Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Let me at the onset clarify i have never uttered the word.Never.Ever.Seriously never!!

Ok whom am i kidding. But it was way back in 8th grade.Yeah i still remember it becauuse it was the only time i uttered it.It was more of a reflex.So it doesnt count.

During the Iraq invasion "whiskey tango foxtrot" was a commonly heard phrase over the radio. It was the American soldier's code for "what the f@#k?"

Lately i have been quite fascinated by the word "f@#k". No other word in the English literature can convey so many emotions and be used in so many forms.

It can used as

1.Noun- what a f@#k?

2.Adjective-what a f@#king car?

3.Verb- Active: A f@#ks B.
Passive: B is f@#ked by A.
Transitive: Its good to f@#k!

4.Gerund- F@#king is a good exercise.

It can also convey a lot of emotions:

Aggression: F@#k you!

Curiosity: what the f@#k is this?

Fooled/Conned: He got f@#ked.

Violence: i will kill you with a f@#king hammer!!

Trouble: We are f@#ked up.

Shock:What the f@#k!!

Get lost:f@#k off!!

Greetings:How the f@#k are you?

Bad day: what a f@#king day!

Face the music: We are in for a good f@#king.

To mess with someone:Don't f@#k with him!!

Request:Get the f@#k out of here.

Apathy: Who gives a F@#k!

I will keep updating the list. You are free to make a contribution.

Simplicity And Humility: Signs Of Perfection

I had read this article while waiting for the 2nd round of interview at SP Jain.At that time i found this article so enlightening that i still remember it today and i thought to share it with you.

Here are two excerpts from the article which i found very enlightening as i could relate to it myself.

..to explain something in a simple way is not easy. It requires thorough understanding of the subject..

....We make ourselves complicated by splitting our personality. Inwardly we are something but outwardly we are different because we mistakenly feel that our outwardly pattern of behaviour should be different under different circumstances.....

How true!! Think of all the vivas and personal interviews.Think of all the grilling we endured and the utter bullshit we uttered. It was either because we didnt know the subject so well or we were trying to be someone else just to impress the panelists.

I hope you do not just read the article but contemplate on it.

Simplicity And Humility: Signs Of Perfection

R K Langar

Where there is greatness, you are bound to find simplicity. Simplicity is a characteristic of greatness. It is the perfect alignment of one’s thoughts, words and deeds.
Great truths are simple but we make them difficult. When you are simple your outer and inner lives coincide. When you are simple, there is no trace of crookedness. We make ourselves complicated by splitting our personality. Inwardly we are something but outwardly we are different because we mistakenly feel that our outwardly pattern of behaviour should be different under different circumstances.
We present ourselves as what we are really not. Such a person may or may not fool others but he is certainly fooling himself. He equates simplicity with being unimpressive and backward. He feels that a simple person cannot be successful in life. But simple persons have done great things in life. They are not only successful but are also perfect in all aspects of life.
A simple person sees things as they are and presents them without adding to or subtracting from them. So there is no scope for untruth. Their conscience is clear, free of any ambiguity. They create plenty of space in their mind to allow noble thoughts to enter. Simple people earn through fair means and are at ease with themselves and with others.
A materialistic man presents truth in a complicated way. He may distort facts to impress others. He is used to making mountains out of mole hills. If you present things in a complicated manner, it covers up your lack of knowledge of the subject. But to explain something in a simple way is not easy. It requires thorough understanding of the subject. It requires talent. The more knowledge a person has of a subject, the more he would be inclined to put it across in a simple way.
When something is presented in a simple manner, it is well received and understood. The same goes for simple writing. There are writers who show their scholarship in their writings, even if what they write is not accessible (comprehensible) to the vast majority of readers.
Simplicity means doing what is necessary and remaining balanced. It means your life is an open book. Simple living means living in moderation. The thought process evolves corresponding to simple living and high thinking. Simplicity comes by living a regulated and organised life. Simplicity can be applied in all spheres of life, dress, food, talk, behaviour and in our interaction with others. For being simple one has to be oneself. A simple person leads a stress-free life since he is pure and truthful. Sri Aurobindo says that to express harmony, of all things simplicity is the best.
Simplicity is a prerequisite for spiritual advancement for it is those who are child-like who get divine illumination. There was one common factor in the lives of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Maharshi Ramana and Mahatma Gandhi: Every one of them led a simple life. Whatever they wanted to convey was free from any kind of multiplicity. They were men of character with deep concern for the welfare and well-being of others. Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated how simple living generates high thinking. Simplicity is also one of the divine qualities as enumerated in the Bhagavad Gita.

