Thoughts during the Cambridge MBA

The movie 300 is racist and completly innacurate

2007-04-08T17:28:00.000+05:30

Hey Folks,

I havent posted anything for long, I guess I was tied to my inital theme so I have just decided to ditch it and star anew.

First of all don't see the 300. Its a highly racist and falsified story, with gaps in its storyline.
Let me just list out some of the things

1)In the movie the Spartans are shown to be free men and the Persians are shown to have a slave army. As per history it was the exact opposite, The Spartans enslaved people called the "herlots' and 900 of them died fighting alongside the 300. As for the Persians Xerxes's faher had declared slavery illegal all over the Persina empire.(In Sprta 90% of the populaion was made of slaves)

2) Size of the force. As per the hstorians the Greek army was made up of atleast 5000 soldiers, but in the movie they are shown as just a handfull.

3) The movie glorifies the Agoge system, in which a 7 year old child is taken from his mother and put into a military academy. It did exist but future Kings were not allowed to take part in it. So the whole Leonardes(Kings) episode was a creative licence

4) Ending of the Agoge: The movie shows the end of the Agoge by a wolf hunt in the wild, as per history it was concluded by murdering any Spartan slave i.e the "Herlots"

5) On a more generalistic sense the Movie is extremely racists as it atempts to vilify the Persians and then changes their skin color to Black, implying that Blacks attacked the Whites and the Blacks were evil.

Personally I have never seen a more villified campaign against any community.

-Amit

Reviving the blog

2006-10-14T05:03:00.000+05:30

Its been 4 weeks since I started the MBA and its been quite hectic. I wish I had the time to talk about it. But unfortunately I dont so will try to put in some snippets.

Day -4(arriving in Cambridge)
I flew into Cambridge 4 days before the start of the course. The flight was uneventfull that nearly every checkpoint asked me to open my bags. One of my classmates had flown in form sri lanka a few days ago told us that was asked to produce a chest xray. This was a bit surpising becuase the british embassy's official position is that no medical examination is required if you are entering from a non yellow fever country. Anywasy owhen i reached the counter the immigration officer asked for my lungs report. If you arent carying anything you have to go to a health counter to get a checkup done which will take atleast another hour.
I met up with one of my classmates Jyothi who had flown in from Delhi half an hour after me. Before flying in we had decided that we will drive together to Cambridge from London,so we went outside and grabbed a shuttle to the rental car company(national). As we had 4 large suitcases and 2 carryons I had rented an SUV.WARNING:- if you are renting at national at heathrow be prepared for an half an hour line to get the papers of your car. The people at their office are just soo slow. The drive from heathrow was nice,except we kept on loosing our way in a few places. The traffics on the major highways is similar to the US traffic except that we are now driving a manual instead f an automatic,so shifting gears creates more gaps in traffic.

Once we took the recommended exit into Cambridge we were quite lost driving on a narrow road but we kept on going and realized that we were on trumpington street which is one of the largest street in cambridge which runs in front of Judge. I finally saw Jude on the right hand side for a brief moment. its a grand building but its quite 'colorfull'.

The thing that strikes you is how small it is. The main areas are just like a city block back in India. e.g I would say that Cambridge is smaller than Koramangala in Bangalore. We finallyt managed to reach both the colleges and collected our keys. The porters were nice and friendly and didnt even ask for IDs to collect our keys. We drove down the houses unloaded the luggage and had some nodles and crashed.

-Amit

Travellogues- The drive through the jungle.

2006-07-18T21:00:00.000+05:30

It so happened that one of the guys in office got married last thursday and his reception was on Friday in village called Vittal near Mangalore. Mangalore is around 300+ kms from bangalore,so I was quite excited and decided to drive there. We took 2 cars and 8 people and started at 2. We made good time till Sakleshpur, and were there around 6:30. Sakleshpur is an important landmark as the ghats(hill/hairpin curves drive starts from there). Our destination for the night was a place called Kukkre Subramanya, which is a really old temple.

