Mall vs Mela

At first, this comparison may seem a bit weird and it is indeed weird; but what I am trying is to compare two sources of enjoyment and recreation. Mall represents the choice of modern shining India while Mela is usually the choice of rural India and urban middle and below middle families.  Though we may see some bunch of people both at Malls and Melas who we think doesn’t belong to the respective places.

Mall has gathered widespread publicity in the past decade and it has become favorite place of almost every middle person to the aristocrats. Teenagers like it because it’s a safe and standard meeting place to impress both their friends and ‘beloved ones’. Women like it because it’s a matter of maintaining standard to visit malls for shopping or for nothing. Men like it because they got no choice; they have to comply with their kids and wives. 

Mela existed for a long time and in past its primary purpose was to facilitate business by providing a common place where every useful commodity can be made available. In recent days there is a shift in the trend and apart from a business place Mela has also become a fun place. Common men like it as it’s cheap, it’s a good source of escape from day to day trouble and tension and a good place for a family hangout.

Though the classes of people visiting these places are different but purpose of each class is same. Some fun, some shopping, and an escape from day to day monotonous routine. Children, no matter, whether they are in mall or Mela have the same curiosity and enthusiasm. They want to play; they want to eat; they want to experience everything that the surrounding environment is providing them. Mela usually have speedy and quick entertainment stuff like magician’s show, death well, giant wheels and other kind of thrilling adventures whereas mall has standardized entertainment also; it provides multiplexes, ice skating, bowling, 3-d and virtual reality games etc etc which only rich people can enjoy. A middle class person can only enjoy the view of rich people enjoying these games from outside and he makes firm resolution that one day I will also enjoy life in the same way.  

If I talk from economic point of view, then there is an amazing similarity between shopkeepers of both places. In malls, a major chunk of profit earned by shopkeepers is given as rent and other service taxes so they have to fight real hard to survive in the luxurious competition inside. Scenes of new shops opening in malls, struggling for few days, and shutting down are very common these days. So we may get a feel that people owning a shop in a mall are very rich but we don’t know in reality how well they are doing, and is it sufficient to thrive. Similarly people owning a shop in Mela basically belong to the middle level shop keepers and they also have to give huge rents to local municipality, administrations and bribes to local officers.  There is a limited amount of time to earn profit, and there is excessive competition. I was once watching this shop, they were selling every item for 5rs and I was wondering how much profit they will earn eventually and will it be enough? 

Though the mannerism, clothes, shoes and other accessories may be different for a person having a shop in Mall and Mela but if you closely observe the expressions on their face is almost same. Worried, tensed and hoping that customer will come to their shop and they can continue their struggle. Such kind of partiality can occur only in a country like India where employment means just to increase the quantity and give people a basic medium to survive no matter if it’s not enough to assure any quality life to them. 

It seems peculiar to me, 2 places, completely different yet serving the same purpose and you can trace as many similarities as there are dissimilarities. Ultimately, both places show the human spirit of enjoying the life, having a little fun, a little get together with family and friends after a long time, different colors of life with all possible variations and a perpetual struggle for survival and an attitude of never giving up.

 

An open letter to all IIMs

Dear IIMs,

It’s a sincere appeal from me with a very little expectation that it would be ever read or taken seriously by any concerned authority. I don’t know whether I should call it an appeal, a request, a frustrated letter or something else but I want to express myself so that I won’t have the regret that I also remained silent against a system that was intended to serve me.

Every young Indian has, at some part of his life, lived the big IIM dream, no matter even for a miniature amount of time. Some continued with this dream for a long time, and for some chasing this dream became their life. The comfortable life afterwards, the fat pay packages, the great alumni, the huge infrastructure, secure future; life becomes a paradise once you achieve the big IIM brand.

People who failed to get into a good graduate college see this as an opportunity to wash their previous sins, rectify their old mistakes and to achieve what they thing they truly deserve. Many are willing to work hard to the edge of their potential and even beyond that. Many are willing to sacrifice all the comfort, fun and luxuries of their life for a while just for focusing on their CAT preparation. But the inner fire, the internal source of motivation that ignites one’s spirit and keep on pushing students to work hard fades soon when they realize that this time hard work is not the sole factor.

Many who start their preparation with great enthusiasm, quits in midway, when they realize that there are many factors that will control their admission into a good B school and no matter how well they do in CAT, there will always be some uncertainty. This is the time, when one realizes the worth of board marks and even graduation marks.

