Wasted opportunity

I had a GD/ interview last week in a certain B school. After the GD was over I thought that I did exceedingly well. The topic was “freedom of expression, shouldn’t there be limits”. Even now, if you compare my performance with that of the group, I did exceedingly well. Now later when I reached home, I was thinking about how well I had done the GD and the kind of points I brought in. I was telling to myself that I should be getting full marks for the GD. Then suddenly it struck me, the things we said in the GD were utter crap. Even if it was not crap, we had a very narrow view on the topic. All of us were talking about freedom of speech and things related to it. None of us talked about freedom of expression in movies, paintings, cartoons etc. None of us talked about the nude paintings of various goddesses and how certain right wing groups are totally against it, none of us talked about various movies which gets banned or on the content of various movies. We didn’t mention about the Danish cartoonist nor did we mention about writers like Salman Rushdi or Taslima Nasreen. In short we didn’t do any justice to the topic. I started off the discussion and I guess I would be getting maximum blame for the sorry state of our GD. I would be blamed for not taking the group in the right direction. 

Had I brought in all the points I just mentioned here, my selection to the institute would have been more or less certain. Yet again I missed the bus. What’s the point in having all this freaking knowledge if you can’t use it when it matters the most. You will get only one chance and you have the grab the opportunity. That’s what winners do. Getting all these points after the GD is over is immaterial. There is absolutely no use. You will be judged on what you said during the GD and there is no way that the panelist could find out how much knowledge I have. 

It could be said that it’s not just my fault that all these points weren’t discussed. Other people in the group should have brought these points. To a certain extent, the group in which you are matters, a good group can make your performance look even better, more points would come up and the panelist would have a good impression about the group. But in gd’s even though team work matters, individual contributions plays a huge role. Just because others didn’t bring various aspects of the topic doesn’t excuse you from not bring them, even if you had brought a lot of points on your own. 

Performing when it matters the most is a trait of winners, something which I seem to lack. There isn’t much difference between some one great and some one ordinary. Great people grab opportunities with both their hands where as ordinary people lets some slip. I let this particular opportunity slip, now all I can do is to wait and hope that I get in. 

Obama the visionary?

Since the time when Barcak Obama came into the limelight, we in India were full of praises for him. We would look at our politicians in contempt and would say that the world and the US need such visionary leaders. Overlooking the fact that the speeches made by him were just campaign speeches we would say that, he truly is a statesman.

It has been a while since Mr. Obama took office and even though its too early to comment on him, from that little that I have seen of him, the only conclusion that I can come to is that he is no statesman but just a politician. He had made a lot of noise about Mr. Bush’s policies, but most of his present policies are just a logical continuation of Mr. Bush’s policy. Agreed, Mr. Bush was a horrible president, he was in fact a shame for the nation. Obama was a breath of fresh air, the much needed “change” that the US and the world were looking for. To be honest, any one who could form a sentence properly would be a breath of fresh air compared to the previous president of the US.

To be honest, the kind of issues Obama talked about during his campaign was what all US presidential hopefuls talk about. Just like in India, every election politicians talk about free TV, building a temple, rice for Re 1, etc, politicians in the US always have been talking about the state of the health care system, problems with higher education, unemployment, etc. In content I do not see anything unique about Obama’s campaign. The way he said it, the timing (when people were fed up with Bush) and all mattered a lot.

The fact that strengthens my argument is Obama’s view on immigrants. Clearly that’s a knee-jerk reaction to please the public. Even though the technicalities ensures that all the hype about immigrants loosing jobs and end of outsourcing, remains just a hype, the point here is the kind of perception that Obama is giving out. If he was truly a statesman he wouldn’t give out such crowd pleasing statements without addressing the complexities of the issues (what a sentence :D ). If he was really a statesman he would have considered the implications of what he is doing once the recession is over. His views on nationalism, buy only American also isn’t a sing of a visionary leader.  It’s not just about the immigrant issue, most of his issues are just an extension what Mr. Bush’s policies.

The only reason why he could unite a huge majority of America is that all of America speaks one language, English. That is the reason why we don’t see such leaders in India. The fact that majority of the Indians still live in villages, the fact that its next to impossible for a person to communicate with all the Indians, is one of the main reasons why we don’t have a national leader. The thing that went in favor of Nehru was that, the sprit of freedom struggle was still alive back then.

