It's been a good Weekend...

First of all a little fact about life at SP, we consider our weekends to be Wednesday night and Thursday (Thur is the only day off for us), but since the rest of the world still considers Saturday and Sunday as weekends, for their convenience I'll refer to them as such.

And this has been a good, wait scratch that out, excellent weekend.

To start of with, Man Utd got their rear ends handed to them on Friday night by Zenit St.Petersburg in the UEFA super cup. Which also proved what I told all those annoying Man U fans, who happened to be my roomates a year back, that without Cristiano Ronaldo, Man Utd is like the Apple portfolio without the iPod, big name with a lot of stature but absolutely no substance (I have reserved my judgement for the iPhone for later).

And then we had a quiz on ITB (IT in Business) on Saturday, which I managed to survive with absolutely no preparation. After that I was able to watch Arsenal return to their old self against Newcastle with a fab performance (it was like watching poetry in motion).

And then today I had an Operations Management mid-term which I yet again survived. And I also came to a very important realisation. The fundamental difference between a B-School and Engg is that the performance in a test is not directly related to the amount you study. Which suits me just fine!!!! I almost wanted to scream out "Im Lovin it!!!" after the test, but then realised best not to anger the almighty test Gods, who haven't been particularly kind to me this trimester. The icing(s) on the cake came when, Chelsea and Liverpool both drew, and just on a side note, Liverpool have now officially become the most boring football team on the planet. And those good for nothing snobs, AC Milan also got what they deserved, losing their first match of the season (no team has ever done well after stealing players from Arsenal).

Well now I'm off trying to study for my FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) Mid term tomorrow. Hopefully my good weekend will spill over to the week also.

Random Thought for the Day: "Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap, it won't be good. If it's cheap and good, it won't be fast. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick two words to live by. - Tom Waits

Cheers.

Arsenal and SP Rock

I had to Go away to Come Back.....

Well I am back! After a self imposed 3 month blogospheric exile, which was partially due to the fact that I had nothing to say and partially due to the fact that I was still adjusting to life in a B-School. But it took a really eventful trip, to a wonderful place to finally bring me back to my blog. The place we went to is this amazing but little known place called Anandwan.

Anandwan for those who don't know about is a small community, situated at a few hours drive from Nagpur. It was started around 1951 by Baba Amte as a refuge for lepers and other sections of the society who were treated by outcastes by the rest of the society. Today Anandwan spreads over 200 acres and houses 3500 people all of whom have been rejected by our so called 'normal' society. Yet these people run a self sufficient, self sustained community which is as good as an example of innovation and management that I have seen in a long while. The people at Anandwan have turned the barren land in the middle of nowhere into a fertile, well irrigated area which significantly outperforms the rest of the region in terms of agricultural productivity. Their industry is not limited to agriculture alone, they also have workshops where they manufacture all the various tools and implements that they need, include wheelchairs for lepers, which have come into high demand across the country. They also produce exquisite handicrafts, garments, beds, artistic wall hangings, greeting cards and much much more. In fact anything and everything needed in the colony (except salt and oil) is self generated. And you will be immediately struck by the serenity of the environment, and the greenery and cleanliness. And I was amazed by the amount of technical creativity that you could find in this place. One example was a dam used for water irrigation which was constructed by using discarded rubber tyres and reinforced by using waste plastic. They manufacture solid damage proof houses without any steel or timber and make slippers out of rubber tyres.

But what makes this place really amazing is the dedication of the people out there.We met a few members of the Late Baba Amte's family, who have dedicated their lives to their father's ideal and have even taken his cause further. Dr Vikas Amte, Baba Amte's son and now the head of the organization, is currently working in a small town of Yewatmal (an isolated forest area), looking for solutions to the problems of farmer suicides plaguing the area, through irrigation and rain water harvesting, with a team of only 100 men. The group of Anandwan have even extended their activities to nearby tribal areas to improve the poor living conditions there.

