Saurabh Says

Best of both worlds

2011-12-27T12:34:00.000+05:30

We all give in to a bit of intellectual vomiting now and then. Back in my grad days, these sessions sometimes carried on for entire nights until the ‘fuelled’ bon-fire of thoughts would be extinguished by hunger and other primitive human functions. It was these regurgitations that sometimes resulted in scrawlings on the wall, almost always status messages. In fact I am pretty confident that they would have led to a novel or two had not Chetan Bhagat beat us all too it. That guy ruined the novelty for the rest of us. (Pun intended.) But something that would always surely result from such a session was a blog post. But is that why we used to indulge in them? To write a blog? To announce to the rest of the world that even though we were studying engineering we shouldn’t be considered literarily challenged? Quite frankly, I think it was because we had nothing else to do. Bhagat recently wrote an article (again, I had nothing else to do at that time) for the TOI in which he coined a new term ‘lerd’. I can quite imagine MR. ‘I-do-all-my-writing-on-flights’ smiling smugly to the air-hostess as he was penning this, no doubt basking in the glory of being able to brandish his literary license in the face of innocent readers yet again. Apparently, lerds are the literary students, the social intellectuals. They are the other side of the coin of which nerds, the scientific intellectuals form one face. He then goes on to suggest the failings of each of these groups. He also considers himself a nerd and quite humbly (well, for him atleast) accepts that his ‘rigorous’ scientific studies have rendered him socially inept.

The point is, CB advocates a meeting of minds, a give-and-take between the nerds and the lerds of this country in order to reach solutions to the problems of this country. But reading between the lines, you can clearly see that he is actually invoking a hybrid of the two species. Maybe an engineer? Someone who went on to study the interplay of arts and science that is called management or business administration? Also, maybe someone who led a highly goal-oriented life, like that of a banker, but pursued non-goal oriented dreams, like that of an author? You get the drift; the conceit of CB betrays him in his article. In a nutshell, he seems to suggest that he and his kind are the future of the country. Bhagat knows his readership base quite well and rightly assumes that they will fail to see through the pedestrian screen of words he has put up once again to hide the big flickering neon sign that says ‘ME’.

Now there is some value in what he says in the article, but I don’t think, that the likes of Chetan Bhagat are what this country needs. Let me explain why. To my mind, the hybrid that hesuggests will never give rise to an offspring that has the best qualities of both. In fact, most certainly it will be the mediocrities of both groups. We need to go back to those sessions in grad school to understand why. As I said, the reason for those sessions was that we had nothing better to do. I can look back today and see clearly that those who enjoyed the ‘rigorous’ scientific studies rarely indulged in these vomiting sessions. It was us lot that found themselves disillusioned with what they thought they would be doing in a engineering school that indulged. My lerd friends too would indulge in scientific pursuits only if they found the Sociology 101 akin to chewing cardboard. What happens when a nerd tries to be a lerd? Chetan Bhagat and his notion that he will inspire the youth of India into greatness. Now I am not saying that an engineer shouldn’t write a book, or an arts graduate shouldn’t head an automobile manufacturer. What I am saying is, we shouldn’t even start to assume that we are shaping a country’s future or in fact achieving any other such goals of similar magnitudes. What we are, are nothing but the outcome of a marriage of mediocrity of both worlds.

Now there are some people who are the best of both worlds. And there is a title given to such people. They are called polymaths. They are the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Michelangelo and maybe Steve Jobs, in his own way, was one too. But history suggests that polymaths are not ‘made’, they just ‘are’. And quite clearly, Chetan Bhagat isn't.

Well, maybe that is what Chetan Bhagat meant afterall. Yet again, it takes lengthy rant to fathom that his lenghty rant about how he is a nerd and other blahs, was actually a one liner. India needs some polymaths.

p.s. A word on TOI. The newspaper has well and truly sold its soul now. The sunday editorials page was the only space that still maintained the class and stature of the old days. But now Chetan Bhagat frequently features on it.

What I learnt from manchester united

2011-06-09T21:10:00.000+05:30

I never really understood entirely why I follow Manchester United FC like a fanatic. The club website is always open in one of the tabs on my browser. I have set google news alerts that sends me abridged digests of news about Man Utd everyday. I currently own or have owned a plethora of their merchandise and in the last ten or so years, every other thing in my life has changed apart from this devotion to Man Utd. To cut it short, as a fan once put it, "Cut me and I'll bleed red". Which makes it surprising that I haven't written a single article on my blog about manchester united. I probably was trying to write stuff that would appeal to a wider range of readers. Well, I guess thats another thing I don't care anymore for. So, let me write about what i've learnt from manchester united and those not interested can maybe like just not read on. And any scouser can maybe instead watch some reruns of when liverpool won their last league title (did they have video back then though?).

Foremost, I've learnt that there is no better mantra for success than being yourself and being true to you character. Over the years, manchester united has earned as many fans as there have been man utd haters. I think that is the truest test of character. Any pure, honest entitiy will always have lovers and haters in equal measure. The impurities arise when one tries to please-all. You may succeed for a while but it is difficult to carry on, because the lack of integrity will always surface in times of strife and make you realise how hollow you are in truth. (Arsenal fans please note). At manchester united, many times you get the feeling that it is Manchester United vs Rest of the World. Some may look at it as a narcissistic state of existence, and those are the haters, while others feel that there is nothing more glorious and heroic than standing up to the world and saying, "Here I am, you can all try to beat me down, but I will keep coming back, and I will eventually prevail over all of you. Not by winning over your hearts, not by any other sly vendetta. I will do it by brute force and my will to survive against all odds and against all of you put together".

There can be no sentiment in the pursuit of a goal. Decades ago, Manchester United embarked on a quest to be the most successful club in England and then Europe. Along the way there have been many people who were instrumental in shaping the club and there were times when these people had to be let go. Simply because they were no longer going to be helpful in the club's quest for glory. It is truly a masterclass to watch when things like these happen. It is does with the least amount of emotion and almost always the person leaving is looking for any other way that he can contribute. This year's farewells to Neville and Scholes are the cases-in-point here. There is a lesson in managing human resources here. I have rarely seen such loyalty elsewhere.

Lastly, what many perceive as luck, is actually what winners call seizing the opportunity. Luck is never a factor in the long term as it evens out in the end. Manchester United are famous as well as infamous for snatching last-gasp victories, many-a-times through seemingly scratchy and lucky efforts. It is not significant that it manages to happen time and again, what is to be noted is that manchester united repeatedly put themselves in a position where a little bit of luck will turn things their way. They keep chipping away and never give up. A cliched but unpractised life lesson.

EndNote: I hope non-believers took the effort to read the above stuff. I do not intend this to be a eulogy to manchester united. My purpose is to point out that something as everyday as a favourite football club can be a source of inspiration and a pool of life lessons that may have been repeated often but rarely acknowledged and utilised. Look for such sources in your life, you will be surprised by how many there are.

Chennai...

2011-05-29T10:46:00.001+05:30

Its been a 2 week association with the place so far. Heat, humidity, language, auto-wallahs, dusty and dirty roads, have all conspired to my stay being a two week long splitting headache. In that order. The moment I stepped out of the flight, I realised what a cauldron I had stepped into. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I am not used to temperatures hovering around the 40's. I've been to rajasthan where the temperatures were similar. But guess what!? Those people know it is hot out there and they take appropriate measures! Not in Chennai though. The tams (yeah, yeah, racist pig!...whatever) seem to be in a constant denial about how insufferably hot it is! Majority of the cabs are still non-ac. We went house searching and it was a sight! The landlords would be fanning themselves or wiping streams and streams of sweat dripping (in chennai, if you don't sweat...you need to check again, you're not in chennai) down their faces while saying, "Saaar, nyo nyeed faar yaa-see saar, twanty four hawars fulla breeze saar". And then follow it up with the killer line, "Geyser present in bathroom saar, haat waater twanty four hawars saar!". I mean, are you freaking out of your mind!? They don't have ac's but they have geysers man! Drop-down-dead stuff that.
I know, I know...the language problem is hyped enough, everyone knows its a problem here. But, you've gotta be here to believe it! Forget conversation! its impossible to get in a word edgeways, once a Tam realizes you don't speak THE language. I think its a denial thing again. They just can't accept that there is a world out there where people don't speak Tamil. I bet they are like...wow! this guy is just making some random noises, doesn't know how to speak at all I guess, let me hit him with a barrage of words, and hope he latches on to a few. He will just go on and on in a cascade of what almost always seem like expletives. But they're not mind you. They might be the sweetest words in the Tam dictionary, but the way they are spoken, would make Gordon Ramsay's rants seem like a teletubby going "Eh-oh!". Ever heard a Tam speaking on the phone? He will speak so loudly that the phone itself is deemed moot. I bet they would hear each other even without the phone. For example, the guy will be probably talking to his girlfriend right, and after he hangs up, you think, hmm...poor guys seems to have had a fight, all that shouting, girlfriend must've really broken his heart or something. Just then, the guy will turn around, bare super-white teeth and say "hehe...my loower ( yeah! in Tam country its never girlfriend/boyfriend its always 'lover' :-s) and aye are wheespering sweet nothhingsaa".
Cut to the auto-wallahs. Worst I have ever encountered. I was recently bored enough to count the number of cities n towns in India i've had the auto experience. Well over 30 it is. So thats a decently experienced dude saying...the worst auto-wallahs in the country are to be all found in Chennai. It is an economic-logic defying feat out here. The bus transport is probably the best i've seen. That would mean that auto's face lesser demand, so prices should be low. Nope. Economics 101 can go into the dustpan (or one of the open drains that abound chennai). These guys are smarter than your average Keynes and Krugman's. They know, if the bus transport is so awesome, and this dude is coming to me looking for an auto-ride, he must be either desperate to get going or from out-of-town. And take you for a ride he does. As a test, I asked an auto-wallah to take me to a place I knew was walking distance...he asked for 50 bucks. Funny thing is, all auto's have a meter, wonder what it is there for. I guess things will be better once the metro rail projects completes. But that's like in 2015...and that was before amma came to power.
Well though, before all my tam friends make a lunge for my throat would like to say a few good things about chennai. The people are nice, and genuinely helpful. If you get past the language barrier they can go out of their way to help you, except if you are asking for directions that is. It's not their fault really. In chennai, every place is known by ten different names. And ten people will know one each...none of them know the other nine. So, GPS, lifesaver out here. Food is good and cheap. Honestly, I came with the notion of idlis and sambhars and rasams, but its pretty easy to find chinese (indianised), mughlai (albeit from some southern faction of the mughal family), arabic (shawarma mainly, but decent) and north indian too. You can have your pick in terms of cheap and good accommodation too. In that recent (and that only), chennai kicks some mumbai butt. There is one mall worth going to for a hang-out, but other-wise stay home is what i'd advise. All in all, chennai takes time to grow on you. I haven't got there yet myself.

EndNote: To my tamil friends. Thank you for learning english and hindi, I now know what an effort it might have been, appreciate it.

When nothing is going your way...

2011-05-17T01:15:00.000+05:30

Fate plays funny games. I am in chennai for the fourth time in under 2 months, and i never really liked the place. This time i am here for a good 6 months....at least. The last two weeks have been a blur, in fact, all i remember is sitting in cabs rushing to the airport. Spent a lot of time in cabs, rushing from one place to another. All the while wondering, is this what life is gonna be like? A blur of country sides zipping by as i sit in the back seat of a cab, trying to grapple with the weather changes, the headaches, aspirins and working lunches. Heck! this is the sort of lifestyle i craved when i once spend my days hunched up in front of a screen. I was foolish to think i could ignore the Taurus trait in me. The feeling of being grounded and settled is something that I like all taureans will eventually seek and crave. Its not strong enough yet, though the last two weeks have strengthened that craving to some extent. Sometimes the human mind, no matter how independent, seeks and snatches at some sort of anchor. And sometimes, there isn't one available. It is at times like these when you know, nothing is going your way. Your life just zips by like those endless country sides, and you take a back seat, staring blankly at the blur. You just hope that those times don't last too long.

CAUTION: Sharp turns ahead....crazy rant of a cynical MBA

2011-02-09T05:33:00.000+05:30

Life rambles on. No, rambles is the wrong word...more like life avalanches on. The last two years were superfast compared to the rest of it. But now, i wonder if it is time to slow down and prepare for the sharp turns ahead. If my performance in the placements out here are anything to go by, it is certainly time to take note of the huge, yellow, "CAUTION: SHARP TURN AHEAD" sign that's been flashing in my head for a while now. In a weird sense, maybe instinctively, i have been preparing for what's to come. Apart from slowing down and taking stock of what things are really important to me, I also reduced some of the baggage I had been lugging around. I certainly feel lighter now. This might seem like gibberish, but heck, I no longer have the patience to explain everything.

