Summer Internship Diaries, Post 1

Okay, I reached Mumbai on 15th of April, pretty excited. During the initial 10 days, Tata Motors had provided us with accommodation in a hotel. The hotel where I[or rather the entire 3rd batch] stayed was pretty decent, and situated at a stone throws distance from the Gateway of India/Taj Hotel. The room which I got was pretty decent. My room-mate was a bulky, bespectacled, gregarious guy called Dibyaroop, from XIM-B. An extrovert, fun loving guy who is a master at handling people. I would say anyone can learn decent management skills from him.

Anyways, I met Amitabha and invited him to my room. Later we went down to the Gateway, and had lunch at Café Mondegar, a popular,crowded place for youngsters. The Mumbai crowd had already begun to fascinate me. Amitabha left in the evening, and during the course of the day met other co-interns who were staying at the hotel, including Tapish, my FMS classmate. It was fun interacting with people from a mixture of Bschools. However, I did not really get the courage to speak to any female intern.

Okay, April 16th was my first day at Tata Motors, and my first day at corporate[being a fresher]. The first two days were reserved for the induction programme, after which everyone would leave for their respective destination[which was revealed during the induction]. I was a bit apprehensive, since I had no idea where I would end up, considering Tata Motors has its presence in multiple locations in India and outside. The office where we had to report to was near the Bombay Stock Exchange. For those who do not know, Tata Motors has 7 offices in the Mumbai region itself.

Anyways the induction programme was good, and well structured. Got to know quite a few things about Tata Motors and their business operations. A host of speakers came to take different sessions, which was quite interactive. We even had a cake cutting ceremony with the HR head. The ice was broken, and all 45-46 of us got along well. Lots of formalities were done and finally the time came for the project locations to be announced. I felt a sigh of relief when I got to hear that my location would be Mumbai itself, as I had really wanted to explore the city[having only been here once before, and that too for one day]. Deboo[Dibyaroop] got Mumbai too, and so did many others. However, quite a few did get other places, such as Pune, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, even Nepal and Sri Lanka. Some were happy, others were apprehensive.

Got to speak with quite a few people in the induction, and hopefully made a few friends as well. Cannot recollect all their names, but to include a few, Sarthak, Navtej, Tanya, Rohan, Mayank, Priya, Ankita, Oscar, Shraddha, Mallika, Vishal, etc. It was a pleasure interacting with all of you. Also met Aditya Verma and Aastha from FMS, coming out of the Taj Hotel at night[they had their induction over there, courtesy HSBC].

So the induction ended and I was supposed to work in the same office building, since the HR division operated out of there. Got introduced to my project head and my project guides, all of them being extremely nice and helpful people. My first impression of Tata Motors was pretty positive.

Now to talk a bit about the employees in Tata Motors. To be more specific, those in HR[though I have interacted with people in several departments, but primarily I was in the HR division]. The environment was mostly informal, though of course formal meetings and discussions existed as well. Tata Motors has recently adopted a First-name culture, which is slowly spreading across all offices. Which means even a junior officer can call the CFO by first name rather than to say Sir or Maam. The best part was that anytime you could speak to the senior management team without being apprehensive or worried. Nobody would stop you from doing what you wanted to do. You had decent independence to take a call. And neither was anyone on your head pressurizing you to do this and that. The average age group in the HR department would be 24-25, with over 60% of the employees being female. So often there was situations where I found myself being surrounded by girls on all sides[not to be taken negatively though]. As for me, I got an entire cubicle to myself[which could normally seat 2 people]. That too just near the newly installed Coffee machine. Which meant I had generous helpings of Chocolate drinks and Badam Pista shakes daily. Everyone was friendly and always ready to help. Starting from the security guards[whose contribution was extremely valuable] to the Chief Learning Officer, who actually encouraged me to do lots of things.

My co-interns in the same department were: Rachit Bijalwan, Twisam Datta, Mayank Saraf, Megha Pathak, Krishnapriya Singh, Anivesh Kumar, Ganesh and Deboo. Met other interns too, such as Satish, Ankita, Prasanna, etc. Together we had lots of fun and fultoo masti. Honestly I feel sad for some of the interns who had to work alone in certain locations. Working without a fellow intern nearby is a hell boring job.
The canteen offered average food, but a wide variety of it. And it had a Free Snacks time from 5 pm to 7 pm. So you could eat and drink as much as you want for free during that time. Notable to say is that the considerable appetite of Deboo and Twisam made them partners in search of cheap, tasty food in the Fort area. They told me they found a restaurant which sold really cheap and delicious fish. Though I am a non-veg, I usually avoid eating heavy food outside. So I decided to stick to the canteen on most occasions. Nevertheless we did try out places such as Paratha Mantra and Café Samovar[in the Jehangir Art Gallery nearby].

A bit about my project work[but don’t worry I wont go into the details]. Within HR, I was working under the Learning and Development team. My project was related to making a database of External training programmes based on the need requirements of corporate functions. Didn’t understand that? Fine, lets move on.

Just after having stayed in one week at Tata Motors, a Plant trip was organized by the team, to get us acquainted with the process of developing vehicles, performing research, etc. So 5 of us interns, along with 2 other employees were sent to the Tata Motors, Pune plant. It was a fun trip, and I really enjoyed it. I feel it was one of the best part of my internship, since I could witness how a car is made from scratch and what the working environment in a plant is like.

There are lots of things I could write about the Plant trip, but I will restrict myself to mentioning a few: i) The ERC or the engineering research center, where the vehicle models are designed and benchmarking is done, ii) The different Assembly lines where the vehicles are made, the welding and painting shops, etc, iii) The Crash testing site, where vehicles are literally crashed to check for damage and impact on the drivers. Ours was a structured programme, and there were people to guide us at every step. We had official guides who gave us tours in multiple areas across the plant. And trust me, it is quite a big plant. Almost like an entire city in itself. It felt good to have lunch with all other employees, in the massive canteen. I was especially impressed to see how blue collar workers keep doing the same job hour after hour, day after day. Hats off to these guys, the actual producers. Though yes, some part of the process has also been automated, as in huge robotic arms doing the stuff.

During the two day trip, I handled all the logistics, including calling the cabs, deciding the locations to be visited next, co-ordinating with the POCs, etc. The trip to Pune, on the Mumbai-Pune expressway is also a nice one.

I had decided to meet Amitabha, as he is staying in Pune itself. So I thought I would call him to my hotel later at night. But imagine my surprise, as our team was deciding to leave the plant, I saw a tall guy wearing sunglasses, with sleek hair walking past. He looked like a salesman. I almost ignored him, till I head my name being mentioned. I turned around and saw that the guy was Amitabha. He had come for some work at Tata Motors. Talk about a co-incidence. Anyways later during the day he took me on his bike inside the main city.

We had loads of fun, and I really enjoyed it. I saw Osho’s ashram, several cafes and finally ended up at Phoenix Mall, one of the most popular ones. Had Papri Chaat, saw cricket on the extra huge television, and then left. Reached my hotel at night, and then slept off. A worthwhile trip ended. Btw, the hotel where we stayed at Pune was really good. Better than the one at Mumbai. Also met Sarthak[co-intern from SIBM Pune] there.

Back in Mumbai, it was time to search for accommodation of my own[the hotel was only there for 10 days]. I had heard lot of stories that getting a convenient, cheap accommodation in Mumbai was a pain, and that people travelled for over 1.5 hours daily, struggling in local trains, in order to reach their offices. Moreover, getting a cheap accommodation in South Mumbai[the place where my office was] was out of the question. Anyways, I just decided to go to Wilson college[near Marine drive] and search if they had a room available in their boys hostel[since the college was closed for summer vacation]. And lo and behold, I got a room within 2 days itself. That too at a very reasonable rate. The warden was a pretty decent guy, who knew quite a bit about FMS.

So I shifted to Wilson with Rachit[who became my new room-mate]. Deboo shifted to another college, Xaviers. I met up with Twisam and Rito Da[first_timer from Pagalguy] who were also staying at Wilson, along with several other people from XLRI, including Abhay, Himanshu, Rishob, Abhishek, etc. Megha and Krishnapriya shifted to an army girl’s hostel.

From FMS, Rachit Kwatra and Karandeep were also staying in Wilson, and Divya G, Divya Katoch and Bibha were staying in the girls hostel of Wilson. Shilpa Sardar was also nearby. So was Sudhanshu Suman and Indrajeet Das[though I didn’t meet them].
Now it was time for Round 2.

Sick and Frustrated!

Yes, I know I have not written in a while[this dialogue sounds rather cliché now]. Lots of things on my plate. Right now, I am down with chronic bronchitis and influenza. Add to that stomach cramps, and yes, its not a pretty situation. Have skipped the entire week’s classes, and have spent most of my time taking rest at my relatives place. On Meds. Reading like crazy in order to pass time. Recently, I read numerous random blog posts[some related to Bschool life, but mostly general ones]. Also reading a brilliant book- Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig. My first major book on Philosophy. Will go on to other ones as well. Have a host of books lined up to read.

