Dhano Dhanne Pushpe Bhora...

From childhood, I used to like this song. Somewhere down the line, I lost touch and forgot all about it. The other say I saw this as a status message on Nags' gtalk. It brought back all the childhood memories; me trying to play this song on the keyboard, Dad playing it on mouth-organ. I feel i have a strange connection with this song. I knew the meaning the moment I heard this song considering the fact that I was not much into Bengali songs then.

I have tried to translate the song in English. Not a great job, but, nevertheless...

Listen to the song here

Dhono dhanne pushpe bhora amader ei boshundhora
Tahar majhe mahe desh ek shokol dhesher shera
She je shopno diye toiri she je sriti diye ghera
Emon deshti kothao khuje pabe nako tumi
She je shokol desher rani she je amar jonmobhumi
She je amar jonmobhumi she je amar jonmobhumi

This world of ours is rich with wealth, grains and flowers,
But in between all these, there is a country which is the best among all countries,
This country is made of dreams, surrounded by memories
You will not find such a country anywhere else
This country is the Queen of all countris, it is my birthland,
My brithland, My birthland!!

Chondro shurjo groho tara, kothay ujon emon dhara
Kothay emon khele torit, emon kalo meghe
O tar pakhir dake ghumiye pori pakhir dake jege
emon deshti .......

The Moon, the Sun, the Planets and the Stars, all reside here,
The black cloulds play here,
The sweet song of the birds put people to sleep and wake them up,
You will not.....


Eto snigdho nodi tahar, kothay emon dhumro pahar
kothay emon horit khetro akash tole meshe
emon dhaner opor dheu khele jay, batash tahar deshe
emon deshti....

The rivers are so cool here, the mountains are so huge,
The plains are so green, it mixes with the sky at the horizon,
When the wind blows, the paddy fields dance in waves,
You will not...

Pushpe pushpe bhora shakhi, kunje kunje gahe pakhi
Gunjoriya ashe oli, punje punje dheye
Tara fooler upor ghumiye pore fooler modhu kheye
Emon deshti...

The country is filled with flowers, every corner is filled with the birds' song,
The bumblebee drones over every flower in sight,
They fall asleep on the flowers drinking the intoxicating nectar,
You will not...

Bhayer mayer eto sneho, kothay gele pabe keho
O ma tomar choron duti bokkhe amar dhori
Amar ei deshete jonmo jeno ei deshete mori
emon deshti.......

Mothers here love their children so much, where else will you find such love?
Mother, I will always keep you in my heart,
I wish that as I was born in this country, this is where I die
You will not...


PS: There may be some serious errors in translation. Please correct me in the comments section

PGP2 begins...

It has been 2 weeks since second year began. The schedule has been a bit light so far. But that is with respect to classes only. We have lots of assignments and other submissions to make which is taking away the rare privilage of uninterrupted sleep that we thought we would get.

This year would be very important from a career perspective. In August, we would have our Autumns placements. In Feb 2010, we would have our final placements. With the current economic condition, things would not be as I had pictured them to be when I had joined. I just hope that I get through somewhere good.

A confession : I am tired of studying. For the last 21 years of my life I have been studying. I wish I had worked for some years in between. Anyway, I know the decision that I had taken was the best decision that I could have taken. But still...

Anyway, there are some interesting aspects of second year as well. We in marketing won't have any exams. All our assessment will be based on projects. So that is one good thing. Also, we would be having some innovative projects. The other day, our SBU head said we would have an Integrated Slum project...have to wait and see what that means.

PS: I had posted earlier that I would write about my DOCC experience and the PGP1 experience. Will write them soon.

DOCCing!!

For people who are not familiar with SP Jain, the title would not make any sense.

Well, DOCC would stand for Development of Corporate Citizenship. Ya I know, sounds like a typical B-School funda. But No! That's not what it is.

The DOCC was started many years back at SP to inculcate a sense of empathy towards the society. After MBA, when we start earning lots of money and can afford every luxury that the world has to offer, we tend to forget the people who make the majority of India, the villagers and the poor. The DOCC program was started to sensitize us towards these economically and socially marginalized section of the society.

That was the philosophy for you. Now this program also makes acute business sense.

As part of this program, we first visited Anandvan, Baba Amte's ashram, to see what a self sustaining society should look like. Also, the DOCC cell conducted various events throughout the year such as the social impact awards for SHG's. It gave us a chance to understand Microfinance closely through practical examples.

Finally, when all the business school students in India are doing their summer internship in sone multinational company, we are doing it at an NGO or CSR arm of a company on a socially relevant issue. Our corporate internships happen in sept-nov. This has 3 advantages:

1. We already have a project experience
2. We are well into our specialization when we start our corporate internships.
3. Our first year is placement free. We don't have to worry about summers the day we enter B-school

I am doing my DOCC project at Tribal Cultural Society, Jamshedpur. This is an NGO supported and run by Tata Steel for the welfare of the tribal population of Jharkhand.



My project is on Sakshar Samaj, an adult literacy program for tribal women. While the intent is good, this project has been facing many implementation issues. My work is to measure the impact of the project on the lives of the people and also suggest a plan of action to improve the implementation process.

My experiences...after 2 weeks, when I finish my project!! :)

Nokia 5130 Xpress Music

Finally sold off my beloved Moto Razr V3i for a brand new Nokia 5130 Xpress Music.

