The year gone by

Happy New Year!

Welcome to year 2015. I hope your hopes and aspirations come to reality this year provided you work hard for it. But before I welcome the New Year, I will like to look back and list the things which happened in the last year. By all definitions, the passing year was my best year and I don’t think there is anything I will like to change about that. I experienced so many things which has left a big impression on my mind. These beautiful memories, I will carry with myself for the rest of my life.

1. The year started with disappointment. I gave my XAT in the first week of 2014 year, hoping for something. But since I hadn’t prepared anything, nothing happened. This didn’t leave me disappointed. On the other hand, I promised myself that I will work hard and will do better in forthcoming exams.

2. I got my promotion. I wasn’t particularly surprised about that as it was due. Nonetheless it was a happy start to a fruitful year.

3. Summer vacation in Rio de Janeiro. I spent one whole month in Rio where I saw the world cup in the mecca of football, Estadio de Maracana. I enjoyed football with the Brazilians, sharing their joy and enthusiasm for the sport. It was my dream come true. 

4. I finally bought my 2BHK house. Not a big achievement, neither it's small :)

5. In the month of Dec, I signed my first ever contract. Yipeee. Soon I am going to be a published writer. I am hoping for the book to be launched by May 2015. *Fingers Crossed*. Facebook page -

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Ibigo/1438685936352164?ref=bookmarks

I will post the updates about the book as they happen.

6. CAT results were declared in the last week of December. A satisfying end to 2014. I am looking forward to GD/PI calls from good B schools and hoping to convert one of them.

PS - XAT is in 2 days. Let’s see how I perform this year.

Ola Ola Ola Ola Messi Messi! Ola Ola Ola Ola Messi Messi!

Today is the day after the day I went to the Maracana Stadium, the mecca of the football, for the first time. The clock had struck 63rd minute and Messi received the ball half way up the opposite field. And then came his trademark run, dodging one, then second, then third and finally ball went to the far post, beyond the reach of the Goal Keeper. And the stadium lit up.

Poor defenders wondering what to do

All were enthralled by the goal and the fans stood up, giving their customary bow to the magician gracing the Maracana Stadium on its birthday. For the fans all over the world, not so for the Brazilians, the goal was the perfect gift to the Maracana stadium on its birthday, 15th June 2014.

I will always remember the day I went to the stadium. I woke up early in the morning around 7'o clock. I had my tea and patiently started waiting for the clock to tick itself to 3'o clock, the time we would leave the house. Finally it did. To reach the stadium we first boarded a bus. The journey was an hour long but it was worth it. On my way to the stadium, I looked outside the window of the bus and I was travelling in, trying to understand the city which is playing the perfect host to me. Favelas are the most paradoxical presence in the city.

Favela

For the visitors they are a sight to hold, something from which they cannot remove their eyes from. In a way they increase the charm of the city and makes you talk about them for on and on to people back home thus increasing curiosity among the future travellers. But for the Cariocas, it’s a blemish. Favela literal translation is 'House on the Hills'. The poorest of the poorest Cariocas, who can’t afford a house, live there. The legend has it that the soldiers who didn’t have any place to live, lived on the hills which then developed in to a big slum. But if we look closely, I find favela, the slums, more developed than slums back in my country. And in general that goes for the whole city itself. Strangely, the country has the infrastructure of a developed country yet it’s a developing country, part of BRICS.

We reached Vincent de Carvahlo, the place where we switched over to the metro. In 30 minutes or so we reached the stadium. All paths leading up to the mecca was littered with Argentinians, again not a happy sight for the Brazilians. They were cheering and singing on their way to Mecca. I could see few people with play cards "Comprendo". They were looking for one seller. We marched on and on, in the sea of fans, towards the Gate D. Our ticket had complete information which helped us to reach our seats, without anyone helping us neither we knowing, except for one, more than few phrases of Portuguese. A similar feat back home will be impossible for any.

White - Blue wave

Blue wave part 2

 

I will never forget that time when I stepped inside and saw the field for the first time. I couldn’t close my mouth for few minutes. It was a sight to behold. The brightly lit field, with fans all over the stadium, Bosnian fans, with Brazilians counterpart, having their shirts out cheering, and the Argentinians singing. A competition was going on and I was a spectator. I wish I knew their language. The only negative thing which I found was that the football field looked smaller than it appears on the television.

