My Mad Memoirs

2004-10-11T17:53:00.000+05:00

Back in Bangalore after a long vacation in Chennai! Two weeks of nothing but sheer bliss.......slept almost 24/7 :) I thought our first term was a bit hectic. Turns out I am wrong...totally wrong. Our professors seem to have taken a vow to teach us the meaning of the word 'hectic'. Compared to the demon we are facing now first term appears to have been a cakewalk....a trip in paradise. We have to deal with *just* four heavy courses this term: Marketing, Finance, Operations and Statistics-II. Each of them requires a commitment of *just* 2-3 hrs a class. Meantime we will also be having our Summer placements this term. What's so special about that?...you might ask. Just that we have to fill up some 60-70 application forms and sit through some 30 odd terribly boring company presentations, all this in a month! Phew!

2004-09-07T17:07:00.000+05:00

This speech about success was given by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to us (Class of 2006 IIMB) during our orientation course. It is an inspiring read...have a look

"I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep and so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.

As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government and he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep and we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance and a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed and I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' and are very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'.When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha -an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition -delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality.

Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father,living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limi t of inclusion you can create.My father died the next day. He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings.

Success is not about building material comforts -the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives. Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world."

2004-08-11T16:08:00.000+05:00

Is Bangalore a silicon valley or a coolie valley? Decide for yourself:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/03guest1.htm

2004-08-05T20:10:00.000+05:00

We got the results for our first Statistics quiz today. Average score of the class: about 3.5/15. Funny considering that we are regarded to be the creme de la creme of India. Moral of the story: there is nothing like an IIM to puncture inflated egos!

2004-08-04T22:46:00.000+05:00

I made a field trip to a company called RCI today. RCI is a timeshare and resort company which operates out of Bangalore.We are studying this company as part of our "Managing Organisations" course.We were taken around the company and introduced to the various departments.It was super fun!I can confidently say that I learnt more in today's 6hr field trip than the innumerable number of hours I spent in class

2004-08-03T00:28:00.000+05:00

I have been really lax in updating my blog. I thought that I would post something about the Academic life here. We have 6 papers for this term. Totally we have three terms in the first year, each term being eleven weeks long. In addition to this we have our summer project which is about two months long. The subjects are:

Statistics:
Probably the toughest course. Taught by a prof called Shubroto Das who is a PhD from UNC Chapel Hill. Even IITians who are generally supposed to be Quant studs struggle in this course. The test papers are super tough.....getting 5/15 itself is an achievement :(
Check out his resume at http://www.iimb.ernet.in/html/facultyprofile.jsp?id=70

Accounting:
Supposed to be the CA paradise and the Engineers' nemesis. Prof Narayanasamy, author of a popular Accounting book handles this subject for our class. He is a CA and has a Phd in accounting from Australia. Not a very difficult paper, but loads of practise needed
Check out his resume at http://www.iimb.ernet.in/html/m-frames.jsp?ilink=113&pname=allfaculty.jsp

Microeconomics:
Though this is supposed to be a theory subject, in IIMB this is almost a pure Maths paper. Prof Ranganathan handles Economics for our class. He has a terrific background....studied in IITM, IIMA, Harvard, visiting prof at Wharton, ex chairman of union electricity commission. Theory part is easy but the problems are rather difficult in this paper
Check out his resume at http://www.iimb.ernet.in/html/facultyprofile.jsp?id=62

Managing Organisations:
Chill course. Chill prof. Taught by a Prof called Saurav Mukherjee. He has the most amazing background I have ever seen. He has a B.Tech in Cs from IIT-Kgp, a PhD from IIMB. He has worked in IBM, Oracle, Boston Consulting Group among others. Not much of effort needed for this course
Check out his resume at http://www.iimb.ernet.in/html/facultyprofile.jsp?id=113

Business Government and Society:
A very very vague subject. Prof Ramnath who handles this course is good but the subject is too vague for my liking. As part of course we have movie screenings, lectures from cultural reasearchers and so on.
Check out his resume at http://www.iimb.ernet.in/html/facultyprofile.jsp?id=61

Managerial Communication:
Another chill course :) Its about polishing one's communication skills. Taught by an IIMB alumnus called Prof Mohan Nathan

More updates later

2004-07-22T18:04:00.000+05:00

Life has become very hectic now! Just consider my program for the weekend. Tomorrow I have a quiz in the engineer's nightmare Accounting for which I have to study two chapters (just 100 pages). Plus I have to do a 20 page case for Managing Organisations. I have a Stats quiz coming up on Saturday for which I have to study 'just' 150 problems. And I am supposed to complete a 300 page book before Monday's class...which I haven't started reading. In the middle of all this I have to draw up a number of SOPs and resumes for the clubs I am applying to :(
My Heavenly father! Why have you created only 24 hours in a day?

The nightmare called accounting

2004-07-13T22:46:00.000+05:00

The Accounting paper is turning out to be a horrid nightmare for me. I am not able to make anything out of what is being taught in class. Check out these definitions I found in my Accounts text book:

Assets are "probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions and events"

Not complex enough? Try this...

Liabilities are "probable future sacrifices of economic benefits arising from present obligations of a particular entity to transfer assests or provide sevices to other entities in the future as a result of past transactions and events"

My head is spinning.....

New PC

2004-07-05T01:03:00.000+05:00

Yipee! My comp will arrive in a few more days. Hereafter I don't have to trudge to the computer centre at 1 AM in the morning to update my blog. Day before yesterday a few computer vendors came to the campus. About 35 of us joined together and negotiated a smooth deal. The power of collective bargaining! My computer specs:
PIV 2.4 GHz
256 MB RAM
Intel 845 *original* motherboard
32MB graphics card
80 GB 7200rpm HDD
52x CD Writer
17" monitor
Speakers with subwoofer
optical mouse
UPS
How much do you think it cost? 40 grand? 35 grand? Nopes! We are getting this for Rs 25,700! Inclusive of all taxes, inclusive of all hiddwn costs. The vendor asked something around 30 grand initially. After hours of negotiation and bargaining, we were able to bring it down to the above mentioned price
Moral of the story: Never underestimate the bargaining power of a bunch of budding MBAs!

The Godfather passes away...

2004-07-04T23:13:00.000+05:00

One of Hollywood's best actors,the "Godfather" of method acting...Marlon Brando has passed away. A sad day for cinema and it's fans. I am a huge fan of his work in "The Godfather".Marlon Brando led a very controversial personal life. He even turned down an Oscar to lodge his protest against the ethnic dicrimination prevalent in the US. A few of his 'interesting' statements:

"The more sensitive you are, the more likely you are to be brutalised, develop scabs and never evolve. Never allow yourself to feel anything because you always feel too much."

"The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them."

"An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer."

"Would people applaud me if I were a good plumber?"

"I don't know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I'm going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass."

"I put on an act sometimes, and people think I'm insensitive. Really, it's like a kind of armour because I'm too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out."

"If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful, it's worse than having a skin disease."

"I don't want to spread the peanut butter of my personality on the mouldy bread of the commercial press."

"The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel's mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid."

"With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes."

"The only reason I'm here in Hollywood is because I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money."

"I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed."

"An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening."

"If there's anything unsettling to the stomach, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives."

