Miles to go before I sleep..

Huh...did I say life is fun?

I completed my 27th round around the sun today. The entire campus partied on this occasion. They called Raghu Dixit to perform. Our own class of '10 band performed and was amazing at that. Ya of course they dunked me in the pool at the start of the day - 12 midnight and smeared cake all over my face and head. And then we partied till 7 in the morning. The alums danced, students danced, spouses danced, and we gulped 1000 liters of alcohol. That alum in the morning was watching me with pity when I wasn't able to find my way to my SV. But I couldn't even see the road still! How could I know where to go! And they let me sleep for 4 hours only and started calling me up at 11 in the morning to wish me. The relatives and friends.

And just when I would say Man! this is the best birthday ever! my calender threw a reminder - McKinsey case preparation session due at 1 pm. I was still heavy with a hangover but had to drag myself into the shower for full 15 minutes in the vein hope that my head would feel a little better. That didn't happen. I spent the rest of the day from 1 pm to 8 pm doing cases with McKinsey alums. And what I get at the end of it? Guys, the preparation level of your batch is nowhere close to where the last year batch was by this time. You need to put in effort. Now how do I tell those guys that I am submitting one fucking assignment everyday, every assignment takes up at least 3/4th of my night, and then whatever time I find, like a machine I try to do a case or two. We did it in our times guys, nothing is new, they would quip. Now say, what a birthday!

But truly, what a birthday! This is the first one when I can look back and say yes today I have all that I wanted by this stage. And just when I want to sit back and relax, the McKinsey alums are here to tell me that this is just the end of the beginning...

A beautiful poem my Robert Frost to sum it all..

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep

Drunk and out..

damn damn damn...I am completely inebriated at 2.36 in the night. ISB Solstice, the annual alum reunion is going and ISB is in all festive mood.

The days are fun man! One week to go for exams and in this one week, I have two individual assignments to submit for merger and acquisitions, one group assignment for the same, one group assignment for financial statement analysis, two group assignments for new product management, and two group assignments for financial engineering. And oh yeah, the interview preparation for McKinsey and BCG is going on with alums from McKinsey calling me late in the nights for case prep and my group calling me in the library for 2 hour 2 case sessions every third day. It's almost like a finger up my ass.

But the days are fun man, really! I am coming from the 2008 party lounge, all full with about 300 people, many alums, many spouses and many friends-with-benefits, yeah you got it! But it was fun...three large vodka pegs back to back, a long due chat with Garora, my one close friend, and a reminder that yes this is what I had bargained for. And then someone asks me where that girl is..oh ya, the same girl I went on a date with in one of the parties, when the next day everyone in the class thought I am seeing her and was concerned because they think I am a 'good' guy and she has been going out with bit too many people and ditching them like anything too often. But I wasn't seeing her. She just asked me out and I went. But its fun, people care for you! So, she came today with this another guy from my section only. The new catch, oh ya. But life is fun dude! This another girl, the daughter of a big industrialist, who was in my negotiation group last term put on a glittering pink lipstick and is looking damn sweet today and add to that she joined me in chat. Nakul and Manju were leaving, so I joined them. Enough it was for me for tonight. I had my head spinning and din't need any more liquor. On way back, Aloke is talking about the damn interview he is expecting. What the f**k dude, get a life. I am drunk at the moment. I'll tell you what to do for the interview tomorrow. Now, for God sake, go to bed! He got scared and let me go. Those muscles help you sometimes, I tell ya guys! Kick-ass!

Tomorrow I am turning 27. But life is fun dude, I tell ya. This is what I had bargained for..

16" it is..

Wow, so today is officially the first time when the measuring tape showed 16" around my biceps! And I wrote only 15.5" on my resume...too bad.

All along the way, there were unspoken targets - 12" in the beginning, then 14", then 15" and finally 16". Na naa! I am not planning to go beyond 16" now. After all, there is something called proportions too. This is perfect.

But, cool, isn't it? I managed this all despite the ISB's grind!

So, is it destiny or you?

My mom told me today for the 64,783,726th time not to worry and that whatever happens happens for good. Not to mention, I agreed with her on phone.

But then, is it really so?

When something happens one way and your life takes one direction, you start moving in that direction. And if you are inherently inclined to work hard, you turn that whatever way to your advantage and earn a reputation. You become an achiever in your area. And then people look at you and tell you "See! Had you got the other thing at that time in the past, you would not be this. You would not have achieved all this."

There appears a clear causation fallacy in such observations. If you had got that thing you wanted in the past, you would simply have taken a different direction, worked equally well and achieved similar results.

