Well . . .well . . . If someone is closely following my posts s/he would realise that the previous 3 posts have formed a sequel - 'How I became . . . ' sequel. But believe me this has been purely unintentional. But this is just a very very small coincidence that my life has witnessed. The last 3 posts elaborate something, something that Shubham posted on his blog about me. I quote - "This guy is unbelievable.. He’s never been rejected in any interview in his life.. not during MBA admissions.. not during summer placements.. and now, not during finals either.. It's a record very few can boast of.." Why did I quote that? Self praise? you might think so, but no - I do not intend to magnanimate myself. I am but a very very fortunate person who has since long had a terrific luck and the right people around him. But this sequence of 'no rejections' has pscyhed me out. I find it more than a coincidence that I have never needed to try a second time. Its like some

Just back from Khetan's room, and what were we discussing ?? How much will be the variable? How much is the current rent of a 2BHK in Bandra? and what all investments options are available . . . 3 days and our topics of discussion have changed from Zameen to Aasmaan . . really !! Yes - this is just one of the indications that Placements are over - PGDIM10 is finally placed !!! I rewind back to 2nd January 2005, night 10.30 PM: I sent a multicast "KPMG closing in 1/2 hr, all interested please apply by 11PM". Kartik walks into my room and the following conversation happens- K: 'Apply kar diya?' me: Main apply nahi kar raha . . . K: kyon? me: yaar IRM ke baare mein mujhe kya aata hai?? and with so many work-ex junta what chance do I stand? K: Abe saale IRM is a very good field for a person like you. See, a consulting job is like a freelancer; an entreprenuer; you can very well handle it; you have the skills. And then Kartik went on to describe the

One of my friend doing his M.Tech in IIT Bombay got placed in a biotech start-up. When I gave this news to another friend he exclaimed - "I don't know why joining startups is such a craze in IITs while we MBA's always look out for established brands and mature companies!". Reflecting upon his words I came to the following conclusion also leading to a comparison of Indian and American start-ups. Management is control; managers are people who do things right, they handle day-to-day routine but never ask whether the routine should be done at all. For a business manager, a mature company offers a learning platform for best practices - in other words 'the way to do things right'. An MBA is also a quest to standardise oneself - we learn a bit of all viz. marketing, finance, operations, and even IT nowadays and learn how to do that 'bit' right. Technology however is about inovation - it is about questioning what is right and what is wrong. It is about '

So there was I roaming around in Pune 2 days before my NITIE interview. Still ignorant about NITIE's ranking (careless chap u would say. . . well my teachers till date say the same) wasn't very keen on getting into it. The interview was cooooooool . . .rather than narrate it here let me refer you to my old webpage [ http://kulkarninet.tripod.com/tscript.htm ] . And so I found myself on the NITIE final list. It was now that I finally cared to find out NITIE's ranking and finding it in the top 10 ended up joining. I still feel I was lucky to be at the right places at the right times, more importantly surrounded by the right people. Talking of luck, even my summer placement was similar. I was very conservative while applying to companies - being a hard core IT guy - on Day 0, I had just one shortlist - went to the GD, cleared it, proceeded to the interview cleared it again. Just one shortlist, one GD, one interview and summers was through . . . Man!! I should say I am lucky.

Its 1st January - the new year has just started and for me with placements round the corner and NITIE life coming to an end, the new year will indeed usher in a new beginning. I was reading Manish Chauhan's Blog [ http://manishchauhan.blogspot.com/ ] and found his recent posts about friends and his lucky-and-intelligent friend Timir quite near to what's going on in my own mind nowadays; so thought why not pen it down(rather type it down). As NITIE comes to an end I am reflecting to around 1 1/2 years back. I was never gung-ho about management as a career path, actually had thought about giving GRE and doing an MS. My father kept on pursuing with me to try for an MBA rather than a techie thing - but I always thought I was made to be a techie (dunno why?). He tried for 3 years before he could succeed. It was March and he was (I could guess) tired of trying to change my mind about MS. Both of us were standing on the railway station; I was leaving back for my college after Holi

Its been long since my last post; it was before the last examination. After examinations I got very busy in the placement process that started immediately - am still busy, but consciously decided to take a break today and do some studies (will get back to them in a while ;P) . Also a day after exams I went to Pune for a kinda Batch reunion of college-mates in Pune-Mumbai. The trip was fun - we went to a farmhouse in Marunji village near Pune. Since then in the campus we have had atleast 20 company visits for pre-placement talks and some pre-processes as well. Placements seem to be going well this year (touch wood!). But while we have been busy with all this, the nation has been hit by one of the most disruptive natural disasters of my lifetime. The whole of East coast has been destroyed they say. I haven't dared to read any media reports in detail for the fear of aggravating tension in the already tensed mind of mine - but I can gauge this to be more than the Gujarat-Latur earthqu

I joined NITIE a week later than my batchmates because I was yet to finish my final engineering exams. By the time I joined, the committees had been formed and elections/selections were over. So in spite of will I was left out of all committees. I hadn't even dreamt that I would be involved with any activity leave alone placement of all. Then slowly I started working - to start with it was ITS (our IT/Tech forum- now TechnoMatrix) and along the way proposed 'Online Games', which went on to become MastishK - and that was where I made a success out of a seemingly impossible task; but that's another story. Click the links below to read my posts about MastishK ['Entreplayer','MastishK Credits' and 'It must be a tough job to be a CEO!'] ( http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_the-complete-man_archive.html http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_the-complete-man_archive.html ) In January we had some reorganisation in our placement a

After I came to NITIE and saw how the alumni network is managed, I understood one of the major things lacking in BIT (my engg. school) was this. Serendipitously Sallu (Manish Saluja) one day called Shubham and told him about invisionfree forum that he had discovered and gave the idea to make it a discussion forum for their batchmates; when Shubham discussed the idea with me - we thought of extending it as a an Alumni Portal for all alumni of BIT and thus started BIT Alumni www.bitalumni.4t.com the (un)official portal for BITans. Today we have become a 500 member strong site and the largest online conglomeration of BITans. The next logical step to this venture was organizing Alumni meets in different cities. As a small beginning we organized a reunion of all BITans of our batch in Mumbai-Pune (15 turned up) but our meet has fired BITans in other cities as well for such ventures . . . its really been 'main chalta gay kaarwan bantaa gaya' for 4 of us founding members - myself, Sh

Hey Dudes!! I have found you a respite from the dreary reading of my blog .. guess what?? A whole constellation of blogs!! Its been compiled by Anita Bora, previously Asst. editor at Rediff, now a blog enthusiast . . . Mussay Indians have become global citizen really . . . and they are sure dominant on the net !! The List : A compilation of Indian blogs. Growing every day. The Ring : A web-ring of Indian bloggers. Feel free to join. Of course, Anita decides whether to let you in ;) Anita's Site : Let me spin the world wide web around you . . . I haven't yet decided myself whether to join the ring!! But for the rest of this post, here is some Q&A inspired by Anita's FAQ on blogging . . . Why do you blog? I discovered blogging when I visited Manish Saluja's blog (Manish is a close friend of Shubham -my NITIE pal) I then found many blogs of my friends and other known personalities. That's where I started in April 2004 and I just loved the concept. I was

I was in search of this poem since log .. so when I found it I coudn't resist psting it on my blog If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings