The Funeral Parlor

Defense of a Nerd? - Not quite

2011-12-23T03:48:00.000-08:00

So, finally I decided to pull myself off the slumber and write this post. Notwithstanding the testimonials of several people, I do not quite enjoy the (direct) spotlight, where the steps I take are being watched. Hence, I was dithering because I thought that this post has to be a place where everything I say has to make perfect sense and to get together as a watertight argument and defense of the way I operate. But then I realised that it would amount to me just being dishonest to myself and to anybody who would read this. Rather, I should just let it flow here, whatever I have to say.

First up, a foe-turned-friend remarked a couple of days back about how I was not a 'nerd', but a 'dork'. According to her, a 'nerd' is someone who's totally into technology and is very innovative there. I, according to her, did nothing of that sort and was, at best, academically better than most others. However, I see this argument at two levels. First, the terminology doesn't matter much, does it? For some, 'nerd' is a good thing to be, and to others it isn't. Dork, surely, is a good word to describe me - I'm surely socially inept and quirky. However, about me being 'merely' a bit ahead in the 'race to grades' would be an unfair characterisation. For one, creativity doesn't necessarily need to relate to technology. At the same time when Steve Jobs was changing the way we look at technology, lots of guys were working around the world to change the way we look at finance. 'Innovation' can be with regard to anything. It is true that in India, given the preeminence we give to technology, it is not a surprise that we'd look at the 'uber-nerd' as a tech freak. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that it will change soon.

Now to more important issues. I see mischaracterizations as cases of misinformation. Hence, just because somebody scores well, doesn't mean that he uses all his time to study. At least I don't (assuming that I score well, which isn't always true). I've always made sure that I should not be like a dog to my academics; that I should always be the master. If you look at my schedule two months before CAT, it read somewhat like this: DreaMerger, GRE, Financial Summit, Rise of Nations, Financial Knights. I missed a lot of 8:40 classes the week before CAT, not because I was studying, but because I had played Rise of Nations till late at night. Two days before my CAT, I was up till 3 playing Rise of Nations. My 'CAT coaching' consisted more of discussing business issues with my teacher, rather than solving math problems. Whatever the CAT result be, I don't have a single regret. I did it my way, and that's what matters to me.

Another instance of doing it 'my way' were my internships. Working at Bandhan was the most amazing experience. It is not everyday that you walk with your leg below your knees in wet mud. It certainly isn't routine (for a Delhi boy) to sit down at the Howrah station at 5 AM and just look at the multitudes. My friends laughed at my second internship at SochYo!. Some of them, worked at big corporations and big banks and big names (note the repeated usage of 'big'). What I did was to follow my heart. Because it was a start-up, I enjoyed the work immensely. There was also greater flexibility around my working hours. The best part was when this internship experience was instrumental in my subsequent job interviews. Because I did what I did with passion, and because I learnt so much about the way people work and think, I was able to internalise all that information. So, I used my summers to do things I might probably never do again - visit villages and work for a start-up. And I was still able to fit them in the broader scheme of things.

Some people think that nerds study (if at all) to achieve some material gain. I can't vouch for everyone, but that certainly is not true for me. The day I topped the boards, so many people asked me what I had got as a gift, and I said nothing. The reason being that whatever I had wanted was already there with me before the results were out. Whatever I have wanted has been made available to me by my parents or my brother, results and marks and all irrespective. My parents hear about my academics only once a year - the day of the university results. Academics is otherwise never a topic of discussion at my place.

In this world today, most of us play to a certain other's tunes. We are all footballs of someone else's opinion. Some dance to the tunes of their peers, some dance for societal acceptance, some dance to the tunes of their friends and some for their careers. To my credit, I set my incentives in such a way that I danced to my own tunes and still ended up achieving what I wanted to do. In a microcosmic way, I solved a problem of incentives, something of a rarity in real world.

For example, if I've always liked Strategy Games - the tycoon games, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations etc. In fact, in one of the few instances of parental pressure, my IITian cousin hid all strategy games on my computer. Such was my craze! But then I saw that my aptitude for strategy games had a much wider application. I used it extensively at the Economics Society of school, and I've continued using it in college. Most recently, solving case studies (at least the interview type of cases) became so easy for me because I could look at the broader picture, just like I had to do in a game of Age of Empires. I did what I enjoyed, and I made sure I did it in the way that maximised returns.

Now, for the trickiest bit. Why don't I party like crazy, let my guard down for a moment and be lost in joy? I don't quite know. Firstly, the idea of losing control itself doesn't appeal to me. Losing control - to people or to inanimate things - isn't really part of my DNA. Does that make me 'boring'? Well, even if it does, I think I would prefer being boring.

Hmmm .... this didn't quite come out like I wanted it to. Maybe this will continue some other day, or maybe I would have moved on.

The Dreadfully Heavy Whites

2011-12-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

I thought today evening that I'll write a post titled 'Defense of a Nerd', primarily because of a certain someone's relentless attack on my lack of things to do last night. However, something more pressing came up, something that might go out of my memory unless I put it down here. Here's the deal - this is about me!

A bunch of elderly neighbors came over for an evening gossip to my place. Then they got talking to my parents about me. This is fairly regular conversation when people who've not met me before - they get talking about the boards and all. Then, my dad took out a bunch of those newspaper clippings and showed those to them. In one of them, I'd talked about how I washed my own clothes. Honestly, I didn't remember till I got reminded today.

But when I was reminded, I could almost feel that dreadfully heavy whites (the DPS, RK Puram trousers) in my hands. I can remember waking up really early morning at 5 in the winter to go to school from Ghaziabad. But all that feels distinct. However, it gives me a sense of pride and a sense of self-esteem.

Now, success and failure come and go. Often, we sit down more with the failures than we do with the successes in life. But that bit of harsh living back in class 12th made me a bit resistant to failures. Yes, I do fail very often. But my entire response to failures has changed. I'm able to pick up the pieces and rather than move on, get back harder to the tast. Now, that might not be the best thing to do. Sometimes, it's just better to move on and let bygones be bygones. But these days, this is what I do and I'm happy doing it. Some day, I might realise that this is wrong and then I'll change myself accordingly. As I wrote in my last post, I'm not attached - even to my behaviour.

As a postscript, the earliest instances of this 'rising from failures' were my quizzing escapades in school. There have simply been too many quizzes that Kritika and I went for, and in each one of them we failed (to Kritika's credit, she won three quizzes - three times when she went without me in her team). But there was this 'big thing' lying in the future that kept making me get back to quizzing. I think that is why extra-curricular and co-curricular competitions are important. They teach you to deal with failures.

After this 'brief' thought, I'll get back to 'Defense of a Nerd' the next time.

My Greatest Journey

2011-12-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

One of the few quotes that I remember is this one from The Namesake - "The greatest journeys are those that bring you home." At first, I found it very typical of a pravasi bangali, especially given the author's ethnicity. It was after the class 10th boards that I watched the movie, having read the novel a couple of years earlier. Now that I come to think of it, the quote reflects the deep significance that is attached to the act of returning home.

However, in life I have carried around a slight burden of rootlessness. My father's job in the navy prevented me from calling any one place 'home'. Where is my home? Is it where my parents reside, a place where I have not stayed for more than two months of my life in all? Or is it Delhi, where I have spent most of my life, but where I don't have any permanent residence? Even if it were Delhi, will it be Luytens' Delhi, where I spent almost all my childhood, but where I know I can never return? Or will I make a new home in the other parts of Delhi?

Yet, every time I cross the area around Chanakyapuri, an area I grew to love and admire, there is always a slight heartache that grips me. There is a feeling of a 'lost childhood', not in the sense of a childhood that I didn't enjoy, but which I can barely revisit. It is like a relic - it has been so strongly cast in stone that it now seems totally surreal. Every time I go towards Dhaula Kuan, I sit up excitedly to look at DSOI and S P Marg. Today as I go to the airport to board a flight back to Kolkata, I would be waiting for when the Airport Express Line crosses DSOI. The last time I stayed at DSOI for a couple of days, I went around the S P Marg area and revisited the temple I used to go to, the shops I used to buy from and the lively buildings that were once part of a 'home' - the only place I call 'home'.

Indeed, going to those areas is the greatest time of my life. It gives me a sense of relief - that even though I may have passed that extremely pleasant time, there are others growing up there who would enjoy what I enjoyed, who would play where I once used to play and who would probably face similar curiosities as I once did. My journey wasn't unique - in fact, a lot of Army kids probably have an even more rootless existence - and in those numbers I find comfort.

The good thing about this rootlessness is the objectivity it brings to me. Once you do not have a 'home' to be attached to, there are very few things you can be attached to. Friends, success, failures - nothing inspires attachment because the greatest attachments have been broken down before. It is truly my biggest weakness and my greatest strength. It is my raison-de-etre and that is how I will now look upon it.

One last time?

2011-10-31T10:14:00.001-07:00

It's been nearly seven months since I was last at home. This is by far the longest I've been away. The previous highest must have been a measly three-four months. However, what matters more is that it has been seven months since I have closed my eyes and found myself free. Yes, I've been in a race, and now that I am coming to the fag end of the race, I'm exhausted.

It's been a long time - over a year maybe - of running with multiple things on the plate. But now is when I have begun to feel it. Have I reached the limits of my existence? Can I carry no more? Well, even if that's true, the way ahead is just to expand what I can do. What's the fun in merely identifying your limits, nay?

What struck me after the rejection at Monitor was - whatever I do at college, does it come to zero once I begin my job? Honestly, I am not in a position to answer that. I can argue that the 'spirit' and 'ambition' matters, but then there is nothing in particular that I did in college that resulted in these, it was more a relic of my school days.

So, heading into CAT, it is all a bit muddled up. More importantly, I can't think right now, because my brain is quite exhausted. One thing is for sure - it is the last time, so I'm going to pick up the ball and I'm going to run, run as fast as I can. Whether I reach where I want to is now clearly immaterial. What matters is to run the last mile.

I don't know how to write

2011-10-22T11:28:00.001-07:00

It's been such a long time I don't know how it feels to write, what to write and how to write ... it feels numb, honestly, to be typing away at the keyboard after all these days. The last post was on June 18, 2011. It must have been right in the beginning of the summer break. Things have changed dramatically since then - I have cut off a cancerous part of my life, have moved a few steps in my career, have come back to college and made new friends, had a wonderful DreaMerger ... the list keeps going on.

At the beginning, change was difficult. When you get used to someone or something being an integral part of your life, and when that someone isn't there - there is an emptiness in life. But sometimes, it is just necessary to cut off that 'something' for your own well-being. People ask me 'why did it happen?', and I don't say anything. Maybe one day I will, maybe that day will be before college is over - but not right now. Have I moved on? I think, yes. I don't think about it much now; I simply don't have the time. I've found a new thing to love, a new emotion to feel. At the beginning of each day, I feel like a new person.

Something at the top of my mind right now is the movie 'Titanic'. Something about that movie holds me spell-bound. Perhaps it is the cinematic genius, but I suspect that it is my fascination with the real Titanic. The idea of a 'watery grave' is as enticing as it is enigmatic. It is a part of time one can't reach, but whose gravity escapes no one. It is like time which 'used to be', which isn't, but which is still there with us somehow.

I've been out of practice, but I'll try to get used to this soon.

P.s. thanks for your wishes, folks. That you believe in me is what matters more than anything else.

Returning

2011-06-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

A few days back, a thought occurred to me - why should I write a blog? Does anybody really care about what happens in my life? No. Does anybody care what my views on any subject are? Of course not. Then what is my audience, and what does it expect of me? In what way can I do justice to myself and to whoever reads this?

Every view I have will quite certainly not be unique, and every experience I have will also have been experienced by several before me. But the probability of somebody having the exact same sequences of experiences as me would be hopelessly low, and hence my views on these experiences are likely to be quite different from most other people. Hence, I write on how every experience of my life is shaping me - guiding me, and being guided by me, towards a future that appears as hopeless as the past has appeared distant.

The last few months, starting from October last year, have been extremely taxing emotionally. I have heard of emotional breakdowns - but this was just so much different. There were issues in friendships, which unfortunately got intricately linked to societies in college. So fragile was this system of interdependence that I had been party to weaving, that once one fell, everything else also seemed to fall out of place.

Today, I see myself in a very different light. Sometimes I feel I do not recognise myself, that these past nine months have forever changed me. For one, I do not think I will ever fall in love. Because I did. Love that was more generic than just interactions between two individuals, love that has known only complete devotion and submission. A broken heart, and more so a broken heart that knew pure love, is hard, maybe impossible to repair. Now, I do not believe that that is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe not being ready to love people so easily is infact a good thing!

The only thing that I feel upset about is that it all had to end this way. My conception of success had always been one which I shared with people around me whom I love. Probably I so desperately wanted it because I have barely ever had people in my life to share my success with. Alas, it does not seem to be meant to be. Probably, the next few successes I have in life, of course with the doses of failure, will be solitary ones. The chalice of success without friends to toast with feels empty, but it is a chalice nonetheless.

On the flipside, I met some people on the way, through this most tumultuous of times, whom I think I can possibly form relationships with. Of course, no longer will I be blind in my faith in friendship and in things good and rosy. But maybe these relations might work. After all, nothing is impossible.

I end this post with a word of caution for the reader. Never try to stretch yourself for somebody else, it just ends up tearing you.

Good luck!

Stephania - really?

2011-04-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

Enough has been said about 'Stephania' by people more experienced than me. My first introduction to the hoopla around 'Stephania' was an article by Shashi Tharoor for Delhi Times where he wrote about what made Stephens special. Among things he said was the fact that in St. Stephen's, religion and region did not matter and the pursuit of knowledge and intellect was given precedence over scoring marks, rote-learning and the like. The merits and demerits of his arguments, and whether they are valid over a quarter century after he left college, is something I do not find myself qualified enough to comment on. Instead, what I can comment on is what difference I see in St. Stephen's today from other colleges of Delhi University.

The idea of teaching in St. Stephen's going beyond the textbooks and examinations is slowly, and surely, dying out. Not to say that the blame can be rested on the faculty of St. Stephen's College - it would be more appropriate to blame the suffocating nature of the DU syllabus since it leaves colleges with little time to pursue their own charters. Education in DU is being turned into a McAloo tikki burger - you get the same taste wherever you go. Whether that's a good thing or not (I think it's abominable) is kept for later discussions.

What I argue in this piece is that what is unique to St. Stephen's College is its small size - 1200 students - studying a large number of courses - 10 in total - across a variety of disciplines. What this results in is greater interaction between different ideas, and this is where I believe our college has the most to benefit from. I hence believe that expanding the number of seats might diminish, if not demolish, this unique advantage that we have.

The difference between previous evocations of Stephania and what I propose is that what I propose is tangible - it can very well be replicated by other colleges. I do not pin-point Stephania on intangibles such as the 'spirit', which is impossible to judge anyway. To conclude this point, I think we have a lot to gain by acknowledging that in a fast-changing world, wherein St. Stephen's is no longer considered the undisputed best arts college in India, we have a lot to gain by foregoing the old connotations of 'Stephania' and recognise what we actually have and then create fora for us to exploit it to the fullest.

As an aside, it is true that the pursuit of innovation in St. Stephen's College has been vanishing. In this context, there would be much merit in arguing that being associated with DU is harming St. Stephen's. There has to be greater room for the college to manage its own syllabus and evaluation parameters.

The importance of taking it easy

2011-04-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

It is after quite a while that I write in my blog, and what a time it has been! My lost post on 14th Feb corresponds to the times immediately after the F&I fest, and it is actually somewhat sad that I I consider these society events landmarks in my life. And this is where I come to my next thought - that very often, we take life too seriously and give it much more attention than what it actually deserves.

Very often, what we consider as 'life' is a set of discrete points, these 'landmarks'. For example, in my case this would correspond to my topping the boards, COQ experience, coming to St. Stephen's and the like. However, what I now believe is that what is a better way of evaluating life is to view it not as a discrete set of points, but as a continuum of moments and experiences.

What is the marginal benefit of one over the one? Discrete points, of course, are far fewer than a continous range. Hence, there is a greater probability of 'failure', and there is much more scope for disappointment. In contrast, a life viewed as a continuum of experiences is very unlikely to suffer from disappointment, primarily because every moment becomes so trivial in the larger scheme of things, and the law of large numbers ensures that every moment is lost.

The logic that exemplifies this is Robin Sharma, the writer of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. He writes that the problem with walking on a path with one eye on the goal is that you have only one eye looking down on the path. Is it not better to first look at the goal, make judgements of which path to take, and then immerse yourself completely in the pursuit of the path? This way, firstly you would be able to enjoy the path completely and also probably do better in pursuit of the goal.

Of course, this all comes with the warning that I haven't tried it myself, and only now do I embark on this path. Hence, try at your own risk!

Banana Republic?

2011-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

After attending a rather interesting talk by Ms. Elina Singh, wife of imprisoned Dr. Binayak Sen, organised by the Informal Discussion Group (IDG) in college, I was left pondering on essentially two questions - has our judicial system failed us, and if yes, then what can we do about it?

Coming to the first, it is a well-accepted fact, even by members of the judiciary, that the integrity of the lower judiciary has indeed been compromised. Judges at lower courts are known to be prone of both bribery and intimidation. Does this rot reach the higher levels? While there have been cases of corruption in the higher judiciary, I would like to continue to believe that the judiciary High Court onwards is rather unbiased and honest. That said, how many of India's cases are actually heard in High Courts? Do we want to clog our high courts so that everybody gets justice? Well, if we are to make our judicial system work, we need to clear the clutter at the bottom.

This has been adequately represented in movies, Aakrosh being the latest one that I happened to watch. There is a perception, and correct to a great extent, that the role of the investigating agency / police has started to extend into courtrooms. This is a rather worrisome trend, since this means that the judicial process will always be inclined in favour of the prosecuting agency, and hence likely to be a biased process.

There is hence a need to restore the integrity of this third pillar of our democracy, and we need to not look down upon EU sending observers to our trials as interference. As a responsible international power, we need to be transparent, even with regard to what we might perceive as an 'internal matter', but what the world perceives as something of import.

St. Stephen's as a deemed University

2011-01-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

An idea has recently been floated by the St. Stephen's administration that the college strive for a 'deemed university' status by the period 2025-2050. This article is meant to question what value will this tag add to the college, and whether it is of primary import.

a 'deemed university' tag allows a college to set its own syllabus and admission procedures, its own fee structure and some of them are also allowed to give out degrees. Given that St. Stephen's already has a distinct admission procedure from the rest of Delhi University, and that its fees are also significantly higher than most other DU colleges; this move is meant primarily to enable the college to set its own syllabus.

How important is a different syllabus to an institution? India faces a perennial problem that the syllabus is very rote-learning oriented, and hence does not promote innovation. Again, this probably stems from our attempts to impart 'quality education' to all. If, for once, we acknowledge the impossibility of the task, we can impart 'good quality education' to a few (which will also run into millions, by the way), and provide 'life skills' to the rest. We must free not only St. Stephen's college, but other reputed institutions from the shackles of this attempt at mass quality education.

