yeh kaisa shahar hai

Long after having decided that s/w jobs is for lower mortals and I deserve something "better", these days I truly feel like questioning my decision. After spending 1.5 years at this place, suddenly the urge to get out is getting over me, time and again these days. Somehow when I raise my head from the obnoxious food in the mess, I see an array of faces, blurred by my unwillingness to recognise them. In the insti party we all jump and dance and drink apparently to enjoy life but its merely a way to run from our fears, our sorrows in life and shake away the ghosts of past from our brains.

This place has taken away a lot from me, as a person. It has been a transformation of sorts. It has given me things too but it has sucked up things which were far more preciouos to me. It has told me how to procrastinate things, how to manipulate ppl, how to free ride, how to cut ppl to size and other "managerial" qualitites. I guess life in engg days was much better with ppl around who understood you, cared for you and willing to go to any distance for friends. The camaraderie of engg days is simply missing in this life. Ppl are just to engaged in their own lives to bother about anyone else. Me, I and myself..anyone ?

I guess I am slowly becoming a type II error in the system, a bug who cant be removed and who refuses to lay quiet. At times it feels like the matrix, we all are doing things we really do not know why we are doing, as if being guided by an invisible leash. There are some 40 odd ppl on y Gtalk and there are times when I desperately want to talk to ppl, to buzz them and say hi ... but on those occasions more often than not I really do not find anyone to talk to... I guess we all have become too busy with our lives.. OUR lives and we really do not care that there is a person who might want to talk to me to kill time. I have seen next door neighbours unlocking their rooms at the same time without saying a word to eachother. ppl like SA, one of the most modest and hard working fellas I have met in this life , find themselves unwanted and out of place here. The place is just to professional it seems.

I guess fault is mine, I am trying to look for friends in a "Professional" college where everyone is looking just for a professional relationship. MT is right, "this place doesnt deserve your emotions, save them for your funeral".

I always wanted to change accordingly but sadly I couldnt which brings even more pain to me. At times I feel like running away from this place but alas thats not possible. So i'll have to wait till march when I walk out of this place finally, for good.

Seene mein jalan aankhon mein toofan sa kyun hai
Is shahar mein har shakas pareshaan sa kyun hai

rohit

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Last night I was thinking, if 4th term was busy, 5th term is well going to be worse. Although curricular matters are more relaxed in this term but I am trying to get my hands dirty in copetitions going around. Unfortunately with limited time at disposal already a few very good opportunities are gone and those where something did click...well I dint last long enough to end on the stage and then there have been coule of other failures as well so feeling , quite naturally a bit low.
It is during these times, when things are not quite going your way, you realise who your true friends are. Just an anecdote, last term had a tiff with a wonderful friend and our friendship was almost gone, for worse. Had it been engg days I would've gone to his room and had a heart to heart talk. But I guess there is something wrong in the air or water or sunshine at this place. It made me coccoon in my own ego and everything was almost lost. Then this term somehow things got better, largely because of his efforts. I dont think I ever said sorry to him. I do it now. Sorry.

