The Week That Was-Edition 16

The Week That Was:

A lot of newspapers’ column inches have been wasted talking about the scams happening all around the country starting with 2G Spectrum, Aadarsh Building society, Yedayurappa...etc and I want to waste more of it by talking about it here. What a pathetic nation we live in, politicians are trying to loot money in all possible ways from Coffins (to Kargil heroes) to houses, as each week goes by we hit a new low. Well, in one way I admire Mr. Raja, the hero of 2G spectrum and I am unashamed to say he is my role model.  He is a maverick at work, you can cry all you want but not even a single Rupee can be recovered from his personal bank account and he has it in plenty. Crores and crores of rupees are there in his personal account and in the name of Ms. Fruity-language (total loss to government runs above Rs.150, 000 Crores).

If the Government does recover money from him, then I will chop my own hands and eat it with some Barbeque sauce or will watch Golmaal3 once again. Have you ever wondered how come the MPs and MLAs always wear shiny white shirts with no dark spots? If your answer is Ariel or Tide then I pity you, you really need to grow up. There is this friend of mine whose father makes a living by stitching clothes for one certain ex-minister who looted a lot of money through allocation of Spectrum. The ex-minister orders cloth material directly from the Textile mills and his father stitches it; you might be wondering what the big deal about it is? Well the thing is, he stitches 100shirts/month for him and it roughly works out to 1200 shirts per year and 3.28shirts per day. This spectrum guy never wears the same shirt twice, after wearing it once, he discards them. His tailor says that sometimes he changes up to 5 shirts a day depending on the number of meetings he has. What a way to spend your fortune, Amazing isn’t it?

There is only so much of money you can lock in Swiss banks and spend it in eating, it seems like he also pays 6000 bucks for practising Yoga in a certain Yoga hall.  Not really, I just got carried away; everything I mentioned is true except that bit about Yoga. And it’s a universal secret that Mr. Ex and his illegitimate GF spend their fortune in buying educational institutions and our man gifts it to her. Imagine the sort of conversation they might have, “Hey Sweetie, I bought an engineering college for you this week”. She replies, “Wow that is so sweet of you dear, but I would be delighted if you could buy me some B-schools too”. Ex: “Next week I am going to Salem, I will buy a couple”...and it continues. Well if you need to eradicate corruption then my suggestion is, investigate everyone who buys more than 2cash counting machines at once. Unless they are a Public Sector or an MNC no one would need more than 2cash counters, there was this College in Trichy which bought 10Cash counters in one go, wonder why?  Well they were bought out for Rs. 200 Crores (Spectrum money of course) and they needed quite a few machines to count the cash.

The guy who went to deliver these machines was delighted of course and it is nice to have few friends in the management of this College as a source, when I heard the news from them I was dumb struck. Well I am tired of cribbing about it and I believe I have wasted a lot of space, sorry. Moving away from the serious news, my mate drives a gas guzzling monster of a two-wheeler and I told him last week that he emits a lot of Carbon on his to and fro trips to college. Can someone please inform him that attending College is more important than saving planet earth? Bugger hasn’t come to College ever since and he takes Global warming quite seriously. We planned to plant few tree saplings in hostel to do our bit to reduce emissions, but there wasn’t any space at all, because almost all available space was planted with saplings by my batch mates. Obviously both of us were disappointed but my mate came up with a gem of an idea to kill 4tiny plants (by pouring concentrated H2SO4 on their roots) to plant 1tree sapling. “It ain’t wrong to kill 4plants to give life to 1tree sapling”, he reasons. After planting it, he had tears on his eyes and I felt a bit moved on seeing his concern for the environment.

There were loads of surveys which I wanted to share with you guys but majority of them weren’t fit to be published in a student’s newsletter. So, visit Times of India website and scroll down to the Relationship section, they have got plenty of useful information. Some say reading newspaper everyday increases your knowledge, after reading the relationship section in TOI, I certainly agree. I happened to read quite a few books recently and here are some interesting facts, 70% of all Mergers and Acquisitions flop, Synergy is highly over-rated by CEOs were few facts from the book Billion Dollar Lessons. But the best book I ever read in my life is How to Lie, Cheat & Steal Your Way to the TOP, it is available in LRC. This is the most pragmatic book ever written about how to succeed in an organisation and so darn hilarious to read. To quote, “Employees are like violin strings; they perform at their best when screwed tightly”. But be careful when you pop into LRC, because there are 1001reasons to be kicked out of that place and have your ID card repossessed. Do not talk/text/cough/sneeze when inside, your mood should be similar to that of a person attending a funeral. Guantanamo bay has a friendlier atmosphere than this place.

There is a certain library at University of Sunderland where students are allowed to listen to music on headphones whilst reading books and a vending machine dishes out snacks. The logic behind it is, ‘even if students waste 10hours in library we just expect them to spend at least 1hour gaining knowledge’. As a result that place is always crowded and very lively but then, it is unrealistic to expect something of that sort here. But I do try my level best to gain some knowledge by spending as much time as possible in LRC. Just wave your hands at me if you see me (that is if I am not kicked out of course and manage to stay there for more than 5minutes). Until then, I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 15

The Week That Was:

How can you be reading this column with a happy face when you are yet to receive your exam results? I am telling you, you should be really worried, upset and depressed thinking about the possibility of a Re-Do. This comes from a man who has failed at least one paper in all the trimesters except the 2^nd, so you guys should be really worried and depressed. Well, if you believed the above lines and started to get really worried then you are not a regular reader of The Week That Was. Re-Do is an opportunity to gain a deep conceptual understanding of the subject, Re-Do makes your life meaningful and lets you stay focussed. Studying MBA without a Re-Do is like travelling in a ship without a compass. You will never get the adrenaline rush and excitement of clearing the paper in a Re-Do if you cleared all your papers in the first attempt, how can you call yourself a Manager when you haven’t faced defeat?

