ISB in the Dark - Independence Day

Last week I decided to spend the evening on Independence Day at ISB. I guess that part of me wanted to go there to acknowledge the place that had help free me from the clutches of IT Services & years of mind numbing boredom. (Gora says sit, you sit. Gora says stand, you stand).

But I suspect that another part of me wanted to see if the bar was open on this 'dry' day. I've never understood why we cant celebrate our nation's independence by having a drink or two. Seems to me that this ridiculous rule was thought of by someone who was either a teetotaler or had no sense of occasion. Depressing.

Besides these two rather opposing, but in a slightly perverse way, similar reasons for going to ISB I also thought that I would take some long exposure & night shots of ISB. Have always loved the way the buildings look at night. With the sodium vapour lamps & their orange light falling on the pink (i think) stones. Sadly this was not to be. ISB was either in mourning (Pls dont ask me why) or is having cashflow problems or has suddenly become conscious of its carbon footprint. Whatever the reason might be, all the building lights were off.

With my plans of using my new Manfrotto tripod all but ruined, I decided to head to the exec hostel & see if Tutun the bartender could help me irrigate my throat. Unfortunately, for me, the bar was shut and Tutun must have been at home gratefully spending a rare evening with his friends/family. Maybe this is why they have dry days.

I was at a real loss now. No photography, no friendly bartender, no one I knew on campus. Just when I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I had driven 18 kms for nothing, I decided to go to SV 3 (The coolest SV by far) and see I could salvage my trip.

Luckily for me, a patient auto rickshaw driver and some good timing allowed me to take one picture that I think made the whole exercise worthwhile. The picture is below. I call it The Circle of Light (rather unimaginative I must admit). It is taken at the roundabout at SV 3's entrance. Have fond memories of this place and this picture adds to them.



Hope to take many more long exposure pictures & put that Manfrotto tripod to good use. Will keep you posted on how that goes.

The Anti-MBA: Return on Documentation & Common Sense

We MBAs love to coin terms, invent frameworks, run regressions and perform analyses. It’s what we get paid to do and, often enough, it’s how we justify our existence in an organization. When you can bandy about terms like ‘positive network externalities’, ‘time compression diseconomics, ‘coefficient of regression’, ‘sustainable competitive advantage’, people tend to think that you are someone who knows a lot.

I’ve seen people run regressions and come out with statements like, ‘In order to turn around the hotel, we need to fire 273 people’. Hmmm, an interesting number and the speaker’s confidence might make you believe that his word was gospel truth. But in this case, there were two minor flaws in the argument. One, people don’t draw the same salaries, so do we pull names out of a hat and say, ‘Sorry old chap. This recession is a real pain’? The second flaw with this brilliant quantitative analysis was that the total number of data points used to run the regression was…. 3. Yes, 3. It’s the number that comes after 2 and before 4. You didn’t need MS Excel 2007 and a bunch of, in this case, overpaid MBAs to do the analysis for you. You could have managed with a 3 year old who knew how to connect the dots with a pencil and a ruler.

Now I am no 3 year old (though I used to be), but I do have an open mind. Today I learnt a new term called Return on Documentation, or as some of you might prefer, ROD. Given the pathetic money I’ve earned from the Google ads on this blog (subtle hint for you) I personally think that ROD has very little significance in the real world. But I wouldn’t want my bitter experiences with Google to taint what should be an objective discussion.

Don’t get me wrong. I think doing an MBA was a marvelous thing. I went from being grossly underpaid to marginally underpaid on the financial front. But intellectually, it opened up many new avenues to my tiny brain and gave me a slightly better understanding of how things work. It also allowed me to meet some of the most interesting, genuine and hardworking people I know – the housekeeping staff and the librarians at ISB.

Jokes apart an MBA did change my life. For the better. The reason I wrote this post is only because I feel that a lot of the jargon is well, just that. Jargon. The same goes for most of the analysis we do. I often get the feeling that it is done to cover our backsides in the event that things go wrong. ‘Look, we did our due diligence, it’s just that the macro-environment changed’.

But isn’t that what we’re supposed to plan for? We’ve all heard of the 5Cs & 4Ps of marketing. To this list of management by alphabet, I would like to add ‘6Ps of Strategy’. The 6Ps are ‘Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance’. Might sound to you as stating the obvious. That’s exactly my point. A lot of what we MBAs pass off as management techniques are actually different forms of a simple thing invented by cave men. It’s called Common Sense. (Cave Man: Fire hot, no touch. Tiger Angry, no tease. Mother-in-law coming, no drink with buddies).

Take some common sense, add plenty of humility & genuineness, throw in some healthy respect for numbers, a touch of street smart and finally a dash of willingness to take decisions and you’ll make a pretty decent manager.

Now that I know the recipe, I need to start making one myself.

The Purpose of Art..

Ever wondered why they made you attend music lessons in school, or drawing class or made you read those boring hindi poems (CBSE) that seemed to make very little sense. Ever asked yourself what the point was when they wouldn't get you into that engineering/medical college? Ever found reading boring?

