Music and Lyrics

First let me say 'welcome back' to myself. Its been more then a month and some new things have happened while I was gone. A quick update - I have started full time with Monsanto - june 1st to be precise....then I have shifted to a new appartment....what else...oh btw ...am talking with a girl sweta....it was weird that her family talked to her about our marriage and we are starting to chat...but nothing exciting yet...both of us kind of playing safe but who knows..just a heads up....anyway....now to the topic at hand:

Watched music and lyrics movie - Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore - my all time favourite. Its a nice sweet romantic comedy. Both hugh and drew have amazing chemistry and the one liners from hugh grant are nice and make the movie sweet. I guess this was my first musical movie but I liked the movie. I would rate it 8 out of 10.

The Shawshank redemption

An amazing movie...One of the best movies I have seen so far...And it has climbed up to become one of my favourites.

"Hope is a good thing,may be the best of things and no good thing ever dies"

This is one of the quotes I liked about the movie. Morgan Freeman was perfect as expected and the movie is a classic.

And by the way, I have started checking the imdb.com database and trying to watch all the movies in the list.

Got my first car!

Today I got my first car - a toyota camry. After lot of due dilligence of whether to purchase something between 6 or 7k or within 10 or 12k finally I ended up shelling a whopping 15K. I hope, I will be able to drive it for next 5 years without any problem.

Am I excited...yeah...am feeling happy, am feeling proud that I have been able to purchase a car finally. Its an amazing feeling to purchase a car all by myself.....I feel to be in 7th heaven owning my own car after 7 years out of engineering college...after seeing all my batchmates purchasing their own cars.....yo man....I have it now!!

Lot of things are happening. I got my H1 visa approved, got a blackberry and now a car.Seems like april and may are proving to be pretty good months for me.

Wired and connected!!

I got my blackberry yesterday by upgrading my plan and it seems how connected people can become and how things are changing. Soon there would be just one equipment from the six right now.

Things currently...

- 2 Laptops - Internet, TV, Movies

- 1 Video Camera - Video

- 1 Digital Camera

- 1 Blackberry

- Couple of Speakers

- 1 Sony MP3 player/FM player

To think of the blackberry almost replaces all the above and gives me much more at my finger tip.

Features that I could use are:

GPS - used already

TV - Watching CNN now

MP3 player - Exists

It won't be long before I throw my laptop also and use one of the equipments only.

Mood of the day!

“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections...."

Today I have decided to be happy at what I have and not keep on cribbing for more and forget to celebrate the small things in this world. I think my problem is I am never really happy with anything in this world....for example - I have been trying to get this job at Monsanto for the last one year and when I got it, I was not happy although I knew right from the beginning that the salary would never be good. To think again, I think what is making me unhappy is the fact that other students are getting more then what I am getting. Stop comparing and be happy for the fact that I have managed to get a job when 75% of the students have not managed to do so in this economy. Does that sound a bell??? Be happy...celebrate life and celebrate what you have rather then waiting to celebrate what you may not have in future!

Mood of the day!

"You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by......"

Well I was just thinking about all the golden moments spent at REC, Olin Business School and Hyderabad......toast to all those golden moments!

Slumdog Millionaire

I finally watched slumdog millionaire today. I have to say that the movie has been directed extremely well and it captures the audience attention right from the beginning to the end. I liked the way the whole life of Jamal has been wound around the 10 to 15 questions asked in the show. Also the innocent love story of the guy as portraid in the movie is heart warming and brought tears to my eyes. 

Few scenes catch the attention more than anything else.....the determination of the boy to jump into a shit hole, the struggle of the small kids in the slums, the will to wait for the girl in the station till she comes to meet her and finally the climax of the phone call being received by Latika. A very powerful well scripted and directed movie overall.

The final decision!

Yesterday morning was one of the most tensemorning in my life primarily because I had to take one of the biggest decisions in my life.Thanks to liju nani, she convinced me to take a decision which seems to be the correct one on foresight.

I was in a dilemma as to whether to negotiate with my manager for a salary hike, or wait for the Solutia results which seemed to be very positive at that time, or stall the decision for Monsanto further and the H1B visa in the backdrop, relationship with my manager, Monsanto vs. Solutia as an organization, current market scenario and how things might change if I postpone, how would my manager react to any negotiation. And to add to the pressure was the fact that my manager had already called twice because of the pressure from the internal candidate. 

Finally having considering all these, I decided as to what was of more priority for me and realized that H1B visa and relationship is more important for me than anything else and so I decided to return the favor to my manager who had created the position specifically for me. And then the day finished with a rejection from Solutia - unexpected really - thus justifying the decision taken in the morning. And now I can rest in peace for sometime.

Austin visit!

