A year gone by!

Today Alexander Pushkin, Sukarno, Björn Borg, Steve Vai celebrate their birthdays, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj became a King, YMCA was formed, Tetris was launched, NBA was created, Battle of Normandy started, Venus crossed the Sun, the world will shift to IPV6 from IPV4 and I completed one year at Tata Motors Limited. One amazing year spent at Mumbai, Johannesburg, making new friends, meeting new people and going to so many amazing places. Hope the journey continues forever :)

This was my status message in Facebook on 6th June, 2012.  It has been one year since I joined the dream job that I had mentioned in my last post. It has been over a year that I've not blogged as well. I would accept at the outset that it is not because I've a super busy job. I had a lot of expectations in this job when I decided to select this over the OTHER Tata job that I had got after my Summer Internship at Tata Steel Ltd. This blog entry will also be an answer to a lot of my pals who remind me each time we meet that I had left a better paying job at Tata Steel. Tata Steel had been an excellent company and I had the fortune of working with very good people while I was working there, but Tata Motors is an Auto company where innovations like the Nano and also powerful image making products like the Safari. Post acquisition of Jaguar - Land Rover, it has some of the most beautiful machines that men has created. An example of that can be seen in this ad:

 

All this being said, now I work for Tata Motors Limited for over an year. A year that took me to a lot of places, made me experience a lot of things that I dreamed of and some which even were beyond my dreamworld. I joined at Mumbai for a month long induction that took me through the various stages of getting accustomed to being in a CORPORATE culture than the relaxed life one had in a B-School. Corporate world, now it sounds funny, because I still have the fun I had in college, albeit the people around me have changed. I'm lucky to be in Mumbai which is where half the classroom of any B-School gets placed. I had a lot of fun in the initial one month, mainly because of the location where we were accomodated during our induction - South Mumbai. It was amazing to be at a stone's throwaway from the best location in Mumbai called Marine Drive. I've spent a big part of my life in a coastal town and even now I say to my friends that a beach is not a great hangout place to goto. Marine drive is not even a beach, it is simply an artificial sea-wall built in the southern coast of Mumbai to prevent the water from coming into the town. But after 6 PM it lights up and gives you a simple but not isolated place to sit and gawk at the waves crashing onto the seawall. It is one of the best places to hangout with friends, have your share of looking at girls walking/jogging/running. Have a look and decide yourself if this is a beautiful place at night or not. I've spent atleast 10-20 nights chatting with friends till midnight and later in the night and the best thing about this place is that no cop, no moral cop will come and question you "kya kar raha hai be" even if it is 2AM in the night, no matter if the group consisted of more girls than guys.

Before I make someone feel that this post is gonna be a "I LOVE MUMBAI" piece like the one Pritish Nandy wrote in TOI blog, let me assure that it isn't so. So after a few weeks of spending each night at Marine Drive, chatting to new people who joined the job with you and go out to eat at all the amazing places in South Mumbai, we all got our projects. I got lucky in that regard and went on my 1st overseas trip(barring the short walk I had into Nepal while on a break to Darjeeling in my summer internship) to Johannesburg. The place was not having a great reputation, unless ofcourse you worked for the Mafia. People and websites started scaring me about the possibility of being mugged and even being killed for sums as little as $10(yeah, by then I was talking in $ and €).

Johannesburg or Joburg as the locals called it, is one of the best places I've visited. Yes, there were moments when I felt unsafe, there were people who scared the living hell out of me, but then I also loved the place a lot because of the amazing roads, the nice work culture of 8AM-5PM and most importantly because it had places where even Europe or US would've felt less opulent and at the same time had slums which were worser than the one's we see while landing at Mumbai airport. It was another country which had the dichotomy of having few rich men who held more wealth than the rest of the nation's population. It had a high percentage of people who were HIV positive and had no means to support themselves, so they indulged in theft, mugging and even murder. 

The city was a treat to watch from the air as I landed at 8AM on a cool morning at the end of July 2011. I was simply amazed at the lack of people on the ground and the speed at which vehicles were being driven. I saw trucks doing 100kmph with full load of 40-50 tons, even old people were driving cars older than me at speeds above 90 and the city had such an amazing road network. This is how I always will remember it:

 

The reason I loved the place most was because of the amazing roads. The whole country had  some of the best roads that I've ever driven on. Some dream surfaces like this:

I drove so much in this place that some days I had so much driving that I kept on driving even without stopping for a piss. I had an amazing time both in my work and in my free time. I was living alone and enjoying it. Technology made it possible for me to be in touch with my loved one's even when I was 1000's of kms away. I saw some of the best cars that men have been blessed with on the road on a daily basis;  lamborghini's, ferrari's, rolls, buggati's, bentley's. You name it and I had seen it on the road in Johannesburg. Even had fun with a few of them while driving my 7 year old Indigo, trying to keep pace with a prosche boxster after a signal and feeling amazing when the chick driving the boxster couldn't find the right gear and I got ahead for a second. 

It was a place where I drove more than 10000 kms and totally loved the 5 months I spent over there. I came back to Mumbai and took up my new role from 2nd of January. It wasn't sales, it wasn't marketing; it wasn't anything that I had ever dreamt of when I joined TML. It was a role that even now I'm trying to understand and the less told about it the better. I had a lot of good days when I've met a lot of people who are the big names in the auto world, I've had the pleasure of visiting facilities where some of the best vehicles of the country have rolled off from.

In addition to all this I had a big promotion in my personal life, I got engaged on 19th March, 2012 and since then it has been an amazing journey for me on the personal front. I've been the butt of a lot of jokes from my friends who keep telling me how much freedom I'll lose once married and what all I've lost already by being engaged. But I simply enjoy the feeling of being in a relationship and I somehow feel better. I don't know what exactly it is, or which exact moment it is. But when I'm with her I simply have a great time, I yearn to spend more time with her and most importantly I look forward to spending the rest of my life with my wife.......

The Goa trip that went South & then went YEEEHAAA!

This is an amazing trip, which got me broke to rich and helped me fulfil my childhood dream!

It all started on Saturday morning with me having Rs 1500(Thank you Subbu, Moorthy and Vasu for the contributions) in my pocket and 3 tickets:One from Nizamuddin to Madgaon and 2 tickets for consecutive days from Madgaon to Trivandrum. The idea was this: My team - The great Maa II, consisting of Mayank, Atanu and Me(with a good deal of support from Akanksha) had sent an entry for Revving Up!!! - The Case Study competition at GIM, Goa and I was to present the case if our team got selected, but then we weren't sure if we would get selected. I was sure, but Maa wasn't :). So we had tickets for me to directly go home or stay back 1 day and present if we got selected.

Fortunately we got selected and the 35 hour long train journey went well and then I reached Goa, only to find that I was BROKE :(. Now that got me thinking what is the reason for my constantly bad financial condition. I'm in constant debt and can't find a way out of this situation even when I've won a good number of events/quizzes this year(2011). But I guess if I start on that then it'll be another blog post completely. Main issue for the day was I was left with Rs 120 at the start of the day when the event was happening. I had to get back to the railway station at night to catch my train back to Trivandrum and it's a sweet 40 km ride from GIM till Madgaon station, which comes to 600-650 in a cab. Basically I was begging around in Facebook/Gtalk and all other possible means to beg.

The day started well with me getting up ahead of time and getting ready by 9 AM and reaching the hall to find it quite empty. I like all the CONFIDENT MBA's started to look up the slides and added some finishing touches here n there. Then frankly I did get nervous waiting for the PPT to start, so I started chatting with the other teams and had a good time till I was called for the PPT. I was the only TEAM with just 1 guy here and with more than 80 odd pairs of eye balls pointed towards the slides and alternating between me and the slides I started. Initially it all went really well and I was fortunate to have a good panel which didn't interrupt and blocked my flow. That got me going and I was at one of the best presentations of my life I would say!

