Blog

thought:
ISB students are known to suffer from sever amnesia. for god sake…they dont ever remember what happened in the class…right after the class…! hmmm…so how can we exploit this…

action:
Step 1: pick up last year’s mid-term
Step 2: run a monte carlo simulation (or ask the next person you meet) to choose a number between 1-30
Step 3: Repeat step 2…20 times
Step 4: stand in front of the mirror…and go….HUUUUAAAAHHHAHAAAAAHAHAHHAAAAA…

Result:
yesterday’s corporate finance mid-term

i kind of expected more from Prof Sundaram…i mean…he easily was one of the best profs that i interacted with at ISB. so…yes…its dissapointing…and at some level i think unfair for those who didnt get to see last year’s mid-term (it wasnt circulated at an official level). however…its not an easy debate…and i can be on either side with equal conviction. lets see who wins…if i may use the word…!

the OM midterm was brilliant. had something for everyone…so at some level it didnt want to award you just cause you knew a lot. the demarcation was meant to be subtle…! stupid questions were 5 points…and so were some serious questions. nicely done…

last class of LDP was rocking! Level 5 leadership. satan did almost get me to not attend the class…however i am glad i came out well…! rajeshwar…even with his fallacies…is impressive…and i wish i was even half as well read as him. the ease with which he delivers shakespeare and oscar wilde and the gita and what not…is simply amazing. people might be led to believe that he does so to draw the credibility…but then the fact that he associates whatever he says to the context…in an almost immaculate manner…defeats this argument.

anyways…

had a nice time last night with N and A. A made kickass cheese omlettes…and played a perfect host. we then watched Zeher…which was a ‘not-spo-bad’ movie till about the last 30 mins or so…it was just downhill from there…! N had been down with sever fever for the past week or so…so it was a welcome change for her.

and A…my respect for u has grown after last night…! :)

really missing R lately…she is going through a tough patch…however given how strong she is…i am sure she will come through very soon….!

looking forward to the weekend…loads of stuff to handle…

~a

so if u have ever met me in person…the last thing that will come to your mind is ‘intelligence’..and the first name that will strike you will be ‘pappu’…

so…it didnt much for P and A to come up with the same. its another case that their entire time during class is dedicated to this character (aka me) aka pappu..

for instance…

P: Pappu..?
Me (turning back): kya…?
P: chal aage dekh…!
Me: damn u bastardo…!

5 mins later

A: Pappu..?
Me (to myself): wont look back…
A: Abbe sun…
Me (myself again): no..wont do it…
A: pappu..sun naa…
Me (myself): must be important…(and turn back)
A: chal aage dekh…!!!
Me: aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!


but thats not it…the preparation starts before class. my name tag this morning won the guiness record for the maximum grafitti in a given space…

a brief look:

• pappu pager
• pappu tiger
• i know regression…what do u know…?
• if boy – go to hell…if girl – come for tuitions
• jahaan dikhi laundiya…karne laga dandiya
• murgi waalon…murgi bachao…pappu jawaan ho gaya…!!!

i mean..what retarded sense of humor dude…who would laugh at such stuff. its a pity that everyone does though…!!!

which gets me to think…my image here at isb is that of “with the women…for the women…always…dilli police…”…and its not that i do something out of my way to maintain this image. i guess its just got digged in for some odd reason…and P and A dont help much to take the image away as well..! ab kya karen…talent to bahut hai..time nahi milta…!!

anyways…mid term coming this friday. and then looking forward to an amazing weekend…! hopefully will watch sarkar sometime then..

on a sad note..i sold the nikon i had bought 2 weeks back…! slightly depressed at the same…but then..its all good…life is much larger…

life’s an undeveloped photograph right now…a beautiful moment captured…waiting to be seen and appreciated…!

~a

Question
_______________________

Place: The Indian Army Camp, Siachen Glacier
Temperature: Minus 40 degree centigrade
Salary of a jawaan posted: Rs. 9,000
Extra Salary just cause he is at Siachen: Rs. 32
Freqency of a bath: 3 months
Frequency of shit: weekly
Freqency of death: daily

What is the motivation…?

