My First Delhi Meet! - A Night to Remember!

After 3 agonizing months of watching the delhi people 'party like' animals, I got my chance!

Some pointers: My last name is not THAKUR, but I share the same home state with him! So this is not going to be the world's most entertaining blog.

The date : 12th Feb 2010.


Notable Absentees : Vinayak Thakur and other illustrious PPL!

Notable Luminaries : ATRI, CHI (Kapde bechne walla) etc etc!

So, after much deliberation on gmail chain mail, TGIF at DLF promenade (Vasant Kunj) was chosen as the meeting point for this amazing meet. We had the amazing deal which we didnt get because enough ppl didnt show up initially. Anyways, we were supposed to meet at 8 PM. I called Chi (CHIRAG kapde walla) at 7:30 and he told me ki boss, yeh MBA public hain time se 5 minute phele aate hain! Damn, I had not even started from Gurgaon, I was late to parties in the US, how could I be early for one in INDIA! What's wrong with these ppl :D. ABEY IST - Indian Stretchable Time!


Anyways, I huffed and puffed my way through MG road (I live in ggn and yes NCR rocks especially ggn) to reach TGIF at 8:15 PM. The moment I enter and ask the server where the ISB meet is, he corrects me that kapde walla is having a meet outside in the patio area! FAIR ENOUGH!


I enter and I see 4 guys on a table which has close to 36 glasses of hard alcohol! Man ohh man, I signed up for the right place. Damn, those 2 lacs seemed real sweet then! P.S. Three of four guys are married (Gogia Sir, Puneet Sir and Sanjeev Sir) and the 4th was our very own Kapde walla! DAMN! I thought I could drink, but these guys were going to put me to shame. Then I was told that the order was made to 'optimise' and 'maximise' the HAPPY HOUR deal. I started sipping my grey goose in interest! This was going to be one a hell of a night!

Anyways, I started by introducing myself and proceeded to do the holy work by giving the inside (rather background) story on the currently super sudhraaa hua THAKUR. By then ATRI sahib shows up in the most crisp suit that one can find with a blazing 'ORANGE' tie. Orange, OMG! I heard a lot about ATRI but ORANGE, that's was the last straw. I took a deep gulp of my grey goose. Sometimes a man just needs to have his drink! ATRI starts this super long story about how he didnt make any money that day and orders a virgin mojito. Wow! Now I have seen everything. ATRI you could have ordered a nimbu paani with mint on the side! But, I agree you don't need alcohol! You are high anyways! :D

Then enter RBS (Rohit Bahadur Srivastava - he was once) and Mayank some ol' school mates. The drinks kept rolling in and we talked about the 'GOOGLE GROUPS' and some of the super actives members of the group, THAKUR (the super stalker!). Kapdewalla started an interesting conversation on fashion models, which seemed to garner a lot of interest! Sometimes, the discussions went into more serious avenues and I was quick to point out the real meaning of the meet! Irrelevant BAKKAR!

We were later joined in by some DCEites - Dolphie (Ashish) and Samridh Sharma, our senior :D. He is in the current ISB batch (Class of 2010). Like all good seniors we got nice and meaningful (after a good number of drinks everything seems meaningful) advice from him. :D. No Offence! But I really liked his line! I spent all my time at the REC center! Consulting job chahiye toh dean's list is a must.

Then came the interesting part, most people left after a while and then came the bill, we were shocked to bits! INR 23k, Kapdewalla lost it! He was calling out to Arun (head server) to look into the bill. It was finally reduced to 18k. Kapdewalla went into a melodramatic tape recording session - yaar itni kaisi pee lee humne. Its not possible, yaar bill deeekhaana jaara! Dude, how would I know? I was in total shock myself! Saari uttar gayi bhai! Anyways, we paid up and suddenly our pockets felt amazing light! Poor Sanjeev sir, didn't even drink and had to foot a huge bill.

That ended a very very interesting night for me. I felt happy to have the diversity around me, that I believe makes ISB a great place! Drinkers, non drinkers, kapdewalle, non- kapdewalle, orange tie, no tie. This was more than I expected and I liked it.

Finally we all stumbled into the parking lots and into our cars and then drove off into the darkness!

Loan Payment Affordability - Update

This post is an update to my blog entry dated December 9, 2009.  Now that the placement season at ISB is truly underway, I thought this was an apt time to reevaluate the monthly loan payments as a percentage of the total salary.

During the past few months I have been constantly interacting with my future classmates, current ISB students and recent alums. Several facts have come to my notice, because of which, I am modifying the assumptions I used as part of my previous analysis.  

Based on my discussions with current students, a salary of Rs 14,00,000 is considered a "good" package on campus. Also, thanks to several people of google groups, I learned that many offers were made in the Rs. 10-12,00,000 range. These figures are substantially lower than the Rs. 19,00,000 I had assumed in my previous analysis.  Therefore, as part of this analysis, I looked at three (3) different scenarios which are presented below. 

Common Assumptions (left unchanged)

Loan Amount = Rs. 18,00,000 (assuming the deposit was paid out of pocket)

Interest Rate - 10.5% (Source: UBI - ISB website)

Term - 7 Years

Therefore, Installment = Rs 30,500/month or Rs 3,66,000/year

Interest Paid during 1st yr = 15,000/month or Rs 1,80,000/year

Tax Bracket = 30%

Deduction = Rs 4,500/month or Rs. 54,000/year

Net installment = Rs 30,350 - Rs 4,500 = Rs 26,000/month or Rs 3,12,000/year

Take home salary = 62% of CTC

Salary Assumptions:

Scenario 1 - Great (in most cases)

Average Salary - Rs 19,00,000 (CTC)

Take-Home = Rs 95,000/month or Rs 11,40,000/year

In-Hand (after loan payment) = Rs 95,000 - Rs 26,000 = Rs 69,000/month or Rs 8,28,000/year

Scenario 2 - Reasonable (in most cases)

Average Salary - Rs 14,00,000 (CTC)

Take-Home = Rs 72,000/month or Rs 8,68,000/year

In-Hand (after loan payment) = Rs 72,000 - Rs 26,000 = Rs 46,000/month or Rs 5,52,000/year

Scenario 3 - (no comments)

Average Salary - Rs 11,00,000 (CTC)

Take-Home = Rs 57,000/month or Rs 6,82,000/year

In-Hand (after loan payment) = Rs 57,000 - Rs 25,850 = Rs 31,000/month or Rs 3,72,000/year

Of course, these numbers change drastically if the loan amount was low. For example, a person making Rs 14,00,000 with a Rs 10,00,000 loan would have approximately Rs 58,000 left after paying the monthly installment. These numbers are personally disappointing to me. However, I console myself by reading Sanjeev's post and reminding myself that I am doing this for the long term.