just like that!

The third semester passed too swiftly to be noticed. Officially this semester lasted for less than hundred days. This being the only semester in which I hardly saw 5-6 movies (that is my way to measure semesters, you see...). I've sooo many things to talk about…

First things first! Why this blog is coming after this big a delay... why not? Now I'm an active user of Twitter which has given me the freedom to let my thoughts be known to others by pressing few buttons on my phone. So is Twitter a blog-killer? Well, actually it doesn't make much sense to wait for a computer to type and publish my thoughts (on a blog) when I can directly do it from my phone/computer (on Twitter).

Now some lines about the electives... PM alias Product Management better known as Presentations Management as it had one presentation by a group in each of its sessions (excluding the first session). The number of students-opted-for-this-course was 7, a prime number and therefore the constituents of different teams kept changing. At times some people had two different presentations in two consecutive sessions by being a part of two different teams. I had the wonderful opportunity of working with nearly all the 6 people (except Lekshmy, I guess). The team with which I enjoyed working most was Madhuvanthy's & Rubini's team. We discussed two cases- Kevlar Aramid and Innovation at 3M in the class. The peculiar thing in this group was that more conversations happened in Hindi than in Malyalam/Tamil. Obviously English was the dominating language. I left a message on Twitter during the discussion- PM Case Discussion: Ruby de dictator, Madhu de typewriter, me de spectator. Product Management had glimpses of different subjects ranging from Marketing to Finance. Sooo many presentations by me (and consequently poor marks) made me realize that something is wrong with my presentation skills and I worked on to improve that.

I recall the 22^nd session of Integrated Marketing Communications (totally there were 30 sessions so around 70% of the course was complete) when Hari Sir asked about the role of Accounts Executive in an Advertising Agency. Despite having passed the time in 70% of the sessions I was not comfortable with this term. But the creative initiator inside me extracted some sense of words 'accounts' (as in Accountancy) and made me raise my hands. I said Accounts Executive is the link between the Management and the Accounts Department. Hari Sir, a bit stunned silenced everybody and asked me to elaborate. I having got the cue, elaborated blah blah blah... Other students screamed no, no... Accounts Executive deals and manages different clients of an agency (something like that). Hari Sir put his hand on his chest and asked me, "Did I do something wrong?" I hid my face with my hands.

Energy and Bills of Material are what come to my mind when I think of SCM sessions. Citing another incident, once Bhaskaran Sir asked a mobile phone from us to illustrate some Strategic Sourcing concept. I was the first to hand over my 3¹/₂ years old (it's not that old phone, you see!) Black & White LG phone. I've rigorously used that phone and all the metallic shine, alpha-numeric symbols etc. had faded. The screen had sustained a crack and though it was not, it seemed to

be in a dilapidated condition. So Bhaskaran Sir took the phone from me and posed the question to the class, "Where do you think you can get the back-cover of the phone?" "Not even in the museum" replied somebody. A laughter broke out in the class. Bhaskaran Sir had a thorough look on the phone and asked me, "Nikunj! Which museum did you steal this phone from?" The left picture is of that phone only. =)

I had never thought that brands would be playing such a dominant role in making a purchase-decision. Moreover, in the sessions it was fun to see one particular team repeatedly making presentations and criticising other teams' presentation (they didn't criticise by their own; obviously they were asked to criticize by Balki Sir).

One phrase and one word namely 'single version of truth' and 'integrated' were the two take-aways from ERP sessions. I started writing this blog on 29.12.09, the day when the Trivandrum city came to a halt. So you see, strike is not that bad.

I bought Nokia 6303 Classic a couple of months ago. Here goes the review of the same- first the +ve factors- 3.2MP Camera with Auto focus and LED Flash; 2.2 inch QVGA screen with 16 million colors; metallic cover and superb battery life. Where will you get this stuff in 6.8k? Though the drawbacks are that the volume of the speaker is a bit low, you may miss your calls in a noisy environment (I’ve missed a couple of calls), the lens is not a Carl Zeiss one, so if you compare the pictures with the ones taken by N73, you may be a bit disappointed. It got launched in the second quarter of 2009 and therefore has got some of the latest features (for eg. You can synchronize your contacts OTA [Over the Air] with Nokia Ovi Suite on a GPRS Connection and it’s very easy).

With ‘3 Idiots’ I finished my hattrick of watching movies at Athulya theatre. Though people said that it was an air-conditioned theatre, I don’t know why I didn’t feel the chill. The rates of Balcony are 1/3^rd compared to what I used to pay at malls in Lucknow (but that’s okay in the sense that I was earning those days). People hoot too much here and in the case of last movie (3 Idiots) the row behind me was fully occupied by girls and surprisingly they were also hooting.

