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Good Bye Malaysia

Today is my last day in Malaysia.

Tomorrow morning I along with my family am flying to Chennai. Will stay in Chennai for 3 days before proceeding to Faridabad, where I am going to be posted at L&T's new Engineering Center. We are almost done with our packing and only final touch up is balance.

Got my daughter's school leaving certificate and caution deposit. Settled electricity bill, astro bill, store clearances etc. Collected our air tickets, balance OSA and leave payment. Everything is going as per the plan but still the anxiety is hovering on both of us, though the concentration of anxiety is more on my wife side, I am not absolutely calm either. This is quite natural as we are dismantling a 2 years settled life. We should be comfortable after a fortnight or so i.e. after we are again at least partially settled in Faridabad. Till then lets savor the suffering of this transit phase of our life.

By the way, day before yesterday we made a quick trip to Putrajaya. Will post some good photographs soon on my blog.

Got AWA

I got 5/6 in AWA.
Thats quite decent score and considering that I did not put much effort on the AWA preparation, I am indeed happy. It has also boosted my morale and now I am determined to re-write the whole exam once again.

Going Back to India

After two years we are all set to go back to our home country. I am getting transferred to Faridabad by next week. But one question over which we have been brooding since last few days is whether we are happy with this homecoming. Though the prospects of staying with parents, purchasing of a house, owning a car and meeting with a lot of friends and relatives make this homecoming little attractive, its still only “Little” attractive. The moment we visualize the cramped roads, horrifying traffics, filth and dirt at every nook and corner, unsafe driving, unsafe society, increasing crime rates, dusty environment and above all the plummeting moral and ethical standards of people in general prevailing there make us (me and my wife) quite sick.

No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves about the meteorically growing economy, skyrocketing Indian salaries and congregation of the world economy in India, mere feeling of above issues are enough to discourage us from becoming happy.

The deteriorating child safety in and around Delhi is one of the major worries to us. Every now and then we read about the child abuses in the schools, societies, child abduction and even the worst feared murders. As if all these traumatic events are not enough frequent bomb blasts and rampant accidents do the balance. The life has very less value in our home country and such incidents do not shock anyone anymore there.

My wife had to do almost 100% more work at home here in Malaysia than she used to do when we were in India, chiefly on account of limited and costly availability of house maids. So, at times she used to feel happy at least on that front as she shall be able to take assistance of house maids or even the cook in India. However, the burgeoning crime in the city triggered by house maids is dampening her spirit in this aspect also.

Another point of worry, which is surfacing in our mind, is the admission of my little princess in a decent school. After listening to the stories of some of our friends and relatives about the labyrinthine processes of admission right from getting the school form to admission tests, interviews of students and their parents followed by a number of rejections, we are peeved by the unnecessary sufferings we have to undergo in imminent future. My daughter doe not know Hindi writing and that could prove to be a hindrance in her admission. However, we are hopeful primarily on account of two reasons: one is that she is quite eloquent and fluent in English as compared to her age (4) school going kids and other because we might be able to sell International school brand there.

Considering above aspects, one thing is sure that generally the life is going to be tough back home and even the chore works will not happen effortlessly.

But, we are confident that just in couple of months we will be accustomed to the environment and things will be pretty cool after initial few days of hiccups as it happens to many desis like us. After all we have experience of living our more than one third of our life out there in India and it is only the last two years we are away from India, my daughter is an exception though. So let me try to be happy thinking about all the positive facets of life likely to be unfolded before us out there in our motherland.

Reality bites again

I wrote my GMAT yesterday after having re-scheduled it 3 times. From 5th November 07 to 10th December 07 to 24th March 08 to 09th May 08. Every time I re-scheduled, I felt I would get some extra time to cross that magical 700. However, it was not to happen so, at least in my first attempt. I scored 650 (Q-48, V-31). Obviously, Verbal let me down as expected since beginning.

I started my preparation in the month of August 2007 after my decision to turn down my AIM admit. Started with enthusiasm but sooner than expected the focused enthusiasm died down on account of various reasons. Even though, I had wholesome support of my wife and my daughter, at times, it used to be a herculean task in balancing family life with my studies. The real preparation commenced from the Chinese New Year in 2nd week of February 2008, when I decided to get my GMAT thing done now.

