What's in a classroom anyway?

One year of MBA is over and life starts to kick back again. Second year has started and when I look back at the year that has passed, I have learnt a lot of important lessons whilst developing some habits which are now an inherent part of the person that I am.

1. Read

Read as if it is the first book that you have ever touched. Read as if there is no end to it. Read the best of the books prescribed by the best people you have ever met in your life. Since, one can’t live everyone’s experiences, read it as they write and live the characters that they describe. Personally, I am far away from completing the BBC top 100 books list, but as an MBA I have an Excel sheet that maintains the progress.

2. Watch
Watch the best of the world movies and documentaries. Suggestions galore, we are in the upward slope of the information age. Anything and everything is captured. Skim the best and watch them. If you haven’t finished the IMDB top 250, it is high time you started working on it. Go to theatres, plays, stand-up comedy shows. Visualize art as there is no end to it.

3. Travel

Travel to places you have never been before. Make excuses and visit those places. Don’t worry about the money because travelling teaches you how to travel far and deep, within yourself and out, while spending less. Explore the place that you are in, including the college library because you never know what strikes you and when.

4. Observe

One of my hobbies is to observe people. An important management lesson that I have learnt – Give people what they want and they will give you what you want. You can get what you want only when you give people what they want. You can give people what they want only when you know what they want. And you can know what they want only when you observe. No one is going to tell you explicitly. Observe and find it out. By sheer observation, you will differentiate between people inspire you, people who will kick beneath the belt, people who will even blow beneath the belt and people who will stand shoulder to shoulder and support you to the end.

5. You are not right always

Another important lesson that I had learnt was that you are not always right. There are more people who are more right than you are. Accept their perspective as there are always three perspectives to anything – yours, mine and ideal. Engineering teaches you how to be right and wrong; management will teach you how to be right and more right. Appreciate it.

6. Stand for what you believe in

Even if it supersedes the previous point, stand for what you believe in. Never be arrogant, but be polite and rational. Stand for what you believe in, even if you will end up making enemies. If you are convinced, persuade and convince others. Persuasion is another important weapon in the arsenal to fight the irrationals.

7. Commit mistakes

Commit as many mistakes as possible and learn from it. Experiment and keep experimenting. It’s always better to go wrong as many times as possible with the prototypes, than going wrong with the final product.

8. Deal with ambiguities

The world is filled with uncertain circumstances. Most of the times, you won’t get all the information to take a perfect decision because perfect decisions don’t exist. It is always a quality of retrospect. So, deal with ambiguities and take the best decision out of the alternatives that you have because life is a trade-off and one has to optimize it.

9. Criticism

I read somewhere that, a critic is a person who knows the way but doesn’t know how to drive a car. One profession that comes close to that description is a consultant. Mind you, in MBA every one is a consultant and everyone has opinions. Everyone has a right to their opinion and you have the right to accept or reject it. Dissect it and find the rationale in it. If you see some truth, gracefully accept it and credit that person. But the truth is that 99% of the criticisms that you would come across are made for the heck of it. Identify the best ones and then invest your time. Take criticisms to your head and praise to your heart and never the other way around.

10. Learn

Each of the aforementioned points will be worthless if you don’t learn anything. Keep learning. Envision, explore, experiment and experience. These four will keep you going as old habits die hard. It is applicable to good habits as well.

While I learnt most of them outside the classroom, the credits go to them who inspired me inside the classroom.

The World in Mumbai

Each city has its own specialties and spoilers. Chennai’s buses are great, but autorickshaws ask for a share in you ancestral home. Calcutta Metro is cool, but the buses seem like matchboxes on wheels. Delhi has good Metro service, nice and clean bus service, but you have our netas roaming around here and there threatening our security in the already unsecure city. But, what makes Mumbai special? Local trains will be the obvious answer. It’s like waking up a physicist in the middle of a deep sleep and asking how much ‘e’ equals to. Like a flash in the pan comes the answer “mc²”.

But, there are a few other good things about Mumbai. Autorichshaws and Taxis run on meter. Although their meter conversion sheets may be fudged, an extra ten rupees won’t do much harm to your pockets. Mumbai’s bus service is also fair enough. But there must always be a reason that can pull a city back and for Mumbai, that is – too many people. Just too many people in the city. Wherever you see, there are lots of people. On a torrential rainy day, Andheri station will be as flooded with people as it is with rainwater. One begins to wonder if the rains brought down water or people!

