Some Moments CAptured in the Camera!

This is the team that won the award for the BEst Pitch in Frankfurt for the Deutsche BAnk GTB Batch of '07!!! Its an awesome Champagne Bottle witha DB tag and rest on the showpiece in my drawing room!!

This is the entire batch at a medieval Castle in Germany.. Very Old and very beautifully maintained!!

This is the Dinner set up for us in the medieval CAstle... Very elegant.. very beautiful.. very medieval!!!

Everything was ohhk... till the time it decided to SNOW!!!!!! Then it became awesome!!!

This is just before we went to the famous CAsino in BAd Homburg!!!

Well i had a an awesome 20 euros ka win which I immediately encased and more importantly enjoyed!!!!!

That the final one for the shutterbugs!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The DB GTB Batch of '07!!

HAppy HOli Guys!!!

Beat Shefs in Chess Yday!!

Its awesome when after a good game, YOU are the one who says CHECK MATE dude!!!!!
Wasnt really a good fought game, but still, that doesnt really take anything away from my rook checkmating the king!!!

Weekend spent pretty good!!

Friday: Dinner at Shivsagar followed by LIve music at Jazz by the way where they played awesome Blues. Saw the late night show of Juno at INOX. Probably one of the best movies that I have seen in latest times

Saturday: Went for lunch with Aman and shefs to Copper chinmey, followed by some window shopping at Tanishq. Ended with dinner at Lemon grass and late nite coffee at CCD, Worli and then walk at the Worli Sea face!!

Sunday: Lunch at Sadanand followed by dinner at MAsala Bay at Taj LAndsend!

PErrfect Weekend!!
I think that now that I have started on the job, I have become more appreciative of the weekends!!!

Finally ON THE JOB!!!

After nearly an year of honeymoon period as a trainee, I have finally been selected to work on a desk in FX in Capital MArket sales!!! Well considering that this is a min 12 hr a day desk, I am not sure how will I cope yp with the pressure and beleive me the experience of last two days has been a bit unnerving!!!!

Germany Jaunt!!!

Next after a hectic schedule of enjoying and partying in singapore was a whirlwinf training in frankfurt.
I had to go there for a DB training on negotiation skills and presentation skills and was only for the GTB graduates. Since I had bonded (or rather tried to bond) not so well with the people from other continents, hence i wasnt really looking forward to this training.
Anyways we reached Bombay late at night about 1sh in the morning and then almost immediately checked in for the Lufthansa fliht to Frankfurt.

1. Lufthansa is by far the worst flight that I have ever been to. It is worse the the worst Deccan flight that I have ever flown on!! Well it was not on time, the air hostesses were older than my granny and no entertainment channels for the entire flight
2. When we reached there, it was crazily windy and there were forecasts of a storm!!. There was video doing rounds in the news channel in germany wherein a flight tried to land thrice but was unable to do so on the runway because of windy conditions
3.As we reached frankfurt early morning, we took a youth hostel and roamed around the whole city. Frankfurt is one of the most drab cities in the world and so by the time it was 3 in the evening, we had seen the whole city 5 times over! So we decided to catch a small nap. We small is surely an understatement as we only got up at 7 the next day!
4. since we were pretty tired of the place called frankfurt, we decided to immediately take a train to Bad Homburg, an extremely expensive and extremely posh region near frankfurt where DB had arranged for our training and stay.
5. Bad Homburg was easily of the most beautiful places in germany atleast. We took our rooms which were single manned and were damn cozy!! Rushed off to have a pizza at a restaurant where the cook and his crew knew neither english not german, but only Italian!!! Well i think these kind of things only happen in europe!!!
6. We had two days of training on negotiations which were quite interesting. We had rounds and rounds of presentations, all of which were taped and shown to us again and again. But my fav part was one on one negotiations in which I nearly killed the other guy and managed to take away an amazing deal. But in the end the other guy felt that he had too much and decided to call off the deal. The negotiations just fell apart!! it was damn hilarious
7. We had to prepare case studies and were then put in groups and pitted against each other to win deals in front of top managemnet!! It was crazy as to how much imporatance the germans attached to this exercise. Well our went on well. We did not just win our deal, but also were voted as the best group amongst all by the jury. So well I walked away with an amazing DB champagne. I have it at my home and it sure does look really nice!
8. More ..later alligator!!!

