Impressions in the sand

Placements

2012-02-14T02:27:00.000+05:30

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”
– Kahlil Gibran

Somewhere along the corridors of WIMWI, a month prior to placements a mind is tossing in a stormy ocean:
"If you wont focus on it you will be considered a loser." "A loser, period."
"But what if I dont want to."
"You have to."
"Why?"
"Because you're at WIMWI. Why the hell you came here for?"
"I came because I wanted to be here."
"This is asinine, if you wanna waste your life then go ahead and do it. But do it without wasting one of the seats here. Dont you know that the seat you sit on everyday was aspired by 600 others who just couldn't make it because of you? You are indebted to them. You just cant chill out on taxpayer's money."
"What sort of indebtedness it is that pushes me to earn more money for myself by selling to a big bank or consulting firm? They will take me if I am worth it. Placement was not the only thing I came here for. Why do so much of extra preparation for it? Cant a product sell for itself?"
"Its not about selling a valuable product. Its about selling something to willing buyers at current fair market price. Value is subjective and complex, something on which experts often disagree."
"If you are saying that its all about buyers and that we should sell what they are willing to buy, then we will be struggling our whole lives trying to be something else. What if tomorrow I have to sell myself for getting a promotion? Where does it end?"
"Yea, where does it end ... Maybe we should allow ourselves to fail. Maybe thats what will wash away all our sins. You decide."
...

Its the coveted day zero of placements at IIM Ahmedabad today. In probably the most hyped & epic battles among the peers, there will be people who will win and those who will lose. And then there will be those, who will not sell their days for gold.

Adding Injury to Insult

2011-05-15T19:49:00.010+05:30

Minister: What can I do? Should I have increased the price of petrol a week before the elections? In a country where the memory of people is so short, could I have afforded to risk all my election campaigns, the good work, the strategic advantage, by doing this? Would any sane person have done that a week before the elections?

I am a politician, not a foolhardy idealist. Not like those Buddhadebs who don't bend their values and pay the price. Whatever I have done is in no way immoral or corrupt. I am just acting as a politician, that's what I am here for.

Voter: Its cool Minister, we have got used to it. In fact, I really appreciated your move to deregulate the petrol prices last year. But I was insulted today. You have yet again proved what you think of me. You still think I am a fool.

Be frank, be candid; that was what I expected from you after that deregulation of petrol prices. I can even forgive and forget the timing of the price rise. You are probably correct about your political compulsions. But, having done that, please have that much courtesy to own it up. Your statement that it's the oil companies that have decided the quantum and timing of the price rise is nothing but adding insult to injury. I am annoyed that my Minister thinks I am so naive. Am I really that dumb Minister?

What it takes to get to IIMA :P

2011-01-05T04:22:00.016+05:30

Warning: This is not, in any way, related to preparation or getting admitted to IIM. Its about a journey!

Date: November 24, 2010

Time: 1025 hrs, [at home]

"Mom! don't pack so much sweets. It becomes heavy. And it tastes too sweet for me and my dorm mates to keep on eating it for the next one week."

"Just shut up. Why the hell do you think I asked you to bring an extra empty bag from Ahmedabad? btw..whats the bogie number?"

"Its B2. Let me check if the train is on time."

139 informs: "The train's route has been diverted. Thank you"

wtf! haven't heard of any such thing before. Its not a season of fog when trains get diverted or cancelled. I called again, this time chose the human operator option. "The train's right time for arrival at Allahabad was 1155hrs which is now running late by 8 hrs and is expected to arrive...." I disconnected the line and quickly took out the flight ticket from my wallet. The departure time was 0715hrs next day.

After so many years of number crunching it was easy to conclude that I cant take that train now if I wanna catch the flight. So, called up Glen on campus to browse and tell some other train for Delhi. To my horror, every train on the Howrah-Delhi line was running absurdly late due to some Maoist mischief and there wasn't any scope to "plan" my travel any further in that unpredictability.

"Mom, I need to leave now for the station. The train is almost cancelled and I need to catch the next train on that route."

"Why don't you wait for another day. We haven't yet got time to talk in the busy marriage schedule."

"I have classes Mom."

"You only told me that you are some Academic so and so in IIMA. You only said that taking leave anytime isn't any issue in second year. Now when you have a genuine reason why aren't you staying back. Do you have an exam tomorrow?"

"Mom, its not about exam. I have to go."

Time: 1440 hrs [Prayag Railway Stn]

I still don't know why I didn't stop even when I could have easily spent the weekend at home. Maybe I know, maybe....

I was soon at the railway station standing in queue for ticket. There were 10 people ahead of me when the loudspeaker announced that the train to Delhi has arrived. Since the train was to stop for only 2 min at station, I left the queue and rushed for the train. It had already started moving when I reached the platform. Just entered in the first bogie I saw. This was the first time I was travelling without ticket.

[Unchahaar Exp. some bogie]

Someone once told me to meet the TTE as early as possible in such situations to avoid hefty fines. I diligently tried that. Searched the entire stretch of 10 sleeper coaches and eventually found him in the last one. Showed him my IIMA ID card and my badly injured toe. Said it's very urgent and blah blah. Unfortunately that guy knew nothing about IIMA so the brand name didn't work. However, he asked me to relax and get back to where I was sitting. He came to my place after 2 hrs and asked for 200 bucks. "Here it is, Sir please!!". He gave me the receipt and told me a seat number. Later I realized the receipt was for only 100 bucks, so, here it was, I had given my first bribe (other than those regular 20 bucks for not wearing helmets) and that too unknowingly.

Time: 1700hrs [Coach S8, Seat 10]

"So, when is this train gonna reach Delhi?", I asked the guy sitting next to me.

"Morning 7am."

What!! This was the first train I could catch and it reaches Delhi just 15 min before my flight leaves. "So late?", I asked, "the right time is 4am."

The guy's facial expression meant just one thing : LOL, you weird chap, don't you know how Indian Railways work.

"Actually it can reach by 6 if it gets a clear line."

The train had just 15 min stop at Delhi. I spent the entire night awake in the terror of missing the station, which is ok in a sense but very difficult if you had put 2 night-outs in last 2 days.

Time: 0400hrs [Coach S8, Seat 10]

The train has just stopped at Ghaziabad.

"It will take 1.5 hrs by cab from here. Should I get down ? But what if I don't get a cab? What if they don't have permit to enter a different state (Delhi)? What if....

The next minute I was on the platform with my luggage.

"At least I am in control now, the worst thing is to be in a train standing at the outskirts of Delhi station just praying for it to start moving as you have a flight next hour", I thought.

But as soon as I got down, the train started moving. Awesome .. just 2 minute stoppage at Ghaziabad. The whole decision tree was quickly sketched back in my mind and the next minute I was back on the train hoping it will reach Delhi in next 30 mins. Nobody would have ever cursed himself the number of times I did the next two hours. Yes, the train stopped at all weird points (including 1 stop almost on Red Fort walls).

Time: 0600hrs [Old Delhi Railway Station Exit Gate]

"Yes Sir, 500 bucks"

"Have you gone mad?", I cried and moved to other taxi.

"How much will you pay btw ?"

"First tell me how much time will it take to reach at Terminal-1D IGI?"
"45 minutes", he shouted.

It was 6:10 and just 65 minutes to flight departure. I had to reach there by 6:30 as per Govt rules, but still how can I miss the opportunity to bargain? Spent valuable 2 minutes bargaining till someone got ready for 300 bucks.

Time: 0650hrs [Terminal 1D IGI Airport, SpiceJet check-in Counter]

"Sorry Sir, check-in is closed for this flight."

"That's ok, I know it, tell me who can make me check-in now."

"Contact that counter"

Time: 0655hrs ["That" counter]

"Sorry Sir, check in is closed for this flight."

"I have an exam at 10am, this is my last chance. I will have to repeat an entire year. See my ID card. I'm from IIMA. I don't have any issue with money, just want to board this flight to get to IIMA before 10"

Trick worked.

"Please take your boarding pass and run, if you don't reach door no.10 in 5 minutes, you will be off-boarded"

A decent queue stood between me and door no.10. There was no way I could reach there in 5 minutes. I took my chances. Broke the queue, jumped over those series of separations and ran towards the guy who was frisking. A para-military guy ran at me, and I stopped. It had become too filmy by now. Showed him the boarding pass and requested to have frisking first. They allowed. Finally I was inside. I could hear the announcement:

"This is the last and final call for Shri Arpit Jaiswal for .... ".

"Shri!! I am not that old you see, try changing it to Mr", I cursed them and continued.

By the time I reached the gate that announcement had changed to "Shri Arpit Jaiswal, you are requested to off-board now. Please reach counter so and so."

Again some begging and pleading was required. Finally reached the flight alone in the bus. As soon as I entered the flight, all eyes started staring me as if I was a big time rapist who should be stoned to death. Got my seat and sank. Flight started moving in 5 minutes.

Time: 1020 hrs [CR-4, MIB Class]

"Hi!" Gaj wished me.

"Where is the SitAn (Situation Analysis)? We thought you were doing it? We have to present in next class."

"Have you freaked out? I have just arrived here half an hour back. When did I say I would be doing that part?"

"We allotted the work on mail and you didn't mention anything so we assumed you are doing it."

"I didnt check mails for last 5 days. Anyways, how much time I have?"

"This entire class time. 75 minutes."

"Will do it."

"btw, how was your journey?"

The Judgement - beyond the Order !!

2010-10-02T15:40:00.028+05:30

Here is a small piece of land (1500 square yards) where angels fear to tread. It is full of innumerable land mines. We are required to clear it. Some very sane elements advised us not to attempt that. We do not propose to rush in like fools lest we are blown. However we have to take risk. It is said that the greatest risk in life is not daring to take risk when occasion for the same arises.

Once angels were made to bow before Man. Sometimes he has to justify the said honour. This is one of those occasions. We have succeeded or failed? No one can be a judge in his own cause.

Accordingly, herein follows the judgment for which the entire country is waiting with bated breath.

Hon'ble S.U. Khan, J.

(Prelude to Judgement)

.........................................................................................................................................................................

One may not fully agree with Marx in his interpretation of history relating that only and only with economics. However, it will be perilous to deny even partial truth in the said approach. At the time of the demolition our economy was in shatters. ‘The physical mortgaging of India’s gold reserves in 1990 epitomized the bankruptcy of an economic system.’ (Swapan Dasgupta in The Telegraph dated 17.9.2010). The rupee had drastically been devalued twice in quick succession.

Those who are interested in socio economic interpretation of history may recall that about two years before recommendations of Mandal Commission for reserving 27% government jobs for O.B.C. had been accepted and implemented.

However, it goes to our credit that we the people of India showed remarkable resilience and disproved the doomsday predictors. Neither the misplaced ecstasy nor the abject despondency survived long. (In this process some role of revival of economy can not be ruled out). The demolition did not prove Indian equivalent of storming of the Bastille and it remained a turning point in Indian history when history refused to turn. (Again from same editorial page article of S. Dasgupta.) We could again sing with fresh charm Sare jahan Se Achcha Hindustan hamara, particularly its following verses.

