Incessant Chases of Life.

In couple of few days life has definitely turn around a whole circle. People are now calling me as whether to join IMT or not? and i recall my days as a MBA aspirant when i was so much confused that once i almost decided to drop MBA. Thank god, common sense prevailed and i joined IMT. But after one year of the so called management education, i came to know about one thing, no education in any of the school can make you a manager, it has to come from inside. The only thing which you can learn from a B School , is to apply common sense , and believe me its very uncommon, as there are numerous examples of various well planned campaigns went for toss. As quoted by somebody " After MBA, you feel that you doesn't need to do an MBA.. bit to feel this you gave to a MBA".More on personal note.. things are not going that smooth. Life is never kind to anyone, but on some of the days i ask questions to the god and more to myself.. Why Me? I know people ask these questions only when they are in pain and not when al the things are going right for them. Some times things doesnt go your way, despite you give your best of the efforts. You try to improve yourself, change the habits in you, just to have something you desire. And its not the case that i desire a lot. Although there is no end of human aspirations, i only desire have company of someone who is dearest to me !!!!!But at the end of the day, there are somethings which you can do.. and there are somethings which just happen. You can study hard.. you can try to improve yourself.. you can make efforts to excel in your life.. but you cant make a person become a friend of you . Friendship and Love are the things which usually happens. So, then why people try for it, if the effort is not required at all. Again the vagaries of human life, the more a thing elude you , the more you are after it. In life we do not value the things which we have, and constantly chase those which we do not have. So, for the time being , just have to keep the matter in cold.. and i think i should believe in adage of true love? Lets test the age old mantra .....

Just Noticeable Difference

Business Ethics Classes for this term ended with a documentary " The inconvenient Truth" by the noble laureate, Mr Al Gore. He is a wonderful orator and the things which he said had all of us moved. During, the fag end of the video, he demonstrated us an example. Suppose, a frog is put in boiling water, it would jump out of the jar immediately. On the other hand, if you put it in lukewarm water, and then gradually increase the temperature, the frog will not notice the change in temperature, and hence keep sitting on jar, and ultimately will lose its life.After the lecture, i tried to extend this idea into the other realms of life. Somehow, i have the feeling that this concept affects the human behaviour and particularly the consumer behaviour to a large extent. I searched for some literature in the library, and then I came across the term “Just Noticeable Difference ( JND) coined by Weber in early 20th century. To put in simple terms, suppose you are watching 2 light beams of same intensity ( Say 100 W) and then intensity of one is varied,then after how much variation of the intensity, will you observe the difference in the intensity of 2 light beams. This variance, is sometimes also called the differential threshold of JND.Many of us know that it exists, but still we never give much of a thought to it. This is one of the concept which are used by companies to manipulate ( or sometimes say fool customers). Here, I would like to quote the example of FMCG companies, because the products in this category are generally the low involvement products with the price being the key determining factor in the decision making process of a consumer. Companies, by the way of packaging, by promotion mixes create a clutter of products with JND often less than the threshold level. So, when a consumer goes out to buy toothpaste, he is often subjected to the choice of 80g of pepsodent for Rs 25 and 100g of Colgate at Rs 30. Now, by packaging them cleverly, Pepsodent reduces the JND between these 2 products. So, consumer tends to behave that both the products are almost the same. Now, the key determining factor for them is the price, and here they will go for the one which is quoting lesser price (Pepsodent in this case). Even though, by buying Pepsodent they are paying more Rs/g than Colgate.JND concept is also leveraged by the companies, which over a time try to evolve as per the business environment. Particularly, for the strongly positioned brands, a sudden transition could be Hara-kiri... so they change over a period of time, in which every time the gradual change is less that the differential hold of JND.If you get a chance to see the logo of Pepsi, in last 10 years, you will definitely notice the difference. But as everything has another face, this concept is also utilized , particularly in rural India, by the companies which copy and fake the well known products. By closely resembling names, packaging, and promotion mix, they hold the change below the JND level, and thus fooling the consumers.Apart from business, JND is part and parcel of human life. When you meet some one after a year or two generally the reaction is "tu to bahut lamba ho gaya yaar". While his family members would not be noticing the gradual change. I use to visit mussorie very frequently, and one of my favourite place is kempty falls. Every year or so, i go there and enjoy the scenic beauty. Last year, i went after a gap of 3 years, and i was shocked to see the condition of kempty fall. When i enquired about the reason, it was due to a reservoir which had been building there for last 10 years, gosh!! i hardly noticed that.This can also be leveraged in relationships, when things start getting wrong, initially we do not notice the gradual damage to the relation, unless it reaches to JND Level. After that, it is very difficult to resurrect a relation. Thus in relationships, we should be conscious in keeping our JND threshold level low, so that we could read the distress signals, in their primitive stages. For the time being, yours truly signing off, wishing you a wonderful time.. muaaah !!!!..

