Before doing this tag, I am declaring a Mutual No Tag Agreement (MNTA) with Neeta, Subbu, Puneet, Zarine, Neha and everybody else who have tagged me in the past. You, yes you, if you have ever tagged me, please consider yourself a signatory. Henceforth after this tag, we don't tag each other. Let's make this world a better place to live in.
Puneet, Subbu and Neeta have tagged me to write about 8 qualities in my Soulmate.
1. She should be happy, confident and at peace with herself. She should be an ever-optimist.
2. I am a little weird in the sense that I don't think like most people do. I am both an introvert and an extrovert built in one person. She should be comfortable with this and believe in me and what I am trying to be. I guess this takes care of everything else.
3. She should love endless witty conversations and a have pleasant sense of humour with her one-liner sense in place.
4. We should be able to say a lot to each other even when nothing is said.
5. Love for books, tasteful art and things, ability to spend hours in a bookshop, being as comfortable in an antique shop as in a mall.
6. Love for walking just for the sake of walking, without a predecided destination.
7. Respect. For her family, friends, all people around her and me. She should be able to fit in inside my social circle and gel with my friends.
I guess if these seven qualities are there, everything else can be taken care of :)
And I tag nobody. May this menace end forever!
Monday, February 20, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
My IIMs, Your IIMs, Their IIMs
This has been a week of interesting insights. A story long in the pipeline was published, after being called 'untouchable' and refused by several newspapers and magazines on the grounds of being 'too sensitive'. Posted on Pagalguy.com forums, it elicited several rather passionate reactions. Do take a look at them. I hear the story has reached the internal bulletin boards of all the IIMs and other major B-schools with discussion threads.
Negative, one-sided, malicious, not-presenting-the-complete-picture, unfair to the IIMs... I liked the adjectives. A couple of IIM students frantically called me to register their protest, saying the story would put off future students and prospective employers. "Teri hamse kyaa dushmani hai?"
First, I don't think a newspaper story can harm the IIMs' popularity and reputation. That's catastrophizing the issue. Second, I neither take myself nor my stories so seriously to believe that they will harm that big an institution. I am no expert on the IIMs. Third, I don't want the IIMs' reputation to be harmed, I am no IIM basher.
Fourth, for 40 years everybody, media included, has sung continuous paens about the IIMs. I guess nobody asked for the 'other side' then.
For me the most interesting part was that all negative facts about the IIMs were given to me by serving and former IIM Professors and Deans themselves with full consent to be officially quoted, except for one professor. One friend pointed out to me that they may have personal agendas for doing so. But in the end, the facts they gave me were each time backed up by actual evidence I independently fished out.
Given all the problems the IIMs ail with, would a truly passionate individual be able to survive in such an environment? Does the IIM culture respect passion, incredible pre-MBA backgrounds, leadership?
From what my IIM friends tell me, no matter what your age, experience or background, a 22-year-old fresher kid who happens to be your senior will rag you high-school style on your first day on campus. Birthday celebrations are about making the subject roll in mud and cake, get kicked and beaten by many, doing inventive 'fun' things with a batchmate of the opposite sex and more. They call it their culture. To the Common Sense it looks like humiliation. Maybe my senses are warped.
Any IIM student will tell you how group assignments are done. All the work is put on one guy while the others freak out or play games on the network. That's world class excellence.
And then is the placements thingy and the dirty childish games some IIMs play among themselves. IIM students reading this post would know what I'm talking about. Jobs become your complete life worth. Maturity goes out the window.
The IIMs should by all means go global. But will they survive global competition if their faculty are paid the same pathetic salaries? I hear that Wharton, Tuck, Stanford and Darden are setting up campuses in India in the next 10 years. Will the stagnant culture in IIMs stand that kind of world-class competition? I pray for IIM Shillong.
On the Pagalguy.com forums, I continuously see debates challenging the projected glory of the IIMs and people changing their perceptions 180 degree. One user calls the IIMs 'talent pickup joints'. Sooner or later, more people will write about it, more perceptions will change. You cannot fool all the people all the time.
I love the IIMs, they're my country's pride. But when I see the rot-like situation inside, I feel like doing more 'one-sided stories'.
Negative, one-sided, malicious, not-presenting-the-complete-picture, unfair to the IIMs... I liked the adjectives. A couple of IIM students frantically called me to register their protest, saying the story would put off future students and prospective employers. "Teri hamse kyaa dushmani hai?"
First, I don't think a newspaper story can harm the IIMs' popularity and reputation. That's catastrophizing the issue. Second, I neither take myself nor my stories so seriously to believe that they will harm that big an institution. I am no expert on the IIMs. Third, I don't want the IIMs' reputation to be harmed, I am no IIM basher.
Fourth, for 40 years everybody, media included, has sung continuous paens about the IIMs. I guess nobody asked for the 'other side' then.
