Shubham Choudhary's Blog

It seems like it’s been decades since I took a break from writing fiction. Can’t even remember the last time I wrote something with my usual style of short fiction for this blog. Although I’ve been trying my hands into some new things, one of which hopefully I’ll reveal soon, I’ve also been experimenting a little with the whole craze around GenAI. I’ve been trying different prompts with ChatGPT to see if it can come close to how I’d normally write. And after a few attempts, I think this one came quite close. While I try more and hopefully reach a place where I can once again just write for the heck of it and not need ChatGPT, do read this and tell me what you think!

The Patient

Dr. Collins had seen many patients in his long career, but none as peculiar as Mr. Grant. The man was a mystery—a reclusive figure in his late fifties who rarely spoke but always appeared impeccably dressed for his weekly therapy sessions.

Each Wednesday at 3 PM, Mr. Grant would sit in the leather chair across from Dr. Collins, staring out the window as he recounted fragmented memories of his past. There was something unnerving about the way he spoke, as if he was trying to piece together a puzzle with missing pieces.

“Tell me about your childhood,” Dr. Collins would prompt, and Mr. Grant would respond with the same story—a tale of growing up in an old, decaying mansion, his only companion a strict, elderly nanny.

But one detail always changed. In each session, Mr. Grant would describe a different room in the mansion—always a dark, musty place filled with forgotten things. Dr. Collins had never been able to make sense of it.

One rainy evening, after yet another cryptic session, Dr. Collins decided to dig deeper. He accessed old records, searching for any clues about Mr. Grant’s past. The name of the mansion Mr. Grant mentioned struck him—Ravenwood Manor. It had been abandoned for decades after a notorious murder-suicide.

Driven by curiosity, Dr. Collins visited the dilapidated mansion. Inside, he found dust-covered furniture, cobwebbed chandeliers, and a stifling silence. But in the basement, he discovered something chilling—a child’s room, untouched by time, with a small bed, old toys, and a faded photograph on the nightstand.

It was a picture of a young boy, no older than six, standing next to a middle-aged man. The boy was unmistakably Mr. Grant, and the man beside him… was Dr. Collins.

When I wrote this post around the same time last year, I didn’t think I’d end up following through on a lot of it, or that I’ll be writing a follow up, but here we are!

Here’s a quick summary of the promises I’d made to myself last year and how I did.

Exercise: Staying fit and working out 30 mins/day is agenda #1.
Well, didn’t miss a single day Some days it was extremely hard, and some days my health made it impossible. But I pulled through, it wasn’t always 30 but not a day went without some form of exercise.
Eating well: Junk reduction to at most twice a month is agenda #2.
This was a fail. I did eat better, my breakfasts in particular saw significant improvement, but the junk intake stayed around 4-5 times/month.
Learning a new skill: 2023 will additionally focus on Performance Marketing, Driving (yes, I still don’t drive confidently), and swimming. Gotta be good at these three.
I am the designated driver for all family trips now. Happy to count this one as a success, but that happened to be the only skill in focus in 2023.
Read. Last 2 years I’ve read 21 books each, and 2023 I want to take that up a notch. Here’s hoping to finish 30 books, and finally completing that goodreads challenge for a change.
Again finished 21! Although this time it was more of a choice once I realised there were some books of a more serious nature that I wanted to take my reading. That said, my list of 30 for next year is ready.
Reduce screen time. Ooh this is going to be the most challenging of them all, but reducing my average screen time to <6 hours a day is a necessity.
Narrator: He didn’t do it. To be fair I did have a great start and for the first four months I averaged 3 hours of daily screentime, but things just went downhill from there.

2023 was a year of stability, growth, and a lot of firsts for me. Apart from maintaining a lot of streaks and learning a bunch of new things, using AI (read: ChatGPT) like never before, this year was also about challenging assignments at work, some unprecedented professional results, loads of travel, good times with family, and being married to the most beautiful girl in the world!

For 2024, I plan to go ahead with the same resolutions, this time hopefully doing 100% of them. But more importantly, like always this year will be about being kinder, more empathetic, more helpful. Here’s wishing you a new year filled with happiness, growth, less politics, and more love. Happy New year

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here. From writing weekly posts 10 years back to the odd annual post for the last 4 years, I found it hard writing even once. And it’s alarming. So I thought unlike the last few posts where I ran a million quality checks before posting, I’ll just write this live on the blog, and also do something I’ve always been scared of, put my thoughts online as they come. This one’s about resolutions.

