Why I am Happy to Not get to IIMA

Not getting to IIM , Ahmedabad though not delibrately has been a fabulous thing that could happen to me . In its trails it has bought a change so urgently needed . It has led to an image makeover , an evolution of cognition beyond the realms of excellence and some hard grounding to the vacillations and vagaries of life.

Coming back to the point(s), the list is limited , but I shall make every attempt to stretch it for my merriment......

• At such a ripe age , exposing myself to the rigour of academics would not only have been harmful , but fatal likely. Though hard work never killed anyone but why take chances.
• A new wave of education is emerging in India of campuses that are virtual, where the cart is kept before the horses. I can proudly claim to be an output of the system. Having spent , squandered (more appropriately) in India's finest sprawling campus at Roorkee, a change should be welcome .
• John Milton's Paradise Lost , it is better to reign in Hell than to Be Reigned in heaven , aptly captures the mood to be counted among the best without laboring much.
  
• With the economy in recession, it would have put more pressure or categorically put more humiliating to not manage a High Paying I- Banking dream job , that from the very outset seemed improbable considering my limited abilities. I will now at least reason to stand my argument a chance to sustain logic.
  
• Not having a campus comes with its set of merits. And one that begets your attention is the relaxation to arrive late in lectures albeit TPG, RG. An inveterate ritual for me , it would have landed me short of attendance in WIMWI every now and then.
• Cost consideration, also support my involuntary decision to not get through WIMWI . With tuition fees set exorbitantly, it would have strained my limited resources to fund my MBA that increasingly is losing its sheen thanks mainly to the crookedness of once mighty but now defunct i-bankers of the ivy leagues.
• Not being the very best , compels you to learn how to prevaricate. It is a different experience altogether to stand your ground despite yourself being not convinced of the flimsy nature of your argument. It is one of the most important lessons , which only not going to WIMWI could have taught me.
• At my current institute , it dawns upon you how age is fast catching up with you when the majority of the class would not have seen the light of the day while I was on the verge of abanding suction milk bottles to be taken over my milk teeth. It makes you sombre , responsible and above saintly of the lot.
• In WIMWI, I would have severely missed the City of Joy , whose attraction goes beyond the intellectual stimulus to the hormonal erotic stimulus the ever dapper looking , exquisitely dressed bong babes provide in glittering streets and corridors of City Centre of Kolkata.

How Winters Have that Sensuous Charm.

Having grown up in Delhi and having put up major tenure of my stay in North India , winters occupy a special place in my heart and mind. The warmth of the quilt , the serving of hot steaming tea , the ringing of Christmas bells and the jubilation and festivity of new year grandeur add th xing to the mood. Moreover the winters are the time when I start appreciating the bounty of nature's beauty in all its might unleashed but previously not taken cognizance by the ever sub concious mind. Then how else can you explain that sunlight so omnipresent but registered and taken delight only in winters. Wow what an ecstasy it is to get your body served the warmth in the countering presence of chill.
Winters more than for anything else is well rounded for bringing an aura of laziness , of a laid back attitude . It is the period of time where we realize that getting immersed in the daily chores is not the sole purpose of living. Making money, constant bickering over minutest of things just do not let us see the big picture of charm , splendor that lies untrodden by our tangent eyes. The pain of leaving the warmth of the quilt to face the might of winters in all its Armour equipped fully is a nightmare we fantasize avoiding. The coyness of having every one of our loved ones in our company watching a movie with all the winter gears on , is a delight.
Talking of winters how can we forget the blinding that engulfs Delhi. It is heavenly gift bestowed on Delhi . With visibility playing truant , cancellation of flights is too small a price to pay for the picturesque delight we see unfold before our eyes if we are on late night or early morning drive. It makes you secluded from the world , you can afford to be yourself , the world is not watching you. Strolling through the fog brings a degree of adventure into our lives devoid of anything remotely linked to adventure.
Especially winters are the time when whole of North India is out in the open , blazing its frozen body under the glowing firmament in the sky that plays hide and seek , much when the desire is there for it to not do it. Talking of winters and sun , it would be unpardonable to not mention the goodies of groundnut, jaggery products that awash the markets as well as the pockets of children , who on their mother's insistence play obedient and dutiful child.
Winters of Delhi have a regal charm associated with them . The end of Raj has not completely brought the legacy to an end. Infact whatever traces remain , I have a lurking feeling they find a vent out in the winters. There is definitely a theory but it is too loosely bound , mentioning it now would amount to inchoate talk.
Winters are the time when events such as fairs , book festivals are scheduled on a regular basis to make people come out . In Delhi Trade Fair is another big catch for the ones looking to get a glimpses of the future of trade and commerce. It brings to the city a businesslike ambiance that to the abhorrence of average Delhite we decry Delhi of in comparison to Mumbai.
Another common but more ugly side is the stark contrast people at the struggling end of making a decent living feel . Rudimentary shelters , insufficient infrastructure to fight the vagaries of nature and lacuna in the winter clothing's feel the pinch all the more severely. Every now and then the news channels relay people succumbing to frost bite. In a civilized society , this is such a bad commentary on the state of affairs. It is a reminder of the stark differences that exist in our society when a group of people barely clothed enough to fight winters , letting the heat of faintly glowing garbage remains provide comfort ,albeit temporary to them.