मजहब नहीं सिखाता, आपस में बैर रखना

हिन्दी हैं हम वतन हैं, हिन्दोस्तां हमारा

यूनान, मिस्र, रोमां, सब मिट गए जहाँ से

अब तक मगर है बाकी, नाम-ओ-निशां हमारा

कुछ बात है कि हस्ती, मिटती नहीं हमारी

सदियों रहा है दुश्मन, दौर-ए-जहाँ हमारा

(also quoted by Justice R.S. Dhavan in A.C. Datt vs. Rajiv Gandhi AIR 1990 Allahabad 38)

Hon'ble S.U. Khan, J.

(on the event of 1992, part of Judgement)

.........................................................................................................................................................................

My judgment is short, very short. Either I may be admired as an artist who knows where to stop, particularly in such sensitive, delicate matter or I may be castigated for being so casual in such a momentous task. Sometimes patience is intense action, silence is speech and pauses are punches.

I have not delved too deep in the history and the archaeology. This I have done for four reasons. Firstly this exercise was not absolutely essential to decide these suits. Secondly I was not sure as to whether at the end of the tortuous voyage I would have found a treasure or faced a monster (treasure of truth or monster of confusion worst confounded). Thirdly having no pretence of knowledge of history I did not want to be caught in the crossfire of historians. Fourthly, the Supreme Court in Karnataka Board of Waqf Vs. Government of India, 2004 (10) SCC 779 has held in Para-8 as follows:-“As far as a title suit of civil nature is concerned, there is no room for historical facts and claims. Reliance on borderline historical facts will lead to erroneous conclusions.”

As this judgment is not finally deciding the matter and as the most crucial stage is to come after it hence I remind both the warring factions of the following.

The one quality which epitomized the character of Ram is tyag (sacrifice).

When prophet Mohammad entered into a treaty with the rival group at Hudayliyah, it appeared to be abject surrender even to his staunch supporters. However the Quran described that as clear victory and it did prove so. Within a short span therefrom Muslims entered the Mecca as victors, and not a drop of blood was shed.

Under the sub-heading of demolition I have admired our resilience. However we must realise that such things do not happen in quick succession. Another fall and we may not be able to rise again, at least quickly. Today the pace of the world is faster than it was in 1992. We may be crushed.

I quote two verses of Iqbal which were also quoted by Justice R.S. Dhawan in A.C. Datt vs. Rajiv Gandhi, AIR 1990 Allahabad 38:

वतन की फ़िक्र कर नादां ! मुसीबत आने वाली है

तेरी बर्बादियों के मश्वरे हैं आसमानों में

न समझोगे तो मिट जाओगे ऐ हिन्दोस्तां वालों

तुम्हारी दास्तां तक भी न होगी दास्तानों में

An observation of Darwin is also worth quoting at this juncture (what an authority to quote in a religious matter/ dispute!):

“Only those species survived which collaborated and improvised.”

Muslims must also ponder that at present the entire world wants to know the exact teaching of Islam in respect of relationship of Muslims with others. Hostility – peace – friendship – tolerance - opportunity to impress others with the Message - opportunity to strike wherever and whenever possible – or what? In this regard Muslims in India enjoy a unique position. They have been rulers here, they have been ruled and now they are sharers in power (of course junior partners). They are not in majority but they are also not negligible minority (Maximum member of Muslims in any country after Indonesia is in India.) In other countries either the Muslims are in huge majority which makes them indifferent to the problem in question or in negligible minority which makes them redundant. Indian Muslims have also inherited huge legacy of religious learning and knowledge. They are therefore in the best position to tell the world the correct position. Let them start with their role in the resolution of the conflict at hand.

Hon'ble S.U. Khan, J.

(excerpt from epilogue to Judgement)

In the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad

(Lucknow Bench)

Mine & Yours

2010-09-09T00:41:00.004+05:30

I remember everything. That Benson & Hedges one in which we lost by 1 run due to a run-out on the last ball and also the Wills one with all its Aamir Sohails, Jadejas and Kamblis. Each and every ball, each and every word of the commentator, each and every wicket ... everything is permanently etched in my mind. I really cried after India's loss in 1992 when I got to know that it takes 4 years for the world cup to be held again when I could jump on the bed and sofa and cheer for my team. Long lasting memories of that tender age..!!

But with the 1996 WC cricket became almost a daily affair. The Star Sports and later ESPN with its coverage of Sahara Cup really left no season free of cricket. Discussions on what happened in the match last night was the hottest thing in school. That swinging Durban pitch where we got out for just 66. That century by Sachin to secure a place in finals in Sharjah...and subsequently the century on his birthday to get us win that series, that two day match against England to get into the super-six of 99 WC .... all are etched in mind.

Cricket was more than a hobby, it was a passion ... and many a times it became the only thing !!

But then suddenly, it all went away, I felt alone, I felt cheated. I don't say that the episode of Jadeja, Azhar and Cronje made cricket less interesting or predictable. It didn't. And since anyways I was not into betting, it should have been irrelevant to me. But somehow it got stuck. I don't know, but cricket was never the same to me. The feeling that you are being made a fool is not that pleasing for many of us, no matter how much we try to neglect it. That's another thing that I got into college and "other" things became a priority, but I still blame that match fixing episode for taking the game away from me. In just one stroke you took away everything that was preserved for so many years...everything.

But it is hard to find Indians who don't have passion for cricket. I found yet another in Singapore. He was hell bent on watching each and every IPL match. And as a fellow frustrated intern I felt it my duty to give him company. In one of the matches, there was a catch which was dropped. Now the commentators, having no other work, started analyzing the reasons for it. They concluded that 3 fielders ran for the ball but all of them shouted "yours" instead of "mine". At the end, it fell in the centre of the three converging fielders, all looking at each other. "The call should be 'mine' and not 'yours'", one of them commented. But I had already heard these pair of words somewhere. Somewhere important....ummm... yes, I heard it during one of my summer placement interviews with an I-Bank. The interviewer just said "100,105" and asked me to say either "mine" or "yours". Interesting, isn't it, the way these people trade at the stock market. !! The same trade which is now publicly being denied to be happening in the cricket by PCB !!

The irony is that the meaning of these couple of words in two different contexts has now converged!! Thanks to the "Spot Market" !!

Clashing Egos

2010-07-01T02:50:00.002+05:30

The transistor was perhaps the most important invention of the twentieth century and the story behind the invention is one of clashing egos and top secret research. - Ira Flatow

This phrase was shown to us at the beginning of the course on Microelectronics at BITS. Although I took some time to ponder over this phrase, the Professor intended to use it purely to create a curiosity among students for his course. But, sometimes when I do revisit the phrase I find it quite interesting and powerful. Suddenly, at this place, I find the "ego" factor at the core of almost everything around me. The HR and OB courses teach a hell lot about managing people from the point of view of changing their productivity. The positive feedback, negative feedback and sandwich approach in dealing with people who are generally our subordinates. But hardly someone tells us about handling seniors or peers where the ego plays the dominant role. Shouldn't they teach about this very important aspect of human psyche at B-Schools ?? Or do they want somethings to be learnt through experimentation :P

A Single Transferable Vote

2010-01-21T20:03:00.011+05:30

Working with all those vote-bank equations and various externalities, makes a candidate totally fall in love with the arithmetic involved. You give it your best shot; using anything and everything to reach out to every potential voter. Trying very hard to read the minds of voters and using all the fundae of marketing ever taught in the class: the influencers, decision makers, customers, ... involved in the process of deciding a vote for a particular person....!!! You find out how votes are not decided by the manifesto but by sheer psychology of voters. One thing is for sure, you can never realize the importance of your vote until you fight an election. So, my experience of contesting the election somewhat contradicts the views in one of my earlier posts.

Fighting an election is an experience in itself. Winning it is another. But those moments of speculations and anxiety during the counting of votes can surely beat the anxious moments of day zero placements !! Specially if you win :-)

Mumbai Salsa

2010-01-07T02:43:00.004+05:30

I sang it after a long time. The last time was in summers of 2006 when we were on our internship at BARC. Before that I sang it way back in 2002 during one of those chilly mornings in school.

Watching a movie in Mumbai (whether it is in an IMAX or in a 30 rupee silver class seat of a local theatre) has something in common. Yes, I am talking about the national anthem !! Doesn't it seem a right place and time for the national anthem to be sung? Where else will you find those dudes and dudettes of Mumbai and those white collared people who generally have no feeling of patriotism? But this very venue and timing is the irony of the song. It is shown/sung just before the start of the film, which leaves little time for people to think over it. Those 52 seconds may be amazing for many, filled with patriotism and pride, but it decays at a very high rate as soon as the movie starts. By the end you even forget that you ever sung a song. A song which you hardly get an occasion to sing.

Whether it is a public stunt or not, I cant say. But it did make me return(even though for just 52 seconds) to those good old school days and sing a song which doesn't have a prerequisite for the singer to have a melodious voice. A song which belongs to no age group and a song which I can call as mine.

IIM-B scraps GD .. follows IIM-A

2009-12-15T14:23:00.005+05:30

Standard Disclaimer: The views expressed on this page are mine alone and not those of the Institute(administration/student body/any other executive authority) in which I study. I am not now, nor have I ever been authorised to speak for anyone.

I have always wondered the need for a GD in any admission process. First of all, in most cases it is a complete chaos with lower quartile not getting a chance to speak, and upper quartile speaking for 90% of the time. How much weightage is really given to a GD(if not an elimination round) is also controversial. I was talking with a McKinsey partner in one of their dinners where he told me that he was so introvert at the time of IIMA admissions that he didn't speak in the GD, but was still selected!!

Most of the people today may still not know that IIMA has no GD in its admission process. This may surprise many. How can an MBA admission be made without a GD ?? And that too for IIMA!!

Two year back, IIMA had shifter from GD to Essay. The candidates are given a topic and have to write around 20-25 lines(limited space) in 20 minutes of time. This year IIMB has also declared that it will be following such a policy. When I talked to some of the Profs here in the Communication Department I found that they had been really pissed-off with what had been happening in the GDs in the past few years. "You will not be facing such a situation in corporations or academia where you have to fight to speak. And that too without adding any value to the discussion.", said a senior Prof. "The whole rationale behind scrapping GD is that it helps people who take help of coaching institutes and the skills developed in the process actually kills thinking process of the individual."

The admission process at IIMA is radically different from IIMB. The former follows elimination method while the latter uses selection method. The result being that while for A you can be sure that you can not make it if you are not competent enough, for B you can be sure of not missing out if you are competent. Which one is better, I still don't know. But, yes, at least they have found some commonalities in their respective perspectives.

Why Mr. Nandan Nilekani may eventually fail Mr. Manmohan Singh

2009-12-12T00:47:00.008+05:30

The Ex CEO of Infosys visited the campus this week. He had come to present his project to the Gujarat Government. While he gave the beauty of the IIMA campus as the reason to stay here rather than the govt circuit house, I feel the real reason for him, a union cabinet minister designate, to present his project to the IIMA community was more to get the "free consulting" rather than just to enjoy the stay at campus.

The Project:

The Unique ID Project is a project to assign each and every individual, "dwelling" in India a unique number(total 16 digits, 12 public, 4 private).

They will be taking the following inputs:

Name

Age

Address

finger-prints of all 10 fingers

iris scan

No other info is intended to be captured.

They intend to finish numbering 600 million people by the end of this government's term.

The Purpose:

Mainly to eradicate impersonation for various govt schemes and to prevent people from opening multiple bank accounts or show capital gains with different names. In short, to remove bogus people from the system.

