Balls...

Playing cricket is a luxury in a B school. That's for sure. Three days back we kinda freaked out and started thrwoing cricket balls at each other at 1 in the night in order to divert others from some serious discussion. We played for like half an hour. Later the next day during lunch we were discussing it with others. One of our friends started complaining about not including him in the game. We asked him that okay next time if we decide to play, we would call him but he has to bring balls. No probs, he immediately responded, I will bring both my balls with me. Everybody at the dining table started laughing.

We asked, we lost one last night so could you bring another one. Yeah, I have three he rplied and another frenzied laughter broke out. He didn't realise his mistake and went on adding, Anand gave me two of his own so, now I have three. Well, we kept laughing like crazy. And when he realized he just said " Dirty Minds".

Sleep Deprivation..

Friend: Yaar I am having a bad headache.
Me: Okay, may be because of the hot and humid day or it could be either from the tension of exam. It seems that you are studying too much. Did you sleep well last night. I can see that you were in the lab till 4 in the morning two days back. Maybe, because of all these night outs that you are putting in to study. But anyways, wat do you think? Why this headache?

Friend No, nothing like that. I think that it is due to over sleeping I guess.
Me: Oversleeping? Don't tell me that. How much you slept last night?

Friend: 6 hours.
Me: 6 hours is still too less how come you say it is oversleeping?

Friend: I am sleeping for like 3-4 hours a day, and yesterday I slept for 6 hours so I guess, this headache is because of that only.
Me: I see.

**Sleep deprivation is not a myth in B-Schools. Its a reality on average. For me, the consoling thought is that atleast I am above average in some thing.

Beating the stress..

Trimester end examinations have been anounced and the schedule is enough to drive everyone crazy. But, I am at peace with two of my three favorite movies. Over the years I have observed that whenever i feel stress piling up on me, I take my refuge in watching either Lord of the rings, Saving private Ryan or Forrest Gump. These movies had such a great imapct on me that somehow I always find them new refreshing.

I have started thinking that taking too much of stress is somewhat against my character and I will study only when its absolutely necessary. The result is too much of back log piling on. I started with an aim of getting all A's. Now, the revised estimates are getting atleast 50% A's. Let's see whare I end up after two weeks but well, atleast I won't be regretting for not being grade conscious.

I have just started with my MBA and if there is something to be jusdged from the restlessness of all people around me then, I can very well sense the things which are in line. That's the strange thing about MBA, when you study you wish you could have 30 hours in a day and when you sleep you again wish you'd have 30 hours in a day. But well the trick is in deciding your priority. Learn whatever you can in whatever time you get from whomever is possible. Now, the question is what I am learning from movies? I hope most of you can answer this question and if you can't, then try watching one on a night when you are very tensed.

The word ASS has a different meaning..

Attention Seeking Syndrome (ASS)

I remember one instance from my school days where one of my friends asked a question related to the subject being taught in the class. Teacher first tried to convince him that this will confuse the other students as it is to be dealt in the subsequent sessions. But, then he answered that question and my friend went on to argue. Finally our instructor sarcastically commented that “it seems, you have read something” and a frenzied laughter broke out in the class. Now, that was just one random case and I am glad that CBSE do not follow CGPA system otherwise there could have been many more cases like that.

More than five years have past since then, and now sitting in an Organizational Behavior lecture, I am trying to attribute reasons to similar kind of behavior. Even in our undergraduate days students just loved to ask questions, not for satiating their intellectual hunger but only for the sake of asking questions. Asking stupid questions is not at all bad because that is a manifestation of your confusion but asking questions and making all others look like stupid is a real problem. Anyways this whole ASS syndrome is all about insecurity. People wants to look more confident than they actually are, they need attention because they treat this “gathered attention” as a measure of their accomplishment.

Well, this syndrome needs much more detailed analysis as many factors can be attributed to a particular attention seeking behavior. However, according to me the two major factors could be environmental or psychological. When everyone around you is suffering from the same syndrome then it’s not ASS it is GASS (General attention seeking syndrome) and the factors are largely external. It could be strict dead lines; stringent benchmarking for performance appraisals or it could be a strong competitive environment which drives the people to call for attention every time. But, when one or two individuals tries to capture the attention it’s because of psychological factors. People like these have their own agendas and they are always in a hurry. The underlying factor is that they need attention and they get a feeling of satiation when they get it.

Their ASS makes them vulnerable too. They expose themselves to others for exploitation. Now, next time you see someone trying to over impress you, you know what they are suffering from, ASS.

