Seven Point Someone

Life at PSBB - Fond Memories are all that remain

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:39:00 +0000

"Pattaani Sundal Bonda Bajji Suda Suda Sambar" used to be the popular refrain that those anti-PSBBians used to go to, in those days of yore, when I was part of that wonderful institution called PSBBSSS. Plenty of nostalgic and wonderful memories and I had the most wonderful times in school.

Yesterday, as I was mindlessly facebooking, as ever, I came across this picture of the old Nataraj Eraser with the yellow wrapper that we used to get in those days. It is probably something that I wouldn't forget for a long time in my life, due to the pain it gave me when due to some mad reason I put a couple of small pieces into my ear without even realizing I did it. Two months of pain in the ear before it was discovered and flushed out. That picture took me back in time, and has got me back to blogging in this new year 2012.

Who can ever forget the old Balamurugan Store - the one stop shop for buying everything that you needed for your exams/classes/entertainment/eating. Fryums, 'Rasna', the old lady in the store. I can remember everything like it was yesterday, though sadly the store is no longer there as it has now been replaced by a swanky store - sign of the change within PSBB as well, in terms of the students, I guess.

Time has not taken away AB (Anand Bakery) though another AB in the form of Adyar Bakery has come to steal its swagger. The Samosa Channa from AB, and watching some friends 'shoplifting' a couple of bottles from there - unforgettable. Nor can I ever forget that mad rush for the 'Special Numbers' in the Cycle tokens that we had to buy to park our cycles in the school. Or distracting the security 'Marimuthu' with songs and what not, to escape outside without cycles if we didn't have a token.

Football in the basketball court was another special memory. The 200 (??!!) odd people who used to running about the small area in the lunch break chasing tennis balls and plastic balls, or at times the balls from the 'Play Pen' for the kindergarten kids. Getting caught once on the school CCTV cameras for jumping into a house next to school, to retrieve the ball. Or Simon 'Sir' - the "legendary" teacher who everyone thought would retire at the beginning of every year we spent in school - only to find him there with his ubiquitous spectacles. Or Revichandran who could give Arsene Wenger a run, with his football 'tactics' and 'selection' processes.

The jinxed sports day that used to get postponed every year thanks to the rain. And the rain holidays we used to get when it never rained. The games inside the classroom ranging from the Pen Game to Book Cricket and then 'A to G' Cricket. The 'tactics' that were employed ranging from taking a thin book or a thick book to a short book or a longer one. Or cricket with a paper ball that was stuck together with cello-tape as the ball and a bound text book or the exam pad as a bat.

No one could beat PSBB when it came to ''different'' 'subjects'. Transcendental Meditation where we were taught a 'secret' mantra in a dark classroom or Western Music with Felix sir and Samuel sir. But nothing can even come close to beating 'Work Experience' where we were 'taught' to make objects with useless items or cook up some 'delicacies' like Sandwiches with Biscuits and what not.

Oh Yeah! Future kids - the computer classes when we were supposed to learn Paint, Excel, Access (till date the only time I've used this software) but ended up playing the few games that used to be installed in some 'secret' folder for the entertainment of the teachers' kids. Those times when we used 'Network Neighbourhood' to trick our way through assignments or cause pain to people we didn't quite like by deleting their files. Or Chemistry lab where the lab assistant would give away the name of the compound we had to test.

Those fights between girls and boys for 'superiority'. I even remember some occasions where we had a running race across the sports ground much to the amusement of other onlookers to prove our superiority. And the 'black mark' charts that laid the foundation for the 'boy-girl' teasing that would happen. The 'helping hands' who would help their friends convey their 'love' and the inter-class and inter-batch fights that resulted because of the 'love'. The 'detective' girl who recorded a conversation of a boy proposing to her and had him caught, and the multifarious rumours that used to do the rounds during the days of ''Boys" - the movie.

The elections for the School Pupil Leader which were of much fanfare, and the time when PSBB asked us to wear 'Traditional Dresses' to school and then asked the guys who wore a 'Dhoti' to write an apology letter for the same. Or running to the audio-visual room in the school - the only one with a TV - to check the score of the Indian Cricket matches when they were on.

Those 'Call Parent' meetings for those who failed, and the 'Anniversary Test' and 'Project Test' that helped a few (including me) to scrape a pass. Bharat Kalachar 'reviews' for which the Hindu provided generous help and the tactical EPL discussions that would put Shebby Singh to shame.

PSBB has always had a special place in my heart, and so will all these memories. Plenty more that I can write about, but probably that can wait for another post.

Who can ever forget school-life and what would I not give to be back there again?

What is wrong with Dell's Customer Care & Service

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:30:00 +0000

If any Dell representative reads this, and wants to get in touch with me, you can get to me at shrinivas.sg@gmail.com .. This has been a result of trying to give feedback to Dell, through every possible channel, but not being heard, at every instance.

______________________

When you think Customer Care, and when you think India - probably the only thing that you can remember is the dull music and the announcement "Thank you for your valuable time. All our customer care executives are busy on other calls. Please stay on the line."

From the days of the 'Telecom Revolution' and the IT Revolution that made call centres come into vogue, customer service in India has improved by leaps and bounds. From the days when you had to pay the Telephones guy to fix the telephone to today when we have the BSNL guy outside out house in a few hours/days of the complaint, things have indeed come a long way. As a person, I have had my share of run-ins with the customer service guys of organisations ranging from BSNL, Airtel, Reliance, Next and recently Dell.

Dell, is highly renowned for its prompt customer service, and its unique model of servicing their products at the customer's residence rather than at a service center unlike most other firms. But I believe it is exactly there that their business model is starting to fall apart, in my opinion at least. Here's 10 reasons why I believe so.

1. Repeated requests for information: Agreed that Dell needs to verify customer details. But it becomes highly irritating and nagging for a customer when he is put through a three minute ordeal of having to answer the same old questions "Name", "Service Tag", "E-mail", "Phone Number", "Alternate Phone Number", "Address" every time he calls Dell up. If all they want through this is to verify the authenticity of the customer, why not stop with just one question! This ends up resulting in extremely long call times. On an average, my three calls with Dell were about 25 minutes long each !

2. Lack of updation in records: Dell's customer records seem to suffer from an obvious issue of being outdated. Something I discovered to my shock, when they somehow shipped my replacement parts to my old address rather than my new address - to which they had shipped parts just a couple of days earlier. Everything ranging from contact number to address never seems to get updated in their system, which I discovered when they kept calling my alternate contact number rather than my primary contact number, which was the number in the service records.

3. Wipro and other DSPs: The third party outsourcing of service makes it 'impossible', in the words of a Dell Customer Service Executive and Manager, to do anything about poor service from the side of Wipro (the company that mostly provides Dell's Customer Services at our residences). The people from Dell, agree that Wipro isn't doing a great job, but say things on Wipro's side are out of their control, and they cant do much about it. This is something I don't quite agree with, considering it is Dell's brand name and equity that they end up ruining, at the end of the day, and is something that Dell should definitely consider looking into.

4. Lack of a nodal officer or appellate authority: There is a complete lack of an authority who can be contacted if the customer is unhappy with the response he gets from the customer service centers. This is an area where the telecom service providers score over Dell, as they have visible contact information of Nodal Officers and Appellate Authorities who can be contacted in case of dissatisfaction with the customer Service. With Dell, at the end of the day, it is a vicious circle and the highest you can get to is the Manager at the Call Centre, who is oblivious to everything and says he will do something about it. Try their website, and you get a form to fill up - to which you do not get any response. (It's been a week since I did so)

5. Following a scripted method to troubleshoot: All said and done, it becomes very difficult to handle the multitude of issues that prop up with Dell's systems everyday. But following a scripted method to troubleshoot when the customer already knows what the problem is, and what needs replacing, is not a very wise thing to be doing. All the more worse, is acting by your own whims and fancies, and sending across a LCD and a Flex Cable; rather than the Heat Sink and thermal pads that need replacement. Even more worse, is acting as if the customer knows nothing, and telling him that he is wrong, when he has spent Rs.20000 to extend the warranty to resolve precisely the same issue, one year back.

6. Lack of listening to the customer: The customer service representatives of Dell suffer from this problem of not listening to the customer properly. Ranging from noting down wrong addresses to not even attempting to resolve the exact issue to more of a focus than maintaining that 'trained accent' rather than listening. The list is endless.

7. Apathy to customer preferences: Though Dell makes it a point to ask the customer for his preferred time of service, they do not quite convey it to Wipro DSP in the way it needs to be done, resulting in the customer being bugged from morning to evening. At times, this even goes to the extent of the customer being forced a service time, as it happened with me.

First time:

Dell Ahmedabad: We can come for service only at 10 AM on Tuesday. We are busy for the entire week. You take leave and make sure you are there at that time. We cant do anything about this.

Second time:

Dell Ahmedabad: (At 10 AM): We are sending our customer service executive at 1 PM to your place. Please make yourself available.

Me: But I had specifically asked for a service after 4PM

Dell Ahmedabad: We will get back to you

Dell Ahmedabad: (At 2-30 PM, right before a quiz of mine) Sir, I am XYZ from Dell. I will be at your place in 15 minutes. Please make yourself available.

Me: #$%^$^$%

8. Ill-trained technicians: The service engineers who come to your place, know just to replace the part that has been sent - something that is made clear by the disclaimer at the end of every mail that Dell sends in this regard. With a 'text-book' process to identify issues and technicians who cannot identify issues, it ends up becoming a major problem, when you suffer from a complicated issue. This results in a replacement of every possible part that might be vaguely related to the problem in trying to solve it, rather than actually solving the problem. For example, for a minor issue with a small lock near the hinge, Dell ended up replacing nearly every other part in my system, due to a complete lack of diagnosis. And this, despite me sending them photographs of the area that was damaged.

9. Lack of continuity: When a customer service engineer has been handling your issue over the past week or so, it would be ideal that he continues to handle the issue. It becomes a major hassle for the customer to explain the entire issue once again to a new person, every time he calls up customer care. Dell doesn't seem to have a mechanism to transfer calls to the corresponding customer service executive either. This isn't helped by some pathetic responses by their executives, who do not even respond to e-mails sent to them. (Been about 6 days, and I am yet to get a response). For one issue of replacement of a motherboard and heat sink, I had to explain the problem to 4 people on 4 different instances!

10. Complete lack of willingness to take feedback: Dell, from what I can make out, seems to have an unspoken policy of sending the feedback form to customers only when the customer is satisfied, so that it pushes up their performance ratings. A badly handled service request is never followed up by a feedback form. (I asked twice for the feedback form, over the last week, but I am yet to receive it). I simply do not understand the point of a feedback form, if it is going to be taken only in cases when they've done a good job. And here I was, thinking that the point of a feedback form, was to help them improve, as they proudly state at the beginning of the survey. Things hinge on the boundary of pathetic-ness when the technician who comes to your place, fills up the "Satisfied" part of the form for you, on his own, before getting your signature on it. Lack of any other channel to give them feedback, makes it all the more worse, and forces you to put up with whatever they throw at you.

_______

Disclaimer: At the end of the day, I have had a some good experiences with Dell too. But this pathetic experience, overshadows all of that it by FAR.

An open letter to my (ex) sweetheart

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0000

To my (ex) sweet heart

I still remember that day, when I was sitting in the canteen, talking to Kumar, and having a plate of Puri-Subji, after I had got the few IIM Calls that I had. It was then that it stuck me that I actually liked you and wanted you to be a part of my life. Rather, I wanted you to be my life. I just couldn't think of any one else who could take that spot in my life. Even in my dreams. It had always been you, just you. I was pretty much shocked that I had not realized the fact by then, and that I had to be reminded by someone else about it.

The more I thought about it, the better it seemed. Though initially it took me some time to profess my love, I did. Though I never received a concrete reply from you, I even managed to convince everyone about my love for you and most of them believed me about it. Fate decided my next move would be to IIM-A. I was skeptical about how our love would carry on from over there, for obvious reasons. But IIM-A made me realise it all the more. Talking to various people about their experiences with love, I discovered how awesome you were. You just offered everything I could dream of in life.

I have to admit, initially, it had been your glamour that attracted you to me. But later on I found out you offered a lot more than just numbers (statistics I mean). I had started to believe ours could be a relationship for life despite many warning me that life with you could be quite risky. They warned me that one fine day in the morning, I could wake up to see that you had ditched me. It was accentuated by the stories I read in the papers about such a relationship even leading to death at times.

I had made up my mind, and I kept telling myself "Oru vaati mudivu panniten na yen pecha naane kekamaaten" (Dubbing for those who need it: "Jab main ek bar commitment de deta hum to uske bad khud ki bhi nahi sunta" ). I had made up my mind to like you, and I would do it despite anything it takes. I found you ultra cool, sexy and what not.

But like they all say, all good things have to come to an end. The deterioration started slowly and steadily I should say, when I discovered how demanding you were. The more I found out, the scarier it got for me. Guys with previous experience in love had told me that love is pretty demanding. But this much, I'd never imagined. To be frank, that one experience made me forget half my dreams with you. The candle of love, though, kept burning despite the storm around. I had thought you were irreplaceable, till I discovered an equally glamorous alternative to you over here. Then came along a less glamorous and simpler alternative to you. I started falling in love with her too which complicated things. She offered as much to me, as you. With an added incentive of variety as well. Perfect I thought. She was fun loving and wanted to traverse the world with me. It was all falling in place once again.

But first love, they say, stays with you forever. And it did. Till one fine day, you decided to screw me over for my infidelity. It was a blow I just couldn't take. Unfair, I thought, and gave up on you. Or I should say, almost gave up on you. I started seeing one more alternative to you, as I was getting tired of your shenanigans. It was tough, but the guy who introduced me to my most recent love, was a wizard. The way he described you, simply swept me off my feet. Never in my life had I even given her a glance, but all of a sudden, I could sense her beauty. True love? I still don't know.

Then started all the confusion. I wanted to give up on my first love. But my heart still had a few pangs for her. My second one ditched me on her own. Guess she didn't find me good enough for her. I simply loved spending time with my third one, and every second, was bliss. People said you wouldn't be able to satisfy me and weren't glamorous enough and simply said, lacked the vital statistics. But I was no longer bothered.

I was finally and truly done with you, and had moved on in life. But why? Why? You gave me that fleeting look. One of those looks that had swept me off my feet in the first place, and I started falling for you once again. Not as madly as ever. But enough to give me second thoughts. I should have realized then, that you were just having your revenge at me. But the old romantic in me, thought otherwise. I dreamed of the luxury we could live in, and started to go gaga.

All this, before you delivered your final blow. And this time it was CRUSHING. It took me a while to realize it, and now it pains. It will take me quite some time to recover from this. But I know now, that you just weren't meant for me. You were just one of those show-offs who floored me with skin show. I had never been in love with you, I guess. I had just been infatuated by you. Now I realize glamour isn't everything in life. And I'm not writing this in jealousy. I have found my true love at last and I just have one thing to say to you. Please stop giving me those fleeting looks when you have a chance to see me.

A devastated lover boy

PS: All feelings expressed in this are not fictional. You are free to take your guesses on who/what though. Thanks to Anand Arasu for the inspiration.
Image Courtesy: Google Image Search

Flipkart - a review

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:02:00 +0000

I've been a loyal customer of Flipkart for a long time now, before I decided to check out Infibeam as well. One use proved why Flipkart is a lot better service than the other. I was doing this as part of an assignment. I thought I might as well post it here, and start a series where I can review various services that I use.

_____________________________

Flipkart.com, an Indian Internet Start-up offers a whole gamut of products ranging from books to personal health care products, and recently even microwaves and washing machines. Flipkart has managed to differentiate itself from the clutter of websites offering similar products through its discounted rates, reliable shipping, high variety and brilliant customer service, which leads to customer retention and loyalty.

What they do right

1. User Interface: Flipkart has a wonderfully simple user interface that allows loads quickly, and offers a ‘lite’ version for slower internet speeds too, rather than the flash heavy interfaces of other e-Commerce websites, that improves the customer experience on the website.

2. Cash on Delivery, EMI, 30 day guarantee: The varied payment schemes provided by the site like Cash on Delivery, EMIs and the 30 day guarantee scheme for products go a long way in countering the general tendency of the Indian Consumer to shop in traditional shops than online.

3. Payment Interface: Rather than going in for the confusing CCAvenue payment gateway that most e-Commerce websites opt for, Flipkart has a much more reliable Axis Bank Payment Gateway that is easier to use.

4. Variety: The most important thing for a book store is the variety. A consumer who finds a rare title is definitely bound to return back to the website for further orders, and Flipkart with their variety have gone a long way in ensuring this.

5. Deliveries and packaging: Flipkart is renowned for its prompt deliveries within the promised deadline, and most of the time delivers earlier than promised. It is this customer focused approach that has helped Flipkart keep their noses ahead of the competition.

6. Customer Service: Flipkart’s business model is based on repeat purchases and retaining customers and has built a highly responsive customer service team that responds to all queries within 24 hours. Their active presence on Social Networking sites and ensuring timely deliveries, with a smile, go a long way in ensuring success of their business model.

The Downside

1. Search feature: The search feature on the website allows only a basic search, and not an advanced option that allows you to search by author name or ISBN etc. This proves to be a hassle when the name of the book is a common name.

2. Categorizing: Though Flipkart has a visible ‘category’ wise catalogue for their books, it becomes pretty apparent that most of their titles are not properly catalogued. Buying in book shops generally happens when the customer spots the book in a particular category and gets interested in it, despite not having known the book previously. Flipkart’s poor cataloguing eliminates the opportunity of such buys.

Scope for future development

1. International Shipping: A logical step ahead is to move into the sphere of international shipping – initially with Srilanka and Bangladesh, and start competing with their big brother, Amazon.

2. Widening of Range in some product categories: There is an obvious scope for improvement in the product variety in some of the newly launched product ranges.

3. Customised products and Gifts: One area where Infibeam.com, a competing company scores over Flipkart is their customised gifts through PicSquare. Though Flipkart offers an option of a gift wrap and a personal message for a nominal charge, the service is not quite apparent for first time users. Customized products and gifts is another area where there is scope for future development.

