My Great Lakes GDPI experience

Well, I've been late in posting my Glakes GDPI experience. Here it is ...

Date- 15.02.2008

Venue- Andheri Recreation Club, Mumbai.

Time- 0800 hrs.

It was a relief kind of GDPI after the Machchi bazar IMT GDPI.

The GD started at sharp 0800 hrs.

GD:

10 participants , all present. The panel consisted of Capt. Yadav from Seaarland Shipping and another Unknown Sir. To assist them a current student was coordinating the GD formalities. The Student explained us the rules and told how the GD would progress.

Topic given - Aha !!! it was a case study...

The case was about employess of a software firm living in tier 2 city in TAmilnadu complaining that they were not getting equivalent remuneration and career growth as compared to their conterparts in Mumbai office of the same firm.

What should the firm do? Is the demand of employees in TN justifiable?

The initiator was a very smart fellow ( I think the name was Naidu). He gave us a very good start and the GD continued in smooth manner. I did a small goofup wherein I was pointed out by Panelists that I was not listening to my team members in GD. From that point I knew I had to crack it big time otherwise it was a lost game. I made it a point that now I would do the max talking . I noted down all the salient points being discussed and then tried to make an interim summary and quoted explicitly that " Sir I was intently listening to my friend X who talked about point Y and I think even Z's point Q was quite worthy for a thought." I wanted to make an impression that I am not a bad Listener. That helped me in breaking ice and I think my GD performance was good ( Atleast not bad) overall.

PI:

3 panelists,

p1- professor 1, this fellow was around 40-45 , slightly bald and seemed to very strict.

p2- prof 2 , an old and jolly kind of fellow...

L- only lady ( i think she was one of the current student, though not sure about this)

M- poor me!!!!

They read my profile for 5 minutes before calling me in .When I entered room, the jolly old guy stood up to greet me. That reminded me of Capt. Vaz in old MMD ( he did same thing in my 1st orals for 2nd Mate- He had failed me in all 3 functions). Well, coming back to the PI, I greeted everyone.

P2- So you are a merchant navy officer?

M- yes sir ...

P2- Ok , age old question for you.....Why did you join Merchant Navy?

M- I am fool , I am fool.....I was not ready for this. Ye question to Chanakya mein Placements mein poochhte the ( uth jaag musafir bhor bhayi...GMD)

Framed an answer on the spot and they seemed to be convinced.

P2- So now after 5 years in your shipping carrer you seem to be disillusioned with your Uniform...eh?

M- Well sir , that is a general perception. I have got a different opinion about my switchover to Corporate career and I would like to share the same with you sir .....

P2- please go ahead and enlighten us dear...

M- All blah blah of Why MBA.....( I left a cue for the next question...)

P2- hmm....nice reasons...What's your long term goal ?

M- Big funday, answered very energetically..... P2 stopped smiling ...L started smiling...

L- Well then how come an MBA help you in your Consultancy firm...You must leave shipping only after your Master'S License.

M- Gave nice reasoning....

L- Well in that case you won't need our placements ?

M- Ma'am I told that It's my long term goal and I would embark on to this only after some years in Corporate career.

L- Wat's your Dream Company?

M- I would love to work for a shipping company in a strategic profile handling operations and logistics of the firm .

L- Can you name anyone company ...

M- yes ma'am ...Maersk is there, P&O Nedlloyd, Stolt Tankers, Shell....

L- impressed by the answer ...smiling ....

P2- Ok you seem to be a weak person ......u r sensitive .....tell me an incident where your sensitivity was ....hmmm hurt ? ( ye kidhar se aayaa bhai ? this was surely to push me into the corner)

M- This was like deathknel....I was completeley lost ....what did he just say ? why did he ?ok .....the answer , I have to answer .....( i took atleast 20 seconds to start.....kasam se)

Blabbered an incident which i created impromptu...( here my throat went dry and my tongue literally started sticking.....shit!!!! I did not wan it to slip it out of my hand....I asked for a glass of water and they guided me to it )

P1 - Lets talk something about acads? ( this man made a late entry but was a real knowledgable and stern kind of person)

M- Sure sir...

P1- you seem to be a Maths Guy...Aryabhatta hmm....Maths Olympiad....? MAy I ask something from Maths?

M- Sir I would try my best to answer your questions.

P1- Wat is fav topic in Maths?

M- Sir , during my preparation for IIT JEE the fav topics used to Calculus, Graphs and Co-ordinate geometry. But since I have been away from it for a long time , i.e. around 8 years, you may find me uncomfortable with some typical questions in these areas.

P1- hmm....smart...!!!! chalo .....tell me something about Logarithms.....

M- mustered up whatever I cud ...

P1- Hmm....tell me something about someone who told total angle in a triangle is 180 deg.