But first, I am going to rant and complain in this post. Am frustrated, and irritated. Yes, you got that right. More than my physical condition[though that is also a major factor], its also the mental and emotional aspect that is troubling me. Sometimes I feel as if I am totally disconnected from everyone else out here, that I do not have a single friend to turn to or talk to. Which brings about pangs of loneliness and despair. Maybe I am the misfit out here, or maybe I just do not know how to connect emotionally with others.

One thing which frustrates me a lot is the short sightedness and narrow mindedness of people, everywhere. If you take the case of a Bschool environment, it feels as if all that people care about, is mundane stuff[for me, for others it may be priority number one], such as copying assignments, blindly running after competitions, mugging, placements, Economic Times, blah blah. Hardly anyone even bothers to get out or even think beyond the MBA world, which really annoys me. I will give one example. During our summers process[which lasted for a week], the entire atmosphere had changed into one in which the only thing which people could think and talk about was placement jargon: CVs, Shortlists, Days 0,1,2..., Companies, Profile, Pay Package, Interviews, GDs, Bitching[yeah include that too], etc etc. After 2 days, I was so fed up that I immersed myself into my own world, disconnecting from this insane conundrum of parochialism. Each and every person[with the only probable exception being one of my real friends out here- Abhirup] was bickering on and on about placements, placements and placements. As if every other single thing in life had ceased to exist from that point onwards. Such a transition is indeed remarkable from a psychological point of view, but it pissed me off to no end. But in the end, I realized that human beings are indeed short sighted people, and sometimes simply refuse to see the bigger picture. Maybe it helps the mind function properly in this vast,unending ocean of knowledge.

Point number 2 which frustrates me: Herd Mentality[if anyone has read any good book on this topic, please let me know]. If one person takes an initiative or does something, automatically everyone else blindly copies him/her and follows suit. Sounds familiar? I guess this situation is prevalent everywhere. And this thing really frustrates me. Shows the total lack of will to do something on your own. It can be a very simple example- If one person decides to photocopy something, automatically ten more people will claim that they need to get the photocopy too[even if its totally irrelevant for them]. Basic human tendency you can say, but nevertheless I do not like it. Considering a Bschool environment, people tend to apply to any and all Major companies that come on campus. To mention one incident- a Form of a certain company was released, and practically there was a mad rush to get hold of it, with people forming long queues[what is it with Indians and queues anyways? Do they so love standing in a line for every single damn thing? Or is it simple due to the large population?] just to be the first to get the form[as if the forms would run out if they didn’t fight to get a forward place in the queue]. As one guy emerged from the room, carrying the ten page form, I asked him- ‘Are you really interested in the company? And what profile is it offering?’ To my horror, that guy replied- ‘Who knows dude. I haven’t even looked at the form. Sab le rahe the, to maine socha main bhi utha leta hoon.’ I was shocked. If such is the attitude of a person who is about to become a Manager, I really shudder to think what the future for India is going to be like. The sad truth is that people don’t even care what sort of a role/job they are getting into. Most are just concerned about the pay and/or the brand name. And they are absolutely averse to taking risk. Otherwise nothing can explain the fact that there are people who apply to every single company that comes to campus, irrespective of the profile offered[finance, marketing, operations, whatever] with the view that-‘Kahi na kahi to lag jayega’. Nice strategy. Why bother aiming at the eye of the fish when you can have the entire fish itself?

Third, and maybe the most important- its the classes. Yes, you got me right again. And no, let me clarify, I do not mean just the classes of FMS, or any Bschool for that matter. I mean the way our entire education system is designed. But for arguments sake, I will take MBA classes in my discussion. I mean, I cannot understand how one can teach the intricacies of Organization Behavior, or Capital Markets in a class. All the theoretical stuff is fine, but how much do the students actually learn just by sitting in class and listening to lectures? Maybe for some people that is the best way to learn, but for me its extremely boring and almost entirely a waste of time. I would rather sit in the library, or walk in a park and think, rather than listen to some Accounting or Finance concepts which I will never use in my life. I hate the fact that we are forced to study things which we will never need to use, starting from school. And people give me this lame reason that-‘Creating a basic knowledge of such subjects is essential.’ But just fail to explain ‘Why’ exactly that is so. Even worse is that we still follow the outdated- ‘Learn by rote just in order to score high marks in exams’ system, even in Bschools, and I simply fail to understand why. Come on, its 2012 for God’s sake. What management are you going to learn by simply memorizing stuff and practicing a few numericals from text books? Why can’t we have field trips to corporate offices instead? Why not make students regularly sell products in urban and rural areas? Why not make students deal with HR issues in workplaces, rather than confining everything into a two-month internship[which is once again graded and marked]. Why not make the students handle stocks and mutual funds[for those who are interested in finance], rather than just making hypothetical balance sheets in class? No wonder we lag so behind our western counterparts when it comes to actual application of Management. Take any discipline for that matter- The outcome shall be similar. And even 25 year olds are running after marks and grades, just like dogs run after chicken bones[if this sounds derogatory, I just don’t care]. I feel disgusted after seeing such situations. And the most important thing that matters in any class is........[am sure you have guessed it right]- Attendance, what else? Remove this concept of attendance and then see how many students attend class. It will be those students who are genuinely interested in learning.

Anyways, I have gone and ranted far enough. Its time to stop here. Am going to take some rest again. Just exhausted all of my energy reserves in writing this post. See you all later.

A Day in the Life of a Thinker!

I failed. Yeah you read that right. I failed, and that too for the first time. Okay, I am not talking about life in general but about my academics. I failed to get pass marks in the theory paper of Financial Accounting in the first semester. As a result I have to take the exam again. Okay, I agree this is no big news, but still it serves as a reminder that I need to work harder. Especially in finance. Though I continue to hate the subject.

Today was an eventful day. I did quite a few things, and will try to narrate some of them down in this post. Right now, I am quite tired, though it’s already 10:40 pm, yet I am in a great mood.

Today was an off day, and I had decided that I would visit a historical monument. I had Qutub Minar in my mind initially. But the problem was getting a group to go there, and actually convince people to get out of the comfort of their blankets[Delhi winter is no joke, most people sleep comfortably till 12 pm at least]. I called up quite a few people, including Mayank[who had woken up early at 12:30 pm] and Shashank[also just woken]. Both refused. I also suggested visiting the new Pagalguy office[which I plan to in future]. Then I called up Ankit who suggested going to the Auto Expo. Unfortunately the seats were all sold out. Ultimately Ankit was busy with his personal work as well. Divya and Sheetal were both busy with work, and Preethi and Neha refused for other reasons too. Failure again? Move on.

Abhirup agreed to go, and I also managed to convince Rakesh to come. Ashish was a bit hesitant and ultimately did not turn up. We reached ‘Vishwavidyalaya’ metro station and met up with a group who was going to watch the India versus Bayern Munich football match. And Rakesh decided to go with them. So I was left with only Abhirup in the end. But it was good, though. We did enjoy to the fullest. We decided to go to the Red Fort, which was near Chandni Chowk. It was my first trip to the Historical Monument and Abhirup was the perfect guide. He showed me across all the important areas. Whether it be the Diwaan-E-Khaas or the Royal Throne[where once peacock throne stood]. You can check the album here:

Red Fort

I had a great time roaming around the place. It was serene, and I felt oddly calm moving around the lawns, gardens, and also visited an ‘Arms’ museum, which hosted some weapons of the First World war era[see the album for details].

After coming out of the Red Fort, we took a trip amongst [which is probably the worlds most chaotic] the Chandni Chowk roads, and had lunch at McDonalds. We also saw the Sis Ganj Gurudwara which is in Chandni Chowk itself. Finally we returned to North Campus and I stayed in Abhirup’s room in VKRV Rao Hostel for a couple of hours or so. Had a mini manga discussion with Abhinav Sareen and Shivan Nair. And then some gossip with Abhirup and Vipul.

Finally, I left at around 6:30 pm, and decided to walk all the way to my Kamla Nagar flat from the hostel[must be more than 3 kms at least]. In this cold, some people would say it was a foolish decision, but for some odd reason I wanted to walk. And think. Which I did. I tried to notice every single detail I could. The sweatshirts of other students which bore the college tags. The dusky roads, and the illuminated street lights. The distinct images of the colleges and the hostels. The DU stadium. The rickshaws. The vehicles. The guards and the policemen. And the people. Rich and the poor. I walked along past FMS, and on towards the crowded Kamla Nagar market[where Traffic jams are a necessity]. Suddenly a few students started shouting out at me from their car. Maybe they were drunk. Or in a jubilant mood. I merely smiled and moved on. Lots of thoughts went through my mind. About growing inequality in India, poverty, obsession with showing off one’s wealth, over crowded areas, etc etc. How people continue to ignore the poverty, filth and misery around them, as if it simply does not exist. How everyone is too bothered with their own affairs to think about anything else. How rich girls keep arguing over the color of their clothes while shopping, while small children behind them shiver in the cold. How students(and others) continue to smoke freely in a SO-CALLED SMOKE FREE campus. How people continue to deposit garbage out in the open, spit freely, and use the roadsides as toilets. How people cannot even adhere to basic traffic norms out here. Am I being too negative? Perhaps. But I certainly do not exaggerate.

