Today has been a day of lots of thoughtful activity and culminated into recollection of my old philosophy et al. I started the day by visiting my school – Campion. It was a nostalgic visit especially because it was a ceremonious day of 26th January (Republic Day). Met almost all my teachers – and all recognized me by my name instantly – an achievement I can boast of. My thoughts went back to my school-days when I was an inspired soul who had a lot of vigour for the nation. The day has ended with news – an MLA in Allahabad (U.P.) was killed in broad daylight and his body was cremated in secrecy without even informing the family members. This was done because the police feared law and order problems if the body was handed over to the family. What was SHOCKING was that I could relate this incident to the freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s life. Even the bodies of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated in secrecy for the same reasons. This exposes a burning question of today – are we...

Its been some time since I posted on this blog; actually am enjoying siestas and TV at home in Bhopal. Its cool here . . . am enjoying the chilly winter of Bhopal after a long time and it feels great. I got a chance to see the latest edition of our school magazine ‘Campionite’ yesterday; it’s been 7 years now after ‘my’ Campionite . I was the editor of the Campionite when in class 11th, and I have always considered it as a major achievement of my life. My view was vindicated yesterday when I saw the latest edition. As I opened the editorial it started with – ‘Dear readers Namaskar …..’ – starting the editorial with Namaskar was a tradition that I started. In fact while in school, I gave many speeches and public addresses and I had developed a unique style of mine – starting every address with ' Namaskar' , rather than a good-morning or good-evening. Going further I found a contents page. This does not sound as anything peculiar, isn’t it? After all, a magazine should have a ...

Today was the 'see-off' day; Ashita, Milind, Payal, Arul, Sudhendu, Arijit and many more left for home today and I was the 'see-off' person ;). As people leave, I reflect upon my days in NITIE which have been like - ' bliss' as Josyula put it a few days ago. Fun, slogging, events, Prerana, parties, trips, time pass and placements . . . all this has left a deep imprint on me and my life (which has taken an unexpected turn towards the consulting boulevard now). While I was walking past the crowd at the Bandra terminus after seeing-off Ashita, Payal and Milind, it came to my mind that if anyone would make a movie out of our life at NITIE it could become a DCH types one .. hi hi .. I just thought out an end to this movie . . . . . . . "The camera is focused on the train compartment window where I am standing and Ashii, Payal, Milind are seen seated inside. The train starts moving; I say a good-bye to them and as the train chugs out I turn and start walking b...

Well . . .well . . . If someone is closely following my posts s/he would realise that the previous 3 posts have formed a sequel - 'How I became . . . ' sequel. But believe me this has been purely unintentional. But this is just a very very small coincidence that my life has witnessed. The last 3 posts elaborate something, something that Shubham posted on his blog about me. I quote - "This guy is unbelievable.. He’s never been rejected in any interview in his life.. not during MBA admissions.. not during summer placements.. and now, not during finals either.. It's a record very few can boast of.." Why did I quote that? Self praise? you might think so, but no - I do not intend to magnanimate myself. I am but a very very fortunate person who has since long had a terrific luck and the right people around him. But this sequence of 'no rejections' has pscyhed me out. I find it more than a coincidence that I have never needed to try a second time. Its like some...

Just back from Khetan's room, and what were we discussing ?? How much will be the variable? How much is the current rent of a 2BHK in Bandra? and what all investments options are available . . . 3 days and our topics of discussion have changed from Zameen to Aasmaan . . really !! Yes - this is just one of the indications that Placements are over - PGDIM10 is finally placed !!! I rewind back to 2nd January 2005, night 10.30 PM: I sent a multicast "KPMG closing in 1/2 hr, all interested please apply by 11PM". Kartik walks into my room and the following conversation happens- K: 'Apply kar diya?' me: Main apply nahi kar raha . . . K: kyon? me: yaar IRM ke baare mein mujhe kya aata hai?? and with so many work-ex junta what chance do I stand? K: Abe saale IRM is a very good field for a person like you. See, a consulting job is like a freelancer; an entreprenuer; you can very well handle it; you have the skills. And then Kartik went on to describe the ...

