Life Reloaded!!!

Today morning I completed the second book I had borrowed from Nik - "Johny Gone Down". It was fast paced novel, where the protagonist is an MIT graduate who goes to Cambodia for vacation, ends up being a captive in prison. After 2 years he does manage to flee, but loses one arm in the effort. Saved by Buddhist Monk, he himself decides to be a Monk. The story then moves to Rio, then to Minneapolis, back to Delhi. The name of the protagonist keeps changing from - Nikhil to Nick to Buddha to Johny. Its just the way story is told, however unrealistic it might seem, is amazing. Before this book, I read Ashwin Sanghi's historical fiction "Chanakya's Chant". There are 2 parallel tracks in the book, one describing Chanakya's journey to make Chandragupta Maurya, the emperor of India. The other one is about a modern day Chanakya - Pandit Gangasagar Mishra - who wants to make Chandani, India's Prime Minister. This one is also good book, though I didn't lik...

Seriously WTF was that? Same feeling - http://9gag.com/gag/1020154

काल मी माझ्या शाळेतल्या मित्रांबरोबर मृगजळ एकांकिका स्पर्धेची अंतिम फेरी पाहण्यास गेलो होतो. तिकीट काढण्यावरून झालेला गोंधळ माझ्या नेहमीच लक्षात राहील. त्या बद्दल इथे मी काही जास्त सांगणार नाही. अंतिम फेरीत पाच एकांकिका होत्या. त्यातली पाचवी एकांकिका - "HTTP 404 Page Not Found" - आम्ही आधीच सवाईच्या वेळी पहिली होती. चवथ्या एकांकिकेबद्दल आमच्या मनात बरेच कुतूहल निर्माण झाले, कारण त्या एकांकिकेचा नाव होतं - "बी. पी." :) पहिल्या एकांकिकेचा नाव होतं, "थरारली वीट". एका लहान मुलीच्या पहिल्या आळंदीच्या वारीत तिला येणारे अनुभव, तिच्या आयुष्याला मिळणारी कलाटणी, तिच्या आईबद्दलचं तिला कळणारे सत्य याचे हृदयद्रावक वर्णन या एकांकिकेत होते. "गिरगाव व्हाया दादर" या एकांकिकेचा लेखक हृषीकेश कोळी यानेच हि एकांकिका लिहिली आहे. (सवाईच्या वेळच्या "एम डी करतंय सादर, गिरगाव व्हाया दादर" ह्या घोषणा माझ्या कायम स्मरणात राहतील) दुसरी एकांकिका सदर केली होती जोशी-बेडेकर कॉलेजने - "अलगद". ही गोष्ट होती प्रेमात "तोंडावर" पडलेल्या एका तरुणीची. ह्...

I just saw a BBC documentary on Uncertainty principle. An interesting fact given in the documentary was that Sir J. J. Thompson got the Nobel prize for Physics for discovering electron and proving that electron is  particle, whereas his son George Thompson got the Nobel prize in Physics for proving that electrons and wavelike characteristics!!!

It is going to be a cracker of a day tomorrow at Wankhede. It has already witnessed a World Cup final with memorable finish. I hope it has the fate to host Century of Centuries!!!!

Didn't I say, I couldn't find the phrase at too many places? I was wrong. It never appeared in the book :) http://9gag.com/gag/702254

I just completed the Second Volume of "Sherlock Homes". In the story "The Blanched Soldier", he describes Dr. Watson in a perfect way - A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.

Few lines by my friends which will never be forgotten from our memories - सुनील - माझी इच्छा आहे रे यायची पण जमतच नाही. आदित्य - I am nothing without them / माझ्यासाठी तुम्ही कधीच adjust करत नाहीत. विराज - (He talks about a girl, usually negative and then) ती तशी बोलायला चांगली आहे. विक्रम - आणि असा म्हटल्यावर आम्ही सगळे हसलो... रीशिकेश - अरे आपण काय professional आहोत का? And now thanks to my dear friends Viraj and Aditya, a line will be added to my name too.. सिद्धेश - मी विचारला नाही रे तुला. मला वाटलं की तू नाही म्हणशील.

I had not heard of this movie earlier. Sathiya had the same music track as Alaipayuthey . This is the "Chup Ke Se" equivalent of the original.

