Disjointed Outpourings

These days, the only cool things about having been a banker are...

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:45:00 +0000

......

1. You (used to) have a shitload of money
2. You (still are) an excel god, leaving others slack-jawed as you rip through an 80MB LBO file in 10 min flat...here's a shout out to all the (ex) bankers...yes, Slater, you too:-)

Winding down and ramping up...

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:37:00 +0000

I’m at a loss – where do I start? Time flies by so fast at Wharton and so many things are compressed in such a small chunk of time that it becomes impossible to even try to condense everything interesting that I did, into the blog.

At the same time, there’s a growing realization that this time at Wharton is going to end very soon. This is a period of my life that has been probably the most exciting, fulfilling, stimulating and intense of all the phases I’ve lived. While a small part of me wants it to end and to get on with life as usual, a larger part shrinks in horror at the thought of usual life outside of school. The job that starts in September (exciting as the profile…and the money sounds), the end of classes in May (tough as they are to even pass!), the dispersing of friends to their parts of the world, the humdrum of life that begins after Wharton – these are all things I’m SO not looking forward to now.

I realize that I’m dreading something that is 6 months away. All good things have to come to an end and I guess I must continue living by my mantra of carpe diem and enjoy every moment left here to the fullest.

Come winter break, I stop to breathe and go over all that went well and not so well this semester.

Things that went spectacularly well:

Relationships:made new friends and solidified all existing relationships into a lifelong mode. Wharton has been a huge surprise – coming in I had never expected to forge more than a working/professional relationship with people. That expectation has been turned on its head. I’ve made more personal and emotionally entrenched friendships that I’ve ever made in the last 8 years since I started my first job. The extremely team-intense atmosphere at Wharton seems to fuel this – everything is about collaboration and support here.

Academics: haha, I never thought I would claim a spectacular academic run at Wharton, but this semester has been especially kind. I attribute it to the fact that I picked up all subjects that I was genuinely interested in

Photography: Yay! I actually took a course in photography at UPenn! At Wharton we’re allowed to take a non-Wharton course every semester in the University of Pennsylvania. I’d never thought that I’d have the guts to take up an extra credit of work on top of all the Wharton stuff to take up something I really loved. So that’s a huge achievement for me.

The course that I enrolled for was extremely painful. It was back to basics – black & white photography with a manual camera, processing your own reels and developing your own prints. I always thought of myself as a bit of a photographer because my digital camera could take great pictures.

This course was a truly humbling experience. When you go back to making compositional choices that you do not know the outcome of, you’re tempted to whip out the digital cam. When you work on your prints in the darkroom to an extent that you suddenly discover that you spent 2 hours ‘burning and dodging’ a single photograph just to get that perfect effect, you realize that this was really much more than you could chew. And then you spend another 2 hours in perfecting that picture that you’ll probably want to hang in your living room and puff your chest up while showing it to gawking visitors.

You suddenly realize how silly and stupidly easy digital photography is when you struggle to loop your film around the processing tank in complete darkness, or when you see your photograph come to life in the developer tray in that cold, dull-red lab. And of course, when you spend close to 3-4 hours trying to perfect each photograph in the lab is when you realize that good photographers of the yore were truly 'da shit'.

This course was probably the most intense course I’ve taken while at Wharton but at the end of it, I’m proud to say that I know a teeny bit about real photography. At the risk of sounding like a manual photography snob (I can finally identify with them!), I think digital photography is not a skill at all – you put a good digital camera in the hands of a 5-year old kid, and she’ll come up with a great picture.

Yes, I’m taking another advanced course in photography next semester. No, I do not have the time to scan the pictures from my final portfolio submission and put them up here – not for the next 6 months atleast. Yes, I did a nude photoshoot too. No, it was not fun – especially when I spent an entire weekend in the lab trying to get the right skin tone. I’m now seriously considering having a proper darkroom and lab in my house when I finally settle down.

I love my antiquated manual cam!!

Wharton

India

Club: We had resolved to make the club a really happening one on campus and we’re well on our way to it. I was lucky to have an awesome, awesome team and we managed to pull off the best parties and better first-year mentoring than ever in the India Club. We also did an interview with NDTV about the mood on campus in the face of a recession (link here: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=41808). Of course it helped that all of us giving interviews had jobs we wanted…otherwise the mood would have come across as really somber! Personally, organization of the Wharton Incredible India trek which brings 75 Wharton students to India during winter break was my biggest individual achievement in the club. The coordination started in September and by November, was taking up 80% of my time on a weekly basis. Planning and executing a perfect trip for 75 non-Indians across

India

to make sure that they got a great flavor of the country was the most daunting non-academic task I did this year.

Travel: this semester was pretty good from a holiday point of view. We managed to take 2 quality breaks. 4 days at Puerto Rico and 4 days in Las Vegas/Grand Canyon.

Puerto Rico was actually really good – three times warmer than East coast and umpteen times lovelier. Our hotel had a private beach and a variety of swimming pools/Jacuzzis and we spent most of our time in the water. One day we took a snorkeling trip to an island nearby. I’d never snorkeled before in my life and this was definitely the highlight of my entire trip, seeing coral reefs and beautiful shoals of fish swimming in the water all around you! Puerto Rico also has these bio-luminescent bays. You kayak in the middle of the sea in the dead of night into a channel covered with dense jungle, obscuring even the moonlight. Suddenly each stroke of the kayak-paddle makes the water glow phosphorescent green. Fishes darting in the water are like little bright green rockets. This was definitely the most beautifully intriguing thing I’ve seen in a long time. The bioluminescent algae in the sea water glow whenever anything touches it. The kayaking trip was amazing too – I was scared shitless to be taking a flimsy kayak into the sea at midnight and to top it all, it started raining! After about 20 minutes of kayaking in the (reasonably calm) ocean, you entered a side-channel where it suddenly transformed into an Indiana Jones-style adventure, with the forest and reeds all around you while you paddled your kayak across the sinuous and endlessly curving water channels across the jungle.

Getting ready to snorkel around the reefs

The coral reefs are the dark shadows in the water

Waking up to this every morning for 4 days was semi-orgasmic

Beach bumming was never so much fun:)

Bio-luminescent bay

Las Vegas – everyone had promised that Las Vegas would be totally amazing. We went in with really high hopes and I was more than disappointed. Las Vegas is a city in the middle of the desert trying to be everything that its not. Definitely the capital of sin, mind-boggling amounts of money have been spent on creating an ambience of needless luxury and opulence. I quite disliked it – probably more than Dubai. Like Dubai, everything was so out of place and so unnatural that it ended up being an eyesore. There were a few really good things in the trip too. We saw a couple of shows: David Copperfield (above average) and Cirque Du Soleil’s ‘O’ (the best performance I’ve ever seen in my life). I could write reams on Cirque Du Soleil but it is something best experienced for yourself. The tickets are super expensive but more than worth it. We spent $170/head for this show and would happily do it again. David Copperfield on the other hand, at $100 per head was a little overrated. The trip to Grand Canyon was awesome too and I wish we had more time to go down into the canyon. We missed watching the Blue Man Group in Vegas, but caught them in NY on the following weekend and I give heavy props to them too – they were really good.

The Lions at our hotel - only in Vegas..

Yeah...thats whats left of all my savings

Various hotels on the 'strip'. I still do not see the point of all this razzmatazz

The Venetian with its canals and Gondolas...ummm..I'll take the real Venice anyday

The Grand Canyon was by far the highlight of the trip (the 5 picture at a time limit of Blogger means I'm too lazy to put anything more)

Things that didn’t go so well (and need to be focused on, next semester):

India Club: I couldn’t do much on the India Club front in terms of career stuff despite the opportunities we had to tie up with Wharton alumni in India and help students that wanted to come back immediately after school.

Other extra-curricular: Flying took somewhat of a backseat with the Incredible India trek taking up most of my time. I couldn’t get started on golf at all. Next semester, I promise myself.

Course selection for the final semester: I’ve taken the easiest courses in the final semester. While I know I’m really going to pat myself for this decision later, I am currently on a major guilt-trip for not taking the tougher subjects that I always wanted to learn. This is definitely the last opportunity to learn from the best in the world and missing that doesn’t feel so good right now. As of now I’m really tempted to commit some hara-kiri and enroll for a couple of really intense courses.

BPUB789: This is a course called Nations, Politics and Markets. It talks about the economic and political choices that different countries across the world have made since the beginning of this century and how it has impacted these countries over the years. It was an awesome course but I missed almost 50% of its classes since I had taken it on a pass/fail basis (ie you are not graded on it) and it happened on a particularly busy class day for me. I’ll always regret not having attended this course properly.

Gymming: started off really well in September and it looked like I was on my way to finally being ripped. As the semester progressed, working out became much more sporadic and finally dropped off my schedule altogether. Gymming without a partner is no fun and coordinating times with one is almost impossible at Wharton. Next semester, my gym buddy and I have coordinated our courses so that we get to work out on a regular basis – lets see how far we go! Getting a six-pack is high on the remaining agenda at Wharton :)

Keeping up with old friends and relatives: I had resolved to keep in better touch with old friends and relatives this past semester but that didn’t work out at all. I’m making up for the old friends bit over winter break, but still need to work out a good way to keep in touch with relatives. I’ve started hating phone conversations over the last few years and need to pick up the phone again to get in touch.

A lot of these form a part of my new year's resolutions...adding to the many many others:)

Summer Internships and being a second year @ Wharton!!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:20:00 +0000

First year ended in May and we had till September to relax, travel and do summer internships. I did two summer internships - one with an Energy Private Equity firm in Amsterdam and the other with the Leadership program of an Energy behemoth in Maryland and London.

The first internship was ok - a lot of finance, shitloads of modeling - the usual banking stuff - and a steep learning curve given that I had absolutely no background in energy. Energy seems to be the flavor of the season and boy, am I glad I am not doing banking anymore:-) Being in Amsterdam was much much more fun though, for the obvious reasons (!) and also because every weekend was a different country in Europe. On the whole I managed to cover Holland, Sweden, Norway and France during the first internship. Pictures will be posted in a later entry.

The second internship was nothing short of amazing. Going into the leadership program, I had been told that I would be rotated across different divisions of the firm, specifically doing projects that I had never done before. It sounded a little scary and I often had nightmares about not being able to understand anything that was going on! The learning curve was extremely steep but the amazing culture of the firm and the work-life balance along with the super-dynamic-yet-accessible people made sure that I absolutely loved the 10 weeks I spent there. It was also a great introduction to Alternative Energy (I spent the time in the AE division of the firm)

After multiple trips shuttling between London and DC and tanking up on enough miles to last me two return trips to India (yay!), I ended the internship just a day before school began.

Coming back to school was super good, for the following reasons:

1. Meeting everyone again

2. Taking all the courses that I really wanted to take and not be bothered about a course that I hated

3. Having 2 job offers from both internships (which I think is the main reason that 2nd year for me has been nothing short of heavenly - especially when I see almost everyone else currently super focused on getting a job of their choice in an environment that is infinitely more competitive with fewer jobs)

4. Focusing on things that I am passionate about: gymming, photography (yeah I have taken a photography elective in Penn which means that I have classes till 9pm on Mondays but its totally worth it!)

5. Getting to explore new interests: sailing, flying and golf.

6. Taking reins of the Wharton India club and trying to ease 1st years into Wharton along with trying to organize multiple events

7. Planning all holidays - Thanksgiving, Winter Break, Spring break - damn, I never imagined I would obsess and stress so much about planning perfect holidays, trying to travel as much as I can while I'm still in school!

I think this is a great time to be in school - all the turmoil on Wall Street is truly scary. While it is definitely not fun seeing classmates who were recruiting for investment banking scramble for every available job, it is great to get a ring-side view of whats happening and an insider's perspective on the the unfolding events from a world-renowned faculty in finance. Everything is cyclical and hopefully things'll be back to normal and this is a shout-out to all my classmates in banking - you'll soon be earning your multi-million $$ bonuses again!!

I'm still trying to decide which offer to take up for the fulltime. Thankfully I have till December to decide, negotiate and renegotiate so that eases things up for me. This week is the Final Interview Period for 2nd years and while I did interview with 3 more firms, it was so much more different going into the process with 2 jobs in hand.

I'm really hoping to keep the blog more current and updated from now on - hopefully all the extra-curricular stuff at Wharton will not be too busy to keep me away from here!!

Adios, while I step out to enjoy the last few days of sunshine in Koo Plaza:-)

The Trip to Puno...Lake Titicaca!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:43:00 +0000

Somehow everyone I talked to, about going to Lake Titicaca, had to first snigger...*wonder why*:-P

So the official Wharton trek was limited till Machu Pichu but a bunch of us felt that if we went back without a visit to the famous lake Titicaca, the Peru trip would forever remain incomplete. Lake Titicaca was a place I had only visited in my school Geography books - the highest navigable lake in the world, with floating islands and indigenous, non-Inca tribals living on those islands, cut off from normal land life. There was no way I was going to miss that. So I organized a little side trip and got company from a few other intrepid batchmates and partners and off we went to Puno!

Getting to Puno posed a bit of a challenge. There is a train that runs twice a week from Cusco to Puno and the route is supposed to be very lovely. Unfortunately, the day we were supposed to leave from Cusco wasnt the day the train ran. So we booked ourselves on a bus which was to take 10 hours to get to Puno from Cusco. None of us was exactly looking forward to the 10-hour journey across Peru, but as all Peruvian mini-trips, little did we know what what in store!

The trip turned out to be the most beautiful bus journey I've ever been on, cutting across the Andean mountains and some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen, stopping by prehistoric tourist spots and a restaurant with lovely Peruvian music consisting of Banjos, guitars, Pan flutes (multifluted little thing from which emanates the most heavenly music ever!) and little drums.

The 16th Century Andahuaylillas church. They call it the Sistine chapel of Americas because of all the gold and paintings inside - pics werent allowed inside, unfortunately. I thought it was a bit too gaudy for my taste.

