My town - voted one of the best places to live in India!

My hometown Thrissur and Calicut (where I did my engineering) voted as two of the best towns to live in India (Note - Live, not earn!)

Courtesy Anoop's blog.

Of Xmas and more.

The Xmas trees placed around the campus does little to make the heart fill with joy. There were some moments which did manage to transport me back around 15 years back in time.
We have a Christian family as our neighbors and there are 2 sisters and a brother in the family, all of them, around 10 years elder to me.
Xmas season would find us (me and my sister) eagerly waiting for the chettan ("bhaiyya") from the neighboring house to let us know when they will start working on the xmas tree. We would be in high spirits even before this, right from when the "stars" start to appear in the houses. Multicolored, multi-shaped with designs and proclaiming the arrival of the holy day! We would rush to jump across the wall when we saw chettan bring the tree and the assortment of decorations to adorn it. This would take around 4 hours to do. That careful cello tape cutting, putting up of the ribbons without tearing them, winding them on the slender barks of the tree and finally putting cotton at suitable locations to give the appearance of snow. Then, next phase would be the symbolic shed for baby Jesus and all the visitors who came to see him. The small wooden box was being used year after year and is specially stored for this occasion every year. This would be covered with hay, cut to a perfect size and then a small reddish bulb would be put inside this "shed", which gives it a heavenly and cozy feel, just right for the son of god. Then chettan would get all those miniature forms, with baby jesus lying in a cot and the others placed around the glowing baby. Finally once the lighting is turned on the tree, it is indeed a wonderful sight to behold. How i wish i had taken a picture of that!!

The Christians around the area would go to the church at the night and this would be in a procession at the night. We would wait to see this from the balcony. There will be a jeep which would be trailing the procession and there would be a couple of singers sitting in the jeep and singing the prayer out loud. They would recite out stanzas from the bible and the procession would pause to kneel on the ground once in a while, before resuming towards the church. The church was just 5 minutes from my house and I have had the chance to visit it for more than once.
It was recently brought down and a new church was built in its place. Although more grandiose than the old one, somehow, in my mind, it just does not have that feeling of being a place of serenity, which its predecessor had.

Xmas time in Kerala is an amazing feeling, the weather just perfect with the December wind blowing and the night chilly. We had a custom where our Christian neighbors would prepare what we call as "vatteppam" (A variery of "appam" but sweeter and heavier) and would gift us this, along with a Christmas cake (this was reciprocated by us during the Hindu festival of Onam where homemade chips was given to them).

Xmas was fun then, harmonious, everybody celebrating. Now, has it become just another day of meaningless programs on the television?

As for me, this Xmas - the worst ever.
Mind is restless. Depressed might be too strong a word, but close enough.
Pizza, coke, chips and reading Asterix didn’t help and neither did aimlessly watching television, hence this post.

Campus is abuzz with placement preparations. Some of them really serious (into their 50th case preparation (or more)) and some of them just starting off and steaming up. And yet another few who have not even thought about it (but still manage to get shortlists!). I belong to the middle category (no consulting for me, that much I know), with just about starting to get psyched about the process. No, I am not worried about the interview process (got good feedback for the mock interviews). Then what?
Well, to get into the interview room, you have to get a shortlist ain’t it?!
On that incredibly optimistic (!) note, let me end this post and go to sleep early. Tomorrow is a new day and who knows what is in store for us?

P.S As an after thought, my mindless rambling about being tensed about the placement might not be really true and might be an anchoring bias!

Present

----- A few years back ------
“Come on, let us go to the EH. I need a smoke and have run out of it”
“No Sid, you had promised that you would start reducing and then stop. You have already smoked your quota of 5 today”
“Come onnn Ani. This stupid resume is not shaping up and I have not even started on my EOI. I have my stupid MVKS assignment to work on too. I NEED A SMOKE”. Are you coming or not?”
“You are impossible da. You are so badly addicted”
“Arre a man needs a smoke once in a while...what say?

--------------------------------------


“Hello, have I reached the residence of Mr. Sidharth?”
“Yes, Sidharth here”
“Hey Sid, Ani here. Long time”
“Ani? Ani from ISB? God. It HAS been long. What a pleasant surprise man? Where are you calling from?”
“I have been around Sid. Just another mortal with a normal existence….”
“Ok ok. Cut the crap. Tell me when we are meeting. Or why don’t you come over? I will tell Meera to cook a nice dinner and we can talk over some beer and reminisce about the good old ISB days”
“Yes Sid. That would be nice. I wanted to meet you anyways”.

---------The evening------------

“”Hi!!!”
“God Ani, you have changed a lot. I would not have recognized you if I didn’t know it was you”
“Are you going to invite me in or are we going to stand outside and speak?” Ani stood smiling with hands on his hips.
“Ha ha...come on in. You have not changed a bit. Ani and his sarcasm”.
“Wouldn’t quite agree with that Sid. Wouldn’t quite agree…”

-----Over the drinks-------
“Sid, your daughter is lovely. I feel happy for you. And Meera is just perfect for you”
“Thanks man. So what about your social life? Hame kuch bataoge ki nahi?”
Ani just laughed it off.
“Sid, do you smoke these days?”
“My god Ani. You are still on to it eh?”
“Tell me Sid, do you?”
“Ani, I smoke much more than what I used to at ISB. You know the grind right? Long hours, the stressful work…can’t help it da…”
“Sid. I am going to tell you something. You have to hear me out completely. Once I am done, I will ask you for a favor and I want you to do it for me and for yourself”
Ani kept quiet for 2 minutes.
“Ani….”
“Shhh….let me talk. Sid, I am dying. My doctor has given me max 6 months to live. But the fact is that time is running out for me and each and every moment that I have now is like the ticking of a clock. It is like being on a train that has lost control and you know that the gorge is only a small distance away”
Ani was quiet for some more time.
“My god Ani…..”
“No Sid. Let me speak. Do you know how I feel about dying? I feel at peace. I know that all of us have to die at some point or the other and it just so happened that he liked me so much that he wanted me to go back to him. I don’t feel afraid to die. But you know what pains the most? It is the though to getting separated from the people I love. The fact that I won’t get to see the face of the woman who would have been my wife if I had lived. The fact that I won’t get to hold my first baby I would have had if I had lived. The fact that I won’t get to see the first steps of my baby I would have had if I had lived. The fact that I won’t be able to play with my son I would have had if I had lived. The fact that I would need to leave my parents alone in this world. The fact that they will have to be torn apart to see their only son dying in front of them. It hurts Sid, it hurts. Not the thought of death, but the separation from my loved ones.”
“It also hurts to think that my only life as a human being needs to end before I got to do a lot of things in my life. That the sight of rain is a wonder which I will be able to behold for only a few more months, the sound of music is a feeling that I will be able to sense only for a few more months. The smell of coffee is a sensation I would be able to savor only for a few more months. The warmth of a hug from a friend I will be able to enjoy only for a few more months….”

“Do you know how important these remaining 6 months are to me? Do you know the value of this limited time I have Sid? Sid, I was so much in love with my life. So much in love……”
Ani’s voice trailed off…
“But I have no complaints. Sid, you have a wonderful family and touchwood, god has given you all that you wanted. The biggest gift that he has given you is health and you are hurting yourself by smoking it away. Do you understand the pain of separation from loved ones? You don’t need to go through it to feel it Sid. Just close your eyes and think for a minute. Would you want to see Meera and your daughter alone? Would you want to see them cry? I now know the value of life Sid. Each and every moment is valuable and is a gift. You are mocking the creator by smoking and throwing minutes of your life away. For me, yes, I didn’t smoke, but god had other plans. But you, why do you want to knowingly put your health at stake? Why do you want to tempt fate?”

“Sid, on the day I got to know about my illness, I thought of you. You were my best friend at ISB. I had decided that I will come and meet you. I just have one request from you. If not for my sake, for your sake and for the happiness of your family, give up smoking. Fate should never be tempted Sid. Do it for yourself. Give it up…………………”



Epilogue
Ani passed away 5 months from that date.
Sid gave up smoking from the day Ani visited him last and now actively works with an NGO to promote the message of anti-smoking.

The Pillars...

Girish Gowda alias bunty exclaimed “O Fish!” and his facial expression expressed his sympathy towards the person whose angst he was sharing. She was inarguably the most beautiful girl in the batch and right now was sharing the misery of her exams with him. Bunty, with his shaved head, always-a-book-in-the-hand, doing his second MBA and being an ex-banker would have passed off as a nerdy type in any college setting except for his way with words and his ability to charm the girls. Simply put, bunty was a charmer. But more than that, he was an individual with certain principles in life, which is so rare to be found in these days from people of the same age as him. He believed in ideas, what he called as the 4 pillars of his philosophy…but, we are digressing!

Setting

An assignment meeting in the second term of the MBA, with heated conversation between bunty and Raj Tarun. Raj was junior to bunty and was as unique as bunty was. Some of his principles in life were almost antithetical to what bunty believed in, yet they managed to gel as a group. The topic of conversation right now was the situation which existed in the country right now and what the future of the country was.

