The Crusade Has Already Begun

2007-02-26T01:47:00.000-08:00

CTRL - C & CTRL - V

These are two most forbidden but most sought after words in a B-School atleast. Give it a thought and then analyze, is it really a crime to copy-paste???

You remember those most irritating words : “tere is dost ko dekh, uske kitne ache number aa rahe hai …kuch sikhta kyun nahi hai usse” …. Isnt it an early version of mild copy-paste in your life.

Then suddenly someday Ur Grandmother says that “Ekdam apne Paapa pe gaya hai..."…Unknowingly U have adopted the copy-paste funda or rather U had no alternative then to paste what was asked to copy ??? Hmm Bolo Bolo Tell Tell.

When choices were being made on choosing Professional career, decisions in many houses are just taken by saying….”Look how successful XYZ is, Beta I think (when they mean U have to) you should try this”

Anu Malik copy- pasted, he earned millions.

We adopt western culture and a lot of money is sanctioned by Govt. for the same, how different is it than Copy-Pasting.

Yes, I feel nothing is bad in Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V … There is no need at all to re-invent the wheel every time, use the available resources and then build on it. Yes, but it would be a shame if one just merely copy-paste someone else’s creation and add under his belt. So please acknowledge the source, try to build on the base… if we are able to do this I am sure conception of Tower of Knowledge would not be mere a dream.

2006-07-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

Soccer @ Great Lakes

Germany v/s Italy & Portugal v/s France

‘Teams came in so many, but the winner is Germany’ ; ‘News in every Daily, World Cup is with Italy’; ‘Its only by Chance; that you can defeat our mighty France’ were the cries more louder heard in Great Lakes Camp off late.

Different Strokes committee in coalition with IT committee decided to extend the vacation mood, after lengthy negotiations with our Director finally it was decided that important matches will be allowed to be broadcasted in the campus on MEGA Screen.

First match on MEGA screen was the semifinal held between Germany & Italy…You bet when @ home I watched the Quarter Finals, but the real fun watching these world class matches is on Huge Screen amidst over enthusiastic crowd. Here @ Great Lakes campus the instruments used in cheering the respective teams were Bisleri bottles & empty cans for dolby effect.
Match Results : Italy & France will play the Finals
My Favorite : Excellent last minute goals scored by Grosso & Del Piero , abs fantastic goals .. If you didn’t watch it live, U missed it, no probs but U can chck 'em out against Zidane and his team.

All in all, the event was exciting, ekdam Dhammal. We @ Great Lakes were so many, that we didn’t miss being in Germany :-)

2006-06-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Home Fly Home

"With me, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation". I completely agree with David Llyod George's quote. Instead, I am one step ahead than him... I am truly going on a short but long awaited vacation. A vacation of 4 days, after the tiring sessions of exams .. Today we did away with philosoophy exam... Talking about the exam, the paper was so easy that I figured out what would be me contribution towards it in 5 minutes... that there is nothing which I could figure out of questions mentioned. While I checked first few questions and said to myself, ohh only this part probably I must have missed from that chapter, but proceeding further and after reading last question, I said .. Parag probably people conspired against you and gave you different text book to read... 'cos there was nothing except very few questions which I could relate with.

Its 2.21 a.m. ; I and Nitin are busy fiddling with Laptops in waiting lounge of Chennai International Airport, waiting eagerly for Air-India staff to announce about the flight for Mumbai... This time I decided to check out Air-India's domestic service ... Route domestic hai to kya hua ... Flight to International hai :-) ..

This 4 days break from our schedule has definately boosted the Tourism Industry; 'cos almost every crusader is travelling out of chennai.. Our Fundoo Dhammal group also after having loads of fun for entire day is all set to feel the walls of home sweet home, eat the most delicious Ghar ka Khaana...as always our group also has exception NP & AS (both are my roomies) are from Delhi, but one going to Mumbai and other to Pune; dont ask me why ?? simple fundaa .. responsibility towards future family .... hope the message is clear now...

Now, just waiting to ring the door bell of my Home & check out expressions of my Mom (its Surpriseee for them , I didnt tell them I am coming home).....

2006-06-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

An Encounter ....

I had an encounter.. trust me ... Real Life Cops were also there , only difference was they were Traffic Policemen.........