I am reading quite a few good books right now. Started off the Shiva trilogy. I must say that Amish is a brilliant author. Tomorrow the CAT 2011 results shall be announced. I will be active on Pagalguy. I am also learning Punjabi[Gurumukhi]. And watching Science Fiction documentaries, hosted by the famous physicist, Michio Kaku.

In all, I walked for over 5 kms today. Walking is a very healthy exercise I feel. Do try it. Anyways, I shall end here for today. Hope you enjoyed reading. Have a good day, and enjoy every day to the fullest. Best wishes.

Myths and Realities of an MBA and Bschool Life

Okay, here are some common myths and realities related to an MBA degree and Bschool life. I realize that many MBA aspirants have several misconceptions and preconceived notions about MBA, and hence this effort in getting rid of some of the false inklings which people have in general.

1) Myth: Getting into a Top 15 Bschool is incredibly difficult for an average student[with average background]

Reality:
Nothing can be further away from the truth. Granted, quite a large chunk of students studying in IIMs, etc are from top engineering colleges with decent acads, but that does not mean an average student can’t make it. If you are willing to work hard and maintain your focus, you can surely make it. To give my own example, I am from one of the third class, unknown private engineering college in India and yet I made it to FMS in my very first attempt.

2) Myth: An MBA is a shortcut ticket to success, fame and money. You shake hands with CEO’s, ride in luxury cars, attend corporate parties, and get to date attractive women.

Reality: Of course it isn’t[this one should be obvious, but unfortunately it isn’t]. Most of the 2000 or so Bschools out there simply exist for the purpose of lightening your purses. If you still haven’t understood what I mean, then I pity you. An MBA, even from an IIM won’t automatically grant you success. You need to keep working hard throughout your life and be prepared for failures.

3) Myth: All MBA graduates from a good Business school end up as millionaires after they pass out/get 7 digit salaries/international placements in USA, Switzerland and Australia

Reality: Just a handful of students actually get a really high pay package, but unfortunately they hog all the spotlight, thanks to our media. What does not actually get highlighted, is that there are quite a few[read:many] students who actually do an internship without a stipend and end up with a pay package[finals] of what many of you may be earning before doing an MBA. This is even true of IIMs and other top bschools.

4) Myth: i) I want to become an Entrepreneur. And with so many Bschools stressing on Entrepreneurship and having courses on the same, I should opt for MBA.
ii) [On similar lines]: I plan to run an NGO. I am very much into Social service. But for this an MBA is a pre-requisite since all Bschools are stressing on rural marketing and CSR.

Reality: Listen people. Grow up. Come on, enough with lame excuses of doing an MBA. If you don’t have any reason to opt for it, be honest and bold enough to say the same. Such lame excuses of being an Entrepreneur or the next Social Activist and then later on safely opting for a high paying corporate job is simply ridiculous. Move on. You can be a decent Entrepreneur and an NGO activist without even thinking of an MBA.

5) Myth: An MBA degree is only meant for Engineers.

Reality: This is one myth which I almost agree with. Especially in the Indian context. But with respect to a global scenario, I would definitely say that your educational background does not matter as long as you are clear with your career goals. Do some research into the course contents of an MBA before you apply. If you have no interest in subjects such as Cost Accouting, Marketing Research, Operations Research or Organizational Behavior, I think you are better off not doing an MBA.

6) Myth: You don’t get any sleep during an MBA course. You keep working 24 x 7, 365 days of the year. All you do is assignments, projects and tests with little time for entertainment.

Reality: This was one thing even I was apprehensive of before joining a Bschool, especially considering the fact that I was used to sleeping 10 hours a day during Engineering. But this of course depends on your time management skills. An MBA course will be hectic and will require a certain amount of commitment, sacrifices and dedication. But that does not mean you will get no free time at all, in fact you can definitely take out time to see movies, hang out with friends and stuff. But yes, considering it’s a Masters course and a highly demanding professional one at it, be prepared for a different kind of lifestyle[especially if you are a fresher, work ex people usually do not have problems in adjusting to this work-life balance].

7) Myth: All Top bschool Faculty members are Gods and everyone gets a chance to intern abroad/apply for a student exchange programme/do an international project

Reality: True, you will certainly come across some brilliant teachers. But the fact remains that majority of the faculty will be average, and in some cases even poor or abysmal. This has more to do with the Indian education scenario than the Bschool itself. Hardly anyone gets into teaching for the love of it. Some do it, in order to network and carry out their research/publications, others do it due to lack of alternate opportunities. So do not expect God level teachers to train you. As for the second point, just a few selected students get to intern abroad or do an international project. Even in the top Bschools. And in many cases the student has to bear his/her own expenses. So just because you got into a Top bschool doesn’t mean you are catching the next month flight to New York in order to do a Customer Behavior survey.


These are some of the few points I came up with. May add more in future.
I would like to thank some of my batchmates who have made Life in FMS ‘indeed’ beautiful. In no particular order:

Mayank, Sheetal, Akhil, Shimona, Abhirup, Divya, Suhail, Preethi, Ankit, Richie, and many more. Thanks a lot guys. :)

Some Solutions!

All right, am back with another important post. In the past I have criticized a lot about the flaws in the Indian education system, etc etc. Now I believe it’s time we take a look at the plausible solutions for improving our education system, rather than just remain passive lookers and blamers.

I am listing down a few things which can be done, and these are definitely not ALL the things which need to be done, but just a few important things which can be done. And they are not arranged in order of importance.

1) Funds: Obviously, the number one thing which comes to our mind is allocation of funds. Reservation for education has been usually 3 percent of the total budget or less. Which is clearly not enough. The Government has ignored the Education sector for over 40 years. Its high time it looked forward to improving the quality of the poorly managed government schools and colleges. Infrastructure is also important. It is very important to build facilities for drinking water and toilets for both boys and girls. Many schools don’t even have such basic amenities. As a result, even the poor prefer to send their children to private schools. Then there is again the problem of absenteeism. It is estimated that 50% of the teachers don’t even turn up most of the time. Lots of other problems can come in this factor.

2) Autonomy: It is ironic that at one hand, thousands of dubious private colleges are duping people into joining their institutes, and the genuine colleges are being over-burdened with useless tasks related to bureaucracy. Even the IITs and IIMs do not have ultimate autonomy to take their own decisions. The Government, by interfering into the private decisions of the colleges is making things even worse. The colleges should be free to design their own curriculum and to allocate the faculty they deem fit.

3) Curriculum: Most schools and colleges follow an outdated curriculum which is hardly related to contemporary events. For example in Engineering, many colleges still teach courses which may no longer be relevant or required in todays workplace. A complete overhaul needs to be done. Latest equipment and other facilities should be procured, so that Indian students can do research in India itself, rather than leaving the country never to return.

4) Rote Learning: This archaic age old idiotic practice should be banned. I find it hard to believe that this is still practiced widely almost everywhere in India, starting from schools to colleges to even PhD. Most students are encouraged to just memorize whatever is written in the textbooks and vomit it during exams, for the sole purpose of getting good marks and beating the fellow student. There is very little scope for independent or creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Neither teachers nor parents are interested to encourage the child to try out something different or to pursue his/her passion. All they can think about is to force the child to become an Engineer, Doctor, etc so that he can get a job[which he will almost surely hate]. This mentality of avoiding risk, especially in middle class is also a cause for the downfall of creativity. People still rely on books for all of their knowledge, and hardly any importance is given to vocational training and practical implementation of ideas. Thus we should focus on a more industry oriented curriculum and one which encourages lateral thinking.

5) Killing of Passion: In India, there is market for only a few traditional streams: Engineering, Medicine, MBA, etc. It is comparatively easier for a student to get a job under these traditional streams, than to get a job after doing say, Philosophy or Geology, etc. Hence most parents force their children to sacrifice their passion or interest and to get into a stream which will ensure that they get a job. And considering that there are more than 700 million poor in India who do not even get food to eat every day, getting a job may mean everything for an average Indian student. This has resulted in one of the biggest catastrophes, according to me, in the Indian education system. Instead of getting decent painters, singers, dancers, sportsmen, athletes, chefs, psychologists, astronomers, biotechnologists, botanists, photographers, or even bird watchers, we get instead a million useless engineers produced each year, most of them unemployable and almost all of them frustrated with their lives. We need proper career counseling not only for students but also for parents. Parents are inadvertently spoiling the careers of their children, and not helping them.

