Around Mumbai in 60 days - II

Next weekend

I and Shantanu dot Shankar visit Bandstand. People were taking pictures of Mannat, the Shahrukh Khan’s bungalow. I did not find it cool enough to look at. Instead I saw the Bandra Worli sea link and felt awesome. Shantanu who goes inside ATMs just for enjoying the air conditioning and had brought all the tooth-brushes, paste, shampoo and even the toilet paper from The Leela Palace to his room acclaimed that I was insanely obsessed with the sea link.

Magic bus

The most unpleasant chapter of Mumbai is travelling. Travel by BEST bus every day is a pain in the foot as people keep on stepping on each other’s foot. I came across a magic bus which was not ever crowded and there was no conductor to ask for fare. Besides the bus always went to my destination and usually all seats were occupied except one. I gave the bus driver ten rupees each time lest he went bankrupt or shut the service annoyed by my thanklessness. 
Puzzled and curious I asked the seniors in office about the white magic bus –Who runs it? Without asking for money? Why don’t other people get on it? One of the seniors replied-“White magic bus? There are no such buses in Mumbai. There was one about ten years ago. It was a private bus and fell from a cliff. All the seats were occupied except one. Everyone died!!”

That day onwards it was no longer magic bus. New term - Ghostbus. What baffled me was-Why does the Son of a B***h ghost driver of the ghost bus accept my ten rupee non ghost currency if he can’t spend it?

One week end (I have lost the count of weekends) Shantanu and I stepped out with umbrella over our heads destined for Matheran. We were compressed into a thin two dimensional body by the fellow passengers. We got completely drenched before reaching Matheran, saw more waterfalls in half hour than in our life till then, walked about 6 kms and gazed at white clouds and rains obscuring anything worth looking at. We returned at 6 PM in the evening the same way-holding the umbrella over our drenched head. The rains never ceased for a second. The waiter in the restaurant at Matheran shamelessly said “Sir paani nai hai”. We were awestruck with his choice of words. 

                         

Rasmalai friday nights were a high point during my intern stay at IIT Bombay. One Friday as the mess was about to close at 9:30 the mess people- err the nice and awesome mess people announce unlimited dessert at the end. One IIT Bombay dude said- "Aaj to itni rasmali khaaonga besharam type log dekhte reh jayenge..". He filled his plates corner with a lot of the dessert. As he was waiting for his friend to do the same I filled the main course region of my plate with rasmalais - nine or ten probably. The dude stared at me. I did my best not to grin. He murmured something unpleasant. We split our ways. The rasmalai nights continued for next two fridays. People don't believe when I tell them that I never purposely scheduled my office departure timings, adjusted it with the traffic from office to hostel so as to reach the mess at 9:25 precisely for three consecutive Fridays. I don't know what is so hard to believe in this! It's sheer plain destiny. The Almighty wanted me to eat unlimited rasmalais. Anyways after three Fridays the trend of unlimited rasmalais was stopped in the mess and I had to contend with one. I wonder what changed the mess people's minds!

One weekend when I was running out of cheap and fun places in Mumbai I decided that I must visit Navi Mumbai. Shantanu dot Shankar not being an enthusiastic traveller or explorer like me declined to accompany me. I searched for places to visit in Navi Mumbai and found an Iskcon Temple and a cool park called Central Park. I kept exploring various sectors for the temple but no one seemed to know about it. Somehow I reached a gate with Iskcon temple written on it and no sign of any temple in the premises. I asked why the website shows such a grand majestic temple while all they have built is a weird marriage hall with good smelling canteen and why do the sweets smell so delicious. They explained smilingly that the website only shows how the temple might look in 2015. 
Bastards! I took a bus, travelled for about two hours, took another bus and then an auto rickshaw and after 3 hours they tell me how the temple might look in 2015?

They offered me some prasad. After visiting Central Park I boarded an air conditioned bus for returning to IIT Bombay. The AC was switched on so high that by the two hours I had become super restless due to super Siberian temperature and my bladder was not supporting me either. Ultimately it became so intolerably cold that I got down two stops before my stop, relieved myself of unwanted fluids and then had to take an auto. Not so memorable trip. Back in Jharkhand in 2 hours I would have reached my Nani ghar at Hazaribagh from Ranchi. 

