The Beginning of the End-II

We went for our 1st wing treat of the last semester at Tycoon restaurant or maybe Dhuaan- can't actually say where because 5 of 12 were sitting in one place and rest at the others. This really pissed my wingie Anant 'Panda'. Watch this to know about unhappy pandas.https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=never+say+no+to+a+panda&sm=3
 At Tycoon I drank so much fruit punch (only after paying some fruit punch tax to panda ) that my veins and arteries must have fruit punch flowing in them instead of blood. In fact when I was shaving some day after the treat and cut myself I was half expecting fruit punch to flow out. I ate the main course and then said I can't eat more. Then the desserts came and I said that I just want to taste the chocolate mudpie. After some time I had eaten as much desserts as much I had eaten in the main course. 

The wing interaction has dropped considerably after placements.

On a typical day before placement:

Enter h mid (my wing) in Hostel IX
Scene: first room: H 201- Gaurav Gupta room is open 
You can hear some people discussing a puzzle from techinterview. In the room opposite Kushagra is doing extra puzzles and extra coding and extra quant problems. 

Outside Bhole is saying - "abe ye mera strength sun le...sayad thoda ajeeb lage...I a- am a g-g-good speaker- er- an- and I have g-got good communication skills from -er nuk-er-dram club and -er performing nukkads". 

Moving ahead jingling sounds of coins can be heard as Harshit attempts to make some extra bucks from poker website. Akshat is unbothered  and is solving astronomy problems.

Wait till midnight

Enter Bhole in my room
Bhole- Abe weakness nai mil rhi hai meri ek. Koi apni weakness de de ek.
Me- Abe yaar, kal bi ek weakness di thi maine. Tum log meri saari weakness le loge. 
Bhole- Are yaar bata na, kaun sa hm same company me baithne wale hain?
Me(reluctantly)- kk...ye kaisa hai... sometimes I take too many jobs wanting to do them out of enthusiasm...blah blah..
Bhole- hmmm...ye likh leta hu....acha wo news padha Raghuram Rajan ka...bata usme kya kya hua tha...
Me-hmmm padha tha kuch....blah blah... abe ye cv dekh ... kuch pooch...abe is wale POR se mat poochna...isme challenges sochna baaki hai...iske challenges and first intern chor kr kuch bi pooch...
Bhole- hmm so tell me Why do you want us? blah blah....

As the conversation goes Enters Pranav the motu
Pranav(looking in the mirror and adjusting his few hairs left)- ye failure thik hai ki I wanted to...blah blah...but could only blah blah....
Me- abe ye failure nai hai..ye to carelessness hai...isko aisa modify krte hai....you did this...blah blah...ab better failure hai
Pranav-hmm ab chap gya....ab mere 2 failures ho gye hain

Some1 shouts in the darkness-Abe koi GD karega kya??

During all this, several doors open several times, several people come out to discuss several puzzles and go back into several rooms..in superfast motion like in several movies

After everyone is placed

Enter H mid
Gaurav gupta's room closed-sound of FIFA coming, Kushagra laughing to punches of FRIENDS TV series. All other rooms closed. 

The only things unchanged: Jingling sounds of coins can still be heard as Harshit attempts to make some extra bucks from poker website. Akshat is still unbothered and is solving astronomy problems.

Wait till midnight
Pranav comes out (occasionally a stray dog also comes out after a nap)
Pranav(still looking in the mirror and adjusting his few hairs left)- canteen chalega?
Me-naah
Exit Pranav

You must realize the importance of placement when you know Kushagra  got time to watch the friends tv series finally after 9 semesters at IIT K. FRIENDS production team would have felt honoured to know this. 

Last week I watched a documentary on youtube about Venice. Venice is sinking. I liked Venice. Not so much now. I watched some other documentaries on jelly fish, octopus, Paris' sewage system, Iceland, Norway, etc. I found one jelly fish which is immortal. http://www.boredpanda.com/turritopsis-nutricula-immortal-jellyfish/ Also octopuses are very intelligent and quick learners. I watched one octopus open a lid of his prison glass jar on a ship, run on the deck and jump into the ocean. And it was not animation.

