The Side Effects of an MBA

In my two articles I have given an account of MBA course, which is generally either positive or neutral and generally tries to capture the tangible effects. Here I try to explore the side effects of an MBA which are carcinogenic and start breeding in the blood of every MBA the day he/she puts his/her foot on an MBA campus, only that the symptoms of cancer are visible sooner than the actual cancer. Even after this nobody does anything to remove these tumors which lead to an explosive growth in their sizes hampering the norm al course of life of everyone around an MBA student.

People going to an IIM start thinking of themselves in no lesser than some God simultaneously forgetting about other 180 odd self professed Gods. This lead to ego clashes between every one with every one, where in everyone thinks he is correct and the other person is some idiot who has no right whatsoever to speak in the presence of His majesty. People become short tempered ready to blow the fuse at the slightest of provocation. They just become intolerant of other students, simply intolerant of their mere presence around them, looking frantically for pettiest of reasons to rip each other off. Even a slight error on someone’s part is blown out of proportions thinking this as the only chance in the lifetime they have gotten to get the better of the other person. Forgiveness is a forgotten virtue and is considered a vile by many. There are no friends there, only contacts and batch-mates which may help you bargain for a job sometime down the years when you need one, that too not because of friendship obligation but because of alma mater ties. It may be purely because of being more mature and practical than each of us was in our undergrad days when emotions were strong and lifelong friendship really blossomed amongst fellow hostelites. Or maybe having worked for some times in the harsh and unforgiving corporate world may have changed us. Each of these can be a reason, independently or as a combined package, no one can be sure though.

One very peculiar change I personally observed in fellow MBA grads is the ever declining ratio of emotional quotient. People lose their sensitivity and become hardened; which may be appropriately called stress hardening in pure engineering terms. Personal and intangible issues take a backseat and life of almost everyone becomes mechanistic to its extreme point. Humans turn into machines churning out PowerPoints and word reports at the pace of Brett Lee bowling on WACA pitch. This murder of the child within each of us may also be one of the reasons of the perceived hostility amongst almost everyone.

Other thing people forget coming to a b-school are their pre MBA relationships. It is a widely accepted fact that almost 50% of pre-engaged couples break up within the first 6 months of their MBA and start afresh with someone inside the campus. Now is this due to lack of time to spend with the first fiancée or plenty of time spent with someone else on the compulsion of assignments or projects, I have no clue. The funniest part is that people surrounded by so many people get so lonely that they don’t have a soul to talk to. Maybe that drives people near to each other and the sheer distance from the original loved one takes the relationship away. I am no authority to analyze the issue morally since it is a totally private matter of the involved parties. But certainly I can observe and look at the issue as a neutral connection.

Studying in a fully residential course, I can relate some causes to these side effects. Group assignments and projects were supposed to foster team spirit in people working together, but here they achieve an opposite of that. People spend so much time together for work related reasons that they get bored out of each other. Now generally if you don’t like someone in real life, you simply ignore him and things become normal, but here you have to work with the same person acting as a coherent team. The very thought of a free rider eating away the fruits of your hard-work can be very frustrating and disheartening and when you that happening almost every day you just want to kill that parasite. These frustrations search desperately for a reason to be vent out.

The other reason can be simple pressure to do better than others, on whatever expenses it may be. Competition doesn’t end with cracking CAT, it starts from there. People realize the laws of supply and demand and most likely they learn it the harsher way. The relative grading system doesn’t help either. People go to all extremes to stop the other person from getting a better grade or a better job, in fact even a better friend. Effect, no respect or gentle feeling for others since they all are your competitors before being anyone else. Sadism is the art which people acquire automatically, taking extreme pleasure in every small thing that can cause even the slightest of pains to the other.

I do not know if these changes are found only in an IIM or only in a fully residential course or are these just a common phenomenon with every MBA course. What I really know is that, there are not many friends out there, if you can find some you are a very lucky man. People believe that the only way to be on top is via someone else’s head. I believe that a B-school teaches to be shrewd, unkind and diplomatic besides the other never ending boring theories and may be these are the learnings which will ultimately matter in your adventures when you step into the corporate life.

