Leadership

Today, as a class assignment, we were supposed to write our views on leadership. The assignment is worth a lot of weightage so I'm not sure how well my efforts match up to those of my classmates, but I felt like sharing what I'd written. So here it is:
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Management literature is full of various definitions of leader and leadership. In plain English, however, The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines a leader as:

1. A person who leads a group of people, especially the head of a country, an organization, etc
2. A person or thing that is the best, or in first place in a race, business, etc.
   

It further explains that ‘to lead’ may imply to show the way, to be the best or to be in control. To me, however, ‘to lead’ means to inspire to do he right thing. Therefore a person who inspires others to do what they should be doing is a leader for me. Thus, we have leaders leading us in all walks of life be it family, academics, workplace, ethics, morals, religion, spirituality, sports, relations etc. If a child’s first teacher is the mother, the first leader or role model is definitely the father. However, since the subject here deals with management, I would try and restrict my opinion to organisational leaders only. There are also various theories and models dealing with leadership but since this is not intended to be a literature review, I will skip the theoretical perspectives and stick to my first hand thoughts.

Once we have established that a leader is a person who inspires others to do the right thing, the other definitions start falling in place automatically and we start to differentiate a leader from a manager. Some of the key differences that come to mind immediately are:

• Leaders have followers while managers have sub-ordinates. Thus, while a leader inspires, a manager orders.
• A leader would focus on strategic issues while a manager would deal with the day to day activities or operational issues. In simpler terms, a leader is more concerned about the long term while a manager may only be interested in short term goals. Both are however equally important for sustenance.
• While a manager may be happy with status quo, a leader has an enquiring mind that is always challenging the established norms and innovating.
  

Leadership works by everyone working towards a common goal. There are numerous traits and characteristics of leaders, however, some of the traits can be found in all good leaders. For example from Jack Welch to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Narayan Murthy and Dr Manmohan Singh, all are excellent communicators. A good leader cannot accomplish tasks without followers, and to gain followers one needs to reach out to like minded people. This reminds me of Twitter - the latest social networking trend, or a micro blogging service as it is officially called – where you need to generate original and interesting content to gain followers. Same is the story with all the Web 2.0 tools being used for marketing such as SEO, blogs, web communities and viral marketing.

Coming back to leadership, a leader needs to be a visionary and this vision, the leader strives to attain with the team of his/her followers. Even if one is able to get a following, the leader will not succeed unless there is constant communication since without communication, the followers will be directionless. Probably this is why we can see the CEOs meeting the workforce regularly to reinforce the envisioned future and remind them of what they need to do in their daily lives to achieve that goal. Similar is the case with religion where, as per our faith, the spiritual gurus keep reminding us of what we need to do to on a daily basis to attain the absolute goal – God realisation!

In Dr. Pritam Singh’s words, a leader needs to Look Around – identify competition, challenges and opportunities, Look Beyond – be imaginative, visionary and set new standards by challenging status quo and Look Within – to introspect. Thus a leader has to be self aware and must understand that one person cannot be good at everything. This self reflection is important since it forms bonds of trust between the leader and the team.

Current business scenarios are fast changing and the shortening spans of executives at firms add to the challenge of leaders. Therefore, a leader needs to be able to gauge people quickly. The ability to filter out relevant information is of utmost importance since due to the information overload in the internet age. If overlooked, important information will get mixed up with the ambient noise. Flexibility is another important trait as opportunities are very short-lived and a quick reaction time is necessary to grab those before anyone else.

Some of the other qualities essential in a modern day leader would be a strong ethical foundation, compassion, clarity of thought, tolerance and the power of persuasion. It is to be noted that while some of the positions are termed as leadership positions, a person does not become a leader just by holding that position. On the contrary, one may find people leading teams without formal titles and designations. Similarly, while some people are born with the qualities, others may develop the necessary skills for leadership through experience and coaching.

An Old Dream

I happened to read a post on a particular dream by the author at mysore blog park

It reminded me of one particular dream I used to have during my teenage days. Here's what I can remember:

I am running. No, not exercising, but trying to escape. Escape what? No idea! It's pitch dark and I am running. May be scared of something. I stop intermittently... turn around to see if I'm being followed and start running again. And the sequence would endlessly repeat... running aimlessly... stopping... running again!

This dream would haunt me time and again, repeating every few weeks for years. I don't know when I stopped having this dream but I sure remember having it for a long time.

I used to discuss this with some of my friends at school also and it so turned out that I was not alone. Almost everyone I talked to, had had this dream time and again.

May be its a part of growing up, the pressure to perform, uncertainty of vast future. Just wondering what a psychologist would have to say.

Aalok
-Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.

Human Beings are a Disease, a Cancer of this Planet

This famous dialogue from Agent Smith in The Matrix, in essence, captures what we really are. Like Joe Rogan points out in his Bacteria Theory, it's not the single individual that's to blame, we as a collective unit are a nuisance. As I discussed in my previous post, all our actions are directed towards a single goal: Multiplication.

