Amusing Musings

Finacially Speaking...

2010-06-08T14:34:00.005+05:30

Finance is arguably the most sought after specialization among b-school students and aspirants. Some people decide to pursue MBA only because they would like to work in the financial sector. What is it that attarcts people to finance so much? Big money? Maybe. After all, we are used to seeing the placement reports of IIM's stating the multi-laks or crores of money Investment Banks are paying to fresh finance MBAs. Even during recession (and the fall of the global financial big-wigs) the interest in finance as a specialization has not waned. But, one good thing that has come out of it is that people are now more realistic about their expectations.

Many b-school aspirants want to do specialized finance courses. While top business schools do have finance as a specialization, there are a few focussed finance courses at PG level. I have tried here to list down as many as possible. Some of them are popular. But, some of them are not very well-known. Not because of the quality of the program but because these courses are not publicised enough.

Let's begin...

IFMR: This is the first institute which comes to my mind when I think of finance focussed institutes. Though, its flagship PGDM program is more of a general manafement program, the institute has two specialized finance programs viz. 'Financial Engineering' and 'Development and Sustainable Finance'. Started with the strong backing of ICICI Bank, this institutes boasts of an outstanding faculty base and strong international linkages.

MFC-DU: Delhi University's Department of Financial Studies is another place to be in if one is genuinely interested in finance. The Master of Finance and Control is a 2 year finance focussed program and the career opportunities are really good. The entrance is conducted through JAT which is a common entrance test for MFC and MBE (which will be discussed next).

MBE-DU: Though this is not a proper finance course, it does include of lot of finance in its curriculam. In fact, one may specialize in topics such as "Business Finance" or "quantitative techniques" at the end of the course.

MFC-BHU: This course is conducted by Benaras Hindu University's Commerce Department. Though the course content is similar to DU, its location puts it into a disadvantageous position.

A search with the string "master finance control" threw up many other similar courses across the country in universities like Osmania University, MLS University, Patna University, Lucknow University etc. has a specialized MBA in finance and control

MBA (Finance) – Calcutta University: This is a very 'less-known' course but which provides immense opportunities. This course is conducted by the commerce department of the university. Many nationalized and private financial institutions visit the campus for placements. Batch size is just 30.

CRISIL CAP: While this is not an MBA/Masters program per se, Crisil, in association with NITIE, conducts this program leading to a CRISIL Certified Analyst title. Admissions are through CAT and also their own admission test. Syllabus is a decent finance syllabus. The best part is that you will be working as an employee in CRISIL while undergoing this program. And the best'est' part is that there are no fees. Instead, you will be earning a decent stipend.

Let us now shift our focus to allied courses instead of core finance programs like insurance, banking, capital markets etc.

NIASOM, Pune: The National Insurance Academy was established by PSU insurance companies. It conducts training programs for insurance executives. NIA's School of management offers MBA in Insurance. Placements are generally either in insurance domain or allied fields. Admissions are through CAT.

NIBM Pune: The National Institute of Bank Management was started in Pune by the Reserve Bank of India. It offers a 2 year PGPBF (PG program in banking and Finance) for which admissions are through CAT. Placements are pretty good and lots of PSU banks visit campus for placements.

NMIMS, Mumbai: Apart from the flagship Core MBA programs, NMIMS offers sectoral MBA too. The finance related specializations include Capital Markets, Actuarial Science and Banking. Placements are good and being in Mumbai is an added advantage.

Indian Institute of Capital Markets: This was formerly called UTIICM and is located in Navi Mumbai. It offers a PG Diploma in Securities Market.

I will keep updating this post as and when I come across a new course. In the meantime if you have any info about the courses mentioned above do post it in the comments section. I will update this post. If you are/have been a student of any of the above courses, do give more info about placements and quality of the course.

In case you have any queries, use the comments section to ask them.

Bored....really...

2010-05-16T16:19:00.003+05:30

I am exactly in the middle of my 2 months break between MBA and job. My joining at Axis Bank has been delayed by a week to 14th June. In between, we would be making a family trip to Shillong, and I am looking forward to it like anything.

I'm getting extremely bored sitting at home and doing nothing. I refresh my FB page every 1/2 minute to see updates. That must give you some idea about the extent of my boredom. But, that does not mean that I can't take up some interesting job to pass time. I think I am actually enjoying the boredom, sitting about lazily the whole day, doing nothing. :)

10th April 2008-10

2010-04-10T13:16:00.002+05:30

Exactly 2 years back I was ecstatic. Somehow, I don't know how, I got into one of the best business schools in India. It took time for the fact to sink in.

A lot happened in the last two years. I had posted about my experiences earlier. True that blogging came to a standstill but that was because there were way too many things keeping me busy.

I have one more hour left before I leave this place and memories of that day, 2 years back is still fresh in my mind. Results came in the evening and I was in my engineering hostel. My friends were so proud of me. Everyone congratulating me. I was so happy. My profs were happy.

Contrast it to today. I am happy that I have achieved another milestone. But, sad that I have to leave this place.

Wishing everyone all the best in life...

The Reader in me is back...

2010-03-28T17:12:00.004+05:30

The last leg of MBA is certainly not very taxing. In fact, most of the days are completely chilled out. This has let me catch up on my reading. There was a time when I used to finish off tomes within a week. Lot of things have changed since then. Anyway, so after Trim5 and placements, it was reading time!!

1. Yahi Sach Hai by Manu Bhandari

I am not much into hindi literature. Before reading this book, I had read only two short stories by Manu Bhandari; those which were in our board syllabus. This book is a collection of short stories. Yahi sach hai is one of her most popular and successful stories. It was also made into a 70's hit movie Rajnigandha starring Amol Palekar and Vidya Sinha.

The book deals with various facets of life and is written in simple and easy to understand Hindi. two of my favourite stories of this book are Kshay and Rani Maa ka Chabootara.

Kshay tells us the story of how, owing to circumstances, people give up their principles to become what the world wants them to. Kshay is a disease (I think TB). And an Ms. Bhandari draws an amazing parallel to the disease and our lives. Rani maa ka chabootara exposes the hypocrisy that the upper strata of the society has and shows us that the lower strata are as much human beings filled with emotions as any other class of people. Another story which I liked was Sazaa. It exposes the flaws in the Indian justice system and how an innocent man suffers even if he is declared innocent. Other stories in this book includes Teesra Aadmi, Income tax aur neend, Nakli Heere etc.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I am planning to get hold of another book co-authored by Manu bhandari, Ek inch muskaan.

2. Dork by Sidin Vadukut

Dork is the first of a three part series office humor. It tells us the story of Robert 'Einstien' Verghese. It is also a sarcastic take on management consultancy and being an MBA student myself, I could identify with the entire context of the novel.

The book is extremely humorous. In fact, it is so gripping that you can complete the book in a day. Overall it is a good read. One flaw that I felt the book had was that in some parts, there was an attempt of forced humor. And this is done at the expense of proper characterization. Given the fact that this is his first book, all this can be excused.

Looking forward to the sequel.

3. India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha

A lot has been written and said about our freedom struggle. Every history syllabus in every school has everything written about the greatness of our freedom struggle. But, somehow, every history book seems to end at 15th Aug 1947. Some of them manage to continue till the formation of the constituent assembly and the enforcement of the constitution i.e. 26th Jan 1950. What happened after that is captured in few measly chapters in a subject called Civics, almost added as an afterthought.

The result? Well, most youngsters don't know about the Indo-China conflict, how our states were formed, how Bangladesh was formed, what the Emergency is, what actually the Kashmir issue is...in fact, any major happening after 1950 is not included in any text book.

This book, running at 800 pages, is an attempt to chronicle the history of India after Independence. When I started reading this book, I thought I would finish it off in 3 days. But, I took 10 days. Not because I was not reading enough, but because after every chapter, I tried to find out more about the incident described. The specialty of the book is that it covers everything, right from problems of caste in the Hindi heartland to insurgency in the Northeastern parts of India. The book also gives a glimpse of the post liberalization changes that occurred in India. It ends with a thought about why, in spite of all the problems, India is still ONE.

If one wants to know every issue that India is facing today, one has to read this book to have a clearer view of things.

4. The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur

Released in 1991, this book seems to be the forefather of the campus novels which seem to flood the market these days. This book tells the story of Gopal, a 21 year old boy from a small town in Madhya Pradesh, who spends one year in a university campus in US. It gives a humorous account of the trials and tribulations that he has to go through to 'fit' into the American way of things. Having said that, the book also gives a mature perspective of the American lifestyle, Indian immigrants and campus life. A good read unlike some of the campus novels coming out these days.

Chaitra and Maitra

2010-03-28T13:30:00.002+05:30

A Guru had two disciples, Chaitra and Maitra.

One day, the Guru took them to two empty rooms. He said," Look how empty these rooms are. I have some work. I will return after two hours. In the meantime, both of you can fill up these rooms with something. Here! take a rupee each"

As soon as the Guru was gone, both went to their respective rooms to figure out what to do.

Maitra who considered himself smart and clever, went to the marketplace to find out something with which he may fill the room. Obviously he could not get anything for a rupee. He then thought of a plan. He went to the local garbage dump and bought a lot of garbage. He brought it to the ashram and filled up the room.

When the Guru returned after a couple of hours, Maitra was already outside the ashram, eager to show the Guru how clever he was. But, Chaitra was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing the beaming face of Maitra, the Guru felt happy that at least one of his disciples have completed the task. Maitra took him to the room.

No sooner did the Guru enter the room than he realized what Maitra had done. He rushed out of the room in disgust. He then thought, "Where is my other disciple, Chaitra?"

The Guru started walking towards the other room and opened the door. Immense happiness filled up the heart of the Guru.

There inside the room, Chaitra was sitting and meditating. In front of him was a small oil lamp, a matchbox and many inscense sticks. The room was full of light and mild fragrance of jasmine and sandalwood lingered in the room.

Adapted from a theyyam story of Kerala

PS: Reading Nine Lives by William Dalrymple

And the Mumbaikar chooses...

2010-02-13T14:40:00.004+05:30

DNA: Defiant Mumbai backs My Name Is Khan, snubs Sena

TOI: Mumbai calls Sena bluff as MNIK opens to full house

The Telegraph: Mumbai reclaims itself, People’s army tames Sena

लोकसत्ता: शिवसेनेचा फ्लाप शो : 'माय नेम' हाउस फुल्ल

These are some of the headlines today in leading newspapers. The people of Mumbai has yet again shown the world that they don't stand for divisive politics and that they value individual freedom.

Shiv Sena faced its first blow when it went the 'family way' by making Bal Thackrey's son, Uddhav Thakrey the hier apparent, bypassing a more eligible Raj. Since then, it has faced nothing but trouble. Raj formed the much in news political party, MNS and divided the traditional vote-bank of the Sena. The result was a humiliating loss in both national and assembly elections.

Few months back, Shiv Sena decided that it was high time they regained their plank of 'Marathi Manoos'. Whoever spoke of 'Mumbai for all' was targeted. It didn't matter whether it was a poor taxi driver or high profile celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Mukesh Ambani.

A week back, the Sena got the opportunity of a lifetime. Rahul Gandhi was about to visit Mumbai. Few days earlier, he had spoken about 'Mumbai for all'. If they could make his visit unsuccessful, it would be a great score for them. But alas, they underestimated the Gandhi scion's political acumen. All they could do was write few words in their mouthpiece, Saamna.

Yesterday was 12th Feb. Just a week had passed since the Sena had got a snub from Rahul Gandhi. This time they were in for a drubbing from the people of Mumbai.

What does all these show? That when people come out for a cause, it is very difficult to ignore them.

Few days back, a column in Business Standard had stated that it was time the people of Mumbai chose what they wanted to stand for. I think, the choice has been made.

In the meantime, the neighbouring state of Karnataka is facing a similar problem. I hope the people there too rise up to the occasion and show Ram Sene what their worth is. After all, we are what we choose to be...

And this was what?

2010-02-12T11:42:00.005+05:30

Nitika's blog post made me think, what have I gained in the last 2 years? The other day, Ashish posted a line in Facebook questioning whether it has been worth spending 2 years here. Was this just a high priced ticket to a good job?

I don't think so.

For a start, we have gained knowledge. I could experience that within a month of starting this program. Things which would look Greek and Latin earlier started making sense. Newspapers like Economic Times and Business Standard which I could never decipher earlier started making sense. (Come on, 4 pages full of numbers. Which engineering kid will understand??)

As the year progressed, I could start making more sense of the world around me. Why the third ice-cream gives lesser satisfaction than the first ;) ? Why in some shopping malls, the queue is extraordinarily long while others manage them efficiently? How the courier company helps me track my letter at every touch point? What exactly happens when mom exclaims shobjir daam koto bere geche (vegetables have become so costly)? I understood all these and more.

Second year, was more about making career choices. But still, there was a lot of learning. Especially learning by doing. Agreed that we didn't take (m)any of the projects very seriously and my batch-mates would know how we made submissions, we still managed to learn. Adding to that was the fact that there were some awesome profs.

But, that was just what we learned. In my opinion, experience transcends the knowledge we gained.

My engineering college, how should I put it, well, it wasn't a bastion of intellectual capital. The moment I entered SP, I could see what it means to be here. My batch-mates were (and are) just brilliant. Being in class with some of the best minds of the country (however cliched that term may sound) was an experience in itself.

These were not the 'geeky' kind of stereotyped MBA kids that you hear (and now read) about. They were fun to be with. They could, at the same time, be a good friend and a great mentor. I think I learned more from them than what I learned in class.

We criticized DOCC. We criticized ADMAP. And we hated the Slum Project. But didn't that help? Would we have gone to the rural areas ever to understand what it feels like to live there? Didn't handling the major administrative issues (given that there is no Admin support at SP) help? I think it did. We participated and won a lot of events at various places. And even that helped.

And finally, who can question the reputation of being in a good school. However boring we may have found some of the industry lectures and guest lectures to be, didn't it feel special that these people were coming all the way to speak to us? Every PPT that we had came and said "You form the premium talent pool of the country". While the statement is debatable, it also showed us our worth.

The other day, we had a session with Prof. DeLong of HBS. He made a very interesting observation. If education can give you a transformational experience, it's worth going for it.

Agreed that there are many major areas of improvement required at SP (and every place has its own problems), I feel that the experience has been amazingly transformational.

By the way, there is still 2 and 1/2 months of MBA left. Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost :)

Reflections

2010-02-05T13:08:00.003+05:30

MBA is about to end (in another 3 months). The last few months have been quite eventful.

I was offered a PPI at Colgate. Last thing I would have expected. Colgate was fun and I was happy to get the PPI. Couldn't convert. Though, as they say, getting there and being interviewed by the ManCom (management committee) is a huge thing in itself.

Then started the mad rush for final placements. January began with anticipation and apprehension about where life (and more importantly placements) will take us. I got placed in Axis Bank. I had been interested in banking for a long time and was happy to get a bank.

If getting through in Colpal during autumns was a relief, getting into Axis bank was happiness. How many times in life do you get what you have wanted for a long time?

NightOut!!

2009-09-03T23:51:00.008+05:30

We had an awesomazing experience last night. Last evening, suddenly, Meenu asks me if I wanted to go for a night out. Though I felt that it was not a good idea and wanted to sleep....but what the hell!! You don't do these things everyday.

So, off we went, 13 of us, at 9 O clock in the night. 3 of us were already waiting at Marine Drive.

