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Saturday, November 04, 2006
I lost the bag i had won. Yeah you can manage to do so. Pretty much like the indian cricket team loses matches from winning positions. It so happened that in the operations class on wednesday , our prof was discussing how custom made orders for things had grown to be liked and how they are operated. To press home the importance of lead time in custom orders, he ordered a large customized bag from www.timbuk2.com worth 120$. I came out of the class wondering what he would do with the bag.Probably donate it to a auction for charity.Turned out that he was planning on a lucky dip in Friday's class.The bag got shipped and delivered within 24 hours.Amazing lead times i must say.Anyways , on the spur of the moment i decided to miss today's(friday) class to go for a visit to Red Hat organized by the business technology club. The trip was no good as Red Hat was reeling from a double whammy of Microsoft tying up with Novell for linux and Oracle deciding to support Red Hat linux themselves. People seemed demoralized and there was hardly any discussion on the MBA's responsibilities etc.When i came back to school in the afternoon for the marketing class, my section mates had a whale of time telling me how my name was the first one picked by the professors and since i was not there the next lucky person got it. The prof stuck my name to the board since I had missed the class.Agony!!!
Hemanth, my roomate pacified me thus - "The bag was not yours.If you would have not gone , your name wouldnt have come up.Since you were gone , your name came up"! I couldnt agree with him more. quite a bit of lousy luck.
Posted at 4:48 am by wafter
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
The first "trek" was to New York city. If I had doubts why it was called a trek , then they were dispelled when i found myself walking from bank to bank in midtown manhattan.The career trek was organised by the finance club and almost 80 first years thronged the banks.I wont talk about the presentations etc at the banks as it was a lot about schmoozing and networking.What I will talk about is New York city.Midtown Manhattan has towering buildings with most banks housed in them.Downtown Manhattan is graced by the Wall Street , where only few banks now operate.Although downtown manhattan seems less crowded and more spread out than midtown manhattan.An integral part of New York is the NY subway.Old and dirty are the words for it.Several places have a strong stench and homeless people loiter about.However some parts like the NY penn station are ok and you can get nice coffee for only 1.2$ with milk and sugar added.I will have to say that is what kept me going for the first part of the days in NY.As you come out of the station, you can observe the buzz and the life of the city.With corner eateries and roadside shops it is a one to be seen.I guess the best thing about NY is that you have so many options of places to buy things and eat at.However parking is very expensive.I observed the rates at a place and they were like 24$ for an hour.One of my friends told me that some people give their cars for oil change which costs them 12$ and the car is parked for a day!
I visited the World trade center site and it seemed unbelievable that I had been inside that place 18 years ago and now it was just nothing.When in NY , two things should definitely be done. Watch the Manhattan skyline from Newport NJ and vice versa.It seems that jersey city is generally a very bad place to live in and in jersey city the best place to live is Newport.I stayed in Edison NJ , which has the largest concentration of desis in US.As tushar joked, if you set fire to any building or complex there , there would be only desis except the fireman.Oak street market is a total indian style market , with sari shops and nice eateries.
I found times square to be hyped up.Nothing great except that they have put lights in most of the shops and it just looks lively. New York is for those people who love the fast paced life and love to live among crowds.
Charlotte on the other hand is for the country lovers.Nice city with a small downtown having skyscrapers.People tend to own nice big houses and have very little commute time.If you want to own a piece of grass then charlotte has the advantage over NY.I think i felt a little sad in Charlotte as memories of those 4-5 months when my dad used to take me around charlotte came flooding by.
