Our own

Seth Godin recently wrote:

"Mentors provide bespoke guidance. They take a personal interest in you. It's customized, rare and expensive.
Heroes live their lives in public, broadcasting their model to anyone who cares to look.
[...]
Like a custom made suit, a mentor is a fine thing to have if you can find or afford it. But for the rest of us, heroes will have to do."

I completely agree. Life is about finding your own inspiration and your own motivation. Nobody is going to be around for too long, to help through everything.
Deep inside we realize that it has never happened for anyone we know. Let's stop pretending it would happen for us someday. This way we are NOT the chosen few ;-)

I won't ever be getting that company to start my morning jogs, do my certification exams,

If it is to be, it is up to me!

I want to be a Child again

I wish to be as playful as a child, with a kid's selectivity, with a kid's energy...

This is so beautiful--this is vaguely what I believe in when I say that world needs more love.

PS: This is the link at the end of the screen-shot.

Prometric to CAT Students

I got the following message from them the other day.
from    DoNotReply@prometric.com
date    Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 17:25
subject    A Message from Prometric
mailed-by    prometric.com
   
Dear Candidate,

At Prometric our first commitment is to provide every candidate with an excellent exam experience. To us, that means establishing a fair test environment and creating an exam that allows all candidates to demonstrate their true capabilities. Due to technical difficulties at a few centres some of you were unable to take the 2009 Common Admission Test (CAT). We know how important this test is to you, and we regret the circumstances that occurred this year. The administration of the exam may have fallen short of your expectations, as it did ours.

We empathize with the candidates who have not been able to complete the test despite the rescheduling efforts and extension of the testing period. To date, we have been able to contact and reschedule exams for more than 17,000 affected candidates, and majority of them have since completed their test. We are in the process of identifying candidates who may have experienced pre-mature termination of the test, or were unable to test within the testing window, and we will contact them to schedule a retake.

Please note that we are conducting a rigorous forensic analysis to ensure that every test result is valid and appropriate. Our work will not be done until our review of the situation is complete, the problems are identified, a plan is in place to ensure they don’t happen again, every candidate has taken the CAT, and all of the results are validated.

Thank you for registering for, and being part of the historic launch of the computer-based CAT. Computer-based testing has a transformative impact on education by expanding access, enhancing the test development process and making results more representative of a student’s capabilities.

For the more than 2.15 lakh candidates who have successfully completed their exams, we would like to say congratulations on being among the first test-takers of the computer-based CAT. This is a transition year for the CAT and we appreciate the patience you have shown. We understand that some of you may have had a less-than-satisfactory experience and again, we apologize. Every issue that has occurred has been noted and will form the basis of an improvement plan.

To your parents, we would like to assure them that we will conduct a thorough review and ensure that every candidate has been given an equal opportunity for the CAT.

We wish each and every one of you all the best and thank you once again for being part of the CAT 2009.

Sincerely, 
CAT Candidate Care Support
Prometric Testing Pvt. Ltd.
http://www.prometric.com/iim-cat/contactus

_____________________________________________________________


The message I think I would have written, had I been at the helm of affairs would be:

Welcome to the real world! Welcome to LIFE aka the bitch. Its never fair and its never unfair in your favour, as Calvin puts it. We all will always have ups and downs where only ups require your effort. The downs happen without you doing anything! But we accept the reluctantly and try to work our best to undo them or to bypass them. The only true skill in life is performing under pressure/stress--expected (of exam) and more so unexpected (of externalities).

We're sorry you could not give the CAT exam comfortably and our system added to unexpected stress. But then what do you expect a manager to handle? Market, so-called luck, customers, employees, production line, competitors, and (may I dare add) wives and children(!), always keep throwing such unexpected surprises your way. As we've said and we all know in our hearts the best we can do is either live with them or bypass them... or die(!) but you weren't thinking about it, were you?!

Normalization is a shitty concept we create to make us all feel protected from the unfairness going around in life. Normalization is for sissies. Be a man and accept what has come your way. This is what it feels like when shit hits the fan.

So welcome to the real world! We hope you won't break under the stress. In case you do... well that will just improve the gene pool for humans. Good luck fuking life and getting fuked in return!

That said, we don't expect IIM folks to give us the responsibility of conducting CAT next year. If they do we'd be happy to declare that we took the best B-schools in India for a BIG ride! Thanks for the charity you all did for us with your 1400 bucks in exam fees.

