Have a Dream....Go for it

More of New York!

2009-10-23T09:48:00.001+05:30

After exciting first two days in New York, we started our day with full enthusiasm. We once again had to settle with an American breakfast though this time we went to another eating joint, which was adjacent to our hotel, called ‘Deli’ and has multiple outlets in the city.

We started our journey once again with the subway and got down at Central Park. We crossed the Central park on foot and its beauty in daylight was even better. The lush green grass really looked scenic. We reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art or MET and here again the security was quite tight. Now comes the interesting part of paying the money to enter. There is no ticket as such here but 'recommended' donations of various amounts. It was 20$ for adults but 10$ for students. I fell into the student category, thanks to my International Student I-Card. We diligently paid 50$ and moved in. Later, we realised that we are NOT obliged that amount. We could have paid just 5$ each and moved in. Nevertheless, a lesson learnt :)

This museum is just amazing with art ranging from wood to sculpture to painting to musical instruments to Egyptian etc etc etc....We did not realise when did we spend time there. The most famous thing about this museum is that it houses the very first painting of Michelangelo. As expected, photography is allowed everywhere but this painting.

It was lunch time and it was more than 2 days since we tasted Indian food. Luckily, we found a good one near Times Square which served buffet and Indian tea. Our taste buds enjoyed the food to the max and feeling of freshness just entered our tired bodies.

Next destination was the Empire State Building. We bought consolidated ticket of a skyride and for visiting the observation deck of the building which is essentially the top of the building. The skyride made us sit on a floating platform which gave us a feeling that we are flying over New York skyline. Good fun! The line for the Empire State Building is quite long and one needs to take into account this waiting time. But once we reached the top of the building, the feeling is just too awesome! NY looks just so more beautiful from there with skyline kissing the sky, water on two sides, so many bridges and horizon in the backdrop :)

We started clicking pics and did not realise that we had already spent around 3 hours being up there :P and it was time to move out. We walked back to our hotel and decided to call it a day but my other two friends went out to watch a show in Broadway, meanwhile I caught up with some old friends over the phone who are in the US.

New York continues....

2009-10-23T09:11:00.002+05:30

The day started with an American Breakfast in the cafe just adjacent to our hotel called cafe Edison. The options in vegetarian are really limited and since I am an egg-itarian, the options increased a little. One more interesting thing we noted in US. Since all 3 of us always ate together, and whenever we asked for the bill, we were asked whether we want separate or a consolidated billing?! Initially, we felt a little awkward but then we understood the culture and started asking for a consolidated bill right away.

Today, we decided to hit the Grand Central Terminal first thing in the morning. Its the central station in the city of NY from where one can get long distance trains to most of the places. It also showcases the amazing architecture which is evident in NY throughout. There are multiple terminals inside it, just like an airport, which are made according to the direction in which one wants to travel.

We moved out and headed for Chrysler Building. The interesting fact is that Chrysler and Empire State started their construction almost simultaneously and both were trying to edge out the other one as the tallest building at that time. According to initial plans, Chrysler was poised to become the tallest standing structure, but a last minute addition by Empire State builders robbed Chrysler of this stature.

United Nations headquarters was our next destination and there is a tour which can take inside it. The tours keep happening every 20 to 30 minutes and there are tours in other languages apart from English. Our tour guide was from Peru and he took us to inform about the history of UN, how they work, processes followed etc etc. We also saw the General Assembly hall where all the countries sit during a conference. Here, we were informed that all countries sitting position is rotated after every round of talk, thereby giving giving country to sit right in the front :) We were also informed about the various programs for the needy undertaken by UN through UNESCO and UNICEF, their development goals and similar activities.

Once this was over, one of our friend took off to meet someone and we 2 decided to hit the 5th Avenue. We visited the Apple Store near the Central Park, which is quite attractively made. Its an underground store with a glass enclosed entry and transparent elevator which takes one to the basement. Of course, staircase option is also there but life gives a panoramic view of the store ;) Since, I am an avid fan of the TV series The Apprentice, it made a lot of sense to check out the Trump Tower. Its open to public for few hours of the day and houses some of the elite restaurants of the city.

Next destination was Central Park, where all TV serials and movies are shot for any scene depicting any park of the country! Its covered over a huge area covered over 50 streets in length. One can spend hours exploring the park which has vast greenlands, special cycling lanes, playing area and what not!

Once it was dinner time, we decided to check out the famous restaurant called 'Hooters'. It was quite good but not much up to the hype. Since we ate a little too much, we thought of walking down to our hotel. Late into the night, my friend wanted to have some drinks and we went to two bars, found a place in one and spent some quality time there. On the way back, we saw that Times Square was completely basking in its glory with thousands of people enjoying this amazing place of the city. The best thing about Times Square is that one can sit and talk and enjoy the view and will not the time of the night. It is always so crowded, be it 11 in the night or 3 in the morning! We finally the left the place at 2 after spending like 3 hours !!!

Credit Card v/s Debit Card

2009-10-06T00:32:00.001+05:30

Recently, I went to eat dinner with a friend of mine to celebrate a long due party from his side. At the time of paying the bill, he took out his debit card and did the payment.

Once it was done, I asked him that why uses debit card and not a credit card. To this, his reply was that since debit card instantly debits money from the account, its easier to keep a check on the spending.

And this is the exact reason I personally don't use a debit card. First of all, personally I believe that holding a credit card does not make you a reckless spender and debit card stops it. If that is indeed the case, then someone has a shopping problem and needs medical help :D

According to me, there is no good reason to use a debit card over a credit card as a credit card is much better and here are the reasons for the same.

1. Since my account is instantly debited when using a debit card, one loses interest on that amount for not one but 2 months. The amount might seem to be small on the face of it but add all the amounts for a month and then calculate the loss. And for people who are thinking that how one loses 2 months interest, here's the maths. Suppose one spends on 29th of a month, the credit card statement will come by 15th of the next month and the payment needs to be done by 5th of the month after that. So, if one had used my debit card on 29th itself, the money is debited but credit card payment is done in the next 2 calender months.

2. Credit card gives more control in terms of security any day! God forbid, if someone loses debit card, then the account is under threat but credit card prevents one from that too.

3. Using credit card gives one reward points too which can be redeemed later on, which is not the case in a debit card.

4. And credit card allows one to spend much more than my account balance if the limit is quite high. This is really useful in case of emergencies and some bulk purchase if one needs to do.