Around Mumbai in 60 days - I

13:42, Sunday afternoon, IIT Bombay

Thirty days have passed since my arrival at Mumbai from Ghatsila. Mumbai was not as bad as I expected. IIT Bombay was not as great as I expected. The room ends as soon as you enter. Assigned to two students, having a chair inside is a luxury we can't afford. 

In the first week when I was sleeping late at night against the wall, the wall shook at times and pushed me. No I was not high. I thought it was just an earthquake and calmly resumed my sleep. In the morning I discovered that the wall was a temporary cardboard partition to divide our room from the neighbours' and I must not apply too much force on it lest I interrupt them in their long daaru-sutta conferences. 

My roommate is Shantanu dot Shankar from Bokaro. Besides an intern at Deutsch Bank, he has accomplished the art of fussiness, weird reasonings, etc. If you somehow look at his yearbook page you will find words like selfish, “haraami”, etc. inscribed. I appreciate the effort taken by people to do so. But one quality I admire the most is he never defaults on his loans- always returns my money. AAA rating.

First weekend I went to Elephanta Island on a steamer boat. There was not much to see on the island except an old cannon, lots of ticket counters at frequent intervals, monkeys, and local stalls selling supposed to be cool Elephanta t shirts. On the passage across the sea water we saw some cool big ships. Some were christened “blah blah Gandhi” .The only Gandhi I appreciate is Mahatma Gandhi (not just because he is on the currency notes). I think he was selfless, patriotic and united the countrymen. Besides the voyage I also admired some wild berries sold by the locals and tire tubes on the boat to save us. 

The next weekend I went to Sanjay Gandhi National park in Borivali. Even though the place was nice, the name is so inappropriate. Neither has it anything to do with Gandhi nor national park. I saw a lazy lion lying on its back and behaving like a dog. The word “Gandhi” corrupts everything-even the lions. We went to Kanheri caves inside. It was an irrationally expensive trip. I like caves. They are cool to look at.

Third weekend. I did not go anywhere. My roommate arrived this week. We did go to the Marine Drive at 12in the night. We must have walked 4-5 km in the entire night trip. We covered the entire to and fro journey from room to Marine Drive inside 110 rs for two people-it includes the 20 rs water bottle we bought at the Drive. Sounds impressive?

On the road along the ocean, some people with weird hair style were driving bikes like on race track. One random person was slowly going on his bike near the edge of the road. I don’t know what exactly happened but in the end the guy driving slowly was caught by a constable and there was a lot of commotion. It would have been more entertaining with popcorn. We were under the impression that the Drive won’t be crowded at midnight. Apparently everyone thought so and the Nash Equilibrium shifted to everyone from Mumbai being present at the Marine Drive.

Random Weekday, Irage Capital, Goregaon

Someone asks me: “So how do you like the rains in Mumbai ?”

Me:”What rain? Never saw any. I always see puddles on the road in the morning and at evening…and every place as wet as it can get….never saw live rainfall”

I was sure that some elves were involved!

Someone: “kk..let’s see”

End of the day, 20:00

Stepping outside the office building

Someone: “Mumbai rains welcome you. Have a pleasant stay”

I got drenched by the time I had exited office campus. Reached bus stop. Could hardly get more drenched. It reminded me of the movie Forrest Gump in which Tom Hanks describes the rain in Vietnam :” One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”

I stood alone on the bus stop with God pouring buckets of water over me. When I got on the bus rain really got thinner. I was surprised. When I stepped out of the bus at my stop in not more than 5 seconds someone increased the pace of rainfall back to full power. Inside IIT B, it reminded me of Venice where there are waterways to connect the city instead of roads. Auto rickshaws did not stop at my hand waving. One of them waved back instead. The hard disk in my pocket fell prey to Mumbai rains.

The Epic Interviews

December 1

After the Deutsche Bank Drama I went to my room at 2 PM. I did not appear for Opera Solutions interview and also McKinsey Knowledge Centre interview. In the evening I tried watching match between AC Milan and some other not so memorable team. Uninteresting. Tried watching some Tom Hanks movie. Same. I was so much insomniac- whenever I tried lying down a sea of thoughts and emotions erupted inside me. 

