Mahesh Chayel

Chat between an IIM student and a Prof

2008-04-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

Student(Little afraid): Sirji, Can u tell me when the results will be out?

Prof (Shocked): Were u sure abt call when u wrote CAT?
Student : no :|
Prof: Were u sure abt convert when u gave ur interview?
Student: no :|
Prof (Throws a bouncer): Were we sure?
Student: :|
Prof (realises his mistake): Oh, I was just checking whether u are attentive or not.
Student: Ok sirji.

Student: Sirji, why do u think its taking so much time for results?
Prof (yawning): Our random number generation script had this error of.. Oh, ya ya results. We were checking the scores and comparing the number of students. Why are you asking this? Its supposed to be secret.
Student: Ok Sirji, But why do u take so much time to declare results when u know what has to be done?
Prof: (Kash mujhe maalum hota look (translation: If only I had known)) We are in talks with the Minister and the Minister will decide and Minister will tell which students to choose.
Student: Minister will decide students?
Prof: (Oops) Arrey nahin, I meant Ministry, government. Samajh rahe ho na..
(Student gives a convinced look)

Student: Can I ask you one more question Sirji.
Prof: Sure.
Student: So, how will u increase seats in the IIM?
Prof: Insider info, u shudnt tell anyone.
Student(happily): Yes sir.
Prof: We just bought 50 new chairs, and we will fix them at the end of the class using space optimization algorithms. (Gives a triumphant look).
(Student smirks)
Student(looking up): What abt the hostels? There also u will add extra beds.
Prof (Happy at student's interest): No, no we have elaborate plans for that. For some high scorers we will provide beds in library and for some in canteen and if there are few left, then near the TT table..
(Prof is all smiles and gives a proud look)

Student: Sir, how did u join this institution?
Prof: U ask many questions, if you must know, I was a special case. Actually my uncle Arjun Singh wanted me to join AIIMS but since I studied (Looks at the anger on student face and stops)
Student: To ye baat hai.
Prof looks left, right and runs..

Student sits down on the road and watches him..

I will ease your mind

2008-03-18T06:23:00.000-07:00

(Source : Simon & Garfunkel)
Does anyone need to say anything more? The best song of self-less love, if ever there is such a term.

When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

I can only say: Lets C !

2008-03-17T05:34:00.000-07:00

This was my story of Calcutta..

GD:
Topic: It was a case study about am Auto company which is facing problems in recruitment.
Number of Ppl present: 8 (1 guy was late)

Was a very peaceful GD. I started second.. Gave lot of good points. Summary wasnt that good.

PI:

Background: I was 7th in the panel to be interviewed. The guy before me had nearly half an hour interview.There were 4 panelists.
2 male profs: P1, P2
1 lady prof: L1
1 alumni: A1
Me: Mac

