Interpreter of Maladies
Friday, April 13, 2007
On GraduatingThis is my second convocation. I thought the teary farewell I bid IIT Kanpur less than four years back would be the last time I would wear a black gown and a ceremonial cap. But then, the stars decreed and I chanced upon an MBA.
This convocation brought memories of the earlier one and nostalgia, although very limited. At the last convo, I was all of 21. I felt IIT was my home, the walls were my best friends and I had grown up there rather than at my home in the city. It was IIT that taught me that friends are for keeps and not everyone is in a mad race to beat you. It taught me to trust blindly, fall and learn from my mistakes. It taught me that sometimes teachers can treasure you as their best but you still cheat them. That and so much more. It was my playground and my school and I did not want to leave. Although I often visit Kanpur, I dont visit college. If I am quoting Mir Taqi Mir correctly (and this is lifted from one of Dalrymple books):
What matters if, O breeze!
If now has come the spring
When I have lost them both
The garden and my nest?
(Its so silly that I have to quote mir in english !! deplorable I know but I don't know Urdu so well and it would take me ages to find the original in Hindi..I know its desecrating and I repent !!)
So that was IIT.Full of young dreams. I had a close to paying nothing kind of job that I took up merely because I wanted to do a job that no one had done before. Two years after college, the heady romance was over and I moved to reality. There was money to be earned, loans to be paid. I wanted to afford those costly air travels and those fabulous dresses. So, what do you do. You do an MBA. Because that is the surefire ticket to money, if nothing else, this scrounge of money making attached to an MBA made it the worst kind of parasite to me. I was shy of telling people that I was going to do an MBA. I did not give a thought to my college and made fun of the whole thing. Even the fact that I cleared an exam to make it to the college. It was that whole bias that I was doing an MBA for the worst of all sins-the greed of money. When I quit my job, I was embarassed of leaving as I liked my work. Its just that the pay was below subsistence levels. At the MBA school, what struck me first was apathy. I was neutral. I hated the rooms. They were so small. And the weather. And the city. And I felt all the people that had amassed in that college had all come with that satanic wish of earning money. How pithy...how stupid.
The two years that went by taught me a lot. That MBA is not just about learning to earn money. It is also about a whole lot of learning. It also stands for some of the same things that IIT stands for. One can still find great teachers and build bonds with them. You can still find great friends although it becomes more difficult and real friends are few. And yes, there are few chances of falling and getting up. You got to be fast in a bschool. And yes, competition is way of life. Yet, I did find selfless happiness in more ways than one. Did things that I associated no value to and was yet happiest. An MBA is a grown up college. It does not make you senteemental but it makes you thinkimental and thats a great discovery too.
As I wore the black gown and a purple sash and put the square hat on my head, I looked up and laughed at myself. Sometimes, even the things you hate the most, have something good to give. The trick lies in going and discovering.
An MBA arms you not only with a degree but a great reason to earn and justify it. I am not the one who would like to do a regular 9 to 5 job and try doubly hard at it coz I need dough to support myself. I like a job that comes with no hangovers. Something that I can do today and quit tomorrow with equal elane. But as reason be it, I was born neither a pauper nor a princess but in the Great Indian Middle Class whose big travail in life is to get a "descent" job, a "descent" husband and some other bare minimum decent stuff. So, I was close on the heels of an MBA degree by March 1 when it dawned on me that it was so ridiculously important to get a job. How else would I justify the money spent on my education over the years and the fact that I was still unmarried (I dont care but it is a seriously valid concern for many). More so I had to have a great job and not just any Tom Dick Harry Job. The story being that a job looked like the be all and end all of all my troubles.
I was split between finance and consulting on March 1 with a great proportion of the split reserved for the former. Finance was the money machine, something I did during my summer internship and something I felt I had a knack for. I was not too sure of it but it seemed challenging and my name as a banker sounded mystique to a great extent. But then, did I have the nerve to put in the long hours and endlessly romance with numbers. I needed fun in what I was doing and bankers seemed so removed from everything non serious or even remotely fun. I also wanted to meet people, talk a whole lot and obviously earn good cash to support my dream wardrobe and a dream home somewhere in France. So, it was confusion in all its grandeur. On the D day, which was March 10, I told myself (while hastily applying a half smudged lisptick to parched lips and putting compact to hide those dark circles from sleepless nites) that finance be it. As I went for my first interview and was put through grueling excel sheets, numbers, valuation and what not, I said my last prayers. A consulting interview post that was that great faceswash you pine for after a hot day spent shopping. I talked and talked to my heart's content, put some jargon, some brain behind cases and ultimately liked the people I had spent 3 hours with. To me, it felt, these would be good people to work with. So kaboom. I accepted the offer.
Its a good company to talk about and everyone will congratulate. Mom Dad will be happy. But primarily and most importantly, I can still write poetry, travel and write stories about people. I can stil amass books and turn an entrepreneur the day I feel bored with my job. All that is comforting but the dawning of the knowledge that I had
turned a consultant was huge. I was the one who made fun of the consulting jargons and there new fangled models and now I was turning one myself. Obviously it was embarassing but come to think of it, that is what suits me the best.
I, the gypsy kind and the not so intelligent kind. This is the safest choice. I wish not to regret. And until I do, I wish to enjoy the good times.