So far so good but as we were about to enter the ghats a truck driver pulled us over tellign that the road was blocked as a tanker had overturned ahead. The ghat jams atleast take hours to clear off. He suggested that we take another route through small villages. We asked another person and he agreed that we could go on the alternate route. As we ventured in the road it was in a slightly bad condition but it was drivable with a max speed of 40 km/hr. After around 10 kms we came across a village and stopped for some provisions. Unfortunately the locals were not too optimistic about the route. The first person told us to turn back as there was forest aheadand told us that elephants might attack our cars. The other person told us to show our guts and dare it out. The good news was that the road actually existed.

We were ina adventurous mood so we went ahead. It was already dark and silent except the sound of bats flying around. After around 40 minutes we came across the dreaded forest gate
. We had to search for the forest guard ,but luckily he believed in the story of the jammed road and let us in. Or maybe he jsut felt outnumbered 8 is to 1. The drive through the jungle was outstanding, occasinally there were trees which had fallen on the hills and were at the edge of the road. If we dont see them in time the car would smash into the log and there was no human beings for miles and miles.And plus we had smokers in the group so we they had to take a smoking break. I am attaching a pic , my car's tail lights are visible and I am standing next to the guy in the white shirt(who is barely visible) but because of my dark shirt I am lost.

The thing that was surprising was the silence, all throughtout the drive we didnt hear anything not even a cricket chripping, it was eary and the best time to exchange ghost stories, which we did :-). The drive though the forest lasted for over an hour but finally we reached civilization at 10 had dinner and checked into a lodge and dozed off into slumber.

Superman was a nerd

2006-06-17T18:14:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered why superman wears his underpants over his clothes & a cape. Its because he was a nerd. Sounds unconvincing doesnt it. well here are the facts.

The term nerd in the 19th century and early 20th century meant a circus clown/entertainer which included acrobats. The acrobats were dressed up in brighly colored underpants and capes and would do death defying acts. The majority of the earlier superheroes including superman design was influenced by these acrobats and hence superman is attired like a circus gymnast. hence superman=nerd.

-Amit

Googleplex

2006-06-15T14:23:00.000+05:30

Just came across a few news artcles about the new Google complex around 80 miles of Portland,Oregon,USA. Finally after a long time some investments seem to be flowing back into the Portland area.

The interesting part was that Google claim that google has approximately 450,000 computers in its grid. And they plan to to use the new center as a data center so this number is going to rise .

Wehn I visted the Silicon Graphics meuseum in the bay area one of the exhibits was a 16 node rack which was the first computer which ran the google search engine. The unique thing about the google architecture is the complete unreliance on any special interconnect, they just use simple cheap ethernet. This has helped them in exponentially scaling the number of nodes in the google grid.

Best of luck google as M$ is after you with plans of boosting thetheir grid to 800,000 computers by 2011.

-Amit

Fanah Movie and Shayaree

2006-06-14T13:12:00.000+05:30

Fanah is a hindi movie which was released recently after much hype. As expected it didnt live up to the hype,but it did have some good Hindi/Urdu Shayaree(poetry)

Here are some shers from the movie:-

---------

Khuda Aaj Ye Faisla Karde,
Use Mera ya Mujhe Uska Karde.
Bahut Dukh Sahe He Maine,
Koi Khusi Ab Toh Muqadar Karde.
Bahot Muskil Lagta Hai Usse Duur Rehna,
Judai Ke Safar Ko Kum Karde.
Jitna Duur Chale Gaye Woh Mujhse,
Use Utna Kareeb Karde.
Nahi Likha Agar Nasib Me Uska Naam,
To Khatam Kar Ye Zindagi aur Mujhe FANAA Karde
----

Tere Dile mein meri saanson ko panah mil jaaye
Tere Ishq mein meri Jaan Fanaa Ho jaayeā.
-----
Ankhen to pyar me dilki zuban hoti hai,
sachi chahat to sada bezuban hoti hai,
pyar mai dard bhi mile to kya gabrana,
suna hai dard se chahat aur jawan hoti hai
-----------

