Nyabagam Varudhe....

Record Slayer!

2010-02-24T11:46:00.000-08:00

Source: Cricinfo

What a knock, unfortunate that I couldn't catch it live - had to make do with glimpses from youtube. Next milestone just within grasp - 'Century of Centuries'. The blog went into a slumber with SRT and has woken up with a SRT bang.

Jai Ho!

2009-03-23T04:52:00.000-07:00

Source: Cricinfo

India has been on a roll so far and the way the team has dominated the series so far has been a treat to watch. Post the T20 debacle I thought this series might be a stern test for the Indians; an Indian debacle against an inexperienced kiwi side would have been disastrous considering the momentum the team has been enjoying offlate. What had to be seen was can India inspite of wearing the 'better team on paper' tag deliver it on an away series? And boy, haven't they delivered it in style so far.

Main cause of the kiwi debacle has been their bowling department which has been in total disarray and the tremendous batting of the Indian openers. Vettori has been greeted with a 'we are not going mess with you' approach which has ensured that he doesn't get any wickets, Kyle Mills who was to be the spearhead is down on confidence - not a surprise with no wickets and the treatment meted out to him by the Indian openers what else can you expect. Jacob Oram has been a shadow of his former self and most of the new comers both in batting and bowling have been struggling so far.

What a series this has been for the Master Blaster who has been in ominous form in this series, considering this to some time back when there was a huge call for him to retire; He has played a crucial role in all the recent series which India have won so far.

AUS tour of IND: Tendulkar was the second best batsmen in terms of runs aggregate
IND tour of SL: Probably the only aberration, thanks to the umpires
ENG tour of IND: Tendulkar was amongst the top 4 batsmen in terms of runs aggregate and most importantly set up the 1st Test victory
IND tour of NZ: Inspite of playing just 3 matches SRT is the second best batsmen in terms of runs aggregate in ODIs and has had a rollicking start to the Tests - joining hands with Bhajji to script our first victory in 3 decades.With the current morale of the kiwis India should deliver the killer punch in the 2nd test and seal the series.

Amidst all this, I think Gary Kirsten has been amazing in handling the team post Greg Chappell. I haven't read any interview of this fellow so far, surprising considering the dream run the team has had so far.

Interesting Titbits

2009-03-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

'On the face of it, Shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world' - says who - speaketh the yesteryear Guru Jack Welch. We are in a season where everyone has started abhoring Capitalism, but interestingly no one has suggested any alternative (no one has started spelling out S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M out and loud). If it was so dumb, I wonder why it took so long for Jack to reveal this.It would be interesting to see in the coming months as to what will be suggested to replace Capitalism.

Record slash in salaries of IIM Grads
Securing a Crore+ Job/Jobs at exotic locations/Holy Grail of I-Banking have been replaced by more humble 'Give me a Job'. Interesting to see the PSUs in India taking advantage of the opportunity presented - not sure if it was hard sell by the B-school Placecom to get the PSUs to campus. I sincerly hope it was the other way around. Now that talent has got in, I wish the babus go a step forward, create an environment to retain this talent and let it not be lost once the market conditions improve. This slash gives a good base to start the cycle of astronomical salary hikes in the near future given the low base they start from this year by the creative placement reports and we will have the media running from pillar to post glamourising the paychecks once the situation improves.

Gartner says Indian IT firms are not bullish in going for Outsourcing deals
This indeed was surprising and possibly amongst the few news articles which induce hope in this environment; I think this is the time to set everything right and send out a strong message rather than adopt a safe conservative approach. With the equity market having written off high hopes on the IT Sector and with Neutron Jack's view to support, they are not going to have pressures to deliver on numbers. So use this time to go for acquisitions, build the sales engines in new geographies, recruit all those cheap and high quality talent available in the market to build the holy grail of 'Consulting', and chuck the deadwood onboard. I think this is the time which needs to be used judiciously to cut down on weak areas and sharpen on your USPs so that you are able to strike the market hard when the situation improves. I think the same piece of advice holds good for employees as well, drown your frustrations regarding hikes and promotions instead utilise this time to improve your skill sets.

Citibank and Bank of America announce profits on business so far in 2009
Yeah, having eliminated all toxic assets on the poor Tax payer this ain't a surprise. Vikram Pandit took a $10.8 Million Salary last year and was supposed to be replaced but with his master statement of 1$ salary until profitability has bought himself some more time.

(To be Continued)

My Current Reading List

2009-02-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

I have been engrossed with 3 books recently:

Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish(SHSF) By Rashmi Bansal

Celebrating Success and Failure(CSF) By Swami Sukhabodhananda

Eat that Frog(ETF) By Brian Tracy I have completed SHSF and am halfway thru with CSF.

SHSF
The phrase SHSF is what made me buy this one. If you haven't then I would suggest you to download the commencement speech by Steve Jobs where he ends the speech with these immortal lines. Very short speech, no crap but lots of Gyan. Coming back to the book, SHSF at times gets boring with a total template like approach, but the book was supposed to be that way by the author so can't complain much. It is a collection of the experiences of 25 alumni from IIM-A - their struggle, their learnings and their approach to make a difference and make some moolah! My personal favorites were the ones by Sunil Handa and Orchid Chemicals. With my budding interests in entrepreneurship the book did keep me interested to begin with, but as it went, it just got boring with the template approach. So the best way is to alternate this with another book which is what I did by picking up CSF.

CSF
CSF is amazing to say the least particularly in these testing times, but as the author notes the real trick is in practicising what is written in the book. I am sure we would all know atleast 60% of what is written in the book but how many of us follow what we know. Some time back I read an interview by Kwang Ro Kim(ex LG India chief) in McKinsey Quarterly where in for a question he quipped 'All of us know Jogging is good for health, but how many of us jog?' I should say I am relishing this book.

ETF
I have just started ETF alongside and should say even this falls under the same category of CSF. Will get back once I complete this.

New Joys and Sorrows

2009-01-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

First post of the year, hope I am regular this year, aiming to have atleast 10 meaningful posts per month. Aim to keep my personal updates less and plan to focus on the happennings around me. So here we go!

Personally and professionally 2008 was as good as it can get for me. Hope the momentum continues in 2009 as well. Sticking to my pledge of focussing on other things - the year has already witnessed a volatile start - Gaza unrest, Obama becoming POTUS, Politicians in power around the world taking umbrage under the fact that the recent crisis is a "Global phenomenon" and not restricted just to their lands (Beats my logic as to why they didn't do enough to tighten their regulations), and for Indians the Satyam scandal.

If ever there is a period which will be referred, dissected, reanalysed for learnings of what to do and what to refrain from then Ladies and Gentlemen it is NOW. We are living history here and interestingly the events are 'Made in USA'

The Satyam scandal was a real shocker and the slew of news which followed it of the shenanigans by Raju and his clan. It is unbelievable to say the least when someone has been successfully able to evade the eyes of law for so long for this magnitude. But as with the Mumbai blast I am more interested to see how this is going to be brought to justice. We needn't go very far when it comes to justice for celebrities, Do you know of someone called Sanjay Dutt and his latest activities?

Interesting observations post Satyam scandal:
1. Kamal Nath comes out saying no package for Satyam. (For once I thought there was a sensible approach being taken.Why should the Tax payer bear the burden?)
2. KV Kamath does a back of the envelope calculation to say we can't leave Satyam to die as it might affect the lives of 1 Million Indians
3. Immediately Kamal Nath comes back to say we MIGHT consider a package (I am not sure what his current stance is?)
4. Other Big Brothers of the industry say they aren't interested in hunting Satyam's clients unless otherwise the clients come to them (Now what do they mean here, It means the Sales chaps in the majors are just going to wait for the clients to come to them to initiate the talks, because we are in a prosperous period you see, We believe that) Why are you taking moral high ground here?
5. L&T states it has no interest in Satyam (Latest news in EcoT: L&T hikes its stake to 12%)
6. As with the sub-prime here again no one knows 'Where the Money went?'
7. Shocking to see that PwC had murky roles in few earlier scandals as well. I happenned to see an interview of Nouriel Roubini sometime back seeking his views on the sub-prime crisis, interestingly the interview credited Nouriel Roubini of predicting this sub-prime doom but which no one gave heed to. In the interview Nouriel was emphatic in stating that people should be made accountable and punished if we were to prevent a recurrence. But is anyone listening?
8. No one came forward from the 'IT Multinational clan' to air their views. But it goes without saying that this one single incident is going be a WMD in the sales arsenal of Multinationals
9. If a host of organisations are accused of fraudulent practices by World Bank. I am wondering about the level of resistance one might face in trying to corrupt someone in World Bank. (Looks like it isn't tough!)
10. ET had an article where it aired views of astrologers who said how all was wrong about the Satyam logo and the logic to go for Maytas name
11. This incident garnered much advertisement for the fact that 'Krishna Palepu specialises in Corporate Governance' Even his Phd work, consulting work or talks around the world would have got him this much attention

What remains to be seen?
1. What happens to Mynampati?
2. Who is going to take charge of cleaning this?
3. Who will acquire Satyam? When? and How will they value the company?
4. What happens to the Rajus? Will his battery of 25 lawyers defeat justice?
5. Is this an isolated one-off incident or is it the signal for many more to come out?
6. How are the Ex-Board members role going to be scrutinised?

Anything More

2008-12-15T10:38:00.000-08:00

To all those nitpickers out there anything more you want our man to prove...

What a match, The God does it again in a staggering style! Finally the virtual demon of 'Tendulkar not playing in crunch' has been slayed in style. 2 days back when England were on top, I was watching the glee on the newsreader's face here in London(understandable after the one day thrashing)..But now..I am just too eager to see the news tonite.

Lords

2008-12-07T06:34:00.000-08:00

Y'day unbelievably was bright and sunny and my visit to the Mecca of Cricket was a thoroughly enjoyable one. Alas! I had to be happy with an empty stadium. World class stadium - but the ground is a bit small and it was giving me the 'Heebie Jeebies' standing in the Players dressing room and the famous balcony where our Dada unabashedly swung his Tee, Kapil Dev lifting the world cup.

Interesting Trivia: No Test centuries from Tendulkar, Lara and Ponting at the Lords

Bombay Blasts and Implications

2008-12-05T16:50:00.000-08:00

It was a rude shock for me as like many to read about the Mumbai Blasts. Interesting to see the comments coming in from around the world am not sure on the veracity of these reports but based on the reports I read in leading news websites what I gathered was the flip-flop comments which came on how our security team handled the situation depending on the relationship status we had with these countries

It is high time we see atleast a delta improvement in
1. Getting a proactive approach. We have had daring attempts in the past as well, Parliament Attack, Mumbai Train Blasts, Akshardham, Hyderabad blasts so on and so forth. We need to see a change atleast now
2. It is high time political parties both with and without power demarcate politics and National interests.
3. Stopping this drama of showing initial progress(like a few heads being axed, a retired SC judge heading a commission etc.) and then the investigation dying a slow death either because of lack of leads/Media distracting the attention of the public. Innumerable examples can be quoted here, I don't think we have had a tangible lead in any of the blasts which have taken place in the recent past

I was surprised to
1. See that electricity and TV connections were still available within the hotel when the siege was on (Meaning the Terrorists exactly knew the sensationalism they were creating when they were holed up, I think this would have ended up boosting their resolve further to take down as many as they could). Read this account from a lucky person who managed to escape Australian Account . Why couldn't these be disconnected, agreed the hostages would have been put to hardship but atleast we could have saved a few more?

2. Cell phones were functional the terrorists were in touch with their 'bosses'. I am a Techno illiterate but isn't there any technology available to jam the signals. I am not sure if the forces were in touch with hostages and made use of available information but I still feel they could have jammed the signal and this could have led the terrorists to panic and made the rescue even more worthy

3. Security forces tried creating smoke screens once they entered the hotels. I remember a story of Chechen rebels taking control of a Theatre few years back the Russian forces made use of some chemical gas to incapacitate the intruders as well as the hostages and there were controversies around the damage it did more than the good in rescuing the hostages. But if we had adopted such a practice I think we would have saved atleast a few lives more, in the end we lost brave commandos and innocent hostages for almost nothing.

I felt sorry for the brave souls who sacrified their lives, I still have the image of the cops who were running head-on against the bullets during the Parliament attempt. If not for these brave souls I don't think any of us would have a secure day. When the guys at the grassroots level show such raw courage and are putting their lives in such peril I feel the decision makers at the top need to show more gumption and ensure that such sacrifices don't go meaningless.

