank you!!!" actually escaped my lips. But as is the wont of Mankind, out of sight is out of mind and this applies to even inanimate friendships... so soon was forgotten Mr Coffee Machine and the interesting friendship i shared with it.
Then it was suddenly that one day Sanjana text messaged me... "Hey new vending machines in pantry, spunky and kewl. that old thing is gone. U wd hv loved the new ones."
Well would I hv loved any other "vending machine" I doubt and thus, I pay homage to "that old thing" and our unique relationship. Rest in Peace, Mr. Coffee Machine.

Climbing the mount...

2008-05-17T11:31:00.000+05:30

There I lie battered and bruised
Not to die, But just to rest….
I climb the mount, in front of me
Its height lends flight to my conquest.

That is made of ice, mine of steel
It sneers at me, loathes my will.
Worried, it charges at me…
Can’t break me though, try it will

To die now, nay be a martyr
It’s no use, because victory is mine.
I am bloody and aching no doubt!
All I want is to bide for my time.

The day of my conquest will not bring it down
The mount, so proud of being strong and high,
It will rest silent beneath my feet,
An animal tamed, when I take off for the sky!

IPL ---- the mid season review

2008-05-16T10:05:00.000+05:30

Hi

After my first post on IPL , even before it started, I think its time for a mid-season review. However, the flurry of matches and the rate of six-hitting doesnt permit me the liberty of an exhaustive review. Rather lets hold an awards function a.k.a the Oscars (or the Raspberry awards in some cases... ). We'll discuss the nominees on the way and eventually decide who is the winner under each category.

16. Best Venue : Well, this will always be a tough one to judge in India. Because the crowds throng the stadiums most places and they support their home team almost with fanaticism ( ya, even in Bangalore). But my top 2 candidates will be the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai and the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The latter has been well entrenched in Indian cricket folklore with some memorable moments but the DY Patil facility at Mumbai came as a real good surprise, with people not only thronging the stadium even though it is far from the city centre but the even the authorities (read Lalit Modi ) placing faith in the wonderful facility by asking them to host the IPL final. The Eden, on the other hand, can boast of the most partisan crowd in the league and the frenzy of a 60,000 strong crowd can not be imagined let alone matched by some of those purists watching the New Zealand-England test match at Lord's. However the pitch at Eden for their first match against Deccan Chargers was a howler and hence a major drawback for the ground... Hence the Best Venue Award goes to the DY Patil Sports Stadium, Mumbai.

15. Best Cheerleaders : This is a potentially inflammable one.... and controversial too. Firstly, does Shahrukh Khan also count as Knight Riders' cheerleader (because then there's no competition then..) and not to forget the cultural police, with their raised brows, who have potentially stifled the competition with calls for bhangra and bharatnatyam in place of cheer girls. However, once you remove all these superficial contenders (including the proposed bar dancers for mumbai cheering squad..thanks but no thanks) the winner is the Royal Challengers Bangalore with the Washington Redskins being flown in for them. Mr. Mallya is surely the king of Good Times and he knows how to spread the joy. Infact the only high (pun intended!!) point of the RCB campaign has been the cheerleaders. More on that later.

14. Best Team Owner : Well Shahrukh Khan can legally participate in this one. Infact he would be a front runner, with all his energy oozing into the Eden garden crowd and his over the top celebration at Eden, after their victory over Delhi, lulling most into the belief that his team just won the league. Unfortunately, most other owners haven't had the panache neither the intent to match up to him (can they, even if they want ?). Preity's comment that her involvement is restricted to appearing at the stadium for every match doesn't earn her any brownie points with the awards and other corporate buyers have displayed no special flair at it. Infact, Mr. Mallya's chances slipped dramatically after the foot-in-mouth syndrome hit him and he started washing all that dirty linen in public. However, my pick for the Best Owner will be Mr. Mukesh Ambani of the Mumbai Indians. He hasn't been shy of spending the money, has kept his mouth shut very wisely while his team lost, patiently waited for his captain to come back and has been there most often to support his team on weekends or has been represented by his family. So the Best Owner for me is certainly Mr. Ambani.