I feel that we are being unfair with our politicians. Politicians all over the world are the same. Not that it’s a good thing, definitely we need to change that, but to say that only our politicians are bad is really unfair. All politicians at present think just about the next elections. 

Am I always a little too late?

I usually take pride in the fact that I am a kind of person who doesn’t get bogged down by failure or setbacks, who always learn from his mistakes or who never regrets anything. I usually come up with statements like "that is what I thought right in that point in time so can’t regret the decision". If you really look at it, these statements are a way to save once face. It’s good to learn from mistakes but the fact that one is making many mistakes isn’t a very good thing. To have the feeling that what you did in the past need not be the best way to go about things, that too often is kind of disturbing. 

I sometimes get the feeling that I am always a little too late. It’s not something recent, it has been there in my mind for quite some time. I feel that quite too often I realize the importance of something only after the opportunity passes. 

Now I feel that I should have been more ambitious when i was in school. Should have taken part in various competitions, should have improved my oratory skills and also my interpersonal skills. Any way since I was gonna get into engineering; I feel that I should have put in the effort and prepared for IIT's or NIT's. I feel that in the kerala entrance exam that I had taken, I should have attempted more number of questions, I knew many questions and didn’t attempt them because i was scared of getting them wrong, doing so would have gotten me a better rank. 

In college I feel that I should have studied some subjects much harder, many of the subjects no matter how hard had I studied wouldn’t have been of much use, but certain subjects had I studied much harder would have done better in college. I regret the fact that I wasn’t a friendly person and didn’t get to know my juniors or seniors well, for that matter even my batch mates. I feel that it was stupid of me to be hung up over a girl for a ridiculously long period of time, I can understand being heart broken, but my case of simply ridiculous. I feel I should have been a more proactive person, should have taken part in a lot more competitions, should have done something for the society. I had 4 years with relatively not much work, should have utilized it better. Not regreting what I didnt do, but I wonder, why is it only after a situation passes, I think I could have done better 

There is of course a positive side to every statement that I made. There is more that meets the eye. It was not like, I just didn’t do it. There were many times I was up against the odds and tried my best to handle the situation But I feel that one should at times be cynical to themselves. My whole argument can be countered by just saying a few things like, destiny or since I didn’t know what was right at that point in time how would i know what to do or there is a time and place for every thing. Having said that, I wonder if I missed the bus one time too many. There is definitely not gonna be an answer to the question. 

Red+pink=bad

Even the though of the “Third front” having a good chance of winning the coming elections is a cause of concern. First of all the way the alliance was formed was wrong. Their USP is that, they give a third alternative to the people of the nation, the chance of a non congress, non BJP lead government. This was exactly what the BJP did to come to power and quite frankly it’s getting a little old. Even though the other main national parties do not have a proper national agenda(other than the life long dream of the BJP to build a temple and the congresses never ending endeavor to give reservation to every caste that exists in India), the formation of the third front just magnifies this fact.

Another problem is that the third front doesn’t even have an excuse for an ideology. The only ideology that I can see is that they don’t want either the congress or the BJP to form the government. The problem with this is that, once if they come to power, there is nothing holding them from staying together. The same dislike they have towards the 2 national parties will crop up among each other. We all were displeased with the way the present government got its numbers in the house. The third front will be much worse than that. It is an alliance of people who are hungry for power and have suddenly found a short cut to get it. It is a mixture of various regional parties. All of us know what kind of trouble the regional players create for the national parties when they are in power. Imagine the situation if all these regional parties were in power together. We would have the supposed Prime Minister building her statues all over India, people jumping up and down opposing anything that is not Russian Chinese or Iranian, various other groups asking for more funds for their respective states and so on. 

The situation of having many regional parties ruling the nation is quite scary. The congress and the BJP at least want to be all over India and hence would work or say that it will work for the development of all regions in India. That hope is also trashed with the arrival of regional parties. On the bright side, the third front is a pre poll alliance and we all know what happens after the election results are announced. 

The formation of the third front from the beginning was a bad news (just look at their Prime Ministerial candidate). The only thing that they are going to bring to the nation is instability. A country run by regional parties would never be able to please the nation. When there is no head to control and no excuse of an ideology to go by, god save us if such a situation happens. Even though I do not think that the third front will come to power in this election, the fact that regional parties are getting to have a major say in national politics is a cause of concern. Its up to the national parties to ensure that they remain as the 2 major national parties and do not let some sorry excuse for an alliance to gain momentum.