hmmm

RK buzzed me today after about 3 years and his first line was ' Hey dude..how many enemies you've made in XLRI ?'
Me - 'Lots', but still very less than I what I had planned for.
RK - ' Oh...thats bad ....really bad.
Me - I know
RK - From where the hell will you draw your energy if you are not having enough enemies.
Me - RK, I think I have changed, or atleast have lost the vigour
RK - You too Brutus...Taking the path of diplomacy...
Me - Maybe, I have lost that gut to fight out.
RK - What the hell makes you think so....
Me - Too many conformists Brutuses around..
RK - Did it ever matter to you...then why now
Me - hmm...i m in a dilemma
RK - What abt. the 'bloody seven'.
Me - hmm....
RK - hmmm....
Me - ( Changing the topic)..will be leaving soon for my summers to Delhi and then to Mumbai..
RK - Going to Gujarat
Me - Not till September
RK - Busy ?
Me - Damn damn busy.
RK - Planning to take that big shot
Me - Not sure...Too risky for me now
RK - What abt. Bloody seven
Me - hmmm.
RK - Do you wanna say something
Me - m sorry
RK - just wish you could turn back to our fight ..its 3 years now. If you wanna fight some day, or your goals have changed.
Me - The rebel is alive, but asleep
RK - Its 3 years now.
Me - hmm
RK - hmm.. ( after a long pause)
Me - Where are you
RK - in jamshedpur
Me - What....u in the same city ?
RK - Came to meet u.
Me - (after a long pause) hmmm...
RK - May be, some other time we will meet
Me - I wish so ..
RK - Really ???
Me - hmmm
.......and the conversation ended..
Indeed, words are poor conveyors, the heart knows itself

heeee....heeee

Some people can't open their mouth without reducing something from the sum of human knowledge. ( no prizes or prices for guessing that 'some people'..such a sitter of a puzzle). Its quite similar to Rakhi sawant not being able to act without showing some skin. Then who the hell looks in for acting.... and then who the hell looks in for knowledge. But a wise idiot sitting next to me says, ' Miss Rakhi Sawant is a vamp and by showing her skin will remain an vamp.' hmmmm.....well, the conclusion by the rationale of analogy isn't quite unexpected. Why r u giving that smirk ? Did I wrote something unparliamentary ?

PS : Recent Research suggested that 'cats' can get cancer if exposed to mobile phones. I am still thinking as to why would anybody call them up ?

aise hi BAK BAK

The sounds of "We will....We will ...Rock You' jeers from the late night party going on. As I have given up almost all the wordly pleasures including the temptation for tasting the heavenly fluids, I sit here in my room with my favorite lizard 'dhanno' as she goes around fulfilling her daily dietary requirement.

The overgrown beard, not just the result of the highly hectic schedule but the utter lack of self consciousness has in the recent days been the primary reason behind people applauding :) me with a variety of titles, the latest being of a suicide bomber. How interesting...But am yet to find a cause to die for. Hope I am able to discover the reason to live for very soon. And yaa...I just now murdered a mosquito which was trying to nest itself in my beard. Dare u mosquitoes try that again.... !!!

I have recently deleted my orkut account and got suddenly perplexed when I watched the no. of friends online on my Gtalk list appearing in just two digits. Need I mention that I had 645 friends in my orkut account. So, after being questioned by tons of sympathising mates about the reason for deleting the orkut account and the utter absence of same with me, made me really think for a moment ' why the hell did I really deleted my orkut account. May be I was tired of replying " I am fantastic' to all those once in a blue moon visitors with a question ' hey dude...wass up" or may be I just wanted to declutter. But I may start my orkut account again after some time, and this time it will be with a very specific purpose.

I recently also closed down my rediff account as I got sick of the umpteen mails ( 255 in the last one month) from consultants offering me a plethora of prospective jobs.

And yaa, after umpteen requests and even threats, I have decided that I'll finally equip myself with a cell after a month or so. Till then, mailte rahena....

kuch naa kaho...!!! kuch bhi naa kaho !!!!!

Me sitting on the the stairs in the college lawn having a cup of tea. A mob suddenly takes control of the lawn and the dunking party begins. Like Gabbarsingh, I asked a fellow comrade ' kab hai holi'.....22nd march ..came the reply ....i saw, i smirked, I sobed.

BHOOOOM.....I got shocked hearing this horrific sound and rushed out assuming emergency. No, it was just that somebody had turned on a 4 ft. speaker just outside my window. Thought to remind them that there was some human habitation in the vicinity of the speakers, but didn't expect brotherhood from them.

The drinking orgy has been given legal dominion. As loud music jeers, some tap on the dance floor, some 'somewhere else'....The long holy and watery nights seem to transcend boundaries....boundaries which need to be sacrosanct.. boundaries that need to be maintained....boundaries that need to be respected...But the boundaries is getting a bit too hazy here...seems it is mutual

someone asked me whether i care to perform on the seniors nite....somehow controlled my literarcy richness from flowing out.

Few days back the dramatics society had a play based on Godhra riots.....clenched my fists when a mob of shamelessly inhumane idiots said ' Wow...What a nice play...really enjoyed it...? Why didn't you come ?'

I really wonder at times, whether I am pursuing a PG course

Well, Few things never change. Few things we never intend to change. We call it "XL Culture'....

PS - hope i safe from chickenpox....

Dreams are nobody's monopoly

About 6 years back while doing TP on the last bench in a Production Lab, RT asked me ' If you are assured that you wouldn't fail, what would you do '...I didn't have any answer than..Just told RT that I'll buy lottery tickets. RT, raising his eyebrows said the most valued lines ' Just do it' whatever you wanna do and don't give a damn whether you'll fail or not.... Not to mention, I got so impressed by his gyaan that I walked out of the lab. and yaa I didn't fail in Production... Btw there were rumours, that JJ who was also overhearing this got inspired by RT's gyaan and proposed some 'maal' from the junior batch that day, though I am unsure of his success :)

Infact, most of the things we pursue just don't matter. And at times, we don't have the guts to pursue what matters most to us. The feeling of failure overwhelms many a brave hearts. That courage to dream, and dream big, and pursue it wholeheartedly seems to be a rare commodity.

Do you dare to dream ?

May be, I now have found a dream to pursue, an answer to RT's question...and I hope even JJ has..

PS - think i'll be able to complete that poem now.

bakar

My encounter with Operations Research was a disaster. Getting more than 10 % in this test would be nothing short of miracle for me. Considering that Operations Research was my elective during my engineering days ( yaa...those good old old days in 2002) it was even more disturbing, but not that shocking, as I am now a bit habituated to such shocks.

Its election time at XL. But the vigour, the passion is missing from the process and some of the candidates. It just seems so banal, so hackneyed relative to the engineering college elections. No lobbying, no hardliners, no kidnappings, no threats, no posters, no campaign, no clear strong stands taken ..., just basketsful of unwarranted bullshit diplomacy. Its just ' We will look into the matter' :)...'If required, we will do it'..' XL is one of the best B-schools'...holy damn, what a new finding. 'XLRI brand should be promoted'...gosh...that seems to be conclusion of some thorough research.....'Infrastructure will be improved'....yup, thats the problem with India too... As a friend aptly said ' yeh sabko pata hai, bandar paisa lene se pahele kitna nachta hai, aur paisa lene ke baad kitna nachta hai'

But I am not cribbing. Its 'XL tradition'. It feels so good passing on some useless practices and customs in the name of 'tradition'...

I watched 'Mithunda's Gunda' few days back..no..cudn't watch the complete movie...And if you think that you have watched a 'sada hua movie', you are utterly wrong, if you haven't watched this movie....laagi sart ?

PS - and why the hell am i getting this umpteen friend requests from random ppl. on orkut nowadays....yeh kuch friendship month chal raha hai kyaa...

Shapeless musings V

A string of unsignificant events unfold now and then, but somehow I ain't able to resist the temptation of indulging in it. There aren't really many things which indeed matter to me. I ain't able to really cherish those sudden spurts of joy which emerged suddenly from nowhere. Every fleeting moment makes me evaluate myself on an uncompromising matrix. I know, I lag behind. Yet those events, no matter how insignificant they may be, unravel the core enthusiast in me. I try to look deep in my reflection in that almost stained mirror. Even in that darkness, I could feel the undercurrents shaping up in the form of unmet desires, but I continue to rejoice those moments of unfluttering attitude. That sense of urgency which had been UPS's hallmark has deserted me. That knack of turning things around every time when the going gets tough, rather tougher has been on the backfoot ever since I landed here. That will to fight, and fight hard, the ever burning fire to compete all out has seems to have gather some rust. I know that this is not at all the place to fight or compete. Even I mock the calibre of the opposition. What left unsaid, better be unsaid. But then maybe I need to prove myself, not to anyone else, but at least to me.

Strategy - my take on Porter II

Porter 5 forces model for analysis of 'industry', as I mentioned in the previous post has been widely acclaimed and acknowledged, though there are some gaps which make the model less than good for all purposes of application.

Firstly, Porter fails to mention what constitutes an industry. This definition of industry can however can be adopted quite well from the concept of 'strategic groups'.

Secondly, as Porter mentions about the threat of substitutes, he fails to objectively provide any framework for assessing the 'extent of substitution' to be considered. Also, though Porter gets into depth of determining importance to be assigned to substitutes based on price-performance levels, he fails to capture the dynamicity of 'substitute products' i.e. a distant substitute of today can be a more direct threat in the future and vica versa.

