Resume Forgery

Well, I didnt want to write this, but then I couldnt stop myself. More than a week back, I made a visit to the printer room in the Student Village to pick up my assignment and then I found a resume lying there. Our of curiosity, I picked it up and started reading it. To my surprise, there were some unwarranted claims.

These claims were part of this person's achievements during his time at the ISB. It was just shocking to me. I never expected this.

It was during Solstice that one of the Alumni gave a presentation on what all people would do and he also touched upon the resume aspect. He told that people would claim insane stuff and nobody can do anything about it. Its all dependant on personal integrity and honesty. he also gave an example where one person had worked with a finance firm on some Private Equit related excel sheets and then he wrote on his resume that he had started a Private Equity Centre of Excellence for the firm. Thats the extent to which people go. He ended that topic with a note - If you take your resume to your previous manager and show it, he should not have any problem. And he was sure that more than 90% of the batch cannot do it because they tend to make such claims.

Fine, sometimes resumes have to be written like that to impress recruiters. I am not worried about what you did in your previous job. I dont think I can validate whatever you claimed you did in your job. Its impossible. In fact, to be frank, I myself have used high frequency words to make my achievements sound great. So, in all probability I would fail that test too. But, then what about your claims while at ISB. Thats effin nonsense on so many resumes I have seen till now.

Lets take the Innovation Challenge that happened sometime back. I can take this example becos ISB had 42 teams participating and thats more than half the batch. Some people have quoted stuff like - winner among 440 schools worldwide, and then some more gas, while they had just qualified to being in the top 50 under a single category. Mind you, there were 5 categories and each category had 88 teams. only the top two teams from each category made it to the final. and in that 10, there were two ISB teams. So, ideally, only those people can claim to be finalists. Rest were all just people who qualified from the first round. And these are some things that happen right in front of you and stuff you can actually authenticate without asking anyone else.

Next is the Experiential Learning Programme which is like the summer project. a good number of people just applied to the project and got it without any interview. and then there were some who got their own projects. And these people claim stuff like - i got selected among 420 people for this project. thats totally ridiculous. nobody competed for your project. it was just your group that applied for the project and how can you say that you had a competition and you got selected through an elimination?

its so frustrating. i never knew that people would go to such an extent to get a fat paying job. they say that the recruiter can see through your resume and separate the truth and fart. i really dont think so.

but yes, you cannot blame the system or the recruiter for this one. what can they do. they are here for people and they believe that the resumes are genuine. its just us - the student community who is to be blamed. and i am writing all this after looking at less than 5 resumes. if i see another 50 then i'd probably pack my bags and get out of this place.

Solstice 2006

Last weekend was Solstice 2006 - reunion for our alumni. It was the long weekend and a good number of alums were here. Almost 200 I guess. The mood of Solstice was set in right from the beginning of the week with some of us preparing for informalz events. Then I did some shopping for the Christmas tree - I guess I have talked about it one of my previous posts. Students Life Council had already put up Christmas trees in all the student villages. We still had our tree to put up. Finally, we put up our tree in the dining hall, safe from the troublesome evening winds.

As people started trickling in, the students got busy catching every other alum who was free on campus to give resume tips. So, at any point of time, you always found a current student with an A4 sheet printed on one side - thats the resume guys, showing it to the alum, whoever it may be and asking for his opinion. That went on for the next two days I would say. It never stopped.

Friday evening and post dinner time - there was a small presentation by one of the alums on preparing for placements with the do's and dont's. although i dont remember a lot about the presentation, i am quite sure that it was an eye opener for a lot of people here. well, if you are a pragmatist, then it doesnt really bother you too much. but for a lot of wannabe consultants and i-bankers, the presentation really showed that they need to take everything ahead with a pinch of salt.

come saturday morning, we had the inaug. it went off quite well with senior members of the management addressing the founding batch. towards the end, i delivered the vote of thanks. as usual, my vote of thanks was as fast as i played the frisbee game. afternoon, we had the tug of war and the boat race. then we left everyone on their own to catch up with their friends and batchmates. this was a lot better than what had happened during the last time when they had melas and activities throughout the day. the alums liked the loosening up bit when they just had the time to laze around and get to talking with each other.

the evening party was perhaps the highlight. like it happens in every solstice. although we tried our hard to change the mindset of all the people who attend solstice - typically solstice is considered as an all booze party and people just get drunk and do nothing else. this time, we tried to change this attitude. but we werent a bit successful. during the evening party, it was free booze and alcohol was flowing all through. this party was perhaps the longest - it went on till 6.30AM.

nothing much happened on sunday. people were just bidding adieu and finding their ways back to the workplace grind.

so that was solstice for all the readers. there's still ISB Radio to talk about and perhaps many other things that just dont strike my mind right now.

PS: I got totally drunk during Solstice Party - free booze, so why not. They had this SHOTS Counter. It was something new. The Students had put a lot of work and prepared a variety of drinks. So I decided, why not try them and then i kept on trying!! That was awesome....

Strange New Year Wish

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great and necessarily greater than any other country and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wished.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Now you know

You saw that song on MTV, Channel V and every indian music channel almost everyday and you definitely liked the way it resonated in your mind. Listen to this one...

Bells, Ornaments and Tinsel Gardens

It's Christmas time. Another two days to go and we are celebrating Christmas on campus. Oh yes, we are a bit early this time. Of course, the students of ISB celebrate festivals according to their schedule. Well, we had to time a gala event along with the Alumni reunion that is happening over the weekend and then we decided - why not keep the reunion with the christmas theme.

so today was christmas shopping day. i have always like shopping. oh, i am a bit different. i like to shop, not unlike others who complain about going to shop. i have spent most weekends in london shopping for stuff that i want. and i have spent hours shopping for clothes. even though today's shopping experience was very christmassy, i still enjoyed it, but for the heavy traffic and the noise pollution caused by the horns.

christmas at london used to be fun. atleast 15 days before christmas day, canary wharf used to be full of decorations and the whole place used to glitter with the mood of christmas. there used to be groups of very pretty women playing western classical music. i used to spend about 30 mins listening to them on my way back to the train station. everything used to be red and green - right from the Coca Cola bottle in the Tesco's to the decorations at the citibank cafe. the best part was the christmas lunch that citi served at the cafe - turkey and venison. it dinn matter much to be coz i was a vegetarian. but it was fun - bursting small crackers, reading out jokes and having hot christmas pudding!!!

so we decided that we needed to buy bells, streamers, and other hangings for the tree. all of this took about 4 hours and during this time, i was introduced to the real hyderabad. we began from general bazaar in secunderabad and went on till all the bazaars in the muslim areas in old hyderabad. i came back tired. the taxi ride all the way back to campus was the most dangerous and bone-cracking experience i have had in the last few months.

its 3am now, and in between this, i had my dinner, joined my friends at the nearest pizza hut for a quick bite and masala lemon juice. then drove till the airport. on the way stopped at a barista thinking that it was open and then stood outside the parking lot to spend a few minutes talking about totally unproductive stuff like girlfriends.

the next day is a very long day. three continuous classes and perhaps other things to do as well - esp. for the alumni reunion thats coming up over the weekend.

A pick on the US of A

While critics decry the United States' current brand of military and economic imperialism as dangerously unprecedented, great powers have been throwing their weight around like schoolyard bullies since St. Augustine's time. This playful but pointed cartoon shows that while Uncle Sam has been an especially bad apple of late, he's following a pattern of bad behavior which goes back decades.

Why Finance jobs?

Goldman Sachs last week reported the most profitable year ever for a Wall Street investment banking institution, with total revenues of $33bn, around half that amount set aside for pay and benefits to staff. It emerged this week that the bank, which has enjoyed a record year, would be paying bonuses of unprecedented magnitude to its 4,500 employees in the capital. With £9bn to share around the world - an increase of 40 per cent from 2005, itself an exceptional year - the average employee here will receive £319,000. And that average includes everyone. High-fliers will receive between £3m and £10m; one or two are rumoured to be in line for £50m.

Market sources say Morgan's chief executive, John Mack, could collect as much as £20m in stock options for 2006. Goldman Sachs's chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, could be in line for compensation exceeding £25m, and analysts say other chief executives, such as James Cayne of Bear Stearns and E Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, could get £20-£25m or higher.

