My best Friend's Wedding

It’s been some time since I blogged, haven’t posted anything but the press releases.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since….. And among other things, my best friend (More sister than just friend) got married to her boyfriend of….hold your breath….1 month!! But I am very happy for her and satisfied that she finally chose a befitting guy. The marriage was in Chandigarh and I spent the weekend in city beautiful with a one day stopover in Delhi on my way back (which is right now in a delayed ‘as usual’ Air Deccan flight that took off from Delhi at the time was supposed to land in Mumbai)

The marriage was one of the very few I have been closely involved in, in recent times. So many ceremonies awed me at one moment and made me wonder about their significance in the next.
The Mehndi, Sagan, Ring ceremony, Chunni, Chooda, Jai Mala, finally the pheras. And that’s not all, she also came back home next day with her hubby for what was ‘ghar pe phera daalna’ (sorry I don’t know the technical name for the same, if there’s any, and can’t translate it either).

And this is the Gal’s side of ceremonies, I am sure there are a couple of others which are exclusive to the guy’s side. I remember witnessing my Mama being bathed in yoghurt by his sisters when he got married some years back.

It was an experience one can’t forget in a jiffy. I tried to hold back when I was pushing her Doli, but cried buckets when she left. Even though I knew I would be seeing her just as often after her marriage, but it is the moment and the emotions involved which cant be easily explained which makes even the most stoic men break down.


Anyway, all this has happened at the expense of important work that had to be done by me for Euphoria, the NMIMS festival, and a couple of mid-terms that I missed and hope to cover up with a re-test or some humongous assignments which I am sure the faculty will load me with.


When I look back now, this month has been particularly eventful and busy for me, and there was nothing academic about it. It began with a distant cousin’s marriage in Mumbai for which my family had come down, and I was doing sorties between Santa Cruz Airport and Andheri East picking and dropping relatives in a rickety Esteem. Also showed Ma Papa and Bhai around Mumbai. Then my friends from MIB@ D’ School had come over for their scheduled Port Visit in JNPT and Panvel, and then Divya’s Wedding in Chandigarh for which I flew down for the weekend. And now as the date for Euphoria closes in, I don’t know how I am going to cope with the number of projects due for submission and mid-terms lined up.

And by the way, results of the 2nd trim exams also came out some time back, and yours truly has once again managed to bring up the tail of the class. I hope against hope that this trim is better in terms of GPA so that I manage a CGPA which is at least respectable and presentable at the time of placements next Jan.

And thinking of placements, I was talking to Papa today about my plans for the coming year and stuff, and general discussion about the possible locations that one can get while getting placed. Some time back I was open to the idea of working anywhere in India for some 2 years after placements and then move base back to Delhi, but today while I was driving around Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and the secretariat, I so didn’t want to go back to Madhouse called Mumbai. There is something about Delhi which I now miss since I have been away. Even the ills of the city seem so enchanting now. Not that I ever disliked the city, but I had never given its wonders a thought all the 22 years I spent in it.

And now somewhere at the back of my mind, I know, wherever I go in the world, whichever city I have a house in, my Home will always be in Delhi.


P.S. Another thing I wanted to tell you but always forgot. I don’t remember if I posted about my attendance at the Bryan Adams concert this month in Bandra-Kurla. To put it mildly, it was great listening to him live. And now the interesting part, I met my guruji in Mumbai recently, who used to train me in Hindustani classical back in Delhi when I was very young. I found out that he lives very nearby (4 bungalows) and started my training all over again. And very recently he asked me to accompany him to a concert organised by Bhavan’s Cultural Centre at SPJIMR’s auditorium. The name of the concert was ‘Ek Shaam Faiz ke naam’. It was Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s birthday and the concert was about his life and his poetry and ghazals from his repertoire were recited by singer Jaswinder Singh.
And know what, I enjoyed the evening thoroughly. Although there were some Couplets in chaste urdu which went straight over my head, but those which I did understand, were simply too good and left no doubts regarding the genius of the poet.

Note the contrasts?? And tell me how many people do you know who enjoy listening to Bryan Adams as much as they enjoy listening to Faiz’s Shayari??

Euphoria - PicturePerfect

Press Release

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management and Higher Studies (NMIMS – Deemed University), in its 25th year of celebrated existence and stupendous growth is organising its annual B-School Fest, ‘Euphoria’ on the 9th, 10th and 11th of March.

In its 17th year, Euphoria is one of the biggest events across B-School Campuses, and celebrating the institute’s Silver Jubilee year, it promises to be bigger than ever before.

Euphoria has always been a platform for the country’s best minds to converge and rejoice and revel in the atmosphere of fun, healthy competition and celebrate the spirit of achievement. At NMIMS, our endeavour remains to foster creativity and encourage ingenuity amongst the participants, and Euphoria is just the place for the best in business to test themselves against each other so that they enter the corporate world fully armed.

