5 places I love and 5 places I hate

So yours truly started thinking of his five favorite locations last night. Without further ado they are -

1. Delhi, New Delhi - I guess you can take the Punjabi out of Delhi but you can't take Delhi out of the Punjabi. No trip complete without a visit to my favorite tandoori chicken place in CP.

2. Kolkata - big city with a small village feeling. Some place where you can still eat a meal for 5 rupees.

3. Digha - The most beautiful seashore in the world. For those who don't know this place, its 250 km from Kolkata.

4. Konarak - The scale of the sun temple. The drive to Konarak from Bhubaneshwar. Amazing.

5. Santa Cruz - What a drive from San Jose. Nice vistas, nice boardwalk. Good food.


The 5 worst places (in decreasing degrees of shittiness)-

1. Pilani - You have never seen a turd-town till you see Pilani. 50C in summer and -5 C in winter. Locust swarms in spring.

2. Fontainebleau - How much Turkish kebabs can one man eat in a year?

3. San Jose - Amrikan equivalent of Pimpri-Chinchiwad. Get the idea?

4. Bangalore - Damp weather. Perpetual sore throats. Water that makes you go bald. Traffic and crime to beat any place. Unfriendly and annoying people.

5. St. George, Utah - The only place hotter than Pilani. And, with no alcohol.

To blog or not to blog

Yes that's the 64,000$ question isn't it?

I had taken a much needed hiatus from blogging. After a furious November and a productive December came ableak January and a writers-block filled February. March, April and May were no better. The only upside is that so many people wrote to me asking me to start blogging again. Thank you for your kind sentiments. I didn't know that so many people from Addis Ababa to Zambia read this inane blog :-)

So I am back and pledge to make a post or two every few days.

New FT MBA Rankings

Being Numerate (reducing everything about the school to a number), Competitive (with other business schools) and Obsessive (obsessed with the rank), I can't give up this opportunity to give a shout out for the new FT rankings that were released a few days ago.

Yes! Insead is at #7 and has moved up one spot. This is the first time in 3 years that we seem to be headed in the right direction. The new dean, improved facilities and much-improved placements seem to be responsible.

Although, based on the quality of the teaching/professors, I would say we easily belong among the top 1-2 schools globally :-)

What does it take to make it to the top?

Your truly has certainly had a less-than-stellar career so far. And all indications are that the future holds no promise as well.

Nevertheless, I would like to think most of the lack of success has been due to conscious choices which you have to make. Sure, there are some factors that are beyond an individual's control but to a large extent, one can control where one's career is headed.

So here are the "top 7" things that you need to get to the top. As they say, those that can't do anything teach and preach :-)

1. Tons of luck - you have to be at the right place at the right time. You have to join the right company when its expanding for instance.

2. A "Godfather" - Call it "mentoring", "kissing up", "sucking %*#%" or whatever else but without someone up there who likes you and helps you make the right moves, you can't get anywhere.

3. Smarts - Not bookish, nerdy smarts but street-fighter smarts. Who to play off against who. How to ambush your competitors. How fast you crunch that excel sheet doesn't matter. Can you explain the theory of relativity- who cares.

4. Looks - Ever wonder why CEOs and other top execs look a certain way? The clean-cut, gelled well groomed, went to the gym good look counts for a lot. People make snap decisions when they meet you and looks can make a big difference.

5. Education - Not "what you know" but "where you came from". The US east coast Ivys, the prep schools, the Oxfords and Cambridges all operate in very tight networks. Ever wonder why most PE/ hedge fund types come from certain schools?

6. Ability to be a chameleon - You might be comfortable sitting on the floor in your undies eating food with your hands but you better start wearing that Zegna suit and that Hermes tie and eating Foie Gras if you wanna fit in. And, putting on a upper-class British or American accent doesn't hurt either.

7. Putting in the hours (never) and making a show of putting in the hours (always)- When leaving at 3:30 pm, leave your computer on, forward all calls to your cell phone and drape your jacket over your chair. Have a few beers, swing by the office at 11:30pm and leave a few messages. And most importantly, while on vacation, keep sending emails and messages from your Blackberry to show that you're on the ball.

So here you go. Seven ways of making it to the top brought to you by someone who most certainly won't be joining you on your journey there. Good luck and Godspeed :-)

MBA = Numerate, Competitive and Obsessive

If there is one word that describes the graduates of top MBA programs it has got to be numerate. Reducing every thing in life to numbers and then using the numbers to make your self feel miserable is a uniquely top-MBA trait.

For instance, how much do you make? What’s your bonus this year? How many babies do you have? How many mistresses do you have? How many times do you get laid a week? How many people do you manage? How much does your car cost?

Reducing everything to simple numbers allows for easy comparisons. For instance, I am sick of my job and my life sucks and I would rather be getting a root canal than working but I just made a $100,000 bonus yippee! Or, my wife absolutely hates me but I had sex four times last night. Yoo-hoo!! Or, my kids will inherit my genes (yikes) but I just had my 8th (legitimate) child.

Now this would still be ok. After all, we can’t really expect graduates from business programs to be able to retain much more information in their bird sized tiny craniums can we? But it doesn’t stop here...it’s also Competitive.