11 of us

The archaeological ruins of Raqchi - the temple of Wiracocha

More camera-friendly and super cute Llamas

Most Peruvian houses have this pair of stunned-looking bulls to bring prosperity and ward off evil

The postcard-ish landscapes on the way were...breathtakingly beautiful

With a beautiful interplay of shadow and light..

...and clouds

...and more shadows

So after a beautiful (and very comfortable, btw) 10 hour journey, we reached Puno. Our hotel was overlooking Titicaca and...there's a little plug due here for the Libertador hotels in Peru - you guys are AWESOME. Lovely hotels, wonderful service and great locations. Super costly, of course, you guys also played a large role in my bankruptcy exactly 2 months after spring break. And we all love your Jacuzzis:-D

So the next morning we took a boat to the closest group of floating islands - Uros. And by floating, I mean really floating. So these islands are made of reeds and are literally alive. The reed floor of the islands is about 3 -5ft thick, but is still squishy to walk on - as if you were walking on a water bed. The tribals live on these islands, have their own schools, fish and even grow their own stuff on the reed soil. Uros is a fairly commercialized island, well set up for tourists, but there are other islands which are still untouched and pristine. Since we only had a day in Titicaca and had to catch our flight back to NY the same night, we only had time for Uros. For people with more time, I highly recommend Amantani.

yeah..one tends to become a little poetic after a 10-hour bus journey. I would blame the high altitudes. Thats Lake Titicaca in the background. 'Titicaca ' literally means a Jaguar eating. If you look at the map of the lake, it does look like a Jaguar hunting a little rabbit

The view of the lake from my hotel window

Reaching Uros - on both sides are the floating reed passageways to the islands

Reed boats - very touristy

So these islands are tied to each other to prevent them from floating away - see that yellow rope in the water?

The happy lives that the tribals live...singing and dancing away in colorful costumes...:) Deevee living it up with one of the locals

On the uber-touristy reed boat - NT and SS trying their hands at rowing (I tried and sucked)

This little kid was the cutest ever!

umm...I just liked this pic from the boat, playing around with the DoF

Some of us tried a 'Reservoir Dogs' impression on the boat back

..Which soon turned to a Wharton bhangra jig

..at the temple of fertility..DeeVee still likes to think these were mushroom sculptures, lol!

At Lima, leaving for home...NT somehow had the heaviest baggage of all of us - we all suspect he was taking back some nubile young Peruvian lady back as a bride

Peru - Inca trail!!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:20:00 +0000

Quick Update: So I was watching 'Motorcycle Diaries' the other day (psst: you HAVE to see this movie, if you haven't already!) and when they reach Machu Pichu, Ernesto says: 'How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?' I felt exactly the same when I was in Machu Pichu. It is an experience you cannot miss you on, for your life. And if you're with friends, all the more better:)

This was probably the highlight of our trip - the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu. I'd always wanted to be on it since I discovered I loved traveling so this was truly memorable.

The real Inca trail is 4 days long through the Andean mountains. In the interest of time..and since our group had 70 people with 70 different agendas and priorities, we did the short version - took a train till halfway and then hit the trail for a grueling, fast-paced trek. When we were starting, little did we know how beautiful it'd be and little did we know how brutal it'd be too!

By the time we saw Machu Pichu from the sun gate, it was already almost sunset - but the first view of Machu Pichu was by far worth it. And the second day exploring the ruins of Machu Pichu remains an awesome memory. There are about 3,000 tourists on Machu Pichu at any given day but the ruins are so mesmerizing that somehow you feel alone with your thoughts and imaginative reconstructions of how it must have been then.

Without further ado, here's Machu Pichu:

The begining of the Inca trail - it was straight out of an Indiana Jones Movie

We loved the Inca names...Chachabamba:-)

We did'nt know we had to cross 3 of those hills!

But the trail was lovely..

And the flowers were lovely...

With myriad colors

The trail was narrow

And hair-raising at times

With soothing waterfalls on the way..

Climbing this Inca cultivation and storage area made some of us almost pass out with exhaustion

But the rainbow was rejuvenating!

The first view of Machu Pichu from the Sun Gate

And the usual antics for pictures..

As usual, the view was amazing

So the site for Machu Pichu was selected based on its position relative to sacred landscape features. The mountains around are purported to be in alignment with key astronomical events

The terraced fields - Machu Pichu as a secret, hidden city even during the Spanish conquest could produce four times as much grain as required by the people living there

All those small pyramidal areas used to be residences for the nobilities

Been wanting to make a Picasa collage for a long time! So these birds are important in the Peruvian mythology...how, I'm not really sure..oops! I was focusing on getting a nice pic when they were explaining:(

So I've been working on taking pics of people when they're not aware...voyeurism?

FA, as usual, the king of jumps

generally..I just wanted to make sure I could do a macro shot manually without resorting to a programmed mode

One last view of the ruins at the end of a tiring day of exploring

Lunch...ummm...I kept clear of all the loins

Up next...pics from Puno and Lake Titicaca

ps: For a great 360 degree virtual tour around Machu Pichu, click here

Spring Break: Peru!!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:32:00 +0000

Summer job search done with, most of us were raring to discover what coming back to school and Wharton really was about. Wharton was suddenly a changed place – people back in grunge from the smart formalwear, more smiles and relaxed faces and so many more activities to participate in. Either the workload was down or we had simply gotten used to the crazy academic schedules, but most of us definitely loved Sem 2.

Winters ended, spring arrived, the birds were out, leaves had color and people were generally of a sunnier disposition. It was also time for spring break and frenetic planning for what to do over the break started.

We have these student-led treks that go across the world during holidays and for me the toss-up was between Peru and Japan. Peru was obviously the winner, hands down – having lived in India, one always feels like Japan is next door compared to Peru. Plus I had always wanted to go to Machu Pichu!!

So Peru it was. About 70 students set out to explore Peru for 10 days. I wish I was writing my blog then because each day brought something new and exciting. The itinerary was supremely exhausting but amazing fun too! We covered most of Peru – Lima, Paracas, Cusco, Machu Pichu (of course!) and lake Titicaca were some of the highlights. Peru is an awesome country with beautiful scenery, amazing biodiversity, tonnes of history, beautiful music and warm people. In case anyone is interested, below is the super fun and super tiring itinerary we had across Peru

Day 1: Arrival in Lima, left for Paracas from airport.

Day 2: Boat to the Paracas islands

Day 3: Return to Lima, flight to Cusco in the mountains

Day 4: Cusco and around, getting accustomed to the altitude (Cusco is amongst the more beautiful small towns I’ve ever been to – strangely archaic with the most happening nightlife)

Day 5: Urubamba valley

Day 6: Trek to Machu Pichu (grueling 7 hour trek across the undulating hills – and we did the short version!!)

Day 7: Exploring the ruins of Machu Pichu

Day 8: Travel to Puno, Lake Titicaca, across the country (the most amazing landscapes and scenery I’ve seen in a long time)

Day 9: Take boat out on Lake Titicaca to Uros island (Titicaca has all these floating islands on which tribals live)

Day 10: Return to Lima, exploring Lima and departure

Writing about Peru is not going to be possible now, so I’ll just put up some pics here from the trip. Peru was a blast – everything I could have ever hoped for, was compressed into 10 days and happened. New friendships were forged, old ones were strengthened, the wanderlust taken care of for some time and amazing fun was had. I also went bankrupt shortly after the trip.

Paracas Islands - the Galapagos of Peru with the most amazing sea-life and biodiversity ever (apparently because of the unique combination of warm and cold currents in the sea)

Sea Lions - thousands of them, lounging around on guano-covered rocks

Penguins!! And I thought I had to go to Antarctica to see them (a venture to Antarctica goes every Dec from Wharton...unfortunately thats the only time I'll get in India:( so Antarctica is off the list)

Millions and millions of birds in Paracas, covering the island with guano - a valuable fertilizer

More lazy Sea Lions - they make an amazingly eerie sound - wish I had recorded that!

This is the nursing beach - thousands of pregnant sea-lions give birth to babies here!! I've never heard so much squealing in my life!

This was the cutest little monkey ever!

The Candelabra..a prehistoric carving in the rock believed by some to have been made by aliens who then populated the earth. Some others say that prehistoric men carved these out to signal to aliens...all a deep mystery!

A famous rock formation called Cathedral - half of it was destroyed in the 2005 earthquake

yeah...ummm..just jumping:) FA turned out to be the king of jumps in Peru though and SR was the queen of jump-shots

The hotel in Cusco - just about the prettiest hotel ever, till we saw our cottages in Urubamba!

So Cusco is this very pretty, very quaint little city up in the Andean mountains where you get used to the altitude before starting the Machu Pichu trek

The central square in Cusco...little did we know that the most happening nightclubs are all around this place!

Of Llamas that spat...

...And Alpacas that stank

of people..

..and monkeys...:)

Inca ruins in the Urubamba valley

These sticks were going to be really helpful on the Inca trail

Our cottages in Urubamba - amazingly pretty and super-luxurious

FA, the reincarnated 12th Inca posing with his face on the rain stick (this stick makes a beautiful noise like the rain, when you turn it upside down - used by the tribals to pray for rain)

Cohortmates @ Urubamba!

The bridge leading to our cottages

Up next...pics from the Inca trail and Machu Pichu!!

Semester 2 at Wharton. Part I: recruiting for summers!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:06:00 +0000

So the time after winter break was when the Second semester and the recruiting for summers started. I wasn’t looking forward to coming back at all from India but it was only when I got back, I realized how much I had missed the place, the pace and all the people here.

Second semester was pretty easy, academically – yeah they make it such that you don’t have to worry too much about studies while recruiting. We had two weeks off for recruiting – a departure from the usual 1-week holidays across all US B-schools. It really helped too, especially when you’re juggling multiple interviews in multiple locations across Philadelphia.

Those two weeks were stressful, to say the least. It’s the time when you suddenly realize that getting into Wharton was not the big deal that everyone thought it was. The big deal was competing against the most amazing people from across the world for a job that you liked and had your mind set upon. The phone becomes a much reviled object when you are called up to be told that you’ve been dinged!! I stopped counting the dings after a while and instead focused on drawing happiness from the job offers that I did have! It also turned out that those were the ones I really wanted..so maybe those recruiters do know something about a good fit, skeptical as I am!

Some friends though really struck gold. IJC for eg, maxed it out with probably the most consulting company offers than anyone else in Wharton. NT still preens at turning down Goldman Sachs to do something he really wanted and CJS who was uber-lazy at the beginning of recruiting season (yeah by some strange quirk of fate he had only 1 class on Mondays and slept all damn day!) finally got active around spring break and easily managed a PE fund offer.

One company dinged me twice – once after I had applied, apologizing that they couldn’t have me over for the interviews because there were so many other more qualified candidates. Then, on the day they had their interviews, they called me to ding me AGAIN, apologizing that I wasn’t moving to the second round interviews though the interviewers really enjoyed speaking with me –it was hilarious when I told them I hadn’t even been called for an interview…I guess they were just making sure that there was no way I joined :)

So anyway to cut a long story short, after some trials and tribulations all of us ended up in jobs we wanted. I will be spending my summers in 2 internships across Amsterdam, Hague, London and Washington DC. The first is with a private equity fund that focuses on energy assets and the second is with a leadership program in an energy behemoth. MM recently sent across a mail that we had exchanged much before coming to Wharton where I had gushed about how I wanted to be in a leadership program – I guess I got what I wanted and now it is up to me to make the most of it.

[so this is stuff from Feb 08 - I am right now in the middle of my first internship in Holland - hoping to bring the blog up to date!!]

@ Wharton: Life as a 1st year MBA – Semester 1

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:54:00 +0000

[disclaimer: most of this was written during Winter break, Dec07 and things have changed significantly for the better in terms of a better lifestyle since Sem 2:-)]

Crazy Blur - Life in Sem 1

Classes that counted towards the MBA officially started in September and that’s when things got REALLY busy. If preterm was where you met with classmates in the corridors and chatted them up or hung out with over coffee/lunch, the 1^st quarter was all about nodding at familiar faces with a quick ‘hey, hows it going’ and rushing on to your class (haha, without bothering to hear the answer – an American peculiarity that I’m still getting used to).

Assignments, quizzes, exams and some more assignments – that’s what September was all about. September was also when the 2^nd years and Wharton undergrads got back to campus so it was about seeing 2,000 more faces on a daily basis and you finally giving up hope of knowing more than 50 people over the next few months.

At Wharton, everything is layered in a chronological manner and if you thought you’re busy now just wait till the next month! So while preterm was about attending basic classes and September was about doing the core course and just trying to cope with the weekly quizzes and assignments, October and November were all of the previous AND attending informational sessions that the hundreds of companies that recruit at Wharton organize.

Recruitment for summer internships happens in the last week of January but the companies start courting you right from October. While in the beginning it feels as if you’re being seduced and wined-dined by the recruiters, reality sinks in pretty soon that it is really you who’s networking with these companies, spending hours on hours after classes in cocktail receptions in various hotels (where you should be working on an assignment or hanging out with friends), trying to land that perfect summer internship.

Industries and companies soon get slotted into whether they’re ‘high-touch’ or ‘low-touch’, depending on the number of brownie points you get by attending all their cocktails, receptions, case workshops and lectures on campus and off-campus. Investment banks are the highest of ‘high-touch’, requiring you to also speak with multiple people from the group you’re interested in, over the phone or go over to New York to meet with them on Fridays (whoops, I forgot to mention that Wharton has a 4-day class week but before you start having issues with anyone whining about the workload, just think of a Friday for most dressed in business formal, going up to NY and juggling meetings and ‘informational interviews’ to assess a good ‘fit’ with different banks).

For those who’re recruiting for the traditional post-MBA industries – banking/consulting, the academic and social life takes a major hit. What starts out as a few classmates coming to class dressed in a suit for an event after class soon multiplies and people soon stop asking which event you’re going to, or even saying, ‘hey, looking sharp, there!’