M- Sir the name was Euclid, he was a Greek mathematician .....

P1- Ok, tell me something about a mathematician who died young in 20th century....

M- Sir, I would like to guess.....

P1 -go ahead

M- Srinivasa Ramanujam? ( I was confident but not100% sure)

P1- hmmm......ok ....What did he do for Maths ?

M- Sir He was in ......Cambridge.....and his guide's name was .........Prof. Hardy....And he did lots of contributions for maths ....he died at very young age because of ....tuberculosis....

P1- I asked you , what did he do for maths...?

M- Sorry sir , I don't have much idea of his academic accomplishemtns , just a general knowledge about him ...

( everyone was smiling .....)

L - I seee that this Mr. Vikas Pandey is all gaga about you in his recommendation letter , also the captain ....Sumanth ....right ......so what does mr . Vikas say to you .....after getting into IIM from shipping ?

M- Gave a beautiful answer .....

P1 - have u studied statistics in grads ?

M- no sir , it was during my school .....

P1 - ok what do you read in non - fiction .....( mind you ....i had written that i love Fiction novels)

M- Sir I like to read fiction novels , and i cover non fictional articles given in news and magazines .....

P1- you don't like Non- fiction ...?

M- sir I didn't say that , I said I read non-fictional articles given in Magazines , but never tried to read a whole book ....

P1 - who is your business idol?

M- Sir Dr. Narayan Murthy ( i had prepared it very well)

P1- what do you know about him ?

M- gave his full profile given in wikipedia....

P1- hmmm.......do you know the valuation of infosys when he shifted his base from pune to bangalore ?

M- sorry sir .....

P1, p2 and L together started lecturing and discussing about Mr. Infymurthy.....

L- ok tell me mr. narayan murthy embarked onto software growth , likewise what is going to be the field going to grow like software?

M- hmmm....Ma'am nanotechnology , .....

p1- what about ethanol?

M- sir I have read about it a lot while i went thru the global warming thing wherein it was said that ethanol is being used as alternative fuel and it will replace crude oil and hence its importnace in coming years ....

P1- ok i'm done ....( smiling ) you people want to ask any question ?

L- yes ....hmm....tell me the growth rate in logistics sector last year in india ....

M- Sorry maa'am , I don't know about this .....( jaaate jaate maar li meri )

L- that wud be all mr. Sinha....you may carry on ...

Thankyou Ma'am , thankyou sirs .....Have a good day ....

So that was all , the gd was ok and Pi was quite unpredictable kind of....

But I was lucky that I got through in main list of admits......Thanks to evryone who helped me.

Race : Movie Review

Hi there!!!

It's been quite a nice Friday for me. Woke up late, did some pending paperwork, posted the documents through our dear DTDC "express service" where they promised me that they will deliever my consignment within 3 days !!!

Thereafter I headed for this one movie which has got ubiquitous trailers running on every damn channel nowadays. You guessed it correctly buddy, Its "Race".

Finally It's here...

The name is properly chosen as this movie shows all kind of F1 inspired cars, music, babes, skin show et al.

By all odds, a delight for boys. The people who have loved directors Abbas-Mustan's earlier released movies like Ajnabee, Humraaz, Naquab, will surely like this movie.

Cast: Saif, Akhshaye Khanna, Katrina, Bips, Anil Kapoor, Sam Reddy, Dulip Tahil .....

Director: Core-2-duo directors- Abbas Mustan

Plot:

The movie is set in South Africaand is about a race of one-upmanship between two step brothers Saif( Ranbir ) and Akshaye (Rajiv). Bips is lady love in life of Saif who is incidentally an upcoming model. Kaif ( apni katrina ....aur kaun) is the PA of Saif ( he owns a stud farm and indulges in Betting on horses). Saif is shown to be a stud himself who loves adventure sports and is a cool shrewd person. There's an initial narration by Anil kapoor's voice for viwers since they(the actors as well as the darshak junta) are about to go for a hell of a racy story ahead. The plot unfolds into frequent flashbacks and accidents. Akshaye along with Bips as accomplice plans an accident and subsequent death for elder bro Saif which would ensure a huge insurance claim of 100 million $ to him. Just before the interval you even see Saif dying after a steep fall from a high building, and apna Anil bhaiya (investigating inspector) coming in with his irritatingly naive assistant Sameera Reddy to investigate the so called "murder/accidental death" of Saif Bhai. After the intermission Kaif who was till now in background, comes forward and claims that she was married to Saif a day before his death and thus the insurance money belongs to her. Then another shock, then another , then another ......the shock saga goes on till the movie ends.

I am now quite familiar with mindset of this director duo Abbas Mustan. When Saif died , I was sure he will come back ( don't you remember Bips coming back in Ajnabee). This director duo doesn't believe in killing the main character of movie before the climax. Like all Abbas Mustan thrillers, this movie also shows two men striving to outperform each other.