At night I downloaded Seinfeld season II. I watched 2 episodes and slowly fell in a slumber. 

December 2

Morning, probably 9 AM. My wingie Harshit asked me when is my Epic interview. 

I asked -" What epic interview ? "

Piyush D came and told me to go for Epic interview. 

I protested -" Its a software job..what will I do there!". The two forced me to appear for the interview.

I did not brush or bathe. I did not have my software profile resume print out. I went to Hall-II thinking of possible humiliation. "At least it would be a valuable experience"- my wingies had told me! Some random guy told me the interview location. A few meters before Epic interview room, I met Arpan- my department dude. I noticed interviews for Accenture were being conducted there. 

Before I could proceed for Epic some Accenture coordinator asked me-" Tell me your name." 

Me-"Mayank Raj"

Accenture Coordinator-" Stand over there. Your interview is next"

WTF! Ab ye kaha phas gye!

I was annoyed. I asked some candidates over there what does Accenture do. All I got from so many people was that it was a consultant firm. 

I was asked to enter the room. I calmly took a pen and a resume with Deutsche Bank written on it and knocked the door-"Sir Please may I come in?"

Iv-"Yes please"

I entered and asked for a seat. I was so surprised at my nonchalance and confidence. 

The interviewer was a middle aged person. He appeared cheerful and was smiling. 

Iv-"So what do you want to talk about"

I thought - Bloody Hell! Is this going to be another Deutsche Bank Interview

Me-"Let us talk about my intern. can I use a paper and a pen?"

He smiled and forwarded an A4 sheet. I explained him the concept of pair trading, regime switching model, market simulator, Hidden Markov Models. I was surprised once more at the fluent English I was speaking. It took him some time to understand. 

Iv-" All that theory is fine. so what was the outcome of all this?"

Me (calmly lied)-"Well not much but it is being used by the company to make lots of money"

Iv-"What is the difference between Principal Component Analysis and Factor Analysis?"

I knew PCA very well and explained him in good detail. I told him the basic concept of Factor analysis and did not know much more since I have never used it or read it in detail.

Out of nowhere his smile wiped out and he asked -" Why Accenture?"

Me (recovering from the sudden change in tempo)- " I have good background in Maths, have done a lot of Statistical courses and projects. I have taken a lot of liking to this and continuing this in Accenture would definite give a sense of satisfaction and good career headstart. Accenture is a big name and I would be feel proud to be a part of such organization."

I am on fire today! Lying with such confidence, frequency and spontaneity!

I was careful not to talk anything about Accenture. 

He asked me some question about how to determine tractor sales. I told him to get the proper variables, check their auto-regressive property, multicollinearity, blah blah. I was careful to tell him the logic behind variables and spend some significant time there because I really did not how to apply econometric in the end and just concluded with -"and we can use some common techniques like regression"

He asked me to explain SVM. I was glad he asked. I explained him Support vector machines. He asked me if I had any questions. I was tempted to ask "WHAT DOES ACCENTURE DO?" I curbed my instinct!

I came back and was quickly sent to another room for second round. I entered and met a more complicated and senior looking interviewer. 

Iv- "So suppose you don't like your old bike anymore..you want to buy a new..."

Me(interrupted)-"But Sir I don't have a bike"

Interview looked pissed. He controlled his emotions. I suppressed my laughter.

Iv-"You have to buy a car and convince your father that this is the car you want to buy with statistical support"

I gave him the attributes- mileage, car price, brand, blah blah ....and ended with some regression.

I knew my solution was wrong, but he looked pleased. He gave his some inputs, saying - "car rating....." but all I heard was "blah blah blah-blaaaahblaaaah blah". 

He asked if I had any question regarding the case. I said-"No, but I would definitely like to know the job locations I could get."

I don't remember all but he definitely did not mention -Ranchi orMumbai. 

I went out. Before anyone could interrupt me and conduct a third round of interview I quickly fled to the Epic Interview room a few metres away in the corridor. I was glad to find that the interview was telephonic. This way if anything embarrassing (it was a software profile) would occur I could disconnect. Besides I did not have my software resume print out. I was given a room and was asked to wait for a call. 

