Comfortably Dumb!

Role Models

2012-01-17T03:41:00.004-05:00

As an earlyuser of Google Plus, I have come to love the flexibility and selectivity thesocial network affords me, especially in comparison to Facebook, whose privacysettings I have finally given up trying to understand as they apply to thetimeline format. More on that in a different forum. I started to add companiesto my circles when they first came out with that. And recently I’ve started toadd people I don’t personally know. I call this new circle the People I Admirecircle.

To thiscircle, I recently added Drew Houston. This was in part inspired by readingabout him in the much tweeted about LA Times article (which, by the way, doesn’t reallyadd much to the much circulated Forbes article about him and Dropbox) and alsoin part inspired by his Google+ profile. I discovered that he went to undergradthe same years as I did, albeit in a totally different part of the world! He,and the article, made me think about my years as an undergrad, around the timeI began this blog. I think about my ideas, motivators, priorities at that timeand hold it up against what they are today. If you had told me back then that Iwould be where I am today – literally and figuratively, geographically andprofessionally – I would have dismissed you as an incompetent fortune teller.

bI realizenow the importance of having role models. But that’s just such a genericthought. I wish I had known the importance of having role models for the rightreasons. My undergrad major was driven by my desire to escape computerprogramming. I turned to mechanical engineering because it’s what my father haddone. It was an easy choice. In retrospect, it was a great choice, I loved mycoursework and the skills I acquired. But in 2001, I had no idea what itentailed and what I was going to do with it four years on. Same time, half theworld away, Drew Houston was getting into MIT and thinking about starting hisfirst tech company.

Back then Ididn’t know he existed. Today I admire him immensely, not just because he hasthis wildly successful company that actually means something to a lot of peopleand not just because he has this strong vision of building the next Apple orGoogle. I admire him also because as someone who is the same age as I, he hasshown vision, maturity, motivation and determination to do something with hislife. I think the word I’m looking for is focus. He has remained focused on thething that matters most to him professionally, and given it his all. He’s justone example. There are other thirty year olds I can hold up… or the twenty twoyear old Doogie-Howser-of-the-tech-world co-founder I met a couple months ago;or the Google Guys whom I’ve admired pretty much all my professional life! Incomparison, my own professional history reads to me like a drifting log.

I am stilltrying to figure out what my “thing” is going to be… you know, the thing thatyou were born to do, the one you’ve been preparing for your whole life withoutactually knowing it. A month ago, I stood at (what seemed at that time) a veryimportant, life altering crossroad in my professional life. I had been buildingup to it for a while now, taking certain decisions and choosing a path to getthere. When I finally reached, I threw out the obvious choice and selected anentirely different one to go down (remember the drifting log?). I still can’textrapolate forward the dots in a way that makes any sense. But I now have rolemodels whose successes, failures, tenacity, creativity and focus I can look upto. I am fortunate that my role models are real people, who I could easily runinto at a terminal at SFO. It makes the dream seem that much moreachievable. It makes me believe that I will be able to connect the dots somedaysoon. All I have to do is keep moving forward.

Truth Be Told...

2011-12-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

It has beenan eventful few months. Being the normally reticent person I am (at leastonline), it comes as a surprise to me that I feel this urge to let it all outon this post today. Two months ago, I found out that for me and a hundred andfifty of my colleagues, the end of the year will be our last day at our currentjob.

Since then myemotions have alternated between deliriousness at the freedom from a place thatI had been unhappy at for a while and lost at having to start the job searchall over again. Since then I’ve thought a lot about my work and my time there.Places and people and how much I enjoyed being part of it/them. I think abouthow the excitement of it all slowly morphed into dissatisfaction over thecourse of this year, at the pace of activity and the lack of challenge. Sincethen I have also realized that this year has been a blessing in disguise.

A Darden alumI spoke to gave me the best advice – it is not personal, move on. I have hadthe opportunity to meet with my colleagues since then and I take comfort in thefact that I left at the top of my game, having garnered respect from the peopleI worked with and knowing that they appreciated my contributions at work. Andif I ever doubted that comfort, I have had help and support pouring in fromfriends, ex-colleagues, ex-bosses, neighbors… I am blessed to have this supportsystem around me and I didn’t even know about it. No one gets anywhere withouthelp and I certainly would be nowhere without the support, emails, phone calls,introductions and what-have-you that everyone in my network has been offeringup.

Working incorporate America comes with its own share of risks, maybe more so than workingin corporate India. You have to be competent, driven and constantly performing.But you also have to be visible and audible. But most importantly, atcorporate-anywhere, you have to be good to the people you work with so thatwhen you get thrown a curve ball you have the support system in place to makethe most of it.

Iam looking forward to the close of the year because next year I get to startall over again (more on that in a different post). I get to move to a different city/state, a different companyand get to expand my professional network. My new company has a greatrelationship with Darden and a lot of Darden alumni, and I’m looking forward toconnecting with them

The End of Summer

2011-11-02T19:16:00.002-04:00

I wasthinking about summer vacations from my childhood today. I remember I used tohave one or two months off in the summer (varied based on the school I went to,and I went to a few). Some summers we visited my grandparents, others I went tosummer classes during the day. Funnily enough I remember with great clarity thesummers from my childhood; my adolescent summers, not so much. I rememberthinking back then on the last day of school that I wanted to do something“useful” that summer. I don’t know if I ever defined “useful”. Obviously Ididn’t do much useful back then, else I’d have remembered. I’ve thought aboutthose summers a few times since then and always wished I could get them backagain.

Here in SanFran, I don’t know whether we really had a summer. Sure, we had some brilliantdays but I wouldn’t know much about them if they came from Monday throughFriday. My indicator was the view from my window at work, of the expanse of theBay, of the flights coming in or going out from the airport a few miles south…and then on really clear days, you could see San Mateo bridge in the distance,the unmistakable lopsided arch the bridge makes. I may sound wistful, but Iknow for a fact that even on those days I had much rather be at my desk,working, than anywhere else. Adulthood is strange. You want the vacations, butthen you don’t want the vacations.

And now,before we know it yet another year is coming to a close. I smell winter in theair. I see more leaves fly from beneath the wheels of my car when I drive outthan I did a few weeks ago. The sun comes up later and sets earlier. I love thewinter, especially in California where there is no snow to deal with. Butsuddenly, like the kid back in school at the end of a summer spent lazing inthe sun, I feel like I may have missed out – on perfectly good weather, time,conversations, people. I want to wake up in the morning to sunlight streamingthrough the blinds, sit by the patio with the doors open. I want summer to comeback. I want it to be the beginning of September again, the beginning ofsummer.

Baseball at the Ballpark

2011-08-11T01:47:00.005-04:00

Last week I went to my first baseball game ever. My company holds its annual company day at the games every year, where they take all employees to watch a home game (right term?) at the Giants Stadium, tailgate included. If you know me you’ll know that I cannot be bothered to show up at a cricket game (though there are exceptions to that), and so I figured that I probably wouldn’t go to a baseball game any other way. This seemed like a good introduction to the sport and to understand first hand why this country is so obsessed with this sport even though they think cricket is the most boring game ever.

It is with a degree of amusement that I conclude that baseball, much like its bat-and-ball cousin from the east, is all about the hype and the emotion and less about the game. In fact, I will go so far as to say that baseball is probably the real gentlemen’s game, over and above cricket. There’s no chest thumping, fist-in-the-air declaration of strike/out, cursing at the batsman/striker and fighting with the umpire. The players come to the pitch, do their thing, chalk up their stats and leave. Home runs are action-replayed to the soundtrack of Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life or Van Halen’s Jump or any other heavy-riffed-guitar-playing-hair-band tune. Everyone has a good time, and crowd participation is way better and not resorted to throwing stuff on the field. Unfortunately, no one proposed on the big screen (or does that only happen on tv?)

So now that we have my expert opinion of the game out of the way, I have to spend some time ruminating on the stadium itself. Giants stadium, also known as the AT&T Ball Park, is H-U-G-E! Surrounded by the bay on three sides and downtown San Fran on the other, the view from up where we were was phenomenal. Blue blue ocean, dotted with boats of all sizes and the San Mateo bridge in the distance. It was great to see my colleagues outside of the cubicle setting, and good to catch a break in the middle of the week.

I wish the Indian cricket team would come play a game at the Ballpark. Now that would be a game I would gladly go to!

Missing

2011-04-27T22:54:00.004-04:00

picture from Fall 2008, welcome picnic for CO2010 at Flagler

Being loaded on medication and working in your pajamas gives you plenty of time to think. And be introspective. And acknowledge emotions you have suppressed because of your daily routine of being too busy.

A couple weeks ago, my Strategy professor from Darden, Prof. Greg Fairchild, was in San Francisco to discuss a case born out of his research into social enterprise. We discussed a venture capital firm that believed in investing in companies that brought in a double bottom line – social good as well as the profits. I remember sitting in a class during the first couple of weeks at Darden – don’t remember which – where we repeated in unison to the question, why do you do business – “to make money.” Graduation and plus-one later, Darden has been great about drilling into my head that a business is about more than just the money. I cannot tell you how many times in the last year I have reminded myself of that lesson.

I took a friend with me to Greg’s case discussion. My friends and family being in India, and my own lack of words to describe my experience at Darden, I have never been able to fully share what it feels like to be sitting in a Darden class. So when the opportunity presented itself, I took one of my closest friends to the Marriot for this discussion. Driving back home and ruminating on the experience and the discussion, she told me that that evening was the happiest she had seen me in a long time. At the time I assumed I was just happy to meet a professor whose class was one of my favorite ones at Darden. My friend argued that there was a certain energy in the “class” – and in me – that evening that she had not seen before (and she has known me for over six years now).

This weekend is my first year reunion at Darden and I will not make it there. As I read blogs of current students at Darden, I almost wish I was back there. I’ve realized what my friend was talking about. I miss Darden, so very much. I miss being there, being challenged every day, being forced to think about big pictures and social good and learning life’s lessons. I have realized that my ability to throw myself completely into something I am doing has resulted in me filling up my calendar with “work” things and forgetting about big picture living. And when I am with my Darden crowd – at a brunch, at a case discussion or a happy hour – I come alive, because here are the people that prove to me every day that it was not a dream. That it happened and that I will always have those two years at school.

I stand by my decision of not attending reunion due to various constraints, but come Saturday I will be wishing I was sipping wine at Flagler Courtyard and catching up with friends and professors and the staff at Darden, telling them of all my adventures since I graduated last year.

And the Groom Wore Flip-flops!

2011-04-10T18:56:00.002-04:00

Post backlog...

In February, I headed down to the Florida to participate in my first American wedding, to be a part MV’s very special and very beautiful wedding. It even ended up being a reunion of sorts! A bunch of us from the Bay Area met up at SFO and flew in to Fort Lauderdale together. From there we drove down to Islamorada, the venue of the wedding and the resort where we were to stay the weekend. There we met up with classmates from different parts of the country. And best of all, we had friends coming in from London and Paris too! It felt like Beach Week all over again – lazing by the pool, Bloody Mary’s for breakfast, beautiful sun and ocean… and I even saw a Jelly Fish (now I know what they look like!)

MV, a fellow section D’er is the epitome of grace and everything that’s classic and timeless. And her wedding was just an extension of her personality! The night before the wedding was a barbeque by the pool where the guests mingled with the couple and other friends. It was great catching up with people I haven’t seen since graduation, finding out about their new post-Darden lives and exchanging stories… People seemed happy in their new routines and yet nostalgic about their time at school. The wedding was beautiful; the couple took their vows as the sun set and a gentle breeze blew in from the ocean. MV looked more beautiful than ever, if that is even possible! She was radiant in her wedding gown. The groom wore a casual khaki suit and flip flops! After the ceremony, we gathered at the pier for a picture of the couple with their Darden friends. The couple took the floor for their first dance to lit sparkles and warm fire on the pier. And then a lovely dinner, where MV and CG had ensured that the vegetarians had enough options. Dancing followed and then we hung out by the pool one last time before we left after breakfast with the couple the next morning.

My first American wedding was more enlightening than I’d ever imagined. I don’t know any two people who are as good together as MV and CG. I was touched by their warmth to their guests despite it being their special day, touched by their thoughtfulness (welcome packets of aspirin, beer, granola bars etc) and as always, in all admiration for their beautiful ceremony.

It was a wonderful weekend, one that I’ll remember for a very long time. Best wishes MV and CG! Here’s to a life full of happiness, laughter and love.

No more excuses

2011-02-08T00:30:00.003-05:00

Sunset picture from my window at work

It seems to have become a trend of sorts for me to disappear from my blog for weeks on end and then resurface with a post on an excuse for my disappearance… like anyone’s counting! I won’t make excuses this time. I’ve thrown myself headfirst into my (not so new now) work, into settling down in this (not so new now) city and just generally reconfiguring life and times overall. At some point I even had a nice end of year post crafted in my head all ready to be hashed out on the keyboard but I let it go. Now it seems that the urge to write has built up inside until I finally was able to put fingers to keys to hash this out before Facebook, Netflix and all the other distractions on the interwebs drag me away again.

In the months since I last posted, I have found and made a home for myself in this wonderful area and while not everything has been perfect, I think I have made peace with the fact that that’s exactly how it’s going to be – not perfect but good and definitely something I can work with. I have been trying desperately to get my reading habit back but I’ve had to contend with just reading the California drivers manual!

The weekends have been passing by in a blur of social and home-related activities. In the nesting process, I have a project every weekend that I have to tackle… one weekend it was the linen closet while another it was the bookshelf. Needless to say nothing gets done a hundred percent but I am working on it. Add to that a baking/cooking project and a mandatory me-night that I’m trying to make a habit out of. I want to spend the next few months reaching out to the community at large, trying to get to know places and faces and events around the Bay and discover newer interests and pastimes.

The Darden group in the Bay is a large and fun gang of people and so there have been frequent meet ups and social events. We recently even hosted current Darden students at our respective work places and I’ve had a very satisfying time playing alumnus to students and helping them with my insights on school and recruiting (which is after all the all consuming sole conundrum of business school life). Slowly but surely it is becoming a way of life to make time for Darden centric events – be it phone calls with students or socializing with the D-crowd in the Bay.

I think I am on track in the reconfiguration-of-life project!!

The End of a Long Journey

2010-11-12T18:38:00.005-05:00

... And the beginning of a new one.

I am writing this from LAX as I wait for my flight to San Francisco. Chances are I will continue this on my flight (yay for free wi-fi) and then continue some more from San Francisco. There is a lot to say, and I’m hoping to make up for the silence of the past couple of months. I board this flight today with some small degree of trepidation but also with a fair amount adrenaline rush that can only come at the beginning of a new adventure. I’ve lost of how many flights I’ve boarded in the last six months but I can tell you that this is the sixth city I will be heading to in as many months and hopefully I’ll stay here for a while. As I checked in my mammoth suitcase at the curbside check in a while ago I thought to myself that I’d feel very suicidal if I had to lug it through another airport any time soon! Thankfully it is the end of a long journey that began at Charlottesville and took me to multiple places and people… but it is over finally.

From having zero job-offers to finally getting something I was so passionate about (but didn't realize until epiphany struck), life has changed indeed! In my obsessive search for the perfect job over the past two years (and anyone who has been through the process will tell you it’s a two year process), I have discovered much about myself and not all of it has been flattering. But all of it helped me narrow and broaden my search as the situation demanded. That discovery helped shape my final decision and the subsequent move from the east coast to the w(best!

It is normal to be job-search-obsessed in business school. I thought it was just my class reacting to the havoc the economy wrecked on us. But as it turns out, it is an affliction of every bschool student no matter what the economic climate is. And dutifully job-search obsessed though I was, I will openly admit that it was not without a large dose of self-doubt and the road was not always clean and clear. I will also admit that my ultimate success was not so much hard work as it was just sheer luck. And that is what makes the “success” so hard to celebrate. There are others in my class – some close friends too – that still haven’t found their offers and I know that the difference between them and me today is just dumb luck, a fortnight and nothing more.

I was discussing with a classmate today about our respective job searches and while he has found success too, we both had to acknowledge that we owed our success and sanity to our network of personal and professional contacts. Our alumni base had been very generous to us during our search process, even if just with advice and words of encouragement. Our classmates at Darden have been great with all the support, the couch to crash on or even just over the phone with all the positive cheer.

While my life moving forward is very different from the way I had envisioned it during the summer of 2008, I am pleasantly surprised and very thankful for the way it did turn out. Don’t punch me in the face, but sometimes you just have to trust the process!

On being desi

2010-08-14T22:52:00.002-04:00

Earlier this year, I spent a weekend in DC with a couple my family knows well, who have been like second parents to me while at C’ville. Over filter coffee (Tamil style) one of the mornings, I got to talking about their story of how they came here so many years ago, met and married each other and now had a full, happy life in this country. I wondered who had been their support system when they first moved here, at a time when Indians in America were concentrated in the Universities and the Valley and were not as ubiquitous as today; I had them, and over my three years in America, various other people, who have been my support system to help me settle down. I wondered who was there for them, whether they brought a year’s worth of tamarind from India for sambar and special idli rice and even their filter coffee powder!

Since my move to Florida, I had not cooked anything Indian, and had survived on fruits and pasta and ramen noodles… nothing wrong with it, but when I started craving curries and rotis I knew I had to fix it. At one of my fruit-buying trips at the local Publix, I spotted an Indian. I struck up conversation with him and asked him to give me directions to the Indian store. And as a freebie, he threw in directions to the Indian temple too! So this morning I drove up to the Indian store and within ten minutes I had a basket full of frozen rotis and daals and spices. I got to talking with the store owner and she offered to give me ideas on all the spices and stuff I would need to get my kitchen started. As I browsed through the aisles (there were just two), I savored the sound of all the people shopping there and the various languages they were conversing in.

I have always believed that as someone who cooks a lot Indian food at home, I wouldn’t want to go to an Indian restaurant on the weekends when I eat out. By that same principle, I’ve always tried to get to know non-desi folk at school/work because I rationalized that I left India to get to know people of the world. But today, as I perused the aisles of the store, I savored the little India around me, enjoyed speaking Hindi with the people there and felt comfort and at home for the first time at an Indian store.

I guess no matter how much we try to acclimatize ourselves to our new “home” land – America or Argentina or anywhere else – we never really stop being desi… You could suppress the desi-ness but it comes out in the least expected places and times… sometimes all it takes is the sight of bhindi (okra) and you can almost smell it frying in your kitchen in India. To my desh on its 64th year of Independence, I hope you know that your influence stays strong even so far away.

A Third Summer

2010-08-04T22:39:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I moved to Florida to begin work with a company on a short-term basis. While the move proved more difficult that I had expected – more on that soon – I was struck by just how different the weather here is compared to any of the places I’ve lived at in this country. After a dry, hot start-of-summer at the Ville and a hot-by-day-cool-by-night summer at southern California, the heat and humidity and thunder storm filled weather of Ft Lauderdale is quite a change… and quite reminiscent of Madras.

The move here itself was very last minute – due completely to my own denial that the vacation with the sister had to end! – and therefore not as smooth as I would have liked. My achievement for the week would probably be successfully navigating from my hotel to the office without the GPS and without getting lost! Work, on the other hand, is pretty fast paced and energizing, which is great! I have been on the job for three days now and I am already staffed on an engagement and have deliverables due pretty soon! Work hours are long, compared to any of the places I have worked at before, and I am still trying to squelch the temptation to pack up at 6pm!

Personally though, the move has been challenging. For the first time, I am struck by how much I have relied on my social network and support systems in the past. I am not all alone here – MV, a fellow Section D’er, and her fiance – live/work in Miami and have been a phenomenal source of help and support, especially in the first couple of days after I landed here. But I miss my sister and miss eating healthy home cooked meals. But maybe I should use the time back on the east coast to do a spot of travelling… definitely something to work on.

(obligatory iPhone picture for this post coming soon - how about a thunderstorm?)

A Lament on Leaving... and Arriving

2010-07-15T22:56:00.004-04:00

Since I last wrote, I’ve disposed of more than eighty percent of everything I owned in Charlottesville – things known and unknown – having managed to fit the remaining twenty percent into two suitcases and backpack and made my way across the breadth of this country to California. I miss Charlottesville and everything about it, most of all, the comfort of putting one foot before the other and knowing exactly where I am going.

And then there’s California! Although it’s always great to go back to the Bay Area, SoCal’s a whole different ball game altogether. Hanging out with family is always great and is the reason I’m here to start with. I’m also having a ton of fun playing tourist and although I’m yet to spot a celebrity I take comfort in the fact that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish a celebrity if I sat next to one in a restaurant, since everyone here seems so umm… dressed up all the time! My need to disconnect (something I’d been wanting to do since I got back from Beach Week) has resulted in me not having contacted my friends in the area yet, but I’ll get to it eventually I know.

I’ve been trying to acclimatize myself to normal life, whatever that means. Actually that’s exactly my problem, I’m not sure I know what normal life means. I tried picking up my reading habit again, except that in the two years I’ve been out of the books-scene, it seems to have changed a whole lot. I am trying to get my hands on some fiction because I don’t want to read anything that reminds me of a HBS case, and I can’t find anything on the bestsellers list that doesn’t involve vampires and murder. I think I’ll eventually give up and read the Niall Ferguson book, The Ascent of Money, that’s staring at me from my sister’s desk.

I’ve enjoyed exploring Los Angeles and the surrounding areas and seeing a lot of places that are familiar from the movies. My Universal Studios visit is still pending (the sun here has been scorching), however I have enjoyed going to the Walk of Fame area immenseley (and went there more than once!). No prizes for guessing which star had the most number of visitors around it at any given time.

(End of a) Beginning of the End*

2010-06-17T19:02:00.002-04:00

For the past week or so I have been living the retired life right here in Charlottesville. Well retired might be inappropriate, more like the job-seeker’s life. Every day I drink my morning tea in front of my laptop as I catch up with email, make my incredibly long to do list and post something from my apartment for sale on craigslist.

I experiment with my breakfast – because it’s my favorite meal of the day – and a good breakfast of pancakes and fruit puts me in just the right mood to tackle the day. And then I come to my “office”. There is a bunch of us that comes to school every day religiously to hole up in an LT room and work on looking for work. It’s like going to the office – it builds the discipline of sitting in one place for hours to get the job done, and on coffee breaks I control the calories by walking past the classrooms and the tables laden with delicious food for the MBA for Execs people and hanging out with the other office-goers.

Allow me to whine a little please. I hate packing. Phew, there it’s off my chest. I love travelling don’t get me wrong, and I would happily brag that I can pack real quick when I have to do a trip. But packing for moving is absolutely a nightmare, no matter how many times you’ve done it before (and I have unfortunately done it too many times). I also have started to believe that perhaps my suitcases shrank while they were in the closet these past two years!

I leave C’ville at the end of this month because my lease ends and it doesn’t make sense to hold on to this place any longer. Everyone’s leaving and it makes me sad to watch them go… with some people I feel like I may never see them again and it’s scary and sad all at the same time. I am heading to SoCal first to spend some time with my sister and hope the family-treatment will help settle the chaos that my mind has been these past few weeks. I always have fun when I hang out with my sister and this time we’re planning a west coast road trip which will be great. I’ll move to the bay area next month and just take it from there.

But before all that is the mammoth weekend of packing that’s coming up tomorrow. Wish me luck.

*inspired by this Bon Jovi song called Welcome To Wherever You Are.

My own C'ville Goodbye Tour

2010-05-31T14:41:00.004-04:00

In my last post I wrote about wanting to show my parents around C’ville and all the places I hung out at during my two years here. Last week, we did just that and then some more. I took my parents to eat at some of my favorite joints here, showed them the sights and sounds of some places that were almost second home to me and then also took them to a few places I hadn’t been to for lack of time. From favorite restaurants to hole-in-the-wall crepe joints to the vineyards and the caverns... it's been a week full of picture taking and playing the tour guide!

In addition to showing them around, I have also been doing a few goodbye lunches/dinners/coffees/breakfasts when I can, which has been difficult with them around but I still try. I think the one ritual I will really absolutely miss in “the real world” would be my Sunday brunch/breakfasts (not so much Sunday after school, since everyday has been Sunday!). Just like this morning, I had a wonderful brunch with Oren and some of my other favorite Darden ppl and I tried to stay in denial that I won’t get that again – unless we all turned up reunion (in which case, Oren, can we go to Blue Glass Grill please?) which is a year from now.

I always knew I was lucky to be here in this beautiful town but more importantly among these wonderful people… in fact, I have never found myself among so many like-minded, likable people and as Prof. John Colley told us on our last day of GMTA class, it doesn’t get any better than this. And as I show my parents around and try to relive my out-of-class experiences from the two years, I feel like this is my own personal goodbye tour of C’ville.

My parents leave for California in a week’s time after which I begin my own process of moving there, selling my stuff and emptying out my apartment into my two suitcases and a backpack. I want to keep everything, yet I know I can’t. I am yet to de-Dardenize my laptop – archive emails and documents – and honestly, I’m just procrastinating.

Here’s a picture of breakfast this morning before the Roots left C’ville – that's right, Mimosas with breakfast, because we can!

Graduation

2010-05-24T23:57:00.006-04:00

The view from the day after

600 cases, 8 quarters, countless cold calls, late nights and TNDCs later I am finally an MBA.

Yesterday the Full Time MBA Class of 2010 at Darden graduated, under the encouraging gaze of Thomas Jefferson’s statue at Flagler Courtyard and under a blue-gray sky that threatened to spill over any moment.

First we had the main graduation ceremony at The Lawn in Central Grounds (UVA) where the whole university’s graduating class (ie from all departments) gathered to take their degrees. After a lot of balloon-flying, clapping and hooting, we were finally allowed to shift our tassels from the right side (no degree) to the left (degree bestowed). It was a great feeling to be sitting in that historic place and to know that I will forever be an alumnus of this beautiful and historically and intellectually rich university. From there on, it was on to Darden for our ceremony and to receive the diploma. As I sat there and clapped for all my classmates getting their degrees and later walked up to take my own, it dawned on me that the umbilical cord was finally being cut, and we were free to go out into the world to do everything we dreamt of when we came here.

