Was wondering the other day, sipping tea and gazing lazily into the cupboards in front, about how when we go deeper into subjects the ‘dots begin to connect’ and the out of sheer chaos how order becomes visible. Been watching a Sitcom a lot of late. ‘ED’ is about Edwards J Stevens a lawyer who owns a bowling alley and prefers not to be called the ‘Bowling alley lawyer’

In one of his episodes a character gives a message that when things go really wrong and nothing seems to be working our way, one should hang on and stay put. Bad times will pass. Should not indulge in self-doubt or loose faith in one self. I am not new to this concept and might add a few lines to that; one should never ’short’ his dreams or ‘long’ a compromise solution. In layman’s terms that would be translated (somewhat fancifully) as “Don’t give up, Don’t Give in“. Our Grandma’s never tire of sermonizing the fact we can rarely come across someone who fulfilled his dreams or became anything of worth without having made to sweat-out for it.

Paul Cohelo in his revolutionary book ‘The Alchemist’ says that once we have made our intentions clear that we want what we want and will not stop till we get what we want, the whole worlds starts to conspire to help us achieve that. But what he does not talk about is the intermediary period when the world goes about testing the intensity of our desire to have it and for what its worth makes us literally bleed through the nose to have it. Steve Jobs talked about connecting the dots and the fact that while connecting them we aren’t really able to see through to our destination. We are only guided by our Karma or intense desire or that sacred inner voice in our actions. However when the picture is complete, it all comes back to us as how obviously it was a part of our destiny that we would have connected that dot. How else would the picture have come out in all its glory. What he does warn us though that it’s not all rosy, and the road to such perdition will ask and call for immense sacrifices and will test the will, spirit and soul of the person so desirous.

So, what’s so great about this, one might be tempted to ask. What is so great about dreaming and then believing in your dream and working at it even if the whole world thinks you are crazy to finally live out your dream! Further what has Present Value (PV) calculations got to do with any of this. In case you have read so far of this blog post, I an sure you would have scratched your beard at least once or raised an eyebrow or two or if nothing else twitched inadvertently at the berserk contextual fallacy of this post.

In Warren Buffet’s words investment is ALWAYS for the long term and when we buy shares of a company the way to look at it is not like we are buying some shares of it but we are buying a partnership in the business of the firm. As someone has rightly said (& Prof. Uday Damodaran elegantly pointed out at his SAPM class) A Pessimist is someone who knows the PRICE of everything but the VALUE of nothing. Price has little to do with the fundamental value associated with an object. Valuation of any business thus has to do a lot with these contextual framework and philosophical backbone.

If we sit back and think how does an astute investor make money in the equity markets without retorting to market manipulation. It is by realizing the Hidden Value of a Business. The value of a business which is not recognized by the market yet but is evident to the investor. In other words the dreams of the promoters and the prospects of it coming through not being gauged accurately enough by the investor community in general. The two words in this phrase are of equal importance, ‘Hidden’ and ‘Value’. If the vision of growth and prosperity of any firm is evident to the general community then the current price of the stock would have already factored that in. It needs to be something which has slipped accidentally or more commonly disregarded naively as an achievable and actionable objective. Moreover the Vision of Growth must lead to Value generation. In keeping with the maxims of Shareholder Wealth Maximization (SWM) the new projects undertaken by the firm must be because the management believes it will generate positive Net Present Value (NPV) for the shareholders and not because it is a ‘Pet’ project of the executives. The Present Value (PV) factors in the time weightage of the returns a $100 bill today is more precious than $100 bill bill a 100 years later.

I am sure the mathematics above is not at all pleasing to read, being banal and trivial to say the least. Let’s move into the more interesting aspect of this. The Philosophy side of it. What it essentially means is that the number crunching MBA investor managing wealth should be able to connect to the dreams and aspirations of the entrepreneurial promoter sweating in some remote area across the globe. What it means is that he should be able to gauge the intensity of this man’s psyche towards not letting go of his goals and his dreams midway. (He of course would also need to analyze the reality elements of his dreams, but considering the stock is actually being traded, it does have a decent chance of making it through. What is really in question is how much is the chance!). So while people going about their daily chores need to keep believing in themselves, an Investment Manager will need to believe in other people. He would need to access the chances that the promoter would not chicken out when the market is sloppy or when the tides suddenly turn unfavorable. Because if really has to jettison out from the firm when its going through a rough patch his investment would have been severely impaired.

