Yukon Ho!!!!

Antidote for depression

2005-11-24T03:39:00.000-08:00

I have found the perfect remedy for depression.When you are down and out in the dumps all you do is pick up a Friends' DVD and see atleast 4 episodes back to back.You will see yourself smiling inspite of your condition.

Give and forgive!

2005-11-15T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have this calendar owned by my friend in front of me at my desk which shows a proverb for each day. She religiously changes the page each day. Well talk about girls being very meticulous .

Well the proverb for today that is right in my face says "Do you want to live a healthy life? Give and forgive! " . Woah!!!! whoever heard of that ???? I thought to live a healthy life you need to at least eat well and exercise. But what do I know , may be give and forgive is what I ought to do to lead a healthy life

To catch a thief

2005-10-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Well we caught one yesterday. No I did not personally catch him but I was a part of the interrogation team. We had just about opened our text book and were readying ourselves for a long drawn session when there was a knock at the door. It was from two blokes staying on the second floor of my friends house where I had been for the study session. They seemed quite worried. One of them said they had apprehended a thief and wanted our help.

So off we went climbing the stairs and the thoughts running through me at that moment was , hey I have always heard of thieves but never been able to put a face to one. So today I thought was the day when a thief would have a real face. He turned out to be a sorry figure sitting on the balcony with one of his arms twisted behind his back and tears streaming down his face. Quickly around 7-8 of them were surrounding the fella and then the interrogation started. He was asked why he was there and reply was , "Sorry sir I was drunk and didn't have a clue as to what I was doing". I suggested to call the local police and the fella let out a heart wrenching wail. Then we wanted to know the life history of the fella. He said he was studied in MES college but later made it as drop out after the first year. Age 18 years and was married!!!!! Staying with in laws as parents had thrown him out of the house. His dad was supposed to be a mobile salesman but didn't have a mobile of his own. We asked him for a reference or a phone number but he said he couldn't remember any. He did have a phone book which we searched through and he said it contained the office phone number of his wife. She works in VLCC koramangala and we called her. He was pleading that we not tell any of his (mis)adventures to her. A call to her confirmed that there really existed a guy by the name we had caught and it was her husband. We told her that we were from the RTO and had rounded up this chap on the road and he did not have the necessary papers.

After the interrogation which lasted almost an hour and a half we were confused as to what to do with him and after much deliberation we decided to let him go scot free after some stern warning. The chap whose mobile was being stolen by this fella was the one who decided to pardon him.

Once the fella was gone we came down and dug ourselves into that big fat MO textbook of ours cos it's mid term tomorrow.

Yukon Ho!!!

2005-09-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Oh well not Yukon but Quebec, which is where i am heading to. Sept 19th 2005 is turning out to be one of the most memorable days of my life. A day when i am feeling on top of this world. A day when i feel nothing can possibly go wrong to me on this day. Well the day did not start of on any kind of exemplarily note but , by noon today i got a mail from our prof that we were the team that is selected to represent IIMB at the international case competition going to be held in Montreal from Jan 3rd to the 7th. Details of the competition is here .
Well i had to bunk office on Friday to submit our analysis of Canadian Airlines for the prelims at IIMB. Well i guess we did do a pretty neat job in the end.

The entire trip is going to lighten my pockets by around 1 lakh rupees, but i guess it is going to be worth it. Hopefully i will get some assistance from IIMB or my company. Also if any of you out there want to sponsor my trip you are most welcome ;)

Apart from that my finance prof for the last quarter has said that he was willing to let me and another batch mate of mine to work with him on some project. Discussions to continue on that from next week. So all in all it turned out to be a super cool day.

Well as i was returning home thinking on how nothing could go wrong today , my bike had other plans. The front tire decided it was time to deflate my ego so it decided to deflate itself. Well i had to push my bike rest of the way home , almost 2 kms. Well today being such a wonderful day i have decided to forgive my bike.

Bloggers Block

2005-09-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah that is what I am stuck with these days. No it is not the unavailability of time that is preventing me from posting and also not the unavailability of events. I will purely put it down to laziness on my part .

