Random Musings

Yo, this blog is being evicted from blogger.com for reasons that I best keep secret..Its new home will be at :

http://thetemplartalks.wordpress.com/

Cya there!

Raghav

Well anyway, why did I shift to wordpress? It offered easier widget based blogging and much better templates..but wordpress has limited customization so blogger>WP there. Also I finally managed to put in a lot of nifty feefbuner tools like RSS, Flickr etc.. Im gonna try to be more up to date with my blog now..or should I call it wordpress now :)

Labels: Blogger, Wordpress

Posted by Raghav at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments

Time: Right after I saw something

Date: February 28, 2008

Place: On my beanbag watching Phantom on HBO

Hey hey hey..whats going on people? Yea I know long time since I updated this so called blog. I actually wrote a blog right after placements and #$^&**(&*^^%^%&*^*&*..that little gibberish was the people I openly made fun off..I guess fate says that I shouldn’t be so mean towards them. More on that later...¹

Right now some highlights of the past 2 months or so.. REWIND

Date: Jan 5^th 2008 – Placement Week (Day -2)

So lets get you good folks up to speed. Placements was good, lucky for me I got out early and into a good FMCG company. No it aint HUL, it’s the other one ;) More than enough for lil ol’me.

A lot of drama grips students, plenty of rumours abuzz (quite imaginative and caustic, generally fuelled by green eyed losers who couldn’t make the [fine smooth] cut and got nothing but smoke and burns ) . GPA’s did not matter too much, I don’t think at all, as I had a below average and nobody did not care.. Eat your heart out 4+ ers, ;) Hey..dont feel all that bummed when you want to do that MS in US…your going to be 1^st in line ;)

Date: February 1^st 2008 – Goa Trip

It is the path every man has to go through before he heads into the real world. Take a trip outside your hunting zone with 5 brave warriors and leach at ladies In clothes they forgot to wear outside their cave. In other words go to Baga beach and soak up the sun, sand and surf..can I get more cliché ;) From the beaches to the bars to the brokers (don’t as what they were selling ;) to handling the most ridiculous conflicts amongst us on where to take pictures/eat/sleep, the exodus was a true eye opener..

Date: February 5^th to 20^th 2008 – Launching Careers

As you must be aware, man needs to earn some bread to finance his little exodus’s of life..So thanks to a personal contact I enrolled to help out with conducting Group Discussions and Personal Interviews at a reputed MBA coaching center. I was considering the same to be a career choice of mine but it was fate that I did/did not get in the time frame. Anyways, I had a great time here seeing starry eyed kids who reminded me of me couple of years ago, the hopes, dreams and fears they had were akin to mine..I realized that I am not such an idiot..do have some skills and managed to helped them as much as I could… and made quite a loot along the way J

¹Presently..

Am chilling out at home...enjoying a well earned rest..and then something propelled me to write this blog..and oh did I forget that we ran into a quite a few ‘fruity’ people in goa..hmm..how can I be politically correct and explain myself..whats that word..very..’happy’ people..got that now I hope ;) You know Im not generally against them..I know a couple of them myself..some are actually helpful inspite of the animosity we share..so I’d like to make my peace with him..as for the other..what can I say..even time is against you..watch your back..I just hope you don’t get your hands broken.

Labels: ^$%^$%, goa, placements

Posted by Raghav at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

‘Your e-mail has been sent’
Nothing really significant about the message displayed above that we all see flash after we send our everyday mundane mails to every corner of the globe. But It is when it is when the mail you have just sent is to an institute that has organized a paper presentation or a case analysis contest.
It seems to be the current rage amongst the entire B-School fraternity, at least here in SCMHRD. Everyone whose anyone seems to have an acquired a PhD for Paper Dissertations or a Joseph Stiglitz for Case Studies. As usual Its up to be to see why and what motivates my fellow mates to engage in such behavior:

Hmm..as usual money motivates us mortals to a large extent. Its funny here to see the behavior exhibited in this rather competitive time period. A simple example is formation of teams. Do I take my roomie/best friend/girl friend/the intelligent guy/the hot chick… Each of them possesses their own unique set of pros/cons which are quite obvious. It again depends on your objective mentioned in the pie chart. If you want to win= intelligent guy. If you want knowledge= do it with best friend/roomie & for time pass= hot chick. The trick here is to find a hot chick who is intelligent and is fun to work with. They are a dying breed but exist.