Phool hun Gulaab kaā?
Chameli ka mat samjhnaā?
Aashiq hun aapkaā?
Apni Saheli ka mat samjhnaā
-----------
Dur Humse Jaa Paoge Kaise,
Humko Bhool Paoge Kaise.
Hum Who Khushbu Jo Saanson Mein Utar Jaye,
Khud Apni Saanxon Ko Rok Paoge Kaise
--------
Bekhudi Ki Zindagi Hum Jiya Nahi Karte,
Yun kisika ka Jaam Hum Piya Nahi Karte.
Unse Kehdo Mohabbat Ka Izhaar Aakar Khud Karein,
Yun Kisika Peecha Hum Nahin Karteā
---------
RONE DE TU AAJ HAMAKO TU AANKHE SUJANE DE
BAHO ME LELE AUR KHUD KO BHEEG JANE DE
HAI JO SEENE ME QUAID DARIYA WO CHUT JAYEGA
HAI ITANA DARD KI TERA DAMAN BHEEG JAYEGA
--------
tere dil mein meri saanson ko jagah mil jaaye
tere ishq mein meri jaan fanaa ho jaaye
adhoori saans thi dhadkan adhoori thi adhooren ham
magar ab chaand poora hain falak pe aur ab pooren hain ham

-----------

Cambridge MBA yahoo group

2006-06-13T00:42:00.000+05:30

The Cambridge yahoo group that I had started for my fellow classmates had been going oslow organic growth to around 16 members till last week. Finally I sent out a mail and invited everyone on the official site to the yahoo group and now we have 45 members thats more than 2/3rd of the current class.
I have also been planning on reducing my active role on the yahoo group and now that the two new moderators have started taking care of business I can kick back and relax.

cheers
-Amit

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cambridge-mba-2007/

Eating leaves

2006-06-08T20:43:00.000+05:30

Another bout of overactive imagination.

I was wondering why cant humans eat only leaves and survive. And I dont mean spinach and the kindd but simple tree leaves like oak leavers etc. Well Our ancestors i.e monkeys still survive on leaves and fruits. So we can aslo survive on leaves,shouldnt we. There seems to be tribes which eat one particular tree leaves as part of the diet. I kept on googling but I couldnt find any study or report on a person who just eat leaves.

Can I survive only on leaves,maybe if I add as much spices as the leaves.

-Amit

The philosophy of the stock market.

2006-06-06T13:06:00.000+05:30

An old floating mail. Just got it again today so thought I would share it as its quite insightfull as to how people make money out of false supply gaps.
----------

Once upon a time in a village a man appeared who announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs. 10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys went out in the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at 10 and as supply started to diminish and villagers started to stop their effort he announced that now he would buy at 20 rupees.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching moneys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to 25 and the supply of monkeys became so that it was an effort to even see a monkey let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at 50!

However, since he had to go to the city on some business his assistant would now buy on behalf of the man. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at 35 and when the man comes back you can sell it to him for 50.

The villagers queued up with all their saving to buy the monkeys.

After that no body found that man and that assistant, only monkies and monkies and monkies.....

----------------

Da vinci and Munich review

2006-06-06T10:43:00.000+05:30

If you have read the da vinci code dont bother to watch the movie. I didn't know that Tom Hanks could act so bad. The only positive was that I know have a picture of the french pyramids in front of my eyes when I think about the book. They have even managed to ruin one of the most sensitive character from the movie the albino monk. They have failed to portray his inner pain and just focussed on the rituals.

As for Munich it is a thoughtfull movie. Slow and steady but it didnt hit me as hard as I expected it to. It sort of looss the punch in the end depicting only panoroia instead of guilt. Its still definately worth a see as you can easily picturise yourself as one of the leading protagonists.

-Amit

God save the Queens, atleast her college

2006-06-02T12:43:00.000+05:30

The last hurdle in my Cambridge Judge MBA application is over. I got a mail from Queens college saying that they have offered me a place in the college. As all three requirements , i.e. 1) deposit 2) finaces(i.e loan) 3) college admission are fulfilled I should get a unconditional offer some time soon.

