Namaste London

First weekend in the city. Glorious day; bright, warm, sunny. Will go and check out the various summer sales going on in the city. Only hitch - short on cash before the first stipend payment. But hey, window shopping doesn't cost a penny! And since I've got the monthly travel card made, travel is also free. So, wait there London city, me cometh.

***

First day in office, day filled with form-filling and other stuff. The highlight of the day was the walking tour we had around the office with an official walking tour guide. As the gentleman said - "Every stone has some history in London." Starting with the Roman era, to the great fire of 1666, to the Victorian times - the city is filled with relics and monuments. Of course, we Indians do have lot deeper historical roots, but one has to appreciate the way the Western World preserves its past. Makes me sad to think about all the history spread all over India, ruining & dying slow death.

By the way, death does have some part to play in the history of London. All big monuments are either churches, with big grave yards (tombstones are still there, though all the bodies were exhumed and taken out of the city sometime in 1800's) or have someone important murdered there, after elaborate torture, of course. We saw a square where William Wallace, aka Braveheart, was executed.

[..]On 22 August 1305, following the trial, Wallace was taken from the hall, stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to Smithfield Market. He was hanged, drawn and quartered — strangled by hanging but released while still alive, emasculated, eviscerated and his bowels burnt before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts — at the Elms in Smithfield. His preserved head was placed on a pike atop London Bridge. It was later joined by the heads of his brother, John, and Simon Fraser. His limbs were displayed, separately, in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Aberdeen.

Who the hell used to come up with all that. Yikes! And yeah, the guide told us the executions there were still carried out even after London got the tube in 1860s. So you could actually come using the tube to see an execution. Beat that!

***

First day at the desk - mostly easy. Some stuff to be read and understood. Met almost the entire team. Had lunch at Subway with the two analysts from IIT Delhi. Left early. My manager was not in. London accounts for almost 50% of credit derivatives volume in the world and the volume runs in billion $; sitting on the floor where millions are made and lost was some thrill. Still don't understand many things, but surely this stuff ain't no rocket science!

Eventually got to meet my manager on the next day. Pretty busy and pretty aggressive guy. Heard he joined here after working in Chicago for quite some time. No wonder he is all full of the typical american aggression. Check out the meeting we had recently (all in good humor, mind you. Not really menacing)

Manager: We seriously are f**king around here. What happened to the slide I asked you to do?
Subordinate: Oh yeah. I know I was supposed to do it, but I guess it got lost in the process.
Manager: Yeah. In your world its "lost in process", in my world its called "f**king around!" See basically you f**k around because I am basically a nice guy.

Only if I could get a penny everytime he says f**k, my cash crunch will be solved for a very long time. Almost the entire desk works pretty hard and leaving before 7-8 is kind of stuff hallucinations are made of. Around me, I keep hearing lots of different languages, seeing lots of different colored people. The office is quite cosmopolitan and location wise its in the downtown London, sitting pretty just opposite the London Stock Exchange.

***

The place we (six of us: 3 from IIMC, 2 from A and 1 from B) are staying in is pretty cool too! Full of interesting restaurants (Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, Malaysian, blah blah) and shops, its considered among the better residential areas in London. We of course are staying in the company provided service apartments. The room, although a bit on the smaller side, is sufficient and quite comfortable. Usually I take a 15 minute ride in the tube to reach the office. The morning rush is nothing compared to the rush in Mumbai locals or even Kolkata metro.

So there, the routine is almost set and life is good.

Lasting impressions

My wing at IITB - The Outlaws. The name painted on the wall and the Name-room no.s on left are no longer there.
L-to-R: Me, Dasa, Jha saab, Mamu, Rizvi & Saras

This year it'll be four years since I graduated from IIT Bombay. Time flies. I realized this when I visited the campus back, couple of days back when I was visiting Mumbai to board the flight to London. It was great to have old friends, Nandu & DRS, with me. Torrents of memories rushed back, overwhelming me. Things have changed there, but not much, thankfully.

Bikes are obviously banned inside the campus now and I'm sure people aren't missing them much. I spent my entire 4 years without a bike (I once bought an old bicycle from an auction, but I used that very sparsly during her brief stay of about 2 months in my company) and if anything, it makes you enjoy the long walks. My department's (Comp. Sc & Engg.) old building is now abandoned, due to bad design. It was definitely "different", it boasted of design such that no two walls in the entire building were parallel. I'm sure not what exactly was the problem, but even during our times it had developed couple of cracks. Anyway, the department has now moved to the soulless KReSIT building. They have improved the tennis court; new ones look very sleek and posh, quite an improvement over the old ones. I saw some new shops in the Gulmohar building too.

What made me most happy was the visit to my old room. Hostel 9, room 224. I spent about two and a half years in that room. And it hadn't changed much.

H9-224. Home.
The murals are still preserved by the current resident

The hostel was almost the same too, barring the mess which was Hafeez-Contractor-ized after renovation; but I'm sure even Hafeez can't do much about the "mess" they serve in there! There was a swanky billboard outside the hostel, welcoming people to "Hostel Nine - Pluto." Neat.

Coming back to room, I gathered my guts and knocked the door. The room now belongs to a PhD candidate; I was shocked when he commented - "Oh! So you came to check out the old room. May be the old graffiti." And there it was! My wall. THE wall. Amazing sight! During my days in the room, I had made couple of figures on the wall. I was totally touched watching them still there. The same Popeye & Flintstone smiling back. The present resident told me that he loved them there and made sure that when they paint the walls they don't paint over them. Thank you my friend! Though they painted over the wing's name (Outlaws), but atleast the room still has my impressions.