We went to the grand staircase outside Saunders Hall right after the ceremony to take our picture and then it was pictures time with the family, friends and whoever we could find. One last grand Darden bagged lunch later, I was home.

After a lot of confusion on rain or not, I was so happy that the rain decided to wait until after the ceremony. In fact, as we finished our pictures at the grand staircase, the first big drops of rain started to fall and by the time my family and I made it back to Ivy, it was pouring in earnest, as it can do only in Charlottesville.

I’ve had a night to sleep over this new status as an MBA and Darden alumnus. Somehow it refuses to sink in. I woke up this morning expecting to feel different, but I was disappointed. I was the same person, still unable to function without my morning tea, still basking in the wonder of having a United States driver’s license and still very much in love with Arch’s FroYo! Somewhere inside me I know I’m now different, much better than the person I came here as, two years ago. On the outside I am still me, cringing that yet another goodbye is here, wondering when the stability I have craved for but always avoided will come to my life.

This morning I earnestly missed my Darden friends, wished I had another day of trudging through the school for a class, yearned to call some folks for coffee at our favorite coffee shop at Barracks Road and as I type this out, I’d rather be hanging out at Italian Villa cracking jokes with the gang than in my room going to bed before midnight. Real life calls, but I will always treasure the friendships and adventures this place has allowed me to have.

This morning, as I drove my parents around my favorite places in C’ville, I couldn’t help but think about all the people in my life that made this incredible journey possible. From support, to essay reviews, to just their time on the phone/messenger/person when I needed it. The list is too long, but this roll of paper that is my diploma would not have been possible without their support.

Dear Darden, you will be missed, but I will cherish the title of being a Darden alumnus for as long as I live.

Beach Week at the OBX*

2010-05-24T23:31:00.002-04:00

*post backlog - late post
I spent the last 5 days of my Darden life at the Outer Banks in North Carolina on the Darden week-before-graduation tradition known as Beach Week. The whole class heads down to Nags Head and rents houses by the beach. It’s a week of relaxing, partying, hanging out with classmates for perhaps the last time. It’s the last week of the crazy lifestyle that business school has been. And it didn’t disappoint. After the mad pace of the last two years, my five days at OBX were just the opposite, from early morning tea on the patio gazing at the sea, to late night movies and wine with breakfast!

I was in a five bedroom house with a few other people. We had a large living room, fully equipped kitchen, a pool, hot tub and plenty of great views of the ocean. We spent our time between the various houses, cooking and eating and hanging out by the water… One day we went to explore some sand dunes but for the most part we lay by the waters (pool, hot tub, beach) and hung out in other ppl’s houses playing board games or cooking/eating.

While the first few days were cloudy, rainy and gloomy – best way to enjoy a seriously dangerous LASA party – the last two days were beautifully sunny and going by the tan I returned with, we really made full use of those days. By the last night at OBX, my housemates and I decided to skip the last official Darden party at the Pit, and stayed home for a pyjamas and movie night.

We drove back via Richmond late on Thursday and stopped for dinner at the Capital Ale House – a place I highly recommend for their large variety of beers. We also decided to surprise a friend’s boyfriend at the airport.

My folks get in town Friday night, just as graduation festivities begin at Darden. Graduation! Can you believe it? I can’t!

Pearl Jammed!

2010-05-14T18:43:00.006-04:00

In what has been a fantastic year – musically – for me, I managed to get another item checked on my wishlist! Yesterday I - along with regular concert goer and friend Nacho and a Peruvian exchange student - went to watch one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, live in concert as part of their Backspacer Tour at Jiffy Lube Live (formerly Nissan Pavilion) at Bristow VA.

Expensive ticket rates and a quickly falling cash balance had me wavering on the decision to attend this concert. Back in undergrad – which seems like a whole different era ago – I’d sworn to a friend that if either of us ever had the opportunity to attend a Pearl Jam concert the person would make it and send the other a picture of the ticket stub! While I have been out of touch with that friend, the temptation to experience something like this was too tempting. SO I gave up, asked the voice of good sense to shut it, and bought my ticket to go; and it was the best decision I could have made!

Eddie Vedder and his lead guitarist, Mike McCready, were on a roll yesterday. They played a lot of songs from the Ten album, which made me and the crowd really happy, in addition to some of my favorite tracks from the avocado album. Eddie Vedder talked about Haiti, Sean Penn, Goldman Sachs and aeroplanes in between the power packed performances. I think Mike McCready clearly stole the show with the awesome guitar solos. My favorite moments were when he played the guitar solo for one of the songs holding the guitar behind his neck… and the 8-minute rendition of Black.

I have to also touch upon the arena and the overall experience. It was the atmosphere I had read about and watched on tv. Tailgating before and after the concert, lots of colored hair, lots of alcohol (and some funky smelling cigarette-things too) and general rock-spirit. Although older now since my days of wanting to do this, it was great to just watch all of this first hand. The arena was smaller, with plenty of parking and vast expanses of grass.

The music enthusiast Pearl Jam fan in me was very very happy yesterday!

Set List: Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, World Wide Suicide, Got Some, Brain Of J, Save You, Given To Fly, Present Tense, Down, Unthought Known, Insignificance, Even Flow, Comatose, Faithfull, All Those Yesterdays, Black, The Fixer, Do The Evolution.
Encore 1: The End, Just Breathe, Garden, Why Go, Wasted Reprise, Life Wasted, Blood / Atomic Dog.Encore 2: Better Man / Save it for Later, Spin The Black Circle, Alive, Sonic Reducer, Yellow Ledbetter.

Red to Green

2010-05-14T18:12:00.002-04:00

The importance of being idle.
It's been nearly a fortnight since I’ve been done with school. Last Monday I turned in all my papers and projects and finals. Last Monday, for the first time in two years, I turned my GTalk chat status to green. And that’s significant. You see, after being busy for two years, with always something or the other to look forward to, it is really weird to see nothing on my outlook calendar now (except golf lessons and social engagements).

I spent the first few days of freedom not knowing what to do and just really getting annoying with the slow pace of the clock ticking! A group of us have begun golf lessons but the rains have been ruining our plans for the last three days now. Several brunches, dinners, coffees later, I see my cash reserves depleting faster than I can control. I have also been trying to make sense of all the stuff I have collected over my two years here, all the way from the four foot stack of cases and course packs, to tee shirts to magazines and a bunch of other odds and ends. It’s unbelievable how much stuff I’ve accumulated. I discovered things in my closet that I had forgotten I had. Darden’s last Outreach program of the year was the clothes and food drive and I managed to give away a bunch of gently used shirts and sweaters away – I figured if I had not worn them in the last year, I probably was not going to miss them either!

This week a classmate organized what he called the Charlottesville Goodbye Tour – a week of dining at restaurants in the town that we have not been to in the last two years (mostly out of budget constraints). And although I couldn’t make it all the evenings, I had the opportunity to dine (maybe for the last time) at one of my favorite places at the downtown mall.

Ivy Gardens already seems quieter and lonelier, with the number of UHauls pulling up as people move. Facebook is full of people finding apartments and basically setting themselves up for the transition to the adult world. While I am looking forward to it myself – it would be great to have a paycheck – the weight of the job search and the uncertainty has been causing a good deal of stress.

The family arrives in town for graduation next week. I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with them this time around, showing them places of significance from my two glorious years here at the Ville.

The Veggie Tower dish at Bizou, Downtown Mall

Last Day of Class

2010-04-29T18:07:00.003-04:00

Today was my last day of classes at Darden. My brain refuses to process that the madness is over – no more three cases a night, excel models, hanging out in the LT rooms trying to hammer out a model worthy of a cold call. The ride’s been hard but boy has it been good! This experience comes highly recommended for anyone looking for a complete outside-the-comfort-zone experience in business school.

There will be room for reflections and wrap-ups later. I am on my way to the last Cold Call (social) of the year to be followed by the final deliverable of the Leadership and Ethics Through Theater class, which is a play they are staging this evening at Abbott Auditorium.

I couldn’t bring myself not to have this video from the Follies last week (by my classmate Shepro) on my blog. It was a great way to wrap up Follies and had many students in tears. Since then we’ve all watched that video on YouTube multiple times; today, as farewell to students in my General Managers Taking Action class, our professors played this video for us (and then took the whole class out to lunch at The Tavern!).

Home Stretch - Last Week.5 of Class!

2010-04-22T19:39:00.005-04:00

We’re on the last week and a half of classes here at Darden. And things have never been crazier! Trying to find time on people’s calendars for an hour long meeting to discuss our project has been impossible! We’ve come to the stage where we are – counter-productively perhaps – splitting up and meeting in batches to get our work done. It’s that insane out here!

Meanwhile Q4 – about which I haven’t written much lately – has been awesome fun from the academic standpoint. Yeah you’re thinking, who even goes to classes anymore in Q4. But trust me, all of us do, and all of us are engaged and MOST of us are reading our cases! I’m doing four classes – Data Analysis and Optimization (awesome!)with Casey,one of my favorite Darden professors, Marketing Analytics (love it!), General Managers Taking Action (carried forward from last quarter) and Hot Topics in Ops & Technology, which is another speaker class and is my third class with Prof Tim Laseter. I absolutely love my courses this quarter and I feel like I’m getting so much out of my ‘technical’ (ie spreadsheet) courses that I get a real kick out of ensuring I'm fully prepared for these classes! This quarter I have also officially relinquished all my club responsibilities at DSAS and the Blog Club making it hard to remain in denial about leaving this place.

Of course, since this is Darden, if you’re working your brain off at school, you’re also socializing like crazy and Q4 is the pinnacle of it all. Dinners and I-got-a-job celebrations are spilling over into the weekday evenings and the result of it is that every day I push the limit on just how late I can wake up in the mornings and STILL make it to my classes! And I haven’t been late to a single one of my 8AMs (although I did ‘forget’ to wake up for one).

The weather has been kind of erratic, oscillating between cold, rainy and sunny and the pollen count super high so Halls and tissues and sniffles are commonplace these days. I think we’ve all just decided we’re going to carry a jacket to school anyway, just in case! We have concluded our headshots for the Yearbook, pledges for the class gift (100% of our class pledged!) and ordered for our diploma frames – so yeah I guess we’re definitely getting out of here soon!

This weekend is the Alumni Reunion weekend and there’s a festive spirit going on in Flagler, with the tent put up and the banners up. Again, it reminds me of last summer when I watched the Class of 2009 gear up for graduation. And it signals to me that the end is near. In fact, same day next month I will be wearing the cap and gown and getting my diploma. And I still remember sitting on the other side of this great two year experience wondering if I would make it out of here in one piece.

I’m putting up these pictures I took on my phone a few weekends ago when the weather was awesome and I was sitting by TJ’s fountain and contemplating life, the universe and everything in between. That’s correct, I still don’t have an offer and I’ve hit the panic button.

Getting inside The Circle

2010-04-06T15:01:00.003-04:00

Last Monday I did something I’ve never done before! I rushed home from class last Monday, ate a tub of Yoplait Lemon Parfait for lunch as I walked from my apartment to that of the Costas – I was a bundle of excitement, that’s for sure!

The Costas, Nacho and I were heading for DC to watch Bon Jovi perform at the Verizon Center as part of their The Circle tour. We recruited one more SY to come with us and headed to DC from Charlottesville. We parked close to the Verizon Center and the overwhelming majority of men in the group ensured we headed to Hooters for lunch – I’d never been there before and as the Costas like to joke, my American experience was incomplete without a visit!

The concert itself was fantastic. In fact I have no trouble admitting it was the best concert experience of my life! Jon Bon Jovi was my first crush – and I cannot watch the music video for “Keep The Faith” on YouTube without literally holding my breath and reliving that sense of awe I felt when I first saw it way back in 1992. Back then, Jon Bon Jovi and the crew – funky hairdo, pierced ears, superman tattoo, skinny jeans and Richie Sambora’s guitar solo on Brooklyn Bridge – represented everything cool in the world! That crush on Jon Bon Jovi stayed true despite the many hairdo changes, and evolution of their music from hard hitting head banging rock to ballads and back again to the guitar-resurrecting new album. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see these guys in flesh and blood, as you can probably tell by now!

Bon Jovi played in Milwaukee a couple of weeks after I landed in Madison a couple of years ago. At the time I couldn’t go for a bunch of different reasons – so I made sure I got inside the circle this time, buying my tickets well in advance! The venue was packed and the crowd was on its feet the whole time – Jon made sure they stayed that way. If there was ever a thought that they’d gotten old, I think this concert just proved it wrong.

I became a Bon Jovi fan all over again! The hair's still cool and so are the tattoos - what's cooler is the music!

Set List: Happy Now, We Weren’t Born to Follow, Bad Name, Whole Lot of Leavin’, Born to be my Baby, Lost Highway, When We Were Beautiful, Superman Tonight, We Got It Going On, Bad Medicine (with a Roadhouse Blues interlude), It’s My Life, Lay Your Hands on Me (by Richie Sambora), Hallelujah, I’ll Be There For You, Something for the Pain, Someday I’ll be Saturday Night, Keep The Faith, Work for the OWrking Man, Who Says You Can’t Go Home, Love’s the Only Rule
Encore: Runaway, Wanted Dead or Alive, Livin’ on a Prayer

And here's the video that started it all for me!

Passing the baton

2010-03-22T00:03:00.004-04:00

A few months ago, a new club was born at Darden, the Darden South Asia Society (DSAS). It took over a year’s worth of work in petitioning and designing the vision and mission of the club; but finally the approvals were obtained and we held elections to determine the first ever leadership team of DSAS. In the few months that we have been in the team, we have tried to give more direction to the club by holding events as promised in our petition but by also involving ourselves closely with the Career center and Admissions.

And then a few weeks ago, we held elections to select the team we would hand over to as we leave Darden. This weekend IJ, club president of DSAS hosted the present and future leadership team at his place for a “retreat” where the current team appraised the incoming team about our workings, events and vision. Tomorrow, we will hold our first weekly meeting with the new leadership, as we begin to hand over responsibilities to them.

One of the things we struggled with in our brief stint as the leadership team was choosing what we could achieve in the limited time before end of the year. We wanted to do everything, but often times we had to reign in our enthusiasm for the sake of practicality. It was great to hand over those ideas to the incoming team – unlike us they have a whole academic year to take the club a notch further.

In passing the baton over to the first year students, we are giving away something we planned and envisioned for the South Asian community at Darden. We wanted to create a club that not only organized the famous annual Bollywood Party or inter-school cricket tournaments but also one that provided career and academic support and mentoring to incoming South Asian students. But this was not a club targeted solely at the South Asians, as our membership list would testify. With the region becoming the hot bed of business, we wanted to use the club as a platform to help the greater Darden/UVA community understand the intricacies of doing business in South Asia. In my admittedly biased opinion, I believe we have achieved everything we set out to, and we still have events in the pipeline!

Here’s a memento IJ handmade for us – needless to say, it has the pride of place in my room.

For information on DSAS, visit our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter or contact us at dsas@darden.virginia.edu

Raindrops on green

2010-03-13T17:28:00.002-05:00

I guess it’s safe to say that spring has finally arrived in Virginia. There’s so much of the green that’s suddenly visible and it’s as though the leaves and flowers are poking their heads out in cautious optimism.

At Darden, I’ve completed my third quarter and I’m on the home stretch now, the last quarter before I graduate. I took a one-week course at spring break – no GBE for me this year! I decided to take this course on marketing called Integrated Marketing Communications – a grueling one week later, I have credits for one entire quarter-long course in my kitty, thus allowing me to free up some time next quarter where I just have to take four courses to fulfill my credit requirements to graduate. I’m suddenly struck by how the word graduate/graduation has already appeared in this post more than once! It’s funny how quickly time flies.

My IMC course was a week well spent and helped me cement some of the things I learnt during my internship last summer. Our final deliverable for the course was an integrated marketing campaign for one of two brands: Levi’s jeans and Silk soya milk. I was wonderstruck by how creative my classmates are and the quality of work I saw in the final presentations was just phenomenal! The course itself was really comprehensive and we had some fantastic guest speakers from the ad-world; the course itself was co-taught by ex-CMOs of big name CPG firms. We did an interesting case on a vodka company and also had a vodka tasting session for that, in addition to plenty of tins of peanuts and oreos being passed around!

I am trying to pick my courses for the next quarter and like a hoarder, I want to take everything! Unfortunately, I can do no more than four. I could overload if I wanted to, but I need to up the game on recruiting because being without an offer feels like a ticking time bomb because of visa stipulations. At this time I have three courses set and locked in, and I am trying to pick between three courses for the fourth one.

We’ve seen so much sun this week (and some rain too) and much as I love it, I can’t help but think about how the end is near. The sun and the warmth remind me of the end as much as they do of the beginning: when you come to C’ville in the fall as a first year student, you see the same brilliant blue sky as you do in the summer on the day you graduate.

The sound of the Stradivarius – Joshua Bell Live

2010-02-11T18:06:00.005-05:00

A few years ago I posted this link on this blog. It was an article in the Washington Post by Gene Weingarten, columnist, who wrote a regular feature titled Pearls Before Breakfast. In the article he conducted a social experiment of sorts – if a world famous musician played in a public place – the L’Enfant Plaza at DC – dressed like any other mendicant, what would you do? Would you stop to listen? Would you leave some money? Would you notice at all? I loved the premise of the article and even more than that, I loved how the author used language to describe Joshua Bell and his performance. Since then I’ve wanted to watch the performance myself.

Joshua Bell performed at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville yesterday. And I found out just by accident. But I went all the same, with SZ who’s a musician herself. Joshua Bell was accompanied on the piano by Jeremy Denk, who I’d never heard of before and was really really good! There was a lot of chemistry between the two men and their instruments conversed with each other, sometimes leading and sometimes following. Joshua Bell was every bit the way he was described in that article – he was spirited and animated in the way he played his violin, he rocked from side to side, stood on his tip toes, stamped his feet, plucked the strings of his violin… I don’t know a ton about classical music, but I loved how he kept the audience engaged by the theatrics. His pianist was much the same and they took cues from each other’s body language. And I learnt something new about performance etiquette – no one coughed/sneezed/sniffled while he played, saving it for the silence between sequences. The encore was a beautiful little piece by Fritz Kreisler based on a composition by Dvorak.

SZ and I grabbed some dinner at the downtown mall before heading in for the concert. All in all, a wonderful evening, with great company, and the excitement that comes with seeing the flesh and blood version of something I read about three years ago.

Update: Here's a review of the concert from a local newspaper, The Hook. I think the writer does more justice than I did with this post! Hat tip to SZ.

Guest Post - Michael Goff, D'2010 on Innovation

2010-02-08T00:06:00.008-05:00

I’ve been meaning to host a guest blogger for some time now so I’m very happy to welcome Mike onto this space. I’ve long felt that although the 16 of us bloggers are pretty cool there are yet some other cool people we’ve known here that aren’t out on the blogosphere. It’s only fitting that my first ever guest blogger is someone I’m so fond of and so proud of. He's always sporting an infectious grin and it’s hard not to be impressed by his intelligence and his good humor. Mike thanks a bunch for doing this!

I know Mike through our one semester spent together in Section 5 in the first year. He’s wicked smart and always has great contributions in class, but he’s also a really cool guy outside of class. Mike’s one of the many double-Hoos at Darden, which means that he went to UVA for undergrad too. Before Darden, Mike worked for CACI as a technology consultant and come May, will move with Camden, his wife, to Washington, DC to join BCG. Mike matches his awesome in-class contributions with outside-class involvement in Darden Student Admission Committees, BGiA, the UVA Outreach Committee and several Darden soccer teams. In his spare time (and he has plenty), he likes to perfect his chili recipe… and run marathons, like this picture shows! Over to Mike!

One of the great things about business school is the opportunity to take classes outside your comfort zone and to expand your skillset beyond the traditional marketing, finance, operations, etc. functional areas. Last fall, I took a class called “Developing New Products and Services.” The goal of the class was to identify a market opportunity for innovation and then develop a prototype for a product or service to capitalize on the opportunity.

My team identified a gap in modern technology, which allows people to read news conveniently online or on an e-reader, but the decrease in circulation of printed newspapers reduces the opportunity for manufacturers and stores to put coupons in front of consumers. As a solution to this opportunity, our group set out to understand how people shop and use coupons and grocery lists.

I foolishly volunteered to develop and code an iPhone application that would combine the concepts of coupons with a grocery list that could be carried into a store and then scanned for a membership card and coupons. The idea was to keep everything in the one item we carry with us at all times: a cell phone. I don’t regret the task, but it was by far the most difficult task I’ve taken on in business school.

I learned several lessons through this experience:
• First, I’m no developer. I was never good. I proved to myself that I can figure things out, but that’s the end of it.
• The iPhone is an amazing device that can do some crazy stuff, and most of its power stems from some very basic tools and objects.
• There’s no substitute for effective project planning to predict issues before you encounter them. It also helps to know what resources you have available and realize they’re going to be insufficient. The key is the creativity to dig deeper in a pinch to get the job done.
• The secret to problem solving is breaking a system into its component parts and challenge fundamental assumptions that may be difficult to recognize.
• Any time you’re planning to innovate, it’s better to generate lots of ideas and test them as quickly as possible. It’s a lot better to fail early (maybe even often) to get where you want to be.

At the end of the day, we had a great time showing everyone our prototype. I think I showed the app to everyone I know. I’ve never shown my parents a paper or exam, but I was pretty happy to whip out my phone and say, “Ever wanted to search for coupons while you were shopping in a store? There’s an app for that…”

MBAs and the Movie-world

2010-02-02T20:46:00.004-05:00

Today I sent an email to the South Asian Society here informing them about a course being taught at the main UVA grounds on Fact, Fiction and Film in India’s History, which took the form of a movie screening each week followed by a discussion on the movie in the context of the course. It seemed like an interesting way to study history and the part movies have played in the interpretation of historical events in the country.

This evening, Darden’s YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring a classmate of ours who worked in the movies industry before school. Ed (who is also from Section D - that's important... and relevant) saw an opportunity in the Cannes Film Festival for students like him, who were interested how the industry (and in his case, the independent films industry) worked. He organized a trip to Canne as part of a course and even interned on location, getting an insider’s perspective on the workings of the industry.

I thought this was important enough to write about because before I came here, I didn’t imagine the movies as a place an MBA would go to. My preconceived notion of the industry is that it is a place for the creative, and not necessarily the spreadsheet jocks. If I sat and thought about it long enough – and it’s fairly apparent from the fact that I am writing this post that I did – I find it fascinating how you can marry the shrewd business and strategic thinking with that of creativity and storytelling.

... some food for thought.

Think big, and then think small!

2010-01-27T15:18:00.002-05:00

Last year, when I went to the session on choosing electives for second year, there was one class which consistently appeared on all the panelists’ (in this case the second year students of last year) list of must-take courses. A part of the Taking Action classes, this course brings back Darden grads (and some non Darden grads) to the classroom to take a class for the students and is called the General Managers Taking Action (GMTA). The case is supplied by the guest and we come prepared to discuss it with him. And since all the cases are real-life situations, and issues he/she faced, the discussion takes on a very action oriented path and we learn, literally, what he/she did in detail.

Today we had a 1986 grad who worked in investment banks come and talk to us. I was amazed by how “real” he was – we talked about the world economy and the banking industry and the housing bubble and BRIC among other things, and it was all in English and not banker-speak! I also thought this speaker was exciting because he was part of a firm that invested in Silicon Valley startups and technologies and his enthusiasm and appreciation for technology was very apparent. My favorite part of this class is the end, where two students ask the speaker for advice for our class and things he wished he knew when he was graduating. Today’s advice was “think big and then think small, do the little things, work hard because there is no fast and easy path. And don’t be in too much of a hurry.”

In my mind, there are two trends that are emerging from all the sessions I have had so far in this class: one, the higher up you get in an organization, the daily challenges and issues you deal with tend more on the OB and people management side of the spectrum (as opposed to the technical, spreadsheet model side); two, everyone talks about being in touch with the people we went to school with here… they wax eloquent about the intellectual pool in the school and some even talk about how the network is lifelong and helps them in professional and personal ways!

The more times I hear the second advice, the more I start to wonder if I am investing enough time and effort in building these relationships. I have come to realize that there are some fantastically interesting people here and I did not in the past and probably will not in the future have the opportunity to interact with such a diverse . There is so much personal growth I have witnessed from my associations here and I wonder how much of the iceberg I haven’t scaled yet. This year has been very different because there are people I haven’t seen all year – for reasons such as exchange programs or just taking a different set of electives. I go to a class with one of my learning team mates and I haven’t found the time to say hi in the three weeks we’ve been in that class together. There is a constant struggle to experience everything in these last few months, and yet this economy and my yet unsuccessful job search acts like the Sword of Damocles over everything I want to do. However, I feel better about it today because I am going to dinner with some friends I haven’t caught up with all year… I have to try to get more of these in before May.

SF again - Darden West Coast Job Trek

2010-01-08T17:15:00.003-05:00

I obviously have some kind of major love affair going on with San Francisco! In just over a month of being here for Thanksgiving, I am back in the Bay Area, this time as part of a team of students from school doing our annual West Coast Job Trek. The trek is for students (FY and SY) interested in making a career in the Valley in tech companies and is our way to show interest and build relationships and contacts for our job search. Add to it the brilliant weather here after the bitter cold back east, and you have all the trappings for a great one week at CA!

This year we went to a bunch of really great companies and were hosted very warmly by alumni in most places (Darden and other UVA alums) and by non-Darden folks in others. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the majority of MBAs at these companies come from schools in the backyard (Stanford, Haas), but there are some people from east coast schools as well. From a chance to shop at the Apple store at One Infinite Loop to a gourmet lunch at the Googleplex, we had a host of experiences and had the opportunity to learn just a little bit more about what these fantastically interesting organizations are up to, from people who not too long ago were in our shoes!