4. Same-day-Shipping: Flipkart could have different versions of their website based on the location of the customer that offer different shipping times for their products. Some of the bigger cities could soon be equipped with same-day shipping considering that Flipkart has a strong in-house logistics service.

5. Product Pages: Flipkart could look at having better product pages for individual items. Some items like a Cell phone or a camera or a Microwave oven would be better projected with a 360 degree image viewer. This would offer a more intuitive view for the consumers than the photographs that are on display now. Flipkart could also look to develop their product pages in a better manner than they are right now, with lesser unnecessary data being displayed.

6. Customised Delivery Dates: As an extension to the gifting service, Flipkart could look at offering customer chosen delivery dates for the same, beyond a threshold date that Flipkart can provide.

On the whole, Flipkart, through its methodical approach of expansion of product categories, rather than starting off as a Jack of all trades is slowly emerging as the Amazon of the Indian e-Commerce arena. With a strong logistics and customer focused approach, Flipkart is slowly taking steps into becoming a giant in the e-Commerce space. Future scope for development includes wider range of products and international shipping etc.

On same lines, Shop N Network - An IIM-A Start up by a couple of seniors from TN. Highly reliable delivery and service. Good and unique range of products.

Note: Photocredits: Flipkart, Infibeam, Amazon and Shop n Network.
Flipkart, Infibeam, Amazon and Shop n Network are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

And I get published once again ...

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 09:35:00 +0000

After my age old article for a fan magazine for Vijay,I get published once again. The article I wrote a few days back for my blog, has been published on Behindwoods.com

Here's the link:
http://www.behindwoods.com/features/visitors-1/oct-11-02/rajinikanth-ra-one-14-10-11.html

The A to Z of Life at IIM-Ahmedabad

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 02:56:00 +0000

It just seems like yesterday that I landed in this place. But it's already 4 months of life at IIM-A, and like promised by everyone - one rocking roller coaster ride it has been. This is one post which might never do justice to life at IIM-A, but here you go. The A-Z of life at IIM-A.

Aadamkhor. The man-eaters of Section-A. That bunch of wonderful, fun loving and brilliant people who make each day such a pleasure to live, despite all the pressures of life here.

Birthdays. There is a whole lot of tradition associated with birthday celebrations here ranging from the 'bumps' to the 'senti speeches' and like promised, they well and truly make you feel 'special'.

CP. Class Participation. Various forms include Random CP, Arbit CP, Desperate CP, Forced CP. The only sure shot cure to sleeping.

Deadlines. Deadlines. Deadlines. As one of my classmates (Abhishek Jansari) put it, almost everything in IIM-A has a time or a deadline associated with it.

Engineers. Invariably every other student you find on campus. Except the few odd.

F. That Grade which we are dread and want to avoid by all possible means, even if it means putting THE most arbit CP (Class participation) in class.

Google. GMail. Google Docs. The only way you can live life in some slightly ordered fashion here. The first though cant be used as much as in Engineering days, thanks to that dreaded software called 'Turn-it-in'.

Hostel Life. Or Dorm life. One of the best parts of life at IIM-A. The Dorm naming, the dorm parties, friends, tuchchas, fachchas. You need to be experience it and enjoy it. If MANIT hostel life was fun of a kind, life here is fun in another dimension.

IITians. iSchol. Refer the entry on R

Juice. Love makes everyone a poet. Here, a laptop with someone's G-mail signed in, makes anyone and everyone a poet, who can write juices (poems or other novel ways to express 'your' 'love'). Of course, there are the experts. And there are the rest.

Kotler. One book that shows how powerful marketers are. I mean, creating a whole new field of business to sell your book(s) is quite something isn't it? The book is so huge that the 'Kotler Summary' e-books are 238 pages long. And there exist summaries of the Kotler summary which are 3 pages per chapter long. (70 odd pages totally). (No I'm not lying). All said and done, marketing is among one of my most preferred career options, along with Consulting and General Management.

Louis Kahn Plaza. If at times you feel that the pressure is getting to you, there is no better place to let it release than the green well manicured lawns at Louis Kahn Plaza named after the architect who designed the red-walls of IIM-Ahmedabad. The serene feeling you get watching the stars at night, over you is as calming as can get.

Maska Buns. If Dhokla was the famous Gujarati dish that you could get everywhere across the country, Maska Buns represent the not-so-famous but the more tasty dish (in my opinion atleast) . Probably the tastiest food item available in and around campus.

Nescafe. Arguably provide the best coffee on campus, and my lifeline. (Only my friends from Bhopal know how much of a coffee lover I am)

Open Book. Those kind of exams that make you wish that it would have been good if books came enabled with a Google Search or a Ctrl+F in them. You probably would have written a lot more from your neighbour's paper in Engineering days, than you did from a book in an open book exam.

Placecom. Respect to them for being one of the most systematic and well oiled committees I've ever seen in my life. Probably are the bunch of guys who do the maximum work in the campus.

Quizzes. The fact that every person on campus is glued to either his mobile phone or the
laptop screen or the notice board near the mess for those 120 odd seconds between 1:44:00 to 1:46:00 doesn't quite do enough justice to the kind of effect a quiz has. The heaves of relief and cries of joy when there is no quiz are at times heard across the campus.

RG. Refer the entry on I

Sweet and Gujarati food are synonymous. You cant quite imagine the range of dishes these people manage to make sweet. For the land of the 'Dandi Salt March', you'd probably not have imagined Gujarat to be a place short on salt.

Teachers. If after engineering college life you lost your respect for the profession of teaching, you probably need to visit this place to see the levels of godliness that a professor can touch.

Ultimate. or Frisbee. The most popular game on campus. On most days and weekends, you will be able to see a bunch of guys running all across the well manicured lawns of Louis Kahn Plaza, chasing and throwing around a 'plate'.

Vikram Sarabhai Library. The three storey building where you can find the answers to all the assignments that initially seemed Greek and Latin to you.

WIMWI Standard Time. Everything happens to the Dot here. From classes, to submissions, to deadlines. If only the ending of the classes also stuck to it. ;-).

Xchange. Reminds me of the Coleridge poem. "Water, water everywhere; But not a drop to drink". If you aren't able to comprehend, then you probably have the IQ level of Poonam Pandey.

Y chromosome. Something that is extra abundant on campus. Leads to plenty of demand-supply issues of all kinds.

Zzzzz. Arguably the most valuable thing on campus (?).

Kollywood vs Bollywood - The business of Cinema

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Disclaimer - Some of the points might have earlier featured in tweets/articles by other people like Sreedhar Pillai formerly of ToI, Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff, Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu and Allu Sirish, Producer and Founder of the Southscope Magazine.

Rumors of a guest appearance by Rajinikant in Ra.One start, and suddenly industry observers like Sreedhar Pillai say that the film is now worth a lot more in the dubbing market of Tamil Nadu etc. Later news comes that Rajini has 'blessed' the film, whatever that means, but that doesn't get all that mileage. But the film has now got the eyeballs that it wanted in a market that would rather have focused on a '7am arivu' or a 'Velayutham' instead.

For all that we say about Bollywood, one thing we need to admit is their undoubted expertise in promotion of their movies. Every other actor, be it a superstar or a newbie hero goes all-out in promoting his movies, across the nation; and sometimes across the globe as well. The varied promotions of Ra.One across the internet, TV and news media made me wonder why Tamil movies, or for that matter any South Indian movie never tries that kind of promotion, and that was the effect of this. Or why Tamil movies fail to climb the 'next' level in terms of money minting.

Huge Star Egos is one major issue in any South Indian Industry. Every year, one can point out multi-starrers that release in the Hindi Industry. But down south, the ego levels are pretty astounding. So much that Bharath came out in the media against Simbu after the release of the much touted 'Vaanam', for giving him lesser screen space. The older times had a Thalapathy or a Friends or a Nerukku Ner and a Pithamagan. But today, it is a pain for the director to handle two stars. (Like Vivek says in Sivaji, even the stars who sprouted yesterday have started spewing punch dialogues)

While biggie Bollywood movies hardly clash, except for the rare one or two, it is an everyday affair in Kollywood to see two big movies pit against each other, and eat away the other's shares. Standing examples being Pongal where Kaavalan, Aadukalam and Siruthai clashed at the Box Office. All three where good in their own right, but ended up eating into each others collections at the end of the day. If that was a lesson not learnt, Diwali sees two of the costliest movies made in Tamil Cinema - 7am Arivu and Velayutham lock horns, with the added possibility of 'Osthi' and 'Mayakkam Enna' joining the frame. Once again, it is the ego of both stars that prevents them from pulling out, as it might be seen as a sign of giving in to the other, and at the end of the day, the collections take a huge hit. Bollywood on the other hand is more professional in its approach and allows most of its biggies, a free run in the box office, like a 3 Idiots or a Ra.One or a Bodyguard, that enables the producers to get back their investment in no time.

Another aspect where Bollywood scores over Kollywood would be the early DVD Releases which ensures good collections. In Kollywood, by the time a decent DVD Print releases for a movie, most people even forget the movie. Producers down south have had an inherent apprehension towards releasing DVDs early as it might end up encouraging piracy, and eat up their theatre collections as well. While they are vindicated in this, it might be a good option to try the same. Even Mozhi which ventured into a same day DVD release with Moserbaer had to later give in to box office pressures and postpone the same.

Like it is frequently pointed out by many industry observers, producers down south have an aversion towards paid previews, a day before the actual release of the movie, due to the fear that it might end up into negative reports about the movie. Both in Hollywood, and now in Bollywood, paid previews have become a completely new revenue stream, which the producers are exploiting to the hilt, by having multiple previews across the globe with the added attraction of the star cast being present at a few. In my opinion, some of the biggies down south can take a chance with a similar thing as well. Who wouldn't pay a princely 1000 bucks to watch the movie a day ahead of the actual release. Probably, the fan frenzy would result in ticket prices even overshooting the same, if there is the added attraction of the star cast being a part of the show.For everything that is said, the majority of the collection comes in the initial week of the movie, which is followed by a long drawn tail (considering Tamil Cinema's obsession with the number of days that a movie was screened in a theatre). In my opinion, producers down south have completely failed to use this to their advantage and get back their investment as quickly as they can.

Yet another burning issue would be the lack of subtitles, which prevents the film from catering to newer markets. When a Hindi movie can release down south with subtitles, why cant the same happen for a Tamil movie. The tale of Siddharth, trying to subtitle his movies, and having trouble with the same is a oft repeated story. Tamil Cinema can probably explore new areas abroad if it takes up subtitling with zeal. From what I've heard and seen, Telugu Cinema seems to have taken a good step forward in this regard. Telugu movies with subtitles were watched by many people in my hostel in Bhopal too. On the other hand, trying to search online for subtitles of Tamil movies, is a quest that often ends in failure. With the kind of universal appeal that a Rajnikanth or a Vijay or a Surya has abroad, this could be a major source of revenue that the producers miss out on.

How can a post on Tamil Cinema be complete without its most striking feature. Fan Frenzy and Fan Rivalry. In a state where movie releases are a festival of their own right, fan rivalry is a major issue affecting any movie. Rival fans start of SMS chains that trash another actor's movie (however respectable the movie might be in the end). At some points, it has even become fashionable to trash certain actors for anything and everything that they do and turn a blind eye to their 'favourite actor'. Such SMSs and passing around of reviews that scythe a movie, do more harm than any good, as the fans of the actor whose movie is being trashed this time around, wait for their chance and do the same to the other actor's movie releases.

And last but not the least is the poor promotions. From releasing bits of the songs of the movies, to running contests on all channels across television, to going on trips across the nation; Bollywood stars - big or small, do their bit to promote their movies. But their southern counterparts have been averse to that kind of heavy duty promotions. Promotional offers for movie tickets, are often seen as a weakness that the movie isn't doing particularly well. Co-branding and in-movie branding is something that Tamil Cinema hasn't fully exploited as yet. A Ra.One or a Bodyguard associates itself with multiple brands that give it the eyeballs needed on television.

With multiple music channels across the spectrum, it does make business sense to release mini videos of songs, before the release of the movie. This has been something that Kollywood has been vehemently against, to the extent of showing song videos on TV only after a month of screening on TV. What would be a better promotion for a movie, than a the video of a chartbuster song.

Maintaining functional websites of movies would be another step in the right direction in today's internet savvy world. Producers could look at running a online chat with the stars or a contest as part of promotions, with tickets to the first day of the movie as prizes for the same. But the real state of the day today is that some of the movies that are releasing even lack a proper website that offers wallpapers and latest stills of the movie. A step in the right direction was taken by '180' that offered digital download of its songs for a price that the customer was willing to pay for the same. If not a similar thing, official websites could offer digital downloads of songs for a marginal rate that would encourage paid downloads rather than pirated editions of music CDs that are available for download even before the actual audio release.

Some of these steps, would probably take Kollywood in the direction that it wants to go in - towards competing with Bollywood. Baby steps are being taken in the form of the entry of corporates like UTV, which did a fantastic job with Deivathirumagal. But there is certainly a long way to go.

The Preposterous Paunch Predicament

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:12:00 +0000

It was the Operations Management Lecture, and I had my 'first cold call' of life at IIM-A. (A cold call is a situation where a professor catches you, and asks you to answer a question.) I had kind of prepared for the class properly, and was confident that I should be able to answer most of the stuff he might ask me do to on the board. But little did I know what lay in store for me. He asked me to draw a process flow chart, and I confidently went about drawing it, before the bombshell dropped.

Professor : Shrinivas, your handwriting is the complete opposite of your personality

Before I could comprehend what he was trying to tell me, the entire class was laughing big times, and banging their desks, parliament style. And it was then that it dawned on me, that the professor meant to say I was writing in unacceptably small font size on the board. And obviously - the 'personality', as you might have guessed, was in reference to my paunch.

Off late, I've gotten used to the ridicule, due to the 'tyres' around my waist. Be it the "Dai, Enna da Barrel maari irukka?" (What man, you look like a barrel?) or the "I can see your face, I can see your body. But where is that part of the body called the neck in your photo?". Things have gotten so bad, that I got a book "Only fat people skip breakfast" from my friends from MANIT. And like all self help books, that was a good motivator actually, that I'm hardly eating 5 meals over 3 days on an average now, in an attempt to reduce the paunch, and it all seemed to be working out. Until a friend popped up on Twitter with an innocent query - "Have you considered the other option of actually 'working out'? ".

All this, and I decided I'd rehash a piece I wrote for Excelsior, at MANIT. (A reply to Geetanjali Kaur's opposite version). And here you go.

An existence of sumo-wrestler like looks is extremely disconcerting, in all my earnestness. Every time I see guys talking about ‘six pack abs’ and ‘gym’ed bodies, and I look down at my own ‘family pack’, all that goes through my mind is ‘Screw Salman and Aamir’ !! I’m here to expose the bitter realities and misfortunes of the over-sized obese lot. Fatso, Hamburger, Bulldozer are some of the nicer nicknames you get to listen to through your life.

The word ‘obesity’ is considered synonymous with your name and sometimes you are even made an example to kids who don’t eat their dinner. "Mote waale uncle kidnap kar denge" or "If you don’t exercise you’ll become like him". Everyone thinks you have ultra-rich parents, who give you money to waste eating food outside, every other day. Especially if you are in the hostel and despite mess food, manage to maintain a fantabulous paunch.

It is no fun at all when you go shopping, when you spend more time searching for shops that stock your size than choosing clothes. (Of course, in case of the fairer sex, this time might be equal :-P) Things are demeaning, when you come back empty handed as they don’t have jeans fitting your size, and have 100s and 1000s for jeans for the lower sizes stacked all over the place. Even worse when you are suggested to get pant material and get fitting trousers stitched! More the worse when the guy next to you buys 1.3 m of cloth for his, and you are asked to buy 2 m.

When people ask how much you weigh, they expect your answer to be in ‘tons’. Sometimes you get insulted by friends asking you to stand on the ‘industrial weighing machine, than on the normal ones. It is assumed that you eat anything and everything. Come a treat, and you become the in-house dustbin and are dumped with anything and everything that might otherwise go waste. Everything in the world, from falling sick to failing a fitness test, is attributed to your weight. There is no other disease that plagues your life apart from the few extra kilos/ tires around your waist.

It isn’t the best feeling when you are asked to lift anything that is mildly big and people scream saying ‘Are yaar, uta liya’ when you are done, making it all the more worse and grabbing attention to your weight first than the task you’ve done. Travelling in an over-crowded auto with friends, by default makes you the one on whom everyone sits. An unfortunate consequence being a potential family future damage for guys, thanks to the bumpy Indian roads. It isn’t amusing that if you people ask you when you are going to get married when you are hardly 18, or introduce you to their baby as ‘XXYY uncle’, not because of your age. When earthquakes or tsunamis occur, your friends message you asking if you jumped off the stairs or anything.

And last but not the least, you are mostly ignored by the better looking species of the other sex. If at all you manage to get noticed, come rakhi, you’ll find yourself with plenty around your hand.

After three months at IIM Ahmedabad ...

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:33:00 +0000

Three months in IIM-A are done and dusted. And after the first few days of life here, when I slept without any care, last night was the next occasion when I did that. For those who know me from earlier on, they would probably realise that my waking up at 1-00 PM in the afternoon after sleeping at about 12, the last night is like a non-event in my life ever. So peaceful was last night, that i was wishfully thinking if I could probably pause life and this moment and enjoy it a lot more, rather than get back into the rat race of assignments, quizzes, PPTs and exams once again. All said and done, I wouldn't deny the fact that it's been a roller coaster journey with lots of ups and downs and a tremendous experience altogether. I find myself with a lot more knowledge and ability to look at things from angles which I'd never thought of previously as well. A lot more than I ever thought would even understand.

For instance, when I arrived here, I was so naive that I dint even know what a balance sheet was. During the first ever study group meet here, to discuss one of our first cases , here was the conversation that went along. The case was about discussing what were the problems with the company, and what should the approach of the owner be, and whether he should sell the some stores of his, etc.

Friend: The company doesn't seem to be doing quite well. Their Debt-Equity ratio is pretty high and his sales are stagnating. Doesn't look like a good scenario for the company.

