IIMI interview

Date: 16 Feb'08

Venue: ISI, Delhi

Time: 8:30 in morning

Pre-interview scenes: I started filling out the form at 11 P.M. the night before the interview. I am a very efficient person (Bhulli will understand this...) Took me about two hours to fill it out. Was just not getting what to write in "descibe weaknesses that you identified in yourself as a student"...

Now this one was a toughie, especially for someone like me who just managed to get marks without studying (comment about me in my college souvenior book...haram khoron ko mere baare mein aur kuchh pata hi nahin tha). Poor in fundas. Pure non-tech guy. So should i write that four years of studying E&C engineering were just a drag for me. I had found my solace in computers in our hostel rooms watching movies. Or should i write that i never existed in the good/bad books of my teachers, since i never attended any class. So was never able to cultivate a student-teacher bond; a very important of student life.

Anyways, it's interview and you got to be at your polite and politically correct best. So i wrote some other vague answers. So this was till 1 A.M. Then i started arranging the folder showcasing my certificates. This was the most efforts that i had ever put in my life for "organizing" something. I used color coding on folder edges to seperate academic certificates, work ex, extra curriculars, CAT related etc. Wrote sub headers on each page. Got Bhulli to endorse my "organized creation"..Bhulli tell people about it...we worked hard on it man...

It took me 2 hours to do all this. I even created a index at front page from easy navigation through folder. This was 3 A.M in the morning.

Then i slept.

Got up at 5:30 to get ready for interview. Left house at 6:30 for New Delhi.

Case Study: Case was around a hard working brilliant project engineer Asutosh. He takes a leave for a week and during that period the contractor carrying out his instructions does wrong installation. Asutosh fnds out about this when he comes back and asks him to re-do teh work. Contractor does it and produces a bill for work. Asutosh refuses to sign teh bill saying that his ompany will not pay for it. Contractor is powerful. He handles other projects as well and Asutosh's managers feel that delaying his payment or refusing it might delay other projects. So they ask him to pass it. He is alos told that is he doesnt pass it, then his promotion and an upcoming foreign assignment might be in trouble. So Asutosh needs to decide?

We were given 30 minutes to think about the case. We were to write our analysis and give recommendations. Next 20 minutes were spent on case discussion. We were 7 people in the group. Nice discussion. Good points brought up. No fish market. I made useful contributions. Think i did pretty well. Group listened. Discussed my point for along time.

I checked out the bandi sitting on other side. Only girl in the group. Awesome voice. She blatantly rejected one of my suggestions. Then i didnt check her any more. She lost an admirer..and probably the only one...she really wasnt worth checking out...but then beggars are not chosers..aajkal mandi chal rahi hai... (Taran, Bhulli.. damn it guys..dont laugh)

Case study ended at 10 A.M. After that interviews started. All people were asked acads, irrespective of amount of work experience. I was prepared to face them too. I was called in last at around 1 P.M. after 3 hours.

Interview: hi-hellos.. have a seat.

Two interviewers: P1 and P2 and ME

P1: Anurag did you take CAT last year
ME: Yes Sir

P1: Did you appear for interviews
ME: No Sir. I didnt get through

P1: Ohhk. I though i had interiewed you last year also. Your face seems familiar
ME: (Thinking...Kumbh ka mela..mera bichda hua bhai shayad IIM mein hai... biceps pe tatoo...finally CAT prep has paid off... BHAI mein aa raha hun)

P2: Anurag, tell us what you do currently
ME: Sir.. and then i was cut short by P1

P1: Anurag, one thing. Your way of arranging folder is not very organized. All academic certificates are in one sheet. I should be able to just flip through them and not take them out of their place all at one time and then go through them.
ME: (realised he was right.. but i had spent two hours on that the previous night...Had it really organized.. I had color-coded them and built an index for crying out loud... Had hardly slept. Had waited for 3 hours before the interview..i wanted them to say a few words of appreciation before criticism..something like,"see Anurag, good work but...".... i wanted to cry...seriously)..Anyways, i said sorry..

P2: Anurag, tell us what you do currently
ME: Data analysis, leading team in international markets..blah blah..