Wouldn't you have?

Core terms payoffs

7 months in ISB flew by. For sure, now I realize what they mean when they say one year at ISB changes you, your perspective, and your life forever.

For one, sodomy of the core terms paid off today. I got the second ISB scholarship, this time for being in the the Dean's Merit List for core terms...phew! The first one was the ISB Admission Scholarship. Now I can afford to take the acads a little easy.

International placement season started some 15 days ago.

Resume is almost finalized now. It was difficult, took me some 30-40 iterations, just like the admission essays but has come up really well. All thanks to four McKinsey alums, and Sanjeev in particular. All of them gave valuable inputs and Sanjeev went out of his way in calling me himself and reviewing my resume for me. One alum from Citi group also gave a good piece of advice. Then my classmate Aloke gave me one full hour just 2 days before exams to review my resume. Of course I reciprocated.

McKinsey application deadline is tomorrow. I'll apply sometime today.

So much happening. And I have a feeling that I am forgetting something else too. What's it that I switched my laptop on for. Ohh crap! it's the end term exam tomorrow!

Movie for the evening..

Just watched '21'. The end was fantastic. Just look at the confidence of Ben sitting before the interviewer. Amazing if you can do it in real life!

Term break coming to an end..

Have watched..

No Man's Land

City of God

Life is Beautiful

Wall Street

in the last 24 hours and am going to get another one before the library closes..

brought Rashomon on a friend's suggestion but couldn't stand the black and white reel for more than half hour. Returned.

Watched Disturbia for a thriller to end the term break.

And now the pre reads for tomorrow's class. May be I'd read some Spanish notes too. It's been long.

Creating the thought leaders...

I want to share something with you which completely blew me away. The passion behind this system is overwhelming and I am fortunate to be a part of one such system, if not the exact same.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid992329247?bctid=769654260

We have such similar things here. This makes me see my own system in a very different way - how much it has to offer and how much more I need to make out of it. Term 4 is on in four days...way to go Sodium.

A stepping stone to a career in finance or financial consulting..

The news is just in..

Results came out. The company had given only one project here and 19 teams bid for it. Two were shortlisted, the other one of a very close friend. Both were interviewed and then high drama ensued. Results for all other companies were announced on the stipulated date but this one was withheld on part of some ongoing discussions on the client side. Then the two teams were called again for another meeting but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute. The results followed soon after.

We have got the project from one of the most coveted I-Banks. It was also the hottest project of this year here. Wishes have been pouring in since then. Have to agree, this is the biggest name associated with me so far.

And it all started with one phone call.

Watch out this space for more...for now, I have to meet my study group for tomorrow's case discussion..

Manish Sabharwal strikes again..

Three days ago, on 12-Aug, we had Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease Services come to address our group who had taken the course on Planning an Entrepreneurial Venture. They call this guy a serial-entrepreneur whereas he insists that the adjective 'Serial' be used with only mean words like 'Killer', 'Rapist', etc.

The auditorium that is usually very hard to fill for any event here because of the continual pressure of acads and a multitude of parallel activities was full that day. The guy has earned a loyal audience by his spell binding presentations and speeches in various conferences here. And this day was not an exception. For 2 full hours, not a single person left Khemka (the Auditorium), and when he finished, he got a standing ovation for one full minute - quite a big thing here.

Here are a few witty one liners I remember from his presentation. They may look weird out of context here but were apt in the presentation. Nonetheless worth reading -

- Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat (Damn! How many of us have realized this?!)

- You guys won the ovarian lottery (= you were born to a family who could provide you a respectable education. Respect man! what a logic!)

- Sexually transmitted CEOship (for family heirs becoming the CEOs of family owned businesses - blew me away!)

- One biggest advantage of being a bisexual is that you double your chances of finding a date (of course! Just that I never looked at it this way before!)

- If it went right, it was a skill. If it went wrong, it was bad luck.

- Entrepreneurship is about staying alive till you make money.

My quadi says I am influenced by the oratory skills and witty remarks. But, really, sometimes you go just for the pleasure of listening!

Closing remark at a VC session tonight..

Everyone pities the weak..

Jealousy, you have to earn

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

A power packed night..

Just came back from the ISB Arm Wrestling Competition. I and three others jointly organised it under the aegis of the Sports Club and the event was a huge success.

23 people challenged 23 others in the Challenge round. And 32 guys and girls participated in the Open Round. The event was attended by some of the hottest guys and girls of the batch.

Will soon update this post with some pics too.