The only thing I am skeptical about is the undue attention that this proposal has received. It is true that this 'deemed university' recognition will give the college a lot of flexibility to do its own thing. However, there are still many ways we can strive to achieve that aim. For once, the societies in college can, for once, attempt to extend knowledge frontiers rather than just function for the sake of function. Of course, that deserves an entire entry by itself.

Trip to the North East

2011-01-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

This post has been some time in the coming now. I got my datacard along on this trip to the North East with an intention to make daily post. Of course, like several other teenage intentions, this too failed. However, the least I can do is to post the details on my last day here, before I get carried away in the tsunami called the DU Jan tests.

First, let me get over the itinery quickly. We came to Guwahati on 29th December and the next day left for Shillong. On 31st, we visited Cherrapunji. On 1st, we left for Tezpur, visited Kaziranga on the 2nd and tomorrow, i.e. the 3rd, we return to our respective 'homes' - mom and dad to Kolkata, bhai to Mumbai and me to Delhi.

So, now to the more subjective components of this post. This trip was surprisingly devoid of hills and mountains, as one would expect from the North East. Of course, that primarily owes to the fact that we did not visit any hilly place, but confined ourselves to the valley and plateaus. So, the only uphill drive was from Guwahati to Shillong. Guwahati is like a typical small Indian city. It doesn't have many charms of its own, except for the Brahmaputra flowing through it.

Shillong was the best part of the trip, especially the drive from Shillong to Cherrapunji. Of course, I always knew that Shillong was on a plateau, but I'd never been on a plateau myself, and hence didn't know what to expect once I reach there. Shillong is so surprisingly spacious for a city at its altitude. It resembles (I suppose) the Scottish countryside, and is hence referred to as the 'scotland of the east'. I wish there were such a place closer to Delhi, because it would be an excellent escape from the city.

Cherrapunji is lacklustre, except for the ride. There is an 'eco park', which is nothing but a park on the edge of the plateau, and a cave. But the drive from Shillong more than makes up for it. I could constantly imagine myself driving on those roads on a lazy sunday afternoon. Oh, those roads! Meghalaya's roads were amazing even when going uphill, and were for most parts broader than roads in Kolkata.

Kaziranga was beautiful, and a good experience, except for that the biodiversity seemed to be extremely restricted. Of course, hoping to see a tiger in the wild is like living in fool's paradise, but what we got was one rhinoceros after the other. Even the wild elephants were shy! Hence, Kaziranga cannot, and should not, be the only destination for any traveller, or else you'll be disappointed.

Throughout this trip, something that was missing was the 'authentic' food. Towards the end we got a taste of it en route from Shillong to Tezpur. My brother tried pigeon curry, but I being as squeamish as I am, did not try to experiment. Assamese food hence seems to be rather bland by the standards of the Punjabi and Bengali food that I'm used to.

This is a rather lacklustre travel diary, I suppose. But I also suppose that the mark of a true traveller in life is to not have enough time to turn back and ponder.

Till then !

Subhashish

(in Tezpur)

Dealing with the past

2010-12-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

So, Swati told me today that it had been quite some time since I've posted on my blog. Truly, it has been over a month now since my last post. She also added that my last few posts were not worthwhile. 'The one on economics was boring, and the other one was depressing'. This somehow beautifully related to what I thought I should write about - how much should one's past actions and emotions affect the present?

Where I started thinking about this was while reading this book my dearest papa David Clarance gifted to my on my birthday, Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. It said 'you are a product of your past, but not its prisoner'. I loved this quote because it amalgamated with the stream of thoughts that I was having around that time. I felt an excessive burden of my past - the sense of emptiness, the shallowness of achievement, the depth of friendships, the burden of expectations - weigh down upon my thoughts. So, where was this line where I could stop being a 'prisoner' and be merely a 'product' of my past?

The answer, of course, is subjective from person to person, situation to situation. However, how this 'lakshman rekha' can be found is with a sense of detachment. Detachment from thoughts, detachment from emotions and generally, detachment from any kind of stimulus that solicits a response. When I am able to detach myself from emotions and look at thoughts, especially those about my past, without making judgments, then my assessment is going to be unbiased. That is probably when I am going to cease being a 'prisoner' of my past.

This is probably the idea behind vipassana, one of the most ancient meditation techniques in this world. It talks about feeling your emotions and thoughts without being judgmental. I urge my (few) readers to check up on vipassana meditation on youtube when you're not feeling too well - of course, hoping, that such a situation does not arise in your life.

But getting back to the question, what should my relation with my past be? My past should ideally be an instrument to make my present better - which means I should be able to take lessons from my past. However, in order to take correct lessons from my past, I must view it without prejudice. This will be achieved only with a sense of detachment. Hence, my relation with my past will be fruitful only when I am able to detach.

The Flawed and Tormented Genius

2010-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

At the onset, I must specify that the ideas of the flawed and the tormented genius can, and often are, exclusive and distinct ideas, except for our fascination for them. The genius who gets his success as a return for his hard work is barely appreciated. However, the genius who is able to perform well despite putting in lesser effort is the one whom society looks up to. What makes the flawed genius so appealing to our sensibilities?

Firstly, there is a sense of enigma around the flawed genius - how does he/she do it? Second, there is the appeal of something forbidden, and the flawed genius often does things that are forbidden by society. Thirdly, we want to be like the flawed genius because people appreciate the flawed genius, and hence in this sense it is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Is it fair to those who've worked their way to the top that at the top they feel like an empty clap, because all applause rings for the flawed genius? Well, not really. The problem essentially is that there are the pretenders - those who're not really the flawed and tormented genius, but pretend to be so because of the adulation it brings. How does one differentiate between the real one and the pretenders? There is almost certainly no way - some people are good actors, and some are able to program themselves to behave like this flawed genius. Hence, to the world outside these people seem like the flawed genius.

I think the flawed genius thrives in a pool of mediocrity. For those who've tasted success, and for whom the lure of success is not great, the appeal of the flawed genius is non-existent. It is only for those who're a part of the masses, and for whom success holds a lot of value, that the flawed genius is an appealing concept.

Applied Economics - the story of the Phillip's Curve

2010-11-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

The accusation most often leveled against economics as a subject is that it is ex-post in nature, i.e. it explains things after they occur, and hence are of no practical and applied consequence to the world around us. For example, they say that while economists have in hindsight explained what caused the recession of 2008, they failed to prevent it. Hence, what is the point of economics as a subject?

This is something that many economists and economics students too agree to. However, while reading my second year macroeconomics textbook, I came across the Philip's curve. The Philip's curve, in its original form, was an empirical relationship between inflation and unemployment, which concluded that if a Government wants to reduce unemployment (which results in higher growth), then it has to live with a certain bit of inflation.

The 'discovery' of the Phillip's curve, first in the U.K by Phillips and then in the US by Solou, was used extensively by macroeconomists and eventually policy makers in the 1960s. This trade-off that was observed by the Phillip's curve was exploited by policy-makers to ensure that the 1960s were a period of unprecedented growth in the developed world (coupled with the apparent success of Keynesian economics, this was the golden period of Keynesian economics). Hence, to those who say that economics is an ex-post science, an entire decade of growth was sustained on the basis of what economists observed. Rather, not only observed empirically, but argued theoretically.

However, in the 1970s, the theory behind the Phillip's curve began to falter (basically, that people began to expect inflation). However, this break-down was also predicted by a group of economists led by the monetarist Milton Friedman. Hence, even here economics was an ex-ante science, rather than an ex-post science.

Hence, for all those who say that economics is a useless science with no practical applications, it is a fitting rejoinder that one entire decade of high growth (of the sort unseen in modern history) was because a bunch of economists thought of a trade-off and showed it empirically. Truly, the power of economics.

Lessons from Economic History : Cutting Expenditure

2010-11-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Early 1990s: India, faced with a much-publicised balance of payment (BOP) crisis, had to turn to the IMF for help. The Washington-consensus, at that time, was to trim fiscal deficit (in layman terms, the Government's expenditure minus the Government's revenue) and go in for more balanced budgets. Thus, India was obligated to trim it's fiscal deficit.

Now, Government expenditure has two components - capital expenditure and current expenditure. I'm forgetting the exact difference between the two, but it goes somewhat like this - current expenditure includes things like salaries, subsidies etc. (which provide no long-term benefit) whereas capital expenditure would be on things like infrastructure projects etc (which provide benefit over a longer time span).

What India did at that time to reduce fiscal deficit was to cut capital expenditure. Almost two decades later, we see the results. The constraint to India's growth story today is the infrastructure shortfall, something that might not have happened had there been no reduction in capital expenditure.

Reducing this lesson to an individual level, a college student too is faced with two kinds of expenditure - current expenditure (movies, food etc), and capital expenditure (clothing, books, stationery etc). Unfortunately, what often tends to happen is that faced with a budget constraint, the average student tends to cut down both expenditures in an almost equivalent proportion. However, as the story above shows, capital expenditure should not be cut down that easily.

Again, that is contingent on certain conditions. Primary among them (and again drawing from India's economic history) is the utilisation of capital. Often, to utilise capital expenditure (eg books) effectively, you need to have a consistent current expenditure (eg. food). Hence, there is a certain 'optimal balance' between capital and current expenditure, and I suppose it will take everybody not less than three years to find that out.

Impatience - virtue or bane?

2010-10-25T10:38:00.001-07:00

As I get along life dealing with the lethargy of societies and the administration in college, I keep thinking about what my brother used to say when I was really young - 'you're very impatient'. Along the way, I often termed this impatience as passion, but I now suppose that it was that, impatience, that expressed itself in impassioned forms.

Impatience is a great recipe for success. What that ensures is that things in life are moving faster, that you do not procrastinate over things. To an extent, it also helps you distinguish between what you really like to do (which you'll do more impatiently) and something that you don't (which you'll keep on hold to do the former). Applying the concept of future and present value that we learnt in our Grewalian microeconomics class today, it will (I suppose) ensure that in the present you do more pleasurable stuff, and hence ensures that you're generally a happier person [I'll try, once again, to work out a mathematical model for this, but that shall wait because writing this blog is now more pleasurable to me].

However, is that necessarily true? Is impatience really going to lead to more happiness? What is the cost to impatience? Dejection; and this dejection primarily emanates from delays in your external environment, and hence is exogenous to the proposed model that I set up above.

This post actually proved to be shorter than I had expected it to be, primarily because I seem to have arrived at a conclusion faster than I thought. The conclusion being this, that impatience leads to a better state of living as long as we are able to control the externalities. Hence, in things such as cleaning your room, exercising, playing video games, reading novels etc., where there are not too many externalities involved, impatience is a great virtue. However, in the cases where you are dealing with rather insurmountable externalities such as the bureaucracy, college societies (in some cases) and the college administration, then impatience can be a recipe for depression.

Living with Bronchitis

2010-10-24T03:07:00.000-07:00

It has been three days, and hence an unusually long time for my current bout of bronchitis to last. Yes, the CWG did have a legacy - a legacy of extremely high SPM count. For me, it is a sense of deja vu. It is now decade since I was diagonised with bronchitis, and in between I went to Visakhapatnam for two years (where the air quality was far superior), and came back to a CNG-enabled Delhi that I grew to love. But now, with the SPM count on an upward trend again, life has truly come a full circle in a decade.

Living with bronchitis has surely been one of the highlights of my last decade. The most severe bout was, of course, back in 2003 when I came back to Delhi from Visakhapatnam and when, in the midst of a SARS scare, I had a severe bronchitis-and-fever round that lasted over a week and infected everybody around me. There were also the two incidents when because of the two jerks to the spine, I couldn't breathe. The first was scary, I felt I was going to die, and the second seemed rather routine. Yet, like every thing that tests you, living with bronchitis teaches me a lot too.

For one, it teaches me the power of hope. Hope not in terms of things improving, but in terms of things and bad phases passing. Often in life, we're depressed and we don't think things can improve. In this situation, i am always reminded that I have to life with bronchitis and other respiratory ailments for the rest of my life, but that they'll come infrequently and hence, that bad times come infrequently too. Bronchitis attacks are the aberrations, good health the regime. Similarly, sad times are (and should be) aberrations, and good times the regime.

Bronchitis has also taught me not to give up. Several times during a bronchitis attack, I lose the energy to persevere to breathe, but I know I can't. Every time that my body asks me to rest while trying to continue with breathing, I have to get my act together and try once more to carry on the divine rhythmic act of breathing. No questions asked, you just continue. Similarly, in life several times there is a temptation to quit, but there has to be the strength and stamina to carry on.

Would I like to be cured of bronchitis? For sure. Do I regret getting bronchitis? I don't know. Every dark cloud truely has a silver lining. Bronchitis has taught me discipline (waking up at 5-6 in the morning doing Baba Ramdev's asanas is not fun) that has helped me achieve so much more in life. It has taught me the importance of health, which though I won't claim to have completely attended to, I have not ignored. Most importantly, bronchitis has made me accept loneliness as a state of being - because at the end of the day, it is I who has to drive myself to take the next breath in. That day, that moment, I am alone.

The Economics of Durga Puja

2010-10-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days, roaming the streets of Kolkata and watching in sheer awe the effort, creativity and, well, money invested in organising Durga Puja in Kolkata, my thoughts repeatedly went on to the same question - exactly how big is the Durga Puja in Kolkata? There would be no less than a thousand medium-to-large puja pandals in the city, and more smaller ones. With budgets for these pandals ranging from a lakh to a few crores, your mind would begin to spin looking at the sponsors for these events and other means of fund-raising. Also account for the fact that in preparation for the Puja, the Government of West Bengal and the Kolkata Municipality makes several arrangements (such as marking-off of walking space for devotees). Truly, Durga Puja in Kolkata is a large affair.

Any student of economics would probably understand the reason for my seemingly irrational exuberance - yes, the multiplier effect, and also something I learnt recently from Vedant one day - the splintering effect. Hence, you combine the two and then you realise why its a big deal. Every cog in the Durga Puja wheel has become a separate industry - idol making, flowers, the dhak (Bengal's percussion instrument) and may I dare say even the priests' services. Hence, the multiplier effect, I estimate, would be significantly greater in the Durga Puja 'industry' than it is in other parts of the economy.

Also, let us finally get down to the scale of the rather 'ancillary' activities. Go to any pooja pandal or a restaurant at night after 9 PM during the pujas and you'll understand what I mean. Every other pandal has a serpentine queue outside it, and waiting time of a up to a couple of hours. Ditto for restaurants in Kolkata. Hence, every part of the travel and tourism industry - transportation, restaurants etc - see a huge, massive jump in footfalls this time of the year. Taxi drivers demand, and receive, a premium over the regular fare. Basically, the entire population of Kolkata is out of their homes this time of the year - and businesses make a killing.

To conclude, something that I was asked when I was buying an ice-cream at 7 AM in the morning at a Puja Pandal - raatier-er ki sholak-er?. A close approximation is 'night (tourist) or day (tourist)?' Hence, imagine that people leave their homes at 11-12 in the night, and reach back well into the day. This isn't a rarity, it is a phenomenon.

The only problem here is that I do not put in numbers to this argument. Hopefully, some day I can sit down and put numbers. Probably it will happen soon - hopefully, in the next issue of the F&I newsletter, WTF. A little bit of free advertisement at this stage: to subscribe to the F&I newsletter's e-version, write a mail to us at wtf.fni@gmail.com with your details.

Signing off!

Who causes poverty - the poor or the rich?

2010-10-08T04:08:00.000-07:00

This was just a passing thought as I passed by a huge hording of Mamata Bannerjee. Yes, she's all set to displace the left, but is she capable of developing West Bengal, specifically Kolkata, and pulling it out of decadence? Well, most people say 'no'. In that case, who is responsible for this mess called Kolkata? Of course, those who vote these people to power.

Arundhati Roy and other 'social activists' would say how it's sad that billionaires hold such high assets, whereas 80% of India's population earns less than $2 per day. Who is responsible for their state and the ineffectiveness of poverty alleviation programs? The Government. And who elects the Government? This 'majority' of 80%.

This is one of the arguments behind making cities like Mumbai a union territory. That would help because then those who govern this city will be directly elected by the people of the city, and not those sitting in the villages of Vidarbha. Will that result in a massive loss of revenue to the Maharashtra government? Well, there can be a memorandum of understanding under which this demerger will take place, which can ensure that flow of funds to Vidarbha isn't stopped. Anyway, most of funding in India comes from the central government, rather than the cash-strapped state governments.

Hence, the basic point being that you can't blame the so-called 'rich' for the poverty of the poor. It's a vicious cycle. They remain poor, hence they vote for the wrong guys, these wrong guys hamper effective policy-making, and hence they remain poor. It's not fair to lay all the blame for poverty on the likes of Mukesh Ambani. Okay, that guy earns a lot, but he isn't hampering your administration. Probably the blame for the mess in the slum next to our houses lies with people in the slum. Partly, but definitely.

A Tale of Two Metros

2010-10-07T06:34:00.001-07:00

This has been on my mind since morning when I travelled on the Kolkata metro after seven years. The last memory was blurred with images of the Kolkata suburban 'local' trains, and today I realised why. For Delhi metro rail travellers, the Kolkata metro rail is like a local train - there are no electronic displays, no advertisements anywhere on the train (and I don't think even on the station there are any) and no airconditioning. What there are, instead, are fans and the dull, steely look that reminded me of those movies in which I saw prisoners transported from place to place. But to be fair to the Kolkata metro, it was built under a completely different set of constraints than in Delhi, and hence in this post I attempt to compare the two.

1. Indigenously built (Kolkata) V/s. Most Imported (Delhi)

The Kolkata metro was almost entirely an indigenous effort - right from the coaches, equipment to the funding. The Delhi metro, in contrast, was constructed using imported coaches and equipment and foreign aid from Japan. In this regard, the Kolkata metro was tougher. But ask any economics student, and they'd let you know it's not much of an excuse. The Kolkata metro, by being constructed almost entirely in India, might have created some jobs in the short run, but because it was essentially inefficient, it is in the long term draining the taxpayer's money by making losses repeatedly. If professionalism comes by importing stuff from abroad, so be it. Yes, the Delhi metro cost a bomb w.r.t the Kolkata metro, but it served its purpose efficiently and hey, makes an operating profit!

2. Alternative transport systems

A major reason for the 'failure' of the Kolkata metro was the easy availability of alternative transport, such as buses, taxis and suburban trains, which are much cheaper in Kolkata. In Delhi, in contrast, the only 'economical' alternative are the buses, which are irregular and quite inefficient in themselves. Hence, Delhi had there pockets of high-density traffic that the metro could utilise. No such 'corridors' existed in Kolkata, and hence the Kolkata metro was killed by the very competition that it sought to complement.

3. Subsidy

All said, the Delhi metro was heavily subsidized by the Central and Delhi Government. However, as a welfare measure, the Delhi metro does have to get subsidies from the Government. Plus, if you come to think of it, with an operating ratio of 1:1.95, the Kolkata metro makes expenditure of 1.95 unit for every 1 unit of revenue. Isn't that a form of subsidy in keeping this metro system running?

