ICE - Inter city express

On my way from Berlin to Milano and there were three trains which would take all the pain of transferring me from the German Capital to the Monza circuit. Well, over the last few days whenever we have travelled on the trains we have always been late. Maybe 10 minutes and in some case half an hr late. What happened to the efficiency of the railways, and that too the bloody Germans. I thought they were supposed to be setting the highest standards. Well time to test that with the ICE from Berlin to Koln and then a 20 min later train from Koln to Basel. My first stop in Switzerland and finally a EC to Milano Central. And what a surprise. Not only was each train on time at the given destination they were dot on time at all the intermediate station. For some reason I just felt so happy all the times when the train would halt at some station and I would check the watch to confirm that the train was ON TIME. Just as the germans were supposed to be. Perfectly efficient. I think this has more to do with the fact that as in Indian we are used to trains coming late, “making up time at night” and tolerating 10-15 minutes delay as part n parcel of the whole system. God dammit, we need to learn so much from the ICE. Was on the phone for quite sometime on the train and there was perfect reception of my Vodafone signal because there were mobile repeaters in place. So in a perfectly quiet  apartment u can talk for as long as u want while the train rushes past the german landscape at 249kph (that is what they were displaying on the screen in the compartment, I know it was not the fastest the ICE would have gone but am sure that was fastest I have gone while on land except the airplane takeoffs, not sure what the speeds are then)

Which brings me to the main point, about why we as human beings appreciate something as simple as punctuality and honesty when these are assumed as the basic characteristics of any individual?  All this while when people were evolving into more and more complex beings, we forget that even now all we need is the other person to be polite, gentle, and honest and some simple things like that. So next time when you board the ICE and you marvel at how awesome it is, remember one thing – it’s just doing what its supposed to do, reach every station at the designated time. Simple. The rest is all show off from the Germans J Hate the Italians. They need a reservation on all their stupid trains. Bloody 13euros for a 4hour train journey from Basel to Milan. 

Berlin – The history lesson

Day 1 – Arrived in Berlin via Frankfurt on my first ICE (the proper one not the other flat faced one) and boy what a ride. They even hves LEDs on each seat which informed the passengers if a particular seat was reserved so that what happened to me at Goteborg would not happen here. The Germans were impressing me more and more J 

So we arrived at 130pm on time and then we were in a soup as to what to do. Went to burger king to find free wifi but instead we found wifi from Starbucks. Saw the location of a hostel which was on the S-Bahn route (free for euro rail pass holders) and then on our way to that hostel. Booked rooms for 2 days and boy the rooms were soooo nice. Fluffy pillows and good blankets. 14euros seemed to be a good deal. (Remember we are in europe) 

Having flicked off free maps from all possible locations we were prepared to go on our first outing of Berlin, and the first history lesson would come from the infamous Berlin Wall, we were conveniently put up at the beginning of the East Side Gallery and what a landmark. 

Such remarkable art in a city and each one better than the previous one, Berlin was going to be a wonderful trip. You could see tourists (Mostly Chinese, god knows how many of them we saw on the trip till now) everywhere and a whole bunch of school going kids wandering along the wall, taking pictures, staring at marvel at some of those master pieces.

 If that was not enough then we made our way walking all the way to Alexanderplatz. A happening place in berling, full of malls and eateries, and a good hang out place in the evening. The time we arrived we were astonished by the whole environment there, definitely helped by the guy playing the guitar. The star attraction of the area was the TV tower situated there, currently the second tallest structure in the EU, and a 10euro fees to take you all the way to the top to a restaurant from where am sure the night view would be SPECTACULAR. 

When i do go back to berlin i’ll do that for definitely. Hopefully on my next trip to mainland. 

Went back to the hostel early as even the shops in Berlin start closing by 8pm and by 1030pm we were tucked in and ready to sleep. Tmrw Sudeep would join us from Frankfurt and then we would go on a full day tour of Berlin.

Day 2 – Day 2 began with us going to the Warschawer strabe station to meet sudeep, who had come down from Frankfurt and then we all headed to the Reichstag (pronounce it properly man... ) The german parliament which was the centre of all that action during the last century and lo there was this long queue of people waiting to get in, and after an hr of waiting we were finally at the front.

