Pertinent Observations

Early in 2003, when it was suggested to me that I should start writing, I started off with sensational writing. Wrote a couple of articles in the IITM magazine, one of them strong enough to shut down the magazine. The newsletter I wrote at the following Saarang seemed like a check on the Saarang coordinators.

Came to IIMB. Found the Cultural Committee really sucky (though they’ve stopped sucking this year), started an anti culcom campaign – enough for the cul secy to tend his resignation (which wasn’t accepted). Similar excesses on my part followed and it is only of late (after I started this journal) that I started writing about serious stuff.

However, given my background, there has been a tendency for sensationalism to creep into my writing. The fact that I am publishing it only on this journal (which I “own”) means that I haven’t put enough control systems in place and at times have misrepresented facts. In a bid to make things more interesting for readers, I have started inventing stuff and spicing up my stories (exception being the one I published in the times).

Now, one of these excesses has unfortunately proved serious for one of the people involved. Looks like the signal has been distorted so much that what I wrote is totally different from what actually happened.

And because of all this, it looks like currently there is a friendship on the line. Haven’t been able to contact the person in question yet, but hopefully it hasn’t gone bust already.

Had this thought midway through this morning’s “social entrepreneurship” class. What kind of interest rates are applicable for microcredit?

On one hand, farmers are typically poor people and can’t afford to borrow money at high rates. Hence rate of interest should be much lower than that for the urban/middle class counterparts. This is just like Public Distribution System where the poor are given essential commodities at low prices.

On the other hand, going by pure financial basis, the inherent risk in lending to farmers is really high since the probability of repayment is low. Hence, the credit spread charged should be high and these people should pay a higher rate of interest. Another argument supporting it is that the traditional moneylenders usually charge insane rates (sometimes over 100% per annum) and in this scenario, an interest rate of 25-30% per annum from a commercial bank shouldn’t be a problem for the farmers.

Comments please.

met prof. BS Ramachandra Rao (BSR) today. A retired professor of maths from IIT Bombay, BSR now teaches at BASE, the biggest JEE coaching center in Bangalore. was talking to him about the JEE pattern change.

He said that the basic motivation for the IITs was to reduce the burden of valuation of answer scripts which no one wanted to do. Apparently, IITD has been outsourcing valuation of answer scripts to DU profs since none of their profs want to do it. Similarly with IITK. And there have been no quality checks on these valuations which might be producing fraudulent results. Remember that even a couple of marks here or there in the JEE can move you by a few hundred ranks.

I then asked him as a coaching factory teacher, how he has reacted to the changes. He replied that the focus now was on concepts (as I had predicted) and that his teaching methodology hadn’t changed except that he doesn’t work out long problems in class now. He was a little pissed that the other teachers in the factory had changed their methods too much and have started neglecting concepts – which he maintained were still paramount.

Interesting… and yeah, he hadn’t read my article in the papers. Said he would this evening.

Fifth term. Time when grades don’t matter. Time to “build up” one’s resume, in terms of co-curricular activities. Such as publishing papers and writing business plans. Huge demand for paper and business plan competitions. Huge supply also, with various B Schools and B school recruiters holding similar competitions. Time for fraud. Also, time for Google Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.

Coming from a background such as CS@IITM, it’s hard to fathom a fraud paper. Most profs there indulge in (or try to indulge in) “cutting edge research”. Try get new results, and publish in international journals/competitions. Takes months to produce a paper, unless it’s a “Delta paper” – one which is an incrememntal improvement on an existing paper – which are not well looked upon by peers.

Most papers in B Schools aren’t even delta. No MBA student wants to publish in international journals/conferences. Not even national. Inter-B School competitions would suffice. Sufficient enough for that line in the resume which might ensure a shortlist – prepared by one who had written similar papers a few years ago.

These paper presentation competitions are part of “business fests” (i’ll write a separate post about them later). A list of topics is given for paper presentation. The topics would’ve been chosen carefully – careful enough that it is impossible to do any original work on them (that is necessary to maintain the clique, you see). A thousand papers arrive from the top B Schools in India. Each one more fraud than the other. Typically the chosen ones would be the ones which quoted the maximum number of references.

Move over to the next biz fest. And the next such paper presentation competition. Topics are identical. Small changes are made in the papers and sent to this new place. If you send the paper to a hundred fests, you’re sure of being selected in one. You might even win if it’s one organized by a “lesser B school” where there won’t be too many other teams from top B schools.

I too got sucked in into this clique a few days back. Gave in an extremely fraud paper. Happy i’ve gotten out of the thing now. Simply don’t feel like writing any fraud stuff. And as I mentioned earlier, the topics don’t allow for any non-fraud stuff.

Based on some learnings from the networking course I did three years ago in IITM. Was one hell with a slave driver of a prof. Had a good assignment group though, so had some fun also.

The three way protocol is used to keep in touch with long-lost friends/relatives. It goes like this:
1. I send him/her a mail saying “hi i’m skimpy, hope you remember me” and all that
2. He/she replies with “yeah of course i remember you, hope you’re fine. i’m working at XXX. what are you upto?”
3. I reply to that mail, with more fundaes about my life.

I don’t get a reply to that mail.

Has happened multiple times, with multiple people. Sometimes it does get extended and you have enuff material to rebuild the friendship rather than just “keep in touch”.

But on most occasions, it ends in three. After all, both messages have been acknowledged. And this can’t go on for ever (remember the red army – white army problem in Tanenbaum?). And the minimum number of messages to ensure both is three. Simple, isn’t it?

And not so long ago I used to be extremely pissed if people didn’t reply a second time. Until I started doing so myself!!