I had a great time visiting companies and hearing about the work they are currently doing. I also had a really good time getting to know alumni from the Bay Area at a networking reception held in one of the pubs in downtown SF. The more time I spend talking to people in tech or visiting the Valley, the more convinced I am of my choice to head to this industry post-Darden… the internet and e-commerce space is exciting and there is plenty of opportunity to make lasting impact right from Day 1. In fact, I even mentioned it to an alumni, in response to why I wanted to settle down in the Bay Area, that I am so excited about the space that I am willing to go almost anywhere if the right opportunity came along, the Bay Area is just one stop.

It hasn’t been all work though! I took a day to spend time with friends here and among other things, had the opportunity to take a drive up/down Lombard Street! I have to mention that the best thing about this trip to San Fran has been flying Virgin America and having the wifi internet on the flight (thanks to Google!) I’ve managed to get SO much work done on the flights, especially since the alternative is to sleep (badly) and land at my destination feeling groggy, cranky and with a crick in my neck!

Do I dare look back?

2010-01-02T18:53:00.004-05:00

Long post coming up...

I did not want to do the customary year-in-review, but then thoughts, they come and go and what is this blog for, if not to capture them before they run away? So I plod on, in a stream of consciousness ramble that is a function of a heavy tummy from too much food and heavy eyes from little sleep!

So I proudly celebrated a full calendar year of being vegetarian this year and I’m really proud of it. I am not counting in all those accidental meat tastings… the only half-full outlook to those incidents is that I am now super conscious when I am ordering food and make sure to mention my preference for absolutely no meat or meaty broth in my food. Technically I’ve been veggie for more than a year now, but one full calendar year makes me feel so good about myself, that I have decided to remain veggie for as long as possible. And it’s been easier than I thought!

I travelled quite a bit this year – maybe not as much as I would have liked but I did go to some really interesting places and that’s what counts, right? Right! So let’s see… Washington DC, India, Brazil, California – see it wasn’t much. But my trip to Brazil was most memorable and it’s gotten me on the track to planning another trip to the continent – more on that as it unfolds. Another serendipitously good trip was the summer in India. Weather aside – it was either incredibly hot or annoyingly wet! – I went to places that I couldn’t point on the map before the summer and all of it in the country I profess to have spent the first twenty something years of my life and profess to have travelled extensively in.

I spent a fantastically ups-and-downs filled year at business school… and since this blog has been all about business school for the most part, it would be unfair to talk more about it. It would suffice to say that I saw way too many ups and downs this year… there were times when I thought I wouldn’t survive and other times when I just wanted time to stop and hold on to the moments. I found out much more about my friends here and made a whole bunch of new ones too. Like a database keeping up with times, I purged and I added… and then some more. Over the months that passed, I saw different facets to the people I thought I already knew well, some pleasant some not so much.

One thing that I did consistently through the year was to look for a job – first the internship and then full time. I wish I could say I rounded off the year in style with a fantastic big bucks offer, but sadly I cannot. However, I have hope – green shoots and all that, so maybe in next year’s recap, I’ll be able to write all about what a fantastic journey it had been… and why not? Believe it or not, looking for a job – and the inevitable rejections that come with it – are enough to teach you a lot about yourself as it taught me this year.

Which then brings me to my things to do next year. As always, it’s to lose weight. I know I know, it comes back every year to haunt me, but this year I’m really going to do something about it – starting from January 11th (this is SO not a good way to start on a resolution!) - and since I've already begun last year, it's off to a start of sorts already! Other things I want to do are remain vegetarian, get a few more stamps on the passport, oh and get a job! Some other plans for the year are to experiment with cooking – especially baking – and to make sure that my experiments are all given away to others to eat! I also really want to get back to reading – and maybe once I graduate, I cannot cite the three-cases-a-day excuse for all the things I’ve missed out on and the people I’ve not given their due attention to last year. This year I just want to be a better, happier person... not such a tall order is it?

Oh and this year I also want to figure out what I want to do with this blog – that’s right, sweeping changes await this space. Happy new year!

Snow'd in C'ville - Darden postcards

2009-12-23T20:55:00.004-05:00

Top to bottom: Courtyard outside Cafe '67, A wooden bench on Flagler stands as a reminder of the fall afternoons I have spent on it reading my cases, Flagler courtyard and the classrooms building

In this second instalment of pictures, we spent a day at Darden taking pictures. Darden on any given day is beautiful, but with snow, Darden transforms into a picture-taker's paradise. Winter break has ensured that the snow in most parts of the grounds in untouched and pristine. Superimposed with memories from last winter break spent at C'ville is the twinge of sadness that I won't be here next winter.

Snow'd in Charlottesville

2009-12-20T21:21:00.004-05:00

With over twenty-five inches of snow in C'ville and the sister being here from sunny California, I had a great two days being snowed in at home in C'ville. We braved the snow to go on a walk around Ivy Gardens for a photo-shoot and came out with some good shots!

And yet another quarter whooshes by!

2009-12-18T22:05:00.002-05:00

The end of SY Q2 came and went a week ago... and unbelievable as it is, I am done with three fourths of my MBA. Home stretch is here and so is the darn nostalgia... who invented goodbyes anyway?

This past quarter taught me some very important things about school - business or grad . I had a set of courses lined up in the beginning of the quarter; however, during add-drop I switched some and shuffled some to accommodate my recruiting efforts. Now I feel bad about having missed some good courses - yet I found some pretty unexpectedly interesting courses too, so it wasn't all bad! Big lesson here is to that you're paying to learn and you're going to be here just once. Recruiting will keep happening and the world cannot stop and wait while you find a job! So it's important to learn to balance the coursework as well as do what you need to in order to land a job. But then again, who is this advice for? The economy's looking up for the next batch at school and I hope that very few people in the coming batches will be stuck like us!

Some key takeaways from the quarter were that great ideas come with a cool group bonding at Panera, sustainability can be cool, Crystal Ball and I might just call a truce and agree to disagree, if you're too big to fail then you're too big to manage... oh and I have to recommend this fantastic book I read as part of a course I took this quarter. The book's called Strategic Intuition and is written by Columbia professor William Duggan.

Retrospection is a vile habit - so much wisdom and no undo button to let you do it all over!

Wine and women

2009-12-18T21:42:00.003-05:00

Over last week - exam week - there were a few social events thrown into the evenings marking friends going to India on vacation or going away on exchange next quarter. one of them was a ladies night, another was a surprise party for a dear friend going on exchange and was held at the Root residence (THANK YOU JD and Roots!). And at both of these events that I attended, there was a cross-section of Darden women (and men - but they were playing a comic game of Guitar Hero).

And much later, after these enjoyable evenings, one of our exchange students from Italy pointed how she was inspired by the women she had met on those evenings and at Darden. At no other place had she met such independent minded women who knew what they wanted out of their lives... or at least knew how to figure out what they wanted out of their lives... they shared similar attitudes and thoughts towards life, relationships, career, food and wellness among a host of other things. And they inspired her to be like them - to stand up as women who had the courage to follow their dreams and desires. We are a minority, she said later, and we must stand together, for each other.

I thought about what she had said, and couldn't agree more. We are a minority and we are precious. The support we are capable of giving each other is phenomenal, and we give it so freely only to receive it in plenty. I will miss these women when we graduate, but I know that my life is richer just by knowing them.

Playing catch up on Thanksgiving

2009-12-10T20:13:00.003-05:00

So I know I have been quiet on the blog space these past few weeks, blame it on writer's block and celebrate the come back now!

I had a great Thanksgiving break in California with family and friends. It was great catching up with some friends from work and high school in the Bay Area - although we couldn't really have all the long deep conversations on all that we had missed out in each others' lives since we last met, it was enough to pick up the threads and move on to more current stuff. Or maybe no one ever really attempts to have those years' worth of conversations...

In the short time that I was there, I was able to fully appreciate the garage-to-fortress rise of the technology companies that give Silicon Valley its name. Highlights of my trip include walking along the Golden Gate, riding a Christmas train to Fremont with my young cousins and a tour of the YouTube office in San Bruno!

Another thing that I was really thankful to technology for was free wi-fi (Thanks Google!) in the airports! I had a three hour layover in Charlotte on my way back and used the internet fully to research a project and create a deck to present in class the following morning.

Picture-book

2009-11-05T22:23:00.002-05:00

I used to spend a lot of time clicking through the Darden website as an applicant a couple years ago. I remember looking at pictures and trying to form impressions and associations in my mind. I would think about how they looked smart, in their suits and neat hairdo and flawless make up…and I would feel a little intimidated, I have to admit. I wondered if the journey I was embarking upon was something I would be able to fit in with, if I could be one of them and do it seamlessly.

Today I was clicking through the website again. I saw the international and domestic student contacts, the club pages and some student videos. And in those pictures, I saw my friends. At some pictures I just laughed, at the thought of a Halloween costume or a quip in the Cold Call Chronicle or the memory of a fun incident. At others, I looked with some pride, at their pre- and post- business school achievements. And then at some there were the fond memories of cramming in an LT room for every day of the first semester. There were some I just know as classmates and others that I know personally, know their trials and their triumphs, know their families… There is no intimidation now. Just pride and affection. And mild surprise at how quickly it all happened.

A little bit of Virginia

2009-11-02T11:16:00.005-05:00

It was with some vengeance that I was completely unproductive this weekend. I went down to Maryland/DC for a day. It was a beautiful day, just a touch windy and was perfect to walk along the Potomac as we stopped by the Indian embassy for a friend to get her visa to India. I had never been to Georgetown before and so the rest of us spent some time exploring the area on foot – while the aforementioned friend stood in queue at the embassy and concluded that the process could do with some Kaizen.

I love the DC area and every time I visit, I am struck by just how pretty it is and that I’d be more than happy to be able to live there after school (sigh). We spent the rest of the day helping N shop for her wedding, which pretty much killed my feet! I also indulged in my favorite shopping activity of getting perfume samples – I know what my next perfume purchase is going to be! If I had to pick the best part of the whole trip it has got to be the dinner at Amma’s Kitchen in Vienna VA! It is an all veggie south Indian restaurant and the tam-brahm in me was delirious in the aroma of sambar and dosa!

I was exhausted by the time I returned to C’ville and promptly crashed! The next morning it was time for a drive/hike at the Shenandoah National Park. I had never been to the Skyline Drive before and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check out some fall colors. I don’t remember fall from last year - probably because it was in the midst of Black November - so it seemed like a great excuse to further the cause of the unproductive weekend. After a scenic drive up to the national park, we found a trail we wanted to hike along and set out with good spirits and cameras for company. The colors were beautiful and the ground just a bit damp from the rains. Our hike was followed by a late lunch at the Downtown Mall and then back home.

When you think about it, there is a lot to do at Charlottesville. The first year of school doesn’t leave you with too much time to indulge in day long activities around town. I’ve figured out how this works though: The first year is meant for you to explore everything around the Corner and the Downtown Mall; and the second year is for rest of the countryside!

I expected to feel guilt ridden about taking the weekend off like this, but surprisingly, I don’t. I managed just enough will power to prepare for my classes today, but that’s about it. This break was long overdue.

View from the top
The lady bug that got pally with Sania

Under a red umbrella

2009-10-28T18:57:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was one very wet and grey day at Charlottesville. It was dull all day, not to mention a little cold too. By evening it started to rain in earnest. But that didn’t deter a bunch of us from driving down to the Paramount Theater at the downtown mall to watch Bryan Adams in an acoustic performance – think of MTV Unplugged.

I loved the unplugged performance more than I did his regular concert that I went to in Bangalore a few years ago. This was more intimate and really brought out his vocal talent, not to mention, his personality. He interspersed the songs with little tidbits of what inspired that particular song or some other memory revolving around the song. In some he improvised, in others he let the audience fill in for him. It seemed less like a performance and more like a conversation. And I was struck once again by how soulful some of his lyrics were, and was taken back to days of my “youth” when I would OD on his music.

And therefore when, after the performance, RJ and I decided we wanted to try to head backstage to get his autograph, the guys in our group didn’t protest too much. However, what we didn’t expect was to be standing outside, in the rain and cold for more than an hour, just waiting for BA to show up. We thought we wouldn’t miss him because we were standing right by his bus. It was us and maybe four or five others, crazy enough to brave the weather. I wish I could ask you to scroll down for a picture of BA’s autograph on the reverse side of my ticket, because I never did get that autograph. BA came out through a different door, got in a car and was driven off while we still waited there.

There’s a lesson in that. Everything’s an act. Here I was naïve enough to think he’d come out and sign my ticket. And why would he? We’re just a bunch of fans, he wouldn’t know us from the others he’s met or tickets he’s signed before. It doesn’t pay to glorify anyone, and I’m surprised I, of all the people, forgot that.

And then there are those that refuse to leave you standing in the rain, and insist on standing with you – even if they would never wait that long for anyone. Thanks to the ones that waited and special thanks to fellow blogger Sameer who waited patiently despite having an interview today.

Keeping the flame alive

2009-10-13T23:12:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, in my Leading Strategic Change class, the professor encouraged the class to think about what our individual strategy was to keep our flame alive. At the time I wrote it down as a “personal question” and over the following weeks, I found myself coming back to that question repeatedly.

Recruiting has been the cause for a lot of sleepless nights. And as I struggle to maintain my balance through the curve balls coming at me, I wonder what measures I’ve put in place to keep myself driven. I have been guilty of being too consumed by this boot camp I signed up for and although they warned us right at the beginning of school to hold on to our ties with the outside world, I know that I have allowed those ties to grow feeble. Sometimes I think it’s something we all have to learn – to see the big big picture, to realize that each of our many lives – work, social, personal, religion - is a microcosm and it’s temporary and so it doesn’t pay to fall too much in love with any one, without being conscious of the sum total.

As I struggle to define and make sense of everything present and before me, I search within for that part I can come home to when I want to retreat. And I ask myself where my flame is. In some sense I think a lot of us have begun to “check out” already and I am alarmed at the frequency with which I am thinking of “the future” - filled with uncertainty yet free to be what I want it to be, just waiting for me to give it shape. And I hope that when I find my flame, the way forward will be clear.

Vertigo!

2009-10-03T16:08:00.006-04:00

What could get Emmett Street jam packed with cars, bumper-to-bumper? What could get a sea of people – more than that for a Cavs game- all walking towards Scott Stadium, dressed warmly for the chilly night ahead? What could get bschool nearly-30 somethings all aflutter and coming to class with rock-band tees? Bono and his roomies of course!!

U2 came to Charlottesville on Oct 1, Thursday as a stop on their 360 Degree Tour. I’ll get straight down to it – it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! I grew up listening to these guys; all the way from their Joshua Tree and Zooropa days (remember Lemon?), my sister and I loaded up our iPods with all their albums and listened to them obsessively as went through our U2-crazy phases a few years ago. So this concert was special… each song in the set had a special memory attached and as Bono, charismatic as ever, went through the phenomenal sound and light show that this concert was, it felt like an emotional rollercoaster ride for me.

The show itself was a fantastic visual treat with the expanding-contracting 360 degree screen, light shows, dancing beams and video streams on the screen. Sunday Bloody Sunday opened with a moving tribute to the conflict in Iran. U2 came back for 2 encores, where Bono and The Edge played a semi-acoustic version of One in one and a power-packed rendition of Vertigo in another. Here’s U2’s set that from that night:

1. Breathe 2. Get On Your Boots 3. Mysterious Ways 4. Beautiful Day / The Hands That Built America (snippet) 5. No Line On The Horizon 6. Magnificent 7. Elevation 8. Your Blue Room 9. New Year's Day 10. I Still Havent Found What I'm Looking For 11. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of12. The Unforgettable Fire13. City Of Blinding Lights14. Vertigo15. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight16. Sunday Bloody Sunday17. MLK18. Walk Onencore(s):19. One / Amazing Grace (snippet)20. Where The Streets Have No Name21. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)22. With Or Without You23. Moment of Surrender
(HT- LT39 Mr and Mrs Younus)

SY Weekend Escapades

2009-09-26T13:49:00.002-04:00

There’s a lot going on in the ville these past few weekends. And because I (and nearly all of my classmates) realize that our time in the ville is now limited (Q1 is nearly over, can you believe that?!), we’ve been trying to make the most of it.

Last weekend the UVA Symphony Orchestra from the McIntire School of Music at UVA performed at the amphitheater for the public – for free. Called the Symphony under the Stars, it began a little past 7pm and had an amazing line up of music. Highlights included selections from the West Side Story, Carmen, ET theme music etc. A bunch of us went that evening and sat on the grass for a sky deck view of the stage. The weather has been cool in the evenings these days and the setting was perfect. We walked past the Lawn apartments on our way, built by TommyJ to promote more interaction between students and their teachers at UVA, now home to selected students.

The day after, on Sunday, Nobel Prize Winner Professor Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank spoke at U-Hall, on the topic Solutions To Poverty. A bunch of us attended this one and it was well worth the time! Professor Yunus is an inspiring orator and his story of how he founded the Grameen Bank and his motivations were very interesting to hear. I made up for not taking my camera to the Symphony and took a bunch of fuzzy pictures.

Yesterday the Marketing Forum at Darden and I had a great afternoon listening to the big names of CPG talk about successful marketing campaigns. On grounds were DuPont, General Mills, J&J (and their fantastic Olympic campaign called “Thank you Mom”), Frito Lay and Heinz. And today is the India vs Pakistan cricket match and Darden’s South Asian Community is all ready for the madness. We’re screening the match live in one of the classrooms. For those who can’t bear to walk to school on this rainy morning, we’re watching the match on the projector in the home of a second year with parathas and beer. I’m wearing my Team India tee and blogging live from the venue. Cheers!

U-Hall; seen here is Prof. Yunus.

Coffee Cup Creativity

2009-09-19T19:08:00.005-04:00

The other day, I met with recruiters from a company that specializes in packaging solutions (in true consultant-esque anonymity) and we were talking about the various brands this company can boast of. There were a bunch of familiar names – I think I’ve spent way too many years of my life obsessing about the consumer packaged goods industry – and there were some interesting surprises.

The most interesting one, though, was that this company is famous for making cups for Starbucks! Of the eleventy million Starbucks coffees I’ve consumed in this lifetime, I never thought to look below the cup to see who actually made these cups… and of what. So it turns out that this company and its association with the Starbucks coffee cup is very famous in the sustainability circles because they actually use re-usable material in the manufacture of the paper for these cups. So for all the times that I might have felt bad about having “coffee for here” in a Styrofoam cup, the footprint was not as bad as I imagined… although not bad > not as bad, so technically I was still leaving a footprint…

So what’s even more interesting is this ubiquitous coffee cup can be the canvas for a brilliant bit of creativity. See what I mean here. Meanwhile, here's a (made of plastic) beer glass/cup from my first Cold Call at Darden.

Proudly paperless

2009-09-15T13:05:00.002-04:00

I was in an open house lunch meeting yesterday with Dean Carraway and the conversation meandered its way to the sustainability initiative the school has rolled out this year, specifically relating to our cases going online. Our class last year piloted this program by taking our finance course online, meaning that instead of course packets and course books, we could download all of our materials – cases, tech notes and exhibits – off the course website in PDF or Excel format. This year, it seems that nearly 90% of the first year course material has gone online, with Section D being the participants of the Kindle program. We talked about how it is relatively more complex to do the same exercise for the second year course materials given that there are 30 different courses and professors and therefore materials for the first quarter alone!!

I have taken four subjects this quarter and 2 of those subjects offer online options to download my cases. The fourth one, operations strategy, which could technically go online too, is currently distributed in book format, but the course website allows us to download select tech notes and cases and of course, the exhibits. While I appreciate the efforts of the school to get us to our paper-less targets soon, I understand the frustration of students who cannot read off of their computer screen because of the inability (or relative tediousness) to annotate and underline as they study. I opted for paper copies of my Valuations course materials simply because I found myself highlighting every other line of my tech notes and scribbling notes and diagrams on the margins, making the whole experience rather messy. However, I find it very useful to have online copies of the rest of my course since it literally takes the weight off my shoulders to carry my course packs around!

But the aspect that I like best about the course being online is that I have access to it for the rest of my life! I can carry my Darden education around in my head and in a hard drive too! I think of all the thick books on Mechanical Engineering lying at home in India and the amount of space they occupy, and I’m happy that I won’t be having any of that with my MBA course material. But what I’m feeling really good about is that as an institution and individuals, we’re doing our bit for the environment. That calls for a pat on the back, don't you think?

SY - the best kept secret

2009-09-03T23:28:00.005-04:00

The class of 2009 waved the carrot of an easy year under our noses all of last year. We “trusted the process” and waited for our time in the sunshine. Then SY came. And the myth was just that - a myth!

It’s been a fortnight since school began and I’ve been crazy busy. I have 4 subjects this quarter and thanks to my brilliant class selection skills (with a little help from SN, D'09), I’ve made sure that my school day begins at 10AM throughout the week. Last quarter I had 8AM and 10AM classes early and late week respectively which completely ruined my sleep cycles. This quarter 10AM classes mean I get to sleep a little after midnight and wake up at a modest 7AM – anything earlier than 7AM is the middle of the night anyway! Just my kind of schedule! I also have my classes all week (as opposed to taking all my classes early or late week and leaving the other half of the week free). But that apart, every “break” between classes has been crammed with calendar appointments – some I set up with other people, some I make for myself as reminders for things to do. So that boxed lunch stretched out on the grass in Flagler Courtyard has been pretty distant so far.

Adding to the schedule has been the job search. We’ve also formally begun our on grounds pre-recruitment process – networking nights and info-sessions; it’s time once again for foot-suicide in high heels.

Crazy busy is good though. I'm enjoying my classes and all the non-class stuff I'm getting into. I’ve enjoyed catching up with classmates, hearing about the summer and the plans for this year. The summer seems to have been pretty eventful for most people. As for me, I’m still trying to find myself. And I’m having a more effort-filled go at it since I’ve returned. I’ve also begun to spend more time in the silences I talked about last time. I think I might finally be growing up. Eeks!

Getting used to the silence again

2009-08-18T18:17:00.003-04:00

I got back to the Ville last night and this time too, like every time I come to America, I am struck by how quiet it is here. I wake up to silence, and sleep to it… no honking cars, door bells, telephone, idiot box. Just me and the gentle tap-tap of my finger tips on the keyboard. Yes I am also getting re-addicted to my best friend in the whole world, my laptop.

I walked into my new apt in C’ville last night – my home for the next year – and felt like I’d never left this place at all. At some point I know I felt like the summer was stretching endlessly, but in the last few days, I kept wishing time would slow down, that I could have the comfort of my home and the real world for a while longer. I am not ready to become adult again, to shoulder the responsibility of living by myself, thinking about my health and nutrition or thinking about grades and jobs… Not ready to take on my new role as support system for my sister on the west coast, not ready to lose sleep wondering if she’s managing fine and staying safe.

Things are going to be different this year, in a good way or bad, I don’t know. But that unknown that’s waiting around the corner, is not a welcome visitor today. Not just yet. That next great adventure of second year, I wish it would hold out for a while longer. I sit here watching helplessly as my calendar for the next week onwards steadily fills up. Watching and wishing I was back in May. But time, it waits for none, does it?

Freedom is...

2009-08-15T09:35:00.002-04:00

...a word that we throw around to justify bad behavior, short skirts, hurtful words, jumping signals in the night…

Every year Independence Day becomes a time to reflect on the importance of where India is as a nation today. Having grown up in urban India, I have known freedom since I was old enough to yawn. Freedom meant that I could choose to wear the kind of clothes I wished, wear my hair short or long, black or red… It meant that I could play cricket with the boys as a 12 year old. It meant I could choose the books I wanted to read, the amount of religion I wanted to practice, the languages I chose to learn or not. Freedom meant that I could choose to study a branch of engineering as the only girl in that department, and no one stopped me. Freedom means that I can proudly go to a country on the other side of the world to get an advanced degree… because I want to… at which age, my mother had already had me. Freedom means that when I marry, it will be to a man of my choice, after my mind is ready to accept him as a partner. But this is not just me; this is every urban Indian man or woman.

Freedom is what I saw in rural India this summer. It was where a woman could walk around in her community, doing door-to-door sales, unaccompanied by any male member of the family. She could be an entrepreneur… and a mother… and a cook, homemaker, a wife, a daughter-in-law. And freedom meant that she could juggle all of these roles with WonderWoman-like dexterity. Freedom is where the son of a single mother from a small time town in rural Tamil Nadu could dream of getting an MBA degree from India’s premier business school… to achieve and then go on to start his own firm.

Freedom means that we no longer have the benefit of someone else’s wisdom, that we go on to make our own mistakes to learn from them. That we fall and get up and fall again. That we chart our own course, take our own risks, with no template that we have to follow, with no comfort of knowing how it all will end. Freedom is knowing that life comes full circle, but meanders in ways unique to each of us, to the choices we make, the heartbreaks we endure, the sacrifices we make, the successes we earn. Freedom is blooming where we’re planted. Freedom is, but only, a state of mind. Freedom is… everything we want it to be.

To India, Happy Independence Day.

On technology

2009-07-27T13:19:00.003-04:00

Bill Gates is in India to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Of course there was media frenzy, the result being that every English news channel had an ‘exclusive’ interview of the man himself! I watched a snippet of an interview on mute (don’t ask why, long story) while channel surfing and I was struck by just how old he was looking. I have this image in my head of Gates, with his owlish glasses and youthful looks, looking very much the college-dropout-tech-startup-cute-millionaire. I had to tell myself that that was many years ago and that technology as MSFT defined it has now been around for much of my lifetime.

