2000

I had the courage to walk into Harrod’s today. Rather silly of me, really, since I had about 250 pounds in my pocket, and was wearing an IIM-B jacket with my backpack. As soon as I walked in, a guard came up to me and said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry your backpack in your hand in this store, sir.” Struck me as slightly crazy. What, is it a measure against shoplifting? Or is it like you’re supposed to wear suits in some shops? Or did he just want me to feel uncomfortable? If so, he succeeded extremely well. It’s painful to carry a backpack in your hand, even if it’s got next to nothing. ...

I hope to tour Europe next week. The Backpack Traveller tells me about rail travel, and Eurolines about bus. Of course, there’s a lot to see in London.

A whole new range of domain names, ranging from .museums to .sansansan have been bid for. I wonder who .biz and .xxx will go to.

Business Week’s B-School rankings ranks LBS as the #2 non-US school (behind INSEAD). IIM-A is not listed even in the third tier, while IIM-B is not even included in their survey.

A rather tiring day. 09:00 am: Wake up, and still feel sleepy. 10:00 am: Leave for LBS 11:00 am: Reach LBS. Check mails. These days, it takes a couple of hours. 12:30 pm: Attend India Club meeting for Diwali celebrations. Very well organized. 01:15 pm: Presentation by Booz-Allen & Hamilton. Pretty good. Manage to stay awake. 02:15 pm: Eat lunch. Stupidly eat prawns without seeing the labels. Almost vomit. 03:00 pm: Group meeting. Discuss Dell. 04:15 pm: Fall asleep in AT Kearney’s presentation. 05:15 pm: Stay away from anything that looks non-veg during tea. 06:00 pm: World economy class. Excellent professor. Terribly funny. Everything makes sense. 07:00 pm: Guest lecturer. Fall asleep. 08:00 pm: Back to Prof. Scott. Wake up and listen. 09:00 pm: Answer more mails. 10:00 pm: Chucked out of computer center. Go home. 11:15 pm: Have dinner. midnight: Crash.

I had my first case interview today. Four of us (3 exchange students and one LBS MBA grad) sat together and tried giving each other cases. It’s an excellent learning experience. Had I gone in for a case interview without this preparation, I’d have flunked. Our class on Financial Analysis was good fun – and an exposure to yet another illustration of internationalism. Prof. Higson (in his perfect British accent) mentioned that he was part of a programme on TV for some society of animals. (Not as a caged animal that looked sorry, he assured us. He was talking about stocks – no idea why.) We were discussing the ‘Body Shop’ company (the one that sells natural cosmetics), and apparantly this company was blacklisted by the programme, for failing to be ‘animal-friendly’. Prof. Higson was mentioning that one of the reasons for Body Shop’s success was the British obsession with being kind to animals. He suggested that, therefore, Body Shop may not have been as successful elsewhere. ...

I’ve scanned a couple of more pages of Target that have the job profile of the LBS graduating class of 2000 and the summer of MBA 2001. Incidentally, this magazine also publishes a complete list of who’s joined which company. Really neat idea, great for contacts.

The reality of international interaction really came through today in the Mergers & MBOs class. Prof. Paulo Volpin commented that ‘So, eefectively, ve see Germany has a pooor accounting seestem." To which, immediately, a German pounced up and said, “I don’t go with this result,” and proceeded on a defence of why the system was right for Germany. A few other Germans joined in. Poor Prof. Volpin had to make a hasty retreat. Later, when making a similar comment about Belgium, he first clarified: “Are there any Belgians in the class?” ...

Has Linux failed?

Stonehenge is jinxed. To those who don’t know, Stonehenge its a bunch of huge rocks from pre-historic Britain, and no one knows why they’re there. I tried to visit it last week, but had to cancel the trip and lost about 50 pounds. (No, I don’t want to know what that is in Rupees.) So this Sunday, we’d planned to go again. I called up this Magical Tour Company, which offered tours for just 22 pounds, and said, “I want to go to Stonehenge on Sunday.” The guy on the phone took my credit card number and said OK. ...

ePrarthana.com lets you do your puja online. That’s what I call true disintermediation. No pujari anymore – they do the puja for you, and you get the benefit. More details at CNET. Comments A.Chandrasekhar sarma 27 Feb 2007 1:27 pm: i request you to give moreinformation on Vedic culture and stotras on ain voice mode

Business India’s business school rankings seem surprising. I’ll check with LBS and ask them what they think.