Beauty or the Beast !!!

In the times of integrated market communication ( a jargon for peeping in your life 24*7).. you would have inevitably see the number '1411' at some place or other. Numbers are fascinating ( or at least you have to fake it as a finance student), but i found this number very mundane in the first go. There are magical numbers, squares, cubes, fibbonaci series and i also did a quick calculation to check whether it is a prime number. But surprisilngly, it is none, but yet it is fascinating as due to claims from the authority, it is the number of tigers left in India. Alarming !! isn't it... but from when we started tracking the number of tigers in our country. We never knew when the number went 3000 and when it touched 2000. So, it needed a well drafted marketing campaign to drive home the point that yes they are in danger, because every one of us want to look benovolent, provided we are informed about the problems prevailing..Coming to tigers.. i think they are one of the biggest brand of 'incredible india'. Once i read it somewhere, that a succesful brand should have majesty and exclusivity. Well, no body can challenge the majesty of tiger in the eco-system of jungle, '1411' also provides them exclusivity. Thus, its one of the most favourite brand of india. Take any travel magazine remotely wirting about india and you will definitely find the pic of tiger in that. In fact tiger is the darling baby of our corporate world, when you feel the need to do CSR.. start a campaigning for saving tigers, because everybody knows they are in danger. ( No need to educate consumers !!!)....Aircel, after Idea, is the company in the telecom demain, which came up with this CSR activity. Well, in case of idea, it seems to solve issues by leveraging the features of mobile, i am still not convinced that how can a mobile used to save tigers , and i want to be proved wrong if i say that there are hardly any cellular netowrks in tiger habitats. So, the exercise is more about increasing the brand visibility than something else. But again, i really fear about brand cannibalization in this case. When you think of kingfisher, you think of beer and aeroplane, when you think of camel, you think of paints, but when you think of tiger, you think of majesty and exclusivity, and i seriously doubt whether aircel is either majestic or exclusive.Ohh my god.. i am getting obsessed with tiger..or i think this is the year of tiger, lest you forget Tiger woods...during his hey-days, his shots have an air of majesty, and most of the women think he is exclusive ( now they must be sulking)... and thats why he is the star endorserer , from a game, which is popular(or notorious) for its mundane pace . Then , he lost his exclusivity, almost a dozen times, and now even accenture is having different ads on air featuring dolphins , whales, and other animals ( off course , except tiger)..Grapevine is that he may be back sometime in this year, and then i could check another jargon " Wounded-Tiger"..At the fag end , i just wanna mention some of events happened with me in recent times. After almost a decade, i attended a marriage of my home, albeit i have to go to Bikaner. If you are from delhi, where in a metro 4 people are touching 4 different parts of your body, you will feel that your personal space hs increased out there. Vast areas with sparse population, sometimes you long to see a vehicle on road. Back in college, another mutiny is brewing up... against some draconian( Most of the people say so..) ruling of college administration. Some times, we need to revise our history a bit... you can view a thing both as opportunity and threat... and there is always a tradeoff between choice and competetion. In india, we typically hate competetion (may be our socialistic heritage..), but we are here, after facing so much of comptetion. The bottom line is that if you are good , you will get good things, and once for a change, this is a universal truth and not a relative phenomenon. With this, yours truly signing off.. take care.. and save tiger.. oops.. not tiger woods... cya ... muuaaaaah..