I’m not a strong believer of new year resolutions, but I do think that psychologically they work. And while I’ve never publicly posted them, each year I’ve always made a few generic resolutions and atleast one that is specific to me.

So here they are, for 2023. Here’s hoping they can inspire you too, should you be facing the same struggle or the same journey as I am.

Exercise. I did this religiously in 2020 and it showed some great results. But somewhere I lost track and have struggled since. 2023 will be different. Staying fit and working out 30 mins/day is agenda #1.Eating well. At home it was easier, but as offices opened up, living the bachelor life had it’s disadvantages. But no more excuses. Junk reduction to at most twice a month is agenda #2.Learning a new skill. This one’s specific to me. I’ve been learning French, Chess, and some key things about Product Management for a while. But 2023 will additionally focus on Performance Marketing, Driving (yes, I still don’t drive confidently), and swimming. Gotta be good at these 3.Read. Last 2 years I’ve read 21 books each, and 2023 I want to take that up a notch. Here’s hoping to finish 30 books, and finally completing that goodreads challenge for a change.Reduce screen time. Ooh this is going to be the most challenging of them all, but reducing my average screen time to <6 hours a day is a necessity.

There’s so much more! Write more, meditate, be kinder, love more.. The list goes on. But for now, I’ll end it here with my Facebook post that sums up 2022 for me.

2022 is leaving with a permanent place in my memories. I believe every year that has passed by has given me memories, all good, bad, and ugly, and has seen some pivotal personal and professional developments. But this was a year that trumps most of them, if not all. Serious health concerns, challenging assignments at work, getting married, moving houses, travelling places, seeing your favorite player live his dream, unparalleled success, unexpected failures, stress that felt like what they write about in books, and happiness that felt like what they talk about in songs. This year saw it all.

Just like life, the year was filled with ups and downs, and a lesson that life goes on. So here’s to a year of learning, and a happier 2023! Happy New year

“To be honest, I always had my doubts about her”

“Yes, you made your feelings about her pretty clear to me, multiple times. But… I just can’t believe she would… and on our anniversary!” Aaron struggled to complete his sentences, barely speaking with a voice filled with a mix of rage and shock.

“It was our 10th, you know…” he continued after a small pause to calm himself down. “I thought I’ll make up for all the times I forgot about it, or just couldn’t be there for her”

“And clearly she had other plans”

“Does it feel like the right time to make jokes to you?” he asked, exasperated. What he wanted from Jim, his best friend, was unconditional support… but so far, he only got snide remarks and petty jokes.

“I’m sorry. No more jokes. But have you thought what you’re going to do about this now?”

“What’s there to do… we just…”

“I mean, she had an affair!” Jim cut him mid-sentence. “and who knows how long she’d been doing this to you. I think you should get a lawyer before her family does”

“I know. I cannot think clearly right now, I need a drink” he said, pouring one of the finest whiskeys Jim had… “I always had a thing for Macallan 25. Sadly, even this reminds me of her”

“You know what, you need to take some rest. Just lay down for a couple of hours”

“You’re right. But what do we do about the…”

“Leave that to me” he was interrupted again.

He felt a sense of calm slowly settling in. In the last few hours he’d seen his world come crashing down. He’d seen his marriage of 10 years ending in a snap. He was tense, worried, restless… but now he knew his best friend had his back. It took him just a moment of rage to end her life, and perhaps a few more hours until Jim removes all the traces. Maybe then he could celebrate his anniversary with another drink.

A note:

Today, ABugInMyMind completes 10 years since I made my first post here. It’s been a great ride, and I can’t help but smile every time I think about everything I used to write about. In the last 10 years, a lot has changed… from the way we talk about politics to the way we use social media, from cheering for Sachin’s century to wondering if sports will happen normally again, from eating street food to sanitizing the delivery packs, from getting no matches on tinder to getting no matches on tinder, we all have seen a lot of transformation around us. While the 2011 version of me could write long grammatically questionable posts about each of these things, the 2021 me can only laugh again curse his time management skills, and make a promise to himself that he’ll write more.

