Finally some good news....made it to the prestigious Henry Fund for 2009.
On my way to be an equity analyst. Only time will tell If I like it or not, but time for me to bask in the sun and brace myself for starting my CFA.....
More from time at school a little later...maybe after my finals which start in 10 days time...
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Lost in the maze
Couple of hours of sleep a day....
Un-ending stream of assignments, presentations and case-studies...
Holidays without any breaks...
Key moments in mh life...determining my future path...occurring everyday..
Roller-coaster ride of emotions...but not a spare moment to contemplate and think...
A thanksgiving break..without any break...
Results...
Faith...Love...disappointments....expectations...LOST IN THE MAZE OF BUSINESS SCHOOL....
Life in business school....rocks!!
Un-ending stream of assignments, presentations and case-studies...
Holidays without any breaks...
Key moments in mh life...determining my future path...occurring everyday..
Roller-coaster ride of emotions...but not a spare moment to contemplate and think...
A thanksgiving break..without any break...
Results...
Faith...Love...disappointments....expectations...LOST IN THE MAZE OF BUSINESS SCHOOL....
Life in business school....rocks!!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Post mid-terms and the Oracle of Omaha
Sorry for the mini-sabbatical from blogging
mid terms are finally over....marketing was a disaster...the rest went well...with Corporate Finance being my strongest subject....
made a key career choice of switching from investments to corporate finance...
NSHMBA in Atlanta was an eye opener...as was the interview with EnY....
met one Mr.Warren Buffet as well....
the student body elections went fine..got elected as the VP of International Relations.....
the journey continues....
mre in subsequent posts
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Musings from Iowa city
The last month has been a blur....surprisingly all my life changing events have been blurred when I have been in the middle of them.
The travel from Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminal, the stop at Frankfurt and finally the excruciatingly painful wait at the Chicago airport...
The B-School experience so far has not been disappointing....but time will tell whether it goes onto become all that I expect it to be...
So far....numerous stories to tell....but the best was the coolest version of vannkam I heard from a fellow Indian student who decided to morph into an American as soon as he landed in the United States for his MBA...the version was - "wannacum"....yes u read it right...and his target audience was in splits once he was done with the american rendition of the tamil greeting.....
other than that..what has really been worth writing abotu has been my roomies persistant efforts to bag an american girl for himself..the efforts have been truly classically worth putitng on tape...oh how i wish i had a vidoe cam to record all his comical attempts to exude his cool-ness...puts me in splits even whn i think of it right now..:)))..
adios for now...more coming up in a soon...
The travel from Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminal, the stop at Frankfurt and finally the excruciatingly painful wait at the Chicago airport...
The B-School experience so far has not been disappointing....but time will tell whether it goes onto become all that I expect it to be...
So far....numerous stories to tell....but the best was the coolest version of vannkam I heard from a fellow Indian student who decided to morph into an American as soon as he landed in the United States for his MBA...the version was - "wannacum"....yes u read it right...and his target audience was in splits once he was done with the american rendition of the tamil greeting.....
other than that..what has really been worth writing abotu has been my roomies persistant efforts to bag an american girl for himself..the efforts have been truly classically worth putitng on tape...oh how i wish i had a vidoe cam to record all his comical attempts to exude his cool-ness...puts me in splits even whn i think of it right now..:)))..
adios for now...more coming up in a soon...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Crossroads..yet again
Yet again, its time for me to pack my bags, move onto another city. My nomadic existence persists. But this time its for an unfulfilled dream. Over the course of the last six years, I have sacrificed a lot for my dream, a dream that seemed to be slipping away. But for the first time, the mirage seems to be morphing into reality. Hopefully what I yearn for enables me to forget what I can't or couldn't acheive. Hopefully, GOD willing, the personal sacrifices will bear fruit professionally.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Perfect Shot
Arijit stood in line at the US Consulate. The sun was beating down with all its intensity. The new cotton shirt stuck to his skin. But Arijit was oblivious to the heat. He felt as light as a bird. As the sound track rose to a crescendo on his mp3 player, Poltu, as Arijit’s friends preferred to call him, tapped his shoes on the pavement ever so slightly.
It was a hot Saturday afternoon as Arijit skipped across Shakespeare Sarani. His dreams were about to be realized.
The hard cricket ball thudded into his pads. Arijit cursed under his breath. Swarnendu Sir would beat the hell out of him if he would see him cursing when he was on the cricket field or during practice. The bat swing wasn’t proper. It just didn’t feel right. The under edge thankfully crashed onto his left pad, or else it was curtains for him during the net practice. Arijit took his stance again, the next ball was short again and as he pivoted on his right leg and brought his bat down in the arc that he had shadow practiced for hours, the ball kissed the top edge of his bat and flew to where fine leg would have been.
Swarnendu sir shook his head, visibly angry with Poltu’s feeble attempt at the pull, he asked him to take of his protective head gear so that he can get the balance right. The trick worked momentarily till tragedy struck. Relatively comfortable without the helmet, Poltu struck the ball neatly in the direction of mid-on perfectly in position while playing the shot, his head completely still. But he just felt that his left shoulder should move more towards square leg. Rahul’s next ball was in the slot of the pull through mid-on, but Arijit’s swivel ensured he missed the line of the ball and the red cherry struck him above his right ear, cutting his ear and thudding into his skull.
Swarnendu sir froze as Poltu slumped to the floor, by the time he was beside Poltu’s still body, Poltu’s split ear was bleeding profusely. The ambulance arrived at the Deshbandhu cricket academy within fifteen minutes. Poltu was rushed to ESI hospital. The CAT scan showed a hairline skull fracture.
The blow to Poltu’s head caused more damage than Poltu had realized. His cricketing career was cut short at the insistence of his parents and relatives. Swarnendu sir came to visit him once during his stay at the hospital ruffled Poltu’s hair, eked out a meek smile before leaving. Poltu had never seen sir emotional but that afternoon in the ICU of ESI hospital the middle aged cricket coach had indeed shed a tear. He had lost a prospective India cap to the Bengali middle-class grind and a freak accident.
The crowd at Kolkata international airport was thin in the wee hours of the morning. Arijit flipped through the pages of a cricket magazine. He looked at the full size picture of Rahul and an article on the newest fast bowling sensation of Indian cricket. Arijit felt his stomach churn a little, he recollected those sessions where he would knock Rahul all over the park at Swarnendu sir’s cricket nets after school.
Arijit looked at his luggage fondly; his life had taken a different turn after that fateful blow five years ago. Arijit hit his books with a vengeance once he was discharged from hospital, bringing all his competitive spirit into his academic career. He managed to get into one the most reputed engineering colleges. After which he just felt that he needed to do more. God had benevolent thought Arijit. He had never imagined that master’s from an US university was an achievable dream, but there he was, waiting for his flight which would take him across seven seas to a land where cricket was an unknown game. Arijit chuckled to himself as he contemplated taking interest in baseball. He could never give up his second love, cricket, the first being Ria.
