MBA, MBA...

This is about the course in general. Will this sad story change at least in the second year? Stay tuned for more info... like if I'll do it in the first place.

S No	What I thought it would be	What it is - at least for now
1	A series of lectures for each subject, well planned out, of which I can attend whatever I want.	Miss six classes and you are one grade down the CGPA hill.
2	Let the CGPA rot in hell. Who cares?	You don’t have an extra year’s tuition fee in hand, do you?
3	I don’t have to study, I have to learn. Exams would be just case studies and assignments, no?	True in the case of only one subject (communication!). What’s more, you ask? You have to write things exactly as they are given in the book to clear a couple of subjects allegedly.
4	This is for people who are sure about what they want to do with their life and are here to build on it. Yes, this course is for those who are in love with the World.	This is ideal for people who have no clue about what they want to be, even ten days after getting the MBA, leave alone years. And oh, it's still better if you are frustrated with the outside world as a whole.
5	Get a lot of friends	Please, God, let this be true.
6	Meet a lot of girls (after three years of not speaking to anyone)	The problem wasn’t exactly with the working environment at my MNC, I guess...
7	A plethora of lectures outside the regular classes that I can attend every day.	Yea yea, there are a lot of lectures, true, but there’ll be a catch that would prevent you from attending them. Every one of them.
8	Sleep a lot, keep in touch with world news, attend (real) quizzes – and lose, becoming a better writer...	Ha, Ha, Ha.

Moral of the story: Never go by hearsay. Do your own damn research. 

PS:  People tell me it's worse everywhere else. Darn. I've done it again.

Hanging people...

A few lines I wrote more than a month ago on the judgement given to Kasab and the subsequent 'hurray' across the Indian Media.

Is Death a punishment one human can give another? Or is it sensible to give any system that right? Should we do to Kasab what he did to us? Do you think that’s fair?

I don’t.

Hanging Kasab (or anyone else for that matter) is not going to scare the hell out of any terrorist anywhere in the world. People are arguing that not having the death penalty would ‘embolden’ the terrorists further. I ask, show me the trends to prove your argument. Terrorists, IMO, would be the same regardless of what we do with Kasab.

People who are shouting out loud in ‘joy’ at this judgement should realise that this is not what the people who died in 26/11 would want. We should have an intelligence system capable of 'preventing' further attacks. That is the real tribute you can give to the people who gave their lives to save others.

This decision by the court, though fair in several (not all) aspects, is no reason for celebration.

No death can ever be.

Accounting Definitions for Dummies

Ac-counting: Counting the number of times you see / talk to her everyday.

Bank balance: What you think she knows about you.

Cash Balance: What she actually knows about you.

Assets: Acts expected to give you future benefits. Like saving her cat from somewhere (after putting it there first).

Going Concern: Assumption that the girl will be single on the next day. If this assumption cannot be made, all assets will be noted as expenses (aka waste of time)

Liabities: Acts that require a settlement to be made. Like the money you borrowed from a friend to buy that useless coolers.

Provision for Bad debts: The friend thinking that he's not getting the money back.

Bad debts - write off: The friend knowing that he's not getting the money back.

Sole proprietorship: When noone else knows you are crazy about her.

Partnership: When you have a wing-man to say "Haaave you met Ted?"

Private Limited: When you alone know about the slap you got from her.

Public Limited: When all those embarrassing details are in public domain.

Profit and Loss account: Detailed info about the good and bad impressions she has on you. Usually a loss. A bad one at that.

Periodicity: The period for which a balance sheet is calculated. Usually starts on the day after the worst embarrassment since you want to forget about it.

Balance sheet: A complete statement that shows, among other things, Accumulated depreciation.

Depreciation: The redundancy you manage to create in her mind about you by being at all the places she frequents and smiling like an idiot... or by saying the same statement to her everyday. (How are you doing?)

Accumulated depreciation: Sum depreciation over the years.

Ethical issues in accounting: In case she already has a boyfriend, the dilemma you get into if it is ethical to break them up.

Journal Entry: Pouring your heart out to a friend.

Ledger posting: That guy taking a video and putting it up on the net.

Trial balance: Testing if she reacts to this video saga. This forms an important part of the balance sheet.

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PS: Accounting (real one) is a new concept to me. Forgive technical errors, if any :D

Add your definitions.

Debate, anyone?

Debating Club - A club whose mere existence I didn't like in my first year at CIT.

Two reasons:

a) I was a really bad stage artist and despite my English being something above sub-standard, once I got on the stage, I'd freeze.

