@rgumental @dvisor

After losing hope of myself simplifying their job, my parents have taken up charge & put me into the 'market' ...Or in other words, I've debuted on Bharat Matrimony :) ... Purpose of the post is not to discuss about the happenings over there... it is to discuss the economics principles behind this.. (Anyone who is not interested in Economics, please feel free to skip the content below) In term-4, we studied one of the best courses that I've come across at IIMK - Complementary Products & Competitive Advantage.. In that, there is this concept of 2-sided platforms..Intuitively it is very simple -- 2 sided platforms brings together 2 distinct sets of customers together.. Credit card companies bring together merchants & consumers... Iphone App Store brings together the App developers & phone owners together...etc.. In most of the cases, the platform tend to benefit from one set of customers..Like, Credit card companies tend to benefit mainly from merchan...

I guess this is the first book that I read at a single stretch after a long time..Infact first book that I read completely after joining IIM :) .. Picked up Chetan Bhagat's 2 States from a book exhibition... I had lots and lots of assignments , work, studies pending.. But none of those concerns stopped me once I started reading :) The story is quite fast paced initially.. IIM life..That struck a chord initially itself.. Cribbing about mess food..the cryptic economics classes...the gossips that start to go on when a girl & guy starts going around..late night assignments.. Before you adjust yourself to the fast paced story style, the couple has kissed , had sex & has started a live-in relationship ... From here on, the story takes a melodramatic Hindi movie style.. They graduate, guy gets a job in Chennai along with her.. Guy tries various tricks to impress the girl's family, IIT Coaching for girl's muggu brother, conflict of South Indian & North Indian cul...

I just went through the google analytics report of my blog indicating the keyword searches that lead people to my blog...Some of the interesting ones given below.. 1. Satanic worship in Kerala , Devil worship in Kerala ( 6 ppl searched for this ... :) ) 2. NRI going back to India ( Was that a matrimony related search :P ) 3. Whats happening In the economy ( Ah..atleast google considers my writings on these worthy enough ) 4. Aim of my life ( People do tend to ask this question.. But finding out answer to this question from web looks to be a bit weird :) ) 5. Keralamatrimonynair ( ahem!!!...Google is intelligent :) ) 6. Ponds facepowder product presentation ( Ah...this should be some MBA student ) 7. Spending money in MBA is good or not ( I wish it is good :) ) If I go through some of these keyword targeted posts, I might be able to find some word-based relation between the keywords & what i've written .. For eg..The satan / devil related searches were actually landing on...

There are certain friendships/associations that stays throughout your life even if you don't put much effort into that.. Certain people gel naturally with you.. On the contrary, there are some friendships, no matter whatever effort you put will fade in due course of time..Its not that these people don't like you or you have any aversion towards them.. Its just that time brings about different priorities , different aspects etc.. The other day, i just thought about many of my friends who have graced my life during different times.. There are a few among them with whom maintaining consistent interaction comes naturally to me..and to them too...And there are a few among them with whom even if I put in lot of effort, the gelling does not come .. It certainly isn't intentional.. For, if i get in touch with them somehow, the phone call / talk is often quite good & interactive...But somehow, both of us does not feel any urge of maintaining that continuity.. So, what ex...

When I blogged about this , I thought this is a one-of-a-kind incident... It happened again soon..Apparently the curves were steeper & unexpected this time....Sigh!!! .. Why again. Current Mood: Disturbed :|

One typical characteristic that I've found in many people is that they attach too much importance to the end result / return that their efforts might bring in..In Corp Fin terms, these people would do a certain action only if they are sure that the NPV of this action is > 0 ... The problem with this category of people is that if by any chance , the results don't materialize, they become very desparate... " Yaar.. we did so much..and we did not get anything in the end" .. There are lot of advantages to this philosophy..These people tend to focus so much on ultimate results so that more often than not, they are likely to get it.. In the process, some do adopt not-so-fair means....But thats a different ethical question.. I was like this for quite long...Even now, I'm not totally immune to this way of thinking... And disappointments or failures really made me desparate & sad.. For the last couple of years, I've been following a diff approach... I don't...