So why am I writing about all of this? It's because amongst all the amazing things that came out of Anandwan, what was also glaring was the fact that this incredible place is still mired in anonymity. And the fact is that the stigma associated with leprosy has ensured that these people who were treated as outcastes in 1951 are still treated the same. And worse still, in a nation where we are so quick to applaud and hail the so called miracle workers, we still have not begin to recognise the true workers, like the people at Anandwan. The politicians, the media, the corporates, everybody stays miles away from this place. And consider the fact that this is a place which has received international acclaim and awards, with several documentaries and business studies being done on it and it has been so grossly overlooked by our countrymen. The very fact that no one (myself included) I knew, had even heard of this place, shows how fickle minded a nation we truly are. So I come back to the point, why this post? I don't want to be over-dramatic and say that this place has inspired me to devote my life to social service, I don't know if I will ever have the courage for that. But I can at least do this one simple thing, spread the word about this place. At least let people know that in this insane, competitive world, we have a place ruled by humanity and compassion. So for all those who read this, please do me a favor, tell someone about this place, anyone, your friend, your neighbor, your family, whoever is the nearest to you. If you don't want to, direct them to this post. But tell them. This is an extraordinary place, which has been forsaken by our leaders, ignored by our media and abandoned by our society. At least lets give them the recognition they deserve. Who knows you might just lead the next bright social activist towards a great cause?

"If everyone cared and nobody cried,

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we'd see the day when nobody died" - Nickelback

Random Thoughts-1

It took me 3 trips to Landmark and 7 hours, but I finally finished Chetan Bhagats -"The 3 Mistakes of My life". And well truth be told it wasn't that bad a book. A neat package of religion, politics and cricket, Mr Bhagat sure knows what sells in India doesn't he, mixed together with his usual collection of youthful drama. One good thing i will say about Bhagat is that his characters have tended to become more mature with each book. Though his books could use a little more realism ( for instance why would the Australian government offer citizenship to a 13 yr old school boy, just because he might be a cricketing prodigy and as if Australian citizenship can be so easily given away). And finally for a book so attached to cricket, Chetan Bhagat shows a remarkable lack of knowledge about the game and has even got his facts wrong on a couple of occasions. Nonetheless I would say a timepass book (but then I did read it for free).

Sticking to cricket, the Super Kings (my fave team) have made it to the IPL semis at Mumbai Indians' expense.A terrific achievement considering that no team was hit as badly as Chennai by the mid series departure of the Aussies and Kiwis, and that a large portion of their success is due to the local talent in the team. Well all in all I would say its a fair result, the 4 most consistent teams made it to the Semis. As far as the Indians go, there is only word to describe them, Chokers, they have lost their last 3 matches in the final over of the game, twice due to sloppy fileding and bowling. All in all Lalit Modi and co must be delighted with the 1st edition of the IPL so far, its been closer than anyone could have asked for. Lets hope the Semis and Finals don't dissapoint.

In other happenings, I've started reading this book called "The 10 most Beautiful Experiments", a really good book so far, especially for science lovers, a lovely tribute to the ingeniuty of scientists. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in couple of more trips to Landmark.

Lastly, I heard the 2 new songs of Coldplay's lates album, "Violet Hill" and "Viva La Vida", and I cant wait for the full album to come out."Violet Hill" is probably one of Coldplay's best ever songs, and the the album seems to have a completely different sound to the typical Coldplay stuff.

Random Thought for the Day - "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. "

A Slap and a Slip..Not Great Sports But Lots of Entertainment

I saw the UEFAChampions League final last night, and the entire game could could have probably been summed up by the weather, started of bright enough but ended up becoming a damp squib,atleast in the footballing sense. But even though the match didn't make for the most classic of football matches it sure made for one hell of a TV Drama.