After having a stomach full Lunch at Dhhaba Express & spending a Hot Chennai afternoon in an A.C. Mall (Spencer Plaza), I & Ashwin were returning back to college on Udhaar ka bike (courtesy: Divakar), the very urge to pay all the accumulated exxpenses we decided to check out an ATM & found the shortest route to reach the ATM, but believe me elderly people always say it right, dont take short-cuts in life & if literally taken they are right, 'cos that short-cut was full of traffic policemen, 'cos it was No-Entry. I dun know why the signboards like No-Entry are not visible before we are caught.

Now, we were asked to park the vehicle & talk to a senior policemen, the negotiation then begun... we both started in English, those guys hardly knew English & we hardly Tamil, so the negotiation was going nowhere, now we decided to resort to Tamil English. The conversation goes like this 'Sir, Studentsaaa.... , new to Chennai, only last week we came here, Sirrrr, we searching for ATM, one fellow told Take Left, we took left...(how obedient we are this shows)..
Sorry Sirrr, Next time no mistake.......

Inspite of all these statements he was not ready to settle the matter... only effect was price to pay was reduced from 100 to 50, then again we started....' Sir, No Money (I showed him my wallet, which was srsly moneyless) , we like your children Sirr, Studentsss Sir Plssssss....'
I believe by now we had done our job, he was quite convinced & freed us...

The Underlying concept was... Now that we have spent 5 Lakhs for learning Funda's from our MBA course... we would not end up spending even a rupee as a compensation for poor negotiation skills.....

2006-06-26T03:29:00.000-07:00

A Nightful of Adventure

Have you ever heard of phrase ‘ Bhagwaan Jab Deta hai to Chappar Phaad Ke’; the same was the case with all Great Lakers (especially S3 guys) yesterday . 1st khushi was the series of tests & xams almost got over, Saturday – Sunday’s lectures got cancelled , no pre-reading for weekends, weekends full dhammal, & the countdown for 29th (day to leave for home) has begun. To celebrate all this as usual our so called Fundoo Dhammal group decided to party, now that it was raining , venue decided was Sandeep’s house.

Now, that it was in-house party, the message was clear, that Spirits would flow tonight & so did it happen. We all reached the venue, before the guy who was responsible to get bottles knocked on the door, everyone (excluding me) checked out the parcel, whether he got enough stock to last for night or not… and that was the list minute silence was felt in that house.. ‘cos the Chaos after that could put to shame a Sony’s hi-fi music system.. I mean the decibel level was beyond comprehension.

Bottles were opened, after two rounds, the Josh went high … One could truly witness the so called Cause – Effect relationship. The Cause – One guy (KB) cried out his soul, typical senti songs & the Effect – the entire group present there turned into Orchestra , which further lead to Dance party, no special song required then , the spirit content was high enough that even if the News is put on , this would seem to be as musical as any other Dance Number.

Pizza was ordered on special request by Veggies from Dominos, the Pizza affair turned out to be the most rather only economic order that night, rather I think Nature tried to balance out the expenses, ‘cos the Pizza guy arrived late and in presence of all these wild guys do U think that delivery boy could have argued .. Right…No Way..

Friendship Peg was filled in by APS, the Peg seemed to me as Baap of all Pegs.. I happened to ask him .. whether it is called Friendship Peg or Suicide Peg ??
The peg then was passed from one end of circle to another… The same was then repeated, but this time the glass was replaced by bottle … fun to witness it..

Next event was to have Dinner, major event than Dinner was to bring everyone at one place ‘cos everybody was in their own masti.. the noise level was high, everybody understood the concern of Host, as how he would face his landlord again.. and just to solve this problem of his everybody started to explain each other that SShhh… Pls dun make noise .. and eventually they ended up creating more chaos….

Memorable Moments :

NP’s .. 1 minute … & his dialogue .. U want to drank then drank, but tomorrow dun tell I din drank….
AJ’s .. Chhota bhai stunt .. Chhote bhai ki baat nahi manega kya ??
NP, KB & RS giving back to nature what they had from it. (hope ppl present in the party understood what I mean).
KB going missing in the night.

