The World Cup – IPL Connect

The world cup victory for India has been a great reason for the whole nation to stand up together and cherish the historic moment that came to us after close to 3 decades. All of us alive and kicking can now claim that we now know how it feels to have won a world cup.  Amidst all these happy conversations and celebrations there were a set of, half educated, multi regional friends sitting together a week post the world cup win sipping their cans of Coca Cola (Brrrrrrrrrrrrr…!!) discussing the world cup win and on going IPL -4 and the connection between these two (if at all their could be one). There obviously have been wide ranges of discussions and arguments across the country as to who we won this world cup for? And who has got us to win this world cup? And who deserves the world cup the most in the country? For reasons more than one. This being the back drop of the conversation lets find out what these friends actually got into.

The Jharkhandi – Tum saala log, all shut up a, tum sab bawle ho gaye ke? iph not phor abar Dhoni, do you think abar team boould have played as a team? It ij hiz leadership skhills thate ghot us the borld cup. Donut phorget the captains knock in the phinal.

The Punjab da sher – Oye puttar, chup ho jao oye! If our launda yubraj not playing so well in all the matches, sadi team would have never won! Chak de patthe, nap ke killi, yuvraj ne khela aur le aaya world cup dilli!!!! Burrrraaaaahh!!

The Delhiite – Bakwaas band karo bae, aiyvain kuch bhi speak ae ja rahe ho! If our Sehwag did not give the team great starts and if our gambhir & virat did not take care of the middle order, none of your guys would have mattered. Aakhir toh sabne rashtrapati bhavan hi aana tha na?!

The Bengali – ami kya bolte ae, our Dada was the one who brought the winning spirit in to Indian kirket, and you jhealous people threw him out of the team? Ah! He is the man who still supported the team from the commentary box nay!

The Marathi – Tusa maila, bluddy north Indians salaa, listen up. From Bollywood to Hollywood, from BSE to NYSE, everything big in our country happens either because of or by a maharashtrian, in this case it was done phor Sachin and bhy Sachin. Jai Maharashtra manus!!

The Madrasi – Ennada rascala, our player played so well, he still wasn’t given many chances, you rascallas discriminating with a tammillah for a weird maliyali, we deserved better treatment. In fact this winning squad was chosen by our own tammillah Srikanth only no? he won a world cup himself &  now selected a winning team! Mind it!!

The Maliyali – You see, our sreesanth had paid the coast of being hit bed(read - bad) in the phirst match by not playing in so many maetchess, see he broght luck to the team in the phinal and he bowled well also no? tell no? now what happened? Poor hard warking phello being thargetthed

The Kaanadica – saaru, wait saaru, our dravid and kumble sacrificed their place in the team for the juniors and our mallya spending so much money, he getting deepika every time to watch the match and keep the fellows entertained. Think saaru, thinnnnk!!

The Hyderabadi Nawab – Kya miiyan, kya bolte tume, humara Andhra se koi player world cup mein ich nai khela miiyan, hume kaiko team mein jagaich nahi diye miiyan! We still contributed to the world cup win miiyan, tume aisa nako karo miiyan. Bawa tum world cup humeinich dedo bawa! 

As this conversation went on, each of these friends realized they now had reached a point where they needed to symbolically decide who actually would take home the honors of being called the key to our world cup win. As the arguments given by each of them were interesting, they couldn’t come to a conclusion as to who deserved to hold the world cup for the nation and that’s when these cricket freaks decided that, any how all 15 members of the world cup squad represent one or the other key cities of the country both demographically and in terms of their IPL side. Therefore they decided to dedicate the world cup to the team (city/state) that wins the IPL as each of these world cup winning players play a key role in the sides they play for in the IPL. And that’s the connect, each of the leading contributor to the world cup win is representing or playing a big role in each of the ten IPL teams. Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni and Yuvraj each of them lead Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai and Pune respectively, while Virat, Sreesanth, Dravid, Chawla and Ishant represent Banglore, Kochi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Hyderabad respectively fighting to claim the world cup for some city or the other that has contributed great cricketers to the country in the build to this world cup win.

No matter how we Indians try to claim supremacy over the other states or regions, we all inherently know, in the hour of need, we are all one. Especially when we tend to take the game of cricket even more passionately than any other thing in the world, that now our players represent any state in the IPL and not necessarily their own! Our divide is just in the talks, not in the hearts and that’s where cricket connects our country better than anything else, be it the world cup or the IPL!

Today’s Favorite Line – The minute you settle for less than you deserve, is the minute you get less than you settled for.

Today’s Favorite Song – Its You (Ryan Cabrera)

The difficulty in being GOD

We humans always tend to ask GOD, why is he so unfair to us all the time, why hasn’t he given us all the things that we wished to have and prayed to him for, and so on, the list goes on. There are some of us who are already grateful to him for what we have and like to thank him for having given us far more than what we deserve.

But have we ever wondered how difficult a job it is to be sitting in the hot seat of ‘The GOD’? He has so many choices for every decision he takes. So many suggestions, requests and recommendations keep pouring in into his office day and night from different corners of the world and he still has to make a decision without being logically wrong, without having to lose his fanfare and more importantly, still providing a point of view that convinces us that his decision was right and the best that could have been pronounced in the given context.

The God has millions of people communicating (praying) with him every moment from different parts of the world asking more or less for the same things and this poor fellow god has to use some random matrix to figure out who out of the current devotee’s should get a wish fulfilled now. For instance at any average moment most of the people who are praying are asking the god for one of these things more often than not.

Happiness (for themselves and their near and dear ones)

Money (or other material things that could be pursued using that money)

Good Health (their own or of some one who isn’t doing well)

Success (last but not the least, be it in terms of business, exams or any other field)

Now the trouble that god is put into in such a situation is by the fact that the population of the world has quadrupled and he has a limited supply of all these things with him at any given point in time. Therefore he uses some complex matrix to figure out how to deal with the current set of prayers and starts by looking at certain basic factors and parameters to take care of the difficult situation.

