The Other Side of Life: A FreeRider's Perspective

Super Commando Dhruv

2008-03-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

Those were the times in late 80s and early 90s. On Television front we only had a Doordarshan with very few programs for childeren to speak of. Just a Spiderman here and a Indradhanush there. We did have libraries stuffed with Famous 5 and Hardy Boys but somehow I was not able to relate to them. The sophisticated once among us read Archies but I never understood those English comic strips. As a matter of fact I don't understand even now those comic strips in English language newspapers.

So the only source of entertainement left for us were the Hindi Comics. There were all those hilarious characters like Chacha Choudhary, Billu, Pinki, Raman, Anderam-Danderam (Copy of Laurel Hardy) etc. Then there were superheroes like Nagaraj, Mahabali Shaka, Bhokal, Doga and Super Commando Dhruv (SCD from now on). While all other superheroes had some or the other supernatural powers it was SCD only who relied solely on his bravery, willpower and a great presence of mind. Probably the only miraculous power he had was that he could talk to animals and birds and this I think was a mistake in an otherwise flawless characterization.

It all started with his first book "Pratishodh ki Jwaala". This was based on a circus which was burnt by a rival circus. Dhruv's parents were acrobats in the circus and were burnt alive in the fire. From the circus itself, Dhruv learnt a variety of skills like riding motorcycle (in "Maut ka kuan" or sphere of death), walking on ropes, talking to birds and animals etc. To avenge death of his parents he goes to the rival circus and kills its owner and the main villain Jubisco (As a matter of fact, Jubisco was not killed here and comes back in a later book Bahri Maut). Later he is adopted by a honest cop IG Rajan.

As the series slowly build up, SCD has his own set of allies: his cadet force with Peter, Karim and Renu; his sister Sweta (Chandika), Vanaputra who can control plants, Dhanajay having superior scientific and technical powers etc. These characters come and go in different books.

But the most superior aspect of SCD's books were the bad men or the villains. Just watch Chumba (using magnetic powers), Dhvaniraj (using ultraviolet sounds), Dr. Virus (the name is sufficient), Bauna Vaman (using toys to meet his goal and having the famous line "Bauna Vaman apni ek na ek trick hamesha bachake rakhta hai"), Grandmaster Robo (the most dreaded terrorist on earth having a laser eye), Chandkaal (having mastery over Black Magic),
Mahamanav (the future man). SCD fights all these baddies without any weapon so to speak of. In most of the cases he just uses the things available nearby. Now you have to read his comics to understand this aspect, it wont do any justice if I quote 1/2 instances of his feat. If you do wish to start reading SCD, then I would recommend my favourite piece "Chumba ka Chakravyuh" in which the villain Chumba build killer machines based on magnets and how SCD fights them using simple rules of Physics, like heating effect of magnets etc. Grab your copy now.

I don't know what happened to SCD. The later books were kind of repetitive and hence I guess the character died its natural death. Moreover those channels of entertainment has lost their value in the present world. But if you do wish to relive your past times, you can find most of the old SCD books on here. Go ensoi....

PS: As a matter of fact I believe that the SCD stories were original. If you know that any of his books were inspired (read copied) from other sources please let me know.

Whom Else to Blame

2006-11-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

Got a long mail on orkut some time back. some of the excerpts from it are:
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,
The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their
destination.
You say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute
pits.
BUT
YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the
garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?etc etc.

Also there was a comment by Mr. Kapil Sibal that it has become fashionable in India to blame politicians for all the ills. I was thinking of writing this mail for a long time but thought it would be better first to experience life in the most developed and powerful country (US) in the world. Now with spending 2 months here in a small city (Winston-Salem) and visited a big city (Atlanta)and many tourist centers, now I feel I am experienced enough to write the post.

Ok Indians have done very well abroad in many fields. Many of the best teachers and students in various American universities are Indians. Mittal Steel is the largest steel producer in world today. There is a very high proportion of Indians in most of the Tech companies, including Microsoft and Google.

Now lets look at Indians in India. IITs and IIMs are world class institutes recognized in the whole world. Indian businessman have been very successful both under the controlled regime as well as now with the opening of the economy. Instead of the MNCs gobbling Indian companies, the reverse seems to be happening, with Tata Steel slated to become 5th largest steel producer in the world.

Now lets look at the other side. Offices of many MNCs are located in Gurgaon and they are doing pretty well. But the roads in Gurgaon are pathetic to say the least. There are mnay software companies located in Noida region earning handsome revenues and foreign exchange. But there is acute shortage of power in Noida, with generators working more than 10 hours in a day. The infrastructural condition in Hyderabad and Bangalore are said to be similar, though I haven't visted them. And these are the main cities, not to speak of the rural areas.

Now I want to ask Mr. Sibal whom to blame for this except the political class. Who else would construct roads and supply power except the government. If doctors, engineers, businessman, managers can excel in India why cann't we have good politicians. Ok people spit on roads, we don't pay tax sometimes, but that is mainly because of our general frustration with the system and hence life in general. They are upset over the pathetic condition that they have to live in despite toiling for the whole day. If the money is well spent ppl won't mind paying taxes. But it is stupid to suggest that politicians would stop corruption if people start paying all the taxes.

And it is not that we always criticize the political class. Arun Shourie does have huge following in India. IIM Ahmedabad did honour Mr Lalu P Yadav on his turning of railways into a profitable undertaking (though personally I am skeptic of the figures quoted).

It is just that we inherited the political system from Britishers as such. We have started Engg and Management colleges and opened up the economy but precious little has been done for political reforms. People are fed up with politicians and they do change government after every 5 years. But with all parties being equally corrupt, alas they don't have much choice.

Indian Cinema at an All Time Low

2006-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Bad choices had been made before. But this time it is much worse. Yup Rang De Basanti has been nominated as an Indian entry to Oscars. Not that it carries much meaning. Previously such other eminently forgettable movies such as Paheli and Jeans have got such nominations. Ok Jeans was just a B-Grade entertainer. Maybe not even that. And Paheli was just incomprehensible for an unsophisticated person like me.
But nomination of RDB presents a bigger malaise. First of all, as was the argument against Black, RDB doesn’t represent Indian culture. As Greatbong has written in his post “I have never tottered drunk on the edge of wells” and behaved like those college kids. But even leaving that point aside does it in any way represent ethos of Indian people or particularly Indian college students? No I guess, otherwise Arjun Singh won’t have been alive.
Yes the youth today is desperately disappointed with the politicians. But they are fighting it in the right way. Medical students from AIIMS, Engg students from IITs have regularly been on road holding demonstrations against the policies of the HR minister. And despite being repeatedly provoked by Lathi-charges and tear gas, they are not taking law in their hands. Yes there are odd-miscreants on various political communities on orkut and other forums who between serious policy discussion write a small message “Lets do a Rang De Basanti on all politicians of the country”. But they are just that, the odd miscreants. They don’t represent the majority of the population. And I don’t want the world to get a Rang De Basanti impression of Indian society, with nothing better to do, drunken college hooligans out to murder a democratically elected minister. Precisely because he is democratically elected and can be removed in next elections, as Murli Manohar Joshi has been and Arjun Singh surely would be. And no matter what the majority of people in India still believe in the democracy.
Another important matter is the image of the freedom fighters portrayed in the movie. As Vivek has pointed out, there is much more to the personality of Bhagat Singh than him just being a murderer and revenge taker. These freedom-fighters were giant of an intellectual with a well-formed vision of modern India. These can’t at all be compared to the revenge-seeking hooligans of RDB as the movie seems to do. And again I don’t want the West to have such an image of freedom fighters of my country.
While being harsh on the demonstrating students on one side and sending RDB as India’s nomination on other side, I still fail to comprehend what the Indian government is trying to demonstrate. This choice is certainly an insult to youth of India and specifically to the medical students of AIIMS

Tag: Rang De Basanti||RDB ||Oscars||Arjun Singh||Paheli||Jeans||Murli Manohar Joshi

Anti-Terror Mechanism with the terrorists?

2006-09-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

So finally the event that we all had been waiting for has arrived. Barely 3 months after the Bombay blasts killed more than 200 people, the Prime Minister of India has agreed to visit Pakistan. And if this was not enough, India and Pakistan have decided to set up an anti-terror mechanism.

Can we imagine a join terror mechanism between US and Taliban. Or between Israel and Lebanon. But as astute the Indian politicians are, only India can perform this supreme feat.

What this joint terror mechanism will do. Play counterstrike on Lappy. Or AOE? Because as now is a common knowledge the terrorist camps are located in differenet parts of Pakistan and Pakistan govt would never dismantle them. They would never arrest the terrorists, let alone handle them to India. So this terror mechanism is just a wasteful exercise undertaken by unimaginative and insensitive govt of India.

And moreover where is the need for it. If this step was taken to impress international community, then it is useless. The international community is unfazed. And if I were a citizeb in any other country I would laugh at a meek and spineless country setting up terror mechanism with the very country known to harbour terrorism.

After Vajpayee's Lahore visit Kargil happen. I shudder what is in store now?

Tag: India||Pakistan ||Musharraf

The HR Initiative

2006-07-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

Went to the State Bank of India today to extend my Student Loan for the STEP Program. They just did some formalities and processed my application. My total loan now is in the range of 6 lakhs.

That reminds me of the step taken some time back by the HR Minister to reduce the Fees at IIMs from Rs 3lakhs to Rs 30,000. The explanation given was that not every student is able to avail of the loan and hence such high fees discourage the poor students to apply for IIMs. Now I can see how blatant a lie it is.

In my loan processing nowhere did the bank had any dealing with my parents. Not that if they had, I would have been denied loan. I am from a relatively well to do, though not very rich family. But leaving myself aside nowhere in our bath or for that matter any other previous batch from any IIMs that I have heard of, has been denied education loan.

And it does sounds logical. With placements going so strong in all IIMs, a bank would be hitting itself if it denies education loan to an IIM student. And coming to the background of the people, there is a common perception that the students coming to IIMs are from the rich class. Most of us belong to middle class and there are some students of both high Socio-Economic and Low Socio-Economic classes. Though still it doesn't have as many poor students as the IITs but still IIMs cann't at all be called elite institutes.

There is another misconception regarding the facilities at IIMs, that I learned during my Internship. Some students from other MBA institutes(yup MBA institutes) believe IIMs to be some kinda 5-star hotel with AC in every room, FtF carpet etc. I simply fail to understand why do we need AC room for college students. Don't students shoould have frugal lifestyles. Specially in a relatively poor country like India. And it is not the IIM students who crib about all this but the outside intelligensia.

However in one respect I feel that IIMs are biased, against the students from non-English speaking background. The CAT paper has very high level of Verbal section and the Reading Comprehension is definitely not trivial. But lets face it, in todays world if you want to be a good manager, you have got to have good communication skills. And good communication skills do mean good English. But still I don't believe this barrier is unsurmountable and in all batches there are students from UP, Bihar, rajasthan etc who had Hindi speaking background.

