Singapur - Ek Desi ki Yatra - I

With a bit of free time at hand,I have generously decided to unleash the tyranny of my spam mails onto the World Wide Web. It is to be noted that these mails have graced the inboxes of a few (many ?) kindred souls in the recent past. Buoyed by the success of these mails (Don’t ask for statistics, believe me!), I hereby wish to write here, with a few modifications.

Greetings from Camp Singapore (Couldn't Resist this!)

After a brilliant Hindi film climax like situation, I arrived in Singapore. The only difference was that I was trying to decide as to who was the villain. Me and my commonsense were trying to vie for being the Mugambo of this well crafted, unceremoniously shot movie titled “Singapur – Ek Desi ki Yatra”. I shall shed light on my innocence (read: Ignorance) on some red moon day. As for the film, you should lower your expectations considerably, because it has all the offerings of a nonsense flick, unless nonsense makes sense to you. Whatever be the case (and since you have already read so much), I shall take you through the movie, starting with the “Entry”

*Music in background, foreground etc*

With his head held high, he steps into the Changi International Airport (It was preceded by a few hours of frantic calling, cursing and wtf moments as he did not have a Visa to enter Singapore, 6 hrs prior to the scheduled departure). But since he is the Hero, he always manages things at the last moment, overcoming the evil designs of the villain (That would be me again). He smartly boards the SMRT, and gets off at the station near the university.

But his evil adversary, who would be my commonsense again, won the battle. He boarded the wrong bus and ended up in another part of the campus. Not bad you would say, if you omit the fact that he had to drag over 30kgs of luggage for the odd kilometer at midnight. Anyways, reached and crashed onto my bed.

*Suddenly remembers he is a business student, and he is making a movie & gets haunting images of Choti making Dhai kilo ka haath dance . Decides that like a true powerpoint bhakt, he shall now write in bullet points only !

Had our orientation and met almost all the exchange students on Campus, about 170 of them. I won’t bore you with the list of countries, but met people from Iran, Bangladesh, Norway, Sweden, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Denmark, Philippines, Netherlands, UK, US, Canada and a few Desis too!

Later in the evening, we went out with an American and Phillipino to 7107 Flavours, a restaurant dedicated to Philipino cuisine. Rowena ordered all the food and it was brilliant,

Geeky stuff: 7107 is the number of islands that make up the Philippines. Hence the name

As Chacha would like it, a few key learnings or Constructs from my first days here

1. It’s very easy to talk to people if you know about their History, Culture and Music. Though I am hopelessly challenged with the latter, I do a decent job at the former. Its good fun to ask a Swede why there is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics and he wouldn't know. You tell him and he will remember you for sure

2. Having varied experiences helps a lot. I am a Mechanical Engineer, with IT work Experience, Studying Communications management, majoring in marketing and thanks to mathew have some knowledge of social sciences. Breaking the ice becomes much easier.

3. Indian currency - Koi Izzat nahi hai .. Such a weak currency :(

4. Whenever abroad, make travel plans with Firangs. These people have traveled so much that they can work out plans with shoestring budgets.

As I wrapped up my first days in Singapore, I had a feeling that I am in for a good time. And did I? Well, keep watching this space for the same.

Anatomy of a B school Class

Though I can endlessly talk about how is life at MICA ( I do promise to dedicate a post to that, now that I have actually pulled myself to writing a post), beyond the hallowed portals of any good school and the rosy picture all aspirants create in their heads, lies a harsh reality which mere mortals like me have to confront on a daily basis. A picture which has all the emotions of a bollywood potboiler power packed in a matter of 90 minutes. Its the apparently exciting portrait of a regular class, which is supposed to be an event where work experience is leveraged in class participation, insights are obtained in moments of truth and collective learning is a way of life. Fortunately, at MICA most of the classes are somewhere near to what I just described. Fortunately( which gives me an opportunity to break my blog coma), some are not. I would thus like to bring to you some startling findings in light of my recent experiences and complex analysis of my study. ( I am getting better at pffaf!)

Lets switch from my gyaan to our lovely bodies. The human body has a few organs like the appendix. These apparently serve no purpose. But they still have the ability to cause immense pain and suffering. A boring class is just like the appendix. The purpose of its existence is yet to be fathomed by innocent and naive students like us. Maybe its a part of some larger order of things , maybe it is a part of the grand design. As of now, it just gives me an opportunity to wonder as to why we are trying to relive Auswitch.