Winter's Day Out..

So, at last the historic end term exams ended on 15th of January. Historic in the sense, that for the first time in my life (albeit only 24 years old !!!) i had gone through this experience... For us , 3rd term classes was scheduled in the morning, and we had our exams in afternoon. Whola!! this is MBA at its most unique way, and the icing (pun intended!!) on the cake was, characteristic windy and chilly January days of infamous Delhi winters... Still we survived, which shows that how much we underestimate ourselves.So, after the exams , people having BFs and GFs went for shopping, movies and outing.. people having LDRs ( Long distance relationships) increased the congestion of the mobile networks.. and yours truly who, fortunately or unfortunately, does not fall under both the category so was thinking what to do to kill the time.. Then i decided that the best option is to do some jogging and exercise, i had to break my new year resolution quite a few time during my exams ( I know its it’s hardly a fortnight after new year :( ).....Next day i decided to have a tour of Delhi, so i caught hold of one of my dear friend, netaji ( figuring the real name is left for readers!!).. and went to chandni chauk and India Gate. When I just came to Delhi about 2 years ago, Delhi metro seems very beautiful and comfortable to travel. But, now a days, it is also running as a DTC or Blue line bus jam-packed with the commuters. With the extension of metro line, the crowd is increasing exponentially. In some of the stretches yesterday, we really struggled to go to the door to de-board the train.But , the most interesting of Indian people is that they talk a lot, and when you are in such congested arrangement, you are bound the hear. So here goes one pretty girl in metro " Meri muumy bol rahi thi ki surya grahan (solar eclipse) ke baad sardi kam ho jayegi, dekho aaj ho gayi" , here you go the meteorological department, even a mom can predict better than you !!...And the boy with him, was nodding in affirmative as it was the perfect scientific reason !!!....Our first destination was India gate, and somehow unknowingly, we were days before 26th January, so the preparation was on full swing. New seats were being arranged, roads were marked for parade , and practice for parade was going on. Really, it was a good experience to be there. Next , we headed toward chandni chauk, as a food connoisseur i relish the paranthas (which was aptly termed as kachori by netaji) of chandni chauk.After satiating the appetite of stomach and mind and somewhat eyes too ( read gals of delhi !!)... we finally decided of returning as the chilly night of winters is fast approaching. But our ordeal was still not over, we somehow managed to board a local train , which was not supposed to be boarded. All the lights switched off, it hardly stopped at any station. At the Ghaziabad station, it stopped in somewhere , where there was no platform to be seen off. Netaji was grumbling " saala 3 Rs ke kiraye mein aaoge to yahi hoga ".So, this completed a day out and from Monday again there would be classes , lectures, and projects.. but do watch this space.. as we Indians love to talk....P.S. If you ever heard about tongue in cheek.... go and ask Mr Sehwag.... he must be hiding behind some curtain, by making an audacious comment yesterday. That is way it is said, greatness lies in humility....

Picks of the Year !!!!