I started preparation once again with vigor. But on account of the work and due to many of the self created distractions, I could only prepare for the exam on and off. On an average, I studied 1 hr on working days and 4 hrs on Sundays. I don’t get weekends as such and hence I had to content myself with one Sunday in a week. However, I was determined to finish the process till the end this time.

Started with Arco. Finished its 5 Tests, not recommended though because of its very easy Mathematics and substandard Verbal. Then took three numbers of Manhattan pdf Tests downloaded from e-snips. Then Kaplan Verbal, OG Verbal, OG 10 (in the office). By then it was April 10 -12. And Now I was chiefly left out with OG-11 and Kaplan 800.

Started OG-11 from the last questions. Logged the tough questions properly in the xls. Finished RC, CR, SC and 100 last DS questions. Did some 60 PS questions. Then started Kaplan 800 and did CR, SC and RC completely. However, I did not do PS from K-800.

Revised Manhattan SC.

During the last 20 days or so I started experiencing something which might have affected my preparation quite detrimentally. And I feel better while attributing my average performance in GMAT to such external disturbances as prospects of transfer to Faridabad, this disturbed me at least for 3-4 days and then my nomination in MLP assessment program for which I had to go to Mumbai for 4 days. It took my 5 productive days from 23rd April to 27th April. So by the time I was done with above two of the major hindrances, I was left out with 10 days before GMAT. Though the majority of material was already covered by me, I still had to revisit lot of stuffs and take some tests.

Last 10 days, I took GMAT Prep tests 4 times.
The mock tests that I covered during my preparation period along with the scores I got are listed below.

1. Powerprep-1 730 {V-40 (R-32 W-9), M-49(R-33, W-4)}
2. Powerprep-2 690 {V-35 (R-32 W-9), M-48(R-31, W-6)}

1. GMAT Prep-1 710 {V-36 (R-28 W-13), M-50(R-29, W-8}
2. GMAT Prep-2 690 {V-35 (R-27 W-14), M-48(R-27, W-10)}

1. GMAT Prep-1_Re 740 {V-41 (R-31 W-10, M-49(R-27, W-10)}
2. GMAT Prep-2_Re 740 {V-44 (R-35 W-6), M-47(R-24, W-13)}

Though, through out my preparation period, I never seemed doing well enough to surpass 700 or even touch 680, in the hindsight I used to feel that I can curtail my mistakes in verbal to 11-12 and touch 690 at the least. My confidence level got a big boost when I started doing pretty decent at GMAT Prep tests. By the end of my preparation I estimated my score to be in the range of 670 to 710 (Worst to Best cases respectively).

Test started unusually well with AWA- argument analysis where I could easily rip the argument apart by exposing several logical fallacies of the author. Wrote a decent 5 paragraph essay with strong conclusion at the end. Similarly analysis of issue went equally well as the topic even appeared to me an already read one. All these foreboded a good beginning of the end of my GMAT journey. Checked out after two essay writings for a low sugar RED BULL. Felt good till then.

Then came Math section. The first question on work and time was a bomb for me. I could not make out what exactly is being asked. I spent about 3 minutes on that question, however, at the end I decided to click the guess and move on. It was not a good sign indeed for my Math paper and immediately reminded me about GRE debacle a 6 years ago. Fortunately I could able to pick up the pace along with the accuracy with subsequent questions. There were no Probability questions. One combination question and other questions very much similar to those of GMAT Preps. I felt like doing reasonably well in the Math section till the end and finished the section 30 sec before the allotted time. Checked out once again for the break before the verbal section and had another with sugar RED BULL.

Verbal started with 2 SCs followed by 1 CR and then again 2 SCs. Then came one RC with 4 questions. I felt doing well and even the RCs were quite comprehendible. Then series of SCs, Crs and RCs. I got 1 bold face CR at about 14th question. Finished my Verbal 40 second before the time.