And yeah, something came up in my discussion with another girl from my section -

If people feel that you are too complicated to understand, you probably are too complicated for even yourself.

A walk through the dark night..

"Dude, look at the last year's shortlists - No one below 3.89/4 shortlisted by McKinsey, BCG, A T Kerney..." said my engineering classmate who has joined me here too. The guy is serious about this claim and has hit 4/4 in Term I. But he is still mourning the 'screwup' in Term II in which he thinks he will have to be content with only 2 A's and the rest 2 A-'s (=3.75/4), a portfolio of grades that would make most sensible people here open Champagne in the beautiful SV grounds under the cloudy night.

"No dude, I saw at least one guy shortlisted at 3.6 something. There may be more. I didn't check all." I said.

I have scored 3.75 in Term I and as usual, am very optimistic about the top tier consulting firms offering me a position, not just because I have good grades but because of my entire resume.

"No man! Then look at that guy's other activities too. He had done quite a lot." He suggested me.

This was a typical Sunday afternoon in the dining hall.

This is one year at a place that offers many opportunities to grow across several dimensions. Nobody is clear what is right. Everybody has come in with his own set of priorities and his own perception of success. In any conversation on what is right for the future and what is not, there is tremendous opinion clash. Some are going all out for grades because that's seriously all they have ever known. Some are fighting for grades under peer pressure to make it to top tier consulting firms. Surprisingly a few guys who were happily 6 point someones at IIT are slogging for 4/4 here. This is the last platform to a great career, they would tell you - right or wrong, nobody knows, not even the alumns. Some would tell you not to focus too much on grades and do other things too but the hesitation in the voice gives out way too much - They are really not sure what would work in this market.

A substantial chunk of student population - those still trying to make sense out of the chaos and determined not to be the part of a meaningless rat race - meets in fragments on cloudy night walks around the academic center and asks others of the group whether it's really right to succumb to the peer pressure and register for all those industry projects or business plan competitions just because everybody else is working hard to add that extra line to their resume that might signal their superior level of willingness to join the AAA rated recruiters and to prepare some material for those 5 minutes of interview that would make the entire difference between the upper casts and the untouchables of Corporate India.

You should listen to those fighting souls on those dark night walks. The confident adults in business are nervous students for sometime. One puts hands around the other's shoulders and tries to comfort them on the same dilemma that is eating himself within. Nobody is just ignoring academics here. We are infact getting above average grades. After that level of hard work, should we really not do what we want to do - play football everyday, do gym, go swimming, dance, perhaps look for a special someone...or..is it really a sin here to think of relaxation - mental or physical. And they listen to each other. In half an hour of each other's company, they feel better and go back to their rooms, read the latest issue of The Economist, something they so wanted to do from the last four days, do some course reading and get lulled into a peaceful sleep.

The day breaks with sun shining through the flimsy curtains, there is a lot to do today. Morning classes, some afternoon assignments, an alum session from some AAA rated company in the evening, discussions with numerous classmates throughout and the day ending in hesitation at 7.30 in the evening whether to go to the recreation center or to pitch for the new industry projects posted this afternoon or may be go to the professional club's meeting to be a part of the focus group trying to organise some high profile conference on some esoteric management topic, not because that's what they want to do, but because who knows networking might come in handy for a good job tomorrow and of course 'Key member of the organising committee of So&So summit' might give them a spike on the resume. 'Might' because nobody is sure..

At 11.30 in the night, I look out of my window into the cloudy sky and pick up the phone "Aloke, want to come for a walk for sometime?"

Mental Attyachaar...

Last year when I read the blogs of top MBA school students sometimes, I also came across a few from those from the Indian School of Business. Some of them wrote their posts at 2 am or 3 am and said they were about to go to read a case for the next morning class after the post. And I wondered how difficult that should be at that hour knowing that you have had a packed day, have morning 8 am class the next day, and still haven't yet started reading the case at 2-3 am!

Fast forward almost an year...

In the morning, I had 2 hours each of Managerial Accounting and Corporate Finance class from two of the world's most revered Profs in the areas - one from Kellogs and the other from UCLA. In the afternoon, I went for the last term's end term paper viewing session that took me another 2 hours. Caught a short nap in the evening. Went for the consulting club session from the BCG people who had flown down from Mumbai for a day and because the BCG partner there was an economist with a passion and authority in his subject, it turned out to be almost another class in economics and finance resulting in a severe information overload in a single day. The stress buster was a sweet 10 min chat, after BCG session, with one of the prettiest girls of my batch - yeah, you are free to assume anything about my intentions; when the girl has that mix of qualities and beauty, anybody can slip. But I hear that she already has an equally eligible boyfriend, though I have no source to varify that information yet.