Before the match we knew that Bosnia was making their debut in the world Cup and no one expected them to do much. Argentina, with names such as Gonzalez Hugain, Sergio Agüero, Lionel Messi and Angel di Maria, can intimidate any team on this planet. But how wrong we were. Bosnia played good, played much better than my expectation. I had expected Edin Dzeko (No one is more involved in more goals than him in the European qualifiers: 14 – 10 goals, 4 assists) to carry the team on his shoulders but it wasn’t so. They had cohesion, discipline, stuck to tactics and more importantly didn’t gave enough space to Messi. Except for the first corner in which the own goal was scored on 3rd minute, Bosnia didn’t gave me any indication or proof that they are newbies. Match went on. Argentina was playing a passing game, building the game from the back. They would move the ball around and around. But the third part was packed up by Bosnia, not allowing either Messi or Angel di Maria to showcase their talent. Poor Agüero was most of the times left alone. This didn’t mean Bosnia had come to defend. When they had the chance they went on doing their business. Sadly apart from Dzeko, they lack world class finisher hence nothing productive came out of it.

Maracana

Since the start of the game I was not hopeful and wasn’t expecting Bosnia to do much because I was aware of their problems. Dzeko was well guarded. And that Messi goal in the 64th minute made it clear to me that Bosnia will go home empty handed. But my youngest fufaji had faith in Bosnia and since fifth minute he had been saying on and on that Bosnia will score a goal. That moment came in the 85th minute when Bosnia scored from open play. From there on it was game on. The whole stadium, Bosnians and Brazilians stood up, cheering the men forward. Sabella, the Argentinian coach, substituted Sergio Agüero and shut the shop. It was a nervy end for them. All in all the match was money worth it. I got my own cup at the end of the match, Budweiser, the official sponsor of World Cup :)

We should give credit to the Brazilians for constructing such an amazing stadium. We were out of the stadium in 15 minutes without any hiccups. We walked and walked, mesmerised. We had witnessed history. I would surely recount it to my grandchildren. Walking out towards the station came the first nervous moment. A team of riot control police was on duty. They had the full gear on with the gun and the shield. I walked quietly, trying to pass them quickly. At once I crossed, they changed their direction 180 degrees. It felt that something wrong is going to happen. I stepped on a temporary bridge which was connecting to a concrete overhead footpath which then connected to the subway station. The temporary bridge was jam packed but we still went on walking. At this moment I was nervous and wanted to enter the station quickly. The worst imaginable thing happened at that moment which made my heart race. The bridge started to shake, just like in an earthquake.

On way to the Bridge. Notice darkness at the top.

Dhakk! Dhakk!

All around me people started shouting in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French. The only word I could make out "Shaking". On and on I walked. I knew that that I cannot go down and swim against a strong tide. I know I can’t. And since I was in middle of the bridge, the only way out was up. Thankfully I am not back home, otherwise there would have been stampede. Brazilians and the rest are cultured and we managed to climb up without any other incident. With Argentinians singing and we enjoying the music managed to board the metro. The metro at that time resembled Rajiv Chowk which was a soothing thought. Through the metro, then the bus and finally car, we reached home safe and sound.

Lo! What surprise. A birthday cake was waiting for us at the home. Not that we reached home safely, neither we were celebrating Maracana's stadium birthday, it was my eldest Fufaji's birthday.

Is something wrong? -- Another Short Story

"Is something wrong with your mother? She was talking nonsense to me for a long time" said the school sports teacher to a young small boy of 13 years.

The young boy had a puzzled look on his face. He didn’t know how to reply to the question. Inside his heart he knew that on some days his mother did talk nonsense but he couldn’t fathom the fact that his teacher was talking about the same to him. He kept quiet.

Now it was the time for the teacher to feel awkward. He reproached himself for asking such a stupid question. Building upon that stupidity, he asked "Are you listening to me boy?" this time a little louder.

The boy didn’t reply. His friends, who were sitting next to him, hadn’t heard the teacher the first time, now looked at him and then at the teacher. They could sense something was wrong but couldn’t pinpoint to it. Upon realising that there wasn’t any reply to come, the teacher went away shaking his head, leaving the child alone with his friends.

They were sitting in the middle of the auditorium, waiting for the annual day program to start. The most outspoken child of that small group looked over to the child and asked politely "What did that A-hole want to know?"