Bhaiyya to the rescue..

Last Sunday i happened to be at Kandivali station on my to Thakur polythenic college,thakur complex(which is different from thakur village). I reached station by 1 pm half an hour before the reporting time.
However i soon found out that reaching thakur college wasn't going to be so easy. All the autorickshaws(f^*$@ing ppl) simply refused to go to thakur college. I despearetly tried to convince them but to no avail.
Soon it became 1.20 and the place outside the station got swarmed by students all desparetly trying to get an auto. Finally i decided to walk all the way to highway hoping to catch an auto. But alas my pleadings fell on deaf ears.
It was 1.30 and i still hadnt found the auto. That plus no one knew for sure whether thakur complex and thakur village were the same place or different!!
I thought God was testing me. I thought may be i wasnt meant to appear for CET.
Fortunately i dont know how but out of nowhere came this knight in shining armour or should i say a bhaiyya in khaki. I asked him"Bhaiyya thakur complex chaloge?? Exam ke liye ho raha hoon" and with the gentle flick of his neck he said"Chalo baytoh". Thank God. A bhaiyya helping a marathi manoos.
At that moment i didnt think it this way.Neither did he. He could have easily said NO. But he didn't. In retrospect all that talk by Raj Thackarey seems utter nonsense.
I can tell you one thing for sure. Mumbai's social fabric will always remain intact. Nothing or nobody can undermine the important contributions that migrants have made to this city.
God bless the bhaiyya!!

P.S: CET was fine.

hE HEE

WHO'S IN CHARGE?

Visit the following site and it's pretty amazing as to how accurately we can guess who is the band leader just by seeing the publicity photo. Some weird science maybe....

http://wichone.blogspot.com/

My SP JAIN INTERVIEW....

Interviewer: So tell me what are derivatives?
Me:Sir i have no idea...
Interviewer Ok tell me what are futures?
Me: sir i have applied for marketing not finance....
Interviewer so you think you know about marketing
Me: Yes sir
Interviewer:Which FMCG manufactures Axe deo?
Me:i think its HUL.
Interviewer:u think?
Me:im not so sure
Interviewer: ok what are the 4Ps?
Me: they are price position promotion and...and... i cant remember what is the 4th.
Interviewer: ok thank you. nice meeting you.

Luckily this was just a dream. A dream which thankfully never came true. After what i heard from my friends and senoirs i was sure im in for a stress interview. but things turned out to be quite different.

I coulnt sleep properly that day. Questions kept popping inside my head even while dreaming. But that morning i wasnt a bit tensed. Maybe it had to do with the cold weather. Or maybe it had to do with my new Lee cooper shoes.maybe....

I was dressd, what should i say, a bit unconventionally. Half sleeve white shirt,quadras and no tie(yes no tie!). one thing i learnt at college interviews that one's formal attire doesnt make any difference(you may disagree). My friend Ketan's innocuous query "tu udhar ja ke change karega?" made me realise that i may have dressed a bit too casually. hell with it.i dont give a tiny rat's ass.

After reaching SP Jain we had to verify our documents and soon the batch for the 1st interview was announced. Ketan and i were in the same group along with 4 other candidates. The 1st interview had 2 panelists-Renuka kamath(marketing) and one more lady prof(i guess from systems). They were quite friendly,always smiling but always evaluating. We were asked to introduce ourselves. i gave 3 liner intro short and simple. others narrated their whole life story.

Coincidently the other prof turned out to be from vjti and she quickly turned her attention towards us. for the next 5 mins the conversation revolved around vjti. finally renuka kamath boke our conversation and went to the 1st guy.the questions were mostly factual. He made only one blunder. when asked which company he loved to work with , he said ITC(big mistake..poor guy he paid for it , he was the only who didnt get selected). and with the ever smiling face the panelist (here comes the knocker) asked him "if itc doesnt come to sp jain then what will you do?" . His answer was rather unconvincing.