Arijit saw her for the first time when he had gone to Swarnendu sir’s home to tell him about his admission to Jadavpur University. Arijit had seen Ria when she was a kid, but she had blossomed into a very pretty young girl. She brought out Arijit’s cup of tea as he sat talking to Swarnendu sir, Swarnendu sir was talking about Rahul’s magic ball to Sachin during the Ranji semi-final at Eden Gardens. Sir was sure that that ball was Rahul’s ticket for a call up to the under nineteen team scheduled to tour Australia during the summer. Ria kept the tray on the table in front of Arijit and looked up to him. His heart skipped a beat. He had never seen someone as beautiful as her in his life. Quickly he turned his face away, conscious that sir might notice.
As he was about leave, Ria came up and rushed up to sir and whispered something into his ear. Sir laughed and asked Arijit if he could manage to get Ria some passes to the fest at Jadavpur University’s up coming fest, her favorite local band was slated to perform at the event. Arijit promised to do the same.
The next time Arijit saw her was at the fest, swaying to the music of her favorite band at the fest. She had worn an orange salwar kameez; her hair was tucked behind her ears. Arijit stood close to her in the crowd. He could her smell her perfume. His senses clogged.
Ria liked Arijit the first day she saw him and the liking soon turned to a lot more. Especially after Arijit wanted to drop her home the day she went to his college for the fest.
This was his first time on an aircraft. Arijit got on to the American Airlines flight looked at the air hostess. They did look like those pictures he had just seen in one of the magazines. Keeping his luggage inside the overhead luggage cabin, Arijit sat down. Now he could read it. Ria had given him a letter and had instructed him to read it only when he had boarded the flight. There were seven pages on that letter, Arijit smiled, it was just like her. He noticed the last two pages just had “I Love You” written on it with a note at the bottom saying – “For all those times when I thought about it and didn’t tell you”.
Arijit unwittingly said “I love you too” aloud and then realized what he had done. Conscious of his mistake he looked at his neighbor on the flight. The bearded gentleman was looking at him suspiciously. Arijit mumbled something about his girlfriend’s letter but the gentleman didn’t seem interested and turned his face away.
Arijit went back to his letter. Ria had gone on and on about how she would miss him and how she wanted him to come back during his winter breaks. She wanted him to speak to Swarnendu sir that winter. Arijit closed his eyes, Ria really did love him. “U lucky bastard”, thought Arijit as he closed his eyes.
The blood was oozing out of his left wrist. He was curled up next to the restroom door. He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. His co-passenger along with some other equally burly men was shouting in an Arabic dialect at the passengers and the crew, hurling them to one end of the aircraft. Arijit looked all around him. The passengers and the crew were in shock. It had hardly been thirty minutes since the flight had taken off. Arijit had stumbled over one of the passengers in the mini-stampede and stumbled on one of the hijackers which had prompted him to strike at Arijit with his knife.
The passengers were being boarded of the hijacked aircraft. The television reporter managed to get her hands on one of the airline carrier’s officials. This was the biggest story in a while and the correspondent didn’t want to miss out on the chance to cash in. The correspondent started quizzing the official on the turn of events inside the flight, the attempted hijack and the crew and passengers over-powering the hijackers.
Swarnendu sir switched on his television set. The news of the hijack flashed on all the news channels. The cup of tea in his hand fell as he heard an airlines official talk about the brave young man who had attacked one of the hijackers with an iron rod that he had snatched from another hijacker. The airlines official described how the crew had told him that the young Indian gentleman had swiveled on his left leg and crunched the rod into the skull of the hijacker.
Arijit had hit the perfect pull shot, but this time a bullet had gotten the better of him.
It was a hot Saturday afternoon as Arijit skipped across Shakespeare Sarani. His dreams were about to be realized.
The hard cricket ball thudded into his pads. Arijit cursed under his breath. Swarnendu Sir would beat the hell out of him if he would see him cursing when he was on the cricket field or during practice. The bat swing wasn’t proper. It just didn’t feel right. The under edge thankfully crashed onto his left pad, or else it was curtains for him during the net practice. Arijit took his stance again, the next ball was short again and as he pivoted on his right leg and brought his bat down in the arc that he had shadow practiced for hours, the ball kissed the top edge of his bat and flew to where fine leg would have been.
Swarnendu sir shook his head, visibly angry with Poltu’s feeble attempt at the pull, he asked him to take of his protective head gear so that he can get the balance right. The trick worked momentarily till tragedy struck. Relatively comfortable without the helmet, Poltu struck the ball neatly in the direction of mid-on perfectly in position while playing the shot, his head completely still. But he just felt that his left shoulder should move more towards square leg. Rahul’s next ball was in the slot of the pull through mid-on, but Arijit’s swivel ensured he missed the line of the ball and the red cherry struck him above his right ear, cutting his ear and thudding into his skull.
Swarnendu sir froze as Poltu slumped to the floor, by the time he was beside Poltu’s still body, Poltu’s split ear was bleeding profusely. The ambulance arrived at the Deshbandhu cricket academy within fifteen minutes. Poltu was rushed to ESI hospital. The CAT scan showed a hairline skull fracture.
The blow to Poltu’s head caused more damage than Poltu had realized. His cricketing career was cut short at the insistence of his parents and relatives. Swarnendu sir came to visit him once during his stay at the hospital ruffled Poltu’s hair, eked out a meek smile before leaving. Poltu had never seen sir emotional but that afternoon in the ICU of ESI hospital the middle aged cricket coach had indeed shed a tear. He had lost a prospective India cap to the Bengali middle-class grind and a freak accident.
The crowd at Kolkata international airport was thin in the wee hours of the morning. Arijit flipped through the pages of a cricket magazine. He looked at the full size picture of Rahul and an article on the newest fast bowling sensation of Indian cricket. Arijit felt his stomach churn a little, he recollected those sessions where he would knock Rahul all over the park at Swarnendu sir’s cricket nets after school.
Arijit looked at his luggage fondly; his life had taken a different turn after that fateful blow five years ago. Arijit hit his books with a vengeance once he was discharged from hospital, bringing all his competitive spirit into his academic career. He managed to get into one the most reputed engineering colleges. After which he just felt that he needed to do more. God had benevolent thought Arijit. He had never imagined that master’s from an US university was an achievable dream, but there he was, waiting for his flight which would take him across seven seas to a land where cricket was an unknown game. Arijit chuckled to himself as he contemplated taking interest in baseball. He could never give up his second love, cricket, the first being Ria.
Arijit saw her for the first time when he had gone to Swarnendu sir’s home to tell him about his admission to Jadavpur University. Arijit had seen Ria when she was a kid, but she had blossomed into a very pretty young girl. She brought out Arijit’s cup of tea as he sat talking to Swarnendu sir, Swarnendu sir was talking about Rahul’s magic ball to Sachin during the Ranji semi-final at Eden Gardens. Sir was sure that that ball was Rahul’s ticket for a call up to the under nineteen team scheduled to tour Australia during the summer. Ria kept the tray on the table in front of Arijit and looked up to him. His heart skipped a beat. He had never seen someone as beautiful as her in his life. Quickly he turned his face away, conscious that sir might notice.