Thirdly, entire Porter's model fails to consider the 5 forces from a constantly changing level. A 'scenario planning' tool used by Royal Dutch Shell is the only currently widely accepted tool for aid in developing strategies based on future possible scenarios.

Fourthly, Porter's model tends to serve only at the 'firm' level ( to be more precise..for individual product / specific product business unit) but is not replicable at the Corporate level. This limits its use for most of the companies in today's world as they are in more than products.

Last but not the least, though Porter's 5 forces model takes encapsulates 'substitutes', on prima facie atleast, there is no mention of 'alternatives' which pose a significant big threat compared to substitutes. An 'alternate' as I define, is an outright change/ vanishing of a particular need of the consumer, either voluntary or not. A complete ban by the government on the tobacco products / liquor products would be a case on involuntary alternative of 'no tobacco/ liquor'. Also, the evolution of alternates creates markets for new and innovative products.

PS - I know its kind of boring to have 3 posts on the subject of strategy...no more strategy now...porter ki kasaam

Strategy - my take on Porter

Porter with his 5 forces model made a lasting impact on the approach towards strategy formulation. His earlier writing regarding IO approach, competitive strategy and competitive advantage have also been well accepted across the academia and industry for quite many years now.

However, there is a significant extent of eclectism among the various theories propounded by Michael Porter, though the same can be said to be consistent with balanced pluralism in terms of drawing from basic economics.

Porter chooses to conceptualize the 'firm' in different ways depending on the actual purpose of its utilization. He conceptualizes 'firm' in the context of 'Production function' when trying to grapple with industry level phenomenon. He uses it as a 'Value chain' when trying to grapple with firm specific sources of competitive advantage and as a repository of knowledge and 'innovating entity while constructing his diamond framework.

Unfortunately, though the integration remains on the levels of loose framework and an absence of any attempt whether his above stated different theories are compatible at deeper levels.

Porter also fails to provide any agruments that the basic IO is consistent with industry evaluation nor does he draw on any basic research.

The underlying resource endowments that allows firms to carry out their strategic plans are not seriously analyzed, and an analysis of how and why the specific resource endowment should be there is missing from Porter writings.

Though there aren't as well accepted models in the field of strategy as that of Porter's, focussing only on what I may take the liberty to call ' a figment of Porter's imagination' underlines the need for a more balanced and integrated approach to the subject and practice of strategy.

someone listening....????

PS - Strategy is not an art. Neither is it a pure science. They say its an assortmenet of different streams, but I differ. It is still a concept, a figment of one's imagination. And accepting someone's imagination ( read Porter's) indicates lack of imagination on the part of strategist.

Rest ALL is strategy

There aren't many things in this world which have the potential to piss me off. But our class sessions in the strategy course are an exception. I enter the class with a clear perspective and many specific questions. I come out with a more confused outlook and unanswered questions. I wonder how can one be so flawed in data, eccentric in reasoning, untouched by reality, erroneous in approach yet conventional in ideas. I wonder how can one be so superficial in understanding the basics of some well debated articles, yet take the articles on its face value and not objectively evaluate it. I wonder how one can speak with so damn confidence though his statements are based on nothing but intuitiveness rather than following a particular approach, and the utter convictions shown during defending one's intuition have been rather exemplary, though unwarranted.

Management strategies haven't been drawn from models. The models have been based on successful strategies. However, till date academia has used lag indicators to assess the successful strategy. i.e. Once a strategy has resulted into success ( read success in financial performance), then its is ATTRIBUTED to a no. of factors such as company's strategy, leadership, work culture and other crap. But our artful learned writers intentionally and at times unintentionally, tend to write as if this factors have contributed to success ( in terms of financial performance). This HALO EFFECT ( dekha....i know OB, though I missed the top grade by a fraction of a mark) of judging whether a strategy and other factors were good or bad from the financial performance has created much disservice to the field of management. Cisco for example had heaps of praises about its work culture and strategy in the late nineties when its financial performance was good.. great leadership, great work culture, truly innovative, fantastic marketing strategy.. Come 2001..the financial performance dips ...The people who earlier defined its leadership as charismatic termed it arrogant, the work culture which was praised as innovation driven suddenly became 'uncontrolled chaos'..and so on, though nothing had really changed in Cisco's way of functioning. Analysts and theorists' ability to fit examples to their own intutive theories, which have been the result of their figment of imagination and skewed research, deserves a salute. Tata Motors was criticised in 2000 when it registered huge losses , but suddenly became the epitome of best practices for many business writers in 2004 when its financials improve. The so called learned writers are supposed to define what contributes to a successful strategy, but they in hindsight or at times intentionally rather evaluate the factors as 'good / bad' or 'successful/not successful' by attributing financial success to them.

Also, many a times people try to classify their strategy or rather force fit their strategy into a particular model to articulate it better. 40 years back some great genius said ' The only two ways an organization gains competitive advantage is either cost leadership or differentiation leadership. Over the next f*king 40 years, people came out a myriad of other ways of establishing sustainable competitive advantage, say penetrating distribution channels, focussing on a narrow group, innovative marketing, counter culture trends, quality focussed...but some idiots try to force fit all this strategies under the same headings of 'cost leadership' and 'differentiation leadership'....Seems as if the wave of making 'complex' things 'simple' has been overstretched too far.

And we bunch of idiots derive our understanding from such super idiotic stuff.....

Let clear thinking prevail. Amen !!

PS : That you are right and those Porter & party are wrong is not too strong an assumption to make, provided you first fully understand what Porter & party really meant ....

PSS : The only thing that matters is 'money today' and 'more money' tomorrow. 'Rest ALL' is strategy - the only thing I wrote in my diary in the last strategy class.

PSSS : oops...cudn't bring out all my frustation in French....( m yet to learn any French abuses..faculty ne sikhaya hi nahi inspite of innumerable requests)...but the next post for sure gonna be in French.....sacchi...

merci

An encounter with JJ

I didn't wanted to pursue the French course, for which self had registered at what I consider the 'dumbest moment of my life'. So, here's the conversation between me and the dean's secy (JJ) as I try to escape from this self invited torture of french classes.

JJ : Why didn't you attend the 'French' classes yesterday ?
Me: I had just registered for the course. But I hadn't paid the fees, so I thought my registration would be cancelled.
JJ : But I hadn't send any notice that your registration was cancelled
Me : But I also didn't receive any communication that my registration wasn't cancelled inspite of not paying the fees.
JJ : Why didn't you pay the fees in the first place ?
Me : I didn't have any cheques for paying the fees. I lused to live on cash.
JJ : okie....you may submit the cheque now to the accounts department. Hope you are having the cheque now.
Me : Sure madam, I do have a cheque now.. But I told you naa, I used to live on cash. So, I don't have any cash in hand now and no balance in the bank too.. How about paying the fees as soon as I get my first salary ( thats more than one year from now )
JJ : okie...i got it now....you may start attending the lectures... don't worry about the fees, but please be regular in your 'french' classes. Attendance is compulsory for it.

So, poor me is now forced to attend 3 hours of french classes, apart from my regular 6 hours of main course everyday.

Moral of the story : Never mess with a sec'y.... they are more smarter than you think.



and yes, my next post is going to be in french....vrai, je parle francais. bon jour
PS : I paid the fees today for the French course

Too much

They say I crib too much.
They say I talk too much.
They say I read too much.
They say I sleep too much.
They say I smoke too much.
They say I fight too much.
They say I write too much.

I say 'F.O...Its too much.'

title zaruri hai kyaa

The grind begins tomorrow. With 4 lectures per day and the pleothera of case studies I am soon going to be in 'eternally busy - dare u disturb' mode. I spend today's evening roaming about in sakchi and trying to catch a glimpse of the human civilization which exists beyond XL. My life at XL has been confined to my room for sleeping, the lecture hall ( yaa...for sound sleep), Dadu's for my daily dietary requirement and that corner room in the library wherein I spend long hours in the maze created by over 55000 books and umpteen other journals. I meet the same ppl., cribbing all the time, those fake laughs over inconsequential tidbits, those same mediocre discussions, those forceful smiles and smirks, those irrelevant pressues which we build on ourselves, those undeterminate urgency for assignments, those last moment rushes of adrenalin, those clumsy parties and all those unwarranted heaps of diplomacy. But somehow, I have started enjoying it. Though my quench for intellect has been less than satisfied, I have developed a sort of liking for this surrogate life. I continue to be in a flux regarding my beliefs on the relevance of this endeavour at XL.

Hope I'll soon cut through the clutter and clear thinking will prevail. Amen !!!

PS - I somehow exercised extreme control in the Strategy class yesterday when the faculty again raised the question ' What is strategy ?' No, I wasn't going to say it is bullshit..have already said it once...I have refined my answer to be more politically correct. It is 'Strategy is a concept. It is a figment of one's imagination.'

Shapeless Musings IV

I fell asleep ..again...Some fears that had been submerged within my ultra busy schedule returned again to torment me. Some haunting memories flashed through my mind as I woke up in a state of utter disarray. I clenched the shawl as hard as I could with my hands, but felt self to weak to cling on to it. I looked around and seeing myself in the same so familiar so known room breathed a sigh of relief as my heart sank into my stomach. I just felt like that nearby tainted bottle of water whom nobody in the first look, can make out whether its full or empty. I tried to reach out for the bottle, but it was too far for me to reach. I looked up at the ceiling. No, it wasn't falling down. My dear fan, now giving me a perplexed look had a thousand questions, but I just didn't have any answer. I looked at my laptop screen and the familiar sight of a few dozen offline messages did lend the 'much required now' routinous familiarity. I skimmed through non pertinent 'sms's on my cell but all urgency seem irrelevant to me. The dark sky artfully lended a deceptive hue to camouflage the early morning hours. I tried to cry out loud, but cudn't. I closed my eyes as hard as I can, but the haunting scenes were still gushing afresh. The chilling air made a way through my now clenched fists. I craved for warmth and grasped the shawl with all my strength. I felt the cold air brushing my toes, but couldn't help. The cringing sound of the door resonated in my ears, as it fought with the cold, trying to protect me. I kicked with all my life to get up, but in vain. Again I tried to cry, but may be the tears were freezed within. I went to sleep ...again...