Hustling and jostling with these side effects of MBA, I still think I can finish off my MBA. Just think of these as the side dishes in a multi course meal; “they add to the spice of the meal” and you have a totally new perspective of the things J.

Adios 2007

One more year passes by itself. One more eventful year will soon be past. It would be remembered and mentioned to as last year, something as a part of the history of everyone’s life. Many things happened this year, to many people, people I know and people I don’t know. I would not write about things that happened to me here since this a public forum. That, is a part of my life and remains in my diary, for me and only me.

The year started off with children being killed by a pedophile in some village near Delhi again showing the true face of the intelligent and sensible species called homo-sapiens. Nothing could match the barbarism of the act, I believe it was more gruesome than Gujarat riots since over there some people could still argue about “Who started it” but here there is nothing like that. Poor innocent children were sodomised/raped and killed brutally. Look at the beauty of the system, the case hasn’t even started its trial and the accused may even go scot-free. The only possible way for people like these is the way adopted by villagers in Bihar where they simply killed the accused themselves. No point in waiting for monsters like these to be given a chance to go away. This may be termed as lawlessness in itself but I guess that is the only possible way out.

Next big thing was the hoola-boo regarding OBC reservations in IIMs/IITs for this academic session. Doctors protested to prevent their interests, were given some consolations by the vote hungry politicians, but all it resulted in was delayed results for almost all entrance exams keeping thousands of aspirants waiting. Nothing happened in the end, no reservations and the sanctity of these institutes of excellence was preserved for one more year. People died in Rajasthan, some demanding for ST status and some stopping these people. Funny, isn’t it, it’s only in India where we see a race amongst people to show poorer and more helpless and deprived than others. Development is a curse, for it may result in removal of the stigma or shall I call “blessing” of being in a reserved category.

India did sign the nuclear deal with US. I don’t know whether it is good or bad for Indian interests, all I know is that it attracted too much attention than it deserved. Everyone became an expert on nuclear issues overnight and believed himself to be the only sane person around. I believe hungry peasants committing suicides are more important than a nuclear deal. People were brutally massacred in the name of SEZ development. Ironic enough this happened in the state with the strongest leftist connection. And that is why I believe CPI was and is quite over this otherwise they have a habit of crying their hearts out at even an itch in their groins, claiming it to be either communal or capitalistic or if nothing else anti-people incident. While people were being murdered there, our sensible politicians were busy debating about the authenticity of Ram Setu and the possible wrath perpetrated by all the Gods if someone touched it. Again, it doesn’t matter whether it is real or not, what matters is the usage of it today. If it can save millions of dollars every year for our country, Lord Rama would be more than happy to destruct it himself, but the issue became an issue of Hindus versus the rest, a communal issue which refuses to die.

Modi won again in Gujarat, this time on the tide of development though. Heartening to see people voting for development and rising beyond caste and communal politics. The biggest surprise was the win of Mayawati in UP. I don’t know after how many years, a single party will rule the heartland of India but it again is heartening. She may have won on caste politics, but at least the state has a stable government. Congress now needs something different than to yield the Nehru-Gandhi name every time they see an election, begging for people to vote for nothing but their name. Doesn’t happen this way, not anymore Mrs Gandhi. Politics showed its dirty and opportunistic face in Karnataka where support changed more frequently than moods of a pretty lady. Someone please give some lectures on ethics to these men.

India lost out badly in cricket world cup, failed to clear even the first stage after losing to Bangladesh. But we won the 20-20 world cup, touted by some as a planned tactic to encourage the game in the biggest economy of world cricket for all the commercial reasons. Don’t know if that is true, may be or maybe not, but it really pumped up everyone’s adrenaline for almost 3 weeks. India won against Pakistan in the home test series but is currently struggling against Australia down under.

Ash got married to Abhishek, a story covered with grandeur by all news channels 24 X 7 for days. They covered everything, I think except the honeymoon details. A new pretty lady came on screen in the name of Deepika Padukone and Kareena finally had some success. Shahrukh returned twice only to shock people both times, once for his character and acting in the movie Chak De and once for his artificial 6 pack and nude dance in OSO. The movie gave the best dialogue of the year, “Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat tum kya jaano Ramesh babu……”

Going global, US subprime mortgage crises was proved to be much bigger and worse than everyone expected. US economy would most likely go into recession and with it possibly Indian too. Rising rupee has already wrecked many industries looking to be ominously strong going forward. Pakistan finally going to have elections, how fair would they be is a different issue altogether. Bush not ready to accept his mistakes, in fact, escalating the commitment in Iraq. Other mundane issues like global warming, terrorism and communal violence remain like they always have been.