I loved my Razr a lot. In fact, anyone who knows me would agree that I was very possessive about it. But then, the hinge (which connects the two parts of the flip fone) had broken and due to that problems in speaker, camera etc had surfaced. Repairing it would have cost a bomb. So, had no other option.
I was considering 2 Nokia models. The 7210 Supernova, 5130 Xpress Music.

In fact, both had the exact same features except for the fact that 5130 is more suited towards listening to music. What tilted the scales in its favour was the sleek look of the 5130 and the fact that the keypad of 7210 was very hard.

So far I am happy with the phone (though I miss the sexy looks of my Razr). The battery backup is a bit low. Otherwise everything else is fine.


Mine is the same model. Blue in colour. The other option was red.

Selling...Personally...

In my opinion, the way I learn things at SP is way different from what I thought. Before coming here, I thought that we would have long lectures by eminent personalities, professional presentations, industry research etc etc. After coming here, I felt that while all these were there, these were not the primary ways in which learning happened here. In most cases, we did something and made some intuitive learnings. These were then corroborated by the sessions we had. Our profs call this experiential learning.

As a part of this process, to know what sales is all about, we were required to actually go to the market and sell. I knew this would be coming as I had read about the much famed "Personal Learning" exercise. (And I was dead scared that I would not be able to do this.)

We were required to sell "Dimdima", a children's magazine that Bharatiya Vidya bhavan comes out with every month. The catch was, we were not required to sell single copies but subscriptions to the magazine. The entire class was divided into groups of 2-3 and a sales target of 10/15 subscriptions was assigned. Also, the area in which the group had to sell was assigned. Paddy (a girl from Jamshedpur)and me were in the same group and we were assigned Colaba, the southernmost part of Mumbai.

So last Tuesday, after our classes ended early at 1PM, we caught a local train and headed towards Colaba, carrying copies of Dimdima.

Initially we roamed about in the Colaba area. Visited the market. Visited residential areas. Visited schools (which incidentally were closed). Visited Taj Mahal Hotel. Visited Gateway of India.

Result: 1 single copy worth Rs 10/-

We were feeling that our legs had turned into sticks, waiting to break any moment. We were tired and were thinking of giving up the whole thing. Zyada se zyada kya hoga? Marketing me D ayega. And we were making a promise to ourselves. We will never behave badly with a salesman.

The other group members had left later than us. When they reached, they didn't reach our area. They went to a place called Kala Ghoda, where the Kala Ghoda festival was going on.Paddy and I thought," lets join them and then we can go back hostel together."

By the time we reached there, the people there had already sold some subscriptions. We reached there and thought of giving it another try. And we made the first break.

I can't explain in words how it feels when you strike your first deal. You are happy at heart. After 2 hours your product sells for the first time. You feel all the hard work has paid off. But, you can't show happiness to the customer. Otherwise she will feel that your product doesn't sell.

The next 3 hours went by and we sold 7 subscriptions.

Some things that we learned in course of the entire exercise were:

Target at the right location. People had come to the festival to spend money. They will as well spend on your product

Target the right customers. After a while we found out what the typical profile of the people who buy is. And we focussed on those people only.

To make things easier for us, we only targeted people who were with their kids who were in our TG(Target Group).

There were many more learnings...some conscious, some subconscious.

When we sold out completely and didn't have any other subscriptions, we decided to return.

What a fruitful day!

PS: The Dimdima Mag is superb for children of the age group 7-13 Yrs. If you want to subscribe or gift a subscription, please get in touch with me. The rates are Rs 120 for 6 months and Rs 240 for 1 yr. This is not to get more marks as my assignment is already over. This is just to promote a great product.

The year till now...

39 days into 2009. This is my first post.

But don't blame me. Life has been extremely busy and eventful.

2009 began with a bang.

Our team got selected in L'oreal Brandstorm. We won the campus rounds and became a national finalist. Our team(not the same as above) got into the second round of L'oreal Estrat. Submissions due in 2 days. I got selected as one of the national finalists for Mindful Leadership 2009. I didn't win the final round but it was a good experience.

I think, I will write another post about the events.

I had thought that Trim-3 would be a chill-out one. How away from reality could I had been? Trim-3 is very very hectic. Lots of low credit subjects, lots of no-substance subjects, lots of classes.

Ojas, our annual festival, is due in 6 days and I hav lots of work to do.

More later.

Adieu 2008...

This is the last post for this year. This year has been quite special for me. Here are the major things that happened in my life...

Jan: CAT Results, XAT exam and results. Two things which changed my life completely.
Feb: Lots of interview shortlists. Feb was THE interview month
March: Some more interviews and results started pouring in
April: IMT, SP Jain. My life was made :)
May: Said good bye to my college. 4 years of bliss gets over. MBA begins officially.
June: Said good bye to my friends. A new chapter in life began with SP.
July: PG Lab.
Aug-Sep: I never knew MBA can be so hectic
Oct: Someone said something ;). Visited home after 4 months
Nov: Nothing much happened.
Dec: Lots of events and exams. I said something to someone ;)

2009 will be a very important year for me professionally and otherwise. This will be the year of DOCC and Autumns. I just hope it goes off as well as 2008.

Happy New Year!!