I finished with the judges quite impressed and asking the very first question which got me really happy, the question was "How many of your team mates worked in Automobile industry?" and when I said none of us, he was even more impressed. After a few questions more he was satisfied about the work we had done and then I got back to my seat waiting patiently for the other teams to finish up their ppt's and went about on a Hyper Facebooking spree. Some 20 comments and 2 updates later the time for the final announcement came. By this time I had 1900 in my SBI A/c. Thanks Sriram and Ajay Aliyan :)

It was a proud moment for me and I could say a very happy achievement for my team when the whole crowd said "IIFT...IIFT...IIFT" when the judges asked "So who do you think is the winner...". I was having the best smile of my life and the smile widened when I got the winners cheque and the three Nano shaped pen drives as special gifts :). It was literally like the cadbury's ad where "dil mein laddo phoot rahe the", the Rs 20000 cheque was just the icing on the cake :)

The glee wasn't contained in me when the HR told me that I have got a spot-offer and asked me to consider joining India's largest automobile company. It was a dream come true for me, a dream that had been in place in my head since I was 4 years old and got onto the hood of a Tata Truck during one of the 1st trips to my dad's workshop at Air Force Station, Avadi. A dream that made me pursue Mechanical Engineering, but wasn't fulfilled at my BTech stage. Even though I got into Tata Steel during my internship and then got a PPO, the happiness that I've now is much greater because this is a dream for me to follow what my father did for 21 years of his life and make it bigger and better :)

Thank you Mayank, Akanksha and Atanu for giving me a chance to fulfil that dream, thank you GIM for giving me a platform to present our ideas and most importantly to IIFT for giving me this awesome chance. Now I really feel my MBA did add a lot to my life :)

PS: 1st job of any Marketing guy is to promote his company; so here goes - Kindly visit www.tatamotors.com The site is updated very recently and hope you'll like the changes :)

PPS: This can also mean that CGPA doesn't stop anyone from getting their dream jobs in an MBA :)

There's no place like home

Part Uno:Delhi
It is 16th and “All my Bags are packed and am ready to go” this was my status message as the clock struck 12 on 16th September. I have the huge load of all my 1st year textbook’s with me(if anyone has any doubts regarding their sizes kindly check the last pic in the album named 3rd trimester @ IIFT in my Facebook A/C and you’ll know). With that mighty load on my back I took the Auto from IIFT gates to Hauz Khas Metro Station, that’s right baby, now the metro drops you off till New Delhi Station from Hauz Khas :) . Post the luggage screening and opening and closing of the bags for the CISF’s most honest x-ray scanning inspector, I move into the awesome Bombardier coaches which are waiting for me as I reach the platform.

I’m at NDLS within 20 minutes and I'm ready to board the Kerala Express from Delhi once again to Trivandrum. The last time I took Kerala Express from NDLS to TVC was in 2007 when I came to attend my job interview with IFFCO. That was in Second class sleeper, but this time I had an A/C seat, but still things don't change much as you'll see.

The 1st thing I do once I've stowed all my bags under the seats is to look at the passenger list chipkaoed beside one of the doors. Not to make sure if I'm on the list, but, to check out who else is there. M's of any age don't interest me at all unless there's an F of a reasonably acceptable age sitting beside them. But, that's for later. For now I mentally make a note of all the F-16s to F25s mentioned on the reservation list so that I'll walk pass their seats and check them out when my back starts paining sitting on the rock hard seats. Not much luck in there. My bogie was full of M30-M45 range. Well, okay. I don't want to travel among the hottest possible angels every time, but, what's the deal with so many M30 to M45s.

They say LUCK is Labour Under Correct Knowledge, but, the "Knowledge" part is something that makes me come back to square one every single time. But boy do you read what was in store for me.

I bet you know I am pretty pissed off because this post is being written after 1 am. I can't shake off the feeling that the Indian Railways with its offering of "the mo*^%&#-f$%^#ing AC-3 tier coach", along with my co-passengers, is out to screw me, have a smoke, then come back to screw me again. I present the following evidences:

1. The compartment, including the side berths, is meant to seat eight. However the passengers in my compartment have approximately 287 people to see them off. And they all squeeze in or stand in the aisle, leaving no room for genuine passengers. All of them wait till the last millisecond before getting off the train. This is accompanied by shrieks of "arey train chal padi!!", as if we paid all that money to go sit in a stationary claustrophobic cell.
2. Atleast one person attempts to swap seats. He offers a seat, usually a middle berth (Murphy's law) in a compartment 20 coaches away, or sometimes in the adjacent train. "Travelling together" is a big deal even in the night trains. If there is no such person, nocturnal predators with wait-listed tickets are usually on the prowl for confirmed ticket holders who can "adjust" for a few hours. Since I am a bachelor with the innocent face of a sucker, I can't escape being gang-adjusted repeatedly by a series of wait-listers. My medical results reveal that I may never recover from this severe trauma.
3. Atleast one of the co-passengers carries luggage that will put an Antarctic expedition to shame. Consequently, the entire floor space plus halves of two berths and the aisle become full, allowing only someone with the skill-level of Bob Beamon to make it across to the bathroom. Oh! and needless to say, all that hunk of luggage will not have a single book to read on the way, except "Stardust" which will be over by the time the train pulls out of the platform.
4. The presence of atleast one baby in my compartment is mandatory. And if the baby's bawling and howling is insufficient, the parents make repairs by throwing in some brain-dead baby talk. The baby talk comprises of atmost three sentences of the kind "Ale Ale Ale baby kyon lo laha hai...", "deko deko bahar doggie hai cow hai pigeon hai...aley waah aley waah" and "chalo mamma paas chalenge, abhi beta soyega, raaja beta soyega" and so forth. These three sentences will be repeated in an infinite loop until the mother dies of dehydration or I puncture my ear drums, whichever happens first. If the baby talk does not suffice, the dad usually initiates a suave and sophisticated game, like pulling a coin out of the baby's ass, thus cementing his skills as a magician, and the kid becomes all wonder-eyed thinking "Holy Shit! My ass did that ??" With all this talk of babies, I'm tempted to use the pun "berth control" here but I am sure it has been used a million times already.
5. The person on the lower berth feels "sleepy" at 8:30pm, just two seconds after s/he finishes dinner, forcing the others to retire. Unless I am the lower berth owner, in which case, I won't be allowed to sleep before 2:30am. Even then, a group of wait-listers will suddenly materialize to sleep in the aisle, thereby giving a new meaning to "sleepovers".
6. The person on the middle berth will sleep the longest, turning the rest of us into Hunchbacks of Notre Dame. On being woken up, he/she will generally give an Oscar winning "oh am I causing any trouble" look. The rest of us have, ofcourse, already been woken up by the obnoxious tea seller at 5:45am, who usually passes on secret information of the kind "abhi Aligarh cross kiya hai" along with the freaking mud water that passes for tea.
7. All the bathrooms will be occupied till 2pm, so the elderly uncle will lose all pretense of good manners, and will let loose the dogs of hell, otherwise known as the farting guns of Navarone. While the more adventurous of us can start guessing which pickle did uncleji have with aalo and rajma last night, I prefer to lean outside the door, looking for the next electric pole to bang my head into.
8. Needless to say, a delay by a few hours is to be expected. For example, my "prestigious superfast express train" took 53 instead of 50 hrs, and this was a good day I was told. The last 200 kms took more than 5 hours. Hell! I could have run faster than that. Shameless self-advertising ends here.