It has been quite an eventful year, filled with both good and not so good memories and happenings all around each one of us. Hopefully next year would be better with a higher proportion of happy ending than the heart wrenches. As Shahrukh said, till the time there isn’t a happy ending, the movie is not over my friend…

The Curse of Mediocrity

A recent discussion over a stupid 10 marks quiz being held again on the request of some students who couldn’t score well in the first quiz triggered this debate which I am going to elaborate with some more dimensions added to it. To summarize the entire debate which lasted for 2 days and died its natural death, let me just write that it was a debate between meritocracy and mediocrity. Some people might take some offence on this statement but, doesn’t matter to me.

 The love for mediocrity is not new in India. It started the very day reservations based on any factor were introduced in education, employment or any other field. Don’t confuse me with someone who is not in favor of giving equal chance to deserving but deprived section of society, what I am opposed to is the wastage of these chances over people who are neither deserving nor deprived. Economic reservation is justified but I am totally against the concept of caste based reservation. Somebody doesn’t become eligible to sit and talk with an intelligent person just because he/she is from a particular caste or tribe. This system has been grossly misused. First, the father was given reservation and he became an IAS officer, then the elder son became a doctor based on his caste and now his younger brother wants to reuse this to get into an IIM after wasting an engineering seat at IIT. By no means does he or his brother deserve this since they were given all possible facilities to study during their schooling. But they are given the chance and the seeds of mediocrity are sown which promise to pollute the entire system in the long run.

The second factor for mediocrity comes from the shoddy and “chalta-hai” attitude of people around. People are not ready to take responsibility for their actions. But they all want equal rewards as if the person who puts in efforts and takes responsibility is a fool. When somebody deserving wants to assert his/her right, beautiful words like selfish, perverse and self-centered etc etc are used. I want to ask one question, who stopped you from following the paths of the so-called selfish person at the first place? If he/she can do it, why can’t you? Are you not capable enough? Or were you so lazy that you didn’t care to think about the outcome in advance? If yes, then you are neither lazy nor casual, you are simply a fool fooling yourself and none else. You may get a second chance here since it’s just a training ground, but believe me mate, life doesn’t give second chances. A person who is better will always be better than you, he will always think ahead and foresee the consequences while you may be busy boozing around living in your own sweet dream world where everything works as you want. It doesn’t happen this way, and I pray to God for it to never happen this way.

Third factor is over emphasized love for social service, society and feeling of benevolence. These are noble feelings and should not be used for the sake of using them. Be benevolent to old, be kind to those who are hurt, be generous to the needy ones but be equally harsh to undeserving people. I don’t believe in the theory of “God made all equal in terms of thinking power and self control and deserve equally”, even if He did, the chaff is separated from the wheat very early in the life. People going to same school end up very differently, one may be a billionaire industrialist while the other may just end being his employee. What caused the difference, they both started together? The difference lies in their dedication, commitment and self regulation. One of them took responsibility of what he did while the other waited for somebody to feed him thinking that it’s the other person’s duty to feed him. Again, this doesn’t happen in real life. A person who feeds always remains superior to the person being fed.

I don’t know why people are so averse to hearing that whatever somebody does is for himself and for no one else, however disguised the actions maybe. Somebody who has put in many nights and days’ hard-work to setup a factory wants returns. He doesn’t care about the employment generated or the contribution to the nation a bit. Go and ask Ambani or Tata about why they started their empires, I bet on my life if they give the answer you want to hear. Nobody does anything for others for free. I am not talking about saints or God who are different; I am talking about poor mortals who are driven by desires of food, love and power. If somebody is in the illusion that the world will be generous to a lazy, irresponsible and undeserving bum, he is doomed for his life today or tomorrow.