4. Safety

Most Kolkattans felt proud of their metro when the Delhi metro was beset by a series of accidents. True, the utmost safety standards have to be met, and there can be no condoning of any lapses on this part. The Kolkata metro has a much better safety track record, so let us be sure of that. However, the accidents took place while construction was on, and not during operations. the Delhi metro, too, has impeccable operational safety.

Finally, some news snippets:

(1) Around 100,000 passengers are reported to be using the Kolkata Metro daily without tickets, as the ticket-checking infrastructure is in a shambles

(2) the underground Kolkata Metro was constructed at a cost of just over Rs 100 crore per km as against the first phase of the Delhi Metro — with a 13.01-km underground corridor and a 52.10-km elevated track — that was completed at the average cost of Rs 162.63 crore per km.

(3) While the Delhi Metro system pays a subsidised Rs 3 per unit for its power, the Kolkata Metro has to do with a non-concessional industrial rate which hovers around the Rs 4 per unit mark.

Defending Economics as a Science

2010-10-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

This entry was a long time in the coming. After countless arguments with many physics, maths and chemistry guys on why economics is a science, I should really put it down together.

The main grouse people have against economics is that there are too many assumptions. "If everything but prices are kept constant, and prices are dependent on quantity, then how does quantity demanded change" is what Aashik asked. Yes, a brilliant question that had me perplexed for some time. To be honest, I myself had this grouse against economics, but it all got sorted out once I heard Ritwika speak at the VC Memorial debate. Economics is an abstraction away from reality that will help explain reality.

For example, just today morning while I was thinking about the motion of a pendulum. In a real world, there is the wind speed, the the friction and so many things. However, what we learn in classes is a simplified version where there are no externalities at play. Why do we do that? So that we can have a basic framework over which we can then go on to add the other externalities.

Exactly what economics does. We take a phenomenon, we strip it down to the basics, analyse the basics, and then try to put back everything. For example, did you know that over 95% of the food grain production in India can be explained by a Cobb-Douglas function using barely five or six variables, which does not include the monsoons? That is amazing accuracy for something as unpredictable as agricultural output. The result? That agricultural output depends significantly on availability of credit and net sown area. Both are stagnating in India, hence alarm bells need to go off and hence we really need to work on this. Hence, for our future to be secure, we need simplifications and models such as these.

The second argument leveled against economics as a subject is 'how can you rationalise human behaviour?'. Well, the idea is the same as above. You take something complicated (such as the human mind), you strip it down, then understand it, and then build in the different layers. Intuitively beautiful ideas such as the multiplier effect are such beautiful examples of this 'rationalisation' process at work. True, the size of the multiplier in the real world is much smaller than what it is in theory, but there are economic arguments for that too.

Yes, to the detractors one must give one argument - economics is not a science in the same mold as physics and chemistry (I do not include mathematics, because mathematics is the language of science, rather than a science itself). Honestly, that is not what economics aspires to be, either. To think of it, I'm sure it's easier to discover secrets than to, proverbially, rationalise the human mind. Economics sits on a very exalted position of being a bridge between the arts and the sciences. We put together psychology and differential equations, history and optimisation in a beautiful manner.

Whatever happens to the 'real' India

2010-10-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since I've wanted to write a piece on the Indian media. For an institution that probably takes itself a little too seriously at times, the Indian media is actually very unrepresentative of 'real' India. No, I'm not talking about India TV and their 'bangley mein bhoot' kind of stories. I'm talking about serious journalism here, of CNBC TV18, Times Now, Aaj Tak and the like.

Okay. Let's first really get rid of my frustrations at Arnab Goswami. The media is supposed to be unbiased and informed. However, Mr. Goswami has a clear tendency to take things to rhetorical pitch and then to force his viewpoint on the guests on his show. He has a tendency to cut those who don't agree to him, and give more screen time to those who do. In short, Mr. Goswami's coverage is centered around himself, in which case what he propagates is essentially his viewpoint and not what 'news' is supposed to be.

But let's get back to the larger malaise of which Mr. Goswami is but a symptom. The english media suffers from an urban-myopia. All talks of 'youth of India' going to multiplexes, moving over Ayodhya (which I don't dispute) and the like is pathetically city-centric. It is kind of sad imagining that over 60% of India still lives in villages, and that supposedly 80% of India earns below Rs. 20 a day. No, this is not run-of-the-mill leftist arguments. I don't say distribute foodgrains for free. Not by far! All I say is that news should cover these 'silent' people too. That the kind of audience that is portrayed on our news channels should be expanded to cover these people.

Yes, there are administrative cost constraints. But then, next time you say that it is 'new India', it is nothing but a shallow claim. Because this 'new India' is not representative of India at all. It is representative of a small urban population (again, the problem is that even this 'urban' would not cover cities such as Gorakhpur, Asansol etc). So, the plea in the end is to make journalism more inclusive. To give the rustic India and small-city India a voice and a platform on the national media. Let, literally, truth prevail!

First Term, Second Year

2010-09-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

Oh well, it's been an entire term since I last wrote an entry and so much water has literally flown under the bridge (what with the Yamuna overflowing). So much has changed, and so much change is in the offing. To be honest, it was a depressing term, but through this depression, and keeping in line with my tradition of professional success in times of personal crisis, I came out of the term triumphant professionally, but ruined personally.

So, to begin with, college politics. Aditya Kiran Kakati stood for president. A good man, yes, but with a team that, for me, consisted of many power-credit hungry parasites. And that is why I refused to support his campaign. The only reason for me to support him was by process of elimination, and that is why I finally voted for him. Then there was the Students' Council elections. The Students' Council has been a defunct body and thus, the elections are a means for people to prove their popularity in college. However, I wanted to change that, but was unsure whether I'll be able to. But I thought, might as well try. So, I stood and I won (despite my entire class not turning up to vote because of no classes). And now, as I sit back at home, I have to think of ways to work and make the council work. Unfortunately, the Union (and hence, the Council) are still very much caught up in the shackles of red-tapism and hence, it is tough, almost impossible, to get things moving. Yet, I will try, not because I want credit or benefit out of it, but because I want personal satisfaction of having made a defunct body work.

Then, let me turn to a round-up of the societies. The Economics Society is surprisingly such a free society in second year. I can nearly do anything I want to, and I am exploiting this creative freedom to the maximum extent. It gives me liberty to do things that I've always wanted to do, and hence came the M S Excel Lecture Series (now known as M S Excel Workshops), the Microfinance Seminar, the V C Memorial Debate among others. Yes, Karan seems to feel that I like ecosoc more. But hey, F&I's National DreaMerger was the defining moment of my college life in first term. And now with a bundle of ideas I approach the second term.

But the happiest moments of life in first term has been to discover new people in the form of juniors. Not that I had many good friends in the third years (except for Karan), but when my immediate seniors pass out, I'll really miss people like Vedant, Pallavi, Sanjay among others. Hence, it feels nice to have a new bunch of friends from first years.

Finally, I realised that life is actually a huge constrained optimisation problem. There are a million constraints, primary among them energy and time, and we have to optimise joy in that time. Doing 'new' things has really been the joy of first term, second year, and I hope that the rest of the year too will be a wonderful ride.

Of leadership and motivation

2010-07-16T04:26:00.000-07:00

Leadership. It's a thrill like nothing else, and a responsibility too. That brings us to the question about what are the responsibilities of a leader? For one, to be able to lead from the front, in that you take most of the criticism that comes your group's way, and you also are able to guide your team. The second, and in my case the more important one, is to be able to inspire others around you, and to be able to create sustainability in the organisation/endeavour, so that the organisation/endeavour lives on even after you go.

That is where I think my failure as a leader emanates from. For example, while I was the President of ECONOX, I was unable to effectively delegate work to my colleagues in the society. Now, a part of it can be ascribed to the fact that (1) DPS, R.K. Puram's societies function more as CV-building exercises than anything else (2) the level of bonding between dipsites is abysmal at most. True, that does not account for all my insufficiencies in this regard, but most other societies also functioned in that way. Kritika and I ended up doing most of the work. So, yes, I was able to inspire Kritika (and she was able to inspire me) and then Sneha did a lot of work during ECONORM week and we sailed through as a fairly successful society. However, I always felt I had been a bad leader. My juniors at school, those to whom I could talk later on, told me that I was indeed a very good President, and that those who succeeded me had not been able to either involve or inspire others. In this regard, familiarity with your colleagues becomes of exceptional importance. Some call it 'networking', but I guess this familiarity is absolutely essential for leadership.

Then, coming to college and working with individuals, in societies and otherwise, I realised how tough it sometimes gets to coordinate with people, to get them to do their part of the work on time. A part of this can be ascribed to my own hyper-activism as far as it comes to work, but seriously, there has to be a reason why those working with me procrastinate so much. Well, to be honest, I've seen everybody procrastinate, and I at times do it myself. That's it about discipline in life. It depends on the way you grew up, your upbringing, and your experiences in life. I like to do things fast, because I generally do things the way I like them. True, I won't get this liberty later on in life, but as long as I am enjoying it, it's fine.

So, why are others not able to keep pace. There are two possible reasons (1) they don't feel as strongly about the goal as I do (2) they are not able to discipline their minds enough. By 'disciplining the mind', I do not refer to any yogic exercises, because I've seen yoga practitioners procrastinate too; I mean it in an extremely professional sense - i.e. do work as fast as you can. One day Aditi Bajpayi told me, 'asap means whenever you can, in a day or two', which it literally does, but for me, asap means immediately, it's like a red sign to get working. I still haven't found the key to inspiration and motivation, as I have not found the key to several problems in life, but I shall keep trying as much as I can to perfect this art. Hopefully, that will not involve giving up on my own enthusiasm for things.

Counting Academics in Numbers

2010-07-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

Before I write this, I must clarify something. I have utmost respect for people who score well. This is not meant to be a biased tirade against the mode of education in our educational system, but it is meant to present my opinion about what is the ultimate importance of scoring in examinations.

Most of us find it hard to find a balance between academics and co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. I have seen many students so engrossed in debating and 'MUN-ing', that it is almost a sickening sight. Then there are also those who are so thoroughly into their books, that it is a sickening sight in itself. Now the problem is this, that people often do not reveal themselves entirely. So, for example, even if somebody studies a lot, he/she might not be willing to accept it publicly because to study a lot (higher input) raises expectations for better results (higher output), and hence greater scrutiny on your performance. That is something most of us don't like, so we avoid. In this situation of information asymmetry, to make valuations about people becomes a rather difficult job.

However, let me be honest about what I like and what I respect. I like to put together things, to connect things. For example, I like to use statistics and mathematics that I study in my first year Economics (H) syllabus to problems presented in my principles of economics papers. Or another example where I like to apply what I learn about valuation of stocks in finance to the performance of MicroFinance institutions in India. Or as I've already mentioned on this blog before, how I used trigonometry back in class 10th to calculate the area of Tamil Nadu. Fairly simple all these things were, but it just gives me a high to connect things and disciplines in this manner. Makes my education seem much more holistic.

Now to what I respect. Firstly, i respect an independent thinking and innovation. For example, I don't see merit in conditioning the mind to think on pre-specified lines. This is what happens many times in our examination systems, JEE included. There has to be scope, and incentive, for innovation, at least at the undergraduate level. Yes, path-breaking research is not to be found at the undergraduate level, but a small beginning can be. Second what I respect is self-confidence. Fine, if you want to be a scoring maniac, be it, but do it confidently. You have to be, in short, sure of what you want to do. You have to be able to justify your actions to yourself.

It's true that I probably am sounding very confused, because I am really, when I talk about this. I want the good grades, yes, the best grades in fact. But why do I want them? Do I want to trade doing the work I'm doing now (which I really enjoy) for the best grades? I don't know, probably no, I won't. I suppose the problem is one of limitless ambition - I want to have this and I want to have that. A lot of it probably owes it to the passive pressure of being 'Delhi Topper', people let this expectation build into them. I tried to impress this upon people several times last year that i'm not a brilliant student, I'm just mediocre. But the expectation didn't go away. Hopefully, it will go away this time (that's one of the best things about the results) and hopefully not manifest itself in taunts.

What I once told a couple of friends of mine was then. Let's just visualise and think everything is ideal, and then work accordingly. We won't get to ideal, but we'll come closer. What is my ideal? I want to contribute to others' lives, academically and otherwise. I want to see St. Stephen's College contribute more (academically) to a student's life than what it currently does. Okay, the ideal is there. What's the plan? The plan is to start in a small way, to start with helping people around you, your friends. Does that pre-suppose superiority? No. There are things I might be better at (currently) and there are things they might be better at and this is a simple give-and-take thing.

So, yes. That is what I want to be my ideal life and that is the assumption under which I shall hopefully be spending the next year of my life.

Some Newspaper Clippings

2010-07-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Times of India

Times of India (Kolkata Edition)

Hindustan Times

A Bengali Newspaper

Bandhan Documentary Film

2010-06-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

Bandhan Microfinance Field Visits

2010-06-10T23:12:00.001-07:00

Just as the failure to get a summer internship was getting severe, a sliver of hope emerged in the form of Micro Home Solutions - a start-up, associated with microfinance institutions, that I really wanted to work with. But I always knew it was kind of tough, and it turned out it was. But that was when I think I kept my cool and moved ahead and applied to Bandhan. It was my last resort - had it not succeeded, I would've been spending the summer vacation sitting at home. However, now when I look back at it, I truly accept the saying "What happens always happens for the best".

Through this internship, I have fulfilled some of my longest-standing desires in life. I visited villages and talked to their inhabitants. I saw poverty first-hand, and this experience was life-changing. Whether it was cycling 50km on the first field visit, and consequently suffering a heat stroke, or having my feet sink into the soil after the rain, or even interacting with poor children attending Bandhan's schools, it brought me closer to India's villages. I talked to a lot of Bandhan's THP beneficiaries. THP stands for Targeting the Hard-Core Poor, and is Bandhan's program to bring to microfinance level those households that are too poor even for microcredit. This was where I saw the transformational role that Bandhan and microcredit is playing in India's villages. These THP beneficiaries are the ones who earlier couldn't eat two square meals and their houses were dilapitated, but with Bandhan's aid, they have progressed to microcredit level, live in good quality houses now, and eat reguarly. The best thing is that Bandhan achieves this by setting up businesses for them, rather than giving hard cash, so that income generation is sustainable. Many of them have now started taking loans to expand the business that bandhan set up for them. I talked and videotaped many of them, and in talking to them I came up with the idea of my next novel - the struggles of people in India's villages.

The next major impact that this internship had for me was having me travel alone around Kolkata, from the Bangladesh border to the Bay of Bengal. I travelled in the Kolkata suburban trains, sometimes in such crowd that could squeeze the life out of people. I woke up at 4 AM reguarly, and sleepily made my way from my house to the Baghajatin station, from there to Sealdah station, from Sealdah to Howrah by bus, and from Howrah to my destination. It was amazing. By the time I ended my 3 hour journey to my destinations, it would be 7:30 AM, a time at which I, and most of my friends, would not even have woken up on regular days. And here came the solution to my life's biggest regret. When I had to board buses, i'd be clueless - after all, all the buses carried information in Bengali and I cannot read Bengali. So, I had to get back home and start to learn how to read Bengali. And the necessity of doing so ensured that I learnt Bengali fast. Now, I am in a relatively comfortable position as far as reading Bengali is concerned, and all thanks to this internship.

But more was to come. I went back to office with all the primary data I had collected (I'd pushed myself to touch 109 samples, instead of the designated 90). And there I explored the wonders that MS Excel hid. And that inspired me to go ahead and learn these things so that I can use that in future. My thing for computers, which I had lost mid-way, has been reignited again.

The hardest part was, in the midst of all this, the 'personal problems' that I went through. Yes, the common teenage problems - dil, dosti etc. But this internship made me realise how trivial all these problems were. There are people living a daily tighrope between life and death, and I'm worried about this. And by the end of my internship (actually, by the end of the field visits), I find myself in a situation of much greater mental peace. And I've started enjoying my internship in ways that I am sure nobody else enjoys his/her internship. Because I love going to office, meeting everybody there, talking to them, doing my work, learning new things and everything that comes along with them. Yes, my last resort of an internship is now the best internship I could have hoped for.

Writing a Novel

2010-05-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today was a wonderful day, I've been reading my novel since morning and I'm only half way through it. Reminds me of the days when I read others' novels and was desperate to reach the climax, but I had to go through all the pages in between. In that sense, finally reading my novel is tending to reading somebody else's novel and that's a satisfactory thing, I suppose.

When did I decide to write the novel? I remember having read Jahangir's autobiography sometime probably in Class XI. And after I completed reading it, I just randomly sat down, took out a register and began writing. Initially, I calculated how long I need to write to make a novel. Thankfully, I over-estimated four times over. So, what that meant is that I thought I had to write eight such registers, but I've written just about two-three and it's an average novel length right now.

A lot of my novel consists of disjointed events that I wanted to write about. Like I wanted to write about the moral brigade, so I put in that chapter. I wanted to write about staying away from home and the fears and paranoia of doing so, thus I put in a couple of chapters about that. These are issues I wanted to talk about, and on the way I tried to weave it all together by a narrative. Hence, as of what I see it, the narrative does lose hold at several places, but I think the heart is in the right place still. My novel isn't pretentious, it talks about things I want to write. Like ambition, failure, dejection, attachment etc.

I've sat on it one full year. I remember when I was writing with fury - back in April last year, right after my rejections from the Ivy Leagues, I was writing frantically and completed at least half of my novel in those days. So many of the characters in my novel I created in those days, and almost all my favourite scenes (including my favourite where Mehrunissa sits on the banks of the Hooghly reflecting on life) I have written in that duration.

Yes, that reminds me of how the novel is also a story of my journey across India. I've written about Kolkata, about Diamond Harbour, about crossing the Ganga on a river bridge and the like. And I've imagined places I want to go to - Darjeeling, London etc. So, every time I went to an exciting place or saw an exciting sight, I put it down in my novel. I would have put the Sunderban trip too, but I can't change the plot of my novel at this stage.

So, my novel is done. I'm half-way through what, I promise, will be the last edit. After this, I'll never look back at the novel unless a publisher tells me to. Because probably I've crossed that stage, but editing a novel beyond a point will simply kill it.

Heaps of Failure

2010-05-02T06:36:00.001-07:00

My e-mail to my friends, Aashik and Manchit, regarding my fear of failure, and my fear of being 'left behind'.

Hi,

I feel it useless to write to you in such manner, but I will - because I probably need to tell somebody.

If you ask somebody to tell you something about me, they'll probably talk about topping Delhi. But as Pallavi once told me, that was a matter of chance. In every REAL world interaction, I have always failed. And that includes my foreign application rejections and my failure at internships. Let me also add that to be honest, I'm not a good debater, of even if I am, I'm not a "winner" debater. Yaar, I'm honestly just a (moderately) big-brained guy, who has failed at most things that do not involve a very large academic component.