Creativity and business

the creative director of Leo Burnett, KV Sridhar, was here to talk to us about his views on advertising. it was a two hour talk, very poorly attended. during the talk mr.sridhar himself mentioned to us that during his last visit, the lecture theatre was full.

well, blame it on placements - will you? but even before the placement buzz knocked on the students, most lectures were poorly attended. so you cant blame today's poor attendance on this single aspect. maybe there's some other reason or just that most people are just too lazy to move those cheeks.

the whole thing is so skewed and mysterious. we've had great people who have contributed to changing the face of the indian economy and then just 20 people turn up to listen to them. so whats the deal? nobody knows.

one thing i have noticed is that people rush in herds to listen to consultants from the mckinsey's and bcg's of the world. does that give any clue?

coming back to creativity and advertising, we should know that advertising is all about exploiting the minds of the consumer. if you dig deeper, then you'll realise that most advertising themes are lifted directly from events that happened in a person's life. right from Persil that said "dirt was good" to coca cola kept inside the well, its all about incidents that happened in your childhood, teenage and the later stages in your life.

then there is also this concept of connecting it with the audience. jackie chan in a bajaj ad looked like a chowkidar, but lalithaji in the surf ad was just like our mom.

ads also have to be changed according the changing trends, that is, it should reflect the mindset of the current generation. for example, we cannot use the same 15 yr old liril ad in which the bikini clad girl was dancing in the waterfall. with that lets have a look at the new liril ad. i had never seen this ad before. but when i saw it yesterday, i was surprized and thrilled. the ad was quite interesting. its based on the live-in relationships that we currently see in films or amongst friends. something like the hum-tum or salaam namaste.

Interview Prep begins at the Quad

Well, we've heard of "Charity begins at home". The latest thing at ISB is Consulting interview prep. So, we have this new one-liner "Consulting interview prep begins at your quad". everywhere, someone or the other is preparing with a team of people for consulting interviews. there are so many groups that are interested in the run up for the interviews in february that all group rooms and lecture theatres are full every other day. and out of necessity and enthusiasm to reach the pinnacle, people have started meeting in the quad. they are trying the idea of working in an informal setting and still achieving extraordinary results.

there are almost 50 jobs that students here can make in the consulting arena. and yes, atleast 300 people are making that big fight for the coveted jobs.

on the other hand, the round 1 results are out. i have seen some 70 odd emails today on the isb-pgp yahoogroups about people congratulating each other. more than 90% of the profiles are: 700+ gmat, 4-5 yrs experience on average, worked with one of the big IT firms, went abroad for a while. bottomline: did the same damn shit that most people in the current batch did. that accounts for almost 50% of the batch.

well guys, this fact cannot be denied that the IT guys occupy half the seats in any batch. and that stems from the fact that the number of applicants from the IT industry is to the tune of 100 per top IT company. so even the admissions office cannnot do much. and thats the reason why almost 50% of the jobs that people get from this place is in IT.

future applicants - for example, its not easy for someone with an IT background to make a shift to finance. thats the fact. in fact, its extremely tough and be prepared for the challenge. from what i see, the current batch is trying to position itself as a consulting savvy batch.

the companies that pay filthy unimaginable salaries take a maximum of 2 people. most people end up with the milkround recruiters and what they pay is somewhere near the last year average salary. some say its even lesser.

and i have seen that its next to impossible to make a complete career shift in a less than one year programme. you can argue with me that some people have made the shift. well, thats like a countable few and in a batch of more than 400 people its one or two percent.

Eastgate Harare

The Eastgate centre at Harare in Zimbabwe is a shopping and office complex. The speciality of this place is its natural ventilation concept. there are no big glasses and hence no huge investment to run air conditioners all day. you might imagine how this has been possible in a place like harare which has a tropical climate and is lying on the equatorial belt.

well, the architect Mick Pearce did not think so. Harare being in the tropics, still has an altitude advantage. hence, he made use of passive cooling to maintain air conditioning. obviously all of this has been lifted from wikipedia and you can read up more on the centre from the website.

the fact of the matter is frames again. if Mick had approached the problem of building the centre like any other architect, then he would not have had this idea. but when there was a constraint with the running costs, this made him think wild and his frame changed and this idea came up.

we are still talking frames in the managerial decision class and i come across many examples often and i will keep sharing the same here.

Mercer was here today - another consulting firm. it seems they indicated in their ppt today that they do not follow the McKinsey way of UP or OUT. this relieved a lot of people who were attending the talk. as usual applications for this would also cross the 200 barrier. its been a month since this started and still people are not sure where they want to go and what they want to do. in fact, i know people who have applied to every role from fixed income, marketing, pharma sales, research, IT and management consulting in the last one month.

this is one side and now i imagine how US schools are so successful without having spoon-fed placements. coming to think of that, i wonder why we have a placement week in indian schools and why is it such a big thing only here. 90% of schools abroad and even the best ones do not have 100% placements on the last day of school and they are not even bothered. they are still doing well. and here we have this thing in our mind about placements as the eternal. everybody on campus is talking about companies and jobs - nothing else. the courses have been forgotten. its now about new strategies - interview preparation strategies and strategic resume building. i cant imagine i managed to use the dirty cliched word.

Whose Frame is it Anyway

Today we had an interesting class in the Managerial Decision Making course. We were still talking about frames. Yes, we did not get any far. Its been a marathon on frames for last three classes. But its been a lot of fun.

We came up with criteria for measuring success. Btw, it was during the class that I got to know about criteria. Criteria and criterion are greek words i believe and are some of the few words that are part of the english language. and then i started drifting a bit. we were talking about latin and then my mind travelled to vatican city, where the official language of the Church is Latin. And yes, the pope and his family of bishops and other people are the very few who are still in touch with the latin language. for everyone else, its still greek and latin.

So, we had to come up with criteria for measuring success of a poilitican. Some of the few that were discussed in class today, after the 10 minutes that was given to us to prepare for the same, were: family succession measured by whether my son or daughter entered politics, loyalty - number of parties switched, dollar value - swiss bank accounts and properties, power - people under your control and then things like that.

and then came the japanese airline pilot who had landed a few miles off the landing strip somewhere on the west coast in the US and ended up in shallow waters. well, the story goes that he had miscalculated the lenght of the landing strip by about 3.5 miles and then made a safe landing into the sea. there wasnt any problem absolutely whatsoever. nobody was hurt, not even scratched, not even wet. on further investigation, it was heard that the pilot claimed to his fame - "I have flown all the way from Tokyo to San Francisco and have just missed by 3.5 miles". so, here we get to compare the frame of the pilot and the owner of the airline.

Google was here on campus yesterday. It was a sleepy afternoon and their presentation also started late. I was quite bored after what I heard from them. It seemed like everyone would go thru the same interview process no matter what role you applied for. still people had so many questions and guess what - this time, the guys from google were highly appreciative of the questions that the students asked. dont know if they'd conveyed an ironic message though. but yes, most roles are not very clear, not even to the people who are offering the roles. but thats the fun i guess in such innovation based organizations. people usually dont know what they want from the others. they just know what kind of people to recruit. then all work happens on the entreprenuerial and creative pursuits of the individual. that must be fun, aint it?

High-Tea Today

Nothing much has changed in the last few days. I was out of campus in Madras attending a wedding in the family. Two days of non-stop activity in the hall meeting friends and relatives. At the end it was like a hangover. Only today feels like I have gotten over it and come back to the typical ISB lifestyle.

And I had 100 emails to look at. You thought I did. Never. I just gave a cursory glance and deleted them. Thats all.

The fifth year celebrations are coming to an end today evening. There's a song and dance concert today and i think its going to be amazing. More about that when I finish watching the program. To incentivize the students who usually never turn up for any porganized program on campus, there is high tea being served.

That reminds me of the 30 odd emails that I had received in the two days i wasnt here about asking ppl to attend the logistics conference. the biggest names in the indian industry were here and my great mba friends were busy yapping and doing other things. and then some come and tell me that they werent informed beforehand. so again, there is this huge expectation of being spoon-fed for anything and everything - right from placements to whatever you name it. cant anyone go and check the website on their own. you think you have to be told for each and everything!! it was so ridiculous to hear such comments. total display of immaturity.

so that was it there. i happened to read today that carlsberg is planning to enter the indian market. its been a long time since i had a good beer. all the indian beers are so bitter. i'd say - they totally suck. the belgian beers are excellent and i guess they dont want to come here. the danish one - carlsberg has shown some interest. hopefully, in a few years time, we will have this brand floating in the market. generally, the per capita consumption of beer in this part of the world is very poor. i wonder why!! people had turned western in so many other things, but the beer culture is still not there, which is a bit saddening. i hope there is a boom like whats happening with the IT industry.

Mr and Mrs Job (Panic)ker

Jobs, jobs and jobs - thats all what is there on everyone's mind now. The run up to the placements has started now. Well, it had begun much before for some people who had planned it properly. But now, the whole batch has suddenly picked tremendous pace and is going for the kill in a very big way.

The McKinsey's were here. They had very long case interview (they call it something like that) session for everyone. It was just the day before ILS, the flaghsip event of the students. I said **** it, I am going to work for the event. Almost 200 people had attended the case workshop that went on for about 5 hrs. Atleast thats what I heard.