"I went home and did some rehearsing to satisfy my curiosity about whether I could play an Italian. I put on some makeup, stuffed Kleenex in my cheeks, and worked out the characterization first in front of a mirror, then on a television monitor. After working on it, I decided I could create a characterization that would support the story. The people at Paramount saw the footage and liked it, and that's how I became the Godfather" (on his unforgettable role in "The Godfather")

When asked how he spent his time away from the camera, Marlon had this to say: "People ask that a lot," he told reporters. "They say, 'What did you do while you took time out ?' - as if the rest of my life is taking time out. But the fact is, making movies is time out for me because the rest, the nearly complete whole, is what's real for me. I'm not an actor and haven't been for years. I'm a human being - hopefully a concerned and somewhat intelligent one - who occasionally acts."

For all his eccentricities, Brando is one of the most arresting and actors in movie history. In my opinion he can be imitated but never duplicated

2004-07-02T16:31:00.000+05:00

There are two more days for my course to start formally...only the orientation programme is going on. Yet I have learnt the most precious thing in an MBA student's life, which is time. Life in a Business school is a long series of deadlines. You define a day by the deadlines in it. For example today I have two deadlines and tomorrow morning I have two more deadlines. So I will have to work on four deadlines starting from today evening. There is going to be a movie screening today evening and tomorrow I am supposed to submit a review on it. Word limit: minimum 2000 words. Plus I have been asked to start working on my resume and submit a draft before today midnight. Plus I have some twenty junior-senior interation forms to fill..which I have to submit tomorrow noon. These forms require you to meet your seniors personally and learn their personal details..a nice way of ice breaking but time consuming. I also have tests in FOUR subjects tomorrow...we have been intimated about them only today. And all these four tests are in subjects I have never read before in my life: Accounting, Microeconomics, Quantitative methods and Business,Government&Society. If I flunk these tests..I get kicked out of IIMB. Scary! I don't know whether I will be able to get any sleep tonight. But is life here Hell? I don't think so. Life may be super hectic but is also super fun.

IIMB Campus

2004-06-27T17:26:00.000+05:00

IIM Bangalore's campus is awesome! I don't think any other word would describe the campus appropriately. The buildings are built of stone and have a Medieval-castle feel. At night you feel as if Robin Hood and his gang of outlaws are lurking in the dark somewhere...waiting to rob unsuspecting Wannabe managers. Enough said. Check out the following pics...they will speak a million words!

Main Corridor

Library corridor

Library exterior

Corridors galore!

Classroom cluster

Hostel entrance

Faculty blocks

Hostels at IIMB

2004-06-27T16:49:00.000+05:00

What do you do when all your friends are away playing football? Simple! Go to the Computer Centre and blog. I haven't got my computer yet. So I guess the Computer Centre will be my haunt for some more days. This is my third day in IIM Bangalore and I have already started to love this place. The Hostel culture is awesome. There are ten hostels from A to J. A is the girls hostel(Read: Our hangout spot), B is a mixed hostel with both guys and girls (You read that right! Both guys and girls live in 'B'), and the rest are the guys hostels. I am put up in hostel F. Guys here never seem to go to sleep. There are guys who play loud rock music at 3AM in the morning! The only thing I hate about our hostels is the bathrooms. Some of them are utterly despicable! I will try to put up photos of our Hostels. And the mess rocks! Heard something? That's the sound of my stomach rumbling. I am off to the mess. See you later!

Edited to add:
One of our Hostels

Ragging in XLRI

2004-06-25T23:54:00.000+05:00

What the Hell is happening in XLRI? It turns out that in this premier institute(which claims that ethics is more important than anything else) the juniors are getting abused in the name of ragging. The issue was brought to light at Pagalguy. Check out this discussion for more details
Apalling incident at XLRI

The Pioneer has also come out with an article about the same.The link is
XLRI Freshers terrorised

2004-06-25T11:53:00.000+05:00

Arrived in IIM Bangalore today morning. I am typing this in the Computer Centre. Net speed is awesome. Checking out the stuff that are worth checking out ;). Will post a more detailed account later

2004-06-23T00:32:00.000+05:00

Check out this cool poem about life in IIM Bangalore here
It goes like this:

LIFE AT IIMB - A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS

When I got the call from IIMB,
I got the thrill of my life,
“My life is made,” I thought,
“All but finding a wife”.

My friends they were all mighty impressed,
They said, “You’re quite a stud,”
And Dad said, “I knew you’d make it big someday,
I knew it was in your blood.”

For a month after the admission.
I was basking in my glory,
Giving advice to other people,
Narrating to them my story.

I was longing to come to Bangalore,
Looking forward to it and more,
Staying at home all day,
Was getting to be quite a bore.

At last I set off from home,
And reached campus with a smile,
But it all soon disappeared,
When of the readings I saw the pile,

But when I started the curriculum,
I got the shock of my life,
And to pass this place, I would say,
Is tougher than finding a wife.

I managed to clear the courses,
Like a snake wriggles out of its skin,
And all the while I longed to go,
Back to my kith and kin.

Though I was quite surprised,
With all that this place had in store,
I must admit to one and all,
What life never grew to be a bore.

Cause when you didn’t feet like studying,
There was always other things to do,
Play some game or watch TV,
Or think of the girls you’d like to woo.

And I say ‘When you didn’t feel like studying’,
Cause there was always enough to read,
And if you never ‘didn’t feel like it’,
you wouldn’t even have time to feed.

The Profs you thought were biased,
The toppers you thought were crank,
Life was full of hypocrisy,
Rarely anyone seemed to be frank.

But as you got used to the life,
A life of downs and more downs,
The disappointments started to cease,
And the smiles exceeded the frowns.

As you looked around you,
More people you got to know,
More friends you got to make,
More often you said ‘Hello’!

The mess table was the best place to socialize,
Because everyone had to meet,
And they all had one thing in common,
A grievance against the food they had to eat.

Slowly you started finding time,
To do the things you like,
Some people sat and chatted,.
While others went off on a hike.

And if you were free for the evening,
With nothing urgent to do,
Just take the bus to M.G.’s,
And put in a pitcher of two.

At last the parties started,
With drinking and dancing galore,
And we all came to know,
Why the best IIM was Bangalore.

We learnt quite a few things out here,
Not just what the professor tried to teach,
We learnt the 4Ps of Kotler,
And that Putkai is trying to Reach.

We’ve gone through 2 years of hell,
That’s what everyone will claim,
But if I were given a chance on retrospect,
I’d live through the experience once again.

And as I pass out of this place,
Get a job and begin my life,
I still maintain, “To pass this place,
Is tougher than finding a wife.”

-Rumy Kanga(Class of ’95)

How Manmohan Singh became the Indian PM...

2004-06-22T12:28:00.000+05:00

Liked this pic a lot :)

Hang on

2004-06-18T19:28:00.000+05:00

I know I have been *really* lax in updating my blog. But then not much is happening in my life anyway :( I don't want to bore you with the petty details of my ordinary boring middle class life. So hang on...things should get more interesting once my course starts...

IIM grads -> loan defaulters?

