Another "plain weekend" beckons ....

Its that time of the week again ... rather I should say "the dreaded time of the week again" .. yep a "plain weekend" beckons ..... plain coz theres nothing "special" about this weekend ... there's no Delphique/Illumina/Imperium or even an open house by student council/placecom or some extra classes.

After 5 days of hectic activity filled with classes, presentations, assignments, quizzes n other day to day non-academic stuff, the weekend should ideally be a welcome break. N that it is for many people on campus especially all the delhi waalahs or rather NCR waalahs who pack their bags (for many their unwashed clothes too ;) ) and head off to their mom, dad, bro, sis, friends (4 some this means girl/boyfriend) etc.

But for me with all such relationships left back in Mumbai theres no getaway from this place. For outsiders Gurgaon might be one of the most happening parts of "this side of India" but for me thats definitely not the case. As in my opinion having 10 malls on one stretch of the road doesnt make any place happening .... plus if you dont have any mode of transport of your own getting to those places means using the pathetic public transport ..... which is a good enough put off for some1 like me whoz spent all his life in Mumbai where never mind the traffic the public transport is as good as it can be!! (as I write this I realise that a comparative study of public transport can be the subject of one full post )

So such "plain weekends" for me are mostly spent on campus ..... mostly sleeping (which means missing the breakfast and at times the lunch too :) ) ... ocassionally cleaning d room... for some brief moments yearning for the week to start ..... at times pondering & most times wondering what all I can do during these 1 n half yrs I have for myself in general n the weekend in particular (like preparing for the next quiz, completing some presentatn or project work :) which doesnt materialise into action ;) )........... add a visit to the Sector-14 market n the most happening place over there for many if not most MDI waalahs "OM Sweets" .... and some more sleeping, surfing, orkutting, chatting, couple of walks around the campus .... and its sunday evening .....n I realise another weekends gone ....... n the next weeks grind is about to begin ....

... lets c if this weekend proves to be any different :) ....maybe I'll post on sunday night to confirm/contradict this post :)

Zindagi ki yahi reet hai .. haaar k baad hi jeet hai ...

yesterday was a real mixed day for me ..... was waiting for some result the entire day n was quite hopeful that it would come out in my favor ....

..at night we had an open house related to our b-scool fest "IMPERIUM" which starts from tomorrow .... n after the open house a treasure hunt was lined up to kick start the "Informals" of Imperium 07.

Now treasure hunts can be real fun if you have enthusiastic team members who are willing to run like crazy, crack clues, dont get tired or give up midway ... basically who want to win the treasure ....... or they can be real disappointing if you get stuck in a team which is just not ready to try that bit harder or gives up easily.

Was lucky enough to be a part of team falling in the former category .... n we used a strategy which was different than the others ... ran like crazy for the initial part ... commited a couple of blunders mid way through and nullified our early lead ...but didn't give up ....n again ran like crazy towards the end ...... n to our delight we completed it before any one else could.

N guess wot as prizes we got "SENNHESISER" headphones worth Rs.10000/- each :) :)
...felt amazing ... coz I haven't really won ne competitive event in a longgg longg time :) ...n it was even more fun ... coz at the start we were having fun with people ... telling them they hardly stood a chance n for all their efforts all they would manage is the second spot coz first will be ours!! :D

heres our team with the spoils .... me, sumanth (super enthu :) ) n kshitij (perhaps the most he has ran all his life.. we made him do so ;) :P )

... good quality headphones were something which has been on ma wish list since the day I had bought my Ipod nano! :) .. n this got fulfilled yesterday n the sound quality is just amazing!!

But then after the contest was over .... just happened to check the result of d thing I had been waiting all day .... n to my disappointment it didn't work out in my favour ... :(

So on the one hand I was real happy that I had won something wortwhile in a longg longg time .... but there was tinge of sadnesss coz i had lost on some other front ...

Never mind ... thats life ...