I don’t know how many of you have read Ayn Rand but will like to say that thinking about yourself and your good is not perverse. What is bad is doing the same on someone else’s expense. Putting in hard-work to achieve what you aspire for is not being selfish; in fact it is the other way around. If you believe that someone else should come and give you what you want, then it is being selfish (you are living in a fool’s paradise is a different matter altogether).

My sincere request to everyone; think about what you want, try hard to achieve it and most importantly learn to take responsibility for your actions accepting failures on the way. And, there is no harm in thinking about you first!!!

Disclaimer: All the views are personal and not meant for anyone specific. It would be an utter misfortune if some people take it personally and feel offended.  

The Chetta Spirit Rockksss!!!

For the uninitiated, Chetta is the Mallu equivalent for Brother or “bhai”, and being in Kerala I need to use this word to attract attention of a passer-by if I want some help to find my way on the road. To avoid being sexist, let me also introduce the Mallu equivalent for the other gender, “Chechchi”, fondly used to address the lady working at the coffee vending machine in the campus.

Many of you may ask now, why am I teaching you Mallu at the first place? The reason is the adventures we had last night when we went to watch the movie Om Shanti Om. Being in Chetta land, we were highly fortunate to be able to watch a Hindi movie at the first place. The tickets are dirt cheap, you get to sit in a balcony seat, which we have long forgotten with the Multiplex era, and that too in 35 rupees (We spent 100 bucks on travel though). Compare this to the price of a pack of popcorn in PVR Gurgaon!!! And one more thing, you can stretch your legs also for maximum comfort. Coming back to the experience, I should divide the fun in two parts, the paid fun and the unpaid fun.

The movie was fun. The only condition is that you need to leave your brain either in the car or if you forgot to do that, put it on the seat next to you. Once you have done this, you are ready for an awesome joy ride. It starts with Rishi Kapoor dancing with Shahrukh, it shows you Manoj Kumar being beaten by the security guards, it shows you Deepika Padukone (God! She is Gorgeous, we will come to it later) dancing with Sunil Datt and Rajesh Khanna, it shows you flying Shahrukh Khan etc etc. And believe me, I enjoyed it!! The story is copied and the movie makes it clear in the first scene itself. The director nowhere pretends about showing a sensible and logical movie. Deepika looks stunning but is grossly underutilized. She doesn’t get any screen time, every moment of it is gobbled by SRK who looks ugly and malnutritioned dancing topless in the item song. Now here lies the difference, in Chetta land the entire crowd goes mad as soon as SRK makes an appearance on the screen and goes silent when Deepika appears. Whistling is on full swing for SRK but Deepika draws a blank crowd. From previous encounters with Chettas, it is also reported that the same was observed in the movie DON with Kareena and Priyanka failing miserably in luring Chettas with their pelvic thrusts. SRK is a craze here. I have never seen such loud claps, whistles and shouting for SRK before in my life.

The best part of the movie was when the projector stuck for 15 minutes. In such a case, some hooliganism is expected but we were shocked to see Chettas dancing and singing. Imagine 20-30 chettas singing Mallu songs and dancing bhangra to their own tunes, slapping chairs to generate some background score for it. The same situation in Delhi would have caused a silence resembling a morgue with a boy watching his girlfriend popping the popcorns with amazing grace and the same situation in Bihar would have caused a riot with the manager being beaten up. It was amazing to see the spirit of fun and enjoyment in a moment of frustration. Chettas rock!!!

I am longing to go back for a movie again there and praying for a power failure again. The net return on 35 rupees can nowhere be more than in a movie at Chetta land. Once again, Chettas and the spirit of Chettas surely rock. They sure know how to enjoy a movie. Way lot to learn, Delhi!!

Summer Placements @ a B-school: An annual circus

An annual circus that is organized in every business school which attracts the participation of many of the ringmasters from the corporate world to hire some musketeers for performing the same jugglery at their private circuses is branded as summer placements. But a circus cannot be organized without thorough preparation and planning else the ring masters might be displeased with the current lot of monkeys on sale.  So let me (a monkey) take you through the preparations which may put a wedding planner to shame.