Add to it the fact that the promoters are mostly over critical of poking investors and aren’t really forthcoming with the true state of the difficulties they might be facing in implementation of the projects and we really have a very difficult job for that ‘Astute Investor’! No wonder then that we just have one Warren Buffet!

Read this

The Journo who wrote this classic piece is the ‘Famed’ editor of B-School Rankings. A kind of guy whose core competency remains marketing shit by posting it as ‘Research Verified and OUTLOOk stamed authentic’. My thoughts on that article follows.

Of course! As C-Fore correctly points out MDI and likes are truly a world class MBA college. Much better than three of the IIMs. Especially when the 8 lakhs siphoned off from students make its way to advertisements in Outlook and the editors of such ranking articles are taken good care of. After-all it’s situated in MY Delhi! That alone suffices.

Minor trivialities like quality of students and level of academics really count for a petty sum. The Weighted Average Value calculation really puts a trivial score of such factors. The fact that most decent profiled professionals who are well placed in life already don’t even care to apply to this institute is due to the Evil Axis spinning IIMs who keep fudging-nudging with the mindsets of people.

And, yeah any institute has the right to force a sloppy job on its students so as to protect its ‘Average Salary Figure’ even if it ends up ruining his prospects of following his dream career path. So MDI really cannot be held at guilt.

After-all the top B-School in the world is SUNY (State University of New York) and not Wharton. You see the reason causing that is the fact that Wharton is in an investment impoverished state of Pennsylvania whereas SUNY is in the Cradle of financial capital of the World, New York! (I almost fell off my seat laughing)

Thank my stars that policy matters are decided by dumb politicians and not smart journos!!

By the way, I wrote this as a comment on that article. Of course it has a Moderated comment section to ensure that only ‘Proper’ comments are filtered through! Lets see how sportive is Premchand Palety, the self proclaimed expert on B-Schools and the humdrum journalist Prostituting news.
I have written this article with MDI because this institute happens to be a particular favorite with this magazine. I could however have replaced it with many others like IMT/SPJAIN and even government ones like IIFT!

~ ‘There is nothing so PATHETIC as a man with an AMPUTATED SOUL’

They say that the honeymoon period begins in reverse order in IIMs. So to say it peaks the month before the course ends and starts somewhere midway, i.e. with the start of second year.

My prolonged absence from what used to be one of my frequent pit-stops, my blog, is due to the unforeseen academic load that has viralled in. This unusual load is not a matter of chance or of co-incidence, as most people believe. The talk doing rounds is that a two-pronged approach was taken by the PGP (Post Graduate Program i.e. MBA Program) office to curb this infidelity to their sacred subject, ‘Academics’. Firstly, they brought all the important electives in this term, so if you have even an iota of hunger for learning you got nowhere to run to pal! Secondly they squeezed a normal 3 month term into a 2 month ‘crash-course’. I don’t know where crash course got its name from, but from my end it looks to be inspired from the fact that there is a very high probability that the course will end up in a crash!

Anyways looking into the various aspects after my previous blog, here goes.

• Summers was a fantastic learning experience. Got a feel of an Investment Bank though the workload will almost quadruple when I finally join one. I finally decided on the first stroke in the white canvas in the post-MBA employment scenario. I was decided on Investment Banking, but was not sure which branch would it be. Now I know which one it will be and more importantly the difference between them. Private Equity has become a long term career goal and Hedge funds the intermediary one.
• Delhi was a welcome change. It was great to be back in my home-town for a longish span after almost 7 years! It was hot as a furnace, even in the nights when on one day it was 43 degrees Celsius! It was home though and that made all the difference!
• Went for a visit to the school of ‘Babus’ in Mussoorie: Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. This is the place where newly minted IAS officers are polished before they take chair and officiate as Babus of India! The systems in the institute were actually generations behind what we have in IIMs and it was without doubt that it wasn’t faring half as well in living up to its mandate! In fact, the IAS Cadre Students (Officially called Officer Trainees or OTs) were so reckless with government property that they actually opened all taps of their hostels before they left for their postings at the end of their training. As a result the institute was parched for water for one full day! It’s sad that these people will be undertaking the nearest equivalent of management of government machinery.
  
