Death Spiral

Had an exam in management accounting today morning. yes the same one was cribbing about yesterday. Syllabus had a section called “cost death spiral” or something like that. Stuff like if you drop one of your products because it is making losses, the company will have to close down all its products one by one until it shuts down.

I am confidently spouting gyaan here while sitting there in the exam hall, I gave one of my worst performances here. Simply couldn’t concentrate. Something was seriously wrong somewhere. An exam I should’ve ideally finished off in an hour took 2.5 hrs and even then I’d done everything wrong.

One thing I can’t forget is the thought process I went through during the last phase of the exam. It went something like “This is a quantitative subject – something I’m supposed to be good at. But I’m buckling under pressure so I’m not able to do well. My mom had initially warned me against IIMs saying I won’t be able to handle the pressure. I didn’t listen to her, so I’m here. If I can’t do well even in the quantitative stuff, nice try I’ll be able to do well in the other qualitative ones. Which means that my CGPA will take a huge beating. My form, or the lack of it, will continue and I’ll do badly in my internship. I won’t get a PPO. This, coupled with my low CG, will result in me not getting any shortlists in next year’s placement season. I’ll further buckle down and end up with one of the lousiest jobs. And why did I come to IIM if I were to do this badly?…. blah blah… “. As it happened, this subconscious thought flow interrupted with my conscious attempts to solve the problem which led me to actually do badly in today’s exam – thus sparking off another iteration of that thought process…

Truly a downward death spiral.

Classes would be much more interesting if Profs were to give real-life examples such as this to explain concepts better….

Fanaa…

The last hindi movie I saw in a theatre was Yuva (last May), a real classic i must say. If not for anything, you must watch it for Abhishek Bacchan’s award-winning performance and……

kareena kapoor… she’s definitely not one of my favorite actresses but the performance in Yuva is (IMHO) really breathtaking… the carefree look on her face… the attitude she displays… as she jumps up and down to Rahman’s breathtakingly haunting-yet fastpaced “Fanaa”… her hair flying… without a hint of worry… shucks i’m repeating myself. i must say that i haven’t seen too many people who can display that kind of attitude. i really fell in love with that character.

As for “Fanaa…”, I came across this interesting piece of trivia in a quiz a few months ago… (courtesy Satyajit Chetri)…. as in the meaning of the word fanaa was given, it was told it’s related to a recent hindi song… yet i didn’t get it… felt like stabbing myself to death for not cracking it… didn’t do it so i’m writing this today.

For the record, Fanaa is a sufi word. it refers to a stage one passes through in which he becomes fully absorbed to the point of becoming unaware of himself or the objects around him. Every existing thing seems to vanish, and he feels free of every barrier that could stand in the way of his viewing the Remembered One and nothing else (forgive the grammar i did a ctrl+c ctrl+v). And I must say I see this feeling on Kareena’s face whenever i see the video of that song….

you can find more about Fanaa at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Sufis/truth.html

Six and out: Part 2 (very boring I must say)

To get an insight as to what might have happened to me the day I got really drunk and did lots of arbit things, I decided to have just a little bit of vodka (thus coming out of premature retirement) and see what exactly would have happened…

As my first peg was assimilated, I felt my knees go weak. I got this attitude that what others think doesn’t matter. It is just that I have to enjoy myself. I remembered a certain somebody telling me repeatedly that “parties are just an instrument for you to let go. don’t worry about opinions people make of you then”. However, I could never implement it thus far. Today, the little vodka in my blood made me get rid of all my self-consciousness (a good thing I must say) and I managed to dance around like a drunk monkey (though I was careful not to venture near “her”, whose feet i’d fallen at on the previous occasion).

I also noticed that time went damn slowly. I seemed to do so many things in so little time. Then a friend of mine told me to practice my proposal on , in my opinion the sweetest girl on campus. Was nice fun as she started beating me…

After this I managed to witness some really amazing scenes. A couple of civilian seniors from IITM (one a classmate here and the other visiting…) got totally sloshed and engaged in a really-funny-to-watch lesbian dance! Then there was this HUGE group of guys who were trying to put blade to “her”. Made interesting watching. Then a wingmate of mine got totally sloshed and went around hugging other guys and giving them gyaan (I happened to be his first victim). Just escorted him back to his room.

Well, I must tell you that two pegs of vodka and LOTS and LOTS of mirinda simply can’t simulate a “six and out” as I would call my “episode that day” (named in honor of Shane and Brett Lee). But nevertheless I had fun at this party.

Guess I’ll sleep now. Got two submissions on monday….

Mass Weddings

In a month’s time from now, 200 girls from our tribe are going to be married. The weddings will start on the 10th of March and go on for a week, until all the brides have been married. Preparations have already begun in full swing and some girls have already been engaged – they won’t go through the process of finding a groom in those days.

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arbit!!!

Plzzz don’t get psyched by reading this. Just some arbit stuff. And no, i’m not mad. and i’ve quit drinking….

Sometimes I have this vague feeling that I want to be accelerated. Somehow. Best thing would be to drive but that’s a li’l dangerous. I won’t mind a few people shoving me around. Or even beating me up. As long as it somehow makes me feel light in the head and happy. Sometimes even a nice joke will do the trick. I’ll laugh so much that I’ll be accelerated. Don’t know why this is happening. Is it because of some past incident? Is it because there’s something deep down that has been bottled in? Is there something I want that hasn’t been satisfied? Or is this simply how I relax? Speaking of relaxation, sometimes I do feel guilty that I haven’t worked enough to relax now! So why should I relax? Why is it that I’m not able to meet my long-term deadlines? Why is it that I start doing something and end up doing something totally different? I’ll stop here as thinking on these lines will make me get the feeling to be accelerated even further.

LOL!

Cricket Illustrated

This is in reference to the article “life is a game of cricket” I wrote a few days ago. Today we were discussing the answers to a certain examination and I was able to explain everything in cricketing terms… The paper consisted of 40 Multiple Choice Questions with +1 for every right answer and -1 for every wrong.

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On cultural events and simulated annealling

As part of my “Artificial Intelligence” course three years ago, I had learnt about this search technique called “simulated annealling”. I learnt this again as part of an advanced course in Operations Research. It is used to solve problems where solving rigorously is not feasible as it would take too much time.

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Accident

As I was speeding along ring road driving into campus a few minutes ago, I was witness to a horrible accident. A bike in front of me, travelling at 60+ (kmph), hit a pedestrian who was crossing the road. The gentleman was trying to cross the road at a point where normally vehicles seem to zip. And what makes it more amazing is that there was a traffic signal and zebra crossing barely 20 metres away.

Won’t we Indians ever learn? Do we continue risking our lives while a little care could have done the trick? Or do we have to enforce “zero tolerance zones” everywhere in order to teach ourselves traffic rules?

(my first short post! hurray!)