Another thing is its better to have people from different specializations a.k.a possess complimentary skills to those that you possess(if any). Typically for a 2 member team you want a Mark+Fin and for a 3 member throw in an operations guys. And there HAS to be someone who is good in creating flashy presentations in PowerPoint as that is quite an art itself. And I have realized that its better to have 3 not so intelligent Hardworking guys rather than 1 smart guy and 2 lazy bums in a team. The former will always deliver better results. Also, a lot of luck is involved. Lets face it, its judged by blokes who were just like you and me.
Its practically raining contests here in the IIIrd semester. Every B school worth its AICTE certification(seems that organizing fests is a criterion to get a certification!). Typically these are what is offered on the platter:

1) B-Plans: Standard Boiler Plate. I avoid them as its too detailed, cant plagiarize and requires too much originality. I leave this to the Gujjus & the really smart guys who have been dreaming of business plans since they could read. Eg: IIT-B Ecell’s Eureka. My Current Score : 0/1

2) Finance Valuation Cases: Grimace and move on. This is purely number crunching and finance concepts tested to the core. My roommate who is amongst the top 1% in finance concepts would go for stuff like this and I watch from behind. If you’re a marketing guy don’t even think you can faff your way as this is just a no for that kind of thing. Pure Concepts only. Eg: The Deal by JPMC. My Current Score: N.A

3) Paper Presentations(All Specs): This is the bread & butter that even you and me can do. Topics range from outsourcing to brazil to Balancing Scorecards. Doesn’t require too much domain knowledge. Just smart googling and referring HBR’s. This has maximum attempt rates across students as its all over the net, you just have to put it down right with correct flow. My Current Score 0/2

4) Marketing Case Studies: Now this is where the action lies. Carries higher status and prize money(rightly) . Typically involves a fictional company which has to get out of a rut or wants to do make millions overnight and decided that we are the messiahs who can save them. They are quite fun & challenging and makes you apply what little you have learnt practically which is quite satisfying. Fierce competition though and you can expect the best of brains here. Helps to have a finance guy on board or atleast consult and repair the absurd financials you have projected. I will never forget the look on my fin-guru-roomie’s face when I showed him my cash flows for a case. He doubted if I could even put on my pants correctly every morning after that. My Current Score 0/3

5) Online games: Fun, for the no so serious, involves quizzes or puzzles and fast googling again within a time limit. Very slim chances as there are people who specialize in these and have like a small cabal of people who wait for the games like a rocket countdown working on 5 computers at a time. Quite a sight. My Current Score 0/3.

6) Culturals: Meant for those who are ‘alternatively talented’ or hate any form of academic activity. Involved dancing,debating,dumb charades & singing. We have a quite of few of them right here. Only downside/upside is going to the host’s campus is mandatory, a nice way to see another B School but considerable monetary expenditure involved. My Current Score : N.A
As you might have inferred from the above post, so far my brilliant insights haven’t impressed the jury. I would like to blame the govt on this but I don’t think that’s fair. My CV for this semester will continue to ride off my cough past glory cough. And its not like I’ve got a PPO from my beloved summer company that’s really helping matters.
My pal told me although I’ve struck nothing but ground zero the last million times, I shouldn’t give up trying as the next one could just be it. But it seems like all of ‘em are independent events..aren’t they?

Well..at the end of it, it’s the guys who win these who are the real dudes of the campus and have managed to really learn and apply it. Of course they are not guaranteed a CEO post and those who don’t make the cut will not end up employed serving food in the college mess..

Wonder if yellow & black looks good on me.

Posted by Raghav at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments

I’ve been running short of cash lately and I realize that to maintain my current lifestyle I need to make some hard cash fast. I realized from my Financial Management class there is a very simple rule:

Cash Inflow - Cash Outflows= Net Cash Position

So basically to have a big R.H.S, I need to increase my inflows or reduce my outflows. Let’s look at each of them shall we?