First of all to begin with, Roman Abramovich couldn't have asked for a venue to see his greatest dream come to fruition, to see his team win the greatest prize in European Football on his home turf must have been the ultimate dream. Then as the game began Cristiano Ronaldo was determined to prove his worth and boy did he do just that. Then came Frank Lampard's turn to add the masala to this game, a man who scored of the spot, days after his mother's death to get Chelsea here, got them the precious equalizer. From this point on it was more about dramatic little moments than the continous flowing good football. Chelsea who probably were lucky to go into half time level were probably unlucky to have not won the match outright. So onto extra time and the football got no better but the drama got more intense. John Terry, who only 2 weeks back was stretchered of the field with a broken arm, made one of the great saves of the day to keep Chelsea in the game. And then it really got fun..Didier Drogba goes and pulls of a combo of Zidane and Harbajan Singh..imagine this could very well be the last act Drogba pulls for Chelsea ( considering that he could have atleast smacked Ronaldo, he has one coming). So on to the finale and the man who put the ball in the back of the net 42 times from often incredible positions couldnt put it in from 6 yards out. You would think that was drama enough, but then John Terry goes from hero to villain in 30 minutes (kinda like those soaps) and his slip up (literally) cost Chelsea the champions league. And for the last act of this gripping drama it came down to two men, Ryan Giggs,who has played at the same Club for 16 years and Nicolas Anelka who has hardly spent more than a year at the same club. And ina fitting finale, it was the veteran who became Man Utd's highest capped player ever in this match, who scored what would be the winning penalty, and Roman Abramovich watched 13 million pounds go down the drain as Anelka condemned his team to fate aptly described by his nickname, The Sulk.


On the whole given that Man Utd had a tougher group and knockout fixtures, I hate to admit it, but they did deserve the trophy.

On a different note as an incredible season of European football come to an end, I cant help but say that this has been possibly the best season of football I have witnessed. For the first time 4 leagues in Europe (England, Italy, France and Scotland) all were decided in the last game of the season, and we had one of the best Champions league competitions in quite a while, an utter unknown Zenit St. Petersburg, picked up the UEFA cup, thrashing the mighty Bayern Munich along the way. Add to that Milan didn't make it to next years Champions League, Valencia had to stave of relegation and of course who could forget England being knocked out of the Euro qualifiers. But my favorite tournament of the year had to be the FA cup, the oldest tournament in the world provided the most drama of any competition across Europe, consider the likes of Havnt and Waterlooville a team which doesn't even play in a professional league, taking on Liverpool at Anfield and taking the lead not once but twice, Barnsley knocking out Liverpool and Chelsea, and Portsmouth who knocked out Man Utd, going on to become the first team out of the Big 4 to win the competition in 13 years.

What a season of football, with the European Championships just around the corner, it's still not over, and in the spirit of football, I will be rooting for Switzerland or Croatia to pull of a big upset and lift the championship.

