From then to now ..... the journey

13th Jan 2005.
That was the date of my last post on this blog. That was a good year and a half ago. So much has happened in my life from then till now. If i remember correctly, 13th Jan 2005 was midway through my 3rd term in IIMB.
3 more terms, 1 summer internship, 1 fall internship, a final recruitment process and a dream job later, here I am!!!

So much has heppened in my life since that date.

Summers@HLL:
2.5 months trying to sell Ice Cream was a fanatastic learning experience for me. It is rather ironic that the company where i interned is now gonna be my biggest competitor, but thats the way the river flows I guess. Had a great time there with 2 awesome ppl from A and C, both of whom have done very well for themselves since then. None of the 3 of us actually joined HLL after that project. I dont know abt the other 2 but I took grt pleasure in turning down Levers in finals for my dream job with their biggest competitor. More on that later.

4th term:
Man. I was going through my earlier posts and I read the one on the 2nd term. well let me say this. term 2 was nothing compared to term 4. After a dissapointing grade in term 3 coz of a major butt raping in macro eco I put hajaar fight in term 4 to boost my CG. Man I actually went over 20 nights without sleeping this term so that I could turn in perfect reports. the term didnt quite go as well as I wanted it to but did manage to boost my CG a bit.

Term 5:
If someone tells you that he had a tough term 5 in IIMB then you should probably laugh on his face. lets face it, when the CG doesnt count, why should the term be tough? Well when you have a fall internship with DBS, india's biggest b school fest to organize, projects and assignments in virually all the 6 subjects you choose (you cant fail after all) and other personal problems, it all adds up to one fucked up term. Those 3 months was the closest I ever got to depression. As I look back, Im kinda happy that what heppened happened. Coz Im sure that life can never get as bad as it did in those 3 months ever again. As I look back at that time, I wish I had turned to my close friends for help. Heck I wish I had done a lot of other things as well. I guess hindsight is a luxury that one does not have when he is in deep shit after all.

Term 6:
The culmination of the past 2 years. Dreams are realized or shattered at this time of the year. This is what everything at a B School boils down to: placements. Let me cut a long story short. That 12th of March, 2006 was the greatest day of my life (after 7th May 2004, when I got my IIMB admit). I had 3 goals as I entered 8th standard.

1. IIT
2. IIM
3. P&G

IIT didnt happen. It only hardened my resolve to make the other 2 happen. May 7th, 2004 was the day I realized my goal of making it to IIMB. After a 99.8% I would have been fucking pissed if AB or C didnt happen. But B did and I expereiced the 2 best years of my life. And that 12th of March, 2006 , dream 3 also came true, as Proceter & Gamble made me an offer to join their Marketing function as an Asst. Brand Manager in the Singapore office.

It gave me great pleasure to walk over to the Campus Recruiting manager at HLL, with whom I had a PPI interview scheduled for later that evening, and tell him that I will not be interviewing with them. SOunds wierd aint it? After all, it was my summers company. Lets just say that it was personal ..... very personal.

Well 18 months since my last post. Lot has happened since then. Went through the toughest challenges of my life over the last 6 months. But in the end, as I sit here on my bed, and type this post out at 2 am in the morning, a small smile crosses my face. Im so fucking happy :)

The circle of life

The sound of the waves gently crashing against the shore really brought back fond memories. I had gone home to Madras for 6 days for my term 2 vacation. Hit the beach as soon as i landed in Madras and went there eveyday till I left.

I dont care who you are or where you're from. You haven't lived life till uve spent a day in baywatch in Besant Nagar Beach, drinking coffee and just looking at the sea. I can do it for the rest of my life. I did it for 4 years in engineering college and I never got tired of it. Come evening time, I used to get in my car and drive off to the beach to sip coffee, look at the waves crashing on the shore and gently drawing away, and think about life an the future.

