Books again..

After a longish break -- again back to books and writing. Picked up "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" and it became yet another book which I could not keep down once I started reading it. Fast paced, with a monologue styled writing, concepts of ideologies, identity, strong undercurrent of nostalgia in the first half, this book for me rates better than "Moth Smoke", which incidentally is another on my favs list.

Finished "The Middlemen" by Sankar. A moving read in terms of a realistic portrayal of unemployment in Calcutta during the 70's. The author, in the epilogue also gives the inspiration that went into writing this book, his inner emotional dilemma of depicting the bleak situation pessimistically as is versus his duty as a writer to bring the reality to the public.

Have now picked up Chowringhee by the same Author. Next on my reading list!

Tall Claims?

The Maharashtra FDA has taken a popular health drink maker to court over the advertisement for their health drink which claims that children who drink it grow taller by 2 inches than children who don't.

I have always been irritated by this advertisement and have often wondered why no rival company had created a ruckus over such an exaggerated advertisement and often wished someone would interfere to take these people to task for such baseless claims. If they indeed have "research reports" to back their claims I wonder what it would contain?!

Would they have had 2 identified groups of children one group who were regularly given the drink and the other one not, over a period of years? If yes, how did they neutralize any biases when selecting these groups? Did the children in the first group have tall parents compared to those in the second group, were they from any specific regions of the country, how was it known that they did not take any other health supplements etc etc...As much as I try I cannot conceptualize a bias-free study which could give this result...and hence my irritation at ads like these.....

It remains to be seen what the company's response in this case is.

Aside/Is it only me who feel that off late, all SRK ads are big disappointments? the bear one...the paste one...really really unoriginal and with no TOMR.

Loved the new NIIT ad though. Superb visuals.

Fav Ads

I have always been interested in ads. When I was doing my ISB, although I was more inclined towards Finance, the thought of taking up a role in branding / advertising was always there at the back of my mind and this was one reason why I wanted a dual major in Marketing. Just to keep the options open :) but I landed in Finance nevertheless and so now I keep my interest in this area by closely following the ad scene in the visual media.
So on one particularly lazy day when I didn’t want to go play badminton and didn’t want to read any of the 3 half read books lying on my couch and didn’t want to write also ( :-( ), I decided to list down some of my favourite ads from the last year. And here they are…in no particular order!
1. Coke classic: Simply classic, one of those ads where there is no story/message/brand utility..nothing. It’s just cool! :)
2. Surf excel (The ‘Rosy Miss’ ad): For an ad for a detergent, it famously proclaimed “dirt is good” whereas the competitors was doing the age old formula of “removes dirt/makes perfect white/as good as new/etc etc”.
3. Mentos Dadhoo ad: Superb idea / graphics and very effective in TOMR for the viewers.
4. Limca Sushma Reddy ad: Very vibrant, playful & backed by an excellent jingle.
5. Tata tea (kyun ki hum khilate hain): Important message comes across superbly to the target audience.
6. Hindustan times (“Its time to stop” series): It’s so rare to find an ad which is message oriented and with a sense of humour!
7. Hero Honda ZMR: The Hrithik ad, just for the execution of the ad; superb and stylish.
8. Airtel (Abhay Deol & Raima Sen): Very cute & romantic! Was intended to connect at an emotional level with the audience and it hits the right spot!
9. Wild Stone aqua deo ad: Just for Sheetal Malhar :) I mean is there any other ad which is this sexy without being vulgar?!
10. Nescafe ads: Has a very feel good factor to them. You actually feel like having a Nescafe after seeing them!
11. Airtel (Kid with toy phone calling dad): Very endearing one and the kid does a really nice job!
12. Bingo ad (the chilli flavour): Too good an acting by the girl…and what an idea!!
13. Max New York life insurance ad: This ad makes you sit up and think “this could happen to me”.
14. Volkswagen beetle ad: Captures the desirability quotient superbly.
15. Zoozoo ads: Well what more can be told of these? :)

An "Idiot"ic Thought?

