Whom do you want to be today?

" I am walking on Dalal street on 6 months and the next 6 month in New york. I ski in the alps on weekends after working 20 hours a day 5 days a week, catch the flight back to new york to resume this excercise. I crack 2 big mergers and acquisitions in a year. I will bring Virgin Airways to sign an M&A with Captain Gopinath and become a multi millionare. Investment Banking is in man....."

"I will change the way marketing happens when it comes to selling soaps and fairness creams. I will tap rural India with innovative advertising, and target the local stores with a cost cutting approach to get contecxtual advertising and make sure that stockists and retailers are given better incentivised targets to create larger sales. FMCG is the way to go!"

"The construction Industry is the best industry to get in, with the real estate boom. One should take a cool package in the excess of a million and work hard in learning new areas working on the learning curve and create newer ways of impactful marketing/advertising in the Construction/Real estate Industry"

"The Radio industry is so cool, I should look at a sales/marketing profile to understand the emerging radio market in India. Probably I should look at a lesser salary and a better profile, as the job is interesting and work should be fun"

" The social media industry looks like its too nascent, is it worth betting on it and takiing an offer or is the IT industry better for minting money and flying abroad? But flying abroad and living abroad, has never been my fancy! Hmmm..... wait on"

These are the various moods I find myself today, where I start dreaming whenever a company comes for Pre Placement Talks and starts off on its mission. In between the presentation, I visualise myself working in the company, and a flying career, and a promotion and a fat salary....in the respective field and profile,until the next company shows its wares. The problems are there are too many such dreams and I better start sticking to a shortlisted few so that I make a decision that will help my career in the long run! The Placement season has well and truly rubbed off on me at Great Lakes

Dream Job Blues!

I thought I was done and dusted with Cinic All Clear Dream job 07, after that fateful day when Mandira Bedi voted me out, and I walked out thinking I must have been terrible. I happened to watch my episode on TV last month, and thought I wasnt that bad. After seeing that epsisode, and a number of mails from friends who saw that episode, I start feeling really bad, for not making to the final 4 of Dream Job.There are no prizes for finishing 7th and thinking back this really could have been an ideal job, to give wings to my life, but I guess, Cricket and dream Job would have to wait for another year hopefully if Dream Job VER 3.0 comes out.

I have the video on my laptop, and daily play the video, to rewind back to the feelings that day when I stammered, and a stupid edit from the tech team, which hastened Mandira Bedi to say that I was under prepared. If possible, I will attach the videos, that have been stored in my friend's mobile. The final 4 at Dream job had an awesome time in Australia, and I wish them the best of luck, as the voting phase concludes on Jan 2nd. One positive that Dream job has done to me is to introduce me to the 17 best cricket/sports telecasters in the country and also make me believe that each positive step in life is just a "confidence-feel-good-minute" away.

Till then, I would have to drown myself in Placement season at Great Lakes, which seems to be the flavour of the month come the new year!

You can see some of the videos at my youtube profile or this aggregated link

Midnight Beach Trek to Mahab and Pondi

It was just another day at B school, when I noticed that Dec 24th was coming to an end in about 5 hours, and dec 25th was thankfully a holiday. My life was going through a steady patch of college studies,classes, snoozing in classes, cases, hurried lunches ...et al, that a normal B schooler would go through. Basically life had turned mundane, there ws no challenge left in conquering a case, and also putting salt into my wounds was the fact that I didnt win the cricket quiz at the IIM-K Blog quiz, and my advertisement didnt make it past round 2 at IIMC-Inatglio. Life was dull untill Arun, my former engineering friend, messaged me on Google Talk. We knew both our lives were bordering on the mundane, so avoided the traditional "how are you" question. I wanted the night to be lively,so just casually asked him for an outing along ECR. We had done a smilar outing in April, which was an all night beach trek on Mahabalipuram, and involved sleeping in one of the boats till 3 am, after which we boarded a high way bus and came back to Chennai. With the hope of recreating that rough but exciting trip, we set out this time around from thiruvanmiyur with another guy called Ankur(My batchmate at Great Lakes).....





We reached at 10 30, had dinner in a cozy shack, and set out on the beach for a walk, after which we felt that we should also look at some accomadation incase we felt sleepy at night. None of the hotels had any rooms. We trudged back to the beach, and suddenly we had 4 people in khaki uniforms stopping us, The police told us that this is ann unsafe area and asked us to get back to Chennai via some of the buses on ECR. I hate this moral policing, but given that this area supposedly has some shady elements, I guess thats why regular patrolling was going on.





We were suffering from the dew at night as it started getting cold, and with no place to sleep, we decided to catch a bus in any direction, as long as we could sleep for a couple of hours. A bus going to Velankani came at 1 30 am, and we decided to catch the bus and slept till about 3 30 am, when I got up fearing that we may be too far from Chennai, and decided toget down near an arbit tea shop. This was a few mtrs from the road to auroville. We had a some hot tea, in the morning, and decided to explore the beach through a rather arduous roue that was a mini forest infested with thorny bushes, the darkness was prety scary, but hey! we wanted adventure, and we got it... We used our mobiles and waded through the spider webs and the bushes and finally reached eternity... the Beach which was basking in the full moon.





As soon as we reached, we looked for a place to rest for a while, and after that, we walked on and on, and came back to the same spot to rest again at 5 am. It was a beautiful walk in the eerie hours of the night, and our conversations centred around our lives. We were feeling a little sleepy ande decided to close our eyes for a while, till the sun god showed his prescence. When we got up it was around 6, and we decided to end our trip, by playing in the water.After an hour of playing, we went back to the place where we got down, and settled for a breakfast at one of the makeshit road side hotels for some hot vada and idly, with a dash of watery sambhar.