There is something incredibly soothing about the ocean. Im sure that the fishermen on the Marina coast wouldnt have thought so on the morning the tsunami wiped out half the fishermen population in TN. But i wasnt there to see that. So for me the sea will always remain the place where I used to go whenever I wanted to get away from eevrything and think. I still remember the days I spent at bessie with jsk, manan, baby, reddy, aya, harsha, neelu, et al. The beach was like our hang out. Most guys our age used to go there for sightseeing(u know what im talking about). But for us it was like our second home. College only came a distant third.
So many incidents came to my mind when I went there after such a long time. Manan walking all the way to Planet Yumm just to take a leak. Aya hiding in a small avanue and smoking his first fag coz he was scared his mom who lived some 10 kms away might see him. reddy and i getting caught by the cops for playing loud music in his car. JSK and i sitting in Baywatch for hours and talking about life, jobs, our future and the people in our lives.

I want to retire. I want to buy a house in Besant Nagar beach. I want to wake up at 5 in the morning and take my dog for a walk on the sands and look at the sun rise . I want to sit on the shore and see the water come up to my feet and then pull away. I want to play frisbee with my dog on the beach. I want to read the morning newspaper, for the first time in my life not because I want to be prepared for job interviews, but because I actually want to.

Sounds like utopia to me.

Till later
da STIFFmaester

It Begins

So it begins. The much talked about term 2. What's so significant about term 2 you ask ? Well, nothing much, except that it is a glimpse straight into hell, if my seniors are to be believed. And not one of those small peeps into hell where you just survey the scene for a few seconds and then decide whether you wanna vacation there or not, but it is a long sabatical, lasting for 3 months, where you will get to dance with the devil on a daily basis.
Whats in term 2 that is making me dread it so you wanna know. Well read on.

Acads :
Nothing much, just 4 extremely miserable subjects. Operations Management where the devil pulls down your pants, Marketing where he proceeds to make you remove your underwear, Quantitative Techniques where he clasps your .... ahem ahem......"jewels" in his scaly palms, and finally Corporate Finance where he will administer the coup de grace and squeeze the living daylights outta your manhood and ensure that he leaves you impotent. Oh, I forgot to mention, there are 2 more subjects, ManComm-II and some HR course, just to ensure that you dont have any spare time at hand to nurse your wounds.

Vista:
I had blogged earlier about VISTA. it is IIMB's annual management summit that is scheduled to be held from the 5th to 7th of november. And we are dead set on outdoing last year's vista at any cost. Im in FII, the society that conduxts VISTA, along with a lot of industry lectures around the year. But VISTA is the most important thing on our radar. There's something like a silent competition b/w A,B and C. A has CONFLUENCE, B has VISTA and C has INTAGLIO. And every year the 3 do every thing they can to outdo each other. So u can imagine the amount of work we have ahead of us for the next 1 month.

Summers:
Its RG season at IIMB. Coz summer placements are around the corner. For the next month, the compus will be filled with discussions about Lehman's core competance and HLLs poor performance. This is the time when competition is at it's peak, with every one battling for the top summer jobs, hoping that they will be able to convert it into a PPO and chill in year 2. Summers is a pretty big lottery, and there are quite a few nervous breakdowns this time around. Hoping ill get something decent. only time will tell. But untill then, I got my hands full with AVB, HLL, TAS, ITC and a shit load of other forms, along with sample interview questions and practice GDs.

But this happens in all B-Schools at this time of the year. All students have to face this kinda pressure at some time. I just hope IM able to handle all this. Coz Madras university aint exactly the best training ground to handle pressure u see :-)

till later

da STIFFmaester

So whats new

So whats new in the land that never sleeps.
Nothing much. Same old same old. Classes, quizzes, mid terms, assignments, projects, industry visits, blah blah blah

So let me talk abt the non acad part for a change. Im a member of the forum for industrial interaction(FII) at IIMB. Its the society that arranges all industrial interactions and guest lectures from big shot business men and hed honchos of corporate india. There was a rigorous selection procedure at the beginning of the term where nearly 100 out of the 187 PGP1s applied for selection, and only 15 were selected. And I was one of them :-)

FIIs most important task at hand is to recreate VISTAs success. VISTA, for those who dont know, is IIMBs annual management summit, which attracts some of the leading business schoools in the world and corporates from all sectors to participate in workshops, seminars, paper presentations, case studies, games and all sorts of business related competitions. Its a really pseud white coller type thing and Im proud to say that in terms of foot falls(no of participants), were clearly no.1 in India. A group of 15 junior FIIs, led by a group of 9 senior FIIs are breaking their butts, trying to ensure that we outdo last years VISTA, which saw the likes of P.Chidambaram and C.K.Prahlad enthrall the audience in the keynote and invitation addresses. VISTA is scheduled to be held from the 5th to 7th of November and we hope it will be a brilliant success.