"Why's that such a bad thing?", you may ask. "Nothing wrong with that", I'd say. That's pretty much what every organism does instinctively guided by the DNA's urge to replicate itself. The problem is, we are such a burden on our resources that soon we exhaust them and then we have to spread further, unlike other organisms that develop a balance with the nature.

As you would have guessed by now, I'm not a fan of the human race. A friend (one among the few I have) once asked me why I avoid human contact so much. My answer was simple. I prefer to spend my time with computers, or gadgets in general, over people because gadgets or machines don't get angry, they don't have ego, behave consistently and can be trusted till their very end of life. Her reply to this was that despite all these qualities a machine cannot love you, care for you, make you laugh, make you cry. To be frank things like love, being cared for, having a social network figure right at the bottom of my priority list.

I often used to wonder why we need to be so complex. Why can't pure logic rule the world instead of bloated egos and innumerable emotions? Once, during those late work hours at office, I happened to have this discussion with my manager. His opinion was that if only logic was the guiding force of the world, everyone would think the same under similar circumstances, much like a robot or a computer program which would give the same output for same input. That would make the world a really boring place.

While writing this, I just remembered what I had read a few years back in The Shiv Maha Puran. If I remember correctly it was mentioned that the first creation was of a spiritual nature, flawless, much like the first version of The Martrix as The Architect describes. The problem with this creation was that it became static as the spiritual beings that resided in it were not really interested in reproducing. Hence a new creation featuring sexual reproduction was created, complete with all the emotions and ego states enclosed in an envelope of virtual reality called Maya.

The way I understand this is that emotions and feelings are just a layer of abstraction added to avoid our getting bogged down by the intricate biochemical reactions taking place in the body. Much like love is biochemically same as eating large quantities of chocolate and dreams are a manifestation of DMT secretion in the brain by the Pineal gland. So we go about with our lives with all our achievements, accomplishments, innovations, failures, successes. We rage wars, we produce a whole lot of people, terrorists, conservationists, politicians, philosophers, thinkers, polluters, enterpreneurs. We come up with ideoligies, religions, social structures, nations. Little do we realise that under the hood it the DNA at work.

So far so good. But here's what confuses me every time. The Bhagwad Geeta and various other scriptures tell us that our aim is to rise above the Maya, realise the true world and attain Moksha. If we fail to do so we remain stuck in the birth-death-rebirth cycle. All this makes me feel like I'm a character in a game with the birth-death cycles being the different levels of the game. This also reduces God, the Almighty to a mere spectator enjoying the show who sometimes logs into the system as different Avtars (human manifestations of God). My issue is that if God is Almighty he could have come up with something better for his entertainment than playing around with people's minds. This has started sounding so much like The Matrix and The 13th Floor.

At this point of time I'd like to clarify that I'm not an Atheist. I'm a firm believer in God. It's just that my definition of God differs slightly from most of the people. To me, God is a convenient name we give to any phenomena we cannot explain with our current understanding of the Universe. The moment we come up with an explanation with empirical proof, it becomes a new scientific theory and ceases to be an act of God. At one point of time I used to suspect that if we are able to come up with a gigantic equation that models the entire Universe with all the variables representing the state of the Universe and can predict the next state from the current state, we would no longer need a concept called God. But here's the catch. To run this model, we would need a computer which is more complex than the Universe itself. Now I don't remember the exact theory but the moment we create such a computer, it becomes a part of the Universe thereby increasing the complexity and immediately making our great model obsolete! Even if we are able to get around this difficulty, there's another problem. If our computer, equipped with the model claims to be able to predict the next state of the universe, it should essentially be able to predict its own next state since it is a part of the Universe itself. Now again, a system can only predict the state of another system simpler than itself. Thus, getting an equation to model the Universe and simulating this model cannot be physically done from withing the Universe. This reinforces my faith in an external entity called God. But I'm still clueless behind the motive of creation. May be someone reading this can answer this.

I should go to sleep now. Bye, till next time.

Aalok
-Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.

Life, Universe, Everything...

Dear readers

I'm posting after a long time today. It's not that I've run out of stuff to write about, in fact, last three months have been so high paced that I have loads to write but the schedule here does not permit enough time to write the posts of length which I generally write.

So my life's happenings in the last three months can wait for now. What I'm going to write about is what happened last night or today morning if you may prefer.

17th August, 2008, approx 3 AM and I'm doing some regular net surfing. I see an old college mate named Nilesh, online on gtalk and he has his status message as, "Why are we here?". Well, I saw this as an opportunity to have some 'deep conversations'. We chatted for about 2 hours. Reflecting back on the conversation, I found it way too interesting, so I decided to give it a spot on my blog.

Here you go...

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3:13 AM me: that depends on where you are....

Nilesh: did you complete your first assignment

3:14 AM me: i have lost count of the number of assignments i've completed and the ones remaining

;)

Nilesh: that means you know what are you doing there !

3:15 AM me: i would like to believe so

Nilesh: but do you know why are you here ?