13. Best Presenter: No this is not for the good ones, which means Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri are automatically excluded. However without these two and their wonderful skills at presentation the award has no takers unless you are looking for a one-eyed jack in a pack of blind people. Throw in a television channel which is more bothered about airing commercials than letting us know what is the decision of the third umpire and we have a complete package of incompetent people stepping up to microphone. The regularly references of unearthing young talent at IPL ( even for Rajat Bhatia who is 28 and has played 8 first class seasons), the irritating mentions of those obnoxious moments-of-success and ya, not to forget the cheer leader act the presenters get started with. Sometimes you wish that we could just put the TV on mute and watch the game alone. And to see Harsha Bhogle sit in one of the dugouts, I really feel he could have made himself more useful. I reserve my judgement on this.

12. Best Controversy: I would be doubting your IQ if asked you for nominees on this. Even though Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly tried their bit at getting in reckoning, the original spoilt brats showed them their right place. And hence, this award goes to Bhajji and Sreesanth for the Slapgate. Just to vindicate my choice, I can say that Bhajji has put Sreesanth on the right track with his mouth sealed shut (ok..compared to his past) and mind on the game, while Sreesanth's little schoolboy-robbed-of-his-comics trick has finally made BCCI see Bhajji for what he is and the threat of a life-ban should really make the gentleman think twice before even opening his mouth.

11. The Critics Award for Best Bestman: This award basically means you are good enough for Test Cricket and just that. You are not fit for T20 and stay away from it if you don't want your ego bruised. And yet inspite of what you think, the award doesn't go to Rahul Dravid. That goes to VVS Laxman. Not so much for a chink in his Very Very Special armory of shots but because we are pained to see him labor for runs in a fashion as alien to him as a pasta is to my grandmother. Go on VVS, we'll still love you for what you have done to the Aussies. This is just not worth it. As for Rahul Dravid, that's a different story altogether and I think that has got nothing to with his batting.

10. Best Youngster/Young Talent (Indians alone!!! ): If I hadn't declared this category, I would be crucified for not having appreciated the main aim of IPL , to develop the young cricketing talent in India. This category has many nominees too because in India it takes only one good performance to be hailed as the next-big-thing. Also, Piyush Chawla can not be considered for this, can he ? Manpreet Gony would have done his chances well had he not fed Jayasurya those sumptuous balls outside off the other day and Amit Mishra despite his 5-for is a one-match wonder (and his 31 against Kolkata came when they were really not in the game). My pick will be Dhaval Kulkarni, who has bowled wonderfully in a team with Pollock and Dwayne Bravo. Pity that the team is doing not so well at this time but then they certainly have the talent to do much better.

9. Best Turnaround : We all talk about the vagaries of the shortest form of the game and hence, here is one dedicated to that. Nominees in this category include the Royal Challengers Bangalore for snatching defeat from jaws of victory against Chennai, Shane Warne for his 17 run burst in the final over of Symonds and the Nayar-Harbhajan assault which nearly brought Chennai down to their knees. However, the winner according to me is the Shoaib Akhtar show not only for its sensational display for pacy bowling but also for showing the strength of the human resolve. To be destined to the gallows only to rise up and deliver a Man-of-the-Match performance, revives the era of Botham, who came back from ban to capture the Ashes in the 80s. There is only one thing I need to ask Shoaib here. "Dude, who writes your script ?"

8. Best "Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag" : This is an award for the most evident disaster of the IPL. One which was foreseen yet acted out and has been cried foul over for quite some time now. No prizes for guessing this one. The Royal Challengers Bangalore take this one hands down. And I have no other competitor for them. Pity, a team with Kallis, Dravid, Misbah and Boucher had to land up with this but then a team with Jaffer, Sunil Joshi, Kumble and club-level local talent can't ask for anything more.