Back to work!

To write "Back to work" is probably one of the toughest things to write! I mean the pressure is not just on the finger on the keyboard (lost practise over last 15 days) but also emotionally. Phsycologically it is amazingly tough to get urelf back to office after days of doing nothing but enjoying.
If the days in Germany were awesome then those in Singapore were par awesome!

SIngapore:
Stayed at Tiki's and Singhania's place. Those two kinda souls were very good friends of mine in campus and it was great meeting them after a long long time. As a matter of fact meeting Singhania who was one roll number before me was definitely one of the high points of my trip. Apart from that Horsie, Tiki and harish were extremely warm hosts! They really made the singapore trip truly comfy!!
Things that we did in singapore:
1. Singapopre airlines is by far the best airlines that I have been on!
2. MAx max beautiful and clean city. Cleanliness in singapore is legendary and so we spent most of our time trying to locate garbage and refute the theory of singapore being the cleanliest city!
3. Sentosa islands!!
4. Dolphin show, 4 D movie, sky rides, luge, cable car, butterfly park, merlion, underwater aquariums.. awesome!!!
5. best part of sentosa was the "songs of the sea" where in there is a 3d laser show on fountains of water. easily the best that I have seen!
6. Night safari, zoo and juring bird park: i mean I dont think I get get any closer to polar bears penguins and lions at the same place. Especially in the night safari, these were alarmingly near. i mean we could vitually touch them.
7. cLARK qUAY: The night lifeline of singapore with a ROaring Night Life! We drank till 2 on a tuesday and it was still jam packed!!!
8. finally the DB networking event for which we had gone
10. Stayed at the best 5 star hotel in singapore "Four Seasons": HAd a big deluxe room all to my self. Went for hour long baths in the shower followed by bath tubs!
11. the event was nice and is always good to hear about how india china will beat the recession!!(I still wonder why my portfolio is down 30 %
:(

Off For VAcation to Singapore & Frankfurt!!!

I love my company guys!!!
Well am off for a jaunt to Singapore and Frankfurt and will only come back next week!!!!!
cya guys!!!

Back on Campus: Pre placement talk in Lucknow!!

It was one thing that I really wanted to do: Go back to Lucknow, where undoubtedly I spent some of the best days of my life. I could not go for Manfest, but as luck could have been I had to go to L for the pre-placement talk for DB. The best part was that Shefali also managed to convince her boss to go to L and so it was more like a double bonus!



So we flew together on Sunday evening and were supposed to give the ppt on Monday. We reached Lucknow at about 9 in the evening and were duly impressed to find a person standing with a placard with my name with DB written on it. Well my chest puffed up nearly like the ad of timesjob.com waala guy. Well the sad n scary part was that the driver was new to the area and forgot the way to the campus. All of a sudden we found ourselves stranded in the car in the middle of hinterlands of UP! Seriously it was kinda frightening. But then I decided to take things in my hand and finally got back on track. I was only wondering how others, who had no idea about Lucknow, might have felt in the same situation. So we finally managed to reach campus by 9:30pm where we had a couple rooms booked for us.



Now was the first bombshell shocker. The Alcom (alumni committee) had organized talk by us on “the careers in the banking industry in India”. It wasn’t tough for us, but the fact that I have never landed up on podium for any of the extempore competitions was one of the major reasons for my inhibition. But shedding those was easy and the talk went on fine for about an hour followed by another hour of Q&A’s.
We finally rounded up at about 11:45 and promptly went for a walk around the campus. It was kinda empty as campus (well it is placement times!), but we had an awesome time. We sat as the Nescafe and spoke to Nescafe waala-Alok for a long time. Had a maggi outside and sat near the fire in between Nescafe and Guptaji’s shop. We sat there for a long time before going to the library and revisiting the old times. I mean I have sat, studied and even slept through my days in lucknow in campus. I am sure I must have spent more than 60% of my time on campus in the library. Not necessary;ly studying, but genrally it was the most peaceful place on campus. Then we took the long route behind the library towards MDP centre, then the main gate and finally patanjali. We were chocked with memories and finally decided to call it a day at about 2..