April Fool's Pranks

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has mentioned some of his favorite April Fool's Pranks in his recent blog. Pretty neat, I say. Reminded me of some of my own pranks. Now, I'm someone who'd go to quite some lengths to play pranks on friends and may I add I have quite some reputation as a prankster. So, here I present my favorite one. It's the biggest prank I pulled off and an act of total brilliance, I say with all the modesty.

I was working as a software engineer with a name big enough to provide me with an SMS gateway, although an US one, but using it I could send SMS to Indian numbers. So one fine day, I sent an SMS to couple of my friends saying - "Congratulations! You are our customer of the month. You winning number is XXXXXXX. Please wait as we'll contact you again to tell you more about your prize. In case of any clarification, please feel free to contact us at ZZZZZZ." The contact number given was my office desk's number. Within minutes, Thakur called in. In fact his call caught me off guard as I hadn't planned it all by then. However, to make it look genuine, I asked his confirmation number & phone number and in my most call-centerish voice I exclaimed - "Oh! You must be Mr. Thakur, our customer of the month!" Thinking on my feet, I gave him two options to choose from, 1) A Laxmi Juicer-mixer-grinder & 2) Rs. 2000/- worth of talktime. He told he'll confirm later. After this call, I dropped emails to his roomies, explaining the situation to them. They chipped in, asking Thakur to go for the mixer.

Next day, I sent him another SMS saying - "As per your instructions, we're giving you the Laxmi Juicer-mixer-grinder. Please collect the same from our office on coming Sunday. Please do not forget to get you previous month's bill." As expected, I received another call from him on the "call-center" number. This time I made one female friend of mine to attend the call, to make it look more genuine. Clearly, Thakur was distressed about the choice forced on him. We asked him to come to the office to sort it out.

The fateful Sunday, I was present at their house. Since the Airtel office was towards my side of the town, I offered to accompany Thakur to the office. Pankaj also came with us. By now Thakur had got the printout of the last month's bill and the congratulatory SMS ready to flash. We reached the office. Pankaj and me stayed out, Thakur went in. The attendant present couldn't comprehend what Thakur was saying and took his mobile to show the SMS to her superiors. Now, I went inside to burst Thakur's bubble.

Priceless! The look on his face said it all!

Withdrawal Symptoms

Ever tried getting down a running bus? Yup, the inertia funda. Physics, class XI, CBSE.

My prolonged stay at home, after the months spent at IIMC, has put me in that kind of situation. When I was always chasing deadlines at IIMC, I would have laughed at someone had he suggested that nothingness can bore you. And yet here I am, toppled into the abyss of deep boredom. Despite the long sleeping hours, longer hours spent in front of the TV, the days just don't get over.

And the mercury is rising too! Its tough to imagine that the day I arrived here I slept in a rajayi. Now its almost imbearable to be out in the sun. The ceiling fan is no longer adequate to beat the heat. Glad that I won't be here to face the worst.

All's not lost tho', all the cricket happening about half the globe away keeps me company. The idleness compels me to listen to the pre-match chat show too, not that it makes me any wiser or happier. Tut-tut, India's out; but still the arena is wide open! My predictions: Semifinalists - Aus, SA, SL and NZ & Dream Final - Aus vs SA with SA claiming the cup. Long way to that though.

And I'm reading again. A lot, by my own standards. Some recommendations -

• A Corner of a Foreign Field - Amazing work about mostly pre-independence history of cricket in India. Even if the WC debacle left a bitter taste in mouth, don't miss this masterpiece, for the love of the game. Hat's off to Guha for doing all the hard work in researching the anecdotes and stories to present in such lucid form! (and if cricket still fancies you, pick Pundits from Pakistan also!)
  
• Above Average - Doesn't dwell too much on the IIT connection. Very interesting, very piquant. Very nostalgic for any IITian, more so for IITD junta (I guess). Its characters reminded me of many lost faces from my IIT days.
• Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan - The story is definitely very thrilling & impressive, though the narration lacks punch. It's told just like a chronological record of facts. Bit drab in parts, still quite enjoyable as a whole.
• Being John Mcenroe - Rather than being just descriptive, this book tries to analyze the reasons behind & effects of John Mcenroe on Tennis. Great insights about the genius and his times.
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Masterpiece! Absolute masterpiece! Would appeal to anyone with slightest bend of mind towards Science & tiniest tinge of curiosity towards Nature. Simply unputdownable.
  
• The IITians - Just started this one. Starts on perhaps a bit too laudatory note, but is building up nicely. Should be a good read.
  

Apart from all this, I've also started reading blogs again. But my BSNL dial-up doesn't allow me to surf much. By the way, till very recent I wasn't aware that you can just put the BSNL phone cable in your laptop, do simple registration once and can start surfing @ ~40 kbps on totally on-use-basis rates! Check out Account free Internet dial up access based on CLI.

All my bags are not yet packed and I'm not yet ready to go, still another week left. But most of my shopping is done, barring some last minute items. Not yet thinking much about the upcoming internship, but I hope it would be interesting time. Reminds me of an ancient Chinese curse - "May you live in interesting times." Hmm, we'll see that.

Couple of things I have to do in London -

1. Watch a cricket match, county-shounty, anything!
2. Watch a soccer match. Some decent clubs whose names I know, hopefully.
3. Visit some typical Irish pubs (just to check out the atmo, Mom!)
4. Buy long-pending lenses for my camera and click loads of pictures.
5. Travel a bit. Bath, Oxford, some coastal towns, perhaps.

Time to hit the bed.