3:16 AM me: again... that would depend on what you consider as here....

3:17 AM Nilesh: I am trying to understand what am I doing here on EARTH ?

what is my purpose ?

me: now that's what i call clarifying the question

3:18 AM Nilesh: well do the honours and clarify the doubt i have in my mind

3:19 AM me: me and my good friend manas (i guess you remember him) have had this discussion a couple of times

Nilesh: yes i remember him

so any luck ?

3:20 AM me: and our conclusion has been that whatever we do is, at the root level, basically the DNA trying to replicate itself to keep the species progressing

so it's survival of the fittest all the way

3:21 AM Nilesh: So I am here to SURVIVE ?

It is my purpose.

I need to survive.

3:22 AM So we are here to survive.

ok.

me: no, my friend...

our purpose is to be the next step in the ladder of evolution

to outdo our best

3:23 AM in order to make the species better as a whole every day

btw where did this question suddenly arise from?

Nilesh: And we do that by making all other species

EXTINCT

3:24 AM so finally the only species will be us.

me: my personal observation is that people generally ponder over this question when something bad happens to them

what happened with you?

Nilesh: Nothing has happened.

3:25 AM I was wondering

what's the use doing things

me: if you were wondering without any particular incident trigerring this process then you are a philosopher my friend

Nilesh: actually

3:26 AM I saw my parents tell me to

do good in 10th standard

ot get a good college

then do good in 12

me: and i know where it goes from there

Nilesh: ya

me: get into a good engg college

get a good job

Nilesh: So how long will this go

me: prepare for cat

get into a good mba institute

3:27 AM and the cycle keeps on going on

Nilesh: earn good money

so that you will buy things

that gives happiness.

But this is not the only way to gain happiness.

3:28 AM me: that, is where you get it wrong

Nilesh: Oh !

me: have you heard of a concept called alpha male?

Nilesh: no

proceed

3:29 AM me: this is again linked to the survival of the fittest

Nilesh: ya big fish eat small fish

3:30 AM but not in civilized society

me: no, not the big fish small fish thing.... let me complete please

Nilesh: ok

proceed

3:31 AM me: in the animal kingdom, that includes human beings, the female is always looking for security for her offspring. so she always mates with the male who is able to provide the most secure environment to the offspring.

such a male is called the alpha male

and is a highly desirable mate for the females of the herd

3:32 AM now, in the uncivilised world, security was offered by physical strength

so the alpha male was the most physically powerful male

lets extrapolate this concept to the present world and the so called civilised society

3:33 AM today, security is defined by your status and the amount of money you make.

3:34 AM so when you are trying to get yourself the best education and the best jobs, you are not trying to be happy

its your underlying DNA trying to find you a mate so that it can replicate

i hope i've made myself clear

Nilesh: Yes I got the concept.

3:35 AM I did'nt know abt alpha male concept

3:36 AM Its happening from earlier times that male from every species always fight to mate to pass on their genes to the next generation.

And that is why males produce millions of sperms

3:37 AM even though only one is needed for conception.

But if you think it this way.

Earth has undergone a lot of changes in the past.

The ice ages repeat every 10,000 or some years.

3:38 AM I think its 10 million years

wherein every species is completely wiped out.

me: no... not completely wiped out... the weaker ones are

Nilesh: ya.

3:39 AM and then we start the process of development and civilization once again

reinvent the wheel everytime we survive an ice age

3:40 AM and ice age is not the only one agent to wipe out the civlization

me: i dont have sufficient data on the ice ages and the development of civilisation but i think you got the information wrong

Nilesh: I am not even blaming industrial revolution

to cause the pollution and destroy the earth.

me: ice ages do not wipe out civilisation but put a pause in the advancement

3:41 AM Nilesh: ya hold on

Actually the earth itself undergoes transformation every like 10 million or some years.

to revive itself

3:42 AM and we also have outer space agents to destroy us.

me: have you seen the movie hera pheri?

Nilesh: which one first or second ?

me: first

Nilesh: i saw both actually

go on

3:43 AM me: in that movie, paresh rawal tells sunil shetty, "tu pehle nakki kar tera samasya kya hai"

3:44 AM Nilesh: meri samasya yeh hai

ki

3:47 AM me: i'm waiting

3:48 AM Nilesh: jab sab khatam hone waala hai to kyu kuch karneka ?

me: because we do not live in an anarchy

3:49 AM moreover how do you know that everything is going to finish in your lifetime

Nilesh: now tell me what is going to happen next.

American and other developed nations are already rich.

And nations and India and china are developing.

3:50 AM when India and China are developed then where will be America ?

me: survival of the fittest again

its all about domination my dear

3:51 AM Nilesh: Hmm.

me: now just apply the alpha male concept to nations

3:52 AM and everything falls into place

still confused?

3:53 AM check this out... it may help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_male

3:54 AM Nilesh: India and America competing to survive

3:55 AM and China doing its best in every field.