7. Best Surprise Package: I so very nearly gave this one away to the Deccan Chargers. Given their team and the nature of the game, one would have thought that they sat with the powers-that-be to frame the T20 rules. And they really have surprised us by managing to not qualify for the semis and going out of the race so early. Again highlights the view that cricket is a team game and can not be sustained by individual brilliance all the time. A point which does eventually bring us to the winner of this award, the Rajasthan Royals. A team with few big names and "Pathan's brother" (as if he aint a Pathan himself!!), it was destined for the last spot even before the IPL started and if it hasn't proved everyone wrong then it hasn't done anything in the tournament.

6. Best Individual Innings: Now that the trivial is out of the way, lets get on with the biggies (as if the players give 2 cents about winning or losing!!!). This one has to be one of the centuries but which one. Gilly's special effort was welcomed but not unexpected while Jayasurya just had to set the law of averages in order. Hussey had a tailormade pitch in Mohali for himself and Symonds had no one else to blame for letting his century go away in vain. So that gives us our winner. Brendon McCullum played a innings which put the pyrotechnic show to shame. Cometh the hour and cometh the innings at a place that has been attributed with the worst pitch apart from the worst team itself. We all knew he could play but just how well was in question. Did he answer that or what!!

5. Best All-rounder : What exactly classifies as an allrounder will always be shrouded under clouds but according to my whole judgement I am going give this award to MS Dhoni. Gone are the days when a keeper was a keeper today he has to be a batsman too. So unlike the batsman-who-can-bowl and bowler-who-can-bat concept, here is the player who bats and keeps well. Keeping to the guile of Murali has been accomplished wonderfully, an achievement surpassed by his batting, which inspite of glaring technical glitches as one Mr. Warne will tell you, has taken him to the top 5 batsmen list. Add to that the captaincy hat and then you understand why he is the costliest player to be bought in the auction. Captains are made but leaders are born and when Matthew Hayden calls him a great captain you just shut up and listen. And ya, sorry Shane Watson I really wanted to give you this one but then this was one of those photo finish races, if that is of any consolation.

4. Best Bowler: This award's winner can really walk with his head held high because T20 expects bowlers to be nothing more than the passing references, while we harp about the batsmen's heroics. However, when Irfan Pathan bowls you know who is the protagonist in the act. The talent was never in question but what was probably missing was the heart, a lion's at that, to survive in this heavily unbalanced game. Now with his mind and run-up in the right place he has shot right up to the top of the wicket takers list with an economy which is under 7. First up, he has swung it to scare batsmen mortally and in the slog overs, he has mixed it well enough to escape the fate of other bowlers. We can safely say that he is the best bowler in business when it comes to taking telling wickets and keeping their cost down. How this contest would have ended had Brett Lee stayed back is for us to ponder over. Did anyone whisper IPL window ?

3. Best Batsman: This is the toughest. No answer will make all happy and I agree everyone has already made up their mind on this but then these are my awards and I'll go ahead and give to Shaun Marsh. I don't care if he is a long way behind Gauti but then he has also played only half the number of matches as Gauti and his team's fortune has closely followed his own batting career in IPL. Admittedly, I dont know much about the guy's Aussie exploits but looking at him bat I can imagine he would be a force to reckon with wherever he goes. His handling of Murali was good and if it is any indication of the guy being Mohali's Atlas, then it was his dismissal that triggered their defeat against Chennai. Oh ya !! who would have won if Hayden, Hussey and Symonds had stayed back? An Aussie certainly but why is this IPL window chorus echoing around me !!!

2. Best Captain: Shane Warne hands down. I wont even pretend I had any other nominee even though MSD was awesome, Pollock inspiring and Sehwag tactful. That is because Shane was all these three and more, rolled into one. The surprise element, the clever change of bowlers and sudden shifts of the batting order have all paid off for the gambler. The junior members in his squad have almost taken to idol worship, not speak of the profuse words of praise from foe-turned-friend Graeme Smith. If the selection of Asnodkar was a brilliant then promoting Yusuf Pathan as opener against Deccan was a master piece. He has handled the fragile Shane Watson brilliantly and when the time for finishing off things came he put his hand up and snatched 17 runs from a Symonds over to get an unlikely victory. As has already been debated, maybe he is the greatest captain Australia, nay, world cricket never had a chance to watch in action. And ya, if I had missed out on this, he has bowling well too.... as one Vijay Takawale and he'll tell you all about it.