So if any of the relatively low SEC student with not so good English, preparing for CAT is reading this, just pick up your Wren and Martin for grammar and few Ayn rand for RC. Dont worry about the finance. And please dont believe in the HR Minister, either the previous one or this one.

Tag: CAT||IIM

India and Israel

2006-07-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

[Since this post covers a number of aspects , to keep the post short I have written it in summary form. but appropriate links have been provide where reqd]

When I first introduced myself to the students of my Step University WakeForest I got a very good response. Alumni from our institute have done exceedingly well across the years on the Student Exchange Program. When they further learned that I was from IIT, the appreciation further increased. Who doesn't know IIT in USA.

But then some strange things happened. When the Mumbai blast happened, some of my friends from France and US expressed concern and send me "Hope India gets well" type of messages. But the thing is that I just don't need them. When I have done well in life, the place where I am studying is renowned all over the world, why should I be an object of sympathy because of the inability of our spineless politicians to take decisive action. When we have best tehnicians, managers and bureaucrats in the world why should we still remain a terror victimised country, looking towards foreign support for survival of our citizens. Now you mayn't agree about the best bureaucrats but believe me, they are one of the best, if not the best.

Just to put things in perspective, in 1965 war Indian forces have reached as far as Lahore and then suddenly Lal Bahadur Shastri, our PM agreed to ceasefire. We could easily have taken PoK at that time. Then again in 1971 war, we did succeed in separating bangladesh from Pakistan. We had captured 10,000 pakistani soldiers but decided to release them unconditionally. We let go off our advantage in both these situations. Though we shoudn't have taken any land from Pakistan but atleast we could have had our Kashmir back.

Now with the Mumbai blasts. Seven blasts rocked suburban trains in Mumbai on 11th July and led to killing of about 200 people and injury to many more.

The spirit of Mumbai was once again evident with people going out of the way to help each other. And as usual Day after blasts, Mumbai limped back to normal.

Incidentally or intentionally there was a blast on the same day in Srinagar(J&K). But anyways we have stopped worrying about the terrorism in that part of the country.

The reaction from Indian politicians was pathetic, to say the least. Prime Minister came out with some global statements like Mumbai blasts had cross-border support (Dont we anyways know it)and "Action, commitment needed from Pakistan"(Now we don't need action from Pakistan, we need it from you). With other parties it was worse. Even as the Students Islamic Movement of India appeared on the Mumbai police's list of suspects responsible for Tuesday's serial blasts, the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Uttar Pradesh government gave the organisation a clean chit. BJP and Left played their own games.

On the other side, Mr.Kasuri, Foreign Minister of Pakistan said that said the 'best way' of dealing with extremism in South Asia is to tackle 'real issue' of Jammu and Kashmir. General Musharraf wants concrete information instead of unsubstantiated allegations. They went to the extent of claiming that India has made Pakistan a scapegoat. On the other hand India is still hopeful that Pakistan will join war on terror.

Now towards the other side of the story. On July 18th Israel attacked Lebanese army base near Beirut. Israel's prime minister said Monday that Israel will continue fighting in Lebanon until the release of two Israeli soldiers abducted last week.

Now, Israel massed tanks and troops on the border, called up reserves and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon as it prepared Friday for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone.

Somehow I feel that India and Israel have a lot in common. We both are terror struck countries with hostile neighbors on all sides. We both are democracies within the midst of vast desert of autocratic governments. But we are following different strategies towards similar problems.

Though personally i am not in favour of violence, having myself criticized rang de basanti quiet a few times. But the thing is that the issue has gone out of hand, with no hope of pakistan ever cooperating. And India will continue to bleed, it seems, if it doesn't take any aggressive step. The whole technological and economic progress cann't be sustainable unless there is safety and security for its citizens. And what is the use of spending 4% of our GDP in defence if anyways we are not going to use it. we can spend that money in education, health or even distributing free pizzas to Indian citizens. Atleast it has some utility value for them. Defence spending has none.

Just before World War II, when Jews were being thrown out of thir land, Jawahar Lal Nehru offered them to come to India. In return Israel is the only country in the world to have supported India in all the 3 wars. Today Israel is one of the largest defence supplier to India. And it can provide technology to India in diverse fields from dry farming to biochips. India on the other hand should support Israel on all international forums.

But it wont happen. India will be back with all the peace initiatives and confidence building measures with Pakistan. Till the next attack happens. And it does sadden me that inspite of myself doing so well in life I have to read all those sympathetic mails from the American and French students.

Tag: India Israel mumbai Blasts Lebanon Pakistan

Funny....

2006-05-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Imagine:
A blind girl is not talking to you. You say "Tum andhi ke saath-saath Goongi bhi lagti ho". And the girl laughs. Well anything can happen in an Aamir khan movie.

The guys f**ks the blind kashmiri girl and next day she reacts as if nothing has happened. Gosh where am I?

We didn't get the tickets for the evening show and I pestered my friends to wait till the night show and they agreed.But why do ppl always need to agree with me.
Now about the movie: There is no story line, no romance , no good dialogues nothing.
In the first half instead of speaking sentences, the hero who ultimately is a terrorist talks in "sher-o-shayari". And believe me some of them are from "Gabbar Sher", a daily program on one of the FM channels.

There is no attempt at all to build the plot. Neither is romance developed, nor terrorism shown well. Aamir never gets to explain reasons behind his mission, Kajol never gets to explain why terrorism is bad. Aamir just looks like a confused guy not knowing what to do next. This is definitely one of the worst role he had ever played.

The movie is extremely slow and we continuously wait for atleast something to happen. But nothing happens. A large section of the Audience leave theater in middle of the movie. Even in terms of songs, the title song is good. Rest are just pain in a$$.

But Kajol looks ravishing. And I am back to my 11th Class watching DDLJ dreaming about the girl. Romance in the air and all that. But alas Time never returns. Just waiting for a better performance and selection from Kajol.

So who are the winners. PPL of Gujarat since Fanaa is banned there.

Tag: Fanaa||Aamir Khan ||Kajol

Everyone on the Wrong Side

2006-05-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

So the government has finally announced its committment to implement OBC reservation in all the institutes. And there are demonstrations from medicos and also my almameter IITB and my present institute IIMC.

The logic given for reservation is that the condition of backward classes in village is very bad. I dont have knowledge on that. But taking it to be true, why don't the government target the reservations specifically towards them. I am personally opposed to reservations of all kind. But most of the protestors are just demanding that those who themselves or their parents have availed of reservations should be removed from this net. What is wrong in arguing on that.

In my experience most of the high caste people who enter IIT/IIM/AIIMS are from middle class. A very rich student who belongs to high caste would never study so much to get into IIT/IIM etc. He won't strive for 99 percentile in CAT and high cutoffs for general candidates in IITJEE.

While the situation is reversed for the low castes. The low caste poor are often the landless labour in villages and slum dweller in cities. They don't have means to get even decent primary and secondary education and so cann't think of going to Engg/Med colleges.

And the beneficiaries of reservation. The low castes students who are the sons of IAS officers/IIT/IIM grads/politicians. The cutoffs for them in JEE is very low. They can also get 60 percentile easily in CAT and get through without much hardwork.

Now if we are demanding that the low castes/OBC sons of these elite class should be removed from the reservation bracket what is wrong in this argument? The political parties are asking the high castes to make sacrifices. Why don't they ask the elite low castes to let go there priveleges? Because of the obvious reason. The Ballot box.
Why we don't have any case of a Reserved category father saying that he won't let his son take the benefits of reservation? Simple. Because nobody refuses Free Lunch.

So the fight is not between high castes and low castes. Rather it is between middle class high castes and high class low castes. More informally it is between elite beneficiaries of reservations and poor victms of the same.

And lets see how reservations should actually be antithetical to every political party's ideology.

First the Left. They have sided with the high class ppl in this fight. ie. they are in support of the elite beneficiaries of reservation. Like all through the birth of communism, this time also they are fighting on the wrong side by supporting the rich against the poor.

Now the grand old party of India: The Indian National Congress. It swears by integration of all communities in the mainstream. But history proves otherwise. Before independence its policy of appeasing the Muslims, its agreeing to the separate electorates for Muslims at Lucknow Pact and its belief in Jinnah was responsible for the partition of the country. Now with again dividing the society, with again appeasing one community against other Indian National Congress is laying for another division of the country, this time along caste lines.

The BJP. Advani's long cherished dream of Hindu Rajya. Well Hinduism is in tatters today. It was able to withstand various onslaughts throughout history but it is shattering now, because of the discrimination by the state between different Hindus. Different castes are coming at loggerheads. The best religion in world is in a danger of extinction because of its own internal rivalries. And this is supported by BJP and its idealogue the RSS.

I cann't comment on other parties like Lalu's and Mulayam's because I don't know much about them. But their agendas are very much similar to that of Left and hence that argument also applies to them.

Tag: Reservations||CPM ||Congress||BJP

Inspiration/CCP

2006-05-19T00:14:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of writing this post for a long time. From the time I heard of Kavya Vishwanathan. A 19 year old girl, author of a bestseller and now accused of plagiarism. She has accepted that she indeed "have internalized Ms. McCafferty’s words". There are a number of instances in the novel(Though I haven't read it). But the most important point is that only the sentence formation and style of writing is similar and not the story plot. She has not picked sentence by sentence of the other novel, only writing style in some places.

I wonder how I would have completed my MBA but for google. Or if Microsoft remove its Control-C and Control-V shortcuts, how much difficult life for a MBA Grad would be. It is not about getting info from net and typing it. It is about taking the whole SWOT analysis of a company done by some other person and blindly placing it in our report. So management is just about teh ability to find the right info at right place. And thus most of us may be accused of plagiarism/theft.

The novel that i have found most interesting is Midnight Childeren by Sulman Rushdie. And I must confess that I did try to use his way of writing in my blog. The ideas and opinions are mine but writing style is his. The association between words and names, long but grammatically incorrect sentences, developing symbolic relationships between 2 different events, the simple satire told in way of some simple happening and all that stuff. But I do agree that Sulman Rushdie is a master in this and I am just a copycat.

That is what it is. Noone can write a bestseller just by copying someone else's material. Otherwise this would have been a very successful blog. Moreover the publisher has agreed to delete all the objectionable matl. So guess there is nothing more to discuss. And lets wish we would get some more of these bestsellers from the girl , offcourse now without any inspiration.

Tag: Kavya Vishwanathan||Salman Rushdie ||Midnight Childeren

Catching Up:II

2006-05-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing much is happening here in Jamshedpur. As regards my Project, well my tagline tells it all. And there are nothing else to do here.

Got my Paycheque today. My boss called me and handed it to me after asking me to sign somewhere. It feels nice to get some money after reckless spending for last one year. And when embarking on a self-financing trip to the US. Well I had been in job for quiet some time. Before that also I was getting stipend for Teaching Assistantship during my M.Tech(Dual Degree) at IITB. Added to that the meagre NTSE scholarship. But this time it feels nice coming after a span of one eventful but unproductive year.