And if you thought that the networking with companies ends at attending their events, think again. You go home with all the business cards you collected, write thank-you mails to all of them and if this is investment banking, request to have a one-on-one conversation with them over the phone or in their office in NY to ‘assess a better fit’.

The open-to-all receptions soon progress into ‘closed-list’ receptions where only the ones who made that extra effort get invited to. Getting on to a ‘closed-list’ even is definitely a leg-up to your recruiting efforts and the people who don’t get invited to them, suddenly get insecure and redouble their networking.

And yeah, you’re doomed if you dare to even think of exploring more than one industry to work with – you soon get slotted as a banker or a consultant or something else and will get woeful stares from everyone if you attend events that people haven’t slotted you in. Of course, it’s a logistical nightmare to juggle between events from different industries. So you have people quietly sneaking out of a banking reception and jumping into a cab and rushing to another end of town just in time to make it for the break-out networking session (the session after the usual speech about how good our company is and how different our people and teams are) being organized by a consulting firm.

You drag yourself back home at 11pm after having smiled constantly, shook multiple hands and asked meaningful sounding questions about multiple firms in different industries, write thank you emails, check the 134 other cohort/learning team/Wharton club emails that have come in and finally think about starting the assignment due at 9am tomorrow morning.

You groan some more because there’s a quiz happening at 1030am tomorrow and you are ready to scream because there is also a team assignment that is due at 7pm tomorrow (you have to finish it tonight because tomorrow evening will also be full of the same smiling, asking meaningful questions and collecting business cards till 11pm).

Oh well, you’ve paid $150,000 for this so you may as well do it. And the lure of huge future cash-flows and a perfect work-life balance after you land that perfect job keeps you going.

Its 3am and its time for all the Wharton e-room emails to start pouring in with updates about the day and the various sign-up/resume drop/application for leadership position deadlines. You still have to start studying for the quiz and are only halfway done on the team assignment (and have mails coming in from frantic team members asking for your part of the assignments). Classes start at 9am. Welcome to the Wharton MBA!

It is a transformational experience for sure. It is a very humbling experience where you’re no longer the super-star you thought you were when you got your admission offer. It is a mind-numbing experience when you grit your teeth and fuck your quiz up because you know you can’t let your team down in the group assignment. It is an experience where you come to terms with the fact that there are 749 more superstars in the same building, most of whom understand Stackleberg or Game theory or CAPM or Deferred Taxes much faster and much better than you can ever hope to, and will invariably push you further up (or down) The Curve that is all-pervasive in the academic life at Wharton.

No matter how hard you study, there will almost always be someone who can do it better and screw your position on the normal distribution. After a while you stop caring about grades since there is not much you can do about them anyway. It is also an experience where there are crazy parties in which you forget all your woes and…partaaaaaayyyy! And feel guilty as hell at not having studied anything/written any thank-you notes/networked/done an assignment over the weekend.

It is a transformational experience when you realize that you’ve lost about 20 pounds in weight (not from working out at the gym) and have darker circles than ever before. It is an amazing experience where you never cease to be amazed by your classmates and the awesome things they’ve done in the past and you know you’re talking to people who’ll chart the future of the world.

It is also an exhilarating experience where you’re being taught by people whose names you’ve so far only seen on covers of books. It is, overall, a supremely tiring experience where you learn to truly multitask and realizing that its not humanly possible to be on top of everything, you learn to prioritize.

Thursdays at Wharton are much looked forward to. They signal an end to all the academic stress built up over the week and an end to all the recruiting events that you hate attending but have to attend. The Wharton pub is a regular Thursday evening event with free beer/wine/pizza where about 500-600 people from 1^st and 2^nd years get together…and let their hair down. Occasionally the faculty will join in and really spice things up.

Foam Party

Rainbow Pub - where the faculty dresses in drag and celebrate the 'coming out day'

Walnut Walk - Wharton 1st years dress up above the waist with little below for an infamous pub crawl just before recruiting season begins

White Party

Studying - end of Sem 1..horrible memories:)

Wharton54 party - the most scandalous of 'em all! (although this happens in Sem2)

Oh and there are also exams that one has to contend with, every month. Wharton has a quarter system hence many courses end every two months and have mid-term/final exams. The finals for the 1^st semester (Q1 and Q2) ended on the 19^th December and have been the craziest exams so far. It was during the finals that I realized the importance of studying in a group to maintain a good pace and also how it feels to be up till 730am and then sleep for 3 hours to wake up again at 1030am and start studying again.

I’ve realized that it’s the friends at Wharton that really keep me going. After 5 months of pure punishment, its friends that keep me alive and provide an oasis of sanity where we can just sit and bounce our frustrations/ideas/opinions off each other. S in Boston is another pillar of support and I know I can pick up the phone anytime and pour out all my joys and sorrows and have a sympathetic ear to listen to me and offer some amazing advice.

Had I known before Wharton exactly what I was getting into, I’d have probably balked at the thought of putting myself through the grueling lifestyle. Looking back at the few months however I think I’ve learnt and enjoyed more in the last five months than in the last many years. Wharton in many ways has toughened me more in 5 months than my jobs over the last 6 years. And there is a year and half more to go. Am I looking forward to it? Hell, of course - bring it on! I am sure now that I can take anything you throw at me and then some more.

Preterm @ Wharton

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:50:00 +0000

The Wharton MBA starts a month before most others in August and the extra month is called the Preterm. It is largely an introduction to the madness that is about to start from September and a great way to actually get to know people from other cohorts (a group of about 65 students that you’ll have most of your classes with, for the first year). While the academic format is tailored to introduce you to the basics in calculus, accounting, statistics and economics, preterm is more of a non-alcoholic social setting for you to interact with 750 of your classmates and more importantly, to soak in the Wharton way of life before it hits you in September like a neutron bomb.

The school officially starts out with the Dean’s reception and the Convocation ceremony (this was surprising since in India, the convocation happens after you graduate – that’s called commencement here – sigh, they do everything differently in the US, starting with hugging the other side of the road). We thought we were busy in preterm, coming to terms with names like ACCT603, 604, 608, MGEC603, STAT603 and loved calling back home and talking about our crazy schedules at school – little did we know that we’d actually look back at preterm as the only time at Wharton so far that was relaxing. In terms of what I’d have done differently, I’d have paid more emphasis to meeting people than getting stressed out about a (non-existent) crazy work schedule during pre-term. There's also a math test that you must pass if you want to continue at Wharton and stressful as it sounded with all the calculus and the ubiquitous, all pervasive 'e' blindsiding you at every turn, it was a breeze to clear.

Reception after the convocation

At Wharton, most of the assignments are in the form of group work and the famous Wharton Learning Teams are introduced to each other at the end of pre-term during the retreat at the end of preterm. The learning team retreat is a bunch of really fun activities set in a camp in the Catskills mountains (more like hills, though) about 3-4 hours away from Philly. Meeting my learning team was fun – we are 6 people from Germany, India, Australia and the US. What was even more fun was getting used to working with each other in games, skits and competitions. Each cohort was identified by a differently colored tee-shirt and while the one for Cohort B was'nt the best (bumblebee yellow!!), it made for some good pictures.

Skit on Learning Team presentation of innovative products for Wharton students

My learning team - MVLT!!!!!!

Cohort B...B for Awesome:-D

I had been told by 2nd years that I MUST make it a point to party as much as I can during pre-term…I wish I had taken that advice seriously!! Either that, or I should have focused on tanking up on some sleep to make up for the next 3 months. Returning from the Learning Team Retreat, all we looked forward to was the 3 day break and hardly thought of what lay ahead of us.

Coming up next: Life as a Wharton MBA in Semester I

A series of quick updates - I

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:46:00 +0000

Whenever I heard people talking about how tough the MBA experience was going to be, I always discounted them – surely I’ve worked harder in my work than a whiny bunch of MBA students? In retrospect, I should not have believed the people when they say that Wharton hits you like a tonne of bricks – in reality it hits you with a force almost equivalent to a megatonne of bricks. As I sit here at the Abu Dhabi airport (which is quite a dump, btw and looks like an oversized, overstuffed bathroom with green tiles) on my way back to India over the winter break, I ruminate over the last five months and am surprised at how quickly time has flown by and yet how far back in the past everything I’ve left behind seems to be.

But before I get ahead of myself, I must give a quick recap of all that I’ve been upto and been made to do – kicking, screaming and flailing arms followed by death rattles over the last few months.

Pre Preterm

I went through Abu Dhabi on my way to the US and spent a luxuriously relaxed two days in the city with Shikha. Arriving in New York was uneventful and so was the drive to Philadelphia which is about 2 hours from New York. The first few hours in Philly were pretty much disoriented but I quickly reached out to some new admits I’d met over the net or met in Delhi and life slowly limped back to a semblance of normalcy. I am staying in Centre City which is the heart of Philadelphia and the school is a 15 min walk/5 min drive from home. The Centre City looks pretty, friendly for walkers, and has an abundance of old and nice churches around my apartment building.[pics to come in some later post]

It was party time when I arrived 4 days before classes in Preterm started, so I headed out to have a blast with brand new friends. The nights were mostly crazy – you head out to a pub full of people who looked like they could be joining Wharton (clue: people standing in a group introducing themselves with a handshake followed by the question, ‘So, where’re you from’?), stood around for a while with a drink getting chummy with the new faces over loud music and louder conversations, moved to a new group to repeat and answer the same questions till someone screamed in your ear that the group was heading out to the next pub. You head out to the next pub, another drink in your hand, a smile pasted to your face, getting progressively happier with the alcohol coursing its way into the bloodstream and met more new people and answered/asked the same questions again.

Over the next many days, I had come to parrot the following questions and answers to them in an attempt to get to know about 750 classmates:

Where’re you from?
When did you get in here?
What were you doing before this?
Where’re you staying?
What cluster are you in?

The answers did not really matter most of the time. I could have as well said I’m Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from Tanzania, having worked in an investment bank and staying on 23^rd and Amrood (most of the streets in Philadelphia are named after trees) and would have heard, ‘Ooh nice, so what cluster are you in?’ I think I also introduced myself to the same person about 4 times in 3 different pubs in the same night. Trying to put names to the faces in those blurry nights in loud pubs was impossible and I gave up after the first night and focused on having fun instead – which involved multiple shots, a gazillion beers and some nodding to people you recognized from having been introduced to them multiple times in different pubs. Waking up in the days was painful and mostly involved a sore throat from the incessant screaming out the same questions from the night before.

Coming to the US to live was not a culture shock as much as it was about being exposed to a different way of life. In my past life, if you had to meet people and get to know them, you go out for a quite coffee or dinner. Here, you headed out for a drink in a noisy pub, nodded and smiled at each other in the dark over high decibels of music and noise and hoped fervently that you’d remember their names the next day (and hopefully be friends for life ever after). In my past life, going out was less about getting drunk while sitting/standing at a place but more about getting drunk (or not getting drunk) and dancing. I still believe that if all those nights of drinking were just about getting to know strangers, it’d have been much more useful to actually have conversations with them in a more sober/quieter environment where it was not the alcohol in you speaking, but you. But getting drunk was fun, nevertheless.

At 29, I had never thought I’d make any more good friends. Friendship involves a lot of investment of time which was about to become a precious commodity if everything I’d heard about going through an MBA was true. However, over the daytime shopping trips to Walmart/Target/Ikea/Home Depot, I met some great people that I knew I’d love to be friends with. I had thought it’d take longer to identify a group of people that one would really hang out with, but it happened faster than I’d thought. Within a few days, I was hanging around with the same guys and getting thicker with them with time. But more on that later since these people will probably figure in my future blog posts anyway.

Setting up a new life in a new place was a good experience. I have a cute little studio here that I've really come to love. You know you’re starting from scratch when you’re thinking of hanging that fab painting you bought and realize that you don’t have a hammer or nails and make a mental note to buy that tomorrow. Assembling furniture in the Ikea style of do-it-yourself was fun till you got around to assembling a complex study table with drawers and roll-out hutches. I got back from drinking one night and decided to assemble it, started at 2am and by the time I finished, it was 8am and I was ready to take an axe and cut the damn thing down to pieces. Color-coordinating was never fun till you saw IJC had bought the sexiest looking black comforter and bed-sheets and you wanted those too but knew that Shikha would see red when she saw the black comforter (update: I am a proud owner of a black comforter now and Shikha is still coming to terms with it on her weekend trips to Philly).

I had studiously avoided checking out Wharton before classes started because I knew I was going to have an overdose of it for the next two years. Wharton is a part of the UPenn campus across the Schuylkill river. Housed mainly in the John M Huntsman Hall (JMHH for all calendar entries), Wharton also consists of many other buildings interspersed with other academic departments at Penn. The Penn campus is lovely with amazing architecture (there is a library that looks like the Hogwarths castle) and lovely tree-lined walks. I'll post pics from Wharton in a separate blog post.

In retrospect, I wish I had explored more of Philadelphia which seems to be a lovely and a very historic city (the Declaration of American Independence was made here and Philly is the house to the Liberty Bell – which I haven’t seen as of yet). From rushes, I know there’s a large and beautiful Fairmont Park, an awe-inspiring museum (with the steps that Rocky ran up on in his movie) and a very happening Old City that is the hub of most of the nightlife and fun things in Philly. We did have a ‘moonlight madness’ bike ride through the Fairmont park and a trip to the museum sponsored by the school during preterm, but that was far from being enough.

'Moonlight Madness' and Night at the Museum

Coming up: Preterm@Wharton

Tagged!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:57:00 +0000

Got tagged by Wooster and after much procrastination, here I am, with my list of eight quirkies:

I have this peculiar habit of very imperceptibly nodding every now and then. When it started out about 15 years back, it was quite pronounced, but over the years, I've forced it to become almost unnoticeable and do not nod as often as earlier. Its not conscious and I've been in some strange situations while nodding at strangers in public:-D

I've never worn a pair of jeans that is not the 'standard' denim color. Somehow I end up buying the same color all the time (no, thats not me in the pic).