The child looked directly at his friend’s face, as an acknowledgement to the question, and didn’t reply. But the emerging tears in his eyes were enough to tell his friend that there was something wrong. The whole group started to badmouth the teacher. The program started and all was forgotten.

That afternoon after the school got over, the young child walked to his home, alone lost in his thoughts. He knew that his teacher had asked him a good question, a question to which he himself didn’t know the answer to. He walked quietly on the footpath. The footpath ended and he crossed over the road and went to the other side. On this side of the road, there was a school from where the children were making a lot of noises. But the young child was oblivious to the craziness around him.
"Should I ask my father about this? Will he be able to give me a proper answer? ....Nah he wouldn’t be able to. He always busy in his work and if I ask this uncomfortable question, he might shout like the last time when I had asked him where did the children come from?....Who else can help...hmmm…who else can make me understand and let me know of the proper answer. Maybe the kind lady who lives on the first floor will be able to say something. No she wouldn’t be able to and I don’t think I am that comfortable discussing with her."

The young boy was lost in his thoughts. No solution came to his mind. He went on walking sheepishly. In an about half hour, he reached his home, dropped his bag on the chair present inside the drawing room and switched on the television, forgetting the all important question which was bugging him. An hour went so. No one came to trouble him. His mother had prepared the lunch and was sleeping noiselessly in the next room. Finally his thoughts came back to the question. Still nothing came to his mind. But this time, instead of procrastinating, he had made up his mind. He switched on the iPad, which his cousin brother had gifted him for his birthday, and searched for "My mother is mad?" on Google. The search result astonished him.

"My mother is angry at me, what should I do?" Irrelevant question! He flipped through some more results. They were as useless as the first result.

There was a nice article "My mother is sick and I am mad as hell." It was a heart wrenching article about the mother suffering from cancer and the daughter who couldn’t do anything about it. Even though the article was beyond the maturity of the young boy, still tears came in to his eyes at the end of the article. He could empathise with the pains of the daughter. Still it didn’t answer his question since he knew that there was something mentally wrong with her.

This time he searched for "My mother is mentally sick." and the results came more specific to what he was looking for. They were lot more serious and grave.

The firs result was "mental illness, suicide, depression in my family." He opened the link. It was a gruesome description about the family and how it was affecting the psyche of the author. In the middle of the article, the young boy scared closed the link. His heart was pounding. It took him a while to understand that such problems weren’t present with him. He went to other results and started to read them.

After a while of reading, he finally he came across an article which was more suited to his taste. It was a list of mental disorders on Wikipedia. It was a comprehensive list which didn’t make much sense to him. But the idea struck his mind. This time he did a better phrase search on Google.

"Mental disorder + hallucination + nonsense talking"

The search results were full of schizophrenia. Excitedly, finally being able to find something concrete, the child started to read as much as he could about it. There loads of articles, stories, news and images about it. He went on reading about it for an hour.

Looking over to the symptoms, he started to make a mental note. There were words to which he didn’t know the meaning of for which he had to do search for their meanings.

Distress - Yes
Hearing voices or noises that are not there - Sometime, as stated by others
Inattention – Don’t know
Confused or unclear thinking - No
Reduced emotional expression and social engagement - Definitely yes
Paranoia - Maybe
Hallucination - Yes

Most of the symptoms matched with his observation and he was convinced that his mother had schizophrenia. Happy to solve the problem at hand, he went on reading. Suddenly he came across a word he had recently studied in school "genetics". He did a search on the word to confirm its meaning. As per the meaning and the article, schizophrenia is genetics; hence he has a 50%-50% chance that he himself is suffering from it. This revelation stumped him. He started to think. In his heart he knew that he wasn’t like his mother, neither has he behaved like her nor his actions suggest. He knew he was completely different from her. He didn’t face any problems nor had symptoms like the ones mentioned in the article. But as per Wikipedia, schizophrenia sometimes had a slow onset and can hit a person in his middle age. "Am I mad? No I am no mad. I am sane. But yesterday I was behaving like a lunatic when I had caught Daman cheating. He had started to shout that I am mad. Oh he must be joking…… What if he was right and I am actually but I don’t see it myself just like my mother.....stop talking nonsense....what if Daman is right?"