It is natural to compare this phase to a similar one previously in my life. It was the time when I had to say goodbye to BIT Mesra, my engineering grad school. The memories of 4 years, the friends, the bakar sessions, the night-outs, the intellectual diarrhea, all flashed before me when I had made the 2 day train journey back home. At that time, I certainly wasn't thinking about the future and what was in store for me. I was just too gutted to be leaving the place that had become home to me, the friends who had become family and the life that had become comfort itself. This time, it is all the other way around. More than thinking about what transpired in the last two years out here, I am just looking forward to making a fresh start to life once this is over. Every new beginning marks the end of a previous new beginning. To think that for the last two years I have been living my dream. Believe me kids, its not necessarily a good thing to have dreams come true. I wonder if other's out here feel the same...or is it just me? But still, I don't want to be a bitter cynic. I guess, ten-fifteen years down the line I will come back to stare emptily at these 'hallowed' corridors and reminisce about the times I spent there. The midnight frisbee, the WAC runs, the ppt runs, the interview runs, life out here did involve a lot of running. And maybe after all it is unfair to compare the two. One gets institutionalized after a period of 4 years. What if I had spent 4 years here...damn, lets not go there! Scary!

At the end of it all, I guess what I am trying to say is that, this is just not the kind of place one misses. I don't think I will look back at this place anytime soon. Some of the people, yes, I will miss them, but there too I look forward to knowing them outside this place...in the real world. It has been called many things, a concentration camp, a cauldron, and what not. I would call it a prep camp. To borrow words from a dear friend, a prep-for-life camp. Because after going through here, nothing in life can ever surprise you. If you can get out of here unharmed, you will face all that life has to offer and conquer it. So yeah, even though I won't miss this place, and I only look forward to the sharp turns ahead; the confidence with which I look forward to negotiate those turns, stems from the bumpy ride this place has afforded me. For that I am thankful. I thank this place for showing me what life is like.

p.s. Planning a fortnight of negotiating 'sharp turns' in a road trip across the western ghats. Really, really looking forward to that. Maybe I should do a travelog...watch this space.

Happy are those...

2010-12-26T15:17:00.001+05:30

It's one of those things that keeps cropping up in my mind over and over again. That voice-over dialogue from the move 'The pursuit of Happyness'...he says something like the pursuit of happiness is such a meaningful phrase. How did they know that happiness is something that can only be pursued. They could have said it is the right of a person to be happy, but no, they chose to say that it is the right of a person to pursue happiness. Is happiness not achievable?

At the place that i am, more than an education, i have received hard lessons on life. It has been a growing up process that solidified some notions, gave birth to others, and squashed some of the same ones.

Strength is a function that is independent of external variables: Solidified.
Trust is temporary and painful: Solidified
Faith is permanent and but blind(and rarely found): Solidified
Happiness can only be pursued: Newly formed
Pain may have no source: Newly formed
Life is a bed of roses with thorns: Solidified
The world is a good place: Squashed
Sadness is temporary and flippant: Unvalidated
Self worth is decided by the highest bid in an auction of people around you: Squashed

...and many more others that I find hard to pen down. All in all though, Life is Good. But sometimes there will be two years in it that let you know it is up to you to keep it that way...

"Happy are those, who realize that the fun lies in the pursuit of happiness and that will go on forever"

A heart full of memories to take from the year...

2010-03-31T18:19:00.002+05:30

Its just over a day to go for the most frightening academic year of my life to end. I still have an exam tomorrow, but here i am writing a blog. Will be catching a nap after this...then have a dinner out planned with friends...studying isn't on the cards, today at the least. Was certainly an eventful year, a busy one. I still remember vividly, I was a bit apprehensive for the first few weeks. "Fitting in" has always been a natural priority for me, and it was also the concern topmost on my mind out here. I was worried that I was among the "best minds" in the country n all the other hooplah that the media throws at you about IIMA. Then came T-nite, this was a stretch of 4-5 days where these "best minds" voluntarily make fools out of themselves. Well not all actually, some of them are really really talented...(that's the 'T' in T-nite)...glad to say I did my bit. Would have loved to have done more...but don't we all?
The summer placements were a torrid time for most, fortunately or unfortunately i was lucky with it. The less said about this phase the better. Things became much better after that, and I guess this is where the bonding really set in. Some great friends emerged and as usual the parties, the dinner outs and the movies were back into our lives. Btw...you can get an idea of the party scene out here when I tell you that I was usually the DJ designate :-). But who cares...we have a blast every time we party.
Then came the inter-sectional sports which was fun time all over again. The competitive spirit brought me even close to my friends...and made some new unexpected ones as well :-). Truly enjoyed myself around this time. Whats more our section came pretty close to winning the thing as well, unlike the T-nites ;-).
The last few months have been a blast. This is around the time I think all Wimwians start to appreciate the place...(although we do get a bit sick of all these red bricks around us!). Student body elections, followed by the last term which was by far the busiest. All sorts of crazy assignments and reports to submit. I managed to put in a skit though...again glad I did that.

So all in all a wonderful year. I am sure it was for the rest of the poor souls out here with me. Designing shirts, logos, dressing up as a zoo-zoo, performing a dance, a skit, and playing a few games...oh and also studying my backside off...enjoyed it all. But most of all I loved making some great friends and some MORE than great friends...they have made my time here worthwhile...

@IIMA friends.....We say adieu to this place for now...but we will be back after a 2 months hiatus...wish you all the best of luck for your interns...

The 'F' word...

2010-02-22T20:37:00.000+05:30

It's been a tough, tough last 7-8 months being an 'F'. In fact, a friend, a fellow 'F', called it one, big, extended week. Life has come a long way in the past year or so. I was still an awkward, shy yet confident guy this time last year, now I am a .....hey! wait a minute! I still am all that...to top it, the confidence has probably taken a dent or two. First year at IIM A is just about a month away from getting over (if i see it just once, that is), and I am the same? I mean after all, it has been called a lot of things, even a concentration camp. But I wonder if it was all that bad at all. I do look forward to no longer being called the dirty 'F' word though....by the way that's F for Faccha. Now, don't get me wrong guys, this isn't some little word play I am doing. 'Faccha' is almost an abuse out here. Probably the only one where the person actually said it with a tinge of sympathy and dollops of pity, but the receiver still felt abused, violated also :-). But was it really a concentration camp? Did we go to hell and back again? Not really. One of the amazing profs out here had remarked,"If you are not in the top 20 or the bottom 5, you don't have to worry about your grades, do you!?". I couldn't put it in a better way. Not to say that I never let it all get to me. There were times when I felt like getting away from it all, and even did (felt much better after that!). Yeah, it was a great learning experience (cliched but true!!), but most of it came outside of the numerous case-mats, the endless handouts, and bulky textbooks (No, notes don't figure in my scheme of things). The learning came from the in-class gossip with the guys sitting near me, the chai sessions at Rambhai's stall (hole-in-the-wall), and mostly from the great friends I've made out here.

Word of advice for future Facchas...I guess Dead Poet's Society explains how to go about it well enough. We gotta suck the marrow out of life, for when we come to leave this place, we shouldn't realize that we have learned nothing that a pile of books wouldn't teach. All the same, when you do that, don't choke on the bone! Get the assignments done, prepare for class (err...hypocrisy disclaimer out here :-P ) and then, only then do other stuff...like writing blogs.

I yam what i yam...

2010-02-11T04:05:00.000+05:30

In the mood to bash up a beaten up topic today...The one on my mind actually is the question of origins, roots, and the whole "where-you-from?" saga. Being born a maharashtrian, then brought up in goa, spending 4 of the most influential years in jharkhand, and back to maharashtra for a couple has not helped me any in getting a single word answer to the question. And so many others must know what its like, that i cant help but ramble about it. Well the diktat of glamour, charm and well...'comfort'...makes me lean towards being a Goan. But having talked the talk and walked the walk of a maharashtrian, i wouldnt mind proclaiming "Mi Marathi" either. Jharkhan i leave out of the now two pronged race...albeit reluctantly. Its there that most of the best memories of my life are from. Great...so now we have 'sun-n-sand' Goan vs 'pride-n-culture' Maratha. If the average reader by now isnt searching for my number to call me up and tell me to get a life, well i agree its a trivial issue. The disclaimer is that this rambling is purely academic and germinates mainly from the desire of being able to answer the question "where-you-from?" in a single word and get on with it. Within the myopic reaches of the country one faces this question so often that i feel the need sometimes to whip out a quick answer. Outside, the word 'India' would proudly suffice. Till then, maybe i should just learn to live with it and focus on more pressing "what-are-you?" issues...such as arrogance, stupidity and a bloated ego.

Its you alone...

2010-01-27T21:53:00.002+05:30

You look back lost in time,
and you laugh to hide, to confine.
The memories that should be there no longer,
so unsuspecting souls, oblivious, grow fonder.

Hurt and happiness, both rush back together,
all they can offer, is but a mere gesture.
They'll just grow, with the days gone by,
what can they do? Laugh? Comfort? Or cry?

It's you alone who can look forth,
for the past is the dusk that we loath.
Forget the cliche and decide,
to have a hope, a smile and fight.

So much to live, to learn, to share,
with me and others, and all that care.
To come is a glowing morn,
but its you alone, who can move on.

To crave, to find

2010-01-18T04:34:00.000+05:30

A simple joy, I crave to find,
Some quiet please, a mellow breeze,
A break serene, from constant grind,
A mind at peace, a heart at ease.

I crave to find, a time divine,
A sudden laugh, a stray tear,
A twinkle in the eye, that set on mine,
A soothing touch mere, I shall forever revere.

The dawn beckons, to attain I strive,
Their signals warn, its not our kind,
It's they who fear, my endeavor will be deprived,
But...my mind is made...to crave...to find.

Avatar (Ek Adbhud Duniya)

2009-12-22T05:41:00.000+05:30

In case you are wondering whats that in the brackets in the title, its the name of the hindi dubbed version of the new 3D release, Avatar. James Cameron is no newbie when it comes to special effects. Titanic and Terminator 2: Judgement Day being his previous claims to CGI fame. With Avatar he seeks to repeat the performance and infact take it to a new dimension (literally! since the movie is 3D). There's a problem though....there aint no story. It is heard that the story germinated some 13 years back and the movie completed only now as the advances in animation technology would not support a movie of this stature that long ago. Well now onto the movie.

I went to the movie with a whole bunch of close friends. The disclaimer here is that i was never big on these kinda movies that i call the 'Jaadu-Tona' genre :P. LOTR and Harry Potter being exceptions. So it was with a pinch of salt that i decided to go along. Knowing that it is rather the company i would enjoy than the movie itself. The movie has the standard story line...Spy, girl, girl's father, love, allegiances, fight, victory of good over bad. Now that took well into 3 hours to depict. Seriously, if i wanted to just watch the awesome graphics and the breathtaking display of lights...i would watch the scenes on youtube. The 3D glasses were more of a nuisance than anything. I mean try balancing heavy plastic sharp objects on your nose for 3 hours and then tell me about it. It gave me a headache frankly. However, credit where its due, when i did wake up from my slumber and watched the ending fight sequence, a few scenes actually made me strafe to avoid oncoming bullets and arrows. Other than that there is nothing to really write home about in the movie. Although the end result was a superb visual treat, it was like watching a firework display for 3 hours. You get bored somewhere down the line and you neck starts to stiffen. So you take off those silly glasses that have been giving you a headache, thank god that you are in the corner seat, and dose off wondering whether you could have put the 3 hours to better use. The best part of the movie was when it got over. Atleast the movie gave us enough conversational topics like poking fun at the alien kissing scene (which was seriously not required) and tall friends being likened to the Pandorans. A couple of my pals even did some research to fathom the meaning of the whole thing. Me? I havent thought of the movie since, i have exams coming up.

kabhi na beete chamkeele din

2009-11-19T21:06:00.002+05:30

I wrote the below passage when still working at amdocs, i had just appeared for CAT 2008, and didnt know what was in store :-P......

"Dil chahta hain....kabhi na beete chamkeele din

Hum na rahein kabhi yaaron ke bin...."