Well, Dana Gioia certainly has a lot of the answers. Take my advice and fast forward the introduction. If you find what he has to say boring or tedious, then neither he nor I were addressing you. :-)



PS - I know I've been talking a lot about commencement speeches of late. But that's only because I slept through mine. Montek Singh Alhuwalia bored the living daylights out of me & 200 other ISBians from the Class of 2007. He went on and on. No wonder in this country the planning (commission) takes so long.

Hotel Alumnifornia (Sung to the tune of 'Hotel California')

Hey dude..
was saving this for quite some time.. but I believe this blog is the right place for it :)

Nitin Sareen

Hotel Alumnifornia
--------------------
On a dark gachi(bowli) highway, rejection slips stuffed in my hair.
Warm smell of the placements, was rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance i saw an 'alumni'
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to ask him for advice.
There he stood in the doorway

Around his self created swell.
And I was thinking to myself
he cud be banking or consulting.
Then he lit up a cigarette and he showed me the way.
There were voices in the atrium
and I heard them say....

Welcome to the Infosys and TCS
such a lovely place
such a lovely face.
Plenty of room in IT & ITES
Any time of year, you can find us near.

His brain is really twisted, he's got a banking job.
He got lot of pretty boys n girls that he calls friends.
How they chat in the atrium, sweet summer sweat
some chat to be remembered, some chat to get laid.

So I called up the president
'please review my resume'.
He said, you have only IT here since nineteen ninety nine
And still you want to be on the financial side.
Wake up its only the middle of Term 5, or you will hear them say....

Welcome to the Satyam and the CTS
such a lovely place
such a lovely race.
Plenty of room in IT & ITES
Any time of year, you can find us near.

Egos on the ceiling,
The suit boot and the tie.
And he said,'you are all just guinea pigs here, for our next surprise'.
And in the partner's chambers
they gathered for the feast.
They taunt us with their 3-point spikes
And we just cant kill the beast.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running door to door.
I had to find the way to get back
To what I was doing before.
'relax', said the CAS Man
we're programmed to deceive.
you can apply for any job you like
But you can never have peace.......

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

With a few modifications by yours truly. Old Man Sareen is the brains behind this one though.

You Know You're From ISB

I have always wondered what the learned people at ISB who make the admissions decisions look for in a candidate. After pondering over it for a long time (one Bob Dylan song) I decided that they don't have the slightest idea. The only way that you can really tell if a person belongs in ISB is to make them spend a year at ISB.

So after busting your butt for 12 months how do you know for sure if you actually deserved to have been let in? Here are a few things I thought of. You probably might have some more to add.

You belong in ISB if you....

1. Pay for 3 meals a day but end up eating in the cafe half the time.
2. Think that walking half a kilometre to submit an assignment at 6:00 AM is perfectly normal.
3. Don't mind being kept awake by your neighbours' parties that go on till 4:00 AM
4. Feel comfortable when a strange lady comes and video tapes you sitting in class
5. Feel the need to speak in a class which doesn't have a CP component
6. Understand what 'CP' in the last point referred to
7. Think that reading a case study is more important than listening to Michael Dell or Uday Kotak
8. Are able to use words like dichotomy, core competency, strategize in daily conversations
9. Correctly pronounce processEs and not processes
10. Know how to completely rewrite your pre-ISB career in such a way that your ex-colleagues would not recognize ur resume
11. Genuinely believe that the problems in the real world can be solved using excel sheets and 2x2 matrices
12. Think that consultants are God's gift to mankind; at least for 2 terms
13. Look at the 'Boy on the Buffalo' and want to steal him for a few days
14. Know who the 'Boy on the Buffalo' is
15. Don't mind being thrown into a pool has pieces of cake, beer bottles, slippers and ten other people already in it
16. Believe that there is only one Bob Stine. And that he is a dude!
17. Wish you could take Maulana with you to all your parties for the rest of your life
18. Think that its outrageous that some resident profs only have to 'teach' for 3 weeks a year
19. Know that Sarovar cooks are the worst in the hotel industry
20. Wonder what the hype was all about anyway.

:-)

Visit to ISB

Last night a couple of friends and I went to ISB. It was late and there was a nip in the air. But we had this warm, fuzzy feeling coz for us it was like going home. :-)

Luckily, it was a term break so there weren't too many people from the new batch around. And so the 3 of us sauntered around like we still (?) owned the place. For a while it really did seem like it was last year and we would bump into someone from our batch. We even saw a guy who looked like Rohan Nag!! Saying that we were nostalgic would be an understatement. Seeing the quads/studios of people we knew brought back so many memories. I went to the mail room to see if any of my letters were lying there and there was a bunch of them!! 6 letters addressed to me. How cool is that?

Sareen's place where we had the rock party, Vaze's terrace where countless cigarettes were smoked and theories debated, Vishesh's quad where we celebrated holi - indoors, Rujuta's studio where I drank tea till 5 AM (and did nothing else) and countless others. We even went to the LRC and checked our mail there, for old time's sake.


Aah... ISB. That sheltered, first world ivory tower. Where all the problems of the world can be solved on an Excel sheet and deciding what to do is as simple as drawing a 2x2 matrix. The profs who 'work' (creative use of the word) sure are lucky. :P

Wonder if I'll be here for Solistic this year. I want to, but the dates seem screwed up. What with Gas the Ass choosing this date from all the other 364 days in the year to get hitched. What an ass!! Oh well, time will tell.