Boman Irani's son's wedding took place yesterday. Why do I blog about it? Here is my "log" of yesterday night. I was going for my regular walk after dinner, I was surprised to see a Mercedes near our building's gate. (WTH! They have lights to their side mirrors?) Next I saw a BMW (I love the BMWs more than any other cars), Then I saw two guys standing outside the car in black suits. One of them was familiar. (He looks familiar... This is the guy who appears on MTV or Channel V... Some Cyrus) Oh yea its Cyrus Sahukar! But what was he doing there? Oh yea, there was some Parsi wedding going on at that completely weird place which surrounded by trees all around. I never thought somebody would host a wedding at such place. As kids we used to call it Bhoot Bangla considering the fact that I never saw anyone going in or coming out of the place and there used to be hardly any light there. As we went ahead to the main road, I saw a line of cars parked. There were BMWs, A...

I still can not believe that I had not watched this great trilogy until last week. Well, yes, I had seen it  in bits in pieces but never in a way to make head or tail of what was happening. And you cannot if you don't watch the series from beginning. This is because there are many characters introduced in the movie in each parts of the movie. I never understood the story, the characters. So when I started watching the trilogy from Tuesday, I was really amazed. Of course, not having subtitles does create some problems, but that was nothing when I think of the way the whole plot was executed. The special effects were superb. I really couldn't think anything bad with any of the movie except that all were long and I couldn't watch them in one sitting. In case, you have also missed these great movies, get hold of a LOTR DVD or torrent, watch them. It's worth it!

Just came across this article - http://www.bspcn.com/2011/11/17/4-myths-about-doing-what-you-love-for-work/ One point which I certainly agree about the article is the Maslow's Need Hierarchy plays a role in passion. I did realize this when Steve Jobs' famous speech was being shared across internet. Well, following one's passion can be extremely difficult proposition for people whose income is barely able to take care of family's basic needs. As the income level grows, one has the liberty of going out of "regular" ways, to try and follow his passion. Of course, all this is easier said than done!

Which one of this is true? Is it that dollar price increases whenever I desire to buy iPod Touch from US or is it that I desire to buy iPod Touch when the dollar price increases? Whatever it is, I again have to wait :(

Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing | Video on TED.com

Embarrassing Moment for you - Friend - So how is your work at ICICI? You - I don't work at ICICI. I work at SEBI. F - SEBI? Y - Securities & Exchanges Board of India F - Oh, ok. So what do you do? Procure security equipment? Embarrassing Moment for your friend - Y - Dude, "securities" is related to stocks and shares. More embarrassment for your friend - You tell Viraj, Aditya & Nikhil about this. Result - A joke which will be told and retold and retold till it becomes a part of our "friendly" folklore :)

Since reading xkcd , I have gone back to my old collection of Sherlock Homes. I had stopped reading those books, after I finished the major stories. The rest of the stories which I have read recently, may not as interesting as the initial ones, but I am still mesmerized by Homes' deductive skills. In fact, I think I missed a lot by not having subtitles when I saw the movie Sherlock Homes. The same is true with the British series Sherlock (Do watch the serial if you haven't, its just 4 episodes). One last thing, why is the term "Elementary my dear, Watson!" so famous? I haven't found this phrase too many places.

Before I was banned from buying new books, I bought Xkcd: Volume 0 . It has a collection of Randall Munroe's few favorite strips from his web comic xkcd. Some of my favorite entries from the book - Trace My Path - http://xkcd.com/85/ Pointers - http://xkcd.com/138/ Sandwitch - http://xkcd.com/149/ Fixed Width - http://xkcd.com/276/ NP-Complete - http://xkcd.com/287/ Getting out of hand - http://xkcd.com/333/ Basilisk - http://xkcd.com/380/ (Best one) Locked out- http://xkcd.com/530/ Can't Sleep - http://xkcd.com/571/ I couldn't understand this one - http://xkcd.com/54/  Please explain me if you could. Fact : The page nos of the book are in base 3.

A man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be a fortress. Source - http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/06/22/

2 things I have noticed about my NITIE classmates post MBA - MBA seems to be a pass for marriage for most them. I have been receiving one invitation of wedding/engagement per week. Most people either don't join the company they get placed or change job within first 3 months.