When I saw my score I could not believe that I did so bad in Verbal, however, I realised it soon that it was not my day. Unfortunately, I don’t even know where I went wrong. SC, RC, CR or all the three sections of Verbal I did equally good/ bad. Usually, I won’t fare well in RCs where I used to make unusually high number of mistakes. I know that in SCs I have improved phenomenally, though still I was not perfect, most of the questions I started doing correctly in OG-11 and mocks. In the RCs too I was doing quite well off late. For example in GMAT Prep-2 I did all 14 RC questions right.

I am planning to re-write GMAT but, I am yet to firm up what shall be my strategy to tackle it better (touch 700 or cross it) this time. Meanwhile, soon I am also going to be transferred back to India.

Look Ahead Next 25 days

Suddenly a lot of things have started happening around me. That's not a good sign especially when I am all set to write my 3 times re-scheduled GMAT. Disclosure of so many things just before a fortnight of the D- days may have severe bearing on my exam. Lets have a look at the things which are distracting ones:

- I have to go to Mumbai for 3-4 days in the last week of April (23-27 April)to attend MLP assessment. Though it is likely to be a refreshing and plesant sojourn to India, Had this been after my test, it could have multiplied my pleasure.

- Chance of getting transfer to L&T's Faridabad office in a months time. Though, nothing is finalized yet, the scintilla of this news was enough to give me and my wife one sleepless night. Transfer implies hundreds of things to be done. Just by thinking about the handful of activities which need to be done during and post transfer, we get anxious (caused by the anxiety of course).

I will write more about our feeling on the prospects of transfer to Faridabad office after getting some confirmation.

Meanwhile, I have already given notice to my daughter's school for refund of deposit money. But till my test, I am not going to think much about this issue.

However, I can not do any thing regarding my Mumbai trip and hence

Gullu gets 100/100 in Maths

Now this is great news for me.
My only daughter gets 100 out of 100 (in Mathematics paper) in the first examination of her life!!!

My father is a teacher of Mathematics and I heard from my uncles that he used to be a stupendous student of Maths. However, when it came to his own son, in spite of his tremendous effort, he never found his son getting 100 out of 100 in Maths. And that used to hurt me as well as my father. Why not 100%? We seemed not to compromise even 3-4 marks lower that a perfect 100.

Now his grand daughter in her first exam of her life did so at the age of 4.

Must say that majority of the credit goes to my wife who is more serious about her daughter’s pre-nursery exam than her husband’s imminent GMAT. May be she realizes the potential of both of us accurately and expects a better ROI from my daughter than from me. I can’t explain how tensed up she was during my daughter’s 1st term exam. It was as if the whole world will stop if Akshita (Gullu) does not do well in her first term exam. However, all her efforts seem to pay well as of now.

The irony is that Gullu not even knows exactly what an exam is? She is happy because we hugged her, kissed her and said “great beta u did fantastic”.

Back from hibernation

I have been thinking of resuming my blogging from where I left in October Last year but some how I was not able to do so. Actually I was on my pursuit to achieve something great (of course ‘great’ from my perspective) and then wanted to write down my heroic stories in my blog. However, now I realize that my thought was an immature one. Life is a journey and every part of this journey is as important as some milestones. Life is moving with its own pace, though, I certainly have its steering in my hands but there are times when I am not able to control the speed and direction due to external factors. And it is indeed not a good thing to brood over those undesirable things and miss the important journey in the process. Therefore, the wisdom is to concentrate on things around us which Matter to us and shift focus from things which Do Not Matter to us. The latter is more important than the former.

Some important points, which I would like to recount here.

Rescheduled GMAT
I had my GMAT scheduled on 5th November’07. I rescheduled it to 10th December’07 primarily on a/c of two reasons:

- I had developed severe neck pain just about a week before my scheduled exam day.
- IIML Noida extended its date from 15th November’07 to 20th December’07
- Third but most important reason : I was not confident of getting a reasonable score.

Just after I deferred my exam the pressure was off me. There came an official tour to Sinagpore and Indonesia in the first week of November-07. I will write more about that trip sometime later.