• He compares and contrasts the level of devotion each of his followers has and based on that he decides who among them would get the desired.
• The next factor that he considers is, who among them has higher patience levels, and so he fulfills the wish of the one whose patience levels are low as he knows the other guys can still persevere.
• He then also considers other factors like, when was the last time he fulfilled a wish of the people in question and so he checks the record books to compare and contrast the details of the wishes fulfilled of the people in consideration.
• Then he looks at the quantum & the kind of wish this time and how eligible is the person to get the desired this time around.
• And then he actually has to refer to his world planner and zoom it to that particular persons position on something like a Google map with a human view, to see, what is that he had actually planned for the person. And then he has to decide whether he would like to change the plan to suit the current prayer of the person or would he still like to continue with the original plan that he had charted out for the person, also depending on other prayers that have connection with the person’s prayer.

This is just a sneak peek into the kind of trouble we humans put god into through our daily prayers and wishes. This is just a partial list of things he has to go through to consider each of our prayers, after also carefully considering the quantum of offerings (bribe in form of nariyals, prasad and cash) we provide every time we pray. That’s why I guess there is a saying in hindi that goes on as “tum ek paisa doge, who das lakh dega” (if you give 1 paise, he will give you ten lakhs) and so we humans pursue the so called donation ritual with or without genuine interest, as this one statement really drives us hard into committing this holy offense (bribery). But what else is the choice that the poor god has, he needs some metric to measure your devotion and reliance on him and this bribery is just one of the small insignificant ways of measuring the same amidst the gigantic difficulties we have put him into, to decide and dictate the course through which every individual has to go through.

If by now, you have understood to an extent, how all your prayers are summing up as a massive problem for god, leading to him, not being able to focus on basic day to day activities and the well being of all the living beings. And how, he instead has to spend so much additional time on attending to all your prayers. And planning to change the course of action if need be depending on the real time data available to him through such prayers and offerings.

Kindly be kind to him and limit your prayers only to very essential things so that you help reducing the ever building pressure on him to perform and you rather let him continue his usual activities for the general welfare of the average living being. So instead of being self centered always and spending all time praying for yourself, seeking all of gods attention, think of rest of the world too, you meany!

P.S – This obviously is in continuation to the periodic god bashing I have been indulging in, looking at things in a rather naïve way and putting them across with certain subtleties which should be taken light heartedly rather than thinking of them as offensive statements or remarks. Most of the things stated above are facts of life, looked at from a different angle all together. Hope, you chuckled at least ones, even if you are furious at me at the end of it!

Today’s Favorite Line – You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. - Rolling Stones

Today’s Favorite Song – Koi Kahe, Kehta Rahe (Dil Chahta Hai)

That Awkward Moment

It was a usual tuesday evening, busy roads, annoying honkers, humid outdoors and a city that was as boring as it could get. Ever. He had just reached his training center, on time as always; he trained aspirants to prepare for aptitude tests as a freelance trainer. He had been doing that for close to a year, he was neither a master at what he was doing, nor did he ever plan to/ think of doing it. Still he was doing just fine, not too good but not too bad also. How could he have known that this was not going to be a usual evening?

As he entered the centre and looked around the place he saw a few newly enrolled students sitting in the waiting area. One of them in the group of 3-4 girls sitting in the waiting area seemed like a familiar face, but not sure of when, where and who, He chose to think about it before trying to approach her to clarify or find out if she recognized him. It had been a while and he still wasn't sure, so he entered the class and decided to get to business instead of breaking his head over who the person was and why did she look so familiar while he wasn't able to recollect how he knew her and what her name was. He was very sure he had seen her many many times but not recently, which should have been months or years ago. But when? Where? He wasn't sure, so he started the proceedings of the class. The girl entered the class too, much to his irritation, as her presence would only lead to, him not being able to concentrate on the class. But he dint have a choice, he had to try and control his wandering brain, which finally gave him a fantabulous idea.

He thought 'how about taking an intro of the whole batch?’ that would automatically get him some details about the girl and would probably get him an answer to the nagging questions running in his mind. So he created an excuse to make all of them introduce themselves, though he was interested only in that one girls intro, not that she was pretty, he dint even want to talk to her or something, the only reason he wished to know about her was to be able to get those annoying questions out of his head. He listened to all of their intro's and tried to act as if he really paid attention, but as much as he would have wanted to have that girls intro first he ended up giving her a turn in the end, the wait was making him impatient, and as the wait came to an end and as she uttered her name, every single question he had in his mind was answered, she kept talking about certain other things but he wasn't paying attention, he already had the complete history of the girl's association with him in front of him, his memory slot finally started working, as if the moment a file name is searched, the computer opens all the folders that contain that name, his brain opened all folders that contained her name and he immediately chuckled in amazement and let the remaining class just be while he started talking to the girl to find out if at least she had recognized him, which she obviously did not and so he quickly uttered a few sentences and names to build the connect and there it was 'The Awkward Moment'

The girl was none other than a batch mate of his, with whom he had prepared for the same aptitude test he was now training aspirants on, for the last one year. They were members of a gang of 6 people who used to prepare for the test together for hours, days and months together 6 years ago, helping each other on each others weaknesses to do well in the most coveted management aptitude test. This girl used to help him to understand a lot of things he dint know about along with the others and today he was standing on the other side of the room teaching the same friend some of the things that he in fact learnt from her. Could there be a situation more awkward in life? He had never felt so nervous while taking a class, not even in his first class, but this was different, he kind of stammered, confidence went down to an all time low, the face expression which should have ideally been ecstatic for having found a friend after half a decade became weird. This friend knew how pathetic his knowledge on the subject he was going to teach was!  He wasn't sure what she was thinking or how she would react but his blood stopped flowing, That 'awkward' moment.

