Life is Beautiful !

I tried to persuade her to let me go with the PLAN
She said "I will hit it harder than you think I CAN".

I asked her to give me surety that my efforts won't be futile,
She in turn responded, by giving me a sardonic smile.

I confessed to her my fear of taking risks, and told her there are certain authorities I cannot defy,
Condescendingly, she suggested, "Y don't u go ahead and try".

I confided to her that success and moments of pride gave me the real pleasure,
She said she would bestow upon me failures in equal measure.

When I timidly admitted, "I have been unable to comprehend, I am your owner or you are mine".
She smiled and asked, "Hasn't the understanding grown better with time?"

I asked her why she gave me tests I didn't want to take,
She replied, "I don't want you to get promoted with degrees that are fake ".

Then, I was sad and asked why with each new beginning I had to leave someone behind,
She asked if I have ever experienced the joy and ecstasy of the moment when we are rejoined.

I told her, "I have found you too cruel every time you've made me CRY",
She asked me whether I later realized: "WHY?"

Dreams !

Shards of broken dreams are too painful at times,
But don't stop me from dreaming 'cos atleast they are mine.

I travel to my utopian world riding on them,
And I smile ,saying to myself that I have lived through them.

I do not know what destiny has designed,
But through them I have embraced everything that could not be mine.

They might be far from truth and farther from me,
And I know that prayers don't turn them into reality,
So the pain goes down till a point and sinks after a time,

And then I smile again 'cos I know that

Shards of broken dreams are quite painful at times,
But they won't stop me from dreaming 'cos atleast dreams are mine.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

I generally don't write about movies but this one tested my patience to such a great extent that I have to put down my thoughts about it.

I watched JBJ yesterday which turned out to be a great disappointment , not only for me but for many of my friends...While I was still watching it , one of my friends sent me an sms stating " Havent seen a movie worse than JBJ in the recent times ". I agree with her to an extent but I felt the same when I watched "Salaam-e-ishq".

JBJ is like a "chitrahaar" with some scene sequences thrown here n there without any meaning.But for the good music , the movie could turn out to be excruciatingly boring for it's audience.The last song provides some "paisa-vasool", to music lovers like me.
The mushy and childish dialogues exchanged between Zinta and Abhishek bachchan , in front of TAJ-MAHAL ,in that beautiful song "Bol-na halke halke " , sucked out all the romance from it .

I wonder if movies like "Dil to Pagal hai ","Pyar to Hona hi Tha " ,"DDLJ" would ever be made again or is it that in these changing times the idea of love /romance also needs to keep changing !

The Magical Healer.

It takes me to a different world , devoid of any mental strains and pressures ,
An exalting force ; it makes me feel like an achiever.

It enthuses spirit in me and pulls me out of my greatest sorrows ,
A magical healer ; it makes me feel that I am alive.

It brings back the memories of some unions and separations in life ,
A commonality between every soul ; it is something which everyone likes.

It brings to life that part of me , which is subdued by the decisions taken by mind ,
A chimerical paradise ; it makes me feel I am a romantic lover.

It is "MUSIC".

Remains of my existence!!!

Feeling of ecstasy left me ages ago
but the marsh inside me that keeps me pulling down,REMAINS;

The zeal for future has vanished somewhere
but the wish to not let go off the present ,REMAINS;

The world around me is like a busy fare
but the loneliness and sinking feeling in my heart ,REMAINS;

The force that pushed me forward has long ceased to exist
but the dreams and the compulsion to fit in somewhere here ,REMAINS !!!

Preferences gone awry !

I have been thinking about it for quite a while now and what I am going to write is nothing new. However the reason why I am still writing this is cus I can relate to the topic and want to sum up my ideas here in this blog.

MBA has become a much coveted degree these days and in India the degree is synonymous with IIMs thanks to the hype created by media about the same and the brand created by the IIMs themselves.The talk shows dedicated to exam taking strategies and expert opinions before the D -day (for millions of aspirants) have given CAT (Common Aptitude Test)the status of something more than an exam.Such extraordinary attention to an exam causes jitters to even the best prepared.But then CAT is not about preparation . It is about the ability to think on the spot and take decisions in the most stressful situations in minimum possible time.

In the past few years the number of students taking the exam has risen drastically and along with it has changed the difficulty level of the exam which continues to get tougher year after year .Unpredictabilty is the core aspect of the exam which test setters have tried to maintain always.Increasing the toughness probably is one way of achieving that objective. I believe that these institutes are aiming at people who have certain basic qualities like managing time and making decisions that can fetch maximum benefit while keeping a cool head.
Not being able to crack the exam should in no way deter a person from doing MBA. Whereas there could be many reasons for the same which I would not like to touch the best and the most motivating could be ,"A person not fitting in the pool of people that these institues want". Their curriculum is designed keeping in mind certain pre-requisites which one could or could not have.