During November and December -07, Indian stock market had been witnessing an unprecedented growth. The BSE touched an astronomical 21,000 point and so did the blue chip share of L&T, which reached 4500. I have been allotted substantial number of shares and the skyrocketing L&T scrip sent me into imaginary world, where I visualized myself possessing a great wealth. However, all these happenings were ephemeral and sensex having remained at the highest level for about two months slid down significantly and so washed all my imaginary wealth and associated dreams.

Mean time, I totally lost the grip on preparation of GMAT and eventually I was forced to defer it once again. This time I rescheduled it from 10th December’07 to 24th March-08.
However, due to some logistics, I once again re-scheduled my GMAT from 24th March-08 to 9th May-08. Three times re-scheduling is indeed too much nevertheless, this time I am pretty sure to write it and close this chapter here.

New Year at Hotel Renaissance
New year eve is usually celebrated at L&T in a decent way and all the staff along with their families are invited in the event at company’s expense. Hotel Renaissance (a 5-star hotel at Melaka) was chosen on this occasion. Usual stuffs such as food, drink, dance followed the evening and then we entered in to year 2008. However, what made this event little memorable for us is that both of us (Read: myself and Janu- my wife) sang on the stage in front of some 100 odd L&Tites. I must say that our performances were decent especially considering they were an extempore one. I was shipping my drink and suddenly SKS has summoned me to come on to the stage and sing a song for the audience. Instantly it made me freeze for few moments but soon I recuperated and went up to the stage with fake confidence level which later indeed boosted my real confi level. Not sure what to sing, the first song which came to my mind was “Mana Janab ne pukara nahi” (Kishore da’s song) and I sang the same. After seeing my performance on the stage my wife too got motivated and volunteered to sing a song. She chose “tere hath men mera hath” a song from Fanaa. Though the new year began with a very confident way for we two, I committed the biggest blunder of my life by not shooting (video) when my wife was singing. The worst as it ought be, I was shot by one of my colleague. I will certainly not post that here

New Year Eve-2007

I am hiding myself

I have not been blogging since long. I am not sharing lots of things here as I am scared of narrating some fancy stories once again and meeting a fatality at the end. Yes I am trying not to publicize any more till I reach a stage where I would feel worth sharing.

But one good thing is that I have been writing my diary in MS word which I can copy paste here at later stage, if I deem it befitting that time.

The event is just 30 days from now and i have to undergo plethora of hardship in coming few days in order to keep a sense of respect live for mys self.

But i must keep writing some other stuff out here.

Almost a month ago i got my daughter admitted to International School at Melaka. She looks cool in her school dress. She has been following a tough schedule since she got admitted in MIS. Sometimes I dont feel it appropriate on our to send her to school so early. But considering that she might have to survive in the the ultra competitive Inidan environment, we keep ourselves cool and subject her to this pressure. Not fair though.

Challenges

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish.

The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste.

The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem?
How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies (still) put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state.

Like the Japanese fish - "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment."- L. Ron HubbardChallenges are what keep us FRESH!

Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game.

If your challenges are too large or too numerous, reorganize the challenge, team up, be resourceful and do not give up.

Failing makes you tired. If you have met your goals, set some bigger goals. Once you meet your personal or family needs, move onto goals for your group, the society, even mankind.Don't create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.

Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

Why MBA?

"उसकी हसरत है जिससे दिल सी मिटा भी ना सकूं..
धुनदने उसको चला हु जीस्से पा भी ना सकूं........"

Feels like Jagjeet Singh has sung this for me.

Will Complete the story tomorrow.

Feel as a Crorepati?

No, this particular post is not inspired by "KBC".
Neither this is a reflection of some of my insane and unrealistic dreams.

I seriously gave a thought recently over becoming a crorepati

I wonder, how great would it feel having about 10 million INR (1 Crore) in my account.
I am getting excited....!
What all I would like to do with that sum. Let me see what all things come across my mind with a crore in my bank.