Next time, I am travelling in the cargo hold of the first airplane that I see.

Some people never learn, right? Yeah, they don't. And that's what makes this world funny. I'm honoured to be contributing positively to the Gross Happiness Index of the planet. I repeat, as I often do: If you don't have the balls to hold your breath for half an hour or so, you shouldn't be boarding the Indian Railways. Also applies to people with breathing ailments like asthma. Enough Bitching about Train Journeys. Now the good part:

As soon as the Train entered Kerala, the rain gods started their job and what a scene it was :), the picture below pretty much describes the entire scene which unfolded:

Photo credit: Train in the rains by Bramha.

Part Deux: Trivandrum
Out of the railway station and it's a different world every time I come here. Small city, now developing into a bigger one, some changes are nice; like wider roads, some are not; like cutting down trees for the same; nice, easy climate(not for all), and lots and lots of places to visit, especially the three beaches. But, it's my home I'm longing for. Now, just because it's your city doesn't mean you own it. 3 dozen taxi and auto rickshaw owners around me, asking me, no, telling me to board their vehicle. Then I find dad amongst the crowd and he gets me away from these buggers.

As much as you want to spend more and more time with your girlfriends and boyfriends, there's nothing that is remotely as inexplicably touching as a long and silent hug from your mom.

Now, it has been an unwritten rule in my family for the last 3 years since I've started living outside my house, the first thing my mom asks me is "What would you eat?". I remind her that I'd love the Chicken Curry which I had told her when we talked while in the train. Turns out the question was asked just as a continuation of the tradition and Chicken Curry is ready. I only have to take a bath and be at the table. I don't take a bath and no one insists me to have one. After all I'm the son. I have the best Chicken Curry and wipe off the last bits from the plate. I could’ve even licked the plate, coz it is my home and I can bloody do that here :)

My sister and her husband (I should get used to that more now) come at 7:00 in the evening. Hellos, hugs and we're out of the house to the temple near my home. Post this we have dinner together and then off she goes to her home and me and parents go off to watch the new Mammootty movie which has him playing a typical Trichur guy. While reaching the theatre for the night show, I felt like the whole car owning population in Trivandrum City has come down to watch the movie and I pick up an argument with a cop over the parking of the car and it went on to become a pretty heated one and that tells you about the status message. After a 15 minute verbal duel, finally when the cop threatened that he’ll get the tow truck and get my car pulled away I moved my car to another spot and got inside the movie. We had the very last row of seats and the kids rules that were mentioned above apply here also. There was a big family consisting of four couples all having multiple kids in the 0-5 age group out to ruin my movie. But surprisingly all of them slept off within minutes of the movie starting and I could have a good time watching the movie. I just loved the movie and all this reminded me on my trip back home that:

There's no place like home...

The Perfect Summer Internship

Hello and welcome to Abhijith's Internship Experience. Get ready to be swept for a crazy ride filled with gigantic excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and an ungodly amount of leg/butt cramps from sitting and staring at a laptop all day......well if you haven’t immediately closed your web browser after reading that exciting introduction, I can tell that you really want to learn about the MBA internship experience (or facebook is not open in your office and you need to kill time somewhere else).

I am into the last fortnight of my summer internship here at Tata Steel, and I have begun to consider the things that I wanted to have accomplished before I leave here on June 12th.

Notwithstanding the current (read BAD, but improving) market conditions in which we have found ourselves, it can still be difficult to find perspective on the "goal" of an MBA internship. Therefore, in the spirit of blogging and to make my friends feel better about my chances after I finish here and try to find a job, I have decided to filter my experiences here in the context of "a dream summer internship".

Without further ado, here are my top 10 ingredients of a perfect summer internship.

1. Work somewhere you can make a difference. It should come as no surprise that if you can't contribute materially, it's very unlikely that you or your employer will enjoy your attempts to "drive value and create synergies throughout the value chain" (insert some other MBAisque quote here). I took an offer I knew I could contribute to, and have been busy contributing since day 1. Trust me I am :)

2. Work somewhere that is challenging. No problem here either. I am working in a role that I do have some relation to(industrial products), but in a completely new industry. Without this ingredient one could get bored... not an option for an over-achieving B-school student.

3. Work for a firm that will add value to your resume. Again, check. Tata Steel certainly undergoing a test of its business model and maybe posting losses, but Tata is still Tata and their name is definitely a strength to my resume.

4. Clarify your role and responsibilities before accepting. This is something I could have done better one, because clearing up any miscommunications makes it a lot easier to "hit the ground running".

5. Don't be a jerk. Many of your peers will work for lesser-known firms, while still others will work for bigger and more prestigious firms. Who CARES! Never forget that many of the worlds richest individuals left B-School without an offer and then started their own firms. You never know who will be successful and who won't, so be cool to everyone.

6. Have fun. Do it while being true to the company that took the risk to hire you as an intern. Having fun means a lot and certainly the two months of internship are a relief from the stress and workload of a B-School. Go on trips, have weekend parties, meet old friends.

7. Network more with the people whom you work with. This could be with your guide, with other people working in the firm and certainly be good friends with the interns from other colleges. You can never tell when you'll need to make a call to one of those guys.

8. Look forward to getting more work. This is important because if you don't look forward to doing work, it does show on your attitude in the office and the guide and others might notice this as a sign of weakness in you.

9. Be smart in your analysis. Try to impress the audience, not by using snazzy animations in your presentations, but by having done good work in the field and then analyzing the data you've got. The analysis is as important as the data collection; as one project guide said the hard work is in getting the data, but the smart work is in doing the analysis. So be a smart intern in addition to being a hard-working intern.

10. Get a job offer. No matter how awesome you feel now, the job market is a strange beast and can change at any moment. Do everything you can to head back to school with a future job locked down. This is an essential ingredient of the "perfect" MBA internship.

If you collect all 10 of these ingredients, you will head back to school with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a job well done and enjoy a 2nd year much better than your first...

At least that's what I'm telling myself right now :-)

I moved

Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much, that myself five years ago wouldn't like what he sees in me now. I've changed from what I had told the guy who asked me 1st time in an interview. It has been a few days since this blog has been lying without a post. To be precise 103 days since I've last posted in this Blog. A lot has happened over the days and a lot of that could be found in my Facebook Album that tells about the 3rd Trimester I've had at IIFT. Life has been hectic, but then most of the time the Delhi cold made me wrap myself under the blanket and snore.

I missed a lot of classes and am sure my grades will drop severely this term, but then most of the times I've had a very bad mood and almost everyday I just wanted the course to end. Maybe it was seeing the seniors roam around the campus practically doing nothing other than waste time, maybe it was the stupid projects that were handed out like candies or maybe it was the faculty which didn't inspire me to take up studies seriously.

Anyways coming to the topic at hand - I've always wanted to have a domain name of my own and I had once mentioned this to Hari. He had said at that time that he was planning to gift me a domain name for my 24th birthday which is coming up real soon coz he's got a lot of cash reserves in his paypal account, thanks to the Advertisements he's earned. So yesterday while at his home he said why don't we setup the blog today? We just did that and here I am with my own domain name in the WWW. Ladies and gentlemen presenting before you :-

WWW.ABHIJITH.IN

Way to go Tiger

The title doesn't mean that I am going to speak about Tiger Woods and his last few adventures wherein he has lived upto the tag-line that he used to endorse until a couple of days back, but he did live upto my dream(I am sure he is living upto the dreams of a lot of yougsters, especially after this).