The Boring Class can be broken down into its respective organs, namely

1. The Brain: Considered the most vital organ for meaningful existence, the faculty assumes the position of the brain, who has suffered from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, selective amnesia etc, and yet considers himself indispensable for the ideological upliftment of half confused half dazed bunch of pseudo intellectual morons, who are wondering where did Herbert Spencer go wrong with Survival of the fittest theory?

2. The Heart: The Subject. Which we are subjected to and later subjugated to. Its just a humongous cute kid who just ends up being caught in the wrong body. It tries pumping sense into the brain, knowing very well that its all it can do. But then , the heart has reasons reason knows nothing of.

3. The Rest of the Body: Obviously, the aforesaid morons. I wont go into vivid descriptions about these mutated earthlings. But each of us can assume specific parts, as I shall deliberate later

Brace yourself, the giant monster of this body is up. 9:00 am

The brain decides that it his noble duty to ensure that the body parts function effectively. So it starts off its discourse. Now, as they say, do baatein ho sakti hain.

Baat 1

Its a monologue. The supreme being has decided that today is an extremely important topic and discussions may lead us to a bottomless pit of uninformed opinions and half baked concepts. The faculty exercises , what I call the " Learned mans burden" and goes on to enlighten our tottered souls with pearls of his wisdom. Meanwhile, the heart is about to go into cardiac arrest. The body parts have lost all sense of what is happening around them, and thus they speak ( equivalent to passing notes in class)

I feel like a soldier who is in the line of fire, the first regiment to face the enemy attack, to face the first bullets.

This man is the personification of the word ennui. His voice lulls me into a sense of absurdity and non sensibility and I write statements like these

My chief organ - the brain is reorganising itself if he goes on another 5 minutes talking about organisational restructuring

How would you like to die !

He is going to break the record for the longest pauses between sentences.

The last nail in the coffin! All I wanted was diagrammatic gas

This is a dark, dark world we live in. We have all been caught for thought crime and this is our punishment.

And then, when it becomes too much to bear

The Lord compels me to call upon the pro literate to punish the sinner, the wicked man, the child of Satan, because of whom, the hour of doom is upon us. Arise, awake and stop not until the death of our minds is bereaved

With all this and everything else, the poor student suffers from the Buttered CAT paradox. Most of you will not click on an embedded link, let me provide an explanation.

The Buttered Cat paradox is combination of two adages:

• Cat always land on their feet.
• Buttered toast always falls on the buttered side down

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.

As the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state of hovering a short distance from the ground while rotating at high speed as both the buttered side of the toast and the cat’s feet attempt to land on the ground.

The Poor Student Paradox ( by yours truly)

• You will feel sleepy in a horrendously boring class
• The faculty will only catch you sleeping amongst all others
  

The poor student is forever stuck between falling asleep, thus saving him from the agony of seeing his IQ getting sucked up slowly and being awake so that he has the most important commodity in a b school: Attendance. He thus goes into an infinite loop of battling his own thoughts.

Somewhere in between the class ends. Amen

If you still remembered that there is a Baat 2, hope that I post again.

He Amen : Mastur of the Universe

Someone asked me the other day “What does one do to stay motivated?” Unfortunately, the person in question was blissfully unaware of my current state of affairs at work. So there was hardly anything I could tell her. I was killing time at office, reading random stuff from the net. I chanced upon an article which was linked to religious extremism. The author had tried to explain that religion does play an important part in pushing people to extremism. I was thinking about what religion actually is? And as things were brewing up in my head, I saw the status message of Earth Shattering Researcher. The conversation starts with the “Earth Shattering Researcher’s” status message ( I dont recall it right now )

And since yours truly was absolutely jobless, his mind began to wander and he decided to make these lines into a poem with nice rhyming lines. What eventually turned out was something which was crazy,unpalatable and outrageous. Here Goes

me: I am the crappiest live sage

But I shall never age

and so true is the adage

Life is nothing but a maze

Earth Shattering Researcher: You on something?

me: Which shall never cease to amaze

Yaa I am jobless

Earth Shattering Researcher: No...you took the blue pill

you should have taken the red one

me: No pills for us

Lol

Earth Shattering Researcher: Those are the new craze

me: Never may die down the craze

me: Ahh similar thoughts

Earth Shattering Researcher: your illusions they'll raze

lift you outta the daze

me: and we are mere characters of the plays

Earth Shattering Researcher: and won’t let u be like cattle that graze

me: whose destiny is decided by the days

Fuck

Cattle ..lol

Earth Shattering Researcher:

So during work, why laze?

me: NO work ...so full time laze ...

this organization never ceases to amaze

Earth Shattering Researcher: yah

gotcha!

me: Yup sire bows applauds

Earth Shattering Researcher: See - thats Operation Random Brainfuck

me: Shit .. I thought I was bugged!! No wonder I keep seeing weird people following me all around, monitoring my moves, hacking into my IM conversations, I am sure they are being paid by the government to kill my genius and exploit me for their evil designs.