 The preparation starts well in advance for the annual ritual of selling raw uncooked pieces of meat packaged as delicacies to hungry customers. The poor souls, the first year students, are asked to read read and read. Read about this, read about that, read about everything under the sun. Forget about academics, forget about personal life, forget about extracurrics, and some people do forget even sleep, food and other Maslow’s basic needs. They are told to mug up ready responses to clichéd questions like, Why finance/marketing/consulting? They are actually taught to lie about their ambitions, career dreams and even why are they alive. A “tell me about yourself” question becomes so difficult that it requires 100s of hours of coaching from 10s of people, 5 out of these 10 don’t know anything about their tomorrow themselves is a different thing altogether. So this process continues for a long time, junies are threatened repeatedly by senior musketeers who have gone through the same process of hire-purchase last year. A perfect example of Knowledge Sharing!! This entire process reminds me of annual festival of Baqrid, celebrated by muslims, wherein they feed and maintain a goat for one full month so that when it is slaughtered, better and more meat is obtained.

So our scapegoats are ready with impressive CVs to lure the best ringmaster. They all purchase nice costumes for the big day. The first step in the actual sale is coordinated by some internal ringmasters fondly known as PlaceCom members, who make sure that every monkey is looking like some imported kangaroo and every third grade ringmaster gives an impression of an expert in his field.  The ringmasters come with a jazzy presentation to lure the best monkey. Isn’t it nice, monkeys luring ringmaster and ringmasters luring monkeys!! Nobody knows who the smarter monkey is though. The masters indulge in a self appraisal mode crossing all lines of modesty, telling about the quality of food in the office canteen, the gender ratio, the cleanliness of toilets etc. After this blabbering comes the next part of announcing the names of shortlisted monkeys which suit the requirements of their circus. After all they can’t ask every monkey to jump for the same height. The rejected monkeys go back to their trees, some become sad, some cry, some shout, some drink and some simply go to sleep.

Meanwhile the shortlisted monkeys are taken to a separate chamber for further screening. The most dreaded part is called Group Discussion where the true colors of these monkeys come to play. Monkeys who ate together, smoked together now become enemies; they fight badly for a bullshit job in a bullshit place. They shout at each other, frown at their friends and show invisible middle finger to all around them. Hunger makes people do strange things. After this bullfight some more monkeys are sent home. The remaining monkeys are now interviewed and now it’s the turn of the monkeys to put modesty and humility to shame. Every answer is exaggerated to its limit; a simple thing is blown out of proportions and presented. Glib liars rule and honest monkeys lose. The sequence of lies continues till the ringmaster finally decides on the best monkey to dance in his circus. He goes back happily and I don’t think I need to mention about the joy of the monkey involved. Finally he is proved a superior monkey and may get some attention from the opposite sex. He is proved to be more adept in lying than others, he is proved to be a decent crook, and he can surely pull off a double face more easily than others.

This process of hire-purchase continues till all monkeys get a ringmaster. During this time, monkeys jump from one selection tent to other, changing their career choices in the flight time. They vomit the good things about a circus in front of that particular ringmaster, a sure shot formula for selection. The process is hard and takes a toll on the weaker monkeys; they get disheartened and lose hope, thereby losing their confidence to jump higher. A vicious circle sets in, a less confident monkey is more likely to fall down and a fallen monkey loses more hope. But for the rescue of these monkeys come forward the internal ringmasters. They make sure that finally every monkey gets a place to jump and dance. In the end we have a bunch of happy and gay monkeys who now believe that the world is theirs.

Now that the process is over, when I look back and ponder, I wonder; is this what is important in life? A 2 month internship which is less than 1% of our lifetimes suddenly becomes the end of the world. Why don’t we understand that nobody can change the world in 2 months, neither can we do it nor will we be allowed to do it? So then why this chaos, why these lies, why these back stabbings, why these heart breaks, why these nervous breakdowns, why this shameless begging, why these nonsensical comparisons? Is it only to show you are better of the worse or to be more precise, worse of the better? I don’t have an answer, if someone has an answer, please please do enlighten me. I would be indebted to you and who knows; I might come for a dance and jump session at your tree J, that too free of cost.

Disclaimer: The views aired in this article are the personal views of this monkey. No offences are meant towards other monkeys, ringleaders and circuses for sure. After all, I also need to dance and jump in a circus, and I can’t afford to piss off my ringmasters. 