A Rage For Perfection

McEnroe

John McEnroe
"Needed to lose head to play good"

named his autobiography "A Rage For Perfection." As Harsha Bhogle recently quipped in an informal talk here, perhaps he was the only player who needed to lose his head to play better. I'm on hunt for the book, if you find one, don't think twice before dispatching it to me :-)

Anyway, the title got me thinking. Quite recently I've realised something about myself - I don't have the "rage for perfection." This is not to say mediocrity doesn't bother me, but competition surely doesn't. I'm not someone motivated by the vision of the accolades reserved for the highest achiever. Even from the very start, in school, I was never pushed for the first place, by me or by my folks. I was among the toppers, but rarely "the" topper. During my preparation days for JEE, I didn't use to think in "top 10, top 50" terms. Till the results came out, I thought anything in top 500 would be cool. Then in IIT, I let it go loose. Even afterwards, in my job, I never aspired to be the best or whatever. I wasn't bad, mind you :-), just not the best!

Does that mean achievements don't matter to me? My proudest achievement in recent times has been my success (however miniscule) in photography. I started with absolutely no credentials and did reasonably well. Many, many people have looked at my flickr account and praised my work. Nothing makes me more proud! Same for my blog; I started as another anonymous blogger. Now after some 1.5 years, I've got more than 50,000 hits. No mean feat :-) And mostly I have written whatever fancied me. Not for the readers, just for me.

So the way I've explained it to myself is that may be competition doesn't push me, but once I set my eye on some job and if I really enjoy doing it, then I do it well. And so well that, often I would emerge decently placed in the competition!

Just wanted to tell someone.

Kolkata Chapter Begins :-)

This would be the longest stretch when I didn't blog, since I started blogging, but it's like that, and that's the way it is. First I was stranded, disconnected at Jaipur for a while, which now seems like pretty comfortable setting.. sigh. Then, once I touched base at Kolkata, things got hectic, and I didn't have a computer for a while. Now that things have more or less settled and I've bought my self a rather sleek Compaq Presario v3000, it's about time I resume blogging.

First things first, Kolkata and the neighbourhood, looks totally amazing from air, after first few days of showers. From my SpiceJet flight, I was gawking, spellbound, at the marvellous view below.. lush greenery, numerous big & small canals and all! Then we hit the ground (pun intended). Let's just say, for someone new to the city, it's not very tough to not like the city, going by the first impressions. The IIM Calcutta campus is good 90 minutes from the airport! The area neighbouring IIMC, it's called Joka, is rather unimpressive to say the least. However, the campus is breathtaking with its 7 lakes and lush greenery. My hostel room, I found is more comfortable than the room I had in IIT Bombay. It's bigger, better planned and it has a balcony which opens to the patch of jungle behind my hostel. I haven't clicked snaps of the campus, but I intend to do that pretty soon. The downtown Kolkata, essentially Park Street area, is light-years away from the campus and it takes huge effort to make it to there. Till now I've been there only once, and even then it was disappointing as we couldn't catch any movie! The movie buff in me is still very pleased to be here; the LAN is virtually full of movies! My new 250 GB external HDD might getting full to the brim, is looking like a possibility.

The academic load looks manageable. I have five courses, all of them interesting. Especially the Organisational Behaviour course, which has interesting mix of Psychological studies in it, pretty impressive! Then there is Indian Economic and Political History, which is also pretty interesting to study. Midterms are still (just?) 2 weeks away and things are chill (as we say here).

I guess, I'll start with such banal posts; it should take time to get back the flow for blogging :-)

Back to Home

Reached Jaipur on 5th morning. Since then, life has been laid back. Sleeping late, waking up early (!!), going for morning walks and sleeping again after that. Eating a lot and having long siestas during hot afternoons. Lots of TV - cricket & tennis. Soccer should start in some time. Meeting with lost acquaintances, uncles & aunts; explaining everytime what I was doing and what I am going to do. Taking all the insinuations about my marriage & elbow-in-ribs jokes from middle-aged uncles with a straight poker face.

Not all rosy, but closer to it. I'm loving it and praying it to end soon :-) Bundle of contradictions, eh?

Leaving for Calcutta on 23rd. Taking SpiceJet this time, after vowing to never take an Air Deccan flight again. That's a long story, some other time.

Be Good people,
- Varun

Closing the Bangalore Chapter

16^th July, 2003: I reached the company guest house in Jayanagar, wet, tired & hungry. Things could've gone only better from there.

And how well things turned out to be! As the time for me to bid adieu to Bangalore is sneaking close, a mix of melancholy & nostalgia is setting in. When I first came to Bangalore, I was a fresh out of college, wide-eyed kid of 21; tired of scraping my time for the degree & bumbling with anticipation towards the corporate world. Coffee machine & the biscuits in the office pantry excited me, so did the free stationary (I did build up a mini ball pen collection of my own) & the wall-to-wall carpet in the office. I already had some of my closest buddies working in Bangalore then and later on I made many more good ones, at work. Sadly, many of them are no longer in touch. Not everything was as rosy though; coming from the soggy & warm Mumbai to wet & windy Bangalore, messed me up bad and I was in-n-out of viral fever for about one month. Then I guess, I just got used to it. The rains in Bangalore, though no lesser in the vigor, don't last for as long as those in Mumbai and they have assuring surety of schedule, unlike the ill-tempered rains in Mumbai which visit at the most inappropriate hours.

In last three years, Bangalore has given & taught me a lot. I have changed jobs twice since my first company and finally acknowledged that this is perhaps not what I would want to do all my life. The software industry, with all its lures & charms, failed to excite me for long; but it wasn't just the job. I was feeling a bit jaded for a while, by the city, by its people, by the mundane routine. Almost all the people I know in general, have one tiresome similarity - all of them are software guys! And the city, it has perhaps the greatest weather in India, but I think I've had enough of Bangalore. Nothing against the city, but I guess I would relish the change right now. Incidently, Bangalore is the city where I've spent the second longest continuous spell of my life (After Mumbai, where I spent four years of college. So much for being a Jaipuri :-) ). I guess, the wanderer in me is still not ready to settle. At the same time, if Calcutta wouldn't have happened, I guess I would've stayed back in Bangalore for another year or so, and happily. Who knows?