How to Remove Genuine Windows Notification from WIndows XP Operating System

It is one of the most irritating things cropping up every time we start the Windows XP , for those who still believe Bill Gates as Satan. This notification however does not find any listing in the Add/Remove program utility, hence it is extremely difficult to remove it from the list of programs. However there is a way to circumvent it. But a word of caution before proceeding further:Do create a back up of your registries in case of anything goes awry.
So here we go

• Go to Start menu
• Execute the Run command
• In the window , type 'regedit'.
• A window opens up listing all the registries.
• Ctrl + F and search for 'wgalogon'.
• Delete the registries by deleting the whole folder.

Simple You are Done With the Menace

Hope this works , it worked in my case.

Happy Surfing.

Academic Mediocrity

Ever since I entered the precincts of B-School, I was always fascinated by academic excellence. It was deep rooted ideology where I desired to counted not among the best but the very best. A feeling of ecstasy used to run down my spine with the sheer mention of academic brilliance. The very thought of great minds at work with their stupendous effort leading the charge of developing the world we desire for, just made the field of academics a fascinating one. To be a part of the world where we still are not guided by the whims and fancies of an eccentric corporate beast, just seduced me.
But it was never so easy to begin with. As the ones who shall be leading the intellectual brigade , one needs to be thorough with whatever he is pursuing academically with a proof. And that proof is CGPA on the higher side, an abhorrence for corporate culture , leftist leanings and ascetic lifestyle. On a scale of 10, I will score the highest on all the parameters but the first one. Having identified this as my weak link , I wanted to have the first mover advantage. But as is incorrectly Well Begun is Half Done, I just lose the zing in the end. Even the system must share certain blame where dishonesty does not lead to competition of equals but of unequals.

My Weekend Sojourn.

At this ripe age , I am finally doing what I should have done ages back. I am flirting with fire, i am flirting with seduction or to say it blatantly I am try to woo fairer gender. Accompanying me here are my batch mates and my fully nurtured frustration.
As a religious schedule , I reach out to City Centre looking dapperly dressed, The most Hip and Happening place in the Salt Lake, if not whole of Kolkata. And Oh My Mime, there you realize the fury of God's creativity. Items , Babes just line up to show what they have : Assets and we just do not let them down. It is quite obvious I seem to think , that why men in their prime in the company of other men be milling in the crowd had it not been "Dostana". But I have a feeling , they enjoy it. Knowing very well whats on store why would you play with fire. Boy they play and play amazingly well.
Ladies from all genre are a treat to watch. At times it becomes extremely difficult to not ogle at maternal ladies still in their prime with meticulously dressed sarees and that deep cut neck blouse that keeps male hormones working overtime. You just cannot stop wondering why Bong Babes are still ruling the roost in Bollywood. The answer is "They Just Have No Competitor".

To understand the magnanimity of the prowess of these Bong Babes , one of my friends aptly quotes "Bengal ! Improving India's average". Infact when we stare at their assets , there is lurking feeling that they just relish it. At times we the hunter is hunted , but this is what adds to the Bong babes Sensuous charm.

Sitting at one of the most prominent balustrades just overlooking the Tea Junction, we are unleashing the terror of eve teasing. Not a single damsel passes which is not registered by our probing amorous eyes. At times we just do overdo things much to the annoyance of their male counterpoints. However justification is easily derived from Keats "A Thing of Beauty is A Joy Forever".