Why does this bother me, the internship failure? Well, I tried a lot, more than I've ever done. Either I didn't try as hard as you guys did, or I wasn't as lucky. I'm very bad at interacting with people, but I tried this time - as I did try for my foreign admissions. Yes, I try to keep up a strong face, but I'm very fearful and shy at heart - i get hurt easily, and often. It's just that I'm so tired of getting hurt, I have to ignore them to feel happy.

Getting back, I fear people will move ahead of me, overtake me. No matter what you think I am, I am your ordinary college-going boy, I share your fears, aspirations, insecurities and everything else. I too do not want to be left behind, and I'm quite convinced I will be when I don't do anything this summer and others do. You are not the cause of my worries, you are the signs. Remember Aashik how you said I just need to keep up with people in college to be ahead of them? People have moved ahead of me in college, Aashik. I am failing.

My health battered, morale shattered - I just feel very lost now. I have no idea where I am going in life. Also, please don't tell me you guys have the same feelings about your life - I am sure we all have problems, and I am not claiming that mine is greater than yours, all I'm saying is that mine is different from yours - because they originated due to different reasons. So, the next time I talk to you, and if I am sad, please do not ask me to be happy, for I cannot carry on a fake smile anymore.

Now to answer a basic question of life - what makes me happy in life? Am I chasing success? Well, I tried to find joy in others' happiness, and I got rebuked - because I was accused of having an acerbic tongue by my closest of friends, and thus my words defeated my actions. I achieved success, and I can probably do that again. But I can't have infinite success, and there will always be somebody more successful than me. My fears will soon overcome me, and will pull me into the depths of inferiority complex. So be it.

Regards,

Subhashish

Health Blues

2010-04-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a tiresome few weeks. It started somewhere in the middle of March, when the construction around college began in full earnest. Digging of roads to lay something in the ground, dust flying all over the air, dusty roads, dusty air ... basically, dust everywhere. That triggered my bronchitis attack, just that this time it was very severe. Just two days back, my fever reached 101 F, and I finally had to go consult a doctor.

Now, the point that I must realise at this point is that my health simply has to be my top priority. This isn't necessarily true for everybody else - somebody might give priority to his/her studies, and that is completely justified. But I start with an inherent disadvantage with regard to my health, and that only increases my duties towards my health.

So, yes, as soon as the exams get over, I do intend to embark on a more healthy lifestyle. I've tried before, and evidently failed, at improving my health. But I have no other option but try - if I give up and sit down, nothing is ever going to improve. I have to take care of my health, with the hope that one day I too can live a completely normal life.

Still Hurt

2010-04-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

Here is an e-mail that I wrote to Karan Nagpal, my senior at St. Stephen's, who did not go to the University of Chicago because he fell in love with St. Stephen's. It is now exactly a year since my biggest loss in life thus far.

Hi Karan,

It's now exactly a year since my rejections. One year ago at this time, I was numb with pain, the pain of absolute failure, and more importantly great relative failure. It had seemed as if good luck had closed its doors on me. I did not find any reason to live anymore. That time, in retrospect, was amazing. I spent two months with absolutely no idea of where life was going. I was weightless - I had nothing to do, and I could not plan anything for the future. It taught me great humility, yes, when I had to shed my arrogance of not applying to NTU/NUS in Singapore, to apply to the much-lower-ranked SMU in the same city just to save myself. When I had to swallow my disgust for Mamta Sharma to call her up for admissions to a shady university in Japan.

Then the doors of good luck did open, and how! Topping Delhi was, as Pallo jaan later reiterated (after the loss in the Sumitomo race), a matter of pure chance. In that sense, getting into Yale or Princeton is not much a matter of chance. So, I had been, in that sense, much luckier and probably less deserving than those who got into Yale and Princeton. And to be honest, what hurt me most was that those who did get into these places were the "elite" MUN-er types, whom I had grown a disgust for. I had grown a severe inferiority complex, which was only accentuated by the rejections. And now, as I look back, I feel comfortable in my place and I realise my folly - I should not have made my education so relative. I was somewhere going wrong as far as educating myself was concerned.

And then coming to Stephen's and meeting people like you, Manchit, Aashik, Vedant, Shalaka, Swati and everybody else. Your love is so precious to me that I would not be willing to exchange it for anything now. When people asked me why I didn't apply abroad this year, I would say "I am tired", but honestly, the reason is that I love being in Stephens and am not willing to exchange it for anything. Probably I felt that people might think of it as a looser's excuse and that is why I didn't say it so directly.

My Stephen's experience has not been very productive on the professional front. In that sense, I'm still caught in the time warp of being the "DT", i.e. Delhi Topper. But it has given me so much in the sense of personal joy that this one year will remain the best year of my life. Every other evening, I sit down in my room and have so much affection even for the people whom I'm not supposed to like, because of the simple fact that they are a part of my Stephen's experience.

But yes, today - one year later - that I read about the new set of admissions (Divya Balaji got through Yale, somebody else got through Princeton and somebody got through University of Chicago), there's a regret. Regret that I failed, that I could not make it. And that is why I have this obsession now with going to the US (Mr. Raghunathan grilled me in one of his tutes on this - he said "you cannot NOT know what you want to study abroad). And thus, sometimes I feel that I should make my CV more attuned to foreign admissions.

I try to ask myself - why this obsession? It has moved beyond the "experience" bit that I quoted as my reason for going abroad. It seems like an idea of righting a wrong done to me. I did not feel I deserved to be denied admission. And this is why I still think I should go abroad for education, but now I want to go at a time when nobody can deny me admission.

But then I think about your Dismissal Service speech (which I, of course, missed), and I think about that analogy with the cricketer you gave. And in everything I do nowadays, I think of that - every action I do from now on has to be guided by that feeling. I do not want to be weighed down by the fear and hope of what I do, I want every action I do to be of my own free ill.

Regards,
Subhashish

The Effects of 3 Idiots

2010-01-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

So, I finally stopped being another of the fast-diminishing group of idiots who haven't watched 3 Idiots, the film that has shattered all box office records till date (and to be frank to the movie, rightly so). The reviews I received before the movie were all exceptional, and I had made up my mind that this movie I must catch in a cinema hall, and more so because it talked about something that I felt that I had perfected in my own little way, as have many other people - how to handle education.

The movie was cinematically breath-taking, probably the finest movie I have ever seen, more so because it could make you empathise with such funny situations and absurd expressions (like the deep empathy, mixed with laughter, for Raju Rastogi's family). Of course, too many liberties were taken, especially the last delivery scene and the entire "All Izz Well" jingle could well have been toned down, if not removed entirely. Yet, the idea of this post is not to act like another of those wannabe film - critics. What I shall focus on is the idea of education as set out in the movie.

The movie first talks about dichotomising between success and excellence. Commendable. Yet, I feel tempted to add that success is, unfortunately, a barometer of excellence. How do you define excellence? How do you measure it? Success. This dichotomy would have stood had it been between satisfaction and success, or for that matter personal enrichment versus success. But as a trade-off between success and excellence, I feel it clearly falls, mostly because these two terms are so fluid that they can't be put into strict boundaries and compared. The idea of success is transient, and very personal too. For a lot of people, I might be a successful boy (being the Delhi CBSE topper), but for me success is something that people like Shloka Joshi (national swimmer, trained dancer, part-time musician) are. I feel myself totally dwarfed by them. Yet, for the common public, I would probably be the greater success. Are we both epitomising excellence? Shloka does, she's touching the pinnacle of what she does. I don't, clearly - because my net innovation factor in life tends to zero. But I do have a lot of fun in life, I do my own things - but I don't "excel" in them or even feel the need to excel. So, the film fails in this department.

Now, what I really had a problem with, as far as the movie was concerned, was the feel-good "victory" of Aamir Khan over Omi at the end. Why did Aamir Khan have to become Phunsuk Wangde at the end for the writers to prove that he was the more successful man in life? Couldn't he be just another primary school teacher, as long as he was happy with his job and more satisfied than the MNC-employed Omi? In the end, the movie defeated a lot of its purpose, by equating the "victory" to success in life, to Omi having to run behind Aamir Khan. Hindi movies need not always have the "happiest" ending, they can also have "relatively less happy" endings too.

The movie, to sum it up, showed the battle of extremes, between the carefree-but-intelligent Aamir Khan, the poor-and-God-fearing Sharman Joshi, the lost-in-the-jungle Madhavan and the hitler-cum-director Boman Irani, and to that extent it did justice to what it was meant to be. But it was too far-fetched as a film to be taken as a serious guide to the education system's ills. Yet, I do give it out to the film-makers for at least having raised issues, tending very close to what really ought to be raised. This is a beautiful time for public debate and discussion over how education is being carried out.

What is my take on India's education system? It doesn't stifle talent, or it hasn't done so in my case (for my pursuit of debating and quizzing, that is). Yes, it does nothing at all to encourage it, and if this is ground enough for reform, reform must come. But in the race to make it easier and less stressful for the students (like in the case of the Semester System in Delhi University), it must be ensured that the quality of education is not diluted.

Actually if you ask me, I disagree with the very concept of examinations. I prefer being tested in assignments and projects, that have liberal deadlines and no fixed word limits. I prefer to be tested on innovation and creativity in a particular subject rather than an ability to apply concepts to fixed questions. Unrealistic? Maybe in India as a whole. But at least in the premier institutions, like the one in which I currently am in, this could be done. Rather, if this is not done here, how does this institution remain a "premier" institution? And so it stands for the IITs too. Why not just get rid of exams, and have projects instead? The most beautiful assignment I did in my life was to use trigonometry to calculate the area of the state of Tamil Nadu, given the distance between Pondicherry and Madras. I want to do such things again, but what better than do that to score marks instead of sitting in an examination hall for two-three hours and just writing on sheets?

The Sunderbans - Paradise Preserved

2009-12-31T03:30:00.001-08:00

So, this was a family trip after a long time, probably the last time we had a family trip was back when I was in Class 10th (yes, like a typical Indian child, I count my life not in years, but in Classes) to Rajasthan, that too was without dada (for the uninitiated to Bengali, it means brother). So, it was after a long while that we were all free at the same time of the year, and I suggested the Sunderbans to my father when he asked me about whether I'd like to go to Sikkim (no offence to Sikkim, but I'd just been to Dalhousie, a hill station, recently).

So, we went on a Government-owned cruise boat. As with everything that has the word "Government" associated with it, dada and I did not have many expectations out of this ship, the Sarbajaya. But we were fairly surprised. The ship was small, by among the much smaller fishing boats and day-only cruises, it was quite large. The lower deck looked like a railway compartment, and the toilets were small, but clean (that, of course, was the biggest relief). The upper deck was done like a small restaurant.

Of course, we had to travel 3 hours by bus to reach the place where we went up on the cruise, Sonakhali. The bus journey was particularly painful, and by the time I reached Sonakhali, my enthusiasm for the cruise had been lost already. And then the cruise started on the river. The first few moments were sheer joy - the cold wind kissing my skin, and soon we entered the "core" area of the Sunderbans (basically, uninhabited land). Dada had expected the Sunderbans to be marshy, but it really felt like a huge ocean and big islands in the ocean. The islands, of course, were fully of dense mangrove forests. Oh, that reminds me - Sunderbans is named after the Sundari (Mangrove) tree.

We stopped at a watch tower in the evening. People were searching for tigers, but I always knew that on such trips, searching for tigers is like searching for toothpicks in a desert. Some people got too excited, calling crab holes as tiger footprints. So, we all went back to the cruise. By seven at night, it was dead cold, the wind was as cold as it gets in Delhi, and I was on the upper deck, sitting in the cold wind (mainly because I was having breathing issues in the lower deck). We stopped at another watch tower for the night, and after a rather good dinner, we slept on board, while the ship was anchored.

Early next morning, we visited two watch towers. In the first one, we saw a rather shy crocodile. Now, tigers I knew we wouldn't see, but I was really hoping for a few crocs on the river, but what we could see were just eyes and a snout. That, my friends, is what disappointment is. This morning, we were going near this German family. They didn't understand English, and despite doing a diploma course in the language (which I usually don't attend), I couldn't understand German. It was only later in the day when the little girls were practicing their numbers did I realise that they were speaking German. There was also another European couple (probably French or Polish), but I barely interacted with them. And in this way, about two dozen tiger-hoping-but-disappointed humans came back at around noon.

So, it was twenty four hours on the sea (yes, the river was as broad as a sea. At times, the eye couldn't even see the other bank). At first, to be back on land was a bitter-sweet feeling. Yes, I wanted to be back all the while, but finally when getting down, it felt like a transition from peace to the noise of human existence. The Sunderbans are still dense, still beautiful and enigmatic. By the time my mind was getting used to that kind of peace, it was all over. And now it is back to the rigmarole of college-life-exams. How I wish there was a middle path between the two. Probably that is there for me to discover.

So, all in all, the Sunderbans is a place worth visiting once in a lifetime. Of course, no big bangs on this trip, just the whole experience of a river cruise (you can also, of course, go on the luxury cruises that cost about 20 thousand per person). How highly would I rate this trip? Decent, not as good as a history-rich Rajasthan sounds to a history buff like me, but its as close to undisturbed forests as you get. You obviously don't get into the forests, and that kind of adds to the entire enigma of the forests. Probably there was a free royal bengal tiger lurking just 10-odd metres from you. You'll never know. And like so many things in life, some questions are better left unanswered.

Why Facebook No Longer Works

2009-12-29T01:37:00.000-08:00

Facebook's importance in my life cannot be understated. For four months of my life after the boards, facebook was my only interaction point with the outside world. I've met so many of my lost friends on facebook and this beautiful technology has allowed me to meet up with them. It is a good way to keep in touch, for sure.

But nowadays, every time I come on facebook, there is a certain morbidity I feel. It feels like "this isn't the true world, what am I doing here?". It all feels very superficial - to look at friends' photos, to comment below that. I mean, talking to people personally seems so much better - communication can then be free.

Have I changed? Has life around me changed? Why does facebook, the site that sustained me for 4 months - and the site on which I had become a permanent feature, not look so interesting anymore? Well, because now I enjoy being physically with my friends, talking to them personally, hanging out with them. Facebook doesn't allow me to do that, doesn't allow me to go to Kamla with them, have food with them.

But is facebook all useless now? Of course not. I can still meet new people here, and facebook still remains a good starting point for a friendship. And it is still a good place to keep your friends updated about what is happening in your life. So, for the past and for the future, I'm still sticking to my old flame, facebook.

Lonely at the Top

2009-12-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

So, here comes another one of my seemingly endless self-obsessed, self-praising and self-deprecating posts. But this one is going to be more general, I promise (at least when compared to the ones that came before).

So, here it goes. For so many years now, in school and outside, I've been chasing success like a hungry hyena. I've made sacrifices on the way, like every other person does, and I've not really let emotions ever sway me. In class 9th, I used to study 10-12 hours - utilise every moment of my life to study. And finally, after so many years of chasing, I was at the pinnacle of my success when I topped the Class 12th board exams in Delhi.

But then I looked back, and I realised that i had given up too much. Primary among them that I had given up on a lot of socialising. True, I'm not really your typical social person, but I could have become social - I could have FORCED MYSELF to become social. But I didn't - because what I aimed at that moment did not require me to be social. I kind of ignored my family life. I was so engrossed in the pursuit of academic excellence that I forgot to make my parents feel special. I forgot to tell them how much they matter to me. I forgot to celebrate their little joys and sorrows.

Basically, I forgot how to live life. I'd turned myself into an emotionally unmovable block of stone. And perhaps that is what many of us end up doing. We chase something so blindly, that we forget everything around us. Its like Arjuna and the fish's eye. The fish eye becomes more important to us. And why? Do the goals in life deserve the attention we give them?

Then i came to Stephen's. For the first few weeks, I was, yes, the "Delhi Topper", the quintessential nerd whom everybody respects and loathes at the same time. But then some people made me realise my insufficiencies. They showed me that, in life, to be successful is a different ballgame than to be successful in school.

I've given up a lot to be where I am, yes ... but now that I am in college, I want to do everything that I have not done till now. I want to go around watching movies, I want to wile away my time chatting to people, I want to be myself - dance in my crooked ways, go to college without bathing. Everything I did not do, I want to do now.

Birthday Greetings

2009-11-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

The first birthday in St. Stephen's College (and incidentally, the first birthday away from home, since i was on vacation in Kolkata this time last year) was quite a memorable for two particular reasons - I have never been given so many gifts by friends, plus I have never been made to feel as loved as my friends this time made me feel.

The night was lazy to begin with. Aishwarya wished me at 9:30 on Oct 29, because he wanted to be the first to wish me, but was feeling too sleepy to wake up all the way till 12. On 29th October at 10:00 PM, I took adieu from Aashik and went to my room, soggily waiting for 12 o' clock to strike, because firstly, I was feeling sleepy and secondly, I knew that people would come to wish me at midnight. I was almost half-asleep, till I suddenly got a message from Sanjay bhaiyya (5 minutes before 12). Then my brother called, slightly before time, to wish me. And the I could hear voices outside the door, and then a knock.

Now, the door to T-3, Mukharji East, doesn't open easily and thus people outside thought that it was locked. However, on further trying,t he door opened and outside were my senior, Vedant, my friends Aman and Manchit, and my room neighbour David. Now, Vedant thinks that his wishing me first would surprise me, but to be frank, a funny feeling within me told me that he would come - one of those inexplicable things in life, for sure. Then slowly came Jerrin, Rupam, Dipak, Rupam II and finally, Anjishnu. And then dragged to the tennis court and kicked 18 times by 3 men. Oh my, next day my back was paining.

Oh yes, how could I forget ! Kritika and Aditi, as expected, called me and sang happy birthday to me on the phone. Now, this was something I knew was going to come, but what happened in the morning I didn't expect. Sheeni Kapoor also called, quite unexpectedly, and a host of other people sent their messages. Then I talked to Karan for some time in the night and finally went to sleep at about 2:30 AM.

At 6:00 AM, my phone started ringing and I saw that it was my cousin, so I just put the phone on silent and went back to sleep. But when I woke up at 9:30, I saw tens of messages and missed calls on my phone, plus I had a class at 9:35 AM. I just put on SOME clothes and rushed to the statistics class. Then at 10:30 AM, Kritika called me to meet her at the college gate. I went there, and I was so surprised by her birthday gift. She has always been such a sweetheart, and I got further proof this time.

Then it was 11:15 AM, and I had a tutorial at 1:25 AM. But I still had not taken a bath! I went to the bathroom, but regular water supply was gone! And the geiser water was piping hot! I innovated (uncharacteristically) - I dipped my towel in the boiling water and just washed myself. And then rushed back, just in time, for the tutorial.

Now after that, from 12 AM to 5 PM, I was at the Hansraj Fresher's Parliamentary Debate, and birthday luck rubbed on - we won both the tosses, and both the debates that day.

For what happened after that, wait for the next post ....

Winter Becons - inside and outside

2009-10-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

A wintery night, a cup of coffee and a radio transistor - and the perfectly romanticized winter term of the first year begins emphatically. It has been a rather slow first three days, in the sense that I've not been working for my societies as much as I would like to (plus, I feel extremely guilty about missing my Mathematical Finance course ka tutorial today).