Change comes with a price tag; you need to get out of the comfort zone and go through the ordeal of settling up yet again, in a new rhythm. To accomodate new people, you need to get away from the existing friends; to venture new places you first need to leave the comforts of your home. Ironically, often we seek change to get rid of the monotonous rhythm only. It seems contradictory, but such is life.

There is just less than a week before I fly out of here, and yet the feeling isn't sinking that I'm leaving Bangalore. I guess it would start settling once I leave the city & its heavenly weather, to get roasted in the ruthless Jaipur summers :-) So here's me, off to yet another new city.

Prelude to Hell

All hope abandon, ye who enter here!
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

I'm reading Snapshots from Hell currently and it looks like an interesting book. The very first page quotes Dante, establishing the analogy between life in a prestigious B-School (Stanford in the book) and Hell. I picked this one up expecting insights & musings over Hell as I would be joining IIM Calcutta, another B-School, pretty soon myself. Entering the gates of Hell, so they tell me.

Some of my closest friend just graduated from IIMC and I've discussed with them about life there. We've also got a mailing group active, involving most of my would-be batchmates & few seniors. I've been gathering information, anticipating & gauging all the time. Though I have got a few contradicting bits, mostly what has settled in is -

• It's not going to be easy. No where near the breezer we had in Engineering.
• It's not going to be that tough either. Most important is to strike the right balance.
  
• It's important to learn things, but most important are the grades.
  
• You learn as much or perhaps more outside the class, then in the classroom. This much I understood in my stint at IIT Bombay.
• Finally, it's all about how you sell yourself.
  

These are the starting points I'm taking with me. Back to academia, more matured & experienced this time, hopefully. It's rather tough to not get nostalgic about the last time. I didn't do particularly well in my under-graduate course at IIT Bombay, I think mostly because I didn't apply myself, at all. As per the reputation of B-Schools go, they bury you under so much work, that you don't get many choices. And choices, given to a feckless mind, can sum up to disaster. So it's good in a way.

The feeling of exclusiveness eludes me, again. Exclusiveness, among the peers and not the entire population. The biggest group at IIT Bombay was of Rajasthanis, mainly from Kota, mostly from one particular coaching. I was the member of every big ruck. After finishing B.Tech. I joined one huge software firm and become another bit in the Indian silicon valley. Bangalore made me feel very another-brick-in-the-wall-ish, if I may. I writhed and tried to break the shackles, but I was caged in the jargon & the keywords. I was stamped - "Java/J2EE developer, CSE IITB." And I hated that. Going to IIM Calcutta, things haven't changed much. IIMC has a tradition of admitting engineers in big numbers. The batch of 2006 had 56% engineers plus 28% IITians. My herd is defined, I guess.

There is comfort in groups, they say. Along with comfort, there is conformity & submissiveness. I think we all (taking the refuge of groups, again) yearn our undivided & exclusive spot, in life, in history. Make our mark on the sands of time. Need not be Einstein-like, but we all long to be distinguished from the herd. That, my friends, is the core dream I'm carrying with me to the Joka-land. I might end up taking up the beaten path, lured by the riches & comforts. You never know.

PS: I was travelling for a while, hence the break in blogging. However, I shall leave Bangalore in another week and that would mean another silent period for this blog. Regular blogging shall resume once I reach Calcutta, hopefully.

First week of Photophilic

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Friday, May 12, 2006

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Monday, May 15, 2006

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

My new photoblog, Photophilic, is now one week old. The first week has been quite satisfactory one for me. I got Jha to comment twice, without taking him at gunpoint :-) Though he still have to comment on his own pic, two comments within a week is *huge* success!

I'm trying best to maintain the quality there. Last week I posted some pictures from our recent Ooty trip, some from the Goa trip at the new year's. This week I'm concentrating on portraits. Jha's stunning "Vijay Dinanath Chauhan" pose has already captured the fancy of many. No wonder that picture tops the number-of-comments chart with 12 comments so far :-)

Please take a tour. If you like the stuff, you can always subscribe to the RSS feed, or bookmark it. Keep visiting & commenting on the pictures. Also, please spread the word among your friends and all :-)

Chalo fir,
- Varun

Photophilic is up!

Check it out at Photophilic.blogspot.com. I have copied the template I developed and tested here and started posting pictures. Should you be interested in subscribing to the atom feed, its available here. I have also put up a Creative Commons license, which basically says -

You are free:

• to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
• to make commercial use of the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
• No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Bookmark it, be a regular, keep commenting, yada yada yada. I have decided to not put any tracker or anything there to keep the worries about traffic and all away. Comments would be the only way to know if there's anyone checking the pics out. That doesn't mean I wouldn't advertise it per se :-D. Now you know what would be my status message for coming days ;-).

Though I would try to post daily, I have decided to not compromise on quality for this. That is to say, if someday I don't find any picture worth posting in my stock, I shall give it a skip. Two things, this should keep me clicking more often & secondly, who doesn't like a "quality" photoblog. Of course, I define "quality" here.

Everything set. That leaves us with one question - who's gonna be my model? Send mugshots, fast.

Photophilic

I have designed a template for the new photoblog. Please have a look at Photophilic. Suggestions are most welcome. I have yet to put this into "production" mode, but I'm more or less pleased with the look & all.

And oh, I wanted to name it "Pixellaneous" but sadly that one's taken. "Photophilic" though was my second choice, looks cool to me. Suggestions for the name are also requested.