 Security checks and then we were herded to the dome of the Reichstag which was open for public and was situated on top of the room where the parliamenterians used to sit. The idea being that if at any point of time they 4got who was the real boss in germany then only need to look up once and they would find the people of germany (these days it would be tourists of course J)

 It was an audio tour with all of us given some audio guide which was sensitive to your location on the ramp. So as soon as u came to a particular area the voice in the device started giving u some gyan. Very very clever. So people could go on at their own pace without having to operate or worry about the guide. 

The Reichstag was definitely a  good place to begin the tour and the guide was excellent with detailed explanation of events in the history of Berlin. There was also the free tour which according to the pamphlet that we got was scheduled to begin at 1pm. So we had enough time to go to Branderburger gate which also has a very unique history. At this point of time i am tempted to tell all the things which my guide told during the free tour because i doubt if things can be made more interesting than that. J 

So we met Ed at 1pm near the brandenberger gate from where four different groups proceeded at the same time. Some notable points during the whole tour –

1.       The godess at the Brandenberger gate looks towards the French embassy, the French were the ones who had stolen her in the first place (napoleon)

2.       The commercial bank there seems a very stale bank from the outside, coz according to the laws anything in that square cannot outshine the gate, however the inside is supposed to be breath taking. He also designed another structure in Prague or some other city.

3.       The hotel adlon there was the one which has a room which costs 15,000 € per night!!! And was the same building from which Michael Jackson threw the baby!!!

4.       
       The holocaust memorial cost around 6mn € and was quite controversial

5.       The square where Hitlers bunker was present and how the allies kept it a secret of his death

6.       German and French Cathedrals on the same square very similar to each other, though the German one was a few inches taller.

7.       Bank which featured in the movie run lola run.

8.       Island museums and some of the escape stories surrounding the berlin wall.

And by 5pm we were done with our tour and what a tour that was, and all that for free even better. Well they run on tips only basis so we also decided to chip in. This was followed by a tour of the new museum. A one hour marathon through the 3 floors of the museum. That was quick. 

This followed by a visit to the sony centre which housed only Hollywood flicks, so we decided against watching the movies. A trip to alexanderplatz where we had our dinner, and some more live music. Finally at 930 we made our way back to the room, a tiring day but then it was good fun. The last day in Berlin would be dedicated to schausenhasen, the concentration camp near berlin. 

Koln – Stop 1

 We arrived at Koln early morning at 7am (train was again late by some 20 minutes)  and the first thing to greet us on as we set foot in the mainland was a mammoth station. What a sight. And with no clue as to what to do, we went to the Tourist Information centre to get some gyan on what all to see and where to find a good youth hostel. Soon we were directed to a closeby youth hostel which did take some searching though It was quite close to the station. We convinced the lady that we were here only for few hours and we wanted to put our luggage there and use none of the facilities, she obliged by renting us their locker for free.. so sweet.. On our way from the hostel to the Rhine banks where we would make our plan for the day. The Rhine was already bustling with activity – tourist boats as well as the ones shipping out cargo. 

And as soon as we turned around we knew where to go. The largest cathedral of Germany (I forget what its called) and by god that was some sight. 

Towering above us we looked like tiny dwarves make that ants near those towers. Went inside the cathedral and it was even more beautiful from the inside. I cant tell you who all were there on all those windows or the ones on those pillars but by god that was some architecture. Everytime I see anything as huge as magnificent as that, I always wonder – how exactly did they manage to build these things back then. Superb. And then after some more time spent in the cathedral we roamed around to see what all were there around that place, and it seemed that most of the things to be seen in Koln were very close to each other. Good. So we went to the Ludwig museum, closed. Another museum next to that. Closed. Dammit it was 9am and they were all closed even then. While roaming around the church we saw a sign which said that at 1 euro u could make your way to the top of one of the towers of the church. That was 100metres and that definitely seemed like a good investment. Boy was soo wrong, these germans had actually built steps around one single pillar and that was the route were supposed to take to go to the top. And man it was tiring and scary at the same time. Oooof. Finally reached the top and it was all worth the effort, a spectacular view of the entire city from up there and you could even see the place where there was going to be a concert held later at 12 noon.