Euphoria ‘06 will showcase a variety of events simulating real world business situations across verticals. This year the theme at the festival is ‘Cinema’ and is enmeshed in all events, even the most serious number crunching games have a filmi bent. And apart from events with an academic inclination, the festival this year also packs in the critically acclaimed play by Rahul Da Cunha, ‘Class of `84’ and a string of exhilarating quizzes by Quiz Meister Parnab Mukherjee.
The festival will be attended by students from all over the country and Mumbai’s literati.

For further details, please contact:
Shanu Singh – 9322121459 Achan Deep Singh – 9867025425
Or log on to: www.euphoriaonline.net

The official press release:

PLACEMENTS AT NMIMS

In its Silver Jubilee Year, NMIMS - Deemed University has experienced a new high with the glorious placements of the Batch of 2006. The cross-sectoral participation in the campus placements bears testimony to the world-class education and excellent talent pool of NMIMS.
The Company pool consisted of a diverse mix of sectors - from FMCG to BFSI, Consumer Durables to Consultancy, IT & ITES to Media, making attractive profile and package offerings to the students. The mean salary was a record-breaking Rs. 7.47 Lacs p.a. and the highest salary was Rs. 13 Lacs p.a. Also, students accepted Pre-placement offers from the likes of Dr. Reddy’s, GE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro Technologies to name a few.
The diverse opportunity platform provided by NMIMS can be gauged by the assortment of profiles offered by companies that had visited our campus like Accenture, Air India, Asian Paints, AV Birla, Axis Risk Consulting, Baan, Britannia, Citigroup, Crisil, E & Y, Infosys, Intel, ITC, JP Morgan, Kotak Bank, Perfetti Van Melle & Whirlpool to name a few. NMIMS also welcomed a number of new recruiters on campus like Bharti, CapGemini, CavinKare, IBM Consulting, Lehman Brothers and UTV.
The excellent placements were a tangible feedback to the grooming of the previous and current batches, the curriculum and pedagogy, processes followed and the culture of NMIMS Deemed University.
“At NMIMS we constantly seek to provide a good blend of academic rigor along with contemporary business education not only to bridge the classroom-boardroom divide but also the concept to application process. This provides the ideal platform for future managers to hone their latent talent and has led corporates to hold the students of NMIMS in high regard. On a personal note, I feel the year could not have begun on a more positive note for my students and thereby the Institute”, says a visibly proud Dr. N M Kondap, the Vice Chancellor of NMIMS.

Placement Update

Latest inputs from the placecom.the official release is yet to come out and has been submitted to the VC.

In the meanwhile the latest average figure is 7.5 laks for the 2006 batch. And the reason behind the increase over the figure i had posted in a previous post is that the biggest recruiter this year i.e. the Kotak group has given all the recruits a 30% raise in their packages (6.5 each). And I guess that is Huge ;). Also the ITC package is 8.2 + 1.5 variable. So the total goes upto 9.7.
I hope unlike most other schools, where I am aware, the official line is different (inflated) from the real packages offered, my (institute’s) official release is in keeping with reality.

I think if the final placements were the only criterion for judging (which should never be the case), NM is right up there, completely justifying the 7th rank the biggest Business journals gave it last year.

What also comes through is that the profiles being offered to freshers, and not only the laterals, are also very nice, and not just the bread and butter MT profiles.

What also escaped my attention during the placement week, but was informed by Krishnaji, that the variable content and the future offered by a number of companies this time is simply mind boggling. This is known only to the candidates finally selected in the companies or the ones who were closely involved with placement processes. Eg. GE offering a particular FMB program (or something like that) which sends these candidates abroad for 6 months’ training after which they return home to assume greater responsibilities.
Hope to post the official placement release soon on the page.

Oh, and I have been writing this during the IB lecture, which has suddenly become an International HR practices session rather than a truly IB thing.
Keeping with my policy, I would not like to name the professor who has beaten all others who have ever taught me, on the parameters of GAS emanation.

The one good lecture that we did have today however, was Research Methodology by Ma’am Vidya Naik. I feel some of my colleagues are not taking this particular course as seriously as they should be because this really is the one which will come handy when we all leave for our summers projects. Let’s face it, all a summer trainee is expected to do in a company for the duration of the project is do quality research for the organisation. And more often than not, the PPOs will depend on the value one has added to the organisation. Not that they ask for it, but when you do it, you obviously find favour with the organisation.

And you know what Pushkar had to say when he read my post on Rang De Basanti : “Ab tu blog pe bhi Gas chhodne laga?”

ME: Excuse me?!!