As all good things come to an end, we got a bus at 8 15 and reached Chennai at 10 30, and I was abck to college at 11 am. Some crazy adventure, but still loved it...





Tips: If you want to do this:





1) Mahabs and Pondi, I hear are places with a lot of illegal sexual activities, so carry around your identity card/tag and speak properly to the police, and you will not be uneccesarily questioned





2) Chennai is a place with 2 much policing and most of the restaurants close at 11, hardly a pale shadow of goa, where 3 am on Baga Beach is like 7 pm, the whole beach is alive and kicking.





3) The wave at Pondi- Auro beach is a little strong, dont venture out into the sea... as the soil slips under your feet.





4) If you dont mind the rough nature of the trip and improper acco for the night, this night trip is still pretty enjoyable. I seem to like this mode of "quick and dirty" trips as such unplanned trips brings in a lot of interest which is so much interestig from a planned journey.





Some Pics from the trek







Ankur twiddling his thumbs, whether to drink tea or not at 3 am



Me and Arun, enjoying the hot tea at 3 30 am. See me with the college ID? Thats my kavacha Kunadalam...safety card in case I get into trouble.



This is where we got off at 3 15 am



When we slept. Ankur felt chill, so took of his under vests and used it as an extra line of covering against the chillness at 5 am. Also seen is Arun, who is cringing and trying to catch some sleep.



Arun in a state of sleeping beauty!



Titanic in the waves!

"It's starting to feel warm here, we should leave now!"

"You want to leave now? It's just getting better, from the chillness of 5 am"

Guilt

I feel guilty for not posting too often. Its not that I dont have time, but when I have time, I usually prefer a nap, or some magazine to peruse. Tommorow is a holiday at College, may be I would have time for posting some pending travellogues and posts, which have been penned on paper, but not typed.

Finally ESPN Responds!

I used to regularly Google " Clinic All Clear Dream Job" and find the same old link on ESPN. Now they seemed to have changed and updated it. Time for showing off.... :-)

Go click this link and read about my journey at CLINIC ESPN DREAM JOB 2007, as ESPN says it

January 2008-The Month of Fests and Racing Pulse

The month of January seems a packed fun filled month

, and I want to make the most of it. There's Saarang, Intaglio(IIM C), Backwaters(IIM K) and Kurukshetra(Anna University,CEG) happening, and I should be going to all of them, unless something drastic happens at college. I havent spared the time for managemen fests for the first 6 months of my 1 y ear MBA, which makes the last 6 months, all the more worth enlivining. Also making the month very critical is placement season at Great Lakes, which happens towards end of January. Basically summed up, its the month of adrenalin.

What a fortnight!

The last 2 weeks have seen me sleeping very less, averaging between 3-4 hours every day due to heavy workload and actually not-so-good efficiency of working. A tiring mind, always takes that much longer to charge up and work full throttle. All the hardwork for Latitude, in making the videos, finally paid some dividends, no goof ups. What was really impressive was to find the unbridled enthusiasm that batchmates had in conducting L'ATTITUDE. I enjoyed evry inch of the sessions except for the times when the auditorium was empty as the other events were conducted in the conference halls. Its been a hectic weekend, at the venue...running helter skelter to put up a good show, and the madness continues. Pending assignments, cases, and readings have piled up. I promised myself that I would be a better student this term and try and learn things better(placement season is round the corner), and right now, I foresee a lot of effort that may be needed to sell myself to employers.

Read more about press releases about L'ATTITUDE right here

Would write in detail about L'ATTITUDE, in a day or 2, along with a travellogue long pending(My Goa sojourn in November, My Dream Job experience at ESPN).



Till then, its back to B school life

Birth and Death

Long Live..Go Gear, which I got it from my dad. So that will be my music companion till such time I have more cash in the bank to splurge.

Tip: Philips Go Gear sounds better with Sony Ear Pieces, than with Philips....

RIP Sony erricsson w550i

which died an untimely death due to the turbulence of waves on Anjuna Beach.

Great Lakes Management Fest

The Online quiz for Latitude 13 05 is up. Do check it here.

Guilt vs Indulgence

I seem to feel like I have been left over in a race, as I ponder over feelings of guilt. Guilt, You may ask why? Guilt because I gave indulgence priority over some basic must-do. Once there is a respite in a B school from classes and case studies for a day or 2, I seem to madly look for peace(by closing my eyes and sleeping) and indulgence.

Here's my crime record for my indulgence last week

Immideately after my Subject FMCG marketing was over... went over to a quiet classroom and laid myself flat with my music player on. Then booked a ticket at INOX for the night show of Dus Kahaniyan. Spent the evening-night at CITICENTRE hogging a double cheese pizza and Bhelpuri, while my comrades in crime belched away at the prospects of eating Non-Veg. Spent some outh watering moments at Inox before ordering butter pop corn.

