Term 2 and Year 2009

...and the second term at IIM Lucknow comes to an end. It is done, and what an eventful one it has been. Started as usual with academic rigour and quizzes n all; gradually all that took a back-seat, and for a month I was busy nursing an A4 sized sheet's content (37 iterations on the content), mugging away rudderless, watching short-lists pass me by with a whoosh sound; five formal shirts were duly purchased for five eventful days; and it all culminated in me being one seriously lucky chap. In the last post I wrote in a similar context, I put forth certain remarks and observations about the MBA culture -- more specifically its Great Indian equivalent -- the PGDM.

This post comes at cross-roads between a term-end and an year-end. I'll try and summarize both, from my perspective. The past year has been quite an eventful one for me. The key notables were some academic eventualities I hadn't exactly wished for, some minor instances of ill-luck which worked entirely against me, and some extremely mechanised competing machines whom I ran into at IIML (I wrote an entry on such mugging-machines here). Things were consistently failing to fall in place. This term flagged in a much warranted recess.

Some of my favorite Key takeaways from the year have been:

• I knocked a convincing 99.91 percentile in cat, something I'll cherish all my life.
• Submitted the first resignation of my life. The good bye letter I wrote to the company is here.
• Bought my new tele-lens and opened a Flickr Account. Click here to see it.
• Completed one third of my MBA.
• Made some really really really great friends.
• Learnt how to give exams. (Roughly 90 exam-hall appearences in 6 months).
• Realized that the honour of feminine companionship is unlikely for mono-plane flyers like myself. Officially giving up on any prospects/pursuits :P
• Officially scored a Type-A score of 150+ [Type A personalities defined here]
• Secured a summers stint with an awesome firm. [The recess I spoke of up there somewhere]. Looking forward to it :)
• My first picture to be used for some constructive purpose :D [Click here to see the picture]
• Learnt plenty of economic theory. The only and maximal value add over the past year, I'd say.

Looking forward to the following in the coming year:

• Learning shall continue to be the primary motive here at Lucknow. I continue to hope that it doesn't take a toll on my gradecard ;) [Refer to previous term's post here]
• Buy a macro lens and go up n close with wildlife.
• Buy a portrait lens and convince some female into volunteering for portrait shots :P [Tried Seth's Lens and click here for one of the pics I grabbed with it.]
• Buy a Mach-V and learn some serious TT from Adi-Jain and Pandhi.
• Have fun :)

Next post on this theme shall follow right before summers...

Starshine

Those that fell through:

--1--

When Starshine decided that her time was done, she spoke with her Constellation Mother and decided to bloat and disappear for good. The Constellation Mother was rather surprised, for it was not typical of young stars, barely in their prime, to give up on shining so easily. After all, not every cosmic gas cloud had the co-ordinated set of coincidences falling in its favour to convert it into a Star. It was also a matter of pride amongst the Interstellar Gas Clouds to metamorphose into a full blown star. They all vied for it, and very few actually managed to secure the required gravity pulls that allowed for sustainable nuclear reactions so typical of stars.

Starshine too, had started out as a low-profile interstellar gas cloud. She however, never bore ambitions of turning into a full blown star. "It isn't my cup of tea really. I'd rather float around free of any commitments. Sticking out as a star and shining all day long doesn't really appeal to me much." But then things turned that way for her. There was this very random cosmic dust storm which swirled her into a magnanimous typhoon of dust, radiation and gravity. (Some say it was an ex-lover of her's who had lived out as a Star and was now a blackhole, who decided to rub her off. But no one could prove anything since he was a Black-Hole afterall). Things never looked back thereafter. She rapidly transformed through the stages in due agreement with Hawking's research to come out as a beautiful silvery shining star. And what a beautiful silvery blue she was. She was the envy of every star-femme in the constellation, and all the big and burly hunks wanted to get into inter-stellar gravity games with her.

--2--

But she chose to remain aloof. She never spoke with anyone. She shone extravagantly. She never compromised on what her core purpose and what her singular motive of existence now was. Then one fine afternoon it happened. A white-dwarf who had once been the biggest star in the neighboring constellation and was now the loner carbon-burning-wanderer crossed her by. He hardly shone. But he had a nice white glow, something which struck Starshine. She knew that the White-Dwarf's glow was different, something she hadn't witnessed before. It was more like the warmth of her heart. The White-Dwarf swerved off course, pulled by that gravitational field variation so typical of young Star-femmes who want to associate with stars but yet wish not to be noticed.

They exchanged some cosmic radiation, but Starshine was extremely reserved in her mannerisms. The White-Dwarf fell for her stardust. He collected some of it and stashed it away in his core-nucleus. It was the most warm and comforting stardust he had ever encountered. After trying invain to negotiate a gravitational space-time warp to attract Starshine's attention, White-Dwarf gave up. He realized that his was not the time nor prerogative to woo a full-blown Star-femme. And a Star-femme as lovely as Starshine. He was, afterall, a petty white-dwarf. What good could he possibly be, when pitted against supernovas, blackholes and burly big super-stars. Other members of the constellation had witnessed this rather unusual cosmic anomaly, and were amused by what looked like a rather quick closeout of nebular interactions.

The White-dwarf moved on. No one ever saw him or heard of him again. Starshine continued to shine. She grew more beautiful each day, adding newer chromatic frequencies to her already rich offering. Even the ever-lovely NorthStar noticed Starshine's nonchalant diligence. Then a few years later, a very young and very energetic comet streaked by with some news. (Constellations welcomed comets, since these young gypsies always brought news from across galaxies, adding to the usually drab folklore which the Constellation Mother would always relate to everyone). A few light years down the Milky Way, just off the Sagittarius constellation, he had seen the remains of an unusual white-dwarf. The White-dwarf had burnt its last around that area, and amongst its remains were found stardust which were still intact in form. The Stardust had belonged to someone from this corner of the galaxy, and was the most beautiful stardust anyone had ever seen.

