The End of the Beginning

Let's go back to the drawing board. Let's ask the WHATNEXT question yet again. Let's not fall off the grid. Let's plan yet again.

It is done. Things have this notoriously beautiful habit of falling in place. This is my small moment of joy :)

Colors in an unequal world

Friday, January the 8th 2010. The day shall go down in the annals of human history as a day when our fellow human inhabitants from across the gender divide asserted en-masse that they continue to remain capable of imbecilities well beyond human comprehension. I base my rather harsh stance on the unusual course of ethereal activity that I came to witness today evening. I am sure the reader of this post is well in the know of the mode of public expression associated with instant messaging client software: that which we call the Status Message and exploit as the medium of dissemination of our current indulgence to the world at large.

The Instant Messaging Software has been a popular mode of entertainment ever since it was popularized late in the last decade by the software firm Yahoo. It's use has largely been restricted to strictly formal requirements of everyday subsistence such as:

• searching for prospective partners for engaging in sexual intercourse in the long run via the 'Chat Room' facility;
• needlessly talking away all night in hope of wooing a long lost school friend;
• spying;
• other activities of equal if not more serious consequence

More recently, a new exploit has been discovered by the devoted clientelle of such software - the status message. It has been pressed into useful service in the most trying of circumstances, and has performed upto expectation in most cases and surpassing in the remaining few. Personally, the Status Message came to my rescue when I needed a calculator at an extremely short notice prior to an examination. The Status Message helped me locate accommodation for a 2 month stay in Bangalore sometime back. It came in particularly handy when I had to dutifully announce to the world that Debjeet Biswas used barrier contraceptive-gear each evening despite the lack of feminine companionship. My peers have been equally upright and prompt in their innovations with the Status Message too. I vaguely remember Robin frequently inviting accompaniment for that last remaining portion of liqueur.

And ofcourse, my favourite one -- although I do not remember who hosted it -- went something like this: "I want to have sex. Volunteers?" While the expression was a delight for direct and concise business-writing proponents, I doubt whether the owner ever got satiated.

Which brings us to today, and the motive behind drafting this exceedingly unreadable manuscript. This evening when I logged into my instant messaging service provider Google's client software, I was greeted by a rather odd phenomenon. To quote from Dasi's Status Message, "My Gtalk list looks like a Photoshop Color Pallette gone horribly wrong." After some investigation, it became apparent that it was solely women who were displaying colors as their Status Messages. Certain fruitless deliberations over instant messaging with several female associates remained fruitless. And then the almighty 800-pound search gorrilla (Google) answered. "What Color Is Your Bra? Facebook's Pointless Underwear Protest." is the title of an entry on the world-renowned weekly NewsWeek. Yes, several young women decided to let the world know what color brassiere they were wearing under their shirts.

There was Pink, Black, Pink!!, white, baby pink, pink and blue, carnation pink and several others -- all over Facebook and GoogleTalk. Yes, women chose to go berserk. Apparently it was for some sort of a noble cause centered around Cancer Awareness. What was more intriguing was the sheer promptness in their responses. Proud they were all, without exception. As an open question to all females who're so wasted as to stop by and read this blog, may I ask how divulging the color of your innerware shall make the world a better place? Let me be honest, I am not whining about the incredible happenings of the day. It is just that I am slightly purturbed at the sheer lack of intelligence that plagued half of humanity today. Let me close with a small quote I remembered (modified for current context): "Brassiere are like options and futures. They derive their value from underlying assets."

And of course, here's a good friend of mine who convincingly won an Extempore today evening; only to follow it up with this:

And the reason why this last image down here figures on my blog is simple: the two people, who apart from '6 others' who 'like' the declaration below in the status message are great friends who'd be extremely pleased to see this. :P

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.