Our flirt with ridiculity has taught us a lesson that we always wanted to be taught . Brain * Beauty = Constant. Then what else would explain cogently the fact that their boyfriends are a just a shade of them. The babes are silken , lustrous , sensuous ,while the blokes are just another brick in the wall. Is it the money power that is dictating it. We have that sniff that it is exactly that.It should not be any other reason, therefore money commands power , MBA delivers it and once rejuvenated for academics excellence we head straight to our places reinvigorated to make the best of the time before we come back again.

How to build creativity.

It is the oft quoted , most abused and seldom followed phrase that corporates have unleashed to propel their profits. It masquerades as a serious attempt to bring semblance and order to the way businesses are run. I am talking of Out of The Box Thinking. The focus is so much on the end result that the process which lays the foundation is given the royal ignore. However as human race finds itself in tumultuous times , with its lot of miseries increasing rather than decreasing , the time has finally come to develop that process , that bloody process analogously nurtured by Greg Chappel but decried and ridiculed unbound by one and all, which actually laid the foundation for India's cricket stupendous success.

As individuals there are certain things that we can do to inculcate that mode of thought process. To begin with always think of half glass empty. It is the first and needless to say the foremost step in realization and actualization of the problem. The half glass full is of no concern but the other half is.

Then follows the process of following the course of action that will lead us to remedial measures. It starts with having diametrically opposite view of the world. As famously quoted by the George Bernard Shaw "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man". The idea is to develop alternate thinking , inculcating the ability to seep through the intricacies and just grasp enough details of the problem that you attack the problem in an unconventional way.
Another important component is that of conviction.If faith can move mountains , conviction can cause dogmas to loosen their strangle hold. To convince others who are equally dogmatic and rigid , we need to be supremely convinced in our conviction.It is no easy task to make others change their carefully ideology . But this is where we have to demonstrate that zing where we make things happen. Believe it might seem intransigent but Earth was never the centre of the Sun.

The Receding Hairline : A cause of Anxiety

I am just out of my teens. I am flirtin with manhood and yet I find myself in a precarious situation where with every passing day I carry less of burden of what should have been more: My Glowing Shiny Silken hair.

What a loss it has been and what is even more astounding is the acceleration it is picking with increasing course curriculum and tighter exam schedules. My french beard to an extent is compensating for the loss in density but now that I am flirting with the idea of shaving of that frenchie , I find it very scary to let only my countable silken black blades of grass do the scalp hiding and machoism flaunting stuff.

Everyday time and again as I stand before the mirror I find numbers decimated . Even friends and foes alike have started exemplating the receding curve to IS-LM models in economy in an effort to lend some enthusiasm to menial macroeconomics. I also join the gang but somewhere down the line that fear lurks, is the fact of the matter so evident.

But now that the inevitable in imminent , I am on lookout for the positives. I think a frenchie might just compliment shiny lustrous bald. It will catapult me into the league where I will consider myself to have seen it all and now aloof. It will make me further oblivious of how I look. It will help me in fighting the dreaded inflation monster with reduced spending on expensive luxury hair care products. Wow ....a Whole new world of untrodden confidence and debonair carefreenes opens up.

The Financial Fun

Ever since Lehman liquadated , hopes of millions of MBA aspirant hopes have gone down the drain.People hoping to make moolahs as coveted I-Bankers are realignig their focus . The sky rocketing salaries that used to put  a government servant savings at the fag end of his career seem miniscule are for a discounting. And believe me that was impending , long overdue and most important desirable. This crisis is a reminder that a world is far more rewarding , far more satisfying and far more enjoyable  but is waiting for it takers. After such  a mad rush, a hiatus , a sabbatical is aiding to refocus on what we missed out.

Ask any B-School graduate and you see the tinge in his eyes lighting up witht the mention of I-Banking. All the different fields of study were playing truant to the lots of bucks offered in the financial industry. Social sciences labs were yearning for researchers , the Chemistry labs had no takers for test tubes, inventory level was building up in laboraties. However something extremely opposite was happening in Bschools. Makeshift B-Schools were springing up. The already limited infrastructure was being stretched to the limit of failure point and students who at the very first instances had their minds on technology were forced to walk the trodden track. Infact diversity seemed to be a thing of the past. It was a factory asembly line . And then the inevitable had to happen . This crisis will bring some element of realism in the things as they stand now. Management education as value addition needs to be prioritized by the students. What most B-Schools have become today are mere just placement agencies. Any slowdown , and the truth is staring at you wide out in the open. The journey of two years needs to be nurtured , developed and most importantly enjoyed. It is a process of learning , it is a transformation from frivolousness to strategically taking risks . It is a womb of two years. But the problem that IVF has just killed the fun via Coaching Institutes.

