Starting this academic year, the Humanities and Social Sciences (HS) department of IIT Madras is starting integrated 5-year MA courses in Economics, English and Developmental Studies. With this IITM becomes the second IIT to start undergrad courses in Economics after IIT Kanpur which started an integrated MSc in Economics last year. This particular move of IITM is commendable mainly for two reasons – one to provide meaningful employment to HS profs and also in a branding context.
Knowledge vs. Logical reasoning; Quizzing vs. Consulting
When I started my quizzing career around 12 years ago, I was good at it because I knew more than a lot of others. As a child, my parents had made me mug up a few huge “general knowledge” books. Apart from this, I started reading the newspaper at quite an early age. And questions in school quizzes being of the type “who holds the record for most goals in a single world cup football match?” or “what is abhimanyu’s mother’s name?” (I answered both these questions on my way to 2nd prize in the KQA Lone Kid Quiz in 1994), my additional general knowledge helped.
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Cold pizza and warm coke
As I walked back from the Pre-Placement Talk (PPT) of a prominent consulting company, T asked me “how come you’re walking back so soon?”
me: what do you mean?
T: have you signed out of the process?
me: no
T: are you applying to this company?
me: yes of course
T: then why the hell aren’t you putting ACP (“after class participation” for the uninitiated)?
me: have talked to a few people from this industry and have all my doubts more or less cleared. don’t find any value add in putting arbit CP.
T: still yaar, if you want to join this company, it’s better you put CP. it’ll help your chances.
me (dumbfounded): ugh… ok…
I get back to try and ingest the cold pizza and warm coke.
53207
I’m trying to figure out whether i have a crush on her or not. And if it turns out that i do have a crush on her, i’ll have the additional problem of figuring out whether she has a crush on me or not.
This stuff is taking up most of my processor time nowadays, thus big time retarding the other processes. And causing the system to frequently crash.
Such is life!
my biggest problem
is that i crib too much
Child in time
For the better part of the last five months, I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd. I occasionally switch to other bands such as Dire Straits, Maiden, Beatles, etc. but I quickly get bored and switch back to Floyd within a day.
Deep Purple, however, has turned out to be totally different. I added them to my playlist last Monday and am yet to change the playlist. There’s something about their music which I haven’t been able to get off my head. Probably it is the heavy use of long instrumentals, a la Floyd. Probably it’s because of the not-so-heavy vocals (in most songs, except for some like Highway Star). Probably because it’s much more melodious than a lot of other bands. Probably it’s because it’s psychedelic. Stuff makes you go high instantaneously. (btw, does purple get classified under “psychedelic rock”?).
The biggest claim to fame of the song child in time, from the album Concerto for Group and Orchestra, might be that Aisa Zakhm Diya Hai (Akele Hum Akele Tum) has been “inspired” by it. What sets this song apart, however, is the rhythm. The three beats in the beginning of the cycle, followed by a long gap which is sometimes filled with rolling beats, is simply too amazing.
It’s probably the first time that I’ve liked a song mainly for the rhythm scheme. Just darken the lights and play the song, and simultaneously drum a table using a hand and a spoon… you’ll soon be transported to another world. Another beautiful world where you are king… Where you get so lost that you forget what you wanted to say… Where you start writing a piece and then in the middle start wondering what you wanted to write… Where you start writing a blogpost and soon realize it’s going nowhere… but you want to ramble on and write something.
Incredible.
The downside of the high…
It is a hard time at the peak. You know that you simply can’t go higher. And it’s lonely out there. There’s nothing to do. And it’s hard not to do anything. And any small slip up and you’ll slide down. Nothing you can do to prevent yourself from slipping down…
there’s no better high
than the feeling of having done a good job…
The market for minus attendance
In order to show every recruiter who comes to our campus that we are extremely enthusiastic about their company, there is a certain attendance requirement for pre-placement talks (PPTs). Of course, everyone need not attend every PPT but there are methods to fill up the lecture halls when the company comes calling. The exact implementation of this, however, varies from B-school to B-school.
Now, some people cribbed last year that there is no point asking someone to attend a PPT which he/she is least interested in, while people who would be really interested in the company wouldn’t attend because they need not! For this purpose, our placement committee has introduced a system of “swaps”. In other words, proxy has been made official. One just needs to post on the message board and attend the PPT on behalf of someone, and sign for him/her. This, in effect, has created a market for PPT attendances!
The product in question here is the negative of attending the PPT (call it -PPT). Given that most companies don’t exercise brevity during the PPTs, most people hate attending PPTs. Thus, the product you would pay for is to “not attend a certain PPT”. Now, the valuation of a -PPT is a little tricky. How much would you pay someone so that he/she wears formals and sits in that classroom for an hour or two on your behalf?
One clever way of solving the problem is to indulge in swaps. Suppose I am more interested in company A than in company B. And you prefer B to A. Suppose the attendance roster says that I have to attend B and you A, we simply trade. I go to A and sign for you, and you return the favor at B. There is even a “swap folder” on our discussion boards for this, and it acts as a clearing house for -PPT swaps.
However, it is not always possible to find someone with opposite preferences so that you indulge in a straight swap. Of course, sometimes three-way or four-way swaps also take place. The best thing to do, however, when you don’t want to go for a PPT and can’t find a swap, is to pay someone to go for you. The data that follows is empirical.
It must be mentioned here that the fine for not attending a PPT is Rs. 400. Hence, logically the price for a PPT should settle down somewhere close to, but below 400 in case of a perfect market. However, B-school students are far from logical and the market far from perfect.
The “going rate” last year was Rs. 150 per PPT. A senior of ours was engaged and he simply put an open offer of Rs. 150 for anyone who could take his place. The market quickly converged at that rate and all was fine.
This year, however, the market has shown some strange dynamics. Our juniors seem to be desperate for money and in their attempts to attend more PPTs and thus make more money, they have started undercutting each other. Of course, there are these ignorant seniors who still pay the old rate of Rs. 150. And there are juniors who exploit these.
However, fact is that the price has gone down. Last week, when I was away at Madras, I was able to sell two -PPTs for Rs. 100 each. Rs. 100 seems to be the new ‘going rate’ for most deals. However, there are still a few interesting situations.
There are juniors who go for you for free because you live next door. Or because you had gone to the same undergrad college where you had ragged them. Then there are these meek juniors who feel that it is “not done” to ask a senior for money. And if you are a girl, it is even more peaceful. Just a promise of a chocolate or a coffee (just a promise, not necessarily delivery) is enough to get enough takers. Then, if you figure out which junior is going to intern in that company, you can get to go for you for free (since he’ll want to butter up his bosses before the internship so that it may increase chances of a PPO).
One thing, however, people seem to have missed out – that the length of PPTs are different, and people should be actually paid on basis of length. If I am a guy who hates PPTs, the amount of pain I go through a 2 hour PPT is twice that of in case of a 1 hour PPT; and hence should be charging (or willing to pay) double for it! This is one point that our oh-so-NOT-logical B-schoolers seem to have missed out on!
To conclude, this would be an interesting study for someone doing behavioral economics. And the study would be much harder because of the absence of the law of homogeneous expectations here. Here, two different people are likely to value the same product very differently – probably that is the main reason the market here is so imperfect!
Give color basanti
Saw this movie yesterday. Second show at Rex. Felt it was totally overhyped. Didn’t find it as great as many of my friends have.
The lives of a bunch of TDCs changes forever when a firang gives them gyaan about India’s great freedom movement and asks them to act in her movie documenting the same. Then they go on to do some arbit stuff (don’t want to play spoiler here). The end is one of the most hilarious I’ve seen in recent times. Perhaps I can call it ridiculous. Definitely not a kind of ending fit for a movie with patriotic overtones such as this.
My fundamental disconnect with the movie was that I couldn’t identify with any of the lead characters. Looking back, most of the Hindi movies I’ve enjoyed are those where I could easily identify with one of the leads; and lived his life for the next 2-3 hours. Dil to pagal hai (shah rukh khan), Yuva (vivek oberoi), Dil Chahta Hai (both aamir khan and saif ali khan), etc.
In Rang De Basanti, the characters in the first half are overtly TDC. And in the second, they become overtly patriotic. Not that I’m not patriotic. Just that their way of thinking doesn’t quite gel with mine.
Then, of course, there are these side plots which could’ve been safely dispensed with. The director takes his liberties and indulges in a lot of BJP bashing. A little would’ve been ok, but when you bash the BJP in every other scene, it does leave a bad taste in the mouth. Then, of course, you have the gyaan about Hindu-Muslim bhaichara. It seems like the director has taken it upon himself to give a lesson in morals to the youth of the country. And it doesn’t seem like he’s quite succeeded.
To end on a positive note, the performances in the movie have been superb. If only the script were a little more refined… And yeah, the ride home at 1 am on a bike borrowed from