Lonely and dark no more,
The woods are the place to be
Miles to go I definitely have
But the warmth of her hand I now can feel

The feel, the touch, the breath, the voice..
Its all so magical and utopian.
The angelic presence of the lassie
Makes me forget all my fear and ambition.

She gives me the look
And It fills me with ardency
In her chromatic and beautiful eyes I dwell
And lose myself in fantasy.

The conjuncture was never intentional
Nor was the story conventional
For some, it takes ages to happen
For me, that one moment…
That one moment had all of what I wanted to see in the depths of her gaze.

The way it kills you and yet you want more of it..
The way you’r together always and yet cant subsist for a minute without
The way you tried to escape and yet the arrow buzzed and bit.
Is this what they call love? Or rather serendipity?

Thanks to Himank, I got myself to writing this post. First things first- Happy birthday IIIT-H. Just like the Indian economy, it’s that stage of the life cycle of IIIT where it is growing really fast. And for the growth to be really meaningful, the efforts need to put in to take the institute to another level.

For me, the most important thing which has to change is the work culture of the students. Be it assignments, academics, Felicity or a general attitude towards anything – we are far too lethargic and laid back. Except for the last few days in the lead up to Felicity and Placements, we refuse to put in meaningful work. Even when we do for a few occasions, the effort is hardly structured. For us to really reach the next level, we need a change – a change in a lot of ways things are done in college. And for that, a new work culture needs to brought in.

Comparing IIIT with IIM Indore, two institutes which started around the same time, there is a fair bit of difference when it comes to processes and functionalities in the student body. Even given the point that things are expected to be better in IIM-I with the virtue of it being a part of a premier brand name, IIIT can do much better. This, especially considering the fact that the quality of students is quite high in IIIT, probably matching the standards here. There is so much potential among the students- all of that can be harnessed with some effort in changing the work culture.

If there is one wish for IIIT I have, it is certainly this.

Meanwhile, I really miss a few things from undergraduate days- prime among them is the camaraderie with my batch mates. This of course, includes my circle of friends, but also the others. The next thing I miss is the culture of the place. I so disagree with one of my professors when he says that we don’t have a culture in IIIT. I think we do, and I feel it all the more when I’m away from the college. Take for example, the kind of discussions we would have in the corridors of the hostel. And finally, though I’ve spoken about the work culture, I do sometimes miss the laid back days of old! All the times when I’d just hang out in my pals’ rooms.

PS: It’s a new life here in IIM Indore, and I’ve gotten used to it. It’s just that after the chat with Himank today, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic.

Love you IIIT!

It has been a month in IIM Indore, and it’s amazing to see the amount of effort which people put into their academics over here. Of course, people were pretty serious about their academics in IIIT-H as well, especially in the first semester; but certainly not to these levels. The competition here is pretty intense, and there is a clamour to present the best assignment or give the best quiz. I mean, there must be at least 70-80 students vying to be in the top 20. Of course, it’s bound to change over the next few semesters- how much is the big question.

There is one more factor which cannot be overemphasized and contributes to this phenomena- the amount of importance the admin gives to your academics. With the number of surprise quizzes (12), assignments and presentations we’ve had in the last 30 days, it’s been like going to a Gurukul. Of course, academics are the primary function of any university, but it’s pretty different over here. For one, students are very serious probably because this is their last degree before they are thrown into the real world for good- they’d possibly be using the concepts learnt in a B-school more than anything else. Two, the stakes over here are pretty high, in terms of the jobs and packages you could possibly land up with. Three, there is a level of maturity which comes with age and value for an MBA from a good B-school.

However, it’s not been just that at IIM Indore over the past five weeks or so. There are a host of other activities to keep you on your feet 24*7. Even your extra curriculars are taken pretty seriously over here- given the interest people have. Kidding, it is the interest- but is more about the value such activities add to your resume. Ahh.. resume and placements are the biggest catchwords over here. I wonder what’ll actually happen during the placement season!

All in all, it’s been a pretty hectic last few days, especially given the lethargic final semester we had spent in IIIT-H. I’ve finally begun to find my feet and enjoy myself at this place. It is that time of the course now, when I am really looking forward to the next few months at IIM-I.

Peace.

PS: Planet-I residents- Read about the PGP1-Sec C CP phenomena here. More on CP later.

I have shamelessly picked this up from Neha’s blog, because I have nothing better to do

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
I am looking like a bear and need to get a shave.

2. How much cash do you have in your wallet right now?
253 bucks.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR?
Bore.

4. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
My sis.

5. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?
Smack that by Akon.

6. What are you wearing right now?
Shorts and tee.

7. Do you label yourself?
Nah. Karan is good.

8. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently own?
Lee Cooper, Reebok and Hush Puppies.

