Am just amazed to see the latest trend of IIM and IIT graduates to turn to writing. Its become a whole new category in itself. Someone I know (a former colleague) just published his book. I read an excerpt on his website - and it was PATHETIC!
With all due respect to the person and his writing 'skills', I am amazed to see publishers print that kind of stuff. The grammar was terrible and the plot was as interesting as a wet carrot. I guess the Press with its inordinate amount of coverage to these institutions, has got people really curious on what actually happens inside. So curious that they pick up just about anything as long as there's an IIT or an IIM printed on the cover. Of course, Chetan Bhagat has opened up a whole new category of english readers, through his 'masala' style of writing. These low cost (Rs. 95 per book) and not-so-sophisticated english readers do not expect top class writing and are happy with, to put it crudely, a 'book' version of Bollywood films. Moment you add IIT/IIM to the title, you've got a winner.
Chetan Bhagat's writing style will probably not win him a Booker but atleast the books are interesting. The newer writers I feel are just trying to ride the wave through the brand names of their alma mater.
Another person I know has turned a writer. Full credit for following their dreams, but rheir writing style SCREAMS WANNABE. Am sure they will improve with time but I only hope that the person concerned is not trying to free ride the writing wave just because they got the privilege to study at one of the top institutions in India.
Personally, I agree I don't write too well either, but I think I have read enough to spot crass/wannabe writing. And nothing irritates me more than the garb of being a writer when you're actually just free riding on your institute's name.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Godse - Why he killed Gandhi
This is a link doing the rounds on Facebook. It is the speech Nathuram Godse gave in court after assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
Somehow, I have never completely agreed with MG's policies and whatever Godse says, if true, validates that. Anyhow, decide for yourself what you believe in. This speech definitely gives me food for thought.
-------------------------------------------------
JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was assassinated by a man called Naturam Godse.
After he shot him, instead of running away, he stood his ground and surrounded. He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman"
One of the best speeches of All time, which is compared to Socrates's speech in his trial. The Judge was astonished by his speech and commented that if India had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would have been adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by the Jury, cause after the speech, the whole audience was in tears.
This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court in his last trial for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi
Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.
I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.
The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.
I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.
-NATHURAM GODSE
Somehow, I have never completely agreed with MG's policies and whatever Godse says, if true, validates that. Anyhow, decide for yourself what you believe in. This speech definitely gives me food for thought.
-------------------------------------------------
JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was assassinated by a man called Naturam Godse.
After he shot him, instead of running away, he stood his ground and surrounded. He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman"
One of the best speeches of All time, which is compared to Socrates's speech in his trial. The Judge was astonished by his speech and commented that if India had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would have been adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by the Jury, cause after the speech, the whole audience was in tears.
This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court in his last trial for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi
Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.
I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.
The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.
I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.
-NATHURAM GODSE
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Perfect evening
Me in a blanket, working on my laptop with classical music in the background in a dark room.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Mumbai
Suvendu Roy, of Titan Industries shares his inspirational encounter with a rickshaw driver in Mumbai:
Last Sunday, my wife, kid, and I had to travel to Andheri from Bandra.
When I waved at a passing auto rickshaw, little did I expect that this ride would be any different...
As we set off, my eyes fell on a few magazines (kept in an aircraft style pouch) behind the driver's back rest.
I looked in front and there was a small TV. The driver had put on the Doordarshan channel.
My wife and I looked at each other with disbelief and amusement. In front of me was a small first-aid box with cotton, dettol and some medicines.
This was enough for me to realise that I was in a special vehicle.
Then I looked round again, and discovered more - there was a radio, fire extinguisher, wall clock, calendar, and pictures and symbols of all faiths
- from Islam and Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.
There were also pictures of the heroes of 26/11- Kamte, Salaskar, Karkare and Unnikrishnan.
I realised that not only my vehicle, but also my driver was special.
I started chatting with him and the initial sense of ridicule and disbelief gradually diminished.
I gathered that he had been driving an auto rickshaw for the past 8-9 years; he had lost his job when hisemployer's plastic company was shut down.
He had two school-going children, and he drove from 8 in the morning till 10 at night.
No break unless he was unwell. "Sahab, ghar mein baith ke T.V dekh kar kya faida? Do paisa income karega toh future mein kaam aayega."
We realised that we had come across a man who represents Mumbai - the spirit of work, the spirit of travel and the spirit of excelling in life.
I asked him whether he does anything else as I figured that he did not have too much spare time.
He said that he goes to an old age home for women in Andheri once a week or whenever he has some extra income, where he donates tooth brushes, toothpastes, soap, hair oil, and other items of daily use.
He pointed out to a painted message below the meter that read: "25 per cent discount on metered fare for the handicapped.
Free rides for blind passengers up to Rs. 50.
My wife and I were struck with awe. The man was a HERO!
A hero who deserves all our respect!!!
