Its been a shocking revelation how loads of free time and no work can soil your habits up. After a jam packed past six months the past week seemed almost revolting to our by now streamlined systems. The decadence seemed to set in fast and rather pungently. Watching movies, playing Counter-Strike or Call-of-Duty and chatting with batchmates and junies often till early hours of daybreak caused us to sleep well till noon, skipping breakfast for a hefty Brunch and again after a couple of hours of hovering around various ways to spend (read that ‘kill’) time going out to beach and hopping at some place for a sumptuous dinner. Needless to say the whole body-clock and intrinsic timetable just became topsy-turvy.

When I finally got to writing this blog, it was surprising what all I could write about. Term 5 had been really eventful in terms of learning and take-away. Term 6 had been interluded by lateral placement processes, Backwaters 2008 (our Annual Fest), Alumni meet and Sangram
2008 (IIM K Vs. IIM B Sports meet). Thus, it had by far been the most happening non-academically and least happening academically. The placement interviews and the overall processes were a very interesting affair in itself and do warrant a dedicated post too. By the end of the processes I had three offers one a project finance role in a large corporate, a consulting profile and a front end trading in derivatives with a prop trading firm. I was again made aware of the inherent risk-neutral to bordering risk-averse nature of my personality when I gave the highly lucrative derivative trading profile a go for a more secured career in consulting. The foreign exchange students this year were an interesting bunch, but they ended up faring pretty much miserably when it came to examinations. A stark reminder of the academic rigor in the IIMs, something which is not the case for most global MBA programs. (An IIM term on an average spans 3 months with an average of 7 subjects whereas most US B-Schools have term of 5 month duration with 4 subjects. The course content and curricula of each individual subject is almost identical both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage and the assignment load)

Stepping back for a while and looking at the ‘big picture’ sort of thinking all these trivialities matter less than two cents. Matter of fact remains that it’s been quite an achievement from the dismal 7^th ranker among 50 students in my section with 70% marks in my early schooling to complete engineering in computer science from a premier institution and finally graduate from an IIM. The first time I stepped into the 80s was in grade VII and I had duly celebrated that by watching the first movie in a cinema hall. I still remember very clearly it was Terminator 2 and me, my brother, my uncle and my father had gone to ‘Priya‘ in Vasant Vihar, the popular up-market cinema hall at that time in Delhi. Most of my peers were toppers in their batch with a grade point average between 90 & 100%. Most of my peers are doing quite well and most have met with varying levels of successes, which bear no co-relation to their schooling grades or rankings. The fact that I was not built by nature to be a ‘Natural Winner‘ in everything I did hit pretty early and might I say, it hit pretty hard. I was the average student in class with a below average performance in sports. The only silver-lining was that I was immensely and insatiably inquisitive and with very little of a filler between my thoughts and my words. What I thought, That I spoke! And just to be fair to the Creator, had a better than average baritone.

Its really quite futile to try and comprehend the factors behind this because lots of times there is an intrinsic randomness (Refer: Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholaus Taleb) or entropy in environment around us which throws the best plans into a disarray and what we are left with is scanty pieces of an otherwise perfect piecemeal plan. However, one thing can be safely deduced even in this robust stochastically non-deterministic system, the dots truly seem to connect much as Steve Jobs said in his famous Stanford Graduation speech. The idea can be explained as follows. Just like when solving a puzzle in which the objective is to draw a route map connecting a rabbit to the carrot through an array if complex intermingling routes, its always necessary to keep an eye on the carrot and then try and work our way through various combinations of routes to reach it, similarly while making way through various uncertainties both of means and outcomes one should never lose touch of the central objective or the primary motive of the game. Of course, the attempts at trying to rework alternatives at any stage of the process should never cede i.e. one should never give up and accept defeat. Over the entire span, one thing led to another; quite often the fate that my plans for future met was something like ‘I proposed & God disposed‘! However after lots of twisting and turning, the rabbit finally reached the carrot and here I am writing this blog largely content over an MBA degree which I relished earning.