These are some of the remedy measures that can be taken. More on the education system in future posts.

Career Counselling? WTH!

I believe that one of the biggest problems that the Indian youth face nowadays is regarding choice of career. Most do not take a decision for themselves, and let their parents/relatives decide. Which can turn out to be disastrous since nobody knows you better than yourself. I have heard many of my friends say the same thing over and over again-‘Yaar, I don’t know what I want to do in life. I am not sure which career to opt for, or what to do in future. I am not satisfied with my current situation/my job/my life/etc.’ Many of them opt for safe courses- Engineering, Medical, Management, etc which can guarantee them jobs. But what after that? If you get into a job which doesn’t suit your aptitude, then you will struggle throughout your life.

Anyways, I recently read ‘Serious Men’, written by a journalist, Manu Joseph, who is also the editor of the Open magazine. It’s a fantastic novel, dealing with current day Mumbai, Science, Astronomy, Love, Sarcasm, Reservation, Education, Poverty, etc. Highly recommended novel, and a well deserving winner of the Hindu 2010 Literary award. I am quoting an entire page from the same[Verbatim]:


This, Ayyan accepted, was life. It was, in a way, a fortunate life. It would go on and on like this. And one day, very soon in fact, Adi would be an adolescent. An adolescent son of a clerk. A miserable thing to be in this country. He would have to forget all his dreams and tell himself that what he wanted to do was engineering. It’s the only hope, everyone would tell him. Engineering, Adi would realize, is every mother’s advice to her son, a father’s irrevocable decision, a boy’s first foreboding of life. A certainty, like death, that was long decided in the cradle. Sooner or later, he would have to call it his ambition. And to attain it, he would compete with thousands and thousands of boys like him in the only human activity for which Indians had a special talent. Objective-type entrance exams. Very few tests in the world would be tougher than these. So, in the enchanting years of early youth, when the mind is wild, and the limbs are strong, he would not run free by the sea or try to squeeze the growing breasts of wary girls. Instead he would sit like an ascetic in a one-room home and master something called quantitative ability. ‘If three natural numbers are randomly selected from one to hundred then what is the probability that all three are divisible by both two and three?’

He would have to answer this probably in thirty seconds in order to stand any chance against boys who were barely seven when they were fed iron capsules and sample-question papers for this very purpose; who had attended tuitions and memorized all the formulae in the world before they had learnt how to masturbate; whose parents whispered into their ears every day of their lives the answer to the decisive question: ’What do you want to become in life?’ Adi would have to fight them for a sliver of the future that men of God reviled without conviction as the ‘material world’, exactly the place that a father wishes for his son. Adi, despite the misfortunes of poverty, would somehow have to find a way to get into an engineering college. And then ensure that he did not spend a single day of his life as an engineer. Because everyone would tell him then that the real money was in MBA.

And so, even before the engineering course was over, he would start all over again, and prepare to battle thousands and thousands of boys like him in yet more entrance exams. When he finally made it and became a zombie who had entirely forgotten what he really wanted to do with his life, the light-skinned boys in the dormitory would look at him with a sad chuckle and whisper among themselves that he was a beneficiary of a 15 per cent reservation for the Dalits. ‘Lucky bastard,’ they would say.



Okay, I agree that the above page is highly exaggerated, in fact to the extreme. Obviously not ALL boys are taking up engineering, and Indians are definitely not good in just competitive exams, to name a few. But the point to be noted is the thing in General which the author wants to say. Lack of clarity in making the biggest decision of one’s Life- Career choice. Doing engineering and MBA from a good college will almost surely fetch you a good job, and that is the only reason why people do it. Because that way, at least they can earn and sustain a living in this highly competitive global environment. Even if they have to sacrifice their dreams for it. There are many people who say that let them do engineering and MBA first, and then they will try to achieve their dreams. That is just an excuse for avoiding risks, and rarely if ever wills such people achieve their goals. At max, they can earn a comfortable living in this materialistic world.



Unfortunately, in India, the concept of career counseling is almost non-existent. 90% of Indian students take up a career/course which is not suited to their aptitude/liking. No wonder they get frustrated and depressed, many even take the extreme step of committing suicide. To avoid such incidents, I believe that schools should include mandatory career counseling say for students in standard 9th or 10th. Parents should also be counseled and told not to interfere in the personal decision of the student. It is a very big misconception that only engineers and managers can get good jobs. It’s a commonly known fact that Indians only look up to education as a means to getting a job, and not as something to gain knowledge/skills/experience/etc. It’s the lure of those attractive placements that students automatically gravitate towards IITs and IIMs. I have met very few people who wanted to study in an IIT because they had an interest in Science or Engineering. We really need more students like Rancho from 3 Idiots[played by Aamir Khan].

If only people started following their own passion for a change, it would benefit us all. But are they ready to give up the security of a high paying job and take a risk? The future will tell.

Life of an Average Indian Male- Part 3

*Continued From Previous Post

Last we remember, Raj had joined an average I.T. company. He moved into a house as a P.G. The food sucked, and the place was awfully hot. Still, he tried to get used to the new environment. However the workplace had another nasty surprise in store for him.

Raj was unlucky enough to have a demon in disguise of a boss. From the worst day onwards he was treated like a slave, made to work incessantly for 12 hours at a stretch. Even when he finally trudged back to his apartment, he would still have some work left over for the day. The work kept on piling, and Raj was handed one assignment after the other. He scarcely had time to eat, let alone relax or entertain himself. Moreover, he did not get along well with his colleagues. Most were engineers from Tier-3 colleges who did not understand anything about the work or the project they were working on. At max, they could perform Control+C/Control+V jobs. Raj himself found it quite difficult to cope up with an I.T. environment, though at least he knew the basics. However working on a Java environment was tough for him. Still he slogged on, day in and night, without any breaks.

Raj lost track of time. His state became even more disheveled than before. 6 months passed, an year, and then two. There was no scope of any promotion and Raj hardly got an increment in his salary. Perks were few and far in between. But the worst part was the monotonous nature of the job. He had done practically the same thing every day, each week for the past 2 years. And now he was fed up. He desperately wanted a change from this hectic work routine. He couldn’t even remember when he had last gone to watch a movie or taken a day off. Plus all this work was taking a grave toll on his health. The smoking and drinking did not help either, apart from relieving his momentary tensions.

One fine day, as Raj was wondering around the aisle of his office floor, he noticed 2 of his colleagues talking in low tones. He tried to get closer without looking conspicuous. He was a bit surprised to see them solving Mathematical problems in their exercise books. That was clearly not related to the work they were supposed to be doing. It was then that the word MBA struck his ear. Raj gathered his nerves and spoke to the two guys about their current occupation. They admitted that they were preparing for MBA entrance exams during their work hours. Moreover they remarked such a practice was common throughout the country, as many I.T. professionals avoided work to prepare for MBA exams. Raj was suddenly excited. He could feel the old enthusiastic feeling of his pre-college years come back to him. This was what he needed, to rise the corporate ladder, to get a decent salary, a resplendent house, a beautiful girlfriend, maybe even the Honda City he had dreamed of. And the key to achieve his dreams was this simple degree- MBA. Why hadn’t he thought about it earlier?

Without wasting any more time, Raj enrolled for Sunday classes at a local coaching institute. He spared 2-3 hours every Sunday for the classes, and tried to revise the basics of English and Mathematics whenever he could get time. He started slacking off in his work, so that he could concentrate on his work. Mock test season started, and Raj started taking mocks, confident that he would be amongst the best students in the country. However, to his shock, he could only manage a paltry 77 percentile in his first test. Frustration grew and so did Raj’s anger. Now he started ignoring his friends, family. He had only one goal in life- MBA from a top institute. He solved as many problems he could. But try as hard as he might, he could never go above 85 percentile in mocks. ‘Forget it, I will score well in the actual CAT exam,’ Raj consoled himself.

CAT came and went. So did 5 other competitive exams for which Raj appeared. Now came the agonizing wait for the results. Finally, the D-day arrived. 89.37 percentile overall in CAT. Raj felt as if someone had shot an arrow which pierced his heart. How on earth could he have scored so low? 3 of his colleagues had scored above 98 percentile and had resigned from their jobs. Raj was mad with envy. However, he still filled up the forms of a few 2-tier Bschools, and managed to secure admission in an average Bschool, which offered decent placements[according to the prospectus]. Raj was so desperate for a profile change that he did not bother to inquire about the details of the bschool.

Finally, Raj bade his dull I.T. job goodbye. ‘Its time to go back to school,’ he smiled.

Fast forward 2 years into the future.

‘Sales and Trading? What on earth is it?,’ asked Rahul, Raj’s cousin.

