From 22 to 23

My parents, my teachers, my uncles, my aunts, they all had one thing to say when I was young-"Enjoy these days of your life. Nothing is as beautiful as childhood". I would look at them, scornfully and say-"Bah! There is nothing more tough than the school life-the classes, the homework, the tests."

As I stand on the verge of turning 23, I realize the fallacy of my words and the radiant truth behind those drops of wisdom. How I would love to go back to those beautiful classrooms, study maths/history/science, play cricket in the evening, and enjoy Enid Blyton story books with gay abandon. Nestled in the red bricks of Bal Bharati Public School was a secure environment filled with the love of parents and friends, and an optimistic attitude towards life which made us smile and laugh without worrying about anything else.

People often say that going from school to college is one of the biggest transition that a teenager ever faces. I respectfully disagree. There is no bigger change than the one we face as we move out of college and face the "real world". I was one of the lucky ones, had a great college filled with some great friends, and twists and turns that would put a Karan Johar classic to shame.

And then exactly a year ago, I permanently left behind the securities of a world that was insured by my parents. It has been quite an experience, different from anything I have ever had. There have been the highs, and the lows. But I take the chance to jot down some points, some experiences that I had as I move from 22 to 23.

1. You are alone: This one is a real good one. We realize, after completing graduation, that we stand alone. We have to charter out a path for yourself. Sure, this is told to us earlier also. But the actual meaning and interpretation of this hits us now. It is a learning experience to do a lot of things yourself, to search, explore find the avenues leading to the path that we intend to follow.

2. Appreciation: I have learned to appreciate a lot of people around me now that I see what it takes to call yourself successful. The hurdles that people senior to us have faced, withstood and solved makes you respect them that tad bit more.

3. Initiative: In school, and even in college, there was a guiding hand, be it your teacher, your professor or your parents. Now, we have to find out things for ourselves. An initiatives needs to be taken, we need to put our hands up if we are to learn new things.

4. Family: When we were young and needed any support- moral, monetary or mental, we turned to our family. But somehow, we( atleast I ) never appreciated it that much. Now, after days of work, when we return home, our head full of tensions regarding a zillion thing, when someone sits next to us and gives  that invisible support without uttering a word, we relish it. The mere knowledge of someone sitting across the bed listening to our stories is an ethereal feeling.  The security of your house after returning from the other world is unbeatable. As a wise man once said, home is where your heart is.

5. Career: As a youngster, you dream of the world and care for nothing. The weight of this thought-career starts hitting after crossing college. We realize that to change your dreams to reality, we require a huge amount of hard work and luck. There is lots of pressure on you to achieve something, While sometimes it can be a boon, there are times when the very same thoughts can cripple you.

6. Friends: It is a bitter sweet experience, this one. I have been fortunate enough to find a set of new friends as I moved into college. But I realize, that as we grow older, we will have two sets of people. There will be some people who will stick by you through the thick and thin, you learn to treasure their presence in your life. And at the same time, some will go, too involved in their own world and too busy with their work to remember you exist. Neither set is wrong, sometimes life extracts so much out of us that we can't remember anything else.

 Like the last point, this last year has been a bitter sweet experience. It has brought about a world of change and I am gradually learning to accept and enjoy these changes.

But yeah, there is nothing to beat the feeling of playing cricket for hours, the feeling of swimming lap after lap, the feeling of playing badminton game after game, without having to think of companies, jobs, boss and career.

Childhood is a blissful time.

PS- Thanks Aastha, for forcing me out of lethargy and making me write. It feels great!

Roger Federer: The will to achieve

One of the most common advertisement that came up (yet again) during Australian Open 2013 is the Rolex commercial, asking "When is greatness achieved?". Roger Federer, the athlete in the advertisement, probably answered the question best at this year's championships.

Cut back to the day when the draws were announced, and even the most ardent of his critics would have agreed that Roger's draw was the toughest among the contenders. Davydenko in the 2nd round, Tomic in 3rd, Raonic in 4th, Tsonga in quarters, Murray in semis, and Djokovic in final. Surely, it was not possible for the soon to-be 32 year old Federer to get past all this. He didn't. But what he did was more than enough to remind the detractors that he is still good enough to win big tournaments.

