Well, firstly let me wish you a Happy New Year! For a month or more I have not blogged much due to the presence of many things on my plate. Finished with PGSEM Q2 exams last Nov end, after which we had a round of events at the workplace. The Aero Week celebrations which saw us making a movie, with a little kid in it, it came out good and we won the runners up trophy. For the Newsletter contest also our team got the runners up. Our domain won the overall Aero trophy along with another domain. Also in parallel was running the 'HTS Annual Day' celebrations, in which I managed to participate only in a Fine Arts and Mind Sport medley event with four sub-events involving Dumb Charades (mirroring), Mad Ads, Pictionary and blind folded acting, and 20 Questions. The last round got us to loose several points and we could not win the event. The culmination was the grand Annual Day event with stalls, group dance and music shows by our in-house music band, near our new campus at Marathalli (near the Intel campus) on 20th Dec.
In the meanwhile I had been to Kolkata (6-14 Dec, 2008) to attend a ceremony and was visited by all my cousins and we even went out on a trip to Swami Vivekananda's ancestral house, with the house now converted into a museum. The Jorashakho Thakur Bari – house of the bard, Rabindranath Tagore which we also visited also is very well maintained, and had paintings, pictures and paraphernalia from that day and age – accompanied by a guide who went around with us explaining the various phases of Gurudev's life from the mementos and photographs – as mild Rabindra Sangeet played on the speakers. The last stop was the massive Indian Museum of Calcutta with sections from zoology to architecture and much much more, which we glanced at in a hurry and we just got one and half hours to explore this – need to go again someday.
The last quarter at IIMB saw a very charged up Prof. L Prasad teaching us Organization Theory with anecdotes, jokes and a detailed set of sessions on Organizational Politics which seems like his forte.
This time we have another senior professor Prof P N Thirunarayana – another amazing professor teaching us 'Marketing Managament' (we have Kotler's book for reference). Just yesterday he was teaching us on figuring out consumer behaviour for which he explained the concept of receptivity and reflection. The class sat in rapt attention as in his unique style the Prof defined 'receptivity' as:
- The insatiable curious approach to life
- Continuous refinement of senses
- Listening to micro-tones; that which is not explicit or visible
- Whole brain thinking – ambidextrous work
We also had marketing guru Harish Bijoor last Friday visit us in our class and talk on the topic of rural marketing – amazing insights and a charged up speech followed. He spoke of why the rural market is less understood and also more profitable. Also he traced the dichotomy between marketing to the 'Fundamentals' and 'Sentimentals'; emphasizing that catering to the 'sentimentals' was a sure path for future disaster, citing the the US recession as evidence.
Met up with Vinay K, Darshan C, Praveen, (after 12 years since school) at the CCD, Cunningham Road on 25th Dec. People have changed a lot and all of them are on the look-out for brides and it seems some having evaluated a few dozens.
Well today I was reading about a discussion/opinions on the three letter taboo word during the first date in the newspaper (DNA – which started mid-December'08 in Bangalore). The concept of dating itself is not prevalent in our cities/culture, forget such complications; it would come across as a purely western social demon to even think of such an occurrence.
In the context of marriages/proper relationships (obviously different from flings) I think it has to be mutual and need not even pass through the filters of dating etc – getting to know a person, and in the course of time, each other and then if something clicks the mutual attraction culminating in mutual affection itself will propel things into the next concrete level. If not, it is a game of opposite sexes and not worth a relationship that can build up and will automatically collapse.
Of course getting to know the likes and dislikes and some form of expectations on either side do exist and hence this mode of knowing each other sometime before marriage may be a better way – that's a personal opinion - not that arranged marriages have not flourished in our country with the lack of knowing each other before, a given, fact.
With the new year 2009 having started things seem very, very upbeat although the recession fever and gloom still looms large. Some events are on the anvil from our PGSEM program as well as on the IIMB event schedule in 2009 include an upcoming panel discussion with the finest minds in association with NASSCOM, the 'Convergenz' event - a one day business event with many sub-events and of course 'Unmaad' the best cul-fest in the country from IIMB.
In books, a fabulous & must read book that I am currently reading is 'THE ART OF POSSIBILITY' by Rosamund & Ben Zander. My recommendation is: do read this book – it is very emotional yet of a very, very positive nature. Some statements will inevitably get tears to your eyes.
Watched the movie 'Memento' yesterday - the latest Hindi flick 'Ghajini' seems a copy of/heavily inspired by the former (or the Tamil one is - since the Hindi one is the copy of the Tamil one) only with some good Bollywood music and masala added, apart from the lead roles played by Aamir and Asin. By the way loved this Ad for Tanishq featuring Asin! Especially the way the setting seamlessly merges with the remixed old Rafi song! The progression of the ad-film and of course gorgeous Asin add to the ad's appeal... Brilliant. [Direction : Gauri Shinde, Red Ice Productions]:
Also apparently Aamir Khan, Madhavan etc are in the IIMB campus for the shooting of 'The 3 Idiots' adapted from Chetan Bhagat's 'Five Point Someone' - should go and meet them!! Some of my classmates spotted them today and some spotted Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani yesterday.
UPDATE: We went over to the IIMB campus today and spotted Aamir and Madhavan playing badminton.
Songs that I am hooked to currently:
- 'Tere Naina Talaash' the semi-classical Manna Dey – SD Burman classic
- 'Dildariya Re Tore Kiser Katha Koi' from the bengali band, Bhoomi
- 'Manamohini Morey' sung by Vijay Parkash from the movie Yuvraaj – Rehman's magic here
- 'Jaane Kyun' from Dostana
- 'Beheka', 'Latoo' and 'Aye Bachchu' from Ghajini – maestro ARR again.
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