 The descent was even more scarier though not so difficult. And finally after getting down it was time to go the famous Ludwig Museum. And at that time there was an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein’s work as well. Now am not sure exactly who he was at that moment so I think I am not the best person to describe the (2.5hrs) spent there, but then it was well spent I guess.

 After this we went to the Chocolate museum while we found out that that required another 5 euros as entry fees, so we satisfied ourselves with chocolates for the time being from the shop there. Lindt apparently had setup the exhibition with a lot of thought behind it and they prepared a fresh batch of chocolate every time a bunch of visitors came into the museum. Naaice. Some snooping into some of the supermarkets told us that everything was cheaper compared to the Scandinavian countries and that was definitely good news. On the same day a triathalon was being held in the city – cycling, marathon as well as swimming. 

And the whole city was geared up for the event, people had come to cheer up family as well as friends and there was definitely no shortage of old, young, male, female literally everybody had turned up. It was a good way to get the city together. We should have more of those of marathon things in the city. Finally at 5 pm we decided to make way to the station and then on our way to Frankfurt. And guess what . we meet turakhia (for the uninitiated he is the topper from my college and my class mate in first year) He was also in Koln on the same day however he had arrived at 12noon and since we were going to his house only in Frankfurt it was mighty convenient. After an hr of train jouney from Kobleinz we were at his house and now that we  know the address we can easily make way to that place whenever we are in that area. Sudeep was a good host and he even served us pizza for dinner, and finally we slept off at 2330 ready to get up tmrw morning at 730 to go to Berlin, the Capital and the place which has had such a action packed history in the recent decades that it is literally a history class for the tourist. Hope it is that good. Am sure it would be. 

On our way to Koln – The 5-week journey starts here

Well time to get the euro trip started, with a good long tour all the way from Bergen to the mainland Europe. All the way from the Scandinavian expensive countries to the more reasonable and definitely more fun mainland. Time to get that camera out and a whole lot of history books as well as some guide books. This is Europe as was dreamed of, Europe with all its glamour, countless places to visit from museums to palaces, races to marathons all in these 3 months and it all starts with a stupid decision. Since the Bergen Oslo route would be busy on the Friday that we were beginning our trip we decided to reserve the seats, 50NOK and we would be safely on our way to Oslo. But alas since our pass expired on the same day we were wondering wether to go ahead and reserve the seats and then come back because the station would close by 730. (Cant even do tht online.. technology it seems!!) So we ended up at the Bergen station at 630pm to wait till 11 pm when the train would finally make its trip to Oslo. Met a Marathi family on the station  and at the same time a professor from Boston. He had some interesting theories to share about how the brain works and what changes he planned to bring to the education system.  The train finally left station at 11pm and the journey to Oslo was pretty nice. Good comfy seats, no internet in the train but a charging point atleast. Could not sleep properly and kept rolling up and down that same seat. Finally at 628am precisely the train reaches Oslo. With 2.5 hrs to spare till the next train we went to see what Oslo was upto at 7 in the morning. And it was COLD..

 And no one was up till then, dammit how can people sleep at 7am, everybody should be up by then. Well time to roam around looking for the sun and lo we ended up at Sentrum and Galleriet (places which were there in Bergen as well ) and finally met the sun in sometime.. Felt good to have some warm sunrays, even if it was still early.

