The summery winters !

A Story of bitter truths

Summers placement process at a B-School is a wonderful eye opener. It usually goes on after the first term at B-School when the fledgling managers are tested for their flight which they would embark upon 6 months hence. It is fun to a great extent, till it becomes a P-I-T-A when you are asked to sit for a 10 minutes interview for hours together every other day, especially for companies for where you don't want to work. The process gives you an altogether new insight into the vagaries of life.

It is difficult for an outsider to believe that one (to be precise around 40% of the batch) can reach a situation where he could be left unplaced in a premium B-School of the country in the, so called, placement process that spans 4-5 days. With 350+ students it is a Herculean task for the school to place the entire batch in one go. But then you flaunt the "Premium B-School" tag for that. The greatest sin today before coming to a B-School is to have worked for an IT company. I mean you could have worked for across the street KIRANA shop but Lord ! you chose to work on a computer, you ain't fit to be a manager. Managers are people who go out and do things and not just sit around on some digital device pressing keys like couch "sweet" potatoes. So, with 300+ more Indian IT mortals( acronym -> IIMs :P) you plunge into the process. Since you're at a premium B-School you obviously have unbelievable CVs floating all around you. Your resume always seems less ornate and your life a mere waste of time till now. It seems you have just faffed your life away. Getting here was just "Luck By Chance"

So, you keep waiting for making it to a shortlist of some prestigious company. Now this is another interesting concept. It is not like the good ol' engineering(err.. sorry for presuming this but at these institutes close to 80 % of the junta are engineers) days where every company would test you and decide who to interview. It is ciao at the onset. You don't make it to the shortlist and your wait grows and likewise your worries. Well another FUN FACT: Avoid coming to a B-School with more than 2 years of work-ex else you have serious chances of suffering from "Summers Syndrome" which results due to deficiency of shortlists during the summers process. Mind you I said "avoid". As I told the longer you have to wait the worse your situation is. And then comes the P-I-T-A time where you are forced to attend interviews. And this loop works till you exit the cycle of "B-School Placement Karma" with a sign-out. Yeah that is the name of the coveted phenomena that just happens twice in a B-School if you're lucky, and only once if you're not. Once when you are vying for a summer placement and the next when it is the finals.

Unfortunately my Karmas till now have not permitted me to exit the cycle..but never agreeing more with Mr. Raj Kapoor I keep singing "Woh Subah kabhi to aayegi !"

It's run Forrest run at IIML...

Hmm...phew lemme take a breath before my fingers start to put my thoughts in black and white. That is how it is here at IIM (helL) you keep running to get things done. But, the list of pending items seems to keep expanding using some kind of nuclear division technique of asexual reproduction. Before you are done tending to the old ones there are new babies of work crying for your attention. Ah..how can you neglect them (you dare not !).

On a serious note, I think apart from the great peer group and a devoted faculty it is this continuous pressure of endless assignments, presentations, quizzes which develops people here. Everyone here learns to pursue interests and do things they are fond of despite this pressure, continuously trying to bog them down. This is the trick. Trying to squeeze time each day...plan, plan and plan more.

Another thing conspicuous here is passion for doing things. By passion it is not passion of words, it's passion in deeds. People want tangible and quantifiable proofs of anything and everything that one claims to like and do. This requires passion, to follow your heart when everything else is about to fall apart. It makes people ponder over what they really want ? what they really like ? But a downside of this that people may feel the need of developing passion per force. This may lead to some futile efforts, but failures can't really daunt us, can they ?

In the long run I think it is(will be) all great and the pain of late has started to give a pleasure. It is the bitter sweet experience of this fierce competition which will probably make the outside world look sweeter than it actually is.

Looking for the right mate !

I saw Ghajini recently(yes I had not seen it till now !).Kalpana is the female lead in Ghajini the Bollywood/Tollywood version of Memento.I don't understand why the directors and screenplay writers create such characters.

Asin (arguably she is gorgeous,and joins the innocent+mischevious looks league of Genelia and Ayesha Takia) is Kalpana. She is this unimaginable and indescribable combo of beauty and heart(with that combo one can manage w/o the brains :P).
Those scenes where she helps the kids at the museum and the blind man and when she sells her coveted car for Aamir's mother. I mean, these could win heart of the Satan himself. And to top it all, Asin what she herself is. I think all this is pretty unfair on the part of the creators of these characters.Do such people really exist ??

These movies and their surreal characters create an unrealistic experience (although that is what exactly their aim is), but the unseen effect of such storylines is that we have our dreamy teenagers and may be ty-agers as well. However hard we may try and keep ourselves pragmatic. But, it is difficult to not fall for someone like "Kalpana". Ironically the director is prudent enough to use the name Kalpana (imagination, probably becoz he knew, that smone like her cud only be a figment of imagination).The real effect of these could be unreal expectation from the future partners.What I am writing here is not a replication of what these directors do i.e. imagination. According to a series from BBC, called "Love". These days our choice of future mates have been spoilt (or shall we say expectation has been spoilt).Earlier the choice was limited to the right age group mates from a village or a little more than that.

How many did that make ? Say a few hundreds,probably not even those many. Now,that you see thousands of advertisements and pretty/handsome models in them.The brain records the posibilities of future mates.And one might develop expectation(subconciously) for them.Though on the surface people could realise their limitations but inside, deep down under where the "Basic Instinct" (guys stop thinkin about Ms. Stone now) is still strong u dont know what is going on.With all the pedagogy that has modified the way one sees and thinks,that basic instinct remains largely unaltered.

U look for those qualities in ur mate. When u dont get them (very few are actually fortunate enough, to get all that they were looking for) u reconcile. Earlier in our Indian traditional society and ways, we had hope. Hope becoz reconciliation was unconditional. Now, with the concept of one life.Reconciliation and contentment have lost their meaning. Boss, one life ! It's now or never. An unsettling thought indeed.If u dont get what u were looking for(which in itself is an obscure idea) u have that hollow feeling.Am I doing the right thing ? Was this what I was looking for ? U are never sure. While what u are looking for in the wilderness of this life is still a smudgy picture, u have the basic instincts working for u, and keeping u engaged in getting more money, life and love.

Anyway, the whole idea of creating these characters is an unreal experience.And let me tell you they are good at it. U are left to the mercy of mental imagery, of how far u cud go with these inputs. They cud just lead to unhappier lives. Not conciously, but subconciously. So, beware.

"Kalpana" is just a Kalpana(imagination)

So, Dikhavon pey naa jao...Apni aql Lagao.