Question????

I know not what, I know not how,
I know not when, I know not where,
But at some point, somewhere and some how I did.
Locked up in a cage without bars,
A prison without guards,


Tis’ but a tragedy that I cannot control,
The realms of reality are two fold,
Freedom I have, but the mind doesn’t let go.
Looking to serendipity to pull me out of this low.

deep thought (yeah right!!!)

Why are all the good things in this world already taken? Be it business ideas, women, or whatever else you want to think of.  I am especially pissed off with the fact that ideas and women are always taken.  I mean how is it possible that I always miss these by either a year or two?? ;) So I remember coming up with some cool ideas which were either already implemented just about a year back, in some remote corner of the world.  Now coming to women, it’s the same case, they are always taken (the good ones that is).  I am sick and tired of it, so yeah I missed out on all the possible hook ups during my bachelors, due to some stupid notions that I might have had at that time. But why now? Now it’s too late apparently, too old too late too nice, there is always some problem or the other.   I am tired of it; I guess this possible thought has been bothering me ever since talking to my mom. Cant digest the fact that I would have to settle for an “arranged marriage”.  

Or could it be that these women too are looking for their perfect matches and I am never the one? Wow what a fucking morbid thought…..

Proposal

Couple days ago mom called….. The conversation goes as follows
“Hey son how are you doing?”

“Fine mom, extremely busy, lot of work and I don’t have time to breathe”

Now the kicker…..

“Dad got a call from this friend of a friend of a friends’ uncle who has two daughters….”

I usually have a sixth sense for these things, and I guess you don’t need much of an intuition to figure out what was coming…. So anyway I start to scream, and mom tells me to calm down and listen so I do

“One of the daughters is a doctor, and they asked about you, and if they can get you to talk to the girl.”

So as with other such conversations I go

“Mom, I am only 27, and I am still doing my MBA, can’t this shit wait? I don’t wanna think about it now. Besides I don’t think I the parents will be too cool with me trying to start my own thing. I guess we can wait a couple years”

This has happened before about a year and a half back, similar situation, and I had to vehemently oppose, on the grounds that I am planning on going back to school and I can’t think about this shit now. I guess its one of those things which is going to happen more frequently from now on, with the receding hairline and all. Indian parents somehow see this as a big problem; the argument being the less hair you have less is the choices. It almost seems like this whole marriage thing is a huge business of some sort, where the asset (the boy) depreciates over time. Since the present value of the asset is higher, the younger the asset, it seems only natural that you should get the asset married as soon as possible. Now another variable in this equation is about how damaged the asset is, here is where the receding hairline plays a part, so now with receding hairline the asset is automatically discounted at a higher rate. The business it seems is fool proof, parents have it figured, and the only problem is the assets who have to put up with each other for the rest of their lives……

Anyway jokes aside, this whole thing did get me thinking whether it was time to call it quits, I mean call the freedom quits. Is it time to just bite the bullet and enter the dragon if you may? Hmmm food for thought I guess. My thought process goes like this; I have a huge loan, so the higher the earnings of the fellow “asset” the better it is cause we can pay off my loans KIDDING!!!!

Hope mom doesn’t read this Blog……

Wish i had a beer

Pretty shitty day, I haven’t done a thing, and have just been wishing that I had something to drink to fucking wash some of the shitty thoughts out of my head.  I think over the years drinking has just become a crutch which I use when I feel things aren’t in my control.  I got to have more strength, need to look at life in a more realistic way!!!!!  I was just thinking of those days when I started drinking, AJ telling me “dude fucking just start drinking it will help wash down the pain”, does sound kind of corny I know.  Those were the days when I was on my all time lows, the girl I thought I loved didn’t love me, and since then its all been downhill,
drinking when I am happy, drinking when I am sad,
drinking when I feel lousy, drinking when I have been bad.
It has served me quite a bit, in the last few years.  To have gone through 7 years learning to live with my life with the aid of the bottle, has made me rely on it a little too much.  Today when I want it this bad, I am holding back, realizing that I need to take it easy a bit.

confusion

We had a party this weekend, and I had vowed not to drink. ( It really does suck to be sober; I realized that I don’t actually enjoy parties where I don’t drink.  What the hell is wrong with me?  So after the party I was walking a friend home and she gets a call from this dude, who asks her to come on a drive with her.  This dude was drunk as hell, and this girl actually sits in the car with him.  I tried to stop her, but oh well; I guess people have their own compulsions.  Why are people so dumb? Why do they have to do the stupidest things all the time? Why are people hardwired to do dumb stuff?  I just don’t get it.  