How would I compare LBS against IIM-B so far? Let’s see. Faculty: LBS probably wins marginally. More famous faculty, more industry experience, better communication. But like I said, marginal. IT infrastructure: IIM-B wins! IT management: LBS wins. They manage what they’ve got extremely well. Companies coming for placement: LBS wins. Placement process: Debatable. IIM-B definitely has a more student-friendly process. Library: Books-wise, IIM-B wins. Electronic resources-wise, LBS wins. Students: Comparable. Too early to tell the difference probably. The point is, however, that everyone in LBS has a lot of work-experience. Campus: IIM-B wins hands down. I mean, LBS faces Regent’s Park and all that, but it doesn’t really have a campus. Lecture rooms: LBS wins marginally. Slightly better rooms, better equipment. Hostel: IIM-B wins. LBS doesn’t have one. Location: LBS wins. Heart of London. Exchange programmes: LBS wins. LBS is ahead, but not by far. ...

Prove God exists. Descartes proved it by assuming that ‘Cogito, ergo sum’. ProofGodExists.com uses what’s called the Watchmaker Argument – that there can be no watch without a watchmaker. Richard Dawkins countered that beautifully in The Blind Watchmaker. Now, I’m a religious guy and all that. But I’d rather take God on faith than proof, OK? Comments Clare McIntaggart 19 Feb 2007 12:19 pm: regardless of my religious convictions Descartes reasoning was flawed when he ‘proved’ the exsistance of god. flawed for many reasons which only one of was the lack of applying his own method of doubt.

On 24th August I said “Life in the 21st century doesn’t look promising”. A Force More Powerful would make me eat those words. It’s a collection of stories about non-violent conflict in the 20th century, and it appears to work more effectively than most wars.

The Golem project is rather like SETI@Home, except that your screensaver builds ‘physical locomoting machines’. Neat.

eLiterature.org is a directory of electronic literature. Nothing great so far, but maybe, some day…

We made some vatha kozhambu at home this morning. Now, you’ll have to take my word for it, because we ourselves weren’t very convinced. But it was hot. It was thick. And though it had too much tamarind, it tasted great (or so we say). After that heavy bruch, it was time for LBS. I think I’m the slowest typist at LBS. The speed at which the keyboards chatter around me is incredible. So fast, in fact, that I lose my nerve and tend to make mistakes or type slowly. The guy to my right, for example, is glued to the monitor and is typing about 3 characters for every keystroke of mine. So far, he hasn’t pressed backspace. Luckily, the lady to my left is using the mouse more than the keyboard! ...

After a group meeting, we went to ‘The Biz’, a restaurant inside LBS. They served some kind of rice with curry containing lots of vegetables. I ate rather well and found it quite edible, until I heard the price. 3.50 pounds, or about Rs. 233. Roughly what my sandwich cost in Tokyo. Very nice. I needed a suit for the Boston Consulting Group presentation tomorrow, so the afternoon was largely a shopping exercise. I took the tube to the Bond Street station, and walked along Oxford Street. It’s something like the Brigade Road of Bangalore, I guess. The first shop I walked into had been strongly recommended by my cousing (Vishnu) – Ciro Citterio. Luckily they had BIG brushed aluminium signs outside saying “Sale!”, and had 99 pounds written boldly, so I had the guts to walk in. (Of course, I didn’t convert. I don’t fancy buying suits for Rs. 6,650). ...

Well, apparantly LBS has just had its lecture theatres (LTs) newly made! Which is why they look so good, I hear. At least, the Professors keep commenting about how new the LTs are, and how they’re unused to it and all that. This afternoon, Pallavi, another exchange student, an MBA 2001 student and myself, got together and ran a series of mock interviews. LBS’ consulting club has some very good material on case interviews. ...