His mother walked in the room. She had a smile on her face. She quietly kissed on his cheek and everything was right in his mind. Forgetting the stupid fight he was having with himself, he switched off the iPad and the television and started to describe the whole day to his mother. His mother listened to everything he said. She then stood up to warm the milk and came back with a milk with bournvita in a glass. He drank it quickly, asked her permission for going out and went out to play.
Later in the evening, he came back tired and sat on iPad to open Facebook. The page on schizophrenia was still open. He looked over to the page and his doubts again sprang in his mind.

And the debate started again. "No...Yes...No...Yes...No..." It went on.

Suddenly someone tugged at his shoulder, breaking his chain of thoughts. It was his younger sister. He smiled and asked what was troubling her. She looked squarely in his face asked softly, making sure no one else could hear, "Bhaiya Bhaiya, is something wrong with mother?"

He looked at her, dumbstruck.


PS: Sorry for the mistakes. Didn't have time to edit the story.

Tribute to Beatles!

Fab 4

"We all live in yellow submarine, yellow submarine"
"We all live in yellow submarine, yellow submarine"

Vivek was brushing his teeth while listening to this song. It was his favourite song with his favourite sound, the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks. “Ah this is heaven” thought Vivek. The crashing waves reminded him of his home. The voice of Paul McCartney was majestic and the guitar strumming and the drums added music to the soul. Humming the tune inside his head, Vivek pressed the replay button on his phone. He could listen to this song whole and do nothing.
He finished brushing his teeth and went back to this room. Benjamin was waiting for him for there.

“Oye how was the last night’s dinner date? Got some action?” he asked in an excited tone with an wink at the end of the comment.

Vivek’s face, which till now had a smile, suddenly had a horror look. He took a moment to steady his heart. He said “It was more of dinner fight. All was going smoothly. And suddenly she had to bring up something. Damn! All went downhill. We ended up fighting till the end.

“Ohho” replied Benjamin.

“Let’s change the topic. I was hearing strawberry field forever. That song never makes sense to me. Then it struck me. I replaced strawberry by opium and the whole song now makes sense to me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Vivek, irritated.

“Here I wrote it for you some to make you understand”

Let me take you down

Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Opium Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Opium Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Opium Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Opium Fields forever

“Hahaha….I see..that makes perfect sense to me now too” Vivek said.

“Just imagine.”

The two friends started to laugh and went on laughing for half hour. They cracked jokes. They made faces. They shared stories. Finally Benjamin left leaving Vivek alone in the room.

Suddenly Vivek’s phone started to buzz. It was a message. He took the phone in his hand to scroll to the message. It was from his girlfriend.

“I hate you :X Never contact me ever again”

“Eh!”

Vivek tried to message her on whatsapp to explain. She had blocked him. Phone. Again blocked. Message. Blocked.

“God what has happened” he thought. His Ipod changed to another song. He had forgotten about it playing.

You're going to lose that girl,
You're going to lose that girl.
If you don't treat her right, my friend,
You're going to find her gone,
'cause I will treat her right, and then
You'll be the lonely one.

You're going to lose that girl,
You're going to lose that girl.
I'll make a point
Of taking her away from you, yeah,
The way you treat her what else can I do?

His iPod was playing the song “You are gonna lose that girl!

What coincidence!

He angrily shut his iPod off and went to sleep

An hour late he woke up. He was sweating. His clothes were drenched. Sweat was flowing down his forehead. He was scared. He had a nightmare. He went outside the room to the water cooler. He bent down and drank cold water. He washed his face. And then came back to the room.

His room was dirty. Dust and garbage was accumulating. Every day he would always think of cleaning his room. But something always came up and this idea took a backseat. But today is the day. He decided to finally clean his room. He picked up the broom lying in the corner and was about to start cleaning.
But first thing first. Songs need to be played on his iPod. He pushed the play button.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

“Damn!” The song finished. He replayed it. Again. And again.

And then the tears started to flow down his cheeks which lead to bursting of the dam. He was crying.

Later in the day, Vivek stopped crying. He was alone. He missed her. He wanted to talk to her. He was sad. Benjamin had come to invite him for lunch. Seeing him so sad, he thought otherwise. Vivek was angry. Hurt. Blocked.

“How can this happen to me?” he thought.

He picked up his notepad to write something. Somewhere in between, he had written lyrics of ‘When I am 64’. He played that song on his iPod.

