Time flies...

Time flies. An academic year seems to start slowly but sprint towards the end. Its been the same feeling since school, how did the time fly so fast! But yes, time flies. Another academic year has come to an end in my life. My MBA is now 50% complete and as every body has said the toughest part is over, but I keep hearing the other version also "In front there is crocodile festival". I am now all set for internship in Kutch, Gujarat. Supposedly it has one of the worst climates in India, but I am looking forward to the experience of living in a new state, my 6th already!

From the midnight induction in June to the final exams today, its been the most exciting part of my life. The experience here itself here is a great learning. I always heard about "learning from peers" and felt how weird the phrase sounds. But it makes sense when we have people from 10 years of experience to freshers, Computer science to Journalism, and needless to say, people from all around the country. People here do not need a reason to party. Any small group here kicks off with a party and then ends with a party. Section parties, hostel parties and many more.

I remember one of my friend saying that the life here makes us a robot. May be its true, I now do not really worry even if I have 3 quizzes, 2 project submissions and 4 hours of classes on the same day. Life here made me so hardworking that people here do not realize that we are working hard!

This place also tests our patience, best of strengths and weaknesses. Competition is one thing, which is omnipresent even when n^n events are happening all around the year. Life here also teaches to support others, share, team work. I feel that I realized my greatest strength and also my weakness through all these.

CG and CV are the most heard and most ran after words on campus. CG is the CGPA for the academic courses and CV is our curriculum vitae for all placement related activities. Believe it or not, we put in around 50 hours of effort in making our CVs.

Events. There are n^n competitions on campus and off campus for students to participate. Now that every company wants to steal the fresh ideas for free, there are many corporate events also. I found them the best learning experiences. Then of course the entertainment events. From cult nights to rock shows, everything is indigenous. The screening of cricket and football world cups brought out the crazy fans in us. It also showed why sports are called a unifying factor.

I was in section B, famous as the maggu section. It was a little nostalgic as the it was the last day for the section, after all the fun we had in one year. I cannot forget my expereinces of sitting between the most attentive girl of the class and the most regular sleeper. My first year ended with a bang with India winning the world cup. Amidst roars, 200 crazy fans, one IIM L mess, screening on large screen, sounds of banging glasses tables... what an experience it was. Now, I feel that this was one of the chillest parts of my life..!

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Shit happens...

Shit happens... "A fictitious explanation of the origin of this phrase occurs in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. During his capricious run, a bumper sticker salesman running alongside him points out to Forrest that he has just stepped in a pile of dog feces. When Forrest replies, "It happens", the man replies, "What, shit?", to which Forrest replies, "Sometimes". The man is then inspired to create the "Shit Happens" bumper sticker. - Wikipedia". On the last weekend, we three friends - Amit, Bharadwaz and I, set out on an adventure, though at start we never knew it was going to be one, when we really found out how true the phrase can be.

5PM, 12th March 2011. Tendulkar was blazing away in the match against South Africa. We were in our rooms, excitedly packing our stuff as we had our train scheduled at 7.30PM. The auto has come on time and we as a bunch of over punctual guys, started at 5.45PM. We reached Lucknow railway station at exactly 6.45PM, 45 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train. The moods were high with Bharadwaz constantly pulling the leg of Amit and I was enjoying the moment. Here is the first shock. The train is delayed by 2 hours, i.e. 9.30PM. Luckily, the station hotel had an amazing restaurant and we had a decent dinner there whiling away time. We slowly came out at 9 and the second shock, our Farakka express postponed to 11.30PM. As were still in the dilemma of what to do, the chart changed to 12.30PM. The last thing we wanted was the tran reaching Delhi late and we stuck in the middle of no where. We got our flight tickets booked and there was some strange joy amidst the apathy and our confidence of winning shot up. We came back to the campus, sat in my room for a quick meeting and finished all the last minute changes. Travel in Business suits - Direct flight to Delhi - Winning - Kick some a** ; the thoughts going on in our minds then. We were looking forward to the final round of the competition, for which we have put in so much effort and felt that no body can stop us winning.

Feb 19th, 2011; The competition. Bharadwaz and I set out to Agra. It was my third time and enjoyed the city as always. The Taj was as beautiful as ever and cannot forget Bharadwaz's amazing stunts with the photographer. Amit, already in town, joined us on the evening and we three started to Jaipur. The research we planned had gone so smoothly and quiet contended we returned to Lucknow. The travel was a typical teenage boys way, bus at the last moment, dinner at dhabas, road side biryani etc. Enjoyed every moment though. The bigger effort started in Lucknow to compile the report and the deadline was 1st March. We shared work, took turns, did what ever, but complied a solid report and we were so content and satisfied with our work. As expected we blazed into the final round and no stopping what so ever. The efforts did not stop. We compiled a beautiful presentation for the final round, amidst classes, quizzes, assignment etc. and hence were all set for the finals on 13th March 2011, in Delhi.