The Next day, I borrowed some movies from my assamese friend, and watched Caligula, Mouna Ragam and Agni Nakshatram on my Home Theatre system. Admired the Chennai of the early 80's in those 2 tamil movies. The next day, I made some time for a morning trip to Raja Muthiah hall and went for an AVMAX expo on Home Theatre systems. I thought of buying another set of home theatre system with a digital projection tv in a few months. Thats the effect of getting a little over a million Pre Placement Offer :-)

The tiring journey in the Chennai hot sun, made me retire for a few moments into Landmark in Spencers, and my eyes fell on a few "dirt cheap" movies for 69. I ended up buying "Lakshya", "Yuva" and" Passion of the Christ", and burnt a big hole in my purse. It was so tiring that I spent the rest of the day sleeping without any worry about the impending manic monday that was to strike at 3 am on Monday when I got up frustrated after a few repeated mosquito attacks. The prospect of having underestimated my priorities, for the few endless moments of indulgence made me feel guilty, and to add insult to injury, I get chided by parents on how "careless" I am, and a spectator during the India Pak match puts a banner which says " CRICKET FIRST, MBA LATER" and my mother stares at me, as I look at the screen, knowing fully well that there are no directions to hide the face.

But after all the indulgence somewhere down I was still feeling happy that I had watched Dus Kahaniyan. Its a great movie where 10 small movies have been made into 1 movie, with a little over 10 minutes for each small movie. Excellent direction, kept me hooked on.

With about 50 days left for placement and 4 months for the course to end, I am realising the seriousness of arming yourself with enough knowledge to use jargons for a living. Only thing that I am sure of, is not to get into any IT company(the service companies). So as I dwell in guilt, its time to get back to normal life, 3 hour snoozing sessions, classes, presentations, B plans and et all, and when all of that gets freezed for a few moments the glorious cycle of indulgence and guilt will repeat......but a similar blogpost will not :-) .

Life is Digital

I either sleep or do case studies.

FMCG Week

The last 2 weeks have been great with the kind of insights I have recieved from my faculty K.S.Ramesh, who teaches us FMCG Marketing. His real life experiences at FMCG companies and his simple ways of teaching have made me understand the intricasies of FMCG marketing very well. His suprise tests and quizzes, have ofcourse, jolted me, but the case study assignments and the nights spent in decoding the case and having Microsoft Excel/word and Powerpoint for company, has made the last 2 weeks an amazing journey. I am now delving for the final case study tonight for a presentation on Wednesday. K.S.Ramesh is a visiting faculty at Great Lakes and IIM-Indore and runs his own strategic marketing consultig firm.

Survey Season at Great Lakes

I have been swamped with friend’s requests to fill up a survey. It’s that time of our course, where we arrive at the 3rd stage of our empirical research and the research calls for some primary data on people’s perception, and thats why the surveys. Every one is hooked on to freeonlinesurveys and surveymonkey sending surveys through Orkut. If that wasnt enough, they also vehemently put the survey link on their Gtalk status and inundate 164 email inboxes. I dont remember who sent which topic in their surveys, but glance at each one of them and say, your survey will be done BY EOD( A phrase I learnt in the corporate world which meant “ok now leave me alone” ). I guess every one is in that phase where they want others to fill in surveys and also NOT fill others survey as some surveys are time consuming.


These surveys have made people more innovative as they realise that they need to have what it takes to get the work done. Some go to people personally and sit with them, with a laptop, requesting 2 minutes of their time( 2 minutes… thats the clincher to attention). Logendra was the more innovative of the lot, as he decided to distribute printed copies of his survey when the whole class was waiting for an address from our placement head. It was taking some time, and people were not doing anything special apart from frivolous banter, and it was the right time to give the survey paper, as people could not feign that they were busy. Apart from we B schoolers, the major part of the survey was filled in from industry contacts and our network was basically used to fill in the numbers that remained.


Enthusiasm is never down, with messages like ” Please fill my easy survey” coming in a few minutes back. Some smart alecks have other pick up lines that attract people to click on the link. However crazy as this may sound, this survey episode reminds of me the existential challenges in Online Marketing, where one does all that one can to elicit user attention to use the emotions experienced at the time of reading that one smart aleck line in the email subject.


May the tribe of the Kotlers rise…………..

Back to Childhood Days!

The picture of one's head against the door of a train, with winds gushing through one's hair even as the train decides to do a hair pin curve where one half of the train is curving and the other half is curling and catching up, you realise that these were the same emotions which meant joy, 10-15 years back, and to be more specific, you need to be in the 2nd class compartment to lean over, with the glorious smell of the Indian railways, yes.... its charecteristic smell of urine and the iron of the compartment that knock over your sensibilities as you try to get some fresh air through your lungs. Lonely travel brings a lot of thoughts
that your mind conjures up and 2 such recent journeys are being documented here.

In October and November, I decided to do some lonely train journeys as I was feeling bored. In October, I had a long weekend at my internship in Bangalore, and the dussehra weekend, was going to be dull If I was at the temporary accomdation that I was staying, so I decided to hit the Majestic bus stand, a sudden thought at 7 pm, when I left the office, and managed to reach the place (Majestic Bus Stand) by about 9 and discovered that the only probable places that one could go were Mangalore/Gokarna/Shimoga for Jog Falls/ Goa. Now, Mangalore seemed a students delight as a term called "inflation" had not made its way there to have very costly hotel and eating options. But Mangalore was heavily booked, so was Shimoga and Goa. Gokarna had one ticket and since Dusehra was on, a premium was charged to the tune of about 100 rs making the final ticket as 450 odd.

Gokarna it was...and I set on a journey, a holiday all alone, by myself... on a rainy chill night, but since I had a rather plush windcheater of my previous company, the chill winds were not a factor, but the bump on highway roads were, as I was sitting in the middle of the last bench of that bus.



Gokarna is like a place thats unaffected by technology and modernity. It has a lulling and a very slow pace towards life and thats the first thing that struck me about this place. More than that is the greenery around. For the first time in my holidays I gave up trekking and beach walking, as my bag tore, so I had to check into a hotel and decided to just walk aimlessly and explore the town.