2004-06-13T00:19:00.000+05:00

So you thought an MBA was all about taking home six figure salaries? Then do read this interesting article about IIMB students: IIM-B grads turn loan defaulters
I am wondering...how come so many banks still compete aggresively offer loans to IIMB students? I have myself received 5 offers uptil now ;)

Not another movie review

2004-06-12T00:04:00.000+05:00

I can hear you groaning. In fact I am groaning myself for coming up with yet another movie review. But then I couldn't resist. You see the movie I saw yesterday isn't just another movie. It is one of the most awaited movies in recent months...the film version of one of the most popular books ever. Yes! You guessed right. I am talking about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Since all of us know the story too well, let me go straight to my comments. This movie is much darker than the previous ones possessing an almost Hitchcockian air. The characters are much darker; even Hogwarts is more of a Gothic witch castle than a Fairy tale one. Though the movie is darker it still does not have the tautness and suspense of the novel. Thanks to a dull screenplay, amateurish performances, and lackluster direction. The movie has none of the charms of the book and that is probably the greatest turnoff…considering the fact that HP3 is popularly considered to be the best of the HP series. Overall nothing much to shout about. Some questions I had after seeing the movie:
- Why do the actors other than the lead trio have to appear like background props all the time?
- Why does Sirius Black look and act like a comedian from a Farrelly brothers’ movie. Isn't he supposed to be dark, dangerous, psychotic?
- Why does Dumbledore jump around like an overgrown schoolboy? Isn't he supposed to be the calm wise one?
- Why isn't Hermione her usual bossy self?
- How come the Dementors have the gift of flight? I definitely don't remember any references to flying Dementors in the book
- Why do the Dementors keep on hunting Harry? Aren't they supposed to hunt Black? And why do they try to 'kiss' him everytime?
And finally
- Why do many scenes look as if they were inspired by the LOTR trilogy?
Bottomline: Recommended only for spoilt kids who want to boast to their friends that they have seen the latest 'Hairy' Potter movie

Engineer(ing) lessons!

2004-06-09T22:43:00.000+05:00

Go this from a friend. See how the world perceives us poor hapless engineers :(

Lesson I

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Moral of the story: Engineers don't talk philosophies...only mathematical conundrums

Lesson II

A pastor, a doctor, and an engineer were in a golf course one morning waiting for a slow group of golfers to finish. The engineer fumed, "What's wrong with these guys? We have been waiting for an hour!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude". The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi John. What's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"
The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, they are a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sights saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we let them play for free anytime."
The group was silent for a moment.
Then the pastor said, "That's sad! I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."
The engineer, after much thought said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Moral of the story: Engineers always thinks 'logically'

Lesson III

Three engineering students were discussing the possible designers of the human body.
The first one said "It must have been a Mechanical engineer. Just look at all those joints working in perfect unison and harmony" The second one said "It must have an electrical engineer. Look at the way the nerve connections have been designed with minimal Trasmission and Distribution losses"
The third said "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Moral of the story: Engineers have their own theories. You are a fool if you believe any

Lesson IV

"Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."

Moral of the story: Engineers engineer faults so that they can do research to correct them

Lesson V

An architect, an artist, and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with a wife or a mistress.
The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.
The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.
The engineer said, "I like both."
"Both?"
"Yeah," replied the engineer. "If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the research lab and get some work done."

Moral of the story: NEVER fall for an engineer! He will ditch you for a lab assistant

Lesson VI

One engineer was telling another "I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want"
The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes wouldn't have fit anyway."

Moral of the story: Don't bother to drop even the most obvious hints, they can't catch them anyway.

Lesson VII

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look! I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a TALKING frog, now that's cool!

Moral of the story: Still thinking of an engineer?

P.S. I don't think I would have done any of these. So maybe I am not an engineer after all! All young single eligible girls pay extra special attention to the previous sentence ;-)

Cheers!

Another day...another design

2004-06-07T01:24:00.000+05:00

Welcome to Mad Memoirs template ver 3.0. Changing templates is becoming a habit of mine. I have spent hours on this new design and needless to say I am proud of it. This template is actually an extensive modification of the one I was using earlier. I have changed the shout box colours too. Hope you like this design as much as I do :)

Blogging and self-discovery

2004-06-06T23:24:00.000+05:00

Check out this article about Journalling Your Way To Self-discovery. It's a nice article which talks about how putting one's thoughts to paper helps one's sense of well being. A must read for all bloggers/ wannabe bloggers

2004-06-05T01:21:00.000+05:00

Got this from Vinod's blog. There is going to be a Chennai Bloggers' meet this Sunday (6th June).I am not sure if I can make it. Anyway here are the details:
Venue: Amethyst, Gopalpuram
Time: 5:00 p.m
Check out http://madrasblogmeet.rediffblogs.com/ for more info

0-1000 in 37 days

2004-06-04T12:28:00.000+05:00

Yipee! My blog has crossed 1000 hits. It has moved from 0-1000 hits in 37 days. Great going guys! Thanks for the patronage...do keep visiting!

2004-06-03T01:24:00.000+05:00

Check out S.Anand's review of Yuva at Outlook India

In a recent interview, Mani Ratnam said he doesn't watch too many Tamil films. But he sure borrows DVDs to 'inspire' the filmmaker in him. And so the narrative of his much-hyped Yuva (Aayitha Ezhuthu in Tamil) is evidently copied from the Mexican film Amores Perros. That's good news because: a) Yuva has a certain form and b) most Indians would not have seen Amores Perros. The bad news is that form alone, that too plagiarised, cannot carry a film. Amores Perros' content and form probably evolved from a certain untranslatable historical and social context. Mani seeks to import the form and impose Indian content on to it. The result is contrived.

Opening with an accident on the Howrah bridge, the film travels back in time to outline the lives of the three characters involved in the accident. First, we learn about Lallan Singh (Abhishek Bachchan), a mercenary rowdy. In Mani's reckoning, lower class men are pointlessly violent and beat up their women. Hence Lallan's wife Sasi (Rani Mukherjee) is often abused and seems to love him for that. Lallan is hired by a politician to kill student leader Michael Mukherjee (a miscast Ajay Devgan) whose love interest is a chirpy Radhika (Esha Deol). Michael and his friends are out to cleanse the political system and they decide to contest four seats in a bypoll (assembly or Lok Sabha?). Representative of upper middle class disenchantment with politics, Mani wants youth in politics but his idea of politics does not have an ideological or social context. Towards the end, we see four denim-clad men enter Parliament/assembly—Mani's facile take on political change. Sandwiched in the story is the narrative of Arjun (Vivek Oberoi) and Mira (Kareena). Dil Chahta Hai gave us a sincere peep into the lives of the rich and young, but in Yuva these characters remain cardboard-like.

Mani wants to tell a story he is experientially not connected to. Calcutta is not his terrain, yet the story is set there. So the Howrah bridge is nothing but a prop. The problem is Mani wants to do pan-Indian cinema and not remain a Tamil filmmaker. He does not realise that good cinema (Bunuel, Ray or Alejandro Inarritu's Amores Perros) is local, but Aayitha Ezhuthu proves he is disconnected even from the Tamil milieu. In the film, Arjun tells Mira: "It's people like you who patronise bad Hindi films." Yuva pretends to be a good film.

He gives this movie two stars out of four. Though I am not a big fan of S.Anand's reviews, I do agree with him on most counts in this case. Pretty hard-hitting huh?

