RaviC last LM lecture

Just to let u all get a glimpse of what classes here are like =) This is 10 mins of the last lecture by one of the more famous proffs here. This guy is known for his ruthless cross questioning and to some extent public emmbarrassement stunts.... though u don't get to see that here, you do get to hear of a reference to a bad incident of it. Enjoy!

Rocking week

Its been 3 weeks! Yes just three weeks of the longest three weeks we have ever experienced. Its been fun! Well last week started with us getting back our first IIM-A quiz results... awesome marks man! A class average of less than 1 on 10 and more than a score of people failed to open their account! Considering it was HR, Ring(Will be referred to by this name in all future posts) commented "Sir this kind of appraisal will bring down morales" and there was thundering applause.
A week with a beginning like that cannot have a dull follow up. On TUesday we had a MAnagement Computing (MC) quiz. There are moments in life which make you repent your past doings.. and well lets say that quiz did leave with some such reflections. With loads of HRM readings and case submissions for the week we had some great study group meetings. TO broaden our perspective we discussed everything from trends in sperm count levels of IBankers to homosexual trends in ....
All set for Operations (OM) we were not disappointed on Wednesday and well lo-and-behold as we did the ritual of checking emails before we left for lunch we had OM Quiz-1 staring at us. The cycle times, capacity and efficiencies of the mess were not on our mind as we went in for lunch desperately trying to make some sense of line balancing (i believe it has something to do with mental imbalances). In general people were quite relaxed coz we had heard that getting a zero sometimes yields a D and not F. Yes assumng worst case scenarios is rather beneficial at times. Well the quiz allowed plenty of room for creativity and I am sure the 280 odd people all came up with different numbers. Its really cool coz no one can discuss answers, or rather wants to....
By thursday we were all becoming pretty immune to the quiz business ora rather itching for more even.. yes its the whole "bring it on" attitude. We just didnt know which one but were pretty sure that our dear insti. wont disappoint us. Yes some of us would have almost felt cheated if we didnt have a week with more than 3 surprise quizzes. In the Econs class on THu. the TA is opening her email to download ppts and there it was .. the email we were all longing for "EA quiz 1". Yes our moment had arrived we were going to have our first hat-trick.. 3 quizzes in a row.. we were going to be not incorporated into the true WIMWI spirit.. there was some masochistic thrill to it all. However, there was uncertainty in this celebratory sense. That afternoon the notice outside the mess wasn't EA, it was a ManAc quiz. We were only marginally disappointed.
Caught in the anchoring trap we all made loads of T-accounts for a simple I/S which didnt require more than one. It was this thing at the back of our minds "maybe suddenly we will have to do a balance sheet too ... "
By thursday evening zonked as we were, we all knew what to expect for friday. Yes that EA quiz. Everyone slogged it out with rem sessions all over the place and everyone who didnt care about grades solving MCQs online ... However, D3 was different. We indulged in 3 rounds of post 6 pm meals. Yes Smokin Jos Pizza, the mess dinner and some parathas, fired rice at 12... In between we tried to study or in my case do some MC questions due for the next day. The brain deadness levels were so awesome tht everyone in the group sat around.. literally staring into space. Hmm .... Considering it was Friday.. a whole week of sleep deprivedness the class looked like a zombie ground. I so would have though of DesCartes had I not been to busy catching a nap in every class. The break time discussions centred around self mutilation ways to stay awake in classes. People had all sorts of marks to show for it. I had mostly slept in between admiring the M.F Hussain like content of the graphs on production. I dont know what all those colorful shapes meant but in my dreamland they were all perfect circles... (yes this place is rather hole-y)
Next was Quants (QM). Not a class one would think of sleeping in. We were discussing applications of linear programming and it was all fne with those equations when i heard my name somewhere in the distance. "You might want to go wash your face, Shruti". Well in the trance state i hadnt heard the first part of that sentence and wasnt sure if i was supposed ot answer something or ... so my response "PArdon" Yes the prof repeated "There is no point in sitting in class like this, go wash your face" I mummbled something in embarrassment and continued sitting coz i knew washing my face wasn't going to work. :Cutting a finger might just have kept me up"... The class had a ball of a time on that.. Everyone took the opportunity to turn around and smile at me , partially in appreciation of the fact that they hadnt been caught sleeping. I managed to stay awake in the EA quiz later that afternoon, though mental activity was...
Oh yes its all in the past. Tomorrow is the start of a new week. Yes more HR cases, EA graphs, MC jokes and maniacal ManAc.... oh week here I come.