So, personally I see no reason of using debit card apart from it being used to withdraw money from the ATM!

There are cities and there is New York!

2009-09-21T18:45:00.003+05:30

Continuing from where I left in the last post, our flight touched JFK airport albeit an hour late from the scheduled time. The feeling was ecstatic :) After traversing through countless escalators and travelators, I finally reached the immigration counter. As is the case with all the immigration counters, here also the divide was between the American citizens and citizens from other countries. And the number of people in my category was huge. A friend of mine who reached JFK few months back had to wait for one and a half hours to get passed the immigration. And looking at the number of people there, I was sure of spending that much time myself too.

After waiting for some 30 minutes or so, some of us got lucky and starting from the person just ahead of me, we were redirected to the US citizen counters which were running comparatively empty. My number came in next 10 minutes and the immigration officer. He was a friendly guy and asked some general questions. In the middle of the conversation, he asked me, "So, you doing your masters right?". I replied in the affirmative.

Officer: " Is that the IIT?"

Me (Not very suprised): "No, they are engineering institutes for the graduate degrees. I am doing my management from the Indian Institute of Management."

Officer: "Oh! You from an IIM!"

Me (all smiles): "ya"

Officer: " Which one?"

Me: "Calcutta"

Officer: "Good!"

This made me even more happy :D After this, he gave me some random gyaan on body building tips so that I am able to impress Kareena Kapoor and Preity Zinta. To which, I told him that I am not interested in them ;) The conversation ended there and I moved towards baggage area. My suitcase came in quickly and I made my way out of the airport expecting my friend to be there.

But as the case most of the times, he was not there. I searched for him in all the possible places but no use. Finally, I decided to call him but pay phone there accept only quarters for which I needed change. Before making the call, I decided to look for him once more and this time, I was lucky :) He justified his arrival time by considering his immigration wait of one and a half hours :P

Well, we made our way out for the city and took a train from the airport to the nearest MRT station. From there, I took the underground train for Times Square, where my hotel was. It was a long long journey to Manhattan from the Airport and took it me around an hour or so to reach there!

Finally, I alighted at the station and came out in Manhattan.

The feeling was OVERWHELMING!!! The city just hits you! It seems that one is inside a video game where one is surrounded by people and tall buildings and taxis and what not! Its just so so so difficult to explain the feeling in words.

On the way to the hotel, I saw Times Square, NASDAQ and world headquarters of Morgan Stanley. After a bit of rest and freshening up, all of us planned to go to Statue of Liberty.

We took the Subway as that is best way to commute in New York. But the subway network there is not so easy to understand. There are multiple lines and they change over the weekend. Sometimes, there is repair work and regular maintenance going on which adds to confusion ;) But at the same time, very detail maps are available to understand the network. Also, the fare is uniform of $ 2.25 irrespective of boarding and destination station.

We reach the downtown area and walked to Wall Street and saw the stock exchange - NYSE, memorial hall and other bank buildings. Also got a chance to see the famous Merrill Lynch Bull :) From there, we moved to Battery Park which is the place to board the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Since, we were a little late in the evening, it was not possible to cover Ellis Island too. If one wants to cover both, one should reach there by 2 in the afternoon. Nevertheless, we took our tickets and headed for security check, which was equivalent to airport level checking :P

Finally, we were on the ferry and the view is alluring when one is on the ferry. Downtown skyline, Jersey skyline and Statue of Liberty - all 3 together give a view which is out of this world. The journey was spent in clicking pictures and same activity once we reached the statue too! Moreover, the return journey was made more enjoyable with the setting sun and the cool breeze.

Once back on land, we decided to visit Macy's, the famous 7-floor shopping store, though did not buy anything. Since, it was dinner time now, we tried out Sbarro's pizza which were quite good and the dining area was underground. The interesting part was that this dining area directly opened into a Subway station :D

We reached back our hotel, after spending some time at Times Square. Any amount of time can be spent at Times Square, especially in the night!

Not a bad start to the tour, I thought :)

P.S. - I know I am very late in posting all this but I will cover my complete journey for sure in the coming days.

A journey of thousands of miles began with a well....a small chat!

2009-09-20T16:48:00.001+05:30

As I had mentioned it here that 3 of us planned to go to the US for a trip. Now, a little background of how this trip happened! My one friend and I were just discussing over gtalk that it has been a long time since all of us went out together somewhere, the last trip being to Kerala in December 2007, where we celebrated the new year too!

We continued talking and discovered that both of us are free in the last week of August and our third friend is also planning to take a leave that time around. Both of us thought of some options like Andaman or North East and similar stuff.

He suddenly said that we should go to the US! I was like, come on...thats never gonna happen. He said if he give ourselves 2 weeks instead of a week, we can surely cover US. With one of another very close friend in San Francisco, it was workable and he can also join in. I could see the feasibility of the plan and ended the conversation by gaining some time.

After contemplating options, financial considerations etc, we planned to go ahead the US plan. We planned to cover 5 cities - New York, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The list was finalised after many talks over the gtalk and phone calls and google search and what not! Same was the case with flight bookings, hotel bookings, car booking (we planned to drive from LA to SFO) amongst other things. Also, both of my other friends were flying from Delhi and I was to fly out a day later from Kolkata as I had my end term exams for the 4th term.

Finally, Aug 22 dawned and I had my one of the toughest paper! In the evening, I was slated to leave for New York via Dubai as I took Emirates. As per convention, I reached the airport 3 hours prior to departure but this was really not needed. The check-in was through and through till destination and was smooth. There were very few people everywhere and so was the immigration.

The immigration officer asked very routine questions about why I am going, whats my current status etc. After all this routine stuff, I reached the waiting lounge. Since I had 2 hours to my disposal, I decided to call my family and folks and friends.

When I was done with my talking, I looked around the airport (and thought about the preceding areas) and felt sad at the pathetic condition of our airports. I still wonder why other countries have such amazing airports and why cant be the same with out own airports??!!

Well, finally the boarding was announced and it was a small aircraft for the Kolkata-Dubai leg with 2-4-2 configuration. The economy of Emirates is good! And I was pleasantly surprised by the leg room offered by them.