Today’s Favorite Line – ‘Once bitten twice shy’ is a lot better than ‘once shy bitten twice’

Today’s Favorite Song – Tune mere jana

With 'Like' to my Dear Friend Facebook

Dear Facebook,

I am feeling a little weird while writing this letter to you, as I could have simply posted on your wall but I rather chose this way to express my gratitude to you for being such a nice friend to me. It’s been quite some time now since we've become friends studying in the same school ''The school for bored & nothing to doers'', you've been the dearest amongst all my friends so far. I've always fell back on you when ever I’ve felt lonely and bored, you've given me your shoulder to rest on and your wall to post on, when ever I needed either of them. In fact since I've met you I don’t think I've spent as much time with all my other friends put together in comparison to the amount of time I've spent with you.

The time spent with you is not dull or boring even for a moment as you provide innumerable ways for me to entertain myself when with you. I hardly used to have a few friends before I met you, but now my friends list keeps growing everyday, I am glad I have more than 300 friends (thanks to you) now and I can get in touch with them as and when I like to, I can also 'like' or comment on what they have to say or do. It’s nice that I get to spend most of my time with my friends while you are around; you always stay back for me. There's something I need to tell you, I think for what I am today in terms of my social life, all the credit goes to you and your networking skills. None of my other friends have had more than 500 friends at any point in their life but you seem to be universes apart from them as you boost the friendship of 500 million people across the globe, also giving me an opportunity to make as many friends as I like to through you.

Your friendship has had such an effect on my life that I even end up spending more time with you than my girlfriend and even most of the time spent with her is when you are around rather than time alone with her. While you are around I can give her all the fake smiley’s which I ideally wouldn't be able to give her while we are together physically or talking on phone, you've made life so better for me my friend. Now I don't even have to buy her expensive stuff every now and then, I can just do that with you through some applications. And you know what, last night I threw a bottle of champagne on her that made her happy and I also got her, her birthday cake with you and we celebrated it with you cos we were miles away and you my friend made this celebration possible that too with me having to spend nothing, absolutely nothing and for a change she did not crib about it. Now my girl friend doesn't get pissed off even if I don't spend too much time being physically present with her, nor does she mind if I am with my other friends, as I am always in touch with her through your mobile version. We are with one another every moment even as I get to enjoy my freedom like before.

One other thing that makes you an out of the league friend is the fact that you are the richest friend I have and I don't believe I will ever be able to make a richer friend than you. And so I request you to be my friend forever and please don't change ever for the worse like our ex classmate Orkut did just after you joined our school and we became friends. Poor fellow couldn't take the pain of seeing all his friends moving away towards you and got an F in the semester exams leading to his restigation from the school due to relative marking system adopted by the school from that year. He used to be a dear friend once up on a time but as time passed he couldn't keep up with us. All the rest of us grew up in age and maturity while he remained as he was, leading to his name being dropped from the school due to lack of performance and a laid back attitude. It’s nice to see that you are not like him, you give your best in everything you do and are always proactive (suggesting friends, adding features and applications) to stay at the top of things.

I overheard someone last week saying that you are worth $50 Billion today; I haven't had rich friends before so I am not sure how to keep you happy but I try my best to remain in your best books, so, I 'like' everything that you post/like, I share everything that you share and I add all the applications that you add, if that counts (all these things I also do to a lot of other friends, to seek attention, if you know what I mean).

Anyways I just had a few requests (points) to make before I close this letter to you, hope you would consider them in your free time.

1. Why don’t you add a ‘dislike’ option for comments and posts? There are a lot of people who do and say dim-witted stuff and they need to know how the rest of us feel!!
2. Isn’t it stupid when someone likes their own status or comment themselves? Why don’t you disable that kind of an option? It will help save a lot of irritation.
3. Like I said I over heard someone saying you are worth $50 billion and I also know that you don’t have a family per say and we your friends are your only family, as we’ve always been there with you and for you. So when and how do you plan to share your fortunes with us? I don’t think we are being greedy, are we? Aren’t we a crucial reason behind your success and popularity? I just happened to calculate and each of us are worth $100 a piece at this moment, my heartfelt thanks in advance, in case you are planning to write us a check some time.
4. Though you are so rich why do you always dress up in just a blue t-shirt(top) and white pyjamas(bottom)? Are you trying to be a simple person like Warren Buffet or something? Why don’t you get yourself something nice to wear? I know you won’t take anything as a gift from us in real.L (not even a template? :D)
5. Last but not the least, why did you choose to share the information of your friends (us) with third parties? Aren’t you supposed to safe guard our privacy and interests? What if your third world (party) friends misuse our private information? We are not happy with this decision of yours my friend, please reconsider the same, we are not interested in your third world friends, it would be a great feat for us even if we can manage a small fraction of your first world friends.

Hope you agree with me on some of the points above, anyways I just wanted to tell you how important a place you have gained in my life and how you are so different from all my other friends, hope you feel the same way about me too. Please write back soon to me and needless to say, don’t forget to post this letter on your wall and ‘Like’ it on mine.

Best Regards,

Loner

Today’s Favorite Line – Don't be content with Average because average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.

Today’s Favorite Song – More Than a Friend (Michael Learns to Rock)

Ancestral Bubble - Is Now World's Trouble.

The most awaited event of the year 2011 is obviously neither the next release of Rajnikant nor the IPL (not even the cricket world cup for that matter). The year 2011 will be remembered in the history of humanity for a similar but larger feat than the one in the year 1999. In 1999 the world supposedly witnessed the birth of the 6 billionth living human and in late 2011 we are going to witness the birth of the 7 billionth living human (in fact certain agencies are coming up with precise date and time and one lucky person would be given the honor of being the 7 billionth!!). The planet earth is having to bear the load of 7 billion creatures with 5 senses or more and all the nuisance they come up with day in and day out. We have environmental issues, climate change, inflation, poverty, unemployment, greed, ego, racism and a hundred other issues to be taken care of, and as the worlds population increases these problems are only going to increase manifold.