15 mins into the interview everyone was asked something or the other one candidate was also asked to play the the tabla. but not a single question was directed towards me. finally the panelist asked "Has anyone read 'the world is flat'? can anyone tell me who is the author" i was the only one who knew the answer. Finally all that reading came to my rescue. Mr thomas friedman thank you very much. and i spoke abt the book for the next 2 mins unaware that i was swinging side to side in the revolving chair. she looked impressed. and i was content.

After the 1st interview we took a behaviour test and within an hour we had our 2nd interview. This too turned out to be an easy going one. tell told said us to introduce ourselves tell us something which is not given in your CV and the guys did the exact opposite. During the intos another candiddate and i mentione the word "creative" (hot topic for interviews), so he asked each one what do they think "creativity" is and can it be learnt. After that they asked to give a creative solution for reducing India's poverty. while the 1st candidate was having a go at it the panelist said"mankar tejas ..tejas that's your first name? yes sir ...so tejas do you agree with what he said?" A nice way to check whether i was listening luckily i had kept a track of what he was trying to say. i was able to successfully refute what he was trying to propose. he was basically saying the government should distribute money to the poor. creative but infeasible. To be fair a creative answer is not always a feasible answer just like lateral thinking you have to combine lateral and vertical thinking to come out with a feasible answer. And you cant control creativity how can one come up with a creative answer [and feasible] within 30 seconds and in such a tensed environment.
Then the panelist trained their guns on me. so tejas recently the union health minister urged SRK and AB not to smoke was it rit to do so? i went on creative liberty...right to express..blah blah.. ok so if you were given 10 lakhs to model a cigarette would you do it? If im an upcoming model not so popular as SRK well then yeah i will do it. No apprehensions.No moral dilemma.
They asked the next guy "what about you?". He says no sir i wont do it(yeah right!!) the panelist says"but you are not SRK".Still i wont do it,he said. The panelist then asked another candidate "Tejas just mentioned the word 'integral'. You think actors can avoid smoking on screen.You think in GODFATHER he could have used a chewing gum instead of a cigar." The candidate its possible that they can avoid smoking on screen but since she had not seen GODFATHER she cant comment on it.He then moved to the third guy. he too hadnt seen GODFATHER. I was getting desperate. Come on ask me ask me!!. Someone up there must really like me. So tejas what you have to say. "Sir...Don Corleone ....the Italian Gangster...if you look back at that movie every part was played to perfection.People remember the way he spoke,the italian accent(maunday,tuesday..),the dialogues(i will make you an offer you cant refuse),the way he scratched his chin ....everything was perfect,bang on. So if actors smoke on screen its because they need to develop a character... ".First thomas friedman and now Godfather. im starting to get goosebumps.BTW the room was damned cold.
The guys having work experience were grilled on their company's operations.who are their clients and so on. One piece of advice BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH WORDS. Never use strong words like "passionate". Use the correct words(wazz the difference between sentimental and emotional??). Know the difference between values and strengths. Yeah by the way they asked us whether value systems are relative.
To answer such questions you need to be well read and this is exactly what they are trying to gauge. how in depth can you think can you provide an insight with whatever knowledge you possess right now.
So preparing for interviews is a constant process.

Thats about it. no question on marketing no question on profile sheet All in all i was satisfied with the way i conducted myself.

IPOs don’t guarantee returns on listing day

The year 2007 witnessed 107 IPOs as against 92 in 2006. In 2008 , 150-175 IPOs are expected to come out.The FCH and Reliance IPO got 117 and 72 times oversubscribed. The retail investors were convinced that REL has the resources to execute the projects on time. But in India delays of 3 to 4 years are quite common (For eg Mumbai metro one of which RADAG is a partof is incharged of the Mumbai metro but hte project has still not seen light of the day)and hence some market analysts had advised not to invest in the Reliance IPO. Some retail investors actually sold some of their existing stocks and some even borrowed loans so that they would be able to invest in the IPO. What they dont realise in case the IPO gets oversubscribed(which was likely and it did) the lottery system comes into play.