Santa Maria!! The whole fuckin machinery is into this

Earth Shattering Researcher: What you saw was an inkling of our power!

me: CONSPIRACY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Earth Shattering Researcher: Soon we will have the whole world make silly rhymes and shock them by not rhyming!

Then we can organize the shag-contest in peace

me: Oh Lord your disciples seek you

Earth Shattering Researcher:

They tarry too far from the path

Tell them to seek the pink dildo under the blue neon light

me: For there comes Earth Shattering researcher to wreck linguistic havoc

Earth Shattering Researcher: There will they find enlightenment

me: With his satanic gatherings ..he intends to dethrone you

But thou shall not falter my lord

Earth Shattering Researcher: My blessings are always with you...and for a price, my sperm too

me: Thou shall conspire against you

Earth Shattering Researcher: Go! Vanquish the evil anti-libertarians!

with the power of miserable rhymes!

me: For shagging is a religion beyond any, it surpasses and overpowers the differences of caste, creed, religion and race. It connects people on such a emotional and personal level

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah.. and universal in its outlook!

me: Its the way to salvation ..Encompassing one and all

Earth Shattering Researcher: With a far more important message than any other!

me: The message that doesn’t need any disciples or scriptures to stay alive

we need is built within us

The hormones..Those little angels

Earth Shattering Researcher: A message that wrenches the listeners heart and his penis...and makes them cry out in blessed salvation ... "i have to d"rop my load!!!

blessed is the horny for he shall inherit his father's unused condoms

me: He shall be the harbringer of a great legacy

Earth Shattering Researcher: thus spake the book of playboy

me: and thus the world saw the magic of the HAND

Earth Shattering Researcher:

thus was the yoke of the evil wenches cast off! and the horny slaves became free men!

me: The world went white .. With spluttering all around

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah...the people who came later called it the great stud's flood

me: And it was forever etched in the memory of the believer and the kaafir alike

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah!

me: What havoc could thy lord himself bring upon .the masses

Earth Shattering Researcher: We celebrate that day each year as "Shag day"

and a great contest was instituted on that day in memory of the great and terrible events wrought on that day

me: And for a true believer ..Every day is a shag day . For there is no time of the day to worship thy lord

Earth Shattering Researcher: so that future generations may always remember the power of shag but there are sects that claim it must be done 5 times a day

and some who do it once a week on sunday

me: Sects who claim are the strictest and most devout follower of the lord .. 5 times a day is Ideal

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah

me: But alas!! So dark the Con of man

Earth Shattering Researcher:

so dark the cum of man u mean...

me: Yes thy Believer ..Thank you for getting me back on the path

For our faith for the lord is unwavering.. Our belief rock solid

Earth Shattering Researcher: look no further for thy salvation, its inside thy very own pants!

me: With our dicks head high .. We shall shag away to glory

And the world shall bathe in the shining light of thy Achievements..for we shall be spoken about in folklore

Earth Shattering Researcher: "They were the ones whom the Lord exalted among all other men by teaching the Power of Shag"

me: "They were the ones deemed worthy enough by the Lord to disSEMENeate his teachings"

Earth Shattering Researcher:

oi mamu i gtg now

prof's just come in

cya later

me: This is on my blog now

Sure thing :D

Earth Shattering Researcher: fuck no!

thats blashphemy innit!