March 13th, 2011; The D day. The morning flight to Delhi was pleasant and we reached the venue by 12. The news came that our return train was cancelled. we never cared, booked the next days flight to Lucknow. We had some last minute preparations and we were all set for the event to start. We were the first team to present and we made full use of it. The presentation from the beginning to the end was exciting and the Q&A part was fantastic. We did it. Our presentation really reflected all the hard work for the last one month. We were happy and confident. The other teams presented. We asked a few interesting questions and our confidence even increased. After 4 hours of start, the presentations ended and the judges went out for discussion. I hate this moment. This was my fourth event in a row and still a strange nervousness takes over. The judges finally came. And there it was. Our name was announced among the consolation prizes. This was the biggest shock. We were really disappointed. This was real disappointment. We were angry, disappointed, shocked. I tried to keep my calm but felt really low. It wasn't really about winning or loosing, it was all about expectations and in this case they were justified by the amount of effort, our solid presentation etc. I felt that the impact on the judges was not long enough as ours was the first presentation on that day. I always think and also preach that life is not all about winning but they all did not matter.

14th March, 2011. We got to sleep only for a few hours as we had our flight back to Lucknow early in the morning. We were tired and exhausted but life does not stop. We were back at our campus by 7AM and as usual - classes, assignments, quizzes...

Overall, we had quite an experience. We now know how important is small things like checking whether the train is on time or not before leaving to the station, flights are always better and above all how to win the next time. I remember the words of our HR Prof, last term - "Kyu daru zindagi se kya hoga... kuch nahi hoga tho tajurbha hoga...".

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Walking the walk..

Its been quite some time since my last post. Several ideas were flying in my mind all through this month about the next post but somehow the inertia to start writing was quite high. I attribute this to a variety of reasons ranging from our summer placements, really crazy second term, some interesting developments in my life :-), holidays etc.. A big hats off to all those writers, now that I came to know how difficult it is to put pen on paper, especially when you don't have anything to write.

The third term started with a crazy winter. Temperatures dipped to as low as 0 degrees, for the first time in the last ten years. The only positive side is that it became a nice reason for sleeping 8 to 10 hours a day. The classes are less crazier as compared to last term, with some really good Profs. This is the fests season for all types of colleges around the country. IIM L's Manfest ended yesterday, after 3 rocking days. There were some good performances by Pain of salvation, Salim Sulaiman etc. I remember the days when we called Telugu music director Chakri to perform during our college fest.. :-)

With a plethora of events lined up in various events, we put on our thinking cap and set on a journey of multiple events, one after other. Manfest's Marksmen is one of them, where we had to design a few strategies for the Lucknow heritage walk. To tell the truth, this was the first time I heard of the thing called Heritage walk. However, the concept seemed really interesting and the competition challenging. So we set out to walk the walk on 16th Jan. Please excuse my exaggeration, the Lucknow heritage walk covers the old city of Lucknow, walk through the little twining gullies of Lucknow, ancient buildings, shires, some famous monuments in 2-3 hours time. The walk started last May and was considered a success by almost all of the organizers.

Our journey started on a little difficult note as getting up at 6.30AM on a cold winter night is a really big task. However, we reached the starting point "Tila Wali Masjid" at 8AM. We weren't aware that the magic of the old city is going to take us on a ride that morning. The Masjid though not huge, was really beautiful. And the interesting fact was that it was used as a hospital by the British, during the 1857 revolt. The guide was able to speak considerably good English, and hence we were able to understand most of the things.

Then was the Bara Imambara, one of Asia's biggest halls without pillars. We were surprised to know that it was built to create employment during the famine. And my teammate Naresh, famous as "Jallu", was quick to grasp that it is the concept of fiscal expansion done by the Governments of countries during recession. Then came the chowk area, as told by the guide, was the shopping mall of Lucknow around 200 years back. The gully started from Gol darwaza the roughly 2-3 meter wide road was in between closely packed houses. Interestingly every house had big balconies, which we were told were used by dancers. There were many other interesting places like French colony, places which hosted Mahatma Gandhi, Places of Emperor Akbar times, Nepali haveli etc. The Nawabi splendor, Indo – Iranian , Mughal, Persian architectures were a visual treat.