Since anukul and myself were there in austin along with some of his friends, so we decided to see austin a little bit. We visited the UT Austin campus, then the longhorn stadium - the collosius like construction on one side was nice, then the view of the school main building and capital was also a good view but what was the highlight of the evening was the UT austin crowd on sixth street....boy, it was like the full batch was out there partying till 2 in the night when we decided to return back...but that was like new orlean's french quarters except drinking was restricted to the pubs here....Overall the trip was pretty nice with the marriage in the day and the austin visit at night!

Prachi's marriage!

My best friend got married last weekend and it was nice to be there in austin last week to attend the marriage. She had the marriage organized in the hindu temple there and it was good to see so many people from her family being able to join the wedding. Having seen her crying and fighting with her parents for this day, I felt really happy for her...and the happiness was visible on her face. The evening reception was at Claypit and Prachi had screwed it up with the address that she sent to all the friends.But neverthless, it was also a nice get-together and Nishant- manaf's friend made them eat a lot of gulab jamoons....After staying for few more minutes, we finally wished them all the best for their future and for a happy married life.

Elections 2009 - A billion votes

The d-day has finally arrived.Its 16th april and election 2009 has reached. As portrayed by media...its a billion votes that is going to decide India's tomorrow. I wonder how many such elections will we see before we have an election which is clean, a election where the participants are not criminals, a election which does not end up with multiple parties bargaining for their self interest rather then the interest of the country.

When will we have an election where the leaders discuss about the future of the country, they share their vision about the country during the campaigning, they stop throwing mud at each other. When will we have an election where the members are not bureacrats but educated youth of India. 

Someone might say, it is easy to sit in america and make these statements. It is easy to play the blame game when I am not even casting the vote. But will my casting the vote solve the above problems? Should'nt India - a billion people say no to an election with all these problems. Should'nt the billion people say no to voting for the criminals? Is it time to say 'No' to election unless the process is initiated to change or improve? Do we need something more than election commission to cleanse the whole mess??

Am I a Kamina?

Well, if the title sounds funny to you then it is not. Just kiddin....well, lot of my friends keep on saying that I am kamina. So today I just did a quick survey among my friends in gtalk and asked few of them the same question and the answer was a overwhelming 'No'. Except for my roomie who thought yes ,others said 'No'. Result 75% No and 25% yes. Who cares what the size of the data set was :)

Landed an offer with Monsanto....

I had my interviews today morning with Monsanto's strategy and operations group. The interview was scheduled with five different people and I was scared that the internal candidate may be preferred as opposed to me. But the interviews went pretty well and my manager called at around sixish in the evening to give the unofficial word that he would be confirming the offer. It was kind of interesting that I was telling Anukul just few minutes before that , that my manager did not call and may be they have opted for the other guy. Eitherway, this might not be the best role in the company but I believe in two things - What I make of an opportunity completely depends on me and it is upto me to get the maximum out of this role. This role gives me a advantage that I can shift both towards finance as well as operations in future. So I wish myself best of luck....Way to go,Abhishek !!

Financial crisis unravelled

http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/13/27-visualizations-and-infographics-to-understand-the-financial-crisis/

What is happening now???

Game theory again....

Right here waiting for you....Richard Marx

This is one of my favourite songs.....

Olin MBA curriculum changes

My MBA is almost over and if I look back at the MBA curriculum, then these are some of the changes that would make the course even better:

1) Reduce the number of cases. The students go through so many cases, that towards the end, everybody reads the cases for the sake of answering certain questions and the analysis is very superficial. There is very little knowledge gained through those cases towards the end.

2) The cases are 20 years old sometimes - which is fine - but there should be effort to tie it up with examples of where it is applied in the current economy.

3) More focus on quantitative aspect of the case - It is generally assumed that the students will do the numbers but very few cases actually force anyone to really do any calculation. Again most writeups are more theoritical. So although we are a case based school, when it comes to consulting cases, we find ourselves at a disadvantage.

4) As a school, our focus should be to develop the reputation in one or two areas - like finance and marketting. This would help in not only attracting more companies but also help becoming the core school for such programs.

5) The school should lay more focus on business ethics. This is also one of the messages that go out to corporates that the students from Olin Business School are ethical. I think having a honor code is one way to drive ethical decision making but business ethics course should be mandatory either during core or in the orientation program.

6) Ensure that the students, professors and career center are aligned to a common objective.

       As I see currently, these are the objectives :

Student - Learn the concepts and get a job. Getting a job is high priority

Professors - Help children learn the concepts and deliver better research work. Better research work is high priority or may be it is balanced.

WCC - Prepare students to get a job. Don't care of what students learn.

So I see a objective misallignment.

One way to align better is to have the WCC to work with the professors and after a course is over, the WCC should come in picture and highlight how this course would help in job search,interviews and interview questions related to the course, the professors and WCC should get a alum who would speak as to some applications of those in the industry.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And treat those two imposters just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, 
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breath a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; 
If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Game theory!