9 am and we were on our way to Goteberg, we came to know that since a part of the track between Oslo and Goteberg roughly near the border (Salzburg area or something) was under repair so we would have to make the middle part of the journey in a bus. This would be interesting. As always the train was good and went about the whole journey pretty much as quiet as sitting in the meeting room all alone in the office. And then came that place where all on board were supposed to get off the train and guess what they had arranged 3 luxury buses to get us to the other side. Wow. Can seriously never expect something like that in india for some reason. Well the bus journey was pretty uneventful except one lady who kept getting up to go to the driver to check how much more time. Even we were worried since we had some half an hr lead time before the next train to Copenhagen. Eventually we came to that station after an hour and then the train took us pretty quicky to Goteberg. For the first time we heard the Train Manager announcing that the train to Copenhagen would leave 5 minutes after we reached Goteberg that too from the adjacent platform. And that was such a relief. And it was a pleaseant surprise as you never expected something like that from the Indian railways. This is what we learn in marketing, understand the customers needs. So we reached Goteberg and then the train to Copenhagen. Crowded SJ train and not so comfortable as the NSB of last nights or the one we boarded today morning. But then we were not complaining, however one thing which you always fear as a global pass holder is that when you settle down in a train someone will come to your seat and ask you to get up coz u are occupying his seat. (That’s how the euro rail pass works, u r allowed to get into any train and occupy a second class seat as long as its not reserved by someone) We had been fearing this till now, and finally it did occur in the SJ train to Copenhagen. So with no free seats in that compartment I went to the next one where they did have a few empty seats. Of course I was skeptic as to wether I could sit there or not and after bothering one passenger I did get a seat to let my back side. Sitting next to me was a swede who was going home to meet her parents. Some 40km from Goteberg. We chatted for quite sometime as she explained how she had gone on very few trips across Europe but she was definitely very aware of all the food delicacies from all over Europe. She specifically mentioned the ones to try in Berlin and Milan as well as Paris. She got down at her stop while we continued on our way to Copenhagen (She was the one who taught us how to pronounce Koln :P). If u clearly see the map of Denmark you would see that there are an awfully large number of places where there is no land connectivity between stations and Copenhagen was one such place. So we were expcting one mega large dam or a tunnel at the end of the journey but we were definitely not prepared for this one.

 A huuuuge dam which the train was covering at some 150kph and on the distance you could see a whole lot of wind mills. Wow what a site. Recommended for everyone to do it once. Having reached Copenhagen at 5:20pm we were expected to be at the station till 614pm when we had a CNL (city Night Line) from Copenhagen to Koln. Copenhagen was the place where some of the guys from K were studying but we were not sure if they would be there (weekend time pe forex ppl r not expected to be at college J) So we roamed around Copenhagen for a sometime (saw a group perform some awesome music using some weird flute instrument) while the Tivoli circus also caught our eye.

 Copenhagen is definitely a stop over on the way back. And then on the train from Copenhagen to Koln. This was a painful journey. We booked the CNL but that did not have recliners so we paid 5 euros for very very bad seats and finally at 7am we arrived at Koln. The first stop in mainland Europe. What a trip coming ahead. 

Euro 3 - Flight to Istanbult & the City itself

The business end of this trip starts with a train journey from Nagpur to Delhi airport. With a 16hr train journey behind my back i was looking forward to pleasant AC climate for the next few days in the airports and some awesome weather in Europe. Alas it was not to be, with my passport still with Vikas, AAI did not let me in, and that was that. Stuck outside the airport for almost 6 hrs with nothing to do except click a few pics and read some  novel (Thanks shweta)

 Finally got into the airport at 2am and with all the dreams of europe in our eyes we got out luggage checked in, get through with all the formalities and lo we were on board TK 717 the flight to Istanbul, our first contact with Europe. Slept for sometime but then the stewerdess woke us up for some meals while we flew over pakistan and afghanistan (that country is definitely full of mountains and deserts and nothing else!! )

Time did not flow by and it was getting painful to sit in those crumpled up little seats for which we paid all that cash. Damn these cheap airlines. finally landed at 930 at the ataturk airport.

That airport should be renamed to "Turkish airlines pvt airport", bloody all the flights there were TK's hee hee

And then comes the bad news from the TK people, since there exists a flight for Oslo at 12noon before our original flight they cannot put us on that free tour of the city or give us a hotel for stay. Damn that was not there on that site of theirs.  Planned to spend a whole day at the airport but then alas even the duty free was not tempting enough. And after a 100Rs half litre water bottle experience we realised that it is safer to get out on the road and explore the city :) Got a visa on arrival (25$) and off we were for the day. First stop was sultanahmet square. Supposed to be a square meant for the tourists with the Blue Mosque, Sophia , Museum, Cistern chapel and others all situated on that one square. 