Strengths- Saif, Akshaye, South Africa, Sports Cars, Stunts, Atif's song, thrills

One of the best performances by Saif and Akshaye Khanna. Saif has looked gr8 in his stubble.

The locations used for shooting the film are quite nice. The cars you see are Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche e.t.c. Wow!!!!!

Stunts are awesome especially the one in which Saif drops from air into a speeding car and then stops it at the edge of cliff. Atif's Song -"O jaanejaan , dono jahan meri baahon mein aa...." is melodious and I am still humming it. And finally the strength of AbbasMustan duo is the thrill they pump into the plot and once again they have been successful in it.

Weaknesses: Sameera Reddy, Anil Kapoor, too much of skin show, some hiccups in plot, too many twists and turns.

Sameera Reddy is the unwanted sore who shows immature acting skills and wears quite plunging neckline "poshaak"in vain hope to revive her lost dream of bollywood stardom. Anil Kapoor's role is not so well prepared. He uses hackneyed dialougues and stale expressions. If someone asked me what is the colour of movie, I would say Skin Colour. Like most men, I do enjoy watching female body, but an overdose of it is surely no-no. The movie has so many twists and turns that even a roller coaster ride in Japan would fall short in giving you the kind of thrill as well as pain. Yes Buddy!!! A 10 minute ride is ok but 2.5 hours roller coaster ride leaves you devastated.

Finally ratings...

The movie would prove to be a box office success as it is the right time to release with holidays and festivals around the corner.

A sure delight for youngsters , especially boys.

I would give points out of 5 stars.

Story- 3.5

Acting- 3

Direction- 4

Songs-3.5

Overall Movie- 3.5 /5 stars

As always, Thanks for jheling me .....Please, do comment on my review.

My experience in IMT GDPI

I felt I should share my GDPI experience of IMT in my blog.

So here is the blow by blow description of what happened that day . Hope it helps someone appearing for GDPI for IMT Gzb.

I reached centre 1 hour before the schedule so that I cud get a feel of what all things were going on in GD. It was quite helpful since I learnt that nearly all the GD's were chaos (fish market basically). My schedule was exactly at 1230 hours and the process started by around 1430 hrs( poor show !!!).

1st , the GD:

16 participants ( a definite recipe for fish market)

3 observers from Insti.

Only one girl in group and 3 guys in suit including yours truly.

One of the moderator/observer ( later I learnt he was a Professor of IMT nagpur) took the charge of the GD and briefed us about the rules .- 1 topic to be chosen out of two by draw, thereafter 2 minutes to think , 8 minutes to discuss , 1 minute for everyone to summarise , and later 3 mintues to write a summary. In all around 30 mintues for one batch.

The lady was asked to pick up the destined chit of topic . Lady luck shone and we got a very nice topic of " We should not believe in the lines of our palm because even people without hands have got future".

I jotted down my points. The GD started , 3 seconds and somone interrupted the initiator. The war had started. Within next 1 minute the discussion turned into a GF ( group fight). Thankfully I enetered 3-4 times by raising my voice just above the chaos and luckily got heard by the group.

I gave examples of Napolean Bonaparte and Lance Armstrong. The biggest mistake I did was that I cudn't summarise properly in writing. Chalta hai.

Over all , one of the best GD's conducted that day. I was kind of satisfied with my performance.

2nd , the PI:

3 panelists ( same as that in GD)

P1- Professor 1, Seemed to be the most intelligent guy. I could never hear his voice, was surely a "machher jhol saunge bhaat"( he was just observing me and just used to shake or nod his head)

P2- Professor 2 , who took charge in GD ( elderly , bearded guy)

L- Lady in Army ( calm and supportive kind of lady , seemed to be an ace in communications)

M- poor me !!!

So here is the conversation which followed in that room for next 15- 20 minutes.

L- So you are from shipping ?hmm...... nice career !!!Tell us about yourself.

M- told with gr8 enthusiasm....got cut short

P2- So why MBA ?

M- answered with few hiccups...

P2- why not something in chartering or shipping only ?

M- answered with zeal....

P2-you seem to be hiding something

M- I don't know of something which I am trying to hide.

L- No we feel that you are leaving shipping because you wanna shift to shore job...

M- ( gr8 job detectives ...go fish) tackled in very beautiful manner , and here my bangla friend Mr P1 started nodding heavily and seemed to be totally convinced.

P2- OK ...nothing related to your family life ? something like you wanted to give more time to your family ?

M- In this question I just decimated all their hopes of stressing me ...Nice answer...lady seemed to be too impressed.

P2- tell me what all things you have studied in grads

M- told him all the shippy funda

P2- can you tell me what kind of engines are fitted in Mumbai local trains ?