This is when I am reminded of Chldhood, where I used to walk with my grandfather on the streets of Nanganallur, where seeing a road, a person, a bus..or any damn thing was enthusiastic, as I was learning new things each time I went on a walk.The same enthusiasm came to the fore. It was ages since I decided to explore a place at an easy pace. I went about photographing literally everything that came my way.


Here goes some of my exhibits


The Hotels in Gokarna are plain simple and you are transported to this lost world
where prices of eatables are a little above manufacturing cost and you have a very simple
ambience. Look at the chairs, everything has this plain jane shape and looks so uncomplicated.

Wherever I go, I seem to have this soft corner for "GHEE MASALA DOSA", and this time its no exception.

It had rained the previous evening, and it takes some Sun
to dry the streets. A peaceful walk, in the afternoon, explorning the extra rural side of Gokarna


Thats the bus, you would never want to get in. Extremely rickety and gives your shoulder and backbones a massage the wrong way, to make it as stiff as possible. This is the last option to Bangalore, if you cant get the luxury buses. This bus leaves at about 5 30 pm, on Sundays to Bangalore. Travelling 14 hours in this bus requires some courage, and since I am a student and cash strapped, I chose this :-(. The bus had a leaking hole right above the place where I sat, and all the water found its way to my seat and shoulder.I couldnt move an inch as this bus had hardly any leg space, and already had a vendors vegetable bag in between my legs apart from my huge blue bag. Next to me was a corpulent Bank officer, who was sharing his stories of life at Shimoga and Gokarna. It was great getting his perspective of life, and all his mythological stories about Gokarna, but he gave me a mythology dose, all through the night till 3 am, until he got off.

From the modernity of an INFOSYS campus, it takes 12 hours to be transported back to time, in Gokarna. Look at the pyol of the house, looks like R K NARAYAN had taken inspiration from this place :-), but actually its is widely rumoured that Malgudi came from Malleshwaram+ Basavangudi. I last saw such houses in Chennai, at Dakshinachitra, when I went earlier in the year with Prasanna and Kishore.


When it's a misty morning and you are on a walk across a bridge, it makes for a lovely sight. This place must be some small tributary of the Arabian sea.

Outer Gokarna reminds me of the villages in Kerala, all green with overcast skies.

Driving on empty roads with lovely weather and trees by the wayside is a lovely way to unwind.

Some times food can be a huge problem on the western coast, as you have to make to do with what is available in smaller bus stands like these. Grossly unhygenic, but thats also a part of travel


This photo was taken at PAI Restaurant at Gokarna. This along with Gokarna International are the best places to eat good quality local food at Gokarna.



Now that's a Garage... They dont have 4 wheelers here. This is just enough to dump a couple of cycles and lock it for the night.

The Brick sizes are very big on the western coast, atleast in Gokarna and Goa. I dont know the reason behind such huge boulders, but since I saw them and it looked unique, its claim to fame since then on has been that its been featured on Katchucrap!

Looks like Gokarna has its own version of Hermione and Harry Potter

Cricket on the Pyol! I was reminded of the days in the early 90's where all i needed was a tennis/rubber ball, to insantly start a game of cricket. The strategy part involved trying to score heavily by not playing power strokes and adopting to the area of the place that was available. Most of the places would be relatives houses, Marriage halls, Terraces and open verandahs! Aaah those were the days!

Thats the way back to the Hotel!........

For a more detailed journal on the beaches in Gokarna, I suggest you click this travellogue, written by me, a year and a half back

Back to Childhood days and Memories

I just started typing and my computer conked off...so will retype this laer today :-(

The Velachery MRTS Finally Opens!

This is where I got the train. The train starts at Chennai Beach station. This would be the fourth station in the Beach-Velachery route.

The Park Town station has very few paengers for the 6 46 am train.The passenger surge generaly takes place around 8 am. But the MRTS has by and large remained not that effectively used, due to poor transport services from the MRTS stations.

If you are confused where to stand, spot this board, as you will have to go to Thirumailai side to reach Velachery. This is the best form of commuting for people living in Velachery/Madipakkam/Adayar who would want to commute from the Chennai Central Railway station. From Chennai Central, one has to cross the road and walk over to the bridge and walk 50% of the bridge before a cutting that takes a person down to Park Town MRTS link. Instead if one were to walk eastward of Central station for about a 100 metres and go to the side opposite the Chennai central syburban station, one would find the Park Railway station which is the link for the Beach Tambaram Sector.

It could have well been renamed the Vodafone express, :-) it seems that commercialisatio has given way to colourful trains. I still love the green and red colour with a striped top, which is so reminscent of the way the local trains in Chennai have operated over the years.

As the train chugs into the Triplicane station,one observes an excellent view of the Marina beach from the top. Chennai's Marina beach never looked more attractive to me than the moment from the Triplicane Station. It takes roughly about 45 minutes from Beach to Velachery and about 10 minutes from Tidel Park, to reach Velachery.

Right now, there are a few autos waiting at the stand, but a 10 minute walk is what seems imminent to reach the Vijaya Nagar Bus stand. All in all a great and comfortable experience if you are travelling to Chennai via train and have to reach either Adayar/Besant Nagar/Taramani/Velachery/Madipakkam...which pretty much houses the bulk of the software employees.

Enjoy some more snaps of inside the train, and a few shots from the train in the rains.

I Just Want to FLY

This Paragliding was apparently done at a place on the Goa-Maharashtra Border. I so much feel like going and flying like a bird over the mountains and the Arabian sea.