Me: Dude, what are you on. Check the balance sheet, the company's assets are equal to its liabilities. Worst case, he will go bust, and he can pay off his debts without any loss. So it is in a good scenario only, right?

Friends: ((shocked expression))

When I said this, I didn't even know that assets were equal to liabilities all the time!! My understanding of stocks used to be just a few numbers, the red and green arrows. Now I know a bit about how things work behind those numbers and the arrows. Things weren't looking all that great in the beginning, when I was surrounded by an bunch of people who were a lot more talented bunch than I have ever seen. I applied to a couple of clubs and didn't make it anywhere, which didn't give me any confidence either. Nor did looking at the CVs of some of the guys out here, which were filled with such great stuff which I couldn't even have dreamed of having done. A set of exams, and now another have passed by, and have made me realise my 'positioning' strategy in this institute and I have stuck to that, ever since. Not too high, nor too low, somewhere in the middle is my space, and I hope to hold on to that and climb up with passing time.

Life has been great, with T-Nite. Not that I had a lot of stuff to do then. The only meaningful contribution I had was probably giving my classmates a nice laugh, with the video of a group performance on stage when I was looking so comical. EPL watching probably is one of the steam releasing points these days. Guess I am on reverse jinx mode these days. Whenever I have watched, Manchester United cant seem to stop scoring, unlike those days in MANIT when United never won whenever I watched a game on TV. Even took part in a couple of quizzes (not the accounting ones, these are the actual quizzes which I love).

There was also the tale of a missed interview, for the Literary Cell of IIM-A, when I completely messed up and didn't attend the interview due to a comedy of errors. A couple of juices written by myself (in part hindi), without the help of the expert juice writers would definitely count among my biggest achievements here, considering one of them was written during the End-slot exams as well. Life's good & bad at the same time.

When I landed in IIM-A, I came in with the sole objective of a career in finance. But off-late, I'm seriously considering even that, whether finance is what I actually want to do in life, and I am getting more inclined towards the other streams (Marketing, has really caught my eye, like nothing else has).

Life here is hectic, and at times, you just wish you could stop and relax for a while, so that you could run the rat race with renewed energy, than run it in such a fatigued state. Of all things I have done here, something silly is what catches my eye the most. Unlike the much touted late nights and night outs, *touchwood* I've managed to get through life here with no night outs for the purpose of studying and not that I've neglected academics either. Leave alone a night out, the latest I've ever been up for studying would probably be 1-30 AM. (Even that seems an overstatement, now that I've said it)

Life's been pretty satisfying here. Though it has been a little because I have reduced my expectations from both life and myself, to more realistic levels. Free time is such a valuable proposition here, so much that I hardly get time to do the things I love to, like reading and writing. In MANIT, it would have been a travesty had I not read a novel I borrowed or owned within the first two days. But here, I've purchased a couple of books, which I've not got the time to read through, even though I'd love to do it.

At the end of the day, I've also made sure that my focus on a 'satisfying' job than a 'high paying' job, hasn't wavered either. I'm really looking forward to see how far it holds, especially during placement season.

PS: Next thing I'm looking forward to, is watching Velayutham First day, first show in a theatre in Ahmedabad. Hoping nothing screws up that plan. Been a while since I saw a Vijay movie on screen.

Anna Hazare & the Lokpal Disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:23:00 +0000

Disclaimer: This article contains my views, and also some points that I have used from various articles that I have read about this issue across the internet. I certainly do not claim this to be my creation in any way.

After an overdose (??) of anti-Anna Hazare (he is just one letter away from being a hazard!) Facebook posts, I realised the futility of trying to make people see sense. Or atleast attempt to do that, and thought of shifting the rest of it to my blog rather.

The other day, I was having a heated discussion with people in my Dorm regarding this, and took a bet that even half the students at a crème de la crème educational institute wouldn't have bothered to go through the bill in detail, and were just basing their views based on the media and the outcry against corruption. I fail to understand, since when being against the Lokpal, translates into supporting corruption! Or for that matter, a Congress supporter, as I've been accused of, on Facebook.

While going through the entire bill in detail, I spotted a few points that I believe are something that are highly baseless and stupid. Here we go.

Immediately after the commencement of this Act, the Central Government by a Notification shall establish an institution known as Lokpal, who would have administrative, financial and functional independence from the government.

I understand the hurry behind having an anti-corruption authority, but what is the point in such a hurry so as to establish the institution so soon, immediately on commencement of the act. Why cant there be sometime given, so that a proper structure can be worked out?

Any person, who is less than 45 years in age shall not be eligible to become Chairperson or Member of Lokpal.

Does this mean to say that people below the age of 45 lack the know-how to deal with things? Why do you want to leave out a part of the population that is about 70% of the Indian population without a representation in the Lokpal? Even leaving out the bunch below 15, and approximating, the population between 18-45 should be atleast 35%, which I believe is a significant number.

At least four members of Lokpal shall have a legal background.
Explanation: “Legal Background” means that the person should have held a judicial office in the territory of India for at least ten years or should have been an advocate in a High Court or the Supreme Court for at least fifteen years.

Any person, who was in the service of any government and has remitted office within the last two years, either by way of resignation or retirement shall not be eligible to become Chairperson or Member of Lokpal.

I have my serious doubts as to how the Lokpal is going to find enough people with judicial backgrounds, with its other criteria of age, eligibility etc, to set up benches all across the nation.

The search comittee will be formed this way. 5 of its members shall be selected by the Selection Committee from amongst the retired Chief Justices of India, the retired Chief Election Commissioners and the retired Comptroller and Auditor Generals with impeccable reputation of integrity, who have not joined any political party after retirement and who are not holding any office under any government. The 5 members so selected shall, through consensus, co-opt another 5 members from the Civil Society in the search committee.

If you were thinking wow! They have representation of the Civil Society, a person like me, or a person from the village can actually decide corruption cases etc .. Wait. Here's the next and one of THE most funny clauses of the 'Jan' Lok Pal.

The Search Committee before preparing the short list will invite nominations from such eminent individuals or such class of people, whom they deem fit, for the position of Chairperson or the members of the Lokpal.

Only eminent people are eligible to be a part of the LokPal. And how vague can a law get. 'Eminent people'. Eminent for whom? For the villagers, the panchayat chairman will be an eminent person. But for a guy sitting in Delhi, he might be a nobody. So what are we going to do now? Put Amitabh Bacchan, Aamir Khan, Arundhati Roy and Chetan Bhagat in the Lokpal? What happens to the 75% of India's population who live in villages? Unrepresented? Why call it a 'Jan' Lok pal if there is no Jan aspect to it so far. The PM, Opposition Leader and Judges select the selection committee. The selection committee selects the search committee. The search committee prepares the shortlist based on their list of eminent people. What about a common man? The aam-aadmi? The Jan in the 'Jan' Lok Pal?

Such nominations as are received shall be put on a web site for inviting comments from the people with regard to the suitability or otherwise of the nominees.

The next biggest joke. Does this so called Civil Society know the penetration of Internet in India? It is a paltry 8.5% as of date! So people who dont have access to the internet are out of the selection process altogether. Great. There goes the 'Jan' Lok Pal.

Only persons with impeccable integrity and record of public service particularly in the field of fighting corruption shall be eligible for being considered for nomination.

How many people have a record of public service in the field of corruption? I mean, is there even a record?

The Selection Committee shall, after considering all relevant information about the short listed candidates, select the required number of persons preferably through consensus.

I thought the Jan Lok Pal will atleast give the scope for me to select my Lok Pal members. But seems like my role is restricted to commenting on their website and then watching them selecting whomsoever they want. 'Preferably' through consensus. So there is the first scope for crap happening. A member can be selected even without consensus. Ha ha!

The Chairperson or members of Lokpal shall not be serving member of either the Parliament or the Legislature of any State and shall not hold any office of profit (other than the office as Chairperson or member) or carry on any business or practice any profession and accordingly, before he enters upon his office, a person appointed as the Chairperson or member of Lokpal shall-

Wow. Here is probably the most abused clause in India. The law that prohibits you from holding conflicting positions. Who even follows this? Maran was communications minister when his brother owned Sun TV. Srinivasan was in the IPL Committee and he owned a team too.

The Lokpal's functions include : to receive complaints against any officer or staff of Lokpal.

A whole bunch of people was suggesting that they have a problem with the current mechanism because they need to go to a police officer to complain about another. Wonder what they have to say to this.

to recruit investigating officers and other officers and staff and get them trained in modern methods of scientific investigation.
to appoint judicial officers, prosecutors and senior counsels.
to acquire modern equipment necessary for proper investigation.
And there goes your hard earned money, in the form of taxes. The Lokpal can recruit, the Lokpal can investigate, The Lokpal can appoint judicial officers, prosecutors, acquire modern equipment. The Lokpal can do this that. If you aren't suggesting a whole parallel structure to the current government, may I please know what this is? Aren't you ending up vesting way too much power in one body, on the basis of just plain trust. The members of whom, you have no control on? Nor does the government have a control on? Who controls the expenditure of the Lokpal? They don't want to come under the Financial budgeting of the country. Which organisation is afforded this luxury?

to recommend cancellation or modification of a lease, license, permission, contract or agreement, if it was obtained by corrupt means and to recommend blacklisting of a firm, company, contractor or any other person, involved in an act of corruption.

Ok, so assuming the 2G case, the Lokpal would have cancelled the licenses and blacklisted Reliance, Uninor and whole list of forms that took licenses by unfair means. Oh, Aircel too. There goes your mobile connection. Pooof!

to make recommendations to public authorities, in consultation with them, to make changes in their work practices to reduce the scope for corruption and whistleblower victimization.

Ok, Since when did the Lokpal get the expertise to comment on anything and everything? A body consisting of 5 people from the legal field and 5 emiment personalities can suggest changes to public authorities. LOL

Such other functions as may be necessary for the proper implementation of this Act.

And here comes the biggest bombshell. To ensure implementation of the Act, they can make any such things. Aren't you vesting way too much power in a body of 10 people? Or even in one person?

The Investigating Officers of Lokpal authorized to investigate offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 shall have all the powers which are vested in a Police Officer while investigating offences under the Code of Criminal Procedure, as well as the powers conferred on the director of enforcement under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 as well as under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

So here comes you parallel police force. People have a problem with the police because they have too much authority. Wonder what they would say about this.

While investigating any offence under Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, Lokpal shall be competent to investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.

Wow. So what is the point of the judiciary in India if the Lokpal can investigate anything and everything? I have never heard/seen any bigger farce than this bill.

For the purposes of investigation of offences related to acts of corruption, the appropriate Bench of the Lokpal shall be deemed to be designated authority under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act empowered to approve interception and monitoring of messages of data or voice transmitted through telephones, internet or any other medium as covered under the Indian Telegraph Act read with Information and Technology Act 2000 and as per rules and regulations made under the Indian Telegraph Act 1885.

What happens to the current authority? Gone with the wind. Adding layers and layers of authority upon authority in just one organisation, the work of which was performed by about a 100 earlier. That too with poor efficiency due to lack of manpower, despite being 100 organisations. Wonder what this 10 member Lokpal and their minions are going to achieve.

A warrant issued under sub-section (1) shall for all purposes, be deemed to be a warrant issued by a court under section 93 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

First they wanted the Judicial Powers, then the investigating, now the authority of giving a warrant too. Preposterous if you ask me.

If the complaint is frivolous or has been made with malafide intentions against a Lokpal member, Supreme Court may impose a fine or an imprisonment upto one year or both on the complainant.

Fine. Good. But why the 180 degree turn with just a fine when it comes to a false complaint against an official? I want a project to be withheld. I am a rich guy. I will file a complaint, make sure the project is withheld for the time I need it to be. And pay the fine. Why would I even care!

Any orders passed by any bench of the Lokpal or any officer of the Lokpal shall be subject to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Ordinarily, High Courts shall not stay the order.

A Lokpal order cannot be stayed through a High Court? Then you need to go tho the Supreme Court for a wrong judgement in a case of a Rs.100/- bribe, wasting your time and energy. And how can a parallel system be given so much authority that even a High Court Order cannot be used to stop a judgement?

(2). It shall be the duty of the Lokpal to provide full protection to whistle blowers from any physical harm or administrative harassment. Identity of such whistle blowers shall also be protected if the whistle blower so desires.
(3). For achieving this objective it shall be competent for the Lokpal to give suitable direction to any security agencies for providing security as well as to any other authority to ensure that no harassment is caused to such whistle blower.

There you go. One more job for the Lokpal. Providing Security. Who will do it? Police? Dont they have enough on their hands already? Black Dog Security Services? And the Lokpal can direct the security agencies into compliance. Sounds more like a dictatorial body running parallel to the government to me.

For any act of corruption, the punishment shall not be less than six months of rigorous imprisonment and may extend up to imprisonment for life.

Ok, all said and done, the quantum of punishment may actually work and reduce corruption. Fine. But how are you going to prove it? By investigating a cop for a Rs.100 bribe? Or a peon for a Rs.10 one? Or a Doc who issues a fake medical certificate? Bloody I guess Anna Hazare was inspired by Shankar's Anniyan (Aparichit). Secret cameras everywhere? Half the corruption cases in the country go nowhere due to lack of proper evidence. How is the Lokpal act going to change that? Colleges taking a bribe are still going to continue, due to lack of evidence. The Lokpal will provide the person with security till death? What if a person is victimised in his office/college/anywhere for that matter for having gotten a superior into trouble through this? You study in a college. You go to the Lokpal for some corruption issue and get a teacher into trouble. Do you think you'll be able to survive your years in the college after that? Or be it an office, how'll you survive in the office after that? The Lokpal will give you security for life? How difficult is it to get the details of an anonymous applicant in these days of electronic advancement?

Each public authority shall designate an official called Public Grievance Redressal Officer in each station where the public authority has an office, to whom a complaint could be made for any violation of the citizens’ charter.

In an ideal world, there is nothing better. But doesn't BSNL have one already? Or the passport office? Or every other private company? What comes of a complaint to the authority? Nothing. You just end up wasting more money than the complaint was worth.

There shall be at least one officer of the Lokpal in each district to receive grievances who shall be called an Appellate Grievance Officer. However, in such places where there is more concentration of central government offices, there shall be more Appellate Grievance Officers as may be required.

There are 640 districts in India as per the Census. Add up, and you get the logistical headaches through this.

The Board shall finalise the Lokpal’s budget in such a manner that it is less than ¼ % of the total revenues of the Government of India. Lokpal shall not need any administrative or financial sanction from any government agency to incur expenditure.

Granted the lack of this may lead to loss of independence. But granting budgeting independence from government funds to such an all powerful entity is akin to committing suicide. Ever heard of dont put too many eggs in one basket? All I can see of the Lokpal is such a situation.

Every public servant shall within 3 months after the commencement of this Act and thereafter before the 30th June of every year submit to the Head of that public authority in which the said public servant is functioning or to such other authority as may be prescribed, a statement of his assets and liabilities and those of the members of his family which shall include their sources of income, in the format prescribed by the Lokpal.
Explanation : In this Section family of a public servant means the spouse and such children and parents of the public servant and such other people as are dependent on him.

Wow. Have these guys heard of a Benami by any chance? Are they this naive that they think this is going to stop all the corruption? A guy intelligent enough to make the black money, will be intelligent enough to launder it too.

If it is found that the public servant owns some property which was not disclosed in his statement of assets, that property would be liable to be confiscated by the Lokpal.

There are 10 lakh public servants in India. I am sure that a maximum of a 5000 in them wouldn't be indulging in things of this kind. Does the Lokpal have the machinery to check all of them? Infrastructure anyone?

If the public servant is found to be in possession or enjoyment of any property which is not shown in his statement of assets, it shall be presumed that it was owned by him unless he proves to the contrary.

Speechless. Half the things in this country are unbilled. More than half actually. How the hell do I prove I own something? I dont have the bill for my underwear. You'll arrest me for laundering of wealth? There are no norms to provide bills for rent collection. What'll you do there? What about the priests who charge so much, and get away without paying any tax? All those huge tuition centres who dont pay taxes? What are you going to do about them? All I see here is government, government. What about other kinds of corruption? Nothing? How'll things reduce? They'll just shift from one sector to the other. An agent taking a bribe to get work done isn't covered here is he? What'll you do about that? My bribe is a bottle of the costliest champagne? How'll you check that? By digging into my stomach? What is the proof that it was a bribe in the first place? I might say it is a gift, and that the person is taking vengeance against me for reasons not known to me.

Any permission which is required under any law for initiating investigation or initiating prosecution under any Act shall be deemed to have been granted once the Lokpal has granted permission to initiate investigation or prosecution for any offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

'Any' .. 'Any' .. 'Any' sounds familiar? Unbridled power anyone?

Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, if someone makes any complaint under this Act, which lacks any basis or evidence and is held by Lokpal to be meant only to harass certain authorities, Lokpal may impose such fines on that complainant as it deems fit, but the total fine in any one case shall not exceed Rs one lakh.
Provided that no fine can be imposed without giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the complaintant.
Provided further that merely because a case could not be proved under this Act after investigation shall not be held against a complainant for the purposes of this section.
Provided that if such complaint is against the staff or officers of Lokpal, Lokpal may sentence the complainant to three months of simple imprisonment in addition to fine.

If the complaint is against government official, it is a fine of upto a lakh (Which might be pocket change for someone with such intentions). But when it is against the Lokpal, it is imprisonment. How much more biased can you get? What if a person says that you guys were not able to prove it. Damn you. Why fine me. "That contractor building that huge flyover in the busiest street of the city got the contract after paying a bribe." Ding. The project halts. Till the investigation is over. End of the day, nothing gets proved. Project is delayed. Objective successful. And I say that you guys couldn't investigate and get the evidence, doesn't make my case false. End of.

A complaint or allegation once made under this Act shall not be allowed to be withdrawn.

Ding. You want to keep the cases piling on your head, even when the applicant is ready to accept he made a mistake and is ready to withdraw the case. Why may I know?