But no, this one is rather about my own adventure today that made me quite a star. Today was the last day of my 2nd trimester examinations. I had Macroeconomics in the morning and it is considered to be a toughie amongst all of our exams. I was having a lot of sleepless nights in the last few days due to the exams and sleep was really catching upto me. I and two my roommates had devised a ingenious plan(something like the C2D from 5.someone) where I would get my 7 hours of daily sleep and still manage to study. We would sleep in the evening from 5-10 PM(not together, don't get ideas people), then have dinner, study the entire night till 4 or 5 AM(different subjects demand different hours :D). We came up with this plan after the 1st of our exams, corporate finance, went down the drain. This was going quite fine but still sleep was catching up to me each day and I hadn't slept at all in the last 2 days, due to the extremely demanding subjects. Yesterday I fell asleep in the exam hall, but that isn't something very new to me; as I am a regular sleeper in classes over here at IIFT.

What happened today is something that only I've heard from friends in some of the other IIX's(x = T or M depending on how F***Ked up your life is). Today after the 1st exam which was a breezer, I had a solid three hours to sleep before the next exam which happened to be Business Communication - 2. It was basically a paper full of s**t where we are supposed to do a lot of Bulls**t analysis about written and other communication methods.

I slept at 1130 in the morning and didn't even get up for lunch. I was woken up at 1 by a roommate for lunch, but then sleep was more alluring to me at that point of time and I didn't bother to get up. I remember having nice dreams about how a hot chick (correction, make that two hot chicks) will be sitting next to me and how in the 3D movie world I will join them..........ok this is getting too much. Coming back, as I said I was having these awesome dreams and I didn't remember to set an alarm in my cell phone to get up on time @ 3 PM to write the exam and just as when I was having a GREAT time with the above mentioned chicks in my hWAT dream, i get these irritating phone calls from my Class Representative. He had called me 4 times before I picked the phone and then I saw the time on the phone and was stunned. It was 15:09. I was 09 minutes late already for a stupid exam in which I didn't want to get an F. I jumped out of bed and was shocked but happy to see one of my roommates also sleeping in his bed. I kicked him and we both found our pens and ran to the exam hall. I was 15 minutes late as I reached the exam hall and all my classmates were having a good laugh at my misfortune.

That is MBA for you my friends, a course where your roommates forgets to wake you up from sleep; but still you end up being a joker and not a loser :)

PS:For the concerned folks - I did take the exam and went on to bulls**t how I will be nice to a subordinate who f**ks up a PPT or when I am about to fire him off :)

Books - Man's best friend and mine :)

"Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Books were a fascination for me during childhood. Not because of me being a bookish guy or anything. But then I've always liked reading. My mom had a good collection of novels from her college days and I used to go through them(except the Mills & Boon section) during my high school days. My dad isn't a big fan of fiction and he feels that reading stories isn't the best way to learn about the world(especially when the stories are written by Sidney Sheldon). So to get rid of me begging him to buy all the books in the world, he took me to the state central Library or commonly known as the Trivandrum Public Library. It was a great day for me. I still remember the 1st time I entered the huge doors as a thirteen year old and being awe struck by the rows and rows of books in the various reading halls. Since then my love story with books and authors had started and this relation, though had its ups and downs, is still going strong - much stronger than my OTHER love stories :).

This post will be about my fascination about books, some of the books that have changed my view about life and some of my favourite authors. The books and authors all came from different cultures, countries and ages, but influenced me greatly to THINK! If you are interested, read on to know their names and it would be good befriending them based on your interests.

I always was a fan of paperbacks; mainly because I liked reading lying on my bed before sleeping. This habit is still there with me and I still like the same type of stories. It started with comics when I was a kid; then Famous Five, Hardy Boys and then later on I graduated to novels and then stuff which I couldn't put my hands on as a kid :)

Books always used to be my 1st love, but since my life started having a new member called computer, books had taken a backseat. All through college my reading habit was lost and I picked up books again only when it was time for belling the cat - which ultimately belled me.

Then my focus started shifting from fiction to non-fiction. Particularly the autobiographies of business and political leaders and the so-called management books. Some of these were good reads, some were utter waste of time.

During my teenage I used to adore books by two authors; one was Sidney Sheldon and the other was Jeffrey Archer. I still remember the 1st Sheldon book I had read. It was Stranger in the mirror. It was like all of his other books, written like a movie with all the effects and special scenes that would make it a page-turner.

I'm proud to say that I've read all books written by Sheldon and Archer and I owe a lot of my reading habit to these two guys. If it weren't for their awesome narration and gripping tales I'd have left books a long time back.

Now any Indian in the 2000's who claims to be a book lover can't be ignorant of a certain individual named Chetan Bhagat. I've loved all his books and even though I feel that except for the 1st book, the others have had a very bad ending. Either being too filmy in style or too quickly wrapped up.

I’ll say that the books he writes talk about the social evils in our society, rather than just being funny. His 1st book talked about how parents just force their kids to take up ambitions for which they don’t feel the same way. The 2nd book talked about the youth’s lack of spiritualism in the present scenario. 3rd book talked about the evil of the religious riots. 4th book talks about the disconnect in our country when it comes to forming relations with people across the country.

So I feel he is someone who is required in our society which is at crossroads where parents are afraid to tell their kids what to do and what not to do, and even though Mr Bhagat has this cool dude image, his books actually help in putting some semblance into the Indian fast changing lifestyle :).

Top 25 books that I would love to mention are:(not all are from the world of fiction)

1. The Godfather - Mario Puzo - The greatest novel I've ever read, truly amazing.
   
2. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - A truly amazing tale of life,love and desire.
   
3. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman - An interesting side of a serious scientist.
4. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein - The only book which inspite of being a fantasy is in this list.
5. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - A totally outrageous but interesting philosophy.
   
6. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - The confused teens story which was a great read.
7. Lateral Thinking-Creativity Step by Step - Edward De Bono - A good one for creativity.
8. iCon:Steve Jobs - Jeffrey Young - About an Icon's comeback to be the most admired CEO
9. Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler - I wanted to know what was in the mind of the evil genius!
10. The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman - A great tale about the present world we live in.
11. Freakonomics - Steven D Levitt and Steven J Dubner - An interesting outlook to practical economics.
12. Relativity: the special and the general theory - Albert Einstein - The greatest physicist explains the most complex theory in the simplest way possible.
13. The Motorcycle Diaries - Ernesto "Che" Guevara - An awesome travelogue with great thoughts.
14. The Google Story - David A Vise - The most detailed account of Google's spectacular rise
15. The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels - Being a Malayalee, I couldn't miss this one!
16. Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig - A good insight into the human psyche
17. The Art of Computer Programming - Donald Knuth - For a non-software guy this is a bible to understand programming(for the software guys too)
18. Theory of Game and Economic Behaviour - John von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern - An awesome book which explains the most baffling economic theory with ease.
19. Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking - A man who's life is a great example to follow, explaining the toughest concepts with just 1 equation in the entire book.
20. Joker in the Pack - Nitesh Pahlajani & Ritesh Sharma - An awesome tale of love, friendship and life in a B-School, a must read for any MBA aspirant and .
21. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - An awesome story of justice and a good eye-opener about the American society in those times.
    
22. Day of the Jackal - Fredrick Forsyth - A tale so realistic that I felt it was too much of a story.
    
23. Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The best love story I've ever read.
24. Jeeves Series - PG Wodehouse - An awesome set of books which though funny are a great read anytime :)
25. Kiterunner - Khaled Hosseini - The last in the list is a book which made me feel sad and happy at the same time.
    

I hope you find the above interesting and thought provoking as they were for me.

My Generation

Don’t make someone a priority, if you are just an option......