As he was about leave, Ria came up and rushed up to sir and whispered something into his ear. Sir laughed and asked Arijit if he could manage to get Ria some passes to the fest at Jadavpur University’s up coming fest, her favorite local band was slated to perform at the event. Arijit promised to do the same.
The next time Arijit saw her was at the fest, swaying to the music of her favorite band at the fest. She had worn an orange salwar kameez; her hair was tucked behind her ears. Arijit stood close to her in the crowd. He could her smell her perfume. His senses clogged.
Ria liked Arijit the first day she saw him and the liking soon turned to a lot more. Especially after Arijit wanted to drop her home the day she went to his college for the fest.
This was his first time on an aircraft. Arijit got on to the American Airlines flight looked at the air hostess. They did look like those pictures he had just seen in one of the magazines. Keeping his luggage inside the overhead luggage cabin, Arijit sat down. Now he could read it. Ria had given him a letter and had instructed him to read it only when he had boarded the flight. There were seven pages on that letter, Arijit smiled, it was just like her. He noticed the last two pages just had “I Love You” written on it with a note at the bottom saying – “For all those times when I thought about it and didn’t tell you”.
Arijit unwittingly said “I love you too” aloud and then realized what he had done. Conscious of his mistake he looked at his neighbor on the flight. The bearded gentleman was looking at him suspiciously. Arijit mumbled something about his girlfriend’s letter but the gentleman didn’t seem interested and turned his face away.
Arijit went back to his letter. Ria had gone on and on about how she would miss him and how she wanted him to come back during his winter breaks. She wanted him to speak to Swarnendu sir that winter. Arijit closed his eyes, Ria really did love him. “U lucky bastard”, thought Arijit as he closed his eyes.
The blood was oozing out of his left wrist. He was curled up next to the restroom door. He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. His co-passenger along with some other equally burly men was shouting in an Arabic dialect at the passengers and the crew, hurling them to one end of the aircraft. Arijit looked all around him. The passengers and the crew were in shock. It had hardly been thirty minutes since the flight had taken off. Arijit had stumbled over one of the passengers in the mini-stampede and stumbled on one of the hijackers which had prompted him to strike at Arijit with his knife.
The passengers were being boarded of the hijacked aircraft. The television reporter managed to get her hands on one of the airline carrier’s officials. This was the biggest story in a while and the correspondent didn’t want to miss out on the chance to cash in. The correspondent started quizzing the official on the turn of events inside the flight, the attempted hijack and the crew and passengers over-powering the hijackers.
Swarnendu sir switched on his television set. The news of the hijack flashed on all the news channels. The cup of tea in his hand fell as he heard an airlines official talk about the brave young man who had attacked one of the hijackers with an iron rod that he had snatched from another hijacker. The airlines official described how the crew had told him that the young Indian gentleman had swiveled on his left leg and crunched the rod into the skull of the hijacker.
Arijit had hit the perfect pull shot, but this time a bullet had gotten the better of him.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Jus Like Tht.....
I cant stand to fly
Im not that naive
Im just out to find
The better part of me...
Its not easy to be me....
Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie about a home that I may never see
I can stand on top of a mountain
Crash and burn
Im not crazy or anything
Im just a caterpillar, waiting to be a butterfly
Im a boy
Im a man
Im a girl
Im not yet who I want to be
Im a man looking for a dream
Taking it and flying away
Its not easy, to be me.....
--Inspired from "Superman-Its not easy being me"
Im not that naive
Im just out to find
The better part of me...
Its not easy to be me....
Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie about a home that I may never see
I can stand on top of a mountain
Crash and burn
Im not crazy or anything
Im just a caterpillar, waiting to be a butterfly
Im a boy
Im a man
Im a girl
Im not yet who I want to be
Im a man looking for a dream
Taking it and flying away
Its not easy, to be me.....
--Inspired from "Superman-Its not easy being me"
Monday, June 02, 2008
One Step Closer
The headache is excruciating, my whole body aches, but the pain is alleviated with the promise of a dream about to be fulfilled.
The all elusive MBA seems like a reality now with my F-1 visa stamping completed.
Now the wait begins for the 4th of August....the tentative date of journey.
The all elusive MBA seems like a reality now with my F-1 visa stamping completed.
Now the wait begins for the 4th of August....the tentative date of journey.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Inspirations
Embarassing Moment
After-youth wasn’t as much fun as Suraj had thought it would be. The pangs of that bulky EMI payment at the beginning of the month for a 650 square foot house in suburban Mumbai, checking BharatMatrimonial.com every night, hoping for some visits on his profile, the tension of his pending H1B visa application. Gone were the days when he could sit in front of the idiot box on a last Sunday afternoon, watching Friends re-runs, when he could jog for 5 minutes at a stretch without breaking a sweat, when he did not have to worry about his receding hairline and increasing waist line. After-youth sucked.
Suraj was a run of the mill IT engineer, whose only goal in life was to ensure that his CTC increased every consecutive financial year. Hailing from a middle class family in Bhopal, Suraj’s dream was to work in the Silicon Valley, drive a swanky car, and provide for his retired father and mother who was a home maker and to marry a girl, just like his mother, demure, non-ambitious. Utopia for every other Indian male.
His Silicon Valley dream was a work in progress, having applied for his H1B through a consultant. He had also bought a decent enough 2-BHK apartment in Mumbai, hoping he would be able to convince his parents to move from Bhopal to Mumbai. The EMI’s were a killer but his recent move to an MNC had somewhat eased his monthly woes with a fatter paycheck being credited to his savings account each month end and the daily auto fares being limited to a manageable extent since his new office was somewhat closer to his home.
Having taken care of most of his dreams and aspirations, Suraj had started work on his last and most important project- marriage. Though his mother had been after him for a couple of years now, but Suraj kept postponing the inevitable citing more pressing tasks at hand. But now the time was right, after-youth was fast progressing into middle age, the threshold of 30 was a year away, all hopes of getting a girl friend had been finally dumped, and one way love affairs just weren’t doing it for him any more.
One night, after having seen Hum Aapke Hain Kaun for the nth time on his laptop, Suraj finally decided to do it. He never thought he would have to but it was now or never. He logged onto the internet, opened a browser and registered himself on BharatMatrimonial.com
It had been three weeks since that fateful night and Suraj had received numerous enquiries. He had informed his parents about his intentions and they had given him a go-ahead. All they wanted was their only son to be settled in life. They wanted him to be happy, and oh yes, preferably to a kaisthya girl from the same community, not shorter than 5’3”, fair, and a graduate. That is all Suraj’s parents wanted.