The flight took off and thanks to my Asian Vegetarian meal option (it was a special meal), I got my dinner pretty fast. In the meanwhile, I enjoyed the entertainment system by watching a movie and listening to some songs. Moreover, it was just 5 hour journey and I had planned not to sleep on this leg of the journey so as to tire myself for the next one, sleep there and reach US absolutely fresh! Moreover, the food is pretty good by any standard and the quantity was adequate.

We reached Dubai before time and it is just amazing to see the area over which the Dubai airport has been built. There are atleast 4 runways there and I saw another aircraft just landing besides us and another one taking off at the far end when we ended taxiing. A bus carried us to our terminal which seemed to be like in another world. We kept moving and moving passing infinite aircrafts parked at the airport. It was a good 15 minute drive before I entered the Emirates terminal building. The building is a massive structure and equally neat and clean. The unique point about it is that it has only Rolex clocks and that too one after every 200 m.

Now, this was the arrival departure and nowhere I could see the sign for transit or departure passengers. I almost reached the immigration and here I finally saw an Emirates help desk. He guided me to take the lift and go to the next floor and then directions could help me to reach my gate for the flight to NY.

When I went inside the lift, man...it was huge. The lift was designed to carry 120 passengers at one time and here I was alone in it. Its amazing to see the engineering marvels in Dubai. Upon reaching the floor, I could see the departure gate signs but since its a massive airport I reached my gate after a 20 minute walk. Before hand, I knew that Dubai Airport offers free Wi-fi and I thought of updating my folks about it. Since it was just a 2 hour transit, there was nothing else which could be done. Ya, I did check out some duty-free shops :)

My boarding was announced on time but the flight was delayed by 45 minutes due to an incoming connecting flight getting delayed. The moment I hit my seat here, I slept off; only to be woken by the hostess to offer me my another meal. I ate a little bit and slept off in deep sleep.

Bad weather caused some bad jerks and I woke up at that time. The view inside the aircraft was night like. The aircraft was pitch dark and they even simulated night by lighting up stars in the roof! Since, I was too tired, I slept again but the hostess woke me up again, this time for the breakfast. Now, in the breakfast I got the least expected item - 'Poha', a rice dish which I just love to eat.

In an hour or so, I heard the announcement by the pilot, "We are going to land at the JFK, New York in some time now." Yippee...I was finally here! :)

ICICI Bank Customer Service SUCKS!

2009-08-16T04:30:00.002+05:30

I am an ICICI Bank Credit Card customer for more than 5 years now. I was issued a silver card back then and was upgraded to Gold Card 3 years back owing to my clear credit record. I am a Gold customer since then and have maintained the same clean record.

Last month, I forgot to make the payment on time (just slipped out of my mind) and made it 2 days late. On Friday, I received my bill on which I was slapped a Rs. 400 fine and some service tax on it, taking the total to Rs. 440 something. When I called the customer service, I was told that bank is not considering any reversal. I asked to speak to the manager and was told as he is busy with some other call, I cant speak to him. I told the customer support guy to atleast take my complaint which he did. I was given the assurance that I will hear from the bank about this by Saturday night.

Since I did not receive any reply, I called the helpline once more few minutes back and told my case. The phone agent told me that no complaint was lodged on Friday and no communication is pending from bank's side. I was shocked to say the least! The previous guy had blatantly lied to me. I told this person about fine reversal and he too told me the same about no reversal being possible. I told him, well in that case ICICI should cancel my card and I will clear the outstanding without paying the fine. Then I was told to hold the line.

After 3 to 4 minute of holding the line, I was informed that my reversal is accepted and a confirmation SMS will come to me within an hour. I also lodged the complaint against the person who bluffed me on my last call on Friday. Lets see what happens.

I think ICICI should take some lessons from their competitors in customer service.

Class Statements III

2009-08-10T11:27:00.004+05:30

After publishing the second edition here, following are 3 more brilliant statements made in some of my classes this term.

3. There is a concept of Class Participation (CP), wherein, an individual is evaluated on the basis of valuable inputs made during the discussion in a class. Since it involves marks, everyone tries to pitch in. So, sometimes people just speak for the heck of it and it is labeled as DP or desperate participation. Though, CP marks are given on the basis of contribution made throughout the course, some people realise it very late in the course that they have not done any CP till date. This happened with one of my classmates in one of the subject called "Strategic Human Resource Management in Services." In one class, he just started to make "too much" contribution to the discussion and the Prof. understood this. So, after some time, Prof. finally said, "Enough for today, you have already got 0.00001% of your CP marks today." ;)

2. In the same subject, we were discussing a case on a particular Airline and discussion was on how to motivate different employees of an airline - crew, staff, ground handling people, pilots etc. For every category, we came up with solutions to motivate them except for pilots. The argument was that pilots are already well-paid, command a premium as they are rare, given facilities etc., so nothing extra can be done to motivate them to perform in their job. This is when one of my classmates came with this - "Pilots have a personal interest in performing in their job." Implying non-performance will result in death ;)

1. I have taken a subject called "Fixed Income Markets." As the name suggests, it deals with fixed income instruments like bonds, T-bills etc. So, we had an excel based quiz in which questions needed to be solved using Excel. The test was really tough and all of us were really hit hard by it. After the test was over, the faculty understood the situation and said, "Now you know why are bond traders paid so much!"

Samhar 2009: IIM Calcutta v/s IIM Bangalore

2009-08-09T19:33:00.001+05:30

It was ‘Samhar’ time in IIM Calcutta for two days. Samhar is an annual sporting event between IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore with each campus hosting it every alternate year. It started in 2007 with IIM C playing the host.

IIM B had won the previous two editions and last year 15-2 overall score against IIM C was hurting to say the least. This year, the incoming batch showed a lot of enthusiasm right from the time of admissions on the Google group formed for them. They discussed the various sport facilities on the campus, people who had prior experience of playing at respectable levels offered their coaching skills etc. The enthusiasm level was visible this time when we reached the campus. All the courts were always occupied with both batches putting in their best of efforts. I am sure all the captains had a hard time in selecting the players this time!