Its a sunday evening...and here i am, trying to fathom why on earth the customers of my client arent able to get their minutes of usage this month....and i put on my headphones...sometimes music helps you in getting your thoughts in order...and shankar mahadevan started crooning the above words into my ears...An alarm went off in my head...i couldnt help but stop and stare blindly into my screen...I gave up with the problem...it didnt matter anyway...it was an extremely low priority issue and i could solve it with some help later on...I thought of doing something i enjoy....blogging...Its been months since my last post...and i was beginning to wonder wether i have lost the creativity, the imagination to go ahead and write another article. But here i am....on a Sunday evening...trying to give it another shot...

I have been reading quite a bit these days...I got hold of '3 Mistakes of my Life' chetan bhagats 3rd book...he he he...i thought "Mate, you've done 2 mistakes and we know about it...why make a third one!"...naah kidding...Bhagat's an awesome read...not so crazy about One Night at the Call Center but of course "5 Point..." is unbelievable. But you know what!?...ive got a friend who never stayed in a hostel and works in a call centre feels exactly the opposite. Relative scales of measurement at work...we like the books that we can relate to. By the way, I also read 'Joker in the Pack' its a story about a guy and his days in IIM Bangalore...Now, that is something i would like to relate to! ...maybe i will someday! who knows...it aint over until its over eh?!...The moot point is, when will that day come when we say "kabhi na beete chamkeele din"...well those chamkeele din seem to be past us all...but why?!!..why do i brood over the past and reminisce in the lost glory of years gone by!?...why cant the 'shaams jhoom' and the 'raats gaa' once more? :-)..can they?...Ofcourse they can, one has gotta make 'em. I have a dream...i pursue it with all my might...if i fail what the heck!...i gave it a shot!...i will enjoy the pursuit...i will make it the purpose of my life...life is too short to stop at signals...i need to keep moving on...Its a Sunday evening...and here i am...ready to move on...start a new week.

hoping that this will inspire me to give it a go...and you all...

hoping we'll take charge of our lives and give our best shot at acheiving our forgotten goals...

...ah! Thank God I had saved this :-D...Hopefully readers (and especially this years' CAT aspirants) can relate :-D

Who's life do you want to live?

2009-11-18T19:38:00.000+05:30

Recently I was lucky enough to see a video of a lecture by Kiran Bedi on leadership, and how we can, from a young age, inculcate in ourselves the qualities and the visionary abilities of a leader. She begins by talking about Destiny, and how it is a factor in deciding the course of our lives. She does actually put forth a very compelling argument, and one that I have believed in even before letting my thoughts be anchored by her views. Our birth into the families we were born into is definitely destiny at work. I am too, glad I was born to my parents, who made several sacrifices and indeed dedicated their whole lives to their children. So yeah, to some extent fortune does favour the brave and our deeds do decide our rewards, but no one can deny that the initial boost that one gets (or does not), is down to pure luck...or destiny. The real heroes are those who despite all the misgivings still triumph in life. Hats off to those who didnt have the kind of parents and family that I have been lucky to have, and hats off to those parents and families such as mine. As for me, I continue to thank my lucky stars.

On why the song in you heart should be on your lips too

2009-11-05T02:53:00.000+05:30

May to November...helluva long time considering i have blogging as one of my interests mentioned on my CV. Speaking of CV's, thats what has been the talk of the town (or rather the campus) out here with the summer placements in full flow. But the thoughts i am about to pen down aren't about summer placements and about IIMA, they address a much larger frame of reference. The thoughts were inspired while listening to my favorite song... "Phir dekhiye..." from rock on. The lyrics say something about..."hoton pe jiske...koi toh geet hain...woh haare bhi toh uski hi jeet hain..." Oh i would so love to live life like that!! With a song on my lips and the feeling of not caring about consequences...and people who know me before IIMA will probably think that i sold my soul to be the studious busybody i am out here. On the other hand my dorm mates are of the opinion that i always sleep, watch movies, play FIFA and in general loaf around. Well all i can say is that the difference is merely the frame of reference. Ofcourse i am not the same lazy, careless person i was before...but by the standards here i am. Is this post sounding too narcissist? pardon me if it does. My point is, why do we find it so hard always to find our true calling? Why do we feel the need to "prepare" ourselves so that we "perform" well on a given occasion? I mean when does one feel satisfied? The personal expectations never cease do they?...The only way to be happy, content and satisfied is to follow the oft repeated but seldom followed adage of "Goddamit just Be Yourself"

For those who followed the ramblings above...good for you!!
For those who didnt and want to enter into an argument with the author...go watch October Sky(again and again)...listen to "Phir Dekhiye" from Rock On (again and again)...and dont bother the author before doing those things

10 Things ....

2009-05-23T13:30:00.001+05:30

(I came across this article on the net, that said, we should list 10 likes, 10 dislikes, and 10 things that don't bother him/her, as the best form of soul searching. So lemme just give it a shot.)

That i love :
1. Having nothing to do or think about.
2. Meeting long lost friends.
3. Spending time with parents.
4. Watching Manchester United win.
5. Winning.
6. Pfaffing. (Talking about things that you know very little about, but still making a damn good job of it : P )
7. Music, Movies, Books.
8. Toddler talk.(In fact, anything to do with toddlers, infants and the like : P)
9. Going to sleep.
10. Fish.

That i hate :
1. Waking up.
2. Doing work. (Any kind of work, and i go ugh!)
3. Changing clothes.
4. Rain.
5. Questions.
6. Advice, both giving and taking.
7. Bills.
8. Verbose people.
9. Insects.
10. Telephonic conversation.

That don't bother me :
1. Details, technicality.
2. Foul smells.
3. Bad food.
4. Travelling.
5. Rules.
6. Money.
7. My appearance.
8. Politics.
9. Relatives (well, some).
10. Studying.

Hmmm...there it is. Maybe i didn't do this the right way, but am still looking for my soul...Go on give it a shot.

Worst among equals

2009-05-01T16:15:00.001+05:30

So much hue and cry over the upcoming elections has been made already! I mean...for god sakes it hasn't even started! Elections and politics and candidates is the only thing on the tube these days. And to think Cricket is the national obsession! Says Who!!??Well let me jump onto the bandwagon and add my two pence worth to this whole khichdi that is Indian politics. Looking at the whole thing objectively, three options for a future Indian PM stand up, and these need not be named.

Let us start with the current Chief Minister of UP who has been touted as a candidate to the highest political position in India. In 2007-08 assessment year, Mayawati paid more income tax than industrialist and Forbes-listed Mukesh Ambani. This is an indication of the personal wealth accumulated by this teacher born to a clerk in UP. You do the math.

The next candidate is of course the incumbent PM and a man with a clean image, something that his 'not-so-clean-image' party has exploited to the fullest. But he has been accused of being 'weak' and given his political background I do perceive some credence in the allegations. After all he hasn’t yet won a popular election (Lok Sabha) and doesn’t look like he will even bother contesting this time round. He cites the examples of Deve Gowda, Indira Gandhi, et al to justify his case, but these are just constitutional loop holes that were exploited before and are being exploited now as well. For all his heroics in the 90's, it is sad to see him as merely a puppet in the hands of you-know-who today. One would wish that he can just contest an election and win it and shut up all his critics...but I don’t see that happening unless the growth of a proverbial 'spine' takes place in his body.

That brings us to the last 'haloed' option, the Indian new age 'iron man' as he is called by his cronies. He was accused by the aforesaid person of having done nothing noteworthy save the demolition of a famous mosque. There is no conceivable defense in his favour on this accord but then again, he hasn't had much of an exposure to power, except when he was deputy PM in the India Shining government, which did do some good to the country in all fairness. He remains torn between the religious fundamentalists whose support he cannot do without and the forward minded junta that is apprehensive about his 'saffron' image. All in all, this guy is no better a candidate for India's PM than the others and actually no worse either.Yeah I know what you're thinking..."whom should I vote for then?". Honestly, as of now I don’t know whom I’ll vote for...but I do know that I will vote.

Aks

2009-01-29T13:42:00.009+05:30

laakhon baar dekha hain aks ko apne, par kya kabhi socha hain ki kya ye aks hain apna?

The last post was way back in september. A couple of heinous terror attacks and a new US president later the last post does look in bad taste. Life has been very hectic in between these two posts no doubt but thoroughly enjoyable, especially given the end result :-P. I am gearing up for my interviews to be held the next couple of months and i have never been so anxious, excited, nervous and confident at the same time. Lady luck has been kind, hope thats how it stays for the next few weeks as well. (heck, it can remain like this for the rest of my life !). Jokes apart, i am amazed at the kind of questions that are asked in the interviews. From mundane stuff like "Why an MBA?" to really inventive questions like, "Name one thing that you would change/reverse in your life.", to the downright 'googlies'....like, "Map you career to a batsman coming at 85/1 (7 overs) in a 50 over match". How does one tackle these? Can one 'prepare' for this stuff? I guess not. One of my mentors suggested that i close my eyes and reflect on my life, preferebly with soothing music playing. It is amazing what such a simple exercise can teach you. I practicaly revisited every significant moment in my life, it is a rejuvinating experience, you can learn a lot of stuff that you forgot and un-learn a lot of stuff that you shouldnt have learned in the first place. What is sad though, is that we do this sort of a thing only when it becomes a critical necessity. We look at the mirror everyday, but do we really 'look' at ourselves? Do we ask ourselves, "Is that me?...Is that who i want me to be?". I guess not. Those who do, good on ya'll, those who dont...give it a shot, i did.

'BLOW' by 'BLOW'

2008-09-15T15:11:00.001+05:30

5 Serial blasts in prime locations in Delhi. DAMN!!

Now the tone of lament in the last statement is not just this author expressing his despair at the repeated and seemingly unavoidable acts of fanaticism we are being subject to, but it is also because the author feels a tinge of jealousy creeping in.
Yes, thats right, i am jealous of the people living in the 'BLAST' affected cities. Consider this, living in pune i sort of like to think that i am living in one of the best/biggest/hippest cities in India. But now, after BANGy (pun intended), AH!medabad (again intended), Jaipur and Delhi (couldnt play around with those :( )...believe it or not we Puneites are feeling left out.
It seems to be like a status certification of sorts for cities.What better recognition can you have that you live in a very happening city, than series of blasts engineered by fanatics who claim to be killing their own people in the name of their own God? And in that city what if you live near a place that has witnessed the 'tragedy'! You gotta be counting your lucky stars! (i guess you must be seeing them stars clear enough considering the blast is still ringing in your ears!)I mean i can almost hear a Bangalorean realty broker on the phone saying "Saab ekdum mast area hain Saab, do mahine pehle hi blast hua tha, ekdum market area hain, sab cheez paas mein hain".
Yeah, yeah i know, the righteous ones among you are all, "You wouldnt be saying that if it was you getting you head blown off...." but thats my point exactly. How long can we brood, and fret,and live in fear and be 'alert for unidentified objects lying around public places?' Should one stop living out of the fear of dying? This thing is happening so often that it is as mundane as an AAJ TAK reporter saying "AAJ TAK ka sansani khez khulasa"...
The apathy shown by the government is apalling, 50 people dying in the capital of the country, and the authorities can only say "We suspect that Indian Mujahideen, the hard line faction of SIMI is behind this"....oh yeah right!! You suspect!?? Dude, they sent you an email TELLING YOU THAT...so what else have you got?...zilch..nada..nothing. The blasts are no doubt losing their impact and the shock element. Everytime a bomb went off it evoked an AH! of pity and horror...well, now its an OH...of cognition and the next time....a YAWN...of "yeah yeah, whats new". After all "tolerance is a great virtue", isn't it?

I made it to a magazine cover!

2008-06-25T09:42:00.002+05:30

'Colour' contrast

2008-03-23T15:13:00.008+05:30

Holi - the festival of colours. Like all children holi was my favorite festival of the year as a child. I vividly remember those innocent days. We were not allowed to play with water as kids :( (something which i always revolted against). One packet of 'gulal' and maybe another of my favorite colour (back then mind you!) yellow, was all that i had to make it last the day. When i see the photos that my parents took of us after we were smeared in color, it brings a smile to my face and i cant help but laugh at the smallest kid (me) of the bunch. The intent look in those eyes, the nonchalant way in which he stood with the others who were 5-6 years his senior, he always believed he could hold his own amongst them. A look at his dishevelled state, showed clearly that it was a losing battle. The other guys always used to snatch my color and use it on me! he he he....those were the days eh? This was the beginning of a journey, i dont remember now, but i must've wondered back then, "How cool it will be to grow old!, nobody will forbid me from playing holi with water colors, nobody will snatch my color, hell i'll even let a coupla kids have it good from me if i feel like it!" I couldnt wait to get older!!