It started with Davydenko in the 2nd round. The match between two veterans was a tough match coming in the 2nd round. Davydenko had a good warm up, and had already given Roger a run for his money three years back. But the Swiss kept his temperament, and Davydenko soon started missing his mark and increasing his error count. End result-6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to Roger in less than 2 hours. Next up was Bernand Tomic, who has talked himself up before the match suggesting that he could cause arguably the greatest upset in recent times by ousting Roger so early in the tournament. In a typical Swiss way, Roger let his racket do the talking. End result-6-4, 7-6,6-1. Next round, Milos Raonic, him of the great serve stature, was taught how much distance he still has to cover before even thinking of being one of the best. The score there read 6-4,7-6,6-2. It was not so much winning, but how the matches were won. Against Raonic, when required to be at his efficient best in order to tackle the huge serve, he only had 12 unforced errors. Against Tomic, when down 4-1 in tie break, he proved his credential as the greatest tie-break player of all time by turning the tables and winning the tie-breaker. He taught the tennis pundits, fans, critics a lesson that they would not forget in a hurry. These boys of today are still no match for his skills. It can be the grass courts, the clay courts, or the hard courts, but they are all still way behind him. They couldn't so much as break his serve.

The story was not over. Up against Tsonga,a player against whom he has had some problems in past, he was pushed. Broken for the first time in the tournament, he struggled a bit with his serves and had to win two tie breakers to force a 5th deciding set. However, here is the point where he proved his genius and broke Tsonga for a 3-1 lead which ultimately proved decisive. The 3 hour, 34 mins proved that unlike yester years, Roger has to fight to stay afloat in the second week of the tournament. And he is willing to do it.

The Murray match was one that the whole tennis world watched in awe. The new Murray, with his aggressive play wore out Roger Federer in five tough sets. However, my opinion is a little different. What I saw was a Murray, at the peak of his game and fitness, having to play five long sets for four long hours to overcome an error-prone, poor serving and definitely tired Roger Federer. If Murray had lost this match, most of the people would have reacted-"How could he?", such was the difference in their form that day. But Roger fought on. He was broken early in the first set, and was facing a deuce or break points every second game throughout the match. He broke the Murray serve for the first time in the fourth set. Yet, the will to win was more evident than ever. His forehand, his serve, both very crucial weapons deserted him. You could have counted on fingers the number of winner he produced with each. A small mistake in the second set tiebreak-that of going to the wrong side when hitting a volley cost Murray the set. A very small mistake against an out-of-sorts Roger. Yes, that is all it took. Broken at 6-5 in fourth set, Roger might have started planning his flight back to Switzerland. Again, he manfully fought on, sending a punishing backhand winner at 30-30 that signalled his intent to push the match into the decider. In the tie break, he made the move by breaking the Murray serve twice by aggressively moving across and attacking them with huge forehands. That he went off the boil in the fifth set was partly due to his fatigue caused by playing back to back  tough five setters, four of which were tie breakers.

Remember, Federer is not used to this style of play. Fighting for every point is a style more suited for the Nadals, the Murrays, the Djokovics. Yet, he struggled along, even abusing Murray once, the passion and the zeal to win full on display in the traditionally rare "Come On"!

For a man with the amount of success that he has had, it was humbling to see the desire to win brimming across the face. Having already achieved all that was for the taking, this man still relishes in facing new challenges of emerging talent of Rafa, Nole and Murray in late last decade, or that of Raonic, Tomic these days, the challenge of adjusting to the constantly slowing courts, the challenge of proving every "passing of baton" wrong, the challenge of proving every season, every tournament, every match why he is the greatest player of all time.

As the advertisement of Rolex correctly answered- "Maybe it is when you are always asking-What next?"

The enigma that is Mr. Narayana Murthy

Finally, I have the time to write something. It has been a very hectic four months and with no results yet to show for that. Nevertheless, it feels great to be able to write again.