I see more through the lens of my camera than through my eye. I also wish I could photograph people whenever I wanted to, without feeling embarrassed.

In India where seat belts are viewed as a nuisance, I somehow feel obsessive about wearing one.

I hate shaving - especially on a daily basis.

I know it goes against the grain of diligence but I love the feeling of uselessness - I try to snatch a few minutes of total uselessness even on the busiest of days and nothing beats that.

My kind of music is the one that shuts me out from the rest of the world

I'd love to have 6-pack abs again (yeah this means I had them once-upon-a long-time back when prices were cheap, politicians were upright and people respected their elders {hat tip: Baz} And sigh, no, this pic isnt me either)

I was supposed to have tagged 8 more people, but figure its best to leave it open for anyone who cares to do it too. Some random rules:

Write 8 random facts/habits about yourself.
I didnt like the other rules so deleted them.

Alert - long post ahead!

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:48:00 +0000

If you're already getting that glazed look in your eyes, scroll down to the bottom for a totally unrelated pic out of my archives...should perk some of the guys up:-D

The summers are finally on their way out and monsoons are edging their way in and it wouldn’t be a day sooner! Summers in India are mostly tortuous and one time when you suddenly become thankful for AC offices :-).

And to think that during college days, I would regularly choose summer as my favorite weather because one could move around unencumbered by heavy clothes or umbrellas!! Our classes never had any air-conditioning and the fan could only occasionally be prodded into churning along a few recalcitrant gusts of hot air. I am quite surprised that we never felt the overpowering heat or got a sunstroke those days despite lolling for days after days out in the college grounds, hogging on the delectable samosas or chole bhature from the college canteen. The summer holidays were used to play outdoors while at school and later on in college to slip back to the campus under the guise of ‘extra-curricular’ activities.

A quick recap of what I've been going through since May:

Stupid decision-makers

I never cease to be surprised how sometimes incredibly stupid people manage to reach positions from where they can cause a lot of harm to businesses they’re supposed to be promoting.

Some people surprise with their indecision and those are the ones you can often work around – because their managerial skills lie in passing the buck and then agreeing with everyone else on the table.

Others promise you the moon but consistently fail to deliver, postponing things to Fridays in perpetuity. These are also easy to negotiate around because they often don’t know what they’re talking about and can easily be convinced by mouthing a few technicalities. Once you’ve figured that they’re never going to deliver, you can plan your own schedules accordingly.

Yet others irritate with their ‘cheerleading’ act – having no experience of a situation, they latch on like a leech to the nearest impressive-sounding person, pick up on their ideas and jump cartwheels around every effort trying to make a point which was best not made. They’ve probably read Dale Carnegie from cover to cover thrice and are really trying to win, impress and influence by summarizing whatever was said, agreeing with everything and then presenting their own contrarian (and extremely impractical and stupid) viewpoints – very American but also very very irritating. Talking to such people is often when I’m tempted to rekindle my college days and do an Obelix-slap routine, mouthing the choicest gaalis.

Amazing teams

I spent most of May in Chennai, working with an amazing team that gelled really well together. We bonded over a healthy disregard for some people of the above kinds who unfortunately had the decision-making authority temporarily. Within a few days however, we also bonded over the fact that we worked really well as a team, had different areas of strengths and could share a joke. After three years of going more or less solo, I really enjoyed working in a team and the easy camaraderie that was evoked.

And yes, I quite enjoyed being in Chennai for most of May – this was aided to a large extent by the team and the hotel gym, pool and sauna that I serendipitously discovered while prowling around after work. Ok, the dinner buffet was great too. Chennai as a place also seemed to be fairly OK, the auto drivers not the thieving pricks they appear at first glance (yeah, the rates charged are standardized and not really arbitrary, although they’re well above the national standards) and the people generally friendly. So that really finishes off a topic of dinner-table conversation – yes, people who don’t live in Chennai actually bond over Chennai bashing when they run out of all other topics:)

Leaving Bombay

Three years and one month after I first came to Bombay, I’m leaving. Leaving the city, leaving my job and leaving behind some really good friends that I’ve made since I came here. And I’m a little sad at leaving all of these.

Bombay, despite all my protestations to the contrary has grown on me and it was when I was watching ‘Life in a Metro’ that it struck that I’ll miss Bombay a lot, especially its monsoons. I could never get used to many aspects of Bombay – the local trains, pathetic infrastructure and a poor quality of life amongst many, but I have come to love what the city stands for – perpetual and dynamic motion, freedom, enterprise, multi-ethnicity and a can-do attitude of the people on the streets. I loved the heritage buildings and the charm they lent to the city, the various regional cuisines available and the truly cosmopolitan, all-encompassing culture at least in the part of the town that I lived in.

All said and done, Bombay remains a place where I discovered myself and really grew up in. I came here at the age of 26 more or less clueless about my long-term future and just driven by the lure of a significantly better-sounding work profile and more money. I stayed in a place which has to be the smallest and the costliest that I’ve ever lived in. But the three years here have been full of inward introspecting, growing, forming lifelong bonds and discarding some pestilential ones. I tend to attribute the lack of adequate living space to a lot of the personal growth I underwent (hehe, I spent less time pottering around) – or maybe it is just something that happens as you add years to your age…who knows.

While I’m definitely happy at my status of being unemployed starting 1st June 2007, I knew that this was one job that I was going to miss. Starting a company from just an idea in the air, going through the rigmarole of getting investors on board, coordinating between shareholders and lawyers in three different time-zones and goose-stepping through the political and regulatory minefield and a fast-changing business scenario to successfully incorporate an investment bank was not something that I had thought would ever be easy, but definitely proved to be much tougher than I had thought.

The job was more of general management and less of finance and can form a classic case study on how to incorporate a company with large shareholders with uber-vested interests. So effectively this was my baby that I had to leave behind and it was a tough decision especially with all the carrots dangled to prevent me from leaving. I can never put in words the pride I felt when I finally saw the incorporation documents and will really look forward to tracking the company’s progress over time, hoping to boast later about having set up a wildly successful investment bank.

Friends formed a large part of the growing up process I experienced here. Different people with very different aspirations and careers meant that I learnt much more about many more worlds than just my own. Most of my previous friendships had a common base to them – a school, college, job or an institution. In Bombay, new friendships made us form many common bases to stand upon – board games, movies, long drives, weekend trips and stray animals were some of the passions we discovered along the way after we had formed friendships. It has been a pleasure to see these people evolve in their own worlds and I know these relationships will endure as strongly as the ones formed previously. I know every time I come to Bombay, I will always view the Barista at Regal with a tinge of nostalgia and ownership after having spent countless hours till the wee hours in the morning playing board games and generally yakking away. Having FBP as a friend meant that we saw every movie that was released by the time the weekend was over – I know I can not keep up with that pace we set over the weekends all by myself but also know that I can never live a weekend without at least one movie. Sundays with Abodh of late were full of this feeling of anticipation about meeting the dogs on the street that you'd really grown to love.

My last few days in Bombay were hectic. I had given sufficient notice to leave my job on the 31st May but a monthful of Chennai meant that all the wrapping up in Bombay had to be done in a tearing hurry. I thought it would never end, the process of wrapping up, but here I am, gainlessly unemployed and really happy at getting some serious R&R over the next one month.

I have been working almost continuously for the last six years after college – there was a gap of 4 days between wrapping up at college and joining my first job in 2001. Then there was a gap of 1 day between my first and second jobs in 2004. This period of two months at home and traveling is something I’m really going to cherish – no hurry to check emails, no compulsion to be by the phone all the time, no worrying about targets or company bottom lines and investor ROIs.

Where next?

Six years after getting an MBA and working almost non-stop, I decided to follow in Shikha's footsteps and go back to school. I’m joining Wharton for the two-year MBA. Philadelphia I’ve heard is a lovely city atleast in the summer and for most of fall and spring. So I guess I’m going to be in a great place for the next two years with some amazing people. It has been made easier by the fact that I’ve been awarded a nice, fat Wharton Emerging Economy merit fellowship. So that takes care of the cost of an MBA abroad to an extent. And I guess I can afford to be pompous till the schedule at Wharton hits me like a ton of bricks:)

Academic session starts on the 1st August and I should have been excited at the huge opportunity that Wharton will provide but the lazy, shameless me is just focusing on the 1 month up ahead. Some travel is also on the cards including a drive up to Gangotri but mostly I’ll hunker down at home with parents and focus on spending some quality time with them and tank up on home food. Paperwork and processing for the Wharton admission and the student visa go on smoothly in the background while I put my feet up and……..relax.

This was a shoot for hot-stone therapy in a Spa in Bombay - one of those 'look but dont touch' shoots...lol

WTP

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:55:00 +0000

So this thought struck me yesterday. Who are the people I would be willing to die for? I mean in the most gory manner, you know, assuming that in Taliban style, a 12 yr old is going to slit either your throat open or the other person's and you have the chance to decide who it could be. I sat down to make a list and am a little ashamed to report that this list has VERY few names. I was totally sure about giving my life for very, very few people and was a little ambiguous about some others that I otherwise really love. I could include these others into the totally-sure list only if I whipped up some emotional hysteria - but not otherwise...my life seemed so much precious to me if I took a little colder view. Am wondering if its just me who's so selfish? It was a depressing thought so I got back to thinking about WTP.

...Willingness to Pay is a concept that I've loved ever since I first heard it years back in a boring economics class in b-school. Most actions in life are based on evaluating whether you are willing to (happily is the key word here) bear the consequences arising from your actions.

Typically, the higher the WTP, the less stressful your life is since then you dont waste time going around looking for other options which could/would lead you to the same outcome but with significantly more stress/heartburn. And you dont spend time agonizing whether you've paid too much.

For example, if you get into a relationship fully knowing and accepting that you'll be/you should be compromising on some aspects and force yourself to be ok with this, life becomes so much more enjoyable.

Ok, I know real application of WTP is totally different from this but I love how WTP has an effect on one's quality of life. The key is however in keeping your cards close to your chest - thats when you get the biggest bang for your buck, so to say. The other party then also feels happy about having had their way. If one takes the relationship analogy here, agreeing grudgingly to a demand earns you more brownie points (and probably more leeway in the next bone of contention) than conceding without a token show of resistance even if you had decided to agree in the first place.

So anyway, I'm back in Chennai for a few days - this seems to be becoming my 'karambhoomi' for most of April and May. I really want to sleep because of the super early morning flight in but sleeping at 11pm seems to be for squares. I anyway wake up at the same time (20 minutes before leaving for work) so best to keep awake till I can.

From a few years of experience I have seen that colleagues who are especially enthusiastic about flipping open their laptops at the airport, looking busy and important while waiting for the flight to be announced are often the ones who're the least focussed on work. This also applies to colleagues who send official mails much after office hours or early mornings. Somehow productivity increases only after office hours or only at airports/coffee shops. These are also people who refuse to be pinned down to specifics and love to talk 'big-picture' when talking about strategy. Ok I also know genuninely busy people too but then they're consistent about it.

No correlation to the post but these are two eunuchs who had come to our place...the pic was taken after the one in the white sari had banned us from snapping her pics - hence the pissed off look on her face and the giggly look on the other's and the rickshaw-vaala's face:

ps: the joys of a high WTP in its economic sense (and not metaphysical sense) are best explored on an all-inclusive expense account. heh.

pps: if you care about recommendations, DO watch this - it'll leave you rolling - ROFL style: http://endofworld.net/

Midweek - News noone can ews

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:43:00 +0000

So Sanjaya Malakar finally got voted off American Idol yesternight. High time! While the guy really had no tone - especially when compared to some others esp Jordin, I think he provides amazing content for a case-study in branding for product managers.

The only time I ever saw American Idol earlier, was if someone switched it on at the gym and I happened to be there. I mean I always thought only the first round of AI was worth watching when they had all those freak shows singing their guts out (I seriously think AI pays some of them to act freaky - America cant be THAT dumb). But after catching the Sanjaya phenomenon a couple of times, I actually stayed back at home to watch the guy (note: not hear him!). I thought he had an endearing quality and while his smile pissed me off to no end, he was definitely nice. Of course, it probably helped that he looked like a cross between Halle Berry and Meg Ryan. And then I joined the brigade of people who read stuff on him online - right from how his sister Shyamali was a Hooters girl to the girl that threatened to starve herself to death unless Sanjaya was voted off the show (of course, she gave up a few weeks back).

In a few weeks, this guy managed to evoke mass hyseria from approximately 38 million people across the US and some more worldwide. Everyone had some strong feelings about him - from rabid hatred to plain screaming love (sample this comment amongst many, on his sister's blog when he was voted out: "I just wanted to say I am SO sorry about the Idol results last night. I've been crying since then"...uhh, dude!).

So what was really amazing that despite very obvious lack of singing talent, this guy had managed to claw his way into the top 7 - and just by his style and charm. And loads of smarts. He used some really eye-catching stuff to pass through the tough rounds and grab eyeballs when there were many contestants.

He already had the Indian diaspora in the US eating out of his hands - not because of his talent, but just because everyone else was making fun of an Indian. And then in my opinion, he did the really, really smart thing - he sang a song in Spanish. And sang it well. So now he had all Latinos rooting for him as well. With the biggest Latina, J Lo herself bowled over, I guess he managed pretty well. So it was a little sad to see him weeping away at his eviction - but seriously, he was the only one remaining who couldnt carry a tone. But I think many people are going to pay to be able to watch him on stage or television - so the guy has his career set out for him - till his voice breaks out, atleast:-D - yeah, he's just a teen - which makes it all the more amazing. If he was in India, he'd have already landed tonnes of advertising contracts.