I also got a chance to volunteer in the inauguration of CII office at Trivandrum and the summit titled ‘Changing Role of India in Global IT Business’. The entry fee for delegates was a substantial amount which we got to attend free of cost. I remember those two days when the CII-cab came at 0530 hours at the hostel and left us back to hostel by 2030 hours. I happened to listen various captains of different industry and ultimately the Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac and Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Shashi Tharoor made it to the summit. Last but not the least, the food was also good.

An Illuminating Visit to IISE!

The idea of writing on this subject had crept into my mind before Ramki Sir and Hari Sir (sitting on the back-seat of the car) discussed as to how difficult (and dark) was that an incident to describe. So here, I put my efforts to describe the same…

International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE), Vellayani was the place we [I, Ramki Sir, Shyamla Ma’m (Ramki Sir’s wife) and Hari Sir] visited on the evening of October 15, 2009. The institute is situated right-next to the largest fresh-water lake in Kerala. We were welcomed by the young fleet there. Several activities were going on there. One camp was dedicated to ‘Blind Massage’ where one visually-challenged women and a sighted man were providing the service of neck and leg massaging.

One camp was totally dedicated to the awareness of Braille script, completely handled by visually-challenged people. A young lady skillfully showed us how she handled the laptop. That was a ‘Dell’ J (Batch-4 students know the secret behind this smiley) laptop and several ‘Braille’ stickers were stuck on the keys like ‘Tab’, ‘Enter’ etc. There were special buttons/lights on the right top corner of the laptop. The Operating System was ‘Ubuntu’ and an additional plug-in was downloaded to help with the voice explanations & description.

Another person was sitting with a Braille Typewriter. The Typewriter had 3 keys on each side with a spacebar in between. One Tab key (most probably) was on the left. I was wondering how everything of the English language is covered just by 6 keys! Another person was demonstrating the way to write in Braille script. He had a stylus, a net (one needed to force the stylus into the paper to make bloated dots), and a thick paper. I followed his instructions to write my name and ended up writing ‘JNUKIN’. Finally, I was able to write my complete name correctly.

Another interesting thing was the ‘Obstacles Course’. Actually this was the event which I liked most. Initially I was a bit afraid but then I thought to ‘explore’ it. So, I was blind-folded, was handed a white cane and had to slowly stumble a zigzagged way which included an artificial wooden bridge. Thanks to my reasoning abilities, I didn’t find it much difficult. In the middle of stage I was smelled clove and some other spices and was asked to name them. Now, in the second stage I was handed a bowl of water and I was supposed to go to and fro on an obstacles-loaded path with 3-4 ropes. Blindfolded, I had to decide just by touching the rope and obstacles by the white-cane, whether I had to climb over the rope or just bend and pass through the rope. 20 minutes, complete darkness and bingo, I attained the task.

Then followed a stage-show comprising of songs, experiences and play. The spirit of the visually-challenged people was awe-inspiring. Next came the much-awaited ‘Café in the dark’. Here we were supposed to have snacks in complete darkness. I had the feeling in my mind that there would be at least, at least again (its not a type-error) some light. Coupons were of different shapes so as to be touched and felt as to what they stand for. So, we four people were taken inside and to describe the darkness inside, I’d say it was something more than darkness. And I mean it; Its very low a probability that the reader of this blog had faced a situation of complete (more than complete; how do I express myself!) darkness for around 30 minutes. Generally eyes adjust to the darkness and one slowly starts seeing things whatsoever darkness one faces, but that was an exceptional situation.

We were welcomed by a visually-challenged lady. She made a train of us, of which Hari Sir was the engine and I was the guard’s coach; and there the train left chuk chuk chuk… We were made to listen various sounds in the dark and then taken to a table on which several fruits were kept. Sheer darkness, and we’re asked to touch and smell fruits and recognize them. Another table and there were spices instead of fruits. Then we were handed our ‘samosas’ in a plate and were guided to a table. We sat and the visually challenged lady who, in those circumstances was ‘more efficient’ than us, brought tea for us. After some time Ramki Sir asked, “Nikunj! Are you done with your tea?” I replied, “Sir, I don’t know how much I’m finished with my tea”. The Samosa and tea were indeed delicious by themselves; needless to say the unique atmosphere added its own flavor.

One serious take-away was the thought of comparing my live with theirs’. They can’t see what they eat. They have to stumble slowly. And, here I ‘m afraid of trivial issues.

Collection of some Scribbles!