I am waiting to wake up.. And they say...I need to wake up soon...maybe sooner.

Its three years now...and yaa..I have woken up now..ready to fight that cold without a speck of fear head on....Let the trumpets blow.

From 'Shapeless musings' ...written by self on 20th Jan., 05

Quote of the day

'Strategy is bullshit' - my first words in the first strategy lecture.. Hope they are not the last words in the last lecture.

Flush it.

My new year resolutions

With this New Year begins a new term at XLRI. The last term was an absolute nightmare. With the summer internship process, wherein I had the worst time of my life…( haan bhai haaan, I know …abhi aage bahut kuch aanewala hai), and made me even curse myself on the decision to join the best private B school of the country for a moment and doubt the fairness and genuineness ( I still do.. ) of the entire process, to the absolute crap work we bunch of idiots did during our marketing project. This marketing project when combined with the handicraft skills I developed during the more crappier and absolutely shit MAXI fair made me nominate self for the award of stupid of the year, but as always I lost. This year I lost hands down to the Pakistani media who garlanded late Benazir Bhutto as the role model of democratic ideals even after she mentioned in her will that she wanted her son ‘Bilawal’ ( nice name) to be heading her political party. Maybe, in Pakistan the party president isn’t elected, its done by the will of Party President. (In India, it’s not much different either). Last year I lost to CITU when it tried to bring the IT sector employees under its gamut. Unfortunately, the CPM Politburo didn't give much of a fight except during the mindless random ramblings on every god damn important issue for the country. All communists aren’t fools, but how come all fools are communists ???

I’ve also made few resolutions for the new year and for the new term such as to regularly get notes of my nice, loving, charming, adorable, beautiful, sexy, generous, intelligent, genius friends photocopied time to time. I am also going to keep motivating all my group mates in all projects to put in their best efforts towards doing a nice project ( hey….c…now I need to develop my f*king dipolomatic skills too.....). I have also decided that I will be definitely attending more than 75 % of the morning 8 30 lectures this term. ... .kuch jyada ho gaya naa...okie ..lets make it 60 %. I’ve also decided that I will be reducing my avg. daily expenditure at the Dadu’s by 25 %. I have already scored many a double centuries in the last term. And yaa, I am surely gonna reduce on my OMAXI dues (sacchhi…. okiee….maybe some flexibility permitted in this resolution). I am surely going to find sometime to entertain myself ( that doesn’t mean I find time to entertain others…hey....u ....c'mon not that way...u pervert) and treat myself to some bollywood flicks.. m yet to catch on OSO & Tarre zameen par…haan bhai, I m still damn busy ( pyaar aur padhai ke siwa bhi hazaar kaam hai zindagi mein). I will also be pursuing my interests in photography soon…so all you XL ki billiya…oops..I mean kudiyaan..get ready to get clicked. I also intend to switch from TOI to HT after pounding my head on the nearby wall while reading TOI as the standard of English therein has been off late been even worse than that on my blog. I wondered how a tennis player got injured on her ‘upper leg’…gosh…again... u're indeed a pervert!!! I never knew about this anatomically wonderful part which tennis players possess. The quality of language has been so abysmally low in TOI in recent times that even American friends can now find errors in it. I intend to further cut down on my chatting time. I’ve already stopped chatting on Gtalk except for the very special/ emergency purposes or special persons. With over 800 dear friends in my list therein and about 150-200 ready anytime to discuss with me wide ranging issues from the economic reforms in the animal husbandry of Rwanda to the impact of the subprime crisis in US on the tourism industry in Costa De Rica and even the unaddressed areas in the governmental program on rejuvenating the vanishing Bolivian dance styles to the effect of rise in coastal temperatures on the reproductive cycles of the sea turtles to the effect of excess SOx in flue gases on the reheater tubes in supercritical boiler to the changes in ADB funding guidelines for infrastructure projects, I find myself at little bit pressed for time ( yaa..just a little bit..you moron) for chatting with you. Also, I am gonna continue with the dubious distinction of being the only moron on campus who doesn’t use a cell phone.

This term I am having ‘Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility’ as a subject. What crap…Turbulent times ahead in the lecture hall.

Hope you accomplish all your new year resolutions. Amen !

PS : I somehow missed to register myself for Term II. But will surely get self register for term III.

Happy New Year

oye....sabse pahele is blog par timepass karne ke liye tapak padne wale sabhi to nav varsh ki hardik shubh kamnayee.. btw, jab apun yeh ghis raha hai, tab tak new year shuru nahi huaa....advance mein wish kiya hai mamu..samjha kya...

The clock strikes 10. Suddenly the melodious tune on my alarm clock wakes me up from my power nap. Its still quite a few hrs. left for the new year to arrive. What the f*&* am I doing at this time here in front this computer. Infact self had been bombasted with the question on what am I going to do on this new year eve. Any guesses..? Okie...your first guess of me been on a wet nite is outrightly rejected. Nope..I ain't in Gujarat ( as if it mattered for wet nites :) ). Nope, I am not going to rock and 'roll' out there with some buggers. A 'night-out' at the 'coolest' spicy locations in the town ...nope...not at all.. And I am definitely not reading Kafka or Coetze or Milton...Not even Aristotle. I finished reading his 'Power & Politics' yesterday. 'Kane & Abel' of Jeffrey Archer is next on the list, but I prefer to start that sometime later next month. Nope ..u loser..m not writing any more poems...don't u know i gave up writing poems...bloody crapp... no shapeless musings ......no watching TV either, or playing 'games' on lappie.. and definitely i am not out 'bird watching'

Yes, i m again on those one day trips at places which are never ever mentioned on any of the maps...miles away from the hustle and bustle of the cities....where even reaching the place takes an effort, but the beatific intense silence here is worth it. Can once again see those thousands of stars which I somehow missed on the city sky. Think this is the first time in last few yearss that I am not on an official tour on new year eve. Gonna enjoy it fully...and yaa...i m gonna see more falling stars today..have baskets 'full' of wishes for the upcoming year. Cheers !!! Have a rockin' year ..bole to HAPPY NEW YEAR

PS : I'll be back soon

PSS : I have nothing more to say..har post mein yeh 'PS / PSS' likhna zaruri hai kya ....tum bhi naa...!!!

HYPOTHETICAL

This term in Economics, we had to write a paper of about 750 words on any contemporary macroeconomic matter for getting an extra credit. Yup, I did write...and indeed write 31 pages for it ( kya bola re tu... haan re...apun ka satak gaya tha). No prizes for guessing that the topic of this brilliant paper was 'Countering carbon'. In my production assignment last term, I had wrote about the mechanisms of carbon trading in details. Herein , I blasted ( need i say ' no words minced') the very logic behind carbon trading and have made a case for shifting to carbon tax. An absolutely dumb but dear friend yesterday dismissed the idea mentioning that the concept of carbon tax is at best 'HYPOTHETICAL'

What hypothetical...u f$%$&^* crappy idiot...Read this twice, and then if you still consider carbon tax 'HYPOTHETICAL', I'll pay for getting your brain being kept next to Einstein in the museum, but for entirely opposite reasons.

- In the summer of 2003, New Zealand government was considering a ‘flatulence tax’ to be levied on farmers with livestock. (the fart by the livestock consists of a certain proportion of polluting gases) With four million people, 45 million sheep and around 10 million cattle, New Zealand’s animals are reportedly responsible for more than 40 percent of the total greenhouse gases produced in the country. ---So, Farters beware !!! aur muli ke parathe khaana bandh karo...samje. New Zealand has infact, implemented a carbon tax since 2005.

- The Quebec government just announced plans to levy a broad carbon tax against oil and gas companies as a way of financing what it calls a $1.2 billion Green Fund over the next six years to help control the province's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its Kyoto target.

- And the notion is getting something of an international hearing courtesy of Al Gore, the former Democratic party presidential candidate who is now trumpeting the idea of a broad-based carbon tax with his new documentary about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

May be the Carbon Tax can be renamed the “Green Tax”, after all Carbon seems much too a dirty word for politics.


PS -The Rajnikant Birthday celebration by TAXI was good...cud have been better if I would have got a slice of the cake :(. I don't understand the reason why 'RanjitHa' and 'SangitHa' and all their brothers and sisters keep on visiting my orkut profile yet never making a scrap...It seems like I am receiving blank calls from half the population of Chennai.

PSS - Congrats to Ratin for taking the initiative and starting the stock tips group...hope it goes full gear in the next term. btw, XLers have already started manipulating the market in a never seen, never heard, never thought manner...Hats off to Captain & his group. Which company are you acquiring next ?

PSSS - M gonna atttend marketing lecture tomorrow ( subject to conditions) after eons of years. I dropped the idea of taking up 'French ' next term...I think I better take up 'English' under Fr. Jesurajan. :)

muzhe woh kitaab chahiye

Lately, I have been trying to get my hands on a literary classic which I haven't been able to find in most of the 'prime' libraries in most of the cities I have visited. So, yesterday I googled to find out the book and surprisingly among the first few entries displayed I came across a newsarticle from 'Telegraph' which also featured a very familiar name. I clicked on that entry to find that indeed it was about a familiar 'gentleman' who stays at XLRI and this gentleman has the book I am so desperately looking for. Now, One may go and ask that book from him but then one may not agree to lend it to me...