So what else is up ? Mid terms were over and grades are out. pretty satisfied with my performance. Not class topper like I was in undergrad, but im holding my own. I seek to ratinalize my performance by telling my self - " Im not here for the learning, im here for the experience" :-)

We had another L^2 last night. It was pouring cats and dogs. But that doesnt deter us fearless :-) IIMBites from having our well deserved fun. I danced till 4 am which is kinda early for my standards.

Will be hitting Chennai end september. I just wanna go home, go to my room and crash on my bed for 2 weeks. Coz Im a growing boy/man .... and I need my SLEEP !!!!!!!!!

Till later
da STIFFmaester

Im back

Well, its a long time since I updated my blog. But better late than never.

Mid-terms just got over this week. Unlike my engg papers which involved mugging a lot of worthless crap and vomitting all over the paper, exams herer are totally application oriented. Mugging the text doesn'd aamount to anything if u cant apply the fundae to real life situation.

Let me give u an example from my stats paper :

. IFF (‘Insure From FIRE’) is an insurance company that sells insurance from fire to households. The policy has an ‘upper limit’ (UL) clause, which implies that if any insured household suffers a loss amount (resulting from the covered risk) in excess of this UL (Rs. 1 lakh), then the IFF would pay back only 1 lakh (subject to IFF’s verification that the claim is genuine), not the actual loss amount. The company has kept UL at the given level ensuring that top 3% of the losses resulting from the covered risk are not eligible for full payment.

From the past data, IFF assesses that a household has 2.5% chance of reporting damages from fire in any given year. It is extremely unlikely that any house will suffer from fire damages more than once in any given year, and consequently relevant probability may be set to zero for all practical considerations. Titas, the advising actuary of IFF, who specializes on loss amounts resulting from fire damages caused in households, knows that the genuine loss amount follows a Lognormal distribution with parameters m=10 and s2, i.e. the natural (to the base e) logarithm of loss follows a Normal (m=10,s2) distribution. Titas never bothered to report the value of s2 to IFF officials, possibly because he felt that nobody in IFF would understand its significance.

The following are some properties that you may find handy: for a random variable X having a Lognormal distribution with parameters m and s2,


Where c is any positive constant and F(.) is the CDF of the Standard Normal distribution; (for example: F(1.96) = 0.975).

IFF is aware that 15% of all claims made by the insured are fake and the claimed loss amounts of these follow a Uniform distribution in the range fifty thousand to one lakh. All claims are inspected by a division of IFF, better known as INS2. INS2 is responsible for assessing whether a claim is genuine or not. It inspects only the cause and eligibility of any claim, not the amount claimed; consequently any claim is either fully settled (except when the claimed loss exceeds the UL), or not paid at all. INS2 is reasonably efficient in its role: 96% of legitimate claims are assessed correctly, while 10% of the false claims somehow manage to get payment from the company. The rumour has it that the latter is dependent on the kickback some of the INS2 officials receive; but for the lack of evidence, we would attribute it to the genuine probabilistic mistakes. 90% of all legitimate claims that do not receive the payment from the company end up appealing to the judicial system, while the corresponding probability among fake claims is only 1%. You may assume that the claim amount has no impact on whether IFF accepts a claim or not. IFF incurs an administrative cost of Rs. 100 per policy issued and Rs. 500 per claim filed. IFF claims to charge a fair premium, which naturally accounts for its administrative costs, as well.
a.) What is the expected value of the loss amount (genuine) resulting from fire attack in a household? [3]


b.) In the past two months, there are forty five incidents of (genuine) household fires among IFF policyholders. What is the probability that more than forty of them will receive payment from IFF? [3]


c.) What should the fair premium rate that IFF must be charging per policy per year? [5]

[Hint: You may need to consider five possibilities: no claim is filed and 2´2 combinations of IFF accepting/discarding fake/genuine claims]


d.) The inspection division of IFF is closely examining three claims, each reporting a loss between Rs. 90K and 1lakh; the division has come to the conclusion that the claimed loss amounts are obviously very dependent. Either they are all genuine and caused by the same fire, or they are all fake. Given the fact that a loss lies in the above range, what is the chance that it is genuine? [4]


[Bonus question: worth 2 points] IFF decided not to accept the claim, because it felt the claim was fake. The policyholder moved to court. Do you wish to modify your answer to part d)? If yes, how? If not, why?