The most striking thing was the food. We had gajar ka halva which was pure black in color. The interesting thing was the guy who was selling told that it is made from black carrot and no color was added. We had nahari-Kulchas for breakfast, which is the delicacy of Lucknow. The kulcha was the best kulcha I had till date. It literally melted in my mouth. Nahari is beef. I never had beef till then, but felt it was good. Then was Makhan. A soft ice cream sort of dish made from milk. It was the dessert for the day and completed our invasion on food. Overall, the walk was a wonderful experience and especially with no publicity or visibility on the internet, we never expected it to be so good. We were told that the old city has the power to tickle all the five senses of the body and we really did feel so.

Today we see heritage walks almost in any city. When we talked to the designer of the Lucknow and heritage walks, we were told that the main objective of the heritage walk was to spread the awareness about the city to its own people thus improving the pride, responsibility etc. Even we felt that Heritage walks are the best ways to know about your city. Do walk the walk.

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Hunger free future

"Every 3.4 seconds, somebody dies of hunger"

Damn! This cannot be happening. Yes. This is the first reaction of 9/10 people. We cannot imagine anybody dying of hunger! Hats off to my friend Mukesh who made the above video around 3 years back. Do watch the video if you haven't.

India's performance at the common wealth games was remarkable. The joy of clean sweeping Aussies at home, priceless! "However, another kind of ‘competition’ ranked 84 countries in accordance with achievements in a different field this week. India was a lowly 67th. The field was hunger", said an article in Hindusthan times on 14th October. The report also added "By hosting the Commonwealth Games against all odds, India has shown that with political will, it can overcome problems and find solutions. With 55 million children under five being underweight, we need to show similar leadership to find a solution to the silent epidemic that is quietly wiping out generations of our children”. I then searched for few more articles on the internet and found this interesting piece "India is failing its rural poor with 230 million people being undernourished — the highest for any country in the world. Malnutrition accounts for nearly 50% of child deaths in India as every third adult (aged 15-49 years) is reported to be thin (BMI less than 18.5)." - TOI, feb 09, 2009.

Hunger is not a new problem, especially for the third world countries. Statistics say that over 90% of the starved population is the third world countries. Let us consider India, what could be some of the possible reasons. I searched for the same and found the following "The government of India's grain godowns are bulging with twice as much grain as is required, blocking about Rs4000 crore. More grain rots on Punjab's roadsides waiting for godowns to empty so that new grain can be picked up by the government". "The report said that while general inflation declined from a 13-year high exceeding 12% in July 2008 to less than 5% by the end of January 2009, the inflation for food articles doubled from 5% to over 11% during the same period." These could be some of the possible reasons at a macro level.

When I was still searching, I found this revolutionary, Pulitzer prize winning picture taken by Kevin Carter. This was taken on his trip to Sudan in 1993 when the girl had stopped to rest while struggling to a feeding center, whereupon a vulture had landed nearby. He wrote that he waited about 20 minutes, hoping that the vulture would spread its wings. It didn't. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run a special editor's note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. Carter took his own life a year later, and his last words were "I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners..". Imagine how much suffering he would have gone through, had he been alive today.

Is there anything that we can do about it? I found this quote by our father of Nation "There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed." How true. Please do not waste food. Every rice grain few rice grains we waste would have made their day for thousand of people in our own country. We can even take many other precautions like cooking only as much is required or re-distributing the wasted food. Thinking on these lines. I searched for any waste food redistribution organisations in India. I hardly could find any. I found one NGO named "bhookh", and they are doing a phenomenal job. With hunger growing at this rate, we are in urgent need of these organisations, who can reach the needy, who can redistribute the tonnes food left over in parties, marriages etc.

Let us do our part in making this rich nation, truly rich. Because, when politicians can’t do anything, people can! And we as the ultra-educated youth of this nation, definitely can. If little things like these help save the life of a person, why not. Let us spread the message and wipe this silent epidemic of its roots.

Visit this website betterworld.net, which is dedicated to fighting this cause. A quote on the site says "If we are going to stop wars on this earth, we are going to have to make war on hunger our number one priority." - David W. Brooks, member, Presidential Commission on World Hunger..

