A movie and a bandh

Gestern in der Nacht (a Deutsche phrase that has somehow stuck in my head meaning yesterday night), I saw 300. Arbit, racist movie with lot of gore, lesser than what I had anticipated though, lesser history and least acting. The wiki page on the Battle of Thermopylae is more interesting and entertaining than the movie.

Post the Supreme Court verdict staying reservations, Karunanidhi has announced a bandh in TN. But the bandh has been scheduled on a Saturday, the worst day for a bandh. A bandh on a Monday would have atleast resulted in a 3 day weekend. As my dad said, he probably wanted to do this before Amma could create havoc and thus get score points over her.

Good stuff from the Supreme Court though. But MPs will surely cut across party lines to vote for an amendment to the constitution that would find a way around the current verdict. One of the failings of democracy I guess, vote bank politics just can't be avoided.

Kemmanagundi - The beginning

Edit: Pics.

Prologue

It all started off because Vamshi and I were bored. So Vamshi dashed off a mail to Bhattad, Beedi, Kanth and myself about the need to do something worthwhile. This coupled with some googling led to Kemmanagundi and everyone accepted. Kanth dropped out soon after as he had some marriage to attend. Cheap guy Beedi packed because his fiancee did not let him go. So we decided to rope in some Bangalore based bugger, and hence BJ came in.

All the arrangements were done on the net itself. The rooms, pretty costly at 1K per day per person including the grub, and the cab. We originally wanted to get a car from Avis and then drive ourselves, but that turned out to be too expensive, some 3K for the two days + petrol. As a result we decided to hire an Indica @ 5.5/km from one of the many websites.

This was going to be a trip unlike the one's we made in the past as students, where we would always be a little short of cash and as a result do economy max and think twice before spending every penny.

Saturday 5-8 pm

I think BJ woke up first. A knock on the door by Nagesh, the attender cum all-in-all at the camp, to give us coffee/tea. Tea was ok, coffee was like payasam. But still we did drink. After numerous calls, Bhattad finally woke up and we left to Sunset Point.

But we missed the turning for Sunset Point and ended up at the place where the so-called-road to Hebbe Falls diverges from the so-called-road to Chickmaglur. We decided to stop our car there and do some trekking. The first attempt to climb a hill was unsuccessful as the hill was totally muddy and there was absolutely no grip which BJ realised first and in the process sullied his pants.

We did find another way up, went up, took some pics and then came down, first the hill and then the camp in the car, as it got pretty dark.

Saturday 3-5 pm

We reached the Rangers camp that I had found on karnatakatourism.com a little after 3, took possession of the rooms which were pretty clean and spacious, and then embarked on some good lunch. Homely stuff, I think made by the wife of the owner of the camp.

Saturday 10 am -3 pm

Non-stop travel in the direction of our destination. There was one stop though, for sugar cane juice at Hassan. Then we went past Belur and Chickmagalur when we took a wrong turn, a road which would take us to Kemmanagundi, but our camp was on the other side of the hill. After an half hour drive up the hill, we had to reverse and come back all the way down. After this, we found our camp quite effortlessly, ofcourse after several confirmations that we were indeed on the right track at the many villages on the way.

As we were going up the hill in the wrong turn, it started getting cooler, giving us great hopes about the weather that were ultimately quashed. It was hot throughout after that.

Saturday 8:30 - 10 am

We left from home, picked up BJ at Trinity Circle outside Kids Kemp and sped on. Stopped for diesel and breakfast. I got RG-ed during breakfast. The others got idly-vada dipped in sambar, but the cup-level plates got over and hence I had to have separate cups of sambar and chutney, like in Manipal Canteen. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to travel the extra distance to New Shanti Sagar at Domlur on weekends.

Saturday 5:30-8:30 am

I was supposed to pick up Bond at Cantonment. But the previous nights exertions meant that I could not wake up on time. As a result, Bond had managed to come till Manipal Hospital along with a friend of his. But no such issues with Vamshi as his train came in only at 6:45 at Cantonment. Came home and as these guys were talking, I even put a bath.

Saturday 1:30 am

I sent my last sms to Skimpy and went to sleep. Yuvraj had just gotten run out and India were out of the World Cup.

Kemmanagundi - The stay

Sunday 5-11 a.m

It was the most entertaining part of the trip. A trip to Hebbe Falls, some 23 kms from the place we were put up. The road was really bad. The original plan was to take our cab till where it was decently motorable and then put a trek to the falls. But due to the exertions of the previous day, two tyres of our cab got punctured. So we had to hire a jeep to do the needful. It was pretty costly, 850 bucks for the entire journey, but in the end I guess it was worth it.

A totally bumpy ride, punctuated by a single stop to click the rising sun, brought us to an estate. On the way, it became very obvious as to why the place was named Kemmanagundi, meaning mountain of red mud. (kem + man + gundi (assuming gundi = mountain or some such landform) ) The path was also of red mud and stones, because of the presence of large quantities of iron in the area. There is a mine on the way also, don't know whether it is functional.

