The Great B-School Hoopla

Placements – The dream for which an MBA student spends lots of sleepless nights. HUL, ITC, P&G, Nestle, Citi Bank, GeP, Amozon,… These are the names that he thinks in his mind and tightens his grip in his tight fist. Yeah, of course there would be those superladies and supergentlemen who get through PPOs in their Summer Internship with a bit of talent, a bit of hard work and a bit… No, a lot of networking!! Be it as it may be, if I were to give you just one advice for Final Placements friends… It has to be – DO NOT BE A PART OF IT. Get out with a PPO in your Summers with an effort of your lifetime and enjoy your B School Life.

Well, there has to be many others like me who would not have been ripe enough to be plucked during the Summers. Well, it shouldn’t matter to you if you know the reason you couldn’t make it all the way and the aspects you need to improve yourself in the next one year. For instance, for me it was to improve my technical knowledge and developing a practical and thorough insight of my Domain – Supply Chain. After all, it isn’t your end of life. Move on and say to yourself, “So what?” Enjoy the fact that the best in the Campus are getting a PPO and it’s your competition that reduces for the finale - Final Placements!! And if you are on the greener side, beware of the complacency.

Being in Placement Committee taught me various lessons. Time Management, Understanding of requirements of the recruiters, Leadership Qualities, Crisis Management, blah blah… Sorry I got driven by the bullshit answers you got to give during interviews. Well you know what’s the biggest asset of being a Placecommer?? Here it is – You are undoubtedly a part of the best minds of the Campus, some awesomely gifted self-committed, self-driven and creative people who pushes you each minute to newer limits which you never even expected out of yourself!!

Handling the various processes, organizing major events and involved in a lot of placement-related activities throughout the year never gave me the freedom to concentrate full-fledged on my studies. Frankly, I never wanted to anyways.. Or neither did I ever do though out my career. So as the days closed down to my Finals Placements, I started to keep myself in seclusion more and more. I started spending more time in my room with Supply Chain books or at gym. You always need a special company to keep you going and letting your fears and emotions out. Frankly, there is nothing you can be told back that can pacify you but it’s just about someone you care listening to you and saying, “It’s Okay”. I have been lucky in this way as I can thinking about not just one but many close friends.

The first day was a nightmare. I started with an IT profile, got to the last round, rejected… then a SCM profile, again got to final round, rejected… then a Marketing profile, selected for the first round and my dilemma with it cost me the opportunity. For once, I realized that being on the other side and wearing your name tag on your suit is very different from wearing the Placecommer Tag. On the second morning all I did is brush up my Summers, heard some inspiring song (on any other day I would have been face-hiding-embarrassed by this) and pledged to myself that this is the last time that I am going upstairs for the process as a candidate instead of a Placecommer helping others with getting their jobs – My actual Job!!

So 3 hours from this, I got my first job of my life!! Thank you so much to everyone who were a part of this. Well, it’s 2-3 days of stardom and then it’s all the same guys. So make friends, love others and enjoy life. And a new phase of my life starts which scares me sometimes, but you know what… Bring It On!! :)

Gather Ye Rosebuds... By Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run.
And nearer he's to setting.
.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Carnival of SmartAsses

It’s the Carnival of Smartasses!! Come on champions; bless us with the Pristine Suits, Terse Words and Sophisticated Countenance. They live for it and we die with it. So people sit back on your seats and appreciate the plethora of emotion-dances and sentiment-exhibitions on the stage. Because they would perform for you till their last breath just for being patronized. They were just like you, you meek gullible little ones. But they have brushed past you and now, they don’t even remember your faces!! They are simply too good for you.

Here is when some questions come to my mind. Are they the protagonist of the play that is life or the director? Are they the showstoppers or the show coordinators? Are the dramatics important or their inside self?  Someone told me few days back that if you want to live happily ever after, learn to frame your image on others’ mind of what you want yourself to be seen. It hardly matters who you are but it about what others perceive you to be. I have never been in such a crooked world before, you see. Is this all real? DO all live their lives like this? Dunno. But the real question is not this. The real question is… How to deal with this bizarre world?

We are hypocrites of the extreme nature. And sadists. Humans have the unfathomable quest to prove that he/she is better than the other. It’s all about reputation, rank, hierarchy, recognition, fame, money and self-proclamation. It’s a mad race and the one who can reach the top by hook or by crook and cloaks the wrongdoings and incompetence by artistry of words and magician’s deception. Where is the simple world of accepting mistakes, learning from them and talking to your conscience? All these seem utter bullshit. Life isn’t one of those Chetan Bhagat’s books and it doesn’t give you a second chance. It’s a world where if you can’t get things done by being smart, you are very well allowed to play dumb.

If you are living in real world, you don’t just live one life. You live multiple lives each with their own assumptions, accomplices, emotions and fallacies. The trick in the tale is how quick and apt is the way in which you can shift between your lives in the complexion that you deem fit. It’s like the firewall stages of your network security and giving right access to the right levels of your soul. On the core of your soul is the place where after all, these lives merges into one and this is the place where ice melts, where birds chirp to drink the elixir and there is music in the air which only you can decipher and tells a tale very different from what it looks like. That world is yours. Very own.

