Unexpected expected at Delhi Airtel Marathon

I participated in the 7km category of Delhi Airtel Half marathon and found a few pleasant surprises. But before I start the recount, I must say its a great event and one should definitely participate. Particpating and running with close to 18,000 people gives you enthusiasm to do things you might not have done ever like running/walking for 7 kms without rest. I have never been able to run more than 2kms on tread-mill. The race usually happens in one of the beautiful parts of the city around the embassy area, where some of the big wigs like the Mittals of Bharati fame stay(surely they are enjoying the best real estate of Delhi). Now coming to the pleasant surprises of the event:-

1) Celeb dose: 2-second glimpse of Bebo(Kareena Kapoor), Saif, Sheila Dixit and boxer Vijender(Olympics wala). They were cheering the runners at the start of the run.

(Courtsey: EconomicTimes.com)

2) Celeb miss: Now after watching some of the visuals on TV, I realize AR Rahman was also on the dice (person with folded hands standing next to Saif). Kajol, Ajay Devgan and Rahul Banerjee were also present somwhere, but I missed them all.

3) The event was painted red-black (Airtel color). The prime sponsors used the event to promote themselves well and may be the launch of Airtel DTH.

4) Cheerleaders, Bhangra dancers and songs were played on loudspeaker to pep people during the race.

Ample water at various locations ensured the runners could keep themselves going. Snacks at the finish of race was given to recharge people so that they can energise themselves and participate next year too. See you next time..

Road Trip - Pink city

Jaipur was always on the cards as a place to see and visit. Topped with an opportunity to do some serious driving on Delhi-Jaipur highway made it more exciting. Ditching office on Thursday my friend and I started early, on 14th August to get an early start advantage. Grapevine had it that a lot of people in Delhi would be going to Jaipur and border check etc. would make drive difficult on 15th August(Independence day check-ups etc.).

It took us about 4.5 hrs including 30 mins of break to reach our first site of visit, Amer Palace which is surrounded by beautiful hills and lakes all around. The drive was very close to perfect except for some pot holes, a few bad patches, 3 toll gates and lots of trucks. The icing on cake was weather. It drizzled all along our drive and stopped just as we reached Amer. It cooled off the place, though it was still humid. The tourist season is Sept-Feb, which makes perfect sense because of the scorching summer. Going now meant, we would have less crowd and more leisure.

Amer Palace is situated on top of a hill and one can see the whole of Jaipur from the Palace. Folklores say it took 700 years to complete the fort and had a lot of treasure stored in it. Overall a beautifully done fort, it should be a must see on everyone's itinerary. Very close to this fort is Nahargarh fort which appeared like a poor cousin to Amer fort. There is one decent restaurant in the fort which can help you get some food. Since both the forts are very close by and offer good view of Jaipur city, they can be done together before getting down the hill to see some other stuff.

After having conquered the quillas, Amer Palace(downhill from Amer fort) was the next thing to see. Amer Palace seemed like a big tourist attraction. Off all the places, it had the maximum number of tourists. The palace has a sheesh mahal which has some beautifully done glass works. Parts of the palace resembled some of the forts of Agra like Deewane Khash etc. There appeared to be some influence of Mughal architecture, though I am not an expert in this area. Since Jaipur gets hot in summer, the royals had a lake palace built on a lake right infront of this palace. There is no access to the lake palace and one has to view it from the boundaries.

Hawa Mahal was the next destination. The approach road to Hawa Mahal was full of traffic and we could not find any parking here. We had to do with a view from car, which was slightly disappointing. After all this, we reached our hotel and freshened up to leave for Choki Dhani. This place is a resort built on the concept of a village showcasing Rajasthani culture. The Rajasthani food served in traditional style was delicious.

After having covered up most of the forts, the next destination was Ajmer and Pushkar. The Jaipur-Ajmer highway is one of the best in India. One can cover the journey in 1.5-2 hrs. Cruising at speeds of 100-120 kmph, it is by far a very enjoyable drive and every driver's dream. The dargah at Ajmer was crowded as most of the popular religious places in India are. The smell of rose petals offeried at the dargah makes the place aromatic. Parking is tough near the dargah as the approach road is constricted. Private parkings are available at Rs. 50/hr. Also inside the dargah, you would find a lot of people asking you to make offerings in the name of God, sometimes a little forcefully too. I found similar experience last year in temples when I went to Puri last year.

The drive back from Jaipur to Delhi took 6.5 hrs. The traffic in the evenings becomes worse because the road is full of trucks. Overall, Jaipur is a good getaway from Delhi especially when you want to drive around.