All contracts, public-private partnerships, transfer by way of sale, lease, and any form of largesse by any public authority shall be done with complete transparency and by calling for public tender/auction/bids unless it is an emergency measure or where it is not possible to do so for reasons to be recorded in writing. Any violation of this shall make the contract/largesse void. The details of all such transactions would be put up by the public authority on a public website.

Want to buy a rubber? Give a tender. Non-dust, Natraj, Faber Castel will apply. And then you can make a decision. Pretty impractical in my opinion. You cant have tenders for everything in the world. Will delay things infinitely.

The part of the Delhi Special Police Establishment, dealing with investigation and prosecution of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, shall stand transferred, alongwith its employees, assets and liabilities to the Lokpal. The Central Government shall cease to have any control over the transferred part and its personnel.
(2) Such part of Delhi Special Police Establishment, which has been transferred above, shall form part of the Investigation Wing of Lokpal.

The entire police force, vigilance commissions all over the states, CBI etc haven't been able to contain the corruption. And with one wing of the Delhi Police as investigation wing, the Lokpal is going to weave a magic wand and investigate the lakhs of cases that are going to crop up each month. Wow. How lame a law is this.

By the way, wasn't the premise of the law, the fact that the police is corrupt? Why are you taking an entire police force then? Train your own investigators. Or create them with the same magic wand you are using to investigate a lakh of cases with a small wing of the Delhi Police.

Any bribe giver may be granted immunity from prosecution by the special court if he voluntarily and gives timely information to the Lokpal about the giving of bribe by him with entire evidence for the purpose of getting the concerned bribe taker/public servant caught and convicted, provided he also relinquishes all the illegitimate benefits which he had received by the giving of that bribe.

'Bhaiya. Ye le lo. Mujhe chod do' and the police man leaves you. And the heartless guy you are, go to the court with immunity and say that he took a bribe and get him into trouble?

Oh and I still haven't gotten to the fact that Indian people don't bother about corruption anyways. They will still pay a 200 to the agent and get their tickets done. Or pay 100 to a doctor to get a medical certificate. And well, with Lokpals in each state capital (or so I've heard), what is the motivation for a villager to spend the money and come all the way to file a complaint. He can anyway do that in the current judicial system to. What is the Lokpal going to add? For Rs.100 bribe, a villager in a village near Kanyakumari has to come to Chennai spending a minimum of Rs. 400 per trip. Is the Lokpal going to refund for such trips too? Some more tax payers money down the drain? I'd rather use the money to fund some development that make such a humungous waste on a impractical half boiled solution.

And why is Anna's team ready to cover only NGOs funded by government and not everything? If they feel the NGOs are clean, why aren't they ready to allow everything under the ambit if the law? After all they came with a noble intention to clean the country of corruption. I for one, believe that all NGOs, big or small, whether government funded or not, even unregistered movements and campaigns also covered under the ambit of Lokpal. NGOs are as corrupt if not more.

Oh well, the Lokpal could get corrupt etc etc. Haven't even got there and this thing is already 4000 words long!! Let me give it a rest. I'm anyway not going to change many opinions with this piece. Will be happy if even one or two people change their opinions after reading this.

You are welcome to a debate through the comments or through a mail to shrinivas.sg@gmail.com

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:46:00 +0000

No no, this has nothing to do with the failed English FA campaign for Respect to Referees in Football. This is about a phone call, earlier this week with a friend of mine.

IIM-Ahmedabad came up with it's admissions criteria for the Batch of 2012 (CAT 2011) earlier this week.

After satisfying the cutoffs in each section and overall ,
70% weightage is given to the CAT/GMAT score and 30% weightage is given to the Application Rating Score.
Application Rating (AR): 2012-14
Rating Score <60:1pt, 60-80:2 pts, >80: 3pts

A: Percentage score in 10th Std. Exam
B: Percentage score in 12th Std. Exam
C: Percentage score in Bachelor's Degree Exam
D: Percentage score in Master's Degree Exam
E: Work Experience
<1 Year: 1pts, 1-2 Years: 2pts 2+ Years: 3pts

Application rating: (A*B*C)+D+E

Personally I have no opinion on the criteria. But the person I spoke to, was an aspirant for CAT-2011 and in my opinion deserves to get into one of the IIMs. He was unlucky the last time around, and gave up admission in one of the premier non-IIM institutes to give CAT another shot. The news of this criteria was real bad news for the guy as it reduced his chances of a call drastically, as compared to last year's criteria due to a fraction of a mark in UG. Rather than rejoicing with a 27 that would have nearly guaranteed a call after clearing the CAT percentile requirements, he was left to ponder over an 18 or 19.

I have seen plenty of people cribbing about the new criteria. Many of these guys will probably crib about anything and everything under the sun, unless they aren't affected by it. Normalisation will have them cribbing, cut offs like the previous year would have them cribbing. Weightage for 10th and 12th will have them cribbing. High weightage for CAT score, compared to the interview will, as well.

The conversation with this friend of mine was a breath of fresh air. The guy who should have been highly disappointed, and cribbing (I probably would even agree with him cribbing). But he took it in his stride and preferred to use his energies in getting a good CAT score rather than waste time cribbing about something that is out of his hands. I loved his "I cant do anything much about this now. Let me rather prepare for CAT and ensure other calls than crib about this" attitude.

If I had been in his position, I'd probably have been cribbing to death about it. This conversation taught me to leave aside things outside our control and rather work at things that we can still influence and are in our hands, than such stuff which we can do nothing about.

Dude, if you are reading this, RESPECT. You are someone who deserves it this time around. Hope you get through to a B-School of your choice this year!

A day at IIM-Ahmedabad (WIMWI)

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:08:00 +0000

((( Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi )))) ... ((( Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr )))) .. (((( Kik kik .. Kik kik .. Kik Kik .. Kik kik kik kik .. Kik kik kik kik .. Kikkkkkkk ))))

Thus begins my day with three alarms going of one minute after another, one on my alarm clock, one each on my mobile phones, and the back up call on my land-line phone from either Dad or Mom; all just to make sure, I don't snooze and go back to sleep. Sleep is a precious commodity out here, along with time; and pretty soon, the grades will join the list too. (For me atleast. Definitely will be returning to my halycon 7 point days, very soon).

Then starts the mad rush, to get take bath, to get ready, have something at breakfast (which by the way, isn't as yummy as it seemed a few days back). Some days pretty much end up being a choice between whether you want to be smelly, hungry or not rush to class.Oh yeah, WST - WIMWI standard time is pretty much an anti-thesis of the Indian Stretchable time. 08-45 implies 08:44:59. Not a second later. If you do, the door closes on your face and for assignments, it can be a grade lower.

But the whole punctuality thing is pretty nice in its own way. The way it gets drilled into you, is something that is so very different to how life was, at NIT Bhopal. Attendance, is pretty much mandatory. As the popular refrain here goes, the A in IIM-A stands for Academics. But it could be A for Awesome too, as you end up finding moments of sheer joy even in the hectic running around at this place.

Classes start at 08-45; and three sessions of 1 hr 15 mins each are interspersed with a break of 20 minutes. The academic standards are pretty high, which is expected, when a class has about 25 IITians and about 5-10 BITSians. The feeling of being mediocre, among a bunch of toppers can hit you pretty hard, initially. You are expected to prepare, for the class, before the class itself; which was something I found very new; after life at MANIT.

Sample this conversation in the last week, with a MANITian friend.

Me: Hey, I'll catch you later. Need to study for tomorrow. Lots left.

Friend : What? You have exams already??

Me: No no, we've to prepare for classes.

Friend : ????

That pretty much defines life in the first few days, when the new changes from engineering life, take you by surprise. Be it the methodical way in which the registration was done (Something MANIT desperately needs to learn) or the way in which classes are handled. Professors arrive in class about 5 mins ahead of time. But start classes, the second the clock ticks to time.

With 29 dorms (hostels) with 20-40 students each, you get the chance to interact a lot more with your fellow batchmates (Fachchas) and seniors (Tuchchas). Well maintained hostels, are the order of the day; compared to the luxury it was, at Bhopal. (And no, I'm not saying hostel life wasn't fun at Bhopal. It definitely was as much fun, if not more).

Lunch, can suddenly turn from peace for the rest of the day, to a sudden mad rush to find your books; when you find a notice for a 'surprise quiz' in an hour's time; when you go to the mess to have your lunch. Frantic page turning; and friend finding later, you find yourself fronted by a question paper which might end up to seemingly be Greek and Latin (depending on your preparation levels).

Walking back to the hostel, contemplating how you could have done better, might turn a futile exercise; when you discover there's pretty much no way to, unless you'd studied everything everyday. Then starts the circle again. Opening your 'Trimester timetable' to find out what classes you have the next day. And what needs to be studied for the next class.

And oh, group assignments and group submissions or work on a weekend submission need to be done too. Dinner, might seem a mere formality at times. And the studying, accompanied by Facebooking/Browsing/Chatting; takes you deep into the night. It might suddenly seem that you are done for the night, when you suddenly discover that there could be a possible surprise quiz the next day and rush to open your books once again, with a groan.

Partying, fun (a lot of it) happens, and when they do, the 'Tempo Shouts' leave your ears ringing; and the dunking leaves you drenched. Life here, leaves you at a low at times, but suddenly manages to lift you to a high, which you possibly never even dreamed off.

MANIT had this refrain - 'MANIT me raat nahi hota ..' . This place has made me discover the actual meaning of that.

PS: So far so good. With just one really late night, and one late night. **Touchwood**

All I wanted to speak about CAT - Part 3 - The Exams, The interviews and the End.

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:52:00 +0000

Note: This is a post meant from PaGaLGuY.com's famous "All I wanted to speak about CAT" thread. People preparing for CAT, and in need of motivation, inspiration etc can read through the entire thread. Brilliant stories. Captivating read.

Link: All I wanted to speak about CAT

Part 1 of this post can be read here.

Part 2 of this post can be read here.

The actual tests

NMAT on 21st October (Bhopal):

What went right: Preparation, Timing of the test

What went wrong: Slackening towards the end of the Quant/DI section.

Expectations: 260+

Actual Score: 233

Calls: NMIMS

NMAT was more of a cakewalk with many sitters and it was more of a game of picking out the sitters and cracking them quickly. I could sense I had done well, as I was giving the test.

CAT on 4th November (Bhopal):

What went right: Preparation, Timing of the test

What went wrong:Hardly anything

Expectations: -

Percentile: 99.27

Calls:IIM A,I,K, Raipur, Rohtak, Trichy, MDI, SP Jain

Everything about CAT went on perfectly. I was pretty comfortable at the centre, I started off with DI and did 18 questions without any hassles; then hit on Verbal and did 14 (found it pretty ambiguous) and then finally went to Quant and attempted 16. Felt it was a fair effort and possibly the best I could have given it.

IIFT on 28th November (Chennai):

What went right: Nothing pretty much. Except for the exam.

What went wrong: The choice of centre, asking my mother to drop me there (psyched me out). Hardly did any kind of preparation.

Expectations:34+

Actual Score:34.78

Calls:Missed out the cut off by about 0.5

FMS on 5th December (Chennai):

What went right: Had looked at old question papers

What went wrong:Looked at only the questions and not the answers !!!

Expectations:404-415

Actual Score:412

Calls:Missed out the cut off by about 5-7 marks

XAT on 2nd January (Chennai):

What went right: Semblance of a preparation

What went wrong: Looked at the paper and went blank!! Spent way too much time on DI.

Expectations: Anything non negative

Percentile: 79.29

Calls: LOL !

IIFT was the first result to come out, which came just a few days before XAT. Had missed the cut-off narrowly which kept rankling me for a long time. Then the 'CAT-leak fiasco' happened and I was online at that time and checked out my score - a 99.27 percentile. Was happy and partly sad as it meant, according to last year's cut-offs, not many calls. Especially no IIM-A or C. At the same time, there was this inherent worry about whether it was the right result or not. Then came FMS, which I was expecting to narrowly make it through. It was a reject. I still remember crying while watching the second half of Band Bajaa Baraat in the theatre.

Then came the CAT results, on January 12th. I was so nervous that I got a high fever on the night of the results and was shivering all through the night. I wasn't able to sleep at all, and woke up my mom at 2 in the morning and made her check the results. She confirmed my 99.27; much to my relief and joy.

The Calls

With my good school academics and well-rounded percentiles in all sections, I was expecting calls from B, L and K. But disaster struck. L was the first IIM to come out with the results, and I remember looking through the PDF in the hope of finding my SR no much to my disappointment.

Then came the biggest shock. And surprise. The A call. I was on the way back from Career Launcher when one of my friends called up to say that I had a call from Ahmedabad. It was truly unbelievable at that time, and I just refused to trust the poor guy. I came back and entered my details and found out about my call.

The other IIMs that came out with their results didn't bother giving me a call. I was pretty nervous about having A as my only call as I was bad with interviews. But the respite was provided by Ratnabha Sir of CL, to whom I'll remain eternally thankful, who said, "If only A decides to give you a call, dont worry; we'll work and convert A".

Then came the flood of calls, from IIM-I, IIM-K, SP Jain, MDI and finally NMIMS. The new IIMs - Rohtak, Raipur and Trichy also decided to give me a call. GD-PI preparation started off in earnest with the usual ET (Thanks to Pritish Roy); introspection and stuff.

Interviews

I've already spoken about my interviews in length.

SP Jain was a straight reject in Group Interview-1. Still dont understand why they call freshers if they aren't interested in them.

IIM Kozhikode here.

IIM Indore here.

IIM Ahmedabad here.

IIM RRT here.

MDI here.

I didn't attend NMIMS because it was clashing with my IIM Indore interview.

That exalted feeling

http://sgshrinivas.blogspot.com/2011/04/nervousness-and-elation-april-18th-2011.html

All in all, the end was the best I could have ever imagined of. I never even thought I'd manage a call from Ahmedabad, but I have a convert in my hands now.

As they all say, this probably is just the beginning of the journey. I can never say enough thanks to everyone who helped me through this process, with all kinds of support.

All I wanted to speak about CAT - Part 2 - The Journey

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:51:00 +0000

Link: All I wanted to speak about CAT

Part 1 of this post can be read here.

Part 3 of this post can be read here.

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

The journey

First year in college, passed away in a breeze. But as I read and got into engineering, I got the feeling that this wasn't really meant for me. Civil Engg, in particular, as I wasn't particularly strong health wise, after bouts of Measles, Chicken Pox and Typhoid. Nor was I strong in the subjects Civil Engineers ought to be strong in - Structures and Soil Mechanics.

The second year of college, saw the birth of this new dream in me. CAT. It happened when the CAT results came out, and I saw the names of many seniors who had got calls from various IIMs. That was the spark that grew inside me - that if some people studying in the same college could do it, why not me. Added to the fact that studying in NIT Bhopal gave you more free time than you could ever handle. I thought that if I prepared properly, I definitely had a chance at cracking the test.

But then, as usual, the Idle mind became the Devil's workshop and I killed time, like no one could. I hardly did anything worthwhile despite taking the old material of TIME from one of my seniors, and all that the material did was to rot in one corner of my room. I somehow got sense in the final moments of my 4th semester and enrolled at Career Launcher, Bhopal for the classroom course for CAT.

Rolling along

Classes started in about mid July, 2009 and I used to attend classes pretty sincerely. Contrary to my earlier love for maths, I found Number Systems; Permutation Combination a real pain. I used to really hate them. With this blog running and being a part of the Ed Board, my love for English grew and I found myself loving the English classes a lot and was very good at solving the class sheets.

But in terms of preparation, I hardly did anything. After a point, in February/March, I gradually found myself not doing too well in any section; and started losing interest in even attending classes; despite which I forced myself to attend them. (Guess that was the best thing I did at that point of time).

Time just kept flying past, with Editorial Board and a set of very good friends taking the rest of my time. It was May 2010 already and it was then that I realised I had really fallen behind the rest of the gang in terms of preparation. I hadn't quite done anything in the material that had been given. Nor had I even taken the pains to open the SIS of Career Launcher, and even go through the stuff that was there.

Realisation

The college curriculum meant I had to undergo Industrial Training for about 3 weeks, in my summer vacation. I tried getting training in a couple of places, nearly got it at L&T Mumbai, but decided against going there and finally did it at Chennai Port. It was then that realisation hit me hard. And by hard, I mean, very HARD.

Training used to start at 7 in the morning and I had to leave my home at around 6 in the morning. Working conditions at the port were as bad as it could get. Nowhere close to the wonderfully clean and super modern ports that you see in movies. Standing in the sun, from the morning till 12-30 or 1, when we had our lunch break; that too in the peak summer Chennai sun, taught me a few lessons. I realised pretty much that I simply wasn't made for this kind of a job. My health took a hit. I decided that it was time I took up CAT more seriously and give it my best shot, even though it was pretty much late, by normal standards. I knew, deep down, that it was the only way that I'd be able to get a desk job. I finally got the sense to open my material and start working.

Preparation

By the time, I'd opened my books, two of Career Launcher's ProcMocks had already gone past. I am pretty much very good at making schedules for myself, right from my school days, and in the last few days of my vacation, I sat down and made myself a proper schedule and plan as to how to go about preparation for CAT. But then, the end of the vacation packing and other stuff got the better of me. Finally, I started my serious CAT Preparation on July 10th 2010.

I had already given the first two mocks a skip. Hence Proc Mock 3 was something I was very serious about. I knew that it'd be the one that'd make or break my CAT Preparation. I seriously made a schedule targeting it and kept my goals pretty realistic this time, rather than building castles in the air, like the previous times i had got off to false starts. Meticulously I sat down and solved all the numericals from the Hard Copy material and worked my ass off.

My day used to start at 4-30 AM, when most of the hostel used to go to sleep. I gave in about 3 hours of preparation then and then went to college. Being in Civil Engg, which had by then become THE most sincere branch in college, attending every other class, I had to attend classes. Two hours of sleep in the afternoon followed by CAT class/further prep/break in the evening and then sleeping off by a maximum of 10 PM. I lost out on a lot of fun, in hostel life because of my schedule and on some of my friends too. But today, when I took back, I feel vindicated.