“This country is never going to be a fair country to live in. All these politicians and the IAS officers are so corrupt that this country will never become prosperous. What we need is not democracy but dictatorship. Then only this country will learn”
Bunty, with his counter argument delivering in an amicable way “How can you say that? There are so many things that the government mechanism is doing. Even after everything is said about the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, there still are people in the system who really wants good things to happen to the citizens”
“That is absolute nonsense; I don’t think any of the politicians today even think about serving the needy in the country. All they want to do is to get power and money”
“Again, I beg to differ. There are lots of people, at least down south, who try to make a difference in the lives of millions of poor. True, their glory might not be sung by the media and they might be unsung heroes, but the fact is that there are millions of invisible hands with a noble heart who move the limbs of the huge machinery of this country. If we, the next generation, start losing faith in them, then what chance do we stand?”
“Do you think that one person thinking or two people thinking are going to make a difference? The system is so corrupt that, for every honest person, there will be at least 100 dishonest people! What do you think, we as a normal citizen of the country can do? Nothing! You might say that we can cast our votes? But does it really count? Fine, I think that party X or the candidate Y is an honest individual and the country needs people like that and I go and cast my vote? But does he win? No, of course not. The elections are won by people who have money and power and those people who have both in our country almost most certainly does not have the best interests of people in their mind. So the only way in which I could possibly make a contribution from my side has also been negated. I don’t see any scope and that is why I think a good 5 years of dictatorship is good for this country”

Bunty listens patiently to raj’s passionate argument and replies.
“If you and me and thousands of people like us, who have good education, who understand the problems of the country, who are empowered to a certain extent, and who would like to see our country prospering, start thinking like this, what is going to happen? Why don’t we try to make a difference? Yes, I do agree that the politics in India is driven by vote banks and caste politics and hegemony and “family” politics etc, but we need fresh blood and educated minds into these institutions”

“Yeah, sure, flesh blood. Look what happened to that much hyped about political party launched by students from one of the most premier colleges in the country. The last I heard, they had split into two. I tell you, no matter who tries, we are not going to get rid of dirty politics, corruption and nepotism. Hell, all these exists in our college also!!!”

“Sure, I do agree that elements of these are present in the college that we study, in our work place etc. but like all necessary evils, we have to accept that they are there and work towards removing it. If you and I and our friends raise our hand and say that we are not responsible and neither is empowered to do anything about it, then surely we will never reach where we want to reach. But at least we have to give it a try and give it a chance….”

And so on and so forth, the conversation continued then and then in some later meetings also…

Fast forward 10 years later

“Sir, the proposal has again been rejected by the tehesildar”
“What bloody reason does that idiot given now?”
“He says that we don’t have the license for the area adjoining the water tank and our contract specifies the boundary as the petrol pump and hence he cannot sign on the papers”
“The bloody &*#$#%%#%. I am sure he wants money from us and I am not going to give any”
“But saar…..”. Nair stammered, scratched his head and showed his toothless smile. He was in his fifties and had seen the ways of the world and how things worked in the south Indian city. He knew that if you were a multinational and wanted something to do with any of the government agencies, a lot of palms would have to be greased. He could not understand why his 35 year old general manager could not see the simple reasoning that the lowly bureaucrats expected some “benefits” from them. After all, they made the system and so you have to pay them their “dues” isn’t it?
“Nair, I tell you, I am not going to pay even a single paisa to this corrupt fool. Let me see if there are other ways for us to get this sanctioned or not”.

And so, the general manager of one of the biggest multinational real estate agencies drafts a letter to the local ministry for land reforms about the corruption he was facing from the municipal corporation bureaucrats and enlisting his difficulties in obtaining a sanction which was blocked for more than 3 months now and which should have taken them only 2 weeks to get.
“Nair, please make sure that this gets send to whoever is in charge as soon as possible. I don’t have much hope, but I don’t want to give in without knowing that I tried to beat the corrupt system”
Nair nodded and again gave a whimsical smile.


1 week later
“Sir, we have got the sanction. Your action has paid off. The municipal officer even called up and apologized profusely. He wanted to talk to you, but I figured…..”
“Nair, you are the best. You know me too well don’t you? Thanks for sparing me the trouble of speaking with that jerk. Please call the ministry official who helped us out here right now and I want to thank him and tell him that the efforts of the minority of honest people like him counts”


And so, Raj Tarun, the general manager of the real estate firm waits for the phone to be picked up from the other side. It does get picked up after 3 rings and the minister in charge for land development, Girish Gowda comes on line……….

MBA @ ISB - The first 5 Terms

There I sat in my first MBA class
Dreaming of my brand equity one year hence
The liabilities (loan!) thought put me off
Relax, said the economics prof, MR = MC
Trust the normal curve, whispered my neighbor!

Acquaintances were made, and a few good friends
Fiscal deficits and money supply became the way of life
Kill the SAMA; create the VODITE; in my dreams too!
Learnt the art of being "hindsight clever" aka u-kno-wat!
And Monte Carlo ceased to be just a brand of sweaters!

A few new friendships made, some grew apart!
Seinfeld and goal, Littlefield and queues,
Value the company, value the project; value my time puhleaze!
ABC is not just the first three alphabets, neither the channel,
VC is not just vice chancellor and Angel investors aren't pretty!

The last core term, step up the throttle!
Markowitz just sounds cool; term 'structure' ain't sexy!
More is to "bow tie" you see, dialectical inquiry, say what??!!
Errr...which is the favorite brand whiskey of amartya sen?
Need some 2-sided network externalities, or a beer will do!

Yippee core terms are over; the worst is just to begin!
Will I get a fixed income in the future?
Do I have an option on my future?
Will my moment of truth in February be invisible?
Don’t know friends, baithkar batcheet karenge!!!!

Postponing Happiness

i have survived on the challenges that i had put on myself over the last 27 years of my life.Had them at each and every stage of my life and worked hard to get it. these have transcended from being things as silly as being the school topper to things as tough as getting into my dream company. and then even tougher ones, like getting into ISB.i am blessed to have been a self-motivated individual, i have always aimed for my dreams.and the realization of this also means, in some ways, i am an egotist. which is fine. in life, at some occassions, you need to be.but over the last few days, a few things have happened in my life which has led me to think a bit differently. i got bad grades in my first term at ISB. i worked hard in the next three terms and have managed to improve the grades and for this, there was a lot of hard work put in.but, then, what am i seeking to achieve here? another dream job? which i even dont know what it is, at this moment?things suddenly does not make as much sense as it had when i was 21 years old.or, when i had decided to quit and join the b-school.

alum wisdom tells us that the 2nd and the 3rd terms are the toughest at ISB.why do i feel that i feel more of the stress now, in the 5th term, than i had felt a few terms back? is it because something has changed?is it because of the thoughts which engulfed me in the last few weeks?
a couple of years back, in an 'art of living' session, we had this small exercise when we had to share the most important moments of our life with a stranger in just 5 minutes and this gentleman who i had got as a partner told me somethings on these lines.

"in life, i have always associated happiness with getting past some targets and i found that i was always postponing happiness. i had thought thati would be happy once i got good marks. when i got that, i thought i would be happy once i had a good job. once i had that, i thought i would be happy when i bought a car...etc...i was always postponing happiness......"
that sentence has stuck on to me and now, something has happened which brought back that sentence and i dont know what!
life is short and its only once. happiness should never be postponed.

B School Rankings

Recently came across a B-school ranking (yet another) published in one of the leading business magazines and I found myself, yet again, thinking who the audience for these kinds of surveys really are?
The survey places the top three IIM’s and ISB among the top 5 institutes. One of the areas where ISB fell short was in the attribute of “faculty” and this, I found to be funny, if not ludicrous.
There are 420 students in my batch at ISB right now and ask then the reason for choosing ISB and 99% of them would say the reason was “world class faculty”.

Let me state on thing upfront loud and clear. The purpose of this post is not to compare IIM’s and ISB. This has been done in as many places on the blog world as there have been b-school surveys, if not more. And by no means am I saying that IIM’s are not the best educational institutions. I believe that these temples of learning have played a big part in the shaping of our country and have been a big reason for the status our country is enjoying today on the world’s centre stage. You just have to look at the best organizations of the country and you would find at least one visionary who boasts of one of the IIM’s as his alma mater. Plus my interactions with a lot of my close friends who have studied at these institutes makes me sure of the kind of caliber of the students over there and hence at the quality of the institutes.

So what is my point? The fact of the matter is that there can be no comparisons between an IIM and ISB and hence it does not make any sense to have a survey which club these institutes, which are different in their model, different in their pedagogy and different in the segment to which it caters to. And so is the case with a lot of other b-schools in the ranking. The difference between ISB and the IIM’s are starker because the underlying model itself is different.

So if people supporting the survey say that the attribute “Faculy” meant full time permanent faculty, then obviously ISB might score lower in comparison, but again it defeats the purpose of the survey. Why? Because the model of the ISB is that professors from all the world class institutes come and stay at the campus for 2 months, take classes and then leave. So, as I said earlier, the model is different and hence a comparison here is like comparing apples to oranges. So while not positively taking into factor the fact that the faculty is more world renowned, this very enviable aspect of ISB is taken as a weakness and the scores on that attribute dips. Fair?

Of course these surveys cleverly have trailing articles on each of these institutes (which fall in various broad categories) and here they talk about the different models of these institutions. But then, why club them in the same ranking?
ISB does not take part in the B-school rankings. ISB was conceived as a global school based in India and aims to be an internationally acclaimed institute. (Again, no need to read between lines here, with respect to the other institutes).

From the Dean’s message to the alumnus on the alumni portal.

In a recent Governing Board meeting, when we were sharing the ISB’s progress and the several challenges that lay ahead of us, the Dean of INSEAD, Professor Gabriel Hawawini, remarked: “You have achieved in five years what INSEAD took 30 years. Why are you in such a hurry?!”


What do these B-school rankings achieve?
Who is the intended audience for these surveys which are published by at least 4 different magazines in an year and continues to be published year after year? If the thinking is that this helps students choose an institute, then sadly this does not seem to be the case. Some years back when information was not widely available as it is now on the pros and cons of the various institutes, yes, these surveys would have been useful. But now? In this age when b-school aspirants can get the required information directly from the b-schools themselves and from various other reliable sources, what is the need to depend on a survey, the methods of conducting which varies between different magazines, and the authenticity of information of which is questionable (Case in point – BITS Pilani refusing to take part in a survey and going to the court on the basis of a survey publishing wrong information).