9. Bright or Dark Room?
Dark. Anyday.

10. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
Neha: Came across her blog while blogging through PagalGuy. It’s a nice blog.

11. What does your watch look like?
Fast Track. Typically sporty.

12. What were you doing at midnight last night?

13. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
“Dude.. wassup?”

14. What’s a word that you say a lot?
Ok. Cool. Alright. Hello. Damn. F.

15. Who told you he/she loved you last? (please exclude spouse , family, children)
A friend. Wont name the person here.

16. Last furry thing you touched?
A dog. Just yesterday.

17. Favorite age you have been so far?
This age.

18. What was the last thing you said to someone?
You suck.

19. The last song you listened to?
Seventeen: The Sex Pistols.

20. Where did you live in 1987?
Ranchi.

21. Are you jealous of anyone?
Yeah.

22. Is anyone jealous of you?
Yeah again.

23. Name three things that you have on you at all times?
The sacred thread on my hand, my chain and my attitude.

24. What’s your favorite town/city?
Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

25. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?
Four years back, to my parents.

26. Can you change the oil on a car?
Damn it. No.

27. Your first love/big crush: what is the last thing you heard about him/her?
Have no idea where she is

28. Does anything hurt on your body right now?
Yeah. Took Hepatitis shots yesterday on my arm and it HURTS!

29. What is your current desktop picture?
A photo of my cirlce (Trailblazers).

30. Have you been burnt by love?
What sort of a question is that? Course no

I tag Himank, Maruti, Aniket, Sharat, Daka, Sanrag, BitGeek, Namrata, Ankit, Rohit, Sashidhar, Arctic Monkey, Kulbir. Most of the others never care, but do buzz me if you need a tag

As I walked along the hostel wing, it seemed to echo with eerie silence. As I trod out of it towards the mess, I noticed that I walked alone for the first time. There was no pillion rider in the bike I rode, I drank my coffee all alone.

Getting the no-dues certificate signed seemed like stoking nails into the coffin. When asked to submit the identification card, I did not want to let go. This same card had accompanied me for four years, getting me a safe passage at unearthly hours and places.

And then there were the little gifts, and the memorabilia unearthened while packing. The ICL tickets, the placement lists, the Felicity posters, the ragging letter, the lost pen drive.. They were all there. Each of them had a story to tell. Each of them was screaming for attention, for those lost memories.

The memories which bound us together, the memories which will stay, come what may. So what if we cannot be together, the spirit lives on. Ten years down the line, when I walk into this place, it will welcome me as if I’d never left. Because this place belongs to me and I belong to this place. A piece of me will be here forever.

Such a bitter sweet symphony is life, isn’t it?

This is the text of my farewell speech yesterday:

18th July, 2006. I took the letter in my hand and looked at its contents. Tears slowly trickled down my eyes as I walked towards my room. Terrible thoughts gushed through my mind. What had I done to deserve this? Why was this happening to me? What now? It was as if the world had come crumbling down around me..

10th February, 2008. I’d often heard of tears of a different kind, but never experienced it. But here I was, unable to hold them back, unable to stop them. It had to be the best moment of my life- a feeling which I had never experienced before. And then, the DJ played “Yaaron Dosti..”

Good evening ladies and gentlemen! Respected director sir, dean sir and other professors, and my dear friends. I am standing here to talk about what defines our batch.

In the first incident, when I had broken down in my room, the entire batch had gathered in the basketball court to show solidarity. While I was shattered, they had decided to take collective responsibility for our actions, who were caught in the ragging case. Having never seen something like this before, I was truly touched at the unity and benevolence shown back then.

On 10th February, 2008; when the song was played, everyone had come together in a circle to celebrate. After all, this is what Felicity stand for- building trusts and relationships and celebrating it with the same spirit. It was not just about proving comments like, “Yours is a useless batch- You can’t do this” etc wrong, rather far from it. It was about the consonance and harmony which we were able to achieve. A mail from one of my seniors summed it up beautifully. It read, “I have never witnessed this kind of energy or spirit permeating the entire campus.” From Felicity, what else could we have asked for?

When I look back at these moments today, I see that in the depths of despair and the heights of happiness, we’ve all been together. I know that my batch was always with me; and so it must be the case with many of us.

When we muffed up during the batch trip, people did not throw stones, but accepted whatever we had with a smile and tried to work around it. When somebody wanted to stand for a post, people only encouraged him.

If there is one thing which we’d take back from Jeevan Vidya, it’ll be the point about trusting others intentions and not judging them by their actions. Good relationships, both within the students and with the faculty has been the bedrock of whatever we’ve done. If we were told that Felicity was always full of skirmishes with everyone, we tried to build bridges. So what if we don’t blog about the issues we have, we always go and sort them out.

