da incorrigible SAZEAL

Peter Robinson, has so rightly christened his famous book "SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL", and has given a detail description of his life in the first year of his education in Business Administration. And funnily, as I read it and looked at my first year of PGDM at "one of the top B-Schools of India" in retrospect, I am convinced that its comparision to an "Inferno" is as close to reality as possible.

No I aint really complaining... am just not that type, you know! I am just describing... THE DOG FIGHT- for academic/scholastic acheivements, for power, for acceptance, for placements, for everything you can think of! The rigours of the Course; the assignments/projects/presentations/submissions that go on perpetually; the amount of stress levied on us (which we get used to midway thru the end of 1st year); so much so that we are capable and ready to take any s**t in our life. By all this, I say that a B-School "prepares" you!!

And all this we go thru, the abilities we inculcate further fills us with air- air of being omnipotent; air of being a part of the elite management fraternity... a sense of importance finds away into our head; we start thinking we are class apart. Of course I am exaggerating a bit... but this is the attitude that generally grows in almost all of us(though more subtly than elaborated here).

But yesterday something happened! This incident blessed me with some insights and revelations... it told me "An MBA is also a normal human being, a mere mortal". The same mortals that we consider others to be. And it was good! The earlier it dawns upon us, the better. What was it that triggered this thought in me, u might wonder...

Well yesterday, I saw someone breakdown in front of me... a person who was the coolest one among all of us; a person with inimtable style and a highly flared up ego, a person who seemed to be one of the smartest people- both mentally and emotionally, a good friend... he called me and he cried... For a moment I was lost, I knew not what to say... somehow I talked him out and we decided that I would accompany him to a psychiatrist. Well, all I can say at this point is that his problem had grown slowly due to this pressure that accumulated in last 9 months...
Yes, this was the person who I thought was was one of the few "invincible creatures" with a like-I-care attitude (a league of which I consider myself a part). But then I realized, "he is also a normal human, and so are all of us, in this world of the mere mortals" and nothing more...

I am trying to imply that, we as MBAs, do have something special in us, as an "elite and educated group", we have some capabilities and power exlusively found in our types... but instead of bloating with that power, ego andstatus; instead of moving away from reality in an attempt tomove to a higher realm of existential survival, we must use these inherent capabilities to do the "right things", good for us, good for people around and good for people at large... no, I am not making any global statements, I feel this atttitude will help us keep our feet firmly based on ground. To understand the social fabric that we are a part of and our roles towards the same.