I had almost given up reading Naruto when the latest twist happened. It was getting too boring with Naruto saving each every one with the usual routine. In fact, I had not read the manga for past 2 weeks. It just happened that Vikas told me that "Tobi is actually Tobi". I just checked the latest 2 issues. Well, it was interesting to see who Kabuto's trump card was. I thought it was Sage of Six Paths, but as always a surprise was waiting for the readers :)

Remember the time when I used to repeat those words? Recently, when Vikas kept on pulling Piyush's leg over the use of phrase "Main kya kehta hoon...", it reminded me of the time when Sankalp did the same with me :)

One of the best jokes on आवरा... ! नवरा बायकोचा कडाक्याने वादविवाद चालू होता ... शेवटी तिने त्याला स्पष्ट विचारले... . . . .   . तुला जिंकायचंय ....कि आनंदात राहायचंय ?

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~mblum/research/pdf/grad.html I liked the example given in the " STUDYING " part!

Last Saturday when I met my friends at Marine Drive, there was an interesting coincidence. Out of 4 of us, one is a trader, another is a Banker, one of us works for the financial regulator and the fourth one works for a credit rating agency. So much for the financial system :)

Jiraiya's last thoughts after his defeat at the hands of six paths of Pain. One of my favourite scenes from Naruto Shippuden - Its not how you live but how you die in the ninja world.. A ninja's life is not measured by how they lived but rather what they managed to accomplish before their death. Looking back, my life has been nothing but failures continually rejected by Tsunade, Unable to stop my friend, and unable to protect either my student or my mentor Compared to the great deeds of the Hokage my actions are trifling insignificant things indeed. I wish I could have died like each of the hokage. A tale is only as good as its final turn of events the plot twist. Failures must be seen as mere amusements! They are trials which hone your skills, I lived believing that And in return I swore I would accomplish a deed so great that it would obliterate all of my failures and I'd die a splendid ninja. At least that's how it was supposed to go But with my plot twist My tale...

It feels so good to be back to Linux :) Let me get my DVD drive fixed, then it will be Linux on my laptop too!!!

"When we speak of choice, what we mean is the ability to exercise control over ourselves and our environment. In order to choose, we must first perceive that control is possible" From "The Art of Choosing" By Sheena Iyengar

This one is from Jiraiya at his deathbed(I will post the complete soliloquy in coming days). "The tale is only as good as its final turn of events, the plot twist"

Well, further reading of the book, has changed my opinion about this book. Yes, initially the book followed a fixed pattern which meant the story moved much slower than I anticipated. But once most of the main characters in the story were described, the whole thing started moving at another pace. If one is to assume that what written in the book is true, then one does feel bad for the Dick Fuld and Lehman Brothers. Just to make the point of  "No more bailouts" clear they were allowed to fail, only to realize latter that there were no other ways to allow remaining institutions to survive without Government support (TARP). Also, one can observe that most of the important positions in the Fed/Treasury were held by former Goldman Sachs employees (Not that it gave Goldman some direct advantage in the rescue). The role of SEC was also disappointing with inability to crack down on the shorts when Lehman/AIG/Meryl stocks were bleeding. All in all, a good book to read (especially fo...

Isn't it much easier to sing a song with everyone, than to sing it alone with others watching you? We tend to get a little conscious. In fact, I tend to forget the lyrics at such times. I observed it during last year's Shivneri trip (wow, its been so many months since that trip!!), same was true for Karjat outing. But I still love the time spent in group singing :)

Following piece published in HT, perfectly summarizes the crisis - The US debt crisis is like a rich man who owns homes, yachts and gold but is suddenly finding it diffcult to pay off the installment on a plane he bought. Politics, however, keeps him from using his other assets to handle these payments.

Life has everything that a movie has except for subtitles and background music :) - By Vikas Komera

Now, I know how everyone else felt when I postponed my party in Jan :(

We were given a copy of the book "Too Big To Fail" during our NISM training. I started reading this book for past few days. Well, to be honest, its a very lengthy book. Typically the book follows a pattern, where the situation is given, then comes a character, and then his complete history is explained and finally the incident is completed. Usual text of the book is - Mr. X knew the situation was difficult for his company with the kind risk it had taken. He picked the phone to call his old colleague from ABC(this is usually Goldman Sachs), Mr. Y, who now led DEF as CEO. (Now comes Y's history) Y was born in blah blah. His father was blah blah, in fact his grand father was a trader at blah blah. When he passed out of school he joined a firm XYZ. Then we went to Harvard Business School (If he didnt, then he would be hating people who went to HBS). (Now there will be discussion about he reached the post of CEO amidst strong candidates int eh company).