Well the things that have happened after the last post are

Quarter 1 comes to a successful end. Though the grades are not out yet but I believe I haven't done too badly. The paper I was worried about the most in the exam was Micro eco , but have got the answer sheets for them and I have sailed through. yippee!!!!

Went on a trek to Kemmangundi with my rommie, his cousins and 2 friends of his cousin. Well these chaps are fresh out of college and the enthusiasm shows. I also had a very rude shock when one of them called me an Uncle as I was climbing the hill slower than them. First time somebody has called me an uncle!!!!!!!! Well the grey hairs are beginning to show and I will have to live with that from now on I guess :)

Won a quiz . This was not with my regular quizzing partner who has ditched me and found solace in the green bills with uncle Ben's image. But a victory is always great. It has helped bloat my already inflated ego further.

Quarter 2 has also begun. This time the subjects are Macro eco , Quants and Org Behavior. Well as yet all of them are interesting. I guess I like Macro the most and quants the least. Well numbers and me were never friends anyways!

Today is Onam as well. I am trifle sad that I couldn't be at home in Kerala with my parents. But did not miss out on a full fledged sadhya here. My rommie had invited around 10 of his team mates home for lunch. A good stumpous lunch always leaves me in a state of bliss and it is this bliss that inspired me out of the Bloggers Block.

Some real bird watching

2005-08-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

The week started of with some hectic activity as there were two reports and an presentation, one for each of my course and by mid week i was thru with all of them. Yupp a surprise as history has shown me to be a last minute ditch effort person , but for once things were different. But i am sure this is a one off incident and things will soon back to be normal and i will soon be back to my old antics.

Mom was around this week , and i took a day off to spend some time with her. Saturday started off with all the prof's concluding their lectures for the current quarter and wishing us luck for the end term exams. Submission of all papers were done in time and now it is going to be a good solid slog for a week before the exams.

The weekend also saw a cultural fest at IIMB and i watched some plays by the colleges from across Bangalore in the evening. There were plays by Chekhov, Shaw , Marlowe , but what really stood out, was a play written and performed by some girls from MCC Bangalore. That was really a class apart. The auditorium was filled with the usual shouting, cat calls, fun and masti associated with such events. I did some good bird watching too :). Well must admit that was the best part of the whole evening.

We headed out to Geoffrey’s after the event and i even shook a leg after a very long time. Sunday was spent in a special class with the Prof taking us through the financial reports of Titan industries. Came to know on how companies with very good brand image in the market can actually be doctoring their financial reports consistently for years. I have lost all respect for this company of the Tata's.

It was also the day of the inaugural Turkish grand prix and saw Kimi winning comfortably. If only Montoya had not spun out on the penultimate lap i could have walked home with a 5 liter keg of kingfisher beer :(

As busy as it can get

2005-08-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

After hours spent doing Industry Analysis for the automobile sector and reading on why Boeing should not produce a super-jumbo carrier ( frankly after reading through the Greek and Latin masqueraded as English by the author , I don't care a hoot if Boeing as a company never ever produces another plane. Ever!!!!!!!) I was zapped. It was then that my study buddy asked "why not go check out a play at RangaShankara ?" . I was just waiting to run away from my books by then.

When we reached the theater , we came to know that it was the play called as "A heap of Broken Images" , and it would be a single character one act play. You can read the review of the play here. I was apprehensive , should I blow a hundred bucks just to watch a middle aged lady talk to herself for an hour. Not a very attractive proposition. But I decided , what the heck lemme go for it. What a wonderful play it turned out to be . The artist was simply awesome, and boy what a command over the language and how on earth could somebody hold an group of 100 odd people mesmerized for an hour. Bloody brilliant I say.

RangaShankara , I'll be back for more plays!

Independence day was spent entirely at home reading stuff and completing the report. Now it is almost 70% done. Have a submission this weekend . Hopefully will be able to finish it off. Dad and Mom coming tomorrow, can't wait to see them

Converting your religion for getting married

2005-08-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

We ( me and my roomie) had this wonderful argument till the wee hours yesterday night about the righteousness of a person converting to a different religion not based on beliefs and values but based on convenience . The crucial question is when two people belonging to different religions are getting married should one of them get converted to the others religion just for the sake of convenience and for acceptability in the society.