Regular readers would know that I got a Ph.D after I completed my 12^th, having consistently failed in more than 7subjects since LKG in all the exams in all classes (except the final exams of 10^th&12^th), my principal gave me Ph.D. Not really, Ph.D here stands for Passed high school with great Difficulty. So let us worry about more important things happening around the world starting with Obama’s visit to India last week. The US salesman was very generous in praising all aspects of India trying to woo the Indian investors and politicians alike. If I was in his town hall style meeting with students, I would have asked him questions about his drug abuse, hostel life, and work life balance after becoming a President than asking about Pakistan or his vision about future because he says things just for the sake of it. I don’t want to sound like Arindam Chaudhuri in criticising him but I think he was just too desperate to get more money from our pockets and stuff it in US coffers. Arindam Chaudhuri criticises things just for the sake of criticising and gain attention, he is such an attention seeking twat. The difference between him and God is that, God doesn’t think he is Arindam Chaudhuri.

Instead of worrying about global affairs and wasting time we should be rather worried about the Queen of Britain launching her profile on Facebook. Queen Elizabeth at the age of 84 opened her profile in the social networking site to stay in-touch with her fans so she could update them about her daily activities. Well, majority of her activities are spent on a wheel chair so it ain’t that interesting to be honest, I would rather follow Kim Kardashian or Eminem for a bit of fun than a granny. Not many times in my life have I applauded the Police department but I am now for killing the jerk, who kidnapped and murdered 2kids from Coimbatore. Animals like him should be stoned to death or killed in an encounter than putting him in jail, so the Police did the right thing, well done gentlemen. I am sure all of you would have read about the 2engineering graduates who kidnapped a kid for a ransom of 1crore. Surprising fact is that one of the kidnappers was an MBA from UK.

This is what happens when all the management text books consistently bang on about Shareholder Wealth maximisation; this guy misunderstood the concepts so he tried to maximize his wealth by Kidnapping. Idiots didn’t even realise how stupid they were. If earning money is your ultimate aim then you can earn it in an exciting way without harming others. I have got loads of such exciting ideas to do business but none of them are legal in at least 170nations of the UN. I am looking for a Venture Capitalist or an Angel Investor who would like to support start ups in regions like Afghanistan, Cuba, Amsterdam or Mexico. These ideas don’t harm anybody and believes in Customer Romancing and Customer Delight, 90% of profits generated goes to CSR and rest 10% will be reinvested in the business. The CSR aims to give a better life to a poor individual named Ifthi who lives in United States of Trichy. Vision: To legalise the illegal. So come, Invest and together we shall grow.

If you hate someone from the bottom of your heart, the best way to punish him is by giving him a ticket to Golmaal3. It is such a sad movie and tries too hard to make you laugh but their effort falls flat on its face, pathetic storyline with pathetic screenplay. A research conducted in Britain among 4500 women revealed that shopping burns more calories than working out in the gym, so ladies, if you want to stay fit, go shopping. But another research revealed that majority of men cheat on their wives/girlfriends when their partner is out shopping, so shopping is a double edged sword mind. There is this software called Bull-Fighter made by Deloitte which analyses the amount of BS written in any article or passage, all you got to do is Copy-Paste the words and it will analyse and tell you how much of BS is written. I tried it by posting one of my previous columns of The Week That Was and the software calculated that it contains 95% of BS and only 5% of truth. Further research revealed that the 5% of truth is actually the following statement “Ifthikar Ahmed, 2^nd Year MBA” if that statement was taken out then you can be assured that it is 100% BS. I am planning to get a Six-Sigma certification for my consistency in maintaining the level of BS, so if you want to help me then see me. I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 14

The Week That Was

It has been ages since I wrote anything and I have been lying low for a while. The reason for it is no rocket science, asking me to write “The Week That Was” with no internet connection is like asking Usian Bolt to run 400metres wearing a Lungi and tying his arms behind the back, it’s a tough ask indeed. Not only that, loads of things I used to write repeatedly have had a complete overhaul, the hostel food for example, the weapons of mass of destruction i.e. the parottas have been scrapped from the menu and now it is replaced by amazing Maggi Noodles. So is there anything Ifthi can write apart from moaning about the hostel food or about some other useless stuff? Well I think I can, so I started working as a freelance writer these days and people have hired me to write things like apology letters and flirty love letters. I had enough of freelancing, so I thought I should bore a majority of people instead of boring one at a time and as a result you are reading thisJ.

The police in Mexico were trying to arrest a gang of smugglers at their backyard but the plan got backfired because of a parrot. The parrot betrayed the police by shouting “Run, run the cat is coming” when they surrounded the place. The bird was obviously a pet of the gang and had been given sufficient training, so the gang escaped. The police got pissed because of this and they didn’t want to return to the station empty handed, so they arrested the bird instead. Cops everywhere are really stupid, take the case of Kashmir, the army men have shot many women and children during the riots and this in-turn aggravates a lot of people and thus we have unrest in the region for more than 3decades. Whilst I am no James Bond in detecting terror, I would definitely know for sure that a 14 year old lad with a Cricket bat is certainly not a terrorist and I wouldn’t blow the head of a 56 year old granny either. If you really want some shooting practice, you could do it harmlessly like we did by shooting balloons or shooting at the picture of Vijay. There lies the solution; the world should be ruled by people with an MBA degree and every problem in the world can be solved within 2minutes.

My proposed solution for the Kashmir border issue is, we should call the MBAs from both the nations and ask them to calculate the border using Linear Programming or some Approximation method. They would spend 2hours calculating the initial basic feasible solution and would agree unanimously to reject the entire issue when they think about the opportunity cost of using the money in buying shares and compounding it. Thus all the Kashmiris would turn into stock brokers consoling each other when the market takes a nose dive instead of pelting stones at military vehicles. As far as the lunatic army men who shoot old ladies, they should be punished severely because they humiliate the entire nation in front of the world. I would punish them by giving two options: “Either you should take 1kg of Chilli powder and shove it up your nostrils/eyes or you should download a 2MB file from the Wifi at campus”. If they refuse to do it, their head should be blown in public just like they did to the innocent women.

