Risk unmanaged

Finally the end of exam and what a way to end it.

The subject was Risk management and i feel i took a huge risk taking that subject. I could answer only for 40 out of the 100 marks...not sure of even a single mark. Looks like the first fukka of my life is awaiting me. There goes my dream of a consultant's job :(

Boondein (Silk Route)

A beautiful song.... I just love this song. The music, the tone in which it has been sung, the lyrics and not to forget, the video all complement each other and produce this awesome song. Just listen to it once and even u will fall in luv with this song.

Just a video i found on the You tube.... Nice one


"Find yourself an engineer, feed him pizza buy him beer, give just a fraction of a fraction of the pie"
Reminds me of my 3 yrs of work :)

Internet Addiction

"Internet addiction is described as an impulse control disorder which does not involve use of an intoxicating drug and is very similar to pathological gambling". (source: Net Addiction).

In plain terms it means getting addicted to internet.

According to this report, Internet addiction can cause depression

You can find the signs and symptoms of IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder) over here

And to find out if you are suffering from IAD, you can take this test

Long time

Long time since i even got time to update my blog here. Apart from a few arbit posts/poem(the inspiration for which is still being questioned), i think the last meaningful post had been in august and this being end of November that makes it nearly 4 and half months

Lots have happened in the meanwhile. Went home on a vacation, had our mid-terms, had our summers, now the election fever is on in the campus and next week se we have our end-terms.
Add to it the random submissions, quizzes, projects and what not just to eat into our time.

Random - ???...how did this word get into my vocab??? Too much influences are there :)

As i said, had been home for the only vacation which a PGP1 gets in the year. All i want to talk about that will be food, food and more food (Not that i talk abt something else even otherwise). But all that i did at home (that is apart from food) is fill forms for summers. And my friends for sure would be cursing me for not meeting them.

Back to Joka after a week and the mid-terms pounced on us. As i had mentioned in a few other places, the mid-terms was like an over from Shoaib Akthar....fast, furious and dunno what hit u types. Some of the exams i had to go in unprepared. Others i went in under prepared.

The mid-terms had just finished, when the summers came over. And it was a long process for me, although i had an opportunity to convert the one call which i had the second day, i failed and went on till the last day. It was a pretty good learning experience. I would say, it was an experience which got ppl together...a good network building exercise, where most of the people were seen helping each other. What followed was a record breaking summers where for the first time the entire batch was placed before the end of day 4. As for me, i ended up with Johnson and Johnson consumer products and will be posted mostly in Mumbai.

And now the election fever is on in the campus with the studcom elections going on. Enjoying the fun as an outsider is soo much fun :)

PS: Have 2 quizzes today, have two submissions and a case to prepare for tomorrow and here i am sitting and writing this :)

Now an arbit article

Feeling bored, but not sad enough to write a poem. Thought of writing something. But i think i am hit by a bad case of writer's block. Can't write anything to save my life. So thought i'll post some article which i had written a long time ago ( actually 3 months ago), as a part of the interview process for the finance club @ IIMC. The standard of the article is sooo poor, well u know the result. I didn't get thru. Here i am left with no club, no CV points ( and u thought that there are ppl in the clubs just because they are interested in it), and a miserable and a disgusting life (according to my CV at least). The article is called Rupee appreciation and i am posting what i had written then as is. I'll later try and do some research(if time permits) and write an article on the same thing (again if the time permits).

Rupee appreciation: A boon or a bane

Indian rupee is on a role. From the end of February 2007, the rupee has seen an appreciation run. From somewhere around Rs 44.9 per dollar at the end of February 2007, it stands at Rs 40.5 per dollar today, a whopping 9.8% appreciation in a span of just around 4 months. Now what is the impact of this on the Indian market and particularly on an Indian exporter? This write up is a small attempt to look into these factors.

Now what can be the reason for this rise in the rupee price? One important reason will be the need of the hour to curb inflation. During the month of February to April 2007, India witnessed an inflation of about 6 – 6.5%. To get a hold on this, the Reserve Bank of India would have left the rupee to appreciate. What happens when the rupee appreciates and how does it help to curb inflation? The answer is simple. Most of out inward and the outward trades are conducted in dollars. Now if the rupee appreciates, we will be paying lesser amount for the same good. For example, assume we will be buying some good X at $10 per piece say. So at the older rupee rate, we would have had to pay around Rs 449 for that. With the appreciated rupee rate, we will be paying only around Rs 405 for that. Since we are paying less for the goods we are importing, we will be selling it for lesser. Thus selling the good at lower prices will bring down the inflation.

But there is a flop side to this too and that is in the exports. Since the rupee value per dollar has gone down, we will be paid virtually less for the goods and services that we export. Now if the profit margin is not high enough to start with, the exporters will start to suffer. The services industry has already started raising voices about this. Since services is a highly competitive market, they will be operating with a very small profit margin and hence the reason for their concern.

Another flop side to this will be that, in order to get back the same price which they were getting earlier, the exporters will have to start hiking up their rates. But there are other competing countries out there like China, whose currency value hasn’t changed and thus would still be charging the same. This will lead to a loss of opportunity for the Indian exporters.

One way to hedge against this will be if you import and export at the same time. If you import the raw material and export the finished goods and vice-versa, then the effect of currency appreciation and depreciation will virtually cancel out and you will end up earning the same amount. An example in case will be the diamond industry, which will import the uncut diamond and exports the finished jewellery. But in sectors like software services, it is difficult to import and export at the same time and they are the ones who will feel most of the pinch.

So, in conclusion the appreciating value of the rupee is both a boon and a bane. It is a boon in the sense that it will bring down the import price of important goods like petroleum (which incidentally was thought to be one of the contributors for inflation) and help in curbing the inflation. But it will also affect the export sector in that the value for the goods and services which we offer will be significantly lesser and the way to hedge from all these is by both importing and exporting at the same time.

-Arun

More Arbit Bakar

Well just got a bit bored, now that the exams are over. So trying to pass off a collection of line which just came into my mind as a poem.

Oh yeah and before you ppl ping and ask me what is wrong with me (well, that is if anybody does read this), fear not. This is just something that just came into my mind and has no correlation with my life (too much of studying statistics effects are there). So instead of regressing and extrapolating this (which is btw not to be done according to statistics), trying to link with my life, just try to read the poem (poem ??)

What is that I have done?

That I am being made to pay for

What sin have I done?

That I am not being absolved of.

I loved a flower,

But it didn’t even blossom from a bud

Loved the flower again

All I got is a thorn deep in my heart

I loved a smile,

But it was yearning for someone new

I loved the sunshine,

But the clouds got in there too.

I loved the flower again

But it was so attracted towards light

It just turned away from me

Leaving me in despite.

Oh just what is it my lord,

Tell me the sin that I can’t be absolved of

Tell me why is it

Please do tell me.

-Arun

PS : It actually feels nice to see your name written below your creation. :D

Arbit post

Hmmm, A long time since i wrote anything (that is apart from my exam). Actually i haven't written anything since i left my job (that should give you some idea on what i was doing at work :) ).

As I told in the last post, i am now in Kolkata, the erstwhile British capital of India. Initially it took time to get adjusted to the rigors of an MBA course. Especially to a lazy ass like me, who has literally slept through 3 yrs of his life in the name of work, it is like hell. But once you do get adjusted, it just becomes the routine.

OK, now lemme try to recap the last 8 weeks of my life. Joining formalities were pretty simple, almost next to nothing. Just fill in a form and there u r into the pre alloted hostel room. You get registered to the course a few verifications and you are all ready to go. Actually as i said, the few days, it is like all systems on the limit.

Parties...yes we do have parties (with unlimited booze, which goes on till the day break). Already attended 4 parties in the past 8 weeks, so on an average 2 parties every month.

Then there are tutorials, conducted by the seniors. Actually these are our saviors in the exams.They cover all the important stuffs in a way that goes into a dumbo brain like mine too.

Amidst all the partying, studies, tutorials comes the mid-term exam. Well 5 weeks into it and there it is...even before u can blink mid-terms come up. Thanks to the batchmates who take up crashers, a 2-3 hr synopsis of the entire course. Actually there are ppl who just attended these crashers and have got A-Pos in the paper.

Regarding the weather....least said the better. After coming from a city like Bangalore, known for its weather, this is a virtual hell for me. The weather is soooooo humid that u take the bath and come out and with 1 minute, u'll be sweating.

And then u do have ur best friends visiting you (especially those in the ground floor like me). Well, the best friends i am talking about are frogs, all sorts of reptiles (and may be sometimes the snakes too). Snails are pretty common over here (what with the 7 lakes in the campus). It is a sad sight to see soo many snails crashed by the cabs and the bikes.

Coming to the campus. It is beautiful campus, with 7 lakes in the campus. Our hostel is blessed with the view of a lake as soon as we come out of it. This lake a jetty too. So it is pretty common to find ppl chatting with others on this jetty.

With Kolkata being on the eastern side of India, it becomes very bright at around 5:30 or 6. I remember the first day when i got up and saw out of my window, it was so bright that i thought it must be 10 or 11 in the morning. Only after checking the watch a couple of times and crosschecking with the time on my mobile, i confirmed that the time is actually just 6 in the morning. Well it is another thing that this has made me miss a couple of classes, when i overslept thinking it is just 6 only to wake up after half an hour and see the time is actually 11.


Coming back to the early sunrise, i think it is apt to mention the existense of a mini Howrah Bridge in our campus. It is just a bridge across one of the lakes. The view of the sunrise from this bridge is just too good and some people (not me...i go to sleep then) do go over there at 5 am to watch the sunrise. As can be seen from the pic below, the view is just ...awesome....






The rains here are even more wierd. One minute there is no sign of the rain and for the next half an hour, it rains cats and dogs. Once it rained the entire night and then the situation was something like this.




Well, the seniors do tell that it might get worse if it rains continuously for a day, as it does every year. So am waiting for that, it will be fun...though drying the shoes is a major problem. Oh well, not to forget, there were a few dead fishes on the road after the water dried out :D

I think i can go on and on writing about this, but right now i have to stop and start on preparing for a case presentation which we have to do on monday. So long, till the next post...which hopefully is pretty soon.

Off to Joka

OK. No posts for a long time. So thought that i will go ahead and post the update from my side.

on 24th of May, my manager announced to my team that i will be going to IIM Lucknow. After all the congratulations and adulations, i came back to my seat and logged in to check for any new mails and what do i see???!!!!

I get to see a mail from pgpadmissions and thanks to the way gmail displays the to address all i can see is that much. Now all the iims have the same email id (pgpadmission@....). So i thought this to be a communication from IIM Lucknow . I didn't bother to read the from address and was mystified when the body told that i am offered admission and was supposed to send a DD of 50k before 4th of June. !!!!

It was then that i see the from address and what do i see..... the letter is from iim Calcutta !!!!!!
The sanctum sanctorum of finance!!! offering me admission.

Well my manager had told once that there are 4 stages of reaction to any startling news.
Shock, Denial, Frustration and Acceptance. Well for good news i am sure the third level will not be present. This was my condition on that day

For the first five minutes, i was dumbstruck. I didn't know how to react. I just stared blankly at the screen. Read and re-read the mail a couple of times. The second stage set in...denial. I thought it must be some prank now. Well, this institute is known for not giving out a wait list and usually give out exact number of calls, and it is now giving admission to me, almost a month after the first list was announced !!!!!

I sent back a mail asking for the attachment which was non-existent, and only after seeing that did i realise, that yes.... i am offered the seat !!!!

Well the ecstasy was overwhelming!!! (I dunno if that sentence makes any sense.... but i was in such a state). I rushed home, almost banging into a couple of vehicles on the way. I told my father and my brother, but was shocked at their response. Then i realised, that they didn't know the enormity of the news. So i waited till my mom came back and told her. It was when she told the enormity of the situation, that the other 2 got it.

Well there it is... the best 2 hrs of my life in a 50 line post.... :). So here i am ... off to Joka.

Oh yeah, for those who don't know, Joka is kinda suburb in Kolkata where IIMC is situated

Speed ( huh???) Post experience

Well for starters, Dictionary.com defines speed as

Speed : –noun

1.	rapidity in moving, going, traveling, proceeding, or performing; swiftness; celerity:

So applying this meaning, i thought speed post == a post which reaches earlier than all other posts. Moreover, it is supposedly a priority delivery service, according to Indian postal service at least.

No wonder, i decided to send my acceptance letter + the DD to the B-School using speed post as i had just one week time. So on 7th of May 2007, i went to my local post office and after confirmation from the concerned person, that the mail will reach Lucknow in 2 days, i sent it through the speed post.

After 5 days (on 11th of May 2007)

I see a post in the famous forum for B-school aspirants that some person who had sent his acceptance letter through speed post had found out that his letter hasn't reached Lucknow yet. I felt a bit concerned about my letter and decided to call up the office and inquire the status. well, yes i was right. My letter hadn't reached the institute yet. Well I had time till 14th of May for the letter to reach, failing which my candidature will be annulled. I sent a mail and a fax to the concerned person, telling him that i have accepted the offer and the letter is lost in the post. But i was informed that if the letter along with the DD doesn't reach the institute by 5:00 PM on 14th of May, they can't do anything.

The goddamn website of India post does have a tracking mechanism, but it just showed that my letter has been bagged from Bangalore. After a few more hours of frantic calling, I finally had to fly to Lucknow and deposit a fresh DD and come back. And even now, the DD hasn't reached yet.

Well, what i wanted to tell was.... if this is the case of the priority based service, then what abt the other one which are not prioritized. And this was not a one off case. Nearly 50 odd students suffered the tension and distress. This is the worst possible service provided by them.

I am actually planning to ask those ppl for compensation. Because of them, I had to shell out another 30k for DD and 50K for flying.

But I HATE SPEED POST

Update: Well it has been more than 3 weeks since the draft was sent in speed post and it hasn't reached the recipient yet. God knows where on the holy earth is that letter of mine. There is no action taken on the complaint filed with the post office in this regard. Looks like consumer court is the only option

The land of Nawabs beckons me

Hey ppl, long time no see ( as if i could actually see the ppl who are reading this, if anybody does that is). Was sorta busy, tensed, uncertain of future all these days. Thus was in no position to post.

Now all that is sorted out, here i am back to bug ya all. And in the outset lemme give out the good news. Yes, shehar-e-Nawab (???), the land of Nawabs is beckoning me and i am going out there. Well, it is a sort of long term shift in the sense that i will need to be there for 2 yrs at the least.

Yes, I am joining a B-School there. Yes, I am going to get one of the most coveted tags associated with my name. But YES, and a more happy one at that, i will no longer be forced for a marriage.

With lots of stuffs to do before i bid farewell to my favorite city, I am sure to be busier by the day. But i would try and make it a point to post something more frequently.

So for now, bye

A fanatic called The Indian Cricket Fan

Well... Another world cup, another series and the Indian team is on its way back, right after the group stage after posting a world cup record score of 413 against the a set of over weight players aka Bermuda and losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The way they played against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka emphasised the fact that we are not worthy enough team to be in the Super Eights.

If u look at the team which have qualified to the Super Eights they are there based on the way they played their cricket. And yes that does include Ireland and Bangladesh.