It started out...well...not so well. We didn't get an auto to Andheri Station. So we walked. We had fun while walking and saved Rs 10 in auto fare. :P Train journey was fun. Since it was non-rush hour, the train was almost empty and we played Dumb Charades in a Mumbai local train. Quite an achievement. We got down at Marine Lines...and started walking.

The city scape looked beautiful. I fell in love with it yet again. Finally, at around 10:30, we were near Marine Plaza. We spent two hours there doing timepass. Some of us started playing games, some started chatting. We were joined by a friend from JB. Some of us also started singing. Bikash was so enchanted by my singing that he threw a one rupee coin at me. That, my friends, is the story of how I earned my first salary. :)

At 12:30AM, we entered Marine Plaza and started out buffet. We had strategised well in advance that we would ensure that the hotel suffers a net loss from our group and I am sure that with my and Arka's contribution and Amrut's experience, we did actually made sure of paisa vasool. We also played Chinese Whispers there. That is when Rashi said the most memorable thing in SP. She misunderstood something and said," Baby, I love your bu**, but it is bitter!". Raghavan went to a deep shock state for 15 mins.

We finished dinner at 3:00AM. It was the longest and most 'fun' dinner I've ever had. We came out of the place and thought we would spend some the rest of the night on Marine Drive. But the crowd there was not good and also Ankur got verbally assaulted from a flashyly dressed gay man who described in detail the things he would do to Ankur. :) We thought it was best we go to Juhu beach.

We reached Juhu at 4:00 AM and started walking aimlessly on the beach. It started drizzling and soon the drizzle became heavy rains. We all got drenched. We took shelter in a nearby closed food shop. It had a thin tarpaulin covering. We had lots of masti even there. Bikash was already drenched. He started pulling Harshita out of the shelter. Hershey started giggline and said ," Don't do this. I don't have so much self control like you!". Thankfully there were no policemen around and they didnt get arrested. ;)

We returned back at 5:30AM in the morning. I came back and just dropped asleep on my bed. Woke up at 12.

Planning to go to Alibag tomorrow!! :D

Autumns '09

2009-08-28T18:31:00.001+05:30

Unlike other business schools, SP Jain has a concept of doing the corporate internship during Autumns (Sep-Nov) instead of summers. During summers, we do a socially relevant internship with some NGO.

The Autumns Placements for our batch concluded yesterday. The placements have been great and nobody needed to compromise on the kind of companies/projects they had to choose in spite of the slowdown. Some of the biggest names of the world visited campus for hiring interns. I will post the link to the official communication soon.

Yours truly will be interning at Colgate Palmolive. It will be a sales/marketing kind of project. I hope I will have a good experience there.

It ends...

2009-07-31T01:31:00.002+05:30

Covered 3 out of the 5 topics. Not bad considering that i haven't posted for a while now.

Hope I will be more regular soon.

And thanx to people who have prodded me to write...

The Plunge

2009-07-30T22:03:00.001+05:30

It was May 29th , 2009. 17 year old Aaisya Jan and and her pregnant 23 year old sister-in-law, Neelofar were returning home. On the way, they were abducted, raped and murdered.

You would feel sorry hearing the above, think about it, tut-tut for half a minute, lambaste the Government for two minutes and then, get back to reading the other stories for the day. In a country where one woman are raped in every 6 minutes, how does another rape matter? Well this time it did. This time, it was the now famous, Shopian rape and murder case.

The entire event was shrouded in mystery and the police showed reluctance in even filing an FIR. Later even the chief minister, the young Omar Abdullah, said, it wasn’t a rape case. The case went to CBI and it opened a Pandora’s box. Many top government officials were suspected to be guilty.

On 28th July 2009, almost two tumultuous months since the incident happened, the issue was being discussed in the state legislative assembly. Muzaffar Baig, a former deputy chief minister and senior MLA of the People’s Democratic Party, raised an issue. He accused the chief minister of being involved in the crime and that his name was included in the CBI chargesheet of the accused at serial number 102. The PDP just needed this to get violent and launch an all out assault on the chief minister.

Since the day Omar Abdullah had taken oath as the youngest chief minister of J&K, he had been under the scanner of everyone for non-performance. The opposition had assaulted him many a times in the assembly, pointing a finger at his character. Being accused of rape and murder was the last thing he could take. A visibly emotional Omar then made the following statement:

Justice demands that a person is innocent unless proven guilty. It can be true, perhaps, in cases involving theft and robbery. But so far as the (kind of) false allegations levelled against me are concerned, the fact is, I am guilty unless proven innocent.

Saying this, he announced that he would tender a conditional resignation and would ask the Governor to order a probe.

The CBI and the home ministry were quick to react saying that Abdullah’s name didn’t feature in the list.

Implications

Abdullah has made the biggest gamble of his career. If he is proven innocent, he will have the moral high ground. No one will be able to point a finger at him again. No one will be able to question him again.He would be setting new standards of accountability for politicians in this country.

On the other hand, if he is found even remotely connected to the case, his entire political life may end prematurely.

Omar Abdullah had taken risks earlier. Who can forget the emotional speech in the Parliament which catapulted him as the prospective CM. It needs to be seen if he can get lucky second time.

The woman who makes statues and burn houses

2009-07-30T20:02:00.001+05:30

Caste has always been a deciding factor in almost all states in India. Specially in the hindi hinterland. And one woman who plays the caste card immaculately is Mayawati. The Bahujan Samaj Party was started by Kanshi Ram as a party which would work for Dalits (the backward class). Mayawati tactfully usurped the position of the party chief. And Kanshi Ram died a sad death.

Mayawati is now the UP chief minister. Apart from the various scandals she does every now and then, her only constructive work is…wait for it….construction.

Anyone who has been to Lucknow will see the massive Ambedkar Smarak. It has been built by Mayawati as a tribute to the great man, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The reason why small sculptures of elephant dots the entire park still remains a mystery. Maybe, Dr. Ambedkar was fond of elephants. Apart from this, Mayawati has built lots of other statues of Dr. Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram…and believe it or not…Herself.

Other than this, she has nothing else to show. The law and order situation in UP is what nightmares are made up of. Maybe this is what prompted Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the UPPCC (state congress committee of UP) chief to make that fateful remark. Though her remark was in extremely bad taste, what she meant was that monetary compensation is not enough for a serious offence like rape.

But Behenji quickly saw this as an opportunity to play the dalit card. The general elections had been bad for her party and she was just waiting for a political opportunity. She quickly moulded the whole incident into an affront to dalits. Her logic was, something said against her is something said against the dalits. (By the way, the reverse logic does not work for her. According to her, if someone praises her, it is not praising dalits)

Mayawati made sure that the entire law and order machinery was set against Joshi. She was arrested with a promptness that one seldom sees in UP police. Later that night, some BSP vandals burnt down her house. (The chief of this gang was later promoted as a chief of an important state corporation as a reward towards his loyalty to Behenji).

To reiterate, the comments made by the PCC chief was not one would expect from a politician of her stature. But, the reaction to that comment by the woman in power was a thousand time more distasteful. If this is what the chief minister of UP stands for, even God can’t save the state.

Ma, Maati Manush....aar shilpo??

2009-07-30T13:39:00.001+05:30

The Lok Sabha elections of 2008 must have been a nightmare for the old man from Salt Lake who manages the affairs at a house, situated across a red lake, where people write. That was a convoluted and confused way of describing Mr. Bhattacharya. But, taking into account the confused situation that he is in, it may just hit the right spot.

CPM, or the party that (supposedly) stands for grassroot level activism, fared poorly (its worst) in this Lok Sabha election. the reason being, it couldn't understand the pulse of the people at grassroots. Paradoxical. Right?

The fiery lady may have won the mandate handsdown by disrupting traffic, sitting on dharna, driving away industries. But, the bottomline is that she won. And since she has not raised any complaints of rigging this time (maybe because she won), we may as well accept it as a mandate from the people of Bengal.

What implications does it have?

Mamata sure has her eyes on the state assembly elections two years down the line. Going by the turnout she managed to generate at a recent rally at Esplanade, she may as well win. But, the people of bengal needs to think. What is her policy for development? None. All through the years that I have seen her in politics, the only rhetoric of hers is that there has been no development under CPM. She never goes on to say what is HER roadmap for development.

The people of Bengal are caught between two forces. One knows not what it does (CPM) and one knows not what it will do (TMC).

Fast Forward 10 years: People of Calcutta are still discussing politics at roadside tea stalls, the walls are still full of grafittis in green and red, the transport lobby is still trying to stay the crackdown on old vehicles and the Tollygunge metro is yet to become functional.

My Take

2009-07-30T13:18:00.003+05:30

This has been by far the greatest time period that i have been away from by blog. Schedule has been hectic and though there was lots to write about, i didn't.

Today is my weekly off. The schedule tomorrow is light. "How about going for a personal Blogathon?", I ask myself.

So here is my take on various political issues that the nation is facing. I will cover the WB state elections, Mayawati, J&K, Indo-Pak dialouges and fighting brothers!!

Dhano Dhanne Pushpe Bhora...

2009-05-31T12:55:00.002+05:30

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...

2009-05-28T11:05:00.003+05:30

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!!

2009-04-20T11:28:00.005+05:30

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:

We already have a project experience
We are well into our specialization when we start our corporate internships.
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

2009-04-13T12:01:00.004+05:30

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...

2009-02-12T22:56:00.003+05:30

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...

2009-02-08T10:23:00.004+05:30

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...

2008-12-31T22:52:00.004+05:30

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!!

I fell in love...

2008-12-06T19:25:00.004+05:30

Yesterday I went to south Bombay for the first time...

And it was worth the wait...

And I fell in love...

Life is so eventful...

2008-12-04T23:10:00.003+05:30

Yesterday we had a special lecturer for macro economics class. We had Mr. Ramasubramanian, an ex-RBI officer, giving a lecture on monetary and fiscal policy and exchange rates. He was actively involved in the RBI during the '91 BoP crisis. The lecture was just superb. His style of explaining was awesome. Finally, I am getting interested in macro classes.

Today was one of the most memorable days of my life. As I had mentioned in earlier posts, I am part of the CEO Lecture Series Committee. We were planning to invite SET MAX chief for the lecture series. Today, Harshita and I went to Sony's office. We had an appointment with Ms. Rajani, Executive VP and Business Head of MAX.

The office is so cool. The layout, interiors etc are fabulously done. We met Ms. Rajani for around 20 mins. She is an awesome lady...what an attitude!!! Finally, she has agreed to come to our campus for a guest lecture on....IPL :) :) :)

Tomorrow, I will be going to meet the HR head of Barclays Bank. This will be part of our People and Performance field visit. Looking forward to it.

Suddenly, there is so much to do in life :)

Learning from Leaders : KEC and Rajwade...

2008-12-01T22:33:00.005+05:30

Yesterday, my committee, CEO Lecture Series Committee here at SPJIMR conducted a CEO Lecture for the month of November. The guest was Mr. Ramesh Chandak, CEO of RPG Group's KEC International. He spoke about Supply Chain Management and also about his experiences in the Infrastructure and Power industry. It was a great learning for all of us.

Today we had Mr. A.V. Rajwade, a renowned columnist and an authority on finance and markets here at SPJIMR for a guest lecture on CDO,CDS,MBO and the current financial crisis. It was great too. The best part was he looked so simple and unassuming. But once he started speaking....WOW!

This is the best part that I like about SPJIMR. After coming here, we had so many guest lectures from eminent personalities from the industry. I know many people perceive Business School guest lectures as some sort of a liability. They call it boring, dull and what not. But, I feel that this is where we get to know what the industry is up to and how well the theoretical things we learn in class is tuned to practical applications.

And so much is happening...

2008-11-28T01:35:00.003+05:30

Last 2-3 days have been so eventful.

Bomb blasts and firings have rocked Mumbai. There has been so much bloodshed that I am feeling sick now. Why do people kill people?? This morning, my campus looked deserted. SPCE, Bhavan's, Wadia, all wore a deserted look. It felt as if I had entered some village. Even the streets were so crowded. And as I write this, the police and the armed forces are still fighting the terrorists in the southern side of the city.

For the last so many years, I had been trying to enrol for the Diploma and Creative Writing program of IGNOU. Finally, today I registered for the program. And I am feeling so good. I will do something that I love doing.

A hectic week ahead.

And life moves on...

2008-11-22T22:55:00.005+05:30

Life is a bit relaxed nowadays. Yesterday's FM mid term was OKish. And for the next 2-3 days, we don't have much to do academic wise. So taking it a bit easy.

Latest to report is I am taking part in lots of competitions. I don't know if I will be able to do justice to all of them. But, ya, it is fun participating.

Of late, i am getting more and more addicted to FRIENDS. Have started watching all its seasons back to back.

Also, after lots of effort, I have finally caught hold of the newspaper guy. So, finally I get to read the Business Standard.

Actually, nothing major to report!! :)

And I am back....

2008-11-13T19:20:00.003+05:30

I am finally back.

Yeah! I know it has been almost 2 months since I abandoned this blog of mine as an unwanted child. Many things were responsible for this. One being the lack of any desire or drive to write anything. Another being lack of time.

But, I missed writing. And I promise (and this is unlike the many broken promises of the past) that I will write.

Some of the major happenings of the last 2 months:

1. First trimesters end terms were a breeze. Not that I performed very well. But studied little. I am not doing well in acads but this is not bothering me much. In fact, I am doing lots of stuff that I love doing. I am reading some great books, spending more time reading magazines, watching some all time great movies etc. I am learning a lot about business through these.

2. I had mentioned earlier that I am a part of the CEO Lecture Series. We had the first lecture by Mr. Vishal Sharma, MD, Johnson Diversey. The lecture was great. But what was even more enriching was the post lecture tea session that we ( 6 of us committee members) had with him. It is not everyday that you get to sit and chat with the MD of an MNC.

3. Went back HOME! This was the looong awaited vacation that I was so very looking forward to. Those 2 weeks were GREAT.

PS: I have changed the look and feel of the blog.

3 months and counting

2008-09-16T22:01:00.003+05:30

The last few weeks have been quite hectic, and, it is expected to get worse next week with the end terms approaching.

Looking back, today is exactly 3 months since I set foot on this campus. These 3 months have been quite eventful with their share of ups and downs. Here are some of the major milestones, personal and professional:

We had the PFC exams as soon as we started the course. Thankfully, I passed. :)
The foundations with some unique subjects like Learning Management, Case Study methodologies were a glimpse of what lied ahead - a unique and unparalleled course curriculum.
The end terms for foundations were an equally good indicator of what lies ahead - hectic
The PG Lab at Lonavala was a fitting conclusion to the first one month of bschool life
In between all these, we were introduced to the vibrant involuntary societies at SP - GASP, Boom Shankar, LIFE, musIG
We were introduced to the concept of ADMAP - developing administrative skills by real time administrative work
Celebrated B'day...painful and sweet
Committee and events assigned : CEO Lecture Series Committee and Marketing Impact Awards
Started getting The Wall Street Journal EVERYDAY
Trim1 came with some unique courses too - Financial Statement Analysis, Economic Times-Wall Street Journal Quizzes
In all this rigmarole QM buses were taking their toll
Marketing team of LST: Went and did a presentation at VJTI....amazing
The socially relevant course structure started doing its work - Anadwan visit and Social Impact Awards made us realized that unprivilaged can do wonders if opportunities are provided
Bombarded with mails about different Bschool events, participated in some, no luck till now
Poetry session with Poet Jane Bhandari, planning to take this forward
Lots and Lots of quizzes and assignments
field visit to HDFC Bank for Costing, another great experiece
A rocking autumns placement process

Apart from all these, there have been many other defining moments. At some points, i was totally dejected questioning my decision to join this course. At other times, I felt i was the luckiest person on earth to be able to get in here. I guess that is life...