‘I have no idea. But the company was paying well, so I opted for it,’ Raj replied.

‘But are you sure it’s the right choice? Will you like the job if you don’t even know what you are supposed to do?’

‘Does not matter. Whatever it is, it will be better than that damn I.T. job, am sure of it.’

Saying this Raj took up his new job.

2 months later.

‘What is all this crap? What on earth am I doing here? All this finance numbers and additional accounts data makes no sense to me at all,’ Raj moaned. ‘Corporate finance? Banking regulations? Its all nonsense to me. Is it so hard to find a job which one may like doing?’

‘But how could this happen to me? MBA was supposed to bring me riches, and unlock the gates of happiness and wealth. Everyone is running after it, so it should be a valuable degree. But I am feeling just as miserable, if not worse in this new job. Just what on earth went wrong?’


Indeed, what went wrong with Raj? Or, to generalize, what is wrong with majority of the Indian youth? How come most of them are not satisfied with their jobs/present situation, even after passing from decent Engineering and MBA colleges? We shall discuss all such pertinent issues in a future post. But now is the time to end Raj’s story. Thank you all for your patience.

Life of an Average Indian Male- Part 2

*Continued From Previous Post


So Raj finally begins his much awaited college life- he longs to enter the door into freedom. Now he will be free to do what he wishes. Now he can party whole night long without any restrictions. Now he is free to experiment with smoking, drinking and sex. Now he can freely bunk classes without fear of punishment. And what about studying? That too, subjects on Instrumentation engineering? No ways!

For starters, he isn’t really sure why he is studying instrumentation engineering in the first place. He isn’t even sure why he is in an engineering college. It’s just that most of his friends have chosen engineering, and he just decided to go along with the flow. Raj doesn’t care. He’s entered college, now he is going to have fun and meet beautiful girls. He’s a bit apprehensive about ragging however. Nevertheless he shifts into the hostel and eagerly waits for the first day to begin.

First day in college- Raj finds out where his classes are held and begins the day on a good note. Some of his school friends are in the same class with him. But there comes the first shock- In a class of 60 students, there are just 5 females. That too, none of them were worth giving a second glance. Whatever happened to the hot girls shown in colleges in the Hindi movies? ‘Hindi movies are all crap,’ he says to himself dejectedly. So he is going to spend 4 years like this? Worse, the teachers are horrible, and he falls into a slumber 30 minutes into the first class itself. He has basic electrical engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, English and basic Mechanics in the first semester. Mathematics is all right, but he hates all other subjects from the start. ‘Come on.’ He says to his classmates. ‘Why on earth should an Instrumentation engineer study mechanics and chemistry? And what use is engineering drawing to us? How can such funny symbols help us in any way?’

‘Dude, all engineering students need to do them. Not just you,’ his friend remarks. Raj is disappointed. But he doesn’t know yet that things are going to get worse.

The seniors drop in for a casual visit. Except it isn’t that casual after all. The ragging period stretches on for a month, and Raj is forced to do all sort of nefarious things which he never thought he would have to. Add to that the dull, insipid classes and the rotten hostel food. On top of it, his room is hot as hell, without any ventilation, and there isn’t even a proper playground nearby. ‘What mess have I gotten myself into?’, he exclaims. ‘Is college life supposed to be like this?’ Before long, Raj is fed up. Thankfully, the ragging period gets over after a month. But the vapid classes continue. Raj fails to find any good looking girl in the entire campus. The few decent ones are already committed. And thanks to the 90:10 ratio[male:female], he gives up trying his luck.

‘It’s as if all guys want to get into engineering and all good looking girls want to stay far away from engineering colleges. It’s so unfair’, he moans. Frustrated beyond all control, and fed up of staying single his entire life Raj takes up smoking and drinking in order to get rid of his depression. Soon, he finds both activities quite pleasurable and becomes hooked. He spends the lazy nights smoking on the terrace of his hostel floor and watching pornographic movies on his laptop. Life is finally becoming good. Though the classes and exams remain as intolerable as always.

First sem results are declared and Raj gets a measly 6.34, somehow managing to pass in all subjects[thanks to his newly acquired cheating prowess]. That result shocks his parents, who till now believed that their child was one of the best. Raj also isn’t amused. How come one of the best students in school end up like this? Hadn’t he prepared hard to clear the engineering entrance exams? Then why does he dislike his subjects so much now? Why is it that Thevenin and Norton go over his head? How come power systems and fluid dynamics make him feel suffocated? ‘This isn’t what I wanted to do,’ he remarks finally one fine day, after completing 3 miserable years in his college and scoring a series of 6 points GPA. But engineering is that best career choice there is. All engineers are hard working students and the ones who deserve good jobs.

Disillusioned and disheartened, Raj simply bears the pain. One day, he sees that few of his classmates were taking Computer coaching classes. On further inquiring, he comes to know that they are learning C++, Java, Oracle, Dot Net, and other programming languages. ‘What for? Why does an Instrumentation Engineer needs to learn them?,’ Raj wonders. Then he realizes. Post recession, the ‘Placements’ situation in college has been dismal to say the least. And the few companies which are coming are all from Information Technology[I.T.]. So acquainting oneself with programming skills will surely help one to get an I.T. job. ‘Raj buddy, you should know that people get into engineering just for jobs and nothing else. There is no scope for interest or passion here. We are all misfits here, but we need jobs, which only engineering colleges can provide.’ Initially Raj is a bit skeptical about this. ‘Is that really so? Can only engineering graduates get good jobs? What about people who are interested in History, or Painting, dance, Commerce, Architecture, Microbiology, etc? Is there no scope for them?’ But slowly Raj is convinced that he too must try to get into an I.T. job. He joins the tuition classes along with his friends and tries to learn C, C++ ,DBMS, Java and J2EE. Most of the things go above his head. Not long after, he starts hating the tuition classes as well. But since the placement season is approaching, he goes along with it.

Fast forward to the Fourth Year- the reason why every meritorious student joins an engineering course- the Placements Season arrives. As feared, no core company comes to campus. It’s just a few I.T. companies and that too lowly ranked ones. After struggling through the aptitude tests and interviews, Raj somehow manages to get into an ‘Unheard of’ I.T company. What surprises him is that whatever he had learned during the past 3 years[including the computer classes] was completely laid to waste. The job was related to Software testing, which he hadn’t even heard of earlier. There was just one question ringing in Raj’s head, as he attended the college convocation programme to get his engineering degree- ‘Why on earth did I waste 4 years of my life doing something which I never liked, when I never needed that knowledge to get a job(that too something totally different from my domain)?’

At the moment, Raj did not have the answer. He prepared himself to join the workplace, which was in another city.

*To Be Continued

Different Kinds of CAT Aspirants

Okay guys, I admit I have been lazy in posting. But I have been busy, honest. Now with Exactly one month to go for my CAT exam[7th November], I decided to write a Sarcastic account of CAT aspirants.

As you may know, the Common Admission Test[more commonly known as CAT] is the only medium to gain entry into the Prestigious IIMs[Okay, not strictly NRIs can get in through GMAT, but lets skip that]. And it is conducted once every year, though from 2009 onwards it has become a Computer Based Test[CBT] so it is conducted over a window of 20 days. Of course, by now all the 2.5 lakh plus aspirants are working hard to crack the CAT and get a seat in the hallowed portals of the IIMs. But many of them differ in their attitude and way of thinking[preparation wise]. So let us divide them into 5 Broad categories:

1) The No-Nonsense, 99+ percentile Getter: These guys are serious. The champs, and the ones who have the highest probability of making it to IIMs/Other top Bschools. They don’t rest till they solve as many mocks as they can, and gather tons of 99+ percentiles to their credit. They refuse to budge down, unless they have solved every possible question they can, and are ready to give it their all. No wonder they end up being successful. On the down side, even if they get 1 mark less than they should have, All Hell ends up breaking loose for them. There are guys who get 150 out of 180 and still remark-‘I could have scored more. I screwed up 2 ques in DI’. Some aren’t satisfied with 99.5 percentile. They still want more. Is there any end to greed[even if it’s a positive one]? The same trend continues when they enter the IIMs. Even if they get 0.1 lakhs less[pay package] than they should have, they raise a Fury. And they are guys who broke down just because they did not get into a Famous Investment bank. Hmm, interesting take.

2) The Casual One: This guy takes his mocks and other MBA exams casually. He is not that serious as Category 1, and in most cases even the result does not matter him. He is like-‘Milta hai to Theek Hai, Nahi Mila tab bhi theek hai.’ In one word- Nonchalant. Such guys seldom manage to get into a Top bschool[though they can definitely get in 2 tier and 3 tier bschools], yet they remain indifferent to it. Many of them have a job[say Final year engineering student] and think that they can crack CAT later in the future if not now[though that seldom happens].