Our journey came to an end;
45 minutes of a lesson in humility, selflessness, and of a hero-worshipping Mumbai, my temporary home.
We disembarked, and all I could do was to pay him a tipthat would hardly cover a free ride for a blind man.
I hope, one day, you too have a chance to meet Mr Sandeep Bachhe in his auto rickshaw: MH-02-Z-8508.
The above was a mail forward.
Last Sunday, my wife, kid, and I had to travel to Andheri from Bandra.
When I waved at a passing auto rickshaw, little did I expect that this ride would be any different...
As we set off, my eyes fell on a few magazines (kept in an aircraft style pouch) behind the driver's back rest.
I looked in front and there was a small TV. The driver had put on the Doordarshan channel.
My wife and I looked at each other with disbelief and amusement. In front of me was a small first-aid box with cotton, dettol and some medicines.
This was enough for me to realise that I was in a special vehicle.
Then I looked round again, and discovered more - there was a radio, fire extinguisher, wall clock, calendar, and pictures and symbols of all faiths
- from Islam and Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.
There were also pictures of the heroes of 26/11- Kamte, Salaskar, Karkare and Unnikrishnan.
I realised that not only my vehicle, but also my driver was special.
I started chatting with him and the initial sense of ridicule and disbelief gradually diminished.
I gathered that he had been driving an auto rickshaw for the past 8-9 years; he had lost his job when hisemployer's plastic company was shut down.
He had two school-going children, and he drove from 8 in the morning till 10 at night.
No break unless he was unwell. "Sahab, ghar mein baith ke T.V dekh kar kya faida? Do paisa income karega toh future mein kaam aayega."
We realised that we had come across a man who represents Mumbai - the spirit of work, the spirit of travel and the spirit of excelling in life.
I asked him whether he does anything else as I figured that he did not have too much spare time.
He said that he goes to an old age home for women in Andheri once a week or whenever he has some extra income, where he donates tooth brushes, toothpastes, soap, hair oil, and other items of daily use.
He pointed out to a painted message below the meter that read: "25 per cent discount on metered fare for the handicapped.
Free rides for blind passengers up to Rs. 50.
My wife and I were struck with awe. The man was a HERO!
A hero who deserves all our respect!!!
Our journey came to an end;
45 minutes of a lesson in humility, selflessness, and of a hero-worshipping Mumbai, my temporary home.
We disembarked, and all I could do was to pay him a tipthat would hardly cover a free ride for a blind man.
I hope, one day, you too have a chance to meet Mr Sandeep Bachhe in his auto rickshaw: MH-02-Z-8508.
The above was a mail forward.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
LKP, Rambhai, Mess...
...D-20, 6064, Underpass, RJM, Harvard Steps....
Some words, once a prominent part of my vocabulary. And now just memories.
Damn, I miss you IIMA!
Some words, once a prominent part of my vocabulary. And now just memories.
Damn, I miss you IIMA!
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Friday, December 05, 2008
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
26/11
This day made me realise what India is made of. It took a terrorist tragedy of such gigantic proportions to finally make me understand the hypocrisy and double standards that we live amidst today. I probably sound like a cynic but here's the thing - all these protests, 'candlelight vigils' (God only knows what they're supposed to achieve), statements made by wannabe celebrities on TV news channels; is any of this going to cause even the slightest bit of change in Indian polity? For that matter Indian society?
In a summary, this is what I want to say - Don't pretend to care if you don't. Don't pretend to be concerned when all you can do is talk about it.
What gets on my nerves is not the attitudes and double standards of the politicians, but the attitude of the people, the citizens. What will you get out of drawing room discussions? Why all this wastage of time and effort criticising politicians and their policies. This person has Z plus security while citizens are dying | That person was calling the slain ATS chief a traitor yesterday, now he's calling him a martyr - Agreed, it is all wrong. So what are you doing anything about it besides talking? Have you filed a PIL against anything or anyone you felt is wrong? Ever thought of initiating a real movement with real issues? For that matter, will you even remember all this 6 months from now? How long will you keep talking and forgetting about things? If you yourself are not serious enough in wanting something, why should you get it?
If you want something you 'Indian', then you better learn to fight for it. It requires some real work, real sweat and real sacrifices. And if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don't pretend to be concerned about what is happening around you. Because you know what? 6 months from now you'll have forgotten all this. Like you did when you forgot the martyrs of Kargil War, the money the Defence Minister made off the coffins of the martyrs, the Anti Sikh riots of 1984, the innumerable scams that have littered our socio-political history. You are an Indian, you want crap and you get it. Its time you admitted it.
I might be termed a cynic or even unpatriotic. All I am is someone intelligent enough to see and understand things, who has seen this charade a thousand times before and is too disillusioned now to do or say anything, with India and it's people. Not the politicians, but the people. This country is going down and in my little capacity, I will not do anything to about it. But unlike most others, I will not pretend to care too.