Quite a few people, especially my relatives regard me as a highly successful person...Maybe because of these NIT , IIM tags, may be because of a relatively well - off academic credentials etc.. Somehow I get irritated when people talk to me with such a kind of perspective.. Let me confess - I'm someone who has missed achieving 90 % of what I aimed at in terms of academics.. Even when my parents talk to my brothers preaching them to aim at my academic credentials, I'm least impressed... Because for me, the notion of success is something higher.. I'm happy at what I'm... But I don't think anyone should aim at my career / acad levels and try to match those .. Because I see higher pedestals of what we can call as success . At every point in life, I had this habit of trying to match myself to people whom i thought were the 'role models of success' ... I could not emulate most of them..But as a strange turnaround, I often saw that, those people whom I ...

( Mallu specific post.. others excuse  please :)  )           There are some four / five  malayalam movies that I recommend to many non-mallus.. And 'Thaniyavarthanam'   is one among them... And that script is perhaps the best work of Lohithadas , who passed away couple of days ago.. The societal pressures forcing a normal man to lunacy is a masterclass...   The combination of Sibi Malayil & Lohithadas has given some of the best movies to us.. Another notable one among that being 'Kireedom', the national award winning movie.           I would perhaps place him at the same pedestal as the late Padmarajan..  However, both styles were essentially contrasting though..      As many news articles say, "Lohithadas ini oru orma"   

       There haven't been such a day in the recent past when on instance, I felt so good...and on another instance, I felt so disturbed... To be true, if I've to describe today - 5th June '09  - in terms of emotions I felt , it would be aptly mapped by a sinusoidal curve with 3 crests & 2 troughs..  However on all situations, I knew it was coming ... though I didnt knew whether the crest or trough was coming...but that knowledge helped me to deliver a balanced response.                    There are some situations in life when you have to speak up...And I'm happy that I did that today...  I do believe that a core value  education has instilled in me is to make sure that I don't take things meekly... that I dont silently submit myself to the so called system .... that I do try and fight.. that I do make a conscious attempt to make things better... And I'm proud that I attempted for that today....In the process, it did hurt someone...But I feel it'll do a ...

  He:   Hey..Why are we doing it this way ?   She:   Its supposed to be done like that    He:   Why? It doesnt seem to serve any purpose .   She:  This is how it was done till now & we need to maintain that way.   He: But there are better ways of doing this..Why spend such an awful time for doing this in an archiac way ?   She:  That deviates from the convention..    He:Its like a dogma..U spend so much of your time to preserve a convention which doesnt seem to serve any purpose.    She: It was done like this till now & it'll be done in the same way going forward no matter what effort it takes..We got to do it.   He: Sigh!!.. Is there any single word for 'useless convention' :)            -  There's this wonderful movie - 300 - in which they picturize how statements from Oracles are made..And the futility of obeying to a convention/norm/dogma is shown in a touching way... We get exposed to different systems in our life...None of them are perfect..Rather, those s...

  ( Disclaimer - Quite long post )      I get lot of questions on these topics nowadays..When will recession end, whether I should invest in stocks , whether rupee will move up/down etc etc….Being IIM students, quite a few expects us to be well versed & knowledgeable in all these areas..Infact these are million dollar questions which even very well renowned economists are trying to find answers for… In this post I’m trying to answer some of these with my limited economics & finance knowledge… Ofcourse, these explanations are highly debatable..But anyway, if you are interested in the subject, read on… What is Recession ? Whats happening in the economy ?               Mathematically/Economically , if a nation has gone through two continuous quarters of negative GDP growth, it is said to be in   Economic Recession… Leaving out all such stats & complicated explanations, what has happened in the economy is that people are extremely reluctant to spend.. Banks are reluctant to...