P.S: listening to the hindi song "zindagi ki yahi reet hai .. haar k baad hi jeet hai ... thode gam hain .. thodee khushi hai ... aaaj gam hai to kal hai khushii .." on ma brand new headphones ;)

Something I am looking forward to ...

Its been that kind of a week which has dented the self-belief n confidence of lot many people on campus ... leading to a very grim kind of outlook for the future!

Thankfully my self-belief n confidence are both intact .... and I still have a very positive outlook for the future :) .... perhaps the one major benefit of being an experienced guy vis-a-vis a fresher in a b-school .....is that this kind of crisis or rather I should just say "situation" is nothing major ... have faced many more diffcult n challenging times in both personal n professional life to get overly perturbed by the recent turn of events (will write my thots on this in a separate post :) )

Anyways .... theres one thing which I am surely looking forward to ...n thats the latest Aamir Khan movie ..... "Taare Zameen Par" .... the promos n music have got me intrigued .... n as is generally the norm with any thing associated to Mr.Perfectionist of Bollywood .. this venture too seems to be a high quality n sensible one .... esp with the fact that this time hez the person in the front as well as behind the camera ..... found an interesting video on YouTube related to TZP ... which I thot I'll share it here ....

Chalo thats it for the time being!!




PS: For Aamir Khan fans ... came across his blog at: http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm

Zindagi ne Zindagi bhar gam diye .... :( :(

The so called “Oscars” of “Summers of 2007” are over and again there was a range of emotions on display .... and though the “most visible” emotions during the awards ceremony were – happiness, relief n euphoria ......... post it have noticed something else 2.... d atmosphere is not really 100% normal ne more ... agreed there are still around 100 odd people to be placed but still ....

So with no offence to the feelings/sentiments of ne1, I would like to take the liberty to summarise the mood of some “dukhi aatmaas” on campus right now!! :)
... here it goes ....

Logon ko dukh hai .....

K unko ek “FokatKa-Chhola” company chhodnee padee “Treat-aania” k liye (seriously no offence intended here)

K unki ek company main waitlist clear nahin hui (confirmed offer bas nahin hai kyaa ;) )

K unko “Fin” ki jagah “Marketing” profile mil gayee (and vice versa too :) )

K unko “Treasury profile” ki jagah “Analytics profile” mil gayee (in this case I guess no1 vice versa ;) )

K unko kaaash “Fin” company main “Treasury profile” mil jaatee (Laalach booree balaa hai!! :) )

K unko kaaash “FundooBank” ki “JhatakMatak-pore” waali profile mil jaatee (Duniyaas envy “Baba”s Pride ;) )

N in sab k beech kuchh log aise bhi hain jinko dukh hai ...

K kaash woh ek GD to clear kar lete

K kaash woh ek interview to crack maar lete

K kaash woh summers k liye thoda prepare kar lete

K kaash woh thode decent acads le aate

K kaash woh 2-3 saal pehle hi CAT crack maar lete

K kaash woh bhi auron ki tarah har jagah apply kar dete to shaayad unka bhi kahin tukkaa lag jaata

And lastly there definitely are some people (who probably are the only people jinka dukh justified hai accrdng to me)
.. and woh hain jinko dukh hai ...

K unko ek company shortlist karne laayak to samajh leti!!! :( :( (yesss even such people do exist on this very campus)

Newyz ... yeh saalaa summers ne yaato kaafi logon ko badal diyaa hai .... yaa shaayad haalaat badal gaye hain log to vahi hain!! (super-philosophical line ;) )

I hope and pray k all the “dukhi aatmaas” on campus will reflect on not just “their” dukh but also on “their batchmates” dukhs and ..... jaldi hi sab log saare dukhon ko bhoool k phhir se normalise ho jaayenge n we will have the same campus atmosphere which prevailed pre “Summers n Oscars of 2007”!!! :) :)

Big Cheers to all the “sukhi aatmaas”!! :)

newyz .. moi as of now Interning at: Vela-bhai & Vela-das Brothers & Sons & Co.
Punch Line: As Vela as ever .... even though “You’re NOT worth it” :P

n my take on life is summarised as ....