So all of us saw ‘3 idiots’ and loved it! And I am no exception. If I enjoyed a movie, I don’t believe in sitting and trying to poke holes in it just for the sake of writing a review. It is after all a movie and not real life and there are bound to be creative liberties taken by the makers in the process of putting together something which enthrals millions of movie goers and behind which goes hell a lot of effort. A critic, on the other hand, has his job easy – watch the movie and tear it apart.
No. that would be quite harsh. And besides, all critics are not like that! That’s not the point of this post anyways.
It was heartening that one of the most important & concerning aspect of technical education in our engineering colleges was highlighted and articulated quite well in the movie. I consider myself lucky to be alumni of one such premier institute and even though I am proud of that fact, I have often felt that the way in which we were learning stuff there was not the best possible way. We used to cram up heat and mass transfer text books, vomit out whatever we learnt by rot in the answer paper and then forget about it. (I had cribbed about this in one of my earlier posts too). That message has been captured quite well in this movie and it helps in terms of reaching a larger audience when the same is an integral part of a super star’s movie.
But I felt that there was something else which bothered me about the movie. So here it is, trying to put that thought into words without really intending to “review” the movie.
It was another theme of the movie – the one on “Chasing your dreams”. On the silver screen, it looks good when the hero gets to follow his dream but the moot question here is, how many of us, at the age of 17 (when we are about to enter an engineering college) know what we really want to do in life? Do we have that much clarity at that age? And even if we have clarity, how many of us have the liberty and freedom to follow them? I might look stupid admitting this but if I had told my dad that I wanted to be an author and not an engineer after my class 12, he would have beat me with a cane to the engineering college door. (Ok..It was not that bad…but you get the point right?).
My view is that, at 17 years old, our idea of what we want to be in future is probably not the result of a well thought of and practical approach to life but considerably influenced by things like hero worship, peer pressure etc which often has a big role to play. It is the responsibility & prerogative of parents to guide us at that stage to equip ourselves with a basic degree which can then act as a backup plan in life if our dreams evade us and to that extent, R Madhavan’s (character’s) outburst of “I don’t want to do engineering …..because I know I won’t be a good engineer” did not cut slack with me. You get done with engineering and then pursue your passion but don’t say you are bad at engineering (and hence at clearing your exam papers) because your dream is something else. Doesn’t work in real life baby!
And again, on the other point of even if somebody is damn sure that his passion is X and not Y, how many can really afford to follow their passion in this country? I mean in the movie it was very convenient that Madhavan’s character who is from a fairly well to do middle class background wants to follow his passion of photography whereas Sharman Joshi’s character who is struggling hard to support his family is happy getting any job from the campus.
But what if it was the other way around? Would have been a tough (& probably implausible/impractical) situation if SJ’s character didn’t want to take up any job but instead wanted to take on photography?
Something worth thinking?

Rain, Music & a cup of hot Tea

Imagine it’s a day off from work and you are lazing around at home…its raining heavily outside and its evening 3 pm. You are sitting by the window side looking at the heavy downpour coming down hard on the small tin roof over the window shades and the tiny drops trickling down through the perforations in the tin sheet. You see little kids on the road, wearing raincoats those colored ones with cure little cartoons on them, walking back from the bus stop after being dropped by school buses, splashing water on each other, their laughter and squeaks drowned out by the rains. Buses pass by splashing the water collected in the puddles on the road on to the passers by, whose response to the same varies depending on their age. The elderly ones continue walking without noticing it in their concentrated effort to hold on to their umbrellas which flay wildly in the windy rains. The young ones are delighted when water splashes at them and smile with genuine joy…and the middle agers, angry at impudence of the bus drivers, break into an abuse….
You take in the beauty of the rain…a new book by your favorite author is lying in front of you
, waiting to be picked up. But you think, not yet…you want to just sit there, look at the rains and be lost in their dance from the sky……there is a cup of piping hot tea in front of you and a plate of kela (banana) bajji (Samosas if you are a north Indian! Or Dhoklas if you please ;-) )
What would be some songs that you would like to play in the background in such a beautiful setting?
I asked some of my close friends to share what are the songs that come to their mind…and some of them did. Here is the list (incl. mine).
v Badi sooni sooni hai
v Tere bina zindagi mein koi
v Neele neele ambar par
v Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain
v Rim Jhim Gire Sawan
v Neele neele ambar par
v Ye ladka hai allah kaisa hai deewana
v Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya
v Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko
v Dekha ek khwab to yeh silsiley huve
v Mere naina saawan baadon
v Kabhie kabhie mere dil
v Chandan sa badhan
v Ik pal hai jeena umeed ke bina aao hum is pal mein kho jayen
v Raah pe chalte hain ratoin mein basar karte hain
v Us din ki baat hai ramayiaa naav leke sagar gaya
v Rajnigandha
v Yeh dil sun raha hai

ISB, IIM and More....!!

Before you go ahead and read the “interesting” article (the link for which is given below in the post), I would like to submit the following.
1. I do not think ISB and IIM’s can be compared because they cater to different target segments (yikes! Why am I talking in marketing parlance?).
2. I have immense respect for IIM and their alumni. Many of my friends/batch mates from REC have gone to IIM’s and these are some of the smartest people I know.
3. IIM alumni should be (and are) proud of the fact that at least 9 of the top 10 corporates in this country would possibly have an IIM alumni in their Top Management.
4. ISB alumni should be (and are) proud of the fact that in a short span of 8 years, ISB has created a reputation for excellence and is recognized among the top b-schools worldwide by FT.

For me, everybody is free to have their personal view on which management institute is better than another and so I see this article as just another view...without any offence to anybody. Period.
Now, read this article.
http://www.merinews.com/article/arindam-chaudhuri-on-why-isb-is-better-than-the-iims/15789721.shtml
The article purportedly is about how ISB is better than IIM’s but after reading the article I felt (did you?) that the title should have been “Why IIPM is better than ISB and IIM?”!!!!!!!
One of the sentences goes like this.
Quote “.....fact that ISB got ranked at No.15 by FT ahead of the IIMs and that in the latest Zee Business B-school Ranking 2009, IIPM got ranked No.1 in ‘Global Exposure’ and No 5 in India overall, is only a sign of the times to come” Unquote.
I mean...really!? By speaking about both these incidents in the same breath, is it intended that both these events have the same significance? And if yes, the rankings of both these entities carry equal credibility? I don’t know and I don’t want to know!
Another one.
Quote “…in the case of a B-school professor who doesn’t have practical experience, the crowning grace then is about how much management consulting work he undertakes……. While IIM professors are, on an average, good……….” Unquote.
This point is justified by some research done among the alumni on how many professors they rate as very good/good etc and if there is some research on actual management consulting work undertaken by the professors from the IIM’s, the same is not shared.
Anyways….all said and done, read the comments at the end of the article. Some of them are absolute gems! Read on…have a laugh!