- I would purchase a 3 bedroom flat in some posh area in either of Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Noida, Chennai, Hyderbaad, Pune, Kochin and Mysoor. Can add Bhubaneshwar and Bangalore too in my list. (Approximately 60 Lakhs)
- Buy a Honda City. (Approximately 8 Lakhs)
- By a scooty for my wife. (0.5 Lakhs)
- Give away 5 Lakhs to my wife for purchasing apparels and ornaments. (5 Lakhs)
- Invest in MF (10 Lakhs)
- Save 5 Lakhs for contingency.
- Keep 12 Lakhs aside for World tour for next 12 years. (Approximately 1 L every year, considering inflation will be taken care by the interest rate on the sum)

That’s all?
My 1 crore is finished..!!!

Difficult to believe that 1 crore is so small an amount. I still have plenty of things to do such as

- Buy a Casio synthesizer Yamaha ( 1.5 L)
- Open a Montessori school for my wife ( at least 20Lakhs)
- Start a website and have at least a small office complex (50Lakhs).
- Have a working capital of at least 25Lakhs.
- Donate some amount to my school in my village (my alma mater). IITs and NITs have lot of aids and further alumni too are contributing quite generously for these institutes. Hence, I plan to give aid only to my school.(Approximately 3 Lakhs)
- Buy a bike (0.5L)

That means 1 more crore required to fulfill my immediate desires?
Why do I always happen to fall short of the required amount?

Not Joining AIM

It’s final now. I am not joining AIM Manila for the academic year 2007-08.

I have tried my level best to get the loan (7.5L only) from Central bank of India at my native to finance my MBA but, finally I could not able to turn my attempts in to the result. I paid many visits to the Regional office at Darbhanga and numerous to my branch. Though, at one stage it appeared that I am going to get the loan and prepared myself ready for 16 months excursion to Philippines, what finally turned out is something different. I was asked to fly down to my native again from the Malaysia in order to sign on some papers. It was enough and I told my father not to approach the branch manager any more.

After all, there should be some limit. How long they want us to dance to their tunes?

As we heard from various sources that Mr. M.M. Jha – Branch Manager of Central Bank Ghogardiha, is basically a corrupt manager and he takes bribe even for sanctioning the small education loan. In such scenario, how come he would be able to digest that my loan got sanctioned from the regional office Darbhanga, without paying him even a penny. May be he thought he would have his say during the disbursal time of loan and procrastinate the things on pretext of other issues.

Upon asked by my father that he would require $$ draft, our BM said the $$ draft can not be made in that particular branch- true. But what he added further that $ draft can only be made in Mumbai central bank and he would send the entire document to Mumbai for the preparation of $$ draft and then Mumbai office will send the draft to the branch office. So it might take close to another 1 month.

However, the best thing he could do was to ask for my presence in the bank once again, just to sign on some papers. It is to be noted that he knew that I was already in Malaysia and all set to move to Philippines from Malaysia itself.

When my father asked him whether the documents could be sent across to his son by courier for getting the requisite signature, he once again procrastinated and told he would let my father know about that on 16th July 07 after he would discuss with the RM.

My tickets were booked for 19th July. However, considering the background of the entire story I had prepared myself by now that it’s not going to be this year at the least.

On 16th, he never turned up in the bank. ‘Saheb’ was on leave.
17th July he told my father that he could not meet RM. Cool…..!

That’s it. It was enough to comprehend the situation. I am writing the deferral letter to AIM today and close this chapter.

It has been 5 months since I started longing for my MBA from AIM. So obviously it’s not so easy to chuck the feeling out of my mind immediately. But I hope there must be some good reason for this happening to me now. May be it is not known to me at present, but who knows what’s in store for me in near future.

So I am removing AIM Case room and AIM building photo from my blog now.
However, I would continue writing some or other stuff in my blog.

Struggling for my Loan

First of all, let me congratulate Shekhar on becoming a proud father of a beautiful baby'!! Hope Shekhar runs thru my blog and happens to accept my best wishes for his daughter and his wife.

It reminds me of my own daughter's birth 3 years ago. I want to jot down at least some of the bullet points here so that I can recapitulate it later. It was 28th January 2004 and and my baby was expected by 3rd week of Feb. It will be pertinent to write here that those days I was CAT aspirant and I even took 2.5 months off from my work to write CAT 04, which later got cancelled. The retest was scheduled on Feb'06 which I could not manage to write.