So live your life!!! And leave me the way I am. With the people I am with near my soul. And with my mistakes and stubbornness. I will find my own path of glory someday.

The call of the beloved

Love is…
Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fan club with only two fans
Love is walking holding paint stained hands
Love is.
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light
Love is
Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is
Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is
Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you are away from me
Love is…

These few lines from Adrian Henry are the closest i have come across that elucidates the worldly emotions of love in words. I am neither such skilled a writer nor the keenest of observers of the plethora of human emotions that can bring me even close to illustrate my depth of love for you. I may not be good at saying romantic words but I do love you. They say that street of destiny is full of pebbles, and climax and anti climax of all the sorts lie ahead of us and things are bound to take turns for good or bad... But all i damn care is that all the roads lead me to you and you are with me clutching my hand tight never letting go.

As i think at all the things that we have gone through, I see a pattern and a purpose for a single ending. Our sisters' fiasco, our first conversation in the bus, your "ragging" after the branch change, my yearning, your break up, our simultaneous career-happy moments, our tough times during the sudden leap of fortune, our fighting spirits and the weird feeling of secret achievement now....all seems a pattern to me. And don't mistake it, It was in this particular order. I know that it hurt you so much to face people and convince them the honesty in particularly two things in this order, but today i can very well ask you to just let go. People can think what they like and there is no point proving anything to anybody because the more you try, the more they would suspect... And frankly, if all you care is me, give these thoughts a rest and try to start over and try making the world happy. And beyond a point, you can't help a diseased soul.

Ok sorry i got dragged away. Each day that we share this bond of trust, I feel more strong and confident about us. I may be weird in my own way and be stupid at times. But i only behave this way just because i feel desperate to prove that i am worth all your love and care. And this pushes me to do things i could never have imagined before. Among all these weird people around me here, I feel like my own when i talk to you.You give me a reason to smile on the worst of days and a reason to blush on the most uneventful of days. Sometimes i wonder that i have got things so easily that it almost feels like a dream. I don't care if it's a dream. Just hope no one wakes me up anymore.

It's crazy ride we have had isn't it? It has been a free flowing rivulet...with small hiccups all right. But what lies ahead are the true testing times. You remember the "challenge" right? We got to meet up to that and i can promise you that i will never tire of seeing you smile. Lots of hugs. Love you forever.  I cant believe that i am saying this... but finally...yes finally ... I believe in LOVE!! Don't ever make me want to delete this post. Keep smiling.

farewell...

imagine an animated world moving slowly around you and you are stranded feeling numb while the storm of change beckons you to move ahead. you are brushed by a shoulder and you turn around to see no faces looking back at you. you wonder whether you did actually brush any shoulder or not. fingerprints dont fade from the lives we touch. all you fear is that in the costemic world that we live in, is there a feeble chance of people faking the fingerprints? as you take a pause from your busy lives, you realise that afterall, these brush of shoulders and touch of hearts is what makes life memorable and pleasant, no matter how short these special moments are or how it is going to turn out in future!

few months from now, it would hardly matter how we ended up being there or what we believed about that place before. because we would be so immersed into our lives that asking if one is asleep or not, worrying if one has taken her medicine, caring if one had a ugly day with his boss, or assuring that you would never give up on your special one, would be if not anything else, difficult. hence, it would be a test of the highest degree which would eventually determine how good friends you are. when the juniors asked me about farewell, my initial reaction was "no way am i going!!!" i strongly believe that for those you care for, there isn't gonna come that single day when u say, "tadaa bubbyee...see ya!! adios..." and for those you don't, the very least that you can do is not fake your wishes and good gestures. and so, you see why i don't see the point in a farewell party. but due to my sweet juniors and my mocking di, i made up my mind, very reluctantly though, to make a short visit and come back. but as it turns out, i am a fucking emotional prick!! i ended up doing all the wrong things and feel bad later on. hehe...

when me and my friend arrived at the party, it was already late and i felt meek seeing all the lavish dreases and elegant makeovers. but then i thought, who is here to praise my dress or look special for. it was a day of love birds dancing in the love-makes-happy-ending tunes. it was good to see the happy faces, although i wondered if i would ever be gutsy enough to dance with a girl on stage. with my receding hairline and disbelief in the notion of love, i might probably give you the good news in the next lifetime. at one point of time, i felt it was very absurd. no1 seemed to remember the huge fight which caused cracks all over the place few months back. people were all smiling while asking sweet questions to the one they had a day of phillipics with that day. is it really true that time heals all wounds? when called upon to the stage with the dearest of my friends, me and my friend ended up fighting not to dance together and falling short of words for each other. after some wild dance steps, we called the day off. the juniors had asked us to write something for each other on a piece of paper, and as always i ended with abruptly terse and insufficient one liners and wished i cut everything i wrote and write something more sensible.

frankly, i didn't care about this day after a very special day yesterday when me and some of my special friends spent a long-wished-for hangout roaming, eating and watching a movie. Anyways, THANK YOU ALL very much for everything!!!