All in all it was GREATTTTTTTTTT FuNNNNNN…

2006-06-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Mission Impossible

Hey, hold on .. I m not talking about any of my assignments or tests ... Mission Impossible is all bout the movie I saw tonight.. MI 3 .. awesome one ('cos I have not yet paid for the same). Finished up wid my xams & assignments (long time pending) today, so decided to freak out.. Now that I am away from all so called Moh - Maya , so decided to watch a movie instead of visiting the most frequented Beasant Nagar beach. The movie selected was MI 3 .. theatre - Sathyam ...

The actions shown in the movie were ekdam fundoo.... after watching them my weird mind started thinking in Tom Cruise way but in Desi style.. that if in any of the lectures U just miss the time the Lecture would start, all doors get locked from inside, no one allowed to enter the hall.... U reach there , doors locked, but want to attend the lecture desperately, 'cos this would be the last lecture you could afford to miss, and if missed U are out of college.. U know this fact .. and U decide to get in .. and then Bang !!! two windows broken and I am in .. ( pls dun forget to humm the MI theme) .. kaisa laga ??

One more thing movie made me think about my college .. Tom's Visit to Shanghai... every Great Laker ( 14 Great Lakers were spotted in theatre) just freaked out 'cos these days we could very well relate ourselves with China ( we have chinesse as credit course) ....

I m impressed with the technology used so much that to make a difference I am planning to join Mumbai Police now :-) ....

2006-06-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

On A Lighter Note

Term1 is about to get over now... done with 3 paper .. 2 still to go... just viewed the blog... long time, no post... so decided what can be done best in this very little time.. so resorted to the best available option... 'copy' ; 'paste'....... just posting a Joke .. hope it relaxes U a but, 'cos it worked for me atleast....

Read This :

A High School Boy once found a book in the school library whose cover read "HOW TO HUG" was delighted to take it home.
On opening it, he was disappointed to discover it was volume seven of an encyclopedia.

2006-05-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

No Smoking Zone

“Smoking Kills” - sooner you realize this fact is better for you and society.

I know why ur brows are raised up & u about to say ‘Look who’s talking’, but for all you guys who” not aware of my stint, this is for you… “Its been 3 weeks today … HATTRICK !!!” that I have quit smoking.. and I wish I get the opportunity to celebrate HATTRICK in terms of months , years & decades….hey do pray for the same…. I would like to use this forum to thank Priyanka, for motivating me enough to take this decision .. Thanks Yaar…

Also , 1 more thing to share .. Our Entrepreneurship Development committee’s first entrepreneur venture of starting Amrit da Dhaba in our college campus will successfully complete 1 week today, sahi na….

Hey guys pls do spread the word about ill- effects of smoking and request people around you to give up with this habit, as it does no good to individual and society on whole….

2006-05-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Fun + Learning = Great Lakes + Accounting

For sixty years, over 480 million players from around the globe have played this extraordinary game.

Guys, I am talking bout the Monopoly (Business) game; the longest of this game ever played was 1,680 hours long. That is 70 straight days! … These are few facts about the game around which this entire blog revolves.

Today we had an opportunity to play this game.. courtesy : Mr. Raghu Iyer (Our Financial Accounting professor) … This Prof. is really amazing , never came across someone like him…He is C.A. by profeesion , I bet his practice must be real successful yaar… and he is teaching at S.P. Jain Institute as well .. He introduced the real concept of Fun – Learning….

In order that the funda’s explaining the terms : Assets , Liablities, Profit, Loss, Mortgage, Income, etc. and all go hit directly our left and right part of the brain with the major impact .. we were made to play this game … Boy, and it was really Fun – Learning .. sab concepts clear.. hey but dun ask me to explain U the same…

Now, some confessions : We managed to misguide Bank in the chaos created during Auction & managed to buy property at much much lesser value… We also managed to collect more than the said rent from 1 team not only once but twice… Our Objective in doing all this was not to gain more money or make profit… it was just to make people educate about the fact that …. While doing Business deals, you have to be alert and never underestimate any 1 …. I dun knw why U guys simply dun believe me …. But srsly yaar.. tell me after all these philosophy classes, why would I crave for this Maha – Maya called Money . (yeah, hope my philosophy professor is reading it). :-)

But, srsly yaar ….. it was real fun playing & learning … and also self – realization … after looking at the profit made (minus the gol-maal stuff), which happened to be max. in all the groups of our team, I think that I did true justice by joining Entrepreneur Development Committee… :-)

2006-05-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

1st MBA Assignment

Ever heard of an Academic Adventure ??? I just managed to have a close encounter with the same. If you wanna be part of it or experience it then go , join a B-School and wait for the prof. who claims to be the first one to start with the concept of Assignments. Yeah, U guessed it right.. the adventure talked about is 1st MBA assignment , I was lucky to ride on a Economics one, and if you failed to guess by now, then dont even dare to join any B-school.

