Mumbai Skyline...

An unplanned sneak out to Marine Drive front last evening lead to this cell snap, the scribble below and truely tranquilizing experience....

A tired sun

melts

disolves

and finally fades

leaving behind

a sublime moment

of pure silence

pure bliss....

Why Consulting ?

Feedback from my training mentor on the internship project that I has executed -

"The students who have come for their training have shown sincerity and
positive approach towards learning. During the training phase, Ashutosh has exhibited a high level of drive. He has good communication skills, is analytical, takes efforts to learn new things - he will do well in his career."

And as I stood in front on my College Director, all beaming, shining and gleaming, she read it twice, half-smiling nodding in approval came the punch line -

"Surely you have a natural knack for understanding things in there
entirely, the lager picture as they say. And also you have the ability to
make simple things complicated, I think should aim to be a
consultant"

:p

So let me throw this question in the open, would surely love to hear what do my regular and not-so-regular readers think about this, suggest the best suited career for me plz ?

Psychology of Finance...

After two courses in Investment & Portfolio Management in this semester and a hangover of Corporate Finance from the last sem, my hunch lead me to further dig down and finding ultimatly finding the amalgamation of Psychology, Economics, Cognition in - Behavioural Finance .

And then happened to read through a stunning article on decision making biases by Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman, who by the way is a psychologist by training.

And finally, from the Nobel Prize Website here is Autobiography and video of his Prize Lecture .

I tend to get carried away most of the times and end up all excited, amazed and awed. However, let re-iterate, all the links above are worth the time and effort required to read through.

Why HR ?

A million dollar question that is as fundamental (read as redundant) for a placement interview in a b-school as are the questions -

To be or not to be ?
Who am I ?
Who came first, chicken / egg ?
What is life ?

While mankind, spanning from Plato to Jug Suraiya ponders on these questions and tries to find Atlantis, here is a candid insight into this question by a group of seasoned HR professionals, along with a .... well.. a satrical, literal interpretation of the golden rule ->

"People are our greatest assets".

remembering papa

दर्द का एक टुकड़ा
अभी तक मॅन में दबा रक्खा है ....

Its been fourteen years, fourteen long years since I lost my dad, and ever since life has never been the same and never will be... there is a deep sense of vaccum that engulfs a part of me, just like an eclipse, a permanent one in this case... a growing of loss was a part of my formative years... and what was even worse was that I tried to hide this and everything that I felt, never acknowledging my feelings even to myself... I was in general angry and confused with the world around and the one within...

I remember being petrified at the age of seventeen when for the first time I had heard Roger Waters sing in a subdued voice, a song that would haunt me for a very long time, echoing in my ears at nights when I would lye tired and emotionally weared out and could never sleep... still remember the hospital corridor where I sat all night filled with silence outside and my head full of noise, these words playing somewhere at the back of my mind....

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.

The pain that had been diffused for so long had all of sudden, in one moment crystallised in one moment, in these few lines... There is a lot else that I could have remembered and said on this day, a lot better sounding words and pleasent memories, but again that would have been one more coverup... a facade...

लाल सुरा की धार लपट सी कह न इसे देना ज्वाला,
फेनिल मदिरा है, मत इसको कह देना उर का छाला,
दर्द नशा है इस मदिरा का विगत स्मृतियाँ साकी हैं,
पीड़ा में आनंद जिसे हो, आए मेरी मधुशाला।।

Thoughtless thoughts …

Experiencing a wave of thoughtlessness which comes as a welcome break… sitting in the evening with an idle mind and feeling an inner calm is truly a matter of privilege, so I am in no hurry to let this moment go and neither have any intention of a dissection and/or analysis… a no brainer moment J

We often live an oscillating life; either, buried somewhere in the past - brooding, repenting, agonizing or the most killing of all "what if" ,or, tending towards (in true sense of calculus) a sublime future – loaded with all that we wish (to be, to have and escape from)…

And then once in a while there is a moment that stands still in the time frame of the present… and such moments are literally a present (a gift) which should be acknowledged with a smile, a pleasant surprise and then relished… they are just like the delicate sensuous feel of a chocolate melting in the mouth… a pure experience… and that's how exactly they are meant to be enjoyed… these fleeting moments are meant to be fully and thoroughly lived in the present (the now) in full, just like when standing in the rain and getting drenched, soaking up the freshness, the joy and letting the child within us to take over…

So here I am, after so many weeks of making mental note of forcing myself to post something here and couple of times me and the "compose post" page blankly staring each other, I had lost hopes of coming up with something original, something that I would like to write about, and something thats worth sharing… and then on a thoughtless evening a brainwave J

Hibernate

Seems like an eternity ever since I posted something here... Or so it seems... every other time I have done this there has been a guilt pang, regret, remorse... but this it was plain simple indifference...

In this world of loaded words and loaded meanings sometimes indifference is a relief... and that too indifference by choice... its a mark of impartiality... towards oneself... an unbiased view of the world around with a tinge of amusement...

Psycho-Socio-Mental Impact of SCM

On the eve of the start of second academic phase exams at our college, here I am sitting gloriously with books, notes and hand-outs of Logistics & Supply Chain Management (SCM) which forms a core bunch of the Operations related subjects that we studied during this entire phase.

And as I sit by the window on the sixth floor apartment of my relative and give a half-pondering/ half- blank stare at the setting sun, I get a brainwave :)

Why not start the solution to the case study that we will be getting tommorrow with the noble statement - "Man is a social animal..... " and then proceed further to discuss the sociological impact of demands; the psychological impact of demand management in SCM and what better way to sum up by bringing to light the fact that how demand-pull and forecast-pull create an adverse impact on an poor student like me :p

Follow your heart ....

Amidst all the madness that I am experiencing as the month keeps on progressing I chance upon the beautiful words of Osho -

Look deep into your heart.
Listen to the still small voice within.
And remember one thing:
life is fulfilled only through longings, never through ambitions.
Life becomes blissful only through the heart, never through the mind.
Mind creates science, the heart creates religion.
Mind can give you better technology, better gadgets.
The heart gives you the real, ultimate values:
love, bliss, truth, freedom, awareness, God.
And a life without these values is valueless.

And yet time and again in life we fail to follow the most natural and real, falling in the self-alluring trap leading us nowhere but into a downward spiral of abnegation.

Manic May...

With Manic May in full action I dont think it will be possible for me to blog for sometime now.

Just hoping and wishing to get over it safe and sound......