Some things never change. The West Bengal ppl have again elected a communist party to power. Guess Calcutta and Bengal have still much to suffer. And development is still miles away from the state. The ppl will continue to go on strike once every week, Ganguly or no Ganguly. And the state is going to support unproductive ppl. If Bihar can throw out Lalu, why cannt same happen in Bengal. The previous victories of Left in Bengal is not due to rigged election as is commonly believed. But it is just that ppl here don't want the status quo to change. Sort of pareto-equilibrium condition. Only that the Bangladeshi migrants that the state politicians allow in cause disturbances in other developing centres like Delhi and Bombay. But for CPM it doesn't matter.

Nothing new on Reservation Front also. But it is good that some politicians have taken politically incorrect position and cast their doubts regarding the efficacy of reservations. Good atleast now we would have a rational debate on this important topic.

Reservations:IV(Forwarded Article)

2006-04-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

nice article...got a forward....

I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely
support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this. Let's start
the reservation with our cricket team. We should have 30 percent for
OBC, SC/ST like that. Cricket rules should be modified accordingly. The
boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player. The four hit by
an OBC player should be considered as a six and a six hit by a OBC
player should be counted as 8 runs. An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be
declared as a century.

We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like
Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers
should bowl maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour to an OBC player. Any
delivery above this speed should be made illegal.

Also we should have reservation in Olympics. In the 100 meters race, an
OBC player should be given a gold medal if he runs 80 meters.

There can be reservation in Government jobs also. Let's recruit SC/ST
and OBC pilots for aircrafts which are carrying the ministers and
politicians (that can really help the country.. )

Ensure that only SC/ST and OBC doctors do the operations for the
ministers and other politicians. (Another way of saving the country..)

Let's be creative and think of ways and means to guide INDIA forward...
Let's show the world that INDIA is a GREAT country. Let's be proud of
being an INDIAN..

May the good breed of politicians like ARJUN SINGH long live...

Reservations:III

2006-04-28T22:53:00.000-07:00

Read the News today of Mr. Arjun Singh planning to increase the SC quota beacuse of increase in their population from the last census. Just wondering from where does he get all these notorious ideas. If he is so brilliant why he doesn't use it in some constructive things for example improving the quality of education and institutes to make them world class, or taking some creative steps to decrease dropouts in Primary School.

There is a related amendment whereby the seats in the Parliament and Assembly have been freezed till 2020. This is done so that the states which have been effective in Family Planning are not punished. If this is not done Southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu would loose a number of seats in Parliament to laggards like UP and Bihar. This is a commendable move.

But why is this not extended to reservation policy. If high castes have been successful in limiting their population while lower castes haven't been why should high castes be punished for that? Shouldn't the principle that applies to Parliament be applied to common jobs and education.

I cann't understand why all this is happening? Ppl say that it is for political reasons. But as any meritorious(a fancy buzzword) MBA will tell you to increase your sales you have to differentiate yourself. You ought to have a target market in mind. And here with all parties supporting reservations tooth and nail, where is that political gain. It is unlikely that Congress would be able to gain any political mileage out of these stupid steps. Maybe its thinktank should think of a different target market to place its product. It should differentiate itself from Mulayam and Mayawati. But surprisingly it is following their steps.

And what about Arjun Singh. A neglected Congressman out to make his presence felt. The same motive that drove Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi to slash fees at IIMs. But these politicians should not harm the national intrests while pursuing their selfish policies.

Tag: Reservations||Arjun Singh

The Class of 2002

2006-04-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was talking to one of my friend here: a guy from IIT Kgp and currently studying in IIMK. There is one more thing common between us besides the IIT-IIM tag, ie. we both belonged to the class of 2002.

Yes the dreaded year of 2002. The economic repression. At IITs the placement at that time was around 80% and in many Engg colleges it was less than 20%. We still fear those days. Those jobless days. Companies after companies either not coming to the campus at all or after taking few ppl sending them regret letters. These include some big names in software field also.

But all that is past now. And surprisingly there are no scars or aftereffects left. If I now see my batchmates, almost all are going great in life. Infact they are much better off than probably even other batches above or below us. If we look at PhD, management, entrepreneurship etc our batch has performed much better than other batches. This is reflected in large number of 2002 batchers even today in almost any of the IIMs and other top B-Schools.

Probably this was because we saw through that period. And we have to work hard during that time to make ends meet. That spirit of fighting and non-complaecency has left a legacy in the Class of 2002.

But it also reflects on strong economic fundamentals of India. The depressions and slowdowns in other countries have large sideeffects, sometimes lingering on for yrs to come. But not in India. We recovered in just 2 yrs, and marched on the paths of progress like never before.

Hope no other batch get to see what we saw. But still it was a great experience to have, obviously thinking from hindsight.

Reservations:II

2006-04-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

Well I thought about the resrvations policy yesterday. I guess I was wrong. Reservations should be there. Infact I would say that there should be 70% reservations in all govt. services, educational institutes and pvt sector jobs. But somehow ppl are not able to comprehend the vitality and benefits of reservations.

Well certainly the political class in India have such foresight to take this important decision. But I think they still need to do more to silence their critics. They must practise what they preach. And the oppurtunity is been given to BJP to hammer this point. Remember BJP was the supporting party of VP Singh that brought in the policy of OBC reservations.VP Singh the most erudite and socially just PM of India ever.

Now Pramod Mahajan is fighting with death after being shot at by his brother. BJP should express its solidarity with lower castes by asking a SC/ST category doctor to operate on Mahajan. Damn the critics who harp on meritocracy. Meritocracy is just a fancy buzzword for the high castes. A doctor is a doctor afterall. And there is no difference between a General Category and Reserved category doctor.

So I request the BJP party to please show its concern for the disadvantaged and its support to the reservation policy. Maybe the President should intervene in this regard and make it mandatory for MPs and MLAs to be operated only by SC/ST doctors. Now along with the reservation bill this bill should also be introduced in Parliament.

Tag: Reservations||Pramod Mahajan ||V P Singh

Thanatos and Reservations

2006-04-22T05:07:00.000-07:00

According to the great psychologist Sigmund Freud, humans have two types of forces/energies/desires in them. One is Eros or life force. We preserve ourselves, take care of our childeren, take actions that are good for humanity in general. This is the force which sustains life on earth.

The second desire is Thanatos. This is the death force under which man undertake destructive activities. When it is directed towards oneself it leads to suicide and when it is directed towards others it leads to homicide.

Similarly it can be argued that nations have both Eros and Thanatos. Now Eros is obvious. Nations take care of their citizens, undertake welfare activities, defends itself when attacked by outsiders. But history has been replete with nations undertaking self-destructive steps. Maybe the genocide of Jews by Hitler immediately comes to mind.

And how else can we explain this policy of extending reservations? From 1991, with the liberalization, India has achieved tremoundous economic success. Indian companies are being recognized worldwide for their skilled manpower and state of the art technologies. We are getting foreign currency loans at a cheaper rate than what many American Corporations get. This shows the trust and faith that Western Banks have in India Inc. And govt has played an important part in this India shining, if not India glittering.

But alas with good comes evil. With Eros comes Thanatos. With economic progress comes reservation. It has come in 2 forms: OBC reservation in premier educational institutes and SC/ST reservation in private sector.

Lets talk about the OBC thing first. What are OBCs. Mind you it is just a synthetic division. ST are the tribals and SC are the untouchable castes. They can be easily identified. But OBC is not a social class. It is just a political terminology. I do agree that there have been in past certain castes(I mean jatis) up the hierarchy and certain jatis below it. But this happens in every society. There always are certain ppl below and certain above. But you don't find this reservation policy in any other part of the world.

That OBC is a sythetic classification can be seen with the help of an example. Jats have been declared OBC in Rajasthan and not in UP. Now UP and Raj are just political divisions. There is not much to differentiate socially between the two. Then why are Jats OBC in Rajasthan. Because here they are powerful and have successfully lobbied for their inclusion in the coveted list(Yes backwardness is a virtue in India).

Now at my IIT level, there have been number of Jats fronm Rajasthan. They have entered IIT without reservation. But now with the coming of the law they would be offered reservation in CAT. Isn't it unfair for their friends with whom they have competed at IITs. The recieved similar education at IIT and are roughly at similar level. But the Brahmin would have to compete in General category while Jats in Reserved category. So osn't reservations creating rift where there was none. Isn't it dividing society into divisions which just are not real.

And thats why I have referred it as death energy. It would just take the spirit of achievement out of so called OBC people. And it would lead to frustration among the non-OBCs. Many of us were not at all aware of which castes we belonged to. But now everyone is suddenly aware wether he is a Jaat or Brahmin or Baniya.

The intitutions of excellence that is IITs and IIMs, that have carved a reputation for themselves at global level risks of loosing out the most. Because OBC candidates would have it easy, the desire to learn among them would definitely be on decline. And hence their performance would very closely match what it is of SC/ST candidates in IIT/IIM. Hence the quality of the students coming ouut of these premier institutions would definitelty deteriorate. So where they stand a chance in global competition.

Tired as of now. Would comment on the SC/ST reservation in pvt sector in my next post.

Tag: Reservations||OBC ||Sigmund Freud||IIT

NBA and RDB: A comparision

2006-04-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

So Aamir has come in defence of NBA and currently opposing the move of raising the dam height. But surely the government is not going to listen to him. Mr. Modi would go on with his work with the support of even opposition Congress and the Police. So what would Aamir do. Would he go on and commit the murder like RDB. No he is much more sensible. So he would just leave the stage and go back to his Fanaa. And that precisely is the problem of RDB.

RDB tilts us towards fatalism. We see a murder of Defence Minister by having nothing better to do college students. And then they go on to repent there decision. So where does it leave audience. We just come out of the theater and go on criticizing the Police Force and politicians. the same thing as we were previously doing without watching the movie.

I seriously believe that coming of Aamir has taken the NBA movement backward. No not because he is in Coke ad, as Arundhati Roy suggest. But because he has kind of build a certain image with RDB. And I again believe that RDB has harmed the MiG pilot cause. Somehow we don't even talk about MiG issue anymore because it has been internalized by us that all state, govt, politicians, Police, Bureaucracy are evil. Thank God for a movie.

Well I am not against or in favor of big Dams. Frankly I don't haveemuch of a knowledge or data to comment on it. But as a tecnocrat I would definitely like the Project to go forward. Provided offcourse that all ppl get a fair deal.

Don't know but after reading Hind Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi, I have a certain feeling that it was good that Bhagat Singh failed in liberating India. If he would have succeeded, they would have turned India into a Communist Dictatorship. We have free, democratic and peaceful India just because of the success of Gandhiji's movement. And the proof of that is NBA. The tribals who would be displaced are raising a peaceful movement and are not out in arms against the state.