I officially became an engineer in the month of November, as my alma mater held its first convocation. It was brilliantly done, kudos to the Alumni team for that. It was amazing to meet people with  whom I had spent the last four years. But this is not what the idea of the blog is.

What would you do if you became a multi-millionaire and had more money than you could ever imagine? Buy a big house, keep a fleet of cars, wear the most expensive of accessories and clothing? Not if you are Mr. Narayana Murthy. We have all heard stories about the great visionary and the true father of the Indian IT industry. We all know how he started the company Infosys, with borrowings from his wife. About how even after all the riches, his wife still used to drop him to office as he did not know how to drive. About how their foundation donates millions of rupees to charity every year. But there is a subtle difference between listening to all the nice stories about such geniuses  and actually observing them in person. Perceptions change vastly after the latter, and not always for the good. In the case of Mr Murthy, thankfully, this did not happen. Here is what I saw an understood about the great man.

The official arrival of the chief guest was at 9.30 am as per schedule. All the students had naturally arrived much earlier. By 9.15 am, the volunteers were ushering us into the hall that was the venue of the convocation. I did not go in, as I did not expect anything to happen before 10 am. As I was loitering about outside, I saw a delegation of suited up men arrive in front of me. Right in centre was the Mr. Murthy. I looked at my watch. It was 9.25 am( and my watch is five minutes faster!). Talk about punctuality. While narrating this incidence to my father, I got to know another great story. Mr Murthy was to be the judge at the Hindustan Leadership Summit for judging the best entrepreneur. The committee which he headed was supposed to meet a 9am on a particular day with the nominees. At 9 am, Mr Murthy started off the process even though some participants had not reached. Clearly, punctuality is a virtue well imbibed in him.

As the convocation session began, Mr Murthy sat on the sofa listening to the various boring and frankly un-necessary speeches. The suit that he wore was one that you would expect any middle-class man to wear. He was wearing those woollen warm winter socks that we normally do in winters. Looking at him, I thought he has beautifully followed the words of Mahatma Gandhi-"simple living and high thinking".  As his turn came to address us, he delivered s speech that was relevant and not the normal boring kind. He talked about how the concepts that we have learned should always remain with us, how we should always keep ourselves updated with the latest in our field, how he still reads about the core topics in Computer Science(database, networking etc.) daily for two hours. Thankfully, it did not contain much about being a good human being, helping others, being moral and all the boring official crap that you would normally expect a chief guest to deliver. He was aware that he was talking to CS graduates and his address was very much in context.

After the session, the delegation disappeared upstairs while parents and students went off for the lunch. You would expect that the chief guest and other officials would be having their own lunch somewhere in private chambers. Not with Mr. Murthy. He was down for lunch in an hour. And that was the most incredible sight of the afternoon. Here was the IT king of India, a renowned person worldwide with many awards to his name, calmly standing and talking to every student and parent who wished to interact. It was disarmingly humbling to see the unassuming nature of the man. There were no security guards pushing the people away. There was no arrogance being shown. He never made you feel as if he is any better than you. That afternoon, he changed from being a chief guest to  being "one of us".

Finally, as time ran out, Mr. Murthy had to leave. You would expect the chauffeur driven super luxury car to come. And for the umpteenth time that day, Mr Murthy proved us wrong. The car that stood was a normal yellow and black Swift Dzire taxi, with a simple driver.

As I went back, I realized that the day had taught me a very important lesson. It did not tell me how to become rich, but it did tell me how to behave and carry yourself if I ever become that rich.h

Impact of the recent negative outlook of various rating agencies on India

The higher you climb, the harder you fall.

Indian economy, enjoying a honeymoon period for the best part of the last seven years, has been hit where it hurts the most. S&P has downgraded India's rating outlook to negative from stable in April. It also downgraded ratings for 21 major Indian banks including SBI and ICICI and the top IT firms like TCS, Infosys and Wipro. Since then, it has been issuing continuous warning stating Indian rating might be downgraded from its present state, which is just a notch above junk. It has forecast the growth in current fiscal year to be 5.3%, down from 6%.

If everything above sounded like French, then here is the English translation. S&P is a financial services company, which is also one of the world's biggest credit rating agencies. It issues ratings to issuers of debts and debt instruments. These ratings are calculated based on a GAMMA score. This score measures the strength of a company's corporate governance practices as an investor protection against potential governance-related losses of value or failure to create value¹. It was in news last year when it cut US rating from AAA. And last month, it cut India's rating outlook. India's rating, BBB-, may go down another notch in another couple of years if actions are not taken immediately. Another credit rating agency, Moody's cut the rating of several Indian banks, like HDFC and Axis.

There are several questions that can be asked. Why the ratings deterioration? How would it make a difference? What can be done to correct it?

India has been in a state of economic slowdown for some time now. Ever since Euro debt crisis, the whole world has been facing the shock. India has gone into a rapid downward spiral since then. India's account deficit and fiscal deficit had burgeoned since then. Fiscal deficit, which was projected to be 5.1% of GDP and which was 4.6%  in the previous fiscal year, ended at 5.9%. This is perilously close the 6% mark, which is considered to be the benchmark. For the record, it was 7% during the dark days of 1991. Account deficit, as of now, stands at 4.5% of GDP. In nutshell, India has been spending well beyond its means, and this extravagance has now come back to bite. The current political gloomy scenario in the country, where reforms are not moving and legislations are slow, have been taken into account by the ratings agency before downgrade

This downgrade will worsen the already poor situation of the economy. The borrowing costs for both Indian companies and Indian banks will rise to compensate for the highly negative outlook. The banking system's bad loans might be bloated up, as a result. Bad loans have grown faster by three times than credit. These loans, which stood at 2.9% of total loans in March 2012, might rise to 4.3% by 2013. The normal accepted figure is somewhere between 3.3% and 3.5%. Banks, which are now relying heavily on mutual funds and insurance companies, have raised the risk of the complete financial system. The rising short-term borrowings of banks at 27% of the total and the sector's reliance on mutual funds has made things more tough². The foreign investments, which have been drying up swiftly, may be eroded even more quickly. This disinterest of investors in the Indian market may make the already weak rupee fall farther as the demand for rupee will weaken against dollar. This would make imports more expensive and push the inflation, which is already at an uncomfortable high level, north. The ratings cut, thus, is going to puncture India's reputation as a growth and investment destination.

The only good thing, if one wants to be optimistic, is that it might wake up the sleeping giant. The Indian government, which has been rightly accused of policy paralysis, may wake up and swing into action. One of the first motives has to be to reduce the behemoth figure of account and fiscal deficit. In the budget for the current fiscal year, the fiscal deficit target has been set for 5.1%, which in itself is a huge figure. Nevertheless, this target had been set on the basis of estimating the fuel, fertilizer and food subsidy at a very competitive and almost an unrealistic amount. To meet these levels, the government will need to pull up the prices of petrol, diesel, and LPG. So far, it has hiked the prices of petrol and LPG. The petrol hike has been rolled back partially after widespread protest. However, the price of diesel need to be raised immediately. The government is losing around Rs.14 per litre on diesel and this amount needs to be brought down to achieve the subsidy targets. That the government is considering raising the tax on diesel cars instead of increasing the fuel price reflects poorly on them. The raising of duty on gold import has done a world of good to its imports, as they fell by more than 30% in the first quarter of year. The decrease in imports reduces the current account deficit. Also, gold as an import is useless. It just lies dead in vaults, without providing any value addition. The government also needs to attract the foreign investments in the form of FDI and FII. Instead, during the budget, the finance minister had imposed capital gain tax on offshore transactions involving Indian assets with retrospective effect from 1962. The Supreme Court cancelled all the licenses issued for mobile networks. Both Uninor and Vodafone have protested. Another budget provision, the General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR), is creating a poor impression of India. Such incidents can only send a negative picture to prospective investors. The government needs to push for reforms like pushing the cap for FDI in multi brand retail, opening pension fund for foreign investors. Tax reforms like Direct Tax Code and Goods and Services Tax need to be implemented.

Such moves might improve the economic stagnation of India. The impact of the downgrade may make the government become proactive and come up with healthier reforms. This, in turn, might push up growth figures, attract foreign inflows, push down inflation which may lead to the much awaited rate cuts by the RBI.

As they say, learn from yesterday and hope for tomorrow.

Grexit - a possible solution to the Euro crisis?

A caveat: Grexit is not a proper English word!

Grexit is a slang formed by the combination of two words- Greece and exit. Coined by Citigroup's chief analyst, Willem H.Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari, it refers to the prospect of Greece leaving the Euro and getting back its old currency, the drachma. Impossible as it may sound, this possibility is more real than it seems. There is some serious thinking going into pushing for the Grexit.

Is this a good idea? Would it indeed help in solving the Euro crisis?

To get that answer, we need to look into what caused the crises at the first place.

 In the aftermath of the housing bubble that finally led to the 2008 crisis, slow growth became the norm.  Greece, which had been spending way beyond its limit, without much care of the widening deficit, was the first to feel the pinch. Last February, Greece, a primary default candidate, under pressure from neighbours, approved of austerity measure to cut down on the budget deficit. The government spending were decreased, tax rates increased. The target was to bring down the deficit, which had risen to 13% of the GDP by 2009, to about 3%. But every coin has a flip side. With the austerity drive, and no funding, the growth slows down. And with that, so do the taxes, and as a consequence, the deficit widens. But Greece had no other option. The credit rating of major Greek banks slipped. With Spain and Portugal also giving signs of instability, fears of a European crisis widened. The credit rating of Spain slipped to double A, and as Greece agreed to become the first EU country to be bailed out by EU and IMF, and euro plummeted,  the writing was on the wall. Ireland too faced the music, with a credit down-rating following austerity measures approved by the tiny nation. The consequence of all this is that the country's bonds have become unstable and the investors stay away for the fear of volatility. The ECB (European Central Bank), hence, has had to buy the government bonds of Spain and Italy.  The concept of Euro bonds, issued by EU as whole was discussed. But Germany was vehemently opposed to it, and naturally so, for joining hands with Greece and others would make borrowing more expensive for it.

This summarizes the Euro crisis. But I have anyways never been too fond of the fundamental principal on which Euro runs. Losing your sovereignty and having a common body controlling the monetary policy of the whole region was not a good move. The birth of Euro as a currency is flawed. It allowed countries like Greece to borrow beyond their means and they were safely nestled in the security that Euro, which was established to challenge the might of US dollar, provided. Such consequence, hence was inevitable.

With Euro zone in such a place, how would the Grexit change things? For Greece, it might seem like a blessing. Which it is not. The standard approach of devaluing your currency may not be the best alternative. The depreciation of a currency is useful when there is no issue with the production, but an issue with the relative pricing. With Greece, that is certainly not the case, as the depreciation of currency may increase productivity marginally, but that would be more than offset by higher import bills. A devaluation of currency would lead to higher uncertainty in the banking sector, which is already suffering from liquidity issues.

 As far as the Euro is concerned, this might not be the best move even for them. For one, Grexit may sent a dangerous precedent and lead to Spexit, Irexit and Porexit in lieu of the failing economies of Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Then there is the point that if such exits become a norm, then none of the Euro country would be ready to cover up the liabilities of a fellow country's banks and make up for the huge debt that may be piled up by it. The contrary argument to this is that it may make the Euro countries sit up and be careful, but the threat offered by the former outweighs the latter argument. Also, a system needs to be developed, a European super body, that would need to look into the affairs of European banks. Then there are logistics issue. How would the Greece economy run when currency change is taking place? Form where would the capital of banks come, as there is no-one willing to invest in Greece?

It is clear that the best way forward for Greece and the Euro is not Grexit, but reforms. Strong structural reforms are the need of the hour for the Greeks as they try to correct the wrongs of their previous leaders. Would Germany and others stick with Europe? As long as they are true to the terms and conditions of the austerity measures. I think the Greeks are ready to brave the terms rather than having to face an exit.

A tale of two temples!

Been a long time since I wrote anything. Most probably due to having too much time, I have been too busy not doing anything!

Just came back from a trip to Dharamshala/ Dalhousie. It was an awesome trip. These are two relatively low profile hill stations in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. The low footfall in these places makes them an ideal place to visit if you are seeking a peaceful place to visit in summer. Watched Delhi thrash Punjab in Dharamshala also. But the  two experiences I wanted to share are not related to this.

STORY 1

15 km from Dharamshala, there is a Chamunda Devi temple. It is supposedly very famous. While visiting the local sight-seeing points, I went here also. The moment I entered the temple, I realized that what I had heard was indeed true. There were two adjacent long queues just for entering the main temple. I am not too much of a religious person. Hence, I was not too inclined to wait for over an hour. But my dad disagreed. So I had to stand there in the queue for half an hour. When I entered the main temple, there was still a further queue. And people were literally standing on top of each other. There were railings to mark the border and these railings led directly to the main enclosure where the "pandit" was sitting. For another forty minutes or so, I struggled in the queue. Every five minutes, there was a shout of "Jai Mata Di". Also, just in front of the place where the pundit was sitting, there was a lot of pushing going on. Some people were shouting, some people were swearing. By the time I got out, my clothes were disheveled. I was a little agitated. 

I had a couple of questions in my mind. Why do people visit a temple? If someone asked me that, I would say to derive a little peace within myself and come out a little more happy and content. But that was certainly not the case here. I do not think too many people walked away happily. It was an harrowing experience at best. And shouting and swearing at a place where you have come to pray would seem a little out of place. Then, there were people who had "connections" with the pundit or some other person and they were able to get "darshan" directly. Again, the same question. Why did these guys come to the temple? Even inside a temple, there are ways to "bribe"!

Patience is a virtue that is sorely lacking in us Indians (and I am a prime example of that). We always want to push our way through. If everyone had walked along peacefully, it would have taken a lot less time and been a lot more satisfying.

The experience confirmed my belief that religion, for a lot of people, is now a thing to show off. Specifically in the Hindu context, we visit some famous temples of God XYZ to convince ourselves and the society that we indeed our a great follower of Him. The way we behave in the temple has no significance. We can cause a lot of trouble to our fellow "followers", but that does not matter. We organize jagratas, chowkis etc for another God ABC. Never mind that we are disturbing the sleep of hundreds of people with our loud mikes.

STORY 2

On the second last day of my trip I went to Mcleodganj, a place 6-7 km above Dharamshala where the famous Dalai Lama resides. In the evening, we (me and dad) went to visit the monastery. It is a beautiful complex. There are a couple of shops and a museum to go along with the temple. The temple is built a little higher up. It is a small structure situated in the middle of a huge courtyard. A lot of beds are placed in the courtyard where the lama( the guys who wear the red/maroon kind of weird dress!) and even ordinary people can sleep. The temple has a big statue of Lord Buddha and a couple of other statues are also there. 60% of the temple area was cordoned off. In the remaining space, you could walk about. When I went there in the evening, there was not much activity. I went into the temple, sat there for some time, and came out feeling a little better. Exactly the reason for going to the temple.

It got better the next day when I again went to the monastery. As I went in the afternoon, there was a lot of activity going on. Hundreds of lamas were sitting in the courtyard and in the cordoned off area rotating a bead of threads in their hands and murmuring something. The windows of the temple were open so that the whole courtyard could see the temple and vice-versa. Yet, the moment you entered inside the temple, there was a sense of calmness and peace that prevailed. I again sat down(on thew insistence of my father) and noticed the people around. There were the lamas going about their prayers in a quiet and a peaceful way. And there was something in their faces. They all seemed to radiate a kind of happiness that was latent. Tourists came, clicked photographs(there were no restrictions), chatted in low voices(though nobody asked them to do so) and went. The Tibetans came, did their rituals (which involved joining your hands above your head, bringing it down, and then going down on the knees before lying flat on the ground, headfirst three times) and walked off. Often they were accompanied by little children, who made a little noise(which no-one objected to), tried to copy their parents.