Isn’t it so different an experience, when all of a sudden people around you start speaking a language familiar to you. That actually is happening when I’m coming back to North India. Till this point of time, I didn’t care much what other people around me spoke (even in Hindi). But when I happened to stay at Kerala & Tamil Nadu and people around me spoke an unfamiliar language, I having no other work, tried to extract the sense by some English words and their gesticulation. Obviously this didn’t work much but, now when I’m sitting in a train destined to North India and people are talking in Hindi, I’m much alert of their conversation, just for one reason that there could be an unfamiliar-lingo situation.

In the course of exploring my fellow-passengers, I had to reveal that I’m a Commerce Graduate. My fellow-passenger was working in a bank and had some “Commercial Law” book in his hands (most probably he was preparing for some exam, though he didn’t reveal this). So he asked me, “Did you study the Negotiable Instruments Act 1881?” I replied in positive. ‘Okay, then explain me the difference between “Holder” and “Holder-in-due-course”’. I said that I would try and took his book. The book was in Hindi. The words for “Holder” and “Holder-in-due-course” in Hindi are “Dharak” and “Yathavidhidhari” respectively. So I went through the book for 15 minutes and tried to explain him. Irrespective of the fact that he understood the difference, it was a nice time pass.

July 26, Sunday, 0845 hours; Tring-Tring. I woke up. My friend Sandeep from Lucknow told me that he was going to take the first SIM-Cat and he also got my name registered for the test held at Gorakhpur (First SIM-Cat at IMS is free). I was left surprised, but as usual I having no other work, thought to explore the test. Hopefully, my old pencil and eraser were there in my old pencil-box which I used to carry in one-day examinations. The test was scheduled to begin at 1000 hours and I left the preparation exactly one year ago.

Thanks to my reading habits, I found the English section much easy. DI was so-so, thanks to some Operations sessions & the novel “The Goal”. So I scored 30 in English, 10 in DI and just 2 marks in Quants. I guess this is where overconfidence came into play. But those two and a half hours were pure fun; I mean I didn’t have any stress/tension as I took the test aimlessly and I think that this is one of the most optimum ways to take a test, but yes, preparation should also be there.

I watched the movie “Luck” with old friends and was lucky enough to not to get bored. One should leave the critical-thinking mind home while watching a bollywood flick. Yet, there were some logical inconsistencies which I can’t help but mention. In the scene where our “lucky” Imran Khan, in the course of igniting the cigarette-lighter for five consecutive times, tries to turn on the lighter for the fifth and last time, the lighter doesn’t turn on for the first some three seconds. Imran Khan just keeps it holding and it turns on all of a sudden. Now, how does a lighter work? The happening of ignition and the supply of gas should start simultaneously. How come the ignition took place three seconds after the cock was pushed.

Second scene pertained to the release of our Bhojpuri star Ravikishan who was awarded capital punishment. Just because the rope slipped and the court cannot make a person hung “twice”, he was “ba-izzat” released. But where was he hung in the first place? Did not the slipping of the rope obstruct the hanging procedure? Probably I should have left my mind at home.

Sandeep evaluates me "frankly"

Nikunj Barnwal , The name of a person whom I really respect and follows the most of the things which he does. Knowing him more than 3.5 yrs I try to judge him .He is not only my true friend but also my mentor.
At the age of 27 he has the same positive attitude n enthusiasm, which I think had in his child hood, to learn and grow. He doesn’t care about present but he want to make his future safe and prosperous. Having done the work for 2 yrs in government t org I have doubt that he has saved some money. The monthly salary is 7K he is having 10k per month expenses ,Luxurious mobile and P/c this shows that he doesn’t care about the money but want to use the technology to learn and grow .He uses the technology at optimum level.
He thinks information is a source of inspiration to learn, to search and to absorb that info.