Surprising that uneducated tribals understand it but Aamir doesn't.

Tag: NBA||Medha Patkar ||RDB||Aamir Khan

Life Sucks, Airtel sucks more

2006-04-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

Another incident happened today. My cellphone stopped recieving and sending messages. I went to the shop from where I had taken the Airtel connection. The retailer told me that there are new guidelines at Airtel where you have to furnish a proof of local address. My passport had Jaipur address and College I-Card had that of Calcutta. So my application was rejected and connection cut. Then the person talked to someone on phone and told me that even if I get local residence proof of some friend I would get the connection. Then I remembered my driver. Luckily he had license with him. We xeroxed it and gave it to the shopkeeper. Then the person said that I would get back connection in 48 hours!!! So no incoming and outgoing calls for next 2 days.

Airtel Sucks Big Time, its employees suck.....and in more than 1 way :-)

Catching Up

2006-04-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

Currently in Jamshedpur for 2 months training in Tata Steel. Sure to post my comments on the Steel City soon.

With the grades pouring in I have one more sem of dismal performance. But alas one feather in my Freeriding cap. My highest grade is in a non-credit subject, one which is not counted while calculating CGPA!! Expected....

Meanwhile read One Night@Call Centre in the train. Frankly I am disappointed. After "Five Point someone", I expected a more interesting piece from the author. But ON@CC fails to fulfill the expectations. The biggest flaw is that all miseries in everyone's life coming at the same time. It is dark, but thye darkness seem very artificial.

The style is somewhat same as in FPS. But in FPS author gives a chapter to other characters also, so that reader can get their viewpoint, this is missing in ON@CC. The 4-5 characters in the story are depicted moral and right while everyone sorrounding them including boss, mother-in-laws, husbands are depicted evil. Very much Rang De Basantish...

The novel do have some funny moments. Infact I like the starting part most in the author's interaction with the girl. The author looking at the reservation chart for someone b/w F15-F25 is close to what I also normally do. But never in my life has there been a girl in my compartment. I dont even remember any girl ever in the same coach as I am. I do need a stroke of luck now.

More to follow.

Tag: Five Point Someone||Chetan Bhagat ||FPS||One Night At Call Centre

26 Years of Solitude

2006-03-29T01:07:00.000-08:00

Finished reading the long 100 yrs of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And back to that uneasy feeling of not understanding anything after reading a book. The book is a classic, say all. I agree. But the problem is with me I guess. It is not about English, mind you. Certainly not for a person who has cleared the dreaded comprehensions of CAT. But in the novel there are so many characters and events that it is difficult to nderstand the meaning and significance of them all. The web of Aureliano and Arcadio is so woven that a naive reader finds it bemusing.

I first encountered that problem while reading another classic Catch-22. There too I cannt understand what the novel was about? It is a military satire but its in-your face type of humour was apalling, at least for me. Then there was Alchemist where the boy talked to sand, wind and sun. But here author Pauleho Coelho tried to explain the events himself which made it easier for reader to understand them. Similar is the case of Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The interaction between the person and the tiger are well depicted and their significance explained therein.

But not with 100 yrs of solitude. It is one long epic with nothing explained between. It goes on and on. It is "boring" for a person fed on doses of Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer. The most important part is that I dont even understand its overall theme as to what novel is about. I read it in our OR and Prodman class. Not that if I have paid attention in Prodman classes, I would have fared well in the exams, considering the exam paper.

And the feeling of restlessness is becase someone had written a classic which so many ppl have appreciated worldwide. But here I am, not able to fathom it. Maybe the analytical approach followed in IIT and IIM have blnted my mind to the abstracts. Maybe I have to unlearn some of the things in life. Or maybe take some English Literature course somewhere.JEE and CAT are not sufficient.

Tag: Gabriel Garcia Marquez||Hundred Years of Solitude

Entrepreneurship: A Necessity and Competitive Advantage

2006-03-24T00:41:00.000-08:00

Our Economics Prof Mohanty said that probably the only advantage India has over China is its entrepreneurs. While the growth in China is propelled by the govt, in India it is fuelled by its entrepreneurs. And this is more sustainable path of growth.

Luckily, I have come across a number of friends who have started their own line of business. One is obviously Jeetu,the regular commentor on this blog. He has started 2 software companies t different point of time. Then there is my old friend Ajay Gupta who has entered garment business. And then there is my school friend Gaurav who incidentally also has gone into garment exports. And not to forget my wingie Amol at IITB, presi of E-Cell of IITB who has started making small movies. There are a number of other ppl I know who also have done something similar but these 4 examples come instantaneously to my mind.

If you asked me what is distinguishing feature of these ppl well I cannt say. They are just ordinary ppl out to do some extraordinary things. They are just dreamers, dissatisfied with the traditional job-oriented careers. They like to take risks.

Now as I have discussed in previous posts this spirit is much less in IIMites than IITians. But this is understandable. PPL who want to start their own business do immediately after Engg. Those who come to MBA have already decided to enter traditional line of jobs.

As for govt, it should give all possible support, both financially and morally to these budding entrepreneurs. There should be a proper channel of information from where these ppl can know the current business scenario and understand all the help available. The rules and regulations should be simplified and bureaucracy made more helpful nd responsive. In schools and colleges, there should be courses on entrepreneurship and the storybooks should carry stories of famous entrepreneurs. Finally media should also play active role in shifting focus from politicians and B-school salaries to the ppl who have started out on their own.

No more COMMUNISM

2006-03-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

In 1929-30 when the Western world was suffering because of vast unemployment and closure of industries, USSR was booming with prosperity. It was the only country in the world unaffected by the Depression. Or so we are told in our History textbooks. But they conveniently forget to mention that even during that time in Russia ppl have to stand in queues for 2-3 hrs everyday to get their ration. We our told about the exploits of capitalist regimes. But never about the atrocities committed by Stalin on ppl of Eastern Europe. We condemn saffronization of education. But why we fail to condemn this redization(I know there is no term like this) of education?

The concept of communism itself is wrong. As in all ppl should get equal oppurtunities but why all should get equal rewards. As long as all people's basic needs are satisfied, capitalism is the best system. The basic tenet of Marx that under capitalism even the middle class will shift towards poverty has proved wrong. Actually the poor has shifted towards being middle class. And as a result there are no poor now in Western world in absolute sense. So if capitalism can lead to eradication of absolute poverty, why should we want communism. In communism all are absolutely poor, but none relative.

The most devastating effect of communism is that it kills creative and inquistive spirit in people. It lead to people accepting fatalism and not motivated enough to make a significant contribution in life. Because there are no rewards associated. So for the progress of mankind as a whole, this curiosity and desire to excel should be nurtured in humans. And only capitalism can do that. You have to live one week in Calcutta to realize how true this is. How true this fatalism and being laidback is. How when money ceases to have its power, the society crumbles to a black hole through which even light cannot pass.

In an article published sometime back in TOI, it was revealed that out of 10 richest people in US, 7 are self-made, ie ppl who have risen from middle class to achieve that billionaire tag. And that is the triumph of capitalism and market economy. If a middle-class guy has dreams and ability and enthusiasm to convert those dreams to reality, the society's only role is to facilitate him to achieve his dream. And this can be done only in capitalistic society.

I am not saying that governments should not exist. But the govt's role should only be to facilitate free competition and remove gross inadequacies and injustices in the market. It should concentrate its energy towards social sectors ensuring basic facilities like education and health to all. For rest market can take care.

All through the world, communism has failed. If we look at the tiger economies of eastern Asia, they have prospered because of the ushering of market mechanism. And people of my age group who have seen both pre 1991 and post 1991 world and lived in Mumbai and Calcutta can vouch for it. It is very difficult to explain young childeren the world before 1991. The supply of LPG, the day long wait for getting cheques to be cleared, the good old Doordarshan with all its educative programs...it is difficult to imagine life as it was 15 yrs back.

Here are the pics on image-searching tiananmen square in UK
UK

and Here are the pics on image-searching tiananmen square in China
China

How has communism fooled entire world for so long.

Tag: Communism||USSR ||China||Reforms in India

The City of Dreams

2006-03-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

A new boy in town. Don't know anything about the city. In a train he asks a stranger
about an address. The stranger tells him the address but the boy don't understand. When the train reaches the station the stranger comes out with the boy on the street. He directs the boy where to go. Then the stranger went back to the station to catch the next train on the route.

The boy is me, the city is Mumbai. But I don't know the stranger. Anyways it doesn't matter because most of the ppl in Mumbai are that helpful.

Now after my recollections of Calcutta, the post abt Bombay was forthcoming. But what prompted me to write this post during exam time(Yes I do study yaar, atleast during exams) is a message floated by Junglee which said:

12 March, 12 blasts rock Bombay.
13 March 93% attendance in Office.
Salaam Bombay.

This really shows true spirit of Mumbai. In any other city, such an incident would have led to 7 day leave from offices. But not in Bombay. Ppl here are not shrewd as in Delhi, neither laidback as in Calcutta, but they are hardworking and enterprising. You just have to see kids playing in Shivaji stadium to realize it.

Bombay is a true cosmopolitan city. There are ppl from all parts of India there. And a number of festivals are celebrated here with enthusiasm. And since there have been so much discussion on culture of Delhi and calcutta with Saha, well Mumbai is true cultural capital of India as well. Ppl are modern here but not in rebellious or showy sort of way, but simply in their ideas and spirit. And thats what matter, not continuous bragging either abt your wearing modern dresses and uttering some English words in Punjabi(read Delhi) or cultural heritage(read Calcutta).

I wanted to avoid this, but Saha would sue me if I did. The taxiwallahs and Autowallahs in Mumbai are extremely disciplined. They never charge you beyond what meter reads and mind you there meters are never rigged. And nowhere else have I seen ppl following traffic rules with so honesty as in Mumbai. Infact the role of Traffic Police is redundant there.

Also the intellectual leaning of common ppl surprise me. You can see local ppl in trains solving crossword puzzles, reading novels and Economic Times. And they never talk nonsense.

The only problem with Bombay is its population size. Ppl from all over India come to the city of dreams. There is shortage of water and electricity but it is true of any other metro in India. Anyway Central Govt is contemplating a comprehensive plan for development of Mumbai, so something will happen soon.

What I miss most abt Mumbai is its night life. The watching of night show at some VT theater and then missing the last train. But spending a night at railway station is not at all bad if you are in Mumbai. Anywhere at any time of night you can find ppl on streets. And these are not some shady buggers but just common ppl. Still miss nights spent by Gatway of India and Juhu Beach. Even in Hiranandani there were a few places open till very late in night.

Now the part that I enjoy most. Rankings. The idea is offcourse taken from Vivek's Post. I have not been to Madras so wont include it here.

Attitude of Ppl Mumbai>Delhi>Calcutta
Girls Delhi>Kolkata>Mumbai
Traffic Delhi >Bambai>Kolkata
Air Quality Delhi>Bombay>Kolkata
Culture Mumbai>Kolkata>Delhi
Malls and places to hang out Mumbai>Delhi>Kolkata
Night Life Mumbai>Delhi>Kolkata
Overall Mumbai>Delhi>Kolkata

What else to say. Aamchi Mumbai roxxxx. Something abt Delhi soon to follow.

Tag: Mumbai||Kolkata||Delhi

The Other Side of Life: A FreeRider Perspective

2006-03-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

For the uninitiated, WikiPedia defines a FreeRider as
free riders are actors who consume more than their fair share of a resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production.
In the context of an academic institute, freeriders are persons who don't shoulder their responsiblity in the group tasks or who are simply too lazy to work when other people are there to complete the work. This applies not only in academic context. Freeriding is not abandoning your academics in favour of some extracurriculars(like sports/music etc) or other productive activities like holding an important post. Rather it is simply killing your time doing useless activities, like watching movies, listening music or still worse Blogging or Orkutting.

You guessed it right. I am a Freerider. Though I always knew that that fact but in IIT there were not too many group tasks so this thing never came out in open. Even where we had group projects, most of the time I was with Ajay Gupta who was a major fighter. But here at IIMC, when there are Group Projects in almost every course, I have to face this fact, however painful. Perhaps the best example is the fact that I am extremely fond of reading novels. You give me any arbit novel and I will read it. But in our BS course, where we had to analyse the novel Colour Purple, I did not read even a single page of the novel.

Not that I am alone. There are many of my community here. And we are very careful that all freeriders are not clubbed together in any group Project. Otherwise the result would be disastrous. Thankfully some of the groups are allotted Roll Numberwise so to some extent this problem is alleviated.

Now I cann't justify it. Maybe the Projects are too boring and monotonous for us. But so is watching Andaaz Apna Apna nth time. And there are not so many Preity Zinta wallpapers available anymore that I can change my Desktop that often. I can do some productive work related to my timepasses like playing Bridge(instead of other arbit card games) or reading some value add books like Freakonomics or When Genius fail(insead of more Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer), but my spirit don't allow me to dilute my freeriding.

I confess that I have tried to change my Freeriding ways a number of times. But it is congenital, or determined at birth. maybe it has some genetic component. It cann't be changed by Herzberg Motivation factors our Maslow's self-actualization theory. Freeriding as a personality trait is very poorly documented in literature and psycholgy. In economics,it is only used for its nuisance value. More research should be done on this as this is a sort of social problem.

Afraid that some non-freerider will view this post and not take me in his group next time onwards. Don't be, because non-freeriders don't read my blog.

Come to think of it, the non-freeriders want to learn something in the courses. We provide them that oppurtunity by not working at all. It suits both ours and theirs goals. So this is a sort of Pareto- equilibrium for both of us. No point in disturbing it.

Tag: Freerider

Opium of the masses:Hostile Witness Case

2006-03-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

On Vivek's blog, we discussed a hypothetical case. Its brief summary is as follows:
Lets say that you are a key witness in a murder case. You saw the accused kill the victim right in front of your eyes. The facts of the case are absolutely clear to you, and fresh in your memory. Now, your testimony is up for tomorrow. You get a call during the night before the fateful day. The caller threatens to kill/harm either you or your wife/your kids/someone-very-dear-to-you. Alternatively, the caller could make you a different offer - that of money. Say Rs. 1 Crore (a little over $200,000). You know for sure that the accused can indeed shell out that much money. The condition is obvious. You must become a hostile witness. What would you do? And why?

Most of the people agreed that they would not take money but if the safety of themselves or their family is threatened they may buckle up.

I think we forgot to discuss a very important third instance. Somehow the reality and frequent occurence of this third important instance has disturbed me and so I am writing this post. What if the murderer himself belong to your own community. Here community may mean one's caste, religion,city, region, company or college etc. He may not be someone we know very closely or have met often but somehow because of a collective link we identify with him. Would we expose the truth?

No, I don't think so. Across the history man has known to hide truth to protect the image of his tribe, religion, society, college or community in short. Somehow we take myopic vision of things and stay calm. Though we know very well that staying calm today may lead to ultimate doom/downfall of that very community. But somehow collective pressure is so high that we go into some sort of collective rationalization. This is not fear, but something greater and darker than fear, an unknown anxiety of not going against the common feeling, however wrong we know it is. We tend to follow a herd mentality. But this thing never benefits a community. It only give further encouragement to the criminal to do such acts. And it initiates other members of community also in the crime.

Many people in Enron must have known what is going on. Perhaps if they have blowed the whistle, company might have been saved. Even many honest Govt officers don't report bribes taken by their colleages. And even if someone gets caught by a brave effort of an individual, they try to protect him and put in their best effort not to report the event to outside ppl. This collective rationalization may also lead to groupthink as in the case of famous Bay of Pigs incident. We become so blinded by our loyalty to the small community that we miss the larger picture. We lay bare our individual morality in front of the collective fraud.

I feel this vague and undefined feeling is a more important factor in keeping shut when witnessing a crime than any tangible thing like money or threat to family. And many crimes and other unpardonable acts remain unpunished precisely because of that.

It is said that religion is opium of the masses. But I feel any community loyalty feeling can become opium and blind the ppl to the danger looming in front of them.

~Please comment on the post.

Link: A letter from Andaman Cellular Jail

2006-02-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

In no position to comment on this one. Please visit the link yourself.

Black is Bright

2006-02-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

On screen, the movie goes on. People are rivetted and don't move a bit. They cry, they laugh, they enjoy, they feel. Finally when the movie finishes, the audience give a standing ovation. Now you know this movie cann't be other than Black. Though I witnessed the scene in a Multiplex in Noida, but from the discussion with friends, I can say that the reaction was similar even from common Rickshawallahs in non-multiplex and cheap theatres across the country.

The 51st Annual Filmfare Awards have been announced. As expected, Black has sweeped across all the sections except obviously Music(since it had no songs). Specifically it has got the award for Best Movie(Popular and Critics), Best Actor(Popular and Critics), Best actress(Popular and Critics), Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and many Technical Awards.

The immediate thought that comes to mind is "Hope it had been nominated to the Oscars". It was adaptation of some Hollywood movie, but still I think that the movie itself had spirit of its own. Even if it was an adaptation I feel that it stood a better chance against Paheli. Not that Filmfare Award matter so much or the Oscars for that matter. But an entry into Oscars would have helped in popularizing the movie among Western audiences and hence they would have got the chance to watch this gem of a movie. Since most of the movie is in English there would also have not been much of a language barrier either.

The other argument that Paheli potrays Indian culture is somewhat valid but this should not be a criteria for Indian nomination to Oscars. Black was about an Anglo-Indian family which is normally not in mainstream India. But the movie is beyond all this Indian culture/non-indian culture thing.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali always improve upon himself. What he was not able to do with Khamoshi, he has done with Black. In b/w he has made 2 superhit yet sensitive movies: HDDCS and Devdaas. Somehow he identifies every movie of his with colour scheme. Khamoshi was White, HDDCS and Devdaas were multicoloured and Black is Black.

Amitabh Bachchan has reinvented himself in the movie. This is his role of a lifetime. Now as a ardent fan,I wish him Good health and hope to see him in many more good and meaningful movies. My obvious affection to Preity notwithstanding, Rani Mukherji is brilliant in the movie. The little girl, Ayesha has worked wonders. But it is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movie all the way. The other characters don't matter.

Hope next years entry to Oscars is a better one. Hope it is not the tale of a few college boys and a gal murdering Defence Minister to avenge their friends' death.

Tag: Black||Paheli ||Amitabh Bachchan||Rani Mukerji||Sanjay Leela Bhansali ||Filmfare>||Oscars

US:I am Cumming

2006-02-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

Finally going to Babcock School of Management(North Carolina, US) on Student Exchange Program(STEP). The course would start sometime in Mid-Aug and strech for 3.5 months.

At IITB, I always use to wonder what is it in US educational system and US univs that all the toppers from IIT land there. I mean ppl who can get good jobs/clear CAT anytime here leave that and go to US for MS/PhD. The education system in US is said to be excellent with very good interaction b/w students and faculty and emphasis on understanding rather than memorizing. Most of the US Tech colleges and B-School have awesome faculty because teaching is considered a very noble profession in US and it is not like India where the ppl who are not able to adjust to corporate world that enter teaching profession. Well since Rashmi has already commented much on Profs in Indian colleges and particularly the ethnicity of IIM Calcutta Profs I won't comment much on it.

Europe is picturesque. It is a perfect place to spend a 3 month Holiday.At IIMC, friends and seniors advised me to go to Europ. The curriculum in Europe is said to be not very rigorous and there would be weekend parties and booze galore. But I can explore Europe later in life also. In whatever company I work, I would surely get a chance to visit and enjoy Europe. But it would be my last chance to study in US(if I don't go for PhD in Economics later on, but obviously than it would be a different ballgame altogether).It would be a last chance to interact with that faculty, to compete with those students who work for sustaining their studies, to study in the country publishing most number of research papers. Babcock is a top ranked US B-school and one certainly gets a flavor of the US education system there. I am going there for the merits of the school rather than the beauty of the place. Also I would be able to test my temperament, whether I am suitable for going into a research based job and that type of life.

So US here I am cumming.

Tag: Babcock||US ||IIM||IIT

Clash of Civilizations

2006-02-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

Woke up in the morning and saw the following link on my IP aboutWebchutney which is some interactive media company. There were a number of makemytrip ads with themes from Indian mythology where Ravana doesn't come to take Sita because he is enjoying travelling in the plane. Also the concept of Srilanka tour is shown as Ram going to Lanka with the Vanara Sena. I cannot stop wondering about the creativity of these ppl.

Then I took up the newspaper. I was shocked to read about UP cabinet minister and Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi on calling for the beheading of the cartoonist who had sketched Prophet Mohammed for a Danish newspaper and announced that he would give "the avenger" Rs 51 crore and weigh him in gold. The difference between two cultures or two religions stunned me. When a person of rank of Cabinet minister can stoop to such low levels what to say of common Muslim folks. When Hindus, Christans and ppl of other religions are all so tolerant and open-minded about their religious beliefs why are Muslims alone so insecure.

Religion is there to provide a sense of security and strength of mind to believers. If Islam is under threat because of some stupid cartoons then I pause to wonder can Islam be called a religion. And frankly what is the use of such religion which has led to so much killing and bloodshed in the world. If Webchutney had made similar animations on Muhammad or something related to Islam, Indian Govt would surely had to order closing of the company. I salute Danish govt of standing by principles of freedom and liberty of Press.

I cann't compare the cartoon showing Muhammad as terrorist with the nude images of Hindu goddesses by Padamsree, padambhushan and PadamVibhushan M F Hussain(He actually is a contender for Bharat Ratna). And yet the most Hindu extremists have done is to raided his exhibition. Nowhere they have threatened to take his life. And here we have a Muslim Cabinet Minister calling for beheading of a cartoonist.