Immigrant Song

Sorry to disappoint any rock fans (who might have picked up on the reference) but this post is not about the classic Led Zep song, rather it is about the tune most politicians seem to be whistling nowadays. Illegal immigration has become the mantra of any politician who wants to create a stir. Just a couple of weeks back the Italian Prime Minister during his campaign speech, promised to rid his country of the "Army of Evil" that is the illegal immigrant population of Italy, strong words coming from a man who is famous for his Mafia ties and whose football club was docked points for match fixing. Immigration is one of the hottest issues in the US presidential elections, particularly with the Republicans. Closer to home, who can forget Raj Thackeray's outbursts against immigrants from within his own country. Basically it seems that the easiest way to stir up the voters is by telling that there are evil men who come from lands unknown and take away their food, money and jobs and are responsible for all the crimes committed against them. And somehow it seems to work, look at the actions of the people in Mumbai, they actually had to name their IPL team the Indians as a response in solidarity, almost as if the feeling of being an Indian was being lost, or consider the fact that t 1 in 8 Italians fear immigrants ( a number which was 1 in 20 less than 5 years ago) , and McCain's popularity with the Republicans soared when he supported strong anti-immigration measures. Why is that all of a sudden there is this outrage against immigrants ?
Now consider the facts , the largest crime syndicate in Italy is the Mafia, which of course does not comprise of immigrants ( another interesting bit of info - southern Italy which is dominated by the Mafia is the most economically backward section of Italy) , the American economy is in the crapper because of a useless war and a housing bubble, neither had anything to do with immigrants and as far as Mumbai is concerned, the city would be nothing if not for the immigrant population, for instance what would have happened if the Ambanis had been denied entry into Maharashtra. The fact also is that these immigrants do the most menial jobs which the local population of any place would never touch. I mean think of it, these people wash toilets, clean houses, sit on roadside stalls in the middle of summer for a meagre living and yet it is these luxuries which politicians want to take away. I guess people just find it easy to blame someone else for their problems, especially if that someone happens to be completely different from them.
And somehow I don't understand the outrage against immigration. Think about it, if I was born in Bombay, Bangalore or New York and not some war torn part of Croatia, an African Desert or a village in Bihar, then its just my good fortune. I have absolutely no right to deny anyone else the same opportunity that I've had. Most immigrants are people who leave hopeless old lives behind, just to be able to survive, I mean nobody wants to leave their home for the heck of it.
Also anti-immigration is just pure selfishness, basically we don't want to share what we have, for instance the Americans use 25% of world resources for 4% of its population and yet they are concerned about immigrants, I mean given the amount of resources they use, they should probably accommodate more people. Also most local population were immigrants at some point of time, the oldest Americans themselves are illegal immigrants.
In an ideal world everybody would be born equal, with the same opportunities available to all, but that isn't the case. The oppprtunities you have depend a lot on the circumstances you were born into, and I guess everybody has the right to seek opportunity wherever it lies and just because we have doesn't mean we can deny it to others. And again most places are better of for immigrants , take the Mughals for instance, what would Indian culture, art and literature have been without them, or the impact which the Irish and Italians have had on USA. Eventually I hope people realise that migration and immigration are what make the world tick. I would end with a quote from the song which gave this post its title -
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite all your losing. " - Led Zeppelin, Immigrant Song

Creative Writing 101

I dont think much of myself as a writer, atleast not in the creative sense, but I find that creative writing is one of the most amazing talents a person can have. So for the benefit of all the budding creative writers in the world (atleast the ones reading this) I'll put up this piece that I came across on the web (Stumbling Upon it as usual). In this ,Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, gives his take on creative writing, in the form of 8 basic rule of creative writing, which he calls Creative Writing 101, apart from being informative, it's a really good read also :

The 8 basics of Creative Writing, according to Kurt Vonnegut

1)Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2)Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3)Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4)Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

5)Start as close to the end as possible.

6)Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7)Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8)Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

My Mind Boggling Adventure

As, the delirium and euphoria of getting into SP Jain just begins to wear out and the fear and paranoia, of how I am going to survive a B-School after 4 years of utter lethargy in VIT during my B.Tech, begins to creep in, I have decided to take a look back at the last 10 months of my life, spent trying to capture the holy grail -admission into a good B-School, which have perhaps been the most harrowing days of my life. Worse than the years before my 10th Board exam when everyone kept telling me how the 1st big exam would shape my life for eternity and beyond, worse than 12th when all I would hear was - " Work hard for few months and the rest of your life will be easy", ya that was one whole load of crap. It was especially harder because after coasting through a B.Tech degree for 3 years, I had to face the unfamiliar task of working hard again (now I know why B-Schools prefer work-ex guys). So here are the basic phases of my MBA (Mind Boggling Adventure), others who have gone through this might be able to associate with it:
Phase I- Starting Line - Utter bewilderment and confusion
This phase involves the whole pre-preparation thing, finding out about the whole B-School process, the myriads of tests, the colleges, the coaching institutes, the test series' and all the other crap that there is. To top it of you find bozos in your college who have been preparing for the past 2 years and all of a sudden your scared out of your wits, wondering whether it isn't already too late. And your TIME and IMS and the ilk dont help either, I mean who the hell starts a 2 year prep course for CAT. Eventually you find a path through the confusion, and decide what need to be done, only to discover the hard part is yet to come.