In other silly news, all news channels went totally ballistic last week when Richard Gere pawed Shilpa Shetty and tried to do a Mika on her at an HIV-AIDS seminar. I really could not understand what the big deal was all about with all channels playing it on a continuous loop for 2 days - but what was more hilarious was how desperate Mr Gere seemed. He really looked like he had'nt been getting any for many many months!!! Mr Gere - please get laid ASAP because this show of desperation really brought you down in our eyes. Take a look at the video for yourself - I think the dude has gone bonkers for lack of sex or something:

Has anyone seen the Serial 30 Rocks on Star World? I think it rocks! And of course, Scrubs is moving fast to beat Simpsons as my favorite serial. Seinfeld (when they're not showing reruns) and Lost are up there too.

I recently filled an online survey for a magazine after 9 women I knew forwarded it across, asking it to be filled (BJ, you rock, man...I dont think I'll ever have so many girls requesting on my behalf!!!:-D). So I tried some stuff and am proud to report that I can do anywhere between 44-52 push-ups in a minute and not so proud that I can do only between 23-29 complete sit ups in 60 seconds.

Bleh. I'll go back to wishing it was Friday already. Although the days after this Friday are going to be a little taxing on the system till May end. I'm SO looking forward to June.

Gabbar and me - I'm on the left, just in case you were wondering;-)...I'll post more pics of Gabbar soon

Randomness inc

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:52:00 +0000

For the last couple of weeks, I've had a fly-on-the-wall feeling, observant to a lot of things happening, all ingredients of what we call day-to-day life. All fairly commonplace, but important - and interesting. I've been feeling like writing about it, got down to writing, but felt an inexplicable loss of words.

How do you write something riveting about something as mundane as a liftman trying to catch a few winks of sleep while working the midnight shift or the look of overworked frustration in the eyes of the Barista guy whose coworkers got the axe after the takeover? Or how do you write about what the friendly eunuch at the traffic signal near my house murmurs everytime she's turned away rudely from a car window? You dont. Especially if you're not a writer. Because there are others that do it so well, so much better that you ever could.

I gave up writing reviews after I found myself agreeing with Vij that most of these film/book review-bloggers are people who dont know jacksquat about film-making or even catching the nuances that a filmmaker painstakingly put into her/his film and anyway take themselves (and their reviews - most of which are anyway a banal narration of the movie story...sigh, how stupid can that be?) too seriously for their own good. There is, however, one film critic that I read religiously - just because he's so damn good at it and because he knows what he's talking about. Thanks to his reviews, I think I've started noticing the sublime in the movies and that has made movie-watching a much happier experience.

There are SO many times I wish I had my camera with me. There are also many times where I wish I had the guts to pull out my camera and shoot. I still find myself thinking four times before shooting people on the street without asking for permission - guess I'll have to get over that or else just build up a photographic memory.

Last week was full of travel. 3 relaxing days in Ahmedabad and 2 exciting days in Chennai took up most of it. This was probably the first time I liked Chennai as a place.

This was also probably the first time in three years that I worked with someone my age and it was totally good fun. I suddenly missed being a part of a young team - but having worked with near-fossils for the last three years means that I've also been like a spnge squeezed dry and then dropped in a bucket of water. Lots of stuff learnt without having to watch your back all the time.

And this excites me all the more because I know I'm going to be in the company of many young and really brtilliant people for the next few years. I'm entering intellectual and professional utopia in a few months from now - watch this space.

I am quite amused at how my maidservant just hates throwing away any deodorant can/perfume bottle that I've run through. She diligently takes them out of the garbage bag and squirrels them away in some corner of the house. At first I thought she wanted to take them, but no, it seems she's waiting for me to put them back on their rightful shelves, damn! I'm planning a covert midnight operation to take out these cans and bottles myself.

Among other stupidly random things, I wanted to write about the difference in the national flags shown on the screen at Inox and Regal during the national anthem bit before the movie (I'm still a little amazed that in Bombay they play the national anthem before every movie - why sepcifically movies? Its beyond me but I'm not complaining). Inox has a lovely video of a real flag fluttering in the wind while Regal had a scratched out video of a cheesy cartoon-flag fluttering with digital gusto. Regal has now revamped its flag and has a brand new cartoon flag without the scratches and also remixed the anthem, making it slightly peppier.

BTW, the sound system at New Empire sucks - so dont watch a movie there unless it has gone away from every other place within easy reach.

This weekend saw me catching 4 movies - Provoked (left over from last week - good because Aishwarya didnt get to talk a lot), Perfect Stranger (strictly average with too many holes in the story. Halle Berry looked a LOT like Mallika Sherawat in the movie, btw), Shooter (I quite liked it - but then I enjoy movies of that kind and I've liked Mark Wahlberg since his early days including Fear and hehe....Boogie Nights, immortalized for 'posterity' by Heather Graham) and Bandidas (Link alert - French. ok-ish...one of my trekking friends looks so uncannily similar to Penelope Cruz, its not funny).

These below are a few pictures that I managed to shoot of people without asking - in a village near Mirzapur...yeah I'm working on it:-D

I'm almost finishing 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. Boy, what a book. I got a little bored in the first few pages but once I focused on what was written, I was totally blown away. This has to be the first time that I've actually written down passages from the book and post-it'ed the book all over.

ps: I'm thrilled with the compound eyes

Deferred updates, resolutions and stray dogs

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:52:00 +0000

I've been dying to write about a very exciting update (actually two) in my life, but am desisting - for a few months atleast.

I've decided to go hammer and tongs at the gym once Mad March ends and also get back to running again. Monday looms up ahead tomorrow but I'm kind of looking forward to it. The weekend was great, full of movies, dogs, cats and friends. Amongst the movies I saw Namaste London which was built on a cliched idea but the execution was far from hackneyed, so quite liked it. Also saw 'The Hills have eyes' which was the Hollywood version of a C-grade Hindi flick. The worst part was that the fellow at the box office in Inox was enthusiastically recommending this movie to people who were asking about the new releases. I'd have happily throttled the guy had I gone with his recommendation. A glowing reference for this movie unfortunately came from someone I dont even know, so theres not much I can do about it besides heaping mental scorn and derision on her.

I've been planning to do a feature on some stray animals that I encounter on the streets but Abodh does it much much better and also knows their individual idiosyncracies and behaviours so will send him the pics I've been taking and wait for him to do a detailed write up on each. Below are a few quick glimpses at some of the guys I keep running into:

These two outside the Standard Chartered office near Flora Fountain are a pleasure to watch. I think the cat has a huge crush on the dog, the way she keeps following him all the time

Left: Mini at Eros theatre is an extremely friendly dog who always drops in to say hi and then promptly nods off to sleep. She loves to put her paw on your hand to attract attention
Right: Aravind, the cobbler at Eros looks after the strays - there are two poms left with him after some slums were demolished. One of the Poms getting a Sunday wash here.

Left: The Towing-truck guys near the Stadium restaurant at Churchgate have a special bond with 3 very old strays (Rani, Raju and Kalu). This one is Rani - she's very shy and timid - and pretty
Right: Kalu is probably the oldest stray in the area - he's a fave of the people around there. He's very dignified and quite. Whiles away his time sleeping in the shade. This kid in the pic lives outside the Churchgate station and is one fiesty bundle, tipping us about injured strays in the area.

Left: Jerry is the venerable oldie living in the Freemason house opposite the Sterling theatre. Abodh says he used to be the unchallenged king of this area in his heydays. He's really old and doddering now but still needs to be muzzled before we can do a routine check-up for him. He's like one of those kind geriatrics but you know from the growls in his throat that he was The Don in his younger days. He has class and is one of the few dogs who can truly ignore you if you're not an acquaintance (I'm still trying to endear myself, but it isnt happening anytime soon).
Right: Lilly - she's the sweet timid old girl near Brabourne Restaurant on the Dhobi Talao lane opposite Metro Adlabs. She had an eye inflammation when I met her. She hates being caught for treatment but was a pleasure to catch hold of while Abodh ministered to her. I'm glad that she's off the list of dogs to be treated but miss meeting her.

Left: Raju is the third old stray at Stadium restaurant, Churchgate. He went scratch-scratch-scratch when I met him for the first time today. He's like one of those old-timers who hang around at village corners, unconsciously scratching themselves while taking a snooze or bubbling away at the Hookah. He's extremely camera shy too.
Right: Coco - he was amongst the first few stray dogs to get adopted in the area. He lives behind the RC Church at Colaba, spending his old years in solitude and reminiscing about those good old days when things were cheap and politicans were'nt corrupt.

Rocky - at Freemasons house opposite Churchgate is my favoritest dog so far. Before meeting him, he was introduced as the 'psycho pom' who barks so much that he may just have a heart attack. He's an amazing guy - he hates everyone who comes into his territory with the core of his heart.
He makes this huge production of attacking - straining at his chain to bite but forgot today that he was'nt chained - so shot ahead at me but froze in his tracks when he realized that there was no chain to stop him, hehe. So he piped down and came over to check me out, while we were looking over Jerry, waiting for me to make a false move.
I love talking back to him in an unafraid tone (coz that peeves him to no end) and fantasize about ruffling all his hair or tickling his nose with a straw when he's fast asleep *evil grin*

India shining? More like India ashamed.

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:38:00 +0000

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
-Mahatma Gandhi

Apparently our nation has degraded to the nadir of barbarity displayed by the crass mentality of its citizens.

Dogs are being killed left, right and centre in Bangalore, aided by the bloodthirsty rantings of some Bangalore-waasis who've suddenly woken up to the fact that they may really be descendants of Genghis Khan or have more barbaric origins.

A modern India is witnessing a carnage - of animals that cannot defend themselves or do not have the werewithal to extract revenge from the murderers. And we call ourselves a 'progressive nation'.

What shocks me is that on an average, 4 out of 10 people I talk to, advocate killing the stray dogs. And that is what the Municipality of Bangalore is finding strength in, in an attempt to save its skin for being thoroughly inefficient, inept and corrupt by not cleaning up the garbage off the streets and not disbursing allocated funds to NGOs to sterilize and vaccinate the dogs. The municipality was caught with its pants down but to its good luck, found that it was in a nudist camp.

The same municipality that professes lack of resources, personnel and funds to catch dogs for sterilization, proudly flagged 30 new Dog-catching vans to catch the dogs and kill them. Shame on you, BMP comissioner K Jairaj.

I am surprised that apparently normal people with allegedly good upbringing actually want the dogs to be killed fully knowing that there are other, more humane alternatives available. Either there is something VERY rotten with the way these people have been brought up or else they're plain stupid.

And I am very very concerned about the children they're going to be bringing into this society. With an attitude like this around me, I wonder if I want to be a contributing member of this society. And the irony is, many of them also say 'oh, we love our pet dogs, but these strays must be killed'.

It is frustrating and amusing at the same time to see the kind of points such people come up with to 'strengthen' their stance. Over all the debates I had, I have compiled a tongue-in-cheek FAQs to the questions/comments I've faced from the pro-killing fools:

What good will sterilization achieve? It is a long-term measure, without any immediate effects

Sterilization of dogs achieves a manifold effect:
1. Male dogs normally chase cars at night or hang around in packs or even have a tendency to be aggressive and bite because they're producing testosterone - yeah the same thingie that makes all the human males you know, so randy and touchy/picky about a small scratch on their beloved cars. Sterilization means that testosterone is not produced anymore in the body (you cut off the source) and that immediately finishes off the aggression in male dogs. They become friendly, docile and unthreatening (in other words, dont have the balls anymore to bite your sorry ass off for kicking them around). They stop hanging around in packs and lead the rest of their lives peacefully without coming in your way.

2. Female dogs are aggressive when they perceive their pups to be in danger. Sterilize the ladies and there are no pups to protect.

Dogs bark at night...its as bad as the loudspeakers during the festivals. Kill em :

I wont go the jingo-istic way and say - hey, do we kill the people organizing loudspeakers and rat-jagaas at night?

Get those dogs sterilized and see for yourself if they still bark uselessly at night. There is a scientific reason as to why sterilization reduces aggression amongst dogs and also makes them more docile etc and people dont seem to want to believe it!

Keep all dogs in your home since you're such a dog lover:

We dont have space or the money, else we would. Seriously. The govt has allocated space and money but refuses to release the same. So why the heck, when there is space and money available and not being released because of corruption and inefficiency, should the dogs be killed? Is'nt this a case of misplaced priorities? Focus, people. The dogs are being held accountable instead of the people in power who're with holding the allocated sums. Is'nt that kind of rotten? And you guys are supporting it?

NGOs/animal lovers dont do anything for the bitten people

ummm...Since you seem to be more sympathetic, why dont you guys do something FOR them for a change? Animal welfare NGOs bring out pamphlets every year on where to go and what to do if you get bitten by dogs and go to schools building up awareness about rabies. What do you guys do for the bitten people? Apart from advocating killing. Heh - I seriously draw comparison to the tribes in NW frontier areas where if something criminal happens, they screw the happiness of the entire families of criminals - do you guys realise that at one basic level, y'all are also displaying a similar attitude? Now if you're fine with that, I'm fine too, but would'nt want my kids to come anywhere near you:-)

You're comparing dogs to humans

I'm comparing the life of an animal that I hold dear, to the life of a human. It is a little ironic that people see the wood but missed the forest. Killing innocent living beings is barbaric. Period. So why should I not draw comparisons? And yeah, I'd definitely cherish the street dog's company near my building more than the company of the municipal commissioner or a Shiv Sena guy - you're welcome to hang around with them, of course. I dont feel insulted if you do. Millions of years of evolution, and to end at this level of barbarity? To be killing 10,000 dogs for an incident which probably involved not more than 5 dogs (probably super-aggressive or conditioned to tear because of the meat shops nearby). Now if that is what is evolution about...you're welcome to evolve more. But please, take the next spaceship to Uranus.

The question of money - keep killing dogs till we get the money to sterilize

A big question. Plagues everything in the world.

We dont see anger on Bill Gates Foundation for spreading awareness about treating AIDS patients nicely? They also lack enough money to take all the AIDS affected people in and give them a great life and medication so they try and bring out advertisements to make people aware that AIDS patients are not really dangerous to the average idiot on the streets.
Well, maybe some of you will soon raise a voice against that too. 'Get along with just finishing these walking disasters, right away - we dont have money to treat them, who knows tomorrow they'll come and scratch us and infect us with HIV..these NGOs dont have money, so let the govt finish em off. Keep killing the AIDS patients or the polio kids till we get the money to treat em all' - very Nazi-esque.