For the last few days, I am having this very positive feeling. I'm using my time fruitfully. Watching some good movies and reading some great books in spite of the exam pressure. Hope this continues.

Autumns at SP...

2008-09-02T21:43:00.002+05:30

Just a month back, an article in The Business Standard took us all by surprise here at SP. The article was a highly speculative one stating that they have found out from sources that SPJIMR's placements won't be that good this year. In fact, it goes on to say that there will be a 30% dip in placements. We had no idea how BS laid their hands upon such an info. To top that fact, the article was published in the front page of the Mumbai edition.

As anyone who is remotely associated with SPJIMR knows, SP Jain don't have summer placements. Instead during summers, the participants (SPeak for students) provide consultancy to NGO's or do socially relevant projects. Instead of summers, we have a concept of autumn internships here. Last week we conducted the autumn internship placements for PGP-2. Boy, what an experience that was.

The placements were scheduled to be held for 2 days. Though we were confident of good placements (inspite of what BS had to say), we were a bit apprehensive owing to global economic slowdown. But, SP set all records straight. Autumns were a record this time with the whole batch getting placed in the first day itself with no carryovers to the next day, whatsoever.

This is what MINT had to report about SPJIMR Autumn Placements.

The Grand Old Circus...

2008-07-25T21:04:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time, there was a Grand Old Man. The Grand Old Man commanded respected from all, as generally Grand Old Men do. At times people were afraid of that Grand Old Man. At times, they simply adored him. This Grand Old Man of ours was a member of a huge association of other Grand Old Men of India. But unfortunately, the other Grand Old Men didn’t command as much respect as he did.

It once happened that few days before his 79th birthday, he fell out with some of his long term associates, the other Grand Old Men. He thought he was doing the right thing. Everyone else thought he was doing the right thing. But age had taken toll on the majority of the other Grand Old Men in the association. They thought that what others thought was wrong. They considered what they thought as correct. So, they simply stopped speaking to him.

You all must have guessed by now what I have been blabbering about all this while. Yesterday, while I was sitting transfixed in front of the TV set in our Bistro (café) watching first hand, the blunder CPI(M) was committing, I couldn’t help but think, “Are they out of their minds??”

Let me make this very clear that I am not a Leftist. In fact, the very fact that Left rule of 25 years have taken a state down the drain simply enrages me. For the last few years, the Left has shown some sign of progressiveness and this made me follow their moves closely. But, yesterday’s blunder was all that was required to prove me wrong.

Firstly, the fact that some important politburo members were found saying that the Constitution of the Party comes before the Constitution of the Country on national television took the brand image of the party to newer (and greater) depths. It just went on to show the scant regard the Party had for the Nation in general and the Constitution in particular.

Secondly, generally disciplinary action follows a 6 step course starting with initial intimation, reaching public censure and finally expulsion. The fact that the Speaker was summarily expelled goes on to hint that there was something deeper in the action taken. Was the Speaker commanding too much influence thereby causing discomfiture to the K family? Was someone taking this as an opportunity to prove his authority? Was someone trying to undermine the role that Bengal had to play in the scheme of events at CPI(M) and trying to cut it down to size? Possible.

Thirdly, the party hadn’t performed well in the Panchayat elections in Bengal. This just goes on to show the waning popularity of the party in rural areas in wake of the Singur-Nandigram fiasco. On top of that, the party expelled a member who exercised considerable amount of clout in a rural constituency such as Bolpur was pure vanilla style howler.

Fourthly, the Bengali bhadralok, the suave urbane Bengalis, who form a major vote bank for the party in urban areas (courtesy the CM) will not take this lightly. For any educated Indian, the Law of the Land is meant to be respected. The fact that the party disrespected the Office of the Speaker just won’t go down well with them.

And finally, the whole scenario, I felt, was pretty childish. Something of this sort happened a lot when we were kids. Remember that one time when you lost out the fight with you neighbourhood kid. You came sulking back home. Your younger brother/sister came in front of you and you vented all your anger and frustration on him/her. Doesn’t the whole episode resemble something of this sort?

Now that we know for sure that the Grand Old Men Association of India is totally out of their wits, we just have to wait and watch what happens in the general election that is due next year.

So, should we start writing an obituary for the association? No. After all this is Indian Polity. A ‘Behenji’ always pops up in the scheme of things.

Growing Personally....

2008-07-25T19:28:00.004+05:30

I had mentioned in my earlier post that we would be having PG Lab at Lonavala. Initially, I was thinking of it as a holidaying trip after the foundations exam. What really happened there was something that I had least expected.

The PG Lab changed the way we think about ourselves, others and things in general. We had sessions on OB and lots of outbound activities. They helped us a lot in knowing ourselves. But more than that, I came to know so many wonderful people from our batch. There were some people about whom I had misconceptions. Getting to know them was great.

It was one unique'est' experience.

Of trading and EXCELing and growing...

2008-07-07T20:23:00.005+05:30

Every year, SP Jain along with the National Entrepreneurship Network holds a mock IPO event titled "Lock, Stock and Trade". 15 odd companies started by real time entrepreneurs come to showcase their companies. Investors from various business schools from India and outside take part in the event bidding for IPO's of these companies. All these serve 2 purposes. Firstly, for the companies, it is a measure of how exciting their idea is. For the students, they get a feel of how IPO's work. Along with all these things, there are keynote speakers and well known panelists. Last year the keynote speaker was Capt. Gopinath of Air Deccan fame. The event has also seen Kiran Mazumdar Shaw as a keynote speaker.

Why I am ranting about this? Well, I have volunteered to do marketing for the event. We are a team of 12 PGP1 students and some PGP2 seniors responsible for marketing the event. And where better to start than this blog?? :)

Classes are going on as usual. We are also having MS Excel tutorial sessions which are quite good. I never knew Excel could have so many functionalities and uses. Other subjects are going fine too. We are having surprise quizzes, or should I say, shocking quizzes for QM.

PGP2 is throwing a freshers party this Thursday. Looking forward to it. Also, 5 days after that we will have our foundations end term exams. So really got to study.

Every year, Personal Growth Lab (PG Lab) is held at Lonavala for the whole batch. This year the admin is thinking of bifurcating the batch so that proper attention is paid to each participant. Lets see what happens.

More later!!

B'day @ S.P. Style...

2008-06-30T19:49:00.005+05:30

Yesterday was my b'day and it was the first time I was spending the day away from my family at a hostel. All throughout my engineering, my b'day fell during the sem break. So, was saved from the ordeal. But this year...

B'day at SP consists of various traditional ceremonies (some fun, others painful). So here's my b'day in pictures...

B'day bumps Ceremony.... painful :( :(

This cake looks great, but it's not for eating...

...it's for THIS

And these are the gallery viewers. They have a specific task too

The Top 5 ceremony.... ;)

the pole dance ceremony... :P

...this is what gallery viewers are for

Me at the end of it all :)

Whoa!!! What was it??!!!

Thanks PGP1 guys for this memorable B'day.

PS: I will be subject to all these 6 times during my stay. My own b'day and my roomies' b'days. So much for being "safe" for 4 yrs

First few days...

2008-06-26T23:35:00.003+05:30

Finally, I landed at SP last Monday. Life has been quite eventful since then. The first few days, I was down with viral fever. The seniors were good enough to take me to the doctor. I had to take lots of medicines and few injections. But now I am OK.

SPJIMR is just great. The profs are too good. The infrastructure is decent. The hostel is cool. The schedule is hectic. Am I liking it?

Well, that's a question I will answer some days later. Right now I'm missing home and friends a lot.

The mess food is OK but its veggie!! Have to get habituated.

I've got my laptop. It's a Dell Vostro 1400. Its good.

More later!!

City of Joy ----> City of Dreams

2008-06-15T13:02:00.002+05:30

This is perhaps my last post from the City of Joy for a long time to come. Today, I will be moving to Mumbai for MBA at SPJIMR.
Though technically, I lived in the outskirts of Kolkata, it was within the city that I've spent many memorable moments. Travelling to Kolkata, even if a bit hectic, was always fun. The many bandh days spent sitting at home or hostel doing nothing added to all the fun. Hanging out at Esplanade with friends, movies, shopping and everything will always remain fond memories.

I will miss you a lot Kolkata!!

Studies and an mp3 player :) ...

2008-06-01T00:02:00.005+05:30

Life is real busy these days. Gearing up to go to SPJIMR.

The pre foundation course has started and we have to study 3 subjects this year viz. Financial Accounting, Microeconomics and Statistics. While we have received e-learning module for FA, the institute has sent us books for the other 2 subjects.

I had my first MBA class today ( at least technically). It was an online class on FA and I liked it a lot.

I've gifted myself an mp3 player. It is a Transcend TSonic 650 2GB. So far I'm liking it. Let me see how it performs in the long run.

Thank You...

2008-05-18T21:22:00.003+05:30

This is the Thank-You post that was due for so long which I'd promised here.

I want to thank...

God : for blessing me with all that was necessary for achieveing what I have achieved

My Parents

My friends who stood by me at all times...especially
Ipsita for believeing in me
Alphes for preparing with me and providing the necessary support system as a roomie
Mahima for just being there.

All my teachers right from school days. They made me what I am

Doladi and Rangada for guiding me at various steps

IMS and CL. Though I didn't join their class room programs, IMS's test series and CL workshops were my only preparations. The National Achievers' Workshop of IMS were my only GD/PI preparations.

Pagalguy.com ... just amazing.

I may have missed out on someone/something. So a big THANK YOU in general.

Goodbye ITME :( :(

2008-05-12T11:43:00.002+05:30

I finally said GoodBye to college yesterday. I had been seeing off friends who were leaving for the last 2 days. Every goodbye was accompanied by tears and hugs. The only thought that was there in my mind was that even if I remain in contact with these people, I may not see their face again for the rest of my life. Imagine, 4 years we were together in thick and thin and now this...

And finally it was my turn to say goodbye. There weren't many people left in college. But when the warden was locking up the room, I had to fight very hard with myself to hold back my tears. This was the room where I'd spent 3 beautiful years of my life with a wonderful roommate. Believe me, letting go off really hurts...

And the final image which will always remain etched in my memory will be our car leaving the college gate, leaving the college behind. It was the same feeling when you try to hold some sand in your hand. However hard you try, you have to let go...

I guess this is life. Time to move on...

Me going the S.P.J. way...

2008-04-10T19:09:00.000+05:30

In the last post, I had words. Now I don't have any.

I've got through S.P.Jain IMR for PGDM(Marketing) 2008-2010.

A Thank-You post coming soon.

IMT Ghaziabad : Mission Accomplished !!

2008-03-31T12:24:00.002+05:30

Some things take time to sink in. Well, this one took 2 full days.

Saturday, 29th March 2008

I stayed back the weekend to study for the upcoming grand viva. Well, I was doing everything except studying. So, Saturday evening I was out with my friends enjoying the evening in the nearby tea stalls and golgappa stalls and cafetaria. I returned back at around 9.

IMT Ghaziabad's results were due for long but I wasn't expecting it to be out before Monday. I logged on to pagalguy as is my habit and saw a thread conspicuously named "IMT Final results 2008-2010". I thought it was for the people who had got the letter through courier. In spite of that, I just clicked on the thread just to check out the offer letter details. And Lo....IMT final results were announced!

I hurriedly logged on to IMT site and keyed in my CAT Tr. No. And this is what greeted me:

Congratualations! You have been offered admission to
PGDM(HR)- Ghaziabad programme.

The feeling that I had then cannot be defined in words. Making it to one of the top 10 bschools of the country was a dream which I was definitely not expecting to come true. The feeling was a mixture of shock, surprise, relief, disbelief, happiness and more.

I was feeling that all the hard work, tests, seminars, workshops and preparations for CAT finally paid off.

And I was reminded of this post of mine and this.

I'm waiting for S.P.Jain results now. If I convert that.....well....I don't know how happy I will be.

IFMR experience...

2008-03-15T21:54:00.000+05:30

I'm just back from Chennai. I'll post about my chennai experience soon. But first things first. This is how my IFMR went.

I had my IFMR interview on 12 MArch, 2 PM slot. Alphes(my friend) had his in the morning slot. So I was at IFMR from 8AM to 5PM. So you can say, I got a feel of how an entire day at IFMR is like (at least superficially).

I reached IFMR at 8:30 AM. I didn't have much difficulty in finding the location. The place was really very posh. It resembled Calcutta's Alipore area but was much more compact and green.

The campus in itself was very posh. I had some apprehensions of how a B School can operate from such a small campus. But I got over it within 5 mins. The whole place had this vintage feeling. The buildings were well maintained and looked elite. There was a notice guiding us to the place where we were supposed to be waiting.

The Parvati Hall was extremely suave. We went inside and started waiting. At 8:50 AM a person came and started the procedure by giving out batches. I told him that I was in the 2PM batch. He asked me to wait outside in the library.

I wen downstairs but the library was closed. So I started waiting in front of the main building. The events which followed impressed me most.

One of the support staffs saw me waiting in front of the building. He thought I didn't know where to go. He came and started showing me the way to Parvati Hall. I explained him that I was to wait till 2PM in the library. He then started asking me from where I'd come, where I was staying etc. He then asked if I'd had breakfast. I said,"No". He then led me to the institute hostel forcing me to have breakfast. He said, "It'd cost just 20 rupees. U eat upma and vada na?". The concern he showed was really touching.

Meanwhile it was 9:15 AM and the seniors and the teachers had started arriving. The calm and serene campus was now bustling with activity. The mess food was quite OK. The some of the seniors were wearing the IFMR TShirt which looked good. The faculty and the students who had arrived as well as the hostelites were having the same food.

After breakfast, I went to the library. The library is not huge but it is extremely well stocked. I saw numerous journals on finance and management. All of them were current editions. The library also subscribes to 8-10 newspapers. I saw some people who were not students of IFMR in the library taking notes, photocopies etc.

At around 11:30, I decided to take a stroll in the surrounding areas. I saw students and faculty members in the faculty block. All the students carried a laptop each. So, I guess the lappie thing isn't just a gimmick.

By 12:15, my friend had finished his process and we went on to have lunch at a place 5 mins from the institute. My GD/PI process started at 2:00PM

We were first given a brief introduction about the institute by Prof. Swaminathan. Thereafter we had some interactions with 2 first year students who answered our queries.

This was followed by
1. Maths test : It contained questions on probability, mensuration and calculas
2. Psychometric test: Normal
3. A questionnare on various things about IFMR.

Then started an eternal wait to get into the PI panels. One panel had 5 members and another had 3. As the institute is an ICICI bank institute, there were bank officials in the panels. Only 9 out of 20 people had turned up. So during the waiting time, all of us were chatting and getting to know each other.

Finally my turn for the PI arrived. I was the last person for the interview. I was sent to the 3 member panel. One of the panelists was Prof. Jijo Lukose. I remember most of the questions asked but they are not in order.

1. Introduce yourself.
2. About Ayn Rand's philosophy.
3. About blogging
4. Why I think I'm fit for MBA
5. What I hope to get out of 2 years at IFMR
6. Do I know statistics and economics? I said No. THen one of the panelists went on to give me an idea of the course which is heavy on these. He then asked,"will you be comfortable doing these things?" I said that yes as I was good at all these things in school
7. Where I did my summer training?
8. What other calls I had? Will I join IFMR?

My interview lasted for just 10 mins while other people had 30 mins interviews each. I don;t know what to make out of this.

The GD was quite chilled out as we had actually been talking for such a long time. People were laughing, joking, discussing seriously throughout the GD. The panelist, Prof Raghu Raman, finally said that we were such a friendly batch.

The day ended at 5:30PM.

SIMSR Experience...

2008-03-09T18:26:00.002+05:30

I had my SIMSR interview yesterday.

It was a hot day and I was sweating profusely, I was a bit nervous. I had had a nightmare that somehow kjs interview will go wrong.

I reached Presidency College at 12:30PM and saw some people standing there waiting for the interview process to start. Presidency college looked more like a CPM party office rather than an institution for higher learning. The entire campus was full of banners and graffiti shouting political slogans.

At 1:10 PM we decided to go upstairs. We reached the room where the interview was being conducted. After 5 mins a professor came out and asked us to wait in a classroom. He was old and quite friendly.

After much delay, the process finally started at 2:30 PM.

We were ushered into a conference hall. When all of us were seated, the registration process began. After the registration, we were shown a video about the institute. There were some 10 people from the institute. So I guessed there would be 5 panels.

We then had to write a 300 word essay in 15 mins. There were 2 topics but I remember only the one for which I wrote.

"Indian newspapers are becoming gossip magazines"

We were told not to make spelling and grammatical errors. We would be judged by the logical flow of our essays.

The next stage was a psychometric test of 10 mins. There were 45 questions and each had 5 options.

Next we were given some info about the process and taken to the respective rooms for the GD.

There were 10 members in each group and we were given a case study of how in spite of the boom in economy, the people at the bottom rung of our society is not benefiting.

We were given 2 mins to jot down points, 1.5 mins to give a monologue, 10 mins to discuss and 30 sec to sum up (only 1 person). Make sure that you don't speak while someone else is summing up. It will go against you big time.

The PI was conducted by a separate panel so that no biases based on GD is carried on to the PI. The PI has the next highest weightage after CAT score.

The PI panel was very friendly. The Pi followed some broad areas of discussion.

My Name. How it is pronounced. Why I pronounce my name the way I do.
Introduction. Questions based on introduction. Extracurriculars I'd mentioned in intro.
Last 3 Books I've read. Discussion about "Blink" (I had mentioned it).
Which all students I know from kjs (I'd mentioned "students").
About charity and philanthropy at somaiya (I'd mentioned this in my profile). Why I am interested in charity. About TATA's and philanthropy (I am from Jamshedppur). Huge discussion followed.
My strengths and weaknesses. Again huge discussion on both aspects and I was asked to justify what 'd written and said in the profile sheet.

The PI was completely stress free. This was by far my best PI.

Going to Chennai today for IFMR which is on the 12th.

Nirma Experiece...

2008-03-04T21:08:00.001+05:30

I had my IMNU interview yesterday. One of the panelists was Prof. Abhijit Bhattacharya and it was he who literally conducted my entire interview. So here is my experience...

The venue was quite OK as Ho Chi Minh street is quite well known. So had no problem in reaching the venue. Reached at 2:30PM and met one the the guys I'd met at the Achievers Workshop. Got chatting with him and soon another girl joined us. So we chatted for the next 30 mins. The process started at 3:00PM sharp. I should appreciate the fact that they were quite punctual.

There were 10 students slotted but only 7 actually went through the process. 1 person came late so he was asked to come the next day. The other 2 were absent.

Prof Bhattacharya welcomed us to the process and informed us about the rules. We were given a sheet wid the GD topic printed on it. Our topic was

Regional Parties will strengthen India's politics

I was very happy to get a politics topic. And it so happened that three of us were seated together. We had 2 mins to think, 1 min to give an introduction to the topic, 10 mins for the GD, and 30 secs to sum up.

After the introduction part, the topic was open for discussion. I started the GD with discussing the positive aspects of the topic. The discussion was quite chilled out with no fish market scenario. The 3 of us sitting together was an added advantage as we had quite a good discussion in the waiting room. Finally we concluded with each of us receiving 30 secs time.

We were then asked to wait for the PI.

The normal duration of the PI was around 10 mins. I was the 5th guy and slowly started realizing that it would be a stress interview. Finally my turn came

The interview did not start wid "introduce yourself". Instead he asked me about my campus placement and what offers I'd got. Then for 5 mins, the only discussion we seemed to have that I should join a company instead of going for an MBA. And I held to my ground. I said I want to enter the industry in a business role and gave the example of Phaneesh Murthy and how he transformed Infosys. Finally, I felt I could justify my stand.

He then moved on to whether I've read any management books. I said no but I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell which is about decision making. He also asked me the name of the book written by Bill Gates which I could answer.

He then asked me about Peter Druker. I had heard his name but didn't quite know who he was. I said that he was a management guru. He asked me which area did he work on. I said,"Sir, I'm not very sure but I think it is marketing". He said," Marketing, huh?". I said, "Sir, I'm not sure about this one." I think this is where I made a mess as this was not the correct answer.

The last question was about Sabeer Bhatia. I answered who he was. Prof asked me to name his current company. I said that I don't remember the name but I know the product he is working on and told them about the product(Live Office) and that it is based in Bangalore. Finally, he asked me to leave.

My overall impression is that I did good in GD and decently in PI. The only thing which goes against me I think is that I have no work ex and that I said I haven't read any management books. Hoping for the best.

IMT Ghaziabad Interviews...

2008-02-27T16:59:00.003+05:30

I had my GD/PI for IMT GHZ/NGP today. Here's a brief account of what happened.

The reporting time was 8:30 AM at 2,Robinson St., Kolkata. And Even at 7:45AM, I was not getting a bus to go to the place. I started panicking and took a taxi. I reached there by 8:15AM only to realize that the rate at which things were being done, I may well have reached at 10.

It was a nice bungalow, though a bit old. Later I found out, it was our commerce minister, Kamal Nath's house. Garden chairs were spread in the garden and we were asked to sit there.

At around 9:00AM we were asked to go inside and register. Though they had not asked for photocopies of testimonials, they were required. After the verification, we were given a course preference sheet. My group was B and serial no 7.

I was guided to another room by the staff present there. This room had lots of chairs and was air conditioned. But then I noticed a small annexe room with sofas with 1-2 people present. I rushed and captured one. :)

I filled up the preference sheet and got talking with the guys present there. There was this one boy, a fresher who had got placed in INFY. Started chatting with him. Found out that he had got 99.xx %ile.

Finally at around 9:30AM my name was announced. We went upstairs into a room. It was a huge room (apparently a bed room with all furnitures removed). There were 15 chairs for the participants, 3 for the panelists, a table and the interviewee's chair. I was lucky enougnh to get the middle seat in the arrangement (remember my NO was 7!!). After about 10 mins, the panelists entered the room.

THE GD

There were 3 panelists, an old man(OM), a friendly man(FM) and another man(AM). OM did most of the talking. he told us about the rules and regulations and not to fight amongst ourselves during the GD. Then FM said "Thank You for choosing IMT-G as a preferred option". I was like thank you ki kya zaroorat hai sir ji, bas aap le lijiye!! :).

The rules were:

2 envelopes would be opened containing 2 topics. We had 1 min to think about the topics n then reach a consensus. After that we would be given 5 mins to think and 8 mins to discuss.Then, 1 min for each of us to put forth our views. Finally, 5 mins to write down the summary of the GD.

The topics were:

Indian Cricket Team will be the next world champions.
Economic reforms should grow up

One of us were absent and we were divided 7/7. Finally, OM asked some of us to shift so that a consensus may be reached. I said,"OK Sir! I'll go with the Cricket topic". (Brave me!!)

So we were given 5 mins to think. Finally, when it started, people forgot all what OM had so painstakingly said and started shouting. I put in 2 points one of which was picked up by the group and also contributed here and there. I was raising my 3rd point when OM asked us to stop and made a pretty sarcastic remark about us not knowing how to conduct ourselves. Then we were given 1 min each serially to talk about the topic and 5 mins to write down. Overall, I think I was average.

THE PI

Again it was a long 1 and 1/2 hours wait before the PI. Chatted with few people from Achievers Workshop and other group members. Suddenly someone came in and said,"Yaar archimedes principle and newtons laws pooch raha hai!!". And people started calling up whoever they knew for the answer and started recollecting all sorts of laws.

Finally, I was called in for the PI.

FM: Please take a seat
ME: Thank You sir!
silence all around. Panelists were going through my profile sheet. In my panel, freshers were asked heavy acads question. So I was not nervous at all.
AM: OK, Introduce yourself first.
ME: blah blah blah....member of cultural committee in college...finished
OM:So you were a member of cultural committee?
ME: Yes Sir! In the first year.
OM: So what is the difference between values, belief and culture? How are they related?
Clean Bowled!! Yaar acads kaha gaye????
ME: Managed to answer something good
OM: Is it, isn't it the vice versa?
Then we had a discussion on all these finally he gave me the answer.
OM:So what is the culture of your college?
ME: answered
OM: Who are managers? What are their roles? Leadership?
discussed
OM: So you want to be a manager or a leader after MBA?
discussed
FM: Have you heard the word empathy?
ME: Yes Sir...and explained

Then we discussed what are soft skills, what soft skills are taught, what is the difference between a team and a group etc etc. And all the time I was thinking ki kuch padhai ke baare me poocho!!

AM: Tell me how will your current course help in your MBA?
ME: Answered and he looked satisfied
AM: So what programming languages are you good at? finally
ME: C and JAVA
AM: So what is the advantage of JAVA over C?
ME: answered
AM: What is polymorphism?
ME: Answered and I started to gain confidence

FM: Ok Thank You Shankha and shook hands with me. I was like "Ho Gaya????"

The PI lasted for around 15 mins which was the norm today in most cases as the 12:30 batch guys had already arrived.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS

I had an OK GD and a Good PI. It was a bit of a stress PI. I think that my 'poor' CAT score will act as a deterrent. Also, I don't have any work ex to offset that. Lets see what happens!!

Interview blues...

2008-02-13T23:16:00.003+05:30

Various interviews that are coming up have left me quite jittery. My interview schedule so far:

S.P.Jain : 25th Feb (Mumbai)
IMT : 27th Feb
IM-NU: 3rd Mar
SIMSR: 8th Mar

IFMR and LIBA are yet to come out with their GD/PI list.

Nowadays, the only thing that goes on in my mind is interviews, interviews and some more interviews. Sometimes I feel so worked up that I wish to leave it all and enjoy the last semester of college life like my friends. But then, something in me tells me:

ek khep hai shesh kisi vidh paar use kar jao ,
woh dekho us paar chamakta hai mandir priyatam ka....

(Hope I'm quoting it right).

Will try to post more frequently.

IMS Achievers' Workshop - Day 2

2008-02-13T22:52:00.001+05:30

The second day was all about interviews. The day started at 8AM. I had somehow managed to fill up the two pre-interview the day before inspite of the fact that I was dead tired. The registration process continued for 1 hour. Since interview sessions cannot be held simultaneously for everyone, they divided the participants into various groups.

First we had a session "Marketing yourself- The FAB way" conducted by the HR head of PriceWaterHouse Coopers. It was great. We were told how to tackle the two most important questions that come up in a B-School interview viz. "Introduce Yourself" and "Why MBA".

Then came the turn for the first interview. Again this was taken by two IIM passouts. One of them is working at HUL. The interview was an eye opening one. More than the actual interview, what impressed me most was the kind of feedback that I recieved.

This was followed by a lateral thinking session. It was good,

We then had the prelims of the Achievers' Quiz conducted by Boat Club Quiz Club from Pune. Though I didnt fare quite well, the questions were good.

Post lunch, we had a session on business economics. It wasn't a live session. A video was played for us. The person in the video was an economist. He was gesticulating so much that we rolled with laughter. But still, I would say that the session was quite informative.

Then I had my stress interview, which, incidentally I didn't know that it would be one. And I ended up smiling the whole time. The panelists were quite impressed.:)

The day ended with one of the best sessions I ever had. It was on "Leadership" by the COO of IMS, and IIM-B passout. It was too good to be described in words.

PS: Sorry for posting so late. Busy with interview preps.

IMS Achievers' Workshop - DAY 1

2008-01-29T13:10:00.000+05:30

The IMS National Achievers' Workshop is conducted every year for the IMS students who get calls from the top B-Schools in India. Since I was a test series student at IMS and had got a call from S.P. Jain IMR, I was invited to be a part of the workshop. Man! What an Experience it was!

It was a rainy day. A rainy day in January is never welcomed. Somehow I pulled myself out of the bed, got ready and reached Abhinav Bharati School at 8 AM sharp. I saw many people had already turned up for the workshop and more students were constantly streaming in. I felt as if I had come to a SimCAT center once again. It was then that the reality dawned upon me. These people around me were the top 2% of the total MBA aspirants of the country who were found eligible to appear for the 'elite' B-School's GD/PI process.

After the registration process got over, we were guided into the auditorium, Gyan Manch, for a brief introduction of the whole process. The workshop finally started 90 mins late at 9:30 AM.

The first session was in the auditorium itself by Mr. Charanpreet Singh, Associate Dean, Praxis B-School. I had already had a few test series feedback sessoions with him in past. So, I knew what a good speaker he can be. The session was quite enlightening. He gave us a brief overview of the GD/PI process and then we had an interactive session with him.

After this session got over, we were guided to our respective classrooms for the mock GD's of the day.

We had 10 people in our room with a good mix of freshers and work-ex. The panelists were two alumni of IIM-Lucknow. We were first given a presentation on what is required of one in a GD. Then we had a mock GD. The topic was "If stock market is legal, gambling should also be legal".

Let me tell you one thing. I am pathetic at GD's. So as usual performed badly. When I actually saw the in-camera proceedings of our GD, I could actually see where I had messed up bigtime.

Ultimately, after the feedback of the first GD, we had our breakfast(sandwiches) and proceeded to start the second GD whose topic was "The Best person to recieve Bharat Ratna is ________". Here I improved a bit and could speak some sense.

In the meantime, we got our individual kits containing GK, GD, PI materials, a leather folder and a T shirt.

Post lunch, we had a GD bloopers session where videos were shown of how people messed up ther GD. This was accompanied by a GD/PI insight by an IMS faculty.

Having completed this, we went on to have 3 more GDs; 2 case studies and 1 abstract GD.

The first case was about a company which had come up in an area and was polluting it. The local residents filed a petition against the company in a court. The court gave some judgement which didnt exactly go against the company. We were to discuss if we thought the court had given out a fair statement or not.

Since this was the first case study I was doing, I messed up again. After the feedback was given, we were told how to tackle a case study. This proved quite beneficial as after this our performance improved. The second case study was about how, in an automobile company, a manager had introduced highly productive schemes. Since the demand in the last quarter had fallen, what should a CFO do.

After tea, we had an abstract GD titled "Black and White". And again we messed up. We considered everything that was black and white but did not consider various other interpretations of the topic possible.

Finally at 8 PM, the DAY1 of the workshop ended.

Will post about the DAY 2 experiences soon.

Movies...

2008-01-16T21:14:00.000+05:30

I've been watching some great and some not so great movies for the last few days.

Taare Zameen Par: A great movie. What could have been made into a documentary on dyslexia was so beautifully handled by the scriptwriter and the director. The performance of the child actor was nothing short of great. Kudos for making such a great movie.

Hanuman Returns: Frankly, I watched this movie as I thought it would be a sequel to Hanuman-1. It was a disappointment. The story could have been woven around any other super hero. I think naming it Hanuman was just a marketing strategy of the producers.