A beautiful Smile & X-mas Cheer

The cheer was missing.
In spite of it being one of my favorite month (and week) of the year, in spite of having a 4 day weekend and in spite of finally getting back to my writing and blogging, the cheer was plainly missing. It did not help that my family was back in Kerala and the plane tickets were costing a bomb.Suddenly i was missing being back home at this time of the year.

On my way to office in the blue A/C bus (yeah..ok the 'purple' A/C bus!) yesterday, i tried hard to figure out my dipped enthusiasm. Yes, the happenings at office were..hmm to put it mildly, "unsettling"..and i didnt have a clue as to where my career was going in the next 6 months. There were things on which i was pinning my hopes on which were not working my way. The only relief was that i was now getting myself to write again..but not quite as much as i would have liked to and so even this was not able to bring a smile to my face.Watching 3 idiots with friends was fun, but somehow the smile was already gone by the time we came out of the theatre. On my way back home in the taxi, i suddenly had this scary thought "My god, why is nothing making me smile these days? Am i really becoming "Mr Grumpy"?

The roads were empty because of the holiday and this time the extravagant decorations were missing out from the malls, shops & the roads. The taxi came to a stop at a red signal. The window glass was down and i was listening to an ustad sultan khan song when there was a tap on the window. I looked out and saw first not the guys face, but the cover of a book which he was holding out to me"
"saab...dekhlo saab...accha book hai..ekdum bestsheller...". "The three states" the bright red pirated paperback proclaimed.
"yeah right" i thought. Already restless that i was, this unsolicited literary advice didnt go down well with me and i shooed the guy away.
I had just about sat back and closed my eyes, wanting to be soothed by the voices of the ustaad and KS Chitra when there was again a tap on my window.I opened my eyes irritated and angry for being again disturbed...and looked out. And saw her.

She was probably 6 years old. She was wearing a rag of a dress and was holding on to a bunch of threads from which rose a bunch of bright multicolored balloons.Her hair was matted and unkempt, the result of not being washed for probably days and she had a slight cleft lip. But what stuck me the most about her was her eyes. There were bright and round and i thought it was ironical that god had given her such a wretched life but inspite of it, her eyes were full of life. Or was this also a sleight of hand by that great magician?
"do gubbara lelo sahib...10 rupaya".
The signal had turned green and the taxi driver had shifted the gear and was about to move. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him for a minute and looked back at her.
"ek tho lelo sahib...bhook lagi hai...vada pav khane ka".
I felt a tug at my heart and without thinking anymore , took out a 100 rupee note from my purse and gave it to her and asked her for 1 balloon. She handed over the end of a thread from which a single red big balloon was suspended and looked at me with confusion, holding the 100 rupee note in her hand. I then told her gently that she should go and get a decent meal with the money.

Before my moved away from the signal, i saw the girl's face break into a smile. A beautiful perfect smile. A smile that seemed to light up the entire surrounding, a smile so genuine which you get to see ever so rarely these days. Suddenly that odd realization which often strikes us but then is lost in our busy day today came to me..that here was a 6 year old who was happy and smiling at the thought of a full meal where we, inspite of having so much in life, sometimes lose perpsective and despair over materialistic things. How childish were my worries compared to hers?
The taxi was now speeding and i put my hand out of the window and released the balloon into the wind.....along with my worries and smiled.

The cheer was back.