When Starshine heard of it from her friends, she knew what they were speaking of. And she was crestfallen. Never did she know that there was such fire within the white-dwarf's nucleus that it could contain her stardust in perfect form even after several years. She knew not how to react. So she went and spoke with the Constellation Mother and related her intent to metamorphose out of stardom. The Constellation members didn't let her do so, ofcourse. She was the most beautiful amongst them all. Their pride. But she never shone with the foregone splendour. She added no more frequencies to her rich spectrum. She's still up there in the sky, but the White-Dwarf is gone.

Randomness and How to beat it

Geek-speak:

I recently interviewed the Nobel Laureate in Statistical Sciences (play along guys, that's a hypothetical award made up exclusively to cater to this article) Lord Codesmith Cipher, and asked him his views on information entropy. The senior scientist got beautifully philosophical in course of elucidating his answer. Find below the precise transcript of what he spoke:

"Randomness is what we use to describe lack of predictability. It essentially signifies the uncertainty associated with precisely identifying consequences of fluctuations in inputs to an other-wise understood system. Information theorists with a background in communication systems employ entropy considerations to quantify randomness in a system. Statisticians call it 'error', and minimize it using least squares. Signal processing engineers usually model randomness against a 'baseline' and try to 'fit it' with a gaussian or 'colored noise' frequency response. The credit-worthiness analyst calls it 'risk', and uses a host of tools and tactics to bridle it.

What is common to all of the above is the intent to quantify randomness. When Man was faced with uncertainty He did not give in to it. True, you cannot predict the precise consequences of an input fluctuation until you know all the driving forces of the system. You can only do so well as to minimize the uncertainty associated with the expected output or response. But does that mean we do not give it a fight at all?

Bowing to uncertainty isn't what brought Man to where he is today. It's the intent to fight it out, which got him here. Most of us who make it across those notoriously competitive tests held for admission into prestigious institutions of higher learning do so because they choose to fight the uncertainty. To take randomness by its horns. To evaluate the merits of the System, to identify beatable elements, to work around unbeatable ones. To quantify risk. To do a SWOT analysis and lock onto opportunities. To break set patterns. To walk that one extra mile to narrow down that uncertainty window by one micron.

From experience of having interacted with several high-performers of varying capacities, I have come to understand something interesting about fighting randomness: "The incremental reduction in uncertainty increases as a function of applied effort." In English, what it means it means is this: to reduce the uncertainty from 15% to 10%, the effort required will always be more than that required to reduce uncertainty from 20% to 15%. And so on as we reach zero.

The corollary to the aforementioned hypothesis is even more interesting: "Incremental reduction in uncertainty so as to reach zero uncertainty will require infinite effort, and consequently is unattainable in the real world." If you've ever fought for a cause, you'll know that the aforementioned hypothesis-and-corrollary are eerily correct. So, however hard you try for something, you can never be 100% sure about the outcome. But that's how the world is.

We all have causes that are close to our hearts. Each of which merits an effort that'll make eyeballs turn. How about you pick up your cause and take it through? Why sit back and give up in the face of uncertainty? I respect my uncertainties. They give me a reason to exist. To fend against. They're my food for thought. My intellectual high. Where's yours?"

"Kahan chali gayi hai saali khushi"

A conversation with Makdi post-examinations:

Me: "Yaar these exams suck. They don't let you sit down and understand the subject per-se"

Makdi: "Abe you and your subjects are like fuck-buddies. You're not supposed to fall in love. Hell, you're not even supposed to engage in foreplay. Try getting fanciful, and you get it in the rear. Screw your subjects, and move on."

(Makdi the analyst is a peer at IIM Lucknow, and happens to be my college senior from IIT Kgp).

Okay I might be the usual jackass who may not really be the best-fit into a screw-'em-all regime. Fine. No worries. I still do happen to have some key takeaways I'd like to pen down, after having come to the end of the famed term-1 at IIM Lucknow. Here they are:

1. Vendetta: Its a big bad world out there. It gets worse if you think its bad. Assume its rosy, and that you're the king, sweetie...

2. De rigueur: You're there to get your ass whipped. So get it whipped. You may not walk away with accolades and a rank one in class. Relax. Remember, though, that you're here for something bigger than that. Make the most of it.

3. Busy Bee: procrastination isn't the way out here. Attend all classes, and try to listen to what the prof says. Every day must reduce your accounts payable and long term liabilities; it shouldn't add to them!

4. ROI: you've invested two years, have incurred an opportunity cost that can raise eyebrows, and then there's the fee which amounts to a honda city car. Make the most of it all. You're here to learn business. Do NOT treat it as a placement agency. It might be the best way to look at it given the state of affairs, but try not to fall for it. Learn, jackass, learn.

5. Thy Peers: Some of your peers are real gems. They're the people who'll keep their head low, talk less, and know exactly which way they're headed. They're the non-descript kind who may/may-not be on top of the class... but they'll be where they have planned, in the near future. Look out for them. Associate with them. Learn from them. Caution: Look out for lemons too!

6. Forget your past: You might have been an IITian with a 400 odd rank and a notoriously high CAT score. All that doesn't count here. If you're here, you're as well or as poorly aligned to the system as is any other of your peers. Shed thy past.

7. Marks or learning?: Oft spoken dilemma. For a lucky few, the two domains align. For the happier few, marks come, learning they don't consider essential. For the unlucky few (like the intellectually superior being writing this blog), marks don't come. So he fashionably speaks of learning as his intention. Decide which category you belong to, and develop yourself accordingly! :)

8. Proffessionalism: Be particular about what you do, and how you do it. Try not to go the 'get-by-just-like-that' method. It may work for some, but I believe it defeats the purpose. Every presentation you give, should be the best effort you could showcase. And so on with your assignments.

9. Love thy excel, powerpoint and word: I started off the term submitting assignments in LaTeX documentation, but soon realized that word was far better. Stick to MS Office. They're the lords.

10. Regression sells: If you can't do it qualitatively, try regression. That's what they say about prof-pleasing-analyses. Might be true, but as one with a fairly decent numbers background, let me tell you that you need more than regression to get by. When things fail, Try multivariate logistic regressions, and do not discount classification-regression-trees based on pre-specified tree depths! :P :P

To close it out, I'm looking forward to term - 2. I hope I don't have to get ass-whipped as harshly. I propose to stay bullish on learning. I hope it doesn't cause much trouble to my grade card.