I absolutely love this saying that I cannot find an author to give credit. It rings true everyday of my life. I have used this saying more than a couple of times in my GTalk status messages and also in my facebook, twitter and orkut pages. But till today I hadn't given serious thought to this line. You might ask what happened so much today to make me think about this sad fact of life. I believe it hasn't been a smooth sailing for anyone in their love-life, who ever says that they've the perfect love story, are either lying or are acting in a movie.

Now coming to the saying- Whether they are friends, family or a special someone they really can’t be that special if you are just an option in their life. I feel that people do make you an option in life, especially in your work, your college(at times it does feel wrong), your social circle and so on. It has been the norm in the fast moving world that we live in. I still remember the term Friendship of Convenience when it was told to me by a teacher at the TIME centre I had attended. He told about people being friends for just the sake of using eachother when they need something. People who think like:

How can I use him? He is well connected, financially well off, resourceful, he is a doctor, lawyer. Build and maintain the relationship, some day he could be useful. Usefulness goes, friendship goes.

I hadn't got seen much of FOC(not pronounced as the F word, but just F.O.C) in my life until I joined my work and their again in my training programme the company HR head told about the same term. He rather gave a 30 slide PPT on how to do the same quoted lines I've given above. But finally he told the term Social Networking, rather than FOC.

I had heard about networking since I am a part of the Orkut era, the Facebook generation, the guys who wake up and tweet their status and check their mails before going for a piss and will even F**K for the next best thing. Now when my generation decides to make friends it is a simple step. There are a thousand different places where you can meet people, maybe real, maybe virtual. But anyways you will always find people; more so because you live in a world with 6.6 Billion people. But still people will be happy to talk to some unknown on a website rather than with their next door neighbour or even to the people living in their homes.

There is a saying "my enemy's enemy is my friend." Common enemy goes, friendship also goes. True Friendship cannot survive without the element of mutual respect and that I feel is the one thing that lacks in these ONLINE, always there for you friends :).

I am not pointing fingers at anyone, I am very much part of this generation, I get happy when people say they "LIKE" my stupid messages in Facebook, or when someone RT's my tweets; why go that far, I ADORE the one's who comment on my blog and for me and my generation this has become a way of attaining social recognition, of having a status that they won't get otherwise. Especially fat guys like me who would not be able to make it to any happening parties or be invited to movies or hang outs because of their looks or because they can't dance that well and so on and on........

Now I feel I've digressed quite a huge bit away from the saying at the start the blog; so let me just FOCUS and get back to the point. (MBA has been doing its good bits to me too, don't you see the jargon's I've used till now :D). So I was talking about someone making you an option when you make them or rather plan to make them a priority. I feel that in the family life the FOC should just F*** off and you should have sincerity in your relationships. I can't imagine a father having a caring relation with his children only so that he thinks they treat him well when he's old. Going by the present way MY generation is going ahead I don't think even if we care for our kids they will take care of us when we're dying. Maybe this fear is making my generation to run more after the all elusive MONEY.

I still remember my dad's words when I had told him that I want to quit my job and go for an MBA, he was shouting into the phone that I am mad to leave such a well paying job and I don't realise the value of a government job. It is true, my generation doesn't know the value of a government job. Even after working in a government company I feel that I would do good in a private firm because their I will get recognised for my work. Its true that private firms reward people who show dedication and usually in govt. firms and departments good dedication means trouble for the person.

But then when I joined my course in July and in the discussions in class when people diss about government jobs and the work culture and how corrupt the officers are and that if the country is allowed to run by private firms then we'd beat US in a matter of years and all that wonderful ideas go around. Only the handful of people who've worked in govt. firms and have led a non-corrupt, non-maligned career(albeit short) will disagree and try to persuade that NOT ALL the officers are like that(heck I too was in that category a few months back, so how can I agree??).

My generation takes pride in the discussions and dialogues that we all carry out, but still we either never vote, or never care to know who wins the elections. As far as we are concerned it is always one corrupt guy to another, one uneducated fool to another and one idiot to another. But like the Tata Tea campaign I ask isn't it time to wake up and do something about it?

But then I myself am not doing anything about it other than proudly showing my finger off about the vote I cast, then why will anyone else do anything about it??

PS: Title credited to The Who for their wonderful song - My Generation.

*Disclaimer: I am being overly emotional tonight. These are the rantings of a person with absolutely nothing fun to do right now. And instead of getting studies done, is making non-sense blogs.

Its Party Time!!!!!!

Today was the 1st party I had since I've joined IIFT. It was a greatly planned party and was executed well by the senior batch cultural committee. We'd been eagerly waiting for the freshers party, which unfortunately never happened due to many issues(which I'd rather not get into now).

The party was Titled "Coalesce '09 : The Rock N Roll". The party had some cultural programmes and in addition we had the usual three things which are present in all IIFT parties : DJ, Dance and Daaru :). The cultural events had the usual of : Group Dance, Group/Solo Song and since we are a B-School we had an Ad-Spoof competition as well.

As part of the events I was part of a Group Dance team; no don't worry I didn't dance and break the stage, but I was the Music composer(rather arranger); I was the guy who mixed the songs for the dance which some 20 odd guys performed. It was a take on the event which we all might have done in our primary school days(atleast I remember seeing this in my young days @ school) called Action Song. In school days the song was sung by the same person who performed the actions. Here we had the song which was a mix of some old hindi songs and some new ones as well and the 20+ guys on stage enacted the same song in ACTION on the stage with good synchronisation.

We worked on the dance starting at 5 PM for the event was scheduled to begin at 7 PM. We had simple steps and by 6 45 PM we had a pretty good set-up ready for the event. I've not yet got any videos of the same, but I'll upload it asap.

The song has been uploaded for your listening pleasure if you desire to hear it :

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

The other events were fun and we were the 1st group to do the dance on stage. It was fun and the dance had great appreciation from all the students present in the auditorium. We guys performed the dance two times, thanks to a technical glitch and also audience request.

Then we had some great songs sung by the singers and accompanied by the musicians of our batch. After this came a slew of spoof ad's which basically spoofed the following products:

• Fair and Lovely
• Colgate Toothpaste
  
• Huggies Diapers
• Kamasutra condoms campaign
• Liril

The hit of the day was the KS Condom campaign followed by the Huggies Diapers Ad. Both these Ad's were spoofed by many teams we saw lot of budding Padamsee's and Piyush Pandey's at work.

We had some entertaining Bhangra performances by the guys from Punjab and some other dances as well which were good fun to watch. We had Saurav of our batch who turned out to be the star of the day with his dance performances being in great demand. His new styles and matka's caught the audience unaware and it was truly a great feeling to watch Saurav do dance with the same ease he solves Accountancy problems.

Towards the end of the events we had the prizes being distributed and surprisingly our dance got the 1st prize and it was an awesome feeling to be on stage to receive the prize with some 20 other guys who I swear would never have danced in their entire lives; atleast half of them would never have had the chance to be on stage for a DANCE, if anything else :). But we did it, we the underdogs got the prize.

After the prizes the party floor was thrown open and the DJ was playing some good music, but since it was 9 30 PM all rushed to get their growling tummies filled with the awesome food being served. In addition the BAR was opened by 10 PM and soon the party's mood picked up with guys and gals hitting the floor and showing their moves on the dance floor. The DJ started with latest Hindi film songs and then some Punjabi songs.

After some time I too joined the crowd and started to make my earth-moving MOVES. Yes, even I danced, so you know how HIGH the mood of the party was :). The songs were all welcomed by the crowd with them singing along and since this was the 1st time we all had a party together and most importantly this was almost the end of 1st Trimester @ IIFT we all were desperately in need of a Break and what a break we had.

This is one snap which I got from the many which were taken today. More to be added as I get them.