As for people again being incredulous that I bring humans into the picture - I'm just forseeing your attitudes in the future when you find validation on a smaller scale in dogs.

So yeah to get back to money. There's enough money. Only not in the right hands. Instead of acknowledging that and holding people accountable, kill dogs..oh yeah...the municipality guys MUST get rich...after all they deserve more than these dogs...they're humans, aye. Sigh..and you guys project yourself as the face of a modern India?

'I/my family have been chased by dogs, so I'd love to see them all killed'

Dude, get those dogs sterilized - you dont have to do a thing apart from making a phone call to an animal welfare organization. They wont even ask you for money - they'll try to raise the money on their own from people who do care. You wont be attacked in the future - its all in the testosterone. And yeah, for gods sake stop bothering the dogs on the streets or kicking their pups around - otherwise they WILL screw your happiness if you're alone.

Why dont you direct your attention at the poor farmers committing suicides?

We'd love to. However we're constrained by priorities. If thats a bigger priority or you, do something about it, start a petition (at the very least, heh) and we'll sign. Maybe we'll even talk a bit in your favour on internet boards and play an advocacy role. We promise not to bug you by asking you to do something about the dogs too just because you're keen to help someone in some way.

Neutering is not humane-have you asked he dogs if they want to live like that?

frankly, I agree with that too. However, given the options - to kill or to neuter, I choose the lesser evil. As for the macho statement of 'I'd rather die than have my balls cut', I sincerely hope that you never ever have to be in a situation where you have to make a choice. However I'm willing to bet my last paisa that you'll eat your words then.

I pay my taxes, why the F are these dogs still barking at night?

Well dont ask us or the dogs! Ask the politicians and the babus who were supposed to get the dogs neutered and get them quieted down for the night. And while you're doing that, please also ask them why the f*, when you're paying your taxes, are you still stuck in traffic jams, why you have to pay a bribe to get anything done, why is your food getting costlier, why do you not get uninterrupted power supply, why is the drinking water so effing dirty and ummm..I'm sure you can come up with many such questions. Maybe then you'd advocate killing all the babus who just took a bribe to feed their family - killing seems to be the 'in' thing with some people after all.

Why are we wasting time here debating and punching keystrokes while dogs are getting killed

I know it is as impossible to convince people who strongly blv that dogs should be killed as it is to get me to change mine - all arguments put forth here are more for the fence-sitters and to ensure that wrong information/half baked information and bad logic does not propagate via this medium.

In todays age, information and access to it is not a rare commodity anymore. We have to make sure that we advocate for causes we believe in, lest some impressionable people read blatantly wrong views and form their own on that basis. Debate, while being a lot of hot air, is important to help fence-sitters crystallize their own opinions. Advocacy for a cause is often as important as the cause itself - because it affects mindsets.

One plea to anyone who cares to read this. The next time you're walking down the road, try being kind to a stray dog and it will respond with twice the affection you gave it. Try petting it and watch its tail wag so hard that its entire body shakes, just because noone has ever loved it like that.

And then imagine all those poor loving animals being dragged by putting steel wires around their throats, being swung around by steel wires to choke them, being hit on the head with iron rods, having their throats slit, being electrocuted or burnt alive.

I saw a video where a municipality worker caught a dog with a steel wire and the poor dog was still wagging its tail thinking its in for a treat. Its head was smashed in moments later. Where the hell is Maneka Gandhi, for all her animal loving protestations in the past?

A guy I know from an online forum mocked a dog-lover for breaking down on TV while describing how the dogs were killed. I guess this guy never had someone it loved dragged away by steel wires and electrocuted to death.

I've no intention of sending you off with a bad taste in your mouth but the situation is SO bad that everyone MUST feel some kind of shock or distaste at whats happening in Bangalore these days. Hence these pictures below. If you still dont feel anything for the dogs, may god save you:

Throats slit open, brutally killed and dumped - all with the active support of the citizens of a 'modern India'

Its all in your DNA

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:12:00 +0000

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Kala Ghoda Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:43:00 +0000

The Kala Ghoda festival is one of the few things that I like about Bombay. For about 10 days, the Kala Ghoda area and the Rampart row leading up to the Lion Gate gets transformed into a mini-carnival, hosting a cornucopia of events and exhibitions, showcasing the best of Indian (and foreign) culture.

The variety of crowds thronging Kala Ghoda is just mindboggling - ranging from the arty-farty types trying to look uber cool in their unkemptness and jholas or gypsy baubles to the uber fashionable trying to look, well, fashionable in their gucci glares (worn at 10pm, no less) or the micro-est of shorts...and all flavours of people in between. And what better a place to see most of them than at a stall - most of the time I was there, I was volunteering at the Welfare of Stray Dogs stall. While folding gazillions of teeshirts a billion times is no fun, it was more than made up by the people-watching opportunity and watching different people react to the stuff on display and the kind of thoughts they put in while choosing stuff.

I just love it when the Kala Ghoda festival is on - somehow even passing by that area gives me an instant lift and it does help to live jogging distance away from it...which makes sure you pass by it all the time:-)

So yeah, while I did'nt get to attend most of the literary or cultural events because of the stall, I did manage to go around a bit and shoot a few quick pictures, mostly late at night. The only event I attended was Dastangoi and it was SO worth it. For a listing of all events that happened, it may help to visit the Kala Ghoda website or the Kala Gho da Blog where some people have written about the events they attended.

Above and Below: Dastangoi - the traditional art of storytelling in Urdu was amazingly good fun. Starting with the plea, 'Hamare yahan kehte hain, jiski taali baj gayi, uski izzat utar gayi, so taali na bajayiga, pasand aaye, to waah waah kahiyega' and then going on to recite breath-taking tales of ayyars (spies) and tilism (magic), delivered in a perfect combination of Urdu and Persian, with the perfect intonation and expression made sure that this was amongst the best performance I've seen after the 'Vagina Monologues'. I took a short video too and will try to post it on Youtube once I figure out if I can reduce its size. Oh and yeah, the David Sassoon Library is an amazingly lovely place. While the garden is much much recommended, also recommended is a chillout with a book on a calm weekend.

There was really good art on display and for sale. While I am no connoiseur on art or dont even have pretensions to understand good art, I could'nt overlook this amazingly done umbrella (above) and this roadside gallery of paintings done using feet(below).

Above and Below: This was by far the most popular display at Kala Ghoda this time - the 'aamchi helicoptuk'...damn...how many times have I wished that my taxi/auto would just take wings and fly off over the traffic jams that characterize Bombay..this was the perfect solution:-)

Above: The traditional Indian way of keeping evil out of your hair - the size of this one ensured that a LOT of evil was kept away, lol. I quite liked it...kudos to whoever came up with the idea of hanging this larger-than-life ghost-repellant.Wish I had come up with something similar the year before last to show good riddance to some really bad rubbish.

Ok, since not many people figured out what this meant, I will expound - I met the Harsha guy who did this and he took pains to explain it to me:-) so its not like I figured it out myself!

So this is a life-size fighter plane done up in Khadi. It takes up 3,500 sqft of the Kala Ghoda parking lot - which is otherwise a repository for the cars which are the reasons for a super-congested Mumbai. By taking up all that space, it allows many people to sleep peacefully below it (paintings of hundreds of people sleeping below). A fighter plane, so to say, fighting against all the congestion and stress...I like!:-) The David Sassoon Library is in the background.

The Samovar cafe at the Jehangir Art Gallery remains a fave hangout...more so for a relaxed lunch during the festival. The various stuffed Parathas (including a Gajar Halwa paratha with icecream!), jaljira and guava juice are must-haves. A view of the Prince of Wales museum from Samovar.

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) stall just before closing time (otherwise the crowds there had to be seen to be believed!). I just love how WSD has designed its products and done an amazingly well excercise in branding. The girls hanging on to their boyfriends and the kids hanging on to their parents go 'awwwwww chooo chweeeet' or 'can I have that pillow, please please please, mummy, you know how much I LOVE dogs' - and that translates into great sales for us:-) And its great to see how many people LOVE dogs and happily buy stuff or donate or sign up to be volunteers!

Wheeeeeee....this is how I'd like to spend most of my weekends:-)

So there ended the Kala Ghoda festival - I'm sorry I didnt attend some of the films or dances or other stuff..am sure it must have been super. FBP loves Kala Ghoda festival so much that she postponed her holiday trip to Kerala for it!!

In other news, one of the trainers at my gym has adopted this teeeeny little kitten off the streets and its my first true brush with cats at close quarters. This one's obviously very friendly and keeps perched in the gym watching everyone working out. And as would be very obvious, it has been named 'Dumbbell':-) I'll post a pic of her fighting with the gym mirror some time.

Update - managed to upload a short clip of Dastangoi to You tube:

Business Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 09:19:00 +0000

There's this business card etiquette that says that you must spend a few seconds carefully scrutinizing a business card given to you and then place it in front of you (as opposed to stuffing it into your pocket).

Which was why I found it difficult to keep a straight face throughout a meeting when a business card that I got today said below the name, 'Grandson of Mirza Ghalib'. And the fellow was'nt even a poet!

I'm still pulling out the card every few minutes and chuckling to myself. And between chuckles, thinking if I AM impressed by the fact that he's Mirza Ghalib's grandson. Coz if I AM, the card may just have had the desired effect.

Up next: pictures from the Kala Ghoda festival

Whaaaaaaaat?

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:00:00 +0000

Last week, the news channels constantly ran this news on their ticker:

'UN report says Humans are responsible for global warming'

Dang. I thought it was the cows, all along.

Overheard...

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:56:00 +0000

At a dinner hosted by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industries: 'Yes Darling, that Pond's Age Miracle cream really works wonders'.
*said with flourish of bejewelled fingers in a stage whisper*

Bleah. I ran back home after exchanging a few pleasantries.

ps: I think the Neha, writer chick in the Ponds ad is damn cute.

The cycling trip

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:50:00 +0000

So I decided to celebrate my 29th birthday on a cycling trip down Konkan coast. The itinerary had sounded fairly simple - 19kms of cycling on the first day and just about 4kms on the second and so on.

It was a toss up between a more tougher-looking trekking trip in the Vasota forests and this one. I decided to go for this one because I had'nt cycled properly for about 15 years now and was dying to hit the beaches for some time. And looking at the itinerary, I was prepared to be cycling for about an hour everyday and to avoid getting bored, listening to music or heading out for a swim in the sea. Should be a fairly relaxed weekend, I thought.

I could'nt have been more wrong!

For one, we cycled about 100kms in 2 days (hehe, there seemed to be something wrong in the itinerary...not that I'm complaining!). The group was extremely interesting and I got hardly any chance to listen to the music FBP had so painstakingly written onto a CD for me to load on my pod for the trip. And yeah, I got to swim only for a few hours on the second day - but I am sure I couldnt have handled more - with all the sand that has a way of irritatingly getting into everything you take to a beach.

The group was fairly large - about 20 people from various backgrounds (surprisingly, many were involved in finance in some way or the other - hehe, are we getting too many holidays or are too overworked?errrrm!), different countries (4 countries - India, Surinam, Mexico and Netherlands) and a range of ages - from 22 (my guess) to 40 (my guess again).

The bikes were great. I think the hallmark of a good bike is that there is a smooth feel to the pedalling and it hums like a bunch of bees when going fast downhill. Considering that there were quite a few tough uphill climbs, we'd have been better off with geared cycles, but that'd be asking for too much, especially when you get a ready supply of cold water through the trip, a lorry following you at all times to pick up stragglers and get to sleep in tents on the beach.

The trip was organised by Explorers, a bunch of great and enthusiastic young people. So they had organized everything and all you had to do was be there, ready to stress your quadriceps and umm the glutes too (3 days on bicycle seats left em screaming with pain) and brave some sun (Baz Luhrmann made sure we were well protected).

I have absolutely decided to stop being a lazy bum and buy more backup Nikon batteries because the camera folded up after the first day and I was left high and dry, feeling like a fish out of water. Theres this feeling of incompleteness that creeps in for sure when I dont have my cam handy - gotta do something about it!

So we all met up at the Gateway, took a boat to Mandwa, then a bus to Alibaug (hot tip: everyone and their uncles are going to Alibaug on a weekend, so queues dont work when you're waiting for the half-hourly bus from Mandwa to Alibaug) and got our cycles from Nagaon. Our base camp was at Barshiv - about 15kms away from Kashid and 25kms from Murud.

The cycling from Nagaon to Revdanda (about 10kms) was fairly uneventful and the terrain was flat, thus increasing my feeling of complacency about the whole trip (I was wearing jeans on the first day of cycling, for Pete's sake!). It suddenly became uphill from Revdanda onwards and that set the tone for the next three days of cycling.

You are cycling at a leisurely pace and spy the road going up in the distance. You take some deep breaths and push harder on the pedals in anticipation of the uphill slope. By the time you hit the slope, you're already out of breath and tiny thoughts about getting down from the cycle and trudging up the slope flit through your mind. Then you spy the Dutch with amazing stamina cycling up the slope with little effort and you decide to grit your teeth and push yourself harder! Soon you're standing up and cycling, pushing away with all the might left in your thigh muscles. Of course you cant last long that way on the uphill climb and your knees start buckling under you and the lower back starts giving away. You're breathing hard, very hard and your lungs are bursting and your heart is doing a tap dance, threatening to burst out soon enough.

Just when you think you're done and cannot go any further, the uphill ends.

