Long time no see?

Well, its been an awfully long time since I last blogged (yup, 2 months is quite a long time)....I somehow feel that I have slowly mastered the art of feeling and looking busy on the outside, though on the inside.....things may be monotonous, a bit boring.

Yeah.....may be I have fallen into what one may call as 'routine'......have been lately having some regular classes and assignments which have somehow kept me occupied, along with extra heavy dosage of IMpress wrk (student media relations committee of NITIE).....drudgery, hah.

One good thing which has brightened my spirits is the excellent, fantabulous placements. Placements went along on expected lines....bringing smiles to all 98 ppl in the senior batch. The important factor one needs to look into a B-Schools placement figures is- the lowest salary one bags.

Well, frankly speaking its amazing..... that the gap between the highest and lowest salaries at NITIE is very small (according to me the difference is the smallest among all the top 10 B-Schools in India). Its an awesome feeling if a fresher from an engineering college with no work experience at all gets a minimum of INR 6 lacs p.a., on passing out from NITIE!!!!

Well, that has been the scenario this year (I hope we can expect the same next year!!). The average and median pay packages have been another comforting factor (both zooming well over and above the 8 lac mark).

Ah.....am I boring you with stats?? oh,oki......tats enough about placements.....!

The other important thing which has just come out is the the GD/PI shortlist for NITIE. Good to see a lot of prfile based selections (more like the SP Jain model) than just selections on sole criteria of CAT scores!

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Bye bye 2005!

With a herculean effort I could sustain my interest levels for a week and complete the second module exams. Am sure this was better off than the first module exams for most of us at NITIE. The reason being, all of us studied more after the debacle of module 1.

Year 2006 beckons as we say adios to year 2005. It brings with it new hope, new resolutions, and newer surprises. The year gone by has been one of unexpected turns and twists for me. It all started with me getting settled down in SAP Labs as a Development Specialist....was really thinking of settling down in the job probably for a year or two and rethink my options later. CAT scores were pretty good, felt a little unlucky to miss out on the IIMs and really did'nt have any great interest in joining NITIE either.

After speaking to a few people about career prospects and a few more people about moolah aspects, finally settled down on taking up an MBA at NITIE. Leaving SAP was never too easy though, with my manager none too happy with my decision(as he put it.......why are u going to NIIT?.....oops sorry NITIE), I had to give a months notice and say quits.

NITIE beckoned and everything seemed rosy and a little too cosy( check my blog on Life in a B-School??!! ). In the meanwhile lots of stuff have happened- mandi, summers, prerana, mastishk and more recently laterals. Yeah with all that to add some twist, there was the nature's fury to reckon with, what with Mumbai flooded for a couple of days and creating much havoc and bringing untold miseries to the common man.

Meanwhile India has been emerging as a stronger location for MNCs to set base(Agriculture and Industry have maintained the Gandhian growth rate though). The BPO industry has moved again at 63% CAGR, and estimates are rife that it will continue to do so. IT companies continue to set up shop in India inspite of crumbling infrastructure. The year saw more than 200 companies set base in Bangalore alone(talking of the saturated infrastructure in the god*** city!). The forex reserves stand at a all time high of 143.8 bn$, relations between Pakistan has been more sweet than sour and UN Security seat to India seems a mirage once again.

The world has moved too, what with Bush weeding out Saddam(yeah, finally after spending 30 bn$; for heaven's sake that man would have voluntarily walked in for half that money!), terrorism remains as rooted as ever with Laden bringing his bag of tricks here and there, with a smattereing of sarcasm at the hallowed powers of the western world. Disaster has been the second name of the year and 'Tsunami' seems to be the second most searched word on the net(none can beat that first word though).

Finally to sum it up, rich have grown richer, the poor more poorer. Common man has again withstood everything and still hopes to become rich as in the desi bollywood films(by the way, film industry has done decently too...). Me too thinking of doing better than the soon forgettable year 05.

Will finish this off with one of my favourite poems by Oliver Goldsmith:

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Lats ka 'funda'.....and the looming test mein 'anda'

The 'laterals' happened at NITIE a few days back......boy, was it a roaring success!! Well with salaries zooming up up and above, it does sprain one's neck to keep a glimse of the salary figures.