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

And the song went on as......

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

“Oh man! Crap!” The song ended with the things he wanted to say.

“That was something” he realized. Satisfied. Complete. He stood up.

And in came Benjamin. “Sorry bro. Sorry to know. She is a bitch. Don’t worry” he said.

“How do you know?” asked astonished Vivek.

“Well it’s the gossip of the day in the hostel” replied Benjamin.

“Great what I needed.”

“Anyway I have something to cheer you up.” Benjamin took out weed from his pocket.

And then the two smoked up listening to John Lennon’s trippy song

I am the Walrus, goo goo g’joob.

Ernest Dichter - The man who made advertising sexy

This post dedicated to the man who made advertising sexy. The small stocked man from Vienna, with a Phd psychology in hand, entered USA to change the landscape of the advertising world. He was one of the first man to realize the potential of Sigmund Freud and his pyschoanalysis. Behavioural analysis & Motivational Research was Dichter's forte and it was used to the maximum potential.
Humans are impressionable, emotional and irrational. They buy things they don’t need, often at arbitrary prices and for silly reasons. Studies show that when a store plays soothing music, shoppers will linger for longer and often spend more. If customers are in a good mood, they are more susceptible to persuasion. They believe price tends to indicate the value of things, not the other way around. And many people will squander valuable time to get something free. So true!

He used this concept to turn around the businesses of so many giants Procter & Gamble, Exxon, Chrysler and many more

He understood that in this world with so many choices, the consumer is confused so as to what to buy, what not to buy. He utilized Freudian concepts as well as sexual allusions and desires in advertising campaigns to lure the customers to buy the product.


One of his earliest assignments were:


What makes soap interesting? Why choose one brand over another? Dichter’s first contract was with the Compton Advertising Agency, to help them sell Ivory soap. Market research typically involved asking shoppers questions like “Why do you use this brand of soap?” Or, more provocatively, “Why don’t you use this brand of soap?” Regarding such lines of inquiry as useless, Dichter instead conducted a hundred so-called “depth interviews”, or open-ended conversations, about his subjects’ most recent scrubbing experiences.
The approach was not unlike therapy, with Dichter mining the responses for encoded, unconscious motives and desires. In the case of soap, he found that bathing was a ritual that afforded rare moments of personal indulgence, particularly before a romantic date (“You never can tell,” explained one woman). He discerned an erotic element to bathing, observing that “one of the few occasions when the puritanical American [is] allowed to caress himself or herself [is] while applying soap.” As for why customers picked a particular brand, Dichter concluded that it wasn’t exactly the smell or price or look or feel of the soap, but all that and something else besides—that is, the gestalt or “personality” of the soap.

This was a big idea. Dichter understood that every product has an image, even a “soul”, and is bought not merely for the purpose it serves but for the values it seems to embody. Our possessions are extensions of our own personalities, which serve as a “kind of mirror which reflects our own image”. Dichter’s message to advertisers was: figure out the personality of a product, and you will understand how to market it. Soaps could be old or young, flirty or conservative. Ivory, Dichter inferred, had a “sombre, utilitarian, thoroughly cleansing character”. It was the mother-daughter of soaps, whereas a brand like Camay was a seductress. Such insights led to the slogans “Be smart and get a fresh start with Ivory Soap” and “Wash your troubles away”.

This marketing is what now led to and is called 'Branding'. Some of the other examples of his works are

Internet Revolution

The times are changing. The days of “Study hard, get a good job” are becoming a thing of past. The parent’s of golden rule of a better life is losing its sheen in this new, brave and bold world. The youngest generation is coming forward with radical ways to earn money. I cannot help notice a many new advertisements on television of a string of internet based companies like jabong.com, flipkart.com, yebhi.com, godaddy.com, shiksha.com, bharatmatrimony.com, yatra.com, makemytrip.com, snapdeal.com  and many more. Seems like dot com boom (a passé thing for the west) has finally hit India. People have started realizing the potential of internet and its lure to earn easy money. Not much requirement of capital, one of the best ways to sell your product, almost no technicality required, easy to advertise and the best way to have a close relation with your customers, how can this not be an attraction for a start-up.