2004-05-31T22:03:00.000+05:00

Hiya pals!
I am feeling really jobless at home. So I was doing some bizarre calculations for fun. I studied in a private engineering college called SVCE which is situated in the suburbs of Chennai. The commute to college used to be really long and hectic. I tried to estimate the amount of time I had wasted in these bus journeys. It goes like this

No of years I spent in college: 4
Average number of working days I would have attended in a year: 200
Now on an average a one way bus journey to SVCE takes 1 hr 15 min i.e. 2 hrs 30 min for two ways
Total amount of time I would have spent in the bus during the 4 years = 4*200*2.5 = 2000 hours!
In other words I have wasted some 2000 hours of my precious life on traveling to college during the last four years! And 2000 hours is equivalent to 120 solid days assuming that one sleeps for 8 hours/day. That's four months!

Now think of the things I could have done in that amount of time:
>Seen 700 movies
>Listened to 20,000 songs
>Read about 200 books
>even finished TWO MORE engineering degrees! (We had about 45 theory papers during our course. Each paper needed about 20 hrs of preparation in order to be cleared. In other words I could have studied 100 more engineering papers!)

And now the things I did in those 2000 hours come to my mind. I made 'exemplary' use of these hours by performing 'value-addition' activities such as snoring, day-dreaming, swearing etc UUUGH!

The story doesn't end here. I paid around Rs 10,000 a year as bus fees. Now for four years that's Rs 40000. Think of the things you can get for 40,000 bucks:
Rs 40,000 = a Splendor (almost) = a Honda Activa = 1200 litres of petrol = a second hand Fiat car!

I feel like an ass for joining a college located so far from my house. Fellow private-engineering-college students, what is your take on this?

Aaytha Ezuthu (Yuva in Hindi) Review

2004-05-26T19:25:00.000+05:00

********SPOILER ALERT********

What do you get when you take the basic structure of Virumaandi, add some dialogues from Mudhalvan, and top it off with Thalaivasal's ending with a few songs and fights thrown in between? A mediocre movie (by Maniratnam standards) called Aaytha Ezuthu

The story in a nutshell: Madhavan, a thug at the behest of Bharathiraja a local politician makes an attempt to murder Surya, a college student. Fortunately Surya is saved by some timely help from Siddharth. How Surya and Siddharth stand up to the political muscle of the villains Bharathiraja and Madhavan (and win) forms the rest of the story. These four characters form the backbone of the movie and are very well defined which is a rarity in Indian movies

Madhavan (Abishek) -> Thug – violent – inhuman - merciless - a man who will sell his mother for money
Surya (Ajay) -> Student – genius – activist - social reformer – leader - revolutionary
Siddharth (Vivek) -> Graduate – urban – cool –sophisticated - flirt
Bharathiraja (Om Puri) -> Politician – demagogue – crafty - ruthless - villain

Yeah! You read that right. The cute Maddy is a villain in this movie. He does a great job as the dark, psychotic hit man who doesn't hesitate to kill his foster brother to save his skin. Meera Jasmine does a decent job as his wife who tries hard to reform her husband. Surya has the right mix of youth and aggression needed for his role and blends in perfectly as the social activist Michael. His love interest Esha doesn't have much screen time and is wasted. Siddharth also does a fine job as the hip youngster who aspires to fly away from India. Trisha dances for two songs and disappears. The surprise package is the veteran director Bharathiraja as the cool and crafty politician with a serpentine tongue. Surprisingly even he doesn't get much screen time. The biggest flaw in this movie is that there are too many characters, simply too many. Each of the three protagonists gets a love interest, a family, a group of friends...all adding up to too many characters. The result is the individual screen time they get very less. Frankly the story could have been told without Madhavan's and Siddharth's characters.

Another problem with this movie is that the director seems to have tried too many things at once. On one hand he has tried to make a Rashomon clone, on the other hand he has tried to give the message that the youth must take politics into their hands and free it from the influence of criminals. Plus the movie has the usual masala elements like fights, songs, sentiments etc resulting in uneven pacing.

The first half of the movie is reminiscent of Kurosawa's Rashomon with the same incident shown through the eyes of the three protagonists. However I personally felt that Kamal Hassan had done a classier job in his Virumaandi. Plus many scenes in the movie remind one of scenes from some popular movies. Surya's dialogues remind one of Manivannan's in Mudhalvan. The scene in which Madhavan abuses his wife for having an abortion is a lift from Godfather 2. The ending is predictable and a lift from the movie Thalaivasal.

Pros:
- acting
- photography
- art direction
- music

Cons
- disappointing end
- too many characters
- excessive violence
- songs which disturb the pace of the movie
- screenplay

Bottom line:
Though good in parts Maniratnam's latest offering is pretty mediocre by his standards. Can be seen once though
My rating: 6/10

Left or Right ?

2004-05-24T21:46:00.000+05:00

Are you a Leftist or a Rightist? Are you an Authoritarian like Hitler who puts the state over the individual or a libertarian for whom individual freedom is everything? What do you prefer - Communism or Free market Capitalism? Check out politicalcompass.org.It's a cool site with a comprehensive questionnaire to evaluate your ideologies. I was surprised with the result I got. It seems that I am more of a Left-winger than a Right-winger. See where I stand

Pagalguy.com meet

2004-05-23T23:46:00.000+05:00

I went for the PG Chennai meet today. For the uninitiated PG is a forum for CAT aspirants. The URL is
http://www.pagalguy.com/cat If you are trying for CAT 2004 but not yet a member then do join. We are a very close-knit community and have regular meets. The Chennai meets are usually held at the Besant Nagar beach. We have had some very 'gay' and interesting meets in the past during which we have scared the hell out of everyone from mongrels to Mayos ;-).It was raining pretty hard in Chennai today evening but the turnout was still great. In the crowd there were 3 of us headed for IIMB, one headed to IIMI and one who had converted IIMK but not joining and a host of guys who will be getting into IIMA in the near future. We walked and walked and talked and talked till our mouths went dry and our legs became sore. Then it was over to the Cafe Coffee Day outlet where we shared our CAT experiences over refreshing cups of coffee. We polished it up with a splendid dinner at Dhaba Express. The meet started at sometime around 5'o'clock and it was nearly 10'o'clock when it was over....the hours had simply flown by! And I forgot to mention...keeping up the Chennai PG tradition it was another all-male meet. I guess the Chennai CAT aspirants of the fairer variety don't know what they are missing :) I am going to miss these meets when I go to Bangalore. Anyway it was a great way to spend a Sunday evening. I am feeling sleepy because of all the walk and talk (yawn!).Good Night!

Dear Diary...