Thanks :)

Somethings can put a smile on a face. Especially when they come at the right moment. Thanks :) And wishing you the same.

She

What follows is heavily laden with expletives and may not make for a good read at all. However, it was the best parallel I could draw against my current state of affairs.

"She was the most beautiful amongst them. Her moves enchanted them all. Her smile was the best thing which ever happened to them. Her every move was titillating. Yet she was unaware of them all. She was beautiful, yet unaware. And happily so. She only concentrated on building upon her learnings. She offered the best dance performance each evening, and never cared whether they jeered or cheered. Her own dance is what she loved. And when most left - save a few - her second self would emerge. That which was hopelessly given into serving the pleasurable interests of a sickly few. She pleased them. It was her job to do so. She was, afterall, a prostitute.

One fine evening, she decided it was her time to go beyond the gala evenings. She went out, and explored the world yonder. In the years that followed, her skill deteriorated. She couldn't dance well anymore. Nor could she please the ones who intended to pay. She grew old. Her physique wasn't attractive anymore. So when I, her owner, asked her to dance once again; to get laid with strangers once again; she agreed faithfully. There was a afterall, a time when she danced carefree. And earned shamelessly in lieu of her physique. But dance she could not. And sexual drive she had none remaining. "

Why do I relate this story here? Because I believe that She, the protagonist in the anecdote above, is much like my resume. Your resume. Everyone's resume. There was a time when you added things to your resume. For the love of the activities. Not for how they would show up on an A4 sized paper. That is when your resume was most beautiful. And lovable. You let it off when you went to work. Now you are back, asking a rusty old thing to perform again. You are decorating a dancer well beyond her prime, and asking her to dance again. To get laid again. For sheer transactional interests.

Ask yourself. Is it the same today? Are your skills getting overstretched by the requirement of an extra line on your resume? Is your prostitute dancing with the physique of a 58 year old woman well into her menopause? Go carefree people, do not manufacture your persona to fit an A4 paper. I'm trying hard, but as they say, advice is always easier to deliver than follow!

The Crescent

The Crescent
Originally uploaded by Hansraj Mishra

Another shot at the moon. Strange as it may seem, the moon is usually yellowish here. No idea why. But anyways, I don't complain as long as its cool to look at. Meanwhile, life seems to have come to terms with me here. (Or is it the other way round?). I don't quite have any further qualms I suppose... at least not as of now! Aage aage dekho hota hai kya :)

Of Snooker Balls

IMG_4095
Originally uploaded by hansraj1

Clicked this one late yesterday night... I've really made good use of this weekend I suppose! :) The heat shall catch on tomorrow onwards... lets see what's in store. :D

Night Grabs

IMG_3969
Originally uploaded by hansraj1

Took a nice loong expose yesterday night; what you see in this picture is the faculty block at IIM Lucknow. Peole have been asking me several questions about the red tinge in the sky. Without any intent of getting nasty, here goes the explanation: This is night time, and the radiations that rayleigh's scattering is entertaining as of now are infrared in nature and are emitted by earth's surface. With a long enough exposure, you can grab all of it on film, and you get the beautiful red.

Okay, it might all actually be wrong too, but the color's there naturally. No off-cam edits to bring out the red!

Musings of an idle mind

I am idle right now. Mid term papers got over yesterday; ate like a lousy animal @ KFC; went to theatre; strains of music and liqueur flowed through the night; had a photo session today - formals n all; represented my hostel in TT league matches(ask not the result!); attended a focus group discussion for a marketing research project; updated my to-do-list; and I'm idle finally.

We got over with our mid-term papers yesterday. As one with scant regard for academics but a notoriously stiff head, I did fairly well. Tried to keep silly mistakes to the minimum (though not zero: and they can be crucial). I had vowed to go on a full-on mugging spree here; and I did so. I mugged a lot, But then you can't compete with certain species of muggers at all. Such as people with photographic memories and extremely mechanical precision in answering examination question papers. (My previous post relates to them). And I decided I wouldn't lower myself enough to trade off an extra wikipedia read with a silly glance at last-year-question-paper-shit. Even though that might compromise a grade here or there.

But anyways, I'm loving it all. Love the new subjects out here. Love the profs, love the people I associate with. And I'm particularly excited about learning how to make solid presentations. Given four already in a span of a month, which included one where I spoke my entire slides without looking at the PPT at all. It was beautiful. I speak first, and the point drops on the slide later.

Let us see how do things shape up here. I went and watched a film yesterday. Usually I am not film-friendly. I sleep through them most of the time. To me they're more like 125 rupee sleeping passes in an air-conditioned enclosure with crying kids in one corner, boring old women in another, and lots of flashy lights shining on a big silver screen. But this one managed to keep me awake for quite some time. It was called Love-aajkal. Was on contemporary love affairs. And I liked the theme. To a certain extent, I thought it relates to all of us -- somewhat. Go watch it, and you'll know why I said so.

You know what's the best thing that has happened to me in all my life? It is the cumulative summation of all events that has landed me precisely at my current space-time-emotion co-ordinates. Things could have been better, no doubt. But then they could as well have been much worse! Guess what guys, its the same with all of us. Take cues. Smile today, for tomorrow may be worse.

Pictures we took after the photo session -

From Formals n all

From Formals n all

From Formals n all

From Formals n all

Arthur the artist

Arthur was an artist. Arthur loved painting pictures. He could sense the colors on the pallette by sheer experience. He never needed vials to measure out precise quantities of any colors to come up with the perfect vermillion red or ochre yellow. It was in his blood. And ever so frequently would he come across those one or two instances when the measurement would fail. But his piece of art wouldn't go bad because of this mis-measurement. It would acquire a new hue. A new enigma. A new vibrance about it. And the crowds loved it.

