hostage

We get hijacked every weekend. Its the same story...every time...it usually happens as we're washing down the remains of a wholesome breakfast...well ok...brunch. Begins sedately enough...with a phone call. Then just as we get into the car, it happens...he comes out of nowhere, mumbling in a strange dialect...into the earpiece dangling from his ear. Not a pause in his ongoing conversation, as he makes his demands with a quickly barked order directing us along one of the several roundabouts in the area. We travel in silence for a few minutes, barring his hushed tones, as we approach one of his several hideouts. He signals us to stop the car. His accomplice joins him and we're quickly bundled into steel cages not unlike metal coffins but a lot like elevators. A quick rundown of the layout follows, summary of the view thats a combination of the hills and roads swathed in an industrial haze. This routine repeats itself for about 4 - 5 hours during which time the octogenarian population of the locality would start to wonder if they were seeing the same black swift over and over again and they would be right. Looking for apartments in the city...what a pain!

To top that, this weekend saw a city-wide power outage just as we had escaped with our lives, dusty and tired...hoping to find refuge in the climate-controlled confines if one of the myriad halls showing 'em moving pictures. With all operations at a stand-still, our search led us deeper into the suburbs...only to find darkened hulks of concrete structures watching over ribbons of light streaming from hundreds of headlights. Our perseverance paid off as our last hope blazed in the distance. Sure, all available self-generated power was being redirected from the air-conditioning to the lights but it was better than nothing. A leisurely supper spent considering our options apart from one of the few buildings with power in the city when the escalators resume their humming and we settle into watching that piece of cinematic brilliance 'The Ghost-Rider'. Sean Penn had mentioned it when Con-Air was released, but Nicolas Cage's descent into truly main-stream pulp is well and truly certified by this one. The surest sign though that the evening was looking up came just then...and how! Coz, after all..."The greatest battle lies within"...Spiderman 3...4th May '07

placements 2007

The 3rd week of february has got to be without doubt that time of the year when the ISB is at its worst. Stress, insecurity and self-doubt hit record highs and there is a nervous tension in the air that would need nothing less than a chainsaw to cut through. Slight deficiencies in EQ all but completely overwhelm way-above-average IQs into having otherwise level-headed individuals fervently hunting for shortlists, even for jobs that they couldn't care less about. Sanity takes a sabbatical as the evil twins (not the ones in the Coors commercials)...brand and CTC wreak havoc on peoples equilibriums as the desperation to find that role that can be appropriately flaunted (to ex-colleagues and friends) for fear of being asked the question...about why the expected quantum leap on both fronts ended up seemingly as a stuttering step?

Was there for placements and needless to say, being on the other side of the panel was a revelation...to see one after the other individual...sporting impressive CVs...but for those few minutes, concerned about making an impression and trying just that bit too hard. Been there, done all of that, got the t-shirt and yesterday, got the helicopter view as well. Finally made 5 offers, which is substantial for a firm this size. More importantly, hoped to have atleast conveyed that none of those designation/company combinations were the 'be and end-all' and that things were only getting started for each individual of the batch of 2007

And even with the high level of stress and the higher pulse-rates of all the impeccably dressed individuals out there, the ISB environment, even at its theoretical worst... what an environment to be in!

question

Saw a search result leading to my post that said "worry-list" posted on Jan 01 2006. funny topic for the first post of the year i thought but then my posts have seldom made sense, even to me.

flashforward a year, give a month and.... pre-placement jitters and feeble placement prep long done, offers evaluated, agonized over, almost rejected then accepted, a blur that was the final term, lots of bleary-eyed nostalgia over what was going to be missed. the decision to switch tracks, lots of second-guessing. finding what you've not been looking for but have seeked in the most unexpected manner. suddenly two-month planning horizons don't cut it...or don't they? lot of questions about the kind of job that i can sink my teeth into still remain unanswered...but maybe simplified to an extent...am thinking its going to be an ongoing process...like the reduction of something radioactive...no, not in that unnecessarily explosive way like in WWI

catching up with batchmates and even total strangers is a revelation..into my my own thought process...the moment where you swap visiting cards and they look at yours and look up with a puzzled expression. theirs bears a logo that needs no introduction, has as many in their HR dept (annexe) for their western region operations as there are people in your organisation. you know the name on your visiting card is not going to be jockeying for a slot on Day 0 come placement week. neither is that reverence going to make itself apparent in the junior's voices when you tell them what you've done with yourself since graduating.

so, does it matter? and if it doesn't, why would it occupy an entire train of thought? funny. on closer inspection, you're now in a firm that traditionally never hired from the top-tier schools in the country. part of their 'low-cost management consulting model'. 7 months and another ISB-ian later, they've signed up to hire from ISB, for the first time. the opportunity to have a telling impact on an organisation and its workings awaits. not cut-and-dried by any means...but the opportunity is there.

the sixty-four million dollar question is, how strong will that urge to send out email from a domain thats known in all inhabited continents be? answers awaited...