Ahoy There.. Again

Guess who's back.. back again... lol.. its been a LOOOOOONG time since I posted anything. A lot has happened since then. Got placed with a 'dream' job. Wouldnt have exchanged it for any other on campus. Went to Goa, had a blast, had food poisoning, had a blast again. Then went to Sikkim and the China border. Was an awesome trip. We went to the Nathu La pass at 14430 feet and took snaps with Chinese soldiers who were on the other side of the fence. Came back to ISB, managed to finish my courses in Term 8 (thanks to Salsa Doc for allowing me to free ride). Every night in Term 8 was party night. And every party was like New Years Party. Lol.. great fun. We had a term for it.. DIS-Orientation Week.

Graduated in April. Folks came down. Then I went to Bombay to meet Akshay (my bro). Had another great time there. Disorientation week continued there.

Came back to ISB. Spent a week for the Co2008's orientation. Had a nice time. And now I am in Chilka, Orissa. Got bored to death initially. No net, no company. Boy was it bad. Thank God the BSNL morons fixed it finally. Feels good to be back in the 21st century.

Well.. will blog more often now. Just thought I'd let u know that I am alive and well.

Cheerio!!!

Adios Senor

Senor (Oriol Benasco) left on the 6th for his beloved Barcelona. Dhar, Vaze and I went to drop him. Gonna miss the 'Spanian'. Had a blast of a time with him. Took us all some time to get to really know him. But what fun we had with him. Man, all the times we did the MKTR assignments, or the Creativity Proj.. lol.. or watching Snatch, getting drunk on numerous occasions, listening to his comments about cricket, watching FC Barcelona's matches on ESPN, learning Spanian abuses and teaching him hindi ones. It was a rocking ride all the way. Senor was truly a Spanish gentleman.

Thanks to him, I am gonna be a lifelong FC Barcelona fan. And like I told him, the only time I wont cheer for them is when they are playing Bayern Munich. Lol.. He understood my sentiments though. Good old Senor.

Gonna miss him. No one to go around saying 'teek hain', 'vamos', ' Viruuuus Focuuus on the Campuuus' or shake his head from side to side, as we Indians are supposed to do'. Lol.. Maybe we'll all go visit him in Spain someday.

Till then. Adios Senor...

Hello There

Guess who's back... back again... ??? Yeah baby !!!! Feels good to be back. All those hours of introspection and self evaluation were worth it. Am more in touch with who I am and what I believe in. And I believe in one thing more than anything else - the happiness of Viren!

In these politically correct times, I run the risk of sounding like a hedonist. But there is more to the statement that I just made. What I mean by my happiness is not just me, but also the people who I care about. The people & dogs who mean something to me. Their happiness is directly correlated to my happiness. The rest of the world can go take a jump. I dont have the time or the interest to give a damn of whats happening to the rest of the world. Yawn. Boring. Change the channel. Who cares.

I used to not be like this earlier. I was foolish enough to believe that it was my duty to do something for others. What a laugh!!! Others? Please dude, have enough on my plate as it is. One crisis at a time. Let me get my own life in order. The world is big enough and smart enough to look after itself. Another thing I really dont care about is lost friendships. When I mean 'lost' I mean people who I thought I shared something with. People who I was wrong about. You see, am an eternal optimist. I always like to believe that people are good and that they'll reciprocate your genuine affection. Balls. Most people are selfish, self-centered and only care about themselves. Which is why I wont waste time on people who aint worth it. No one is indispensable. Am tired of standing at the end of the line. Have other things to do.

Its the 80-20 principle that ISB has taught me. Lol... So am gonna just concentrate on people & dogs who matter. The rest... see you around. :-)

Israel.. Here I Come

Dont ask me why, but for some reason I opted for an exchange programme to go to Israel. People, especially some quant gifted folk (who cant see beyond the next equation) asked me WHY? Lol.. what do you tell people? Well, you tell them what they want to hear. To some you say that you want to develop business contacts with the Israeli hi-tech industry, to others you say its coz of their sexy women and finally to some nuts you say that its coz you 'dream' of becoming a sniper.

Man, who gives a rats ass why I want to go to Israel!! I just want to. Like Shiv said, 'it'll be a trip I'll tell my grandchildren about'. But most people wont understand it. So rather than waste time justifying my decision, I give them one of the spins and if that doesnt convince them, they can go take a jump.

I had a couple of days to decide whether I really wanted to go or not. Initially, was in two minds coz I would be missing graduation, term 8 & (maybe) welcoming the new batch in. But the other day, we had this bhangra party and though i wasnt in the greatest of moods, I really didnt feel any sense of belonging to this place. To these people. Dunno why I've become such a cynic, its just that I dont buy all this hugging and air kisses. Give me a break man. We hardly know each other, we'll readily step over each other in the name of competition and yet we pretend that we're all great friends. La crap !!

Anyways, as long as people are happy.... Maybe this is part of the learning. Smile at someone, while you plot about how to undercut them.