And the theory that these cartoons may lead to clash of civilizations is baseless. The war is already going on. The country that has given in most to Muslim extremists is India. We banned Lajja before anyone else. We fudge population census figures so as not to hurt Muslim feelings. And in return we are actually the biggest victims at heir ends. More number of ppl are killed in India by Muslim terrorists than in any other country of the world.

So the solution lies not in banning the cartoons, books, movies etc. but actually coming out in support of them. As long as we think of Muslims as forming a totally separate identity and continue to give in to their demands, we will continue to suffer at their ends. Anything should be open to criticism including religion. And when terrorist are killing innocent people in the name of religion what is so bad in depicting god as terrorist in a cartoon. Much less than depicting a goddess in nude.

The expected but sad reaction came out from Indian media. Most of them didn't come out in favor of the cartoons or freedom of press. Indian media is always hell-bound on showing the miniority community in India in good light. Alas they have done it again.

A rather hilarious aspect of the minister's speech was where he said that Muslim women would sold their gold and jewellery to pay to the murderer. The community who still have not been able to assert their natural rights and live behind the veiled burkha can become so organized to protect their god. And the Muslim population in UP is one of the poorest population in the whole world. First they should try to improve their condtion and give respect and dignity to their women. Humans are more important than God.

Tag: Cartoons||Danish ||Webchutney||Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi

Formal Education

2006-02-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education

Read this quote on Pagalguy. Now as I am going ahead in Management Education, I am realizing the truth of this statement. This thought is triggered by two incidents today.

1)I was chatting with Khanna, my friend from IITB. He told me that he wants to open his own startup and asked me do he need to do MBA for this. I tried to convince him of utility of MBA for this but couldn't find compelling reasons. Finally I gave in and confessed to him that doing a MBA is actually detrimental to his entreprenureship dream.

2)In the break(ya we do have classes on sundays), the topic of discussion shifted to Paritrana. One of my friends here at IIMC told me that he was skeptical of success of this effort. Then he gave me 10 different reasons why the party is doomed to failure.

Now it is important in life to consider ifs/buts(not butts). But one must not go to the extreme of being totally risk averse. And this precisely is the problem of Management Education. In the case studies that we do, we have to spot a problem/difficulty even if none exists. We are taught to go beyond the obvious and in the process we miss out the holistic aspects of the design and look for problems in individual parts. Here we miss out on the beauty of life, the craving to do something new, the burning desire to change the world.

If Bill Gates had gone for all the documentation(B-Plan, Impact Analysis, Marketing design et al), I am sure he would never have dared to do what he has done. Nor would Gandhiji have ever opted for Salt satyagraha because the odds were clearly against this. Nothing can be perfect in life. But the importance lies in atleast trying. Management education kills that spirit of adventure. It destroys the philosophy on which Alchemist is based.

In one of my previous posts, I hypothesized that importance of placements leads to the herd-mentality in a MBA grad. But now I feel that whole concept of Management Education is responsible for this. Here we analyse a case so much from all perspectives that we tend to detest every new idea, concept or career. Ya a MBA grad can never fail, but this is because he seldom tries anything. From IITB I see Nandan Nilekani in Entreprenureship, Jayaram Ramesh, Manohar Parrikar and Paritrana guys in Politics, Jagmohan Mundhra in Filmmaking etc., but from all IIMs I just see 1 Harsha Bhogle who had lived upto his dreams.

So lets try to live upto our dreams. It is one time pain to fail, but it is lifelong pain not to have tried. And I have to write this famous quote from Alchemist:

When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true

Tag: Alchemist||Harsha Bhogle ||Jayaram Ramesh||Manohar Parrikar||Paritrana||Nandan Nilekani

Reflections of Calcutta: A City of...

2006-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

I am leaving my post "Tribute to IITB Faculty" in between. Somehow when I read comments of Vivek of IFS fame on his experience in Kolkata, I am feeling compelled to write this post. So my tribute to IITB Chem Faculty in my next post.

Calcutta is a city with probably the largest number of modes of public transport. There are hand pulled ricshaws, cycle ricshaws, autos, taxis, bus, tram and metro. But though I have never tried metro, the buses are in very bad condition. It is more comfortable to stand in a bus in Calcutta that to sit in it. And the roads!!! The tram part is under trams dept and other part is under the Municipal Corp. So there is a kinda discontinuity in every road. Because of this traffic is extremely slow in Calcutta.

The lack of mall culture in calcutta is commented upon in vivek's thread. I mean the best malls in Calcutta can be found in every possible road in bombay/delhi. And the dcity looks straight out of Parinita or Devdaas. It seems no progress is made here since last 30 yrs.

The thought that every girl in Calcutta looks like Rani Mukherji is preponderous to say the least. I m not a fan of Rani but still yaar. How i miss delhi. Girls seem very conservative here. But anyways I m not expert on this topic so I leave it here.

The most disturbing thing in Calcutta is the attitude of its ppl. Somehow ppl have a very laidback attitude here. You fix Rs 200 for a taxi and when it takes u to ur destination, taxiwallah begin to demand 20 bucks extra. Shops are more close than open. When u ask smething to a shopkeeper he waits 2 whole minutes and then only gets up to give what u want. There are strikes every fortnight. PPL come to streets when sourav ganguly is dropped from team. I don't know how ppl don't have any other work here. The professionalism of mumbai, and the shrewdness of delhi, both are missing here. It is replaced by lethargy of common ppl. Hail communism.

~Comments are welcome.

Tag: Calcutta||Communism>||Delhi>||Mumbai

My tribute to IIT Faculty

2006-02-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

Just reading the results of faculty evalation forms here at IIMC my thoughts drifted to IIT Bombay faculty. Now my previous post was abt my fav subjects, this one is abt my fav faculty, but don't think that I have suddenly become academically oriented or something but younhi kabhi kabhi....

I am talking about IITB faculty just because in IITs it is the faculty which is the prime mover. IIT is renowned today just because of its astounding faculty. They have influenced my life to a very significant extent. and some of the best brains in India are in IITs.

But sadly this is not the scenario in the management colleges. Here it is just the placements that matter and the faculty interests or acads are the least talked abt thing.

And some of the Profs I may not talk abt are those who maybe very good in research, may have done some excellent quality of research work, but mayn't be able to teach well. And I may miss out some just because of my poor memory. Apologies...

Well my first day at IIT Bombay. My father left me in that unknown world in the morning. And one has to study calculus, phi and delta then at LT. With tears flowing down my cheek, I somehow tried to decipher what was written on the slides. I mean I was always good at mathematics but uptil then maths has been all abt solving problems and getting answers. It was my first exposure towards abstract maths. If it hadn't been for Prof Limaye, my initiation at IITB had been much more painful. He treated us like childeren, explaining concepts many times to make us understand and grasp them, answering our stupid questions with great patience. The only good thing abt MA101 was Prof Limaye.

I like Physics from JEE Prep days. And the Physics faculty at IITB is simply superb. I specially remember Prof Umashankar and Prof Shivprasad. The Physics end term paper in 2nd Sem with its questions on relativity and quant mechanics was mind boggling. Never thought so much in a exam. The questions were very difficult and challenging.

Then comes the Humanities courses. I remember Prof Ghadially in Psychology with her famous quote("") style. Morgan is one of the best textbooks that I have come across in life. Somehow the examples she gave has still stuck to me. Again the exams were very challenging. Prof P R Bhatt taught us Philosophy. The discourse on Logic were very interesting.

Other than that there were Physics Lab, Chemistry Lab, Workshop and Engg Drawing. I never got correct setting for the optics experiment. The experiment on counting the number of fringes for calculating the Young's modulus was very demanding and strenuous for the eyes. But simultaneously they were enjoyable and challenging also.
I always messed up in Engg Drawing and Workshops. In Engg drawing I cann't even draw a straight line. Even when I draw a circle with a compass, somehow the ends don't meet. And in workshops there were lathe m/c, arc welding, carpentry, tin smithy, moulding etc.

These are some of my recollection of acads in 1st yr at IIT Bombay. More abt my later yrs and chem engg in the next post.

My favourite Subject

2006-02-07T01:57:00.000-08:00

Well I have done fair bit of studying. I mean Phy, Chem, Maths upto XII, Chem Engg at IITb and now Management. But strangely the subject that I have enjoyed most in my life is Economics. Now u would think where have I studied Eco? Bit here and there. Economics in Class XI and XII CBSE. 2 courses(one on general eco and 1 on indian eco) at IITB and 3 courses(micro, macro and indian eco) here at IIMC. I also try to follow through Eco Times every day.

I feel the economists are simple geniuses. The theories they propound, the techniques they use for arriving at the results and just simple economic jargon they use like inflation, fiscal deficit, current account convertiblity, money multiplier etc turn me on. When most of Engg and all of Management rest on just empirical studies, economics is simply the most logical subject. And the cause effect relationship b/w variables and their interaction with third variable that happens in Economics does not take place in any other subject.

Literature comes a close second. Though I haven't had any formal course in Lit but somehow I do think how authors come out with such great concepts. I mean if Einstein had not discovered Relativity someone else would have. If Bohr wouldn't have given the atomic model, someone else would have, some yrs later. But if Paul Coelho hadn't written Alchemist it would never had been thought abt. If Ayn Rand hadn't written Fountainhead we would never have pondered about such a revolutionary philosophy as Objectivism. And the examples could be multiplied for Yann Martel(Life of Pi), Premchand(Shatranj ke Khiladi) and many others.

Aside from Eco and Lit, no other subject interest me. I study them just for getting grades and securing a well-paying job. It is just external motivation for me towards these subjects.

I do want to know about other ppl's choices of different subjects. Do put in ur comment. It would be interesting to read.
Tag: Economics||Literature

Language Barrier

2006-02-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

I went to Calcutta Book Fair along with Junglee(aka Amit Gupta) today. It was a nice collection of books but most of the stalls were of Bong books. So we just looked at some stalls with English titles.

The prices of most of the books was mindboggling. I mean I couldn't find many books below Rs300. Even the books that we never thought could have existed were highly priced. I just bought 100 yrs of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez and Hind Swaraj by M K Gandhi. Junglee didn't buy any.

Then we saw a stall with Hindi books. We were lucky to sneak in because it was closing as it was already 8:00 pm. As we begin to flip through books, we noticed a strange thing. The prices were all below Rs 100. And there were some poetry books of Mathilisharan Gupt for just Rs 10. Now we wonder why was there this language barieer. And mind u these were not books by some unknown writer but famous Hindi writers like Premchand and Dharamveer Bharti.

Immediately our thoughts shifted towards poor state of Hindi Literature. I dont mean to say that Hindi Lit is the best or anything but it definitely cann't be that bad as to so much difference. Most of us have not read any Hindi Lit after Class X. I still remember some poems and stories from my Hindi textbooks, but after going to IIT it was English everywhere. Everytime.