Thanks to Mr. Suresh Kalmadi who proved to the entire world that we are a nation of 1billion people who are not capable of building few decent stadiums all because of his greed. You know something is wrong when someone is spending Rs. 28000 crores for conducting a Games event. In my opinion Common Wealth is conducted to boost the private wealth of few millionaires and who on earth needs to see few thin lads from Africa running around in circles? Here is a perfect example of grapevine gone wrong and how not to begin a conversation. I said “Hey pretty girl” to a midget and it went around saying to anyone and everyone it meets saying “Ifthi said I look gorgeous, Ifthi said I am fabulous, Ifthi said I am awesome blah blah”. I know I have a bad taste but certainly not to the extent of fantasising over a midget, now how would I use the same communication channel to say “you actually look like Bugs Bunny”? That rabbit from Looney tunes talks a lot and is highly irritating at times. I do love Scooby doo and Tom & Jerry and if I ever get a chance to work with MGM studios I would create an episode were Tom beats the hell out of Jerry just for a laugh.

The Week That Was, well what a journey it was in the past one year and it has been an amazing roller coaster ride with loads of fun. I love writing for Atulya so much that I became obsessed with writing; so far it has been so good. I obviously would love to write in each and every edition of Atulya, but I certainly don’t want to cheat the readers of it by not giving any news. Whilst I don’t write anything informative, majority of the information I try to quote are something which you probably would have never read (this week being an exception). Caution: Don’t try to imitate the way I write, its highly injurious to Mind Body and Atulya. I would try to write as and when I possibly can, till then I would see you when(ever I possibly can) I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 13

The Week That Was  (28/08/2010)                                                                  

What a week it was, I am sure everyone in the campus had great fun last week. Events like WOW are one of a kind and those who participated in it and would have got so many valuable lessons; at least I did when I was in 1^st year.  I really feel sorry for the MP’s who got a meagre pay rise after so many struggles; the Congress government is really focussing on the pressing issues of today’s world. Almost 88 MP’s including Sonia, Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, L K Advani and Lalu Prasad have not asked even a single question during the question hour in the Lok Sabha for the last 1year, I am sure being a MP must be really tough. The idiots are wasting too much money on the Commonwealth games, till date the government (central &state) has spent Rs. 28,000crores. Who on earth needs Common Wealth? I would like to take the javelin used by the athletes and shove it up the backside of Mr. Suresh Kalmadi and his colleagues.  A recent survey by University of Oxford revealed that there are more poor people in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries combined. One useless man is called a disgrace, two become a law and three or more become a congress.

 Recently I read that all schools in US and UK are trying to ban Ipods in classrooms, I don’t understand the logic behind this unless they think Eminem is going to rap all the answers to the students in the examination hall. Talking about examinations, it’s a shame that 5judges were caught cheating by the AP government during the LLM exams. Those losers didn’t even take a bit of paper; they were too greedy to take the entire book to the examination hall, which clown selected them as a judge in the first place? I am sure the exam hall would have had a supervisor like me, during the prelims for WOW, I was accused of being involved in too many malpractices, I deny all allegations and I request CBI to investigate the issue.  I was thinking twice about writing this week’s column because I couldn’t get any access to any of the online newspapers I refer frequently, thanks to the pathetic Wi-Fi. I had to sit and read more than 7newspapers digging for information, I would like to rename it as Si-Fi (Signal-less Fidelity). At least it isn’t as bad as the Chinese roads, the Vehicles, mostly lorries bound for Beijing, are in a queue for about 100km (62 miles) because of heavy traffic, road works and breakdowns and it takes 9days to cross that area. Imagine going to your neighbouring city with enough food and clothes to cover you for a fortnight, it must be really crazy out there I guess.

A British Airways pilot scared the crap out of all the passengers by pressing a wrong button, triggering an announcement that the aircraft was about to make an emergency landing on water. Imagine a female voice saying “We are about to make an emergency landing, please don’t panic” when in reality the idiotic pilot was in fact playing with the buttons. The British police are on a massive hunt to find a 50year old woman who dumped a 4year old cat into a dust bin. They say it’s a cruel action and the offender must be punished, I wonder how the police department in England have time for such trivial pursuits. In India the rapists, child molesters, Anderson’s and Ramalinga Raju’s walk freely on the roads without being scared of anything. Last time when I went home, I met a good friend of mine who is extremely talented. I say he is extremely talented because he studied his B.E. for 5years because he had so many arrears, obviously he didn’t get placed in any college and guess what he is doing right now? He joined as a lecturer in the very same college he studied; the college is located in Trichy. When he told about his teaching pedagogy I nearly collapsed, he said he divides the entire class into 20teams and lets them teach the entire syllabus through presentations.

So I was least surprised when I read the following news,  As per the study of over 40,000 technical graduates conducted by assessment technology company Aspiring Minds, just 18 per cent of the fresh technical graduates surveyed, possessed right skills to be eligible for jobs in IT services companies. The state of our education system is appalling, when was the last time we read about an Indian University making a cutting edge technological innovation? Universities in UK and USA make so many innovations because their education system is pragmatic and they spend very little time on memorising non sense theories. I am sure everyone here must have read stuffs like Theoretical Geometry, Trigonometry...etc are you using any of it right now? What about the endless lessons about how fertile the Nile region is in Geography? There are just 3kinds of students in India, those who can count and those who can’t and 4 out of every 3 students have a tough time understanding fractionsJ. Enough about education, there are loads of questions which I need answer for, Is it true that cannibals won’t eat clowns because they taste funny? Do they use sterilized needles for lethal injections? If Harry Potter is so magical then why couldn’t he cure his own sight? Ifthi is in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, please join his quest. That’s it for this week ladies and ladies (I don’t give a damn about the Un-Gentlemen, hehe), I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 12

The Week That Was (19/08/2010)-----------à My birthday J J

Hey friends, I hope u all had a great weekend, it is nice to see you all reading yet another column of mine. Some say they learn nothing out of it, I don’t claim to facilitate any knowledge anyway, so if you are expecting to gain knowledge then you are in the wrong section matey.  My mate says I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind, I am not sure about that one, but it must be true I guess. The other day someone asked me “what is one thing that you would gain by pursuing an MBA?” I thought long and hard about what happened in my life and my friends’ life and told him “You will break up with your girlfriend by the end of first year”. That is a hypotheses which needs a lot of testing using various statistics, talking about Stats, here is something interesting, Los Angeles teachers union has called for a massive boycott of Los Angeles Times over the paper's publication of articles that used student test scores to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers. The paper conducted various statistics to analyse the effectiveness of the teachers in classrooms, apparently teachers who teach statistics are protesting that “Statistics can’t be relied to arrive at any conclusions”, I love the Obama government for giving them the taste of their own medicine.