Wondering, whoz that...well...just read this article from 'Telegraph'..
QUOTE -
A nail-biting finish to a cricket match does not impress him. Neither does masala Bollywood movies. For Tamonas Gangopadhyay, professor of qualitative technique and systems selective, XLRI, what matters most is words. Nothing holds more significance than the fine print. His collection of over 3,000 books is his prized possession and Tamonas has found a new world for himself in them.
Walk into his office and you will find more in this man’s booty. A PHD in mathematics, he loves Coetze as much as he adores the Brahms. He prizes his complete collection of Kafka just like he can’t get over Beethoven.
A man with a classy taste in literature and music, Tamonas says, “Pulp fiction is not my kind of stuff.” And why not, for one who has tasted the richness of literary novels like Coetze’s “Disgrace” and “Waiting for the Barbarians” and Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”, anything short of it is not good enough.
“The originality of idea, the aesthetic mature of his writing and the stylistic aspects of Kafka bowled me over. And as for Proust, the seven volume work of about 4,200 pages gave me an unparalleled literary treat. I must say I have not chanced upon such unconventional experiments in any author,” he admits. , says Tamonas, a dreamy smile flitting across his face.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Tamonas was introduced to literature, culture and painting by his father. “My grand collection of books is part of a family heirloom. Previously I used to travel a lot to buy books for my collection mainly because there weren’t any good bookshops in Calcutta. But now Landmark in Calcutta is my favourite book-hunting spot. Besides, I also like the collection at Bookworm in Khan market Delhi and Crosswords at Delhi and Bombay,” Tamonas explains.
To this professor of many parts the definition of pleasure and fun is rather unconventional.
“I am not among those who thrive on material possessions. Yes, you can say I will give in to the temptation of a 29-inch television simply because it will ensure better viewing . But too much of socialising is not my cup of tea. I love to spend my time reading instead. I personally feel literature cannot be understood without knowing the history behind it. It is the same with music,” he adds.
His daughter Jagriti, a student of Class XI, too swears by books. “My family comprises avid readers so we spend a lot of time together engrossed in books. Of late I have introduced my daughter to the works of Tolstoy and Dotoevsky and she seems to loves it. Literature is not just stories but the entire world compressed in words. It encompasses the social, historically and economical history of our times.”
Tamonas enjoys his Solhello or Jaques Berzun reclining on the bed in his study-cum-bedroom which has on display all his collection well kept in a glass case. “The reading habit is dying. People rarely read books leave alone buying them. Take for example the book fair in the city and you will find nothing beyond a few technical or children’s books. But then each to their own. Some people are interested in the share market, some in politics and some like me thrive on literature. I have changed with the books I have read. And in this evolution I have identified myself more with the authors than the characters or situations. That is perhaps because with time even literature evolves.”
Drawing a parallel between mathematics and music, Tamonas explains, “Discrete mathematics and music go hand in hand. Music which can be categorised into rhythm, melody and harmony is based on mathematical concepts. For instance, Indian classical music does not have much harmony while it is predominant in western classical music. In the West, great mathematicians have a strange penchant for music.” In a league of his own that’s Tamonas Gangopadhyay for you.
- UNQUOTE.

No marks for finding the probability of me going to borrow the book from Dr. T. Gangopadhyay :)

Any QT toppers volunteering for help ?

PS - sorry .. Kuttas at XL delayed.
PSS - Passing the course in Financial management - I is gonna be damn tough for me. Unlike some of my fellow mates with a high a romantic quotient, I fail to understand the logic of portfolio diversification and believe in investing in a single fixed income security.

Shapeless musings - III

I am sleeping for more than 12 hrs. a day, watching a movie everyday and yet I am damn damn busy. So busy I wudn't call up my loved ones, so busy i won't care to return the books I took eons of days back from the library, so busy I won't try to make my room a tinge cleaner, so busy I won't collect my stuff which hoards about 5 other friends room in this hostel. So, busy I won't write the blog I promised to my friends, so busy that I won't my friends up and say how much I miss them. I am so busy I don't have the time to watch India Pak one dayers, I am so busy that I don't attend any more lectures in the institute, so busy to pay bills to the dhobi and local eatery, so busy I don't have time to read any newspapers or magazines, so busy that I've stopped chatting on the internet, so busy that I don't even collect my answer sheet of the last midterm, so busy i don't give a f*cking damn to the no. of people dying in nandigram, so busy I don't care where the stock market is headed, so busy I won't follow up on my previous companies for my dues, so busy to send a diwali greeting to any of my friends, so busy to loiter out and visit a durga pooja pandal, so busy I don't have time to go the market, so busy to whisper my thoughts in her ears, so busy to share that joke with my friends, so busy to find that time to kill myself, so busy to kill some other idiots around.

But then there are some strange things going around nowadays. The red tinge in the evening sky doesn't mellow down the chirping sparrows anymore. That thunder roar doesn't frighten me anymore. There is a mirage'ous' bridge just ahead of me. I don't wish but yet would be crossing it. The horses are just set loose in their ranch. The wild beast watches them in their fancy as they move gracefully and make a nebulous frenzy of dust around. It watches patiently, silently amid those distant grassy plains sitting behind a pure rivulet which for the time being seems to have suddenly changed its course. The curtains on a old man's window flutter in the wind. A puff of smoke creates a king's crown in the air. A trendy music suddenly turns loud. With truth being rationed, will the empire tumble ?

title nahi suz raha :(

Dear Friends,

Please do not read this post, as it is specifically written only for my dear Mr. / Ms. Anonymous. Mr. / Ms. anonymous has given a comment on one of my recent posts " XL ki billiya' without disclosing his / her identity. hey..why r u reading this...i told u naa......kisi aur ki chittiya padhna acchi baat nahi hai....school mein master ji ne nahi sikhaya kya. As my poor self isn't aware of any technology to locate mr. / ms. anonymous, i present herewith my response to Mr. / Ms. anonymous's following comment


Anonymous said...
hi.. this post is entirely offensive and meant in bad taste. i suggest you remove it and immediately a it serves no purpose and acts ony as a refelction of a paedophile who is lurking the corners of this institute waiting for his sickly turn




Dear Mr. / Ms. Anonymous.

I hope this letter finds you in pink of your health and fitness. I was really impressed by your comment on my post. Anyways, First things first. Although my blog posts are grammatically as perfect as a reverse sweep by Harbhajan, yet for the sake of language I would like to kindly suggest (or may I 'plead') that 'sickly turn' is an absolute murder of the language.

As your good self has not given me the priviledge of knowing your identity, I find your idea of ‘suggesting' me something, and then praising me with highly unwarranted adjectives viz. paedolofile ( oops….i’m so bad in speellings) seems to be the creation of a person bestowed with unparalleled showers of stupidity.

I know my sense of humour is as great as sunny deol's dance, but ( again but...)I expected readers of this blog to have a brain slightly bigger than the size of a mosquito egg to appreciate this as just one another post written for the only purpose of some light hearted banter.

But ( again this buts naaa….) considering that you've taken it so seriously, my imaginations of guessing your identity seems to point towards that smiling idiot who looks like an envelope without an address on it. Or may be you are that highly modest clown with so much to be modest about. Considering my limited interactions with you, I fail to judge whether you are always so stupid, or was this just a special occasion. Though many normal specimens have an ultra strong urge to hit you hard in your face, but improving your looks for free doesn’t make good business sense, in whatsoever business one is.

Despite my best efforts, I fail to make any conclusion towards your identity Mr. / Ms. Anonymous. Anyways, I would be utmost glad to remove the post from my blog, subject to you coming out of anonymity.

I may have 'heaps' of differences with your thoughts, but I'll defend your right to speak up and express your views with my utmost might, if (....yaa, again this ifs and buts. I hate ifs, but love butts) I could have known your good self Mr./ Ms. Anonymous.
I mean what I say and I say what I mean.

Cheers,

The chaotic mind.

Disclaimer : "XL ki billiya' post bears no resemblance with any cat living or dead. In case of any such partial or full resemblance, it should be considered as purely coincidental.

PS: hey, did you notice, I m getting good at writing disclaimers . J
PSS : I have got a bit too religious nowadays and am regularly watching Ramayan – Ram laxman janki, jai bolo dasrath ki. ( oops..i mean hanuman ? ki)

I AM NOT GAY

I have heard my professors time and again emphasizing on the diversity of our batch. As I browse through some recent management journals ( haan bhai haan…apun XLRI mein padhte badhte bhi hai), I feel that every Tom, Dick and Harry has suddenly been blessed by the ‘Atma Gyaan’ of the importance and essentiality of diversity in today’s modern day management. Watching the starcasts of some recent bollywood flicks, I am sure that even Ramu, Dhawan and Barjadtya have been reading some management books of late rather than ‘filmy’ scripts. Hmmm…hmm……Oops… I just forgot the point why I started writing this post at one in the night, inspite of having a few thousand tones of management books to read. Yeh filmi log bhi naa, sab kuch bhula dete hai…Anyways, I will carry on with some other bullshit.

