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.