Now how many of us really knew that we will try for CAT when we were in 10^th and 12^th?? I don’t think there is much and in fact if there were, who cares at that time. No one has even a faint idea that board marks will be such a huge factor in deciding ones eligibility in an IIM.  

Now what I want to ask all the IIMs is how come board marks decides one’s ability to be a good manager. What’s the relevance?? In 10^th class we have subject like Hindi, English, and Science; how come they are even minutely related to one’s ability to be a good manager? Then comes the 12^th class, be it commerce or be it PCM, how are physics, chemistry related to ones analytical or problem solving ability? I agree that board marks indeed define a certain level of consistency and hard work but I find no sense in laying such a huge stress on them and making them mandatory for admission criteria. They can be given certain weightage but they can’t be a deciding factor.

There is no guarantee that those who secure 90+ in boards are born genius, though, no doubt they are hard working but I guess top institutes generally seek sheer genius in one and not the ability to work hard. Also we can safely assume that those who secure less than 70 can be discarded for admission just because they don’t satisfy these criteria. This is absurd, one bad day or one bad week shouldn’t affect a person’s entire life.

Now we move to the most illogical part. 10^th and 12^th usually have a common system so we can give them some weightage, but graduation marks. It’s like judging on an entire different dimension. It’s like a competition in which there is no common quality or attribute. Every university has different system of checking, teaching and evaluation and graduation percentage may vary due to many stupid things.

One needs to secure at least around 80 for IIM A and around 85 for IIM S. Now 85 in graduation sounds like a joke to me, and in fact it is. I heard that in some universities like Pune University the topper lands at somewhat around 80, so no matter how hard you try you are already out of the race for A and S, that’s height of being unfair.

Besides percentage in graduation varies according to the practical and class work marks, for which, one is at pure mercy of teachers and luck. No matter how talented or hard working one is, the major chunk of practical marks is awarded on one’s ability of sycophancy. So unless IIMs think a good manager most posses the quality of sycophancy I find no plausible reason in giving graduation percentage such a strong preference.

What I find most senseless is IIM ahmedabad’s criteria of providing points. The table is like ( a*b*c+d+e) where a stands for 10^th board marks, b stands for 12^th , c stands for graduation, d stands for masters degree and e stands for work experience. ‘d’ and ‘e’ hardly have any effect on ones selection so let us focus on a, b and c. 60 and above gets 1 point, 70 and above gets 2 point and 80 and above gets 3 point. And for sure shot call you have to secure at least 80+ in all a, b and c else you are doomed. What I find hardly irrational is that one scoring 79.9 gets 2 point while one scoring 80 gets 3. Isn’t this the height of nonsense? Why not give one scoring 79 2.9 points so the system will judge every student fairly. I don’t know why they created such a system where a student’s admission is based on luck than brilliance.

Then other IIMs also joined this non sense, some of the IIMs like Indore completely nullify CAT score in their criteria. So no matter you get 100 percentile, you won’t get a call from IIM Indore if you have sinned in past. Then what’s the sense of taking a different exam?? Making students study vigorously for 3 years and then give them no credit of scoring very high? I don’t know, maybe I am not smart enough to find the reason behind all of this. But how come a person scoring 97 in CAT better than a person scoring 100 just because he got 85+ in boards and the other one got 80+?? Guess our country wants to give a message of preferring mugging our talent.

What I don’t understand is that are IIMs only for formality? To intake certain amount of students having well past records and getting them placed? What about nation building, what about developing future leaders, what about making India a leader in global economy? Why not give a fair chance to all possible leaders and managers by setting fair and plausible criteria where everyone can participate equally in the competition of best B schools in the country. Because of these stupid, senseless and irrational criteria a majority of sheer talent derails soon from IIM pursuit. Some switches to GRE, some other manages to satisfy them by college placements, some other remains happy in the technical line or whatever their graduation field was. So at the end of the day, it’s our country that is losing pure talent which may change the future for good. 

Those who deserves to be in good colleges are wasting their talent and time elsewhere and the crowd which enters IIM, no doubt talented, represents only similar perspective and thought processes. The consistent ones they are and as such bring no creativity to class which could have been brought by the one wasting their time elsewhere. The whole country opposed when board marks were involved in admissions to IITs, even the present pattern is criticized a lot. So why IIM continues with the same pattern I don’t understand. I hope they will change this pattern soon, and give chances to the people with best potential to be upcoming leaders or else we would soon be trapped in a vicious circle of coaching, mugging and parental pressure on children, end result of which will be nothing more than slowing down of our growth and unbalance in our entire education and professional structure.