The Village: Though mane people didn't like this movie, I felt, it conveyed a very special message quite successfully. Human nature has good as well as bad aspects. And one cannot suppress the bad aspects just by protecting the human being from the outside world. What is necessary is that the good aspects is nurtured properly.

Rear Window: 1956 classic by Alfred Hitchcock featuring James Stewart and Princess Grace Kelly. Writing anything about this movie will amount to belittling this great director. Brilliant Movie Making!!

The Silence of the Lambs: Again a classic. Various facets of human nature potrayed successfully. Acting, movie making, plot...just great. A must watch.

Will be watching more movies in the coming days.

CAT 2007

2008-01-09T23:29:00.000+05:30

Sometimes it so happens that a news just does not seem to sink in. I got a first hand feeling of this yesterday.

It was the D Day. CAT 2007 results were to be anounced. I was tensed. I took 3 exams this year, CAT, SNAP and XAT. And among the three, I'd taken only CAT seriously.

So when I recieved the sms stating my CAT score, it really did take some time to sink in.

CAT 2007

QA:75.47
DI:90.58
VA:98.77

Total: 96.01%ile

I was expecting 94 as the best case scenario. So, when I saw this, I didnt know how to react.

I've applied to S.P. Jain, IMT G, IMT N, Nirma and Somaiya. So far, I've got a confirmed interview call from S.P.Jain. The GI is on 25th Feb. Got to prepare for that. If IMT G does not raise its cutoff, I'll be able to get interview calls from all of the above.

I just hope I convert S.P. Jain. It really will mean a lot to me.

And to everyone reading this:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

CAT gone by, now sems....

2007-11-30T11:10:00.000+05:30

CAT went off quite well. I couldn't do well in the QA section. Otherwise, as per the coaching institutes, I'll be clearing the DI and VA cutoffs.

I've applied to S.P. Jain, K.J. Somaiya, Nirma and IMT- Ghaziabad and Nagpur. I'm really not sure whether I'll continue my study or join work.

Actually, the thing is that I'd prepared for just 3 months. I want to give myself a fair chance to prepare well and get into the top B-Schools of the country.

On the academic front, the semester exams are round the corner and I've studied nothing. Actually, not feeling like studying. The entire day, either I'm surfing the Internet or reading Agatha Christie. It's high time I should start studying seriously. After all, I have to get pass marks in all subjects if not more.

CAT

2007-11-16T19:41:00.000+05:30

Day after tomorrow, I'll be taking the CAT!

I don't know how I will fare at the test. I may do bad, average or good. CAT may or may not become THE decisive factor in my life. It may or may not chart the future course of my life.

What I want and pray is that my belief, that the CAT can be cracked with common sense and clear thinking during those 2 and 1/2 hours, holds true.

Hope I'd do well.

Team India and the National Flag...

2007-10-06T21:33:00.000+05:30

I think anyone who knows even a bit of cricket must have watched the T20 World Cup final. I'm saying this as I hardly watch cricket, but was glued to the television that evening. It was such a glorious moment for India, and as any other Indian, I felt proud of my country.

But why am I writing all these after so many days of the T20WC win???

After that crucial scoop-shot gone awry by Misba, we saw the excitement of the players on field. They were so happy, excited by this win. They made a huddle, jumped on one another, picked up wickets and....

They took the Tricolour from the fans and did what not...

While watching the telecast, I couldn't help but notice the way Team India was handling the Tricolor. They wore the Tricolour. Fine. They went round the ground waving the Tricolour. Fine.

What was not fine was the way they let the National Flag drop on the ground. They drenched the flag in champagne. One of the players held the flag upside down.

When I was seeing all this, I tried not to take notice. It was such a glorious moment for India. I decided to focus on the win.

Few minutes back, I saw this news item. And the comments provided by the reader goes on to say that it wasn't just me. Many people did take notice of the fact.

I think, even if the intentions of the players wasn't at all bad, one should handle the National Flag with utmost care. After all, it is a symbol of our pride.

A Ray of Hope....

2007-09-29T20:28:00.000+05:30

I'm posting after a long time. Two reasons:

1. I did not want to post just for the sake of posting. I'd made a resolution that I'd post only when I have something worthwhile to post.
2. I've been very very busy for that last 2-3 weeks.

Firstly, about my busy'ness'. The week before last, I had my periodical exams, viva etc. Last week, had many free workshops on CAT preparation at Career Launcher. Had to stay there 3-4 hours, sometimes 6 hours, at a stretch. But at the end of the day, they were extremely beneficial.

And about what worthwhile thing I had to post. Well, after the disastrous performances in SimCAT 1 and 2, I improved in SimCAT 3. From 69, my percentile jumped to 92. That was some improvement. But still, I didn't manage to score well in DI. I just hope I'll be able to maintain and improve my score in the subsequent SimCATs.

Yesterday, a student from SCMHRD was at CL to give a presentation on SNAP and SCMHRD. I had decided against appearing for the test. But now I think i should give it a shot. Who know, I may just be lucky.

Apart from studies, life has been as mundane as it always is. A lot needs to be done in the academic front. So that is what keeps me busy these days.

Today is Ipsita's birthday. So.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

And Lazyness Creeps In....

2007-08-28T21:50:00.000+05:30

The results are out. I came fourth in class, thus ending my topping spree. Got a decent 8.52/10. Wasn't expecting much anyway.

Yesterday, alps n me treated some friends at Tandoor Park. It was quite nice and I enjoyed it a lot. Just hope everyone enjoyed too.

Life is varying from normal to boring these days. I really have so much of work to do that I'm ending up doing nothing.

Got 69.45%ile in SimCAT-1. Disastrous performance!! Got to work hard on QA and DI as these two sections are pulling me down. But I'm hardly studying these days.

Submitted an incomplete requirement for my project. Got to work on that too.

And Infosys Campus Connect is always there. Though we didn't have any classes for last 3 days owing to some problems in college, I know that we have to do a project in C. And that is worrying me like anything.

Anyway, all said and done, the bottom line is that I'm leading a very lazy life when I can't afford to. So got to buck up in get back to work!!!!

My Life and Times...

2007-08-13T00:01:00.000+05:30

Life has been quite eventful lately.

I rejoined college last Monday. Got my seminar and project topics. It's good to be back at acads again.

I came back to Calcutta from college on Friday. That day I spoke to a friend for the first time. Her voice is so very sweet.

Yesterday, I took my first Mock CAT at IMS. It wasn't a simCAT. It was just a zero prep prelim test. It was just to gauge where we stand. Did OKeish in that test. Nothing great.

After the test, went to Mahima's place for lunch and had a really good time. I stayed there from 2 to 7. Thats a long duration by my standards. However, I could not even make out how time flew by. And just for the records, Yours Truly was forced into singing a song...an experience he'd never forget.

Today had lunch at Sujay's place. Biriyani and chicken. It was WOW!!

Going back to the IMS test, it was a revelation. Not the test paper, but the people there. There were english honours and post graduate students scoring dismally low even in the english section. One student couldn't even speak properly. He said yes and no by nodding his head. Outside, on the notice board, I saw that IMS has CAT form filling session. The participants were required to bring a photocopy of their CAT form and the IMS people would tell them step by step how to fill up the form. I mean, its OK to help people fill out complicated details like calculating CGPA. But a Mock form filling session!!!!

Seeing all these, I was just wondering what sort of managers they would become.

Anyway, I'm no one to judge. My own preparation is on the rocks. I don't know what I'm doing. I really need to work hard.

Finished training...waiting to join College...

2007-07-27T14:18:00.000+05:30

Finally, my training got over. Got the report printed out yesterday and got it spiral bounded. Finished off all formalities today. And finally, I have the certificate in my hand.

Getting trained at Tata Steel was quite a good experience. Though we had our share of boring days, the overall experience was great. We got to learn many things. But the most important thing is, we got a first hand feel of how it is to work in a 'real' office.

The project was "A Study of the Knowledge Management IT System at TATA Steel Ltd."

Knowledge Management was a very new concept when we started off. I had to do a lot of reading to get a hang of it. On top of that, the training was being held at one of the Best KM groups of the world. Expectations were very high!!

The training proved to be immensely helpful on two counts:

I got to know something which was quite new and different. In the current business scenario, KM is given huge importance. To get an idea of it was great.
The KM System has 10,000 users and around 25,000-30,000 Knowledge Pieces are submitted each year. To get a first hand feel of such a large information system is nothing less than awe inspiring.

So now what?? Well' I have many other tasks at hand. One of them is learning SWING. I have to do my final year project in SWING and I still know very little. Also, I have to re-publish my site at googlepages. I had unpublished it so that I could make changes. It's high time I start working on it again.

So long..

StatCounter...

2007-07-22T15:25:00.000+05:30

If you go right at the bottom of this page, you'll see a link. It tracks the number of visitors to my blog.

StatCounter is really a great service. If you have a blog or a website, do add StatCounter to it. You must be thinking why I'm doing a free advertisement of this service :). It is because it gives 'free' service and I really love it and use it in my other websites too.

And recently, the founder has won the title of the best young entrepreneurs by BusineesWeek.

Do check out the site.

Office Alone...

2007-07-19T14:53:00.000+05:30

I'm alone in the office. There is not a single person around. All the PC's are switched off. I don't think anyone will turn up today.

And to add to my woes, there is not even a single pretty secretary whom I can hit on. I don't know why but I think Tata Steel has an aversion to goodlooking girls. I haven't noticed a single pretty girl in my 3 weeks stay here till now.

My project is going fine. just a week left. i'll ahve to start making the report from tomorrow.

The Greatest Singer...

2007-07-17T20:57:00.000+05:30

There is a recent spate of musical talent hunts in the Indian Television these days. If Zee TV has it's vintage SaReGaMaPa packaged for the newGen viewers, StarPlus is not behind with it's Voice Of India. And not to mention, SONY's Indian Idol. Sahara will be coming up with BathRoom singer soon. Even in the Bengali channels (which I get to watch: courtesy Mummy dearest) I can name SaReGaMaPa bengali and the ETV one (dnt knw its name).

One thing common to all of them are the 'staged' fights which the producers make the judges put up to drive the TRP of the shows up. Sometimes I wonder if these icons of the music industry have nothing else to do. I think they really don't have work. I may be wrong, but, I think, only a few of them have quality work in their hand.

SaReGaMaPA:

Except for Mr. Reshammiya, I think no one else if 'busy'. Vishal-Shekhar duo is busy with their recent release Cash. I think the only two films in their recent past are Tararumpum and Cash. Bappi Lahiri and Ismail Durbar's business is anyone's guess

Voice of India:

Aadesh Shrivastav recently had a release. I don't even remember the name of the movie. Jatin-Lalit have parted ways and are not that busy that they used to be once upon a time. Abhijeet sings very less these days. The only person with considerable amount of work is Alka Yagnik.

Indian Idol:

Javed Akhtar is a busy man. So is Alisha Chinoy (it's rocking, aaj ki raat). Anu Malik gave some flops like Umrao Jaan and Jaaneman. We can say that the judges here are moderately well off.

Considering all these, no wonder they have to put up with the producers 'demands' of fight scenes. paapi pet ka sawal hai yaar!!

And I don't know much about the Bengali music fraternity. But something I saw on television yesterday made me fall off my chair. A person, named Shilajit(celebrity) was arguing with a very senior judge that music can be without sur and taal.

Well, I agree with him. HIS music is surely without the above two. Have heard him sing once. I swear I'd never like to hear him sing again!!

disclaimer: The above post derives from the little bit of knowledge that the blogger has about music and current music industry scenario. Any fact missed or misquoted is deeply regreted!!

My Tooth! My Tooth!!!

2007-07-17T20:17:00.000+05:30

A dreadful thing happened on Sunday!!! I got a tooth extracted!!! Don't ask about details. Believe me it's gory till the last minute. So i'll spare you the details. But yes. It did pain a lot. It was sort of a nightmare!!

Other than that, I've found a very good net friend who's read my blog inside out (and I think memorized it). Hope she reads this!!!

The CAT notification is out. Will have to start preparing from August. I know with 3 months preparation, it's next to impossible. But as i said, Infy is always there for me (provided I don't get a backlog this sem) .

Taniya has started blogging. Hope she'll regular. Read the first two posts. They were good.

Ritwik and Pooja went away yesterday. Now just Souvik and me left in Jamshedpur. We went to CCD yesterday just to meet up for da last time. We'll be meeting only after 6 months in December if everything remains alright.

And this picture is just AWESOME. It's MY college. Sorry Taniya!!! Just couldn't resist 'stealing' it from your Orkut album.

Training....

2007-07-01T11:11:00.000+05:30

I'm back in Jamshedpur. My exams ended on 15th. Exams were good in so far that I think I won't get a backlog.

Being back in home is just great. For the first few days, I just whiled away my time like anything. Went to school, met with friends and enjoyed.

I'm getting trained at TATA STEEL under the Knowledge Management Group . So far it has been good. My project guide is helpful and that makes my work easier. Also, KM is a great concept.

The first 3 days were a real bore. Just went to SNTI to fill up forms. Also had to undergo safety training. But these were not counted towards attendance. My project strated on my B'day, 29th June.

Learned about KM community framework today. It was quite enlightening.

I'd started a blog on my summer training thinking that I'd keep track of whats going on. But ultimately, I found out that there are so many concepts that it'd be better if I stick to my notebook.

And I also have to learn Lotus Notes. Actually the KM system in TATA STEEL is built on lotus notes. So, its required.

I'll try to be regular in posting.

Don't wanna give a title.....

2007-06-03T22:36:00.000+05:30

Really not feeling like studying. So i'm blogging!!!

6th semester starts this Wednesday and I still don't feel the exam pressure.

I was studying a subject, quite pompously named, Management Information System. If you don't have a clue of what it is, let me tell you, It is more boring than boredom itself. It's all theory about what a manager should do, how an organization is build, its structure, what kind of information managers require to function etc. I mean, yes, it is sort of interesting to 'know'. But mugging it up is really a pain in more than one place.

Enjoyed my 4 day stay at home. Ate a lot, slept a lot.

Finally got permission from my parents to have a shot at MBA. But I think now it's too late. Just 4 months left to CAT. And to make matters worse, I had stopped studying for CAT 2 months back when my parents said no with a capital N. Still, I'll give it a shot. Specially JMET. It'll be great if I get through somewhere good. Otherwise, Infy or Wipro is always there.

OK. I think I really need to study a bit now. Otherwise even God won't help me....

Posting a pic of our new Hostel-mate...cute na???

A song worth mentioning...

2007-05-26T11:00:00.000+05:30

Though I am a Bengali, I don't listen much to Bengali songs. Part of the reason is that I've in Bihar (and then Jharkhand) for the first 19 years of my life. Living in a hybrid culture was fun. But slowly I started liking Bengali as a language and as a culture. That was during high school.

Yesterday I came across the lyrics of this song in this blog. Though there are some really small errors in translation and also the lyrics itself, I liked the work done by the blogger. the translation was poetry in its own right.

Here is the text:

Ei Meghla, dine ekla
ghare thaake na to mon,
kachhe jaabo kobe paabo,
ogo tomar nemontron.....

(Alone on this rainy day,
my restless self refuses to stay home,
I want to be near you,
When will you invite me ....)