Of course, not all the surveys might be questionable and some of the methodologies might be sound enough.

For the b-school aspirants out there, no one can tell you which b-school is good for you. You have to decide that yourself by doing extensive research on your own. The decision to take an MBA is not a silly one and so there is no reason why you should not spend enough time scouting through the websites of the institutes which you are targeting. Find out alums from these institutes and reach out to them. Use your network, talk to friends of friends. In short, depend on feedback which are most closest to the real thing and is not just based on statistical samples (I hate statistics! :) )
I don’t see anything that you can gain from religiously following the rankings and being obsessed with it. Sure, I used to follow it during my pre-MBA days, but soon I realized that it is not going to help me in any way how I was going to choose to the institute where I wanted to study. That will depend on what stage of your career you are in, your personal constraints, what you consider to be the biggest takeaway from the MBA, what area of specialization you are looking for and a lot of other factors.

For me, these b-school ranking are simply an easy cover page item for these magazines, which they can repeat every year easily (the basic framework is in place) and count on thousands of star eyed b-school aspirants and their parents to buy them and push their sales up. (If only someone could give me the statistics of number of copies in circulation on average and in the months of these surveys……… )

Blog Action Day

What does it take to switch off the lights when you leave the room?
What does it take to say no to plastic covers when you do shopping?
What does it take to give up standing for more than 5 minutes in the shower and wasting less water?
What does it take to have your vehicle conform to standards?
What does it take to not take your bike for that errand to the nearby shop?

Every action counts. Contribute. Participate. Benefit and gift the next generation.

Of "Accent" and more..

Disclaimer: The following is a fictional piece of work and any resemblance to anyone, living or dead, is purely coincidental and the exaggerations in the story, if the respected reader finds any, may be attributed to the writers artistic liberty!



Valiyakavil Raman Nair had a problem. Now before you think we are talking about an ageing old man in his 60’s, let me clarify. He was 12 years old. So in respect of his age and in the interest of an easy narration for this author, let us call the protagonist as rama. Interestingly this name had gotten stuck up on him throughout his educational life and he had come to absolutely detest it. but, we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Let us go chronologically!

Rama, as he was called by his primary school teacher and school mates, had an “accent” problem. Rama was a student of one of the top schools of Bombay, which was “graced” by the progenies of some of the most elite crowd of the financial capital. Rama was from a middle class family and his father worked with the Bombay electricity department and rode a lamby to office every day. His father owned exactly 4 pants and 6 shirts, each pant worn twice before being washed and each shirt for each day of the working week. The annual dress purchase happened only on the occasion of Diwali and Onam which the Nair family celebrated with fervor and for which they would save money up to spend lavishly for once and feel good about it.
In the words of the more cultured of rama’s classmates, he had a “regional acent” and in the words of some of the lesser polite of his classmates, he had a “madrasi accent”. What the hell, both meant the same.

Unlike his classmates, who were tutored by the best of English teachers outside of their normal school hours and who were used to butlers and servants who communicated in English, rama had been brought up in a “regional language medium school” someplace down south of the country – the place doesn’t have much relevance because everything south of Goa is more or less the same for them you see!! Indeed, rama was amused that 90% of his 40 strong class did not know on which side of the Indian map Trivandrum featured and there were 2 other “mallus” other than rama in his class. He was even more amused when he found out that, the girl who knew about Trivandrum, but was not a madrasi, knew it because her minister dad owned a couple of resorts out there.

Again, we are digressing.

So regional language medium schools, like one would expect them to be, conduct the classes in the regional language. Brilliant observation, isn’t it? So it happened that, other than the elementary English class each year, till his 6th standard, rama never got to converse in English. There simply was no reason to, you see. If fate had not intervened, rama would have continued in the same school, would have gone to some arts college, dabbled in a little politics, would have joined the SFI (students federation of India – that organization which creates a sense of power even in the most frail looking guy – but more on this in another post), would have spend most of his college days arranging or taking part in strikes, would have spend a good amount of nights enjoying the temple festivals and toddy bars, would have come under the football craze quite like thousands of his state mates and finally would have got into a government job through PSC, gotten married and led the blissful life of a malayalee – simbly reading newspaper, drinking tea and tying and untying his lungi. Of course, would have managed to save enough money to buy an elephant, rama was from an aristocratic family, you see!!

If fate had not intervened, that is.

But intervene it did and rama found himself in a surrounding which was the extreme opposite of what he had got used to till his last class. His father had got a good job in Mumbai. Now his elite classmates didn’t understand that not all schools in india had English as the medium of teaching. Of course, it should be English or maximum hindi, shouldn’t it be? After all, the first one was the language of the class and the second one, well, do you need a reason for that? Well, at least English was there and rama would, some time in the future, reflect back and would thank his neighboring state’s wisdom for that. What they didn’t know was that a big percentage of the country’s population had a different mother tongue. But rama did not have any issues with his classmates ignorance. But of their vile remarks on his “accent”, he had.
So when rama recited ogden nash, his classmates would giggle and his teacher would sigh.

It never stopped plaguing rama. This dreaded language disorder. He would practice in front of the mirror, would read the newspaper trying to imitate the newsreader on the DD channel, but every time when he said “every time” , it still came out as “yeverytime”. (Note the “y” in the beginning).

So this saga continue when he got into college too.
“I wanted to talk to you”. This was Rama, with a rose in his one hand and a card in the other, his palms sweating with nervousness of approaching his crush for the first time, to profess his love for her. Perfect, except that “wanted” came out as 3 syllables – “wan-ted-duh” when he stammered thinking what to say.
“duh”…said the girl too.

So when rama proposed to a girl for the first time, she squirmed at his “impropah queens language” and walked away.

The story continued in the engineering college too. Well, not very surprising is it?
So when rama finished his final year seminar presentation on “chaos theory”, a group of snooty backbenchers started off a impromptu presentation on “cow’s theory”, for reasons which would be quite evident to the reader now.

Rama, for all his limitations, was an ambitious student. So he found himself at the doors of the country’s most prestigious economics school some years later. Now, we had said that his high school was an extreme situation for him, but the economics school was even more extreme. Rama found out that there were many occasions when he had to submit himself to the mockery of those high-handed individuals (one thing to be noted though is that these people are always a minority, but with their vile nature, they spread more negativity than the combined good of the rest of the students), that he was ever accustomed to. Ogden nash now appeared to have been nothing short of a cake walk.

So when rama presented a paper on the economy, a couple of hands shot up and all of them had questions, which had the word “yeconomy” (Note the “y” in the beginning)

And so, life presented rama with numerous occasions when he was mandated to talk, and talk he did, but the audience never listened. When they listened, they giggled, smirked, dozed off or asked questions exaggerating his enunciations. This went on and rama built up on his ambitions, taking more degrees, building more knowledge, until he found himself in the corridors of power of his country, with the responsibility for the defense of the country.

But fate plays a unique game. It chooses on its whims and fancies, to whom to be cruel at different points of times. Rama was now going to be rewarded for all those years of agony.

And so, 20 years later, rama found himself addressing, not his peers, but the esteemed dignitaries of the United Assembly of the World Bodies (UAWB), representing his country, criticizing the super power and supporting and defending his country's stand on the hottest topic of the time. He talked for a record 6 hours continuously and how!

Rama talked and talked for hours and the world simply kept quiet and listened.
Yes, even his classmates from the ogden nash times.
Yes, even his first crush.
Yes, even his “cow’s theory” classmates.
Yes, even his “constant-smirk-on-the-face” classmates from the economics school.

Everybody just sat and listened. And rama talked, in the same way he always had, but you see, when he finished, the auditorium erupted in a thunderous applause and thus on that day, the world gave its due to rama.

Memories..Painful.

It happened 6 years back.
I studied at REC Calicut which was about 4 hours from my house and being a residential college, I used to stay at the hostel. REC's generally have 50% of the students from the domicile state and the rest from the rest of the country. Since my house was only about 4 hours away, I used to go home most of the weekends and the train journey from Calicut to Thrissur used to be one of my favorite trips.
There used to be a specific part of the journey that I always used to look forward to and that was when the train used to reach a place called kadalundi. There was a long bridge immediately after the train had crossed the kadalundi railway station and from the train, from the top of the bridge, you could see the backwaters stretch out and join the Arabian sea in the distant past. Often, this sight would be presented to your eyes with the setting sun in the back ground and the wind in your hair when you looked out of the train compartment, coupled with this wonderful scenery used to make the moment seem special.
4 years of college. A job at the end of it from the campus. Friends from all over the country. Going back home after 4 years, parents waiting with anticipation and joy at their son coming home, making them proud. What more can make you happy at the age of 21?Only God just wasn't in a mood to agree.
Kadalundi. The same Kadalundi, the beautiful place where the waves grew from infancy to adulthood and embraced the ocean with fierceness, the same kadalundi where the winds used to whistle in the months of november as they flew between the narrow backwaters into the lap of the ocean, the same kadalundi acted to the whims of the creator and took away lives, which were precious, and which were the joy and happiness of their loved ones.
They were in my batch. I didnt know them both. But it pains me even now.The bridge gave away and the water swallowed the moving train and took with it some lives, among them, my nameless batchmates, my friends. I still feel awful when I think about it.

I hate Kadalundi now.

Life's like that

To all my friends who read my blog - a request. This is silly, but I spent around 2 hours writing this post, but at the end of it, I was not able to think of a good title and had to settle with the current one. Would appreciate if you would leave your suggestions for the title!



