The Life of Me

I have been thinking of what to write about in my next post for some days now. I haven't thought of a single thing. So, what I am going to do is let my fingers run wild. As my friend Suds says, the following are absolutely the products of the author's brain and fingers. I claim no responsibility nor the credit for such absolutely shameless rip-offs!

There was a meeting of a forum called Reflections held about two or three days back in IIT Madras. This has been organized with the noble aim of making people reflect on many things, right from general living to spirituality. Now, before you think that I am this profound guy, let me clarify that I am not. It was just that there were two talks scheduled by Prof.s who speak well. So, I went to the meeting and ended up giving my name as a volunteer. Guess this is the start of the development of my character, or, who knows, the start of a maybe long spiritual journey!

Why I mentioned the forum is that there is a discussion scheduled for September 2nd on the topic: We know that copying is wrong, but we still do it. Now, this set me thinking (however hard it may seem to imagine me thinking!) Why do we? As far as I am concerned, I don't copy. This may seem a blatant lie, so I will qualify it. I USUALLY don't copy. Maybe some objective questions, but NO subjective ones. This, however, does not mean that I do not show my answers to people when asked. I don't mind sharing the knowledge I have even during exam time. As to why I don't copy, people who know me personally can probably guess the reason - I am terribly myopic. So, it is more a case of a constraint than of choice.

Coming to my views on copying by others. I believe in the saying: Live and let live. So, if someone feels that copying is OK for him, fine by me. That probably explains why I do not mind showing my paper, apart from the fact that it gives me an ego-boost to see people wanting to see my answers! But, as was explained patiently at the meeting of the forum, this is precisely the attitude that the organizers want to change. I keep an open mind and, though I don't believe now that my present outlook actually harms anyone, I am willing to change my attitude if I am persuaded that copying is something that has to be avoided like the plague (what a sad cliche!!).

Now, if anyone is wondering as to why I wrote all this, I just wanted to sort all my thoughts on copying before I went to the discussion. And, I also guess that I can take some credit for what I've written above instead of letting it all go to my fingers. I still claim no responsibility for the copyright infringement of Sudhon's tagline!

I have been facing a lot of problems getting all the accessories up in the blog. Seems like the Computer Centre at my Institute has some serious problem with me altering the HTML code - the whole of the template code just vanishes!! Anyways, I guess I can finally rest that I gave a decent appearance overall. Anyways, what do you think of this?

Heard this during a talk a Prof. was giving:

There's this teacher who gives her 4th-5th standard students an assignment to write a short story. This is in Englad and, understandably, the teacher says, 'A good short story MUST have royalty, romance, divinity and suspense.' As usual, most students turn in the stories that their parents wrote. A small girl comes up with a two line original work. The teacher is stunned and she asks the girl to read out her story. The girl goes: "The princess is pregnant. God only knows who did it!!"

Now, that is a great example of concise writing covering all the required details. Hope I can someday get to be as good!!

As is evident from the title, I am going in for really random thoughts today. If the reader is wondering as to what the reason could be, it is just that I haven't been able to think of anything to write on. So, here goes...

First of all, I would like to talk about PG Wodehouse. I have been reading a lot of his novels lately, and a friend of mine happened to comment that she could not get past even 50 pages of any of his novels and wondered why anyone would read him. As I am sure most of my friends at my hostel would agree, there are very few people who could write so simply and yet so entertainingly. The similes that he uses, the cynical approach to the class system of Britain, the practicality of actions that his characters display and most importantly the way he packages all these are definitely the signs of a master. The multi-variegated spectrum (forgive the influence of GRE) of characters that he created - the conceited Psmith, the faltering Berty Wooster, the ever useful Jeeves, not to mention the crazy lot that people the Drones Club - is one of the best ones that I ever came across. It is a pity indeed that people find his language "tiring" (my friend again).

Moving on, I have to mention here the controversy that has been going on about there being pesticide content in the products of both Coke and Pepsi in India. Now, where people are quite used to seeing both the cola giants at each others' necks, we in India have been fortunate enough of having witnessed the rare event of these two companies joining arms and even giving not one, but two joint press conferences. Of course, the government did not spring any surprises like that, unfortunately. The Parliamentarians promptly banned the sale of the colas within the Parliament Building, but they obviously could not be expected to be bothered by what was happening to the common man - afterall elections are still one and a half years away.

Speaking of elections, we have seen another unlikely thing happening - the ruling party speaking of early elections!! I mean, in any democracy, it is the opposition that shouts for early elections in the hope of changing sides with the Treasury Benches. But, here, the president of the ruling party himself talks of the possibility of early elections. Is this a rare case of being finally disgusted with the machinations and manipulations required to stay in power while heading a 23-party coalition??

Finally, I have to thank the few readers who have bothered to go through my blog and mailing back to say that it was nice. I am still not sure whether the compliment is genuine or just given out of courtesy. I have a sneeking feeling that it is the latter case, but it sure did a lot good for my ego to have received positive feedback. Thank you!

I haven't been able to post anything here for sometime now. Well, I will do so soon. In the meantime, I am happy to say that I finally got a job. I guess that you won't be hearing me curse the placements in IIT Madras any longer.

Hello, dear reader. I now know for sure that my insignificant space on the Net has been visited by at least one soul....bored or not is another question. That did give a great boost to my ego. I shall now tell you about this nice interview I had with people from Maruti Udyog Limited. For those who don't know what MUL is, it is an originally public sector car manufacturer in India which has a collaboration with Suzuki. Now, Suzuki is the major shareholder, making MUL effectively a private company. They held this pre-placement talk in our campus, in which they stressed on how they wished to see us grow with them. To put it in their words, "we want to see you fly high with Maruti".

Now comes the best part. They conducted this psychometric test, and decided to interview all those who took the test. Whether this was due to the low number of people who actually took the test or because they could not get much out of the psychometric analysis is not known to me. But, I finally get to attend my first interview for a job. They were interviewing people down the order of their CGPA (my views on that subject are in the previous post). So, by the time my chance comes, I have been waiting there for about two hours.

These two hours did help me in finding out what kind of questions were being asked and all that. The panel was intent on paining everybody who came into the room. This, I liked, largely because I wouldn't stand out in those who did badly. So, I finally get into the interview room. Three persons, two guys and a lady formed the panel.

They asked me to tell them about myself, maybe to pass time before they decided on what questions they would ask me. The man in the middle was going through my psychometric test as well as my resume. I start, "I am basically from Hyderabad. I want to start my own company". The guy who was reading my resume looked up and asked. "your own comapny?!" And, that, ladies and gentlemen, lost me the job effectively. Now I can't go into the reasons why I said I wanted to start my own company when they were looking for long-term commitment, except that it is the truth. Well, I guess that my inability to answer all the required technical questions in a complete way also contributed to my not getting the job. But, I should say that they made up their minds when they knew that I was not prepared to live and die for Maruti.

Now, this leads me to wonder what these companies look for when they come for campus placements. I feel that most companies look for team-work and adaptability. The companies which come for managerial jobs look also for leadership. But they look for a strong individualist streak in all the candidates. So, is it that they are looking for strongly individualistic minded people who are good at team work? Do such people exist? I don't know. But, I guess these companies are sure of what they want.....then again, maybe they are not! Well, I guess that whatever happened had been for the good. I mean, what can I hope to learn in Maruti when I learned precious little academically in an institution like IIT Madras?

If I am boring anyone with my ramblings about placement here in IIT M, please forgive me, because, this is like the flavour of the month here.