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M N Nambiar has passed away!

Hey folks!

It’s been a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally long time since I posted on this blog. Partly because I was trying to prepare for my MBA entrance exams and partly because I wanted to give a long break and see how much I missed blogging.

The last two-and-a-half months have been really good. Did a lot of things, met a lot of people, learnt a lot from precious experiences in life.

These are some of the things I did/learnt-to-do.

1. Learnt how to diagnose hardware problems and isolate them to the correct hardware on my desktop. Proved to be quite useful when my RAM didn’t work and when I had to change the battery of the CPU Clock.

2. Learnt a lot about journalism, how things are done in print media, what all background work has to be done to get oneself a news story.

3. Learnt that your background made no difference when it came to competitive exams. Found a guy who studied Cartography but is far better at Quants than I am!

4. Made a quiz for the SIT.

5. Worked on a good promotional presentation for the SIT. But dropped it because Ravi Chaitanya wasn’t available for consultation!

6. Finally, I’ve learnt how to remain silent about things and/or events and stay underground for as long as required.

Now, the nice people I’ve met.

1. Vijay Prabhat Kamalakara: Vijay is an entrepreneur and runs Storytrails India. I liked his company’s base idea and met him in person. Had a good discussion. Somehow we were impressed with each other and I tried my best to help him out in whatever way I could. He’s a really nice guy. Graduated from IIM Indore, but won’t mention a word about it unless you ask him.

2. Dr Mohan Rao: He’s one of the new members we got for the SIT as a result of that TOI news item. He’s a Senior Laproscopic Consultant at Malar Hospitals. One of the most humble and youthful persons I’ve seen! Brainy, has a different perspective towards everything in life! When he’s around you hardly feel he’s part of the previous generation! He’ll know someone everywhere be it Anna University or RadioOne!

3. Shyleswari Rao: She’s Dr Mohan’s wife. I’d say they’re a perfect couple! They gel well into any crowd whatever be it’s diversity/taste. She’s a HR trainer/Consultant and specializes in Behavioral Training/Research. Both Dr Mohan and Shyleswari add so much value to our (otherwise 20s perspective) discussions and are highly approachable in times of need!

4. Kisu Kisu Geetha: KKG is such an interesting person! Of course that isn’t her name. I’ve been asked to keep her identity a secret. KKG is the name of the show she did on Suryan FM from 2004 to 2006. Now, however she’s in a plum job at the World Bank! She’s a dancer, a trained Kalari fighter, a good singer and an aspiring manager! A very very good humane as well. Didn’t know her much till I referred a job from BIG FM to her. Eventually she didn’t take it but we became good friends!

5. Neeraj Agarwal: Neeraj is the guy who I sit with (mostly) during my TIME sessions. He’s the typical happy-go-lucky North Indian that you see in Hindi movies! Very helpful, very very cheerful and sometimes scores well in tests

6. Jay Patel: Jay is the Marketing Manager at Mozilla Corp, USA. I did not contribute much to the Firefox in India community until I graduated. Once I decided to put my internet activity on hold, the only real pastime that I had was to see what people posted on Mozilla’s forums and reply accordingly. Jay gave me a very good personalized letter of appreciation and I’m very grateful to him for that! Now, he’s also extended an offer for me to become a Mozilla Campus Reps Organizer. Dunno what that means as of now. Hope it’s something exciting. Jay is a very dynamic, young, marketing manager. Much like Aneesh Nair* at WorldSpace!

7. Pramodh Kumar, Ganapathy, Shankha Basu, Tapan Malhotra: These are people I spoke to regarding applying to various institutes. Pramodh and Ganapathy study at IFMR, Shankha at SP Jain and Tapan at XLRI. I am impressed by the amount of humility these people possess. Each one has excelled in his own way but would never tell you what he has done in life so far unless you specifically ask for it.

CAT

Apart from the people I’ve met in these 2.5 months, people like Sowmiya, Pavithra, Vaidehi, Ash, Arun, LVS , KKG, Akshaya, Sriram and Srinath have been very very supportive. Everytime I had a doubt or was down and out, they were always there to get me back on track. I’m very grateful to them for all that and I promise to be there with them during their tough times wherever I am and whatever I’m doing at those times! As for CAT, It hasn’t gone too well. Though I can still get thru some of my backup instis like BIMTECH, my dream instis like MICA, MDI, IMT-G are ruled out now. Of course, there are a lot more exams left and there’s a lot of stake left. Sunday is my day! It’s just a question of which Sunday it is, in the coming month!

Otherwise

I’m beginning to miss college life like anything. All that fun, frolic, entertainment, exams, culturals, vacations, results, agony, happiness! Wish I could go back in time once! Arun, Navneeth and Sudhir have gone to the US to chase their dreams and Sundar has gone to Infy. Raja is absconding and Praveen is busy staring at girls and trying to hit on them at his workplace. Life is a bit difficult when you have only Naveen to talk to!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. As for the post title, I wanted a lame excuse to continue my habit of writing a PostScript. Hence, the sad news!

* Aneesh Nair is the Marketing Manager for the southern region at WorldSpace India. People who worked with me during Rapture would remember the tough time we had convincing him into partnering with us! The guy has many cellphones and is always on the run

Life eej Hard?

It’s been a very long time since I wrote a blog post, let alone a meaningful one.

Have I lost interest in blogging? Have I no time? I really dunno. I’m not able to draw the line as to why exactly it’s been so.

Anyway, a lot of things have happened since then.

AUG 3rd 2008: I get hold of about 90 odd mock papers from Pavithra’s place.

AUG 4th 2008: I devise a plan of action for the next 3 weeks.

AUG 5th 2008: Implementation of the plan starts.

AUG 11th 2008: Infosys decides to call me for joining on Sept 8th 2008.

AUG 12th – AUG 24th 2008: I’m stuck in the worst dilemma of my life, so far.

AUG 14th 2008: I fill up and send the application for for MAT. There are no colleges worth applying under MAT. I’m just taking it to stay in the ‘exam mood’.

AUG 15th 2008: Landmark Quiz! yay! Going for a quiz after a really long time with LVS and Teal. We get about 21 on 40, a record high w.r.t our team.

AUG 16th  2008: The Times of India (Chennai Edition) carries a news story about the Society for Intellectual Thinking.

AUG 17th and AUG 24th 2008: A lot of new members of all ages and from all facets of society turn up for SIT meetings. Srinath and I are happy that things have finally kicked off big time!

AUG 24th 2008: I take the firm decision to set the Infosys offer aside and prepare hard for an MBA this year. A very difficult decision at this point in life for me. Also, a very difficult decision for the over-cautious and impulsive decision maker that I am. [ Of course, as always, I have the bus tickets to mysore and my Infy call letter hard copy. I can still take the offer if I want to! ]

Today, my typical day has a mock test from 9 – 12 AM, Sleep from 1 – 3 PM, Sectional workouts from 4 – 6 PM, TIME’s Crash Course from 6 30 – 8 30 PM, Sectional workouts from 10 30 PM – 2 AM. Finally, Sleep from 2 01 AM to about 8 AM. I squeeze in the Mock paper correction and analysis somehow somewhere in the middle.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. This time I’m skeptical about the fact that I won’t be able to score very well in CAT 2008.