Incidentally Niv commented on my Iqbal review that she prefers personal posts to reviews :), and here I am, posting something which I have really no idea what I want to write about :), all I know is, I do want to write about it :D.
Well, today while talking to Ranga, I suddenly realized that my classes in WIMWI as of today are over, it simply means I would never be a student formally again, I would never ever sit in a classroom [sleepy-eyed or dreamy-eyed :P] to be taught by a teacher evah again !! All of 24, and I am done attending classes, a BTech, an MTech and now an MBA :). There is a strange vaccuum tugging right there, and memories of seemingly a lifetime flood me now, but they don't covet expression, they are just memories :), irreverent, cavorting and ephemeral.
Lets first talk about WIMWI i.e. IIM-A. What has this place given me ? I asked Priyanka this wrt her, and she said she has changed 500% in this place, and for me this figure would be...I don't know how to quantify that :), but for sure much higher than Priyanka's. Infact, it is as if as soon as we enter, WIMWI breaks our essence in bits and then some more, and then puts its own mark in each of the bits b4 placing them back...depends on us, whether the marks turn out good or bad :). Its like Darwin's theory of natural selection in overdrive, branding your quintessential features with the unique IIM-A hallmark, and you are better or worse off for it, but you will have it anyways. Succinctly put, this place takes out so much from you, it is as if you are leaving a whole you in this place, and taking out a different, transformed being. I entered this place as a Maha-Bohemian dreamy-eyed rookie, who wouldn't mind walking into a Fortune - 500 meet in my Bermudas and who wouldn't be able to dress up even to save his life. A day into this place and everything started changing. The constant scrutiny of how you behave, how you dress, how you talk [and the list goes on] and the non-ending competition and that deadline always a step ahead of you, and before you know it, you are a changed man, juggling through three presentations in a day and still managing to paste that smile on your face when the day ends. For one whole year a PGP in IIMA never sleeps w/o fear, w/o a deadline already out of place. It might sound scary, but that's what ultimately puts the edge in an IIM-A grad, for the lack of a better word. All other B-schools in the world have 600-700 contact hours officially, an IIMA PGP has 900+. Its termed the toughest 1st year across B-schools worldwide for good reason. It sucks you in a vortex, and then never lets you go, simple :). One of the key defects of this ultra-paced time-bomb is that you don't make friends in this place, incidentally I have asked the question "How many people would you like to take with you when you pass out of WIMWI ?", and unsurprisingly to me [atleast] the most frequent answer has been 0 [Zero, yes :)], a constant refrain being None really knows me here :), you see what I mean :).
So, in more ways than one, PGP-dom has been an epoch for me, just the way Irawati Karve describes Mahabharata in Yuganta [hehe, have been reading this book :), hence the influence :)]...Never before have I faced so much pressure, IIT was competitive, but then it is a totally different paradigm...but IIMA is Dirac-Awesomm [we will talk about Dirac deltas another day though :D]. People think getting into IIMA is a big deal, but you know what, the real deal starts right after you get through CAT. All the people who come here have excelled wherever they have been, have made a name for themselves, a niche for their abilities. But one of them has to be 250/250 at the end of the day. That's the kind of pressure I am talking about, constantly nudging at you, hurting you, threatening to tear you apart. And the worst part is you can do nothing about it, because the 249 people ahead of you are all equally good, and you thought you had one of the most chinkless armors in the world, eh haan :) ? I have seen people, awesomm, brilliant people break-down here, give-up and resign to their fate, Excellence falling away from a six-sigma Black Belt level to the status of being just another word in their dictionary. Believe me if IIMA is the realization of your dreams, it could as well be your Peter's incompetency bar, the place where you realize, after all the hype, you indeed are an ordinary mortal. Okay, enough of scaring you folks, me stops playing Mr. Spooky :).
But then there is the unknown, the transition from being a student to a professional. Where will I end up ? What am I going to do? Is what I am going to do, the best thing for me ? Will I find friends where I work ? Am I good enough to work anywhere at all :) ? U see, a 1000 questions but no answer. I hope the sun tomorrow brings new answers [What the heck, its already dawn :P and yet no answers :))]...
I really dunno what else to write :), I think I will let it be for the meantime and will come back later, as and when more sento hits me :). Again, for apparently no reason, there are three songs really doing a whirlpool in my devilz backyard :
1. Yaadein yaad Aati hain from Subhash Ghai's Yaadein
2. The effervescant Pal, yaad aayenge yeh Pal by KK
3. Joh Ghumshuda saa khwab tha, woh mil gaya ... basically Roobaroo from RDB :).
Aey Saala...ki Aag hai Mujh mein kahin ? [me not knows :)]
Okay, okay me sleeps now :). Ta !
Ranjan
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