Guilty as charged

Hey there !

Yes. You are pretty darn right. I promised a few months ago that I am "back with a vengeance". But I was not. Hence I have decided to not make any tall claims this time, but to quietly work my way into earning your trust again.

So how have you been?

Long time ago ... in a land far far away ...

Hello World!

Wow. It seems like ages since I was last here. And so were you.

Well, there's never a good reason to be MIA and this time it's no different. I guess I got caught up with my T3 finals and then with my awesome three month long India trip (also called summer internship). After returning to the US, I have been neck deep in my job hunt and consulting assignments.

But now, I am back. With a vengeance. Watch this space!

Finding the Purpose: A Journey of Introspection and Self-Realization

Why do I love Calvin and Hobbes? Is it because reading it reminds me of my childhood days when life was much simpler? Or is it because its creator, Bill Watterson, does an excellent job of portraying the complexities of life through the innocent eyes of a six-year-old? While I am not sure about the answer to that question often I, just like Calvin, find myself wondering about the purpose of my existence. The last nine months of my life at the Mays Business School have offered some vital clues to that puzzle and I now feel that I am a lot closer to solving the puzzle than I ever was.

Self awareness is a critical precursor to deciphering one’s role in the circle of life. Being self aware means knowing certain inherent things such as your strengths, weaknesses, sources of motivation, etc. However, most of us are not tuned to the voices within us that often tell us very clearly where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Hence, it is a good idea to take a trip into your inner world to find out certain truths about yourself that we commonly feel that we have no time for in our day-to-day life. It is this journey into the realm of one’s mind that is one of the most rewarding and exciting trips that a person can ever undertake. For me this journey was punctuated by numerous aha moments as I unraveled facts about myself one-by-one.

Undertaking this journey would have been a lot tougher, though not impossible, without the tools that were at my disposal such as the Birkman, the energize/drain journal, and the StrengthsQuest assessment. These tools gave me valuable feedback that helped me both, reaffirm some views about myself and also question some things about myself that I always thought were true. Overall, I am extremely pleased that I got an opportunity to undertake these assessments as it has made me more aware of my strengths and shortcomings.

I always knew that some of my biggest strengths are communication, positivity, strategic thinking, and my ability to turn thoughts into action (activator). However, my biggest strength, as pointed out by the StrengthsQuest assessment was input – indicating an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a desire to learn new things. Now that I think of it, I realize that I have always been a person who can spend hours at a stretch surfing the internet and reading about things as diverse as Roman history to the latest developments in the field of medicine. I can recall that I once told my supervisor at my previous job that I would rather have a “broad-and-shallow” knowledge base rather than a “narrow-and-deep” focus, while justifying my candidature for a new job profile within our organization.

A complaint that I had with my software job was that it did not offer me enough opportunities to learn new things on a day-to-day basis outside of the world of technology. Realizing the fact that a typical software development job would never be able to offer the continuous sense of novelty that I seek, I decided to get an MBA to facilitate a career shift into the world of media and advertising where opportunities for continuous and diverse learning would be far greater. Somehow, I have always been reasonably good with numbers and technology despite my dislike for jobs and courses that involve detailed technical and numerical analysis. When I decided to make a career shift, I was plagued by the concern that was I leaving something that I am good at, only in the hope of catching a unicorn? Looking at the StrengthsQuest assessment (that did not list ‘analytical’ as my top strengths) gives me a tremendous surge of confidence that I took the right decision and has also opened the doors of my mind to consider some career options that I had previously not thought of.

I remember my father telling me about a cognitive psychological tool called the ‘Johari Window’ when I was a child. That was when I came to know that there are things about people that neither they nor the people around them know (the fourth quadrant), and that thought made me extremely uncomfortable. Being the inquisitive person that I am, it has always been my endeavor to learn as much about myself as I can possibly learn by seeking constant input from the people around me. For a person who is obsessed with learning something new about the world every day, it is not shocking that he is equally obsessed about learning new things about himself!

None of my other strengths surprised me and were largely expected. My past record speaks for itself and clearly indicates that communication, positivity, strategic thinking, and my ability to turn thoughts into action are indeed my biggest strengths. The past nine months in a business school have encouraged me to keep walking on the path that I have chosen and have convinced me even more that I am playing to my strengths. Encouraged by this positive reinforcement of my self-evaluation, I see no need to readjust my career plans. I strongly believe that we are all born to accomplish something. Before we can do that, we need to have a clear goal so that we can work towards it. Identifying the goal is the toughest part of the job, and sadly this is the part that most of us fail in. Someone once said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” In my opinion, the first step is getting to know yourself and chalking out a career path that is in perfect harmony with one’s core strengths because therein lies the key to happiness, satisfaction, and success. All one has to do to achieve the aforesaid is to pay a little more attention to the details, just like Calvin.

My Manipal Days ... Aankhon mein hazaaron sapne !

2330 hours.




Today I spent close to three hours reminiscing about my long-gone engineering days.

The beautiful college campus that we loved loitering around in, the college canteen that made the most delicious chicken momos , the electronics lab that gave us sleepless nights, the library where some of us tried to study, the courts where more people played the guitar than badminton , the boys hostel where the sun would never set, the football field where many games were won and lost, the little telephone booth in the garden where many love stories blossomed, the watering hole called Thapa's where we would get drunk, the seventh floor boys hostel terrace where people smoked half the cigarettes manufactured in India, the beautiful little temple that is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been to, the Teesta riverbed that was one of my favorite places for an evening walk ...

When I look back at the days spent at Manipal, I cannot help but feel exhilarated and depressed at the same time. The explanation for the smile is pretty obvious, I had one hell of an amazing time and I am thankful to God for the truly exhilarating experience. However, I cannot help feeling depressed because I don't know if I will ever be able to re-live those four years again. Before leaving for engineering school, I never thought that life there would be so awesome! But it was, and that thought helps me paint an even brighter picture of tomorrow on my mental canvas.

They say that the best things in life are unexpected. Amen !

My Texas A&M Days ... We Bleed Maroon !

My current allegiance is to the Texas A&M University. While I love it here and there are a zillion things that I can say about it right now, I would rather wait till I graduate. I guess often one doesn't realize the depth and intensity of his feelings about something/someone till he is away from it. Wink ;)

Till then, enjoy this beautiful song that's pretty much the A&M anthem.

कहाँ खो गए फुर्सत के वो पल ...

रुक नही सकती मंजिलें मेरी ,
इस खुले आसमां में मेरी एक उड़ान बाकी है ।
इस ठहराव को मेरी हार ना समझना ,
अभी पिछले उड़ान की थोडी सी थकान बाकी है।

... एक अनजान शायर

Approach with Caution: Dangerous Monday and Tuesday Lurking Ahead !

Term 3 Mid terms are here.

Why they have decided to schedule 2 three hour long exams on the same day is beyond me !

One, ours is a 16 month accelerated MBA so life is as it is very tough.
Two, they now want to make us go through six hours of exam torture on back-to-back days.
Three, classes resume from Wednesday.

If you are reading this, I urge you to be good and do good. If not, not only does your ticket to heaven gets canceled but also does your ticket to hell. Instead of walking on red-hot coals in the Nether World, you will be banished to a B-School ...

I didn't bargain for this !