1. Best Team: The daddy of all awards. Should it blindly belong to the table topper. Maybe not. But certainly among one the top 4 deserves it. Chennai have started deceiving after flattering earlier and the fourth position is too unclear to get a single nomination. So Mohali and Rajasthan are at logger heads for this. Mohali have ridden on their big performers. The best bowler is from Mohali and so is the best batsmen, add to that Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Yuvraj, Sreesanth and you ought to have the best team in the tourney, which not only has the weight in the resumes but also performances on field to prove. But then look at the Royals, poor souls, being the cheapest franchise, Warne doubling up as their coach and a motley crew of local talent resembling almost a Lagaan-like story. It is to this Cinderella story of the victorious underdog that I give my best team award. Its a romantic story to say the least that has created heroes out of mortals and made huge marks on the psyche of the Indian cricket fan. That in the presence of all the bigwigs, the well equipped, the well cash-stacked franchises, this team has managed to get to the top of the tables with proper application of cricketing knowledge, shrewd captaincy and urge to succeed. I dont care who goes on to win the IPL from here on but even at the end of the IPL it will take some serious brain storming to unseat Royals from the Best Team position.

And hence ends the list of my mid-season IPL awards. Surprisingly, no Tendulkar, no Ganguly and no Ricky Ponting make to any of the lists but then we still have significant contributions from McGrath, Jayasurya, Pollock reminding us of the old adage "Class is permanent and Form temporary". Hopefully by the time the season ends we'll have many new contenders for the good ones and the ugly ones will be happily discontinued due to lack of nominations...
Till then I deliver my verdict in favour of IPL, which with all its brazen marketing and branding has indeed come up trumps this time!!!!