Ireland played really superb cricket against Zimbabwe to tie that match and well what can u say abt their match against Pakistan. Their fielding was actually equivalent of a top notch team that day and if India had fielded that way, then we would have been on the way to the Super Eights. Not everyday will you find a match where there are 10 catches in a match and some of those catches were breath-taking (esp. the one that Johnston took to remove Kamran Akmal)

Now coming back to the Indian team and their fans. We have to look into the fanaticism of the Indian fan's. We Indians are known to react in extremes always. When everything goes right, we place these cricketers at the top of the world and worship them as if they are the incarnation of God. Lose one match and we start baying for the blood of these very own Gods of ours. Now I am not justifying the way we lost the matches. It was the most pathetic performance I had seen in the recent times. In the same vein, I am not justifying the knee jerk reactions by the fans.

I can't understand what we gain by having a funeral procession of the cricketers or stoning their houses and burning the effigies or hitting the cricketers posters with slippers and burning them.
Well guys they are there cause u placed them there. You are the one who adulated them and raised them to the status of a demi-god. Now if they have lost the professionalism, shouldn't you also own a bit of the responsibility?? Isn't your reaction a lot like that of the US of America. Create a demon and fight against it. Why do you need to create a demon in the first case?

And the fans are not just the ones who are giving knee-jerk reactions. It includes the people from the richest cricket board in the world too. The honourable (???) president of the board gave a statement telling that there will be wholesale changes and old people in the team has to go and make way for new blood. There is nothing wrong in the statement...yes that is what all of us wanna see. But shouldn't these be the decisions taken after some thought.

More over, if u need to blood an youngster, are there any one with the required quality?? In Australia the cricketing process is so robust, that anyone from the county side (or whatever it is called there) can go ahead and play confidently for the national side. But over here, we see that a player excelling in the domestic circuit, fail miserably in the national side. So who do you want to see in the national side?? Lets see some options

Raina?? - Yes he is an exceptional fielder, but fielding is just one aspect. He has failed with his bat in all the opportunities given to him

Kaif?? - Come on ...he is struggling to make runs even in the domestic circuit

Gambhir?? - Yes a pretty good opener, but sort of slightly inconsistent. He can either score a hundred or go out for a single digit score. It leaves the top order as wobbly as it is.

Jaffer??? - Man, this guy is a tiger in the domestic circuit, hitting 180-190 in the domestic circuit, but in the international scenario (at least in ODIs) he turns out to be a lamb ready for sacrifice.

From these examples, i just wanna drive home the fact that it is the entire system which is rotting up.Well how much ever i hate those aussie blokes for their attitudes, i need to take up their example for a well run system. If Hayden retires today, there is a Phil Jacques ready to get into his shoes. There is Haddin waiting for Gilchrist to vacate the gloves for him. No two words about their fast bowling options. And these are not pretty ordinary guys waiting in the wing. They are pretty capable guys who are ready to fill in the gap. Need another example?? Take Hodge. He showed he is capable batsman by posting a score of 100+. Next match Symonds comes in and Hodge is dropped.

Do we have players like that? If not, isn't it the responsibility of the board to develop players like that? For sure there is no dearth of talents in our country, but all it needs is the nurturing part.

Another aspect which needs look into is the fielding. Yes, it is the coach's job. But are the players ready to the rigors of tough training. Well, for his part, Chappell did try to improve the physical fitness of the team, but that was when the trouble started and there were many ex-cricketers aka cricket pundits (sic) who said that the Indian players are not built for rigorous training and it should be stopped. If so, my question is , why isn't fitness a part of the youth and the domestic set up?? We have heard of a certain Munaf Patel for the past 5 years and he was groomed as the fast bowler. Yes, finally he had to sacrifice his pace for the accuracy and he did bowl pretty well in the world cup. But it is a known fact, that his fitness level is pretty much bad. What was the board/regional board doing in these 5 years??

The next point is providing proper pitches for the domestic matches and I think the board is working on it. How many times have we seen our team performing really well at home but struggling away from home on a pacey and bouncy wicket. Why can't we groom our batsmen from the lower leagues to bat on a pacey and bouncy wicket. If not anything, it will teach them how to leave good deliveries.Yes, our country is traditionally known for spinners, but keep in mind, pitches in not all countries support spinners and to be world beaters u need to know how to bowl/bat in those type of pitches.