If I've to recount one single moment of truth which'll distinguish friends from mere "know-him" in MBA , it is summer placements time. I've seen giants crashing under the huge weight of their own expectations during the process. Fortunately I was out of the process quite early but even then I could clearly see who was there with me and who wasnt. Now almost with 2/3rd in to the MBA, many ppl will claim to be your friend, some out a of need for some support system to survive, some to form project groups with you, some just to talk to you so that they get an opportunity to mock you and then there are n number of reasons for these friendships to be forged. And as I look at my "assumed" friends today, most of them werent there when I was sweating it out on Day 2, they were there for their "other" friends whom they needed then but not for me or for that matter other ppl who are now their close friends.
Times change, priorities change and so do needs. As we are told in marketing, with changing life styles of customers, their needs change. Nothing is truer than this statement. friendships (most of them and by no means all) at this place are born out of a need, a very "selfish" need. Ppl will suddenly become very good friend of yours when they realise that you actually fulfil some of their needs and same set of ppl wont bat an eye lid in dumping you when the need is fulfilled. or may be not paying atention to you when the need wasnt there.
Of all the relationships, friendship is one which is hurt most by selfishness. I agree that all of us are selfish in our own petty ways. We were conditioned since childhood to be like that and the ppl who try not be selfish are branded as fools and mocked. But then there is a limit to evrything. As zakhir said "we are freinds but we are also human beings and like human beings we are bound to make mistakes". Very true, cant be any more true. But just to add to his point. We all make mistakes. But good human beings (who are incidentally good friends as well) realise their mistakes, says sorry, kiss and make up. We all make mistakes, but you just cant go on making mistakes, one after the other and believe saying sorry will exonerate you of all your sins. The world doesnt run like that, not anymore.
I always felt that ppl whom I know are my friends, all of them. But certain incidents have made me believe now that only those ppl who stand by you thru thin, only those ppl who forgive and forget your mistakes, only those ppl who dont forge the relation to satiate their needs and only those ppl who are willing to stand by you till day 4 of summer placement process are you true friends. Not anyone else, whatever he or she may claim. Friendship is not a contract, not an obligation, not an "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" kind of relation... no not in my world atleast. For dealing with such ppl, one simple peice of advice:

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts....don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. --- baz luhrmann

rohit

reasons

Most things we do or for that matter do not do in life seem to be reasonably correct, atleast when we delibrate and decide. Of course life is much easier in retrospect but then maybe looking back many if not most of the things I've done in life dont really seem to be bound or governed by any reason per se. Right from doing engg to idling time in college canteen to making friends to losing friends and then the Big Momma of all decisions, doing MBA, of course I've some reasons for these actions but then they are so intangible that calling them reasons might be a misnomer in itself.
In fact I think its the other way round most of the times. Its your life that governs the reasons and not vice versa. We get a brain wave, decide on doing something inane and then at the end of the day list down reasons for having done that thing in the very first place. The causality of actions is different from what it seems to be. I'll always have reasons for behaving in the way I behave once I've behaved that way.
But then there are certain things for which we do not have any reason. Neither before the action nor after. Some things which dont seem to warrant a reason, which happen as if an unseen hand is guiding us into doing them. There is always a strong urge not to do it, a yearning to break away and tell the other guy "Fuck Off, I wont do it for you". But then you hide the pain beneath a smile and do it. and on top of it feel utterly miserable about doing it but you do it nonetheless.
Maybe these are those behavioral aspects which you do not want to ascribe to any reason just to keep that lil amount of uncertainity in the largely mundane life. You delibrately keep some actions, some affairs, some paths free from the cobwebs of reasons maybe to appreciate their importance in your life or may be to get rid of some overriding guilt/pain or may be its that the emotions leading you onto those paths are so strong that they do not necessitate the need for any reason. As Nike says "just do it".
Talking about my own life as a case in point, most important decisions atleast ostensibly seem to have no reason behind them or should I say most important personal decisions. There are many a times when when I just want to back off, to yell out and say it is enough GOD, I've had my share of community service. But then I just stand there, wait for other ppl to fall a step behind (so that I am automatically a step ahead) do it queitly and then make an even quieter exit. I really have no reasons for beliveing that what I am doing is pleasing me as a human being or I am doing it for the fear of the heavens above, I just dont have nay reasons.
Ppl ask me, "how do you manage to be happy all the time?". my retort well all I do is "I manage to "look" happy all the time" and there is ahuge difference between the two which involves internalising lots of issues and queries towards life. Of course internalising comes at its own cost which result in a crash course of "anger management" coz when you internalise a lot, the issues all keep gathering like the lull before the storm, looking just for an opening to burst open and drench everyone. So anger management suddenly becomes important even for a notoriously calm guy like me. And again I really have no reasons why I am internalising so much. No reasons as to why some petty issues hit me where it hurts the most, no reasons as to why some serious issues really dont bother me, really no reasons.
may be 10 years dwon the line I'll find some reasons for all these actions. or even if I do not, I'll atleast ascribe some reasons so as to make myself believe that those actions were all calculated, mature ones. As I already said, life is always easier in retrospect. Alas we can not live it that way and again I really do not have any reason why?