Sanu felt a sense of déjà vu. The last time he had gotten down from the plane and set his foot in Kerala was 14 years back. He was a disgruntled boy at that time, forcefully packed off to Kerala from Dubai, where was studying in the IPS till then. His parents had wanted Sanu to complete his high school in Kerala and had wanted him to get into a good engineering college. Sanu had spent a good part of his life in Dubai, had grown to love the lights of the city, the fast life, the luxuries and had not wanted to go back. But his parent’s stubbornness had persisted against his and he had landed one Saturday early morning in the Calicut international airport. That was 14 years back. 14 long years. He still remembered achuammavan (Achu uncle) had come to the airport to receive him.
Would achuammavan be there to receive him today also?
Sanu collected his baggage and walked out to the arrival gate and stood for a moment, his eyes momentarily blinded by the harsh rays of the summer afternoon sun.
“Sir, taxi veno” (“sir, do you need a taxi?”)
“venda” (“No”)
The words felt strange coming out of his mouth. He was speaking in Malayalam and Sanu felt goose bumps on his arms. He had not conversed in Malayalam with a person for a long time except for those English mixed mallu short phone calls which he made from the US to his parents once in 2 weeks.
He looked around as if expecting to see a familiar face. He had told his parents that he would be coming today, but had not told them which flight or what time he would be arriving.
“Unnikutta”. He heard the voice calling out to him. Nobody had called him unnikutta (his childhood pet name) for a long time. Sanu knew whom that voiced belonged to without even looking at the source of it.
Achuammavan made his way through the crowd and came running and embraced him.
“Unnikutta……how have you been? I have not seen you for, now how many, 9 years?” the old man had tears in his eyes.
“Achumman……” words failed him…

……in a distant past……………………………………………………………………………………..
“Unnikutta, don’t. You will fall off. That cycle is too tall for you”. Sanu had taken achuamman’s cycle and was pedaling it by balancing on one side of the cycle, with one leg on a side and the other leg on the other pedal, his feet passing through the space under the bar. He was not tall enough to sit properly on the cycle as adults would.
“Illya achuammava, just watch unni go at full speed now” (“No achu uncle, just watch unni go at full speed now”)
“Unnikutta, that is very dangerous. You will lose balance and fall and your mom will scold me then”. Sanu didn’t listen.
He was in the hospital that night with 6 stitches.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“What are u thinking unnikutta?”
“Nothing achuammava, since when have you been waiting here?”
“Oh, I came at 4 in the morning”
“You have been waiting here for the last 14 hours?”
“Athinendha? Come, let’s go. Everybody will be waiting for you at home. Let me call them and tell them that you have landed” Achuammavan took a cell phone from his pocket and started to dial, eyes peering over his moon rimmed glasses. Sanu watched in amusement as the old man tediously dialed the number on his cell. Achuammavan had changed from the mundu-wearing, cycle riding simpleton. Looking around at the airport, he could see that god’s own country had changed too.
“Achuammava, I would like to have a cup of coffee before we leave, I didn’t eat anything on the flight”
“Ende unnikutta, you have not changed have you? Still don’t like to eat anything while flying, do you? Come lets go to the café coffee day”
“Achuammava, how do you know the shops inside the airport?”
“Oh, malathi oppol’s daughter regularly flies between Bangalore and Cochin and I come to pick her up and see her off. It is a regular monthly trip for me now!”

Achuammavan led the way and Sanu saw the distinctive red block of the café coffee day.
Memories flashed through his mind.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“These guys are a rip off man. I say, lets buy a bottle of boost, some cold milk and make our own cold coffee”.
“Sid, you stingy fckr, how many times I have to tell you that drinking cold coffee is the last reason why we come here. Sid, look around you. Where do you find so many hot babes at one location at Bandra, in such a relaxed environment?”
“Sanu pal, you are the most frustrated Casanova I have known till now. Give up man; I don’t see much hope for you”
“Fck you Sid, if you don’t keep quiet, I swear I won’t pay your bill”
Sid was always broke. But then he was spending all his money on his multiple girlfriends. Sid had had a way with girls whereas Sanu always had to try real hard.
“It’s because of your name man. Who in the world would have a name like Sanu? It sound like a short form for sinusitis! And your pet name is even worse! Unnikuttan!! Ha ha….”
“Sid, don’t start that again. Do you want me to tell all your girl friends that your real name is Sethurama iyer?”
That would keep Sid silent for some time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Sid, the best friend he had ever had. Sid had been smart, handsome and popular.
Sid, his friend through high school and REC.
Sid, who had joined along with him on his first job at Mumbai.
Sid, his friend for 10 years.

He still remembered getting the call in NY, from Karan from Mumbai. “Sanu, our Sid…….”

Sid, with whom he had had countless beers at countless pubs in Mumbai.
Sid, with whom he had shared all his crushes and infatuations and the rejections!
Sid, with whom he had had his first go at grass.
Sid, with whom he had gone for countless double dates.
Sid, with whom he had argued about who was the best character in Atlas Shrugged.
Sid, with whom he had innumerable bike trips at 3 am in the night to fulfill their craving of sev puri.

He could not believe it first. How can it happen to Sid? Sid was so lively and he had spoken to him just 2 days back.
Sanu still remembered walking out of his 180 maiden lane office at 5 o clock in the evening after receiving the call, going to his apartment, locking up and crying. That was the first time in his grown up like Sanu had cried. He cried for hours. He had then taken a couple of sleeping pills and had gone to sleep.

He still remembered submitting the resignation the next week and catching a flight back to Mumbai.
His job in NY didn’t make any sense anymore to him and he didn’t know what he wanted to do in Mumbai. It was almost as if he was punishing himself for not being there at Mumbai when Sid took his last journey.
Later Sanu had come to know that it was a bike accident.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Sid, go slow, you are going too fast. This is a bloody crowded area man”
“Arre Sanu, you are always scared. What are you scared of? That you won’t find a girlfriend before you die?” That was Sid, he could crack a joke while going at 70 kmph on a busy Mumbai road.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Unnikutta.. Unnikutta!! What are u thinking? Here have this, I got cold coffee for you” Achuammavan’s voice brought back Sanu from his thoughts.
“Achuammava, I am suddenly not feeling like having it anymore, you have it and then let’s go home”

A Honda city had replaced the cranky old ambassador, which had come to collect Sanu 14 years back, at the airport.
“Achuammava, I am tired, do you mind if I doze off in the car”
“Unnikutta, why do you have to even ask, you take rest, I will call you once we are about to reach home. Anyway, it will take at least 2 hours from here. But at least it is much better than landing at Calicut airport; it would have been a tiring journey back home then. 4.5 hours by car, my back would have killed me”
The car snaked out of the airport and got on to the highway and within minutes they were speeding along the road, with huge trees on both sides of the road, greenery around.
They passed an elephant, carrying a bunch of coconut palm leaves between its tusks.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
“Is it true that people keep elephants as pets in Kerala?”
That was Maya, her eyes widened with disbelief.
“Of course Maya. Mallus love elephants. We even feed them with chicken and toddy everyday!”
“Is it? Wow….” Maya’s normally round eyes became even rounder with incredulous innocent disbelief.
And then seeing Sanu doubling over with uncontrollable laughter..”You rascal, don’t try to fool me”
“But Maya, we do keep elephants as pets, although I doubt whether “pet” is really the word!”

“Is it true that Kerala has 3 international airports Sanu?”
That was Maya again with one of her I-don’t-believe-this-fact expression.
Sanu had laughed at this and asked her “Why are you so surprised at that?”
“But it’s such a small state”!! Sanu had yet again fallen into uncontrollable laughter seeing Maya’s face writ with disbelief at the fact that such a small state could have 3 international airports, out of the 14 totally across the country.
He had met Maya shortly after he had come back to Mumbai through one of their common friends. Maya was recovering from a relationship which had not worked out and Sanu was recovering from the shock of Sid’s death. They had gotten along together and Maya had in a way filled some of the void that Sid had left behind.
It had taken Sanu a long time to accept the fact that no one could become as close a friend to him as Sid had been, but it had been harder to believe that Maya had come close to being what Sid was to him.

They had hung out at the same places where Sanu and Sid used to hang out and Sanu was scared when he had found out, during the course of their friendship, that some of Maya’s tastes were same as Sid’s.

“You know what Sanu; I bet I could make a better coffee than this. Why do you want to spend money on this costly place?”
That was Maya, sitting at café coffee day and asking him innocently. Sanu had almost spilt the coffee on his shirt then.
“You know Sanu; I think Hank Rearden should have been the real hero in Atlas Shrugged, rather than John Galt”
That was Maya at her pick-up-a-fight-with-me-mood at its best. “Maya, sometimes I wonder how you can say the same things to me, in a different form of course, that Sid used to say. He used to love the character of HR and used to think that Galt was over glorified”
Maya had just smiled her angelic smile then.

Maya had come into his life by chance, but Sanu had realized that, unspoken they had both come to realize a fact, which neither of them wanted to speak out loud.
“Sanu, will you take me to Kerala once?”
“Of course I will. Why? Do you want to feed toddy to an elephant?”
“Sanuuuu!!!”