Back to Late Nights

If Internship was about long work-days and relaxed night sleep at Bangalore, normal B school life is about long days and longer nights. I have test today at 2 pm, have slept 2 hrs and am hoping to pass this test, as its touted to be a tough one. I have an oral test, for a test that I missed in the last week of term 4, as I was ill then.

Om Shanti Om at Karur!

Karur, a sleepy industrial town near Tiruchi, would be an unlikely place to get a decent theatre. As I was walking down the roads, my eyes glanced upon a screaming Shahrukh Khan poster that said "OM SHANTI OM". I went in the evening to see the movie. they were selling at a premium price in the box. 30 rs ticket for a 25 rs printed one. I was only too glad to pay for it as in Bangalore, the minimum cost of a movie was Rs 130 if one chose the economy mode of watching at PVR. The theatre (Amudha) wasnt bad at all, it had decent dts sound, which didnt put me off and more than that, fans which didnt make me sweat. No frills cinema, if I could say, Amudha was the air deccan of the filming industry. After a long time, I didnt have to be tense about getting tickets for a movie, getting worried about striking a black ticket deal with a tout and getting a seat with a proper angle. In a place like Karur, there's hardly any competition for places and tickets, so I led a charmed life pre-OSO.

The Movie was an expected Shahrukh Farah movie that showed that the duo have really enjoyed making the movie. The script is barely there, but it was a funny joyride all the way and is definetely worth a trip to theatre. They have shown the 70's era very well and the humour in the movie is entrenched and not as attachable bits and pieces. I liked the last part where they showed a video of every person who contributed to the movie, including cameramen,lightmen and make up artistes. Shahrukhs previous movies like PBDHH and MHN bombed despite some excellent songs, the reason being weak script and improper marketing. This film's script is slightly better though the genre of movie making is still the same and given the excellent marketing Shahrukh has done, this movie was a certified money spinner, even before it released.

I would be leaving to Chennai only tommorow as no tickets are available for today. It would be good to get back to classes after nearly one and a half months. I was hoping to go on a holiday on the diwali weekend from Bangalore, but all my friends were busy at work and some on social obligations at home. The trip stays postponed for a while, as I cant make any plans unless I see the schedule at college. But 99% getting break in between terms 5 and 8, looks tough, probably in term 6, I might sneak in a day or 2, after placements as classes would not be scheduled then.

Right now, nothing to do, just glancing through papers, sipping hot rasam,watching TV and sleeping at Karur, with Parents giving loads of advice- do this-do- that.......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



PS: Karur is closer to Trichy and Yercaud. Click here to see my album on Karur. I had been there in FEBRUARY earlier this year and sometime in August for a friends's marriage

Celebritydom Calling?

I happened to be at Forum Mall on Tuesday night, and as I was rushing into the second floor, I stopped and checked my pockets whether my earphones were still there, and when it was there, I breathed easy. A sardarji spotted me, and said

" Are you Kartik" ?

I was looking, at my shirt whether my ID card, gave away something and when i found no traces of my existence on my shirt or my bag, I looked at him and nodded, and he said, he saw me on TV last night.

WOW....... I was pleasantly shocked... I thought Dream Job was one of the most under-rated reality shows, and this happens in Bangalore, it does light up your evening(or late night in my case). Went for dinner with the interns team and seniors at the place where I Intern. We were taken for dinner at Sahib Singh Sultan, a train restaurant in Forum Mall, and the whole night was spent rewinding these few seconds, while I had dinner. Small Joys of Life, however foolish it might sound, those words were for sure, music to my eyes.

How Real is This?

Happened to see this video on Youtube, and the dance-sync seems impeccably made for "Mauja-hi-Mauja". The video is "Where's the Party Tonight" from KANK.

Where is Anwar Ali?

I havent seen a more deadly swing bowler than this guy called Anwar Ali, who broke India's spine in the 2006, Under-19 world cup. This guy seems to be nowhere in the reckoning. Check this guy's first 3 wickets, the way the ball darts in and flummoxes the Indian batsmen. India chasing 110 for victory in the final, were undone by Anwar Ali' s pace and were reduced to 9/6 in the 4th over and later 23/7 in 8 overs.

Life in the 1 month at Bangalore

I think the past month or so roughly had as many interesting moments as dull ones.Some of them listed here..

Good Moments

1) Spending time with an old school mate(TRP). He hasnt changed much, and is one guy who probably doesnt mind a no-frills life, living a bachelor life in a normal middle class colony called Wilson Gardens. I liked it all the more, as the guy was simple and as crazy as me, when it comes to taking decisions in life. I guess a big similarity would be kareena kapoor's character in Jab We Met.

2) Walking across BTM Layout and Wilson Gardens to office. It was a labyrinth of crosses and mains( Bengaluru ishtyle) and often I ended up getting lost and exploring the place.The day I master the route, I seem to leave the place.

3) Watching myself in the finals of Clinic All Clear STAR CRICKET Dream Job. I have been appearing on television for the last 3 weeks and its been fun trying to get some one in Bangalore having STAR CRICKET. Have recorded a few moments on my mobile. I guess the decision to attend the auditions on a cloudy August morning paid off. I will be on air for 3 more weeks. I guess they have shot enough footage to feature me.

4) The Lonely Sunday trip to Gokarna from Bangalore. Enjoyed the trip for the solitude and the walk across the beach. What made it even more adventurous was that I had misplaced the hotel key on the beach, and after searching for an hour, I found the key, lying partially gleaming on the hot sands. The trip put me in conversation with unlikely travel companions like a 50 year old conventional brahminical bank officer on the bus and an Israeli female who was a deep sea swimmer, who gave me the shock of my life, when she warned me not to venture too deep into the sea, as it was dangerous. Her tales did rattle me that evening.