All my sympathies with the victims of the attack, my sincere compliments to the NSG and other security agencies, who I admire the most. It's our bad luck that we're born here, in India, because of which you'll never get the rewards you deserve and unlike you, no one will ever fight for you. I have lost hope in this country, which I will probably leave as soon as I can, but at times like these, it's people like you who tell me that maybe it's not as bad as it seems.
For now, I know as a nation we've reached our lowest point. News channels exploiting the tragedy, politicians exploiting the tragedy and the citizens once again befooling themselves. This country has made me lose faith in it. Today, I hate to be an Indian.
You call it resilient spirit? I think it's more to do with not having the balls to do anything. Admit your impotency Indians. Admit the fact that we have been and will keep on taking shit from everyone - the politicians, the press, the bureaucrats, everything. We shall still pretend to give it fancy names and phrases e.g. bounce back, resilience, ability to adjust, adaptability.
We are Indians and we are pathetic. Period.
Postscript - Funniest part is people actually had the time to create and join Orkut and Facebook communities on the Mumbai tragedy!
In a summary, this is what I want to say - Don't pretend to care if you don't. Don't pretend to be concerned when all you can do is talk about it.
What gets on my nerves is not the attitudes and double standards of the politicians, but the attitude of the people, the citizens. What will you get out of drawing room discussions? Why all this wastage of time and effort criticising politicians and their policies. This person has Z plus security while citizens are dying | That person was calling the slain ATS chief a traitor yesterday, now he's calling him a martyr - Agreed, it is all wrong. So what are you doing anything about it besides talking? Have you filed a PIL against anything or anyone you felt is wrong? Ever thought of initiating a real movement with real issues? For that matter, will you even remember all this 6 months from now? How long will you keep talking and forgetting about things? If you yourself are not serious enough in wanting something, why should you get it?
If you want something you 'Indian', then you better learn to fight for it. It requires some real work, real sweat and real sacrifices. And if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don't pretend to be concerned about what is happening around you. Because you know what? 6 months from now you'll have forgotten all this. Like you did when you forgot the martyrs of Kargil War, the money the Defence Minister made off the coffins of the martyrs, the Anti Sikh riots of 1984, the innumerable scams that have littered our socio-political history. You are an Indian, you want crap and you get it. Its time you admitted it.
I might be termed a cynic or even unpatriotic. All I am is someone intelligent enough to see and understand things, who has seen this charade a thousand times before and is too disillusioned now to do or say anything, with India and it's people. Not the politicians, but the people. This country is going down and in my little capacity, I will not do anything to about it. But unlike most others, I will not pretend to care too.
All my sympathies with the victims of the attack, my sincere compliments to the NSG and other security agencies, who I admire the most. It's our bad luck that we're born here, in India, because of which you'll never get the rewards you deserve and unlike you, no one will ever fight for you. I have lost hope in this country, which I will probably leave as soon as I can, but at times like these, it's people like you who tell me that maybe it's not as bad as it seems.
For now, I know as a nation we've reached our lowest point. News channels exploiting the tragedy, politicians exploiting the tragedy and the citizens once again befooling themselves. This country has made me lose faith in it. Today, I hate to be an Indian.
You call it resilient spirit? I think it's more to do with not having the balls to do anything. Admit your impotency Indians. Admit the fact that we have been and will keep on taking shit from everyone - the politicians, the press, the bureaucrats, everything. We shall still pretend to give it fancy names and phrases e.g. bounce back, resilience, ability to adjust, adaptability.
We are Indians and we are pathetic. Period.
Postscript - Funniest part is people actually had the time to create and join Orkut and Facebook communities on the Mumbai tragedy!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
This is going to be a long and tough ride!
R.I.P. - Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch
I was thinking about how a prominent executive from J.P. Morgan described to us the situation on Wall Street last year during the sub-prime crisis, during out summers ppt - "There was blood on the streets...!", he said.
Compared to what's happening now, that must now seem like an ice-cream truck passing through Wall Street.
I was thinking about how a prominent executive from J.P. Morgan described to us the situation on Wall Street last year during the sub-prime crisis, during out summers ppt - "There was blood on the streets...!", he said.
Compared to what's happening now, that must now seem like an ice-cream truck passing through Wall Street.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I Love WIMWI
Sitting in mah room, sipping tea,
I wonder about the place called WIMWI,
About its little quirks and strange ways,
The laughs, the cries and the fun filled days.
I will miss these red bricks,
Paining poor facchas with our silly tricks,
Oh, those euphoric tempo shouts,
And the all-night CS bouts.
Damn, exchange program is about to start,
Why do I feel a tug in my heart?
Germany, Paris, Sweden, Rome,
All that is crap, this IS home!
These lines were written by Gagandeep Singh, a batchmate at IIMA, about to go on exchange to Europe for 3 months.