Recently Flipkart became India’s first billion dollar internet based company and too in a space of 5 years, pretty huge deal for a startup. Becoming a millionaire before turning thirty, a dream come true for many. Zomato.com was started by ex-Bain employees. They forsake their cushy jobs of 11L to start their own endeavours. One of my seniors has started a successful website making company, another one is starting an online shopping, someone has an e-magazine and a friend of mine has started a company which provides online servers. Many new ideas submitted in Business Plan competitions are internet based companies. Letsinter.com, wittyshit.com, newsthatmattersnot.com are all winners of many of the major ‘Business Plan competitions’ and have won accolades from the business community. Even many established businesses are not behind. One must have heard of paan.com and its success story. A taxi hiring company, which my dad uses to hire taxis, has started an online website for its customers to avail the services provided. Even in my college many people have started companies to supplement their weekly income. Everyone is hoping on the bandwagon to do something special. I can go on and on. I am sure as the reader you will also have some friend, family member or acquaintance who is trying his or her luck through the internet medium.

An internet revolution has started in the country, thanks to better connectivity, 3G internet and better broadband speed, people can now access to the internet wherever they are, whatever they are doing. This is phenomenal. But no one knows where it will all lead to. All I can hope is that this revolution doesn’t take that the road taken by the western dot com companies and lead to a bust.

Joseph P Kennedy - The Self Made Man

"They used to say that Joe was trying to get up in the world--he was trying to promote himself and his family"
---Dot Keegan, Brookline Neighbor

In USA the Kennedy family can be considered equivalent to British Royal family. They are one of the richest family and have a very rich heritage. This family has produced a president, an attorney general, several businessmen and several senators. And Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. is considered the patriarch of the Kennedy family.

Childhood

Born September 6, 1888, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was the grandson of impoverished Irish immigrants. His father Patrick Joseph "P.J" Kennedy was a powerful Democrat Ward Boss of Boston and a successful saloon keeper. Joseph's mother, Mary Augusta Hickey was a woman with a great ambition that she passed down to her son Joseph P Kennedy. Mary Augusta's desire for Joseph to succeed was so great, instead of naming him in the tradition of his father and grandfather, Patrick. Mary Augusta gave decided Joseph would be his first name, leaving Patrick as the middle name. Patrick would be the telltale sign that he was Irish and Mary Augusta did not want that.
Mary Augusta encouraged her only son to great heights but shuttled her two daughters off to private proper girl Catholic schools. If Joseph wanted to be the best, he would have to go to a school of Protestant distinction with all the little Brahmins. Mary Augusta sent him to the Boston Latin School. It was one of the elite schools for rich Protestant boys. With the help of his father's shrewd understanding of people and his mother's ambition young Joe did not waste his opportunities.

Harvard

At Harvard, Joseph actively involved himself in Harvard's social stratosphere. He imitated the Brahmin's dress, eating style, conversation, accents, mannerisms and social attitudes and was always aware never to betray his Irish Catholic past. He even set out to join an elite club--a private club, where all refined Harvard gentleman, drank, ate, and conversed. Joseph knew that having money and class were the only way to achieve any type of notoriety or attention in American life. He saw it in the social registers published in the daily papers and in the fact, half his classmates families were those names on the social registers. He knew for them Harvard was a stopover before going on to own and control some of the more important and expanding businesses and corporations in the country. Seeing the realm of acceptance and power within his grasp, Joseph struggled to eliminate anything in him as Irish. The Brahmins hated the Irish and all immigrants.
His final step, and highest goal at Harvard, was to join a private club for which you had to be extended a bid from a member. As the story goes, Joseph and his roommate paced in their rooms as the bids starting being handed out at dawn. They kept pacing and waiting nervously until the sun was in the lower part of the sky. By the end of the day, his roommate was extended a bid. Joseph P. Kennedy was not. He was the star of the baseball team, son of a prominent man, but he was still an Irish Catholic and not suitable to join the Brahmin's private social clubs. It infuriated him and left bitter memories that resonated with him for the rest of his life.
Joseph graduated with a degree in music appreciation, the only major he could get through Harvard with. For Joseph P. Kennedy it was not a minute too soon. He graduated with two burning desires: to become a millionaire by the age of thirty, and to show up the Protestants who had snubbed him. He was out and ready to make his own fortune and dynasty. 