……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Mayaaa”
“What happened unnikutta? Who is maya? You were calling out the name” Achuammavan from the front seat of the car.
“Oh…nothing Achuammava, I must have been dreaming. How much more to go?”
“Oh, about 45 more minutes”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Sanu, will you tell me the truth if I ask you something?”
“Yes Maya…” Sanu replied without taking my eyes off from the meeting brief he was reading.
“Sanu, look at me. This is important”
“Maya, ask! I am listening, but I need to go through this report before heading back after lunch.”
“Sanu, they are looking for a guy to marry me off to”
This had caught Sanu’s attention and the meeting was forgotten.
“Maya….”
“Sanu, we have something between us, don’t we?”
“Maya…..” words had failed him then too. He had always known that he was in love with Maya and she also felt the same for him, but he had always dreaded talking about it. He could still feel the pain of losing Sid and he didn’t want to lose Maya too. He had fought hard to keep an emotional barrier between them so that this question never came up, even though he was aware of the fact that they were more than close friends now.
“Maya…do we have to talk about it now?”
Maya was crying now.
“Maya, you know how I am scared to become close to a person now, u know why I am not even going back to my parents now…….”
“Sanu, please shut up and listen to me. I love you and I know you love me too. I see a future for us and I want you to tell me whether you want to share it with me or not. I don’t have much time Sanu”
“also, what has happened has happened, but that doesn’t mean that you can ignore other people who love you”
She had run off without waiting for Sanu to reply.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Is it Sanu?” The voice at the other end of the phone asked.
“Yes, Sanu here. Who is this?”
“This is Maya’s father”
There was a silence for about 5 seconds from both sides and before Sanu could regain his voice..
“Sanu, I would like to meet you and talk to you.”
“Of course uncle, I could come over in the evening”
“No Sanu, I would prefer if we meet somewhere outside. Let us meet at the Army canteen at 5 in the evening”
“Ok Uncle, is anything wrong?”
There was a pause at the other end.
“We will speak in the evening Sanu”



“Sanu, I am going to get straight into the matter without beating around the bush. We have been looking for a groom for Maya and she has been pretty distressed about the whole thing”
He looked uncomfortable, but managed to continue.
“Son, we know that you both have been close friends for a long time and we are not stupid enough not to realize that probably Maya thinks of you more than as a friend. We have not questioned her on this and nor would want to question you know about this because we have brought up Maya giving her full freedom in what she wants to do in life and have full trust on her.”
“Sanu, you are a very good boy and I am sure you are probably the best friend that Maya has ever had. But, she is our only daughter and we have raised her for the last 25 years. We have certain hopes and ambitions for her and we would ideally like to see her settled with somebody who is a little bit older than her. You are her best friend and hence I want to request you to make her understand the reasons why we want her to do as we would like her to do”
Another pause.
“I know you are mature for your age and I know about Sid and how you have become a recluse after he was gone. The only thing that I want to tell you and you can take it if you want to, is that you should probably consider taking a break and go and stay with your parents for some time. After all you are also their only child”
“Son, I am sorry I had to ask this from you, but you will understand when you become a parent some day”


He didn’t have the guts to call her. He took out a piece of paper and started writing.

“Maya, over the last 2 years you have come to mean to me more than any other friend I have ever had (including Sid and you would understand what writing this would mean to me). We were happy together but looking at our happiness alone and not caring about the wishes and hopes of our parents, who took care of us till we were able to stand up to life on our own, is selfishness.
All I want to tell you is that you will be my best friend forever and I want you to make your parents happy.
I realize that I have not been a good son to my parents in that aspect and have not bothered to spend a single day with them in the last 14 years. I am going to Kerala Maya. And sorry, I would not be able to take you with me. But I want you to visit Kerala some time, maybe once you are married, on your honeymoon! I will make sure that I arrange for a bottle of toddy and an elephant!

~Sanu

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

3 months later.

“Unni, come and have lunch” His mom called out. Sanu was sitting in the reclining chair in the Verandah, pouring over the day’s crossword.
“Am coming, let me just finish off this crossword”
“Ee kuttide oru karyam. Oonu kazhinjattu pore ithokke” (“What’s with this boy? Can’t you do it after lunch?”)
Sanu smiled and went back to his crossword.
His mom started with a different thread in the background “Sreeja teacher was telling about this relative of hers and there is this girl in that family. She has done her commerce and is working at Cochin. Good girl, good family..”
“Amma, I have told you, I don’t want to get married now”
His mom looked cross and Sanu smiled when he saw the look on her face. He knew that his mom would pick on this thread in another 6 hours!
“If you don’t want us to search a girl for you, then tell us that at least you will find a girl for yourself. We have no problems with that”
“Amma, can’t I enjoy my life, like achuammavan”(Achuammavan had never married)
“Shush…if that is your idea in life, I wont let it work” his mom in mock anger.

The gate creaked open and Sanu saw Achuammavan coming in with a telegram in his hand.
“Achuammava, we were just speaking about you”
“What my boy?”
“Amma is looking for a girl to marry you off achuammava”
“Hush you rascal. At my age and marry? Anyways, had gone by the post office and the post master gave me this letter, it’s for you”
Sanu opened the letter and began to read.

“Son, you and Maya have won. She told me that you have left for Kerala to be with your parents for some time.
Will you take my Maya and keep her happy for life? We think that both of you would be happy together.

I am happy for you, on your decision to spend time with your parents.
We are reaching Kerala next week. With Maya. So make arrangements for toddy and an elephant!”

Sanu smiled, closed the letter, kept it in his pocket and called out to his mom.
“amma…..”
“Enthada….?” (“What is it, my boy?”)
“Well, I have found a daughter-in-law for you…………….”

The expectations from expectation!

Why do we expect so many things in life?
Why do we expect that we will get an A? Even if we have put in a lot of effort?
Why do we expect to get that dream job? Even If we have worked really hard for it?
Why do we expect to get a role? Even If we really believe we suit it to a T?
Why do we expect a friendship to be reciprocated? Even if we give it our best?
Why do we expect to be liked? Even if we are nice to everyone around us?
Why do we expect us to be heard? Even if we are saying the most logical of things?
Why do we expect to be rewarded? Even if there is nobody else who deserves it more than us? Right now?

“Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway”

A Day at Hogwar..err..ISB

I get up to the sound of my alarm, snooze it and go back to sleep again. 10 minutes later the maid rings the bell and this drags me out of the bed. I open the door and hand over the clothes to be washed and then close the door and come back to the room. The bed looks inviting and I am about to crash again when the alaram wakes up from its snooze and makes that awful sound again!
I cut it off and stand there rubbing my eyes and look at my table. I see the latest edition of Harry Potter and wish for a moment that I had a time-turner which would allow me to go back a few hours in time, to sleep again!!
I make my way for the morning ablutions and dress up quickly and again, like so many previous occasions curse myself for not getting up early because I am going to miss the breakfast, you see! My eyes again fall on the HP book and this time I long for a portkey to get myself transported to the class room from the SV. But the reality is that we are “muggles” and so walk you will, from the SV to the class room.
As I lock the room and rush out I imagine ISB to be Hogwarts and smile to myself at the thought of apparating right in the middle of JR’s class.
I rush into the dining hall and gulp down a glass of juice and then grab a cup of coffee and then run towards the lift. There will always be people to give me company in this last minute rush and 5 minutes later, we are well into the first class of the day.
Classes in ISB are fun for multitudes of reasons. No, there are no star gazing sessions taught by Trelawney here, and lest I be mistaken to be a nerd, let me quickly clarify that the fun aspects come from not so much so the course in itself, but the behavior of the class.
There is no limit to the kind of innovative things you can do in the class – count the number of people who sleep, number of times the marathon sleepers’ fall down, struggle to wake up and then again fall down. Count the number of people chewing gum in the class (at least 1), count the number of people who listen to each and every word that the prof utters and then hastily write it down, time the entry of the last comer and see if he/she beats his/her earlier record. If you have a like minded person sitting next to you, then there is no concept of a boring class!
But all said and done, you do listen to the prof in between all these and try to absorb the pearls of wisdom (well most of them at least!)
If it is a class with CP and if it has weightage in excess of 10%, then you can be sure of some electrifying comments from the junta! There are people who makes points which are very relevant and if it from people with the relevant background and people of stature, then you shut up and listen to them – there is nothing which beats real life experience after all!!
There are also people who go on and on just for the sake of air time and makes you wish you had an invisibility cloak which you could have worn and gone over and clonked them on their heads!!
1 hour into the class and then the break – when the sleepy heads rush out for a coffee and the nicotine heads rush out for their “Breath of fresh air”!!!!!
The same story goes on and the classes for the day get over. The dedicated souls go back to their Quads/LRC for starting off the readings for the next day whereas the others hang around at the café for a cup of coffee and pakodas / samosas and make plans for badminton/booze!!
So you head off to the recreation centre and have a good 1 hour of badminton/gym/squash, you pick your choice! But hey, there are the club meetings and the speaker sessions to be attended, so you rush off to them one after the other! Lord Voldermort would have had it so easy, what with his 7 parts; he could have attended 7 different sessions/clubs at the same time!

You then trudge back to Goel for yet another mundane dinner (for lack of variety) and when you are in absolutely no mood to have another goel meal, you choose its cousin, the café!!
After the dinner, you get back to the room and start preparing for the “day”! Starting with the assignment and pre-reads, the google chats/blogging in between for the resourceful who are good at multi-tasking. Heinously long cases are skimmed with a speed which would have put the fire-bolt to shame! Speed reading is one talent which you pick up by the second term at ISB!
A welcome break in between this madness of reading at night is provided by the birthday celebrations at the pool. Ok, so who gets dunked? The birthday boy/girl and then the study group mates, then the quaddies, then the classmates. What?!! Did you say classmates?!! Yes!!! Whoever goes to the pool gets dunked, unless they keep a poker straight face and convey that they are suffering from some illness, which if one drop of water falls on their body will endanger them gravely!!
The dunk-mania ends with the cutting of the cake and the decorating of the birthday boy/girl’s face with the largest piece of cake!

And so the days overlap with each other and one class leads to an assignment to a meeting to a booze/party to a dunking to a badminton match to a mid term exam to another class and it goes on and on!!
Time flies here at ISB and once in a while that dreaded mail comes which says that XXX marks have been uploaded…..!
And then, when you go and look at your 6 weeks worth of cram results, you so wish you could have said “Repairo” and swhoosh, the marks changed to something less draconic!!
Much like the Hogwartz world, we come to love and hate ISB, with the former taking the upper hand!!
Sigh! I wish I had a wand!!

A "Term 2" Forget!