So, whats the result. From what I heard from reliable sources, some people believe that there is a set procedure to attack a case interview and they wanted to know what it was in the right order. then they would just mug it up and crack all the cases. whooaah!! isnt that just thrilling. is that what it takes to be in McKinsey or BCG or whatever.

then there were a few who wanted to know the answers for - how many questions to ask (the exact number) the interviewee? should i start asking questions right from the beginning or should i put my views? should i sit beside the interviewee or sit opposite to him? how often should i have eye contact? how do i have eye contact and write down notes at the same time?

well, thats the state of whats happening here. people have gone crazy and now, they cant even think on their feet. something's crept into their minds about the consulting jobs that they have totally lost it. after all, only 40 people are going to be shortlisted for the interviews and all 40 of them will be the toppers of the batch, which they call the dean's listers. maybe there will be a few others, 2 or 3, and they'd be exceptions. 200 others are just going to get dinged.

my friend had mentioned in one the case sessions that our batch lacks maturity. that is actually true. people have gone to the level of calling up/emailing recruiters to consider their resumes for interviews. in one PPT, some who wanted to create the "impression", went up to the recruiter and repetitively told them about their need for the job. coming to whats insane - i heard that people have floated the resume of the respective spouses too!!!

thats the sad situation here. and i dont think this can be controlled at all. this will continue and it will explode during the placement week. and i am just waiting for that.

Dont apply and you'll still get an interview call

The 6th term has started with a bang. I have one class on the Monday series and three on the Tuesday series. The three classes are back to back - with just a 15 minute break between every class. So much to read for every class, its just a killer. And today was the trial - I mean the first day with three classes in a row. Right from the first class, I started falling asleep. I couldnt stay awake. I dont know whether its my fault or the Prof's. Aint it important for every Prof to keep his students interested? you may call it a flawed argument. i can accept that too. it also important for every student to stay awake and not depend on the prof to keep a tab over him. but you know, it cant be helped. im sure that once the assignments start flowing in, the class will be the single most preferred location to have a nap.

International job short lists are coming out almost every week. Surprisingly, there are people who get short lists for the wrong jobs (apply for one and get called for the other). To add more fuel to the fire, there are people who are getting short listed without even applying for any job advertised by the company. The ignorant few spend hours over the job postings trying to find out which one fits their experience and interest, then spend few more hours writing an Expression of Interest for that particular job they narrowed down to. Then they customize their resume so that it sounds a bit relevant.

After they do all they can do best to get that short-list, they get called for a role for which they did not have any interest. Here, its the interest of the company that they found the applicant suitable for a role. So, where is the respect for my choice? Am I not being treated like a fool.

The next big joke is about people who get short-listed when they didnt even think about applying for a company. The company has access to the resume handbook of all the students. Fair enough, I dont say that you are not allowed to look at the handbook. But why shortlist people who didnt even apply for the job?? As a matter of fact, its very clear that if a person did not apply for a job posting, it means that he did not like the job. Thats it. Whats the purpose of farting(read writing) an Expression of Interest and a resume, if all you wanted to do was use the handbook?

Well, thats the state of affairs these days and its like this with just one company every week on campus. I am just imagining what kind of a screw-up this whole process will be during the placement week in february, when more than 15 companies come every day.

Given all this, I still havent lost hope. I will get some job. After all, the ultimate goal is to make sure that students get some job. Its not important that they get the job they like. Aint it?

Strictly come sleeping

An awesome video of all the people who were sleeping in class. Compiled by Ruchi, Sriram and Jagjit in Section-C, this captures those wonderful moments in Class right from the beginning of this year. I quite happy that most of the pictures that I have taken of sleeping children are part of this video.

Now, you guys enjoy the video.




Many Thanks to my Nokia 6230i

10Km in 46.31minutes

I'd managed just about 5 hours of sleep. Got up at 4 in the morning and prepared myself for the big running event in the city - The Hyd 10K. With everything under control, we left campus at 5.45am.

There were so many people who registered, collected the T-shirts and didnt turn up at all. if any of you jackasses are reading this, then please note that you didnt even have the courtesy to write back to me to let me know that you wouldnt be coming.

anyway, we didnt have to bother much. so we reached the starting point well before time and after all the hungama for the run, it all began at 7.30am. the weather was just right for a good run and i started off. from the beginning i maintained good pace - somewhere around 10.5kph to 11kph. my ankle and knee had started giving trouble right from the first kilometer, but then that sheer enthusiasm to run with everyone and reach the finish line, although it was 9kms away, was still a great motivation.

as we ran on the road surrounding the lake, the smell of waste - natural and undigested, was just killing me. that was perhaps a driver to run faster, in order to get away from the worst parts of the road to find a section of the road that was comfortable enough to run. and did that happen? NEVER!!! more than 90% of the circuit boasted of the same conditions.

happily completed 5 kms in 25 mins. then came the toughest part - the next 5. i pushed myself between 5 and 6. then took a small water break for about 2 secs. i took another break towards the 8Km line. then it was time to look towards the finish line. i was doing better by one minute and a few seconds than the usual time. and then i saw the finish line. about half a Km was remaining. i knew it was going to be tough. people were finishing before me and there were about 10 people running in front of me.

with all the energy that was remaining, i just started sprinting, went past the 10 ppl and finished by 46mins and 31 secs.

three others from ISB had finished much earlier than I had - between 35 and 40 mins. they'd just sprinted right from the beginning. that was awesome. and the best part was, everyone who had come today finished the run in less than 1 hr and 15 minutes.

i am back - tired, terribly tired. classes starting tomorrow - another killer term. right now there is zero interest for whats in store tomorrow. god save me.

Dayz Flying By

Another day and the term break is over. Time is literally flying. I had only one take home exam to turn in for this term and that took my time, almost till the last minute. I had a deadline of 5pm and I sent out my answers to the Prof at 4.45pm. While I had more than 5 days to do the damn thing, I started it on the last day, struggled for a few hours and then rushed into completing it by the last few minutes. So thats whats been happening always and i guess it will for some more time. the questions were so damn confusing that even with all the non-living material that we were allowed to search, we cudnt arrive at a conclusive answer. that was the state of affairs for a mathematics based IT course.

after that we had our project review - another big joke. in less than a month, we have another review of our project. most of us havent been able to reach our targets in the last one month. the last term - the first elective term has been literally crazy. with fewer exams and more regular assignments, we've just become super crazy and confused people. We had to make resumes and EOIs for job postings, attend seminars, PPTs and what not. And then we have this presentation to our peers - i dont know whats the purpose for this, but its during the term break forcing people to stay back and attendance being one of the most important components for a no class course like this, it has just irritated a lot of people around me. i think, we need to go over this in a detailed manner - perhaps devote a post for this.

and tomorrow's the HYD 10K marathon, for which i have gone mad getting people to collect their T-Shirts from me. less than 6 hours to go for the run, I definitely need a good sleep today.

still need to write about the EVAM play that happened today. hopefull should find some time tomorrow.

Interview Saga

The first round of interviews for the next batch is almost over now. The last few left are people in Hyderabad and the International Applicants. So, in the yahoogroups called isb-pgp, which is a forum where prospective applicants interact with the current batch, the latest thread for discussion is about the interviews.

People post their experience of the interview they had and then the others take a little bit of liberty to make good or bad comments.

right now, some frustrated souls have decided to have their take on the Interview Process. If you are part of thw group, then you should definitely follow this thread called the "Interview Saga".

one view-set is like: ISB is right now just doing brand building, the alums have not created a niche for themselves, its only about getting good placements, after all its an Indian B-School.

--> Dude, the school is 5 yrs old and in the last five yrs, the growth path the school has had is a zillion times better than any other B-School in India, given the fact that most other good schools survive on government funds. The Alums from this School are perhaps the most experienced lot when put together with all students entering B-Schools in any given year. And the kind of companies that come to get experienced people here NEVER go to the other schools in India. If you said, its all about placements, well then, how many emails have been posted in the isb-pgp yahoogroups asking questions about courses and research being done - less than 10%. The maximum number of emails that have been floating is about WHAT ROLES WILL I GET AFTER ISB types? If the basic mentality of the students who are applying to the school is just worrying about placements, then blaming the school is no good. How many US schools have organized placements like it happens in India. You are mostly on your own. But here, you expect to be spoon-fed till your first baby is born and then you blame the system for everything. Very Funny!!!

Some say that the interview results are pre-fixed!!!

--> Well dude, I really dont know what to say. For a fact, the current batch always has a say in deciding the next batch. Almost 200 people from the current batch would review applications and help the admissions team to narrow down applications. And the process is extremely efficient that all this while we havent had any sort of problem in terms of bias or whatever in that aspect. And its perfectly justified that the current batch would choose the next batch because they know what is best for the school. In that way, there is a lot of commitment from the students too. If your interview wasnt exhaustive enough, then you cant just say anything about the interview. The interviewers have definitely got the answers for all the questions they had in their mind. Dont think that if a particular question, which you think is very important, is not asked, the whole system is not working. Maybe it wasnt of any importance to the people interviewing you. Its not ncessary for every panel to sit with you and go over 25 years of your life in detail. Thats not their job.

ISB on CNBC Aawaz

Sometime back, to be precise, during the first week of November, when we had the HealthCare Summit, ISB grabbed a lot of media attention. The biggest names in the Pharma Industry were here to participate. The Summit was one of its kinds in the whole nation. Perhaps, the HealthCare Club is also a unique club in the whole country. I dont think any other B-School has such a club in its portfolio.

