Victimised us..

As a common citizen (of the world's so called "largest democracy"), I feel totally helpless, insecure and unsafe. I feel the common public has no voice at all. Whatever Promod Muthalik has said in regard to disruption of Valentine Day celebrations, is a gross insult to the Democracy, Constitution and the so called 1 billion free population of this nation. What good this Democracy is if I can't execute my freedom, a freedom as simple as enjoying the company of a female friend. What good the so called "by the people, for the people and of the people" Government is if I have to be courageous enough to go out. If still after the public announcement by these self appointed moral police, state government is not able to help our cause, there won't be anything more shameful.

Link to my same opinion published in Hindu's Letters to Editor:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/07/stories/2009020755411001.htm

TGI Gold...

First of all, I would congratulate Abhinav Bindra, his family, the sport loving fraternity and the entire nation (barring the Sports Federation, IOA, and the Government of course, for the obvious reasons) for the historical achievement at Olympics. Abhinav has gifted the entire nation with something this nation has been badly craving for, since the inception of this event. What a historic moment it would have been, when Bindra banged right in the Bulls eye, emerging the undisputed winner. What a moment it would have been when our National Anthem had been played at the world’s highest performing platform. What a moment it would have been when the tricolor stood half level above the rest two. And being THE reason for it, what a pride it would have been. Abhinav has done the entire nation and the city beautiful, Chandigarh proud.

While winning Gold is something, which still is an integral part of the entire game. Its like one among ten or twenty, would definitely be fetching, making it quite predictable. But earning a title of ‘Being the First Indian of something’, is something very few are able to. Abhinav has done it and that’s a life time achievement.

While watching the opening ceremony, when Indian contingent being led by Rajvardhan Singh Rathore, carried the tricolor, I shared my fear with a friend that this is probably the last time Indian flag could be seen hoisting in this Olympic. I wished to see more such opportunities during the event. But I was wrong. Abhinav has given all of us this privilege. We are proud of you.

Book Review: The 3 Mistakes of my life

‘The 3 Mistakes of my life’ is the third fiction from the well known Chetan Bhagat’s stable. Much alike it’s predecessors, this one is again based on friendship. It’s a story of 3 friends (Govind, Ish and Omi) from the industrial town of Ahmedabad.

Any writing could be evaluated on two broad parameters. First the content and second the writing style.

Starting off with the content, the script is a normal sort of. It’s certainly not an outstanding one, if we rate it with the debut one; Five point someone. Actually Chetan had set extremely high standards for himself in his first fiction. Thereby raising the expectations from the readers. As well setting the floor high enough, making it harder to outperform the previous ones. Besides this the depiction of incidents like Bhuj earthquake, Godhra riots, 9/11 attack on twin towers have dramatized the story a lot. Someone may counter argue here that, Chetan has used these as props for the story. I won’t disagree with that. However, I do feel that it’s an overdose of such real life incidents for a fiction.

Moving to the writing style, I would give 10 of 10. Much alike the previous two, it’s an easy going and casual reading stuff. Infact that’s one of the USPs that the writing is for the masses, not for a niche segment of intellectuals. Chetan describes the story in an easily understandable expressions. Besides this he uses a waterfall model in telling the story, wherein the events follow a freely flowing chronological sequence. Thereby not stressing your mind. Also I found the prologue too catchy and beautifully composed. It creates a solid foundation for the story, enclosing it in a fixed time frame, adding a curiosity factor, as in what would have happened.

And I liked the way, character Vidya has been portrayed. It has been so well explicitly described, that I could effortlessly craft a real picture of her in my mind.

Overall it’s a good reading for youth and people in age bracket of 15-30. I would say one should read this book, you will enjoy the overall package. Also it won’t burden your pocket, being nominally priced at 95 bucks, as always.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Goof Ups: Mobile phones were not so prevalent in early 2002, incoming calls were paid and the concept of SMSing caught somewhere in 2003. However, Chetan has shown extensive usage of SMS between Vidya and Govind.

Book Review: The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel

‘The McKinsey Way’, a book written by Ethan Rasiel a former consultant at McKinsey, makes an easy going and a casual reading. Infact it could even make an overnight readable stuff for avid readers. The book talks about the problem solving approach at McKinsey, along with some tools that go handy throughout the assignment. I would be talking of some of the key concepts talked of in this book, meanwhile adding my own judgment.

Every McKinsite has to dig in loads of data and has to substantiate his argument with these facts and figures. They say “Facts bridge the credibility gap”. Quite well said. Then they rely a lot on Hypothesis, which is merely a statement or a theory that needs to be approved or disapproved based on facts, again. By negating a given hypothesis we can move closer to the possibly right solution or atleast it shows a right direction to proceed. It’s just like saying Delhi lies towards South of Chandigarh with a possibility of 45 degrees error from N-S axis on both sides. This essentially means that by using hypothesis we have zeroed upon this 90 degree arc and negated the rest of 270 degrees, thereby moving closer to the solution.

Then it talks a lot about 80-20 rule, brainstorming, interviewing the client, importance of team building, developing rapport among team associates and with the client as well. Now, these doesn’t seem something like out of the world to me. These are pretty much direct, easily understandable and have been widely exploited in the consultancy world.

There are however some new concepts like Elevator Test, MECE (Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive, a very nicely thought of and well structured tool) and Prewiring. (I can’t talk about them in details here). These are very simple, yet extremely effective tools employed in McKinsey. If we try to analyze these tools (premise: after reading the book), they are quite common sensical, but the way such a simple thought has been given a tangible shape, is extremely good. McKinsites follow a simple rule of 1 message per chart, without any 3D animation, to convey the message through a shortest path.

