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.