Things were going great, last year was by far the best holi i ever celebrated. It was the final year of college and there was no question that this being the last time (for all practical purposes) we were to celebrate together, it would be one helluva blast. And for sure it was! colours, mud, CLOTHES, and few other consumables (yeah right!!) which i cant mention here, were flying all around. It was a sight to see! It was sheer madness, and my pals from college will vouch that the frenzy and the insanity was out of this world. In fact it is impossible to describe the scenes out here without inviting the wrath of the narcotics department, if you know what i mean!

Well back to reality, the beautiful past is just that, it's past...history. Now fast forward to my holi circa 2008. I was oncall and i wouldve had to rush to office on a short notice anytime during the day. I said to myself, i have to be a professional out here and forgave my holi cravings and decided to stay indoors waiting for the inevitable call. I guessed in any case, nothing can top the celebrations of last year. I vowed not to play holi this year.

Well as luck would have it i did have to get to office, and stay there till 8pm. And guess what, it started raining cats and dogs about the same time i was gonna leave office. An hours wait for the rain to stop proved futile and i couldnt believe my rotten luck ( which i have lovingly been calling 'kutte ki kismat' lately), i mean since when did it start raining in may!!...and like this!!?? It all seemed a lost cause, i had no clue what to do...could i put up in the office for the night? Just then i dont know why...the childhood picture flashed in front of my eyes, the little child, the forlorn look, he wanted to play with water didnt he?...that was one reason why he thought it would be fun to be a grown up....

Well, atleast one of those incentives came true, a 20 mins ride on the bike to home, soaked in rain, and shivering with every splash of water, i kept muttering "Happy Holi" to myself for all of the 20 mins. Sure is cool to be growing up...isnt it?

A big THANKS to those who understand

2008-01-27T18:35:00.002+05:30

Recently i was in another one of my contemplative moods, brooding over some silly incident with a friend of mine, when i thought....

"If only men (and women...oh yes!) worked like walkie-talkies!"...as in, if men were unable to speak whilst being spoken to, half the quarrels and fights of the world wouldnt have occured. I guess Pride, Jealousy, Prejudice, Arrogance...all these human traits that are so deeply ingrained in any human...just prevent man from calmly listening to someone else's point of view before hammering his own point home.

Why do we have this inate desire to prove ourselves right!?....I have been in contact with such people in my life that at times i felt it impossible to explain a situation to them. These people are so deeply absorbed by the quicksand of pride that they just fail to accept that they may be wrong!!...but then what makes me so sure that i was right in the first place!?...maybe i am no better myself...heck, i AM no better.

All i know is it is good to have friends that you dont have to explain yourself to, they understand, they hang around for you to explain, and even if you dont, they forgive...i am lucky i have a few of those...

CRITICAL EXCEPTION: Infinite loop

2008-01-25T18:47:00.000+05:30

After a long time i decided to post an article in here. I decided to keep it short and sweet...but heartfelt...

Step 1. Why did our father work hard at his job?
...so that he could give us the best education money can buy

Step 2. Why did we want the best education money can buy?
...so that we do well and get good grades in school

Step 3. Why did we strive hard to get good grades in school?
...so that we can get into a good college

Step 4. Why did we want to get into a good college?
...so that we can get a good job in a good company

Step 5. Why did we want to get into a good company with a good job?
...so that we can get our kids the best education money can buy

Step 6. repeat from step 1.

Sea of life....

2007-10-10T14:52:00.000+05:30

There are some occasions in life when a person is moving from one phase to another in his life. This happens when we shift base so to say, for example when we leave college, or shift jobs, or change locations. It implies a change. Who said "change is good?", well no doubts it is, but all the subsidiary stuff that goes alongwith that change is in no way good.

Funny how closely life represents a wave on the beach huh? All the crests represent the points in your life when you thing you are on top of the world, no one can touch you and your blissful existence is above all. You have friends you think you will never leave, a lifestyle you think is the best and dont wanna change. That state of existence seems to last forever and you think the way forward can only be things better, oh! how wrong you are! For soon afterwards follows a trough.

This is the part of your life when you are just going through the motions so to say, just 'living life'. There is the last crest that you keep turning back to look at, and there is this next crest in front of you that keeps beckoning. We are caught between the glorious yesterday and the promising tomorrow. What does one do? We are dying to embrace the next crest in life, but are unable to let go of the last one...it is a dilemna of sorts. What we need to do is learn from our yesterday, and work towards making tomorrow even better than it looks to be. Thats easier said than done. Well thats where we are in life right now friends...but the future beckons lads! We will be atop that crest one day, and that's what keeps us going.

The most important thing to remember is not these crests and inadvertant troughs my friends, but it is that - Like all waves, this one too will eventually fizz out on the sea shore. It will leave behind nothing but markings on the sand only to be washed aside by the next wave. The endeavour will always be to wash furthest upshore so that you make a mark so far ahead that only few others will reach.

p.s Just wrote this article out of a 'flow' without thinking much, hope that you can catch the unstated facts that are present as 'strong undercurrents' throughout the article

My Favorite articles....

2007-09-27T15:37:00.000+05:30

I was going through my archives and i thought well its been over a year i've been blogging now and i've got some new readers out here, who may have missed some of the earlier stuff i dished out. So here's a list of articles i personally like...and i think are worth 5 mins...if not?...well let me know either way...

http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-was-going-through-stack-of-old-books.html--I used to be deeply influenced by this train of thought once.
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2006/11/deservation-for-reservation.html--Probably my only opinionated article...all others are argumentative
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2006/11/atlasplease-dont-shrug.html--Worth wasting a few brain cells...but overall i no longer endorse these views
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2006/11/phir-copy-shopy.html--Tried my hand at a movie review
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-am-grateful.html--Thoda senti article...a tribute to my friends at college
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2007/03/hooked-up.html--Lan was introduced in our college...i took a crack at the virtual world
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2007/04/all-good-things-end.html--Was a placement coordinator in my final year...a wonderful experience
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-matters-is-how-you-travel.html--Trying to address the dilemna of what to do in life after college
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2007/06/great-indian-train-journey.html--Why i went to a college that was 2 days away from my hometown by train
http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/2006/11/nostalgia.html--Philosophical...

Please dont comment(ary)....

2007-09-19T18:59:00.001+05:30

Hey people...now that i am firmly into the corporate culture(yeah right!)...i thought it is time that i updated my blog and report that training has got over and my learning has begun...no no...that last line isnt erronous...its true...so anyway...to keep up with all the cubicle talk and not find myself lost out here...i am following the twenty20 world cup closely...well as closely as i can get to the tv in ccd...whilst standing outside....yeah... i stand outside the cafe on the street and watch the match...and yes i do that so that i dont have to order and i can save money...HOW cheap!! eh?...well if i get better tea at "Lakshmi chai tapri" than the crappy "Darjeeling Tea" which costs 30 odd bucks...and is essentially hot water served with milk and a tea-bag, i see no sense in it.

So as things were i got fed up of listening to shakira feat. beyonce - " beautiful liar" and what not while watching cricket. So for the India - Pak match i hauled my butt to a friends place to watch the match with full commentary and all. So here i am, all pumped up for this gotta-to-be-great match...and to my horror...the match was available on Star Cricket only, and with HINDI COMMENTARY....noooooooo!!....God save my ears from decay!

So to those of you who missed the torture....dont worry i will reproduce some of the finest moments of Arun Lal, Atul Wassan, Jimmy Amarnath...and group.

1) "aur yeh tez prahar yuvraj singh ka!! pakistan par!!" .... tez prahar!!??....What the...Where's the war raging mate?

2) "Yeh bahut hi karara shot...nishchit taur pe yeh chhakka hain....lekin...kintu...yeh yahan par catch out!!"...man could you eva be more on the wrong side....guffaws!!

moments later....

3) "Yeh dekhiye...bahut hi tez prahar kiya tha yuvraj ne...mujhe to laga tha ki yeh to chhakka jayega hi jayega...lekin ground thoda bada hain....hava bhi chal rahi hain"....blah blah blah....whateva mate...you screwed up!....

4) "ballebaaz theek se ball ke neeche nahi aa paye"....huh?...ball ke neeche?....whats that man?...i guess he was trying a word-to-word translation of 'getting under the ball to hit over the top'...man!!...more guffaws!

5) Now, Salman Butt (thats a joke right there huh?)...gave himself room and smashed it through covers for four...see the reaction of "Jimmy Amarnath" :
" Yeh bahut hi sundar shot....bas balle ko mod karke halke se bas disha si de di ball ko"....dude he literally wacked the cover off that one man!!

6) Now for the clincher....get ready for this guys :
One of the pakistani batsmen swings through the line and top-edges one from pathan...its a skier....our mate in the commentary box gets all excited....the blood flow to his brain increases so much that his skull gets flooded...he cannot think...he just blurts out what comes to his mind first :

"Aur yeh gaind hava mein!!....seedhi upar gayi hain!!....neeche aayegi zaroor." whoa!...that was unexpected!!....HA HA HA!!...(guffaws)....clutch-your-tummy-roll-on-the-floor-and-roar-with-laughter!!...

I thought of adding to the commentatores words as so...:
".....neeche aayegi zaroor.....mujhe Newton pe poora bharosa hain...woh bola hoga to theek hi bola hoga...."

he he he....feel free to add any of your own remembrances of these foolish clowns posing as comentators.....

Mujhe mil to jaye thoda paisa....

2007-08-21T10:41:00.000+05:30

After a months hard work...(winks)...i received my first salary...wow what a feeling huh!?...actually speaking though, it wasnt much of a thrill...i was like...whats the difference...i used to draw cash from the ATM before and now i will do the same....difference?...the ATM's have changed....and also ive got to worry about investing, taxes, and controlling expenditure...ugh!...no matter how much you earn, you will always think.."Itna Kam...arey yaar maine to zyada socha tha..."....so ever since i have been thinking(yeah right i do that)...and i realized that I'll have to drum up some kind of a side business to supplement my salary and keep my head above water....so here are a few professions that are profitable (especially in Pune)...and can be taken up part-time...

1) First on the list is Rickshaw driver!....hey!...dont laugh!...am serious here!....see...you need some peersonal transport to take you to the office and back right?....buy an auto!...they come cheap...every day take three office colleagues with you and make them pay...you will save gas money...and may even earn some more!...on weekends...wanna go for a movie!?...go in your auto!...you are sure to find some movie goers in your locality...and think of how much you can charge to go back home at 1 am!....give it a thought!

2)Next best in my view is to become a vendor and start selling stuff that you get for free from your office....fruits, tea bags, styrofoam cups, pens!....everything can be sold! (hope no one from amdocs administration reads this!)...does any other business promise 100% profits!?...

3)The next profession is sheer brilliance!....the initial investment is one matchbox!...what you do is this....in every break rush to the smoking zone of you company...with a matchbox or a lighter(if you smoke you wont have to make the initial investment also!)...and offer to light peoples ciggarettes for 1 Re!...you will be amazed how many smokers come to office without lights!....i bet youll earn between 50-100 Rs a Day!....

4) Other lines of business i thought of include...become a dhobi...buy a washing machine and wash clothes...in pune with laundry charges as high as 15 bucks....you can make a fortune!...

5)Also when you have been searching for flats in a city like pune...you are on first name terms with most of the brokers...you have seen enough flats to become a broker yourself!....all you need to do is hang around the group of new joinees in your company and promise to introduce them to a 'good' broker who has this absolutely awesome place up for rent....for a small commission!....with the kind of people companies are recruiting these days!...it just might work!...he he he...

can you think of anymore!??.....

Just a blog......

2007-08-21T09:51:00.000+05:30

Its been more than a month since my last post....usually i think out my article and ponder over what to write for atleast a week or so before subjecting my so loyal (dont know why!) readers to yet another worthless compilation of my thoughts...this time though i will just sit and type away while my instructor keeps blabbering away some crap about unit testing or something....

I just finished reading a compilation of Ayn Rands's early works...mainly short stories and plays written by her...that woman must've been something really...she came to the US from the Soviet at the age of 21 and she was unable to even speak english...12 years later she wrote The Fountainhead....i wouldnt the best ever book....but its right up there....so this compilation consists of the stories and plays she wrote as 'practice' before embarking on her self-chosen task of putting forth the philosophy of Objectivism....there is this most unique and amazing play titled "Think Twice"...unique because this is the only murder mystery ever written by Ayn Rand...amazing because...well just read it...please do...you'll find it in the The Early Ayn Rand by Piekhoff...