1. Obelisk of Thutmose III

2. Walled Obelisk

3. Sultanahmet Mosque

4. Basilica Cistern , though we did not enter this one (10TL fees was too much for that )

All this along with a few hours of peace spent observing the whole area and we were ready to head back to the airport. Time to sleep at 130am and get up at 630. Flight to Oslo awaits us the next day morning 

Euro 2 - Home sweet home

Time was when I used to come home and crash after a hard day at school, eat mom's food and go off to sleep. Never then did i realise that a day would come when i would have to wait for months together to wait for that food, to stay at home. I miss my childhood days, n all those who r living right now with their parents, realize that you are one of the luckiest bunch of people out there. As sunday morning dawned on B'lore I realized that my train ticket to nagpur had  not yet been confirmed so that meant travelling in a 21 hr train journey with some 40kg of luggage. damn. Time to get the credit card out and shell out some cash to get a flight from b'lore to nagpur via mumbai. For some reason connecting flights always create a problem for me. Took one a few months back, missed it. Same this time as well. GoAir did not have a flight ready so they had to get one from Coimbatore and that took quite some time and hence a flight supposed to leave at 1220 from B'lore eventually took off at 330 and so i missed my jet lite flight. Some of the pics i clicked while at the b'lore airport.

Man these r beautifullllll

Reached mumbai airport, got a Air India flight booked (a helpful gentleman from the AAI helped me locate the Air India ticket counter)

While waiting at mumbai near the check in counter.. nice car..

Finally did reach home at 9pm but all that was worth it once u sit down at the dining table, mom serving hot hot yumm food and dad asking queries about the whole eurotrip. Chelli sitting next on the table pulling my leg here n there was just the icing on the cake. 15k well spent i must say. (Doesn't it look deliciousssssssss)

Spent the whole of next day chatting, packing and clicking some beautiful photos. All in all a wonderful day spent at home... home sweet home..

Euro 1 - Friends at B'lore

“Dude what happened to your blog?” That was the question which triggered this post. This was at BBQ J.P.Nagar and as always the whole ceremony of BBQ required a good starving session, which generally meant no breakfast at all, however shweta had never been to BBQ (Can u believe that!!) and so of course she was full just after 5 minutes of starters. One of the wonderful sessions at BBQ but shantha and shwetha’s poor performance at the starter-table was overshadowed by Prarthana’s super performance. Everybody was so proud of her J 

Of course the day began on a much more hectic note, just arrived Bangalore at 7 in the morning and rushed to loco’s house, his “friend” decided not to turn up to meet him, so all three musketeers headed for some shopping for me. First up – Cannon 1000D for me J 

That with a 18-55 IS lens and some filters and an extra card was the awesome gift which my parents got for me for getting that pappu J Spent the whole day clicking photos with my new camera and boy oh boy was that fun or what. Some sucky photos but then those few which did come well are worth all the effort. And boy oh boy that was some day.

 Wrapped up with some bowling at Amoeba where the ladies overshadowed us completely. Something was wrong with the day. But what a day. Wonderful  way to begin the euro trip, with friends wishing the best for you, giving u parting gifts n some cursing that they won’t be there for all that!! Lets just hope the train ticket for b’lore to ngp gets cleared tmrw morning J

Parties and Me

All those who know me well enough, understand very well that when I say I am a party animal I’m not being entirely truthful. And that is correct but for those occasions when the control over the senses is lost or rather let me say let loose. So on my first weekend in Sri Lanka, on the Saturday to be more precise we were planning on going to this party which was being organized by some fellas (read radio station here) and some famous DJ from down under was coming down to make us dance to some famous trance tracks. And yusssri and lauren, the nice people they are, got us tickets to that party. Yussri picked us up at 10 or so and we went to lauren’s house then off to PARTY!! Turned out to be a small party with some 100 odd people there on the beach side and some temp playing some music. The news was that the DJ was coming and we were supposed to while away our time till then with this music. We decided otherwise and went to the mount lavina hotel. Had some drinks and juices and I tell u that place had one of the best views of an ocean. And guess what we could actually spot a cruise with all its lights in full glow, prolly some good party going on there as well. And we headed back to the party at 1240 or so, and guess what the DJ was already there. Met a few advertising folks who were in contact with yussri and lauren thru some of the earlier AXE parties that we had organized.


