Bommu goes to USA

I have a friend called Bommuraj.He joined my engineering college in the 2nd year as a lateral entry student.He comes from a rural background.When he came to chennai 5 years back,it was his first time in a big city.From the beginning I was attracted to Bommu due to his enthusiastic spirit and straightforwardness.He is a simple guy who can never involve in any kind of chicanery.We have been close friends for the past 5 years.

Bommu would often say how his parents (who are daily wage agricultural labourers)forced him to study engineering, though he himself wanted to get into some job soon and start supporting his family.After completing engineering he stayed in chennai with some folks from his village(KK Patti).He immediately started his job hunt.For 2-3 months he roamed around chennai at the peak of the summer like a dog.Finally he landed a job (and he was among the first few from our class to land a job).It was in a small software company and it paid him just Rs 4000 pm. The office was on the other side of the city to where he stayed.Every day he would start from home at around 7 am and return at 10 pm. And saturday was not a holiday.

After all the struggle, he is finally going to USA on behalf of his company on the 25th of this month. Of course his parents must be very very happy and proud now.And so am I.

Bommu would always say that his dream is to buy a large piece of land for his father so that he can see his father finally own the land he cultivates.He also wants to build a large house in his village and see his parents spend their last days in comfort.(Bommu says that his parents would never agree to leave their village and come and stay with him in the city).

I hope Bommu earns a lot of money in the US and comes back and sees his dream come
true.But please Bommu, dont stay there for too long.Come back here soon, we shall have a great time together.

The state of my country

We live in a democracy.And we pay a certain price for it.

Tamil Nadu will soon have assembly elections.This is what the main opposition has to offer to the people so as to woo them to vote their party into power:

Quality rice at Rs. 2 a kg on ration cards, free colour television for every family "for women's recreation and general knowledge," a maternity assistance of Rs. 1,000 a month for six months, wavier of all cooperative loans to farmers and free electricity to weavers in addition to farmers, were some of the highlights.

The DMK has promised free gas stove to all poor women, a monthly financial assistance up to Rs. 300 to unemployed youth, assignment of two acres to landless poor families, restoration of all concessions withdrawn to government employees and teachers and reservation for Muslim and Christians.

This reminds me of a scene in Ayutha Ezhuthu (yuva) in which Bharathiraja gives a campaign speech to a crowd of poor illiterate people and woos them by talking absolute crap. We might have had a good laugh watching that scene in the movie, but its not so funny when you see that it is actually reality.

I know that this country will soon wake up and be a model democracy, where there will not be any place for such political bull shit.I just hope that its soon enough.But right now,this country is going to the dogs..

Got my summers!

Finally I've got a company for my summers. I'll be doing my summer internship in ICRA online. Its a big relief that I've finally managed to get selected by some company! I'll be located in Mumbai for the duration of the project.The company is launching a new product which is some kind of a series of reports about the mutual fund industry.I'll be trying to sell this product to potential customers whom I presume will be Mutual fund houses,brokerage houses,etc.There are two ways to look at this:

1. Negative-
Its a bloody salesman job.I'll be roaming all around Mumbai in the peak of the summer in crowded local trains and dusty roads.I can't even be at home in chennai during the summer.

2. Positive-
Hey, i never looked at myself as someone who could be a good marketeer or salesman.But the company thought I could be! It means that I possibly have some capabilities which i had not realised before .Roaming all around Mumbai and trying to sell to people will be a good experience.I'll get to know the city well and more importantly i would get to know people well.I may not get such a good opportunity again.I am now forced to do what I've feared and hated doing-travelling and selling. I am sure at the end of those 2 months I will be much better off.I'll be more mature and I'll be more employable.

I look at my summer internship assignment in the second way.

Lok Paritran - A New Dawn?

What do four IITians, some also educated in the US and almost all of them from rural backgrounds have in common? Well, apparently they all have a rare spirit of patriotism and a passion to help this country move forward. I am talking about Tanmay Rajpurohit,Ashwalayan Shukla,Amit Beesen,and Chandrashekhar. These four guys are aeronautical and mechanical engineers who had a bright promising future ahead of them in some large American organisation with guaranteed fat pay cheques and a good house and a pretty wife. But instead they have chosen a different path for themselves.

These guys have created a political party called Lok Paritran. They have decided to contest the elections in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala this year. They claim that lack of money will not be a hindrance in their election fight.

I don't know what will happen to this party in future but I will surely keep track of them.I hope that these guys actually have the best interests of the country in mind (can't help being a bit cynical in this world of deceivers) and that the country benefits.