Its fun to not only apply game theory and see the payoffs and incentives to cheat to maximize their payoff but also try o predict from their conversation as to who is going to cheat. Their face expression, eye movement, lot of over acting are good predictors of who would select steal.

Another opportunity lost!

The wait is over. I did not make it to the associate program. Well am I frustrated? Yes...but I need to get myself together and focus on the next interview in my hand. Need to have a stong mind. I can and will do it.

Its an agonizing wait!

The results for the interviews were due on April 6th and its 7th afternoon today. The wait has been agonizing and horrible. I hate waiting for things. I like to take the bull by its horn and deal with it directly. But now as time passes by, the hope of getting a positive result slowly meanders away. The mind keeps on going back to the interview day and looks for things that would have gone bad and things that had gone good. But as I wait, the bad seems to have a higher say over the good. Well, I am still keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that something might come out of it positively. Hoping for the best!

Ticking tax bomb?

I think, tax bomb is very evident and would eventually explode. With a deficit of two trillion, the government has to collect money from someone. And the only source for the government would be the taxes. Now the government plans to collect it from the top 2% of the society and slowly this is going to expand to include a greater segment of the society.

After the world war, America had witnessed tax rates as high as 90%. Are we going to see such high rates again? The answer could be very well a emphatic yes.

But some of the things that would happen as a consequence is a case of lot of people finding out alternatives to not filing their taxes. A tax avoidance industry will prevail and this would be something which existed in India before the taxes were reduced and simplified. Besides if the rich are taxed a higher rate, it will also result in reduction in the number of rich people as they would gradually have no incentive to earn. That will reduce the number of entrepreneurs and finally result in an overall economic slump. Are we seeing something similar to what Aynn Rand portraid in her nover Fountainhead? 

Grading the president's performance

Below is the CNBC discussion on Obama's performance in the G20 summit in london this week.

I think, Obama did pretty well in his first international summit. He had two things to proove - one he had to display his charisma, charm and show that he as a president is the right man to lead america during this crisis and two he had to get the world to a common platform and stop blaming the US for everything. And he did both quite effectively. By coming out as very honest and down to earth and willing to accept the blame, he was able to achieve both. I think Obama is correct in accepting the fact that US can no longer be the bully but has to accept the new world order of co-operation and solving the world crisis together. He did that pretty well in the summit and that won him lots of points globally.

Problem with Geithner's plan

As per the new Geithner plan, the Fed is going to partner with private investors and treasury to take care of the toxic assets in the balance sheet of banks. As per the plan, while the treasury and private investors will have equal equity stakes in the assets, the fed will be providing loan to support the rest of the toxic assets. 

The idea is that the treasury and the private investors will bid to set a price for the toxic assets and who ever wins the auction will own it at that price. The assumption is that the auction will help discover the correct price of those assets. 

Now the banks will be provided by the cash instead of the toxic asset and thus cleanse their balance sheets and be solvent again.

Now the plan has lots of negatives at this point:

1) When the private investors are currently not ready to pay more than 30 cents on a dollar, why would they be willing to pay more then that as part of this scheme. Besides there would be no reason why they would be willing to invest money in a scheme where the probability of losing it is very high.

2) The other scenario is that the banks may partner with private investors and have them support the scheme on their behalf so as to cleanse their balance sheet. This would mean that the bank takes money from fed and give it to the private investors to invest for them. This will result in bank losing a tenth of the amount to cleanse their assets. So this is eventually giving the bank a huge empty check from the tax payers money.

3) Now if that is the case, then do other private investors know that this scenario  is evident and is that a incentive for everyone to participate. This is because the payoffs are definitely very high if the scheme goes through.

Eleven Surprising Stock Market Indicators

Some really funny indicators....my favorite is the hem line of skirts corelation with market.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29257460

Recession blues!!

Recently there has been a spate of killings in US and I think that can be atributed to the current economic recession. With increased job losses, people are more frustrated and depressed and eventually commit crimes that they would otherwise not have done.

It would be interesting to see if such behavior was highlighted in the past recessions and should the US police become more active and be more vigilent as the recession enters its 18 months?

Resolution - One topic expert in a month

As I read the novel, I dare you....one thing that I have decided to do to increase my mental power is to select a topic and be an expert in that industry in a month. Atleast put the effort to know more about the topic then others around me.

Since the auto industry crisis is on currently, my topic for April is on Auto's. Let me see how I come out of April as an auto expert.

I dare you!

I am reading this novel "I dare you" by William Danforth currently. Before I go ahead more about it, I must say it is a must read for everyone.

I have read halfway till now and it basically tells about the importance of phisical exercise and mental exercise to succeed in this life. Apart from that, it stresses the importance of sharing things for them to grow.

Having read halfway, I have thought for myself some of the things that I will try and change in my life.