Finally, on last Friday (August 8, 2009), the contingent from IIM B arrived and was a ‘grand’ welcome (can’t explain here for obvious reasons ;)). There was nothing scheduled for Friday night and the matches started on Saturday morning.
Some of the events were held outside the campus like cricket, hockey, snooker and swimming. Other events like carom, basketball, volleyball, badminton, chess and tennis were held inside the campus. Cricket was one sided in favour of IIM C for a long time but B did a fight while chasing 190 in 25 overs. They lost 7 wickets under 100 runs but ended up with 200 runs odd. Football was 0-0 till the end of the match but C lost 3-0 in the penalty shootout. Girl’s basketball team from B was too good for us but the reverse trend was seen for men’s basketball. One result which we did not expect was losing men’s volleyball and that too in straight sets. C won in snooker, chess, men’s TT and B won in badminton (both men and women), girl’s TT and carrom. C completely dominated athletics and swimming and were easy victories for us.

The final score line read 9-7 in favour of IIM B. Tennis was not completed owing to rains and was tied at 1-1 with one more match to go. In the end, C showed great improvement from last year but B took the trophy third year in a row.

Airlines plan strike on Aug 18, 2009 - Will it work?

2009-08-01T10:10:00.002+05:30

India's leading private airlines - Jet, Kingfisher, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir (as of now) - have decided to go on a nationwide strike on August 18 to compel the Government to reduce tax on ATF and reduce rentals on various services availed by the airlines. This would mean around 12,000 cancellations on the D-Day. The strike is planned as airlines are continuously losing money and it is estimated to the tune of Rs. 10,000 crores.

Is the strike really a good idea? First of all, Jet and Kingfisher cannot blame the Government for their losses. The reason of their losses, to a large extended, can be attributed to the takeover of Air Sahara and Air Deccan respectively, which were loss making entities. Jet made a blunder by acquiring an all Airbus fleet when it had its owning Boeing fleet.

Second, the so called LCC (low cost carriers) in the country are NOT LCC in principle. They are just LOW FARE airlines. As compared to other countries, such LCCs have a different business model. Those airlines operate out of less congested airports, hence pay less airport tax and even pay lesser salaries to their pilots, crew and ground staff.

Even if the strike goes through, Government still not might relent. Rather, it can see this as an opportunity to add few bucks to NACIL, which is under heavy losses currently. Also, NACIL has extensive reach in the country and passengers, in principle, can avail their services.

Finally, the airlines need to realise that they are digging their own grave by doing such an act. If they go an indefinite strike, they need to refund passengers which will be adding to more losses.

Personally, I feel that Airlines stand to lose with this act of theirs!

Why can't HRD leave IIMs alone?

2009-07-31T22:53:00.003+05:30

Our HRD ministry seems to be in love with the IIMs. They started with the proposal of decreasing the fee to Rs. 1 lac some years ago, then quota implementation, quota for teachers and now have given this brilliant idea of having integrated interviews.

The idea is a great one, on the face of it; given the fact that right now there are 7 IIMs and it is planned to increase to 13 (which will spoil brand IIM - different issue though), so a student will have to undergo just one interview instead of multiple rounds. And the reference is given to the Civil Service selection.

This would have made sense had all IIMs had the same selection criteria. With all IIMs giving different weightage to different things like CAT, past academic record, work experience, extra-currics or recommendations (IIM B is the only one as of now asking for it), the student will have different shortlists. Moreover, how will the composition be done for the panel who will be interviewing? Currently, it is the professor or alums of the particular IIM who interview the candidate. Lastly, there are some clear skills which a particular IIM looks for and that is reflected in the GD or case study handed out or the types of questions asked. For example, IIM Calcutta always stress on 'quanti' stuff and asking puzzles and lots of maths in an interview.

The advice given out is fine but it would have been better if HRD had its homework. And my sincere advice to HRD - leave the IITs and IIMs alone; please focus on primary education. That's where the problem lies in the country!

And finally got it...

2009-07-29T18:05:00.004+05:30

After interviewing for the US visa, the wait for passport delivery begins. Now, the embassy gives us 2 options to collect the passport. One is to collect from VFS office (the agency handling the operations for them in the city) near Park Street or get it couriered to one's place by Blue Dart. Since, IIM C campus does not fall into the delivery zone of Blue Dart, the second option was ruled out and instead I could collect it from Blue Dart office at the Airport!

Moreover, collection is possible from VFS only the next day of the interview and that too from 1400 hrs to 1600 hrs; else they will send it to Blue Dart office. I called up VFS office in the morning and inquired about my passport. They checked their records, had no information about my passport and advised to call at 2 pm. I was scheduled to meet a company official for a project near the airport and so I left for the same.

Once my interview was over, which went quite fine, it was 3 pm and it suddenly struck me to call VFS office. I tried their number multiple times but the sad Airtel connection did not allow me to connect. And even if it did connect, the call dropped multiple times. I decided to use the SMS service, but as the luck had it, the message was not getting delivered! After more trials, I finally got to speak to VFS operator and indeed my passport was lying in their office and I had just about 50 minutes to reach their office from the Airport.

I hired a cab and he very confidently told me that even with traffic, we can make it in max 40 minutes to the destination. Little did I know that Calcutta Metro would have been a convenient, cheaper and faster option. Trusting him, I jumped into the cab and thus began the journey. Luckily, he took me through the by-pass route which promised no traffic which was indeed true. But, nothing comes for free and I could see the taxi meter moving like Akhtar's deliveries!

While in the cab, I received an SMS that my message for passport enquiry has been delivered and Airtel 'thanked' me for using this tracking service. I was amazed to read this but when I read the next line, I was shell shocked! I was charged Rs. 10 for this service !!! The point is that it was never mentioned that I will be charged that amount for the service. I thought it will be a normal Rs.3 SMS charge for a service when a message is sent to a 5 digit number. Moreover, somehow any visa activity seem to give license to everyone in the world to charge any amount of insane money. I experienced this when went to my photo clicked for the visa form. The US visa have strict photo specifications and everyone has to get them clicked, come what may! When I went to the photographer and asked rate for photos, he told me its 50 odd for normal passport pics. I asked photos for visa and rates skyrocketed to Rs. 300 for 4 pics. I was dumbfounded. That's daylight robbing going on! I negogiated and finally managed to bring it down to 275, but still it was too much to pay.