I travel 60 km every day and I use the services of buses, autos, trains and taxis to cover the distance. My office is in the vicinity of Antilla, Haji Ali and Mahalaxmi temple. Burkha-clad women visiting Haji Ali with their families, day-in and day-out while Hindu families enjoying their worship at Mahalaxmi temple. 27-storied bread loaf Antilla on one side, while settlements on the seaside on the other. I work near this place where India’s classification’s culmination is at its best!

I usually take a train from Kanjur Marg station. I can do bungee jumping everyday of my life rather than fight with strangers to get into the local train. The biggest problem being, you really don’t know which one of the guy you are fighting with is the HR head of which conglomerate. But, being taller with a hefty build has its own advantage and I make sure that I use it properly. Once got in, the second race begins – the race for the spot. The spot which is closer to your side of the exit and also where there is proper ventilation. I suddenly feel that I am in a train bogey filled with Sheldon Coopers, “Move it. It’s my spot!” Everyone is in war with everyone else. Push, nudge, budge, punch are all the keywords one has to be well-versed with. Inching towards Kurla, the train gets more crowded. There is an eerie silence when the train comes to Sion. As soon as Sion passes, there is a lot of movement inside the bogie. People are getting ready for the war. The war that everyone wages on everyone else. Looking into their eyes, I listen to what their angry eyes say. They say, “This is Sparta.”

Matunga passes by. People are more restless now. They slowly inch towards the exit like programmed zombies. Step-by-step. When the next station comes, everyone shouts as if it is a battlefield. This is not Sparta anymore, “This is Dadar”. Watches’ glass broken, spectacles flying around, my earphones became someone else’s and someone else’s mine, souls stolen and true to its word, “This is Dadar.” Once the train starts to move, there is calm after the storm. Life comes back to normalcy. Everyone goes back to their office only to wait until evening to fight the “Battle of Dadar” at the sanctimonious Dadar Railway Station.

Dawn with the Lamp Shade

There is just too much negativity in the surroundings. The rupee fell from the top of Antilla and has entered the phase of dying a slow death, petrol price having an inverse relationship with the rupee, shot up, corrupt politicians dancing to the tunes of “Pungi Bajakar” as their Parliament sessions came to a close was well shielded by IPL, cronies of them crying that every IPL match is fixed and still watch them anyway, torrents banned in the country, AI pilots still on strike, KF Airlines would have recovered had he increased the price of a pint by Re. 1, mining regulatory problems continue, 2G-3G-4G fiascos are falling apart like a Parle-G dipped in hot tea and various other issues that come under the “C” class issues of Pareto Analysis. Flicking the essence from Animal Farm and a slight modifying suits well for our country – “In this country, everyone is equal, but just that some are more equal”. Amidst all these, people dream.

There is a lot of hostility around us. Everyone is ignored by everyone yet conveying the fact to everyone that everyone is ignored by everyone. We don’t respect our fellow citizens. No one smiles, no one cares and no one laughs. Suddenly it seems as if people have forgotten the basics of life. There is nothing called courtesy, while yelling is the newest form of communication. How about an App for that too?? How simple life would have been, if only people used all the smileys that they use in text messages and chats in real life?

One learned person said that we need to learn to handle ambiguities and uncertainties. But the real challenge here is, what is ambiguous today may not be ambiguous tomorrow, but may be ambiguous the day after. The situation that we deal here is uncertainty in ambiguity. A few years before, we could ascertain if we are in an ambiguous situation or not, but now we are uncertain about ambiguity and are caught in the web. That web was created by ourselves and the easiest way out that we have designed is to blame others. Our problems have evolved over time and have become more robust, but not our solutions – we still blame others.

This is a country with varied problems, but a varied history too. We have weathered changes and have come a long way forward. Dictatorship will not prevail here and what we see right now won’t last long. Things will change and let us be the change. To survive in a hostile environment and handle the situation without getting angry or frustrated is the greatest challenge that an ordinary man with extraordinary dreams face.

I am a Racist

“They expect you to give concise answers and don’t beat around the bush.”

“Ok. Mental models and stuffs. Get it. So, where are you from?”

“I am from Chennai.”

“What!! Are you Tamil??????”

Two minutes into the first conversation and that is the question I encounter. Guys introducing their girlfriends play the game of “Guess where this guy is from?” “Uttar Pradesh?? Himachal Pradesh??” I wish so. Leopold’s Café’s security guy pointing at me asks my group of friends if they are with this Punjabi guy. Hearing a Bengali conversation about how much they have contributed to the per capita Roshogulla consumption, I join their banter and gleefully accepted as one of them in no time.