Even though I am not going on exchange anywhere and will stay put on campus for the next 3 months, my feelings are much the same.
I have been home for the past 2 days and most unexpectedly, I miss my campus and I miss my life there. I am going to go back there on the 31st, but I have begun to dread March 2009, when home becomes just another place where I studied once.
Here's to the best damn institute ever - I truly love WIMWI!!
I wonder about the place called WIMWI,
About its little quirks and strange ways,
The laughs, the cries and the fun filled days.
I will miss these red bricks,
Paining poor facchas with our silly tricks,
Oh, those euphoric tempo shouts,
And the all-night CS bouts.
Damn, exchange program is about to start,
Why do I feel a tug in my heart?
Germany, Paris, Sweden, Rome,
All that is crap, this IS home!
These lines were written by Gagandeep Singh, a batchmate at IIMA, about to go on exchange to Europe for 3 months.
Even though I am not going on exchange anywhere and will stay put on campus for the next 3 months, my feelings are much the same.
I have been home for the past 2 days and most unexpectedly, I miss my campus and I miss my life there. I am going to go back there on the 31st, but I have begun to dread March 2009, when home becomes just another place where I studied once.
Here's to the best damn institute ever - I truly love WIMWI!!
Monday, August 18, 2008
A weird little story
"So what is it that you most want?", he asked the young man.
The young man took 2 milliseconds, the time it takes for you to process what the other person has asked you.
He closed his eyes, he knew he didn't need to say anything else. The Giver would understand what he wanted.
Death, the sweet end he had waiting for, would now come to him. At last, he got what he had been waiting for.
And as the final moments of his existence neared, he opened his eyes. "Ha ha ha!", his laughter rang sonorously on The Giver's ears.
"You still didn't give me, you still didn't know me!", he jeered at him ruthlessly. "The Giver, Oh! The Giver!", he sang in derision.
And then he closed his eyes. Forever.
The young man took 2 milliseconds, the time it takes for you to process what the other person has asked you.
He closed his eyes, he knew he didn't need to say anything else. The Giver would understand what he wanted.
Death, the sweet end he had waiting for, would now come to him. At last, he got what he had been waiting for.
And as the final moments of his existence neared, he opened his eyes. "Ha ha ha!", his laughter rang sonorously on The Giver's ears.
"You still didn't give me, you still didn't know me!", he jeered at him ruthlessly. "The Giver, Oh! The Giver!", he sang in derision.
And then he closed his eyes. Forever.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
IIMA - The First Placement
Here's a very interesting article on IIMA's first placement season.
From the Archives
THE FIRST PLACEMENT
Prof. S. K. Bhattacharya
One of the major concerns of the Institute in early 1966 was the question of placement of the first group of IIMA graduates. However, at that time there was no placement office and nobody in the Institute had any inkling about the manner and process of finding placement for business school graduates. It was clear that the kind of placement that our graduates obtained would affect the future activities of the Institute in two different ways. If the companies recruiting our graduates were not of the kind which represented the upper crust of the corporate world and if the compensation packages offered were not attractive enough, the Institute would not be able to attract the right quality of applicants for its post-graduate programme. Also a ripple effect of an unsuccessful track record in placement would be that leading companies would not look to the Institute for recruiting its future entry level managers. While we were generally aware of the process of placement and campus recruitment in the US business schools, since no corresponding experiences were available in the Indian context, we were not sure what would be the appropriate steps to follow in our placement effort.
Campus recruitment by leading companies was very much the desired thing, but the manner of organising this activity was not very clear. This concern and anxiety was explicitly brought out in the faculty meeting. After a somewhat desultory discussion, I found one of my colleagues proposing that I must take up the responsibility of placement and organising this activity. Before I could protest and convey my view that at no point of time was it made clear that I would have to take up such administrative responsibilities when I joined the Institute, my colleagues strongly favoured the proposal. It was unanimously decided that I should take on the responsibility for placement. The faculty meeting resolved that all possible help should be provided to me in carrying out this responsibility. When I enquired from some of my colleagues after the meeting "Why me?" I was provided the most simplistic answer that since I had come from the business world (before I joined the government), I would naturally be the best equipped person to undertake this task since I would have many "contacts" in the business world. To add substance to their argument, many of my colleagues mentioned that since I had served in the Department of Company Affairs and as Registrar of Companies, I would no doubt be able to derive considerable support for placement given my past association with many senior industry people. It was, therefore, the consensus amongst the faculty that it should not prove to be such a difficult task.
The "Travelling Salesman"
I was without a clue as to how to go about this task except that I felt that four things had to be done right away: Firstly, we must send brief bio-data of the graduating group to a select group of companies who were likely to be aware of the contribution that could be made by management school graduates in their operations. Secondly, we must write individual letters to the Chief Executives of large industrial organizations in the public and private sector inviting them to come over to Ahmedabad for campus recruitment, with the further request that they might like to let us know in advance the kind of management level positions they had in mind so that these job descriptions could be circulated to the students in advance.
