Haven't posted here for a while, and the short hiatus was due to the end of the semester rush. Now that everything seems to be all set for my graduation, I have time to sit back and look back on the time.
From my time at Tech (as well at IIT), the classes that I'm going to remember are surely all the management and the humanities classes. While both my grad and undergrad degrees were at 2 of the techiest (I'm not even sure if that's a word, but that sure conveys the meaning!) schools in US and India, the management and the humanities classes were supposed to provide enough spice to balance out the geeks. While I'm not sure if we really had that many geeks (considering the varied professions my batchmates from IIT are into right now), the courses still did a very good job.
Apart from their apparently important role as discussed above, the management classes were a very interesting ground to observe the students who came from varied backgrounds. Even though I'm not a big fan of generalizations, preliminary observations in a couple of classes could help you figure out the background of a particular student (if you were a keen observer :).
For example, the students in a management class (atleast at Georgia Tech) can be (roughly) divided into the following categories:
1. The engineering student taking his first management class: Most innocent and naive of the lot, this student can be seen looking with awe and amazement at the other more experienced students in the class who are raising their hand at every other question that the professor asks to provide their opinion on and participate in the "class" discussion. The student is wondering where he has been all these years, whether he's been living in the same world as the others who seem to talk of product-process lifecycle, NIBT, ROI's etc. as if those were their first words when they were born instead of mama-papa. The student is making notes so that he can look up the terms on wikipedia, while also making resolutions to start reading the economist, the wall street journal and any other hep sounding business magazines on a daily basis, devoting 30 minutes to each magazine.
2. The engineering student taking his nth management class:
More experienced than his other engineering counterparts, this student has started participating in the class discussions, throwing in his "comment" or "observations" on the case-study in question by pointing out some technical aspect of the issue, while trying to embellish his comment with some management buzz words like "portfolio", "economies of scale" etc so that it is more palatable to the majority. This student usually provides his invaluable contribution only once or twice during the class, after which he gets back to the research paper he was reading for the meeting with his advisor, or the novel that he had to look up from at the most thrilling climaxes.
Observe that the gender used for the engineering student in general is not coz of a bias in my mind, but a safe assumption on my part that the engineering student in question would be male nine times out of ten (because this is Georgia Tech!!).
3. The MBA student who was a techie in some previous birth:
This student appears to be the most attentive in the class, coz to him it's obvious that he is probably the only one who's following the discussion in it's totality. It is not sure why he left engineering (probably the people at his old job told him that he was upper management material, coz he was spending more time hanging out with his boss than working on his seat!!), but he considers himself as an authority on all matters technical, and all things relating to business. Never the one to forget manners, this type always starts its monologue with "In my *humble* opinion blah blah blah ....." to go on and completely destroy everybody else's argument, albeit not so very humbly. Having conclusively proved themselves the master of that issue, this type does not sit back and relish the victory. Rather, they will wait attentively to jump on the next opportunity to tear apart any argument, like a hungry lion devouring a deer.
4. The MBA student with a business background:
This type speaks a language that most people don't understand, but it gives an impression of knowledge. Majority of the listeners just hear the keywords like "second-degree price differentiation", "forecasting", "market research" etc brought together by conjunctions that make them sound like intelligent sentences. A lot of people will nod when this type speaks - a sign of support, that no matter what you say we are with you. Usually very active in the class, they become a little reticent when one of the engineering majors starts speaking for too long, and sometimes have to interrupt them with "can you speak in a language understandable by normal people?", usually meaning that you haven't really adorned your sentences with enough management jargon so that it sounds boring (and complex, and over-the-head!!) for the to-be managers.
Apart the above 4 types, there is another kind - these are the ones who come to class a little late, a laptop in hand, and give you a look of coolness like they've just landed from the coolest club in Atlanta while you were wasting time on the stupid case-study deciding what a fictitious manager Joe should do about his fictitious company AlmostBankRupt to save it from going while his fictitious superiors have given him a fictitious deadline to turn things fictitiously around. Even though they aren't interested in fictitious stuff, you know they are going to be surfing the virtual world for the next 1 hour looking at weird posts and videos from anonymous people from around the world!!
So really the management classes have taught me more about psychology than business, but neverthless, they have allowed me to get through all the technical classes by providing that much needed spice every day :D
Friday, April 27, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Spring Wedding II
Continuing the saga of love, emotions and melodrama, aka, my brother's wedding, I would like to recall a famous statement by someone - "Every wedding has a drunkard, a jerk
and an asshole!" Well my brother's wedding was no different - it was the real deal in that sense :) I wouldn't elaborate on who played those three roles, but I just wanted to point out that the above statement is a very keen and accurate observation.