To all those who stuck around, and who are reading this now, thank you. Here’s to another decade filled with words!  

“He’s going to kill me some day with all this work!” He thought, but couldn’t speak. He was angry, more with himself than anyone else.

“Why do I keep listening to him?” He wondered, as he struck the ground again with his spade. “I don’t have to!” He dug the ground deeper with every stroke.

“What kind of a father makes his son dig the ground in this freezing cold…”

“It’s not just that he makes me do these crazy things… It’s the constant nagging. He thinks I’m a loser . Makes me feel like I shouldn’t have been born!” a tear escaped his eye, or was it sweat, he couldn’t tell. He was overwhelmed, too tired and cold to notice the difference.

“Last month, it was the damned card game. I made one mistake and had to sleep outside all night. And today it was his stupid shirt I got the ink stain on.” What happened the month before the last one was too horrifying for him to even think about.

“Only if I had the courage. I could run! I just can’t get caught like the last time” the image of those iron rods made him shudder.

“Or… I could just… No, what am I thinking.. I can’t”. It wasn’t the first time this thought had crossed his mind.

“All it will take is one moment, one swing of this very spade.. any if those nights when he is drunk and asleep.” The chain of thoughts broke as the spade struck something other than mud. He cleared the half frozen mud with his hands, the bones were still there. Like a jolt it all came rushing back to him.

He had already done what he’s been too afraid to even think of right now. The abuse may have now become a thing of past, but he was shell shocked for life. He relived it all every day – as if he were in a loop – the trauma, the horror, and this moment, his salvation.

This world has seen pandemics, recession, the great depression, world wars, nuclear warfare, the Holocaust, and so much more horribly disastrous stuff in just the last century. I’ll not even talk about the revolutions and dinosaurs. 2020 really has got nothing on its grandfathers. What this year really did differently was to do some of these nasty things in the age of internet. In a way, the real disaster wasn’t Covid-19, it was Tik-Tok. (and also Liverpool winning the Premier League)

As we enter 2021, apart from forwarding random images on whatsapp from some people to others, I thought it’ll be good to finally write a blogpost for 2020 and make some more resolutions (since I totally kept the ones from last year). But before that, here are three predictions for 2021. With my expertise in making baseless claims I have full confidence that they’ll be true in the next year, and if that doesn’t happen, we all have the option of blaming this on 2020.

Prediction #1: More Covid cases
This whole new year new me thing seems to have been taken seriously by Covid. We’ve got a new strain and taller stronger sharper virus. Goodluck.

Prediction #2: More babies
The lockdown was announced around the end of March. January 2021 is 9 months from then. In other news, 2+2 = 4.

Prediction #3: More memes
Covid doesn’t seem to end. The decade is over. People are staying at home. It’s like an introvert’s dream come true. Expect a lot of 2020 memes. Which could be a refreshing change from all the wedding and baby updates you’ve been getting.

Hopefully you’ll look back at the end of 2021 and think what a visionary I was. But we’ll come back to that. For now, thank you for reading, I wish you a great year and an amazing life. I sincerely hope one of your resolutions is reading more crappy content because I’ve decided to write more this year!

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My wife is dead”

“Okay… Please tell me more. Did you check her pulse?”

“I did. She’s been dead for a while now”

“Don’t worry sir, we’re sending help right away. Can you tell me how it happened?”

“She was in the kitchen, doing the dishes I suppose. I don’t remember the details”

“No worries. Tell me what you remember.”

“I had just come home. She was in the kitchen, I called her out. As she came out of there, I smashed her head right on the table. She was so weak! Died in the second blow…”

“And why did you do that?”

“She had been cheating on me for some time now. I just couldn’t take it anymore”

“Fair enough. Now why don’t you bury her, before the police reaches your home?”

That was it, he put the phone down. “No way a 911 call would go that way!”, he thought.

He let the body lay there… It’s been seven days, but he’ll practice the call again tomorrow. The murder may have been impulsive, imperfect, but he couldn’t risk not planning a perfect confession.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi

“A pen is mightier than a sword” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Why is Gamora” – Drax.