For the uninitiated, non-B School junta, lemme explain wats this Lats....the people with a minimum of 20 months work experience have a chance of entering into lateral positions in the organisation in this phase of placements. The funda behind is very simple. Some companies coming down to campus have a minimum work experience criteria for recruiting people....so, such companies were bundled into the 'laterals' placements day. Well, the obvious result of such a scenario is that salaries just crashed the roof and flew over the top of everyone's expectations....with salaries repeatedly crossing the 7 digit mark.

Yeah, just came back from Chennai after taking part in 'Latitude', the fest of Great lakes Institute of Management. We were accomadated in a beach side resort....nice stay for 2 days....won some prizes and at the end of it.....a feeling of 'ye dil maange more'...still lingering!

Exams looming in the sights, but have'nt started my preps......gotta sit and slog, else will surely be topping in the reverse direction this time too.....so will be signing off with this trademark calvin clip just for u all!




Ciao till next time...Harsha

Why is the court soo small??

Tried my luck at playing tennis today.....well, it was really a spectacle to watch me play. Seeing Roger Federer or Andy Roddicck on the TV makes one feel that its all too easy. All one needs to do is to give the ball a good hiding....well, found out that its not soo easy to do that!(after almost losing the ball on a couple of occasions.. trying to whack the ball). Trying to find the corners of the court, i managed to hit it right out of the fence into the dense undergrowth surrounding the tennis court. Finally realisation dawned on me that all one needs to do is to try hitting it back onto the playing area(yeah, the court seems too small at times when trying to do this..).

Trying to hit the ball onto the court is one thing and trying to 'serve' is all together a different 'ball' game... Here one needs to try and hit the ball as hard as possible giving it the right trajectory, right direction and also the right altitude. Now, if any one out of these 3 go awry, u are in for another gruelling mental contest to get it right the next time. At the end of my first service game, i finally won the mental battle though i lost the physical one....after serving 8 times continuously(some at the net, some outside, and some on the wrong side of the court) learned to keep the ball within the court. This cycle went on for quite some time...with each new game bringing new hope. Tactically wanted to try too many things, but somehow things were entirely out of my hand. Finally after more than an hour, lost the best of 5 games match..... Have made a mental note to play tennis more often and learn to play this wonderful game better.

But still thinking.. if only the court was a little bigger and the net a little lower, things could have been easier!

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Mid mBa life crisis..!

The lack of posts from my side can be squarely blamed on what one can call as 'Mid mBa life crisis'....yeah, been pretty retrospective about how things have been unfolding here. Its been more like riding a car without brakes.

Last few weeks have been a period of soul searching and sleeping types....what with all the marks for our first module pouring in one by one and giving me a clear indication of where i stand in my class.. I was somehow hoping against hope to salvage pride atleast in some subjects, but alas...that was not to be. Finally i find my rank hover somewhere in the lower middle half of the class. Yeah, a nose dive from my engineering days.....(this i think is the reason i have been listening to 'tose were the best days of my life' nowadays..). Well....hopin for some luk tis time atleast:)

Well....other than acads everythin's been rockin...been makin some money from winning in B-school fests(yeah...its the season for many fests...). I hav sort of decided to enjoi life and participate in as many fests as possible....after ICFAI, IIM A and SP Jain lookin at the othr fest frm Great Lakes, IIM C, FMS....etc. More abt these in future posts......

Lemme tell ya a funny incident at IIM A's Confluence(yup...tats the name of their fest).... The ppl at A generally hav a wee bit of wat i may call as 'head weight'....most of their games are usually won by teams frm IIM A only( well, well....i don't think its gotta do much with superior standards, lol). Found an interesting mention in their comments book from someone, here it is...

'First prize-IIM A
Second Prize-IIM A
Third prize-IIM A
.
.
.
the saga continues'...

well, interesting really.

