Finito

To the two-three guys who check my blog on an annual basis, I'm shifting. Cya here. I shall try to keep updating that... Adios :-)

Dr.Fixit

Casteism, politics being the refuge of scoundrels, religious conversion, brain drain, the perception of being a "poor" nation populated by misers, costly oil, inflation, tax evasion... The list of problems India faces is burgeoning, and the uneducated dopes elected to the high posts in the government seem to be grappling with problems bigger than their tiny brains can fathom. Unfortunately for India, these problems seem to be feeding of each other, strengthening over time, ensuring that India stays in the morass of underdevelopment into which it was thrown by its leaders, especially Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the like. Fortunately for India, though, the solutions for these problems is startlingly simple. Three simple steps are all India needs to take to reduce, if not eliminate, a majority of the problems it faces. Three simple steps are all that seperate India from taking centerstage in international affairs. Unfortunately for India, again, nobody seems to be listening.

Three simple solutions for all of India's problems to solve themselves:

1. Cessation of the undervaluation of the Indian rupee vis-a-vis the US Dollar.
2. Reduction of the outrageous taxes on petrol in India and a corresponding strengthening of the tax regime to prevent people from evading tax to freeride on the 1 percent of the population that does pay tax.
3. A change in the election system, from the present first-past-the-post system, to a run-off system at all levels of government

Watch this space for explanations and justifications.

Newsworthy

The media pays a lot of attention to news such as this...

I'm guessing that the details mentioned are to help people feel like they were present at the occasion. I guess this feat is very rare and tough, which is why the media is taking note of this. I also guess this news is out of the ordinary because of the following aspects...

1. Minor girls cannot be raped.
2. Policemen cannot rape.
3. Moving cars prevent rape.

If 1, 2 or 3 are fallacious assumptions, I wonder what is so special about the event that it merits national coverage.

Clairvoyance

The world over, B-schools seem to think that candidates seeking entry into their hallowed corridors would be some kind of seers, prophets or visionaries. Or that they have access to a crystal ball or a tarot-card picking talking parrot to accurately and vividly explain the future to them. So do companies that seek to hire prospective employees in interviews that look for a “fit” with the organization. I’m talking, of course, of the “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” question. The tripe that we are expected to spew forth is nothing more than a mish-mash of wishful thinking molded as per the company’s requirements. Supposedly, whatever we mumble out is a sure-shot way of identifying if the knucklehead in front of him is capable of recommending entry strategies into the entry-level four-wheeler market for Japanese two wheeler manufacturers in emerging markets. The standard reply goes so... For a consulting firm interview, five years from now, you are supposed to be "acquiring competencies and knowledge of specific functions and industries", and ten years from now, you are supposed to be "actively engaging in business development, seeking out new clients for the firm and increasing the revenue stream from existing clients". For an investment bank interview, five years from now, you are supposed to be "recognized as an industry expert in a particular field". And ten years from now, you are supposed to be "actively engaging in acquiring new clients for the firm". Similar template answers can be found for marketing profiles, finance profiles, IT consulting profiles, you name it.

A few thoughts on that… How are companies going to discern whether we are being truthful about where we see ourselves five years from now or just pulling random words out of our behinds and stringing them to form barely coherent sentences? By peering into the future, five years from now, in a bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland, where we will be digging up roots in the search for water to quench our thirst, keeping an eye out for mutants, aliens and cannibals? Or by looking into our eyes, and reading our minds? If interviewers could actually look into the future, wouldn’t they have been making billions off the stock market all on their own (or making the right bets in various games of chance – Horse racing, poker, Greyhound racing), instead of wasting time interviewing all sorts of riff-raff that claims to have seen the future?

Conversely, if we knew where we would be five years from now, why would anybody with functional brain cells even bother applying to a million companies in the quest for a job? Would it not make much more sense to apply to just the company we see ourselves five years from now? If we actually knew where we would be five years from now, and told the interviewer exactly where we will be five years from now, how would the company believe it? Five years ago, in my second year of engineering, if I could state an exact description of my roles and responsibilities of the job I am about to join, would anybody have believed me?

I don’t know what I’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow. I don't know whether I'll be having breakfast tomorrow. When I get into a flight from Chennai to Bengaluru, I don’t know what would happen 45 minutes from now. How the heck would I know what I would be doing five full years ahead of today? The maximum somebody can say is that five years from now, he would be in some particular location, or some particular industry, or some particular hazy nebulous description of what you would like to be doing at some distant point in the future, and nothing beyond that. But then again, that would be mere wishful thinking. All you could say is that five years from now, you would be wearing sunscreen.

B-schoolia

As yet another batch of managers ready themselves to join the workforce they seem to be welcomed into with open arms, most of us experience a tinge of nostalgia over the experiences of the past two years. Well, past 19 months, to be precise. For most of the managers-in-waiting, this represents the end of nearly 20 years of non-stop academia, and also the start of a new experience, into hitherto uncharted territory. And I’m sure that I would not be alone in expressing a feeling of relief when this is all over. The amount of learning over the last two years certainly seems disproportionate to the small window of time we spent here. Here’s a brief account of the takeaways from the time we spent running to stand still in the hallowed corridors of IIML.

The six day week: The disorienting experience of working on Saturdays has ensured that the weeks meld into one another. Wake up late on Sunday, after an enjoyable Saturday evening in Samanjasya, and you realize that half the weekend is already up. By the time this shock wears off, it is already time to “prepare” for the cases to be discussed in Monday’s classes.