3:56 AM me: aren't we all trying to do our best in whatever we do?

Nilesh: how long will it last.

3:57 AM me: have you seen matrix? the last one?

Nilesh: yes

me: do you remember the last dialogue of the movie... where the oracle and the architect are having a conversation

3:58 AM Nilesh: yes.

me: the architect asks ger a similar question

and the movie ends with the oracle's dialogue, "as long as it can"

3:59 AM Nilesh: Yes.

again the survival of the fittest.

4:00 AM me: now you're getting it :)

4:02 AM Nilesh: But we forget that african nations and other under-developed nations are getting compromised.

and that's done by our so so called "Developed Civilization"

4:03 AM me: do you really think we are personally responsible for their condition?

4:06 AM Nilesh: Yes.

like sanctions imposed

and all

4:08 AM me: sanctions are imposed by the imposing country because it feels threatened by the actions of another country. so it does the best it can to protect its own interests

4:09 AM Nilesh: Why India's PM Mr. Singh have to launch a vote of confidence to get the nuke deal with America ?

Is it not shameful.

me: let's not bring emotions here

4:10 AM shame, pride, ego are all very subjective terms

Nilesh: Ok.

me: and i have my own way of describing these

4:11 AM Nilesh: Ok and people at nasa are researching on

a new planet to live on because earth will not be live-able in next 50 years.

Now my question is

4:12 AM when we are not supposed to live on earth in the next 50 years or so

Then why only humans have the ability to question.

4:13 AM So why are we here ? has the implicit question

that if we only humans

have the ability to think

then what is that “thing” that we should be doing

why are we here ?

4:14 AM Survival of the fittest is for animals

who only want to pass on their genes.

Not for us.

4:15 AM me: do you really think that you are something more than a glorified version of a animal?

4:16 AM Nilesh: yes. do we have the capability to fly, breathe under water or run at 75 mph ?

No. But we can

think

and survive

by using our brains.

me: thats the whole point i'm trying to drive home

4:17 AM Nilesh: Then i am sure that only surviving should not be the only purpose.

me: there was a need to build the technology for survival

necessity is the mother of invention

4:18 AM Nilesh: Listen I know that humans have the ability to survive no matter what threat looms over us.

But is it the only thing.

Bible and other holy scripts tell us that we should live in harmony and all good stuff.

4:19 AM It also promises that someone will come back and salvate us.

4:20 AM So I dont know if aliens have bred us.

or we are the result of an experiment of someone.

me: i can also argue that geeta tells us to concentrate on our karma... do our best in whatever we do and not worry about the results

4:21 AM does it really matter where we came from or where are we headed?

Nilesh: Yes.

If i can reason.

I have to ask this question.

This is the universal question.

4:22 AM What is our purpose here.

Evolution is one.

but only evolution ?

and nothing else.

4:23 AM Ok. Tell me if you are in India then it must be 4:30 am.

what are you doing this late ?

me: may be there is... but i dont see the need for another reason as long as the evolution theory is able to explain my actions

its 4:25 am

4:24 AM Nilesh: Evolution : are you referring to the Darwins theory

because it has a severe flaw.

accoring to me

me: gon on please

4:25 AM Nilesh: Ok. If we have evolved from apes.

Then apes and humans should not be living in the same time frame.

apes should be extinct.

me: by evolution, i don't imply the nitti-gritties of darwin's theory. i just stick to the survival of the fittest

Nilesh: ok.

4:26 AM me: btw, i dont think darwin implies we descended from apes. apes and we have a common ancestor from where evolution branched out

Nilesh: Survival of the fittest .

me: something similar to dogs and wolves

4:27 AM Nilesh: hmm

dogs are a creation of man.

We have bred them.

from wolves and domesticated them.

me: whatever the tirggering factors, the fact remains that they are a seperate species than wolves

4:28 AM Nilesh: Ya. So lets look at this from another angle.

4:29 AM Now nature has purposefully created a lot of deers so that a leopard can survive.

And leopard has the capability to win over an deer.

me: not always

4:30 AM only 20% of the attacks are successful

Nilesh: Now nature has also created two of the most huge animals and most powerful animals.

Elephant and a hippo.

The catch here is that

both of them are vegeterians.

Now nature went on and created man.

4:31 AM With no significant phisical features.

But with a brain.

And with this brain

4:32 AM the human has the capability to disturb the existing ecological balance of the nature.

Nature would never let this happen.

So this leads us to a link

that we do not belong here.

me: are we considering nature as a third person here or the collective result of everyone's actions?

4:33 AM Nilesh: whatever you want.

You can think of it as a god, alien

me: no.. it depends on what you assume nature to be

Nilesh: or need to survive

me: because for this discussion, we cannot assume an external entity

4:34 AM Nilesh: We cannot conclude anything about nature.

All I can think is that nature has created this balance.

which is keeping everything in place.

4:35 AM But with the introduction of humans, it gets disturbed.

me: that again brings back the question... who or what is nature?

to me, it is not a seperate identity

Nilesh: It will start a whole new discussion.

