|
|
|
When was the last that I thought of you...I know not...for it is I who goes alone on this path...and care I little of the souls that follow or those as march ahead.
Mode C: C for Cool, C for Cold, C for Chaos, C for Calvin. Ultimately, all of it boils down to the way you look at things. Are they not how they are but just how they appear?? No...and yes...Almost all the seriously critical fundamental concepts of life, according to me, are just the bogies under Calvin's bed that he is afraid of. Miss Wormwood, Susie, Mom and Dad, and of course above all, Hobbes are all merely the means that he uses to attack these bogies.
I have been reflecting on the phrase 'living the Calvin way' for so long now that I have seriously started to believe that life and our reaction to it is nothing else but so many of Calvin and Hobbes strips combined together. The philosophy, as I like to call it, is to know that you are not alone. It is not just my perspective alone that is going to help me fight my bogies. I will be able to inch towards the Calvin way only when I perceive the other perspectives on my way.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Management concepts for Information Technology
float time=2.0;//as if you needed more!!!
int papers=2;//thank God they didn't ask us to identify which question belonged to which paper
int questions=20;
int marks=15;
float marksperques=((float)marks)/question; //comes to 0.75...of all good things in life!
float pagelength=16.0;//unit is lines with each line containing 10 words on an average
float answerlength=pagelength/2;//good people, these IT wallahs...just stopped me from...:-)
void main(void)//looks like everything is void out here!!!
{
for (int attempt=1;attempt<=questions;attempt++)
{
//Start crap
//End crap
marks=marks - marksperques/2;
}
}
Posted at 05:07 pm by Nitai
Permanent Link
Positioning crap in a jargon conscious declining market
Upon targeting the innovators in the STI paper of yesterday, I had assumed that the introduction of crap in my answer life cycle would find sufficient response at least from the market's early adopters (Considering that the STI teacher is new and enthusiastic).
However, given a more mature market today, as any marketing manager worth his weight in Kotler volumes would have told you, it did not make sense to use the crap awareness or even crap distinction methodologies of positioning. An innovative marketer however, in the words of the typical consumer of the mature market, hardly goes by the jargons of Kotler and of those whose worth is judged by their weight in Kotler volumes. An innovative marketer innovates, and that is what I tried to do by carefully positioning my crap such that the final marking is adequately provided for by mass customisation of answers.
In trying to offer whatever is typical to the consumer's behavioral patterns, I did end up in the declining stage of the marks life cycle. Expecting a case study in the question paper, the consumer's behavior brought all my previous marketing research to naught. The difference between a developed and developing market notwithstanding, I tended to position my answer in the middle, not forgetting, in the process, to consider the answer's orientation towards the concepts of developed and developing economy.
To illustrate (as I often had the chance to do in the paper), a product called Revival was positioned not only as the medicinal capsule that it actually is, but the ambivalence among the consumer towards the augmented product attributes was exploited to the hilt by positioning the brand name as atypical, suited to any one of a shampoo, a cooking oil, an engine lubricant, or a medicinal drug...as the actual case may be. If you are still wondering as to my infinite capacity for wonders, I ask you to refer back to the section where I was talking about innovative marketers.
The buying decision for the answers lies in the hands of the consumer who has a distinctive buying pattern...if only I had known in the exam hall that this buying pattern refers to his willingness to solve a problem (read give marks) based on some information search (which he will have a tough time doing in my paper), I would have made the marketing mix accordingly and not based the buying behavioral pattern one of fashion, fad and style...might as well have given some promotions in the form of RRB, EPSB and/or some such other perceived high-value abbreviations...
Posted at 12:41 pm by Nitai
Permanent Link
Monday, August 16, 2004
A socially-transformed, middle-class, Hindu Indian
The fibre of the Indian middle class is too complex to be critically examined...especially when someone is talking about the social character of a particular class. One has to ensure that there is no inter mixing between the Dalits of the Devendars and Pariyars (or was it Parayaras) fame and the OBCs of the Jats fame since the two belonged to two different chapters. On the other hand, the choice that has been given to the oppressed examinee reduces drastically as he realises that there has been an imaginative attempt to reconstruct history by joining the OBCs with the dalit assertiveness in a single question.
Things do not stop here as you still have to consider the Hindu angle and that too, from the modern perspective, despite the fact that half of the things in the chapters dealt with Nehruvian era and things that happened before independence, that is some 58 years ago.
Talking about 58 years ago, one important criteria for your social trasnsformation, especially if you think that you know the answer to Who is an Indian, is to know that there is a difference between the applications of Sanskrit and being in the west. This knowledge is very important because more often than not, you will be asked to write different things about two interwoven, yet different, concepts of sanskritisation and westernisation.
Lest you forget, any socially tranformed, middle class, Hindu Indian is not complete without the mention of politics and if you thought that you knew everything there is to know about politics in India, read down slowly and carefully to know what you have missed. You have missed the trilogy of Malik, Kisan and Mazdur and even if you hadn't missed that, you would have hardly known the diference because despite kisan being a part of the trilogy, the question pertained to the Jats of Punjab and Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (probably to compensate for taking the OBCs out, right from under their noses and delivering the same to Dalits of Tamil Nadu)
Posted at 03:51 pm by Nitai
Permanent Link
Crediting the adjustment in the debited income statement
The asset of Marks Receivable has been credited and the corresponding debit has been carried out, for the compound journal entry, to silly mistakes and lack of time expenses.
