Skills summary

College

How to analyse

Never give up.

Bschool

MS Office operation

Googling skills

Work

Never give up.

In Defense of English Honours

Support came from an entirely unexpected quarter- the Times of India. In yesterday's main section- not even Education Times- I saw a headline designed to gladden my heart- English (H) the most sought after course.

What delighted me was that the article was substantially correct- namely, the course develops your analytical skills, you end up studying history, sociology, anthropoly, economics along with good writing.

It's heartening that people have now begun to recognise that.

Not that I took it for these reasons- I just loved literature, then discovered most of my class had taken it for the same reason. We were in collective anguish in third year when the party came to an end.

Studying about minorities and being in one- that too, a minority of one- in bschool were two entirely different things. Sometimes I too would think that my major in College was a waste from a vocational point of view.

Liberal arts- whether history, philosophy, economics- to a lesser extent did help us become more articulate.

Passion is by it's very nature, inexplicable. I had difficulty understanding how someone could take up history or philosophy. I guess therefore on some level I understood why my bschool batchmates looked at me as if I had horns.

But at the end of the day, passion makes it all worthwhile.

As Langston Hughes said, What happens to a dream that dies?

We must resuscitate them.

Or be dead men and women walking.

Altos

Chappal

Round not

Mulberry bushy

Mincey wincey spiderwomen.

College plays @ Old World Theatre Fest

As the name suggests, much of what was on view was old hat.

i was not impressed by Village Wooing, Pygmalion Likely. Although the acting was good, it was set in another era and space.

effie's burning was much better. The acting did justice to Valerie Windsor's script.

However, I feel that if it had been done in Hindi it would have been outstanding.

Much like Dattani's Final Solutions when performed by Asmita was so much more charged.

College Reunion

ld was gold and is becoming elektrum.

The 50s saw Mrs. Rajpal onstage.

the 60s were represented by mr. Baker et al.

The 70s too had their stalwarts. Overseas birds flew in to speak of the ones abroad.

Joy Michael was one of the Old Girls.

Stephanian couples, those who met in College and without were also awarded.

the oldest Stephanian- 1933 spoke of when Intermediate students were at Kashmere Gate, still opposite Hindu.

90s were there of course, and so were we-the Millennium Batch.

As we saluted SIR aka Stephanians in rajasthan, as Ruchi put it, when we step in College, we feel as if we are coming home.

Memorabilia was available, but what we made were memories.

Juniors elaborated on scandals eternal, no buns intended.

Gjams were incomparable.

The Stephanian centenary edition clued us in on how the more we change, the more College remains the same.

Ad nauseam, adding to dei glorius alums.

In Search of Excellence

has been the only management book I liked. I read it after College. Later, I learnt that it was fictitious. I did not feel betrayed.
Au contraire, I felt a deep admiration for the con artiste.
Business has always been a scam- I have sold kurtas for my mum since I was ten. We believed in dynamic pricing- if the chicken looked fat enough, we would pluck her more.
When organised retail killed the boutique, my product lifecycle evolved.
I worked for Shopper's Stop- my mother had made me promise I would never sleep with the enemy.
When I flipped to bschool, I recalled asking my quizmate, why is it bschool not college? He did not know.
I found bschool similar to school not College. Think that's why it was bschool- although as it was University it was mitigated somewhAT.
As I reread Tom peter@60, 25 years after In Search of Excellence, I find him text heavy.
Why do you not use images?
Image is everything.

FMS Fiesta Refueled

Happenstance Bhimani's back
ESPN Star Quiz bhai's rack
Harsha Bhogle played cricket
Breaks anek, Adidas wicket
Mac Donalds hopping buses
Late for shoot, shoot later
Croc Lacoste, Central 'gator
Shoes in Noida Nat geo genii
Barcampers untie OSS gemini
Shaw cornered, dear liar
How long? pant our fire.

Ides of November

Utopian Creation, Dhrishtikon, Karma yatras
Danny Mcgill, Sophiya Haque, Johnny Bravuras

Grandaddies of all festivals harmony
SRCC, Mecca, Bachanalia symphony

Musical Instruments, Abhishake
babes in College, asked for cake

Ale Adam's apple of Discord
Cacaphony, Jaccosynthesised

Olympia. BCL Dramatics, Carol Evenings
Abhgyan, The Wall, Rumours, Affairs

Doctors in Spite of Ourselves, Boastful Rabbits
Grumpy dwarfed Goliath's David, Michel skits

The Line, Antigone, Amadeus, Hayavadana
The fiction of St. Stephens, Shakespearana

Karna, Midsummer Night's Dreamed Bottom
The Importance of Being Earnest, Casurina