4:36 AM as why only EARTH and no other planet.

and why only oxygen and all and all.

me: yes, let's just suffice to say that it is our tendency to externalise things which we cannot or do not want to explain

4:37 AM Nilesh: Yes, whenever we cannot answer something then we say it god’d wish.

God’s wish.

4:38 AM If there is no life on other planets then its awful waste of space.

This was said by some one i dont remember

Ya Carl Sagan.

4:39 AM me: that's again because of the way we define life

you'll also need to read something called the anthropic principle, if i got the name right

Nilesh: whats that ?

4:41 AM me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

4:42 AM it says a lot of things

but what i understand is that had things been different

we would have come out with a similar argument

4:43 AM Nilesh: I’ll take a look at it later.

Its heavy.

4:44 AM me: i know :)

Nilesh: Also what I’ve observed is that

4:45 AM in every religion people expect the god to appear again and salvate us.

me: ah... religion...

Nilesh: and in a similar way there is a scientific group that expects advanced aliens to come and salvate us

4:46 AM and then I think yes

God exists

me: well... there are two categories of religion

Abrahamic ones and Vedic ones

Nilesh: scientists call it advanced alien civilization

me: the abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity etc) believe in the saviour

4:47 AM Nilesh: Oh yes.

me: Vedic religions do not believe in a saviour

Nilesh: Ya because abrahmic religions have a starting point in history like the story of Moses and the book of exodus.

4:48 AM me: yes

Nilesh: Here we hindus do not know when it began

from where all this knowledge came into existence

Was Ramayana and Mahabharta the real stories.

4:49 AM West have their Atlantis city.

Von Daniken argues that the city of Ram and the Atlantis had fought a nuclear war that destroyed both.

4:50 AM what a heavy load on our brains !

and why ask questions.

they do not answer them.

4:51 AM By the way

I have to leave now,

to play cricket.

I’ll join you back sometime in future.

me: hopefully yes

Nilesh: and we’ll continue this discussion.

4:52 AM If you think we can come to some conclusion.

me: well, i guess i've cleared some of your doubts

it was nice talking to you after a long time

Nilesh: Those were not doubts.

me: its almost 5 here

so i should get some sleep

Nilesh: Those were universal questions

4:53 AM and i am expecting some saviour to come down on earth and answer my questions.

Get some sleep.

me: I'm not

Nilesh: Hopefully you will get some realisation in your dreams.

me: so we can have our own views

tata

bye

Nilesh: bye.------------------------------------------------

So as you see, after two hours of giving gyaan to each other, we still couldn't arrive at a conclusion. Yours views on the topic requested.

Aalok
- Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.

Life Takes Another Turn

29^th July, 2005:
My life took a turn. This was my first day at office. Fresh out of college, I had no idea what 'to be working' meant. I kept staring at the office building for quite some time before deciding to enter. This was a 'Wow!' moment for me. Finally, I entered and stepped into professional life.

5^th May, 2008:
2 years, 9 months, 6 days and many 'Wow!' moments later, my life is taking another turn. I resigned from my first job today. This marked my first step out of a professional life and back into a student one. I'll be joining a B-School soon.

When I think of it, multiple streams of thought start flowing in my mind. Here's a sample of what was going through my head today...

I'll be missing half the fun of resigning. It won't be a surprise to my manager as he already knows I'm going to resign today. There would be no salary negotiations, promotion offers, job role change, gestures to make me feel important and attempts to make me change my mind and stay back. I will have to continue working throughout the notice period and will not be able to live a king size life like my other friends who resigned recently. Basically I won't be able to hold the organisation at ransom, which I anyway don't want to!

I won't be a part of the HSBC group anymore. I won't be earning. How will I afford my phone calls? I won't be allowed to enter the building soon. No more free mineral water, tea, coffee and parking! What do I write in my resignation mail? When should I send it across? Should I get it reviewed? Should I really be working 12 hours a day even in my notice period? Soon I'll be running around floors, getting clearance forms signed. What are you supposed to say in an exit interview?

...Some questions, some answers but mostly random thoughts of anxiety which comes as a part of change. Soon I get busy with my work and before I know its 10 PM. This day was, after all, not very different from my other work days. The only thing that changed is that I won't be getting any money for a friend whom I had referred last month ;-)

-Aalok
--Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.

My GD/PI for MDI Gurgaon

My GD/PI for MDI Gurgaon was almost a month back, on 25th March 2008, and it's way too late to post my experience considering the fact that even the results are out. But since I had posted my IIML and IIMI experiences, I'd post this one also for consistency's sake.

So, this was my third and last GD/PI, the first two being for IIML and IIMI respectively.