P1: Anurag, why do you call your work data analysis and not statistical analysis. You use a lot of stats.
ME: We dont use statistics at all times. Some we just do data analysis without any stats.

P1: tell me one tool where you dont use statistics and still give analysis
ME: Thinking hard.. couldnt think one...(later realised EXCEL.. my bread and butter...Sleep deprivation..sleep deprivation...)

P1: What is difference between R Square and Adjusted RSquare
ME: blah blah..

This lasted for next few minutes. Went into details. Whether RSquare will increase with added variable or can it decrease..etc etc. Gave one answer wrong here. Told them that RSquare might increase or decrease with increasing variables. Later found out that it always increases.

P1: What is mutivariate regression
ME..Blah blah

P1: What is a poison distribution?
ME: Dont know sir

P1: Difference between a binomial and normal distribution. Any relation between them?
ME: blah blah

P1: Examples where is binomial distribution used?
ME: Coin toss, Resonse as yes or no, 1 or 0 etc

P1: What is residual error?
ME: blah blah

P1: Anurag you use a lot of statistical techniques. HAve you heard of AREMA?
ME: Yes sir, i have heard of AREMA

P1: Can you explain it?
ME: Sir, I dont know.

P1: You should know AREMA, as you are in data analytics.

A couple of more stats questions. Answered them

P2: Anurag how many kind of akali dals are there.
ME: Sir i know of only Shiromani Akali Dal...(uske baare mein bhi kuchh zyada nahin pata tha..)

P2: How are nirankaris different from Khalsa Sikhs..
ME: believe in formless god, they look at god everywhere, touch each other's feet, etc..

P2: Tell me about maharaja of patiala (i studied at patiala).
ME: blah blah

P2: Capital of uttrakhand?
ME: Dehradun
then he asked me capitals of jharkhand and assam..answered both

P2: Which city in India has highest per capita income?
Me: Dont know sir

P1: Make a guess. At least tell us the state.
ME: Mumbai..(later found it was Chandigarh.. capital of my home state...i dont deserve to be called a punjabi)

p1 looking at P2.. i am done..
ME: thinking... me too..

Thanks Anurag. Have a juice. We kept it for you as we made you wait for 3 hours. Me wishing good afternoon.. bye bye...

Came back to office. Was talking to one of teh colleagues. People commented that saara stats pe ho gaya. They will try and pin you down on your weak areas. One gentleman said,"Abe agar tujhe kuchh aata bhi hai, aur kitni hi detail mein aata hai...interviewer can take you to point beyond which you will not be able to answer". Then came the LEGEN......

wait for it....

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..Keep waiting...

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DARY...LEGENDARY dialogue..

Agar tu kamre mein enter hua aur interviewer ko teri shakal pasand aayi to he will ask you,"Bata, tere baap ka kya naam hai". Agar usse teri shakal pasand nahin aayi to puchega,"Bata, mere baap ka kya naam hai". One way or the other, he will get you.

I thought of GLADIATOR's famous dialogue,"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back".

Next stop IIMK....

Result: Got through :)

Fart in the Gym

This one is definitely gonna go down as one of the most embarassing moments of my life.

A little background. I have this habit of drinking a lot of water in the morning, else i am not able to "discharge the waste". If it's an important morning next day, like i have an exam or meeting, i hardly eat dinner because i know it will be a problem the next day. I need time in the morning.

Coming to teh incident, i joined this new gym and i used go there early in the morning. Previous night, the night before this incident, i had a sumptuous dinner with my friends at one of the restaurants in Gurgaon.

Next day when i got up, i was feeling a little heavy in my stomach. I thought about drinking water but cancelled that thought considering that i had to go to the gym and i definitely didnt want to "do it" there. So i went to the gym.

I started the usual warm-up routine. Then did some cardio, treadmill for about 10 minutes and cross trainer for another 10 minutes. You sweat a lot doing these and I drank a lot of water alongside. Now i knew i was starting to hit my threshold of containing. But i had to do weights. I didnt want to leave gym without doing those.