My IIT Bombay Interview... SJMSOM , March2008

2008-05-15T13:44:00.000+05:30

Here goes my GD/PI experience...
Slot : 2nd March, 7.30 AM( unearthly hours !!!)
Journey: From B'lore to Mumbai... reached on 1st afternoon..1 whole day ... bad experience by the time i reached IIT B .. interview was the last thing on my mind. just wanted a quite room to sleep after the noisy crowd i had to travel with The Nite before. Refreshed by evening and dinner done. Met some other guys who were in the same slot as me.. gt abt chit chatting. Then it was 10pm and seniors invited us for an informal discussion. there were abt 7-8 seniors and fielded questions patiently.. above all instead of painting a rosy picture they gave us all the info and told us to make the decision....this went on till midnite.. then realised that i gotta grab some sleep ( which eventually i didnt get.. was sittin in bed from 4am waitin for the alarm to ring @ 5.30 am..) and returned to my room.
The D-Day: Got ready...reached SOM building.. usual process of registration and presentation.. then my group was called for GD...
Panel: Admissions co-ordinator, he is also an IT entrepreneur, thn 2 other ppl.. one doing his phd and 3rd an alumnus..only panel with 3 ppl...
GD: It was a case study, HR kind in nature, abt a lady moved to a new division and nt given proper training..big sad story ( we nicknamed it Madhuri ki Kahani )... some questions at the end of it were to be discussed... In general, began well then we lost steam as the case didnt offer too many points ( we felt..).. enuff time to speak for all though few gentlemen took it upon themselves to speak for the grp always and then urge us nt to make a fish market ... me came in 2-3 times with decent points...tried to resolve a couple of conflicts.. thats all... cd have spoken more but then didnt want to really get into a acrimonious discussion as it was becoming... eventually things sorted out well...
General tip : dont attack the questions directly...look at the problem holistically... then set abt answering the ques... (yeh gyan mere kaam to nahi aaya...)
PI: was waiting for nearly an hour for it as some guy wanted a reschedule coz of his flight and all... seniors were very helpful... ( 1 bottle paani khatam kar diya wahan !!!)... went in and here's wat followed:P1-- iit prof P2 -- phd guy P3 -- alumnus M -- who else is left
P1 -- XXX company eh ??? wat kinda product development do u do ???
M -- tld him ( been doin this for 2 years !!!)
P1 -- hmmm.. so wat language do u use ?
M -- using C for final product..currently working prototype in Python..
P1 -- why ?
M -- tld him ..
P1 -- so confident in C ? I can ask u questions ?? ( he was from IT sector )
M -- sure sir ( wat else can i say )
P1 went on to ask abt string functions, arrays and their indexes, memory allocation and stuff.. basics ... M was confident...Finally he gt bored of Cing me ... looked over to P2.
P2 -- so tell me wat do all locos run on...???
M -- (clean bowled..) dc motors sir ( sheepish grin !!)
P2 -- (laughs... pakda gaya !!!) sure??
M -- nt very sure but i think so... ( tried to laugh off this pathetic reply ...)
P2 -- (laughs) ok wat is ur feeling abt the budget... ???
M -- started with a disclaimer that i was travellin so cdnt really keep a tab on the budget but still wd answer to best of my knowledge... then gyan for next 5 mins... tld abt cut in excise duties which has made industry happy
P3 -- ( gr8 entry) which industry...
M -- manufacturing..
P3 -- which section of manufacturing ??
M -- automobiles to be specific...
P2 -- asked abt the changed taxation and all...
M -- told ..
P1 -- u said u hv nt followed the budget properly still u are tellin us most of the things...
M -- tld him abt my habit of watchin budget speeches and all ... ( i think they gt my point..)
P2 -- Is the industry unhappy abt something ?
M -- loan waiver affecting banks, capital gains tax increase, no spl sops for IT services !!( all Ps smile.. )
P2 -- wat do u feel abt the Ram Sethu Proj ?
M -- ( abe ye kya tha..) sir it is a controversial issue... and i feel India can do with one less controversy...!!! P2 smiles even more...
P2 -- wat abt the alternate sources of energy...wats ur take...?
M -- talked abt nuclear... hydro ..
P2-- nt hydro and all...wat abt the future...
M -- fuel cells ka gyan.. stressed on scientific capability to develop such fuels
P3 -- (again interjecting!!) do u think these are viable solns ? electric cars and all..after all we are still polluting the environment to get that electricity...
M -- agreed with him ..said only finding the fuels is nt the soln but ppl shd be more active for eco friendly initiatives..talked abt car poolin and proper public transport... quoted swaminathan at a couple of places...
P1 -- u r electrical rite ? so i cant ask from satellite engg..
M -- No sir, i am nt very aware abt that subject (this was prob my most confident answer)
P1 -- (laughs... ) gud gud... u tld us before hand wat u dnt know !!!
M -- ( smiled..nt much else i cd do )
P3 -- wat specialisation will u take ?
M -- gyan... SOM gives flexibility to choose in 2nd year.. so will wait till then..
P3 -- wat abt ur coding job.. wd u completely leave it...
M -- well nt completely...still do it when job requires..teaching juniors and all... but may not be as involved as now...!!!
P1 -- do u want to ask us anything ?
M -- asked abt the staff ... and aviation mgmt programme they are gonna start..
All Ps smile back.. took that as an indication to leave ..gt up and came out .... big sigh of relief...
Cheers!!!!

My interview Experience from VGSOM, IIT-Kgp 2008 March

2008-05-15T12:43:00.000+05:30

Hi Folks,
My GD/PI experience follows:
Date/Place -- 15th March, 8.00am IISc B'lore

Prelude: Bad Friday and bad health... zilch preparation for the interview due to tuff week in office virtually scared abt the interview...Reached at 7.30 and damn !! not even the watchman had turned up to open the Choksi hall by 8. eventually things got underway by 8.30 am.. cool types presentation... by a prof (surprisingly!!) then we had 2 alumnus coming over to field few questions... overall the college gave a laid back approach ( may be a camouflage!!!)