I have been indeed wondering on the diversity of the orkut members since the day I opened an orkut account, due to the unparalleled diversity of the ‘recent visitors’ on my orkut profile. The probability of me knowing atleast one of the five members displayed in the recent visitors section is as high as the probability of Australia cricket team winning a ‘good conduct’ medal multiplied by the probability of Imran kissmi ( I mean Hasmi) not kissing Mallika Sherawat in a forthcoming movie…. (Hmm…..btw, I am desperately searching for a DVD of the film ‘Murder’. If you have it, just send me across …plzzzzzz). Some novel profiles I discovered on my recent visitors list in the past three days are indeed astounding. I am really shocked as to why a cool Latino babe from Brazil would have visited my profile. I get dumbfounded when an octogenarian from Kyrgyzstan peeps out on my recent visitors list. A Polish glassmaker, a paleontologist from Norway and an Israeli farmer ( I know what farming you do, my dear ‘grassy’ pal). A smart Tamilian girl ‘Sunitha’ however is welcome, though I would have preferred her name to be ‘Sunita’. But 'Ranjitha' is definitely not welcome. With her picture missing on the orkut profile, the best way in which I could imagine her is as a twin sister of Rajnikanth, and that too with thick moustaches.

But most of all, I was shocked at the frequency of a particular ‘type of ‘abnormal’ males interested in undergoing some intimate experiences with fellow males. I have absolutely no idea about their happiness quotient, but they are labeled by the society in general as ‘gay’. Finding such creatures with an alarming regularity on my profile made me really wonder whether traits of such ‘man’ly inclination is really abnormal or am I under the false perception of considering myself ‘normal’ with my sexual inclinations towards the fairer sex. A intelligent ‘male’ friend ( no ideas please !) solved the mystery by pointing towards a one liner on my profile, which read ‘ I still love Sachin Tendulkar, I am not gay’. Probably this ‘swingers’ would have made an ineffective use of the Orkut search option by typing ‘ gay’ in the search criteria, and would have been mislead to my profile. I sincerely offer my deepest apologies for putting such lines on my profile, which lead to waste of their highly precious time.

Yet to make my point clear, let me emphatically announce for once and for all that I am not by any farthest stretch of imagination anywhere close to being gay. My physical interests in ‘male’ specimens of Homo Sapiens Sapiens are as high as Rakhi Sawant’s neckline ( ooyee…. you dirty mind, concentrate on reading the post) and the salary of an Indian hockey player. Let me reiterate, I am just happy, not gay. I don’t have any affiliations whatsoever with GALAXY group at XL, and I am ‘cock’sure of it. The chances of my sexual inclinations towards a male counterpart are as bright as an underpaid pornstar in a Thamilian ( I mean Tamilian) porn flick. I don’t have any crush ‘even’ on Shahid Kapoor. I am in strong opposition to gender equality. I prefer a specimen of female human spieces to a male specimen on any day, and even any night. (In fact, more so in the night). Yesterday, I also removed that song from Raj Kapoor’s (are he is the father of Shahid Kapoor’s to be father-in-law) film from my play list. The song went something like this ‘ Aadmi huun, aadmi se pyaar karta huun’. After seeing the intermingling among the Indian cricket team on the ground, when it won the 20-20 world cup, makes me think that contacting them would be more fruitful for the desperate ‘gays’ ( I mean guys) visiting my profile.

PS : All said and done, I still love Sachin Tendulkar.

shapeless musings 2

The storm has now mellowed. The cavalry of dark clouds smoothly floats over the distant mountain. A lull of serene silence lends a distinct touch to the atmosphere. A gentle blow of air touches my cheek. It is twilight. The rays of the sedate sun struggle to make their way through the maze of clouds to reach the ground. The chirping of the birds suddenly dissipates in this forlorn silence. A stroke of divine brush creates a spectacular rainbow. A circle of black smoke emanicipates from a distant chimney. The waters in the river seem to be backtracking to reach its source like a lady desperate to meet her love whom she had left. A little child runs alongside a tyre in tarnished clothes, as if racing with the river waters. He coos back at the songs of a cuckoo. The red flag on the temple flutters gleefully greeting the dard clouds bid adieu. A piece of broken crockery is discovered by a bright coloured sand trotting mollusc. A pretty girl with her locks falling into her eyes gazes at the varied coloured eastern sky. She throws up her arms to reach and catch hold of the rainbow. An aroma of wet sand adds a tint of fragrance to the surroundings. A drizzle soon follows.

A piece of silk cloth gets strangulated midair in hideous curved branches of the peepal. And then a train whistle breaks this natures' moment of romance. I believe the train needs to carry on with its journey. I wonder which destination is the train headed towards. Is destination the journey or journey the destination? Suddenly, I hear the girls' shrill cry.

What is this life, if full of care.

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stare at a beauty's glance,

And watch how well her feet can dance;

No time to wait till her lips can,

Enrich the smile her eyes began ......

No comments please.

XL ki billiya...

ORIGINAL CONTENTS OF THIS POST DELETED

Penny wise, Pound foolish

Well, the title aptly suits the NHAI which comes out with creative bidding guidelines for its BOOT projects. World over, as the project development companies try to bring more objectivity into their bidding documents and guidelines, NHAI seems to go otherwise. The recently issued bidding requirement for the project undertaking agency to share a proportion of profits ( and the way as mentioend in the model concession agreement) with NHAI is the most absurdest thing possible for a road construction project. The creativity doesn't end here. They intend to make the project company pay higher share of revenue incase of the actual traffic is higher than the projected. In case, the actual traffic is lower than the projected, it may lead to increase in lease period. Probably, NHAI may consider this the balancing act, and I term it 'a grotesque debacle in the making'. My friends at NHAI have 'correctly identified' ( as if they didn't knew it earlier) that the major obstacle was getting land buyouts for the project. So, they opted to lower the ceiling of land requirement before issuing 'notice to proceed' from 80 % to 60 %. Probably, they want to postpone facing the known devil to a bit later stage and make the executing agency incur irrecoverable costs till then.

Was that Monteksingh Ahluwalia shouting ' public private partnership ' ? 'F.O.' is gonna be the reply of private construction companies. Hope the real Dr. Singh roars soon ....!!!!

Munnabhai MBA @ XL

abe oo chapadganju, aise kya ullu ki tarah aankhein faad faad ke padh rahela hai..pahechana nahi kya bidu, ...apun ...munnabhai...aajkal XLRI mein MBA karne ko aayela hai..woh saaala medical college mein us buddhe ghusat asthana se apun ka jaama nahi, to mba karna ko aa gaya. ek din bada aadmi jo ban na hai ...ab tu puchega circuit kaahan hai...? are puch na...tension kay ko leta hai....jo man mein aaaya, puch dalne kaa...woh kya hua, circuit ke short circuit ko sardi ho gayela hai, to apun ne bol diya circuit ko ki tu ekdum bacche ke health ka pura care karne ka...time par dawa-daru sab dene ka. khali pili apun ka tenson nahi lene ka...apun chalta hai na akela hi XL mein..to apun akela hi XL mein MBA karne ko aa gaya. yaahan ka saala sab mastar log bahut hoshiyar hai....bahut saara padhata hai...apun bhi ekdum padhai pe dhyyaan de rahela hai...chana khaata hai, aur padhta hai....baaki sab bhaigiri ekdum bandh. magar phir bhi, kuch subjects mein apun ki ekdum lag raheli hai...

ek din apun ke OB ka professor bola. ki apun ka surprise test honewala hai. apun socha ki saala surprise se test hoga, yaa test mein surprise hoga. baad mein us prof. ne result mein surprise diya. apne life mein pahele se hi itna drama, tragedy, emotion hai ...usmein surprise kyun dalneka...? abhi OB ke prof. ne hi bola tha apun ko ' jo tum sochta hai, wohi sach hai'...bole to angrezi mein ' your perception is reality'. to phir apun itna soch ke sab saach saach jawab diya exam mein, to usne negative marks de diya....magar apun piche nahi hatnewala. bapu ne kaaha tha ki agar tumhe viswas hai ki tum sach ke saath ho, to prof. kya cheez hai, duniya ki koi taakat tumhare saamne tik nahi sakti..'perception is reality'

apun ne ECO ke prof. se puccha...jo kaam apun nahi kiyela hai, uske liye tum apun ko panishment dega kya, mamu ?. woh bola, agar tune nahi kiyela hai, to apun kya yeda ho gayela hai jo tuzko punishment dega. abhi apun ko usne itna bada, woh kya bolte hai ...haan aaaswaaasaan diya, to apun ne bhi bilkul baapu ki maafik sach bak diya. ..apun usko ekdum bindaas hokar bol dala ' ke apun ne homework nahi kiyela hai.." aur prof. ne apun ke grades ki bole to ekdum vaat laga daali....bapu, kaahan ho tum !!! lagta hai, apun ko abhi gandhigiri suru karni padegi..

apun ke MARKETING ke prof. ne kaha ki apun chocolates bechne ka project kare...chocolates ..are yeh saala, lafda ho gaya...agar charas, ganja bechna ho to, apun ka pura network ekdum jamela hai...woh..raju phirki aur fati chaadi ....apun ka j chokra log hai. duniya mein aakhe india ka market leader hai. magar yeh chocolate. apun to kabhi choclate khaya nahi..bas ek bar chinki ne diya tha bachpan mein...!!! to apun sidha bapu ko yaad kiya aur woh fatak dekar tapak gaya. bapu ko chocolate bahut pasand thi, magar bapu ki mummy bapu ko kabhi choclate khane hi nahi deti thi...ekdum nana patekar ki maafik gussa hokar bolti thi...daant sad jayega, to dentist mamu kya tera ristedar lagta hai..achanak apun ka dimaag thanka. apun ne aur bapu ne daant kharab na ho, aisa choclate bana dala..abhi bacche bhi khush, bacche ke maa bhi khush, apun bhi khush, bapu bhi khush, aur woh apne marketing ka prof. bhi fultoo khush..waise 'daant kharab na ho, aur ekdum strong ho jaaye' aisi chocolate kaise banegi aur kaise bikegi, yeh jaanna ho in cadbury aur nestle waloon ko, to apun ke kamre mein 3 peti bhijwa dena..areee ....peti bole to choclate ki peti bidu..tu kya soch rahela tha..

chalo abhi apun ke chana khana ka time ho gaya....baaki subjects aur masterlog ke baare mein phir kabhi...apne bhopu mein abhi gaana baj rahela hai ..' sabka katega..'