5) Listening to Fever 104 FM

6) The uninhibited joy of singing in a bus stand at 11 in the night,(the walkman was on, and I didnt realise I was singing loudly, until a group of people gave me a stare). Why did I sing? Well thats some more news... I got a Pre Placement Offer from Fashion Networks, the place where I intern at Bangalore.

7) Being at Prasanna's place on a weekend.

8) Catching up with an old Infy mate, who has now started partnering with an entrepreneur in some IT solutions firm.

9) Loved both the movies that I saw, Bhool Bhulaiyya and Jab we Met.

10)

Dull Moments

1) When I didnt get a room in Gokarna on the beach. I felt frustrated lugging along my luggage on my back and when my bag gave way, I had stop my grandiose beach trekking plans. The shop owners in Gokarna never give a room to a single guy. The single guys are capable of looking at other firang babes and spoil the "main" source of revenue for the shack owners, so if you are a male and heading to Gokarna, to get a room, go in a group with atleast 1 female or get a firang :-).

2) The initial 2 weeks at Bangalore, with rather dull roomies...who infact happen to be class mates at Great Lakes. The day I shifted, to prasanna's place initially and then to TRP's place, life felt so much better. I guess that happens as if you stay with people on similar wavelength, you feel at ease in talking. Not that my initial roomies were so boring, but just that they were fine with work-sleep-work routine :-) and strictly nothing more.

Bloopers

Now that I am in Bangalore for my internships, I havent done my Sports Show for quite some time. I was thumbing through some old archives, and came up on this video

Only Mallya Can Do This!

Amazing piece of confrontational advertising. Loved it. Doesnt Vijay Mallya Love a Challenge?

India. Jet Airways, one of the leading Airways in India anoounced to their customers that they have changed. Kingfisher Airlines, on top of it whipped them by saying "We made them change".

picture courtesy: http://www.creativecriminal.blogspot.com/

Hooked on to the Following Songs

Work seems all the more interesting when some lovely songs play in your ear on a cloudy afternoon, when the sky threatens to cry.

Device- Sony Erricsson w 550 i Walkman phone
Medium- Fever 104 fm- Bangalore
Venue- My office where I intern
Nature of work- Analysis on the web

To Phir Aao-(Atif Aslam) The Remix from Awaarapan
You know what it feels like- Enrique Iglesias
Teri Aankhen Bhool Bhulaiya- Bhool Bhulaiya
Yeh Jo Des hain Tera - Swades
Dil Ne Tumko- Shaan from Jhaankar Beats
Saawariya Saawaraiya
Ajab Si Om Shanti Om

and another song called " Kya hua ki Jivan Chooti" from Ek Chalis ki last local...on right now!

B School Love

Came across this article on Rediff. Good read and pretty much bang on, and loved the finishing line which had Shaadi.com starting a service for B schoolers to marry. Call that a Niche- high value- big deal- segment for Shaadi.com, if it kicks off well. I have seen many couples on my campus and I perfectly agree, how B schools act as a perfect ground for romance to breed, given the togetherness in so many tasks and events. Study groups offer a great chance to get closer with the opposite sex, and explore the person inside out. Though engineering offers 4 years of bonding, the maturity levels of the B schooler are a tad better and there is more stress at a B school, than a T school, so more oppurtunities of chilling out.

I am a little starved for time, will delve deeper on this when I get some time.

Fever 104

I am hooked on to this radio channel even as I continue to furiously typing reports at my company(I am interning at Bangalore now). The day starts off with me sending some report and finding more reports to be done. Its been a cloudy day so far, with the rains commencing in Bangalore last night. I dont have an umbrella, so might peep into shoppers stop next door, to get an umbrella and get a break.

I walk a Lonely Road........

When I heard this song from Green day, from Meenakshi, (my colleague at my former work place), I was instantly attracted to this song for the tune and the 5 words that it had before the ring tone was converted into a call. A further 2 months saw me searching for this song, and I finally found "Bouleward Of Broken Dreams", on my trip to Goa, when a friend had it on his MP3 player.This song signifies, to a large extent my idea of being lonely on a trip. I have grown to being alone at home, being a latch key kid, and so travelling alone to a movie, holiday or any place, is something that I have got used to.

I am waiting for the next break I would get to take a break...even if it is as small as 1 day.I am glancing at Karnataka maps to zero in on places of interest, and given the current gang of folks I reside with in BTM Lay-out, each one with diverse interests, its tough to organise a gang tour.

I love travelling alone simply because

1) You can experiment by staying at a crazy 40 bucks a nite shack
2) You can travel by what your pulse says and not by the polled opinion of folks around you.
3) You need not carry the headache of waiting for your friends to get ready at their own sweet time.
4) You dont need to hear the tantrums of bad rooms, unhygenic places.....blah blah blah
5) You need not feel bad, about posing in every picture that friends take like a expressionless statue. You can infact hone your photography skills by focussing on the world around you.
6) Directionless travelling is the biggest fun in trips as it leads you to meet something in life called "variety" which was missing in your mundane life so far.
7) Freedom from restrictions that each friend has, or concocted safety ideas that a person may have.

My take on travel trips is all about getting out of your comfort zone,and feeling a lot different every time you hit a place, and just laze around places. Make your mind think wild, so that you do things, you would otherwise not think of doing in a constrained "corporate" life.

Right Now, thinking of 1 day trips like

1) An unreserved train journey to Mysore
2) Sakleshpur
3) Mangalore
4) Hampi
5)........I do a lot of talking, why dont you help me here?

