Where do you see yourself after 5 years???

Its that time of the year again. The CAT results are out. The interview lists have been drawn up. And the qualified candidates would have probably got a registered post from the respective institutes. The contents of the post would be (a) A letter intimating the date, time & venue of the GD/PI; (b) a 6-10 page form to be filled in and brought alongwith other required documents to be submitted at the same time.

Your elation at receiving the interview call then slowly diasappears as you read the form. The first page with all the personal details would be the easiest to fill out. But then start arriving, the really weird questions.

• Where do you see yourself after 5 years? (Honest answer, I dont know)
• Where do you see yourself after 10 years? (Again, I dont know)
• Where do you see yourself after 20 years? (OK, I exaggerated a bit here)
• Why do you want to pursue management as a career? (For the money, Honey, but see if anyone can give this answer)
• Narrate an incident when you had to show leadership skills? (???)
• Narrate an incident when you had a disagreement with people around you? And how did you handle the situation? (???)
• Narrate an experience which changed your perspective of life? (Seriously!!! Almost all of us have had pretty normal kind of lives. Where the hell does this life-changing, earth-shattering experience come from)

And it can go on and on. People with work-ex could still cook up something to write in here. But even then its not easy. Most people (yours truly included) manage to put in something and just try to get around and go through it. My suggestion, just write in whatever comes to mind and do it honestly. Browsing the net and creating artificial situations doesnt help. The only point of these questions as I see is that they they are trying to test your creativity and writing skills.

Why am I writing about this now? Anyone who successfully clears this process immediately becomes a consultant in this matter for the future generations to come. So results are out, interview calls have come and telephone calls, pings, scraps, mails seeking guidance have started coming. So just felt like writing about those experiences.

And for the question about where I see myself after five years, its been four years down the line and I am still to figure it out :)

The Bugle, The Dog & Mr. Pavlov

The IPL is on. Which means that there is something interesting to watch on TV every evening for the next 6 weeks. However this post is not about the cricket. (All cricket related posts are on the crickiblog).

Everyone who has watched even part of matches would have made this observation. Every now and then comes an irritating sound and the crowd goes wild. Its referred to as the Bugle and the in-stadium DJ plays its whenever he feels like. But the response is always the same. A loud cheer from the crowd. And this seems to be an universal phenomenon. It happened in South Africa last year, and its happening in India also.

Is it part of natural human instinct to cheer when you hear the bugle. Or has it become a case of "Classical Conditioning experiment", like Pavlov's Dog (dog started salivating on hearing a bell ring it associated it with food) with  the crowd in the stadium cheering when the DJ pushes the bugle button?
My theory is this. The Bugle seems to have originated in the South African domestic Pro20 games. The Bugle would be played whenever the crowd had a cause to celebrate and the crowd would cheer. In IPL2 the crowds were mostly neutral to the teams playing. So they would cheer whenever the bugle got played. And television coverage brought this to Indian audiences. The bugle came to India during the Champions League. The crowd reaction stayed the same. Now regardless of the match situation the crowd cheers on hearing the bugle.

Phir Dil Do Hockey Ko

Phir Dil Do Hockey Ko...

The Hockey World Cup has got under-way. This is the message that Virender Sehwag, Rajyavardhan Rathore & Priyanka Chopra are giving to the country. The ad campaign is catchy and effective.
Hockey in India has acquired a somewhat mythological status. We have got enough Olympic gold medals (8 of them) to ensure bragging rights as probably the greatest hockey nation of all time. The team won six consecutive gold medals from 1928-1956 without being beaten even once. The exploits of these players are told as epic tales. Dhyanchand has been selected as the Indian sportsperson of the 20th century. But sadly that era is long gone. We failed to even qualify for a place at the Beijing Olympics. 

The decline has been steady. There have been a few false dawns in between. The Asiad gold in Bangkok, 1998; The near-miss in Sydney Olympics; a couple of Asian Championship wins but after that its all back downhill. The administration has bungled big time. The KPS Gill regime was removed and replaced by a temporary committee but there isn't much sign of improvement. Indian Hockey has been in news mainly for the wrong reasons in the past couple of decades. Even the players threatened to go on strike for not being paid. (Sounds similar to West Indies cricket story)

It is in this context the Hockey World Cup is being held in New Delhi. India took on arch-rivals Pakistan on the opening day. It was lovely to actually hear the national anthem sung by the large crowd present at the stadium. The crowd was loud and cheered on the Indian team as they destroyed Pakistan 4-1. Our media went over the board as they always do. Cash prizes were announced for the players. All this jingoism came crashing down in the next game as we lost to Australia 2-5. Now some people started asking for the rewards to be withdrawn. 

But what was most heartening to note was that people actually cared a bit for the tournament (I was asked the hockey score in office while working late during the Australia game). The tournament broadcasters reported TRPs way beyond even that of cricket matches. Just hoping this kind of support continues after the World Cup also regardless of the result.

After all Hockey is our national sport and  was the sport which brought India on to the global sporting map.

फिर दिल दो ह्वाकी को...