Best parts of "the crisis of confidence"

These are the best bits of the famous speech of president carter in 1979, one of my favourite speeches.

"We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the Presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate."

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

"We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America."

"I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our Nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act.

I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God's help and for the sake of our Nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail."


Sometimes its good to pause in life and just think about where are you going. Seems like i m going in a direction where only money makes people happy...

The write I submitted to ITC for AUT directory

I hail from the cultural capital of Gujarat – Baroda. My father is a manager in Gujarat Alkalies & Chemicals Limited and my mother is a housewife. I did my early schooling from Bhartiya Vidhya Bhavans, Baroda, which imbibed in me strong ethics and Indian values. These values were strongly internalized as my family passed through the ups and downs of a typical Indian middle class family.
Bhavans being a school which encourages extra-curricular activities, I got a chance to explore a number of hobbies. I won many prizes in dramatics and skit competitions and represented my district in hockey. In class IX I moved to Don Bosco High School, Baroda where I held many positions of leadership like prefect, deputy leader and chief leader of the school. I have been selected as the best marcher of the school as well. Football has always been larger than life for me. I have captained the football team of all Institutes I have been part of throughout my academic career.
I did my Electronics and communication engineering from NIT, Ahmedabad. Here I was elected President of the Football Club and captain of the Nirma University football team. Winning the Nirma Cup twice with a team which was considered weak has been one of the finest achievements of my life.
Life at SCMHRD brought out a new perspective in me. I joined the Consultancy Cell of SCMHRD and delivered a real time project to design a marketing campaign for T.I.M.E. Education. I was part of the team which was runners-up at L’Oreal Brandstorm at the national level – the biggest marketing competition for B-schools globally. During this time I had the opportunity to interact with several experts in the marketing industry and this was indeed one of the most productive periods of my life. Besides this competition, I also was part of the team which reached the national finals of Avalon – Finding Sun Tzu, an inter B-school business strategy case study competition, and was awarded a Pre-Placement Interview in appreciation of the work done. I was also fortunate to get a PPO from ITC at the end of my summer internship which taught me a lot through my stint in the retail division at Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh.
Besides co-curricular activities, I lead the football team of SCMHRD to a gold medal, and was also part of the team that won the silver medal in cricket and a few prizes in athletics at the National Inter B-School Sports Meet at SPJIMR. I also captained the water polo team which was runners up at the SIBM water sports meet. The most beautiful achievement was the wonderful friends I made during the entire life, I can’t thank god enough for that.
Along with a few other like-minded students, I gave shape to an initiative called Prayatna which is today a registered non-profit organization that takes care of the education of underprivileged children living in slums. With an increasing volunteer base, corporate participation and more children being taken into its fold every year, I can proudly say that Prayatna continues to grow and enrich the lives of these children.
I am also a wild life enthusiast who equally enjoys watching nature shows on TV and taking long treks in the forests. I have now taken this interest to the next level with my new hobby, which is wildlife photography.
I love to read both fiction and non-fiction and I’m particularly impressed by GK Chesterton’s works. I am an eternal fan of Pink Floyd, Green Day and Poets of The Fall. I am a biking enthusiast and have been on several adventurous bike trips across the country.
I am really lucky to have felt at the end of every year since I can ever remember - “that was the best year of my life”. And every coming day I fight to make the next year better - day by day, learning and living every moment. Stay hungry, stay foolish – that’s what I live by.

I hate this part of my life…

After a long time I am not facing any deadlines. No concrete targets ahead, just easy road to walk on. I am unhappy… I can’t recall being unhappy in Scmhrd in last one year of my stay. I was afraid of this since a long time, at last it came.


This was a special unhappy phase with me searching for my favourite songs to add to the play list and it’s over an hour since I have been doing nothing but listening to songs, its 5 in the morning and I have taken almost 300 rounds of the hostel passage. I have gone into hallucination couple of times over.


It’s not new. By the 23rd year of my existence I have reached a phase where I have accepted the fact that human beings are selfish by nature even if it’s at a cost of a fellow friend. But maybe because I am having free time after many days, I am driven under.

Well my last week has been good, with some good work on acads, some good books read after a long time. Some new friends made which seem to be very good. And I’m also having a crush on a friend of mine, who I know since over a year now. It’s amazing to know that I am having a crush on her after one year of decent hi-hello friendship. It’s good to experience the same feeling which I had when I had proposed a girl for the first time, 16 years ago. I think I still have the same innocence, same sense of love, same thrill and the speeding of the heart beats. Just that it’s coinciding with me losing a friend of mine, my best friend. And the word broken doesnt mean the same.

Life has many colours; every moment is Pandora’s Box,
Juggling and gambling and little bit of humbling, I hope I ain’t coaxed.
Every time I’m broken, a new I am born,
Same principles, damaged conscience.

Questions @ Rural Marketing

I have done my summers in ITC in retail division and had a great project to work on rural mall. Every day was a experience befitting the grandma’s tale.

