Random Ramblings

You have 2 options, and you have complete freedom to choose any of these. Each option leads to an outcome which is one of those given below 1. You are happy and everyone believing that you are not and sympathising with you. 2. Everyone believing that you are happy, while in reality you are far being so. Which one will you choose ?

The match was close. It was cricket match between Australia and Bangladesh. Most people believed the result would be obvious, but the Bangladesh team offered a tough fight. People were mostly cheering for the Bangladesh team. But this time they didn’t win. Few months ago though, they pulled a surprise victory against the Aussies though, and people would have loved if they had done the same this time also. We all love upsets, unless of course, we or our favorites are on the receiving end. Or in a broader sense, we often tend to love losers. Be it loving Devdas making it a super hit each time it comes. Be it loving a hero who loses Be it cheering for a weak team against a stronger team Be it seeing a dark horse win. Be it suddenly having a new-found love for Sourav Ganguly, whom were abusing a year ago for non-performance. … Or is it the other way round? … Do we hate winners or achievers and love to see them fall? Be it secretly hoping that Australia loses each time it plays Be it seeing...

“Oops … I overslept” “I am going to catch on with some sleep” How often we do we heat these words! Sleep is one thing that often eludes us when we need it the most, and is always there to greet us when we least want this bug to hit us. This result can be derived by applying Murphy’s Law to sleep. Similarly, applying Parkinson’s Law, “All the possible post-activity time available is filled with sleep”. This may hold true even if the available time is as high as 16 hours. Most of the oversleeping occurs when we desire it the least, and have some important task lined up immediately after the ‘brief sleep’, which we miss because our sleep ends up not being brief. For the sleep to be sufficient, it has to be for optimum time. This optimum time may vary from person to person. If you sleep less than the optimum time, then you will feel sleepy due to lack of proper sleep, while if you sleep more than this, you get trapped in the vicious cycle of sleep and thus continue to sleep more or feel sl...

Prof kehte hain ... ( inspired by Papa kehte hain frm QSQT !) Dedicated to the b-school goers ! Here it goes : Doston, Aaj submission ka aakhiri din hai … Aur sabhi ne apne project ke baare mein kuch soch rakha hai But maine kuch nahi socha hai … Really … I mean it … Aur aaj baar baar mere dimaag mein yahi baat aati hai … Prof kehte hain badaaa naam karega, Student hamaara aisa kaam karega, Magar yeh to .. Koi na jaane … ki meri slides … hai kahaaan … Baithe hain milke, sab project mates apne … Sabke dilo mein armaan ye hai … Wo presentation mein, kal kya kya bolegaa … Har ek nazar ka sapna yeh hai Koi introduction ka kaam karegaa Globe maarne mein koi apna naam karega Magar yeh to .. Koi na jaane … ki meri slides … hai kahaaan … Mera to sapna … hai i-bank jaana … Dekhoon jo usko jhoome bahaar … Account mein khilta dollar ka mausam, Style mein jaadooo, bangla aur car ! Banda ye khoobsurat kaam karega … Powerpoint ki duniya mein apna naam karega … Magar yeh to … Koi na jaane … ki meri s...

It was yet another mundane day at the office. The client had once again told to pull up the socks, if the project had to be completed in time. My manager had one again told that my work was still not upto the mark. I was feeling totally demotivated as I strolled past the park on my way home, when I decided to sit on an empty bench in some corner of the park, which was surprisingly vacant. I was throwing stones at the tree which was a few meters away, but missed it every time. This wasn’t a proper day to try all these. Maybe I would end up hitting somebody, and probably landing at a hospital.Then suddenly this old gentleman came and sat beside me. I smiled and he reciprocated. This man seemed to be somewhere in his 60s, but yet seemed full of energy. He was dressed in an executive suit, which I found a little odd initially. Maybe, he was someone in the high echelons of the corporate world. Anyway, it was none of my business. Yet, few minutes later I found myself engaged in a deep conver...

(My first attempt at writing a short story … read at your own risk!) Moments later after I somehow managed to throw myself in the train compartment, it started moving. Had I been stuck in the traffic jam for even a minute more, I would have had to book my tickets once again. But finally I embarked on the journey, the one which will lead to my homes, the one which will make Bangalore “the city I lived in” from “the city I live in.” I finally landed in my seat, somehow adjusting my luggage below and over the seat. I was really exited about the journey. I had managed to secure an admission into an IIM and was soon going there for a management education. To add to this I had a beautiful girl sitting next to me in the train. This was sort of unusual, as the coach usually I travel in hardly has any beautiful girls in it (courtesy Murphy's law). Later on I got to know from the reservation chart that she was Aditi Mishra, Female (obviously!), 21 years, going from Bangalore to New Delhi. “H...

It is not about sports like soccer, cricket or TT; nor about some indoor games like chess or computer games. How often we hear words which on surface convey a simple meaning but deep inside the meaning may be totally different ?!. It is about these ‘games’. Formally defined, games are a form of ulterior transaction, and which leads to a definite payoff. Ulterior transaction is the one, which on surface may appear to be completely normal and without any hidden “trick”, but at psychological level it may mean something totally different. For example it may appear as if an adult is talking to an adult (adult – adult transaction), but at psychological level the ‘adult’ speaker may be talking to a child (adult-child transaction). (No more technical jargons from now onwards!) How often we hear the phrase “In US it isn’t so; actually there it is …” At the surface it may seem like a mature adult talking to another, stating plain facts. But at other level it is telling that “I have been to USA”....

"The first step of reaching the top is getting through the crowd at the bottom" How often we think to cross one level of competition, and be assured that rest of the going would be smooth, just to realize that competion has just increased ! As a child we often didn't know what we are headed for. Later on we make a decision, usually the one that would lead to something more comfortable later in life, or colloquially "do this, then there is fultoo aish". As a child I used to think that if I get good grades in school, life would be comfortable. Maybe comfortable meant "bed of roses" to me. In engineering, all the old school style of competition seemed somewhat trivial ! Bt still there is a big fight to get those coveted jobs, but again, on reaching "there", we often end up realizing that just to be ahead of the crowd, you have to compete a lot. During those job/graduation days it is a dream to get into any of the coveted b schools leading to a w...

First half of the first term @ b-school and I am fully loaded with Balance sheet that don't balance Accounting equation which had debited my brain with frustation Supplies that aren''t demanded Accounts which I can't count Some useless statistics with highly any marginal utility Information technologies that hardly carry any information Acts of associaation that dissociates my brain The hairs that are depreciated from my head by means of scratching Probablities, to understand which is improbable A grouped data set of competants in which I am an outright outlier in the negative direction Motivation theories that leave me demotivated Leadership theories, which I try to follow Theories of satisfaction that leaves me dissatisfied Assignments that I wish had never beeen assigned to me Researches, which I don't want to search even once Communication, whose message I couldn't grasp All paths leading to the so called "dream jobs", which we don't have any ...

"Some castes are backward, but some backward castes are more backward than others, and even in those more backward caste some more backward castes are more more backward than other more backward castes and so on ..." -- Nikesh Rathi's "nested" quote on backward castes I was just having a look at the number of castes in India. Here is what I found : There are 3,000 castes and 25,000 subcastes in India An idea came into my mind looking at the statistics. For nearly 3000 odd seats in the IIT, why not reserve one seat for each caste. (taking into account each of the 25,000 subcaste would be a very complicated issue, so am not including it). Some of the details like the seat allocation and the institute allocation can be done on rotation basis. For example if there are 100 seats in computer science at IIT, Delhi and a person from my caste is supposed to go there this year. So the next person from my caste can go there after 30 years, when people from all cas...