One of my friend doing his M.Tech in IIT Bombay got placed in a biotech start-up. When I gave this news to another friend he exclaimed - "I don't know why joining startups is such a craze in IITs while we MBA's always look out for established brands and mature companies!". Reflecting upon his words I came to the following conclusion also leading to a comparison of Indian and American start-ups. Management is control; managers are people who do things right, they handle day-to-day routine but never ask whether the routine should be done at all. For a business manager, a mature company offers a learning platform for best practices - in other words 'the way to do things right'. An MBA is also a quest to standardise oneself - we learn a bit of all viz. marketing, finance, operations, and even IT nowadays and learn how to do that 'bit' right. Technology however is about inovation - it is about questioning what is right and what is wrong. It is about '...

So there was I roaming around in Pune 2 days before my NITIE interview. Still ignorant about NITIE's ranking (careless chap u would say. . . well my teachers till date say the same) wasn't very keen on getting into it. The interview was cooooooool . . .rather than narrate it here let me refer you to my old webpage [ http://kulkarninet.tripod.com/tscript.htm ] . And so I found myself on the NITIE final list. It was now that I finally cared to find out NITIE's ranking and finding it in the top 10 ended up joining. I still feel I was lucky to be at the right places at the right times, more importantly surrounded by the right people. Talking of luck, even my summer placement was similar. I was very conservative while applying to companies - being a hard core IT guy - on Day 0, I had just one shortlist - went to the GD, cleared it, proceeded to the interview cleared it again. Just one shortlist, one GD, one interview and summers was through . . . Man!! I should say I am lucky. ...

Its 1st January - the new year has just started and for me with placements round the corner and NITIE life coming to an end, the new year will indeed usher in a new beginning. I was reading Manish Chauhan's Blog [ http://manishchauhan.blogspot.com/ ] and found his recent posts about friends and his lucky-and-intelligent friend Timir quite near to what's going on in my own mind nowadays; so thought why not pen it down(rather type it down). As NITIE comes to an end I am reflecting to around 1 1/2 years back. I was never gung-ho about management as a career path, actually had thought about giving GRE and doing an MS. My father kept on pursuing with me to try for an MBA rather than a techie thing - but I always thought I was made to be a techie (dunno why?). He tried for 3 years before he could succeed. It was March and he was (I could guess) tired of trying to change my mind about MS. Both of us were standing on the railway station; I was leaving back for my college after Holi ...

Its been long since my last post; it was before the last examination. After examinations I got very busy in the placement process that started immediately - am still busy, but consciously decided to take a break today and do some studies (will get back to them in a while ;P) . Also a day after exams I went to Pune for a kinda Batch reunion of college-mates in Pune-Mumbai. The trip was fun - we went to a farmhouse in Marunji village near Pune. Since then in the campus we have had atleast 20 company visits for pre-placement talks and some pre-processes as well. Placements seem to be going well this year (touch wood!). But while we have been busy with all this, the nation has been hit by one of the most disruptive natural disasters of my lifetime. The whole of East coast has been destroyed they say. I haven't dared to read any media reports in detail for the fear of aggravating tension in the already tensed mind of mine - but I can gauge this to be more than the Gujarat-Latur earthqu...

I joined NITIE a week later than my batchmates because I was yet to finish my final engineering exams. By the time I joined, the committees had been formed and elections/selections were over. So in spite of will I was left out of all committees. I hadn't even dreamt that I would be involved with any activity leave alone placement of all. Then slowly I started working - to start with it was ITS (our IT/Tech forum- now TechnoMatrix) and along the way proposed 'Online Games', which went on to become MastishK - and that was where I made a success out of a seemingly impossible task; but that's another story. Click the links below to read my posts about MastishK ['Entreplayer','MastishK Credits' and 'It must be a tough job to be a CEO!'] ( http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_the-complete-man_archive.html http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_the-complete-man_archive.html ) In January we had some reorganisation in our placement a...