CASH INFLOWS

1) The SBI ATM: This is my two month summers’ salary from Amex but let’s face facts this ain’t gonna last forever. And every walk to the atm & withdrawal from it makes me feel guilty; the watchman looks at me like I am a heist man. This added to the fact that I think after my new Sony Ericsson K510i and my ahem entertainment expenses in Delhi during summers has brought this figure down by half. Don’t ask me what the original was.

2) B-School Contests: Yea..I decided to try my hand at these..From paper presentations to Case Analysis…it seems either all of ‘em know that I plagiarize or I have the mental faculty of a escaped lunatic from Alcatraz or I’m a escaped lunatic from Alcatraz who plagiarizes. Added to the fact that I am financially challenged (in both ways, I claim to be a marketing major) so my focus point is quite narrow. And the completion in this acclaimed segment is as populous as the number of CAT aspirants. Ah well, I’m sure the ‘winners’ of these papers will be no match for me when it comes to the real thing. Yes. I’m sure. (Note to Raghav-Keep telling yourself that every night.)

3) Quizzes: My so called ‘core-competency’ (hey, I do know some stuff in marketing!) has given me the bum ride this semester. My only consolation (I call it sadistic plot of God) is that I end up as the ‘team that just missed qualification/ or the guys who tied last but couldn’t get the starred question’. I just have to settle for being the smartest guy in the audience and win prizes there. Either my reading is not up to the mark or people have become more well aware of what the hell’s going on around town.

4) Contests & Scams on the Net: Once in a while I always come across a story of how you can make 1000 $ a day with no skill required just 1 hour a day. Seems tailor made for a guy like me but they never seem to work. I shamefull admit the fact I signed up for a site that makes u click like about 30 ads a day and you get like 2 rs in return. I stopped after a week. Im expecting my cheque for..a cool 7 bucks(less taxes/membership/manual costs) in about 500 million years.

5) Stock Markets: Im still trying to break even from the 10 G’s my Dad gave me in my own sharekhan.com account. It seems that I have a knack for picking those stocks that either the CEO kills himself , the promoters run off or the industry which the company operates on is no longer in existence. (For a copy of my winning portfolio, drop me a line at Raghav_r24@rediffmail.com). And even with the spare cash I have there are 10,00 brokers here who have 1291032*e^2344 HOT stock tips. I realized that there is a formulae that accurately captures winning in markets

Money in Markets= Capital over 10,000 * Reliable Sources for information* Patience to wait atleast year * Shares Allocated in good IPO’s * Having a demat account* having a demat account which you know the password for* knowledge on executing a transaction.

I HEREBY DECLARE I HAVE NONE OF THE ABOVE REQUIREMENTS.

There are some sources of funds that shall remain unlisted for personal reasons lest the parties who are involved are aware of such incidents occurring. Let’s just say that It seems to be the last resort.


CASH OUTFLOWS

1) Food: The biggest expenditure for me by far. It’s just that the mess food here that is served is quite frankly, a mess. I hoped I’m not sued for libel or slandering. I guess I will use the fact that the last 21 years of having delicious home cooked food has set my standards sky high with a very low standard deviation of being a connoisseur of this God-Awful cuisine. I am the largest benefactor of Sweety Stores(the local retail food guy on campus) in terms of his ‘bun-donuts’ product line. I think the CEO of that company is cancelling his IPO because I’m giving that SOB all the capital he needs to raise from the primary markets. (For those who want to become millionaires, contact me I’ll tell u the name of the company, invest now and by the time u retire your old ass them shares will be worth 10x the current mkt price)

2) Dating: Well, I can’t write too much here, for obvious reasons If I want to continue. I’ve been lucky, as it revolves around the concept related to the Netherlands. If u did not get that (Im not surprised, it rhymes with a telecom company that is no longer what it was known as) But let me tell you one thing- Pune and its merry hang-abouts don’t come cheap.