Amidst the chilling cold and freezing winds , finally the last night of the year arrives. On the eve of new year their would be lots of celebrations, news channel will roll the reel back, entertainment channels will arrange the circus of Bollywood stars. So, making hay while the sun shines ( although it rarely do now a days !!!) , i also try to dirty my hands in picking some moments of mine throughout the year.Disclaimer : All comments are personal by me, and any resemblence with alive or dead would be considered co-incidental !!! ...So, lets start now :1. Loosing "Virginity"No... No... No, its not what you all are thinking. Its about loosing my virginity regarding alcohol. After 23 years of resistance, i finally sucuumbed to the pressure of alocohol when i first drank a peg on 1st Jan 2009. Well, about expirience, 1 peg seemed very normal, 2nd peg... some thing started shaking and 3rd peg.. i puked !!!.... After that, i had some further misadventures with it, but now i am sure that me and alcohol are not a happy couple.2. Group SangraamWell, meanwhile i got first of my mba call from IMT Ghaziabad ( Which is where i ended). I had practiced GD/PI rigorously in my coachings, so i was confident of doing well. So when we were seated in a group we were 16 in number ( or was it a crowd !!) and then the moderator announced the time limit "8" minutes , like a ration quota in a famine stricken area. So, as soon as the signal is given, all the loaded missiles shot at once. No body was listening to any body, some were speaking to fan and some were to floor. The best part , though, was " stop pointing your finger towards me " :) :)3. Bharat DarshanDue to my desperation of fleeing from my job, i applied to all the MBA colleges , i had heard the names of !!!. so, march was the month where i started the exploration of "incredible" india !.. My first destination was Manipal ( TAPMI).. and to all of my horrors, the train didnt stopped at the station. It stopped 90 kms away and then i have to came back, and i reached the institute, just before the gates were being closed. Then i had a "jab we met" journey from mangalore to Chennai. BIM profs screwed me hard . But the trip ended very well , with my seat upgraded to 2nd AC from the 3rd AC on return journey.4. Jahapanah ....Tohfa Kabool ho !!!Although it was not exactly the "tohfas" as depicted in the new amir's flick "3 idiots", the most popular 'PDP' program of IMT Ghaziabad was very much same in the spirit. To non-imtians.. this is an softer version and euphemism for 'R" word in the boarding schools. Newly arrived bacchas, almost forget what sleeping means.... but its lot of fun doing some bizzare things that you would not have done in a sane mood. The best part is "shav-asan" in the morning yoga ....u dont know why ??? just lie down in the same pose on a clean sheet for 2 mins !!!5. "Gravity of Situation "The chances are that you must have felt it some times in your life, but it is very common in IMTian Life. If you are not feeling it, you would be constantly reminded by some Zombie committee people time and time again. If you want to have the expirience of "Nazi Concentration camps" just attend their open houses. Any ways jokes apart, i really salute the efforts they put in and i really appreciate their hard work and spirit. Kudos to u guys !!!!6. Sir... Actually.... We are coming to that...A MBA life is synonumous to presentations.At the end of every day, you will find yourself making one presentation or another. So, when i was standing in front of class, with some muscles of my leg vibrating, equipped with a shabby presentation prepared last night , last thing i wanted is the prof interjecting in between. And to every questions of his, the standard answer was " Sir .. actually.. we are coming to that point.. we have covered in further slides... " and it continued till the " Thank You" Slide !!!7. "Immediately "During the much awaited weeks.. a cherubic female voice, announces this as a signature word. Although , the important words precede this "immediately". If you happen to hear your name, then it sounds nothing less than honey to your ears.So, these are some of the picks of the year for me... although some are classical but not to mention here like " dont touch me i have a boy friend ( after boozing !!!)..." to " i got the imt blues !!!! "....Wishing all of you ( The patient readers , thats why i kept this part last :) ), a very happy and prpsperous 2010. May god bless you all...Adieu for the last tym in 2009.....

Decade of You, Me and Us..