I really like being in a party. Seriously. And that’s because we have had a few good parties in college. And its always been with a whole lot of people there. All of whome we knew. But today was different, I knew only 3 fellas here and none of them were in a mood to go totally PAARTY!! The music being played was good, the crowd was decent, there was even that small brawl between 2 fellas to make u realize that u r in a real party even some foreigners (I am not talking about d indians here :P) Somehow it did not fit well today that we were in a party and that feeling just did not come. Probably its been quite sometime since I went to a party where I knew only a handful of people. There is only one learning from this party which came to an end at a premature time of 2 am – Try to go to as many parties as possible and go to those where u can make some new friends.

This post ends here with me signing off. Looking forward to a good Sunday where we can watch the IPL finals as well as a good time at the galle face (the beach side in Colombo)

The MBA Mentor - Stop being so jealous

A guy is sitting in an internet café. Typing away at furious speeds he is looking for information about something. Something very important to him.  And then he spots a blog. A blog of some arbit fellow.  But this arbit fellow is of some importance. Important because this arbit fellow of ours is a from one college. This college of his is a Well Known Management in West India. One of the colleges to which our patron aspires to get into. If not the WIMWI, then the one in south India, else the one in east India. Of course he has special meaning to the alphabets. Yes, you and I have also read these alphabets but our patron and this arbit fellow have created new notions for these alphabets. ABC. Man these must mean something apart from apple, ball and cat right. Well so what if they are the starting alphabets to some colleges locations. Ahmadabad. Bangalore. Calcutta (aka Kolkata). Or as the arbit fellow will correct us with more clear addresses. Vastrapur. Banerghetta Rd. Jokha. How does it matter in our story? Of course it does. Did you not notice all the smiles and emotions overplaying on the face of our young aspirant when he came across this blog. Lets focus our attention on the patron. He seems to be searching furiously all over the blog for something. Ah he has found it. Seems like it’s only a home address.

What we need to realize is that every patron like ours will always need one thread to show some present common link. Then he plans to cling on to that tiny link. This is what he will start with and then go on to form one bonding between the patron and the arbit fellow. This is where our patron brings in the email where he plans to form the link. This email is one of the most important ones in his life according to him, so he will go over and over the whole mail. Not too short, not too long, not too boring, not too vague, not too descriptive. God its difficult to write this mail. Once this is done the whole process kicks in and we know the rest.
But let’s follow the patron for a few more days. He goes  on and laps up every word that the arbit fellow says. From gyan on classes to preparation on the d-day. Laps it up with such care as if its nectar falling straight from heaven. And this does not stop here. The adulation for each and every word coming out of his mouth feels the same everytime. To the extent that the arbit fellow goes on to become a personal shrink to our patron. And so the journey starts. Now the patron goes and pings his mentor every time he wants advice, assurance etc. I don’t say its bad but cmon man give the man a break. He is just a normal human being albeit with a slightly better luck/brain/perseverance. And just because he is here in one of the IIMs u start thinking he IS the nxt steve jobs/laxmi mitta etc. So is it wrong to be the patron. Is it good for the mentor to continue in that sense. Well lets see it from the mentors perspective.

Forget the fact that a year ago he was also in the patrons shoes and he was looking for mentors, and he prolly did find a few. So now its his turn to earn some of the mentees, some of the adulations, some junie who will look upto him like GOD. Well obviously who wouldn’t like that? But should the mentor not be a little careful. Maybe it is time the mentor does not feed on this attention but rather let the mentee develop himself according to his choices. Is it not the ultimate dream of any mentor to see his mentees go on and progress beyond him. Well I bet that any of us who have mentored someone or the other at any point of time have felt a pang of jealousy when the “आज का छोकरा ” who had just come into the college goes on to become a big shot while I am still in the same old job.