I honestly cannot remember what date is it today unless I look at my inbox calendar or watch (yeah, note the order!). Seriously! The only way in which we realize that the dates are going past is the reduced redundant constraint of how many more weeks/days to the exam! So you may ask, if I know the exam date and number of days for the exam, cant I calculate the date?
That’s the whole point! I know that the exams are “next week”, but I don’t know which date!!! Unless of course I am planning to go home and have booked tickets for the next day!
So what’s the whole point?
Well, the point is that this place has a knack of making us lose sense of the time, the day, the month etc. there have been lot of occasions when I had to actually stop and think which month this is. Time flies so fast that you really never get an opportunity to savor a good meal or a good night’s sleep or a good couple of hours of game of badminton or good extended moments of chatting and time pass with your friends. (Well I said “Extended” because this activity happens anyways!).
Your whole life seems to be moving from one assignment to a case to an exam to a presentation to a meeting to another assignment to the class and so on…the link never breaks except for the parties once in a while. But even those have become monotonic now!
It’s almost like its one endless day with mini nights in between, for the entire week. There is no concept of weekends at ISB. These are the times when you are most loaded with work to do.
The second term has been particularly excruciating and most of the junta I know is waiting for the term to get over. On my part, Markstrat and Global Eco were the two topics which I enjoyed, one for its learning quotient and the other purely because of my interest in the topic.
Of course, being taught by Professor Jagmohan Raju was an experience in itself and I feel good about it. I am sure this would be an experience on which I would count back up on, some time in the future!

Thoughts at early morning!

I don’t believe in being half-here-half-there. For me it is either the full way or nothing at all.
What you see is what you get. If I say something, I mean it. Good and bad, both.
I have little respect for people who are all talk and no action. Say it only if you mean it. Mean it when you say it.
I can’t be second fiddle at things and with people who mean something to me. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I never look forward to having a boss!
If I am an employee, I want to be the best. The best employee!
If I am a student, I want to be the best. The best student!
If I am a friend, I want to be the best. The best friend!
Of course chances are that I won’t be able to be perfect in everything.
But I do try, but hey, I am human too.
If someone hurts me, I never forget it. But forgive, yes I do.
I believe that some quality time alone, is the best gift that you can give yourself.
I believe that words need to be spoken when they should be. Otherwise, the moment is lost.
I believe that you earn more respect by giving it rather than demanding it.

Blunt? Well, at least I am honest enough to admit it!

An Ode

I was blinded by my instinct
which, often was my best friend
to separate the best and worst of the lot
A trust broken, a promise not held
scars, deep engraved and unhealed
cautious, wary and scared of, encores
how easily someone comes once in a while
and crosses the self inflicted barriers
breaks into your personal space and
makes you feel worthy, of being important
breaking away the emotional fortress
which I thought was strong and
took pains to build, through indifference
keeping away possible acquaintances
for a life, maybe a little less mirthful
but a lot easy and un-hurtful
little did I realize that, sometimes
visitors, uninvited, who wander in
makes a difference, and how!

Tuesdays

Tuesdays with Morrie.
no, this is not going to be a review of the book. i just have one thing to say.
read it. it is worth the 3 hours.

The Second Impression!

I have always prided myself on being able to correctly “read” a person within my first few meetings with him/her. My reading of a person, the “gut” feeling I get, would invariably be correct, at least 95% of the times. There have been a lot of scenarios in my college life, my professional life, and now again in my college life that I had formed an opinion about a person, which was not shared by my friends, and then they have come back and expressed the same opinion, after they got to understand it through experience (some good, some bad!).

But ISB gave me a couple of cases where I have been wrong. Pleasantly wrong. Which means, a person who I thought was most “unfriendly”, actually turned out to be quite nice. Let’s call this person X (rule 1 on my blog – no names!). When I first met X for the first few times, I had thought that X was “one of those types” who was aloof, not-mingling-with-everybody types. Although this opinion was formed with very few interactions, my special ability to correctly read people, which I thought was nearly infallible, led me to believe that this indeed, was the case. But how I was pleasantly surprised!
Over a period of time, I got a chance to interact with X, not out of choice mind you, but out of compulsion. One of the first things X told me was this.

“I am a little bit weird. So you might need to get used to this.”
I told X “I don’t think you are weird” But then I didn’t complete my sentence and if I had, then I wouldn’t be writing this post! The part I didn’t complete was “But I think you are arrogant”! :)

But over the past few weeks I have realized that this was one of those rare occasions when I had made an error of judgment. X came out to be a real sport and is funny, whacky and sometimes weird (albeit in a nice manner!) too.
I was pleasantly surprised to realize that there were some common things in terms of obsessive compulsive disorders, finding-stuff-funny-which-others-don’t, finding-things-ridiculous-which-others-don’t etc.
And that dont-try-to-talk-to-me-i-am-not-interested attitude kind of slowly changes once you got to know X.
So X is not arrogant, but is cool! Period. :)
So I am going to be careful going forward to make sure that I have sufficient interactions before I conclusively decide about how people are! But no, that does not mean that I am going to give up my intuitive powers!! No way!
It still is statistically significant! :)

Why?

What’s wrong with us, guys?
Why? Why do we always break out into a clap in the middle of the class, startling the professor, who looks absolutely astonished, startling those poor sleeping beauties, who try their best to fight against the sweet lullaby of sleep but fail miserably? This is probably the most visible form of mass mentality that I have seen at ISB. We seem to be waiting for some arbitrary spark somewhere to gleefully clap and thump our desks. Agreed that there are some absolute gem of comments passed by some of our professors which deserves a wide round of applause, but aren’t we taking it to the extreme?

And then the standing ovation. Well, I do not know whether it is politically correct to say this, but do we need a standard ovation at the end of each professor’s final class? I mean, I completely agree that all the professors have done and will do an absolutely terrific job in imparting the knowledge to us (whether we imbibe it or not is of course our prerogative) and in keeping the class lively and in their passion and exuberance to teach. But a standing ovation? Really?
If we do it at the end of each final class, doesn’t it lose its meaning and sanctity when we do it for a professor who probably is the best of the lot?
I am not passing nor want to pass a moral judgment, but to do this every time, in my opinion is an overkill.
Let me not be caught on the wrong foot here. The professors deserve each and every ounce of respect and adulation that we give/have for them, but let us not make a mockery of a tradition/practice which needs to be used with a little restrained alacrity.

And then the basic etiquettes. I am sure I am not going to earn a lot of popular brownie points by writing this, but hey, gimme a break.
When a person is speaking or about to ask a question in the class, how can you cut her/him off? There are something called soft skills and etiquettes. If you want to discount those, there is at least something called manners.
We pride ourselves by saying that the student body is rich with experience et al, but hey, if we don’t display the minimum levels of manners, then what is the point in glorifying the “rich experience”? Don’t we all learn some basic etiquette during our career? Why is that forgotten in the class?

And, last but not the least. Gross misuse of the e-mail form of communication to the point of being rude.
I mean, if I get a mail where the person has written “Please don’t reply to all”, I certainly wouldn’t want to hit the “Reply all” button, particularly so, if the mail is going into the mailboxes of 400 odd students. I can think of only two reasons for doing this.
One is that you are rude and attention seeking to the point of being obnoxious.
And the second one is too nasty to be put up on this public forum.
Come on guys, respect other people’s privacy and don’t intrude onto their personal space unnecessarily. If you think that you have lots of fans who are mad enough to wait for that next arbitrary mail of yours, please create a personal list of them and make use of it.
Of course, there are certain topics which would be beneficial to the entire student body and in that case each and every one of us should judiciously make use of it.
And of course, I am not a jerk to say that you should never send funny stuff or a forward or an arbit reply once in a while.
But doing a reply all just for the sake of it and doing it with regularity, particularly when the sender has requested not to do a reply all, well, not the most proper thing to do. Grow up!

The Transition

It is one week of term 2 at ISB and I have slowly realized that I am almost done with the transition from being a techie to a cold blooded (read “competitive”) management student! It is really term 2 and its subjects that make us feel as of we are undergoing a management program. VV, one of my groupie could not have said it better when he commented that “It feels almost like as if we are playing the Age of Empires game”.
How true. I mean it is not just Markstrat, but the other subjects as well. Probably with the exception of Macro.

Markstrat has been an amazing experience till now, although we are yet to see the repercussions of the decisions made by us as a team, I am sure the learning experience from this simulation game is going to stay with us forever. This will be the closest possible way to mimic the decision making process in an industry and I am so glad that ISB, like the other premier schools, provides us this opportunity. These are the benefits that come with studying in a school like ISB and the fact is that these kinds of advantages are not known to potential applicants and the general public. The professor for the subject is very soft spoken, which according to me is a rarity at ISB!

Then there is CompStrat. The best of the cases out there, explained to you by a professor who takes you through it in a thought provoking manner, covering the salient points and at the same time making us think beyond the surface to actually sitting and computing the monetary effect of a decision point in the case, what more do you need? When the prof makes a point in the case, which is as logical as it would get, it makes you wonder why the hell didn’t you think about it in the first place?

The Decision models class is yet another interesting topic and the MCS is something which I had always wanted to understand, right from when I had read about it when going through some readings on the options, purely out of my personal interest. Now that I know what MCS is, I should go back to start reading about options, which is my area of interest! Although the professor is really amazing, with his enthusiasm and energy levels in the class, I guess most of us are simply not able to catch up with his standards and are still not at the level he is assuming us to be at!

Then there is Macro, my favorite. This is one subject which is the closest to what has always interested me and we are lucky to get a professor who is so passionate about the subject and also of teaching at ISB. Here you can read about students (CO 05) voting him the professor of the year.
Overall term 2 makes the student body feel like they have finally left their baggage behind from their previous careers and now feel a major shift in their thought process. This change which was nascent in the first term has accentuated now and is only going to strengthen!