On a largely incongruent note, I came to know a few days back that one of my classmates in school committed suicide jumping from the 7^th storey of his office building. Much as I wanted I could not feel sad or sorry for him and this I am really uncomfortable to admit. This boy had been the quintessential mean SOB in school. Unfailingly condescending, taunting and poking sorts. One who never missed an opportunity to demean or humiliate and make others feel miserable. His winning streak however met with a rude shock when I jostled him out of his position in high school graduation. But more importantly, he never really made many friends in school. Most his companions were as self-centered and mean as he himself and hence loosely fitted the definition of ‘fair weather friends‘ at best. Sadly enough, this apparently had not changed in the past 9 years of our disconnect. I find it unethical to be sympathetic to such undeserving candidates for sympathy, after all its very little that nice guys can look up to these days and I can’t deem it fit to cast aside what truly belongs to them on such unbecoming subjects.

Was eagerly wishing that get to see my campus one last time in full bloom and glory before I take leave from it. For that to happen it must rain generously. Let me get into a wee bit more of prelude. IIM K is on the most picturesque location of all IIMs posted right on top of three hills and a valley in between (We literally have Hill #1 for academic campus and Hill #2 for residence purposes). Atypical to ‘God’s Own country‘ its all lush with green trees. Palm, coconut, mango and what not. These are lavishly garnished by multitude of layers of flora and fauna. The campus has been designed with a keen aesthetic view. But all this looks best when they are watered plentifully and naturally. Rains do that trick, washing out the old and bringing in the freshness back. By quirk of fate (or environmental climatic changes as some would say) it suddenly rained today. This is the most untoward time to rain, its usually hot and uncomfortable this time of the year. The rains brought back that aroma of moist soil, the scenic beauty came flooding back all over and today as I opened my balcony doors whiff came the clouds into my room whispering into my ears. It truly was surreal. All the spectacular beauty that we got so used to in the past few years came flooding back.

Couldn’t help feel sad that my campus will not be mine for not too long anymore. But what the heck, K shall always remain my IIM. I will belong to K and K shall belong to me!

Would end with a conscious effort on my part to be regular again on my blog. Till then, so long!

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!

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.

“Friends never say Goodbye”
Heard this wonderful song by Elton John yesterday. And today just as I was about to participate in the ritual of studying, a thought occurred to me. I wanted to devote a post to a friends with whom in-spite of my best efforts I lost touch. He is a wonderful person, who came into my life at a very young age and enriched it with a lingering fragrance. Something that can still be smelled on a quite Sunday evening or when day dreaming sitting on a beach in placidity.

‘Sishir’ studied with me from Kindergarten to grade four. He wasn’t too good in Hindi, which was expected considering the fact that he was the son of a Portuguese diplomat. There was something very elegant about him. Never the one to get into any fight, always polite and courteous even at that nascent an age. He was always around to share your sorrow, whether it was punishment for forgetting your class notebook or whether it was dropping your Tiffin case, in which case he was most insistent to share his with his unfortunate friend.

You could alm ost feel the pain when Miss Chandra, the rude and imprudent class teacher of grade 1 (class one) would hammer away a wooden ruler at his palm for not being able to perform in hindi which was utmost ‘ridiculous’ according to her. I still remember the vicious anger that seethed in me with the appearance of quiet dew in sishir’s eyes. He winced but didnot scream or cry, which just made the teacher more ferocious in her efforts to punish the ‘defaulter’.
As I recall this incident, I get an overwhelming nauseatic feeling because inevitably at some other elite school in elite cities like Delhi/Mumbai today some psychologically unfit person would be repeating a similar act thinking that he/she has done a fine job of the responsibilities bestowed. So much for our ‘Education System’, something every truly Educated Indian should be ashamed of.

It was not on the last but one day before the onset of final examinations of grade 4 (class 4) and the gracious and kind Uma Sirkar asked Sishir to go and get her a glass of water. As soon had Sishir quietly went to get the serving, she called the class to attention. She said, and I clearly remember, “My Boys, your friend Sishir would be leaving us after the exams. Let’s give him a farewell Gift. I want you all to get Rs. 10 tomorrow and we will give a small
gift and a card”. I was stunned!