Girls, drinking beer is bad for you. A study by Harvard Medical School has found that drinking beer regularly may raise the risk of psoriasis by over 70% in women. The doctors conducted a study on 82,869 women who drink more than 3beers a week to arrive at this conclusion; however there is good news for you. They also found no association between the disease and light beer, red wine, white wine or liquor. So ladies if you are planning to booze then make sure the drink you have is not a beer, because I care for you. I not only care about women, I also care about the environment and I am delighted to inform that your car could also have peg of Whisky everyday giving you company on lonely nights. Scientists at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland have found a way to manufacture biofuel from the by-products of whisky, they say it can reduce carbon emissions and it is also sustainable, because, whisky powered cars doesn’t require massive forest-trashing unlike other biofuels. So the more you drink, the more environmentally friendly you will become, so please save the planet by drinking Whisky.

I am sick of reading endless articles and reports about how bad smoking is to you and others around you, here is a woman who defied all logics. Britain's ‘oldest smoker’ Winnie Langley, who puffed more than 170,000 cigarettes for over 95 years, has died a month short of her 103rd birthday, may her soul Rest In Peace. This Granny started smoking at the age of 7 after World War-I started and made headlines at her 100th birthday after being photographed lighting a cigarette with a candle. She used to smoke five Cigarettes a day but recently reduced it to 1Cigarette day as she was unable to afford Cigarettes due to the credit crunch. What we can learn from this is, as long as you are enjoying your life by boozing and smoking like this Granny, we will live longer. What was all the fuss about the Srilankan bowler bowling a no ball to deny Sehwag a century? What he did was perfectly within the rules of the game and the Indian media made a mountain out of a mole hill because they didn’t have better news to report on.

Ramalinga Raju got a bail for paying a paltry sum of 40lakhs, it wouldn’t have hurt his bank balance much considering the fact that he looted more than 14000crores of the Shareholder’s money. Whilst the Indian police beat the crap out of a pickpocket for stealing 100bucks, gentleman like Raju walk freely with full police protection, I would love to learn the nuances of the business world from Satyam’s sister concern ISB, Hyderabad, mastering the art of BS will help you to earn millions and you can give lectures about ethical business practices and CSR during your leisure time. Sticking with burglary, a fat burglar in Britain tried to break into a house through the bathroom window, due to his bulky frame he got struck for 6hours and the owner of the house rang the fire department to rescue him. He was obviously an idiot for trying things beyond his means and is now eating low-fat Sandwiches at the London Jail. India will move to the fourth position for the number of corporate jets owned by the business tycoons by the end of next year. The Indian business Tycoons have ordered for 157 jets worth around a billion dollars, who said India is poor?

I just realised that everything I have written above would be considered offensive by the followers of PMK party led by Ramadoss, if you are such a person then I would like to meet you in-person to learn about Diving so I could get an Olympic Gold medal for my country. Because I have not done anything worthwhile for the past 21years of my life and after turning 22 last Thursday, I am on a mission to dedicate myself to my adopted nation Holland (watch Harold&Kumar-2, you will know why). Just to finish things off, Love is like an exploding Cigarette which we smoke willingly, or you could say it’s like trying to kiss a burning Charcoal (more such BS can be found in my Facebook profile, just search for Ifthikar Ahmed), so friends stay safe by not visiting my profile. I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 11

The Week That Was (12/08/2010)

Many were asking me the reason for the lack of any news in last week’s column, well all credit goes to the wireless-router less-internetless service at the campus. Someone has stolen all the routers from all class rooms, so can someone please inform that gentleman that the wifi simply can’t function without a router? It’s funny when someone blames you for not checking the Moodle every day when there is no net connectivity either at campus or in hostel; it’s like blaming a blind guy for not seeing the rainbow. The fees paid for wifi is as effective as the money allocated to rent treadmills for the Commonwealth games. Apparently Indian Government has spent Rs.9.5lakhs to rent treadmills so that the players could maintain their fitness, the last time I checked, even the top of the range treadmill in the world costs just Rs. 4.5lakh to purchase it outright and I don’t understand what sort of maniac would pay 9.5 lakhs to rent a SINGLE treadmill? You could buy the entire state of Bihar with that sort of money for God’s sake.

And this happened in Toledo, Ohio. Fast food fan Melodi Dushane was clearly not 'lovin' it' after she was told she couldn't have her favourite snack (McNuggets) - because it was still breakfast. The lady leaned through the drive-thru window and punched two of the staffs; she pretended to leave in her car but hurled a bottle through the restaurant's window before speeding off. She was sentenced to 60days in prison and was ordered to pay McDonalds for the damaged windows; the staffs were left with a broken nose of course. Those guys who are planning to work part time in Toledo be careful, because Customer Romancing doesn’t work a lot of times so you might as well learn some Kung Fu. Another funny thing happened in the land of US and A, A guy took his girlfriend to a Baseball game on a date. The batter hit the ball into the crowd and our Romeo in order to impress his new date, tried catching the ball. He failed miserably and the ball hit his girlfriend on the arm and it resulted in visible bruises, well the lesson to be learned is, don’t try to do something extraordinary because often it ends up being too ordinary. I would have loved to listen to their post match conversation on their way home.

Spanish Government spent 590m Euros ($775m) in the production of electric cars aiming to have at least 250,000 cars in circulation by 2014. After the production began and the REVE cars hit the market only 16cars were sold till date (one car last year and 15this year), the manufacturer of REVE cars was a Norwegian firm ironically named as Think. I firmly believe that people at Think really need to think about the pathetic electric cars they have produced, I think the sales forecast was done by an enthusiastic MBA guy from a dodgy b-school, I am sure he would have got a 10S in Forecasting during his college days. An 18year old Nurse from Britain named Stacey Bywater won a lotto jackpot of £1million (approximately 8Crores) and my mate is glued to the yellow pages of Yorkshire County trying to get her landline number, he claims he just wants to congratulate her, but I don’t believe him.

