Getting back your childhood or the best day in a long long time

To relieve ourselves of cares
Running away from professorial blares
Calming waters of the Ganges green
Just keep looking at the scene

Tired after a journey long
Full of food drink and song
In the heat of the midafternoon sun
Exertions boring to kill the fun

Then there was some amazing time
Amidst scenery undescribable by rhyme
In clean waters we dipped feet
Celebrating this rare treat

Swim around in the water cold
Till sinews numb refuse to hold
Then come and rest in the warm white sand
An earthly paradise, this silvery land

As light wanes, and falls the curtain of night
Stars come out, twinkling and bright
Sitting below and gazing far away
Insignificant as a needle in a stack of hay

By the soft warm sands time for the world
Weather nice enough to go to sleep curled
Round the bonfire a games they play
But I'd rather near the river stay

Then morning dawns clear and blue
Clouds from white to orange change hue
For the sun to rise, now its time
Leaving this place feels such a crime

Really refreshed and invigorated after breathing pure air

and dunking myself in nearly pure water.

I wish they didnt have the barbed wires there which makes the whole scene look so ugly.

Some absolutely random class poetry which meant a lot when we wrote it or how things get outdated very fast

Credit to Deepa for contributing some of the poetry here.

Marketing Research class

In the quest to find man's perch
Let's conduct market research
In this B-School rat-race
I'm the most hopeless case

When I was younger, they told me I'd go far
But here I am stuck in MR
So I sit, way back in the rear
Wondering if this is worth,
Eight lakhs a year

I sit in the mess eating a blackened toast
Aiming to reach the top of the flag post
The farther I go, the lesser I see
I wish that I'd be set free

Pre-Placement Talks

Oh! a boring PPT again
I'm convinced these people are insane
Making us wait for no reason
Welcome to the placement season

Dreaming of the rosy picture that awaits you?
That is the the destiny of the chosen few
The rest roam the streets looking for a client
Others end up becoming tools pliant

The lady tries to speak her way out
At every turn, looking for the choicest word
It's all above the heads of the manager-lout
The money's got the fancy of the herd

Guest Lecture on a Sunday

Its Sunday, the party's over
I can see that some've missed breakfast
Outside the door, I see the presenter hover
You can be sure this isn't the last

What a captive audience are we
Woken up in the early morn'
Dragged in to hear a 'talk' you see
Were we for this purpose born?

Resting heads on palms, I see
Seems a marathon session 'tis going to be
From transaction to relationship
A sane mind I don't think I can keep

He calls himself a storyteller
What I think, he's just a seller
Come here to give a talk
His goods, now he wants to hawk

'Let's change' he says, 'the para-dig-um'
Doesn't go well with people reeking of rum
Smirks, stares and yawns I see
Switching your brains off, that's the key

Arbit Lectures

A mess of circles on the board
Inventory systems of a single point
I say that its just a hoard
All this teaching is disjoint

Read a little, then read some more
Just skim through cases, its such a chore
The subjects such boredom bring
That even doggerels seem interesting

Dividends and equity all so breezy
The class ends, I'm left feeling queasy
Capital Assets and lending rates prime
All over my head, what a crime

In the waters of finance, I navigate my ship
The shore recedes at a fast clip
I fall asleep at the tiller
When I wake up I see Modigliani and Miller

Placements

We sit here giving feedback
To ensure there is no slack
So that smoothly goes tomorrow's dry run
I didn't know this was somebody's idea of fun

The scheduler blames the wing coordinator
This seems to be a game of passing the buck
It's a problem with the lowest common denominator
The entire process does suck

MRs and control desk exchange verbal blows
Its just another way that communication flows
Tired of making excuses lame
Finally on scheduling they put the blame

Questions are for asking
Lies are for masking
The truth, so that you may
Ensure jobs on placement day

Song for my mood: Wouldn't it be nice by the Beach Boys. Nice tune. Makes me feel very very happy and upbeat.

What do you do when you are caught between the Devil and the Deep Sea or the Easy Way Out

The night was dark, 'twas about time
To investigate and judge the crime
We gathered, one and all
In the stuffy, little meeting hall
Issues to be thrashed out there were many
Would we reach a conclusion on any?

Passions inflamed, everyone on fire
For them the situation looked dire
They had just come to present the case
And so they showed their made-up face
For them it was a question and answer session
Just like in parliament, its the current fashion

Neither side willing, an inch to give
Each one their goals to achieve
Then came the parties aggrieved
But there was no issue they believed
So back to square one we go
Its just another mockery show


And then they resigned. The mail came at 6am. And then I found them (half the lot) sitting in the mess. Cackling away to glory. A perfect case for Messrs. Freud and Jung.
You could call it Manic Hysteria.

Song for my mood: We don't need no education. Why? Because its time for classes

Radio Wars or how to start a fight without much ado

Ok. So you have a like 15 GBs of MP3s stored up on your hard disk. And you have listened to each song thrice and know all the lyrics by heart. So what do you do then? Start a hostel radio. Download and install the latest shoutcast plugins and server.Enqueue all the songs in winamp and push play.

There but who knows about it?

There is always MSExchange. Bill Gates' beauty cum spammers' dream come true. So you shoot off batch mails telling everybody what an awesome RJ you are and then wait for people to sign up. The names Radio K.A.O.S. What a wimp. All he can do is shamelessly rip off Roger Waters.

Oooh. Still no load? No problem. H. Shirouzu has just the thing for you. Its called IPMessenger. Every five minutes you ping the junta with messages like
For all the lovebirds: A Happy Valentine's Day
Coming up Rock Hour
Bryan adams..and BOn jovi...just for u all!!!

Ok. We know no one wants your radio when we can choose our own songs. No. The gentleman insists. Then all the hatred goes public. Everyone lets loose all pent up venom and some want to hang him too. Oooh.
This is what my good friends think about it.

This gets too much for me. I can no longer chat with my good friend sitting two rooms away over the same IPMessenger. So much for technology. Sigh! Bill Gates and his ilk rule my life.

Song for my mood: Move by Miles Davis.

Simple pleasures of life or what you all miss

It just occured to me.

Oh what fun it is to skip the class
View the world through a different looking glass
Lay on the grass under the shade of trees
Listen to the birds sing, the hum of bees

Boring subjects left behind
Away, away from the daily grind
Not a trouble, not a care
As life dishes out pedestrian fare

Just dreams to live by and nothing more
To the skies on flights of fancy soar
The world is for the taking, one day
And I'll be glad I did it my way.

Song for my mood: Take five by Dave Brubeck. Awesome song. It has been in my head for the past week and its on a continuous loop right now.

Random Fun or how to make your life enjoyable @ BSchool

Just Past Midnight, ground floor boys hostel

ME (Enter stage right, walk up beneath first floor railings look up and shout): Mansoooooooooooor. (Repeat thrice)

UNKNOWN FEMALE VOICE 1 (A tinny tone): Mannnnnnnnsooooooor
UNKNOWN FEMALE VOICE 2 (huskier): Mannnnnnnnsooooooor
RANDOM PERSON 1 (shouts): Mansoooooooooorrrr
RANDOM PERSON 2 (shouts): Mansoooooooooorrrr
PRANESH (looks up, shouts): Maaannnnnnnnsooooooooooorrrr.

MANSUR pops out like a beaver from his den. Looks dazed. Leans over the railing.

MANSUR: What is it?
ME: Which movie are you watching?
MANSUR: I'm doing work man, not watching any movie.

KARY (formerly unknown female voice 1): What about my write ups?
MANSUR: Huh!! (leans over a bit more.)

GORDON (in Mansur's ears): Mansooooooor.
ME: Mansur, don't jump. Pleeease.

A sizable crowd has collected. Unknown Female Voice 2(shrieks). Verghese comes down to the first floor. Everyone eggs him on to jump.

PRANESH (Opening his arms): I'll hold you.

Verghese climbs over the railing and jumps. Pranesh moves away. Jandhyala steps in, but puts a hand between Verghese's legs to catch him.

VERGHESE (screwing up his face): Dude, that's not the way to hold a person!

All hold their sides, laughing. One sleepy soul, woken up comes out to check the fun. All disperse. He makes a sad face and goes back to sleep.

I come back to my room.


Song for my mood: 'Round Midnight by Miles Davis.

Garota de Ipanema or the girl we all dream of : )

The mp3 player goes ting-dun-dun-bring-ung-ung... i know its my favourite bossa nova tune ...
Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes composed this little gem, and a guy no less than Frank Sinatra covered it.
And its also the song that set me off on the discovery of bossa nova.

Olha que coisa mais linda
mais cheia de graça
É ela menina que vem e que passa
nun doce balanço, caminho do mar...

Moça do corpo dourado, do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que un poema
é a coisa mais linda
que eu já vi passar...

Ah! Porque estou tão sozinho
Ah! Porque tudo é tão triste
Ah! A beleza que existe

A beleza que não é só minha
que também passa sozinha

Ah! Se ela soubesse
que quando ela passa
o mundo sorrindo
se enche de graça
e fica mais lindo
por causa do amor
por causa do amor
por causa do amor

I'd trust the reader to google for the english translation.
Incidentally the lyrics are based on a real girl called Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (yeah that's how she looked!), better known as Helô, who walked along the Rua Montenegro on the way to the beach (and to her school), and was the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso Bar which Jobim and Moraes also frequented. Interesting!

And then Stan Getz joined Jobim and the Gilberto couple on tour in the US which sparked off the bossa nova craze.

Had to write this. More on jazz and how I feel about it in some other post.

The "student's" lament

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Alexander Pope


And Frenchman Michel Gondry made a film. Quirky but good. Different from the mushy romances. Worth a watch because its different. And for once you don't have JimCarrey making funny faces.

And because there are no more papers to answer I watch the movie. And then trust good ole Mark Knopfler to put me to some much needed sleep. Really nice album that. Shangri-La. The mythical place of everlasting happiness. That's what we all need. Especially with an entire half term gone without having done anything satisfying.

Song for my mood: 5.15 A.M.

Academic Rigour

The academic rigour is really getting to people here.
Placement season and approaching exams combined with dry runs have made us quite susceptible to this disease. Usually it acquires epidemic proportions but generally vanishes after exams are over. This periodic disease has only one known cure, excision of the diseased individuals from their surroundings. It is also to some extent contagious.

Symptoms include but are not limited to:

• Asking stupendously idiotic questions in class (these generally qualify for the Sayal Saab Rolling Trophy)
• Sucking up to professors and asking for probable examination questions
• Camping out in the library
• Mailing professors and other arbit people with questions like, “how can one get an Excellent rating in evaluation of rigour of submission”
• Spamming people to ask doubts over the local mail exchange

And then there are people who claim to Think Vast and accentuate the academic rigour. These are the people who will send you detailed guidelines as to submission of assignments and the evaluation criteria, especially in response to above the mails.

Here is a sample

a few first level observations are:
- very original work with variation of language (How about French?) vis-à-vis the case study language
- beyond macro 1st level remarks
- having the Gestaldt view (or Gestalt psychology?)
- making observations that connect up with the academic concept of the case study

certain things are obvious:
- submission before deadline (if possible, make an early submission as this would kill any perceived impression ‘copying has been done’) (If you are so smart they why go by the perceptions?)
- a certain minimum length of analysis just as a certain maximum
- NOT sharing ur work with others (US has the academic culture of no one sharing his/her work as evaluations determine scholarships etc, in fact seniors also do not help; in India the smart students are actually dumb and act generous, though collaboration is absent in many Indian B-schools too…after all, the karmic experience of making a submission (aren’t we getting a bit too spiritual here?) on one’s OWN was the real learning, copying someone else’s work and submitting the same was sidestepping the true purpose of enrolling for a two year course)

I have just decided that I’m too bored to follow all these complex instructions. So I’ll just forget to submit all these assignments. And if you didn’t know, the purpose of all these assignments was just to prepare us for better class discussion.

Now if someone is so jobless as to sit and evaluate all these assignments and then give a grade like “VERY GOOD” with the comment “seem to have copied”

The ending comments on the message titled “Guidelines on Excellence in Submissions” are

- just as a chess player who can visualize 5-8 moves ahead without physically touching the pieces, or a sudoku player able to imagine multiple entries without actually penciling them in, same way a large RAM holding the entire case study generates quality analysis replete with insights

Which essentially means that we are big computers.

Song for the mood
Peter Gabriel: I Grieve.

