I am working as a Business Development Intern @ lootstreet. I have been working in Hyderabad, visiting the city again after a gap pf nearly 10 years with absolutely no memories whatsoever from my previous visits while my father used to work here. To all those to whom I haven't already explained about lootstreet , we are an online start-up venture headed by 2 IIM-A graduates. We are the first website in India that provides platform for bargaining and negotiation of prices before a buyer and seller strike a deal. This is the standard line that I use in my work everyday.



As a business development intern, I am responsible for trying to woo sellers onto lootstreet and hence make a larger bargaining market for all the buyers on website. This would be my job description, but I have enjoyed working here with 2 people who have left behind hefty salary packages from their placements in IIM to take up the challenge of bringing their own dream venture alive. I have already learnt much from my first two working weeks here and am also sure that this " work experience " will enhance my knowledge about many things that happen in the real-time working of a firm( unlike what Principles of Management,POM teaches most BITSians ) . This seems to be a lot more enjoyable than working in a 1000 member strong workforce right now, but I am completely unaware of what that feels like. I am yet to sit in an interview for a job myself, but have already interviewed 2 people for a post here, so you can guess the kind of experience I will be deriving out of this. Also, I managed to visit ISB and sit through an engaging discussion between an ISB professor and an IIM graduate.


This summer sure looks very promising and interesting for me.Despite this hampering my CAT preparations , I am still happy that I managed to contact lootstreet and join them here for a brief period in these initial stages of this interesting venture.Do visit the website and try your hand at bargaining - something which am sure all of you do when you go shopping, try it online too now .

The Supreme court of India today passed a verdict that will change an existing education system for the worst according to most of the student population which will be affected by this, but for the best according to the government which enforced this rule. Reservation in IIT's and IIM's the premier Engineering and Management institutions of the nation respectively has just shot up to a very insignificant share : 49.5 % . For a detailed news article you can probably go here . Prime time News channels must be running their debates and polls on this as I write and heated debates must be on at various points across the nation. The 500 page verdict thankfully does not try and impose this rule in private institutions, like this one from where I am going to recieve my graduation certificate (which the government wanted to by the way).

Reservations were introduced in the constitution by Dr.B.R Ambedkar, currently hailed as the father of Dalits and The SC's and ST's. I do not think he intended it to grow into this "vote bank politics" scheme of things as it runs now. The idea was to roll back reservations 50 years after independence because that was the entire point behind the scheme. India had made a plan to move ahead by making sure that there are no longer backward people 50 years from then. But today, we keep moving backward. I hope I am not attributing the following quote wrongly to Mr.Narayana Murthy " India is the only country where people want to be called backward and proud of it " . It just about explains the scenario. No government today would risk losing its chance of winning the next general elections by modifying the existing reservation scenario for the "forward " movement of the nation.

Sadly. all this is leading to a very disheartening situation. The worst hit are students whose best efforts to make it to the best colleges is being thwarted by the government's moves. Many deserving students are missing their chance to get the best education that the nation can provide them.How can we call these the best institutes of the nation if it does not provide fair grounds for students to gain entry to it ? How can their quality of education be judged if they are not providing it to the best brains in the country ? How can India with all this complain about Brain Drain ? How can students who have been deprived of good education be the pillars of the nation tomorrow ? Above all this, How can this "reserved " candidates live upto the standards of others if they are given a concession to make it there in the first place ? How can these "special" ones be the best equipped to put to use the so called advanced infrastructure that the government has established? Will the IIT's and IIM's have the same respect as before in the world outside if 51.1 % students are of one standard and the other 49.9% at a different plane ?( On the lighter side , will intros in IIT carry "Merit/Reserved Quota" from this year ? )

Getting down to the "better" part of the ruling, the "creamy layer" of the OBC's have been excluded from this judgement. But,does this really affect the process at all ? A majority of
these "categories" are in the government sectors, mostly again by the concession that the government provides for them in their jobs. A few others maybe in the business sector. Both fields where the actual "status" might be Below-the-poverty line according to their salary certificates/ affidavits while they live in bungalows with the most posh of facilities. Will the college facilities visit each home to determine whether they are "creamy" or "dirty" ?


The government seems to be making a concession for the special ones at every walk of their lives right from their moment they are born. They have backdoor entries into the premier institutes , government jobs and even promotions in them. How can the nation then blame the educated for failing to contribute to the nation when all that they do is push us backward and backward. Not all of us will be what SRK was in Swades - none of us are willing to do anything for the street we live in, leave alone the nation.


My intentions is not to state that "I am Proud to be a BITSIAN" .Sadly In Fact , at this point of time it is to state that I am not proud of being an Indian.

Just like any other kid who has grown up in Chennai I am a part of the innumerous "fans" of Thalaivar. Though I may not belong to those group of people who do the "palabhishekam" and "Rupeemala's" for him , the number of times I have watched every movie of his cannot be counted on my fingers. My mother is still amazed at how I do not tire from watching their repeats on the Saturday 1'0 clock slots. I still remember the adrenaling pumping for each of those dialogues I heard during the second day screening of Sivaji.There were fathers of teenagers sitting around me outshouting their sons , that is the excitement created when Thailavar delivers his punchline.

