Confessions of a passing out MBA grad. !

Last year Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, earned $183,500. With bonuses included, this is almost exactly what a graduating MBA now expects to be paid to create PowerPoint slides for a bank or consulting firm. But don't expect them to look happy about it.
We (I graduated four days ago from Insead) have taken our core negotiation course, plus optional salary-negotiation masterclasses and we know that all first offers, no matter how generous, should be viewed as only inching their way into the ballpark of respectability. No wonder recruiters think we are arrogant.
According to the 2007 survey of recruiters run by the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the key gripes of MBA recruiters are about our unrealistic expectations, both in terms of salary and level of job. MBA hires are routinely perceived to be strong on analysis but weaker on interpersonal skills.
If ever a process were designed to inflate the self image of those going through it, business school is it. Before applying we peruse the tables of recent graduates' salaries and sign-on bonuses and read about the "truly world-class business talent" that employers come to business school to hire. And the tables do not lie. Potential employers do indeed greet us en masse at nightly cocktail events.
We are showered with attention, from corporate USB keys to invitations for get-to-know-you coffee chats. Soon we are happily filing our job applications, explaining to McKinsey, Google and three dozen others how their company might just be the right next step for us.
Perhaps this is simply evidence of the euphoria of the last few inches of the upswing. Certainly, recruitment in banking will be less exuberant next year. But it also says something about the process of MBA education.
The huge expansion of business education in the past two decades is a function of the schools' success in spinning ever faster the virtuous circle of recruitment. As schools place more and more graduates into higher-paid jobs, the more the salary expectations glitter and the more capable candidates flow in. Some recruiters cannot afford to play this game, so many schools end up funnelling the bulk of their classes into the banks and consulting firms that can.
The truth about people entering business school is that, at least when we arrive, we feel nothing like the global business leaders of tomorrow. Some of us are under-confident over-achievers. Others are smart people somehow stalled in their careers.
Some are looking to make a decisive switch from banking to consulting, or the other way round. All are committed to paying the fees and suffering the workload. And motivating us is easy - just set up a competitive grading system and stand clear as we stampede to claim our place at the top of the class.
We are also attracted by prestige. MBA student clubs, while often short on action, are never without treasurers, co-presidents and long lists of executive officers. No one of course wants to make phone calls or lick stamps - can't you see we are heading for the boardroom not the mailroom?
But perhaps the education itself is somehow responsible for this sense of entitlement.
The cornerstone of MBA pedagogy, pioneered in 1912 at Harvard Business School, is the case study. For the uninitiated, a case is a short business fable, usually accompanied by reams of data, detailing a business dilemma of some kind. Students analyse the situation through the eyes of the protagonist and decide on a strategy.
Initially, the cases are baffling. They address unfamiliar roles in strange industries and it is not immediately clear how my experience in financial publishing qualifies me to optimise the smelting of iron ore in a plant in Trinidad. Soon, however, with eight weeks of operations classes under our belts, you can't shut us up.
Truthfully, if you are interested at all in business you cannot help but find cases fascinating and the process by which we find ourselves confidently opining on them is positively scary.
But sometimes cases reveal more. For one of my final electives we read together the tale of a new MBA graduate who runs into trouble when hired to establish a local mobile phone franchise. We were full of advice for his bosses, including the inevitable demand for more training and mentoring, but strangely short on tips for dealing with the nitty gritty of rolling out a phone mast network or placating local politicians.
Our hero works hard but makes bad decisions, misses deadlines and is sacked. The shock in class was palpable. He can't fail, can he? His strategy seemed sound. He had an MBA from a good school (not as good as ours, but never mind). Surely he can't just fail? No one ever mentioned that in the recruiting bumf.

Ram

Ram hi toh karuna mein hain,
Shanti mein Ram hain.
Ram hi toh ekta mein,
Pragati mein Ram hain.
Ram buus bhakton nahi,
Shatru ki bhi chintan mein hain .
Dekh tajh ke paap Ravan
Ram tere man mein hain.
Ram mere man mein hain ,
Ram tere man mein hain.
Ram toh ghar ghar mein hain,
Ram har aangan mein hain.
Man se Ravan jo nikale,
Ram uske man mein hain.

That Boy !