So i started with exercises for back and there is a fair bit of stretching involved in them. I was doing the front pull down. All this while there were occasional impulses to let "it" out, but i had controlled it till now. During one of the reps, "it escaped".

I realised it the moment i did it. I fled the crime scene. I moved to the other corner of the gym. Generally its said, "Mujrim apne apradh ka koi na koi surag chod jaata hai"..But in this case, your crime follows you. And you can sense that others know of your crime.

There is twitching of nose, holding of breadth to avoid smell molecules from entering your nostrils, turning away of face, movement away from you...or the extreme case - blatant comment,"Dude, control"..and this from a total stranger.

Now in general you would feel good about being addressed as dude, but not here. Already inceased heart beat due to workout now had hit a max. My face was red; it had never been this red from workouts. During those troturous 60-80 seconds, i had burned more calories than i had burnt from workout.

And then it got worse. That guy, up-tight high society bastard, probably wasnt used to this, or atleast was not used to approving of it in public. He went to the gym instuctor and asked him to use the room freshner. The way the instructor looked at me with a smile on his face, kind of smile that comes on your face when you know other person has done something wrong, made me feel like killing that guy who was spreading "the news".

Anyways the agony doesnt end here. Once a criminal, always a criminal.

And in this case, it's not the society that haunts you..it's your inner self. Now every time i see that guy in the gym, the episode flashes in my mind and i feel that son-of-a-bi*** is smiling at me.
Worse still, whenever the gym instructor is helping me with some weights or other exercises, I am always conscious that i might repeat it.. and this time that poor guy will not even get a chance to escape.

Had that guy not been around that day, nobody would have noticed my crime. I would have gone to the gym with my head high. I hate that guy. He ruined my gym time.

Underworld Theory

There are three types of cities. First, there are big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, etc. Second, are the tier-2 cities like Amritsar(Anurag, Kunal, Nanda, etc.) , Ludhiana(Bhulli) , etc. Then there is the third category, which hardly qualifies as a city and is usually accompanied by phrases like
"Then there is this small village called",
"Oh, i forgot to mention this village",
"Yeah, I know of this this village"...etc etc.

They lie on the periphery, hardly noticeable.

Now people from this category are generally smart enough to understand that they are not big-city boys, but they are not humble enough to accept that they are small-town boys. So they kinda suffer from this identity crisis. They keep looking for reasons/arguments to support their make-believe we-are-not-small-town-boys theory.

Along with this identity crisis is the mis-conception that "Our village is far more developed than your city".

The Underworld theory was advanced when our beloved underdeveloped-village boy BD was suffering from this developed-city syndrome. Though widely dis-credited by one and all, world still deserves to know it, since it is not everyday that BD comes up with a theory.

So kids(Since i have already widely propagated this theory among our compatriots, I am addressing future generations some decades down the line... considering that this might be BD's only legacy left in absence of other means of doing it), it was a Sunday afternoon. I was sitting in our living room with your uncle BD, and a few other friends. We were having our usual bantering session, which in our case was always taking dig at BD. And BD was his usual self, defending every argument and not accepting his village roots, not accepting that his village is still under-developed with no major development initiatives being taken.

Few dialogues..

BD,"Anurag Gupta, tujhe pata hai abhi kuchh din pehle news aa rahi thi ki Ferozepur,(yeah, this is where BD hails from) mein 2700 crore ki heroin pakdi gayi. Aur Anurag Gupta, 2700 crore to disclose kiya gaya hai...actual value to aur bhi zyada hogi. Tumhare Amritsar mein kabhi pakdi gayi hai itni amount".

We all had just one thing to say,"How is this statement related to development of ferozepur?"

Then came the moment of truth....