Music & ..growing up down south of Vindhyas

It often amuses me when my north indian friends express amazement at my knowledge of hindi songs...particularly those old melodies..those ever green songs made immortal by starwalts like kishoreda, rafi, hemant kumar, mukesh, manna deyetc.For even though born and brought up south of the vindhyas, we had to learn during our growing up days in school,what was ostentiably the "national language" of india - Hindi.
When you are 6 years old and at an age when you dont rather like going to school at all, you dont really spare a moment to think what exactly are you taught at school. You just learn (or try to learn!) what they teach you at school. And so i learnt hindi (which was not my mothertongue) for a total of 6 years. Back then, it was just another "language subject" in which we had to get 35 marks to pass and that was it.Of course being in CBSE syllabus helped because we had an option to choose between hindi and sanskrit in class 5 and i happily chose sanskit. No, not because i didnt like hindi, but because supposedly it was easy to score marks in sanskrit for the board exams! (yes, this was indeed proved correct when i managed to get a 99 in sanskrit in my CBSE board exams - excruciatingly missing that magical number by 1 mark..losing that top honours to a pretty girl in my class who managed to score a full 100 in sanskrit and who got a special prize for the same whereas your truly, inspite of being the batch topper was not even awarded a plaque...sigh!)
Anyways..coming back to the point, we down south were blessed because we learnt not just our mothertongue, but also the language which is spoken by majority of our north indian brethren. Even today, this gives me a kick, a rather childish satisfaction, that i am comfortably able to have a conversation with my north indian friends in their language whereas they would never be able to claim the vice versa!
And for music lovers like me, this forced multi-linguism was a blessing. Becuase not only were we lucky to have grown up listening to the southern legends like yesudas, jayachandran, suseelamma and janakiamma, so were we swayed by the magical voices of legends of the north.
In fact some of my earliest memories from childhood of songs being hummed by my dad and mom were actually not malayalam songs, but hindi ones. Like "tere bina zindagi mein koyi" was/still is my mom's favorite whereas my dad was/is rather fond of "kabhie kabhie mere dil".And not just the popular ones, the tastes were eclectic...sample this - "badi sooni sooni hai". Where Rafisaab's voice tugs at and makes your heart ache when he sings an "ehsaan tera hoga", Kishoreda's voice gives you goosebumps and for those 5 minutes, you live a different life! I mean these were and still are some of the best songs ever writen and sung..evergreen in their appeal and expressions.
Not to say that malayalam classics were overlooked. An "alliyambal kadavil" was played as many times in my house as a "tum itna jo muskura rahe ho". Some of my really nice childhood memories include sitting on the porch at home watching my dad and uncle playing carroms and the radio playing "bina ka geetmaala / cibaca geetmala" in the background.
Those were the years....and sometimes when i am really down, playing one of those timeless classics brings about a serene calm and i am at peace again....

The New Coke Ad!

I had been pretty dissapointed by the Coke ads that were being churned out for the last 1 or 2 years. In spite of having some of the most saleable stars of the bollywood industry under their contract, their ads were nothing but average. That is why i was floored by the new coke ad. Simple settings - a college library where a cool dude and a sexy chick is sitting across a table...hell i dont think i can write about it and do justice to it! ;-) It is one of those ads that cannot be explained but really artistically done...quite a classic...quite cool..!

The Girl with the Pink Umbrella

I knew this would change everything but as I stood there transfixed, I felt helpless. Even the unpredictable mumbai rains which was now a drizzle but threatening to turn into a downpoar didn’t force me to move away from the open space to the shelter of the bus stop. I have replayed that moment a thousand times in my head since that day but never have been able to remember what was it about her that had me transfixed and reminded me of Riya. Was it that pretty scarf around her beautiful slender shoulders which seemed to have been casually worn but gave her a scottish village charm or was it the book that she was carrying in her hand (“The Fountainhead”) or was it the oversized goggles or was it the pink umbrella? Or was it the graceful ease with which she was able to give an impression of sophistication and innocence, of intellectual and feminine at the same time, something which was so typical of Riya?
All I knew was that the past was coming back to haunt me. Images of Riya flashed before me and I felt a strong feeling of déjà vu. Althought it was more than 2 years since I had lost my Riya, I had only recently come to terms with a life without her and would still often wake up with a start in the middle of the night, frantic on not finding her beside me and then cry throughout the night.
All I knew was that I wanted to befriend this girl, this stranger. She loves books and more importantly she loves reading Rand, I thought. That was a good enough omen for me. But the pain of loss had such a sordid grip on me that I was scared to fall in love again…scared to again lose a loved one.
---------------------
I regularly saw her for the next few weeks in the morning at the bus stop..from a distance, never exchaging a word. Unknown to her, she made my day cheerful, just the sight of her in the morning. I painfully realized that as much as I wanted to get to know her, the irrational fear of losing her meant that I would probably never even get to talk to her…..
Till one day…..she walked over to where I was standing, smiled at me and extended her hand of friendship…
“Hi!! You are also a regular at this bus stop like me…I am Riya..and you are?”…..
Everything changed after that..just as I had imagined when I first saw her!

there is still hope yet..

It was about 11 o clock in the night and I was returning back home after watching a movie at phoenix. I was in a taxi and it was drizzling slighlty and the taxi was going at a slow pace. A few metres ahead of me, I saw a guy starting his motorcycle and coming out on to the road but to my alarm saw that he had not released the stand of the bike. Having seen an accident happen due to the same reason a couple of years earlier, I was suddenly scared for this guy. I knew that the road ahead had lot of potholes and the moment the guy goes past by a pothole, the stand was going to get stuck and he would fall.
My taxidriver was an old chap (who I am sure was suffering from nightblindness!) and in spite of my repeated requests to speed up and catch up with the guy on the bike, he could not drive fast enough to catch up. My repeated requests to go fast was no doubt making him upset. Ahead, a turning was coming up and I prepared myself to watch what I was dreading would come true….
Then I saw those 2 guys…they looked like your local ruffian sort of guys, whom you will identify as faces which you would see in every nook and corner of busy & crowded areas in any town; guys loitering around without having any work & sense of purpose, mostly drunk all the time, passing comments on women passing by – the standard rowdy acts. They were coming out from a paan shop and then looking to cross the road and saw the guy on the bike approaching…and as I watched, both of them gesticulated wildly with their hands to the biker signaling to him that he had not released the stand of the bike. As soon as they did this, the biker passed by these guys and then slowed down to release the stand and then (not looking back because the road ahead was dimly lit) raised his hand to wave in acknowledgement, in thanks, to these two guys. He waved once, then did a thumbs up and then waved again….and sitting in the car, seeing this scene being played out in front of me, a smile crossed my face & the thought crossed my mind “There is still hope yet….and there is a little bit of goodness in everybody!!”
And then I told my driver..”kaka, abhi aap slow chalao….chalega!”

Worst Ad of the Season!

There seems to be a lot of ads on prime time television these days which are competing to be the worst ad of the season. Till now I had thought that the worst one of the lot was the ad for one of the cough candy products which shows a “cool” guy getting irritated with his fellow passenger for asking him about how cool the candy is breaking the window glass of the aeroplane and thrusting his fellow passengers head out. I mean, give me a break. The ad is poorly executed, there is no meaning whatsoever, is completely lacking in creativity and somebody should give a complaint against this one for portraying such irresponsible actions in an ad!
But then I got to see the ad for a leading mosquito repellent and this one has replaced the previous one as the worst ad of the season! It’s completely hilarious and shows the actors going around speaking in woof-tongue, a bark replacing all their conversations supposedly to portray the side effects of using a coil compared to a repellent machine. The presence of a leading-although-now-a-part-of-oldies Bollywood star doesn’t help and the ad comes across as a piece of juvenile piece of work. Maybe with all the recession happening, ad companies have started recruiting fresh interns to get their stuff done!

Vaaranam Aayiram

I lost a bet about this movie! About a month before the release of this movie, I had a bet with my friend as to what the title of this movie meant…I had interpreted the title to mean “A thousand colours” and my friend (who incidentally has the advantage of being a tam-bram) had bet that it was actually “strength of 1000 elephants or something like that”!!. It turned out later that I lost the bet…but when I watched the movie, I realized that I didn’t lose the bet in all aspects…because the movie literally comes across as a thousand colours!
Surya, I believe, has given the best performance of his career (matching his pithamaghan performance) in a role which spans 4 decades. It can now safely be said that there are actors of the calibre of Kamal Hassan in the current generation of Tamil heroes. Surya’s performance reminds you of a young Kamal Hassan and he essays each stage of the character with utmost ease. When he plays a school kid, he looks that part and when he plays the old man, he looks that part too, which says a lot about his performance!
The story line is simple and is a tribute to a father figure in the hero’s life. Sameera Reddy passes muster, Divya gives a no-nonsense performance and Simran gives an excellent supporting performance to Surya’s father-role. The songs are beautiful and the visuals beautifully done. Surya seems to be maintaining a balance in his choice of movies alternating between the rustic village roles and the yankee metro crowd roles playing both with equal ease. Having watched the movie twice, I can vouch that this one doesn’t make a boring watch although you need to be a sensitive and/or romantic person to enjoy this one!

I wish: Aamir would remake the movie in Hindi (mama on his blog was hoping that SRK would not remake this one – I agree!!)

Smart Positioning

The new entrant from M&M’s stable, Xylo seems to be a smart case of positioning by M&M. The ad for Xylo shows a huge container coming down crashing down on a dilapidated (?) sedan and then the Xylo rolling out from the container. Seems like M&M has depicted the positioning in the ad also! (With a VO of “Era of sedans is over”! like the ad!) Priced at around 6.5 lakhs (Base models E2 and E4) , not only they have ensured that it doesn’t cannibalize their Scorpio sales, but it would take heads on the fiestas, the SX-4, Dzire etc. and at 6.5 lakhs, with the features it provides, its truly value for money also. Although they could have done better with the looks, particularly the rear side which has a box like appearance. But in spite of this, Xylo looks to be a winner..lets wait and watch!

What's your contribution?!!

An advertisement pamphlet which came with my newspaper today.. the caption ran like this..(or something similar)"We made the earth lighter by 57000 Kgs this month...what is your contribution?"
..and no..this is not an ad for any wastage disposal company or government agency...its the caption for a specialized beauty/slimming clinic!
Innovative advertising anyone?

It pays to be Process Oriented!

One of the areas which most organizations talk about being important to their business but is relegated to being the pain point in their day to day operations is processes (the other close competitors would be compliance & technology, although the first one does manage to have considerable power). In spite of the initiative taken, once in a while, by a well meaning business unit head or a CEO, processes in any organization remains, unfortunately, something which is good to have – let’s have it, document it and forget about it. Why bother about it when the business is making money eh?

Well, with mammoth financial institutions having a history of more than a century folding up within just a week, people will now wake up to the importance of having a laid down process and following the process to a T.

How many times in our career have we come against an argument that we are losing business and so why don’t we tweak that process a little bit? Well it definitely works that way in most organizations but the perpetrators are too short sighted to see and understand that in the long term it ends up hurting the very business that they were clamouring to build.
Not that these venerable institutions didn’t have a risk management process. Assuming that would be a childish if not an imbecile thought. But the real question is how much of importance was given to the laid down processes in the mad run for generating business and making money.

Financial institutions which should worry about three different costs – cost of funds, cost of operations and cost of compliance, by ignoring to follow the processes unknowingly ends up adding to the cost of operations which ultimately adds to the cost of funds and when things get out of control, finally to cost of compliance!!

Split Generations

I am not old. Ok, maybe i should say "I am not that old", yet i was appalled to see this one particulr program on MTV and was left wondering whether the cultural identities have shifted significantly even to vary within the same generation. In the "olden" days, we used to have the older generation (mostly your uncles, a bit older cousins etc) and you would often have these good natured disagreements about which generationhad the better songs and actors etc. But the age difference which separates these two different generations were quite considerable.But now, things seem to be changing. So now, to the topic.There is this new program which is being aired on channel V in which there are two guys and a group of girls, whose objective is to make sure that they get one of the guys to date them (something on these lines). And so we have "competitions" in each episode and then there are "elimination rounds" where girls are "Dumped" based on various "parameters". And its shocking to see these girls taking it so seriously!I mean, what kind of message are we sending to the millions of youngsters who are glued to these channels?That, being a girl, you are a loser if some &@#$!@&* doesnt want to take you for a date? That you need to "compete" and "prove yourself" inorder to be an object of affection? I mean, come one, gimme a break!Is this the definition of being "Cool" for the teenagers? Shouldnt this kind of competitive mentality be used to motivate them to take on better things, which could be cool too?

I wish i could know the opinions of teens on this!

Back to Books!

So, after a long hiatus, i get back to what i love the most. Reading. Picked up a couple of books from the ISB library and got busy!

Midaq Alley (Naguib Mahfouz)
I picked this up from the ISB library only out of curiosity because this work had won the author the Nobel prize in literature. 30 Pages into the book and i was bored and decided to give it back and try my luck with some other book. But then met NM on the way and was told about how it gets interesting, so decided to give it a second shot and boy, was i surprised?This one starts slow but picks up pace towards the middle and then leads you into a vortex of emotions running through the mind of the central character of the book - Hamida. For me, she is one of the most strong-willed character that i have ever come across in all the works that i have read till now.Yes, she is enchanted by the pleasures in the world and doesnt consider the sanctity of means for her to achieve her ends. Yes, she chooses the lure of money over a committment of love. She gives in to the thinnest of possibilities which could get her out of Midaq Alley.But the way in which the author has been able to balance the extreme aspects of her character is mind blowing. It is almost like a Shakespearean play - whatthe audience sees and what the characters on the stage believe are totally different!So we have Hamida who thinks she is wielding power over Ibrahim when the latter was courting her, but it is so evident to the reader that, in her eagerness to extract herself from her pitiful existence in the alley, she was simply playing into the hands of the pimp.What strikes you about the book is the fact that you can imagine the street and visualize the characters taking shape, once you are through with the book and not many books are able to achieve this feat - at least in my experience.

Miguel Street (V S Naipaul)
Avoid.

Fasting Feasting (Anita Desai)
Started off well, but i lost interest towards the mid. Disjointed stories, it seemed, although the characters were part of the same story. One part ended rather abruptly and the other...well, what was the essence of it?

Riot (Shashi Tharoor)
Masterful. Shashi Tharoor weaves a story which captures your imagination for the way in which he blends it into the political backdrop of a village in India some years back and the happenings during that period. What stands out here is the way in which the author presents compelling arguments for opposing ideologies. From the perspective of a Hindu about the muslims, from the perspective of Muslims about the hindus, from the perspective of "real indians" about "spoilt, elitist and over-educated" indians who doesnt have a clue about the real india and then for the other side, etc. And if the book is able to convince you about each of these arguments when you are reading them one by one, then you know the mastery of the author on his material.Although i did feel that the romantic/sexual undertones could have been little lesser and more space was provided for the ideological debates and commentaries.

Definitely worth a read!

The five dollar smile (Shashi Tharoor)

These are short stories which was written by the author when he was in his late teens. Some of them are really nice and some of them, you could feel are amateurish.Good for a read though!

Journey to fulfillment

Smiling, he met me at the doorstep,
“Welcome my child to your final destination”
My face was writ with trepidation
On seeing the lord himself at his step.

His face shone with radiance,
His eyes greeted me with understanding,
His smile was kind and assuring
And his words, devoid of pretence

“You look divine and beautiful
And make my heart fill up with joy
All the murals and paintings
Never did you any justice!”

"Thank you my child, come let's go"
"But god, there is something i want to know
how can you meet each and every person
when they leave the world after their season?"

"My dear child, this world doens't have time,
being here is being in eternity
when mortals leave their earthly belongings,
they become angels, join me for the final journey"

"Why do i feel peace and serenity,
when i have just separated from my loved ones?
and where are you taking me now,
to the heaven or to the hell?"

"You are at peace my dear child
because the time stands still here
and dont let your heart go wild
thinking of heaven and hell"

"For, there is no heaven or hell
all my children belong to one big world
your deeds and actions as a mortal
already took you through heaven/hell"

"You have played your part in my story
you cease being an actor henceforth
you will be with your loved ones here
from now on and till eternity"

Placement experiences & More

I intend to pen down my thoughts on ISB in the next few weeks (the last term here!) and what I think are right and what I think are wrong. Some of it is not going to make some people happy, but I am going to do it anyways. I thought the first of these should be my interview experiences during the ISB placement week. So here we go. I am not posting the experience with the company with which I finally took up the offer (which is Barclays), but the other three which I had on day 1.