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Sources:

A Special thanks to Mukesh for the awesome video. Hunger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4b9SNbAihQ&feature=fvw

Kevin Carter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter

Better world http://www.betterworld.net/quotes/endhunger-quotes.htm

What India's growth story conceals http://www.hindustantimes.com/What-India-s-growth-story-conceals/Article1-613072.aspx

India tops world hunger chart http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-tops-world-hunger-chart/articleshow/4197047.cms

Bhookh http://www.bhookh.com/un_world_food_proramme.php

Between godowns and chronic hunger in India http://www.dnaindia.com/india/column_between-godowns-and-chronic-hunger-in-india_1401812

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Latent demand, Psycho-graphic segmentation and Holistic marketing

"It is clear that the forces defining 21st century are leading businesses into a new set of beliefs and values. Today's marketers best recognize the need to have a more complete, cohesive approach that goes beyond the traditional applications of marketing concepts." The lines given in Marketing Management by Kotler and co. I couldn't think of a better introduction to this post than this. I am writing about a few amazing concepts, which I found are the amazingly relevant in todays world.

The meaning of the word "latent" is "potentially existing but not presently evident or realized". Latent demand is the demand which the industry does not know it exists. A good example is the ready mix masala. People never knew that ready made masala could make such a big market. Though masala had been used always, it was prepared at home with a lot of effort. But tapping such a big need just of no where was amazing. The other examples could be camera in a mobile phone, trolley suit cases etc. Though it might take a genius to invent a new product, all it takes is a good thinker/strategist to identify a latent need and with so many inventions already done, latent demand marketing is a wonderful way forward.

Gone are the days when the market segmentation, for promotion of any product, was done on the basis of age, gender, region etc. Though demographic segmentation is still a powerful tool, it is not conclusive. Consider the following example given by our prof yesterday, the real ages of a retired army person and a bank manager might not be the same. So here comes psychographic segmentation, which uses the psychology of customers along with the demographics to narrow in on a market segment. A simple example could be McDonald's which altered its global menu to match the Indian appetite. We also see several ads like mountain dew, where the spirit of adventure or cadbury's diary milk where the spirit of celebration is marketed.

Holistic marketing recognizes that everything matters in marketing. It is based on development of processes and activities which recognize their interdependencies. It has four main concepts, out which integrated marketing is a beautiful concept. It explains that the 4 P's of marketing i.e. product, price, place, promotion, should communicate and deliver the same value for customers. An example could be cadbury's celebrations. Here the only idea is celebration, which is clearly reflected in all possible ways.

Our marketing classes have begun from the last week of September and it was a different story altogether. Thanks to our prof, there were so many assignments and submissions from day 1, and this added to our misery as we were already flooded with company presentations, filling up applications etc. The good part was, there was never this amount of exposure to the industry, ground realities, which ideally should have been major part of the curriculum in an MBA. After two weeks of data overload, we had a market survey project on our plate, the first of the many to come. Our topic was book buying patterns of children and the location was an on going book fare in Lucknow. So we, as a team of 5, had done a good job in interviewing at least 20 children. The findings were common, like the books recommended by teachers or parents sold the most, books with lots of pictures had higher sales etc. One thing was a most interesting factor, we found among students of age group 10 - 12, the maturity or at least trying to look mature by flaunting books like the Oliver twists and Tom sawyers. The experience as a whole was enjoyable.

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Exams, Dabangg and home sweet home..!

This whole curriculum of Term 1 was amazing. There were seven courses in all with three full and four half courses. After so many varied courses in so less time, I now wonder what have I really learned. Apart from a few accounting concepts and Micro economics, I am not very sure that I am going to remember the other things so well. Economics was the most interesting to me, especially Game theory. It was so amazing that I am now seriously considering Strategy management along with Marketing.

The last week in term 1 was less hectic than expected. Luckily, the deadlines of the projects were spread along the week from Sunday to Wednesday. Now that we all know each other well, the projects were less hectic this time. Luckily, I was done with all the projects early and exams were fast approaching.

Somehow, these exams again reminded me of my B Tech exams as I was opening the book for the first time for most of the subjects. I tried very hard this time to change my habit of sleeping early, but with a lot of difficulty I learned to study till 1. Time moved at snail’s pace during exams with most of us having started counting down a couple of weeks back! The day before the last exam was the longest and the exam being an open book exam made it even more difficult to study. I wanted to remember at least the chapter names so that it would become easier to search. A fiend of me gave me an even more brilliant idea to look at which part of the book others are going through if you get lost. The final exam was less painful as all I wanted was the exam to finish. The joy on everyone’s face after the exam was an amazing scene. After three months of nonstop activity, it was time to enjoy! It looked like the last annual exam and the start of summer vacation.

