The Goodbye Address

Asatho Maa Sad Gamaya
Thamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya
Mrithyor Maa Amritham Gamaya
Lead me from untruth to truth;
Lead me from darkness to light;
Lead me from death to immortality
Today (the last day) does not mark the end of 18 months of a course but it is a culmination point. To most of us it is the completion of a quest which triggered in us about five to six years ago. It is like touching the highest point.
We have finished a journey of 2 years amassing abundance of knowledge. It is time now to shed our cocoon and enter the corporate world. We all came here with eyes full of dreams and we are about to take our first step towards fulfilling them.
We all came as individuals through those portals. Today when we leave, we find ourselves walking away as a batch, the Batch of 2008. We connected to one another due to several reasons need, security, admiration, friendship, hatred, force of the situation, timing, helplessness and so on. The important thing is whatever be the medium of connection we have always stood connected.
It is a tradition to mention nuances of our life in this address such as late hours of CS and movies, early morning Casa’s, trips to Fidalgo, sunrise at Chapora, late night case studies and projects, hunting for projects in Verna and Kundeim, late submissions, out-standing students etc etc. There is something beyond all this that needs our attention.
There is something unique in all of us. That aspect brought us towards or away from people. That aspect is natural to each one of us and it is an individual ability. Thanks to our stint here we have had the fortune to explore it and expose it. As we shed our shells and enter the corporate jungle we join 2 billion other professionals in the world trying to achieve similar ends as us. Let us halt at this moment and ask ourselves: “What is our objective now?”. Become the VP of a co., a comfortable home, settling down at a location of our choice, ability to feed and maintain our families etc etc….isn’t it? If I take a cue from our Chairman’s words there are about 1700 B-schools in our country. If we assume an average of 100 students then the addition to the professional line of business every year is about 0.17 million people with the same objectives in mind as afore mentioned. If you are one amongst them then it is simple. The only ability needed is to top competition.
Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong. Who are all these people? Most importantly what’s common to all of them? They were all the “firsts” to do something. At this juncture I want to urge you to focus on yourself for one minute. You are unique and have something that is unique that you want to give to this world. Yes, we need our financial security in life. The corporate life holds the wealth of new experiences. Let us join it and explore the same. But let us not stash our away our uniqueness in the due process.
If you join the race all you have to do is keep running. In the process you might have forgotten that you can fly. We have woken up once let us ensure that slumber doesn’t find its way in ever again.
Thank you one and all!!!