These online matrimonial sites were such a blessing for guys like Suraj. Without them a majority of the geek population in India would be restricted to eyeing all those guys with females beside them at multiplexes, indulging in self pity in all the liquor parties during weekends, downloading porn and indulging in 2-3 minutes (time might vary in this large demographic, depending on a truck load of parameters, which we will delve into maybe in a different story) of arm strengthening activity at any point of the day.
Suraj had given his girl friend hunting aspirations an honest shot, but there was little hope in engineering college with 700 odd boys running after less than a dozen girl-like girls in campus. His five odd years in the IT industry had seen him falling in love a couple of times, but unfortunately before the fairer sex could know that this bespectacled geeky short stout guy was head over heels in love with them, they would either get married and pregnant or in one case become pregnant and get married.
It was the fourth week of Suraj’s momentous online activity; the most productive he had ever been on the internet other than his daily unmentionable download activities. Post lunch as Suraj decided to check his online profile, hoping for a profile visit, he found a mail; someone had visited his profile, found him interesting enough to have sent him a mail!!! He decided to visit the girl’s profile, to check out her snaps.
Interestingly, no matter how much guys talk about inner beauty, photographs are what drives them during arranged marriage initiatives probably it’s a secret convention to provide 3-D images of girls to prospective grooms.
Suraj’s search for “inner beauty” yielded satisfactory results and he immediately decided to take swift action. The plan of action would be to firstly inform his parents, provide them with the necessary details, so that the conventional exchange of dialogue could be initiated between the two households. Secondly he had to initiate contact with the girl and send a mail to her personal mail id.
Now this was the difficult task and beyond Suraj’s geeky skill-sets. Suraj decided to outsource this requirement to his good friend Banerjee. Banerjee was his close friend from his previous organization. A sweet and ex-frustrated geek like him. Suraj didn’t think too much of him till a year back Banerjee decided to drop the bomb shell. Apparently Banerjee had a girl friend in his hometown Kolkata, a college mate. Banerjee’s FOSLA club membership was invalid to start off with and was terminated with immediate effect. But this news had ensured that Banerjee’s stature had increased manifold in Suraj’s eyes.
The email task had to be executed by Banerjee and after some convincing Banerjee agreed.
Suraj’s multi-pronged strategy soon reaped benefits. The girls family was impressed by the fact that their daughter wouldn’t have to put up with prying sister-in-laws, the boy already had a house in Mumbai and the parents being in Bhopal, there would be no saas-bahu dramas. The boy seemed ambitious enough with a US visa pending approval, the time seemed ripe to reel him in. Convincing Suraj about keeping his parents in Bhopal didn’t take long. After all for the first time in Suraj’s life, he had found someone who would accompany him to multiplexes without 3-4 more guys hanging around, he wouldn’t have to fight to sit next to her, calling her at any time of the day wouldn’t warrant a second thought. Suraj’s dreams of a life partner seemed to be coming true, seemed like another unfulfilled task off his checklist.
The families soon decided to get the two budding live birds married later mid of next year, a date about 8 months away. Suraj had already started preparing, booking the marriage hall in Bhopal, evaluating honeymoon destinations, fitting things into his tight budget and preparing himself to see his 5 years savings getting hit to an unimaginable extent. But he hadn’t planned for Valentines Day. As soon as Banerjee heard of that, he bombarded Suraj with expletives, explaining how important V-Day was prior to the wedding, it could make or break his chances. Banerjee asked Suraj to keep his ears and eyes open, he couldn’t afford to slip up so close to his target. The Valentines Day gift had to be apt and perfect.
Following a brain storming session over a Sunday afternoon lunch at Banerjee’s place with Banerjee, Banerjee’s wife and Suraj, Banerjee’s wife struck gold. The best gift would obviously be a girl’s best friend (this wasn’t just a suggestion for Suraj) and a customized gift suggesting hard work and effort put into the process.
Banerjee’s wife was a worldly woman, keeping herself abreast with the recent happenings in tinsel town. She had read in one of the dailies that a tinsel town actor and gifted his actress girlfriend a cd of songs with his own commentary before the song, linking the song to some moment in their relationship. But Mrs.Banerjee suggested Suraj take it to another level, requesting him to gift his fiancée a DVD of popular bollywood love songs with his voice over before his song, talking about how the song was apt for them. Suraj cringed at the idea, he knew it was too cheesy but he kept his mouth shut and decided to do what he was told to, his DNA was programmed to be a robot since birth.
The diamond shopping was a walk in the park and he even managed to save on it because Banerjee bought a duplicate as well, for the idea giver. The DVD was more work than he thought it would be, but the final product was worth the effort he had put into it.
Prior to V-Day, Suraj couldn’t control his excitement and blurted out the surprise gift details over the phone to Ruchi. Ruchi was equally excited, a tad humored with the cheesy idea but decided to keep that to herself. She invited Suraj to come over to their place in Thane next day along with the DVD, they would watch it together, what better way to spend their first valentines day.
The next day Suraj, got onto the bus from Borivali, happy with his effort, happy that his V-Day drought had finally ended and he had someone who he could spend the day with rather than support the saffron party tirade against V-Day enthusiasts, gaining sadistic pleasure at seeing other peoples happiness being interrupted when he himself could not be a part of it.
A year later, as Suraj sat in his swanky cubicle in a start-up in California, he felt happy and sad. Professionally he was where he wanted to be but his bharatmatrimony profile was still active and on the eve of another V-Day, Suraj had nobody. Whenever Banerjee quizzed him about Ruchi in their frequest mail conversations and why the marriage did not see the light of day, Suraj decided to keep mum. Never had Suraj thought that not labeling his DVD’s would cost him so dear, especially with a Jenna Jameson unlabelled DVD lying next to the DVD meant for your fiancée’s. That V-Day afternoon in Ruchi’s house, with Ruchi and her parents sitting on the sofa looking with horror at the television screen expecting bollywood love songs, was the most embarrassing moment in Suraj’s life and one he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Suraj was a run of the mill IT engineer, whose only goal in life was to ensure that his CTC increased every consecutive financial year. Hailing from a middle class family in Bhopal, Suraj’s dream was to work in the Silicon Valley, drive a swanky car, and provide for his retired father and mother who was a home maker and to marry a girl, just like his mother, demure, non-ambitious. Utopia for every other Indian male.
His Silicon Valley dream was a work in progress, having applied for his H1B through a consultant. He had also bought a decent enough 2-BHK apartment in Mumbai, hoping he would be able to convince his parents to move from Bhopal to Mumbai. The EMI’s were a killer but his recent move to an MNC had somewhat eased his monthly woes with a fatter paycheck being credited to his savings account each month end and the daily auto fares being limited to a manageable extent since his new office was somewhat closer to his home.
Having taken care of most of his dreams and aspirations, Suraj had started work on his last and most important project- marriage. Though his mother had been after him for a couple of years now, but Suraj kept postponing the inevitable citing more pressing tasks at hand. But now the time was right, after-youth was fast progressing into middle age, the threshold of 30 was a year away, all hopes of getting a girl friend had been finally dumped, and one way love affairs just weren’t doing it for him any more.