Ah, I have this tendency to digress from the subject!

Alright, so after such a pecked day, it's 2 am now, I have a class at 8.15 in the morning, and still have to start reading the case for tomorrow's class...

A leader he will be..

Cream of the future Indian management, budding entrepreneurs, aspiring CEOs and what not!

They join all sorts of clubs, take 'initiatives', 'network' with the who-is-who of the corporate, organise 'International conference on this and that' successfully every now and then, despite challanges like the bad market, etc. Above all, they are called 'Leaders'! They got in here precisely because of their demonstrated leadership qualities.

They are perfectionists, they believe in excellence and expect excellence from others - from the school too...but

...but they would leave their room ACs on for the five hours they are in class. Why? So they find their rooms cool when they come back. Oh, but it feels claustrophobic in closed rooms. So, they would also keep the room door open. Oh yeah, the AC is still on, otherwise it's so hot! And you know actually leaving the room open is good too in a way, so you have the lobby cool too, just in case you want to drop in to watch TV for 5 minutes in the day. At least, you wouldn't sweat for those 5 minutes. And did you say about the lights? Ah! Come on you freak, how much power does a tube light consume!

Ask them where their parents live. They would give you the name of some small place near Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, or so. Oh yes, they would recall over a cup of tea how they were always mad when the power went off for hours a night before their final exams. In fact, they got a percent lesser in 12th just because of that. This incompetent Indian political and buerocratic machinery can never make India a developed nation by 2020 if this is the state of a basic necessity as power, they would tell you. God knows what would happen to the exploding power needs of this country had the left been successful in scuttling the Nuke deal! And hey why are they not going home in the term break? Ah man, it's very hot at my home place and even the power doesn't come full day. I would rather call my parents here in one of those breaks.

Once in a while, an observer brings their attention to this and look at the humility of those leaders, they are always prompt in taking the blame, accepting responsibility. Just fast forward one more day, they are in the class, you sneak into their open door and a burst of cool air hits you in the well lit room. Laptop is on so they hit the ground running on coming back from the classes..

How I wish, we knew leadership starts from within...

SUST, SUSU, et al...

Markstrat is a well known game in the MBA world. You compete with your batch for the same market, do R&D, launch products, build your brand, do advertising, deploy sales force, collude and what not! (Alright, collusion is not possible because of the Honour Code demon that bars us from placements and gives a straight F in the subject at the smallest violation of rules)

Every product has a four letter name - First letter for the market (S for SONITE market), second letter for firm (U for firm U. There are 5 firms in the industry, A, E, I, O, U), and the last two letters are your imagination for your product.

You are given seven periods, each equivalent to an year and you have to maximize your profits every period.

Our firm is U, so all our products for Sonite market start with SU-

We launched SUST two periods back and it has not really been sust. Instead it has quickly become our star product. However, the surprise came when our recent launch SUSU exceeded expected sales and the production fell short. In fact, this time our production of SUST, SUSU, and SUSI, all, fell short even though we had targeted almost 75% market because of our strategic positioning on all segments. But the markets grew by far and with the targetted sales numbers, we got only 61% market share and the production fell short. But still, this time our net earnings were the highest of all periods, perhaps because we had taken 4 large shots of Vodka before keying in the first marketing mix numbers.

But those names are giving us a ball of a time in all our markstrat sittings and Vodka added to the slime. Krishna told Somesh and Ranjana "Why don't you guys do SUSU (together?!) !" when all he meant was to ask them to plug in the advertising and sales force numbers for the product in the system. And the dirtiest of all happened when we all agreed that we were targetting (our) susu at high earners. Not that subtle, eh!

I have daily discussions with our competitors over the wrangle for the only market and this time I had challanged a firm A girl to do whatever she could but she wouldn't be able to beat us. We beat them up by almost 40 million markstrat currency this time. Dinner tomorrow should be fun. I can't wait to rub it in at her. Dining hall is our most common hangout to socialize and markstrat has only added to the meal time chaos.

The other guy, who is my partner for DMOP assignments, and his group opened champagne last time when they made 41k (as against our 55 million, to put the numbers in perspective). They have seen negative net contributions (read positive losses!) in all other periods so far, so a positive contribution, however small, was a reason to go on a binge. The guys are all set for the B- in markstrat. But he is a good chartered accountant, I can't stop laughing at his markstrat plight everytime I look at him. They made a -1500 this time too. Two days ago, I told him I wished Markstrat had an M&A option with a possibility of a hostile take over if your share price went too low. The guy told me how he wished he could kick me in the nuts, if he were not scared of my biceps.