Let us hope that this situation atleast brings improvement to the current state of things.

My budding Fear..Is our 'Unity in Diversity' under immense pressure because of internal and external factors?

Internal Factors:
1. We are seeing coalition politics at both centre and state level. And this Coalition Politics is creating an increasingly divisive society with parties identifying themselves with Caste, Creed (which Democracy abhors)

2. Increasing Urban Migration is creating tension because of more people chasing few opportunities in urban locations which is being exploited by political parties, case in hand being what we are seeing in Maharashtra, won't be long before we start seeing elsewhere
3. Inequity in wealth distribution

External Factors:
1. We have trouble all around us and their internal problems are creating havoc for us. If we want to be seen as an equal to China in the Asian region then lets start exhibiting such behaviors. Let us take a hands-on approach and start helping our neighbours get their house in shape (Which is in our best interests). The policy of respecting soverignity is fine but lets be active in our foreign policies and start showing some real interests in their concerns

Unless we start focussing on sorting the internal and external issues I think the days of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh being independant COUNTRIES isn't far away. We might be the next crumbling Russia.....

Obama

2008-11-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

The first time I saw Obama speak was during the start of 2008 during my visit to Atlanta. There was something different about this guy, he didn't sound like the usual politician and this differentiated him from the other race runners. The mood was all about the Democrats and the debate was always about is it going to be Hillary/Obama the Republicans never were rated and no one seemed to care about who was going to be the Republican nominee, probably Sarah Palin's entry brought back the much needed limelight to the Republicans.

Now Obama has created history and has been given the authority he needed to unleash his 'Change' so far he has been making the right noises with high profile conference calls and choosing the right people to be part of his team. Expectations are sky high and he was smart enought to temper them down in his opening speech where he slipped in a comment on the lines of 'it might take a term and probably more to achieve what we intend to'. Given what Bush was has done for the last 2terms even a wee little improvement is going to look and feel like a lot. I was thrilled to see this guy win and the feeling was almost like what you get when Sachin smashes a well made century.I don't think he is in dearth of opportunities to showcase his mettle, at the same time any false move is going to bring him face down flat and the accusations of his opponents - 'Just words and no action' will gain momentum and come back to haunt him.

Interesting Moves/Lessons in this epic battle which thrilled me:
1. Be what you want to be even before you reach that state
Obama sounded like a President even before he became, no gimmicks, no mud slinging he was statesman like, compared to his peers
2. Believe in your gameplan
Change, Hope - what a slogan his opponents who ridiculed him at the start, had to toe similar lines in the latter stages of the campaign, his message was clear from the start and his opponents kept changing on what they were fighting for thereby losing public trust
3. Identify with your target audience
Obama was seen as one from the public, and his opponents were seen as from the establishment this again created a dischord for his opponents
4.Accept your shortcomings, don't resist them
Association with the his pastor, the rogue builder, smoking marijuana during his youth days were handled very deftly. By accepting his mistakes he made himself more human and normal, there isn't anyone who is spotless everyone has some hidden skeletons
5. Follow the MECE principle in building your team
Identify your weakness and bring in someone who can help you overcome that, Joe Bidden before election and now Hillary post election are classic examples. By bringing in Hillary he is ensuring that he isn't giving any chance for any hostility to develop within the party.

I wish him good luck and hope he lives to his words!

Ematram Aayiram

2008-11-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

This is YAA to breathe life into my bloghome which has been running a recursive loop around 'Start-Blog-Stutter-Die'. Why this inspiration to start now? To ensure that no one else spends their hard earned money on watching 'Varanam Aayiram' (VA). Spent one whole day in travelling and sitting thru this ordeal and end of it was bitching about it to all and sundry, was driven to a state where I could have vented out my disappointment to the Brit who was sitting next to me on my journey back home.

My Grouse: (There wasn't anything I loved in the movie..Maybe the cute Sameera)
1. Screenplaynu - 'Oorugai' leveluku kooda onnum illa
2. This film could be good one to speak about in Surya's CV, in the sense this could be a material which he can use to garner more roles. (Why is everyone wishing to fill the big shoes of Kamal - Impossible makkale...Can there be someone to replace Sachin?)
3. Dude, we understand that you love your dad but you can't make a movie of your nostalgia and expect us to watch
4. Veetla English pesita - you think we can accept the family to be a elitist one
5. Daddy enna pa panraru - Padam poora advice, and his biggest achievement in life was wooing his wife which he keeps on bragging throughout the movie
6. Six Packs - after reams of promotion it comes like a 'Blink and you miss me' type in the second half
7. Simran - I couldn't digest this...Simran in my dreams is still dancing to 'Aal Thota Bhoopathi' but seems like she has jumped on to the track taken by Revathy...Inflation, credit crunch is forcing even celebrities to take such drastic measures
8. This is a good material for Soap serial and I wouldn't have had any qualms watching it in Sun TV. It has all the basic elements 2 Love Stories (with Sameera and Divya), 2 siblings (we could have taken 200 episodes each on them and how they grow), loan (there was a mention of it...see I wasn't sleeping) repay story...I think probably Gautam Menon is contemplating a new soap serial in Sun taking on Bharathiraja's in Kalaingar
9. Simran's explanation of the title in the end - Sakikagala..

In Top 10 style - "Varanam Aayiram" - "Ematram Aayiram"

MBA Mahatmas

2008-03-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Placement season and no wonder the media is at its best in driving the frenzy up about the MBA Gold mines (B-schools) One line which has always amused me is the one which says X% of the batch chose roles over pay package. Almost all placement reports carry this note. What is the signalling being done?

1.The reason our average package isn't as glamorous and jaw dropping like others, is because X% of our batch decided to sacrifice money over roles. We have more MBA Mahatmas then the other schools

2. Glamour element in the report, differentiation factor if you may call so; X% feels money isn't important now and we can make it later. What is more important is THE ROLE?

Now coming to THE ROLE
3. The X% again are not throwing away the option - 'to make more moolah' for nothing. It is basically a individual decision of the returns he/she is going to make on the long term. It is akin to choosing a stock in your portfolio the returns might not be attractive now but it might turn into a Gold Mine in the future.

So if someone is getting into Carbon Trading now even when it is spitting out Peanuts now, it is with the belief that 5 years down he will be eating a Royal feast in the Hilton.

Moral of the story: There are NO MBA Mahatmas.

Brainwave:

Would we reach a time in the future when MBA placement reports would report average CTC by computing earning potential over a time frame. Imagine running DCF models for each candidate in your batch for a 10 year period with a chosen rate of return and churning out eye-popping figures like 10 Crore is the average CTC

Endorsement with no Backing

2008-03-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Rahul Gandhi is the most talented Young Leader: Blair

Awesome Day

2008-03-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

Isn't it an awesome feeling to get up early and realise it is a Sunday? More awesome to log-in and find that Sachin kick-assed the Aussies...to spend lot of time chatting with your dear one, and then to cook your food and realize it is above average and then to watch a sweet Jodha Akbar...This day rocked

Uncalled Provocation - Aussie Way

2008-02-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

As if the mud slinging on the field was not sufficient, the Aussies are now continuing their Verbal diarrhoe off the field as in the past. Earlier Aussie off field comments used to be decent to some extent but now with 'obnoxious weed' they have started stretching their off field limits as well. Irrespective of whether you have any respect for your competitor you can atleast refrain from making such comments...Uncalled provocation has always been the Aussie way and they as well as the Media glorified such comments in the past with jargons like 'Mental disintegration'. With the arrival of Woolmer and his methodologies I feel cricket took a new turn and has been unnecessarily made complex, taking a bit of charm away from the game.

I thought the Sydney incident would bring in some change, and there was some visible changes in the Aussie conduct in Perth. But alas, habits are hard to die and this comment from Hayden proves that.

I fail to understand what on Earth is the problem with Symonds he is always the 'poor chap' who is singled out by the Indians for 'royal treatment'. Aussies should be appreciated for having mastered the art of sledging without coming under the eyes of the umpires.

Price Tag!

2008-02-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

Couple of newsarticles which caught my eye in recent times have been the IPL auctions, I am missing the hungama which the umpteen news channels would have created back home.

'Yuvraj shocked at the price of Ponting' - Rediff
'Ponting surprised at his low price' - Cricinfo
'Jaspal Bhatti mocks the IPL auction by selling hockey and football players in a mandi' - Ibnlive
'Sri Lankan players happy with their price' - Cricinfo

I am amused at the 3rd one from Jaspal was real hilarious. Jaspal mentions that players should be playing for pride of the nation and not for the money, now I really don't understand this logic of tying up pride with money. Can't both co-exist? Compare the benefits of an American Soldier and Indian Soldier, both am sure would be proud of serving their country irrespective of the benefits they get. Even the argument of money being a distraction isn't very sound, I am sure the endorsements and high match fees would take a hit if the player doesn't focus in his game. So as long as the player is delivering what is expected from him, what is wrong in the player reaping some monetary benefits as well.

I think IPL and ICL is the best thing to happen to Cricket, these are going to reward the players as well as serve as motivators for them to remain at the top of their games. The kick you get from watching a 20-20 game is incomparable to any other formats, and all these objections being raised about 20-20 not being a real test of a players calibre sound hollow. Why should we care if it is a real test/not?

Cricket at the end of the day is a form of entertainment as long as we the consumers get our due that should be fine. Why should some one define the way we should enjoy the game? Maybe it makes sense for the players (that Test is more enjoyable and a true test than any other format) but for me I am going to watch something which I enjoy. And currently I feel consumers of the game are getting their due...irrespective of what cynical people like Jaspal rant.

Much Water Has Flown

2008-02-11T11:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a real long time since I have posted, I think I would have filled about 10% of this blog with reasons for not being able to post regularly. Just checked the last posted date been nearly a year, some how blog-surfing is keeping me much more occupied than blogging. Probably the aimlessness in my life is reflected in my blog as well I suppose...I started this blog to speak about my perspective on things happenning around me (Noble Intention!!) then felt bored to brag about my perspective, so tweaked the direction a bit and spoke of my B-school experiences which for most part ended up being Movie reviews or my visits to locations in and around my school, then even felt that was boring, so took the easier route of publishing my clicks.

Then all of a sudden it just died...This is an attempt to breathe fresh life to my blog...Let me see how much I succeed.

Coming to the title, yeah much water has flown...I got married, proud owner of a 'Serene' apartment, made visit to the El-dorada of the IT community, justifying my existence in my company for the pay. Apart from these things have pretty much stayed the same.

So let me see what I can do in this re-birth...Wish me success!

World Cup - Has Anything Changed

2007-04-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

2 Days Back

4 Years Back

8 Years Back

Has anything changed apart from the stubborn Aussies who have decided to hold the World Cup for eternity? Yes there has been change, first it was Pakistan, then India and now Sri Lanka. But none have been successful in reigning the Aussie arrogance. In this edition of World Cup, Aussies have stamped their authority in each and every match, if it was Ponting who finished the match even before the Indians began batting then the same treatment was meted to Sri Lanka this year by Gilly. Infact the emphatic hug and the celebration of Gilly's Hundred would have crushed even a glimmer of hope the Sri Lankans would have had. The so called Lankan tactics of hiding their potent weapons in Vaas & Murali was rubbished, it was like, "Is this all that you had to counter us?". Lets hope we get to see a different team in the podium during the next edition atleast!

My Latest

2007-04-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

Nokia 6300

Ooty Trip

2007-04-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Botannical Garden

Lingam

Lambs Rock

Ooty Lake

Wayanad Bike Trip

2007-04-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

Sochipara Waterfalls

4500 ft above Sea Level @ Edukkal

Entrance to the House of our ancestors

Edukal Cave History

Tea Estate - U can See Lots of Them Enroute

On Way

Lakshadweep Memories

2007-04-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

MVS Tipu Sultan

We Covered Minicoy, Kavarati, Kalpeni

Lagoon @ Kalpeni

Lighthouse @ Minicoy

Kalpeni Island

Digital Coral

Re-Birth

2007-04-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

For so long have been a passive member of the Blogging world, have been a regular ROM (Read Only Member) of my blogourney (Now that I am a certified Management expert, have decided to coin jargons as and when I think of them).

Blogourney: Visit to Blogs, which can be recursive depending on the interest level of the individual, quality of blogs and more importantly the amount of idle time available with the person undertaking blogourney.

Since this being the first post for quite some time, it is but natural for it to be long. Some updates: Have completed my 2 years stint at the Kunnamangalam hills and it was real emotional to leave my pals and the campus, getting hitched to a lovely gal on May 20th, will be joining a new company in Mumbai, currently in Chennai whiling away time and awaiting to start my career real soon.