Juthi bone, oi hawa, kore shudhu asha jaoa
Hai hai re, din jai re, bhare andhare bhubon
Kachhe jaabo kobe paabo ogo tomar nemontron
Ei Meghla…

(In the jasmine grove, the wind frolics, to and fro,
Alas, the day goes by, the world is in darkness,
I want to be near you, When will you invite me,
Alone on this rainy day....)

Shudhu jhhore jhhoro jhhoro, aaj bari shaara din
Aaj jeno meghe meghe, holo mon je udasheen

(The winds are stormy, its been pouring all day,
Amidst these clouds, my mind is sad)

Aaji aami khone khone, ki je bhaabi aano mone,
Aaj aashbe, ogo haanshbe, kobe hobe she milon
Kachhe jaabo kobe paabo ogo tomar nemontron
Ei meghla…

(Today every second, my restless mind wanders,
Maybe you will come today, smile at me, Oh when will we have this reunion,
To be near you, oh when will I get your invitation
Alone on this rainy day....)

Good work done....

Examsss

2007-05-21T12:08:00.000+05:30

I think I'm posting after 20, no 21 days. Why? Well, I didn't feel like posting.

Many things have happened in the last 20 day, some worth mentioning, others not. My parents celebrated their 25th Marriage Anniversary. I was there in Jamshedpur for a few days. Then their were things like when the entire department went out and had fun. It was great. And I had my practical exams in which I did well.

My exams are so near that to call it 'round-the-corner' will be an exaggeration. And I'm not studying at all. Everyday, I wake up at around 10, Promise myself that I'll study for an hour in the morning, open my lappie and surf the net forgetting all about that promise and promising afresh that I'll study in the afternoon. The afternoon passes off similarly and at the end of the day, I'm left with burning eyes( cause: continuous staring at the monitor) and some broken promises.

I don't know why, now a days I really don't find studies that interesting. May be it is because I don't feel that pressure anymore of scoring good in the exams. Or is it something else?

OK. People who know me, hold your breath. I've been playing table tennis for a couple of days. I know, sports is not something which I can call my cup of tea. But still, I am enjoying the game.

I think I'll have to do my summer training from CMC. The TATA STEEL thing can't take place as my exams finishes on 15th June. And anything else hasn't materialised. So it has to be Advance JAVA from CMC. By the way, I'm trying to learn Swing from my favourite JAVA tutorial.

Enough for now I guess. I really don't know when I'll be able to post again. Just hope that it is sometime soon.

Infosys....An Experience!!

2007-05-01T15:48:00.000+05:30

The Infosys campus recruitment process was held on the 26th April at our college. 6 other colleges and around 350 students participated in it.

The PPT(Pre Placement Talk) was scheduled at 9:00 AM. We really did not expect them to be on time. But they were. I think this created a very good impression among the students. I heard someone say,"No wonder they are the best."

Anyway, the person who delivered the PPT, was a young man of about 28. He became famous in our campus as the fone-guy as he was never seen without his mobile stuck to his ears. But he gave a very good PPT and explained everything we wanted.

The marks criteria varied from board to board. For ISC it was 65-65-65 with 5% relaxation in any. No backlogs allowed.

I think Infosys had hired some agency to conduct the process. The people who actually worked in Infosys( people who had I-cards) were only interviewing candidates. All other work was being done by the agency people.

After the PPT we were given an application form to fill up. Another good thing was that they were there to help us at every step. Even the most insignificant details of the application form was explained to us.

After we had filled in the form, the aptitude test began.

I'm posting here what I'd posted in various job forums like Chetanas:

Infosys conducted a placement program at Institute of Technology and Marine Engineering on 26th April, 2007. 7 colleges and around 350 students participated in the program.

The marks criteria differed according to the boards. For ISC it was 65-65-65 with 5%relaxation in any. The percentage had to be calculated taking all the subjects that you had appeared in.

1.Aptitude Test
The test had 2 papers.
A. Reasoning (30 questions in 40 mins)

1. There are 5 integers A,B,C,D,E arranged in ascending order so that each integer is 4 more than the previous. D is the greatest and A is the smallest. B is greater than E but less than C. Three of the integers are negative. The sum of all the integers is equal to E
5 questions followed

2. 5 questions on figure series where we had to find the next figure in series. It was very tough. The figures resembled R.S.Agarwal but were very tricky.

3. 5 data sufficiency questions. Only R.S.Agarwal not enough. Try doing from CAT material

4. Data Interpretation. Not tough but Calculation Intensive. It was a table.

5. A seating arrangement problem. Slightly tougher than R.S.Agarwal. But you'll be able to do it if you'd practised.

6. 5 Syllogisms. very easy. Just remember the 9 rules of R.S.Agarwal. Most of the answers were "No conclusion because both premises are particular"

B. English (40 questions in 30 mins)

1. A long passage about Hacking. 5 questions followed
2. A relatively shorter passage about gangs. 5 questions
3. Finding the correct sentence of the 4 given. Sentence were long. Resembled IMS CAT material questions
4. Correct underlined part of a sentence. Easy
5. Fill in the blanks.
6. deriving conclusions from paragraphs

All in all the test was tough and only people who had practised or whose English or Logic was strong could clear the test.

Approx 90 students were shortlisted for the next round

2. Interview

People who had cleared the test were called for HR interview. Only HR questions were asked. The toughest technical question that was asked was "What are header files in C?"

There were 6 panels. I was the last candidate in my panel. As we were the host college students, we were called at the end. Candidates were NOT called according to the test marks

I was called in while the Interviewer was interviewing another candidate. He was in other part of the room. He came to me leaving the other guy and wished me. I wished back. He asked me to sit down and gave me a puzzle.

I+X+C+L+V=?

He then went away to the other person. As I'm good at Roman numbers, I could solve it very easily in no time.

He came back after few minutes and saw my answer. He said,"Ok.Shankha. I accept it. Take another puzzle."

I love eating sweets. I eat 100 sweets in 5 days and each day I eat 6 more than the previous day. How many did I eat yesterday?

I said 94 without realizing that 100 sweets were eaten in 5 days and not the 5th day. He asked me to think again and said I won't be able to solve it mentally. Asked me to work it out.

He then went back to the other person. I solved it easily using elementary algebra.

After a few minutes, he returned and started my formal interview. He asked which school I was from. I answred. As my school is in Jamshedpur, he asked me to speak for 1 minute about Steel City. I did that.

He said,"I think you have great dreams about that place. Your father works there?"

I said Yes and mentioned the post.

Then he asked why I'd joined this college? I answred satisfactorily. I think he was tired of taking interviews so he stopped there. One thing I noticed that all the while he was scanning my application form and looking at my marks( which are good throughout).

My interview was easy but many people didn't have such luck. Many people were asked questions like

Who got Bharat Ratna this yr?
Editor of TOI?
Puzzles were all easy.
How can you use a cup/specs/cricket bat in other ways?
A person named Rahul was asked to compare himself, Rahul Gandhi and Rahul Dravid.

In short be prepared for anything. The can ask you about anything under the sun.

The results were out within half an hour. As I was already placed in Wipro, I wasn't very tensed. But I wanted to get into Infosys. Ultimately, around 40 students got selected and I was one of them

Books:
R.S.Agarwal(QA, V&NV reasoning)
Barrons GRE( fill in the blanks, passages)
Any CAT material(preferably IMS)
Read last 1 week's newspaper properly.
browse Wikipedia for GK.

It's a dream come true...

2007-04-27T23:36:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I cracked Infosys.

It felt great. I remember when Doladi joined Infy, there was so much admiration in the family. Infy was something real big since then. And when I finally made it yesterday....I don't have words to express myself.

I'll be posting my entire experience tomorrow(hopefully:))

I want Infy.....

2007-04-23T00:14:00.000+05:30

मेरा नाम शंख है।
Don't get afraid. I know my name. I was just trying out the Hindi transliteration thing introduced by Blogger.

Posting after many days. 21 days to be precise. Had been a bit busy some of these days. On other occasions just didn't feel like posting anything. Guess this happens.

A lot has happened these last few days. If I go on to list everything, Blogger.com will run out of disk space. So I better don't.

Infosys is coming for recruitment this Thursday. Really want to get into it. It's been sort of a dream since Doladi got into Infy 8-9 years back. I know things have changed a lot but still....

Anyway, I think I'll have to enable complex text recognition for this Hindi transliteration. For that I'd require a XP CD. Hopefully will do that soon.

SPIDY !!!!

2007-04-01T23:59:00.000+05:30

I hate insects, and all other crawly and wriggly living beings. And if it is capable of flying then I hate it even more. I think somehow, this word about my hatred has spread in the insect kingdom and so, every other day, I find myself face to face with a new species of such beings. They come into my room and try to drive me out of it. But I'm brave. I put on a brave fight and emerge victorious.

Today was no different. I returned back to hostel in the evening. I'd been offline for the last one week and so I eagerly took out my laptop and connected to the net. After about an hour, when it was dinner time, I disconnected the net connection, shut down the thing and was about to switch off the lights when I saw it. I was standing at the door and this huge spider was sitting at the corner of the wall, right behind where I had been sitting and whiling away my time on net.

My heart skipped a beat. There was no one around. Everyone had gone home. Even my regular partner in insect busting, Sandip, was away. The whole corridor wore a deserted look.

I immediately knew that this was a vicious plan of the Insects. They didn't want any member of their own clan to get killed. So, they had sent a spider to scare me. Brave as I am, I decided to fight.

My plan of action was to dislodge it from its position and have it running out of the window. The window was actually the nearest exit point. I took some water in my hand and splashed on it. It immediately jumped on to my bed and then hopped and jumped down from my bed to a place where i keep my old notebooks. It was now in a strategically advantageous position as I'd have to do much to get to it.

After about 15 mins of fight, it finally settled on a polythene bag which had been lying around. By that time, Jassu, a friend had returned. At last I had help. I called him and asked him if he was afraind of insects. His answer disappointed me. He said that he is afraid enough to run the other way if he finds one. At last another guy came and put a lid on the polythene bag. Jassu dragged the bag outside holding the lid intact. Finally we threw it out.

And Shankha wins again!!!

The above pic is that of my adversary for the evening. This is where it was last seen by me.

A GREAT weekend...

2007-03-27T00:01:00.000+05:30

Had the most amazing weekend this time around. On Saturday, I left college to meet Alps. Just wanted to celebrate his success. Little did I know that I'll stay back for the weekend.

We met near New Empire. We had planned to eat at Dominos. But the place was packed. So we decided to go to McDonalds. Alps had brought his bike. We knew that it was in Park Street but neither of us knew the exact location. So we started on a circuitous journey of finding the place. After about 20 mins of driving aimlessly Alps went straight into a 'No-Entry' zone as the signboard was placed in an obscure corner and he didn't notice it. A sargent appeared from God knows where and stopped us.

I admit I was nervous. Come on!! I mean it's not everyday that you get caught. In my 5 yrs of driving experience, I was never caught.The sargent, true to his fame, took away his license. Alps had to shell out Rs.100 to get it back. A bribe on open street. India!!!

Anyway, McDonalds was jam packed and we finally ate at Pizza Hut. Alps told me that he was planning to watch The Namesake the next day and kept on requesting me to stay back until I finally agreed. That evening, Mimi, Alps n I went to watch 300. The next day we watched The Namesake and I had gulabjamuns at Haldiram's. Finally returned late Sunday evening.

Will talk about the movies and a book I'd finished reading in the next post.

Alps Got Thru...

2007-03-24T01:15:00.000+05:30

I was very happy today. Alps finally got placed in Satyam. I finally have a prep timetable. Bunking classes left and right. In general, life seemed to be good. But then it happened.

I'd got Nishabd a couple of days back from a friend. Planned that I'll watch it over the weekend. So I watched and all the happy feeling faded away like anything. It's damn boring and slow paced. The concept and cinematography was good but I was about to fall asleep halfway through but a dangerous keeda had entered my room which kept me awake.

Anyway, except for the Nishabd experience, the day was good. In fact I'm really very happy that Alps got through. He worked real hard at it. And being one of the 20 selected out of 300 students is no joke. 1:15 ratio. Damn good man!!

Main to pata nahi kaise select ho gaya. I mean it doesn't really feel like I got a job. Didn't appear for writtens. No GD. Went directly for the technicals and HR and got selected.

Planning to go out and have fun tomorrow. Lets see what happens...

Movies....

2007-03-22T01:46:00.000+05:30

I'd been watching many movies of late. Firstly, Water, the Academy Award nominee from In....sorry...Canada. Then There was Traffic Signal. And today Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. All of them were great.

It's 2:00AM and I'm still awake at this uneartly hour. The Reason...We are bunking...oops...absenting ourselves from class for the rest of the week.

I'm trying my best to be serious about my CAT preparation. But somehow the seriousness doesn't seem to come. Hopefully, I'll start a full fledged preparation from tomorrow.

Love

2007-03-13T00:05:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I wonder why I don't love. Sometimes I feel I'm incapable of loving. Sometimes I'm just afraid of loving.

This post on Sunshine's blog touched me like anything. I couldn't make out what my feelings were for few moments after reading this post. Should I hate the man? Should I salute the woman? Was the girl right? What makes a person so very spineless?.....

The other day I was explaining one of my friends why I don't have that 'someone' special in my life. Here's what I had said:

Had I wished I would have got a girlfriend by now. There are many frustrated girls around and they would have done anything...anything. But I don't want to have a girlfriend right now. Right now the single most important thing in my life is my career and I will not let anything come in its way.

Was I speaking the truth?

I really don't know. What I'd spoken is true. I love studying. I love when I top the class every semester. I felt great when I cracked Wipro. I'll feel great if I crack the CAT. It is indeed a great feeling to succeed academically. But that 'someone' fills a void in one's life which no one or nothing else can. Then why do I always shy away from this fact? Why don't I want 'her' in my life?

Maybe I'm afraid. I've heard of very few successful love stories. Most of the time I hear of break ups. The girl ditching the boy. The boy ditching the girl. One going around with someone else. The other cutting his/her wrist or crying the entire night. If love gives so much pain, I'm better off not having it in my life.

But then, when I see happy couples sitting everywhere, right from obscure benches in shady parks to the rear stall of cinema halls, cozying up in each other's arms, oblivious to the prying eyes world, I feel sad for myself. I feel something missing in life. I feel wanting to be wanted.

Maybe I'll never get to see such a day. Maybe this is what is best for me. Maybe this is what is in store for me. Maybe I'll never know.

Maybe...

Shooting in hostel...

2007-03-09T15:35:00.000+05:30

I have been reading lots of blogs these days. It's a good time-pass as I've nothing much to do now. Taking a bit of rest after the hectic placement week. I will resume studies from next week...I mean I hope to.

My unanswered question has been answered. What happened is that I'd mailed my cousin about Wipro and asked her what should be my course of action now. She replied and it was the best reply i could get to my question. She analyzed all the options I have and gave pros and cons of each.

I think I've decided what to do now.

While I'm writing this, there is a shooting taking place downstairs in my hostel. A real shooting. A movie crew from somewhere has landed here (God knows why!!) and have been shooting for the past 3 hours. I can't recognize any of the actors. Most probably it's a cheap telefilm that will be telecasted in ATN or CTVN or some other local channel. Posting a snap of the shooting here.

Don't know what made them choose the semi constructed part of our college when there were lots of great places to shoot in our campus.

Thoughts and decisions...

2007-03-06T22:18:00.000+05:30

People change. And we should accept this change. We should be ready for the fact that one day they will change. Because change is an eternal truth.

No, I'm not about to give a philosophical sermon. Just typing out whatever I'm thinking. I know a person who has changed and that too drastically. And i don't know what to make out it.