Re-orienting

Well to some extent this is also supposed to be two years for me to re-orient myself to my homeland. It might sound slightly presumptous, but I really have been out of touch with the culture of my generation of people. The hostels here are supposed to be a very close group of people, and considering each hostel(dorm) has somewhere between 20-40 people it is practically a family for people in a lot of cases. And well we have our dorm bonding sessions. Details aside, I was partially surprised as to how much westernisation had actually crept onto our value systems. From being a conservative Asian country, we have evolved for the young generation into a slate for the American culture. Okie I already sound a generation apart, but what kind of upset me was that there is too much peer pressure in this westernisation process and a lot of people have gone ahead with things just to be more acceptable and 'cool'. For a lot of people the generation gap with their parents is so wide that they don't have an objective judgement. Yes just about time the society shed its hypocritical conservatism and accepted the reality, else we might lose a lot without realising it until we are hollow from within.
Or is it just me being a mis-fit? We have joked about how indians are vocal people, but in some respects we still stick to our old notions of outward modesty and refuse to let down the facade. I wonder what things will be like in this country 15 years down the line? Maybe we will have to get the Indians who migrated one or tow generations ago, and who held on to the societal values then, to re-establish them :)Oh well then again who really minds the free and open world? Isn't that the dream of perfection?

Orientation

Yes the so called 'initial' phase with its uphill tasks of adapting, surviving, kicking , zonking and dunking is over. I almost miss it now I think. Its hyped as one of the most difficult time one would have to survive, but well maybe because of the hype associated I was a little disappointed. Oh well, I am sure the rest of the term isn't going to be disappointing though in terms of 'burning the midnight oil'. Oh btw this place has a record of not having power failures. The hostel infrastructure is pretty good. You have a 24 hour electricican on service and you can call up the maintenence people and they are very prompt. I would know. Had a new fan in my new room which conked up on the first night and brought the power down with it for my room. I thought it was a power failure initially (well having 24x7 power is almost a rarity in summers in a lot of parts in India). So called the electrician to repair the fan and well it finally got done. The second night however, I woke up due to a functional but very creeky fan. The next day before I could get my fan re-replaced, the tube light also stopped working. As it turned out it was just a loose connection and for now I am fann-ed and lighted.
Oh yeah back to orientation. It was interesting how we were all psyched out initially with all the people in the orientation lectures telling us about lack of sleep, time and the hectic schedules and high standards with very very high consequences in case of failure. A lot of us were left wondering if we had made the right decision by joining an institute known well for its academic rigour and military discipline in some respects. One thing that kept me going was what my brother-in-law had told me "WHat is the worst that can happen?" Though I am sure I am going to have plenty of time to re-think these thoughts as the term progresses.
By now I am a little more familiar with the camous and the people. It doesn't feel so new now, actually all of us have bene saying that time here seems to stretch. Within 3 days of classes all of us had the feeling that we had been here for atleast a few weeks.
The red brick walls have embraced me and vice versa. Its going to be home for the next two years and I think I will love taking walks around this small and green campus. *JUst saw a monkey in the trees. This place also has peacocks, 50 odd species of non-migrating birds and well with the rains plenty of insects...* The view from my basement room windows is also the same and if not for the work this place would remind me of summer holidays from childhood.

WIMWI-the place

My first blog post from WIMWI(Well known Institute of MAnagement in Western India). It has been 13 days since I first stepped into this hallowed campus. This place is more than just an institute of management, it symbolises to many Indians a culmination of dreams, not just of fat pay checks but also of other things (that I will leave upto personal imagination). The first few days were spent in getting circularised around here. Seriously orientation can't be the term. This place is very circular. Well I am speaking literally here. Designed by Loius Kahn, the architecture mystitfies many people and I for one am still getting over it. Red bricks.. not a pretty exterior but somehow a no-nonsense rugged look that I guess in many ways captures the institute's policy too. It is a split level architecture, which means that those of you from Enging., NUS would know how fun it can be. However, Ahmedabad is veyr flat, yes even flatter than the ridges and mounts of Singapore and the campus is on level ground.
When I first came I was placed on the second floor of a hostel, and told that I would have to shift to another room soon. The view from the first room looked rather pleasant.. just nice trees, and a gulmohar tree right outside my window. I was rather dperessed at the prospect of having ot move to basement, thinking I would get no view, feel like I was in a jail. Yes thats another problem I have with this place, The red bricks combined with circular staircases and grills which best fit a jail's decor, this place can give one a 'trapped' feeling.
Well after sleeping for one night on the top floor with a temperature of 40 deg. C, and just a light fan, I was more than happy to accept my fate in the basement of even a prison cell.