The case study approach: A four page case followed by 25 pages of exhibits is hardly an enticing read. What makes it all the more surreal is the presence of balance sheet exhibits in a marketing case study, and the presence of market share data in a case on valuation. The principle of preparing for a case beforehand is often the first requisite of B-school learning that goes for a toss. So much so, that the effect of preparation for the cases is one aspect we MBAs seem to share with graduate students in the field of rocket science.

Team Work: The two words that are much bandied about in the interviews we need to clear before we enter the institute. Since every course necessarily has some component of teamwork, over time, the students have optimized the exercise to such an extent that to produce quality output, we don’t even need to meet up in one place and discuss anything anymore. Forty page outputs, replete with graphs, tables and frameworks, are generated in a matter of a few hours without one person in the team knowing what the other is doing. This optimization maximizes productivity, enabling a student to complete (from scratch) three projects while studying for three end-terms the next day. After all, multi-tasking is one aspect all of us have improved in, by leaps and bounds.

Globe, Projects and Presentations: There was a time when we were mortally scared of presenting our findings in front of a gathering of people we know. With six or seven presentations for each term, over two years, B-school has ensured that we can now talk about any subject for 15 minutes, without even having a look at the slides beforehand. Armed with interchangeable keywords (paradigm, global, synergy, leverage, competencies, strategies et al), students can hold the attention of a rapt audience with very little effort. This would surely help us in justifying out points of view to a diverse audience, making us ideal leadership material that the companies fight to hire.

The key here is how, over a two year period, the students have internalized various skills essential to be successful in the corporate world. The academic rigor practiced by IIM Lucknow has, in more ways than one, made the students ideal managers in a world that is rapidly changing. After all, life in the last two years has definitely made us more aware of the “real world”, far away from gear ratios, Reynolds numbers, Poisson’s ratios and pressure driven flows. Maybe that is what learning is all about…

Equality

We all know that in the modern world, men and women are equal in all fields. Both men and women display equal power, skill, talent and dexterity in the world of sports. Womens' organizations have fought for equal winnings for both male and female tournaments, like the Tennis Grand Slams for example. Of course, it doesn't matter that men play five setters and women can't go for more than three. But, its fine, as long as they attract equal crowds. Purely due to their talent on-court. Not due to the lingerie they wear on court. Just talent. Maria Sharapova is as talented and powerful a player as Roger Federer. In fact, if Maria and Roger were to face off, the women's organizations would claim that Maria would knock the stuffing off Fedex. How about we change the format of tennis tournaments instead? In the first round, all the matches are gender-based, with a woman facing off against a man. Pure merit. May the best player win. I'm pretty sure the ladies' organizations would support that proposal.

The world has been fixated on men's cricket for a long time now. Despite the fact that women's cricket is capable of exhibiting similar depths of talent and skill as men's, it has been ignored by the cricketing boards, advertizers, and the cricket crazy population. This systemic bias against women's cricket has long led to complaints of women's cricket being treated as a second-class citizen to men's cricket, despite having similar earning potential. After all, there is nothing more watchable than 15 fully dressed women playing top quality cricket, is there?

Fortunately, BCCI has now decided to wake up to this huge untapped market. They are considering introduction of a cricket league for women on the lines of the IPL. The BCCI seems to be confident that the cricket-thirsty Indian public would pay through their noses to watch any cricketing action, as long as it is "made by BCCI".

I, for one, feel that such noble actions by the BCCI need to be encouraged. After all, the ICL is a renegade tournament, of poor quality, and does not deserve our attention. But women's sport is something else, altogether. Take, for example, the World Cup Qualifiers at Stellenbosch University held between Bermuda and South Africa. I'm sure we would all love to see more such matches. We have grown bored of batsmen hitting sixes and fours all the time, at the expense of the poor bowlers. Its time we restored balance. Its time we endorsed women's cricket.

Just look at the batsman in the photo there. She seems to be of the athletic kind, the type that could run a mile under six minutes. The stance and guard taken are perfect. A look at the scorecard reveals more aspects of professionalism in women's cricket, and why they deserve the same pay, prizes and public adulation as men. As many as three Bermudan players got off the mark. The 42 year old captain could give any test batsman a run for his money, with her determined 1 off 48 balls. The ten wides in the score of 13 that Bermuda made are proof of the fear the Bermudan batswomen generated among the South African bowlers. Also, as per the scorecard, the batsmen went to wrong ends after the break. Maybe they had a lot in their minds. Despite outwardly seeming to be unprofessional, they are actually very professional. After all, it is the effort that counts, not the end result, right?

The statement by the captain is also extremely touching. "I am extremely proud and our team is very proud to be here," she said. "Just a year and a half ago there was no women's programme so we went to Canada and qualified to come here which is an achievement in itself. In terms of women's cricket in Bermuda, it has come a long way but we still have a long way to go."

So, after a year and a half, Bermudan women have learnt how to enter a cricket field, and bowl at the gully, which would be an improvement from before, when the ball used to end up knocking umpires down after being released from the bowler's grip. They still don't know how to grip the bat, take guard, run for singles, hit fours, and bowl at the three stumps. But, considering that this is women's cricket, they don't have far to go. They might even be world champions in the next edition of the women's world cup.

Cheers to them.

PS: They "qualified" to come here from Canada. I really wonder whom they defeated to enter this qualifying round. Blind, deaf, one-limbed midgets?

Mr. Singh India

I'm having a little bit of trouble trying to decide whom to vote for in this poll over here. All the candidates look equally deserving of my vote. Talk about an even field for candidates!

Inverse function

I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh...people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and...I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our...