Trinity's Over

Exams for this term are up! And now we can rest assured that we'd soon be Oxford MBAs. Am not really eager to start on the Lloyds consulting project, but will take it as the time comes. For now, its just next 3 days of khlena, koodna and full masti. The trip back home last week was a much needed break. Met so many friends/relatives and yes, champagne finally did flow on the very first day itself. It was all good fun though quite hectic. Shots...

With Dad, sharing a light moment

Mom and Dad, Gobind Mamaji on the left; All eyes on the Champagne

Dad opened it in just one shot

Mom enjoying herself, Alok (front) and Kuppy (standing)

Small Indian Family

That's one big hug with Raj Mamaji

Brothers and Sisters
(Sitting) Monudi, Alok
(Standing) Mitu, Neeru

Not unemployed anymore!

The title says it all... isn't it?

The search which started around eight months ago is finally over and I now have job. Relief! After many applcations, interviews, some networking, many trips to London and many missed lectures, the efforts have resulted in one the best opportunities for me. I have no doubt in my mind that Oliver Wyman is going to offer me a highly enriching and rewarding career post-MBA. Pat on my back! Deloitte Consulting's offer is also encouraging. Starting as a Senior Consultant, I would be given many responsibilities right from the start. But still, OW does stand out on many counts.

What a busy week it has been! OW's offer came late last week. And since then, there has been little time (almost none) to celebrate. We (myself, Sunil, Saif) did go out for the customary dinner on the day offer came. But after that, it's been just this term's course work. This was the last week of Trinity Term and I am glad that now it is over. Don't think I have learnt much in this term but yes, for sure, I have improved my writing skills further (as has been the case for the last two terms) .. ha ha..

M off to chandigarh this evening. catch u later

Good Indian Food After Long

Today evening, I went to meet my distant relatives. My dad's buaji and her family, they had been here since 1970s before moving back to India a few years ago. Since then, they have been coming to Oxford to spend a month during summers every year.

This was the second time I was meeting buaji and Sunil in my entire life! And the first time I was meeting uncle, Sonia, Shivani. I had a really good time, they were very welcoming and I immediately felt a part of the family. The first time I was meeting an Indian English family where we were mostly coversed in English - that was the only peculiar thing in the setting :)

I stayed there for 4 hours, and the discussion revolved around a lot of things - Indian summers, traffic, tax evasion, salesmen in Indian malls who always flock you if you make the mistake of entering at a non-busy hour (apparently, the family went for shopping the morning and were still in the shopping mood), IIT (ha ha ha, uncle had done his graduation at IIT D - the moment I got to know about that, I felt even more comfortable talking to him, he was a participant in the first IITD batch, and yes we talked a lot about IIT :)), sai baba and puttaparty (the family is a great devotee of baba and are now settled at baba's ashram) and so many more things.

I didn't realize that time went by so quickly. It was already 3 hours when buaji asked for dinner and then I had the time of my day - karhi, paneer, salad, puuurrrrriiiiiiiiiii. Desserts including strawberries, mangoes (Indian mangoes), ice-cream and hot love (some fudge which Sonia/Shivani had prepared from ice-cream, cream, and some more stuff - i didnt have it). Really good food and again we had a very good discussion over the table. One thing which really stood out during the entire 4 hours was that kids and parents were debating on a whole lot of issues - uncle, buaji, sonia, shivani and sunil - all were talking about regular day to day things and ne'er seemed like stopping and taking a break :) As I now know, this is quite common in an Indian English family.

Back home, I still have kaju ki barfi to gorge on. Buaji gave me a box of barfi before I left. Indian sweets are just too good - I miss them.

Strategy Consulting Project

With the term (last at Oxford) nearing an end, things are getting less ambigous now. Now I know where I will be spending my summers for the Strategy Consulting Project (SCP).

The SCP allocation is a long process in which the companies had started presenting the projects right at the start of this term. There were not many good projects on offer but those which were good attracted a very strong competition. My eyes were on Macquarie, Lloyds, Standard & Poors (in the order of preference).

Four teams bid for Macquarie and we lost that bid (Team included Robin, Diliana and Kian) to a better team. Allan made a lot of difference in the two teams and the result was known and obvious to everyone in the school even before the teams presented their bid.