I never thought of myself as the techie kinds when I was growing up. In high school, I always skived off the programming classes. After all, I’m the person that signed up for mechanical engineering only so that I’d have to do the bare minimum number of programming classes. But then I am also the person that went to work in a tech firm. Sigh. Anyway, I realized, however, that much as I hated programming, I had great respect for technology as such and what it could do for societies and businesses. I think I really found my “calling”, if I could call it that, in the internet and Web 2.0. I became a big tech buff, even though I remained in absolute dislike of social networking because of the lack of privacy (ha ha I’m a blogger).

And this brings me to the present. I’ve taken technology so much for granted that the first thing I did in India was to take an internet connection - even before I took a cell phone one! (So maybe I’m a little too addicted, so what?!) I spend a fair bit of time tracking tech news on Digits and WSJ and of course I obsessively follow all things Google. And therefore, imagine my surprise when I realized that not everyone with a hotshot MBA and working in a hotshot Day Zero Indian company is on the social-networking-site-for-professionals. I found that a lot of people my age did not feel the need to know so much about all the techie stuff out there – so not so much twitter or xobni for them. It came as a bit of a surprise to me when my enthusiasm for document versioning software (as a suggestion to implement in this office) was met with quizzical looks.

Anyway, I’ve long since made peace with the fact that their professional world probably does not hinge on technology as it does for those in some of their global offices. I remember talking to a recruiter from MSFT in the fall at school, and I asked him where he saw his product (a communications tool) go in India, where high speed internet is still a bit of a luxury. And he said that the problem is being solved by Google, who are aiming to get high speed internet into areas serviced mostly by dial ups and painfully slow broadbands. If high speed internet and wifi were to become commonplace in India, as it is in the US now, then will we see a new business opportunity here? For starters, I would be open to the idea of an information sharing portal a la craigslist. I’d love all big malls to have their own website so that I know what stores I can find there along with phone numbers and store timings. I could go on, but I’ll stop now. However, I’m super stoked that I can find Google maps directions for all Indian cities now. I just found directions to a new restaurant near work that I’m going lunch at tomorrow!

Internship - the last mile

2009-07-27T01:51:00.002-04:00

I’m on the last week of my internship here. While work has gotten less exciting in the past three weeks (i.e. no traveling), it’s been information overload. I had one really slow week that frustrated the hell out of me – it’s hard enough to wake up in the morning, even harder to make it to work when it’s pouring outside – the least I expect is to be busy for the nine hours I’m at work. Instead, I had enough work for about an uninterrupted half day and then I’d wonder what I should be doing. Not that I minded it so much. You see, sitting in the middle of the action, you pick up stuff just from hearing and seeing. So although I didn’t get an opportunity to work with as many people as I would have liked to, I did get to learn a lot from observation (kind of like the way I learnt to cook!).

But that was just the one week. The one after that has been pretty busy. My final deliverable is a creative brief to an ad agency, one that encompasses a number of brands. After some analysis on the regions we are piloting this initiative (that I’m working on), we came up with a few brands that have the highest salience (how’s that for jargon?). I have spent the better part of last week meeting with the brand managers of these brands and studying brand materials I have obtained from them. While I have enjoyed meeting these people and learning about the brands and how they have been designing the campaigns that I see on outdoor overheads (OOH) and commercials (TVC), I wish they had time to talk to me about other stuff… like what keeps them here, what they like about their job, what their career graph has been etc. Basically the typical networking buzz except that I actually really WANT to know this about them. More than just an exposure to the workings of a typical CPG firm, I am using this internship to evaluate whether I want to return to India after Darden. Unfortunately, people here have been way too busy and I am constantly aware of the long hours they put in everyday, including Fridays.

On Saturday morning I return home for a few days before I have to leave for VA again. It feels like my ‘vacation’ is ending. It was great having free evenings with no cases to prep for the next day. I am actually reading – the newspapers, magazines, books… I have enjoyed walking around Nariman Point in the evenings after work, looking at headquarters of a lot of major corporations. It’s been a welcome change to be able to watch Sunday night movies on tv, with nothing to ‘study’ for Monday morning. But I’m ready for this to end because I really want to spend some time with the family, not just hurried weekends like I had over the past two months. In the meantime, I have this week to get through.

Retail therapy weekend

2009-07-13T12:23:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, my good friend from my Infosys days, M and I decided to indulge in some much needed retail therapy. After a week of hard work, there’s nothing like swiping your credit card and getting on the train at the end of the day having more bags in your hand than you came with! We walked the vibrant and bustling Colaba Causeway for a few hours, including our brief but expensive sojourn at a CWC store there. One thing about M is she’s a big foodie – seriously, what do you expect from someone who’s got a whole drawer for food in her mobile unit at work?! And that is how we came to be in Café Leopold.

Café Leopold has been around for years by the look of it but was given a new lease of life after being the backdrop for many a scene in Gregory David Roberts’ wildly successful (in India at least) semi-autobiography, Shantaram. The book has been converted to a full length movie starring the delectably Johnny Depp as Roberts. On Saturday evening, the place was crowded and the tables placed so close together that if you pushed your chair a little too much to the back, you’d hit someone else’s chair. Dim lighting barely illuminated the sketches of the Mumbai skyline from years ago that hung on the walls… for a place that old, the crowd was that much younger! I felt totally comfortable and at home there… it is places like that that give this city its charm. Some drinks and food later, we were back outside on the sidewalk, to finish up our shopping.

I’ve realized that I really like that area of Bombay and not just because there is so much to shop there. I like how I can see the really old and almost crumbling building of the High Court and just behind that I can see the tower of the stock exchange, a symbol of India Shining (maybe not in recent times). Like most parts of the city, the old and the new seem to live together, two separate worlds yet steadfastly co-existing.

I had a lazy Sunday that I spent indoors watching one and a half Bollywood movies followed by a Harry Potter movie on HBO in the night. Monday came too soon.

More reflections from rural India

2009-07-05T12:32:00.001-04:00

Last week I returned from another 6 day trip through rural India. This time I went to markets in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The idea of going to these markets was to have more one on one conversation with rural customers and since I am fluent in Bengali and Tamil, these two regions seemed ideal.

I started off with WB, in an area that is about 3 hours drive from Kolkata city, where I was staying as a base. I was visiting Kolkata after many years so I was quite excited about this visit. The markets I went to were very poor with poor infrastructure from the main roads/highways to the interiors where the villages were located amidst paddy fields and the occasional betel leaf plantation. In all the markets I went to, I had to walk a good bit to reach the village since the car would not go in beyond a point. Here I found villagers needed a lot of counseling on basic healthcare. It was sad to see that these people were almost stuck in their way of life and could not hope for change for a number of reasons, primarily because of the hand to mouth existence. I came away realizing that the little kids I saw playing in the mud would grow up in that same atmosphere, without clean sanitation and drinking water, that there was no hoping that the village would change in a few years. I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but I felt that they needed clean facilities more than premium laundry detergent, but that’s just me.

Next I went to my home state, TN. My Tamil is not the best, since I’ve only ever spoken urban Tamil, so I was a little apprehensive. But what I saw in rural TN totally blew me away. I went to a few villages outside of Madurai, a bustling temple town south of Chennai and en route to Kanyakumari, India’s southernmost tip of land. Here the villages had excellent infrastructure and facilities. People were very aware of products, their benefits and of the tenets of basic healthcare, sanitation, and hygiene and overall healthy living. All homes had at least one television and cell phone, all in the same mud-brick houses with thatched roofs. All homes also had cable, which meant that my grandmother in Chennai and the Shakti Amma’s mother-in-law in rural Madurai watched the same soap every afternoon. I saw one house that had a complete LG home theater system – my apartment in C’ville does not have a tele! A number of village men were in the military and deployed in places as far away as Punjab. The biggest surprise however came from the products that sold in these villages. I went with the Shakti Amma from home to home in the village, as she sold Unilever products in the tiniest packaging I’ve ever seen. She sold Dove and Pears and all varieties of laundry detergent. She even sold fabric softener, how do you like that?! That morning, she sold 15 sachets of fabric softener in 4 homes. And none of these homes has a Laundromat. The fabric softener has a very soothing scent and so after soaking clothes in a bucket full of softener in water, the leftover water was used to sweep the floors of the house! Smartest thing I ever heard!

Having seen villages in 3 different zones of India – west, east and south – I am really confused about how I would describe rural India to an outsider. I’ve seen the poorest ones where I needed to advocate the benefits of using a toothbrush. And I’ve seen ones where they want me to explain the differences in the 3 different types of Kotex sanitary napkins available in the market. But this I know, there is a huge untapped market just waiting to devour all the aspirational consumer products that they are watching on the television commercials. No more low cost and rudimentary advertising for these people.

Some interesting articles from Outlook Business magazine on rural consumerism and how microfinance is helping:
http://business.outlookindia.com/newolb/article.aspx?240795
http://business.outlookindia.com/newolb/article.aspx?102052

The little birdie

2009-06-23T03:22:00.005-04:00

Sania recently suggested that I should get on Twitter, given the amount of traveling I would be doing as part of my internship. Nor was she the first to suggest it. I dithered for long, unwilling to get on yet another social network platform and leaving another trail of footprints online. But I decided to give it a shot anyway and so now I’m tweeting – I swear I never expected to be using a verb like that!

It amazes me how much you can say in 140 characters. Or how little for that matter. It also amazes me how much you can do with a medium like that. For starters, I can follow friends who decide to tweet when they’re stuck in traffic in NYC. Or I could follow those that decide to backpack across Europe. I could have followed Brin but he stopped tweeting! Jokes apart, what has me totally amazed is how Twitter has catapulted to this super important status in the backdrop of the turmoil in Iran (here's what I'm talking about). There is a wealth of information from the ground that is being broadcasted on the net by ordinary citizens, where journalists are no longer permitted. As an ex-techie, my thoughts go immediately to information security – does this mean that corporations would have to install cell phone signal-jammers in the meeting room and disconnect the internet during confidential market-influencing discussions? What does that do to the rights and freedoms of people? As we innovate, we seem to push the boundaries of our laws and societies further, exposing all the loopholes.

It must be a sign of times that corporations are quick to get on the bandwagon. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, in the hope and anticipation that more eyeballs or ears would translate to more sales. And that is driving corporations to find ways to monetize the platform. Google’s revenue from sponsored links is the best case in point. It’s brilliant how companies that create products for people indirectly create platforms for other companies, an important feature of this ultra connected world that we live in.

Just like blogging and maybe even Facebook to some extent, Twitter seems to follow in the footsteps of satisfying the narcissist inside us. Judging by how many subscribers each of these media have, it seems like everyone who is anyone feels the need to have her voice heard. In all the white noise we’re generating, it is getting harder to sift out the voices of substance. Our willingness to embrace technology results in the cup overflowing and being just another source of information spam that despite our good sense, we feel the obsessive need to log in and check every day… while somewhere in the world, another college drop out is on his/her way to millionaire-hood and potentially a place in HBR’s next 30 page case!

Mahayatra through Maharashtra

2009-06-10T11:56:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow I leave for the first of a few trips as part of my internship (refer to map of Maharashtra state). I leave early morning for Aurangabad where I will spend the day observing Project Shakti in action in the villages around the city. The following day I will travel to Shirdi where once again I will get to observe Shakti Ammas as they go about their duties. And finally on Day 3, I will be in Nasik where I will get to interview some Shakti Ammas and understand what the missing links are.

I’m very excited about this trip not just because I’ve never travelled to these areas before, but also because of the sudden attention that rural India has been garnering in the media. I’m referring to two much emailed articles that came out in the WSJ and Mint newspapers today (Mint is a business newspaper that partners with WSJ). Rural India has been untouched by the recession and continues to consume and purchase more consumer products in the market than urban India. In fact, sales from rural India account for more than 50% of Unilever’s total sales in personal care products in India. Rural India has accounted for 50% of Vodafone’s new subscriptions for cell phone connections in the last year, and just today, the Indian prime minister has said that the economy will target for 9% growth rate, fuelled no doubt by the growing consumerism in the robust rural economy.

To know more about HUL’s Project Shakti, try this and this. This project has been successfully implemented in countries in Asia under Unilever Bangladesh (UBL) as Joyeeta and in Unilever Sri Lanka as Saubaghya.

Legend:

Mahayatra: long journey

Amma: mother

Turning the page

2009-06-09T11:05:00.003-04:00

** Warning: Looooooong post ahead

First I must apologize for the extended period of silence. Things have been a little unwieldy since school gave in to summer. That’s right; I am officially done with first year. I have spent the better part of the last few days trying to come to terms with the feeling… I don’t know if I should be happy or sad… Honestly, I feel kind of numb. This year has been a little hard to digest. Typical of the Darden program, so much has been thrown at us this year and so fast, that sometimes I have trouble believing I actually went through the whole year and lived to tell about it!

I remember how it felt at orientation, oh 10 months ago. A sea of unfamiliar faces, everything was at once befuddling yet exciting. There was a sense of nervous expectation, a sort of go getter attitude. I walked in to Darden with dreams that were big for where I came from, yet seemingly modest given the type of school I had come to. The economy was just showing some signs of weariness, but the red alerts had not set in as yet. I may have been $60000 in debt but I felt like a million bucks!

And then the floodgates opened and suddenly it felt like sensory overload. Names gave way to faces, acquaintances became buddies and second years became inspirations to look up to. Suddenly Microsoft, McKinsey, AT Kearney, UTC, Danaher became more than just tickers on CNBC, they were for real and I was sharing glasses of wine with them or corresponding via email. In class, we were talking about real companies, real people, real problems. Excel became my new best friend, my alarm clock my worst foe. On Thursday mornings, it seemed like the night couldn’t come soon enough to go back to bed, and yet there I was letting my hair down at TNDC. Weekends left only a whooshing sound in their wake as they sped by and then there was the 100 case party where I sang till my voice went hoarse, forging new bonds even as I did so. Days merged into nights and days again, and I stopped to take it all in only during winter break, when time seemed to stretch on forever. Soon it was 2009 and with it came a slew of disappointments as the recession had spread its tentacles into our summer recruiting. The upbeat mood of the first semester gave way to more somber countenances in the second semester and expectations we reset and we scrambled to find employment for the summer. Even in the midst of all the self doubt and falling self confidence, I made time for the GBE to Brazil, the best forced vacation in all my life and one that I’m not likely to forget for years to come. Business school taught me to leave my worries behind as I went to explore a new country and was enriched by the experience.

I don’t really know where the last quarter of school went, but here we are. The year seems to have flown by and as I meet people who are joining business school this fall, even the recession seems to bounce off them and their optimism. But for me and my class at Darden, there is something about this recession that has bonded us together like no previous batch at school. We rallied around one another, lauding one person’s success with a bulge bracket investment bank just as we supported the other that got yet another I-regret-to-inform-you email. It was May and 20% of us were without direction for the summer, yet we threw farewell parties and danced our hearts out at the Bollywood, Japan and LASA parties. There were days when I was filled with hope that everything will be ok, yet there were days of despair. On the latter, I was never alone, finding support and encouragement in the success stories of others or just in having lunch together at Café 67. And yet, this much cursed recession forced us to expand our boundaries. People took risks, followed dreams and went where others would not look in a regular year. While someone went to Africa to do economic development another went to DC to work in sustainability. Someone found intellectually rewarding work in an 11 member VC firm while someone else found a window to showcase his Crystal Ball skills to a government firm. Some people traded their dream jobs for more satisfying start up experiences, while others just walked away from the rat race to start their own thing and thus give employment to another classmate through the Batten institute. As for me, I had a strange turn of events. I came to Mumbai to work with the firm that was my dream employer through most of undergrad and my days at Infosys, one I had lost hope in when I chose to pursue an MBA abroad. Not only was this opportunity at Unilever serendipitous, even more interesting is the nature of work I get to do. I am working with one of their most talked about CSR initiatives, the Project Shakti.

I have a ton of impressions from coming back to India after a year. A lot of time spent in commuting has given me enough fodder to ponder and reminisce. And while I miss Darden and its familiarity, I am discovering a different work culture at Unilever, and I constantly compare and evaluate. I also spam my friends’ inboxes with all the conversations I wish I could have with them! But as I go into week 2 of my internship, I look forward to being able to get back to writing about all that goes on in my head.

Q4 Exam Week

2009-05-06T21:31:00.002-04:00

It’s exam week at school. Apparently for elective subjects, we get a week to take our exams – we just have to make sure we turn in our responses by 5pm on Friday. We can take the exams whenever we want, wherever we want. Of course the rules of five/four/four and half contiguous hours apply, but it’s total freedom! And while I personally like the structured exam taking approach where you turn up at an assigned hour every day and do it, I think this freedom is totally cool.

For all practical purposes, I am done with first year – just one paper and the ELA stand between me and the gaping void of nothingness that is going to be my summer. I have realized that while I crave the freedom of doing nothing, I also get very restless when I actually get to the doing-nothing phase. Which is why I don’t want school to end. Don’t get me wrong, I am more than ready for a vacation. But I don’t know what I will do with my time and without my friends. Unlike many of my classmates, I am not going to India for a vacation.

There was some buzz on Facebook today with news of Darden’s partnership with Amazon coming out. Read about it at Oren’s blog. I think this is a big step for Darden as it moves towards its sustainability goals. It was great having Q3 finance online and I’d love to see more of our course materials go online. Well Oren does a great job talking about this, so just read his post and I’ll say no more.

Last weekend was Darden Days, where admitted students are hosted on grounds to come check out their home for the next two years (or to check out if they want it to be their home). I missed my own Darden Days, so I was quite impressed by the arrangements they had made for the CO 2011.

I think the highlight of the event was the dinner the school hosted at King’s Valley Vineyard – which I missed! Pt Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka were performing at the Paramount that night and after a lot of debating, I decided to skip King’s Valley in favor of the concert – best decision I ever made!

A is for Awesome Weather

2009-04-27T17:31:00.002-04:00

The weather in the Ville has been nothing short of brilliantly awesome this past weekend and spilling on to this week. While I chose not to go to the Foxfield Races, you can read all about the eagerly awaited annual rituals that took place this past weekend right here. Since I’m a spoilt bschool brat who can’t handle regular 2 days weekends anymore, I decided I needed to spend the weekend on my own terms (as opposed to the terms dictated by my calendar). So I chose to spend most of it at school, getting some work out of the way! This was also reunion weekend, so Darden alums and families were out and about the grounds. Whenever I would walk around the hallways to get my coffee, I would wonder if I’ll be back in school in five years’ time for my own reunion, what my life would look like, professionally and personally…

But I digress! This afternoon, Sania (who, by the way, does not think I'm crazy anymore), JD and I decided to catch some salad lunch together and sit outdoors to enjoy the weather. After we topped our lunch boxes from Abbott Dining, we headed out to Flagler Courtyard to sit on the grass under the tree. Great lunch and conversation later, Sania was sprawled out on the grass, just about ready to take a nap, her 2:45 class all but forgotten, JD had missed her ELA meeting and I had convinced myself that I did not care about the Marketing assignment that was screaming for my immediate attention! It was great to see students out and about, and to catch up with the girls.

But soon enough we had to move our lazy behinds off the grass and back into the student building to catch up with our schedules. Sigh, good weather or not, inside the student building, it’s life as usual! One week to go before finals and summer and I still don’t have an internship. Well, at least the weather’s in a good mood!

All about the people

2009-04-20T23:12:00.002-04:00

There’s this adage that gets thrown at you ever so often: your network is a measure of your net worth. It’s a great little note to tuck away at the back of your head as you speed through business school and I guess life in general.

Last week we had to have an emergency phone call with our client for the Enterprise Leadership Audit (ELA) we’re doing for our OB (here it’s called Leading Organizations or LO) class. And we needed some help. Particularly, our client wanted to know what they would get out of our ELA since the project involved significant time investment from them. Our own LO professor was on leave that day and we did not know where to go. So we checked the faculty directory for the LO faculty closest to where we were standing and went to his office. Prof Quinn was not our professor, had never taught any of us, and he was just leaving for lunch. When he heard of our problem, he took a good twenty minutes to sit down and answer our questions. He made sure we did not leave until we were comfortable with what we needed to know. Needless to say our call was a success.

Last week, we had a session with some second year students on advice on electives for the second year. We got great and candid advice. We also got some very very practical advice. Some encouraged us to view the subjects as experiences, other made the case for ensuring we got all round knowledge – we were going to be in business school just once and we wanted to make sure we learnt all we could. For me the best advice came at the end – make sure there is time for recruiting because when you graduate you will value having a job more than you will value having an A in the most difficult course in Darden. At the farewell party the Indian FYs threw the Indian SYs, a lot of us FYs wished we had had more time to get to know the fun bunch that they were.

What can I say about this awesome support system I have in my section D friends that will possibly do them justice? All sections got together last week in their section classrooms to talk about how they can help those classmates that were still looking for internships. Although at first it was hard to raise my hand and ask for help, I’m glad I did it because I found so much support – not just hugs and we’re-all-here-for-yous but also contacts – I got a bunch of emails from classmates with contacts that I could send my resume to. For those that emailed me and are reading this: I will get back to you soon – I’ve been down with the flu all weekend and been pretty zoned out the whole time. But THANKYOU! Your support means a lot.

The best thing about this network from school is the extended network you get into by way of partners. I’ve met some fantastic partners – JFA’s wife is probably an honorary Darden student already and his super cute kid has probably already reserved his place in Darden’s class of 2035! I’ve been out of action this past weekend because of a nasty bout of flu and after a day of silence from sitting at home (that does not bode well with me), I had surprise visitors yesterday evening – AK and his fiancé, N, who had come over to make dinner for me, and Sania who came to add some much needed cheer! Gotta love the girlfriends!

To anyone who’s starting grad school this year: invest in the relationships, they make the ride so much fun.

The Ghost of TommyJ

2009-04-15T11:49:00.001-04:00

One of the best things about being in a university as old and as rich in heritage as UVA is all the folklore that goes with the history. I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have never been to the more famous landmarks of UVA like the Lawn or the Rotunda, but this morning in the UVA magazine email there was an interesting article about the residences in the Lawn area that are reserved for the exceptional members of the student body at UVA. There were some students that occupied the rooms that someone from their family had occupied years ago, others talked about opening their doors to curious tourists to talk about the history of the Lawn residences. Read that piece here.

One of the traditions that we were informed about in our first week at Darden was the “ghost” of Thomas Jefferson, the founding father of UVA and affectionately referred to as TommyJ or TJ, that roamed the grounds of the University. Apparently he had been spotted at Darden many times. In the last nine months, I’ve spent way more hours lounging in the Piano Room or Café 67 or the learning team rooms than I care to admit, but never had I spotted TommyJ until a couple of Thursdays ago. The ghost is not really a specter. He is a man (sorry to disappoint) who dresses up as TommyJ (and does a really good job of it if all the portraits of TommyJ do him any justice) and walks around the grounds. He seems to like visiting Darden on Thursdays when the lights dim down earlier in the evening as the school empties out after a Cold Call with people heading out to TNDC to begin their weekend.

The first time I spotted TommyJ, I was sitting in one of those oversized armchairs in the Piano Room and someone was tinkering with the grand piano, playing a tune I didn’t recognize but sounding good nevertheless. TommyJ walked down from the mailbox area, across PepsiCo, towards Saunders Hall and the entrance.

Jefferson lives among us and in every corner of this beautiful town. All the buildings here are designed in the same theme as Jefferson designed it so many years ago. Monticello, his home, is a huge tourist attraction. At Darden, we even have his statue over by the fountain on Flagler Courtyard, from where he observes the hustle and bustle in the student and faculty buildings.

I spotted TommyJ again last Thursday as a few of us were hanging out at the Piano Room after the Easter Cold Call. Secretly I was glad to discover he wasn’t a figment of my overworked imagination! I think it’s kind of comforting to know he walks around, watching over his University.

Building (more than just) Goodness in April

2009-04-06T17:25:00.013-04:00

So it’s a Saturday and at 7:30AM when I should be fast asleep in bed, I was dressed in jeans, a bright blue BGiA tee and boots and was trudging up Massie Road towards JulyDream’s apartment. Not a dream this! I and 25 other Darden students were headed out to the house of Sally Burton for the annual BGiA or Building Goodness in April build day.

The BGIA is a voluntary foundation that partners with local contractors and students from Darden to help in community construction and restructuring projects. This year there were eleven projects in all – 2 parks and 9 houses. A few months earlier, house captains scoured the C’ville countryside to identify projects. A number of inspections later, they determined the scope of the operations for build day and identified the number of hands they would need, in addition to arranging for local contractors. The fund raising for this event took place a few months ago, with students auctioning anything from a self-affirming keg party to a homecooked Indian meal for four to a month of free coffee at Hot Cakes. Pre-build day evening, all volunteers met their teams to get on the same page for logistics and what exactly was expected of them the next day. We also got our BGiA tees and posed for pictures!

That evening, after the pre-build meeting, a few friends and I headed out for our backwards dinner – coffee and cake followed by dinner and then more coffee – and I turned in by midnight (my definition of an early night) in preparation for the work that awaited the next day.

On Build Day, we drove down to our site and began work at 8:30A. I started with helping rake the yard and collecting all the junk into the two large dumpsters we had – those were empty that morning but piled high by evening. Then we emptied the house of all furniture and artifacts, cleaned the outside and inside, installed windows, plumbing, bathroom fixtures, a porch, a deck and peeled off the paint on all surfaces. Then we proceeded to apply fresh paint and give the house some new fixtures. We also gave Ms. Burton a new bed! I also managed to paint over one of her chickens!

This was a humbling experience. Ms. Burton had been an analyst at Merrill back in her hey days and as we cleaned through the layers of grime and dust on what were once very expensive and tasteful furniture, we couldn’t help but wonder how she descended to the state of neglect that she was in currently. It depressed us even more to know that she had no family save for her chickens, dogs and horses. The irony of her previous occupation – something that at least 40% of my incoming class had aspired to do last summer when Wall Street still “existed” – was not lost on any of us.