The treks were very tiring and i am glad at the two days of rest i am having before the next mod starts.This is supposed to be the toughest one.I saw the remake of Don.It would be unfair to compare it with the previous one , but as my stats prof used to say its an illusion that life is fair , so comparision is inevitable.First, shahrukh is a misfit to the role.Second , the movie has major logical flaws.But i will give credit to farhan akhtar that he twisted the plot a bit to keep the audience guessing.I feel the performances were all short of the orginal ones.Shahrukh was not convincing as the don and priyanka did not portray the hatred she had for don so well as zeenat could do. However , the look and feel of the movie was nice. Remember Anant, when we had seen the movie more than a decade ago , i had asked you which amitabh did you like more - and you had said - Don,because he was always in control. I was wondering during the movie..if in this the don was better , and frankly shahrukh is better essaying the more easy-going and romantic role of vijay..however , i was also wondering that shahrukh was slipping back into the don mould while in the oringinal amitabh was portray the lost look of vijay very well , in fact he had us convinced that the don was dead. Whether the slippage by shahrukh was incidental or not , no one knows.However the movie is engrossing and should be seen.
Posted at 10:58 am by wafter
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Saturday, October 07, 2006
The first mod is almost over , with the last days of classes today. Next week the exams take over. And then there is a night out waiting for me in the form of the internal deloitte case competition.Hope we dominate! This is a month of travel , 3 days in New York , 2 days in Charlotte and 3 days in Cincinnati,ohio. All dedicated to job search. I am looking forward to the New York trip as I will get to meet Tushar , my high-school friend after 9 years.
The job search here is so different from that in india. Personal contacts , networking , schmoozing are the skills in play. Especially for an investment banking job search, it takes a toll on you.Lets see how it goes. Everyone says that you need a backup , but where is the time for that!
Watched Khosla ka Ghosla in a near empty theatre in Cary. I liked the movie a lot. A low budget but well-made movie. The song by kailash kher - Chak de phatte is very good. Tara Sharma is as fresh as ever , while Anupam Kher , Ranvir Shorey and Boman Irani have put in excellent performances. The story is also so realistic , the land sharks in North India are really a headache for the hard-earning middle class.
During the break in the movie , i craved for coffee and so I ordered an espresso. 2.25$ and 25 ml later , i realized how different the espresso is in US. And its so expensive as well for just 25 ml.
Posted at 10:07 am by wafter
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Monday, September 04, 2006
This is a masterpiece! An absolute perfect movie. It had lots of light moments , a comedy which was spot-on , and a powerful social message weaved into it. I saw this movie yesterday in Cary,NC after UNC lost to rutgers in football. The last movie I had seen there was Kabhi Alvida na kehna and this movie erased the bad memories from the previous.Why cannot people make movies like lage raho? or at least try to..? why are karan johars...ruling....when rajkumar hiranis are a better bet?Why is sanjay dutt and arshad warsi such underrated actors and vidya balan is just wow!
The long weekend is almost over and 3 weeks into the MBA , things are getting hectic.Classes , assignments..club activites , there is no end to it.But i like the way , to get things done , you need to manage them well.Company presentations are going to start soon. It is going to be quite an experience from now on.
Posted at 11:57 am by wafter
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Sunday, July 23, 2006
Of the Prof's party and Franklin street
Well on thursday, we the international students hosted a party to showcase our cultures to the domestic students of our program. So we had stalls of food from India , Japan, Russia , Brazil and Korea .Not to forget the booz stall (this was without doubt the most frequented one).One of our seniors had predicted that the Indian food will come in late and go out early and that is what happened.Although we were not at fault as the program was advanced by an hour throwing all our preparations into a frenzy and we couldnt make it in time.Baking the samosas and kachoris was no easy task.The party was fun as the domestics danced to the tune of songs like "Masti ki Pathshala" from Rang de basanti and "Fanaa" from yuva. The most outstanding part of the effort was by the Japs from my class.They had made elaborate arrangements and brought in their grills and cooker to show how to make sushi and other stuff . The food provided by them never seemed to end.It really shows the meticulous planning they did.
As is customary , the class then went to Franklin street and returned late into the morning after plenty of booze.I decided to give this a miss as i was quite tired.The next morning , the booze showed on people's faces as evryone was yawning or trying to look hard into their notes as the profs were lecturing.