Life is not fair dude!

The Gym guy..

My business card now reads -

1. Co-ordinator for Gym and Fitness Centre under the Sports Club, and

2. Co-ordinator for the Recreation Centre under the Operations and Infrastructure Club

The first role involves organising and managing the participation of Gym and Fitness Centre in all the Sports Club events and the second role involves managing the day-to-day activities, infrastructure, and operations of the entire Recreation Centre, including all the sports facilities, Gym, and Swimming pool.

The first appointment makes me the member of the Sports Club - Core and the second the member of the Graduate Student Board - Extended for the class of 2010.

I never thought my business card would read all this at ISB. Perfect for a Gym freak, isn't it! BTW, thanks in advance. I know you are itching to click the comments link to congratulate me!

Several new demands are already in the queue for the recreation centre and public has just been waiting to pounce upon the Rec Centre Rep as soon as the formal body structure is announced. Huh..where to start from...perhaps a brand new calves machine for my favourite...Gym!

The reflections..

I have had moments when I have cribbed about this place, but when I am receptive to the external environment, this place continues to give me new, exciting experiences.

Tonight we six guys from section A were having dinner in the Goel dining hall and discussing random things when the Strategy Prof from the University of Michigan came with his dinner plate and asked if he could join us. It was a delight. We have had several good profs so far in the two terms but this one is perhaps the best of them all. I heard that last year he was voted the Prof of the year. He is an IIM A grad, has a PhD from Wharton and is over 45 years old. It was amazing to see how well we connected. The classroom formality had given way to informal chatter about everything under the sun. We discussed about the opportunities in the Education and Health Care sectors and the apple case. One of the guys said he had heard somewhere that the Prof had met Steve Jobs sometime back and had asked him why he was still insisting on the same strategy for iPhone and iPod that he had used for iMac and had failed to create a reasonable market share with, despite having so many things in his favour in the beginning of the industry in the early 80s. The Prof confirmed this and we talked about what happened in that talk. Inspiring to hear first hand the experiences of someone who meets Steve Jobs, Ratan Tata, and the likes regularly on corporate assignments.

I asked him the question I had in mind from a very long time. What difference he saw between us and the students at Wharton, Kellogs, and Michigan, etc. I requested him to be frank and blunt. Our class reading of his personality says he can be relied to be blunt in his opinions. While he had no doubt about the quality of the students here, he said something we all know very well. Of course, any Indian B school hasn't attracted as much diversity so far as the top US B schools do. There are many reasons for it and have been discussed numerous times on various forums. I am sure this will change very soon at ISB, but anyways. Speaking of diversity, he spoke in statistical terms since he reasoned we had already taken that course in the last term. He said that in general, the students here could be called a high mean, low variance group whereas the students at the top US schools a low mean, high variance one. For business, you might argue in favour of the latter having relatively higher creative and out-of-the-box factor, in general. He cited the fact that the majority at any international B school in any country is local. Accordingly, a top US B school has a majority of US students whereas an Indian B school like ISB has a majority of Indian students. The education system of the respective countries that brought the students through schooling and graduation reflects in everything they do. And the Indian education system is not highly encouraging as compared to that of the US. The prof made a clear point that the difference he was hinting at had mostly to do with the cultural and societal factors rather than with the quality of Indians as a whole or the quality of ISB. We Indians have a stigma attached to unemployment, failures, etc., things which the Americans consider normal and essential for success in life. I agree with him. He ended up suggesting us how to make the best of this year. He had attended his 20th reunion at IIM A recently and like every senior executive tells us, he said that it didn't matter where everybody had started from. "Your first job isn't going to decide your life." He reiterated a very important learning I have had first hand in the last couple of years - "In the end, we'll all be where we aspire to be, if we work hard, don't lose sight of the goal and have faith in our abilities."

The pressure at ISB is tremendously high. Sometimes when I get time to reflect, I try to tell myself that I am not going to study for grades, I am going to study for learning. I am not going to waste my time worrying what kind of job I am most likely to land up if I do this and that. I am going to do what I love to do. There are all kinds of people here. I just have to look up to those who inspire me.