Forrest Gumps Momma: “Life’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”
Moi: Chocolates - you eat em ... else flush whatever u get down the toilet

My take on "Summers of 2007"!!

Since the past 3 days our mess has a transformed look ..... instead of the usually chilled out people strolling in and out for breakfast/lunch/dinner ... now I see people with varied emotions - ecstasy, agony, despair, excitement, dejection, anticipation, disappointment, frustration ..... one can sense the mess is no longer a “chilled out place” :( ... lot of people on the edge ... some feeling the heat ... some pretending that they r unaffected by the surroundings (while very few actually seem to be unaffected :)) .. doesn’t matter whether they are dressed up in a suit or in their usual shorts ;) ) .... many stuck between or waiting for their “processes”!! :)

Some confused ... some trying to demystify the selection criteria of the companies ... various rational and irrational models being proposed on the basis of one shortlist ... which is totally failed by some other shortlist ;) ...

.. some tired due to all the shortlists they feature in ... and the subsequent running around between acad block-lakshya-nalanda (these r the various buildings on campus).... and many tired of waiting in hope that probably the next shortlist will feature them!!!

...some thinking ... k “$#%!$!$% engineering main thodaa padhh liyaa hotaa, achhaa CG laaya hotaa to aaj ye haal naa hotaa” .... some even going to the extent of questioning whether engineering was the right thing to do n should they have opted for English/Eco honors instead!! ;) :P .... some tryng to understand k “saalaa MBA k pehle 3 saal kaaam karke kyaa paaap kar diyaa!!” ;) :P

Newayz .... this is 1 of the biggest event of our b-school lives .... the “Summers of 2007”!! :)) ....n for someone like me who tries to looks at the moments and the people’s reactions ... it is a godsend opportunity :)

.... in any case I feel summers in “FundooBank@JhatakMatak-pore” or “AaandooPaandooGroup@Fateechar Nagar” would be a minor blip on the radars of lives of most of us ... ;) :P

... eventually in 2009 we will all move out with dream jobs and fat pay checks .....and then 10-15 yrs down the line ... we won’t remember what we felt like when we checked each shortlist .. or where half of our batchmates were placed (except for some1 like Samyak Baba ;) ) ... but we would surely remember that there was one day when more than half the college was scurrying around between “PROCESSES” all dressed up ..... while you had a sound sleep for most part of that very day or you casually strolled around sipping coffee!! ;)

So shortlist or no shortlist, process or no process ..... my two cents worth of advice is .... dil pe mat lo yaaar ..... look at the lighter side of the entire “process”.... theres a lot to look forward to in life!!

Chalo ... lemme go and check the latest shortlist ... and devise some new theory ... or a rational mathematical model which explains why I wasn’t shortlisted .... never mind the fact that I haven’t even applied for it!! ;) :P :D

Stautory Warning to all those who are taking it all very seriously:
..... after all the emotional drama .... many of us may eventually end up with the below depicted emotions in our respective “Summers” ;) :P

What m I doing with this blog???

I have been proscritanting for long about becoming a regular blogger .... but somehow the inertia has proved too strong to be countered by my weak spirit!!

for the past very many days haven't been feeling good mentally n physically ...... physically is mostly due to cold n fever .... the infamous "delhi ki sardee" has started approachng!! First round I ve been knocked down fair n square ... but m lookin fwd to the next few mnths even more eagerly now!! :) Is this false bravado ... time will tell!! :)

n mentally ... dunno the exact reasons ... due to the surroundings .... mess food .... this place ... or just that I have been away from home for too long!!! Home reminds me that ... day after I have to travel .... n m feeling better alrdy at the thot of it.

Lots of things have happened .... some exciting some not so exciting .... good n bad ... happy n sad ..... m planning to start a flashback series ..... n recapture the past 4 mnths of my bschool life ... so lets c ... hopeflly I'll be mre active here from now on ...

Amen!!