IPL in my words

Could not keep my fingers off after i read pankaj's analysis on IPL. Here's my own take.Hope u will enjoy itStatutory warning:True to my nature this blog is gonna be critical.First lets examine what's happening in the teams.Rajasthan Royals: True, nobody gave a chance to this team.But that seems like ages ago. The consistency with which they win matches can only be attributed to an Aussie mind. Great leader in Shane Warne and some earnest students who adulate him.Ever heard of Siddarth Trivedi and who is this Asnodkar, he can make Graeme Smith look like playing second fiddle to him. A tiny explosive. No big names but special performances and some names like Ravindra Jadeja apart from teh ones i have mentioned are getting noticed. Full credit to the manager and coach. To beat them the opposition has to either choke runs or get early wickets. The team can crumbleKings XI Punjab: The Preity Zinta led team. Oh Sorry! Its actually Yuvraj's team. Another team that looked scattered to start off. Each one was doing his own thing in the first 2 matches. And only Irfan Pathan seemed to be doing his won thing right. But the team has integrated well. True to teh Punjabi nature this is own team with a lot of youth and exuberance. The sheer enjoyment of cricket can be seen in their faces except the one instance where Sreesanth's face was all over the TV. A team that can surprise the best on a given day. But will be susceptible to pressure. Not a lot of experience in the team. Coupla wily customers like Sangakarra and Jayawardena. Their biggest find is Sean Marsh. I would love to see a match where Sean Marsh is gotten cheaply and Kings XI go to win. You cant keep these Aussies outa the game.Chennai Super Kings: I do get associated with this team.But FYI I am not supporting CSK. But a fan of CSK shdnt be disappointed. The most expensive IPL player is with them. He has only proven time and again he has been bid so much not because of his batting skills but most importantly his people skills. He is an awesome captain. He had both his arms cut off after the double blow in Hayden and M Hussey. heir game has been patchy since. their combinations are suffering and players like Stephen Fleming havent put their hands up. the return of L Balaji was eventful. he has a handful of wickets already. Dhoni will be better offif he can skip the inclusion of his good-luck-charm-last-over-bowler Joginder Sharma. One over somebody will bowl yaar!!His main stays are Muralitharan and Morkel. Morkel is a clear match winner. Finally a no-aussie team thats doing good.Mumbai Indians: What a strange name. Everything went right with them since Bhajji slapped(or got slapped). Pollock got the captaincy. turned the team around and Sachin's back. The team has survived on Pollock's responsible shoulders. Another great player great leader. Another team that exhibits great enjoyment on the field. Everybody talks about McGrath as the best 20-20 bowler. I just feel that after today's match with KKR, Pollock has stolen the mantle. Par excellence. Clinical fast bowling and a team that follows his able footsteps. And then there is Jayasuriya. On his day he can make opponents look like school children watching an exhibition. An exhibition of arrogant battign where the ball disappears from the ground the moment he just flicks his wrists. A master and a pure delight to watch. this team has got the rare experience and youth mixture. Unlike RCB this is valuable experience. Some players have already silently proven a point and played some important roles like Bravo, Uthappa, RRaje, D Kulkarni and definitely Abhishek Nayar. A team of finds.Delhi Daredevils: As of today MI has overtaken DD. This team has only 5 players. Gambhir, Sehwag, Dhawan, McGrath and Asif. End of team. Everybody else chips in. One player who has made his mark though in the process is Yomahesh. He has teh god of pace bowling in his team and he has made some invaluable contributions. This team is unbeatable. but there are some prerequisites. Gambhir shd keep his head and stop getting personal with bowlers. When he goes after bowlers to prove a point he fails else he is the god of modern day batting. there is no stroke that he cant play and has the ability to run away with games nonchalantly. Atlast people are noticing this prodigy who dons teh orange cap most of the time. Then there is Sehwag the opposite holds good with him i think. if he targets bowlers and balls he wd be better off. S dhawan, again finally people are noting such a nice player. they are a formidable team with great bowling and great batting. But sometimes Sehwag appears casual and carries his attitude towards batting to his captaincy. He needs a rap and with some help they should sail along.Kolkata Knightriders: Nautanki. thats my immediate response when i hear KKR. I apologize for my bias against Ganguly. he is smart and shrewd and inspiring. But please!! someday he has to understand he cant keep making the rules. The going of KKR can be compared to the time when India was led by Ganguly. They had astonishing wins and worst of defeats. the same is the case with KKR. On their day they can pull of a great game. but u never know if it is going to come. This team heavily relies on its bowling. Shoaib Akhtar had a dream come back. Ishant Sharma is the best thing the selectors have done in a long time.Ashoke Dinda is a steamy bowler too. Agarkar is always amongst the wickets along with the runs (he gives away). Their mainstay in batting is David Hussey. MI got him cheaply and they collapsed to a 67!! Ganguly has found his touch but often loses the match in his head before he actually loses it on the ground. KKR would be a disappointment in the semis, MI is a better option. Coupla players in Saha, Debrata Das, L Shukla have come good.Royal Challengers Bangalore: They are the bottom of teh chart. But since I have a lot to write abt DC I thot I will first finish with RCB. A loser team basically. This team actually performed according to expectations. Dravid waged many a lone battle but of no avail. thats not his type of the game and neither his team's. A big drawback of thsi team has been the local talent that has not contributed. i saw one match where Arun kumar was good. But i dont think he has played more than 2 matches. We al know that if anything J kallis and Dravid can only try but they cant win matches. the burden is on Boucher's shoulders. The only occasions where he has fired the RCB have won matches.V kohli hasnt quite come off. their best t20 player still is Rahul Dravid. That talks about all the woes of teh team. Dale Steyn and Praveen kumar are worth teh watch but the captaincy lacks firepower and inspiring abilities. It has been cremated.Deccan Chargers: the team that almost everybody was willing to support in a 20-20 match. It has been the biggest flop of the tournament. Laxman had a team and didnt have a clue as to who was good doing what. After So many great performances Rohit Sharma still came at No.4 or No.5. Scott Styris is a good 20-20 bowler but cant bat or nuts and is too old to run. finally Afridi opens and comes out good but not good enuf. Venugopal Rao the much cursed player. Suddenly nobody is talking about him. He has to be blamed for getting our hopes high unnecessairly. A good plyer. Should have played all tests since 2005. At the end of everything DC has the least -ve runrate. this is because they had a chance of winning all these matches but could not finish any of them off. R Sharma should be kicking himself after the last match for the way he got out. At one time the orange cap winner's team was at the bottom of the list. No prizes for guessing who had the cap then. DC would have been the best team had they had 2 months of prep and proper role allocation. Raviteja, Venu Rao and Sarvesh all seem decent. Gilly could not do a Warne but brought a coupla matches home.Overall IPL has been the relief during the summer heat and intense boredom. Every evening has been completely occupied. There is always a reason to feel happy after every match cause in every team we have a player we adore. So I wish teh IPL great success and pray that it does not disintegrate our Indian Team.