Pretty big shit huh? What if I tell you that nearly every paper is like this? Do you still wanna come here?
Of course you do. Coz everything here is realtive. We dont have the stupid percentage system. You're grade is directly proportional to you're relative standing in the class. If eevryone screws up, then you can afford to screw up and still get a decent grade. But if you do pretty badly wrt the class, then ur screwed big time.

Life is just beginning to get back to normal. After sleepign for just a few hrs b4 and during teh mids, im finally catching up on a lot of lost sleep. Slept for like 8hrs today which is a huge luxury. And now its time for L^2. Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So im gonna get going now.
Till later
da STIFFmaester

FOOTAAAAAAAGE !!!!

The single most important word in IIMB. People spend more time in the insti trying to learn the fine art of footage than o learning accounts and stats.
So what is this esoteric concept that is more imprtant than learning some gyan ?
 
Hehe, footage is the fine art of gaining publicity  and visibility in the insti among your peers. Or more simple put ....... SHOWING OFF
 
This can be done in the following ways :
 
1. Being a STUD
     Since everyone is a stud here, you have to be a super duper stud to get footage through tis route. ie: You'll have to be a CA Ranker, or a chap who did his BTech from IITK and MS from UCAL Berkely(what the hell is this guy doing here ?? ),or an IIT ranker(like wimpy) .
HOnestly, very few ppl get footage this way,and its usually not long lasting.
 
2. Extra-Currics
     The best way to get footage. People know that everyone here is inteliigent,  so ull have to proove yourself be being different. You'll have to be a stud sportsman(like Muthu) or a stud quizzer(like Wimpy/Kodi), or maybe a stud debater.
 
3. making an ass of yourself :-)
       The best way to get footage . Eassiest way to get everyone to know you. err ... since some of my batchmates may be reading this blog, I wont post any examples. But pussy .... you know Im talking about you :-)
 
4. Starting a club of your own
      I think ill be doing this . Me and Rohit have decided to start a club called "The Hood" . Entrance requirement - you'll have to be a good for nothing :-) (on a relative basis) . There are already several of such clubs. The Bitch club ( they're very noisy) , the orange brigade ( the president's own club) , the hoosh brigade ( Im the first member from PGP1 :-) ) and so on.
 
  Getting footage is a fine art. You have to do it without letting ppl know that ur doing it, which is a very difficult task indeed. Im still learning :-)
 
da STIFFmaester

Life at IIMB

If you guys wanna glimpse into what Life at IIMB is like ..... read on
 
Here's what my life is like :
 
Wednesday : 1 chapter of 40 pages + 1 40 page case in Managing Organisaions
 
Thursday : 1 chapter of 25 pages + 1 15 page case in managing Organisations
                     + reading for a possible surprise quiz in Economics
                     + 3hrs of chart making for C-Block party
                     + Mugging for an Accounts quiz on Friday
                     + Pre-reading for Stats
 
Friday :  3 hrs of Stats classes ( Oh My God !!!! )
               + Warning from Stats prof that next week's Stats Quiz will be " mothering"
               + Accounts Quiz
               + Written Analysis for Man Comm - Case analysis of 1500 words(5-6hrs)
               + C-Block Party ( Yahooooo )
 
Saturday : Man Comm submission
                  + Studying for Stats Quiz next week
                  + Preparing Stats submission for Monday
 
Sunday : Like wise
 
Monday : Stats submission + N-Pages of Pre-reading
 
And so on and so forth
 
Btw : This is ok if its only a 1 time thing . Unfortunately every day is like this .... if not worse . Im just happy that things aren't like week-1 yet , coz that was a glimpse straight into hell , whre I was made to sleep for only 2-3 hars a day for 6 days .
I remember what I felt like on May-7th , when the results were declared and I realised I was going to IIMB . I was so full of enthu . I had dreams of partying and dancing and Brigade road ,etc . Well , its been nearly 20 days since I got here , and Brigade is looking like a distant dream . I guess I didnt realise that this course is gonna beat the crap outta me for the next 2 years .
But things aint all bad . The ppl Ive met here are amazing . When you're away from home , your friends are like your family . Plus , Ive had 3 L-squares which were awesome . And for the first time since I left school , Im actually learning . Engg coll was so full of crap . Study 2-3 days before the eams , go puke on the paper and go home happy . But here , Im actually using my brains . And its such a beautiful feeling . You gotta be here to know what Im talking about .
 
till later
 
da STIFFmaester
             

Junta , fundae , fight and hooshes !!!

