A recap and few updates of my previous posts..

I’ve been sharing a few of my experiences here at Purdue for quite a while and its definitely worth it, if, I could add more value to it by giving more information to the readers of this blog. So here are a few things I found on the net. First, the movie “the social network” is releasing on, I believe, Nov 2 in India and here is how you can win free tickets for the premier show. Attending marketing classes this module, I kind of understand why there is such a competition (event) and if I were to be Mark Zukerberg (CEO of facebook, assuming he is involved), I would give away free tickets to almost everyone who writes. So, you have 3 days, write in 20 words, how social network has changed your life and chances that you might win a free ticket is more.
Second, you might recollect the story of Kiva. Here is the speech she delivered on TED. The speech was delivered in July. So, the speech was very much similar except that she wasn’t so emotional when she was at Purdue. Pay attention to the Profounder concept, I did forget to mention about that. Now, for those who haven’t seen TED should indeed check the website ted.com. I often listen to these speeches and every speech has only motivated and inspired me.
If you had observed I mentioned competition and in braces, I mentioned event because my Economics Prof. makes us think of Competition as “Conflict over scarce resources”. Well, if there is a conflict in this case (too many entries than the no. of seats available in the hall), then I can’t guarantee of the free ticket. However, the opportunity cost (cost one has to forego to do an activity) is small when it comes to writing 20 words. So, give it a try!

Module Break: Time to think about everything else

This blog isn’t anything about any (MBA) experiences rather its more about the first part of the title of this blog. We have finished our first module and are having a short break for two days and a weekend and what better time than this to ponder on some other thoughts. This break had been quite useful as to make a visit to Indianapolis to get a correction done in my I-20 at the Borders and Customs office, to talk to the Director of IT resources about Assistantship opportunities, to apply for a Indiana Drivers license, to hang out with a few friends, to do some laundry, to watch some movies, to do some shopping and to follow some of my favorite writers on net. BTW did you observe that Nirmal Shekar has been writing articles very often, almost twice a month. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his articles.

Last Saturday, we invited a few American friends at Sino’s place for a Indian dinner. Sino made a Kerala style beef curry and I prepared my signature chicken curry and we had a good time that night. It was interesting to see how the guests fell in love with the pressure cooker and got excited every time the steam came out of it. That night while discussing cultures and history, Rob’s roommate asked me about the religion I follow. I casually said “My family follows Hinduism”. Then he asked me specifically about the religion that I follow. That put me to think for a while and I said “I kind of follow all religions but by birth I’m a Hindu”. To me all religions are great and calling myself an atheist wouldn’t be quite true. I kind of believe in practices of many religions and participate in all their festivals. I enjoy the wine and plum cake at Christmas to observing a short fast (only to eat haleem in the evening, sometimes two), during Ramzan. And participate in Ganesh Chaturti processions and play around with fireworks for Diwali. Oh Boy! I’m missing India now! 

Then he asked me whether it represents our generation that we are not particular about following any religious faiths. Honestly, I was drunk that night and don’t really remember what I told him. But that question remained in my mind and I thought a little more about that after reading this Tasneem Nashrulla’s post. While I know many of my friends who are pantheists or atheists that makes me think “yes, this generation is not very particular about any such faiths”, on the other hand, the frequent chaos in the name of religion makes me think otherwise. While following a faith and not following any are quite debatable, it can be argued that by not being particular about any faiths, we can avoid many potential communal clashes. On the other hand, the young generation could be aimless without following any faith and it would be easy for the perpetrators of false believes to attract these youngsters. My point is, more than religion what makes me worried are the infamous faiths starting from Jihad to anti-westernizing processions of Bhajrang dal.

Moving away from that topic, I, as always, differed with P. Sainath’s recent articles, but somehow I keep reading them as it always gives me a different point of view. But I was enraged by this article, specifically when he wrote about the movie Slumdog millionaire. I understood why the elite personalities protested against it only after coming to the US. Honestly, when someone tells me today that he/she loved the movie slumdog millionaire, I kind of feel very embarrassed. It represented an India which we do not want to be, which we have long forgotten and which is not how we should be looked at.

I wish, I had more such breaks. The break ended with shopping on the touchdown discount. Touchdown discount are Mondays after a home game when Purdue wins there would be a discount on apparels by no. of touchdowns times 5 percent. There were 4 touchdowns and a 20% discount this time. It seems like more than the actual game of football, what matters is everything else. Anyways, Boiler Up!

The social network and the parting gift

There are actually two things in my mind that I wanted to include in this blog, but since I didn’t have enough time to write 2 different blogs, I thought of clubbing them both together. One, I saw the movie “The Social Network” on Monday night and two, today is the last day of classes in this first module.

Monday evening, I had a some free tickets with me for a movie that night called “the social network”. I got those free tickets for volunteering in a net impact club activity. So, I decided to take a break from my daily chores and enjoy the movie with a few friends. The movie was about facebook, on how the idea came up and was developed. Another thing the movie concentrated is on the people involved in the development of the idea and ironically, they ended up suing each other. I loved the way the idea was developed and it resembled quite very much of how “Hobbies n You” was developed. Although HNU is no facebook, it was inspiring to see a few similarities in the development aspects of facebook and in HNU especially when they were working on creating a USP. And I recommend you all to watch this movie, even if you were not part of HNU. Focus on the exclusivity part they tried to bring in the development of facebook. To me, what I enjoyed during the entire HNU episode was the ways we tried about making an idea come to life, all on our own. It might not have been a genius but it certainly was indigenous. And it often makes me think, when there is so much satisfaction in just what we have done, how wonderful it could have been, if we were to take it further.

Second, today is the last day of our classes of our first module. That means I wouldn’t have any more of quant, Accounting and Organizational Behavior class and I will have to take exams next week. On top of these, there is a lot of pressure to get a internship. I was enjoying the bliss of being back to school and suddenly all of these come pounding. Its like you were enjoying a nice little early morning dream and suddenly someone wakes you up.

There are numerous philosophies developed on a train and I’ve heard people sharing a train example for explaining some of the philosophies they believe. One of the most resounding example was from Satish Jayaraman from Cognizant. He said that his life is like a train, like many passengers who get in and get out, but the train goes on… etc. The train examples have been so much of a cliché that many-a-times when something ends and something else is going to begin, I feel like I’m travelling in a train. Yesterday, on our final OB class, after the lecture, I went to my professor, shook his hands and told him that it was a pleasure to be in his class. He said that he appreciate that and handed out a piece of paper calling it as a “parting gift”. I took a glance at the paper and the first line that I read was… “We are travelling in a train.” I was like “oh no, not again!”. Here is the parting gift he had for us. I like it, hope you will too!