We wrapped up operations by 8P and headed home for a much needed shower. Right after that we all converged at the Wild Wings Café for the after-party where we shared pictures and experiences over some Bud and Tostitos and brownies. It was definitely a day spent well…
Three cheers to PR, TW and MV, the house captains for our project, for the food, drinks, fun and for letting us help!

Here's a video: http://www.charlottesvillenewsplex.tv/home/headlines/42476527.html

The team and Sally on the newly built porch in front of her renovated house.

The BGiA team on pre-build day.

More pictures at JulyDream.

Q4 and missing Crystal Ball

2009-03-22T00:54:00.004-04:00

We’ve just wrapped up week 1 of Q4 – just 7 weeks and we’re officially done with first year. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

In an atypical move for me, I’ve gone and taken a whole bunch of non-spreadsheet electives – at least I think they’re that way! I really wanted to do Valuations and Data Analysis, especially after how much I enjoyed Finance last quarter. But I decided to forego those two for this quarter (they are offered once more in second year) and opted for subjects that I thought would free up more time to invest in job search. So I currently have an interesting subject called the Consulting Process – we’re doing cases that were done by consulting firms and we even have a partner from Bain coming in to talk to us about a case they did that we’re studying about; I also have Marketing Intelligence – I am excited about this module they have on marketing through social network media; and I have Strategic Communication – which is all about communication of your corporate identity through means other than messaging –which includes communicating through your annual report!

These are electives and we have two common classes too – our first course on Ethics and our second course on Leadership. Both classes are super interesting, in that they seek to spark debates in the class about leadership and ethical issues, to bring out the grey nature of a lot of managerial decisions and actions.

So that brings me to the title of this post. I miss being busy. This sudden change of scenery is scary. My early week classes are regular 8AM classes while my late week classes begin only at 10AM. This week I woke up at 8AM for my late week classes. And I feel terrible about it! I feel like I’m wasting my life by not being busy. And the reason I freed myself up was to do job search. But even then I have time on my hands and it’s driving me crazy! I’m thinking of taking up reading or painting again, but I am too restless to do it. I hunted around all of today – the last day we can change our courses – for either Econ or Data Analysis to free up so that I could drop one of my subjects for something that would get me out of bed in a panic at least 2 days a week. But it seems like no one wants to let those go. I’m not even looking for Valuations – Yiorgos is one of the best professors Darden has and I can’t think of anyone who’d want to drop his class!

The weather in the ville is getting better – it seems to me that people have returned from Spring Break very refreshed, with a new and positive attitude. Almost 50% of my class is still without internship but we’re plodding away, getting creative with the search, tapping our resources. I worry about what I will do if I don’t get anything for the summer, but I am sleeping better these days that I have done in the last four months… I've got hope.

Soccer, Azul and the Beach – Brazil Diaries

2009-03-20T18:29:00.002-04:00

Concluding part...

I thought it’s high time I wrapped up the Brazil diaries! So I’ll try to cram everything else from my week in Sao Paulo on to this one post.

One of the interesting exercises we had was on negotiation and this was on day 2 of classes at IBMEC. Although I didn’t really get much on negotiation from it, it was interesting in that it required us to go to a local grocery and produce market to buy a set of ingredients on a given (tight) budget. Language is such a big barrier in Brazil and that’s what made this exercise challenging for most of us – I had 3 Spanish speakers in my team, hence the “most of us”. Although our facilitator for this exercise claimed that the team with the woman had the most advantage, I can safely say that I had no hand in my team’s success – except perhaps photo-documenting it! But it was a fun exercise – we brought back all of our supplies to IBMEC and feasted on them for afternoon coffee!

Day 3 was probably the best day we Sao Paulo – actually it could be Day 4 too, I’m having trouble picking! On day 3, we visited the offices of Azul, founded by David Neeleman of Jet Blue fame. He has got to be the most down-to-earth CEO ever! He personally showed us around the facilities he had there, and spent time talking to us about what made the Brazilian market different and why Azul’s success was so hard to achieve. That evening, we got to watch Ronaldo take his team to victory in a football game: LIVE! The stadium was packed full and boy, do the Brazilians love their football or what! I’m no big football fanatic, but just that energy and the hype and the way the crowds went crazy every time Ronaldo’s shoe came in contact with the ball – I was jumping out of my seat in excitement! This was hands down the best experience ever!

On day 4, we went to the Embraer factory, which included a tour of the shop floor. It was exciting to see that stuff, especially since I had studied that during undergrad. And then there was the program in the evening. See here’s competition for that game. Symphony orchestra. Not just any orchestra, but Brazil’s best. We got tickets to go this orchestra where apart from watching a breathtaking performance, we also got to hob-nob with some of Sao Paulo’s Page 3 personalities. The performance itself was beautiful; I was captivated by the skill and verve in the music. The whole theater seemed to come alive to the tunes of Mozart and Beethoven and the stillness in the audience was in stark contrast to the spirited performance of the conductor. The person on the saxophone got four encores!

The next day we went on a day long trip to the beach, about 2 hours from Sao Paulo. While friends who went to Rio after this would write this one out, I had a lot of fun here. Since I’m not normally a beach person – I went with a big tube of sunscreen – when I say I had fun, you can tell I had fun! We had a good lunch at a beachside restaurant and soon the whole bunch was in the water. I had a long walk and great conversation with my professor as we walked along the water. The evening came too soon and we headed back to SP, playing card games on the bus to keep us awake.

We flew back to DC the next evening, and so spent the morning going shopping for famous Hawaiianas - actually we just needed an excuse to use the subway!

The week was over in a flash. I think I left a piece of me in Brazil. I loved being away from the Ville, away from email, job search, resume drops, exams, cases… it was the first time in months that I felt free and at peace. I look at pictures from that trip now and we all look so happy. I learnt so much about this country in that one week; in the classroom there was the technical knowledge – monetary and fiscal policies, sustainability… outside of it, I observed people and a different way of life and attitudes. It was exciting. For once, I wasn’t happy to be back in Darden, to the reality that awaited.

Sustainability in the Amazon - Brazil Diaries

2009-03-10T07:25:00.005-04:00

First part...

We had an eventful journey from Dulles to JFK to GRU, Sao Paulo, Brazil, which included having a Darden impromptu reunion over dinner at JFK, with the team going on GBE to Buenos Aires and the vegetarians in the group chomping on homemade masala bajji and medhu vadas (all in the waiting lounges at JFK), we finally arrived at Sao Paulo, Brazil – tired and sleepy. What hit us first was the humidity – it was like being back in Chennai! Actually all of Sao Paulo reminds me of India – including the bikes on the road. I am beginning to think they’re like some standard characteristics of emerging economies!

Day zero, the day we landed, was spent in taking a long shower and going on an afternoon tour of the handicrafts market in Embu, an hour’s drive from Sao Paulo. After walking around the place and getting a taste of Brazilian beer, we headed home, tired and hungry. The Darden contingent is being hosted by Sao Paulo’s premier business school IBMEC and they hosted us for dinner on Day zero evening at the swanky rooftop of a 41 floor restaurant. The view of Sao Paulo was breathtaking and we spent more time standing outside taking in the view than actually sitting on the table. But oh wait, we had enough time to down a few Caipirinhas the Brazilian national alcoholic drink (think Mojito with a little more sugar). Since I’m such a Mojito fan, I was all for this drink!

Day 1 morning we went to take our first day of classes at IBMEC. We had discourses on Private Equity in Brazil – an interesting insight into the Brazilian capital markets and the fiscal/monetary policies, Culture in Brazil – an engaging lecture by an American psychology professor and finally, the best class of the day, Sustainability in the Amazon.

The Amazon is 60% of Brazil by area and yet is fraught with social and ecological problems. Our professor was a knowledgeable woman from IBMEC who had spent many years studying and working at the Amazon region and was well versed with the culture and society of the Amazonians. She talked about the extreme poverty of the region and how the rainforest and its rich biodiversity has become a political hotspot in the country. She talked about how there has been rampant deforestation by mining and manmade fires and how a series of policies in the name of agrarian reforms put the rainforest on the road to destruction. After all this bad news, she took us through the case of Orsa Foundation, one of the few Brazilian companies that are working at sustainability projects in the region. It was heartening to hear about the work they had done and were continuing to do to ensure the natives learnt to live with the forest instead of being forced to destroy it for money.

After a Peruvian lunch at IBMEC – with fried bananas! – we headed off to Abril Group, Brazil’s second largest media house that had footprints in the ink and digital media. As someone from the technology industry with a keen passion and involvement with ink/internet media, I found this visit extremely engaging. Abril group was like a case straight out of strategy class – the new media wave was just washing over Brazil and abril group wanted in, but did not know how to adapt their existing business model to play in this new market, where the blurry lines included behemoths like Google, MSN search, Yahoo search in the playing field.

After a cocktail party at the mezzanine and a tour through the extremely lively-looking offices (complete with Portuguese sponge bob caricatures on the elevator doors), we headed home. Not one to call it a night so soon, a bunch of us headed off on foot to find a mall and a place to get some beers. A few buckets of beer and fantastic conversation later, we’re home and hitting the sack. Day1 and a number of road crossings later, Toso (my Japanese classmate) is still safe and sound – he needs watching when crossing the road!

Story so far - Muito Bon!

PS. It’s hard to get by if you don’t know Portuguese or Italian. But you learn soon enough because the Brazilians are amazingly friendly.

Exhausted but excited

2009-03-06T00:19:00.001-05:00

Finals are finally over! Our last subject, management communications or MC, is a paper that we have to turn in by tomorrow. I had grandiose plans (of course what else?!) of writing that paper before finals week and turning it in as an early bird. Predictably that did not happen. So this evening, when I was exhausted from giving my neglected apartment some much needed attention, when I should have been and could have been relaxing and taking a nap or catching up with friends, I was laboring through that 4 page MC paper. And what a time to have writer’s block! That 4 page writing was my most agonizing writing yet! This was more agonizing than when I would go for those creative writing competitions where there was nothing creative because you had to write on a given topic – and I would rebel on the grounds that creativity could not be contained in boundaries (topics) and so I would not write with my usual enthusiasm.

Tonight was a section D reunion – one I’ve been waiting for – and I didn’t go. I was just too exhausted, I fell asleep fully dressed. I would have probably slept all night if the phone had not woke me up. I spoke on the phone for a very long time with an old friend today. I had not called him since I got here and I had not realized how much I’d missed out on in these months that I’ve been living inside the Darden bubble. I love this place, but every time I re-establish contact with the outside world that I lived in before I came here, I feel guilty about how I’ve cut myself off. I left one rat race behind only to join another one. I sometimes wonder why we, as people, do this to ourselves.

I haven’t packed or anything for Brazil… which is so unlike me. I’m a compulsive list maker and take a fair amount of time getting ready for a trip. This is why I’m sitting here, sleepy and exhausted, with the idea of writing out my list, but instead typing out a post. I am not even sure what our agenda in Sao Paulo looks like. I am just glad that I’m getting a break from here – these past few months have been exhausting, physically and mentally. Sometimes I feel like I’d rather be spending this coming week sitting at home in the ville and being a vegetable, I know that looking back, I’d kick myself for doing that.

Here’s to new experiences… after all, that’s what this life is for!

End of Q3, Start of Spring

2009-02-27T18:06:00.004-05:00

This week saw the wrap up of Q3 of the first year. The quarter flew by faster than anyone expected and I guess before I know it, summer break will be here too but let’s not go there.

Once we got over the initial bewilderment of new sections and new faces, this quarter proved to be great fun. I learnt a ton, and actually started falling in love with a few subjects that I was absolutely petrified of earlier. Finance this quarter was great fun and I can’t wait for second year when I will hopefully get to take the Valuations elective – I envy the folks that are taking that elective next quarter because the professor is one of the best in Darden. Another subject that I kind of got my head around was DA – something I’d struggled with in Q1. Econ for this quarter was extremely informative and I wish I could have taken the elective next quarter but that’s choc full. All in all, we had a great couple of months and with finals next week, I only hope I will do justice to all that I learnt. We wrapped up classes with the social reps organizing lunch after the last class yesterday. And another great way to wrap up the quarter was the election of LP, my Section D and Section V superstar, as the DSA President and K-Mart as DSA VP and special congratulations to fellow blogger Jackie for NAWMBA President.

This quarter is also the last one where learning teams will meet. Next quarter onwards, because of electives, most learning teams choose not to meet. My own team chose not to meet this quarter, but we kept the support going for the most part through emails and exchanges of information. A couple of team based simulation exercises brought us together a few times this quarter and each time it’s been a ton of fun. Most LTs had LT corridor parties – all the teams in a particular corridor had beer + snacks parties. Tonight my team is meeting for dinner at a new Thai place at Barracks and I am really looking forward to catching up with the gang.

With the end of this quarter I guess it’s also the end of winter in some ways – it’s 6pm and there’s still light out. With the fantastic weather we’ve been having over the last couple of days, I’m feeling strangely relaxed. I’m just hoping it doesn’t lead to complacence because there’s a lot of cramming I need to do over this weekend.

Same time next week I’ll be done with finals and packing up to go to Brazil on my GBE. I’m SO excited!!

On being grown up

2009-02-18T22:32:00.002-05:00

These past few weeks have required me to make a number of decisions on a whole range of things. There’s some on the personal side, some professional, some just plain “life” things. I hate how I get when I have to make these seemingly big choices; I just internalize and think about it until it consumes me and then suddenly I make up my mind and I’m back up again. And just when I think I could not have thought any more, I find myself revisiting the choices I’ve made only to discover there is room for more thought. I am not sure if I’m just more fickle than others – going by the track record I’m not so much, but I do tend to over analyze. It’s never a good thing I guess.

That’s the thing about being grown up. A lot of my choices and decisions have been one way streets with no room to change my mind later and with no one to look up to for advice. Some have been easy to make out of intuition and hard to back up with logic. Others have checked out fine by all sense and logic but then intuition plays spoil sport… a classic head vs heart war dance. Sometimes it’s not even so much of a choice as an attempt just to find out some options to choose from. And you know how they say life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans? There were some things that were creeping up on me that I had no idea about until I woke up one morning and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Sigh. I have made my choices and there’s no going back now. I normally assure myself that I have done right by seeing how easily I move on after I’ve decided. In some cases in these past few weeks, I have moved on almost overnight – out with the old and in with the new. But some things have not been that easy, and there is that dull ache of regret. After a whole of quarter of making complex models to solve go/no-go issues with airlines, oil rigs and movie sequels, I discovered that unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), not all of life’s dilemmas can be represented on a decision tree with clear cut EMVs and probabilities where you just pick the best one and get on with it. If only it were that simple.

Joining the dots

2009-02-12T13:03:00.003-05:00

Warning: Long post ahead.
Somewhere in the Darden website there is a page that talks about the integrated curriculum at the school. I thought it was pretty cool when I came across it the first time and I also remember talking about it in my interview. Once in school, there were many weeks when we would do cases in different subjects on the same firm – a lot of times these were narrow focus subjects (looking at the balance sheet or their marketing strategy) and I always thought it was kind of remarkable how the course directors designed our courses such that they came up that way. But this quarter it’s a little more than just remarkable.

Last week, we covered Brazil in more than one subject. So we learnt about it economics, then in finance, and tracing the country’s economic and financial history over the years for one case helped me understand some of the exchange rate discussions we touched upon in finance. And since I’m going to Brazil during spring break I hope that with all that I have learnt about it so far and the reading I am going to do before I get there, I can bridge the time gaps (between the cases and now) to hopefully understand the country better.

And while we’re on countries, I have to tell you, our macroecon class has taken on an interesting avatar this quarter. Every case we are doing is based on a country and in order to give us a background, often there are a couple of pages on the history. It helps us appreciate and understand the causes of the country’s economic picture at the point in time that the case talks about. A lot of times we are forced to acknowledge that not all solutions to a country’s eoconimic problems lie in monetary or fiscal policy and that the customs, politics and people are an important consideration. Sometimes it is none of those but a fallout of something that plagued a whole different continent, that the country in question is paying for. In a sense, each of these cases has felt like a mini capsule of history lesson from a more economic viewpoint. we have traversed South East Asia, Africa and Latin America so far while next week we’re spending a good deal of time on the flavor du jour, India and China. And in all our discussions, the recurrent undercurrent is the importance of ethics in all the decisions that we will be called upon to make once we re-enter the work force.

Similarly, we focused a lot on the airline industry this quarter – nearly every subject has had a case on the airline industry, by focusing on a single airline company and its dynamics with the other players in the industry. Knowing nothing about the airline industry before this, except from the perspective of a traveller, this case took us deep into the industry and a number of interesting view points and insider ideas came about during our class discussions. And in questioning why our course directors decided to give us such an indepth view into the industry, we found out something really important about researching and case writing – it’s all about finding the right amount of public yet correct data!

Another highlight of last week was the first blogger meeting that I could make it to. Sitting over there, chomping on pizza and sharing insights with a bunch of the coolest people in school (and the blogosphere, I think!), I really felt the power all of us carried with us, in our attempt at bridging information from inside Darden to the world outside. It was easy to see why we were all there – because we believe in the school, in the method and in our community and because we are so passionate about this system.

Changing gears a little bit here, I wanted to tell you something interesting about the case method – how class participation is graded here at Darden. In most first year courses, our participation counts for about 40% of our course grade and I would wonder how the points were allotted. So during one of our strategy classes, as we recapped the discussion we had on the previous day’s case on Google, our professor actually recapped the entire class in under 5 minutes, talking about the key insights that the class brought out including pointing out the students that made these insights. He remembered exactly how the discussion flowed and what we concluded and nicely summed it up with what we were supposed to have taken away from it. I guess the key to the case method system of learning is to be able to do just that in order to arrive at the take away and the lessons learnt from that particular class, to cut through the meandering flow that sometimes takes place in a particularly obtuse case.

In other words, in the case method, you have to step back every once in a while to tie it all back in, to join the dots, sit back and say aha, because what emerges is nothing short of a work of art!

Three-two-one

2009-01-25T01:04:00.004-05:00

Sums up the topic of my post. Third quarter, second row (in class), first week.

Q3 classes began last Monday for the class of 2010. I have a whole new section – just a fourth of my class comprises of the familiar faces from Section D, the others being from sections A, B, and C – no section E since our new classroom is the Section E classroom – with the tap dancing blackboard.

It’s been a weird sort of week for me. There are a lot of people in my class I have never seen before and I’m only just getting to putting names to faces. It doesn’t help that I’m no longer in my perch on the last row, at the top of the class – the one I referred to as prime real estate in an earlier post. This time I’m in row 2, right under the teacher’s nose, uncomfortably so, if I may add – I got cold-called in 2 of 3 classes on the first day of the quarter! It’s comforting to have some familiar faces in class, but they’re all so far interspersed that they are almost lost in the sea of unfamiliar ones. In the Darden curriculum, a lot of the classroom experience is a function of the class dynamics and in this first week I’m still trying to put my finger on the pulse of it. This I know for sure – there’s an awful lot of ex/current bankers in my class – they’re the lot I’m somehow always intimated by, don’t ask me why! I miss my section D, but I get to meet a whole bunch of new people and they already seem like fun!

The subjects and the set up this quarter are deceptively laidback. Nearly every Friday is a reading day – more like a callback day for recruiting activities. We have strategy, more finance, decision analysis once again, GEM (but no P-Rod) and communication. So far all the classes have been pretty interesting. We also have a whole new set of professors, so that’s another thing you have to figure out – different professors respond to the class dynamics in different ways. While some are very cold-call-friendly, others are very voluntary-class-participation-friendly. I’m kind of undecided on which one is the lesser of two evils.

So why this week is weird is simply because I’ve been feeling oddly restless in class. And so have a lot of people. There’s two kinds of people in the classroom these days – one kind that have got jobs for the summer. They are the kinds that literally drag their feet to class (shout out to YG for the GS offer and to GC for McK).The other kind are the ones who also drag their feet to class but only because they are still looking for jobs and therefore would rather be hooked up (to the internet) doing something to further their efforts – that precious green light is being promptly switched off before and during every class, cutting us off from the internet. Thankfully classes (and comments) are interesting enough for me to zone in and out of my reverie often enough to actually type out enough notes!

It’s Saturday night and I stopped by Starbucks on the way back from dinner. A night of insomnia follows.

The 4Ps of an internship search

2009-01-16T00:52:00.003-05:00

Take one super awesome SY, and four hungry and tired FYs. Put them in a hallway in school. Get them talking about consulting firms. Amidst a lot of back slapping, high-fiveing and PJs, here’s what you get!

Second year SN (“What do you want to do?”) and first years AK, AS, RJ and yours truly present:

The 4 Ps of a consulting internship search:

Project / Position – The position or role you want to go for. Corporate strategy vs Supply Chain Strategy. Business Technology Consulting vs S&O consulting. Healthcare consulting vs energy consulting. List is endless.
Place – Everyone wants to go to New York. But there are other offices. Most websites have an interactive map that lights up your location when you click on it. Pretty cute stuff. So yeah, there’s life outside of New York.
People – The “fit” factor (no it doesn’t end with business school applications). The culture. The work-life balance. Over rated in a down economy but we’re going to leave it there for the sake of the 4Ps.
Payment – The salary. You want a good salary and you look at that right from now since you have the long term in mind (translated – if they offer you a full time position). Period. If you need more explanation, maybe you want to look at non-profit work.

Chin up

2009-01-16T00:46:00.002-05:00

You know what’s coming from the title. And by the end of this post you’re probably going to ask me if I want some cheese (LT39 will get this one).

When I was hanging out at the Root residence on Christmas Eve all I could wish for was that I get the gift of an interview call at a consulting firm. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled in, all I wished for was any firm to call me for an interview. 12 days into the New Year, all I’d received were reject letters, and the year was threatening to turn into one massive nightmare. On day 13 I got my first invite, but going by the number of offers firms are making here, I don’t even know if I should be hopeful. I will admit that others in my school will tell you it’s too early to press the panic button. I will also admit that when I came to business school I really thought I’d put my foot in the door to a great career. I thought my days of worry and of feeling like I was headed nowhere were finally over. Someone in Wall Street obviously had other plans.

I don’t like this feeling of general all pervading gloom that seems to have set up shop in my head. And I hate playing party-pooper with my friends. But these wonderful people who I have the privilege of calling friends, stand by me, calling me up and telling me it’s going to be ok. They’re the most awesome people and I’m thankful to just know them. You all know who you are and I want you to know I’m grateful for your support, especially the one you’ve given me in the last two weeks. Special thanks for all the hugs, chai meetings and to those who would call me on the phone only to hear my outburst of frustration.

Sometimes you just have to look for treasure in the unlikeliest of places. Sometimes good tidings also come when you least expect them. They tell us the way out is to cast a wide net, as wide as you possibly can. I watch some of my batch mates holed up in learning team rooms doing cases while others walk the halls looking sharper than before in crisp suits and I feel a sense of deep disappointment for not being a part of the race. And then I hear of the offers that are coming in – less than 5% of the total interview invite list, and I wonder which of us would be more depressed – the suit clad banker-wannabe or me.

In other news, I’d gone to Seattle on a job trek last week. Standing in Microsoft’s Redmond campus, the techie in me was full of glee, like a kid in a candy store. I felt strangely comfortable and familiar and awe for the organization, its culture and its products, so much that I could actually see myself working there! And there’s a lot to be said about the Darden alum – they all took time off their schedules to spend an informative couple of hours with us. It was the same case with the other firms we visited – everywhere the Darden alum were there to talk to us about school, work, internship search and even networking! We capped off the evening with a student-alumni mixer which was a great opportunity to talk at length with all the alum we’d met in the course of the day. And while I really liked Seattle, I didn’t like how far away it is and how it took me forever to get back home. Like every trip I’ve been on, I met some interesting people on the flights; including another bschooler from Cornell (we exchanged some gloom).

I’m back in the Ville now and yes I’d like some cheese. And I’d love a belated Christmas gift too. Actually just a gift would be nice…

Watching the ball drop on 2008

2009-01-03T11:40:00.005-05:00

I remember the post I wrote same time last year. I remember like it was yesterday that I was sitting in my office in Bangalore as the clock struck midnight on the last night of 2007, writing that post and editing my essays for Darden while making plans to fly out to the US that same week. Looking back now, I could say I was in denial for the most part, but itching to get somewhere better than where I was at that time. Just that week, two out of the 4 business schools I had applied to had communicated their dings and I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going. The only light was the change of scenery in the work place that I was being offered.

Coming to the US changed me so much! It seemed like I was learning something new at work every day, and then there was Darden. I’ll spare you details, but that was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to me in a long long time. I have to thank a lot of people for their faith in me, but special thanks to PV for his constant egging and nudging, for convincing me to take the plunge and apply. Summer of 2008 passed by in a whoosh, 2+ months of getting pampered at home by the family and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was time to board the flight again, to make that 24 hour journey to the place I’d begun to think of as home.

Darden. Oh what can I possible say about it that I haven’t already said before? Every day has been a new experience. I’m continuing to meet great people from different countries of the world, realizing that geographies are just lines on a flat bit of paper and that in essence we’re all the same, here to chase our dreams, ambitions and so much more. I can see that I have changed so much in the last 6 months of being here.

Without a doubt, the last year was one where I worked harder than I had ever before – first at work and then at school. I knew going in that the year was going to bring in a lot of change, but I had no idea it would be this big. Priorities, thought processes, attitudes – all changed, seemingly for the better, but only time can tell.

The coming year is going to be the big one. This time I know it and not just feel it. For starters, there are two recruitment seasons to get by at school – the internship as well as the full time in the second year. I’m going to travel to a new continent in the first quarter of the year – first person in my family to get a South American stamp on the passport, woo hoo! There’s exams, the end of first year, the start of the second year, welcoming new students, and god knows what other adventures and experiences await me and my class in this eventful year. And this is just school – which I can safely assume will be almost 100% of my world/life for this year – very welcome too! Of course, I will be blogging through it all!