A more typical conversation would probably go like this- I just made a $100,000 bonus and you made what only $75,000. Shit. Ok what’s the average in our class this year? What $200,000? Holy crap, I’m just a piece of shit. Oh Lord please put me out of my misery. Why don’t I get run over by a car. Oh why is life so unfair! Aaaaaarggghhh.

Or how about this nugget- What!!! He made level 2? Jeez how the hell am I just a level 0. Life is so damn unfair. I do all the work. I have all the brains. I am even better endowed. Booohooo.

And then there’s the final trait which needs no explanation- Obsessive. Obsessed with money. Obsessed with clothes. Obsessed with gadgets. Obsessed with sex. Obsessed with looking good. Obsessed with being numerate. Obsessed with being competitive. Obsessed with being obsessed.

Not a very happy bunch eh?

Loin (oops Lion) in the Lion City

Looks like the irresistible Mr C will be in the lion city next week. These stupid Ajit jokes always pop into my head when I hear the word Lion for some reason. Except that he always used to pronounce Lion as Loin- which as you all know is something completely else.

Talking about Loins, one of my friends from Lo(i)ndon has gotten so enraged with recent inane comments on his inane blog that he has enabled comment moderation. So I guess we are now unable to post any comments on his blog unless these comments comply with his aka big brother's sensibilities.

Kinda takes the whole free out of free speech doesn't it?

An inspiring interview

Just finished reading the third part of this three part series of interviews. I have to say, it is one of those rare candid interviews which surprises you in terms of the simplicity of the interviewee and of his responses. And yet, it blows you away and inspires you on some level.

Here are the links to all three parts. It's a must read-

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/17inter.htm

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/17inter.htm

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/19inter.htm

Now we have Abhiwarya?

Conjugating names of celebrity couples is a passion of the tabloid press in the US and the UK. Brangelina and Tomkat being the most popular ones.

And now, the very very original Indian media has come up with Abhiwarya. Very Noice as Borat would say. Very very noice.

PS: I had the misfortune of seeing Borat last weekend. Despite it winning a golden globe, I have to say that it was a little over the top in terms of tastelessness. (And as all of you know, yours truly is not the most tasteful person around).

Mercedes in a gift catalog?

We are all used to seeing small trinkets, shoes and clothes is gift catalogs. But recently, Saks Fifth avenue tied up with Daimler Chrysler and offered this 2007 model year car as a signature piece priced at an extremely affordable $145,775!

Only 20 cars were offered and they were all sold in ...7 minutes! Not 7 days or even 7 hours but 7 minutes. Damn, those finance industry bonuses are making their presence felt everywhere!!!

For the rest of us lesser mortals who don't have hedge fund/private equity/banking jobs, we can download screensavers of this magnificent beast that packs 510 hp and will go 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds.

Enjoy.

Indian Obsession Part 2

I thought I would clarify my thoughts from the previous blog post further. It's not about what passport you hold or whether you speak with an Indian accent. (Although the bastardized Indian-American accent from Jersey or the Bay Area is the singularly most disgusting thing one can ever hear).

I think it's about "karmabhoomi". For those of my friends who are not native Hindi speakers. This word literally means "The soil where you work". In other words, the geography where you achieve your greatest successes. If you look at the examples I had given-Nooyi and Mittal, both of these luminaries achieved whatever they had to outside India.

Thus if India was not their "karmabhoomi", how can we realistically call their successes Indian successes?

Indian Obsession

Pick up any Indian newspaper or surf through any Indian news channel and you will likely see a shot of Sunita Williams-the astronaut who just went into space. Most probably the article or news item will rave about her and rightly so, for she is a most talented woman. But for once get your facts straight people, she ain't Indian. She's as Indian as peanut butter and jelly.

I mean what the hell is this Indian obsession with using every possible excuse however small and making an Indian connection out of it. Lakshmi Mittal-Indian even though he doesn't have a single steel plant in India. Sunita Williams- Indian via one distant Indian ancestor. Indra Nooyi-Indian because she was born in Chennai. Sant Singh Chatwal-Indian because he sells Tandoori Chicken in his restaurants. And it goes on and on and on...

This has actually begun to remind me of the cold war days when the USSR claimed that every single thing was invented by the Soviets. I think they even claimed Shakespeare's plays at one time!

I mean people what the hell is your problem. India has enough home-grown success stories. We have the Murthys, the Manmohan Singhs, the Tendulkars and a million other praise worthy citizens to look up to....does a country of a billion talented people need to artificially create icons.

Pathetic!

Why do we dream?

This is something that has been bothering me for a while so I put it out for my more learned friends. I have been searching for a explanation and somehow in all the neuro-psychological gibberish that medical journals spew out, I haven't been able to find a simple answer.

And why do some of us dream in black and white and some in full color. Do we hear or feel auditory stimuli when we dream? Do animals dream? And what do they dream about? Do dogs dream about chasing cats and juicy bones? Do insects dream? And finally the biggest question of all, do blind people dream? And what do they "see"? Do fetuses dream?

The word "dream" is also probably the most overused word there is. For example Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech. I dream of Jeannie. Its my dream. Dream job. Dream vacation. You're dreaming! Day dreaming. Dream-team.