Merrily Was I going that I saw a boy,
Sad was his face, Withered all my joy.
Turning to him I asked him ,”hey “
“Who are you? Your parents? ‘re they?”
“They?” murmured he and paused for a while.
“they no more . Killed in a blood spill.”
His answer shook me from inside.
For his parents were altered in a riotic tide.
With red on his shirt and red on his face,
The boy stood his ground to symbolize disgrace.
“what was his crime? For we punished him !”
“He was wronged for being a ram or a rahim”.
Here I was-the India the mahatma lived for,
And there was the boy-the India he dreamt nor.

Bura jo khelan main chala !

this is my tale of plight that i had the other day. plz read the following with a bit of compassion for me all through the read!!!!
I had a time of my life yesterday in a TT club here. There is this dangerous guy , who is known in the city sheerly due to his TT playing abilities. Hes' the captain cum coach of the district team that we have and often represents the state in sm events. Hes' as dangerous to look at as is his game. 80-90 kgs of meat stacked somehow in a skeleton frame...... on his face ,only the white of the eye is distinctly visible (may be due to its comparative color contrast.) You didnt need to stretch you imagination too far to conceptualize how Mahisasur would have looked. You only need to look at him and here you are, standing in front of mahisasur in blood and flesh.
You know those frnds of mine, they as they are threw a challenge on him that I play good TT and that I ll beat him.(in the game of TT ,that is. make no confusions)...
so you know ,,,,, pehla game to 21-2 se haar gayein ...( was not getting any clue of his serves, even all my smashes flew all across, but for the table, and on my serves he would smash(read smack) so hard that five red spots would appear on my thighs and arms instantly in each round of my serves.)
then in the second game I carried on the fight up to 21-4.(the ball seemed to dance to his racquet's tune and i was left a helpless spectator to those spinning smashes and serves.).That demon would grin at me with his each smash or serve of his. believe me had it not been for his giant built up, He would have been a dead man by now.. but his biceps (which incidently were as thick as my thigh muscles) restrained me from such ideas.
Nyways game three,21-8. but by now I had started noticing that he was very temperamental and would yell at himself for each wrong shot he played..
Well... this was my chance. It was now or never for me. Do or die(read lie), Prashant!....
I told(beguiled, lied to) him that his style of smash delivery was totally erroneous and that he should improve upon it. i shadow smashed few shots to demonstrate it to him. I even told him that his basics were totally wrong. I followed it up with few other tips too, knowing fully well that he was getting irritated with each of my suggestions .(how can a menial creature like me teach him the basics of TT ,the game in which he represents the city??)
well..... the iron was hot, it only needed me to give it a gentle strike and I , to your fullest of assurances ,very efficiently, did it and without any mercy.
. :-)
game 4.... 13-7. With the demon to serve. the stage was all set for him to route me with another show of his superiority. But .. but...hey, what r frnds for?
With each smash and point that the beast robbed of me, he was greeted with anti cheers(cheer for me ) and all the other discouraging compliments for him like , a frnd of mine yelled at him that.... iss se ghatia shot aaj tak nahi dekha maine? with other one adding that he only plays spin and is a very limited player...
perhaps this irked him and it was followed by a series of too many unforced errors from him.( accompanied with ear deafening yells which threatened to crack open the glass windows of the club ).
and here i was ,16-19. I was to serve. As a last nail to his coffin, I gestured to him to play straight which in any case he was doing. That soared his temperature to 106^F. with hands tumbling with anger, each of my four serves were greeted with a mach 3 returns.... but ... outside the playing area, with my frnds cheering me like a craze. this took him totally off the ground.
finally I was leading ,could you believe it, i wasn’t.?? .. without showing him my disbelief of the situation, i served it to him and stood like a helpless lamb waiting for the Martian to smack it at any place he wished it to. But God gracious, The Devil netted the ball with all force that he had.. Poor net...... it met with its untimely demise due to the ferocity of the last shot...
Could you believe it, I HAD WON... I had won against this beefy creature.
He could not believe it either. He stood his ground in sheer disbelief.
He was tasting his own medicine and me, the sweet lime soda.

MY first ever blog

This is my first ever blog over the net and i dedicate it to the sources of all power and creation bhagwaan Shiva. He continues to show me the path and takes off all my pains. He guides me and teaches me the wrong /right. He guides us all........