Yesterday, i found one of my very old friend online on Gmail. We were used to study together during my school days ( till class 10th). During the conversation, she suddenly said , do you remember how little we used to talk. I replied back that , we do not have mobiles that time. otherwise we could have played SMS-SMS, missed calls and other stupid games. At that moment i realised the giant leap which India has taken in last 10 years. I bet if we rewind the clocks down the years you will almost feel that it was altogether a different world 10 years ago in India.Although, i am not old enough to write a memoir, but this decade has been a real fast forward. 1999-2000 was a different ball game altogether. Although , a new millennium was round the corner, cell phones were still a luxury ( now every rickshaw wala has one in the pocket..), bikes started to dominate the scooter market, dot com bubble was still inflating and India had started to shine..So, then what does this decade stand for !!This decade in my view stands for the expression. The expression of youths , their wish to announce them on the world's stage has completely change the face of the nation. Their energy has propelled india from the category of developing country to the emerging nations. Increasing employment opportunities , good quality of education led by IITs and IIMs , and an liberalising culture had made the youth confident to take on the world. Now they do not doubt their capabilities, neither they consider themselves inferior to anyone.Apart from that, this was the decade of me , you and all of us. Independent and yet interconnected!!.. we have facebooks to share our emotions, orkut to be interconnected and last but the most powerful tool in the pocket, the ubiquitous cell phone. I got my first cell phone in my 2nd year of college, joined orkut in 2006 and ventured into facebook few months ago, and i feel that how come i was alive without them. Malls and PVR's are the talk of the town and if i will tell my mom that i spent 200 bucks for a movie that it would be a nice 3o minutes "Gyan Session". This power of youth and interconnectivity was even saluted by Time magazine while declaring the personality of year in 2006 ( It was "You" ). The independent and ambitious girls had finally started to rub their shoulders against the males ( and some beating them also !!!..).But there is also fillip side of it also. Life has become easy and relations had become very complex. Now relations start on mail, flourish on mobile and end on facebook. The human touch is so missing !!!. We as a generation is so busy in calculations ... what is my career growth, how much i should earn, which job i should switch too.. . so, the relationships always take the back seat. We are so afraid of responsibilities. Everyone will champion the case of live-in but very handful will be willing to commit and be responsible. We could be chatting online for hours but doesn’t even care to move to the next room to have some chat. Every thing is so 'e' in nature but still human beings start from "h". We still have the same organs as we have earlier , the same heart not a microchip.We are fortunate to be in a country ,which despite all its deficiencies , practice democracy and freedom of speech. The power of expression had propelled us in a new era, but as the old cliché goes "with great power comes the great responsibilities". Today’s youth have to be responsible so that they can help india getting its judicious picture in the world scene !!