2004-05-22T01:11:00.000+05:00

Dear Diary
I am feeling REALLY bored at home. My course is starting only on the 28th of June. So I am jobless until then. To make things worse this Chennai heat is frying me. I have been using Air Conditioning generously until now. But like the other really good things in life this too has to come to an end. The electricity bill arrived a few days back and my parents almost got a heart seizure looking at it. Being a devoted son committed to the health of my parents I have to use the A/C more sparingly. Difficult but not impossible I tell myself! My mother is advising me to do something constructive. But even after 21 years she has not realised that I am incapable of doing anything remotely associated with the word ‘constructive’. Maybe she is just being plain optimistic. Or maybe she has managed to discover some wonderful talent hitherto hidden in me. Anyway my typical day goes like this
9:00 AM: My mother shakes me up
10:00 AM: I wake up
10:30 AM: I accomplish the Herculean feat of dragging my lifeless emaciated body to the bathroom
11:30 AM: Breakfast (2 idlis and some chutney AAAAARGH!)
11:32 AM to 2:00 PM: Daydreaming about life at IIMB
2:00 PM: A sumptuous lunch
2:30 PM: Back to bed to escape the awful world of reality
5:00 PM: Get up again
5:30 PM: Go out. Try to catch sight of some Mayos on the streets
8:30 PM: Back home and supper
9:00 PM to 1:00 AM: Daydreaming about life after IIMB - wife, kids etc ;-)
1:00 AM: Transition from the pseudo-dream world to the real-dream world
The (vicious) cycle continues.......

Goooooogled!

2004-05-22T00:30:00.000+05:00

Woo-Hoo! My blog is listed in Google! Search for "mad memoirs" and my blog is the third link that comes up. Search for "my mad memoirs" and my blog is the first link! Not bad :)

All India PG meet

2004-05-21T22:47:00.000+05:00

Check out the all India PG meet pictures at
http://cc.1asphost.com/mansoorkhan/pgmeet/sq/pgmeet/WebImage/page0.html
Looks like the guys had great fun. I wish I had been there. But I had to miss it because of some obligations. The Chennai contingent seems to have been rather small comprising of just two - Vicky and Girish. The next time an All India PG meet takes place in Bangalore I'll be there. After all the garden city is going to be my abode for the next two years

The new PM

2004-05-19T23:10:00.000+05:00

So Dr Manmohan Singh is going to be the next Prime Minister of India. Some trivia about MS:
-- Manmohan Singh will be the 14th PM of India
-- He will be the first person from the Sikh community to hold the PM's Office.
-- He was the first Union finance minister to present five successive Budgets
-- He is an alumnus of Punjab University and Oxford University and an ex-professor of international trade at the Delhi School of Economics
-- He was the RBI governor in the period 1982 - 1985
-- He has never been a Lok Sabha member. He contested in the LS polls in 1999 but lost. He was a Rajya Sabha member from 1991-1996 though
-- This will probably be the first time in India when both the Prime minister and President are doctorates
-- For the first time in India the Prime Minister and President hail from minority communities
-- By the way neither is a career politician. Both entered public office after distinguished professional careers
-- Kalam is from Tamil Nadu; MS is from Punjab - 2 states that are not a part of the Hindi belt that generally dominates Central politics

Is this the day of the underdog? Nobody expected Kalam to become the President of India when the process started. Now he has turned out to be one of the most popular presidents India has ever had. Again no one would have expected MS to become the PM a week back. Let’s see how popular (and populist) MS turns out to be.

So what role is Sonia going to play in the new government? Is she going to do a Bal Thackeray by running the new Government with a remote control? Or is she going to give a free reign to her Ministers? It will take a few weeks to find out.

I am...

2004-05-17T19:33:00.000+05:00

Congratulations! You're Aragorn!

Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
He He!

2004 Mad Memoirs awards

2004-05-15T22:43:00.000+05:00

Long long ago I had lost a fifty rupee note. Today I happened to come across the same when I was digging my drawer for a pencil. I have made up my mind not to waste that huge sum of money. Instead I have decided to set up a fund to sponsor awards for deserving Indians. I have christened it the "Mad Memoirs" awards. The jury's decision is out for this year. So ladies and gentlemen grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show. The winners for this year are:

Best Hero: Election Commission
For conducting the world's largest polls in a transparent and troublefree manner

Best Heroine: Sonia Gandhi (Congress)
For coming back after being written off by all and sundry from psephologists to astrologists

Best villain: Communist Bloc
For promising to derail the divestment and reforms process

Worst Hero: Chandrababu Naidu (TDP)
For getting humiliated even in his pet city-Cyberabad

Worst Heroine: Jayalalithaa (AIADMK)
For the mauling received at the hands of the Tamil Nadu voters

Best child artiste (male): Rahul Gandhi (Congress)
For making an impressive youthful entry into a stage dominated by senile old men

Best child artiste (female): Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (Congress)
For dazzling the common man with her (dynastic) charm

Best newcomer: Govinda (Congress)
For promising to add a dash of colour to the 14th Lok Sabha with his flashy costumes, witty one-liners and raunchy dance moves. He is not expected to do much. But then no one is going to.

Best comedian(s): Murli Manohar Joshi (BJP) & Subramaniam Swamy (Janata party)
To Murli Manohar Joshi for promising to overhaul the IIMs and getting overhauled in the process
To Subramaniam Swamy for contesting (and losing) for the zillionth time

Best Music Director: Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP)
For making the leaders of national parties dance to his tunes

Best special effects: BJP thinktank
For making India shine when it wasn't and for conjuring the feel-good factor out of thin air

Lifetime achievement award: A.B.Vajpayee (BJP)
Awarded to the grand old man of Indian politics for his six year tight-rope act of running a coalition government

The award winners can contact the organiser for collecting their prizes (strawberry lollipops)

Festive mood in the IIMs

2004-05-15T01:03:00.001+05:00

IIM policeman Murali Manohar Joshi's defeat seems to have created a considerable amount of cheer among members of the IIM community.Check out this article:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/may/14iim.htm

RC funda

2004-05-15T01:03:00.000+05:00

My second article on CAT. The importance of Reading Comprehension for CAT cannot be understated. It is probably the highest scoring section in the CAT paper. If your RC skills are good you can score like mad in that section. Also keep in mind that the CAT paper will probably run for 30+ pages. If you are a poor reader it would take you about 2 hours just to read the questions, forget about answering them. Good RC skills are the key to belling the CAT. So how can one improve his/her RC skills? Only by regular and sustained reading of quality material.

All of us read only the subjects that interest us. However the CAT has passages from diverse subjects ranging from economics to engineering. In other words, just about anything under the sun. Thus the first hurdle to overcome is one's bias against particular subjects. One has to consciously work on developing interest in whatever he/she is reading. One should try to read atleast 3-4 quality articles a day. Some good sources are:

Newspapers: Probably the richest source. Most of us take them for granted and don't realise how valuable they are. I would recommend reading a good national newspaper daily. The best would be "The Hindu". It has the best articles in terms of language if not in terms of content. A close second would be "Indian Express". Its language is more down-to-earth than Hindu's but has awesome content. I am not terribly impressed with "Times of India" and the like. I would personally advise you to avoid them. They are tabloids published for the sole noble purpose of educating the average Indian about the glitterati and the chatterati. And when you are reading the newspapers don't stop with the sports page alone. Go through the whole paper and make sure you read the center page fully. In particular pay attention to the editorials. Do this for one month and you will observe how better a reader you have become. Keep doing this for the next six months

Magazines: Subscribe to one good weekly newsmagazine and one business magazine. I used to read the Outlook and Businessworld regularly. The best magazine for CAT prep would be the Frontline but I personally found it to be too boring. Way too boring. But it's awesome if you can stomach it!

