BCG, it is!

After much wondering, contemplating, suspense and tension - I landed a job with The Boston Consulting Group as an Associate. So in about 6 months time, I shall be in thick of the action!

But on the whole the scene is not good this year, with shadows of both the global slowdown and local blasts resulting in many firms pulling out and hiring less. I wish more of my batchmates get placed real quick, so that the party can begin.

MAssacre!

Every year - the MA 1st sem. course has a few things in common!

1. Students don't really like the way lectures are held!
2. Students seldom realise where epsilons & delta will take them!
3. Its usually the first end-sem and subsequently the first grade of your IIT life!
4. and Most unfortunately, the grades come out before the end of papers!

This year, only 1 in 5 got a BB or above. 1 in 10 flunked the course!
Institute rules suggest that top 1% may be awarded an AP grade - this year than 2% got an AA.

The freshie wings had happiness sucked out of them tonight, with an occasional sob. Students who entered the hostel head and ambitions high, called their parents and got quite an earful! Phew!

Change!

The widget on iGoogle that spouts daily Bush-isms, today underwent a change. While it hardly affects me - in any direct way - am really positive abt. the Obama guy :D !

But amidst all the change, Sachin scores yet another Hundred! His 10th against Australia, alone.

Freudian!

The night is done,
all through which I've been coding;
As a Mtech leaves,
he asks me a really simple thing,
Why should I,
reflexively state third as my year;
Repressed memories,
are something I've begun to fear!!

Ok! Lousy rhyme, but I am terrified as to what is happening to me :((
For the stupid, I am in the fifth year!

Post-Hoc Fallacy

Fact 1: Sangram & SMS have stopped living in the hostel since July
Fact 2: I drained a ball point refill, for the first time in 4 years!

Wall St. Arena

Got this here .

Action Verbs & In-action silences

For all the criticisms heaped on our exam systems, they are pretty objective & unambiguous on what they are looking to grade you on! As a result, every exam (right from Std. 1 to Middle School Scholarship to 10th to JEE) was algorithmic. At worst it was intractable but never was it infeasible.

Real world or as it appears from this juncture, isn't so! Hence I have to Innovate, Initiate, Assess, Execute & otherwise navigate my way through the jungle of Action Verbs - so that I sell to people. Every action in the last few years is looked at, commented upon, evaluated back and forth so often that I wonder whether my entire existence was to stand in good stead on 2 A4 sheets.

I never felt so sold before.

Profit from Enterprise

As the business awareness of my batch rises sharply with every passing day, its worth the time to read Fred L. Kent's engaging letter about Profit from Enterprise. Although a bit long, the letter has an easy flow to it so shouldn't take too long.

I was always pro-profit so the letter just reinforced my thoughts, though I now wonder whether one can generate profit in the 100 person society by:
a) Confidently predicting the availability of water from mathematical models based on reliable factors like rain tomorrow, ground water level etc.,
b) Brokering deals between the cobbler & the tailor on the ratio of the number of good to be exchanged (between the two) as a function of the water in the reservoir 6 months from today,

and so on.

Point being that, it is easy to see the profits as a cut of the common good for the society resulting from a person's enterprise.

I honestly find it hard to see societal good emanating from a & b (futures trading / derivatives etc.)!
Someone enlighten me :D

Disclaimer: Kindly excuse the author for half-baked knowledge and ambitious generalisations.

Blue!

Some times it takes all of 5 mins. for a person to suddenly go from happy to crappy.
I wonder which of the following happened to me today :
1. Vijendar getting only bronze!
2. An evil thing I did, getting undone :P
3. Not meeting a prof. I wanted to meet :-|
4. Not meeting a prof. I didn't want to meet, but should have :(
5. Being forgotten by someone close.
6. Being excluded by someone not-so-close.

Often there is no rationale for telling the truth;
but we still believe in the virtues of virtue & keep fingers crossed for the best!

The first paragraph on Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw starts:

When you finish school and start looking for a full-time job, your experience will, to a large extent, be shaped by prevailing economic conditions. In some years, firms throughout the economy are expanding their production of goods and services, employment is rising, and jobs are easy to find. In other years, firms are cutting back production, employment is declining, and finding a good job takes a long time. Not surprisingly, any college graduate would rather enter the labor force in a year of economic expansion than in a year of economic contraction.

With RBI reining growth estimates -- so much so for the placement season this year!!

Anyway, in another interesting read the authors predict that the reason China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh (inspite of having 43% of global population) won only 6% of the Sydney Olympic Medals has a strong corelation to the fact that the these 4 countries contribute 5% of the Global GDP.
Times have changed: India alone contributes about 2.15% of Global GDP (World Bank 2007 est.), will we win the ~18 medals expected of us?!

I will miss ...

• Waking up with Sangram
• Going to classes with Boss
• Chattering with Ankit
• Lukkha with Chingi / Jhantu
• Sardar ka drama
• Cheema ke Fundae
• Mohta ka kyun
• Bhotica ki cheenkh

As classes start tomorrow, I am at a never before loss of comprehension here. Life might move on, but a part of me is left behind forever....