.After India won one test match every Cricket fan was going gaga and the Indian team flipped really bad for less than 90runs against New Zealand. I don’t understand these Cricket fans, how can they spend 5days in a week watching a so-called game which results in a draw and an entire working day on a One Day match? Anyone who spends an entire day of his life for following a sport should be hanged. I think watching paint dry is more entertaining than watching Cricket. What a week it was to see Manchester United thrash Chelsea 3-1 and win the Community Shield, the red devils were simply irresistible and if they play like this for the rest of the season then I am sure the premier league title will be ours this season. Eating Pea is bad for you, Ron Sveden a resident of Massachusetts was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung, the doctors were surprised when they found a pea plant (1.25cm in size) growing on his lung in the X-ray. The Docs believe that Mr Sveden ate the pea at some point, but it "went down the wrong way" and sprouted. The plant was operated and removed and the Docs had a sense of humour by giving a plate full of peas to the patient as a post operative meal.

The US government has proved that it really has no brains yet again, it has sentenced the Chef of Osama Bin Laden for 14 years in jail. Ibrahim al-Qosi admitted running a kitchen in Bin Laden's compound while being aware that al-Qaeda was a terrorist organisation, his crimes include cooking Chicken Biriyani with Mutton Shawarma every Sunday for Mr. Bin Laden. I am trying to contact the FBI since I read the news because I know about another Chef who is still working closely with Osama, I am willing to share the whereabouts of the person so that they could arrest him and punish him. Finally, few of my mates are pursuing their Ph.d in NIT-Trichy and XIME, they informed me that there are some dodgy national journals (with ISBN numbers of course) which will publish absolutely anything you give them as long as you pay Rs.1000-1500. My mates have used this to publish more than5articles each in national level management journals. Now don’t ask me the names of those Journals because I believe in something called Professional Ethics. By the way, can anyone please lend me a non-refundable sum of Rs. 1500? I need it for some personal reasons. Well that’s it for this week; I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 10

The week that was (04/08/2010)

Nothing is certain in this world except death and The Week That Was, I am backJ. Hey everyone, it is nice to see you all back in the campus and as usual my mate is eager to befriend all the pretty juniors (beware of him girls). I got so frustrated during summer holidays that I started reading my textbooks to beat boredom. I missed a lot of things though, from alcoholic-hostel-sambar (it really does get u drunk after drinking couple of spoons) to the last minute preparations for exams and surprise quizzes. The summer holidays were too damn boring because I spent most of the time on my couch wondering, whether changing channels in the TV could be counted as an exercise and how many calories I would have burnt in the process.

I don’t know if you have noticed this, it takes two minues to go from additional hostel to the parking lot in bike and 15minutes to walk from parking lot to Campus, but you can go from hostel to classroom in 14minutes if you decided to walk instead. I was out for a movie (Madarasapattinam) with my mate the other day and whilst searching for some loose change to pay for the ticket, my mate accidentally picked a used ticket of Avatar from his pocket. He went on and on about what a great movie Avatar was and how brilliant James Cameron is. But I couldn’t concentrate on it, coz one thing distracted me continuously, “how could he have an old ticket of Avatar in his Jeans? It’s been a few months since the movie has been released isn’t it?” I kept asking myself, then after a few moments it struck me, so I said, “Dude, your frickin Jeans needs a wash for God’s sake”. Talking about movies, why do all girls love Twilight so much? It scares the hell out of me on thinking that all girls fancy their boyfriends to be a man-eating Vampire.

Last few weeks most of you guys were busy preparing and presenting the Term paper/summer project report and we all know how it is going to help us in the future! Congrats to those who completed it successfully, I met the Head Chef of Additional Hostel the other day and we had a lot of catching up to do (we have become great friends you know), so when he asked me what I did in Vacation, I told him about the Term paper I did and to my utter disbelief I heard that he also had Term paper when he studied in his Culinary School. He said he found it difficult because, Term paper was meant for people who had arrears and asking someone who failed in studying one book to read 100articles is like asking someone with asthma to blow 100baloons/day for two months. I would like to quote his exact words, “I have a tough time identifying a unifying theme between 30 rock-hard Parottas I cook, so asking me to identify a unifying theme from 30articles written by 30authors proved to be a nightmare”. I dismissed his opinions straight away because I don’t believe that he learned about cooking, he must have inherited the skills from the angels preparing Amirudh in heaven.

I have become arrogant these days thinking that I have spent an entire year on learning about Businesses and how to be a Manager, so I know the best. My belief was that, I could solve any problem in the real world if I think like a true manager and this was the reason for my Arrogance. So when my mom asked me to buy Coconut the other day, I started thinking about the entire supply chain of the Coconut industry and started calculating the opportunity cost of not using the Coconut in the Chutney. I also wanted to use the knowledge of statistical packages like SPSS and I intended to design an optimal transportation model for the Coconut from the Farmer to the Consumer (having failed in Research Methods-2 and Quantitative Techniques and re-doing the course it was obvious that I needed to improve my knowledge). I did Correlation analysis to find out if Coconut makes Chutney taste better, having framed the null hypotheses and doing a rigorous data collection, I managed to get the feedback from 240 respondents and many of them didn’t choose any of the options from the five point scale, instead they answered in two words “**** you”.

After doing all the tests in SPSS (including blood test) I rejected both null and alternative hypotheses because it took more than 2months for the study to be completed and the two month old Chutney started smelling worse than my room-mate’s pillow cover (bugger washes it once a year). I was disappointed that my knowledge of Re-Do went astray, it became do-do-tutudooo. I am highly motivated to use my knowledge for the betterment of mankind in the forthcoming years, some of the hypotheses I am planning to test are as follows: Why do all rowdies eat leg-piece of Chicken in all the movies?, What effect did changing the name of all TASMAC’s in CBE post Semmozhi conference had on the welfare of the classical language Tamil? How many managers actually solve accounting/financial problems manually instead of using softwares in real life (because one can never graduate from any b-school without knowing how to calculate values manually even though a PC can solve it in 2seconds)? Some say I spend too much time on Facebook and Some say I am crazy, well I don’t care about all those, I can prove that everyone who likes me is perfect because I am the best example of their choice J. Anyways enough of my BS for this week, love you all, I will see you when I see you.

                                                      T(amanna is gorgeous)hank you.