Non-Fiction: Most articles that appear in the CAT are picked from non-fiction books. Suggested areas are Management, Science, Philosophy, Religion, Sports, Self-help, Biographies and Autobiographies of eminent personalities. Some good books/articles that I read:
What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School - Mark McCormack
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Made In Japan - Akio Morito
The road ahead - Bill Gates
Business@the speed of thought - Bill Gates
Competing for the future - C.K.Prahlad
Swami Vivekananda's works
Harvard Business Review articles
Businessworld magazine's case studies

Fiction: Try to avoid mainstream pulp fiction writers. Instead try to go in for better quality fiction like Salman Rushdie, Naipaul, Erich Segal, Ayn Rand, Arundhati Roy, Tolkien, Lustbader. Frankly some of these authors are acutely irritating. But reading something you dislike is more useful than reading something you love

Comics: Ditch them!

It's also very important to have a good reading speed. My reading speed was one of my biggest strengths. When I started my reading speed was about 400 words per minute in the Hindu editorials. I was able to push it up to 600 wpm. When reading make a conscious effort to read faster. Also try to increase your eye span while reading. Eye span means the number of words one can read at one go. For poor readers it is just one or two words at a time. For great readers it is seven to eight words in one go. Newspaper columns offer good practice. Try to comprehend a line at a time and the eyes should only move vertically down and not horizontally.

Happy reading!

2004 LS election results

2004-05-13T22:45:00.000+05:00

Yipee! Dr Murali Manohar Joshi is on his way out. For those in the dark, the esteemed Human Resources Development Minister and self-styled IIM policeman has lost the LS polls in Allahabad. The election results have been totally shocking. The exit and opinion pollsters seem to have missed the target by light years. The ruling NDA has managed to corner only 186 seats when most of the opinion polls had projected 250-270 seats for it. Almost all the BJP bigwigs have lost the polls. Meanwhile the Congress alliance has surprised everyone by emerging as the single largest bloc.The ruling ADMK alliance has been washed out in Tamil Nadu. It has failed to win a single seat! Why is the anti-incumbency factor playing such a decisive role like never before in the elections?Is it because the citizens have started expecting more from their governments? And whatever happened to the 'India shining' and 'feel good factor' campaigns? It will take a few days for a clearer picture to emerge. And who is going to form the new government? Too many questions. Too important answers

Congrats Haarith!

2004-05-13T22:15:00.000+05:00

One of my classmates Haarith has got an admit from Stanford university's Electrical engineering department. I got the news from the horse's mouth today morning. He was my batchmate in our practical classes. We used to literally 'rock' the labs together along with Gowri. Our favorite pastime was blowing up electronic circuits, short circuiting electrical motors and butchering Microprocessor kits. The labs used to resemble earthquake zones after we were done with them. Needless to say our batch was also the lecturers' favorite. We used to get 'advice' from them almost every lab session. Anyway Congrats buddy! Hope you 'rock' Stanford's research labs in the same way we rocked SVCE's labs :grin:

Electoral Earthquake in Andhra

2004-05-12T22:59:00.000+05:00

The common man's verdict is out:the TDP government is no longer fit to rule Andhra Pradesh,one of the biggest and most influential states in India. The TDP combine has managed to win only 43 seats or so out of the 240+ seats in the state. The rout is widespread and not confined to the rural areas alone. Even in it's stronghold Hyderabad (oops Cyberabad) the TDP has managed to bag only 2 of the 13 constituencies. The CEO of AP who dazzled the media, businessmen and visiting heads of state with his 'vision' of a developed AP seems to have forgotten the one who matters most:the common man. Official apathy has given rise to starvation deaths, mass suicides, terrorism, unemployment and the likes. An important lesson lies here for all parties in India. Rhetoric about development can fool the public for some time but not forever. Sustained and balanced development benefitting all strata of the society is the need of the hour. Let's see if the incoming Congress government is able to do that. By the way tomorrow is D-day,election results will be out and the composition of the 14th Lok Sabha will be known. A Damocles' sword seems to hang over the reforms process in India. Let's hope that whoever wins,wins so with a comfortable majority. A hung parliament and a Dewe Gowda type government is the worst thing that can happen to the Indian tiger now.

Main Hoon Na...

2004-05-12T12:23:00.000+05:00

Saw Main Hoon Na today. One of the most entertaining movies I have seen in recent times. I have seen quite a few Matrix spoofs (Scary Movie for one) but this one beats them by a mile. The self-spoofing theme that runs throughout the movie is simply irresistible. My verdict:if you have something vaguely resembling a sense of humour, then do yourselves a favour by watching the movie...you will love it
P.S:I know now how my dream girl will look like...like Amrita Rao ;-)

About CAT

2004-05-11T22:56:00.000+05:00

I got a few mails and messages asking me to talk about my CAT preparation. This is one big topic, so give me some time to type out everything. Essentially what I did was this: I enrolled for the one-year TIME classroom course. I went through their material fairly diligently, particularly the Quant material. After this was over, I concentrated on taking section tests. Then I moved on to the Sims and Mocks. In all I would have attempted about 40-50 full length papers.

Before going to the preparation part I would like to give some general Gyaan about CAT. On the surface CAT appears to be another aptitude test like the GRE or the GMAT. But actually it is not so. It is designed for a totally different purpose: to test a candidate's decision making and managerial skills. In fact all entrance tests have a motive which may not be obvious superficially. For example the JEE appears to be a simple Phy, Chem, Math test. What the JEE actually does is test the depth of your knowledge. Similarly the Civil Services Exam tests the breadth of your knowledge. Similarly CAT is a test your managerial skills.

Some important qualities tested by the CAT are:
>Your decision making skills (which question to attempt? when to attempt? etc)
>Your strategising skills (How do you go about attempting the paper? Which section do you attempt first? What time do allot for each section? etc)
>Your judgement(eg.choosing between two RC options which are very similar to each other)
>Your time management skills (you have 150-180 Qs to attempt in just 120 mins)
>Your ability to remail cool under pressure (the
>Your common sense (probably the most important quality in an effective manager)
>And of course all the qualities evaluated by conventional aptitude tests

All these are nothing but managerial qualities.Some are gifted with these qualities by nature. They can walk in and crack the CAT provided they have a decent level of competency in English and Maths. But most of us lesser mortals are not gifted with these qualities. That is where the preparation part comes in. So when you start preparing for CAT, you are not only preparing for aptitude questions but also polishing your decision making skills. Difficult to believe? I will give you some major changes I have observed in me as a result of my CAT preparation:
>My decision making skills have improved
>I manage my time better nowadays
>I have learnt the significance of remaining cool under pressure
>I am not that upset by failures
>I have realised the importance of self-confidence for success
So when you are preparing for CAT you are not only studying for an entrance test but also polishing your managerial skills. Impossible to believe? You will realise this yourself soon.

All this does not mean that one can ignore the Maths and English. CAT tests the above mentioned qualities by way of Math and English questions. Thus, proficiency in Maths and English is critical to success in the CAT. A person with strong Verbal and Quantitative skills but poor decision making skills will not do well in the CAT unless he changes himself drastically.

Plus another very important thing I want to say about the CAT. People say that CAT is the most difficult of all exams. However one has to realise that CAT is not difficult per se. It is not like the JEE which is so complex that it requires hundreds of hours of preparation to answer just one question. The CAT is rather simple in itself. The competition makes it difficult.

