The Other Side of View ...

Pre-Pre Script: Some one didn't like my post... And deleted it from the ISB Blog... So, here I am once again trying my luck... :D
Pre-Script: I live up to my reputation of not editing what I write... Moreover it is difficult to edit and do a spell check when you don't have word ;)

Hi All,

It has been more than 2 months when I take contributing rights for this blog and here comes a post straight from the guilt of my heart. I was taking 2 months break and I had few plans. One of the plan was to write few posts for this blog and spice it up. But here I am, sitting on the same couch from last one and a half month and still wondering what happened to all my plans. In my defense, I must say I'm lazy and this world cup made me much bigger couch potato than what I was. Even a significant growth of layers of fat on my tummy didn't bother me, what are the chances of a small piece of guilt perturbing me when I can't even see it. But as you see, I can put the blame of my growing tummy on my parents but this guilt has no takers. So, here I am sitting on the same couch and writing my first post in this blog.

For introduction, I was one of the few confident aspirants of ISB who has full faith in his abilities and was 100% sure that only God's miracle can get me an admit in ISB. If you are interested, you can read an incomplete lazy post of my MBA story (But please don't ask me, why I haven't completed it yet? I don't want to give birth to some more guilts). And, to make efforts from my side I have bribed all temples and gods in my home (Better known as city of temples. So you can see the relation). And what even Wiki Leaks is saying now Bribe works in India; finally, tough ISB ad-com lose to Gods and I got my admit.

While I kept rubbing my eyes and reading the admit letter for few days, I (a FB addict) was some how directed to the FB group. I was excited and started reading every one's long introductory posts and how every body experienced that great news. Initially it was fun and my heart was fully responding to those posts with wows and aaahhhs but people gave me so much of overdose that even a guy who was considering himself privileged to read all this started feeling lost in a big desert. Some kept on bragging about themselves, some started asking dumb questions, some started proving their diversity, some wrote about their hobbies, some wrote about their madness for sports, some told about dance, some showed their knowledge and some showed lack of it, some argued for the sake of argument and some gave insightful point of views, some people started helping other guys and some jumped unnecessarily even when they don't have anything meaningful to offer and no one needed that help. Then the group took an interesting turn and people started posting almost anything they find. I once even saw few old songs of Kishore Kumar sent on my mail id via this FB group. Some grew their confidence and started posting a countdown of no. of days left to leave their jobs. What on earth any one has to do with this information every day that a guy now has 10 days or 9 days left to leave his job? Then few people wanted their better halves to join this monster as well. As if they don't want to suffer alone and their partners should also go through the same pain of spam. Though what they write on paper was a noble idea that their partners will also get to know their fellow batch mates and future friends. But what they don't know is that it is practically impossible to know any one from this FB group of 500 free people. Any how my above thoughts should not be taken in a sense that I am complaining of all this spam in FB group. I am in fact one of those who have lot of free time and enjoy reading spam and do other useless things which pass their time easily. So, you all must be wondering what the hell is my problem? And why am I criticizing?

First of all some people are born to criticize. You show me a thing with 10 positives and 1 negative. Trust me I will point the negative thing first without any effort. But that is a personal problem and not the subject of this post. The problem is that it gets difficult for the otherwise confident guys (confident guys but on the other side of the shore) like me who got an admit in ISB with the help of a bribe to find the real info in the group. There will be some such confident guys in R2 as well and I thought my experiences of reading every crap post of this group may help them not to get lost in between high talks, herculean achievements and useless junk. The problem with us is that we believe what ever we read. This one mistake can be injurious to health and may result in lot of diseases like sulking, losing self confidence, missing important info and losing track. So, here is a survival kit for guys like me in this group of extra ordinary gentlemen and ladies.

You need to understand that this is a group of 500 future MBA's of India's best B-School. They got an admit by presenting their profile in such a way that they made it look outstanding, different and diverse in a pool of 4000 extra-ordinary aspirants even though they do the same old Engineering, IT, Banking or any other job. So, believe me people here can present a crap in such a way that it will look the brightest star in the sky. So the first rule goes believe what you see and not what you read or what you hear. And, here is a list of few statements (on left side) and their true meanings (on right side) just to make you feel confident:

I'm writing a book --> I've a lot of impulses and out of those impulses, one is the itch of writing. I might have started writing it or might only have thoughts of it.. who cares.. Let's say I'm writing it..

Hints: Look for past tense... Ignore anything ending with "ing" or present continuous...

I was blah, blah and blah in my college --> I actually don't have anything else to brag.. so I'm sticking to my college which I attended 5 years back...

I'm rich --> I'm needy and need attention...

:-) , :D, :P ... all smileys --> I'm trying to be funny...

I'm attending blah, blah and other unrelated or not understandable blah --> I'm free and jobless... And attend whatever crap I get on net...

I drink blah, blah and blah --> Believe Me... I'm hap and coolll... And, this is the only way I can show that thing here...

I'm from IIT ---> Yes.. I've a angel circle over my head... And I think I'm more eligible and better than all of you...

I hate IIT --> I'm jealous...

I play badminton for fun --> I can handle racket and might touch the shuttle if it comes slow and loopy right near to my racket...