P.S All the professors mentioned here handle the first part of the term 2.

If you decide you don’t have to get A’s....

“If you decide you don’t have to get A’s, you can learn an enormous amount in college”. Though I wouldn’t want to be inspired by this quote (From the book “My life as a Quant” by Emanuel derman and attributed to the legendary physicist I.I.Rabbi), I cannot but help wish that this was the philosophy followed by all the students in all the premier institutes of our country.

When I came to ISB, I had the notion of not wanting to repeat what we did in our undergraduate course at REC, which was to learn by rot and not understand the underlying principles. We have been, as a generation, lucky to have a booming economy waiting for us engineers to pass out of the college and embrace us in the folds of the IT and ITES sectors. But for these sectors, students passing out of the college without a firm understanding of their respective trades would have found it difficult to get a job.
In ISB, with all the world class professors, it would have been ideal for the students to try to understand the finer aspects of a subject and its application in the real world, rather than to cram for exams at the end of the short term.
Let me clarify. To a great extent, this does happen out here, the learning aspect does figure in the priorities of each and every student at ISB and the institute provides a conducive enviroment for the same, with all the world class faculties, state of the art facilities and an amazing library. The only thing that derails a student from the pursuit of knowledge is the over relevance of grades.
Yes, grades does matter and I don’t deny it. But if grades matter with respect to how it is going to help a student perform in the campus recruitment process, then the reason for securing the grades deviates from the ideal reason for which it should have been done.
I can sense that there are a lot of students in the batch who want to learn the subject rather than cram for the exams, but towards the end of the term, the pressure is so high that you tend to somehow master how to do the numericals rather than to understand why you are doing what you are doing. Trust me. I did the same for the term 1 eco paper.
Yes, this will help in scoring good marks, but I cannot help feeling that somehow I lost the essence of what the numericals were testing me on, even though I managed to get the answer correct.

The above observations might look weird or abstract to a lot of people, so let me change track and recommend the book by Emanuel Derman for everyone who is intellectually oriented and also to those who are aspiring to work in an investment bank! :)

I came across this book when it was recommended by one of my senior colleague when I was working with GS technology. I am an ardent admirer of the firm and try to read all possible material about the firm or books written by people who have worked with the firm.
The author of the above mentioed book is famous for the Black-Derman-Troy interest rate model in quantitative finance which he co-developed when he was at GS. In the book, he narrates his experiences as a physicist and then his stint at GS heading the quantitative strategy group.

Adi

Adi walked home, his mind in a state of turmoil. He had got his mid term marks and he had yet again managed to score below 90 in Math. He could sense the look of rage and fury on his father’s face when he would break this news to him. He felt his legs go weak and throat go dry. It was a long walk from the school to his house and he enjoyed this daily trekking, sans on those days when he got his math marks.
Adi was bad with numbers and no amount of pleading about his indifference to this subject could make his dad understand. He simply could not conquer the notions of the elementary arithmetic and always was in a state of daze when kunjunni master went on droning about geometry, in his raucous phlegm cluttered voice.
His father was a mechanic and a god fearing, hard working person. Unlike his group of friends who wasted a good part of their earnings on the local arrack and toddy, adi’s father never dwindled away money. “Raman nair is a man of character” thus the village folks spoke of his father. Adi had lost his mother at a very small age and did not have any recollections of her.
The respect with which the village folks treated his father for his hard work, did not translate into love, which adi had for his dad. His dad was quite adamant about the fact that he wanted adi to do well in his studies, particularly math, and become a collector one day. During those times, this office represented one of the highest seats of achievements that parents would wish for their children. And his father had some notion in him, which was partially correct, that you needed good math marks to succeed in life.

And how he got angry when adi scored below 90. adi would never forget those days when he would have to break the news of getting low marks and the image that came to his mind was his father pushing his plate of porridge away and getting up from the floor in a fit of rage, reaching for the wooden cane and flagging him on his back, till it made red marks. He would then curse math, he would curse his father and for good measure, would curse his mother also, for not being there to take his side in this punishment.
He would cry to sleep on those days and would wake up the next day and take the report to his dad, to be signed for the school. He could never understand the look of sadness in his father’s eyes when he signed the report without muttering a word. Adi knew that his father would not go to work that day.
When his friends boasted about their dad’s job or how they were taken to the nearby pond to learn swimming, adi could not bear to think of his father. He hated him. He hated him because he could not imagine his father loving him. He hated him because he hated math. He hated him because of the marks on his back and thigh, which came from the flagging.

It was the monsoon season. Adi fell ill and could not get up in the morning. He called out to his dad “Accha..enikku schoolil pokan vayya” (“Dad, I am feeling ill to go to school”).
His dad barked back “you rascal, you don’t want to sit in the math class do you? Get ready quickly and scamper off”. This continued for 3 days and adi became weaker day by day. His appetite went out and he was scarcely eating now. He was running a high temperature and he never had the courage or the inclination to tell this to his father.
And then one day, he fainted in the middle of the class. In the math class.
Kunjunni master rushed to the principal’s room and told his about this. The principal, a man of wisdom, came to the class, shooed away the on-looking boys and girls, took a handful of water and poured it on adi’s face. He did not respond. He ran a hand over the boy’s forehead.
“This looks to be serious” he called out to the peon
“Babu, get sulaiman’s taxi and inform raman nair”.
Word was sent to raman nair and adi was taken to the local dispensary.

Adi could feel the principal keeping a wet cloth over his forehead, while the taxi was taking them to the dispensary. He could hear the words and feel their actions. He could not open his eyes. He felt as if he was losing his senses and he could just manage to breathe. He could sense the rancid smell of the dispensary and the hardness of the hospital bed. He could hear the principal enquiring of the peon
“Hasn’t raman nair been informed yet?”
“Yes master saab. He would be here soon”

And then, his father came into the room.
“What is this raman nair, this boy has been running a temperature for the last 3 days. Didn’t he complain of illness?”
“Principal saar, he had told me, I didn’t believe him”.
“You could have at least made sure. I am going back to the school. Let the boy rest for a couple of days. The doctor said he is lucky not to have died”

The door closed behind the principal and adi could feel his father come and sit beside him. He could feel the silence hanging there in the room. He could not open his eyes, still.
Then he heard it. He didn’t know what the sound was. It started as a stutter and then he heard a soft sob. Then the sobs became loud till he could not, but believe his ears, that his father was crying.
Adi was scared in his dazed state also. He had never heard or seen his father cry.
Then it dawned on him. His father was weeping for him. He loved him. It made him feel shameless about his hatred of his father. If only he could open his eyes and tell his dad that it was okay.
All those years of hatred dissolved within him and he could feel the fever draining out of his body, taking along with it, the hatred. He felt at peace and he felt his father’s hand on his forehead. He smiled.

Who are we kiddin!!

A leading magazine comes out with “100 top engineering colleges” list.

Salient points to be noted.

Methodology
“a semi-structured questionnaire was designed and given to senior faculty members in various institutes who had more than ten years of teaching experience in different states.”

Quite innovative.

“In all, 208 faculty members participated in the survey”

Well, that does give us an indication of the standard error of this survey doesn’t it? Remember, the number of colleges being ranked - 100.

Here is the list. Happy bed time reading!

1 Down..7 to go.

As I walked out of the exam room, finishing my last exam of the term and walked up the red bricks stairs towards the now all too familiar ISB main building, with its trademark brick patterns, the thought that was going on in my mind was not about the exam, was not about the relief, was not about the celebrations late in the day (irrespective of how one performed in the exam!), but was about what we had managed to learn in just 5.5 weeks here in the first term and which ones were most close to my heart.
Economics came out as my favorite, not surprising because I have always had flair of math and logic. And the fact that this will be in some way relevant in our career sometime down the future also adds to the likeability.
What surprised me was the choice that my subconscious mind came up with for the second favorite subject.

It was marketing.
Now let me tell you, the average number of hours the junta out here studied for the marketing exam will be 1.21 hours with a standard deviation of 2 minutes. Yes. That’s it. This is one subject that has a costly textbook, a fancy one too, and I can bet you for a 1000 bucks that not more than 1 out of 100 people have gone through all the relevant chapters in preparation for the exam. (400 guys in the batch, work out the math!!)
How do you study marketing? Can you study marketing at all?
I mean, yeah, you can learn all those brand resonance models and push-pull strategy and value based pricing and all. But then, how much of it does a marketing professional get to use in their day job? Isn’t it more of a real-world-constraint-driven game? Will all these perfect models and strategies work in the real bad world?
This might be a fallacious argument with a lot of pitfalls and might be because of my lack of knowledge of the job profiles.
Anyways, the point is, I realized in that flash of moment, that I actually liked the subject, even though I am pretty sure that I am not made for marketing.
Let me get this straight. I don’t like marketing as a subject for which I have to study. Period.
But I like marketing as a science which helps me understand a lot of things which happens around me, which I was not able to understand without my newly gained (limited though!) knowledge.

Accounting came a third because this was a subject which was entirely new to me and I do not foresee myself using this in my career a lot. Yeah, when I do become a CEO and when my CFO (probably one of the CA’s from my class!) gets caught for a fraud, I wont be able to tell that “I don’t know accounting and left it to these guys!”

Statistics – well, all I can say is that I don’t fancy fitting lines and trying to figure out shapes out of nothing! (I know, I am bad at this!)

So the first term finished before we could say “Heteroscedasticity”. Yeah, that’s from the stats class and kind of in one word, represents what I feel about the subject. Something which is huge and cannot be conquered and exotic. I love the word, but not where it came from.

And yes, it’s official now. The rat race has begun. And no. Sarovar is not involved in this.

