An year that was...

Yesterday would go down as a special day in my books. I finished my MBA and with that my education. Don't plan to study formally anymore.

Throughout the day today the campus was subdued. Euphoria was not felt in the air. People are all grown ups. But then we have our batch level events every night this week. Just four more days on ISB campus and then we are alums.

On my first visit to ISB as an alum, I am coming for the orientation week for the next class just after 5 days of leaving here. Have some time to kill before I join McKinsey anyway.

For now, looking forward to the graduation day. The year has been quite full of ups for me.

Life...the McKinsey way..

"Congrats guys...welcome to McKinsey..."

..said the director of the revered firm. It was all music to our ears and the beginning of a new career for us. When I came to ISB, I didn't even imagine I would be shortlisted by McKinsey. ISB changed me in 8 months to the extent that I was ultimately able to beg the coveted consulting offer.

Somehow even though it was a big day for me, it didn't feel any different after this offer. The first job after IIT had felt big but this one didn't even though this was way bigger than that one. Perhaps because the first job means special in a different way - you become independent for the first time. I haven't started feeling any difference even after 3 days of getting the offer. Sitting in class, I still feel I have to prepare for placements even though I am out of the placement process now.

I am waiting to see when I start feeling like a consultant..

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

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!

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!

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!

To deegee..

She is beautiful. She is charming. She dances on stage. She makes sketches. She trusts me. She chats with me when I need someone. I have had a crush on her, but have never told her because she has a full time boyfriend.

I met her on a coaching institute's forum, an year back. Like me, she was one of many who try their hand at CAT and don't make it. Whereas, not having been considered for even a cuppa tea by the mighties despite a 99.53, I quit the CAT race and took the GMAT path to my future, she persisted one more year, for a third attempt at it and decided to sit at home for one more year. I didn't say anything because I have seen such people who spoil their early career and life for repeated attempts at CAT and in the end settle for some unknown management institute. But still, I sometimes chatted with her because she had all those qualities and more so because unlike most pretty girls, she talked to me.

Today was her birthday and the CAT 08 result came early morning at 00:00 am. And what a birthday gift! She scored a 99.95 percentile this year with a 50% aggregate score. Man! the last feather tucked itself in her cap. She has got brains too! Wish I had met her in time.

I can't tell you how happy I am for you deegee!

First international b'day..

People coin all sorts of quirky terms!

My college friend wrote to me "so how r u celebrating your first international b'day..." Man! international b'day!!! I can't stop smiling.

And then in the gym, I was talking to this friend of mine when I said

"aaj mere paas IIT hai, ISB hai, H1B hai...tumhare paas kya hai ?"

"mere paas girlfriend hai..." he hit straight on my raw nerve ! He sure knows my secret sorrow.

But yeah, for a moment discounting the fact that I am away from my family, this birthday is one of the best I have ever had. No, not because the clubs here give free laps on your birthday. Why do you always have to think of me that ways!

A dull celebration..

Phew ! I should be partying, I should be boozing, I should not be sleeping at nights, and I should not be staying at home now ! But what to do here in the US. I am just a week old and have only professional acquaintances here. So no celebrations for me. Sometime back, I wrote that I do not want to write about every stage in this pursuit but now that no one is here with me, all I can do is write.

Life is gonna be exciting for the next 4 months - reading to admit's forums, different social networking groups, the admits internal website. I hear great stories about the passouts of this place but I still can't completely believe that something good is in store for me too in the future.

Something has perhaps changed, but I haven't started feeling it yet !

A memorable day..

I spent the entire last night refreshing my gmail account, yeah partly because my bedmate, sadly a male, was snoring so loudly that I had already scrapped all my plans of sleeping early in the night and partly because this day was going to be a landmark one. Whom I had been courting for the last 3 years and had finally been able to propose sometime back and then had been asked to wait for another month for a decision was going to announce my fate today. Would she be mine finally? I was restless. The curtains downed at 10.43 am, Atlanta time, when not only she finally said YES but also offered to pay partly for her ring!

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Oh, I love you 'my' ISB !