I am not sure how many people would be able to really feel the humour involve in this situation but when it happened we felt as if it was a scene from FRIENDS. Today Aditya, Viraj and I met at our usual place - Marine Drive Katta. While discussing various subjects, we came to a topic about who is mature among us. Viraj and I thought that Aditya was the most mature guy among us, but somehow Aditya was not convinced. He thought we were making fun of him. While walking back towards the bus stop, Viraj saw an umbrella in Aditya's hands and commentet, "बघ, पावसाळ्याचे दिवस आहेत, पण आपल्यात तूच एकटा आहेस जो छत्री आणण्याइतका mature आहे". Aditya started laughing after hearing this. It was my umbrella :)

I have started downloading some of my favourite animation series - Men In Black (4 Seasons) Jackie Chan Adventures (5 Seasons) Batman The Animated Series (4 Seasons)

This was typed 3 weeks ago, forgot to post it :) I am blogging this post using the limited facilities available at our training facility at Hirandani. Let me restart my blogging by first talking about the books I read recently. After reading "Fooled By Randomness", I read 2 pretty boring books - "The Bed of Procrustes" and "Dork". The first one was about aphorims and latter one about a fictional story of an MBA grad who works at a consulting firm. Then I read one of the masterpiece of crime novels, "The Godfather". I dont think I have to say much about this great book, this will be up there in my all time favourite books. Once I read "The Godfather", I don't what came to my mind, but I wanted to read "Shriman Yogi". Probably it was one of the discussions I had with one of my ICICI colleague regarding Marathi Books. Initially, I thought I might get it from some library, but then thought that may be it is a book about the...

I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don't know where it goes But it's home to me and I walk alone - Green Day

Finally after 2 years and 8 months, I finally completed all 10 seasons of FRIENDS. Mast maja aali!!

Do listen to this song. Amazing!!!

चुकून घेतलेले निर्णय बहुतेक वेळा बरोबर योग्य ठरतात!!!

For past 2 weeks on FB, I saw pics of my VJTI friends getting their MBA degrees. There was a sense of achievement on their faces after spending 2 years of their life in their respective colleges. Each one had a grand convocation. I was wondering when my convocation would be, will it be in June? or July? This is when I got the news that my seniors will be having convocation on 30th April :D

Read in an email - Historians claim that the genius who could have discovered the Gravity before Newton, unfortunately sat under a coconut tree...!

Wishlist Books - http://www.flipkart.com/wishlist/darkside299 New Blogger Views - http://sidh299.blogspot.com/view/

Yesterdays April Fool's Day reminded me of an old incident. Its been more than 1 year since Susmit, Kiran & I performed the infamous "engagement" act. I could not describe the final act which I had decided to write. Even now, I really don't remember what things we said at the final act. We all (Viraj, Amruata, Aditya, Sheetal, Kiran, Susmit and I) met at Shivaji Park. We had decided that Susmit and I will have a fight because of the "girl" to whom he was supposedly getting engaged. Then Kiran would also get involved. I thought the execution was near perfect, we almost fooled everyone (may be Viraj had doubts). Somehow I am not able to recollect any of the dialogues (probably because, unlike other "stories" involving us, this incident has never discussed/retold). I remember Kiran said something about dependency form. Does anyone remember the whole thing?

A group of Indian teenage girls squeaked "Jitega bhai jitega Pakistan jitega (Pakistan will win)." As soon as they started chanting in support of Pakistan, the Indians around them rolled their eyes. But the girls had not yet delivered the punch line. "India ne joke mara. Ha ha ha (India played a joke)," Given his consistency, Simon Taufel should raise the middle finger when giving OUT after a review of his decision Teams whose Captain's name initials starts from S are out of World Cup, Strauss, Sammy, Smith, Shakib & Shahid. Next in line:Sangakara !! It's time to show who the Real Blue Blood is .Come Saturday the darker shades will fade away . @ lanka : Just bring it !....Roger That ! चिऊच्या मित्राला म्हणतात काऊ .. . . . वाह वाह . . . चिऊच्या मित्राला म्हणतात काऊ .. . . . . . . आता तरी नेहराला शिव्या नका देऊ :D :D But best one caem from Aditya Sahastrabuddhe - 1996 : Srilanka vs Australia 1999 : Pakistan vs Australia 2003 :...