Update: With everything else, now Photophilic has the functionality implemented to display the image EXIF information when mouse hovers over the image. Just check out the first image by hovering over it. Is that cool or is that cool? B-)

Pixel Blues

Clicked this one at the Leela Palace hotel. I like this frame, mostly because the inclusion of the leaves makes it look like the "God of Small Things" cover design.

It's almost a year since the photography bug bit me hard. I was always interested in clicking, but not really deep into it. It started with the Pune-Bombay trip with Jha & Rg. Jha had bought the beast named Canon Powershot S1 IS and the train journey was just long enough to get me interested in the camera. After that, I clicked a lot using Jha's camera; on weekends, during lunch hours, at nights. I even started a photoblog on blogger and started posting an image daily. The photoblog got reasonable success. Then I bought myself a bigger & better beast - Panasonic DMC Lumix FZ 20. By this time, I was majorly into photography & photoblogs. I learnt mostly using online resources. My first ever entry at the PhotoFriday.com challenge got me a podium finish, but since then I haven't been lucky.

Then something happened I had always feared. Don't know where exactly it started, but I guess sometime around the start of this year, my interest in the art started to wear off. May be it was the job change, the new job demanded a little bit more than the last one, or the pantry in office which made it unnecessary to have the lunch outside, or the rising temperature. I shut down the photoblog and even the uploading at my flickr account (which went pro, courtesy Rg & Jha) reduced to a trickle. I lost the inspiration and my photos stopped to excite me.

Now, I'm pushing myself hard to get going once again. Ooty wasn't a big success, with the bright glaring sun. I went to the good ol' Leela Palace and clicked some good ones. Soon I'll be moving to Calcutta, which is one city that excites many renowned photographers. The IIMC campus is quite picturesque in itself, I'm told. Right time to start it all over again. Thus, I have decided to revive the photoblog. Though I did write some Javascripts to implement some of the essential functionalities (like the "previous" & "next" links), I'm not very happy with the blogger.com photoblog. They're really lagging behind in this, they should provide some decent templates for photobloggers too. But sadly, other than Blogger.com there aren't any free blogging services which provide better support for photoblogging. At least, I haven't came across any. I have to read more about Pixelpost, but AFAIK they need some online space to work with and that would mean doling out some bucks. That wouldn't be the most prudent thing to do before plunging once again into the student life.

So, if you guys come across some easy solution, puhleeeeeez let me know. In the mean time, I'll carry on some experiments with the blogger templates to make it look something as simplistic, yet cool like this or this. And yeah, I'm also kinda looking out for someone who won't mind modeling for me :-D

I Resign

Drafting an appropriate resignation letter can be a headache. You want to sound honest, but not rude. You want to sound polite, but not wishy-washy. It takes a lot of jargon and b*llshit to get the perfect resignation letter.
Right?
Wrong!

Is the resignation letter holding you back from resigning?
Are you googling your nights away for that perfect letter?
Are you begging your friends for that ultimate template?

Voila! Not anymore. Because I-Resign.com is here.
Yes, I-Resign. Say it proudly, say it loudly -- I Resign. Tell your manager, tell the HR -- I Resign.

"But whaaat it eez?"
I-Resign brings you the most suitable templates for all kind of situations. Going for further studies? Leaving for the fatter paycheck? Or even leaving to have a baby? They've got it all covered! Just check out this page. You can even customize the templates according to your details and download the letter as word document!

---

I used the website. Check out the letter-

Dear XXX,

I write to confirm that I am resigning from my position as Software Engineer.

I have decided to realize my professional and personal goals by accepting a formal offer to study for an MBA in IIM Calcutta. This was not an easy decision and took a lot of consideration but I believe it is an exciting step forward and one that I hope you will understand and support.

My contract of employment requires me to work here for a further month from the day I give notice. Hence I request you to release me on June 2nd, which would complete the notice period. Please be assured that I will do all I can to assist in the smooth transfer of my responsibilities before leaving.

I wish both you and YYY every good fortune and I would like to thank you once again for having me as part of your team.

Yours sincerely,

Exquisite! This you won't find on the website. I thank Reshma for this wonderful piece.

LICK-ed

Hold your dirty minds! The IIM results were out on 12th. I was in a train from Mumbai to Kota, Jha called me up to tell me that I made it into IIM Lucknow, Calcutta, Indore & Kozhikode (LICK ;-). Right now I'm at Jaipur. Will reach Bangalore on 16th night. Details later.

chalo then,
- Varun

The DNA Article.

Regulars here would remember that I talked about DNA publishing my photos, in my IIM Calcutta interview. Actually, their editor had contacted me asking for some photos and some inputs on the changing face of Jaipur. Apparently, he got to my blog via Google. So, I provided him with some photos & a write up. I was under the impression that they are interested mainly in the photos.

The article was published on Friday, March 3 (Page 14, DNA Mumbai), but I got hold of the article just now. As it came out, they have published just one of my images, but have given my write up an entire column. Excelente! Here's the article -

Here's the entire page -

IIMC GD/PI

Group Discussion

The group was the biggest I had this year. We were 12 on paper but one person didn't come, so in the end we were 11 around the table. The topic given to us was - "Freedom to choose is freedom to die". The discussion started with the obvious topic of euthanasia and after that people started to interpret the topic in total crazy manner. Bringing China-India, US-India, Rich-Poor and what not angles into discussion. It was peaceful on the whole, but some times few of the group members started to talk simultaneously. Once I tried to pacify them, but gave up soon. They asked me about it in my PI.

After the GD we were asked to summarize the discussion in a minute. My name came up after 8 others, so it was really tough to word it differently so that it doesn't look like I was just copying it. Overall, the GD went not too bad for me (and that was such a relief).

Personal Interview

In my panel there were three persons. All three of them looked like IIM professors to me, but I'm told the panel usually has one established alumni too. Anyway, they never bothered to introduce themselves.

P1: Where do you work, Varun?
Me: {Company}, sir.
P1: Which city?
Me: Bangalore.
P1: You've given the mailing address for Jaipur.
Me: I'm shifting house in some time, that's why.
P1: What are you, single or married?
Me: Single, sir.
P1: Why there aren't any software firms in states like Rajasthan & Gujarat?
Me: {Concentration of quality technical institutes .. Bangalore had them .. Rajasthan is coming up ... Infrastructure is another concern}
P1: That is for Rajasthan, what about Gujarat?
Me: {Lack of good institutes plus Gujarat doesn't has a reputation of being a peaceful state with all riots happening in Ahmedabad}
P1: You are getting good salary here, why do you want to do an MBA?
Me: {Money nakko, value addition mangta hai}
(P3 said "value addition" to P1 and both sniggered)
P1: So what are your plans; to be an investment banker?
Me: {Start a company .. as I have education & experience in software}
P1: Indian companies are losing out on software as the operation costs are rising in India, so why start another software company?
Me: This is a big matter of concern for all software companies. I think Indian companies should start to look out for Indian customers too. With ever-bloating upward mobile middle class with ready access to the internet, the Indian market can get big.
P1: Last thing, why didn't the Birlas enter into software?
Me: They already have this huge empire, so probably they didn't find it necessary {silent question-mark ;-)}
P1: But then, Tata entered into software.
Me: I think Birlas missed the bus. With players like Infosys, TCS, Wipro already in the market, it would be really tough for them to cut it.
P1: They could've bought stakes in Infosys/Wipro.
Me: I don't know, sir.
P1: Coming from Rajasthan, don't you praise the Birlas?
Me: They have done really good job sir. Coming from such background and to make such an empire.
(I'm now handed over to P3. P2 comes back to his seat now.)
P3: You went to Kota for IIT coaching?
Me: Yes sir, I was there for two years. 11^th & 12^th class.
P2: Oh, the famous coaching.
Me: Rather infamous sir {smiles, smiles}
P3: So what do you think about these coaching institutes?
Me: They definitely introduce a bias towards those who can afford their coaching. But then even traditionally all the IITians come from middle-class & upper middle-class. So more or less, it’s the same. It’s like saying that since America can afford to train its athletes better, its unfair advantage to America.
P3: You’ve written that you are interested in photography. Your photos got published in DNA.
Me: DNA was working on an article on Jaipur. I took some photos when I was there last time. I had put them on my website. One of the DNA editors contacted me on email for those photos.
P3: They contacted you?
Me: Yes, sir.
P3: Do you have any photos to show?
Me: No sir. (Should’ve carried some colored printouts :-( )
P3: You also review movies for a website. Which was the last movie you reviewed?
Me: Rang De Basanti, sir. I got busy after that.
P3: Interesting movie. What did you say about that?
Me: While reviewing movies, I usually divide the movie into presentation & content. RDB has excellent presentation but I couldn’t agree with the ending. {Gun is not the solution .. ULFA, Kashmir blah blah..}
P3: If you were to direct the movie, what would’ve been the ending?
Me: We can draw a parallel with movies like Yuva & Sarfarosh, where the solution is sought while staying inside the system. You don’t need to pick up the gun {blah blah}
P3: But RDB was a hit, wasn’t it?
Me: That’s because it was an entertainer, well presented movie.
P3: But the content wasn’t good?
Me: I don’t think Indian audience goes to movie to learn from the movie, they just want to be entertained. We had an very impressive movie – Bawander – on the Bhanwari Devi Rape case. It was a very well made movie, but didn’t do well on the box-office.
P2: You are so passionate about this, I can see that. Why go for an MBA? I mean today you can make good name while working in whatever field you like. AR Rahman is almost as popular as Bill Gates.
Me: Sir, I feel the coming time belong to generalists & not specialists. While I am very passionate about films, I’m also passionate about photography, software and business. I can pursue all of them simultaneously. These will be different aspects of my personality. (Generalist-specialist comment was stuck into my mind for quite some time, glad that I finally used it somewhere ;-)
P2: What do you think about the GD?
Me: I think the main meaning behind the topic was about mercy killing and euthanasia, I think the groups got a little bit too wayward at times.
P2: No, no, you are a presentation & content guy. You are talking about just the content, how was the presentation?
Me: Every aspirant dreads a fish-market GD, this wasn’t a fish market GD. Quite easy-going as everyone got the chance to speak up and make their points.
P2: You tried to stop them, what was that about? You wanted to say something and then stopped.
Me: Sir, that time two of them were speaking at the same time, I thought about stopping them. But then I thought it won’t be appropriate for me to do so. So, I stopped.

I think that was all. They gave my academic certificates’ copies back, but asked me to get the experience letters photo-copied.

Overall, the interview was very easygoing. When I came out of the room, I was glad about it. But later on, clouds of doubt rolled back – percentiles aren’t exactly brilliant, grades aren’t good, etc. etc. So, I’ve stopped thinking about it. Since IIMC started their GD/PIs this week only, the results are expected to come out in the second half of April.

I’m glad that it’s finally over. Now that the ever-nagging thought at the back of my mind, that I should read this and read that for the interviews, is gone I can read and do whatever I want. It didn’t use to stop me even earlier, but the weight of guilt kept piling up. ;-)

Also read:
IIM Lucknow GD/PI
IIM Kozhikode GD/PI
IIM Indore GD/PI

Hi-Five!