Honest advice***. Before asking something stupid or making some stupid remarks in public ask yourself this one question, is this ASS? And yeah, if someone else does exactly that, have some pity on poor guy. They do not know what they are suffering from.

Back in the undergraduate mould..

I thought that I was changing but no, I haven’t changed much. Just yesterday one of my friends commented that he has heard of only one person who sleeps for 14 hours a day in his MBA. Well, I myself even haven’t heard of any such person. So I am back to my old engineering days where a day seems to be worth enough sleeping for like 14 hours. Life has certainly changed in some ways. Time is flying by so fast that we have almost reached the end of the first trimester. Till this time it has been a joy ridden for me. I was taking everything for granted. But, now I guess that a few more dismal performances in the quizzes and case presentations will put me into the back seat where I will be reduced to a mere spectator watching other people zoom past me due to the hard work that they are putting in now.

Now, if you are planning to go for a MBA, then I must warn you that this is the time (third month) when you will find everyone around you busy with their own things. You have to be choosy here with things like friends and study group because at this point of time the only thing that people care about is scores, scores and scores. Barring a few close friends, for others, their marginal willingness (have learnt this term only today in micro economic class), to help you will be nil.

Anyways, mid terms are all about sleepless nights, but for me MBA is turning into a long vacation. I am eating more, sleeping more and yeah thinking more. You know what is that stuff that I think about normally? Yeah, how to cut down on my sleeping schedule and the normal modus operandi is that I set up alarm for 5 in the morning to wake up only at 8.

Just another day..

I woke up at 7 in the morning. Tea here is really good but seldom we get up in time to catch hold of that hot cuppa of morning tea. Today, courtesy Shiladitya, I had enough time to read newspaper also. But, then over the cup of the tea, I realized that I am still to do the group assignment. Now, there was the tradeoff, either a proper bath and a good breakfast or an hour at laptop doing some database stuff. Being a management student, you must be aware of your core competencies. Which means, you should be knowing it well that what are you good at and what are the things that you just can't do. Well, I finally settled the tradeoff in the favour of my peace of mind and that was another cup of tea, a 15 minute shower and a decent breakfast. 3:30 hours of lecture can grill you from inside. Economics was my favorite subject during my higher secondary and initially I felt very much comfortable with the concepts but now, I am slowly realizing that there is some difference in an elementary course in micro economics and a 3 credit course in the same as a part of your MBA.

Lunch is like a formality here. I eat it, because I have to. There is no other way out. You can't just eat out during weekdays as the one hour lunch break do not give you liberty enough to be choosy about lunch. It's like, during that half an
hour, my taste buds become insensitive. I can't even properly diffrentiate between South Indian and North Indian taste.

MBA curriculum definitely has an edge over other courses as it has a great tendency to keep you busy even without work. It emphasizes to a great extent on group learning but during the initial days you realize that groups are not always the best way to do things. Rather, sometimes it's more or less drives inefficiency in certain section of the group. Also, due to the competition creeping up into the system, interaction across groups reduces largely to a very formal level. Well, it's almost midnight and I guess tonight I am feeling a loss of sleep. Have studied all the way till 11:30 except an hour break for dinner but it seems that still there is a lot many things which demands my attention.

Most important of them is my people's skills. I guess, I am most often in contradiction with my own views. I get upset very easily, argue without reasons with closest of friends, becoming more and more self-centred day by day, things like me, mine and myself is corrupting my thoughts. I keep telling myself that things are under control and I am cool but the fact is I am becomoing more and more consious about the environment around me. Since the last few days, I am trying to find justification about this change in behaviour of mine, but the best explanation I can associate with it is that I am not different from others. But then, another question haunts me, Why do I need to be like others.. See, again I am confronting myself.. better I should sleep. I guess I am pretty normal, and it's nothing but a little loss of sleep and too much studying Organizational Behaviour. I am about to crash.. Good night..

Let Hope Take Wings..

Let hope take wings
Let love blossoms
Lets make a difference
Lets show we care.

I couldn't resist myself thinking about that time which I spent with those children where I realized that what actually it takes to follow your instincts. The equation of life is really strange. Sometimes, you need to be selfish to serve your self and then at some other times, you have to be selfless to achieve self-fulfillement. Anyways, without dwelling much into philosophy I wanted to highlight this fact that contribution of small organizations like Pankhudi can go a long way but they lack is man power and finance. The main problem is of finance. The nuisance of corporate life do not give enough freedom to their employees to devote their time towards the support work but then we need to channelize whatever help we are getting from the general public towards creating awareness about social responsibility. I was surprised to see persons from HCL, WIPRO, COVANSYS and INFOSYS doing their share of work in putting up smiles on the faces of those children which probably know just one way to live. I know that Corporate social responsibility is a vague term and I personally believe that it's existence is based on the amount of tax benefit a corporation is getting. But, then Individual Social Responsibilty is nothing but our own consciousness.