The estate seemed to be just out of Kerala. Greenery, coconut trees and thatched huts helped to foster this feeling. A small 20 odd min walk through the estate and then a jungle, wading through a stream a couple of times, took us to Hebbe Falls. We did come across some paper plates thrown by some cheap visitors to the place on the way.

The waterfall was beautiful and totally pristine. Will upload the thousand words soon. Cascaded from a great height and there was no one around also. After some surveying and some slipping on stones by me, we finally tested the waters in the pool formed at the base of the falls. Ice cold it was. But it was very refreshing too. Bhattad and Vamshi put some fight and got to a place under the waterfall and then BJ and I joined them. Cracking it was, lots of photos too ofcourse.

It was soon time to return and as we were coming back, we saw lots of people making a queue to the falls. We had timed it just right. More bumps and we were back at our camp by 11 for the dosa breakfast.

Saturday 8-11 p.m.

It was rummy time with a break for dinner. There were cards at the camp itself and we made complete use of it. Time just flew and it was already time to sleep by the time Vamshi reached 500 points and thus lost the game.

Kemmanagundi - The way back

Monday, 2:00 am

The weekend ended as it had begun, late. For entirely different reasons though. Friday night sleeping was delayed because of the foolish hope of a good Indian performance. Yesterday night was because of a railway derailment somewhere between Bhopal and Nagpur. Vamshi's train back to Hyd was to leave at 10:20, but got postponed to 2:00, an incident that is pretty par for me whenever I go home. I dropped him at Yeshwantpur around 1:30 and came back home and crashed.

Sunday, 8-10 p.m.

We reached Yeshwantpur only around 7:30 and hence going home and then again coming back to drop Vamshi would be crazy. So we decided to go for dinner directly. Adigas at Malleswaram was jam packed, so it was New Shanti Sagar, which was surprisingly empty. Probably its to do with Adigas being started recently. Or it could also be the obvious fact that Adigas is better than New Shanti Sagar. A full course meal, where we unfortunately ended up wasting nearly one butter naan as it was larger than Vamshi had bargained for.

Sunday, 3-8 pm

The drive back from Belur. The heat had made us become like the villagers of Lagaan, looking around for any small signs of rain. But alas no respite for us. The road was pretty good and despite a lot of traffic, especially many slow moving HP gas containers we did make good speed.

Sunday 2-3 pm

The Chennakesava temple at Belur. As it was on the way and we would have been early without a stop, Vamshi's need to score Brownie points with his aunt, we brushed aside Bhattad's feeble protestations and decided to stop over at Belur. I was very impressed when I had gone last year, but could not take any pics. So for me, this visit was only for clicking as many pics as I could and I did put close to a 100 I think. The guide after a while realised that the others weren't too interested in the dancing and spiritual sculptures, but had evinced considerable interest in the kamasutra ones, ended up showing "sex-scenes" including some "dog-systems", stuff which was not original Hoysala, but later additions by the Vijayanagara kings on the outside gopuram.

Sunday 12-3 pm

After a strong masala dosa breakfast (Vamshi and I put 5 each) at our camp, we left for Bangalore. We took the same route back, Kemmanagundi-Chickmaglur-Belur-Hassan-Kunigal-Nelamangala-Bangalore.

A long drive to nowhere

I was bored. India in the Windies didn't helped the cause by getting thrashed against Bangladesh. I forgot totally about the F1 race. I was originally supposed to go to Srirangapatna with Josh, but that plan got scuttled due to patently pressing problems for Josh at work on Saturday and a sleepless night on Sunday.

More importantly I was awake by 8 and Sunday morning TV is one of the most unappealing facts of life. There used to be a time when there was only one channel on TV and still Sunday morning was always one to look forward to to watch boring versions of epics for years. But now infinite channels are uninteresting.

Enough of explaining. Let me get to the crux of the matter. I decided to take the nearest exit out of Bangalore, which to me was represented by the Old Madras Road. After a bath and a strong breakfast of a masala dosa and a sambar vada at a Darshini nearby and a stronger Rs. 10 mango shake at one of those wonderful Ganesh/New Ganesh fruit juice centres that are invariably located very near Darshinis, I hit the road around 9.

There was some traffic till Hoskote, but after that it was invariably cruising only in the 80-85 kmph range. Cracking road and pretty good speed despite it being just two laned. Stopped for the first time somewhere a little beyond Kolar after I had done 70 odd kms for a bottle of water. I procured this from a bar run by a Gult.

Again set off and somewhere beyond the next major town Mulbagal, I decided to stop for refuelling my bike. By this time, 10:45, I had done 100 kms and it was also getting hotter. I turned around and came back. Reached Bangalore around 12:15 after a stop just a little after Kolar to quench thirst and also to make a call home.

On reaching Bangalore, the first thing I did was to go to Crossword and buy an India Road Atlas. I have planned greater and more meaningful things to do with my Thunderbird, lets see if they work out.