One night, after having seen Hum Aapke Hain Kaun for the nth time on his laptop, Suraj finally decided to do it. He never thought he would have to but it was now or never. He logged onto the internet, opened a browser and registered himself on BharatMatrimonial.com
It had been three weeks since that fateful night and Suraj had received numerous enquiries. He had informed his parents about his intentions and they had given him a go-ahead. All they wanted was their only son to be settled in life. They wanted him to be happy, and oh yes, preferably to a kaisthya girl from the same community, not shorter than 5’3”, fair, and a graduate. That is all Suraj’s parents wanted.
These online matrimonial sites were such a blessing for guys like Suraj. Without them a majority of the geek population in India would be restricted to eyeing all those guys with females beside them at multiplexes, indulging in self pity in all the liquor parties during weekends, downloading porn and indulging in 2-3 minutes (time might vary in this large demographic, depending on a truck load of parameters, which we will delve into maybe in a different story) of arm strengthening activity at any point of the day.
Suraj had given his girl friend hunting aspirations an honest shot, but there was little hope in engineering college with 700 odd boys running after less than a dozen girl-like girls in campus. His five odd years in the IT industry had seen him falling in love a couple of times, but unfortunately before the fairer sex could know that this bespectacled geeky short stout guy was head over heels in love with them, they would either get married and pregnant or in one case become pregnant and get married.
It was the fourth week of Suraj’s momentous online activity; the most productive he had ever been on the internet other than his daily unmentionable download activities. Post lunch as Suraj decided to check his online profile, hoping for a profile visit, he found a mail; someone had visited his profile, found him interesting enough to have sent him a mail!!! He decided to visit the girl’s profile, to check out her snaps.
Interestingly, no matter how much guys talk about inner beauty, photographs are what drives them during arranged marriage initiatives probably it’s a secret convention to provide 3-D images of girls to prospective grooms.
Suraj’s search for “inner beauty” yielded satisfactory results and he immediately decided to take swift action. The plan of action would be to firstly inform his parents, provide them with the necessary details, so that the conventional exchange of dialogue could be initiated between the two households. Secondly he had to initiate contact with the girl and send a mail to her personal mail id.
Now this was the difficult task and beyond Suraj’s geeky skill-sets. Suraj decided to outsource this requirement to his good friend Banerjee. Banerjee was his close friend from his previous organization. A sweet and ex-frustrated geek like him. Suraj didn’t think too much of him till a year back Banerjee decided to drop the bomb shell. Apparently Banerjee had a girl friend in his hometown Kolkata, a college mate. Banerjee’s FOSLA club membership was invalid to start off with and was terminated with immediate effect. But this news had ensured that Banerjee’s stature had increased manifold in Suraj’s eyes.
The email task had to be executed by Banerjee and after some convincing Banerjee agreed.
Suraj’s multi-pronged strategy soon reaped benefits. The girls family was impressed by the fact that their daughter wouldn’t have to put up with prying sister-in-laws, the boy already had a house in Mumbai and the parents being in Bhopal, there would be no saas-bahu dramas. The boy seemed ambitious enough with a US visa pending approval, the time seemed ripe to reel him in. Convincing Suraj about keeping his parents in Bhopal didn’t take long. After all for the first time in Suraj’s life, he had found someone who would accompany him to multiplexes without 3-4 more guys hanging around, he wouldn’t have to fight to sit next to her, calling her at any time of the day wouldn’t warrant a second thought. Suraj’s dreams of a life partner seemed to be coming true, seemed like another unfulfilled task off his checklist.
The families soon decided to get the two budding live birds married later mid of next year, a date about 8 months away. Suraj had already started preparing, booking the marriage hall in Bhopal, evaluating honeymoon destinations, fitting things into his tight budget and preparing himself to see his 5 years savings getting hit to an unimaginable extent. But he hadn’t planned for Valentines Day. As soon as Banerjee heard of that, he bombarded Suraj with expletives, explaining how important V-Day was prior to the wedding, it could make or break his chances. Banerjee asked Suraj to keep his ears and eyes open, he couldn’t afford to slip up so close to his target. The Valentines Day gift had to be apt and perfect.
Following a brain storming session over a Sunday afternoon lunch at Banerjee’s place with Banerjee, Banerjee’s wife and Suraj, Banerjee’s wife struck gold. The best gift would obviously be a girl’s best friend (this wasn’t just a suggestion for Suraj) and a customized gift suggesting hard work and effort put into the process.
Banerjee’s wife was a worldly woman, keeping herself abreast with the recent happenings in tinsel town. She had read in one of the dailies that a tinsel town actor and gifted his actress girlfriend a cd of songs with his own commentary before the song, linking the song to some moment in their relationship. But Mrs.Banerjee suggested Suraj take it to another level, requesting him to gift his fiancée a DVD of popular bollywood love songs with his voice over before his song, talking about how the song was apt for them. Suraj cringed at the idea, he knew it was too cheesy but he kept his mouth shut and decided to do what he was told to, his DNA was programmed to be a robot since birth.
The diamond shopping was a walk in the park and he even managed to save on it because Banerjee bought a duplicate as well, for the idea giver. The DVD was more work than he thought it would be, but the final product was worth the effort he had put into it.
Prior to V-Day, Suraj couldn’t control his excitement and blurted out the surprise gift details over the phone to Ruchi. Ruchi was equally excited, a tad humored with the cheesy idea but decided to keep that to herself. She invited Suraj to come over to their place in Thane next day along with the DVD, they would watch it together, what better way to spend their first valentines day.
The next day Suraj, got onto the bus from Borivali, happy with his effort, happy that his V-Day drought had finally ended and he had someone who he could spend the day with rather than support the saffron party tirade against V-Day enthusiasts, gaining sadistic pleasure at seeing other peoples happiness being interrupted when he himself could not be a part of it.
A year later, as Suraj sat in his swanky cubicle in a start-up in California, he felt happy and sad. Professionally he was where he wanted to be but his bharatmatrimony profile was still active and on the eve of another V-Day, Suraj had nobody. Whenever Banerjee quizzed him about Ruchi in their frequest mail conversations and why the marriage did not see the light of day, Suraj decided to keep mum. Never had Suraj thought that not labeling his DVD’s would cost him so dear, especially with a Jenna Jameson unlabelled DVD lying next to the DVD meant for your fiancée’s. That V-Day afternoon in Ruchi’s house, with Ruchi and her parents sitting on the sofa looking with horror at the television screen expecting bollywood love songs, was the most embarrassing moment in Suraj’s life and one he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Overcoming my Inertia of Laziness
Been a really long time since I visited blogger to type in my musings. Wouldn't attribute it to lack of time, but the sheer inertia of laziness. What prompted me to write today?..Well honestly speaking I had nothing better to do.