You smile to yourself, let out a whoop of joy, settle back on the seat and whiz down the hill, the wind singing in your ears and the well-oiled cycle humming like a bee. You're still breathing hard but you're going back to normal soon and the wind is evaporating all the sweat that you were soaked in. What makes it even more beautiful is when the downhill stretch suddenly exposes the vast expanse of the shimmering sea below you. The view is breathtaking and you forgive the organisers for not having mentioned all those hills in the itinerary:-)

The trip was great on the whole. Barring an accident where one of the young ladies with us lost control on a downhill turn and went careening into the wall between the road and the rocks below. Thankfully there was'nt much damage and she held up pretty well with all the blood on her face and knees till I let slip that she had chipped a tooth. Damn! That seemed to be the last straw and huge tears started rolling down - I must have kicked myself atleast 5 times for mentioning that to her. So anyway, she was back to her cool and collected self after she was stitched up and bandaged.

I have this thing with other people's blood that I REALLY need to do something about. The moment I see someone covered in blood, I start getting a cold sweat - it starts from my forehead, my breathing becomes laboured and soon I'm drenched in VERY cold sweat, ready to pass out unless I dont sit down in fresh air. There's something rather shameful in hyperventilating at a distance from where someone is hurt and I really think I need to see a shrink about this. Thank god my parents' dream of making me a doc did'nt bear fruition - else I'd have been passing out every 2 minutes or so.

The nights were lovely. The only liquor shop in the vicinity served NO hard liquor but, hold your breath, just Wine and Beer! Who in the blazes drinks all that wine in the Konkani villages? So you have rows upon rows of fine port and Zinfandels lining the walls of a measly little shop in the middle of nowhere. The conversations were great - from marriage to life and from Indian culture to Dutch economic policies and liberalism. It could'nt have been better and it was good to hear so many different views from people. It never ceases to amaze me how much deeper most people are than from the first impressions you make about them.

My birthday was decidedly muted - noone on the trip knew about it so I was left more or less alone...I find all the wishing and good treatment a little embarrassing. SMSes are good and the iffy network on the coastal villages made sure I was not too embarrassed saying thank yous to everyone on the phone:-) I did miss family, though.

Am back into the grind now with locked-out quadriceps but feeling much better and fitter than last week. Below are a few pics from the trip from the first day - the cam made sure I concentrated fully on cycling in the next 2 days:

Our first pit stop at Revdanda - little did we know about the uphill slopes that were going to hit us after this

On the way - shot with one hand, with the other hand and the rest of me focussing on tackling the uphill coming ahead

Now THATS a good way to spend your weekend

Chilling out at Barshiv, our base camp

Sunset at Barshiv beach

A quick update

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:16:00 +0000

- especially since I'm planning a cycling trip down Konkan coast for this long weekend.

Movies

So I've gone tech savvy over the last few months and am using P2P and torrents to download movies. Apart from stuff that cannot be really named (hehe), I managed to download 'Borat' - the irreverent comedy that has been earning gazellions of $$ and an equal number of protests and lawsuits. I think I've seen Borat about 4 times now and have loved it everytime I saw it. Agreed that there are parts in the movie that are really gross and obscene, but the humour really blows you away. Had I been a Kazakh, I'd probably have slung my AK-47 on my shoulders and made that trip to London to blast Sacha Baron Cohen off the face of this earth!

For readers who'll not get to see Borat on Indian movie screens, it is the story of this Kazakh journalist who is sent to bring back cultural learnings from the 'US and A' for the country. It is a mindblowingly hilarious comedy, has the potential and material to madly upset just about anybody (jews, kazakhs, students from Carolina, feminists and the conservative christians amongst many others) and was played by Sacha Baron Cohen (the Ali G fellow) who apparently shot most of the movie as real clips, without telling the participants what its going to be used for:-D So yeah, its 5 star recommended viewing for those who dont mind some gross action involving hairy butts or extreme racist mentalities portrayed in the movie.

I also saw Guru a while back. I quite liked it. I thought that the acting by everyone was really good. This is the first GOOD movie where I've seen Abhishek Bachchan carry the entire weight of a movie on his own without sharing space with someone else.

The storyline is racy so there are very few boring moments. I quite liked all the songs - esp the 'megha re' in how it was picturised and for the lyrics. I especially liked the 'Gurubhai, Gurubhai' peppy lines throughout the movie (am sure there is a technical name for that but I dont know). The cinematography is pretty good - especially in the songs. A lot of Gujarat portrayed there was actually set in the town of Pattadakkal in Karnataka but it'll look like Gujarat allright to the average viewer. The one song after Guru becomes a father is rather silly and doesnt really make any sense in terms of taking the movie ahead.

I wish there was a little more of Turkey portrayed - it covers like only the first 5 minutes in the movie...and for buffs who dont want to miss the Mallika Sherawat number, make sure you're there on time! As for my comments on the item number...while the song was good and Mallika IS really hot, it should have had atleast elements of a belly dance rather than an all out 'babuji, dheere chalo' kind of mood. I mean Champa WAS supposed to be a belly dancer and there was nothing eye catching about the choreography in the dance.

I did'nt find a lot of sexual chemistry b/w Abhishek and Aishwarya - while there was a lot of 'great-friend' chemistry to them for sure. Aish could have done a better job of portraying the strong woman supporting Gurubhai in his weaker moments.

I saw Amitabh Bachchan weeping away on Star News (yeah I still dont have CAS, tarnations!*) and saying that Abhishek has done better than him. I think he was just heaping too much praise a little too soon. While Abhishek was decidedly good, he definitely does'nt match the intensity that Amitabh brought to the screen in his heydays. And yeah, Abhishek really was good in the movie - by his own previous standards. We do see some shades of Amitabh's style - esp in the number of rasping 'hain' that Gurubhai utters. And thankfully this is one movie that he does'nt seem to be carrying just on the basis of his stubble but on his acting.

Mithunda was amazing in his role and Vidya Balan had her moments. For me the best shot and enacted scene in the movie remains her last one where she reaches out to touch Gurubhai.

While the first half of the movie was great, the second half, especially the ending was just a little too lame - I'd have looked forward to some more logical refuting of the charges against Gurubhai than just playing to the gallery-and winning. While the last part in the courtroom reminded me of the movie 'Aviator', I was not very happy with it. Some stronger points should have emerged in Guru's defence. While I surmised that the license raj WAS bad for capitalism, the point was'nt made too clearly.

I also wished they showed more of HOW Guru achieved his success than just showing fast-moving montages of his growing factories and employees. All they showed in small anecdotal clips was how he was willing to go to any length to get his way.

I quite enjoyed the closing shot of Gurubhai in the stadium. It was good to see Abhishek Bachchan not trying hard to look good or hip for once - just realistic.

A much better movie review of Guru can be found here

Random

I have been missing photography for some time now. This cycling trip through Konkan coast should put me back in form now. Its been a while since I went trekking/tripping and am really looking forward to it.

Oh yeah, I ran the marathon too - got a few pics of me taken, trying to run in a mostly moribund crowd which I'll try and post whenever FBP mails them to me - yeah ...she was there with other WSD volunteers cheering us all - which was when everyone was ready to fall with exhaustion.

Shikha's back in the grind after an amazing trip to Pakistan..too bad she doesnt blog else we'd all be treated to some lovely pictures. They got featured on most of the news channels in India and Pak when they met Laloo, APJ Kalam, Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz.

I'm at an amazing threshold right now with two developments that may happen over the next 2 months - one is great for professional growth and the other for personal life. Lets see and I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'll obviously choose the good-for-personal life vaala development if that happens and that may just change many many things for me, forever. Till then, Carpe Diem, people, since no amount of planning ever seems to work for the longer term.

*Update as of today: I do have CAS now, thank ye lords...this review was written and saved as draft about 2 weeks back.

The Swiss Travelogue...hopefully complete

noreply@blogger.com (Raccoon) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:10:00 +0000

Continued from here

Now that I'm a tad free from work preoccupations, I'll attempt the Swiss travelogue - it'd have been much more detailed had I done it right then, but 4 months later, I have to rely more on images. Its a little strange how I got down to writing about Switz only after this one short honeymoon - wish I'd been blogging back in 2002...I cou'ldve dedicated an entire blog just to picture-perfect Swizerland

We spent 12 days in Switzerland for the vacation and covered most of the country. The good thing was that we stayed in the central region of Switz and its not such a big country, so most of the trips we did were day trips - went out early morning and came back by evening. Since the entire trip was covered on the amazingly efficient Swiss train network, we got the flavour of the whole country, more or less.

A little Gyaan about Switzerland

Switzerland was, in the medieval ages, a motley collection of mountain provinces which were governed by families and constantly competing with each other. The Swiss were renowned mercenaries and fierce fighters in those times and provided mercenaries to fight almost every war in Europe during those times. The violent history of the Swiss is in stark contrast to the studiously peaceful and neutral present.

They were extremely poor till before the World Wars where the Swiss confederation decided to remain neutral and on good sides of all the warring countries. This neutrality meant that it was often a safe haven for escaping people - and the money accummulated by all means - by Nazis and Jews alike in those dark, volatile times. Switzerland was the only stable country which was neutral enough to be trusted with all the money and that is how Swiss banks earned their fame. Cloaked in secrecy and tradition, the Swiss banks are an imposing sight today in the leafy bylanes of Zurich and Bern.

Notwithstanding all their neutral trappings, the Swiss seem to be remarkably paranoid about their security. Every man is a trained militiaman and every house in Switzerland must have a bunker-like feature with provisions enough to last a month, and a gun. The Swiss seem to be very fierce about protecting their neutrality!

The Swiss Army, Navy and Air Force are considered amongst the best in Europe. 'Hold on', you may say. The Navy? Is'nt Switz a landlocked country? Yeah. But dont be surprised by the fact they have an amazingly sophesticated and compact Naval apparatus in all the lakes. Some Swiss whisper conspiratorially that they even have submarines in the lakes - and I would'nt put it past the wily Swiss!

Every man is supposed to bear arms in Switzerland and has to be conscripted into the military early on in life. After a few years of rigorous training, they're sent back into civilian professions, only to congregate at different points in time every year in remote and secret locations in the mountains to train with the platoon assigned to them. Bankers, CEOs, Chairmen, Cobblers, Plumbers and Hoteliers...all often form a part of the same platoon - forgetting for a few weeks every year their real lives and living together and forging lifelong friendships.

The Swiss airforce has some lovely fighter planes and they make it a point to practice many dog-fights in the Swiss Alps. The Swiss have entire airbases hidden in the mountains so dont be surprised to be stopped for a few minutes in the middle of your mountain trek while an F-16 suddenly emerges from a cave-hangar and takes off on its daily sortie.

This was a daily feature in the summers - the constant dog-fights up in the air in the Swiss alps

The Swiss remain amongst the most friendly and diligent people I've met. Dignity of labour is very real in Switzerland and it was one of the rare countries that seem to be above the prejudices of colour.

Accommodation

This was high tourist season so finding accommodation was going to be tough - or so we thought. A good thing about Switz is that it is really well geared to welcome tourists and make the stay as comfortable as possible. Only the prices go up or down according to the season. And yeah, they go up and down quite significantly.

I had made reservations for a studio apartment in a quaint place called Hasliberg - which is about 5kms away from the Brunig station. Brunig station falls on the main line linking East Switzerland (German part) to the Western Switz (French part). It is an hour away from Luzerne in the North East(the main junction for taking trains to North and South Switzerland (Italian side) and an hour from Interlaken (the main tourist town which is the gateway to the Swiss Alps) in the South West.

Our apartment was in Gletscherblick-aptly named since the large french window had an amazing view of a glacier. It was a lovely little place with a cable car going up into the glacier and quaint little villages dotting the hillside and amazingly clean and blue lakes in the valley.

A view of the Glacier from the apartment window

Gods looking down from the heavens

The hosts, Peter, Fiona and their staff were extremely warm, super-efficient and yet non-intrusive..almost setting the tone for our Swiss experience right from Day 1.

Transport

There was a half-hourly Die Post (Bus) service to Brunig from Hasliberg and back so transportation from Gletsch was a dream. We had already bought Swiss rail passes from India which ensured unlimited travel on most trains, buses, city trams and most boats in Switzerland. While I dont intend to go into rapturous paeans over the Swiss transport system, it really IS amazing. Once you have figured it out, everything goes like clockwork. We made plans for connecting trains at differences of as less as 2-3 minutes and were never betrayed - and coming from India, it was a culture shock for us. The only time I DID see a Swiss train running late was in Logano - the Italian part and there were constant announcements apologizing profusely for this as if a crime had been committed. And the train was late by about 6.5 minutes - which was sacrilege by Swiss standards! Die Post was celebrating 100 years of its service and we found all the bus drivers extremely friendly. It was a pleasure to ride in those yellow buses. The bus-stands were beautiful too - a representative of how much the Swiss strive to keep their country pretty.

A lovely bus-stand at Gletsch

A word of advice to everyone travelling to Switz - the trains are amazingly well run and make the best use of the train system, right from the airport. Cabs are prohibitively expensive and while we had to take a cab in Zurich because of the huge quantities of luggage we had with us (Shikha's, because she went off to the US straight from Zurich), you must utilize the trains at the airport to get into the city. The Zurich Flughaufen (airport) is a little far away from the main city and the cabs take about 60chf (Swiss francs - while Euro is also used in all shops, Chf is recommended because you tend to lose a little in every Euro transaction). The train station is just a street across from the airport. Go there, get your passes verified/ratified and begin your Swiss journey. The trains are amazingly comfortable and silent. Arrive at the Zurich Main station and plan your onward journey from there.

Swiss train timetables - these were the best thing once we figured it out. Every train station has its own little booklet which shows the times of all trains departing from or arriving at that station. Go to the info counter and pick up your little booklet and keep it with you in case you intend to make another connection at the station. Spend 5-10 minutes to figure how it is formatted and you will never have to fumble around for trains in Switzerland ever again. I've a huge stack of these little booklets but these were lifesavers as we made plans for taking precarious 1-minute connections while in trains across the country.