The Week That Was-Edition 9

The week that was:  (17/02/2010)

Hello ladies and ungentle-men J here I am back with a yet another column of mine. I hope you all had a great weekend; I didn’t have a great one to be honest. Staying with couple of lads and doing assignments over a weekend is not what I would call an ideal way to spend the week end while the rest of the world is out chilling and then follows the God forbidden Monday. I hate Mondays; the thing about Monday is that it is followed by Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday which means yet another week of doing things which you hate the most, just for the sake of fitting-in with the rest of the world and not looking out of place. I have sworn on myself that I would never crib about how bad the food is at hostel or what a Muppet the cook is. The inspiration behind this is Chetan Bhagat who has cribbed about food in a much more humorous way in Five Point Someone and 2States, if you haven’t read it then read it, if you did it already then Hi-Five.

Mayawati a.k.a Currencywati has created yet more controversy by accepting a garland made of 1000rupee notes worth around Rs.1Crore, narcissism at its worst. Anyone who votes for such a person should be shot first because the one who supports a crime should be punished more than the criminal himself/herself. How can anyone do such a thing, for flip sake she is the leader of a state in which 2/3^rd of the population is either illiterate or in poverty and this little dinosaur is flaunting her rupee garland made by damaging the currency notes. Indians are the only nationals who scribble on their currency, fold it in awkward shapes, punch holes in it and even destroy it as part of their prayers and ceremonies, not surprising when majority of the country is filled with illiterates. Surely she must hate herself if she looks at her from a third person’s point of view, for being so obsessed with herself and going to an extent of building expensive statues, I think given choice she would not even vote for herself.

The Kerala government has added 12more Important Bird Areas (IBA), IBA is a programme which aims at identifying and protecting key sites for protecting birds and other biodiversity regions. The state now has 36 bird havens (3^rd highest in India), bird watchers are said to be extremely delighted at this announcement, and my mate reckons such IBAs should be set up at RS Puram, Peelamedu and outside every Coffee Day in the state. I had a tough time explaining that the ones set up in Kerala are completely different to the ones he has imagined. My mate from NASA said that the US satellites have been concentrating on Varadaraja mills recently suspecting that Weapons of Mass Destruction are manufactured every Wednesday night in Additional Hostel; however I reassured him that they are not WoMD, they are indeed parottas. You should all thank me for saving India from a possible US invasion.

I recently attended a management fest conducted by a private b-school in Coimbatore and I felt extremely sorry for their students, not because they were lacking in infrastructure or anything but it was their flipping dress code. They were all dressed up in blazers, with tie and stuff like a corporate executive but only downside was the temperature outside was more than a 100degrees Fahrenheit and it was a place where deodorants seemed to be a luxury for them. It is all well and good dressing up for the occasion but wearing a blazer at 100F is absolute madness and anyone who vouches for it must have a brain the size of black pepper. The Brits wore it because it’s too damn cold in England and even they flex their business attire during hot summer. But we wannabe business professionals keep our brains inside the refrigerator and take the blazer outside for Occasions!

It is scientifically proven that wearing clothes that increase your body temperature will cause male impotency and I think that is the reason why most b-schools make it mandatory for its students to wear blazers as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility in reducing India’s ever growing population. Some think it is super cool to wear them but it looks as ridiculous as trying to sell an A/C to an Eskimo or should I say being a Vijay fan. TV bosses in the US have apologized after preview clips of Playboy channel were accidentally played on Children’s channels, I am sure those kids would have learned a lot of Biology J.


The MNS have struck yet again, the racist party led by Raj Thackeray announced that foreigners should not act in bollywood songs/movies, week after week the atrocities of these mules is increasing and someone needs to do something to stop them else  India will become like Afghanistan. I am seriously planning to become a writer like Chetan Bhagat but only downside is that I haven’t got any gist or inspiration to write. And I do find it extremely difficult to write diplomatically or use politically correct terms. As I mentioned earlier in one of my previous columns, I call a Spade a Spade and not a soil redistribution implement. Most people have a tough time facing negative criticism and I think one can never ever grow up if they can never take negative criticisms, so let’s not worry about those low life creatures. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, stay safe. I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 8

The week that was: (28/01/2010)

What a weekend it was, I hope you all had a great time at the talent night. I was wondering what talent I had, well if bird watching was included in Olympics then I could win gold medals for years to come. Mamata Banerjee announced her second budget for the welfare of Bengal. According to her, India has only one state and the line of control ends there; I can’t see any state other than Rasagulla state being benefited by this railway budget. Great news for the lads is that Cheryl Cole dumped her husband Ashley Cole for cheating on her. He is an idiot of first order for eating in roadside shops when he had five star foods available at home.

Inter Milan thrashed Chelsea 2-1 at San Siro and I expect Mourinho’s men to repeat the same in Stamford Bridge and send the Londoners out of the champions league. Everyone was going gaga about Sachin scoring 200, but my mate reckons passing in a Surprise quiz in which you have no clue is a much bigger feat than this. India is finally following the trends of the global manufacturing giants, not by being excellent but by being as pathetic as Honda and Toyota. Maruthi has just embarrassed itself by announcing a recall of its A-Star; it’s not A Star anymore. What is wrong with these car manufacturers? I think some clown must have gone to sleep in the production line and creating an absolute havoc.

Vijay has got the rights for 3idiots movie remake, I don’t know what role he is going to play in the movie, maybe he should try getting the copy rights for “101 Dalmations”, the movie would be a super hit. The finance minister has announced his annual budget hiking the prices of Petrol, Cigarettes, TVs and cars. While loads of people call it as a sensitive and a well balanced budget, I tend to disagree with him on giving concessions for toys. Why should the rich guys who buy expensive toys for their kid$ should be given a concession whilst the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet. You don’t find lower middle class people walking up and down the supermarket aisle to buy toys for their tweens. If I was the FM, I would have taxed the toys a premium of 25% and on set top boxes, I know the FM has an affinity for reality TV shows and seeing bollywood beauties on high quality digital TV but that doesn’t mean he should give concessions for those who buy set top boxes. I am no financial expert but I do think that you should tax only those who can pay instead of ripping off from the guy who smokes Malabar beedi, trust me I am a non smoker but I still find it unfair to tax the guys who will have a miserable death anyways.