3) Treats: This unholy event occurs with a certain sporadic ir-regularity. Its not like I have achieved feats of greatness [One I have, and a treat is due =, guys u’ll get it @ the end of this year I promise ;) ] We here just need a reason to make the other guy take us out to dinner. It can range from as important as passing in a backlog paper, attending class on time, accidently bumping into a hot chick on campus or putting on the right pair of socks to stuff like staying home for 2 months for one’s internship. This if your lucky can be postponed but birthdays and personal accidents , you’d wish you’d never had those.

4) Twilight Zone Treats: Hmm..how do I put this..lets say you had a fixed agenda of going on to dinner with some people in your mind. Now you accidently see that more people invite themselves or run into them or meet them at your destination which compounds things and upsets your pre –established frame of reference. This becomes all the more worse if the parties are cannibals and guzzlers and you are told that the order of the day is well..the doubled edged sword of the Netherlanders.

5) Laundry: Seems to be an essential function that cannot be compromised on. The irony is that I think I do a better job cleaning that the dude on campus. Am waiting for him to lose a pair of pants so I can get credit for atleast 700 bucks that takes care of this expense for the rest of the year. (Some guy in my campus pulled this stunt and the pants were worth as much as a politicians promise)

6) Contributions for Social Events: Includes contribution for Freshers, Jobbers, Losers..some goddamn event or the other where appointed agents will knock your door down till they get the cash payment. I recommend they join ICICI’s loan recovery cell. I don’t deny I too have fun but such a large capital expenditure for 1 night seems quite pointless. I DON’T want a loser DJ, I DON’T care for carbonated drinks and what I DO CARE about is atleast good dessert, not some vanilla crap with raisins in them. Hurts my taste buds and my wallet.

7) Fines, fines and fines: Ranging from 5 for an overdue library book to 500 for a missed guest lecture..I protest both the counts, the 1st I should be exempted from as honestly one of the most active proponents of reading and the 2nd as I really don’t give a damn on who comes. And if you honestly think that you’re worth 500 a student who missed a seat on your hall, you are in the wrong business. Join the pony tail management guy in his scam.


As can been seen, there seems to be more outflows than inflows by far. And my NPV of my Net cash position I negative. And I realize that my income is fixed. I will continue to siphon money from my parents and never win any contest. It seems the pain areas to work on are my outflows..Now let me see which area can I reduce on..hmm..(draws a blank..) . Say…do people really make money off their blogs..? Nah..I ain’t even that funny and I’m grammatically challenged.

Posted by Raghav at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

Yes, yes I know. It has to be there like any self respecting game Tv show would expect. I admit I had a hell of a lot of fun playing this. The best part would be the variants of the game, there was a co-operative 2 player one where me and my neighbour friend archana would play the game for like 8 hours straight (it really was that long a game!). Also the nifty tricks of discovering where the secret 1 up and warp zones made this an evergreen game.

Baseball


The only connection to me and sports would be- as you can guess by now in video games. Baseball was #16 on my 64-in-1 game cartridge and was hella addictive. I actually learned a lot about the sport and why Americans are so lame, all thanks to this game. I never could figure out thought how I hit them home runs..Every damn team looked the same to me-just differently coded (A,B,C,D..). I always had a sneaky feeling that the D team had the biggest bats and hence=more home runs.

More than the game itself it was the level of enthusiasm and excitement amongst my fellow peers that really made the memories worth it *sniff sniff*. Gimme a console now and wild horses cant drag me away..now I will get back to my sad life of MBA.

My vision is to put a Whiz Kid Video Game console on every childs home. I call it Vision 3424 Z.D.

Posted by Raghav at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is not just to all the Indians out there (specifically to our Pakistani brothers), but to anyone who really understands what it means to be free. Today, officially we have been free for 60 years. Wow. My dad would force me to get my ass out of bed and take a look at the parade in some channel called DD-1. I would think what a waste of time it was parades and all. What a humbug it was! Back in school I would feverishly look at the calendar a week back and hope that August 15 did not fall on a weekend (Invariably 70% of the times I would groan as I saw where it landed).