Sometimes i wonder if there are any John Galts and Howard Roark amongst us today...of course those two can exist only in theory...but is there someone who even comes close?....lets see...
Steve Jobs....but he stole from xerox....then maybe the xerox employee who actually made the first personal computer....
Bill Gates...he bought DOS....then maybe the programmer who wrote the first OS....
Lakshmi Mittal....hmm maybe...
Alex Ferguson....yep...pretty close i would say....except that the choice of work wouldnt agree with an objectivist....
any more you can think of?

The great indian train journey.....

2007-06-21T11:05:00.000+05:30

For four years, (and atleast four times each year) i used to travel by train for two days to go from my hometown Margao in the emerald state of Goa, to Ranchi in the equally enchanting Jharkhand. Everyone used to gasp in horror at the thought of me making such a long journey by train, but it never weighed on my mind. For me, the journey was always an ideal way of collecting my thoughts, having some time on my own to ponder. An equal incentive was also to observe people of different parts of india, and spend my time by trying to work out mannerisms and habits that classified the great indian diaspora into the places of their origin. I must say, by the end of these four years, i have become quite proficient at guessing the origins of fellow travellers.

If your travelling with a family in which the head of the family is a large, rotund and jolly man, and the wife is fat if old and equally svelte if young...laden with enough jewelry to buy the indian railway itself...., then you have the first indicators of a marwari family. But the clincher comes when these people get down at every station....and i mean EVERY station...to meet their relatives and give and take presents from them. At each station they receive food stuff from these noisy relatives and at each station it is the same...mithai, bhujia, khakra...ROTFL.

Maharashtrians are a tricky lot...well for one if the family has been traveling for over a day than it cannot be a maharashtrian family...it is mortally impossible for a maharashtrian family to engage in a journey that will span for more than a day...they will melt i think....they are the most grumpy travelers who cannot adjust one bit with their fellows...always complaining, bickering and ah!...the clincher....throughout the journey the wife will be badgering the husband with complaints and gossips about her in-laws and the poor hen-pecked husband will have a morose look on his face.

If you ever travel with a family that loads on to the train with enough luggage for you to think that they are actually shifting their entire ghar-grihasti to a new abode then you should safely assume that they are a bengali family. And furthermore if they ask you to shift out your one and only bag to make place for their luggage...it is a sure shot bengali family from Calcutta.

Have you ever travelled alongside a bunch of people wearing lungi's, sporting the same moustaches and partaking of some weird, "un-pronouncable", oily food being sold in the train?...this food stuff is called (hope i spell it right)..."pezhambhari"...something of that sort...it is a preparation of fried bananas...and comes with as much oil as the state of kerala can produce in a day!...it drips with oil...these are my friends, keralites. A very amiable lot, they chat and enjoy their journey, but one's desire to befriend them and get cozy diminishes radically when all of a sudden they pull out of their luggage those mushy, squishy bananas -which have long lost their shape and colour as well- and offer you one....omigosh!...NO! NO! you say...and quietly shrink into a corner of your berth!...

There are many more such communities that bring out their qualities with gay abandon on train journeys...all are distinct...no doubt though that they all have one common characteristic in them....they are all INDIAN!

Here i come!!

2007-06-01T15:23:00.000+05:30

Loong layoff....but i am back. Have been struggling to deal with a transition in my life. My college life has come to an end and its time to face the big bad world now!...ha ha...am i making it sound more dramatic than it is?...hey...it is a big deal guys. For the last four years i have been living life on my own terms, no one to answer to and no one to question me, now i will have a boss to answer to, and landlord who'll question me...aaaargh!!....i am not ready!!!....

Right now as much as i am terrified at the prospect of moving on, it took me ages to get over the fact that i wont be going to college again. Those were the days...my dad rightly had said to me once..."Son, these are the golden days of your life...make the most of them because you will never live like this again"...well, i went about making sure that i wont be able to live like that again!!...not if i live by the law!!...seriously guys...the things that we did, those parties, those night-outs, they were unbelievable. I have made friends in college that i will have for my lifetime and will never have more friends like those in my life. Words do not do justice to kind off relationships we have shared in college. Seriously, the bar for friendships and friends has been set so far high that i doubt it will be matched in the future.

The last few days of college were really memorable for us. We could see the emotion in the eyes as everyone realised that the time for the final goodbye is near, i personally made an effort to register all the moments all the little occasions that came along and tried to spend as much time as possible with my friends. I am sure everyone made that effort...really, bryan adams' line "Those were the best days of my life...." never sounded more meaningful.

The hurt and pain of parting with close friends is now slowly evolving into a realisation that this is the end of a phase in life and the transition has to be made and we have to move on to a new one. The new life beckons now and i eagerly await the start of this new phase, i am not ready i said earlier...but then who is!!??...before we realise it we are tossed headlong into an ocean of uncertaintiess...we are supposed to fend for ourselves with no weapons at our disposal!!...i think to rightly sum up this transition period i remeber something that one of my friends said just after we had given our final B.E. project viva.... "Abey, ab tak college ke prof log ko bevakoof banate rahe, kuch nahi aata tha fir bhi fatta dekar paar ho gaye, now its time to fool the world!!"

What matters is how you travel....

2007-04-24T17:19:00.000+05:30

Standing at a fork in the journey of my life, i wonder which path i should choose. This isnt the first time that i have had to make such a decision, a decision of choosing between two or more options that now seem to hold equivalent promise. Each one carries upsides and downturns of its own. All seem equally good decisions to make. The decision i make now will define the course and nature of the journey ahead. It isnt even a case of taking the "path less traversed" or the path where everyone is going. On previous such occasions i was immature and let others take such decisions for me and bindly proceeded in the direction they pointed. Some of those decisions i regret having followed, others i celebrate. All i know is i am here now and i cannot let anyone else make the choice...because no one knows me better than me myself. Then where should i go?

A great voice once murmured in my ear, " Ask for information not advice". I did that and still all the options hold their own. Each path offers breathtaking views, endless oppurtunities, and each path has a distinct charm of its own. Should i take the path that is easier now?...but then it may get difficult later...where will each one lead me?...What lies ahead in each?...Which direction will lead to more gains?...Which path will make me what i aspire to be? These questions haunt me and i am only putting them off till the last minute...waiting for some divine intervention to point me in the right direction.

As i give this dilemna more thought, i realise that the best way to tackling a fork in the journey of life is to listen to yourself. Your inner voice, listen hard, it will speak up...follow your gut instinct...because what should really matter to you is not where each path leads and which is more difficult....what matters is, how you travel, that you take in the beauty of journey, enjoy every moment of it, meet people, take inspiration from the slightest of things, give joy to fellow travellers...what matters is how you travel.

All Good Things End....

2007-04-15T16:54:00.000+05:30

I am often asked by my juniors, as to why i joined the students placement committee and why should they join it when its their turn. I too was faced with these questions once and the most unanimous response i got was that placements are the best thing going on in our college, and one of the biggest factors for that was the functioning of our Training and Placement division. Being in the students placement committee would let me absorb the work culture in that great place and learn from the man responsible for that...Mr. B. B. Pant.

Ofcourse there were several other reasons provided to me for joining the team. Here, we can learn and interact with officials high up in the hierarchy of various companies, we can work for the good of the larger student community and gather some memories that will last with us for a lifetime in the process. Another reason, (suggested by my elder brother), in any case you will have nothing to do during the final year, there is nothing better to keep you busy!

I remember the first task we were given was to organise the farewell party for our outgoing placement committee. I still cant beleive how wonderful that party was. We all chipped in and coordinated so beautifully that it was hard to beleive that this was the first time this team was doing something collectively. All the right chords were hit and all the notes blended perfectly, to create a smooth symphony.

The first company on campus was TCS, and i would be lying if i said that i was'nt scared stiff at the prospect of co-ordinating a process involving almost 400 people (all curious and worried) sitting for an exam that could decide the course of their lives. I am also sure that the rest of the team felt the same. But that morning when we all got down to our job, we drew confidence from each other and with a few minor hitches, the job was done. After handling the TCS campus visit, we knew we were ready for any situation. Bring on the heavy artillery!!

Other companies were a breeze mostly. One incident stands out though. Tata Motors was on campus, and the interviews were on when Maruti arrived for selecting its candidates. Now the Tata Motors interviews got prolonged and before Maruti started its G.D. phase the results werent announced yet. Now this was a sticky situation because the same set of people were sitting for both companies and we couldnt allow guys selected for Tata Motors to sit again for Maruti! To make it worse, Maruti had brought a long an HR guy who was so touchy, he got twitchy and started screaming even if there was no rough paper in the interview room! Amazingly, somehow we managed to whisper into in the ears of the selected candidates and stealthily pull them out of the line for the Maruti G.D.!

It was incidents like this and other occurences that leave me amazed as to how we managed to survive the placement season. Also, astonishlingly this turned out to be the most hectic placement season in terms of the number of candidates appearing, number of final offers, and also number of companies on campus! I speak for the team and the placement office when i say that we never felt stretched for a bit throughout the gruelling period.

All of us were so different yet we almost always were thinking along the same lines. Ofcourse there are differences in every team, but thats the beauty of it all, differences were ironed out in such a way as to arrive at the best solution, and this solution was always better than that we would have arrived at had there been a single train of thought. Everyone shared a common goal and worked to achieve it, it was never an issue as to who worked more or who did the better job, the end result mattered.

The 2k3 Students placement coordinators' committee consisted of:

1. Aditya Devurkar : The brains of the team. Any technical problem was almost always deflected to this guy, and he was more than happy to tackle it.

2. Dhruv Bhardwaj : He should be christened Dhruv 'creativity' Bhardwaj, not only for his talent of designing but also for coming up with the most innovative solutions for any situation.

3. Mohit : The life of the team, he was the heart that pumped energy and freshness into us whatever the occasion.

4.Narayan : He was literally the big brother in our team. He has such a big heart that he gave emotional support to atleast half the batch as they waited for their interview.

5.Pritpal : The jolly sardar, always cool, always calm, always bearing a smile. I call him Sunshine Singh.

6.Rahul sharma : Sharma as we all call him, brought a great sense of humour to the team, nobody else can take a joke as well as him.....hats off. It was his personal agenda to ensure that EEE core companies come to the campus.

7.Rajiv : Our Man Friday, he was the go-to guy whatever the task at hand. Hardworking and the epitome of a perfect gentleman.

8.Saloni : The soft-spoken, miss charming, whenever at the tnp, things seemed just so much easier for everyone!

9.Sohini : Bubbly, she is not just endowed with the soothing voice of a nightingale, but her presence is soothing, just like her voice.

10.Swapnil : Mr. Perfect. His demeanour and his attitude rubbed off on all of us, the confidence he exudes is just so contagious.

11.Tanya : Good things come in small packages. She is a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and joy. Capable of sindle handedly controlling an entire horde of students, we are still amazed at how she did it.

12.Vani : She is always in command of a situation. Whenever something used to go wrong, we instinctively knew that it was because vani was'nt around to stop it from happening. It is people like vani that make a team work. I dont know where she gets the drive from to work this hard.

13.Varun : Have you heard this guy speak? He can rattle of one-liners at speed that would put Najot Singh Sidhu to shame! A gentleman to the core, and one of the coolest guys i have ever met.

14. Vineet : He can mimick anyone on the face of this earth to perfection, but he himself is inimitable. Extremely friendly, it is hard to cross him or be cross with him.

15. Saurabh : A guy who is too humble to praise himself.

Priyank Sir, Prabhat Sir, Pratyush Sir were all our bosses, our friends, our support structures.

A word for our mentor, guide, and driving force.
Many times when you are working, you stop and wonder at the usefullness of it all and wonder wether you should chuck it all and have a good rest. At such times when you see a man twice your age, up till 2 a.m. for a cause that should'nt really concern him as much as does to you, the meaning of the words inspiration becomes evident. All good things come to an end, and the only things you can take with you as you leave, are the memories and the things you've learnt. I will have a handfull of these things to take with me and a majority of both of these i owe to Mr. B. B. Pant.

Hooked Up....!!!!

