The confessions of a clueless mind

NOTE: In adherence with the Honor Code rules at ISB, the author acknowledges that this post was originally published a year ago on his now defunct blog. The post is being republished as an open acknowledgement of his " Writer's Block ". The protagonist in this story is an old friend, who I shall refer to as R. Mister R had shown signs of his greatness at a very early age, and has now gone on to vindicate us with his lofty achievements. This incident that I will recount here, is one such proof of the great man that R would grow up to be. It happened one evening, about 8 years ago. We were all in our college, most of us being students of Engineering. Being budding engineers with a penchant for Science and all things related to it, yours truly and his good friend D were engrossed in a highly scientific conversation about scientific marvels, and unexplained phenomenon. I was narrating interesting anecdotes about another friend of mine who had claimed in school to have spotte...

The ELP that I so passionately wrote about in my previous post slipped right out of our hands. We thought we did well, but forgot that the rules of the competition requires us to not only do well, but do better than the competition. When there is only one prize up for grabs, being good is not enough. And the team that pipped us to the post were, I am sure, more deserving than us. I can't say I am not disappointed. Because I am. But I am not heart-broken. Also, this is a precursor to the various failures that we'll all have to face in our future careers, at some point or the other. It's also a time to evaluate ourselves, and see if we really were as good as we thought. Did some of us go overboard with the " I love social service " tune? Did we tug at their emotional chords when we should have really targeted their rational ones? Should we have concluded with our strengths than go off on a tangent about our value-added service? Did we handle it with the same serious...

As the months have passed, the terms at ISB have started to seem shorter and shorter. Conversely, I have begun to find myself lagging more and more behind schedules due to my acute mismanagement of time, both in and out of class. The added distractions of PaEV and ELP will only make my miseries worse. However, it is this very pressure that is making this joyride so much more fun. The PaEV, if it goes well, sounds like an awfully exciting idea. Especially after listening to Manish Sabharwal (the TeamLease guy) and Sanjeev Bhikchandani (the Naukri founder). The excitement of imagining myself among such esteemed people makes the misery more than worthwhile. And to complicate my schedules even more, I have also applied for an NGO Project for ELP (Experiential Learning Program). We had our interview today with the Naandi Foundation for their ambitious Community Water Service System. If things actually went as well as we all think it did, then we should have a mammoth project in our hand. On...

Corporate Finance has been giving me a tough time. However, the blame lies squarely on me, and me alone. Professor BC has been absolutely fantastic, and is probably the only reason I may scrape through the subject this term. His joyous spirit defies his age, and his sense of humor leaves most of the class in guffaws. To recount some of his gems in class, today while emphasizing on the importance of a particular formula, he went on to declare “ I want you to remember this formula even if I call you in the midnight. Even if you’ve just snorted a whole line of coke ”. And then, there are some usual funny-lines. He starts the class asking us “ Did you sleep well last night? ”, and after the obvious roars of “ NO ” from us, he dismisses us with a “ Great, so that means everything’s normal ”. More than what he says, it’s the way he says it that makes him such a funny man. With a completely innocent look on his face, he says the funniest of things. And he spares no one, not even the lady wh...