I think he is fortunate enough to get such a generous and a humble parent who has fulfilled his all the genuine desire to grow .He has a strong and loyal friend circle. I think this the most important saving he made throughout life. I have no doubt that there is any city in this country where his loyal friends are not there. The best thing is that he maintains that relationship .it is hard to maintain but he believes in friendship so he has to make that.
If u tell him yr problem (Personal/academic) he ll try his best to solve that or ll tell the path to go through .where ever he goes he leaves his memories in the heart of colleges/friends think he loves 3 things most in his life those are technology, books and food. He has done proper investment on these things .mobile he uses, books he reads, food/snacks he eats. he is so generous and munificent that he gives the money to other friend by taking that money from other friends, Where we ll find a such friend. Some times it disturbs him but what can be done when those thing are in his gene and habit.
I m sorry to say but in this regard he has not learned any thing from his previous mistakes
. When ever u ll try to do new thing u'll be asked many times why this, why here etc.
He likes to find the faults and correct that at same moment without caring abt the feedback forms others. he seeks the opportunity to eat , to travel and to read .this is the reason which motivates him to grow .He appreciates the efforts of others without caring of result. of others.
Although he is a good planner but he fails sometimes. he fills the form but doesn’t go ot take the test. he thinks that any investment is fruitful but this doesn’t true always.
I lived with him for 2 months I found that I was criticizing him at that time but I think that he was right .I learnt a lot of things from him of which I ll always be grateful.
He knows how to use the people (I think this thing help him working as a manager.)
How he can get his work done. but the best thing is that he doesn’t leave that person after that who helped him any how..
Although he is nothing today but he tries that the people can get a lot of thing s from him whatever little good things he has. I have doubt that he has patience but at the age of this I would follow the same path what he has followed 
Being an average student, he is continue with his study, never lost the hope for better, this is the reason he is going to become some valuable for his friends, for his family and for himself.

I think his motto of his life is never ,never ,never give up .always think positive have the good attitude The success will be yours


I am also fortunate to have the friend like u.


All the best!!!!!!!!!!

--
With warm regards
Sandeep Gupta
SBI CARD- Trainer
north
9015057540
9935024984

Birthday bash or Punishment Anniversary

It so happened that one of my flat-mates birthday fell on June 23. Everything happened as usual, in the sense that everybody greeted him at 12 midnight, cake was cut, distributed and cake splashing on face etc. etc. Well! The unique thing started after that. All the other flat-mates (obviously, excluding me) made him lie on the ground (fortunately between him and ground was a mattress), switched off the lights, one or two people held cameras to take shots and they started beating him.

I guess the birthday-boy was also having fun in screaming while getting beaten. Some more adventurous people had arranged sticks and all to beat him. I, in another room was thanking god that it’s not September 24 and was wondering whether they are punishing him as to why on this day did he come in this world. This went on for 5-6 minutes. Needless to mention that the cameras keep switching hands as nobody wanted to miss his chance.

Having spent 23 months in a Government Organization and two months in private organization, I guess that I've been able to squeeze out some differences between the two. This one I’m very keen to write- Things are nowhere perfect and nor can it be made perfect. As one of our ASB super-seniors told us on the very first day that “If everything is going perfect, there is something wrong.” The problem which I see in the Government Organizations (When I talk of Government Organization, I refer to the majority of the non-productive organizations) is that bureaucrats over there try to make procedures and things perfect. They keep on complying with rules and that is where the vicious circle of delay and non-competency begins (DMRC being an exceptional exemplar).

Whereas in private sector people will know that things are not perfect, nor will they strive to make things perfect. They will just try to adjust with the situation. I’m not trying to say that people in private sector are happy with their imperfect situation or they are impotent to make things perfect. These people are concerned with results and not so much with procedures and rules.

When I didn’t have a cell phone, I used to carry a pocket-pad where I used to note important numbers, events, dates etc. Also, on coming across some nice quotations, I used to make a note of them. This holiday when I was randomly going through them, I thought to share some of them. So, here it goes-

Kshama sohti usi bhujang ko, jiske paas kaal-garal ho.

This simply means that forgiveness suits to only those people who have the power to punish (otherwise people may think that one is forgiving because of one’s impotency to punish).

She is special, in the sense that she has nothing special (no need to explain :p). -niks

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure that he will never hit the mark; yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who aims but at bush.

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

Never measure the height of a mountain until you’ve reached the top. Then you’ll see how low it was.

Happiness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope up with it.

I can forget you, this cannot happen and you may forget me, this I’ll not let happen.

A smiling face, a word of cheer; can stop the falling of a tear.

Dena hai to aankhon mein wo rubaai de,

Ki aaine mein mujhe tu hi dikhaai de,

Aur kaash aisa taal-mel ho sukoon-e-sada mein...

Ki pukaroon main jab tujhe to meri awaaz sirf tujhe hi sunaai de.

[Rubaai means light (roshni)]

And the best one comes from Oscar Wilde:

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

Satellite by Sathyabhama

I was talking to one of my flat-mates, who all of a sudden told me that he was working on a Nano-Satellite. I was left surprised and we got into a bit detail. Sathyabama University is sponsoring this low-earth-orbital Nano-Satellite of which the primary aim is to measure pollution. He is working for the Ground Station Subsystem (there are two students in total). The total crew comprises of 27 students, 7 faculty members and a Research Dean. ISRO has agreed to launch this Nano-Satellite for a few crores.