Thirdly, senior members of the faculty and members of the Board of Governors should write to their counterparts in the world of industry and government requesting them to support our placement activity.
Fourthly and lastly, we should identify the likely kind of personnel some of the companies would like to employ as managers in terms of their prior professional background in addition to their management education. For example, we felt that people with engineering qualifications or chartered accountancy degree would be of interest to engineering (and manufacturing
companies) and banks and financial institutions respectively. On this basis, we could quickly scan the background of the graduating batch of students and selectively write to the companies, particularly heads of personnel function, to consider the appointment of a particular student in the light of his curriculum vitae.
Having decided on this strategy, there was only one anxiety. How would the corporate world react to our scheme? We put together the format of a letter to be addressed which was issued under the Director's signature. Similarly, we identified the companies which could be addressed by the members of the faculty and members of the Board of Governors. I personally compiled a list of 150 prospective companies and set forth on a eight-week tour of industrial cities carrying with me detailed curriculum vitae of the graduate students. I was promptly dubbed as the "travelling salesman of the Institute's products". The first few replies I received in response to my letter saying that I would like to call on the Managing Director and Chief of Personnel were polite but tentative. The general tenor of reply was that while they would be interested in considering the Institute's graduates for appointment at the entry level in the managerial cadre, they were not sure in which field they would best contribute to the operations of the company. It was quite interesting to note that only one area which evoked considerable interest was marketing. There were several enquiries as to whether any of the students we would like to place had any previous background in marketing. Some companies enquired about the kind
of exposure our graduating students had in consumer goods and industrial products marketing.
"Ahmedabad had arrived"
One of the things that was done to help me carry out the task of organizing the placement activity was the provision of a secretary specifically for the purpose of this new activity. The person who was assigned was singularly innocent of all knowledge regarding filing, drafting or taking any action on his own. To add to all this, his capabilities in secretarial terms – just to
keep the correspondence activities on an ongoing basis – was less than heartening. When I left on the right-week tour, I was quite apprehensive as to what would happen to enquiries in my absence, since my placement secretary was in that habit of disappearing from time to time, particularly when the workload increased, on French leave. I came back from Ahmedabad to find loads of correspondence and letters unanswered and unfilled. I tried to imagine the effect this would have on the enquiring companies. When I compare that state of things with the current sophistication level of placement activities, I sometimes wonder how we actually got through the first placement programme body and soul together! To everybody's surprise, the first placement programme was a great success. The graduating students represented some of the best products
from the Universities, Institutes of Technology and the professions because of the very rigorous admission tests administered. At the time of the interview, employers could discern right away that they represented an elite group of students with fine intellect, and excellent academic and professional qualifications.
Also, because of the interfunctional exposure to the various business disciplines and the case method of instruction they were able to respond to the various issues raised at the time of placement interviews with considerable depth of understanding, articulation, and, most importantly, insight in the business planning and decision making process. Leading multinational and international companies participated in the placement programme and many of them came to Ahmedabad for placement interviews. Notwithstanding the near-chaotic state of the placement office, they were greatly impressed with what they heard and saw. Most graduating students had at least two, and several had three or more offers. Two other distinctive characteristics of the placement programme were that the salaries and compensation packages offered were extremely attractive compared even with the IIT graduates and professionals. At another level, the jobs offered were managerial in their content rather than functional (i.e. a specific position in manufacturing or accounting or purchase with no particular potential for moving up in the general management ladder).
At the end of the programme, we knew that Ahmedabad had arrived in the professional education scene. The achievement was of course built up on the part of the students' intrinsic merit, but credit has also to be given to Vikram Sarabhai, senior faculty members and several members of the Board of Governors who contributed their generous support to the placement programme. The immediate fallout of the success of the placement programme was the quality
of students we attracted in the succeeding academic programmes because of the perception that "you had to have merit to qualify for Ahmedabad in the keenly competitive admission test, but if you did so – and pursued your studies rigorously and purposively – the placement opportunities at the end of the programme were the most attractive in the country."
(Source: Institution Building, The IIMA Experience; Vol. I: The Early Years)
From the Archives
THE FIRST PLACEMENT
Prof. S. K. Bhattacharya
One of the major concerns of the Institute in early 1966 was the question of placement of the first group of IIMA graduates. However, at that time there was no placement office and nobody in the Institute had any inkling about the manner and process of finding placement for business school graduates. It was clear that the kind of placement that our graduates obtained would affect the future activities of the Institute in two different ways. If the companies recruiting our graduates were not of the kind which represented the upper crust of the corporate world and if the compensation packages offered were not attractive enough, the Institute would not be able to attract the right quality of applicants for its post-graduate programme. Also a ripple effect of an unsuccessful track record in placement would be that leading companies would not look to the Institute for recruiting its future entry level managers. While we were generally aware of the process of placement and campus recruitment in the US business schools, since no corresponding experiences were available in the Indian context, we were not sure what would be the appropriate steps to follow in our placement effort.
