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A good day…

Friday, September 30, 2005

One of those days when I was very relaxed… pretty surprising with just one week to go for the exams, I didn’t touch my books at least till the evening. Pran had come here in the morning and went out for lunch with him to the city. Felt good to see him… brings back memories of good days.

Have been feeling pretty low tonite… don’t know what I am missing.

Author: Raghini » Comments:

Bidding Times

Thursday, September 29, 2005

WOW… the campus is vibrant… haven’t seen so many people exited for a long time here… has the placement season started? Nope.. it’s the elective bidding season!... We have 4 elective terms and a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 18 electives to do… Some who are already doing the ELP or the Paev have to count them as part of their electives. We have 4000 bidding points allocated to each person which we use to bid for courses in each term. The highest number of bids according to the number of seats available get the courses allocated to them and the minimum bid amount is deducted from their kitty of 4000 for the year. The deadline for the 5th term bidding was today afternoon and we got our results in the evening. This would have been a simple process if everyone had done their bids with a non-disclosure policy… but when was life simple? Lots of strategies and game theories were discussed and groups of people were even seen for hours in the atrium, breaking their heads about the bid amounts. End result – some have got what they wanted, some have lost a lot of points, some have got a few of their choices and there are some who haven’t got any of their choices, but have a lot of bid amount left!

On my part, I am proud to say that I am one of the first (could be the first) to complete my bidding process. I logged into the system only once and clicked on the submit button on Sunday afternoon, followed the bid-non-disclosure-policy and didn’t log into the system again. If one gets all the courses he/she wanted, they lose a lot more points than the others… there is a trade-off… so no one wins completely. Hope there is lesser frenzy about this whole process from the next term.

Other than the bidding, there have been a lot of assignments in the past couple of days after the midterm on Friday. One of the assignments was a culture assessment for the course MO. I did an assessment of the Finance Club culture and interviewed a couple of people in the core committee along with the club president. I liked the interview process I went through (This was the first time I ever interviewed people) and got to know varying view points about the same issues. For once, I enjoyed doing MO :-)

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Saturday, September 24, 2005


The 'Chinese Ruler' with 'Statue of Liberty'  Posted by Picasa

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‘Statue of Liberty almost catches fire’

One of those parties which I enjoyed to my heart’s happiness! After the grueling (was it?) midterm and before the long string of deadlines n assignments that are coming up, Section-B hosted its last party of the year (The sections stay together only for the core terms and elective terms start from term-5). First and foremost, big thanks to our Class Rep… he has amazing energy and unstoppable enthusiasm! And all credits to all those who turned up and put up a good show… as usual, Section-B rocks! … played a lot of games… I did paper dancing, had fun though didn’t win… didn’t matter… the best part was when one member of the team had to be dressed to symbolize something… the only crops we had was some newspapers, cello tape and grass around… my team dressed me up as the ‘new statue of liberty’… I had a really long hat decorated with paper and grass and I was covered with newspapers…I had a Bacardi bottle in my hand and a cigarette in my mouth!... My team did a marvelous job… shall upload a snap as soon as I am able to! Hats off to all of them!

The scare in the party was when my attire almost touched fire that was lighted for decoration… Thanks to my friends who pulled me on time.

The last party as a section… soon half the year is going to get over… would it end as soon as it started? Seems so… Would definitely miss this place, these people and all the fun that we have even in between this hectic schedule. Hope April is long time away from now.

Author: Raghini » Comments:

Long live ISB spam!

Friday, September 23, 2005

MO midterm… good joke… I guess this is the term I prepared the least for an exam… and the exam paper was equally random. Even though many of us dislike this course, OB is a part of every management institute worldwide… there must be some reason which I don’t understand or appreciate… I am still in darkness as to what that is!

In the first part of the course, I had no idea as to what was happening in class… I used to be in my own world… The second part is being taken by Professor Tina Dacin (our first female professor!) from the Queen’s School of Business. She is a very lively person… I am not saying I love this course now, but at least she makes everyone stay awake and interested in a 5 to 7 pm class when all of us drained out… and that requires something! She shows videos, cracks a lot of jokes and tries to get to know the students… She even browses our general home to check out if there are any movies :-) and knows about the dunking tradition in ISB… all this within a week of being here!

When she was talking about culture, she took the example of Texas A&M (where she used to teach)… they call themselves the ‘Aggies’ and greet each other as ‘Houdie’. Their mascot is a dog called ‘Rebellion’ and when the students like a professor, they show their appreciation by letting the mascot attend the class with them!! The old Rebellions were buried near the football field so that they can see the scores during play… when they had to expand the football field and shifted it, someone used to run to the burial ground and shout the scores for the old mascots! And one of the famous quotes is ‘Highway 6 runs bothways’ … if you come in one way and don’t like it here, there is a way out the other way (Hope I got them right!)

