Saturday, February 18, 2012

I Want To Be...

We all spend some time reflecting on what we want to be. Recently while doing the same I realized I want to be a lot of things, and though it's sad I'm not most of these, the good part is I can always try to be some of these.

A Writer

A Photographer

A Journalist

A Technology Evangelist

A Movie Director

A Blogger

A Cricket Commentator

A Quiz Master

A Travel Writer/Host 

An Internet Entrepreneur

A Talk Show Host

A Movie Critic

An Actor

A Word Game Creator

A Restaurant Critic

An Orator

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Google Love

Yet another easter egg from the big G!

Type the following in the Google search bar

sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day, but found it cute nevertheless.

[Source: Mashable]

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Brunch @ Marmalade & A Day At The Museum

Trying this new pictorial and interactive blog format, with more text than a Facebook album, much less than a usual blog post. Really appreciate any feedback, will decide format of future posts accordingly. Thanks.

Today was a day most memorably spent with my classmate & ex-Googler Ethan, his wife & Googler Jamie and of course, Veni. Yes, I'm on Google+ as well, in case you wondered. 

They suggested this amazing brunch place, Marmalde on West Montrose Avenue and it more than lived up to its expectations. The place seemed to have a loyal following of its own, especially on a balmy Saturday morning. After waiting for for a few minutes we spent the next many in a state of utter confusion and temptation trying not to miss one amazing dish for the other while ordering. Safe to say we were far from disappointed. (You can click on the images below for a closer look)

Ethan's brunch - Chef Efrain's Texan Bennie


Potato rosemary flatbread with our slow-cooked pork shoulder, marinated in Marmalade’s own secret-recipe house brine, topped with pineapple chutney, poached eggs, drizzled with pesto hollandaise




Veni's Order - The 'Shroom' Benedict

Two poached eggs, sautéed spinach, roasted tomatoes on top of breaded Portobello within a bed of our house potatoes topped with sundried tomato hollandaise 



Jamie's dish - Red velvet french toast


My brunch -  Smoked Salmon Omeletta

Smoked Atlantic salmon, capers, dill, scallions, red peppers, cream cheese, topped with lobster hollandaise

After that hearty brunch, which even by the standards of my healthy appetite was well and truly more than a (breakfast + lunch) we decided to indulge a little in the finer things of life and headed to The Art Institute of Chicago.

The AIC is on Michigan Avenue also known as Swami Vivekananda Way
The Bengali in me was filled with pride seeing this great cultural institute on the main road of the city named after one of Bengal's & India's most brilliant sons - Swami Vivekananda who had the city of Chicago enthralled by his oratory skills and intellect in 1893.

And if that was not interesting enough, we were in for a surprise to find that one of the exhibitions being held presently by the AIC is that of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings. Some days are just born more coincidental than others.



Seeing the familiar face in a whole new setting was quite nostalgic

The AIC itself is a marvelous destination for all sorts of art form such as oil paintings, pastels, photography, sculptures and needlework. We were welcomed by this stunning city scene which almost gives a feeling of waiting to come to life at any moment.


It seemed like a group of ladies and gentlemen had assembled at the museum to replicate some of the masterpieces and they sat patiently in front of the canvases and flawlessly recreated the scenes and murals on their own equipments such as the ones I photographed below.


The next few photographs are from the many hours we spent admiring the works of Monet, Van Gogh, Pabst and many others.

The miniature city dwellers

The Knight in Shining Armour

The spectacular self portrait by Van Gogh

Monet's 'Stacks of Wheat' series

Ivan Albright's ghastly  'Picture of Dorian Gray'
We ended the thoroughly stimulating tour at the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room



and the curio shop which displayed this clock which gave me a feeling of deja vu from one of the social media viral photos doing the rounds.


The Halfway Mark


The following article, capturing my first couple of months at Kellogg, was published in my Financial Times blog today. Reproducing without any edits.

________________________________________________________

This morning I received a call from a new admit who’s recently received his Kellogg offer, and has the same doubts that I had when I reached out to my Kellogg buddy around this time last year. The call made me realise that we’re past the halfway mark and have a little less than five months remaining of what has been an exceptionally fulfilling year.

We’re a few weeks into the winter quarter and Jacobs (the main building of Kellogg, named after Donald Jacobs who dean from 1975-2001) seems like a repeat of the fall semester, with students walking about purposively with CVs and ensuring their hair is in place before entering the interview rooms.

This time it’s mostly the first years looking for internships for the summer. Of course this is accompanied with hours of preparation, often with the final year students who’ve been there and done that recently. I can’t stress enough the collaborative culture at Kellogg. Just glad to have been able to be a part of it. It provides you with an opportunity to experience everyone’s successes and also share your lessons with your classmates.
Of course I cannot write a post on Kellogg and Evanston in January without mentioning the snow! Those who’ve been following the column for sometime know how I had never seen snow and was eagerly awaiting the white blanket.
I’m told it’s been a very mild winter by Chicago standards but we have had two-three days of continuous snowfall, which left this scenic suburb looking like a fairyland. A slippery one though.



We also had the annual Kellogg marketing conference earlier this month. The sell out crowd of
 over 500 were thoroughly engaged by the keynote speakers – Mark Addicks, chief marketing officer of General Mills and Alfredo Gangotena, chief marketing officer of MasterCard.

The day also included some highly stimulating conversations on the different panels on brand perception turnaround, creating dialogue with consumers: value co-creation and changing the game, mobile marketing (moderated by the superstar Prof Sawhney) and others.

#kmc12, the chosen hashtag for the conference was making frequent appearances in all our Twitter timelines.

I have to end the post on the epic basketball game played between Kellogg & Chicago Booth prior to the Chicago Bulls V Milwaukee Bucks NBA match at the United Center.


It was an incredible experience to watch our classmates playing on the same court as Derrick Rose and others. Our boys made the evening that much memorable by giving us a 15-10 win over our friends from the city!