Aah, I still remember that beautiful day at school after I completed my Higher Secondary exams. One would think that one cannot possibly get embarrassed after passing out of the school, especially when one is a topper (gloat, gloat). But then, I was at the school assembly once like that, and the Principal introduced me to the school and asked me to talk to the school...

I still remember that beautiful, fateful 'I... I... bah... I...' day. Faint. Sigh. It was so iconic that some teachers still remember me by that.

b) Such events increase(d) the competitor in me - something I so want to avoid. I am a very ferocious competitor and a very bad loser.. with a very low temper. A lot of you would think that I am just the opposite, because that's what I try to be, for my own good.

So, when I was forced to attend the Debating club events initially, I was like WTH. I remember my senior JP dragging me (genuine thanks for that) and a bunch of my room mates to the 'Mock press' event a few days into college.

We ended up getting all three prizes. Munish was Kamal hassan, for crying out loud!

I didn't know that I wasn't that bad. The curiosity in me took me to another event, in which I got the first prize this time. Quest came, and I got four prizes in the four good events I attended for fun. Whatay! (Muni was again my team mate in the two-per-team events - What's the good word, eh? Funtastic event!)

I got into the debating club after the selections in second year, though it was a slightly doubt-filled selection - given better speakers were left out. In any case, I attended a lot of events and tried to improve the way I spoke on stage. From a time when I'd be paralysed in front of a crowd  to a time when I wasn't that bad or self-conscious a speaker, the journey was urm...let's say, eventful.

The fourth year came, and I wanted the Debating Club to focus on juniors who were like me - scared shitless at the sight of a microphone or totally not confident about their English. The focus, then, was more on the elite - people who were already good having a gala time thumping the heads of the supposed weaklings on the walls repeatedly at every event. While I was lucky to be forced into it in my first year, many others weren't. Karthik tried what he could as the secretary in my final year, but the image didn't change much, or so I felt. I grew to hate a lot of such events that scared the not-so-strong from speaking up.

My idea is that such clubs should focus on the weak students - and try to bring them to the level of others, which the club at CIT is slowly but steadily orienting itself towards (hopefully). There are very few poor speakers here - I don't say we're all Martin Luther Kings.

So, here I am, in a college with the best speakers in the country - and there is a debating society that keeps interviews and selects the best of them, conducts events for the elite, by the elite and of the elite, and does such you-know stuff. Why am I writing this, by the way? We have an inter-section Turncoat event today (continuously speaking, switching 'for' and 'against' for the given topic at some kind of a signal) - where the best of each section fight for glory (and championship points - Go C!) - and it got me thinking.

My Question is "What's the point in having events such as Turncoat?"

All I am seeing in this is the generation of a bunch of Arnabs, who would keep asking questions and debating, regardless of the knowledge level or relevancy level. I don't even find these events to be fun - except for the odd joke, unlike the good old debates, quizzes or sports. Some might say this is about 'networking' or 'getting famous'. Whatever.

Share your views, people. Do you think there's a point? Do you find Turncoat or competitive-GDs (as against the collaborative group-case-solving ones) or JAMs interesting? Why are these the most widely held events (such GDs are even held for selection into a huge number of B_schools - thankfully not mine!), when they're the most pointless?

- The debate is On -

PS: Also ur feedback on the design change.

Deja Vu

There's this funny stuff that has been on at B ever since I reached here. I didn't know anyone beforehand, first year or second. So, I was eagerly looking forward to meeting new people. But is that what happened? No.

It was Deja Vu all over again. (get it?)

When I saw all the second years (and some first years as well), I knew that I knew nothing about any of them, but at the same time, I had a feeling that I knew everything about most of them. I knew exactly what they were going to say when they talked to me; I could guess the whole damn thing in advance! It's like they had been my subjects (scientific and not political) from one of my old experiments, doing what I thought and saying what I expected. I was actually scared for the first 3 days thinking on the lines of, "Did someone die last year? and I possessed by his spirit or something?" You know, according to my yard stick, this was the only non-crazy thought in my head. So, you can guess how obsessed I'd have been with the idea.

I still don't know or have any explanations on why I feel that I know most people here, but then, I've tracked a lot of things. Looks like Mr.A is from the college next to mine, and hence I could have seen him many times with some of my friends from there. And Mr.B, I don't know yet. Ms.C, on the other hand, looked like a combination of my relatives and Ms.D and Ms.E, they'd lived in my territory for a long time back in Chennai. It's a small world, uh? 