Dr. Rakesh Singh, our Economics prof., started his 1st lecture with crusaders batch declaring about the 1st assignment to be submitted on 10th May before 10 a.m. ; the topic happened to be National Income & its trends from 1990 to 2005. Believe me guys, I have idea about the term ‘National’ & the term ‘Income’ , but had no idea that when you join them together creates a major chaos. Anyway, it was our Crusader’s first assignment so with full enthusiasm we noted it down, in the class it was announced that the assignment has to be done in group of five, so I believe nobody would have been tensed that minute , ‘cos everybody believed in the other four team-mates, but suddenly the mole seemed to be a mountain when it was made clear that it is not a group assignment & every1 has to do it individually. To make it simpler , I wud say ‘ Waat Lag Gayi’.

Sunday, somehow I managed to get up by 10, was in no mood to start with the assignment work, but had to , so had to get going, reached college, but reality had something else in store for me, no laptop & all the machines in resource centre were occupied by other crusaders, don’t ask me how I managed to collect data, U can say I have developed certain managerial qualities by managing to get Laptop’s from fellow crusaders.

The biggest fight with assignment was that I had data downloaded from various sources and collectively it looked like a collage, wherein 1st paragragph had nothing to do with 2nd one. Guys, imagine 1990 to 2005 , had everything about Indian economy. I remember the comment of my roomie, Ashwin, he was of the opinion that what will I know about economic trend in 1990 , by then I wud have been in 3rd or 4th standard…

Anyway, somehow I managed to complete the assignment by Monday 10 p.m. , yaar imagine, was awake till 4 on Sunday night fighting with data. When I saw guys still struggling with assignment on Tuesday (3rd day) , I concluded that only 2 category people managed to complete the assignment by 2nd day , one who knew everything & the other who didn’t know anything (dun ask me which pool I belong to) , and the remaining guys were those who had fair enuf idea about the topic were struggling on 3rd day .

Hey, if you wanna be a spectator to the above mentioned adventure , then do mail me about your interest, I will send you my !st MBA Assignment and a list of other assignments which needs to be completed……… :-)

2006-05-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone...
Finally got some time to breathe .. and I took this opportunity to blog as well... sahi kiya na ??
Anyway , we have started with our course... as of now classes of 3 subjects are goin on viz. Philosophy, MacroEconomics & Stats... We crusaders feel lucky enough to have the best of Faculty to teach us these three subjects.. Philosophy is being taught by Prof. VenkatKrishnan , frm XLRI , also he is our Director - PGPM ; Eco by Prof. Rakesh Singh, frm NMIMS ; Stats by Prof. P.K. Vishwanath, a legend in himself.....

Under our Philosophy course, we have to do a Karma - Yoga project, guys dont misinterpret it with Instant Karma... (kidding)... but srsly it is no joke ...Initially when this course was started I was really confused as what is this gotta do with MBA proggrame or We as managers, trust me guys, now I have started to realise that the said things do hold good for becoming an effective Leader. Bact to Karma - Yoga, in this we (group of 5 students decided by college) have to help the powerless people and try to improvise their situation, for this atleast 3 hours we are required to spend per week. When done with this part we have to document it and submit a report.

2 days back , we started our activities, I and Gokul ... (hmm my other team mates are Gokul, Sachin, Roshik & Lakshana... ) went to Mr. Felix Ryan, more bout Mr. Ryan.. I found his reference on Google... he was the only guy available doing some kind of social service in the closest vicinity of college and was so obviously my first target... He seemed to be very learned man, probably in his late sixties (www.felixryanh20.com), he was very impressed with our concept & offered us an opportunity to help him, he was of the opinion that the people living in slums around should be educated about the impure water that they are consuming and install a water purification plant, for which he will arrange the funds, our responsiblity was to educate people about advantages of drinking pure water & facilitate the installation of water purification plant, so that our ultimate purpose is achieved. we decided to explore 1 more option and then choose the best