Campus recruitment by leading companies was very much the desired thing, but the manner of organising this activity was not very clear. This concern and anxiety was explicitly brought out in the faculty meeting. After a somewhat desultory discussion, I found one of my colleagues proposing that I must take up the responsibility of placement and organising this activity. Before I could protest and convey my view that at no point of time was it made clear that I would have to take up such administrative responsibilities when I joined the Institute, my colleagues strongly favoured the proposal. It was unanimously decided that I should take on the responsibility for placement. The faculty meeting resolved that all possible help should be provided to me in carrying out this responsibility. When I enquired from some of my colleagues after the meeting "Why me?" I was provided the most simplistic answer that since I had come from the business world (before I joined the government), I would naturally be the best equipped person to undertake this task since I would have many "contacts" in the business world. To add substance to their argument, many of my colleagues mentioned that since I had served in the Department of Company Affairs and as Registrar of Companies, I would no doubt be able to derive considerable support for placement given my past association with many senior industry people. It was, therefore, the consensus amongst the faculty that it should not prove to be such a difficult task.
The "Travelling Salesman"
I was without a clue as to how to go about this task except that I felt that four things had to be done right away: Firstly, we must send brief bio-data of the graduating group to a select group of companies who were likely to be aware of the contribution that could be made by management school graduates in their operations. Secondly, we must write individual letters to the Chief Executives of large industrial organizations in the public and private sector inviting them to come over to Ahmedabad for campus recruitment, with the further request that they might like to let us know in advance the kind of management level positions they had in mind so that these job descriptions could be circulated to the students in advance.
Thirdly, senior members of the faculty and members of the Board of Governors should write to their counterparts in the world of industry and government requesting them to support our placement activity.
Fourthly and lastly, we should identify the likely kind of personnel some of the companies would like to employ as managers in terms of their prior professional background in addition to their management education. For example, we felt that people with engineering qualifications or chartered accountancy degree would be of interest to engineering (and manufacturing
companies) and banks and financial institutions respectively. On this basis, we could quickly scan the background of the graduating batch of students and selectively write to the companies, particularly heads of personnel function, to consider the appointment of a particular student in the light of his curriculum vitae.
Having decided on this strategy, there was only one anxiety. How would the corporate world react to our scheme? We put together the format of a letter to be addressed which was issued under the Director's signature. Similarly, we identified the companies which could be addressed by the members of the faculty and members of the Board of Governors. I personally compiled a list of 150 prospective companies and set forth on a eight-week tour of industrial cities carrying with me detailed curriculum vitae of the graduate students. I was promptly dubbed as the "travelling salesman of the Institute's products". The first few replies I received in response to my letter saying that I would like to call on the Managing Director and Chief of Personnel were polite but tentative. The general tenor of reply was that while they would be interested in considering the Institute's graduates for appointment at the entry level in the managerial cadre, they were not sure in which field they would best contribute to the operations of the company. It was quite interesting to note that only one area which evoked considerable interest was marketing. There were several enquiries as to whether any of the students we would like to place had any previous background in marketing. Some companies enquired about the kind
of exposure our graduating students had in consumer goods and industrial products marketing.
"Ahmedabad had arrived"
One of the things that was done to help me carry out the task of organizing the placement activity was the provision of a secretary specifically for the purpose of this new activity. The person who was assigned was singularly innocent of all knowledge regarding filing, drafting or taking any action on his own. To add to all this, his capabilities in secretarial terms – just to
keep the correspondence activities on an ongoing basis – was less than heartening. When I left on the right-week tour, I was quite apprehensive as to what would happen to enquiries in my absence, since my placement secretary was in that habit of disappearing from time to time, particularly when the workload increased, on French leave. I came back from Ahmedabad to find loads of correspondence and letters unanswered and unfilled. I tried to imagine the effect this would have on the enquiring companies. When I compare that state of things with the current sophistication level of placement activities, I sometimes wonder how we actually got through the first placement programme body and soul together! To everybody's surprise, the first placement programme was a great success. The graduating students represented some of the best products
from the Universities, Institutes of Technology and the professions because of the very rigorous admission tests administered. At the time of the interview, employers could discern right away that they represented an elite group of students with fine intellect, and excellent academic and professional qualifications.