We have faced so many issues as a batch- changes being brought about, admin issues like hostels, a recession during placements, but we’ve been together in all this.

As Aniket rightly pointed out in his blog, we were never brilliant or exceptional, but we’ve built from scratch. Be it not having touched a computer to reaching the ACM finals and becoming the system administrator; or never having seen a basketball to breaking into the college team. Improvement and excellence in our fields through collective learning is what we’ve looked for.

The great Baha’u’llah had once said that, “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the entire world”. I dare speak in behalf of my batch that this should be our legacy. I sincerely hope and pray that our juniors ensure that.

I take this opportunity to thank our juniors for having walked shoulder to shoulder as equals in all our endeavors. I’d thank the faculty for having placed their trust in us.

Two weeks from now, we’re going to be missing all this. As I stand here for the final time in my college life, I just have two clichéd words for my batch. Thank you.

Music is always in the air. Here, I am trying to get a feel of the taste of what people are listening to besides getting them to lift their bums out of their chairs and blog.

Here’s the top 10 playlist according to playcount. Playcount number in brackets. Thank you Windows Media Player!

1 ) Latika’s theme – Slumdog Millionaire (52)
2 ) Guzarish – Ghajini (43)
3 ) Aankh Micholi – Dev D (37)
4 ) High Hopes – Pink Floyd (35)
5 ) Crystal Planet – Joe Satriani (34)
6 ) Jaane Kyun – Dostana (31)
7 ) Masakali – Delhi 6 (30)
8 ) Nayan Tarse – Dev D (29)
9 ) O… Saya – Slumdog Millionaire (28)
10 ) Californication – RHCP (27)

I tag Himank, Aniket, Ankit Garg, Kunal, Daka, Tifosi, Ghost Runner, Obelix, Zenwalker, Gaganpreet, Bhargava, Sashidhar, Neuron, Deepti, Prateek, Namrata, Saini, Kulbir, Shark, Arctic Monkey, Sid Chandra, Mythalez

PS: Anyone else want’s a tag? Please ping me, I’ll add it

PROFILE:

Acads:
X (CBSE) – 91.6%
XII (CBSE) – 91.2%
Undergrad- B.Tech CSE (IIIT Hyd)
GPA – 8.43

Work-Ex: Nil

CAT %ile:
DI : 84.92
Quant : 99.88
Verbal : 99.18
Aggregate : 99.86

Others: Lots of extra curriculars- quizzes, debates, cricket, blog, writing for newspaper and college mag, blog, organising events etc.

Date and Place: 13/2/2009 (8:30 AM), Hyderabad.

GD: Find it here

The GD was a fish market for the first 10 mins and quite peaceful after that. I think I did quite well. I started the GD and gave it a direction, pitched in a lot of times and gave quite a few original points. I was satisfied with my performance.

I was the first one to be interviewed. Lets call the professors P1 and P2.
Ask for permission to enter the room and sit. Wish them.

P1: So Karan, How’r you doing?
Me: Fine sir, Thank you.
P1: So you’r doing your B.Tech?
Me: Yes sir.
P1: You want to shift to management?
Me: Yes sir.
P1: Why?
Me: Sir, I think the possibility of leading and guiding businesses excites me. It’ll give me high levels of accountability and responsibility which I cherish. I believe that I am a natural leader and have in me to give vision and lead the fortunes of a company. In the future, I would also like to set up my own venture.
P1: What are the qualities which make a good leader? Why do you call yourself a good leader?
Me: Sir, a leader should have qualities like 1) visionary (elaborated) 2) good himself (elaborated) 3) inspirational (elaborated).
Then spoke about how I fulfill these qualities. How I was elected coordinator for my college fest, a 1.5 million INR event. Then spoke about the challenges I faced during the fest and how I handled them
P1: What is network security?
Me: Talked about the definition of network security and what are the different types of security issues: 1) impersonation (elaborated) 2) interception (elaborated) 3) viruses.
P1: How do you make sure that a network is secure?
Me: Talked about asymmetric and symmetric cryptographic algorithms. Elaborated on the differences between the two, which is used in which situation and why.
P1: But are they effective? Whatever is available in the market today?
Me: To a fair extend sir. Then I spoke about RSA, RC4, DES, SDES, AES and how they are being used today.
P1: Then what is a virus?
Me: Sir a code written to make sure that the computer program performs in an ineffective way.
P1: Can you name a famous virus?
Me: Sir, Y2K..
P1: (Cuts me) No no..
Me: Sir, the “I love you” virus. It was started in Thailand in 2000. (elaborated)
P1: Ok. Now tell me something about database management systems.
Me: Spoke about what is db and dbms. Then spoke about issues facing a database, distributed databases, database admin’s role etc.
P1: What is a relational database?
Me: Defined.
P1: Ok.