Seriously, other than this...it was a pretty gud learnin experience, no other fest would attract such large participation from foreign B-Schools. Also worth noting was the fabulous list of speakers...which included the who's who of corporate world from Mukesh Ambani to Sunil Mittal. With more importance to 'interaction based' events and 'workshops', it was gud to be part of it.....

Some of these incidents hav made me think abt common perceptions ppl have. One thing that rankles me is the mental glass wall that people usually have about the differences in various B-Schools. Afterall the difference between say, a guy from IIM A and NITIE for example would be '2 marks in CAT'......so, practicaly speaking the intellectual standards are not vastly different(rather i would say there's no difference at all..). Still the percieved difference is vast....which is both incorrect and based on wrong assumptions. I strongly believe that the most important value add anyone gets in a B-school is the interactions one has among his/her peers in the institute.....which according to me is not much different among the top 10 B-Schools of the country.

Ciao till next time...Harsha

PS: Well.....crossed 1000 mark... yo...thnx to all readers of my blog.

Bac to 'amchi mumbai' from 'namma bangalooru'

Nearly 10 days in Bangalore and it still feels as if its yesterday i came here...... yeah, time sure flies and im jus findin that i need to catch the flight bac to mumbai today not knowing where i just lost all the time i wanted to utilise and enjoi in bangalore!!

Too bad to figure tat now....anyways...as i came here,
1. I could see that the famed pot holes hav jus started takin dangerous sizes with surface of road resembling more and more like craters of moon
2. Traveling from koramangala to banashankari(about 12 kms) took me nearly 2hrs.....yeah, last time i could cover the same in an hour;)
3. Rains followed me everywhere, wen this time of the yr is supposed to be just the startin of spring here!!
4. The city authorities have started another demolition drive, razing illegal buildings while new ones are comin up in a frenzied pace...
5. There seems to be more people speaking other languages(than kannada) from the last time i came here..
yeah....the list can go on.....

A few days bac, i was watching a program on NDTV......heard Deve Gowda(a former PM, who has come right bac to state politics after futile attempts to make any progress at the national level) speaking abt resignation of Narayan Murthy as Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) head. Here's a funny answer to one question posed to Mr. Gowda:

Q: Did you feel sad that Mr. Murthy resigned as head of BIAL?
A: No no....i only felt bad when Sir M Visvesvarayya resigned as Diwan of Mysore....( funny that Sir MV resigned as diwan in 1918, when Gowda was not even born!!)

Well.....with such ppl around no doubt all changes in bangalore hav been for the worse than gud!

Hope that there's a miracle frm somewhere to change things around........i'm just hoping, yup may be hoping against hope;)

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Bored....

I was feeling very bored today......not much to do, feeling somewhat low and quite edgy....i am counting the no. of days before i go back to bangalore for diwali!

So, was randomly searching the net....came across a chap called 'Edgar Allen Poe", yeah...the same chap who had written most of the poems which used to be there in our high school text books. Just started reading about him....was a very unhappy man, full of sorrow and melancholy.

Here's about him:

'Drug addict, alcoholic, suicidal, and insane; none of these are the words that come to mind when you think of great minds of our time. However, one poet fits all of these categories. The author of hailed literary works such as "The Raven," and the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe had many mental and personal problems throughout his life. His poems reflect his emotions toward the events of his life. For example, his feelings of isolation from family and peers appear in the poem "Alone," and many of his poems, such as "To Helen," and "Annabel Lee," are about the women he loved. One poem stands out, as a tribute to the melancholy that accompanied him throughout his days; the poem "A Dream" speaks of lost love, forgotten happiness, hope, and a cruel awakening to the real world. Poe’s writing exemplifies his brilliant imagination through metaphors that describe his life.

Edgar Allan Poe made many contributions to the world of literature and poetry. The academy of American poets says, "Poe's work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature" (http://www.poets.org/poets/). He was the first true writer of thriller and horror stories, with tales such as "The Cask of Amontillado." His clever mind dramatically altered detective stories, he took the writing of short stories from a mere profession to an art, and he was a brilliant poet. His fame was known through America, England, and France, with renowned works such as "The Raven," "The Bells," "The Purloined Letter," and countless others. Though a troubled individual, Poe’s effect on literature and poetry was mind-blowing. It is impossible to read a poem or story written by Edgar Allan Poe without being terrified, feeling great remorse for the characters, and noticing the breathtaking power with which Poe wields his words'.