For me the most interesting part was that all negative facts about the IIMs were given to me by serving and former IIM Professors and Deans themselves with full consent to be officially quoted, except for one professor. One friend pointed out to me that they may have personal agendas for doing so. But in the end, the facts they gave me were each time backed up by actual evidence I independently fished out.
Given all the problems the IIMs ail with, would a truly passionate individual be able to survive in such an environment? Does the IIM culture respect passion, incredible pre-MBA backgrounds, leadership?
From what my IIM friends tell me, no matter what your age, experience or background, a 22-year-old fresher kid who happens to be your senior will rag you high-school style on your first day on campus. Birthday celebrations are about making the subject roll in mud and cake, get kicked and beaten by many, doing inventive 'fun' things with a batchmate of the opposite sex and more. They call it their culture. To the Common Sense it looks like humiliation. Maybe my senses are warped.
Any IIM student will tell you how group assignments are done. All the work is put on one guy while the others freak out or play games on the network. That's world class excellence.
And then is the placements thingy and the dirty childish games some IIMs play among themselves. IIM students reading this post would know what I'm talking about. Jobs become your complete life worth. Maturity goes out the window.
The IIMs should by all means go global. But will they survive global competition if their faculty are paid the same pathetic salaries? I hear that Wharton, Tuck, Stanford and Darden are setting up campuses in India in the next 10 years. Will the stagnant culture in IIMs stand that kind of world-class competition? I pray for IIM Shillong.
On the Pagalguy.com forums, I continuously see debates challenging the projected glory of the IIMs and people changing their perceptions 180 degree. One user calls the IIMs 'talent pickup joints'. Sooner or later, more people will write about it, more perceptions will change. You cannot fool all the people all the time.
I love the IIMs, they're my country's pride. But when I see the rot-like situation inside, I feel like doing more 'one-sided stories'.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Concert photos I dreamt of taking but never could being the Ignoramus that I WAS.
Yet, at parties and other social occasions with ample show-off opportunities I shall continue claiming that film cameras are the best.
Dominic Miller (Sting's guitar player) and his band playing at the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai is best caught on Allwin's Digital Cam which I have been procrastinating on returning since months.
The Festival is a godsend for jazz-lovers. The level of tastefulness of all the music I have heard this week (Sanjay Divecha, Amit Heri, Charlie Mariano, Eric Lohrer, Dhruv Ghanekar) should be hard to match anywhere in India. I'm smitten!
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
Funded travelling
I have not spent from my pockets on a trip in a long time. Usually, I find some pretext to turn a holiday into an assignment and get funding from a publication. Though under such a plan, one has to be careful while spending and collect hundreds of bills for every small item bought. Often, there are no ATMs at your destination so you have to carry all your money distributed in different pockets of your clothing and your luggage. As the money gets spent, it is replaced by bills for Bisleri, camera batteries, cabs and food. When you return, it becomes a big nightmare to collect all those bills at one place and make an expenditure account to be sent to the publication. The toughest part is recalling which Bisleri bill was incurred on which date, small details that the accounting guys are very particular about. I procrastinate royally on this activity.
Getting paid to travel is a wholly satisfying experience, because the story you write is very personal. I especially like Editors who are flexible and don't mind some wit and politically incorrect humour thrown into stories. Fortunately, most that I have written for are like that. I think you cannot know about a culture without their humour. What do they laugh at? How do they play with words? That tells you a lot about the place.
Two next travel assignments coming my way are on small long-forgotten Portuguese fishing villages south of Alibaugh near Mumbai. I hope to get lost on my way several times. I am looking forward to exploring some history there and sporting my newly learnt Spanish, which I believe is quite close to Portuguese.
In other news, PaGaLGuY.com now has a fully functional office in Fort, Mumbai with fulltime a Marketing Manager at cracking big deals. If our visiting cards are anything to go by, this is going to be a crazy workplace that will change many ideas about business online and offline.
Getting paid to travel is a wholly satisfying experience, because the story you write is very personal. I especially like Editors who are flexible and don't mind some wit and politically incorrect humour thrown into stories. Fortunately, most that I have written for are like that. I think you cannot know about a culture without their humour. What do they laugh at? How do they play with words? That tells you a lot about the place.
Two next travel assignments coming my way are on small long-forgotten Portuguese fishing villages south of Alibaugh near Mumbai. I hope to get lost on my way several times. I am looking forward to exploring some history there and sporting my newly learnt Spanish, which I believe is quite close to Portuguese.
In other news, PaGaLGuY.com now has a fully functional office in Fort, Mumbai with fulltime a Marketing Manager at cracking big deals. If our visiting cards are anything to go by, this is going to be a crazy workplace that will change many ideas about business online and offline.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)