The 'Why MBA' answer that I could never give

Half of Bangalore is made of Software Engineers. The other half are Auto-drivers. The latter earns better. Still every year, from every known and mostly unknown colleges of India, Lakhs and lakhs of engineers chuck their core branch, to become the IT face of India. They spend four years, designing a screw jack or drawing a circuit, but find it safe to sit and crack the 'first' company on campus. After all, it offers a chance to be in the Silicon Valley one day!

 But what is the life of a software Engineer? They get up in the morning after snoozing the alarm thrice. Wear the tie and I-Card with eyes half often, and rushes to the office. I personally know a couple of my friends who attend nature's call in the office, thanks to the world-class infrastructure of IT companies!

And slowly he realises that his life has been limited to coding or testing a useless application, eating with the same set of people in food-courts and watching a movie in the same theater on weekends. He is drinking  more coffee than water and has gained 10Kgs in last 2 years. Years go by, his salary crawls. People around his cubicle go onsite one-by-one and his Visa gets rejected every year. Even Ranjita, the girl from the corner cubicle with whom he used to go for coffee, got married last month. Santharaman Suryakevalam, who failed in the certification thrice, got better ratings than him because his manager's name was similar in length.

Frustrated with his life, one day he called his friend who works in a automobile company.

Software Engg : Yaar, I want to quit, this life sucks!

Friend             : What???

software Engg : I said, I want to quit.

Friend           : Centralized AC ki hawa khakar tumhara dimag kharab ho gaya hai, Yaha plant me breakdown hota hai to raat me 2 baje bhi jana padta hai.. Body se grease ki smell aati hai pure din! Tu mera resume bhi please forward karde apni company me.

Without saying anything, he just hangs up the call. Crows are black everywhere. His cell beeps. There is a new Message. "TIME Entrance scholarship test this Sunday. Avail upto 90% discount on course fee."

My experiment with "Truth"

I have heard so many girls saying that "All guys are dogs". I am not sure if you have heard it or not. May be most of the times it is said around me only! Well, I can't agree more. let me confess that I am a pig rather! Most of you will agree after reading this. Those who don't should know about their species.

In my highly unproductive stay of 26 years on this only life supporting planet, I have realised one thing - this world can be broadly (or even if you try minutely) classified into two categories only, the fairer sex and the follower sex.

This one goes for all those beauties and some not that beauties (Not that I told this to them ever!!) who walked in, stayed and went by. I loved you all. I couldnt say this to all of you, but whatever I am today and will be in near future, I owe a part of it to you all. Thanks for pampering me, knowing me, loving me, hating me and kicking me. All these were the lessons of life that I couldn't have learnt otherwise.

Wait, I really have some lessons of life, and being an MBA, I will go by bullets!

• Even if you are down with fever for last 5 days or have just returned from Delhi half-marathon, You can easily shop for 24 hours straight. You don't get tired at all doing this, in fact you feel rejuvenated!! (P.S. 99% of times, you don't buy anything)
• "Vivek, am I looking fat in this dress?" Try answering that!
• You don't mind it even I say "You are looking very very beautiful" 50 times a day. In fact you can take it 50 more times.
• You don't deal with primary colours. Most of the things around you are either Beige, Tan, Ivory, Grey, Pinkish Crimson, banana cream or some weird unknown combinations like this.
• Its compulsory to surrender one's Gmail, Orkut, Facebook and all other passwords before one can go ahead with you. These will be subject to surprise audits.
• You never wear a dress if somebody even remotely known to you have wore a similar dress in past. Period!
• You always have an annual plan in place for what to wear on which day. Guys, for that matter, believe in Just In Time.
• Your counting abilities are inversely proportional to cuteness of your face. I accept - math suits us - The underprivileged mortals, you are made for better things!
• You have to discuss the most important things of life just when we are getting late to a meeting.
• A person weighing well above 80 Kg and more than 6 feet in height can't be called 'Baby'. Grow up!!
• You move on. Even we do. Just that its not that easy for us. :-)

There are thousand other things that can go in here but I will stop as I still want to keep my 'chances' alive in future. I know you all have deep insights. Keep adding to the list :)

Mera pehla pehla ....

Final exams were going on and it was the third time we were meeting each other on Dharam's tea stall that day. Of course preparing for exams asks for more tea than books. Not that we were worried much about the exams anyways. I knew I would pass, the way I always do. Mandal knew that he would fail, the way he did most of the times.
When the time of leaving one's engineering college comes, exams, grades and such things loose significance. Our talks were getting more sentimental day by day. While his sentiments were more related to our friendship and the life we had spent in the campus for last 4 years, my sentiments were more related to Esha - The girl I had chased haplessly for last four years.

There is something special about your first love. Something special that wakes you up at midnight and make you write a blog. You try to brush it aside 100 times, trying to console yourself that it was just a 'crush', but it comes back. And today, after  experiencing many such first loves, I still realise that yes, She was the one!!