The last month at Chennai was better spent in visiting the new multiplex INOX, and watching the lifeless World Cup. Paruthi Veeran, 300, Mozhi were devoured with mixed taste. Will spare you of detailed reviews but can't resist myself from giving you a quick outline(Something in the lines of Sun TV Top 10 Movies)

Paruthi Veeran: Excellant Casting, Ameer has been able to successfully get the rustic feel, Good movie but can just be a one time watch movie

300: Good animation, strong visuals, some nice one-liners, awesome music and Leonidas rocks. But should have focused on the story part I felt it was just a string of scenes, Again just a one time watch movie.

Mozhi: Lead Actors rock, nice songs, neat movie, very natural humor which has been nicely woven as part of the movie, second half of the movie is a bit of drag, can watch the first half any number of time but definitely not the second half.

Moving on to World Cup, guess this is an awesome topic for a separate post.

Casino Royale @ Crown

2006-11-17T23:46:00.000-08:00

Venue

Crown - is the only multiplex in this town where you get to see the latest English and Hindi flicks, only caveat being the shelf life of screenings is shorter than the stints spent by our batsmen at crease. So after our SDP work, we decided to catch up on the latest Bond flick, and should say that this is the first time in my life I went to watch a movie on the first day of its release.

Prelude

Show slated to start at 6:00, already had the balcony sold out, so had to contend with the lower ones, and the bloody guys at the counter didn't start issuing tickets until it was 5:40. Check out how vella I was, I even know the timelines(usually happens when you stare at your watch every 10 seconds, as if that's gonna make the queue move) finally we went in at 6:00 only to see the vantage points being taken by the chettas, anyway we did manage to get reasonably good seats(read bug free and with some sort of cushion). So here we are waiting for Danielle Craig to make his entry and what do we see? Ad campaigns of the who's who in Calicut, one tagline spelled Gloriuos(typical mallu style pronunciation) followed by DETH fashions, Edelweiss flowers, Does the PE firm have a subsidiary here? Kotton clothes(K factor is widely spread), this continued for 10 minutes followed by the Dhoom 2 blitzkrieg, man Hindi movie makers better issue lot of prints in the Kerala region, the hungama which arose at the entry of Hrithik and Ash was much more than for Mr. Bond(man it was supposed to be his show).

The Movie

Movie portrays Bond in a slightly raw fashion, he has been ripped off of all his sophistication, double entendres, gadgets and even the Shaken/Stirred query evokes a blunt "Do I look like I give a damn?" all in line with this being the first case of Bond. Movie in my opinion oscillated between being amateurish and good at places.

Some highlights of the movie are

*Stunt sequence which happens in Uganda, certain bits inspired from "Crouching Tiger..." where the villain just jumps off at will whereever he wishes to, as if he is wearing a spring shoe. Bond is brutal in this chase.

*Scenes to clearly capture Bond learning the tricks of the trade, he gets fooled very easily in this movie

*Car manoevure, awesome stuff, didnt expect such a move from the villain, Bond at full throttle and his love lying on the road..awesome

Some letdowns

*Some senti silent exchanges between Vesper and Bond. Have we seen such mushy-mushy romanticism from Bond earlier?

*Danielle is good, but IMO Brosnan was the best

*M being headmaster types, why did you get into my house, don't do this, we have injected this to keep an eye on you...

*Money they play for, 150 million USD, I don't think Terrorist organisations are so desperate for this amount. This stake would have been great circa 60's/70's

*How does he escape from the clutches of Le Chiffer's torture and why didn't White kill him then and there?

My final verdict is the movie is watchable but you always need to forgive Bond, because this is his first assignment, have that in your mind when you watch this movie

Get To Work Greg!

2006-11-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

All this resoultions of putting my sectoral views have been thrown out of the window, I am just back from Ibnlive.com reading Greg's latest comments on Dravid being called a "Puppet". Enuff is Enuff, ab bahut hogaya, probably we are the only test playing nation who keep the nation interested about each and every thing which happens to the Indian team both on and off the field. Is this passion for the game inborn/whetted by these needless statements from the Coach/media to keep the Indian Cricket Inc in news always?

The Team is ready to depart for the SA tour and the coach comes with this statement, what is this supposed to mean, a morale booster for the team/captain/public at large. "I am not the one who calls the shots but it is him blah blah..."Are we interested? What would interest all of us would be the exploits on field by the Team.

After the famous defeat where Yuvraj bit the slow bullet from Bravo our guys have simply not come up, everything good about the team has gone in shambles and we are back to where we started, the spark aint there, none of the departments are clicking, it is really a "Collective failure". Sometimes I feel the game is being made more complicated than it is, isnt the game getting hyped a wee bit too much, with sports shrinks getting to make the team mentally tough, coaches walking the corporate doors to give gyan about teamwork(Remember Steve Buchanan walking the corridors of MBT abt 2 years back). Agreed the game has got much more stakes involved and the margin for error is narrowing but the basic tenets of the game still remain the same. "Enjoy the Game and Play for Pride" this is suffice to motivate the team, anything more is needless bullshit.

Almost all magazines have come up with Pre&Post West Indies analysis of the team, so I will spare you that, but somethings which I find would serve more good are:

1. Stop the Eternal defence for Sehwag: He plays his natural game, bull with it, if you have to graft you gotta graft, you can't play your shots irrespective of the situation, there needs to be some method to madness. As a senior player make your wicket a premium one for the opposition, you just can't walk in smack 3-4 boundaries and walk out

2. Pathan, chrissake get back to Ranji, I feel more harm is being done to his morale by making him play and get battered further.

3. Senior cricketers playing serious This has already been sounded by Dravid, I guess the guys need to realize that they can't get out cheaply, just have a look at the other teams, some names which crop up are Muralitharan, McGrath, Jayasuriya, Ponting, Flintoff, Lara these guys are class acts for their teams when all is gone for them. Sadly not the case with our team, not sure of statistics save for the Sharjah act from Tendulkar, NorthWest Trophy Twist by Kaif and Yuvraj, nothing else crops up

4. Throw the Ego, Why should a bowler of Zaheer's calibre be out when all is gone for the team, We persist with Sreesanth who except for his showmanship doesn't do anything else on the field, he gets battered by the top order and then he returns to pick up a couple of tailenders and we still persist with Sreesanth.

5. Coach Needs to Deliver Better stop all this on-off relation with the media and focus on the preparation for the World cup, enough of Bono's hats, yoga and stuff, lets get back to the basics of batsmen getting runs, bowlers picking wickets and the team as a whole standing up against the opposition. Do you Know Who Benett King Is? How many times have we come across any statements from this gentleman? Just find out

Lets see how our boys hold in SA, Ntini, Pollock, Gibbs, Kallis are the names to watch! Will Team India deliver?

Breaking the Hiatus

2006-10-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

July 23rd, that was the last post.So much so that I could get my password only on the 3rd attempt. Do I explain the reason for my hiatus? Whom do I point fingers at? Anyway getting to the point, Term 4 and 5 have been hot and cold respectively. And I started being an active Read Only Member of the Blogging community, visiting my usual blogspots.

Learning and being sincere about official work has taken a back seat for me, time is being spent in better things in life like watching movies, getting lost in LOST, writing 2500 word essay on global topics with the hope of making some moolah(Till now RoI has been Nil). B-school festivals are getting bigger by the day, if the flavor of last year was 15000 Rs and 10000 Rs, prizes this year have gone bigger PPI's and $ denominated prizes seem to be the star attractions this year. Nitie's MastishK and IIMB's Vista have been worthwhile so far. Confluence of IIM-A has just started creating waves, with $ denominated prizes.

Writing for papers and analyzing B-skool fests case contests have been a real eye-opener. So much so that frameworks and gyaan's which were relegated as 'globe' have now taken centre stage in filling the pages to reach the magic mark of 2500. And one sector which has been beaten to death by me and my partner has been the Retail Sector of India. More gyan on this later...

Something to ponder on

2006-07-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Mumbai Blasts

View

2006-07-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Photo Courtesy: Harshdeep Singh

Monsoon Glory!

2006-07-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

A Nice One

2006-06-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a Week Already

Courtesy: espnstar.com

X-men 3 Craze

2006-06-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

You Are Cyclops

Dedicated and responsible, you will always remain loyal to your cause.
You are a commanding leader - after all, you can kill someone just by looking at them.

Power: force beams from your eyes

Which of the X-Men Are You?

How Observant Am I?

2006-06-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

Your Observation Skills Get A C-

You tend to notice the big things in life...
But the details aren't exactly your forte

How Observant Are You?

Pudhupettai

2006-06-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

"Padicha Naye Ulla Varadhe Enga Areaaa Ulla Varadhe..." guess these lines would affect the puritannical sensibilities of most of the elite audience against whom is set the opening song. The movie isn't a let down if you forgive Selvaraghavan for the comical climax.(Audience were in splits when this scene was unfolding, imagine this for a movie which doesn't fall in the comic genre)

What is different about this cliched plot of a guy falling in the wrong path due to circumstances is the way its been handled. The first half is near taut and has the designs of a neatly packaged super-hit movie, but the second half lets down the tempo and takes the path of a yet another underworld story. Guess Pattiyal would have ripped off a few of the novelty which this movie would have offered, like the indifference the protagonists exhibit when they go about their chores.

2006-06-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

"Patience comes to those who wait" Idhu Enna Palamozhiyo...
Chennai Autovil Parthadhu

Media Clout

2006-06-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

We had booked tickets for 'The Da Vinci Code' this week only to see the government deciding on Thursday to ban the screening of this movie here at AP too. With this the AP government joins hands with Goa, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu & Punjab to have decided to ban this movie. I have read numerous reviews of this movie and none of the reviews have been kind to the movie, in spite of this and the pre-release hoopla nothing untoward has happened yet (Touchwood!).

I have been busy with my internship (Ya, you gotta believe it) for the last 2 months. Do I need to find any more reason to forget by blog?

The last 2 months has provided enough fodder to the Media World, and should pity the guys who had appeared for GD/PI' s across the country, imagine the newsbytes they would have been forced to pore thru'.

Just some top of the mind recalls of Issues which have been ripped apart in the Media World, not necessarily in chronological order have been:

• Quota protest
• Office of Profit Bill
• Sensex Bloodbath
• Sachin Tendulkar's: Will He/Won't He Play
• Arcelor - Mittal Hungama
• State Elections - Pre/During/Post Election results
• Pramod Mahajan's Demise
• Rahul Mahajan & Bibek Moitra
• Narmada Bachao Andolan - Medha Patkar, Aamir Khan, BJP

What has fascinated me is the bubble life each of these stories have enjoyed in the hands of Media, gone are the days of responsible journalism, what matters in today's scenario is the amount of sensationalism which could be kicked out of a news piece, and interestingly all news channels decide to expend their complete ammunition on a single article. It is like 'I keep you till I get the next one'.

On the other hand we see these amateur journalists (or would writers be a better word (like me getting wired thru the blog world)) to paint their perspectives on any issue even though they might be oblivious to the fact.

What we are seeing is Objectivity getting killed instantaneously due to the numerous facets of the same issue getting explored, and an overkill of the article which sometimes doesn’t grant the seriousness an issue needs to enjoy, and the emergence of spin-doctors and devil’s advocates who by virtue of being glib-tongued can twist the facts and paint a specious picture of the issue.

If this trend continues it would be difficult to be objective and rational.I am not saying the Media needs to stop going full throttle behing issues, sometimes media attention is indeed necessary but a line needs to be drawn as to where/what/why an issue needs to be chased, What harm would it do if you didn't know if some celebrity had his/her breakfast, Don't go Overboard, do not try to be opinion creators...

(More may follow)

Scenic Beauty

2006-03-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Here goes some snaps taken by my wingie, Who am not sure what drove him, got up at an unearthly hour of 6'o clock, got my camera and off he went for his FIRST morning walk. But he did come up with some nice ones, like the following:

Indian Cricket Team

2006-03-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

This has been something on which I wanted to blog for quite some time but have been kept postponing. The recent hungama surrounding the Indian Cricket Team would provide enough material to cook up a H/Bollywood Potboiler. So Before we begin a quick recap,

Successful Captain recommends a strategist for the team-Strategist enters and screws the happinness of the captain(Varam Kuduthavan Thalaiyeleye...) - Seniors in the Team mum you don't know whether they stand for the captain/not - Selection committee raises the bar for the captain - Poor form doesn't help his cause either - DROPPED! - No one worries except for Bengal - Meanwhile Team chuggs along comfortably - coach on the strength of success goes overboard commenting on the captain - BCCI steps in and puts a gag on the coach.