Background - I am pretty bad cheater when it comes to the game of Cricket. We were discussing about Ricky Ponting at Aditya's home; I was taking Ponting's side. Following is the version I was able to recollect - Me: He was a one of the greatest players in Cricket. Nik: No. He was a great batsman, but he wasn't a good player. Me: Ka? Nik: Tyachya kade sportsmanship spirit navhati. Me: Sportsmanship? Kay garaj ahe sportsmanshipchi? (What I meant was sportsmanship doesn't really matter) Viraj: (With reference to my "Background") Ho, te tula nahi kalnar (Big laughter)

Respect !!!

This has to be one of the best books I have ever read. The discussions on Randomness, Rationality, Trading, Luck, Skills, Bias, Sampling, everything was great to read. I have not been reading it as voraciously as I read The Black Swan . I remember spending a whole day reading The Black Swan . The latter is bit tough to read, but Fooled By Randomness was much simpler. The last section is little bit dull with too many philosophers introduced at the end. I had a good time discussing some of the points in the book with Viraj last week. The kind of role Luck or randomness plays in one's life is very interesting, and it might come as a shock for some. Few more pages to go before I move onto " शाळा " by मिलिंद बोकील :)

When the second year started in NITIE, I had decided that I would watch enough good movies to make my last year of academic "count". I think I have been fairly successful in doing so since I have seen more than 50 movies on my laptop (Well, I have not seen more than 10 movies on my Desktop which is 6 years old now) Best of the movies are (and I would recommend that you should also watch them at least once in your life) - - My Sassy Girl (Korean Version) - The Man From Earth - Wall Street - Top Gun - Watchmen - American Beauty - Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind - A Beautiful Mind The above list contains only those movies which I saw in last 8 months.

काय घंटा "सुपर मून"???? तसाच तर दिसत होता :P

Sent by Pratik D. - Essay- "Maza awadta kida- Gogalgaay" - gogalgaay mdhe google ani gaay donhi naste bt mahiti nai tila gogalgaay ka mhantat..Google computer var kahitari khup fast aste.(ase teacher ne sangitle hote)Ani gaay jaminivar medium fast.Bt gogalgaay khup slow.Ti jatana khali chikkat fevicol sodte mhanun tichi body chipakate n tichi speed slow hote..Mazi aajji pan khup slow chalte pan ti fevicol sodat nai..Gaay dudh dete pan gogalgaay fevicol dete. Gogalgaay la english mdhe snail mhantat.Amchya class chya SNEHAL la me snail asa chidavle.Tine mazi techr la complain kli..Mhanun mala muli avdat nai..Muli khup chalu astat asa dada mhanto..Dada nehmi mobile la chipaklela asto asa aai mhante..Gogalgaay chya pathivar shankh chipaklela asto..Ti roj shankhat zopte(Me kdhi kdhi shalet zopto) Shankh far sundar aste..Tya mule gogalguy mast diste. POND'S powder lawlyavr mi pan mast disto. Gogalgaay mala khup avdate! :-)

This was shared by my friend on FB - Sachin's statement - "I was still only changing out of my sweaty clothes and taking a shower and was shocked to see the whole team back in the dressing room showering too!"

True Grit - Decent Movie about a girl chasing her father's murderer along with a one-eyed US Marshall and a Texas Ranger. It has the typical West style accent which is actually difficult to understand. Acting was good. Worth a watch. The King's Speech - I watched this movie immediately after it got the Golden Globe. It is a very good movie and a must watch. Colin Firth is at his very best. Dil To Bachcha Hai Ji - Waste of money! I can't believe I saw this movie in theater that too in Balcony!! Whats worse Madhur is thinking of making a remake!!! No One Killed Jessica - Good Hindi movie after a long time. Both Rani and Vidya were amazing. The question with the option of One Crore or One bullet is an uncomfortable one. What would you do, really? The Man From Earth - The best of them all!!! Thank you Varun for suggesting this movie. I was stupid that I never saw this movie in College. हटके मूवी!!!

The Crisis of Microfinance by Shashi Tharoor -  http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tharoor30/English

When Arun Jaitley says, "The PM should introspect on whether he was misled or allowed himself to be misled."