Now for the funniest spam that has been ‘crafted‘ by the genius of ISB in the night before MO exam… enjoy!
Acknowledgements: Rohit Koshie, Aakash Shah, Deb, Pawan, Murali, Ankur, Shilpa, Pranjal Gambhir, Gaurav Bansal, Parul, Dev, Prameet, Vaibhav, Namit Joshi, Pavit, Sanjay Ghosh, Vijay Mulbagal, Shravan, Aditya Chandran, Annie, Atta, Prithvi, Girish, Manish, Ravi, Harsh, Vishal, Deepak Ramanathan, Dipanjan, Manikandan, Aparoop, Karthik Sankar, Vikram Raman, Yash
I pray the Lord, your soul to keep...
Before you say, "Therefore, that kind of part"
Our forefathers have warned us not to fart...
Rudyard Kipling's jungle book might be good
but an elephant in shorts is misunderstood....
beware of the bounded rationality
in essence it is a situational pity
the subject is maybe essential for us to be the best
but I doubt what stuff can a written exam test
Oh, we can write ‘bout Erikson, write ‘bout Knight,
Whatever we write will show our plight.
I have already lost all my capability building,
Having seen today India’s slip fielding.
May we be ‘rational’ in our ‘decision making’
and ‘purposeful’ in our ‘learning’.
Guide us through the ‘matrix’ of these
‘organizations’ away from the ‘garbage can’.
understand your boss's world
and see your dreams unfold
for now ramnarayan is the boss
kar do is paper mein mujhe pass
I see myself enter the world of self efficacy, energy and focus
And that which has nothing to do with abracadabra…hogus bogus…
Tomorrow we shall all truly see the pen mightier than the sword
And ofcourse the guys hanging out with muzaffar shall reap the reward…
The part here is to be organized and effective…
But what do u do if your leader is defective…
Therefore look here…the part is to know…
Who all sit next to you in the row…
The 7 S are nothing but the 7seas,
Or nothing but a snow forming model of Maccc in C
Hear the quiet sound of MO / OM or whatever….
The interest in the subject is like a trickle in a dried up river
Therefore, I say, this part is true
Organizations have behaviour too!
Kind of, my point of view,
But would you ever use the term ‘garbage can’ in your placement interview?
Strategy, structure and systems don’t matter’
And nor matter the other four;
To crack this bhoolbhulaiya
You must write “THEREFORE”
The informal culture is truly evolving
Don’t change the design lest you find us all dangling
Tomorrow shall tell how many Kane’s shall survive
The power of intuition is what paramount pictures had in mind
Came back from the LRC bowed and defeated
All my focus and engergy depleted
By the power vested in me, I hereby decree
The PROBLEMISTIC search of MO SATISFICINGLY completed
If we are to see the larger canvas of organization structure..
You see just a murky picture
Hinging on personal charisma and founders cultures
Most organizations of today have awaiting a pack of hungry vultures
To this “team effort” I‘d like to contribute,
Humbled as I am by this team attribute,
Group composition or task design, I wonder,
One or the other is bound to be a blunder!
To this inquiry I want to respond
The group composition is like an unknown bond
The task design, essentially a means to shirk MO reading
Does this simple concept need more spoon feeding?
Therefore we must understand this mess
About matrices and divisions and yet another ‘S’
The one that stands for Spam this nite…
Its past midnight…and the end’s nowhere in sight!
But my dear, you miss the essence,
I suggest you look for congruence,
For your strategy and your culture must meet,
Else a history of failure shall repeat!
Economics OM and now MO,
The grades only increase acidity and develop tumor
Along came the chairman of BP to solve all problems,
Worry not my friend, to get a job at BP you just need integrity, enthusiasm and humor
Oh come on do not of the vultures be afraid,
Remember, gilette spend 750 million to make Mach3 blade,
So gear up and Move On to take a crac,
Give the exam , you have spend 15 lac
Quad, LRC, atrium and café, all I have tried,
The roadblocks I am hitting are now hurting my pride,
Junta contributing to this cause, please go on and on,
‘cause my grade in this paper is all but foregone,
Please keep me entertained for some more time,
If its not too inconvenient, preferably till half past nine.
Alas, ‘tis upon thee to fathom
The murkiness of thy subject
And undertand that like The Garbage Can Model
That’s where ‘tis all belongs – The Garbage Can
All through the day I flipped the pages
And now feel that I have done this for ages