I mean these people are just pursuing the IIIrd year of B.Tech and they are launching a Nano-Satellite! India Shining haaan!
For the First time in India-
· Till this point of time, no Nano-Satellite has been launched to detect air pollution (especially Green House Gases).
· The Cross-Yagi antennae has been used in the Ground Station to receive signals from the Nano-Satellite.

As per my flat-mate, Dr. Raghav Murthy was one of the people who encouraged them to go into it. They are into it from the 2nd year of B.E. and approximately 40% work is completed and it is supposed to be launched by 2010.

So he asked me, “Bhaiya, mera presentation dekhenge kya”? I said, “Zaroor”. Going through his presentation, I interrupted him at various points. Like, at one place the Signal-Noise Ratio of the satellite was written as minimum (those who are not interested in ratios may skip this part). I took the Signal-Noise Ratio as Signal/Noise and argued that for the numerator to be maximum and the denominator to be minimum (i.e. to receive the maximum signal with minimum noise) the Signal-Noise Ratio should be maximum. He became a bit confused and told me that he’ll get it clarified from his faculty-members. [Next day, the moment I returned from the office, he explained me that it’s not simply a ratio. This ratio represents how much noise is there in a signal and therefore this ratio is minimum.]

Next came the Poisson Ratio and I was reminded of the IAD classes. I enquired about it but didn’t understand much. Further he explained me how did they zero in on two crossed yagi antenna for the Ground Station.

Needless to say that this person named Tinku has been the topper at the Satyabhama University and this satellite-launching-news was covered by the Times of India- Chennai Edition on 26.06.09. visit this link.

Illustrating Internship!!!

Before I write more about South India, I thought to write about my internship. So, I reached Chennai and reported to Mr. Subbaraman who introduced me to his boss Mr. Ashok Kumar. He asked the duration of my internship. Hearing two months, he said, “Okay, we’ve got two projects for you; each for one month. Apart from that if something else comes up, we’ll let you know. One will pertain to shrinkage. Do you’ve any idea about shrinkage?”

‘Shrinkage of stock’ were the words which came out of my mouth. Then I went on explaining that in the course of examining products, (prospective) customers may end up spoiling products. He added not only spoiling; they’ll take the products home which causes a major reduction in stock and consequently a loss for the store. So, you have to analyze the shrinkage-data and give a conclusion. Mr. Ramesh will be your mentor for this project.

“The other project will be about accounts. The stress will be on cost minimization; rather cost optimization. It’s about ‘triggering the trigger before it triggers the Books of Accounts’. Once an entry is made in the books, you cannot do much about it. So some things need to be done before posting the entries in the books. Mr. Subbaraman will be your mentor for this project.”

After that Mr. Ramesh took charge. He explained me the three types of size of Reliance stores and added that 87 stores are there in Chennai and ___ stores are there in Tamil Nadu. He further said that all the stock are first collected in the Distribution Centers and then dispatched to various stores. Certain perishable-prone items are directly distributed to the stores without the need of going through the Distribution Centre like bread etc. I added, “fruits and vegetables”. He said, “No, Distribution Centre acts as a collection centre for umpteen vendors as they can’t go individually to separate vendors.

He further said that ideally the %age of shrinkage should not exceed 0.5%. The moment it crosses 4%-5%; margin gone! I asked what the margin % is. He replied that some things are kept on a high-level.

After the verbal briefings, he opened an excel report sent by one of the stores. There were circa 4800 items and their various details. For the first time I was seeing the handling of such big data. He started using Auto Filter in various respects and bingo! the results started coming. I haven't used Auto Filter till that point of time, so I was trying to observe minutely. By that time I started feeling very sleepy. So, at the end of the day, he squeezed some meaningful insights from the raw data (I didn’t follow much!) and mailed back his questions (based upon the insights) to the store. I saw the professional thing happening.

Next day, Mr. Ramesh has to attend some meeting. So he forwarded two files to me and asked me to attempt them. I was allotted a corner of a cubicle with a decent hp desktop. For the first hour I didn’t have any idea what the files were about. I started reading the contents of the file and slowly understood that the first file is the file which was refined yesterday and the second file is the raw data of another store. Once I understood them, it hardly took 30-40 minutes to sort 50% of the data accordingly. Two terms which I didn’t understand were Zero-Count and No-Cost-SKUs. In the lunch I went to the Mount Road for some other work and had lunch at the Sarvana Bhawan.

Food is almost same in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I think here they don’t have ‘toran’-a dry ‘sabji’ of every possible edible. Anyways, I liked the food at both the places. After lunch, he explained me both the terms and I sorted the data accordingly.