Couple of things which strike me in the Ganguly incident has been the similarity between the way he has been dropped and the corporate scenario. About a year back when Larry Ellison was busy shopping, companies ofcourse, employees in their Hyderabad Development centre were getting chucked without any reason - point was/is past performance don't matter you need to show current performance, even promise for future performance isn't sufficient in today's world. Ganguly wouldn't have imagined this even in his worst nightmare. All said and done I don't think there is anything debatable about the fact that we ought to have given him a better exit, he did deserve it, for injecting that much needed aggression into the Indian Dressing room. Prior to that we were the favorite bunnies for all abuses and it used to be covered with a sham of a cloak called 'Cricket-Is-A-Gentleman's-Game' ,can you sell that crap to any of the Aussies/South Africans? There was a point of time when even our Sorry-Looking Nehraji used to sledge (Don't laugh this is serious..). Other significant contribution has been injecting the belief that we can win overseas too, even if the statistics indicate that the percentage is skewed against weaker teams.

It is fine to get youth into the team, give opportunity to youngsters and all those wonderful things, but this entire episode can send a wrong message to the seniors, slowly and steadily a similar case is building against Tendulkar too, will the selection committee toe a similar line if pushed into such a situation I doubt that. When everything about the Indian Team is out in the open, we should know what the future holds for Ganguly will his performances for the Bengal Team/Eastern zone cut some ice with the committee?

Keeping all that aside, Is there any doubt that Mr. Chappell is a wily fox, if you have any doubts then you gotta watch that underarm delivery video recently ppl here @ K were receipients of video of that famous incident. Though that was against the spirit of the game, imagine conjuring up something like that on the spur of the moment. Some of the positives which have come out of Mr. Chappell has been the recent flexibilities exhibited by the team in one-day and even in the Tests, has been amazing to say the least, we are seeing an effort to reduce dependancies on people and getting everyone to contribute for the collective benefit, the late assault against the Brits in the recently concluded Test is just another example of playing well within your limitation but sending out a message to the opposition that you aren't to be taken for granted. A very important one if you see it from the context that England was the better team for a major part of this Test until the last session. England can't get to Mohali with their tails up, the assault would have given an uneasy feeling, something like that weeny little piece of your meal sticking onto the roof of your mouth and your tongue desperately trying to do away with it! Bottomline being the man is a fundoo who delivers. But how on the other side of it would you explain some insane actions like 'clinging to captaincy for life and finances' that was atrocious to say the least, and he would been lynched had he made that statement in Calcutta, that was PLAIN SLANDER, writing a mail which painted the Indian Team as an integrated unit of factions. Chappell and Ganguly seem to be similar personalities if you dig in a bit, which is where the problem lies.

Amidst all this hullaboo, what does the Team do, it delivers, that was SURPRISING circa 90's a similar situation and the team would have been in dumps and the press would have sympathized with them saying 'no-fault-of-yours-this-does-have-stressful effect-which-affects-your-performance', not now, the Team blasted Sri-Lanka followed it with a decent performance against South-Africa, went to Pakistan lost the Test Series bounced back for a clean sweep in the ODI's and now I would say is shaping well against England....Which unfortunately is not helping Ganguly's cause

So What does all this mean: Will Ganguly's incident turn out to be a OB/HR casestudy material for Performance measurement/Leadership abilities ? Or Will we see a filmy stuff like a man against all odds making a re-entry and turning out to be a winner?

In this scenario doesn't the forthcoming East Vs Central match hold even more interest?

Cricket surely is a funny game!

Love this!

2006-03-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes simple things in life give you a temporal joy which is unmatchable in giving you a high. check my commentary on Budget 2006-2007

Placements 2006

2006-03-02T02:25:00.000-08:00

The official report is available for the time being here and here as well Placements this year has been phenomenol across most B-schools in India. IIM-K has just completed a splendid year and its been a fitting reward to round off its 10th year. Exciting thing about this year has been the growth witnessed in terms of average salary, median salary, sectors and roles offered. People were grappling with the 'Problem of Plenty', hence the dilemmas permeated to areas like career path, whether this is where I want to be in the long run etc. But isn't that a good position to be in?

Moving on yours truly has been having a wonderful time this term, with time in hand what else can be done other than to kill it, people have started utilising this term for revoking their forgotten passions like Jogging, Reading, Movie watching etc to their limits. This month I was party to wonderful evenings, one was the Hostel Party we had @ Kappad if that was wonderful and amazing dunno what to term our Section Party @ Mahe, the fotos u see below are courtesy these trips. They were days spent in revelry and fun, it just reminded me of the picnics I used to have to Vandalur Zoo and Mahabalipuram during school days.

This whole concept of a trip creates a wonderful experience, be it the planning, the excitement which seeps in the previous night, and waking up before the alarm goes off, and waiting for the bus to leave the place, the crescendo you and your pals orchestrate to rub in that 'Me-too-ought-to-be-with-them' in the hapless souls who stay back, the fun you have, the hitherto clandestine relations coming out of their closets, sadness which creeps in when the day is over, when you understand Theory of Relativity better, When you have a philosophical thinking as to whether it is worth the effort learning, wishful thinking of staying back,end of all when you feel clean and fit,like you have never been before, the rejuvenating lazy bath in the odd hours of night, leaves you with a child-like smile on your face when you pull in your sheets close to you, man that is awesome. You got to leave life like that every day!

Sunset @ Kappad

2006-02-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

Courtesy:Nitish Kumar Solanki

Komrades!

2006-02-28T03:25:00.000-08:00

Joie de Vivre

2006-02-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Ants, Bees and Wasps et al

2006-02-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

We have a faculty seminar series running in campus in which faculty members share their research papers with other faculty members, we students are also invited for these sessions. Today we had the OM guru, Dr.Saji explaining the Non-Dominant Supply Chain model which is based on the Optimization methodologies followed by seemingly 'stupid' beings in nature like Bees, Antz etc. It was a lovely one hour of discussion what with the audiences blown with the sheer efficacy of the model and interestingly Dr. Saji went on to explain the usage of this model in a live scenario Subicsha .

Not surprisingly the seminar was well attended by students, one thing which strikes you when you sit for a session by this Prof is the simplicity of the analysis, no jargons, no globe, plain common sense which paves way for interesting insights and powerful outcomes.

On the whole, 1 hr well-spent!

Incase you are interested Ant Colony Optimization

News from God's Own Land

2006-01-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

The batch has been humming this term, not sure the reason behind the transformation but most of them after 2 terms here seem to have a good perspective on things. The K Community is witnessing some splendid student led intiatives.(Touchwood!!)

This month has been a field day for the Media Cell with Backwaters-Alumni Day-Farewell party. BACKWATERS 2006 was simbly superb, if you get time visit the Verdance link...There was an amazing turnout...for detailed coverage visit PG The highlight of the event was the fusion show by Indian Ocean , a relaxing evening in the Amphi with Indian Ocean strumming out beauties and you are in the lawns with a cool breeze around, guess this was the first show where I haven't felt suffocated.

This weekend we have the Alumni meet, and we have representation from all the batches who have passed out from here. Highlight of the event is an Open Discussion Forum between the Alumni, Faculty and Students.

Amidst all this hullabulla...the seniors are silently having their count down but not without their share of heartburns, Imagine this Term 6 and you have a class between 10-12.30 nothing great right but only thing being that it is scheduled for the night...Group of first year guys flocking to the canteen and there we see ppl with sullen face making their trudge back room, was there a PPT nah they are not in the MIB outfit, familiar sight of Notebooks, Dirty Jeans gave the instant gyan as to what they had been thru! Anyway that's about 4 months away let me sweat on it later.

Moving on, this term seems to be the term of globe what with hot words on a MBA grads vocab like 'Strategy, Alignment, Innovation, Symbiotic Relation, Synergy, foresight, enhancement....blah blah' renting the air every now and then.

To wind up have a look at this hilarious post

Commodities on Pongal

2006-01-14T06:55:00.000-08:00

You know for sure that you are doing a MBA when you get up at 7 to attend a Commodity Exchange Workshop for 3 hours followed by a 1 hr gyan on Environmental Management,this followed by another 3 hour session on Capital Markets, Structured Trading etc...

This ended up as This

Anaiarukum En Iniya Pongal Dhina Nalvazhthukkal (Wish You all a Happy Pongal)

Who Blinks first?

2006-01-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

"It is a bright afternoon and the captains are here with me for the toss..." ala Tony Style. Well that's how I feel like now for penning this post. During the two year MBA circus you are expected to learn and help others learn. One of the ways this is done/forced on us is thru the Group Projects exercise.

The most important ingredient in a Group Exercise is the Group, and this thesis focusses on the nuances, strategies adopted by the stakeholders to form a group.

Google defines Group as "any number of entities (members) considered as a unit" in this context.

Circa June 2004: Term 1 Begins : Information Assymmetry
Each entity is unknown. The physical, chemical properties of the elements are unknown. Group Formation was done mainly on the basis of Personal preferences.
Some parameters used for group formation were

1. Came together to K
2. Met at Fresher's meet
3. Ate together in the mess
4. Stayed in the same hostel
5. Aspirations to initate contact with the fairer sex

Once the groups were formed, the honeymoon period came crashing, as the deadlines approached the heroes and villains in each group began to surface slowly and steadily. But they haven't achieved stardom, the phenomena is relatively local to the groups.

Circa Sept 2004: Term 2 Begins: Hands are Tied
Group Formation for certain courses have been taken up by the faculty. Now this is No Choice situation. Like it/Hate it you need to live with it. The emergence of Heroes/Villains is much more global. Everyone has taken note of them.

Circa Jan 2006: Term 3 Begins: Telepathy
Group formation is instantaneous, people communicate with eyes, gestures. Symbology has replaced linguism.There is no information assymmetry in the market.

Who are the Heroes and Villains?
Heroes:
1.Task Masters: People who will ensure work is done as per deadline
2.Microsoft Application Experts: People who can be utilized for the jazz and glamour of your end products(read PPT's and Report's)
3.Brains: Some one needs to do the work you see, the analytical ones and the Fart Experts depending on the nature of work

Villains:
1. Free Riders: Do we need an explanation
2. Lazy Bums: Who think, think, think abt forming groups, finally are given the groups

Episode III

2006-01-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Episode III has begun at K, and this term should offer me lot of time to spend on other activities. At the look of it the courses are pretty light and weightage seems to be heavily skewed in favor of Microsoft Applications. Few courses have a decent chunk for Class participation, not that we didn't have any so far, difference this term being the global nature of the courses provide a lot of scope for people to yap in class. And two terms of MBA seems to have already taken its toll, in the garb of CP people end up rephrasing each others ideas to the extent that they argue out how different their point is.

Moving on, we have the Sports meet kicking off between IIM-K and IIM-B between 10th and 12th of this month. We expect an o'ssum show from our team given the fact that the preparation is in full swing.

Thought of posting a review on the movies I have seen so far but the number is far too many and I feel posting a review for the sake of it doesn't make any sense.

Events of Interest This Term:

1. IIM-K & B Sports Meet
2. BacKwaTers - KiLL/Be KilLeD
3. Placements - This is one which all of us are waiting for
4. Convocation

Wanted to write a post on the way 'Group Formation' Exercise is unfolding here...But currently me in a state of ....Yawn!!

So sometime later

A Brand New Year

2006-01-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

Blame it on the dial-up
Blame it on the lack of enthu to pen down my thoughts
Blame it on my penchance to visit other blogs
Blame it on ...

Well enuff of this blame game...Now that I am here let me (b)log my nothings...

Well lets begin with a nice note, A HAPPY NEW YEAR to those of you (if any) visiting my abode..Term 2 came to an end and I was at home for about 15 days doing nothing, well this blog is about nothing you see, but I did a bit, watched 4 movies am half way thru with 2 lovely books, celebrated my New Year with a deep slumber in the Mangalore mail, saw 3 movies in a single day here, and now have the first class of this Term/Year beginning in another hour.

As has been the fad in the blog world let me do an unwind of the year that went by(Isn't that a News channel type phrase!)