PS: Done with mid sem exams of term 2 today! sleepwalked thru most of it due to bad health. :)

Academic Rigour in a b-school!! :)

Over 2 months in a b-school and I was still wondering wat is the so called "academic rigour in a b-school" ?

But then I thought that maybe I have faced the music in the real world i.e. The Great Indian IT Industry for almost 4 years ... so rigour is an inconsequential word for me now .... It must be a relevant word for the "freshers"!! :)

So I observed the freshers for some time to find it !! ..... still couldnt coz I could attribute all the sypmtoms of the so called "academic rigour" like: sleepless nights, overworked look on the faces, people scurrying around for academic matters of importance (read: prereads, assignments, presentations, group meetings etc) etc ... to some or the other trivialities of life.

People going for walks on the campus with some pleasant company (read: opposite sex) at odd hours in the night would obviously lead to sleepless nights. ;)) :P

The remainder of the nights being spent in discussing extremely important but non-academics matters like "b-school X is not as good as/is better than ours", "there is no value add in MBA" etc ..or playing TT at 3 AM (which was oficially stopped in our college for some days to artificially induce "academic rigour" ;) :P ) or spent on watching movies which you have seen zillion times already ...

so finally at say 5 in the morning when you manage to pick up a book in your hand its bound to result in this: :))

.. then you somehow manage to get up 5 minutes before the class time and still make it to class ..... with your overworked and underslept look intact when you enter the class ;) .... you sit like a zombie in the class initially trying to make some sense out of your surroundings .... but soon realise that its a futile exercise ... then you peacefully sleep thru the remainder of the class :D ....... which means you also miss out on "matters of academic importance" ..... ..... so no wonder you will end up scurrying around trying to figure out what assignment to complete, what presentation to make etc etc .....

so I finally concluded that the so called "academic rigour in a b-school" is an overstated phenomenon which an average b-schoolers uses to brag in front of lesser mortals who are not blessed enough to be in a b-school :))

but then when I see a mail listing the following "academic" activities to be done in the week ahead over and above the mundane and routine i.e. daily classes, walks on campus, movies/TT at night, discussions on worldly matters etc etc :))

1. Accounts
- Report in hard copy to be submitted tomorrow in Prof. XYZs pigeon hole in the scholars block
- Presentations to begin from Thursdays class

2. Marketing
- Final report containing all 3 sections + executive summary + corrections of first three reviews to be submitted in hard copy to Prof. ABC tomorrow day end/Tuesdays class
- Presentations on the reports to start from Tuesdays lecture
- Group assignment related to analysis of positioning of 3 products of one product type to be submitted on or before next Monday i.e. 17th Sept

3. LAB
- Quiz on companies act tomorrow
- The Lab group assignment has to be submitted by next Mondays class. Please confirm the same with Prof. PQR tomorrow.

4. MicroEco
- Groups 3,4 and 5 to be ready with their presentation on UnderCover Economist for tomorrows extra class from 10:15 AM
- The MicroEco group project has to be submitted right after the end term exams. Kindly reconfirm this in the class tomorrow

5. Stats
- Quiz expected tomorrow

6. HBO
- The HBO project report to be submitted next week I suppose. We will reconfirm this in Tuesdays class
- Harvard case study had been kept in the pigeon holes. Group Presentations on the same from Thursday.

.... I feel maybe this is what they call "Academic Rigour of a b-school" !!! :) :)

PS: by writing such a long post given the above schedule I am also inviting "academic rigour" so I better close it here .... :)) ;)

Early days in a b-school !!!

Its been quite a long time since I updated my blog .... have been tryng to update it regularly but the so called "academic rigour" of a b-school (most of which is self-inflicted ;) ) and most times the general sense of indiscpline that has crept into my life has prevented me from adding nethng even thgh there r thousand things floatng in my head!!

So have completed over a month in a b-school now .... and if anyone asks me a AajTak reporter types ques "Aapko kaisa lag raha hai ????" .....i wont be able to give any definite answer !!