The Dream

It is important to dream big to achieve something big. I heard this line in a recent interview of Sachin Tendulkar. There is so much power in this statement. That particular dream gave him all the will power to become the most respected sports icon of the country. It’s the dream, a vision that fosters us with a certain scene and people like Sachin dedicate their lives to see that moment become a reality. If you are wondering why am I boring you with such an obvious testimony of a personality that every second Indian adulates, then things are just about to get interesting. I am writing to this to address a certain set of people who don’t have a dream, a la me.
I don’t want to be the VP of my Co. 30 yrs down the line. Infact I don’t want to be the VP of any company. I don’t believe in what I am doing. Hence I don’t know what I want. I don’t have any vision of what my future should be like. I don’t aspire to be any one. I would love to see myself being interviewed on TV. But in that program I don’t know the content. I don’t even know if I’ll get interviewed under the business section or entertainment section. I am just this dreamless professional who comes into work like a thousand others cursing the dawn of Monday and waiting for the clock to strike 6 pm on Friday. I feel I am in a slump where laziness has been forced upon me. I have always known myself as a person who is very restless. I like my things in order and like to know where I am going. But this particular phase has put me under such calm, I almost feel stupefied. I have actually started enjoying sloth. I have started enjoying the unlimited time I have for relaxation. I am never too busy and don’t seem to find myself in many responsible situations. So much so that I am beginning to doubt am I worth more than this.
Let’s move on from my current situation. Let’s go back to the dream. I have known this fact that dream creates a certain hunger in us and then gives us the power of pursuit. I’ve tried hard and still find myself incapable of conjuring one particular image of how I want my future to be like. I don’t have any fixed ideas about marriage or relationships and hence cant see myself feeling proud as my son shows off the cup he won from a tennis tournament. I am beginning to feel that I may not be that great a leader so I don’t see myself sitting in a large cabin with important people surrounding me with issues. Infact that life kinda scares me. At whatever age I would want to go back home at a decent hour. So that doesn’t seem like something I want. I don’t want a lot of wealth. I will never have a lot of it, I know that. I always find a way of pilferage. I spend enough and have enough to lead a life. So not really a person who would want to build a financial empire. I am a believer that if you have too much wealth u r in too much trouble. Have enuf to lend to your friends in need and have enuf friends to borrow when u need. That works for me.
So this is where I am. If you notice carefully I am not really thinking very negatively. This is not a case of some acute depression that I am referring to. Its just me and thousands others who are in a similar situation. They may or may not like the things as they are but they sure don’t know what’s best.