P2: Calls out my name
Mac: GM to everybody.
P1: Please give ur form and yes your file also.
Mac: sure sir
L1: Tell me smthg abt urself
Mac: I start telling about my job, college, hobbies and family (No one stops me)
A1: Ok what is a datamart.
Mac: Give him funda of Kimball and Inmon's approach and how they have datamarts.
L1: So wat and all u do at work.
Mac: Again describe the business analytics part and what we do in company
P2: So, in motoGP what should do to win? (motoGP in hobbies)
Mac: Sir?
P2: Says Edwards this time..
Mac: Yes sir.. Start about how bikes are all same and younger riders..
P2: Just tell me what should he do?
Mac: Ok then tell about casey stoner and his ducati are good, cant beat much on speed.
P2: So how important is the strategy vis-a-vis speed? like some will be left-handed and so for them it wud be good easy to take..
Mac: left-turn
P2: right-turn
Mac: ya right right. Just built upon what he said and told abt importance of strategy.
L1: Tell smthg abt Entrepreneurship contest u have written down.
Mac: Tell in detail about that.
P1 and I discuss on my percentile, calls and which interview left.
P1: So, how are interviews going on from what u heard outside.. Compare to other panels.
Mac: Tell abt 1,2,3 are going same way trying to know the person better panel 4,5 are little different, they are asking other qns like why low marks..
P1: ok.. So, what have u prepared for today?
Mac: Based upon how the interviews were going on in past few days I prepared on personal questions, hobbies and general things.
P1: Can I ask u acads
Mac: Yes sir. I am prepared.
P1: Ok..
P1: How much revenue of ur company will be from offshore.
Mac: Dont know exactly, if we consider India...
P1: take a guess
Mac: Around 20% give him some number in billion $
P1: What will it be for infosys.
Mac: Cant guess much, but should be very high percentage..
P1: Ok, what shud companies do to escape from high rupee appreciation.. give me 2 solutions
Mac: Tell him about diversification of market and hedging..
P1: good.. What is inflation?
Mac: Start smthg..
P1: Keep it short..
Mac: Ok.. tell him about rise in goods ......
P1: In goods?
Mac: In prices of goods
P1: If a company wants to exchange the dollars it has to rupees, which rate will apply selling or buying?
Mac: After thinking for sometime, Selling.
P1: Totally wrong. It should be buying, we have to see from bank point of view.
Mac: Ok sir
P1: So do u know abt TT and TC rates in buying.
Mac: Never heard it sir.
P1: India has forex reserves of about 100 billion $ so..
Mac: Sir I think its 300 billion $
P1 asks A1 is it? (I dont know why they did this)
P1: Oh ok.. So such a huge reserve how should the country use it in development of infrastructure.
Mac: Sir, forex reserves.
P1: Ok first tell where are the forex reserves?
Mac: With RBI
P1: RBI (Looked surprised) Are u sure.
Mac: I think so sir.
P1: Ok, so does it lie as it is there.
Mac: I dont exactly sir. It may be in form of debt bonds..
P1 hands over the file to me and says its done.

While leaving,
P1: Mahesh, so what will u tell ur friend outside how did it go
Mac: Sir, I will say it went well.

All give a vague smile..

I dont know what to make out of this.. Towards the end I was only seeing P1 for most of the time. Little stressed towards the end.

Duration: 13-14 minutes.

IIMI: Lot to be desired

2008-02-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Date : 19.02.08
Time : 1.50 pm
Venue : IIM Bangalore

GD : Evaluation of a business plan of a textile factory.

Came in 5 times, got new points and was well taken by the group. Amount of speaking was relatively lesser than other members.

Interview:

Panel: two male profs M1, M2.
Me: Mac

Panel was calling in random order, so was just roaming around till they called me. I was fourth to be called in.

M1: Please take your seat.
Mac: thank you.
M1: So what do you do at work?
Mac: Gave a brief description and also told about designing datawarehouses.
M1: How do u design datawarehouse?
Mac: Told about dimension, facts and little more on how its done.
M1: So, what subjects you studied in college? (So Soon :O )
Mac: Databases, data structures, datawarehousing
M1: Ok what is a database?
Mac: While explaining said about database management system..
M1: What is DBMS?
Mac: Told about how its related to database.
M1: Draw a flow of DBMS
Mac: Took a paper and started drawing and side by side explaining them.
M1: What is the purpose of file and database manager?
Mac: I was completely lost here. Didnt remember at all
M1: What is SQL?
Mac: Explained
M1: What is relational algebra?
Mac: Told
He asked me some symbols here.
M1: What is relational calculus?
Mac: told about tuple relational calculus.
M1: Some language based on tuple relational calculus?
Mac: Dont know :(
M1: Some languages other than SQL
Mac: told 4 of them
M1: What else you studied?
Mac: Repeated earlier 3 again and then said statistics.
M1: Can I ask questions in statistics?
Mac: Just gave a smile.
M1: What is statistics?
Mac: Started with definition, then got lost and then started on contents of statistics told about various things. Dropped few words in middle like hypothesis, SD, Inferential stats, etc. But they didnt pick anything from that.
M1: What is distibution?
Mac: Told about probability distribution
M1: What is sample and population?
Mac: Told
M1: What are sampling techniques?
Mac: Silence
M1: What are random and non-random sampling techniques?
Mac: Silence
M1: Probably u didnt study them.. But then tell me what are different kind of means?
Mac: Started on Mean, median, mode
M1: No, no. I mean different kind of averages?
Mac: Again, dont know..
M2: I have just one question to ask. Which states you have been in India?
Mac: Told about 10 states..
M2: What is the longest railway route in india?
Mac: Said from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
M2: Its upto Jammu or kashmir?
Mac: Jammu..
M1: Thank you.

Hence ended the debacle. Interview went for about 13-14 minutes.
Didnt know many things, but was a learning experience in itself.

IIML: My First GD\PI

2008-02-15T05:20:00.000-08:00

My First interview today

Date : 15.02.08
Time : 2 pm
Venue : bangalore

Profile :

X : 91.5
XII : 92.6
Grad : 88.5 M.Sc. Integrated ( CEG, Anna University )

Work Ex : 20 months in Business Intelligence, Oracle.

GD:
Essay writing: 30 minutes
Discussion: 15 mins
Topic: Great spirits face violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Was ok. Didnt start, but got lot of points to add. Came in about 5-6 times.
There were just 8 members. I would rate myself 7/10 in GD.

Interview:

Panel: M1,M2
Me: Mac

Mac: Good afternoon..
M1: Please sit down
M1: Tell me smthg about ur family which is not there on form.
Mac: Blah, blah..
M2: Hobbies?
Mac: ..., blogging,.......
M1: Have u heard about pagalguy blog, what do u think about that?
Mac: (Spoke for 4-5 minutes) Pagalguy not only for mba, lot of other things, ......
M2: What are the things related to CAT.
Mac: Explained abt part before writing written test, comparison of mock scores and repeaters helping new guys.
M1: How will ur work experience help in MBA?
Mac: Blah blah...
M2: How do u rate colleges?
Mac: (Funda again..) Told them values, etc. etc.
M1: What did u play at college? (On seeing my form)
Mac: Cricket, watch tennis.
M2: What did u do in cricket?
Mac: Batting, fielding..
M2: Who is an allrounder?
Mac: bowling and good batsman.. (gave examples)
M2: Give me necessary and sufficient conditions, relate to maths..
Mac: (Gave example again.. )
M1: How will u decide which college?
Mac: (Fundas)
M2: How will u rate companies?
Mac: CRISIL rates and then told abt magazines rating companies and various things they look at. (Told CSR somewhere)
M1: What is CSR?
Mac: Blah Blah..
M2: Will this add to company?
Mac: Yes, good perception. I will join such a company..
M2: What is data mining?
Mac: Told..
M2: What is data filtering?
Mac: Went round about.. Then finally settled on some subset of data mining.
M2 asked some acad qn but I never heard that term
Mac: Plain dont know.
M1: Do u read newspapers, magazines?
Mac: Yes, some of them.
M2: What do u think abt 10000 cr loss headlines, black monday.
Mac: Told abt why not look other way.
M2: What is pschology of ppl abt this?
Mac: Negative things and ......
M2: Can u bring out positive in this?
Mac: Told abt how it adds to good for govt and companies. They will be carefull.
M2: What are breadths and depths of markets?
Mac: Not very clear. Probably various companies are the breadth.
M1: (Explained depth and breadth.)
Mac: (Listened attentively)
M2: What is garbage in and garbage out?
Mac: Didnt get it sir.
M1: U r comp sci graduate na. U dont understand this.
M2 then explained that.
Mac: Sir, I thought u asked some hi-fi stuff
All laughed..
M2: Where are u from
Mac: (Told my ram katha )
M1: Who is chief minister of Haryana? (My native place)
Mac: (Blank)
M1: Bhupinder
Mac: Bhupinder Singh Hooda
M2: What do u think abt growth in Haryana.
Mac: Told abt various districts and growth there.
M1: But I see very large GSP by Haryana?
Mac: Because of pockets of growth.
M2: good luck
Mac: Thank you, Thank you...

They saw my certificates in middle.
Total time in Interview: 35 minutes

Some things...