Nevertheless, no point in thinking about this now. The taxi had beaten a majority part of the traffic but finally I could not escape the traffic moving at snail's place. It was 1540 and cabbie assured me of me making it there in max 10 more minutes. But the traffic refused to move and if it did, it was not more than 50 meters in one shot. I still kept my cool as I had a buffer of 10 minutes. The traffic moved, albeit slowly and steadily but in some time I realised that I am going to be late for sure. The cabbie was also helpless as there was just no space to move. I decided to call the helpline and inform them that I will be late by 5-10 minutes and if possible, please consider my case. But as the Murphy's Law exists, it was bound to happen. I just could get through the helpline at all :(

Amongst this crazy setting, we moved out of the traffic area and then the cabbie rammed the accelerator and we were moving at a frenetic pace. But alas, I was late and reached the building at 1607. I was late but I still wanted to take a shot. I paid the cabbie and ran into the building. I asked the guard the floor of the office and it was on the 14th floor of this 14 floor building. Why the top floor only?! Well, I went inside and saw that first lift was meant for first 7 floors, moved on to the next one to discover that it was for 7th to 14th floor but was out of order. Grrrr!!! Saw the third lift, it was for all 14 floors and was working too. 2 more people were waiting with me for this lift. The lift arrived and all 3 announced "14" as the destination floor to the lift-man. He closed the door but another guy stepped in by putting his foot between the closing doors, which reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan doing it in Deewar :D He had to go to the 12th floor, which meant some extra seconds for me!

Thankfully, lift was a high speed lift and I reached the VFS office at 1610. Now the guard did not allow me inside as officially the time was over. He was doing his duty and he was right in doing so. I pleaded him saying that I am a student of IIM Calcutta, and will need to go to airport to collect it from Blue Dart as Joka is not in the delivery zone. He was not budging at all and I told him to allow me to speak to someone, to which also he did not agree. I gave him my IIM Caclutta I-card and requested him to speak on my behalf to the officer. He agreed to this proposal and went inside. He came out after 2 minutes and allowed me in. I showed the required identification and collected the passport. I must have thanked that officer some 100 times for considering my case.

I opened to check my passport and was delighted to see a 10 year, multiple entry visa stamped! I came out and thanked the guard again and again :) :)

As it is said - All's well that ends well!

US Visa Interview experience

2009-07-27T14:55:00.004+05:30

Two of my friends and I are planning to go to the US in August end/ Sept first week. Now, how this plan was made will be covered in another post soon. We booked our flight tickets first and then took the visa dates. I was given the 9 am slot for today July 27 in the Kolkata consulate.

Before taking the date, I had to do a lot of groundwork for the same. Applying for a tourist visa calls for a groundwork. Since, I had already booked my tickets, I felt rather peaceful about the whole thing. Then I needed to show my bank statements, Income Tax returns, got a bonafide certificate from my college, PAN card copy, Credit card copy etc.

It is advised to reach the consulate 15 minutes prior to the appointment but I reached at 8 30 only. The appointment letter and HDFC bank receipt (used to pay the visa fees) are checked. No mobile phones and bags are allowed inside the consulate, so it is better not to take them in the first place.

After a brief security check, a queue is there to see the basic forms of the visa. Once the verification is done, one is asked to wait. The name is called out for fingerprinting record. After that, starts the wait for the interview call.

I was called quite quickly for my interview. I greeted the lady across the counter and the interview started.

She: Why are you going to the US?

Me: Sightseeing, leisure

She: You know anyone in the US?

Me: No, all my relatives and family are in India

She: What are you right now?

Me: A second year student in IIM Calcutta MBA Program

She: Who is funding your trip?

Me: I am, from my savings.

She: When did you graduate?

Me: 2004

She: Where and how long you worked?

Me: HCL Technologies for 3 years.

She: How much was your salary?

Me: Told her...

She: How long you have been in IIM?

Me: Joined in last June

She: What all subjects you studied last year?

Me: (stumped, not prepared for this one) umm..marketing, marketing, stats, marketing.....(long pause) strategy, economic and political history, risk management..(took some more names)..(she looked little suspicious)....should I tell my subjects in this year?

She: Its fine.

After some data entry and paperwork, she looks up again and says "Your visa is APPROVED. Com after 4-5 days to collect it."

The whole thing took max 50 minutes. Surprisingly, no one checked any of the documents taken along but it is always better to take them.

Go Kiss the World - Part 2

2009-07-26T20:22:00.003+05:30

Now I was not able to hold myself back and completed the book today itself. So, as promised here are some more amazing quotes from it.

1. Mother Teresa once said “God does not require us to succeed, he asks only us to try."

2. In worst of the times, the job of a leader is to let his or her people know that there is tomorrow.

3. All that good parents can do is to inculcate in their children the sense that "when they make a choice, they also choose he consequences."

4. Open your mind before you open your mouth.

5. Many professionals shudder at the thought of physical displacement, yet crave rapid mobility and growth in their careers. When you are continuously displaced, you make friends easily. You have low expectations from the unfamiliar hence you are more pleasantly surprised than frustrated when faced with life's many ups and downs. You explore everything around you, develop curiosity - new lands, customs, food, and ways of doing things begin to draw you in. You learn to survive on the strength of who you are, just for this day, today. You build ingenuity in order to survive. You trust strangers and, hence, strangers trust you. You build intuitive capability to sniff trouble - which can tell you when to leave a bar! You become an interesting person, because you have lots of stories to tell. Finally, you learn to move on.

6. And finally the last line of the book - Making it in life is not about material benefits and carving individual success; it is about moving from brightness to greater brightness, while taking people along. It is not about making it big, but about making it good.

Go Kiss the World

2009-07-26T12:43:00.003+05:30

I am reading this book written by Subroto Bagchi. He tells about his life experiences since his early childhood and is an interesting read. I am half way through and wanted to quote of the wonderful lines he has written. I am sure I must have missed some of the ones from the first half of the bok, but I will cover them in my next post.

Here they are

1. Sometimes, not handing out punishment when it is most expected is the best way to bring lasting pretence.
2. Success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever your current state of wealth.
3. If one is good is in his work, the designation does not matter in the long run.
4. One has to start with a sales job to make it to the top.
5. Most people covet good jobs great posting higher salaries than their friends and a rather elusive elixir called job satisfaction.
6. Negative public opinion most often has some basis and we must have grace to accept it.
7. While it takes time to build perception, it takes even longer for perceptions to change.
8. No decision is without risk, but when you take the time to think things through, you take very few regrettable decisions.
9. The first three jobs do not shape one's career.