God has his own reasons
I've mine
His reasons my destiny entwines
His orders my life defines
Voices within, tell its true
do it now for later you may rue
No reasons bound my decisions
No reasons stop His indiscretions
For His reasons my destiny entwines
God has his own reasons
and I've mine.


rohit

the race

Till date I started preparing for CAT, i believed that not reading business magazines saves you of lots of headache. Then came CAT and to maintain the "conformity" of the rituals attached with the preparation process, I too delved my nose deep into the coloured pages of the Business worlds and Business Todays. Today almost 2/3rd through my MBA, at times I still feel that not reading business magazines is a bliss.
Thanks to booming economy (debatable topic but to accept conventional wisdom for once) and globalisation and blah and blah, I can see lots of 40 odd year old very successful faces on these pages who have made real name, fame and of course money at a relatively younger age (as far as business is concerned).
That sets me thinking, were these 40 year old ppl really aware of the fact that they are going to be so mighty successful when they were say, my age or for that matter your age? Did they know what they want to do in life ? Did they have answers to those beautifully mundane questions asked commonly in MBA interviews "Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?". I realy dont know coz I of course have never met these ppl and the ppl who actually meet these ppl never ask them about it. But I've a hunch.
I've a hunch that probably they didnt know where they'll be "10 years from now" when they were my age. On second thoughts they prolly didnt even know where they'll be "5 years from now" when they were my age. No real "Market research" to prove it but then gut feeling cant really be downplayed especially a trying-to-be-marketeer's gyt feeling.
One of the reasons however not a substantial one is that I myself do not know where I'll be N years down the line. And I bet not many ppl here know likewise. And we are talking about some of the best and most focused brains in the country.
If everything goes well in 10 years I can be CEO of a company, if everything doesnt go well I could be dead by 10 years or if everything goes as-it-is, I'll be well fooling ppl into believeing that their life is a vacuum without the product my comapny makes. I'll obviously want the frist thing to happen, but How is a big question.
Maybe by running faster than others in the race to achieve the unknown and the inevitable. By taking a shorter route, may be by taking a lifet from someone, may be by gaining an early lead over others or may be by forcing a late burst. Effectively , by doing something better than most ppl around me. Then that option of everything-goes-well might happen.
You have to be at an IIM to realise what a race means. Starting from the early morning runs to the lectures to the end of the days placement runs, we are more "running" the life than living it. Not that I am cribbing, atleast my athletic instincts arent.
We all are trying to outperform the others here. Only problem is everyone else is also trying to outperform us. Be it summers, grades, assignments, numerous B School cometitions, final placements et al, we all are running "ostensibly" with eachother but towards our separate goals and with our separate motives.
Going thru these races like rituals does take a toll physically and more so emotionally. But then after so many years of running and doing reasonably well in the "championship" as a whole if not each race individually, I've realised some very important lessons.
Firstly, there will be days when you'll be ahead, there'll be days when you are behind. it is days when you are behind that will differentiate you from the mere mortals. Secondly, again, there will be days when you'll be ahead, there'll be days when you are behind. But at the end of the day you are running only with yourself and with no body other. Reiterating the "golden words" again, there will be days when you'll be ahead, there'll be days when you are behind. It is on days when you are behind you'll come to know who your true friends are. Assertiveness will push you ahead in the race, arrogance will push you back and assertiveness with modesty will ultimately propel you to the tape. And lastly, it is very easy to congratulate yourself magnanimously after each victory or to tear your character apart after every loss. but its not doing either of them is what separates men from boys.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. - scott peck

rohit