The annual rank prank has started...

This year too BWorld has unfurled its B school survey...The others will promptly follow and before the confusion mounts like it usually does...Let me attempt a blog entry on this...

The B School Ranking Game never ceases to amaze me...
I for one find it next to ridiculous that all these reputed magazines year after year agree to disagree in their quest to order the top b schools in the country...
Is it infact the monetary undercurrent that finally decides the rankings...or am i being too cynical..
This brings me to the vital question, Are these rankings worthy of being yardsticks by which the mal-informed can decide their schools of pursuit?
After some mulling over on this issue...I have come up with my take on this entire process...Ofcourse this comes with the standard disclaimers and the conditions apply tag...
The rankings game needs to be viewed as a good source of information of the structure, approach, opportunities, unique features etc, of the top b schools in the country...They are more like bulletins of the b schools encapstulated into one...
Here again, one needs to take into account the fact that the various mags dont necessarily focus on the same schools, and even if the spotlight falls on the same school the aspects that they highlight are not the same...So in that way there is a lot of information from these sources. It is pretty much like how the opinion polls end up being sources of knowledge regarding the candidates in the fray rather than clear indicators of the favourites in the elections.
The other point of consolation is that, the survey also atleast gives us parameters to base our judgement, Even if we dont necessarily have to give any credence to the ratings ON those parameters.. And again some of the parameters are unique to each of the mags...So...we might be better off concentrating on the parameters and their relevance to our career.
My take on the whole exercise is that it would be prudent to take the rankings per se with a pinch of salt..and to focus on the details that the ranking methodology has brought to light.What might connect to one person will seem to be of perfunctory interest to the other ...And the familiarity that one gains about the institute and its way of functioning through these surveys might help prospective b schoolers throughout their 2 years there...One point though..The generally conflicting surveys though seem to agree on a group of schools being better than another group and so on..Those points can be taken..
I still am an avid reader of these rankings only cus they provide without fail..Information..and to quote a tamil movie...Information is wealth...
Alteast when intrepreted properly and in a way that suits the individual...

The verbal equivalent of Background Music...

I read somewhere that attention to detail is what sets apart the great from the good. Well i dont have to let the world know that Mani Sir as he is called with implicit respect...IS in fact the king of subtle attention to detail. Nothing in his movies is EXAGGERATED like Shankar's or maybe even BharathiRaja. But this is not a statement against their movies. The biggest pluspoint of Mani Movies that make them ideal for repeat viewing is indeed the attention to detail which manifests as those deep meaning passing comments that more often than not,purposely, are shunted to the background by either the music or the start of the next scene...So much is conveyed by these seemingly innocuous one liners...The alert can really relish the tasteful humor/ profound emotion that these background dialogues add to the already poetic scenes.
One fine Example is the word "Paranoia" that is so feebly heard in the pre marriage scene of Alaipayuthey....
Dont wanna go into more details or give examples since that is for the reader to spot,savor and cherish...
The next time one watches a Mani Movie or indeed any good movie, one might look out for the Background OneLiners...Indeed the Extra layer of dialog is like an extra layer of cream in a delicious sundae..Why not lap it up....

Kar(t)-nage...

Well...It was one helluva high speed crash...acutallly 3 helluva high speed crashes...
For a guy who is so used to driving a mobike...some one shud hav said thrice that the right leg presses the accelerator and the left leg the brake...To the lesser knowledged its the reverse in the bikes i hav driven...
Being one of the Speed mad..i dint bother pressin the brakes once durin the 4 laps due to which i had 2 bumps ,one with a frnd of mine Manu which sent me reeling into the tyrewall, and one more with the racer's best frnd itself..The tyrewall....
These 2 incidents shud hav incited my left leg into action (To press the brake) wen the laps were over and the others were parkin the karts after the finish line...But being a fool of the highest order...i pressed the accelerator HARD to try and stop the slowing Kart....wat happened...one of my colleagues...was reclining in his stationary kart, removing his helmet.....my kart hit the kart bang at its back...well...hard enuf for the helmet to just fly off into the tarmac...and needless to say..he has quite a stiff back now...
Well...Folly, Madness...I am all that impersonified...am lucky to not be a murderer now;)

p.s
But the accidents were FUN...it gave me 'kick'...though the last incident was more a kick in my well formed rear....hey am being decent and not using nasty language..

Indians were being Indian yesterday...