1. Finally Yeah finally got thru IIM,Kozhikode, with a solitary call in my kitty this definitely was a top achievment this year

2. Simultaneously got my visa stamped for that Teasing Onsite Assignment, circa 2004 I was yearning for something to happen either in CAT/Onsite this year around both happened, it was the 'Problem of Plenty' to contend with

3. Joined K and lo behold have been enjoying my stay ever since

4. On the personal front well we booked a new flat.

5. Mantra in 2005 was To do Whatever I did sincerely without focussing too much on Whether I would achieve the desired result/not

6. Year came to a sweet close with my summers @ GENPACT

Resolutions for 2006:

Well I haven't taken any so far in my life but let me try this year around:

1. To get the most important conversation happenning this year atleast
2. To get up early(this after getting up @ 9 today anyway the resoultion gets in effect from tomorrow)
3. To read atleast 6 quality books other than the ones prescribed here.:-)

Guess that fills my plate...

P.S. 4. To update my blog regularly...

Thalaiva Vazhga! B'lated Wished

2005-12-13T00:17:00.000-08:00

Adhu Oru KKana Kalam

2005-12-08T01:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is difficult to get literal tamil using the Parangiyar mozhi (That was pure Tamil meaning the language of the Brits).

Inspite of the Case presentations, Project Submissions, and various other B-school blahs, couldn't resist the temptation of watching 'AOKK'(C'mon lets get the Abbreviation format to our Kollywood'). Without much ado lemme get in to the story.

The story is simple, Our Hero has just completed his B.A. and is well ensconced with the 'Dhanda Soru' tag at home. Come fine day the parents leave town for some function, enter Priya Mani, the daughter of the servant maid to take care of the household chores because of her Mom's illhealth. Twist: Dhanush and Priya Mani spent a few years of their childhood togther, after which she left to her grandparents house and is now back for her School vacations. They both get into falshback mode and love blossoms, parents know, dishum-dishum, hero drowns his sorrow with Kingfisher, gets into a small tussle, locked up, Dad doesn't come to pick him from jail, that night in the lock-up he gets into a fight with a gay course of which the fellow dies. Hero becomes a murder convict, escapes jail What happens then is the climax.

+ves:

1. Streamlined flow of the script
2. Dhanush is very restrained, and looks the part
3. Ammani Priya Mani was amazing I haven't seen her earlier film which was a damp squib at the Box-Office but this movie showcased her acting skills to the fore.
Delhi Ganesh(This would be the best portray of a Middle-class father in contemporary times, but this essay would definitely come after Vijyan's portrayal in 7/G)

-ves:

1. Movie lacks punch.
2. Would have made a wonderful TV series but as a movie it failed.
3. There is a shade of Balu Mahendra's earlier movies, Priya Mani's dialogue delivery is more or less similar to Archana's in Veedu, even the pace is like Veedu

Verdict: Would be a good movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon after a heavy meal

Decision Making @ 7

2005-11-20T06:59:00.000-08:00

After coming over here the sleep timings have sort of taken a complete paradigm shift.(Keep It Simple!) Moving on, I have been observing the sleeping patterns of a few of my friends, the following is an amateurish attempt in Sleeponomy:

Ache Bache: The minority segment on campus, members of this ilk are the studious ones, who are immaculate in their time management skills. Lights are turned off sharply no later than 12:30 and are back in action at morning 6:30 or at the max by 7:00. Fully charged and raring to go to class. For statistical purpose this group constitutes 10% of the population here.

Bataktha Hua Aathma:This kind goes for a staggered sleep. They dont have any fixed time to sleep, their target is to complete 6-7 hours of sleep, come in whichever form. So don't be surprised to find members of this group sleeping in between classes, during classes when the Prof has turned his back this after ensuring that they have completed their CP quota for the day.This group constitutes 20% of the population

Give Me More:This is the greedy group, obsessed about sleep, nothing comes before sleep, come what may this group SLEEPS.Assignments, Team Meetings, Mid Terms, End Terms everything under the Sun and the Moon take a backseat. But members of the group usually are in the extremes when it comes to cracking tests, either they smash it or get smashed. This group constitutes 20% of the population

Idhar Bhi Nahi Udhar Bhi Nahi: This group follows the LP principle:

Maximize Your Sleep

s.t Team Meetings
Mid Terms
Case Submissions
Party's and what not

Member of this group have confessed to changing their priorities when the alarm goes off in the morning.They also follow the Incremental methodology when the alarm goes off, it goes something like this....Alarm is put in snooze and within the next 5 minutes the subject wakes up 6 times to ensure that he/she(I am not Gender Biased) has sufficient time to steal some more winks.

Rest of the population fits in....(Tired of maths)

Long Time No See

2005-11-18T23:26:00.000-08:00

Its been quite some time since I gave some notice to my blog. First and Foremost My Best wishes to all those who are giving CAT this Year. May the Force be with you.

What should I be putting in this post??? Guess I will speak about some of the ads which have caught my eye, the best and the worst. So here goes the list:

Maruti: Promoting-Who gave such a big car?- My Dad's Big Car. Cute Ad goes well with Maruti's image. Particularly the kid who steals the show, guess a lot of us would have experienced a similar feeling in our childhood. Even today there are a number of households where the Dad goes for a small ride with the kid before leaving for office. And the joy of reaching school with your dad is something which has been aptly portrayed in this ad.In recent times Maruti has come out with some good ones. The Alto one is also a nice one, guess it is Shuba Mudgal who has lent her voice for the nice jingle in the backdrop and in the recent past they had this Sardarji who would take his car for a ride which would never stop.

Coke: This seems to be different from the usual cola ads, trying to build loyalty towards Coke with this 'Sar Utake Piyo'..that one is good with the neat crisp snapshots, but the one where Aamir comes out with 'ameRRica ho ya amritsar' is indigestible why this stress on ammeRRica.

Bajaj Fans: This is a big no-no, what is this visual with a tea cup kept with a spoon which stirs coz of the fan, what a connection that is, there could be a better way of conveying the message.

Tata Indicom: I love this one, a nice spoof with Ajay and Kajol doing a good job, particularly the one where Ajay comes out with 'Sunai nahi de raha hai' would have a stuck a neat chord with many of us here.

Dabur Sona Chandi They have 2 ads being aired, the one featuring SRK seems to be big monologue on the advantages of Sona Chandi I think this would be the informative one, this is ok considering the other featuring Sunny Deol is pure action couldn't help laughing while seeing the Deol Ad. Crap!

Nameless Don't remember the brand name but its a Banian Ad in which our hulk Salman does a MI-2 style feat to save a puppy. Big time Crap!

Cricketonomics

2005-11-07T03:02:00.000-08:00

A nice article on strike rates and mode

Check it here

Can't think of anything for the moment

2005-11-05T05:24:00.000-08:00

Have nothing to do and that makes me go crazy, there are days when my eyes plead looking at the clock in my comp and there are days like now when I just want them to zoom ahead. A lot of courses this term have a sizeable chunk allocated to projects and presentations, that we were left with just 2 courses for the Mid-Term. People who were thru with their mid-terms have left the campus for sightseeing. A few of us are stuck here coz of the unfinished mid-terms. Now the break is too much it just makes you lose tempo, like facing a slow delivery, your timing goes for a toss.

So here I am increasing my post count, check the following posts which I thought were cool Diwali Musings , and this

Indian Juggernaut - Diwali Dhamaka

2005-11-03T05:43:00.000-08:00

This Diwali indeed has seen the revival of fortunes for the Indian Team,all of a sudden the Men In Blue are kicking a$$.What do you say with the kinda of performance which has been putforth. There is this big grin in the face of Chappell these days, atlast all those De Bono methods are paying dividends I guess.

Here the canteen has been beseiged by PGP-I&II that getting a best spot to watch the match is becoming a contest by itself. This series has been so good so far that this reminds me of the Aussie Series which was an exemplary exhibition of grit and aggression, and for that all famous 'seizing the momentum'.

Lot of parallels between these two, if Dada showed the way there, it was the GOD who did a comeback with style, what a comeback this has been, the way Sachin played the first two matches I am sure any misgivings about his ability by anyone
would have been instantly extinguished.And if it was the 'Sachin show' at Nagpur and Mohali then it was the 'Dhoni Dhamaka' at Jaipur, man his was a scintilliating performance.

The Indians have literally toyed with the Lankans, the number 3 has been experimented with like hell this series, it is as if like we can send in any one at number 3 and he will smash them out. Each of the matches played so far has seen different guys at Number 3 and all of them have clicked big time save for today's match.

The Indians have not only won the matches but each of the wins have been so convincing that they have dealt a killer blow to the morale of the Lankans. Jayasuriya, Murali, Chandana, Jayawardene who generally relish the Indian attack have all been tamed with ease.

Reading the Hindu has become a regular fixture for me these days, what with Dinakar.S boosting the day with a real good coverage of the Indian exploits. These are times which need to be 'relished.

Ofcourse there would be one soul who would be wondering what went wrong when he was around....

Happennings

2005-10-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I actually sat back and reflected on the happennings which have been occuring at break neck speed here this Term. The Summer Placements have been a smashing success at K this year around. The batch of 160 was placed in 4 days flat,with no compromise on the quality of companies.

The first half of this term was entirely devoted to the Summers, filling up company forms, submitting your Bio-D's for 'Mystery Companies' whose names were revealed very shortly before the commencement of Summers ensured that all of us were busy. People racked up their brains to recall instances at School, College, Professional life when they had espoused initiative, a non traditional approach to problem solving, etc etc.,all of a sudden we realised that we were in the company of people who had a 'purpose' all thru their life.

Phillip Kotler, Demand-Supply mechanisms, Segmentation, Targetting, Positioning, Distribution channels, Top 10 companies in NASSCOM, Where are Indian IT companies heading to, Why did the Chinese revalue the Yuan, Will SENSEX continue its heady run, what's been the difference between the earlier and the present run, Dupont Ratio, P-E Ratio, RoI ratios and all sundry were dissected, and debated before the Summers.

Summers began and with a bang, days changed to being called as Day 0, Day 1, Day 2...experiences of seniors were sought after, plethora of emotions ranging from pure joy to sorrow, frustration, disappointment, all these things came out very clearly, but should say that the batch braved it all with Optimism and hope. People who had their offers didn't sit back to bask in their glory, rather did their bit in boosting the people who were yet to have their offers, or were volunteering.

The one thing which came out strong in this whole process was the bonding between the Senior batch and ours. It was like they were slugging it out as hard as we were for our summers, and the processes instituted to tide over the madness which unfolded on Day-1 was mind-boggling. All of us felt we were in good hands, hope we reciprocate the same for their finals.

Incase you are interested in knowing the details...you can have a look at here or here

Its been a happenning Week

2005-10-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yup its been a rollercoaster of a week, never have I felt the time crunch so far, time to reflect/brood/crib were compressed or were never given a chance. More on this later...

This term has been filled with Management games being played day-in and day-out. I should say that K is rocking this term by cracking some online games, and the prizes are cool enuff to wipe a sizeable chunk of your Term fees. I guess companies are making use of budding consultants at rates which are peanuts compared to the professional ones. After all these are guys who graduate to that level a couple of years later, IIM-Ahmedabad's 'Confluence' has a B-Plan contest which is gonna be judged by Mukesh Ambani, Hitesh Meswani and others, cash prizes nowadays are being fixed at anywhere between 10-15K, daily round of quizzes carry 1K. Some of these institutes even invite ppl from outside the B-school fraternity to participate in these.

So what are you waiting for, give a crack at these games, currently we have IIM-A's Confluence and IIM-B's Vista Happening.

Have you taken Note of this?

2005-10-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

GENPACT

I am luving it.......

My Fotos

2005-10-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Some Ideas on Economics & Finance

2005-10-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Sometime during my work a couple of us used to crib that we didn't have any good book which would teach us the basics of Finance and Economics. Some how our google searched didn't take us to nice sites then, one thing a like over here is the books which are prescribed, they are lucid and open the doors to the exciting world of Finance and Economics, a couple of exercises on Time Value of Money is sufficient for one to realise how we are being taken for a ride by all these so called borrower friendly financial intermediaries(that's jargon number 1 of the post), Anyway if some one out there is interested to know the A, B, C's of Finance then the book to pounce upon is Financial Management By Prasanna Chandra.Incase you are looking at quickies on Eco then I would recommend investopedia.com.

After a long time we would be giving our first quiz tomorrow!

Currently am listening to 'Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal', the mellifluous voice of SPB and the unbeatable melody of Raja are slowly driving me drowsy. Check the following lyrics..

.........azhagaana manaivi anbaana thunaivi adaindhaalae paerinbamae

nalla manaiyaalin naesam oru koadi nenjamenum veenai paadumae thoadi

sandhoasha saamraajyamae...

Vaali at his best..