One Vote!

For all the Pre-JEE single-mindedness; 13th May 2004 is vividly etched in my memory.

Walking down from StarCity Theatre (not that I was watching a movie, thats just where my class was), I passed the returning office of Mumbai Central LokSabha Constituency - Ruparel College. The buzz of LokSabha results was everywhere & by the time, I reached home - I was happy that it was to be the last election I wouldn't vote in.
It wasn't to be. I didn't vote in the Corporation Elections & find all the roads digged up for no apparent reason. No direct implication here but it was high time, ''One Vote Doesn't Count" refrain to stop!

The past 4 years have given me & hordes of students ample reason to cheer and boo the Government of India - be it the YFE Movement regarding reservations in IITs, the recent faculty reservations in IITs, indiscriminate opening of IITs themselves or (on the other side) bold steps to further the cause of (what I believe is) a good Nuclear agreement, a bursting economy that is dishing out some meaty stuff, pretty peaceful & secular 4 years, an aviation sector, a telecom boom, & so on ...

While, all these issues primarily concern the urban middle class - thats the only set of people I expect to be reading this and most unfortunately, thats the set of people I expect to be only reading this. Blogging, lakeside chatter is all good but its high time we take up the only constitutional right that we have - Vote!

Consider this -
Thane is the second largest LS constituency in the country but had a 40.53% voter turnout. Thats like bottom-20 (excluding J & K) among the 543 LS Seats. (Source: Election Commission - LS 2004 - report). If it wasn't good enough, in the 2008 by-polls the turnout was estimated at 26%.
The turnout was equally bad for most other urban centers of this country - Mumbai South (44.2%), Nagpur(48.59%), Pune (47.82%), New Delhi(44.59%), Bangalore(54.26, 49.42%), Madras(45%,47%,49%).
As a result, it is possible to win a LS seat when less than 1 in 4 of the electorate supports your candidature. No wonder we think that the government barely listens to us.

Whatever be your personal agenda - coming LS elections are a good way to get started! But since, we might have them anytime from October 2008 to May 2009, atleast get your self registered as a voter. All it requires is to have a permanent home - I guess we all manage that.

For Maharashtra - This is a good way. Fill out the details & a postman will come to your doorstep to get your signature. [Honestly, I don't know how successfully does this translate into getting your name onto the voters' list - but lets have a little faith.]
Other states would have something similar is my guess.
Whoever reads this, do take this effort for your own self & then for the nation. Do urge others to register as voters asap, the government takes a while :P to get things done.

With my DDP written, I seriously plan to follow up on ways of getting oneself registered & will post back - but in a democracy everyone needs to pitch in. If you know something / someone that can help, do mail me.

A few Links in public interest:
1. http://mumbaicity.gov.in/htmldocs/elintro.htm
2. http://www.agnimumbai.org/ew1.asp

Monsoon Primer

Once a season, rains decides that the city should have a day in. July was ushered with one such.
Its been raining like, well, Bombay - for the past 10 hours or so. (I was warmly tucked in for the 1st 6, though). So after two cups of Coffee, one Bhutta & plenty of getting wet - heres what I did :).

Take a square bit of paper & fold it into a quarter. Well, simple enough.


Take the end with 4 leaves and fold 1 of them to a side and 3 to the other to get something as seen in the second image!


Open up the central region of the design to get a diamond with vertical creases as seen in the next image. Pull the creases to have a boat - that does floats!


Well, while what I might have heaped on you might be KG stuff, its good to practice ones' skills once in a while :P & make your own boat. Once that is done; its great joy to watch your creations go down the drain!:D

Allah ke Bande

I am as secular as the come in a Sena Heartland. Hence, for any pre-IPL cricket fan brought up on the Inzamam-Waqar staple lines of "Inshallah the boys played well!!", it was expected (even if out of place) to hear Kamran Akmal and Sohail Tanvir mouth the standard invocations.

What was an ear-sore was Yusuf Pathan too lauding Allah for everything that went Jaipur's way for the past 5 weeks!! In all honestly, I believe that Yusuf (& bro, Irfan) are lauded and loved by every Indian as much as Yuvraj & Dhoni, in a complete nationalistic passion. I ask anyone who reminds me of the brothers' religion to shut up (it felt pretty much the same for Azhar as well), so I would really like it if they themselves don't remind others of what religion they belong to!

Personal freedom is completely granted, but in view of their home-state and the fact that Jaipur was blasted just a few weeks ago -- it kinda creeped me out!

As an aside, this was really good to hear!

ManU ManU!!

I don't really follow European Football, but somehow end up supporting the Red Devils in each game of theirs I watch. So staying up till this hour was totally worth it, that ManU won at Moscow :-)
But I really feel for John Terry

Clear hai!