In Bangalore for a Month

I am right now doing my internship at Bangalore. Will be in Garden city for a month. so hope to meet a few friends and escape the heat of Chennai. Looking forward to some lovely, chill 6 am walks with Kishore da playing on Radio City/Mirchi.

Bangalored for a Month

I am now in Bangalore, doing my internship at Reach Technologies. I joined a little late, by a couple of days, due to some health problems. As soon as the Rajahamsa bus landed at KG bus stand near Majestic at 5 am today, it brought back a few memories. Exactly 3 years back, I came to bangalore on this very day, to join Infosys. I was also not keeping well then, recovering partially from TB of the colon.My classmates, interning at Reach Tech, were staying in a house in BTM Layout, and when i boarded the local bus from Majestic to BTM, memories came back like a flashback in a movie.

The Local bus stand was still the same, in the sense that al the buses had routes written in Kannada, and the bus stand had all routes and numbers in Kannada. All I did, was go around like a mute idiot, uttering BTM BTM, and some sane person led me to platform 13. Then 45 minutes later, I was deposited near the BTM layout bus stand, exactly where I was living 3 years back. Priya bakery, the samsung and sony shop, advaita petrol pump on 16th main and Udupi gardens...everything was there, without an iota of change. My friend picked me up and drove me to his place at 7 am and all i did was snooze for three hours after which I got ready for the walk to my office. My office is located just off Bannerghata Road.

Work life is said to be hectic here, and I am only waiting for a free sunday, to sneak in a short in-a-day holiday to break away from the malls/crowds and the cubicles.I need to make a few critical decisions about certain things in my life that I am passionate about.I am at this juncture of life, where I am 50% done with my MBA, and need to decide which companies to I decide to apply for placement and which sector do I want to apply.I am slightly tired of working for these conventional services company, where I dont see my work adding value to the company, so might not join a 50,000 stregth company. It would be interesting to see how things pan out during the internship here at Bangalore.

Merchant and Bankers Rowing Regatta-2007

It's good to do a long sports show!, as it acts as the right buffer when you fall ill at home, on a house arrest.

These are my latest sports shows, that I shot 2 weeks ago, right after class on a saturday afternoon. This Rowing show was my first show that deviated away from cricket, and it was fun doing it. Watch it here and here



3 weeks back, I also did a 20-20 victory review. Check it out at at
Part 1 and Part 2

The Extremes of B-School Life

The best fun at B school happens when you work together on Industrial projects. Everybody follows the cycle of hardworker, lesser-work-mode, the complainer mode, Listener-but-not-doing mode and free rider mode. This would be the knowledge supply chain at group projects, with every one contributing his best and his worst across a given time period. This pic was taken during the Coke Project, where Rajesh is seen explaining to us, with Vinay Krithik, in more than a dormant mode. The alacrity in taking a quick shot, made me awake, or I too would have dozed after a tired day. The whole COKE project was a great excercise in getting to know the various moods and ways in which peers operate and dealing with frustrations of non-performance of various factions from time to time and also dealing with the brilliance of the same group the very next day. But as they say ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, the project was an immensely succesful project, as the smiles on the faces of the Coke honchos said it all!

Twenty20 World Cup Final-India Vs Pakistan

See Saw Clashes.... Mother of all battles, was what it was branded, and the match for sure, did give a heart patient, a serious run for his life. The way the match kept on swinging fortunes, only showed the resilient spirit both the teams. The last shot lasted more than the 6 seconds..it lasted a million seconds. The way Misbah advertised that he was going to play that hoick to fine leg, even as Joginder came into bowl, made my heart skip a beat.Then when Misbah, connected, that sublimal fear stretched all through my back, an unpleasant feeling, not wanting to listen to the commentator, believing that it was going into the bull ring. My friend who was online, not accesible to TV, must have shreaked when I typed 6... but much to my shock..Misbah had not connected and Shastri's scream " its in the air" which would be the ideal prelude to either a 6 or a wicket, confused me as my eyes, was in its last stages of closing, a sense of frustration,mouth slipping in bouts of saliva, prefering to skip a beat and THEN.......

My Grandmother jumps in joy with her hands up!.... AHOY! what do we have here!!! India won..

I immidealy jump back to my laptop and type " India won" and the message transcends through continents to a probable victory shout on the other side of the Google Talk messenger. OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH 2 close India Pak matches and Sreesanth keeps his cool in both the moments in Durban and Johannesburg,closing the lid on the match.


Those 6 seconds, I went through a multitude of emotions and it would probably last a life time. India has won a world cup, an against whom!!! the dream match against pakistan...and Pak would have to stare hard at the scar of not winning against India in World Cups.

My views:

Misbah deserved the player of the series, 4 awesome innings, 2 magical but greek hero type loss, and 2 victorious innings under pressure to win. Afridi was out of form, but the numbers helped him win the Player of the series award.

Dhoni looked in command and had nerves of steel throughout the tourney. Good changes and great work from the support staff of Venky Prasad,Lalchand Rajput and Robin Singh. I specially liked the way Dhoni supported Sreesanth after the first over of 21 runs( A Shoaib Akthar-esque over... for retaliation) and the way Jogi was persisted against Australia and Pakistan.

The youngsters came to the fore, and I keep wondering if Rohit Sharma was caught on the Long on boundary, would the match have come so close? I say that because Abdul Hafeez, not only dropped it, but also let it for a 6, which would have otherwise been a boundary.