at least change the names

me: Hey man i am pretty serious about putting this up

Ahh I shall take my creative liberties

Earth Shattering Researcher: cmon man...u gotta protect ur sources after all

me: Wokay .. One frustu softie engg ..to another bored MS student :P

Earth Shattering Researcher: :D

research assistant

me: ok fine

RA would do

Earth Shattering Researcher: or MS student will be better

me: So much for the Research :P

Earth Shattering Researcher: obscures it better

:P

me: okies sire ..Signing off

The point of the conversation was nothing.But come to think of it,shagging is as much as a religion as any.Like Eastern school of thought, It asks you to look for salvation within, and tells you that you can find all the answers within yourself.It asks you to introspect and battle your own vices.Like the western school of thought, it asks you to let the devil out, and seek solace from a external messiah.All religions have the backdrop of the victory of good over evil, carefully woven into a story when the believer triumphs inspite of all odds.Any religion for that matter is simply a set of beliefs. Whether it’s followed/implemented is a different matter altogether. I know what I am taking is a very simplistic view of religion. But that’s what essentially religion means to most people today. We manipulate it for our convenience, seek it in times of frustration and need, forget it completely in times of glee and use it to as a means to a million ends. People who claim to be religious are either pseudo-religious or are totally unaware what religion stands for. Though I am the follower of “A world philosophy” by default, most people would like to embrace it as it’s convenient. It doesn’t ask you to adhere to a strict routine (If it does, I am blissfully ignorant) , doesn’t spell out the duties of a follower, gives you millions of gods to choose from , allows you an occasional birthday- exam-result-anniversary visit to the temple and you can still claim that you follow a religion. Most of us don’t care though, which is at least right, for we don’t try to perpetuate it. This post probably goes out to those people who believe in the “interpretation” of their religion.You simply use the line of reasoning I used to misuse it. For others, what the heck!! Do I need to make sense all the time.

P.S Title of post suggested by a friend :D

Sivaji Experiences!!

Yes !!!!

I watched Sivaji.

Yes!!!

It was in Tamil.

Yes!!!

It had no subtitles.

Did I enjoy it ?

Well read on.

Now Albert Einstein once very rightly said

"Two things in the world are infinite- The Universe and Human Stupidity, and I am not sure about the Former."

I mean how dare I prove this great man wrong!!

One thing that these software companies are very good at doing is recruiting unsuspecting poor engineering kids and put them through a 2 month ill organised and executed training .As i was battling this very phenomenon, some very good Illad friends of mine ( No sarcasm intended) thought of getting away and bunking.Being the sport that I always am and given my awesome records at Mech Dept @ NIT Surat, I jumped at the idea. They planned to watch Sivaji.It got me thinking.The day I landed in Chennai, I have been seeing the Sivaji mania all around me.Every news channel worth its salt has been going Gung ho about this celebrated man, people paying a thousand bucks for just a show, Sivaji caller tunes, life size posters all around chennai, processions to celebrate the release,Images of people dancing on the streets as well as in the theatre,people coming from China and japan just to watch the first show of the movie, US cinemas running to full houses and people going really really Crazy.
I realised that I need to watch this movie just to see what is the whole mania all about, and not wanting to be the cat ( no not the CAT, you pathetic IIM chasing morons...ahem ahem which includes me too) who dies out of curiosity, i decided to jump into the bandwagon.So our ever resourceful Karthic sir booked the tickets online and my rendezvous with the superstar of the masses was set.

The setting: Abirami Theatre,Purashaiwakkam

The Guys: Ansar(My partner in all my foodie indulgences), Shankar(who always takes notes in class), Venkat(SVNITian, that's an introduction in itself :P) and Karthic sir(The know all do all guy)


The prodigious willing Bakra: Yours Truly

The time:3 30pm show (forgot the date actually)

Due to a horrendous mix up we missed the initial 10 minutes of the movie.Before I start with the movie, I had messaged some friends that I was going for it,here are some of the replies I got, reproducing them as they were

A friend currently posted in Hyderabad said

saale koi kaam dhanda nahi hai kya?

Another SVNITian and victim of the same training process said

Great...Just let me know what you understood in the movie.Great guts i must say :)

A eternally pissed off female JAVA resource at Accenture Chennai, who was left out of the party

I dont care utsav...I DON'T

My younger cousin

U are a deserving Candidate for the Red and White bravery Awards!
U better develop a taste for such films pata nahi kab tak dekhni pade

A very good coll senior and close friend

Gud job bro! I am proud of you

Another SVNITian

I am not at all surprised da.typically you. Audience must have been surprised to see a Phorener among them

Our G8 stud said

Abey u gne completely mad.shit yaar.
Horrendous act.U in some shock.Oh god

A very good SVNItian said

lolz hee hee
I am proud of you .u've done the unthinkable.U re a full blown Anna now
Simbly start lookin for yann moti aunty.

Other than "oh what is this firangi doing here" to " some over enthusiastic movie buff/research student" to "what the fuck!!!!" looks by the junta around,my transition to the theatre was ok.