Then Arthur landed into the New World. People here were machines. They weren't artists. They were more of chemists. They knew not what worth a bright maroon carried; they simply knew how to concoct it. They knew how to fill in the borders, they knew not how to sketch the borders. But the sketches and the colors were given to them by the Great Lord of the New World in a blueprint manual. They merely followed their instructions.

And lets give it to them. They were good at executing the pieces of art flawlessly. They came up with wonderful compositions. But the compositions didn't have a soul. Their soul was what had been defined by the Great Lord of the New World. But they were duly rewarded for following the blueprints. This was a world where art was merely a mechanical device meant to be done for the sake of doing. No one knew to what end their pictures were.

Arthur tried his skills to beat these People. He tried compositions that would have awed his older world. People there would have loved him for his experiments with colors, and his sheer disbelief in modernist art. But people here thought differently. They knew he was a different blood. But they knew him as one with little respect for order. They thought Arthur was not one amongst them.

Arthur still lives in the New World. He still loves his art. And he still continues to do without vials to measure out precise quantities of ochre and indigo. His art is respected in a select community of other Old-World dwellers. And he simply laughs at The People of The New World who follow the Blueprints of the Great Lord. For he knows, that in the end, its The Skill he carries, his legacy from the Old World... which will win him the pie.

Trying to hold out

The drunken kid at the Godfather's feet:

"Things haven't quite turned out the way should have. Okay. There is little that can be done about it. Cool.

You know, the one thing I have learnt in my short life is this: if you intend to do something well -- really well -- you've got to tie your hands, tie your feet, and jump into the water. Drown a little. Let the water subsume you. Let it overwhelm you. Panic a bit. Go wrong. Bang into the wall headfirst. Bleed a bit. But through and through, know that it is all just strokes in the bigger picture. 'Coz once you're done banging your head, bleeding, drowning, panicking... boy you're serious trouble for them all. Been-there-done-that has no substitute.

I have been bleeding, panicking, drowning for quite sometime now. And am beginning to reconsider... is it really part of a bigger picture? Or is it just sadistic pleasure that I derive by inflicting pain upon myself? In case it is so, then maybe I need to sit back and peace out. Let things take their own course. But if it isn't, then I need to hold ground. And as a consequence to which I shall ask: 'How long? This is becoming painful.'"

Give him an answer, people. The kid needs answers. My Professor on Organizational Behaviour quoted a nice one-liner from the textbook: "God gave the simplest of the problems to physicists and mathematicians." :)

And yea, I took a few pics here at the IIM-L campus recently, check them out:

Lucknow Campus Photos

Boo it is

Do I have a right to sit with myself. Help myself out a little. I am troubled, tainted, tortured, tired and tormented by it all. It is like attending to an accident where several people have died, and you can't attend to your own dead family because you can't afford yourself that luxury right now. Shit. Pardon the expletive.

Someone show me out of the theatre. The protagonist that I am, has played a controversial role already. The audience is gawking. People have been pained by my act. I know not why. Is it too bad to want something?

Fed lost to Rafa @ hardcourt, and said this, "The problem is you can’t go in the locker room and just take it easy and take a cold shower. You’re stuck out there. It’s the worst feeling. ... It’s rough."

I can somehow see what he meant. I need to go back to the shower now. Ever spent that much of time under a shower in a single day?

G'nite folks.

"Extreme Ways"

[Theme song, the Bourne Supremacy]

Extreme ways are back again

Extreme places I didn't know

I broke everything new again

Everything that I'd owned

I threw it out the windows, came along

Extreme ways I know move apart

The colors of my sea

Perfect color me

Extreme ways that help me

That help me out late at night

Extreme places I had gone

But never seen any light

Dirty basements, dirty noise

Dirty places coming through

Extreme worlds alone

Did you ever like it then

I would stand in line for this

There's always room in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Like it always does, always does

Extreme songs that told me

They helped me down every night

I didn't have much to say

I didn't get above the light

I closed my eyes and closed myself

And closed my world and never opened

Up to anything

That could get me along

I had to close down everything

I had to close down my mind

Too many things to cover me

Too much can make me blind

I've seen so much in so many places

So many heartaches, so many faces

So many dirty things

You couldn't even believe

I would stand in line for this

It's always good in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Then it fell apart, it fell apart

Oh baby, oh baby

Like it always does, always does

Jack and his alter-ego

A very drunk and very frustrated Jack happened to meet up with his alter-ego the other day. They shared another drink, and the Alter-ego asked Jack, "You don't look too good. What's wrong?"

To which Jack said, "I love her. I do not intend to live a life of nymph-less misogyny. And I am not a philanderer. I love them. I do not intend to lose their vicarious omni-presence because of a break of faith. I want it to be painless. I know not how it shall come about. Someone drug me to sleep. And wake me up when it is all over. Like in Click. Like in the song 'wake me up when September ends.'"

"Do I really fit into the scheme of things. Am I really one who can handle this. I am not wont to giving up easily. And of all the causes I have pursued as an erst-while zealot, this one cause warrants more effort than all others put together. Or is it so. You think so too? You defer? Maybe. I might be wrong. Maybe this isn't something I should be putting my head into."

"Should I rather not be concentrating on studies? Have I not begun to 'go astray', in their terminology? But again, dear alter-ego, I ask myself: Till when, jackass. Kab tak karte rahoge mugai. And how far do you think its going to take you, eh?"

"I have become a failure-prone device that has run out of warranty. Wear and tear seem to be the only plausible reasons. And the Lord Almighty doesn't cover that sort of thing in the terms of the sale agreement. I might take this up. But will I be able to drive it to a conclusion. Will this be the end of the road? Okay, what if this does materialize actually. What if it all goes hunky dory, and then things begin to fall apart. Will I be able to face upto them?"

"Or should I really worry about it? I mean, I have been doing what they always wanted me to. Do I not owe this much to myself? A pursuit such as this doesn't look good if you're a good-for-nothing jackass. I am not a good-for-nothing jackass. Maybe a little fautly and failure-prone and slightly low on self confidence offlate, but I am not good-for-nothing. It won't be considered another jewel in a crown of going-astray. It is something that I owe to myself. And to her."