If Misbah had connected that fatal last ball, Joginder singh would have become the tainted piece of history(that Chetan Sharma has now become). His career would have ended as soon as it started(My friend Arun, agrees with me on this).

The turning point? Imran Nazir's wicket... He was looking great guns and at no point did we look like getting him out. His wicket brought India back into the game. The second turning point was Sohail Tanvir's wicket and of course the last wicket of Haq, which he could have well waited and got the runs.

Click here to watch the Innings brief highlights...

1) Pakistan Wickets
2) Gautam Gambhir's Innings
3) Sixes of the final

Video Courtesy! ( Flicked from ESPN)

Photographic Snippets from B School

There are times during coninuous assesments,case studies and night outs, the class room during the day could just be the last thing on your mind. Just to lessen the embarrasment for the prof, we tend to look for a strong well built male/female in the front seat and bask in their shadows as the AC just lulls you into sleep.


Sparks fly in a Placeom meeting. Any casual remark can set the eyeballs against you! This was shot in a meeting we recently had for discussing the status of our work assigned to us.

Some of the best ways to fool a prof is to say you have conjunctivitis and close your eye, but my friend Ashutosh is doing something far removed from that. This is a pic taken in Prof Shriram's class on Strategy, where Ashu was subjected to a blind test, to check whether his tounge could detect the different cola brands as part of our case analysis of Pepsi vs Coke. Lucky Dawg! Got free cola in class :-)

Oh! These so called discussions for presentations. If each one were to work individually for 10 minutes and then present his views life would be a lot easier and productive, but given the hi-fi management students that we are, we use the laptop to convey ideas, files and presentations. I found out the other day when we were to analyse a case in class, every body was speaking arbit things and fiddling their ideas on the lappy, and with 3 minutes to go, we couldnt help noticing that we had hardly progressed, and then the mouth just worked, with a ramshackle of 3-4 basic slides. So much for technology!!!

When one was working, it was all about the fight of "I-will-pay-the-bill", followed by the first few weeks of going dutch at B school outings. Now after Management Accounting, we follow Activity Based Costing strictly when we hang out at high priced shops.

Did You Know This?

Right to Emergency Care:

The Supreme Court has ruled that all injured persons especially in the case of road traffic accidents, assaults, etc., when brought to a hospital / medical centre, have to be offered first aid, stabilized and shifted to a higher centre / government centre if required. It is only after this that the hospital can demand payment or complete police formalities. In case you are a bystander and wish to help someone in an accident, please go ahead and do so. Your responsibility ends as soon as you leave the person at the hospital. The hospital bears the responsibility of informing the police, first aid, etc.

Please do inform your family and friends about these basic rights so that we all know what to expect and what to do in the hour of need.

My Thoughts on Chak de! India

When I saw the movie, Chak De! India, what struck me was the excellent direction and screenplay of the movie.No additional floss and running around trees. From a Management perspective, it was all about the spirit and attitude required to succeed and act professionally in larger team interests. Suprisingly this was the 5th sports based movie to come out in the last 20 years and the 3rd in the last 6 years. The ones I am referring are Avval Number starring Aamir Khan, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and Lagaan starring Aamir again, Iqbal with Shreyas Talpade and now Chak de!India The common thread in the last 3 sports movies has been on great direction, where not too much light is shown on the main character in the movie.

Generaly movies revolving around such themes depend a lot on good music complementing important moments in the movie, and thats where Iqbal and Chak de India! have been ruling the roost apart from brilliantly etched out characters.

The scene involving the Hockey federation speaking to the coaches was a true reflection of what ails Indian sport, in terms of the lackadaisical approach of federations towards the development of sports. Chak De India, I recently heard, was the point of discussion of a case study at SPJIMR and offers a great insight into what a leveller sport can be in India. You are on top of the world when you are doing well, with everybody wanting to be assosiated with you, but when you fail, the whole world seems to be up against you in arms. I guess any Indian cricketer would vouch for that post the World cup debacle earlier this year, and they almost earned the ire of the nation when they allowed Pakistan to chase 39 runs of 13 balls in the 20 20 league phase :-).

Do the Indian's need to change their gung-ho extremism attitude towards cricket? I guess that needs a seperate blog post with a lot more of thinking. My gut feel is that the attitude of the fans cannot be changed, but India as a team, needs to get more professional and need to stop the frequency of vacillating between being magnificent and insipid between matches.

I happened to come across this article, written by Apurva Purohit, CEO of Radiocity on Chak de! India relating to her real life experience. It was a good read, and even good to know that she was from Chennai, having her alma mater as Stella Maris.(BTW Apurva was formerly the CEO of Zee )

Reaching out to People via Commentary!

Whoa! What A night?

India just won the bowlout...and it was fun celebrating it with close to 40 people. Lets see how the 40 add up. Most of these guys did not have access to cricket as Cricinfo and Cricbuzz, as the sites werent responding, probably due to the heavy rush of traffic. I was at home and there were 6 from my college, who were in their room. I spoke on Gtalk with them....and gave running commentary for the last half hour. There were about 25 people who were in the college library and seminar halls who were pinging me on GTALK for the scores all assembling at one point. So I give commentary on Gtalk to Bhaskar and he types every word out to the 4 focal point guys in college. Can corporate India be far behind? My friend working in a Financial services company called on my mobile, and put my conversation on speaker mode for his team mates. There I was doing commentary and answering questions on my laptop.

Here go video highlights of the match Presentation and the video covering the Pakistan innings and the finale of the bowlout.

Indian Batting at Durban

What is Marketing?

I have 2 Marketing Projects and 3 case studies over the last 2 days. I have finally learnt what Marketing is all about.