Since the 3rd part of the series, I have not really liked any of the Potter movies. Even the latest installment of franchise was a disappointment. I guess reading the book beforehand raises your expectations to a level which can not be really achieved!

It is so boring to visit Clinic. First you are not well, in that you have to wait an hour for your number to come. In between those Medical Representatives keep taking 5 minutes for their demos. And finally some scare goes around your mind when you hear that you need to take an injection! I was down with fever and cough on Sunday and Today :(

I got following page after my previous post - Honestly, Chrome is one of the browsers which pisses me off more than IE. Well, even after Google's shameless self promotion I feel it crashes so often and in so many different tabs, that I wonder why Google had to create yet another browser for its own sake.

I have started reading a new book for a change. I have kept both copies of Sherlock Homes' Adventures aside and bought "Fooled By Randomness" by Nassim Taleb. I liked his book "The Black Swan" (and the adventure behind obtaining the book from Vodafone library) very much. Even this one has the same kind of arrogance that was seen in Black Swan, but I like it :)

Isn't this WC boring? Why do we have just 1 match per day? And why all the initial matches have been between a Test playing nation and an Associate nation? Booooo..............

What a superb start to the WC. Kudos to Viru and Virat for magnificent tons!

Recently, while reading about the Kolkata Test, one thing came to my mind. I had read the tussle that was created between Laxman and John Wright after Laxman was left out of the 2003 World Cup squad. After searching Wikipedia and Cricinfo, I found that Laxman is one of the very few and unfortunate cricketers who played more than 100 Test matches but never played a single World Cup. It is pity, when you see that even the likes of Parthiv Patel were part of the squad at some point of time :( Update: Even Sanjay Bangar was part of that team!!! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:India_Squad_2003_Cricket_World_Cup)

If there is any non-Microsoft site which is the buggiest, privacy invading, adding unnecessary stupid features, and more Evil than Microsoft, then it has to be Facebook!!!

It was nice surprise to see Indian spinners bowling so well in the 2 warm up matches. Yes, the tracks were spinner friendly but it has been a long time since we saw such dominance of spin. The Aussies and the Kiwis had no clue whatsoever :)

One of my classmate's FB status after Business Law grades were announced (most people got "B") "Law is equal for all and so are the grades..."

Those were the days when... Cat was a command My favourite text editor was Vim The command prompt gave you the feeling of Matrix (I had even changed my Windows command prompt to green font with black background) Every six months new OS would be installed on my office Desktop Using Desktop was much more convenient than Laptop

Last chapter of Naruto Manga (“Secret Word”)  was somewhat interesting as compared a long list of boring chapters. There have been too many characters introduced, too many fights going on, too many powers being defined. Last chapter however had an something different which compelled me to go back to initial pages to check something which I failed to “read”. With fillers being run on Naruto Anime. I have not watched it for over 3 months now. I will start watching it soon!

Reading Business Dailies is like following Newton’s Second Law of Motion – “If a person is at a state of non reading newspaper (at rest), then it requires a big motivation (force) to change its state to reading (in motion). However, once in state of reading, one requires little motivation to maintain that state of reading, unless there is some break in reading (friction)” I am currently in the state of rest. P.S. – Never noticed it but a “simple” version of Wikipedia exists - http://simple.wikipedia.org/

We have come back to the same controversy which has been taking place for long time now. I am talking about the agitation going on against the Marathi Play – “Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy”. The worst of this agitation is that it is done by a party which is part of State Government. I am not sure who are these to decide whether a play is harming people’s conscience. Don’t these people have better issues to tackle? I guess since these parties can’t handle the inflationary situation well, so they are looking for such side issues to divert people’s attention. What can we say about a state where an Additional collector of a district is burnt alive! And when a prominent MLA of the party was interviewed on TV he claimed that since court has already termed Nathuram Godse as guilty, there is no need for any writer to put forward his views which he says have been falsified by the court. Well, my question is that if you really feel so great about court why not use ways which can be upheld in a cour...

One thing I noticed during the placements which I had only heard from my seniors – that is desperation. I am no exception for this rule. Placements is a pretty rigorous process and after a day in the process if you don’t make it to the final list of any company, it feels like hell. What is worse is that you start to doubt yourself. And mind you it is not about people who have low CGPA. Whether you are 2nd or 3rd ranked in NITIE, whether you have done a summer internship at the biggest FMCGs in the world, you feel the “heat” nevertheless. No wonder, after you do get placed, in most of the cases, the emotions really don’t come out. You are running high on adrenaline, your heart is beating like the way Sehwag’s strike rate. Suddenly, when the results are out, once that feeling sinks in, you feel completely different. Yes you feel happy but there is more to it than just happiness.