So, the highlight of the first three days was a joint birthday party with SJ and MM today. The birthday party, an endeavour initially to have a good time with your close friends, ended up in quite a bit of "politics" in class. Often, what people perceive you to do is not actually what you are doing. Due to budgetary considerations, the guest list has to be limited, but that's not what others might always perceive it as. One of the bigger tragedies of life, really, is misunderstanding. Hard to see why people fall prey to it so often, but well ... yehi zindagi ka dastoor hai.

Though what I am really bullish on is the onset of winters in Delhi. As long as I get hot water to bathe everyday, I don't have issues. The winter chill, the late nights - oh, the memories long etched in my psyche. Of the midnights at India Gate binging on ice - creams and the chill down your spine while bathing. Oh, yes. I must accept it too - I love Delhi's winters.

Getting Back

2009-10-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

So, hello my dear (and few) readers. Here is an update from my side : the autumn vacations silently passed away on October 15, 2009. It was put on life support till October 18, thanks to Diwali and the reliable, good old Sunday. Yet, on October 19, it draws to an end. Of course, being the lazy creature I am, I took time off till October 21st. But as much as I might not want it (or perhaps I do want it), I must get back to college.

My attempts at getting a data card for my laptop have been futile. My laptop, though only a year and a half old, has become too old - she's become sick, infested with deadly viruses (relics of my failed international admissions process). So, no data card for now. Of course, I realise that it is a great tragedy to my ambitions of world domination (pun intended), but nothing that cannot be worked around. I feel like I'll be walking on crutches for one more term at least, unless a miracle happens or unless I get a new lappie (which I'm hopeful about, actually).

My goals for this two-month term are quite clear : consolidate a space in all societies that I am a part of (and in the case of FNIC, work hard to make the Futures Club a success). More importantly, I want to keep in touch with the world outside of St. Stephen's (which is tough given that I will not have unrestricted access to the internet). But still, whatever I can do.

As I head back to college, there is an excitement about meeting all my friends again. But then, most of my friends are day scholars. The rest of my day is to be spent with my few rezzie friends and myself. Myself - that is something on which I need to work now.

Why St. Stephens Must Change

2009-10-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

It has been almost four months since I last had a blog entry. Yes, I must confess that I've grown old in this duration, and (much to the chagrin of my loving mother) thin too. I've come to St. Stephens College in Delhi (arguably one of the most reputed colleges in India) and I'm looking forward to making the best out of my years here.

What is my initial reaction to St. Stephens'? Well , it is just another college, yes, but what makes it different is that its reputation attracts a lot of good talent from all over India and competing and interacting with these minds actually broadens your horizons. Teaching-wise, St. Stephens is as good or as bad as any other regular Delhi University college. Infrastructure-wise, St. Stephens is quite terrible - the loos in the hostel are dirty, there is no power back-up and there is no air conditioning.

Unfortunately, there are many people in the college who are hanging to a sense of importance and a sense of exclusivity based on the past legacy of the college. For them, being a Stephenian makes them, by default, superior to people from other colleges. But what they must realise is that the past will long be forgotten, what will matter twenty years down the line is not Shashi Tharoor or Amitav Ghosh, but what we do today. The results of the college have not been too good of late, and unless we rid ourselves of the arrogance of being Stephenian, we won't be able to unlock our true potential.

Now let me get to other aspects of college life. The residence is a good place, in the sense that they don't stuff 3-4 people in a single room. Initially, it was a single room for each student, but today the first years have to share their rooms. But that is not really a problem, its a good learning experience in tolerance. Ragging, to begin with, was minimal (the routine song-dance) but later reduced to zero. The residence is a good place, and the rezzies are quite surely the cream of St. Stephens college, not because they've scored more than others (which they usually haven't) but because these men and women have a personality, a distinct personality.

In college, the Extra-Curriculars are extremely good. But there are a lot of, what I would call immature kids, who go to each and every society in that juvenile optimism that it'll look good on their CV. What they fail to understand is that in the long run, your CV is supposed to represent you, and not the other way round. So, I've joined just the societies that really interested me. But the society I most look forward to working for is the Finance and Investment Cell (FNIC), not only because its most professionally-run than other societies , but also because it has some amazing people at the helm.

How other colleges perceive St. Stephens' college? Well, most colleges give us importance that I feel we do not deserve in the first place. Every college takes St. Stephens as a benchmark, be it quizzing or debating or anything else. We've long back been upstaged by Hansraj in quizzing, and our grip on debating is also loosening. I do not take this to be a sad development. It is a stimulating thing to be overtaken by others, because that provides you with the next benchmark to strive for. If you don't have a goal, how can you go about doing your task?

So, as another term appears on the calendar entry, I am waiting eagerly to get back into the muck and work my way up. Why do I want to go up in the first place? Because I want to change things, because I want arrogance to be defeated, and because I want to pursue the truest form of education.

Six Years That Changed My Life

2009-06-26T06:35:00.001-07:00

Year I (Class 7): When I climbed the stairs to the D-block third floor on 22nd April 2003, to VII L, i was completely numb. And then I entered a classroom and 40-odd unknown faces stared at me, and i was made to sit beside one such person - Rohan Bhatia. He was an eccentric friend, quite innocent and immature, who was always over-enthusiastic. Then I met Aishwarya "Aishu" Raj later that day in the D-block lounge. He had joined the school one day before me and we quite instantly hit it off, perhaps because we were both 'new fish' in the dirty pond. Ritin Kakkar (a decent bloke) scored 50 in the first Monday Test results that I witnessed. Shayeri (an arrogant-sweet wisecrack) was the 'established' topper and Sukriti Mishra (sweet, but obsessive. God knows what happened to her) was leading the charge of the newcomers. Then there was Lavi Aggarwal (who juggled the third position with me), Prachi Jain (sweet) and quite a bit more. By the end of seventh, 'our' group included me, Aishwarya, Rahul Bhatnagar (oh God!) and Tushar "Tush" Agrawal (a kind, arrogant kiddo).
How it Changed Me: I made a friend for life, in the form of Aishwarya, and also that I was intiated into a ravine that I fell into next year.

Year II (Class 8): Rewind to the Class VIII assessment exams. A 'firang' who is taking the exams with us stands up, all unnerved, while the class teacher tries to calm him. Welcome, Sushant "Sushi" Tandon, to our group. This guy beat me badly in table tennis, but by Class XI, I was able to beat him on a regular basis. Class VIII only reminds me of perversion. Something tells me I was at my most perverted then. But maybe it was only an innocent child's inability to come to terms with things around him. Then, there was a budding friendship with Charit Taneja. And when we came to know that sections would get shuffled in ninth, we all prayed very, very hard. The clock, meanwhile, went on ... tick-tock, tick-tock ...
How it Changed Me: By Class VIII, I had seen the nadir of perversion. It kind of gave me a broader perspective about life, far beyond even my current age.

Year III (Class 9): April 2, 2005 : He has a bag hanging on his shoulders, standing on the short flight of stairs that lead into C01. Welcome, Shubham "Bum" Prakhar, into my world. What can I say about him that I have not already said (check out this blog's archives for more). It was kind of awkward, talking to Mr. ICG and a hosteller. Plus his frequent quizzing incursions and all. But yes, he kicked me, kicked me hard. My jealously of Shubham defined me for the next two years. I had pledged to come out of his shadow in two years (something I achieved). But two other amazing friends of mine - Yash "Hashish" Chopra and Tanmay Singh, I came to know this year. Tanmay (the big, bruiser of a boy) I first saw practicing for a dance in the assembly and have been friends with him since, and Yash ... I don't know when or why we became friends, but its been good so far. And yes, Aishwarya is still in my section. And how can I forget the JSTSE classes? The stay-backs, meeting Debolina "Debo" Roy, Sameer "Sam" Mittal and all the fun we used to have. Oh, I still miss those lovely JSTSE classes!
How it Changed Me: I had become very ambitious, the beginning of all my later success is in class 9, on the day that Shubham Prakhar came to my class.

Year IV (Class 10): Oh God, the boards are here! Add to that the fact that I was rejected by the JSTSE people! The year couldn't have begun on a worse note. Somehow, it went downhill from there. My NSO, NCO, NSTSE ranks stabilized. The boards were fun, walking every morning to Sanskriti, eating a chocolate, and taking the exam - it was completely sans any stress. And yes, Shubham beat me easily in the boards. I was defeated. I had touted the boards as the last 'battle' between Shubham and I, and I had lost, I had been vanquished and humbled! Yes, I cleared the NTSE (which buried the ghosts of JSTSE), but that was more like a post-script.
How it Changed Me: I had been humbled, and all the ambition broken. I could never study that hard EVER again. It felt like the last four years had been undone, and maybe they had actually been.

Year V (Class 11): Oh God, new class, new people! For the first few days, I felt completely hapless - for the first time in four years, there was no Aishwarya to talk to! What would I do? Well.... I found Aeshwarya "Aesh" Raj, and Jayati "JT" Sindhu. In two years, only God knows how much I have irritated these two supremely sweet people. And then there was Mohul Raj Singh, with whom I always have a rocky friendship, and Sukrit. Class XI was more of an ascendancy, when I was beginning to get a grasp of where life was talking me. And mid-way through it, I met Kritika "Kritu" Bajaj. For the next two years, she's been my closest confidante.
How it Changed Me: Class XI gave me valuable lessons in managing people and other 'dps' experience that was to stand me in good stead later on.

Year VI (Class 12): The most amazing school year I could've wished for. I went to quizzes, debates (won some, lost a lot - but it all made me better at a rapid pace). My 5-day hostel misadventure and then my confinement in THAT room in DSOI, Dhaula Kuan. But throughout it all, Aesh and JT and Kritika were always there for me - they never let me feel sad or lonely. Then I interacted with Neelanjana "Neelu" Gupta and with a whole lot of other people. This was the year of my failed foreign applications, of my greatest truimphs and humiliations. And when it ended the way it did, with a 98% and "delhi topper" tag in the boards, it all seemed very ordinary in comparision with what a year it had already been.
How it Changed Me: Class XII has made me what I am today - entirely.

Thank you, amazing people mentioned above, for being there in my life. I owe a part of me to all of you, each and every one of you. Without you, I am nothing, and I can be nothing.
And people from school with whom I interacted only after school got over:(1) Aditi Bajpayi(2) Stuti Govil(3) Nimisha Jain(4) Parmita Mathur
Thank you to all of you too.

Wanted: Some respect for the CBSE Examinations

2009-06-08T02:20:00.000-07:00

Before I begin my advocacy of the CBSE Board Examinations, I must make a few things clear. Firstly, I think the CBSE exam pattern is extremely flawed. Secondly, I have said before and I reiterate that scoring in the CBSE exams amounts to nothing - it does not, in any way, prove a person to be intellectually superior to another person.

This said, I now begin what I want to say. Any parent, any student and a lot of teachers consider anybody who cracks IIT, especially the top 1000 ranks, as a human whose mental capabilities are far greater than those of others. Those who top CBSE, in comparision, are almost invariably considered bookworms and rote learners. They are seen as creatures who are dipped in their books for the four-five months before the Boards and as creatures who lack imagination.

So, first let me talk about IIT. I have seen people who have cracked IIT (my cousin stayed with us and cracked IIT with AIR 210) at close quarters. Indeed, their skills at Physics, Chemistry and Maths are unparalleled. But does mastery of three subjects make them intellectually superior? True, they know about different approaches to solve a question and are better at applying what they learn than what most of us are. But beware, do not believe that this is in any way their intellectual superiority.

I say this because even these IIT people are, in a way, 'conditioned' to solve things like that. In Class X, I was among the best in the sciences in my school, but today I'd be lagging far behind. What changed in these two years? Did the others' brains grow faster than mine? No. Over two years, these IIT aspirants were conditioned to look at a question and were taught different ways to solve it. Done on a sustained manner, it made them more adept at solving questions.

But the point is that these students are solving questions, they are not doing anything creative or imaginative. They are not using most of their brains, just the small logical part of their brains. These hard-working men and women have not outgrown the rest of the student body, they have simply greater reasoning and logical skills.

Now coming back to the CBSE toppers. True, the CBSE English is among the most subjective and consequently, one of the most lop-sided examinations ever devised. Imagination and different lines of thoughts are discouraged and one must write answers that follow a particular line of thought. But that said, to score in the CBSE exams, one needs clarity of though and a flair for expressiveness. If I want to score in CBSE, I have to write my answers as briefly and as curtly as possible without leaving any details. Even in English, I am not supposed to write just anything, I must write what has been asked of me. And over a scale of 30-40 roll numbers, the CBSE English marks remain fairly relfective of one's skills in the language.

This said, it is extremely easy to master CBSE. It is easy to learn about the loopholes of the CBSE system and work your way up it. But then, the same applies to most other examinations, even the SATs and is nothing new and exclusive to the CBSE. But to score 99 in Economics took me a lot of practice and a lot of clear thinking. And to score my precious 100 in Maths took me a lot, a lot of hardwork. And my 98 in Chemistry and 95 in Physics did not come easy either.

So, all said, I want to say that scoring in CBSE proves close to nothing, but neither does scoring in IIT. What really matters is how you are able to apply all that you learn in the institution that you go to. Maybe the crux of the matter is the disrespect of arts and commerce subjects in India. So, till the day that Economics commands the same respect as Astrophysics, engineers and doctors will continue to be looked at in awe and the "poor" and "unimaginative" B.A and B.Com students will have to live in wait for the due respect that should be accorded to them.

One Day of Being a Celebrity !

2009-05-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

As the dust finally settled on 22nd May 09, it emerged that I had not topped All-India, but was merely the Delhi topper. Early morning, being woken up by a call by the Principal, Dr. Shayama Chona, and since then the day has been little short of a fairytale.

But throughout it all, I knew that this was a one-day celebrityhood; that next day everything will be over and I'll be back to anonymity. But this moment, a teardrop on the cheek of time, shall forever be memorable and that is what I tried to do - to savour every moment of what I knew would next come only if I assassinate a public figure. So, I try to recollect every moment and etch it forever, indellibly, in my mind.

First, some Hindi newspaper ending with 'Patrika' called me and took my interview for half an hour. For the next two hours, there was nothing. I was wondering if due to my presence in Kolkata and not in Delhi, would I be deprived of all the media attention? But then maybe now I understand why the calls dried out - because I was talking to Sonali, Kritika and Deboleena! But once I kept the phone, it was like a flood broke out.

TOI called and took my telephonic interview. Then came HT, Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran and what not! And then the electronic media came. First up was NDTV's Monideepa (whom I had seen several times on the news). She got sweets for me, some Bengali ladoos maybe. Then they took an interview, but that was the comfortable part since I've already been on NDTV Metro Nation.

Then came the Bengali news channel, 24 Ghanta, but NDTV continued shooting. They shot me on facebook, typing, moving the mouse and all. Then as soon as they left, News X came and took an interview. Then Sahara's Komolika was calling me, and once even said "If you do not come here, I will lose my job!" But the 24 Ghanta people did not let me move anywhere. She kidnapped me and took me to her studio.

On the way, Star Ananda, 24 Ghanta's main rival, called me and when they realised that I was with 24 Ghanta, they banged the phone on me. But they called back 5 mins later and did a voice-in LIVE with me. Then I went into the 24 Ghanta studio, but Sahara's Komolika was waiting outside the 24 Ghanta studio. She almost got into a fistfight with the 24 Ghanta woman. So, they went to their studio above and there Sahara took my interview, after which I was escorted into the 24 Ghanta studio, where I was LIVE for a good two hours.

Which actually left me quite drained. In the two hours that my father put his cell on silent, he got 53 missed calls. 24 Ghanta gave me a two-hour break in-between. But who was I to enjoy respite yesteday. In those two hours, I have at least five interviews, including the Indian Express and the Asian Age.

Then I went and had kebabs in the South City mall at 6:00 PM, my first thing to eat since morning. And then I went back to the 24 Ghanta studio to shoot for a political discussion. And the best part was that my Bengali is so good that I spent one whole hour staring at the people there rattling 'shuddh' Bengali. By the time I left the studio, my jaws were paining out of trying to speak Bengali.

And then, thankfully, my last shoot for the day was a live video-in for NDTV India, where I (thankfully) had to speak in Hindi. But right upto 10:00 PM, I was busy giving interviews on the phone.

And today when I woke up, father had got at least 6-7 newspapers, and I was reading out the articles. "Kolkata boy tops CBSE" or "Two Toppers minus tuitions". I was misquoted at several places, but its okay - I don't mind it! And today again I leave for Star News' LIVE telecast at 1:30, knowing fully that all this is a mirage, an illusion that won't last tomorrow. But as long as it is there, I shall savour the moment.

Five Game Changers of Elections 2009

2009-05-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

1. West Bengal: The shock of the election has come from West Bengal this time. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Bannerjee has won 19-20 seats and the Congress has held on to 6 seats. This is the CPM's worst poll performance since 1967. Though I was expecting the Trinamool to go up, I was not in my wildest dreams expecting it to trounce all of the Left by itself. Now is an opportunity for the Trinamool for 2011.

2. Uttar Pradesh: This is the second of the two shocks of this election, along with West Bengal. I was never expecting Mayawati to do as well as Mulayam did in 2004, but I was definitely not expecting the Congress to emerge as a close third to the two regional parties. What I think worked for the Congress was, along with the campaigning, the selection of the right candidates. The Congress has shown promise and I hope it does not disappoint.

3. Maharashtra: Maharashtra this time has defied logic and voted for the Congress-NCP alliance despite what was mostly a non-performing state Government. The effect of the MNS factor will become clearer in a few days, but for the Congress, Maharashtra has been the big story this election along with Uttar Pradesh.

4. Tamil Nadu: Throughout the election, I told everyone that the DMK-Congress alliance was arithmetically superior to the AIADMK-PMK-MDMK-Left. Just yesterday, I told a friend that I expected DMK-Congress to get at least over half the seats, and I am proud to say that I got it right.

5. Bihar: Lalu is now definitely facing irrelevance and I would like Nitish to take the risk now of allying with the Congress since the BJP is surely incapable of providing him a national platform. But the defeat of Lalu-Paswan has been complete and the Congress has shown its relevance even in Bihar.

Why I still prefer the Congress (but only slightly)

2009-05-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

As the elections are drawing to a close, I thought it good to explain why my political loyalties lie with the Congress, but only slightly. The Congress, I must confess, has too many faults and the party, in my opinion, in itself is against demoracy:
(1) The party has not held elections to its Congress Working Committee (CWC) in years

(2) The party relies solely on the Nehru-Gandhi family for campaigning. Even the Prime Minister addresses very few rallies on his own

(3) The part is full of sycophants who are servile to the Nehru - Gandhi family

(4) The party's state units are almost always squabbling among themselves. The state leaders are like crabs who pull down whoever is the rising leader in the party

But the only reason that my faith in the party still remains is because of Sheila Dixit. To be fair to her detractors, her "achievements" are not really to be accredited to her:
(1) CNG was implemented in buses and autos after a Supreme Court directive

(2) The Metro Rail project was started and inaugurated by the previous BJP Government

However, she has done several things (greenery, BRT) on her own and even if the BRT has failed according to some, at least this Government is trying things. And Sheila Dixit's contribution remains more in the field of culture and the arts.