"But of all things, dear alter-ego, tell me this: At 23, am I thinking too much. Why should I rather not feel happy in her company, and leave things for the future. Let them fall around and sort themselves out for themselves."

"Give me a solution. I am an analyst with a keen eye for numbers. Talk to me. Speak with me in numbers. Give me answers. And if that which I seek isn't what I am destined for, then make it apparent as soon as you can. I do not want to tarnish that which isn't mine." Having said this, Jack, who was already over-drunk, rolled over to the edge of the table and dozed off.

"I am touched, Jack," said the Alter-ego, "you seem to have learned a lot of things that you weren't inherently programmed for. It is good for you. But this isn't you. Think dude. Are you really in for this."

But Jack wasn't listening. He had been over-dosed, and he was dead for a good forty seconds now.

That was Jack's predicament. What about mine. Sala mai toh daru bhi nahi maarta. :|

...But Mallu can't ride ssala!...

So Mallu recently got committed. [Mallu's a jackass who happens to be a great buddy and a fellow wingie from Kgp. This is a second entry on my blog which involves the idiot. The first one is here]. And even more recently, he and his bandi were out boozing on a lazy afternoon. While returning, stupid Mallu rode rash on the bike and managed to meet with an accident. Though the thick-skinned fatass survived the fall with minor abrasions, his babe got hurt big time. She broke her wrist (yea, you know with bandi's na... feathery, fragile and shit).

I just happened to come by a nice song whose lyrics can be hacked to fit mallu:

Hai mota, hai popular, hai mota, hai popular, spectacular, he is a bachelor

Mallu ki Buddhi tez hai, Mallu kudiyon mein craze hai

Mallu ki skin hai jet black, Mallu dikhta african hai

Fenny ki Bottle haath mein Sutta Kings wala

But Mallu can’t ride-a-bike saala, Mallu can’t ride saala

Mallu chala nahi sakta

Tirkit tana tirkit tana teeri tana let’s dance

Tirkit tana tirkit tana teeri tana let’s dance

I know I have invited the ire of Mallu and his babe upon having written this entry :P, Though I do firmly believe that neither will really care :D

Two Birds

I have been recently working birds, either midflight or static kind. The trouble with tele-lenses is in the shake that occurs. And focussing sharply is also rather cumbersome... lots to learn. This is one of the better shots:

From tele-pics3

And here's another that I forgot to put up:

From tele-pics2

More are available on my picasa foto-logue on picasa

Two Shoppers and one Male - III

Part 3: Putting numbers in perspective.

(Scroll down for Part 1 and Part 2 before you read this)

Saturdays can be long. Yesterday was the longest I have encountered in quite sometime. The third leg of my voyage into the den of metropolitan-womanhood landed me in the confines of Lovely-M and Rare-Flower's home. This was my first chance to observe a functional woman-storage device, replete with unmarried young female inmates. It was dusty, had ceiling-fans and all, there was a refrigerator, a microwave, beds on four legs... pretty much the kind of things you encounter in normal human homes. But this was, afterall, a woman-storage device; and I had to ensure I did not fall for the obvious looking traps.

Lets not get into what was the primary purpose of my visit, lets just get down to why there has to be a part 3 to the adventure. Lovely-M had to attend to her friend's boyfriend's parents' Marriage Anniversary, and had to get ready in 20 minutes sharp. So now my educational tour promised a live demonstration of how the woman-storage device produces party-ready women in twenty-minute time constraints.

Lovely-M jumped like a cat onto a pile of clean clothes, vanished with what they call in phylum-female terminology a salwar suit, and re-appeared draped in it. Now normal human psyche would govern that you next put on your shoes, and leave for the evening get-together. But then this was a woman here. And in a woman-storage device replete with unmarried young female fellow inmates. Therefore, as though obliged to serve at their positions responsibly, Rare-Flower and The-Third-Inmate quickly appeared on the scene, and inspected Lovely-M. 'Nope, this sucks.', was The-Third-Inmate's conclusion. 'Yep it does, lemme find you something.' was Rare-flower's rejoinder.

Rare-flower whipped out a something, which Lovely-M quickly snapped up and vanished. Emerged moments later, re-dressed and anxious. 'What now?', said she. 'Nope, not done. A bit too forward-going for a gathering of the sort in question.', said one amongst Rare-Flower and The-Third-Inmate. So there she went, tearing down the hallway with another something, desparate to try it out. Emerged again, this time 'round inviting lesser noises from the fellow-inmates.

I, as one with a feeble woman-intellect, stared on in disbelief. I mean, How can any mortal creature - even a woman - actually spend time being confused between CLOTHES to wear, of all things? There were several to-and-fro wear-and-rewear iterations, and finally something was finalized upon. And with an initial commitment to twenty minutes, it was all over in a fairly allowable 34 minutes. Spellbound is how I can describe my emotions in the least. Rare-flower was all through suggesting that I try not to listen and observe; she could notice my visible awe and shock at the happenings.

Anyways, women and their clothes. I am an erstwhile-statistician, and here's my key take-away from the observations last evening:

The Law of Marginal Confusion, if there was such a thing would go something like this: "A stable equilibriated woman-storage device, when imposed upon with the problem of party-dressing-an-inmate, shall iteratively converge to a solution in finite time, assuming of course, that the number of inmates is a constant and the number of available clothes is an integral number nowhere near infinity."

Corollary to the Law of Marginal Confusion: "The time taken for the convergence to a non-divergent stable solution, will be directly proportional to the number of inmates involved in helping the party-animal-inmate and shall exponentially vary as the number of clothes each one contributes to the cause of the party-dressing-an-inmate problem."

I shall leave the proofs to be figured out by the jobless few such as yours sincerely, for, given my feeble woman-intellect, I can merely assert hypotheses and frame conjectures. Proofs shall follow from the Smarter Few.

Two Shoppers and one Male - II

Part 2: Skip to Shoppoholism

(Try reading Part 1 first, to keep with the flow)

If the previously written protest against the vagaries of the Feminine gender are of any consequence to you, I am sure you shall look forth to this write-up too. With the Wait behind me and the ladies securely in my attention, we moved on to a local Hyper-Mart (or Mall if you may). The nearly 107 minutes of extra waiting time had taken a severe gastronomic toll on me, necessitating a quick nourishing food-treatment. So we ate a neat Buffet upstairs, talked a little, and then walked out into the Ocean of Shop-till-you-drop stores.