Overall it’s a good reading that reframes your problem solving technique and can act as a ready reckoner while actually being on a project. For those in the consulting world, it’s surely a onetime readable book.

One interesting thing about the author I could make out is that, he seems to be a feminist, enamored by the feminine gender. Whenever he is quoting a loosely defined example of an associate or even someone senior in the hierarchy, he intends to fit the fairer sex in the skin of these roles. Anyways that makes it all the more an interesting reading.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Pics from my latest trip

Nature has so much to offer....

A view from my home....

Rediscovering a Forgotten Canvas

It’s exactly after 7 months and 19 days, that I have picked up my pen and paper and trying to pen down my thoughts. A lot had happened in this long period. India won the Twenty 20 World Cup, Sanjay Dutt got convicted, Salman got into trouble once again, Chak De rocked the box office, my life too witnessed lot many changes. I shouldn’t say nothing happened exciting enough, in and around to motivate me to write for my blog. Infact many interesting events happened, that I wanted to share, but somehow couldn’t materialize. I shouldn’t even be complaining of having no time, as I actually had a lot of it.

Not writing though, I had been constantly tracking blogs of my known twos. I wonder how could some of them manage to write, upload the same, beautify the writing with pictures, insert links, add friends. But the point is ‘quite so often’. Hats off to such writers. Wish I too do that.

Well now that I have composed a couple of lines, I would need a password to logon to my home page. I am sure, I don’t remember it. I am not sure, if I maintained a backup for it. Don’t really know if I alone would be writing and reading it too. But if you are reading what I am writing, means something worked out. But if you are not reading it, then anyways you are not. Hopefully, I get the password.

Now a logical question here is how come I start it again after so long or what exactly pushed me. Now there are more than single reasons to it. Firstly, I had read a lot of stuff on blogging, illustrating how fast the concept is picking up in the Indian context. Every week there is a cover story on increasing popularity of blogs in various magazines and other news dailies. Even celebrities like Amir Khan are today exploiting this form of media. Then at last week end’s D party my MBA friends reminded me that I had been writing well, so far. So I should stop this break.

Now that almost a page is over, I attempt infusing life to my long forgotten “my-canvas”. May God bless my blog.

P.S. 1) Partial credit for this goes to Abhishek and Hemant.
2) Thank God, I got the password.

Snapshot of a golden phase of life

It’s 22^nd April, 2007. Hardly 12 more days are left before we pack our bags from one of the greatest place, I have ever been, it’s IIT. Lying in my luke warm bed in my room G305, I have been recalling some of the coolest moments at IITK. So just decided to jot down some of these, before they get washed out from my life. It’s a bit long narration, so please be patient.

(Some of my very close frds in MBA: Renish, Hary, Me, Jassi (noone call him JASMINDER), Bunty, Santu, Sharmaji, Supriya, tanuja, Vidya and Neeraja)

When we talk of MBA, first thing that comes to mind is case analysis and presentations. OK, so ‘Hubble Error’ was the first case our group presented in I sem. Being my first pres in MBA, I was kinda apprehensive, so it deserved a well rehearsed session (“Dry Run” in sophisticated MBA jargons) before the actual show. You know, I sem was far from reality and more of an illusion. As perceived by me and many others an MBA meant a young energetic immaculate professional enlightening his audience, with no room at all for errors. Everyone has that desire of carving a niche in the batch. Competition too was quite a lot in the earlier phase. Anyways 2^nd sem was more closer to the real world. One tactic which we learnt right in the beginning of presentations was: “Sir, its there in the further slides”. I mean today it appear so naïve, that if it’s not there in the current slide where its required, why would it be anywhere else. But at times this is the last resort you need to count upon. Anyways past of entire game.

Then our MR group is one thing I am not going to forget ever. We were six in all. In a 2 hour meeting we used to work for max half an hour and rest used to be the fun time. Someone would then crack a latent joke, followed by some exchange of glances and then finally a loud burst. Finally the hunky dory girl would coyly remark ‘Dirty Minds’. Our MR group really rocked.

How can I not mention about ‘Hero Honda’. The organisation has been so overly exploited by us, that we had done around a dozen projects on it, including a management paper. Courtesy two guys from HH in our batch. One standard monotonous dialogue in every presentation “HH has one plant in Gurgaon and one in Dharuhera” would lighten up every single face in the audience.

In another interesting incidence, I lifted the remote control amidst a presentation, to use the laser beam, or more precisely to add an air of sophistication. Thinking the red button to be the laser one, I pressed it and the entire system got switched off. The response was well expected. Everybody was laughing, including me.

Then we had a prestigious club viz. ‘S&D Club’ (even though I had membership only for D and not S). Some of the regulars included Hary C, Bunty, Shuklaji, Sharmaji, Billu, Sharmaji, Kaly and of course me. When no one initiated till around 10pm to go to gate, then our beloved KK would initiate. His pet dialogue would be: “Tum sab ke sab ******* ho (sensored, for obvious reasons), mein leke ata hun”. We love you for that Hary. Then popped up the real operational issues like money, cycle (to go to gate), bag (to carry the stuff) and at the high time responsibility delegation would take place, as in who would get the snacks from canteen, whose room would be the venue. Finally the signature giving ceremony on the bottle followed by a long walk from Girls hostel thru SAC, MT and Basky court.

I am gonna miss all these.

And I hope my parents never get to visit the webpage.

All the best doston. May all you have a great career ahead and your beloveds as your life partner. Enjoy life and wish me the same :)