If you wanna know what the above mean , then read on .

The cool thing abt being in a B-School is that you get to develop your own jargon that other insti ppl have no idea of . Let me familiarise you with some of the "arbit" jargon we have . Some of thses may be used in other instis as well . Usage is in braces

JUNTA : The peeps , people , fellow IIMBians
( Whats up with the junta ? Where are the junta ? )

FUNDAE : The fundamental concepts in a subject
( Whats the funda in finacc? Muthu's gonna put fundae in finacc )
ARBIT : Arbitrary ... with no relevance to ...
(Macchan ... thats totally arbit )
FIGHT : Tension
( Abey ... fight mat le )
GLOBAL : Totally without relevanvce to the issue at hand . Made for the purpose of CP and grades
( Dude ... dont put global gyan )
GYAN : Another word for global fundae
( Saala .. gyan de raha hai )
HOOSH : Another word for bumps
( Lets Hoooosh him !!!!! )

And a lot more . Im still learning . The purpose of such arbit jargon is not to show off . Its more a way of connecting with your fellow batchmates . These ppl are gonna be your friends and family for 2 yrs . The jargon is more to breaK the ice and introduce a sense of informaility among the junta :-)

And now to ppl an nick-names :-)

ME : Several nicks . Some include JJ , JC , Nerdy , MCC , Dildo , Tampon .

MUTHU : My very close friend . CA from Chennai . Nicest chap in the world . Extreme sports freak . Nick is M-square and Zeus .

GUHAN : Classmate from SVCE . No nick yet . Dont need to write abt him . Better yet . visit him at http://guha.blogspot.com

BALAJI : Baby Balaji . The baby of the batch . B.Com from Chennai . Amazing fun to be with . Nicks : Pussy , bj

RAJEEV : Aerospace engg from IITM . Short and amazingly enthu abt everything , Rajeev is a born flirt . In 2 days , he had met every girl in PGP1 .Nick is Rajeev Romeo ( aka R-square )

AVYAY : Tall , athletic handsome stud from Baroda and IITM . This guy , like Muthu , is a sports freak . Nick : Pedro and F-square .

SANJEEV : Garuda from PG . Lad from Vizag . Nice chap . But devoid of hair :-) . Always putting enthu CP in class . Nick GV

RAVI : The guy from SRM who chucked A for B . BBall freak , this guy has his sights set on one specific target ( now we know WHO that is , dont we Ravi ;-) ) . No nick yet .

KARTHIK : GOD . Nothing else . JEE rank 12 >comp sci from IITM . International Maths and Physics Olympiad . CAT percentile 100% . Chucked A for B . Gives others a complex :-( . Nick : Wimpy

Lot more ppl . Too tired to go furhter . Will be back soon . Till then .. have fun junta ;-)

da STIFFmaester

Life is Beautiful

Life IS beautiful .

They say hard work pays . And Im experiencing first hand how well it actually it pays . Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how amazing life at IIMB could have been . Ive been here just 2 days , and I already feel like Im at home .

Did u say ragged ?

Yes , I was . I was ragged BIG TIME . The reason is , my dear cousin brother Rajiv ( aka JEEVES ) passed out of IIMB this year and he left word with his juniors , ie my seniors , to ............. ahem ahem ......... "WELCOME: me to the insti . ANd his word shall be followed , coz its fair to say that he was the THE most popular guy in IIMB . Last years Gold medallist , he is almost revearde in the insti . He seems to have fruiends everywhere , and that translates to moer ragging for me . NOt ragging . They prefer to call it " healthy interaction " .Anyway , its not that bad . Mopstly verbal .They gave me a lot of "special " assignments , obviously involviing girls .And I think i did a decent job :-) . Its been amazing fun . I love it over here , and this is gonna be my home for the next 2 years .