Stop being so jealous. There will always be someone who is smarter than you. Someone who prolly deserves to earn all that adulation. Stop being so jealous. Its time you accept that you have earned what you deserve, its time to let him earn what he deserves.

All the best to all the mentees. And you mentors cmon show them that the old horse can still gallop. Go on do something productive now. 

An Education [2009]

This post is simply here because I want everyone of you to realize something. Something that maybe you all know, prolly have understood it much better than me, prolly believe in it more than anything but the question is how much of that is put to practice. The main character of the movie in discussion here is a young school girl who has a goal of getting to oxford. This seems to be more a goal as put in her head by her father. She plays the cello and has some issues in Latin blah blah . Then one fine day she comes in contact with a man double her age and there starts a nice little romance. The hero as expected has a sports car, takes her to performances, classy restaurants and even to Paris. Now the expected change in the girl includes a deep desire to shun all her oxford romance and give in to the pleasure of living life with this knight in shining armor, except that in medieval times he came on a horse these days he comes in a sports car.

An interesting thing here of note is the reaction of her parents throughout the whole episode. From the moment when they laugh at a fellow for the ridiculous idea of taking a year off for “roaming around” to gifting a Latin dictionary to their daughter on her birthday (R u kidding me?). Then they get to know of all the glam sham surrounding the “knight” and they agree to the fact that maybe marriage is not so bad a deal after all and she might as well go and show her back to the oxford dream. Is that all the parents ever wanted? Does this mean that when my dad says that I should do MBA is he only asking me to become a more “marketable” groom?

Well lets not digress into my marriage.. that is a big big story in itself when it plays out. Now for the topic itself, well the whole point of marriage as questioned by the girl is one point of highlight in this whole discussion. And the next one comes at the point when the girl has a encounter with her head mistress. This is what I want to reflect on.

The girl very frankly tells her head mistress of what she thinks of her head mistress’ life. And how she will go enjoy the world, dine at the finest restaurants and enjoy the finest jazz while her head mistress will slug it out there in the same school. Is this what you also think? Is this what the world thinks of me and you? Obviously in this hell hole of a place called the world (read rat race), we tend to sympathize with people like the head mistress, and we say that GOD will bring them to justice. Well said. But in reality the world will always be like this?
Now I will open a pandora’s box. I will ask one question – How many of you deep in your minds think that you deserve the life that the little girl is going to enjoy while you are living out the life of the head mistress. Many of you would have said a yes to that. But then that’s because we all think we all deserve a better life. Come to think of it, is any of us happy with what we are in life, or what we have achieved. Right now you will all say a yes. But how many times have you complained in the last few days? A classic example is one friend of mine who got a convert from IIM B and C, alas he was still unhappy because he did not get iimA. Is this greed of what we don’t have, masked under the name of “ambition”.
God dammit go see how many people in a square km around you are better off than you. The very fact that you are someone who has enough resources to read this blog proves that you definitely have a life which is worth killing for. One common way to cheer up myself when I get down is to repeat the last line. Well its time you also did that and gave your life one more chance rather than complaining about it.

Now get lost and do something more productive J

A country of Consultants

This one comes at 330 in the morning with music blaring outside my room, while people are cheering one fellow to finish an entire bottle of some liquid which people tell me has earned Mr Mallaya a few million dollars. So what is so urgent about this post? Well its simple. I went about my usual trip on the google ride and looking for interesting articles on some topic which was eating my head. These days the topic is education in india and how it can be improved. Obviously it’s a very complex question, probably at the same standards of difficulties as the Kashmir problem. But then we need to think about it and come with some solution. So at this point of time I would like to bring to notice some aspects of this which may be worth noticing. The Rights to Education bill with its whole lot of jargon was passed. And this is where you start seeing the bone of contention. Don’t see it?

Well it was these two economists from varsities in the fabled country of America. The land where all our smart guys go, learn some more smart things and then end up working for smart corporate building/researching smart things. Sincerely. Now these smart people while working on these smart things wrote an article on one of the newspapers in the country where they have mentioned what they understand of the Right to Education Bill and they go on to then propose some improvements according to them.