A funny incident happened.One of my accounting classmates pointed out a typo in a problem the class was discussing . The Witty professor immediatly remarked that its amazing that in the previous two sections noone pointed this out , it seems that you were not invited to the party yesterday !
The Prof was throwing a party that day and he told the class that make sure that he comes today and gets invited to all the parties from now on
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The Party at the profs place was another nice experience.He has a huge estate of 20 acres with woods , a pond , a pool , ping-pong table , trampoline , sand volleyball court and zipline as well.Everyone had a nice time doing things and exploring the place . Some one even commented that the aim of his life had changed seeing the prof's lifestyle.It was so beautiful , away from the mad rush of MBA world.
As usual after the prof's party there was another one at "He is not Here" at Franklin street.This is a bar in a backyard and the name refers to the bartender's reply when wives used to call him asking if their husbands were there.So what if the very husband in question was guzzling in another whisky sitting on the bar stool!
It was a nice evening again as there was a live band playing songs and me and nitin went into the basement kinda thing to have a game of darts.We ended up even . I will have to mention that we were absolutely sober . Now in comes Louie all tipsy and turvy , asks for the darts and hits bullseye twice claiming that its the beer! We thought that we had enough of the game in which sober people could not win and went to another bar called alladin.This is alladin coz it has a hukka kept at each table and the amrus really love it!
Posted at 11:11 pm by wafter
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Thursday, July 20, 2006
Subluxation is the medical term for partial dislocation of shoulder . In simple terms , if the shoulder moves out of the socket a bit (pops-out and pops -in) then it is subluxation. Now why am i telling you all this . Coz my left shoulder underwent this painful process . It wasnt fun.
I was playing cricket and the second bowl i bowled, something snapped in my left shoulder , amazing thing was that i am a right arm bowler.After that i was writhing with pain for sometime.I somehow "adjusted" my shoulder back into place and was fielding when a catch came in my direction and while raising my hand to grab it , it again happened. So there , i am out of games for a month or so , and this happend while i was looking forward to playing soccer and networking with my classmates.
This town - Chapel Hill is crazy.The tar heels were the NBA champions last year and everywhere people are crazy about them.All things and symbols have the light blue color of tarheels . The receipt of the medicine at the pharmacy had "Go Tarheels" written at the bottom . My armsling is light blue in color. And when i uncorked my medicine bottle , the tablets were light blue!!
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The same day as the Subluxation we had a noisy party at my place and it was a lot of fun . People brought in indian food and the advantage of the potluck arrangement was that we got to eat the leftover food for a couple of days.
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School is going fine , lots of activities happening and today was my first accounting quiz , and guess what..the balance sheet didnt balance . Thats an expected start.Will have to practise a lot more.
Posted at 5:54 am by wafter
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Friday, July 07, 2006
I am now in Chapel Hill,NC. Nice university town , lots of brick buildings and very good stadiums.Its a hilly place and so walking from one end of the campus to the other isnt so easy.And KFBS is at one end of the campus.The School is nice and the people are nicer.All over UNC , there is a strong love for sports and no one wonder the tarheels are so good!
I enjoyed the trip from Michigan to Chapel Hill through ohio,West Virginia and Virginia.While coming , interesting thing was that as soon as we entered chapel hill, we lost our way...and we went on a highway for sometime , and suddenly laurel ridge popped up on the left , where i had taken the apartment! The apartment and the facilities here are fabulous.Two splendid tennis courts right next to our home and a swimming pool and sand volleyball court as well! And a lush green soccer field(yes a soccer ground in US!) only a 1 min walk away.
I am still trying to come to grips with how i will go about my MBA.Socializing, drinking and networking are all interlinked and im no good at it , especially in an alien country.Getting settled down also took a bit of time and especially without a car you are handicapped here.Thankfully my brother had a car for a couple of days and i could get things like a table,chair and a mattress.
I watched the match at a sports bar on Franklin Street here with a few of my classmates.Germany lost and it wasnt fun:(
All international students will be taken to watch the world cup final between Italy and France on sunday at another bar.