The clowns from the opposition parties walked out when the price rise on petrol was announced. Anyone with a bit of common sense would realize that the petrol in India is highly subsidized and we are losing millions, it’s high time that the rate of petrol is raised to a reasonable level. I know it will hit everyone hard, including me and the inflation will go up…etc but we have to come to terms in facing reality. Whilst everyone else talks about how India has developed, anyone who has stepped out of the Indian border will realize that India is still like the west in 1970’s. We have a long way to go in terms of infrastructure, health care…etc. So even if the opposition disagreed with what he said, they should have given constructive criticism instead of walking out. My mate wonders whether he will be allowed to walk out when he disagrees whilst a lecture is being delivered; I wasn’t surprised when he asked me this as he is the son of a politician.

The Dada and Didi have announced the financial and railway budgets respectively for the welfare of Republic of West Bengal and we might as well focus on other things because no one would give a damn about your opinion or my opinion. Do read about it as it might help during job interviews apart from that there is no benefit, nothing whatsoever. The times of India came up with an interesting research saying that Curvy women are cleverer than their apple shaped counterparts and they also give birth to intelligent kids, so start you’re your exercise routine ladies, I am not making this up I just quoted the exact lines I read. I was absolutely furious when I read that our government has spent around Rs. 5.5crores till now just for the cell in which Ajmal Kasab was locked up and this doesn’t include the legal fees, security costs…etc. It would have been better if they just shot him as he has not coughed up any vital info yet and is making a mockery of the Indian judicial system.

Writing Week that was normally takes less than 30 minutes for me as I write whatever that comes into my mind, but this edition was the longest I took, it took me more than 3hours to write 5lines. I think I am suffering from a brain drain and it is a daunting task to meet the expectations of the highly demanding readers, so I apologise in advance if the standard of my articles are coming down. By the way, to celebrate the overall shield that we won in Sri Venkateshwara institutions me and my mates are planning to organize a booze party in which all guests will be served pints of Ho***l cooked sambar so that we all could get drunk and wasted, everyone is invited for the Sambar party. Till then, I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 7

and this how I apologised :) :)

The Week That Was: (21/01/2010)

Hi everyone, it is awesome to meet you all once again after a year. The most talked up subject in the campus apart from Surya's visit are the results, congrats to those who have got excellent marks. And to those of you, who have slipped up, don't worry, as my mate always says learning is inversely proportional to your earnings, failing couple of papers isn't the end of the world. He goes onto say that “Kotler has earned millions teaching Marketing all over the world despite studying Economics till Ph.d”, I won't add anything to what my mate says because he has created so much controversy about his understanding of Debenture expressed in my previous column.

Most people tend to get disappointed after reading my column saying that there is no useful information in the column, well expecting useful info from me is like going to a vegetarian hotel and ordering Chicken biriyani.

I am so glad that college has finally re-opened; I was so damn bored at home doing nothing, all I did was to have 7 meals a day and sleep for 16hours. I started getting restless after the second day that I didn't know what-to-do to kill time; I remembered people always saying that “You should read a lot of books and newspapers whilst doing MBA”. So, I searched all over my house to find some books to read, all I got was 4 copies of Aval Vigadan. I can now proudly say that now I know how to cook Pachai-payaru-satham, thayir vadai, how to raise kids and loads of things that can't be published. I even thought about lending my support and protesting for Telangana but because I was lazy I watched movies instead, to kill time.

I watched almost all movies on my laptop, if you give me a choice of smashing my head with a brick and shooting myself or watching Vettaikaran for the second time, I will choose the former. But if you give me another option of watching cricket or Vettaikaran, I would rather watch Vettaikaran thank you. For some reason I can't stand that game, it was a game which the shepherds used to play to kill time in England while their cows were grazing the field for hours together. Now that the cows are reared in little farms to save time and increase productivity, the shepherds don't play cricket anymore and that is the reason why Cricketers in England earn less than a banker. Now only the retired people follow that game, if you don't believe me check out the next televised game in Lord's.

Life is very different before and after joining MBA, you learn a lot of new things and you are treated as managers instead of students inside classrooms; it is nice to be honest. If you asked me who an Angel Investor was this time last year I would have said “Angel investor is any investor who looks as gorgeous as Angelina Jolie or Tamanna”. But now I know that, that is not the case. Loads of interesting things happened in the past like the N.D.Tiwari scandal, judgement on Ruchika's case…etc, but I would like to keep this column professional by not offering any opinions. The Taliban attack on the Afghan capital just goes onto show that terrorism can't be eradicated by brutal force or power unless the people themselves change or give up. Indian Hockey players were asked to play for peanuts, it is rumored that their actual pay is 1cup of Tea and 2 Hide and Seek biscuits per month, all they are asking for is bit extra money so that they could buy detergents to wash their socks.

I am extremely disappointed to be born in TN were ministers are more interested in not getting their shirts dirty than saving the life of a dying cop, Mr. Vetrivel, just to honour those ministers I am renaming swine flu as 'Politicians Flu' from now onwards. There is a huge media outrage on Pakistani players not being selected for IPL and I for one think that Pakistan should be ignored in everything until their government stops their support for extremist groups. Politicians are more of a threat to our nation than AIDS/Swine Flu, they don't help dying cops, call each other bad names like Deve Gowda, not open their mouth for any question asked in the parliament (Alagiri), whenever these clowns' names are mentioned I feel like puking (FYI: No, I didn't have hostel food).  The Politicians tend to talk as if someone was pushing Harpic up their nostrils with an electric toothbrush, it sounds so artificial and retarded.

I would like to sign off by reminding you of the most important news of last year, i.e. the crowning of Miss. Kaiane Aldorino as Miss World 2009 (hehe ). I know there is a similar attempt to find Miss PSGIM in the Pongal celebrations! All the above mentioned comments are intended not to offend anyone except the fans of Cricket and Vijay, so chillax guys. I will see you when I see you.

The Week That Was-Edition 6

This column created a lot of controversy and the entire finance department was darn pissed. They asked me to write an apology in the next column but I didn’t J

The Week that was: (18/11/2009)

I was told to finish this column within 600 words, so I will get straight to the point. Last week everyone was busy choosing their streams and almost everyone including the watchman wanted to take Finance. If I was the HR guy from an MNC and if I see a guy with arrears in Management Accounting sitting in front of me for an interview with MBA in Finance, I would burst out rolling on the floor laughing. Finance offers exciting job opportunities and handsome paychecks but that doesn’t mean that it is the right field for everyone, I can say this as I have worked for a bank for more than 3years. My mate also chose Finance as his stream and he still thinks that Debenture is a guy who passed out of IM in 2005.

