Welcome to VIM!

Vulgarian Institute of Management... a very prestigious institute that lakhs of potential business managers apply to everyday in the hope of a better career and a better learning and keener insight into management.

The selection is through this national exam called the VAT (Vulgar Admission Test) which is taken by some 3 Lakh students across the country and finall only some 300 odd fend up into each VIM located in a few cities across the nation. 0.01% selection rate. So you can imagine the quality of the students who come in here. Bright, ambitious, cream of the crop!

Given the proven pedigree and the unmatched intellect... one can not be fault to expect nothing but the best from the select few. They should end up being great business minds who revamp society by their dynamic thoughts and fair and just acts.

But thats not how things work in VIMs across the country... the students (a mix of freshers and members with work ex) enter the college and from the very first day of orientation and are made to experience fear psychosis... there is already a fear which is present in most of the students mind thanks to the high fees and the resultant education loan that they have to pay off... hence there is a pressure of getting a good job after placements.

This fear is taken to the next level by the behaviour of the Placement Committee... which is quite weird in my humble opinion cos... every student comes to VIM to get a better job, not to learn the skills and wherewithals to get a better job but to actually get a better job even if they dont necessarily have the skills and wherewithals.

Now with this being the case, the Placement Committee (a bunch of students who are elected to pitch to companies to come to campus to recruit) should be held in high esteem if not worshipped. But they are among the most disliked people on campus... even some horrible Profs are not disliked as much as Placecom. Why is this so?...

Not about Sachin's innings

I was lucky to have got the chance to watch the first 200 in ODI and the first 400 in test cricket.

The ODI 200 happened earlier today and after a long time I watched an innings completely or atleast from the 18th over. Better writers and experts than me will be filling up paperspace and serverspace with infinitely better written articles on Sachin and his innings over the next couple of months. So I shall just keep it short and simple - It was brilliant!

Moving on... thanks to some really superstitious Sachin fans I was forced to watch even the commercials during the telecast and I was really shocked by some of the ads that were shown. I was trying to justify the thinking that must have gone into some of the ads.

1) There must have been some brilliant market research that must have thrown up this stunning insight that the purchase decision makers for cement have faith in swimsuit clad women coming out of the beach ala Ursula Andress in Dr. No. Can not see any other reason for the JK Super Cement ad unless JK Super Cement is holding up something that we do not know.

2) I tried, I really did... I promise you... I tried earnestly.... but I just can not understand why a mobile phone company wants to advertise that you will get killed when you use their mobile and cross the road... which in a nut shell is exactly what Micromaxx communicates in their ad which shows the not so unique feature of being able to connect to Facebook and then far more uniquely getting killed!

3) Why does IPL need to have such poor ads I dont understand. no wait let me rephrase that... Why does IPL need to have ads I dont understand. How many Indians watching the ODI series against South Africa will not know about the IPL and the availability of tickets? What I think they should concentrate on is to make the tickets more affordable. The cheapest tickets for a RCB match in Blore is somewhere around 900 Rs. if I am not mistaken.

I heard from some of those really superstitious Sachin fans that there are more such terrible ads being aired on TV... they even mentioned a Dr. Fixit ad with some bad pun on breaking news... hope to see it soon to then include that in the post as well.

After a while...

This is not going to be funny... I am not even going to try to be funny. There are times when life just brings you down. When everything is black and white instead of the grey tone that our life normally plays out in.

I seem to be running but not going anywhere. Feelings and beliefs in which I had bet all my of life's convictions on seem to be breaking down. I am being evil, insensitive and indifferent and in spite of knowing all of this, it just does not seem to bother me. There are questions that need to be answered and unfortunately these questions have no easy answers!

And I am not losing weight as fast as I had hoped... I was losing a bit initially but now I think I have hit some sort of road block!

This is just a random post with no rhyme and absolutely no reason... just wanted to keep the marriage with my blog afloat when my affair with Twitter is going through a bit of a lull.

