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.