Tourist Information Centres - every train station has one and unless you have an idea of the place already, it should be your first stop. Get a map of the town and ask the lady for recommendations on places to see. She'll usually pencil out a walking plan on the map - which btw are amazingly well detailed and cover each little twist, turn, corner and alleyway. We did a LOT of walking in the Swiss towns except in Logano and Zurich which had the attractions some distance away, necessiating the use of buses/trams.

Logistically, Switzerland is like heaven. Everything we planned for, happened. On time. It could'nt have gotten any better.

Our trip

It was just lovely - we had'nt planned on doing so much - basically because we had'nt had enough time to plan for the trip from before, with the marriage and Shikha's admission process going paralelly. Apart from the acco and the travel, nothing else was planned and we still managed to do it all:) We had left most of Shikha's luggage at my boss's friend's place in Zurich so were'nt weighed down and feel that being based out of one place while making all the day-trips was a great idea. We could have stayed a couple of days in Geneva and also in Logano and explored the french and italian parts of the country in more detail, but that's for our next trip there - this was good for a first trip:)

Our little village-town was devoid of many tourists - most prefer to stay in and around Interlaken and it was a good place for a honeymoon. We went on long walks across the undulating countryside, crossed little gurgling brooks, explored small patches of forests, made friends with all the superb dogs and random other wildlife and took in the amazing scenery at every turn - in short, lived a few days out of the classic Enid Blyton stories when we did'nt travel to other parts of the country. Below are a few pics from our walks across the countryside - please excuse if the datestamp on the pics are jarring for your viewing pleasure but keeping the dates was important to us and I didnt want to edit them out for the blog - click on the pictures for a little clearer and larger view:

Loved the various hues here - Sunset on Thun Lake

Miniscule purple flowers by the side of the road

nothing great technically but loved the little rose peeping out from behind the fence:-)

Life's a complex cobweb

Took me 10 minutes to get this guy out of his shell and moving - loved the shell colours and fluidity of movement

These were miniscule too - taken in a super macro mode.

We found flowers everywhere we went - big or small. Worker bees trying to milk their quota of flowers for the day

This is probably how we'd want to retire

The best part about Switz is that its an amazingly Dog-friendly country - you see them in the trains, in the malls and in restaurants too! Our own ageing Kate from the apartments

Its a rare Swiss house that wont have flowers - the most pretty ones, growing in perfect orderly profusion

The undulating countryside

Places we saw

While its impossible to describe each city we went to in great detail - simply because we went to so many and I did'nt write an account the same night, I'll attempt to list the more prominent places that we went to. We wanted consciously to feel the culture and did not restrict ourselves to only the picturesque places as most other tourists do and tried our best to explore the cities and their cultural history in the limited time we had.

So while we did the usual touristy stuff - went to Jungraujoch/Titlis/Pilatus, took innumerable cablecars, trekked on the mountains in the Italian part, we also visited every church of prominence, most of the more popular castle-museums, many many art galleries and the old part of every town which was always a maze of cobbled streets, pleasant roadside cafes, lovely and soulful music being played by people on the roads and the beautiful fountains (special mention: Bern - I cannot even begin to list all the lovely fountains we went to, there!). I'd never seen Switz earlier from a tourists' point of view, so this was a first.

It was the Swiss National day on 1st August and we were treated to a profusion of the plain-but-pretty swiss flags and bells everywhere we went. We took a cable car into the glacier to a village called Bidmi where they were having late-night fireworks by the lake. People from villages around had congregated to watch the fireworks and celebrate the national day. Just before the fireworks started, there was silence all around and to my shock, a very familiar tune wafted through the air to set the mood. Guess what? The Swiss were playing the tune of 'Yeh Haseen Vadiyaan, Yeh Khula Aasmaan' from Roja in a god-forsaken place up in the mountains away from anywhere and where we were the only tourists. It was simply mindblowing, hearing AR Rahman's composition in Bidmi of all the places.

The fireworks on the lake with Yeh Haseen Vadiyan playing in the background

The Swiss light fires all across the mountains to celebrate the national day and use complicated signals to signal to other villages that all is fine. This tradition carries on and we were pleasantly surprised to see a huge turnout of people to celebrate the National Day with gusto - not a common sight in India for sure where its just a holiday.

Amongst the bigger towns, Luzerne was a life-saver - we found my laptop's cable which could match with the Swiss sockets - Shikha had to complete a few HBS modules before reaching there. It was the junction for catching a train or a ferry to all parts of Switzerland and is by far the best connected town in the country. All major trains run through Luzerne including the Golden Pass Panoramic express (which goes across the most beautiful stretch of mountains and rugged passes across Switzerland - crossing Brunig passes, Interlaken and Gstaad to the French side and through lovely vineyards terminating in Montreaux- a lovely city on the fringes of lake Geneva, more known for the SUPERB Jazz festival and yeah, its proximity to Vevey - the original Swiss chocolate destination) and the Wilhelm Tell express (which originating from Luzerne, is a combination of a paddle-boat and panoramic train rides to the Italian part of Lugano/Locarno and goes through the famous Gotthard tunnel which was cut out of a huge mountain in order to reach the Italian side more quickly).

The transport museum is a place worth visiting in Luzerne. Take a bus from the station to the museum and then walk back along the lake Lucerne - its a lovely 3-4km walk. Cross the street into the old part of the town and take in the beautiful and famous Octagonal water towers that make Luzerne a huge tourist attraction

Octagonal Water towers. These are like bridges across the river that feeds into the lake. Made of wood and stone, the passage is lined with flowers (as usual) and beautiful paintings depicting historical incidents.

The Glacier Express was amazing too and we really wished we had time enough to stay on in St Moritz. Travelling on all these trains, including the Jungfrau network meant that we had our fill of almost everything scenic that Switz had to offer though we plan to explore the French side in more detail the next time.

Of course, the Golden Pass Panoramic remained our favorite - we had to take it everyday to get out of Brunig to anywhere else and it IS a very beautiful and well managed train

We took the Golden Pass Panoramic almost every day out of Brunig and it was super fun, having the entire almost-empty train all to ourselves on the return leg to Luzerne late at night

One of the rare 'We-were-there' pics from the trip, hehe - Montreaux

The Golden Pass Panoramic is designed to maximise your viewing experience

Bern as a city was a superb cultural experience - especially the old part and you must ONLY walk through Bern. The cobbled roads, Einstein's house, the AMAZING cathedral with its stained glass paintings, breathtaking architecture, and the fountains (special mention: the Ogre Fountain which was a little disturbing - showed an Ogre gorging on children) were simply amazing. The museum was great and I ran out of camera battery at the opportune moment - something that was to plague me through Switz and I again make a mental note to buy many backups. I also discovered that the way I spell my name to someone made her write it as PRENEW. Phew.

We loved this Cathedral in Bern and spent time just sitting here, gawking at the amazing architecture

While the stained glass paintings were amongst the loveliest ever, the best one I saw was in teh Zurich Landes Museum - will post its pic if I manage to find it from the 1000+pics I have of Switz!

Amazing attention to detail in even the smallest thing was what characterized the Swiss for us - a roadside tap

The famous Bear Pit - after which Bern is named. Bears have been kept in this pit since the 12th century. My dad had brought back pics of these same bears when they were tiny tots in early 1980s - look how they've grown now! Next to the Bear pit is a pub - I forget its name...while DO have the Beer there, PLEASE also go into the basement where they brew their own Beer and have explained it with superb and funny pictorials

Einstein's house in Bern - he was a common clerk...phew!

The Ogre Fountain - the most intriguing/disturbing piece of architecture I've ever seen

Montreaux was nice - because of the Chateau De Chillon - an old old fortress which has been converted into a museum. Lord Byron was also imprisoned here in the cellars and you have him scratching his name on the walls in futile desperation. I just loved the way the Swiss have maintained their historical monuments. Shikha and me had a little tiff here because I wanted to spend more time in the Chateau exploring every nook and cranny and she wanted to press on toVevey- Lausanne and Geneva. The best thing to do in Montreaux is to take the boat on Lake Geneva and get off at the Chateau and then carry on on the second boat after you've finished exploring it.

The Chateau de Chillon

Lord Byron - inspired by our own Indian Graphitti artists while interned in the Chateau cellar for writing seditious poetry

The Royal Potty - no need to flush, it goes straight into the lake, 70 feet below

The stubborn mule that I am, I made sure I photographed every nook and cranny and poked my nose in everywhere while Shikha fumed about missing the boat to Lausanne-Vevey-Geneva

Geneva was a non-descript city - not very terribly interesting - it just has a few average museums and galleries and is more of a multilateral-agency town.

Our favorite place in Switzerland remains the Italian side. It is a sudden and welcome change from the regimented North and East which had a heavy German influence and the airy-fairy West, which had a French influence. Lugano, Locarno and Ticino were so relaxed that we let our hair down as soon as we reached there. The Italian influence was unmistakeable...everything was chilled out, people were taking their siestas on the roadside cafes, dresses were more colorful, accents more guttural, the weather more sunny and the mood much more festive in general. The change in weather was noticeable. You cross the Gotthard tunnel and everything is different. Its as if you've stepped right from the Swiss Alps into sunny Italy. The lake Como is just HUGE and has mountains all around it. We've sworn to have more time and an Italian visa the next time around so that we can slip into Italy through lake Como. There is'nt much to do here except trek a lot in the mountains bordering the lakes, ogle at the tanned ladies and take in the sun and the amazing Italian food...and of course, partaaayy! I was almost hoping we'd miss the return train and get to stay on in Lugano for a couple more days...much to Shikha's chagrin - she's the one who needs to cover everything and without her, I'd have been happy just lounging around in one corner of Switz:-D

So we had this strange sense of Deja vu - thrice over, while on the Wilhelm Tell Express. This church is somehow passed thrice within 20 minutes and we were like, 'hey, didnt we see a church like this 5 minutes back?', till a kind couple explained to us that it was the same church from different angles:-D

By lake Como - we got super chilled in keeping with the mood - off came the buttons as we tried to merge with the crowd:-D

The funicular up to Mt Bre - Lugano. Amazing trekking trails down this mountain - mucho recomendedo

Lake Como from one of the trekking trails on Mt Bre

Phew. Theres so much more to write about and I'm almost getting a crick in my neck now, but I'll plod along and lets see how much more I can write in this one sitting before I finish my travelogue - albeit incomplete.

Interlaken is a pretty city - very very touristy but worth staying in, if you like being connected to everywhere and have a lot of options within easy reach - recommended for the cautious traveller. It has a little everything for everyone and Indians can be seen in profusion here.

I found this VERY amusing about Indians and this probably includes me. We tend to ignore other brown people in such places and are almost angry at the sight of them - as if they've intruded into our own personal heaven. While they'd smile at every passing firang in a new-found cameraderie for every human being walking on the face of this earth, they'd studiously ignore the other Indians in the same train and it certainly takes more effort to smile at them too:-) I dont know why and tried to get over this mentality - but almost every brown person I encountered was the same, so I didnt feel so bad.

Interlaken has this 'last sex shop in the Swiss Alps' which looked very intriguing but evertime I went for a peek, it was closed :-)- everytime happened to be a Tuesday, I think, for 2 consecutive weeks...so I finally gave up.

Interlaken is the gateway to the Swiss Alps - the famous Jungfrau peaks are accessible from here. Junfraujoch (pronounced 'Yungfrau yoch') is the highest peak in Europe and has the highest railway station. The train almost goes on a steep vertical ascent here and the last leg of the journey is through a 1-hour long tunnel cut inside the Jungfrau mountain to reach the peak. Amazing.

All the touristy stuff is available here - finish your souvenier shopping in Interlaken. We brought the most amazing Swiss knives - a profusion of tools and implements springing out from one innocuous looking red jacket. I brought a ranger swiss-knife - which remains the costliest knife I've ever brought in my life - and I love collecting knives, mind you. There are different swiss knives for different people - not the standard 6-tool one we get in India for Rs395/- with a teeshirt:) Mine has 28 different things. There was one for computer nerds and another for fishermen that interested me...amongst hundred of others on display.

Dog and man go leg-in-leg in Switzerland

Tired but really happy

We went careening through the air and the only thought in my mind was, 'I hope the bugger does'nt run away with my camera and atleast takes the picture well'.

Everything for everyone, especially the Indians who are a hot favorite in Switzerland

Jungfraujoch - top of Europe

I went on a trek, leaving a lightheaded-with-altitude Shikha behind and immediately ran smack in the middle of an approaching snowstorm. For a few minutes after this I could'nt see my own hands in front of me. Stayed put hoping I would'nt be covered with snow and have to be rescued by St Bernards!

Us. Shikha's hand prints are a little botched coz she was shivering uncontrollably with the cold:)

Shikha fell a little ill while coming back from the altitude-sickness and the steep descent of the train back into Interlaken and it was really tough on the poor girl, holding back from retching all the way. I spotted many concerned boyfriends/husbands tending to their ladies on the train so it seems like a common problem with the ladies while there. You have been forewarned:)

We returned straight from Jungfraujoch to Zurich, having checked out of the Hasliberg apartment in the morning. Shikha was'nt feeling too well all along and still had a module on finance to finish in the 1.5 days we had remaining in Switzerland. The Boss's friend was an extremely gracious host and made sure we were really comfortable in Zurich. We had checked our luggage through to Zurich in the Hasliberg Post -office (I thought this was an amazing service - just check your luggage in any post-office for a fee and take off for a couple of days and receive it safe at Zurich before you catch your return flight). On our last day in Switzerland, our host took us across Zurich. The best place was the Landes museum and yeah, I finally managed to find the stained glass painting that I liked so much

The painting depicts a scene from the Last Supper..I was particularly intrigued by Judas (in Yellow robes) sitting with a pained expression and with a little devil hanging by his pockets, urging him to betray Jesus.

A close-up of the pained Judas with the devil hanging from his pockets

It remains a wonderful experience and was a very good flavour of all that Switzerland has to offer. It is a lovely place - not only because of the breathtaking scenery but also because of the sheer diligence and warmth of the Swiss who leave no stone unturned to ensure that being in Switzerland is heavenly.