Thursday, August 09, 2007

The frosted glass

Something seems to be going against the natural. I am being taught to divide life - into grids. And its being blatantly preached with such simplicity as if the world has always been like this, in a two-by-two matrix. It started off with a minor discomfort, theories to divide businesses into grids. Moved on to a more disastrous idea of dividing problems and solutions into grids. Consequently followed division of the population - they named it segmentation. And they didn't stop. Our "education" seemed to be incomplete without including the outrageous ideas of dividing personalities... I'd rather use the direct term than the metaphor - dividing "humans" into grids.

The system thus goes on. After all, you must learn this "art" to secure your 14th storey office in an uptown location (By the way, "I LOVE NY" is a common phrase on T-shirts of "humans" studying here). Find out what characterizes him: "high" on this, "low" on this. Pat, here's your chance to spot the "opportunity". "Target" that, encash that, you are suddenly the winner. Applause.




Its been a mixed experience in terms of my own life in the past one and a half months since I am here. Its a good feeling when you observe that your parents have a sense of proud because you are here. Friends have a reason to bask in glory; juniors have reasons to ping you up in the hope of some tips which might just work. Your own demeanour changes when you walk on the roads in other cities with that IIMK T-shirt.

The other half - I'm slowly learning how to be a programmed machine integrated with time-management functionalities so as to generate maximum possible outcome. I learnt DC++ usage so that I can search for sunrise pics on the network - the sunrise which nobody here would see in their two years' stay and which is always covered by others' cameras. I learnt to repeatedly boast of the natural beauty of the place to friends on phone, though I myself experienced it just once with that Kappad trip in the initial days. When I sometimes feel to drown into alcohol on weekends (its a different story that the time never permits you), it goes against my own old-days preachings - people drink not because they want to ward off trouble, its rather to have good times with friends. Everything is too artificial from all perspectives, I'm learning to pretend to be happy.

It rains for almost half of the year in Kerala. And I am dying to get drenched...

Too much of a pessimist I am, huh?




4 comments:

Abhishek said...

Musings..... hmmmm
pretending to be happy..... why buddy?! Yes! we all are proud of you... we have always been and we'll always be but more importantly i would like you to have that beautiful mind of yours intact. Just dont loose urself in that crowd. I still believe grades never matter:)

vijay said...

Thanks to America ..people in india yearn for success just inorder to fulfill their AMERICAN dreams. Preparing for IIT jee , i thought that a tech degree will be enough to drift to the western world...

Monu said...

IIM's seem to be better than I ever thought they are. Took me 10 years of working life to figure out something that takes 10 months of IIM life. pretty neat. Now if I can follow the trajectory from 10M - 10Y of an IIMite, I can make fair predictions. Thanks da!

KV said...

@Monu:

Well, the 10 years must've taught you what crap gets recycled into the world minute after minute? ;)