The dancing continued non-stop till 1 AM when finally the DJ called quits and the party was wrapped up. The last songs had all of us forming a mosh-pit and crying Encore. Even after that we had a budding shayar in the senior batch giving out some of his fine-tuned Sher's. It was a great evening indeed and now @ 5 AM I still am getting goosebumps thinking about the night's events.

I think each and every person enjoyed to the hilt and those who missed the party had missed a big part of the MBA Life, the IIFT Life. For them I've just this comic from XKCD.

You can only dream of the fun we had today

Sleepless nights; sleeping in classes. That's MBA :)

Its been about twenty days since I’ve joined IIFT. As I sit in the cool confines of the A/C classroom now i can look back at these days and i can see a small smile coming to my face.

Life has been hectic over these days. I've been awake at hours I’ve never seen for a long long time(getting up @ 5:30 AM for yoga); sitting in classes with formal shirt and pants; sharing a hostel floor with members of the fairer sex; having birthday parties that go on till 3 AM in the night; sharing a small cake with 160 odd students; asking housewives about their favourite toothpaste; writing assignments in subjects that I'd never learned before in my life; analysing my own psyche in the dream world during classes; making PPT’s till 2 AM in the night; having coffee at 2 AM and on and on.

There hasn't been a point when I was sad or feeling that I had made a wrong choice. Living away from home isn't new for me and I’ve always felt at ease doing so. The trip to Delhi was the 1st time I was travelling by air. I had a good time. It was an early morning flight and even though I’d heard about the flight being the fastest and the safest means of travel until I travelled could I feel it. The flight wasn’t a pleasant experience as such because around me there were 3 families and all of them had small toddlers. One of these started crying and the others will follow as if in chorus.

After the flight I reached IIFT along with a friend from TVM, Ramakrishnan. He was a friend from college days and it was good to have someone along the 1st time here. We reached and got our rooms and I was on the 2nd floor. One among the 6 guys who shares the 2nd floor with 18 other girls. This looked like an opportunity at 1st but then later only we came to know that this is a threat. We guys are scared of keeping our reputations intact by being in this floor.

The classes started on 2nd July with the 1st class being Economics for me. It was a class that was interesting, and the prof was one genius who was giving out gyaan as if he was Adam Smith and we all were his greatest disciples. Some of us had the blank look on our faces when we got out of the class. But this look is better than the “I wanna sleep” look that we sport these days.

The classes are going on in full swing; but it isn’t classes that make the life in a B-School exciting. It is it the life, the senior-junior sessions, the interactions, the small chats, the long debates, the funny skits, the painful yoga lessons in the morning, the music that blares out of the speakers from the room that makes you wanna dance even if you can’t. All these things are what make life @ an MBA college worth living. The friendship, the camaraderie, the small joys, the midnight walks, the hot coffee’s shared, the poor jokes heard, the stories shared about had bosses and endless cribbing about the assignments and the case studies being handed out in classes like candies. All these things make life @ a B-School exciting. I'd heard a lot about this from my seniors who'd been to top colleges, friends who'd been to them and now I feel so special when I'm also telling my juniors and friends about these sleepless nights.

I just hope the 20 odd months that I’m gonna be here are going to be as exciting as the past 20 days have been. Life in MBA is just this one liner-Sleepless nights and Sleeping in classes.

Rom Coms - The Female Chauvinists' way of getting even

I've watched a lot of Romantic Comedies(Rom-Coms as they're known) over the years. If I remember correctly the very first i saw would be Pretty Woman. I saw the movie when i was in 9th standard. I saw the movie at a cousin's home. He was an engineering student and had this movie's cassette(yes, VHS cassettes were the norm those days, not CD's) with him.

I loved the movie and fell in love with the too-good-to-believe gentlemanly Richard Gere in the movie and wanted to be like him from that day. He had the charm to get any woman he wanted and yet he didn't want any. I wish one day i could raise myself to such a level and then say NO to my mind when i see someone and my heart says YES.

The greatest surprise in the movie wasn't however Gere, it was the every lovable, innocent-yet-charming in her own way, Julia Roberts. I just couldn't control my laughter at the scenes where she barges into the meetings and then takes him off to shopping and all. But at the same time tears welled up in my eyes when i saw the emotional scene with Roxette's It Must Have Been Love in the background.

Since then i've been a sucker for Rom-Com's and have a huge list of those movies in my collection. The movies in this range from 50 first dates to Zack and Miri make a porno. These movies haven't helped me a bit in anything other than feel good at the end when the guy gets the girl. The movies always have a lopsided hero-heroine composition, be it Pretty Woman with a Ivy-League MBA falling for a Prostitute or 50 first dates with an amazing chick in Drew Barrymore falling for an oaf of a man in Adam Sandler.

Always these movies presented a totally unrealistic view of life(atleast for a guy living in India). They always gave ideas that were stupidest in the best of situations and still the guy ALWAYS got the girl in the end. There was a time when i used to believe that such a situation would happen to me sometime in my life and i'll also get that brown-eyed girl with the most amazing smile in the world.

I think these movies are The Female Chauvinists' way of getting even at the so-callled male dominant world. These movies make the innocent guys (like me) believe in stupid things that would never happen. This makes the girls they fall for behave in the most outrageous ways and then assume that things like that would come out to be all fine and dandy.

But sadly the world, especially this part of the world(also known as India) has people who've never had such experiences in their entire lifetime. Yours truly is a living testimonail of these girls getting rid of guys like me after getting their most essential needs satisfied(may not be the need you've got in mind). But still these experiences have never let me down and am still in search of the brown-eyed-girl.

Hope these movies don't make a mess out of the life some other charming young dude.

Be part of something bigger than yourself

I came across a link some days back while browsing the net. I got the link from a friend in twitter. Its called 1001 rules for my unborn son. Its an awesome source of small tips that a father-to-be is jotting down for his unborn son. The list has reached No. 376 as of today. Each day I've been checking this site for updates. The site has got a tremendous number of rules which many would want their kids to know. Most of these are what one would classify under common-sense. There are some recommended songs for the kid, some wonderful snaps which tell about the world we live in and then there are sprayed in between some lovely quotes; some inspiring, some funny and some outright thought provoking.

Like these

Since the dawn of parking lots, man has sought to fill his gut with food and alcohol in anticipation of watching others exercise. - Homer Simpson

The public has always expected me to be a playboy, and a decent chap never lets his public down. - Errol Flynn

Good clothes open all doors. - Thomas Fuller

You get my point right! One such quote i got from this site was

Be part of something bigger than yourself. - MAJ Doug Zembiec USMC

The quote was from a unheard of Major in the USMC(US Marine Corps). I found it a rather profound statement amidst the funny and comical statements in the list. The link given with the name took me to the website of the Arlington Cemetery which is the burial ground of men killed in action in the US. I was overwhelmed by the writeup given about Maj. Zembiec, which went on to tell about his valour and bravery which earned him the name The Lion of Fallujah a moniker he no doubt earned under fire.

Major Zembiec was killed in action during a Baghdad firefight. He had previously distinguished himself several times on the battlefield – earning a Bronze Star (with the Combat “V”) and two Purple Hearts.H e was, by all accounts, a Marine’s Marine. There are few higher honors one Marine can bestow upon another.



The page had some touching snaps and the write up gave accounts from his subordinates, colleagues and family members.



You can tell a lot about a man by the people who make the effort to attend his funeral. Zembiec was laid to rest in the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. Some 40 of Zembiec’s enlisted men were in attendance – some coming from as far away as Camp Pendleton in California. One Marine officer was quoted as saying “Your men have to follow your orders; they don't have to go to your funeral.”

Also in attendance were some 15 generals in addition to several other active-duty and retired Marine officers. Again, nobody is required to attend these ceremonies. One can tell he had the respect of those he served under, and those he commanded. I found a photo essay tribute to Major Zembiec here.