The next day after Tiffin break, as we sat just in front of the assembly stairs waiting for the last two minutes to pass before we will be hushed back to class, he was fondling with the gift. I asked him what it contained, and he quietly replied, ‘Let’s find out’. And with that he went about undressing the gift, as nicely as possible (I noticed this because I was quite rowdy when it came to tearing open gift wrappers to revealing the gift, but here was my friend as calm as a tulip ..).

It was a Mug from Archies with the message “We will Miss You”. We were both too young or too un ‘refined’ to express out our feelings at that point of time (thankfully, else we would have the so clichéd ritual of ‘vote of thanks’ as is common in the corporate world), but I saw tears streaming down his eyes. I distinctly remember that I was so shocked and in so
much in grief that tears failed me.

That was the last I remember of my friend. Indeed, I have never again met a person so wonderful and so nice in the rest of my life.

The words of this song came echoing back to my ears

Suddenly that isn’t true
There’s another avenue
Beckoning, the great divide
I would choose
The same joy the same sadness each step of
the way
That fought me and taught me that friends never say Goodbye
Never say goodbye

(This Post is Dedicated to dear Sishir, wherever he is… So Long my Friend!)

Disclaimer : The title of the post does not have much in common to the context apart from the ‘Eagle’. The tile is more like, my tribute to one of the all time great movies by the same name.

Today something strange happened which had me stop and thinking. As I went about the usual routine of my evening walk, I found my friend who bought a new ‘Bullet Enfield‘ just the other day. I asked him for a short joyride before I continued on my walk, he as nice as a person he is, gleefully obliged. We had been cruising in his new cruiser for close to a minute, when he suddenly uttered ‘Oh God!‘ and slowed his bike, almost to the extent of stopping it. When I asked what happened, he said nothing and again stepped on the gas.
We were climbing uphill, so it was like a wake up call for him before we would go sliding in to the lush green forests below; but a little distance when we were now safely going downhill, he said a bird came on his path and he had accidentally run over it. I did not feel anything, it was like a void. So what is the big deal, birds get run over every now and then. bikes, cars and even aeroplanes. They come in the path of these juggernauts and the loose their existence or almost.
After the ride, which was a full circle just as I had wanted it to be, he dropped me off at exactly the same point where we had started. I happily and contendedly went on back in my normal course of walk.
I must have walked some 500 meters when a sight caught me completely captivated for about 2-3 minutes. There was this beautiful eagle brown-black in color with startling and glittering blue eyes lying on the middle of the road with feathers scattered all around. It struck me like a lightning that this must have been the bird that we ran over. I definitely missed more than a beat, as I saw helplessly,  very much in a trance as to what to do.
The trance was broken by a slight movement of the bird, as it struggled to get to its feet. It was then I could see that it was alive, not much hurt except almost detached of one of his wings and with a leg badly injured. I must have said a silent prayer that the poor thing was not hurt in its ‘torso’. It had this glittering eyes on which it kept bating its eyelids, something so captivating that I would have cried, had I not been suddenly awoken to the fact that this would need to be taked to a side before any other traffic ran through it. (The road was a climbing road on the hills of IIM Kozhikode; so there was a blind turn right ahead, hence by the time any traffic saw the poor thing lying, it would have been too late to out the brakes just as it happened with my friend.)