TRAPPED

Suddenly yesterday the realisation dawned on me that relationships of any sort have a quality of 'trap' in them. Its something like the

mouse trap we commonly use. You put a bait .. its attractive. Maybe initially the subject is cautious. It moves around, nudges at the bait

a little, or maybe just smells it. Hmm suspicion.. but later the greed, the neccessity, the ease of appeasement of that hunger overcomes

the cautious streak and he goes at the bait. Maybe he doesn't even notice that he is trapped initially and tugs and nibbles. Sometimes he

realises with that first tug at the bait and he can't eat any of it because of the anxiety of being trapped.
Sometimes human relationships are like that. You don't realise how trapped you are in them until you try to step out of them and you

find yourself trapped. You are not neccessarily sorry about that initial nibble or mayeb for that long 'meal' but you are just trapped. Is it

true? Maybe the family unit is the mouse trap you are born into. Since you are in it from the start you don't neccessarily realise that its a

trap at all. Besides you definitely dont recall making a choice of taking that initial nibble. but as you grow with it you fall deeper and

deeper into the trap. For some of us we enjoy the security of this trap. we get used to it and start dreading the fact that this will not stay

forever. To some extent this trap just weakens maybe when we would want it to become stronger or atleast stay the same.
The coming of a new generation is a turnover which shifts the focus in that trap and maybe pulls you in even deeper.
On the other hand the relationships we choose to form, we feel a greater responsibility towards. We miss the trap as the bonds maybe

grow weaker with distance and time.

Letter to the President

I am sure you have been bombarded with countless emails on the recent quota issue. The country is divided, students are protesting and the divide is going to grow worse. The British used the divide and rule policy and we are still suffering the results in the form on Bangladeh and PAkistan. But why are we blind to what it breeds? If there are limited resources and if they are to be preferentially allocated based on no logical criteria, this is a crude joke. I ask the politicians who so strongly believe in the quotas, would they be entirely comfortable going to a doctor from the 'protected' classes, who finished his education in probably 10 years instead of 5 and is at a high post due to the reservations in promotions too? I am not blaming the doctor, but the fact that our basic education system is in shambles. When we believe in education for all, why don't we make the education better? Why don't we stick to education for all? Why should some people be preferred in education? Our very own neighbour Sri Lanka also believes in helping people who are not as fortunate, but there reservations in universities are based on the edcuational opportunities available to the person and not on the caste, creed or race they belong to. The question is not whether weaker sections should be protected. We are a socialist society and it makes sense to, but is caste the criteria? Can we pretend to right the wrongs of the past by making more wrongs in the present?

HiGh

Am just back after drinks with friends and well didn't drink that much but very awake and slightly slightly high! Today has been about the butterfly in play! A look that I exchanged with my friend that basically brought about a whole lot of 'action' in the life of some other friends! Two people come together and it always starts with some uncertainty and no one likes to make it official initially. Hmm not sure if its a fear of jinxing it or just unwillingness to be teased or ... But yeah so people go to some lenghts to keep it hush hush and obviously it never works (.. spider crawling on my comp screen, almost looks like its reading what's up on this blog which I expect to be very quiet mostly!) Well so was the case here and since that glance made them feel their game was up the people in question had to let it out... Well and it resulted in an evening we had not expected until it really started. Went ot see a friend in her wedding gown since I might not be able to attend her wedding.. (*Sigh really wanted to .. first wedding of a close friend in Singapore) Its really a very smooth step for her really... you date a guy for 4 years, meet the parents, register your marriage.. get to know parents better and have a wedding ... It is also really cool how they have taken it matter of factly. There is the excitement and I am sure there are going ot be last minute jitters but it all seems so settled and planned. Am really glad for them. Wonder if something will change after the wedding.. Will we still hang out as much? Its also cool if both parties have a bunch of common friends. Makes it easier to not go aloof I think..
Long discussions on relationships, sex and expectations entailed... My head is hurting a little from all that listening and maybe the drinks... bed beckons!
Life is unpredictable-not just in the ups and downs but even in the in-betweens. Just that the ups and downs surprise us or maybe make us more uncomfortable so we rememeber them.. but appreciating the in-betweens moving fast probably makes the troughs and crests smoother.

Bolts or Flashes

I have been wanting to start a blog on blogger for a really really long time now. Somehow forgot my username and password I think and kept going in circles since all usernames that I could come up with were taken up(total lack of imagination!). Oh here I am finally and it is not for procastination that I Write. Just back from a trip to the registrar's office and I can hear the thunder outside. Eeverything makes sense in context...but right now I am trying to arguing with myself - "bolts or flashes"- that rumbling sound that can startle or scare, is in your face even if you are shut in a room with no windows(=my office) but a lot less harmful really. Flashes: strong and pretty, easier to ignore if you are shut out but a lot more dangerous. To some extent life is similar ... there are both bolts and flashes-sometimes we get intimidated by the thunder or blinded by the lightning, though they migh tnot neccessarily follow each other. However identifying the two is crucial to survival.