Horizons 2005 - India UnLtd

2005-10-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

This seems to be the season of management fests, online games etc, there have been innumerable mails flooding my inbox with contests for B-Plans, Quizzes, Marketing Simulation contexts and the famous Dalal Street variants.

I still remember my days in Pilani where we used to have a similar variant of Stock Market games only difference being it used to be a manual affair then, there used to be a person sitting in the Hostel messes who will register your dealings, I can't imagine how gruelling it would have been. But thanks to IT now this is done with much more ease, and the whole process is a close simulator of the 'real' market.

Speaking of management fests, we too have our very own baby - 'Horizons' and it is happenning this weekend to know more about this visit http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13957778. Closer home you can have a look @ http://intranet.iimk.ac.in/events/horizons/

On other news, the campus is gripped with Summers fever.

Nunalum than vayal....

2005-09-29T02:55:00.000-07:00

Term 2 has begun and so far its been ok...touch wood..the only thing which is keeping all of us busy is the resume submission for Summers, the process is expected to start soon...this term should be light as we have just 7 courses and already Financial Management seems to be a hit with the batch which interesting anecdotes of market falls and people exhibiting a lot of enthu.

On other news Ganguly has disappointed all of us I guess, the respect the man had earned was all thrown out with a single act of stupidity. Couldn't help recalling 'Pudu Pudu Arthangal' dialogue of 'Pirabalam nale Problem dhan sir...", just the sheer enthu to hit back at Chappell made him open a can of worms and result in irreversible damage.

Chappell isn't to be taken lightly either, with all those shots at the pool table I thought the issue would come to a close but what was that mail about, and Mr. Ranbir Mahendra helped further by 'leaking' it to the media....then the usual spineless show from the BCCI, they too earned their share of the Media...and I am fed up reading this story again and again..We should go the Aussie way and show the door to Ganguly that will discipline the others in the team too, and by chucking Ganguly do we lose anything? then why this hesitation?

Pending ones:

Reviews of Movies

Back to K

2005-09-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Back to K, the holidays were a bit boring after a few days mainly due to the heat in Chennai, guess Chennai is fast turning into a desert. Had great food, slept like hell guess I made up for the lack of it in Term , saw 3 movies Ah Aah, Thotti Jaya & Ullam Ketkume. Ah Aah had a good concept but badly executed and to top it we had S.J.Suryah who comes across as a T.Rajender of the modern times, Thotti Jaya had tight first half only to come as a big loser in the second half, Simbu rocks only thing which piqued while watching the movie was simbu bashing goons twice or even thrice his size, Ullam Ketkume was the BEST, the movie inspite of having a lot of producer controversies has been a smashing hit. couldn't stop wondering what it would have been had it been promoted properly. A simple college story but the strength of it was in projecting the college life as it is, the cast was too good. special mention to Shaam, and the upcoming star Arya. The movie left me yearning for more, was a touch disappointed that it got over soon.

On other news I have got a sleek

http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/29_C-370_ZOOM.htm> Olympus C-370 <\a> so you can expect a lot more snaps from me this term...

More to follow soon....

Term 1 Amen!

2005-09-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

Term 1 finally has come to a close, even today ppl were scurrying around to get the printouts of an Assignment which had to be submitted by 5.00 today. We were to dug out today with Managerial Accounting and Micro Economics, two of the toughest courses in Term 1 but handled by super-dooper Profs who break the concepts effortlessly and also ensure that it gets into your thick skull. My performance was average I guess not sure let me hold guard until the 26th when we will get ready to face Term 2.

Term 1 was a revelation towards the end, life was pretty balanced till then, note that balanced here doesn't mean it was 'cool' as in 'cool', atleast I got to skim the paper, play a game of TT or two here and there but this scenario changed without notice for the last two weeks. Each and every minute counted, the TT room was deserted and the entire batch was battling it out. Yup battling it out, that would be the perfect term it wasn't for grades or anything it was for survival. But the entire pressure was enjoyable too, in the sense you get a feel as if you have become responsible and much more what say 'idealistic'. Ppl discussing about Stackelberg, Credits Debits, Reconciliation Statement over lunch and dinner was an indicator as to what we were put to.

This place ensures that you are serious and provides you all that is needed for you to take things seriously. Be it in terms of infrastructure, the Profs, your batch mates everyone conspire to make this a truly enjoyabale experience.

This Term has been pretty decent atleast I am happy that I put in very good efforts, atleast the satisfaction is there(Now will you stop this!!!)

Guess my blogging takes a hit.....Anyway catch you all later. Yawn!!

Listening to: Kadhal Sadugudu.... It is bliss

Yipee

2005-09-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

Me gonna home in another 4 hrs

Which POTC character r u

2005-09-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

You're Will Turner - Lovestruck swordsman, funky hat, too pretty by far. You're loyal, honest, courageous... and a pirate. Lucky Elizabeth.

Which POTC character are you?
this quiz was made by

2 Good

2005-09-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Can't Tax my brain for a Title

2005-09-09T04:11:00.000-07:00

Will Sania create more history?

Sania atleast gave a fight, didn't lose the game in spirit.

Will India do a turnaround in the ongoing series?

Who is going to give that Killer Instinct, Self Belief tonic this time around, India is fast regressing to be a very very ordinary team, inspite of having the big names in the game. It was Ganguly and Wright who gave the Jhutka some time around, now Wright has left and Ganguly himself is in search of revitalization. No more Ganguly bashing...some time back I wrote a post saying that this guy needs to be given some time, but guess that is uncalled for now, the message needs to be conveyed. When the teams for the Afro-Asian cricket series(hope I got that correct!) Ganguly came out saying that it wasn't fair to judge him without taking into account the 10,000 odd runs he had scored. Guess he needs to be lucky that the world came to know of his weakness after 10,000 runs.....Phew he was one lucky @#$%...Even Bangladesh's 'spearhead' bowlers lick their lips when they see Ganguly at the crease.... Dada come on....

Will India help in improving the value of Shane Bond?

Partial success.

Will Term 1 get over decently?

With the way things having been unfolding these days, guess I should consider myself lucky to scamper thru', Exchange program and many other related things are treading on thin ice...

4 down 3 to go....

Uske baadh

1. Sleep

2. More Sleep

3. Sweet confines of my home

4. Mom's food

5. Oru Naal Oru Kanavu, Daas, and any more I can get my hands on...

6. Something constructive (Am I kidding ?)

News from K

2005-09-04T04:42:00.000-07:00

Last two days PGP 09 has been running around the campus with brands like SALT, SIRO, VIVA, SUMO trying to capture the Buffs, Singles, Hi Earners, Followers etc. The Marketing course has come to a close and as part of our evaluation we had to play a simulation game which would require us to put the concepts to practice.

The exercise was a major hit amongst the students,with ppl racking their brains as to how to undercut the other, how to resolve conflicting goals etc. The sections were divided into Markets with limited number of players in each market. The players were teams of 5 who had to design the entire stuff like Sales Force Allocation, Ad Allocations etc, suddenly Perceptual Maps, Semantic Scales made much more sense.The exercise was spread over 8 sessions spanned over two days starting from yesterday.

Day 1 was a disaster for my Team and we were at rock bottom in almost all parameters used to judge the performance of the team. But some sensible thinking, coupled with effective usage of Market Research studies helped us zoom in Day 2 and we ended up with good scores in few of the parameters, and an average performance in the overall scenario. This was too good given the start we had yesterday.

On other news, Time management has hit new bench marks and we have a barrage of Assignments, Project Presentations, End Terms staring at us for next week. Planning has gone for a toss, ppl are acting impulsively. Did some one say MBA was difficult?, well now I would definitely agree. Do we spell sleep as S-L-E-E-P?

To rub salt, the seniors have completed their end terms and are leaving today....

Eagerly Awaiting:

Will Sania create more history?
Will India do a turnaround in the ongoing series?
Will India help in improving the value of Shane Bond?
Will Term 1 get over decently?

Why do we Cocoon Ourselves

2005-08-29T01:59:00.000-07:00

Offlate I get to see a lot of activity amongst my friends circle, one has quit his job and has taken the decision to prepare for the Civil Services this after a MBA from one of the top notch institutes and working for one of the best business house in India, the other started his own business sometime back, one another has chucked off his PhD as it didn't relate to his career goals.

When people known to you show the courage to take up some offbeat decisions like these and make a conscious decision to break out from the cocoon(Hence the title!) of comfort, it sets you thinking.

Why does it look courageous? Is it because our societal set-up, family upbringing, or to put it under one word 'the Indian ethos' don't encourage risk taking? Why are Indians so averse to risk taking, what prevents them, are we so overawed by the fear of failure that we hesitate to even put a year or two at risk. Is there any theory relating the risk taking abilities of people of a nation with their economies? Education in India has always been viewed as the only way to richness atleast for the majority who fall under the bracket of 'middle class', how many times do we see/hear stories of parents putting all that they can to ensure that their children get into the best of schools, attend all the coaching classes possible under the sun so that they can make it into the hallowed portals of the IIT's and IIM's, how many of us also take the same decision just by going with the placement headline which makes it way year after year. Why doesn't that mindset change

Coming back to my earlier question of economic development being related to job decisions(risk taking abiliites) 70's and 80's used to be the era of govt. servants, if you said you were working for a private concern it used to be looked down...But post liberalisation and stuff nowadays ppl are less shocked if you tell them that you are a fashion designer, Radio Jockey. (Note: even now we are shocked) nowadays govt services is being looked down. Check out how the destiny of a person changes just because of his nation's economic growth..

Of Jargons

2005-08-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

As already mentioned this week has been reeling at a hectic pace and suddenly we are in a swarm of Jargons, MBA seems to have a jargon whereever and whenever possible, so much that remembering jargons is becoming increasingly difficult.... We had our Organization Behaviour course coming to a close this term. The journey has been pretty smooth and you won't believe this close to 99% of my batch has 100% attendance for this course, so that should be a fair indicator of how the classes have been conducted.

The gut feel I had when I saw OB in the course structure at the start of this term was that another theory loaded course which is going to be a test for my retention but the Prof had better plans in his mind, this guy has been teaching at A, B and C and now he has come down to K, its a treat to be in his classes.Have already decided to take up any elective offered by this guy.

Coming to other news..Debanjan from our batch participated in our apna Kaun Banega Crorepati and has won 6 lacs... the batch has decided to celebrate this success in a grand fashion ofcourse at the cost of Debanjan :)...

Google Talk has been raging here from yesterday... if IP was supposed to make matters simpler then G-Talk has gone a step ahead....

Week is yet to come to a close and we got the shocker when we saw the timetable for the coming weekend. :(, there goes my leisure time....

Pending ones: No clue as to whats happening outside IIM, K, the newspaper which unfailingly comes in everyday is being properly redirected to the shelf... and to top this I have subscribed for India Today from last week.. after all we need to be aware of wht's happening around us u c..

GodFather

2005-08-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Last night was so vetti that I sat down to watch my all time favorite flick Godfather Part III. Don't hink I am bereft of work.. We have loads of tests, assignments, projects lined up but still the occasional rebel in me takes charge. Getting back to Godfather Part III, to sum it up it was simbly incredible, The standout feature of any part in Godfather is the BGM.. haunting should say, ven after I hit bed the music was running in a loop...I expected the movie to have a dhamaka start, the first scene where this guy gets conferred the Order by the church and he walks down the aisle... I expected this guy to be shot mebbe by the son of Fredo and the movie getting into a narrative mode with Al Pacino being the narrator but alas that was not to be, nevertheless the climax gave the much expected shock, the movie also had the usual Godfather touch in dialogues like

"Do not overestimate forgiveness" when Micky strikes the deal with the Vatican
Advices to Vincent
"Keep your friends close. But keep your enemies closer"
"Never let anyone know what you are thinking"
"Vincent henceforth be called as Vincent Corleone" - This was the God Father touch particularly the scene showing the full circle, when Andy Garcia takes the chair. Andy Garcia stands out in portraying the same intensity shown by Sunny in Part I, worthy inheritor and this guy is the stylish when it comes to handling revolver.

Other things which were touching was the way Micheal changes his demeanour when he meets his lawyers son at the Vatican this immediately after the backstabbing by Immobilaire.

In many ways this movie was a rehash of the earlier ones with an attempt to portray the difficulties Mickey is facing in proving that he did everything just "to protect the family", and the guilt which hungs around him, and the sorrow which keeps on piling the loss of loved ones...his daughter, his sicilian love and the way Kay 'dreads' him...