• Back in Campus the weather was sheer Bliss! The clouds and the rain drops laden breeze seem to be romancing all day long. The campus is so picturesque that I almost felt a pang of sadness that next year this time I will no longer be here! Our section went to a beach party one day. We all packed off early afternoon and off we went to Kappad. After many rounds of Ocean-water dumping, sand ball flinging, beach football, drinks songs and merry making we made our way joyously back to campus. The photos came out superb the next day and flaunt my flickr account now!
  
• Juniors are a primarily work-ex laden batch, however they are still being treated with kid-gloves by the system. They are having a very merry time and the euphoria of having made it to IIM hasn’t collapsed yet. Probably the Mid-term examinations will do that for them. We pray that they have a soft landing so that they aren’t crippled and can rise again!
• Our classes have started on Turbo mode from day one. I averaged 8 hours of classes till yesterday and today as I write I have chosen to conveniently skip two hours of classes that will be stretching to 23:30 hours! Management of Banks is proving to be more that living up to its precedent of being morbidly loaded, but the nice part is that the facilitator is a very nice and understanding person. Securities Analysis and Portfolio Management is by far the best course I have taken till now and the facilitator, Dr. Uday Damodaran is no way the lesser cause of that. UD sir is sheer music to ears, his classes are like listening to a maestro play Mozart or Beethoven! Financial Derivatives is a steep learning curve and the terror of Black & scholes model with their option-pricing model has already taken grip of students!
• Finally, booze parties have been allowed in the campus, and with that it brought back the sparkle to the freshers party and to the numerous hostel parties. Hostel ‘G’ods is recreating history and truly adding glitter to its illustrious reputation as rambunctious and happening hostel. Junies have taken to watching movies and competing in all frivolous competitions in true earnest. Academics has taken a backseat for them!
• After a lot of fanfare the Doctoral program was rolled off this year. We finally have Fellow Program in Management students in our midst! Surprisingly quite a few of them are rank freshers (what in IIM lingo is called ‘Bloody Fresher‘). They are provided air-conditioned cottages and a princely stipend of Rs. 12,000 per month for studying. The first year is common for them with the MBA students and thereafter theirs charters its way to thesis and doctoral research. Met two guys from them, nice people with an academic bent of mind and a steely resolve to achieve their goals! Wish them all the best as the flag-bearers of Doctoral program of this IIM!
• Watched two movies (even in this academic load!), ‘Corporate’ and ‘Life in a Metro‘. Of them, the later was easily avoidable and a typical bollywood quasi-masala contemporary genre movie. Corporate on the other hand was a very nice movie and threw up many questions of business ethics and its importance in the life of professional managers like us.

Saw this as a status message on one of my friend’s! Realized the gravity of what had happened exactly a year back.

As I kept pressing the refresh button sitting in the posh ambience of my organization and sipping coffee nervously, waiting for IIM K results to be out! I had royally messed up all the other IIMs thanks to an over jingoistic approach at answering the highly dubious  quant section! Kozhikode was my last respite, hopefully!

As the link to the results finally came, I clicked it with the pressing urgency of being the  first few among the 200000 students who must have waited for that opportune moment! (Not a frequenter to the MBA hullabaloo, the forum called Pagalguy, a friend of mine had called telling me that the results for K were finally out)

Once the form to ask for Date of Birth (DOB) and Registration number came, I jumped at  it and finished the whole thing at the drop of a fiddle! For the first time as I was about to  click on submit, my fingers refused to comply on the mouse buttons. No wonder, they  were terrified at the prospect of seeing ‘Sorry! Not selected!’ message. The tremors  actually ran right through my spine.

It is in this hour of weakness that the words of Rabindranath came floating to my mind,  ‘O God Protect me from disaster is not what I ask of thou, provide me but the  strength not to be afraid of facing them though!’ The words instantly calmed y frayed  nerves as in a split second my mind had already seen the future where a temporary  hurdle met me. I had prepared myself for the worst, so fear was no more a concern! I clicked the ‘submit’ button with the new found inner courage, and a schocking surprise  sprang up! ‘Congratulations! You have been shortlisted for PDGM program in IIMK’

Words failed me, as I ran a quick recheck in the ‘Welcome Mr. XYZ’ part so as to ensure  that it was not a cruel joke of fate. But apparently, that was not the case. XYZ here  correctly represented my name!

I had made it to IIM Kozhikode!

An ode to the beginning of my Journey to the haloed world of the Big-eye (I-banking). It all started when I took a conscious call to move out of software services to core investment banking while still making software solutions for a leading north American bank. It really had nothing to do with the fact that they (the ‘business users’ as they would call themselves) would always have the last and final say on all issues sometimes asking for the impossible to be done!