Calcutta

After some last minute to go or not to go questions, we finally did go to Kolkata. The flight onward, a really long 3.5 hour one with a stopover at Hyd, was delayed by half an hour due to systems failure in Bangalore. An inexplicable and woresht max problem, given that it was a Sunday evening.

Joka, the place where the IIM is located isn't as far as some junta made it out to be. Took 45 minutes in the morning and a little more than an hour in the afternoon on the way back. But the campus to me seemed really shady, with a lake welcoming you. Just too much water around the place. And the rooms where the interviews were held were also a little too old and dingy, compared unfavourably with the pretty decent and well lit rooms at IIMB. (just couldn't avoid comparisons)

Here, I did interview four of the 6 candidates who were left in our shortlist after slot zero. Packed two and recommended two for the next round, and one of them, a female, was made the final offer. We made an offer to another guy also, who was a classmate of mine at IITM and I knew him even earlier at Ramaiah. Basically knew him quite well and as a result did not interview him.

In general, given the summers of last year, the day zeros of this year weren't as good. Around 60 types out at all the three IIMs + PPOs according to well placed sources. The consults have been pretty generous, but the banks have been stingy. (a sign that a recession might be soon upon us? )

I did not know when we would be finishing our process and so had booked a ticket only for the next morning. But our process was over by 2:30, so I had the entire day with me. And also a car totally for me only. So decided to do some roaming around Calcutta. The cab driver showed me the Birla Mandir (a Radha Krishna one), then took me to the Victoria memorial. It was a Monday, so the gallery was closed and it was 6 by the time I reached there and so the grounds were also closed. So just wandered around opposite watching couples and a couple of fountains. After a drive over the two bridges, came back to the hotel.

Somehow Kolkata kept reminding me of New York. The yellow cabs, a huge park in the centre of the city, famous bridges, one of which is just like the Brooklyn Bridge, a river flowing and in general lots of water around. Only on the last morning in the toilet, enlightenment reigned. It had to be the toilet paper.

Short term pain or long term anxiety?

Did the IIMB round. Didn't do any interview rounds though as I knew most of the shortlisted junta pretty well, a couple of whom we also picked up. Will surely be doing interviews in Calcutta.

There was this guy, who thought that he had done the interviews decently, but my manager thought otherwise and so decided to pack him. When he came back to me,I told him that he would not be making it, and as a result his face complexion lost colour. Felt bad that I told him immediately, but thinking about it immediately afterward, this was probably the better thing to do than to have had him wait indefinitely, a big big pain as at the end of the wait, the wait turns out to be invariably futile. Something I had experienced quite a few times in the past.

But was it right generalising based on my experience? Anyways its done, and I think I will continue with a similar policy at other places and times in the future also. Get done with it and not make people wait.

It is a good development that IIMB has refused to make public any of the placement results so far and plan to make a press release (hopefully without salary figures) only after everyone gets placed.

Placements time again

At the IIMs. And I will be there again, as a recruiter though. At IIM Bangalore tomorrow and at Calcutta on Monday. For some reason known only to my managers, we have packed the "soap-sellers"/"consult-types" at Ahmedabad.

It does feel good to be on the other side. Main reason is that there is no pressure at all, well not exactly, lesser pressure for sure. You still have to ask decent questions to keep up your reputation. Currently I won't be making the final decision, so no worries on that front for me.

It feels nice to go through the resumes and comment about them and discuss with Skimpy. Some general observations on my part looking at the resumes from C and B:

1) The fact that we did not give a ppt at C, but gave a ppt at B mattered. There were a few commie (read as commerce, CA types) resumes from C, while almost none from B.

2) C resumes are more widely differing in format than B. B resumes seem more standardized, don't know why.

3) C resumes for some reason have their sex and age on top. Probably to avoid shortlisting based on mistaken sexual identity. With this data on the resume, these won't be out of place on matrimonial sites.

4) Our HR does suffer from a shortage of manpower. But brainpower also seems to be in short supply here. The topper from IIMC wasn't shortlisted as were some hajaar according to me quite promising candidates from IIMB. I had to go through all the "rejected" resumes again to look for candidates. And in the final shortlist, there were more candidates from my list than the HR's list.

5) After the perusal of quite a few resumes, I have come to the conclusion that profiles of the students at B are better than those at C. Could be inbuilt bias and also based on "objective" criteria like the CG. Will be known only once I visit both the campuses.

Stanchart Personal Banking sucks

Firstly one can't get a six month statement online.

Secondly, it takes 24 hours (and don't know how much money) if I go to the bank and 4 days if I order it online. (so much for total computerization, good old SB of Mysore did it for free in 30 minutes)

Thirdly, when I place orders both at the bank and online, the statement at the bank is lost because the person with whom I had placed the order quit and the online request is also ignored. So now I have had to place an order again.

Fourthly, despite all this I have to continue with StanChart as I have been locked in as it is my salary account.