All in all, there was a welcoming and an open air about that place that I haven't really experienced anywhere. There were no restrictions, and yet everyone seemed disciplined. Once again, as I walked out, there was a compelling sense of contentment and peace that sweep-ed across me.

As I got out of the temple and into the courtyard, one of the lamas, who was at-least 60 (all of them were a little old), came and asked- "Khaana khaayenge?". I was about to refuse, but as I looked up, I saw him, looking at me, with a huge smile. I said yes. He went downstairs, looking for a couple of plates. It was a sight watching that 60 something lama looking for the plates. It took him 2-3 mins to find one. Finally, after getting them, he came upstairs, handed out the plates and served us  rice and some vegetable mix which looked quite horrible to me. The enthusiasm with which he served was similar to the one with which he had looked for the plates. People who know me know that if I don't like something, no-one can make me eat it. Yet, I tried my level best. I ate 15% of the food just remembering his expressions and enthusiasm. I really wanted to eat the rest, but it was too tough. While I was standing and eating, another old lady got up and offered me her seat! I was shell-shocked. There was this old lady offering seat to a youngster like me. The politeness and open nature had really started getting to me. As I went off to wash the plate after putting the uneaten food in a  bucket, another lama lady offered to wash it! And as I accidentally brushed an old lady, she was the one who apologized before I could say a word! 

Needless to say, their loving nature and hospitality had a profound impact on me. The image of these lamas sitting in the courtyard and the temple, going about their business has stuck to my mind since then. I did not take any picture, simply because I did not have to. The visit has left a long lasting impression on my mind.

These couple of visits have made sure that I travel to Dharamshala again to visit the awesome monastery and the even more awesome people. About the temple, I am not so sure!

A vote of thanks

Freedom. The sweet taste of freedom. The ability to be able to do what I like and that too at my own pace. It feels all the power to do and think according to my wishes has returned. The bitter-sweet journey that started on 12th December, 2010 has reached its end.
I would like to thank a lot of people who helped me along the way. First up, I would like to thank Prateek and Sandy for the very awesome car drives to CP. Getting up (and more importantly staying awake) at 6:30 AM on weekends after five hectic days of college was never an easy task. There companionship and ridiculous jokes and stories made sure that not only did I stay awake, but also fresh and ready for a class. Then Stuti, for going with me to CP on a lot of occasions. I would have been bored and a lot less motivated to go if she wasn't there. Divij and Sumit, for finding a very nice coaching center and kick starting the process in December. Vriti, for attending a lot of classes and for the numerous discussions on the academic as well as mental approach for the exam. Ankit and Manish, my internship buddies, for the brilliant 10 week stay at Coimbatore. If not for them, living and studying there would have been an arduous task. Hemank, for always asking about my results and wishing me before interviews. Apoorv and Bhanu, my co-exam givers(as I realized very late) for some valuable discussions. Apoorva, for acting as a mentor and an experienced guide whenever I was confused. The excellent center and faculty at CL CP and at TIME who showed me the way. However, the biggest thanks is to Aastha, for without her this whole thing would never have happened. From making excellent notes in sem-6 to coming to CP centre on a lots of days, to doing ALL, and I mean ALL BTP work (and that too under Dr Mayank and Dr Richa)  alone, to making my academics light in sem-7, to listening to my mindless worries and innocent dreams, to standing by me in all the tensed times and bearing me when I was highly unreasonable and illogical, her efforts were in no way less than mine. My family for doing everything possible to make the task easier for me, for giving me encouragement when I was a little down, in essence, for ensuring that I got through these 68 weeks without a mental breakdown .
I will be the first person to put up my hand up if someone asks if I am disappointed. Yes, I am. But I have learned here how to take disappointment. The CAT and XAT failures have taught me that sometimes you can try your best and still not be successful. However, that does not refute the fact that it has been an excellent journey. I managed to clear all the tests that I took. I have learned a lot. I have improved my English, GK and general awareness. The experience of GD and PI's has been a big learning curve for me.
I had big dreams when I started out on December 12. None of them were fulfilled. And that is what makes me more determined. I will try and get where I want to. I will work harder. I still have one more shot, come what may.
I will come back the next season.