Got settled in my room in C-007 ( Bond .. hehe ) , and coincidentally JEEVES was inb C-006 . Plus the BITCH club is in C 1st floor , and all the imporant chaps like the President of IIMb and most of the Placecom guys are in C top floor . So this is an amazingly fun hostel .

Guys , if you have to , its worth losing 1 year of your social life to make it to the insti . We had an L^2 last night and I was dancing till 2:30 . And thats early . Party ended only at 6:00 am (hehe) . Do whatever you have to , but make it to an IIM . And then you too shall see , that Lofe , is INDEED beautiful .

da STIFFmaester

Finally .... Paradise !!!!

Im here . Where I always wanted to be !!

Arrived in Bangaolore this morning . Came with Guhan and Balaji . The trip from the coach to the taxi took us nearly half an hour , what with all the luggage we were carrying :-) .

Reached the cmpus at around 7:20 and had to wait for around 45 mins coz the hostel office was closed . We had breakfast in the mess and felt like fishes out of water :-) . We didnt even the know the procedure to have breakfast , lol . Finally this good samaritan senior helped us out .

Spoke to mom and dad and old them I reached safely and all . Finally the hostel office opened and we picked our rooms . I got C-007 ( Bond ... James Bond :-) ) . Guhan got F-306 and bj got J-313 . Only time will tell if I have picked a good room or not .
You see , C block is right in the thick of the action . Its away from Lincoln Square , so u got ur privacy , but its a stones throw away from every thing else , so I guess everything is accesible . F-block is probably a couple of mins from my room . And J is a little further away .

The problem is I got basement , so I hope my room doesnt get filled with insects , or with water when it rains .

Met a couple of fellow freshies . This chap Siddharth , from Presidency college Calcutta is next to bj . And Showmik , from IIT-Kgp is my neighbour .

Me , Guhan and bj are currently touring the campus . IM blogging from the Computer centre which is prety cool . Set up by IBM , NOVELL and WIPRO . Ill keep blogging on my experiences .

Take care ppl .

da SIFFmaester

Im in Kodaikanal now . Have been here for the past 3 days . And its amazing .
The weather is bloody cold . And its also rainuing off and on . BUt its still great .

da STIFFmaester

FRIENDS ...... the end !!!

Well ..... what can I say , except that it was classy .

Very Classy

Im not the kinda guy who gets emotional over movies and teleserials . Heck , Ive watch more than my share of Chick-flicks , and I come out feeling pretty ok . None of that sad , weepy " Oh my dear god , he died .... " kinda feelings for me .

But yet , due to some strange reason , I was very mooved today , after watching the final episode of friends . It was a marathon show on my comp . I had already seen 8 episodes of season 10 , but though I had the other 10 , my Divx Codec pack had to be updated , which I finally got around to doing today . And after that , it was 10 straight episodes . And though I didn't weep or cry or any of that shit , I must say there was a sense of emptiness after watching 10-18 . I have never felt that way after watching a movie or TV show before this .

Im sure all of you know how it ends . Ross and Rachel get back together - this time supposedly for good . Chandler and Monica get twins and move to their new home in the suburbs . Phoebe and Mike live happily ever after , and Joey is gonna go on to star in a spin-off of friends , called the Joey Show , in which joey goes on to become the President of the United States :-) . To be honest , I dont hink it would make any difference . One stupid jackass being replaced by another , thats all .

I guess I felt low , coz Friends has been around for 10 years now . And Ive seen every episode , more than 1ce (each) . And every time 1 season ended , I felt down , coz it was re-run time . But there was always light at the end of the tunnel coz I knew that its only a matter of time before the next season is out . But now , there is no such light at the end of the tunnel . There is no hope . There is nothing to wait for . Its gone . And I can live with that . Just that its gonna take some getting used to . But I can . Coz its just a show - its not life .

But I tell you what - ill miss it . Chandler's wise-cracks . Joey's stupid shenanigans . Ross and his emotional outbursts , even his stupid dino stories . Monica's attention to detail . Phoebe's hillarious one-liners . Nothing so particular about Rachel , but ill miss her too .

Adios "amigos" ( amigos,im sure u know,translates to FRIENDS :-) )

Till later

da STIFFmaester