The conditions were a lot different this time. This one was on a weekday, in the afternoon, but at the same centre and I was on anti-biotics for the throat infection and fever I had caught a couple of days earlier. This day also happened to be Angarki - A Chaturthi falling on a Tuesday - which is supposed to be a big day for Siddhivinayak's darshan. Mom had already procured special entry passes to go through the faster queue. So there we were, at the temple entrance, at 5:30 in the morning and the 'special queue' for VIP passes was also half a mile long, I'm not even mentioning the condition of the normal queue. We got free from the temple in about an hour and I went back to sleep since I had slept late in the night and had the interview later in the afternoon.

My scheduled timeslot was 2:30 PM - 5:30 PM and we were supposed to report one hour before that for other formalities. The thing different this time? Well, I went on my bike instead of a taxi. At 10 minutes from home, this was my longest bike ride since my accident! I reached the waiting hall on time where I found a few familiar faces from my previous GD/PI experiences for IIML & IIMI. After the initial formalities we were assigned our groups and taken to the interview halls.

There were two groups with ten candidates each. I was with panel 2 consisting of two friendly looking gentlemen, referred here forth as P1 and P2, who introduced themselves as professors of Operations Management and Organisational Behaviour respectively. We were seated and the GD topic given. The different thing again? Unlike all my GD's till date, where I used to be seated at the corner, here I was bang in the middle of the group with the panel directly facing me.

The topic of discussion was "Should Celebration of Valentine's Day be Banned in India?". This sounded like a very cliché topic and the expected points like adaptability of Indian culture, the issue being over hyped by the moral police, expression of love not needing special day, the day being a money making instrument for card companies etc. I had a fair amount of participation by bringing in the following points:

• The day being about all kinds of love, for parents, siblings, friends, children and even country, and not just about girl friends and boy friends.
• Countering the point of eve teasing by mentioning religious festivals where eve teasing is more rampant because of the large crowd, but no one raising a voice because of religious sentiments coming in.
• The need for political parties (every one knows which ones, I need not take any names here) to concentrate on real developmental issues rather than creating unnecessary nuisances.
• The role card and gift companies need to play in bringing awareness about the broader meaning of the day.

The GD was over in about 15 minutes and we were asked to wait outside for our interviews. The different thing again? Instead of the usual air-conditioned waiting hall, we were supposed to wait in the open, though next to a garden and under tree shade. People who've been to Mumbai will understand how uncomfortable it can become in Mumbai heat with all the humidity in the air and anxiety of the interview in the heart. While waiting we did the regular introductions and other chitchat. Since Sub-Prime Crisis was the hottest topic those days, and I being working for the world's biggest bank, happened to see myself explaining it to everyone around.

I was the fifth one to be interviewed and after getting feedback from the earlier four candidates I was expecting to be asked to calculate the Centre of Gravity of a semi circular ring and was trying to remember the integration equations involved. Here's how my interview went:

