Evolution of Analytics

DESCRIPTIVE

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Dhritarastra said: O Sanjaya what did my sons desirous of battle and the sons of Pandu do after assembling at the holy land of righteousness Kuruksetra? Chapter 1, Verse 1, Bhagavad-Gita

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The opening chapter of Bhagavad-Gita introduces the setting, the scene, the circumstances and the characters involved determining the reasons for the Gita’s revelation. Having the supernatural ability to witness the events directly within his mind as if he was there present, Sanjaya narrates the battlefield scenes and the characters involved in the Kuruksetra war to the blind king, Dhritarastra.

Analytics has been in existence since the inception of mankind in some form or another. In the past it was based on gut, intuition, personal beliefs, pre-conceived notions; in today’s internet world, we have data.

Blessed one of all

Husband, wife, or child, who is the blessed one of all?

‘Tis a holiday and they are driving through the wild,

“Tell me, Papa, am I prettier than your wife?”

Husband turns around smiling and pats the playful little child,

“Yes, my princess, you are but the sole rose of my life”,

2 am whispers

Sleep deprived, aches trebled, the darkness engulfs flittering memories of the mind,

The yearning is the deepest during the coldest of the hours,

Seek I shall, a tender touch, a fleeting smile, a warm word, if you'd be so kind,

"Hey, you," you whisper, answering one of but a thousand prayers to the gods.

Magic of 2 x 2 matrices

Meeting #101: We were discussing about the prospects of restructuring the team in order to deal with the sudden inflow of additional work in one of our accounts. While we were assessing the potential of each team member, one of the leads, TK, raised this question:

“Why do you think A is not a great resource? Can you think of any metric(s) to evaluate his performance?”

Going the yoga way

All throughout my life, there have been two phrases that I’ve been most afraid of hearing girls say.

One is kind of universal. Some of us guys are like kids in adult bodies – we believe everything we hear without questioning it. Life is simpler that way. So, when a girl pitches in with a “Bro”, we are already picturing a dude holding a mug of beer in hand. It’s worse if she happens to be our crush because we guys would use that term with a girl, only as a signal to her, or in rare cases, to ourselves, that there wouldn’t be any serious relationship down the line.

The bucket list

Stowed away on the Goa-Karnataka border is Dudhsagar, one of India’s tallest waterfalls. En route to the waterfall, a few days ago, I overheard someone saying, that with that trek walk, one more item had been checked off his bucket list. With that one line, he unknowingly helped me in stoking the long buried creative fires.

Eulogy

My best friend in high school was a douche. I know it sounds twisted, but that’s what I used to call him in my head. Douche. He was one of those towards who you express conflicting emotions of both love and hatred. We shared a bond, strengthened by the common love towards outdoor sports, Green Day and dark humor. But, he was the Ranchodas Chanchad of our group, and it so happens that perfection in another causes envy in self.  He won the sprint challenge by half a second; he scored more goals in the football finals; he spoke more languages, and he had a Parker pen. Even the math lords, Newton and Pythagoras, were indirectly working in his favor. While girls shot affectionate, sisterly looks at me for helping them solve their math problems, they laughed at Rancho’s theatrics involved in his attempts to find the mysterious x. 

A story to remember

“My Very Eager Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets,” I repeated after my mom.

It was the late 90’s. Pluto was then still a part of the ‘Planethood’. As I had struggled to memorize the names of all the planets of our solar system, my mother had simply smiled and introduced me to the world of mnemonics. A series of unfamiliar, dissociated, impersonal names had suddenly converted into a simplified, relatable phrase.

Happy married life, broheim

It’s been a while. There hasn’t been a single night when I have not thought of my blog. I could give a million reasons for not writing, but to put it in two words, life happened.

Profound stuff. I guess I've still got it. Anyway, my most loyal follower is getting engaged and I thought it was a good time to resuscitate my dying blog. To be frank, I could should have mailed this directly to him, but this is as much for myself as is for him.

Online v/s pencil-paper

XAT - Xavier Aptitude Test - is an all India test conducted by XLRI (formerly known as Xavier Labour Relations Institute), a business school in Jamshedpur, as an entrance test for its management programmes as well as to many other reputed top B-schools in the country. Around 92,000 MBA aspirants gave the test this year on Jan 6, 2013.

XAT is a pencil-paper based test with three or four sections of multiple-choice questions. Each question paper consists of 25-30 sheets of paper. So, that makes it approximately 25 lakh sheets of paper printed every year. 

Hence, the question: Why hasn't XLRI shifted to the online test mode, especially when it could save roughly thirty 60-feet tall trees annually? 

WWE: A true story

As a kid, I always wanted to become a wrestling champion. Partly, I think, it was because I wanted to show my dominance over others. Skinny little boy that I was, I wished I could look the other guy in the eye and scare the shit out of him. But the real reason was probably a bit more insignificant.

To be on the other side

“You will not believe what just happened.” He heard her voice from behind him. Sliding towards one end of the wooden bench, he gave her some space to sit next to him. He was staring blankly at the open fountain in front of him, which was constantly gushing out water and spraying liquid all over in the vicinity. The park was serene, as always; the peace interspersed with the occasional chirping of the birds.