GD: Case of Mrs Sethi, environmental compliance officer, typical case where u hv to enumerate various scenarios and come up with a mix and match kinda solution... thoda sa this and thoda sa that... Initially 5 mins to pen dwn thoughts and a minute for each speaker (randomly) then open for discussion ( if it becomes a fish market then the panel intervenes .. we hd it once !!) ... overall 15 mins for this i guess .. I got the chance to speak first , and in my one minute tried to smash thru as many pts as possible...
Overall self rating of GD -- Average...
PI : 2 ppl -- P1 -- same guy who gave ppt (senior prof @Kgp)P2 -- Maths prof M -- bakra
P1 -- hello
P2 -- Hello, Hwz life ??
M -- busy sir, been busy with office ( chalo kisi ne to dard samjha !!!)
P1 -- u gt a gud rank in JMET... we dnt see many 2 digit rankers...
P2 -- IIT B eh ? (smiled)
M -- smiled back ( wat can i reply )
P1 -- so why MBA ? just because everyone's doing it eh ?
M -- No sir, career growth... started gyan...
P1 -- (cut short ) so working ...hmm ..where ?
P2 -- (lookin @ profile sheet ) XYZ ... so hwz the job ?
M -- work-ex related gyan ....
P2 -- (pointing to profile sheet ..) watch cricket as hobby..?
M -- yes sir... i like to understand various technical aspects of cricket....
P2 -- only watch ..dont play ?
M -- nothing serious level...like harsha bhogle
P1 -- wat details in cricket ??
M -- like swing bowling and all ..wat happens ..and why ?
P1 -- so tell me hw it happens...
M -- told... ( i knew where this was going!!!)
P1 -- u know wat physical principle its based on..
M -- Bernoulli's theorem...
P1 -- tell me abt Bernoulli's theorem...
M -- gyan ...gt stuck somewhere ... P1 helped out... all ends amicably..
P1 -- U hv an unusual name .. U kno who the original Parasuram is ?
M -- Yes sir, started... mahabharat, ramayan and stuff...missed out some anecdote which P1 knew... he also joined in...
P1 -- So u r a mahabharat kind off guy...
M -- No sir, but if i carry such a name then its imperative that i do such research...
P1 -- so tell me abt family ???
M -- Blah blah...P1 -- so u from TN... can u speak Tamil ? (M nodded ) read ?? (nod) write ?? ( nod with grin!!)
P1 -- so u dnt know...
M -- I can write small words..hence i wont say i dnt know..
P1 -- write ur name .. no no ... write my name...
M -- i can write my name.. but wont write urs...in case i get it wrong u'll b offended ( kya soch kar bola pata nahi..)
P1 -- ok go on...
M -- wrote ... showed him the alphabets...
P1 to P2 -- this looks like the indian literacy campaign ad... painstakingly each letter...
M -- (sheepish grin...) Sir wat ever it is .. i kno lill bit. enuff for sustenance...
P1 and M discuss abt Tamil script ( most of my friends will kill me if they come to know)
P2 -- (was silent for a long time) so u hv any questions to ask us ??
M -- asked them abt their so-called locational disadvantage wrt SJMSOM and IIT D...P1 gave some cool answer...Smiles all round...Thanks a lot... shake of the hands...Came out with a gud feeling.. but still u are never sure if the panel is always smiling .. same with me in SJMSOM..self rating -- Gud
PiTips for junta --surprisingly the maths prof was silent in my interview... but he did drill some ppl... gauss integral, gauss elimination and Newton Raphsons method poocha...just in case .. brush up ur maths... Cheers !!!

PS : My adventure with Tamil went all wrong... on the way back home I realised I had written my name wrongly... Hail my Tamil knowledge!!!

Why Bangalore is not a metropolitan ???