My Apprehension:

While we were able to point out loop-holes, which may still enable impersonation on a grand scale by big fishes, the person who will be hit the most is the middle class Indian. That Indian, who tries to evade, on an average Rs. 2000 of, income tax by opening accounts with different names(eg. Manmohan Singh, M Singh, M S Singh, Manmohan S, etc etc...) with different PAN numbers to avoid taxation on their "income from bank interest" & "Capital Gains".

Its good to see India going the US way in appointing professionals in Government. People should not be encouraged to evade tax. But I am most worried about whether this whole drama will once again result in exclusively hitting the pockets of middle class. Time and again, we have seen the government more inclined to tax income which is easier to track(salary) rather than the income which is more necessary to tax. I am quite certain that people like Ramalinga Raju and his associates, will still find ways to tweak their iris scans or finger prints by a simple software and will have thousands of benami accounts and property.

Ram Janmbhoomi - Babri Masjid: A child's version

2009-12-06T02:06:00.001+05:30

The phrase today seems to be politically incorrect and the two names have been replaced by a more diplomatic name: Disputed Structure.

I was a small kid then, but I could very well read Hindi at that time. That is why I can recall those graffiti and slogan painted on the walls. I couldn't avoid reading them in mornings from the school auto while it horned and waited for another child to board. Some of them were:

"6 December, Ayodhya chalo"

"Ram-Lala aayeinge, Mandir vahin banaayeinge"

Once I went back and asked my mother,"Mom! whats there on 6th December? Any festival?". I used to think that the slogan "Ram-Lala aayeinge, Mandir vahi banaayeinge" meant that Ram will himself come and build the temple .... and we just need to go there on 6th and watch him !! Those were the days when the idea of being face to face with God seemed very plausible.

Those were also the days when I used to get shocked on seeing Muslims in my school cheering for India rather than Pakistan in a cricket match !! Muslims and Pakistan were synonymous. I was really a kid then!! Those were the days when I could see young volunteers working in the night, putting up saffron triangular flags on the electricity pole and covering the road with them as it was done during Dussehra nights with lights.

Wherever I used to go, elderly people(all people elder than me at that age) always discussed new developments regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi - Babri Masjid case. I still remember people discussing that "Allahabad High Court has accepted that there was a temple there. Now it just needs to be confirmed in Supreme Court".

And then 6th December came. I don't know what happened on that day. But I do remember that I came to know about the demolition of the disputed structure only through the next day's newspaper. Probably Doordarshan was the only news channel and was state controlled, don't know much on that, just know that I am still to see a newspaper headline in a font size bigger than the headline font on that day. It read,"Babri masjid zamindoz". Ya, you guessed it right, I had to enquire with my sister what the word "zamindoz" meant!!

The events that followed were something I don't really remember exactly now. I just remember that I was happy as the school was shut for many days and something known as "RashtrapatiShasan" was on. But I do remember something quite precisely; yes, there was a curfew outside. Everybody had to remain inside their home. Whenever a policeman used to chase a person in my gully, we used to peep out from the window and watch them taking away that person beating with sticks and butt of the 303 rifle. This was not a couple of days long curfew, but it extended for weeks. I was scared. I had never seen police action at that level from so close. It took me a long time to have a different image of police, still, I don't know whether I can ever forget that cruel and hard picture of police in my life. Probably I didn't knew that Allahabad was so close toAyodhya.

While I sit today in my dormitory at IIM Ahmedabad, remembering my childhood days, that Police action seems so necessary to me for the maintenance of peace. During my life, I have met many people and discussed with them many issues ranging from war, terrorist attacks, and on why we should crack down hard on "some elements" of our society. Sometimes I feel that there is a fundamental difference between my thinking and that of others. I have often found that many of the hardliners are those who haven't experienced the repercussions of these actions on them(or ordinary people). I have seen them in my childhood and I can assure you that there is nothing glorious in killing an unarmed person with the butt of your gun, even if the person is a suspected terrorist.

As always happens in politics, some people win and some people lose, while a majority of innocents die.

The Common Admission Test - CAT

2009-12-04T22:37:00.005+05:30

It's now stabilized. What sounded to be a management challenge at the time of its announcement, has lived up to its expectations.

With frequent server crashes, malfunctioning of systems, and uncertainty regarding re conduction of the test, CAT 2009 has turned out to be a nightmare for the examinees. Coaching institutes are leaving no stone unturned to dramatize and blow the problem out of proportion. Although it is true that in a competition like CAT even a slightest disadvantage for a person can be detrimental to him/her, I would like to question whether similar things were not present even in the pen and paper format of the test.

Getting a seat in the IIMs depends more on your strategy and luck than on your hard work and knowledge. And it had been very well established that CAT is not a test of knowledge or aptitude, but a game of strategy. In any case, CAT is just the first hurdle, institutes barring IIMB generally follow elimination method rather than a selection process. Looking at the competition here, I am pretty sure that on an aggregate basis, IIMs are able to select candidates they want, but this greater good will fell short in justifying the injustice to many other worthy candidates who missed those coveted seats.

Lets take a case from the pen and paper format of CAT. The IIMs reserve the right to keep any question out of evaluation if they find a discrepancy in it. It is printed in bolds on top of the question booklet. Every year, there are numerous cases where people spend a lot of their precious time trying to figure out the answer to that question. Specially if this question is a part of a DI/DS set of questions, where u need to solve the entire case correctly to answer any of the problems and most often you do not attempt the set if you are not able to find the answer to a particular question in that set of 4-5 questions, as it implies a very high chance of your analysis being wrong. Now when I say, clearing CAT is dependent on luck, this is just a small example of how luck plays its part in each step.

There may be people who may counter me on the above cited example saying that a person should not waste so much time in a particular set of questions and must move on ... etc etc ... The whole point I am trying to make is that, the CAT, or broadly speaking, the IIM admission process is not and has never been unbiased or justified. As Bill Gates said, "life is unfair, get used to it" !! These concepts of justice and equal opportunities are valid only in the cloistered environment of academia, once you leave it, you start feeling the heat. In fact, you get a glimpse of this bias even during the placement process(if you are graduating from an Indian Institute).

I have taken n number of tests, and am well aware of the impact of these problems which CAT takers are facing today. It does impact your performance. Probably IIMs have committed blunders. But, in the economy of scale, individual justice should not be expected from a management institute.

The Ghost(s) of Lehman Brothers

2009-11-20T00:29:00.010+05:30

People may relate themselves differently with the fall of Lehman Brothers. While most of the stakeholders have recovered from the shock, a unique stakeholder is still struggling. Yes, I am talking about the B-schools. If you take the case of WIMWI, Lehman was the firm recruiting the most number of people and paying the highest. With the fall of Lehman a strange thing has happened. Many people who worked as an analysts at Lehman became free and joined B schools in India.(I am talking about the engineering grads of India who follow the strategy of 3-4 yrs of work at bank and then MBA from Harvard... stuff). The result: The B-school students are pressed further in these times. But, how does it matter at present? The banks are back on hiring spree and each B-school is making new records in its placement figures. Why this crib about the Lehman Brother thing now?

A fortnight ago I was talking with a guy named xxxx. This guy is head of US Residential Credit Strategy at Barclays, NY office. The earlier Lehman Brother office of NY, acquired by Barclays. Although he had come for placements and he did pitch for his company, he shared some really eye opening insights about the fall of Lehman and his short term prediction about the future. Here are some of his comments:

"Lehman had always had one of the best financial prediction models in the industry. But, suddenly we realized that JP Morgan has come up with really great models and no one in the industry matches them. This superiority gained by JPM led to the Lehman fall. I think you people know that JP Morgan is the least hit bank, it is not because of luck."

"Ya, I worked in the same sector which started the recession. I was most hit. But I have made a lot of money during my days."

"I do not want to scare you, but you people have decided to do the MBA when it is the most risky to do it. I feel that by the time you people pass out, the job scenario will be very gloomy. Most of the Lehman effect is yet to come, and it will be really very bad for you people. I think your senior batch will somehow luckily survive and get placed decently. But be aware. I don't want to discourage you from entering into the financial sector. Its just my personal view."

Competition, Money, Uncertainty !! Closing in on you. Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson ??

The Summer Placements

2009-11-17T02:22:00.007+05:30

/*This piece was written during vacations when I had no access to net. May be outdated now, but am publishing it verbatim.*/

This was a new experience. Quite different from the one during undergrad placements at BITS. Why is there so much importance given to it? I don't know. I never gave, and hence am not interning in one of those i-banks or consults of day-zero.

Lets look at the implications of the placement process on its stakeholders.

Students:

Probably the most vulnerable of them all. Their so called future depends on this. No matter how much he or she is inclined towards being an entrepreneur or working in an NGO, placement is something no one can afford to play with. Some of these students are really sought after by the companies, while half of them don't get a shortlist for any day zero firm. Break down happens frequently, to the extent that people are advised to keep a few tablets of disprin with them everyday till they are placed. Friends have a tough job in consoling a person who has broken down.

Placecommers:

People having a huge responsibility. They really try hard to remain unbiased. But sometimes have to take calls which do no justice. Have to live with that. You should be really a tough guy to handle this. A job not for sophomores. Learning experience of a lifetime, negotiation and soft skills can get no better chance to be honed than this.

Firms:

The least vulnerable and the most cunning of the stakeholders. They try all the dirty tricks to get the most sought after candidates. A piece of advice(from personal experience): never trust any of them. No matter how friendly he or she has been with you. In this respect investment banks are better off than consults, but not always the case. A firm having a large IIT-IIM based people may tend to be more understanding than others.

Keeping these things in mind may really help you better prepare for the summer placement process. All the best to people who are still to face the heat. Cant share my experience as placement process is still on, and I am restricted by placecom guidelines for interacting with media and publishing sensitive information on web.

Cold-Calls and Friends

2009-10-01T23:17:00.008+05:30

For all those who don't know what a cold-call is, it simply means that you are pin pointed and asked by the Prof, in the class, about your views on a subject which you should have prepared for the class. With "class participation" being graded, such cold calls are something which a WIMWIan is most scared of. This fear is almost squared when the guy has had a party last night and has not done those 50 odd pages of case readings.

So, our friend Bala, was the unlucky guy today. More than that, he was unlucky in 2 different lectures on the same day. Find out the probability of that! While both of the time it was an interesting and funny sight, I would like to describe the scene when he was called in the second lecture.

As the Prof uttered the name "Bala", the whole class burst into laughter. Poor guy, its his worst day at WIMWI, everybody thought. "So Bala, what are the costs responsible for the bank's loss making retail business?" Obviously he didn't knew the answer (neither did I), but he needed to say something, and that something cannot be "I have not read the case". He looked blank and kept silent for a while. Thirty seconds passed, and there was complete silence. And then, suddenly, there was light. A girl "A" who sat next to him, and had analyzed the case, came for his rescue. But according to the norms, you cannot rescue a person caught in a cold-call scenario directly, or the Prof will kill you. So she tried a trick. She leaned on the desk, supported her head by her hands, in a way looking at Bala, and hiding her face from the Prof. She then started speaking phrases, slowly, and asked Bala to repeat it loud. But that sucker again goofed up. He started speaking aloud looking at her face rather than the Prof's."What a loser!", I thought.

Now, the Prof got little suspicious. Those people are expert in recognizing who has prepared and who hasn't. And this time, when he had finally got hold of a good bakra, the bakra has started speaking profound words out of nowhere. The Prof made a comment, " What are you looking in her face, Bala?(pointing to A)" The class again burst into laughter. And then he asked A something,"And why are you facing him like that? Are you telling him something?".