Could we have avoided this situation through some precautionary measures some time in the history of humanity? I guess the answer is yes, if our ancestors would have been rational and practical mainly. If we have such a huge population base today it’s our ancestors who are to be blamed. You must be wondering why am I so anti ancestral?

 Just try and understand the following argument to realize what led to what and why we are in such an awful situation today. Most of our forefathers and the generations that followed have had 5+ children (There are a lot of them I know of who can form a cricket team) and those children have had their own families and then their children their own families and so on. The family tree kept growing, so did the population, without realizing the fact that their actions will lead to serious issues for the generations to come and it would in fact become a threat to their own family members of the future generation.

Now lets just say that our fore fathers were rational and conservative and had control over their actions by limiting the number of children to 2 or 3, at least 40%(a random guesstimate) of the population that the world has been a host to whether living or dead today might have never been there leading to layers of generations later on. And the number 7 billion that we are talking about today would have been a distant dream. All the troubles that we have to go through today would either have been non existent or we would not have been a part of the human species to witness the same. 

Now that we are talking about restraint and family planning, if some of these things would have been put into the heads of our ancestors, may be the world would have been a far better place to live in today.

The question to which I don't seem to discover an answer while thinking about the whole population explosion thing is the rational or logic behind our ancestors wanting to have too many children, what joy did they get? Most of them were neither well off, nor had sufficient resources to take care of their children and their well being. Then why did they have to burden themselves with more people to take care of leading to more expenses and worries there of? As a result of actions of these ancestors that we are talking about a lot of their children remained uneducated, were subjected to child labor, made multiple sacrifices every now and then, always lived for a share in the pie and in some cases lacked proper care and upbringing leading to not so happy lives (this is strictly my assumption, though if this question is raised to any of the elder generations the answer would be totally opposite). 

Did our forefathers not see the population explosion coming up? Were they so well to do that they assumed their earnings would serve the generations to come? I think the answer to the second question is an affirmative No, while to the first one it might be a no or a may be as our forefathers themselves faced lack of resources, so from where did they get a ray of hope that the situation might improve? I guess if they had a chance to go back in time and rewrite their life's story, it would be a completely different tale and state of affairs all together. Anyways now that our futures are in jeopardize, at least may their souls rest in peace. And the ones who are still breathing – "You Two, Ours One"  is the way forward (as the Chennai auto’s convey) i guess.

P.S. – The trigger for this write up was this article on TOI a few days back. The family trees above were made by the author for the purpose of illustration. Only four generations have been shown in the illustration as the author feels a maximum of four generations may only see the light of the day in a century and its sufficient to consider a century in the context being discussed.

Today's Favorite Line - "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Favorite Song - What about now (West Life)

The Gods Must Be Crazy

If you were a conscious middle class consumer or if you have attended a marketing course, you would have realized that we in India have more car brands than say tooth paste brands, though the fact is that there are more people in the country who must be using a tooth paste than the number of people who buy/ travel in a car. Now if this fact has come to you as a surprise, then you'll be astonished to realize the fact that we in India have far more number of GOD brands than any other product or commodity brands and obviously so because the customer base is huge, in fact the largest in this category.

Just start counting the number of gods small or big you pray to, on an average on any given day. I won't be surprised even if you come up with a number that's greater than a dozen. The product god is the most carefully studied, researched and delivered product, or is it? The number of brands of this product must be running in hundreds and in fact certain brands have their own extensions and sub categories. Still there is hardly any cannibalization, actually there is no fear of cannibalization as multiple units/ brands can be used at any point in time, so margins might not really get affected much unless and until there is a huge let down by a brand. And in fact every now and then a lot of new brands are being launched in some part of the country or other. Some reach the masses quickly; others take a little time while certain others prefer to remain in their own territory. Starting a new brand is quite easy as no mega budget is required, just a 2 by 2 feet space and a trick or two would do to get started with. Expansions can be taken care of later as per market conditions and demand, and a large land shall be acquired to open a super center just like Wal-Mart does.

A lot of marketing and business gurus must have been boasting about their discovery of the concepts of segmentation and product family and so on, but they have failed to realize that the gods had (I know that the product god is a man made one, still I would like to stick to god being his own creator in this context) already very consciously done their human study and home work. They had already categorized each one amongst themselves as per their advanced market study, for instance they gave Goddess Lakshmi the money market, and Goddess Saraswati the education industry, lord ram the general welfare and so on. If someone really wants to understand and study supply chain management and channel management, they should take this product as a case study. In India there's no other product which enjoys such kind of a reach, they have multiple centers in every street, in fact they are connected from door to door in every home that too without using social media or a 3G network, not even a discount sale ever! Just some freebies on a regular basis do the trick. Their treasury is the wealthiest one in the world, be it recession or inflation they are always secure, they have hedged all their risk and have no down side loss, they have most prompt payment rate as well, their repayment rate is even higher than that of Grameen Bank.

They get paid in billions on a daily basis for the one and only service rendered by them - HOPE. Quite a price to pay for that four lettered service I guess. We are glad to see the product doing so well, as it can be used for various fund raising and research activities. In fact when the whole world is out of business and unemployed, that's when their demand is at its all time high and the bank balance of all these brands touch new highs. And yet god doesn't give a discount during inflationary periods even after earning extra ordinary returns during other times. I guess like all other products even god is always looking at maximizing their EBITDA and PAT.

Product design and Packaging are key elements of any product or brands success apart from its functionality and other attributes. The product ‘God’ has been designed and packed in a really innovative way across brands that each one stands out for its own specific design. For instance Lord Ganesha has been given a designer nose where as Lord Hanumans mouth does the trick for him. In fact most of these gods have various add ons or applications built in with them in terms of a creature or an instrument, like Lord Krishna has his Chakra that he can spin around as and when he likes, while Jesus has been given a designer cross to rest his back on in a stylish way, and certain goddesses have been given the liberty to use animals as their couch. Each of them have their own customized dress code and accessories specially designed using finest material available. I am just wondering, if they had annual awards ceremony, who would they honor in different categories and who would be in the jury?