More will follow soon...

You have no right to complain, Mr. Ponting

2009-07-14T11:04:00.004+05:30

High stake tournaments in any sport brings out the best of any player and the worst too - be it World Cup in Soccer or cricket or Wimbledon or "Flash Gordon" in IIM C ;) (I just hope some IIMCian is reading this and will be able to appreciate it) or much hyped Ashes series between Australia and England.

No doubt, Australia deserved to win the first win after a fantastic batting display and some superb bowling in the second innings. But thanks to last wicket partnership, England was able to save the match.

And now comes the statement of the century. "England did not display sportsmanship. They used time wasting tactics in the end." This came from none other than, Mr. Ponting. Are such people allowed to make such statements?! He needs to refresh some memory of his and go back only one and half years.

The matter of the fact is that Australia is not able to come terms with the fact that the last wicket partnership held nerve for 40 minutes and saved the test. Come on team Australia, you also tried it way back in 2005.

Learn to give credit to opposition too :)

Nokia 7210 Supernova

2009-07-01T15:19:00.003+05:30

After experiencing an airline ticket purchase online, I am here to write my experience on a mobile buying these days which is much more time consuming and involves physical labour too ;)

I was contemplating to buy a new mobile handset and finally last weekend, I set out to a nearby (well, not so near) 'Mobile Store'. When I reached there, I found that a 'Hot Spot' outlet has also opened absolutely adjacent. As Hot Spot has some 'assured' prize winning scheme going on, I decided to give this place the first shot.

I told my budget of 5 to 6k and a NOKIA phone, come what may, preferably no camera :D He showed me 7210 Supernova with a price tag of 5300 and music express 5130 or 5310 for 5800 INR. Then he brought this Sony W 310 for 5000 and according to him was the BEST phone. The seller was really pushing hard for this model. Now, my MBA has taught me one thing - if a dealer is pushing for a lower priced product at the same margin, then something is definitely not right somewhere. I really liked Supernova model but with a 1 GB card, I was not getting the data cable!

I moved to Mobile Store next door and was shown the same 2 models of Nokia but no data cable again with Supernova. He also showed me an awesome Samsung slider phone too, again for 5100. When I asked for his advice, he quietly told me to go for Nokia, coz its a Nokia :) Here, I enquired about Sony W 310 and was told that production has been stopped and anyone selling it would be clearing an old stock (which confirmed my previous apprehension. I did indeed checked on the net afterwards and found that Mobile Store was right).

Last, in the line was a Nokia Priority Dealer, who was offering Supernova model for 5,300 INR WITH a data cable! I had no question in mind to go for this model now. This model is fully loaded - 2 MP camera, 1 GB card, data cable, video recording, expandable memory upto 2 GB, Radio, MP 3 player, Bluetooth, excellent sound quality, absolutely sleek finish :)

Its turning out to be a good buy till now atleast!

How can so varied people make the same mistake?!

2009-06-28T15:20:00.002+05:30

Last year, when I arrived in Calcutta, I obviously took a new number. And I mailed many people informing them about my new number. And they did it without any issue.

Now, there are always some people who either ignore such mails or do not take action right away and some people are inadvertently left out from mailing list. These people asked for my number over gtalk and I gave them my number then and there.

Here, starts the interesting part. All and yes, I mean ALL of my friends who took my number over the chat got it wrong. My number ends in '336' but all of them noted it incorrectly as '366' When they tried calling and could not get through, they pinged again and asked and got it correct this time. I thought that maybe I wrote it incorrectly but that was not the case, thanks to saved chat in Gmail!

What prompted me to write this today was the time when the same thing happened again a few minutes back. A friend wanted to talk about his MBA admission and all and took my number over the chat. And ya, he got it wrong too :D

Cant think of any conrete reason for this ;)

CAT finally goes online!

2009-05-14T09:18:00.000+05:30

With CAT going online, all aspirants are set to gain. First and
foremost, by giving a 10 day window, the aspirant can choose the
convenient time and day to take the test. Secondly, the test
environment is going to be same for everyone and hence quality of test
center issues will be taken care of. Moreover, the current generation
is tech-savvy to a large extent and hence working with computers is
not a new thing for them. Also, some of the graduation level entrance
exams are already online so it won’t be much of a change for them.
Since, the notification has come 6 months in advance; aspirants will
get ample time to practice too. Online exam also eases the process of
center-change for taking exam which is not a possibility right now.
Most importantly, the test conducting agency is a global veteran,
teething problems won’t arise. Moving forward, the test can be
conducted in centres outside the country maintaining the test-taking
time window. This will give people abroad to take CAT/GMAT both for
admissions to the IIMs and other institutes.

Online CAT was long due and it’s good to see it coming finally.

P.S. – Business standard newspaper liked it so much that they decided to hand me out a reward of Rs. 500 for this! Check out the edition dated May 11, Page 15 on the top right hand corner :)

Arbitrage at its best

2009-05-14T09:17:00.000+05:30

It has been over 5 weeks since I arrived in Thailand and there is no doubt that electronic items are definitely cheap as compared to India when it comes to laptops, medium and top end mobile phones, cameras and TVs.

I recently went to the Bangkok International Airport to drop someone who was going back to Mumbai. At the Bangkok International Airport, even a non-passenger can enter the airport building, can reach the check-in areas of airlines, roam around inside the airport and is stopped just before the immigration check. Nevertheless, both of us went to airline check-in counter. Next to us was the check-in counter for the Calcutta flight for the same airline. And I saw a big group of about 30 people there, each carrying a set of LCD TV! Now, this amazed me that how on earth can one need so many TVs back home?! I carried my curiosity back to my place and forgot about it.

After having a chat with someone here, I came to know about this “arbitrage” which is going on here. This is how the arrangement works. Same model of LCD TV costs around INR 75,000 in India and in Thailand it is around THB 30,000 (~INR 42,000; 1 THB (Thai Baht) = 1.4 INR approx). people buy TV here, pay a minimal duty of 2,500 in India, take this to “grey” market in metro cities of the country and sell it there for around INR 60,000 and receive cash for the same. The difference is almost sufficient to get a Bangkok return ticket from India! The dealer in India can easily sell the same set at a better margin now :)

Now that explains those 30 TVs being taken checked in :P

Spoilt For Choice – Online Airline Bookings

2009-05-14T09:10:00.000+05:30

I always thought that searching for a house is one of the toughest activities to undertake but now I am not sure about it. Something which gives a close competition to house-hunting process is…online airline ticket booking.