I was seriously involved in a budget meeting at our Zonal office Kolkata when my mother in law gave me a ring about 2pm on 28th Jan 04. She told me that the doctor was going to operate my wife tomorrow and all the formalities were already done. Shocked and scared, I did not know how to respond to this situation. I had to fly to Delhi for sure, but when to speak to my boss was a real big question that time. All the presentations were made by me and no one else could elaborate it in my absence- I thought. VP , RM all were camping for the final review and my boss himself was terribly busy with his bosses.

But, my wife is going to be operated tomorrow and she took a promise from me on the very first night that where ever I am in this world , I must be present during the delivery time. These simultaneous thoughts were riping my heart apart. And it is 4 pm now , the last flight for Delhi is at 8 pm. And Netaji Subhashchandra Bose terminal is approx 30 km from the mail Kolkata and not to forget the heavy and insane traffic jam there, I had no option but to speak to my boss.

"What is this? you should have told me immediately upon receiving this message?" this was how he responded.
"Let me see if I can be of any help to you" and he started dialling few numbers.
Next 30 mints he confirmed the booked ticket for Jet airways and asked me rush to the airport. And my goodness! When I recall how I reached at airport at 7.45 pm and begged for boarding pass narratimg my story, I still get titillated.

I reached Delhi at 11 pm and straight to Hospital. One of my inlaws had made some arrangements to see my wife on the same evening. NExt day i.e on 29th January 04 at about 10.30 am my wife gave birth of a cute baby and I could see her even before my wife.

Today when I see in her - a naughty, shaitan but intelligent and cute standing and romping around me, I just smile and say thank to GOD.

Presently, I am in Darbhanga, running around various banks to get my loan sanctioned. Often, I get irriated by this "apathetic" atitude of the bank staffs, but then I muster my energy once again considering I have to do this to proove that I can fight against a lot of odds!! Let me see how far I am going to be successful in my mission loan getting!!

So I am going back to my home country after one year. I am very happy about it, but plethora of things to be done at my native place in getting my loan sanctioned makes me little sick too. Prima-facie, it appears that I have to make a lot of running around the banks for arranging 7.5 Lakhs of loan. Generally, getting a loan up to 7.5 Lakhs should not pose any problem as it does not require any collateral to be produced before the bank, however, considering my pedigree I am sure of hitting a lot of roadblocks on my way there. I should not become tired of some amount of traveling from one branch office to head office and do not get disgusted by the apathetic attitudes of the people I talk to. I have to persevere while arranging for my loan and at the end I will succeed in getting it.

Meanwhile, MM course at AIM has already taken off for this year and R valecha, one of the MM students have posted some good things about the city and the food at AIM.

IIT Madras Campus Life

iit madras ..life...

This video is in continuation with the previous one. After my 4 years stint at NIT Jamshedpur this is the place where I spent my next 1.5 years. Found this one too an interseting one and it reminded me of a lot of places like my hostel, OAT, Gajedra Circle, Mechanical departments, Humanties, Gurunath to name a few.

Nit

I found this on you tube posted by some of our Juniors. I feel it must have a place in my blog. I have spent 4 most precious years in these premisises hand have numerous indelible memoirs associated close to my heart.

Excerpt of an article on Indian B schools

I found this article at worldpress.org and thought it should have some place at my blogg. Just the excerpts of the article pasted here. The article highlights some of the underlying facts perceived by many of my friends who have actually passed out from some of the coveted MBA colleges of India. The Article reads:

Business Schools in India

In line with the changing economic scenarios, B-schools are also diversifying their programs to attract the world market and thus contributing to this transformation process as they are run in a businesslike fashion. There are over 950 B-schools approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (A.I.C.T.E.) in various categories including the Indian Institutes of Management (I.I.M.'s), university departments and autonomous private institutes. However, the sudden spurt in these B-schools has also raised concerns about quality and the need for regulatory mechanisms among academia and industry captains. In India, ranking surveys come out with different sets of rankings for B-schools. Chiefly, all these rankings have only one governing factor and that is ‘placement’.