Life in Mumbai

Never imagined that I would write something on Mumbai. Like most of us I had an aversion to Mumbai and did not want to be here at all in the first place. But I think the city has a certain charm that makes you fall in love with it.

I’ll try and keep this as non obvious as possible too. Because most things about Mumbai is common knowledge.The city is a great leveler. You can have the fanciest of cars but the fastest mode of transportation is hanging on one foot in or partially out of the local train. People can be different here with respect to money, status, position etc but none of them have time. So everybody is brought to the same level. If you reach office puffy and sweaty and with a crumpled shirt, well nobody bothers. They all know what happens in a local and most shirts are wrinkled in the office. The locals are a great lesson to community living. If you are sitting on a seat that can accommodate three you are supposed to accommodate the fourth one else the person standing can ask you to do so. There is nothing rude or inconvenient about the whole thing. When a person gets in with a bag and he points that at you then you are expected to put his bag in a safe reachable place and hand it over when he asks for it. Again, accepted social behavior. Accidentally knocking someone out or hitting your elbow against or feeling someone somewhere uncomfortable(accidentally) is all ok and understandable in a local. There is never any fuss about all these things. You may be a senior manager or some top level executive but in the train you are just a passenger like everybody else. The most amazing thing is the conversations. People have long conversations with strangers. The topics ranging from personal stuff to the recent nuclear project. The favorite is of course the Indian political scenario. It is such a large city with so little time that you befriend anyone and everyone without any courtship. Great lessons in community life and a life which constantly threatens our social boundaries , forcibly expands the horizon, pulls us out of our comfort zones and makes us realize that after all that wasn’t so tough.

You are never lost in this city. A person is lost when he loses direction. You cant lose direction here because you will never run out of people on the roads. They will always help you get to your destination the quickest way. The people here are very warm and friendly. Don’t expect them to look at you and wish you everytime you walk on the roads and stuff. This isn’t Nainital or some small hill station where everybody knows everyone. But they can always accommodate you and the mentality of “nothing can happen with one more” is widely prevalent. The accepted ways of life in Mumbai are quite amazing. Every place is about panch minute ka rasta. Its never five minutes. But still that’s how it is referred to. People will scorn you if you take a rickshaw for a distance that you can walk. There is no problem finding a rickshaw for short distances but the idea of a cosy comfortable life is not quite the Mumbayya way of life. If you want to get somewhere then you better sweat is their philosophy. What amazes me the sheer number of people who are counting on this city for their livelihood. They range from the CEOs to the roadside beggars. Most things here are as expensive as any other city but they still want to struggle in this city rather than a city close to their hometowns. There is so much hope and there is such simplicity of life that it provides a very amicable angle to the city. Everybody understands business. The salesmen are outstanding at convincing you. They are all aware of competition and totally welcome it. Everybody has to make a living you see. Even the beggars use amazing lines for alms. So many lessons in Sales management.

The idea of cheating people is not quite inherent in people. You don’t have to worry that every taxiwala is basically a cheat and it’s a matter of who outsmarts who. This phenomenon happens in certain markets of Mumbai but not quite an everyday life for professionals like us. The systems are properly put in place. Most meters are untweaked normal ones. The rickshawwalas don’t over charge you during peak hours or night hours. There is no system of rounding off. Exact change is tendered. Most remote places also have some means of transportation. Because there are definitely people living there. So basically everybody has a life and they get on with it. There is not time to stand and stare like Wordsworth had said. People are just too busy making a living.

This is a great philosophy. Cause there isn’t so much of thinking you do here. Its all doing. No time to stand back and evaluate and give into some fears. It’s a life and it has to keep moving. This is what gives Mumbai the no nonsense approach.