But what about the rest of them? The err... hundred of them? Well, I really don't know. Maybe I should get to know all these people better. Or maybe I am possessed. :)

PS: I didn't want to write about this, but then, I didn't know what else I could do with it. I had to tell someone about this without people thinking that I am crazy and what better place than this, where all my eight readers already know that I am crazy.

Life at IIMB

Warning: Do not attempt at your B-School what I say or say I do in this or my future posts. I will first see if I can clear term-I. 

I can't tell you about everything that goes on here, no. That's because a lot of things happen after midnight here. And I miss them because I sleep by ten. Today, I've this meeting at 11 for an assignment, so I slept all afternoon... and I am going to sleep once I finish posting this. I am not even going to watch the WC finals today. I don't seem to like the WC after Germany's exit. (Let Spain fry in hell today btw!)

Where was I? Sleep by ten? Oh yea. This is a place where you can do anything you want to, as long as you want to and try to do it.  If you want to study, or chit-chat, or as some ppl put it: do some 'rg giri'. Considering that these people around me are supposedly the best out there who will take up leading positions across the nation in a few years, I am actually scared for the country...looking at everyone doing stuff because others are doing them. ("What to do yaar, everyone else is studying!") Or are all of us just beginning to change for the better as we move ahead? Well, we still do have about (2 years - 3 weeks) to go. So, there's a lot of scope for change, whichever direction that might be in.

Over the past three weeks, I just chose to sleep and/or watch the Big Bang theory (three seasons down in two weeks). We have several quizzes coming up this week (no not the usual sort. They give this fancy name to exams so that the quizzers in us are excited in the beginning (yay!) and are subsequently destroyed). Some day soon, I will start reading the subject books too.

Relative Grading seems to scare the living daylights out of people here. It's funny how nearly all of them prefer competition over cooperation. I hope they will come to terms with cooperation soon if they listen to me (right about now, there are only about 10% of the students who can see me and tell my name - and they won't listen to me). By the way, only two profs know I exist and that's because I was caught sleeping in their class. 

The campus - beautiful. I seriously miss having a cool camera out here. I can take pics all day. Everything from the night sky to the chirpy insects are totally NG worthy. I tell myself 'this will make a good pic' at least ten times a day. The library is one awesome place...two and half lakh books stacked & organised in rows. I found quite a few books from the last two centuries explaining the process behind publishing houses. Oh now, I want to start already! The day they allow us to borrow the books will be the day I stop watching sitcoms... or reduce the time spent in watching it, at the very least. I expect to have more time to dedicate to these two things - photography and reading arbit stuff - in the near future.

Subjects? Well, not my cup of tea... or anything. One professor is so awesome that I feel up to date with stuff even though I haven't opened the book at all. Another is so awesome that he was going to make film reviews a part of the grading. Others truly baffle me. For example, we are supposed to 'pre-read' for our daily classes and the profs will run the slides in the class and say the same stuff again. I find the classes ok as they're new to me. But for those who read and then attend the classes, what's even the point? What is the point of running slides and talking about them if we are expected to read on our own anyway? 

Clubs! Now, all you UG folk know how I stood behind taking the selection process down for the Lit Club with a few like minded souls (read - Monkey and to some extent, Karthik) and making it open in my final year. If I considered that selection process discouraging, it's hell here. Like, if you want to be a member of a group that facilitates exchange of books and maintains a small library, you got to submit your resume and attend a couple of interviews. It's worse for the 21 other clubs. People attended interviews overnight. I haven't applied to any of them and will not be part of the 'extra curricular rat-race' this year. The plan is to write more if I have the time.

All you aspirants, this place (and by that I mean any b-school, not mine in particular) is for those of you who wanted to be in the limelight all the time, smiling for photographs... people who want to keep talking, even if what they say is pure and utter nonsense... people who have been at positions of responsibility and loved floating in fame and authority... those who'd agree to that cliched statement used in every debate on earth: 'the ends justify the means'. 

I will never run as fast as these people around me. Not because I can't. It's because I want to go slow. Sigh. I don't think I fit in here with the mad crowd. I really don't. 

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PS: I am sure a lot of people felt the same way every year and grew to like it (?) in the two years they spent here. I am a slow, free-willed soul and I don't intend to change over the next two years. I will update as and when I start liking being at B! After all, it's not for filling up space that all the alumni unanimously say that B was the 'best two years' of their lives.

PS2: It's late in the night and there could be a lot of errors in the post. Pardonnez-moi, s'il vous plait.