On a different note, our sports club president has made me the Gym representative for our recreation center. I have already come to be identified with Gym here. Every week, once or twice, a person comes up to me on the lunch or dinner table - our social hangout here - and asks me if I am into professional body building. Even the guy here who has been the youngest refree for volleyball in the Olympics once asked me this over buffet. And the gym coach doesn't believe I havn't taken supplements. It's such a feeling. I tell them that I am an amateur and as I walk back from the meals to my flat, I remember the words of that astrologer that we went to when I had already been operated more than 10 times and had been advised another operation whose chances of success were only 50% - "In 10 years, looking at him, you'd not be able say that he didn't walk on his feet for months and had minimal chances of survival" - and of course, we didn't believe him. We had lost almost everything. A chill runs through my spine everytime I juxtapose my past and my present. It took 15 years instead of 10 but the day has come.

ISB is a fast paced world. Most of them here are extraordinary at something in their lives. The pressures are enormous. Sometimes, it makes me myopic. But whenever I get some time to reflect, I pull myself up to focus at the big picture. I replay the last 15 years of my life before my eyes and the answer is right there - In the end, you all will reach where you really want to.

The Perfect Entrepreneur...

The International Conference on Entrepreneurship concluded here today. The hours between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm today alone were immensely enriching. I am a big fan of Mr. Manish Sabharwal of TeamLease Services now. The clarity, passion, and articulation in his words was striking. He is an alum of Wharton.

He gave many insights into the world of entrepreneurship and with sound basis:

"Aim high. Aiming low in the beginning is something I feel I shouldn't have done. Believe in yourself and push in full throttle."

"You don't wait for all the lights to go green before you can leave home." (In the context of waiting for removal of all or existing regulatory hurdles before thinking of starting a venture in India)

"When you go to the 10 year reunion of your alma mater, you shouldn't have put yourself in a situation in all those years where you would tell your old pals in retrospect that there is something you wish you should have done but didn't do for whatever reason."

"Remember, entrepreneurs can create two kinds of companies - Babies and Dwarfs. The only difference is that babies grow." (Blew me off!)

"It doesn't necessarily and mostly start with the 'best idea'. You continually mutate your original idea till something starts making business sense and appeals to your customer. While leaving your current job, you don't think that the first plan you work on would work in its initial form. Mutate and adapt to market. 

Entrepreneurship is not an event. It's a process." (Closing statement of the event and the audience burst into voluntary applause. My respect for the man multiplied)

He made numerous thought provoking statements and all came naturally from him. He lives by these ideas. If I wish to be like someone in a few years, this is the man!

Manish Sabharwal

Diversity in action..

What's up with all those advertising wizards! I asked this advertising industry alum during breakfast what the backgrounds of his study group mates were. And the guy says - Me, three IITians and one engineer. 

WTF!!  %$#^@$ 

Doesn't he know that IITs produce engineers, at least on paper. Yeah, I put this modifier to the last sentence precisely because of that finger you are pointing at me. Loser!

Anyways. Even as I tried to forget this out of my respect for his seniority, this second creative jam in our section poked me in the rib, in the middle of the class.

"What man! What's with the handwriting of all those statisticians? All of them write like a doctor's prescription!" Said the former creative head of an Advertising firm, sitting beside me in the statistics class and gulping coffee after coffee to keep awake, dyslexic from having seen all kinds of greek symbols over the board in the last one hour.

"Just look at how he is drawing the simple differential sign everywhere. The guy can't even draw a 'd' straight." He said about the single letter he seemed to identify on the board, from having taken the pre terms in quants.

I looked at my (under)priviledged, diversity friend and felt a pang of Sympathy for the English Literature graduate who writes a new poem on every occassion here and whose straight face is already funny enough that I don't need such provocations from him in the middle of the class. The professor had indeed been accentuating the tilt in the 'd' of differential. Putting my hand around him to cushion the blow, I told him that the '∂' on the board was called a partial differential in Mathematics.

Poor guy looked at me, offended. "WTF is that!"

The dinner table laughed for 5 minutes non stop in the night.

Second among equals...

I am under tremendous pressure. Everybody here is so damn focussed on marks. Whenever in my past I have got marks, I have worked very very hard for them, forsaking everything else. And today I see two choices:

- Work single mindedly hard and match 'em.

- Keep getting average + 2/3 marks and work towards things I deem important for my personality.

Anyone with a common sense would tell me to choose the second. I want to do that. But it's not 2008. The pressure here in this market is tremendous. Consulting firms shortlist on the basis of grades and you got to be among the top 50 to crack one of those. Though there are several other relevant arguments too:

- If I only focus on marks, then I do not develop other aspects of my personality that I clearly find important. This might also come in my way of shortlist by the top consulting firms.

- I might harm myself in the long run too by not developing 360 degrees.

- Obviously, I am not happy.

But the market is really bad and all of us are in a huge debt now. What if we don't even land a decent paying job with average marks!