2007-03-25T16:59:00.000+05:30

I was one of the unlucky ones in hostel 3 who got access to the BIT LAN quite some time after the rest had. Almost two months later. All this while i was cursing the administration and the various departments involved for denying me this facility. My joy obviosly knew no bounds when they finally got it working. So what if it was bang in the middle of the mid-sems?...who cares?....i've given 7 mid sems and it wont matter if i screw up the 8th one. I remember i footed it all the way to techno-point from the inners to get a piece of lan wire crimped (hope thats the right spelling) and 'Hook' my comp onto the LAN.

Little did i know what effect this would have on my life....i would be 'Hooked' onto something i cant give up easily. Sleeping hours would shorten from a lazy 9 hours to merely 4 hours. I would be chatting for hours with people i just barely knew. Share some of my deepest emotions with closer ones. I would barely have time to see my best friends who lived in the nearby hostel. I would talk to another who lived in the next room through dc++. I would browse this forum for hours on end until my eyes hurt. I would play games on the LAN and sulk the entire day if i lost one, and paste a smile on my face if i won.

In short, this LAN thingy now determines my interactions with friends, oher people, it uses up all my time, it controls my moods, hell, it controls
my life. Other colleges have had LAN since ages, and we can see our future if we look at these colleges. People don't go home in the holidays to visit their parents coz there's no LAN there...they miss classes... flunk... they don't even know the name of the person who lives two rooms away from them. I mean people calling me by my nick is cool...but after a while it starts to bug me. It's not like there are no good points about having a LAN...we can network....share ideas...get to know new people (virtually ofcourse)...and other stuff. But at the cost of becoming socially defunct?...is this worth it?

I dont like what this LAN is doing to my life...but you know what? I cant
live without it...!! Seriously i am HOOKED !!

I am grateful....

2007-02-04T00:20:00.000+05:30

That day is vividly etched in my memory. I remember clearly the ride in the auto that brought us (me and my parents) to BIT. It was a bright sunny afternoon, and after a two day train journey I should have been exhausted but somehow I wasn’t. I was too excited for trifles like that. I watched amazed as we passed the long hostels. The perfect facade of the BIT institute building emerged out of nowhere and offered a sudden breath-taking view. I hadn’t experienced anything so imposing before. Whoever says that he wasn’t awestruck when he first entered BIT is lying. I was astounded too, and though I acted cool about it all, I saw being here as a culmination of my efforts of the last few years.

Somewhere in between the pride in their glances to me, my parents must have harbored a deep concern for me. As such, amid the sense of achievement there was a silent under-current of apprehension. It was then that I decided, I will belittle all the sorrows this place gives me and herald all the joy I am afforded. "That should be easy", I said to myself. I couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be.

The first rude shock was that I was to share a small, nay, tiny room with my roommate. (Looking back it wasn’t that bad). The ordeal of the admission process, complicated further by the gutkha eating, incompetent babus and peons in the offices. One of the first things to strike me about this place was that security guards were all over the place, and were getting things done...they were more helpful then the officials. “There goes meritocracy out of the window”, I thought. I reconciled myself by saying that this is probably the case with most colleges...chalta hain...little did I realize now how often I have to say that in my stay here. It was the same with the food, the way classes were conducted, the labs, the curriculum...hey wait a minute...I couldn’t name one thing that this college offered that was better than the others...everything was either as bad or worse.

I hate to look back and say “If only…”, but sometimes we have to and learn to admit our mistakes. So I think sometimes, was it a mistake to come here? Had my dreams been shattered mercilessly? I got the answer eventually. Education is not only the gain of knowledge and a tool to win a livelihood...no, it is much more than that...this place gave me amazing friends, I came in contact with great seniors and juniors, I learnt from them, I learnt from great men like Mr. B.B. Pant, this was what this college had given me. It has taught me how to live, amid chaos and confusion, how to carve a niche for myself; it showed me who I really was. These things people say, are achievable in other institutions too, but I don’t know and I don’t want to find out. All I know is that I wouldn’t be the same had I been elsewhere. I am what I am today because of these years in college and I am grateful for that.

Bored in Goa?.....at this time of the year?

2006-12-29T11:19:00.000+05:30

Yeah you got that right...its official, i am bored at this time of the year in Goa. HOW? you ask?...come to think of it for people who live in Goa this time of the year is the most...umm whats the word....sluggish. You see we are a lot of people who lead a laidback life...just give us our fish-curry rice (and the essential fenny) and we dont care about anything else in the world. So this time of the year when something like a million tourists come traipsing into our serene environments we do get bitten by the partying bug, but actually we are going, "Oh no, not again....". By the time Christmas is over we are through with all the parties and crave for our personal space again. That for me is my computer and my T.V. (actually only espn and star sports on T.V)....so when the computer motherboard gets screwed and the cable operator refuses to transmit espn and star-sports, it is the perfect recipe for boredom. A huge chunk of my friends are rendered useless since they are studying for their exams (MBBS), starting on the 2nd Jan., it is me and my fish-curry rice all alone. Now that my computer has been fixed, things have started looking up again, and since Swetha and her friends (who came to Goa for a few days) rid me of a whole day of boredom, i feel like myself again.

A few mood swings i had in these past few days------

stumped, stupified!! : IIFT entrance exam
dissinterested : while studying for the end semesters
relief : when exams got over
dismay : when drogba and lampard scored two wonder goals to win the match for chelsea
more dismay : Man Utd lose 0-1 to West Ham!
Joy : Man Utd win 3-1 against Reading!
more Joy! : chelsea drew 2-2.
Indifferent : didnt make the IIFT cut-off

but overall i've been bored........
p.s. A special mention for Swetha, Bhavya, Divya and Shilpa...hope you enjoyed your stay in goa

What a "mess"......!!

2006-11-24T18:43:00.000+05:30

One of the biggest reasons for the almost hysterical joy of a BITIAN when he enters the final year is the allotment of the 'inner' hostels.Now these are a set of 'elite' hostels meant for final year BE students.Salient features include single occupancy rooms, and the bathrooms actually having a clean tiled floor....believe me these are a quantum leap from the 'outer' hostel where the pigeon hole principal does not aply....since each room is a pigeon hole and there are two pigeons in each...coming back to the point...we were extremely ecstatic when we made our annual nomadic journey from one hostel to another...and apart from the salient features mentioned above, we looked forward to the best part of it all....THE FOOD!!!....oh the food has always been so excellent and for the first few weeks we were actually gaining weight for the first time in our BITIAN days!....

Did ya note the past tense?...yeah thats because its no longer excellent...i wonder wether it is food at all any longer....what transpired within two weeks?...how could there be such a drastic change overnight?....well someone in the administration suddenly realized that "whoa!!...i need to change the system of 'extra's'...the mess has become a restaraunt"....the system of extra's was simple...there will be a basic meal on top of which everyone can order dishes of his choice and each person will be charged individually for that...now the system is like there will only be the basic meals and everyone will have to have that stuff no matter what...no choice...no extra dishes...now you would think that we will be paying less huh?...nope!...dont think so...here are a few points i want to make...(i hope someone out there in the administration reads this...and his heart melts)

1) In the morning we can have either of 2 eggs or an apple or a glass of milk...what is that all about?...how do these things equate?...doesnt make any sense to me....if anyone wants to have 2 apples he doesnt get them even if the apples get wasted in the end...

2) We can have our eggs only boiled not and omelette...huh?...whats that all about?

3) If i dont mind paying extra money for better food then why should someone else have a problem with that?...

4) Why should i pay for a meal that i didn't have?

5) The reason for scrapping the extra system was that the mess workers used to put stuff on the students account and pocket a few bucks on the sly....dude...i would rather have those poor guys enjoy a good meal once in a while than someone else higher up the hierarchy.

There are many more things that annoy me about the changes in our mess...but i realise there is no use....i hope some official on the admonistration reads this and does something...why do pople always change things that were going along smoothly in the first place?...there's some food for thought...(sorry for the cliche)...

p.s. Recent Developments :
The mess workers recently placed an order for 14 kgs of chicken for about 28 people....believe me i ate the chicken and the amount served was no where near to the 1/2 kg per person mark......Now the student mess committee....(which is constituted to bring to light such discrepancies)....reported the matter to the Dean-Students "Welfare" (note the inverted commas)....not suprisingly no action was taken against the mess workers....the entire committee resigned after this humiliation...

Who's war is it....?

2006-11-24T18:42:00.001+05:30

The economic boom that started in the '90's was a fairy tale (apart from the dotcom bust of 2000) too good to be true. The forces that were to be, were brewing with something sure for. The unprecedented globalization drive was silently fueling the arms race of upcoming economics like Israel, India apart from also opening up vast oppurtunities for terrorist organizations and the Hizbollah for procuring arms. Now Israel has always been heralded as the champion of combating guerilla warfare of the Hamas and the Hizbollah. They used to carry out stealth attacks of the their own to strike at the very heart of these outfits. But the Big Brother (USA) was restless for some sort of control over the gulf region, and having taken care of it's biggest threat in the region (Saddam)....they continued empowering their ally with arms.
Today Isreal has signed up for so much arsenal that it has no option but to use it!It is but natural for Israel to act like a pampered kid.

Having said all this I firmly believe that the new-age battlefield is different than that of the olden days. Today's wars will be fought not on the actual "ground zero"...but in boardrooms and in international conventions and meetings. The most powerfull countries in the world will be those with the largest corporations, and with the best technologies and resources.

In retrospect i think the world has always been like this has it not? US and Japan are where they are today because of their companies and technological advances....way back in the 17th century British colonization began with the zeal of the British East India Company to expand its markets and have access to more resources....what does this mean for INDIA?

I feel that India should not be bothered over it's neighbour and the Kashmir problem. India is miles ahead economically and Indian corporations will soon become too large and too important for anyone to cross India's path..........

p.s. Update on the campus placements in my college:-
32 days....41 companies....~700 offers...~70 double offers...and more to come!

View of an interview....

2006-11-24T18:40:00.000+05:30

Guys sorry for being so inactive of late....but the absense of articles is not without sound reason...i was caught up in the placement season, waiting to find out which company makes the mistake of hiring a guy like me...well, that company turned out to be the second largest IT company in India....Infosys...

The job selection process started with a written test...it had a section of pretty tough puzzles...these puzzles were ctually lifted from a book and since this has been the trend of the last few years....i went thru the trouble of going thru the book(Puzzles to Puzzle You-Shakuntala Devi)...little did know that some guys with whom i would be competing for the job had atually memorized the answers to the puzzles!!...so although i was at a disadvantage i managed to scrape thru...the next step was a HR interview, now this was my domain...it was fun that interview...enough fun for me to narate it...here goes...

I entered the room and the interviewer welcomed me..."So Saurabh...do you play cricket?!!"
Me, "I used to be a Batsman for my high school cricket team..."
Him, "oh thats bad...you could have made a good fast bowler!!...with your height!"
Me, "I am sure working for infosys will be as exciting"
Him, "Ha Ha!...sure sure...tell me...how good are you at maths...you have some pretty inpresive scores in the subject"
Me, "I am good enough to have gotten those scores sir..."
He was probably impressed with my ease at replying to his comments...he then asked me a couple of puzzles...and then proceeded to test my knowledge of world affairs...i was asked to comment on everything from Isreal-Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Crude oil prices etc...i answered with confidence...then he also asked me to explain any one of Manmohan Singh's policies of 1990...after all this i was pretty confident that i would get thru the interview unscathed...
Him, "ok saurabh...you seem to be conversent with things happening around you...now can you tell me what you consider to be your greatest weakness?"
Me, "chocolate"
Him, "hey!..dont give me that...i get that a lot...i wont let you off so easy...tell me you real weakness"
Me, "ok sir..my real weakness is GOAN SEAFOOD!!"
Him, "Ha Ha Ha...i am sure you have another retort ready so i wont bother asking you again!!"
this proably clinched the job for me....and now i am into infosys...lets see how long the company lasts!!

Dont Forget....!

2006-11-24T18:39:00.000+05:30

Based on my own experiences and those i have heard off i thought it would be fun to rattle off things that one needs to carry along when visiting these places....

Request : Dear Readers, Please take these comments in the best of humour....they are not meant to degrade any of the following cities, but to bring out the pravalent situation in a lighter vein....feel free to post your comments to add to the list

Mumbai :

Boat.....more useful then a car if it has rained for a day or two...
Helmet.....Shiv Sena, need i say more?

Chennai :

AC/Fan/Towel.....Sticky and sweaty conditions
Bottled drinking water.....do not rely on the water supply dept.