Now there are 23 crores of shares out of which 30% are reserved for retail invstors .Now 5.1 million retail investors bid,let's assume, for 210 shares for Rs.450 each. So thats a bid of 10.5 crore equity shares for around 6.9 crore shares. Now if we use the lottery system and assuming that a minimum of 15 shares has to given each retail investor then 4.6 million investors will get get 15 shares each. While 0.5 million investors with land with nothing.Even if the shares list at a premium say at double the value around 900 the investors will make a profit of Rs.6750. That by any stretch of imagination is not big profit even for short-term or to take loans or sell existing stocks. So people take a chill pill!!

If you still need a reason not to go crazyon IPOs heres an article from TOI.

IPOs don’t guarantee returns on listing day

Investing in a public issue is not different from buying stocks. So, don’t get carried away by the euphoria in the market

Madhu T | TNN

Investors seem to be mesmerised by initial public offers from companies. Consider this: The initial public offer of Kishore Biyani-led Future Capital Holdings has received thumping response since day one. Its issue was subscribed 131 times by Friday evening. That means the issue has received bids for 84,14,51,848 equity shares as against 64.22 lakh shares on offer. Qualified institutional investors’ reserved portion subscribed 107 times followed by 27 times in retail and 33 times in HNIs category, according to sources. The price band for the IPO was between Rs 700-Rs 765, which analysts felt was on the higher side. Reliance Power IPO almost created a frenzy. From the moment the Anil Ambani-led company finalised its IPO, investor interest had been tremendous. There were stories of people selling their existing holding to participate in the issue. Some people were even ready to borrow to invest in the company. Suddenly, it seemed, everybody wanted at least one share of Reliance Power. No wonder, there were reports of the prices quoting at a premium in the grey market. As per last reports, the issue was subscribed 72 times, with retail investors subscribing 16 times.
What is happening? Why is everybody suddenly flocking to the IPO market? “Well, these two issues had strong promoters behind them. So, you can understand the mad rush to get a piece of action,’’ says an analyst. “However, even otherwise people tend to get carried away once the market is on a bull run. They would chase even obscure issues thinking that IPOs are sure way to make money.’’ That, he says, could prove a costly mistake. This is because IPO are not always supposed to list at a premium. Sure, you may have seen a host of IPOs listing at the stock exchange on a premium, but don’t consider it as a norm.
Don’t rush to fill in the application form for an IPO because suddenly everyone is talking about it. Spend a little time understanding the process, figure out the risk involved before signing on the dotted lines. A company enters the market with
an IPO when it needs money to fund an upcoming project. The company has two ways to fund the project. One, it can borrow from banks or financial institutions. Two, it can tap the market by offering a part of its equity. This has an advantage. The company doesn’t have to pay any interest otherwise it would have given to the bank. Instead it just needs to part with the profit to the investors.
This is exactly what makes IPOs risky. Fine, if they list on a premium and you get out immediately. What happens if you have to stay invested for a while to make money from them? The answer is simple: the company has to perform well. This means you should adopt all the precautions you would normally take while buying a stock in the secondary market. “People don’t realise it. But investing in an IPO is not very different from investing in a stock,’’ says a mutual fund manager. “Analysing a stock already listed in the market is easier because you already have its track record in public. Also, there will be a lot of research report and new available in the media, whereas you don’t have much information on a company entering the market with an IPO. You solely have to rely on the prospectus of the IPO,’’ he adds.
What makes the IPO game even murky is the last minute rush of dubious companies into the market after a prolonged bull run. It has been observed that many unscrupulous promoters enter the market to rob unsuspecting investors of their hard-earned money. “The recent issue of Future Capital and Reliance Power is a classic study. The issues received tremendous response from investors because two powerful promoters were backing these IPOs,’’ says the analyst. “But investors who fail to get allotment in such bumper IPOs often end up putting money in dubious ones, thinking they will make money from them, too.’’ Needless to say, it doesn’t happen always. On the other, they may actually lose money in the process. Remember that we have seen a bull run in the last four years and many dubious IPOs may be getting ready to hit the market. Stay away from them if you want to create wealth.