(Possible) Answer
_________________________

patriotism
pride
power
money
prestige
…
…
bullshit…!!!

its all for the leader…the commanding officer…the ‘in-charge’…

________________________________________________________________

Capt. Raghu Raman was here at ISB last evening. talking about ‘leadership at 26,000 feet’…defining what leadership is all about…defining what it takes to motivate people under situations that are worse than anything possibly imagined…

he talked about crisis…which is not about getting a B grade when you wanted to get into mckinsey…or about getting tense cause you cant cope up with work pressure…! he talked about crisis…which is deciding whether to send 5 more soldiers in a blizzard to search for the 5 that havent returned…at the risk that they may never return…or that the 5 gone out might be 20 mtrs away from the camp freezing to death…!

he not only got a standing ovation (truly deserved) at the end of it all..he also managed to capture (atleast to some extent) the foolish-ignorant-pompous-greedy-selfish devil inside all of us and show him what the real gravity of the world is.

hah…i was dissapointed that we didnt win the frisbee final…! at the same time someone 26,000 feet above might not be ‘allowed’ to shed a tear when his friend doesnt return…forever…


its not the best feeling to know that your life is so trivial when compared to so much more…and especially when you have always felt that you have struggled so much to be where you are. someone out there worked a gigillion times more…and didnt even reach someplace…

i am blessed to be me…

~a

today has been busy since morning…and fun too. got up for the paper viewing of Decision Models and Optimization (DMO) for term 2. have done decently well…just praying for an A. lets hope i manage one…though i have a feelin it wont come easy.

attended section B’s managerail accounting class. prof sridharan is an awesome prof..but someone (maybe it will be me..if he is reading this) needs to tell him that we graduated from class 8 some 10 billion years ago…and so adding 20 and 40 and coming up with 60 isnt that big a deal. at some level i really respect the fact that he is trying to come down to our level and make things easy for us. but then at the mba level you dont want someone telling you that life is going to be 20+40=60 easy. infact its never gonna be 60 ever again…! anyways…

then clicked a lot of snaps (and o man i love this so much…!!) at the Capital Markets Symposium (CAF). infact last evening i had gone to the airport to receive Mr. Ravi Narain, CEO, National Stock Exchange. he was one of the panel members for the discussion this afternoon. we had a good conversation on our wey back..with moments of silence as well. i was going through my last 2 terms to see if i could come up with some intelligent question. and damn..was i good. a typical 5 minutes….

Ankur: so you are an econ grad from cambridge. that must have been wonderful…learning eco from the best place possible.
Narain: oh yes it was…great place. but then i always wanted to do finance and i regret not haven taken math or physics instead.
Ankur (to himself): okkkkkkk…so its finance now..
1 minute of silence
Ankur (to himself): dude…come up with a good finance question…cmon
another minute of silence
Ankur (still to himself): COME UP WITH SOMETHING RIGHT NOW…FINANCE FINANCE…
another 30 seconds
Ankur (about to jump off the car): so…finance, interesting subject.howz the weather now in mumbai…!!!
Narain (to himself)…DUD…!!

anyways…back to the symposium today. it was great. i was the ‘unofficial’ photographer and it was awesome to be clicking after so many days. had a good hour..

ruched after that to change…to my sports gear (yah right…!). had the semi-final of the frisbee tournament. and it was some mighty kickass fun. we rocked right from the start…and ‘ran’ to a 5-2 victory.

have to study quite a bit this weekend. let me get back to that….

~a

you havent blogged for 2 days…you gymed today for 45 minutes…lifting weights…playing squash and badminton…its 1am in the morning…the day starts at 7.30 tomorrow and you dont know when it will end…

and you are medically dead…!

nevertheless, i will write…

life has been good these days. somehow the term isnt hitting me as yet…there is quite some bit to do…and i am doing it..but the pressure isnt even half of last term..just as section A’s tee shirt isnt half as sec-c as ours…!! (prof venkat)

isb is hosting a microfinance conclave this friday/saturday and the who’s who of the economics and finance world is coming over. i am required to host mr. ravi narain, managing director and ceo – nse. will be going to receive him at the airport tomorrow…and then show him around the place. should be good fun..though i will be missing some bit of the ldp class…(sigh..!)

had gone out for chinese today…decent food..good company. even R went out for chinese today…after she had a ‘tennis date’ with S. he seems to be taking ‘good’ care of her…chalo…as long as he gets to…! :)

section c had its t-shirt day yesterday. was awesome fun clicking snaps in the section tees…they have come out decently well. here..have a look..!

and till you adore the tee…lemme come back from my sleep…

~a

is what i slept last night…12 friggin hours. and it was awesome…!

saturday night we had a party…which slowly turned into ‘their’ party…wherein their stands for everyone who hasnt paid 15 lacs to be in ISB and simply lives in hyderabad..! apparently there were some 20 cars of ‘others’ who had crashed the party…and went to the bar with 200 bucks for a vodka. little did they realize that booze at ISB parties is at selling price…(30 bucks for a vodka..!!). little did we realize that we will see them again at the next party..cause of this…!!

anyhow…the party was a blast. we had inter-section games…tug-o-war for instance wherein the section members not pulling were supposed to throw buckets of water at the opposite team. this was basically to increase solidarity amongst the sections and avoid any further water fights…(yah right…!)