Some people have that uncanny abiliy of striking an instant rapport. Not many of these exist. Even fewer of them have the calibre of building on the initial headstart for a rock solid and lasting friedship. This post is about one such guy, Call him D. Haven’t known him for more than 45 days, i.e when he moved in our apartment to fill in the slot of one of our rommies who had moved out(G). D came across a classified in a forum for available accomodation, posted by my other roomie (S). D had a rustic look and an earthly taste about him. Apart from that he had that impeccable village-type simplicity, which brings about a revolutionary sense of peace in most people. When I saw him for the first time, though I did not anticipate that I would begin to like and admire him so much within such a short time, I figured out he would probably not be as much of a pest, as the person whose place he was taking in our house, G. G was in all sense a true blue blood pest. He had all the elements in place. Could truly ‘PISS OFF’ even the most disciplined of Sadhus, we were still materialistic ‘maaya’ ridden earthly software devellopers. Withinn a very short period of time D displaying a genuine concern for othes, a broad mind and a healthy and caring attitude hit-out with S and Me. Soon we were having a seamless smooth sailing. Days were just breezing by.

Today, he left, for greener pastures with a new company, at a new location. And yet, what he leaves back is a sweet and frangrant after-taste, a breath of fresh air, just the feeling that a peppermint leaves on your mouth the first couple of minutes after its consumption. I know with time, he will slowly and steadily be cornered from our minds, afterall my two years in professional life has indeed taught me that “Out of sight IS out of Mind”. Hence I put in hold my other pressing matters to pen down some learnings and experinces from my this NEW Friend. ( He will still be every much present if and when either of us, he or me, needing each others assistance..)
From him I learned that small sacrifices indeed go a big way to win friends. Showing genuine concern for others and caring for others elicits more than reciprocating response from the other end, thereby drammatically changing a hostile or an unfriendly environment by sowing the seeds of trust and confidence. I also learned that B-Schools invariaby miss out on the most powerful weapon to win friends. ‘Humility’, this is one quality which eludes a magnetic attraction and pierces through the tiers of hierarchy that might exist. With over 8 years of experience in the highly niche area of device and peripheral interfacing sofware and drivers, he was the prize catch in the sotware industry. And yet meeting him, you would invariably mistake him for the numerous jobless youth, doing training at various ‘Garadge’ training centers and fighting to get a job, to do something somewhere, whatever be it.
Now all of these come at no price, or at most at the cost of minor inconvenience to self. Is it worth it, A Million/Billion Dollar Question ! Well if you ask me, it depends. Depends on the scenario and depends on what you consider worthwhile. D won a lasting friend in me, with those small actions and those small gestures, and at the cost of sounding boorish I might add that most people find me very resourceful and indespensible as a friend, thanks to my inter-personal skills and my extensive network of friends.

‘Networking’ is the new power mantra of the corporate world. All the parties, seminars and symposiums are almost built on this single point agenda of building a network which could later on prove instrumental in building inroads for a lasting business relationship. So much money, resources and effort spent in order to get new acquaintances and build on relationships, what a pity would it be to loose opportunities to build this networks with people whose paths accidentally cross our lives. For one, D with his immense device driver experience working for Microsoft, would be a ready approach to me, if at sometime I want some inroads to Microsoft or to the highly Firewalled world of Core Device Firmware/Software Devellopers.

Attached Below: (L to R) Me and D

“Cogito, ergo sum” (Latin for “I am thinking, therefore I exist”)
is a philosophical statement made by René Descarte

Rene is considered the father of modern philosophy, and not without suffecient reason.
In the past couple of days I have been in absolute doldrums. Life seems rather surreal and unreal at times. Alive and kicking at one day and inexistent on the next. The problem as I see it is largely a problem of choice. Choice it seems are delivered in ‘Quanta’ or packets, always some or none. Either there is dearth of them or a flood of them.Faced with multiple options, often credible in their own right to justify indulgence, we are required to implement prioritizationof objectives. It is in ithis process of determining pririties that we have to make our choices, implement some tradeoffs, gamble with our cards, play on our luck, & make our sacrifices. All these require us to one thing the most : think.

On one hand there is the easy way out, the road travelled and travelled again, quite an easy recipie for an instant two minute noodles. On the other there is the road less taken, the one meandering through the foothills and valleys in through your dreams. The road often to be taken is the one of compromise between them both. A textbook “Follow your dreams” approach often simplifies to an extent of Over simplification the complexities and uncertainitiesx of life. While I totally agree on “One Life” and hence the ensuing “”Live it to its Full” comcept, a typical manegeiral approach would involve having a credible backup plan in place, as a measure of contingency. Just if things don’t go well.