Hope I managed to give you a decent idea of CAT. If you have any queries post them in the comments section. I will talk about how to go about preparing for CAT next time

2004-05-10T14:56:00.000+05:00

I went and exercised my vote today. This is the first time I have voted in an election though I became eligible three years back. The process was very well organised with tight security arrangements. My respect and admiration for the CEC and the IAS officers running them has increased manifold after witnessing the process first hand. Assuming there are 20 polling stations for each constituency there must be some 10,000 odd polling booths across the country. The CEC has to:
>Arrange for the venues for the 10,000 odd polling stations
>Make adequate security arrangements for the same
>Ensure safe and effective transfer of EVMs to and from 10,000 sensitive venues
>Hire trustworthy polling officers
>Make sure that the candidates stay within the law
The process must be a logistical nightmare. The IIMs claimed that conducting the CAT itself was a mammoth exercise. But remember that only 130,000 students wrote the CAT this year in about 50 centres throughout the country. These numbers are simply dwarfed by the electoral process. You have around 50,00,00,000 voters voting in 10,000 centres. If the CEC can do such a fine job regarding security even when such gargantuan numbers are involved,then why can't the IIMs (and other such agencies conducting entrance exams) ensure foolproof security of the question papers? Why are they making fools of themselves and the poor students taking up their exams?

2004-05-08T16:32:00.000+05:00

The formal acceptance letter from IIM Bangalore arrived today.The package seemed to be exceptionally thick.On opening it I found why.It contained:
#The acceptance letter
#Terms and conditions for acceptance
#A student-loan prospectus and application form from Andhra bank
#Details of a special offer from Airtel exclusively(?) for IIMB students
#A leaflet from PCS Computers (another special offer!)
#A leaflet from another computer assembler (yet another special offer!)
#A mediclaim policy application
#A life insurance policy application
#A CD about IIMB
#An application form for financial aid
No wonder the package was thick.IIM Kozhikode chose to send only two sheets of paper in comparison.And the CD rocks!It has a lot of multimedia stuff about IIM Bangalore.There were a lot of videos about the picturesque campus.There was even a video showing the students partying around in a discotheque!The guys who have designed the CD have done a great job.Hats off!
There is also an IIMB alumni reunion happening in MGM resorts today for which I got invited.I thought of going first but pulled out later when I learnt that I had to pay Rs350 for it.No way!I am not prepared to pay 350 bucks for the pleasure of getting my ass bored off by middle aged gentlemen

IIM results out!

2004-05-07T23:16:00.000+05:00

Today was a very interesting day.Definitely one of the more interesting days I have experienced in my short span on earth. This was the day in which I learnt that I was really destined for the hallowed gates of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.I will give you a chronological sequence of events:

1:00 AM:I am on the net reading blogs

2:00 AM:Still online browsing PG

3:00 AM:Off to bed

4:00 AM:Trying to sleep.Temporary fit of insomnia due to result-o-phobia

5:00 AM:Still trying to sleep

6:00 AM:Finally dozing off (Phew!)

7:00 AM:In troubled dreamland.Enjoying nightmares starring hideous aliens and ghoulish ghosts

8:00 AM:I don't remember what I was doing.So must have been in Deepslumberland

9:00 AM:I hear somebody screaming somewhere.It takes me a few long minutes to realise that it is my mother screaming at me!Some more minutes to realise that she is not actually 'screaming' at me but rather babbling something excitedly.A few more minutes to make out what she is saying.It seems that IIMs A and C results were out.My friend Balaji had called up to convey this piece of news.The news sinks in with a shiver.The IIMs have finally come out with their dreaded results!

9:05 AM:Going online

9:06 AM:Oops!A nasty shock.Didn't make it to IIM Calcutta.I had thought I had a decent chance there

9:07 AM:Double shock!Both IIM A and IIM C have bumped me!Feeling low real low.The darkest moment.The IIMs in which I had put in my best GDPI performances had rejected me.Rejected ME of all guys!

9:08 AM:In the bathroom in a daze!Trying to brush.Extremely depressed.If the IIMs where I had put in good GDPI performances have rejected me then what were my chances of making to the others?

9:25 AM:Out of the bathroom.Sitting on the computer again

9:26 AM:Yipee!Made it to an IIM at last.IIM Kozhikode gets the honour of being the first IIM to admit me!

9:27 AM:Hip Hip Hurray!I am through to Lucknow too!

9:28 AM:EUREKA!Me in at IIM Bangalore too.Like one Mr.Archimedes I start running around my bedroom (not in my birthday suit though!Had a towel on ;-) My mother hearing the noise comes up to see what's happening.I am too excited to say anything.

9:30 AM:My mother finally deciphers my incoherent mumblings!I had made it to IIM-B!

9:31 AM:Congratulations start pouring in

12:31 PM:Still pouring in.He He!

12:45 PM:Off to Nikhil's treat at Subway.He has also made it to B

3:00 PM:Coming back home and dozing off!Trying to catch some lost sleep!

9:30 PM:Finding out that had made it to IIM Indore too!

11:00 PM:Typing the crap you are reading now!

So I have made it to IIMs B,L,I,K B-L-I-K Blik! or Klib! Sounds rather nice doesn't it? Not bad!Not bad at all!

So this year I am off to IIM Bangalore for my MBA(hoping that my eighth semester results don't ditch me).Big hearty congratulations to all dudes who made it to the toughest management institutes in the universe to get into.WE DESERVE IT FOLKS!

Engineering College Life

2004-05-05T00:07:00.000+05:00

Feeling too bored to type anything.So a Ctrl+C Ctrl+V job from me.This is not my original creation...I got this by mail. So if you own the copyright for this,don't sue me ;-) .Send me a message and I will remove it

[A] Some Basic definitions..

Engineering College : Place where you're punished for getting good HSC marks.
Babe : Girls studying in other colleges...for mech guys, anything female.
Senior : Guy who got ragged as junior and wanna get some payback...
Fresher : Guy who has to ask where the canteen is...
Really Dumb Fresher : Guy who asks a senior where the canteen is.
Really Really Dumb fresher : Guy who follows the senior to the canteen.
Ragging : The unfortunate fate of the previous idiot.
Evasive action : Watch the juniors when any seniors come nearby.
(No one runs faster than a fresher. NO ONE.)
Lectures : Waste of time.. physical presence is a must...only meant for sleeping, completing assignments & general everything
Tutions : What you take when you don't waste enough time....
Professor : Person paid to put students to sleep.
Lecturer : Unusual variant of previous individual who comes packaged with his own brand of English ("Now you check me our journal." "You out get from class." "Are you Understand?" "Both of you two come here", "Draw a square of any shape")
Practicals/Lab Work : 60 to 120 minutes in which you watch the girls do your experiment, and usually destroy a considerable array of lab equipment.
Hopeless Practical : The practical in which there are no girls in your group (simply look blankly at each other, fiddle with the equipment, and finally copy the readings. from the girls of course...or from guyz who get it from gals).

[B]. The Truth about exams....