Now my quests at The Shopping Mall are usually limited to good food, good film and most importantly, lovely flowers to appreciate as they fly by. The good food was well settled in my viscera, good films there were none (the producers' strike) and lovely flowers I had two in my accompaniment. I was rich and content, by my standard parameters therefore. But the ladies were not. And they intended to make good of their visit to The Shopping Mall. Peeping over the balustrade on the highest storey, the ladies undertook a quick aerial reconnaissance: Lovely-M immediately recalled that she had to shop for the evening-dinner function marking the 25th Marriage Anniversary of a friend's boyfriend's parents; and Rare-Flower had her feathers visibly ruffled by what looked like a 'Free Test/Trial and Product Launch' kiosk on the ground floor.

Diligent that they were, in no time it was decided that the 'Free Test/Trial and whatever' must be given its due foremost. And so I next found myself peeking under the hood of the newly launched Mitsubishi Outlander on display, while my accompaniments were merrily busy getting some white gelatinous stuff rubbed onto their forelimbs. There was also a picto-graphic session at the end of it -- the ladies were required to pose one after the other in (what to me looked like VERY GAY AND VERY STUPID) a beautiful manner. The picture would find its way to the cover of a leading indian womens' magazine if they were lucky enough.

Okay, skip to phase 2. Lovely-M suddenly realizes that the shopping for her friend's boyfriend's parents' Anniversary is yet to be inaugrated. A quick budget is frozen upon, after minor deliberations, and the hunt begins. Like a herded sheep, I follow the two pack-leaders as they scamper from shop to shop, intense fury and fuss in abundance all along. The Wall-clock will do justice to the occasion, but what with the color of the wall? Data-insufficient, and pursuit abandoned. Yes! How 'bout Interior decoration equipment? They are usually occasion non-specific, fit well into nice little boxes, and make for a good gift. I chip in at this point with a rather ill-received suggestion that in all likelihood, interior decoration stuff will get passed onto the next occasion without least consideration (read: without even opening the box). After a few more moments of vacillation, the ladies decide to pursue Wallets.

Wallets are non-controversial, useful for a change, and typically can reflect the cost incurred on part of the presenter. The perfect gift, so to speak. So now the ladies make their way to Shopper's Stop, and ask for the whereabouts of the Wallets' Section. They are directed to the second floor, to which the elevator would faithfully take them. The elevator though, to the shreiking ecstacy of the ladies (and to my horror) opens in the ladies garments' section. There are several tattered scantily patched rags hung on hangers all around, and the enthusiasm of the ladies hardly looks like anything abating. The Wallets have, apparently, taken a backseat for now. Thankfully, a few moments yonder, the mission-wallet is resumed much to my relief. The ladies proceed to the next shop, with me in tow. A few deliberations later, it is brought to my notice that the His-Wallet has been frozen, and shall be purchased once the She-Wallet is frozen too.

The hunt for the Her-wallet draws us into the Wills-lifestyle Exclusive outlet, the Arrow's Outlet, and Marks-and-spencers' in quick succession. Shopping women are like sprinters running down the track on steroids. Tiring out is hardly an excuse or a recourse. Anyways, our finale femme-wallet was a rather non-descript looking satin-ish thing in the last store amongst the aforementioned. There was some discontent between the ladies though, on the lack of any partitions in the same; partitions which are so important as to ensure that your lipstick and brow-shades do not mix when either is called upon in dire emergency. Thankfully, there were other considerations which heavily tilted the scale in favour of this piece (things like the brand tag, the lack of time, and an apparent frustration at the 'lack of variety and choice').

So right when I was about to heave a sigh of relief, Lovely-M attended to a phone call from a fellow contributor to the anniversary gift expense. There was some discussion, and I could hear Lovely-M make noises about how drab the choice-list was, and how difficult it was to locate the perfect gift for an occasion such as this. (Mind you, dear reader, we're in one of the best stocked malls the country can offer). Moments later, I learned that the gift-plan had been trashed. Lovely-M rushed to the previously visited Wills-lifestle outlet, flashed her credit card, and bought for herself a very red and very smart wallet. Uncle and Aunty would have to make do with a large bouquet and I presume some chocolates. And your narrator here, one with a feeble woman-intellect, stood stumped.

Try reading Part 3 if you liked this one.

Two Shoppers and one Male - I

Part 1: The Wait.

Find an excuse, if you will, to land yourself in my shoes on the hot Saturday afternoon that today was. My office-friend has oflate been making herself more-than-useful in facilitating my interaction with someone-in-particular. And today I offered to take her (and my office-friend) out to lunch. In the following passages, I shall detail the happenings that were eye-openers, demeaners, and stress-testers all rolled into one awesome afternoon.

The day begins with an unseemingly timely call from Lovely-M (my office-friend) at 11.55AM, inquiring of me whether I am up and awake. I faithfully fake a very active and chirpy voice, suggesting that I de-slumbered atleast 2 hours before; an argument she buys without contention. Upon further deliberations, we agree to meet up at Galleria Market, where I have some business to attend to. It is mutually decided that 1.00PM seems a comfortable pitstop -- it would give me the 65 minutes to wash up, get ready, board a bus, get off, switch to a quick ramble and reach galleria, wind up my work and be ready to receive my accompaniments for the afternoon.

(The caveat, which Lovely-M divulged in a very happy-go-lucky fashion, was that Rare-Flower (her fellow companion and the key lady in question from my perspective) was still asleep while our conference was in progress. To one with feeble woman-intellect as I, 65 minutes was still good enough a window for two ladies to get ready -- even with one who was merrily sleeping away at the start.)