Another Boring Day

As I sit here attending the unending bullshit called Investment paralysis, a thought finds its way into the little space that is left to be occupied, what a fucking crock of shit this whole experience is. To have lived through another day at this joint without smoking a joint, is enough of a punishment. I think I need a mind numbing experience now, way too much data overload. Sometimes it seems that my hard drive is one of those ancient 40 Meg drives, which my dad thought was sufficient for all my future needs, of the early 90s. It seems way outdated, and I seem to retain as much information as an ant. Maybe there is a need for a thorough formatting of the drive, one that will allow me to take away some of that information that hasn’t been used or those that I don’t want to use, but fucking keeps coming back to the fore every time I retrieve some information or the other. The painful ones seem to always find its way back to the beginning of the FIFO.

Anyway, looking around at the class I see some of the more attentive people in the class, for example Noddy. Sometimes it seems like we can actually see the information going into his head. Judging by the spastic movements of his head while “imbibing knowledge” that’s being parted, it is obvious that information is definitely entering his head in such violent jerks that I feel one of these days he might just hit the wall behind him. Obviously that is because of the inherent violence in the information. :)

SO we have management of orgasms next, and I am sitting here during the break wondering what I should do in this class. I guess I will try to write a synopsis of the class. Therefore, from that point of view, the part of the class is going to be quite boring…. Therefore from that point of you I am going to write part of the blog about this particular class.

In the last class we counted the number of therefores’ that this dude says during the tenure of the class. The count was 123 therefore’s, 56 “from that point of view” and “120 “part of” in his talk. Now I think that’s quite an achievement.

Oh wait a minute; I just received a mail from one of the guys in this class….. so we are supposed to use one of three phrases in any of our class participation questions or answers, and we get a free drink at todays’ party. Hmmm…. I think I am going to attempt it now….. We have been talking about how processes help in the learning for an organization so here goes (my CP)
“Small organizations tend to have an informal process which makes sure that they are able to constantly learn even though there is no formalized process, however extending the same to a larger organization; its like making an elephant wear shorts”

There done, and the part which is underlined is the phrase that I was supposed to use :) now I am extremely proud of myself. And not only that that’s exactly the CP I wanted to say, only that I just had to add that phrase…. Cool eh?

Some Senti Stuff

Today one of my friends sent me this really mushy website of this one couple who have written about how they met and how they fell for each other. Though I am usually quite annoyed by such topics, and at times quite skeptical about such blatant public display, today this site got me thinking even wishing a bit. Wishing if I would ever have something like this. It actually sickens me at times even thinking about this stuff. Well I don’t wanna write any more than this, it already has sickened me enough :(

Thought of giving the link of the site, but I am not sure if it would be right to publish it like this on the web

Verbal Diarrhea

with the looks of it I seem to have written a lot in the last couple of days. I wonder why though? I dont think I have had an urge to write so much. And so much shit? damn!!!! wonder why...

Sometimes I am not even able to figure myself out..... :)

Pseudo intellectual RANTS

I feel its time to pen down my thoughts as to what b-school is all about, be it single term relationships, the mad race to get an A, the relative grading- sabotage, or maybe even the occasional "hey you are my buddy so I will let you copy my exam".......