I bought Gunaahon Ke Devta by Dharamveer Bharti and Junglee bought 2 Premchand classics, Anandmath and 2 poetry books. And the total was somewhere around Rs 250. Equal to 100 Yrs of solitude. And believe me there were ppl who were sulking(bargaining) on that also. The same ppl who would have been ready to pay thrice the price for some arbit English stuff without any fuss.

Again I m cribbing without giving any possible soln. After starting the blog I have become more of a cribber and less of problem solver. But I cann't solve this problem also.

Tag: Hindi Literature||Premchand ||Dharamveer Bharti

IITB Lingo

2006-02-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

here are a few interesting IITB slangs that I found on a site. For complete compilation click here.

app : To app is to quit Des for greener pastures (!) to the west of the atlantic. Every iitian worth his CPI or otherwise can app. Apping is a long drawn process beginning the summer of the penultimate year of your stay on campus (note it's not the third year always; as some of you might extrapolate) and culminating in maybe a schol towards the end of your final year. The steps involved are beyond the scope of this compilation and merits a page on its own.
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arbit: An abbreviation of "arbitrary", it is a very flexible word. Basically, it is used to describe something/someone that is weird/strange/not the way it should be. eg. "That guy does arbit things" or "He's an arbit guy" implies that the person being referred to is a bit on the strange side.
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avoid: Besides it's dictionary meaning, this word is also used in an admonitory tone, with people shouting it whenever they get irritated. eg. If someone is watching TV and someone else turns up the radio, then the standard reply is "Avoid, boss!!". If that fails to work, then "* [at] #$%^" are always there. However, due to extreme overuse these words have lost their cutting edge and are no longer taken seriously.
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breaker: Slang for "breakfast", the most important meal of the day, beacuse it was the only one that was even remotely edible. The quality of the tea varied, however, from good to detergent-flavoured.
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chinco/chinks: The Chinese joint (located outside H-8 when I joined IIT, and then moved to the NCC building ), where all the DNots andLukkhas ( these terms to be explained later ) used to hang out at night. Famous for serving the exact same preparation under atleast 5-6 different names.
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chamkaa: The literal meaning of this word is "lit up" or "glowed", but in the IITian context, it is used to indicate an understanding of something that has been just explained/said/described to you. This use probably arose from the popular cartoon image of a bulb lighting up in a person's head when he/she got an idea.
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cack: A short version of the word "cacophony", it signifies the act of verbal communication, viz. talking. To cack is to talk ( academic discussions do not qualify ). A group of people talking is having a "cack session".
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Convo: The Convocation Hall, where degrees were awarded, and more importantly, where the weekly movie was shown.
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crack: This word, whatever it's sinister connotations in the "real world", has a very positive meaning in IITB. Use of this term by an IITian implies that the person is referring to somebody's ( perhaps his own ) excellent performance/stroke of good fortune. eg. "I cracked the exam"..or "I cracked a schol"..or in true IITB style, "crack maar diyaa", or "crack scene hai boss..."
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crib: To crib is to raise objection(s) to something. In IIT cribbing is carried to great lengths by certain people, who are given the title of "cribboos" in recognition of their achievements in this field.
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dayaa: A Hindi word meaning "pity", it is used in a similar sense, when people beg someone to stop what he is doing by telling him "Dayaa boss ( have pity on us )". It's also used as an adjective ( for describing something/someone that is avoidable ) e.g. "That's a dayaa Prof".
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despo: A corruption of the word "desperate", eg. that guy is despo for a schol. Also used as a nickname for people having the family name "Deshpande".
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dhuk: An abbreviated version of "dhakkan", which is Hindi for "cap" or "lid", it denotes a stupid person. To do "dhakkangiri" is to do something stupid.
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Diro: The Director of the Institute.. the BIG BOSS
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ditch: To abandon something. Usage: "Ditch maar boss.."
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DOSA: Dean of Student Affairs.. the guy who's supposed to be on the side of the students.. hmmmphh..
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DryD:An acronym for "Dry Dinner", it was the day of the week when mildly tolerable food was likely to be served.
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fart: This word has many subtle and interesting connotations, depending on the context in which it is being used. In IIT lingo, to fart means to say something patently untrue/wildly exaggerated/impossible. So when someone is farting he is essentially bullshitting big-time. Such people are known as "fartoos". Another usage of this word is: anything that is bad..ie. a fart Prof. ( Professor ), fart grub ( food ), fart movie/song, you name it.. anything which is not fundoo is fart.
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fight: To "fight" over something means giving it your best shot. It's also used for encouraging people when they are under stress and have to do something very challenging and do it in a very short time.
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Freshies' Night: A ritual signifying the end of the ragging period, it consisted of certain, shall we say "trans-gender" performances by the freshies.
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Freshies' Social: The "cultural" high point of the Freshie Calendar, it was an Inter-Hostel talent show, where the freshies displayed their musical and choreographic talents, accompanied by a liberal dose of double entendre.
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funda/fundaes: These words are just abbreviations of the word "fundamental(s)". The funda of something means the basic principle behind it. Fundaes are just a collection of several "fundas" and the person with the best fundaes is called the "funda man".
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fundoo: Anything which is good/enjoyable is "fundoo". You can have a fundoo meal, watch a fundoo movie, meet a fundoo girl ( not very likely inside the IIT campus, and almost equally improbable outside it, due to the "not very hep" reputation of IITians ). In short, it's one of those multipurpose words which creeps into almost every sentence of the average IITian.
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general: Something or someone that's vague or mediocre. e.g. Hostels 1-8 are pretty general hostels.
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ghodagiri: Ironically, this word means "donkey work ", whereas "ghoda" means "horse" in Hindi. Ghodagiri refers to any kind of work that's very menial and/or involves very little brainwork ( just pure effort ). Those who do this thankless work are referred to as "ghodas".
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give up: Give up can mean what it is supposed to, or
It can have the same meaning as "fart" in the sense of something that's bad/avoidable. eg. "That's a give up movie".
It's also used as an expression of defeat, when one realizes that one is facing impossible odds.
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grub: Food, of which there was always a great shortage ( the edible variety that is ). Mess grub was there in plenty, though. The horror stories about it are legion, with each hostel having an anthology of it's own.
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Hawa: Hindi word meaning "Air", it is something which every freshie is supposed to know, "hawa" being an acronym for AIR ( his All India Rank in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) ).
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hug: Hugging is the act of performing badly at something, making a stupid mistake or fouling up in general. The origins of this word, well.. they lie in one of the necessary acts which all people do in the morning..and which involves the expulsion of certain toxins from the body..I frankly don't know how the word came to mean what it does now..someone who hugs consistently is known as a huggoo.
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junta: "Junta" means "The Common People" in Hindi. In IIT, any notice or act directed at everyone in general begins with the word "Junta" written on the notice or shouted out loud to attract everyone's attention.
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khaach: To khaach something is to cancel/remove/destroy it; e.g. The concert got khaached because nobody turned up.
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kuchh bhi kyaa: This phrase ( in Bombay Hindi, typically ungrammatical ) indicates a disbelief in what the person with whom one is talking is saying. It is also used to protest against an unreasonable request/demand made by someone.
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Kusha: It's a relatively new chinese restaurant opposite YP (explained later ). It wasn't there in my time, so that's all I have to say about it.
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LT: The Lecture Theatre, of which most IITians have fond memories, as being the location of the Freshies' Social, and also the place where a refreshing nap could be taken during the CS101 class.
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MB: The Main Building, where the Institute's administrative and financial offices are housed, and where the omnipotent Director and Deans have their lairs.
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Main-gate: Entrance to the ever-beautiful Powai and Vihar lakes of Bombay and the hill surrounding them. By bus, 45 min. from Andheri and 20 min. from Vikroli.
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mug: To mug is to study/cram ..usually this activity is undertaken the night before the exam, but some people mug during other ( unseasonal ) times too..such characters are known as muggoos. However, muggoos who hug in exams are known as huggoo-muggoos.
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nabard/nbd: This word's origins lie in "nervous breakdown". To take nbd over something is to get all worked up and worried about it. "Nabdus" are people who are always in this state. Such people are compulsive worriers. They need not be academic nabdus at all. In fact, there have been several people who are not in the least concerned about their grades , but go into spasms of worry before an inter-hostel sports or cultural event. So we can conclude that nabard is just a state of mind.
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night out: As the name implies, a night-out is the act of staying awake the whole night, sometimes due to a cack session, sometimes due to a combination of cack and intoxicants, and sometimes due to exam nbds..
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obscene: A word used to express a large amount/intensity of anything, e.g. An obscene dinner, an obscenely good grade etc. As the previous examples show, the adjective can be applied to positive things too.
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ok types: Anything that is good or went off well. Basically this word can be used almost any place where a positive feeling/result is involved.
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Panchii: A generic term used to refer to any general person
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peace: A gesture of relief and happiness. When an IITian clears a course in which one had CTs, or when one cracks a schol,then he says, "PEACE", or "Peace ho gayaa". "Peace Life" can also be used in this context. It's close cousin "peaceful" is used to denote something easy, e.g. a peaceful exam, a peaceful prof ( one who doesn't harass his students ).
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pseud: A derogatory term for anybody or anything that's very heavily westernised or has pretensions to be very sophisticated.
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Punter: Another variant of "Panchii"
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rg/rg-giri:Derived from the word "Relative Grading" ( supposedly ), this term defines the act of doing something for one's benefit at the expense of someone else. A good example is submitting an assignment/homework to the Professor before everyone else, and that too without informing them.
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Schol: What almost every IITian used to live for, and something which is still in heavy demand, a schol is essentially a composite offer of Admission and Financial Aid from a US University. For many IITians, it is the culmination of their stay in IIT.
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scope/scope kyaa: A word/phrase used to characterize something as being impossible or beyond the capacities of the person talking about doing it. A very commonly used word in IIT.
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shady: Something or someone which/who is not as it/he should be. e.g. A shady prof, or a shady ( avoidable ) person. It's meaning varies a bit with regard to the context in which it is used.
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sidey: A word which can mean "fart" or "shady" ( another one of those flexible context-dependent words ).
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stud: Someone who extremely good at his/her field. Yes, even females are called studs in IIT.
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slog: To work really hard is to slog. Big-time sloggoos literally solg their b***s off. Thankfully for most IITians, the perecentage of sloggoos is not too high ( unlike IITM and other pretenders ), just the level required to ensure a steady supply of class notes and assignments, and not so high that everyone becomes a sloggoo due to nbds.
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suck: An inevitable part of the apping process, sucking involves sending letters/emails to the Professor(s) in the US in whose fields one is interested in working ( due to those fields being well-funded ) in which the writer raves about having been interested in say "Metal Matrix Composites" since the day he was born and that nothing would give him greater satisfaction than working under him ( the Prof. ). Usually roles are reversed for Dept. toppers, with the Univs/Depts sucking up to them.
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Y-Point/YP: The gate of IIT closer to Kanjurmarg, YP was a far more heavily trafficked site than the "Main Gate", where people go only to collect their monthly cash infusions. YP boasts of the Campus bookstore, post office, and many other convenience outlets. It is also closer to the off-campus eateries, where junta is sometimes forced to go, due to the sheer inedibility of mess grub.
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Feeling nostalgic, so am I..