Anyways, in the past one year I have had ample discussions and debriefings with people in various stages of investment banking career. I knew all about (or so I thought!) the hardships of getting selected and then slogging relentlessly to stand out even among the outstanding peers and finally the obscene compensation packets. I also knew of the fantasy of work-life balance, of failed marriages lending itself to a costly divorce, of early health problems and other folklore associated with this profession. This is one of the reasons I thought I would put down my thoughts just as I complete the first few days of internship with India’s leading Investment Bank
(and the largest in Asia Pacific region). I intend to put forward my thoughts in later phases of this journey and maybe compare my notes later down the line.

What it takes: People keep giving interviews about how much you need to know in order to get into I-Banking. Rediff, Times of India, Sify and what not keep featuring ‘experts’ who let people insights into what it takes! Frankly, most of it is loads of crap. So nice and pretty Miss Su (an imaginary name!) might have made it to Goldman Sachs (GS) just due to the pretty face and that flirtatious
smile (and not because of her supposed prowess in ‘Valuation’ theories). It is a known fact that most I-Banks and Consulting firms would recruit pretty sexy girls in a jiffy, without batting so much as an eyelid while taking male candidates through 8-10 odd steps of selection. The pecking order is true and very much present. What I mean to say is this, do not go for all the sermonizing that people keep spreading as to ‘What to do’ just because they have been successful in getting through. It might be a ‘Inspite of that’ rather than ‘because of that’ causal relationship that it shares! Truth remains that you need to be pretty good in communication, in general calculation ability, in articulating business documents and possess a good overall knowledge about finance world (in that order of preference) in order to have a good chance of making it. Most misconceptions arise due to lack of understanding of difference of I-Banking from treasury, Wealth Management and Mutual Fund Management Roles. I-Banking is a very relationship and a customer oriented role. It requires a different level of interpersonal skills and a finesse which enables you to better understand your client’s business requirements and to communicate your ideas across. Hardly a ‘fully technical role’ as most people tend to portray it! Mutual Fund Management and Treasury on the contrary are hard core financial technical roles requiring very little of client-interaction! In fact the highest paid people in the industry are Fund managers and the treasury heads, but you would never hear too much about them because they are geeky, quiet and sober and hence highly un-glamorous! A brilliant example in this case is of Sunil Singhania, Fund Manager of Reliance Mutual Funds.

What it has to offer: I will not deal with the tangible benefits like an affluent bank balance and a prestigious role (Not in India though, where your next door aunt thinks you are some kind of salesman who could not get into a ‘proper bank’ like ICICI or HDFC!). I will talk about the numerous intangible benefits it has to offer like a systematic honing of your negotiation skills and your domain knowledge of various businesses. Investment banking typically requires performing valuation of various business models, projects and companies. Like Aswath Damodaran writes in his famous book on Valuations, “Valuation is neither the science that some of its proponents make it out to be nor the objective search for the true value that idealists would like it to become. The models that we use in valuation may be quantitative, but the inputs leave plenty of room for subjective judgments. Thus, the final value that we obtain from these models is colored by the bias that we bring into the process!”
Thus our understanding of underlying facets of the expected returns and the anticipated/unanticipated risk factors has wide ranging implications on our performance as I-Bankers. This makes is a much more wholesome job, so instead of limiting ourselves to financial documents of the project/firm what is required is to get well acquainted with the scenarios under which the businesses would be operating. Quite akin to doing a knowledge transfer from a 15 year old veteran in the business. This requires extensive and exhausting readings into the nitty-gritties of the business and leads to the infamous 18X7 working hours per week schedules! The good part about this whole exercise is that by the time you have spent two or three years in an I-Bank and have taken pains to work across different industry verticals, you would have acquired an enviable exposure to businesses which few others could afford. This would however require a conscious effort not to get ‘holed up‘ in the comfort zones that one creates after getting a good knowledge about any industry.

Where the Roads Lead: Investment Banking is rarely if ever a career move. It is generally a ‘pit-stop’ with the next destination being off to various domain knowledge intensive positions. The roads from here lead to consulting, Treasury, fund management and wealth management. As I read from various international authors about their accounts, the half-fife of an MBA graduate in an I-Bank is about 19 months, so 50% of fresh recruits leave I-Banking jobs within the first 19 months!