So lets start with relationships, a B-School relationship has a unique character to itself, it tends to last a whole term, now the way I see it, there are 8 terms in all so along with "intellectual wine tasting" (as MR Manish Sabharwal mentioned in his talk) we also have other types of wine tasting "you know what I mean". How can you blame them? I mean come on after all we all have to find the best possible specimen. Think about it, now if we can spend 2-3 months thinking about which car to buy, and all along test drive every single possibility, and then test drive again after comparing and contrasting, it is but natural that we would have to do the same with relationships. Of course, the best ones are those that sample more than just 8....... Now it also gives an opportunity for people already in a relationship to wine taste without getting out of the first one as well....... boy what a "brave new world":)

So grades.... they the elixir of ISB life. The sign of a good specimen at times..... So looks like grades serve two purposes, they are used for signaling the health of the specimen, and also assures that many "cows" will use you for consultations. And thank god for these consultations, many of our toppers probably would have never received this kind of attention before. Why should they not? After all they are on their way to becoming the CEOs of the next Microsoft. I mean, I mean, I mean.......... Apart from the women/men angle, we also have the consulting angle, BCGs and the Mckinseys' of our world only recruit from the top 10 percentile of the students. Now What I fail to understand is this, I did attend a Mckinsey presentation, and what I found was that they don’t really need people who are smart, but they actually need people who can bull shit. So me thinks they need to look at the "bull shit" competence.

Now the best aspect of ISB life is "relative grading" or rather sabotage..... So only the top 10% of the people get As and the next 15% get A- and then we have bout 50% of the crowd getting Bs. So inevitably what happens is sabotage or what we call RG. It is a mad rush to get grades, of course now the good looking ones in our batch end up getting "special" help, be it exams or even homework. Now inevitably I think we are gonna now see huge lines in front of beauty salons and maybe even plastic surgeons.....

Now honor code violations, in reality though they is no honor code at ISB, it can be compromised at the first sign of trouble. I mean come on, after all its consulting at stake (whichever way you look at it). The most amazing violations include discussions in the examination room. Yeah they do happen, and usually ISB turns a blind eye to these, unless again your proctor or your TA doesn’t like you:) (Well we will come to this aspect in the next para). Well if it is a friend its all good cause collectively we need to try to get all our friends to get as........ So yeah you would think that the IITian species would not indulge in these, but you would be grossly mistaken. They are among the first actually, because how can they let the consulting placements pass by??? It’s after all the most important thing in their superficial lives. Oh yeah and cha-ching... if your spouse is an ex-ISBian, you have it made!!!!! If anyone wants to "crack-it" in ISB just make sure you marry an ISBian before joining ISB. Oh yeah and don’t worry about whether your spouse would help you out, obviously he/she will, after all it’s about the 30 lakh loan (15+15).


One of the most annoying aspects of living at ISB is traversing through the stairs.... and talk about ergonomically challenged, so they spend millions of dollars to make these fucking buildings look pretty but can’t spend the time to think about how annoying this shit might be?????? I have been having this excruciating pain in my knee, which I can only attribute to these god damn stairs..... So the "limping CEOs" of tomorrow are gonna be the esteemed alumni of ISB....

Its time for the competent TAs of ISB. Our TAs are so learned that they know exactly how to measure the competence of the students... so it goes like this goes "now if you dance with me in the parties you get an extra point, if you don’t then hmmmmm well -5" god forbid if one of the people in your group is someone who didn’t give her the time of the day. (Maybe a bit exaggerated). The TAs also have an uncanny ability to notice buzz words in our exams, as a matter of fact shouldn’t we be graded solely on the ability to regurgitate inconsequential terms such as boot-strapping regardless of whether we know what it means, or even if it is appropriate for the particular question? So our TA says this during our exam - "Please use terms which have been taught in your entrepreneurship class and underline them, do not use terms that have not been taught in this class"

So my exam looked like this

Boot-strapping, effectual reasoning, social capital, value-driven, core competence (damn it that was not taught in our entrepreneurship class CRAP I am gonna fail!!!!!!)    

Class Participations

So one of the funniest aspects of attending ISB is the aribitrary class participation in our classes. In fact we have actually named our favorite characters, and it is quite amazing to just listen to them in class. Primarily people actually get into the habit of using jargon, just for the sake of using them, they believe that this will get them mileage in terms of grades. Of course I am only complaining because I seem to never remember jargon, and terms like Operating leverage or network externality could well be in french. I guess then I should just start with our favorite CPs this semester, oh yeah and in the last 2 weeks we actually have had many amazing CPs.