My Table

Today, I have a fresh look over my demented table which hosts scores of correspondances I have made over the past six months and have relegated them to my table owing to their relative sequential insignificance over those which I got filed (by someone else, ofcourse) Yeah…! My table adorns a look as clean as an unowned public toilet across the railway station, except for the fragrance. My table hosts paper forests more dense than that of Amazon, and I am sure Saddam would have been better off hiding admist these unfathomable blocks of papyrus products than some pigeonhole in downtown Iraq. Hey Osama….I am giving ideas.! I make a third attempt in vain to unravel two pages of some sordid three month old correspondances and my probability of finding it out this time is as good as finding strands of silky hair on Anupam Kher’s head. After 30 minutes of a ransack operation, I give up the hope. But as “jo hota hai..acche ke liye…” funda, I have uncovered fossil of my Reynolds pen lid, a strap of stapler pins, a rubber band, a visiting card of an important contact, my salary slips, an unread issue of power line magazine, ear plugs and a box of condoms. Okie…that condom thing is a joke, but I have had tangible returns for my efforts. Well, this is not the first instance, wherein I have lost some important “bunch” of documents. It happens to me with alarming regularity, with frequency more than that of a laughter roar by Siddhu on one more pathetic joke, or Imran Hashmi kissing a cool clad free girl around. (I am seriously thinking of a role switch with him). My work desk boasts of being the messiest (aisa word hai kya) thing in a radius of 2 kms. (Why 2 kms ? Because, my house is at 2 km from office) Maybe, the entire BMC staff can be busy for a whole “cleanliness year”, if they dare to set my room straight. Exotic fragrances galore, as lifeless bodies of beautiful darkly coloured cockroaches and other near extinct species of insects adorn almost every second inch of space. No, I won’t go on any further describing the eternal beautification which I have done to my room. Kisiki nazaar lag jayegi to? My ex-boss once commented to me “Kutte bhi puch (tail) maar kar baith te hai”. For the unintelligible few who can’t comprehend that mundane language , it means that even dogs have a sweep with their tails before they sit”. My reaction was a look at my boss’ desk, an eye of appreciation for its cleanliness and a look at his back. Nope, I couldn’t figure out where the tail was. Unfortunately, as I have evolved a bit further from being a dog to something called Homo Sapien Sapiens ( No, I am not refuting anti-Darwinian God-made-all theory), I feel myself ill equipped to figure out an anatomical part to be used instantly on traces of such mess. So, I continue to remain in whirlwinds of such plethora of papers around me in office, desperately waiting for some sound headed, tail-bottomed gentleman ( lady will also do) to arrive and pull me out of this valley of papers, just as a bollywood macho man picks up this heroine hanging on a single hand on the rocks twenty thousand feet above the ground.

Afterthought 1 - Once Ms. Sandhya said (Hey..No Ideas please, she was my Class I teacher) that Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Probably, I am more close to Devil “ Messiness is next to devilishness”.

Afterthought 2 – I am a strong supporter of Jack Welch’s “Paperless office” concept.

Afterthought 3- To all single and "yet" looking girls out there.....Its just a joke. I am gonna help my to-be-wife in keeping house neat and clean. sacchi...

RACE

'Few things never change', said so Philip to himself with an enigmatic grin on his face. As he walked restlessly in the corridors of Mumbai's airport, his indifference to the ringing cell disturbed few around. 15,000 miles Rachna, sitting at Heathrow airport with a newspaper in hand, gazing at the glass ceiling slids her hand through her hair. She wants to have coffee but feels too scared to get up. A blue liner lands in the background as Surya gets desperate to have a fag after sitting for over 2 hours at the Baroda flipping through pages of a comic. He feels the touch of sunrays on his hands.

Three people, three locations, three destinations but one aim. The Race for the ultimate begins

ek aur idea...

Global Warming has been the buzzword today. The unshakeable Mr. Bush has from God knows what corners has become suddenly concerned by the rising levels of Green house gases. A little bird tells me that a cow died due to excessive heat in his Texas ranch (and you blooooody thought that only Indian leaders ? have cows) . In the meantime, Ms. Maneka Gandhi is already busy making plans for an international agitation. C'mon I am not anti-maneka. However, lately this unchallenged 'animal' activist has come out with an environmental concern pertaining to pollution caused by burning dead bodies...(haan bhai haan, muzhe pata hai.....burning live bodies also leads to pollution). Assuming a mortality rate of 1 %, burning approx. 1 crore dead bodies, each requiring about 500 kg . of wood will result in consumption of nearly 5 million tonnnes of wood, and equivalent amount of electricity consumption in modern day crematoriums per year. Alternative means for the same if implemented would go a long way in reducing our emissions. But easier said than done. It looks really too difficult for India, the nation of controversies to make such a drastic shift, especially with religious sentiments running on all time high. Also, alternative means for the same need critical evaluation. Even if feasible alternative means for cremating dead bodies are found, lack of political will and social consensus would always be the major hindrances. I think a way out is to dispose off dead bodies in the open for feeding chils, kuttas and kauvas(bole to crows, u dumbo..hindi nahi aati kya ? ). After all, they are also living beings. Its our moral responsibility to take care of their dietary requirements. I know, none of you, except Ms. Maneka Gandhi will approve of this outstanding idea of mine. hmm..seems one more brilliant idea of mine is gonna go unnoticed. *f&$^- u crappy idiots..!!

PS : A recent research proved severe heart burns do not contribute to pollution. Carry on girls.

PSS: Another geek after his untiring labourious efforts finally succeeded in explaining me the reason for a ceiling friend having three fins(read previous post).

PSSS: From where and why does noise come when one tears paper ? Any gyani ppl. around ?

PSSSS : Click on the ads below..Support this blog

shapeless musings

Its nearly 2 am in the morning. Having just retired to bed couple of minutes prior, my fatigued body took to hibernation in a split second. But a jubiliant caravan disturbed it. Hoping for the caravan to pass away, I made my best attempt to resign self to slumber. But the adamant caravan had taken a break nearby. ' raahi judte gaaye, kaarvaan badhta gaaya'. Its now about 4 am. .But having observed the intrinsic liking of the caravan for the nearby place, I get a feeling that even a thought of sleep under the circumstance would be at best, very optimistc. I try my hand at completing an old poem, but make a big mess of it. Yaa....even bigger mess than what I made of this post ! Meanwhile, bright, enthusiatic, cheerful guys in their tryst with the destiny of love mingled with beautiful girls, playing 'kiddin'' games, holding hands and holding ^#$# (abe mamu, mazaak kar rahela hai). The merrymaking is far from over. Subtle play of guitar accompanied by fresh young voices recuperates continously. Man, there is love in the air!!!! Old jokes shared and laughed at, girlie giggling continues, flirtatious tendencies displayed at best, and......Hey , hold on ! A little lonely star is soon soon 'gonna' get relegated under the clouds. Some 'clouds' are bent on diminishing the little star's shine. A puff of smoke emanicipates from a distant cig. A shrill cry of cuckoo goes unheard. I can't see that little star right now. The cuckoo wants to make its presence felt, but poor little creature. Who would like to even see such an ugly little bird, no matter how well it sings. Suddenly a drifting cloud makes a way for the little star. The star just seems so near. I think that there is a huge storm concealed in the tears which are now almost instoppable from the star's eye. And now, I am waiting for the sun to rise. But hey...!!! Somehow, i feel the phoenix is rising too....

PS : If you can't 'understand' the above post, better not comment. and if you can, please explain me too.....even, I can't understand 'this'..!!!!

To my dear fan

I sit on my bed with almost a dozens of books and thousands of other artifacts. I give up my on my writing a decent article for the upcoming issue of a infra. biz. magazine. A nearby wall lizard watches me in attention as I flip disdainfully through the pages of one of my chronically erroneous articles. The humidity in this part of the country making me realize that the human body consists of 70 % of water..(C'mon..Though many disagree, I am a human too). I have a sadistic look at my fan, which nearly smirks at me as I battle like a little David against the mighty Goliathic heat. Meanwhile, I wonder why this fan has three fins and what the fins may be talking within themselves about me. It has watched me in all my emotions, crying at times, cribbing at times, laughing over some old joke. It has watched me as I undertake my journey down the memory lane, as I bathe in sunlight, watch the crisp flight of the eagle on a bright morning. It has watched me dreaming about that wonderful future that lies ahead, as I gaze at the half lit moon making its way among dimming stars. It has watched me as I fill myself with the cool breeze and hope it goes as far as I would wish it should. It has watched me as I exchange smiles with the sunflowers adorning the lawn ahead. It has been there when I do just close my eyes, hoping to find someone when I open it. It has seen those tears, those laughs which no one has ever and never will. It has been a witness of the constant surges of emotions, those spurts of energy which make me the unparalleled at times, those fleeting moments where I become just a spectator to my life which keeps heading on a freeway and destined for a sudden end.