Date: August 16, 2004
Venue: PGP1A Class room cum Examination Hall
Time: Dooms hour - 0200 hours
The Questions in Eyesight asset is being debited as the shaking of hands expense gets credited. Mental activity is not recorded as there is no debit or credit happening.
Time: Dooms hour - 0145 hours
Some fart I know in theory asset is offset against the I have to write something or I am doomed liability. The calculator and basic arithmetic skills assets are used to cover the will you ever find the correct amount liability.
Time: Dooms hour - 0115 hours
Much of the stockholders' equity of brain's grey matter is eroded in efforts to convert some unearned marks to the revenue account of marks earned. However, the confusion expense on account of the transaction on subscription and pre and post paid amounts exceeds all assets and erosion in stockholders' equity combined.
Time: Dooms hour - 0045 hours
The desperation asset has somewhat helped in applying the matching principle between the revenue recognition of marks earnable and the expense of pen ink. The transaction on merchandise bought and sold is successful...or atleast that is what the debit in the hope asset would tell any auditor.
Time: Dooms hour - 0015 hours
The liability of marks losable takes a severe hit as the at last some luck asset plays to perfection, bringing about the oh-so-elusive revenue of balanced balance sheet!!! Thanks to God asset is debited by a huge amount and contrary to accounting principles, no corresponding credit is made.
Time: Dooms hour - 0005 hours
The correct answers inventory is in for a shock as the supplier called 'time' returns part of the shipment, thus debiting marks lost for incorrect answers account. Had the Unearned Service Revenue not changed its places with the Service Revenue in the Journal, the happiness asset would certainly have been debited.
Time: Dooms hour + 0015 hours
The Net Marks (negative marking) hovers around 15 out of a total retained earnings of 25. Despite dividends of 10 marks already issued, the financial statement is fudged to observe the market reaction.
Oh, how I enjoyed seeing the faces of the people in the CC when I told them that I had a bad paper and was only expecting 20+ marks. Some wondered incredulously as to what else could I want and some wanted to shoot me.... :-)
Posted at 01:54 pm by Nitai
Permanent Link
Sunday, August 15, 2004
At the stroke of midnight hour...
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, then an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now.
Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we might fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India whose representatives we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell."
Speech by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru to Constituent Assembly of India
Midnight, August 15, 1947
With a motley crowd of about 50-odd institute staff (both teaching and non-teaching), and even fewer students (out of a total of 250-odd on campus), IIMK celebrated the 58th Independence Day of India. As the director, Dr Krishna Kumar, and later, Karan pointed out, it has been a long walk to this point where we can call ourselves independent, hence the onus is on us to realize that despite independence, we are not free to do what we please. We have a responsibility towards nation-building and going further, towards being and acting for the global citizens.
The young and future stalwarts of the Indian economy (pillars, Karan called them) started moving towards the shade (I was one of them, too) as the person from CEX (Center of Excellence), in his heavily accented speech, appealed to us to at least live for the country if we cannot take birth, exist and die for the country like the freedom fighters, soldiers and other martyrs. The song (I guess it must have been in Malayalam) by CEX students was extremely well rendered and though I could not understand much of it, it did light up that hidden spark...the spark that comes to us on at least two days of the year...the spark that made Gagan limp and stumble on his crutches all the way from the hostel to the flag hoisting (hats off, Gagan!!!)...the spark that used to start with the flag and end with the laddoos in the good old school days...the spark that is dying out slowly but surely...the spark that is getting replaced by yet another spark that is splitting up the colors of the flag, the white no longer a bridge between the saffron and the green.
What does this day mean to me as an individual is the question many of us would be asking today. For me, this day tells me that I am not under anyone's control...that I can rebel if I want to, that I can do what I please and as long as I am within logical levels of decency, nobody will stop me from doing those things. But is it that simple? There are so many things that I want to do but I can not because after all, I live in a society and am not totally independent. I am emotionally dependent on my family and friends and whatever I do has to be within the limits that are tolerated by people I am dependent upon. But then again, I am sure that these people do realise that I have my own space and they respect that space. I am sure that here again, if I am within my limits, they will not only tolerate my actions but also support me tooth and nail for whatever I am doing.
At least, I am not dependent on some whimsical person who will treat me as a dog just because I belong to a region that he thinks is his territory. I am independent of such tyranny, and for this knowledge, mother nation, I am thankful. It is this knowledge which brings the smile in my salute to you, dear Tiranga...it is this knowledge that holds my head high as I implore the wind to blow such that the national flag sails proudly...it is this knowledge that makes me bow my head with shame when I am not sure if I correctly remember, forget understand, the lines of the national anthem.
Posted at 11:45 am by Nitai
Permanent Link
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|