Too good. This movie is an all time standout, lovely script, taut screenplay and excellant choices for the roles, and who can forget the punch the one liners pack in....

Ladies and Gentlemen join your hands for Francis Ford Cuppola.

Absolutely Insane

2005-08-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

There are 5680 images thrown if you search 4 'Narayanan' in Google

AIMS 2005

2005-08-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

Annual IT Management Seminar, AIMS 2005 kicked off today here. The Theme of the seminar was "IT India: Crossing the Chasm". The following speakers spoke on this today:

Ajit Balakrishnan, founder & CEO, rediff.com, on entrepreneurship in e-business, current challenges and future perspectives.
Sriniketh Raman, senior manager, corporate development, Cognizant Technology Solutions, on the next big steps in offshore IT.
Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer, Wipro Technologies, on marketing of IT Solutions.
K Ganesh, non-executive chairman, Marketics, ex-founder and CEO, CustomerAsset/ ICICI One Source
Anjani Mandal, head, financial services division, TechSpan, on medium-sized niche services companies in the IT spectrum.
Colonel Das, Encore Technologies & Chairman, Simputer Trust, on new market development and marketing.

Tomorrow we have,
Aruna Jayanthi, VP and head of outsourcing, Cap Gemini, on the challenges faced by today's outsourcing vendors.
Sunil Chitale, senior VP and head, manufacturing SBU, Patni
Viswanathan Krishnamurthi, CIO, Yahoo! Bangalore

Watch this space for more details!! Also follow Rediff which is gonna cover this...

Are you rational ?

2005-08-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

Microeconomics has held my attention right from day one here, the prof is amazing, and the way the batch scampers to a ME class, ofcourse not because it's got compulsory attendance or so, speaks volumes about the calibre of this guy. Post Mid Term we have started with Game theory and there was this small test by the prof, which I thought I will share here.

Assume there are three people : A, B, and C. A gives B 10, 10 Rupee Notes. B is the decision maker that is he has the final say, C is a slave of B. Now B has the option to donate a few notes to C. C has the choice to either accept or reject the offer made by B.

If C accepts the offer then B and C get to keep the notes in the proportion which B has decided. If C rejects the offer then A takes back the amount from B leaving B and C with Zilch.

Also assume that both guys are rational and both are aware that the other one is selfish and the other one is aware of the fact that self is also selfish.

How much will B offer?

I think I will wait for a few days b4 posting in the results and an interesting info on this test.

On other news the pace is steadily being stepped up and in another month we have got the end-terms looming up and we have got a lot of Project submissions b4 that.

Mid Terms are Over

2005-08-05T12:07:00.001-07:00

Mid Terms are over and the batch is in a joyous mood, few guys from the batch have gone back home to meet their near and dear ones, Yours truly had a nice sleep got to watch 'The Bridge on River Kwai' the movie is simbly superb and the fact that the movie was made in 1957 further awes you. The characterisation and the story line are too good, more on the movie later.

Got a fone call from ~N and it was a pleasant surprise, talks like these just press the rewind button in life and make you re live the best moments again. It was good to hear a string of good news from ~N's side. One incident which got both of us rolling on the floor was the Sardar one.

<<< 2 Years earlier, Shirine Gardens, Block G >>>

~N and yours truly have just returned from Office and these are desperate times as both of us are desperately trying to get out of our companies and attain Moksha thru CAT. Both the guys are in the living room cribbing out as to why life sucks in the corporate world and how Nirvana is going to be attained thru CAT. The reason for the talk being to while away time until we get out Dabbas.

Initially we were cooking, yes you need to believe this, we used to have a simple fare of Dal, Rice and Egg, now these were times when we were Team members and could afford the luxury of getting out of Office by 5.30. But as CAT approached the work pressure also increased (Murphy's Law always holds good) and the only way to find time was to cut away the luxury of ghar ka khana and outsource it to a dear old Sardarji who was already carrying out the service in our area.

Coming back to the scene, there is this solid knock on the door signalling the arrival of our friend, I rush to take the dabbas, there he is doing the balancing act with the dabbas and today he has a bag of Onions, the bag of onions was instantly dismissed by me, I thought he would have got it for himself this guy gives me the 2 dabbas and when I get ready to give my trademark polite smile and close the door, this guy stops me and gives the bag of onions.

And then goes on 'Aapka friend ne bola tha ki pyaaz chahiye, isiliye mein aaj karid ke aaya hoon, rakh lijiye agar katham hogaya tho bathadhijiye mein aur leke dedoonga' I was for a moment surprised, humoured, wanted to just laugh out like hell, till that incident I was thinking that Sardars were unnecessarily bullied, but that incident made me question my own belief.

Anyway once the door was shut, both of us were ROTWL.

Disclaimer

2005-08-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

The previous post is a direct result of watching Anniyan, guess there is someone here........

Kitta Thatta Mudincha Madhiri

2005-08-02T04:41:00.000-07:00

The Midterms are sort of coming to a conclusion, Accounting is still to go and once that gets over guess junta will call it over. Midterms so far have been peaceful, giving us no unpleasant surprises and junta have got over their initial love for the lappies. Guess it is Law of Diminishing returns working here,probability of cracking the test was high a priori to the event but on posterior analysis few sections of the batch feels that the probability went for a dip. Ofcourse this is suspect as the sample considered couldn't be taken to a representation of the entire batch you see, now if you have reached till here then it means that you are interested in reading crap or would be cynically expecting my crap to continue, or maybe optimistically expecting that I write some sense atleast beyond this. So why the hell is ~N crapping out today, on a detailed self-analysis ~N comes to the conclusion that this could be attributable to the following reasons

1. Lack of sleep not be confused with insomnia but due to the rising workload
2. The sudden surge of jargons in ~N's dictionary which he wants to blurt out as soon as possible
3. Probably the mid-terms coming to a close is driving ~N crazy

Ab bahut ho gaya, guess will stop here, btw did you guys catch the latest revealation by Aaj tak regarding some bribery scandal, now y do newschannel get into this stunt very often nowadays I can understand if it is from India Tv as they are still trying to catch the market share( Not sure where exactly they fall in the BCG matrix) but why Aaj Tak.

Anniyan **

2005-07-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

**** - Why doesn't it Proceed any further, Chalte Jhao, Chalthe Jhao
*** - Feel Good
** - Scrapped thru in the Theatre
* - Where are the Exits

Finally saw Anniyan with my baby, and the first few scenes didn't have any impact on me, nothing remotely close to the ones we are used to in some of Shankar's earlier good ones like Indian, Gentleman etc. Sada fails miserably in her Iyerathu ponnu looks, and why does Shankar go for cliched ones like the Patu class it was something similar to 'Thalapathi' Sobhana, Coming to the Analysis

+

Vikram this guy rocks, succeeds in fleshing out the MPD characters Anniyan and Remo
cool body language. Particularly the climax when both the characters ambi and anniyan come together, that was neatly done

Vivek, this guy finally gets back to form, liked the 'Control pannuda ambi', 'palpandi and virumaandi' ones

-

Nothing special, some dialogues were more or less similar to Indian Thatha, particularly the first murder

MPD was discussed a bit too much, would have made sense had the movie been released before CM.

Unnecessary Prakash Raj, why does he get into this mufti role right from the beginning, no strong reason, and the reasoning that one of the murdered fellow was his brother was sodhappal logic.

On the whole a very very ordinary film some how dragged to the finishing line by the one and only Chiyaan. Shankar is still yet to deliver, where is the spark?

Got my Baby

2005-07-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Got my Baby today after much hullaboo, mid-terms starting on monday and here I am typing out my sweet nothing, anyway mid-term tho ab badme, let me ensure that by baby gets all the vaccinations against the filthy virus and nutrients like office suite etc etc

Annanaku Jai! Kudirai thulli summa thulli odudhu

2005-07-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

Simbly irresistible, got a mail highlighting the records made by CM, will post that one also soon!

Gimme a Brk

2005-07-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

Couldn't resist the temptation to blog, a sign of rebellion against the numerous assignments, tests, quizzes which are piling on.Last weekend we had our Marketing Seminar 'Synapse' the theme of which was ' The Brand New World: Local Competancies and Global Challenges', too good an event. We had some very good speakers notable among them being Balakrishnan(Balki) the National creative head of Lowe, Mr.Ramachandran IIM-A alumni who is now heading Littler Associates, Mr.Hemant Malik IIM-C alumni who is heading the Foods division of ITC etc. Whether the talks related to the theme is debatable but the viewpoints put forth on the topics which they felt was appropriate for the event, were too good.

Particular among them being Mr.Ramachandran who just had 5 points on MR to be shared with the students but the presentation was simply superb. He was able to relate his experiences to the expectations and come out with something which kept the audience spell bound. The afternoon session in Day 1 was when we had Balki who had a presentation on the brain wave which goes behind in creating Ads, some interesting ads shown were the Sardar-Savithri-Greenply Ad, Saint Gobain, Fair & Lovely, Liril, Basmati, Fasttrack etc. If Saint Gobain was to keep the ad short and simple and not get to a point were you give undue importance to the Glass, then Liril was to give a 'naughty' idea to the customer and get a whiff of freshness and move away from the Waterfall ad, this guy rocked and most of us yearned for the talk to continue. The event was kicked off by the dynamic talk of Hemant Malik who was too good and kept the audience on theri toes with his frequent questions.

Everything was fine save for the fact that this week is Jam-packed, have been giving surprise quizzes and tests almost everyday and our schedule fortunately comes to a close tomorrow with the Marketing Quiz.After a brief respite we once again slog for our Mid-Terms which begin next week.

Previously when ppl used to remark about B-Schools being hectic in their blogs, I used to think that was due to bad time-management, but now I feel otherwise. Anyway this is a pain which is pleasurable.(Optimistic Me!)

Pending: Sarkar Review...

Fotos

2005-07-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Long shot of the Institute Building

Meditation Circle - After all Managers are under a lot of stress you see!!

Pathway between Hostel Blocks
Another long shot from the bottom of the hill
Famed Corridors ala Vastrapur Style
Administrative Block
Classroom Block

Buzz is Bac

2005-07-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

Back to the familiar world of marks, grades, projects, assignments, CGPA and stuff. I am well settled into the world of B-Schools, the one I had been longing to be part of.This week has been hectic and the forecast for next week too looks bleak. Jimmy Carter's resolution on Gasoline, Production function of Bat-Co, Probablity of XYZ completing their maintenance on time, Myth of Hinduism, Balancing the accounts for Softomation have been the issues of interest for 165 souls here for the last one week.Classes are getting real interesting(Serious me not kidding) and the revelations which dawn upon you when a concept is taught is something which is unputdownable in words.

On the lighter side we have got our Sports activities, committee activities for the upcoming seminars and stuff getting started on.

Will pen down my Sarkar review later

For the time being Asta La Vista

Trivia

2005-07-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/14coke.htm

The Apprentice

2005-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

For the first time, time was at a premium for me in IIM, K. We had the selections for the Media Cell group here and as usual we had a lot of nominations and stuff and after the careful 'screening' by our seniors the list had been pruned down and we were to have some sort of selection earlier this evening. I was expecting some sort of global gyaan to be doled by us as to Why Media Cell? blah blah or an exercise where we need to defend our sops(which we had written earlier) but there was a twist ala Manoj Shyamalan's style, we were divided into groups of 4 and were given a simulated exercise.

Sort of role play stuff and the seniors did a good job in terms of playing the parts and we were given an hours time to complete our data gathering and come out with a press release for a soon to be organised event at K. The entire exercise reminded me of the 'The Apprentice' show running on Star World with its time constraint, the need to convince your group and also to put your best foot as at the end of day everyone is fighting for his survival, providing stuffs like laptops etc. Striking feature of the entire exercise was the professionalism element and a dose of rationality for their selection process.

Answers for no takers

2005-07-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

1. What is fear of aibohphobia?
Fear of Palindromes, workable ain't it

2.Which city is situated on the Salsette Island?
Aamchi Mumbai

4.What is the claim to fame of Sopan More?
Dabawalla invited for Prince Charles wedding

5.What did Viswamitra sing to wake up Rama?
Our very own Suprabatham

Think about these

2005-07-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

1. What is fear of aibohphobia?
2. Which city is situated on the Salsette Island?
3.What have Mr and Mrs. Malpani contributed to India?
4.What is the claim to fame of Sopan More?
5.What did Viswamitra sing to wake up Rama?

Comment in your answers and wait for the 'Answers' post pretty soon.