Someone recommended me today to “Get More Focussed” in terms of not straying down various career options just for the heck of it. The uncanny irony in the situation is the fact that my critical assessment or SWOT analysis reveals the opposite. the thing I probably need to do right now is to get discharged a bit, just cool down and relax. Planning and preparing are really taking a toll especially with excesses in that area hampering the prospects of me making the best of any situation then and there.

Have already begun evaluating other options, many actually, in fact too mant to tell the truth. Need to funnel in in to a select few on them and progree on them diligently with a horses’ blinkers attached to avoid any further distraction.

Meanwhile, Manu Sharma, the Killer of Jessica lal is back on the streets roaming scot free thanks to the tireless working of Delhi Police. I have believed often that people like Bina Ramani and her daughter, suffering from compulsive party disorder need to be critically monitored for anti-social activities. the ‘high society’ indeed gets its ‘high’ by often commiting acts which are blasphemously anti civilisational in natur. Like wise most yadavs whether it it La’loo prasad Yadav or D.P.Yadav should be boundary limited to their cattle farms and its cattle sheds. They are seldom worth of a penny more. The supreme court has infact reprobated the police for a apparent disinclination to prosecute the accused.

With Salman khan hit & run, Black buck case, Tandoor murder case & now the Jessica Lal murder case an increasing trend is visible. that of legal system thoroughly incapacitated by corrupt officials in general and police and the judicial bench in particular. The result is that the crimnals are having a home run. Would be tragic to se the majunathan Shanmugam case head the same destination.To contribute our two bits on this issue lets go here and do our part for this brave soul.

Ending as usual with Calvin:.

Rain Man (198 - Starring Dustin Hoffman & Tom Cruise

Browsing through the various compact video disks at the neighbourhood library, I came across this rather unheard-of movie. Picked it up, thanks to its assertion to being adjudged the Best Motion Picture award for 1988. It was one of those longish movies (’bout two hours fifteen minutes) in which you are actually fatigued at the end of the movie. Every moment makes you think and introspect about the little idiosyncracies of life that leave logic behind, and allow the full emotions of life to be unveiled in ways that logic can never explain. In the process it gives you some invaluable lessons of life.
Plot goes something like this : Charlie Babbage(Tom Cruise), an yuppie esoteric car dealer, discovers that he has a brother Raymond (Dustin Huffman) who is autistic (mentally challenged in a way) and is institutionalised in a mental health center, when his father passes away and in his will funnels most of his wealth to a trust. At first Charlie sees Raymond as an obstacle to achieving the 3 M$ inheritance, but with time he starts to like his number savant brother. He drives him back to California, in an effort to wheel-in back his share of the fortune. During this epic road trip, threading through the various hassles and intricasies that autistic Raymond causes, Charlie undergoes a change. He starts to love his brother Raymond.
The story speaks to the unique nature and skills that even the seemingly dull witted almost always posess. It speaks about the love and affection that blood relations invariably bring along.
The film’s greatest achievement is successfully framing the plot around a character incapable of emotional development.

The viewer can almost identify the growth of feelingsin Charlie towards his autistic brother during the course of the movie. This is starkly evident when Raymond accidentally mentions Rain Man and Charlie realises that he was the same rain man whom he so fondly used to recollect. Also when he talks about his mothers death and then the song that Rain Man used to sing, can you feel the small spark of emotions in the hedonistic Chrlie being re-kindled. The movie ends with a very pleasant after taste in the minds of the viewer probably because his beliefs in the “basic good inside all beings” getting cinvincingly proven. The fact that there is that element of goodness in all of us reassures us of the viruosity of life.

This movie got among others Best Actor in Leading Role (Dustin Hoffman), Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Motion Picture  along with getting nominated in four other categories.

I would highly recommend this movie to any peson who likes to observe, analyse and introspect life!