Fine, So I wash up, get ready, board a bus, get off, switch to a quick ramble, reach galleria, hurriedly wind up my work and get ready to receive my accompaniments. And I am done by 1:15PM, roughly 10 minutes late by the 1 o'clock Golden Deadline. I apologetically call up Lovely-M, and ask whether they have been waiting. And lo and behold! It isn't Lovely-M who responds, but the Rare-Flower! And the flower has just blossomed out of her slumber, Lovely-M is in the shower, AFTER WHICH Rare-Flower shall proceed for the cleansing, and even with a reasonably okayish overlap permitted, it will still be a good hour and a half before they are in good stead to meet me.

[Lets switch from present-tense to the narrative past-tense form of writing now. This is becoming painfully difficult to sustain.]

So I was in possession of three Chocolate slabs by now, which were duly purchased for the three of us; and given the time window of 95 odd minutes which I was so rudely blessed with, I knew what to do with the chocolates. It had to be either the summer heat melting them to a gooey or yours-sincerely, gobbling them up into a gooey. I obliged, and in no time did the first slab out of sight. With 90 minutes, 2 rapidly melting chocolate slabs and absolutely nothing to do, I decided to go around Galleria Market place. I chanced upon the Airtel DSL Care center, inquired about the timelines on which disconnection can be done, paid off my dues; then I went over to the post-paid connection Care Center, inquired about cancellation again, paid off dues. Next I barged into a food/stationery shop, asked for a large soft-drink bottle, guzzled it down with the second chocolate in what can be fairly described as a jiffy. Another 60 odd minutes to go. I tried calling up some old friends, but serially all of them were conspicuously missing from the side of their handsets.

Nevermind, my eyes flashed as I took notice of a nice bookstore in a corner. I walked in through the tinkle-door, went over to the non-fiction section, comfortably perched my tanned rear upon the beanbag and began surfing books. (Never had an Air Conditioner been such a welcome relief). And thus the last half the agonizing wait became easy to cope with. Save the hunger component, which there was little I could do about. With around 15 more minutes of the Wait left, I received another call from the ladies. In this call, I am informed that Lovely-M hadn't factored her newly acquired driving skills into the equation, and that I should add another comfortable 20 minutes-worth of extra-cautious driving to the balance.

Let us not get into how the final 30 odd mintues passed, there is truly nothing exceptional worth mentioning. I however did have one chocolate remaining on me when the ladies were in breathing distance. Now courtesy would dictate that I save it for the encounter, and that I cordially forward it to the ladies as the sole remaining warrior(apologizing ofcourse, profusely for having eaten the other two). But somethings get to your head. I munched it to the wrapper with surgical precision in time, and the first thing I said when I seated myself in Lovely-M's car was, "Can I stick this empty chocolate wrapper on your car seat?"

Read up Part 2 if you liked this one...

Goodbye :-)

Manuscript of my goodbye mail to company friends:

Everyone,

 

So this happens to be the last and final mail flying off my Inductis mail ID. I intend to make it as readable and non-boring a read as can get. For those not in the know, I'll be pursing a management degree from IIM Lucknow this fall onwards. Right. So what does it feel like to be putting in your papers after 10 months 1 day and 3 hours at one of the best places to work after you're out of IIT? Lonely, and more importantly, poor! :P Lonely because of all the amazing peers and seniors you're going to miss, and poor because of the lavish pay that I'm not going to see for another two years!

 

The people you associate with, they say, are your greatest asset. Consequently, I guess I've got one helluva lavish year behind me. I've been mentored and guided by really nice seniors, and I thank them for all their help. I just hope I can look up to them for guidance later on too. My heart goes out to all my peers, who've bravely faced up to my (allegedly) poor jokes and (purportedly) stupid idiosyncracies. Good job guys. :-P

 

I am thankful to all my immediate seniors who taught me most of the things I learned here, from writing SAS code to drafting and formatting EXCEL documents to wooing girls (well okay, the last one I still am an ameteur at). I am also grateful to everyone whom I bugged so frequently for help and guidance for my b-school interviews, thankyou all! :-)

 

I would like to thank Facilities for making available the TT board and the undying supply of tt balls, my forehand has seen a significant improvement and I can now defend cross-court shots fairly well. I would also like to thank HR for arranging that really nice Offsite party and the treats, the dance-floors rocked and so did the liqueur! Unmesh Sir and the IT team were amazing; I still remember when on the night of first of January, when the world was partying, Unmesh sir helped us set up remote access so as to facilitate a timely deliverable. Thanks :-)

 

Guys do keep the vibrant culture alive, please do keep in touch; I shall be available on my mail address CYBERHANSRAJ[AT]GMAIL[DOT]COM all the time ( no laughing at the mail-address :-P ). Do drop in your phone numbers/mail-address on the same!

 

Best of luck and thanks,

 

Hansraj Mishra

In Service of the Departed Geek

In remembrance of the Geek: 

Allow me to draw your attention to the untimely demise of the Geek who resided in the heart and soul of Codesmith Cipher. The Geek was born on March the 21st Two Thousand and Two on a windy spring evening. He grew up intellect hungry, did numbers for food and nourishment, and watched documentaries and FTV for entertainment. The Geek was known for his light sense of humour, which would periodically subside and rise intermittently. The Geek learned, he sailed to various lands, met interesting people, learned from them, shared his experiences once in a while. The Geek associated with more Geeks, they liked him; and he felt warm in their company. It was all good. 

And then the testing times came. The Geek saw himself heading to the City-of-Castles. There were tall castles and minars all around, and he had money to spend. The Geek was a village-boy who grew up on numbers and literature for nourishment; he knew very soon that the City-of-Castles wasn't his home. It would never satiate him. Further, the Geek's ways and sense of humour and actions were misconstrued as being stupid and were associated with imbecility. So the Geek lay low for quite sometime. But even in lying low, Mankind was unkind to him. He was continually ridiculed for his mundane ways. 

Finally, the Geek realized that the ways of the people who inhabit the City-of-Castles would not change. And that for the survival of his kind, the City-of-Castles wasn't the place at all. Now in order to make it to the City, the Geek had valiantly blazed his way across the Abyss-of-No-Return. He very well knew it wasn't in his capacity to forge a way back across it again. So the Geek decided that his presence was one that could be done without. And accordingly, he went over to the top of the Tower-of-Intellect (located in the centre of the city), talked with Godel the Lord, and offered his demise. 