Julius octaves octet, celeb debates Tharoor
Millenium lectured glasses off stage spoor

The Tempest, Mariana, Miranda, Pandy
Flaming Feathers to a Ray Charles Handy

Ice Candy Man giver provided we amuse
The play's the thing
Wherein we caught the conscience of Ruse

Veltanschung, Gotterdammerdung Deutsche Dutch
Streets of Philly, New York, New Yorkers Pach

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Abida Parveen
Nusrat, Sangam, Chini Whispered Sheen

Charlie, chary tactiturn Steve
Flmboyance flambe Onion peeve

Pets piranhas Indiana calls to Jone
Jean patchwork mirror gray Dorian

Drones queens workers ants Vaclav Hamel
Leaf fell on loneliness. Encore! Please, Kamil.

Orhan Pamuks

slim voluminous read
Death unravelled sped
Towards plays pleasant
Gyan browsed, insouciant.

Professors met, greeted anew
Bhel wolfed, College trailed dew
MainCor people watching also
Today's Engagements, Cafe ho.

Nimbupani ran out, Mohan cawed
Rohtash shut shop, Mince alawed
Rajpal was on, Venky was playing
'Nuff theatre in me, am going.

Metro wrong, circular roads
Auto found, hi me homewards

to you wunly youwho n you know you

:)

XXX.

On the classy Class of 1997, La Martiniere, Kolkata

Senior sisters taught us
In free periods zabardast

When we went to Mumbhai
For Bournvita Quiz Contessa
Mona Lisa smiled @ her colts
Brother's hot, said Vandana Scolt.

Dead Antara Mukhada & me
Scored the highest ever on BQC
Shortest quizzers ever, IIT Powai
Eventual winners, Campion Mumbai.

Anand, M.M. aunt & Stanford alum
Watched over quizmasters elan
Miss Maskhari & Miss Brat foxed
Teachers on their day, Hilda Peacock

Throned preened as merry Jerry
Vented spleen as Maggi Baggy
Sought help from students on Prodigy
Current Affairs: Akhion move Jaipuri

Quilted, kilted silted Dehri-on-Sone
Damodar Valley, J.C.T., Giridih shone
Flaming Mustards teary eyed Roshan
Ara, Noorjahan Mehta we asked for time

Anu Roman, now concubine no more consort
V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N: a last Pondicherried resort.
97 Neha, Patto, Nature Clubbers, trekked to
Sandakfu, Nidhi shot peak climber, sister

Rescued muah from falling off Heathcliff.
Vishal burnt my toes, as we sipped Thumba
Domesticated scientific engineered rhumba
Sportsmanship taught us, Modern High

Schooled twins, monitored principals Chulbulis
Question asked, answer found in avuncularities
Crisscross linecrossers croissants etc Young & R
handycams scanners, Radhika's a graduate err

Feynman, Schrodinger's cat, Prisoner's Dilemma
Horned randy brandy goats in our alma mater
Rabbit babysitters, ICSE takers, topped Chater
Founder's Bonfire Dinner Dancers salsa Akhila

Ranganathan, Soraya Husainsagar lake awaked
Agni, Barkha, Shruti Modi Todi, Kanupriyad
Didwania, Aditi Saraogi, Shayoni Mitra Priyamvadad
Oindrila Mukherjee, Ranjini Dasgupta presided

Over weekly meetings in the Nursery of Quiz City
Clubbers advised by Churiwala, rocked Kolkata
Limca Book of Records Quiz, Class then nined
The Big C, Baryscaped Antara Datta rhymed.

Let's make things better, Orko. Phillipenes
Great, better than thou is Doctor Strait
Gibraltar, Shan Chauhan sang distrait
While I timekept Bed of Roses, whined

If I overshoot let it go. 45 seconds wrote off
As a bad penny debtor hostage to face/off
Beat Gregorian chants, Old Spiced Axeland
Kar aunty psyched us out while Chattersand

Choker Bali, monkey troubled snake caged
There's still something about Maria's Huan
Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Stanley David Argused
Dalhousie Instituted Open Quizzes, Sohag Lahiri

Sunil Anil Vaswani, Nilanjan Mitra Sidhangshu
Manovikas Kendra, tendered resignations kyu
Ki Saas kabhi mumkin nahi hai. Yeh ladka mere
Samne mera dil le gaya. Ab kya karen?

Yeh kaisi mushkil hai hai hi (sigh)

:)

XX.

nati binodini.