We took couple of examples and in all those things what was clearly happening was that it was the girl who was converting to the boys religion. My question is "Is this right?" . Because your conversion is not based on values , but for convenience and acceptance.

Or am I putting too much stress on religion....We must just think that all religion are a path to God and changing it on paper shouldn't matter as long as it helps you achieve your oneness with Him.

For atheists well , it doesn't really matter isn't it :)

Of Scheming Mother-in-Laws and Tortured Daughter-in-Laws

2005-08-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

What is the basic difference between life seen on TV and the real(?) life . Well let me tell you because for the past 72 hours I have been doing nothing else. Life outside the TV has a lot less color and the people are a lot uglier :)

Headed home after yet another grueling Saturday. This time the test was over by 7:00pm and my bus only started at 9:30pm, so I had enuff time at hand to rush and grab my bag and then race off to the bus station. This time it was a far better bus ride than the previous one to kerala. The plan I had was to do nothing for the next 3 days and that is exactly what I did. I didn't even bother getting up from in front of the TV unless it was absolutely essential. It was raining like crazy outside , but I bothered not one bit !

I watched a whole lot of soaps on TV because my mom wouldn't let me see anything other than that during the prime time in the evenings. It is good fun I must tell you these soaps. I had the following insights after watching them.

1) The Mother-In-Laws are generally bad. They always plot to finish off their Daughter-In-laws and their partner-in-crime is their daughter.

2) The husband chappy is a spineless nincompoop who loves his wife , but will not hear a word against his mother or sister.

3)If you could just use the money used to buy the glycerin for the Daughter-In-Law ( heroine of the soap) , we could have a surplus budget in India for the next financial year.

4)In soaps people talk aloud while they think and they are always plotting one thing or the other or else they would be crying for what atrocities have been committed against them.

5) Ladies put a lot of make-up and jewelry even while at home and that too in the night.

6) People are either very good or very bad, there are absolutely no shades of grey.

7) And these stories move nowhere in 3 days time. I think by the time I am home for the next vacation I can sure get to know if the Mother-In-Law was finally able succeed in her evil scheme of things or whether the Daughter-In-Law managed her revenge.

" After all Computers Crash , people die and relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breath and reboot." ... this my dear friends is a philosophical statement from Sarah Jessica Parker and with that I switched off my TV and got back to the Real world ;)

Rain Rain Go Away!!!! (at least when I am driving)

2005-07-26T03:55:00.000-07:00

A chilly Bangalore morning and I struggled the urge to stay back in my cozy bed, lazily got up and viewed out of the balcony. It was raining , and all I wanted to do was stay back at home make a cuppa chai, eat some hot breakfast and read a book. A perfect weather to do just nothing . But then I have to go to office. The moment I got out of my house and on to my good old Yamaha , all my love for the wonderful rainy morning disappeared. I realized it is going to be painful drive to the office where the brakes of the bike won't be effective. All these thoughts came to an abrupt stop as soon as the Honda City in front of me decided to do the same thing. I missed making a dent into the bumper of that car by the proverbial whisker. At the next signal a chap with a pillion rider behind him decided to make a splash and dash even after the signal had turned red for him. Then the inevitable happened , the green signal guys made a go for it and this bike chappy was unable to brake and they came crashing down in front of my eyes. The entire junta gave them an earful as they were picking him up . They were more embarrassed than hurt I guess. When are we ever going to learn to follow the traffic signals!!!!

Reached office safe and wet. Now the very thought of riding back in the rain dampens my mood.

Times, they are a changing

2005-07-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

What used to be leisurely weekends are now days filled with hectic activities . Heck even Sundays are not spared. And don't you want to know what happened to that unbalanced sheet of mine, well it turned out to be a semi balanced sheet after all and I did not do too badly at all . The corrected papers were given away this weekend. Bought Harry potter and finished it in a day , the book has all the build up done for the final one in the series and it will be an agonizing wait for at least another year to see what happens to dear Harry.