Got up early and went to Fauji! Ordered some dal fry and jeera aaloo to go with it. Vikalpa, the HR from DB Bangalore was there and so went and met her as well. Ajay, my boss who was supposed to give the ppt had run out of battery and was incommunicado. We finally managed to call him up and sent him a pick-up car which meant that there was delay in the ppt by nearly an hour. Since students were already in the classroom, I had to take the stage again and spent about 45 odd minutes giving another gyan session to the guys. Finally Ajay came and we gave the ppt which again went over time (mainly in the Q&A section). One thing I realized over this period was that as a student people are anxious to get good placements, but believe me, the companies are more nervous than the students to get good guys!


I never knew that while on campus, but this is 100% true..


After Ajay and Vikalpa had left, we went back to the Nescafe and had another round of maggi. It was nice knowing that H9 won Sikander this year around. Well in my first year we came agonizingly close to winning it. But the fact that our juniors have done us proud is one of maximum pleasure and satisfaction.
We sat with Mohini and a lot of other guys and talked our way to complete nonsense. It sometimes is fascinating how in campuses you are completely at ease with yourself and have no real worries to think about.



It was like coming home….


Well met up with Chauri, who had also come up for Deloitte PPT and then spoke for a long time with Neerja Pandey, my fave prof on campus. And when it was time to leave, I can say that except for the tears, I was crying like a baby..
I said it was like coming home, and now it was time to leave home…
A home that never really was mine, but will always be a part of me..
I miss Campus Life.
I miss Campus.
What the hell
I MISS LIFE!!

Weekend at home!!!!!

Apart from that, its been an eventful week that gone by. It was a week of many firsts, like first time going back to campus etc..
I traveled to my alma mater!! Yes, went to Lucknow for the pre placement talk. But before that I spent a couple of days at home. I will go day by day on that:

Saturday:
Saturday was off and so we (shefs n me) took a lazy morning 11Am Jet Flight to delhi. We reached there early and had a good time sitting at the amazing jet terminal in the Bombay airport. The view from that CCD is one of the best that I have seen and that fact it was warm and sunny outside made the sight from inside even better. We heard names of Dia Mirza and Ritesh Dekhmukh being announced at the departure terminal and ended up having VJ Ranvijay of MTV in our flight! Well the flight was nearly on time and for the first time, I had people waiting for me at the airport! Well Shefali’s siblings had come along with her mom to see their soon-to-be part of the family! Well so I was thrusted upon with a bouquet of flowers by a coy and smiling set of brother and sister, who were most interested in getting this piece of history captured on the camera. So I duly stood there and posed like a pro on the red carpet for the shutterbugs!
Lets keep this aside. Mom and Dad had come to pick me up at the airport and we subsequently drove down back to Ghar. Driving in Delhi roads is like driving a hot knife through cheese. Smoooooooooooth…
One new thing was the opening of the huge flyover on NH8 and the start of toll at the flyover. Had tons of rajma chawal for lunch followed by a quick power nap. In the evening went out with mom n dad to the mall and bought a pair of designed saris for my mom. It’s nice to see moms glow with pride and happiness in seeing their kids buy something for them. We called it a day with some coffee and hot chocolate at the Barista Café.

Sunday:
Woke up really really late. After all it was a Sunday. Had my customary cup of tea along with the newspaper (waah waah waah).. We had a late lunch and then rushed off to DSOI where we were scheduled to meet Shefali n her mom. Everything was in order till the time I managed to see the correct time on my ticket. I was under the assumption that the flight was at 8 and had told mom dad accordingly. All of a sudden I discovered that it was instead at 7. Thus started a hurry up process and so we rushed off to DSOI and almost immediately left for the airport where we had to catch a flight to Lucknow!!
More on this in the next blog!

End of Rotations: Shackling My Freedom!!!

So this is pretty much as vella as you can get. Well I am on the verge of finishing my one year rotation (read complete uselessness). I have been completely futile and have not contributed a single penny to the banks top line, but have created a major dent on the bottom-line..

