Easy come, steady stay, easy go

As that Kishore Kumar song went, people have a lot to say to you before you join a management school. And mind you – it’s very different from what they told you before you applied for the school in the first place. In any case, my leg was pulled way too often about how every b-school graduate becomes a corporate bigwig trading a life for it, sells his/her soul for some never-ending stream of dough, and in general, loses stock of the good things in life. Vague as they may sound, a lot of those arguments do have some grounding. In the name of objectivity, what a lot of the graduates who form the sample space basing the aforementioned protestations do is narrow their choices; and you can’t really blame them for it. The rumble of the first year at these schools never gives you enough time to work through to your aspirations, and curricular requirements take you down Frost’s rosy paths from which there is coming back – though only after surpassing substantial mental barriers of status quo and complacency.

As vaguer than those arguments I may have sounded, I hope I made my point. What about me, though? I must admit I’m fast becoming a victim of the very booby trap that consumes most bright dreams here, but the much-maligned objectivity that’s attempted to be ingrained into every student here, is actually what brings me back to the fork where we ought to make my choice; to continue to marvel at happenstances as trivial as a failing monsoon bringing the slightest of drizzles, and the calmest of breezes, bringing hope to a tired mind trudging back through these storied lawns. And, best of all, it whispers a reminder, that there’s still a place where it can all be recorded, and maybe lived again, if the system consumes me.

For now, I continue to gape open-mouthed in wonder, and I know I’d be consumed when that stops happening.