Well with 4 days to go for the marriage, the guests started arriving. The first to reach was Mike - my brother's friend from work who flew in from the US. I went to pick him from the airport in Delhi, and as his flight was supposed to reach in the morning, I had to make the drive overnight (it's roughly 6 hours from Ludhiana to Delhi, depending on who's driving of course!). So the taxi comes to pick me up at 2 am, and it's the most run down Toyota Qualis that I've ever seen! Well,there was nothing that I could do at 2 in the morning, so I swallowed my anger and got in the backseat. In spite of the rickety car, I slept pretty much the whole way - you can tell when you are tired! Mike's flight had already landed by the time I reached the airport. As he came to the arrivals section, I waved at him, and it took him a couple of seconds to recognize me even though we had met a few months back in California. 30 hours is a helluva long journey, and that too for someone stepping foot outside the US for the first time. Poor guy, little did he know that the most trying part of his journey had just begun!
He had asked to stop at a hotel so he could get a shower before we drove to Ludhiana, and from the little survey I had done, people had told me to get out of Delhi before getting a hotel, and also that there were decent hotels right out of Delhi on the Delhi-Ludhiana highway. Well, we stopped at the first hotel after the bypass as it had been over an hour since we had been driving, and it turned out to be one of the most rundown hotels I had seen - more like a youth hostel. I had to make a decision here - whether to shop around for better hotels and end up with something better (which I wasn't sure of after I saw this one), or to take the darned room and let Mike have a shower (or a bucket-and-a-mug that he calls it now :) ) so we could start for Ludhiana sooner. I decided in favor of the latter, but only when I actually got into the room, and Mike got into the bathroom, that I realized how bad the hotel room actually was! The curtains and the carpet were torn, the TV remote didn't work, the sheets were dirty, and well, in short, it seemed like the room hadn't been used in weeks. I didn't know then but I came to know later that even the water in the restroom wasn't clean. But well, I played along as well as I could, explaining to Mike that this was a decent hotel, and even though he must have been disgusted, he took everything very sportingly. I figured - if he takes all this on his first day in India , then he can take anything that follows on the trip :) Good reasoning, but I bet he wanted to kill me that day!!!
And did I mention - the air-conditioning in the taxi didn't work either!!
Anyways, 6 hours of a rickety ride in a rundown Qualis with no air-conditioning, and Mike was all set for his first Indian experience. I had taught him on the way how to say Sat Sri Akal, hello, hi, thank u etc., and of course some curse words in Punjabi :) Back home, he greeted my parents with a Sat Sri Akal in perfect Punjabi accent. It was funny coz they were kinda unprepared for this, and were gonna say hello how're u etc. - stuff that they aren;t used to at all. That night we went for some shopping, and didn't let Mike sleep so that he wouldn't be jet-lagged. Some day it was for the American!!!
So this was Wednesday night, and time for the first ceremony of the wedding - a kirtan that was supposed to start at 2 am!! Now I know that the Gurus recommended the Amrit Vela, early morning twilight hours before sunrise, for meditation, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't the way they intended it to happen. Most people who made it to the kirtan didn't sleep the whole night, and would have gone home to sleep for a gud 4-5 hours before going to work. I myself wasn't up till 11:30 the next morning. Probably having something at 6-7 am would have made more sense - but then I'm not the authority when it comes to decisions like this :p
I think I'll need a good 4-5 blogs to actually reach the wedding day!! Seriously - after the trip it felt I had been away for more than a month, just cause of the number of things that happened, and the emotional roller coasters that it made me go through!!!
and an asshole!" Well my brother's wedding was no different - it was the real deal in that sense :) I wouldn't elaborate on who played those three roles, but I just wanted to point out that the above statement is a very keen and accurate observation.
Well with 4 days to go for the marriage, the guests started arriving. The first to reach was Mike - my brother's friend from work who flew in from the US. I went to pick him from the airport in Delhi, and as his flight was supposed to reach in the morning, I had to make the drive overnight (it's roughly 6 hours from Ludhiana to Delhi, depending on who's driving of course!). So the taxi comes to pick me up at 2 am, and it's the most run down Toyota Qualis that I've ever seen! Well,there was nothing that I could do at 2 in the morning, so I swallowed my anger and got in the backseat. In spite of the rickety car, I slept pretty much the whole way - you can tell when you are tired! Mike's flight had already landed by the time I reached the airport. As he came to the arrivals section, I waved at him, and it took him a couple of seconds to recognize me even though we had met a few months back in California. 30 hours is a helluva long journey, and that too for someone stepping foot outside the US for the first time. Poor guy, little did he know that the most trying part of his journey had just begun!