Got an exam this weekend too and 2 reports also that needs to be done. And to top it all one of my study mates has got chicken pox and is retreating today towards his home town. Looking forward to a hectic week as the past one. Somebody please take me away for a 2 day vacation , pleaseeeee!!!! But then I don't have the time for that :(

An unbalanced sheet, a marriage and a lot of bird watching

2005-07-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

Yupp that is my past 4 days for you. It all started with a some hectic studying in the evenings trying to do some balancing acts on financial statements and by the end of it all i was pretty unbalanced and so was my answer sheet that i turned in for the exam. So when the grades are out i don't have very high hopes, but in the same breath i must confess that i leant a lot about balance sheets in the last few days , though it might not get reflected on to the marks. Once the exam was over i had to skip "Aarambh" , the welcoming party for freshers at IIMB and rush off to catch my bus to Kottayam. It was a sleeper bus and i was hoping to catch up on my sleep for the last two days. The rain gods had other plans for me.

As soon as the bus hit kerala , the rains started hitting me... first in my slumber i thought i was taking a bath , then i realized it is a big leak in the window of the bus... my entire bed was getting wet and finally it transformed itself into a water bed. I decided to take leave of my bed and went into the drivers cabin. Kerala is a refreshing sight in the monsoons. There was greenery all around and it was an exhilarating sight. I felt at home !!!

I reached Kottayam by around 9:00 in the morning and at the wedding house people were running around , everybody was looking at their shining best and there i was looking rather rumpled. Had a quick bath and after some good breakfast even i was shining.
The rains were kind of incessant the entire day. We all then proceeded to the church for the wedding. The roads were a bit jammed because of the rains and we had some minor parking troubles at the venue. But apart from that the event was a great success. After lunch i went to see some old school teachers of mine who are now settled in Kottayam. By evening i was back at the grooms place. His cousins had arranged some ragging for the bride and groom. By night i was pretty much out after the post marriage get-together.

Monday morning we (my friend, his wife and me) decided to head out to the bird sanctuary at kumarakom. The roads leading to the sanctuary are not great but the scenery around it makes up for those potholes. The sanctuary doesn't have any sign boards on the road side, so when you travel there , you have to follow the signboards for the Taj Kumarakom resort and then take the immediate left turn after Taj if you are heading from kottayam. The entry fees to the sanctuary is Rs 5/- and there is a walking trail into the 100 acre santuary.20 minutes of walk later we came to a place where some canoes were parked in the canal. The boatman offered to takes us through the lake for seeing the rest of the sanctuary for Rs 150/-. We took the canoe and must tell you it was just awesome. There were all kinds of birds in there and for some like the Darter and the Australian crane it is the nesting season. I got to see couple of darters darting off with twigs in their beaks to build its nest.

The boatman took us through a myriad of canals and it was a very enjoyable experience. On the way back we stopped at a toddy shop and had some kallu (toddy) , kappa ( Tapioca) , fish and pork. Aah , my mouth waters at the mere thought of that food.

Well had to start back to Bangalore in the evening .It was a very uneventful journey back just like i wanted and i could catch up on some well needed sleep.

Classes in full swing

2005-06-25T03:54:00.000-07:00

There are classes all thru this weekend. Even on sunday. We have formed into groups of four for our Strategic Management class.My group members are all from different companies and we also don't stay close by , but I don't think that is going to be a problem. We are supposed to assess a firm and prepare a 3000 word report on them in one and half months time. We have also finished 4 cases by now, going at the rate of one case per day. Well initially when a case was discussed you some how got a feeling that you were on the trading floor. Now it is much more organized these days. All of you out there any suggestions on what company i should choose?

Micro economics is turning out to be real scary. The prof unleashed a barrage of alphas , lambdas, slopes ,equations, graphs and curves. I feel like running for cover. I had never ever thought of demand and supply in this perspective.

Some preparation needed for tomorrow’s FA class and also plan to chill out in the evening.

Anniyan(Stranger)

2005-06-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

They should have rather kept the name of the movie as Strange. Well that is what I felt when I saw it. Had the (mis)fortune of watching this Tamil movie starring Vikram two days back. Stunts that were inspired or rather copied from matrix, a plot that has been beaten to death by the same director himself. But beyond all this mediocrity there was something that really set me thinking. The protagonist of the movie here suffers so much anguish that when he see that the society around him doesn't have any civic sense ,causes his alter ego to pop out and punish the wrong doers. Well the story in one line does seem strange doesn't it :) .