Anyway, the media did its contribution to promote the ISB brand and it was quite effective.

And the surprise, is that, in that less than 10 minute video, you can spot me sitting in the Atrium and talking to a few people. I never knew this was happening. Thank god, they did not ask me to speak to them. The whole thing was in Hindi and I am quite sure that I would have screwed up big time. But, the rest of them who spoke did a fantastic job highlighting the unique aspects of the curriculum.

You can watch the video on the SecC Videos Column on the LEFT or CLICK HERE to see it on YouTube.

A term without exams

I didnt imagine that this would happen, but yes, this term I have no exams at all. And why am I writing about this now - thats because I dont have anything to write about. I havent done anything in the last three days. I have so damn lazy. I sleep for more than 8 hrs, eat well, chat with friends and browse the internet. That's all what I have been doing since Friday. I feel so irritated when I do all of this, when I have so much time and I got nothing to do. It feels extremely odd and its definitely not ISB like.

Life has suddenly become so slow that my mind is not working at all. I think thats what is the effect of the ISB life. A few months back, I was talking about this with a couple of friends on campus. Everything at ISB happens at the pace of a MAGLEV. There are days when you have classes all day with information overload, guest lectures and then group meetings, interview prep, club meetings - so many things happen that you just get about 6 hrs to sleep. that too in instalments. you'd probably sleep for 4 hrs in the night and then make up for the other 2 hrs the next night or sometime during the afternoon. or even worse, you might have to pile it up for the weekend. but it could just pile-on and on because the weekend might be filled with PPTs from companies or some summit or language classes or the PARTY!!!

you so get used to thinking and acting so fast that suddenly if things come to a halt or move at a slower pace, you dont know what to do and its just not normal at all. thats the toughest part. we so get used to a life which is like sitting on the seat of a formula one car that after the 49 weeks, it becomes very difficult to hit the brakes for a while.

and i can feel that right now in the middle of the course. I just dont know what to do. without the usual mid-terms and end-terms i feel somewhat distant from the regular and perhaps brain-dead!!!

not that i took courses that have no exams on purpose. i have been troubled all through the term to submit assignments every alternate day and thats kept up the momentum.

i suddenly see that the days are long. a few weeks back, 24 hrs wasnt just enuff for a single assignment and our group used to go bonkers trying to solve a case. now i can hear the clear tick of the seconds hand of the clock.

i think i have watched about 4 tamil movies in the last 2 days - started with the Kamal Hassan thriller Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu on Google Video, then went on to see Jillendru Oru Kathal on bits and pieces, saw that Mouna Ragam was being played in SUN TV. this is the first time i have had time to sit and see an afternoon movie at ISB without having to get up for any errand. then a bit of Nayagan by evening. its kind of been like a festival of movies. in between, also managed to attend a few dunking sessions - well if you got all the time in the world, why wudnt you do all this?

Lapped the lake in 50 mins

it was a great day today. i got up at 5 in the morning, with full enthu to run. we took the shuttle and reached the hussainsagar lake. then we started running. this was our practice session for the hyderabad 10K marathon that is going to happen next weekend. i decided that i should check the circuit before race day. its like doing those practice day sessions on the circuit in formula one. i ran the complete length of what they call the "necklace road" and reached the starting point in 50 mins. when i completed, i had the best feeling. during the run, at certain points i was a bit tired, but then i never reduced pace and managed to make a great finish.

after i came back, i skipped the novartis info session on placements, then slept a bit through the spanish class and then met my group for the next assignment.

this time we were working on "the role of academic institutions in promoting innovation in india". now, you are in for good substance. in my data mining efforts on this topic, i was surprised to find so many government initiatives like the Knowledge Commission, National Innovation Foundation and a lot of views presented by a number of people on innovation in india. it was quite interesting. despite these initiatives the quality of education has generally declined. the number of students going to US univs has increased tremendously. there has been a general disinterest in concentrating on innovation in the subcontinent.
i think this has got something to do with the indian dna. for quite a long time, say from industrial revolution, we havent seen much happening in india. all that happened was in the west and it just got transported to this side. our guys have been too operational and task oriented. i dont deny the fact that we did some kind of innovation. but the scale at which this has happened in the US is phenomenal. india has 80 incubation cells compared to 1000 in the US. ever since globalisation happened, india has been seen as a low cost centre for manufacturing and IT. but i think, a few things have started to change. most renowned engg institutes and business schools have technology and innovation cells being promoted by government, industries and research organisations. innovation is not in the back seat. we are getting there. but yes, it needs a lot of effort in this fast paced world.

still have two more critical assignments and a take home exam to complete. and thats going to take up most of the next three days. more perhaps tomorrow. i think i just forgot what i wanted to write next.....

No more classes this week

This week has been just too fast. And its Thursday tomorrow. We've started our interview preparation process and we try to meet everyday. Let me stress on that try word because we dont necessarily meet everyday. It somehow becomes twice a week with the multitude of assignments people have on different days and different times. And thats probably the best part of whatever happens in the elective terms. The courses are desgined in such a way that you definitely end up crunched for time at any given day.

Previously, it was just one group. You had to meet atleast once a week to sort out the assignments, do the allocations and then collate the results. In between, allocations were also made as to who would network with others to get the best answer possible. Doing that was by itself a challenging task. On top of that was group dynamics. Every group by rule has some strange characters.

Some are free riders. It seems, during the last year, most groups had one girl and the rest were guys. And this, according to feedback provided, gave an opportunity for the girls to be free riders. So this time, any group that has members of the fairer sex was gifted with two. Now if that was a devil in disguise - you never know. But then, free riders are everywhere. Sometimes the guys are like that too. This cannot be avoided.

The next ones are the people who just care about their grades and nothing else. I came across one like that sometime back. I was just astonished. Their reactions are -"I am not bothered about my group. What if a lesser competent member in my group did something and I got an A minus from getting an A?" They give such kind of arguments. Bottomline: they dont trust their group at all. all they are bothered about is what they get.

Now, even in the free riders, there are some smart free riders, who pair up with the working lot in the group. just to show that they are doing some work too. i definitely feel you need talent for that. its not easy to spot the person who knows all the answers and make him/her do all the work while you are busy taking care of other errands like attending a party!!!

then, there are people who start their work by first looking at what the other group has done. then they start pestering the other members of the group to think in the same direction. they just keep making phone calls to their friends in different groups and try to get all perspectives, keep confusing and irritating the rest of the group.

and the list goes on....

the only thing that I could probably get from this is the kind of people you should watch out for, there are certain signs and indications. dont worry, your inner voice will not tell you. but if you've been through this cycle of interacting with groups, then you'd probably get a fair idea of with whom you'd want to work with, though that intuition wouldnt be right always.

From this term, there are groups for every course. managing so many group meetings in one day is the challenge. attending classes is not a problem at all. then there is an interview prep group, there is a group that works for the conclave, summit, and then groups for frisbee, football, marathon - okay we dont have group meetings for these, whenever we meet, we play. everywhere on campus, there is a small group discussing something or the other. and this would go on till march next year.

so, after battling with so many groups during the last one month, we have finally come to a halt. my final presentation for one of the courses i have taken this term is due on friday. we have a group meeting tomorrow afternoon to prepare for the same. that marks the culmination of group meetings for this term. oh no, it doesnt. there is another meeting sometime during the next week.

would that be the final one? you never know. the rate at which everything is happening around you here is just mindblowing. suddenly there would be an email to you. you would have been inducted into a group automatically. they'd never ask your permission. you'll be instructed to land up for the meeting and if you didnt, you'd probably end up with the ones that are remaining in each class. and beware, if a situation like that happens, then you can confidently write off your grade for that course.

Coca Cola Christmas

A sneak preview of the new Christmas Ad that is going to reach millions of people across Europe during the next week.



whatever said and done, christmas in the west has always been associated with Coca Cola. the connection is definitely with the red color. coca cola as such does not claim to have created Santa Claus, but i am quite sure that a lot of people in the west do have that strong belief. i confirmed it too. last christmas, when i was in london, we had a christmas lunch at the office and our sourcing manager who is a jamaican by nativity brought up the topic of gift giving during christmas and then mentioned that Coca Cola had a historic connection with Santa Claus and they had originally created the concept of Santa. Ignorance IS always bliss.

This ad was directed by Kerry Conran who has directed the movie - "Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow". If you havent seen this movie, then you've missed another great movie in that ever expanding list of yours.

Brand Audits

Over the last two days, I have filled out more survey forms than ever before. Almost half of the batch is in a frenzy mood to create survey questionnaires. Every hour there is an email from someone or the other who wants the rest of the batch. So far, I have seen atleast three emails about airlines, then beer, food and I cant remember the rest.