I was having casual conversation with one friend of mine and it evolved into a bragging contest out of nowhere. I told the friend that I had seen Zaheer, Gambhir, Harbhajan during India vs SL test match at Kanpur. The friend told me about having seen Katrina Kaif from nearby. I dealt the killer blow saying that I had seen Dhoni before 99% of Ranchi had heard his name. I had gone to watch Bihar vs Karnataka in Ranchi probably when I was in class 4 or maybe 5. 
Actually I had the habit of reading the scorecard of Bihar in newspaper those days and always found 1 player making some quick runs...and he did not score much but consistently scored 30s and 40s. And this way I knew Dhoni's name. Dhoni was keeping the stumps while I was watching. Karnataka won. A journalist for a magazine called taapman patna was sitting beside me trying to gather some info about the match. I asked him so many questions that he finally took a sit several rows away from me. 

 This semester I had take a course - International Business Management. I thought even if I screwed and learnt only 1 out of 3 terms-international or business or management it would be still useful for my career . My Business management professor extended a 80 min class to 100 minutes and all he achieved in this was forming 16 groups for future presentations and deciding the class seating arrangement. My patience was failing. I finally caved in when he says at the end he had not got time for attendance so please have patience. I went home and immediately dropped the course and took another - Spintronics and quantum transport application to Semiconductor Devices. Its more technical, there is no attendance and the proff is cool -he comes to the class wearing 2 woollen caps...he comes wearing a woollen cap opens it and there is another beneath it! 

The Beginning of The End

So this new and hopefully the final semester of my 5 year program at IIT Kanpur has begun. I have been trying to get a perfect and delicate combination of courses to achieve the right mix of wisdom, ease in life and good grades. I attended this Finite Element Method class and immediately realized within 5 minutes that ee humse na ho payega. The proff wrote bizzare partial differential equations on the board and read preface of a book. After one hour the professor asks us if we understood anything? There is some silence and some people say- NO. The professor hears it perfectly and says - "k..then lets proceed further".

It reminds of  my behavior after a maths lecture in 1st sem. In 1st semester I was attending my first lecture of MTH 101 sitting beside my room mate Anurag Kumar Singh the guy who once was a die hard fan of the Twilight movie. Anyways as the class proceeded I became quite disheartened and after the lecture:

Me-"F**k we missed our 1st lecture at IIT Kanpur."

Roomie-"What are you saying? This was the first class."

Me (confused)-"Dude we were sitting in the wrong lecture room."

Roomie-"Hey most of these were freshers are sitting here. It was the right room".

Me(baffled)-"Were we supposed to study something before coming to campus ? F**k... I did not know about anything we had to study before coming here. Did they send some syllabus to study before coming for lectures?"

Roomie-"What is wrong with you?"

Me- "Wrong ? What was happening in that lecture? It was the Chernobyl of Mathematics. How is everyone so fu****g calm?"

Now even if the proff says in my lecture-"...and so using this simple Pythagoras theorem we can prove the Riemann Hypothesis...This has been left as an exercise..." I would hardly bat an eye. Same calm face like an experienced cards player. 

Let me tell you about my wingy Yogesh Kumar Soniwal's episode in Taiwan where he had gone for about 10 days in a Maths winter conference. I am only doing him this favour because he brought me a toothbrush, a comb and lots of chocolates looking like fish food we put in the aquarium at home. He met a lot of people who knew only two words of English-"No English". Once he entered an Indian restaurant in Taipei and tried to order something in English. The waiter interrupted him and said - "No English". Yogesh had to randomly select a dish in menu from all the menus written in Taiwan's Chinese or whatever language they spoke. Once while walking on the road Yogesh met a man on the bike. The man told him something the gist of which is-" My bike has broken down here in middle of the road. I don't know anyone here and I urgently need this much money to reach home. I was going from this blah place to this blah place. My family is expecting me  because blah blah."