Sach!!! is Life

Indian media is now a days flooded with the endless memoirs on sachin and his journey through the 20 Yrs in the international cricket. So, much has been written, that people are now struggling to find words to write about him. But in the millions of words printed and read, the phenomena called Sachin Tendulkar is yet to be covered holistically.Growing up in an era which fortunately coincided with the evolution of sachin from a child prodigy to the player carrying hopes of billions of people. Never a single human has carried so much expectations on his shoulders. Although a very mediocre player, i was a cricket enthusiast from beginning ( Helped form the fact that my dad is also a big fan..). Childhood memories are still fresh with the moments where sachin . almost unknowingly entered in our livesHere i want to share some of such moments in my life related to the “God of Cricket”1. Burgulars in House : It was one of my very fond moment of sachin tendulkar. Being a middle class family we used to live in a rented house. It was India’s Tour to New-Zealand, new cable connection and match start at 2:30 Am in morning. So, one fine night me and dad was watching a match in a clod north Indian morning, when the guy called sachin tendulkar start smashing bowlers all around the park as he might be swatting away mosquitoes. Me, being a child cant help my emotions but the surprising part was that dad was also shouting at the top of his voice. Mummy, as accustomed, put pillow over ears and tried to sleep. Next morning the landlord aunty ask my mom “ Bhabhijee kal aapke ghar mein chor aa gaye the kya.. subah subah bahut halla ho raha tha.... hearing this mummy laughed and laughed because nowshe knows who were the burgulars !!!2. Speech in the school: We have some crazy house systems in my school. So, it was my turn to conduct the assembly in the coming week. I have to give an opening speech and i was woefully nervous !!.. A day before assembly , sachin blasted an Australian attack for back to back hundreds in desert , and the next day i produced the story by including the elements of determination and talent. That was my best assembly ever , with people clapping at the end of the speech, and i was silently thanking to sachin to save my soul.3. Boy goes missing : 137 made in the second test in Chennai against Pakistan, was one of the most painful moment in my life. I was following the match from the beginning. Lost hopes about india winning during the stary of the day, got dumstruck by the batting prowess of a genius and felt helpless as hell, to see 3 lower order players wasting a gem of the innings. I was so frustrated, that i took my bicycle and went to a nearby park, and started crying. I cried for about 2hours ( albeit in breaks..). When i reached back in my colony, 2-3 boys told that my parents are worries and looking for me, where the boy had gone missing. Aah ! those were not the days of mobile phones and internets ....4. “sachin hai kya” : This is the most repeated line i have heard in all these years watching cricket. Everytime when india is batting and you tell someone score , this is the inevitable question. Even if india are 8 wickets down still people will ask this question. As they are assured by jawans protecting the border, they tend to feel comfortable while sachin is guarding crease. In a country of so dissimilarities, he keeps all of us unite in happiness, grief and prayers. With all the vagaries of caste, religion, regionalism, i think a crtical review is required how he has kept this country united as one.5. First Time i lost bet: There are some characters in ramayan, who were famous only because lord rama had given them nirvana. Henry olonga, is not a demon by any way, but he was definitely slaughtered in the desterts of sharjah by a little genius , we all know as sachin tendulkar. A match prior he dismissed sachin tendulkar with a freaky short ball, and celebrated a lot, doing war-like dance. I was watching the match with my friend, and he told me that this bowler’s career would be ruined by sachin. He was proved right a couple of days later when he thrashed him all over the park. May be the career was not ruined in the literal sense, but by then i had lost my first bet.6. Bunking my School : After a historic Test series , india and austraila was playing a ODI in Kanpur , and i just cant resist myself from going out there, being living in Kanpur. So, in lunch time , me and my friend made a plan, talked about some emergency in home and bunked school and head straight towards the greenpark. And boy, sachin made it worth the effort. Sixes of Warne, Bevan and Lehman keep hitting the stands on a regular basics. All in all he hit 11 sixes as we keep the count by breaking a cold drink bottle each time ... In the evening i told dad about it, and he said why hadn’t you told me i would have taken a break from office.7. India-Pakistan Matches: India –Pakistan matches were used to be a demo-war for all of us. It was 2003 World cup, India’s Last League game against the arch rivals Pakistan. Dad was ready from the morning, doing all sort of prayers and tricks. Agarbatti in front of television and devotional songs may sound a bit weird but believe me it was the case. Pakistan on back of saeed anwar had put a stiff target of 272. There was a silent nervousness in the house. Mummy who relatively doesn’t show much of the interest was also watching the match very interestingly. Shoaib akhtar came charging up, banged a short one, and it disappeared over the point boundary. The rest is history !!! , and one more thing i could remember is the wonderful food cooked by mummy that time.8. IMT Public Going Crazy: This is one of the most recent moment in my life. Australia amassed a total of 349, virtually impossible to chase. By chance, my parents also came to visit that day. So, i and dad was watching match in Mess. Sehwag and yuvraj were gone , but still sachin was looking in a good nick. But since, there is little hope, i came back to room with mummy ans started chatting with her. Meanwhile i had opened live scores on cricinfo in the Laptop. Suddenly sachin went berserk, a Six... another one...a boundary.... i said to mummy you rest and i rushed towards the mess. Well the scene was completely changed in mess. There was a considerable crowd now in mess, watching very anxiously . Sachin was on for something special and he started to bamboozle all of us by his master class batting. Suddenly some people started banging table.. some dishes with spoon and the ambience changed in a moment. Everybody started shouting “sachin, sachin...” and the breathtaking strokeplay matched up to every cry. Ironically, it was another heartbreaking loss, but when my father came out , he said that i never expected MBA Students to be so cricket crazy. This is what Sachin can do mere mortals.