War On Infidels or Much Ado about nothing

They try imposing their will
As they maim and kill
The jihad on infidels waged
The world watched mutely
Like animals sedated and caged

Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's leading daily published 12 caricatures of Prophet Mohammed and this raised a furore in the whole world. The OIC lodged a formal complaint against Denmark with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Then the next thing you see is the world is scared. Shit scared. They are expecting Osama to send another one of his videotapes, which he truly believes will put the fear of God into the hearts of the unbelievers. Then there will be retribution all over Europe. The offices of the newspapers which sided with Jyllands Posten will be bombed. In fact on Feb 3, a fatwa was pronounced against Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq and the Jyllands-Posten offices in Arhus and Copenhagen had to be evacuated after a bomb threat.

The solution? Build a large mosque in Copenhagen, with prominent minarets as peace offerings. And who will fund it? The news papers and the public of course. Wow! Thats a really smart idea. This way they could themselves get something published, threaten, people and governments and get more mosques built. For the "fastest growing" religion on earth, its a brilliant agenda!

The full dope over here.
This is Tavleen Singh's take on it.
And this is another POV.

Orthodox religious leaders are some of the most stupid animals to inhabit this planet, EVER. They never question past follies, never ask why rules were made the way they were, nor ever try to change. They are the branch in the evolutionary chain that never grew! Amazingly Darwin's laws seem to break down for them.

"Management Education" or what you must unlearn after two years

After seven "wonderful" months and an uncountable number of PPTs and seminars forced down my throat it finally dawned on me that BSchool is about entertaining yourself. Most of what you learn doesn't work in the outside world, atleast what's taught here seems like pure gas.

This is Gordon's take on it. What he forgot to mention is that "Strategy" guys fool the rest of the world. If you didn't know, strategy is one of the most abused words in the world of business. And yeah, I'm going to "specialise" in "Strategy". Why? Because it "looks" good on that piece of paper , which at the end of the day, is going to be my Curriculum Vitae. CV incidentally stands for course of life in Latin.

So I decided to get myself a new hobby. Penning verses. Essentially nothing much but rhyming lines, and not of a very good quality. So I call then worses. The subject range from cribbing about life and times, to the topic being taught in the lectures, not to mention the dry runs which probably make you want to shed tears. My partner in crime is Deepa. Its a lot of fun especially trying to maintain a continuity of theme.

Here is what she wrote about the whole thing.

MIS, HRM, they're all the same to me
In every class all I want is to run away, just flee
If the profs are so smart (consultants!) how come they don't know?
That I'm sitting here writing 'poetry', the creative juices flow!

RFID's in ... and out ?

Breaking news

Dutch RFID e-Passport cracked
That's what has been reported at Endgadget.
RFID is an interesting concept, and there's some amount of hype too, what with Wal-Mart implementing it and dragging all its vendors along too.
And now the news is that US is going to go ahead with the faulty technology. More fun and games for the terror mongers.

While on the topic of RFIDs, I had this harebrained idea for implementing RFID for our placements. That way you could track which student was where at what time. But as Pradeep pointed out, the RFID chip might be floating down a sewer line and we would be frantically tracking the student at the treatment plant.

But I'm not giving up.

Song for me: Sympathy by Goo Goo Dolls

Piracy and Litigation

Song for my mood: Reflections of Passion by Yanni.

This sounds like a reversed version of the Stockholm Syndrome. With all music companies going behind illegal downloaders of music, Terry McBride's is actually sympathising with David Greubel. RIAA is out to fine him and Nettwerk Music Group, whose CEO is Terry McBride has stood behind him. Nettwerk Music Group has agreed to pay the total expense of all legal fees as well as any fines should the family lose the case against the RIAA. Funnily, one of the songs targetted is Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne, a Nettwerk management client. More on that here
Nettwerk is the largest privately owned music company in Canada. I agree with McBride when he says that, "suing music fans is not the solution, it's the problem".

Thanks to Deepa for bringing this to my notice!

Attaining Peace

I’m in a really dull mood right now
My spirits dampened by dry runs
So I pop in some Eno, and wow
I’m suddenly weightless
surrounded by a thousand suns

Song to uplift your spirits: Weightless by Brian Eno
From the album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks

An overwhelming sense of peace descends on me as the strains of the synthesizer ooze gently from the headphones. I lose all worry, not even perturbed by tomorrow’s session with the monster. As the song is aptly named, you feel yourself floating, floating high up and you can see the big blue earth with the swirling clouds. Beautiful!

And then I curl up with this nice little book that Ramesh has lent me, "Zen in the art of Archery", by Eugene Herrigel