I am a Tamizhan. For easy pronunciation, I am a Tamilian. A Madrasi in pure terms. I am from a varied cultural background – Dad, a Muslim and mom, a Hindu. I have never been told/asked/reprimanded/forced/cajoled to follow any religion. I studied in a “Saet-tu” school (KPCVSS) managed by Gujratis. 70% of my teachers were Brahmins and so was my school’s tradition, so I know most of Gita. Since my neighbor was a Christian, I have attended the Sunday sermons and have seen too many a Christmas. “Well, of course”, my other half of my family follows Islam and I am a part there as well. Because of school, many of my friends are “Saet-tu” a.k.a Marwaris. FYI, almost all of my “Saet-tu” classmates are married now.

I didn’t know to speak Hindi, until I joined NIT Durgapur. My first words were, “I am Tippu from Chennai and I don’t know Hindi.” My group-mates were from Uttar Pradesh and that explains the most part of it. I have been with Bengalis, Biharis, Punjabis, Gujaratis, Gultis, Kannadikas, Rajasthanis, Assamese; people from North-Eastern India (don’t bloody call them Chinkis). I learnt so much from them that my friends back in Chennai say that I have changed. Come on! Give me a break!! I am bound to change. As I tell in every interview, “the exposure one gets is unmatchable”. Blame it on Rachel Green, Naughty America or Robin Scherbatsky, the idea of hooking up with a blonde was always instilled in my mind. Give GRE, score decently and there you go to USA was the writing on the wall until “Jab We Met” changed it to a Punjabi kudi.

Then I went to Orissa (oops!! Odisha) and worked there for two years and as obviously as it may sound I learnt all the unparliamentary Oriya words. Then, went back to Chennai and found a sea of change there. My Tamizh (Tamil for others) was outdated; there were lots of additions to the colloquial language and I felt like a Domar (means a person who doesn’t know the meaning of Domar). Now, the city Mumbai has happened in my life and learning a lot of the “Aahey!” culture. The only piece of the puzzle missing is North India and one can expect that also to happen very soon in my life.

One ubiquitous listing that was missed in the whole length of my life story in a nutshell was Mallus! All through my life there was a Mallu who followed me (or I followed them) diligently. My first tuition teacher (who later became my greatest well-wisher/family friend), my school best friends Ajith and Anu were Mallus. I thought the Mallu following was over when I went to NIT only to find that I my roommate was a Mallu, Sangeet (who is my best friend again). When I went to work, I met my very good friend Akhil, another Mallu. And finally a life dedicated to a ferocious Mallu, Sharanya. I had the option of being with a hot North Indian girl eating Paani Puri at Chandni Chowk or with a Bengali eating Chom-chom at Park Street or with a sexy Mumbaikar eating Vada-pav at Bandra, but I chose a beautiful girl eating Idly-vada at Marina.

We Indians are the most racist people in the world. I am qualified to say that. Because we judge a person on where he is from, from his/her surname, the way he/she speaks and behaves. Yet we crib that other nations racially discriminate us. I have faced a lot of racism in my life and thanks to the good racists that I have met, I have learnt to accept it, come to terms with it, now it’s a part of life. Now, I am that big an expert racist that, I can say where a person is from, from the way one pronounces the word “Be***C**d”. If he doesn’t use the word, he is a Madrasi!! :P

Revolver-ution

This article was submitted for a competition at SIBM, Pune and as expected didn't win any award. I searched for the winning article, but didn't get the link. So, here it goes!!

I dream. I dream of a nation where the 73% of the rural population will have complete access to not just Facebook, Twitter and Youtube but also to food, clothing and shelter. If not for personal experience, the statement would have been just as bland as the rice water that these rural people consume for their only two meals of the day. I was on one of my biking trips in interior Orissa, burning the high-priced petrol for the sheer thrill of adventure, when I came across barrages of villages living without electricity. People were not ignorant anymore. Though the mobile revolution had reached them, there was no electricity. A basic question that arose was from where did they manage a source of electricity to charge these mobiles? They did, apparently, with car batteries! Sadly enough, they weren’t exposed to what the even Egyptian civilization was aware of – electricity. They survived with knowledge that a world of its own existed outside the periphery of their village and that, that world needs marijuana they produced - their only source of income. Blame the middlemen because ignorance is bliss – these people have no idea how much the green grass is sold for, to the sophisticated brown people, in the black market.

I dream. I dream of a day when I don’t need to fill up the caste/religion field on any application form. I want to be identified for the person that I am, than for where I come from. I want a reservation-free country where reservation is restricted to bus/train/airline/movie only. To make it happen in this country where it is easy to find a liquor shop, but difficult to find a school, the hypothesis will never hold true. With inter-caste/inter-religious marriages taking place at enormous rates like never before, we could envision a reservation-free country in the near future.