2008-04-01T09:55:00.000+05:30

It pains me as I write this. I wonder a 100 times if I do want to write this but then to "call a spade a spade" is no crime and here I let go.
It is said that travel broadens horizons, and how. Lately, I have been doing some amount of travelling ( to the extent of bankruptcy) to the 2 truly metropolitan cities in the country, Mumbai and Delhi, with the effect that I decided to sit back and take stock of the situation prevalent on home turf.
People may argue that I am no authority to talk about Bangalore, being a "outsider" and of course, the fact that grass is always greener on the other side. I cant get into a justification mode, just read the post and decide for yourself.
Bangalore was always the retired man's paradise. With lush gardens and laid back lifestyle, you couldn't ask for more at the age of 60 to rest till you are handed back to nature. But then something happened. With the economic forces of globalisation and cheap skills coming into play, it was but obvious that Bangalore, with its strong educational framework, will be the fulcrum of activity for all knowledge based industries. Bangalore rose, and how, in the books of all corporate houses and with the government all the more happy to oblige, we witnessed a growth unheralded, unbelievable and most importantly, unplanned.
With the increase in economic brawn, Bangalore witnessed a strong influx of people from all parts of the country. Not that the city wont welcome us with open arms, it did but what it lost in return was its tranquility and innate serenity. Soon Bangalore was bustling, not in the arms of traditional theatre and drama but in the sweaty pubs and discos.
The scene with Mumbai and Delhi has been different. They have been the big cities, always. The growth of these cities had little to do with a cost-cutting phenomenon in the West and more with the genuine surge in economic and political rise of the country. As such, the growth story of these two cities has been more organic and as a result, more planned.
The present day Bangalore is a picture perfect example of what can go wrong in urban planning and development. The overcrowded roads, the new airport controversy and the haphazard construction of the metro are only aggravating the agony of old-timers in Bangalore.
Bangalore suddenly looks like the illegitimate child of the Indian growth story, trying to earn brownie points with one and all through cheap labour and cheap liquor, while the "real" family is the toast of many a high-society dinners. This is not to blame the city for its current state nor am I taking any credit away from the stupendous IT story that has become synonymous with Bangalore. I , like many others , have been the beneficiary of the boom that's Bangalore and am positive that Bangalore deserves its place in the echelons of the high and mighty but its still a long way from the home run in that race.
And so here I left my story a month back... time to pick up the threads again...
Lot has changed in the period though, I am destined to go to Mumbai in a couple of months and now my observations on the city will be derided as a parting admonition and act of selfish what-might-have-been stories... but as I stated before I cant afford to get into justification mode.
Adding to the turmoil, the political environment has displayed a distinct distaste for public welfare (don't get me started on the Airport thing...reeks of small town conman ship). They have been distant from ground realities and mud-headed in planning. The resultant of their hubris is the dislike exhibited by old-timers, or should i say Bangaloreans, towards the breed that is us ... the new entrants or the immigrants ( isn't that the truth!!!).
That just about brings me to the actual reason for penning my thoughts here. I started at the time when MNS was wrecking Mumbai with a Nazi-like temperament and one day a colleague actually narrated a story about his friend being harassed by some locals. It seems the local people were not interested in robbing him, their only intention was to cause harm to the person amid almost violent chants of "you IT people". That really set my engine running... why are we being blamed for all this ? What is my fault if I am asked to report to office along with another 40 thousand people .. leading to traffic jams and packed buses ? Is it my fault that the flight costs have come down so I want to fly back home for vacation and hence the resultant high load on the old airport, has "forced" the government to shift the airport to a new place, which takes me more time to reach than probably the air journey itself ? Please tell me if it appears that I am having fun shelling out extra money for each and every auto trip, when funnily the trip costs more because of my profession rather than the distance travelled.. ?
A metropolitan is a term used very loosely these days... population has, for all practical purposes, been used as criteria. But then at the rate India is growing in numbers we can look forward to many metropolitan cities can't we ? A metropolitan is a microcosm, which when we enter showcases the whole country for us...
Bangalore, unfortunately, is going nowhere with that. If it is truly representative of the country then it can be worrying for India. It shows a cluttered country where the old-order dislikes the new and the new could care less... where the host is distrustful of the guest and the guest has become indifferent, a feeling arising from the fact that no amount of persuasion will work with the host. The life goes on with a under current of distrust, which will one day find expression under some stupid pretext. And till such day we'll pretend that we live in the country's coolest metropolitan...
The staunch believers ( and I hope there are many) will refute me stating the recent events in Mumbai... so should Mumbai be stripped off the metropolitan status too ? Maybe yes, that would obviously depend on the level of involvement of the real Mumbaikar in these protests, which in turn tells us how much the real Mumbai believes in the cause and thus we can gauge whether the same under current, that I talked about here, exists there too. In that that unfortunate case, we can sadly label Mumbai too as an impostor. Maybe someday I would sit and analyse Mumbai as a metro after I have spent some considerable time there.
But even then I would love to come back to Bangalore and check out if it has outgrown its regionalist robes and donned the real colors of a metropolitan city...