Ek raat: Chai, maggi, madira aur 6 dost

What do you do when you and your friends achieve what they have been longing for a long time? This can be anything, what is more important is the feeling of achievement and happiness you all have. They know they have put in so much hard-work and smart-work and you know that you also have been anxiously waiting for them to do the same what you have done and have been waiting for them to cross the line and be on your side. So when all of you are on the same side of the equation, you enjoy, you celebrate and you have fun. This is a story of 6 people and one such night. I am not counting one or two more people as they did not fulfill the minimum qualification to enter the circus. They at best can be counted as guest appearances. For our ease let’s give names to these people, A, M, G1, G2, N and A2. To make the story more interesting I will surely exaggerate a little bit here and there, but most of it will be true. And I will surely try to explain people’s behaviors in technical terms, so bear with me.

The story opens with A and M returning from some official dinner when other 4 ppl are waiting for them with full plans for a fun filled evening, rather a night which ultimately culminates into morning. So after some initial hiccups with some of them having to attend some useless Peecha-pani meeting with some nice looking seniors etc, all of them reach A’s room with booze and beer. Now all of them being MBA students, you can’t expect things to go smoothly without ego clashes. G1 ordered Smirnoff but for some goddamn reason wanted to drink whisky which G2 was firmly appalled off. Theory of economics: When you have limited resources, you do not like any sort of competition. Before I forget him, there was one guest visitor sitting who was playing the role of moderator and to an extent a role of a spy. Ultimate motive, get some cheap thrill out of 6 drunk people. Theory of marketing: You always try to leak off extra information about your competitors for an added edge. But learning from the theory of adaptive learning, these 6 people let him down and forced him to go back. Important learning, without core competency it’s difficult to succeed only based on insider information.

Moving ahead, these 6 people finish off their spirits and suddenly feel hungry forcing them to eat. Mind you these people are on high and are becoming dangerous to the common man by the minute. They eat maggi and for some god forsaken reason drink tea. People do strange things, right. They all are happy and hence it doesn’t matter. Now, comes the best part. They start discussing Gyaan. Now discussing Gyaan is one thing but discussing under influence of alcohol is different ball game. It can get real heated up and hilarious too. A says something about common people which N and A2 agree too, but G1, G2 and M don’t. A perfect setting for an interesting GD. G2 debates rationally and to an extent agrees to A but G1 continues on his own track. M was always different and continues to be different. Voices becomes loud, patience of all being tested, it becomes interesting. Arguments over difference between arrogance and self-confidence become interesting. Mediocrity and intelligence are compared to each other. Knowledge based confidence and attitude based confidence are also discussed. By this time N has lost his interest and M has made all his points. So it’s A, G1 and G2 who continue to fight. G2 keeps saying, I agree to this entire bit what do we do about it? To this A replies, it’s not my freaking responsibility to teach people and generate confidence in them. He keeps on repeating, until you believe you are better than rest, you can’t be better than the rest. Humility and arrogance are once brought to the table by M who brings in good points to the GD but backs out before discussion actually starts. Things become tense with G1 taking all the airtime despite repeated pleas from A to give him some time to counter others and make a constructive contribution towards the GD. But as they say in Hindi, “Kutte ki  dum hamesha tedhi hi rehti hai”, things continue on the same track for some more time.

N stands up and declares the GD to be over and shows his inclination towards eating something. Group agrees and finally it was M who stopped all that crappy discussion about confidence, arrogance and humility. Looking around themselves, they realize its almost dawn, G1 and G2 for once agree and rush to get their cameras to capture the beautiful rising sun. So now they all capture pictures and leave happily towards their dens, some to sleep and some to write about it.

Alcohol makes you do strange things, some good and some bad. A discussion like that could not have happened without it and could not have been forgotten in the same way as well without it. I may not have been up till 7 in the morning to write the story of those 6 buggers and hence could have missed the beautiful and breathtaking view from hill top. The sun is shining on its full blast now and I feel its time for me also to get some sleep. Even an owl sleeps when sun rises, so happy good night to all of you J 

PS: No offenses to anybody, neither to named people and definitely not to guest appearances in the story. After all, it’s my version of the story and I have some liberty to express my thoughts. And, ultimately what are guest appearances and item numbers for if not to add spice to the story. Attached is a pic of that awesome morning for your viewing pleasure.