Kanpur :

Some pebbles or a stick....the stray dog menace
Helmet....frequent skirmishes between some student assoc. and the police

Goa :

Football jersey,shorts......in keeping with the local fashion

Bangalore :

Roller skates....frequent traffic jams ensure that this is the best transport

Hyderabad :

Cotton ear-plugs....the presence of a Mr. Ranga there requires this.(also a certain Mr. SP)

Patna :

Gamccha......in keeping with the local fashion
Bullet-proof vest.....u never know!

Kerala :

Coconut hair oil(lots of it)....in keeping with the local fashion

BIT Mesra :

Small change....the campus is always short on change...wonder where it all goes!

Pune :

Dark sunglasses.....veeerrry useful while watching babes and not letting them know..(wink)

Kolkatta :

See above

Please feel free to ad to the list with your comments.....

Nostalgia....

2006-11-24T18:38:00.000+05:30

Nowadays (my foot being healed and all) i am back to playing football in the rains...this time utilising the better facilities at the nearby football grounds accompanied by my friends ... My word there is so much sliding and tackling going on during the game that i wonder whether it is more of a mud-fight than a game of football....the game is always played in the best of spirits though...everyone basically having a good time.

We are a gang of about 20 guys slugging it out on the field....all of us go way back...back to our school days when we used to run out of our classes to be the first ones on the grounds to play during the lunch breaks...

The sight of my friends running around pointing jokes at each other's misses and praising the good moves revoked my memories of our childhood...it seems just a few years back in school i wondered when i will grow up and get rid of the exams and studies of school...when i would see the bigger picture...now i wonder have i grown out of my chidhood...have i seen the bigger picture?....

Oh yes i have seen it i think...the bigger picture is that the picture keeps getting bigger....sounds cryptic?...what i mean is....in the 12th i laughed when i remembered myself fretting over the exams in the lower classes....now i laugh at myself when i remember how i fretted at not doing well in the tution classes in the 12th.... currently i am worried about my placement prospects and the impending CAT exam...

So i guess thats it huh?!...The bigger picture is that the picture keeps getting BIGGER

The price of succes.....

2006-11-24T18:36:00.001+05:30

Reliance is a name that has become synonymous with the word success, well, another set of commonly used synonyms for Reliance are cheats, conceited, and a few others that would not be appropriate here... ;)

Reliance had very humble beginnings, Dhirubhai Ambani worked as a clerk in an oil company in Aden, Yemen as a 16 year old. While there he realised that the silver content in the currency of Yemen was valued more than the actual value of the coins!....thus he utilised this descrepancy to obtain the seed money of $3000to establish a modest trading business. Now this is the story of the beginning of the great empire....tell me...why didn't anybody else think of this?...of the thousands of gujrati expats in Yemen, only this man found this discrepancy?....amazing huh?....it sounds dubious to me...maybe there was some other way he came into $3000?

After that too the Reliance house has been clouded with controversy, their links with politicians enable them to get exclusive licenses, they have always been accused of shady underhand dealings, the Reliance Infocomm fiasco is so well known....over-billing customers seems to be a business policy, hell!, if you want a crash course in foul words go visit the nearest Reliance WebWorld for an hour and you will find a disgruntled customer doing the honours....

Now Reliance is planning to enter the retail marketing sector....they plan to deal with farmers directly and buy goods from them to sell in their stores....god help the humble Indian farmer....!!

Tracing Alexander's Steps Backwards

2006-11-23T20:55:00.012+05:30

The recent burst of world-class entrepreneurs, bouyed by the wave of foreign investments as well as liberalisation of the industry by the government have resulted in India Inc. emerging as a force to reckon with in the globalised world of today. The wave of mergers and acquisitions by indian companies of late is in stark contrast with the situation 5-6 years ago....

I remember while growing up, people proudly saying, "Yeh T.V. imported hain...", or "Mera beta MNC mein kaam karta hain!"...now it is more like, "Yeh TV LG ka hain kya?...saste mein mila hoga?..." or "mera beta-or meri beti...for the feminists ;)-INDIAN MNC mein hain!"....

Among all these companies, one truly stands...Reliance.Ten years ago when one was asked which corporate house is the baton holder, the leader, of the indian industry the answer would be either Tata's or the Aditya Birla Group, but today it is unanimously Reliance....the brothers' business combined together is the largest company in India....

Mukesh Ambani's RIL alone has doubled its profits in the last two years....Anil is said to be as shrewd a businessman and no doubt emulate his brother's feat...They may have separated ways but they have one thing in common, they both think BIG!..Mukesh is entering the retail sector(Malls, Supermarket, Farm Products etc) with an arsenal of 25,000 Crores!!....this has made biggies like Wal-mart think twice before entering India! Way to go!...We can do it!...we can trace Alexander's steps backwards and conquer the world!!

Long Live Ambani's,Birla's,Mittal's, hey wait a min.....Long Live Marwadi's!!!

Next Blog : Darker side of the Reliance coin.....

Phir Copy-Shopy.........

2006-11-23T20:55:00.011+05:30

My days in Pune were really great!...lotsa fun with cousins......well all except one....the day i went to watch Phir Hera Pheri......ugh! the thought if it makes me squirm....

I was forewarned by my cousin that City Pride (Kothrud) was more of a family multiplex....with old grandparents (giving up their evening walks for a taste of youth) frequenting it more often then their lovely grand-daughters in whom we were more interested.....even so...we made a beeline for the m-plex in the hope that a few of those grand-daughters stray to the movies along with the old geezers....but...NO LUCK....

Well we finally nestled into our seats, i was hoping against hope that the movie lived up to its hype.....but....NO LUCK....the movie turned out to be 'inspired' by the classic 'Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels'.....i mean...if you wanna copy atleast do it well!!....the main plot does not begin till the intermission.....yawn..

There are too many characters in the film....atleast 20 of them were not needed....they show how the three guys who were stinking rich are duped by the sultry bipasha and are reduced to rags....those rags happen to be designer banyans which are torn but as clean as the one's shown in a surf add....

Meanwhile a dame in the row behind me seemed to have come with her new boyfriend and was trying hard to impress him....the mode of impression she employed was rocking back and forth and letting out shrieks of laughter into my ears.....so just when a stale joke is repeated on the screen and i try to doze off into un-irritating slumber...NO LUCK.......the girl behind lets out a peal of artificial mirth...they stop as suddenly as they had started...i guess the boyfriend doesn't find things funny around here huh?...

Back to the film....Bipasha seems to be running through the streets, chased by some gangsters....but then if she is poor and 'abla' why is she wearing tight jeans....a low-neck 'bebe' tee, and above all HIGH HEALS!!...whats that all about?....!!Wait! thats not all...in this attire she seems to remind the seemingly brain-dead Sunil Shetty of Tabu (remember her in the prequel?...all sari, specs, braid and all?)...it is like mistaking Rakhi Sawant for Sonia Gandhi!.....even Paresh Rawal's confused man act is all stereotyped and boring...even nadu will do better....they only ray of light in this dark pig sty of a film is Rimmi 'oh-so-edible' Sen...I was gonna lay back and enjoy the song 'yaad sataaye....' ...but...NO LUCK....it was cut out to fit the movie into schedule..aargh!...all of a sudden there is a gorilla in the movie...it seems to be 'inspired' by the 'Baby's Day Out' routine but turns out to be more of a King-Kong venture....

Truly, it is me who is to blame for expecting some entertainment from a Bollywood movie....in short the movie is.....ugh!...yuck!...ack thoo!....

ATLAS.......please dont shrug!

2006-11-23T20:55:00.010+05:30

Sorry guys, sorry to keep you waiting....have been struggling with a bad cold lately and am currently battling sniffles and sneezes to post this article....

I finished reading ATLAS SHRUGGED almost a week back and i cant get it outa my head.....although it is a self-confessed work of fiction by Ayn Rand, the disclaimer -"the characters potrayed in this novel are purely a work of fiction and do not resemble any person living or dead"-doesn't seem to aply to it....in fact the book resembles our world so closely that it is like a mirror that reflects the naked truth of the world we live in....and the truth they say is always bitter.....sure is.

The book makes us realize that there are two forms of existence a man can lead....a second-hander, an all-pleaser, an altruist, in short a parasite who lives on the creator, the first-hander, the man who exalts himself, who believes the earth is for him to modify not him to adjust to the earth!....it is the second breed of men who run this world....it is they who create, who invent who keep the wheel of civilisation moving, hell, it is they who thought of the wheel in the first place!....these men are ostracised by us, the second-raters, the looters.....we feed on them. Great men like these are called selfish, conceited and what not. We have many examples before us, was not copernicus ridiculed for his theory?Was not galileo ostracised by all? The man who first invented the wheel was called mad....in greek mythology prometheus was a cunning man responsible for discovering fire....he was called a thief for stealing fire from the Gods!!.....these are the examples of the past....do they exist today?....Bill Gates?Warren Buffet?Adolf Hitler?....these men are called selfish, conceited, cheats aren't they?.....

According to greek mythology Atlas was a titan who was punished by zeus the god to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders....he silently bears this weight till today in the shape of these virtuous men....for no fault of his, hell but because of his virtue!......what if he gives up?....what if these men realize what they are doing and for whom?....and just vanish from the face of the earth?...in short...what if Atlas Shrugs?....that is the plot of this great master-piece by Ayn Rand.

We live in a world in which the strong is forced to provide to the weak, the weak is praised and the strong taken advantage of.....resources are divided not on the basis of ability, but on the basis of need....

What makes a man the man that he is?....by the birth he has?by the peers he has?...no.

A man is the man he is by the choices he makes after taking birth, by the goal he sets out to achieve....he is recognised not by the start but the end to his life....

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

-Ayn Rand

Bad Day

2006-11-23T20:55:00.009+05:30

Guys i had a really bad day yesterday...i think it was one of the shitiest days i've had in my life
When i woke up in the morning(12 noon may not be morning for everyone but it is to those who have stayed up till 4.00 a.m!!)...i saw that the depressing rain was back after a whole week of absence.....ugh!

I had a really important date with a really important friend and now i would have to sit in the house reading ATLAS SHRUGGED...true it is a great philosophical book by Ayn Rand...and i love her books....but this ones just too slow!!....god!....if you thought fountainhead was bulky, wait till you get your hands on this!....i am half way through it and the main protagonist, the typical Ayn Rand HERO is not yet introduced...and the question "WHO IS JOHN GALT?" is bugging me like hell!!....coming back to the point...i called my friend to postpone the date and resigned to my fate...this rain is not gonna stop for another coupla days...

by the evening i was ready to tear out the hair from my head one-by-one to releave me of my boredom...just then my pals from near my house beckoned me to a game of football...football in this torrential rains?...in the mucky paddy fields?...you bet! i said-"you're on guys!"...but then i realized i dont have shoes out here...i left them at my hostel in BIT...oh! what the f**k...i'll play barefeet!!

so there i was playing barefoot amongst guys with football boots that have hard studs on the soles...and all sorts of small sharp stones and clutter was strewn around the playing field....within a few minutes and a few cuts and bruises later i realized that this was a bad bad idea...i was playing in the midfield and was backtraking to stop the striker of the opposing team...who was charging towards our goal...and before i knew it there was a searing burning sensation on the underside of the sole of my feet...i pulled up in pain...and what i saw was straight out of a horror film!...the skin from the underside of my right foot was dangling from my heel...ouch!... blood...blood...and more blood...the next hour was a haze...my mates taking me to the doctors'(he too was amazed at the injury-"I have never seen anything quite like this in my life!")...then home...and left alone to lick my wounds...(no not literaly)

Well...there i was cursing myself for my foolishness...but more was in store for me...remember the friend i had cancelled a date with?...well, instead of the sympathy that i was expecting i got the accusation that i postponed the date because of the rain but because i wanted to play football!!...ugh..crap
Then i switched on the T.V. to watch my favorite team Czech Republic in action....and they lost 2-0 to Ghana....of all teams Ghana!
the day sucked big time.....and my fortune for the day in orkut?......you will accomplish a great feat today!

off the mark(for BITians only):-
sujit beat gvs at aoe.....
gvs shaved his moustache.....
adi is in BIT...you know why....(Senapati asshole)

(for non-BITians)
italy vs usa game saw 3 red cards....
sri lanka beat england in the first one day...
A.L.I.C.E is a great A.I. chat program...
do not watch phir hera pheri...sucks big time

the world goes on....