I had also "fallen in love" with the Editorial Board and worked like mad over there to release a successful magazine. I felt that the other editors in the Ed Board who were preparing for CAT were more serious than I had ever been, and thought I could sort of give a lot more of my time for EB(Ed Board) than them. The feeling being that, even if CAT screwed up, a successful magazine would help pull my mood up, unlike the IIT experience where I nearly went into depression.ProcMock 3 thankfully went well, and I got a 98 odd percentile topping the Bhopal Centre. (??).

But preparation was not without hassles. There were hassles aplenty right from the start. I was 'scared' of DI, and never used to practice any online tests due to the fear of not doing well in them and losing my confidence. I was over confident about verbal, but that turned out to be THE biggest problem of all. I used to think verbal was my strongest section, but turned out that it wasn't. I hardly cleared any cut-offs in verbal and had a worse than pathetic accuracy rate of less than 50%. Quant had quite a few issues esp with Number theory and Permutation and combination. The former I was scared of, and the latter I was extremely weak in. Verbal had yet another big problem with me having an aversion to RCs. I loved reading RCs on paper, but when it came to reading on screen, I used to prefer skipping them and moving to the next question.

'Mock'ery

In my initial mocks, I never used to analyse what went right or what went wrong and which were my strengths and weaknesses. I just used to go and give the mocks and that was the end of it. The mocks I gave initially gave me the confidence that, "yes, if i prepare the same way, I can do well in CAT." But it also gave me the warning that all wasn't well definitely.

I still remember my first mock analysis test with my sir @ Career Launcher when he went over my first few mocks and hit on my mistakes. He said two things and till today, I'm thankful to him for that:

# Stop doing "How many?" type questions (Permutation ones). You never get them right.

# Stop doing sentence correction ones. You invariably look for mistakes that aren't there. Instead work on RCs. They'll give you more marks.

It was then that I understood the meaning of analyzing a mock. I used to attempt a mock without any proper strategy - giving an hour for DI (which had by then become my strongest section); about 20 mins for Verbal and the rest for Quant. This lead to an imbalance in the time for each question and I ended up making mistakes which I shouldn't have been doing.

Forms had been out, and I filled up NMIMS; SP Jain; MDI; IIFT; FMS; XAT; CAT. I didn't feel like giving JMET or SNAP and made a mistake by not filling NITIE. My mocks were going fairly well, and I used to have cycles of ups. If a mock went well, invariably it would never be alone and it'd always be followed by atleast two more good mocks. And the same with bad ones. I hit a couple of highs with a 99.5 in one mock and a few lows too; with less than 50% accuracy in DI. Mock scores varied between 85 to 99 percentile through out the season.

I also started working on my RCs; and post this, there was a dramatic rise in verbal scores and my accuracy levels too. I found my actual strengths and weaknesses; which were completely different from the ones that I had assumed to be my strengths and weaknesses. Mentoring Sessions at Career Launcher, invariably saw a few more weak spots being addressed and scores moving up a little. As CAT came closer, I knew that I was more of a confidence player and needed a boost before the exam for it to go well.

My friends had told me that one particular mock in the Unproctored ones was very easy, and so I left it to be the last mock that I would take before the exam. I also scheduled my NMAT a month before CAT so that I could get a feel of how my efficiency dips in exam conditions. My preparation, remained steady and despite a few dips in confidence and preparation levels at times, I ensured that I was geared up to go.

It was during this time that I discovered PaGaLGuy.com as a wonderful resource for CAT Aspirants and it gave me a fair idea of what to expect in NMAT and CAT beforehand.

Go to Part 3

All I wanted to speak about CAT - Part 1 - The Flashback

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:49:00 +0000

Link: All I wanted to speak about CAT

Part 2 of this post can be read here.

Part 3 of this post can be read here.

Flashback

When I think of where to start this "story", my mind keeps wandering. But most of the time, it keeps returning to 8th Standard, at PSBBSSS KK Nagar, my school. That was probably the time when I discovered I was pretty good at Maths. I was this typical "extremely-studious" kid, with well-oiled and combed down hair, perfectly ironed and tucked in uniform; for whom, the most important thing in life was to complete the homework for the day, read through 'The Hindu' and 'The Sportstar' and devour novels and quiz books. It was in 8th standard that I found out my 'passion' for Maths. I used to attend these tuition classes for Maths back then, in this very popular class held by Srimathy Ma'am and I used to love doing the pages and pages of homework that was given. Added to the extreme sincerity that I was known for back then, I even used to indulge in this kiddish saddism of complaining to her, about other students who hadn't completed the homework.

I went on to score 3 centums out of 4 that year; and missed out on the 4th by 1 mark because of a small confusion in the "Angle in the same segment" property in circles. In hindsight, that probably was the biggest mistake of my life. Not missing the 4th centum, but scoring 3 centums in the first place. It took expectations from me, to great heights and my parents had started dreaming about a seat for me in one of the IITs, to emulate my cousin brother who did his Bio-Tech in IIT Madras and then went on to Cornell University.

Life went on smoothly till Standard 10, until when I continued my 100s spree in Maths (I actually got 100s in all my exams in Maths other than the Midterm exam where I got 91. I still remember vividly my ego in 9th standard when my maths teacher put me down saying I had solved a question wrong when I knew for a fact that it was right, given that she had never stated I couldn't use that particular method to solve the problem). I got a 100 in my board exam as well, and by then my parents had decided that IIT was going to be child's play for me. I wouldn't blame them entirely as I had a very wrong notion about commerce as well, and biology was like 'allergy'. (Even this is an understatement).

The Start of the Problems

In 11th standard, as I attended classes during the vacations, I slowly started understanding that I simply wasn't made for this at all. I remember one of my teachers saying in class:

"Just because you score 100 in your board exams, it doesn't mean that you are meant for IIT. I can show you 100s for people who have done the same and ended up nowhere in life". Though the quote was meant for no one in particular, the situation meant that I took it to be for me. Post that I had a confidence breakdown. Things started worsening as the 3 hour IIT classes seemed like a torture movie to me and Physics became something that I despised. Chemistry was no lesser. Maths was pretty much fine even then. School studies took a bad hit, due to lack of time due to attending IIT classes and getting a peer group in love with football. Football and quizzing became my first loves then, and IIT classes used to be spent by discussing the tactics of the last match, or the upcoming matches and the usual rival clashes.

Things went from bad to worse when I failed my Physics exam in 12th (probably THE lowest point of my life so far) by a quarter mark. My confidence took a huge hit. This simply wasn't helped by the Chicken Pox that I had during the vacations which led to me missing the major part of Differentiation and Integration. Maths, my favourite subject, also started taking a hit and from the days of 100s, I sunk to the 50s.

As Vinod, my best friend back then put it .. "Century in the Half Yearly in 10th. Half Century in the Half Yearly of 12th". I knew that IIT was beyond my grasp and slowly it was becoming the same case with AIEEE, but I just couldn't bare to tell that to my parents as they had pinned a lot of hopes on me. This led to a phase when both my parents stopped talking to me for nearly a month. I finally managed to pass in physics with a 35/70 in my Pre-Boards. I simply worked my ass of to scrape a decent mark in the 12th Boards.

The post board frenzy led to my AIEEE "preparation" taking a hit. Life was at the lowest possible low, as the AIEEE and board results came out and I was left clinging to the last straws of hope with an AIR of 43312.

The long wait till the AIEEE counselling was tense, and somehow I managed a seat in NIT Bhopal in Civil Engg; because of the 'State Quota' that used to be prevalent those days. As I read and re-read the letter of allotment, memories came flashing back. Memories of the now age-old academic glories and of the off-late multiple setbacks came flooding back into my mind. Who had even dreamed of a seat in a NIT when I had filled up my choices during the counselling process? It was the last day of the counselling, had no other options left for college admissions and had actually filled in 50 choices in my AIEEE form-1. Heights of desperation which startled even the guy who printed out the form for me. (Ab tak kisi ne 3 page ka form nahi bara!!). I hadn’t even given the choices much thought, but I had this faint memory of Civil Engg at MANIT being my 13^th choice. 13 is unlucky, they say. But probably that is for lucky souls. This had been the best piece of luck I had seen in a tempestuous 3 months.

I still remember vividly the tears of sadness from me, my parents after my AIEEE and Board results. That, was the motivation behind my journey towards CAT. My father used to remind me at ever possible turn, how I had 'fooled' and 'failed' him and shattered his hopes and dreams. It was that pain that lead me to work towards something that I could perhaps use to overshadow this failure in my life.

And then, I struck upon CAT. The mother of all Entrance Exam, probably. And thus began my journey.

Go to Part 2

The nervousness and the elation - April 18th 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:31:00 +0000

This is kind of a diary entry for the day. My feelings through out the day. April 17th was the Civil Branch farewell in the college. It was quite memorable for many reasons. The last time all of us, friends of 4 years would be together. It left me wondering if I should have probably spoken a lot earlier to many people, and made more friends. But let bygones be bygones. We were all presented with mementos from the junior batch and I got mine from the Director of the college, which was special. More special was the background music running, "Appidi Podu" - a Vijay song (My favourite actor, if you are new to this place). And the introduction they had written for me went like this.

Civil Department में चलता है इनके नाम का Publication...
चेहरे पे रहता है एक ही expression .. चाहे हो कोई भी situation.

And things went so bad that the director, asked me on stage .. "Even now the same expression !!! " .. Embarrassment! Big times.

The farewell had some dancing, some eating and then started the hot seats. I stayed on for a few hot seats, and after that my nervousness gave way. I simply wasn't able to sit there any longer, with the prospect of the Ahmedabad results having been released. I came back to hostel and sat in front of my Laptop, endlessly refreshing the IIM-A Website. It was no avail, as the results didn't seem like coming at all. After a point of time, my sleep and tiredness got the better of me and I slept off leaving the laptop on. I got up in the morning at about 7 AM and went online and then started the process of the endless refreshes again. Pagalguy was providing no answers either as no one really knew when it would be out.

Once again the frustration got the better of me, and I took bath and left to the temple for some mental peace, and last minute prayers. On the way, I also met one of my best ever friends, Krithika akka, for her blessings and best wishes. By the time, I finished my prayers, my stomach had started groaning for some attention and I had a Vada Sambhar, which easily proved to be the worst decision I could have ever taken. I seriously didn't feel like going back and sitting all alone in my room (Kumar, my other best friend, had some important work, and wasn't there). So I decided to roam around for a bit and then had this idea of calling up Vaishali (my best friend ever) to be with me, as I simply wasn't able to manage driving the vehicle any more, with my shaking arms and groaning stomach.

I went to the college building with her, and it was there that I met Smriti Gupta (BLACKISRRT and add whatever other MBA colleges, worth their salt, after this) who told me that the results had been declared! I just couldn't bring myself to go and check the results any where in the college and was so damn nervous by then that I started cursing myself for having taken up this idea of coming to the college for some relief !

I went to the library and by the time I was walking back out, I could no longer contain my curiosity and I decided to take a look at the results in college, in the TPO office.

I dont know whether to curse the TPO office keyboard which has a bad '.' key or be happy that it brought down my expectations and gave me more joy. I typed my details and when I clicked go, I was brought to tears to see :

But then something made me go back, and see what I had entered; and I realised the dots in my mail ID were missing, thanks to the keyboard over there. I was literally shaking and wasn't able to type out anything properly and two attempts later, I finally managed to type it out right, and that was probably THE most happy moment in my life till then.

It was a dream come true, and the celebrations started then and the congratulations started pouring in. I have been promised an External Hard Drive from Dad (Suggestions welcome for that).

And with a disclaimer that I'm not showing off, I seriously am yet to realise it. It is yet to sink in completely and feels pretty numb. Though, I am able to replay and replay the moments continuously.

I just wasn't able to express my happiness in anyway at all; though many people were asking me to try and do it.

Some of the best things that happened yesterday would be:

# My phone calls with mom and dad informing them about my success and hearing their reactions. Though dad's was pretty muted (now I guess people can understand my reactions - genetic problems), I could see that finally I had given them something to be proud of after my AIEEE and IIT debacles.

# My conversation with my sister that went like this:

Sis: What, got into IIM-A eh? Congrats !

Me: Yeah !! Thanks.

(Her friends scream congrats from behind)

Sis: Finally, dad and mom will stop torturing me by reminding us about your IIT flop show. But then, this is worse. They'll trouble me also, asking me to achieve something of the same magnitude. But this should be better. Much better.

# The congo message from my cousin and the phone call with my aunt.

# The tears of joy from Vaishali.

# My phone call with Krithika akka, and the joy and disbelief in her voice as she spoke to me.

# The hug from Kumar and his true happiness at the moment. (Dai, if you are reading this. If only Tata Motors hadn't come, we'd have shared the moment together da. Thanks for all the support).

# The bear hug from a guy whom I had not been on talking terms with for nearly two years, Naveen Kumar.

# The urging from Geetanjali asking me to show out my happiness and my 'exceptional' reaction to that.

# Those wonderful reactions and messages from each and every friend who congratulated me, over SMS/Phone/Facebook and directly. Thanks a lot people. It meant a lot to me.

As I was on the way to Career Launcher, all alone, I was finally able to show out my emotions and cried on the way. And those were tears of joy. Redemption for the tears of sadness from about 4 years ago.

PS: More posts coming soon ;-)

Mastermind V2.0 : The MDI Interview Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 09:44:00 +0000

The last interview of the season - MDI. I had my doubts, whether to attend the interview or not. Whether to join or not etc; but I put all of it behind and convinced myself that MDI is a good institute to join and anyways, I wasn't doing much either, sitting in hostel and there was a sudden void in my life, with the rush-life from the days of Editorial Board suddenly missing.

Went to Delhi by Tamil Nadu Express and my 'cold' returned to haunt me the moment it sensed the 'Delhi Weather' and I had to keep blowing my nose through out the night; though part of it was to irritate the guy sleeping on the other upper berth. He was bloody damn irritating, from first look - unfriendly stares, not switching the light off when I told him it was irritating me, to placing his darned luggage on my berth and not removing it when asked to.

Day went from bad to worse when I got 'fooled' by one of those many travel agents outside Delhi Station and went to this 'Great Shiva Deluxe' hotel. The only problem being there was nothing 'Great' or 'Deluxe' about the hotel. And the 'Bhajan' sessions at the 'Banke Bihari temple' right opposite it, made things worse if not unmanageable !! The voice of the old lady is still ringing in my ears. Terror!

And Delhi is pretty much Bhopal when it comes to lazy hotels. Nothing can really beat Chennai's hotels which start serving at 7 AM easily. After a bath in terribly salty water, which left me yearning for something nice to taste; I was shocked to see every single hotel in the area near the station closed! The only thing that was open was a tea stall, and I had to make do with the Tea Stall Idli, though I should say it was pretty good.

A crowded and delayed metro ride later, I reached MDI campus to see one guy earlier than me (Interview was from 2 and it was 12-30 when I reached there). So chatted up with him. Then other people came over. Had a surprise when a couple of them said they had read my blog. :-O. Never knew my blog had that big a reach. (Thinking of starting another one for just personal rants given that this is no longer personal space where I can say anything and everything)

The process started at about 2-15 with 7 people present out of 10. The process consisted of a GD and an interview.

GD Topic : India 2020 - Poor and Shining

The topic was pretty general and I thought I gave in a few valid points though there was scope for a few more entries. There was this guy very similar to my good friend at college, Pritish Roy who kept throwing in these amazing stats and reports and new ideas at every instant! Felt he was pretty extra-ordinary.

Then the wait for the interview and somehow I didn't want to be the 5th in the slot this time as I've always been. My prayers were answered and I was third. The panel consisted of two profs.

P1 - Cool dude, T-shirt wearing prof who was after me

P2 - Formal, normal prof who was pretty chilled out

& of course, Me.

P1: Come in, Come in.

Me: May I come in? (Just for courtesy's sake :P )

P2: Yes, take a seat.

Me: Thank you sir, good afternoon.

P2: In brief tell us about yourself, Shrinivas

Me: Sir, I am Shrinivas .. (and the normal blah blah about PSBB, NIT Bhopal, Hobbies) .. Sir, I have been a quizzer from a very young age, and have won prizes in many quizzes including the ESPN School quiz.

P1: (Cue for him to start his attack) Ok, A R Rahman. How many Grammies has he won?

Me: Sir, he won 2 grammies. Both for Slumdog Millionaire.

P1: Didn't he win more last year also?

Me: Sir, actually the Grammies for Slumdog Millionaire were presented to him after the Oscars and stuff, last year. So those are the only Grammies he has won till date.

P1: Hmmm. What is his real name?

Me: Sir, Dileep Kumar. A S Dileep Kumar.

P2 (Laughing all the while)

P1: Which is the only continent where lizards cant be found?

Me: Sir, I am not sure, but if I can take a guess, logically speaking, it has to be Antarctica.

P2 and Me laugh aloud.

P1: Hmm, you said you were good at quizzing. This is why I asked you all this.

P2: Okay, carry on with your Intro. You were telling something about writing.

Me: Sir, I like writing, I am part of the college Editorial Board and have been maintaining a blog for the last 4.5 years.

P1: (Still not done with taking my case) Editor .. Hmmm .. Spell .. (Pauses to think of the toughest word he can think of) Massachusetts.

P2 breaks into laughter once again.

Me: Sir .. Hmmm Hmmm . .M.A.S.S.A.S .. Sir, I'm not sure, sorry.

P2 : Okay, what do you like writing about?

Me: Sir, initially I started out with Film and Music Reviews. Later on I've started writing about general stuff too.

P1: What films? Hindi? English?

Me: Sir, Regional Movies. Tamil ones.

P1: How many Filmfares has Ilayaraja won?

Me: (Woah! This guy!!) Sir, I'm sorry. I dont know.

P1: Do you atleast know who he is?

Me: Yes sir, of course.

P1: Vikram Seth?

Me: Sir, he is the Indian Author who wrote 'Suitable Boy'

P1: What is his most recent book?

Me: I'm sorry sir.

P1: You said you are a quizzer but dont seem to know stuff!

Me: :-D .. (Gave my best possible smile)

P2: Have you written for any magazines and stuff or just on your site?