Rakhi @ Kampus (IIMK)

Here I was, again out of home on Rakhi for the third consequent year. It all started with me spending the entire day 2 years back in Inductis solving the after training test, affectionately called One Day Case and it did took one full day, meaning I was in Delhi but could not celebrate Rakhi with my family. Flash forward one year, me in Singapore around this time. Couldn’t help it so no issues, hoped to be there for next year. But it wasn’t to be this year as well, as I am slogging here at IIMK.

I miss rakhi for the sheer fun of meeting the entire family together, quite a big family I must say. So get to catch up with everyone at the same place and time.

So rakhis were sent by post to me to tie them myself (I dare not ask a classmate hereJ ) around my wrist. But I was happily surprised by the idea of a few people here in my hostel to celebrate rakhi in almost the same here its done at home. We had snacks, sweets, teeka, the only different thing was the absence of sisters. We all tied rakhis to each other. A very novel idea to celebrate rakhi, afterall the spirit of brotherhood is what we celebrate. Looking at the pics I can say that this was a moment not to be forgotten. It made all of us sisters of each other and brothers vowing to protect each other J. Very interesting, right. Just imagine the sight, 6-7 boys tying rakhis to each other.

The pics corroborate what you imagine. All in all it was nice and fun. The entire evening could be summed up for the statement I made while leaving addressing the group, “Achcha bhaiyo aur behano, main chalta hun…” True, wasn’t it??

60 years of Independence

Its a beautiful day today with sun shining in its full glory here at IIMK where the weather is generally gloomy and overcast otherwise. It seems that even the Sun god is congratulating us Indians on 60th year of our independence. All the gloom is gone, what remains is bright sunlight showing the path forward. Its now upto us to tread this path and take our country into a new era.

Today I purposefully went and attended the flag hoisting ceremony organised by the college authorities. It was quite a while since I had done this. Last year on this day I was not in country and believe me the feeling of not being with my people was unsurpassable. Working on 15 August in a foreign land can make you nostalgic and force you to realise the actual importance of events like these. And today, I can tell you that the feeling of standing with others and singing the national anthem is superb. The speeches made by faculty were inspiring but full of usual cliches like hardwork, sacrifice, dedication etc. But I should admit its all true. The onus is onto us to take the unfinished jobs started by our forefathers to their finishing point.

Yesterday while preparing a report for a subject called Social Transformations in India, I got to know that there are villages where there is still no electricity, no medical centre, no school, no sanitary facilities, no drinking water, and this in Kerala which boasts of the highest literacy rate in our country. This is a state where every 3rd person is an NRI or aspires to be one but still villages like these also exist. Our dream of becoming a developed country cannot be fullfilled unless villages like these join the mainstream. It doesnt make sense for some people to shout that our country is going great guns and its only a matter of time before we join the league of developed and powerful nations till the time people do not have access to basic amenities required for mere survival. I may be sounding to be too impractical and idealistic but believe me this is a change which should happen and the faster it happens the better it is.

So while celebrating our 60th Independence day and basking in the glory of this great nation, we should not forget that there is much more to be done and achieved before we can claim full independence. A political independence without independence from hunger, poverty and misery is just symbolic and not actual. But that shouldnt stop us from remebering the heroes who gave us this independence.

“Aye mere watan ke logo jara aanth mein bhar lo paani, jo shaheed hue hain unki yaad karo kurbani”

 

Why An MBA???

This is the question which may have very well costed me a seat at IIMB. This is the question which most of the people preparing for their B school interviews/admission essays dread answering. This is the question which maybe the most clichéd question in any interview. This is the question which all aspirants prepare the best yet this is the question which nobody can answer perfectly.  

I may have gotten an admission to one of the IIMs, I may have worked for 2 years but I am still not very sure about the answer to this question. What I dread is that even after doing an MBA I might not be able to answer this question. And this fear is amplified after I read the book “Snapshots from hell, The making of an MBA”. The book is about the first year at Stanford Business School, a school among the top 3 business schools worldwide. The book is about the struggle to cope up with the academic rigor, to get used to the cut-throat competition, to worry of not getting a job and more importantly the struggle to survive. And finally it also tries to answer the question and it would be a lie if I say that I don’t agree with it. We will come to the answer later. First of all lets see what an MBA is and what an MBA actually is. 