I was touched by some thoughts Zembiec had jotted down in several notebooks – things he wanted to accomplish, things he wanted to impart unto others. Here’s what was shared with the Washington Post’s Dan Morse:

1. Become the greatest husband and father ever.
2. Be a man of principle. Fight for what you believe in. Keep your word. Live with integrity. Be brave. Believe in something bigger than yourself. Serve your country.
3. Teach. Mentor. Give something back to society. Lead from the front. Conquer your fears. Be a good friend. Be humble and be self-confident.
4. Appreciate your friends and family. Be a leader and not a follower. Be valorous on the field of battle. And take responsibility for your actions.
   

Most of the above quoted lines came under the heading “Principles my father taught me.” Would that we had more fathers imparting such wisdom unto their sons and daughters.

I am remembered these lines from history when people speak about him.

“Day by day, fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it.”
- Thucydides, The Funeral Speech for Pericles


Another touching set of words that made me truly respect this man was a letter he wrote to the mother of a soldier who was killed.

"Your son was killed in action today. Despite intense enemy machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire, your son fought like a lion. He remained in his fighting position until all his wounded comrades could be evacuated from the rooftop they were defending. It was during his courageous defense of his comrades that Aaron was hit by enemy fire.... With the exception of the Marines on Security, every man in the company attended the service. Aaron was respected and admired by every Marine in his company. His death brought tears to my eyes, tears that fell in front of my Marines. I am unashamed of that fact."
- Douglas Zembiec, Captain, U.S. Marine Corps, writing to the mother of Aaron C. Austin, included in Operation Homecoming by Andrew Carroll

This shows his respect for those who serve with him and that is what earned him the praise of men around him. May his soul rest in peace and his tale inspire millions to take up this fight against the horrors of terrorism and other forces of evil.

Don't Let The Memory Of The Brave Drift Away

My 1st Radio Interview

Act 1: Floating in the clouds

Yeah things like this also happen! Thanks to Club FM and RJ Teena(a very good friend of mine) I was the Campus Samurai for the day in the programme Kabadi Kabadi from 5 Pm to 8 Pm. I am sorry that i couldn't blog about it before and let the readers know about it.

OK OK! I think i had enough of the cloud thing, lets get back to the ground.

Act 2: Back on Terra Firma

So now that am back on the ground let me tell what actually happened. Its 10 in the morning and i am woken up from my sleep with a call from an unknown number in my cell. I pick it up and have a lady at the other end asking me if am free later in the day. It took me some seconds to register the fact that it was a good friend of mine and I also remembered that she was working as an RJ in the local FM channel Club FM. She has called me previously to take part in some shows as I was a Malayalee working away from Kerala in those days. The occasions included Vishu when I was on my way back to Trivandrum for voting and celebrating vishu and one another occasion when I was in town .

So she calls and reminds me that yesterday was observed as Reading day and i do remember seeing a news related to this in the papers a few days back. So she says as its reading day they are having a segment in their evening show about various facets of reading in the present world and blogging is one such facet. So I was the only person who had a blog for a long long long time amongst her friends and so LUCKY ME was chosen for the task.

So I was asked a few questions about how and why i began my blog, my sources of inspiration for blogging, the ways to make money through a blog and so on. I was quite happy to answer the questions and in particular mentioned about my 1st acclaimed post(I like to believe it that way). Also about comments being the source of inspiration for someone who blogs and how they're a form of recognition(this is for people who read and run without commenting). I was also asked about my favourite blog and it was none other than poomanam. In addition I also mentioned about Kiruba's blog and also about Hari and the way they've bought domains and are RICHER with the experience they got out of just blogging. Plus my monetisation tips were about Google Adsense and also some other ad earning sources.

After this I frantically messaged all my friends about the show and am sure i increased the number of listeners by ATLEAST 30-40 people.

So thanks to the FM channel I had my 1st 5 minutes of fame. If I could get a recording of the interview I'll post it asap.

PS:While researching about reading day I got two lovely blogs about the day. Read this and this.

It happened to me..

I've been not very active in the online world since last week; the reason being I've been going to duty in B Shift since 15th of this month. It was my last request to my boss as I wanted to sleep peacefully(*till 10 AM) during the last fortnight of my life as maintenance engineer. Ofcourse I can't tell him that I wanted to sleep, so my reason was "To enable better transition of knowledge to the guy who's come in to fill my spot, he should come in general duty(8AM-5PM) and I'll assist him in B shift(2-10PM)". So I was going to the office the last few days with books, newspapers, magazines and what not to keep me busy after 7 PM, as most of the jobs are complete by sundown and even if there are jobs continuing they usually don't require my physical presence at the work site. So I just goto my office(if you remember the pics from previous posts you'd know) and pull out the reading material I brought and go over it. In the last few days thanks to B shift I've managed to read half of "Love in the time of Cholera"; a book I've kept with me for so long, but couldn't get to read. I also took my net browsing thingy to the office and used to sit in the planning office and chat with people/read blogs/scrap on orkut and what not.

Coming to the point, today i was supposed to go in General duty because of the reason that am participating in Mahaquizzer 2009 from Bhubaneshwar and so I have to go in the evening train and stay there overnight. I ofcourse didn't tell my boss about this, the reason I presented before him was that both me and my replacement have our weekly-off's on sunday. So if we both take leave on sunday then no one will look after the plant activities on sunday(*you see plant comes first, even if its a BIG quiz). My boss was happy with my dedication to work even on the last weekend I was working and sanctioned the change of shift without much fuss.

So I was to getup and go at 8 AM to duty today. I was watching 27 Dresses, a romantic comedy, yesterday in HBO past midnight and it was 1 AM when I slept. I setup 2 alarms on my phone and 1 more in my roommate's phone. Today morning I got up hearing the hooter which sounds at the beginning and end of each shift. I was stunned to see that the table clock(a digital clock given free by some supplier as a courtesy gift after a long seminar on bearings) was showing the time as 08:02. I jumped out of my bed and ran to the toilet, didn't bother about other things but started brushing my teeth furiously, cursing Nokia company for making incompetent phones which can't even sound an alarm on time.

I finished brushing in record time of 1 minute 30 seconds and then took my clothes from the hangar and started to put them on, when I realised that my phone doesn't have sufficient battery charge to last the day. So I took the phone over to the charger which was on the table when my eye fell on the clock again. It showed 06:05. I was stunned AGAIN and to verify I checked the clock in my phone, then confirmed by checking my roomie's phone as well.

I cursed myself for this stupidity and was having a good laugh. By this time I was fully dressed and was going to wear my socks. I was laughing for a full minute before I started to undress and go back to bed. I called up a friend and was telling her all this. At first she must've thought "Why is this idiot making me getup this early" and it was clearly evident in her tone. But in the end she too had a good laugh about it and she said she's gonna get up and study. Then I tried my sister, but she conveniently ignored my calls and must be sleeping in her dreamy world now(hugging teddy I gifted her this birthday)

So moral of the story:Don't sleep too late and then get up earlier than you want to, it gives a THROBBING headache.

OMG its 7 AM, I need to go now!

Pagal Post

The below post is something i posted in PaGaLGuY.com in the IIFT final converts forum. Here's the original post link. Felt i should put it in my blog as well.