There is one set of people who year after year toil trying to get basic quant fundamentals correct, cramming word-meanings , improving english comprehension, interpreting statistics and working both at improving speed and ability to handle complexity.For some it becomes an obsession .
There is another set who compromise on the standard set by themselves and look for other options.
And there are some who are diverted to taking GMAT.
Most of the junta in India has a lot of misconceptions about GMAT .Whenever I used to talk about it with my friends , the first thing which I used to be told was "It is very expensive.Period".
I feel the cost of taking this exam along with applying to few chosen universities comes equivalent to taking a dozen entrance exams in India and then applying to umpteen number of schools(which is what majority of the people do).
During the past few months I have seen a lot of people in the age group 23-25 opting for the above mentioned third option.Issues like reservation of seats in colleges in India clubbed with the increasing difficulty level of the exam and urgency to go for higher studies look like a convincing reason for this which many a times are sugar coated and brought forth in the name of "Better international exposure, better curriculum, world class infrastructure etc etc". These factors are undoubted USPs of an international MBA but then I would not believe if someone in the age-group 22-25 would tell me that he/she not even once try taking CAT.I am not saying this because I believe that Indian schools are the best but I am trying to bring forth the common thought process and actions of aspirants. The education that one gets here is up to the mark if not best according to international standards(this I can say because IIM-A has only been recently added to top 100 b-schools list) and is very inexpensive.

GMAT unlike CAT tests proficiency in Critical Reasoning , Sentence Correction,Essay writing and like CAT it too has Reading comprehension and Quant.
I would not go into more details of these exams but obtaining a good GMAT score I would say is an achievable target with a not so unpredictable result after one has put in decent amount of hardwork.
Incase of GMAT , selecting foreign universities which would suit one's budget and aspirations is not an easy task.It involves a lot of networking and exploring unknown horizons.Personally for me going to a foreign land for studying with a loan burden on head would not be an easy thing to do and would definitely pull me out of my comfort zone.
Many people after securing admission to good and reputed universities abroad , tend to compare the placement scenarios outside to that prevalent in India , without the knowledge that market forces and economy have a lot to contribute in this. Abroad , even colleges like Harvard donot claim, 100% placement after 3 months of graduation.However , because economy in India has been so buoyant for the past few years , such statistics could come as a shock to knaive MBA aspirants.

Placements and salaries offered are not just an outcome of the school's reputation and a student's profile but they have a lot to do with the size of the market in which the job is being searched or looked for and availabilty of talent .
And hence , comparisions between two things which are not similar can turn out to be a bit misleading and demotivating if a person is not really clear about what he wants from his/her higher education.

PS : For anyone who has gone through the above article , the following blog would be an eye opener http://mediocrenarrogant.blogspot.com/.

Is our world flat?

My mind is in a chaos. There are some things which I fail to comprehend and others which I understand partially.
I have been reading "The World is Flat " by Thomas L. Friedman for the past few weeks. It is a highly informative book which fully describes the forces which have shaped the world in the past 10-15 years.
The author has not left any such thing untouched , which in one way or the other affects our lives nowadays.
From , Fall of Berlin Wall to Rise of Asian Tigers;From terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam to global warming and imminent shortage of energy, there is nothing which the author has not described.The book is a source of immense information for all those who want some serious reading. Though it becomes a bit dry and slow in the middle but you will love it by the time you reach its end.
The examples which the author has quoted to substantiate his findings are realistic and interesting for anyone who keeps in touch with the latest happenings around the world.Not only it whets one's appetite to know more about some aspects of globalisation but also inspires one to think about a lot of things.
For me the most interesting parts of the book have been those which talk about the industry I am working in(offshore-onshore model,included) and growth in Asia.
Three to four days back when I had read over two-thirds of the pages,this incident about Nandigram voilence took place.
Suddenly, I felt that whatever I was reading in "The World is Flat " is a farce.
I questioned myself , whether all these big talks about technology and flattening really carry any meaning for people who were killed and injured in nandigram and for farmers who find committing suicide a better option than paying back their debts.
I feel that the disparity is too wide and too painful. The development doesnot encompass every section of our society and as we always hear-The rich keep growing richer and the poor,become poorer.I know it is something we hear often,but it sounds cliched because it is so true.
Every time I sit in a rickshaw something in my mind gets triggered and I start calculating the income of the rickshaw puller and get perturbed by the kind of physical effort they put in and the amount they earn.
Two days back I was amused with a piece of news that I read in TOI. It talked about some kind of a ***** star kennel in Gurgaon, where rich dogs...OOps, I mean dogs kept by rich people are driven in Luxury cars to spend quality time in open spaces.There are some which don't have salad if it is not cut in a particular form and there are others which need a full sized bed to lie upon with people around.Amazing !!!
I also love pets and don't like atrocities on animals. But the point I want to make is about DISPARITY and availabilty of MEANS.