3) The Frantic One: This guy is always busy, but nobody knows regarding What. You will always find him surrounded with books, Mock Test papers, CAT Preparation CDs, Vocabulary building books, GRE material, Vedic Maths, and what not. But the thing is, he scarcely anything due importance. He is always shuttling around from one place to the other, has little time to talk with anyone[lest he spends one minute less on his preparation than he should have], ignores most people around him, and finally becomes a recluse. Such kind of people rarely succeed, and if they do, it’s more a matter of luck than of effort.

4) The Over-Confident One: The World is his Portal, so what is CAT in front of him? Nothing more than a minor exam which is waiting to be cleanly swept by this Supremely confident candidate. He doesn’t bother with his mocks or preparation. He knows that he can easily score 99.9 percentile on the C-day[the day when he will take CAT]. He knows he has magic in his fingers[and thumb, to be used on the mouse in order to tame the CAT]. There is possibly no way in which he can select a single wrong answer. And the reason for his Confidence- His belief that his innate Managerial skills can help him solve any problem. But when he fails to make the cut, he uses his Magic Finger[and Thumb] to blame every possible person or thing on Earth, apart from him[and his preparation]. Of course the World conspired to bring about his failure. What else could be the reason?

5) The Under-Confident One: Can this guy be left behind? He is surely appearing for CAT, but doesn’t have the slightest doubt about the fact that he is going to fail. He is positively confident that he will end up screwing the exam, even 6 months before the exam takes place. Nothing can make him change his mind. And he doesn’t even bother to prepare, since his can predict his destiny of Supreme Failure. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t end up proven wrong[unlike the guy from category 4]. So he is satisfied and remarks-‘I knew it all along I wouldn’t make it.’

All the best to all CAT takers from my side. 

What Malcolm Gladwell Missed!

All right, for a change, I will make this article a short one. In his book called Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell devotes a chapter to Rice Paddies and Mathematics [to know the connection between the two, purchase the excellent book]. In that chapter, he says that Asian students have an innate proclivity towards Mathematics due to which they end up performing much better than their Western[notably American] counterparts.

The reason for their inclination towards Maths, is not because they are very hard working students, but because of their language. Asian languages, like Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc have very short names for the numbers. For eg 4 is Si in Chinese and Shi in Japanese. But in English, we have long names, such as Seventeen, One Hundred and Twenty Two, etc. So it takes more time for us to register that number in our mind when we are thinking and calculating in English, but if we do so in Asian languages, we can do all calculations rapidly and with a very high accuracy. This also improves our memory and our mathematical skills, since we can both calculate and write very fast with a high accuracy.

That is the basic argument as to why Asians outperform Americans in Mathematics. And to some extent the logic is true of course. But that does NOT mean that the only reason Americans lag behind in Mathematics is due to language. For Gladwell, while performing his research on Asian countries, has conveniently forgotten to consider another country, the one with the second largest population, and the second fastest growing economy- India.

We will, for the time being consider only literate Indians, notably the middle class and the high class. Almost all of them, without exception, learn Mathematics in English and not in any other language[asian or otherwise]. Yet, almost ALL of them can easily beat any American student of their level [or even a higher level] when it comes to Mathematics. Let alone Americans, in fact most Indian students can easily compete with any country in the world when it comes to Mathematics[at the middle school or high school level]. And they do that with English as a medium- making Gladwell’s argument fall flat on its feet that it’s due to the language that students perform calculations better.

You [especially if you are not an Indian] may think that I am just being boastful about my own country. But I will take another example- that of the most popular competitive exam in the world- the Graduate Record Examination[GRE]. And you cannot blame me for any bias, because it is an American exam, not an Indian one. So, I give you three guesses to this question-Students from which country perform the best in GRE? If you ask this to an average American, the chances are he will answer this- ‘USA, Germany, France’, or if he is a bit more knowledgeable he can say China. But of course the correct answer is India. Indians dominate in all western exams- GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, IELTS, etc. Though now the Chinese have also come far ahead. In fact, take the questions of the Mathematical section of the GRE- designed to test college level students, and give them to any student of class 7 or 8 in India, and he/she will solve them with ease.

Now do the reverse. Bring some of the brightest Western students and make them appear for IIT-JEE, probably one of the toughest exams in the world. And check how many of them can even solve a few questions, let alone crack the exam.

So why is it that if Indian students are so good in Mathematics, hardly any Indian has made any significant contribution to the field of Mathematics? Can we name even a single living [famous] Indian mathematician? In fact I doubt if students can go beyond Ramanujan or Mahalonobis[both dead for quite a while].

At one time, India produced most of the World’s best Mathematicians. However this culture has vastly disintegrated and now we produce only engineers and managers trying to serve their own selfish greed, rather than making any significant progress/research in their field.

In fact, the reason why so many child prodigies who win medals in the International Mathematics Olympiad disappear is because their parents force them to join IITs and do engineering. Once they get into that, the thought of mathematics is all but forgotten. Sad, but true. In the west, such budding youngsters are encouraged to sharpen their talents and do extra-ordinary research in their field, be it Mathematics, Science, Law, Medicine, etc. It’s only in India that we look down upon people who do not choose engineering, medical, etc as a profession and try to do something different.

I will end with this story- I know a person who was interested in Statistics, and wanted to do research work in Mathematics which would help India develop a better mechanism for studying the poverty rate, and the food distribution rate, etc. Instead his parents forced him to join an Engineering college, shattering his dream, which along with him slipped into oblivion.

When will the people [especially realize] realize that forcing your children to study Engineering and MBA against their will is actually harming rather than benefiting them? Getting an ABC job is NOT, and SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED THE ONLY AIM IN LIFE.




Just recently, some notable Mathematicians around the world were awarded the Fields medal[equivalent of a Noble Prize] in India [International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM)-Picture Above]. Yet not one of them was Indian. Vishwanathan Anand played chess with 40 Mathematicians simultaneously, yet the people of India are yet to wake up from their slumber.

As long as people keep on pursuing their own selfish interests, ie money and status, India can forget about producing any eminent personality in the field of Mathematics or Science.

Reservation- The Conclusion [Part 2]

continued from previous post



Personally, I believe that reservations are not really necessary and should be dispensed off altogether. They clearly violate the Right to Equality. Even if we accept that backward caste people were grossly exploited in the past, it does not justify why their grandchildren or great grandchildren should be benefited now. Take the case of Australia, now one of the most advanced countries in the world. However almost every Australian has an ancestor who was a criminal and deported [from England] to the sub-continent sometime in the past. Does that mean that since their ancestors were criminals, all Australians should be put into jail? Ridiculous. We need to get over the past and focus on the present. Even Ambedkar intended the reservation policy to carry out for just 50 years, by the time; he thought the backward caste people would have raised enough to walk shoulder to shoulder with the General category. However this did not happen. Instead reservation quota was increased. And with politicians such as Mayawati and Lalu Prasad Yadav endorsing reservation like anything, it’s unlikely that reservation will ever be stopped in future.

Unfortunately the only people who deserve to get reservation are those who don’t get it, namely the ones belonging to the BPL[Below Poverty Line Category]. Such people rarely even manage to scrape through school, let alone get themselves admitted into higher educational institutes or jobs. Politicians are also not bothered, since they do not constitute a part of their vote bank. But can’t we have some other solution apart from reservation?

Instead of just reserving a Higher Education seat, why not give him proper food, shelter, clothing and access to education from the very beginning? After all, the poor student will be unable to adjust to the environment if he is just given a free pass and nothing else. Moreover, it’s almost always the middle class people who avail of the reservation schemes, since their children study in decent private schools along with the General category students. The following is a common occurrence nowadays-‘Two children[say A and B], good friends study in the same school throughout till class 12. Then the competitive exams take place. A finds out that he has scored a decent rank but failed to get into the college of his choice. However he sees that his friend B has got a similar result. But he is shocked to know that B has managed to gain entry into the college of A’s dreams. A is bewildered. Only later he realizes that B somehow managed to obtain a Backward caste certificate and got hold of a seat reserved for S.C.s]. The above incident is pretty common. In fact, nowadays most people do not openly declare that they are from backward castes. They are ashamed to say in public that their grandparents were sweepers or cobblers. The stigma hasn’t really vanished. But when the opportunity arrives, they quietly get hold of such certificates in sneak into colleges/companies/etc. In fact, such is the greed to get hold of a seat, that many General category people are obtaining forged certificates stating that they belong to so and so backward caste. It seems that people will go to any length to find a shortcut instead of taking the right but hard path. And since reservation is legal, there is nothing wrong about it[according to them].

When I was in school, I did not even know which student was from a backward caste and who was not. I never discriminated anyone with respect to their caste, religion, status, color, gender, etc. However I will lie if I say that I did not feel disappointed[and also a bit angry] when I saw some of my classmates get admission into NITs[for example] with a lower rank than mine, whereas I did not get any seat anywhere[am from general category]. This feeling of anger is natural and justified. What did those students do to deserve the seats? The answer is they did nothing. It’s just that they were from backward castes. The same situation is prevalent throughout India. We need to seriously question the motive and policy of reservation.