He had asked to stop at a hotel so he could get a shower before we drove to Ludhiana, and from the little survey I had done, people had told me to get out of Delhi before getting a hotel, and also that there were decent hotels right out of Delhi on the Delhi-Ludhiana highway. Well, we stopped at the first hotel after the bypass as it had been over an hour since we had been driving, and it turned out to be one of the most rundown hotels I had seen - more like a youth hostel. I had to make a decision here - whether to shop around for better hotels and end up with something better (which I wasn't sure of after I saw this one), or to take the darned room and let Mike have a shower (or a bucket-and-a-mug that he calls it now :) ) so we could start for Ludhiana sooner. I decided in favor of the latter, but only when I actually got into the room, and Mike got into the bathroom, that I realized how bad the hotel room actually was! The curtains and the carpet were torn, the TV remote didn't work, the sheets were dirty, and well, in short, it seemed like the room hadn't been used in weeks. I didn't know then but I came to know later that even the water in the restroom wasn't clean. But well, I played along as well as I could, explaining to Mike that this was a decent hotel, and even though he must have been disgusted, he took everything very sportingly. I figured - if he takes all this on his first day in India , then he can take anything that follows on the trip :) Good reasoning, but I bet he wanted to kill me that day!!!
And did I mention - the air-conditioning in the taxi didn't work either!!
Anyways, 6 hours of a rickety ride in a rundown Qualis with no air-conditioning, and Mike was all set for his first Indian experience. I had taught him on the way how to say Sat Sri Akal, hello, hi, thank u etc., and of course some curse words in Punjabi :) Back home, he greeted my parents with a Sat Sri Akal in perfect Punjabi accent. It was funny coz they were kinda unprepared for this, and were gonna say hello how're u etc. - stuff that they aren;t used to at all. That night we went for some shopping, and didn't let Mike sleep so that he wouldn't be jet-lagged. Some day it was for the American!!!
So this was Wednesday night, and time for the first ceremony of the wedding - a kirtan that was supposed to start at 2 am!! Now I know that the Gurus recommended the Amrit Vela, early morning twilight hours before sunrise, for meditation, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't the way they intended it to happen. Most people who made it to the kirtan didn't sleep the whole night, and would have gone home to sleep for a gud 4-5 hours before going to work. I myself wasn't up till 11:30 the next morning. Probably having something at 6-7 am would have made more sense - but then I'm not the authority when it comes to decisions like this :p
I think I'll need a good 4-5 blogs to actually reach the wedding day!! Seriously - after the trip it felt I had been away for more than a month, just cause of the number of things that happened, and the emotional roller coasters that it made me go through!!!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Spring Wedding I
Posting after a short hiatus - had gone to India for my elder brother's wedding and returned to the US just today. Couldn't think of a better way to kill the jet-lagged night than to collect my thoughts about the trip and the wedding.
If I had to describe the trip in one word, it would be "hectic"!! Me and my brother, who lives in Atlanta, reached India 10 days before the wedding day. We had been told that most of the preparations for the wedding were complete, and we had to just show up and shop for our own clothes. You would think that 10 days would be more than enough to do that, right? Wrong! When in India they say that they're ready, it usually means there would be just enough time for everything to be done if you cut your sleep to 4 hours a night.
Well, it took us 7 days to figure out my brother's wedding dress - an elaborate Achkan (a traditional Indian dress that has its roots in the Mughal period) , a red turban - that is a distinctly Punjabi way to celebrate any big occasion, and a pair of intricately embroidered Punjabi Juttis - actually we bought two of them but that story will come later.
Apart from the dresses, the list of things to be done included distributing the wedding cards, making sure everything was tip-top for the three ceremonies to be held back-to-back in 2 days, while entertaining a White American friend of my brother who decided to grace the big occasion - he deserves another post for the grit and courage he showed while in India :)
The cards - well the guest list itself told a story about how the society runs in India. Apart from the usual milieu of family, friends and relatives, also on the list were people who were supposed to be related to us in a way only Indian society can figure - my uncle's sister's husband's brother's family and children, children of children of cousins of my grand parents. Not surprisingly, we have a unique name for every relation, no matter how many steps removed they are from us. Apart from the apparently related people, we had also invited people from the college which my mom runs as a principal - it included the whole teaching and non-teaching staff, the lab assistants, the clerical staff, and also the whole entourage of mali's, chowkidars, sweepers and other class 4 employees that exist in the colonial like system of government colleges in India. The amazing thing for me was that all these people actually seemed excited about the wedding, and EVERYONE showed up for the wedding and probably danced more than our family! Tells you something about the workplace in India, and about the absence of any boundaries between work and personal life.