It looks and sounds painful...Is'nt ?

Ps: Thomas .L.Friedman does talk about these issues as well.It is just that when these thoughts arose in my mind I had not read the following pages which talked about obstacles to flattening.

???

Ever wished something for someone u love too dearly???
Ever prayed so hard that tears dropped from your eyes???

Ever found something very materialistic and still struggled hard to get it???
Ever cried on having missed it one other time???

Ever felt disillusioned towards what you wanted from life
Or Ever wondered and questioned what life wanted from you???

Ever stood at a crossroad deciding which path to take,
and then felt lost before taking a path???

Ever wondered why years passed by and you could not
celebrate life???

Ever asked when would that moment arrive when u wud sit and njoy !!!

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.


It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Intangible Services

Many of my friends and colleagues tell me that , they grew up with the ambition of becoming a software engineer and there are many others who have landed up in this job without the slightest inclination towards it.

While I don't belong to the former group, I don't fit in the latter as well.
I was brought up with the idea that I din't have to be an engineer or doctor.
I remember when I was in 11th standard , how I wanted to hide from my dad the news that the dates of screening test for IITs were out and many of my classmates had already bought the forms.And once , at the breakfast table I blurted out the same unintentionally :( I was then scolded by dad for being negligent.
Subsequentally , dad bought the application form and got it filled by me , inspite of my utmost resistance(y shd I take this test when I don't want to be an engineer?--were the words I kept uttering all the time).
I also remember many of my classmates , opting for coaching classes (Brilliant tutorials)which could prepare them for many of the entrance exams.
I was considered one of the brightest students in the class but something in me stopped me from taking extra trouble for something,which I at that time felt , I dint want to do .
This was about 7-8 yrs back .Ultimately I did go for engineering and today I am working in a software company like millions of other people.

My dad is a doctor and has never used a computer in his life.Not that doctors are prohibited from using computers but it's just a matter of his personal choice and intiative. I had a tough time when we bought a computer for me and my sister's use in home 3 yrs back.I found it hard to satiate his inquisitiveness and explain him why 512MB of RAM is better than 256 MB and what is windows NT , what purpose does it serve and if it is there y cant he see it like monitor and keyboard;that too when it is so costly.

Some of my close relatives and my grandparents are just happy seeing me doing well for myself.But they also find hard to comprehend the kind of work I do and I am usually asked the question-what is it that you produce using a computer that you are paid so well?What actually is a software?
And I have been giving the same answer for ages .The simplest example I can think of is , automation of railway tickets reservation system in India :)
Even though I know , what millions of us do is much beyond that.

Automata Theory

Excerpt from the book " The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari "

"I thought that, ultimately, life is all about
choices. One's destiny unfolds according to the choices one makes,
and I felt certain that the choice I had made was the right one. I
knew my life would never be the same and that something marvellous,
maybe even miraculous, was about to happen to me. It was an
amazing awakening."


People who have done engineering in the field of computers(dabbas) might have studied "Automata Theory" in one or the other semester during their course.

I find a stark resemblance between the subject and my life.It is generally believed that everything in our life is pre-decided by almighty and comes written in our destiny.

However , no one can offer any proof for this except for people who have worked really hard to achieve something in life, have left no stone unturned and have the right mix of qualties needed to achieve a goal.Infact, even they cannot prove that it is destined .Finding no other reason for failures and blaming everything on destiny gives some respite to the battered souls.
As they say "waqt se pehle aur kismat se zyaada kisiko kuch nahi milta".Well,this famous line has always brought a smile on my face during bad times cos it makes me feel that there is someone else responsible for my state of affairs and not me ;-)

Coming back to automata theory; I remember studying finite state machines(FSM) where in input at one state used to decide what the next state would be for the machine.
At any particular state there could be more than one states which the machine could switch to depending on the inputs provided.

I feel the same could be the thing with the lives of us humans as well. There are many times when one has to choose one option from a given set of choices(all equally lucrative/important).Well,digressing a bit I will like to state that in one of my last blogs I had stated that God would never put one in a dilemma which is difficult to escape.My opinion on this has changed a bit as he seems to be putting me to tougher and more interesting tests day after day.First he put me in dilemma and helped me escape from it.Now, he puts me in dilemmas and asks me to decide myself. :)

Coming back to where I was,I think choosing one thing or taking a decision determines one's next state/stage in life and hence these states shape's one life.And God also has flexible plans(Agar state A par gaye to aage ye hoga aur agar state B par gaye to kuch aur)
But then I wonder y did he not make it simple.Y more than one states at a time???

May be this is what brings regrets(wo kiya hota to aaj yahan na hoti...) or satisfaction(thank god I dint opt for that!!!)

Well, no one knows how it all goes but still it is a good hypothesis.what say???