"Placement is the excuse they have found to create hype and cover their weakness as they have made little contribution to management theories. On the same coin, they use public grants but cater to a niche market of capitalists and multinational enterprises," Gupta says.
What percentage of their graduates joins the public or social sector? Electricity, health, education, transport, urban planning and rural development sectors are mostly mismanaged and this in need of qualified managers. However, it seems that the aim of current management graduates is to earn money for themselves in order to cover the expenses they have incurred acquiring their skills.

"The placement mania makes M.B.A. students regard jobs and salaries as the be-all and end-all of things," say Vivek Kaul and Hasan Ahmed. "This attitude is inculcated in very bright, young and impressionable students, right from the time they enter the B-schools. Instead of imbibing a spirit of idealism and developing a strong desire to change the world for the better, students leave their B-school after graduation totally obsessed with making money and progressing in their career."

One main bane of their education is less appreciation of Indian management ethos and practices and more use of American case studies, management theories and philosophy. Furthermore, it looks as if students are taught a great deal of generic strategies, which may lead students to perceive that management is largely analytic and generic which may not be true.
From certain quarters, it is also argued that the teaching approach of many Indian B-schools give students a compartmentalized view of management by function — finance, marketing, human resource development, production, and so on — and only a few give them an integrative approach to management education. In actual practice, all of them in one way or another are related.

Currently, no Indian B-school has international accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (A.A.C.S.B.) or the European Quality Improvement System (E.Q.U.I.S.). The I.S.B. is currently just getting underway with the A.A.C.S.B. It is a long process but the I.S.B. is on track to be the first A.A.C.S.B.-accredited B-school in India. However, very recently, Management Development Institute (M.D.I.) Gurgaon has been accredited by the Association of M.B.A.'s (A.M.B.A.) in Britain, making it the first B-school to receive an international accreditation.

Pakis -our brother

"Pakistan is indeed our brother honey and certainly very close in character to that of India, at least to the northern part of India " I was sharing my feeling with my wife on other day. The culture, the food habits and the physiognomy are so delightfully similar that I wonder how the hell on the earth we are arch rivals.

Notwithstanding the exit of both the countries from cricket world cup this year, my conviction about Pakis as our sibling is bolstered since last week when we were searching for an Indian restaurant and hit one Pakistani Restaurent “Pak Putra” in stead. After almost one year we savored some delicious desi preparation. Butter naan, Palak paaneer, chicken butter masala, chicken tandoori and lassi.. Right from the start when we heard “Kya lenge saheb?” we felt as if we are already back home. It could not go unnoticed even from my little cutie daughter. She said impromptu “Daddy ye uncle hindi men kyun bole?”. We had a feeling of aha after a long time.

It is not so easy to find out a true Indian restaurant in this part of the world. And in case you are in one of such Indian restaurants, the chances are, that it will be a south Indian hotel with Idli, bada and dodsa. In fact, in the hinterlands of Malaysia, people know a simple equation that Indian=Tamils. That’s it. Many a times it happened with me while on a tour to vendor’s office or works, people out there will turn their radios to Tamil FM channel ,thinking of me as an Indian customer. And if you tell them that Tamilnadu is just 1 part out of 25 parts of India, its news for them.

We are happy that we could track one restaurant in Melaka where we could satiate our epicurean delight.

beer pub 2008

Got to organise

I thought I am known to most of students from India who are going to join AIM this year. But I was wrong in my perception. There is an orkut community and e-mail list of students which have almost 70 guys in the list. I could only see those 2 days ago once I came across Nikhil’s profile. One more guy from L&T, indeed is a pleasant piece of information.

I have lot of things to do now. Unfortunately, I can not majority of things from Malaysia and once I will go back to India I won’t have much time left out with me. I got to decide fast when I shall book my ticket for India. Tentatively I plan to leave by 15th May 07 and start with PCC. Let me jot down what are the things I got to do in priority.