Phase II - The Marathon or the Sprint (Depending on the path you choose)
This is where all the hard work really kicks in, whether you choose to work for 6 months or 2 years this is the slog fest. And for me it meant weekly shunts from college to home for weekend classes (I couldn't get a crash course in Vellore), 8 hour classes and a rapid succession of practice tests (each one more detrimental to your confidence than the previous). This phase also involves encountering the barrage of applications which you need to fill in order to even write the test. I mean would it kill the B-Schools of this country to subscribe to just one test. Add to that the fact that you have to buy a form for every god damned college means a seriously heavy work load and a significantly lighter pocket. All in all a serious work out prepping you for the big push. Adding spice to this whole scenario, is the whole competitive thing, who's working how hard, and hows the competition like in your vicinity. Again, there are some people who will scare the wits out of you with their hard work, I mean were people like these just put on Planet Earth to make life scarier for the normal people!

Phase III- The Obstacle Course
Well this is crunch time part 1, which decides if you stay in the game or not. This is where you have to go through your various obstacles called, CAT, XAT, SNAP, FMS and any other abbreviation you can find ( pick any 3 or 4 letter abbreviation, the odds are there will be some test in India of that name). And of course as usual we have people trying to complicate things further, strategy, final prep tips, how many pencils to carry to the exam, what breakfast you have on the exam day, to pee before the exam starts, were all things people (mostly belonging to the coaching instis) felt were paramount to your success and the difference between life death (in the B-School Race). I would like to believe that a guy who's going to be earning 10-15 lakhs in2 years time (if all goes well) would know that he needs a extra pencil or two, without somebody having to tell him that. And some how if you manage to keep your head and give a decent shot at the exam, you are obliged to go through those answer keys which come out immediately after the exam, and again no 2 answer keys are ever the same are they. Again its my understanding that if you are taking 20000 from a student you at least make sure you give him a correct answer key. And the worst part is if you fall in one of those neither here nor there categories i.e haven't done phenom ally well, and not bad enough to be completely out of the running, then you begin to sweat it out, desperately waiting for the results, hoping that a particular answer key (the one which gave you a higher score) is right while the others be damned. All in all you are the left to wait doing nothing, and just hoping that your performance in one test doesn't affect the others (like it did to me).This is perhaps the only time i would agree with Morgan Freeman in Shawshank redemption -"Hope can be a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane".

Phase IV- Hurdles
So, if all things go well and you are able to survive all the crap that come before and by some good fortune you are able to get a few good calls, then its time to sit through the hell of GD/PI, not that the experience is in itself that bad (except when you have a 70 yr dude telling you that the you that youngsters like me listening to Rock and Roll are ruining this country's cultural heritage),but its the whole aspect of your future depending on a 15 minute chat with a bunch of men looking to kick your ass (figuratively speaking). And the thing is that unlike a test you never know here you stand (makes you wish they had answer keys for GD/PI too). And it becomes that much worse when you get one reject while preparing for another interview ( I got a SIBM reject before my MDI and IMT interviews), it totally messes with your confidence, its like trying to jump a hurdle and hitting your foot the way down, you're never sure how you will fare with the remaining hurdles. And the sheer volume of thoughts flying through your brain after an interview, about how it went, what went right, what went wrong, where you screwed up, what you could have said, what you should not have said , can drive you absolutely crazy. And then there is the waiting, the damn waiting, keeping your fingers crossed, hoping, praying, checking the net every single day, its absolutely excruciating. But eventually the waiting, the praying, is all worth it when you get an acceptance into a great college, its worth the trouble, its the ultimate prize for surviving this difficult journey. And for some of you who are still fighting on, not having reached their dream, I'll quote form Shawshank Redemption again -"Remember .., hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things".

So why are we put through this hell, I guess it is because its the single toughest course in maturity, learning the hard way, boys to men, call it whatever you will, its the only thing which prepares you for the actual challenge, the really tough adventure, life in a business world which, I'm looking for to with dread and anticipation.
So don't you think the story above justifies the title-mind boggling, and the really scary part is that the ride is just starting!!!