Little Italy is an excellent place to have Italian Food in Hyderabad. Though some of the stuff is Indian Italian, the food is actually good. I remember the craze for Chinese food that people have here in this country. But, for a fact, if the Chinese were to come here and eat that so called chinese food, then they'd just cry out in pain for what the Indians have done to the Chinese recipes. i still havent found a place that actually serves authentic international cuisine. like i said, typical chinese food is sour and has mostly garlic seasoning, but our chefs are so fascinated with the indian seasonings that they just beat the living daylights out of the food enthusiasts.

coming back to little italy - this place has a very good ambience and the food that is served here is extremely tasty. and we know that "anything that tastes good is definitely not good for your health".

the weekend as such has been extremely tiring. the net impact conclave was a big hit. people just arrived in hundreds and the audi was overflowing. we had some strong comments from the panelists and the speakers. I am sure that the media has got it all covered and this week's papers are just going to make the kill. ISB as a brand in promoting social responsiblity has been instilled among a few big names in the industry. amidst the busy schedule that everyone goes through, getting A list speakers and managing the whole event was a great challenge that was well handled by the team here.

our business plan writing experience finally came to an end on saturday afternoon. we had conceptualised the umbilical cord blood bank. not that its not around in india. just that we were interested in writing a plan for that sort of a business. we managed a good business plan, but the panelists were not extremely satisfied with certain aspects of the plan. it always a learning process and yes, through all of this that happened over the last two months of so, we've definitely come to a stage where we know what entails a good business plan, even though the concept maybe too undifferentiated.

Hyd 10K

the hyderabad 10K is the next thing on my mind. its on november 26th. initially we had about 30 people who were interested in doing the run and represent the school. one fine afternoon, i bumped into Guru from the dean's office and he told me that the staff were also interested and suggested that they could make this whole event as a school thing. later, it got decided that the school was ready to sponsor 100 people for the marathon. that was just awesome.

we would get ISB branded t-shirts for the run and all of us would represent ISB at the Necklace Road in Hyderabad.

the run has been on my mind for quite a long time now. i developed this passion for running only after i went to the UK. my first run was the NIKE 10K. this run was so special that it took us through the historic route in london - through shad thames, tower bridge and southwark cathedral. it was just fantastic and i managed to finish in less than an hour. it was my first run and i did better than my citigroup gym instructor. then i did one more NIKE run the next year, also did the canary wharf jog for the british heart foundation and the manchester run for leukaemia research. since then, i made up my mind that i would try and do the 10K every year.

it seems, last year we had just 2 participants from ISB. this time we have close to 55 students. the admnistration has assured that they will get atleast 30 people to participate. if we can reach the target of 100, it would be great.

the dean is part of the executive committee for Hyd 10K. this event would probably the best representation that we could give as a school in the city, apart from the weekly pubbing activity that the students contribute to.

Just crossed the half line

Its hard to believe. Well, thats probably what you could expect out of a one year MBA program. The placement season has begun already. This is very specific to international jobs. the placement cell at the isb makes sure that international companies get to visit the ISB according to their recruitment calendar rather than tailoring it to the schools placement week.

since sunday, i have seen quite a number of people hanging around in a suit. with an intense look on their face, some probably dont even know what they are getting into, because they applied just for the heck of it.

this reminds me of another incident where we got an email from the administration that an unimaginable number of students have applied to an international role for which almost 90% did not have any fit whatsoever. they just decided to fly their resume to see what happens. and then we also get praised for being the best batch among all the students who have been in the school till date. i cant comment on this because i havent seen a lot of students from the previous years and have to rely on the people who have seen students through all these years. whatever said and done, i will have my reservations. i am quite convinced that there is some kind of dilution.

all things said and done, some more companies are coming this week and short lists are out. i havent applied to any - first reason - i find it hard to change my resume according to the job requirements of the different firms. sometimes its like saying - i have used a computer for 4 yrs, so i have 4 yrs IT experience. well its not that bad, but i'll be outraged if it gets to that level of insanity. and then there are some more people who are prepared to do the same job they did before their MBA, just because they are getting an overseas posting. thats the kind of compromise people are making in career choices. during our orientation, we were told that we could make only one of three shifts - location, job, and salary (if i remember right). and that's probably what is driving some of these people. for me - if i wanted an overseas job, i wudnt have come here at all. i was already outside, on the verge of getting transferred to another international location for a longer time. i could have just continued. now, the next thing on my mind is the job (still going on three parameters) and the expanse of responsiblities i can get in the role. so, i am just going to relax and enjoy till its february or whenever that is - the placement season.

another funny thing incident that happened is some people asking the placement cell as to "why they havent been shortlisted for the interviews". this could probably be the most ridiculous question. the already tarnished name of the batch that just decided to see if their CV will fly is now trying something new to make sure that the company would nevr come back again. a company that shortlists a particular person might have N reasons and why should they tell that to you. with that, we end this here.

Caffeine Addicts

Before, almost every student used to complain about the quality of food and the service levels at the dining hall. Now people are tired and bored. Emails have stopped flowing that direction. The whole problem has taken a new dimension now. Guess what?

Sarovar (people who serve us food) found out that some people in the batch were actually stealing coffee from the vending machines. You may ask - how can this be done?

"Well, its not very difficult" - would be the reply from some of our smartest MBA Students, who have paid more than 15 lacs to be in this place and dont want to pay a single penny more, even if its for their daily coffee. Just bang the coffee vending machine on both sides at some strategic points (why strategic - well, if you are doing an MBA, then you got to use the word "strategic" for every ten words you use in a sentence. and that is their explanation), shake it vehemently and then you'll instantaneously get a hot cup of coffee, without spending the usual 5 ruppees. [heard from a person who actually does that]

So, here we are in a place that commands integrity to such a large extent, with the so-called leaders of tomorrow, some of whom are MORONS, who do all this.

When the administration complained that they were fed up with this kind of behavior and that they were not prepared to repair the machines because it cost them a lot, I think they were totally justified.

Then comes another champion of the cause from the Students side, who starts talking about commercial enterprises, subsidizing food, and efficient markets. Well, he definitely didnt have the brains to understand that it was his friends from the batch who were breaking the machine and he was advocating for what had happened, under the impression that all that was a totally justified act. What a total dumb-ass he was.

And then, the one person who was among the most honest community in the batch struggled to keep quiet and responded. He did educate the other guy that breaking equipment and stealing is not the way to react in any situation. atleast in the civilized world, in which efficient markets operate, this doesnt happen.

Well, whatever said and done. My point is - why the hell do you have to steal stuff. Ok, steal it. thats also fine, but then, of all things, why go and break a vending machine. are you such a pauper? are you insane?

and yes, these are some of the people who scored exceptional gmat scores, cleared the initial screening round, and impressed the interviewer to find their way here.

and i am sure, this will continue with the future as well.

After a long hiatus

Whooaah!!! This was perhaps the weirdest IT exam I ever wrote. Imagine an information technology paper with differential equations, lagrangian multipliers, gamma, alpha and what not. I cant believe I sat through such a paper today. Moreover, the trauma of studying all that. Never did I know that IT could be so complicated, or did the people who researched on IT think that for once IT should also attain the status in the likes of biological or financial research. Well, even if they thought that way, why am I reading all that. I hope I get to use enough of what I have learnt in this course in my journey ahead.

After I finished the exman today, I rushed to attend the HealthCare Summit. On my way, I met the Dean. He was making his way there too. He did ask me about the exam and I told him that it went okay. Actually, the exam really went okay. Okay, if it was "open book, open notes, and laptop with internet allowed" exam, then it should be definitely somewhat okay.

The summit started off with a big bang. The best names in the pharma and healthcare industry were on campus. the hall was full. all local media people were around to cover. i wouldnt go into the details of who came and who spoke what because all of that is on the ISB website. Overall: Great Impact.

Over the last few days, so many things have happened that I couldnt keep track of everything properly. But today, I have the time and I have decided to blog as much as I can. So, lets guage how much your reading appetite is?

Tagged: 8 things about me

I have been tagged by Jawzy.

I have to write 8 things about myself and then Tag another 6 people. What the hell. Looks like this is the best timepass job anyone could ever do.

This 8 things about me is so generic. This is like asking "tell me about yourself" in the personal interview. Its such an open question. Where to start and where to end? What a mystery.

Anyway... Let's see how this works out.

1. I am a very religious person. I believe in the vedic scriptures and their importance to the Hindu religion and living as such.

2. I can never make someone a best friend in my life. There will always be a gap somewhere. And thats because of me. I tend to keep that small distance. And I am sure that this will continue, come what may.

3. I dont believe in platonic relationship between a boy and a girl. Somewhere, some friction would happen and that would draw the line between a boyfriend and a no-friend. Well, thats the truth - if you take it or not. Not my problem.

4. I am a health freak. I like to play sports that increase my heart rate and build resistance.

5. I am actually a very lazy person. I might sound very energetic and happy about many things, but I am not totally like that.

6. I like to cook. At one point, I considered joining one of those schools in switzerland for a degree in hotel management than doing an MBA. Now, I strongly feel, I should have done that.