Despite all his fan following and demi-god status in South India , he is just a laughing stock in the north. The people are amazed at how Rajnikanth does not obey the laws of physics and fail to accept the fact that none of his stunts are graphic-animated, all of it is true - he does not use a stunt double- that is what all of us believe and that is what makes the movie a success down south. We are all believers :).To just give you a sample of what non-believers make out of a Superstar movie , please read this , a blog post by Anuradha Sengupta, a CNN-IBN journalist. The post recieved a response of a meagre 1798 comments to date many of which included death threats and denouncing her skills, all for writing a few lines about her views on the Superstar's latest movie-Sivaji. The beauty of the movie is lost when she understands the dialogue as : Pigs come in herds, lion comes single ; while sitting in a Mumbai theatre. For the same line, Satyam( the theatre) literally vibrated from the audience response. Down south , it is imbibed in our culture to watch a Rajni movie and cheer for every line, hate the villain, buy first show tickets for whooping prices of upto 1500 to display our love for the Man .

More than everything else, a Rajni movie takes cinemagoers to a level never seen before. For which other actor, would producers ever be ready to invest the staggering amount of Rs 80 crores without thinking twice.Everything moves to a new level when the stakes are on Rajni- the music, the camera work, the art , nothing goes unattended. Such is the perfection levels a Thaliavar movie delivers. No other actor in the Indian cinema industry can command such respect, his worst flop gave him Rs 25 crores if I am not wrong ( a self-driven spiritual based venture Baba ) . For ages altogether he has reigned the movie industry down south and of late has started gaining good ground in the lands above too. The distributors of "The Pirates of the Carribean : At the world's end " advanced their Indian release date fearing the Rajni onslaught awaiting in the form of Sivaji. A fact that is well known is that Sivaji's parking costs in Mumbai and Delhi earned more than the total collection of the Bacchan family starrer Jhoom Barabar Jhoom .


Pages altogether can be written , and has most recently been released - "The Name is Rajnikanth" by Gayathri Shreekanth which I am sure is by far the bestseller in lands where Tamil is spoken. We all await with bated breath ,the auspicious moment to see the Thalaivar on big screen for the next time.

To end with, despite all the hype and hoopla surrounding the new Rajni movies, my all time favourite still is ThilluMullu, whats yours ?

For all those who use Google as their default search engine , Google is doing its bit to save energy, please jump onto the bandwagon if you haven't already done it. Taking into account the fact the energy that is spent by an average computer every time the page is opened, an alternate version has been created , which uses the colour black and hence consumes lesser energy.So, from the next time you want to search for something on the internet, please use this link and do your bit to "conserve" energy .

It is not exactly as the title suggests , there is no prom night on the campus of BITS Pilani, but this is probably the closest people might ever to get to the American equivalent , which is for students passing out of high school. But in the "Indian" scheme of things it would even be a disaster to consider anything beyond a school-organised farewell, where most girls try their hand at the sari for the first time .

The event that I am talking would be the momentous occasion - Batch Snaps . This is the time of the year when all 3rd yearites on campus, spend a lot of time trying to look civilized, change their appearance to look good on those "to be preserved for life" snaps and go around begging for formal attire. Once people start pouring into "Skylawns" at the appointed time, it resembles a mela ground with the only things missing being a merry go round and the ferris wheel. A few crushes are revealed and the equivalent of asking anybody out for a dance would be to take a snap with them to always remember our crush during college. We do have our own set of enterprising people who prefer to turn up for this occasion in very "high spirits". Then there is the discrimination based on physical features - height order which determines where you stand in this very important snap . Once, that is done there has to be a detailed analysis to make sure that everybody is seen from every angle , so in all around 45 minutes in front of the lenses and under the mercy of Lord Surya. The show goes on till everybody has taken a snap with whomsoever they know on campus or till the charge in your battery run out ( of course ,now it is possible that you could now contract out your snaps to the Department of Photography on campus, who would ensure that these special moments are never forgotten due to the want of a camera ). Pappuji thrives on the treats that are being thrown around, though I do have no idea of how he keeps track of who has ordered what single handedly on such a hectic day.

The funda behind this idea is that like every other thing, BITS offers a unique experience of college life. This semester is the last 5 months that the entire batch of soon-to-be engineers will be on campus together with us taking shifts in doing an internship for one semester in our final year. The college authorities politely remind us through this process that we are nearing the end of our stay here and might not be around with many of our friends . In many cases this semester maybe the last time we even meet them before we diverge off to pursue our own future . So, yes indeed this is an occasion to celebrate, get ready for and enjoy a few hours before you get back into your room and realize in order to pass out, you still need to wait for another year and give the test the next day as well :).

P.S:
Dedications to all my batchmates and to the institute which has given me my current identity - 2005A4PS340.

Credits :
Vikram Chari insists that it be mentioned that he is enterprising person being referred to in the post.

Blogging is a phenomenon for every man to air his views on anything under the sky. Something I have been considering : Will I ever be penalised for the contents in my blog ? Will my views on the situation in the institution I study catch the eye of an authority and land me into trouble ? Topping the list of my worries are the fact whether corporates care to check your blog to analyse the aptitude of their prospective employee .

I can never know whether employers will go to such extents of wasting available human resources.Though, that will be a good source of employment for the loads of unemployed in the nation. But, am I not allowed to express my views on anything without being put under heavy scrutiny ? Wasn't that freedom among the primary reasons for the success of blogs ? Aren't the corporates intruding on my privacy by doing so ? On the contrary, if I do have complaints against being scrutinised why should I make my views public in the first place ? As long as I crave for readership on the blog, I should be ready to put myself under the microscope.

This in its entirety becomes a simple situation first described by Joseph Heller in a book of the same name - Catch 22.