To this A replied, "No Sir, I was not telling him anything. I had put my head like that because, I WAS......SLEEPING !!".... and then there was the biggest laughter ever in the class.

The purpose was not to share a joke with you. I wrote this piece because there was something in this incident. Something which I had been searching for for long but wasn't able to find here. In a place like WIMWI, which boasts of having cream of the cream of India, it is really hard to find people who can bring the same friendly smile on your face that some of your friends at college did. However whenever such an incident, like this, happens, where people walk that extra mile to help a fellow classmate, my dwindling faith in feeling of selflessness is reaffirmed.

The Google Calendar

2009-10-01T23:06:00.003+05:30

With WIMWI aligning its time table with the google calender of students, managing time has become a cakewalk. Everything, from change in the schedule of classes, the PPT schedule, or pesonal engagements, can now be found in one integrated platform. The feature which I like the most is the SMS reminders of event and deadlines. Needless to say, many of those reminders were critical in reminding me of some of the important tasks which I would have surely missed.

However, I am one of those who are very particular about maintaining privacy on the internet. The suspicion which I have about these dot com firms has made me apply many weird tactics to dilute the information content available about me. Some of these include, but are not limited to, having different google, orkut and youtube accounts. But I soon realized that it served no purpose. Google calender would be a source of far more information about me than any other application I can think of right now. But still I am using it on a regular basis. So, why is this inconsistency?

At this point I can only say, in marketing lingo, that they are real gurus in understanding customer needs !! No matter how strict a person is in not disclosing information about himself to google, the offer is becoming too attractive to resist now.

Professionals

2009-09-29T16:44:00.002+05:30

Section Delta, 0930 hrs

The sleep of many of the dozers was disturbed when a peon entered the class in between. "I've never seen someone entering the class in the middle. What's the matter?", I thought. The peon showed a circular to the Prof. The Prof paused the lecture, took it, read it silently, and gave it back to the peon. He then continued his lecture from where he left it. All we could do is to guess what that circular contained, while he kept on discussing Forex reserves of India, China and the US! After some time, we became engrossed in the lecture and this episode of peon was forgotten.

The class ended on time, at 1000 hrs. All of us were too hungry. That's what happens when you get up late for class and have to skip the breakfast to avoid the wrath of the Prof for being late. "Why are they so strict on being punctual? They say it is to instill in us traits of professionalism......My foot! Leave us alone to do that, let the Prof teach what he has come to teach and no more", that's the thought process shared by many of us, especially those who are frequent late comers.

While we were getting up to go out and purchase the samosa, the Prof announced something, and there was a common utterance from everyone present there-"Oh! Shit".

One of the PGP1s of our batch had expired. The classes stood suspended for the day. Everyone was shocked, including the Prof, who inquired from us about his family, hometown and the disease he was suffering from. And, in all this, I was taught a lesson in professionalism by an Economics Prof.

Command of the Sovereign

2009-09-25T13:04:00.003+05:30

A bit late, however, important enough to have a thought upon: Is Mayawati right in erecting her statues? Is it correct on her part to do that?

The above question can be broken in two parts:

Is it legal on her part to do that?

Is it ethical on her part to do that?

Sometimes I wonder whether ethics is given its due importance in education? We are told that the reason universities do not emphasise on it is the relevance of ethics in today's world. Many Profs had claimed that although industry does put pressure on them to teach ethics to students, the industry itself does not value it. Every "case" discussed in the academic environment of the class in ethics had very clear answers of what should have been done and what shouldn't have been. However, in each case, the person who was most ethical was the one who bore the brunt of everything. The view from the trenches is far different from the cloistered environment of a classroom. So, in many of the cases, the discussion ended with no recommendation to us.

So, can we get any answer about Mayawati's statues from the study of ethics? Very doubtful! Lets leave it for them who always get in the dilemma of ethics, morality and law. Lets leave it to the Supreme Court, like we have always done, and escape unhurt again.

Obviously, there is no method in the madness. Or, is there a method ?

2009-08-28T20:02:00.008+05:30

I have always wondered about something. If I had been admitted in the first semester, what would have happened? Someone(a BITSian friend) told me that she wished she got admitted in the second sem instead of the first and I was always confused by this statement. I thought she used to make fun of me by saying that. It was ironical but there was an element of truth in her statement which I always felt but was never able to figure out. I spent three and a half years at that place and then a couple in the industry but still wasn't able to figure out the merits of being admitted in the second sem. And now, in an entirely different institute, I am able to slowly appreciate the merit of her viewpoint. It took me so long to look at the glass and say it's half full rather than half empty.

No doubt, management education opens up your mind and enables you better capture your own biases and stereotypes. Suddenly everyone you have met in your life starts appearing correct and you are the only person wrong.

Kashmiri Bride

2009-08-09T22:18:00.010+05:30

"Indian citizens from other states and Kashmiri women who marry men from other states can not purchase land or property in Jammu & Kashmir"... a part of Article 370, Constitution of India

Many a times in office, I used to get into hot debate on BJP and its ideology. Article 370 was an issue in which I had a very liberal view. I was in favor of it being continued. Frankly speaking, I do not know, but in many ways this article contradicts the concept of gender equality. Given the special status of J&K, it's like saying to a girl that if you marry a person from outside, you do not belong to our community or country any more. You lose your identity, your roots.

As things stand, women who marry outside the state may not hold government jobs, and they cannot vote. Their children cannot get admissions in government schools, colleges or professional courses. A person applying for a government job has to produce a certificate of being a permanent resident. A woman’s certificate is marked ‘‘until she is married’’. With these conditions still present, the plight of a Kashmiri migrant, specially a girl, can hardly be understood by others.

If you look at contemporary Hindu laws, you will find them amongst the most discriminatory against women. Muslim law is even worse. So, it's not the J&K clause but the overall structure of constitution. Then, is the common civil code an answer to these problems? Ideologically, it may be. But, it is like asking all states to adopt Hindi as their official language. A concept, which is today regarded as well-fitting ideologically, but practically, against national integration. In fact it was this very concept which led Bangladesh sever from Pakistan.

In all this, I see some of the liberties of a particular sex and region being sacrificed to achieve a greater good. Doesn't it go against the contract model of society? I feel it is a fundamental ethical dilemma which should haunt the two major political parties of India. Oh!! did I say political parties and ethics !! People caution me never to use these two phrases in the same sentence.

Addendum: It may make more sense if you google about the social contract model and greater good.

Consultancy !!

2009-07-24T19:42:00.002+05:30

A consultant was asked to look into the reasons, why a particular business, was not doing well. He started by interviewing the employees. The consultant asked one of them, "What do you do?" The employee replied "NOTHING". Then he asked the next employee what was he doing. The reply again was "NOTHING". The consultant, therefore, concluded that the reason, for the business not doing well, was that two people were doing the same thing, and therefore, one of them was redundant.

Disclaimer: Originality of the story is not claimed. The source may be found by googling.

2003A3PS906

2009-07-23T18:09:00.004+05:30

Q4: There is a need to update the records of students for the institute. Each student is given a unique ID, which is based on the year of admission, branch and a serial number. You have to update the database (in excel) using the following rules:

Replace the two digit year with 4 digits

Replace the branch codes (except PS) with new meaningful codes.(Look at table)

Table 1:

98A2PS657

95B5A3234

...

Table 2:

Old New

A1 CH

A2 CE

A3 EC

...

....... no doubt, the brand BITS is pervasive!!! You can find it anywhere, even in today's quiz paper of IIMA!!

Addendum: Did I mention that the Prof was a BITSian ?

Bending Moment

2009-07-18T14:42:00.003+05:30

@ Engineers: Don't kill me saying I have again mentioned a "ghotu" word from a mechanics course of engineering.

@all: This is wrt Manmohan Singh and Gilani. Has India bended? I am damn sure Mannu is going to face a lot of criticism for this. Why shouldn't he ? He is the weakest PM. He took a firm stand after 26/11 attacks and now he has agreed to resume dialogues without anything fruitful done by Pak. The list may go on.

I was once pulled up by a Prof in class. During the intro I told my hobby to be blogging(as I didn't had any other). He took note of it, took the intro of all other 90 students and started the lecture. Suddenly, while explaining something, he turned to me and said pointing to myself, "The problem with you people is that you blog." I was shocked!! Where the hell blog came in picture? But then he said something interesting. He said, "We are experts at giving advice, making comments on what should have been done and what shouldn't have. Do we know all the factors involved? Do we know what were the options in front of a person? No, we don't. But still we seem very wise and sophisticated and write a big blog enumerating the reasons for Advani's defeat in Polls, and on what he should do now. Always remember that the concerned person is in the best position to analyze the situation and do the needful. You need to do your own needful stuff, i.e. acquire KASH whlie you are in the class. Let Advani take a call." Then looking again at me, "Dont take it personally, even I blog ;-)"

I don't know whether what Manmohan Singh has done is right or wrong. I didn't knew it even when he was hell bent on passing nuclear deal. I felt that those are the things I am not knowledgeable enough to take a stand. There may be some factors which is beyond my scope at present. I always found myself alone at the lunch-table discussions in office, where people used to talk as if they are the real foreign ministers of India, China and US.

As far as I see it, the step which he has taken is a bold one. We have to recognize that situation is not right in a part of our country and deal with it. Narsimha Rao's approach will no longer work. If you look at the plight of people suffering, you can very well guess the reason of his bending!! Apart from that, "Strategy Theory" says that it is the right move. "All warfare is based on deception." Obviously I don't know what the reasons are, but I think novel steps should be given a chance. It's childish to start criticizing someone based on your sentiments. Those sentiments, which are based on a picture of the world, which may be far different from reality.

24 hours @ A

2009-07-16T16:41:00.010+05:30

Afternoon 1555 hrs [Room]:

You wake up and realize you have beaten the alarm. Five minutes still left in the scheduled sleeping time. What a miracle!! Haven't had this experience earlier. You come out of the room and see that it's darker than usual days. Hmmm... rain, clouds setting in, that's why I was feeling cold. You wash your face, enter your neighbours room and experience an epitome of Einstein's Special Relativity. Yes, two hours have passed and you have just washed your face after getting up. How can that be? You go back and look at your alarm clock, it's still 4pm, then you look in your cellphone, Oh God!! 6pm !!! Again you look at your alarm clock. Oh Dear! The second's arm is stationary!! You just remember you had to change the battery, you had been forgetting to purchase a new one for the past 1 week.

Evening 1820 hrs [Library]:

Got to start reading for tomorrow's (probable) quiz of ID. Last quiz of ID was bad, this time you have to cover up. But first you need to clear the backlogs in reading. You start, and after 10 minutes, you are busy chatting on your laptop with an old friend. Telling him the deadly time crunch you are suffering with.

Soon you realize that there is a group meeting @ 9pm and you haven't even read the question. You get up, go to the gatekeeper who is having your bag and take out another book from it. I will read this first.

2030 hrs [Institute Corridors]:

You just finished the question and are on the way to mess. Menu looks good today. Except for the roasting effect you receive while in queue for the rotis, everything is smooth.