After the man had spoken for about 7-8 minutes Yogesh appears calm, stares at the man and says- "No English". 

So It's festive season- last few days of December. One of my uncles call  me one random day. I was surprised and happy that finally some relative remembers was calling me to see how am I doing. I was less happy and less surprised when he told me to write an essay on "Importance of Sports and games in daily life" in about 250-300 words. My cousin sister is probably punishing me. I wanted to say- "hey i am in IIT now- final year- I do only cool things...i do not write essays !" but I did not. So i celebrated my new year eve writing-"Sports and games are very important for us in our daily life. They keep us fit and healthy. They offer us a change from the monotonous life.....blah blah..."

Besides this I also completed watching a documentary on South Pacific ocean on new year eve. I found this really cool spider which lives on Hawaii- the happy face spider. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theridion_grallator

Also I watched about this ship Essex hit by a whale in the Pacific. This inspired the novel Moby Dick. The survivors ultimately resorted to cannibalism. It is a painful story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

I completed the TV series -Breaking Bad. The third season is too good. The characters Saul Goodman, Jesse Pinkman and Walter White are nicely evolved. Can you imagine the contrast in transformation of Walter White and transformation of Shah Rukh Khan in Rab ne bana di jodi ?
A movie I must recommend is The Terminal starring Tom Hanks. Comedy. 

Also I think I have finally decided my ultimate future goal. I want to be a halwaai...I think I would have a cool sweets shop. Finally after studying Topology, Real Analysis, Linear programming, Regression blah blah and doing intern in Algorithmic trading and getting a software job I really am excited about this sweets shop as a career. There are so many sweets I want to have with the right amount of crunchiness, smell, sweetness, texture, additives, dryness, inside fillings, etc  but can't seem to find them in market. 

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.

Humor is a dish best served implicit

Accomplished another successful train journey from Kanpur Central to Ranchi. First I was lying on the top berth listening to a MP3 player recently siezed from Antaragni'13. I believe that when respect and MP3 player is not given then you have to work hard and earn it. The heat compelled me to the side lower seat and enjoy the scenery outside. But only till the man, on whose seat I was lying with one leg on the window and earphones plugged in my ears after shifting his bag on another seat, got irritated, of having to sit somewhere else, came back asking me to make room for him. 

I revised the movie Lock Stock and two smoking Barrels. Such class and humor in a movie! I believe-"Humor is a dish best served implicit". The British accent even makes it more interesting.  In case you don't know yet it is the parent movie of Phir Hera Pheri. 

I don't know what cooking show my mummy was watching....but it comes at about 7Pm and the host was making great looking dishes. If I had criminal contacts I would get his son kidnapped and make him cook for me as a ransom. He even introduced ice-cream inside a mango! 

Every mohalla should have a cooking R & D department where people can come and discuss and try new variations and coalitions of food. We can even open our own chain and make the McD and Subway people cry!  

I have recently become active on quora. Quora is cool. Besides all those ideas which tend to complement facebook instead of substituting fb have greater chances of survival. Facebook has become a stable Nash Equilibrium where no one wants to move from fb because his friends would be at fb and his payoff would get reduced. Quora integrates random people's anecdotes, sarcasm and takes advantage of people's curosity about anonymous opinions and thinking of others on controversial and private topics .

Watched Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern Munich yesternight competing with their secondary squads. Hard to imagine Bayern being put under pressure after watching them thrash my beloved Barcelona 4-0 and 0-3 in the two legs of semi-finals. I don't believe that Barcelona played too timidly or gave up easy on their dreams in the second leg. Bayern have too much of everything...they can score with crosses, long range goals, are good at counter, have brilliant aerial ability, are good and quick at passes, physically superior in challenges and running, not dependent on one man, good at set pieces, etc. What all Bayern does in a match some teams might not be able to do this in one entire season!! Besides the players at Bayern are quite young so I expect them to dominate European football for next few years. Also I expect increased rivalry b/w Bayern and Dortmund.