M- ( irada kya hai bhai ? maar lo , mauka hai dastur bhi hai ...maaro maaro, kuchh nahi bolenge )

I acted as if I know the answer and did the the mistake of answering ( I should have said" sorry no idea dude").

P2 - do you really know anyhting about marine engines ?

M- ( nahi re baba) No sir , I was on deck side , It's more of a management kind of profile rather than technical. The technical part is looked upon by Marine Engineers.

P2 - then what's the use of clearing IIT JEE?

M- ( go and ask the people who designed this system) Answered with poise and they acknowledged it .

P2- so what specialstn r you going to take up in MBA?

M- Finance sir ( did big mistake , here comes the bazooka !!!)

P2 - what r your long term goals you said ?

M- Told

P2- Then how will finance help you in doing it ?

M- treied to frame an answer on the spot ...they guessed it

P2- ( now turning into total devil) you seem to be confused about your goals Mr Sinha ,

Asked me some rapid fire technical terms from Shipping Commerce......... , do you know about these things? these things are not taught in Finance dear .

M- I was on backfoot now , but still tried to hit a six like Dhoni on backfoot.

Explained him how finance wud help me in realising my long term goal ( here they started shaking their head)

P2- An MBA in operations wud suit your profile Mr. Sinha

M- I was totally confused by now ( if i eat my words , i stand out as laggard and confused , If i insist , I get a label of bullheaded)

I just smiled ( sab gud gobar)

P2- Well I'm done with.....do you people have any question ?

No No

Ok Mr Sinha , Do you have any question ?

M- Asked .

P2- answered.

Well that wud be all. Thankyou Mr . sinha

Thankyou sirs, thankyou ma'am.

Would you like me to send the next guy in ?

Yes please , that wud be gr8...

Sure sir...

The lion walked out of Jackals' den.

(edited on 3rd April,08)- Ok guys, I converted it !!!! (PGDM-Finance)

The results are out and I am selected but Great Lakes is more promising and only one year ( opportunity cost blah blah....) thus not very keen to join IMT Gzb.

Thanks again for jheling me ...

I would post my experience of Great Lakes GDPI also . That was complete delight...

Till then, Ciao...

P.S. I love You: Movie Review

Well, sometimes there's only one thing left to say...
This is the tagline of the new hollywood release which I saw 3 days ago in my favourite theatre.
The movie name itself was catchy enough to attract me to ticket window. Here I would like to give a review of this movie which is actually based on a novel written by Cecilia Ahern.
Plot-
The movie starts with a couple i.e. Gerry and Holly fighting over common marital issues of kids and larger apartment. They make up quickly and the movie starts with the casting. Next you see that Gerry is dead due to a brain tumor and this has left Holly devastated. The movie then shifts onto a novel kind of plot where Holly gets letters from dead Gerry .(these letters were written by Gerry himself when he was alive )
These letters assign 'tasks ' to Holy which actually help her to ease her journey of life after Gerry's loss and transition into a much sedate phase of life as a shoe designer. The movie is filled with intermittent surprises and shocks. The background score is too good and locations chosen for shooting ( especially the one in Ireland) are awesome. Special attraction is the irish accent of Gerry and the innocence of Holly's love. Hillary Swank ( Boys don't cry , Million Dollar Baby) has done great work and shown her mettle in handling the role of a widow. Lisa Kudrov ( FRIENDS fame) is as silly as always and makes the audience break into frequent giggles. The movie is too good for couples and an eye opener for folks who tend to fight too often.
Overall , a fresh feel movie recommended for couples.

Cast:
Hilary Swank as Holly Reilly Kennedy
Gerard Butler as Gerry Kennedy
Lisa Kudrow as Denise Hennessey
Gina Gershon as Sharon McCarthy

Rating- 3.5 stars/5

Do watch the movie and comment on my review.
Thankyou for jheling me...

In Retrospect...

Hi there,

I know that I have been away for long long time. As I was going through blog , I realised that I have been very irregular in writing posts. Thats not what I had planned when I started this blog. Afterall this blog is my online diary of my journey. The journey to eternity... and I should have kept it filled with my day to day experiences. But sadly , I was not upto the mark.
Dear Blog , I will try to keep up from now.
Well , when I look back I realise I have almost taken my leap, the leap of faith.
It indeed wasn't a blind leap. You can never be sure of a blind leap; you must have some calculations and backup in place.
It was quite a calculated risk and It seems to be paying now.
The first post was when I was going to attend my 1st class at IMS vashi .
It was a maths introduction class.
And here I am today , cracked CAT not so big time but decently enough to get calls from MDI , IMT and Glakes. Converted the call from Great Lakes and currently doing all those loan formalities in order to buy time for cracking MDI pgpm.

I know wherever I go, I'll be happy.
Lets see whats in store for me ...
La Vita e Bella...