More Insight: A lot more insight is available in these two world renowned books ‘ Monkey Businesses’ and ‘Liar’s Poker’. The former is about the more recent version of Investment Banking profession whereas the later is about ‘Trading’ profile, which is now one of the subsets of the complete gamut of services of an I-Bank. For a little more technically inclined two other books to read in addition to these are ‘Random walk down the Wall Street’ and ‘Investment Fables’.

Tonight is a night of celebration. It’s time to pop open the champagne and garnish with fresh red strawberries! Its more than a Diwali or a Christmas (those have had very little meaning anyway in the past year with deadlines at 11:59, clouded by double submissions on the ‘due list’ and the terror of getting a ‘D’ in most subjects), more than a ‘Celebration of Life’. Its exuberance, its ecstasy, its sheer madness. For I’ve become a 50% MBA!

This blog post reflects on the ‘Take-Home‘ from this experience. It talks about things that I have learnt and those unlearnt. Lessons taken, choices made & crossroads chartered. It talks about the more action packed half of arguably the most academically rigorous course, an MBA!

• Time Deadlines are read ‘DEAD’lines. Past year has taught me that 11:00 hours are better read 10:59 hours if you have the uncanny habit of popping in on the wrong side of 59 seconds. So seminar and sessions are invariably on time zones other than ‘IST‘ (Indian standard Time, which is the colloq. For a time which lags the official time by a princely sum of 30 minutes!)and in case you are late, you are a million times better away from abstaining to attend it.
• Talent is never short, seek and you shall find. We dug and you can’t believe the booty we found. We found people who made fantastic movies, people who design amazing T-Shirts, People who are split second organizers, people who are enthralling Radio Jockeys and people who are the most gifted negotiators. All this in a B-School in which you hardly have time to breathe and try out your hobbies! I have found two new things that I am really good at; photography and negotiating,
• You never know how much you are capable of. Last I knew my limits were on working for about 28 hours without significant rest. As I write I have slept for not more than 12 hours in the past 6 days and yet I am not exhausted (if you forget the momentary bouts of yawns which are a giveaway!)
• Mantra of Life: Decide what you want, find out its price and be prepared to pay it! It’s that simple! So if you want to be a top of the line Investment Banker, that extra dose of B-School frill affectionately called ‘life‘ would have to wait. So skip the Cul-nites, the booze parties and skip the treks and excursions. Come on, if you want a merc you got to pay the huge price!
• Murphy forgot the Thirteenth law: Whatever you desire, most previously undecided fools will start desiring. So if you are not gathering enough support for something. Go Right ahead (As Rabindranath had said ‘Jodi tor daak shune keu naa aashe tahole ekla cholo re’ !). You would need to do some internal selling and probably a bit of viral marketing here and there. But, you would soon find a lot of people who are undecided till then would start falling in line, if only to get good riddance of the dilemma of ‘decision making’!
• Murphy forgot the Fourteenth law: When you put all you have at stake for a solitary cause, the odds fall apart! As Mark twain once said, ‘There are three types of lies. While Lies, Black Lies and Statistics!‘ So don’t bother too much about your odds. If you want something pretty bad and you know it might be a colossal task, spare a thought about alternatives. Mind you, don’t compromise, but look at more acceptable routes to that goal. And if there aren’t any, stop giving a damn about what your chances of winning are (as said in Gone with the wind to Scarlet O’Hara: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a Damn!). Go ahead and put everything you have into it. Look around, all the super achievers are people who never gave up on their dreams and fought hard for it!
• You can never be good at EVERYTHING: It is a most obvious fact of life which we somehow manage to disbelieve. We have our own set of queer notions about our Superhuman abilities. Truth be told, you do not need superhuman abilities to do superhuman stuff. The key is in surrounding yourselves with people with very good abilities. Together the team works in a mutual embellishing mode to achieve what would not have been possible individually. In science we call this ‘Resonance‘
• Pygmalion Effect is for Real! This HBR article has not entered the ‘Hall of Fame’ without adequate reasons. The Pygmalion Effect is true and here to stay. So high expectancy of the boss does have a tremendous effect on the morale and the performance of all his subordinates. So in case you are up agains t a super talented team with a bunch of mediocre yourself. Don’t lose heart! History bears easy evidence to the fact that Supercharged teams of Mediocre caliber have far outshone the super-talented geeky but unmotivated ones. Set high standards, believe in them and then sell then to your team. Do what it takes till you have washed their doubts clear and have belief in them. Then jjust sit back and enjoy their stellar performance as they break all moulds to fetch the ‘Unfetchable’!
• Be good to people on your way up, cause you will need them on your way down (And also in the un-eventual scenario that you have to stay up!)