Finally the Movie

The movie stars Rajni as a NRI who returns to his home state to set up schools, universities and industries etc to help his home state develop.But he faces lots of opposition from a local Don who also runs colleges n other such stuff. So he first tries to do things the right way, and does not get anywhere, so he eventually pays up.But the baddie ensures that his project derails and rajni aka sivaji goes bankrupt. He decides to fight back the baddie and the corrupt system of the country and eventually wins.

Ok this may sound as a very boring and done to death script, had it not been for the following

1. Rajni also comes looking for a bride who is traditional and very much rooted to Indian values.He finds her in a temple and then goes on to woo her.The extent he goes to woo her is simply pathetic.He tries to show of his poweress and has some action sequences thrown in. The movie unfortunately reinforces a huge stereotype about Indian's obsession for fair skin.He eventually gets her

2. How this traditional homely coy girl suddenly turns into a sizzling hot cleavage showing babe in every song and back is beyond me, even keeping the standards of our Industries imagination in mind. Moreover the girl is shown pretty naive to believe anything and everything.

3.The heroes sidekick is Vivek, who is simply a superb actor and has awesome comic timing.His talents lay underutilised.If you can make a non Tamil knowing guy laugh, i consider him a good comedian

4.Technically, the movie is pretty superior. The stunts look very real and well executed.Also the songs are picturised pretty well.Cinematography rocks too.

5.Finally the Rajni touch. The man himself.He adds charm to the movie.He sports 7 hairstyles(maybe more, lost count after a while), wears some outrageous clothes, does unimaginable stunts, imagining them is an achievement in itself, self confessed Bachelor of Social Service(BOSS), his typical way of eating chewing gum, flipping coins, saying COOL n number of times, displaying agility which could put any Kung Fu master to shame and make god himself wonder whether Rajni is his creation and innumerable things i may have missed.I was laughing my ass off during all these scenes and people seemed in awe and were transfixed.Well as HSBC guys say, Different people, Different perspectives.

The reason of this short review is that there is nothing much in the movie to talk about.Its a typical masala movie.
But why does the movie work

Because the masses love it.They see him battling the problems they face daily and succeeds.Too simplistic an explanation?? I cant sem to figure anything else out.And as a friend says" You have to be brought up on this kind of cinema to appreciate it."Well with all due respect, this is my last rajni movie.

It was an experience that is going to stay with me for long.Hehe for different reasons altogether though!!

The Prisoner's Dilemma Demystified

We all have at some point in life faced major dilemmas. The ones which can make your life interesting to say the least, when you would suddenly start to understand that Heisenberg with his uncertainty principles was not such a big fool after all or why was the word vacillating added into the English language. But what concerns us on a day to day basis and seems largely inexplicable is not something that cannot be quantized and is very much tangible. It seems that those geeky scientists who seem to be so preoccupied with their great unsolved problems, weird hypothesis, earth shattering researches and ground breaking procedures also seem to look into the dark labyrinth of the human mind and fish out something so funny, interesting and yet life changing that will leave us surprised. It makes us realize that we are living in a vicious circle. First simplify the complex things and then use science to complexify( couldn't think of a word actually !!!) them. Well the purpose of my post is to allow one to have a peek into the classical prisoner’s dilemma problem and yet demystify it and see its applications in day to day life. For the uninitiated, here is the problem.

The Prisoner's dilemma was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND ( the same place John Nash worked for some time) in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "Prisoner's Dilemma" name

The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:

Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?

The dilemma can be summarized thus:

	Prisoner B Stays Silent	Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent	Both serve six months	Prisoner A serves ten years Prisoner B goes free
Prisoner A Betrays	Prisoner A goes free Prisoner B serves ten years	Both serve two years

The dilemma arises when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to defect from their implied pact and betray his accomplice in return for a lighter sentence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but each prisoner must choose without knowing what his accomplice has chosen to do.

Applications of Prisoner’s Dilemma in real life

Warning: These ideas move from the very serious to the downright crappy!! , so choose your order of reading, at your own risk

The Jews

If you look at the time line of Jews as a community, ever wondered why they had faced prosecution at the hands of various communities without putting up a fight and actually submitted themselves as slaves. The answer may lie in our analysis of the prisoner’s dilemma

Throughout history, the Jews have lived under the shadow of an immense future, believing in the promise of them being the chosen people, of their belief of a second coming. They lived as scattered communities in areas that were hostile to them or around people who initially saw them as a nuisance. Any sort of action, which was either “non cooperative” or even mildly unfriendly was dealt with severely. So they actually had a better chance surviving without putting up a fight or in PD terms cooperating and not defecting

This strategy worked well for two thousand years until they met the Nazis who seemed to have a mania to purge the world of Jews and carried out their systematic extermination for years to come. The hatred they had faced before had been less deeply rooted, or more inconsistent, or less violent.