Now P2 takes over

P2: What is globalization?
Me: Spoke about the definition, the types of globalization- economic, cultural, social etc. Elaborated on each.. Gave examples like western culture affecting countries in Asia etc.
P2: What are the types of economic globalizations?
Me: Sir 1) Trade , imports and exports (elaborated) 2) FDI, when a company invests (elaborated) 3) Joint ventures between companies.. Gave the example of Vodafone Essar. 4) Acquisitions.. (elaborated) Tata-Corus acquisition.
P2: How many people in India below the poverty line.
Me: Sir, according to one dollar a day definition around 30%.
P2: What is the FDI cap in telecom in India?
Me: 74% sir.
P2: Banking?
Me: (Hmmm.. 49 ki 74?): Sir 49%.
P2: Insurance?
Me: Sir its been raised to 49% by the cabinet.
P2: Asked about some economic term.
Me: No idea, sir.

Back to P1

P1: Karan, what do you know about IIM Indore?
Me: Spoke about the vision of IIM Indore- thought leadership, world class entrepreneurs, managerial excellence, social awareness etc. Then spoke about the logo of IIM Indore, what it mean etc. Also told that it started in 1998. Spoke about integrity, excellence etc.
(All smiles)
P1: (smiling) So you’ve gone through the site?
Me: Yes sir.
P1: What did you find special about IIM Indore?
Me: Sir, the fact that it stresses and fosters thought leadership. It is in sync with the vision in life I have for myself. Spoke about how I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I also spoke about Iris, and the other fests of IIM Indore.
(All smiles again)
P1: Do you know someone in IIM Indore?
Me: Yes sir and named him. Spoke about Indore 360 the mentor system and how it has helped me.
P1: Why have you been moving from one state to another?
Me: Spoke about how family moved from Ranchi to Vizag for personal reasons, then about why I moved to Puttaparthi (spoke about Satya Sai Baba) for my 10th and 12th, then about why I dropped a year for JEE, then about my engineering in Hyderabad.
P1: Asked about something like
Me: No idea sir.
P1: Ok. What does your dad do?
Me: Sir, business.
P1: What business?
Me: Answered.

Both look at each other.
“Ok thank you, Karan. Please take your certificates”.
Me: Thank you sir. Good day sir.

Overall, the profs were pretty cool. Enjoyed my first GDPI experience.

I thank Zenwalker for tagging me

Observations:

1 ) Account created only in July
2 ) Sleep hours around 1-7
3 ) Afternoon sleep at around 3
4 ) Peak activity at 5-8 in the evening and 9-1 in the morning
5 ) Search activity down in October and November, when I was preparing for CAT
6 )Search activity at its peak in December, when I was preparing for placements
7 )Search activity low on Sundays.
8 )Search activity highest on Tuesdays, in fact much higher than other days. Thats probably when I relalise that Sunday is over

Now I tag:
Mythalez, Kunal, Ankit Garg, Aakanksha, Deepti, Pankaj, Sambhav, Daka, Aniket, Arctic Monkey, Sainani, Siddharth Chandra, Rohit.
(Anybody else wants to write? Just ping me, I’ll add the tag )

“Being an Indian cricketer is hell in many ways, because of the intense scrutiny you are subjected to by a billion people. But not being an Indian player is worse”.

In more ways than one, this is the defining statement of Aakash Chopra’s first book, “Beyond the Blues”. An assorted collection of Chopra’s diary entries, this is one interesting read for all cricket lovers. It’s quite different and surprisingly frank & on your face. Without being concerned about ruffled feathers, Chopra gives a frank assessment of the domestic cricket structure and system in India, something which most viewers would have no idea about. It is certainly not a rosy picture that’s portrayed, and that is where Chopra needs to be commended.

Weird selection policies, unimpressive umpires, callous associations.. the book talks about them all. Without naming the guys, it more than gives a hint about who is to blame (from the author’s point of view). The book does get dry at times, with too many details about domestic matches, but well, doesn’t that show our general attitude towards these tournaments? We lap up anything written about international cricket, but who cares about the domestic cricket tournaments? It is this attitude that Chopra laments, and rightly so. After all, it’s the domestic structure of a cricketing nation which gives it the players to represent her for international tournaments. The other problem with the book is that Chopra ends up rambling about too many things. He comes across too cynical a person at various phases in the book. But apart from that, the book is an eye opener in more ways than one.

All in all, a good read. Indian team or no Indian team, Aakash Chopra is a decent author.

PS: I’ve personally always felt that Chopra has been given a raw deal. I think he deserves to come into the national team, maybe at number 3.