Well before I generally start rambling, let me update this blog with whats been happening off late in my life.
February saw me going home, for 4 days. Was great fun, with all teh food, meeting Kaustav and Joydeep. Went to City Center for the first time and was stunned to see the crowd at the mall. Kolkata sure is changing in character.
March saw me travelling back to Kolkata again, this time to attend Mondada's wedding. Again loads of fun with me having the first opportunity to attend a close relatives wedding after leaving Kolkata in 2002. Minor fiasco in the wedding when things got a little out of hand with my flirting around with one of the girls from the bride's household. Anyways I sson realised I was travelling down the wrong road.
Travelled to Bangalore after a couple of days to spend some time with Hirok and Kaka during Holi. Gorged on some gold old bong food at Lazeezs and Ballygunge Place.
Had to go back to Kolkata again for the loan paper work later in the first week of April.
Now sopme updates with regard to the applications. Made it into Olin as well which made my final score line 6-4 with a ding from darden as well.
So the final card would look somewht like this:
Admits : Tippie, Boston, Georgetown, Simon, Olin, UC Davis
Dings : Columbia, Darden, Emory , Chicago GSB.
Obviously disappointed with the dings but come to think of it, I should have cut down on the n umber of applications and just applied to 5 or 6 colleges, thus improving on the quality of my essays and recommendations.
Out of the 6 admits, I was considering Tippie and Boston because of the aid being offerred and finally have deicded to go with Tippie.
More on the Tippie experience so far in later blogs.
Well before I generally start rambling, let me update this blog with whats been happening off late in my life.
February saw me going home, for 4 days. Was great fun, with all teh food, meeting Kaustav and Joydeep. Went to City Center for the first time and was stunned to see the crowd at the mall. Kolkata sure is changing in character.
March saw me travelling back to Kolkata again, this time to attend Mondada's wedding. Again loads of fun with me having the first opportunity to attend a close relatives wedding after leaving Kolkata in 2002. Minor fiasco in the wedding when things got a little out of hand with my flirting around with one of the girls from the bride's household. Anyways I sson realised I was travelling down the wrong road.
Travelled to Bangalore after a couple of days to spend some time with Hirok and Kaka during Holi. Gorged on some gold old bong food at Lazeezs and Ballygunge Place.
Had to go back to Kolkata again for the loan paper work later in the first week of April.
Now sopme updates with regard to the applications. Made it into Olin as well which made my final score line 6-4 with a ding from darden as well.
So the final card would look somewht like this:
Admits : Tippie, Boston, Georgetown, Simon, Olin, UC Davis
Dings : Columbia, Darden, Emory , Chicago GSB.
Obviously disappointed with the dings but come to think of it, I should have cut down on the n umber of applications and just applied to 5 or 6 colleges, thus improving on the quality of my essays and recommendations.
Out of the 6 admits, I was considering Tippie and Boston because of the aid being offerred and finally have deicded to go with Tippie.
More on the Tippie experience so far in later blogs.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Generation Gap
17th February 2007 11:45 pm
Domestic Airport, Santa Cruz, Mumbai.
Inspector Shinde was dozing off. It had been long night. Just a year more and night duties would be history for him. After 30 years in the force his rest was well earned and long overdue. But these last couple of months had been troublesome. The commissioner had introduced the ‘partner’ concept into Mumbai police, all senior officers would be accompanied by a younger officer, to build camaraderie in the force and help younger officers learn the tricks of the trade quicker. And what better way to go about it than to learn from senior officers in the field of duty.
Shinde had been assigned a partner, sub-inspector Ashutosh Jogilkar, a fresh graduate of the Marol Police Academy. Ashutosh was a topper in his batch, a star in the making and apparently a personal favorite of ACP Degwekar. Shinde could ill afford to get into the bad books of Degwekar. Despite having spent 30 years in the force, Nilesh Shinde was yet to receive a gallantry award, and he had put in a special request to his senior so that ACP Degwekar could be convinced to award him during the upcoming Independance Day Parade for his role in the curbing the riots in Nasik last August. Though his role in the riots did not warrant a gallantry award but Shinde was hoping that the Nasik riot prevention force would surely have a quota in the awards and his seniority would be given due importance. Hence to get to that award Shinde would have to be good to the green horn.
The night duty at the domestic airport was a ‘soft’ posting. Hardly anything happened there except customers haggling with rickshaw drivers for over-charging them in the pretext of night fares and an occasional drunk loitering by.
Shinde had been observing Ashutosh off-late. He seemed like a bright kid but a little over-zealous for action, a product of watching too many Hollywood cop movies he thought. Shinde would often think to himself, young officers these days always look for an excuse to shoot and grab the limelight. “Shoot-out” cops were the order of the day and gone were the days of arrests and interrogations. He often wondered what was taught in these police academies, his generation never went to one and they turned out quite all right.
Ashu as Shinde preferred to call him was running one of Shinde’s silly errands, fetching his favorite cup of tea from a stall near Ville Parle. Though a favorite of ACP Degwekar, Ashutosh hardly threw his weight around. Shinde liked that about Ashu. But that was only one of the few things he liked about Ashutosh.
Ashutosh had just fetched Shinde’s cup of tea. Sipping the hot tea from the stained glasses Ashutosh seemed a little tense today. Shinde wondered why these young officers were like this. “Tense at this age!!” Shinde laughed to himself “Wonder what they’ll end up as when they get to our age.”
Close to 2 in the morning Shinde eye lids were starting to become heavy. He decided take a stroll and relieve himself. Ashutosh was standing near the entrance of Gate 2. Shinde laughed, the ever cautious police officer, “this generation is so stressed out”, he thought out to himself.
Nilesh had just turned round the corner when all of a sudden he heard a loud bang!! Rushing back towards the airport gate he found a man lying in a pool of blood and Chinese made pistol lying next to him. Ashutosh was trembling, his gun was still smoking. Inspector Shinde quickly asked Ashutosh to move away. A crowd had started gathering around the scene. Inspector Shinde called up the ambulance and also the nearest police station.
15th August 2007 10:30 am
Independance Day Celebration, Mumbai
Shinde’s eyes welled up. His childhood dream had come true. Receiving the gallantry award from the governor, Shinde felt proud. But he knew he would be indebted to Ashu forever. After the shootout Ashutosh filed a report stating that the shot was fired by Inspector Shinde. The man killed in the shootout was the famed gangster Abu Hasan, the kingpin of the Mumbai underworld. Mumbai had two major gangs, the one run by Abu Hasan and the other by Mukesh bhai. This shootout would definitely help Mukesh-bhai. In his report Ashutosh had stated that at 02:45 on the 18th of February 2007, Abu Hasan had come down to the domestic airport to catch a flight but Inspector Shinde on recognizing Abu challenged him to surrender and on being fired at by Abu, Inspector Shinde had shot Abu Hasan.