The gods must have had a real eureka moment when they thought about entering the human market to provide their services, how would they have known this industry would flourish as much as it is doing in India today? They are a big failure in China, as 90% of the Chinese don't have a religion. The gods must have really gotten crazy while trying to create the blue ocean strategy for the world’s second most populous country and you bet, they have been doing a great job so far, it’s the wealthiest industry in the world today and hopefully will remain so for a long long time. Amen

P.S. - Obviously the title has been inspired by the movie. I do look at the concept of God more firmly as a product than anything else, so most of the things that have been said above are a result of the thought process thereof. Anyways disclaimers are inevitable as usual; this piece was written in a completely fun mood and was to just look at things on a lighter note rather than to make a statement or mockery of these highly followed brands. Hope you understood and enjoyed the attempt at subtle humor. Last but not the least, the names that have been taken were incidental and not deliberate to put some brands above or below some other brands,

Today's Favorite Line - "Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." - Dr. Robert Schuller

Today's Favorite Song -   Aye Khuda (Paatshaala)

The MBA curse

How would it feel if an MBA which was supposed to make the career prospects of an individual better and boost his esteem becomes a curse for him while trying to move ahead in life post the MBA? It is the last thing one would expect out of an MBA. It’s about how the fact that the person being an MBA (or for that matter a post graduate) is used against him in various scenarios, haunting him every now and then. The MBA that was supposed to act like engine oil making the ride easy for a vehicle, at times seems to work like a nail hit punctured tyre making the ride a lot tougher due to the egoistic and other issues around (the ego & other issues acting as a nail).

The MBA in itself is not the curse, but the way a lot of people treat the ones with an MBA starts making the MBA look like the curse. The expectations and the treatment of an MBA vary widely from place to place and person to person depending on what each ones egoistic value is.

Some commonly known ways/situations in which an MBA pays a price for his keen desire to grow fast in life are listed below:- (The first statement in each set is the kind of crap we have to hear and the next one in italics is my response to it)

What? You wanna do business? Then why did you do an MBA? You are supposed to/ made to work, not own! You were trained to be a manager not a businessman/ entrepreneur.

(Now, what the heck!? MBA is just an additional qualification to learn a few things to understand how businesses run and the allied stuff, it certainly isn't insane for an MBA to dream running his own show. Why restrict his domain just to a JOB?)

What? You don't have a job? No one has taken you yet? What's the use of your MBA? 

(Excuse me, if you may please! MBA's don't fall under the NREGA scheme and yet again it’s an educational qualification not a 'make me your slave' certification.)

You can make 20-25K/month anyhow; you said you are an MBA right? Why bother?

(20-25K your ass!! Those 'I don't know anything, so I shall write codes' engineers make that much today, I deserve better don't you think? At least cos I've spent a fortune to get the additional education)

So, now that you've started working, I think you'll tell me what your package is? What? Its not even 25Lakhs?! Then what’s the use of having spent 2 years & close to a million for that god damn degree?

(First of all, for the love of god, try to understand that the article you read in the newspaper about some geek getting placed at an 8 digit package is only about THAT geek, and not about the entire MBA universe. Another point you must understand is the fact that, the geeks who are getting placed at an extravagant package like the one you expected me to, stop living the moment they get placed and start working, and they stop only after they've either been fired(by themselves or by the employer) or have committed suicide due to depression or fatigue. I haven’t planned for any of those so far.)  

 

MBA - Sir, why is my package less than half of the CA, sitting right next to my cubicle while we do the same work & have the same profile?  We also joined together, remember?

BOSS - You see, the CA brings a lot of value to the table, he is a CA & you are just an mba after all!!!

(Holy Crap!! For the last 6 months, I have been teaching him, how to use excel sheet, how to make a PPT and in fact at times how to operate on the computer. And guess what, all the reports that he has sent to you so far have major inputs from me! And he brings more value to the table? Which one? If I stop helping him from tomorrow you'll realize our values, you bitch.)

You MBA's are very bookish, come out of your case study mode buddy, look at the real picture. Stop acting like a student and understand the problem the right way.

(Weren’t you the one who asked a zillion definitions and formulae during my interview while the other panelists were talking about practical stuff?! You forgot how difficult you made my life for that half hour, you loser! And by the way, you were the one who asked me to stick to the basics and take learning’s out of what I learnt during my MBA in the last meeting! Didn’t know that was being bookish!! And just to remind you, you are yourself a visiting faculty at a bschool appreciating the case study mode of looking at the problem always & recommended us to be the change agents in this aspect.)

What do you think should be done about the inflation in terms of the key policy rates? What? You don’t know for sure? Aren’t you an MBA?

(First of all, I am no Montek Singh Ahuwalia or Pranab Mukherji, how am I expected to know better when there are experts in their teams who are hardly able to do anything about it. Secondly I am an MBA, which does not mean, I should be a master of everything, spare me! I told you what ever I knew.)

The MBA is being used as a double edged sword against people like me who want to make it big ( I am not too sure how to define big) in life, at least in terms of doing something phenomenal if not anything else at least. Our knowledge is used to show us, how we can be used as cheap labor and our ambitions are used to take advantage of our financial compulsions. Our qualification is at times used as a tool to decide our fate and more so against our capabilities and intelligence. Every time we try to make a point or a contribution in our own way, we are being shot down by our artillery (The MBA) as a weapon against us, by either putting us too above in the league or throwing us deep down in the ocean to make us feel beaten. Can the world stop trying to beat us and instead understand our capabilities and ambitions instead of creating a counter productive environment like a capitalist state? I agree there are a lot of instances of a lot of MBA are doing better than they deserve, but does that mean that the complete herd is always better off? Lastly, my understanding says, most of us do an MBA for it to work as an insurance policy which could pay off like a long term investment does while it could secure us our careers and job prospects to an extent, so kindly stop cursing us using our own only real asset.