I came across many questions and found answers to few. One of the most interesting incident was involving sampling of biscuits. The sales of chocolate flavour is much less than any fruit flavour biscuit in rural markets.
During the survey most of the answers agreed to the following response of a villager – “saab aap ki company bhi badi tez hai, jo biscut aur cream jal jaatein hai unko chocolate bolke bechte ho”

This probably was one of the better questions asked by a researcher, but working in a group I came across some interesting questions asked by a fellow researcher, doing research on the rural market in mulshi village:

1) yahan par logon ki shaadi kab kitni umar mein hoti hai? Kya bal vivah hota hai? Kya jhagde hotein hai? (to know more about culture)
2) Yahan par log pani kisme bharte hai? (to judge household income)
3) Yahan par log garib hai, khush hai ya medium khush hai? (to judge average household income)
4) Yahan par logon ke gharo mein toilet hotein hai? (to judge lifestyle & income)
5) yahan par sab problem ko solve koun karta hai? (to find the influence leader)

Luckily for us, we came back alive :)

Summers start

Well finally the first year of MBA came to an end and off we went on our roads to find out more about our lives ahead and ultimately about ourselves. We headed for the summers!!

Well the first step to this realization was the team work between me and my room mates for packing the luggage, it’s a herculean task believe me! And to carry it to your compartment? would have been impossible had it not been for Devinder, my roommate.

And as they say behind every successful man there is a woman, in this tale too there was this sweet girl whom I met in the train. Unfortunately for her, her seat was right next to me and she was supposed to sleep over me which she wasn’t very comfortable with. By the way I meant on the berth above me. Well she sat and talked and talked and talked and I was surprised how anyone can talk with me for so long. But finally she said at 3 in the morning that she was too afraid to sleep on the top and she wanted me to be on the top. Yeah I meant in the berth over me! So finally I realized that her sole purpose of talking with me was to get the lower berth and avoid being alone in the dark. So to argue freely I suggested to move out of the compartment towards the toilets and do it freely with out disturbing others travelers of the compartment (do it freely = argue freely). She agreed and we sat at the door of the compartment and sat there till I reached Baroda that was 6 am!! Strange but true, I still don’t know her name or number.

Well Baroda was superb right from the station till I reached home.

The sight of the Faculty of Arts at 6 am was better than any Taj Mahal of the world, seriously!

The smell of the sandalwood at my house, hmmm..... was so rejuvenating, even if Tutankhamen were to come alive after spending a horrific time in his mummified state for some thousands of years the gush of fresh air would not be as soothing or satisfying as that smell of sandalwood was to me.

Well it was great to meet my parents and recite the expected dialogues in the same sequence that my mom was gonna say.

Well the icing on the cake was my dog. It is wonderful to know that someone loves you so much, unconditionally. I was meeting him after some 4 months and still he was crying in the same manner as he used to do a year back. As soon as I reached home he was uncontrollable and when he was let loose, oh my god…. He just wanted to hold me so tight, it was a terrific moment, the way he jumps over and over to hug you or hold you, or just do something to express his love was indeed wonderful.

Well all this was so satisfying, but still I missed my friends of SCMHRD. It’s been good 10 months when we were together for so many adversities and moments of joy. No one can be perfect but some people just make us realize the beauty of imperfection.

Well what more could I say, I smiled every time someone spilled at lunch :)

Time of my life...

I am finding time to blog after a long time, last one week i have been slogging my butt off for a project which finally i couldnt manage to grab. Apart from this i have been working on making a presentation for ACC Ltd., the presentation was decent, was appreciated a lot by our director which is a achievement. Also one good thing that happened was that i got through the L'oreal Elimination round and we'll be competing at national level now. So besides working i have been enjoyin my time with my friends here. There have been rough times with people here and we are all in a confusion.. I dont know where i will go from here but I love this place and the people here.

So finally after slogging so hard we had a party time!!

Sushrut, a super-sensible senior had organised a party to celebrate his selection in Avalon and his b'day party. It was a superbly organised party.

We were very few juniors and as soon as we reached there i heard my name being called and then i realised that i had to do paper dance :)

It was all fun as i had to do it with charu, a heavy proper punjabi gal :) no she is a very sweet, shy and sincere girl. She was so afraid of falling that she wouldnt let me lift her, but finally we made it to final round and decided that we will have to leave early before final starts :)

I had good fud and a great time with all the friends together.

All in all post-diwali SCMHRD has been a heaven!!

Changing face of change

How does it feel when you lose something u owned since 22 years? Down, broken, maybe even crying like a kid. That’s exactly what I am close to. I have lost my leanness :( I have been thin and lean since my childhood, all the desperate efforts of my entire family tree failed badly to raise the girth around my tummy. I wasn’t satisfied, I used to make fun of people who used to worry about getting fat and today I realise what it means to feel fat :( to be fat is a simpler feeling but feeling fat is something really different and its not enjoyable :)
There are lot of important things that I lost and I made a long mourning for few, some of them worth a laugh and some of them really bad - as if a child had lost its mother. I felt the world to be unjust, horrible place to live in;
thankfully I am not having the same feeling for losing my image of agreeableness. I say no to people quite easily now and for lot of things, I persuade people to do lot of things and that’s something new.
I don’t know whether I approve of this newness or I miss my old self, but I am not feeling guilty and that’s worth a mention.
One change I really regret is the fact that in spite of having a bundle of chocolates and big bars of chocolate lying at my disposal, I am not able to eat it, not out of any other reason but just because I don’t remember to eat it at correct time. Now this part of change is called dissonance, I m doing something which I don’t want to do and its out of compulsion.
One change I really detest is that I have forgotten to give gifts to people, some of my good friend’s birthdays just passed and I couldn’t get a gift or even a small card for them. This part of change I really detest. I hope to change it soon. To all my friends who have had a share of this behaviour of mine, I am sorry..
Well, on the whole, the change has been a change, its not something which can be compared with past performance, but I will wait for future, for my time to come.