Also, because of the interfunctional exposure to the various business disciplines and the case method of instruction they were able to respond to the various issues raised at the time of placement interviews with considerable depth of understanding, articulation, and, most importantly, insight in the business planning and decision making process. Leading multinational and international companies participated in the placement programme and many of them came to Ahmedabad for placement interviews. Notwithstanding the near-chaotic state of the placement office, they were greatly impressed with what they heard and saw. Most graduating students had at least two, and several had three or more offers. Two other distinctive characteristics of the placement programme were that the salaries and compensation packages offered were extremely attractive compared even with the IIT graduates and professionals. At another level, the jobs offered were managerial in their content rather than functional (i.e. a specific position in manufacturing or accounting or purchase with no particular potential for moving up in the general management ladder).
At the end of the programme, we knew that Ahmedabad had arrived in the professional education scene. The achievement was of course built up on the part of the students' intrinsic merit, but credit has also to be given to Vikram Sarabhai, senior faculty members and several members of the Board of Governors who contributed their generous support to the placement programme. The immediate fallout of the success of the placement programme was the quality
of students we attracted in the succeeding academic programmes because of the perception that "you had to have merit to qualify for Ahmedabad in the keenly competitive admission test, but if you did so – and pursued your studies rigorously and purposively – the placement opportunities at the end of the programme were the most attractive in the country."
(Source: Institution Building, The IIMA Experience; Vol. I: The Early Years)
Friday, May 30, 2008
Another thing in the list
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Yuvraj Singh (vice-capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Pragyan Ojha, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Praveen Kumar, S. Sreesanth
This is the squad for the upcoming ODI series India will play. I haven't followed cricket like some of my more devoted friends, hence this isn't a view on what the team composition should have been. I just wanted to say that it sure feels odd to see a team without Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly.
Even the cricket team's changed, looks like I really have grown up (or older at least).
This is the squad for the upcoming ODI series India will play. I haven't followed cricket like some of my more devoted friends, hence this isn't a view on what the team composition should have been. I just wanted to say that it sure feels odd to see a team without Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly.
Even the cricket team's changed, looks like I really have grown up (or older at least).
The Muck is Shining
'...A whirlwind road yatra by a Rahul Gandhi here, four days of campaigning by Sonia there, are no longer enough. Instead, each constituency has to be micro-managed, with an astute mix of caste calculations, local alliances, money power, rebel management and targeted campaign themes. In Karnataka, there were as many as 20 constituencies where the margin of defeat was less than 2,000 votes, sixteen of which the Congress lost. Four Congress rebels won their seats, while another ten got more than 10,000 votes. In a tightly fought election, these statistics suggest that the Congress was unable to handle the constituency level management which often makes all the difference between victory and defeat...'
These are the words of Rajdeep Sardesai on his blog here. It's an analysis on the whys and hows of the battle Congress lost in the recent Karnataka elections.
What surprises me is that nowhere in the whole article have good governance, welfare of the people, and in today’s scenario, other such archaic ideas been presented as the premise for winning an election. Instead all that has been talked about is how the calculations went wrong, how the management was better in the BJP camp, campaign themes etc. Sure these things matter as much, but to try and dissect a party’s electoral loss and another party’s win purely on the basis of what strategy they used and not once talk about how the incumbent fared while in power; how many roads were built, villages electrified and other such macro indicators, is to me a rude reminder of the reality of the muck that is Indian politics. Leave alone the macro indicators, not even a mention of whether one can hope for realization of the electoral manifestoes, or what kind of performance can one hope for from the candidates/ party in Congress’ case, is there.
Of course, the article is about Congress and its impending downfall, but surely governance, performance parameters of its leaders must also count for something when discussing a party’s future?
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Iraqi Water!
Written on the oil tank of a truck here in Bombay -
Thoda kam pee meri rani,
bada mehenga hai,
ye irag ka paani!
Translation -
Drink a little less my darling,
It's very expensive,
This water from Iraq!
Thoda kam pee meri rani,
bada mehenga hai,
ye irag ka paani!
Translation -
Drink a little less my darling,
It's very expensive,
This water from Iraq!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
Taare Zameen Par
Just saw this movie. This is not a review.
I am just happy about 3 things.
1) People would have become aware of not just Dyslexia but also the problems a child might face
2) Aamir Khan made Taare Zameen Par
3) India has an actor and now director, called Aamir Khan
I am just happy about 3 things.
1) People would have become aware of not just Dyslexia but also the problems a child might face
2) Aamir Khan made Taare Zameen Par
3) India has an actor and now director, called Aamir Khan
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wall Street and Cricket
There was a very good article by Lord Meghnad Desai about market ups and downs and capitalism in Times Of India's editorial today. It talked about how humans have a tendency to blow things which can be explained through simple explanations, totally out of proportion. An example being the death of Lady Diana. Conspiracy theories involving the royal family, MI5, MI6 have been floated. Its just hard for people to understand that a young and beautiful princess could have died in a clear case of drunk driving by her driver.
Don't know how far it's true but it does make a lot of sense. In our bid to make sure we know the truth, we over-complicate matters. In the current context, the current market recession or the impending recession (atleast in the US) is also part and parcel of a similar cycle of recession and boom of capitalist markets. Unfortunately, I haven't spent a lot of time reading up the exact reasons due to why, whatever is happening is happening, but the current events which I think can be safely traced back to last year's sub-prime crisis teach us one thing for sure.