I dream. I dream of a free society – a society where education liberates the mind. A city is brimming with its engineers, yet questions about the quality of production always loom large. The terms educated and literate are confused, cramped and presented as one entity known as a responsible citizen. We have a lot of degree-giving colleges paying less heed to the subject of graduation. And only a handful of these colleges teach, inspire and make the students achieve in a profession that they choose to. With numbers demanding most importance, all the pseudo-educationalists want to reduce the demand-supply gap. But no one realises the underlying fact that a mere reduction is not what is needed. As the wake-up call has come late, the government is taking its time to react to the urge of educating its citizens better. The result: there has been a clamour of IITs and IIMs in the market. Without further dilution, things should get better once we focus on grass-root level primary education. The young generation of today has the responsibility of creating a better atmosphere for the next generation’s sustenance. The key to achieve this goal is through education. Although the educational reforms have been taking shape in modest speed only, it is, positively, the only hope that the country banks on for a better tomorrow.

I dream. I dream of a day when I don’t have to feel corrupt, as a citizen invading his own country. I am asked to pay a bribe to evade a ruthless punishment, for no mistake of mine. I am forced to be repressed in front of bureaucracy and accept that he is the master. My good candidate whom I vote for never wins. I am yelled at if I don’t break the traffic rules, I am rebuked, if I kiss my girl in public but those are the heroes who without a worry piss in public! I am caught in between two worlds – the world in which this is the country every businessman wants to make money in and the world in which this country is just a piece of land, with land being just a euphemism. When I invade my own country, why won’t the others? Taking cue from “Atlas Shrugged”, all the policy-makers think that there is no way to rule innocent people. The only power any government has is the power to take on the criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, they make laws and policies to create new criminals. With our government “embracing” many a thing under Crime, it becomes impossible to live without breaking a few laws. And by breaking those laws, we become the newest members of the corrupt system. And that is how we invade our own country. We need policy changes – the root cause of all corrupt and not a bill to bring the corrupt to the court-of-law. Because once the corrupt are brought in to the court-of-law, they have their corrupt connections to be let out scot-free.

I dream. I dream of a day when I don’t have to feel the ire of regionalism in the country. A person from the South of the country is not treated as one’s next of kin in the North and vice-versa, while the East-West unity exists only as a global cultural phenomenon and not within the country. The phrase of Kashmir-to-Kanyakumari may no longer exist if enough attention is not given to the plight of the Kashmiris, the real sufferers in this tug of war. Arunachal Pradesh continues to remain a state of ambiguity to the rest of the country. We shouldn’t resent the fact that we cannot and did not do much about it, if and when the State slips out of our hands and becomes rightfully separate. The number of political parties outnumbers the stars on a clear night sky. And the major reason to it is the state and religion divide. Barring a few, every party follows the same ideology – Divide the countrymen and rule them. The architects of Indian Constitution might have borrowed key principles from the British, but what our politicians also inherited alongside the constitutional principles, is the “Divide and Rule” policy. Till date, our lack of unity alone has paved ways to numerous internal problems and external threats. Remember, our grandfathers fought for the country’s independence and won it because of their unity and the time has come for us to bring it back on display, even if it is as a payback for the mess that we ourselves have done to the country since then.

In the near future, I dream of a nation that will be free from the malaises and will be a united nation. Near future is all that we care for, based on which we forget the present. To whom have we left the responsibility of the present to be taken care of? To the ones who think that the present status will/should never change? If it has to change, they have to be changed and we will bring that change. This country has the largest number of youngster population in the world and young blood is boiling, listening to all the tantrums that they throw at us. I am one of them and I am that change. They hinder in my way of leading my life. They don’t give me what I deserve, but they take from me what they don’t deserve and what is rightfully mine. We caused a mini-revolution in the last six months. They have seen what happened in the Middle-East, what the youth is capable of and yet they turn a blind eye on us. We, the educated, the well-informed and well-connected youth are capable of changing the face of the nation – to bring about a Yuvalution to carry forward my life. Because, I care for this country and for its future.

Crickonomics

The Growth Story:

Year	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
GDP Growth Rate	5.95	5.53	1.06	5.48	4.77	6.65	7.57	7.56	4.05	6.19	7.39

The table shows the Indian GDP Growth Rate, from the period just before liberalization till date. A decent growth rate of 5.95% slowly deteriorated to 1.06% in 1991. Economists strongly argue that the Indian government went bankrupt and there was no other option than to liberalize. Bring in foreign investments to avoid bankruptcy and fuel growth was the mantra that was followed. With the luckiest stars in place, the move worked wonders for the economy. From thereon, the Indian economy started to shape into a stable upward curve until the software services crisis happened in 2000. Growth was hit for a couple of years, but the economy recovered not only sooner, but a lot sturdier.  