The reason for this is that virtually every day we have new travel portals coming up and offering some wonderful discounts. Add to that the older players like www.makemytrip.com or www.cleartrip.com or www.yatra.com. They also offer great packages on airline booking. The issue complicates when they also offer discounts. Now, even with the discounts are on some airlines when booking is done with some particular credit card on some routes and other trillions of conditions applied.

Furthermore, all airlines have their individual website which also give out offers. For example, SpiceJet offers discount on return booking, just like international carriers. Indian Airlines also gives a flat 10% discount if a ticket is booked 30 days in advance. (These offers were on when I am writing this :D) And for reasons unknown to me, GoAir does not figure in any of the travel portal searches. Since, they don’t fly to Calcutta, which they might now given that they are flying to Guhawati and Bagdogra now, I don’t really need to check their offerings. Else, I need to check their site as my experience has been really good with them in the past.

So, when I had to plan my travel from Kolkata for some places, I had to take the plunge in the vast ocean of websites. I started with travel portals and checked out the timings of available flights. Moved to individual websites of the airlines to compare fares and they were much lesser as opposed what was being offered by portals. I chose to compare fares being offered by some of not so popular portals like www.ezeego1.co.in and www.travelocity.co.in and much to my amazement, the latter one was offering tickets less than what airlines themselves were offering! I chose the last one for my booking finally and I am quite sure of getting the best deal possible on the day of booking for my travel dates.

Moreover, in the end I would strongly recommend that please do check airlines websites as for some strange reason some of the flights are not shown in the search results of the travel portals. For example, there is a 1450 flight from Calcutta to Delhi (which suited me best and finally booked this) which was not coming in the search result of some but I got to know about it from the JetLite website. Also, please do see the breakup of the fare being offered by any website. Some of them charge for insurance, which is not needed and also charge if one blocks seat at the time of booking!

No doubt going online has eased the process of booking airline tickets, it also calls for a lot of prudence and site-searching.

Catching up...

2009-04-11T14:49:00.002+05:30

Let me inform you at the outset – This is going to be a long post, so read in leisure time :D It has been a long time since I updated my blog, owing to rigor in IIM Calcutta, a real hectic week long trip to Delhi, and a 3 week holiday in Mumbai. On top of that, no regular net connection also kept out of action for almost over a month.

Well, I completed my first year of my MBA (ya again!) and headed to Delhi to catch up with relatives and old friends. It was a week-long trip which was quite hectic, coupled with not-so friendly weather there. All in all, it was great to meet some people after a really long time in life :) And more importantly, finally got the chance to see the Akshardham Temple, near Commonwealth Games Village with some of C classmates.

Then, I headed to Mumbai for a 3-week stay there before joining my internship. Here also, I met with old friends and watch the famous play – ‘Class of 84’ being played in National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). It was a nice play and I would recommend it to anyone who has not seen it till now. And those have seen it, would agree with me on this :)

This time, I also got a chance to watch 3 plays in the Performing Arts Festival of IIT Bombay. They were absolute brilliant performances and one cannot stop admiring the efforts put in by every student there.

In the meantime, I got the news that I will be interning in Thailand in a phosphate plant of Aditya Birla Group located in Samrong, Samut Prakan province, about 20 kms from Bangkok. I was excited to say the least :D

Finally, the D-Day arrived. All the group interns were to join by 5th April evening in ABG’s training center called ‘Gyanodaya’ in Belapur, near Mumbai. I reached around 8 in the night and was shown by room. My room partner was one of my batchmates from C only. The rooms were just WOW and so were all the arrangements.

The evening was left to us to socialize with fellow interns from other institutes. Post-dinner, we batchmates from C, caught up on lotsa things on campus talks, year gone by, internship projects et al. All of us then started playing cards and this continued late into the night.

Morning was reserved for formal introductions of all the interns, and HR professionals from the Group. All in all, there were 40 interns across 5 campuses of IIMs A, B, C, L and XLRI. We were given a lot of information about the various group companies and the activities undertaken by them. It was an informative session and made me aware of many new things about the Group. Post-lunch, we were taken through administrative formalities, getting our tickets, passport, details of stay and other rules and regulations.

We (4 of us are interning in Thailand, albeit all in different locations) were to fly Indian Airlines later in the night, so had ample time in life to chat around, sleep and watch some sitcoms :P

We departed for the airport and against all expectations, made it to the airport in just 2 hours. The check-in was smooth, and so was the immigration and security check. This gave all of us to explore and enjoy the NEW Mumbai International Airport. It has undergone major revamping and has some amazing duty-free shops now. My reference point of comparison is Dec 2007, when I last used it as a tourist to Thailand. Though, the airport is good, it’s a no match to other international airports across the globe.

The flight was on time and boarding was announced was also timely. But, I was surprised to see the aircraft was not more than 40% full. Apparently, Thai and Jet Airways were offering lower-priced tickets than Indian Airlines! I would like to mention here that IA has also undergone a sea change in level of service and cleanliness. Dinner was OK and in-flight entertainment was below average. Watched ‘Rock On!’ for some time, listened to some old hindi songs and then caught on some sleep for around 2 hours.

My sleep was broken by pilot’s (I still don’t understand why is he called a ‘captain’) announcement of landing at the Bangkok International Airport. The arrival terminal seemed familiar :P and it was a long walk to the Immigration department. Apparently, Thailand has waived off its visa fees and also it has visa on arrival. It was longgggg queue at the Visa terminal at the airport. Enroute to the immigration, I got 10 USD exchanged to Bahts as I was not sure of encountering currency exchange counter soon. Here also, immigration was smooth but customs people insisted that we should get our luggage scanned, which we did without any hiccups.
Now, when we came out, we were expecting (as told) a person with a placard; but no one to be seen. And in Thailand, English is not that famous language. After talking to some people, through sign language, we figured out that there are 3 (atleast) exits in this airport and our person could be anywhere. We started moving towards the next one and spotted one person having a placard with just 2 names! Again, there was a language barrier and we got the message that he was here to pick up only 2 of us – another intern and myself. So, there has to be another person. Making that person as a part of search, we eventually found the person who was there to pick up the other 2 :). We parted ways there and moved on towards our destination.
My place was around an hour’s drive from the airport, thanks to the traffic. Distance-wise, it was around only 30 kms odd. The other person left in some time to his location which was a further 200 kms away. I was shown my guest house and room and got to meet the caretaker also. I was glad to see the place – it’s a plant location which is self-sufficient. And everything is inside the complex. I slept for some time (flight sleep was not enough by any standards) and joined in the second half of Tuesday.