Finally, what abt the selection process??There are atleast a couple of players who are selected on the past records rather than their present performance. And if u do drop some one from the team for not performing well, then u do have the fans burning the effigies of the captain, coach and selection board. You will have the ex-cricketers questioning, how a man who has scored more than 10,000 runs is left from the team? Yes, he has scored 10000 runs, but how much of it did he score in the past year?? 100-200?? Well, at least we now know that if the batsman is a capable one, he can come back into the team by playing well. Shouldn't that be the criteria for selection instead of past records, regional favours etc?? And again as a fan of Indian cricket, are we doing any good to the Indian cricket, by burning effigies, if someone you supported was not selected into the team coz of his poor performance??

Well, these are some of the thoughts in my mind to improve the brand of cricket in India. Though it might have some short term ramifications, I believe the long term advantages will over shadow these short term disadvantages

PS: Just came to know of the news that Sachin is being considered for captaincy. Guys, this is a step in the backward direction. I don't believe that Dravid performed bad as a captain. His personal record as a Captain is also good. And there is no one else in the present team who can make a good captain. Just make sure that he takes his decision without getting too personal to the player. Instead of this,why do you want to make someone who is struggling to make runs without the burden of captaincy as a captain? Will it help the team in anyways. In my humble personal opinion, they need to retain Dravid as Captain and groom someone young, like Yuvraj, for captaincy by making him the vice-captain. Dravid, will anyway retire in another 2 or 3 yrs, but by that time, Yuvraj will be ready for captaincy, which he is not now. You need an example for this??? Mahela Jayawardene. He was groomed as the future captain under Jayasuriya and Attapattu and now you can see the output

Doomsday comes near

I saw a question in some magazines which i have started reading regularly now. Are development and Ecological responsibility mutually exclusive?

My answer No.

Reason : With development comes the extra responsibility of looking after the environmental and the ecological health of the world. But what we are seeing now is completely the opposite. The most developed nation are the one who are destroying the ecological balance of the world we live in. How do they do it?? Well, they need to burn more fuels and spew out more wastes to maintain their economy and it is these wastes which are responsible for the ecological imbalance.

One example to support this would be the US of A. Now, there were hurricanes in USA and there were tornadoes in USA earlier too. But the amount of destruction caused by the hurricanes in the recent past are far more than the collective destructions till now. An entire island in US is now completely submerged under water. There has been a wide spread debate on the ecological imbalance in the area which affects the environment. The scientists and environmentalists in US are already warning about the disastrous effects the environment will have on US if they don't control the pollution right now. They are also experiencing the global warming phenomenon more than anyone else and there have been warnings that due to the melting of the icecaps in the Arctic region much more land area will be submerged under water. Well, what America did in response is something hilarious. Instead of curbing on the emissions, they are thinking of ways to prevent the suns rays from reaching the earth. I had read somewhere that they are thinking of sending up mirrors into sky, so that some of the sun's rays are reflected off and they won't reach the earth.

But it is not just America which will be affected by this global warming. It has been recorded that there has been a 0.3 to 0.6% raise in temperature since 1860 and by 2100 there will be raise of around 5- 6 degree rise in the temperature. This will eventually raise of sea level and submergence of land area. For a country like India which has a vast coast line this can be even more dangerous, coz : 1 - We will be losing large stretches of land rendering thousands of people homeless and 2 - We will be losing the natural habitat of the flora and the fauna which exists in the coastal regions ( Case in point : The Sunderbans).

Now that we know the dangerous effects of not maintaining the ecological balance, what can we do to set it right. Well, seriously I think we are past the time to think about what to do to set it right. Right now, we need to think about what we can do to preserve whatever is left and more seriously on what to do to prevent us from damaging the environment more.

The straight forward answer - stop using fossil fuels and other things which pollute the environment ( Oh yeah, every problem has a simple, direct and completely illogical answer :-) ). But that is asking to do something which is really impossible. Yes, we need to stop using these stuffs, but before that we need to find alternate sources of fuels and to be more specific, we need to find alternate sources of energy which doesn't pollute the environment. Yes Nuclear energy is one of alternatives, but we need to find safer ways of disposing off the waste. Solar energy is one safest options, but i think there is a need to research more on using this on a large scale.

Oh yeah almost forgot, for the first time in five years, the minute hand of the doomsday clock has been moved closer to the dreaded midnight hour. The clock - a symbol of the perils facing the human race - shifted two minutes, from the current seven minutes to midnight to five. For more info on this read this

Playing with words

Hmm.. Dunno what is wrong with me nowadays. But i am finding it extremely difficult to write anything. Just couldn't focus my thoughts any more. Actually I am finding it difficult to concentrate on anything for more than 5 minutes at a stretch.

But since it was a long time since i updated my blog, I thought let me go ahead and write something. My apologies in advance, if there is no flow or if i am writing some crap.

Lemme see what i'll write about. Yeah...the title says playing with words. So lemme stick to it. People who are on my GTalk list would have seen some wierd status messages below my name. Oh and i had lots of enquiries about it. Thanks to all who enquired and a bigger thanks to those who didn't.

Now why did i get this GTalk status message here?? Coz the message which i set was a play with words. For the ppl who are not on my GTalk or those who haven't seen that status, it was just a simple sentence. All it said was "I am afraid to fall in love, coz everytime I fall, I hurt myself".

From the moment i put this status up, I think most of the ppl on my GTalk list pinged me to ask whats the matter. Did i have any bad experience. I know that is how the sentence will mean the first time u read it. But I am sorry to tell everyone, i didn't have any such experiences. Just have a look at the sentence for the second time. Lets divide the sentence into parts and take them in exclusion. The first part says "I am afraid to fall in love". Now this is self explanatory. I don't think i need to explain this. The second part says "Because everytime I fall, I hurt myself". Now this is the basic knowledge. Even a kid knows whenever it falls , it will hurt itself.

The two independent sentences seems to be innocuous in their meanings. But if u take them together it supposedly takes up a new meaning. Even if u take the entire sentence, i never said that everytime I fall in love, I hurt myself. I just said, everytime I fall, I hurt myself.

Anywayz lemme stop this blabber now. And for the record, I have written this piece of small post in 3 stretches. Just couldn't concentrate on it for more than 5 minutes at a stretch. Looks like, my mind has gone into a round robin scheduling of things.

Apologies for the blabbering and yes lemme stop this now and spare ur head and mind, which might be still working fine. I don't want to be termed the slayer of innocent minds.

And now I need to stop. Somebody just take this keyboard away from mee......

A retrospection at the year gone by

Finally found some time to actually try and do some retrospect on the year gone by. So better late than never, here I go.

I could say 2005 was a very turbulent year for me. It had started really bad, with lots of work, had the best part of my life for the next 3 months, changed companies, made a lot of friends. Then had a really bad phase, with my personal life going awry, a friend of mine got really upset with me and didn't even want to see my face. Had a slightly better end to the year with a promotion.

So 2006 started on a good note, what with getting a promotion at the end of the year. To add to the happiness, i had also cleared my B-School entrance exam and was called for an interview. It is a different fact that i couldn't clear the interview, my nemesis from time immemorial. But the main item on the agenda for the year was to get my friend back. Although i can't say that I succeeded in that effort, I can say that we got back on to talking terms at the least.

The month of May was a fun time for me. First of all, there was a marriage at home. No, it wasn't mine. I still have some luck left, though am not sure when i will run out of it. The excitement and the anxiety (to some extent) of a new member coming to your house has to be experienced to understand it.

Then came my Birthday. I was amazed with the number of calls i received on that day. Never in my life (till then that is), had so many ppl wished me on my birthday and i know who should be thanked for that, Mr. Orkut.