Today’s Favorite Line – "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." - William James

Today’s Favorite Song – Flying without wings (West Life)

From the womb of recession - Class of 2009

The one thing that is really crucial while selecting a b-school for any aspiring management student is its placement record. But for the children of recession, it hardly mattered. They all joined a premier institute at a time (2007) when the economy of the world was doing really well and they hoped it would be in an even better position when they graduate or at least remain the same worst come worst, but no way could it get go down. ‘How could that happen to me’ would have been the thought on any average wannabe MBA’s mind while he/she had joined the course.

And then the so called recession did not hit the bschool located at Nungambakkam alone, nor did it hit the city of Chennai alone, how about the state of Tamilnadu, no? India? We are not yet done my friend! It hit placements of graduates all over the world and no one was spared. Though some of them must have got jobs, decent profiles, so-so pay packages but then thousands of them hardly had a job for a long time while the next batch was slowly getting placed. And if at all they got placed it was may be at a lower band than they usually would have got, and at a pay scale that in no way was comparable to the preceding batches, but no one could help it, we were not the destiny’s children, we were specially chosen to be the recession’s children.

We were the batch that was tested the most for its patience, skill sets, competitive spirit and above all our faith. Luckily, at least at my bschool everyone was placed, if not on day zero, at least in the months after it. But there were thousands of graduates across the globe, who either dint get a job, lot of whom had quit a job to graduate, others gave promotion a slip and so on. But what made this batch born from the womb of recession special was the fact that, they joined a bschool when the markets were at its best and they graduated right when the markets tanked to an all time low, unemployment rates soared like the sun would in the noon and the number of opportunities available were as high as the number of stars you could count on a sunny day.

One instance that stands out on my mind with regard to the placements during the recessionary period was the episode of a top investment bank that was supposed to visit our campus for recruitment on September 18^th and all my batch mates were excited and were preparing really hard to be able to ace the selection process of one of the best investment banks of the world. They prepared so much so that, it felt as if it was the only thing they ever wanted in life. I would have hardly seen them prepare for any other thing the year or so before that. But how could they have known, the company they were aspiring to work for went bust just a day before it was supposed to visit our campus. Yea, you read it right, September 17^th was the day when the Business Line newspaper that we had started reading for quite sometime then to keep ourselves abreast of the business world read, “Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy” as its top headline on its front page. Lots of dreams were shattered, lots of them more or less lost hope, but then some of us who were still out of the trap of the fantasy world of big brand ‘dream company’ realized that what had happened to us, was may be in our best interest. If Lehman would have filed its chapter 11 on a day after it recruited some of us, it would have been a much much bigger shock, cos then it would have been a case of having a job in a company that had ceased to exist. It was far better that we ‘did not have a job’ rather than ‘have a job but not have it’. In fact this was the case with a dozen or more students from a couple of other premier institutes of the country who were recruited by Lehman before it was supposed to come to our campus, I know how difficult it would have been for those children of bankruptcy.

A lot has been discussed, argued and felt about this class of 2009, but what is it that has transpired with respect to these children of recession should be of further interest to the world, as these are the people who had seen both boom and bust at a very young age, in fact even before the start of their career. And I thought this was the best thing to have happened to us, we learnt some of the lessons we would have learnt much later in life, much earlier than a lot of others do. Though its been a painful period of 20 months since we have started working, but we’ve grown up with a lot of learning’s that would take us a long way in the future when may be such a catastrophe hits the world again, we would be prepared far better than the rest of the crowd.

Though at a psychological level we might have had a few advantages and disadvantages over the rest of the management crowd, we have definitely lost out on the monetary quantum and the sense of security standpoint. Lot of us had got job’s on contractual basis and our fates will be decided really soon, we would stand again on the same point as we did 2 years ago, if these companies don’t make us permanent employees. It would again be a period of anxiety & patience, again trying to get a good job and getting settled down with what we would like to do, but boy! its not going to be easy. Though the markets now are doing far better, destiny isn’t always with the lot that in some sense has been rejected (if I am allowed to use that word) by some other corporate.

When we graduated I used to think that the jobs we got are the jobs that were really crucial, as companies wont really recruit in such times unless they really want people to fill certain vacancies, but for certain companies it was just an easy way out to hire cheap than in years of boom may be, though not true in all the cases. The pie chart below would give you an idea about how the class of 2009 has been doing over the course of 20 months since they started working.

It’s clear that close to 70% of them are still with the same company  they started out with, but the fact is, at least a quarter of them are seriously looking out for other opportunities mostly because they aren’t really fond of what they are doing, as a process of which some of them have already changed one job (20%). The remaining 13% who are not working are the ones who have either quit their jobs as they want to pursue something else, including starting some business of their own or a completely different career or may be got married and settled ( you know what that means). Now the question is, is the story similar with other batches who either passed out before or after, I would say more or less YES, but still there are things that this particular batch is going through which others might not have gone through, things that cant really be expressed, but can only be felt.

One thing I firmly believe in and have understood through this whole experience is, destiny’s child or recessions child, as long as things are good make hay, but remember things won’t remain good or bad for ever. The markets have gotten back on track and companies are recruiting astounding number of people this year, breaking all kinds of previous records. Just be patient and give your best, recession or no recession, there is a billion plus population in the country that has to be fed, transported, taken care of and a lot of other services to be provided to. Someone has to do each of these things, so just stay active and you’ll definitely find something that you really deserve. Last thought (or piece of advice you might call it) for all management’s children would be – Stop measuring your success in life based on your CTC, it hardly matters as long as you find something that you would love to do for a large fraction of your life and a management degree is not just a gateway to a seven digit pay check always, it is a great deal more than that, if all of us realize that, it wont matter even if you were from the womb of recession. Let’s stop looking at management education as a platform ticket for the employment station, it’s rather a first class ticket to some of the best learning’s and experiences in life.