These are just few of the quotes that have impacted my life and made me what I am today. It was my resolution to not be a pushover and be myself in 2018, my friends are telling me that I was able to follow it, and I agree with them. Now that we’ve established that I’m so very good at keeping my resolutions, let me tell you something about the things I’m planning to do in 2019.

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1. Exercise – The morning of 31st December included, I did a total of zero bench presses in 2018 as opposed to the planned 10. So, for the first resolution, I’ll be changing my approach towards exercise and not plan to do it at all. I can already feel my brain cells getting orgasmic at the thought, but let’s move to 2.

2. Relationships – There’s nothing more important in life than love, unless it’s a PS4, which is sort of like love. I’ll be getting one for myself, do let me know if any of you have a resolution of helping the needy and poor.

3. Food – I’ll eat it.

4. Work – I’ve realized that I haven’t been giving my 100% at work in the past few months. The realization itself feels a heavy one and I feel like I should take a break to recharge. I think I’ll use the carry over leaves from last year.

5. Time management – I am a management student, this is what I do. You give me anything, even a pet dog and I’ll manage the crap out of it. That said, I’m planning to manage my time in the most limitless ways possible, and I’m starting with Limitless Season 1.

I hope you found this worth your time, if you didn’t, well there’s nothing we can do about now, can we? Here’s wishing you a happy new year, may you find more happiness, love, money, and confirmed railway tickets in your life.

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So the CBSE results are out again, and as the divine souls of Social Media would have it, marks don’t matter posts are trending all over our timelines with full vigor. This isn’t very different from the ‘Happy Mother’s day (and it’s opposite, I hate people who post Happy Mother’s day) posts’, or the ‘Arvind Kejriwal is a retard (and its opposite, AAP is the future of India) posts’. 

It sounds very easy to become subject experts on Facebook or Twitter, since big studies are just a Google search away, and one can always take his time coming up with well crafted replies (much like this blog post.. Umm.. Well.. Oops). But being someone who finds Facebook activism a waste of time (personal opinion, because I’ve observed that we simply vent our anger, and barely achieve anything out of it), I usually keep myself away from online debates. But when we talk about CBSE results, or anything like that, we’re talking about an age group that can very easily be influenced, so I felt this needs to be said. 

To put it in a concise manner, ‘Marks do matter’, if you’re investing your time and money in something and not achieving anything of it, you did fail, and don’t let these comforting thoughts tell you otherwise. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that marks are the only things that matter, or that you should go on cramming up facts to go on a factual diarrheic mode in the exam and score well, but if you plan to do something in life that will take your marks into account, please don’t let others tell you that it’s okay to fail, unless you are phenomenally good at taking risks. 

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We have all kinds of people in our society. Those who don’t study and those who do. Those who take the road less traveled and those who don’t. It’s not a shame in doing any of that, it’s a choice one consciously makes. It’s not a shame to fail either, we’re only human. But the shame lies in the fact that even before failing, you make your peace with the fact that it’s okay to fail. And that’s where the problem begins. I’ve been both a topper and a failure in my life. And I don’t feel proud of my failures. I also know that I could take those risks, because that’s the path I’d consciously chosen for myself, but maybe it’s not the case with you, maybe you need those marks, so before you tell yourself that marks don’t matter, give it a shot, maybe they do. 

I agree, our education system is all sorts of wrong. We produce more engineers every hour than Mexico produces drugs. It doesn’t give the kind of encouragement that is needed to arts, sports, research, entrepreneurship… But then, there are thousands of people who still passionately take them up and are good at them. And they may or may not be scoring well, point is, it won’t matter to them. What it shouldn’t be is the other way round. Where a poor score in engineering or a failed start-up or a dead end IT job pushes you into these things. And you keep telling yourself that marks don’t matter, failures don’t matter. Because they do, and here you’ll find hundreds of people doing better than you. 

So if you’re young, yet to start your career, or even if you’re old but open to hear an opinion apart from yours, consider this. Try to be good at what you do, or take a risk and don’t do it, instead do what you’re good at. Yes, marks do matter, if you don’t know where you’re going, if you do see yourself making your career in a traditional field competing with a million more, these marks do matter. It’s not the end if you didn’t score well, but be prepared to work harder, this isn’t the time to relax. 