So how do I feel? Well for one, I am wondering if its just rust on me, or have I been left fatally incapable of putting in hard work. Past one year, that too after the hectic MBA regime, has been a cake walk, or for that matter, only a cake, no walk at all! But now as I look forward to joining capital market sales, I am just wondering whether I can manage that or will be left puffing for breathe. But on the positive side, I feel a know thousands of people in the bank, having learnt from them and now will work with them. I feel I know more about the different aspects of banking than most people can ever imagine. How good it turns out to be in the long term will be seen only in long term!!!

Yesterday!! Surprise Surprise!!

Well yesterday was not really a special day, but there was something special about it.

Yesterday I booked a table at the Intercontinental in the morning for myself and Shefali at their renowned Kebab Corner. I kept Shefali totally out of the loop while doing so. It was only after I met her in the evening that I told her about eating out. Even then I told her that we would go to a cheap place in Marine Drive. And so it was nice to see her smile and be happy on finding that cheap place to actually be Intercontinental.
Personally I have been to places that have the ambience and places that have good food. This was one place that had both and that too in large volumes!

The Galawti Kebabs (Shefali’s Fave) were simply fantabulous, and so was the lamb stew. Finally we feb ourselves fat to some wonderful Mughlai Daal along with some Shahi Aaloo!
The place buzzed with activity. While I was doing the booking in the morning I was wondering if there was at all any need to do so on a Wednesday evening. I was expecting not more than 10% occupancy, but was astonished to infact find a waiting there!! Blessed be my foresight!!!
The sumptuous dinner was followed by a couple of pans on offer at the exit of the reception (Thank God they were free!!!)
Another hole in the pocket, but another evening well spent.

Mediocre But Arrogant: A Review!

Another from the list of ever increasing books written by B School grads. It again shows that one thing that all MBA’a are good in is “bakar”.

When I started reading this book and was about 50 odd pages into it, I had a feeling that this was a completely useless and utterly hopeless read. It went on and on explaining the place MIJ (read XLRI) and also the teaching methods of the various professors. It looked like another brick in the wall or even worse another straw in the hay. But half way down the road and it did change gears a bit. It became a book not just for people from XLRI, but for the student community as a whole. The triumphs and tribulations that the Abbey faced was irrespective of the campus that he came from, and that is what relates to an average reader. Though it does go the ‘5 point someone’ way, but on the whole you enjoy the whole experience.
Well though the best part is that you can read it wholly in probably not more than two sittings!!!!

And I would be frank enough to say that books like these makes me want to write a book myself on campus life and all.. !!!

The Great Indian Novel: A Review

It is by far one of the best novels that I have read in the recent times. This is product of sheer brilliance.
It draws a direct mapping of the characters from the Mahabharata, the great Indian mythology with the contemporary modern India History. So Bhishma becomes Gangaji, who infact is Gandhi, while Dhritrashtra becomes Nehru. Similarly Pandu becomes Subhash Chandra Bose while Duryodhan become Duryodhani or Indira Gandhi. But the book goes further than simple characterization of the political heads, it goes all the way to drawing parallels between them both in deeds as well as behavior.
It is a very well written book which changes to prose at times. Especially the whole story about Pandu (or Subhash Chandra Bose) in prose is highly recommended. One of the best books ever!!

Updates from my life!!!!

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I last wrote.. So this time too it will be a collection of a lot of things;

My 25th Birthday:
I celebrated a quarter of a century this year on the 23rd Jan. Birthdays are always a happy moment when you are kids and when you see that growing up has more pros than cons. But as the number of candles increases in the cake, the area left on the pie reduces!!! So to say, the sweetness from the birthdays decreases. But then I have always told myself
“Growing old is compulsory, growing up is not!”

Such thoughts aside, I believe this was probably my best birthdays ever. Everyone got together at Shefali’s and after the customary ‘bumps’ I was flooded with gifts from Shefali! She had meticulously planned the whole thing out for me. She had ordered a cake from ITC (believe me it was crazily delicious!), had made good use of my absence during the weekend(I had gone for an office outing) to buy me a wonderful/ beautiful guitar, had got me a cuddly stuffed tiger (whom I call Tommy, much to her annoyance), and finally had planted birthday cards in almost all the places I went to. Well it was more of a treasure hunt of the cards!