Me: Sir, I initially started out with writing for my blog. People came to it through Google Search and later on I got an offer to write for a Tamil Actor's Fan Magazine as well. (No! No! I'm not lying, seriously!!)

P2: Okay, go on with your intro.

Me: I also like watching Football, Cricket and Tennis sir.

P1: (I wont leave you at all!!) Hmmm, Football. Who won the World Cup last year?

Me: Sir, Spain won it.

P1: You know Argentina? Till which stage did they reach?

Me: Sir, the Quarter Finals. They lost to Germany 4-1.

P1: Who was their Coach?

Me: Sir, it was Maradona, who won the World Cup for them in 1982.

Edit: I realised my mistake that it was Paolo Rossi who won it for Italy in 1982 and Maradona was in 1986, the moment I completed my answer. But the 'Wow, right answer' nod given by my interviewer didn't want me to apologise and change my answer. And I reproduced my answers verbatim here, without corrections.

P2: Okay Shrinivas, so why do you want to do an MBA?

Me: (Well rehearsed answer, refer previous interview posts)

P1: You want to come here to learn football? What do you want MDI to teach you? To play football?

Me: Sir, I do not want to become a Football Manager, but I want to become a person in the financial Side of Football. If you take any Football Club, it has a financial side which manages the finances of the club. Basically a club markets itself and earns money through sponsorships, tickets etc; which the financial team uses for the various needs of the club like salaries and stuff.

P1: But why an MBA for this? Why do you want to read through balance sheets and tough accounts and in the end go into football?

Me: Sir, Today if you see the IPL, each team has its team to manage the finances. It is the same with Football as well. Football in India is full of oppurtunities.

P1: But still, how will MDI help you in this?

Me: Sir, after passing out, i want to work in a finance company for about 5-7 years. After gaining sufficient experience, I want to jump into the wold of finances.

P1: Which are the biggest Indian Banks?

Me: Sir, in terms of number of branches and business it would be the 'State Bank of India'.

P1: Sure? How do you measure business?

Me: I am not very sure about that sir. But an Ad of theirs in Economic Times said so.

P1: Others?

Me: Down south, Indian Bank is huge sir.

P1: I am asking for Indian Banks!

Me: ICICI is the biggest private bank of India sir.

P1: What is the expansion of ICICI?

Me: Sir, I dont know sir.

P1: You said you like banks and dont even know this??

Me: (In shock. When did I ever say that !!!!! )

P1: Okay, are you sure about this. Axis Bank has opened a lot of branches of late in urban and semi-urban areas.

Me: Sir ...

P1: Leave that. What if in the year you pass out, no finance company visits MDI for placements?

Me: Sir, I would try off campus for a job in the sector.

P1: What if you do not get a job off campus either?

Me: Sir, I will ..

P1: No, you dont. What is your back up plan?

Me: Sir, I have always wanted to get into journalism. Few years back there was this idea about a football magazine that was online. I'd probably make that dream come true on paper.

P2: What is the point of doing an MBA? You seem a pretty artistic person .. Writing, movie reviews and all that. Why dont you get into publishing a novel and all? It is pretty lucrative these days?

Me: Sir, writing is only a hobby of mine. And I can always do that, even when I'm doing something else. What I want to do now, is something I want to do really.

P2: Why MDI?

Me: Sir, it is one of the top 10 MBA colleges in India. It has a huge alumni network, excellent faculty and facilities ...

P2: What is your percentile in CAT?

Me: 99.27

P1: What other calls do you have?

Me: Ahmedabad, Indore, Kozhikode and the new IIMs.

P1: How were the interviews?

Me: Sir, Ahmedabad was neither too good, not too bad. Indore was pretty bad and Kozhikode was the best of them in my opinion.

P1: Ok, what would you choose between Kozhikode and MDI?

Me: Sir, I have not yet thought about it. I don't want to count chickens ......

P1: (Interrupts) No, I am forcing you to choose now.

Me: Sir, IIM-Kozhikode sir.

P2: Thank you, Shrinivas. You may leave.

Me: Thank you sir.

And thus ends the Interview phase of this MBA season. Results are expected to start trickling in from the week starting April 18th. Hoping for the best and wishing all other aspirants reading this, All the very best too :).

That's it folks! Thanks for all the memories, EB

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:04:00 +0000

It was the last day of the 1st year - the last theory exam more like and I saw this bunch of seniors running around carrying bundles of books from class to class. The first year had been an eye-opener in terms of bringing me back to earth in this college (MANIT) and I hadn't even been thinking that the college had a magazine, leave alone a good one at that. School days, were spent among a bunch of ultra talented guys, which didn't give me much scope to display my talent. Pick anything, and there was always a whole lot of people better than me in that - the same with writing and hence I never got a chance to be a part of the school magazine, though I had a lot of dreams to be a part of it.

Going back to the tale, I met one of my seniors there, Gautham Siddarth - a fellow PSBBian, who was among those guys running around. And he said it was the college magazine - 'Excelsior'. I hadn't got a copy due to my extreme hurry in getting done with the exams and hence I picked one from the bundle he was holding and it kindled a lot of thought. I had earlier taken part in a creative writing contest conducted by the Ed Board and had found it pretty interesting too - the topics especially and had thought, 'It'd be cool to be a part of the bunch of guys doing this'.

And thus began the endeavor to be a part of 'The Editorial Board' or EB, as it is more popularly called. 2nd year's Ed Search saw me in my most pathetic writing mood, and despite nursing mild hopes, I did not make it to even the interview round. I forgot about EB totally as the magazine didn't come out as well, that year due to various issues as I later found out.

The next year, I had sort of grown disinterested to life in college, and didn't want to overload myself, as I had my 'CAT' aspirations to take care of as well. But then, a then 'good' friend of mine, Kumar forced me to give him company to 'Ed-Search'. It'd be cliched to say the rest is history as I haven't achieved so much being a part of Ed Board. But I'd say, the rest has given me possibly the best memories of college life, and has taught me a lot and has improved me as a person tremendously.

I got through to the interview round and after a half-good and half-bad interview, I discovered that I had been selected to be part of the Editorial Board. I wouldn't say it was a dream come true, as I had a lot of apprehensions after the then Chief Editor and my now idol, Rahul Ramesh's speech warning that EB is a tough job etc etc. But I thought, let us give it a try.

The first few days/weeks/months were tough on me as I found it tough to be a part of the new environment and adjust myself to my new found busy schedule (The college literary fest - Ripple was happening at the same time and we had to get out the last year's magazine as soon as possible and start working on the new one as well, so things were pretty tight). When that magazine came out, it was a wonderful feeling, but I felt something was missing as I could not contribute anything substantial to that magazine.

Work on Excelsior 10, began soon after, and despite the heavy workload, I found I was enjoying it. Here's a sample. We were supposed to be interviewing alumni as a part of the Golden Jubilee Edition, and my task was to contact a list of 5 alumni and interview them. Being a very very introvert at that time (and even now), I was very scared as to what to do. But that fear was overshadowed by the fear of being screamed at for not doing work by Rahul Ramesh and that was the start of things for me in the EB. The first interview went bad, after being shouted at by a politician pass-out but the next few ones went wonderfully and soon I got into the groove of interviewing people and started loving it. I had also started feeling a part of the team by then, and things went on wonderfully well.

There were a few black spots when I got very angry, when I had to get shouted at by one very paranoid teacher (HoD) for no apparent reason, which pissed me off terribly. Also there were times when I felt very overloaded as well. But the joy of seeing our work in print and the positive feedback from people, was unmatchable.

It was farewell time then, and I had become sort of close to a couple of seniors like Rahul Ramesh, the chief and Advaith, the main designer.

Pretty soon, it was Ed Search time again, and by then I had started to feel at home in the Ed Board. Mayank Misra, was pretty instrumental in that. And it is more down to him, for whatever work I did. (Thanks mate, if you ever read this. I admire you tremendously).

The new batch of Eddies were pretty talented too, and work started on Excelsior 11, pretty soon, after some 'work' on the souvenir. I don't know, or I am not able to identify down the lane, where I pretty much got so attached to Ed Board, that work seemed such a pleasure to me,and more often than not, I was looking for more work to do.The fact that Mayank Misra, gave me such a long rope, put up with all my trebulations, encouraged me and I found the guy very approachable as well. And not to forget Kumar, who gave me company anytime, anywhere despite the guy's added workload being a part of the TPO (Mate, you are another person I admire a lot, probably the person I admire THE most). I might be bragging here, but I guess I did do a bit to make things more systematic or rather was given the chance by the Big Boss to do my bit to make Ed Board a little more systematic.

Time, has since then passed or rather rushed past and today, as I was making my farewell speech in the Good Ol' Humanities Class room, I got rather sentimental, and decided to do this post. For all that Ed Board has given me, a wall post (that has now become a note) on Facebook doesn't do justice.

Whether Excelsior 11 is a success or a failure (I really hope it is a magazine that everyone loves), it will be a magazine very close to my heart. Editorial Board, as a whole, will also be something I really cherish having been a part of. For the little that I have given Editorial Board, it has given me plenty back.

It made me a more open person, from the terrible introvert that I was. (I can already see GK laughing reading this. But then you haven't known/seen much of me before. So you wont know how I was before EB)

It taught me how to manage time effectively. Whatever I did in CAT, I put it down to being a part of Ed Board too. If not for the EB workload, I wouldn't have done this well. (No, I'm not bragging here. Sorry if it sounds that way)

It taught me to work as part of a team, and Mayank Misra taught me how to get work done, without screaming at people. (It also taught me to survive without lunch, and sometimes late dinner as well :P)

It's made my thinking, writing and ideating much better. Or atleast, so I feel.

It's given me much much more, but it also taught me to keep things precise and still convey the point. I have clearly not done that here. And so here I stop.

Last but not the least definitely, it is a place that's given me such spectacular memories, I'll cherish for life. It gave me my two best ever friends, Kumar G Vishwanath and N Vaishali Aakarshya. It gave me a few wonderful friends like Mayank Misra, Pritish Roy and Geetanjali Kaur; two people from whom I respect tremendously and learnt a lot from - Prateek Upadhyaya and Varun 'Sleepy Eyes' Sathees. And my favourite junior ever - Prateek Dwivedi. It also gave me my idol in life, Rahul Ramesh !

Thanks Editorial Board Manit !! :). Will miss the place.A lot.

And good luck, Mayank Sarkar and Prateek Dwivedi. Keep EB Rocking. :)

PS: Sorry, for such a long post. Especially if you found it boring.

The Lost Voice and the lo(a)st cause? - IIM Rohtak, Raipur, Trichy Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:25:00 +0000

It was the last of my IIM calls, and the last but one of all my calls. (MDI is the other one). After the A call, which I thought went well (when much to the contrary I got blunt feedback from people asking me not to expect much) I was pretty much relaxed. The centre was IIM Lucknow's Noida Campus and people in Noida actually knew that the campus was in existence. A ride with a bank officer later, I reached the 'college' (Not going to risk any tongue in cheek remarks about the boring bank officer lest he finds out about the blog from somewhere! :O ). There were quite a few familiar faces in the same slot, from the Ahmedabad and Kozhikode calls. We were divided into 4 panels and I was placed into Panel 3.

And my luck with 5 continued. Have been the 5th person to be interviewed in all my calls, Kozhikode, Indore, Ahmedabad and then this one as well! But there was the minor problem of a Group Discussion before the interview. Had never been in a GD before (Discounting the Shapoorji Pallonji and the Career Launcher ones) and with the dead voice courtesy the Delhi Cold and a mild version of the Delhi Belly due to the centre being way too far from the New Delhi, left me praying for my luck. But luck was running out, and I was left in a good group.

GD Topic: Rural india is being ignored. We look there only for profits. We are heartless parasites.(They expanded this into a paragraph of sorts)

Time: 12 mins + a couple of mins for thinking which ended 30 seconds after they started

Those who have been with me in GDs pretty much know that I open my mouth lots, but get heard only a little and my bad voice mad things worse. I was pretty much a silent spectator for most of the time, despite multiple attempts. I soon gave it up as a lost cause, and went into analysis mode and started spotting the 'Professor, Gatekeeper, Time Keeper' ala Career Launcher's PDP Videos. And that was some fun before I suddenly got a moment of silence to enter and make my point. (and a few subsequent points too). On the whole it was a pathetic GD, similar to a fish market except that all of us(them rather) were arguing to prove the same thing! There was one guy who kept looking at his watch permanently, and telling us that time was about to get over more than saying anything else!

Then the panel ended the GD and asked us to wait for the interviews. And I guess I wasn't alone in being happy that the GD had finally ended. Then after a quite long wait, came my turn for the interview. Was a pretty short interview, and hence do not remember which interviewer asked which question. So here goes the experience.

Panel : Two professors apparently of IIM Lucknow and me.

P: Tell me about yourself

Me: (The same old crap, I'll refrain from posting it here once again)

P: Who is Maulana Azad? Tell about him.

Me: Sir, he was the first education minister of India, and is responsible for India's education system. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1992. And of course, he was a freedom fighter too.

P: (Glancing through my marksheets) Why so much of transport and environment. What do you learn in them?

Me : Sir we have two papers each of Transport and Environment Engg. In Transport 1, we studied about Ports, Airports and Railways. In Transport 2, we dealt with Highways. Environment was ...

P: (Interrupts) What is a Freeway? Expressway?

Me: I am not very sure about a freeway, but an expressway is special kind of national highway where the roads are 8 laned. And there are no stops permitted. It is for high speed travel.

P: What are the two kinds of roads used?

Me: Sir, roads can be made of either Bitumen or Concrete.

P: What are the advantages and disadvantages of concrete roads?

Me: Concrete roads are very costly sir. And they are weak at the construction joints that are made at the end of the day's work. On the other hand, they are much more resistant and have a longer life when compared to Bitumen roads.

P: What is the cost of building Bitumen and Concrete Roads?

Me: (Thanking my stars and Vineel for making me attend that particular class of Transportation Engg a week ago !!) Sir, a Bitumen Road costs about 50 Lakh per Kilometer and a Concrete one about 1 Crore a Kilometer. This is for a 4 lane road, built on a plain surface.

P: Okay, what is the width of Broad Gauge and Metre Gauge?

Me: Sir, as the name suggests, a Meter Gauge is 1m wide. Broad Gauge is 1.33m wide sir.

P: 1.33m? Sure?

Me: Yes sir! (It is 1.43m, I just checked)

P: What are the advantages of Meter Gauge?

Me: Sir .. Uhmm Uhmm Uhmm .. (And coughed a bit so that he had time to think of another question)

P: Ok, you would have seen the Delhi Metro. What is the cost building 1km of it?

Me: Sir, it depends on how you are building it. Overbridge, underground or on the surface. Under ground would be the costliest. And on the surface the cheapest.

P: I don't want to know all this! Cost. Tell me cost alone.

Me: Sir, I don't know the cost sir. Sorry.

P: (Puzzled Expression and tries to go into serious mode) Then why on earth did you explain all this? You should have told I dont know sir, in the beginning itself. When you started explaining all this, I thought you will give me a detailed estimate.

Me: (Put on my best possible smile) :D

P: Ok, you are a National Level Quizzer and play Chess. What are your other interests?

Me: Sir, I like writing. I am a part of the Editorial Board of the college that has worked on three magazines including the Golden Jubilee Edition of the Magazine. I also have been maintaining a blog for the last 4.5 years.

P: Oh, that's nice. What do you blog about?

Me: Sir, initially I started out with Film and Music Reviews sir ..

P: (Interrupts) Film Critic or reviewer?

Me: Sir, it depends on the movie. If I don't like a movie, I become a critic. (And both me and the Panelist who asked the question laughed. The other one didn't appreciate this moment of fun, and was hell bent on taking my case!)

P : What films do you watch?

Me: Sir, only regional ones mostly. Tamil Cinema.

P: What else do you write about?

Me: Of late about IIM Interviews of mine and poems too.

P: (Cant see any more chance of taking my case in this and shifts to his favourite topic for the day - Politics and the same set of questions he'd been asking everyone before me)

P : What are the Political issues that India is facing these days?

Me: Sir, the scams that have hit the govt - 2G, Adarsh, CWG etc. Elections in 5 states including Tamil Nadu in April - May ..

P: (Interrupts again)Is the 2G scam bureaucratic or political?

Me: Sir, it cant be exactly classified. It involved politicians mainly, but then most of the times when politicians are involved, bureaucrats are involved too.

P: What is the constituency of Manmohan Singh?

Me: Guwahati sir.

P: Is he from Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha?

Me: Rajya Sabha.

P: No of Members of Lok Sabha?

Me: 534. (It is 543 !! Aaaah)

P: How are members to Rajya Sabha Elected?

Me: Sir, 12 members are selected by the president from various fields of eminence. The rest of the house is of members nominated by various state legislative assemblies. 1/3rd of the house changes every 2 years.

P: Is DMK a Regional or National Party?

Me: Sir, it is a Regional Party with a presence majorly in Tamil Nadu and very little presence in Karnataka.

P: What is the criterion for a party to be a national party?

Me: Sir, it should have a vote share of 10% in 4 states of the country for it to be classified as a national party.

P: Thank you Shrinivas, you can leave.

Interview Time - 11 mins.

My shortest interview so far. Shorter than even the fiasco at SP Jain. Dont know what to expect from this after the fiasco of the GD.

The A-day - IIM Ahmedabad Interview Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:47:00 +0000

Well, the A-day was finally there. And an auto ride later (Chennai-tes, auto drivers in Delhi even offer to go on the meter on their own!!) (Guess I can add Bhopalis too ! :P ) I was at the centre, pretty ahead of time. IIM Calcutta was having its interviews at the same venue (IIFT) and thankfully the venue inside the campus was different from the one I had my SP Jain Interview. (Phew!! )

The process started with the 30 odd candidates being separated into 3 panels of 10 each. And the initial discussion between us was about the candidate who had given the interview a skip - Which college did he have a call from to give WIMWI a skip !!

Two professors took charge after this and announced the essay topic. Theyverified our photo identity. And my photo was an age old photograph, which had the prof staring at me for quite some time and the ID checking of it was the same person or was I impersonating !!