Living in high rise

Living in a high rise apartment sounds exciting. A nice breathtaking view of the horizon, a possible chance to see the stars on clear night etc. come into the mind. Well i accidently started living in a high rise, thanks to a friend of mine who was gracious to allow me doing that. This apartment had 3 seperate balconies, in this world when the builders want to optimize every inch of space. But soon I found to my peril that more balconies are more pain as there were a few unwanted guests occupying the balconies. Guess who these unwnated guests are- our dear old friends - pigeons. I like them as birds and they are pretty too. But, to my trouble every time I step into one of these balconies I find foul smell of our dear friend pigeons "waste remains"(a sanitised word for sh*t). I dont mind them hanging in the balconies, but what rights do they have to make it absolutely impossible to take a fresh deep breadth of air without getting a smelly puff of air sneaking into my nostrils. Seems like this is there way of a sweet revenge against all the intrusion made by humans into the lives of pigeon. My flat-mate has plans to get special mats fixed to the balconies - just to make the balconies a slightly more livable place.

" Till that time, I will watch my steps and my dream

of a perfect view of the night from a high rise."

In search of a small car

As the title says, I am finally giving up on living without a car and have decided to buy one . I am very inclined to go for an i10, Hyundai's new small car based on my research. What I wanted to share were a few key things which I have realized during this process.
First, is the financial part of it. Based on my calculation, a car is a negative investment. Compared to the next best alternative of taking a taxi to-and-fro to office, I would be saving but still not enough to recover the complete cost. Hence, as the wise men have said, do not spend too much on car or atleast first car. It is a depreciating asset and does not pay for itself. Related to this is another financial aspect which I will talk later.
Now, that I was not thinking about big cars, I started with the most basic car which I could get and explored the options of buying an Alto. Somewhere I gave up on it after reading tonnes of reviews at Auto car India (http://www.autocarindia.com/new/default.asp) that amongst small cars the new i10 is the best. I checked out with a couple of office colleagues(who have been having a car for some time) and they were all positive about it. My family also endorsed my choice and the icing on cake was CNBC-TV18's auto show. The quote which pretty much made me inclined towards an i10 was "If you are willing to stretch your budget a little, go for i10". Yes it is a bit on the expensive side for a small car, but seemed like worth the money after feature comparison with nearest competitors. I am yet to test drive one, but hopefully I would not have to change my mind.
Now that I have decided on one, finanicing it seems a tricky thing. The interest rate on financing options suggested by the sales man seemed to be high. He was quoting in a range of 14%(plus minus another percentage) p.a. rate which is very high.(the best fixed deposits are paying 8.5% p.a interest). This further proves the point that as far as possible one should take the least amount of auto loan as possible and not buy a hugely expensive car. Don't get trapped in the temptation of owning a car just for the sake of it.
To top it all, one has to produce quite a lot of documents like - 2 address proofs, bank statements and pay slips which pretty much made my option to get an auto loan bleak. So, while I am still looking to furnish these documents the process needs to be kept in mind if you are thinking about getting a car loan.
Now that I have shared my travails, let me know what do you think about my choice and any other thing which I can manage better to ensure having the fun to ride. Or ways..of managing without a car in Gurgaon ;-).

Bye-bye ISB

Finally pretty much everyone of us was forced out of the place. I heard the last party went till 7 am in the morning. It was really difficult to leave and I keep getting nostlagic missing my quadmates, batchmates and friends. Those familiar faces which I had been seeing for the last one year. The year book is lively and on the very first day out of school, I spent most of my hours viewing that.
ISB life starts as a roller coaster but at the end of it you leave on a high. If you are like me who feels sick after a roller coaster this one was different. Part of it is the feeling of learning, part of it is the success of classmates going all over the world, part of it is seeing some of the sceptics getting proved wrong and some is definitely because of alcohol.
While I had my fair share of highs and lows, I would humbly recommend some dont's at B-school like ISB. IMHO -
- dont only focus on acads, ISB offers lot of things. Most of my learning came from friends and profs.
- dont restrict yourself to a few people, try and know as many as possible.
- dont miss any of the external speaker sessions (90% of them were fabulous they help build outside perspective) .

Looks like I have already thrown too much Gyaan, for now I sign off as my last post as ISB student..oops alum.

Happy placements

Finally, the placement week is over. Class of 2008 has done well in terms of getting good roles and good salaries for themselves. Congrats!! The week went by smoothly thanks to the placement team, our CAS team and tons of student volunteers.
Consulting companies, general mgmt. and banks hoarded the campus and have taken lots of people. I personally got out of the process on day 2 with 3 offers. After agonizing a day over the offers, i think i have made the right choice. Only time will tell, how it pans out. At least I can say, I would be starting in an area where I wanted to move to.
The isb average salary should be better than last year, though I would wait for the official numbers to come. People have generally been happy with the process and I wish our class congratulations. The last term will be hell a lot of fun!!!

Placement countdown

The high point of MBA education which is "the placements" is staring flat in front of me. At ISB, we have placements starting tomorrow and continue for a full week.With a couple of shortlists, I have goosebumps and interviews lying in front of me.
Alums have asked us to maintain our cool and have asked to approach interviews as if they are conversation. The catch is not to drop guard while talking to the interviewers.
I would try to keep posting a day by day snapshot of what happened on each day till I am out of the process.Hopefully I will have some good stories to share for everyone.