I dimly heard doors slamming in different corners of the
hostel. A bleary
eyed glimpse at the time catapulted me into high tempo action and within 7
minutes I was sitting in class with a slightly glazed look on my face. I had made it by the skin of my
teeth!
That’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg that is the life of
a b-school bachha. It doesn’t matter
where you are from, the conveyor belt churning out engineers or from the House
of Clichés – an arts student. This life right here is like a crazy roller
coaster ride. You get on it with trepidation, whiz through it and get off exhilarated
and a bit sad that it got over so quick.
So phase one is where you are friends with everyone!!! I
mean it! Your milk of humanity bathes one and all and everyone (well almost) is
a friend. It’s a heady rush I must say. In a batch of 205 people for a long
time you are constantly meeting new participants, connecting over Game of
Thrones, linguistic comforts, True Detective, and tentative opinions about mess
food. Soon comes the student body elections and you can find the true colours
of Indian democracy – electing people based on social clout (or if you like the
look of the candidate).
Village Fieldwork Segment swoops in after three short months
flinging people in remote corners of India, whilst really testing budding buddy
bonds. Suddenly people comprehend new dimensions of relationships – all kinds
really. Return from VFS witnesses a carnival of bonhomie, indelible
differences, and boy do the lovers rise up in full force. Love blooms in all
corners. Sigh!
A little further down the road you tend to get a slightly
better sense of the true friends that you can count on. If you think that’s
where the relationship dynamics stop…hah! Naïve much! That never stops
surprising you. Groups which look like they are having the time of their life
has a general tendency to fall apart like a house of cards.
Of course there must be some good stuff to make you feel
nostalgic about this gale force speedy life. Now that I have experimented with
the lovely shades of grey about a tiny bit of B-school experience I am going to
throw in some pearly white in the palette. In a place which is as competitive
as a B-school judging people based on their grades is surprisingly rare. The
jocks, the poets, the dudes, the babes, the regular Joes and all in this
unending list finds a comfortable corner in the social map. Virtues and vices
are celebrated and “dissed” in equal measures keeping a certain level of sanity
in both.
A judgmental nature just might be an off shoot of too much
free time, because after all don’t we believe that and idle mind is the devil’s
workshop? In this pressure packed life people usually can’t carve out the time
to sit and really make a meal out of judging a person for their taste in
friends or lovers.
The general body meeting or the GBM, another exciting
feature, is a double edged sword – the heady rush of a democratic proceeding and the doom
spelt by the same. When someone says, “let’s reach a consensus” that’s when I
feel dread clutch my wildly beating heart! Consensus is usually that ever
receding zenith that once in a blue moon becomes a concrete reality!
The biggest learning experience in this setting comes from
the events organized by the students out here. Practically every subject finds
an application in the proceedings and you get a real sense of what it entails
to be a manager.
They say your personality really gets moulded by the time
you get out of grad school. To them I say – wait till you step into the life in a business
school. You’ve seen nothing yet – neither the best nor the worst.