Well what set me thinking was that we as citizens of this great country too feel anguished and frustrated when our fellow beings show scant respect for the normal and simple rules. Why I say that we are a great country is not because of what we are currently but cos we were an advanced scientific society when the Europeans were not even toilet trained. Heck , we even invented the Zero. And that is precisely what we applied to our following the traffic rules ,our civic sense and our infrastructure.

Talking of which I read in the papers that for each liter of petrol that one rupee goes to a cess that is for developing the infrastructure. What infrastructure ???? We have a debate going on now whether we should have a Metro or a mono rail for Bangalore. I say give us something .The old man Deve Gowda seems to be hell bent on stalling any development projects for the city. And why is he doing that , Beats me .

Mark my words , this city will burst out of its seams if nothing is done now. Later may be a bit too late. The logic I have is Bangalore is a cash cow for the state. Concentrate on developing the roads , rails and airport here so that the city brings in more money which you can utilize to develop the rest of the state .

And for all this gyan on civic sense , I jumped a red signal today :)

And the saga begins...

2005-06-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Yes the first class ,started right on dot at 8:00 am on June 17th. An affable Prof walked in to the class and announced that he would be teaching us Financial Accounting for the rest of the Quarter. And at the end of it we would be able to understand , prepare and interpret financial statements of companies . Also we would know a good deal about GAAP ( Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) , Ha!!! and you thought it was the Gap I am an expert in ;)

He was very kind in saying that he would give the data for the exams one week prior to the exam and he would just tweak around a bit in the financial statement and ask questions based on that. Well , the logic was simple. Business is done in comfortable environments and even in comfortable environments they flounder. So similarly when you have the data for the exams with you , you should be comfortable and in those comfortable situations you will flounder. Well I am feeling really uncomfortable now.

He also summed up the entire situation in a very profound statement , which said "If rape is inevitable , just lie back and enjoy" .Now that is something you don't expect your Prof to come up with on the first day of your course :) . Was a really interesting session , the examples cited were really simple and from day to day lives , but made perfect sense as analogies to the business.

Then came the Prof for Strategic Management. He asked us to answer the questions of the first case on GE right away. Whaaaaa???? When was I supposed to read the case before the class... and this is the first class goddamit!!!! He said open the big fat book on cases , it is written there that you gotta read the first case before coming to the class. To think I never even bothered to open any of those fat books before coming in. Anyways he was good enough to give some 20 minutes to read the case and come up with answers. And for the next days class there is another case that needs to be read. So assignment from Day 1, Badhiyaa hai!!!!!

The third session for the weekend was on Micro Economics. Well I understood till the Demand and Supply portion , but then by the end of the class I had some really tough bouncers like Elasticity of demand and some weird looking graphs. A good beginning I must say.

Kya yeh saab mai jhel paaunga , dekengey hum agley weekend classes par !!!!

What Customers Want..

2005-06-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just back from a Session from Ms Deborah Farnaby who is the Global Director Information Technologies for De Beers. It was on De Beer’s IT strategy and expectations from an IT consultant. It was one of the most informative sessions where she very articulately put what customers look for while selecting a business partner for their IT outsourcing.

One of the key things that she stressed was that when you as an IT company venture into a business with a new partner , your team should imbibe the Mission ,Vision and Values of your customer. You must treat them on par with the visions and values of that you share from your own company. You should also take an active interest in knowing and understanding the business of your customer. The phrase she used was "Business Smart IT People and IT Smart Business People" . The IT people need to get business savy and make the Business folks or the customers IT savy. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it!

The second point was that a lot of customers do not want the most bleeding edge technology that is out there in the market , but they want technology that would enable them to enhance their operations and bring added value to their business. We as their technology partner would then have the responsibility to understand their business and to provide them with solutions and technology that would apt for their business and help them realize better value from their business.

The third point was about trust. Trust between the customer and their IT outsourcing partner. Trust is not given nor asked for it needs to be earned. You do not earn the trust of your customer by telling them everything is fine when in reality it is not. If there is a real problem let them know in advance. Push back if you have to . If they are wrong in some assessment let them know and give them reasons on why you think it is wrong. Ultimately it should be a Win Win situation for both partners. Every body is in business to earn fair and reasonable profit, with the operative word being fair and reasonable.

