Through with the Cherished!

Hi,

Want to record this occassion (was thinking of saying momentous, but it doesn't appear that way) for posterity. Am through with the MBA today. There are no more formalities to be completed, and I assume that the grades will not really keep me from graduating :)

Am tempted to reflect on the 2 years I have spent on the program but I dont think there is much I want to say on that. The thought is more like that of something accomplished. Something completed. LIke a trek, a milestone. The exact measure and meaning of this, I dont know but there is a definite time aspect to it. A situational connotation as well. Whatever it is, I just feel a little relaxed today. The next battle will soon be there, but this one is over. I fought hard and have been very happy with the way I did.

Hmm. . besides that, as a good friend quotes from a poet (dont remember - Frost is it?), "Life goes on". Milestones and destinations notwithstanding, we continue to be. Changed in our attitude sometimes or changed in our perspective at other. We do become wiser along the way, atleast we think so, right!

Tomorrow remains a not-so-distant dream, and yet want to enjoy the length of this chasm in the change of belonging to an organization. From my school, to college, to AIESEC, to my ex-company and to NUS. Where next, I dont know yet. The good part is that I will go in with a good record into the next place of ownership. At least in the last 3 organizations I have been with, I have had the ability and energy to be an instrument of change. I like to think it has been mostly positive, but the important part really is that I have tried my best and enjoyed making the effort.

Life goes on. But the MBA will remain a fantastic experiment from which I will have learnt much, and enjoyed being in thoroughly. Promise to reflect sometime down the line. Remind me then!

Here is to a completed effort!

Cheers,
Satish

MBA Class of 2005 - NUS Business School 

Elephant Paradigm

Hi there,

Somewhat moved by watching a Bollywood movie, something I have done after a long while. What has impacted my mind more is the tremendous potential I have learnt that each country has. Since I can claim to know India best, having spent 24 wonderful years of my life there, I just want to put down my thoughts on it.

Over the years, I have grown from being an ignorant patriot to being a non-resident Indian (for lack of a better word). But I think i really have grown to be a more open person in terms of countires, cultures and indeed, history. It probably has been a gradual process of realizing that each country has in itself the ability to contruct progress as well as be stagnant.

First up, the elephant paradigm (borrowed from Gurcharan Das's namesake book) is a strange way of describing India. Strange, I say, because I dont think India can be classified into any one paradigm or slot. India is a chaos, I would like to think, a positive chaos. Just as most stable systems in physics are. They possess a degree of entropy. Maybe, at this point in time, India's entropy is just too much to let it be a positive energy system, but I would rather it be that then a constrained system, than with direction-aligning magnets such as communism and single rule governments.

India is truly a beautiful country. As an individual citizen, I still am enamoured by the dizzying variety of cultures, traditions, languages, practices and food. BUt there are amply evident vices of poor infrastructure, inefficient systems and underdevelopment on the large scale. Often times, I have this budding ambition to change somethings, through intelligence, through diligence, through the positive application of mind. What curbs this ambition is the selfishness in making money for myself and my family. But I still retain the interest to do something at the core of building a great nation, and that is creating wealth.

I really wanted to talk about the zillion details that come to mind, often with argumetns and counter-ones. But maybe on another day. Really wish I can meet some more intelligent and motivated people who can inspire some fire in my belly to do something. Just wonder if the many brilliant young people I am and will be friends with, have just got focused with themselves and their own happiness. I think its a fair choice, but am not so sure if people make that choice. They just practice it as a default option.

guess have written for now. Anymore, and probably I will fall asleep myself.

cheers,
Satish

P.S.: Just a trivia, India doesn't have its own term for a toast of drinks. Maybe I should set and patent one ;-)

Lemon Tree

Hi,

Feel connected with this song. Infact, it has been so for a very long time now. And just when I think back, I relate to song now as much as I did about 8 years back when I fist heard it. I wonder how, I wonder why . . . :)

Am sitting here in a big empty canteen at the university. And feeling good about it. Am trying to work hard at the strategy presentation due tomorrow. Interestingly enough, am trying to think of making the presentation controversial enough to draw attention and thereby try to convey the import my group drew from a fair bit of discussion. The MBA is an intersting line of education for exactly this. It pushes you to think hard, and yet keeps you on the ground by making you work with other people and make peace with their rationale and approaches to solutions.

Just read an interview of Mintzberg, who claims that teaching business education to young people who have never managed is dysfunctional. I disagree. The point is that most of us end up managing something or the other. Its how clear and concious a erpson thinks about what he is doing. For a long time now, I have believed that my mom is a brilliant manager. She is a teacher by profession, but I think she is a fantastic manager in her mind. If she had the slightest ambition to manage a business, then the MBA would be a wonderful thing to go through. And wonderfully enough, Mr. Mintzberg continues to teach management education at the McGill university and the media has been sweet enough to bestow the title of a 'management guru' on him.

Hmm. . I think I didn't learn to manage at the business school. But I certainly got equipped with a lot more perspective that will help me manage. And more importantly it gives me the confidence to go out there and do new things at new places. One of the most important things I have learnt at the program, is to learn how to leverage on other people's talents and intelligence. And there is not better satisfaction when you have done that, and people feel good about the accomplishment of the team.

I rest my argument on this one. Still have a few weeks upto graduation day, so just want to have as much fun as possible.

till the next one. . .

hv fun,
satish

Convenience Rules!

Hi,

Monday mornings have a universal idiosyncratic character. Most people I have met atleast acknowledge it to be a significant part of the week. Probably next only to Saturday night.

My musings since the morning continue from last night, when I was just wondering lying down in my bed as to whats become the definitive aspect of many interactions and relationships. In so much as we can despise it, I do think convenience has become a ruling philosophy for most of us. I am probably more guilty than the many people I know. The only shred of respect that I can salvage for myself is that I am usually concious of being convenient and try not to let it get under my skin.

Convenience manifests itself in many different forms. Be it inconsistency of thought and commitment, giving small excuses for escaping simple confrontations, doing what one feels without thinking through or just plain old laziness. I am not quite sure if the many manifestations differ in their relevance and impact, but I do think that the inconsistency of thought and action is quite serious. I think as mature individuals and this I attribute to every person out of university, is fully capable of being consistent between thoughts and action.

Hmm. . something more close to us is how convenience manifests itself in relationships. Work relationships, friendships, partners etc. . - Work relationships tend to be at the better end many times simply because of the convenience of formality. This conundrum is further aggravated when people dont keep up with their commitments even at work. Friendships are so valuable - most of us choose them carefully, either by design or intent. And yet, often times we lose them to convenience.

There probably is one solution to be equanimous with this conflict. And that is to acknowledge it - and not just by yourself. Acknowledge it explicitly with people. And we probably will do well just not to be convenient about this :)

I love the human mind, it is capable of so much complexity.


Have a good week ahead!
Satish