We seem to take a lot of things for granted in our lives. From our family, friends and loved ones and even our independence. I saw ET’s run up to ’60 years India’ editions and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can recall when India turned 50 years free, my house, my family and the nation, everything was so great to see. I can still recall A.R. Rahman’s “Ma Tuje Salam” song and the riveting video, the shot of the 2 year old tribal girl on the sand with an Indian Flag in her palm. I cant believe it has been 10 years since that happened. I was just what..23-10= 13 years then. I can’t believe that 10 years has passed but I can still recall those good old days like it was yesterday. We have certainly come a long way after that now..

Be proud to be an Indian. We might have taken a long time to get to where we are now and still have to tread quite a distance to where we want to go. Its never a better time to live in this great country. People look up to us and wait for the next big thing to come from here. As Clinton said ‘India has changed from the worlds #1 worry to the worlds #1 marvel’. Even my roomie has got a nice pair of the Indian Tri Colour Flag on his table

I will still know more about the US economy, follow the US presidential debates on Youtuebe.com , wear US stuff my sister has sent me, read American Fiction. But it has never felt so good to be an Indian.

Oh..and I just found out that tomorrow we got to be there for the flag hoisting ceremony at 8:15 am…or get a fine slapped for 500 big ones..am I really free?!

Posted by Raghav at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

Money. One can never have enough of this damn thing. It is the focal point around which most of our lives revolve. The poor crave for it, the middle layer complain about it and the top are never satisfied with it. It seems quite drole that we don’t want to openly talk about it as it considered to be as taboo a topic as sex or Net connectivity (cough cough).

An interesting article I read mentioned how in an MNC workplace where bonuses are offered, a person would rather get a 10,000 $ more than his peers (thereby accepting an overall lower compensation) rather than all of them getting an equal higher pay cheque. I would rather be in the 2nd category and quietly pocket the extra proceeds and pat myself on the back for the good job done. I guess its more of an ego issue and ‘oh look at me and my l-e-e-t bonus’ guys who would make #1. I guess as you go up the chain you will bump into #1 blokes. Welcome to 1835 some might say , but every time I read about stuff like this , it boggles the mind.

Ok, so some might say money can’t buy happiness. I’ll go along with that for now. But what’s happiness is another big issue that can be debated. For some people its love, Friendship, commitment and well LMV. For me its money. Period. McDonalds has gone so far as to employ a CHO (Chief Happiness Offer) to see that things are smooth in burger land! I would like to blame (conveniently) James Hadley Chase novels for my outlook in this regard. The only motive of the protagonist (Ex con, shady insurance salesman, scribes) would be to lay his hands on the dough and scram. [Of course along the way he did have his share of fun ;) ] I see a kid in the audience raising his hand – “What about Bill Gates (or Slim Helu conflicting reports on #1) what can he do with so much money”? Well bill ol’ boy, you can give me what you think is excess for you. Even 0.00000001% is enough to get me started to fund my doomsday nuclear device, a small pet peeve of mine for some time. Meh, or a bunch of voodoo dolls, same difference. Lot of punks on my ‘list’. You will be too if you don’t agree with me.

The concept of Anderson's long tail doesn’t work here. It says that the combination of all the niches would eventually overrun the big cahuna up on the head. Yea…No. Since the chaps at the end of the tail would never co-operate to join forces due to the inherent distrust amongst humans (Prisoner Dilemma), we will forever doomed to be fragmented. Adam Smith’s extension of the invisible hand told us that the rich needed to be protected from the poor and this law almost seems to be prophetic now. I don’t blame anyone at the end of the long tail( Im right there at the bottom) as I would be the same and never be so dumb as to give out my hard earned bread to a bunch of idiots . Might as well invest it in
US- 64. Oops wait did that..yea not a nice feeling. Damn you. And yea Oracle too.

I guess there has been enough HR bashing. With such weirdo’s running around (ok fine me too) it must be hella hard for them to understand what motivates you and me. So the next time someone says money is not important to them, you can rest assured that when he is even a buck short of it, he will go insane. We claim to be rational and assume that everything works according to the blueprint we design internally. A black swan just floated by.


PS: The title for the ignorant is a cheat code for Starcraft.

Posted by Raghav at 2:29 AM | Permalink | Comments