I personally feel good to have worked too the past 18 months. Coz i came to know a lot of things that i never knew as a fresher. One was regarding my knowledge in my subject and the most important was my skill of dealing with people. I worked(still working) in a chemical factory and there i never got the hi-fi life i dreamed. I dealt with people who're having little or no education but still masters in their craft. I feel its more difficult to deal with such people than with educated people. No offence to them, if they had better conditions when they grew up then am sure they'd have had a better career than me. I was more in the role of a facilitator, a sort of bridge between the top management which didn't deal with these workers directly, but used engineers like me to get the job done. I had lot of tough days, days when i thought why i chose this job instead of the software job i had got in Wipro. Each day i lamented about my decision to come here when some crisis happened in the factory. But then this enabled me to deal with crisis, one after the other over the past year i've learnt how to deal with problems that crop up without any notice. I feel the job has helped me know myself better. I feel more confident taking decisions.

Back in my college days the only such experience i had was when i was coordinator for my college's fest. That's the maximum exposure a small town guy like me could get in his college days. Those days i used to deal with people who're like minded, who're educated like me, who're having the same ideology; and i dealt with a few lakhs of rupees and that was a BIG thing for me back then. In my job i dealt with people who never got any extra incentive for doing a job in the night shift, and it was very very tough motivating them. In their eyes i was someone who earned a lot more than they ever will, just cause i did a few more years in college or school, when they were out earning a living. I dealt with equipment worth crores of rupees. I used to make purchases of machinery worth millions of dollars. I signed bills worth lakhs. I was 1st perturbed by the idea of people my dad's age or more calling me SIR. But i slowly gained their respect and they used to discuss with me more than just their factory problems. I became the young-guy-who-helps. I was invited to each and everyone of their functions, weddings, kids' birthdays and what not. But then I had a nagging boss who made me wanna quit this job each day. Even today while coming for lunch I was asked when i will be going by 4 men. They all had a sadness in their eyes when they spoke to me and had a pride in their face when they said "We'll tell the next batch that comes in that someone went for MBA from this office". I feel good about this fact. I feel good that i worked.

My friends in IIM's and other top colleges who got in the 1st time i wrote CAT were telling me how wrong they were to have entered without job-ex. Some of them struggled to get GREAT JOBS inspite of having excellent acad's(i mean 90+ all thru career), awesome extra currics and sports. I didn't say they didn't get jobs. They did get, but they never get the kind of DREAM jobs we hear about in the papers. So i feel good that i didn't get through any tests in my 1st and 2nd attempts and that i made it to IIFT this year. I hope to have a great 2 years ahead of me with batchmates like you.

Looking forward to it.

PS: This post isn't meant to counter anyone's stand or to demoralise anyone. But i thought i should say this out here.

iResign

Warning: This is a Looooooooooooong post and has a lot of me bitching about my boss and my work life in general. So read when you're in the worst of moods and best of free-time :)

Yes! I resigned from my job today. I had taken leave yesterday to work out on THE perfect resignation letter and searched google and a host of other career websites before getting onto something which was a mix from many good letters I saw. In short i copied from many and used my copy - paste skills to the best. I got to see a variety of letters; funny ones, short ones, to-the-point ones, one-up-your-@$$ ones and what not. I even went to read Satyam's Ramalinga Raju's resignation letter. In the search i found a few good ones too. Like Roosevelt's resignation letter, one-liner resignations, even those with abuses and what not!

One even had BLOGGING as its main theme. Couldn't help but posting it here.



The one-liner's were of the type

Dear Boss,

F**K You

Regards,

XXX

Or the best one i got online was:

MC,

Main Chala.

Tujhe jo ukhaadna hai ukhaad le,

XXX

PS: The above letter can be RIGHTLY understood only if you've a good knowledge of colloquial Hindi, especially what MC means :)


Even though i really wanted to write one like the two above, but finally i settled on what's given below:

To

The Executive Director

IFFCO Paradeep Unit

Through Proper Channel

30^th April 2009

Dear Sir,

Sub: Resignation from the services of IFFCO

I write this letter to tender my official resignation from IFFCO, as Senior Engineer (Mech) in Phosphoric Acid Plant, effective today, 30^st April 2009. I also inform you that I would be completing my one month notice period as required by the company policy.

I do this with a quintessential feeling of regret which is bound to come on leaving a wonderful organization as IFFCO and also with a feeling of joy, borne out of taking a new career path in pursuing higher education, i.e., MBA for the next two years.

My association with IFFCO since December 2007 has been a great learning experience and I am grateful to the entire organization and in particular PAP Staff and Workmen for their unrelenting support and understanding extended to me.

I do affirm of providing all possible assistance in my capacity to ensure a smooth knowledge transition, in keeping with the high standards of IFFCO.

Finally, this is to request you to kindly initiate the exit process so that I might be relieved of my duties by 31^st May 2009. I would like to thank one and all who have been a part of my IFFCO work life and would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to them.

Thanks & Regards,

Yours Truly,

Abhijith B

P No. 109231

Sr Engineer (Mech)

PAP Mechanical

Then in the morning I faced a lot of questions when i walked into my office. My office isn't the kind of office one would expect to get after a engineering degree. Its not the kind that one dreams of, not the greatest view, not the best of AC's, not the plushest of chairs. To cut the crap short i'll just put a pic of my office. Here it is:

A typical site office in a factory, but still not the norm, but a bit off colour. I walked in to see my boss, the chief manager sitting in the blue chair above and the shift engineer sitting in the black chair. Discussing about a breakdown that occurred in my section. I was then assigned the job taking making the pump ready by the evening and then i set about the task of finding what my technicians and workers were doing. Then i assigned various jobs to the people and went to the planning office which is more like an office with the AC, PC and cabins, files and stuff. There I took a print out of the letter I'd typed and marched into my Boss's office and gave it to him. He just glanced through it and was just reading and reading, not even asking me to sit. Well that's his usual style. He never asks me to sit when I go to his office. He quickly fires a lot of words and I scoot before he gets time to think what he said. This time he was just reading and reading. I remembered the words from my senior in the planning office who 1st saw the letter and told me to take a dictionary to my boss who's got a great vocabulary and is the best person when it comes to English, especially due to his Bimaru state background or his crude working culture which he learnt after working in a cement plant for 20 years.

Anyways he just kept on reading and then finally after 3 minutes and 21 seconds he asked me to come back after lunch and get it from him. I went out happily after the deed and then i was expecting to get a serious talk from either my boss, the paandi HOD i've, the GM Maintenance(who's the most vocal spokesperson of my company; about how great an organisation IFFCO is). But none of them seemed to bother that i was quitting my job. They just forwarded the letter to the next higher authority until it reached the Exec Director's table. He is on leave and I'm pretty sure he'd not care two hoots if i leave the company. For him I'm just a resource who planned to quit.

Truth is i feel bad that none of these people value my 18 month long stint in this place. It seems to me now that it was a wrong decision on my part to have taken up this job instead of the Wipro job I had. It is true that I loved some aspects of my job; like the good trips I had thanks to the job, the good times I had in the job, the bad days @ work.

But overall I hoped the people here cared for the work I did. This is the main reason I'm quitting my job, NOBODY appreciates the good things I do here. I feel leaving that my 18 month long work-life in the World's Largest Phosphoric Acid plant was a great experience.

Some snaps from my work life.

Overhauling a pump at 1 AM in the morning isn't something I loved to supervise.

That's SULPHURIC ACID flowing down the pipe, yeah the same H2SO4 you learnt about in school, only that it's 98% concentrated. Burnt a good shirt of mine once.

A gas cutting work under progress in a vessel. Was a fascination when I 1st saw these things.

The 1st thing you'll see when you visit Phos Acid Plant(PAP). It really is the world's largest and will be forever, coz no one's DUMB enough to make a single reactor plant with more than 2500 Metric Tonnes production per day. Mine's 2650 MT per day of 100% Phos acid.

This job will always have a special place in my heart, just like my 1st job. Hope the last month here will be a good time as well.