I think that everyone should atleast be a part of one such activity in two months. It's nothing for us but then it will surely justify the mission of Pankhudi. But my opinion is "Lets make a difference" won't be justified until and unless we become a creator of the change..

New Life...

....

Don't get confused by the title. I am not going to talk about my life here and no MBA stuff. But yeah, I might try to explore another side of the life here. New life is a small charitable organization started by a working couple and which is now engaged in helping old age people and children who are underprivileged. I was really moved to see that how far a person can go when they want to do someone and how unequitable the life is. It's normal human tendency to compare yourself with someone who is privileged then you, you crave for all those beautiful things in your life which you don't have. This give rise to a complaining tendency. We complain to our parents, we even complain to god that why you made us like this. Well, I also had my fair share of complains in my life. Now, it's like we never look at those who are worse off than us. We tend to ignore the hardships of life and always try to look on the brighter and better face of it. So I personally feel that individuals like me need to stay close to the kind of work that the New life people are doing in the remote villages.

Our batch size (only 27) do not allow us to have a large group of volunteers for social service initiatives. And given that most of us are not comfortable with the Tamil language, it makes this task even more complex. Anyways, initially when my friend proposed me the idea of going to this village Eraiyur, located in Sriperumbudur about 50 kilometers from my place in Chennai, I reacted that I can go but what's the point in going to a place to talk to people when you can't speak their language. He also was having this thing in mind but then we decided that we should go atleast to see how the place is. Now, after spending some 6 hours with those 100 lovely people I can really say that smile is an universal language. They ask you something, just smile. the message immediately gets conveyed that this someone is your friend. For children there is no language like Tamil or English. They can read your faces, they can even look into your eyes and can see through your heart. It's simple, you smile and if they smile back, communication is complete. Now you both are on the same wavelength as you are talking the same language. For old age people it's enough that you talk to them. It's right that they need food and care but the one thing that they all crave for is personal attention. They just want somebody to play audience, somebody who can patiently listen to their small stories is their best friend. I can remember that carpenter father who worked hard to buy the best education possible for his two sons but after 30 years of love and affection, the return he got from his sons was an old age home. I can still see the tears in his eyes when he was like looking into our eyes and talking to us (he didn't knew that we had language problem and one of our friends had actually to translate the whole story).

That was the lesson for the day. Smile has got immense power. It is the way through someone's heart. Now, another experience was to meet this couple Mr. A.A. Swamy, (President) & Mrs. G.Lalitha, (Founder Trustee) and heard the whole story behind New life society. Warren buffet donated most of his wealth towards charity and I believe that it will go a long way in improving the living conditions of the millions of people around the globe. But, that kind of thing is like you read in news, discuss about it and then forget it. People like Mrs. Lalitha and Swamy are no lesser mortals than those who donate millions of dollar in charity. They started this society on their ancestral land which is now a shelter for 110 people.

The question which is now troubling me most is that what was their moral fiber? How can they think about providing selfless service to those people whom they never have met, not even they are related to them in anysense? How come a person who is seen as a liability by his own family is accepted here and treated as a part of the extended family? What kind of mindset these people have when they adopt children who have lost their parents and pledge to make them a responsible citizen? I kept thinking about these questions for most of the time when I was there with those energetic kids.

For me, it's more or less two years of education and then taking up some respectable job, have a family, have kids and life goes on. I Will think about donating only when I make enough for me and my family. That's it. Simple man with simple dreams. I guess it's the same for majority of us. But yeah person like Lalitha and Swamy makes you think that there is another side of life, which is more human and less mechanical. There is this side of life where you not only think about you and yours but also about others and theirs. Where the whole meaning of life lies in putting up a smile on faces of those who are little underprivilged than you. I salute to this human spirit. God surely exist and it exists in the mortal form itself...

One Sunday Morning..