But this brings me to the next point: Why should I prefer the Congress at the CENTER based on its performance in the STATE? If I am to be a sensible voter, I should vote differently at the state and central level.

But when I vote at the center, the thing I want most is a stable Government which is not bound by demanding allies. I must confess that as a coherent whole, the NDA seems to be better. But what is disconcerting about the BJP are:

(1) nothing concrete was done against Varun Gandhi

(2) the BJP has a habit of running down institutions. After the President is elected, the BJP could do good in respecting her. And the BJP should not pass disparaging comments about the Election Commission

Frankly, Indian democracy is "ruled" by parties that are nothing but family fiefdoms (eg. DMK, RJD, JD(S), SAD, NC, NCP, BJD). Yes, the BJP is the only party that seems to have any semblance of a democracy. The Communists, of course, are almost completely democratic but they are unable to provide a stable dispensation at the center and are too rigid to govern the nation.

All said and done, I'd prefer the Congress because of people like Manmohan Singh and Sheila Dixit.

My Top 5: Sportspeople of All Times

2009-04-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

#1: Martina Navratilova:

It is a herculean task to enumerate her achievements, but I would make an attempt alright. She's won 18 Grand Slam Singles title, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (an all-time record) and 10 Grand Slam Mixed Doubles titles. She has a record 10 Wimbledon titles, a record she shares with Billie Jean King. She holds the open era record for most Singles titles (167) and most Doubles titles (177). She has the longest winning streak in tennis history (74 matches). All this lead to Billie Jean king calling her "the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who ever lived."

What Goes For Her: The sheer volume of her achievements. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can ever achieve all that she has. And the more important fact is that she has played with other greats in the game like Steffi Graf, Chris Evert and Billie Jean King and has a neutral to favourable win-loss record against all of them.

What Goes Against Her: Nothing. Martina Navratilova's career has been a perfect fairytale. She is the oldest grandslam winner and the oldest winner of a singles match in tennis. What more?

#2: Mohammad Ali:

Mohammad Ali has been declared "Sportsperson of the Century" several times towards the end of the last century. In terms of victories and achievements, his career may pale in comparision to others in the list. But he scores above everybody else by the sheer number of 'greatest ever' matches that he has had. His bouts with George Foreman ('Rumble in the Jungle') and Joe Frazier ('The Fight of the Century') are the stuff of legend.

What Goes For Him: He is truly a 'legend'. His repeated combacks, his cerebral style of boxing and his iconic status worldwide.

What Goes Against Him:There is little consensus on his name as the greatest heavyweight in boxing history in the boxing fraternity.

#3: Michael Phelps:

When he smashed Mark Spitz's record of seven Olympic medals, what was most notable was the fact that everyone expected him to. That is how dominant Phelps has been been. Even in Athens in 2004, just incase you didn't notice, he won 6 golds and 2 bronzes. He's been awarded the World Swimmer of the Year from 2003-2008 (except 2005) and the American Swimmer of the Year from 2001-2008 (except 2005). He's just three medals from breaking Larissa Latynina's record of most medals in the Olympics, but already has more golds.

What Goes For Him: His dominance had been unchallenged and unrivalled. He is arguably the greatest Olympian of all times, far ahead of Spitz by dint of his longevity.

What Goes Against Him: His conduct in his personal life leaves a lot to be desired. He cannot be called an idol unless his private life too stands is like that of a role-model.

#4: Lance Armstrong:

Lance Armstrong is an icon in every sense of the word. He dominated cycling for seven years, winning the Tour de France for a record-breaking seven times. He was named the Associate Press Male Athlete of the Year in 2002-2005 and ESPN's Best Male Athlete in 2002-2005. But what sets him apart from the rest is his battle, and eventual victory, with testicular cancer. The prognosis wasn't good, but Armstrong never let it affect his performance in the track.

What Goes For Him: His battle with cancer and his complete, unrivalled dominance of the cycling world right until his retirement.

What Goes Against Him:The fact that cycling is, for most parts, not a very popular sport. But it is the sport's fault, not his.

#5: Sachin Tendulkar:

If cricket is a religion in India, then Sachin has got to be the God. You might argue that there are equally talented cricketers like Brian Lara, Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards or even Sir Don Bradman, but Sachin somehow towers above them all. Perhaps it is because he started playing at such a young age and is still playing, and playing well for that matter, today. Perhaps it may also have to do with his off-field conduct, which is impeccable. He is a symbol of cricket in the modern world - being among one of the richest sportspersons of all times.

What Goes For Him: His impeccable off-field conduct, his longevity and most importantly, the fact that he is perhaps a perfect idol. Whenever the word 'cricket' is mentioned in India, perhaps the word 'Sachin' would follow.

What Goes Against Him:The fact that cricket is played by only about a dozen serious nations. Cricket is not an Olympic sport and is played in very few regions, mostly the Commonwealth nations.

The Best of Bollymusic: My Top 5 Romantic songs since 1990

2009-04-09T02:57:00.000-07:00

1. Pehla Nasha (Jo Jeeta Woh Sikandar) : I am not a huge fan of romantic songs, but when you hear this song, you just cannot resist its melody. Beautiful lyrics, competent singers and an irresistable melody - this is as close as you can come to perfection. If you haven't heard this song, you have got to be missing something in life.
Lyrics - ****
Melody - *****
Singing - ****
Picturisation - ***

2. Khudaya Khair (Billu) : One of the best romantic songs of late, this one has sweet (though slightly absurd) lyrics and a hummable melody to go with it. It is a terrific feel-good song. The singing, though perhaps lacking somehow, is nevertheless good. I would be shocked if this song is not a contender for one of the music awards this year. Till now, its my song of the year.
Lyrics - ****
Melody - *****
Singing - **
Picturisation - **

3. Tauba Tumhare Yeh Ishaare (Chalte Chalte) : This song never seems to loose its sheen for me. I've been hearing it for such a long time now, but every time I hear it I want to hear more of it. The singing was absolutely amazing - perhaps the romantic song of Abhijeet.
Lyrics - **
Melody - ***
Singing - *****
Picturisation - ***

4. Hum Tum (Hum Tum) : My favourite Rani Mukherji song of all time, I think this song is underrated. Babul Supriyo finally made an indellible mark as a singer. The lyrics are competent, the Rani-Saif chemistry is crackling and the picturisation is good.
Lyrics - ***
Melody - ****
Singing - ****
Picturisation - ***

5. Kuch Na Kaho (Kuch Na Kaho) : A song from one of the most forgettable movies of all time, this song neverthess makes it to my list for its joyful exuberance and its sweet melody. It has a very fresh appeal to it. And the video is great too - frankly, Aishwarya Rai never looked better in this film.
Lyrics - **
Melody - ****
Singing - ****
Picturisation - **

Moral Policing Vs. Vulgarity : Where is the middle path ?

2009-04-05T03:02:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about writing a post titled 'Beware of the MTV culture'. MTV makes violence seem to be ordinary. Alright, you might argue that they condemned the physical violence on Roadies and on Splitsvilla, but why should they show fights and arguments as the "highlights" from the next episode. I like to watch these fights, I must confess. But that does not mean I condone such blatant display of violence. No, the MTV culture must not be allowed to propagate.

Which brings me to my next point. I am NOT engaging in moral policing. What happened in Mangalore is absolutely abominable and I support the Pink-Chaddi campaign (not that I sent Pink Chaddis to Muthalik, but still generally). What happens with Raj Thackeray and the mockery on each Valentine's Day is absolutely condemnable too.

But let me ask you this: When you see couples in Lodhi garden showing a Public Display of Affection (PDA), do you support it? Do you support Akshay Kumar getting unbuttoned on the ramp? I mean, I still think that the person who filed a PIL against Kumar is wanting attention. But I still feel that what Kumar did was not right. I don't want him to apologise. I just want him to know that it was not right. Alright, your brand is called 'unbuttoned', but if you show Kumar unbuttoning on stage, do you mean to say that people who wear that brand of jeans should be unbuttoned? Oh come on, there are better ways to sell your wares than to engage on obscenity.

I have always opposed aping of the west. But unfortunately, that is what mostly happens. Why should we compare Bollywood films to those from Hollywood? Why not judge them on their own merit (or the lack of it, if you ask me)? Does somehow have to speak English the way the Americans or the Britons do? Since we are the largest English-speaking community in the world (or at least second), why should we not have our own distinctive style of English. But you know what, we actually do. We insert expletives (the really dirty Hindi ones) in our English sentences to make it more 'effective'. What is wrong, people? Are we losing faith in our language that we need to put in expletives to make our point more effective?

Perhaps we're already on a path from which there is no return. We're denegerating and there is no escaping it. But every big movement begins with a small step. And so shall a reformation.

The Best 5 Prime Ministers of India

2009-03-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Foreign Policy: Vajpayee's foreign policy successes are many. He led India to a victory over Pakistan in 1999 in Kargil and more importantly, he US began to recognize India's position against Pakistan. Relations with China also normalised.
Economy: The economy stabilised by the time he took over in 1999 and started an unbelievable growth trajectory. He firmly supported disinvestment, but not blind privatisation. As Manmohan Singh said at a recent rally, the economy grew at 5.6% during the Vajpayee tenure, indeed a very impressive growth rate.
Home Affairs: This is where the Vajpayee Government had its failures. It failed to check the VHP's protests in 2002 in order to celebrate the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He also failed to take any concrete action against Narendra Modi's Government. You may argue that he upheld democracy by allowing the people to judge - and it thus remains debatable wher you can blame him.
Biggest Embarassment: The Tehelka scandal rocked his ministry and the Coffin scandal involving George Fernandes portrayed his ministry as quite corrupt.
Biggest Advantage: He's a 10 time Lok Sabha member and has won the "Best Parliamentarian" award. I am pleased to put a distinguished parliamentarian on top of this list.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Foreign Policy:Jawaharlal Nehru's foreign policy was flawed beyond repair. His Non-Aligned Movement and more importantly, his blind trust of China exploded in his later years. Problems that he created (like Kashmir) haunt India till this day.
Economy: The Indian economy under Nehru was rebuilding itself. The foundations laid by Nehru were strong enough to sustain India through a lot of dangerous periods. Food security also improved vastly and industrial growth also remained consistent.
Home Affairs: Democracy took deep roots under Nehru. All institution of independent and democratic India (the courts, the army, the police) were set up and remain strong till this day. If India has survived till this day, a lot of credit goes to Nehru for letting democracy take off in India.
Biggest Embarassment: The defeat to China will remain forever to portray Nehru's later years as weak and incompetent.
Biggest Success: DEMOCRACY !!

Manmohan Singh

Foreign Policy: His single biggest foreign policy success remains the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.
Economy: The biggest challenge for the Indian economy ever took place in his tenure. The economy still maintained a 6-7% growth rate and never went into recession. Two stimuli packages were announced and a slew of other measures taken. Though the Left clipped his wings, he still managed to bring stability to the economy.
Home Affairs: Terrorism marked his tenure. The rapidity of attacks increased. Thrice in Delhi, twice in Mumbai - and the Government failed to take any measures. It reached a peak in 2008, only after which the Government removed the Home Minister. It is noticeable that since P Chidambaram took over, only 1 terrorist attack took place.
Biggest Embarassment: The presence of inefficient and often corrupt ministers like Shibu Soren in his cabinet and the ruckus created during the trust vote marred his credentials.
Biggest Advantage: A clean image remains his USP. He's slowly being recognized as a man of clean politics.

Indira Gandhi

Foreign Policy:Indira Gandhi scores highest on foreign policy. She led India to a victory over Pakistan in 1971 and captured 1 lakh Prisoners of War. She presided over India's first nuclear explosion and stood tall before Nixon. She withstood US ire and still managed to reinstill the sense of national pride. It should be noted that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the one who called her "Durga" after the Bangladesh liberation.
Economy: The economy was a problem during most of Indira Gandhi's tenure. She began with a huge economic crisis and the country went through cycles of deflation and inflation. However, the green revolution that she presided over has ensured India's food security till date.
Home Affairs: Indira Gandhi could have been on top of the list just that I am not comfortable with the idea of putting on top a person who didn't believe full-heartedly in democracy. A Prime Minister has got to respect democracy. But declaring Emergency and by turning the Congress into a sycophants' club, Indira Gandhi left a very bad legacy for democracy in India.
Biggest Embarassment: The emergency will continue to define her. All those who say she's the best Prime Minister India had should remember that had the Army not refused to be part of her scheme, our democracy might have been endangered.
Biggest Advantage: She seems to have been destiny's child. Despite the emergency, she remained so popular with the masses.

V P Singh

Foreign Policy:He really didn't have much time to formulate a definite foreign policy
Economy: The economy was heading towards dire straits, but you can't blame VP Singh for it. It was rather the policies followed since the 1970s that resulted in the problem.
Home Affairs: VP Singh was a man against corruption. He was removed from the Congress for unearthing corruption in the Government and led to the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. However, the Mandal politics unearthed by him haunts India till this date. He is the grand daddy of vote bank politics.
Biggest Embarassment: The Mandal report was tabled in his tenure. Whether it was due to demanding allies or to polarise votes only VP Singh knows.
Biggest Advantage:He was seen as a man against corruption

Rejected, Dejected

2009-03-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

While I was in the midst of preparing my foreign application package, I always thought of Columbia and Stanford as the ones I really wanted to go to. Not that I didn't want to go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, but I didn't think that I stood a chance. All this while, I thought of Northwestern and University of Chicago as back-ups.

But these back-ups exploded in my face. I was rejected at both Northwestern and U Chic. I really didn't have any idea why. All the way, I thought that if they had to select an Indian, that could be me. But I wasn't selected.

More than the dejection of being rejected, I am scared about the other three. By the 1st of April (coincidentally, April Fools' Day), I shall really know if I'm going abroad or not. I really wanted to. But I have had a good Boards Examination.

If this fails, I will apply to LSE for my masters. If I don't apply with financial aid, I guess I should go through. And then I will look back and maybe have a good little laugh about this.

My New Blog: Obsessive Compulsive Quizzing

2009-03-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

I have started another blog on quizzing. Since practically no one reads this blog o' mine, I don't expect many to read the other either. However, you must realise that I write these blogs as future investments. Just incase I become famous some day (say, a Booker or a Nobel prize), people would want to know me. And what better way to know me than my blogs, eh?

But I did put in quite a little research into my new quiz blog:

www.ocquizzing.blogspot.com

I plan to put up the answers to each of the quizzes with the next quiz that I post (which should be one week afterwards). These quizzes will be in sets of 10 on some topic (beauty pageants to begin with). Maybe someday, I could compile all of them together and publish a quiz book. Now, that would be fun.

After the Boards

2009-03-23T03:35:00.000-07:00

For a non-engineering, non-commerce, non-medical Grade 12 student like me, the Boards is the highlight of my academic life.

While a lot of people have a lot of complaints against the boards, I don't really believed that the Indian Educational System is flawed. It is all a matter of perspective. Nothing ever stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Nobody and nothing stopped me from preparing for Columban Open for 6 months (despite knowing that quizzing cannot come overnight) and only 2 months for the Boards. Its often the student, and nobody else, who is to blame.

I enjoyed the pressure of the Boards. I enjoyed each moment of just trying to do everything in the NCERT. It was fun. You read it once, twice, thrice ... and you still come across facts that you overlooked. You have to be at your best. You can't go on for 4-5 hours with the same book - you just stop absorbing things then.

But now I am free. Free as a bird. And what do I plan for the next three months? Hmmm... I await my foreign admission decisions. And I really, desperately seek to complete my novel. That one is almost on top of my priority list.

Reviewing the Academy Awards 2009

2009-02-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

While the entire national media goes overboard celebrating Slumdog Millionaire's success at the Academy Awards this year, one must maintain objectivity while reviewing its success. Let our right judgement not be swayed by feelings of attachment to Slumdog.

The Academy Awards are a celebration of excellence in cinema, not like our own domestic award shows that celebrate excellence in public relations.

The 5 films nominated for the Best Film this year and even last year were by no means big earners. This year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with about $130 million at the US Box Office was the largest hit. The Dark Knight with about $540 million at the US Box Office was not a nominee.
In India, will any award ceremony not nominate Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi? Of course not! Its a Yash Raj, they can't ignore it. Yet, RNBDJ deserves only acting and music nominations.
A couple of years back, the best actor (male and female) went to Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai (now Rai Bachchan) for Dhoom 2. I mean, Dhoom 2 was a decent commercial entertainer, but were the performances worth awards? No.
Compare this to the Academy Awards, which are quite immune to public opinion. Brad Pitt has never won an Oscar despite acting in very intense roles, simply because someone was better. This year, it was Sean Penn.
The Academy Awards did have performances, but these performances were timed so well that one wouldn't really get bored. In Indian Awards, you have one performance after another. Why?

This is why I really look down upon our own award ceremonies. They are base, predictable, boring, and in very polite words - absolute trash.

And for this precise reason, Indian Awards will never have the same kind of reputation as do, say, the Oscars or Golden Globes or the Venice Film Festival. I mean, how many people know the actor who has won the maximum number of filmfare Best Actor awards? (p.s. it's Dilip Kumar with 8, I think)

Anyway, here I review this year's Oscar winners. Of course, I haven't seen a lot of the movies from the US and UK this year, and so my judgement rests more on personal likings or the lack of it:

1. Best Actor: This was, according to me, a big upset. I was rooting for Mickey Rourke. Firstly, his movie was about Wrestling (but that didn't make much of a difference to be). More importantly, it would have capped off a very remarkable comeback by Rourke. And his eccentric fashion sense was pleasing to the eye. Yet, Sean Penn comes across as a wonderful actor and a wonderful person too. As someone on NDTV once said "Mickey Rourke should win, but Sean Penn will win."

My Pick : Mickey Rourke

Eventual Winner: Sean Penn

2. Best Actress: After five nominations, it was almost impossible for Kate Winslet not to win. From her very moving portrayal of Rose in Titanic to her criticism of anorexic models, Kate Winslet has been a very dignified actress. She's not called the best actress of her generation for nothing. And look at her humility. She had nothing but respect for Meryl Streep and acknowledged her fellow nominees as well. She's deserved tyhis for a long time and thankfully, it finally did happen. She's of Meryl Streep's calibre, I feel. For being a wonderful combination of acting prowess and grace, Kate Winslet it this year's Oscar winner. Truly, a masterful act.

My Pick: Kate Winslet

Eventual Winner: Kate Winslet

3. Best Film: I was very divided on this. I have seen Slumdog and generally liked the movie, but because of the acting rather than the script, dialogues or the direction. Yet, as a complete movie, Slumdog perhaps works for me, and it certainly did work for those at the Academy. The Reader was the movie that I thought could thwart Slumdog's chances, but it did not (thankfully).