Su|do|Ku

2005-07-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Sudoku puzzles have been the latest addiction I have got myself involved with, probably the challenge factor is what makes me do it(good one to brag about ain't it), guess the Hindu has graduated from the Crosswords to this one which I should say isn't much taxing than the crossword ones, the first time I have seen a large number grappling with the Hindu crosswords were in mu college mess particularly by the GRE aspirants. The only time I ever came close to those anagrams and crossword stuffs was when I organised a Treasure Hunt on campus along with ~L, speaking of ~L was very happy to hear that he got his visa done for Univ of Wisconsin, a real sweet one given the numerous twists and turns he has witnessed after graduation. Coming back to sudoku, if you are interested check this site http://www.sudoku.com/

Awaiting my R-52

2005-07-04T02:26:00.000-07:00

Chances of frequent blogging directly proportional to the date of arrival of my R-52. This would be the xplanation for my irregularity.I am waiting eagerly for my R-52 which is expected in another 2 weeks time, after which hopefully my frequency of blogging will increase.

2 people satisfy the necessary condition for a meeting, and warranty a powerpoint presentation and more importantly call for Bulk deals but whos complaining given the fact that 'More is Better' even MicroEconomics vouches this principle. On other reports nothing much happenning save for the fact that analysis of a rational consumer has taken the highest priority on campus. The next time I go to purchase something guess utility functions and stuff will automatically creep into my mind.

The courses have started entering the serious phase after the honeymoon period we were having till now, election buzz has also started slowly and the contenders whom I had mentioned early have started emerging out of the shadows, guess we should be having an interesting period now.

Paheli **

2005-06-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

Thought of starting with the ratings stuff aka TOI style or for that matter any review. Ananda Vikatan's percentages used to be good too, but guess rating it on percentages recovers a bit more thought, guess will stick to the friendly **. Since its the first post will begin with the legend

**** - Why doesn't it Proceed any further, Chalte Jhao, Chalthe Jhao
*** - Feel Good
** - Scrapped thru in the Theatre
* - Where are the Exits

Had a lot of expectations - courtesy the ingredients for this one - Amol Palekar I had seen his Anahaat and was impressed, Shahrukh after his excellant outing in Swades thought this one will also be good since he is in the company of Amol, but alas that wasn't to be.

Ghost falls in love with a Rajesthani dusky beauty, Indifferent husband who is more interested in "Phoolu, Falu, Gulabu" goes for trade the second day after their marriage for a period of 5 years, desperate Ghost takes his form professes its(or should it be his) love for the female and the female accedes and they live happily till the original one comes back, and the movie ends with a dud of a climax which makes you wonder as to why the hell the ghost waited for 2 hrs.

Key Observations:

1. Guess Amol Palekar was given a free ride with the Budget, seeing the choreography whether this one is from the Sanjay Leela Bhan.. stable

2. Rani is cute guess this has been an easy of a movie for both the stars after the draining Swades and Black

3. Songs come one after the another and remind you of Rangoli, Chitrahaar and blah,blah
Music though was good

4. Amitabh still rocks with his baritone, given him any slang and this guy tops it.

Trivia:
1. First movie to be watched with cramped leg space in Calicut

City of Cocunuts

2005-06-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

Cocunut trees are present anywhere and everywhere, Rain gods seem to have devoted all their efforts to Kerala, probably since its their country. Week end was dull and drab until we decided to scout around the city for some 'scientific calculators' - I thought these esoteric machines have utility only for my engineering, but these guys have resurfaced and I had to get one, so three little mice who had different wishlists made their way to Calicut, now calicut's biggest shopping centre(namesake) is a place called Palayam where we landed with no trouble, we thought we will entertain ourselves to Anniyan but as luck would have had it couldn't get the tickets, seems like Shankar weaves his magic across south, more shocking was the reply by one of the guys near the gates who said that 'there is no culture of black tickets' on our enquiry - made us look like a No.10 batsman trying to get his bat down only to find his stumps in a disarray - courtesy the Rawalpindi Express, hope it was said in jest/sarcasm, he didn't mean it didn't he?.

But this didn't deter us and as the navyug managers who respond to changes, decided to go for Paheli, the bhooth falling in love with a dusky beauty(more on it later), found that it was difficult to get myself to this after enjoying the luxuries of Prasadz, Inox and stuff. Movie done the next logical move was to fill our stomachs during which we got to see the Kerala express - P.T. Usha.
All done, retreated back to Kunnamangalam to our abodes.

Life at K

2005-06-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

Previous post was made in a time crunch, had to rush up, thought will spend more time to let out my initial impression of this lovely place.

21st June was the day and as our train started moving out of chennai leaving back tearful farewell bid by our near and dear ones, 6 excited souls started chattering incessantly in AS1, much to the irritation of others in the bay. Landed at Calicut and had a mixed welcome, with the weather being a total hit with all. Comrades wanted to have a break I guess, there was this Road Hartal protesting against the fuel hike and the chances of getting to the campus looked to be filled with trouble. Guys started to mingle, the usual 'I am so and so and am from stuff' but after a while with no signs of the seniors some of them started getting a bit restless and just then the seniors made their entry with full police escort and stuff, whole affair being pretty well managed. On reaching the campus should say that I was truly captivated by the scenic beauty, the way the insti is perched on top of the hill is simply breathtaking. One thing which awes me is the infrastructure, we had the library centre orientation today and man it was mindblowing stuff, the amount of information available here should rival the best.

Negotiations, Bulk deals seem to be the buzz words for the moment, people look to bargain on anything and everything, given the slightest of oppurtunity. But who's complaining the cheaper the better. Scon members of our senior batch have already made a big mark amongst us and can already see people from my batch who aspire to be in the same position.

On the crazier side, had our first party at hostel yesterday, wonderfully done by the hostel seniors. The party had a good enuff Ice Breaker effect, and a party for the entire batch has been scheduled for tonight.

God's Own Country - Lives Up

2005-06-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

Can't get succint with my title sense, anyway landed in K to spend my time here for the Post Graduate Programme(succint ~N), the first impression has been the best, never have I seen a land bestowed with vegetation to this extent, the hostel rooms are a far cry from my bitsian days, quite understandable given the fact that K has to support just 300 odd people every year. Initial Ice breaks amongst batch mates seem to be the order of the day, and the current topics are Loans, Laptops, & Mobile Connections. Guess my blogging will take a hit until I get my Lappy.

The Grind is yet to begin, guess its a sack out period until then.

Rules for a Successful Mega Serial - Part 2

2005-06-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Continuing from where I left

8. Get into the details as much as possible, for example if there is a scene where you wanna portray say the inevitable wedding (which is gonna unleash all the trouble), get into all the nitty gritties right from their betrothal, the deals they talk about, to the day of marriage, barath , etc etc, Nothing is assumed or left to the imagination of the viewer it is your moral responsibility to educate and enlighten the viewer, got it

I think I will stop over here, incase you feel I have missed out on something send in your suggestions.

Rules for a Successful Mega Serial - Part 1

2005-06-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

Mega serials, Soaps have been the ruling the roost offlate. Last night my Mom was watching Metti Oli, it is a different issue that we debate on whether we need to watch this 'sick' show and as expected my Mom always wins hands down, coming back to the topic I was happy to note that the serial is coming to an end this Saturday and they have a grand closing episode for 3 hrs. So here are the rules which might help you produce a damn good serial and fill your coffers faster than a roller coaster ride:

1. Get a Big family as the backdrop for the story. The family needs to have all the possible relationships you can think of

2. Paint the characters in good and evil, the evil ones ought to outnumber the good ones. After all Good triumphs over Evil at any cost and this triumphing feet will be touched upon only on the last week, got it

3.Throw in a few separations for garnishing purpose,like Hubby missing wife forced by circumstances to go in for a second marriage, added advantage here being you get to manipulate on the family of the second wife too. Separations also make in for interesting ends to episodes.You create the interest among the viewers as to whether they meet or not, the hubby and his ex stand opposite to each other and pray in a temple, just when the hubby is going to look up you end the episode, next day eager housewives switch on and what do they get to see, the iyer comes in between the hubby and his ex and there went their golden oppurtunity, the next one is due after 100 episodes. Mind you adrenaline pumps so much that few housewives faint off, few start hurling abuses at the characters, few weak hearted ones may even cry depending on the emotional appeal.

4.There definitely needs to be a central character, how the hell can we name the serial. Relationships can also be used as names incase you are not able to zero in on the central character. I needn't list down examples

5.The central character or the good ones need to be bookish, prudish, idealistic, etc so much that you start to crave for such a personality.They are so value oriented that they are an automatic choice to B-Schools based on their ethics and value counts. Some of the consulting firms and accounting firms in the U.S may be better off by showing these serials to their employees to stress upon the importance of ethics and values.

6. For attraction purpose and to give the initial momentum to your serial, rope in a ex-(K/B/H)ollywood artiste, if you need suggestions mail me in.

7. Zeroth Law of Mega Serials : "Thee Central Character of Mega Serial Ought to be feminine". Hope you guys are aware of the definition of laws, for the forgotten ones, a law is something which cannot be proved but is assumed to be true due to the lack of contrary experience.

To be continued.....

More Insanity - Which Movie do you resemble

2005-06-16T02:00:00.001-07:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

More Insanity - Which Movie do you resemble

2005-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

Which Leader does your personality resemble

2005-06-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

Can't believe What I got

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Where is Alex Hitch ?

2005-06-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hitch rock of a movie I got to see after a long time.Will Smith once again proves that he is adept in pulling out the casual-funloving dude. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, probably because of the bullshit ones I have been seeing for sometime now. Simple, well told story, a break from the usual Hollywood Stuffs,probably a plot many singles would easily identify given their 'Miserable' states.

Will Smith is Alex Hitch who plays cupid or Agent Love, he helps guys to get their gals by helping them create oppurtunities where they get noticed by their sweethearts and from then on the guy carries it forward and walks into sunset with his sweetheart. Everything goes fine till Hitch gets to meet a mean of a guy who wants to get in and get out so that he gets the gal out of his 'system', now our Hitch has some principles and as this is an obvious violation of his code of conduct blasts the guy and walks out. Meanwhile there is this gossip columnist who misunderstands Hitch due to some misgiving which happened to her friend because of the earlier mentioned Get In-Get Out(GIGO) guy and finds out that it is none other than her current guy Hitch who is responsible for it. How does it all end is the climax.

Too smooth a movie, couldn't come up with any glitch, even if there was a glitch maaf kiya jaye, Will Smith stands out, Cheeky expressions like the principle of 'Shock and Awe', 'No Day Dreaming', 90/10 rule for the first time heard something other than the cliched 80/20, 'Creating Oppurtunities', the movie is fun,Watch it Guys

BITS Enga Pa Irukku ?

2005-06-10T02:49:00.000-07:00

Shocker of a comment me and my friends received during my UnderGrad days, We were a bunch of 5 alloted to ~M Ltd for our Practice School - I, for the uninitiated it is the summer training we get to do before our specialisation which begins in the third year. So the first week was supposed to be the orientation week during which we got to know about what exactly was happening there, there were a few departments and each day we had to visit a department and get Knowldege Transfer(KT) on the same, Day 3 we were scheduled to visit the Electrical Department.

We were given a solid KT, given my strong 'fundas' in electrical and electronics most of the stuff flew over head, by the time it got over we were just left over with some 15 odd minutes where the bloke who gave the KT tried to somehow pass it over before we could head to the canteen for our lunch, so he started by asking a formal intro and when the first guy began he asked him which college we were from, so this guy with all humility and modesty says we are from BITS, Pilani, the moment he uttered this the conversation went on a different plane...

Electrical Fellow (EF): Palani aah
Our Guy (OG): Illa Sir, Pilani it is in Rajasthan, to be precise close to the Rajasthan-Haryana Border

(5 Surprised faces, anyway we self consoled thinking that he might have misheard)

EF: Enna appa solre,You guys are studying in Rajasthan???

(With a Quirky look + Sympathetic look..followed by a measured pause)

Didn't you guys do your 12th Well, so bad that you had to go all the way to Rajasthan for your studies?

( 5 shell shocked faces by then)

OG:(Irritated, obviously ain't it) Illa Sir this college is considered to be good adhunala than....
EF:Enna mo pa inime vavadhu nalla padeenga

(5 damn pissed off faces, Kya yaar aisa hogaya types, the final blow came next)

EF:Indha Bannari amman Institute of Technology & Science(New Definition of BITS), oda branch thane idhu, idhu Rajasthan la vera irukka...

(5 Dumbfounded faces, which tried hard to avoid ROTFWL)