And is anyone else sick and tired of The Hindu’s overuse of superlatives when describing about Indian cricket team? When India won the match by 3runs after scoring 414, they were using terms like splendid and spectacular to describe the bowling of Zaheer and Nehra. In all honesty the Indian bowling was pants, I was embarrassed to see it on the screen and when I read terms like majestic and dash of bravado to describe the fielding of our guys I nearly puked on the paper. Seriously, I could never imagine any guy worth his salt would have written such a post match report after seeing the match on tele unless he is an illicit lover of some player in the team.

It was revealed last week that David Headley the Pakistani origin, American terrorist (surprise surprise) used to work as an undercover CIA agent and also worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration before turning into a fulltime terrorist after he got placed in the Lashkar-e-Taiba with added perks of paid holidays and family health insurance. It was learned that he learnt all his terrorist skills from the American government itself just like his predecessor Osama Bin Laden. While working for the DEA he made frequent visits to Pakistan and he found interesting information’s like 70% of all Pakistanis are terrorists and the remaining 30% have just been shot.

PMK party leader Ramadoss wants the by-election to be cancelled as he thinks that people are given cash for votes. I would say that it’s just soar grapes, everyone including the guys in Election Commission knows that the ruling party gives everyone money of around 500-1000 bucks for every vote so that the poor people could use it for variety of purposes like buying rice to paying fines. During the last election I was the first to queue up in the voting booth and I registered it for 49 ‘O’. My advice is whilst voting, Vote sensibly.

I can’t resist talking without mentioning about it at least once in my column so here it goes, If the place where I am forced to eat everyday against my will, brings out a menu card it will have something like this “Chicken torn into pieces”, “rather burnt rice served along with an exotic Cat’s Poo”, “Pappadam which you need to tear than break and curd which tastes worse than Toddy”. The 2^nd trimester is within touching distance fellas, start preparing for it as CGP plays a vital role while sitting for placements and guys like me who have flopped in the 1^st trimester need to start studying instead of wasting time.

I guess my word count is over, I will see when I see you.

                                                                         Danke

The Week That Was-Edition 5

The week that was:  (10/11/2009)

I know many of you were expecting my column last week but we had more interesting things to narrate which happened in the campus than me cribbing about something. The reason for my column missing out was due to space constraints and few were moaning that the editors were biased in giving me regular space in the newsletter, so they thought of giving me a week off. But most students did really miss The Week That Was and in order to avoid their disappointment, I am back. The positive comments that I receive from my fellow students were the only thing that brought me out of my misery, i.e. the results of 1^st trimester.

I got the 2^nd highest internal marks in my class but failed in the externals on one particular paper, it is like running in a 100m dash and leading the race for 96metres like Usian Bolt and tripping and falling on the ground just before reaching the finishing line. I was so depressed that I was binge eating on the noodles with onion chutney to kill myself but then I realized it is better to re-do the course than eating the hostel food, so I gave up.

The Sun newspaper reported that Women slap 515 chemicals on their face and body every day - and many could be harmful. It seems that beauty-conscious girls ( or should I say ugly looking ones) use up to 13 products per day, most containing more than 20 ingredients, Lipstick contains 33 elements, body lotion 32, mascara 29, and supposedly the purest product, hand moisturizer, 11,  that study shows. I know a few in IM who use more than 20 products before coming to college and they look like Cruella de Vil (the lady villain) from 101Dalmations. These chemicals are not only carcinogenic in nature but also make you look weird, I for one will vote for those who go with the natural look.

The Liberhan commission’s findings on Babri Masjid was as shocking as reading a news revealing ‘the pope prays several times a day’, they should start taking action on the culprits than writing 1000s of pages about some utterly useless findings. Another important thing that happened last week was, I got a call from the girl whom I had a crush on since school days. After 7 years, I thought that she finally realized what a great chap Ifthi is and she was calling me. The thing is I never spoke with her whilst at school, how wrong I was, she called me to say that she is getting married next month and wants me to be present at her wedding. Poor girl didn’t know that I had a crush on her, once I actually got a bit of courage to say about my crush to her in person, but the worse thing I did was to ask for my friend’s advice.  That idiot asked me to say it with a box of chocolates. I took it and I bought a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and on my way I was wondering what is more important to me, I was in a dilemma. I had a really tough choice to make; after walking for 10minutes I ate all the Ferrero Rocher and returned half wayJ.

Every international newspaper was going gaga about the collapse of Dubai share market, now what I don’t understand is why do people  still believe in making money of shares?. Investing money in shares and expecting that someone else will work hard to bring the company into a good position so share prices can go up is like asking your friend to eat when you are feeling hungry. I have a better business plan than share market, me and my mates are offering real estate for sale in Mars, so when the  world is destroyed at 2012, you can build your home there. All legal documents will be given and if you are good at convincing others you can sell these papers at a higher value to others. If you earn a profit you can keep all the cash and if you make a loss you can keep the papers, exactly like the share markets. But this has less risk than share market because your land prices won’t crash when some guy in America sneezes.

The most bleeding obvious news of the week was the top US commander in Afghanistan has said al-Qaeda will not be defeated unless its leader, Osama Bin Laden, is captured or killed. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out, does it? The greedy board of directors of Royal Bank of Scotland threatened to quit last week if the government intervenes in the bank paying $4bn in bonuses. It was the same RBS which was bailed out during the financial crisis and the government owns 70% of its shares. I am glad to inform that my former employers Barclays reported a profit of $9bn in the last 9months unlike RBS who reported a quarterly loss of $4bn. Some say that I crib too much but I say about things happening around me in my column as I see it, I can assure you that I won’t call a spade as a soil redistribution implement instead I just call it as a spade. Anyways I might get fever next week and my neighbor’s granddad might pass away too so I am writing this letter of leave well in advance (hehe, if it isn’t published its due to space constraints, so stage a protest in front of the editors or even throw stones at them). I hope you all have a great day, I will see you when I see you.