The markets and for that matter, the world is not run by a single very strong force or a few very strong forces such as governments or rich institutions. We all ultimately perform actions and the sum of such infinite actions lead to whatever happens, outside the realm of control of a single or a finite number of strong forces. As often suspected, it is not the American government or a few American multinational banks which 'run' the world, instead it is a self-organising system bigger than a single or a group of such institutions. Biggest proof of this is the sub-prime crisis which caught Wall Street unawares and created the problems it did for the American government.
Today, we see the biggest and the best American multinational banks going to the Asian (Middle-eastern actually) funded Sovereign Funds to get them out of the hole they have dug themselves into. In simple language, middle eastern governments will now have stakes and control in some of the biggest symbols of American power and wealth. And an irony it is. The very same people who the Americans drive out of their country, after 9/11, are now the ones bailing them out of this crisis that they now face. An end to white hegemony? Too early to say, another conspiracy theory maybe, but to some extent, I am sure the poles of power have shifted. The coming few years though should be interesting in the sense that where the US economy now go to.
Maybe I should have a read up a little more on the various articles about the current crisis, to be able to answer this question. Would request some of the more knowledgeable readers in this regard to educate me.
Call it a coincidence but the recent controversy in Sydney, regarding Harbhajan Singh has led to the Indian press agog with reports of how this is the end of white hegemony and how the shift of power is taking place, to where it rightfully belongs. After almost half a century of playing 'soft' cricket, of being 'gentlemen', our players have now learnt to respond back when sledged at, our Board has now learnt to raise its voice when needed. In the current case though, that of Bhajji, arm twisting Cricket Australia into the decision the Indians wanted was wrong according to me.
The debate is not however, whether BCCI was wrong or right. In two entirely different worlds, the world economy and Cricket, we see a shift of power; the focus is on whether the dynamics of the world as a whole are actually changing. Or is it just another conspiracy theory?
Don't know how far it's true but it does make a lot of sense. In our bid to make sure we know the truth, we over-complicate matters. In the current context, the current market recession or the impending recession (atleast in the US) is also part and parcel of a similar cycle of recession and boom of capitalist markets. Unfortunately, I haven't spent a lot of time reading up the exact reasons due to why, whatever is happening is happening, but the current events which I think can be safely traced back to last year's sub-prime crisis teach us one thing for sure.
The markets and for that matter, the world is not run by a single very strong force or a few very strong forces such as governments or rich institutions. We all ultimately perform actions and the sum of such infinite actions lead to whatever happens, outside the realm of control of a single or a finite number of strong forces. As often suspected, it is not the American government or a few American multinational banks which 'run' the world, instead it is a self-organising system bigger than a single or a group of such institutions. Biggest proof of this is the sub-prime crisis which caught Wall Street unawares and created the problems it did for the American government.
Today, we see the biggest and the best American multinational banks going to the Asian (Middle-eastern actually) funded Sovereign Funds to get them out of the hole they have dug themselves into. In simple language, middle eastern governments will now have stakes and control in some of the biggest symbols of American power and wealth. And an irony it is. The very same people who the Americans drive out of their country, after 9/11, are now the ones bailing them out of this crisis that they now face. An end to white hegemony? Too early to say, another conspiracy theory maybe, but to some extent, I am sure the poles of power have shifted. The coming few years though should be interesting in the sense that where the US economy now go to.
Maybe I should have a read up a little more on the various articles about the current crisis, to be able to answer this question. Would request some of the more knowledgeable readers in this regard to educate me.
Call it a coincidence but the recent controversy in Sydney, regarding Harbhajan Singh has led to the Indian press agog with reports of how this is the end of white hegemony and how the shift of power is taking place, to where it rightfully belongs. After almost half a century of playing 'soft' cricket, of being 'gentlemen', our players have now learnt to respond back when sledged at, our Board has now learnt to raise its voice when needed. In the current case though, that of Bhajji, arm twisting Cricket Australia into the decision the Indians wanted was wrong according to me.
The debate is not however, whether BCCI was wrong or right. In two entirely different worlds, the world economy and Cricket, we see a shift of power; the focus is on whether the dynamics of the world as a whole are actually changing. Or is it just another conspiracy theory?
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Ricky Ponting Kicked in His Balls!
Bliss!!
And while India was doing that at WACA, I was getting WACked!
Whats that you ask?
Thats WAC - Written Analysis and Communication.
The perfect way too ruin a Friday evening and a sleepy Saturday.
And while India was doing that at WACA, I was getting WACked!
Whats that you ask?
Thats WAC - Written Analysis and Communication.
The perfect way too ruin a Friday evening and a sleepy Saturday.
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