Or else, we could simply keep giving more reservation to people who want them. Let us have reservations for all minority religions- Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jains, Parsis, etc. Or we could have State Reservations- Marathis, Punjabis, Uttar Pradeshis, Bengalis, Assamese, etc. Or maybe geographical reservation- North, South, East, West, Central. Or reservation based on color- Dark, Brown, Fair, Extra Dark, Extra Fair, Medium, etc. Or reservation based on looks, that would be interesting- Beautiful, Handsome, Ugly, Horrible. Here is a sample Introductory session on the first day of college-‘Hi, I am A, Marathi Quota from Madhya Pradesh. Hello A, this is B, Central Quota from Haryana. Oh guys, wait up. This is C, Extra Fair Quota from Punjab. Hi, I am D, beautiful Quota from Maharashtra. Finally an exasperated guy shows up and starts speaking. Excuse me, but where is the registration for General category students? I did not find any place for that. Oh did you not hear? The General category Quota was removed. Now you need to find a Quota that suits you. Choose the State Quota if nothing else is applicable.’

So the question remains- Do we want a single united India? Or do we want to further divide it into numerous segments, dividing people across castes[which will be included in the Census, by the way], and introducing barriers throughout? The answer is only with us.

Reservation- A necessary Evil or a Farce? [Part 1]

All right, before you all lambast me on choosing to write a clichéd topic such as Reservation in India, let me tell you that this is one vital issue which cannot be ignored by a blogger who writes about India. After touching upon ragging, racism, English obsession, sadism, poverty, etc, I have finally arrived at another hot, controversial topic- Reservation.

A little background information is necessary. In India, there are different types of reservations, for college seats, jobs in Public companies/institutions, etc. There are 3 main categories of recipients: 1)The Scheduled Castes[SC’s], 2)Scheduled Tribes[S.T.s] and 3) Other Backward Castes[OBCs]. It is estimated that more than 25% of the Indian population [around 30 crore] belong to the backward castes. The actual figure may even be higher, if all the sub-castes are included as well [along with the untouchables, the Dalits, etc]. A person namely responsible for starting the reservation Quota system after India gained independence was the late B.R. Ambedkar, a famous scholar who belonged to a lower class. He wanted people from such lower castes and classes to come up and get rid of the stigma attached to them.
Currently, around 49% of the total seats in Higher Educational Institutes[notably IITs and IIMs] are reserved for students from backward castes. In some areas such as Tamil Nadu, politicians want this figure to be raised even higher[though for now, the Supreme court has said that the number should not cross the 50% mark]. So why has reservation caused such a hullabaloo in our country though it’s totally legal and established by the Government itself?

The reason is quite simple. Almost every person belonging to the General category opposes reservation with the view that it provides a Short-cut or free pass/ticket to undeserving people, whereas deserving people[belonging to the general category] are left behind. Politicians demand extra reservation for people belonging to their castes [such as Yadavs or Mundas]. As such there are thousands of castes in our country, and it’s simply not possible to provide reservation for each and every one separately. So is reservation simply unfair? Is it actually fulfilling the aim or purpose for which it was launched?

Let us go more than 60 years in the past. India, a country which has recently obtained independence. A country where majority of the people are poor and homeless. A country with 85% of its population illiterate and 75% of the people dependent on agriculture alone. The condition of backward castes people at that time was horrendous. They were[and still are] ill-treated and exploited by the zamindars, land owners and money-lenders to name a few. They were mercilessly tortured, beaten, robbed, raped, and made to perform all sorts of atrocious acts[which are too vulgar to mention here, but some included eating cow dung]. Most of them hardly earned anything and many starved to death. The Government thought it to be necessary to uplift these people and get rid of the social evils which had plagued them. Thus the concept of reservations was introduced, mainly to show that in a democracy like India, people from all castes, status, etc would be included in the daily affairs of the nation.

Moreover, most of such backward class people were illiterate [close to 100%]. So it was necessary to provide them with education and jobs. So after the IITs and IIMs were set up, it was decided that a portion of the total seats would be reserved for people belonging to backward castes. So how did this escalate into a problem? The answer is simple. With passing of time, many people from the backward castes managed to get rid of their poverty and join the burgeoning middle class[now rising in number]. Plus there were quite a few people who had decent jobs at present[along with a decent salary of course], with ancestors belonging to some backward castes. But seeing that the reservation stood for all, such people naturally decided to utilize the benefits of reservation for their wards. So even if their children did not score as high as someone from general category, they still managed to get a seat into say an IIT, and later in a Government job. This was the starting point of the agitation, soon to gain momentum throughout the country.

Thousands of people protested. Some formed mobs, and went on a rampage in cities all across India. Some destroyed public property. Others set things on fire and some people set themselves on fire as a mark of protest. They had one demand-Put an end to this unfair practice of Reservation in the name of uplifting the backward class. They considered it to be a specious act. To quell their anger, the Government introduced the Creamy layer system in 1971[Sattanathan Commission] which specified that a certain wealthy section of Backward castes people would be ineligible for the reservation quota. At present those who earn above Rs. 4,50,000[which was raised from Rs. 2,50,000 in 2008] per annum belong to the creamy layer and are ineligible for reservation.

Though that worked to an extent, if truth be told, someone whose father earns a salary of say Rs. 4,25,000 per annum[which works out to Rs. 35,000 per month, quite a decent figure considering that majority of Indians don’t even earn one-tenth that amount] is still eligible for quota. This is, what I believe, rightly unfair[Oxymoron?]. If a person is already earning such a high amount of a salary, then why should his child get a reserved seat which he clearly does not deserve? On the other hand, there are also many genuine cases where a person is unable to give his child proper coaching so that he can join a reputed institute. Due to the environment the student lags far behind his urban counterparts, and is naturally disadvantaged when it comes to college admissions. In such a case, maybe he really deserves to get admission. So whats the way out of this?



To Be Concluded

MBA Updates- Dates, etc

Here are the dates of a few MBA exams for this season[2010-2011]. Hope it will be useful for all MBA aspirants including myself:

1. CAT [for application to all existing IIMs and 100s of other Bschools including MDI Gurgaon, IMT Ghaziabad, NITIE, etc] - 27th October till 23rd November- You can select any Date in between the Test window, excluding national Holidays such as Diwali. Two time Slots, either in the Morning or in the Afternoon.

2. IIFT [For application to Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi and Kolkata campuses]- 28th November- 10 am to 12 pm.

3. FMS [For application to the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi campus]- 5th December. Timing possibly in Afternoon slot.

4. JMET[For applications to IITs]- 12th December. [Possibly]- 10 am to 1 pm[3 hours].

5. SNAP[For application to all institutes under Symbiosis University such as SIBM Pune]- 19th December.

6. XAT[For application to XLRI Jamshedpur, XIM-Bhubaneswar, XISS Ranchi, etc]- Possibly on January 2nd or 9th.

These are the prominent MBA examinations. I do not have information about some of the other tests, notably MAT[Management Aptitude Test held four times a year] or NMAT[which will possibly be held in January] , IBSAT and MH-CET.
Also Note- As of this date, ie 19th August, 2010, only IIFT forms are available. The official CAT bulletin should be out on 22nd August, and sales of vouchers to commence from 29th August onwards. Again this is not confirmed yet. So keep checking the websites and follow newspapers regularly.

Personal:
People keep asking me as to how my preparation is going on. I usually give the same reply to all- ‘Preparation is good. I just need to improve slightly in Quant to clear the cut offs. I am doing quite well in the other 2 sections, ie DI and VA.’ This December is going to be a hectic one. Can’t expect to do well in the semester exams this time around. Btw my 6th sem result is out, and I managed a 8.89. That makes my YGPA 9.04, the second highest in my department [CSE-total 133 students]. I have been confident and optimistic throughout my course of CAT preparation[which began in my first year of college] and I hope I will be able to give a decent performance. I believe that staying calm throughout will greatly benefit anyone during the exam. As for mocks, I have mostly got in the lower 90s[93-95] but I know I am capable of getting into the upper 90s range. Going slow and steady.
All the best to those who are giving any/all of the above exams this season. I hope all of you do well. I will give my best performance as well.

P.S.- If you are not really interested in an MBA, kindly do not give the exams just for fun or thinking that it will get you a good job. It won’t help, trust me. You will only end up wasting time and money.
P.P.S.- If you STILL haven’t started your preparation, I would suggest that you either spend 10 hours a day on preparation[2 months] or just appear next year.

Why MBA?

This is a collection of a few most clichéd statements pertaining to the popular question asked by many interviewers for Bschool aspirants:- ‘Why MBA?’ Many people have asked me the same question as well.

It is an open secret that most of the interviewees have absolutely no idea about the answer. Simply because they don’t have any reason for doing an MBA. They are merely doing so because their friends are doing so, and/or they are being forced by their family members. Or more simply, they are just doing it to get a high paying job and status in society. Of course all those actual reasons are considered taboo during the interviews, so let’s see what kind of answers these smart candidates actually give to hoodwink the interviewers. These are a collection of actual answers given in interviews, collected by me after studying various forum and blog posts in the net. I repeat, they are NOT a work of fiction created by me. People actually give these sort of answers during interviews when asked why they want to do an MBA.

Also, most of the answers have been given by engineers, who believe that MBA is an Official extension of engineering. So without wasting any more time, here I begin:

1) This is the formula used by most engineers-‘If you can’t convince them, then confuse them.’ So the answer is typically this type-‘As you can see, I gained technical insight and foresight into solving industrial and engineering related problems and also the applications pertaining to logical and technical skills which I gained during my engineering course. However, I would like to supplement it by gaining managerial skills at your esteemed ABC institute, to be able to provide in-depth leadership solutions for all esoteric problems.’ In reality what he means is-‘I don’t know why the hell I wasted 4 years doing something which I never understood[engineering] and I have absolutely no idea why I want to do the MBA. I just know that I need that 7 digit salary. But since you[the interviewer] won’t accept a direct answer, I have to go about it in a roundabout manner.’

2) The interviewer asks-‘You are so talented in photography. You have actively worked in an NGO. Your photos and articles have been published in international magazines. Why do you want to do an MBA then?’ Answer-‘This can be defined by Maslow’s theory in his pyramid. Blah blah, degree of self-actualization, needs, defining human psychology, etc etc.’ By now, even the interviewer is struggling to stay awake. Finally the candidate miraculously concludes his discussion by saying that an engineer just cannot stay alive and make a living unless he does an MBA. Defined by Maslow of course.

3) Sometimes the student tries to define a non-existent link between engineering and management. He tries to prove that both are actually quite similar and that one cannot exist without the other. So all engineers should be managers and all managers must have an engineering degree. Otherwise it will create havoc in this world. One guy actually said that just like different organs in our body perform different functions but are all interconnected by nerves, similarly management is largely connected to engineering and that only engineers can be good managers. Some people will go to any length to try to prove something which has no meaning. But after all, too many lies do make a truth.

4) Yet another plan devised by the ubiquitous engineers-‘Technopreneurship. The term stands for entrepreneurs who venture in the technical field. For example, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, or even Akio Morita, founder of SONY. The frustrated interviewer remarks-‘If all engineers rush after MBA, then who will do engineering jobs’. The candidate smartly replies-‘This is an era of technopreneurship. We need capable entrepreneurs who venture into the field of technology to create outstanding products and sell them, blah blah blah.’ The interviewer sighs and gives up.

5) Finally, a person actually remarked- Since I am from IIT, the best engineering college it’s only logical that I go to IIM, the best management Bschool. Only that he forgets to mention WHY that should be so.

You may think that I harbor some kind of grudge against engineers or something. There’s nothing like that, since I am an engineer[about-to-be] aiming for doing MBA myself. It’s just that I do not approve of such shady methods of trying to fool the interviewer. If you have no reason of doing MBA besides money and status, why don’t you have the guts of simply saying so? Be frank and who knows, you can even be selected as the interviewers will definitely appreciate your honesty. In most cases, they are experienced people and will be able to see through your lies. However, with most of the people clearing the cut-offs being engineers, the institutes have no choice but to accept them[they can’t keep all their seats empty, can they?]. This is why many people who have no clue as to why they should pursue an MBA, also do manage to get into a good Bschool. Its only later, after passing out that they realize their mistake and end up suffering in some job which they never actually wanted. They may earn lots of money, but I doubt whether they will ever be satisfied.

It’s not a sin to run after money. In fact, you should learn effective[but legal] ways of generating wealth both for yourself and your company. Subroto Bagchi of Mindtree Tech. says that ‘To build a company, you should learn to love money. If you do not love money, do not build a company.’ Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, also says that its very important to have a good financial understanding of a business. However, that does not mean that your only objective in life should be earning money. Even Chetan Bhagat remarks-‘You should have at least one non-monetary reason of doing an MBA.’ Most engineers have no real interest in business, economics, etc. Its just that MBA has become too much of a fad in India. We should try to relinquish this greed of making quick bucks, and instead do something which really interests us.

After all, before you take the decision of jumping into the MBA bandwagon, ask yourself this question-‘Am I wasting the 4 years I spent doing engineering? Will I actually apply any of my engineering skills after I complete my MBA? Or did I do engineering just for getting an engineering degree[which holds lots of value] and no other purpose’. These questions will help clarify your doubt.

Welcome to the Wrong Career!

Recently, I read an excellent article(In Education Times dated 17/05/2010 ) about career counseling and the wrong career choices made by students. [You can read the article Here ]

Am quoting 3 lines from the article:

‘An IIM graduate gave up her job in McKinsey and now runs a publishing company. ‘

‘A student who opted for chemical engineering completed his studies, but somehow never cleared all the subjects in every semester. ‘

‘A doctor, who had done well in his medical programme, was very clear that he wasn’t keen to practice medicine at all.’


Now what do these 3 lines tell you? That those 3 people were fools? Obviously not. Fools cannot get admission into IIMs for once, and they usually wont perform well in their medical programme. No, it’s just that those people did not really know what career they wanted to pursue. What’s the harm in that, you may ask? In a country where millions of people are illiterate, what difference does it make whether a person becomes an engineer, or a doctor, or whichever career from where he/she can earn the maximum? Well, it does make a difference. It may be a subtle difference, but at the same time, it’s quite imperative as well.

In India, most children do not choose a career path of their own free will. They are mostly influenced(or rather forced) by their parents, peers, relatives, friends, etc. So in most cases, following the norms of the society, a child takes up a path in which he has no interest in. This is because our society looks down at people whose children are not engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc- Ie the traditional streams. Though in recent times, a variety of new courses have opened up[Hotel Management, Hospitality, Forestry, Rural Management, etc], but surprisingly most parents still want their children to continue with the traditional streams, especially those in middle class and lower class backgrounds. The reason for this is also quite obvious- Money. Since India is still a poor country, most people look at education as a panacea, a tool which can get them a job. Every parent will want his child to get a secure job, especially if it’s a necessity. And with just 5% of the Indian population earning more than $10 a day, you can bet that there is a mad rush to get high-paying jobs.




The other obvious reason is status. People want to boast to their neighbors that their wards have got admission in such and such 5 star colleges. Even the student usually targets a institute, not because he wants to really learn anything, but because he knows that he will get instant fame after booking a seat in the institute. This points to a deeper malaise- We have too few good quality institutes, especially for Higher education. Look at the ironical situation- Whereas on one hand, we have thousands of good private schools taking in thousands of students and offering high quality service, on the other hand we have even more number of private colleges offering a lugubrious or dismal service with pathetic conditions. Most students passing out of such colleges do not get a job neither do they learn anything. They just add to the growing un-employment queue. This shows the desperation for obtaining nugatory degrees. Some people sell off their land to get their children admitted in such colleges. And the ROI (Return on Investment) is practically zero. Somehow many fatuous people believe that a degree [Especially an Engineering degree] is all it takes to get a job.



So we have lakhs of students opting for engineering, and around the same number opting for MBA. Why don’t we have an equal number of students entering the Law, Medicine, Sports[Heavily required],Arts, Commerce, Scientific Research[Where India lags behind most countries], Ph.D [We have too few of them], Music, Painting, Archaeology, Core Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biotechnology, R & D, Astronomy [India has just a handful of institutes that offer a course in Astronomy], Manufacturing, Core- Cement, Fertilizers, Power [Solar, Wind, Geothermal, others], etc. I could go on and on, about this demand-supply mismatch but then my post will never finish. We have such a high deficit of trained people in these sectors. Reason- ‘Most people are unable to finish their school, let alone complete college. And the ones who are privileged enough to attend college, end up running blindly after money and annihilating their careers.’

Indirect consequences of the above :
1) Increasing the divide between the poor and the rich.

2) Very few good quality Non-Engineering, Non-MBA colleges coming up. [The Government is only focused on bringing up more IITs, NITs, and IIMs.]

3) Mushrooming of coaching institutes across the country that are fooling people and making the most of this travesty.

4) Non-traditional streams are dying down, since they are not getting a Quality boost.

5) Lack of scientific research and development means there is very little scope in India for genuine students. Even those seriously interested in Science are opting for engineering. This is also the reason why most of the Noble Prize winning Indians live outside their homeland.

The sad thing is that even today most people believe –‘If you are not from an IIT or an IIM, then you are nothing.’