IPL and wat it means to me...

2008-03-17T18:26:00.000+05:30

I never had the patience to blog... restless as I am. But then I have put my head down for this and will talk abt something close to my heart. Cricket !!!

The Indian Premier League... BCCI's fiefdom, has left many ppl, like me, smacking lips at the prospects on offer. The plethora of talent, the star power involved and finally the sheer pull of Indian cricket's latest darling T20 cricket.
While many a debate have raged on about the management of the event, about the money and how it will cement India's place as the high lord of global cricketing arena, I will steer clear of all this and talk about what it means to a simple guy who will switch on Set Max on 18th April.
For long we have been living under the heady influence of the English Premier League ( or is it BPL ??) wat with our footballers coming to naughts at more places than one. Now is our turn to give it back. Funny it might seem but how dearly would I love to see the Barmy Army glued to their TV sets in some sports bar in London, cheering for the Mumbai team just like we go gaga over Man Utd ( thats just a personal choice!!!). Will some guy in Sydney swear by Dhoni's hard hitting just like a Bangalorean singing hosanna's to Christiano Ronaldo or will we see a guy in Cape Town wearing a Jaipur team jersey just like we see Arsenal T-shirts with Thierry Henry's name ?
And what about the Indian viewer, so paranoid and yet, eternally supportive of the Indian national team. Suddenly, its not about the country anymore. Its not playing for pride but for big bucks and bigger hoopla. Interesting to see how will this country welcome Andrew Symonds, undoubtedly the biggest villian in recent Indian history(personal views may vary !!).
Imagine a scenario, when Symonds smacks Bhajji for a last ball six to win a match for my team. Should I cheer for Symonds and my IPL team or should I go on to rue the fact that Aussie dominance has been proved once again, and that too against India's eptiome of racial equality and loose language ??
My mother has never understood how a guy from Portugal can play for an English club, more so when he was instrumental in the sending-off his club mate in a crucial match between the national teams. The case in point being, Ronaldo and his Man Utd team mate Wayne Rooney. Imagine IPL had started a year back. Now will I welcome back Symonds into my IPL fold with open arms after the racism row. Will I boo him or will I root for him so that he takes my IPL team to victory??
Will I stand among thousands in the Eden Gardens and sing the anthem of Kolkata Knight Riders just as the Theater of Dreams reverberates with "Glory Glory Man U" ?? I have only questions and no answers yet. One day I'll surely know, whether dads in India pass on IPL heritage in their genes, whether people take up cudgels for their teams and whether we are ready as a nation of cricket hungry people to accept the valiant efforts of gladiators, irrespective of their nationalities.
Maybe the answers to all these questions and many more will decide the future of the IPL and for a better part, of world cricket. Till then I luv Man Utd and I continue to cheer for the Red Devils, all the while hoping I will have my very own cricketing anthem to chant...
Ohh if only time could fly and April 18th could just be now....!!!!