Topic : Social Insensitivity is the trademark of Contemporary Indian Society
Time : 10 mins (which pretty much gave us just time to put our pens to paper, breathe and take the pen off. I couldn't even use my handkerchief for my bad cold)

I managed (thanks to Prateek Dwivedi, Mayank Sarkar, Pritish Roy and Drishtant to an extent) to write a decent essay with a good structure. In the end I discovered I had enough time left, to extend my conclusion to a paragraph larger than even my introduction !!

Then started the agonising wait for the interview. I was 5th in the list - 4 of the ones ahead of me were engineering graduates. And going from their feedback, I was expecting a grilling interview on Civil Engineering! The Loyola Graduate ahead of me, had an exceptionally long interview and because of him, I had a nerving wait outside, walking to and fro on the corridor. (Yes my friends, I can read your mind. Good for my paunch and weight, I know! I know! ) Then I went in after being asked by the interviewer to. And so here we go !!

Panel :
Prof 1 (P1)- Middle aged gentleman
Prof 2 (P2)- Another middle aged gentleman with a nice french beard (Net centre speed doesn't permit me to access the IIM A website and scroll through their faculty section)
Me

P1 : Good afternoon. Have a seat
Me: Good afternoon sir, good afternoon sir.
P2: Please give me your certificates file, so that I can have a look.
Me: Yes sir.
P1: (Glancing through my personal data form) Ok, Bhopal. What do you know about Bhopal?
Me: Sir, The foundation for Bhopal was laid by Raja Bhoj. Talking from a Civil Engineering point of view, he was the one who designed the city of Bhopal and the entire irrigation system. After him, Bhopal was taken over by the Nizams.
P1: (Interrupts) When you say irrigation system, what do you mean?
Me: Sir, as a city Bhopal does not lie on the coast or near a River. It doesn't have very good rainfall either. Hence it needed a very good irrigation system so that it could sustain. Raja Bhoj, did this by designing various lakes across the city (under the impression that I was giving him a nice overview of the city)
P1: Which lake are you talking about? Chota Talaab or Bada Talaab??
Me: (In shock, woah, these guys know everything) Sir, Bhopal has a total of 7 lakes including Upper Lake, Lower Lake, Shahpura Lake etc.
P1: Okay, so what is the source of water for these lakes?
Me: Sir, the Bhadbhada area is the source for the lakes, but I'm not very sure about the exact river.
P1: Have you heard of Bairagarh?
Me: Yes sir, it is in the outer of Bhopal
P1: Do you know about Bairagarh falls??
Me : I'm sorry sir, I dont know
P1: Aren't you basically from Bhopal? Why dont you know this?
P2: (Interrupts) No no, he is from Chennai
(Silence for a few seconds follows)
Me: Sir, I was born and brought up in Chennai. And did my schooling from Padma Seshadri School which is well known for its alumni like A R Rahman, Surya, R Ashwin etc.
P1: AR Rahman, ok. What was the second name you said?
Me: Sir, Surya. He is an actor.
P1 : (Gives a shrug indicating he hasn't heard of him)
Me: Sir, he was the one who acted in Rakta Charithra and the Tamil version of Ghajini.
P1 : (Gives a shrug indicating he hasn't heard of him)
P2 : Ok Shrinivas, you are in your final year of Civil Engg, What is your project on?
Me: Sir, It is a project under the aegis of UNICEF and MP PHE for removal of Flourides from Handpump water. In the states of MP and Rajasthan, Flourosis is a major issue. The fluoride content of water is about 8-10 ppm when it is supposed to be 1 ppm according to the standards. Even this 1 ppm is obtained from the Toothpaste we use. Due to this, the people are much affected in the rural hinterland. When you go there, you can see people with bend backs and bones due to Skeletal and Dental Flourosis.
P1: What technique are you using?
Me: Sir, right now in the field, adsorption is being used with alumina. We are trying to use a natural medium like Neem or Eucalyptus bark for adsorption of the flourides that are present.
P1: What is adsorption?
Me: It is a surface process due to which the particles of the Flourides get attached to the surface of the leaves. The rate varies with the surface area.
P1: But how will you vary the surface area of the bark? You cannot put a particular area of the bark into a bucket.
Me: No sir, we grind the bark into powder and through Sieve Analysis separate out the particles as per their particle size. What we are trying to do is to plot graphs between the Efficiency after a particular time and Efficiency with increase in Particle size.
P1: But I still haven't understood what adsorption is!
Me : Sir, it is a process where the surface adsorps the particles that are present ..
P1 : (Interrupts) Ok, so if I ask you what is Chennai, you will tell me it was earlier called Madras and if I ask you what Madras is, you will tell me it is now called Chennai. (and all of us have a laugh)
P2: You said particles, but is flourine present as gas or salts?
Me: sir, it is present as dissolved salts. Actually, using bone mash ie Calcium gives a very high efficiency. But due to the sentiments of people against using something that has passed through bone mash, we have been asked by the college authorities not to use it.
P1: The college advises you on what to do???
Me: Sir, because we get funding form UNICEF, we have to report to the college authorities.
P1: Have you got any job offers?
Me: Yes sir, Two. One from Shapoorji Pallonji Constructions and another from Virtusa.
P1: What is this Shapoo ..
Me: Sir, it is a 150 year old construction company based in Mumbai, founded by Shapoorji Mistry and Pallonji Mistry. They initially designed the irrigation system of Bombay. Recently they have constructed a 50 floor tall residential building in Mumbai. They are mainly into residential projects.
P1 to P2: You recently went to Mumbai, did you see this building?
P2: No no. I dint. Are you sure this is a finished project?
Me: Yes sir, it has been completed and handed over to the clients.
P2 : I havent seen it. What was the 2nd company?
Me: Virtusa sir, it is a Srilankam software company.
P2 : What do they do?
Me: Sir, they are mainly into BFSI - Banking, Finance and Insurance. Most of their revenue comes from this.
P2: IT??
Me: Yes sir.
P1 : Okay, which job will you join?
Me : Sir, I haven't thought about it sir. I want to complete my studies and do an MBA now.
P1 : Ok, assume you dont get admission. Then? Let me test your decision making. Tell me the pros and cons of each company.
Me: Sir, shapoorji will give me continuity with what I learnt in Engg. Whereas Virtusa will be in Chennai, location will be a positive. Shapoorji will mean a job on the field and as I want to do an MBA, it will not give me much time to prepare once again for CAT. Whereas Virtusa will give me more time for that.
P1: But then if you go to Virtusa, what is your Civil Engg for?
Me : Sir, agreed that the main knowledge wont be of much use. But the practical skills I learnt from hostel life ...
P1 : (Interrupts) Dont give me the same thing about problem solving skills, analytical ability. All you engineers say the same. Not like other graduates dont have that!
Me: Sir, but Virtusa will be in tune with what I want to do in Life. When you are in 12th, your outlook of the world isn't that huge. But now, after engineering life, I know what I want to do. I want to get into the financial side of sporting businesses, in football and I feel that Virtusa will be a better step in that direction.
P2: Sporting Business? Which sport?
Me: Sir, football.
P1 : What do you know about that?
Me: Sir, if you take the example of a football club in Europe like Manche ..
P1 : (Interrupts) No, take India
Me: Sir, in India, if you see, the state of football is very bad. There is no professional management. The talent we have isn't reflected in our rank.
P1 : What is our rank?
Me : 144 sir
P1 : Ok, so what does this have to do with bad management? It is lack of talent.
Me: Sir, if a Yusuf Pathan could come to the Indian Cricket team from the streets of Baroda, it is because of the excellent structure of Cricket in India. Whereas in Football, that isn't possible. There is no structure.
P1: You mean, the street kids will defeat teh football team?
Me: No sir, I didn't mean that.
P1 : You and I will never agree on this!
P1 : What do you want to do? Manage a football team?
Me: No sir, I want to go into the financial side. In every football club, there is the financial side that takes care of how to market the club, how to finance the various stuff that a club needs etc. I want to go into that side.
P1: Okay. Name 10 .. no 5 football teams in Chennai
Me : Indian Bank FC is based in Chennai. Other than this, there aren't any other prominent teams.
P1 : But football is not popular
Me : Sir, that is where the oppurtunity lies. Today, due to the coverage of European Soccer, the amount of kids watching football has increased tremendously.
P1 : What has been India's football rank before?
Me: Sir, earlier, India was a footballing giant in Asia. We were 4th in the Olympics, during the time of PK Mukherjee. But since then we have gone to abysmal depths.
P1: What was India's rank 5 years back?
Me: 135 odd sir.
P1: 135 to 144 and you call it improvement??
Me: Sir, but if you see the structure, it has improved tremendously. Before the National Football League and the National team's matches used to clash. But now we have a professional structure and both Clubs and the country are complementary to each other. We even qualified for the AFC Cup sir.
P1: Who sets the ticket prices for the games?
Me : Sir, the clubs ..
P1 : For the IFA Shield, was it the clubs?
Me: No sir, that being AIFF organised it was decided by them.
P2: Ok, did you have economics in Engg?
Me: Yes sir. We studied the basics like Demand, supply etc
P2: What is supply consumerism?
Me: Sir, I'm sorry I dont know sir.
P2: Demand-Supply Law?
Me : Sir, I remember very vaguely.
P2 : What about 5 year plans yaar. Engineering Economics is 5 year plans. What 5 year plan are we going through now?
Me: 12th is being formulated now sir.
P1 : What is the difference between the 1st and lets say the 12th 5 year plan?
Me: Sir, the outlooks. That time we were just independent. The focus was on jobs for everyone. Today we have more of private sector.
P2 : Did you go through the budget?
Me: Yes sir, I did.
P2 : What about yesterday's match?
Me: Cricket sir?
P2 : Yes yes. Did you think it was fixed?
Me: Sir, some days back when Pakistan conceded 100 runs in the last 5 overs, we called it match fixing. Now, we've lost 9 wickets and scored 25 runs in 10 overs. Nothing wrong if we are suspected of it sir.
P2 : How many 100s has Sachin hit?
Me : 99 sir.
P2 : In ODIs?
Me: Sir 49.
P2: No it was 48. How many out of that has India won in?
Me: 33 sir.
P1: Okay, you told about PK Banerjee. Which team did he manage?
Me: I'm not sure sir. But if i can guess. It is East Bengal.
P1: What is the jersey colour of East Bengal?
Me: Sir, I'm not sure about that sir. Mohun Bagan has Purple and Green. I think East Bengal has Yellow and Red.
P1: It is Maroon, not Purple! Ok, what's the difference between Maroon and Purple. (then laughs at his own question)
(Silence follows)
Me: I know this answer because it was a question in the ESPN School Quiz that I won sir. Connect Wimbledon and Mohun Bagan. It was their official colours, both have it as purple and green.
P1: Okay. That's nice
P2: That's it Shrinivas. You may leave.
P1 : Thank you Shrinivas, all the best with your football !! (Dont know what he meant by that !!! )

That's it folks. Feedback please :D :D: D

Tata Crucible Questions - Indore Round

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:07:00 +0000

The Prelims consisted of 20 questions. More than 300 Teams participated as well.

Questions courtesy : Kumar G Vishwanath and Hari S Nair - Runners up, Tata Crucible Indore round.

Thanks a lot da, for letting me put this up on my blog. Congrats too !

Prelims

1.The first kind of these institutions were the Irish Loan Funds, which were set up by the Irish author Johnathan Swift in the 18th Century.. How do we know these institutions who were accused of "wrongdoing" in India recently
Ans. Microfinance

2.Which Dalit lawyer was the Union Minister of Rural Development in the NDA regime in '99??
Ans. A. Raja

3."Evo" is the first 4G capable phone in the world, launched by which company?

Ans. HTC

4.What was first developed by the Multitone Electronics and used in St.Thomas Hospital London in order to notify doctors of emergencies?
Ans. Pager

5.She needed 4 lakh for completing a Beauty Course in Tehran, Iran, but since she didnt have that kind of money, she wrote articles in magazines and earned it. She now has 400 clinics all over India. Who?

Ans: Shahnaz Hussain

6.Where do you encounter a "fail whale"?

Ans: Twitter

7.Who owns MySpace Social Networking Site? (Organisation not person)
Ans: Newscorp (Rupert Murdoch)

8.Which Media empire owns the newspaper "The Telegraph" in India?
Ans: Anand Bazaar Patrika

9.What is the full form of RSS as in RSS feeds of Blogs etc.?
Ans: Really Simple Syndication

10.Which organisation was formed in 1988 in Mumbai and now is headquartered in New Delhi and is registered under the Indian Societies Act. It was mainly formed for the improvement of the Indian software industry and its practices?

Ans: Nasscom

11.Big Daddy and Bheegi Basanthi are the production houses owned by which "celebrity couple"? Hint: They just got married now

Ans: Lara Dutta and Mahesh Bhupathy

12.Who/Which group owns the Fortune group of hotels?

Ans: ITC

13.What does x stand for in .pptx, .docx,.xlsx etc?

Ans: XML

14.Which stock market is called as All Ordinaries? Australia, New Zealand, or Singapore
Ans: Australia

15.Lacoste logo

16.Identify Hewlett Packard Founders

17.Amnesty International logo

18.NSE logo

19.Identify the book from its cover. It talked about a certain conglomerate of India.

Ans: The World is Flat

-----

WildCard Round

1. "Jeffrey the Giraffe" is the mascot of which brand?
Ans: Toy R Us

2. Hilton Commission setup which organisation in India?

Ans : RBI

3. Some names of Satellites which help in Navigation question.

4. What famous organisation was setup by Paul Galvin as Galvin Electronics?

Ans: Motorola

5. His famous book was released as the "Big Book" in the UK and has introduced various terms into the Economics?

Ans: Peter Drucker

Final Round:

Round 1: Lets Toss

1. Who/What was the fourth ambassador for the English World Cup 2018 bid along with David Beckham, Alan Shearer and David Seaman?

Ans: Paul the Octopus

2. What is Gulliver's Condom used for? It is made especially for Media and for no other purpose.

Ans: Under water shooting

3.What is "Streisand Effect"?
Ans: Viral spreading of information when it is banned. Eg Wikileaks

4.He was hired by the city of Heidelberg, Germany to ensure the proper burning of the lamp and in this process discovered somehing which we all have used in our life at some point or the other?
Ans: Bunsen Burner

5. In the 1970s, why did Loreal ask Nestle to take a stake in its company?

Ans: Due to the fears of it being nationalised and hence asked a company based in another country to take a stake.

Round 2: Stump Vision

1.Young picture of a certain lady or actress who first made her appearance on television in ad of SugarPuff.
Ans: Kate Winslet

2. Picture of a newspaper called Dearborn Independant published in 1920 in Michigan. Who published this failed newspaper?
Ans: Henry Ford

3. Picture of Daniel Shugert. What did he invent?

Ans: Floppy Disk

4. First Revenue Stamp in India by Saurashtra king.. Picture identify.. Easy one

5. Picture of a street in Poland dedicated to this character as in the 1980s this street produced the maximum number of these things allover the world. Since then other countries have overtaken it. The streets name is Ulica Kubisa Puhchatka? Hint: Think Cute
Ans: Winnie the Pooh

Round 3: Tata Round

1. Which Tata Retail Brand started its Heritage Brand for the first time in Kolkata.
Ans: Tanishq

2. How do we know Jam Pol?
Ans: Jamshedpur Injections

3. Suraksha is an innovation for 24 hour electricity the Police Stations by which Tata Company?

Ans: Tata BP Solar

4. In honour of JRD Tata’s 100^th Anniversary, what range of watches was launched by Titan?

Ans: Aviator

Round 4: Third Umpire

1. Connect Rocky the movie, Hassbro, JFK, Rafael Nadal and the US Flag
Ans: Gi-joe

2. Connect perfume 901, "Chi","Southern Hospitality" etc, Logo of his brand and a song called "Accidently in Love"
Ans: Justin Timberlake

3. Connect Vikram Seth's "Suitable Boy", Padmasree Warrier and a song (couldnt identify the song), Empowering the Internet generation.

Ans: CISCO

4. Connect facebook, a picture showing a woman with text written called family, Ajab Si playing from Om Shanti Om, and a painting of Milo.

Ans: Nestle

Round 5: Slog Overs

1. Clue 1: It was originally started as a newspaper by James Wilson in 1843.

Clue 2: It's main aim is "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."It takes an editorial stance based on free trade and globalisation, but also the expansion of government health and education spending, as well as other, more limited, forms of governmental intervention. It targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers."

Ans: The Economist

2. Clue 1: It celebrated its 100 year of branding in New York in 2002 by unfurling a huge something in New York (I dont know what he said. Was tensed.)

   Clue 2: It was first targeted at woman, but found very less takers and had a lukewarm response

   Clue 3: It was Leo Burnett who created the famous logo which made the product a big hit.

Ans: Marlboro Man

3. Clue 1: This was created on January 13, 1888 by 33 scholars gathered at the Cosmos Club, a private club with a mission "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources."

Ans: National Geographic Magazine/Society

Have fun Quizzing !!

What I have learnt from my IIM Interviews

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:40:00 +0000

1. Be confident even if you dont know the answer. A confident 'I Dont Know' is much better than a nervous stuttering answer.

2. Talk to your group mates over there, and learn stuff from them. It helps.

3. It is not your college exam. So no harm in assimilating information upto the very last moment, from your neighbour's newspaper.

4. Have a good night's sleep the previous night. Stifling a yawn in the middle of the interview does not help much.

5. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go on an empty stomach. It is tough to concentrate on your interview when your stomach is making growling noises.

6. DO NOT have anything at suspect restaurants. Odd sounds emanating from your stomach are no good either.

7. Just because others are having stress interviews, it does not mean you will have one too. . Do not go with a preset mindset about the interviewers. It'll only lead to a big-time mess up.

8. A blazer is not a must. I haven't worn a blazer so far. And no one has even bothered to question me about it. There were even people without ties in my slot at Kozhikode.

9. Know your academics. At the same time, as much as you know, there is always something you wont know and they will ask.