The whole day I've been thinking of all sorts of things. Unlinked. Unsorted.

I don't know why but my faith on the fact that a boy and a girl can be very good friends wavers now and then. Many a times I've faced situations when I wanted a girl to be my friends (only) and she took it otherwise.

I think luck plays a big factor in everything we do. I was lucky that there was no written round for me in Wipro. My roommate was unlucky enough that Poisson ratio was asked at the interview. He didn't get through. But I think God has better plans for him. I just hope he does well this Saturday.

I think I'm blabbering out lots of nonsense. Let me talk some sense.

Now that I'm secure about my future and I know that I can fall back on something, I'm having a tough time deciding whether I should try for higher education right away or not. If at all I do try should it be technical studies or managerial studies. In short, the eternal debate of M.Tech. Vs. MBA.

I took some mock interviews of some of my friends today. I was quite good at it. May be I'll become a professional interviewer someday. :)

The Wipro Effect : HR and thereafter

2007-03-04T19:07:00.000+05:30

The HR form was lengthy. We had to fill up personal details, interests, strengths, weaknesses, career objectives and lots of other things. And the HR form was great. It was on white, hard, glossy paper with The Rainbow Flower on the cover.

I was the 3rd person to enter the HR room. The lady who had given us the PPT was taking the HR interview.

I: Tell me something about your family background

M: I come from.................................and my sister will be appearing for her boards

I: So u help your sister in studies?

M: Yes Ma'am

I: Which subjects?

M: Computer Sc. and English literature....and gave reasons why

I: You have mentioned your interests as blogging. Why do you blog? Do you write something or just read others blogs? What do you write about

M: answered that it helps me interact with people and also share my thoughts etc etc

I: Do you think these blogs and orkut just helps in mudslinging people? is there any constructive use

M: I said it depends on how u use technology blah blah blah and also about the IIPM controversy

I: You wrote that you do your friends work after you finished yours in your areas of improvement....do u think it is an area of improvement?

M: Answered that one should not make others dependent on oneself

The final question was about relocation....I said that I belong to Jamshedpur so I can relocate anywhere.

Finally she took my marks record, and said,"I can see you have a good extra curricular record". I replied," I've participated in international events"

She closed the interview and I said Good Day and went out of the room

Tips:

Always smile and answer and never mug up your answers. You can rehearse but be spontaneous. And Be Confident!!

After the HR was over at 1:30PM we had a long wait in which the others who cleared the test were interviewed.

At 9:00PM, our placement officer asked us to assemble in the seminar hall. He started announcing the names. Mine was third in the list. A total of 53 students were selected. Ipi and Mahima were included in the list. We were shouting at the top of our voices. Almost everyone who appeared for HR got through.

I'm so happy now. Man se dhai kilo ka bojh hat gaya :)

The Wipro Effect : Technical

2007-03-04T16:24:00.000+05:30

contd from last post...

We were immediately rushed to a room downstairs where we were asked to prepare ourselves for the interview. One thing that I found extremely important is that one should check and recheck all that is needed for the interview. Since, the process started late, the Wipro people were in a hurry to start off as soon as possible.

Within 15 mins we were asked to report for the interview. There were 8 panels and each panel consisted of one interviewer. I was alloted panel 4.

My Technical Interview

I entered the room. The room had two panels, 3 and 4. Since Sujay, my classmate, entered first, he went to panel 3. I took permission to enter and wen to panel 4. The interviewer was a young man, not more than 28 or 30 I guess. I made a weak attempt to smile and say Good Morning. There were butterflies of the size of USA in my stomach. This was my first interview and I was nervous as hell. I tried my best not to show it.

ME(M): Good Morning Sir!

Interviewer(I): Good Morning....sit down plz.

I: First tell me something about yourself

M: I started off with whatever I had rehearsed
Sir, I'm Shankha ..............
............................................
If given a chance, I would work for the mutual development of the organzation and myself

I: What do you mean by Organizational Development?

M: I was staring blankly at him. Never anticipated this question. Sir, Didn't get your question.

I: You said you would work for Organizational Development. What do you mean by that?

M: By now I had realized that I'd have to answer something Sir, I said I would work for the development of the organization. By this I mean that I would take the company to greater heights through my hard work while looking for growth and learning for myself.

I: I think he was satisfied OK, do you know any programming languages?

M: Yes sir, I know C and I know a little bit of JAVA. We had Object Technology through JAVA in 4th sem so I know a little bit of it

I: Object Technology?? You mean Object Oriented Programming?

M: Yes sir, but the paper name was Object Technology and UML

I: Object Technology and what?

M: Sir, UML...Unified Modelling Language

I: You know what is UML?

M: Yes sir, and said what it is

I: Do you know where it is used in the industry?

M: No Sir, but I think I can guess

I: Ok Guess

M: Gave him a banking example

At this time there was a power cut. There were no windows in the room so it became a bit dark. Also, remember it was a cloudy day.

I: There is a generator here?

M: Yes sir, it will get started in a second

I: Ok. I think we should wait.

M: Sir, will you have a look at my resume?

I: Yes

We waited for a 20 secs more n the power did not come.

I: Give me your resume

Gave it to him. The powre came while he was having a look at it

I: What is object oriented programming?

from here he it was purely technical. He asked me about OOP, polymorphism, class, objects, virtual function, pure virtual function of C++, their difference, abstract classes linked lists, types of inheritance. I had to draw or write the code for each.

He then asked me to write the code for multilevel Inheritance.

M: In Java?

I: No, write it in C++

M: Sir I've just undergone a training of advanced C++ with IBM. So I'm not very comfortable with C++

By this time in panel 3, sujay had left with the HR form and another person had already finished his interview half way through.

I: Are you comfortable with JAVA?

M: Yes Sir

I: Then write the code in JAVA

Thereafter the interview was smooth again. I wrote he code. He asked me about access specifiers. Then He pointed at my multilevel inheritance code and asked if a member declared protected in a class will be available in an indirectly derived class. I said yes. He said,"sure?". I took a sec and said "yes" with full confidence and explained why it was so.

He was satisfied with all my answers. He paused for a second and took out an HR form from the drawer. I was overjoyed but tried my best to control my smile. He asked me to fill it up and take it to the next round.

I had stammered and sttured so much during the interview that I took it that Wipro was gone for me. The HR form took away all my tensions. The interviewer kept my resume with himself.

I wished him good day and came out of the room all smiles

Some Tips:

Firstly, the interviewer knows that this is your first interview. He is always quite helpful One of my friends went blank for a whole minute and this same person had let her start all over again. She was ultimately selected.

Secondly, always smile or try to be pleasant

Thirdly, if you don't know an answer, say so, if possible with reasons. Make intelligent guesses where acceptable. If you are answering something wrong and you know it, answer the wrong thing with full confidence.

Lastly, wish the interviewer while leaving. That you got the HR form does not mean that TI part is over. His comments to the HR panel carries a lot of weight.

HR experience coming up soon

The Wipro Effect

2007-03-03T15:20:00.000+05:30

I'm IN.

This was precisely what my reaction was when I heard my name announced. Yes, I got through in the Wipro recruitment drive.

Yesterday was one of the longest days of my life. I got up at 5:30Am. We had to report to college at 8:15Am sharp. I had a near sleepless night and was very tensed. This was going to be one of the most important days of my life. My reputation, my career everything was at stake.

I gathered all that was important for the interview, had breakfast, dressed up in college uniform and left hostel at 8:10AM. Nervous.

It was drizzling a bit outside. The day was cloudy. Couldn't quite figure out what sort of an omen was that. Good or bad.

When we reached college at 8:15AM, the recruitment people had still not arrived. Eventually we came to know that they would be late. The process finally started at 10:50AM when they arrived.

The pre-placement talk was delivered by a lady who would eventually take our HR interview. She was smart and her speech was well articulated. After the presentation, we started liking the company even more.

Till the previous day I had heard that the top 5 students of each stream will be exempted from the written round. I had prepared for the test but didn't brush up the things after hearing this news. But that morning, no one announced this. I gave up all hopes. Written test was the thing I was fearing the most. I knew if I get through the writtens, my chances were good. After the PPT, when the lady was ready to wind up the presentation, our placement officer remided her of the top 5 students fact. She then announced the names of the people who won't be taking the written test. They would directly appear for the interview.

I was one of them.

Will write about the interview experience soon.

I'm feeling sleepy :)

2007-02-24T23:23:00.000+05:30

The eligibility list is finally out. I'm in it. No great news.

Don't know why, but whenever exams approach nearer, I feel sleepier. I slept 3 hours this after noon. I got up at 8 in the morning today so 3 hours were nothing short of indulgence. And I'm already feeling sleepy and it's not even midnight.

Have been studying a bit lately. Did maths and english today.

Alps went home and I'm alone in hostel. Even Ipi went home. Can't call her. Was chatting with Mahima all this while. Now even she has gone offline. So I'm alone and have nothing to do except studying.

I really want to get a job as quickly as possible.Jitni jaldi headache khatam ho utna achcha. I know if I clear the written, my chances are real bright, but written is where I lack the preparation.

Hopefully I'll get a job. He bhagwan, apne is santaan par daya dikha :). But if I don't study and sleep all day, even bhagwaanji won't be able to save me.

So Shankha,, stop blogging and start studying.

aimless ramblings...

2007-02-21T00:57:00.000+05:30

Don't know why, but I'm feeling a bit down today. Not feeling like doing anything constructive. And on top of that feeling very sleepy. My roommate is also fast asleep. After all it is 1 am. Normal log ab tak so jate hai.

Ipi's Airtel connection got activated. Hopefully I'll see her online more frequently now onwards.

Few minutes back a first year student had come and people were trying to rag him. I was there too. It was fun. Even the guy was all smiles. I think even he was enjoying the whole thing.

In my last post I'd talked about Mahima's B'day treat. Since I can't upload her pic, let me upload the b'day cake's pic. It tasted yummy!!!

She was very happy yesterday. Her face showed it.

B'day party and more....

2007-02-19T20:48:00.000+05:30

I had a real busy, but enjoyable, day today.

Finally I got my much awaited passport size photograph. I'm looking nothing less than a dacoit on a lookout to kill somebody. The studiowallah kept his promise and delivered the pics within a day. Than that gentle soul. He even managed to crack some jokes when he was writing the pic on my CD.

Got my resume printed. It's not looking like what I really wanted it to be. So, I think I'll revamp the entire thing and get it printed next week.

And finally, it was Mahima's b'day treat today. We went to Haldirams'. I'd mentioned about this place a few posts back. Nice place to hang out with friends. We had all sorts of food, right from cake to pizzas and sandwitches. Enjoyed a lot. There are a lot of pics which I'd like to upload on the blog but I'm sure Mahima would throw me from the top of a multistoried building if I do.

My preparation su**s. I hardly know anything about any subject. I'm sure I'll stare blankly at the interviewer's face even to the question,"What is your name?".

Placements round the corner...!!

2007-02-16T21:52:00.000+05:30

The last few days have been very hectic. We had classes for 12 hours at a stretch. Even today I returned back to Hostel at 8:30 pm.

Yesterday we had a meeting with the placement officer. It is confirmed now. Wipro is coming on 2nd march, Tech Mahindra on 10th march and Tata Elxsi on 14th march. I'm really scared. I've almost Zero preparation.

We won't be attending classes from tomorrow till around 10th of march. Hopefully that will help.

Downloaded some Wipro materials from the net. Have to go through their spirit, vision, mission, quality and what not! It's really tough out there.

I'm back!!

2007-02-07T00:21:00.000+05:30

I've been lousy as usual with my blog. Didn't even care to thank for the comments I got. But now I'm back and hopefully with vengeance.

The last few days have been quite hectic. We had our fest and I'd been sleeping less and enjoying more. Euphoria was great. The DJ was great and I'm feeling great.

Our placements starts from the end of this month. Wipro will be the first company to visit us followed by Tech Mahindra, US tech, IBM, L&T infotech etc. Really not prepared. We thought that as usual the placements will start from April. little did we know that our college is now 'in demand'. In fact, there was quite a tussle between TCS and Wipro as to who would get the Zeroeth slot. At the end of it, Wipro won.

I'll be maintaining a journal on this blog regarding my placement process. It'll be a healthy distraction and in course of this, some of my juniors may also get some help.

Gargi scrapped me the other day. She was a junior at school. In fact I had little hope that my juniors will remember me after school. It's so comforting to know that they do remember.

Classes started from today. I'm in for a more hectic schedule. I can already see the writing on the wall.

Feeling quite sleepy right now, though, I know taht at this stage, it is a crime.

Flowers!

2007-01-08T23:56:00.000+05:30

I've fallen in love with these flowers which have grown in front of my hostel. They are simply beautiful!

Training to be good

2007-01-08T20:14:00.000+05:30

Believe me! It's a real pain to walk out of your hostel four times a day just to have food. Our canteen is closed and we go out to H-5 to have our food, that too in such a chilly weather.

Today was Bangla Bandh, in other words a forced holiday, so we had no training ( Thank God!). I can hardly bear that effeminate teacher who comes to teach us in the IBM training. His funda of C++ is food but the way he speaks...GOD!!

In my last post I'd mentioned about this soft skill guy with purple Tshirt...well I found out later that he was the founder of the company which trains us. Looks are indeed deceptive!

By the way, we had a lateral thinking quiz yesterday which our team won. It wasn't some serious quiz. Just the sort of thing that takes place in training sessions to build team dynamics, think out-of-the-box, so on and so forth...

Whiled away my time today in college. Alps (my roomey) has gone home and I was alone. surfed the net and slept the whole day!

Reading a book by Shashi Tharror. It's called RIOT. Nice book! It's about an American social worker who gets killed in a Hindu-Muslim riot. It's a pseudo-fiction. You can come to know a lot about India reading it.

Saw a girl's profile in Orkut and sent her a friend request. You'll say what's unusual about it? Well for one, I don't actually do this stuff. Second, she is an unusual sort of a girl. She'd read Mein Kampf. I didn't even have the courage to pick up that book let alone read it....and she was cute :).

I'm dying of COLD!!!

2007-01-05T22:06:00.000+05:30

Back in College and believe me...it's real cold out here. As it is the place is a bit away from the city and on top of there, the only things that surround the campus are paddy fields. So a chilly wind blows on day in and day out. God! I'm getting freezed over here.

The soft skills training started today. We did a bit of puzzle solving and interviewing. The guy who came to teach us was in a way good but at first glance he seemed funny.

He was 5'3'' or 5'4'', was wearing a purple coloured polo necked tee and on top of that a jacket. He seemed a student rather than a teacher. I guess he was a teacher. The guy who came to teach us in the class before this was a current student of IIM-C. I guess he was quite bored of taking classes for 5 hours at a stretch and left us early.

The IBM training starts tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Surfing the net from my Airtel GPRS and it feels so good to sit back and recline on my own bed and surf without having to worry about giving the cell back to anyone.

New Year Resolutions

2007-01-02T17:55:00.000+05:30

Here are some of the new year resolutions I've made

1. I would eat less. Full stop. For some reason or the other I've been gobbling up food at a faster rate than India's fall of wickets at SA. I would really like to slow down a bit.

2. I would be physically active......er.....I didn't mean 'that'. What I meant was that I'd be active as in day to day life.

3. I would be the most important person in my life. Anyone else will be of lesser importance. I know it sounds terribly selfish but.....I think this is right for me.