Last New Year’s Eve I told myself I’d watch the ball drop from Times Square in real time - I had thought I would go to NY. This time I did watch the ball drop in real time, not from NYC but right here in NoVa. And the setting was so much better! I was surrounded by people I did not know until I met them few hours ago, yet they made me feel so welcome. New Year’s Eve couldn’t have been better, neither could new year’s day – so far away from home, yet I never felt like I was a stranger. Cheers to good friends, great people, an eventful, life-altering new year and to the rest of the blogosphere.

Note to business school applicants: Some of you may have your dreams come true this year. Some of you may not. For those in the first category, you’re going to remember this year for the rest of your lives. For those in the second, don’t worry because in the grand scheme of things, this setback will mean nothing more than a blip in a pretty blipful life! Irrespective of which bucket you fall under, good luck to all of you.

Hanukah, Christmas and stuff in between

2008-12-26T15:15:00.006-05:00

Since Hanukah came first, I’m going to talk about that. The Root residence hosted us C’ville orphans, as we’re now called, one evening to witness the lighting of the first candle of Hanukah. Being totally ignorant of all things Jewish (except the phrase about sounding like Hebrew), this was a fantastically enlightening evening. The Roots and the Katz (another Israeli family from the second year) recited the story of Hanukah and sang the traditional prayer, even translating it for us. Of course, there was delicious finger food and wine. That was also the first time I sampled Oren’s brilliant Turkish coffee and the guy, bless him, had stoked up the fireplace as well. I headed out “early” (in Darden, early is just before midnight) while some folks stayed behind to watch a movie.

Well, the Charlottesville orphans had so much fun on Hanukah that the Roots decided to host us again, this time for a potluck Christmas dinner. I will spare you the menu, but will tell you that it was delicious and had some fantastic Indian chicken and vegetables and Mrs. Root's finger licking stuffed chicken along with a variety of rice. Great conversation, some pictures and a lot of laughs later we decided to watch a movie of course! This one ended late, not too late though, and only after a round of Oren’s Turkish Coffee!

In between all this, there was a lot of Starbucks coffee trips, drives in the night on the foggy Blue Ridge Mountain highway, shopping trips, movies, long conversations over phone and chat and some spring cleaning.

This whole experience got me thinking about how closeted my vacations were in India. Of course I know all about the Christmas dinner and the joy and cheer, but for me it was always just a holiday! But being here, sharing the festive occasions with other people that I didn’t know from Adams even 6 months back was a fantastic experience. It is to experience this stuff that I decided to uproot from the place I called home for twenty six years, to travel half way across the world and come to Darden. With each passing day, I feel like I am learning so much both inside and outside of school.

It’s strange that as I’m building relationships on the one hand, I am severing some. For the first time in this country, I’m going to move out of a shared residence and get my own place. I know it’s no big deal and a bunch of people choose to do it anyway, but somehow this feels different. There is this exhilarating feeling of independence but there is also a niggling fear of getting cut off from all things familiar. I suppose it’s a natural reaction to change.

There is one regret though – I didn’t get to eat chocolate cake. One of my greatest weaknesses is chocolate cake – all chocolate with nothing white in it! And the one place I did find it, they refused to cut me a piece since they were going to be closed for Christmas and therefore wanted to be able to sell the whole cake. So much for a craving!

So what's it going to be for New Year's eve? I figure a good way to cap off this excitingly unexpected adventure of a year is to watch the ball drop at Times Square... Am I adventurous enough to make a trip to the Big Apple next week? Let's see...

On why being idle does not agree with me

2008-12-16T18:50:00.002-05:00

So I’m sick. It's not because I’m missing home. I’m not missing warm sunny India either. I’m not missing my mom’s cooking – ok ,THAT I am missing terribly! I do not want to eat one more day of my own cooking!

I am sick because I miss having work. I miss having to race against time to make it to my 8AM class in classroom 180 with all the awesome section D ppl! I miss my learning team. And I am sick of the fact that it gets dark at 5pm and I don’t have a watch on and I am all disoriented about what time it is. And I am also a little sick of the fact that a whole bunch of my friends have gone home or on job treks for the hols and so I miss them – I miss going to the coffee place and wasting away over a cup of cappuccino.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an internship yet and due to the down economy the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is kind of fading out too. I have tons of work to do – like reaching out to companies and case prep for the interviews. I have apartment moving work to do too – yes I’m stupid enough to move apartments in the middle of the school year. And I should be booking tickets and accommodation for my trip to Seattle early next year. But instead of checking these (and whole host of other things) off my list of to-dos, I am choosing to waste away the time doing I-don’t-know-what. I so hope my mother is not reading this right now.

This is the time I was counting down to since the beginning of the second quarter. I had a ton of plans including hitting the gym (day 4 and counting and all I’ve done towards losing a few pounds is play an evening of tennis) and now that the time is finally here I am unable to shake off that feeling of general laziness and get out of the brain-dead mode.

I am going to try to get up at 6AM tomorrow – maybe all I’m missing is the boot camp rigor. It seems like a good time to check how much self-organization I’ve learnt in this one semester of Darden. I am hoping to have mastered it by the time graduation rolls by so I hope I am at least better than I was before I came here.

I’ll sign off now. Back to my… er… back to doing nothing.

Twenty five percent!

2008-12-12T18:44:00.002-05:00

That’s how much of an MBA I am as of today! After a week of finals, the class of 2010 is finally through with second quarter, the one touted to be the most grueling. And what an eventful week it has been. When we weren’t saving the Japanese economy, we were figuring out ways to transport lubricants from one continent to another. One day we were selling healthy jams the other day we sold lumber. After playing the all knowing CEO for a week, I can finally relax at home and be plain old me! There’s just one problem though – I don’t know what to do!

I’m not crazy, I swear! I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something, I should be obsessively checking my outlook or I should be booting up to head out to the library. But I don’t need to do any of that. My outlook is free – for all evening! I can’t remember the last time I had a free calendar. There are NO cases to do for tomorrow. I don’t have to head out to the library for anything. All I have to do is get dressed to go party! But I still can’t help feeling all empty on the inside. I remember dragging myself out of bed this morning and vowing to crawl back under the sheets in 7 hours’ time and not wake up till its Saturday. My eyes are tired – you try doing 5 hour exams a day! – but my brain is buzzing.

There are a bunch of parties happening tonight. If you’re one of the really popular ones and have the beer guzzling capacity of a keg, you can go party hopping! I know a few people who probably have been at the corner all afternoon (and it’s not even 7pm yet)! If you went down to Barracks road now, you’d probably find a few Section Social Reps stocking up on the kegs!

What am I going to do? Well after I put away my cases for Q3 – yep, they did it again, they put the case packets for next quarter in our mailboxes, for us to find as we turned in our exams today – I will probably clean up my room and find out where I want to go for the night! One small note of appreciation for the school though. In a bid to be more environmentally conscious based on feedback from us students, the school decided to run a pilot project by giving us one subject in electronic form as opposed to paper. In other words, come Q3, we will have our finance cases on our computers and not as sheets in our binders. When the survey got sent out, I had expected the student response to be in favor of this move and I had also expected the school to do something about it. I had not expected the school to react so fast; they deserve a pat on the back!

I am signing out now; not because I am out of things to say – if you know me at all, you'd know that I’m NEVER out of things to say! But I’m going to be by myself now, to reflect on the semester that’s gone by. It feels like just yesterday that I got that call from Darden informing me of my admission. What do you know, I’m already one semester down, calling this place my home, and not getting enough of my awesome classmates! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

The darkest week of Black November...

2008-11-30T21:28:00.005-05:00

… is the first week of December. The week that officially begins tomorrow (but unofficially began this morning) is brutal to say the least. A zillion cover letters to write for deadlines that begin tomorrow and culminate in double digit number of resume drops for Friday and some recruiting event or the other for every day of this week. Oh and in case it’s not obvious, we still have to get through 3 cases a day!

In my previous post I’d written about having to churn out cover letters over this break. It’s with more than a touch of regret that I admit that I have not even done half the cover letters I had planned to get done. I’d also planned a spot of studying to get up to speed on some coursework that flew way above my head during classes (no prizes for guessing which classes those were), but of course between waking up well after normal waking hours and going to get coffee from Starbucks, I did not get any of that done. I suppose my to-do list is unchecked partly because of being glued to the television for 2 days in a row with the Mumbai drama.

Finally, a bunch of my classmates are back or on the way back to the Ville. This break was a welcome one and I guess I’m not the only one who’s counting down to the start of winter break. Meanwhile a handful of people who wrote too many cover letters have started cracking bad jokes on Facebook – a sure sign that they’ve worked too hard (finger pointed at AS here).

Facebook reminds me: you know, I never thought I’d be eligible to apply for a job at Facebook! Hell, being able to do a web conference with Google makes coming all the way to Darden totally worth it (it really is every past/present/future techie's dream come true!). Isn’t it cool how many new doors business school opens up for you?

The Complete Thanksgiving Meal

2008-11-26T22:59:00.002-05:00

Darden hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us international students earlier this week. It was my first ever thanksgiving in the US and I was understandably excited. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t about the food (and I’ll tell you why in a bit). The things I associated with Thanksgiving were all the movies where the family gets together and some embarrassment or feud ensues and of course the thanksgiving episodes from Friends! I wanted to create my own Thanksgiving memory – secretly I was hoping for drama, but hey, the real Thanksgiving is tomorrow so all is not lost yet!

The food now… aah what can I say! I’ve gone vegetarian since I got to the US this time – the last time I was here I was feasting on chicken and I think I overdosed on the stuff. Plus this time I had to listen to a really long lecture from the parents before I got left India about the virtues of vegetarianism – all of which I agree with, mind you – and I met some really vegetarian people too (there is vegetarian and then there is really vegetarian, trust me, I’m not making this up) to serve as inspiration. So I figured I might as well try going green, after all green is the new black (though the currency markets might think differently). Phew I’ve said all of that so now I can say this: I ate the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner. Relief!

I wanted to experience the real deal, all of the authentic Thanksgiving food. So there was turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie… it was at Abbott and needless to say, it was lip smacking delicious. Add to that the fun company of Denise Karaoli from the Office of International students and a bunch of internationals from my class and you had all the ingredients for a fantastic evening where I almost forgot about the 3 cases I had due for the next day. Oren and I agreed that skipping learning team that night was not going to hold too heavy on the conscience, so we did!

I suppose on Thanksgiving you feel thankful for being where and who you are, for your family and for all the good in your life. My family is far away in India and I don’t need Thanksgiving to feel grateful for having them in my life. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss my folks. But this Thanksgiving, I was especially thankful to my new extended family – all the people I have met at Darden. I am thankful for just being here. If someone had told me back in February when I’d visited the Ville to interview, that I would come back here for school, I would not have believed them. I fell in love with the school but also realized that there were other more accomplished people who deserved to go here. I am thankful that I am here today, calling this place home and sharing it with so many talented and wonderful people. My classmates never cease to awe me and there are some classes where I am sitting, amazed at the sheer quality of the professor before me. There are second year students that are way up there on my list of people I respect, who I wish I had time to get to know better. So while a whole bunch of my classmates are enjoying the holiday season with their families and a lot of them are laboring over the zillion cover letters we need to churn out by the end of the vacation, I am sitting here at my desk in my apartment just marveling at how far away I am from the world I lived in just a few months ago.

Thank you, Darden, for letting me be a part of your universe.

Q2 - Diwali in a suit

2008-10-27T15:45:00.007-04:00

We’re into week 2 of the second quarter. I’m not sure if it’s just me but I do think this quarter is far more interesting than the last one yet a little harder too. For starters, I think corporate finance is going way over my head ( or is that because I’ve got it in my head that if it’s got the dreaded finance word in it, then it must be hard) while operations and marketing though more interesting than last quarter, are definitely beginning to pinch a bit. But hands down the most interesting subject we’ve got this quarter is GEM (Global Economies and Markets) and Peter Rodriguez is our professor for that. This subject is very relevant to the current crisis and helps us (ok, helps me, since most of my classmates seem pretty tuned in already) understand the financial crisis better by analyzing the fundamentals that built up to it in the first place. After each class I find myself marveling the amount of insight that my classmates bring to the table in such matters and I can actually feel the difference in my understanding from when I'm going in to when I’m done with the class. The new seating arrangement has me once more in the last row – prime bit of real estate in the class room, mind you – and although a lot of people feel excluded when they sit there, I personally enjoy sitting on my “perch” and taking in all the proceedings below, occasionally participating in the fray myself.

On the recruiting front, it looks like we’re just finishing up with the briefings. Two consulting companies this week and I think we’re done with the bulk of them. With the situation being what it is, the school has been encouraging us to explore off grounds job searches, even organizing a seminar on how to navigate the process with special attention to international students. Outside, the weather’s been cooling down and it’s gotten downright cold in the nights when I walk back to Ivy. Darden and the rest of the ville is looking really pretty with the trees peppered with leaves of multicolored hues and I love stepping on the fallen leaves to hear the crunchy sound they make under my shoes.

Finally, today is Diwali in my part of the world. When I called home last night I could barely hear my sister over the firecrackers in the background. If I had to sum up Diwali in one word for you, it would be this: firecrackers. If I were to sum up Diwali my way in a word for you it would be this: sweets. On this day, it’s custom that we wear new clothes and the sister sent me a new Indian outfit to wear for today. I, however, am sitting here in the library (I know I said I wouldn’t be back here for sometime but I can’t help it, it feels like home!) in a grey suit (grey like the weather outside), munching salty baked Lays because I missed lunch. Happy Diwali to me.

Before we start over

2008-10-15T16:19:00.004-04:00

Q1 is over, finished and done with! But in the words of the Surfer Guy (J"B"S, Section D), “the repercussions are not.” I agree with that, but for today, just today, allow me to revel in this sense of freedom that I last felt on my final day at work!

Today we wrapped our exams for the quarter, leaving behind 6 days of myriad experiences as we tackled case after case, crunched a million numbers, and ate more granola bars than I can count on my two hands! As I pushed open the doors of the library after the exam, I was happy just at the thought of not having to camp out there for the next couple of months and constantly speak in hushed tones. I chose not to bid for one of the learning team rooms for the exam, choosing instead to hole up in the library, where I am more comfortable and insulated from a lot of the madness.

Funnily enough, I’m a little disappointed that the exams are over (I hear a range of disapproving noises) because while they were on, I had something to do all the time. Not that I won’t have something to do now, but no exams means having to tackle a whole lot of other work from the “real life” – errands, laundry, resume polish, company briefings prep, all the phone calls I’ve been promising people back home but haven’t gotten round to doing… you get the idea…

So in true Darden case method style, I figured I should make a little note of the key takeaways from this quarter and the exams, to be tucked away till Monday, when Q2 begins.

1. Exams are supposed to be the easiest time at Darden. Why, then, was I so hassled? Back to the drawing board as I figure out where my study-style was messed up.
2. My learning team rocks, but I might have depended on them too much. A lot of exams had me struggling to get something I thought I’d done at LT. I remembered trying to figure it out on my own before LT, and then getting help from the folks there. But turns out I didn’t really learn the concepts as well as I could/should have.
3. Time management. Q2 is much harder than Q1. There is a whole lot more going on then and if that’s not enough, I have signed up for a bunch of stuff that’s going to take up a lot of my time. I have to find a way to balance all of it.
4. Self takes priority. I noticed that when in crunch situation, I tend to forget myself. I stop eating or sleeping properly, and pretty much lose touch with the outside world. Very in-the-box behavior. Must fix it.
5. Decisions under duress – strict No-No. Ok so I know this. And I know it well because my dad hammers this into my head all the time. But I make the mistake again. And again. Strict no-no. Note to self: Apply LO concepts to life.
6. If you hear the voice of your DA professor in your head while you’re taking the DA exam, realize that you could be more stressed about the exam that you should be. Or that the knowledge that the case was written by your own DA professor has the ability to throw you off balance. Or you could be genuinely messing up the exam big time.
7. Keep nail polish handy. I tend to chew my nails a lot during exams. I’d forgotten that habit of mine. Right after I am done with this post, I am going to sit with the file and try to salvage what’s left of my nails. For the next exam, I'll make sure my nails are painted well in advance.

The good thing about the exams is that I have now learnt to flag and categorize my emails pretty well – I do have quite a few to act upon, but they’re all there where I can see them, so that’s good! The best thing, though, is that Q1 is over and I survived! Sometimes it really is hard to believe that I’m here, doing what I always wanted to do and being able to tell the world about it.

In true Darden spirit, the school that never lets you stay idle long enough has started the cycle all over again by leaving our Q2 case packets in our mailboxes. Off we go on another whirlwind ride! But for today, I’m just going to relax at the Section D party and maybe head over to the Moustache competition afterwards.

“And for the sake of time, let’s move on!”

The Facilitator

2008-10-07T23:42:00.006-04:00

Today was our last DA (Decision Analysis) class of the quarter. It was also our last class with our DA professor. Although a bunch of us will be taking the DA electives later this year and in the next, my professor’s announcement made me pause to think back to the quarter that sped by.

Over the summer, during days of trying to figure out Accounting from the Pre-Enrolment modules, I often wondered how I would learn the concepts through the case method. In the case method curriculum, the professor acts more like a facilitator than a lecturer. Take for instance my accounting class. My professor would hand out transparencies to randomly selected students in the class to enter each line item of a balance sheet with the corresponding t-account. These would then be put up on the projector and the student would defend his balance sheet entry while the rest of the class was free to debate and discuss his assumptions and logic and even his handwriting if they wanted!

Our DA class was another innovative exercise in teaching you to convince clients of the soundness of your arguments without resorting to the use of complex numbers and terminologies. Our professor would make us role-play the case – convince Mr. X to go with your decision to either invest or get out of a particular venture or convince Mr. G to sell a certain number of t-shirts at a game. Our class would play analyst, supplying the “chosen one” with the numbers and ideas to support his/her hypothesis. In all these instances, our professors would play devil’s advocate, challenging our stands, forcing us to rethink our answers, planting a seed of doubt so that collectively you challenge the very spreadsheet before you that took you the better part of the previous evening to develop.

The professor chooses to play facilitator, but that does not mean we do not get to leverage his immense experience and knowledge in the area. Our marketing professor is one such example. His classes are peppered with instances and examples from his own professional and personal life concerning companies and brands that we are all familiar with, all delivered in his trademark New Yorker’s humor.

The case method itself is unique, but when you factor in the fantastic faculty that teach at Darden, every once in a while you get that feeling of awe for just being here and part of this society, making you sit just that little bit straighter in your seat. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that the Darden faculty have been ranked at the top of Princeton Review’s business school rankings.

Here’s one sample of the caliber of the faculty at Darden. Take a look at the video footage of the panel discussion of our professors organized a couple weekends ago, discussing the current state of the financial markets and the causes leading up to it. Abbott Auditorium was packed with students sprawling out on the aisles to watch the hour long discussion.

On that note, let me excuse myself as I prepare for the last class of Q1 tomorrow. Time...how it flies!

The Beer Game

2008-09-26T00:22:00.005-04:00

Just when you are beginning to tire of bragging to your friends about how hands-on the D curriculum is, you get hit by another of their brilliant teaching methods. Here’s why it’s brilliant. It makes you, the student, feel nice about having one, possibly two, less cases to prepare for the next day and it makes you learn something – in true D style – the hard way. The Beer Game is just the latest of many. I won’t go into the ones that came before the Beer game – my D classmates have done a great job of describing their experiences with those on their blogs – but I will go into the one we had today.

Titled the Beer Game and played very appropriately on a Thursday when a lot of FYs won’t be at TNDC (2 cases for tomorrow!), this was a simulation game played as part of the marketing curriculum. The motive behind the simulation was to learn, among other things, the Bullwhip effect and other typical supply chain problems. Four beer manufacturing companies fight to keep their production process lean and their inventory holding/stock out costs mean. Add some twists and complications to all of that and you have the perfect ale for a good two hours’ worth class time! Playing with my uber-cool section D buddies more than made up for having to stay indoors on a Thursday night and miss all the fun at the Buddhist Biker!

Something I’ve noticed about all the simulation games is that they’re very much like our cases. They give you the basic premise and instructions and throw you headlong into the game. The first round is basically a sadistic-professor-taking-pleasure-in-your confusion round where you screw up big time by making all the mistakes in the book and then some more. Then comes round 2, where you are allowed to strategize a little bit and you enter the game once more, feeling like the king of the operation. But in true sadistic-professor style, round 2 comes with its own little quirks and twists. You are left fumbling for a bit, but you pick up pace soon enough to recover and make some money. Round 3 is where life is good, all rules are relaxed and you are pretty much handed victory on a silver platter – and you still screw up, albeit a lot lesser than round 1. Then you debrief with the whole class. The winner walks away with a prize, in today’s case a tall D glass.

So when exactly did the learning curve go a notch higher in this entire sequence, you ask? That is the best part of it all. You realize you have learnt something new only when you are working on the next day’s cases and you find yourself applying what you learnt on the simulation. And that, my friend, is your aha moment! Mission accomplished. Cheers!

Addendum - 9/26/2008:

I guess I spoke too soon about the simulation games. Here's something I didn't think I would be doing in business school - playing with teddy bears in an Operations class! We were trying to simulate the efficiency (or the lack of it) in the operations of a hospital. In order to allow us to see more clearly and in real time, the challenges faced by a multi-discipline hospital, our professor brought in some teddies as patients and had some of us be the doctors.

Moral of the game: Operations need not always be about factories and machines, but can be cute too and learning is a lot more fun (and memorable) when it's hands-on.

Girls' Night Out

2008-09-21T00:36:00.004-04:00

If you know anything about the D life at all, then you will know that Thursdays are our Fridays. Hence the TNDC – Thursday Night Drinking Club, is a big big part of the D culture and with good reason too! Every Thursday night, all of the D FYs and SYs (ok not all, but at least most of them), get together at one of the many pubs in C’ville to let our hair down, meet other people and generally indulge in a little madness, hoping to get featured on the next TNDC mailer.

This Thursday was a little different from the others. A classmate had invited all the women over to her place at the Downtown Mall for some wine, good company and an Alanis Morissette concert. After spending a good amount of time “drinking good wine and enjoying great company” and watching Alanis perform from JB’s rooftop, a bunch of us ladies headed out for dinner before TNDC. After what can be termed as the best 1 hour of the whole week- spent at dinner with the girls- we split, with half the crowd heading to bed and the other half hitting the Boleyn for TNDC.

It was madness in there! The place was swarming with the D crowd and there was loud music and no space to even walk up to the bar! I spotted the good doctor, a fellow Section D'er, who had decided to hit the nightspot for his maiden TNDC, and a bunch of others from class. A drink later I was ready to call it a night, my voice hoarse from having to speak over the music of the live band but in happy anticipation of having 3 whole days to catch up on sleep and food.

Having started out my Thursday in a pretty lousy frame of mind, I was quite uplifted by the time it ended. Cheers to the ladies who made it the best Thursday evening in a long time! You know who you are, and you rock!

PS. I watched Alanis perform Ironic live! Woohoo!

Confession.

2008-09-20T10:52:00.004-04:00

Ever had a moment when you are suddenly shaken and woken up from a seeming slumber? When you feel like you can see more clearly? A time when you felt your life was spinning out of control and you needed a wakeup call? No? You must be doing everything right then. Good for you!

Well my answer to all those questions is a big resounding yes. I knew I was not doing things right at school. I was going into class with my cases on just done mode – I would stay up late or get up early in the morning to rush through the ones I did not have time for the previous evening – and would go into class and wonder how others had time for such in depth analysis on ALL the 3 cases of the day – all in one afternoon! Things came to a head when one Wednesday, 2 weeks ago, I just did not wake up in time for my first class of the day.

I had been up late the previous night trying to read up my LO case. I wanted to wake up early the next morning to review the DA case for the day (I had been planning to ask my DA professor to call on me that class - my class participation sucks). I wanted to be ultra prepared so that I did not end up looking foolish in front of my class. I guess my system protested the following morning and I don’t remember doing this, but I must have turned off all the 3 alarms I had kept on and gone back to sleep. Next time I woke up, it was 8:45AM, and I had just missed my first class of the day. I walked into class 5 minutes before first coffee. Of course I met with the professor at his office a day later to explain. And he was so understanding about it, that it made me feel guiltier! I felt worse as concerned classmates asked me if I had missed class because I was ill…

What I am getting at here is that it’s the hallmark of the Darden curriculum. It throws so much information at you and so fast that you get blinded with all that is going on. You find yourself scrambling to be at all places and finish all your work. You find yourself becoming myopic, with the only conversations you have with classmates being the cases of the day. Then pre-recruitment activities begin – tightening up your resume, getting you career objectives ready, meeting with SY coaches – and you are wishing you could be at two places at once. You push yourself so hard and then one fine day, your system revolts, like mine did. In my 4 years of undergrad and 2 and half years of work, never have I missed an appointment because I couldn’t get up in the morning. I was a little shaken, but a friend put things in perspective for me – he made me realize I was pushing myself too hard.

When I go corporate 2 years from now, I know that the one thing I will learn way better than even Crystal Ball or breakeven calculations will be time management. Darden’s rigorous curriculum and its forgiving teachers and students allow you to make those mistakes here (rather than in the workplace) without judging you. Though it does not excuse indiscipline, I think this once, I was safe.

Briefings begin and how!

2008-09-20T10:07:00.004-04:00

With a bang, that’s how! Last week, briefings began at Darden for us privileged FYs. While the banking guys are definitely having an “interesting” time – BofA visited D on Black Monday – consulting opened with Deloitte yesterday. This marks the season of lunch briefings, cocktail parties, networking dinners and lunches. It also means I’ll be wearing those darned high heels of mine a lot more. Sucks!