I was assigned the cards for the staff, and packed off with one of the staff members to distribute the 100 odd cards. It took us 2 full days to go through the whole list, and I visited areas in Ludhiana that I never knew existed. It was an eye opening experience for me in more ways than one. Firstly, the people. Because I was the principal's son who was visiting, everybody wanted to leave a good impression on me. I would be invited for a cup of coffee, tea or thanda everywhere I went, and when I refused citing the number of cards still to be distributed, people would repeat the offer a couple of times, and then chide me for not taking up on it. But I would observe the look of relief once it was clear that I wouldn't be coming in after all. The amazing thing was that there were only a couple of exceptions to the above pattern in the hundred cards that I distributed. I started to get irritated with the hypocrisy of the whole thing, and I actually wanted to tell some people that well, I know you don't really want me in there, so let's not waste each other's time by going through the whole routine!
Another observation I made while roaming the streets of Ludhiana looking for the addresses was the selfishness with which buildings had been made. Sometimes to reach someone's house, I had to drive over gravel roads, pebbles, pothole laden brick roads and even kutcha paths to reach a mansion like house with gate-keepers, dogs, and with the lawns landscaped!! I haven't been able to paint a good picture of the huge contrast between the roads and those houses on the roads, but you have to see it to believe it. What I wonder is how come those obviously rich people not coax the government into action to build those roads. Every once in a while I would come across a good road that had been apparently built by some houseowner, but it would last probably the length of 2 houses. The thought that people weren't ready to spend some money or use their connections for something that would benefit not only them but everybody, was pretty disturbing. Kind of gives some clues to what's wrong with the country in general - nobody wants to invest in something that helps everybody (even if they are themselves the ones to be benefited) and propel the society forward as a whole.
I have lots more to add to the trip - will have to break this one into two or three posts. Time to hit the sack for now - Buenos Noches!
If I had to describe the trip in one word, it would be "hectic"!! Me and my brother, who lives in Atlanta, reached India 10 days before the wedding day. We had been told that most of the preparations for the wedding were complete, and we had to just show up and shop for our own clothes. You would think that 10 days would be more than enough to do that, right? Wrong! When in India they say that they're ready, it usually means there would be just enough time for everything to be done if you cut your sleep to 4 hours a night.
Well, it took us 7 days to figure out my brother's wedding dress - an elaborate Achkan (a traditional Indian dress that has its roots in the Mughal period) , a red turban - that is a distinctly Punjabi way to celebrate any big occasion, and a pair of intricately embroidered Punjabi Juttis - actually we bought two of them but that story will come later.
Apart from the dresses, the list of things to be done included distributing the wedding cards, making sure everything was tip-top for the three ceremonies to be held back-to-back in 2 days, while entertaining a White American friend of my brother who decided to grace the big occasion - he deserves another post for the grit and courage he showed while in India :)
The cards - well the guest list itself told a story about how the society runs in India. Apart from the usual milieu of family, friends and relatives, also on the list were people who were supposed to be related to us in a way only Indian society can figure - my uncle's sister's husband's brother's family and children, children of children of cousins of my grand parents. Not surprisingly, we have a unique name for every relation, no matter how many steps removed they are from us. Apart from the apparently related people, we had also invited people from the college which my mom runs as a principal - it included the whole teaching and non-teaching staff, the lab assistants, the clerical staff, and also the whole entourage of mali's, chowkidars, sweepers and other class 4 employees that exist in the colonial like system of government colleges in India. The amazing thing for me was that all these people actually seemed excited about the wedding, and EVERYONE showed up for the wedding and probably danced more than our family! Tells you something about the workplace in India, and about the absence of any boundaries between work and personal life.
I was assigned the cards for the staff, and packed off with one of the staff members to distribute the 100 odd cards. It took us 2 full days to go through the whole list, and I visited areas in Ludhiana that I never knew existed. It was an eye opening experience for me in more ways than one. Firstly, the people. Because I was the principal's son who was visiting, everybody wanted to leave a good impression on me. I would be invited for a cup of coffee, tea or thanda everywhere I went, and when I refused citing the number of cards still to be distributed, people would repeat the offer a couple of times, and then chide me for not taking up on it. But I would observe the look of relief once it was clear that I wouldn't be coming in after all. The amazing thing was that there were only a couple of exceptions to the above pattern in the hundred cards that I distributed. I started to get irritated with the hypocrisy of the whole thing, and I actually wanted to tell some people that well, I know you don't really want me in there, so let's not waste each other's time by going through the whole routine!