10. DO NOT bluff. The only reason they are asking the question is because they know the answer. Bluffing will get you stuck in a bad spot at the end.

11. IIM Interview transcripts are hot property online. Hit rate over here has nearly doubled or tripled since I've posted my IIM Interviews. I've even been featured in the Times of Hyderabad.

Will try and make a Part 2 after all my interviews get over.

Indoor Massacre - My IIM Indore Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Edit: After the multiple feedback that I was being a pessimistic show-off, here's the reason why I said it was a massacre. The answers typed out here do not do justice to what happened there. There was plenty of stuttering, lack of coherence and words. At a point of time, I started sweating so terribly that I had to ask the panel for permission to wipe my face off.

Indore was an IIM interview I was really looking forward to. Being a campus I had already visited, I thought it'd be cool to go back there. I was also looking forward to meeting one real helpful person, Mr Rajasekar, my mentor at IIM Indore. The journey to Indore, interspersed by tweets (You can read them at www.twitter.com/shrinivassg) , was most boring. The intercity super fast express was more like a passenger train, with the AC chair car coach having as many rats as the hostel mess. Took up accomodation in Hotel Payal opposite the station, and thought of having dinner at Gurukripa, Indore's equivalent of Saravana Bhavan or Sangeethas or for my Bhopal friends, Manohar Dairy/Arya Bhawan. My plans came crashing down when I saw the overcrowded and overflowing place, with a queue outside being regulated by two security guards !! The eventful and wonderful dinner I'd been dreaming of, throughout the train journey was reduced to a few tasteless tandoori rotis and mess ka paneer at a local dhaba .

Day 2 started off with the most bitter coffee I've ever had in life, including mess ones. Sugar free it was, probably the chaiwaala as an afterthought stopped himself from adding sugar after looking at my proud paunch, peeking out from beneath the slightly crumpled formal shirt. After a bit of haggling with the autorickshaw guy, and taking my rolling stomach for a further roll, due to the Indore roads, I reached Prabandh Shikar (IIM Indore) and found a friend from Career Launcher, Vikram Rathi over there. Had a nice little chat with him and the other candidates and got to know them a bit.

Had a pretty surprising shock when I found that the slot had just 7 candidates !! And here goes my experience.

The WAT consisted of a summary of a passage in 130 words and an essay in 200 words. The time alloted for both was 40 mins, and we received exactly 40 mins to put our thoughts to paper.

Topic of summary passage : Auctions - open, closed, ascending, descending (130 words)

Topic of essay : Women are more effective bosses than men. Either support or oppose the argument with a structured passage in 200 words.

Time : 40 mins

My experience was fairly good. Found the essay topic pretty much easy and hence finished about 10 mins ahead of time. We were then given tea and biscuits before the interview.

I was the 5th candidate to be interviewed among the 7 who were present. And here goes the experience.

Panel :

A middle aged male professor (P1)

Another middle aged but older professor (P2)

A lady professor (P3)

Myself (Me)

P1: Please come in Shrinivas.

P3: Can I have your certificates folder.

P2: Okay Shrinivas, tell me about yourself

Me: I am Shrinivas. Basically from Chennai (hobbies) (strengths) (why mba)

P1: Okay, you are a Civil Engineering Student. What is your opinion about the architecture of IIM Indore?

Me: Sir, aesthetically very good. Sandstone walls rather than paint. Circular shape with lots of lawns and open spaces.

P1: Do you think aesthetics are important for an institute like IIM? What role do they play?

Me: Definitely sir. Aesthetics improve the frame of mind etc in a student in a strenuous life at the IIM. Gives a feeling of being connected with nature. For eg the sunset spot, the huge lawns etc make you at feel at ease here.

P2: What do you think is the negative or the weakness of the architecture of the institute? From a civil engineering point of view?

Me: Sir, I haven't observed the building so much, to point out structural flaws. But there is a lot of open space, that could have been better used, but has been left open for aesthetic reasons.

P2: Okay, do you think the area has been used in an optimum way? What would you choose to do if given the same area, build IIM Indore or construct a residential complex?

Me: Sir, a residentail complex would mean more optimum use of the area. Hence from a Civil Engineering point of view, a residential complex.

P1: Do you think the area is being used properly here? 180 acres for about 500 students?

Me: Sir, the area here has lot of open spaces, taking into account scope for future expansion. IIM Indore is the fastest growing IIM. The open spaces here mean that the expansion can be done easily. If you take the case of IIM Ahmedabad, due to the lack of area, they are having to use area opposite their campus for new buildings etc. But here, that needn't be the case.

Sir, I dont really know how to comment about this, considering my present college MANIT is a 650 acre campus for about 3000 students.

P1: What is the point of having scope for future expansion when it is so far away from the city? If the photocopy machine here fails, we have to go about 5-6 km for the next photocopy shop.

Me: Sir, the mountain top location is something very nice. This is very similar to my college MANIT except for the fact that it is not in the centre of the city. That is more to do with the fact that MANIT has been there for 50 years whereas Indore is a more recent campus. And these days it is very tough to get such a good location with large area in the middle of the city. That too in a commercial area like Indore.

P1: What is the minimum volume need for a person when you design a Auditorium?

Me: Sorry sir, I dont know.

P1: Conference hall?

Me: Sorry sir, I dont know.

P1: Classroom?

Me: 3 m³

P1: Sure?

Me: Yes sir. About 2.5 to 3 will do sir.

P1 : Have you heard of this? 'Form over function or function over form' ??

Me: Not really, but I can guess from the sentence about what it is.

P1: Go on.

Me: Sir, it is about deciding which is your priority. The form of the building, or its functionality. Based on that, we do the designing of the building. In Indore, form has been given more importance.

P2: Ok.

P2: If I want to design a foundation, what are the things that I should take into account?

Me: Sir, the soil condition, water table, strength ..

P2: What if I want to build a 100 floor building like Burj Al Dubai?

P2: On the sea shore in loose soil.

Me: Sir, the water table is very high near the sea. So the strength of the soil is pretty low. Due to the salinity, the reinforcements that are used, get corroded easily. So chemical coatings need to be provided. Also, the wind load is pretty high near the sea shore. So that has to be taken into account ..

P2: So how do you do all this?

Me: Sir, in the Burj, a steel framework has been used to increase the stability. The amount of reinforcements that need to be given also increases. The depth of the foundation as well is more. Rock strata need to be there for proper foundation.

P2: Other than this?

Me: Sir, the building is shaped in such a way that the wind force is reduced due to streamlining. Like in the Burj, it is shaped like a yatch sail, so that the wind force effect is reduced.

P1: Ok, other than such stuff? Take the example of earthquake prone areas. What is done there?

Me: Sir, the material used is different. Like in Japan, wood is more used.

P1: Okay. Take the case of a hoarding placed on top of the mountain, facing the road. What is done for its stability?

Me: Sir, a steel frame is normally used. The stresses are reduced to an extent by the truss action.

P1: You are permanently talking about brute force; think of something else. Something other than more reinforcements. Brute force.Why is only one end of a bridge tied down and the other is left lose? Think of something different.

Me: Sir, what we learn in college is only the theoritical reinforcements etc. Such stuff is done practically. Unless we work in the field, it is difficult to think of such solutions.

P3: Okay. Why quizzing, isn't it the same? Pointless. More of theory than practice. All you come to know is bits and pieces of knowledge than entirety. What is the use of that?

Me: Ma'am, it is definitely not just theoritical knowledge. I do agree that playing the game itself will give you more knowledge than knowing just statistics. But it does help a lot. A quizzer has this natural thing for looking out for small things. While watching the cricket match, I have an eye for statistics and other stuff like why the ad boards are placed in that particular way etc.

P3: But what is the practical use of that !!

Me: Ma'am, it has come of use in this interview and I'm able to tell it to you.

P3: Other than that? You still haven't convinced me.

Me: The awareness about the stuff helps a lot. It helps me strike up a conversation with people. For example, when waiting outside, my awareness helped me strike conversation with people about stuff I knew. For example, I spoke to them about Bhopal and stuff ...

P3: What do you know about Bhopal?

Me: The most famous thing about Bhopal is the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Bhopal was founded by Raja Bhoj and is named in his honour. He was instrumental for the entire irrigation system of Bhopal ....

P3: Do you know Bhojpur? Have you been there?

Me: Ma'am, I haven't had the opportunity to be there. But I have heard about the famous Shiva temple over there.

P3: About the old dam which is now in ruins?

Me: Sorry ma'am. I dont know about it.

P1: Do you know about banking of railway tracks?

Me: Yes sir.

P1: Okay. What is the use of banking?

Me: Sir, it reduces the friction on the tires of vehicles and leads to lesser damage to the track as well.

P1: Okay, can you tell me a sport where it is used?

Me: Sir, in cricket, the ground is banked at a slope to help drainage.

P1: What about Cycling?

Me: Yes sir, the velodrome is banked to facilitate fast driving and safety.

P1: Hmm. Thank you Shrinivas.

P3: You may leave now. Here is your certificates file.

And that's it. Had lunch in the IIM mess. They had .. here you go .. this is just the menu of their lunch ..

Cucumber Salad, Fruits, Papad, Soya sabji, Rajma gravy, Aloo Gobhi gravy, Lemon Rice, Fruit Raita, Plain Curd, Lemon Rice, Plain Rice, Pickle.

Came out with a feeling that this is the menu in the MANIT mess for 3-4 days !! :O :O. Had a very bad feeling about the interview and hence took a taxi back to Bhopal instead of waiting for the evening train in which I had made my reservation.

And thus ends my indoor massacre, leaving me with very low hopes of making it to a college, I really wanted to make it to.

Feedback welcome.

My first ever IIM Interview.

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:06:00 +0000

First there was an essay, followed by an interview.

Essay:
Topic: 'Having no opinions, is the only conducive way for a peace of mind'
Number of Ppl present : 40 (35 present)
Time: 30 mins
Other Salient Details: The paper had 5 A4 size sides. There was no word limit. You were given 25 minutes to write.

Interview:

When I tried entering the room, they asked me to wait for a couple of minutes so that they could have tea and snacks.

Panel :

P1 - Prof Sukumaran Bhaskaran (Not very sure)

P2 - Prof MP Sebastian

P2 came and opened the door and asked me to enter.

P2 : Good morning, have a seat. Introduce yourself.

Me: Good morning sir. I am S G Shrinivas

P2 : Oh! You aren't Abhishek? (There were 4 Abhisheks in my slot) Has Mr. John stopped sending people in order?

Me: I'm not sure sir. He asked me to go next.

P2 : No problem, you can continue.

Me: I am S G Shrinivas ..

P1 : Football? As in Soccer?

Me: Yes sir, my favourite team is Manchester United.

P2 : What other calls do you have?

Me: Ahmedabad, Indore, Kozhikode, Rohtak sir.

P2 : Ok.

P1 : Okay Shrinivas, that's nice. You focussed on all your activities, achievements; but what about your social contributions? Have you done anything for the soceity?

Me: Sir, I have. In my middle school, I mobilized funds for the Indian Leprosy Foundation. Now, I am doing a project for removal of fluorides from hand pump water that will touch the lives of many poor people in rural MP and Rajasthan when implemented.

P1 : But you never mentioned all this earlier. Does this mean you do not consider your social responsibility to be equally important?

Me: Not at all sir., Even the other day, I saw this orphan on the road,selling earbuds. We aren't supposed to buy such earbuds, as they are harmful. But I thought, by buying a couple of packets, I will at least give him money for one square meal.

P2 : That's nice to know. Ok. So what do you think are the problems faced by India today?

Me: Sir, it is tough to pinpoint just one problem. In my opinion, poverty and corruption are the most important problems faced by India today. Also, I feel that both are interlinked. Corruption leads to poverty. Poverty also fuels corruption.

P2 : Wait wait wait. Ambanis are corrupt. But I don't think they are poor!

Me: Sir, that wasn't what I meant. What I meant to say was that poor people also become party to corruption indirectly. Take the example of the PDS in India. Most people who are eligible to get 20 kg rice, get only 15 kg. But they do not complain, because complaining will lead to them losing out on even the 15 kg that they get. In this way, they indirectly fuel corruption.

P2 : Everyone is corrupt. But since your mother is in the police department, you wont agree that the police is corrupt, will you?

Me: No sir. Even the police department is corrupt except for a few people. Even in politics, it is a sewage. Once you get in,you become part of it.

P2 : No, not necessarily. There are many honest leaders.

Me: Yes sir, Exceptions are there in all cases.

P2 : Okay, name a woman police officer who faced a lot of problems due to being straightforward.

Me: Sir, It would be Mrs Kiran Bedi. At TN, it would be Ms. Letika Saran and Mrs. Thilagavathy, the first IPS from TN.

P2 : Hmm. Do you know Mt Abu?

Me: Yes sir, It is in Rajasthan.

P2 : What is the speciality of Mt Abu?

Me: I am not very sure sir, but I think there is a Jain temple there.

P2 : Are you sure?

Me: No sir, I am taking a guess.

P2 : Have you heard of Bramhakumaris?

Me: I have heard of them, but do not know much about them.

P2 : Sir Creek?

Me: I'm sorry sir.

P1 : Have you travelled around the world?

Me: Sir, I haven't had the chance to travel so far.

P1 : In india?

Me: Yes sir, I have travelled extensively.

P1 : Okay, where do you think India is headed for in the next 20 years?

Me:

P2 : You said Chennai is the Detroit of India. Why?

Me: It is the car manufacturing hub of our country sir.

P2 : Do you know what happened to Detroit recently?

Me: Yes sir, in the recession period, lots of car manufacturers had problems. Like General Motors.

P2 : Do you want the same to happen to your Chennai?

Me: Sir, I don't think Chennai will face that problem, as most cars manufactured here by Ford, Hyundai etc are exported. Also, India is a developing country. The demand will only keep increasing.

P2 : Are you sure?

Me: I did my training in Chennai port Trust. There, the highest import-export volumes are for Coal and then Hyundai's cars.

P1 :

P2 : Where else does Hyundai manufacture in India?

Me: As of now, just in Chennai sir.

P2 : Sure?

Me: Yes sir!

P2 : Okay, you are a Civil Engineer. What is the major problem, from a Civil Engg point of view that India is going to face, in the next 10 years?

Me: Oil sir?

P2 : Oil yes, other than that?

Me: Drinking water crisis sir.

P2 : Yes. What do you think are the reasons for the same? What do you think can be done?

Me:

P2 : Do you think water mixed with detergent can be recycled?

Me: Definitely sir., but it cant be used for drinking purposes. It can be used for other stuff like cleaning toilets etc.

P2 : Why doesn't the government ban such detergents that cause so much damage?

Me: < Explained about banning not being easy, corporate lobbying, loss of jobs etc>

P1 : Ok, nice. Tell me a leader whom you admire the most.

Me: At a smaller level, it would be Rahul Ramesh, the chief editor of the Editorial Board of my college. He was a person whom I admired a lot and has inspired me a lot. A a larger level, it would be Gary Neville of Manchester United; just for his passion. He is not some one who is very talented, but has made it to where he is just because of hardwork. For similar reasons, I also admire Rahul Dravid and Rafael Nadal. Both aren't as talented as others, but have got here due to sheer perseverance.

P1 : Okay, this Mr. Ramesh you told about ..

P2 : Yes, his college senior ..

P1 : What did you find great about him?

Me: Sir, the post of the Editorial Board's chief editor is a crown of thorns. There are a lot of problems associated with it. And this guy, despite preparing for CAT, took the post which was offered to him. He worked so hard, motivated others to work and got the best out of people. That is something I really admire in him. This guy put team before personal goals, and sacrificed CAT for the year, and worked for the Ed Board. We brought out a magazine that was much appreciated by all the alumni, for the Golden Jubilee Year of the college He had confidence in his ability, and gave CAT this year, got 99.4 and 5 calls.

P1 : Ha ha! That's nice! Good you added that last bit. I love the CAT and would be personally disappointed with someone who gave it up, for something else.

P1 to P2 : Anything else?

P2 : I'm done.

P1 : It was a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much.

Me: Thanks a lot sir.

P2 : You may leave now, and dont forget to get your documents verified before you leave.

Duration of Interview : Atleast 30 mins

It was a chilled out interview. And I thought I managed to do justice to most answers.

Verdict : Awaited.

A Simple Thank you isn't enough, but still

noreply@blogger.com (Shrinivas) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:05:00 +0000

In a way, this is very late. In a way, this is very premature. But still, I wanted to do this, so here it is.

I got placed in Shapoorji Pallonji and Co Ltd. That too after a GD, removing all my fears about a GD. I just wanted to get placed and be done with it so that I could kick start my CAT preparations. And two of my best friends, Kumar and Swami, were a huge support through out the process. Without them, and all my other friends, I'd never have got through. [Found another very good friend that day too :) ]. Many thanks to the both of you, and also to my class TPOs, Manish and Rajul. Also, thanks to Sathappan, Kumaresh and Anand for some great support through out.

Also gave a multitude of Management Exams. NMAT (Got 233), IIFT (34.78, missed out on a call by 0.7 or so), CAT(99.27), FMS(Screwed up) and XAT(hopefully non negative). Needless to say, I went through a whole lot of ups and downs through out my preparation. Thanks to my parents for their support, the whole of Career Launcher Bhopal especially Subodh Sir and Ratnabha Sir for motivating me whenever I felt down in the dumps.

Also special thanks to two people, to whom I owe a lot, for being there for me all the time. For their small and large gestures in keeping my morale high throughout the last six months. For their company, at all points of time, whenever I felt the need to trouble them. My two best friends, Kumar and Vaishali. Thanks both of you for being there for me every time I wanted company. Also for Anand, for constantly offering advice for Vocabulary and other stuff.

Needless to say, I am missing out on many names here. Thanks to everyone else of my friends too. Krithika, Balaji, Ram Prasad, Manoj, Vineel, Prabhakaran and Naveen. Thanks guys.

And also to Geetanjali, for saying 'No other college wants to call you and get disappointed' each time I met with a reject. Thank you. That meant a lot. :)

That's about it I guess. Sorry if I missed out any names, it was unintentional :)