Positive Signs ..

There's this nice feeling when you realize that you can actually do what you think would require a lot of effort and would still not be possible to achieve! Hard work,persistence and perseverance cannot be substituted, but often people tend to ignore or sideline certain other factors which play a part in achieving one's objectives. One of them being the strong, unflinching belief that it can be done and the right frame of mind at the all-important moment. The strong and unconditional belief that I referred to needs to be elucidated further as it simply doesn't mean the burning desire to achieve something, but a comprehensive knowledge of one's strengths, weaknesses and intended course of action-which should be an outcome of thorough research of the situation & the possible strategies, taking into account not only their effectiveness, but also feasibility. What is applicable to someone else might provide you a good idea,but would have to be transformed of customized, based on your requirements. I'm sure all this seems quite obvious, but the problem arises when one faces reality. Prior to that, it seems that all groundwork has been done and everything is ready. However, being prepared for failure should essentially be, and in my opinion be the most important and integral part of the strategy, without which it would be almost ineffective as even the slightest deviation from the plan would lead to a debacle.

I'm elated as Abhinav Bindra has become the first Indian to win an Olympic gold in an individual sporting event. What is depressing is the fact that the credit-snatching game has started back home here in India. What should be noted is the fact that Bindra's father was a businessman, financially secure and thus, wasn't dependent on the government for assistance or aid of any kind. He rightfully converted a farmhouse into a shooting range for his son's practise and could afford all the equipment he needed. Contrast this with the numerous stories of sportsmen who are not so well off, spend most of their time and energy in arranging for funds and makedo with sub-standard equipment,infrastructure and facilities. The sporting scenario in India is a pathetic state and can only improve with greater private enterprise sponsorship. Private sponsorship demands not only results, but also popularity of the sport - which is usually the stumbling block. Cricket fanatic India doesn't give a damn if the Indian Men's hockey team fails to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 8 decades, nor does the fact matters that India is ranked above 130 in the world in football, where small island nations with populations of a few thousand are ranked higher than this country of 1.3 billion people. The major reason being lack of financial incentives in the respective sports at the regional or national level. Cricket is glamorized and it is a known fact that cricketers earn an attractive pay package, apart from numerous advertising contracts. If the governments initiates incentivisation of sports alongside infrastructure development, then private players might find it feasible at a later stage and can be expected to carry on further.

Enough for now, feeling groggy and the fact that I have to attend the first class tomorrow at 7.30 am implies that I should hit the sack now.

Facebook addiction ..

Guys,this is getting serious.. First Vampires,Slayers,Werewolves and Zombies, then 'Who has the biggest brain?', followed by 'Word Challenge' and 'Bowling Buddies', and the latest twin addictions being 'Mob Wars' and 'Mindjolt Games' ! Phew, the list seems endless as one or the other of the million applications on the site manage to hold your attention and sap away one's time. Taking the no. of people getting bitten by the social networking bug,I feel we will soon have terms such as 'orkutting','facebooking', 'orkutomaniac' or facebookophobic' included in the oxford dictionary in the near future. But I guess I've had enough and I feel its time I stop or atleast control the amount of time that I'm spending on these sites, facebook more specifically.

3 down,1 to go !

Feels good to finally finish 3/4th of my graduation. Quite some time passed before my previous post,which means have a few things to write about. Just a few days after my last post, a company called ThoughtWorks had come for recruitment to our campus and was alloted dream staus. Incase any of you are wondering about what having a 'dream status' means for a company, it simply means that students who have already bagged a job can also sit for the recruitment process as it has an attractive pay package. Pay package definitely seemed higher when the company quoted 5.08 Lakhs INR,but then this was given as the CTC figure, or the Cost-To-Company figure,which is generally a lot higher than what will eventually be the take home component. Nevertheless, we expected and assumed to be atleast higher than what TCS (Tata Consultancy Services -i.e the company which I got selected in) had to offer. A list of eligible candidates was taken out by the college based on some very complex criteria,i.e the already recruited students needed a higher cut-off than the still-to-be-placed students. Whatever it was,my name was there on the list and that's what mattered the most to me. Their recruitment process was a different experience altogether - starting with the written test which included flowchart based calculation, was virtually unique and different from most Indian IT companies. Didn't have much difficulty in clearing the paper. Was among the 89 people who made through to the coding round out of the 450 who appeared for the written. The coding round was relatively easy than expected. Two questions were given and we were required to solve any one of them according to our choice. I chose one of them and remembering the point they mentioned in the pre-placement talk about their company looking for good object-oriented programming skills. So, filled my program with all object-oriented concepts that I could think of. Though I must admit that my programming skills was very out of touch. Luckily,that didn't stop me from making it to the list of 19 people who cleared the round. Then comes the technical interview round, where we were grilled on all concepts learned till date and a little more. Was the first to be interviewed. I had a feeling that my interview went fine, if not really well. After they had interviewed all the 19 people, they called me again, which gave me a feeling that I had got past the first round. But I guess I was a little mistaken. Probably, they were a little confused about whether to consider me for the next phase or not and thereby wanted a re-confirmation. The re-confirmation came in the process of a 35-40 minute grilling interview session, which I couldn't do well in,given the fact I was absolutely unprepared for such hardcore technical stuff. After my supposedly 2nd round of interview, a list of 6 names was taken out where I was excluded. Didn't really feel bad as the ones in the list were definitely a niche above me. Wished the others and left for the hostel. Came to know later that the 6 were not allowed to rest in peace and were further grilled and only 2 managed to get through the complete process. The best incentive I was looking for in joining this company was the Mac or the Dell I would get to choose as soon as I join. But then,it became clear- the Mac would have to wait and probably come from my own pocket later.

Gosh, just one event took up so much space ! Reading more crap will not be appreciated I guess, for the time being. Promise to get back shortly.

Gracias