That’s why today we see a more violent Israel than they had been in the past as Jewish people. The instinctive action would have been cooperation with the Nazis, which would have resulted in their extinction as race.

The Arms Race

The PD scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two states engaged in an arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The paradox is that both states are acting "rationally", but producing an apparently "irrational" result.

Tour De France

Consider two cyclists halfway in a race, with a large group at great distance behind them. The two cyclists often work together (mutual cooperation) by sharing the tough load of the front position, where there is no shelter from the wind. If neither of the cyclists makes an effort to stay ahead, the group will soon catch up. An often-seen scenario is one cyclist doing the hard work alone (cooperating), keeping the two ahead of the group. In the end, this will likely lead to a victory for the second cyclist (defecting) who has an easy ride in the first cyclist's slipstream.

Advertising

Consider two companies A and B. If both Firm A and Firm B chose to advertise during a given period the advertising cancels out, sales remain constant, and expenses increase due to the cost of advertising. Both firms would benefit from a reduction in advertising. However, should Firm B choose not to advertise, Firm A could benefit greatly by advertising. Nevertheless, the optimal amount of advertising by one firm depends on how much advertising the other undertakes. As the best strategy is dependent of what the other firm chooses there is no dominant strategy and this is not a prisoner's dilemma. The outcome is though similar in that both firms would be better off were they to advertise less than in the equilibrium.

Relationships

From my (in)experience about love, the PD is very much applicable. We all have our dirty secrets, the skeletons waiting to tumble out of the closet. What would happen if two people in love want to share some secrets about their past they wouldn’t normally do

The dilemma can be summarized thus: *

	Girl remains silent	Girl shares
Boy remains silent	And they live happily ever after	She will go along thinking all her life that all men are some breed of sexual perverts, with sex on their minds all the time ( err…hmm .ooh ) looking only for relationships as a way to show off his machismo and would be very apprehensive next time she commits.
Boy shares	His life is screwed, he will probably go mad for some time, in special cases turn to spirituality, start some sort of secret society which in extreme cases can lead to mass paranoia or run a helpline for relationship advice or look for another girl	If sensibility prevails, they stay together, with lots of guilt off their shoulders.

* Please see end of page. In case you don’t have the patience to read through or have already closed this window, the above observations are purely speculatory in nature

Engineering Vivas

I can already see a smile on your face. This reminds me of the countless vivas I have given to my really fundoo and esteemed Profs and to the moronic; linguistically challenged maniacally mugging machines called Ad- hocs. Here is a not so unfamiliar encounter of a fundoo ( albeit depressed in the end ) Prof and 3 engineers.

If you have been a true engineer, which I need’nt explain, but eventually will, knows nothing about his field of engineering, is always on the brink of getting into the short attendance list, occasionally making it there too, never did a journal on his own, believes that glass was made solely for the purpose of a glass trace and to taste other earthly liquid delights and serves no known scientific or industrial purpose, studied for the exam on the last night, or even better in the morning, doesn’t know where most of his laboratories are located, ends up sitting in the canteen all day ogling at god’s best creation, his fair draft of human beings after creating, man. He is the enlightened one who sincerely believes that the Vivas are places to learn, show off his spontaneous idea guzzling abilities, undo the work all those poor scientists have done by giving out of the world explanations to the most basic of questions. The very fact the you are reading this shows that you have loads of time to kill .Enough, I am already sympathising for the poor Profs. Back to prisoners dilemma and cut to Viva scene

Moi : Good morning Sir

P: good morning all, have a seat

P: it seems you have copied the readings. These do not match with the experiments we did in the lab .

Classic PD …what should the others do, keep shut and let hope float or bring down the house

E 1 : No sir, these are the same readings……..all others nod ( Huraay!! They have cooperated, I knew I could trust you guys )

Suddenly T1 (topper no 1 aka the Ghissoo, insatiable grade earner and GPA hungry, ready to exploit the system to screw his peers…classic PD again )

T 1: no sir, we have copied the readings from the senior’s journal.