And yeah Queens colleg rocks they turned around my application witin 3 weeks whereas St Catherine sat on my application for 2 and half months .

cheers
-Amit

MBAT 2006 cricket

2006-05-25T17:39:00.000+05:30

It seems more than 60 students from Judge are taking part in the MBAT 2006. MBAT 2006 is a sports competition which is organised by HEC Paris focussing on European MBA students.
The range of the sports is vast from football, to salsa dancing.

On delving into the rules its more fun than sports. I didnt expect cricket to be played with a hard tennis ball like I play every weekend. Also LBWs are not allowed just like our game.I thought it was limited to the south asian countries. I guess the French are allowed to mess up the Englishmen's game :-)

And yeah sledging is mandatory. Now I doubt if we will be able to play the sport without getting into fights.

cheers
-Amit

MBAT 2006

cambridge HSBC loan & Queens college

2006-05-21T20:05:00.000+05:30

The wait for the HSBC loan is over. They have approved the HSBC loan. And surprisingly mine got approved earlier(comparitively) to the others who have applied for the loan. I guess it was because I am a existing HSBC India account holder and because I was ready to put a larger proportion of my own savings.

In the meanwhile my college application has been sent to Queens college. Queens is one of the larger colleges and is known for its weekly dance parties called bops . Well it doesnt matter to me much as I dont think I will frequent them.

http://www.gradunion.cam.ac.uk/altprosp/colleges/queens.html

-Amit

Pre reading for the Cambridge MBA

2006-05-21T11:51:00.000+05:30

I have started some pre-reading for the MBA. In other words I bought 3 of the 5 recommended books and the 4th is on the way.
The fifith discipline by Shenge(750Rs from sify.com) seems to be partly a self help books and hence is one of the easist read.
The Principles of Corporate finance by Meyer etc(595 from sify.com) is ok but it throws around a lot of financial lingo/slangs which explaining very simple financial fundas. I would have preferred if it had explained it's financial lingo a bit better.
The third book is the Organizational Behavior by robbins (375 from firstandsecond.com) I havent started it yet as it seems a bit similar ro the fifth Discipline and dont want to get confused in between them.

I am still trying to find out the books for the second trimester so that I purchase them in India at the discounted Indian edition prices.

-Amit

Selling UK land(near London) in India

2006-05-21T11:27:00.000+05:30

Just read an article in one of the magazines about buying land in the UK. It seems that there are some new companies which are selling greenbelt UK land in India. By greenbelt it means that the local councils haven't authorized any sort of construction on that land. Once you buy the land you can apply for the conversion and if it gets approved the rates jump up many fold. The cost of the land plots is being kept under $25000 as thats the maximum foreign exchange limit for Indians.

I guess this serves as proof that the old colonial times are truely over. There was time 60 years ago when whole of India was owned by the britishers and now small chunks of the UK will be owned by Indians.

As for the investment angle its just to high risk as it involves governement approvals & I have no idea about the local politics where the land is being purchased.

-Amit

college membership

2006-05-13T18:59:00.000+05:30

It seems my St Catherines college admission & scholarship was denied. So I have to select a new college in Cambridge. The CAM system seems quite stupid that even after your admission you have to wait for months for a college to go over your application. It unnessarily delays the Visa processing and all other requirements.
Well I just asked the admissions office to send it to the college which would give me the fastest turnaround time. Haven't heard since then.

In the meanwhile I had made a trip to Mumbai to meet the Admissions director who was on a tour. It was ok, mostly marketing stuff and there was one alumini a tall lanky guy called Sameer.

I guess as there is nothing much happening on the MBA front I would soon start posting about other stuff.

-Amit

A tiny scholarship from Cambridge(judge)

2006-04-20T20:22:00.000+05:30

The Cambridge admin department sent out a mail to me a few days back that I have been allotted a need based scholarship of 2600 pounds. It amount to 10% of the tution but then something is better than nothing.
Was just interacting with a gal from Sri Lanka who is also headed to CAM and she has alo got the same scholarship.