More later.Yeah and thanks to Kevin(who's wi-fi my laptop is connected to) i am accessing the net.Its so cool!and kevin doesnt even know ;)
Posted at 10:49 am by wafter
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Finally!!! I am all set to start my MBA. Last few days were of uncertain unemployment.Visa interview was a breeze and the two days stay in delhi and noida was too good! Saw MI-3 , which was just time pass and inside man..which was better.Caught up with long lost friends and not-so-lost friends.got a lovely gift too!..I also enjoyed having lunch with my childhood best friend Anurag and his family.Took a tour of his jewellery factory and saw the various processes involved.
Saw the domestic problems of atanu and shwetank.What i mean is with their bai.seems they have a old bong bai..(nick is "beta bai"....coz she used to call them beta in a shaky voice regularly...but doesnt call them now..!)..she does everything but makes atrocious chappatis which is so dear to any respectable north indian having suffered cuisinery deficieny in south india for more than 6 yrs.so the beta bai brings along another bai who makes good chappatis . But these guys dont increase the money...and split the existent money between the two.!...atanu enjoys playing mind games with the bais...he has made a terror image of shwetank.he took them to shwetank's room and indicating to him told them that he is very short tempered guy who speaks less and whatever he says is the final verdict..and atanu just softens them on any issue and then shwetank ambles in..mumbles his decision and the bais have to follow it!!!...
Posted at 8:47 pm by wafter
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Thursday, May 11, 2006
This was a long pending trip.I wanted to meet my friends as well as check out the city before i leave India.Procuring the tickets was a tough task.After checking out several agents in my area , I took the help of anant in getting tickets.The bus was a non-AC outfit with plastic stools placed for the excess passengers.I was thankful that i had a nice pushback seat.It took 18 hours to reach Pune.When you go on the Bangalore-Pune NH4 , its nice to see the 4-lane highway winding through the terrain , especially through the Sahyadri range.You need to cross the Sahaydri when the city of Pune comes into the view.
Pune is a city undergoing enormous construction activities.Staying at Aundh , i checked out the poha and the vada pavs at Parihar chowk.(My Calicut days influenced me to pronounce it as Periyar Chowk , but i was quickly corrected by Shreyas-the Khiladi).Hogging the delicious chaat and jalebis at Ozone was one thing i felt satisfied by.E-Square is a decent multiplex , where i watched "Darna Zaroori Hai" , a forgettable movie. Checked out the cool Pune crowd , ok ill be honest , checked out the pune chicks who are pretty good , at least better than bangalore. But the weather reminded me so much of Bangalore.Watched kalyug and million dollar baby on the comp.Million dollar baby was a disappointment.Fed on aalo-sandwich prepared by Khiladi.Quite yummy.In fact the pune trip was a gastronomic delight in some senses.
Fortunately the return trip was on a KSRTC volvo equipped with a nice AC.The journey back was cool and comfortable.
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I was going to write a review on Rang-de-basanti , but came across this , which so much reflects my views.
Posted at 6:28 pm by wafter
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Monday, April 24, 2006
This refers to the incident where the younger brother pravin shot elder brother pramod mahajan. I guess we know why children are referred to as innocents.The love which might have existed between the brothers vanished when they had their own families.The younger brother envied the success of the elder , and took revenge for not helping him with favours in his business.It shows how even the high profile people of the society are susceptible to 'dainik jagran -masala story' type of disputes.But isnt this sibling hatred an age old concept?..as in cain and abel ..?
Sachin Tendulkar turned 33 today , its clear he is in his twilight days but lets hope that he guides the team to a long -awaited world cup victory next year.
I put in my resignation today.Thus starts the last lap of my first job. I guess i stayed quite long , with most of the people who joined alongwith me having left.Eating lunches alone , not going for the customary post lunch "walk the talk' and having no body calling me for tea or coffee should end soon.
Posted at 5:38 pm by wafter
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