I met key people and got the drift of project. Last few days have involved meeting a lot of people, understanding current systems, my project and I am sure of one thing – its gonna be EXCITING!!!

Thursday, April 9, was festival ‘Sankrat’ (not sure of spelling ;)), which celebrated with water and white powder. It was good fun and the water part came after a pooja in the office. It was like ‘holi’ without colours :P Now, Thai New Year (Songkran) is coming up and hence it is off here. I am off to Bangkok in few minutes and will be there for next 3 days!

Attaching attachments in Gmail

2009-03-06T18:19:00.003+05:30

Recently, Gmail changed how one can attach an attachment in the mail.

Though, its a welcome change, allowing users to attach multiple files at a time and also see the progress of the same. But, I am facing this issue all the time - whenever I select a file(s) to be uploaded, the uploading invariably fails in the first attempt. And this is not restricted to a particular type of file like .doc or .pdf or something but is a uniform phenomena.

Is it only me or someone else encountered this? Though I have reported it to Gmail, I am not sure if its a specific problem or other users are also facing it!

Tatkal Booking

2009-03-02T13:19:00.002+05:30

'Tatkal', a hindi word, means 'immediately' or 'on the spot'. So, our beloved Indian Railways started this service some years back for passengers who are not early planners or need to travel on a very short notice. Details are easily available on the web and even online booking is possible.

But me as an individual never got the opportunity to avail the facility, due to the combined effect of lesser frequency of traveling, low air-fares, advance planning and lastly having a relative working in the Railways. But this time it was different!

Our academic calendar is made well in advance and accordingly, we had booked our tickets for leaving Calcutta. But, there were unanticipated changes in the schedule and we had get put tickets advanced by 2 days. Since, the tickets were wait-listed on all trains, beyond the hope of getting confirmed, we decided to use the service this time around. Moreover, the travel date would be the 7th of this month, booking was scheduled to open at 8 am on the 2nd.

I got up well in time and was ready to hit the online booking counter in time. When I tried to book at maybe some seconds before 8, the system did not allow me (nice checks, I must say!). Finally, at 8:01 am, I was able to search for the train in which I needed the booking. Now, see this - there are 120 tickets for 3AC to be booked for tatkal in the train and when I check the status, the number of available seats has gone down to 108 already. When I click next, I get the wonderful message of "Service Unavailable" which basically means that site is choked and my whole exercise till this time turned to be futile.

I had to relogin and do the whole train searching business again but same result. Finally, after like 6-7 attempts, it started working for me. But, in the meantime, the number of available seats had gone down to 104. When I entered the details and proceeded to make the payment, the system took more than average time and again, 1 more seat was gone! After selecting payment gateway and entering the credit card details, I paused for a moment and thought "What if the system fails or does not work at this crucial moment?!". But, there was no other option in life, I took God's name and hit the "PAY" button.

The message on the left corner of my browser showed "Waiting for www.irctc.co.in..." with processing going on but right corner showed no progress in the progress bar. I had nothing else to do but wait and wait and wait. After some time, when nothing had happened, I started to get jittery (as I know how much time an online payment takes) but there was nothing I could do.

I decided to get some fresh air and come back some time. As soon as I entered the room, the page changed and I saw Indian congratulating me on booking the ticket. I heaved a sigh of relief after getting confirmed tickets.

Just out of curiosity, I checked the number of available seats and it had gone down to 84 or something. After 10 minutes, it was 68!

What I personally feel is that opening booking 5 days in advance (excluding travel date) is first of all little too wide a window. It should be 3 days IMHO. Secondly, website needs to be revamped to handle such a large number of requests. Though, the percentage of times it happens is really less but the discomfort and frustration caused is enormous.

Hope, railways does something about it. But a great service, do doubt about that :)

Answer this question?

2009-02-27T21:56:00.003+05:30

"Which place you belong to?"

I am sure one is confronted to this question atleast once a week. Now, in this present scenario where one is moving so much, what is the "correct" answer to the above question?

Whats the answer to this - the place where one was born and brought up, or place where one did his/her schooling from, or place where one's parental grandparents stay, or city of the current address, or the base location of the job, or the place where one "basically" belongs to, which can be easily concluded (with certain degree of confidence) from one's surname!

And more importantly why are people so interested in knowing that in the first place?! How does it matter to which place I "belong" to. Well, if one is interested in knowing my current residential address, so that one can hope to get a free stay when next time one visits the city, then ask the right question :D

I have never been able to understand this which-place-you-belong-to stuff...

Airbus v/s Boeing

2009-02-19T21:39:00.005+05:30

At the outset, I would like to clarify that I am not playing a aircraft manufacturing critic or something. This is just a rudimentary attempt to compare the two aircraft manufacturers based on my traveling in the recent years across various airlines, both in domestic and internationally. Also, if you feel that some of the stuff written here is FACTUALLY incorrect as on Feb 19, 2009, then please free to comment about the same.

In India, all but 2 airlines operate with Airbus aircrafts. The popular model is Airbus A320. On the other hand, Jet Airways (including JetLite) and SpiceJet are Boeing loyalists having a fleet of Boeing 777. I have always encountered Boeing 747 when flying Air-India, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines.

And without an iota of doubt I feel that Boeing aircrafts are better than Airbus. Firstly, the leg room is much better in Boeing. Secondly, the noise level, while flying, is considerably lower in the former. Thirdly, the landing is smoother in Boeing, somehow. Ya, landing, to some degree, depends on the expertise of the pilot but there is a remarkable difference in the jerk felt. So, I am quite convinced that Boeing has a better landing mechanism or something. Also, while take off, Airbus aircrafts shake a lot which add to irritating noise of 1000 things shaking.

But suprisingly, in the recent past Airbus has beaten Boeing in number of orders bagged. This is largely due to A380, which has been under the scanner for long now. Maybe the 787 Dreamliner series is able to reverse the trend.