It all started with a scratch when Schaum Knott and I felt that IITM, despite being host to the country’s greatest college quizzing challenge, didn’t host an open quiz worth its salt. We roped in bofi and A Mani as co-quizmasters and bhaand as coordinator of administrative affairs and held the first edition of the IITM National Open Quiz on 18th April 2004. Despite Murphy being in full form that day, it was a fair beginning and QED emerged winner amongst 150 teams.

The Hallmarks of this quiz were the “modified infinite bounce” format (which has become a standard at IITM and IIMB), “closed book themes” (which has been adopted by, among others, the Karnataka Quiz Association), a 72-visual connect and for perhaps the first time at IITM, questions on a powerpoint slide-show.

The third edition of the quiz was held yesterday (the October 2nd National holiday slot has been “captured” by the IITM open; Landmark is on Independence day and Odyssey on Republic Day). Much better organized than the first edition which we organized (for details of the second edition, refer bhaand’s blog). The ambience was amazing, infra was in perfect order (all thanks to Baju, the “organizing secretary”), there was a new electronic scoreboard and yeah, the much-maligned acoustics was given a face-lift with new Bose speakers.

All of fifteen hundred people turned up, from places as “far flung” as Hyd and Bombay. Questions, as usual, were excellent and well-researched; and an attempt was made to make it a junta-quiz, though at no point of time did it show up as a quiz show.

There were some usual cribs though – too much of Europe, too much Christian Theology, not much sport, unfairness in part points, etc. However, such cribs are an integral part of any huge quiz and can thus be forgiven.

All in all, feeling damn proud to have started something which has now taken off on such a huge scale.

i had recently written an essay on the recent reforms in the IIT-JEE. To give it more publicity I had given it to our student media cell (which, except for a jarring abberation, is a pretty well-run organization) and they had sent it to a few newspapers.

The Times of India has published it as a front page article in today’s education times. Takes up around 4/5th of the top half of the front page, with teh other 1/5th devoted to Prof. CNR Rao (JNCASR) ‘s views on the same.

Whatz more, they have published the article exactly as I have sent it – they said that since it is an opinion based article, they are against editing it and asked me to make some changes by myself. Kind of ethics not expected from the ToI !!

Anyways, i’m feeling kicked that I managed my first “publication” in a national scene. Hope I can write a few more good ones.

As I had told you last week, I had “gone on strike” and refused to take up a certain responsibility on behalf of the finance club in IIMB which i’m part of. I had said that I wasn’t confident of doing a good job of it and hence didn’t want to give false promises.

Inspite of my backing out, others in the team decided to take up the responsibility and the worst i had feared had happened – i was not confident on the data sources we required for the project. it turns out that they haven’t been able to locate a good enough source. so the entire project has been scrapped .

When i was told this by a teammate today, my first reaction was “I told you so”… Dunno if i should feel guilty about this…

I started off as a rebel. Used to question everything and did nothing unless i was convinced about its usefulness. Mom gave up on me trying to make me religious. I was the teacher’s nightmare in school and my parents used to be frequently called for complaints. I was later made school captain and i started functioning as a student union leader. However, i made sure I wasn’t sacked.

Then new blood (i.e. me) joined that institute (IITM) and quickly got subdued. I was forced to conform. People in the hostel suppressed my madness with constant banter. For a week I remember everyone avoided me. Because I was being myself. They tried to condition to behave the way everyone else there did. People would try and interfere with me every other moment. Having had a major personal disappointment just prior to joining IIT, i needed friends. And the only way i could make them was by conforming.

Then, there were complaints to my parents from my relatives that I’d become too arrogant. “It’s all because he has joined IIT”, they said. Parents, unfortunately, took their advice and tried to “reform” me. At one point, I even landed up on a psychiatrist’s couch. Nothing came out of it.

Yeah, I had become a “good boy”. Every action of mine was well thought of. I used to doubly check that I wasn’t offending anyone before doing or saying something. I religiously listened to my parents even when they said ridiculous stuff like “you should not be seen in public with a girl of your age”! LOL! I stopped playing games because I “wasn’t good enough” at them. Tried my best not to offend anyone. Did only “socially acceptable” stuff. I was indeed the “good boy”, pleasing all and offending none.

Then, suddenly to my surprise, I found out that I had lost all confidence in myself. Good but not great grades didn’t help either. Extra currics also suffered big time. As I became the modest wimp, I had lost all faith in myself. I ended up not enjoying IIT life as much as I should have.

Thankfully, somewhere down the line, I did one sensible thing and wrote CAT. 2 years in an IIM would give me another opportunity at a similar institution and opportunity to make new friends. My confidence started rising in 4th year at IIT. At the same time I started throwing tantrums.

First few days in IIMB I tried to be a “pseud” guy. Fell flat on my face. Returned to the “wimpy” mode. Had a jolly good time in 1st term, except for a personal disappointment. Started faring pretty well in both acads and extra currics. But still every action of mine was guided by the “shouldn’t offend” thought. The life I lived and the life I wanted to live were totally different. I wasn’t at all happy with myself and used to cry every other day (almost).

Somewhere down the line, I think i’ve changed back. Dunno how I did it though. Probably through spending time with myself. My confidence has never been higher. I have become exremely self-centered and arrogant. I shirk from responsibilities. I do only those things which I believe are useful. I live by the instinct and continously follow my heart. I forget my duties. I refuse to help people if I don’t want to help them. Have become a kinda “bad boy” now. Don’t know what people think of me and it doesn’t matter also. What matters most is that I am happy now. I have been on a perennial high for the last few days!

You must have a healthy disrespect for conformity and a healthy respect for rebellion.
– Prof. Ramnath Narayanswamy, as part of the course “Tracking Creative Boundaries”