  Not quite... Two more exams tomorrow... And an eventful academic year ends..     Moment of Third Term  ------------------------------   MR Project presentation.. This was something in which I had free rided completely except choosing the topic .. Ofcourse, can't help when there are 4 academic projects :|   Prof : When the targeted market is population in Kunnamangalam ( the place where IIMK campus is situated ) , why did u restrict yourself to IIMK students for the survey ?    Presentor:- Sir, we did not have anyone in our project group knowing local language ( innocent reply )       Reality - There were three mallus including me in the group :-)    ------------------------------   MBA Vs B-Tech Life        I miss the carefree academic life that I had in NITC.. Reading lot of books, learning whatever subjects that I liked... Infact, the volume of acad materials is so huge in an MBA that even if you dedicate 100 % time to studies, you wont be able to finish those....Indeed, I miss...

   Here is a section from a mail from a  subject's course co-ordinator over a quiz conducted last week.. The paper was out of 10 marks :-)  Population Statistics Mean : 0.37 maybe Mode : 0 (by a long way) Maximum : 2 Minimum :0 Range : 2   Frequency Distribution   Marks    Frequency    0                65    1                 3?    2                 7?     -- No prizes for guessing how much yours truly has scored in this quiz :) :)      

 Quotes During First term projects selection    "Man..We should be doing a project that will add value to us..We shouldnt settle for anything less"  "Project should help us sometime in the future when we are working in industry "   "You know, these are the real learning opportunities in an MBA course "   "Lets brainstorm on this for 2 days..And after that lets meet @ Cross-roads at 23:59 on friday"  Quotes During Second Term project selection         "Man..I dont care about value addition..But I want it as a CV point..I mean it should be something worthy enough to put in the CV"   " See, its not about the topic..Its all about how you present it.. Remember , that bugger - XYZ - got max marks last term for a crappy project "     Quotes During Third Term project selection      " Minimum pain - maximum gain..that should be the motto.. "   " Criteria one - Is the project topic 'googleable' ? "   " L...

           Whatever be your opinion of this much entertaining movie, today is a great day for India.. Just two Oscars till yesterday -- One life time award for that maestro, Satyajit Ray &  some costume related award for Bhanu Athaiya  in Gandhi , Slumdog gave us quite a lot today ...Rahman, Russel , Freida ...  and  as the jewel in the crown - Oscar for the best movie..             What makes this movie special ? Its entertaining , fast paced, at times emotional,  often dramatic...but these attributes are found in quite a lot of movies...  To me, the speciality is that it captures the feelings and imaginations of all Indians..   Its a movie for the masses..Forget any cinematic imperfections..forget over dramatization, this is just something that quite a lot of people could relate to...could identify themselves with .. Cinema is for the audience.. And thats where Slumdog scores :)            As the music streams out of my itunes player, I can feel the emotions of many....And the mu...

          Some people are precociously talented.. Or rather, is it fluke that gets them to these superlative achievements.. Eitherway, these people make you understand one thing that I blogged about sometime back ...               " the reason behind an action by me might not be comprehensible to you..And a reason behind your action might not be comprehensible to me..Or rather, these buzzwords - rational , logical , common sensical -- all these vary from person to person to a great degree"      You tend to realize that something for which you struggled a lot does not even figure as worthy to someone else... :-)                    On a different note... I'm again hooked back to this wonderful idea of blogging before exams..:-)               Never there was a dull moment..             Never there were games..              It was nice ... It was bliss..             For I was being myself then..             Times have changed..Years have gone by..             Looking back, I ...

             Thats the title of a book :-) ..And I came across that in the most unlikeliest of all places.. A B-school  .... An exceptionally cryptic Corporate Finance class going on.. I kind of lost my way half way through..The fact that I didnt prepare the case/chapters didnt help much :-) .. And my neighbour was reading this wonderful book :-)                   I read this book a little bit later.. An amazingly attractive start.. It describes alarm clock as the worst invention that mankind could make..  How evil minded the genius would be who fused the time keeping device with a noise making device to disturb humanity forever :-) ..                   It just helps you to realize the value of being idle atleast sometimes :-) ..It'll make you realize that even in the midst of cut-throat competition , there are people living life at their own pace.. Havnt read this past the first few pages..                   I'm on a path towards professionalism.. Being in S'con ( Yea..got...