I always get myself into such situations when I want to fast forward life and be certain of what happened eventually. When will I start to live the present!

Rohm&Haas - the best case ever..

Huh...the days are flying by. Term 1 ends in another 10 days. Today was the first day in one month when I left my quad at 7.50 am and came back at 1 am in the night. It was one of those very happening days that define the life@ISB.

First, I and one of my study groupies were discussing the Rohm&Haas case on the steps of the academic building at 5 in the evening when the documentary guys spotted us and came to shoot a video on us. They are making it a part of the movie on life@ISB. This movie will be screened in all the admission information sessions across the world this year onwards. We were anyway discussing a marketing case and our animated discussion seemed to them a fit on the subject. CDs will come in about 3 weeks, they said. I can't wait!

Not long ago, we aspired to be a part of this school and today we represent it! I was so thrilled to be the part of this movie that I could not concentrate on the case anymore and used the time sleeping in the class room while the other groupies put together the slides. We are three IITians (one of them been in sales for the last 15 years), one CA, and one corporate trainer in our group. When I woke up an hour later, the sales guy and the trainer girl were almost starting to prepare the speech to go with it. We heard the two of them go through the ppt once when an idea struck me. Anyway, this case doesn't have too many numbers, the ppt is gonna lull the audience into sleep. Why not do a play on it. The idea fired up everybody's imagination. We dropped the idea of ppt, had a quick dinner, and met at Krishna's studio (single apt flat) to rehearse for the play. The way it has come out after an hour of practice, none of us can concentrate on any more pre reads for tomorrow. We just want to get to the marketing class and rock section A. Who knew a case on metal cutting fluid biocides could ignite a chartered accountant and a corporate trainer so much.

The two (CA and corporate trainer) got a touch of the creative diversity of this place today, just as we engineers will get from them some day in some other accounts or HR related case perhaps! Anyway, I have already begun to like balance sheets and financial statements so much that at times I have thought that a career in finance might be an interesting choice afterall, notwithstanding the scary market scene.

-------------------------------------------------------

21-May-2009

-------------------------------------------------------

The skit went really cool. Here is a pic of me (left) and Somesh (with the mic) performing.

Gone with the wind...

In the end, we hope that you say "Our car is not bekar", concluded Chandra after our presentation on our Concept car for a contest by SAE, IIT Roorkee chapter, in the second year of B.Tech. We had put in about 3 nights putting together our design. Prof Gakkhar announced a few minutes later that the first prize went to the 'certainly not bekar car'. Memories still bring a smile to my face.

That was 7 years ago. Times have changed. So much is different now. The carefree students of engineering 7 years ago are a bit seasoned with the life of the corporate and are almost entering the second phase of their lives. Chandra graduated from India's top business school, ranked 20th in the world then and begged one of the coveted jobs in consulting. Today he is the director of his own publishing house, is engaged to a pretty young lady and the couple are soon to start their new innings.

Yours truly is the current student at the same business school, now ranked 15th in the world and still exploring his options with jobs and girls, both.

Time just flies by. Today will also be gone before you know it. As I stare gloomily at my laptop reading the course pack for the looming mid term exam, an old thought strikes me - Live like there is no tomorrow.

PAN IIT booze @ ISB

Last night saw the PAN IIT booze flowing at the co2008 lounge at ISB.

We were not planning to have any formal thing of this sort among ourselves because we wanted to avoid forming a closed cohort but the head of admissions here himself invited all IIT grads for a high tea this evening to discuss on the future strategy to continue attracting people from the top technical institutes of India. Once that happened, people hesitantly poured in mails on whether we should all meet sometime. Sensing the underlying community mood, yours truly sealed the sentiment inviting everybody to put together a booze party for the Thu night when the classes for the week finish. Responses were immediate and elated. A number of people volunteered for booze, music, and system. Abhishek from section H, whose classes are in the afternoon, reserved the co2008 lounge in the morning when some of us were being tortured by the z- and the t- curves of statistics to predict the chances of us having a swine flu even though we had tested negative and others were being cold called by the marketing prof on the FedEx case. And while we cursed ourselves why we quit our six figured salaries for this BS, a pleasant surprise was the arrangement of lights and speakers too from the school side.

By 11.30 pm, almost 75 of the 112 IIT alums gathered in the lounge. Of course girls were hard to find but wasn't that expected! Towards the later part of the night, the consensus was to invite all the IIT alums and all the girls of ISB in any such future parties. Though the move is more likely to label us losers but what the heck!