4. I would try my best to give a certain direction to my career...either a good placement or/and a good place to study.

5. I would try my best to be myself and not to be cowed by people into doing anything which I'm against of.

Every year I make resolutions and break them in no time. This year I'd try my best to stick to them. Amen!

Happy New Year!!

2007-01-02T13:15:00.000+05:30

Posting after a very long time. The time seems longer as I'd been intending to post a sequel to my last post about the train journey. But now, since a long time has passed, it seems to be pointless. More so, as many other things have been happening in life.

OK. So I finally got a new cell. I am now a proud owner of a MOTORAZR V3i. The next thing I want to do is to buy an Airtel sim and connect to the net as soon as possible.

V3i's functionality can be debated upon. In fact, I could have bought a much better cell in the V3i budget. But once I saw the fone in the shop, my mind stopped working and my heart starte shouting,"Shankha, This is what you want". It's damn sexy.

Going back to Calcutta tomorrow morning. I will miss Jamshedpur, but I'm quite eager to go back to college. These will be the most decisive 6 months of my life so I'm quite excited. The IBM training starts from 6th, the DreamMakers starts from 5th. And then, these two will carry on endlessly. I'm sure I'm in for a hectic schedule once I land in college.

Anyway, Happy New Year to anyone who cares to read this post( and reach till the end). Hope this new year brings me lots of luck!!

Exams over....Masti time.....or so it seems...

2006-12-21T19:38:00.000+05:30

Exams are finally over and I'm back where I belong....JAMSHEDPUR!!!!

Exams went fine. The papers were easy. I had a bit of a problem answering the Operations Research paper( it has nothing to do with surgical operations) but overall the papers were good.

Did some masti after the exams. Went places, saw movies and had a blast with friends.

The day after my exams got over, I went t Big Bazaar. When we entered, the security guard at the entrance gave a 32-all-out smile and welcomed us. When we left, he did say good bye but had a scorn in his face. I won't blame him. I would have one the same if people entered the place, ransacked the whole place for an hour and did not buy even a Re.1 worth peppermint candy.

The next day was quite eventful. My roommate and I went to watch Kabul Express. The movie was good and I enjoyed the Hollywood style presentation of an Indian film. No unneeded love stories, no unneeded songs...it was good.

The movie hall was great too. It was my first visit to Nandan. It's a government owned place. The overall atmosphere was great and I could get a balcony ticket for just Rs.50. And, not to mention, the crowd was great.

After the movie, we went to Haldiram's(it's a famous and financially reasonable place to eat) and had cheese sandwich and hot gulabjamuns. I had promised myself to watch my diet but once in a while, things can be excused. Right?

Anyway, I'm back in Jamshedpur for 12-13 days and hope I'll make the most out of it.

By the way, I had a great train journey. More about it later.

My New Cell....tentative

2006-11-06T22:15:00.000+05:30

I'm writing in a hurry as I won't be able to write quite frequently again anytime soon. My semester exams are roud the corner and my preparations sucks. Haven't been studying hard lately though I know that I should.

Watched The Truman Show day before yesterday. Jim Carrey was great in that movie. It was a perfect family flick.

Went to Haldirams yesterday for Ip's b'day treat. It was fun.

I'm very happy today. Reason: I may get a new mobile fone this December. My mother's cell fone has stopped functioning properly and she wants me to give her my fone. And I'm always ready for that I'm so helpful ;).

I suppose that will be all for now. May be I'll write sometime soon...may be I won't. Let's hope for the best.

And do wish be luck for the exams. I need all the luck I can get to make this 5th sem a non-disaster.

Domestic Violence....

2006-10-26T18:16:00.000+05:30

The news bulletin yesterday made me think. Why should the domestic violence Act be meant for women only? Aren't men subject to equal amount of domestic violence.

Picture this.

You ask your wife to get ready for the 6:00 pm movie show and she keeps you waiting till 7:30. Reason...She was looking for a particular hue of lipstick which matches with the small motifs of the right hand corner of her top.

You decide to spend a quite, romantic weekend with your wife and your mother-in-law visits on saturday morning with an intention to stay at your place for a month.

You get back from office, thaka haara and your wife starts blabbering about the new TV set that the neighbouring Mrs. Sharma has just brought home.

Aren't these day to day situations equally violent?

Mrs. Renuka Chaudhury....Am I audible?

A train journey!!!

2006-10-23T10:00:00.000+05:30

Date:20th October,2006
Day: Friday
Occassion: Me returning home

The traffic jam was taking its toll. It was the day before Diwali and everyone was busy doing their last minute shopping. The streets of Calcutta seemed paralyzed. Everywhere there were long queues of car waiting. On top of that, the bus on which I was took a jam-infested route much to the ire of all the passengers. A minor scuffle broke out between the conductor and some of the passengers, but it was soon resolved. Ultimately I reached Esplanade and took a bus for Howrah.

Even the Howrah bridge was jammed. In my two years stay in Calcutta, this was he first large scale traffic jam that I was seeing. Anyway, I reached the station. My father had asked me to buy AC char car tickets but I thought, "Why not save some money". So I asked for a 2nd class ticket at the reservation counter. To my disappointment, no tickets were available. I was forced to shell out my much loved money to buy a 1st AC ticket.

This is when my experience started.

There was a man, fair and tall. He had just travelled by air which was obvious by the tags on his suit case. He was holding his coat in his hand. A pukka saheb. He di not have a pen, So he asked for the pen that I had. I gave it to him. He spoke with me in English. That was quite normal. But then, He spoke with the reservation clerk in Englsh. That is when I saw Euros in his wallet. OK, I tought, a videshi nagrik confused in India. I thought why not see what he does. It's always fun to watch people.

When I boarded the train, he sat close o my seat, but we were not neighbours. A shoe polish boy came. He spoke with the shoe polish boy in English. He even spoke with the railway caterer in English. Anyway, the be all and end all was that, after sometime I saw that he had an Indian passport. So he was an Indian. So why didn't he speak in any other language? Also, he got off at Jhargram. There are o industrial establishments there. So he was just visiting this place. Presumably, not on a fun trip. He knew people there. So he must know hindi. Was he just showing off? Anyway, these questions will remain unanswered.

And my trip was made a nightmare by the person sitting beside me. A very fat man. I adjusted. But he was stinking. His body odour was unbearable. He had a Nokia n70 with him. So he wasn't particularly poor. Couldn't he afford 100 odd bucks for a deo?

Anyway, I reached home and that's the good news.

Stealth once more

2006-10-14T17:44:00.000+05:30

I've become a dhobi ka kutta, neither ghar ka nor ghat ka. I've become byte-byte ka mohtaaj for internet.

Currently posting from a friend's PC who has gone away to take his food, blissfully unaware of what I'm doing. But, I think I'm keeping my resolution of maintaining the blog properly( ok, semi-properly).

Solved 30 QA questions yesterday. It was sort of not-so-tough but entailed a lot of calculations. Still stuck with 13 tables. I just hope I can start with 14 today.

I don't know why...maybe it's just coincidence...but for the last 3 days it started raining the moment we were ready to go back to class after lunch. Maybe God doesn't want us to attend classes so regularly.

My friend has come back ...so got to stop now.

Stealth

2006-10-12T16:42:00.000+05:30

Right now I'm in a lab doing Operation research problems so won't be able to write correctly and for long.

Life hasn't been quite eventful since I left JSR. Everyday I resolve to do 1 hour of QA but don't keep up to that. My room seems to be infested by the so called Little Green Bastards (aptly named by Abhinav), the insects that come out during this time of the year. They make life li9ke living hell for me. I can't even keep my room's windows for a second.

Well, that's all for now. Hope I'll write a long post soon.

Great...I've been caught blogging...tough time awaits me!!!

GOODBYE JSR

2006-10-07T11:21:00.000+05:30

Anand has changed a lot. No, I'm not talking about a long lost friend. I'm talking about a restaurant here in Jamshedpur. I went there just yesterday and the changes took me by surprise.

When I was just a cute little guy stepping into his teens ( read 12 yrs of age ), Anand used to be a not-so-upmarket-neither-downmarket South Indian restaurant in the upmarket Bistupur. The adjective still holds but now it serves all kinds of vegetarian foods including North Indian and Chinese. Business Diversification is thy name. The food has remained quite good as it was the case years ago. The World Political Map is still holding tight to the wall ( sometimes I wonder what it has to do with a restro ). The miniature grandfather clock is still ticking. What has changed, maybe for good, is that the whole attitude of the place has changed.

In other developments, I downloaded mor of CAT materials and now I can give Career Launcher or IMS a run for their money. I'm still not sure what I plan to do but I've set my priorities like:

1. get placed somewhere by the end of may.
2. prepare for CAT or GATE from there on.

Hope this works for me. Hope that all the rumours of placement process getting postponed to 4th yr are just plain rumours like Mallika Sherawat marrying me.

Today is my last day in Jamshedpur. I'll return for 2 days during Diwali but I'm not quite sure about that. So with a heavy heart I bid goodbye to internet. I'm not sure when I'll be able to log in and post again. But, I do hope that the next time I post something, I'll be much more informed and sure of myself.

Rambling aloud

2006-10-04T19:54:00.000+05:30

The last few days have been quite eventful for me. No, I haven't had the slightest luck of winning a Rs. 1 crore lottery but still, I've been quite Happy ( literally with a capital 'H' ).

From my friends home the other day ( from where I'd posted the entry before last one ), we went around the place puja-hopping. Now, I'm not particularly good at this. Firstly, as I'd said before, I don't understand what the craze is all about. Secondly, I can't walk properly in crowded streets. So off I went with them, understanding little, enjoying much.

After visiting some places, we went into a bar-cum-restro and I had a small peg of milk ( OK...my parents doesn't read this blog...v****). I'm not a drunkard. So, even this small feat of mine gave me such a great thrill. From there went to a place called Maddox Square. There, it seemed, that the bevy of cute girls had landed from some distant planet.

The next day was dashami, the last day of the pujas. It was eventful in the sense that there was a get-together at home. So enjoyed there.

The day after that, went to college street, the Mecca for book lovers like me, and bought a QA book by R.S. Agarwal. I'm not sure if I'm preparing for CAT, I'm almost tempted to, but I need that book for placements.

Today, met with my school friends, Ritwik and Neha. It's so nice when you meet old friends after such a long time. We chatted for about 2 hrs.

Called up ip today. Her brother n Mahima are giving her a tough time teasing her. Why can't they get this fact straight that a boy and girl can be friends--nothing more, nothing less.

And now I'm typing out stuff. Maybe, I'll dine out....Papa had promised that we will.

Just for the records, I cooked Pasta today. It was delicious. However self-centered it may sound, I'm a GREAT cook.

I am a weirdo!!!!

2006-10-04T15:18:00.000+05:30

Since SH D has been so generous in explaining me what a tag is, and since, now I understand that there is no respite but to reply to the tag, here are 6 weird things about me:::

1:~ I feel like vomiting when I brush my teeth. OK...I don't suffer from bad-breath syndrome nor does all sorts of strange things come out of my mouth when I brush but however strange it may seem, it feels nauseating when I have the brush inside my mouth. I envy those people who roam about the entire hostel with a brush inside, and foam outside, their mouth, chatting away merrily. I just can't stand it.

2:~ I sleep with the pillow, not under, but over my head. I've heard people ridiculing me, my roommate giving me strange looks and friends taking photographs of this strange phenomenon, but I just can't sleep with the pillow under my head and nothing covering my face.

3:~ I hate dahi , curd, yoghurt, lassi and anything that is made out of curd. Just can't stand the smell. It reminds me of strange things. Of late, I've started having red(sweet) curd that one gets in Calcutta, but that too, a very little quantity. Otherwise, I run away from the canteen even if I hear the word DOI .

4:~ While writing or speaking in English, I'm very particular about my grammatical constructs. Many a times I may be wrong, but I feel that I should place even that one small comma or apostrophe correctly. Even when someone speaks to me, I involuntarily count the number of errors he's making.

5:~ When people throw toffee wrappers or wafer packets on street, it drives me crazy. I feel like stuffing those wrappers up their nose. When I have a toffee, I keep the wrappers in my pocket until I find a dustbin or a suitable place to dispose them off. Initially it was ok but now it's like a paranoia....I'm going mad.

6:~ I can't think of weird things about myself even though anyone I meet thinks I'm weird. This post was written in installments with a time range of 8 hrs. Isn't it the weirdest of 'em all?

OK...I'm a free bird now, ready to soar high up in the sky without ant tags binding me onto this earth. Really don't have 6 people to tag so will tag only a couple of people. More posts coming soon...

DP ka dhoom!!

2006-10-01T13:50:00.000+05:30

I'm at a friend's home right now and using his net connection to the fullest. It's so nice to use something for which you don't have to pay.

Now this friend of mine has a durga puja happening in his home, ie. right here. This is the first time I'm in a family puja and I liked it a lot. Yesterday visited Jodhpur Park's puja. GOD!!! There was a sea of humanity. Everywhere, people were thronging the pandals as if there's no tomorrow. But I still liked it. After all there is Bengali blood running in my veins, or arteries, what to do you call them( I'm very week at Bio).

My conscience has woken up and I think I should stop now.

Choices to make, or break

2006-09-29T12:06:00.000+05:30

Why do we have to choose a career ourselves? Why can't it so happen that someone else can do this dirty work for us?

I must have gone mad to say all this stuff but I really am disillusion to the hilt. I really can't make up my mind about what to do next. The choices are plenty. The chooser is confused.

Initially I wanted to do MBA just after my graduation. But now that I've gone into engineering makes me well suited for a job. So that has become an option as well. In the mean time, many of my lecturers and professors feel that should go for post graduation in engineering itself. I think I'm capable of doing that. So, that too is an option.

I really don't know what to do. Anything I opt for requires extensive preparations. For that one needs quite a lot of time. And time is exactly the thing that's running out in my life. No, don't be so happy. I'm not about to die in a day or two. But I'm already in my 5th semester. And disillusionment in 5th semester is like harakiri. I just hope that I can decide on something soon.

Its saptami and people are out in the streets wearing colourful clothes and blabbering their way about. Seeing this enthusiasm among people, sometimes I wonder whether Jamshedpur should have been in Bengal or not.

Today is ip's b'day. Called her up last night. When her elder brother picked up the phone, I experienced first hand, what it is like to have a heart attack. She's getting a lappie today and I'm quite excited about that. Now she'll know the difference between a processor and the monitor. Just kidding!!!

Will be going to Kolkata tomorrow, leaving all the comforts of home behind. Hope The crowd there doesn't drive me crazy.

Munnabhai Rulezz

2006-09-27T16:34:00.000+05:30

I'm listening to "Akele Hain" from "Qayamat se qayamat tak". Just read that this, and all other tracks from this film are just copies from hit western numbers. It was such a heartbreaking thing to know this. It is one of my favourites.

Panchami here and just two more days to pujas ( and ip's b'day ). And the Automata Theory book still lies untouched. Just don't understand why I'm made to read this subject when I have nothing to do with computer science. I'm an IT student and should read about practicalities and definitely not about the Theory of Computer Science.

Watched Lage Raho Munnabhai twice. The only other film I've obliged with this action was Swades. Not that both the film were worth watching twice (they were no doubt good) but circumstances prevailed over me and I had to watch them twice.

But I like LRMB. It got me to think about the present situation in the society were we've forgotten our values. Where we let politicians decide whether half the seats in IIMs will be reserved or not. Where we keep quiet even when we see something terribily wrong happening to someone. I think everyone should watch this movie...even if one dislikes Gandhi.

Don't feel like tying anymore......will resume keyboard hitting soon.