CAT'06 - A surprise

I am sure even my best supporters would never have thought that I would be able to do well in CAT this year, but things have changed since then. I guess it was a combination of some luck and easier paper. The reason I am writing this blog is not because i want to praise myself but because I am really sick of saying that i did nothing for CAT this year. So here is what I think should be done in preparation for CAT (suited for engineers in my view). I will take this section by section:

English:
• Create your own flashcards, mostly from newspapers to get yourself conversant with as many English words, used in day- to-day life, as possible.
• Reading more, especially books on on the topic which you think are the hardest nut to crack in a RC passages. For me it was philosophy. I later developed a taste for such books and now ‘Zen & Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ is among my favorites
• Pay attention to critical reasoning techniques in spite of it not being a part of previous CAT, since it gives you a good perspective regarding how to attack reading and comprehension. I developed a habit of not assuming anything which has not been stated in the passage

Quant and DI: We all know that engineers are good at Quant, still I think everyone needs a brushing up here & there from time to time. Here are my suggestions for it:
• Learn a few techniques of Vedic mathematics for multiplication & division
• Brush up the basics of mathematics:
• Multiplication tables, 30 X 30
• Squares (till 30) & cubes (till 12) etc
• Make a list of all formulae / techniques and paste them on the study room walls
• Learn the conversion of fractions to percentage and vice versa etc.

Test Papers: One of the most effective ways of preparing for CAT is to have as many practice tests as possible. Although appearing in a test and checking result is not the end of it, that’s only a start. This is how I approached practice tests:
• Always analyzed the test, this means went through each and every question after coming back home
• In case there would be any specific techniques used to solve a question I would note down the technique on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall
• In case of a question which I couldn’t solve because of lack of fundamental knowledge, I would put a star next to the question for future reference
• I would make a note of all wrong attempts and try to analyze:
• If I am committing mistakes on a specific topic. If that is the case I need to work on its fundamentals and need to do some practice on it
• I would also look for what is the pattern of mistakes i.e. if most of the wrong questions were cluttered together or scattered. I found that mostly they would be cluttered, which clearly suggests loss of concentration at that time in paper. I didn’t take any specific steps to counter the problem but the awareness of my weakness made me concentrate harder while appearing in test
• From time to time I will go through all starred question from previous tests

I think this is a comprehensive view of all did in preparation for CAT'06. Hope this helps few people in their preparation for CAT.

Long time .. no see!!

The only difference between caprice and eternal love is that caprice lasts a bit longer!! Doesnt seem so at first thought but think deeper it might be the biggest truth which we all are unaware of.
Many a times we start talking to a stranger for a sec and the conversation extends not for few mins but at times for years and then there are instances when we think we have a friend forever and somehow along the way they fall apart.
May be this phenomena is limited to me ... but i dont think that it is. I dont think its very easy to be as close to someone as we have been once the physicel distance between us increases ... at first we try to hold on to our loved ones then slowly when we get used to that person not being around, our frequency of conversing either by phone or chat reduces finally putting a full stop or atleast a semi colon to the eternal friendship.
May be this is what people call 'life'. I just hope i never have to say long time .. no see!! to a close friend.

All art is quite useless.

Yes that's what Oscar wilde wrote in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray and this line has puzzled me ever since. I just couldn't figure out why on earth will he say that, well infact I still don't know the answer ... but after 2 years I can give an explanation.. I know its nothing but a consolation prize for there are so many faults in my explanation but who cares, here is what I think.

First of art is not worthless its useless and there is a difference a worthless thing is not valuable while a useless thing can be valuable. This is where I first saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought Oscar Wilde never said art is not valuable its just that its value is not realised or it can not be used in any useful way. The question arises what makes art valuable if at all.

Artistic people argue art is creativity. It is imagination at its best and hence art never depicts life as it is. An artist always adds his perception to a scenery .. and why does he do so .. its to make it the way it should be, he recognizes that there is something missing in nature and tries to compensate it and make it as he thinks it should be rather than painting or writing about is as it is. In a way art to a observant eye shows what is lacking in nature and indirectly in himself .. everyone sees an art piece from his own eyes and hence they see a particular piece of art differently according to what they think is lacking in them or is more important to them. Hence driving them to be perfect and achieve what a painter achieved in that small piece of art and hence art is valuable for it helps us introspect ourselves it makes us see how should a society and human beings and everything else be like. It urges us to move towards perfection and hence art is very very Valuable. But at the same time its useless since inspite of having such rich history of great artists and art we have not reached perfection .. infact in many ways our society and we humans have moved away from it(perfection) and rendering art utterly useless although very valuable.

I think this might be one of the reasons he wrote that .. but I would like to know other views on it and figure out why on earth is ALL ART QUITE USELESS!!!

15 Park Avenue

15 Park Avenue .. a movie which again pushed me into that never ending abyss. I feel lost .. Once again falling through those great heights and don't even know where am I falling from and where I will fall; Its a eerie feeling.
Last night I spent a lot of time walking and the thoughts of everything being unreal were all around me .. I was no more afraid of dogs for I didn't even believe that it can do anything to me but then a second later I was myself again .. afraid of the same dog!!!
I kept on walking and thinking about things which have happened in past few days ... really a handful for me. A strange talk with a friend which had quite a effect on me, it was one of those few occasions when I was listening more and talking less; after all I had no answers to whatever he said. I was dumb .. he was thinking on a completely different plane. I realized how two people who don't seem to have any illusions what so ever have so different way of thinking that it almost sounds like a different world. In his world he was nothing .. in my world I am everything and in the what we call the REAL world we are both the same. I couldn't figure out which is the real world for a person. The world which we think is real or the world which everybody thinks is real this blog.. movies everything. At this time a thought came to me .. the inner world which we create for ourselves affects us more so that should be more real. What we call as senses are more or less our creation it has nothing to do with the outer world. What we like or dislike or luxury .. habits everything.
Just for a minute think that all this around you is your illusion ... that there is no office where you earn or a movie hall or a road a car .. nothing. You are just one person sitting somewhere and imagining all this to be happening. It might be that the friends you have might not even exist... . Don't you think its possible.
Is this all an illusion? I hope to find the answer someday

Art??

No no!!! I am no art critique. I am just a person who happen to think on what is art? Do artist imitate real life in their works and can it be a basis for historians to know the life style of people of the age, or is it vice versa?
Dictionary definition of art, "the making of objects, images, music, etc. that are beautiful or that express feelings"
Artistic people argue art is creativity. It is imagination at its best. I agree with them but then how can art depict life, for I don't think a copy of something already existing can be termed as art, where is the creativity.
As a wise man once said battles are won in the head first and then in the field, same is with everything we do. We think about something first and then do that its not vice versa; thinking something new is Art and hence we in our lives are constantly imitating art.
How many times we hear of people committing suicide because there hero in a novel did the same or how many times we see people trying to imitate shaktiman or for that matter any other hero. Why is it so? I guess nature in itself is incomplete it is constantly trying to achieve perfection, one way to do so is to try and do something which a person thinks is the pinnacle of everything, the desire to act God.

People might argue that what I am saying is purely limited to human beings, may be its only the human character not that of life in general or nature. I would like to disagree. So many things remain oblivious to the human eye until some famous artist brings its beauty to us. Nature as I said earlier is in itself incomplete, Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature her proper place. In doing so we give perfection to everything that exists in nature and that perfect picture of things is in our mind when we see something similar in nature and appreciate it.

I know not all can agree with me in fact few will, but I still cant help thinking that its nature which imitates art rather than art imitating Nature. Art does not show the us how people used to live in a particular age. It tells us how an artist envisaged them to live and life follows what is shown to it, hence creating an illusion beyond recognition.

busy in office

hi, Siddharth busy kya? Most of the people start talking like this .. may this is what is called corporate ettiquetes, but for me its more like a sarcasm. After 15 months in Software industry i still find myself out of work.
I dont know if being busy is surfing the net and writing blogs because if thats the case then i am always busy(so are all others). Then again another question comes up why do people ask busy kya?? dont they know what busy means or i am the "One". Who will never get to work but will always get the pay for if that is so then i am quite content to do that but thats not the perception of software industry i had.

Another aspect which i have noticed is that saying busy hoon helps a lot in shoving off people you dont want to talk to, just say yaar in a meeting will contact you later or yaar i am bit busy will catch you later .. i guess thats where this concept of busy came from anyone who just wants to be alone says i am busy and he can avoid all the mundane things.

I dont think anyone can be so busy in life that he doesnt get time to do anything else its just that he choses not to do those things, he choses to do other things. you are always as busy as you want yourself to be not more not less.

My first blog - Oscar Wilde

I recently saw a movie A good woman.. based on a play by Oscar wilde (forgot the name). In many ways it was a very intresting movie. I guess it made me look back at the picture of dorian gray .. the book i read few years ago .. i think there was a lot of similarities between the two. Most importantly as in dorian gray here too the central character had her dark side; this is one aspect of the movie which hit me most. Behind those paradox which Oscar Wilde uses for his humor he tends to show us the other facet of our hero .. which most of us find difficult to adjust to. We are so much in love with our heros that we want to see them as perfect human beings(i guess too much bollywood) but wilde goes much beyond that, he shows us that a situation makes a hero of villan and a person who is good in one situation wont be so always .. time, his circumstances and his environment change him. A person whom you think is good wont always be good and someone you think is totally immoral wont always be so. He in a way wants to challenge the reader and wants him to open his mind towards the realities of this world.
When i read Picture of Dorian Gray i couldnt figure out what was the real purpose of the book, i still dont understand it pretty well but what i have gathered so far is that he wants to potray how a very calm gentle pleasant person can degrade morally (although he time and again writes there is nothing which is moral or immoral) once he become aware of his beauty and falls in love with it. As Dorian becomes more and more aware of his external beauty the more he wants to have it and is ready to do anything for that. That is what leads to his eventual downfall. May be that was one of the things that the book was aimed at.

I think beauty is gods gift to a man, he should neither be concieted and nor should he give no importance to it at all for as the great man said beauty is higher than genius for beauty needs no explanation.


P.S. - All art is quite useless .... hope to figure this out.