After a lot of planning, we visited the Imambara in the evening. The climate had added its part to the beauty of the day. Then was the time for Dabangg! The movie was an absolute cracker from scene one. It was a complete high drama telugu movie, with scenes, fights, songs and even the romance seemed to be a spoof. But it didn’t matter as all we wanted was enjoyment and dabangg had lots of it. Sukanya Venkatgarhavan of Filmfare rated it 3/5 stating, "Dabangg rides totally on Salman Khan's magic. Had director Abhinav Kashyap cast a less popular actor, it’s doubtful the film would have the chutzpah that Khan has lent to it". Salman was a treat to watch, his dance and fights attracted many whistles in the hall, after long time in a Bollywood movie. Sonakshi was beautiful in some different way but portrayed the role superbly. There wasn’t a moment to relax as the movie never seemed to be boring. There was sentiment, music, action, romance and an excellent screenplay of all of these together. My thumbs up to the director, Abhinav Kashyap, and all the best for his future projects.

The next day started with a lazy morning. I went for a photo shoot of the campus along with a friend. The freedom was amazingly enjoyable. Our flight to Hyderabad was at 2.45PM. The journey was pleasant as there were around 12 of us travelling together. After 4 hours, we were in RGIA Hyderabad. Hyderabad, as always, was so lively and vibrant and truly enjoyable. I had a nice truly hyderabadi dinner with my friends as my bus to Guntur was at 11PM. The stay in Guntur was what everyone dreams of. I had a nice time sleeping and eating, as my mother prepared a special for me almost every day. One week was too short and I never felt so bad to leave home. The time table, with a few additional subjects for this term, was sent in the holidays, adding to it were the summer placements, and they all made my feelings of not going back even stronger. But as everyone did, my journey back has started. I reached Hyderabad a day before to meet all my friends. I went to JNTU H, fifth time after I left college. Our flight back was on the next day, which was a pleasant journey too with around 35 of us travelling together.

Life is normal again. Classes, Projects, Assignments… 13 weeks to go, for 2^nd term vacation!!

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Do not litter

Most of the times when we follow the "Do not litter" sign, we are glared at for our efforts! I was walking with a friend of mine, after an usual late night meeting in the library. Coffee and snacks before sleeping have become a sort of routine for me. It was the week before exams, so there would usually be more than one snacks break. We were both having coffee while chit chatting about things varying from gossips to the economy of the US. She almost dropped her coffee cup beside the road when she remembered that I was beside her, and said that she did not do it because I would feel bad! Situations like these have been occurring time and again to me these days, with another friend of mine, in an almost similar situation, said that we should stop worrying about these things and start enjoying this freedom of dropping anything anywhere in India. Somehow I cannot throw away even a tiny bus ticket after the ride is over, always wait till I get home and then throw it in the dustbin!

There is a little flashback for all those patient readers. Though I was a little conscious about littering, I never cared so much until a small incident happened to me exactly an year back, i.e in Aug 2009, when I was in Pune with IBM. We were following eastern standard time (US timings), though I had problem initially, we started having a good time with the entire office to a few of us. There was very little work and so we had lot of time for movies, LAN games, midnight walks, snacks breaks etc. The usual cleaning of work place takes place around 9 PM. It was the turn of a not so young man that day, and adding to his misery, the chocolate wrapper I threw didn't land in the dustbin. It was his job to bear with people like me and patiently pick all those. I was busy in having a good time with the online movie I was watching and he was having a hard time bending down to pick that wrapper. I realized what he is trying to do, and believe me, I felt very guilty and responsible for his painful situation. Though my ego dint allow me to apologize, I picked the wrapper and threw it into the dust bin.

After I came across the following lines in some website, the Do not litter conscience in me has even increased. "While most people leave the area happy after a night of drinking and chatting, there are others who dread the weekly gathering. One cleaner, who is part of a Malaysian cleaning crew at Little India, said in Malay: 'They take it for granted that somebody will always clear their rubbish for them." Are we doing the same? May be yes. We are making the lives of a few people miserable by littering. Its of course their job to keep the area clean, but is picking up our waste, for which we wouldn't have taken more than a minute to do it ourselves, their job?

Have you read those American or European bloggers, who come to India and start complaining "aw! dirty.. pathetic!! etc etc". I would just hate to read these stuff in their blogs. Indians are smart, intelligent and yes handsome too. But how can we stop such blogs. I searched for the same on net and the most common answer was impose a fine. But we all know what happens when a fine is imposed in India. Many of us know how to escape it, few will gain by not giving us a receipt, but the problem persists. So what is the solution?

I think it is time for us to make our country clean, a neat India, a shining India. No Singapore, No Malaysia.. truly Indian. We don't need sky scrappers or do we need American trained government workers to make India shining. Lets do our part in making a truly incredible India.

I have decided to stop littering and be responsible for my nation.. Its your turn now..!

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bit senti ?? Please bear with me.. :-)