As an international, the whole concept of networking is very new to me. I’m not entirely sure how it is done and how much small talk is too much small talk. The one thing I don’t think I will ever master is how to ask for a business card. Luckily for me the two companies I have attended briefings for, made it very easy to contact them post-briefing. Nevertheless, I would be really curious to learn how it’s done. Another important lesson I learnt over the week was to be organized – not in my head, but in my bag! Seriously. At one of the briefings I had to give my card and it took me forever to dig it up from inside my bag. The Monica in me revolted at the mess in there! It would not be the first time either. I’ve pulled out my kaajal pencil when I have been looking for a pen, more times than I care to remember.

Having said that, I will admit that the SYs and CDC have been doing a great job with trying to get us FYs to shed the gaucheness at these networking events. One of the more innovative things they came up with was a speed networking session open to the International Business Society (IBS) and the National Asso. Of Women MBAs (NAWMBA) members yesterday at the PepsiCo Forum. Think of speed dating but for a job, and you get speed networking. It was a great experience and by the end of it I could see my comfort level increasing at delivering my pitch without the umms and aahs.

On a different note, I finally managed to check off one thing on will-do-at-Darden list – write for the Cold Call Chronicle, our very own student run newsletter. It’s not a big article and definitely poorer in comparison to the quality of the other articles on the newsletter, but it makes me feel like I’m contributing to the Darden society and it’s a good feeling.

Spinning off a completely unrelated stream of thought, I had to go to UVA hospital yesterday to visit a classmate who’s been there all week. I looked around to see if it really looked like the hospitals they show on Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy. It did really look like that, and had Doogie Howser look-alike residents walking around too! Get well soon, AO; Section D misses you big time.

Classes, LT and more

2008-08-26T23:25:00.003-04:00

It’s been over a week since classes began and along with classes, we’re also getting set with our learning teams. I should begin with the learning teams for this post, since that is one of the most unique things about this place. The learning teams’ concept is just another expression of Darden’s collaborative culture. They basically organize all their students into groups of 5 or 6 such that each group is almost representative of Darden student background distribution – by nationality, gender, educational and work background. So my LT has 5 fantastic people from backgrounds such as Citibank and the US Marines. There’s a Turk, a desi and a Bangladeshi, apart from three Americans. And all these people bring with them various viewpoints and experiences that make for a very engaging 3 hours spent at our LT meetings every evening. Yes 3 hours. That’s how seriously we’re expected to take our cases.

Last week, D organized some LT team building exercises here on grounds (they don’t call it campus and I wonder why). Named the Voyage of Discovery, it was based on the Lewis and Clarke expedition in Virginia and consisted of a number of events and each event you won in earned you a feather or two. You also had your own flag and motto. Think of the Crystal Maze TV show in modern time and designed around a business school campus. Obviously we took away some learnings from this thing – you don’t think it was just done with the idea of letting you have fun, roaming around the grounds on a sunny day and carrying a scruffy looking flag with feathers on them, did you? Our day of fun was capped with a dinner with our LTs and one second year at one of the many hip eat outs at C’ville followed with what else, but a trip to the nearest pub - this time it was McGrady’s and not the D fav of Biltmore (think $2 pitchers of beer)… fine place that one!

The weekend had some activities organized by the SY students here. The various events up for grabs were community service, tubing on the James River, wine tasting, trip to Monticello, hiking and a few more. Obviously ALL events were overbooked! Saturday evening was another picnic at Flagler courtyard, this time for the FYs and SYs to meet.

So if you thought D-life was all about fun and picnics and booze, then THINK AGAIN. It’s about cases and cases and more cases and still some more cases that will drive you nuts as you try to figure them out and make you go “god damn it, how come I missed that one” when the professor (or some brilliantly smart student) solves it in class the next morning. But the best thing about it is that the classes are so much more rewarding and you actually come away from them knowing a whole bunch more than you did to begin with and you have no idea how! The professors here are absolutely up there and some of them employ very unique methods of cold calling! Perhaps more on that in a separate post – I still have two more professors to “discover”.

Career fair signups are warming up now and I’m kind of getting the feeling that they’re going to stress me out quite a bit. Of course, the whole concept of networking is so alien to us internationals and that in itself is a little bewildering. Darden seems really focused at helping us through this process and in the coming days I hope to be working more closely with the Career Development team to help me with my internship hunt.

Before I sign out, I have to tell you about how every minute feels precious at this place. You could be doing so much and all you’re thinking about is when you’ll go to bed… The day sometimes seems longer than it is, yet it just flies by as you tackle your daily workload which, by the way, is seeing a constant upward trend and refuses to come down. I remember reading about Black November on the blog of a Darden (now) SY. I’m guessing that we’re building up to that one. Here’s where I sign out to go tackle my Decision Analysis case for tomorrow.

D 2010 - Before

2008-08-18T23:49:00.003-04:00

Embrace the weird

2008-08-17T23:30:00.004-04:00

Today we had our official orientation where Dean Bruner and a whole bunch of other people welcomed us, the class of 2010 to Darden. I was so looking forward to hearing the Dean speak and I wasn’t disappointed. But the most memorable speeches of the evening were by the associate dean for diversity and the President of the DSA (Darden Student Association). I wish I could remember more clearly the 3 point advice each of them had in their speeches. At the time I remember repeating them in my head so that I’d remember them for this post. But in the party that ensued, I think I kind of laughed it all away!

But basically, we had a really good evening. Right after the orientation, we had the class photograph on the steps of outside the Saunders Hall. It reminded me of my J2EE Class photo when I was a trainee at Infosys Mysore. I was late for the photo so I got to stand right up in front. The same thing happened today and I had to stand right up in front – which is pretty good considering that I might possibly be the shortest person in my class! Oh these Americans, they’re so darn tall! Apparently this is going to be a before-after picture, with the “after” picture being during graduation. Hopefully by the time that picture comes along, I’ll be a few pounds lighter. After the picture, a few of us went to hound Marsh, our director of student affairs, to ask him about our section allotments. So yours truly got a preview of the section lists. I’m in section D and I’m so looking forward to getting to know my class and maybe bringing home the Darden Cup from Section A.

Darden hosted a picnic for the CO2010 and their “partners” in the Flagler Courtyard. As is usual, there was good beer and great food. Darden really has it right in the food department! All their meals are sumptuous, considerate (for vegetarians) and generous. A big cheer to the staff at the Abbotts dining room who had this spread put out for us and also for walking around the groups of people with pitchers of beer, always ready to refill our glasses! There were a few tables with chairs around but most of us just rested our butts on the cool grass and enjoyed the food, the fun atmosphere, the great company and some friendly banter. Thanks to the longer summer days, it was 8pm and still light out when the bunch of us decided to call it a night and go to bed early (for a change). All of us agreed that 8AM was a bit too early for classes to begin and that it was going to take a lo..ot of getting used to adjust to this schedule!

Tomorrow is the first day of class. Although there are no cases to be done for tomorrow, we’re going to find out who are learning team members are. I’ll try to write a little more about the learning team concept at Darden. But for now, I’m thinking to myself once again about how cool it is just to be a part of this amazing school. It’s a good feeling to go to bed with.

Note1: If you’re wondering about the title of the post, this was a quote by the associate dean of diversity. He said that every once in a while you will find a member of your class or LT who’s a little weird and unlike the rest. Get to know this one a little more and embrace the weirdness since that’s how you grow and not from hanging out with your own kind of crowd. Made a lot of sense, if you ask me.

Note2:Visit this post on JulyDream for some stats on the CO2010.

From Chennai to Charlottesville

2008-08-12T16:51:00.003-04:00

It’s been a bit more than a week since I got to C’ville, though right now it feels like anything but one week. More like a month really. Amidst the hectic activity that is typical of coming to study at any American university – get the ID, get your bank and phone connection settled etc.,there is the all important and all American socializing that contributes to the late nights ( or should I say early mornings?) and the hangovers. There is also the added headache for internationals like me to get our apts settled (it’s a headache for locals too, but they invariably have a car) and to seek out departmental stores to buy general stuff from and also to sign up for the various loyalty programs that they offer. All to get some discount when you shop next. And we’re not really complaining, after all it’s not like we’re getting our paychecks anymore!

My apartment is limping into settle-ment stage. I think it takes a couple of months for the house to feel like home. I am obviously not getting a car right now. My ambitious plan to get the driver’s test done with before class begins is pretty much abandoned for now and it looks like it will have to wait until the Christmas vacations to be realized. Meanwhile, I’m getting to know some of my batch mates. The three day orientation session has introduced all the internationals to one another. Informal meetings with the American students are happening at the parties. The formal meeting of the entire class of 2010 is on the 17th when we have the welcome address by the Dean.

Our orientation was pretty interesting and engaging. We had workshops on visa status and dos and don’ts, on culture, banks, cell phones, internships, job search, networking and a whole lot of other stuff. One of the more engaging presentations was by Judy Shen-Filerman, an American of Asian descent and an HBS grad on the typical qualms that most internationals and particularly Asians feel at the workplace or in the process of getting that all important job offer at the business school. Our orientation ended with a tour to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson (the father of the University of Virginia) organized by the office of student affairs at Darden. It was a good break from sitting pooped up in the (really cold) airconditioned room. It marked the end of a week of late nights and 10AM wake ups and surviving on juice, coffee and cookies!

Alongside the International students’ orientation, Darden has been conducting the pre-matriculation courses in Accounts, Economics and Numeracy for students who feel uncomfortable with these subjects. I had signed up only for Accounts classes and those began today. Although not exactly a case-based course, our professor managed to keep the class well awake on a Monday morning. By the way, classes at Darden begin at 8AM, too early by any standards. But they do supply coffee in abundance at the Pepsico Forum and thank god for that! For a lot of my bleary-eyed classmates at the accounts class this morning, this coffee was the stimulant!

The unique thing about classes at Darden is the fact they are just that – unique! The professor today taught us a bunch of basic accountancy concepts with the example of one student’s “business” of a lemonade stall when she was young. Using her example and with inputs from her and the rest of the class, he taught us an entire balance sheet concept. It made me realize that what I was witness to was a one-time-only performance. The next time Professor Brownlee takes the basic accounts pre-mat workshop (which will be for the batch of 2011 next fall), it will be a whole new student, a whole new example and whole new performance, all over again. It made appreciate what I was part of and made me wish I’d gotten a little more sleep the previous night so that I could be more attentive. I figure that each class – when classes officially begin – will be a unique experience since it is dependent on the class make-up, the case for the day and the professor taking it. And of course, like all do-it-yourselves, it will be a one-time-only performance and for that unique one-time-only group that will be present in the class that day.

Before I sign off for today here is some information for people looking at Darden for the following year of admissions. Despite my lament about not having a car, one can manage very comfortably on public transport and lot of walking here in Charlottesville. There are a number of decent and (sort of) affordable housing options around Darden. The closest are Ivy Gardens and Huntington Village. Both are walking distance from Darden. Ivy, where I’m staying currently, allows you to wake up at 7 and make it to class in time for your 8AM class. All you need to do is cross the road – the crossing reminds me of the kangaroo crossings I’ve seen on the Discovery channel – and you’re in Darden’s parking lot. In terms of transport, there is the UTS system which is University operated and free and covers nearly all the places you’d normally want to go. That apart there is also the Charlottesville buses which are free if you flash your UVA ID (or 75c without it). The Barracks Road shopping mall is walking distance from both apartments and houses Kroger, CVS, Harris Teeter, Banana Republic, Old Navy, MacD, Panera, Chipotle, BofA, AT&T… you get the idea. The Corner and Downtown has a number of good eating and drinking places. Did I mention that Charlottesville is very friendly? And Darden more so!

In my opinion, the best thing about my decision to come to Darden is the strength of internationals here. There are people here from countries I can incorrectly point out on the map of the world and there are view points of individuals from a variety of backgrounds and age groups. Add to that the relative tranquility and laidback atmosphere of this beautiful university town and you have all the ingredients for a very interesting two years of study.

Vacation and back… Part 2.

2008-07-23T13:08:00.004-04:00

So taking on from where I left off in Part 1, this one's about Agra and Jaipur... and a few other things.

Agra - Shah Jahan's view of the Taj from his prison cell

Agra: Agra was the next stop on my holiday. On the way to Agra is Akbar’s resting place, the Sikandra Fort. The fort is built with a grandeur befitting the great ruler of Mughal India. A fine specimen of architecture, this is also one of the better-maintained of the monuments he built. In the lawns surrounding the fort, monkeys and peacocks and deer roam freely, in what can only be described as a breathtaking sight. I have never seen so many peacocks together! It is not hard to imagine how it would have been when Akbar had walked the courtyards there or held darbar in those lawns.
No visit to Agra is complete without a mention of the Taj Mahal. Just as its beauty is alluring, so disappointing is the town that the Taj calls its home. Dirty and most tourist-unfriendly is Agra city, my lasting impression of Agra is of the feeling of being ripped off on any transaction you make, be it a tourist guide or a handicrafts seller. Stay at a nice hotel and you will easily forget the disorganized and dirty town you see as you go around in your car. The Taj itself is home to a number of pickpockets, unlicensed guides and street vendors, all promising to sell you the Taj in all sizes for a price tag of Rs.5 to Rs. 5,00,000. But cross the gates and behold the beauty in white marble and you are left speechless. No amount of photographs in magazines or documentaries on the Discovery channels will prepare you for the sheer breathtaking edifice that the Taj is. A good guide will tell you little bits of history and details of architecture that will make the monument all the more spectacular. But even without it, when you enter the inner chamber where Shah Jahan is purported to be buried alongside his beloved Mumtaz, you can’t help feel envy for a woman who was so loved. The Taj is best viewed early in the morning before the marble floors get hot. The Agra fort is another must-see in Agra. Here’s where you’ll feel sorry for Shah Jahan as you visit the chamber where his son kept him captive, his only solace being the distant view of the Taj Mahal that he could see through the holes that were gouged patterns on the wall. Here he died, after spending 12 years in captivity. His body was rowed across the Yamuna and taken to the Taj where he was buried.

Jaipur: From Agra we made our last stop at Jaipur. Undoubtedly the best part of our entire vacation, Jaipur was everything that Agra was not. Clean, friendly and very pro-tourist, Jaipur was an absolute delight. At Jaipur are the Sawai Man Singh Palace and fort, the museum and the Jantar Mantar. And don’t forget the shopping. There’s lots you can shop here, right from Jaipur block printed clothing to silver jewellery to handicrafts. A not-to-miss is the area of the Bazaar that seats the men and women who will henna beautiful and intricate patterns onto your palms. Rajasthani food was delightful, especially the sweets! The only downside of Jaipur was the hot sun that had me tanned about two shades.

I celebrated my birthday over the weekend when I was in Bangalore with my family. Bangalore has got to be my favourite Indian city after Chennai. I love visiting Bangalore but it's always great to be back home because it helps me appreciate Chennai's traffic more. Bangalore is infamous for bad infrastructure which pretty much translates to bad traffic jams on the roads. That apart, Bangalore has a pulse and culture that's unparalleled. Did I mention that Bangalore also has the best pubs? Anyone who knows me will know that I will not write about Bangalore without talking about the Legends of Rock pub. Great music, period. That's enough reason to go there.

Being my last birthday at home for some time to come, my birthday gift was a good time at the pub topped off with some lip smacking dinner. Thankfully, this time there were no talks about growing old(er), since everyone was too busy with all the work we had to do in Bangalore. When I returned, it dawned on me that I have very little time before I have to go. It sucks.

Vacation and back… Part 1.

2008-07-23T08:26:00.004-04:00

So I’m back from a whole bunch of traveling. I wrote a bit about the palces I was going to in my last post. Ideally, I would have liked to write a post each about each of the palces I visited simply because they do warrant a piece each. But with going-away day barely a week away, I’m hard pressed for time and therefore I’m going to make it short.

First up my Mumbai trip. I love Mumbai and I was thoroughly pleased to see that it hasn’t lost any of vibrance in the last 5 years that I’ve missed it. I got to meet some friends and generally had a lot of fun visiting places I had not been to when I was living there. Unfortunately we couldn’t catch a show at Prithvi theater but we did catch some good coffee in the historic theater that was started by Raj Kapoor. I got to meet this awesome entrepreneur buddy of my friend and also an old friend of mine who I’d lost touch with. Some shopping and cocktails and yummy maharashtrian food and great company – ingredients for the fun-est time ever!

Haridwar: This was the first stop on my trip. Reason for being there is simply the Ganga. Of the 2 days we spent there, one evening was spent at the ghat watching the evening aarti which is really really beautiful. Haridwar’s ghat or bathing area is built for just bathing. There are stairs leading into the river while a part of the river itself is channeled to flow through a narrow-ish area with bathing stairways flanking both sides. I’m not doing a good job with the description, but the picture below should explain. The first and only way to describe this palce is crowded! There are multitudes of devotees thronging to the banks of the Ganga to wash their sins or take blessings (like me). I did not go there as a devotee – this was hardly a pilgrimage. But the sight of the river and kind of faith that people have for Ganga Mayya (Mayya = mother) kind of makes the whole experience a reaffirmation of faith. Save for this, my view of Haridwar is being crowded, old-world and a little dirty. I guess it’s typical of any Indian pilgrimage town.

Rishikesh: This is about 20kms from Haridwar. Here the Ganga is more placid and cleaner. She is also a lot deeper here. The symbol of Rishikesh is the Laxman Jhula which is a bridge spanning the Ganga. The other side of the bridge is home to the temples and ashrams that play host to the scores of devotees who throng Rishikesh every day. This part of the town is really quaint and is a pedestrian-only area. In true Indian style, there are beggars and cows jostling for space among the devotees and shop keepers who sell you everything from precious stones to Ganga in a bottle.

Devprayag: I haven’t got much to say about this places since I spent only an hour or so here. Devprayag is the confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirati rivers that then flow downwards fromt here as the Ganga. Bhagirati is the more placid of the two while Alaknanda is faster, with a roar that can be heard some distance away. At the point of confluence, you can see the two rivers distinctly, differentiated by their colors.

Haridwar - Those are real people!

Next up, I headed over to Agra and Jaipur which I will write about in Part 2.

Interim

2008-06-17T14:22:00.003-04:00

One would imagine that with a nearly three month vacation, life would be a lot like sitting by the beach on a lazy summer afternoon (under the umbrella of course and slathered with liters of sun block) sipping iced tea. Pop! I just burst that bubble.

Life has been a frantic run over the past few days, under a deceptively calm veneer. I’ve finally managed to clear one of the three pre-matric exams that Darden requires us to take (all in true Infosys Perception© style) leaving me with Economics and Math to go through. And of course all the pages and pages of excel exercises. I should not be cribbing because, as mommy dearest puts it, I need to get used to the idea of actually studying – well she doesn’t put it in such flattering terms – after 3 years of giving up cramming. I guess she doesn’t know that I barely studied in my last year of engineering! Of course she doesn’t really understand the cramming I did for my certifications at the company… All she knew was that it required me to go to work on the weekends and eat pizza lunch at my cubicle! But studying isn’t all it is. I have a lot of shopping that needs to begin. I need to figure out what “Indian” things I need to take that I wouldn’t get in C’ville. We’ve done our google snooping for Indian provision stores and everything, but my mum worries that I might resort to eating out more than required if I’m strapped for ingredients! I need to watch enough tele to satisfy any craving I anticipate over the next two years for Indian television. I've been talking to a lot of old friends, and meeting with as many as I can. There are many goodbyes left to be said. And I’ve got to take my vacation!

I’m beginning my traveling a little late in the summer. This week, I’m heading off to my second favorite Indian city, Mumbai, to spend time with my best friend and to meet a few others. Maybe I can catch some Mumbaikar Dardenites too... Next weekend I’m off on a longer vacation further up north. I’ve always wanted to visit Haridwar, home of the Ganga (note: technically the Ganga originates from Gangotri, a glacier further up in the Himalayas. The Ganga also passes through Haridwar and its sister city Rishikesh, both holy places according to Hinduism. More on these places in a separate post). This is a trip I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but somehow being in the south made it that much harder to make it. I’ve managed to convince the family to go this time with a fair bit of I’m-going-away blackmailing, something I’m resorting to a lot these days – its working every time, I should add! I’m also covering two more cities that I’ve been meaning to do since ages- Agra and Jaipur. Agra needs no introduction. It’s the home of the Taj Mahal. Enough said. Jaipur again, is tourist paradise. The pink city is home to many a beautiful palace and some rich Indian history. My camera’s going to be working on overdrive, that’s for sure! Once I’m back, it will be time to get the bags out and start packing, counting down days before I have to leave yet again. See, that’s what I find amusing. I read blogs of people in America who are moving cross-country to join school this fall, and of the major farewell parties they’re having and all the good byes they’re saying and how bad they’re feeling about moving. And all they have to do is get on a car and drive. Or at worst, get on a plane. And here I am, along with scores of other internationals that make up the diverse batch of Darden’s class of 2010, traveling to the other side of the globe, knowing that I wont be seeing my family and friends for another two years. Not to mention that should I wish to visit, it’s a 24-hour journey through 3 continents to get here! A certain fellow blogger who had the misfortune of leaving to the US on the same night as I did in January this year, will be aware of the tears I shed at the airport! And all for a 4-month stint. I don’t want to imagine how embarrassed I’m going to be this time!!

So that’s life thus far, my last lazy summer vacation. I’ll sign off now. But there’ll be a lot more action soon. Until then, here’s some other news. The sister also got a job at the company.

Unemployed

2008-05-05T04:11:00.007-04:00

I bid good-bye to the company a fortnight ago. It was sudden and I’m pretty sure I missed out a few names in my goodbye email. Funnily enough, I’d been composing that email in my head for the past year and a half, but when it came to actually typing it out, I was at a loss for words. I’d decided that the wonderful people I’d met along the way did not merit a generic email so I grouped them and sent out a different email to each group… I had so much to say…

That last day, as I walked from B4 to the Powerhouse Gate for that last bus ride home, I tried to take in as many of the sightes and sounds as possible… Most of them had become so familiar that I would walk on unseeingly. That day I felt a strange sense of nostalgia – and joy- at my departure from the place that made it all happen for me. I might not have loved my job to the point of being passionate about it, but I loved the atmosphere, the people, the transparency of the organization and I loved just generally being part of it all. The company gave me the freedom to be what I was, to distribute my time between work and all the extra-curricular stuff I was doing and in the process, gave me self-confidence and set a standard for how the workplace should be. If the initial few months gave me my fantastic friends, the latter months gave me a chance to work with some amazing individuals as colleagues. Most unforgettable are my 3 managers from WAG and KRFT – In the span of a year spent working under these 3 people, I learnt more than I did from anyone else. One taught me time management – get to office at 8, leave at 5 and get everything wrapped in that time, including fun! Another taught me the traits of a true manager – team spirit, encouragement, support – be it while helping her team through a downsize or sitting through a quiz as audience after hours just to provide support to her team and see them through to victory or while recognizing the talent in each team member and pushing them to achieve visibility in the organization. My last manager at the company taught me the all-important skills of organizing and conducting meetings and liaising with client folk, while showing faith in my abilities. To all three of them: I may not have been the best or star member of your team, but you made me feel like I was important enough and that gave me the impetus to outperform. I carry the lessons you all taught me all the way to business school. I may never work with you again, but every time I practice any of the lessons you taught me, rest assured I will send out a silent prayer of thanks.

Finally, here is a picture from the company… inspite of monickers like dog-tag and mangalsutra, a colleague and fellow-quitter agreed with me that the pride we felt the first time we swiped our ID cards at the gates of the office was unparalleled and undiminished despite any unhappiness we might have felt or any achievements in the months since that day. I beeped in one last time at the swipe-cards in the reception at B4 that morning and as I handed in my temporary ID card that evening, I walked away with a confusion of a smile and a grimace. I felt sad to leave but I felt happy to have been a part of the experience, a part of the monumental achievement of 5 people who started out on a dream and have never given up since then. I wished I'd gotten to keep my ID card and out that evening at the B4 reception, the way I'd done it for the past two years. But I guess in some ways it's good I didn't. Perhaps that's what's so special about Infy. You can leave, but you can never really get it out of your system. In some corner of your memory, you're always an Infy-ite. I like that feeling...

Here’s to Infosys and it’s bright and prosperous future!

Afterthought: As I reflect on the last couple of days at Infy, I realize I couldn't have made a better exit - I won a general + business quiz held at Shols DC a day before I left. I partnered with a friend and our attendance was very last-minute; in fact, the only reason I was present at the audi was to tell the quizmaster, a friend of mine, that I would have to skip the quiz even though I'd promised to attend. But the sight of that presentation and the curiousity to explore what lay beyond Slide 1 got me sitting there and going through the entire quiz... and even winning it on the tie-breaker! It was good to go out with a bang than just fade away like the countless others.

Lessons from an applicant

2008-04-14T05:45:00.003-04:00

For all the help I received from the blogosphere during my application process, here’s my ode to all of you who made your thoughts, experiences and rejections public. I’m grateful for all the tips and all the information gleaned from the gamut of blogs I would visit. I’m pretty sure I’ve thanked a few people, just as certain I am that I couldn’t trace my steps back to thank all those I missed. So here’s what I’ll do: I’m going to put in some of my cents into this post and subsequent ones and hope that someday, when this blog goes public, some applicant will find something of use in here. So here goes!

Discipline. You’re thinking, what’s that got to do with anything? I’m telling you it does. If you have decided to take this little trip here then you have got to have discipline. I didn’t have too much to start with. I cultivated it somewhere midway in my process. I got lucky; I can’t assure that you will too. You need to start early. Take your GMAT a year early if you can and spend the coming year strengthening your profile as you research colleges, courses and essay writing strategies. Ideally you should have researched this stuff before your GMAT – researching will convince you of the need to pursue this line of study and you will know where you stand in the scene. Never mind if you gave GMAT just because everyone else did. Wake up now and do your research.

