Ruskin Bond and James Bond
Posted on December 1, 2009
Filed Under Blog
The trip to Mussoorie got sweeter when Mr Ruskin Bond, the infinite joy giver to children through his stories, politely invited Uma home on her call. Anytime between 4PM -5 PM was the appointed time. Nandu and Self were to join in this trip.
We checked out a bookshop on the mallroad – Cambridge Book Shop. Incidentally, we got Mr Bond’s phone number from this shop itself with no effort. The shop has been a landmark for a long time, it seems. The shopkeeper is the quintessential joy-giving book shopowner of your and my imagination – suave, polyglot, ever-smiling, knowledgable about books, authors, trends, etc,. He informed us that over 20 authors have made Mussoorie their home. As a proof, he pointed us to another elderly couple and educated us about their rather well-known identity. Another author who is into travellogues.
Our trek to Landour Cantt began at about 1430 hrs. The distance was about 3.5 kms. We decided to trek instead of hiring a taxi. Half way down there, we took a halt and had our late lunch at Café Connection.
As we crossed the arch welcoming us to the ‘Landour Cantt’, we began to enquire about the address given to us. We asked for “Cottage #104”, at a shop with a group of youngsters. They could not help us. As an additional help, we sheepishly said – “Ruskin Bond Ji rehtein hain”. All of a sudden, all the index fingers in that shop began pointing to the top of a hill right ahead of us. One of them even advised us and that too in English – “ Just ask for his name when you get to the next crossing. No need for the address. No one would know by the address”.
Shortly, we found ourselves climbing up the steep set of stairs point to by the kids playing soccer. In fact, one from the pack overtook us, ran into the first floor home and as we reached the door, we found him making his way back to the soccer game. I gather he must be Mr Bond’s grandson in his large adopted family.
All this while, there was a bit of anxiety that I did hold within myself – what is the kind of reception we are going to get ? Would we be the avoidable intruders invading his space ? Would he be the stereotypical 75 year old anglo-indian with impatience and anger about the world around him ? Is he a moody guy ? and so on. I just stopped short of shifting my bias to Uma. Thankfully.
As we entered the rather modest home, we saw the portly, unmistakable figure emerging gently from the side door. It was Mr Ruskin Bond with a warm smile and a very warm welcome to us. We spent the next hour (almost) with one of the most magical joy-givers to us as children. By the way, I could not help myself buying the ‘Grandfather’s private Zoo’ lest I be found out in any surprise quiz by Mr Bond himself. That was a ‘non-detail text’ in class VIII when we studied at
Networth is something else :
Mr Bond’s networth is farthest from what we live in the management and the corporate world. His home, his working desk, his guestroom, his library is a testimony to the fact. The only thing that was more modest and non-descript is the Sabarmati Ashram. We did take his permission to take a few pictures – He graciously consented. We had a couple of books with messages and autographs.
Uma’s involvement in curriculum and early education saw the conversation cover a few more meaningful landscapes. He was most gracious and warm. His deep interest and direct conversations with Nandu was an evidence of his keen love for and interest in children.
He walked us to his writing room on our request. It was a modest 5ft X 12 Ft room with his bed thrown in as well. It almost looked like an old balcony that has gotten covered. His window gave a peep into the valley and we could catch the glimpse of
As we walked back, I could not help thinking about the mortal aspects of life. There are a couple of people who do enough to leave a trace of immortality to their stay on this planet. Ruskin Bond will figure in that list with a few more from the world of literature. Long live, Ruskin Bond,
Now, to James Bond :
‘James Bond’ is a brand image for attributes such as sexy, irresistible, high IQ, can’t-go- wrong guy, the world bows to him, and so on. The CAT guys think of themselves as ‘James Bond ka Baap’. It is just that their self-image is hugely misplaced.
Our Earnest Wish :
Let me start by making my wish and the hope of Career Launcher public – “CAT successfully executes the transition from a paper based test to the CBT this year”. We have been praying and hoping for this for the past five years, in fact.
In 2001, XLRI tried going online and made a hash of it. There was no effort to understand the enormity of the operationalising the idea. And the james Bond thought that his idea will be executed by signing an MOU with a company with some connection with technology and distribution centres. NIIT was roped in and the effort was such a disaster that all the B-schools dare not try that stunt again for five years.
The Holy Cow makes the move :
CAT took the step this year. We hoped that they would have done all the necessary things to execute the idea. In my own estimation, they did not do a bunch of things they should have done.
Amongst the many that come to my mind, let me share a thing or two where even we could have stepped in and helped in the effort.
MBA TestPrep is a pariah :
‘The testprep guys are a pariah’ is the fundamental mindset the CAT guys needs to get past. Let us illustrate the global mindset just to make a point –
- Take a round of the library at Stanford. I was pleasantly surprised during my trip there to find a large section of the library that houses all the products, services, publications, testprep taking gyan showcased at Stanford.
- Chad, the co-founder of a small and fast growing testprep brand called ‘Veritas’ goes for a formal sessions with undergrad students who wish to pursue a career in Law.
- GMAC conducts formal interactions with the testprep leaders in seeking feedback and incorporating the same in their multi-dimensional research driven finetuning.
- Even closer home, LST (Law School Tutorials) has a formal official MOUs with eight out of the leading law schools to popularize law as a career by conducting workshops in schools etc,.