I got the call. I picked up and was interviewed mostly about my CV. He asked which was the most challenging project I did. I was really bored of explaining my Irage Capital project so I chose my Time Series Project, I explained him ARIMA model, stationarity, how I made the London gold price stationary by removing trend and seasonality, and ultimately forecasted with 92% accuracy. 

He asked him something about classifiers and Particle Swarm Optimization. As I was explaining him an Accenture dude entered the room and asked me to disconnect. I showed him two fingers indicating 2 more minutes. I should have shown one. Some Student Placement Office guy came and asked him out. I gave some vague answers as I had really forgotten what was I answering. I answered some more easy questions and ended a decent interview. Nothing technical. Nothing embarrassing.

I came out and they quickly sent me for my third round -HR interview of Accenture.

They asked me my weakness, strengths, etc. Suddenly the HR asked-"How did you like our ppt?"

Me(baffled)-"What ppt?" ( I realized a second later that I had blundered)

Lady HR (surprised)-" Today's ppt!"

Me-"Okay! Thaat ppt? hmm I did not attend it"

Silence for some seconds

I realized its time for repair work.

Me-"Okay let me be frank with you. Actually I had a bad day yesterday. I had been preparing for Accenture and Deutsche Bank interviews since two months as these were my dream companies. But yesterday Deutsche Bank did not take my interview. I was so annoyed and dejected after their sheer unprofessional attitude that I did not even appear for my other interviews. I did not check my mails also. This morning I came to know that I had my Accenture interview quite late and I came running and pleaded before SPO to let me appear for my interview."

HR (smiles)-"That will be all."

I got out and went for my Epic HR round. The HR asked me-"So how is your day going on?"

Me-"fine..I had some easy interviews today."

HR(surprised)-"Oh so you are having other interviews also today?"

Me(calmly)-"Yes , but Epic is first choice. The other company I was interviewed by makes tractors. I really don't think I fit well into tractor business."

HR (laughs)-"okay so how would your previous mentor describe about you?"

Me-"He would call me very sincere and dedicated, very helpful and frank"

HR-"How would he describe any of your weakness?"

Meanwhile the same Accenture dude entered the room and interrupted saying they were ready to offer me the job and I should disconnect. I showed him 5 fingers this time. He went out.

Me-"Well he would tell you that I am very much influenced by people round me. If I work with determined hard working people I work like them. If I work with relaxed people I tend to work easily"

HR-"What is it unique about you that makes you different from others for this job?"

Me-"Well I have done a variety of Maths courses, Statistics courses, Computing courses. This Stats+Computing profile is different from others."

I was surprised how did I think of that answer.

HR-"So Why do you want to join Epic?"

Me-"Well as I told you have I have Computing background and also I have lots of projects related to it which would be similar to work at Epic. I did not have much idea what Epic did. Also I am most excited to work in US as I like meeting new people, know about different cultures, how they live, think , what do they think of India."

HR(sounds impressed)-"So do you have any other questions about us?"

Me-"I have got two. Firstly what is the time over there?"

HR(laughs)-told me the time

I asked what happens if I did not get a VISA as it occurred with my friend last year. She replied about giving an extended year of joining offer.

Interview ended.

I came out, went down the stairs, surprised my friends with the Accenture job offer.

At the end of the day I got offer from Epic. Happily accepted.

How drastically my life changed in 1 day!

The Deutsche Bank Drama

My 10 min Deutsche Bank Drama Interview:

Act 1, Scene 1:

On December 1st I woke up at 5 AM and went to Hall-2 (the interview location) at 6 AM. I was given a time of 8 AM for my first round interview. I had another interview at Opera solutions the same day in morning. I waited for SIX HOURS till 12 noon - still waiting for being called. At 12 I went outside the room where Opera's interviews were being conducted. At 12:15 I got a call that my name is next for DB interview. I went and was asked to go in a room at 12:30. 

Scene II

I went in the room. There was no one inside. One person from Deutsche Bank came from behind and said - "let me close the door first". He politely asked me to sit. 

Interviewer- "So you are Mayank - nice to meet another Mayank from this place. I also once studied here. So what do you want to talk about?"

Me ( bit surprised that he did not ask me anythg about myself or my CV)- " Lets talk about my summer intern did this year at iRage Capital, Mumbai".