So what you sow is what you get. And the coming times will separate the wheat from the chaff.

Waiting eagerly for the bloody good times.

Coming of Age

Time just flies away. Things have never been the same. We are in times where epoch making events are shaping the course of future. Events such as liquidition of Lehman , failure of AIG and sell out of Merill Lynch do not normally have to be looked from the side of what caused it. The more pertinent question is "What does it Augur for the Future of Financial Markets". Will it bring down curtains to an era of unregualted financial market or replace this by a system of regulation as has been prevalent in the UK. A recent statement by the top bankers of UK, reiterated their immunity to the financial meltdown in the US. As the finacial markets are chain linked , breaking of one in the series can lead to demise of the whole system . Infact with super volatile derivatives , which Warren Buffet describes as "Recipe for Disaster", it is no surprise that more cards will fall as time unfolds and the magnanity of the problem is just anybody's guess.

As a brief for the uninitiated , Lehman liquidation has shaken the foundation of investors. If people from worlds best B-Schools cannot manage an Investment Bank,questions are being raised about the efficacy of the system. One reason is that the system has become so much regimented from top to bottom that dissent is just not accepted as part of the decision making process. The most critical part of the business success , the human element has been relegated to the backbench,playing subservient to process orientation which just does not account for the wide array of economic situations.

The need of the hour to once again bring democracy in the organizations. Conformance to orders , decimation of challenging superiors is a just not acceptable when the investors from different spheres of lives have pit in their money.

This is also a lesson for Indian Regulators of what they need to imbibe in their system. To let a system be solely self regulated is letting another crisis unfold. We cannot rely on the capitalists for taking holistic view of things. It is for the regulator to decide what is good for the country and let things churn out accordingly.It has happened in the past that the banks in ndia have gone bust, but their capital base being so small did not cause media ripples. Now that the economy is growing , a rudderless ship will lead to devaition that will be too much to regulate in the future. 

The event is an eye opener and the regulators in India . It is just that are they "Awake"!

DoorDarashan par Paas Se!

DD is attempting to regain its past glory. Though it is the mouthpiece of the government, of late it has shed some of the inhibitions which prohibit it from openly decrying government. In fact it has slowly slid into a of non confrontation where the ethos of journalism are not compromised. Although it has miles to go before it catches up with giants of news reporting such as New York Times, yet a comparison in terms of quality of reporting between the two will not be completely out of place.
What distinguishes DD from other run on the mill type of channels is its earthy attachment to roots , a massive funding by the government and some smart people behind the scenes who are still not solely guided by TRP ratings. One such person happens to be Rajiv Mehrotra , whose bouquet of programs include his series of conversations with men and women who define our contemporary world , a PSBT sponsored 'Open Frame' series . It is an epitome of news reporting where the issues of grave concern are not myopically pushed under the carpet but discussed , debated and above all allowed to come the way they naturally exist. It envisages a belief that putting everything in order is not the motive but letting out inchorence is not bad reporting either. It is a jewel in the crown of the public broadcaster.
Besides social programs such as 'Ehsaas' , which portray the belittling of values in a highly materialistic society ,which affluence has decimated . One more thing that makes DD very enabling is its abhorance for Bollywood and its protagonists. When the world is debating over Saif and Kareena standoff at IIFA , DD is the only one seeming and lending sanity to its viewers by clearly black outing the news story.
However this is just one half of the story. The other side presents a picture of dismal performance despite its brand, its unmatchable reach and its clout. One such instance is the IPL , which had pervaded the minds of puerile Indians, where DD had gone overboard in its news coverage. At prime time , when the news reader has just cricket to discuss with his set of as good as anyone on the street panelist , you feel the abysmal depth to which issues of concern have plummeted. The basic premises is "How the hell am i bothered with it? ..Why should a public broadcaster waste resources over a show that is for commercial purposes of the few and the inconsequential. Will it be not better to devote the same resources for spreading the wings of education?' A daily one hour show , handled by the subject expert teachers will do much good in spreading education to people in the hinterlands for whom private tuition is not a possibility despite the crumbling public schooling system. With government promising and advertising its Bharat Nirman , this show will gel very well in the scheme of things.
Another place where it has a lot of ground to cover is the way it conveys information. Though the
public news is for good , concreting the information , making it self explanatory will do the ultimate goal of the government intent