The Underworld Theory

BD,"Anurag Gupta, kisi bhi developed city, london, NY, Mumbai, Delhi, etc etc ko dekh le. In sab ki development underworld ke aane ke baad hi hui hai. Pehle yeh sab cities normal development dekh rahi thi. Underworld aaya, aur uske baad hi city ki rapid development hui..aur aaj yeh sab cities development index mein top pe hain. Ab Ferozepur mein bhi underworld aa gaya hai..ab tu dekhta ja, Ferozepur mega-city ban ne waala hai. Ab Ferozepur mein development hogi... Aur abhi kuchh din pehle Ferozepur ki central jail se 3 qaidi bhi faraar hue hain. Voh teenon Prison Break dekh ke inspire hue the. Tumhare Amritsar mein hua hai aisa kuchh "

Pin-drop silence for a few moments..and then the usual...loud laughter. While BD tried his level-best to make us believe his theory, none of us was listening.

Kids, i always though that development was about infrastructure projects being undertaken, basic amenities like education, food, etc. being provided to citizens, development of industry and employment opportunities, etc etc

But not your uncle BD. He had a radically different view on development and had to face the same consequences that all radical thinkers had to face.... Not understood by contemporaries and subject to laughter and ridicule...for a long long time..

Underworld theory was not the only development index advanced by your uncle BD.
Along with this, certain other sub-theories related to pointers of development were also advanced..

Border Theory

BD,"Anurag Gupta, hamare Ferozepur mein border kholne ki baat chal rahi hai.."
Anurag," BD, hamare Amritsar mein roz shaam ko border khulta hai"..
BD," Oye saale, mein aava-gaman ki baat kar raha hun. Border khol rahe hain taaki log aa ja sakein"
Anurag."BD, hamare Amritsar mein to yaar border aava-gaman ke liye 1999 mein hi khol diya gaya tha jab Lahore-Delhi bus service shuru hui thi"...

More laughter...

Railway Track Theory

BD,"Anurag Gupta, tum logon ke chote sheharon mein do-do railway track hote hain. ek jaane ke liye or ek aane ke liye. But hamari developed cities mein ek hi track hota hai, ussi se jaate hain aur ussi se aate hain. Two-way tracks."

i didnt say anything..everyone ws rolling on the floor and BD realised this. He tried in vain to make us understand whatever his point was, but it was a tad too late for explanations.

So kids, this was your uncle BD.
Next time when you hear of railway tracks being added to existing ones, dont be happy. And when you hear news of kidnappings, prison breaks, mafia killings, etc dont get sad. Just think of your uncle's theory. You will find hope even in that hour of despair. Who knows, BD's theory might be true.

And i really wish they do turn out to be true...may be he will then rest in peace.

Long live the radical. Long live BD..

Make way, the KING is back

Date: 8th Sept'08

Venue: Arthur Ashe Stadium, New York

Event: US Open Finals

Players: Andy Murray and Roger Federer

Result: As expected, Fed Ex wins.

Now this is not to go through the event again, this is to go over Federer and thinking of one of his biggest fans, ME.

It's one way or the other, either you are Federer fan or you are not. There is no middle path here. Nothing like,"You know, i like him but not that much" or "He is good. I like his game"...Oh save them buddy...answer is clear.
Everybody that i know falls in the above division and i guess that holds true for every tennis fan.

And i think Federer has earned this over years. The way he has dominated this game is simply amazing. 13 grand slams in a period of 5 years. 5 consecutive US opens, 5 consecutive Wimbledons...things cant get better.

Everytime he starts a tournament, its taken for granted that he will reach the final..and he invariably does. And then he takes it one step further. He wins the final. None of the other champions before like Pete Sampras, Edberg, Mcenroe etc had this much dominance over the game and for a such a long time. That speaks volumes about his game.

For such a medium built guy, he has tremendous strength in his arms . The amount of top-spin that he imparts to his forehands is unbelievable. In this final, when Murray hit a ball towards fed's forehand commentators said," I dont understand why people keep giving shots at his forehand. You can hit at his forehand when you are closing a rally, you can serve at his forehand but you never give him a ball at his forehand in the middle of a point."

There is an aura of invincibility around him. When you see him playing and hitting those amazing single-handed backhand returns, you just wanna see him doing that over and over again. You just wanna seee him winning. The innocence on his face, composure throughout the match, respect for opponents and the game overall, crowd-winning gestures,pre and post match comments win a fan completely. Then a person becomes one-of-us, the FED CAMP.