P.S.: Branching the thoughts from the point of my bedmate being a male, now that my days are spent comparing the American culture with our own, I was thinking that our Indian culture makes us weird kind of straights - For us Indian male bachelors, to share a bedroom with a male bachelor, always be seen in the company of males, and party only with males is seen perfactly natural by the Indian society, whereas this would be exactly the opposite in the US. Such behaviour here would clearly mean that we are not straight !

Culture conflict in my head..

It had become us vs them...

We fed them poison and killed them. When we couldn't find anyone to dispose off the bodies, my dad did that. The two mice had been to every corner of the house and had tried their teeth on every possible thing. They ate my chicken sweet corn soup from inside the packet, they ate the mathri with pickle from the luxery of my plate, and last few of my nights were always tortured by the memories of that time a few months back when one of their ancestors pulled out that stunt of climbing up my jeans, right up the back of my T-shirt (Gee, and I was IN that T-Shirt all the while thinking that one of my parents is playfully running a hand on my back, only to find them both before my eyes the next moment while 'someone' was still playfully teasing its fingers up my back), and jumping from the tip of the last hair on my forehead. Nobody would have believed me, had my mom also not seen it jumping at the last moment. That one would perhaps make a suitable match for a female mouse who has mentioned an adventure loving mouse as an ideal match on its orkut profile, well...

The recent ones had evolved even over that previous one in that they somehow always managed to eat the oiled bait I specially saved from my dinner every night and still never get into the mouse trap for a whole one month. They even avoided the cake poison that we put at 20 odd carefully chosen locations for two days. My dad had been gone out for about two hours in search of that poison cake the day before, when my mom made me wait for the evening tea because dad could return any moment. Eventually, we had no alternative but to make tempting dough balls tinged with cynide and I have to say now I have never seen such an example of customer satisfaction with any of the products on the market in recent years. I am going to write a testimonial to that cynide company today. Only four hours it took and they lay flat in the middle of the room. God bless the manufacturer.

My sister argued something about mouse rights, as in we shouldn't have killed those mice so mercilessly. Perhaps it's the affect of the company of this really beautiful girl in her class who has a pet mouse in her hostel room (Yes, a white one. But what the hell, it's still a mouse! And not as beautiful as stuart little or the girl owner herself) All her snaps on my sister's laptop are with her mouse only. I have been in predicament from some time about asking her out. How long I would be able to avoid not just meeting but pampering this Mr. Mouse if I get the prized opportunity to date her is anybody's guess! All right, you don't have to remind me that I don't have guts to ask her out anyway. Yeah, not just her but any girl. Okay, not even a not-so-pretty one. All right, that's enough, leave it now!

3 years in job..

Today marks the completion of 3 years of my career. I am still a corporate baby but have matured from what I was 3 years ago when I joined my first company. I have grown in role from an Engineer-Trainee to a Business Analyst, not a bad performance !

The feeling of being independent is indeed invaluable. But a balance of work and life is still missing. I am still single and my parents perhaps expect more of their son's personal time. Perhaps it's time to start working on a balance as well.

On Top Of My Little World...

29-May-2008

Pearson Professional Centers
18, Ramnath House
Yusuf Sarai
New Delhi

Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT)

Sodium Hydro Phosphate

Quantitative: 51
Percentile: 99

Verbal: 47
Percentile: 99

Total: 780 out of 800
Percentile: 99

Analytical Writing Assessment: 5.5 out of 6
Percentile: 83 out of a maximum of 89 at 6


My Big Day :)

--- To Yusuf Sarai - The first world of my second life ----


Silently I had promised to your streets
That I would not walk you just today
As an 11 year old, holding my mom-dad's hands,
weak with surgeries
Struggling for life

With a child's certainty
I had promised to you

That I would come back
On my own bike
With my own money
And with a control on my life

That I would walk your streets once again
In a very different form
And my head still high
With the same old attitude
That only I rule my life !

Happy Marriage Anniversary to Mummy - Daddy :)

Today is the marriage anniversary of Sodium's Mummy and Papa.

Many Many happy returns of the day Mummy Daddy :)

We are indebted to you for all the love you have showered on us and for the person we have become because of the environment created around us by you. And we and the future recruits need your blessings for a long long time to come.

So, our demands would not end. Close is the time when you turn recruiters and use your experience in bringing in the best recruits available.

(A note to my cousins who might read it - This sentence is not to be used to pull my leg ! Thanks)