Ashutosh requested Inspector Shinde to concur with his story. It didn’t add up but Ashutosh said that he wanted Shinde-saab to get the credit, a well deserved reward for a long career. Shinde was stunned. He couldn’t refuse, but Ashutosh’s gesture completely changed his mindset. Indeed today’s generation isn’t all that bad he would think each night. Ashutosh had changed his life forever.
15th August 2007 9:00 pm
Somewhere in suburban Mumbai
Ashutosh sat on the sofa, holding his drink. Mukesh-bhai’s hideout was too dingy for him but who was he to complain. Patting Ashu on the back Mukesh bhai handed over a bundle of notes to him-“Here’s your gallantry award Inspector Ashutosh” he thundered and then laughed away to glory.
Mukesh bhai looked at Ashutosh.” Saab, you are way smarter than I thought. We gave you Abu so that you could kill him for us, but you gave the credit to that loser Inspector Shinde. The whole department is now raving about you. You may even become ACP within a couple of years. What a move saab, our partnership while thrive and we rule Mumbai”, said Mukesh bhai laughing hysterically, spilling a little drink on his silk lungi.
Ashutosh sipped his drink, lay back on the sofa, and looked at the slowly moving fan on the ceiling. “Shinde will never figure this out, the generation gap is too much for him to bridge”, muttered Ashutosh.
Domestic Airport, Santa Cruz, Mumbai.
Inspector Shinde was dozing off. It had been long night. Just a year more and night duties would be history for him. After 30 years in the force his rest was well earned and long overdue. But these last couple of months had been troublesome. The commissioner had introduced the ‘partner’ concept into Mumbai police, all senior officers would be accompanied by a younger officer, to build camaraderie in the force and help younger officers learn the tricks of the trade quicker. And what better way to go about it than to learn from senior officers in the field of duty.
Shinde had been assigned a partner, sub-inspector Ashutosh Jogilkar, a fresh graduate of the Marol Police Academy. Ashutosh was a topper in his batch, a star in the making and apparently a personal favorite of ACP Degwekar. Shinde could ill afford to get into the bad books of Degwekar. Despite having spent 30 years in the force, Nilesh Shinde was yet to receive a gallantry award, and he had put in a special request to his senior so that ACP Degwekar could be convinced to award him during the upcoming Independance Day Parade for his role in the curbing the riots in Nasik last August. Though his role in the riots did not warrant a gallantry award but Shinde was hoping that the Nasik riot prevention force would surely have a quota in the awards and his seniority would be given due importance. Hence to get to that award Shinde would have to be good to the green horn.
The night duty at the domestic airport was a ‘soft’ posting. Hardly anything happened there except customers haggling with rickshaw drivers for over-charging them in the pretext of night fares and an occasional drunk loitering by.
Shinde had been observing Ashutosh off-late. He seemed like a bright kid but a little over-zealous for action, a product of watching too many Hollywood cop movies he thought. Shinde would often think to himself, young officers these days always look for an excuse to shoot and grab the limelight. “Shoot-out” cops were the order of the day and gone were the days of arrests and interrogations. He often wondered what was taught in these police academies, his generation never went to one and they turned out quite all right.
Ashu as Shinde preferred to call him was running one of Shinde’s silly errands, fetching his favorite cup of tea from a stall near Ville Parle. Though a favorite of ACP Degwekar, Ashutosh hardly threw his weight around. Shinde liked that about Ashu. But that was only one of the few things he liked about Ashutosh.
Ashutosh had just fetched Shinde’s cup of tea. Sipping the hot tea from the stained glasses Ashutosh seemed a little tense today. Shinde wondered why these young officers were like this. “Tense at this age!!” Shinde laughed to himself “Wonder what they’ll end up as when they get to our age.”
Close to 2 in the morning Shinde eye lids were starting to become heavy. He decided take a stroll and relieve himself. Ashutosh was standing near the entrance of Gate 2. Shinde laughed, the ever cautious police officer, “this generation is so stressed out”, he thought out to himself.
Nilesh had just turned round the corner when all of a sudden he heard a loud bang!! Rushing back towards the airport gate he found a man lying in a pool of blood and Chinese made pistol lying next to him. Ashutosh was trembling, his gun was still smoking. Inspector Shinde quickly asked Ashutosh to move away. A crowd had started gathering around the scene. Inspector Shinde called up the ambulance and also the nearest police station.
15th August 2007 10:30 am
Independance Day Celebration, Mumbai
Shinde’s eyes welled up. His childhood dream had come true. Receiving the gallantry award from the governor, Shinde felt proud. But he knew he would be indebted to Ashu forever. After the shootout Ashutosh filed a report stating that the shot was fired by Inspector Shinde. The man killed in the shootout was the famed gangster Abu Hasan, the kingpin of the Mumbai underworld. Mumbai had two major gangs, the one run by Abu Hasan and the other by Mukesh bhai. This shootout would definitely help Mukesh-bhai. In his report Ashutosh had stated that at 02:45 on the 18th of February 2007, Abu Hasan had come down to the domestic airport to catch a flight but Inspector Shinde on recognizing Abu challenged him to surrender and on being fired at by Abu, Inspector Shinde had shot Abu Hasan.
Ashutosh requested Inspector Shinde to concur with his story. It didn’t add up but Ashutosh said that he wanted Shinde-saab to get the credit, a well deserved reward for a long career. Shinde was stunned. He couldn’t refuse, but Ashutosh’s gesture completely changed his mindset. Indeed today’s generation isn’t all that bad he would think each night. Ashutosh had changed his life forever.
15th August 2007 9:00 pm
Somewhere in suburban Mumbai
Ashutosh sat on the sofa, holding his drink. Mukesh-bhai’s hideout was too dingy for him but who was he to complain. Patting Ashu on the back Mukesh bhai handed over a bundle of notes to him-“Here’s your gallantry award Inspector Ashutosh” he thundered and then laughed away to glory.
Mukesh bhai looked at Ashutosh.” Saab, you are way smarter than I thought. We gave you Abu so that you could kill him for us, but you gave the credit to that loser Inspector Shinde. The whole department is now raving about you. You may even become ACP within a couple of years. What a move saab, our partnership while thrive and we rule Mumbai”, said Mukesh bhai laughing hysterically, spilling a little drink on his silk lungi.
Ashutosh sipped his drink, lay back on the sofa, and looked at the slowly moving fan on the ceiling. “Shinde will never figure this out, the generation gap is too much for him to bridge”, muttered Ashutosh.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Back in India....5-3
Finally back in aamchi Mumbai after three months.
Couple of updates about the applications...got an admit from Tippie with a pretty hefty aid package..that makes the decision process all the more interesting for me.....plus an interview call from Olin for the 31st of Jan.
That leaves Darden as the only college from which I haven't heard post my R1 application submission....gives me a fleeting suspiscion that Darden is heading the ding way.....