Tagged: 12th results, CBSE, competition, Indian education system, students

MDI Gurgaon, one of the top 10-15 management colleges (Also, the number 2 private management institute in the country), has this to say on its Wikipedia.

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Pic courtesy: Official MDI Website

Management Development Institute (MDI) is one of the premier business schools in India. It was established in 1973 and is located in Gurgaon also known as Gurugram, a commercial hub near the Indian capital of New Delhi.

Here’s my interview experience of the same. (One of my best experiences in the year).

Disclaimer:

1. Some things here might be influenced by my opinion.

2. You may find some sentences being repeated in other posts, that’s just to make this post relevant as a standalone one.

3. Things may change this year (They have actually, weightage to cat is decreasing with every passing year), but the way they take interviews shouldn’t.

4. And lastly, a lot of tense confusion might be there since the actual post was written right after the interview.

Here we go:

My profile:

General /Engineer/ Male.

CAT score: 99.46

Work ex: 28 Months (I work for OFSS as a developer)

10/12/UG: 92/92/6.2 (The 6.2 translates to 62%)

I’m also a published writer and had a startup back in college.

Date: 4th March Morning slot, Gurgaon.

I reached around 9.10 AM, reporting time was 9. The document verification was done inside a room, all the students were divided into two panels. After 30 minutes we were asked to move to the interview rooms.

WAT Topic: Is bureaucracy a hindrance in the finance reforms in India. 15 Minutes. 150 words.

This was one of my not so good performances when it comes to WAT, given my experience in writing. I found the 150 words too less to create an introduction and conclusion for a topic like this. So I had to cut down on examples and kept a diplomatic approach. To make the matters worse, I spelt the world Bureaucracy wrong. But I guess many people did that, it’s not that easy to spell!

GD:  The same topic was to be discussed for 20 minutes post WAT. We were 12 candidates, I was, once again, the last candidate. But luckily the floor was open from the very first moment, so being last didn’t matter there. We literally had two teams fighting pro and against bureaucracy. Nobody won, the moderators got tired of the fish market and asked us to stop. No conclusion, nothing.

Interview:

The panel had two people. P1: Female, in her late 30s. P2: Male, in his 50s. They were calling people randomly, so being last again didn’t matter, yay!

P2 began by asking me how I would rate my performance in the GD. I said 6/10. He then asked why, to which I said that I’m normally very good at GDs, but today it took me five minutes to even start speaking, but then I raised a few very good points.

He then asked me about the flip side of the ‘Make in India’ campaign. I told him how in many ways India isn’t ready for the investments right now with the poor infrastructure and how this could backfire on our whole global image policy. He told me that I was being too general and this wasn’t specific to ‘Make in India’, to which I gave another argument, which probably convinced him.

He asked me what would happen if a man travelling at the speed of light in a car switched on the headlight. Answered. Then he gave me another statement. “God made a spear that can penetrate anything and then God made a wall that cannot be penetrated. What do you think will happen if they meet?” I told him that this is the case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and then explained a bit more. Convinced. Then he asked me if I know what FDI means. Told. Then the difference between FDI and FII, told again. He interrupted me twice and I cracked a joke that I don’t remember, everybody laughed (Which normally doesn’t happen on my jokes!)

All this time, P1 is reading my form. Now she asks me about where I work and my job profile. Then something more about work. Then the most challenging thing I ever had to do in work. I told about a recent project I worked on. Then she asked me about what teamwork means and how would I tackle a non-performer in the team. (I believe this is because I had opted for IM course too.)

As soon as I was done answering this, they both told me I was done. I was a bit surprised that no one asked me anything about my low CGPA, so I asked if that was it. Both of them laughed and said yes.

In short, very chilled out experience unlike many other experiences I’d based my perception on. At no point did I feel stressed out. No questions about college, extra currics or anything close to that. Hardly a question or two that one may call technical.

I’m not sure how will this be rated. But I guess it was okay.

FAQs:

Same as any other posts given in the below links.

Here’s my IIFT Interview experience.

Also, it was a direct convert but I didn’t join. I joined XLRI Jameshedpur, the interview experience of the same can be read here.