   

  And to end it all, the Best of them all, ‘We Don’t need no EDUCATION’
  J

In case you are a visitor to my blog, Please be kind enough to fill this survey. It won’t take more than 2 mins, I promise.

This survey has been re-engineered to the needs of our generation which thrives on Instant noodle, Instant coffee, Instant Gratification and what not !

A little bit more about the research that we are doing is presented below

Background of the Project

With the conditional access system coming into force in a phased manner the battle for Home viewer-ship (or as some would call Home Box Office) is heating up.

The cable TV market largely a dormant sector till now dominated by major Multi System Operators(MSO) like Hathway, Siti Cable and Incable will have to change their mode of operation in all the major metros to incorporate Conditional Access system(CAS), which will require viewers to have a Set-Top Decoder. According to a report, for CAS-notified cities, non-availability of adequate number of set-top boxes continued to trouble the 750,000-800,000 consumers.

To add to the sizzle of the changing market dynamics we also have the various Direct to Home (DTH) coming in aggressively into the market with their state of the art digital Television broadcasted directly from the satellite to the homes. The Direct-to-Home service providers are cashing in on the confusion over the implementation the Conditional Access System in some areas of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Industry sources say over 20,000 consumers in the three metros have called up for DTH connections in the last two days, in comparison with an average of 6,000-8,000 calls that the call centers of Tata Sky and Dish TV receive every day.

To win this stiffly competitive race between the various DTH operators and the MSOs implementing CAS, DTH is being marketed as the latest ‘Interactive TV’ featuring a lot of value added services. One such service is ‘Movie on Demand’ is the subject of this study.

This Facility is aimed at the metro households who want to watch the latest movies released anywhere around the world and visit the multiplexes paying highly inflated amounts for the movie tickets. The service hopes to lure them into the comfort of their couch sitting with the whole family together (spending an otherwise rare family time), at the hour they prefer and at a fraction of the cost (not to mention the savings on popcorns and soft drinks which are astronomically priced) watching the same movie in the ‘Movie on Demand’ service of their DTH operator.

Our study aims at finding out how feasible indeed is the whole idea, how much of the market share of the multiplexes would it be able to acquire, how many of the CAS operators would it be chosen over and most importantly how profitably would this movie on demand service run and at what price structure would it be best suited.

Initial Hypothesis

H1:     At least 25% of the people earning Rs. 5,00,000 and above are willing to use the ‘Movie on Demand’ Service

Parameters considered for questionnaire design

1. Family Annual Income
2. Urban/Metropolitan Cities
   1. CAS implemented
   2. Undergoing CAS Implementation
   3. CAS implementation on the cards
   4. Possible CAS implementation in future
3. Professional considerations
   1. Profession
   2. Working hours
   3. Frequency of traveling

4.     Activities on a weekend

• Movies
• Picnic
• Travel/Excursion

5.    Convenience Factors and their influence on the decision

• Nearness of the multiplex
• Pricing of the auxiliary things like Popcorn/Soda/Refreshments/Parking ticket
• Period of watching movies released in the first/second/later weeks
• Entertainment facilities at home like a Widescreen TV/HDTV/Plasma Screen/home theatre system
• Willingness to try out new movies in the early weeks of release
• Willingness to watch movies sitting at home at a nominal cost of Rs. 70

6.    What factors do you look at while watching a movie?

• Viewing experience
• picture quality
• no of people accompanying
• type of movie you prefer to watch - regional, foreign , Hindi, English
• would the option of playback control (play, pause, control) enhance viewing experience?,

“Aankhen bandh kar loon jo main, dekhoon bas tumhain, khwabon main hi kah sakta hoon apna tumhe”

As I am listening to the mellifluous voice of Palash Sen in this song, even as I write this post, a lot of pictures come floating to my mind. People like Srivatsav, Kaushik, Manoj, Prosenjit and Anil to mention a few. This post is dedicated to these people who made a difference with their presence in IIMK.

The past ten days or so have been tremendously packed and hectic. We had four project submissions and a number of quizzes and evaluations. Not to mention the terror of Advanced Corporate Finance (better known as FM-II), with the many different and often contradicting models. The first respite came today, though even today we have an important assignment to submit in Operations Management, but of course, that can wait!