Heckler's Veto

The recent stretch of events is beckoning the society towards a grim road of intorelence and vandalistic approach towards disagreement. Various incidents come to my mind when i consider the violent response to a piece of art, speech or expression. Salman Rushdie being debarred to attend a video conference at the Jaipur Fim Festival, Taslima Nasreen's books being banned, M F Hussain being sent virtually to exile or Kashmiri filmmakers condemned for making films of Human Right violations of Indian Army in the ever sensitive region of Kashmir, all signal towards a sad reality of today- Heckler's Veto.

I came accross this word in a national daily few days back and it intrigued me to the core. A heckler is a one who disapproves of an idea hypocritically and while he cannot back it up with proper logic, he thrusts his views on others with violence. While change and protests are an integral component of a democratic society, we can't afford to get it done at the barrel of the gun! Personalities like M F Hussain, Taslima Nasreen or Salman Rushdie have a intellectual or artistic career spanned over atleast 20-25 years and a single piece of their work may be offending. One may oppose a single work of these artists but can we ban the artist himself/herself? Few regional polarising powers are at work and it seems there is oppurtunistic politics at its blatent best. 

The sad part of the whole episode is that the organizers and the state governments lack the spine and fail to provide safety and safeguard constitutional rights. We need to be a community which is so confident that a single person cannot change the whole dynamics of our belief system. The Supreme Court sits at the helm of things and the people who oppose an idea or a creations can always take the legal course of action.

I fear a world where many potential M F Hussains would think twice before brings their imaginations to colours or potential Salman Rushdies refrain from writting something with the fear that people may threaten his life. In the words of Voltaire, " I sometimes hate what you write, but i will give to my death the right you have to write."

Confessions of the callous mind

I have seen guys taking a look at a picture of IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta before going into the laps of sleep angels. I have seen guys arguing about the fact that the fastest way to earn big bucks is to be an entrepreneur or get into the corporate scheme of things. I have seen guys walking with naked feet on the chilling floors of the corridors for preparing for the gateway to these Ivy League B-schools- the CAT. And primarily for these reasons it has become an upheaval task for the renowned professors and counselors to select the appropriate candidates for these colleges because simply, there are absolutely so many worth it. So, the inclusion of the class 10 and 12 in the selection criteria is not a surprise. But as I see, there are some gaping lacunae in the system.

The CAT exam is structured in such a fashion that it is the measure of the quantitative and logical ability of a student. In other words, it determines how much a student is appropriate to be an entrepreneur. On the other hand, a class 10 or class 12 score is a measure of the hard working and to some extent mugging ability of a student. I don’t mean to denigrate the importance of hard work but are we ready to accept to the fact that firstly, we can compromise the entrepreneurial abilities for that and secondly, that IIMs don’t believe in “living in present” and “a change is possible” anecdotes anymore? The IIMs seem to say,” You might be fat-glassed nerds with no leadership qualities. You must be able to work your asses off for all we care. We have got experts in this field and we can make you an entrepreneur and a leader in 2 years!!” There are students who are destined “not to think big” just because they had a 63 in Hindi in the 10^th or a 67 in Physics (or any subject which has nothing to do with judging entrepreneurial abilities) in the 12^th or unfortunately fell sick during the crucial times. It seems they would have to atone for the “mistake” that they committed 7-8 years back. I mean, there are people who didn’t even think about doing an MBA when they are 16! The real question is, what is the IIMs going to do when grading system is implemented at both 10^th and 12^th levels as Mr. Kapil Sibal is so eager to do? How would they distinguish between a huge pool (and by huge, I mean HUGE!!) of Os? I guess their kindergarten scores would determine if he is apt for an IIM or not! Moreover, there is also the whole uproar about the whole normalization process which is anything but transparent.

There are certain argument that there is very low correlation between CAT scores and actual academic performance inside b-school and some b-schools have gone a step ahead and performed informal studies to find that there is high correlation between one’s past academic scores and b-school GPA but my simple question is this – To take to cycle of events forward, does the placements in the corporate world and the ratio of students being independent entrepreneurs have any “correlation” with the student’s GPA? Once you are inside a company does the boss care whether you are from the IIM or a college like MDI or NITIE? All he is concerned is whether his job gets done!! I once talked to a NITIE alumnus and he had a very interesting thing to say. He said, “You can’t really blame these institutions because even the top notch corporates want to show a heavy intellectual workforce to the market with students from IITs and IIMs. Being from a college like NITIE or XIMB or MDI there is just an year gap when u need to compensate for your profile with hard work and deep aspiration. At the end of the day, you just need to believe that these institutions didn’t recognize a talent, and move on. Nothing is the end of the world.” So true. If all your work is geared towards securing yourself against failure and embarrassments, why live at all? If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.

A simple solution could have been this - The IIMs should first conduct the CAT and then allow all above 97 percentile or say 95 percentile to send their resume. A panel of experts should scan the applications based on the overall profile (extracurricular activities, positions of responsibility, scholarships, etc.) and not just some board or graduation marks. Okay, hardly matters what I think…hehe. In the word of Susan Sontag, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”(Few IIMs are out of my list though…lol)