Here's one of his works:

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense
Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!

Yeah.....just a stanza from one of his poems, donno if it makes sense;) though!

Mumbai sucks man.....just waiting to get back to bangalore!!!!!..........Happy Diwali to u all!!

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Some photos of BT-Acumen with Harsha

Harsha Bhogle during the Quiz

Achoring the debates

Well, some snaps from the debate......it was a nice experience being face to face with Harsha Bhogle, who was anchoring the debate and quizzes.


Ciao till next time...Harsha

BT-Acumen debates

With life leading towards outwardly monotonous and singular pointlessness, was looking at some reprieve from daily routine(yah....i know u wold'nt have understood), BT-Acumen happened. Me and Vidyashankar(he's one dude u would want in a debate...) got selected to represent debate from our college...nice experience going to SPJIMR for two days because of this.. ;)

One thing that constantly bugs me(everyone else.....also) is the distance that seperates NITIE and rest of Mumbai......yeah, we talk about NITIE being the only place in Mumbai not connected with the local trains. Yeah, its really a pain to travel without the locals...

Yeah, comin back to the debate itself, the initial rounds were pretty commonplace...with not many institutes showing good talent. The later rounds were tough though. The sad part is we lost in the semifinals to SP (i think marginally, though... tats how one would feel like!!). The gud part is the gift vouchers for 5k tat came along......

Ciao till next time...Harsha

Mumbai- the 'Beauty' and the 'Beast'

As I was telling you all in some of my previous posts, Mastishk this time was a huge...huge hit. The website garnered more than 35,000 hits and over 4,200 registrations......that too in a matter of 12 days!! I have been pretty busy with the site in general.....So, if u ppl have missed the fun, have a look at the site- http://mastishk.nitie.net/.

Other than that.....have been travelling around Mumbai for last 2 weeks, and am really charmed at the 'Old-beauty' of the city.....but aghast at some of the 'New-beastlies' mushrooming up now.

Well, had gone down to South Mumbai.......am still floored by the architectural wonder called the 'Victoria Terminus(now, Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus)'. So I am generally quoting the history and background of profound architectural structures, and places of general interest.....in the following paragraphs.....

"Modeled on the lines of the St Pancras Station in London, Victoria Terminus is undoubtedly the Raj's piece de resistance, Complete with carved stone friezes, stained glass windows and flying buttresses. It is Gothic architecture at its best, an awesome edifice that most citizens view with deep pride. At the top of the central dome stands the triumphant figure of Progress. The station was christened to commemorate Victoria Jubilee Day in 1887 when India's first steam engine puffed out to neighboring Thane, about 45 kms away. Today it has been rechristened Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus after the Maratha warrior. And the old steam engines have been replaced by electric ones. But to the 2.5 million commuters who push past its massive portals everyday, this is still VT, the pulse of a throbbing city".

The sea which stretches along Mumbai is a wonderful sight in itself. Though most beeches are thronged by people....yup, lotsa people, people everywhere;) , its still lovely to spend an evening on the beech.

"Over two thousand years ago, Mumbai was an archipelago of seven islands, inhabited by the kolis. These tribal fisherfolk still live here in tightly knit communities that the passing centuries have scarcely touched. The best place to see them is in the 600-year-old Worli Fishing Village that stands on a sliver of land jutting into the sea. Plunge into one of its winding gullies and you will instantly be assailed by the smell of drying fish, and colourful koli women, their dark skins offset by chunky tribal jewellery. At the end of the village is a small Portuguese fort with remnants of an old armoury, soldiers' barracks and thick ramparts. Before the Raj, when Portugal ruled Mumbai, this was a strategic vantage point to counter attacks from the sea".

Tats, enough for the day i suppose......will get back to reading the book- "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.......pretty interesting book, this one.

So, ciao till next time....Harsha