I was completely flattered by the whole thing and so decided to give a major treat. So we went to this awesome place called the “Gallops” which is inside the race course and had an amazing dinner. This place not only had pretty good food but also had an ambience to die for! The bill did leave a big hole in the pocket, but filled my heart with loads and loads of joy!!

Plans of settling down:
And while I was celebrating the 25 yrs of existence in this world, about 6000 kms away my parents were busy discussing ways of curbing my independence!!!!
Well finally after 2 yrs (/well nearly!!) of courtship and sleepwalking through all serious talk, we (me and shefs!!) decided to fast track the process and have now passed on the baton to our parents to start the rounds of negotiation trying smoothen all rough edges and tune the finer ends!
But all’s well that ends well. The first round of meeting at the neutral venue were highly successful and so I am hoping that the final decision will be taken sooner than later!!!


Rest later!!!
I have loads n loadsa work!!!!!
Will Write later!

Lot of things!!

I want to write about a lot of things u c!

1. Tax man time of the year:
This year is one of the landmark years of my life. I will be paying tax for the first time in my life this March. So have to fulfill all the requirements and make sure that all the documents are in place. Mainly, the ones relating to my Loan that I had taken for education in Lucknow, my tax saving investment in Ulips and the receipts pertaining to my house rents. Have to have all of these in order by today.

2. Going to campus for placement:
I really want to go back to campus for placement and so regarding that I wrote a mail to the head HR. I wasn’t really expecting anything as a reply, but an instantaneous positive reply was very comforting. Especially the initial line being.

Hi Abhishek

Thanks for writing.. The IIM L PPT is on the 11th Feb 2008. Will shortly confirm the same to you.

You are certainly a part of the same.

I mean “thanks for writing!!”
Well the pleasure is certainly all mine!

3. Trip to Amby valley
This weekend I will be far from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. TFCMC are taking the entire sales, implementation as well as the ops team to a 2 day jaunt at the Amby valley near Lonavala. Its pretty nice of them to do so. Am I looking forward to it? Probably not, coz I really wanted to see the Stan C marathon even if I wasn’t participating! I am sure I will do so next year

4. European Holiday:
My dates for the Frankfurt leg of the training have come. I will be there from the 1st to the 10th of March. Will start applying for the visa from next week!

5. Moche’s with Sandeep
Its was very nice of Sandeep to take us MT’s (me Paro, Navneet) to Moche’s for lunch yesterday. Believe me, it was one of the best meals in recent time. I would really really recommend their Expresso chicken. It basically is a chargrilled chicken. But it was damn mouth watering and a treat to the taste buds. This followed by their Lorange which primarily is chocolate along with orange. Perrrfect taste!

Brilliant Treat!!!

Yesterday was Ruchi’s birthday and so twas time for treat. I feel Aman could have made it to the midnight celebration that we Always have during such pleasant days!!!! But anyways everyone was there at the birthday treat!
:)
The venue did not sound too pleasant initially. Well what do u make out of “caravan serai!?? To make matters worse, it was a place suggested by Dipu himself. Now Dipu is one of those men who have taken the onus on themselves to take us to all the shady places that neither serve ambience nor serve our taste buds!
But this time he did well to take at least some of the criticism away. The place was absolutely wonderful and ambience wise I think it is surely one of the best that we have been to in recent times!!!
Kudos to Dipu for his selection!!
Kudos to Ruchi for a brilliant treat!!

Memories: New n Old!!

Over period of last 2-3 months Aman had been particularly enthusiastic about going to campus for Manfest! I, on the other hand did not think too much of it. While one of the reason was the expensive tickets, but that wasnt really the truth. It was just that I wasnt too eager on going back.. But for last three consecutive nites, all I have dreamt of is my past. It consisted of my winter mornings in DU where the things were serene... well I think "virgin" is the word I would rather use to describe it. They were so pure. Then was my stint in Lucknow. I mean they were undoubtedly the best years of my life. And then my time in Europe. I mean my time in Finland is what i remember instantaneously! And the amazing time in Swissland. Probably because those are my oldest memories of the Foreign land
And so I really think I made a wrong decision by not going to campus. I am very sure that I will do that from next year onwards.
But i really dont know if that would helps me get over my memories!! This is because I went to Switzerland and London this year as well, and I can tell you it wasn't like the old time at all. I mean I didn't relive old memories, not did I remember the first Eurotrip any more, I made new ones, totally unrelated to the earlier ones.
I know it sounds very weird..
But that the truth!!!

