China -> India for 3 weeks

• I cant believe that a direct flight takes me home from Hong Kong in 4 hr : 45 min
• The HK based-airline makes on-board announcements in Chaste Tamil. I was spellbound.
• I m having withdrawal symptoms from chopsticks/cutlery. I m binging on Idli, Vada, Dosa, Sambar, Pongal, Rotis and mom's cooking!
• Internet was down yesterday, Electricity was out all day today-quite a home coming.
• My blog goes from Content Rich [Megs] to Content Lean [Millis].
• No sign of economic turmoil, credit cruch, subprime. Real estate prices are zooming and my parents have calculate the opportunity cost of bringing me up Vs. investing in prime real estate! MBA... please start paying out soon!
• Petrol prices have gone up, so I m utilising my sister's bicycle for errands. I read an article today on how bad bicycle seats will cause impotency in men.
• My ears are filled with earthly noises, mixer grinders, water pumps, birds, animals, mechanic revving engines, building demolitions, ceiling fans.

Monopoly in the dorms

Just as the year ticked over to the second half, with scorching sun and thundering rain alternating in Hong Kong, life's journey seems to follow a similar path. A representation of the mood that persists in the corridors of student halls.

Cutting corners and climbing ladders

If only going up the Corporate Ladder were this easy, how many people on earth would do an MBA? Seen here is Genie 125, a superfast external lift that can take you multiple stories at the touch of a button.

drenched, but not out

With the fury of the typhoon still not over, we braved our laziness, the thunderstorm [as seen from the boat] and headed out in search of the mystery island and the beach. After a nerve-wracking and scary boat ride for non-swimmers, we were dumped on the 'wrong' island for want of a safer berthing spot for the boat.


A little later, we end up drenched and in a heavenly place like this. As they say, 'when you dont know where you are going ...you will never get lost' - You can insert a philosopical twist to this!

Get Enriched

A guest lecture by the CEO of Securities and Futures Commission on HK Financial scene, latest developments and of course answered lots of questions on sub-prime loans and the power of Soveraign Wealth Funds [and backlash against them]. The event was organised by HKUST MBA Office and Students.

Typhoon level 8

My classmates had a day off yesterday, thanks to the Typhoon level 8. Water flowing through the glasshouse structure in HKUST.

Bridging the gap between

the known and the unknown.

The balls are in my court

Two weeks of incessant rain, a sports injury, lack of suitable avenues to channelise my resources to achieve economic sense has left me a bit dejected. But, the balls are in my court and it is upto me to take the required initiatives and kick start a new journey.

The Devils wear GUCCI

"Dressed to kill": a group of demons digging for immortality medine - A life-sized rendering in Bangkok airport.

Glocalization at its best

Fresh food being sold in Carrefour superstore, Guangzhou- China.

CXO Sports Club

A golf course on a lonely island in South China Sea

Want to step into his shoes?

This guy has got big shoes that he cannot fill

Masters of Alternate Uses

Dude, these tracks are for the trams !



Some people will never listen to me :(

Graduation Photoshoot

Q1 Results 2008 !

My last post was on Dec 31, 2007 and this speaks volumes about my task allocation, time mgmt and what not that we learn from business school. Even though the blog posts were on the back of my mind, I never found enough drive to actually put all that into action. One easy word to summarize – laziness !

On hindsight, when I line up all the activity that I ve taken part in, it is much more convincing that I ve spent time wisely. The short and severe winter sem, with only a lone weekend trip to Lantau island, ended up in a Chinese New Year break and I learnt the new meaning of the word ‘crowd’- remember, I am from India.

I ve been through a lot of people activity, met students from Fisher School of Business [OSU] and Univ of California [Davis] during their Field Study trip to Hong Kong. Further, the Spring Career Forum organized by the Career Office meant more business card exchanges and follow-ups, but no jobs – so far. But, the outlook is positive and I am confident that the current state will change.

A good news is that I wont go bankrupt this season, thanks to the forgotten cash flow from the US Federal tax refund. This also means more traveling in the pipeline after/during my forthcoming stint in London. Hope this European experience is as rewarding as my other investments.