CP King - Our sections CP king is most definitely the most "learned" person in class. Notice the quotes cause he isnt really that knowledgeable but most of the time just banks on people not knowing anything about the subject, and sometimes he does get caught and we usually make sure we snub him when he does

CP for the week: As we all know there are 3 million, no 4 million no! 10 million muslims blah blah blah

My synopsis: As we all know we need to adjust population to the prevailing exchage rate, or maybe inflation who knows... therefor our man was obviously just doing the real-time exchange rate conversion in his head...... :)

CP Queen- OUr CP queen is quite unique, her CP usually last a whole 5-10 mins. It so happens that I usually sleep at the begining of her question and when I wake up she is still talking.... Sp her CP goes as follows "first blah blah blah, secondly blah blah blah blah, thirdly blah blah blah"

It almost seems like she has rehearsed her CP and then just shoots off these rehearsed words of wisom. It so happens many times that she eats away all the possible questions and the other "great CP souls" in our class have to then repeat what she has said to get their points.


Also what I fail to understand is that people end up just talking shit sometimes, even about things that they knwo nothing about. for example we had a presentation yesterday about Cisco and someone asked the person "so what about IPV6, what is cisco's strategy there?"
so our man goes "IPV6 is not really picking up because its linux based so when linux picks up and there are some security issues as well"

I mean come on what does linux have to do with IPV6..... IPV6 is just a new standard which enables a larger connectivity, has nothign to do with security or with linux. (well I could go more technical but then in interest of my sorry finger (typing) I will stop)

Noddy: SO we have a unique character in class. This dude is pretty funny, lets call him "noddy" he has a habit of repeating whatever the professor says and he keeps nodding his head all through the class. Its almost there is a vibrator in his head and anytime he listens to the professor it just gets started..... Now I have been thinking what would he do when his wife yells at him
"you asshole, why did you come home late"
noddy: "yeah asshole why ..... late"
wife : "stop repeating what ever I say"
noddy(while nodding) : "say, sure sure sure"
Well I could go on.... and on about different situations, but you get the picture ;)

So another interesting thing this semester is that, I am sitting next to this dude, who is fucking hillarious.... he has some smart comment or the other whenever some one opens their mouth in class.... I just cant stop laughing.

Investment paralysis and Management of Orgasms.....

Its Tuesday and the professor (Management of Orgasms) has just walked in, aparently the class is going to be boring. So I have decided to blog, instead of paying attention. So we had investment paralysis before lunch, and the dude (professor) was hillarious. I think during the whole class he never, not even once, looked at the students. In fact every 5 mins or so he switched his hindi on "boss, aisa hai blah blah blah" it was too funny. I think I am gonna have a lot of fun in that class, however I do think that I am gonna spend most of the class just laughing at his idiosyncracies. I was told that I was acting spastic in the class, constantly laughing, I am not quite sure how I am gonna listen to the dude while laughing so much.

So then we come to Management of orgasms...... my god talk about orgasms, I think this dude will definitely put every part of my body to sleep.... ;) I would not be surprised if this guy over anesthetizes me, and I die in his class........ talk about a mind NUMBING experience.

Another Term About TO start

Its that time again, when a vacation (a minute one nonetheless) ends and a new season of torture begins. What a vacation this has been, basically shit!!! I think I should have gone to Bangalore this time, atleast I would have got to meet some of my friends :( I really thought that this vacation would be a lot of fun, but it basically sucked. I think I enjoyed the vacation more when I was sitting by myself and not hanging out with anyone. Somehow in the last 4-5 days I have realised that I am not exactly a people person, and maybe the extrovertism that I showed was a mask. Who knows....

Term End and funn funn funn

Well its end of the term now.... and the extensive term break of 4 days is already half through. WEll the break has been nice overall, with me confessing a lot more than I should have at times :( wish I could take some of the things I said back, I dont know what I was thinking, well hopefully some people dont hold it against me. FIrst of all it was a confession of fear rather than an actual event, maybe even a session of thinking out loud. Oh well sometimes these small things can create such a riff........