Awesome Monday!!1

Awesome Monday:

Maniac was what a pop group thought of while describing Mondays. But I have never really had the fear of them. Its more like resuming ones life after a short sabbatical. I mean well weekends are meant to relax but it’s the Mondays that bring a meaning again to life!!!

Well now days Mondays have a higher significance attached to them. Actually on Mondays you get a 50% off on Bowling in Phoenix mills. This is something that has us bound for like months now. Me, Aman and Dipu generally never miss any Monday when we can have a go at the nine pins and enjoy the day.

Yesterday was another Monday and after another day of no work I left office at bout 5. Traffic was bad and so reached home at about 6:30. A quick power nap and I was off to the gym. If 25 minutes of non stop running at 12 kmph was not enough, then 2 sets of total weight regime surely broke my back. The only consolation was that Aman was there with me suffering the ordeal! So an hour and half in the gvm and two sweaty souls were off to the Bowling shop in Phoenix mills. Dipu was there and so we started off on our game. Nothing radical happened though, me and Aman score 130 odd in both the games. The only variation was Dipu, who failed to score even a 50 in the first game and then somehow managed a 72 in the second, thanks to some strikes (yes!1 strikes) in the end!

The day was finally called off with some butter chicken and seekh kebabs in Maaroosh!!
Awesome day!

Year thats gone by !!

Over years I have seen time fly by silently causing few additions in our life, a few subtractions here and there. It’s a little bizarre how things that mattered to you, people who you were close to some years back are complete nonentities. Well as a matter of fact I don’t know about 99.99% of the total people whom I have known or interacted with. Its only the rest 0.01% with whom I am in touch.

This year has brought about a massive change in my life. This year is undoubtedly defined my life per se. I have finally gotten out of my college years and into the big bad world of work life. When I had joined Lucknow, I had no inkling of what was in for me. I did not know what management was, and even failed to answer the very basic question asked in all B-school interviews, WHY MBA?

But 2 years in IIM L was one thing that relished fully for the first time. During hours of retrospection I always wondered how much more could I have enjoyed, gained and accumulated in my years in school in DPS Mathura Road and subsequently in DCE. I carried a slight guilt of not making the best of the opportunities presented to me. I mean not just academically but also socially I never did enough to grow as a person. But two years of Lucknow were hectic yet very enriching. Interacting with some of the best brains, partying with some of the party crazy people, competing with some of the very best, vacationing in Europe for like 6 months and finally managing to bag one my personal favorite job while rejecting my second favorite is something to relish.

So while I began the year partying in the lawns of H4-5, wherein I still remember wearing my leather jacket and long locks, I ended the year with cropped hair in a nice attire in an overcrowded club with rowdy crowd in Colaba, Mumbai!
Things change with time, and I am not the ones who get nostalgic and try to fight change, but this is one thing that I was/am not ready for.

So I started off 2007 with booze in the Insti party followed by 3 months of back braking efforts in trying to make a CV and finally preparing for interviews. I still remember the CV versions. These version numbers easily ran into hundreds. Also variants for consulting, finance, marketing and some even HR! The days were spent trying to meet deadlines for submissions while the night were for group study consisting of Aman, Shefali and me trying to prepare interviews!

Finally the D days arrived and fortunately nearly all of us got multiple offers and got to choose the offer which we really wanted. Placement euphoria was followed by the trip to the Himalayas and finally back for the convocation. I still remember my last couple of nights wherein I went with friends to all the places on campus that mattered. Climbed up the tower in the football field to have birds view of the campus. Walked though the ops tent, the controls tent and looked at the littered cigarette butts. Last minute downloads from DC++ to last a lifetime. Meeting hundreds of people, some probably for the last time!
It was like life will never be the same. And probably it is not the same!

Then time at home. It was the longest vacation in a long time and was spent with both hopeless laziness and exuberant expectations from the future job. The two months at home became a little too much and finally when the call came from DB Mumbai, I had already packed my bags and was off to Mumbai.

Life, or rather work life in Mumbai for last one year has been eventful. So lets leave that for the next blog!!