P.S. – This post was inspired by views posted in an article on Times of India recently.

Today’s Favorite Line - A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde

Today’s Favorite Song – Pray for me brother (A.R. Rehman)

The Wall – The Best A Team Can Get

Every home has four walls to protect the people living inside, to give them the feeling of being warm and secure from external environment no matter its summer or winter, calm or chaotic outside. We make sure that our wall is as strong and reliable as possible. But the Indian Cricket Team has been so fortunate, that though it has had a lot of other luxuries, though it has had only one WALL to protect itself, but then they never felt the requirement of anything more as THE WALL that they had made sure, performed the role of more than being a solid structure, by saving the team against all countries and conditions.

Lately there have been long and short battles going on between fans of two camps, ‘The Record Holder Camp’ and ‘The Wall Camp’ and the premise of the battle has more or less been pointless, how can you compare two people who have played two completely different roles in a teams success towards becoming a top team from almost no where. While one’s career has been totally to the team, by the team and for the team and the others has been more of to the record book, by the record book and for the record book, it hardly makes any sense to compare the two. My words might sound supportive towards the wall, but that’s also cos I have been a huge fan of him ever since my childhood, while all the other kids used to admire the short guy with tall records, I felt this lean guy with strength to rescue the team from every calamity was more commendable, not that the short guy never saved the team, but if you look at the lean guy’s record in lieu of corresponding situation of the team on a given match day, you shall realize who gave it all for the country each time.

This debate has primarily popped up just because the Indian media, blatantly ignored the fact that THE WALL of the team has reached a milestone that only two other batsmen in the world have achieved and more importantly it also in the joy of celebrating the records of the little master, forgot the more important aspect of the game, winning/ saving the game, which the little master failed miserably at, though he had some control over the situation. The media frenzy has been totally towards a record that we’ve been waiting for quite some time. Taking individuals over team, where did our post match analysis and cribbing go? As per my knowledge and understanding, on most of the occasions when the little master has played a good knock the team has not won! Take each of his knocks and tabulate it with the match result or situation, and you can judge the result for yourself. What’s the use of hitting a ton, when it can’t make my team win? We won’t see Dr. Manmohan Singh as a nice PM, the moment his government fares badly? (Aren’t we doing this already?)

In order to make a few things clear as to why we respect THE WALL so much, I have compiled a set of pointers (including a few individual records) to show how strong the wall has been and how crucial a role he has played as a team player, rather than being a selfish player( no offense meant). Each of these points below conveys how important his contribution was to the success of the team (not the record books). The following points have been compiled using the Wikipedia page of Rahul Dravid.

He is the first and the only batsman to score a century in all ten Test playing nations (The little master can may be emulate this, but not break this one record!)

Dravid has also been involved in more than 80 century partnerships with 18 different partners and has been involved in 19 century partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar - a world record. (Ever heard? partnerships win you matches, centuries don’t!)

Dravid was top run scorer in the 7th World Cup (1999), scoring 461 runs. He is the only Indian to score two back to back 100's in World Cup's. (He was a contender for Man of the Series award, missed it to Lance Klusner, an all-rounder)

Dravid was involved in two of the largest partnerships in ODIs: a 318-run partnership with Sourav Ganguly, the first pair to combine for a 300-run partnership, and then a 331-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, which is the present world record. (Again stood besides these 2 greats of Indian cricket and let them take the lime light in both the occasions, though he was as much a part of the success)

Also, Dravid is the current world record holder for the highest percentage (%) contribution of runs scored in matches won under a single captain, where the captain has won more than 20 Tests. In the 21 Test matches India won under Sourav Ganguly's leadership, Dravid played his part in every single one of those wins, scoring at a record average of 102.84 and piling up an astonishing 2571 runs, with nine hundreds - three of them double-centuries - and ten fifties in 32 innings. He contributed nearly 23% of the total runs scored by India in those 21 matches, which is almost one run out of every four runs the team scored. (I am sure, the little master, could hardly get closer to this, contributing towards teams victory, every time! And we think Sourav Ganguly was a great captain, think of him without THE WALL’s contribution.)

Though primarily a defensive batsman, Dravid has scored 50 not out in 22 balls (Strike Rate-227.27) vs NewZealand in Hydrabad on 15 Nov 2003, second fastest 50 among Indians. Only Ajit Agarkar 67 of 21 balls is faster than Dravid. (Now I heard someone telling me, he is a defensive player. Oh Really?)

After a barren run in Test matches in 2008, Dravid came under increasing media pressure to retire or be dropped. In the Second Test against England in Mohali, he scored 136, putting on a triple-century stand with Gautam Gambhir. (Every player goes through bad patches in his career, but RD responds not by his individual score, but by his contribution to the teams cause. So stop playing god father, let him decide when he wants to retire)

He has been involved in the most century partnerships in Test history – 85, as on 23 Nov 2009. (Now, compare that with the little master’s partnerships, scoring 50 centuries won’t get the team the top slot, staying on in different conditions and making the other player comfortable to play with does!)

Involved in highest partnership made away from home for any wicket for India with vice captain Virender Sehwag of 410 runs vs Pakistan at Lahore in 2006, also, the highest partnership between a captain and the vice captain (Now, that’s a record! Breaking the opposition to pieces)

He is currently 2nd among batsmen who have scored most away runs in Tests (6430 as of April 2009). Only Sachin Tendulkar (7165) has scored more away Test runs. (Obviously the little master is a little ahead, but the difference in the number of innings and years played by both of them is quite significant a reason for the difference.)

He is the fastest batsman in the history of Test cricket to make 9,000 runs. The former Indian captain brought up the landmark in his 176^th innings playing against West Indies in 2006 and broke the earlier record of Brian Lara. (Did someone talk about his consistency?)