Lloyds also was a tough nut to crack. Here my team included Angel, Cesar and Fernando. We did a fair bit of job on building the presentation as I could extract some ideas from my Macquarie presentation. The other two teams were equally strong if not more. But I think what really clicked in our favor was the team dynamics we were able to pull out during our presentation to the Lloyds team. I led the presentation effort and it was a very good experience; before we ended, we knew that we had put across a very good effort and communicated all our ideas strongly to the panel. They called us after all the three presentations were over to tell us they want our team to work on the project. It was quick!

Now only a few more weeks of class room study is left. Or, its already over? with students already bunking most of the classes to explore job opportunities or just enjoy the Oxford experience. But yes, the assignments never seem to end. Somebody somehwere had told me that Trinity Term will be a walk in the park - it remains a distant dream, atleast for now.

Any case, I am already looking forward to the Lloyds consulting project. And yes, we may go punting sometime soon!

Oxford Cambridge Day

Sports is fun. And more so, when it is between arch rivals like India-Pakistan. Yesterday, it was Oxford-Cambridge. A day that began with a variety of sports and ended with music n masti.

Squash, soccer, touch-rugby, cricket, badminton, rowing. Oxford came on top except the last one. The domination continues and tradition lives for another year.

The weather was perfect for outdoor activities. We guys were looking forward to a win against Cambridge after our loss to St. Hughes couple of days ago. More so, as it would act as a good confidence booster ahead of our next Oxford inter-college match next week.

We lost the toss and Cambridge invited us to bat. What followed was absolute mockery of the new ball/old ball attack :) Murtaza, our star opener, punched boundary after boundary. As runs continued to flow from his blade, the team ended the innings at a very healthy 240 (20 overs) - Murtaza's contribution: 149 runs. Exhilarating.

It would always have been a difficult chase barring some outstanding performance from the opposition. And Adi took 2 wickets in his second over which forced them on the backfoot. We kept on maintaining the pressure right through and bowled them out in 12 overs for some 60 runs. It was absolute demolition. Some call it Murtaza v/s Cambridge - No doubt. My contribution - 2 catches, imp because catches win matches. Pics below.

Murtaza and Anuj - Openers going in

Murtaza in action

The brigade cheering the openers

Oxford XI

(Sitting: L-R) Rahul, myself, Chris, Anuj, Kartik

Standing (L-R) Satya, Andrew, Rushabh, Sumit, Murtaza, Adi

Another Team Pic

Red Cherry

Oxford and Cambridge XI

After the match

Cambridge guys in whites and light blues

Winners take it all

More pics - Enjoy!

Coming out of the Examination Hall - Hillary Term (Last Exam)

With Chris at the Oxford Castle (For the OM project)

Sunil and Satya - On way to Oxford History Museuem

At the Oxford Castle - Kids on a Tour

From Top of the Oxford Castle

Entrance of the Oxford Castle

With Deepak, Archit - At Andrea's bday party

Romain and his toylike kid

It was just too good

Archit, Xing, Angel (Anti-clockwise)

Archit, Esther

The party was at Templeton common room

With Saif - At the London eye

View from the bridge

In deep sleep

Another shot

Big Ben

Oxford Inter College Cricket League - I Match vs St. Hughes

The team had a good day's workout, though the result wasn't in our favor.

Fielding first, we restricted St. Hughes to 124 runs in about 33 overs (40 over a side match). The bowling was pretty good and considering it was the first match of season, it was a very good effort. Kartik was on-the spot most of the times and rocked the opposition's middle order with four wickets. Aditya, Shariq and Andrew all played good supporting roles.

We started the chase cautiously - myself and Ruz were told to stay out in the middle for as long as we could and blunt the new ball attack. It was cold out there with a strong wind blowing across. The bowling was seasoned and the opening bowlers gave very little away. The new ball was doing a little bit at the start and with the bounce they extracted from the pitch, it was difficult to play your shots - though we did manage a couple of boundaries between us; a delicate fine leg glance by myself and a super cover drive by Ruz. I was the first to get out (excellent catch by the bowler on his followthrough) with the score on 22 (7overs). Then, we lost a flurry of wickets and we were 5 down for just 40 runs. Kartik and Adi built up a small little partnership but once Kartik got out, it was all over for us. In the end, we managed to score 84. Not a good effort, more so if I tell you that we suffered 3 run outs! Add to that 3 super catches they took - their fielding was awesome.

The next match is with Cambridge day after tomorrow and the team is all geared up to win that match - we missed couple of our key players today, Rahul and Murtaza will boost our team on Saturday. We should win that one - I will keep you posted.