This post is not an immediate REACTION...this is not a reactive and irritated and frustrated outburst...The tears and the disbelief has been shed in the wee hours of today...
25 seconds could well have seperated the Indians from the medal...
When it comes to matters of the brain and mental Sharpness..Few can beat the indians...The US junta should vouch for this and this is no discovery...INDIANS are the "brainy bunch" of the world...
But when it comes to Matters of the MIND and mental strength...
am sorry to say Indians including this mortal are NOT strong and are not in control of their thoughts...
Is it due to their society and the way parents PAMPER and carry children in their shoulders till they grow up? This mite directly affect the mental strength...
Is it due to the passionate and emotional nature that can be attributed to the middle class and the sense of NOW or NEVER that generally is associated with them?
Intellectually Class, Mentally Mass.,that is the middle class...
When it comes to pressure and hanging to the edge of the cliff...the fall scares the Indians...
Is it because the consequences overwhelm us and we tend to thus focus on the result when the focus ought to be on the process?
Yes to all of these...
Fear of failure is India's greatest Nemesis...
Trust me a LOT OF IT holds with me also...I am victim to a lot of feelings that i have documented...Trust me it hurts to know our short coming and not be in a position to do anything about it...
Maybe we should just deliver and not think...
Maybe Indians should start being driven by Reason and not emotion...
But isnt that asking for too much?
Is a revolution in the operational process of the indian mind and psyche possible overnight?
I for one am trying to believe that we will have wake up one fine day mentally strong...But that is the pessimist in me talking..I am hoping against hope a process of achieving mental strength will be in place soon..both at the personal and the national level...The process will be different for different people but the basis cant be too disparate...
Till then its a case of conscious incompetence with regards to mental strength...
One sure conclusion...
Well...the focus has to be in the matters of the mind...That is the only path towards that elusive medal in sport and SUCCESS matching potential in all walks of LIFE...

Awareness is the zeroth step...We are at ground zero now...
Lets build the great STRONG Indian Mind...

Doubles jeopardy...

Why? India is again biting its nails in hope and losing sleep over its dear and notorious double(s) dynamites...
If there is an example of self destruction and being the architect of one's or should it be two's own doom..it is these two...they had the world at their feet...they chose to bicker...and life was never the same after that...Now age brings with it wisdom and an inclination to compromise...Sense seems to have prevailed over its sick alterego..ironically EGO...they are back and more importantly BACK TOGETHER...in all senses...the chest banging is back..lets hope only their chests and nothin else clashes between the two;)
An olympic gold is within reach..It never has been this reachable for indians...But...The mind should not play monkey again...For the sake of not being ridiculed...they better be sensible...
and PLAY to potential...Well...the only rivals they have is themselves...If that realization dawns on them...India can expect a new dawn...History is there to be created...But sadly, history also records BLACK events...lets hope they dont repeat history but create it...
My gut says india smells gold...Lee and hesh already are biting the egdes of the medal...
The world is watching...India anticipates...They better do it...

This dark Indian Cloud too has a Silver Lining...

Yo..One achiever...Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
One billion proud indians ,This time too a brave heart has shouldered a nation's hopes and salvaged Indian Pride which was well an truly on its way to oblivion..To use a phrase from the land of the olympics...This was a herculean task and hats off to him...
Glory and Glee is often immediately followed with a sense of introspection and evaluation...
Can't India manage more than one medal....Popular and Woefully cliched statements like "1 billion ppl can manage one medal" start to filter their way in.....
Well We jus are gettin greedy.. With the sort of infrastructure that the indians are provided with...It needs a miracle to win even these medals....I read somewhere Suma Shirur had to fund her training in Europe...Sick state of affairs...
Well, until india starts to pool in and use money better, Rathores and Malleswaris will be few and far between...
Their achievement is even more creditable if you consider the odds they have to counter and the cynicism they have to endure... Orphans studying a post graduation...Thats the analogy i can draw for this achievement...
Well...India has 3 orphans who have finished their PG without much support from the system...
Isn't it time some one volunteered to parent them?
Rich people and MNC's need to come out of their obsession with cricket and need to invest some money atleast in the other more expensive and infrastructure demanding sports.
Rathore should merit endorsements for life from all the so called giants...So too should the top sportsmen from the other "promising" sports...
Its about time all the meritorious and hardworking sportsmen got more than a ok paying job with a government organization. Its about time india grows out of its money hungry tryst with cricket... Its time the press covers the other sports and throws the spotlight into the lesser popular sports and sportspersons...
There has been an improvement over the last decade and the results reflect that...But the flow of funds should be more like a flood rather than a trickle...
Well, an awareness in this respect needs to be created and the other sports must be covered at times other than the olympics and asian games....

Well, India's supposedly best ever contingent has to deliver more...But the heartening thing with this silver medal is....HARDWORK AND PERSEVERANCE STILL WORK....
that is the thing to take home for all of us...

It's a new start

Well....Blogically speaking i shud hav blogged long time back... But well...Thats me...
Ok..now that i hav started..let me try to make it readable...To cut all the crap and put it straight..i will post whatever i feel on whatever it maybe.. Surely it wont make too much sense to the erudite...or for that matter the rocket scientists or the chief economists of the IMF..
It mite be total crap or at best opinionated,biassed stuff...But one thing i will promise...it will be mine ORIGINAL UNADULTERATED crap...so..that in itself is a brand...

Ok..put ur hands together in prayer....A blog is born...

J