2008-01-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

Some things make me desperate..
Their lure burns in me like a holy fire

Some things make me happy..
Their zeal makes me ask for more

Some things make me mad..
Their ruthlessness wants me to destroy them

Some things make me curious..
Their strangeness asks me for exploration

Some things make me cry..
Their depth asks me to stop thinking about them

And there are many other things..
Of which I keep thinking about day and night..
They trouble me in and out, I dont know the reason why
Probably I need to know more about 'Some things..'

Google Search

2008-01-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

Trying to discover myself from past few days. Dont know what is there in me, why am I trying to get into MBA. (A reason gud enough, not the obvious one ;) )

Search has been going on every front I have faced in my life. The things I have done for past 20 years, things which make me myself. Strangely its quite tough knowing yourself than knowing a stranger.

Nearly 30 days left for my first interview. So, want to cover everything in that. Mostly shud be able to. Anyways u as a reader will be updated.

Keep ur blessings for me :)

Happy moments

2008-01-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

Its very hard for me to describe those few moments(I am rewriting this line for 8th time now :) )

As, I told u earlier I wasnt expecting anything, not even a single call and percentiles only in the range of 95-98.

But probably God had thought that probably the chap has made enough efforts, so let him go.
And there I had my sectionals in the range of 95-98.

And overall 99.46 !!!

Unbelievable, even for me. Was so happy to see that. After 2 minutes came back on earth :) Suddenly Karthick asked me which calls u got.
See the shock, the calls were on the same page. I didnt even notice them till now. And after he asked just scrolled down and Voila!!!

It said you are shortlisted from
Bangalore
Kolkatta
Lucknow
Kanpur
Indore

wow.. wait Kanpur.. When did they open one in Kanpur.. Then got it. Must be Kozhikode.

Was waiting for Eshwar's and Sundar's calls. Luckily they also got calls.

Felt bad that Prem, Shivdeep, Shoban,Kannan didnt get through. They also deserved it. But probably God has better things for them.

Lot of things to do now.. I am just sequencing everything. Hope everything goes well.

Thanks for all this goes to God, my parents and my friends for supporting me at every stage.. Thanks u all..

post-CAT script

2007-12-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

The most hyped exam came to end and it did not give me time to say "Ya I am done".

I dont know the results yet but I am very doubtful as to whether I will get even a call. At this point I should be preparing for next exams like XAT and FMS. But I am not. Dont ask me the reason.

I think by writing it here, I will be better able to do justice to myself. So, will prepare this time but differently. Wont exert myself too much. Will focus on developing key skills.

A season of performances and results is ahead. Lets see what has this world in store for me..

Wats going on

2007-10-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a long time since I wrote anything here. So, probably u can guess that I am very busy.. Not in work, but in prep.

This year I am going to make it and so want to provide the best shot so that I get into the best college.

QA: Every question is designed in such a way that there is a soln to that
VA: Concentration is the name of the game. Its just like QA and DI
RC: Read first para and u can increase or decrease speeds then
DI: Dont lose ur cool, its very close..

Overall: I plan to do smthg very serious on the front of maintaining higher concentration levels and at the same time taking this paper same way as I will take a paper with more qns. I know that will help me.

Wish me luck..

I will surely let u know which IIM, I 'm destined to join.. :)

Whata post!!!

2007-02-07T03:46:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody,

This is my first blog. Quite happy abt it. wanted to write a blog from long time, but never found any interesting blogs which could show me the power of blogging.

Now i am writing this, thats a good enough reason to prove that i am getting impressed by blogs.

And here I present to u, one of the most confused, dangerously demanding and a wanna be winner in life personality. I have lot of crazy ideas and very strange views of doing many things.

Lot of goals in life to achieve and lot of things to have. Though i wont say i havent achieved anything, actually achieved few things. will keep revealing in further posts.
But it matters more to me what i will achieve in future, bcaz nobody wants what u did, they want to know what u r doing and what u will do. (Remember not what u can do)

Have lot of agendas on my plate therefore: I have to complete my management degree within 3-4 years. Will try to do it in India, but wont hesitate if I had to do it abroad..

Will keep u ppl posted on the info i keep generating for moving ahead..