1) Live healthy - Some of the basic things that I would start doing for that for the next couple of months till they become a habit are:

a) Sit straight

b) Walk Straight

c) Study on the table.

d) Eat breakfast

e) Start by exercising every morning - stretches.

2) Think healthy - Some of the basic things that I would start doing for that for the next couple of months till they become a habit are:

a) Select a topic and become an expert on that or atleast try to know more then anybody else on that topic in a month.

b) Write a blog everyday on something current.

Some of the things that I have changed at the moments or trying to change are:

- Trying to sit straight

- Sitting and studying on table - This is how I will clear CFA if I clear it.

Trip to Indianapolis....

I just came back exhausted after a fun trip to Indianapolis. It so happend that Anukul and myself were chatting around 11.00am in the morning regarding planning to do something for the weekend or atleast in the evening. He said he was bored of staying inside for a week as I was preparing for my Monsanto interview.

Then we realized that Ankur had taken a new car and we could ask him for going on a drive. And so we started thinking where we could go. Chicago was ruled out as it is too far away and so the next closest place was Indianapolis. I proposed and he agreed and we were calling Girish and Ankur and after initial 'No' both of them were game for it. By the way, did I tell that there was a winter warning for St Louis and adjoining areas and it was raining pretty heaviliy here at St Louis also. And so as usual, my red jetta did not start because of the rain and so Ankur and Girish, Dia decided to come and pick us up. So here we were, ready to leave for Indianapolis, without any idea of where we were going and without any plan as such.

Anyway, the four hours in the car was fun. It was a different feeling sitting on the back sit rather then driving all the way. So had fun joking and pulling each other's legs....basically ankurs. On our way , we decided that since we were driving for four hours, what is the point of coming back and so stayed at Super 8 motels...deciding after few phone calls after reaching Indianapolis. Its amazing how technology has made things so easy. After refreshing for a few minutes, we went out to roam around the downtown.

After lot of discussion, we decided to have dinner at P F Chang. The food was really good and delicious. The fortune cookies made anukul and ankur...partners for life and Ankur finally knew that he saw "rab...laughing budha"...in anukul. After the dinner, we headed out to have a walk around the downtown and saw the memorial. The clouds and the lights and light rain created a beautiful view.Check out the pics. When all of us were almost freezing, we decided that enough was enough and headed for Sub Terra. The pub was pretty good with nice music. A little bit of dance till late in the night and we headed for home. I knew I was going to fall sick by that time because I already had a little cold in the morning. 

The next day we headed for south indian restaurant near by...Uduppi. I have to say...although it was veggie...the food was really good and authentic. After a heavy brunch, we went to the motor sport hall of fame and I was flooded with memories of 2005 when I was there in the stadium watching the last F1 race in the stadium. But this was from the other side and it was different to be on the tracks, on the podium and the media center and where all the VVIPs sit. It was around 3 by that time and we were on our way back. I was feeling sick and I slept almost all the way. Oh by the way while coming back, we happen to see two cars colliding right infront of us while taking the exit. So all of us were shocked for a while but then we went ahead and reached home safely...ofcourse now that I am writing this..u know I have reached home.

Benefits of Recession!

1) Some of the brightest people go back to India which is an example of reverse brain drain .

2) This could be the turning point for a shift of power from US to China. China being the most powerful and economic superpower would also benefit India in terms of proximity effect.

3) This is an economic tragedy that significantly increases the chances the next Intel or Cisco Systems will launch outside the U.S.," Wadhwa wrote.

4) The economic recession will only boost outsourcing further.

5) Fewer Indian students would plan to come to US and would prefer staying in India.

Places visited!

While sitting on the airport, Prachi said that a friend of her had a dream to visit 30 countries by the age of 30. That made me to think of the different places I have visited till now and do I know much about those places to engage in some small talk. So the purpose of this blog is to think back about all the places I have visited and recollect something special about those places.

Places visited in India:

1) Bhubaneswar

2) Hyderabad

3) Bangalore

4) Goa

5) Mumbai

6) Pune

7) Delhi

8) Chennai

9) Kolkatta

10) Cochin

11) Trivandrum

12) Trichi

13) Mangalore

14) Manipal

15) Puri

16) Rourkela

17) Ranchi

18) Jamshedpur

Places visited in US

1) Wausau

2) St Louis

3) Chicago

4) Niagara

5) Washington DC

6) Heuston

7) San Francisco

8) Omaha

9) Dallas

10) New Orleans

11) Springfield

12) Las Vegas

13) Minneapolis

14) Milwaukee

15) Champaign

16) Lubbock

17) Atlanta

18) Gatlinburg

19) Indianapolis

20) Wisconsin Dells

21) Madison

22) Muscatine

These are all the places I have visited so far. I will be posting more on this blog going ahead.