Today again I and Gokul decided to visit an orphanage, details of which were found by Gokul, it was some 8 - 10 kms. away frm our college, so we decided to go on Gokul's bike... I hesitated a bit as I didnt have Helmet , but then realised that I am not in Delhi (where even a pillion needs to hav Helmet) , I am in Chennai da... here even the Rider doesnt wear a Hemet .. forget bout Pillion wearing the same... now this is what India is famous for.. Unity in Diversity.. :-). We reached the place , It seemed like a big house descently maintained frm outside, we were welcomed by Mr. Natarajan, the man behind this noble cause, he seemed to be in his early sixties, we told him about our purpose of being here, he was happy hearing the same... in the discussion he got to know that I am Mech Engineer and I could see a smile on his face, as he also happened to be the same. Immediately our tuning further progressed towards fine tuning.. he told us about his ashram, how he strated it and so on ... off late he also managed to get a land for a new building, and is waiting for certain formalities to get over, so that he start with construction work over there, as of now 25 children are being taken care by him, he has a seperate facility for thim built on first floor of the same house... all of them are of different age group ranging frm 3 yrs. to say 20 yrs. ...a fixed schedule is being followed by these children, they get up at 5.45, do their regular yoga excercises for half an hour, then chant further for half an hour and then start on with routine. Evening after returning from school , by 7 they have to assemble for evening prayer, then have their dinner by 8 & then call off the day... We got the opportunity to meet 5 guys over there, interaction with them made me realise that yes, definately even I can learn many things from them, they were like living with just required facilities but then too they did hav the vision for their life set, it was a real strange feeling to me when MOhan, one among them said, that he wanted to be an AeroNautical engineer, his confidence level was amazing, another guy wanted to be a Doctor, and rest all engineers, and had very desire to do something gr8 for the Ashram who gave them the power to think big.
When we were about to leave, just then a we were told that some guest has come here to visit this place and Mr. Natarajan wanted us to meet them, The Guests were Mr. Lobhanathan who had come there alongwith his son to distribute sweets to the children there on occasion of his son's birthday, the moment was really heart touching, read about this same scene many times & had seen it in movies, but was witnessing it for first time, the happiness distinctly visible on faces of children assembled there to wish Mr. Lobhanthan's son Birthday wishes & the content on the son's face while distributing sweets could melt any normal being's heart ... after wishing the birthday boy, we discussed with Mr. Natarjan about our next visit and left back to college...

I know its a lengthy blog, but yaar baar baar time thodi milta hai.. mauka milte hi chauka maar liya... in simple words .. u can call it Chance pe Dance......

2006-04-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

The moment I was really looking out for since 3 yrs , i.e. the day when I wud be a part of a reputed MBA programme has finally dawned upon me. I feel lucky to be part of Great Lakes Institute of Management based at Chennai.I could not have asked for a better deal.

Our Course was inaugrated by Mr. Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft , does this Personality need any introduction ?? anyway still for your update he is an Engineer from IIT, was part of Brain Drain trend(Crusaded to U.S.) then, did his MBA frm the very sought after B-School 'Harvard' .... sahi na... anyway but I must say 'Boy, That Guy has something in him... I bet none of the 160 Crusaders might have missed a single word of his...

Yes, our batch of 160 students is named as 'Crusaders',the previous 2 being 'Pioneers' n 'Junior Pioneers' .. cool na .. now u can relate my blog name with contents...

Mr. Ravi is of the opinion that working for a noble & larger cause is all what makes the difference. Capt.Gopinath of Air Deccan , Ambani family's contribution towards Reliance Infocom, and many more.. The point was that these guys started a mission to ensure that a common middle class man, whom you can found in abundance in this great nation, is benefited.
His insights on many critical issues helped all the Crusaders reassure of their perspective towards the corporate scene. I thank him for all what he said in those 15 mins. Then after that he even promptly replied the questions that were tossed towards him. 1 critical issue was touched there, when Mr. Ravi was asked to comment on the reservation issue which is hot topic these days..... On this he replied that If this happens this would surely lead this progressing nation who has made it to the 12ooo points (sensex) in remarkable time, towards flashback i.e. the concept of Brain Drain again.

Uncle Bala, the honorary Dean of our college also addressed the crowd, he had a very interesting concept to share. He compared Lord Ganesha with an Excellent Manager. To explain it, refer the image, it expalins you all.