Why ???

coz in general I m too confsed abt my feelings n emotions rght now .... they have ranged from extreme happiness at the time of induction for just being there .... to the general enthu about gettng heavy duty readng material in hand .... to the pain of reading them befre each class and attending classes of 90 mintes ..... to the high of fighting an election of ne sort for the first time and winning it .... to the lows of missing yr family n friends ... to the insecurities about the next lectre that you havent preread for ... or next quiz i havent prepared for ..... etc.

Now all these fall in the personal domain that is they are emotions where I am both the source and the target .... theres anther set of emotions ... of which the sources are the people and the environment around you ...... and the target is poor "YOU"!!

its quite an experience stayng so far away from your family .... with so many people whom you knw nothing abt ... who come from diverese places, cultures, backgrounds ....... and you coexost with them in an environment ... where theres no family/parental figure around you, no real frens u ve made over the years ..... you are pretty much on your own ...

each person reacts to the people n environment arnd him ....in his/her own unique way ...... .... some are using this independence well .... some are outrageously abusing it ...... some are not too happy with it ..... some want even more of it ..... and in this you are trying to still figure out your take on the independence that the b-school life offers !!

As for the people around u .... u can see some are "MY TYPE" people ... some are outrightly "NOT MY TYPE" people .... and then there are people about whom you are as confused as you are confused abt yourself and perhaps they are cnfsed abt themselves ..... and then you goto an OB class and learn concepts of "Stereotyping", "Anchoring Bias", "Halo Error", "Self Serving Bias", "Bounded Rationality", "Personality Types" etc etc ..... which further add to the confusion prevailing in your life !!! :)

and then there are b-school parties to alleviate this whole confusion for some and to further complicate the matters for some like me ... but mre abt them later as I feel they deserve their own space on this blog!!

PS: written by an utterly confused mind trying to figure out whether to read Business Laws or Microeconomics or Statistics!! :)

First good loook at MDI Campus !!!

Today morning had a first good loook at the MDI campus ..... where i will be spending a better part of my next two years .........

woke up early ....as cldnt sleep ..... my room was as hot as an oven .... and to compound matters the new mattress and pillow .... just wouldnt allow me to sleep no matter how hard i tried ....

luckly found company to go for a stroll around the campus after breakfast ..... and clicked some snaps ....... needless to say the campus is damn impressve ...... very well laid out ........... great architecture ........lots lof green cover ..... and well maintained ......

Pics of MDI Campus ... also includes a couple of pics of Delhi!!!

the ambience and the infrastructure for learning is there .... now its a case of how well i can use it in the next two years ..... and reduce my level of ignorance abt many things related to business and management .... :)

also later in the day learnt some very important lessons of life ... courtesy seniors ... more on that in another post !!! :))

The Start !!!!!!

Welcome to my blog !!!! :))

... whether its just another addition to the tonnes of blogs and crap floatng on the net ... or somethng better is upto u ........ but 4 me ... this blog in going to be a medium to provide an alterntve to express my feelings, emtns, happy n nt so happy times, successes n failures, my perceptions of nethng n evrythng under the sun, frustratns, insecurties, queries .. etc etc

.......pple who knw me might feel that ....ohh hez into a bschool now ....so he is following a bschool thing and writing a blog ..... to be very honest partly its true ;)) ...but its not entirely true .... the fact also is that i have been thinking of startng this blog for quite a while now ..... infact the userid was created almost a year back on blogger site .. its just that today ....... i have actllly put that thougt into action .... :))

.. besides that You might have a doubt regarding the name of the blog ......"My Life - an Ocean of Ignorance" ........ but if you think for a moment ... i guess even you would agree that at the end of the day we are all just struggling to stay afloat in this world ..... of whch we know so little ....... we all are on an never ending quest to reduce our levels of ignorance

......hopefully through this blog will also be able to share some informtion periodically which will reduce our level of ignorance about something under the sun ... :)) ..... atleast it wil reduce your ignorance about certain developments in my life for sure !!!! :))