Tag: IITB||Lingo

Five Point someone:Not a Review

2006-02-03T01:58:00.000-08:00

Well I just finished reading Five Point Someone(FPS) by Chetan Bhagat. Though i m myself from IIT but I didn't read it till now somehow because I was apprehensive of how it would have potrayed IITs, sort of defense mechanism at work. Read just because there was no other novel left in my wing which I had not read earlier.

But I found FPS funny and touching at the same time. It is a very well written book with very good characterizations. It breaks all stereotypes that ppl have about IITians. Now rest of my post contains spoils so if you haven't read the novel, do it now and then read my post. If you are from IIT you should definitely read it because it reflects on our lives. If you are not then also you should read it t know more about a group of colleges collectively called IIT.

If you have read that novel you would be knowing importance of CGPA in IITians' life. Well I m 7 point someone. Now at IITB, in Chem Dept we had a Professor named Prof Shenoy. He always told us that students who are very high pointers(toppers) in the class would enter into research and become Profs, thost in the middle range(CGPA 6-7) would end into jobs or management careers and the underperformers(<6) would venture into entreprenurships. At that time we didn't understand this point well. But now I m seeing this happening b4 my eyes. And FPS brings out this point very well.

The story of three freinds, Hari, Ryan and Alok, the novel explores all the different aspects of IIT life including induction, pressure to perform, desponess for girls, placements, night life, acads, treats etc. The pressure on underperformers is definitely very high in IIT. More so when they have consistently been toppers in their school days. Though not overtly but Profs do make distinctions among students based on CGPA.

But one part that I don't like in FPS is the characterization of 9.5 pointer Venkat. I have a number of very good 9 pointer freinds at IITB. Though some were unreasonable during exam times but none to such an extent as depicted in the novel. I found most of 9 pointers in IITB very helpful. Infact I passed IIT just because of their Xerox notes. But anyways this work is written from viewpoint of a 5 pointer and so its fine.

Your heart goes out for Prof Cherian. Here is a person who was 10 pointer during his time, chose teaching as an option when others went for lucrative jobs watched them buy BMws but still live by his principles. But to see such a person loose his son is heartbreaking. But IIT Profs are very passionate abt seeing their childeren through IITJEE and would do anything for it. Somehow this is a social problem in India and I dont know how it could be removed.

Affair b/w Hari and Neha is very well brought out. Neha's letter to her broher loathing all IITians is also close to reality. I have myself seen many IITian Prof's childeren somehow detesting IITians.

Now coming to the three freinds, Hari is more like me. He always tries to become pseud in life, copy Ryan, listen to Pink Floyd and do all that hip stuff. But somehow he is not able to cut back his roots. Alok is Muggoo yet Huggoo type, This guy is constantly in a state of tension abt acads and everyting else in life. But then he has a disturbed family and about his past he wanted to be an artist but to support his family he came to IIT. And then the pseud Ryan. A guy who has lived in hostels right from Class VIIIth. He loves his parents but outwardly show indifference towards them.

The novel has its own hilarious moments. But overall it does strike a chord in your heart. You identify with all the characters, you have met all of them one time or the other in your life. Most importantly it breaks the stereotypes abt IItians being too Muggoo and thankfully don't go too far to the other extreme. It does mantain balance.

For IAS we have English August. For IIT we have FPS. Now do I hear something coming for IIMs??

Tag: Five Point Someone||Chetan Bhagat ||FPS||IIT

15th August 1947: What a day that would have been

2006-01-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

Just read an article:"25 Days that changed India" in this issue of The Week. Somehow the following incident has stirred me. It writes about 15th August 1947:

The national flag had been raised at the War Memorial at India Gate in the evening."Just as the flag was unfurled, light rain began to fall," wrote Alan Campbell-Johnson, Mountbatten's Press Secretary."And a rainbow appeared in the sky, matching the saffron, white and green of the flag. If Hollywood had added that last touch, we would all have complained that once again they were overdoing it."

Rang De Black....

2006-01-30T04:55:00.000-08:00

When reviews of Rang De Basanti are flowing left, right and centre, I could't resist writing this one.

The movie is undubtedly well made and technically superior. The performances are good. Aamir Khan excels himself. It is not difficult for him to improve perfection. But the man who steals the show singlehandedly is Atul Kulkarni. His transformation from a communalist to a nationalist is simply superb. Also A R rehman music is great.

But all the effort seems wasted. The movie is entertaining and timepass but thats it. If it was a movie meant to give any message, it fails miserably. I don't understand what the message is still now. What was it trying to tell. And to compare the movie to Dil Chahta Hai and Swades is totally stupid. Though many ppl mayn't agree with what swades told, but everybody will agree that it had certain message and thinking behind it. But not with Rang De Basanti.

It seems more of a revenge drams with popcorn nationalism inserted in between. The MiG 21 issue that it raises is valid but the solution it suggested looks straight out of some comic book. First the protagonist tries some violent means to prove their point and in the end dies. Seen that b4. Heard it b4. Well thats what I m telling you. And the radio part is oft times repeated in Hindustani and Phir bhi Dil hai hindustani. Come to think of Hindustani(Kamal Hassan) it has somewhat similar theme but it was executed much better.

The worst part is that they target individuals in the process and never looks as if they intend to change the system. The way we saw in Yuva. Believe me if it had been some Sunny Deol movie we would have passed it on as something runoff the mill stuff. It is only bcoz of Aamir that the movie is being talked abt.

Though as I had said previously music was superb but the songs somehow were picturised all in the same way and halted the progress of the movie. But cann't complain abt that because movie was anyway very slow.

And I frankly fail to understand why there is so much hohulla over the movie. Why it is being pitted as 1 of the best movie ever made? Why 5* reviews???

So watch Yuva or Swades once more. And if you want to see a enjoyable youth flick, go for DCH.
Tag: Rang De Basanti||Aamir Khan ||Atul Kulkarni||A R Rehman

Dynasty Politics

2006-01-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

I read an article in todays' TOI regarding who would be a better candidate for Congress: Rahul Gandi/Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra. My heart sank. How can India's largest and oldest political party has no good candidate among its ranks that it again has to go back to the family. I m not endorsing policies or ideologies of any party or anything but I am simply raising the issue: Is birth in a family only criteria in Indian politics. It happened for Indira Gandhi after Shastriji's death, for Rajiv Gandhi after Indira Gandhi's death and is happening again. After Sonia Gandh's refusal to accept the hot seat, now the morally handicapped politicians are looking to 30 something Rahul Gandhi for their survival.
Now even leadership of BJP is in doldrums but atleast it can be said to be a merit based party where a person has to fight his way from grassroots. And I am against the Communists but have to applaud that it is a merit based party.
I am so sad that I was not born in Gandhi family otherwise I too had been a primeministerial candidate. Come to think of it whats the difference between myself and Rahul Gandhi except obviously the "heredity". We both must be having same knowledge of Indian politics and India(maybe I would be having more). I have even cleared IITJEE and CAT which Rahul will never be able to do. I know that is not criteria in politics but than what is?
It hurts simply because there are some leaders of exceptional calibre within Congress itself. But they have to stoop to such low levels as to go after a family for their survival is surprising. Well in a country where there is so much competition even for low grade clerical jobs, that there is no competition for the highest level post is appaling.
Tag: Dynasty Politics||Congress ||Rahul Gandhi

IITs: Will they remain Centres of Learning

2006-01-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

The placements at all the Indian Institutes of Technology(IITs) have simply been superb this year. The campus was visited by a number of consulting firms, investment banks and equity research firms. It is a great achievement for a technical institute in a third world country to show such a performance.

But as an IIT alumni and a management college student, I have my own reservations. If I look at my batch(2001-02) at IIT Bombay, I see that people are into various fields like higher research, management, civil services, entreprenurship and even politics(see the post below). At our time we had our first interaction with placement office only towards the end of 4th yr(I was in dual degree program). Till then we analysed and thought about various alternative careers available for us. Joining a job immediately after IIT was a least priority.

Infact there were people who talked about opening a startup and some of us didn't use to believe them at that point of time. But now I can see that some of them have actually opened a startup and are performing well. Those who started preparing for civil services in final/semifinal year and now are successful IAS/IPS/IFS. I never thought that Tanmay Rajpurohit and Ajit Shukla will ever enter into politics. But they have..

What I strongly feel about is that IITs should remain centres of learning. IIT system should always encourage students to venture into uncharted territories. They should not become placement agencies as most of our management institutes have become. Aim of IIT is to instill a spirit of questioning and independent thinking in students. Students should organize and participate in extracurrics out of enthusiasm and for learning rather than getting a point in their Resume.

Anyways I admit that most of my fears are unfounded. At our times also there were few who rejected McKinsey & Cap One to go for Phd. And the traditions will continue...

~as always comments are welcome
Tag: IIT||Placements

May you be tough as a Rock

2006-01-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well we always have thought "Is this the type of government that we deserve". All of us have some point or other in life has become frustrated at the criminalization and illiteracy of our politicians. Most of us don't vote because we don't find any party/candidate suitable. Now atleast we seem to have a better choice. Paritrana, a party floated by some iit graduates, does offer us some hope. It has Tanmay Rajpurohit, B.Tech from IITB, MS(GeorgiaTech), MA(Economics,New York); Ajit Shukla, B.Tech(IITB); Amit Beesen, B.Tech(IITB);Chandrashekhar, BTech(IITK) as its mebers. Well never seen such impressive lineup before.

Literally Paritrana implies

the complete relief implying the end of the very cause of distress

. And it intends to do so.

Having interacted with most of these guys, especially Ajit during my IITB days, I can tell you noone can be more suitable for this endevour. It is not if they are some bunch of frustrated people, who had failed to cope upto the corporate culture and competitive life, who having nothing else t do in life, started a political party. Their aim was clear from IITB days. So the plan is well thought out and not some spontaneous, night out effort.

Yes they are inexperienced. But I feel that it is a positive point for them. Most of the current young politicians are from political family only, and so are used to this dirt and corruption in politics. They have passively internalized this in themselves and so don't put fight to clean the system. But Paritrana guys, having fresh outlook to life are all set to question all assumptions in politics.

They may fail. But is not the experience worth trying. When most of us just criticize politics and system from outside, there have emerged few people who wish to go inside the system and try to clean it. But lets hope they do succeed. Our and our childeren's future depends on it.

Any comments are welcome.

Tags: Paritrana IIT Politics

2006-01-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

Myself with Mt. Everest behind