Most people left in the campus have gone off to Either Taj/ITC for a sumptuous meal or to some nice virgin beach like Mahe/Wayannad. Somehow I could not get myself to rejoice and party today, I miss some of my friends a lot. These ‘friends’ are my seniors who have moved out of Campus as they complete their PGP (that’s what the MBA degrees in IIM are called). Over the years, I have realized that my taste in food, life and people are similar. I like simple uncomplicated things, which are not garish but sober and reserved, with their own share of dignity! All this with a nice and pleasing touch!

In IIM’s people do not really develop new potential they just realize their latent potential. So factually speaking, you can’t really shine unless you have it in you! This goes for almost everything here. People realize their ‘hidden colors’; whether they were the loud and attention seeker types, the Type-A/Type-B Personality or simply the reserved observant ones; Chances are that societal norms might have had them camouflaged maybe even to the ignorance of the person himself . IIM makes steam-cooks you to make those hidden facets come out. So while some metamorphose into arrogant ignorant bastards, or as some people prefer referring to as people with ‘Attitude’; there are those who rise above petty trifle into stuff leaders and legends are made of!

I have always bonded well with people, something which came quite naturally to me! Things were particularly easy with seniors. In IIM the trend continued. Whether it was some stupid and outrageous demands, like asking Srivatsav for his expensive Hi-Fidelity Home theater system or asking him to lend me his laptop when mine was out of order, knowing fully well that he himself would need the same. Whether it was bugging Anil with my numerous problems, hoping him to find solutions for me or simply to hear a sympathetic voice. Whether it was asking Manoj to pitch in to solve my Corporate Finance Case assignments or asking him how my balance sheet had gone bonkers! Whether it was asking Kaushik-da to do all my elective selection for me or taking tips how to deal with the demanding facilitatorsor whether it was Prosenjit-da who would not be allowed to booze in peace even in a restaurant until I knew every single conceivable detail about the ‘East Bengal Vs. Mohan Bagan’ Saga! I always found them very friendly, very helpful and very approachable. Something which I never shied away from using abundantly!

I have seen a lot of different kinds of people. People with a ‘Holier than thou’ feeling, ones with the stink of arrogance made only worse by the putridity of their condescendence to people around them. People who have a personality that could have swept you off your feet (these are the ones members of opposite sex clamour to!) and the soft, gritted and foolishly optimistic ones. Invariably the ones that really impress them, are the last ones! Met every kind of friends here, ones who would not shy away in making hay out of your misery and ones who would risk more than their skin to help you out of mess which you got yourself into just by sheer callousness or negligence or outright foolishness. I recently came to know of a senior who ‘leased’ his outdated desktop to a colleague and friend (whose laptop had got stolen in airport) for an atrocious amount. An amount which would make the deal nothing short of exploitation! Not to mention that this individual, whom till now I thought to be noble, fell fathoms below in my eyes and though he is going to the largest Investment Bank in the world, rest assured if he ever needs my help, I would definitely think more than twice before helping him.

Somehow I fully agree with Harsha Bhogle, that ‘Talent and Capability’ are the most overrated qualities today (he said this in an interaction with students of IIMC, a video of which is readily available in our Campus repositories). A far too many people have gone down in the belief that their ability would see them sail through; all they need to do was to just sit and wish away time! Life truly is about the choices you make, the route you take when in a crossroad and the sacrifices that we make in that. A bare fact of life is that, ‘We Always have a Choice’ and the ‘Choices we exercise define what/who/how we are as individuals’!

A Picture that would remain embedded in my mind for a very long time would be the sad and sorry face of Srivatsav in the evening as he was a few hours away from leaving Campus. The sadness was so pristine and so pure that it was purer than tears. It is the sadness a baby boy has on his face when he has to let go of his mother’s hands as he sets his first step to his Kindergarten School! I went to him; we both did not talk for a while, which is really odd considering loud and jovial guy he is (not to forget his roaring Laughter and his silly boy grin!) and then I put my hand on his shoulders whispering softly ‘You feeling sad?‘ and all he could manage was a soft and sullen ‘Yes’!

Today as they go ahead with their life, they leave a void behind. While I overwhelmingly wish them happiness and success (in whichever way they would define it!), I do hope at some point in life our paths will cross again and we would share some more such pleasant times.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

(pictures of the people I have referred here are present here)