Cud not get thru the sufficing and the garbage can
Now have lost confidence that get the grade I ever can
the weather, the Rajasthani dinner brought in lethargy,
after a nap, I find myself to read a lot including Carnegie,
To pass, I neither have energy or hope,
I commit, in the final exam my grade will cope
When you say Spam ….. I must say Yesss
But Hey! Chuck MO ... and give it a miss
Nights like these ….. are decidedly bliss
In a world … where all else is amiss
Hold your guns, MO’ll be your savior out in the big bad world
Call it Carnegie Model,
If all you’ve done is have Fun
Call it Management Science,
If no one understands the numbers you’ve crunched
Call it Garbage Can
when you don’t know what’s going on….
Have no fear and blame it on MO, when all else is blurred
Admire the art of framing a railway journey or Big Mac in a 4*4 matrix…
Art of adapting electrical diagrams to interpret decisions incrementally
I had heard of building bridges across seven seas, but a ladder was new to me…
O lord give me the efficacy , focus and energy to live through the learning s of OB..
Therefore, there was once this kind of prof.
Whose expansive vocabulary made his students scoff.
The kind of part that he was always saying
Of his future intentions was betraying,
Because, tomorrow, he will have the last laugh!
Quite certainly no genius uncle can explain
Myriad, miscellaneous matrices two by two
Therefore it is our kind of part to complain
As we crash and crumble in this ballyhoo
Oh! great one, Look at these poor souls
They know not, the oasis of grade goals
What is life? Is it worth this strife?
Grant them light, end their plight!
OB or not OB,
That is the question,
For if this chain is finished,
How to last till the morning, does anyone have a suggestion?
Hark, as the great bards of ISB cry
Now to make sense, to question why:
We had months of IBM, Jollibee and Intel,
Must we pay 15 lacs, and learn this crap as well?
For to do one, may possible remotely be
But to have to do both, you must agree
Is nothing short of an attack on the sovereignty
Of India, the World, heck - the whole of humanity
There is one ring to rule them all,
The ‘O’ in MO…
One Ring to find them all,
And therefore for that part bind them in the ring of Spam…
Kat jaati hai raahtein “kitabein“ dekhkar,
Laut jaati hai “GRADE“ hamara naam dekhkar,
Koh na jaayein haam apne gum mein,
“MO”, Tu toh kandha dede mere “HOPE“ko,
Oh dear Lord…its an epidemic…what shall I prescribe?
Maybe with “shock therapy” they may all survive
With treatment ...they may all start studying their best
May I remind everyone …its an MO exam…and Not a Urine Test !!!
In both the tests the aim is to pass
As soon as you can and without a farce
And hence I as to the pervious limerick with reference
Hey doc what’s the bloody difference?
We might have lost our woodies, but the good doc’s lost more,
Sweet simple ailments, the urine tests of yore!
Oh what ails ISB, had he known before,
Would’nt have left the urine, would’ve stopped for more!
Looking at orgs and going for their blood
Never realized that Golcondo’s submerged in the AP flood!
So get out of this circle of vicious cvulture
Auto’s waiting, hop into Golcondo culture!!
Back I am from LRC
Flooded mailbox! do I see?
“MO” renders people crazy
To add more lines i'm lazy!
After a lot of introspection and giving MO quite a fight...
I have been forced to conclude that even if i give this thingie a whole night....
Still tomorrow i won;t have much to write....
So bid you all a deserving good night...!
To that one person who took me off the list,
you better be hiding or you'll say hello to my fist,
But I'm proud of all you other talented folks,
you kept this going, despite that crazy bloke.
It is sad to miss the bus…
Given that I went to sleep by dus…
For non-participants who say Arey Yaar Bas…
My Answer Chodo Bhi Yaar, Why Make a Fus…
Write I do, in the aftermath
Of a battle gory that MOwed me down, caught unprepared
Oh, I lay buried, do grant me an epitaph
With words chiseled – “Here is one who kind of played his part; to plant the flag on Mount ‘Grade B’ he dared”
When ‘that kind of part’ met ‘this kind of part’
All my ‘capabilities’ fell apart
And therefore, from that point of view
An elephant wearing shorts is nothing new
This is the original version of the poem that came out when everyone was in the best of their acts! Right now, there is another spam going on for the title of the poem and further additions!! Long live ISB spam!