Federer, according to me, is undoubtedly the best player ever in the history of tennis. i am sure he will go pass Sampras's record of 14 Grand Slams.

Keep winning Federer. We all love you.

Keep of the Grass

Book: Keep off the grass

Author: Karan Bajaj

Plot: A ABCD(American born confused desi) Yale-graduate joins a investment Bank only to realise that he is not very happy. He wants to discover himself. So decides to do an MBA from India which will give him a chance to connect with his roots and in the process find answers to all his questions and self-doubts. Thus he joins IIMB. Plot then revolves around his 2 year experience at IIMB and the way it changed his life...

My views: For those who enjoy light-hearted, simple-written, without any life-altering gyaan fiction cum real life experiences book, this for sure is a winner. The novel starts in a filmi style and then takes you from Manhattan.,Wal-Street to IIM Bangalore's campus life and Bangalore's streets and bus drivers.

Two central characters apart from protagonist are Sarkar and Vinod. Sarkar,funniest chararcter, is an IITian. Always smoking a joint and having a sab-moh-maaya-hai attitude towards studies and things in general. He likes to live life on his own terms. The guy is gifted with an awesome mind and is among the toppers without any real effort.

Sarkar gives you the feel of an IITian. When it comes to numbers and logic, it's his world.

Author has tried to keep it very simple. He has stated his life experiences and his learnings from them, but has not tried to hammer it in a reader's mind. How much a person learns from this novel in terms of listening to your heart and being-where-you-belong is left for reader to decide.
All incidents and IIM life is presented in a very comic style with some hilarious sequences...

Like the one when he is on a summer intership and along with 29 other Management trainees is listening to the HR head of a firm. He is apparently bored by their general gyaan and is looking around when he founds a chap dosing off. Author says," I immediately started liking that guy."..

Or when he tells how during intership he hates the question forms containing questions like "Illustrate an experience where you demonstrated leadership abilities". According to teh author, most of the questions are repeated. His friend Sarkar does a funny thing. To one of teh questions he says," Check answer 2".

Or when an intern is asked, if given an option what animal would you like to be...and the chap replies,"I would like to be Pamela Anderson's lap-dog..because..because..do i need to say why?"

The way a Yale-graduate ends up in the bottom half of the IIM class reinforces one's strong belief in our education system. Novel definitely makes one ponder over life's choices, though not in a serious manner.

Read it for funny guy Sarkar, IIM's hectic but magic life, post quiz parties, joint-smoking with friends, vomits after drinking binge, I-Bank's lure , general reflection on life, confusions of ABCD's and their effort to come to terms with it.

All in all, a good read.

Anurag..Anurag...Anurag

Date: 3rd Sept'08

Venue: XYZ company's Office

Event: Weekly progress update involving analysts (from both onsite and offsite teams), client lead and country lead

Details: Before the meeting a progress report document was prepared and circulated to all.
It had project spilt into smaller work streams with colour coding used to indicate the progress level.

Almost all the work streams were either green(on time) or amber(a little behind schedule). One particular workstream was RED. Column next to colour index was labelled Reasons.
Mentioned in the document was "Resource not available".

Now lets do a time travel and go a little back in history. I had applied for US Visa on 1 July and was rejected on grounds of CRAP-CRAP-CRAP. This particular piece of analysis was to be done in Canada and the off-site resource was ME. I had applied for Canadian Visa and as usual, though not rejected, it was taking a greater time than usual. Apparently my smiling face from photograph on Visa form scares the daylights out of Visa guys, or my smiling face reminds them of misery their own life is and they reject / delay my visa outta spite...Whatever be the reason, deal is, i wasnt getting visa on time and so was not able to join the team in Canada. The particular piece in document that was RED was the one that i was supposed to do.

Now back to call. People are happy with the general progress of the project. Important points are discussed. Country head and client lead are both sounding satisfied. Then they come to the piece of work that is red. Cant tell you, how important and dignified it felt to be the centre of discussion for doing nothing. Everyone was taking my name.

"Anurag, so whats the current status?".
"Anurag, can you tell us the expected time when you are expected to arrive?".
"Anurag, we need you on this piece asap.".
"Anurag, can't we expedite the process somehow?".