In the end, some cheekily chosen songs and ghazals from the singers of the batch reminded everybody of their one sided, first love at college. We sealed the night with a 'Purani Jeans' from everybody together. The party was highly successful and left all of us wanting for more while we left the lounge with the memories of how farzi our journey to here had been - copying tutorials, bunking classes, sending proxies, abondaning studies with the full conviction that corporate would kiss our asses begging us to join them once we graduate (The enlightment was not to come till it was late), and all the while unconsciously evolving a personality that would instantly connect us with the other members of the community throughout our lives, anywhere in the world.

Isn't it all worth it.

Perception..

"Do you think any of you represents India?" quipped the marketing professor from Emory to a remark from one of the students.

And it struck me that to the eyes of an Indian-American Professor, I do not represent India today just because I am sitting in an Internationally renowned business school. If only he realized that the natural leaders of India all rise from the bottom of the pyramid and have seen all the hardships of its lower or middle middle class.

Learnings outside the classroom..

"Hey Ankur, I wanted to apologize to you. I didn't intend to corner you. I hope you didn't mind." 

The professor of Financial Accounting from Duke stopped me outside the dining hall after lunch and said those words. I was stumped. Earlier in his class, I had opined that Shareholder's equity is the liability of a company towards its shareholders. The class opposed me in chorus and the professor told me never to repeated this anywhere. It was usual, a professor correcting his student. I didn't even think any bit about that, then or later.

But still, I was humbled and touched by his gesture. I will keep this in mind wherever I go in my life. The learning has begun.

Thanks professor.

It's just the second week honey..

Pre terms are on here and this is my first post from ISB. It's been just 11 days and feels as if months have passed. A total information overload has started taking its toll.

My quadi Satyam got locked behind the bathroom door today. The housekeeping had to call the carpenter to break the door open and rescue Satyam. What was more was that he wasn't alone in the bathroom. He had taken the housekeeping supervisor along to demonstrate him the problem with the lock. Apparantly this year is specifically bad for Satyams of the world !

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell, the quad here is a four bedroom flat shared by four students. Our quad would perhaps have the highest average GMAT score - 765. We form a simple arithmatic progression with 750, 760, 770, and 780. We discussed last night to paste our GMAT scores to our room doors. That's the closest geeks can get to being cool (All pun intended!)

Today, yours truly had a chance to sit within 10 meters of a person who sits with the likes of Barack Obama. The Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, visited the school to deliver a talk on Entrepreneurship. It's always inspiring to see how humble all those top guys are. Though I had to repeatedly tell myself not to get up from the seat, go right down the aisle to the front row and shout at him. I always have this urge whenever I am supposed to behave. In the school, I always wanted to slap my principal whenever I bowed good morning or afternoon to him. He liked me very much. He even admitted me to school even though there were no vacant seats. I always felt like slapping him. 

During the high coffee, an American working for the US consulate in Hyderabad approached me and Priyom while we were admiring the girl whom I had discovered last night from the profile book. He caught us off guard and we had to struggle to think for our introductions. To begin with mine, I almost said what a nice pair of legs she had! I have seen more girls in shorts, minis, micros, and bikinis in the last 10 days than I had seen in my entire stupid life so far. Anyways, three other guys joined us soon. The American was amazed to see that all of us Indians were working with American firms and mostly in America before coming here. Perhaps his first brush with the global outlook at ISB.

This batch is a diverse one with rich experiences all across. Just our section A itself, of about 72 students, boasts of an ex IAS officer, an ex Lt. Colonal, a national level Bharatnatyam dancer, a black belt in Karate, the business head for the west region at Lowe, the senior creative group head for another advertiser firm (can't recall the name), a second ranker in BTech at IIT with a GPA of 9.7/10, a French guy who plays Tabla and sings hindi songs and Urdu Kawwali (Sometimes the sadist in me wishes he were more French!), a millionaire real estate businessman, an Army girl, and of course yours truly. They all speak a great deal about how lucky there are to be studying with yours truly for the entire next year!

Even our study group of five, which will be doing most of the core terms assignments together for the next six months, boasts of three IIT graduates, including that second ranker I already told you about, one 40 year old sales and marketing guy who did his BTech from IIT Bombay in 1992 and now has two cute kids, and lastly yours truly. The fourth one is a CA who also secured 49th rank in the CA exam. And the fifth one is a cool chick who was a corporate trainer but sadly got married when she was 21. Some people are too early to fall in love, aren't they!

By the way, yours truly is looking for a sweet, pretty, and caring girl for himself because his dreams of hooking a hot chick here just got shattered, given all those dudes in the batch...sigh!