I don't know if anyone else noticed it as well, but the air in Bombay was exceptionally clear this weekend. Sprinklings of clouds on the horizon didn't hamper the pleasant sunshine, which along with the clear air made Bombay seem extremely delectable as we could see a long way off. From the IIT - Gandhinagar slope, one could see the whole of New Bombay and much of the mountain ranges beyond.
Pre-monsoon showers eased temperatures as well, making a very comfortable weekend

More the merrier ...

One of the many populists measures of Union Budget 2008 - was the setup another 8 new IITs in states like Bihar, Orrisa, Andhra Pradesh etc...
In another related measure, aiming to provide the IIT education to a wider section of the society; the government also plans to implement the OBC Quota starting this very year.
While the issue of reservations is something I am pretty skeptical about;
unlike many of my friends, I really don't mind setting up more IITs on the pattern of the existing ones.

A simple fact check:
In 1961, when the country had 5 IITs (Kharagpur, Bombay, Chennai, Delhi and Kanpur) its population was 0.44 billion. In 2011, the country's projected population is 1.19 billion. Assuming the same percentage of IITians are as intelligent today as back then, we have a problem.
To guarantee linear increase we need atleast 14 IITs by 2011. Add to that the fact that more people want to graduate as IIT engineers - we need even more IITs.

Its pretty clear that the governments helps IITs much more than any other engineering college. IITs are provided with much better infrastructure implying that every thing else remaining constant - IITs are a better place to learn for an average student than say Dyanba Moje College of Engineering Pune and realistically, a Somaiyya etc.

Now we have to answer a few important questions for ourselves...
1. Are the issues that dog the current IIT system (dedication of students / finding good faculty / students toeing the technical line / serving the country etc.) really just pangs of scaling stuff up?
2. Are insufficiency of seats good enough grounds for denying an AIR ~1000 a degree in CSE B.Tech in any IIT?
3. What is the IIT brand anyway?

I think the answer to first 2 questions a pretty clear NO!!

IIT brand : With 7 IITs at the moment, I hardly think any one rates IITB close to IITG, be it prospective employers or faculty in foreign universities. And just like every market driven phenomenon that corrects itself, if CSE IITG closes higher than Aero IITB on the average -- it means that the prospects after graduating from CSE, IITG are better than those of Aero IITB. Period.

If the overall brand of IITs as we perceive it today goes down, as is pretty possible, it would be time for the older / better IITs to dissociate itself from the others. There is only as much IIT Bombay can / should hope to gain from the IIT brand. Since, it is at the top of the heap now, it makes sense for IITB to make a planned forge of the IITBombay brand. Good foreign companies make a intelligent queue for graduates of only certain IITs (or more specifically - certain departments of certain IITs), even now. They are less driven by the IIT brand created largely by the batches of the 70's (who are big names in '08) and more by their IIT employees in the last decade.
Honestly, in the University of California brand there are 10 distinct identities and while Berkeley is by far the most famous, I genuinely doubt anyone speaks of UC Merced (if you have heard of it) in the same breath as UCB. [UCB was founded way back in 1868, while Merced was founded in 2005 and the others sometime in between.] Something similar can soon happen to IITs as well.

So almost the only thing we lose are the claims of statistically exclusivity / lowest acceptance rates, that newspapers / Asok / CBS love to trump about a lot.
While I agree that there might have been political motivation to pass such resolutions, its still a decently positive move.

Juno

Ever since reading about the movie in this review, I was pretty decided about watching it someday.
The basic setting of the movie (16 yr./8 grade girl gets pregnant after having unprotected sex with a friend) is foreign to us (since 16yr. olds aren't sexually active here). However, its a matter of years before such issues start cropping up around here.
Since whats best about the movie and what made me fall so in love with the movie's easy flow is aptly summed up by the above article, I'll just share the title song. Not only did I catch the lyrics in the very 1st go (which is rare with English numbers) they kinda appealed to me as well ...

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

The Rat Race - III

Its been sometime now -
abt. 2 Yrs. since I spoke of The Rat Race, making it my first blog post.
abt. 100 blog posts since, chronicling the 700+ days.
abt. an yr. since 'An year gone by...'
but its still pretty much a Rat Race - I guess some bloody things never change.

Lord of the Rings!

Sohoni Sir says,

Its so amazing that its almost theology.

about rings.

Studying didn't help, I hope praying will (in today's midsem).

Can a guy & girl be just friends!?

They were strange post-midnight discussions between friends - when we stumbled on the Ladder Theory. Google for it or check out www.intellectualwhores.com .
2 ladders diverged at the first look,
I took one .... & that has made all the difference.

Becky vs Robin ?!

Its not like my life's boring when I don't post on the blog;
but its worth mentioning when half-asleep realization dawns that you have a cute thing in your heart for women newscasters ...
While Melissa Theuriau is a global favorite & Barkha Dutt inspires national awe;
I can't figure out whether I like Rebecca Donaldson or Robin Scherbatsky more.