2120 hrs [Library]:

Our group is very time efficient, 15 minutes and we are done !! Cool !! So now I can start seriously studying for tomorrow's quiz. One hour in the air conditioned library is enough to make you feel sleepy. You pack up and head for the room, hopefully thinking that the temperature there would be warmer and prevent you from getting asleep.

2230 hrs [Room]:

Alas! Alas! It rained today, the room is cooler than Library. Now you cant escape, 30 minutes is the maximum you can afford to sit. Then the inevitable happens. "Lets sleep dude, I will get up early in the morning and prepare."

0815 hrs:

You get up in the morning at 8:15, rush for everything and are there in the class just in time with a banana in one hand which u have hurriedly grabbed from mess. You are silently sitting in the well, praying that the Prof doesn't give you a "cold call". One lecture gone and it worked. No cold calls. Similar is the second one. "Tomorrow I will surely prepare and participate in class discussion." The third class has the quiz, 10 minutes, 19 MCQ. You come out with (hopefully) flying colors. MCQs are good, if there isn't any negative marking, you can at least complete the paper. It doesn't matter if you just made a wild guess in majority of them.

1320 hrs[Mess]:

I never like the lunch, food is pathetic, specially if you are anxious about whether there is going to be a quiz at 2:30 pm. I am hoping PS to be today or tomorrow. Did I say that these are surprise quizzes ? Oh yes, they are, that's why they put the notice for FRA quiz instead of expected PS quiz. Oh dear, hadn't expected FRA by any calculations. Lot of backlog, I surrender.

1340[Room]:

At least just learn the format of the balance sheet and income statement. You can get few marks for writing company's name and date at the correct places while making the balance sheet. Check if it is an open book... Naa.. no info... forget it... you have to mug up the format. Oh dear, just 15 minutes remaining. The last thing I want is being late. Start moving dude, we will prepare the rest of stuff before next quiz.

1430-1500[Class Room]:

You are raped.

1520[Room]:

You again put a alarm for 4:30 pm and try to sleep, wondering whether there will be another quiz tomorrow.

Do u remember ?

2009-07-12T00:40:00.003+05:30

Order of complexity, pre condition, post condition, tail recursion, loop invariant, 3rd batch in online... ROD !!, LC2, binary tree, GUL !!, Patt & Patel, Dromey, head..tail..grep..cat..more,stdlib.h, Segmentation fault, parse error, dramaClubList

Intersection-Interpenetration, third angle, EDD notes, orthographic-isometric, hidden line

Lathe, accuracy and precision, roughing-finishing, casting, forging, forming, electroplating, candle stand, BS Nagendra Parashar-RK Mittal

A P Koley, wave-function, A N Pant-Simply zero!!, conformational isomers, mother genes and father genes, hardy-weinberg equilibrium, Adenine Thymine Guanine Cytosine, Antibodies and Anticells, Table 2.1 (steam) - enthalpy, entropy, isothermal, adiabatic, steady-state, 2nd Law, turbine, throttle, Normal Distribution, Bernouli trial, null hypothesis-alternative hypothesis, Chi Square Distribution, random numbers

sphrical coordinates, Convergence, divergence, gradient, curl, Gauss, Green, Stokes, eigen values, row-reduced echleon form, basis function...

.... just the first year !!!

Kashmir

2009-07-09T18:31:00.011+05:30

Here is a pic I saw in today's newspaper, and could not control my emotions.

I don't know what it was; whether it was the big size of the newspaper image or the context in which it was published. But it surely made me think over the issue. What's happening in a part of my country? Is it justified? In the local political battle and the proxy war between two countries, who is suffering? After all whose pride and whose life is at stakes?

Time and again we have been told it is for the integrity and pride of India. But I must admit, whenever I look into the eyes of this girl I am unable to find my country's pride in her tears.

Photo courtesy: Hindustan Times, July 9th 2009, Mumbai Edition

Quantum Physics & Meaow !!

2009-06-18T23:02:00.005+05:30

Has the CAT syllabus changed ? Are the students expected to know hard core subjects like Quantum Physics for belling the cat? Is it more important than the traditional Verbal, Quant and DI studies.

The answer to all the above questions is a YES !!

Time and again I hear of people taking cat casually and ending up being at an IIM the next summer. Time and again I hear of people having excellent performance in the mock cats but ruining it on D day. I had always wondered what's the peculiarity of this test that makes it stand out and even beat the JEE in a way. Before I seriously started preparing for it I analyzed all these things to come up with a robust strategy, and I was successful. The same may not apply to everyone, but it is always best to know.

Detect the target

It is very important to know your odds for the institute you are planning to app. It is very easy today due to right to information. Just visit individual institutes and study closely their selection criteria. You will find some of the institutes having criteria in which you have a lot of advantage. See if that institute is good enough to target. I found IIMB having very favorable criteria for my profile, so I targeted it.

Take mock CATs

It's necessary to do this. More than knowing where u stand among others, it is important to know some of your own weaknesses which u had never even thought of. An advantage of taking regular mocks is that u can analyze the trend in your performance and try to optimize/maximize ROTI(return on time invested). The biggest help that mocks give u is to enable u know about your own statistics. For CAT the most important and critical thing is the sigma. Yes! the sigma of stats, viz standard deviation. At a point of time everything else saturates and it boils down to a trade-off between mean and sigma. I used to have a mean of 98 percentile and a very high sigma. Later I had to reduce both of them and the mean came down to 96-97 range. But getting above 95 in mocks is good enough for getting >99 in the actual CAT. It's a very delicate balance as the distribution is almost Poisson/exponential in nature, and if you try to apply your concepts of simple Gaussian distribution, everything goes for a toss. As a personal example I can share one thing, I attempted 9 ques in math last year and got 5 of them wrong and couldn't clear the cut-offs whereas this time I attempted 12 and 13 questions in math and DI respectively and got just one wrong. So, frankly speaking the key lies in the statistical analysis of your performance and on improving the predictability of your performance.

Personalize your strategy

Last but not the least, try to include the effects of personal factors to further improve your ROTI. This may include giving less/more time to your strong or weak area, allotting buffer time, choosing a particular set of questions, among others.

telnet prithvi

2009-06-15T17:47:00.005+05:30

For the knowledge of non BITSians and young BITSians, prithvi was the server used by every BITSian for his or her email and programming. It was a UNIX based Param 10000 Super Computer. Sounds hi-tech, isnt it? You wouldn't call it so if you had to use its non graphical mode of browsing using Tab and arrow keys. We had only 8MB of storage space which included 1MB space for mails. Seems too less now. But I really hated the day they shifted to the new windows based mail system. There was something in prithvi which was irresistible.

But I am not writing to count its merits and demerits. I am writing this to share an experience. It happened that while I was cleaning my yahoo mail inbox I came across a collection of emails forwarded from my BITS mail account. And I was surprised that even a single mail of those days refreshed the entire experience. Those mails to Profs regarding totalling error of pre compre marks, mails regarding pull up, mails to seniors regarding filling the transfer form, those mails in which I used to pull the leg of others for cracking the test, the encouraging mails from seniors after a ruined test and most important those sweet crush mails to senior/batch mate/junior girls and their replies. The nostalgia it creates is far more intense than viewing any album or watching any of the video records. Today I find that mails of prithvi server the best collection of my BITSian days.

Estella

2009-06-11T13:05:00.001+05:30

" 'for I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to- me.' 'Do you want me then,' said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, 'to deceive and entrap you?' 'Do you deceive and entrap him Estella?' 'Yes, and many others-all of them but you.'"

Literature

2009-06-10T22:59:00.005+05:30

When someone asks why I often tend to write technical stuff in blogs, he or she does not realize that it's not due to choice but due to compulsion. A few days back while packing up my things, I got hold of my Literature answer sheet of class XII prelims, and I was shocked by my style of writing. It was so good and really deserved that 18/20 score :-). The critical analysis, dramatic irony, Dicken's intentions, all were so beautifully written with a emotion in each phrase.

I would surely love to write on lines of those 20 marks essay type answers of English Literature. But then why am I so shabby these days? Where did it all get lost? Is it that studying and practicing technical stuff has moved me away from that emotional touch which I was able to provide to my writings earlier on? These are the questions whose answers I am yet to know.

I had always, and I still consider Milton tougher than Einstein, and sometimes it appears strange to me why I have a bias against technical people and a soft corner for the literature guys. Frankly speaking, the technical guy simplifies the matter and reduces the ambiguity in his final text whereas the poet or an author does the exact opposite. Then why is this paradox ?

I just feel that I want ambiguities and love making my own conclusions, and an author gives me exactly that freedom. In literature the level and extent of the interpretation vests with the reader, and it becomes a race with his own intellectual self.

Now I feel I possibly got an answer to another very often asked question - "Why have you watched the Matrix series movies more than a hundred times?"

Book Review: The Art of War

2009-06-09T22:13:00.005+05:30

The book being my first at the Vikram Sarabhai Library, is on strategy. It is really a must read book for anyone interested in strategy, diplomacy, defense studies, etc. It can be read online @ http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

Now, here we are taught to relate things to the present scenario, and hence I decided to have a go at it. I found the lessons of the book being widely followed in the west. The control on America by the strong Jewish lobby is the most striking example I could find of that. The bottom line of the book is that there are other ways to achieve the objective than the most obvious, viz WAR.

Its reading has again made me to think on the topic of CONTROL

The Interviews - A

2009-06-07T23:19:00.012+05:30

This series of blogs are on request from many of my friends who are future aspirats. Hence may become boring to non apirants.

So, you are the topper of BITS Pilani, isnt it?
Cant say, It is decided by the passing out class, so the results arnt out yet. /* Actually throughout every interview I have always felt the brand BITS played a critical role. Disclaimer: I am not topper*/

You had been a Teaching Assistant at college, how are those ppl appointed? /* This was probably more for their own info than for any judgement of candidate*/

Ok, tell me an equation that contains e, i and pi. You know all of these separately isn't it ?
Me: Knew a relation between e and i, didn't knew how to introduce pi. The equation was

exp(i*x) = cos(x) + i*sin(x)
now, how to introduce pi ???
IDEA !!!

I asked for a paper and wrote:
exp(i*x) = sin((pi/2)-x) + i*sin(x)

...ha ha ha ha... (people are correct when they say that you can be asked questions from your class 11-12th) even the prof smiled and said that he wanted to test my basics but has ended up testing very basic stuff. He then asked me to substitute x with pi. Ohh... how foolish I am, I felt after substituting it. the equation now became: exp(i*pi) = -1. So elegant.

So what is this equation called ?
Is this equation having a special name ? I think its just a special case of De Moivre's relation for a particular value of theta.

No, it has a special name. Tell me names of some of the mathematicians you know.
Hmmm....
Laplace
Fourier
De Morgan
(needless to mention that I had mugged up Laplace and Fourier Transform Equations b4 interview) .... now I got stuck. I knew many of the names but didnt had any idea of their work... for eg Bessel, Hermite, etc etc, so I couldn't name them. Finally just managed to give other two names as Mendel and De Moivre[design reuse ;-)]

Haven't you heard of Euler?
Ohh no, how could I miss him !!! I thot and nodded.

What did he do ?
A lot.... the first thing which come to my mind is the expanded form of equations of sin x, cos x, exp(x), etc..

I am done with him, its your turn. (looking at the other panelist)
Other panelist (smiling): So you have written your hobby to be Hindu Mythology, .... discussion on Draupadi's character, Krishna's role, and the politics at the time of Mahabharat. That was cool...you always enjoy when the depth of ur knowledge on the topic is in sync with the interviewer.