Iv-"k! So tell me about your intern"

Me -" Can i use a pen and a paper?"

Iv- "Oh sure, please go ahead , take this" 

(gave me a copy of my resume for rough work)

Me-(explained him how I used some Hidden Markov Model for generating buy sell signals for pair trading).

Iv-"wow, you thought all that by yourself?"

Me-"I had some references of research papers..."

Iv- "okay fine..So what is a stock ?"

Me-"When people want to raise money for the public they sell some parts of the company to the public through IPO and in this way people can invest some money in the company....blah blah..."

Iv- "Well that can be done using loans also? Why equities?"

Me- "Well you can take debt, but equities will let you raise larger amount of money..besides you have to pay the debt back...blah  blah..."

Iv-"Is that all the reason? more money? But you lose stake for that..why equities?"

Me (confused and trying to remember something i might had read)- "Well the large amount of money does help you compete and expand rapidly and compete with the competitors so if you don't list you lose the leverage you could have for increased profits and increased market share"

Iv- "Thats okay...can you think any other reason?"

Me-(I could not recall anything and said no uncomfortably wondering whether I had missed some very basic point?)

Iv-"okay that's fine... you don't have any finance background..thats k...So do you know anything else?"

Me-(sensing that the interviewer might wrap it up said quickly)-"I know how futures, options are priced and how are they traded"

(realized I had blundered in those last few lines)

Iv-"So tell me how a commodity future is priced?"

Me- (told him the concept n formula of using risk free interest and current stock price to price it )

Iv-"So what is this 'r' in this formula?"

Me-"Risk free rate of interest "

Iv- "So what is this risk free rate of interest?"

Me-"the interest u get on very safe assets in market like bank deposits, govt. bonds or T-bills or MIBOR -the rate at which.... blah blah"

Iv- "so why is it called safe?"

Me-"it is almost safe..very low chances of default on govt bonds?"

Iv-"Do banks n govt never default?"

Me-"Well...they do but very less chance compared to others more risky ones"

Iv-"what is risky?"

Me-"generally companies which are not doing well and release bond-corporate bonds.These are  riskier due to unstable situation of the company and have to give higher return."

Iv-(looks annoyed)-"Can you name any such company?"

Me-"Kingfisher"

Iv-"it has already defaulted"

Me-"hmm..." (feeling annoyed at this crappy conversation..there was so much we could talked..talking about African Orangutans would be making more sense than this

Iv (explains)-"actually anyone can default but out of so many assets these are the least risky"

I was so surprised at this answer. It was like talking to class X viva teacher.

Finally he took my resume. Flipped it and went through it. 

Iv-"So you were a link student? how did you like juniors yelling at u?"

Me-"They never yelled"

Iv-"Would you panic if anyone shouts at u?"

Me-" It depends who and how many people are shouting. If my parents or juniors will shout I wont panic, if 1 senior person shouts I wont panic, if a mob or crowd is shouting at me I will panic, any normal person would panic"

Iv-"So how do u find if you want to buy a company's stock or not?"

Me-"You can do forecasting of its shares price using various techniques like times series forecasting..."

Iv-"no ... thats just maths...tell me some other approach ...more sensible"

Me-(baffled)-"hmm do you want the approach regarding assets and liabilities? I mean find all future assets and payoffs , find current time value using discount rate, find liabilities and do the same blah blah....."

Iv-(interrupts)-"okay leave it ....Do you have any questions regarding the profiles we are offering?"

Me-"I don't have any questions at present"

(What I should have asked and was dying to ask - "So how can you live with such hypocrisy? You are taking my interview round after having made all the offers. Its hard to believe you were a student from IIT Kanpur. )

Iv-"So that will be all"

Me-"thank you"

(Hand Shake)

Scene III

I was sitting outside Opera Solutions interview room. I sat there but did not appear for the interview out of frustration. My friends Piyush Vyas and Piyush D got offers from Opera. At least some1 spent his time more productively.I felt happy for them. Later I did not appear for McKinsey Knowledge Centre interview in the interview. I felt funny thinking of the 30 resume print outs I had taken out for the 1st day. Only 1 was used- the blank flip side of resume for doing rough work.