Partnering with Tendulkar, has scored more runs than any other pair, excluding opening pairs. They are the 3^rd best in terms of total number of partnership runs scored by a pair in test cricket. (And in majority of these partnerships, his contribution wasn’t acknowledged as much as the media always wanted to talk about the Record Master)

Dravid has faced highest number of deliveries in test cricket, more than Allan Border’s previous record of 27002 deliveries. (Staying there on the crease for the team, saving one side of the wicket when all others fail! If scoring runs is important, in test cricket staying on the crease is even more crucial.)

2nd highest number of fifties in test cricket after Australia's Allan Border (63) and jointly shared with compatriot Sachin Tendulkar (59). (Now, he equals the little master on this record, but again, how many innings of each of them rescued or put the team in a better position? Check!)

Rahul Dravid is the third batsman in the world after compatriot Sachin Tendulkar and Australia's Ricky Ponting to reach the 12000-run milestone in test cricket. (Last but not the least. Personal milestones matter but they don’t make a winner! So we mention it last, no matter whether anyone acknowledges it or not!!)

To conclude, I’d just like to say that, Rahul Wall Dravid is one amongst the BEST TEST PLAYER the World has ever seen. While RD has contributed 20 times towards the teams victory and SRT has contributed 23 times (Courtesy – Mid day Article), look at the ratio of innings played or no. of fifties plus hundreds scored to no. of times it lead to the teams victory and you’ll realize why I put RD above SRT in context of being a better team player, all over the write up. The only reason RD is being compared to SRT is, he is no lesser than SRT if not greater but like I started off, both are a class in themselves, nevertheless team comes over self, always!

P.S – This write up wasn’t intended to compare the two greats, but in the process of compiling facts and thoughts, my mind couldn’t resist answering all those record favoring and ignorant individuals ignoring the security this soldier has given to Indian Cricket for over a decade and a half, always being overshadowed by others and still never expecting acknowledgement. I Salute. I hope this write up would shut a lot of mouths suggesting retirement of RD for ever, its’ his fitness, let him take a call. You Take a Bow!!

Today’s Favorite Line – I'm not offended by what you say. I'm just glad that you're stringing words into sentences now.

Today’s Favorite Song – He could be the one ( Hannah Montana)

Phas Gaya Re Marwadi

It is always perceived to be better to be born in a rich business family, but as a really old saying goes ‘the grass always looks greener on the other side’. I think (out of experience mostly) that it’s a bane in more senses than one to be born in a rich business family (this is not exactly the ‘by experience’ that I am talking about) as it restricts you from being the kind of person you like to be. Though one might argue saying, you have the liberty and the resources that one requires to fulfill his/her aspirations, the reality is generally far from our imagination. How many Marwari’s that you know have gone out of their family’s already existing so called dynastical business empire? And if you are thinking that they dint go beyond cos they dint want to, then may be you are wrong, most of them stick back cos they have to, and they aren’t in a position to question or fight back to fulfill their dreams. Their aspirations get killed just cos they have to keep the family name flying high in the field their fore fathers chose to enter, no matter whether it’s going to work in the future or not.

The family becomes so narrow minded that everything except for what they are involved in seems risky, cos it involves things that they don’t understand, people of the kind whom they have never confronted before and courage that they never had (if they had it, they would have tried their own thing, rather than following their fore fathers just for the sake of it, by killing their own talent), killing genuine talent in other fields generation after generation. It’s known across the country that marwadi’s are known to be businessmen and are known to do well in business, but have we ever given a thought to the fact that how many of them who turned out as these so called good businessmen wanted to be the same? Now just cos they are doing well, we appreciate them and that’s obviously cos of their dedication and hard work, but haven’t they killed their hidden talent in other fields of interest (just in case, this might even mean any other business than the one in which the family is already involved).

At least someone born in a family where the main source of income is from a salary and not from some business, the younger generation always knows that it’s totally in their hands to build a career, to earn a living, to gain some name and respect. An individual can start working on these things with a sense of purpose and direction in mind, though he/ she might have to face a lot of obstacles and lack of resources, but the feeling of fulfillment is always there. But if you take a Marwadi youngster today, more often than not, all the liberties I mentioned above are absent, he/she hardly has a sense of purpose at any point in life, its always filled with if’s and buts (if’s of ‘what if my family wont allow me’, buts of ‘but I really want to do this’) which never get addressed rationally (you can take my word on this one, I can write a book on this subject in fact), there’s never the feeling of fulfillment as the family never lets you do anything on your own, they always want to act like a god father, even if you don’t want one (for hell’s sake, let me get things done for myself, MY WAY!), think of making a name for your self or some respect if at all that’s possible, it always gets over shadowed by the power of money and contacts your family wants to flaunt every now and then, as if you couldn’t do anything without them (now come on, your contacts are not end of the world! I have mine!!).

How does a marwadi youngster make a mark in such an orthodox environment, especially cos he/she has to deal with people who are mostly less educated, past driven, self obsessive, protectionist, conservative and most importantly still doing good in life in their own ways? You can hardly beat them on anything and argue? You better not try if you can’t take irrationality for an answer!

P.S – There are a zillion reasons why it’s a boon to be born in a Marwari business family, I am not ignorant of those luxuries (luxuries always don’t relate to money or status, & I mean it), in fact a lot of these things lead to a better life for a person than in any other community or type of people (FYI, I am not racist, neither do I believe in caste or creed, just making a point). Just wanted to highlight this one bane, that I observe affecting a lot of youngsters including me at this point in time. If you’re wondering why Marwari specific arguments in this one, cos they are the ones whom I represent but hardly seem to understand.

Today’s Favorite Line – Opportunity paged me, tweeted me, linked me, e-mailed me, poked me, faxed me and spammed me... but I was expecting it to knock.

Today’s Favorite Song – So Sick (Ne-Yo)