You have also written that you like writing on science. What type of articles are they ? Is it like.... How stuff works, etc ??
No, its like .... lemme give an example.... and the example was beautiful. I told them about this blog which I wrote here and I could feel that I have made it. The other person silently listening to my description of the blog told me to read a book named "xxxx" (I really forgot the name as soon as I came out of the room).

PS: The equation exp(i*pi) + 1 = 0 is called Euler's Equation and has been voted as mathematically the most beautiful equation in history.
Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_identity

PPS: For potential interviewees: The interview should be considered a good one... as I figured out later that it landed me not only at IIMA but also as one of the top 20 students at IIMA based on PGP admission criteria.

The IIMA experience

2009-06-07T22:41:00.005+05:30

I thought it to be a cool experience but .... it turned out the other way .... Its extremely hot and humid. This is a word from BITS grad, so you can understand the enormity of temperature and humidity. Heat might be less but its very humid.

The only thing you realize while joining a good institute, having earlier studied at another good one, is that all that matters are the people around you. Its not the buildings, not the assignments, not the weather, not the C'not or mess, not the LAN, and of course not the city*. Its the living beings and the culture that these people follow which is the key ingredient.

* limited in scope...for India only

Tuf

2009-05-21T20:59:00.002+05:30

Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was tough. During an inspection, a fellow soldier received 30 demerits for a single penny found in his area. Ten demerits were for "valuables insecure," ten demerits because the penny wasn't shined, and ten more because Abraham Lincoln needed a shave.- Jack Howell

Disclaimer: Copied material, although no copyright infringement as the source is copyleft

Rahul's Maglev

2009-05-18T19:59:00.005+05:30

The hot question today is whether Rahul Gandhi will be in the Cabinet ? Not hot enuf for me anymore. What I have been thinking of is the portfolio he will get(take).

People have suggested HRD+Science&Tech as the most probable choice. But wait a minute. Can he increase his mass appeal by his work in that portfolio ? I have a doubt. Surely that area is an area where a vision is needed, but if I were Sonia Gandhi I would have been more concerned about capturing UP rather than any other thing. Remember, Congress still doesn't have the mandate. Until and unless the Hindi heartland is captured Congress can never rest in peace.

So which portfolio is there which can increase Rahul's mass appeal in a short (say 3 year) time?The answer is not that difficult to guess. If a person such as Laloo, who had been involved in so many scams, can get a brand makeover, what would a person like Rahul be if he heads the Railways ? Apart from that, the rail network is most extensive and highly pressed (spl. in UP). Being an ordinary person who never travels in AC, I can assure you that half of the time people are discussing about the Rail Minister and his report card in the general compartments. The potential of that ministry can easily be estimated if you consider the number of people using trains. A dozen of trains run by a minister in his home state easily swings around 2-4% of votes(so u can imagine how many seats!!). Huge funds can be invested in railways, and in these slowdown times, it is a must. A study has suggested the need to implement a Maglev line for the Delhi Howrah corridor, and the costs for such a project is really huge. A party should always try to project its most promising leader as the person responsible for that investment, and Rahul fits the bill.

But is that the only point I am trying to make ? Personally I am not in favour of Congress, but I still do want to see him as the Railway Minister. And my reason is simple. I use railways, and i know how inefficient it is (correction, i should say that it has a huge scope of improvement). Apart from that it is an infrastructure sector and is very very important if there is any thought to compete with China. the world has started moving above the 450kmph barrier in train speed and we still have the Rajdhaani's and the Shatabdi's running at an average speed of 100kmph. If Laloo can bring his Garib Rath, when can I see Rahul bringing his Maglev ?

And I didn't Vote

2009-05-11T20:00:00.000+05:30

Today is the last day of polls. Elections are coming to an end now. Of course I didn't vote this time as well. A bit disappointed but it’s ok for me. I read a mail today. It was from someone "well educated". It mentioned the importance of 1 vote. But for me the story didn't end there.

/* the mail */

# A Lok Sabha constituency has about 15 lakh voters.

# On an average, about 50% people vote, i.e. 7.5 lakh.

# Winner usually gets 1/3rd of the votes, i.e., 2.5 lakh votes.

# The 1st runner up usually loses by up to 50,000 votes.

# Most people in the middle class (people like you and me) don’t vote.

# Actually, we do not count for the politicians! Has anyone from any political party approached you yet?

# Basically, the politicians know that we do not vote, hence we do not count.

# People in the economically and/or academically poor segment votes, and hence are counted by the politicians!

# Who can make a bigger contribution in making India a better place? The guys who usually vote or us? Obviously us, because we have the experience and ability.

# If only 3.5% of the people who don’t vote decide to vote for the 1st runners up, he/she would emerge as the winner! This is the power we have.

# If 1/3rd of the people who do not vote decide to vote, they can choose anyone they want as the MP!

# But we don’t vote because we think that our single vote won’t matter! But, if we join together, it does matter.

# The 2nd reason we don’t vote is because there is no one good enough to be selected. But the point is that they are being selected anyway.

# When the choice is between devil and the deep sea, choose the one who is less evil. If we can get this person to win, then he/she knows we have the power, and will listen to us. Next time, we can negotiate with this party for better results and performance and less corruption. Gradually, the system can get cleaned.

# This may be somewhat slow, but it would work. All you have to do is to cast your vote tomorrow.

/* end of mail */

As I always do, I am taking the opposite stand on this.

First of all there are some points in the text above which have a bit of hypocrisy in them.
"Who can make a bigger contribution in making India a better place? The guys who usually vote or us? Obviously us, because we have the experience and ability."
Please provide me with proofs. I am unable to digest that you, me, we, us are any better in understanding politics than the common "uneducated" person. You want to use your experience and ability!! Why not join politics then?? I know this view of mine is going to attract a lot of criticism, but that is why I have taken the minority stand. Apart from that I would like to clarify that it is the concept of “one’s vote being more valuable than the other’s” which I am against. I know that being educated we can contribute a lot. We should. But what is education? Is it only getting a B.Tech. degree with 9+ GPA. If the answer is yes, then the way we can contribute BIG is to use that education for some good cause. It does not make our vote have more weight than an ordinary Indian.

I can assure everyone and even myself that if a particular party says that if it wins it will give x% reservation to your caste in IITs or IIMs, we all will vote, and will vote for that particular party only. Human nature is the same, no matter whether it is an educated one or an uneducated one. The bottom line governs our actions in the same way it governs a corporation’s. The ones like you and me, usually find something or the other from the texts they have read that can justify their actions as something reasonable. That is what I am doing now.

I/We do not vote as any of the policy changes do not affect our way of living, our daily bread or our social status. It is true that there is a lot of voting in villages, but there isn’t much of forced voting now. People vote because it directly affects their life, their employment, their education, their future, their safety and a lot more. It’s true that there is caste based vote bank, religion based vote bank, society based vote bank. But is having a vote bank a wrong thing?? If yes, then why / how??

I was once motivated by my voting right and made up my mind that this time I will go to vote. But for that I had to go all the way to Allahabad and take at least 1 day of leave. Total cost of such an operation when calculated, turned out to be around Rs. 2000 (includes to and fro sleeper class train ticket cost + leave encashment amount of 1 day). I was still willing to go, just to set an example, but then I had no knowledge of the people contesting. I could have got some info about them from net but I wanted the “word of mouth” info, that info and feed backs which I used to get about contestants when I lived in Allahabad. Without that I was totally lost. To make the things worse, after the crushing defeat of Murli Manohar Joshi in the last Lok Sabha polls, this time BJP didn’t even seem like putting a fight at Allahabad. The other national party, the Congress anyways has no hold there. So I can’t even vote on party’s ideology (really doubt whether Congress has one). Then someone said that I should have registered to vote in Noida itself as I have been living here for the past 2 years. I thot I had made a mistake and should have registered to vote in Noida, but then when I tried to recollect the names of the people who were contesting from Noida I was not able to recall any. I was’t even able to recall the name of the constituency under which Noida comes for Lok Sabha elections(I should mention that all this had been learnt by heart before MBA interviews). I somehow have the feeling that it is not the lack of will power to vote that is responsible for lower voter turnout in metros, but the problem is a lack of interest in politics that creeps in when you start living in a metro.

We should always vote. No doubt about that. But the mail sent to me makes me feel as if my one vote is much more valuable than "their" one vote, and this is something which is disturbing me. Like a splinter in my mind, it is driving me mad. Is it really that way? Are the concepts of equality which I read in Civics lessons at school just an Utopian concept? Do educated ones always have the right viewpoint?? I don’t know how many people vote just to have that “yo” experience and to boast out this fact in their friend/family circle and how many vote to build the nation. I would love to do the latter. But if I can’t do it, let me not spoil the chances of others who really do vote for a cause. Sometimes I really ponder over Milton's line - "They also serve who only stand and wait".

Ajmer Trip

2009-05-05T19:26:00.000+05:30

Why do I always use public transport in spite of problems, is something that I cannot explain. But the journey is interesting nonetheless. Planned and executed in textbook style, especially if you consider allocation of time for copying data into hard disk from BITS' LAN (becomes a bottleneck when 320GB of data had to be copied in few hours).

Covering a distance of around 1000 kms in 58 hours, life seemed to move faster than here at capital city. There are also times when it becomes very boring. But then something interesting happens and brings back the smile on the face. A similar incident happened when, during this marathon journey, I was travelling from Ajmer to Jaipur by Rajasthan Roadways bus. By this time I had fully understood that I have to take one of the seats in the front, as my legs don't get enuf space when there is a seat in front of me. The only seat which had a lot of leg space was the seat next to the front door. It was a double seat and I was lucky enuf to get the seat which was not reserved for the bus conductor. The other guy sitting there had to move to some other seat once the conductor came ;-).

The winds were really hot and strong. What can a summer season do to your hydration level in Rajasthan is something most of us know. That's why I always had a mineral water bottle with me. However others didn't had. The conductor asked for it and consumed more than 33% in a single go. However I had a lot of water. So no need to worry. I had some other things to worry about. I was looking at my watch all the time sitting there. The schedule had become very tight, and there was a risk of sacrificing another night's sleep if the bus reached even 10 min late at Jaipur. But nothing can be done now. The bus has its own time constant and will follow that irrespective of any one's request. Anxiously, I asked the conductor about the time it will take to travel from Jaipur to Delhi by bus. He answered 4 hours. Such a relief it was. I had planned taking the time as 5 to 5.5 hours, so now I had atleast one hour's margin :-)

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Then , I don't know whether it was due to hot winds or something else, I felt like opening my eyes and found the conductor looking at me with water bottle in his hands. He had a look of a person who wanted an answer. I took the bottle back and was confused why he was staring at me. Then he again repeated the question.

Conductor: "कौन जात के हो ?"

Me(almost instinctively): "पानी पीने के बाद जात पूछ रहे हो ?"

He didn't say anything.
Then I told him exactly what caste I belonged to etc etc.

He again asked: "अच्छा , तो जैन हो !!"
हद है .... I thought and replied "नहीं"
he didn't go into it further.

Then he asked "अजमेर में कहाँ रहते हो? दिल्ली क्या करने जा रहे हो ?? नौकरी का Interview है क्या?"

Me"नहीं मैं दिल्ली में रहता हूँ"

He"अजमेर क्या करने आये थे ?"