P2 (Welcoming me while P1 is nowhere to be seen): Come in Aalok, have a seat.
A (Take a seat): Thank you sir.
P2: Tell me something about yourself.
A (Kind of happy as this is a standard questions and I had an answer prepared.): (Don't remember exactly what I said but the routine stuff about my schooling, college, and college activities. By the time I came to the point of VLSI, P2 cuts in)
P2 (Cutting me in): Yaar, you talked of love and all in the GD. If you talk like this, I'll never fall in love with you. I don't want to now what you did in your school or college or job. I want to know what are you as a person? Tell me who are you? How are you different from others?
A (Slightly startled, but realised that the routine approach is not going to work. Getting out of the 'interview mode' and switching to the 'real me' mode): Sir, I personally feel I'm different from the rest of the world. I have above average intelligence and much better observation and grasping power than others. This is not just my feeling, this has been acknowledged by my teachers, peers and superiors alike. I can get things done in relatively less time and effort than others. Another area where I am very different is that I trust myself. If I know I'm right in doing something I'll go ahead and do it without caring what the world thinks of it.
(P2 seems to be getting interested. In the meantime P1 comes in and starts browsing my file.)
P2 (to P1): Sir, he's saying something about VLSI.
P1: Yes?
A: (I mention my interest in VLSI and the lab setup and that it was then that me, Manas and Shri decided to work together)
P1: Do you know any Indian companies working in VLSI fabrication?
A: I know Paxonet but they're into VLSI design and not into fabrication. Also, I'm not sure if it's entirely an Indian company or an Indian operation of some foreign company.
P1: Have you heard of .... (Some company)?
A: No sir.
P2: What do you like? What are your passions?
A: Sir, I read a lot, I blog at times, but my real passions would be computers, gadgets, speed, bikes, cars. I actually have this wish list that I maintain.
P2: Are all the items in that list materials?
A: Most of them.
P2: If you are told that you'll get one thing, what would you ask for?
A: One dream come true kind of thing?
P2: Yes.
A: I'd ask for a Lamborghini.
P2: Do you know it's top speed?
A: Not the exact figure, but it's more than 300Km/Hr
P2: Where will you drive it?
A: The only road I can think of is Pune-Mumbai expressway.
P2: What's the speed limit there?
A: 80Km/Hr
P2: Then?
A: (Don't remember the exact words, but said something to the tune of "It's not the 80 that matters, it's the Lamborghini that matters.")
P1: So you work for HSBC, what do you do?
A: We as a company or I as an individual?
P1: You as an individual.
A: (Summarise my job responsibilities, business domain and the technologies involved).
P1: How much would rate the work you've done till now?
A: On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 being the routine mundane job of moving a textbox by 2 pixels on a screen and 10 being developing a complete trading system, I'd rate my regular work at 5-6 but the best piece of work I did would get a 7-7.5.
P1: And what if 10 being something like Artificial Intelligence.
A: Sir, we don't do AI here, so I have rated my work according to the range of work we have here.
P1: You are in an IT company. As per a study the proportion of failed projects to total projects started is very high in IT compared to other industries. Why do you think that happens.
A: Sir, very frankly projects generally do not fail in our organisation. But if I have to think of the reasons for failure, I'd say wrong estimation or extreme deadlines or the requirements not being clear. Another reason might be insufficient budgets leading to abandoning of projects half way through.
P1: Why do you think that happens?
A: From a software company's point of view, this my happen due to extreme competition in the market and the pressure to win a project turning into underbidding and setting of unrealistic targets. But again this doesn't happen with us as we are not in the open market. We are a captive IT shop for the HSBC group. This means we are going to work only for HSBC group and the group will give all its IT work to us only.
P1: Have you seen any projects failing and what were the reasons?
A: I've seen very few projects failing and that too happened because of the requirements changing very frequently.
P1: What, in your opinion, are the risks associated with IT companies and projects?
A: The biggest risk would be the recent example of US recession and the Rupee appreciation affecting the bottomlines of IT companies. Another risk I perceive is skill mismatch in projects. (While writing this, I realised I should have also mentioned attrition.)
P2: Do you follow any sports?
A: Not really, but I sometimes follow F1.
P2: Where was the latest race held?
A: It was the Malaysian Grand Prix held in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
P2: Who won?
A: No idea sir, but I read that Force India came in at no 12. I guess Raikonnen or Massa would have won.
P2: Raikonnen won. He led the race throughout.
A: All the 75 laps?
P2: Yes.(Pauses) Talking of F1, do you really think the name Force India is a good name? It feels really bad when the headline reads 'Force India Crashes Out'.
A: By what name to call his team is Mr. Mallaya's decision. But I personally feel this names signifies his faith in the team and its potential.
P2: What potential do you think this team has?
A: As per the Malaysian GP results it seems there is potential. Fisichella finished 12th and I read in Mr. Mallaya's interview they expect to be in the top ten by the end of this year and are targeting the podium in 2009 season.
P2: Let him say whatever he wants to. Has this guy Fisichella won a single race in his life that he'll win now?
A: I'd like to believe he will.
P1: Do you know how much this chap Mallaya has paid for that team?
A: No sir, all I know is that he bought the Spyker team, don't have any idea about the deal amount.
P1: This Kingfisher Airlines and the beer brand, are owned by a group. Do you know the group's name?
A: Sir it's the UB group, United Breweries.
P1: What is their share in the international beer market?
A: Not sure about the beer but they have the maximum share in the Scotch market is what I read somewhere.
P1: Which, according to you, is the most popular beer brand?
A: Kingfisher, I guess.
P1: Are you sure?
A: No sir.
P1: Kingfisher is at no 3. The first two are ...(some name from H) and ...(don't remember this one at all).(Pausing) You said something about the US recession. And you work for HSBC. We've heard that HSBC has taken major losses due to the sub prime crisis.
A: Sir, on the contrary, HSBC has taken very few losses compared to other banks. Also out of a turnover of over 300 Billion Dollars, the group lost 17 Billions to sub prime which is just a marginal fraction. Again if you compare with Citigroup, our losses are minimal compared to theirs of around 200 Billion Dollars which even cost them the no 1 position. Now HSBC is the no 1 bank as per the asset value.
P1: And why is that so?
A: The main reason we did not lose a lot of money is that the recent sub prime crisis is a US specific phenomenon. HSBC being a Europe centric bank, doesn't have enough presence in the US to have taken huge losses.
P2: Other than HSBC, name a bank which has incurred losses due to sub prime?
A: Citigroup is one.
P2: Any other?
A: Bank of America, may be. Basically all American banks took losses.
P1: Ok Aalok, we are done with you. Before leaving, is there anything you'd like to ask us?
A: Yes sir, comparing MDI with other institutes, I find that the amount of extra curricular activities happening here is much more than others.
P1: Which other institutes?
A: You may take any institute. The amount of visibility that MDI has through its extra curriculars is much more than any other institute. Is it really so or MDI promotes these activities more aggressively?
P1: Well, if you are aware, the program you've applied for is a fully residential one. So there's a lot of energy flowing around during the weekends. (Briefs me about the different events held at MDI like business quizzes, paper presentations, panel discussions etc.)
P2: Sometimes corporates also come and tell us that they want to do something, if they can sponsor any event.
P1: Our students are also running a mutual fund of their own and it is doing good if you compare with other funds in the market. All the students and staff pitched in and contributed to it. We even wanted to register the fund but their are legal restrictions, you need to create a holding company and stuff. (Pauses) Is there anything else you'd like to know?
A: No sir.
P1: Well, then we're done with you. Thanks.
A: Thank you sir.