I think I should also express my thoughts about the placement week. Placement week at ISB creates an artificial job market which puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on people leading to a lot of well deserving candidates missing on jobs for which they have worked their **** off for the last one year. What happened in the Reliance power IPO where 100X people applied to X number of shares? Most people ended up not getting any shares at all (which, in hindsight was not a bad thing at all). The same applies here. The companies coming to the campus have the advantage of being selective because there are 420 students out here from which they can choose and so they get the upper hand. This makes the pressure levels go up and hence we need a system where the students have the upper hand. For this, the concept of the week long placement process should be removed and it should be spaced out. If the companies that are coming later complain about them being not able to get the crème de la crème, they have to be made understood that all the students in ISB are here because they were best in their previous jobs and hence focusing on the top of the batch of the “batch of extremely talented 400 odd people” is not the best approach to take. Instead they need to focus on whether the candidate who has applied to the job is interested and has done enough research on them (by reading the EOI and resume – please read them cause we take a long time to write them) and will fit their culture and see a long tem career in the company etc.
Most companies are not very hung up on grades (Except for the consultancy companies who anyway are not going to be a topic on my blog), and do look whether you have some transferable skills to bring from your previous work experience, which is where being in ISB makes a difference.

The ways in which the interviews are conducted by some of the firms are also abhorable. Having conducted a lot of interviews in my previous job, I believe that a good interviewer should take out time to read the resume before deciding whether they want to meet a candidate or not, otherwise it is simply a waste of time for both. Mechanically short-listing based on grades only or relevant experience only does not work here at ISB because ISB has a diverse talent pool, most of them who are here to shift domains. If they wanted to hire people with relevant experience only, then why not recruit directly from the industry and why come to b-school at all? Firms should have an open mind to take in people who might not have relevant experience, but have the passion to make a career in a new field and also bring to the table skills, which are not technical in nature (organizational) and which can be applied in any company.
Think about it. When a firm recruits a fresher from an engineering college, then she has to be put in an induction program, a big part of which will be on the organizational aspects like social skills, etiquettes etc. also, during the first few years, a new joiner learns a lot of things on the job in the organizational like how to conduct meetings, mentor and manage other people, network in the organization, leadership skills, how to make a different to the organization through non-core activities etc.
A company which recruits from ISB do not need to spend these efforts on the candidate and the only induction program needed would be with respect to the area of work. Does it really make sense to look at the previous relevant experience then? I think not.

Another aspect which I find despicable is the fact that some of these companies that come to ISB has the audacity to offer salaries which are less than offered to the students from the best engineering colleges in the country. What exactly do they think? Are we fools? I mean, don’t their HR departments have any self-respect?
In this respect, we need to put in place a policy which mandates that no company offering a salary less than X will be given a slot. It was heartwarming to see something similar happen last year at my undergraduate college (Regional engineering college Calicut) where the top IT Majors could not find a slot because they were giving salaries less than the institute cut-off!!!!




Interview experiences

Company: A Leading private sector bank in India
Role: Equity Sales & Trading
Duration: 35 minutes
Category: Genuine


There were two senior folks in the panel and an HR lady who walked in half-way. The table in front of them was a mess with lot of food stuff and water bottles. In between the interview, food was again bought over and he actually asked me whether I minded him having his food (Did he expect me to say Yes?!!!!!)
One person (more senior) was not interested at all and he was just sitting there looking down most of the time and lost in though. The whole interview was done by the second person except for some rare comments by the senior guy).

The interview was very technical. I had indicated in my resume my interest in tracking markets and so they started on that. First they asked what a carry trade is and I explained the Yen dollar carry trade and told them about the interest rate parity. Then they asked whether the GDP growth in India is sustainable and I told them yes. Then they asked why and I explained that the GDP growth in the recent years was mainly contributed by the investments that the private sector is making and not really driven by consumption as is the broadly believed perception.
The senior guy suddenly looks up and asks “How are you making all these inferences?” So I tell him that I had been reading research reports and this was based on one of the report in ICRA. Then he says “Yes, that is correct". He then goes back to his old pose of lost-in-thought (and checking blackberry in between).

Then I was asked what was the most important thing haunting the global markets at that point of time and I knew it was a bait for sub-prime and I gladly bit it because I could speak about it with authority. I gave the whole story right from pass-throughs to CDO's to CDS to monolines and they were very happy. The guy said "You have not covered some aspects of it, but you have covered most of them in detail".

I was, for a moment, happy!

Then they asked me which are my favorite sectors (I had written about tracking sectors in stock market) and I said PSU banks and power. He asked me why power? I gave the whole funda of the capacity addition (78000 MW) that is going to be done over the next 5 years and how this sector had to grow for the economy to sustain the high growth rate. I also talked about the proposed government spending on infrastructure in the 11th 5 year plan and how much of that is going to be in Power. He then asked me to name a specific stock in the power sector and I said I liked NTPC. He was not very convinced with my pick and asked me since NTPC has an annuity based stream of revenues, why are people so hung up on that. I told him that from the valuation front, NTPC is really attractive and gave him the info on the P/BV and the interest coverage ratio and the debt equity ratio.