Living life bit by BIT - (3rd bit)

2006-11-23T20:55:00.008+05:30

GV'aas' approached us and all of us readied ourselves for the inevitable torment....i said
"kya be tera class nahi hain kya?"
GV(nasally):"abeein...(everybody groans...the crooked smile curves even more)...class se nikaal diya."
convulsive laughter
GV(nasaly):"abeein...jabki i was late only about 20 mins...vaise theek hain, is subject mein atendance accha hain"
ladu:"kitna hain be?"
GV(nasaly,spontaneously):"abeein...almost 63.64%"
convulsive laughter
sumit:"abey chal bey...tereko aaj treat deni padegi"
sab koi:"haan...haan..GV...deni hi padegi aaj"
GV(nasaly):"abeein heh heee hee....(this last bit was what GV'aas' considers laughter but what to mankind can be best describe as the kind of sound that comes when you screech your nails against a blackboard)....kyon bhai..reason to bolo..!!"
sumit:"abey tum BIT ka top coder ban gaya hai...TCPC ki rankings nikli hain kal.."
GV(nasaly):"abeein...woh sab theek hain lekin..i am really short of cash be...mere paas sirf 432 Rs hain"
convulsive laughter..(we have got used to the convulsive laughter when GV is around)
everybody:"bahut hain boss...chalega"
madi:"abey saale tereko mujhe 100 bucks dene the woh kab dega saale...jeb mein 400 lekar ghoom raha hain?"
GV(nasaly):"abeein...yeh maine kal udhar liye hain...i took 1000 bucks from pritish"
sumit:"saale tum to kal piya ke saath lunch kar raha tha..."
GV(nasaly):"abeein...wahin pe to 568 Rs kharch ho gaye..usko treat de raha tha.."
me:"speaking of treats......"
GV:"haan haan...theek hain....kya kya loge....."

and thats how we triumphed once again......

next time the introduction of the legendary fundebaas...Mr. S.R.Funda...beware the next post will be lethal to those who's ears have not received adequate exercise....

Living life bit by BIT - 2nd BIT

2006-11-23T20:55:00.007+05:30

So here we are in the canteen....sab baithe hain...nobody wants to buy anything...kyon?....arrey ghonchu...kisi ke paas change nahi rehta hain....sab ke liye dena padega.
We are wondering ki abhi kissse treat mangi jaaye....tabhi right on cue yuck arrives...all 4 feet 6-and-a-half inches of him and his antiquated (old, dilapidated) set of teeth...he has company....NO! not the one and only PAGAL KHADEY!!!...nahiiiiii!!...lord please spare my soul!
The atmosphere is tense...nobody wants to make place for PAGAL to sit next to him!....i break the ice by saying-
"kya yuck?...brush kiya?...nahaya?...kya baat hain!....."
yuck : "arey kya re..kyon tum mera maarta hain har baar..."
just then PAGAL gets one of his fits..
Pagal : "areei...tum logon ne B.M. ka B.S. suna hain kya?"
madi : "arre bhai, yeh international short form kyon use karte hain be?"
Pagal (chuckles) : "B.S- Buffalo Soldier!..B.M toh tum logon ko pata hi hoga!"
me : "abey tereko chappel ka favorite ungli dekhna hain kya?"
Pagal : "B.M nahi pata!!..BOB MARLEY!"
whilst saying this pagal cocked his head to one side and shook it so vigourously that we thought it might fall off....saala Dev Anand ko heart attack aa jata....all of us groan...sumit is writhing with anger...(last night pagal was in his room for 2 hours)

Just then the door is flung open!...and standing in the door we recognise the silhoutte of non other than GV'aas'.....we brace ourselves for the inevitable onslought of abeein's....the legendary moustache is fluttering in the wind....and his face contorts into a habitually drastic grin as he recognises us...

what will happen?...will GV'aas' torture us again?...or will we succeed in getting a treat?...what about pagal khadey?....can we control ourselves and not kill him?...all the answers and more will be provided in the next post...

p.s. am going to pune for next 4-5 days...no posts will be made during these days....i dont mix business with pleasure....(watching babes in pune sure is a pleasure ain't it ;) )...untill next time...ciao

coMEDIAns

2006-11-23T20:55:00.005+05:30

Well the rains continue in goa and i haven't seen the sun in 3 days. So i have been watching t.v. amid the power cuts, and yesterday all the news channels were blaring out the misdeeds of one Mr. Rahul Mahajan. I mean giving news is one thing but going on and on about just one piece of crap?!!....'comon do some research, find some interesting bit of news to provide the viewers with....but no they just repeat the same stuff again and again. Aaj tak is the leader of the pack...the ticker on the channel says in bold letters 'Breaking news' and its been like that for 24 hrs!!....they try to sensationalize even the smallest of information and create a controversy where there is none.

This isn't just yesterday only....few months back for 2 straight days the channels wee covering aamir khan's wedding! Who gives a shit about where he is getting marries, which car he comes in, or where he is going for his honeymoon?....the electronic media has become a bunch of clowns...there are no morals left and there is no sense of social responsibility. I really disgusted by these news channels. Can you believe it, star news actually runs a daily show called saas bahu in which they show the goings-on of the saas-bahu serials on star tv!!....what crap!

I must say though that cnn-ibn does show some semblance of social responsibility whilst covering stories. The way they went about covering the reservation protests was really tasteful and done with good intention...lets see how long this responsible behaviour lasts though..

Rain Drain

2006-11-23T20:55:00.004+05:30

Oh man!...when will this rain stop?....it has been raining relentlessly for the past 2-3 days. I am couped up in my house, unable to go out, hang out with pals, and the frequent power cuts mean erratic online existence...ugh! this is getting irritating....
Last night i went out with my friends for a drive...it was pretty late and we decided to go to the village region on the outskirts of Margao city. It was a wonderful experience driving through heavy torrential rain, a couple of trees lay uprooted here and there and it was a good adventure for bored souls. We were driving through the paddy field, by now flooded with water and resembling small lakes. On the onset of monsoons in goa, there is sudden explosion in the population of Bull-frogs and people scamper through these paddy fields hunting bullfrogs...!Why?...well frog legs are an exotic delicacy in these parts of the world...(i haven't had the courage to partake of any though). Anyway we came across a group of jubilant youths who were marveling at the number of frogs they had caught and thought...what the heck! lets join these guys!
We rolled up our jeans and waded through the mucky waters to catch them frogs! And man were they huge!!...one was the size of my hand!...Wild eh?...Yeah! especially when now and then someone would spot a water snake sending shudders down my spine!.....came close to be bitten a couple of times myself!!...but i still live to tell the story....I only wish we had a camera to capture the fine moments of the adventure....oh yes, it was an adventure for me after being trapped inside the house for three days on the trot....it was quite a thrill!......one question to be answered though....Did i taste any of the frog-legs?....well it tastes just like chicken! So thats how the little adventure went...several details had to be skipped because of their graphic nature (read-the actual trapping and killing of the frog)

To continue the irritation....Da Vinci code has been banned in Goa....aaaahhh!! What crap!Looks like i will have to watch it on a cd.....sucks

Amusing Musings....

2006-11-23T20:55:00.003+05:30

Oh dash it! enough of all that serious crap i've been dishing out. This time i thought it would be nice not to talk about something in particular, instead i'll talk about anything and everything under the sun.

I just read in good 'ol times of india that the state government of Maharashtra is running a debt to the tune of Rs 1.2 lakhs...err sorry that is Rs 1.2 lakh Crores.
I was shocked...i mean its laughable really....here we are discussing reservation, equality and stuff when what we should be doing is pack our bags and get away from this place. After all Mumbai is economically the most advanced city in India. Some 'Maha' rashtra huh?....but the politicians must've tried their best, sadly their ploy of changing the name from Bombay to Mumbai didn't work. ;)

The ticket checkers(TC) of the indian railways are protesting against the railways' ad in which travellers are urged not to put up against corrupt TC's....poor guys...did you know that the average capacity of sleeper seats is 720 but the railways issues 800-1000 waiting list tickets?....and then when these guys board the train hoping that the TC will 'adjust' them somewhere.....who is to blame? By the way in a move that will delight all 'Indians' the ticket checkers association has decided that the TC's will allow all ticketless travellers on the train until the said ad is removed

Swaminathan Aiyar criticized the government with an observation that i whole heartedly agree with:-
"The present government is more into redistributing poverty than creating prosperity?"
I guess for that we should award the ruling party another term?

Poor Ajit Agarkar....when finally he showed some consistency, he was not considered in the test team.

Ok Ok i did not have anything in particular to talk about....so what? neither did any of the newspapers or channels....what do you expect me to write about?....the stock market?...ok next time then!! :P

Deservation for Reservation.......

2006-11-23T20:55:00.002+05:30

It would seem indecent--almost vulgar--if i refrained from commenting on the issue that has gripped our country for the past couple of weeks....the reservation fiasco.
I just read in the newspaper that the government has estimated a cost of Rs. 8,000 Crores towards expanding the capacity of the institutes so that the number of seats for open candidates remain the same despite reservation...as ripley would say-Unbelievable?....Believe it!

Coming to the core issue it is atrocious to suggest-as suggested by left parties-that there is no empirical evidence that reserved category candidates cause a reduction in the level of merit of an institute....well...a student with 90% cant get thru AIIMS but a category guy with only 60% gets thru....glaring evidence right there i would say...but surely the question was too paltry to even warrant an answer.

There is truth in the argument however that we should ensure oppurtunities are equally distributed even at the cost of merit(though not entirely neglecting the importance of meritocracy). For example i know a person who had to travel 5km by foot or bicycle to reach his high school in a village in Maharashtra, surely this person is deprived of equal oppurtunity, and if he doesn't score highly in entrance exams, does it mean he is a dumbass?....NO!

Well then how should we ensure both equality and merit?I have a suggestion to make....the distinction among applicants should be made not on the basis of castes but on the basis of wether the student has been brought up in an URBAN society or a RURAL one. This should be the only criterion. It is the rural population that really doesn't have the facilities and are deprived. Lower caste people in cities have all the facilities and equal oppurtunities as that of any other....after 50 years thats one thing that we have achieved.

I was waiting to see if someone else suggests a better solution. Considering the fanfare and the cost at which the beauraucracy fuctions in India, someone should have. But i guess this is a futile effort huh?.....what we say or discuss will not make an iota of difference to the politicians of our country.

Politics is searching for a problem, analysing it erroneously, and applying the wrong solution

Of Objectivism....

2006-11-23T20:55:00.001+05:30

I was going through a stack of old books at home to find some book worthwhile. I ended up picking The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. This will be the third time i am reading the masterpiece, and the amazing thing is the second time i took longer to finish it then the first and now, already, i have a feeling the third dialogue i have with the book will be longer than the second one. Each time i come across a subtle point i had overlooked in the previous read, i come to enjoy the concept of Objectivism which itself is put forward so subtely.....and viciously.

Objectivism is the concept of placing one's ego above everything (and everyone) else. To do only those actions that may result in betterment of your existence and that may eventually improve you productiviy....regardless of the effect on 'mankind' or 'society'. Every man should have a single goal in life and all his actions should work towards fufilling that goal. Horward Roark and Galt, the most popular heroes of Rand embody the concept of objectivism. So the naive will ask almost involuntarily "So that means i should be an objectivist?".
The person is naive because by asking that question itself he is not an objectivist. An objectivist follows no example, he himself is an example....(but if everyone is an objectivist there is no such thing :) ) The opposite of objectivism is come to be known as-quite expectedly at that-subjectivism. Sadly, majority of the world is subjective. Subjectivism breeds mediocrity, since subjectivity involves doing that, what the 'public' or 'society' may deem right. In such a scenario it is rather evident that the creator-the original thinker-will live, think, act only for himself, whereas the commoner-the parasite-will live, think, act for others. This is the current state of affairs in todays world. How does this breed mediocrity? Well the parasite can't think for himself, he breeds of others, hence creativity is diminished and we make do with what we have and do that what is expected of us.

So....what am i you ask?am i Roark or am i Peter Keating?

Peter Keating.......................oh most undoubteably.

2006-11-23T20:55:00.000+05:30

The film version of Dan Brown's blockbuster book The Da Vinci Code is also striking gold at the box office, taking in a staggering 224 million dollars during its opening weekend, the publication Screen International reported Monday.

That sum represents the second-biggest global launch in film history, just behind the 253.9 million dollars registered last year by Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.

According to the publication Variety, The Da Vinci Code was the biggest-ever launch earner outside the United States, with 147 million dollars, 2 million more than Star Wars III.

The film, which had a budget of 125 million dollars, opened in every international market except India and the Mideast.