   

CSC Rejection and beyond.....

Well, for those who have seen me in the past weeks I would like to clear that I am not here to cry on my failure as some people think I am doing it a lot these days. I don't want to write how unfortunate circumstances were for me that day or what could possible have happened correctly to get me a position as a project trainee in CSC. I don't want to blame god or fate or even myself. I just want to bookmark this event as I am sure its a starting point of something big. I just want to bookmark it so that when I will look back after many years I will know that once in life I was completely faithless, my confidence was shook, I was broken completely yet I somehow struggled and continued to fight and I hope there will be one day when I will reach a good position and I will feel good about this failure too as it taught me a lot. It's more like a public diary entry and I would always like to keep it in front of me.

I was not expecting to clear the written test so I have no feelings associated with being a CSC project trainee or anything like that. I was perfectly happy with my life and the way I had planned it. So getting selected in written was an unexpected event as lot of questions were out of syllabus and I used common sense in most of the questions to tick the right answer. So the chain of unfortunate events started between the period of getting selected for the interview and in between the interview. Interview was something I always considered as my forte. I always thought that I am one of the best person in expressing myself very clearly and I have a very decent communication skills and attitude which will definitely give me an edge over others. Besides I am a person who is always full of confidence and have full faith on himself no matter what happens. I keep myself away from expectations and too much attachment for anything. It keeps me emotionally safe and strong though at times it gives an impression of being heartless.

Anyway between 2 hours from result to interview, suddenly I developed a lot of attachment for this post. I planned many things according to it in my life. I was so hopefully not even  even for a second I  thought that I won't clear the interview. I was not at all nervous, I was even not thinking about what I will be going to say in side the interview, I was so confident that I will say something brilliant and they would be impressed and they would take me easily. But as it happens, the old hindi quote ' khushiyo ko apni hi najar lag jana', I used to utter that once I clear the written, interview won't be a big deal for me, I would definitely clear it with flying colors. So guess God was in full mood to prove me wrong and to kick me to make me realize that I am getting overconfident again.

Interview started very well, they asked me about what kind of person I am and what are my weaknesses, I answered well.Interviewers seemed impressed but then suddenly they said that I am giving very perfect and nice answers, and perfect is always bookish, and it seems to them that I already came up with a mindset of giving those answers. Now I don't know how come they got this idea but a thing started so positively suddenly became slightly negative. I didn't know what to answer for that argument and I said that I was just describing what I am. Anyway I recovered well in answering the technical questions and I was back on track again.I was answering everything correctly and with full confidence and I was getting really comfortable with the whole situation now. So as it happen with me always, the beginning of something bad when everything is going so good unexpectedly. They asked the same question of what you think about your life 5 years after, and I told them the same old answer, to be a good programmer and employee and worker and blah blah. They asked me to elaborate it ( which they didn't ask anyone else to do), I told the same ;using my potential in company's interest ramayana again, they asked me to elaborate it further, and bang as Saravasthi made kumbhakarna to say 'nindrasan' in place of 'indrasan', I said given a chance a project leader.

Now it suddenly wake up the third interviewer which was so far not so much interested in taking interview and who hasn't asked anything much to any other candidate. He started banging tons of question to me and I was replying everything calmly which was definitely impressing the other 2 interviewers but he was not satisfied. He asked me an out of syllabus question again and I told him that sir i haven't heard that term before as it was not in our syllabus, he thought that I was lying and faking confidence and guess this might be the reason of my doom and again I don't know how come he came to that idea.Anyway  I somehow responded good to the rest of the questions and I was sure that I did the best that I can do in those circumstances. I consulted some people and they said it was a stress interview and I performed well, they were just checking my confidence as I was replying the questions very well so I was somewhat assured about my selection.

Anyway 4 days were hell, and when the result came it was much more than hell. I could have danced in hell rather than facing those days after result. Many cleared, and I was not in the list. I could literally feel now the filmy scenes when someone kicks the wall, punches something hard, break things and cry loudly. The world was falling, I lost my faith in myself, I lost every piece of confidence that accumulated in me for 20 years. I lost faith in god being helpful to me always, I doubted on every good thing in my life. It was like suddenly everything changed polarity, me who was 99.9% positive was now 101% negative. The whole interview thing seemed to be a very well planned conspiracy by god to make my life bleak and devoid of any hope.