Beauty lying in the eyes of the beholder

That's hot.
He's not.
Runaway jury's still out.
Meanwhile, in other news, the Home Video Editing Workshop organised by Adobe this Saturday was extremely informative. Premier elements 4 is priced at $ 99 and has been rated by experts as being one of the top 10 products in the world recently.
Windows Movie Maker being free is usually what newcomers use. However, Adobe's offering is also very user friendly- you can edit, create a picture from images, add subtitles, music et al with ease. Looking forward to testing the product.

iwitnessed ivolunteer

This is something blogworthy that happened which predates the blog, but here it is, because I think I’m getting addicted to blogging.

As a part of Delhi University, I’m used to the vibrant student culture here. People who come and talk to us to initiate change, firebrand students who do propel change.
D school.
And then FMS. Which overlooks the road to the market.
Maybe its symbolic.
Is it an accident that DU doesn’t know about FMS? That no posters of college activities are stuck up in FMS? We worry about companies and the average person not knowing about FMS.
I think its became FMS doesn’t involve itself in DU. Its not just because it’s a postgraduate institute-look at Dschool.
When I reached Dschool, I found myself in a small room, which had some twenty people in it. The talk had not begun, although I was late.
I was tempted to go back.
Then, the people began speaking. I was reminded of FMS. It was life a few hundred metres away viewed upside down-or down side up.
The speakers were very good. Brands in their own right. DPS Mathura Road. B.com SRCC. MBA IIM A. FPM IIM A. They hadn’t let brand MBA sear their skin though.
Mr. Pandey, head of the NGO version of CII- VANI started the Powerpoint presentation. I was reminded of Bschool. The bullet points were there, to hammer his points home .
Profit in its simplest sense, means surplus. To use some favourite MBA jargon, to add value.
To think of value in monetary terms alone would be short sighted. To translate in monetary terms, NGO related work entitles corporates to tax benefits. Hence corporate social responsibility.
He spoke of how NGOs develop people who work, thereby adding to National Income.
I found my attention wandering, in the Powerpoint. I found myself reminded of the lectures in College. At least I’m imbibing a bit more now than I used to then, thanks to Powerpoint.
Or so I thought. Then the second speaker spoke.
Like the storytellers of yore. A raconteur.
I was on a train, on my way to FMS after the Autumn Break. A boy with impish eyes asked me which class I was in. As this is an FAQ, the question was no surprise. How do I explain it to him?
I counted the years I’d studied. Which class are you in? I asked. Class II he shouted. Class 16, I said.
This was the same technique, Mr. Gulati used to explain to the villagers of Ghad, at the foothills of Dehradun. They’d studied till Class III, Class IV. They were astonished and asked, What did you study? And he was at a loss to explain. It helps us get a job, but what is the intrinsic value of what we study?
He’d ask in turn , looking at a field, is this wheat or rice? He was unskilled when it came to thatching a roof or ploughing a field. Do tomatoes grow above the ground or below?
He spoke of villagers who were showed pictures of city folk. What do you associate with these people, he asked them. Civilization.
Alright. Suppose they were traveling through your village and their car broke down. They knocked on your door. What do you do?
They said without hesitating, We’d offer them shelter.
Alright. Now suppose you are marooned in the city. You knock on a door. Do you think you’d get shelter?
No, they said.
Who’s civilized then? Trivia-the root of the word civilization is civic, which is also the root of the word city.
He spoke of this book Affluenza, and this website called trueeconomics.org which counts the goods and bads a country produces, in its National Income.
He spoke of how we are foreigners in India.Of how foreigners who come to India, would probably feel more at home, when they see Macdonalds, than the villager on a city junket.
This leads naturally to the white man’s burden now being the urban educated professional man or woman’s burden.
We live in a global village, where the villagers have been nudged out.
He has set up Manzil, where 80 children who go to government school are taught. Education there means business-it is strictly vocational. I am reminded again of my MBA. No one goes to university abroad-its too expensive .Vocational courses like in plumbing are popular.
So for all quarter life crisis sufferers, ivolunteer (a ‘facilitator’, a la CRAP. PJ-would the NGO version of CRAP be COWDUNG?Joffers a 6 week internship with an NGO, from mid May. For us, they may start projects from June. The NGOs who have agreed to ivolunteers are listed on their website-indiafellow.org.
The forms asks you for functional skills you have. To rub salt in wounds, it helps you out with examples. ‘like can you cook your own food, do your laundry, travel alone.)That made me think. In some ways, I would be a liability where I was thinking I would be an asset. Some one would have to cook for me.
Application forms can be downloaded from the website. Phone:26217460.Email:sujata@ivolunteer.org.in.
They will provide a stipend of Rs. 3500, which is expected to cover your food and accommodation. They will also pay train fare to and from Delhi. They will provide stints in Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Projects would include ones like selling health insurance through Self Help Groups.
Enjoy.