7. I like to travel as well. But again, I am lazy. So I will travel only if there is a set agenda/plan. I cannot just take a train or my bike and waste time on a journey thinking that it will end up being good. I plan for the good right from the beginning and do it only when I am sure of reaching the end point.

8. I like to shop - only clothes. Usually I do that every month - I buy a shirt and a trouser. I am not brand loyal. So, I buy all the good ones starting from about £10 to £20. After that it becomes too expensive.

Uff, I finished the 8. It wasnt any easy. And bet you, I was damn lazy.

I'd like to tag Manu, Vivek, Venkat, Sumit, Chiranth, and Kishore.

Jana Gana Mana

Bharat Bala and A. R. Rahman came together to create a historic album called 'Jana Gana Mana'. This was a project in which over 35 top artistes of the nation came together to sing or play the National Anthem "Jana Gana Mana". The project had started as "Desh Ka Salaam" which was telecast in Indian TV channels and on the web on August 15, 1999, in which several great Indian musicians, from the classical to the contemporary, came together to give a soulful and modern rendition of the National Anthem. The video was released January 26, 2000 to mark the 50th year of the Indian Republic.

Call Center Movie

Check it out guys. This is hilarious.

You can watch the full movie here.

http://www.callcentermovie.com/index.html

Calling all profit-making ideas that have high social impact

The Global Social Venture Competition began in 1999 and is a student-led initiative pioneered by the Haas School of Business, Columbia Business School, and the London Business School. The Indian School of Business is a full partner – with responsibility of promoting the competition in business schools in Asia, mentoring the teams, and holding the Asia semifinal round. GSVC is a business plan competition whose mission is to promote entrepreneurial businesses that satisfy two criteria:

–They have clear and quantifiable social objectives and impact

–They are financially sustainable, in the sense that they are profitable or self-supporting through revenue generation.

The team must have at least one person currently pursuing a full time MBA programme or has graduated during 2006.

Further information is available at www.socialvc.net or www.isb.edu/gsvc

Important dates are:

1. Registration with five page summary (optional, if teams require mentoring support) – Wednesday, November 15, 2006 (to ISB at GSVC@isb.edu )

2. Submission of final plans – Friday, January 12, 2007 (to ISB at GSVC@isb.edu )

Roundup from the week

This week was damn crazy. We were evaluating applications of prospective candidates, submitting analysis of cases, playing frisbee whenever there was time, preparing one page write-ups for projects due at the end of the term. in fact, i just dont remember a lot of things that happened.

we played on this software called "industryplayer" organised by IIMA for their annual event. it was something totally different from markstrat. markstrat was extremely painful. it makes you do all the nonsense. but this was one was more macro level. we had to make industry level decisions like buying and selling of companies. and how to consolidate companies and things like that. so that went on for a few nights.

then we had NS Bala from wipro who had come to campus to give a talk to us. we'd done a wipro case study last term about their factory model. so it was good to see the person who was involved in the case study.

we also kicked off a toastmasters meeting for this term. i got a chance to talk on an extempore topic called "Laloo Prasad Yadav is the new Options and Futures Professor at the ISB". that was good fun. i got great positive feedback from others about my three minute talk.

then there was the awesome bartending workshop. we learnt to make a few drinks. got to taste the drinks as well. this was organized by Smirnoff and we had a great time.

we had presentations back to back - for our project first and then our business plan. we also had to evaluate other projects and b-plans. it was just crazy.

the volleyball fever has started. the court is ready. for the next two or three days, everyone would play volleyball and then they will stop after that, get back to their normal routine of banging on the books.

a few international firms have started coming to campus. people have started submitting their resume.

They are back

First it was the sampling time and they were there in almost every class. And now, their presence has been confirmed.

Its none other than the politicians of my batch. If you remember, we'd talked about people playing politicians during class participation (CP). Whenever the professor asks a question, they will be ready with an answer that is certainly not connected to the question. But, they will still raise their hands, make their point and leave the question unanswered.

The frequency of such an event happening was comparitively less in the core terms. My section had become a bit more matured term after term, and the amount of relevant content in class participation was getting closer to the better at every stage. I used to think - is it just my section that is doing such Political CP's. It definitely used to be of great importance in keeping the class involved because ten other people got frustrated with every political remark. But, my section is, in fact, far better, compared to the whole batch now. Now I get to see the real diversity in CP and I must tell you - its absolutely hilarious and in the end, it sucks.

Out of the three courses I am doing this term, Innovation has 25% CP. And you should be here to see how much air-time people demand in class. There are some people who just go on and on and on!!! And the first Political CP happened on Day One when we were discussing the Cemex Case and from thereon it has just continued.

Whatever said and done, we should give to them for what they do in class. When the Professor tells that he is unable to understand the point they are making, well, thats almost a clear indication that whatever you have told is shit and doesnt make sense, you must see the extent to which these people go in order to explain their point. they keep beating about the bush, tell all sorts of nonsense and finally make a claim.

I hope I didnt do any of that here!

The Festival of Lights

Diwali wasnt any different at the ISB. But it was just great. We began our Diwali pretty early on Friday night. We were given instructions to burst crackers only in the football ground. now that was a bit pissing off, but couldnt help it. strange rules. anyway, so we burst some cracker and then found out that we had actually bought less. then we tracked Doc who was out for a coffee at Mocha and asked him to get some more crackers. finally we managed to get some 2K worth of crackers.

during our first attempt to disturb everyone, vivek and bob tried their engineering skills on the rocket and sent a couple of them to the student village instead of aiming the sky. that was great fun.

a little before we did all this, we had the spouses association performing dance and drama for the whole school in the auditorium. that was awesome. great dances, then a mock on the idiot box, shaayari etc. next was dinner, as usual, nothing great. looked like normal food being served outside. or was it just me, because i had a very bad cold.


the next day, we woke up at 3.45, started the ritual again at 4.15am. and this time, it was right in front of the student village. we did some flower pots, chakras, small bombs etc to alert everyone. then we pushed to the footy ground. we made sure that we burst crackers as close to the student houses, just to disturb them. anyway, in about an hour we were finished with all the ammo we had.



throughout the day, i was out in Hyderabad. late evening, the social life council had organized a diwali party for us. this party can be rated as one of the best parties on campus. the setting was so nice - it was on a slope outside the student village. lots of crackers again - some of the best ones i would say. lots of color and light. no sound. just the ones the girls like.

Does IT matter?

we finally had the SAIT exam today. 2 minutes into the exam and we realised that some 60 odd questions were missing from the paper. junta nowadays is not bothered about anything weird that happens at the exam hall. they have been thru one helluva exam drama a few weeks back. so all this was just chill types. but then the rest of the questions were over in less than 15 mins. so most people were sitting idle during an exam that was actually 2 hrs, while the people incharge were trying to find out what went wrong.

well - bloody hell, we dont have a part of the question paper and do you still need to do a root cause analysis? and then after another 15 mins, we got the rest of the question paper. finally i got over with that nonsense in another 20 odd mins. in all, i was out in one hour.

so, we come back to this question on my subject line - does IT matter? well, IT matters definitely for a large number of organisations in the fortune 500 list. but definitely not for us. it doesnt matter at all.

and then we had this whole bungled event in the evening at the Audi. the elected student board was discussing this whole issue of exam postponement and they till the end, they never stood up to what mistakes were made from their side(im suren there was some mistake). in effect, they did not say that we screwed up and we are sorry. all that was said was said in a very polished manner and this irritated a lot of people. its not any complaint that i have. nor have i the intention to impeach anyone. i just want people to be honest and tell the rest that these are some places were we actually screwed up and its our mistake. but no one said anything like that. in that case, does it mean that all the student reps did a flawless job. then, did the administration screw up? did the prof screw up? we still dont know the answers for all this. well, this is not a big crime. its just adding to the fun.

but, for all what happened in the last few weeks regarding the whole thing about postponing the exam to today, finally the paper that was given to us had less than 20% of questions from the cases for which students did not have access. but still, all those questions were discussed in some way or the other during the class discussions. so, in effect, the exams neednt have been postponed.

Sampling Time

I had two classes today. I got both these courses for one point each. Well that doesnt mean that the courses are lousy. Definitely not. For me, I get to do courses that I like, courses that I feel would help me in my job. In the last four terms, I did four finance courses and I have got this feeling that I shouldnt take any more finance courses in the next whatever births God proposes to give me. Its really been so horrible on me. Not that I royally screwed up in those courses. I got what I need to pass and that was just enough for me. But this was more like an overdose of finance in about half a year.

Having said that, nearly half the batch or perhaps more are doing a finance major. and there are some people who are doing a finance and marketing major. how does that sound? for me, that sounds absolutely funny, if you can get what I mean.

anyway, a number of people are sampling courses today - just to see whether they can enroll for the course in the following days or not. and i simply dont understand why people who sample courses want to do class participation and trouble the whole class. today i had to experience that situation and it was so frustrating. do they want to make sure that just in case they register, they dont miss on one class' participation? thats even more silly.

so thats how this term has started. given that the sampling event would happen tomorrow as well, i am expecting more people to consciously throw in gas comments during the lectures.

Longest Term Break Ends

The longest term break of about 10 days will end in about a minute now. People have gotten back and more people are getting back. The grind begins from tomorrow. Just that 418 people will not be doing the same courses. There is scope for diversification.

The last week hasnt been great as such. To keep my fitness levels at the peak, I made sure that I played frisbee everyday. It was great fun. On the projects side, we did a couple of interviews and gathered data. I dont know how much of this is true, but most people who are doing projects here with the big names in the industry believe that the MBA students are just being used to do market research. And I dont disagree at all. I see most people doing that. Well, I guess we must also understand that in the given 3 months for a project, wherein we dont even spend full hours everyday to do project work, we cant expect anything better. Yes, there are a few strategy projects, but finally it ends up being focused on research because the company has a plan but they need information to formulate the strategy.

My friends from Pakistan have come. Myself and Parul had been to the airport to receive them. Sooner, I'll get their photographs up on the blog.

Dr.Rangarajan, the ex-RBI governor and also the ex-governor of AP has started his series of lectures on macroeconomics and policy issues. its a pass-fail course, so no credits. a lot of us are doing it just for the thrills of listening to such a learned person. today we were discussing about macro theories and india in general. and during his lecture he was telling - "recession is when your neighbor is out of a job and depression is when you are also out of a job" and thats the difference between the two.

life on the fast lane just starts in a few hours from now and im already tired.

Do you fancy a Donald Duck?

The BIG BROTHER of "TIMES OF INDIA" in Britain - THE SUN. The only nonsense newspaper has released this news item today.

RANDY pooch Goofy is seen ROMPING with Minnie Mouse in a Disney video that’s definitely not meant for family viewing.

The costumed characters simulate sex in an illicit clip shot at a theme park and circulated on the internet.

The hilarious footage even shows kids’ favourite Mickey Mouse in a GAY clinch with a snowman.

Minutes after the backstage frolics, the characters go out to perform their regular Disney routine in front of hundreds of kids.
An insider said last night: “It’s Disney characters as you’ve never seen them before. Goofy grabs Minnie’s boobs but the highlight has to be Mickey’s gay romp.”

The incredible “orgy” is given an added bizarre touch by the characters’ constant fixed grins.

It begins with cartoon dog Goofy GRABBING Minnie from behind and pretending to have sex with her. She pulls herself away, but is then CORNERED for more fake sex with the giant snowman.

Then Mickey gets friendly with the snowman — and the gay action continues with Goofy having a steamy CLINCH with cartoon chipmunks Chip ’n’ Dale. Finally, the horny hound CUPS Minnie’s boobs.

The 2½-minute clip is believed to have been shot by another character or worker with a concealed camera at Disneyland Resort Paris.

A French voiceover announces “Disneyland backstage, it’s hot!”

Bosses were said to be outraged last night. The insider added: “The organisation never tolerates any behaviour that could taint its spotless image. They will be desperate to get to the bottom of this.”

A Disney spokeswoman said: “We are aware of the video that was taken in an area not accessible to guests at Disneyland Resort Paris.

“We regret any offence it might cause. Action has been taken to prevent this happening again.”

Disney declined to say whether any staff had already been sacked or disciplined over the video.

Please CLICK HERE to see the video.

The quest begins

the first round of applications have come in and the review process has begun. we are doing our best to select the next batch. i like this whole approach of the current students deciding on how the next batch would be. this happens with most top schools in the world. its perhaps the best system.

today we had one more event w.r.t the admissions process. some of us had volunteered to be a part of the interview preparation process. in this process, the ISB interview team gets to interview us to get a feel of how the whole damn thing is going to be, when they have to do it for prospective students. they also give us effective feedback which would be helpful for us to prepare for our interviews. we then give our feedback about the interview and also tell them what all to look for in a prospective candidate and how to go about questioning them in the right way.

the event just got over and i got my feedback. am quite happy. there are a few things that i have to work on. that can be done. in fact, there is only one pain point and rest were all positive. so, i can channel my efforts to work that out for the better.

in all, the admissions team is gearing up for the mega marathon interviews they are going to have in the next few weeks to come by.

good luck - class of 2008

nothing much happening on campus though. 80% of the batch is at home enjoying holidays. i am lazy to step out. so i am wasting time here - definitely not enjoying the hot weather in Hyderabad. I wonder when it gets cold. Oh please let that happen very soon.

we had a section party as well and that happened on monday. we had a lot of section funds that had not been used for a long time. so we decided to spend that on booze and we had a party till about 3.30am. awesome fun it was.

Placements - Co2007

This has been the craziest weekend ever in the ISB for me. Whacko!! We had the Innovation Challenge to be done and we spent the whole night working on the concept. It was just great. Three members in our team were in madras and we coordinated the whole damn thing through a conference call that lasted the whole night. In fact, I have been so frustrated while staying up all night and studying for courses. This was just not like that. Every hour, we were coming up with new ideas and it was just fantastic.

Later today, I got a chance to look at the Placement Brochure for our batch. Pretty Impressive stuff, but yes, I came across something that made me go - What the F. I saw profiles of batchmates who happened to belong to my same year of undergraduation and they have managed to get their profile under the 5-8 yrs experience category of the brochure. Well, mine's 4 years and 9mths, but I still fall under the 2-5 yrs category.

So what did they do? Well, my guess is that they also perhaps had 4yrs and 9mths or 10mths or 11mths. And then they decided to round it off to 5 yrs. How does that sound?

And what difference does this make? Well, a number of big names that come for recruiting do not always look at resumes for shortlisting people. They look at the brochure and select people, and if they want people with 5yrs experience and above, these ******** stand a probability of getting selected for interviews.

I just wanted to blow my top in front of the Career Services guys, but what will they do. They can just write what the students tell them. They cant go around and keep track of what each person did since under-grad.

So, we learn strategies, marketing concepts, valuations and every damn thing throughout the course, but then some lose honesty and integrity. Or were they like this right from teh beginning. Just that I didnt notice. We also talked about governance and business ethics. And all that was just hearsay. Personal ethics takes a big six. But I guess, thats the harsh part of life. Getting to know the truth when its not important and cannot make a iota of difference. Atleast, we can be happy that things like this do come to your attention, just that we should be a little more careful while judging people.

ResolvequeryDotCom

www.resolvequery.com is a website that provides information to students and young people. In fact, this line itself is a lift-off from the website.

Well, why I am writing about this today. In fact, I should have done this a long time back.

The CEO of this website - Sundeep Tibrewal, is in my class (and thanks to Chiranth for having pointed an error here - for details, look at the comments). He along with great enthusiasts and intelligent people in Section C - Kanika Atri aka Madhuri Dixit and the Brand Ambassador for the Website, Anuj Gupta aka the Sleeping Beauty (I dont have another name for a person who always gets away for sleeping in class) and Sakar Mawandia, the CFO - have launced an extensive drive to create a new business model for this website.

Their business plan was chosen to present for the TiE-ISB Event, which was a great forum of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, perhaps the best event for entrepreneurship in India ever.

Thats the awesome raw talent in this group of people, who are also great friends of mine. So, I decided - why not write about the website.

I must also say that some of us in Section C have volunteered to be Experts in the website's forum. By experts, I mean - we've got to answer questions posed to us by visitors to the website. There have been so many websites that give a lot of information to people regarding career, studies, jobs etc. But through this experts network, this website would be an excellent platform for clean and right advice.

Need I say more! Please go to the website and explore to know more. This is going to be the best career launchpad for every student in this country.

Midnight Masala

69 emails till now, well if that number suggests something connected to the title of this post. nothing really.

prabhu, vivek and i decided to get a cuppa tea when it was close to 12. we walked up to the cafe, as usual discussing about electives, bidding and girls. then doc called us and gave us a shocker message. that was somewhere closer to few minutes after midnight.

the morning exam had been postponed to a different date. why, because the prof decided so.

background: copies of the book prescribed for the course were not available for some reason or the other. lets not worry about that. and this issue had been raised by concerned ppl in the student body to the profs and the institute. and then, our student representatives have been so efficient in handling this that they have left this hanging in the air till 10 hrs before the exam, without getting a proper resolution on time. and finally, we get an email that its postponed.

so who should we blame? some people blame the institute for sending a late message like this, when people have spent hours preparing for the exam. well they were not worried about the non-availability of the book. and they still prepared.

some people blame the student reps for having sat on this for such a long time, when this problem was identified since day one.

no, we cant blame the prof. the prof had to make a decision and she perhaps made the right one.

but why is all this happening. you are taught "root cause analysis". McKinsey comes here and conducts a 4 hr session with everyone to help them make Issue Trees to understand problems, talks about "mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive". After all this, you still make decisions at 00.00 hrs. Is it an auspicious time to make an announcement?

I think I have taken 5 minutes to write all this and the email count has increased to 85.