Marriage 

Joseph for all his desperation to be in the Brahmin world, did not want a Protestant for a wife. He wanted a Catholic woman, preferably Irish. And he went after the best Boston had to offer. Her name was Rose Fitzgerald. And she was the daughter of the first Irish Catholic mayor of Boston, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. She was also the most eligible Catholic and Irish woman in town. Rose had a strong Catholic faith; and a strong belief in a motherhood that champions and encourages children, made her an excellent wife who complimented Joseph's ambitions perfectly. They wanted to see their children have everything. They did not want them barred from social life as they had been because they were Irish and Catholic. Joseph and Rose had nine children: Joseph Jr., John (Jack), Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert (Bobby), Jean, and Edward (Ted). Several of his children went on to develop distinguished political careers, including two U.S. senators and one president. 

Business Success 

Kennedy was a shrewd money maker. He showed an entrepreneurial spirit and an appreciation for money at an early age. Kennedy held a number of jobs as a youngster, including candy vendor, newspaper hawker, and play producer. He also performed jobs for Orthodox Jews, whose faith prohibited them from working on their holy days. During his student days at Harvard, he and a friend bought a bus and began operating sightseeing tours. Kennedy negotiated with another tour operator to share working hours. He was successful at this, earning $5,000 over the course of several summers.
After graduating from Harvard in 1912, he took his first job as a state-employed bank examiner. This allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy, borrowing $45,000 from family and friends, bought back control and at age 25 was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America.

At 30, he became a stockbroker and made a fortune through insider trading and stock manipulation. He was a master of the stock pool, a then-legal stunt in which a few traders conspired to inflate a stock's price, selling out just before the bubble burst.

Kennedy may also have traded in illegal booze, although the evidence is circumstantial. His father had been in the liquor business before Prohibition, and Joe himself got into it (publicly, that is) immediately after repeal. Some believe the family business simply went underground during the dry years. He may have been strictly a nickle-and-dimer; Harvard classmates say he supplied the illicit booze for alumni events.
Kennedy's real strength was his business smarts, notably an exquisite sense of timing. He always made a substantial profit on the properties he bought and sold. In 1957 Fortune declared Kennedy one of the richest men in America, with assets of 200 to 400 million bucks.

Political Ambitions

Kennedy's own political involvement began in 1932, when he supported the Democratic presidential nomination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He worked as campaign contributor, lender, and fundraiser. In return, President Roosevelt rewarded him with the position of first chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission, a decision that was not popular in some circles. In 1938, Kennedy was appointed ambassador to England. During this sensitive period just prior to World War II, Kennedy made a number of unfortunate mistakes.
Kennedy's life was fraught with tragedy during the 1940s. His eldest son, Joseph, Jr., was killed in action during World War II. His favorite daughter, Kathleen, was killed in a plane crash four years after the death of her husband. His son, Jack, was seriously wounded when his boat was attacked by the Japanese.

A Kennedy in the White House

After World War II, Kennedy concentrated his efforts on getting his sons elected to political office. He began by working on Jack's campaign for representative in the 11th District of Massachusetts. Kennedy was a quiet but effective campaigner. He contacted every powerful person he knew to assist him-with votes and campaign contributions. The tactic-and his personal $50,000 contribution-proved successful. Kennedy employed the same successful strategy in 1952, when Jack ran for the state Senate.

During Presidential election, Kennedy was accused of influencing delegates at the National Democratic Convention and of buying the nomination for his son. Jack himself once observed "Dad is a financial genius all right, but in politics, he is something else." Kennedy distanced himself from his son during the period prior to and during the nomination process, and did not return to Massachusetts until the election took place. His wife, Rose explained: "He has been a controversial figure all of his life and he thinks it's easier for his sons if he doesn't appear on the scene."

Jack Kennedy won the presidential election in 1960, fulfilling his father's dream. But Kennedy's reaction was modest: "I have a strong idea that there is no other success for a father and a mother except to feel that they have made some contributions to the development of their children."

Tragic Years 
Despite suffering a stroke in 1961, Kennedy remained active and interested in the lives of his grown children. However, tragedy continued to plague his last years. He suffered a series of strokes that left him in a wheelchair and unable to speak. His son Jack was assassinated in 1963, before completing his first term as president. His son, Robert, was shot and killed in 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. His youngest son, Ted, was involved in a scandal with a young woman who drowned while in his company.

Kennedy died in 1969, at the age of 81.

Source: Internet and my little understanding