Formula One 2006

A new season is all set to begin of the FIA Formula One world championships. Renault and Mc Laren have been topping the time sheets followed closely by Ferrari and Honda in the winter testing. With a lot of changes to the regulations this season- the most prominent being changing the engines from V10 to V8 and allowing tyre changes- its difficult to predict who will be on top at the beginning of the season. Once again I will be rooting for Alonso and Renault this season. But I think the going will be much tougher for them this season. One might question Alonso’s motivation level after having announced his plans to shift to McLaren next season. Also, tyre supplier Michelin will be in its final year in the sport. So their commitment can also be questioned. The inclusion of Super Aguri will mean that there will be record number of lappings done by the race leader over the last placed driver this season. I cannot imagine the competitive level of Aguri who will be racing with an Arrows chassis which is atleast 4 years old ! I expect Ferrari to be more competitive this season with the V8s. I am sure Felipe Massa will be a worthy successor to Reubens Barrichello. He will play second fiddle to Schumacher perfectly. This will most likely be Schumacher’s last season. I think Raikkonen will be the most obvious target for Ferrari to replace him next season. Massa will then continue to play second fiddle to him. I hope my old favourite Williams team gets back to competitive form this season although there are little indications that this will be the case. So the competitive teams this season are likely to be Renault, mclaren, Ferrari and Honda. Lets fasten our seat belts and get set for another season for high speed action. Go Alonso !

Goa trip and an eventful start to the year

After a long hiatus I return to blogging. My exams got over on 4th jan and I left for Goa along with my roomies as planned. We spent 4 days there, had a nice time. Goa is a very relaxing place and we sure did relax there. We got to know a few things that we did not know earlier:
• Almost 100% of Goans speak English.
• Goa must be the state which has the largest population of Indians speaking Russian language.
• Infact we were amused to see that some shops had billboards in Russian and even the names of the shops were written only in Russian.
{The above points are of course due to the huge inflow of foreign tourists, especially central Europeans whom the locals try to woo for their livelihood.}
• A plain egg omelette at a small restaurant with thatched roof and plastic tables and chairs can sometimes cost you 30 rupees (and on other times even more).
• Its easier to get beer than to get water in Goa. People are amused (some may even get offended) when we say no to beer and ask for water instead.
• There’s probably no traffic signal (atleast we did not see any) in entire Goa.
• When a European rides a Bajaj Pulsar, his size will make the bike look like a TVS Champ.
• Goa is probably one of the few places in India where you may get an unofficial discount from shopkeepers, restaurant owners and hawkers just because you are an Indian.

Having chilled out to our heart’s content and our wallets’ lack of content, we returned to Mumbai on 9th. I left for Chennai the next day on a trip that was planned to last one week. But my stay in Chennai lasted more than a month as I was down with Leptospirosis (rat fever) and subsequently with Jaundice. My doc says that I must have most likely got infected 1-2 weeks before the symptoms surfaced. That would mean that the most likely place where I got the infection from is GR Jani hostel (yeah, that’s the name of my hostel). For those of you who are wondering what rat fever is, well don’t worry. It is not such a common infection and you are not likely to get it- Provided you are not a resident of GR Jani hostel. Ours is a great hostel, incubator of all the dirtiest diseases in the country. But anyway, I guess it doesn’t make sense to ramble about it now.
Three fevers (malaria, rat fever and jaundice) in three months, but none during the trimester exam. Guess I must be one lucky chap!

So, after about a month’s rest I returned to Mumbai. Got the results for the 2nd trim. A much better GPA of 3.11 this time helped move my CGPA towards more decent levels after a disastrous 1st trim when I got a pathetic 2.75. Lots more hard work to be done if I want to push my final CGPA to 3.0 and beyond. And this trim I already have my work cut out having missed 1 month of classes. Anyway, hoping for the best…

2 down, 7 to go

My 2nd trimester exams are going on right now. Two exams are over so far. Till now the indications are that my grades this time will be much better than the pathetic grades I got last time. Lets see.. Next paper is marketing. Haven’t touched Kotler since the marketing paper last trim! The exam is in the morning and am now sitting in the middle of the night, blogging. Well, big deal ! After all its marketing. Its gonna be one more session of story writing . Well, its not exactly story writing, but you don’t hav to study much for these marketing exams. It takes a little more than common sense to solve these marketing cases. And for a fin guy like me I guess its too much to ask for to study marketing throughout the trimester.

The exams get over on 4th and we have planned a trip to Goa. My room mates -Pulkit and Arjun- and I are going. We will be there for 3-4 days. Planning to have lots of fun there.. We’ve hardly had any time to enjoy since diwali. The last party I had was in IIM Indore when I had gone there for presenting my paper in IRIS, their annual inter b school competition. Its been more than a month of slogging. Hope to finish the rest of the exams well and then go and have a helluva time in Goa!