Sec-C Formal-Wear Day

Last week, we had our Formal-Wear Day as well. Every section had a formal wear day sometime during the last four terms. And we decided to have one too. In fact, the one other thing we did different was that we found out whether the Dean would be available for a photograph with us. So, we kinda co-ordinated the whole thing properly with the Dean's Office, also informed the Assistant Dean and Academic Services Dean.

So, here are the samples fron the extraordinary collection of photographs.

Dandiya@ISB

The SFA and the Social Events Club at ISB jointly organized Dandiya Raas on Friday evening to celebrate Dussehra. Students and Staff were invited for a dinner and dance nite at the Atrium.

We went there at about 8.45pm and stayed till 11pm, but I heard that the whole thing went on till about 1am. A private group was called to play music. Our own composer Megh sang a few songs from his Soulfull album. Women from SFA performed three dances for which they had prepared for almost 2 weeks. The kids also did a small number. After all this, the floor was open and the whole batch along with the Professors and TA's started dancing to the live music.

Food was just about average. On the whole, good event. As usual, I managed to click close to 140 pictures.

Sexy Happenings

After a long time, new seeds have been sown in the classroom and emotions have started germinating.

People have suddenly started getting worried about the late-comers. Some have also raised issues about asking questions in class after the 2 hr limit that tends to extend the class as such. In fact, for some classes, it so happens that the professor has to wait for atleast 5 more mins to start the class.

Again, and by again i mean it that way, because, this issue has been discussed already by a concerned few and nothing happened. it just got discounted like those cash flows. but now, the verbose nature of the views from various people are a perfect blend of management theories. some have started quoting time and money, then civil protocol, cognitive response etc.

at the outset, its very interesting to read all this. as a silent spectator, its absolutely funny.

this brings us also to another juncture. the importance of attendance. if asked frankly, a number of people wouldnt want to attend a class and they probably are coming in late because they feel they are being forced to come to class. so why not just keep the attendance optional?
if people like attending a particular lecture, then i am quite sure that they will not miss a single minute of the 2 hrs. and i have seen this happening with many courses and many profs. i think, at this point, where most people in the class are 25 or so, it doesnt make any sense to impose rules like attendance. i havent had attendance in undergrad and that was 1997-2001!!! why wud i want to comply with compulsory attendance rules.

again, all this is personal opinion. and i seriously dont have time to argue with anyone about this. i have 100 other things to think about.

the first round of admissions

with the deadline for the first round of admission round the corner, applications are just pouring in.

some of us, oh no, how can i say that. atleast 200 of us have volunteered to be a part of the admissions task force. well, that means that we will help the admissions team in evaluating applications and whatever comes with that. (by help, i mean it literally. we will just give them our idea of what the application means to us and then based on our feedback, the core team of admissions will decide on sending out interview calls)

so, right now we have been given access to the system and many people have already started the process.

i still havent accessed the system myself. looking at the level of enthu that this has created right now, i think by the time i login, all applications would have been evaluated.

Luther, for example

Finally, Manu managed to get a picture. Thats me getting dunked into the swimming pool on Tuesday night. It was the last birthday in section-C, officially.
close to 20 people got dunked yesterday and it was great fun.

And there goes my clue for today. Keep guessing.

The last one was very obvious - YETI. the abominable snowman.

Yet, somehow I meet the abominable snowman

Today we had our mid-term exam for Investment Analysis. It wasnt that great. Well for obvious reasons that its finance and I hate finance, but then exam wasnt worth anyone's effort. So, the TA sends a document guide for our preparation and that document tells in detail about the chapters that have to be referred to. It was quite comprehensive, in the sense that, nowhere in the course had the prof mentioned that the book would be required. But this email from the TA with the chapter numbers did create a bit of a volcanic erruption and people went crazy xeroxing chapters at the library, sitting day and night with the book. The prep guide also mentioned about the cases we had submitted during the last two weeks. So one had to revise that too.

Considering all this, junta put enuff effort to prepare. And then you know what happens. The prof gives questions similar to the ones from the assignments he had given before to everyone. In fact, for one of the problems, even the numbers and notations werent changed. It was just copied from the assignment soft copy and put into the question paper. I was totally irritated when I saw that. Cant you copy stuff properly and change what is required. It was absolutely ridiculous. I never expected such a question paper. For all the effort we put yesterday staying up late till 2.30 in the night, it would just been good if I had MUGGED up the assignments and gone to the exam hall. I neednt have tried to understand any formulae or the few ne concepts that were taught in class. Not that I perfectly understood everything.

In total, this has been a waste. If this is how things are going to be, I mean, a few exams in the last few terms were also like this. But, what can I say. Is this the inefficiency of the prof or the system? Some of these profs, they are good, no doubt about it. But then asking questions that were asked before, with same numbers - and then asking theory questions like describe this and that, is nowhere close to MBA type.

I really like those exams - one case study, three hours, do whatever you want, talk to anyone, but just write it and submit it.

The subject line is my new test for creativity. Its a Hindu crossword clue. Do comment if you figure it out.

Mahabharata and Entrepreneurship

We all know about the Chakravyuham(The Circular Maze, we can say), a military strategy that was formed by the Kauravas to eliminate the Pandavas. In the Mahabharata epic, the maze was a very critical part of the war. It was actually putting tremendous pressure over the Pandavas. When all this was happening and there was enough chaos, Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna, decides to enter the maze. Well, he knows how to enter the maze but does not know how to get out of it. Only Arjuna knows both strategies. Without seeking the permission from Arjuna, Abhimanyu enters the maze and you know what would have happened next. He loses and dies. We clearly see a management relation here.

Investors are always interested in the best of business ventures that you showcase for them to invest. But, they also need to know something called an exit strategy. no investor wants to stay committed to the business for life. You know what happens in that case. so a business plan must always quote an exit strategy. that completes the plan in the eyes of the investor. an investor is not looking for a lifetime relationship with you. either he wants to make an IPO out of your venture, or buy it out completely or sell it to a third party. and provisions for these are truly essential.

Another story. In the same Mahabharata, Yudhishtra and Duryodhana, they are both rivals but still cousins. They go to meet Krishna. Lord Krishna is taking rest. Yudhishtra sits by the feet and Duryodhana sits by the head of the Lord. Actually Duryodhana has come first. When the Lord wakes up, he sees Y first and then later sees D. So he gives Y, the preference to ask first whatever he came to meet the Lord for. D feels that this is unfair and he complains. Then the Lord gives two options. Well both of them have come for help before the war. The two options - either keep me on your side and I wont lift a single weapon OR keep my army of soldiers. Duryodhana immediately asks for the army and Yudhishtra happily asks for the Lord.

Another lesson. Given an oppurtunity, its very important for each and every entrepreneur to choose a particular person as his mentor. Proper guidance will always help you win the race whatever it may be. A sound advisor and mentor will be the guy who will be the charioteer like the Lord did during the war and will take you to that path of glory.

The way forward

Today's networking event at the BasketBall court was perhaps the best event we have attended in ISB so far. Right after the panel discussion on taking India forward, we headed towards the Rec-Centre to meet all the entrepreneurs, VC's and many others. It was very interesting to listen to their experience and understand how they were encouraging entrepreneurs.

The panel discussion was very interesting. We had people like ChandraShekhar from Lok Paritran, Jayaprakash Narayan from Lok Satta, Senthil Chengalvarayan from CNBC(the moderator), Rajeev Gowda, Ramalinga Raju of Satyam and Gopichand - the badminton player. After a round of views about what the political system meant to the people in India, the topic started getting very hot. Though we didnt get enough time to discuss, the way Senthil structured the whole event should be well appreciated. In the end, though the people did touch upon my viewpoint of political parties coming to b-schools to recruit, I still feel that there is a huge gap. Sometimes, the situation is such that we take more pleasure in talking about this than trying to make a concrete plan of action.

They say that it takes only about 5 crores to win a seat in the assembly. Then why dont few corporates take up this cause and work towards it. This was also suggested today. That cant happen. Its not that easy. The Indian political system has to change and that has to happen on its own. It seems the corruption level has come down. Well, if it has, because I really dont know. Then god save the country.

Today Lok Paritran has just 5 members. Educated people are not ready to join such a party. Why - because what will they do when they dont have a salary. Will anyone do that. Well, for high spirits sake you can say that you will. Being an over enthusiastic guy that I am and I generally tend to jump into anything without a second thought and I would definitely take a step back and think about this. At the end of the day, Lok Paritran had just 10000 votes and the next time they'd probably get a chance is another 4 yrs atleast.

Rajeev Gowda himself has joined this race after being in the US for 16 yrs. People have to make a decision to reform this country, but when they do it, they have to make an informed decision. The IAS and the IPS not help this country. With the kind of reservation policies that we have, these posts will only be filled by people who speak rotten english and who have the shitty attitude of just making money through some means.

This is indeed a huge debate and being just one sided, I am quite sure I can write another 2000 words. Let me just stop it here. I hope God sends a mercenary to just kill all these good for nothing politicians.