Me "घूमने"

He "अच्छा मिलने आये थे. किस्से मिलने आये थे ?"

Me"दोस्तों से "

He"रिश्तेदार हैं यहाँ पर. अच्छा अच्छा."

He"पर दिल्ली वालों का अजमेर में कहाँ कोई रिश्तेदार हो सकता है ?"

Me"said something.." ... might have given a quantitative or probabilistic explanation...in no way related to what he interpreted next.

He"अच्छा ससुराल है !! "

Me"नहीं, शादी नहीं की है" ... (aside)do I look that old ?? ... OK may be in Rajasthan I do, owing to their custom of early marriage.

He"कहाँ है ससुराल ?"

Me(fed up by now) "Actually मेरी बीवी का ननिहाल है यहाँ. उसकी नानी का देहांत हो गया इसलिए अजमेर आया था. उससे यहीं छोड़ दिया और मैं अपने काम पे वापिस जा रहा हूँ."

He didn't said anything after that throughout the journey. All this time I was wondering whether he took the last answer too seriously. I got down at Jaipur and inquired about the bus. There was a bus after 10minutes. Wow, I will be able to reach Delhi ISBT by midnight. And will be at home by 1 o'clock. So finally I can sleep tonight!! Then, out of curiosity I asked the person at ticket counter about the time the bus will reach Delhi, and the answer was "2am".

So the conductor got this one wrong as well !!! And I was thinking that he took my remark of Nani's death too seriously !!!

Eureka !! Engineering Skills !!

2009-04-30T19:14:00.000+05:30

CAUTION

Don't read this post unless u r too free and willing to tolerate some of my obsession. It may end up being a worthless read and/or a total OHT. Warning you again. This is for my personal record only. No general audience targeted.

This is in continuation with my previous post and answers a question put forward in it. Ref: http://purpose-fate.blogspot.com/2009/04/iimb-data.html .Please do not proceed if you haven't read that post. This(the one which u r reading) post has been written just as a record of a debugging exercise which I executed. Debugging someone else's code (just looking at the output) is really a task.

The Question was:

Which of the table shows the real value and which shows normalized values ?

My bet was data source 1 (hereafter referred to as 1) for normalized. Kanchan backed data source 2(giving a reason.. in comments part of that blog). Now its my turn to prove her false. The WAR has begun.

Lets Start:
My reason behind claiming 2 to be the actual scores was the knowledge that ppl having a CGPA of 10 have cleared CAT this year. So raw percentages can't be 99.9 for bachelor's degree. But, I may give false info at this forum, maybe I have the wrong info. What to do now ? How to get the truth ?

As a typical designer, lets start with some feasibility analysis. Let me have something to prove(or disprove) here. Lets see if a CGPA of 9.99 is possible in India.
Take the worst case:
An Institute has GP as follows:

A=10

B=9

Let the number of courses (assuming Engineering...hence 4 years)=x+1
If, to have a CGPA of 9.99, the required number of courses = x+1 then,

[(9+10x)/(x+1)] = 9.99

Which gives: x=99

So, a total of 100 courses in 8 semesters. Which means 12.5 courses per sem !!!

Very unlikely. Not even possible for 5 year integrated courses(although only their first 3 year grades are taken to compute their CGPA for bachelor's degree in CAT).

So, I feel I've won !!!

Wait a minute.
The rounding-off method of the institute may be generous(assuming it to be a ceil function), it means that a CGPA of9.99 may actually be mathematically equal to 9.98000000000000001

Lets do it again:

[(9+10x)/(x+1)] = 9.98

Which gives :x=49

So, a total of 50 courses in 8 semesters.

Hmm, a total of 50 courses!! Very much possible to complete in 4 years. So, this logic cant work any more. Inconclusive argument. :(

****

Lets take a look at the normalization scheme: It is defined(as per doc released) as:
It does not take it to be a Statistician to find out that there has to be a 100% and 0% in the normalized marks. In fact not one but many ppl will be having a 100 or a 0 percent score.

So, is it over, have I lost ??
A very desperate moment !!

....

But then, why isn't any 100 percentage in10th or 10+2 marks ?? Neither is there any 0 !!

This cant be normalized data for sure.
So what is it ?? Are both the scores raw scores ?? Why this discrepancy then ??
and then suddenly....

EUREKA !!!

There is a trend...!!

All values in table 2 are either less than or equal to the corresponding values in Table 1 and this difference is more prominent in lowest marks rather than highest marks.

In the same doc on admission procedure, they mentioned one last point. The final marks before the merit list is made, will be calculated by taking the average of ALL THE MARKS printed on the mark sheet for all the subjects. It was this clause that had caused the percentages to fall. ICSE/ISC and CBSE boards don't consider all the marks for calculating percentages(not official though, but it is a widely accepted practice).

That can explain why some of the values in both the tables match while some differ, and why lowest values differ more substantially. So, the final Average Percentage marks of every examination (10th, +2) decreased, and so did the highs and the lows.

But there still appears to be an anomaly. In a table where all the values decreased or remained the same, how can the graduation marks increase from 99.9% to 100.0 % ?? The answer is very simple for someone who has filled the CAT form carefully. That form provided only 2 digits before decimal and one digit after decimal for entering marks. Hence, technically the maximum marks that can be entered there was just99.9% !! Anomaly squared ! :-)

Phew !!! ... that was a long journey... so much of calculations where just a clever guess did the work at the end. Which makes me think whether applying your engineering skills can always lead to an answer, and most important part, can it lead to the correct answer? Or is it that "Knowledge is Power Supreme" ??

Perhaps the fundamental question is :

Is it always worth to know the system completely ??

****

IIMB data

2009-04-24T20:42:00.000+05:30

Data source 1 :
http://hrm.iimb.ernet.in/cat2008/Stats_IIMB_CFI_%202009.pdf
Table D, Column "Bachelor's Degree", sub column "High", the value provided is 99.90

Data source 2:
http://hrm.iimb.ernet.in/cat2008/Website%20info%20Final%202009-11.pdf
Table F, Column "Bachelor's Degree", sub column "High", the value provided is 100.00%

If this is the discrepancy in the data provided on the same web page, I wonder what more goof-ups have gone unnoticed.

Some sharp people may suggest that one of the table shows normalized percentages and the other shows actual percentage. I can agree on that. But shouldn't they have mentioned that in the doc? After releasing such a beautiful doc on the admission process, this type of error is not expected from them.

Another 100$ question can be "Which of these data tables shows raw score and which shows the normalized ones ?? ". Its really an interesting one. Please give it a try. My choice is Table F for Raw and Table D for Normalized. :-) What yours ??

Addendum : IIMB has the best admission process I have ever seen for any Indian institute.

Varun Gandhi !! Who won Who lost !!

2009-04-22T20:09:00.000+05:30

Prediction:
Winners: BJP*, BSP, Varun Gandhi*
Losers: SP, Congress*

* = tentative
BJP= Bhartiya Janta party
SP= Samajwadi Party
BSP= Bahujan Samaj Party

Bottom Line: SP losing out seats to BSP

Discussion:

SP was quick to realize its bleak chances this time. They have made so many blunders!! Just for the sake of saving some high profile people like Amar Singh, etc from the clutches of CBI and intelligence agencies, they compromised on almost everything.

Some of the blunders:
Opportunist behaviour wrt Nuclear Deal
Affiliating with Kalyan Singh
Giving ticket to Sanjay Dutt for Lucknow seat
Nafisa Ali, in a way giving away Lucknow seat to BJP

But it could still have put up a good show, had there not been the Varun Gandhi episode.

You may wonder what does the Varun Gandhi episode has to do with SP ??
As widely accepted, the voter in UP belongs to a vote-bank. The vote banks are based on castes and religion. SP tried to woo the higher castes in the western UP by affiliating with Kalyan Singh. But, the biggest vote bank of SP are the Muslims. It is this vote bank which is going to sharply deplete.

Why ?

People, especially Muslims know that they are treated as vote bank. It does take some time, but at the end one can easily differentiate between equality and appeasement. They have the option of being with the SP or choosing someone else. Now, no points for saying that BJP is out of the scene here. What remains ?? BSP!! Think over it again ?? Has BSP ever confronted Muslims ?? Have they even supported the concept of a common civil code ?? Have they ever criticized Mulayam's pro Muslim stand ?? No, no, no !!! In fact the people whom BSP represents are those who are disinterested from religious hatred, and view the same class of people whom the Muslims view as their oppressors.

No one knows whether Varun Gandhi episode may bring up the number of seats for BJP or not. But the invocation of NSA and having a tough stand on Varun's comments is surely going to be a match winner for the BSP.

So, lets see how good is my this prediction!! :-)

In someone else's marriage, Abdullah has gone mad.

2009-04-19T15:59:00.001+05:30

Attended a school friend's marriage some days back. Surprisingly I had hardly attended any marriage in the last 4-5 years!! long time!! Actually this office life is not that boring, after all you can easily get leaves (when not on critical projects). The party season has begun, a couple of months left before becoming a machine.

No doubt why ppl at the marriage party referred to me as Abdullah ;-)

Welcome to the Real World

2009-04-14T20:34:00.000+05:30

It has been just one day since I registered for the IIMA google group for the finally admitted students. I am sorry to say this,but I feel disappointed.

It has been flooded with queries and clarifications. Every 37.4 seconds there is another mail in my gmail inbox. But what bothers me is the type of queries these ppl have. There is along thread of mails(more than 100) on the issue of Laptop, with everyone trying to push his/(not her) opinion. These ppl havent come out of the GD hangover. Don't want variety and don't respect others' freedom to choose their fate.

There has been a long list of mails on the issue of TFW(tuition fee waiver) scheme of IIMA. IIMA asked ppl at the time of the interview to submit a filled up form for tuition fee waiver. Many of us did, but some didnt. They had reasons for it. Didnt wanted to get stuck up in a interview question like "You earn so much, still u want a waiver?" etc. Also some felt that not applying for a waiver may increase their chance of getting thru(concept stolen from US Univ apping process). Now after getting admitted they say that they were "lazy" at that time and now want their case to be reconsidered. They are saying this even when they wrote and signed a declaration in front of the interviewers that they don't want a waiver. I have never got a more suitable example of opportunism than what I see here.

If you still feel I am biased, take this last case. A person admitted in IIMA from Infy puts up a query like ..." I have been working for 6 months, and I feel that this workex wouldn't be of any value as it was a training at Mysore. So what shud I do in order to save my bond amount. Should I just tell them and run away refusing to pay the bond, and don't claim of having a work-ex at IIM or is there any other way. The guy was hell bent on not paying the bond amount.

These are the future "cream of the cream" managers of India. Disgusting.

मा बहन मायावती

2009-04-07T00:04:00.000+05:30

No, its not an abuse. This is what I saw few years back on a big banner somewhere in my home/current state. The only thing I missed was a small dot(.) after Maa, meaning that it meant Mananiya Behan Mayavati.