One more interesting point to note was that she spoke only about the maturity of process , expertise and the excellence in delivery of the Indian IT industry and not about the cost advantage.

Lastly there were some insights that were given on the Diamond industry as a whole and DeBeers as a company. Truly delightful I must say. Keep these points in mind while doing business and you could do "Business with DeBeers Forever" or for that matter any of your customers

Time table is ready , am I?

2005-06-15T04:53:00.000-07:00

Got the time table for this weekend classes. Only problem i can see is that it starts at 8:00 am in the morning. When was the last time I ever attend a class at 8:00 am , almost a decade ago for my math tuition. And I hated getting up at unearthly hours ( for me anything before 7:30 in the morning is unearthly) to go sit in a class.

Well on the other fronts the yahoo groups of the batch just seems to be overflowing with mails. Some are suggesting that we form study groups based on the area we live in , yet others are just updating where they work and how many years ex they have. I am being a good passive reader to all these mails.

Yukon Ho!!!

2005-06-13T22:14:00.000-07:00

"My tiger friend has got the sled
and I have packed a snack.
We're all set for the trip ahead
We're never coming back!

We're abandoning this life we've led
So long, Mom and Pop!
We're sick of doing what you've said,
and now it's going to stop!

We're going where it snows all year
where life can have real meaning
a place where we won't have to hear:
"Your room could stand some cleaning!"

The Yukon is the place for us!
That's where we want to live.
Up there we get to yell and cuss
and act real primitive.

We'll never have to go to school
forced into submission
by montreous, crabby teachers who'll
make us learn addition.

We'll never have to clean a plate
of veggie glops and goos.
Messily we'll masticate
using any fork we choose!

The timber wolves will be our friends
we'll stay up late and howl
at the moon, till nighttime ends
before going on the prowl.

Oh, what a life! We cannot wait
to be in arctic land
where we'll be masters of our fate
and led a life that's grand!

No more of parental rules!
We're heading for some snow!
Good riddance for those grown-up ghouls!
We're leaving! Yukon Ho!
- Bill Watterson

Aaah the Kind of life i would like to lead .

Quarter 1 Day 0

2005-06-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm.. My blog finally. My space for insane mumblings and ramblings. Well I thought maybe I will keep this one as a journal for the next 2 and half years , but then you never know if like most of the other adventures I have started off I might just drop this one off in the middle. So with a disclaimer like that lemme start off.

June 11th 2005 , well that is an important day cos I am getting admitted to IIMB for PGSEM. Got to the campus just in time at 8:30 am and then there was this big queue in front of me already to register. Patiently waited for my turn, paid up the rest of the fees 50k for this semester. After that collected the 3 big books, one for Strategic Management , one for Financial accounting and the third is for Micro economics. All big fat books and to think that these will have to be digested in 10 weeks . Well I have signed up for it. Just glanced through the micro economics book. A lot of graphs ... eeeks ...gawd what have I done ....

Well the inauguration started at 9:30 am sharp with Dean Srinivasan , Prof Ojha , Prof Raj Bandi and Prof Venkatagiri giving some instructions and wishing us all the best for the next 10 quarters. Then there came some gyan session from seniors , Abinav , Pavan and who was the third chap ( I forget his name) . They emphasized just one thing , there is no way to beat the system :) Well if they say so.

1:30 pm and my batch mates are still throwing a lot of questions at Pavan and the "third Chap" , this is one hell of an enthu batch . They wanna know it all on the first day itself . I remember my MS batch , only a couple of them were high enthu , but here almost 75% of the batch seems extremely enthu. Well it is the first day in IIM B and yes the excitement can be felt in the air.

We had Lunch in the campus and then Mr Bharti took us around the campus. These big concrete structures are very imposing. We walk around the campus. It is a different world altogether. Well 3:00 Pm already . Headed straight to home after the walk.

A phrase from Pavan still lingers in my head , it will not be TGIF any more from now rather OGIF ( Oh God it's Friday!!!) .