- Apply for additional pages in the passport at Indian Consulate Kuala Lumpur in 2nd week April.
- Visit Genting and Batuk caves.
- Apply for Singapore Visa 2nd April
- Visit Lankawi 3rd week April.
- Visit Singapore 1st week May.
- Book Tickets for Delhi via Bangkok on 12th May.
- Apply for PCC in Passport office Patna on 3rd week of May.
- Apply for loan 3rd week of May.
- Receive PCC by 2nd week of June.
- Receive Loan detail 2nd week of June
- Come back to Malaysia in 2nd week of June
- Resign from Job 3rd July with 1 week notice period.
- Go back to Delhi on 10th July
- Stay in Delhi for next 10 days.
- Visit Vaishno devi (a long pending prayer to goddess Mata di)
- Depart for Manila on 21st July.
So many activities starting from early next week.

AIM Recruiters Nite Nov 2006

AIM- Recruiters Nite for 2007 Batch

Essentials of Life

One day I decided to quit...
I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality. ...I wanted to quit my life.

I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
"God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me.

"Look around", He said.
"Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them.
I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth.
Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.

"In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. The same in year four.
"Then in the fifth year, a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern, it was seemingly small and insignificant. But just six months later, the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.

"Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots? I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you.

"Don't compare yourself to others." He said.
"The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful.
"Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high".

"How high should I rise?" I asked.
"How high will the bamboo rise?
" He asked in return.
"As high as it can?" I questioned
"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can.
"I left the forest, realizing that God will never give up on me. And He will never give up on you.

Never regret a day in your life.
Good days give you happiness; bad days give you experiences; both are essential to life.

Counting my Days

Last couple of days I was pretty busy at work. The top shots of our company visiting the site and hence tons of reports generated. Progress of work, S-curve, resources mobilization, manpower requirements, schedules, milestones, catch up plans, delay analysis etc. What is surprising me in my particular project is never we had any in depth discussion about the financial position of the project. 15 months gone by and so far no Job Cost Report made. May be our top management is too sure about the profitability of the job. But I deem that the financial parameters and performance of the project ought to be reviewed at such occasions.

Nevertheless, I am not here to advise the top echelons of 60 years old company which certainly has its deep rooted value system. I am counting my days in my company now.
I would like to recollect all the phases of my life and career during my 6 years stint in L&T and the challenges I faced.

Sent Confirmation

So Finally I have submitted US$400 confirmation amount against the admission and dorm fee to AIM. It is equivalent to 1500 RM i.e roughly one month's expenditure at Malaysia. Not a big amount to begin with, especially, when compared to the Indian B schools. Like for ISB one needs to send 150k INR equivalent to approx US$3400. Similary for IIMs and even the second rung colleges a significant amount is required to be sent.

I am thinking of studying some basic books of accounts to eschew the shock of learning suddenly all the economic jargons out there at AIM. I was involved with budgeting at zonal level in my company but dont know how useful will be those learnings. I know only Performace parameters viz, Order booking, Sales, Realisable Sales Value(RSV), OP GM, PBIT, PAT, AWC, ANFA, ANFE, EVA and Capital charges. Must be these are the pea nuts when compared to the ocean of finance world.
I hope it should be an exciting learning experience.

Savored Acceptance

It will be the happiest day of my life - I used to think during my preparation phase for MBA entrance tests. I had a very strong feeling that getting an acceptance from a premier B School will enable me to savor the biggest achievement so far. But it did not happen like that with me. Never became ecstatic or overwhelmed with the final result. Why I could not be able to celebrate it? After all I have got an admit from Asian Institute of Management, Manila for its much coveted MBA program. Is it because I am going to be away from my family for next 16 months? or is it the shelling out close to 14 Lakhs supressing my excitement? May be it is because I have been promoted to Manager in just 5 and half year against usual 8 -10 years norm of my company and already placed in a fast track career.. But I wonder is the placement issues at AIM anyway got to do something with this? Do not have the exact answer till now.

Nevertheless, it is not true that I am not at all happy. The prospects of shift in career and taking up CFA –Finance indeed stimulates my nerves. However, it is to be seen in coming days how feasible this is going to be.
Having decided to join it, I am starting this blog and wish I could jot down all the momentous issues during my MBA at AIM in my blog . Hopefully it should be useful to the prospective AIM students as well as to any B school aspirant. I personally have drawn a lot of inputs from such bloggs esp from ISBians. Hope most of the AIMians will follow the suit soon.