All: ( Wtf!! I think we need to talk …and this one is going to be unpleasant. Hostel main mil…. Saari sincerity aur honesty nikaal denge..It seems he had an overdose of morality and ethics . )

P: I thought so. But at least you could have been honest with me. See T 1 had the courage to at least tell the truth. you $^%)%@)(!_&^@%

All : Its all over, CC pakka, now we shall re enroll in the elite 6 pointers club we have been so proud of, a heritage that will die only in our placement and B school interviews, inspired by 300, we decide to fight back )

P: anyways, what is the significance of the Nusselt number (don’t bother, neither did I)

T 1: starts off as if he has very few moments to live on this earth and he feels that he must share his pearls of wisdom with the ignorant, early man-ish, unintelligible, gibberish crowd giving him company at the teachers cabin. He follows his divine duty of enlightening us with ideas even nusslet hadn’t thought of, ensuring that his knowledge has a bearing on the generations to come

Prof is beaming, we are feeling like possessed men with blood shot eyes ready for the kill, only to be killed soon by the prof .

The rest is the question and question session between prof and students (physically available, mentally retarded) which might look very familiar to you, so I am not taking the pains to put you through all that

So basically each time the topper defects and the poor others end up screwing their GPA, their life and never the topper. Classic PD isn’t it?

P.S The prisoner's dilemma can be applied in economics, politics and sociology, as well as to the biological sciences such as ethnology and evolutionary biology. And I sincerely hope that coming this far and after being through 1953 words which make some sense, you don’t expect me to know all the above mentioned stuff.

Experiences@MICA

The day started early with me reaching the Mecca of all B Schools -- IIM Ahmedabad. The sight of this red brick structure never fails to instill in me a sense of belief in oneself. I have been to IIM a number of times in the past but each time I experience something new, something changed within myself. It seemed as i am undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, an evolution that seems so ephemeral that it hardly lasts but the impression it creates in me is something inexplicable. One has to be there to experience it, the dorms, the buildings, the crowd, the girls (he he ..Well Murphy isn't always right ... beauty X brains is not always a constant), the whole aura that surrounds the institute is actually very enchanting. It seems I am already in my wandering mode. Coming back to MICA... they had arranged a bus for us and we started off towards our destination. It was a nice sight, two buses full of aspirants in all shapes and sizes, diverse backgrounds, far more diverse interests. This is what i really appreciate about MICA, the kind of diversity we see there makes it not only the very best in the communications field (probably even better than IIM’s), but also probably the most weird and enigmatic people from across the country can be found on campus. Diversity is the most important factor when it comes to actual learning because I sincerely believe that knowledge is what remains when what has been learnt is forgotten. My 4 years at NIT Surat have taught me the same, a days experience is worth a thousand books. We can learn immensely from people around us,all we need is a roving eye and an attitude to learn. Err... arey back in philosophical mode. Fast forward ... 8.00 am. We reached the hallowed portals of MICA and the beauty of the campus was amazing. Red brick structures ( i am fascinated by them ) , well maintained lawns, so much greenery around ( you perverts, I was talking in the botanical sense) , it seemed to gel in so well with the image of MICA I had in my mind. We moved towards the registration rooms and saw familiar faces and got chatting. In the process i realised that I had actually been late for registration with me being amongst the last ones. Anyways we were directed towards our MICAT centers for the test. For the uninitiated, it is the test that MICA conducts to test creativity and divergent/lateral thinking.

The MICAT

The test was 90 minutes in duration and consisted of five sections being word associations, RC and English usage, psychometric test, Maths and DI and finally the Essays. We were advised to stick to the time limits allotted to us, although they were not binding on us. I decided to sincerely follow the instructions and the test went well. The only thing i could not understand was the fact that how were they testing creativity ( other than the Archie- Jughead cartoon strip which we were supposed to fill ) in essays titled " What steps should be taken by the Indian industry to become technological leaders on the global stage " and the feasibility of the manned moon mission of ISRO . I was able to complete the test just in time and I must say was pretty satisfied.

The Group Exercise

Post MICAT went to check out my group, was having a pre lunch slot with 7 members in all. Now the tamasha begins, out of the 6 members, i knew 4 of them very well, ramya from college and the others three from IMS centre. So the GD turned out to be a discussion amongst friends. Among the other two, the girl did well and was very cultured but the other guy some Siddharth was your GD nightmare. The topic given to us was about violent and sexually explicit programmes harming children and steps that should be taken to prevent this. We were given 9 parameters to rate individually first and collectively, post discussion. The discussion started and was going on smoothly until Mr sid felt that he had deprived us of his views and knowledge. He started off with points that were nowhere near rationality. He seemed to me as a megalomaniac who had grand designs on being the leader of the GD but failed miserably. He was the only one who had problems accepting others point of view, forget it.. i am being tooo polished, he was not ready to listen to anyone. At the end of 20 minutes we had boiled down to top 2 choices but sid's participation ensured that we didn’t get down to the third one. I spoke well and would rate myself 8/10 and the 3rd best in the group.

