Get a life

Should I have begged palmistry
For tid-bits of my was-is-be
And wont it be good company
If all we do is sit and see?

Guitar's unstrung, Swim trunks dry.
Watch that racquet hanging high
Like a distant dream of my;
A full circle is two semi's.

It's not going to be easy
to get a life at I S B.
Sleeper, dreamer, learner me
Rolls go-doer with finality

First Account

The very first Accounting class, and I see myself getting enlightened bit by bit with every word Prof Mubeen speaks about companies, financial statements, shareholders, creditors, bankruptcy. Words trickle down into the mind and spark a thousand others that were heard earlier but stowed away for the lack of overall understanding.

Experience gave me a lot of ideas and lots of jargon terms like paid up capital, limited liability, etc. The class attempts to bring them together and build them into a lucid whole.

GTB, Enron, Ron/ofI... insights, explanations and concepts rushing through to me. Imbibe, imbibe, imbibe!

Career perspective and Pre-terms

A panel of 4 industry entrepreneurs, coordinated by Harish Bijoor:

K Pandiarajan, MD, Ma Foi,
Anand Talwar, Head of Talent Mgmt, ITC Infotech,
Alok Sethi, CEO, MsourcE
Noni Chawla, Former CEO, Max Healthcare

Several takeaways, which are of course nothing new, just reinforced by the fact that a few big ones think them important.

- Work life balance. Mr. Noni resigned from Max Healthcare, started consulting for a living, and then went around roaming the world, fishing, doing photography, spending time with family, everything that he couldn't during his professional life. When?

- Grass roots. Honesty. Mr. Rajan from Ma Foi comes from a humble background and has created this 20000 strong organization with his wife.

- Job hopping versus selective shifts. Again a balance, and a non-conclusive discussion item, but it pays to know both sides.

non-conclusive brings me to LDP. Leadership Development Program was launched today. And the first thing we were given to think about was "Do teams succeed better in individualistic societies like America, or pro-community societies like India. And we got the first taste of CP - Class Participation. Everyone has a lot of nice words up his sleeves to mould similar ideas into really unique sentences. Ram had listed a few good CP's last year. There would be a lot more in the C section this year.

The Pre-term courses start next monday. 5 days of sailing through Quantitative Methods and struggling through Introductory Accounting, and then starts the fun.

Banavati Bye Bye

Just back from a huge party thrown by the 2007 batch for the 2006 batch. We have got a lot of info from these guys. Rohit from the Consultancy, Ram the blogger+helper, Murali, Atta, the Bhakti prankster... very nice people. Of course, not many of us know many of them, but where there is alcohol to heart's content brotherhood and other less platonic feelings surface quickly. Dance to most delhi males means throwing out limbs in tandem with others, and yet it's amazing that they manage to pull it off among their women. Meanwhile, the southie distorted-Amitabh-with-protruding-tongue dances are not so well received by theirs.

Anyhow, were we artificial in bidding the seniors good bye then? Was their welcome made up in the day-before's party? Did we have fun or manufacture it?

Kam hota hai khud-ba-khud
Dil-e-zard-ruu mein ho aayee khushi
Aksar hamne khush hone ko
Bematlab hi banayee khushi.

Where's Sumit?

I got my new ISB email id and it happened to be kumar_chandra@isb.edu. I am upto here with the permutations my name 'Kumar Sumit Suresh Chandra Poddar' keeps throwing up. At the entrance gate of ISB I was Kumar Sumit, but at the registration I was Sumit Kumar... wonder of wonders, at the IT registration helpdesk, the reg form had my name as "Sumit Kumar SureshChandra Kumar Sumit SureshChandra". While I was figuring that out, I also got to know that there is another Sumit SureshChandra in ISB. I can do with all that, but not an id with mine and dad's middle names fused into first name_last name. Thankfully, IT helpdesk at ISB is ever accomodating, and being in the state of longest names, must also harbour compassion for my ilk. One quick mail and I am now sumit_kumar@isb.edu

You know and I know that I am Sumit Poddar, but until my passport says so, it seems I'll have more such amusing anecdotes to share.

Staggered Launch

We reached the ISB gates early morning on the 15th with lushness of the green grass standing in sharp contrast to the summer expectations of aridity. These healthy sprouts must suckle litres from their sprinkler moms, but while we're in the land of haves let's have the best.

 

The process of registration was quite streamlined and well organised. Approach the Admissions during the allotted timeslot, get a token number, and do a quick round of each department on token call. Hmm... and what messed it up? Pro-active students, having a wholesome appetite to devour student life on campus from the word go, conveniently forgetting their timeslots, lined up early at the the Admissions desk, attended to by pardoning alumni, who gave in at the drop of an alum hat. Result... the traditional Indian chaos seen elsewhere, remember our teachers shouting 'Is this a fish market or what, you loafers?' entering a particularly unruly class. The committees, though, did a good job and though the token system never got implemented, the queues were not jumped and we generally got by quite nicely. On the sunny side, we got to meet many more faces than we would have if the process was followed to the tee.

 

Networking's on, a sort different from Cisco's. The more people you know the more you know people is all fine, but in a sea of 432 bobbing heads with faces, some smiling, some smug, some wannabe-cool-smirking, how do you single out the ones which you WANT to remember? I'll just leave it to myself. Although having mice-like memory, I have managed to remember a few good people in the first couple days. A game that's on for non-starters amongst us to secure a 'fair' acquaintance. Name, origins, background, whereabouts and section. Ask these 5 questions to a new interesting face, quickly memorise the name and forget the rest. Meet again, call out name and the 4 other questions guarantee you a 25 sec talk time plus a minute of apology for forgetfulness. Attempt a triple encore and you may be booted out squarely, however.

 

Presentations, Alum gyan and section games are going to take all of this week, and while we are getting oriented, someone within me is shouting 'boy, this place is all about loud extroversion. where's your fire?' I will go find my old engineering flintstones but someday I'll write something about 'Are loners losers?' and I am sure of which side of the fence to be.