More posts on my 3 month US trip to follow...soon I hope
Couple of updates about the applications...got an admit from Tippie with a pretty hefty aid package..that makes the decision process all the more interesting for me.....plus an interview call from Olin for the 31st of Jan.
That leaves Darden as the only college from which I haven't heard post my R1 application submission....gives me a fleeting suspiscion that Darden is heading the ding way.....
More posts on my 3 month US trip to follow...soon I hope
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Updates
The app score is 4-3 now with 4 admits. Just gotto know about the Georgetown decision.
Will talk about my Boston trip in my next post, especially the very interesting bus ride from New York to Boston.
Will talk about my Boston trip in my next post, especially the very interesting bus ride from New York to Boston.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
MBA Retrospect - Part 2
The period between the summer of 06 and my first attempt at GMAT was one of huge changes in my life.
Iflex wasn’t really working out for me and I joined JP Morgan Chase after a bit of struggle with the search. The transition included a week of Accenture, a very tough week indeed with my travels to Vikroli proving more difficult than I had initially imagined.
In hindsight my preparation may not have been ideal for the first attempt but I believe my final score in the second attempt truly reflected my potential. Maybe I could have done better my 10-20 but at the end I was happy with what I had. More importantly, the second attempt of GMAT marked the end of the “writing GMAT” stage of my life, a hurdle which had taken me 2 long years to overcome.
The real task was yet to begin, the applications.
To begin with the task was daunting and I did not make things easier for myself by looking to apply to nearly 10 schools, all during the round one cycle for the fall of 2008.
The final list of schools looked somewhat like this –
Columbia
Chicago
Darden
Emory
Olin
Georgetown
Simon
Carroll
UC Davis
Tippie
Near the fag end of my application process, I got lucky….was asked to work out of the New York office of JP Morgan for about 3 months.
This meant I could visit some of these schools, interact with the admissions committee and create a stronger impression on their minds.
School visits was a factor which I had earlier discounted for.
My personal take on the application process for each of these schools will follow in the next post, one which I will post from Mumbai.
PS: The current score is 3-3, just received admission notification from Simon a couple of weeks back.
Iflex wasn’t really working out for me and I joined JP Morgan Chase after a bit of struggle with the search. The transition included a week of Accenture, a very tough week indeed with my travels to Vikroli proving more difficult than I had initially imagined.
In hindsight my preparation may not have been ideal for the first attempt but I believe my final score in the second attempt truly reflected my potential. Maybe I could have done better my 10-20 but at the end I was happy with what I had. More importantly, the second attempt of GMAT marked the end of the “writing GMAT” stage of my life, a hurdle which had taken me 2 long years to overcome.
The real task was yet to begin, the applications.
To begin with the task was daunting and I did not make things easier for myself by looking to apply to nearly 10 schools, all during the round one cycle for the fall of 2008.
The final list of schools looked somewhat like this –
Columbia
Chicago
Darden
Emory
Olin
Georgetown
Simon
Carroll
UC Davis
Tippie
Near the fag end of my application process, I got lucky….was asked to work out of the New York office of JP Morgan for about 3 months.
This meant I could visit some of these schools, interact with the admissions committee and create a stronger impression on their minds.
School visits was a factor which I had earlier discounted for.
My personal take on the application process for each of these schools will follow in the next post, one which I will post from Mumbai.
PS: The current score is 3-3, just received admission notification from Simon a couple of weeks back.
Friday, January 11, 2008
MBA Retrospect - Part 1
A retrospective blog for a change, to catch up on the pain, joy, insecurities that I have had related to my rather arduous journey towards a decent business education.
Blogs my MBA applicants – I love this category of blogs.
These blogs give me an insight into the trials and tribulations that applicants encounter en route to their dream business school. I am kind of hooked onto them for reason. I identify the author’s pain when he/she gets a ding, the joy of admit decisions, the fears of new challenges.
My blog is a mish mash of random thoughts, events. It never had structure, a central thought. Off late I been sort of updating the blog with info about my admits and dings but felt that I needed to throw some light on the journey so far.
Part 1
A 10X15 room in Tokyo. Gotanda Plaire apartments, room no 1203, I sat before my laptop, with a credit card in my hand, browsing mba.com, changing my GMAT date for the 8th time, and yes you read it right, the 8th time.
It was getting increasingly difficult for me to overcome my inertia of procrastination.
Every change in date gave me another chance at redemption and every change in date debited my dwindling balance by $50 and made me feel really bad about myself.
I had tried everything, had decided to stay on in Japan for a year more, hoping to write GMAT and start my application process from Tokyo, aided by the peace and quiet of my studio apartment in Tokyo.
The 8th date passed by with a no-show from me. I had had it. It was time to call it quits.
The next week I spoke to my manager, I needed to go back to India. I needed a change, get out of that rut. After spending close to 2.5 years in Tokyo, it was time for me to start a new chapter in my life. This was the summer of 2006.
Blogs my MBA applicants – I love this category of blogs.
These blogs give me an insight into the trials and tribulations that applicants encounter en route to their dream business school. I am kind of hooked onto them for reason. I identify the author’s pain when he/she gets a ding, the joy of admit decisions, the fears of new challenges.
My blog is a mish mash of random thoughts, events. It never had structure, a central thought. Off late I been sort of updating the blog with info about my admits and dings but felt that I needed to throw some light on the journey so far.
Part 1
A 10X15 room in Tokyo. Gotanda Plaire apartments, room no 1203, I sat before my laptop, with a credit card in my hand, browsing mba.com, changing my GMAT date for the 8th time, and yes you read it right, the 8th time.
It was getting increasingly difficult for me to overcome my inertia of procrastination.
Every change in date gave me another chance at redemption and every change in date debited my dwindling balance by $50 and made me feel really bad about myself.
I had tried everything, had decided to stay on in Japan for a year more, hoping to write GMAT and start my application process from Tokyo, aided by the peace and quiet of my studio apartment in Tokyo.
The 8th date passed by with a no-show from me. I had had it. It was time to call it quits.
The next week I spoke to my manager, I needed to go back to India. I needed a change, get out of that rut. After spending close to 2.5 years in Tokyo, it was time for me to start a new chapter in my life. This was the summer of 2006.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Countdown
2 more weeks to go before I get to go back to Mumbai. Its seems like a eternity that I have been cooped up in Houston.
2 more weeks to go before I get to finalize the B-School that I am going to go to in fall.
4 more months before I can quit my job, am done with the non-work mode that I have been in for the last 1 year.
6 more montsh before I have a chance to undo some of my failings in life.
6 more hours before Bulli comes in from Charlotte.
1 more hour before I leave office.
1st blog for an 2008...a year of change
2 more weeks to go before I get to finalize the B-School that I am going to go to in fall.
4 more months before I can quit my job, am done with the non-work mode that I have been in for the last 1 year.
6 more montsh before I have a chance to undo some of my failings in life.
6 more hours before Bulli comes in from Charlotte.
1 more hour before I leave office.
1st blog for an 2008...a year of change
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