I ve reserved the best for the last to work on the recency effect to work on you. I represented my school in Asia Moot Business Plan competition, finished third and picked up a whole new level of knowledge and experience. Yet again, the diverse bunch of people define the experience and win credit for rewarding me with such an unbelievable time. This happened to be the best one week of my life ! I m not hiding the fact that we wanted to win and represent my school in Global Moot Corp in Texas, but things happen. Even though, I was not happy with third, I was happy for Asia Moot Competition.

Did I say, I became popular in Hong Kong after that open-top tram party in cold February? And that I consider Thailand as the foodie’s paradise?



I am glad that my Q1 results are much better than several firms. So, rising even in a falling market is great, though there was not much input in the last 3 months. I hope the shareholders wont mind.

The Year that was ...2007

The years 2005 and 2006 were not memorable, and were beset with a never-ending string of worst-case scenarios. That despite the fact that I sowed the seeds of my MBA, owned my dream motorcycle Suzuki VStrom, traveled farther than I imagined, impressed some high-profile people….

2007 was as exciting as taking a hair-pin bend, near the peak, at full-throttle, with no safety-wall and peg-scraping! in biker talk. I am one of the few people who lived in 3 of the world’s most important* countries – India, USA and China. You can imagine it to be more of an ordeal than just a pleasant experience, but it gave me that exhilarating feeling of having achieved something.

I experienced from being employed to being a student and all the travails of switching over that come in between. I was most homesick during this year as I traveled thrice to my home, further my definition of home/house varied from a university dorm to an own room in custom paint shade. I ve tasted atleast 25 different cuisines, and dishes that I dared to even smell. So, 2007 was a roller coaster year in terms of experience, fun and travel.

I expect 2008 to be even more adrenalin-pumping with trips to Thailand, SE Asia, USA or EU still pending…’God Only Knows’ what is in store for this guy…

Great Lunch with Standford MBAs

On Dec 21, after completing my IT Mgmt course examination I rushed to Mandarin Oriental- an up market hotel-restaurant for this simpleton. The reason of course was to mix and share experiences with a batch of MBA students who typical go to school multiple time zones away in California- Stanford University.

The guest speaker Dr.Wong happens to be an Electrical Engineer like me, but definitely more entrepreneurial and adventurous for he went from $40K to $2B [lets ignore the USD issues for a while]. He not only built an electronic games business but also picked up a stake in Oasis Airlines and thereby fulfilled his childhood dream of airplane ownership. The students were amazed at his progress and picked up some crucial motivation pointers.

The 90-minute interaction brought forward the similarities in the students despite the many differences like race, religion, culture, geography, language etc…..hope the Stanford MBAs felt the same way.

Thanks for the Lunch guys :)

Learning from peers

One of the vital links in any MBA course is learning from peers [this is why 'distance-d' education wont work]. I ve met lots of interesting people with enriching perspectives. Most of them are my classmates, while some are bschoolers from other universities around the world.

how?- through their blogs, of course.

Consultant from London, IBanker from Chicago, Tech Manager from Berkeley, Marketer from Kellogg. Not to mention the many tit-bits from Insead, Esade, IMD, NUS, Tsinghua, CEIBS, Tokyo and Melbourne business schools. So, why dont we create a Bschool of Bschools? I can understand that some may cry foul on 'intellectual property', but who lost the edge sharing knowledge?

Till this happens, try reading some independent blogs. I use the following links...

http://www.bschoolers.com/ [this comes close]

http://opencoder.org/mbablogs/students/

http://mbaleague.blogspot.com [a wee bit 'dated' list, but not the blogs themselves]

Deep in the MBA

I have completed atleast 4 core courses and deeply into my MBA. The newbie tag has died down and I am deep into competition with my fellow classmates. No longer I can justify my lack of 'ebullient' class participation to my non-financial/business background. I simply wont 'make the ranks' if I dont change my ways - I did change. After reading some B-schooler's blogs on Class Participation, I motivated myself to look beyond the class materials and get atleast a 'cloudy' idea before class and demystify myself as the class progresses. This worked like magic and my initial 'nerves' lost and I am steaming ahead!

As they say, ' I ve caught the tiger's tail, I cant let go and the tiger wont let me let go'

My first barbeque party - by the sea side