A and her bartending team rocked that day. they were on it for some 7 hours…and did a remarkable job with the fruit punch. its another case that they have shared some tactics they used to increase sales…ahem ahem…(“yeh fruit punch pehle waale se zyaada acha nahi hai..?”…”yah dud…cause it has more alcohol content..”..)

the party eventually came to an end just in time……for the sunrise…!!! and since i was incharge of te music, leaving midway would be a little less than committing suicide. however…no regrets…! overall…kudos to A for organizing the entire thing. bahut sahi…!

however…when one has to get up at 9.30 when one has slept at 6.30…and both the times are a.m….its not the best thing under the sun. ISB was organizing its 1st info session for the prospective students. and by jove…645 of them turned up…! so handling them was quite an achievement. it was good fun though…marketing for the brand. there were some really interesting prospective students…would want them here next year.

after the info session..the group met for exactly 15 mins to discuss the OM case. we took a strong glance at each other…before i broke down and went…”ok ok..i will do it…!”…(kiddin…!)

then went for a long photography session…after which there was a soccer match to be played between ISB and BITS Alumni. at first it seemed they would tear us apart…they were in jerseys and all..practising…warming up…while on the other side…our team was like…”aur suna…case ho gaya..? eco ka kya grade aaya…?”…

however…little did we realize that the warming up was the only good thing they could manage. we bulldozed them 3-0…!!!

overall…the day ended at some 11pm…and i decided to go off to sleep. the next thing i see is the afternoon sun…! :)

today went well…had an info session on the finance electives. seem to be awesomein nature…hope i have a good time doing them as well…

rest all good…

~a

i didnt touch any book in the entire day…and dont plan to either. yet it was a long day. started with getting up late…then attended a rather nice talk about careers in corporate and investment banking by Mr. Sanjiv Bhasin, CEO Rabo India Finance (Ex-CEO HSBC India). good stuff…

then started work on preparing the questions for the dumb-c and pictionary rounds. had already got the books from A and S (thanks!)..so movies, event, personalities remained.

then went to participate in the inter section frisbee competition. was awesome fun. we won…and have got through the semi finals. i guess they will be held tomorrow..or maybe day after.

then got back to questions…meet up with S to discuss the proceedings…and then finally the event started at 7. it went decently well. except for one round wherein i goofed up with the questions.in hindsight the round shouldnt have been there in the first place.

anyways…just came from S and E’s place. watched some tv after a gigillion years. had a terrible headache which has actually gone away. they are really very sweet sweethearts…! :)

however…at the end of the day..i am feelin bad. i almost shouted at R today…just cause i was tired and she apparently wasnt listening to me. feeling really bad right now. sorry dear…i really am.

looking forward to a longer day tom..packed with studies. E will be giving me company…

~a

i am entitled to 25% of that 12 lac package from mckinsey today…!!!

well…thts if everything goes as per plans…!!

so…the exams got over today. went well…yesterday was good too. the dmo exam today rocked like crazy. it was such a sweet shit paper…got people to think beyond what they usually do…and some of the questions were like..wow…this is awesome stuff. hats off…!

econ yesterday was also a pleasure. very relevant stuff…it even had articles from July 1st week…i mean..how recent can u get…! good stuff again…

MDM today was “bacho…yeh hai tumhare daaton ki banaawat…now draw a graph and explain it…”. it was shocking at some level..to be coming from Prof. Raju. but then…all’s good.

however…the cake goes to…CS…! so here is the deal…take 3/4 oz. of CISCO…bring to a boil…pour 1.4 qtz. of Nucor..(stirring continuously u dud..!)…let it cool. garnish with the knowledhe management article…some mckinsey to taste…and serve with hot FAF…! what you get are 11 points in the CS final exam…way to go…!!!

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ok eat this…the exam ends 4.30 today. our group meets at 5 for the CS project (due thursday…but then with 5 of us leaving to meet our gfs/bfs/whatnots..we arent left with much choice). and we work…i mean WORK…till 1.30am…nonstop (dinner stop..only)…and boy…did it rock…! we actually managed to pull off a near impossible stunt…and its such an amazing feeling right now…i dont even wanna start describing it. lovely…C4 rocks…

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alright guys…its time again to leave for delhi…will see you soon after the 24th. looking forward to an awesome time with R…dying to be with her. the isb gang is meeting up on friday..mocha…u r invited…! :)

life is too sweet…

~a