My eyes were full of sleep when my alarm went off at 6 am. I still remember that I slept at around 3:40 last night. As usual, I put it to snooze and went back to my dream (don't ask what B schoolers dream about). Suddenly, I felt that someone entered my room and is looking for something. I woke up to see what time it is, but wasn't able to locate my cell phone. So picked up my roomies mobile and dialled my number, the call is connected but I can't hear any ring tone. My mind was too slow to process that my phone is in silent mode. Now, I recall that to avoid bulk good morning SMS (which actually disturb your sleep) I usually put it to silent mode. So I started with the hunt and found it beneath the towel in five minutes. The time is 7 am. Well, breakfast is served at 9. So I have still two hours which i can spend sipping hot tea/coffee and watching TV (which airs all kind of Tamil songs which is beyond the comprehension of my mind and news which you don't want to comprehend actually) and i decided in the favor of the tea.

The tea was okay but the news was not. I thought about calling home and surprising everybody that I am up early and I did that. But well, it is always like this. We hate talking about academics and parents just love talking about them. Anyways, after a 10 minute call I now decide to make a list of "To DO THINGS" and put it on the wall. This actually looks like:

1) Read chapters 5 and 6 from Management Accounting book. (3 hrs)

2) Practice the exercises from 5 and 6. (3 hrs)

3) If doubts, read from slides (30 mins).

4) Work out stats problem and prepare for the quiz tommorrow. (2 hrs)

5) Solve the micro economics assignment questions. (1 hr)

6) read Microeconomics for the expected quiz tommorrow (1 hr).

7) Do the laundry (1 hrs).

Now, i calculate the total time required and still feel comfortable but suddenly I realize that there is a convocation function for the senior batch and attendance is mandatory. I calculate in my mind, 4 hours wasted. Lunch, dinner, coffee and magazine discussion session, another 2 hrs. Group discussion of probability and stats quiz will take up one hour and I still have to complete my MIS assignment. I do the calculation, about 20 hours of work. 24 hours in a day. When will I get the time to sleep?

But, then I see my roommate, who is happily sleeping. Probably I even know what he is dreaming about. Not only he, I can honestly tell that most of us dream about getting more than 24 hours in a day. i suddenly make a note of something. What will I do with my newly acquired DVDs from the burma bazaar? I also promised one of school time friends to take her to beach. Man! where is the time? It's already 9, I havent' even brushed my teeth, Also have to search for movie tickets for my friend.. Oh shit, I missed calling one of my friends on his birthday. What should i do now? I hear this internal voice.. sleep for some more time. It's sunday morning idiot. And guess what? I exactly gonna do that.

Three weeks, Three different emotions.

I am blogging after a long long time not because I get too little time to do this but, just because I have really started enjoying my life here. Now this is normally what happens when you get into a B school. Initially you find so many variables in your lives changing at the same time. The nature of the change during the starting days is really radical. You stay all night up but not for chatting and movies but rather for working on some assignments. You never wish to bunk any of the lectures and if you do that it's purely unintentional and just because of an upset tummy or lack of sleep. You start taking your assignments seriously and all those surprise quizzes really start making sense. Well, this is what is happening to most of us. You can call this some sort of crisis where you really find hard to cope up with the change in you. I mean when you want everything to remain up to your comfort level but subconsciously you just keep on changing. This whole transition phase can be characterised by the complaining period. You complain about the crazy schedule, quizzes and teaching methodologies and sometime even about the kind of food that they serve you in the canteen.

MBA is considered to be a great value addition in India. The common perception is that your salaries will more or less get doubled after two years of time. But, the moment you enter into a B School campus, it seems that the assumption is not at all wrong. There indeed is a great value addition but that comes with the hardwork, determination and a high level of motivation. We know that there is a value attatched in the 'change' but then you just don't want to get out of that mould that you have constructed for yourself during your undergraduation life. So you find yourself in some conflict sort of things where a part of you feels that "do this and do that" and another part asks that "why this and why that"? But yeah, this is the justification phase. You try to justify your decision about joining a B School. You try hard to enjoy things, you desperately push harder to play an active part in the group assignments. You wish you could score well in all the quizzes and more importantly you want to grab attention.

The thing which I have started feeling now, is the third phase. Now, I have started enjoying the environment. I now have made truce with the pace of change. Now, this usually happens when that feeling of "MBA as something special' sinks deep down into your heart and you just stop feeling excited about your prospects after two years. You suddenly realize that two years is really a hell lot of time and only way you can prepare for tomorrow is by learning the concepts being taught today. You suddenly realize that food is okay and it no more bothers you. Putitng up all night for an assignment or a quiz or even for a presentation do not drives you crazy and you are quite comfortable even if you are sleeping for like 3-4 hours in a day.

Suddenly, the whole point of getting a MBA starts making sense. It's all about changing. The jargon is "Unlearning and Relearning".