My Pick: Slumdog Millionaire

Eventual Winner: Slumdog Millionaire

The Pro Wrestling Addict : Top 10 Wresters of the Modern Era

2009-02-19T02:05:00.001-08:00

Maybe none of those who currently read my blog are fans of professional wrestling. But I've been thinking a long time about making a 'Top 10 List'. I thought of Top 10 movies of 2008, but I haven't even watched many movies like Ghajini and really couldn't comment on that.

So, here it is. My list of the Top 10 Greatest Wrestlers of all times. What is the basis of this list? The single most important factor was influence on the game. I'll enumerate my other criteria for the list:

(1) Longevity

(2) Wrestling Skills

(3) Audience Response

#1: Shawn Michaels

If WWE is your temple, Shawn Michaels is definitely your God. He worked his way up the WWE ladder since debuting in the late 1980s and his DX ushered in the WWE's Attitude Era. His mat skills are unbelievable and his mike skills legendary.

You can just wonder at his influence. Triple H and Chyna are just some of the people he got to the WWE. He also participated in the first Ladder Match and won the first elimination chamber and the first Hell in a Cell. If you love to hate Vince McMahon, thank HBK for that. He has been involved in by far the most intense rivalry sports entertainment has even seen with Bret Hart. If he calls himself the "show stopper" its not for nothing. He's the only wrestler to have posed for Playgirl. Long after he's gone and till the day WWE continues, Shawn Michaels will continue to be on top of my list.

#2: Hulk Hogan

I've always thought of Hulk Hogan as overrated. His wretling skills would be among the worst in this list. But he scores on longevity and audience connect. He's the only symbol of professional wrestling in the US. He's the American Hero. And he's a sort of legend. As a ch

ild, I didn't know who exactly Hulk Hogan was, but I knew he was some kind of super-hero.

He's a 12-time champion. His championship reign was the second-longest in WWE history. He slammed Andre the Giant in what will be the best match of the 1980s. After he left WWE (then WWF), Hulk Hogan has been a less of a star. I wasn't really impressed with the NWO thing. But you got to hand it over to him to be equally successful in WWE and WCW. I guess he's just a bigger brand than what either ever was. So, for being the most famous wrestler and the most dominant WWE champion, Hulkamania is on this list too.

#3: The Undertaker

Undoubtedly the greatest gimmick of all time, the cultural influence of the Undertaker would rank next only to Hulk Hogan. Even before I got hooked to pro wrestling, the Undertaker was one of the only three wrestlers I knew, apart from Hogan and Michaels.

The guy's storyline has been developed really well by the WWE creative team. Almost all of WWE's speciality matches - hell in a cell, inferno, casket and the unforgettable buried alive - trace their roots to the Undertaker. He's been such a star attraction that he's never wrestled in the midcard (he has never even held a mid-level championship).

Mark Callaway's contribution to the Undertaker's character is no less. He's had the persona to carry off the larger-than-life wrestler and still make it believable. Even in wrestling skills, the Undertaker scores heavily with as many as four main finishers at last count. If there was ever a perfect wrestler, it is the Undertaker. (p.s. my blog's name, Funeral Parlor, was the Undertaker's chat show early on in WWE)

#4: 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin

He's the man who almost single-handedly saved WWE in the late 1990s. With Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart gone and Triple H and the Rock still to come to the top-card, Steve Austin ate lustfully into the 'big boss' Vince McMahon to carve an indellible legacy for wrestling fans to forever remember.

He might not be known as much for his mat skills, but they were undoubtedly the best among the WWE wrestlers of the late 1990s. What I remember best about him was his legendary rivalry with the Undertaker. WWE kind of lost the script post-2000. But for all hell that Steve Austin raised with the Rock, Bret Hart, Undertaker and Kane, he's right up here in the list.

#5: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart

He's arguably the most gifted wrestler of all times. He headlined WWE at a time when the company was going through turmoil and he left the company in times of turmoil. Had Goldberg not kicked him into retirement, we would all have been hoping for an encore from the 'best there was, the best there is and the best there will ever be'.

For me, his career's biggest highlight will be that such was his start power and so solid was his reputation that WCW made Goldberg lost thrice to him, out of the six matches that Goldberg ever lost in WCW. I haven't ever since the guy wrestler, but his records, his conduct and his legacy are so imprinted on any pro wrestling fan's mind that its hard to forget the contribution fo the Hitman.

#6: Mick Foley/Mankind/Cactus Jack/Dude Love

He's the hardcore legend and easily the most lovable wretler of all times. He's torn an ear while caught in the ropes, got teeth knocked out, fallen over 16 feet from over the cell. If you are talking about "shocking", here is your man.

So brutal was his career and so violent his matches that he retired in 2000. He's made Extreme wrestling enormously popular in the sport. He is almost a terrible athlete, but that is not what he was meant to be, anyway. His matches with Vader were so violent that they were never booked in a match again. Today's wrestling owes almost everything to Mick Foley.

You can't think of today's wrestling without hardcore. And when you think of hardcore, you can't miss Mick Foley. And that is why he makes it here in the list.

#7: Ric Flair

Professional wrestling is going global and that is the reason why Ric Flair is not on top of the list. True, he's a superb athlete and perhaps the best heel of all times, but his influence has been limited to America. He's not the most easily recognisable superstars abroad.

But he's a 16-time champion, a Royal Rumble winner and won his first Intercontinental Championship almost 20 years after his prime. You have to respect the man for wrestling at the age that he did. You also got to put him in your all-time best list for inspiring a generation of would-be wrestlers.

In stature, he's next only to the Hulkster. And in influence, maybe next to none. He'll forever be the greatest wretler that the US ever saw. Wrestling will forever be synonymous with Ric Flair in America. Woooo....

#8: John Cena

You can love him, you can hate him (I don't like him either), but you just cannot ignore him. Most of you would say that I've contradicted my own criterion of 'longevity' to rank John Cena, but had it not been for longevity, he might have been higher than at No.8.

He's achieved so much in such a short time. He's the longest reigning WWE Champion since Diesel in the mid-1990s. He's been the biggest star of WWE for almost three years now. Its so hard to see John Cena without the WWE championship around his waist.

He's also enormously talented. He's powerful. He's a mix between Hogan and Michaels and that's why I'm sure that by the time he retires, Cena would be in my Top 3. The question is - who'll be out?

#9: Chyna

I expect almosteveryone to disagree on this name on my list. But you have to be reasonable.What she's achieved is no mean thing. She is the first and only woman to participate in the Royal Rumble (and eliminated, hold your breath, Mark Henry and Chris Jericho), the first to be the number one contender for the WWE championship and the first to win the Intercontinental Championship (that too, twice!!).

There were legends in women wrestling before her. But she's the one who competed on an equal footing with the boys. She went one-on-one with Chris Jericho, Eddie Gurrero and Jeff Jarett. Before her, men had to be paid to lose to women. But after her, women like Beth Phoenix and the Awesome Kong have defeated men without much of a fuss over it.

And the best part is that its not even fake. X-Pac had to run to the police because Chyna beat him up so bad in real life. Had her career not been cut short by WWE, Chyna would easily have been in the Top 5 in my list. Nevertheless, for giving an all new dimension to Women Professional Wrestling, the "ninth wonder of the world" is number nine on my list.

#10: The Big Show

The Big Show probably should not be in this list. For most of you, Andre the Giant should be the only 'Giant' who should be in any Top-10 list. But I have no doubt that if reservation exists for 'Giants', the Big Show should occupy it.

He's more skilled than Andre. When was the last time a wrestler had only a punch as a finisher? The guy learnt boxing while he was away for a year. He's a much better athlete than Yokozuna and Rikishi (he lost 50 pounds while Yoko and Kishi were fired for not losing weight). He's far better at the audience than Khali or Giant Gonzales. And the most important fact is that he's the only guy ever to hold the WWE, WCW and ECW titles (the ECW, though, was as a WWE brand). He probably won't leave much of an influence when he retires, but he's given world wrestling some very memorable moments and is the most decorated giant of all times. For this, and for his ability to excite the crowd, the Big Show rounds off my list of the Top 10 of the Modern Era.

More Awards:

(1) Best Announcer: John Bradshaw Layfield

He made up for his lack of skills in the ring while behind the mike.

(2) Best General Manager: Vickie Guerrero

She's made Smackdown better than RAW.

(3) Best Stable: NWO

The NWO had all start and all storylines.

Notable Omissions:

(1) The Rock: I would definitely have put The Rock on this list had I had just one more place. But maybe The Rock, by choosing Hollywood over Wrestling put brakes on a wonderful career.

(2) Edge: He's won over 40 championships, but the WWE has made him seem a very weak champion. They could have done better. Maybe if he turns face sometime soon, he'll be in the list.

(3) Kane: He's my personal favourite, but WWE has almost ruined his career. At his peak, he eliminated 11 men from the Royal Rumble. If Undertaker is No.3 on my list, he owes a lot of it to Kane.

(4) Kurt Angle: He's a far better wrestler than several people on my list and his rivalry with Lesnar is the stuff of legends. But he wasn't just in the top 10.

:: In The City of Joy ::

2009-01-01T19:26:00.001-08:00

My hippie lifestyle of late brought me back to Kolkata this week. I had been to this city before, but never really stayed for a long duration. And here I was in the supposed cultural capital of India. My expectations were simple - a rustic city, bubbly bengali people, narrow one-way roads and a marxist atmosphere in the city.

I was fairly surprised by the city. Of course, for a die-hard Delhiite like me, the city was as close as I could go to a small town.

(1) The Roads : Though Delhi's roads are far superior, Kolkata is not far behind. However, the traffic sense of Kolkata's people is much worse than Delhiites. There is not even a slight sense of lane driving. Traffic signals are few and far apart. The yellow taxis are as irritating and ubiquitous as the green autos of Delhi, though their larger size means a bigger nuisance.

(2) The Food: Unlike Delhi, Kolkata has a unique food culture. Bengalis have their own form of biryani, which is much oilier and consists of a plateful of slightly coloured rice, a boiled potato and a single peace of chicken. Any form of chicken gravy is strictly avoidable for health reasons (the gravy is mostly oil). But Kolkata is a non-vegitarian's ultimate delight. You get all kinds of rolls and then you have great bakeries that serve all kind of non-vegitarian fare. Not to forget China Town, the paradise of Chinese food. You get authentic chinese fare at reasonable rates. A great bargain!!

(3) The Weather : Kolkata's cold is obviously not as chilling as Delhi's. But I noticed that its always foggy in Kolkata. You can roam around with just a t-shirt on, something unimaginable in Delhi (of course, the native people tend to wear a lot more on them). The summers are bad. If there is any power cut, you better pray for electricity to return soon. Or else, you'll be drenched in sweat within minutes.

(4) People : I've mostly been annoyed with the people of Kolkata. They're enthusiastic, alright. But they're also very proud, vane, slow and loud. They tend to speak at very high volumes. They are capable of parking their vehicles in such a way that the road traffic gets blogged. The shopkeepers don't seem to want to sell their things - they're so slow. Compare this to a Delhiite, who is generally a bully and is fast, conceited and proud. Maybe its because the Government has pampered the people. That's what a Marxist Government tends to do.

(5) The Public Places : Kolkata's public places are more "intellectual" than Delhi's. Its very difficult for people to survive the entire National Museum of Kolkata - not to mention the fact that half the things in their Egypt section are fakes. The science city, my brother told me, is very boring. You have Nicco Park, which is a decent amusement park, with a water park better than Delhi's Oysters. The ticket price of Rs.250 is quite worth it. The malls are good, though no match on Delhi's malls.

However, the place where I stay (Patuli) is an ideal place for someone like me. There is almost no visible air or land pollution. Its a little far from the central areas, but there is no need to go to places like the Park Street. You have quite a few malls nearby. And the greenery !! The greenery in the entire Kolkata makes it worth a stay.

The Girl That Was : Deboleena

2008-12-16T05:24:00.000-08:00

Deboleena recently gave me a slamsheet to fill. She's not one for slamsheets, she is one for the blogosphere.

Deboleena. The first time I saw her name was among the topper's list. And that is where Deboleena belonged - among the stars, not for those on the Earth (poor little creatures like me). The next time I noticed her, she was out jutting answers in the JSTSE extra classes (this was the class when I too was feeling like I actually knew things). I don't know when actually we became friends, but I know that we struck it immediately - the Bong Connection actually works, people. I still envy her for all the lovely tiffin boxes that she used to get - non-veg biryanis and all. The guys in the NTSE class started linking us and there was this playful awkwardness from both of us. And then one day, Deboleena came and said "Subhashish, I really like you." I tried to act as if it surprised me, but it really didn't. When your peer group puts that kind of pressure on you, you tend to expect these things. I really don't know if she felt it. I really behaved as if I didn't like her, and maybe this was why she said two minutes later "No, I used to like him." I don't want to think about it anymore and I'm sure neither does she. It was very difficult to being great friends again, but I guess now we are thick as thieves again.

This is one person in the ENTIRE DPS, R K Puram whom I agree is more intelligent than me. She can do great wonders in whatever she does. She is THE person whom I expect to surely get into IIT. I believe in what Deboleena stands for. I believe in the purity of her heart. And I believe that this girl is going to do great wonders in life.

Rating the Contests

2008-12-05T06:06:00.001-08:00

Now that my inter-school events are over, this is the time for me to look back and evaluate all the events that I have been to :

(1) The ARTHSHNAMA - Modern School, Barakhamba Road
Strengths - Good refreshments, Well Organised, Reputed judges
Weaknesses - Terrible Quiz, Sketchy judging
Rating - Six on Ten

(2) The ECONOMITE - Modern School, Modern School
Strengths - Good events
Weaknesses - Terrible Quiz, Unfair topics for Ads Act
Rating - Four on Ten

(3) The MATRIX - ECOMMBUZZ SYMPOSIUM - Mount St. Mary's School
Strengths - Very grandly organised
Weaknesses - Very sketchy judging
Rating - Eight on Ten

(4) The COLUMBAN OPEN QUIZ - St. Columba's School
Strengths - A legend continued ...
Weaknesses - The quarters and semis were not balanced
Rating - Seven on Ten

(5) The Fest at DPS, Mathura Road
Strengths - A very big event
Weaknesses - Pathetic Judging
Rating - Three on Ten

(6) CONFLUX - St. Columba's School
Strengths - Good topics for symposium
Weaknesses - Interjectors allowed to sit with teams
Rating - Four on Ten

(7) The HERITAGE INDIA QUIZ - CBSE
Strengths - Good questions, good quizmaster
Weaknesses - Teams that got eliminated in zonals were not that good
Rating - Ten on Ten

(8) SOCIAL SCIENCE QUIZ - Vasant Valley School
Strengths - Amusing prelims
Weaknesses - The only quiz I'm sure was rigged
Rating - Two on Ten

Shubham: The Best There Was, The Best There Is and the Second-Best There Will Ever Be

2008-12-04T05:36:00.001-08:00

DPS, R. K. Puram is pejoratively known as a factory. I believe that is because we churn out excellence in such numbers that it is difficult for others to keep track. In other schools, the same guy who goes for a quiz will go for a debate and so on; but in DPS, R. K. Puram, most of those on top are specialized guys. Akshay Kohli can’t do what Shreshth Singhal can and vice-versa. So, it really becomes very difficult to find out one guy and say “Oh, he’s the star of this batch.” But I have an answer. Shubham Prakhar.

When I think of all that could have been, I think of people whose lives were directly affected by Shubham’s ICG triumph. First on the list is, of course, Shubham Prakhar himself. Imagine, Shubham keeps on winning quizzes, but he really would not have come to DPS, R. K. Puram and he would have been quite a different person then. His three years in the hostel is a feat I stand up and solute. I used to be envious of all the attention that got him from the teachers, but I now fully understand and I am quite ashamed of my thoughts earlier.

The next on the list is yours truly. Before Shubham came, I was your regular curriculum-obsessed nerd. I took the Olympiads often but I never got a rank. I took part in debates and all, but I performed miserably. And quizzing was the last thing I did on the face of Earth. I was a typical wannabe. I had the ambition, but it was all a juvenile thing. And then that day – April 2, 2005. Shubham Prakhar entered the class and my juvenile attempts became ambitions. I worked very hard for JSTSE. Though I didn’t qualify (no one till date can explain that), I churned out top-50 ranks in all national Olympiads (school rank 1 or 2 mostly). I was initiated into quizzing (which I really developed in class 11) and I got this very new confidence. Me and Shubham have the most interesting rivalry this school might have ever seen. These complex emotions don’t really come easily.

And then there were a lot more. I myself spread the benefits I received to others. Kritika Bajaj is an example. Whatever I took from Shubham I gave to Kritika. And in this way, Shubham Prakhar is the true Godfather of this batch of DPS, R. K. Puram because his presence created many many new talents. In a way, a lot of us came from Shubham’s ICG win.
Me and Shubham lost the Heritage India Quiz today in the pre-finals. I thought that me and Shubham were the best team possible. Not arrogance, but a reality. We were the only competition that each of us had in history. But we lost. Actually, it was a very good experience for me. All teams in the national pre-finals were so damn good that it was all left to luck. Luck did not favour us today, but let me assure you that a person of Shubham’s brilliance is bigger than such quizzes. When I saw people come up to him and say “Hey, you are Shubham Prakhar, Mr. ICG, right?”, I no more felt jealous. I felt very very happy. My friend, my mentor, my guide Shubham Prakhar deserves all this and much more. Maybe what the Heritage Quiz did was break the ice between Shubham and I. We both had common ambitions and we gave our heart and soul for it. Shubham, let me assure you that our hardwork will never go waste. I felt very depressed after my JSTSE results. But as Tanya had told me then, the results of my hardwork will come. Sometime or the other. And it came next year for me when I qualified NTSE without having studied 25% of what I did for JSTSE. Destiny, my friend. We are destined.

A lot of people do not like Shubham. I believe they’re just plain jealous. You can be Asia’s Child Genius or anything, but you can never be Shubham Prakhar. You can defeat Shubham in a 1001 quizzes, but no one will ever remember you. Even the CBSE woman in the Heritage remembered Shubham by name. This Is what Shubham Prakhar stands for. So, all you whiners, go back and pour your jealousies out. Because Shubham Prakhar is infallible. He’s not King IC and not even close to that. But he’s bigger and better. I have had the privilege of sharing the stage with him several times. Truly, it was a privilege.

I know Shubham better than any of his friends. Because I have been his most spiteful enemy and his thickest of friends. Despite the frost in our relation, he (like a true pro) came to ask me for the Heritage Quiz. And that is why we got the highest marks in any zonal all over India. I believe not in winning, but in making a mark. And that we did.
Cheers!

After the Storm?

2008-12-01T05:32:00.000-08:00

I have been online for over 10 hours now and I (obviously) have a splitting headache. I came online to study for the Heritage India quiz, but I haven't really been into it, though. I go to facebook, orkut, wikipedia, yahoo and then again after a half hour I go to facebook, orkut, wikipedia, yahoo. It is almost like an OCD problem. I must add that my preparation for the heritage is coming off just about fine. I wish I had a week now .... but I have half a day left and I am going to pack as much of a punch as I can. I am sorry if I disappoint you, Shubham Prakhar, but I tried as much as I could.