Of course the fact that they have such a impressive profiles means that most of the people who tend to read these things start reading the article with the assumption that they are right, that the research they have done is correct (@Chazz and sathya – note) , that the recommendations which are given in the article are perfect solutions to India’s problems. So after reading the article some of the recommendations seem good. Actually, it’s too good to be true.
Now after so so so long a reading, I will bring you to the main point. We are a country of consultants. We probably were the ones who wrote the bible of Mckinsey and BCG. Am sure you don’t even need to be told why I have made this comment. There are quite a few among you who are right now thinking –

“This guy does not know exactly what to write, I should tell him what he should do” It’s just in our blood. Your mom will tell you what medicine to take, dad will say what bike to buy, girlfriend will tell you what hair style to sport and the list goes on irrespective of whether we have any knowledge or not. My hypotheses is that the lesser you know on the topic the more fascinating are you “advises”. On topics as unimportant as dresses and bikes even I am ready to hear you out. But when people start discussing politics, oh the best example for this is that group of 40-60 year olds who meet up in arbit locations like trains compartments, parks, office corridors etc and start “discussing” what is “wrong” with the country. I mean come on man gimme a break. What is the point if you tell all is wrong with the country’s politician and law&order and then try to bribe the ticket collector because you forgot to buy the ticket?

All that I expected in the article was some solution at some concrete stage man. What was the point of suggesting “we should punish non-performing schools and incentivize the ones performing well” Even the kid in that school will tell you that is a good solution. If to make that solution in the first place you needed a B.Tech degree from IIT and then a MS in some US varsity followed by a PhD then lets compare your efficiency compared to that kids efficiency. He outscores you a million times over. So obviously the correct way to prove the argument wrong is to allow the scholar to go on and present a more concrete solution which has some practical feasibility.

Now that I have vented some anger of mine at the sheer callousness with which our smart people are taking up these opinion spaces in newspapers, I know that the guns are now trained towards me. You say – So Ravi, you also have some of these degrees so why don’t you propose some solution. And the answer to that is – well I have not spent the appropriate time on this and now that me and my few friends are working on this in a concrete manner we plan to come with a working model soon. I assure you there wont be much consultancy in that post.

As always, please feel free to comment on the post and make this a healthy discussion. J

MARKETING RESEARCH – Techniques and details

This is a post I am writing because its something I have done some research on lately. I am NOT an expert at this neither am I a person you should look up to as a born-marketer. Lets see what all i can recall from the last few hrs.

So the first few terms which you will come across at the time of beginning your market research would be qualitative and quantitative research. So obviously the next thing you want to know is which one suits your needs.

The thing you want to look for here is to first analyze what are the needs of the research. Is the problem clearly known? Are we trying to find a solution or are we trying to prove a hypothesis of ours?

Quantitative Research :

This is a objective approach to research and includes a plethora statistical analysis tools. Some of the more popular ones include a survey which could be a pen paper survey or the recent trend of email surveys.

So obviously the most important part here is to design the survey as objectively as possible. Also to consider while designing the survey is what kind of people will be surveyed.

These approaches tend to have a error which comes in various forms – random error, sampling error, interviewer error or respondent errors. The other error which the engineers in the crowd know is the alpha and beta (Type I and Type II)

Qualitative Research :

This one is a more complex one to explain. Qualitative research will be subjective, rich and ambiguous due to its inherent manner. I will focus on two most used approaches in qualitative research –

Focus Group – This is one of the most used approaches and tends to involve a group of 6-8 people who tend to sit in a room with a moderator taking care of the entire decision. The details of what care should be taken before a

Depth Interview – You do this when you are going to scrape through the surface and try to understand what the reason was for the kind of response/feelings that a respondent goes through. The skills of the interviewer again comes under scrutiny because of the importance of his skills. All the more because there is not structure and he needs to understand which nerve to tickle and which one to leave untouched.

Projective Techniques – Well this one has many more sub categories like word association, sentence completion, images etc. These mostly appeal to the non conscious part of the brain which might reveal some data which the respondent might not know himself.

This should get you started on what you want to start with. Any more details can be found in some marketing book else the mother of all information – the Internet.

Hope you benefitted from this. Please feel free to leave comments to improve the article.