There is no one who has conducted the CBT or even CAT like the testprep companies have done. Remember, we would have got murdered for a 15% cancellations that the students have seen in the past three days taking a CAT test. We, the testprep guys live in a buyer’s market. I am making these for the entire testprep industry and not for CL alone.
Some statistics :
- Over 100,000 students have taken the tests at CL in the previous 10 days. These are unproctored and on-demand tests. If you take the top three testprep players, we have given CAT experience and performance analysis to all the CAT aspirants atleast a couple of times in the past two months – And, we do not see an invite for a conversation from the ‘Holy Cow’.
- The item analysis that we have would take a Prometric a decade to build. We can offer item-wise, time-wise analysis that would make the cricket-statistics that you and I see on TV primitive.
- The technology that it takes to conduct these is not about IT and hardware. It is a lot about deep technology including the right architecture, the server technology, the load planning, the tech-ops linkages, etc,. It is not to be wished away by outsourcing without experts in-house. For instance, Sujit who runs the technology at CL can have a conversation on this with any tech-guy in the world. As he says, this is a non-trivial thing in the schema.
- A million questions are being repeated, old CAT papers are finding space all over the tests – what a pity ? Our system, in contrast, runs on non-replicated 250, 000 items (questions). Can this test be deemed fair by any yardstick.
Some statistics about the fair so far :
- 4000 students failed to finish their tests. That is a whopping 15% failure rate.
- Some students get the ‘refresh’ in a jiffy while some one else takes a minute for each new question to refresh from the local server
- There is no city where this is not a failure.
- Protests have begun to happen now from students whose only aim is to get to an IIM
- More are on their way…
The devil is in execution :
In my days at the B-school and even today, Execution is not given any importance at all while teaching the kids. The part that is most romanticized is the ‘strategy’. The IIM guys have brought the same mindset and understanding of life to bear upon this project as well. Prometric should have been hauled over the coal. Imagine a USD 40 Million contract !! That is a whopping Rs 200 Crores plus.
Repeat our wish :
I am not surprised that there are glitches. I am only surprised that there was not enough thinking and fear built into the system. Or, it was under-estimated by such a huge margin.
- Why was there not a dry-run for about 30 days in waves across the country.
- What stess-test did the colleges / their infra put through in real terms
- Why did CAT not commit a few ‘Mock CATs’ to test the system
Let me close by repeating our wish – CAT comes through with this successfully and to the satisfaction of the students. As a founder of CL and as a believer that CAT can aim to compete with GMAT globally over the next decade, I also offer all the help, advise, assistance to the CAT-committee on this project.
CAT just need to mean business for a life-defining day from the students’ perspective and Prometric play out of their skin to retrieve their business and the reputation.
Satya Narayanan R
Comments
14 Responses to “Ruskin Bond and James Bond”
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Brilliant! Loved this one. I especially liked the change of tone between the Ruskin Bond and the James Bond stories. Just like Hindi movies. Love story before the interval. And then after interval the villain comes, kidnaps the heroine, car chase, dishum dishum.
On the CAT disaster, these were just my thoughts. No dry runs?
[…] Posted on December 3, 2009 by clcatblog Latest CAT related entry from Career Launcher Chairman, Satya’s Blog […]
nicely written, fantastic job done
CAT will lose its identity if it continues with CBT. Earlier CAT was famous for surprises and can any technology produce surprise in 20 slots for 10 days and maintaining the same level of difficulty in three different section of question.Surprises are possible in a single slot only.CAT is getting standardized which will kill the crazeness and identity of CAT.
A VAIN EGO TRIP…………
Satya is like “don quixote charging at the windmills”
Good one. . I like the line which says that CAT thinks that it is the baap of james bond.. and the one which points at the failure of XAT online test which is now being practiced by the HOLY COW..
I feel CAT CBT should be scrapped . everyone’s career including mine is at stake rt now…
Well the article is ample articulate. In my opinion IIMS are themselves responsible for the downfall of CAT’s charm. I will only add this much that if this is the scenario that is goin to prevail in the coming years then there will be no PRIDE N GLORY for those who get a call for IIMS and i guess IIMS are considered next to GOD, well i now fear this is where the change is calling for.
really really well written.i think its a better way of criticising the IIM’s and prometric for what they have done to the CAT takers.may be this is just a sign of more worse things to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Satya,
XLRI had gone online in 2003, not 2001 as stated by you. …otherwise, it is a wonderful article.
Thanks a lot Satya for this amazing piece of analysis. Its a really wonderful article. Hope people responsible for the greatest debacle of CAT’s authenticity and prestige go through your writing at least ones.
Even boss M has bosses above her! CAT guys have none. Any attempts to be thier boss has led to nationwide debate with MBA’s landing down in support for the IIM pundits.
Failure of CAT 2009 is evident, whatever be the causes. It is not surprising given the scale of operation and the quality of infrastructure and manpower at our disposal. What is surprising is the IIM, Prometric, and NIIT guys’brazen confidence, blaming everything else except themselves for the failure. (A case of bad leadership)
Lots of things still do not have any transparency in CAT. For eg. how will they be collating results from all the different days to come up with a single reliable parameter for selection.
It is time the James Bond ka baaps accepted failure and apologised for the failurento the student community which spent considerable money, time and anxiety for the once in a year opportunity.
Dear Satya,
nice article (Ruskin bond) and touchy too.
could u pls mail me Mr Ruskin Bonds phone number.
please do.
thank you