I can dance a bit --> I danced in every single marriage of my community...

Words like "Intro", "I'll be last", "excited", "Energy" --> Please ignore my post

Words like "Laptop", "Windows", "OS", "IT" --> They are actually different synonyms of word "confusion"

Posts on "Pre-Term" --> Yes... You dumb fellows... I did it...

I'm a Vice President/MD --> I'm working in a start up or my own company... And, yet I felt a need to brag about it... So, here I am...

Well the list is long and I am lazy. Moreover, I don't want people to kick my ass as soon as they saw me in ISB. So my brain and my ass is pleading me to stop here. If you don't like or don't agree to some part of my post, I was talking about those who brag.. We all know.. you are not that person... :D

Post Script: The above post was on a lighter note and not for any generalization :P (See I put a smiley as well)

Round 2: "still not mature" thoughts on the batch

Just about when everyone settles down and the excitement is dying and people start having fun on the FB group, Round 2 results. ting! ting! ting!! In 2 days, I received 500+ mails from the group. 


Renewable Energy: If "diversity" was the single most used word during Round 1 intros, "Energy" was it for Round 2. How can there be so much excitement? A group of 500 people, about to enter one of Indias most prestigious B-schools, finished their bachelors at least 2 years ago and all of who have hit puberty around a decade ago.... still acting like hyper-active catholic-school-girls, jumping and screaming. 
I know... it's not necessarily a bad thing.


I might be the last: Every one after member number 450 mentions in their intro  "I might be one of the last" if not "I'm the the last". OK. You're the last. I can't afford to buy a trophy right now, I'm jobless. I've made a list of you, and on campus, I want to ask you why you thought that was important in your intro and the best reason gets a chocolate. Don't get me wrong, I said much worse in my intro, it's just that I'm confident you can't find it on the FB group. You see "I was one of the first".


Penny wise, Pound Foolish: 

• Number of discussion on loan - approx 1,000. Number of discussions on laptops - minimum 5,000. 
• Financial implications of Laptop - Rs. 50,000 at most (for people who paid more, the people who paid less are going to arrange for psychiatric help, unless it's an Apple, ofcourse). Financial implication of Loan - Rs. 14lakhs to Rs.20lakhs, depending on how smart you were before ISB and how rich your daddy is.
• Associated time period for Laptop - 3 years at max. Associated Time period for Loan - minimum 5 years.

The mathematics of this is all skewed.

Even in B-school, windows can't just be part of the house: The smart ones bought Mac with Snow leopard, the rest had to install Windows 7. 
Anybody who has installed windows before knows the heart-ache associated with it. 3 days minimum of actual installation (most of it spent hitting your head on the table) + Add to that downloading the OS (another 3 days on a 1.5 kbps connection) + some non-IT folks (including the fake engineers like me) + a FB group = the worlds most wasteful way of killing time. It was like explaining Java to my granny! One man deserves special mention here, he almost made the installation look humanly achievable. You know who you are. 


The cost of Hernia: Everyone coming to ISB seems to have extra baggage, pun intended. The baggage of immediate concern can only cause hernia and a severe depletion in wallet size. Another hot topic on the group. Pay the Airline extra or hire a cargo truck? Well, both have been done, and you'll be glad to know, the best solution is to not bring that much stuff. Moving on to the other baggage......


philanderers and monophobia: The fear of being alone was quite visible in the number of people who wanted to travel together, book the tickets together, book the taxi to go to book the tickets together together... you get the drift. More importantly, a random statistic was thrown out - apparently the divorce rate in ISB was high in one batch many many years ago, but no one knows which batch. All facts in this blog are unverified and not-verifiable, hence verified numbers will not be posted. While I'm sure this caused a lump in the throats of some, others found  it important to compare it with the national average of other countries! Some even found it necessary to make it into a Bollywood love story type thing and spoke about how many more people found love in b-school. I actually do recommend this article, read it along with your mom (whether you're single or married). Apparently, in bschool, the ones who arrive alone find company and the ones who have company leave alone. 


Pre-terms: To revise or not revise that is not the question. Whether to intentionally fail the Assessment tests is more important. Any fool can study a little and clear them and if s/he does, then s/he can not attend the pre-term, hence you must fail. Simple, isn't it.


The questions section: No, The "informative" questions haven't stopped. Yes, this section is now going to be made part of every entry I make. Maybe, next time i'll actually copy-paste the question. No, the seniors will not sell you their left over shampoo. 

Gyan: No matter how div*&se we are, Round 2 admits have asked the exact same questions Round 1 admits did. It isn't their fault, it's Mr. Zuckerberg's. Him and his useless Facebook! Future batches who might be reading this, please have all useful discussions in Google groups. Those are archived and available for the greater good of mankind. 

I need to head out now and load some of my stuff into one of those trucks these guys have booked. Thanks to those who did, I have more stuff than can fit in one car! Be back during the week of 17th Apri 2011.


Disclaimers: 
* It wasn't about you
* It really wasn't. 


PS: If you want that chocolate  Mr/Mrs "I am the last", and you can't wait till college starts, FB-Mesage me why you said it.