GMAT is not even step 1. This should have been my point 1. I cannot stress on this enough. A lot of people I know aspire to top 5 US schools because they got a 700+ in their GMAT. Take it from me now: 770 in GMAT may not get you a seat in Wharton (Argue with me that Juggler had a whopping score and she’s in Wharton and I will tell you that Juggler has a whopping personality and stellar talent/intelligence/writing skills… all this in addition to 770/780. Juggler might have made it to Wharton without the 770 too!). On the other hand, 620 in GMAT may not get you rejected from Wharton either. There’s a sane mathematical calculation behind the median GMAT range figures on bschool websites. So GMAT is just like this platform ticket you have to buy. Once you get in, you need to find the right train and your seat too. All of that takes up significantly more energy and time than the GMAT ever will. So, in addition to the GMAT, assess your candidature thoroughly. In other words, go over your profile. You’ll need all the information you dig up.

Essays are the most important part of your application package. There is a reason why bschools have essays. The sooner you understand what the school wants to know, the better off you are. Essays are not something you can write overnight, no matter how good a writer you are. Similarly, essays are not something you can write from a common generic framework and switch school names depending on which college you are uploading the essay for. In fact, I read on one of the blogs that if your essay is such that all you need to do is change the school name in the essay to be ready with a new one for a new school, then your essay is no good. Each essay has to be specific to the school. It’s common logic that the person you are and your accomplishments do not change ( and should not change) from school to school but writing essays specific to a school ensures that you are highlighting the part of your personality or profile that the school wants to read about. Perhaps a school like Darden would want to know if you can work in teams and if you have confidence to speak in a crowd. Maybe a school like Yale would be more interested in whether you have a sense of responsibility towards your community. Here's where all that introspection you did will bail you out. If you've got it, dig it up and say it... Make it sound good when you do! I do not have a spectacular success rate with my applications. But I made sure that I wrote out new essays for each college. My goals essay was essentially the same, but depending on the manner in which the question was worded and the word limit imposed, I rewrote that essay for all 4 colleges that I applied to. Was it painful? Hell, yes! But if you thought this was going to be a breeze then perhaps you should think again.

Optimism. I’ll try to do this one right so that I don’t contradict a previous paragraph. It’s good to be realistic about where you should apply to and should not. But don’t whine to all and sundry that you’re no good. While you're applying to colleges where you think you stand a realistic chance of conversion, it doesn't hurt to look a little higher up too. I speak from personal experience. I refused to apply to Darden because I didn’t think my GMAT/acads were good enough. A good friend brainwashed me into doing it. He said, think of this as your dream college and apply. Worse case scenario – you get rejected. But think of what happens if it works in your favor. I struggled but I managed to get in my Darden application in Round 2. I got rejected from all colleges ranked below Darden. Was it plain luck or something else? I’ll never know. But bottomline is I’m here and I’m writing this post. So there!

Well I’m done for this post. I am sure I have more information to share and I’ll do it over the next few months. If anyone does ever read this and wants me to write about anything specific, then drop me a line in the comments section and I will try my best to oblige.

When Darden Called

2008-04-14T05:06:00.001-04:00

And the word is out! I got accepted at Darden’s Full Time MBA program!

And that is why I am back in India, filing my e-separation and hoping to enjoy a few months at home and with the family before I have to leave once more. Suddenly there seems so much to do, to plan, to calculate – all my years of taking CAT comes to use now as I convert Rs to USD and back again, trying to figure out where to meet expenses from. But on a different plane, there are other worries too. How will I adjust to being a student once more, after nearly 3 years as an earning professional? 3 years of not needing to be accountable to anyone for money earned or spent, of being able to eat out on a whim, or buy an expensive book or item of clothing without needing to trace back to monthly budget. All my Indian savings when converted to USD seem to amount to almost nothing, while my USD savings will probably whittle down to nothing by the time I get to Darden.

I guess this is a post to write about how happy I am, that a dream is finally coming true. I cannot shake off the feeling that perhaps it’s coming a year too late, but every time I think of Darden and the 2 years coming up, I cannot help but feel a sense of excitement and adventure. I wrote at the beginning of this year about how I could feel that this year was going to be significant for me, that my life was going to change drastically. That sense of change is heightened now and although there is some fear of the unknown, there is also this feeling that the ride is going to be not without a fair share of excitement. Despite the period of self-doubt that I went through during my application process – I’m hearing that the feeling is extremely normal! – I hear people telling me I’m getting what I deserve and with each passing day I’m convinced more and more that they maybe right after all.

Finally, I know my parents are happy. They’re worried, but they’re happy. They’re worried that I may not want to come back to India again, or that I may not be able to. They’re worried that the process of finding me a husband is going to get more complicated than it already is. But I know that they’re happy I’m going to do what I’ve wanted and to me that’s all that matters.

Reporting From...

2008-04-14T04:32:00.000-04:00

...India!

The last time you checked I was in Chicago and the next thing you know, I’m back home in India. Sweltering hot, noisy, dirty, crowded, chaotic India. All that and home.

I made this decision to return all on my own. My assignment done, I was ready to begin on a new, longer one right there in Madison. But then all in a day, things changed and I decided to return. I was unable to concentrate on work and I kept thinking about all the million things I had to arrange for and do. I know I’m being all mysterious, but I’m saving the big news for another post.

Madison. What a life altering experience that was. Did I anticipate having so much fun? Or did I anticipate enjoying work as much as I did? Answer to both is a resounding No! It is ironic how, having written off work and The Company as something I do and enjoy in bits (like when I’m quizzing or organizing events here or meeting the amazing people I have at The Company) while cursing to oblivion at other times, I actually began to enjoy work at Kraft. Add to it a fun boss, great location, healthy work hours and great junta. I had fun even when my project looked like it was crashing all around me – ok it wasn’t all ha ha-fun, but it was like challenging-fun, the fun you get when you’re racing against time and each time you fix one hurdle you’re going yesss! Everything was a new experience, best of all being the knowledge that I could actually cook!

So why did throw it all away, that too all of a sudden, to return to India?

St.Patrick’s day at Chicago

2008-03-22T21:54:00.004-04:00

I’d say I chose the best time to visit Chicago last weekend. It was St. Patrick’s day and it was worth all the delays and uncertainty that preceded my travel! I was supposed to drive down with a colleague on Friday evening but a late evening meeting at work ensured I was stuck at office till 630 by which time she had reached O’Hare in time to pick up her husband. But Friday evening wasn’t so bad either because I got to play pool at a friend’s house here!

Early Saturday morning I cabbed down to the Park & Ride on Stoughton to board the CoachUSA to Chicago. Four hours later I was at downtown Chicago by the Amtrak station where I was met by Sibha and Pratap. We walked down to MacD because my tummy was protesting big time and then went on to Michigan Ave in time for St Patrick’s day parade. It was awesome! Drunk people all around and colorful floats preceded my the sound of bagpipes played by men in kilts! There was green everywhere! Whacky hats to green beaded chains to green tee shirts… they had it all! Apparently there is a pub here in Madison that even serves green beer on the day! Parade done with and then it was time to see the famous river-turned-green sight that is a trademark of St. Patrick’s day. We walked past Millennium Park to a canal just before it opens out to Lake Michigan. The water had been turned green by motorboats dropping green dye into the water. A whole bunch of photographs later it was time to walk back a few blocks away for lunch at Potbelly.

After a sumptuous lunch and some needed rest for our feet, we were back on the road again! This time we headed to Sears Tower for a bird’s eye view of Chicago from the 103rd floor. Up until the Petronas twin towers came up in Malaysia, the Sears Tower was the world’s tallest building. Now of course, Taipei 101 is the tallest. The view from Skydek of the Sear’s tower was breathtaking to say the least. The Lake Michigan stretched out like a picture perfect canvas far into the horizon while up close were the roof tops of other famous landmarks such as the Federal Reserve and headquarters of various financial heavyweights. Soon it was time to walk to the Metra station to head to Sibha’s place for the night. We had dinner at the station and had a good one hour ride to Arlington Heights where these guys lived. Sibha and I stayed up till the wee hours catching up on all the news we’ve missed since the last time we met nearly a year ago in India.

The next morning, Pratap drove us to Aurora, a beautiful Indian temple an hour’s drive from Arlington Heights. I had not been to a temple since I’d come to the US, so I was really grateful that they could take me. The temple was beautiful and peaceful and it was so nice to so many desis after such a long time, with little kids in pavadai-chattai and American accented ABCD aunties in salwar-kameez and sarees. It was like being in a cleaner, more affluent India. The food at the temple is very famous among the desis there. It is traditional Tamil fare – idli, dosa, sambar, pongal, vadai, lassi, filter coffee, puli saadam, thayir sadam… We ordered everything they had, and even managed to finish all of it! Of course, we were that hungry! A few photographs later we were on the road once more, this time to the Aurora premium outlet to shop! A couple of hours later we headed back into Chicago.

But Pratap had not had enough of the day so we drove along Lakeshore Drive to the Ba’hai temple of peace. The drive was really beautiful. Lakeshore drive is an affluent part of Chicago, replete with mini castles for homes and the address of the rich and famous of Chicago. The area borders the banks of the Lake and makes for scenic driving. The Ba’hai temple itself was a peaceful, architecturally beautiful prayer hall. We rested there for a while, each one lost in our own thoughts. Soon it was time to hit the roads again. We got home in time for dinner and then called it a day. I left for Madison on Monday morning along with my colleague.

My weekend in cihcago was one of the best I’d had since I got to the US. Good place, great company – what more can a person ask for! Sibha and Pratap took good care of me and more than once I found myself wishing I still worked with Walgreens and that I had come to the US on an assignment with them rather than with Kraft.

I fell in love with Cihcago. Downtown Chicago was vibrant and busy, the way I’ve imagined American cities to be. The suburbs were beautiful too, with wide roads and pretty homes, quite unlike Madison with its laidback, small town feel. Chicago really is the windy city, for a warm week in the Midwest where I did not need my overcoat in Madison, I was all bundled up in Chicago for both the days I was there! I hope to go back there someday before I return to India.

My Cold Call Chronicle

2008-03-10T22:13:00.004-04:00

My 3 day adventure of the past week was on its final and finishing leg. Here I was, far away from all things familiar, flying across from Wisconsin to Virginia to interview with my top choice for business school, Darden.

I took off from Milwaukee to Chicago to DC and then finally on to C’ville where a student contact met me at 11pm (bless him!). Along the way I got to talking with a few random strangers, one at each stop and each as interesting as the other. First there was the desi from Chennai at O’Hare, a fellow techie who seemed to have traveled all over the world. On the flight from Chicago to DC there was the healthcare professional from Virginia who worked with GE and we got to talking about books and American history. During the wait at Dulles for the flight to Charlottesville – which was delayed – I got to talking with a Nutrition grad student from NCSU who was on his way to interview at UVA for a PhD.

Onto CHO where the serene town with its trademark red brick buildings made me wish I was already a student at the university. CHO is a typical American university town… not that I have been to any other American university towns. The only other university town that I have ever been to is Oxford (SRM University does not count here!) and so I had little to compare with. However I knew right away that CHO was a charming town that was steeped in liberalism, quite like Madison itself, and multiculturalism where a number of elite, old American families shared breathing space with university students. The Darden School itself was stately and architecturally beautiful, just the way Thomas Jefferson had designed it and the rest of the university; yet its atmosphere was serene and quiet, far removed from the fast paced and dynamic industry it serves to prepare students for.

I arrived at C’ville late on Thursday night, with just enough time to pick up McD for dinner – my third for the day! The Best Western where I stayed was a comfortable and cosy hotel and contrary to its budget hotel image it was really quite generous. I woke up early next morning to mentally prepare myself for my interview. I missed the First Coffee tradition since my student contact had warned me that due to impending exams the following week there would be no First Coffee. I got to Darden at around 10AM and waiting at the admissions lobby for my interviewer to come fetch me. There I got to meet other applicants and man did I feel small!! There was a legal assistant from New York, an equity trader from New York, a product engineer from Atlanta, a healthcare professional and his nurse wife from the RTP… basically really super achiever people. And I was feeling pretty small, I’ll admit! My interviewer came and fetched me and we had our interview for an hour or so. Once that was done, it was time for the special lunch that Darden had hosted for us. Lunch was a formal affair, with all the emblazoned silver finery and a sumptuous buffet lunch. Each table had seven applicants with one Darden professor. Free flowing conversation, nearly invisible maitre d’s, really tasty food and a friendly atmosphere gave me a good idea of what business school in America would be like. Once lunch was through, it was time for a current student to show us around the grounds. She showed us the classrooms, the meeting rooms, the offices of the professors and the cafeteria. Tour over and it was time for me to go back to my hotel. Back at the hotel I relaxed for a little while before I headed out for a walk. I took a really long walk across the university campus to the halls of residence.

I spent my second day at C’ville walking around their very famous pedestrian open air mall. I couldn’t buy much except for a really tasty sandwich lunch at the famous Five Boys sandwich place. I managed to take a few pictures and was back in my hotel by afternoon to relax in bed with the tv on. Dinner was at the Italian place nearby – amazing sandwich, salad, cheesecake, soup, crackers and pink lemonade! I packed it all up to enjoy a tv dinner in the warmth of my room.

Before I realized, my relaxing weekend at charming C’ville had ended. I loved the university feel of the town, with its signature uniform red brick buildings and wide walkways to accommodate the iPod plugged pedestrian or the occasional backpack toting student pedaling away furiously uphill on her cycle to get to her class. Not the kind of place for a shopping trip, but I guess that’s one distraction students can do without!

On my return flight back from CHO to MSN, I met one eccentric UVA researcher – replete with long hair and piercing blue eyes – who was really friendly and very kindly walked me up to my terminal in Dulles. He was also an engineer so we had a lot to talk about. On the flight from Dulles to O’Hare was the med student who couldn’t get his nose out of his neuroscience textbook! At O’Hare was a seemingly endless wait as my flight to Milwaukee kept getting delayed due to weather – I suppose after weeks of snow, O’Hare had issues handling a day of perfect sunshine and warm temperatures! I finally reached home at Madison at around 10 in the night – physically exhausted but mentally rested. I’d need that for the grueling week I had after I returned!

Two of my favorite men on one platform!

2008-03-10T22:10:00.004-04:00

Comedy Over Coffee

2008-02-21T20:33:00.004-05:00

This poster was seen at my coffee room yesterday. I couldn't resist snapping it up!!
By this afternoon, someone had drawn a hand in blue marker in the blank space below!

At nearly 90 inches of snow for the season here in Madison, I think it sums up the sentiment pretty neatly... Of course this applies to the locals only... and some desis too... not me obviously!

In the words of some smart adman, I'm Loving It!

The Madison Winter Festival

2008-02-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

We went to the Madison Winter Festival last Sunday (February the 2nd). And boy was it fun!!

The MWF is held every year and consists of ski races, Nordic walking, snow tubing, ice sculptures and great fun!! It is held in downtown Madison, outside of the Capitol building. They had dumped tons of snow down there to build a ski track! We went on day 1 of the festival – it just lasts two days.

We watched a few races, ate delicious American style pizza (pizza on a thin base, unlike how you get it in India) and nearly froze our feet!! After all the outdoorsy stuff, we hopped in to great coffee place near the church. It was warm and homely and full of students from the University, studying or doing assignments or surfing the web or just catching up! We spent nearly an hour there, warming ourselves before we headed out once more into the sub zeros!

It was late, the sun had gone down and we had missed the kite flying competition of frozen Lake Mendota. But we still had some fun in store! We drove down to Lake Monona and took a jaunty walk across its frozen surface! Twelve inches of think ice layered the surface of the snow, but if dug your foot into the powdery snow on the surface till you reached the sheer ice beneath, you could see the lapping water underneath – remember what we studied in school about the anomalous expansion of water? No? Google it dummy!

We walked and played and freaked me out by jumping on the surface and willing it to break – yeah that was part of the activity! We met some really drunk guys who were sitting around fishing! That’s right, fishing! They’d dug these round holes at intermittent distances and put in a line with a yellow flag on the top. According to one of the guys who gave us a complete lowdown on how the whole thing works, once a fish gets hooked (pun unintended I assure you), the screw-wound reel starts to rotate and the yellow flag stands erect ( it’s parallel to the ground when you send the reel in) and that’s how you know you’ve got a catch. So then you reel it in like a normal fishing line. After more playing in the snow and walking around, we made it back to terra firma, much to my relief! And we drove back home!

And that was the next brilliant day after the previous weekend when we went to a ski resort!!

Touchdown And A Month Later

2008-02-06T19:34:00.000-05:00

I could not keep the tears out of my eyes when I said goodbye. And it wasn’t exactly the kind of good bye I had pictured in my head – and I had pictured it a lot! Outside the overcrowded doorways of Chennai’s Anna International Airport, a hurried peck on the cheek of each member of my family passed for a farewell on the night I left India for the US. I walked on through the crowd and once I was inside the sliding doorway the crowds had enveloped the familiar faces that I was going to miss in the coming months.

Several delays later I was at Brussels with just enough time to spare to get security checked and run to the next terminal for my connecting flight to Newark. It was unreal and with so many desi techies on the flight, I didn’t feel all that bewildered. More sleep later I was at Newark. And that is when the full force of things hit me hard in the face!

America. The land of plenty, of dreams, of fast cars, of Hollywood… of everything that we see on the tele and read in books. As I stood in the queue for immigration, I could not suppress my grin. I was finally here in America! I never thought I would come, but here I was. Everything had happened so suddenly, I had not expected or wanted it even, but here I was. I think I was in shock!! The sights, the sounds, the smells… I was lapping it all up hungrily! All at once, I wanted 360 degree vision, to be able to overhear conversations, observe people, fashions of the day, signboards, hair color, accents… I just wanted to soak it all in! I was in sensory overload and I was scared some, excited some, plain bewildered some, and my arms were aching from carrying too much hand luggage!

Immigration and baggage claim later – which involved fiddling with the alien currency for a trolley dispenser (India rocks, trolleys are free there) – I was running across the length of Newark’s Liberty International Airport to make it to my flight to Madison. Oh I nearly got lost! And they said take a train to the terminal and the very concept was so alien ( all the other international airports I’d ever been to always said take the escalator, or walk-alator, or the stairs or the cart, but train?! Huh!), so alien that I thought I heard wrong and went around in circles! I finally found the air train(!!) that took me from one terminal of Liberty to another one two stops away. And I was running again, for my next and last flight. Running, running and I was in finally! A making-me-claustrophobically small aircraft with one stewardess all the way to Madison. But I was having fun! I was doing what I love doing on trips – people watching!!!

Before I knew it, we were taxing on the runway and I saw the famed Manhattan silhouette, with Liberty and the waterfront! Oh I couldn’t wait to explore, but there would be more time for that later, I promised myself that! I arrived at Madison, welcomed by a blisteringly cold day, and without any of my baggage! Seems like I wasn’t the only who was lost at Newark!

The first few days at Madison were full of questions! I think my roomie completely got sick of me and the incessant questions I was asking! I couldn’t/still can’t stand not knowing, I wanted to experience everything all at once!

Well it’s a month down now, my bags are with me, and I’m settled in my own room well enough to start noticing the not so rosy things about this place. I miss home every once in a while. I think I miss good company more than I miss home as such. I miss being a click or buzz away from my friends, the ones I would chat with everyday from office or home. I miss having hot tea and dinner waiting for me when I get home from work. I miss not having to make a decision on anything – about whether I’m running out of vegetables, whether I need to soak kidney beans tonight for tomorrow’s dinner, whether my shirts need ironing… I miss not having to worry about chopping onions and chipping off a nail accidentally. You know I should really stop writing now, before I get all homesick!

But life is good! I’m feeling as un-independent as I have ever done in so many years. All my independence from home is out the window and I am starting over. Plenty to learn and explore. Work is different from anything I’ve experienced offshore. I’m not the best person here, but I’m learning. Thanks to the internet and a great family and some awesome friends, I’m just a click away from any company I need. Hopefully, there’s something even better at the end of all of this! Even better than a two day snow storm and walking through 9 inches of snow to reach the parking lot from office, and getting frozen fingers in trying to clean the windshield (psst : I loved it!!)! Better than the anticipation of being able to drive in a while. But definitely not better than going down to Charlottesville at the end of this month – nothing is going to beat that and I’m uber excited!!

Welcome to America!

So long 2007 and no thanks for all the fish!

2008-01-01T01:08:00.000-05:00

We’ve closed one door and opened yet another. As I’m writing this, I cannot quite decide if I want to rewind on 2007 or guess-forward for 2008.

The past year has been a good and bad one for me. It began with some bad news in terms of CAT results. More bad news followed as more results trickled in. January 07 pretty much shut the lid on some of my ambitions. The first six months were spent immersed in work, trying to get over the results season. It was punctuated by a not-so-hard decision I had to make over Symbiosis… I have no regrets over that, no matter what anyone else might say/think.

The second half was spent in trying to secure a second and alternate foothold to realize my ambitions. And that part is hanging in mid air now. By March of this year, I should know if the seeds of last August will bear fruit or not. The second half was also witness to a surprise development I thought I’d never see in my career here – the visa!

And now here 2008 is! In another 4 days, I’ll be off to Madison, on my assignment. I never looked for this to happen, so I’m in denial for now. I can’t believe I’m actually going, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If this is going to mark the trend for the rest of the year, then I’d say this year is going to be pretty eventful for me! A new country, new people, new experiences, lots of travel… sounds promising enough. I just hope there’s lots of money thrown in there as well ;)

But as I step outside, I can’t help feeling sad for the safety and familiarity I am leaving behind in my country, my family and my friends. I feel sad knowing that I won’t be a part of the daily routine at home that I’ve gotten so used to over the last couple of years. Still, I think I’ll feel some enthusiasm once I get on that flight on Friday night.

There’s a lot to look forward to and I know that this time next year, my life would have changed a lot! I can just begin to feel the gentle breeze that preludes the winds of change.

Stars on Earth

2007-12-30T11:11:00.000-05:00

I watched Taare Zameen Par today at Sigma.
The movie is just fantastic, and I think it's the best Hindi movie I have watched all year. Aamir Khan is such a genius.
If ClusterMaps down there isn't lying and all you people from all those countries do really visit here, then please go watch this movie. It's in Hindi but if you require subtitles I am sure you'll find a copy with those too.
I hope Aamir takes this movie to the Oscars.

The Growing Divide

2007-12-29T03:57:00.000-05:00

I just got back from lunch at the Terminal. Today being Saturday, it’s normal to see campus teeming with people but of a different kind. Today you’ll find older men and women and really young children too. Saturday is the day that employees bring their families to visit this beautiful and sprawling campus with its seven food courts, lush green lawns and towering innovatively-designed buildings, the software development blocks or SDBs. It’s a pleasant sight. Children run ahead of their parents, making full use of the vast open space free of traffic, while the parents amble behind, taking in the sights and sounds of the place that their other halves call home for most part of the week.

This campus being the signature office and global headquarters of the company, there is constant construction activity here. Although the construction and the people working there are seldom seen on the main parts of the campus, every once in a while they are seen enjoying a walk on the campus in the evenings. Like today. As I was returning from Terminal, I witnessed something that pierced right through my day dream, and creating this urge to let out my thoughts here. I saw the family of an employee, well dressed and all made up, little son bounding back and forth on the walking track. And watching them, were a father and son, sitting in the corner, near where the construction site is cordoned off with green net. The man was obviously a construction worker, the boy his son. They watched as the young family stood to admire the Terminal, the front-loading-washing-machine building, the Coffee Day… The boy would have been no older than the little kid running around his parents on the walkway, in his new tee shirt and shoes. The other boy, in stark contrast, wore old and dirty clothes and was barefoot.

As the two families, in sharp contrast with each other, came within the same line of my vision, I was reminded painfully of the increasing social divide in this country. I was wishing just moments ago, that I had thought to invite my own family over for the weekend to visit the campus, and that one picture brought me jerkily out of my reverie. To me, this company is a reminder of what India has become today, of the growing economic power and the waves that it is creating in the global playground. It is an edifice of India’s favorite success story, of what dreams can achieve and of how ordinary mortals can affect a change so drastic. But today it became a reminder of how companies like these are doing little to bridge the gap between the two extremes of Indian society. As IT makes more money, the techies are raking in the cash, and cities like Bangalore become more expensive to live in. The poor pay the price for this. As our standard of living goes up, their standard of living does not see a commensurate increase and as a result they remain where they are, what little money they have losing its value with each passing day. India’s greatest employer is IT and ITES, both fields requiring an educated workforce. They compensate for their increasing demand for resources by recruiting large numbers of people from campuses across the country.

Unfortunately, rural India is not seeing an increase in primary or secondary education and therefore the IT success story bypasses that stratum of society completely. The few who do manage to make it to BPOs in the cities do so with immense hardships and sacrifices. Young parents of rural India hope for a better future for their offspring, one that is different from their own and does not involve doing menial labour to earn a living. How long will it be before their dreams turn to reality? Consider even the poor living in India’s metros. Most of them still do not go to school. The few who do, cannot afford the fees to study beyond class 10 or 12 and therefore drop out, joining their parents at their jobs as house-cleaners and cooks. I am not denigrating labour here, but I wish every child had access to education so that he could at least have a chance at a better future, one that a lot of urban Indians are enjoying today.

I wish corporate India could take the onus of education in villages, at least as an investment for their future workforce. With CSR gaining the kind of importance it has, I wish each company could “adopt” a village and take responsibility of primary and secondary education there by building schools or sponsoring education for families or helping schools build facilities that would keep children engaged. I read somewhere that the biggest issue plaguing rural schools is the lack of teachers because of poor wages. If companies could pump in funds to schools so that they may pay their staff better, it could help make the functioning of these schools a lot better. In Chennai, Sneham, the CSR arm of the Chennai office works in these areas by helping schools with infrastructure such as toilets and furniture. I am sure there are other such organizations. Perhaps giving them more publicity through the media would make people aware of ways in which they can help bridge the social divide.