It took me only a few minutes to get over IIT, it took me only a few hours to get over personal setbacks ( which I guess most of boys had definitely suffered during college days) but for the first time in my life I failed to motivate myself. I failed to recollect myself, I failed to rise again and start running. I failed even to save me from collapsing. Generally I use to concept of 'bigger success' very well to get someone motivated but for the first time I just feel that there are only bigger failures in life. There is nothing such as ' jo hota hai acche ke liye hi hota hai' or ' aage kuch accha definitely hoga'. I felt like it was the last chance in the world to prove myself and I was comprehensively beaten.

Ironically whatever I had written in the essay of written test became true in my own interview. I had written that no matter how brilliant or hardworking you are, if you are not lucky you would definitely fail. I had written that at times a deserving person is wrongly judged and misinterpreted by a wrong person or system, I had written that at times a person may be rejected in an interview as the interviewer may fail to analyze him properly. So it seems like I was writing my own future there which I find very amusing now.

Anyway with one bad thing came many good things in my life. I was supported very well by my family first then friends then seniors. I was revived by my friends making me to realize what I am and I should not loose myself. I am thankful to many people who were a great support to me at that time and who brought me back somehow. I got support from most unexpected people and suddenly the whole world seemed to comfort me and trying to heal me. Also coincidentally, I got more than expected marks in this semester which usually never happens with me. God comforted me with a small band-aid after injuring me greatly as he always did throughout my life. It seems like I was sent through a NOT gate, everything I ever wished and never happened was happening but I can't be happy about it as everything I thought will never happen has happened.

Anyway, almost a week has passed now. I am not fully recovered yet. I am sure I will be alright soon. I often feel like something has snapped, something is missing now, a part of me is killed now. But I won't change my attitude, I would not bow down to the accepted standard of the world, I would continue acting the way I am and I hope one day the world will accept me as I am. I won't fake anything or pretend anything just to be on the safe side. I would be a rebel no matter how much failure it will cost me. I will be the same; honest, direct, optimistic and full of energy. I am finishing this post with a hope that one day surely everything on which my life was based on will come true, the hope, the optimism, the concept of a bigger success, the concept of learning from your mistakes and whatever happened happened for a good reason. The idea of god taking exam and eventually paying you the deserving reward. The idea of having extraordinary failure before extraordinary success. I won't give up and I hope this is the last time I am crying on something, this is the last time I am disappointed over something so people let me cry, let me be sad, let me be dejected and hopeless cause this is the last time you are seeing me like this.

Forget or Forgive......

“I do not forget but forgive"
"I never forgive but I forget"
"I neither forget nor forgive"

You must have heard all these trash dialogues from your friends many times as if they actually follow it and I guess you must have uttered it yourself at times to express the strength and tenacity of your character. But the question that I am pondering upon is that do we actually mean it when we say it or these statements are just temporary expression of aggression??

And what's the best thing to do. To forget or to forgive or neither or both. What I think is when we use the term 'forget' we are concerned primarily upon the situation that is troubling us and when we talk about the term 'forgive' we are concerned about the person whose act is bothering us. We are brought up with all the bookish statement of ' forget and forgive’, one must have big heart to forgive, we must forget things and move on and other such things. Often I am described as a person who never forgets anything and never forgives anyone. People around me suggest forgetting things, forgiving some people and forget all the things they have done to me. They describe this as a key to a happy and peaceful life. They think one can't enjoy life when one has lots of burden and weight of past.

I never agreed with these thoughts and I think I won't ever. As in a standard software procedure, a record of previous errors and what caused that error is always kept so that it could be avoided later and I follow the same procedure. If we forget anything then we would be prone to get hurt by it again and if we forgive someone then often we are taken for granted and that person took it as weakness of our character and considers it as our inability to take strong actions. What's the sense of getting taken for granted and giving other the chance of hurting us again and again? Desperate time requires desperate measures and at times the best measure is to isolate someone from our life completely so that person would never have the chance to bother us again.

 And if we forget a situation then there is a high probability that situation would repeat itself. Then the same old procedure, we would cry, would hear sad songs, talk  same things to same persons and get same reactions from them, update some Facebook statuses,share some 'strong message' pics on Facebook, make some internal resolution of how to avoid it next time but in the end we fall in the same pit again as we never bothered to watch our path every time we fall.

