Arbit Scratchpad

The last weekend saw some activity of sorts and here's a capture of some of the events!  On Friday I witnessed one amazing Kalaripayattu performance (A martial arts form from Kerala) with the performers (men, women and 9 year olds) weilding swords, fences, knives and bare hands. The in-house Onam celebrations at Honeywell was very well coordinated and had among other things group songs, Mohiniattam, and a semi-classical dance format and this martial arts performance, which kept us all rivetted to the seats. The performers are true gymnasts and extremely flexible - which is very evident and indicates the hours of training and practice that must have gone in!  On Saturday after the classes (this quarter Q2, we have Macroeconomics, Organization Theory and Quantitative Methods/Statistics) we witnessed the recording of a CNBC TV show called 'The Learning Curve - D-Street meets B-School' with two investment analysts on a panel discussion with the host on 'Investing in the...

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There is this scene in the movie 'The Dark Knight' in which the villain – the Joker has half of his body out of the window of a Police car, having just escaped, when the sounds fade, he is playing around with his hair and enjoying the wind on his face as the car speeds by, at that point you feel yourself entering a surreal world and a dizzy, numb feeling envelopes you because of the sheer silence of the scene, after all the vicious and loud sounds of guns and bomb blasts that tend to wear down your ear-drums. The movie 'The Dark Knight' is one roller-coaster ride not only into the world full of violence laced with breath-taking action sequences that are very thoughtfully executed, but as much into the emotions, psyche, vagaries and frailty of human life in the current world engulfed in a specter of mass violence. The usual philosophies of good vs evil are stretched to their limits too. Christopher Nolan and his cast/crew have done some great work both in terms of th...

There comes a time when the new replaces the old, and the cycle begins afresh … The 2008 batch of Post-Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM) conducted Pehel-08 at IIMB as our first cultural fest, usually an annual fare. A number of events we lined up for the evening, to keep everyone engaged and enthused. A debate, a skit, address by alumni and industry folks and some songs by the in-house music band 'Sur Shunya Aath' marked the evening of Pehel'08 on 20th July 2008! Having danced hard at the end to the tunes of some fast numbers it got absolutely tiring and the sweat flowed unhindered - my legs are just losing their ache ... ! Songs we sang as part of the music group: - Raina Beeti Jaye - Solo (Yours truly did this Amar Prem number, my all time favourite) - Maeri - Group (The Euphoria track) - Yeh Jawaani - Group (The Kishore da classic) Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhishek_dan/sets/72157606285885486/?page=3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhis...

The IIMB PGSEM application for 2008 had a SOP section which required 5 short essays to be written. Here are the ones I had written: Statement of Purpose How do you see the PGSEM helping you in your goals? (150 words) My taking up the PGSEM course has twin objectives, namely, self-development and learning all aspects of setting up, managing a commercial/social enterprise. Having worked in the software industry for five years, I have closely seen the software development life-cycle. However, there are several aspects of business and the economy that are of interest to me and I find the time ripe to explore these in a formal way, through academics; specifically strategic management of a firm, innovation strategies, and the scope of strategic consulting. Getting ready to usher in acceleration in growth opportunities in my care...

Phew! The last two days went by like a storm. Demand - supply curves, balance sheets with assets and liabilities and SWOT analysis related to case studies including one on Robin Hood's predicament kept me busy these last two days @ IIMB along with a biz domain Fun Day celebration – an evening full of fun @ office which I co-hosted (master of ceremonies) along with a colleague. Awesome fun it was on Friday with the evening @ Radiant Resorts off Banerghatta Road – we conducted several contests, karaoke rounds, individual talent rounds including singing, skits, a superb group dance performance and much more! It ended with a dinner and an open dance floor which left everyone exhausted by the end of the day. Ended up winning the funkiest dress (thanks to a colourful kurta) and the best singer awards (thanks to the romantic number 'Kehna Hai' by Kishore da from the movie Padosan). Addressing a few members, say ten is boring, whereas chatting or conversing with a single pe...

Well what if you underwent an orientation camp for two full days in an institute - wouldn't it be rather tiring as also energy sapping? It was exactly the opposite this last week when I was inside the IIM Bangalore campus attending the three night, two day orientation camp for the PGSEM Batch of 2008. I am in awe after getting a feel of what a fine institution can be like. Never before have I had an experience quite like what awaited me as I entered the hallowed portals of this elite institution, which was setup in 1973. As cliched as it may sound you got to experience the same in order to believe it. Actually last Friday (30 th May 2008) the IIMB PGSEM (2.5 year part-time programme which I joined ) was having their summer event called L-CUBE (Leadership, Learning and Leisure). It started off with the aptly chosen words of Saint Iqbal: A grand vision, beautiful speech and a compassionate soul are the true characteristics of a caravan leader . This was followed by the inaugural ...