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Tuesday, September 20, 2005


My Favorite Professors - Anjani Jain (Decision models & Optimization - Term 2) Posted by Picasa

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My Favorite Professors - Krishna Kumar (Macro Economics - Term 2) Posted by Picasa

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My favorite professors - Mark Finn (Financial Accounting - Term 1) Posted by Picasa

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My Favorite professors - Richard Waterman (Statistics - Term 1) Posted by Picasa

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My Favorite Professors - Robert Stine (Statistics - Term 1) Posted by Picasa

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Raining in the Student Village Posted by Picasa

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Student Village - 3 Posted by Picasa

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ISB Posted by Picasa

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ISB Library Posted by Picasa

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ISB Pool side view Posted by Picasa

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Macro Economics and Policy Instruments

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Economics professor at the IIMs, Deputy Governor of RBI, Member of the planning commission, Governor of RBI, Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Chairman of Finance Commission and Chairman of Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Council – marks the career of the Padma Vibhushan who taught us Macro Economics and Policy Instruments today. As our deputy dean said, “It can’t get closer to reality than this”. The 4 hour lecture by Dr.C.Rangarajan was practical and opened the Indian context of Macro economics to most of us. He was neither a classical economist nor a Keynesian, but explained Indian economics to most of us who are biased to one of the sides of economics. I am sure it would get ever better as the topics to be discussed in the remaining classes are more interesting.

The only problem with this lecture is that there are 160+ students registered and so the classes are being held in the Khemka auditorium… I don’t get the classroom atmosphere out there. I was taking notes rigorously to sustain the concentration. The remaining 6 lectures would be taken anytime in the next 4 terms depending on his availability.

One of Dr.C.Rangarajan’s anecdotes in class
“If your neighbor is unemployed… it is recession. But if you are unemployed, it is depression”

Author: Raghini » Comments:

Alumni of ISB

For the past couple of days, I have been mailing a few alums on some of my research interests and career advice and I should say most of them are very helpful in replying to my queries. Even if each of them is able to provide me little help, collectively I am gaining a lot from them. Their quick and valuable responses show their commitment to their school. Being a new kid in the block, ISB does need such alumni to take it to great heights and I must appreciate the efforts taken by everyone to make it happen. Personally, I think I am gaining a lot of information and I am happy that I am putting in some efforts to find the opportunities that exist in the real world!

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Onam Celebrations

The Keralites of ISB celebrated Onam in great style as they served us ‘mallu’ lunch on Thursday… they followed this up with some wonderful cultural events and a Malayalam movie (with English subtitles) on Saturday. They are small in number and the resources, especially time available in the hands was scarce and still they put up an amazing show… I especially liked the dance performed by the girls and think it was very beautiful effort by all of them… Kudos to the whole gang! and Happy Onam!

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Reflections...

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Took a break from writing, but never stopped reflecting! Lots of things happening, but don’t feel like writing… As two of my fellow ISB bloggers have already written “Hope is a good thing. May be it is best of things. And no good thing ever dies… [Shawshank Redemption]”

Did I hear that Term-4 is the easiest of all… when would it ever get better? The multitude of assignments hasn’t stopped from day-1! Had a good weekend in between but the gruel started again this week… I think my energy levels are currently rock-bottom. Where is all the enthusiasm I had in term-1?

What is happening in ISB? Lots… Partners from Bain & Co attended some of our lectures to gauge the quality of our class participation… they are still contemplating about visiting for placements. There was a debate competition, a case competition and a cricket quiz organized by the student clubs here… I really appreciate the interest taken by these core members of the club to ‘make things happen’. We also had an open forum where our deputy dean and our assistant dean discussed all the students concerns. The ex-chief election commissioner T.N. Seshan spoke about Corporate Governance & Ethics… I loved this as he is someone I always respected.

There is a course on Macroeconomics and Policy Instruments which is going to be taken by Dr. C. Rangarajan, the ex-RBI governor. The topics to be covered sound interesting and I have registered for it even though it would not be part of the required number of electives. The classes are going to be scheduled in any term depending on his availability, two of those happening this Sunday. Should be interesting to learn this topic from the man who framed the policies.

Author: Raghini » Comments:

“Short n sweet”

Friday, September 09, 2005

“Short n sweet” – is it something to do with economists that they don’t understand these words?

Today’s GSB class was very interesting and I felt I should have read the article before the class. Prof discussed the oil issues facing the world and the perspectives brought out by the class were good. This course has varied topics like these which are interesting and provoke discussion. At the end of each lecture, there is a 10 minute video that is shown about the social entrepreneurial ventures. This week we saw videos on Aravind eye Hospital and the HLL-Lifebuoy campaign for diarrhea reduction in the rural areas of India. If only the professor completes his lectures in 2 hours, it would have been more appreciated. Reduction in the much needed break leaves some frustrated and should be understood by both the professor and the students.

It has been a pretty long week and I still have 3 more classes to go tomorrow to complete this week’s schedule. I gave part of my group’s SAIT presentation today… lots of work we had put in… and the presentation went pretty good, except for a few goof-ups. This is the first time I gave a presentation in front of such a large crowd and I was nervous till the start… I was conversant with the topic I was presenting and hence I was comfortable after I started. The Q&A was well handled by my group members. Given the short time we had to do this, I think we did a pretty good job on this assignment. Henceforth, we can ask questions in all other presentations in the following classes ;-)

Two more assignments to submit tomorrow… have done my part of it. After such a hectic week, I just don’t feel like opening my books to read for tomorrow’s classes. In my first term at ISB, I did not contribute to any class participation. In the second term, we had marks for the same in Competitive Strategy and I used to feel very uncomfortable to talk in class. Come fourth term, I must say I can see a marked change in myself… I am more confident these days to state an opinion in class.

Tomorrow there is an ISB party and also a Melody night organized by the Chennaites here… Jawz is coming to see me after a long time… she was my first year roommate in BITS and we have both been in Hyderabad for the past couple of months and still haven’t met each other. Can’t forget the days when she used to put an alarm for 5.30 am (supposedly to go to the gym), never hear it and I used to wake up, switch the damn thing off to wake her up and return to my cozy sleep… after a few hours, I would still find her sleeping!

“Short n sweet” – I think I have written enough to contradict my title.

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What a week!

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

It just doesn’t feel like the term started this week… Term4 - known as the term to party – I guess the ASA sensed this in the previous batches… hence the usual 6 week term has been reduced to only 5 weeks… classes till Friday every week to complete the 20 hours per course in 4 weeks!

The courses this term are:
Investment Analysis (IA) by Prof. A Subramanyam
Management of Organisations (MO) by Ramnarayan & Tina Dacin
Strategic Analysis of Information Technology (SAIT) by Rajiv Banker
Government, Society & Business (GSB) by Mudit Kapoor & A K Shivakumar

Unlike the other terms, only IA this term is quantitative… Having three faf (essay writing ;-) ) courses this term, I am struggling to keep myself awake in class! Prof. Mudit Kapoor makes the GSB class interesting but the MO class is the worst of the lot… I have no idea of what is happening and the prof has given 2 assignments in 2 days… too boring!

This week, my group has the SAIT presentation on the ‘Value Creation and Appropriation in the PC industry”. Two to three groups have to present on the topics given in each class and my group has been chosen by the prof. to do the first presentation… though we did not ask for this topic, it is good that we would complete the major assignment in the first week itself. Disadvantage – have been having sleep less nights from the first day of the term. Haven’t worked so hard in the first week of any term – already have 4 assignments to be submitted before Friday!

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Term Break

Sunday, September 04, 2005

So soon the term breaks start & end… But I have made the best use of the two days available… watched 3 movies which included Mangal Pandey… good to watch once, played literature both the nights, played Beg Borrow Steal (sweet memories, though I lost here) and did lots of sleeping (SLEEP is KING / QUEEN).

Did a few things which I should not be doing again… Did a few things which I would love to do for a long time!

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Dreams...blue moon...harsh realities

Friday, September 02, 2005

Its weird how something I crave for suddenly happens lots of times on a single day and then disappears again :( yesterday was a good day!


Term break has been pretty dull as usual… I was myself impressed with the psychological analysis I managed to compile for the characters in Philadelphia for the LDP assignment :) Watched the movie ‘Dumb & Dumber’ yesterday… watched a tamil movie ‘ullam ketkume’ before that… Today Simran and I decided to go to the city and watched Mangal Pandey and we promised ourselves we would not do any psychological analysis of this movie ;)

When I left ISB in the morning, it was burning hot and by the time I reached Imax, it was pouring cats and dogs and has been so till now! Life outside is fast, crowded and most importantly real… when I came back to ISB in the evening, the place looked beautiful, serene and peopleless, it made me wonder “will I get used to reality in April?”. I have always done my bed as soon as I wake up (right from my school days when I was at home) and here I have the comforts of Sarovar-Housekeeping who take care of everything that I don’t bother to see how messy my room is before I leave for the day. ISB does give me all the pressures of a one-year MBA, but also protects me from some of the harsh realities outside… hope it doesn’t hit me too hard in April next year.

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