Jokes apart, I thought Mayavati being the first lady of India (not in protocol/literal but in real sense) deserves some space here. For those who don't know her, here is a summary of the discussion which I had in one of the MBA interviews with a panel /*Mayavati is important to understand because she is the character who has dominated UP politics since the demolition of disputed structure at Ayodhya. She is responsible for the fractured mandate in the 1998 where she robbed almost the entire voter base of BJP in UP, thus preventing it to get a sizable majority. Also she had her hand in the fall of Vajpayee Government in the confidence motion, where she delivered a speech in the parliament that her party would be abstaining from vote but turned at the last moment and voted against the govt. BSP had 5 seats and NDA lost by 1 vote. She, along with Kalyan Singh is responsible for the most disgraceful event in a parliamentary system, namely the Confidence vote of Kalyan Singh in UP Assembly [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sbsSOr26uk ] ..... and many other things. */

But today, she is a hot topic again, and that (for the last few days) is due to the fact that she is still unmarried, thus couldn't understand the feelings of a mother. If you can get hold of the video of Meneka Gandhi scolding and abusing Mayavati for putting his son Varun in prison, it will change your perception of Maneka Gandhi, "the animal lover".

"Cheapness is feminine" ... many BITSians will remember that quote. But Mayavati has shown great restraint, comparing herself with Mother Teresa. It seems that in the election time, this discussion is there to stay and gain much more momentum. Only the results of poll can tell whether she has evolved from Mananiya Behan Mayavati to Maa-Behan Mayavati.

Bday Treat

2009-03-29T00:36:00.000+05:30

This is the first SMS I received on my bday. It said and I quote:

"People who look for absolute clarity before decide actually never decide only follow by default option. But the common thing between a failure and successful person is they both take quick decisions. As most people fail so the person who look for absolute clarity and endup doing nothing feel that he did right ..so is he right? Or intelligent ? If yes then thanks for the complement .. If no ..So what should I learn from my rs 500 loss. PLz ans.."

I was also thinking the same thing which you are thinking.....What does it mean ?? There was a flash of many interpretations before I read the next SMS (actually it was the first SMS and the above quoted one was the second, but as the inbox was sorted in decreasing order of time, I read the latest SMS first), the next SMS said and I quote

" Birthday tumhara treat meri ho gayi.. 12 bajte hi 500 mehngi ho gai.. He bhagwan...."

Suddenly everything got cleared... from 11 o'clock in the night this person and I were on phone .... and the discussion was on whether he/she should purchase the ticket for flight back home or wait a few more days to decide on the timings. The schedule was absolute clear but we were discussing the nuances of the trip, and ended up postponing the decision of booking tickets. We felt that the cost of the ticket was slightly expensive to compensate for the REAL time lost in train travel.

That settled the discussion shifted towards decision making and the psychology of ppl making decisions involving risks [ya ya ... the other person was a finance MBA .... no points for guessing that]. And the bday treat which I owed him/her for wishing me first on bday.

After reading those messages, I really felt it was a constructive discussion :-)

Tagged

2009-03-23T19:44:00.000+05:30

Tagged by Madhusudan, refer to the link "Discussions with Keshav" on the right panel for his blogs.Here are my replies:

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it?

A scar on the upper lip .... hardly noticeable now, but still there. Got it during 5th standard while taking a sharp catch at the slips. It was a leather ball :(

2. What does your phone look like?

This one is unbelievable... I still don't know the model of the phone I am using ..its a Nokia phone and battery is gr8 .... nothing concerns me apart from that ;-) .... got it as a second hand phone when my legendary Motorola Z300i got lost :-(

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?

Walls are plain and simple, but the doors are really inspired by "A Beautiful Mind", there are 2 doors, one for entrance and the other is the cupboard door. The paint is nice as it doesn't allow even the Reynolds permanent marker to remain permanent. There is a line graph, with four different plots on the same axes. Then there is a list of deadlines for various Univs, and the schedule of apping. There are also some equations like

4. What is your current desktop picture?
Abhi at office... on a Solaris machine... no desktop picture here.... and at home .... its a tragedy...for the past 2 weeks ..... Hard disk formatted thrice and windows default picture wud be present on desktop ... but i really cant say ...coz the PC hangs b4 desktop appears. PCs cabinet is open and mother board on the floor, SMPS opened and a tester also lying there ... hard disk also lying smwhere.... my processor got burnt :( ... searching for a new processor.

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
No

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
No public disclosure

7. Are your parents still together?
Yes.Well ...it seems this "tagged" thread started in a western country.

8. Last person who made you cry?
No public disclosure, also need some more elaboration on the crying stuff .... like khushi ke aansu etc ... are those counted here ??? Does it need to be a person only ... or things like diary, photographs, videos are also allowed ??

9. What is your favorite perfume/cologne?
Don't have any Favs as such

10. What are you listening to?
humming sound of the central AC.

11. Do you get scared of the dark?
Not really.

12. Do you like pain killers?
Neutral, I haven't taken it anytime on my own.

13. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
No, tried thrice, 2 success, 1 failures. So the strike rate of 66.67 is good enuf to keep the spirits high.

14. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
Veg Sandwich of SKY, BITS.

15. Who was the last person who made you mad?
D K Saini, BITS

16. Who was the last person who made you smile?
Nitin, my boss, here at office ... just a few hours ago :-)

17. Is someone in love with you?
**content supressed due to objection from a critic**

Why should I trust you ?

2009-02-21T20:19:00.000+05:30

Because you have been down there. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know thats not where you wanna be.

Gul - Part I

2009-02-07T00:17:00.000+05:30

What does this word remind you of ??? The model turned actress Gul? Or the old hindi serial on doordarshan "gul gulshan gulfaam" ? Or its literal meaning "flower", or Kashmir ???

But the Gul which I am talking about is a different one. I, along with many other BITSians who had a privilege witness a teaching legend connect Gul not to the northern most part of the country but to the exact opposite part, i.e. Tamil Nadu.

A person who had the fame rivaling present day Obama, who was so scrupulous and dedicated in the work he did, that it shook my whole philosophy of human nature. I was just totally muddled by his way of working. I do not say that he was the best teacher, I do not say that he had the best knowledge of the subject that he was taking, and I am sure many of the BITSians would agree on that. But I can surely say that if I had ever seen any person who was dedicated towards his work more than himself, it was him.

I had a notion that the importance of a teacher is as a facilitator and that genius cant be replaced by teaching alone. This very notion of mine was completely shattered in my first sem, and Gul was the person who was the major contributor.

Let me quote some statistics about Gul which I observed in my first sem. He was the person which was at the top in the crush list of 50% of the girls of MB and on the second spot of another 49%, not to mention that few guys too had an eye on him !!! That in spite of him being average in looks. His classes were heavily packed, that in spite of taking class in the largest lecture hall of BITS. A person even suggested him one day in a jam packed class that he should book the audi for the next class :-).

And now my connection with him. I never attended any of his regular class. Reason being the time table clash (poor second semites....hardly had an option to make an attending time table). But I did get a chance to attend one of his classes, that was an extra class, and that was enough. I simply hated him for what he was doing. The hate was more of a strategic and competitive compulsion than an individual one. My reason for this was that he is teaching so good that he has increased the AV, and it has become exceedingly difficult for people like me, who need a safe A to make a transfer. At that time if I were given the choice to have Gul in BITS or have a BITS without Gul, I would have chosen the latter. I knew that I could manage without his teaching, but the others surely can’t. I sometimes think how negative I am to have had an idea like that. But it was all to change, and my views changed.

.... to be continued.

LC Tank Circuit

2008-12-25T22:36:00.000+05:30

Krishna then asks the boy whom he would favour in the war? Barbarika reveals that he intends to fight for the side whichever is weak. As Pandavas have only 7 Akshouni army, when compared to Kauravas 11, he considers that Pandavas are weak and hence wants to support them so that Pandavas will become victrious. But Krishna asks him, did he seriously gave a thought before giving a word to his mother (to support the weak side). Barbarik guesses that his support to the weaker side will make them victrious. Then, Krishna reveals the actual consequence of his word to his mother:

Krishna tells that whichever side he supports will only make the other side weak due to his phenomenal power. Hence, he is forced to change the side that has become weaker due to his word to his mother. Thus, in an actual war, he will keep oscillating between the two sides, there by destroying the entire army of both sides and eventually only he remains. Subsequently, none of the side is victrious as he will be the only lone survivor. Hence, Krishna avoids his participation from the war by seeking his head in Charity.

Quoted from wikipedia... hence not responsible for grammatical errors. ;-)

**ABSTRACT STUFF**
Now the question is : what effect will the Q-factor of his response have on the outcome if he wud have participated in battle. Of course we know the effect of the value of resonance frequency. Wud find some time later to think of the use the other side cud have made of the knowledge of his frequency responce.
**END OF ABSTRACT STUFF**

Critical Angle

2008-10-19T18:34:00.000+05:30

The doubt is as follows:

The law of reversibility of light states that, if I put a mirror normal to the path of light then the light is reflected back and it tracks the same path backwards as the incident path.

Definition of critical angle states that the incident angle at which the refracted ray makes an angle of 90 degrees to the normal is called critical angle (note: in no literature it is mentioned that this angle cannot be physically realized).

My doubt:
The source of light is inside a glass prism. Light from the source falls on the glass-air interface at critical angle and hence comes out of the prism grazing the surface. Now after this light has come out, i put a mirror in its path normally. What will be its path back ?? Will it follow law of reversibility of light ??

This question haunted me from the year 2000 upto the year 2007 when suddenly there was light!!

Surface Tension

2008-10-06T19:38:00.000+05:30

Did we consider the fact that surface tension is not equal to zero while reading the famous experiment to prove "Air has weight and occupies space”??

Probably not.... yet it made perfect sense then. The experiment was like .... a balloon filled with air weighs more than the deflated balloon when measures in a physical balance. Hence the air inside the balloon has weight.

Let’s move a little further.... I read Archimedes' principle and the concept of upthrust/buoyancy. Now the very same experiment seems contradictory. You are measuring "air in air"... hence weight = 0, isn’t it? … hmmm….. "Forget it. I will think over it when the tests are over.", was the standard reply which I got from myself.

Little more ahead in time ... Perfect Gas equation states that PV=nRT... hence loosely speaking density= n/V = P/RT. For the air in balloon RT is same as ambient but P is more, hence the density of air in balloon is more. Thus weight of air in balloon is not zero in air. Now again it makes sense.

Few years later.... thinking..... Am I still making a mistake??? Probably not ...it’s a proven experiment, its there in many books... no one went as deep as I had gone (like applying the perfect gas equation etc). I have done it. There can’t be any mistake in my logic.

Came the class 11th and the concept of surface tension. "Oh! So the walls of balloon are under a force". It took long time to realize that I had made a much unsubstantiated assumption in my conclusion earlier. The assumption that - the pressure of air inside the balloon is more than the ambient air. So now, the weight which we see when we weigh an inflated balloon is the weight corresponding to the product of surface tension and the surface area of the balloon. Although perfect gas equation helps in our understanding of the phenomenon involved, it does not come in the final equation of the weight shown by the balance. So a balloon having zero surface tension will make that classical experiment fail in spite of the fact that "Air still has weight!!"

I still wonder if I am yet perfectly correct. I feel and I wish that I am not.

The above case is a classical example of moving from truth to truth. From lower truth to higher truth[1]. I do not know whether this has a purpose or its just to control our minds.

[1] Swami Vivekanand's address at Chicago

Addendum: A little reflection can tell you that it is the availability of a medium which can sustain a constant gradient of a physical quantity acrosss it, which is a mandatory requirement for conducting such an experiment. If you havent got it yet, then think of an experiment that proves that water has weight(assuming water is incompressible and you are conducting your experiment deep inside an ocean) !!