Exams : A 3 hour long exercise to find out how fast you can write.
Timing : when ur non engineering GF/BF is free to enjoy while u slog with submissions & exams
Irony : The guy who copied your entire paper passes and you flunk.
Critical Calculation : Summing up the marks you attempted worth in the exam...
Arrear (Supplementary) : Makes you suicidal at first...but later becomes a way of life...
Year Drop : Makes dad homicidal.
Re-valuation: A cruel joke. (results of which come after you give the arrear exam).

[C]. An engineering student's 10 engg commandments of Life

1. Thou shalt study only during the study leave.
2. Thou shalt treat all marks above 35 as bonus.
3. Thou shalt begin writing thy assignments journals/lab records only on the morning of submission, and only by copying.
4. Thou shalt spent as much money as possible and then borrow from girls
5. Thou shalt have at least 70 per cent attendance in the canteen, theaters,clubs,pubs,discos etc etc but not necessarily in class
6. Thou shalt pass GRACEfully.
7. Thou shalt always be an OUTstanding student.
8. Thou shalt give thy attendance without being present.
9. If thou can't convince them, confuse them.
10. Thou shalt start every sentence with a four-lettered word.

Guys: Thou shalt treat and look upon all girls (esp. freshers) as your private property, and propose to as much freshers as you can.
Girls: Thou shalt write all assignments and lab works promptly and timely so that guys can copy them from you.

[D]. The Years of Engineering

F.E. Fond of Engineering
S.E. Sick of Engineering
T.E. Tired of Engineering
B.E. Balls to Engineering

Shoaib Akhtar! Here I come!

2004-05-02T23:25:00.000+05:00

Saw a cricket ball after a long time yesterday. I used to be a tearaway(?) fast bowler once upon a time and I wanted to see how fast I could bowl now. So I started bowling at our shed's decrepit walls. I seemed to be bowling fast. How fast beacme apparent after a few minutes. A particularly quick delivery was followed by an equally particular sound of something breaking.SPLOTCH! I had broken a PVC water pipe! In a few seconds water was everywhere,on the ground,on my face just about everywhere. And mind you all this in 'Mad'ras where water is more valuable than petrol. I had to break my 20m dash record too as I went extra fast to the bathroom to get a bucket to catch the water. The usual customary blastings,scoldings and sermons followed for wasting water. But at the end of the day I couldn't help feeling proud about myself. If Shoaib 'Actor' is quick enough to break wooden stumps I am atleast quick enough to break plastic PVC water pipes ;-)

Life@SVCE

2004-05-01T22:49:00.000+05:00

This may not make much sense to dudes from places other than SVCE. Anyway my college life has come to an end. Looking back it has been a rather 'interesting' experience.I have tried to to scientifically tabulate the 'value & entertainment addition' I underwent at SVCE:

What I am going to miss (in no particular order):
-Allan's missile throwing exercises in class
-Sunantha's scoldings
-Bharathidhasan's biriyanis
-Saiprashanth's seminars
-Wise-crack Kali's wisecracks
-Haarith Devarajan's lectures on the intricacies of advanced particle Physics
-'Confuse' Karthik's confusions
-Manan Somaiya's un-earthly noises
-'Woofer' Balaji's hyper-bass-effects
-Bhasker's bad words
-The bumps
-The ODs
-The condonation too
-Above all Princi's lectures about how SVCE is not 'inferior' to the IITs in any way

What I am (definitely) not going to miss:
-The Nai Vandis
-The canteen puffs and puris
-The outpasses required for anything and everything
-The CAT-Is and CAT-IIs
-Pushpalatha's electrical machines classes
-The report cards sent home after every CAT

The invaluable things I have learnt at SVCE:
-How to undertake long bus journeys without vomitting
-How to end up with 80% attendance after bunking an incalculable number of classes
-How to be relish the 'nutritious' and 'tasty' food in the canteen
-How to complete 7 assignments in one day that too under the very noses of the fearsome lecturers
-How to get 18/20 in the internals after boycotting all classes/tests/assignments
-How to prepare one Powerpoint presentation and use it for all project reviews-from the zeroth to the final

What I haven't learnt at SVCE:
-Just one trivial unimportant thing called engineering!

Krishna Cottage-Review

2004-04-30T01:11:00.000+05:00

Saw a totally dumbass movie called Krishna Cottage today. This movie is from the house of Balaji Telefilms. These people don't seem to be content with harassing the TV audience alone. So they have started harassing the moviegoing audience too! The movie is like this:our hero (a moronic hunk played by Sallu's younger brother Sohail Khan), his heroine(Natasha) and his gang are students in some college. Our beastly hero is engaged to his lovely heroine. In comes Isha Koppikar one day and our hero falls for her to the consternation of his fiancee. Meanwhile a few bizarre incidents happen to their gang 'The Ring' style and students get killed after seeing visions of ghosts. The story takes a rather bizarre turn after the interval when it is revealed that Isha died some 20 years back! So all this while our hero had been flirting with a ghost! Turns out that Sohail and Isha were lovers in their previous lives! What follows is a tiring replay of the Exorcist when they try to chase the ghost away.

ACTING: Sohail Khan is ridiculously buffonish as the hero. Never expected Salman Khan of all actors to have such a clownish brother. Sanjay Kapoor has met his match. A great and rewarding career awaits him in the circus! Other simply do their parts effectively:running around,screaming,staring,shuddering and the other usual horror movie expressions

BOTTOMLINE: Don't watch this movie even if you are paid to!

Welcome to the real Blog!

2004-04-29T22:49:00.000+05:00

Welcome my dear readers! Thanks for having a courageous peek into my insane attempt at starting a blog. To start off I think I will 'enlighten' you all on how all this started. I knew that something called 'Blogs' existed on the web for a long time. But I never had the patience to look at them let alone read them. A few days back I came across a few interesting blogs. Boy I was hooked! Then I thought...why not do something similar? Obviously time wasn't going to be a problem as I seem to be perpetually jobless. Plus all this would make for very interesting reading ten or twenty years down the line. So my dear readers if you have somehow got the notion that I am doing all this for you, you are obviously mistaken. I am doing all this for myself.He He!
Some compelling reasons that compelled me into starting this blog:

-Timepass (as I mentioned before...I am preoccupiedly jobless)
-Claim to fame (I am hoping that one day my weblog will be published as a book. My suggestion for the title: “THE INCREDIBLE AND INSANE MEMOIRS OF YOU-KNOW-WHO" <#1 Bestseller on the New York Times List>
-Typing practice (much needed)
-Desire to leave my footprint on the world

I have taken a vow that I will continue this for as long as I can. Obviously the key phrase is "as long as I can" which could mean anything. It could be five days or five decades. Anyways vows are made to be broken ;-)
Oops! In my desire to give you guys a rousing welcome I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself. I am Guhan. People call me Gugu,Guks,Guha and a few other silly names that are better left unmentioned. I have just completed my engineering degree in SVCE which is located a dumb place called Pennalur which is located in an even more dumber place called Sriperumbudur.By the way Sriperumbudur is the infamous place where Rajiv Gandhi was killed :-( .IF you haven't guessed all these dumb places are located in INDIA which I will not call dumb due to fear of our immensely patriotic Desis. My resume gives a few of my interests but forgets to mention that my primary interest in life is annoying, infuriating and nauseating people .My goal in life is to become a manager and annoy, infuriate and nauseate even more people.So don't blame me in the future if you get annoyed infuriated etc etc.You have been forewarned!