-Amit

Judge/Cambridge MBA yahoogroup for 2006/2007

2006-04-07T12:25:00.000+05:30

Well Have got in touch with 4 other students who have paid their deposits for the Judge Business School,Cambride, One of them is British,nnother Indonesian, One Pakistani and another Indian living in the UK. So far it looks quite international.
I have just started a yahoogroup so that all of us could be in sync with our probalems and developments. The URL is
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cambridge-mba-2007/
The group is only for people holdinga n offer from Cambridge so there is a entry requirment that they have to email thethe admission office letter to the list owner.

-Amit

Cambridge MBA deposited

2006-03-04T16:24:00.000+05:30

I sent out my MBA deposit of 2600 pounds yesterday. Feeling a bit queezy ,still getting crazy thoughts that maybe an MBA is not the right choice for me,maybe I should just settle down in life.

Cambridge MBA rules over Oxford MBA

2006-02-19T19:19:00.000+05:30

I have selected the Cambridge (Judge) MBA over the Oxford (Said) MBA. There are two aspects of this decision the reasons why I liked the Cambridge MBA over the Oxford MBA and the other being the things that I found uncomfortable in Oxford.

Cambridge Pluses
1) Cambridge has a better technology environment than Oxford in teaching and in practical(silicon fern)
2) Higher class age & higher work experience requirement
3) Higher academic requirements.(insisting on a first class)
4) The MBA forms and the interviews seemed to focus on what went wrong or where I was lacking rather than on my successes. I have always believed we learn more from failures than successes. Most other MBA schools don’t talk about failures.
5) Much more scholarships(though I don’t know if I will get any)

Oxford Minuses
1) They recently lost their loan scheme this points out that some of the ex-students have been defaulters are no longer considered creditworthy by HSBC.
2) Everyone who has applied seems to have been offered a place (significantly lower age/experience requirements) this may point to falling standards.

Well there are things which don’t matter to me but might matter to others
1) Oxford SBS is made from blood money. The Said in the name is the name of the middle-east arms dealers who is accused of supplying arms to restricted countries hence facilitating genocides.
http://www.oxfordstudent.com/mt2001wk5/News/protest_on_business_school
2) My friends who have toured both cities say that Cambridge looks better, as Oxford is getting concretized.
3) We don’t have to wear a gown to give exams in Cambridge :-)

-Amit

Dropping Oxford SBS

2006-02-17T18:18:00.000+05:30

I have decided to reject the oxford offer. The last date for the deposit is 21st and I wont be sending it to them.Just wrote a mail to Oxford saying that I wont be accepting their offer.

-Amit

Bryan Adams rocks Bangalore

2006-02-06T11:54:00.000+05:30

Bryan Adams hwas in concert inat the Palalce grounds in Bangalore. He really rocked. He plays the guitar much better than I expected.
I arrived a bit late for the concert so avaoided all the parking jams though I partly missed summer of 69. The best thing was that it wasnt so crowded in the 1200 Rs section, we keep on moving ahead and we were hardly 20 feet away from the stage. Bryan Adams rocks.

-Amit

Cambridge Judge MBA HSBC loan form

2006-02-03T20:44:00.000+05:30

Just got the HSBC loan form from Cambridge . It is in the shape of a small booklet. They also sent me a corrected offer letter(the earlier one had misseppled my name). I am supposed to fill in the form and sent it to the business school directly instead of the bank.

Its now time for me to collect the paperwork. Last 12 months pay slips etc transferring money into one account. Getting copies certified by the local HSBC branch. Hopefully as I have an account in HSBC it wont be too painfull.

-Amit

Rang de Basanti

2006-01-31T00:32:00.000+05:30

Had a great weekend. Attended two parties and also went and saw the hindi movie rang de Baasanti. It is a descent movie and s worth a look. Check out the official website http://www.rangdebasanti.net/
cheers
-Amit

Campbridge Offer letter & Oxford deadline

2006-01-25T13:03:00.000+05:30

I got my Oxford Said business school deadline extended till 21st February i.e the same as my Cambridge deadline.

I also got my Cambridge Offer letter. There was nothing in the packet except the offer letter and the form asking for the deposit and the financial guarentee. Unfortunately they have misspelled my name :-( . I am trying to get them to send me a correct named offer letter so I can apply for the HSBC loan.