(Chatting in office during working hours. Typical day at office)

s.t: ok tell me this...
if u were to see 5 countries(india excluded) and then never get to see anything else, which countries wud these be?
Varun: egypt
south africa
new zealand
russia
aaaaand.....
brazil
Varun: you?
s.t: italy
french polynesian islands...
cambodia ... angkor wat in particular
peru
and the 4th place am not sure....btwn egypt and greece..
Varun: 5th?
s.t: most likely wud be greece

Looks like a tag to me! I tag Pankaj Jain, Himanshu, Vivek Kumar, Raj & Reshma.

IIM Indore GD/PI

IIM Indore has a very elaborate inteview form to be filled. Dreaded questions like "strengths & weakness in acads" & "failures at work place" can give many sleepless nights. Some say they try hard to copy IIM Ahmedabad's interview form. I'm not sure how important these forms are; from what I saw, these forms are mainly used by the interviewers to know more about what to ask. But I'm not sure if an articulately filled form has any edge.

Group Discussion
Each GD group has 7 aspirants in them, so it wasn't over-crowded. We were given a case-study which was about a family. Austen was working with a nationalized bank in Bhopal after doing his MBA. He married Dr.Sneha, who is now earning about 5 times more than him after setting up nice practice in Bhopal. Austen met his batchmates who are working with MNCs and earning much more than him. Without discussing it with Sneha, he takes up the job with an MNC in Mumbai and asks her to come along. In the end, she stayed in Bhopal when he left for Mumbai. Now when their son has done well in CAT, he is retrospecting upon his decision.

Fourteen minutes were a bit too much on this topic. Most of us were done in about 10 minutes. It wasn't a fish-market GD and everyone got ample chances to speak. The points were repeated quite often.

Personal Interview
They had told us that they will call us in random order. My number came after four others. It was a long wait since they were taking about 25-30 minutes per interview. Two professors, P1 & P2, were there for the interview.

P1: Tell me something about yourself in 3 sentances. Ok, 1 minute.
Me: {bak, bak, bak}
P1: You already have two and a half years' experience. In another 2.5 years where do you see yourself?
Me: {Managing a team}
P1: Very typical answer.
(Oh ok.. what about this one - "I see myself at Mars along with five handpicked female specimen, trying to populate the human coloney at Mars")
Me: {Want to open a firm later}
P1: I'm not convinced.
P2: Okay, what's your business model?
Me: Try to do stuff cheaper and maintain the quality. Just like BPO industry.
P2: Don't talk about BPO. We expect more from an IITian.
Me: I feel mobile communication hold immense potential in India. The penetration rose by 30% last year and as the connectivity grows, the businesses around it are likely to grow. Location based services are one example. They can be used effectively in transport industry to track their orders.
P2: But that is already being done in US.
Me: RFID is the upcoming thing. It can be done more effectively using RFID.
P2: What are the limitations with RFID?
Me: Range is one.
P2: What else?
Me: Orientation of the chip?
P2: What about the cost?
Me: As of now they are costly, but Walmart is pushing it hard and as the demand grows the prices are bound to come down. They are aiming for 5 cent chips.
P2: Walmart alone can't do anything.
Me: Walmart has initiated the process. Many others are checking out the RFID technology. Even Kingfisher Airlines are trying to leverage on it.
P2: What's Kingfisher doing with it?
Me: For most of the businesses, RFID is just another hot technology. They are searching for ways they can utilize it.
P1: (Cuts me) Tell me what's your business plan? You have written you want to start a company.
Me: I don't have a business plan ready as of now.
(P1 was neck deep into my grade cards by now)
P1: Why did you have course like IEOR and Linear Optimization?
Me: Computer science is all about optimizing stuff.. blah blah
P1: Can you tell me the optimum way to sort an array?
Me: If we consider the average case..
P1: (Cuts me) Tell me the best way, forget about the average case.
Me: Quick Sort.
P1: Are you sure?
Me: Yes sir.
P1: What's the complexity for Quick Sort?
Me: O(n.lgn).
P1: What kind of algorithm is it?
Me: {divide and sort..recursive}
P1: How does lgn comes into picture? What's the base of the log?
Me: e. It comes from summation of a series.
P1: Do you know about Simplex method?
Me: umm..
P1: What is the basic requirement to find the optimum solution using Simplex?
Me: Atleast some solution must exist (? with a silent question-mark :)
P1: What is this condition called?
Me: Solvability? (?)
P2: You have written about Photography. What's the latest technology in Photography? If you were to suggest someone what would you suggest?
Me: Today the best option is a digital SLR, if you can afford it.
P2: Don't tell me about DSLR. Whats the latest technology?
Me: {Tried telling about this mother of present cameras technology, got cut}
P2: What about signal processing?
Me: (Struggled with the name of charged plate in digital camera which captures the light) That's where this signal processing can be used?
P2: What about histograms?
Me: Yeah. ok, there.
P2: How does an LCD work?
Me: {Pixels}
P2: You are an engineer, I'm an engineer. Explain properly.
P1: You are a recent engineer!
Me: Don't know exactly.
P1: You said you've schooled in 9 different cities. Can you name all 9?
Me: Udaipur, Hanumangarh, Nohar, Anoopgarh, Bikaner, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Jaipur, Karuali, Kota.
P1: What was the difference when you went to Bikaner again?
Me: {First tried to babble about the change in perspective and stuff, got cut} Traffic.
P1: What the GDP of Bikaner? Of Rajasthan? Which state has the highest GDP?
Me: Punjab (?)
P1: Lowest?
Me: I'm not sure could be some state from the seven sister states in North east.
P1: What about Bihar?
Me: Though Bihar has been hit by the political scene in the state, but the area is more so I'm not sure. It could be Bihar.
P2: Do you know about Bimaru States? Which are the Bimaru States?
Me: Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh...umm.
P1: Did you take any coaching for this interview?
Me: I took some mock interviews.
P1: Did they help?
Me: I've taken 2 IIM interviews by now. The pattern is different from what I had practiced.
P1: So it didn't help.
(Both of them laughed at this point)
P2: How did you prepare for this?
Me: I try to keep myself updated with current affairs (was hoping to yak a bit about Mittal-Arcelor stuff).
P2: What did Laloo Prasad Yadav announce lately?
Me: A new shatabdi expresses between Delhi & Agra, fastest in India.
P2: That is already done.
P2: What about online ticketing?
Me: That is functioning for sometime now.
P2: What else?
Me: He abolished cold-drinks and introduced kulhars.
P1: That was long time back.
(Not older than online tickeing!)
P2: What about upgradation of tickets?
Me: Yeah, that.