The senior guy again looked up and asked me what is the cost per unit of electricity produced for NTPC and I said I don’t know but told him the unit rate at which they bid for projects.
“No, I want to know the cost per unit that it takes for them to produce a unit of electricity”
I said I don’t know.

He then told that equity sales and trading does not really come under them (wonder why it was then put on the JD!!!!!!) and they are more into derivatives and other stuff and asked me whether I was really ok about this or was I inflexible about the role. I said I am flexible about that but I don’t think he was convinced and he believed me to be very interested on the equities side.

He then asked me whether I had any questions and I asked about a recent article that I read regarding SME's sitting on huge MTM losses because of exposure to exotic forex derivatives which they didn’t understand. He then asked me to give examples and I gave examples of Hexaware. He said it is a very valid question and said that as long as there are controls in place, then this is a good business to be in.
I then asked him about a news-item in the press which mentioned about the top three private banks (including this particular bank) in India having a combined exposure to about 3 billion worth of sub-prime and asked him how much his bank’s exposure to this was. He expressed shock at this number and pushed it aside saying that press always exaggerates (Wonder what he has to say about it now that the news of this particular bank’s loss has come out in the press in public!)

I think the interview went well and I had a fair chance of getting an offer. Would have definitely liked to know whether I had an offer, but I never got to know because I went and signed Barclays offer in the night.



Company: Citibank
Role: Financial Analyst
Duration: 30 minutes
Category: Genuine

The interview was done by a senior person from HR and he came across as very friendly and amiable. It was more like a dialogue and never for a moment had it felt like sitting in an interview. It started with him asking me how I was doing and how was the week etc. then he asked me to tell him something about me and asked me why I wanted to do wealth management. So I explained him that I was on the technology side of wealth management industry at Goldman Sachs and wanted to move to the business side. He asked me to explain the wealth management flow how it worked in Goldman Sachs and I explained this to him He then asked me about my interest in capital markets that I had mentioned in my resume and asked me which sectors that i thought would do well. I told him that I was bullish on the public sector banks and the power industry and he asked me to justify why public sector banks. I rattled off the reasons on why public sector banks and then he asked me any stock picks. I gave Canara bank and PNB and then he asked me why specifically these. I told him about the reach of these banks and told him that I expected the growth to be driven by agriculture and SME's in the next few years and these banks were best positioned to ride on that. I also justified the attractive valuations for these banks and compared them with their private sector peers.

Interview went exceptionally well and I could see that the person was very happy with my knowledge of the markets and wealth management industry in general. He was mainly explaining how Citi smith Barney model was like and how it required entrepreneurship skills and networking skills etc. I could sense that maybe he had thoughts about me not fitting in with this aspect and whether I will stay there for long. He asked "You would be having more leverage in Kerala and contacts with HNI" and I said, yes, I would definitely be interested.
He then asked me whether I had any questions and I asked him about the career progression in the role and he explained it very frankly telling me that it would be entirely like running your own organization and how it would be a commission based model. I then asked him whether it would involve portfolio mining or acquisition and he replied that the focus would be more on acquiring new clients. I got the impression that he was trying to make me understand that it was a pure sales job that required sophistication to deal with rich and wealthy clients and the gab to get new clients.

Although the interview went quite well, I was not quite sure at the end of it. The conversation however was quite pleasant and being my first interview experience during the placement week, helped me to reinforce my belief that it was more of a conversation.




Company: a Leading private sector banking group in India
Role: AVP – Wealth management
Duration: 20 minutes
Category: Random!

I walk in and they don’t have my resume. They look at me questioningly.
“Are you carrying your resume with you?”
There were three members on the panel. 2 Ladies and one gentleman. One lady never spoke during the interview, so I imagine she was observing my behavioral skills.
“Yes, I do have”. I hand over the resume.
“Hmm…so you were working with Goldman Sachs Technology? What division?”
I tell him that I was with private wealth management technology.
“It looks like you were doing really well in your previous role. Why do you suddenly want to do a volte-face and move to business side?”
Volte-face?!! Told him the reason why I came to business school!!
“Can you describe to us the model followed by GS in their wealth management business?”
I explain the model. While I explain, he draws the model on the back of my resume.
“Hmm..ok..so that is the model”
He does not seem sure of it and had a facial expression as if I had conjured up the model from thin air. I sat wondering whether I was expected to explain more.
“So..do you have any questions for us?”
I was shocked. The interview had not even lasted 15 minutes. I was determined to waste some of their time. So I started off.
Asked them a couple of questions and they replied half-heartedly.
“It was good talking to you Vinod”
“Pleasure meeting you sir. Should I wait outside or would you be contacting us if needed?”
“We will contact you if needed”
Translated – we never had any intention of taking you!

I really don’t understand why these companies don’t read the resumes of the people they have short-listed. It saves them so much time and makes their job easier too!
And why short-list people you have no intention of taking at all?!!!!!!