'Dear fan. I never thought I would say this. But, I've never cared for you, never thought of you, and I'll move on one day leaving you. I have been turning you on and off, whenever I feel like. SORRY..! I wish you read this someday. Anyways, words are poor conveyors, the heart knows itself.

yeh kya ho raha hai...

People have never been so insane. Believe the world is moving the other way round. Mr. Bush has suddenly become worried about global warming. The 64 year ' old' man of the millenium is making love in films with cutie pies and girls. Chief Justice in Pakistan has been talking of ethics and responsibility. The man who ushered liberalization in India as a finance minister has got 'too' socially responsibile and has been presenting his views on inclusive growth. The main ruling party couldn't decide on the next president. A liberal leader becomes the premier of France, the tradiational socialist bastion of Europe. Our Hon'ble railway minister is busy taking business classes. ( Hope XLRI doesn't call him to share his gyan in his home state). The highly conservative Tata Group goes on a idiotic, absolutely illogical ( anything that can't be explained by logic is strategic). acquistion spree. The king of good times copulates with the common man. The no. of farmers committing suicide is just a statistic for the Hon'ble Agricultural minister...Bravo Minister... some wise man correctly said ' A single death is a tragedy, a million death a statistic. And finally, I am attending more than half the lectures at XL....sob....sob...

Dhakka maro dhaaka.....

Well, few days back some people in Bihar had the most dramatic experience of their life, while travelling in a train. The train staff asked them to push the train for a while. After being pushed for nearly half an hour by a 1000 odd people, the train did move twelve feet. The overhead traction lines in Eastern railway aren't continous. Neither they need to be. The train normally runs a short distance due to its momentum without the traction. But exceptions to scientific laws are becoming too frequent nowadays. The train stopped 12 feet short of the next overhead line.

I am huming that Govinda 's song 'This happens only in India'....and you thought, its only the superman who pushes train...uhh...!

PS: Traction or no traction, the trains will always move in Railways ministers state.

First Impressions - Jamshedpur

After 38 most boring hours of my life, I finally landed by Howrah Express in India's first planned township, Jamshedpur, named after the legendary visionary Jamsedji Tata, the centre figure of India's biggest business house. A single word which encapsulates my experiences with Jamshedpur is change. The weather changes more frequently than Dhoni changes his gloves and probably for the same reason - humidity......gosh..! u picked up on the jharkhand connection...wah wah ..! Even the rates of every commodity from needle to an almirah are as flexible as Indian batting. Surprises everywhere. The population here is Bongopolitan, with dadas contributing ..oops, consisting of 40 % of the population. By the way, I find 'dadis' with their big big big eyes and tonnes of lipstick fascinating. With the remaining 60 % (abhi tak dadi par hi atke ho kya....!)forming a perfect sample for the 'rest of india' population, (sample, population...wat am i saying...still the hangover of the mahaboring statistics class), the rest of the town is as demographically diverse as the starcast of L.O.C ( haven't seen that movie...lucky you). The markets here have a million shops. I believe the no. of shops outnumbers the population. The gardens here are as beautiful as they can be. Well maintained numbered roads ( reminds me of Gandhinagar, Chandigarh) with plantations running parallel presents a nice view. The hills in the background add to the scenic beauty of the place. The smoke from the chimney of Tata Steel plant at times tends to disturb this otherwise serene place. Seems, I am going to miss the hustle and bustle of Ahmedabad....more on jams'r later....ciao

Golden Rules - II

As I take a career break after spending four years in job, I present here a concise list of my Golden Rules for a sureshot rise in the corporate world, many of which I learned the hard way.

1. Diplomacy always pays.
2. At times, bluntness pays better.
3. Commit honestly. Have courage to back out from commitments, if required.
4. Wasting time isn't a waste always. Even if that means discussing economic policies of Banana Rep. with your boss.
5. Everybody can't be equally talented in all aspects. Let the relevant person take leadership in his area of talent.
6. Appreciate efforts, no matter what the result.
7. Life isn't fair. The best person doesn't always win. Learn to live with it.
8. Take breaks whenever you feel like. Don't wait for the workload to get less. The world isn't going to stop for you to get off.
9. Don't bury things. Admit mistakes tactfully.
10. Money matters.
11. Having a contigency job on hand is always better.
12. Be patient. There are many more people who put up with more crap than you do .
13. Value other people's time.
14. Wear a smile.
15. Bypassing your boss is a high risk - high return strategy. Not for the amateurs.
16. Carry your work home, not the pressure.
17. Don't chase fads.
18. You don't work for the betterment of the organization. You work so that your boss looks best.
19. Having only one godfather in a company can be brutal. Instead have none.
20. Nothing is so important or so urgent to make you tense.
21. Office parties/ picnics are never casual.
22. Two people can keep a secret, if one is dead.
23. Fairer sex is not always preferred.
24. To rise high, 'Smartness may be tolerated. Shrewdness would be demanded.'
25. There are shortcuts to success.
26. You won't stick to all of your today's perceptions tomorrow. Respect people who differ.
27. Prejudices exist. Biases are inevitable.
28. You ought to be good at networking.
29. If not, make close friends with the one who has the biggest network within as well as outside the company.
30. If you keep on doing things you do best, you restrict your chances to improve.
31. Try to get into a comfort zone as soon as possible. Never stay in a comfort zone for long.
32. Hardworking, intelligent, asslicker is as good as it gets.
33. Professional hazards exist everywhere. Don't whine.
34. Its better to be true than humble at times.
35. Take care of your health. You ought to live to reach at the top.
36. Back your men; sun, wind or snow.
37. And the last two things. a) Never share everything you know. b).....

I am hot

I am hot. I am hotter...No, its not metaphor silly...I was literally hot and hotter than the hot weather in A'bad. With the mercury in the city touching 102 F, my thermometer indicated the temp. of the dorsal portion of my temporally resting tongue as 104 F. That should mean I am giving energy to the surroundings which is at a temperature lower than me. Well, how about rearing this viruses(which cause fever) and implanting them in human to make them inexhaustible sources of heat energy(until they drop dead). Energy security problem solved.....! Ain't I a genius ? Well, guess the fever has finally made its way somehow to my brain. (Please don't doubt. It exists. An X-ray did reveal it to put an end to the perennial question which boggled me since times immemorial. Meantime, I am currently on a mission to defame those idiots who made me cram the second law of thermodynamics)

But more than the fever, it was the realization of my failing desperateness which turned me sad. My desperateness to meet some of my 'darlingest' (no ideas please) friends in A'bad and Baroda before I move on to Jharkhand. Again, the same cliche 'If wishes were horses, men would ride.'

Gentlewoman's game

Today I watched the fastest bowler in modern cricket. The fastest delivery was at an express speed of 107 km/ hr, with an average of 100 km/hr C'mon...I'm not kidding. The key is, I am referring to women's cricket. I think a spinner like Kumble bowls faster than that. Also, the words to which the women bowlers are complete strangers are line and length ( how does length matter to them anyway....). The only comforting aspect is that the fastest bowler is an Indian. But the quality of play is such that even an under 14 mens team of Sikkim (or Mizoram) would have felt as invincible as Australia playing Bermuda, if they have a match with any damn national team in women's international cricket. Well, cricket too like many other sports is purely a man's sport. It is not for without reasons that cricket is called a 'gentleman's game.' Women, I believe are too gentle for it.

PS : And had it not for the glamour and short skirts, I wonder how many would have ever watched women's tennis. I am not an anti-feminist, or a maso chauvinist pig. I have all the due regards for the fairer sex( By the way, I watched Serena Williams playing q.f. at French open. Does she also belong to the fairer sex ?).

Shadow ESOP

ESOPs have always been an instrumental tool for financial planning and retaining top talent by corporates in the West. Since mid 90s' this financial instrument has made its headway in India too, albeit on a smaller .Though it was Reliance first who thought of implementing it in India, many other corporates took the lead in this regard. ESOP has always been a classic case of deft financial jugglery, and the juggler's improving. The latest on the list is DLF. And they call their brainchild ' Shadow' ESOP.

In a normal ESOP, the company allots you say 1000 shares at Rs. 10 (to be paid later) with a vesting period of 5 years. You sit idle on your 'alloted shares' for five years. If the market value of share is Rs. 50 at end of five years,you just need to pay Rs. 10,000 ( 1000 X 10) to the company and get those shares.

In case of a shadow ESOP, you'll pay nothing, but the company will pay you Rs. 40,000 ( the diff. between market value and value offered to you) or the option to continue your 'shadow' stock. Direct benefits of this method is that it doesn't lead to any further issue of shares and hence no equity dilution. Also, your EPS remains intact. The other side of the coin, it results into a direct cash outflow from the company. Well, the accountants are sure in for some restless nights as they try to figure out the appropriation methodology for this potential outflows.

PS : DLF stands for ..'Damn Lucky Fellow'..(c'mon i m not kiddin this time, sacchi....ask K.P. Singh, the real DLF)

Paradoxical paradoxes

- A community in Rajasthan resorts to violent means to get itself registered as a ‘scheduled tribe’. During 1931 census, there were massive protests by some castes as they were enlisted to relatively ‘lower castes’. Jay Bhim. Jay Mandal.
- Though we have made significant strides for reshaping the economy from a state centred, highly regulated to market driven, the ‘Five Year Plans’ continue to serve as a prime tool in the eyes of finance ministry, Planning Commission and PMO. I think, a 50 year old socialist trademark won’t wither away so easily.
- Business Standard prints news pertaining to Intas (an Ahmedabad based pharma. Co.) acquiring Verionics twice on two different pages on the same day. One printed in the page detailing biz. News from West, and one on national. An Editing blunder or absence of any other significant happenings. I better not reveal my guess.
- No official message or communication on ‘Labour Day’ by CPI (M).
- Election of a right winged candidate in third consecutive presidential election in France, believed to be modern Europe’s socialist bastion and the only truly welfare state in Western Europe.
- BCCI having tough times to find a sponsor for cricket team’s tour to Ireland and England.
- The girl from China bags Miss Congeniality award at Miss Universe competition.
- And finally, a RIL SEZ project at Navi Mumbai gets delayed inordinately in getting approvals. Isn’t it a paradox?