They offered me chips in the end. People try to read into this giving chips, wishing good-luck, etc. omens. But I'm not sure how hopeful should I be after such a show.

Also read:
IIM Lucknow GD/PI
IIM Kozhikode GD/PI
IIM Calcutta GD/PI

IIM Lucknow GD/PI

(Strange things keep happening to me. The professor who took my interview for IIML last time was here this time too! Thankfully, he was in a different panel. My panel had two professors, one of them works with quantative methods (P1) & the other with agro-business and economics (P2).)

Group Discussion
My GD panel was a very docile bunch of 8 punters. This time IIML is asking aspirants to write a 150 words essay on the same topic, before the start of discussion. They take back the essay before the start of discussion. I guess its some sort of integrity test. The topic was a very general one - "Reading is the best thing solitude can offer" (The professor who announced the topic was really bad at pronunciation; I ended up writing "afford" in the place of "offer" :-). It was a typical garbage-in-garbage-out GD. The discussion never heated up and most of the times we were just repeating our points. It lasted about 15-17 minutes. This time I did the most of "halla" in our panel ;-).

Personal Interview
(I was the second one in my panel, so it didn't take much time after the GD. I was called in by P1)
P1: So, you are a computer engineer?
(Whatever happened to the good ol' "Tell me about yourself"?!)
Me: Yes sir.
P1: Why did your grades drop?
Me: {focus, priorities, yada yada yada}
P1: So you'll do the same thing in IIM.
Me: Sir, I regret that very much and I'm the kind of person who learns from his mistakes. I don't think this time I would commit the same mistake.
P1: You know, an MBA is much rigorous than engineering.
Me: I understand that sir.
P1: What's this? Your grades have been dropping consistently over the years in Engineering. You started with {this} and ended up with {that}. {that} is not good for a computer engineer.
Me: Sir, this pattern is not really uncommon. Basically the first two years have many courses with large class size. So the grades are distributed that way. Later, the grades are distributed between 40 odd people.
P1: Ok, so which subject should I take up for the interview?
(Subject.. shit, going into acads!)
Me: Sir?
P1: Do you want me to question you on your academics or the work experience?
Me: Sir, since the work experience part is more recent, may be you should ask questions on that. You can ask about my hobbies too.
P1: I'm not going to ask about your hobbies.
Me: As you please.
P1: You get X amount here, you might not get the same amount after MBA. Why do you want to do MBA.
Me: I think that shows how committed I'm towards the MBA program. I want to open my firm and {yada yada yada}.
P1: (Cuts me) Its just about the salary. You will start to think along the same lines if you came to IIML.
Me: I've had a look at the placements and I think I'm already getting what an average student from IIM can expect. Still I'm trying hard to get into IIMs because money is not the primary motive for me.
P1: Why don't you do MBA from some other institue?
Me: That, I think, would be a compromise on quality. We all know IIMs are best in the country when it comes to MBA.
P1: This is your misconception. Nothing like that.
Me: {WTF! I want my money back!} (smiled)
P1: {Asked about my company, my work and the software I'm working on}
Me: {Successfully established the fact that even though I work for a fin firm, I don't know much about fin :-D}
(P1 now "handed" me over to P2)
P2: You talked about bad debts. How can a debt go bad?
Me: {bakar-bakar}
P1: What about the credit risk analysis?
Me: Our software doesn't deal with the initiation of debts and since risk analysis is done prior to sanctioning a loan, we don't really come into the picture.
P2: How much do you know in Economics? Did you have any courses in Economics?
Me: We had one basic course in the first year of engineering. So, I'll try my best but if I can't answer your questions, you know why.
P2: If you aren't comfortable with Economics, let's talk about something else.
Me: No sir, test me on Economics.
P2: Whats the difference between GDP at factor cost and GDP at {something else}.
Me: umm..mmmm.. Don't know sir.
P2: What is fiscal policy?
Me: {Some bullshit with some jargon thrown in. Didn't make any sense to even me in the end.}
P2: Microeconomics?
Me: Macroeconomics.
P2: Tell me whatever you know about Economics.
P1: Just say two lines on it.
Me: In recent times we have debates on mainly FDI in retail and disinvestment of PSUs. {Left is this, this is right, blah blah}
P2: What's your stand about FDI in retail?
Me: It will help the customers in the end and help the economy grow. The flip side is that the small retailers will be out of business.
P2: But it will generate massive unemployment.
Me: In the long run it will generate more employment.
P2: What about the small retailers?
Me: There is this concept of "creative distruction". The same thing happened when the cloth mills ran our weavers out of business. But I think government should first think about what is best for consumers and about the workers later.
(This discussion went on for a little while and that was the end of the interview.)

In the end, I feel I did better than my last year's interview with IIML. And since I got a call last year, there are many good reasons to be hopeful. Didn't do too bad either, did I? Things to polish - economics!

Also read:
IIM Kozhikode GD/PI
IIM Indore GD/PI
IIM Calcutta GD/PI