The PI

I was the fifth to be interviewed. I had the same people in the interview panel as i had in my GE. One was tall French bearded guy( industry professional) and other was sari clad fair lady ( Anita.. MICA faculty). Let’s call the FB and FL ... M will be yours truly

I entered the room, exchanged niceties and sat down

FB: So utsav, where other then The Times of India do you write?
M: Sir i keep a blog.

FL: So what was your last post about?
M: It’s about the various interpretations of the song “Hotel California". I like to look at things from different perspectives. Other than the dangers of materialism, it also talks about drug addiction, satanic cults etc (refer previous post for the details)

FL: ok that's interesting, tell me more about it
M: bakar bakar

Now comes the scary part. If you have been to interviews, you know what the following question means. And I don’t think this was asked to throw me off balance.

FB: So, do you want to ask us anything?
M: (WTF, are you insane .arrey bhai inhe koi le jaao, 2 minute ka interview, itni jaldi khatam kar rahe ho..kyun ?? meri shakal itni buri bhi nahi hai.. mera gunaah kya hai .. agle saal phir aana padega) Sir i wanted to know more about MICAvaani.

FL: bakar bakar and thank god she says lets move on .
M: (sigh of relief, felt like a moor, thought would have the last sigh, he he showing my batisisi all around)

FL: So, you are a mechanical engineer...
M: ( arey madam, aap to getting personal ..You seem like nice lady..chodiye naa purani baatein..kahan acads vacads.. sab moh maya hai .. main to yun hi mazzaking..err) yes madam

FL: tell me something about quantum mechanics
M: ( kya.... einstein ki aulaad nahi hoon ..frankly speaking i felt just one thing .. either she knows everything about mechanical engineering and i am a moron or she is just trying her luck ...thankfully the latter was true. So I go on with full confidence) Madam i do not recall anything.
( one thing engg will teach you.. to say no with confidence .... full confidence and zero knowledge )

FL: (seemed genuinely surprised) isn’t it one of your core subjects at mechanical engg?
M: no ma’am, it’s not even a part of my syllabus, we studied this in 12th (which is true)

FL: ok, so tell me about any subject in mechanical engg.
M: ( yahoo!!.. i love open ended questions .... thankooo ma'am ... i realise that you don't know anything about mech engg.... me showing full batisi...pata nahi kucch zyada hi hasn raha tha..shayad wisdom tooth bhi dikh raha hoga) full steamed bakar on computational fluid dynamics

FL & FB : seemed convinced... smiling

now FB going through my form , sees column of parents education

FB: your Mother holds a PhD ?
M: yes sir

FB: which subject?
M: HINDI

FB: he looked so dazed and shocked, as if i had said the most ridiculous thing in the world, as if she had done her doctorate on the marriage customs of the zulu tribes of Africa!! He seemed to be in a trance for a while...i thought..Must be bad at hindi in school ..memories must have started to haunt him ..all those matra and spelling mistakes

FL:( seemed ok with the idea, but decided not to probe further)

FB: so you write for the response feature. have you wriiten anything for the editorial
M: ( arrey bhai ...logon ke baal safed ho jaate hain editorial tak pahunchte pahunchte.. aur main koi shakespere ki aulaad to nahi hoon naa) no sir

Then lots of bakar about what i did at Times of India etc .not posting as all that was serious talk and morover not very relavent to you

FB: so what will you do if you do not get through here
M: Sir i come from a reputed college and have an offer for a job. I will take that up and try again next year at MICA ( this is what i spoke ..and being honest i am pretty serious about going to MICA)

FB: so what do you plan to do after studying 2 years here
M: bakar about my interest in media but wanting to explore the other fields futher..spoke well

FB & FL: ok thank you utsav
M: thank you sir , thank you ma'am

And I came out, pretty satisfied 15 minutes+ interview they seemed happy and content by my answers. I felt they categorize you mentally before they call you in and the interview goes in that direction. They didn’t ask me anything about Why MBA, why a shift from engg to communications, strengths and weaknesses etc. I tried to move my interview towards reading and other extra curriculars but either they were too seasoned or had other things on their minds

Overall I felt good after the whole process and would rate myself 7.5/10 .... Please post your analysis of the interview... and pray!!!!!

P.S that sid guy from Group exercise got screwed badly in his interview for his behavior ...peace at last.