The Journey

Pavithra had never liked going to Kaikurissi. Her parents were from this place and although they had settled in Chennai, the invariable once-in-a-year vacation trip when the school closes down was the most excruciating time for her. She would, unlike other girls her age, wait for the vacation to get over so that she could escape from the orthodoxy of her parents village to the modernity of the Chennai city. She was never able to understand that this trip was one of the very few rejuvenating factors for her parents, to meet with their elders and recreate a sense of belonging to a big family, which they never get to do in their busy and rushed life in the metro. Her sister was just the opposite. She got to study her matriculation in the town nearest to kaikurissi and got to stay with their grandparents and would always want to go back to the village, whenever she visited Chennai. They were sisters separated by a couple of years, but their values had stark difference.
Years went past and now Pavithra was working in an MNC in the US and her parents were retired. The Kaikurissi trips had ceased when her father got retired and when Pavithra started earning. Each year in April, for Vishu, Pavithra’s mom would bring up the matter of a trip home, after gauging that Pavithra’s mood was at its best. Her father would not say anything; he would just wait in anticipation for a positive response from her side, with a melancholic gleam in his eye. She would dismiss the idea even before her mom could complete the sentence and would rudely get up and leave the table. This went on for 6 years, until a year, the trip had to be made and she didn’t have a choice.
She could not believe the childishness with which her parents went about preparing for the trip and kept telling them that they would return in 2 days, hearing which their enthusiasm would wane, but not for long.
And then the day came and they were in the flight and Pavithra prepared herself mentally to go back to the place she once used to hate.
The green fields before the house, through which they had to walk, the arched entrance to the house, the garden on both sides with the mango trees and the chrysanthemum flowers, the large pond in the backyard, the old motorcycle of her uncle, the sights rushed back memories which she had tried to stifle in her last 6 years.
Then it happened.
Her grandmother came out and called out to her dad and mom and they just stood there. With tears in their eyes, with happiness, unable to move. She saw the tear falling and she sensed that moment and felt it to be an eternity. Her sister coming out of the house and embracing dad and mom. It was as if they didn’t even recognize her presence. Then she realized how strong her hatred of the place had been and how the others had loved the place. She realized that home is not where you can revel in the modernities of life, but it is where your loved ones are. She realized that its not the material comforts, but the simplicities of life which makes a difference.
And on that day, Pavithra came home for ever.

mallu and the mush

"You dont look like a mallu"
I really dont understand when people give me this line. I am often tempted to ask "So how do mallus look like?" and often end up asking this question to a lot of people too. But they immediately go on defensive and some of them think that I was offended by the statement.

It's not really that. Just how is a mallu supposed to look like?Are we supposed to sport a moustache and wear a "Lungi" and sport a gold chain and talk with an accent?
Now,just to clarify things, I am told about my non-mallu looks during the times when I have shaved off my mush. I never ceases to amaze me how removal of facial hair transforms me from having a hard-core mallu look to having a non-mallu look. This is probably the best example of stereotyping. That all mallu's should have a mush.

But then you cannot really blame them too. The typical image of a mallu, which is portrayed through the medium of movies shows all the popular actors in kerala sporting a thick moustache. I can confidently make the statement that no actor has succeeded in the malayalam movie industry by sporting a clean-shaven chocolate hero looks.

So probably it IS the mush! Rite?

This is probably the most cliched of my posts. Blame it on the pressures of assignments at ISB!

deal ya no deal!

I guess the fact that we are going to become a management grad (with or without good grades) has started to dawn on the class of 2008 at ISB. In situations of normal life, we have started to identify with the concepts that we are being taught in the first term.
Pre-MBA: If your housing colony had only one eat-out place and if the guy charged abnormally high rates and gave you insipid food, you would crib about how mean he is and how he is taking advantage of us.
Now, after the first term, we talk of this as monopolistic behavior.
Pre-MBA: You spot your fav pair of jeans in that color that you always wanted, but find out that the price is more than your “budget”, but still dish out the money and get it and feel satisfied.
Now we know that the company managed to get the entire consumer surplus out of us!
Pre-MBA: You see an ad where you get an ipod free with a high end digital camera and say “wow, that’s a nice deal”
Well guess what, now we think of it as bundling and how the company would NOT want us to buy the products separately.

So you see, we have started thinking in terms of the concepts that we learn here and what more can be an indicative factor of the point that we have left the baggage of our previous career behind and have started to cross over to being a management grad.
Yeah, it is still a long way off, but surely the journey has really taken off!!

REC to ISB

To compare an engineering college to a management institute is probably blasphemous, but that’s what I ended up doing on the day my first mid terms at ISB got over. Now that I have made it clear which management institute I am talking about, I might also put forth the engineering college I am talking about – REC Calicut. It has been 6 years since I graduated from this institution.
I am not insane to compare these institutions in terms of their infrastructure etc, but purely in terms of what I liked about each of them.
To see how they fare in their respective fields, you can go to the end of this post!


What I miss about REC
1) The MC – mini canteen for the uninitiated. This is the place which will be full at 2 am in the morning, with folks pouring in to buy “chotta pepsi”, “Chikki”,”Double attached”, “Kattan” (Black tea/coffee) and noodles. MC will be packed particularly during the exam season. Studying through the night, one of those hungry folks will come out and get everyone out of their rooms and then the group starts for MC.
I wish ISB had something like that.
2) Kattangal – this is another eating joint that was about 5 minutes walk from the men’s hostel. This place has a large number of small eating joints where the staple menu is a combination of noodles and one of the multi combination shakes. It started off with “Sharjah Shake” (a glorified name for banana milk shake) and apple shake. By the time we were in the final year, the shop keepers had become bolder and was trying out combinations like “Sharjah badam shake” and “Apple Date shake” !!! and these places used to be full at 12 0 clock in the night.
3) IF MC and Kattangal were the night time food joints, then mamachan and papachan were the noon time. A hearty meal of porotta and chicken at mamachans will fill your stomach and also not hurt your purse! If mamachan was the fav of non-veggies, then pappachan was for the veggies. This place was unique because they follow a “eat what we give” policy. So you go there, wash your hands and sit on the wooden bench. The guy will come and start serving the course of rice meal and the curries, what they have prepared for the day. They will also come for a second round and the meal ends with a sumptuous serving of pure home made curd. Mouth watering!
4) The Rajpath – this was the pathway leading to the main building of REC, with a separator in between, having those cute little pink and yellow flowers! I don’t know what was so special about Rajpath, but ask any CREC-ian and he will say that Rajpath was good!
5) The canteen and the fish biriyani! – need I say more?
6) The thanni parties in final year – these are not grand scale parties as they happen here at ISB and the booze does not flow! It rather trickles, more so because we had not started earning you see! The adventurous trips to Mukkam in the night to buy beer and then getting back to the room, lights off, metallica playing, gulping beer and getting ready to play Half-Life and NFS-111. that was final year and it was Awesome, with a capital A!!!
7) The scrabble sessions – man I used to love it! There was this time when we were mad about scrabbles and used to have these team names and would actually hunt around for the shortest word which had a “Z” in it. All the bitching about profs and exams used to happen around the scrabble board. Fights too!
8) The Jeep shows – this happens once in a while where a group of people rent a jeep and go for the night show in the city (REC too, like ISB is situated around 20 kms from the city, the only difference being that it was well connected). The jeep shows reach a peak during the placement seasons, as more and more people get placed, the trips will be made to “Calicut Taj” or “Malabar towers” for the treat.

It is really intriguing to compare the demographics of the student population in Both the places.
In REC, you had three categories of people – the guys who don’t study at all, the guys who study a little and enjoy a lot and the third group, who only study. The first group will be around 20 percent, the second 70 percent and the third, a measly 10 percent. Of course, all of these are relative!
In ISB, you again have three categories – the guys who study a lot and party a lot too, the guys who only study and the guys who study a little and party a lot. The first group constituting around 65 percent, the second group around 30 percent and the last with an abominable 5 percent.
So you see, things are almost the same only for the middle group. The other two groups are at the extreme.
But again, people don’t throw away lucrative jobs and precious time with their families and also pay an exhorbitant fee to come to ISB and Not study. And the course model at ISB does not render itself suitable for people who don’t want to study too. A class missed is an experice missed, because the professors are damn good. You have to listen to each and every word that comes out of the prof’s mouth. It really amazes me how I can sit through a lecture of 2 hours and not wander off into dreamland in between. I cant remember sitting with full attention for any of the lectures in REC, maybe except for the maths class which I used to enjoy.
And CP in REC is something I cant conjure in my wildest of dreams. Forget CP, I don’t even remember anyone asking doubts in any class. (CP, for those who are thinking what it is – class participation. This is a part of the grading for the marketing class in the first term and the students just LOVE the fact that this counts towards the grade!)

Although REC Calicut is one of the best engineering colleges in India, when I look back at the 4 years, I believe that the way of teaching over there was probably not the best. This is in no way an allusion to the kind of faculty there, but the fact that even an institute of such caliber could not keep the students from not learning by rote. I still remember me and my friends going through fluid mechanics and trying to remember the whole thing up till the exam, spit it out in the exam and then blissfully forget about it. The only interesting thing that I did, with a lot of analysis and study gone into it, was my seminar on chaos theory.
Again, this is not a generalization and there have been people who have actually worked on difficult topics like robotics and have gone to prestigious universities on the basis of that (this is not an REC for nothing!)
But the fact still remains that students are not incentivised to learn through application and not given the motivation to understand the topic, but to actually just cram for the exams. Maybe the age at which they come into an engineering college and the fact that being a residential college, this is the first taste of freedom for most of them, the current system is probably the best. Make them fear the grades and get them to study by hook or crook.
Maybe this is the way in which the IIT’s score over the REC’s. I need to ask an IIT-ian!!

REC Calicut ranked 14th best engineering college in India – Go here