Yet another good post from The Back Benchers. This post is about the recent bear run at the stock market and its reasons. This one is really funny - It’s only the markets like these that have taught me that during bulls making money is equivalent to betting on Ravindra Jadeja scoring a century against New Zealand. If you’ve got a bloody Motera-like pitch concrete road to play on against a bowling attack that could accommodate Ajit Agarkar even today then even there you will make money on a fairly regular basis. I also agree with the comment of NREGA and the recent actions of RBI. I always wondered if the problem of inflation is of Supply side then why we always expect RBI to tame inflation. If the supply of Onions is less then hiking the Repo Rate isn’t going to help. Also, as an MBA student I remember that it takes time before we see effects of a monitory policy change. I hope Dr. Manmohan Singh take some serious steps towards mitigating inflation.

Nik, Mi, Viraj ani Aditya

When you are about to enter the placement process, you have so much expectations. At least I had. I had dreamed of the companies which most likely would give me an offer. I had even started imagining the kind of reaction I would have when I get selected! Of course, none of that really happened and what really happens is something which you remember for the rest of your life. PS:- This reminds me Lehman's interview when Sidscope went for HR interview before me told the interviewer that I was his best friend and then at the time of my interview I was asked about Sidscope :)

I was placed in ICICI Bank on last Tuesday. More about the whole experience will follow soon :)

Yesterday I saw the Marathi movie “ Guldasta ”. It is a decent movie made by Zee Talkies. Though the story, like most other Marathi Comedy movies, wasn’t that good, Makarand Anaspure’s performance was praiseworthy. His punch lines created the laughter for most part of the film. Others were average including Jitendra Joshi. In fact he was too laud and tried a little too much to emulate Nikhil Wagale. All in all, it is worth one time watch!

NITIE…. Following things came to my mind - Great place to have 18 months of vacation :) - One of the best experiences in my life! - Looking at the watch at 11.30PM and saying I can watch an episode of FRIENDS now and then go to sleep at 12 - Kuldeep (my neighbor) playing “Saat Samunadar Paar” after every Mod exam at the highest volume of the speaker. Post final Mod exam when he didn’t play this song, Sarthak and I actually went to his room asked him why didn’t play it this time!!! - The night when Prashant, Karunendra and I were watching various old Pop music videos despite slow NITIE net, till 3AM in the morning (it was too late for someone like me). That was the first time I saw “Nigori Kaisi Jawani Hai” - Varun coming to room during exam times and saying, “Yaar, ek baat bata” And then asking multiple questions - Talking of exam time, the number of people coming to my room for so called help and the way Prashnat used to be pissed off because their noise - Bakku/ Chapp...

After getting a call from an old friend, I realized that I have at least one reader who regularly visits my blog. Life has taken a big turn in last few months, and it is time to reload this blog and start with new posts and thoughts.

The 2 Gupta’s staying next door were two of the amazing people I met at NITIE. One of them, Vaibhav, left yesterday and Varun will be leaving tomorrow. I used to call them Gupta gang. Vaibhav was like “God” to me when it came to business gyan. I always felt that he deserved to be in an IIM. Constantly reading some new stuff, a die hard Cricket and Soccer fan. We used to call him Bade Bhaiya (or as Varun used to call him “Dadda”), considering his superior knowledge. Varun aka Fachchha, was the heart of left wing of 6th floor. The NITIE record holder of most shortlists and unsuccessful attempts in Summers is registered against his name, and I think it will take another recession for his record to break. People appearing for final placements breathed a sigh of relief when his PPO was announced. Jokes apart, he has been my best friend in NITIE. I wish both of them all the very best in future.

Finally gave the last exam which I had targeted in the year 2010. It took me 7 months to give my first NCFM exam. But soon got into study mode for rest of the exams. I guess toughest of them all was "Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management”. The last one – “Derivatives Dealers Module” was also tough because I had lost the momentum in between as I participated in lot of Operations Simulation Games with no touch of Finance during that one and a half month period. Now, I am proud NCMP Level 3!!!

Wishing everyone a very happy new year!!!