My above views may be interpreted negatively (as it always happens). I am not saying to be cold, rude and completely isolated. What I am trying to say is that some things we must keep in our mind to save ourselves from inconvenience. Giving chances is a good thing because at times we also need some chances. There are some mistakes that can't be avoided, some misunderstandings that have to be cleared, some gaps that have to be filled but we must keep an eye on the frequency of chances we give to people otherwise some people have the tendency to make a habit of making mistakes. Some bridges are to be burned else we would always reach the position we started.

Anyway I guess there can't be a universally accepted generalize principle on it. Sometimes you have to forget things and move on sometimes you shouldn't even if you could. Sometimes you have to forgive some people but do not forget what they did but giving chances is the best thing you can do in such situation. Sometimes you just shouldn't forgive a person and the best thing would be to forget his existence in your life completely otherwise that person will continue to give you troubles. So one has to use his conscience to decide in a long run what would be the best thing to do but some tough decisions should be made at the right time for a happy and peaceful life. There is no benefit in bragging about having a big heart and forgiving and forgetting just for the sake of ' as its a good thing to do ' !!!

Getting Back On D Trackkkk .....!!!!!!!

So, it's been long !! I haven't written anything for a long time. It's interesting that a hobby which used to be my passion and to a large extent my identity at a point of life is suddenly abandoned by me without any reason. I have been inactive not just in writing but also in my life. Life has gone stagnant these days, nothing is happening. Past couple months were neither very constructive nor very disastrous. It's queer i have the peek of both the constructive and disastrous time at the same point and now both have gone, nothing is happening at all.

So after few or better say after a lot of troubles and uncertainties I am finally back on track. Life is getting momentum again, it is pretty much like what it used to be in the early days of JEE preparation, but it's CAT now and in the span that elapsed between I can feel the difference what Sachin was indicating, the difference between a 19 year old and a 39 year old. Same difference I feel between my JEE preparation and CAT preparation ( which isn't started yet for the record ).

The JEE days were more like living in a dream world, when you just have hope and optimism, the only fear that u have is induced by the lame lectures by coaching faculties and when you hear about failures of other, rest u just imagine yourself in limelight clearing the exam with flying colors and on the seventh cloud. The preparation that time is also fluctuating, some day you will study a lot, some other day you will struggle to remain positive. There is a healthy competition and you use to take help from fellow competitors a lot. It's pretty much like being a rookie, a newbie , a new fish in the tank when you have no experience just enthusiasm and energy and there is nothing to make you go dull or bleak as you haven't face anything that will make you doubt your own abilities.

The CAT days are pretty much like a 39 year old Sachin, trying to prove that he still has the same potential enhanced with the experience now. But I personally feel that experience demotivates a lot than it helps. You start doubting on your own abilities as you have failed previously. Every new endeavor always begins with the thought that what if I failed. You become more practical and calculative in your life. You tend to decrease the entropy and follow a regular pattern. So life is all monotonous and inactive, you just keep on flowing with the flow. Your fellow competitors are more interested in what you are doing and how much you are preparing rather than your own preparation. Plus there are thousand other ways, with every way looking more lucrative and correct if you haven't chosen it.

Now the big question, what I am doing with my life ?? Seriously speaking, at this point of life; I have no idea what I am doing and what  I should do. It's pretty much like living a lucid dream with the hope that one day you will wake and everything will be alright and moving in a proper and fix direction. I have second thoughts in almost everything of my life. At times I am too optimistic, at times I am devoid of any hope; At times I am full of energy, at times I have no zeal left; At times I am hopeful for something better and positive, at times I doubt everything in life; At times I have full faith on myself, at times I start doubting on my capabilities.

Let's see what turn life will take from here. I am hopeful and curious as I am no where near to the life what I thought I would have when I would be 20 yet I have no complain and only  few regrets. The past few failures and experiences have made me mature enough so that I know what to expect and how much to expect and in social cases from whom to expect. I will try to be more regular and consistent in blogging and writing as it used to give me immense relief once. But after continuous criticism by others, I started doubting on my writing skills, I went to the mode of perfection when you think that once I have learned grammar and vocab enough I will start writing, but I think that time never comes, so I have stop thinking about getting to a perfect mode and then start writing. Perhaps if I had waited for the perfect mode back in 2010, I would never have a blog with 50+ posts. So for those who want to read my views and exchange theirs, they are most welcome. Those who want everything perfect and flawless, WHO CARES, it's not your place !!!!
Will catch you all later hopefully !!