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

I had a feeling of Dejavu.

Friends hanging together and amidst friendly bantering, a question pops up,"Yaar, hum logon mein se sabse end mein kiski shaadi hogi?"

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

Roommates check the refrigerator in the morning and finds out that all the rasgulle are gone. "Who ate them during the night?"

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

Everytime something like this happens, whereby my name is taken by everyone, i think of the movie AUSTIN POWERS. In one of the scenes of the movie, Austin Powers meets Japanese twin sisters and asks them their names. One of the names was F***-ME.

What if i had this name. Everyone taking my name..F***-ME...F***-ME...F***-ME..
Spoiled for choice :)

Just one more thing. Those of you who have seen the movie might remember, name of the other twin was F***-YOU.

What if i had this name. Everyone taking my name..F***-YOU...F***-YOU...F***-YOU..
Reality bites :(

VISA

Date: 20th march'07. A thorough professional, me, with a smile on his face and confidence in his gait, walks into the den called THE AMERICAN EMBASSY.
From what i have gathered, B1 visa interview ia a cakewalk and i should face no problems.
After waiting in a line for about two hours it's finally my turn. I greet the a suspicious-looking official with a smile and a good-morning. The official in turn nods and says good morning to you too. How has been your day?

Well, thats a toughie? How has been my day... lets see, got up at 6 in the morning, had to shave to look formal, missed my breakfast because cook doesnt arrive till around 9 and i had to leave by 8 to reach on time for my 9:30 interview appointment. Then after reaching there, i am separated from my beloved mobile..two hours spent without her were like a torture.. then an agonizing wait for two hours in a line to appear before a person, going by whose looks you wont even feel like talking to him on any other day...

But anyways i suck all that and with a gracious smile i tell him that its been a good day so far.
He checks my papers, asks some banal questions and after around 5 minutes tell me, thank you sir...your interview is over...but i am sorry, i cant grant you a visa. Suddenly my face is all red and i am perspiring heavily. I ask for reasons and he tells me that he is not satisfied with my documents. I try and squeeze in some more information but he tells me coldly that the interview process is over and i can leave. I somehow manage a smile and greet him good afternoon (thinking not very deep inside, screw you asshole).

Date: 1July'08.A thorough professional, me, with a forced smile on his face and a dejavu feeling, walks into the den called THE AMERICAN EMBASSY.
Last interview is still fresh in mind. There are two windows for B1 visa interviews. Standing there in the queue waiting for my turn, i am trying to guess which of the two interviewers will i go to and with whom do i stand a better chance of getting a VISA this time. One of the guy looks very staunch and cold, lets called him Mr. X, while other looks very friendly and warm, Mr. Y.

Next turn will be mine. There is one person at each window. Person at Mr. X's window had left later. So i was kinda expecting and desperately praying that i be interviewed by Mr. Y. But then chair kills faster than a rope.

The interview at Mr. X's window was very short lived and going by that person's face color, result was easy to predict. And i was asked to cross the red line on the floor and proceed towards Mr. X's window.

A million thoughts were going through my mind. If god had granted me a wish at that time, i would have asked that please turn the red line into a lakshman rekha, so that i am not able to cross it till Mr Y is free for next round. But then it's me. Luck and i love screwing each other.

Same old fake smile, same old greetings, same old questions.....and guess what....same old result...and i am baffled?

WHAT DO THESE GUYS WANT FROM ME?

I ask for reasons and i am told that you are just a week old in your new organization , you have applied for an emergency visa(i had to travel within a week of joining, so had applied for an emergency visa) but you dont qualify for one...so effectively your company has mis-used the emergency visa procedure...also he was not convinced that as a new joinee its absolutely essential for me to travel to US for initial training and some meetings (project i was to work on was going on in 5 different countries for the same client and all the project people were meeting in US for a face-to-face interaction and discuss there understanding and learnings so far).

The verdict was given, i can appeal again (in the same court, probably against the same judge) 120 days later. But i think i am gonna pass.

VISA says in its add.."GO GET IT"

Please tell me how?