But with my birthday came the signs that my luck might be running out. That was when my mom started giving me ultimatum, "either u get into a B-school or I will get u married next year". I tried all tricks in book, including telling her that i will find my own bride. Her reply, "sure get her". Now i dunno who leaked this secret that I will never get a GF in my life. The confidence with which she told that was amazing.

So, with these warning signs in the offing, I thought it is high time, i whip my lazy ass into action. Thats when i started preparing for my B-School exams. Yes, all over again and it can become boring too. But thank God, I found two more ppl sharing the same passion. So actually it was a gr8 fun preparing for it. I could say I have done sort of better than last time round. So have to see what is there in the offing for me. Not that one is better than the other anyway.

Also had a gr8 time of the year when my parents went on a trip, leaving me alone for 25 days. What a peace. No more boring serials for 25 days, can come back from work early, can watch tv late into the night ..... The cons : have to get up early, clean up the house and have to cook. Yes, I learnt cooking. Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

The fun part of 2006 was the marriages. Lemme count....yes, 6 of my friends got married. Now that is more from my standards. So i could say it was 6 times the fun. And looking into 2007, the number of marriages are not going to come down. No wonder, my mom is so adamant on me getting married. Oh Boy...the problem just keep getting more in number.

Politics of Execution

First of all a “HAPPY NEW YEAR” to anyone who actually visits my blog. (Now dunno if there is anyone who belongs to that category. Looks more like I am writing for myself.

What a way to end the year 2006. Saddam Hussein is hanged to death in Iraq. I am more concerned about the haste in the execution and the way the trial was conducted than the sentence given. I think it was a foregone conclusion as soon as the Americans captured Saddam that he will be hanged. But the way they went about it stinks really.

Yes, Saddam was a dictator, a barbaric one as Americans may tell. But, shouldn’t he be given a proper and a fair trial when you call yourself as a free and fair state??. Let me try to recollect what happened in his so called free and fair trial. First he was given a set of lawyers who tried to implicit him rather than work for his cause. Then when he asked for a change of lawyers he was given a set of new lawyers who went about the duty properly. But they were killed by the Iraqis, this according to the American soldiers. Then the judge who was present was changed. After all this he was given a death sentence for the atrocities he had conducted. Yes, I do agree that it was a barbaric act what he had done. Killing 148 people just because a few people had tried to assassinate him is an inhuman act. Yes, it does require a death sentence. But what I am not convinced is the way in which the entire operation was carried on.

If we rewind just a bit more, was there actually a reason for US allied forces?? The reason given at that time was that Iraq was having the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD as it became famous as). So the allied forces attacked Iraq, telling it is a war against terrorism. After searching for almost a year did they find the WMD?? No. Finally the allied forces had to concede that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

So was the main war on Iraq fought just because of WMD or was there a personal vendetta in it?? It is a known fact that Dubya had said that he wants to punish the person who tried to assassinate his father. So was this war fought for this cause and is the end of Saddam Hussein the victory that Dubya was looking after? If it is, then what is the difference between Saddam and Dubya?? Both of them killed so many innocent people just because some one tried to assassinate them.

Moreover will this help in the war against terrorism??? The answer is no. Even a child can tell what the effect of this is. The haste in the execution and the timing chosen for it can actually intimidate some of the people. There are already war cries being heard against Americans and the allied forces. So, I think this won’t in anyway help in the war against terrorism, but will rather act against it.

What is more concerning is the way the Bush administration is turning a blind eye towards Pakistan, even after it is proved that they are encouraging terrorism in India and many of the terrorists are trained here. It is also been told that Laden is in Pakistan, but Bush was more concerned in getting Saddam to the guillotine.

All in all, this execution right or wrong has asked more questions than it has answered. And yes, the allied countries are in an even more precarious situation now than ever. The final defiance of Saddam in rejecting the hood on his face may portray him more as a warrior rather than as a barbarian which the Americans wanted to portray him as.