And so, after 20 minutes of conversation (It really felt like a normal conversation rather than an interview), I came out. Discussed my interview briefly with the remaining candidates, wished them luck, started my bike and was off to home.

I was actually feeling good as the interview had gone decently well, I was done with all my GD/PI rounds and the fever didn't come back.

Well, the results came out three days back on 15th April, 2008 and I've been selected for MDI. Now just waiting for the IIM results which are expected on 23rd. Keeping my fingers crossed.

-Aalok
--Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.

Latest Trip to Mumbai

I sometimes wonder how my every trip to Mumbai turns out to be a new experience everytime.
Last weekend's trip was also interesting. Since again, these are small incidents, I'll write a few lines for each.

The Bus Stand: I had decided to go at the last minute, so couldn't get a train reservation and had to take a bus. Quite interestingly, the queue for deluxe AC bus was much more longer and moving equally fast while the one for Non AC bus was a fraction of its neighbour but still stagnant. I soon found out the reason. MSRTC had realised that most of the weekend travellers are IT professionals who do not bat an eyelid before throwing away a couple of hundred bucks and the number & frequency of AC buses had been increased, not to mention the increased fares. So the situation now is that you can get an AC bus within 15 minutes but you'll have to wait for a Non AC one for anything between 30 minutes to an hour! Frustrated by the long wait, I went up to the ticket window to enquire, here's the short conversation that followed:
Me: Line कब चालू होगा?
Conductor: Bus आने के बाद
Me: Bus कब आयेगी?
Person standing at first position in the queue: Line चालू होने से पहले
I give him a weird and confused look.
Same person: Office Office देखा करो
And I come back to my position in the queue. Thankfully the bus arrived soon after and I got the ticket.

The Doctor: The person sitting next to me in the bus turned out to be a doctor. I realised this in the last hour of the journey because that was the only time he was awake. Not just a doctor, this gentleman was an Orthopaedic surgean who had studied in Pune. Well, I told him everything about my accident and the corrective surgery advised by the doctor (more details here). Obviously he couldn't comment as he didn't know my case in detail and hadn't seen my X-Rays. Interesting conversation followed about how life in IT is comfortable and enjoyable (one of his misconceptions which I duly corrected) and how engineers tend to get independent early in life whereas doctors have to depend on their parents for a long time. I asked him a lot of questions about profession in the medical fields, need for interpersonal skills in a doctor, different growth options, medical research and conferences, value of a plain MBBS degree and the constant need to further specialise for survival, how doctors struggle their entire life and their kids enjoy the fruits of their labour, why they use green cloth while surgeries, what precautions they take to avoid infection, why there are so less women doctors other than gynaecologists and paediatricians. Finally when I thought he had started getting bored with my questions, it was time to leave :-)

The Bike: My bike doesn't have a number plate after it came back from the repairs (more details here). So this time I had thought of getting the number painted as I had already got it serviced last week. Well, I roamed the whole area for about half an hour trying out different garages and paint shops, but no one did number plates! So much for getting everything in Mumbai.

Ending the Fasts: The navratris were ending on Sunday, 13th April 2008 which meant end of my week long fasts and religious ceremony to mark the event. This, for me, means delicious हलवा, पूरी, खीर, छोले and चने। Wow! what a way to end fasts!

The Gadgety Girly Girl: After some recent roller coaster events in my life (details coming in another post) I've kind of lost interest in girls. But the one sitting opposite me in train while returning to Pune was slightly different. The first thing I noticed about her was that her left arm and leg were bandaged and she was very efficiently carrying a cool cell phone, an iPod and two bags. Wow! a girl with guts, good looking too. She actually knew how to click pictures from the cell, use the handsfree and listen to music at the same time. Then I noticed something which made me lose all my interest, her socks. She was wearing dark pink socks with floral patterns on them, yuck! Her cell phone still had my attention and I couldn't resist asking the make, model and the specifications. This is when she told me that she loves clicking pictures and I challenged her to take a picture which I've never been able to take - The brilliant white trees on the hills after Lonavala during rains. If I happen to meet her again, I'm surely going to ask her about it.

The Village Well: This is a scene which reminded me of old hindi movies where village ladies travelled miles to fetch drinking water although this was not a village in the middle of nowhere, it was just outside Lonavala and the well was just a few hundred metres from their homes :-)

The Monkey: This is another scene which reminded me of our lives. A monkey sitting next to the railway tracks eating some wild fruit. Isn't that what we all do, trying to find a living while the world moves by hardly noticing us?

On this note, I'll end this post. Stay tuned for the next one ;-)

-Aalok
--Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered and no one was there.