Year	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
GDP Growth Rate	4.03	5.22	3.77	8.37	8.28	9.32	9.27	9.82	4.93	9.1	9.72

With high growth during the period 2003-07, mainly powered by the software industry, there was a paradigm shift in the way the world looked at India. 2008 brought recession along with it, fueled by the US sub-prime crisis, but the Indian growth story remained robust. It did dip below 5%, but fared a lot better than many developed economies. A mighty recovery in 2009-10 and awaiting a double-dip in 2011, thanks to Eurozone crisis, has once again made the economists burn the midnight oil with their Excel sheets to find a way out.

The Sachin Growth Story:

Year	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Batting Average	35.8	41.4	19.5	41.9	91.4	70.0	29.0	41.5	62.5	80.8	68.0

The date was 15^th November 1989. Indian GDP was struggling to grow at 5.95%, when Test cap no. 187 took field. He played just six innings that year with a modest average of 35.83 runs. The next year, he hit his first hundred against England and, to tell you the truth, the whole of India was watching/reading him play. Everyone was talking about this wonder-kid Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and since Indians were busy discussing cricket, our GDP growth rate slumped to 5.53%, the next year.

In 1992, his performance got better with an average of 42 and so did India’s GDP - it grew at 5.48%. 1993 became the first feared year for the Indian economy - Sachin showered his blessings on fans with an impeccable performance with the bat, scoring at 91.43 runs per innings. Indian fans were delighted. They stopped working plainly because they were happy and could only talk about Sachin. As expected, Indian GDP growth rate declined to 4.77%. The happy period continued to 1994, where the fans were, now, enjoying their work alongside Sachin’s scoring rate at 70 runs per innings. There were a few negative sentiments when he once got out at 96 against SL in Bangalore, but that was brushed aside. The new face of Indian cricket kept people happy and the economy grew at 6.65%.

It was 1995 when Sachin got married. Fans respected his privacy and the economy grew at 7.57% irrespective of his menial average of 29. The next year, Sachin came back to action to score at 42 runs per innings and the economy steadily grew at the same rate as the previous year. 1997 became the second feared year for the Indian economy – Sachin averaged 62 runs per innings and all Indians were caught guilty, watching him live on TV. Indian growth rate tumbled to 4%. The God of Cricket saw what was happening and offered a deal to his fans. He delivered at staggering 81 runs per innings in 1998 and the fans responded by working hard to push the growth rate to 6.2%. 1999 was even better, the economy got better to grow at 7.4%.

The year was 1991 when Sachin started to become a showstopper in the national fan-following arena. They watched him play, every ball of every test match and much to their dismay, he didn’t perform well. Indian fans were let down and devastated. They fell for the early show of brilliance and let their economy totter to grow at 1.06% that year. Economists said that the country went bankrupt and that is why they had to open the gates for privatization. But, huge expectations on Sachin and a paltry show by him with an average of 19.50 led to the economy debacle. Now you know how Sachin helped in liberalization of the Indian economy.

Year	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Batting Average	63.8	62.6	55.6	17.0	91.5	44.4	24.2	55.4	48.3	67.6	78.1

Cometh a new century, the fans went back on their words. Sachin delivered, yet the growth rate declined. The ups and downs disagreement continued for a while until 2003, when the fans lost interest in the game as Sachin’s average slumped to 17 for the year. Because of his under-performance, people stopped watching cricket and - would you believe it – Indian economy grew at 8.37%. For the first time, it had crossed 8% in the past 20 years. Sachin cherished this growth and he made his fans happy next year by scoring at 92 runs per innings, with almost three double hundreds.

The tussle went on for a while until 2008, when recession happened. Sachin’s inconsistent performance in the past few years left the fans upset and caused recession in the world. With back-to-back stellar performances which motivated the fans, Sachin helped the Indian economy grow above 9% in 2009 and 2010. However, the gloom around his 100^th century has caused huge uproar in Europe and America and talks of a double-dip have surfaced. For the betterment for the world economy, let alone Indian, the earlier the 100^th century comes, better are the chances to escape the double-dip.

Reports all around the world say that Indian economy will grow at unprecedented rate in the coming future. Their prediction could be right. Half of the Indian population will stop watching cricket and start working, once he retires.