Life has been so dead ever since ECONORM got over. I have been chasing teachers for my foreign applications. I never wanted to go abroad. I just filled the SAT form because everyone did that and after that, I have been getting sucked into the quagmire. St.Stephen's is no more my goal ... it is either Harvard or St.Xavier's. Nevetheless, life has been very very listless of late. And I still repent something about Heritage ... really don't know what.

As I told my good friend yesterday, my life without studies is nothing. Have I been degrading into an aimless person? Maybe. I just don't study. Studies was perhaps the glue that held me together and now it is not there. Maybe that is the problem. Life used to be (ironically) so much fun earlier when I used to study. Now, it is very very dull.

So, I'll pick up the pieces and try to start studying. Classes 9th and 10th exhausted me, it seems. I just cannot do it anymore. But I will try, give it my best. True, everything that I could have worked for is over. But my life isn't. A new set of opportunities will arise. And I will rise with them.

Inquizition Prelims

2008-11-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

Multiple-Choice Questions

Q1. The first school of economics in the modern world was led by Francois Quesnay, the writer of La Tableau Economique. How was this group of economists better known?
(a) The Laissez-Faire School (c) The French School
(b) The Physiocrats (d) The French Liberals

Q2. Ragnar Frisch was the first winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics. For his study in which field did he win the Nobel Prize?
(a) Microeconomic Models (c) Welfare Economics
(b) Global Currency (d) International Trade

Q3. The UBS is a financial institution belonging to which country?
(a) Sweden (c) Singapore
(b) Switzerland (d) Thailand (Siam)

Q4. India’s nuclear tests in the 1970s led to the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. Which organization was formed due to the oil crisis of the 1970s?
(a) G8/G7 (c) WTO
(b) IMF (d) OPEC

Q5. Which car company manufactured the ‘Beetle’, the Peoples’ car, on orders by Adolf Hitler?
(a) Audi (c) Daimler (of Daimler-Chrysler)
(b) BMW (d) Volkswagen

Q6. The Titanic was the largest ship of its time. Which is currently the largest commercial passenger ship in the world?
(a) Queen Elizabeth (c) Queen Mary
(b) King James (d) King George

Q7. Which building houses the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)?
(a) Firoze Jeejabhoy Towers (c) Naoroji House
(b) Mahindra House (d) J.D. Dalal Complex

Q8. WIPRO, one of India’s largest IT companies is also an FMCG player. With what business did WIPRO begin?
(a) Soaps and detergents (c) Vegetable Oils
(b) Fruit Juices (d) Hotels and Restaurants

Q9. The winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics teaches at which famous university?
(a) Harvard University (c)London School of Economics
(b) Columbia University (d) University of Pennsylvania

Q10. Karl Marx was expelled from Germany for his communist viewpoint. In which country did Karl Marx find shelter and write his Das Capital?
(a) United States of America (c) France
(b) Sweden (d) England

Q11. The rupee is the currency of India and Pakistan among several other South Asian countries. Of which country is the Rupiah the currency?
(a) Maldives (c) Indonesia
(b) Malaysia (d) East Timor

Q12. The world’s largest company, Exxon-Mobil was formed by the merger of Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp., both petrochem majors. Their common ancestor, The Standard Oil Company, was owned by the richest man of all times. Identify him.
(a) John D Rockfeller (c) William Douglas
(b) William Disraeli (d) John Stuart Mill

Q13. Who was the person with highest visibility, in terms of minutes, in television advertisements, as confirmed by a recent report?
(a) Shah Rukh Khan (c) Amitabh Bachhan
(b) Kareena Kapoor (d) Saif Ali Khan

Q14. With regard to Hollywood, which is the highest grossing film of all times (adjusted for inflation)?
(a) Gone with the Wind (c) Jurassic Park I
(b) The Godfather I (d) Ben Hur

Q15. With regard to which car did Henry Ford say “People can buy any colour as they wish to, as long as it is black” ?
(a) Ford Mustang Mach III (c) Ford Ikon
(b) Ford Indigo (d) Ford Model – T

Q16. Which of the following was not a part of the four pillars of Wall Street?
(a) Lehmann Brothers (c) Bank of America
(b) Morgan Stanley (d) Merrill Lynch

Q17. The first stocks in the world were issued for which company?
(a) The British East India Co. (c) The Dutch East India Co.
(b) The French East India Co. (d) The Portuguese East India Co.

Q18. Which is the only car to have briefly replaced a Maruti Suzuki car as the largest selling car in India ever since the Maruti 800 was introduced?
(a) Hyundai Santro (c) Tata Indica
(b) Daewoo Matiz (d) Chevrolet Spark

Q19. Who presented the first Budget of Independent India?
(a) Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru (c) Morarji Desai
(b) Shanmughan Chetty (d) Sardar Vallabhai Patel

Q20. To overcome the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced which policy?
(a) Fair Deal (c) New Deal
(b) Best Deal (d) Money Deal

Q21. In 1988, Ajjay B. joined his family business, the Amritsar Transport Corporation. Alongside ATC, his family ran another business, which was doing abysmally. Ajjay’s father gave him Rs.40 lakhs to turnaround the business, which he managed to do in two year’s time. To expand his business, he formed a JV with an Australian company. What was the name of the JV (give the full name)?

Q22. What connects the following CEOs – Time Taft of Pizza Inn, Eric Schmidt of Google and Steve Jobs of Apple?

Q23. An Indian product, whose, SI prefix meaning 109, a term coined by physist Richard Feynman. Name it.
Q24. Name of which business legend name means, “prosperous rice field” in the local language?
Q25. Who is the world’s first Chief Happiness Officer?
Q26. Ashok Todi, father-in-law of the hapless Rizwanur Rehman, owns this brand worth Rs.200 crore. Interestingly, Bengalis had voluntarily chosen to shun the product after Rizwanur’s death. Name the brand.
Q27. Which country’s central bank has misspelt the word “bank” on its new notes as “bankh”?
Q28. Who said this – “the five most dangerous words in business may be – everyone else is doing it”?
Q29. By what name is “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” now know?
Q30. X ($ infinite, 1600 plus yrs), Richie Rich ( $ 24.7 billion 12 yrs), Oliver Warbucks (10 billion, 57 yrs), Scrooge McDuck ($ 8.2 billion, 67 yrs), Thurston Howell III (8 billion, 45 yrs) are the five richest fictional characters of all time. Identify X.
Q31. Who is the lady who left her property of 5000 crore to her C.A?
Q32. There are many companies which love to hate Microsoft. The principal enemies of Microsoft are commonly referred to as NOISE (netscape, oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems and E). What does E stand for?
Q33. What is the name of Walt Disney’s first animation film for the Indian market?
Q34. Name the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard and the company headed by her.
Q35. What does “R” in Maruti Suzuki’s small car Wagon R stand for?
Q36. Which industrial house has pledged to maintain the Taj Mahal?
Q37. Who is the lifelong chairman of the institute on rural management, Anand?
Q38. Which famous economist who has produced pioneering studies on gender inequality, has always taken care to write “her” rather than “him” while referring to an abstract person?
Q39. Which was the first Indian company to ring the NASDAQ opening bell from India by a remote control?
Q40. What do you mean by ‘banglored’?

Scores of Top 6 teams:
19 - New Era Public Schools
18 - DPS, Vasant Kunj
17 - St.Columba's School
10.5 - DPS, NOIDA
10.5 - DPS, R K Puram
10 - Modern School, Barakhamba Road

The Solutions to the Inquizition Prelims

2008-11-23T05:29:00.000-08:00

Multiple-Choice Questions
Ans1. (b) The Physiocrats
Ans2. (a) Microeconomic Models
Ans3. (b) Switzerland
Ans4. (a) G8
Ans5. (d) Volkswagen
Ans6. (c) Queen Mary
Ans7. (a) Firoze Jeejabhoy Towers
Ans8. (c) Vegetable Oils
Ans9. (b) Columbia University
Ans10. (d) England
Ans11. (c) Indonesia
Ans12. (a) John D Rockfeller
Ans13. (d) Saif Ali Khan
Ans14. (a) Gone With the Wind
Ans15. (d) Ford Model - T
Ans16. (c) Bank of America
Ans17. (c) The Dutch East India Co.
Ans18. (a) Hyundai Santro
Ans19. (b) Shanmughan Chetty
Ans20. (c) New Deal

Ans21. Priya Village Roadshow (PVR)
Ans22. Annual salaries of $1
Ans23. Nano
Ans24. Akio Morita
Ans25. Ronald McDonald
Ans26. Lux Cozi
Ans27. Kazakhastan
Ans28. Warren Buffet
Ans29. Yahoo
Ans30. Santa Claus
Ans31. Priyamvada Birla
Ans32. Everyone Else
Ans33. Roadside Romeo
Ans34. Naina Lal Kidwai of HSBC
Ans35. Recreation
Ans36. The Tatas
Ans37. Verghese Kurein
Ans38. Amartya Sen
Ans39. Infosys
Ans40. When a person loses his job when his job is outsourced

Why I HATE Kritika Bajaj and she hates me

2008-11-22T04:05:00.000-08:00

I don't really think that this is as important as it was earlier. But since I said I'm going to clarify, so be it.

The background is like this : Since my bro had joined DPS, RKP in XI and he always said that it didn't help him a bit (except for the tag of a Dipsite), I decided that when the new batch of class XI students come in, I am going to show one of the students all that DPS, RKP has to offer. None of the newcomers of my section were interested.

But great things are pre-destined. When we were sitting in the quizzing SUPW, Rita Khanna divided the kids into groups of 3. And me and Kritika were the only ones left at the end. Since she was a girl, I told her "Alright, I'll make the quiz on sports and you do it on the other topic." But she went like "No, no. I'll do sports." That is Kritika for you. Absolutely stubborn. When the next tuesday came, she said "My throat is bad; you ask my questions." Typical Kritika. And one of her questions was wrong - her "legendary" experience with wrong questions had begun. But I still hadn't thought that this girl was the one I was going to help.

That moment came when the previous ECONOX came to me with a quiz and asked me who I wanted as a partner. They asked me "Do you know Kritika or Aditi?" But I was so exhilirated that I said no. While they were going, I told them "There is a Kritika in XI Q". Imagine, Aditi could well have been in Kritika's place today. But as I said before, these things are pre-destined. You get rewards for what you did before. So, me and Kritika went to ECONOMITE and we really performed beyond everyone's expectation. We came third and there was no prize for third. Another great of streaks had begun - our streak of coming third in quizzes that had no third prizes. After this, I decided that Kritika will be the one who would go with me to my ultimate fantasy - The Columban Open Quiz (the year before this, I had gone with ICG Shubham Prakhar and still not qualified. I wanted to go to the quarterfinals - me and Kritika decided that quarterfinals was our goal).

Next up was I guess the Japan Quiz. We missed qualification by a mark because of me. The MOD quiz was great. We came third in the prelims and somewhere lost the script in the finals. Ankita had joined out team by now. But we still needed a fourth person. But as soon as we came to Class XII, our luck dried up. We started losing (maybe it was because of the BAD eco quizzes). So, our team for eco quizzes dissolved and Kritika tried another unsuccessful pairing with Pranay. But we were still a Columban team. And we went to St.Columba's. And when we came second in the prelims to qualify for the quarterfinals, I had tears in my eyes. God knows how that moment is still one of the best of my life. I had redeemed the quizzer within me.

Kritika always blamed herself for being of no help in Columban. But maybe if ECONOMITE and the MOD quiz would not have happened, Columban might never have. I owe that to you, dumbo. Me and Kritika have a mentor-student and a mutual counsellor mix of relations. I guess she respects me (hope so, actually) and I am proud of her success in eco quizzes. I like people who grab opportunities and turn them into successes. Quizzing is much more difficult than the science talent searches that I topped my school in before that. And Kritika did that. We share a very deep bond and that is true. But maybe the world has become perverted to see everying in a bf-gf light. It doesn't really matter to me what people think. If its about being there for each other in crisis, we are there for each other. She still keeps on fighting with other school's kids in quizzes. I HATE that. And I HATE a lot of other things about her. She's not my perfect woman. Bipasha Basu is.

Coming Up : Kritika and I

2008-11-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

A lot of people of late have been talking about Kritika and I. They ask me "Do you have a crush on Kritika or vice-versa?" They have talked behind our backs - "is there something between the two?"

Since it is very important to quash all these rumours, but I also belive in not writing more than one post per day, this should be the topic of my next post.

But just to give you guys a preview, there is nothing really going on between the two of us. We HATE each other. We keep on screaming at each other all the time on the phone. I tell her "why are you irritating me today?" and she goes like "Tu pagal hai kya? Tera dimaag kharab hai kya?"

Behind The Scenes at ECONORM 08

2008-11-13T04:36:00.000-08:00

The ECONORM 08 was finally held on 10th Nov 08. Must say, the first half an hour was the worst period of my time. Sanskriti School was the first to arrive dot at 8:15 and we still were far from ready. By the time we wrapped up registration, two judges had still not arrived and when I reached up, i saw that they had begun the programme and I am like, "OMG, it has started!!"

I actually took the easier way out. I retreated from the AVH (left it to Nivedita) and sneaked into the Blossoms' Basement for the Inquizition and Brainstorming. These two events went off really well, but it was far from perfect. Brainstorming first. I really didn't spend much time here either. My trusted lieutenant, Sneha Chakravarthy, quite ably handled the entire event.

Meanwhile, I was with the quiz guys. After all, I am supposed to be a quizzing guy, ain't I? Anyways, in any eco quiz, 2-3 schools are always ahead of the pack. It was the same case here. New Era Public School topped the prelims with 19 points (out of 40), DPS, Vasant Kunj was second with 18 and St.Columba's third with 18. The problem was with the fourth team. DPS, R K Puram and DPS, NOIDA were tied at 10.5 and had the same scores in the tie-breaker criterion too. Initially, out of the 4 who were checking the papers, 3 were in favour of qualifying our own team. But the one gaddar, Kritika Bajaj, got three more people who favoured DPS, NOIDA and turned us into a minority. Actually, the DPS, NOIDA guys were amateur quizzers and Kritika really didn't want them to go disappointed. Thankfully, our own guys were gracious enough to understand.

But then "the controversy" happened. Modern School, Barakhamba Road came up to Kritika and claimed to have scored 11 and went on the accuse Kritika of taking out her personal grudges against them (these Modern, Bk. Rd. guys beat her in 2-3 quizzes that, in my very unbiased opinion, were a blot on the tradition of quizzing). Kritika, being the naive person that she is, entertained them by telling them where they went wrong. Those guys had written Birla instead of Priyamvada Birla and Recreated instead of Recreation (in Wagon R). We didn't give our own team a point for a mistake of $1, so why should we have given them points for 3 wrong alphabets? However, my co-president, Nivedita Singh, thought that bad blood won't really be good and we decided to hold a 5-question tie-breaker between Modern School, Barakhamba Road and DPS, NOIDA. And surprise, surprise!! Modern, Barakhamba Road scored 0 while DPS, NOIDA scored 2. You see, we don't need to take out our "personal grudges". Because we are very sure of who we are and what we want. We know that in a proper quiz (and not a joke of a quiz), we can beat any other team hands down. However, till the day the standard of eco quizzing rises, we'll be accused of "personal grudges". But we really don't blame the Modern, BK guys. When we had a problem with their quiz at ARTHNAMA and Kritika had gone ballistic, I had made Kritika apoligize because I wanted us to lose gracefully. but this chapter was closed, and closed definitely.

So, the final four teams took to the stage and we threw a lot of questions at them (you can contact me if you want the quiz questions, since many people actually want them). There was a problem in between, when New Era Public School claimed to have 5 more points than the scoreboard showed them to have. I told them to wait until the end of the quiz to clear all doubts. Well handled, I must say. Anyhow, the New Era Public school topped the finals too with I think 105-110 points. St.Columba's was second with 90 and DPS, Vasant Kunj was third with 70, I guess. The DPS, Vasant Kunj guy was supposed to be a big-shot quizzer and he was being too active on stage (interfering, I may add). He was laughed at by the audience a few times, but I felt sorry for having abetted that. I must apologise. I should not have been that rude.

The quiz was really the most acclaimed part of the ECONORM 08. The New Era and St.Columba's guy really praised it and so did Mr.Head Boy, Shubham Prakhar.

Now, once upon a time, another head boy, lets call him Mr.AJ, had told a lot of people that I would be a bad ECONOX President. Mr.AJ, as I told Nivedita Singh, it is not always about the brain and how well you plan and execute. Somewhere down the line, passion comes in. This is what I had and I had lots of it. And the success of the ECONORM proves it.

The Story Thus Far

2008-10-29T08:25:00.001-07:00

Greetings ....

So, i must confess my inadequate skills at writing blogs and must apologize for it. But then, who cares? I don't.

To begin with, it feels nice to be THE Eco guy in school. Alright, it is common knowledge that no guy (maybe with the exception of Dibyojyoti Mainak) comes close to me as far as any kind of stature is concerned. There is a lot of power as the ECONOX President (maybe less only to the EXUN President) and since I know I'm the best guy in Eco, I really have no probs in sending myself for inter-schools.

Now what makes me really believe in myself is the fact that I am very comfortable in public speaking. Gone are the days when I would shiver on stage and then mess up my speech trying to cover it up. Now, I just go on the stage and have a ball. I love public speaking and I am so damn sure that had I really come of age maybe three years ago, I would have been on top of the debating circuit. But then, never mind. I'll manage with being the best symposium speaker as of now.

Quizzing ... hehehe. I took up quizzing because I had to prove things to my very dear friend, Shubham Prakhar. I would say that I've done well for myself considering that I have been quizzing only for three years now. Maybe if I had got more time to invest in building up a team, things may have been different. I must thank Shubham for sending me for all those quizzes that he sent me for. Maybe he wasn't really being magnanimous, just professional, when he did so. But I am like a hungry wolf; I leap at every opportunity that comes my way.

As for the curriculum, I must confess that I study, maybe 30% of what I used to do in Classes VIII and IX. But I still score higher than most people in class. I really can't help that I score. Don't think of me as a bookworm because of that. Please, I am anything but that. The point is, I LOATHE the CBSE exam system. Its a pointless system. Had talent really mattered, me and Shubham would have been topping nationally, no doubt. We're as good as they come.

Anyways, a lot of exciting things are coming. (1) A symposium at St. Columba's. I am looking forward to this one. I'm sure the competition will be tough . (2) A symposium at DPS Mathura Road. Half my team will be going to Sanskriti the same day. So, my cheering squad will be depleted. (3) The Heritage India Quiz. This is what I am looking forward to the most. After all, I love history.

The Quota - does it eventually help??

2007-04-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

Everytime we protest against quotas, the government tells us that it benefits the weaker sections. But does it really help them? Even after close to 50 years of reservations, has the SC/ST member in the village benefitted? Your opinions please!!