Chetan Bhagat has said, Geeks fall in love easily and way to often.Within 72 hours of joining my engineering college, I fell in love with her. Thanks to my small town background in which even talking to a girl made bigger news than India lifting the world cup! My first conversation with her in the smith shop was by far the maximum interaction that I ever had with a girl in my life. I was smiling ears to ears while returning to hostel. In retrospect, it was the only workshop session that I remember till date!

There is something more about your first love. It makes you do the most stupid things that one can imagine. We laugh at others when we see them doing the same. The truth is, we do it 10 times over, because, it is for her!

And Man, she was beautiful. She was not fair, she was pink. Her almond shaped eyes had a magnetic effect and her face was incredibly cute. Her voice sounded like the rhymes of a wind chime and her lips...well I should stop!

My vision was permanently focussed towards her in all the lectures. I think some teachers used to sympathise with me as if I have a squint. It didn't matter much to me. I used to sit strategically to have her clear view and leave the classroom in such a manner that I can walk as close to her as possible.

There was a considerable social risk involved in talking to her in public which forced me to opt for another tried and tested medium - the girl's hostel landline number. Though it created financial risk, it suited me because it gave me the much needed privacy and saved me from the trouble of facing and talking to her at the same time (there was a serious risk of me getting statued with her face in front)! I used to walk 2 kilometers in hottest of afternoons to a telephone booth which had a 'Private Cabin' strategically created for customers like me. With the market monopoly due to this niche product, I often used to wait in long queue in front of the booth and would keep trying the girls hostel number which was busier than the railway enquiry! The booth owner used to offer me a glass of water sometimes in the middle of conversation depending on my bill. I think he had seen such cases before.

In next three years I did many things for her about which I feel ashamed to write in my blog. And just when my confidence had reached the pick and I thought that the Jackpot was ready to be cracked, she said, "My boyfriend is an MBA".

Now, I was the only engineer from my village in the known history. I used to believe that I have achieved something greater than what Armstrong achieved by landing on the Moon. I had no idea what MBA is. I pretty much started hating the word! I cried, smoked, got drunk and did most of the things which are labelled as Pyar ke Side Effects. All this while, Mandal used to laugh and make fun of all my stupidities. Given his baldness, I think he had seen such phases long back!

I dont remember her anymore. I think thats the way it goes. However, whenever I talk to my college friends, they invariably mention her to tease me. It just brings a smile on my face and some fade memories. I guess thats the way it goes. :-)

Kaleidoscope

Aaah!! Feels like it has been ages since I typed my blog address in my 'Google Chrome' browser. Well, I have a valid excuse of being busy as after all I am doing MBA!!
hmmm...I don't find something special to write about today.. so lets rewind and pick on 7 interesting learning of my last 7 months. I would again say, Facebooking is a far better option that reading my blog, Its gonna be long and boring but after all its the learning of one of the best B-schools in India.. feel free to tag along!

1. Every person in this world who is doing an MBA owes it most to Larry page and Sergey Brin. Its only due to their amazing invention that the best of B-Plans, projects and Case solutions are done in a couple of hours. I respect my alums who managed to do MBA before the advent of Internet, u deserved it Sir!

2. You have to be busy. I know you don't have any work, and probably you are refreshing facebook every 15 minutes, but that doesn't matter. It's a shame not to be always working on your laptop if u are an MBA student. The Problem is, my Alma-mater is the coooolest place to do an MBA. Still as I said, we are busy.

3. This one is slightly personal. Its a bit weird to share the class with people who behave the way u behaved 3-4 years ago! If you are doing MBA after considerable work-ex like me, u would often say, 'I also used to be so serious about Marks', 'Oh, I also approached my first crush the same way!', ' I also used to be so sentimental about my society!'. You face the problem of 'Generation Gap' but that's the lateral learning!

4. Its as important to make a girlfriend as it was for you to crack the entrance exam of FMS. Not because I was single when I joined the college.. because people are in a hurry to get their relationship status changed! Yeah, u read it right. There is a huge volume of changes from 'Committed' to 'Single' as well as soon as people join the college... Many also go for 'Committed' to 'Multi-Committed'.

5. Charles Darwin forgot to mention in his theory of survival about the sole purpose of human existence. Its Placements. I think half of us would be happy to polish shoes in connaught place, if it earns a CV point. In MBA one faces the music twice, Summers and Finals.. Its for those two D-days that we were born. Not only does it gives you a Job, it gives you a 'Tag' for the rest of your stay in B-School.

6. You will meet many extreme people here. The most intelligent people, the most selfish people, the most helpful people,the loudest people, the quietest people, people with attitude, people with Gratitude ... Its good to experience extreme people, at times its hard to bear them!

7. I think once we pass out, most of us will realize that we were a better person before we did MBA. Better in knowledge and the most important, a better Human being. MBA gives a lot of 'Lateral Learning'. Games people play :-)

It went a bit long. A bit sarcastic. But its my blog. I gave you an option right at the Start!
Maktub!