\m/
_____________________________________________________________

See why I am not at the helm of affairs! ;-)

... and life does not always go on

The worst things that can happen to a relationship are misunderstandings/ego/anger/mistrust. Or may be the worst happens AFTER this--when further ego doesn't let anyone take the initiative to fix the issues. Ironically, all it requires is a small gesture of talking that first step--just a phone call, or a sorry, giving personal space, etc.

No matter how much we've opined about cherishing this relationship throughout the life, but when time comes to bent down for its sake, we rarely do. Its not that the opinions/thoughts/wishes were fake, we would've meant it genuinely, willing to beg-borrow-steal for the sake of the relationship, but when it comes to bending back we develop so much inertia in our minds that we let our treasured people go away, without addressing the mis-happenings.

Either people forsake the relationship or last minute desperate attempts to revive it makes love to forsake the relationship. We become too conceited or take our loved ones so much for granted, as to not be able to realize what's going wrong, when it goes wrong. And later it might come to being just a mended survival not a lovable existence.

Alas! just for those few (un)said words, that missed moment, that common-sense that became so uncommon, that presence of mind which never prevailed, that phone call which never came, that explanation which was never given on time, that sensibility which didn't make sense during the storm.... And it raged on!

Hazar rahein mud ke dekhin
Kahin se koi sada na aayi
Badi wafa se nibhayi tumne
Hamari thodi si bewafai

Jahan se tum mod mud gaye the
Ye mod ab hi wahin pade hain
Hum apne pairon mein jaane kitne
Bhanwar lapete hue khade hain

Badi wafa se nibhayi tumne
Hamari thodi si bewafai

Kahin kisi roz yun bhi hota
Hamari haalat tumhari hoti
Jo raat humein guzari marr ke
Vo raat tumne guzari hoti

Badi wafa se nibhayi tumne
Hamari thodi si bewafai

Tumhe ye zid thi ke hum bulate
Humein ye ummid vo pukarein
Hai naam hoton pe ab bhi lekin
Aawaz mein pad gayi dararein

Hazar rahein mud ke dekhim
Kahin se koi sada na aayi
Badi wafa se nibhayi tumne
Hamari thodi si bewafai.

When do we Children Grow up for Parents?

... never :)

In the context, below is a beautiful dialogue from "Finding Nemo" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543). The scene is when Nemo's dad is swimming with the turtles in the East Australian ocean Current (EAC) to reach Sydney to search & rescue Nemo. The big turtle talks to Nemo's dad about their kiddo-turtles hatching out, growing up, being on their own and he 'letting them go' after that. Nemo's dad was very protective and over-caring about Nemo till he gets lost.

{Nemo's dad is respectfully called Jellyman by all turtles since he fights off jelly fishes, deep in the ocean, while searching for Nemo}

(DT = Daddy Turtle, ND =Nemo's Dad)

DT: (speaking to his son) Curl away my son. ( speaking to Nemo's Dad[ND] ) Its awesome, Jellyman.

The little dudes are just eggs.

We leave 'em on a beach to hatch...

and then, coo-coo-cachoo...

They find their way back to the big ol' blue (the ocean).

ND (surprised): All by themselves?

DT: Yeah.

ND: But Dude, how do you know when they're ready.

DT: Well, you (parents!) never really know. But when they know, you'll know, you know? Ha!

I totally love the spirit of the last sentence and his 'ha' expression for obvious reasons :)


Music: Ironically Mother by Floyd started playing from a random playlist

Digital Lives

First there were those cameras with photographic rolls (the negatives), which needed dark-room developing -- it was costly -- papa never earned so much those days for us to own one of those.

We used to go to studios once in a blue moon to get a family portrait! We yearned for a way to capture every diwali, rakhi, pooja, shaadi, etc. on a reel. Sometimes the blurred away memories were frustrating. We wished to get clicked more often.


And then we grew up, got rich, digital revolution came and...
Now we have a 'digicam' & a 'handycam' to record every 'potential memory', to document every single day mischiefs of didi's daughter, to click and shoot anywhere and anything we want, that too without second thoughts of wasting a negative! Now no pics are so special which we'll frame and cherish for years to come [1,2]. Photographs have become just another file-formats!


That was then and this is now. We are still yearning...