Another observation I made while roaming the streets of Ludhiana looking for the addresses was the selfishness with which buildings had been made. Sometimes to reach someone's house, I had to drive over gravel roads, pebbles, pothole laden brick roads and even kutcha paths to reach a mansion like house with gate-keepers, dogs, and with the lawns landscaped!! I haven't been able to paint a good picture of the huge contrast between the roads and those houses on the roads, but you have to see it to believe it. What I wonder is how come those obviously rich people not coax the government into action to build those roads. Every once in a while I would come across a good road that had been apparently built by some houseowner, but it would last probably the length of 2 houses. The thought that people weren't ready to spend some money or use their connections for something that would benefit not only them but everybody, was pretty disturbing. Kind of gives some clues to what's wrong with the country in general - nobody wants to invest in something that helps everybody (even if they are themselves the ones to be benefited) and propel the society forward as a whole.
I have lots more to add to the trip - will have to break this one into two or three posts. Time to hit the sack for now - Buenos Noches!
Thursday, March 8, 2007
bulla ki janaa....
Finally, I enter the blog world.
You may want to ask- what took me so long? Most of my friends who write have been on the blogspace for years now. I have been reading other people's stuff for n number of years. But yet I didn't take the big leap. Why?
Perhaps, I didn't have anything to say to the world.
Perhaps, I was content listening to other people.
Perhaps, the whole universe was conspiring to subdue me intto silence for some great cause.
Or perhaps, I was just too lazy.
The last guess might be your best bet given the quality that has been carefully nurtured by the best researchers and is now blossoming as I enter the third year of graduate school. Procrastination. I will refer you to PhD Comics by Jorge Cham for more interesting habits of this weird creature aka the grad student.
You may want to ask - now that I'm here do I have anything specific to say to the world? Well, coming to think of it, not really. I do not plan any great revolution on the blogspace, am not here to inspire people to do great things (or stupid ones at that, though it might be an interesting side-effect), have nothing to add to the million arguments that are taking place, or have taken place, all over the internet, have nothing against my fellow countrymen, or against the Americans, or the Iraqis for that matter.
So why am I here? Is it for the give and take of the ideas that I'm here? Or is it so that I can inflate my ego when I defend an abstract argument and 5 other people buy into my line of reasoning? Or is it to open my mind to a new form of communication that seems strange to me because of its ability to address hundreds of unknown people?
People have told me that I need direction in life. Perhaps, I need someone to throw ideas at. Perhaps, I need the world to hear whatever I have been holding in me. Or perhaps ... I'm just too darn sleepy!
I think I need to recoup to spout more frustration at the world :)
Gracias - Buenos Noches!
You may want to ask- what took me so long? Most of my friends who write have been on the blogspace for years now. I have been reading other people's stuff for n number of years. But yet I didn't take the big leap. Why?
Perhaps, I didn't have anything to say to the world.
Perhaps, I was content listening to other people.
Perhaps, the whole universe was conspiring to subdue me intto silence for some great cause.
Or perhaps, I was just too lazy.
The last guess might be your best bet given the quality that has been carefully nurtured by the best researchers and is now blossoming as I enter the third year of graduate school. Procrastination. I will refer you to PhD Comics by Jorge Cham for more interesting habits of this weird creature aka the grad student.
You may want to ask - now that I'm here do I have anything specific to say to the world? Well, coming to think of it, not really. I do not plan any great revolution on the blogspace, am not here to inspire people to do great things (or stupid ones at that, though it might be an interesting side-effect), have nothing to add to the million arguments that are taking place, or have taken place, all over the internet, have nothing against my fellow countrymen, or against the Americans, or the Iraqis for that matter.
So why am I here? Is it for the give and take of the ideas that I'm here? Or is it so that I can inflate my ego when I defend an abstract argument and 5 other people buy into my line of reasoning? Or is it to open my mind to a new form of communication that seems strange to me because of its ability to address hundreds of unknown people?
People have told me that I need direction in life. Perhaps, I need someone to throw ideas at. Perhaps, I need the world to hear whatever I have been holding in me. Or perhaps ... I'm just too darn sleepy!
I think I need to recoup to spout more frustration at the world :)
Gracias - Buenos Noches!
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