So what does an MBA from XYZ school provide the graduates with? Is an MBA more of a fancy degree than some real stuff? Is the school matters more than the education itself? Will the graduates end up being at the same position 5 years down the line had they played Golf and boozed instead of learning how to run a company at the school? Will it be fair to say that all a business school does is put a higher price tag on its graduates? The answer to all these questions is YES and NO. What I feel is that an MBA is both. It makes you sellable, it creates demand for you but that demand is also right. An MBA student learns 100s of different things during the course of 2 years. He is among the crème-de-la-crème when he enters a prestigious business school. He is already one of the better brains around, so he deserves all that he gets after his graduation, every penny of it. But it is also true that an MBA is a bit overrated. It’s the experience and sweating out in the corporate battlefield which ultimately separates chaff from the wheat. Its just that the odds of an MBA being the grain are higher than being the chaff. 

Coming back to the question, Why MBA. I still don’t have an answer but I would like to quote from the book itself.  It diversifies the outlook of an individual, forces people to learn about everything ranging from IT to OB to marketing, gives people poise and self-confidence, and more than everything gives the power of networking. The contacts made during the two years last lifelong and reap rewards continuously. A business school gives an opportunity to mingle with bright, business minded classmates and to give serious thoughts to all kinds of business careers. A business school doesn’t take anyone to paradise; in fact it teaches that there isn’t a paradise.

So now, is a business school worth the effort and the investment? I have already taken a decision and till now not repenting it. So, decide for yourself…

The decay of Journalism

“Should Khushboo leave her husband and return to her lover?” No, this isn’t some stupid saas-bahu soap’s promotion. This is the question asked on a news channel (claiming to be Sabse Tez!!), asking people to SMS in and dial in to give their opinions. 

Interesting news, right? Its not a particular news channel which shows this weird stuff, it seems every channel is in a race, “Who is the most useless of the lot?”. They do not leave any stone unturned in their race to this coveted position. They show live coverage of the rescue attempts of a boy who fell in a pit (nobody notices that the increasing frequency of such accidents). They cover the wedding of two film-stars with such zeal that it seems the entire country will forget their hunger and problems in this happiness. They show a trivial news so many times and with so much enthusiasm as if it’s the news of India and
Pakistan going to war. They all have a dedicated hour in which some terrorist looking presenter frightens the audience, alarming them of the possible goondas hiding somewhere in their family itself. Worse, they also tell fortunes these days. I am not even counting the endless discussions with experts on Indian cricket team’s dismal performance in the world cup. 

Now is this what news channels are supposed to show? Is this what news is supposed to be? Is this what people really want to see at 11 after reaching home from office? Isn’t there anything to show which is even 1% consequential to the common man? What has caused this decay of journalism? If we can have dedicated magazines and newspapers covering gossip and filmy romances, why can’t we have dedicated news channels doing the same? 

There are more than 1 reasons for this downfall. The primary being the excess of 24-7 news channels. Excess of everything is bad and in this case it gets worse since you don’t expect things to happen every hour which require minute to minute coverage. Result, you are shown live coverage of anything which is happening somewhere out there. The other reason, the shift from journalism to consumerism. It’s a market, and news channels are here to sell. And what better thing to sell than this masala. No channel shows the atrocities being perpetrated on refugees in Kashmir or
Gujarat. Reason, most of the people don’t want to see this. So they are served with the wedding and honeymoon details of a star couple. 

I don’t know when and how will this massacre of news stop. I am not interested in getting to know about my fortunes on a news channel neither am I interested in knowing the honeymoon itinerary of someone I don’t give a damn to. Pappu falling in a 30 feet well or Reshma running away with her neighbour are things I don’t care. I am not interested in knowing every hour as to why somebody kissed somebody. What I want to see is something which is sane. Something which matters, something which affects my surroundings, something which is of a slight consequence to me.  

I guess till the time channels like these continue to be voted as the best news channel, there is nothing which can be done. So tune into our favorite news channel and vote for the poor and helpless girl. Afterall, your vote counts!!