AnnoPeep repellant - To repel annoying people

Fine we do have quite a few products and brands to repel mosquitoes and cockroaches. The ingenious Chinese have also developed those superb electric rackets which gives one a feel of how Adolf Hitler must have felt when he was organising massacres of Jews.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a repelllant that could be used to ensure to repel those people who annoy us. The backbiters, the perenial pessimists, the racial fanatics, the domineering dumbwits etc. Lets admit it, we all have a few friends who we are obligated to be friends with. They could be your cousins, or the sons/daughters of a close friend of one or your parents, the best friend of your best friend, the best friend of your girlfriend, the husband/wife of your wife's/husband's sister/brother... you are getting my drift right.

These are the people who you are obligated to smile to when you much rather stick a fork up their ass and ask them to scat! Life would be a whole lot easier if there was a repellant which we could spray on or apply as a lotion or something and this would automatically keep away the annopeeps (mespeak for annoying people). These repellants should ideally be odourless or have some fragrance to it. I guess it would also need to come in non-allergic variants for those people who have breathing disorders. The repellant should in no way make the individual wearing it look bad or evil.

Until such a product gets developed we have to do the best we can with body odour, bad breath and annoying speech defects.

A few good men

My take on life and how it should be lead have had a few tinkerings and paint jobs over the last couple of years. I had to read up about the External Environment and its impacts on the organisation for a paper in college and I realised that even individuals get influenced by external environment... alright, I can not take this approach anymore... I was not sure how to start the post and brought up all this external environment nonsense! Truth is - I want to write a post on the importance of individuals in my life.

Not gonna start a preachy post on parents and teachers and brothers and sisters. Just going to stick to a few people who influenced me in more ways than I could have imagined over the last two years.

The first is Mr.A - he probably had the biggest influence on me over the last 2 years and had the least interaction with me. He was the reason for me to get my first job and it was a big deal for me considering that I didnt have any other option. And after 8 months since I started my first job, I got a chance to interact and watch how Mr. A worked from close quarters and what amazed me was the goodwill he carried even whilst holding a high position. I have a long way to go to reach the positions that he held and holds now but I do wish, in due course of time, to garner the same amount of goodwill that he got from his peers and those who worked under him. No one said a bad word about Mr.A.

The second is Mr.S. Mr.S did something which I never thought could ever happen - he pitched for me. I decided to quit my first job and leave and this man, who held the top most position in the company I worked for, actually took the time to hear me out and try and get me into another role so that I would not go wasted. It was amazing considering the fact that I had worked for only 7 months in the organisation and I was a very very junior person. He was and is a super sales guy and he basically sold me to Mr. A and Mr.G. I owe Mr.S big time cos he got me a chance to work for Mr.G.

Mr. G had been my boss for 1 year and 3 months (till June 09, I esigned and entered college to try and learn some management and once I come out I hope to be a manager in the mould of Mr. G). Mr.G was not the normal boss one would get. The ones who didnt know Mr.G well would give the reason of him being an NRI for the totally different disposition. Truth is Mr.G is an Indian at heart although he was born and brought up in UK. As I type this post, Mr. G has resigned and returned to the UK.

The room I used to live in back then was somewhat on the way he returned home from work and the conversations we had whilst returning from work ranged from the Indian freedom struggle to Sikhism, from motherhood to change management, from long tail of content to voyeurism... and he used to know it all. I just sat in mute attention while he spoke.

The best part of Mr.G was that he would let us have fun in the office and he encouraged office humour, some times at his expense but those who did make fun of him did so at their own peril. You throw the kitchen sink at him and he would throw the bath tub at you.

Mr. G supported me throughout the year and he often said that there is nothing wrong in making mistakes but not doing anything in the fear of making mistakes is a bigger crime. Mr.G always backed him team and he also brought the best in us and that's why I will always miss him.

I count the chance of having worked in the same organisation as Mr. A, Mr. S and Mr.G as one of life's big mercies. Hope to imbibe what I have learnt and make use of the learnings if and when I get the chance to lead!