Advertising for B-2-B

Branding through means of mass communication was something unheard for companies primarily in B-2-B transactions. Their limited and almost predefined customer base made it unsuitable and unworthy to resort to such exercise. Rather their advertising campaigns were limited to having stalls in ‘meets’, promotions at related conferences, ads in business magazines and pink dailies and direct mailing to selected potential customers. Nothing much has changed till date. However, suddenly there have been quite a few advertisements of some B-2-B transactional corporates. Though there aren’t pouring cats and dogs at the time, they are significant enough to indicate a trend, if not to reach a conclusion. Birla Group ads have been quite eminent across channels since last few months. Recently, Jaypee group and HCL are flooding the channels. (Though I personally find HCL’s adv. very unnerving. There is a thin line between self esteem and ego, and the commercial to a greater extent tends to be on the wrong side of the line ). L&T’s Imagineering campaign posters had occupied significant space in the print media and on hoarding in metro cities, though they haven’t raided the TV media after their highly emotional ‘ yeh mere papa ne banaya hai’ campaign. There are many other corporates who have resorted to such mass communication in the past one year. But in terms of creativeness, freshness of concept and subtly putting the message across, I think Accenture steals the show.

The core question for crore is then, why are companies involved in pure B-2-B transactions resorting to such full scale public advertising and that too through means of mass communication. Having worked on detailed financials of two major corporates purely in B-2-B transactions, I can safely assert that the proportion of advertising expenses to sales weren’t more than a quarter of a percent about a couple of years back. The same I assume would traditionally be the trend across all sectors and B-2-B companies. May be, the brand awakening and brand building is going to set things to change. However, such corporates aren’t much benefited by brand building if their ads are being viewed by non target customers. Their advertising and marketing campaigns were always deeply influenced by segmentation theory and would remain the same for years to come.

A closer look at the corporates meting out these ads would make you understand that almost all of this have a diverse customer base across sectors, and it would therefore not be absolutely out of place to use mass advertising as a tool to open up new potential customers. Though there are corporates purely in B-2-B transactions, which have thought otherwise. No means to know, whether they are more wise.

However, I feel the real reason lies somewhere else. A booming economy and a talent crunch have resorted corporates to vie for the available talent. A better branded company would find it easier to retain and attract people, other things (i.e. Location, salary, profile, company size) being same or equivalent. People would prefer working with say, Punj Lloyd (their adv. Stinks) than with Patel Engineering (nearly same sized companies). A brand name of a company also commands more loyalty from its employees.

A subordinate reason may be the effect a brand recognization of an organization has on its share price. (For its assumed that brand recognization leads to sustained monetary benefits in the long run). In the race to uphold shareholders’ wealth, several indirect measures are being resorted to ( and why not !) and addressing masses through advertising could be one of the motives.

Anyways, how successful this advertising campaigns have been would not be very discernible. So, just admire Tiger Woods forgetting to consider the rotation of ball(Accenture), enjoy the cuteness of the little boy impressing his baby 'girlfriend'. by operating the Hydro Plant(Jaypee) and helplessly watch the idiotic 'computer guy' talking crap till the innocous investment banker decides to buy out his firm (HCL). :)

Murdering English

Some brutal murders of the language I unfortunately discovered coming from different quarters in the past week.

A letter which self received from SBI started with ‘ Welcome to SBI. We are the only bank among 100 largest banks in the world’. But I didn’t took any offence as they are ready to give me a big loan at cheap rates without any collateral or guarantor. So, I’ll bank with the only bank among world’s 100 largest banks.

Ravi Shashtri coins out an entirely new meaning of ‘ Show no mercy. Take no prisoners’. (who says Indian coaches aren’t creative !). The temporal coach in his defence of using the above phrase said it means to defeat the opposition ‘fairly’ and ‘squarely’. Hmm...Dear Mr. Shashtri, you’re an f*king asshole and that means you have the sexiest butt on the planet. Last heard, Mr. Shastri’s English teacher tried to commit suicide.

A matrimonial advertisement posted by a prospective bride read – ‘I have just one sister married with a kid’. WTH…and I thought child marriages are passé and banned. I think I missed the chance when I was a kid. And read it again. ‘ …JUST ONE sister’. I think some people would be more comfortable writing in the regional languages though in English script, especially while posting matrimonial ads.

For further list, catch on Mr. Bush bullshiting on CNN. After completion(?) of his presidential term, he is planning to opt for a career change as a ‘stand-up’ comedian. He has all the skills needed for that. With his comic face and supreme knowledge on geography, I am sure the swagger 'gonna' be a big hit.

PS: Watching Miss Universe, especially the Q&A reinforced my conviction – ‘ Beauty and brains are diametrically opposite in location and proportions. All five final contestants had pre-prepared answers which were blurted out no matter what the question.

PSS : Any intelligent girl, I am sure, would not deem it worth to spend her precious time to contradict the above statement.

PSSS: How come I am looking so ugly today ?

Ahmedabad

As the time to march towards Jharkhand dawns closer, I am lurking here in my hometown for the last few weeks. Being a forced nomadic and having trot unfathomable places interacting and negotiating with human look-alikes for almost half a decade, I am really confounded as I enjoy uninterrupted full week at home. Agar duniya mein kahin jannat hai, to woh yahi hai, yahi hai, yahi hai. However, absences of some cool sexy apsaras in this jannat is slightly disturbing.

With no flurry of business calls, no official mails, no issues as important as the ‘existence of world’ depending only on me, no non-standard verbal creativeness of customers to be borne every morning, no alarm clocks bothering me (did they ever..?), I have decided to catch up on my lost sleep.( okie, that means I sleep seven hours a day…...alone ofcourse ) My reading inclination seems to have deserted me, and has been replaced by my nonchalant gazes at the idiot box. Seems I am as free as one can be, the word ‘free’ in literary sense. But I think, my honeymoon is going to end soon. Nope, u f*king crap, ‘Honeymoon’ not in literary sense. Samjha kar yaar. I am been assigned the highly tortuous task of cleaning up (or down..watever) my closet which boasts of hoarding more books than LDCE’s library. No ideas please. Not your type of books. Pure academic books, idiot. I think I can start a library if I don’t land up in a decent job.( Till now, I did decent job only. I meant the fat paychecks). And yaa, the list of items to be purchased, ( why do people call it ‘shopping’ ?) seems to be getting as long as Jacob Oram. Considering my super disinclination for purchasing (buddhu, bole to ‘shopping’), even a Tatenda Taibu would have suffice. Has anyone ever outsourced shopping out ? Help..!!..Help..!!

LD Blues

As I am soon going to leave for Jamshedpur, back to college, yesterday I turned nostalgic about those wonderful college days. Also, as J & S, my best friends were at my place and the semifinal match between Australia and South Africa literally being a one-sided contest, we took off on nostalgia highway to cherish those dream moments till early morning. Some interesting events…..

A blitzkrieg 9 ball 27 run innings in the LD cricket cup finals in 2003 by the worst ever batsman of our team. We went on to win the finals from a dead situation.

Leaflets written in spectacular rhetoric derogatory English by some highly sick idiots and pasted all over the college from classrooms and drawing halls, to library, cricket ground and even toilets alleging my link with a drug racket (oops…) and a former Miss LD, and then the drive undertaken by my friends to remove all of them within a couple of hours.

The petty fights between hostel blocks for some mundane reasons.

The legal battle we 50 odd students, fought against our professors, university, AICTE, and principal in the High Court and lost and finally the celebrations when the H’ble SC altered the ruling in our favour.

The football match in which I broke the arm of one of my best buddies. His falling down almost unconscious, regaining consciousness and uttering ‘ yeh haath katana padega’, and we scoffing at him.

“Managing’ about 2 lakhs of sponsorship for annual culfest from a cold drink company, and finally giving rights of canteen to its competitor.

Having stalls selling 33 paise water pouches at 2 rupees each and then spending the entire amount (about 20 K ) on parties within a month.

Our HOD calling me to testify that K was a student of the college during final year viva. His I-card being not granted as a sufficient proof.

Calling a strike, because a pro gave too much assignments.

A pro getting infuriated at me for reading ‘Business World’ in Material Lab, and challenging me to explain “Hardening Treatment for SS” to the batch, followed by self giving a two hours lecture and professor later borrowing books from me on Heat Treatment.

The three hours in which we initiated and completed our final year project for 100 marks, and the same project being submitted by four of us under different titles. The project report was actually a study report by a diploma student, and the only effort we took was to get Xerox copies and printing the first page. (and yaa, I got 88 marks)

I writing poems for a friend, so he can impress his 143rd ‘true love’.

Launching a website and conceptualizing a grand function for the same, fund raising, space selling, hosting, event management, and despite internal fights successfully completing the function. My first touch with management.

J whistling at a new hottie on campus only to find her taking our HMT lab later in the day.

Weekly trips to R-world to catch a movie at 20 bucks and in the process spending 50 bucks on petrol.

Think I had the most wonderful batchmates...Can't write more...Effusively sentimental.....did I say sentimental...uhhh..!