The Lord inquired of him whether he had explored all plausible alternatives before he had come to the Tower-of-Intellect. The Geek heaved and puffed and said 'Yes my Lord. I am not one from these lands. I cannot go home. I intend not to be ridiculed further. Free me.' And the Lord said, 'Okay ye of little consequence, remember thy abilities, and jump off the cliff!' And the Geek loyally obeyed. 

The Geek is gone, but his ways shall remain. He leaves behind a legacy that shall be of immeasurable value to Codesmith Cipher during his proposed long stint in the City-of-Castles. Let us observe a minute-worth of silence for the soul of the departed. 

In anticipation of a resurrection,

Amen. 

11 Days to Nirvana

I'm 11 days away from freedom. Freedom from a salaried life. Freedom from a daily routine. Freedom from accountability. Freedom from credit card statements. Freedom from bills and payments. Freedom from PPT's and Excel's. Freedom from the Metropoli lifestyle. Freedom from the bland lifeless post-11PM hours. Freedom from performance orientation. Freedom to do what I like. Freedom to think what I want. Freedom to read what interests. Freedom to go home with no strings attached, this one last time. Freedom to go blading down the boulevards of my township back home. Freedom to take pictures. Freedom to browse wiki again. Freedom. Once again :)

Its been four years and 346 days since I took that test, and I have reached a pitstop finally :) Lets begin again, lets go easy this time :) Let's maneveur the curves more easily this time. Let's not throttle the engine beyond what its designed for :) Let's chart out some new routes. Let's not worry about where it ends. Maybe let's just get out of the cockpit :) Aah this is an amazing feeling. I'm high already. Goodnight folks.

Free :)

The Tele-magic!

It has been quite sometime since I got bored of working my 18-55mm standard lens. I had been waiting for an excuse to spend nearly 250 odd dollars to bring home a nice telescopic lens. And after a rather soggy ending to a fairly well negotiated war, I decided to go spend it. So the all new Canon EF 75-300mm lens is the latest toy in my arsenal. 

It comes fitted with a fast-focussing USM motor, is nearly 10.5'' long when fully extended to accomodate 300mm of focal length, allows for amazingly narrow depth of fields, looks cool and gives others a jitter for their gizmos-in-the-name-of-cameras. And oh yea, for the unschooled, combined with my former wide-angle lens, I can now officially boast of a 17x optical zoom to go with the mighty 7-point AF powerhouse-of-an-SLR Canon Rebel XT.

I tried familiarizing with the lens, and have come up with the following few experimental pictures. Haven't been able to find time to do further justice to the pursuit though. The one part that sucks about tele-photography is the fact that even slight shakes in the camera get magnified into heavy vibrations in the final image placement. Its something I'll need to work around. 

The Broken Rule

We all have those fanciful likings about doing the right things in the right environs and in the right coordinates in space-time. You may love to sleep on a particular pillow, you might love that precise half-cup of tea at that very tea-stall right below your office every morning, and so on. Somehow, there is a comfort factor associated with this obduracy towards certain activities. I just broke one such rule of mine today. 

This rule has to do with attending to mother nature's call -- the one that's more frequent in occurence and less inconvenient to execute. Whenever possible, I try and delay it till I get to a nice place relieve the stress -- and the fluid. Somehow, it gives a sense of comfort not to water public lawns under the clear blue skies with cars honking away along the road alongside. Today, however, saw this rule take a beating. While on way back from work [which sees me travel 53km one way each morning and evening] it had rained all through the day it had been rather chilly. And we all know that of several physical process that get expedited due to chill (such as shivering in case of all, excessive talking in case of women, white noses turning pink in case of the fair-complexioned etc.) one that certainly doesn't fail to speed up is your leakage system. 

I had been noticing the driver push the throttle a bit too generously through the evening. He was putting the vehicle through notorious swerves and jumpy breaks. He seemed quite a bit in a hurry to get over with the employee-drops. So I asked him to go easy, since it would hardly save us 5-10 minutes overall [Sadly the whole universe conspires to prevent any time-arbitrage in your favour, especially during the 7.30PM evening hours]. The driver, upon my suggestion, gave me an classy nasty look, and said, "Bhaiya gajjab jor se pesab laga hai. Idher gaddi rokenge aur chalan ho jayega. Batao kya karein." [Translated -- Sir I'm under extreme pressure to leak my bladder. If I stop here, they'll fine me. Tell me what to do]. Clearly the man had been done in by the chilly weather. But he wasn't alone. Upon his desparate rejoinder, another fellow astronaut suggested that he needed to free up his assets too. To which the driver, obviously excited, took it upon himself to find a place to do the honours. 

Five minutes further, the engines hummed to a halt. And two very frantic people alighted from the vehicle and ran towards that big banyan tree. While at it, the driver turned his head around and asked me why I wasn't joining in. It was, ofcourse, chilly, and I am as ordinary a man as all else. But I was a man of rules, and I smiled and said, "Ab ghar jaake aaram se halka hoyenge sir." [Translated -- I'll go home and easy out dude]. The man smiled, shook his head in a sagely fashion, and said... "Mauka milta hai toh kar lena chahiye... kya pata aage kya hoye." [Translated -- Do it when you get a chance, never know what's in store]. I laughed it off. I was too prejudiced in favour of enjoying the process of relief in my own private jacuzzi fitted gala bath-cum-washroom.

So by the time I got back home some 45 minutes back, the chill had taken grip, and I really needed to free up. I rushed upstairs only to find the door locked, and my McKinsey flatmate conspicuously missing with the keys. Now the locality where I stay is infested with gardens and pruned shrubs and playing kids and fairly big cars in the parking outside. The minimum you can run to find a likely spot is atleast 100m. So I held on, made a few frantic calls, and waited for a good 35 minutes till a friend from office crossed by with the keys. I just drilled a hole through the washroom commode. And the rule's gone. Next time, I shall fire-at-first-opportunity. Never rely on what the future holds for thee.